When to Quit and Walk Away & Why We Are Drawn to the Water - SYSK Choice

What is beginner’s luck? After all, it has a name so it must happen often enough to be a thing. But could it just be an odd and occasional coincidence or is there really something to it? We begin this episode with a look at the phenomenon of beginner’s luck and why it may not be luck at all. Source: Sian Beilock author of Choke (https://amzn.to/3Nj53uE) Quitting? You can’t quit! Quitting is for losers – you should finish what you start. That’s the message many of us have playing in our head when it comes to the thought of quitting. But hang on a second! In some cases, quitting may very well be the best option while persevering may be a really dumb idea. That is something my guest Julia Keller firmly believes. Julia is a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, teacher and author of the book, Quitting: A Life Strategy: The Myth of Perseverance―and How the New Science of Giving Up Can Set You Free (https://amzn.to/41LAWR9) There is something great about being around water. That’s why we like to go the beach or to rivers and lakes and why waterfront property is typically so expensive. Humans are naturally drawn to water. But why? What is the connection between people and being near bodies of water? You are about to discover the answer to this from my guest Wallace J. Nichols, PhD. Wallace is a Senior Fellow at the Center for the Blue Economy in Monterey, a research associate at the California Academy of Sciences and author of the book, Blue Mind: The Surprising Science That Shows How Being Near, In, On, or Under Water Can Make You Happier, Healthier, More Connected, and Better at What You Do (https://amzn.to/3NfkZy8) How is your love life? There are some simple things you can do outside the bedroom that can make you more appealing to your partner inside the bedroom and beyond. Listen as I share these easy suggestions can have a big impact. Source: Lou Paget author of The Great Lover Playbook (https://amzn.to/3Ni0uke) PLEASE SUPPORT OUR SPONSORS!!! FACTOR: Eat smart with Factor! Get 50% off at https://FactorMeals.com/something50off TIMELINE: Get 10% off your order of Mitopure! Go to https://Timeline.com/SOMETHING INDEED: Get a $75 sponsored job credit to get your jobs more visibility at https://Indeed.com/SOMETHING right now! SHOPIFY: Nobody does selling better than Shopify! Sign up for a $1 per-month trial period at https://Shopify.com/sysk and upgrade your selling today! 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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• 1:27Mike Carruthers?

  Today on Something You Should Know, is beginner's luck a real thing or just a fluky occurrence? Then quitting. We've been taught to persevere, never quit, but sometimes quitting is the right choice.

• 1:40Speaker 01

  I believe that everything we've always believed about quitting is wrong. And all the good things we've believed about grit and perseverance is also wrong. That quitting, and modern neuroscience bears me out on this, quitting is when we stop one direction and go in another.

• 1:55Mike Carruthers?

  Then, some simple ways to improve your love life that happen outside the bedroom. And, why are humans so attracted to water? Beaches, lakes, rivers, streams, we like to be near water.

• 2:08Speaker 02

  Water helps us to relax, it helps us to be more creative, it helps to connect us to each other, it connects us to ourselves, and it is the basis of all life. We've all experienced it, but it's nice to tag it.

• 2:21Mike Carruthers?

  All this today on Something You Should Know.

• 2:27Mike Carruthers?

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• 3:12Mike Carruthers?

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• 3:57Mike Carruthers?

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• 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.

• 4:22Mike Carruthers?

  Hi and welcome to another episode of Something You Should Know. Something I've always wondered about, and perhaps you have too, is beginner's luck. Maybe you've experienced it or witnessed it. Is beginner's luck a real thing, I wonder? Well, apparently it is, but actually luck doesn't have a lot to do with it. What we chalk up to beginner's luck actually has two parts to it. First of all, beginners or novices often fail. Don't perform well on a first attempt. That's no surprise. So when a beginner does get lucky, every once in a while, surprise, we notice it. And we respond to a surprise more than we do to the predictable.

• 5:07Mike Carruthers?

  So we tend to think that it happens more often than it does. It doesn't really happen that often. The other all-important aspect to beginner's luck is pressure. People who are experts or who are at the top of their game are expected to succeed. They feel the pressure and performing under pressure is always more of a challenge. Beginners, on the other hand, usually don't care how they perform on a first attempt. So the pressure's off. A novice is more likely to take a risk that just might pay off. And every once in a while, it does. And that is something you should know.

• 5:52Mike Carruthers?

  There is something about quitting, walking away from something, almost anything. Quitting is for losers. At least, that's the way many of us think. Winners never quit. Quitters never win. You don't quit, you finish what you start. Quitting is bad. Perseverance is good. Well, maybe we should reexamine that assumption that quitting is such a bad thing. Maybe sometimes quitting is the best strategy. That's what Julia Keller is here to discuss. Julia is a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, novelist, and playwright. And she is author of a book called Quitting: A Life Strategy. Hi, Julia. Welcome to Something You Should Know.

• 6:34Speaker 01

  Oh, hi there, Mike. So happy to be here.

• 6:37Mike Carruthers?

  So go ahead and make your case for quitting because, as I said, you know, most people look at quitting as something you don't do, that that's not a good thing. So why is it and when is it a good thing?

• 6:50Speaker 01

  I believe, deep in my soul, that everything we've always believed about quitting is wrong. And all the good things we've believed about grit and perseverance is also wrong. That in effect, we've been sold a bill of goods, that quitting, and modern neuroscience bears me out on this, is, I like to think of it as aerobics for your brain. Quitting is when we stop one direction and go in another. It's a willingness to be flexible, and there's a cognitive flexibility involved. And so people will say to me, "Well, if you're right, and grit and perseverance aren't all they're cracked up to be, and quitting can be a good thing, then how come for all these hundreds of years, we've been told the opposite?" You know, the words, "Where do you get off? Why are you so smart?" And what I usually reply is, "We can trace the history of the grit and perseverance idea."

• 7:34Speaker 01

  I often say that grit is a con. It's been sold to us like cars, or cornflakes, or smartphones. And there's a reason why we're told that everything is in our own hands, and it's all up to us. Because it isn't. And once we accept that, and we realize that we often have to change course because bad things just happen to us, unexpected things happen to us, we become much freer, less judgmental of other people, and less judgmental of ourselves, certainly. And we're able to live life a little freer, a little happier.

• 8:05Mike Carruthers?

  So I understand the changing course, that sometimes life circumstances dictate that you have to change course, and in order to change course, you may have to quit something in order to move to something else. Okay, I get that, but there's another kind of quitting that's not that. That's the "I just don't want to do this anymore" kind of quitting, which feels more like just, you know, the easy way, the chicken way out.

• 8:31Speaker 01

  Well, the distinction you're making there is very important. In fact, that's one of the things that I had to really look at. Say you're a parent, and your kid comes to you and says, "Yeah, I want to quit the basketball team, I just don't want to do it." And you're a parent, and you realize that, "Well, I think probably this kid of mine would rather sit home watching YouTube videos." That kind of quitting is not what I mean. I don't mean the quitting, as you say, just kind of like, "Well, I'm just tired of it." And a lot of the parents that I interviewed, in the course of just kind of collecting my thoughts about why I think quitting can be a positive, would say that that then initiated another conversation. They'd say, "Okay, why do you want to quit?" And if it is, as you mentioned a moment ago, just like, "Oh, I'm just tired of it, come on. I'd rather sit at home, you know, box of Cheetos, who wouldn't?"

• 9:13Speaker 01

  That's not what I mean. What I mean is a, what I call, precision quitting, strategic quitting. And that can be whether you're, you know, 14 years old and you want to quit the soccer team, or whether you're 44 and you're very stale in your job and you think you're looking for another challenge. It's really along the same thing. It's, and at each time, it requires our brain to do something quite specific and quite important. And that's the neuroscience of this, I think, is maybe where the distinction lies as well, that we know that animals in the wild will quit if a certain path is not getting them where they want to go. And yet, we don't. Often, we stick too long with something. And it's not a matter of just lassitude or laziness. It's a matter, I think, of fear. I know there are certain things that I haven't quit that I

• 9:57Speaker 01

  know I should have, and I'd like to say, "Well, because I just didn't want to do it." Often, it's fear.

• 10:04Mike Carruthers?

  To which I can imagine people listening to this saying, "Yes, but there, I can think of, and I include myself in this list, I have persevered and stuck it out through thing, with things that probably I really didn't want to, and I'm so glad I did."

• 10:22Speaker 01

  There is some of that, but I will tell you that in probably 150, 200 interview, many, many, many interviews that I did, the vast, vast, vast majority of people, when I asked them to sort of tell me their quitting history, and everybody has a quitting story. That's, that's something I should have mentioned at the outset. Everybody has a quitting story, and they love to tell it. I know, and when I've been talking about the book, Hither and Yon, that's what comes out.

• 10:43Speaker 01

  People are much, much, much more likely to regret the things that they didn't quit, but they should have, than to regret the things they did quit. Obviously, there are some of the latter. There are times when we think, "Ah, I should have stayed with that job, wasn't so bad," or, "I wish I'd stayed a little longer in that relationship, maybe given it another try." But the vast majority of people, it's completely the opposite. It's, "I wish I hadn't stayed so long. I was afraid, and that's why I stayed." And again, grit and resilience sometimes work okay. They're fine. It's not, it's not always true. There's no, there's no one formula that's going to work for everybody, or no one life strategy. But, but my argument is that we need to include quitting and giving up and all these other words that have such a pejorative ring to them, and sound so negative. We need to put those into the toolbox. They need to be looked upon not as

• 11:28Speaker 01

  a moral failing, and not as the absolute last refuge of the loser, but as another tool, another way to go about this very complicated thing called life.

• 11:41Mike Carruthers?

  Well, by its nature, quitting is fairly final. And so often, it might be better, it would seem, to stick it out a little longer. Because once you're quit, you quit. You can't quit a job and then go, two weeks later, oh, boy, you know, I made a mistake. I'm coming back. Because you're not coming back. You quit, so.

• 12:00Speaker 01

  Well, but you can, I would argue. I have a thing I call the quasi quit. Now, this is not the same as quiet quitting, which came out about a year ago. And to me, it sounds ridiculous. It's just thievery. It means not working very hard at your job. What I call the quasi quit, it suggests that quitting doesn't have to be an on off switch. I don't think it has to be a final thing. I think of it as more of a rheostat dial. You can quit in increments. You can quit gradually. You can dial it up and dial it down. You can change the way you're doing something, instead of the thing that you're doing. And I use a lot of athletes as an example. I mentioned Tiger Woods, I think, is a great example, who is a great champion, a wonderful champion. But time has passed. He's gone through some grievous physical injuries and some tumultuous emotional times.

• 12:45Speaker 01

  He has had to change what he thinks of as victory. He's not a quitter by any means. But in another sense, he is a quitter. Because he's had to quit a way of looking at the game of golf and looking at only a first place finish as the only acceptable outcome. And to say, you know what? I showed up, I competed, I did my best. So quitting, I would argue, is not final. In fact, it's the opposite of final. You can quit a thousand times and make minor changes or one big major change. But again, it needs to always be in that toolbox and to always consider it and to realize, if you quit, you're not a loser, you're not a bum, you're not a washout, you're not a terrible person. You're a human being and you're making another decision.

• 13:25Mike Carruthers?

  Well, doesn't it depend on why you're quitting?

• 13:29Speaker 01

  Well, I suppose that's between you and your friends and your therapist and whoever. I mean, but again, I think when we put this moral judgment upon it is what I'm, is what I'm, I guess, most upset about when I looked at quitting. You know, I always talk about when I was in grad school, was 19 years old. I'd graduated from college early. I was, it was terrible. I'd been about a month in grad school and it was very clear to me this was terrible. This was awful. I had to get out of there, but I was so afraid of being called a quitter. I mean, it clutched at my guts, you know, the idea of being a quitter because, you know, I'd been, I loved sports and we all know what we call somebody who leaves before the game is over. We call them a quitter and it's a taunt. It's a mean jeer. But this

• 14:13Speaker 01

  is when I first began to question this idea of quitting as being so bad. When your body and your mind are telling you you need to be somewhere else, why do we resist? And one of the reasons I do is I suggest and as my research and my interviews kind of made clear to me was that quitting is something that serves people in power. It serves the people who have control in this world. Because if you look at quitting as a negative, you suggest that all power is in your own hands and that the people who have been successful in life have gotten there because they didn't quit. They were noble. They were intrepid. They were dedicated. They stayed the course. Often, they were just lucky.

• 14:52Mike Carruthers?

  We're talking about quitting and my guest is Julia Keller. She is a Pulitzer Prize winning journalist and author of the book Quitting: A Life Strategy. If you listen to something you should know regularly, you know we talk about sleep quite a bit here. And one of the things I've learned from those conversations is just how important a good night's sleep is. And I've always been someone who loves his sleep. So I was intrigued when I heard about Beam Dream. It's a delicious nighttime drink formulated to help you fall asleep faster, stay asleep, and wake up refreshed. It contains ingredients like reishi, magnesium,

• 15:34Mike Carruthers?

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• 16:17Mike Carruthers?

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• 17:02Mike Carruthers?

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• 17:43Mike Carruthers?

  Clothes that you aren't wearing, taking up space, could be putting money back in your pocket. So here's my suggestion. Take five minutes, go look at the far ends of your closet and see what's hanging there. You might be surprised. Download the Vinted app for free and start listing. With no seller fees, you keep every dollar you earn. That's Vinted, V I N T E D. So Julia, as I listen to you talk, it almost seems like quitting is the wrong word. Because as you describe Tiger Woods, I mean, I would never describe him as a quitter, but you say he's a quitter, but I wouldn't, I would never use that word.

• 18:24Mike Carruthers?

  He adapted from his life circumstance how he plays the game, but quitting wouldn't be one of the words I'd use to describe him. It's like it's the wrong word for what you're talking about, almost.

• 18:36Speaker 01

  Well, but ask yourself, Mike, why does the word quitting make you feel that? Why do you think, I would never call Tiger Woods a quitter? I know what you mean. It's a hard, it was a hard sentence to write when I said Tiger Woods is a quitter. But then I go on to explain, of course, that we think of quitting in a pejorative way, a negative way, and we've been trained to do that. The word self-help was coined in the middle of the 19th century by a man named Samuel Smiles, who wrote a book called Self-Help, with illustrations of character and conduct. And that's when this idea first got going, that quitting is bad, changing course is bad, changing how you do something is bad. You have to stick with something that you began and never quit and never give up, or you're a bad person. There was definitely a moral dimension attached to it.

• 19:19Speaker 01

  And again, I think that doesn't serve us as human beings very well, because we, sometimes we need to quit things. Relationships don't work out. Like, women particularly have been not served well by this idea of quitting as being a negative. They're told, "Oh, come on, just stick with it. Stick with it a little longer in terms of relationships, jobs." Often quitting is the right thing to do, and we don't do it, because we're afraid of that term "quitter." Just, just as you were saying, it kind of made you, you know, shudder a little bit and recoil, to think of Tiger Woods, a great champion like a Tiger Woods, being a quitter. The other example I give is Simone Biles, when she withdrew from the finals of the Tokyo Olympics. Oh, the terrible, terrible name she was called, and the terrible negativity that was thrown at her, it was awful.

• 20:00Speaker 01

  Now, she quit because she wanted to continue to fight another day. She knew it wasn't right, she wasn't in the right frame of mind, or in the right, right body position to do this incredibly perilous job that she needs to do as an elite gymnast. Now, she's a magnificent champion, just as Tiger Woods is. And I would maintain that these great champions understand when to quit and when to give up. And I take your point that those are that those are maybe kind of harsh sounding words because they're words that we have attached all of this negativity to. And it makes it very hard to change course. But suppose we sucked all that negativity away from those words. Suppose we thought of quitting as a positive.

• 20:40Mike Carruthers?

  But sometimes your quitting affects other people. When if you're the member of a team and you quit the team and the team suffers, well, now a lot of people are are taking it on the chin because you quit.

• 20:53Speaker 01

  That's true. And sports is a great example. I mean, I think sports examples are terrific. I think sports is one of the some of the great metaphors for life. The example I often use is Scottie Pippen, who is is is persistently asked about his 1992 playoff game when he quit, when he wouldn't go back on the court after a timeout right at the end of the game because he was mad that the coach had decided to let another player take the final shot. And Scottie Pippen was mad. And so he sulked and he quit. He quit on his team. That has dogged him and followed him for loathe these many years. As great a champion as he is, you know, Michael Jordan is great, great teammate. He still carries that stigma of being a quitter. I would argue, though, that it's up to each individual in their own heart and mind. Yes, we owe to our teammates, definitely. But sometimes we're better off not being

• 21:38Speaker 01

  in there. If we're not going to be able to perform at a high level, that in terms of the Scottie Pippen example, I'd say, you know, maybe he understood that he just really wasn't, you know, now because he was so upset, and you can argue that maybe it wasn't the most mature thing to be that upset. But again, that's that's between him and his coaches and his, you know, his his members of his team, not for me to judge. I just think that we're so quick to look at quitting as a negative and to not give people the option, the kind of elbow room, the psychological and spiritual elbow room to make another decision. And we end up being really, really stuck.

• 22:14Mike Carruthers?

  Because your book is quitting a strategy, and to me, you know, a strategy is like a plan. And I don't think anybody goes into anything with the strategy, the plan to quit it. Why would you do it if you're planning to quit?

• 22:27Speaker 01

  Oh, no, no, no, they do all the time. I just saw an interview the other day, Ryan Reynolds being interviewed by David Letterman on that Letterman Show that's on Netflix now. And he interviews celebrities for not very long, but I find them very revelatory. And he says to Ryan Reynolds, "Well, when you came to Hollywood, I guess you didn't have a plan B, huh? You knew you were gonna make it." And Ryan Reynolds looks at him and laughs and says, "Didn't have a plan B. I had a plan B, C, D, E, F." I mean, he was quite ready to change if it hadn't worked out. Now, it didn't work out. But that's one of the points I try to make, is that no one's saying it's gonna work out. I mean, there was nothing written on any stone somewhere, you know, with a sword thrust in it that said, "Ryan Reynolds is going to be a successful movie star." No one knew that. All he could do was try.

• 23:10Speaker 01

  But he was ready, on a moment's notice, to try something else. That's the point he makes to Letterman. He said, "Oh, no, no, no. I had all kinds of contingency plans." I think we plan all the time, and we've got to do something different. We have to have that kind of flexibility.

• 23:23Mike Carruthers?

  I guess, no, I understand your point, but it just seems that every case is individual. I mean, I can speak on behalf of almost every podcaster in the world. I, in the early days of this podcast, before it became as successful as it did, thought about quitting every day, because it just, nobody was listening, it wasn't going anywhere, it was really hard to do. But I didn't quit. I could've quit. A lot of people have quit. But I didn't, and I stuck it out, and I'm very glad I did.

• 23:57Speaker 01

  Well, let me emphasize again, that this is very individual. You did stick with this, but I dare say there have to have been some other things in your life, perhaps careers, that you thought would be the right one for you. You know, you're a talented man, you could've done many different things. There are times when you thought you were going to do something, and you had to change in order to get to the point where you could become the host of a very successful podcast. That's the point. I mean, you don't know what, all you could do was listen to yourself, and your mind and heart and soul said to you, "Nope, okay, this may be rough in the beginning, but this is what I'm made for. I can feel this is what I'm meant to do." And when you have that feeling, you, Mike, that's your decision.

• 24:40Speaker 01

  And that's really my only point, is that it has to be your decision.

• 24:44Mike Carruthers?

  So there is a saying, you know, I don't have the luxury of quitting. And I can imagine people listening to this saying, well, great, geez, I'd love to quit my job, but I have a mortgage to pay and I have, you know, bills to pay and my kids are in school and they've got dental work. And so quitting sounds great, but a lot of people, for a lot of people, it's not a practical thing to do.

• 25:08Speaker 01

  Well, again, I disagree and I hope that my book is a refutation of that. I think it's the most practical thing you can do is to consider quitting. And people often do use their families as excuses. And I say that as somebody who has done that in the past, too. Well, I have these obligations and I... But your obligation is to yourself and something will be there. I mean, this is a, this is a wide and a varied world and it's filled with ongoing and endless opportunities for us to make our way in that world. And if a situation isn't right, from a relationship to a job or a religious belief, I mean, I have a lot of examples too that I deal with where people have changed political parties or religious beliefs, that they, they have to feel, we have to feel that we have the freedom

• 25:51Speaker 01

  to go in another direction, to stop and change. Again, it's just too grim otherwise. And again, I just never liked it when I hear people say, well, I would do this or that except for my family. And it's like, no, no, your family is the reason that you do make another decision because you do have those responsibilities and you know that you being a whole person, you know, on your way to a new way of living and a brighter frame of mind, that is your responsibility. So, I mean, I kind of see it from the other way around and I do think of it as a very practical strategy.

• 26:24Mike Carruthers?

  I remember my dad telling me early on in my career that, you know, if you ever want to quit a job, it's always better to line something else first. Because you look more attractive if you are employed than if you're unemployed. So quit all you want, but, but get something lined up first.

• 26:45Speaker 01

  There is that. You can, you can do that if you wish. But again, I think that's, that's an individual decision. And by no means am I telling anybody what to do. I would never say that one thing is going to work out over all the others. Again, this is just a plea, a kind of an earnest, innocent plea to say, it's okay. If you're thinking of quitting something and you're hearing people say, don't do it. And you're like, like me in graduate school, that terrible night when I decided I just couldn't make it another moment. I mean, I was 19 years old and I truly was at a, was at a, was at a terrible point, a kind of a psychological Waterloo. I mean, I don't know what would have happened to me if I'd stayed. I had to get out of there. And we all know that feeling. Everybody knows that feeling. Job, relationship, way of thinking. So sometimes it's a philosophy

• 27:28Speaker 01

  toward life when you realize, I just, I can't be that way anymore.

• 27:31Mike Carruthers?

  Well, as you say, it's very individual, whether you decide to quit or whether you decide to persevere. But are there any numbers in the research about, you know, is, is quitting a better strategy? Just anything other than these are anecdotal stories and you quit and it worked out for you and you didn't quit and it worked out for you?

• 27:53Speaker 01

  Very, very, very few people ever deeply regretted something that they gave up on or quit and looked back on and said, oh, if I just hadn't done that. Far, far more often was, I so wish I'd quit earlier. It was the wrong thing to do. I wasted, you know, 10 years of my life because I was afraid of being involved in that, in that particular thing, whatever it might have been, a job or a person or a, or a political party or. So I do take your point, but there's something you said early on in your question when you said of how people feel about it. And that's ultimately what I'm getting at. It's how you feel about it. And it doesn't matter what I think or you think, or any of these fancy neuroscientists who were kind enough to explain their work to me at great length.

• 28:36Speaker 01

  Doesn't matter what any of them think or what anybody thinks, really. It's how you feel and only you know. At the end of the day, it's, it's that mind and heart and soul that I speak of. Because truly, I think our work and the way we spend our time is not just a matter of getting money or keeping a roof over our heads or even taking care of our families. It's sort of our obligation as, you know, it's a soul-deep obligation. It's what we do, how we spend our time. Do we feel as if we have used our gifts and talents to their fullest ability? And if you're in the wrong place and you're stuck in the wrong place, then the answer would be no. But if you're able to change and able to quit things that aren't working and go to something that is working better, then the answer would be yes.

• 29:17Mike Carruthers?

  Well, I have to admit, I haven't really thought all that much about this topic. I've always just kind of bought into the idea that quitting is never a great idea, that perseverance and grit are always the better option, but maybe not. I've been speaking with Julia Keller. She is a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, novelist, and author of the book, Quitting: A Life Strategy. And you'll find a link to her book at Amazon in the show notes. Thank you, Julia. Thanks for being here.

• 29:46Speaker 01

  Thank you so much.

• 29:49Mike Carruthers?

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• 33:02Mike Carruthers?

  I have spent much of my life living near water. I am drawn to it. I like being near water. Lakes, oceans, rivers, doesn't matter a whole lot to me what kind of water. I just like being around water. And I guess I've always thought that was just a preference that I had personally. But apparently not. Seems pretty much everyone likes being around water. It has an effect, a desirable effect on just about everybody. This turns out to be something Wallace J. Nichols studies. Wallace is a senior fellow at the Center for the Blue Economy in Monterey. He is a research associate at the California Academy of Sciences.

• 33:42Mike Carruthers?

  And his work has been covered by NPR, BBC, PBS, National Geographic, and many other media outlets. He's author of a book called Blue Mind. The surprising science that shows how being near, in, on, or underwater can make you happier, healthier, more connected, and better at what you do. Hi Wallace, welcome to Something You Should Know.

• 34:05Speaker 02

  Hey, it's great to be with you. My pleasure and honor.

• 34:09Mike Carruthers?

  So you say it's fairly universal that people want to be near water. It's not just me. Everybody likes to be near water. But why? Because it's just pleasant to be around water? Or is the relationship between humans and water like a real thing?

• 34:28Speaker 02

  So yes, it is a thing. It's deeply, innately part of being a human being on a water planet. We respond to water in all of its forms immediately and instinctively. So we've exploited that in all kinds of ways in terms of modern society. But it really goes back to a deep evolutionary connection to water, which is if we don't have water for a week...

• 34:58Speaker 02

  We're done. And so yes, it is a thing.

• 35:02Mike Carruthers?

  Why does the conversation not stop there and we go get lunch? Why is it a book and why is it a whole conversation on this podcast? Because you just made the case and so, okay, so now what?

• 35:13Speaker 02

  Slam dunk, right? It's over. It was maybe a tweet and that's about it. The reality is, it is maybe the most important conversation we could be having right now. Water helps us to relax. It helps us to be more creative. It helps to connect us to each other. It connects us to ourselves. And it is the basis of all life. So it is a, it is a big, wide-reaching conversation.

• 35:38Mike Carruthers?

  Well, let's look at some of the specifics you just mentioned. You know, the idea of being near water to be creative, it sounds right. Like if I want to paint a picture, I'll go down by the lake and, you know, the, the sound of the water will inspire my creativity. But, but is there some science here? Is there, is it something other than it sounds right?

• 36:00Speaker 02

  Well, lots of people have had that experience of, of getting unstuck while sitting in a bathtub, that eureka moment. Or standing in the shower and you say, oh, that's, that's it. That's the solution. That's the, that's the line. That's the lyric. That's the line of code. And, and what happens when we're by the water, it quiets down a lot of the background noise that can be distracting and take us off of, of the task at hand.

• 36:29Speaker 02

  Sitting by the water or floating on the water, literally standing, soaking in the water, switched, switches us into this mode that I call blue mind, that allows our, our brain to do things that we, we don't do as well when we're distracted. When we're taking care of the, the busyness around us, when there are, are external screens or voices or leaf blowers or blenders or whatever's going on. When we get to the water, the water helps with that. It simplifies things and allows us to focus. So that's where the poetry occurs, or the song lyrics, or the, the insights. And we've all, we've all experienced it, you know, in, in different ways throughout our lives.

• 37:14Speaker 02

  But it's, it's nice to tag it and say, you know, this actually does work.

• 37:18Mike Carruthers?

  Are there not people who this does not apply?

• 37:23Speaker 02

  I have I have not met anyone yet. So if you if you can think of someone, feel free to offer, but I I have I like to ask people, what's your water? And then listen to their story. And I haven't met anybody that hasn't had a fascinating, personal answer to that simple question. I'm looking, you know, I'm open to it, but there certainly there are people who are scared of being in the water or underwater, or who don't like to swim and don't like boats.

• 37:58Speaker 02

  But they do enjoy water in the way that they enjoy water, whatever that may be. Drinking it, sitting by it, listening to it, just looking out over it, taking a bath, taking a shower. We're not trying to make everybody a surfer or scuba diver or an Olympic swimmer. It's meeting people where they live in terms of their water relationship.

• 38:22Mike Carruthers?

  So when you ask people what's their water, what are some of the more unusual, interesting things you hear?

• 38:29Speaker 02

  It sometimes gets poetic and people will say, my water is a someone. You know, they they they think of the person who took them to the water. I think of my father and he taught us to swim when we were kids. So, you know, I can say my my water is my father. He was he was my guide. He was the bridge. Sometimes people refer to food. Food is mostly water. They'll say, well, my water is is my garden. So it isn't always a majestic body of water or an immersive experience. It can be something much more subtle.

• 39:07Mike Carruthers?

  But it does seem it does seem, though, that there are people like me who really like to be near water and seek it out and other people who kind of like, meh, you know, yeah, it's nice. I get it.

• 39:20Speaker 02

  Yeah. Well, some people say, I'm more of a mountain person. And I say, that's that's great. And when you go to the mountains, is there snow? Are there lakes? Maybe rivers or creeks, do you gravitate to those places? And they say, well, as a matter of fact, I do. And, you know, it's just a short step from there to, well, that's water. That's snow, that ice, that lake, that river. It's not a competition between the mountains and the ocean.

• 39:51Mike Carruthers?

  So in order to say that people want to be around water and that being around water has a positive effect on you, wouldn't you have to do an experiment, some scientific research into people who are not around water and see the difference between them and people who are around water and make some sort of hypothesis as to what that difference is and why?

• 40:15Speaker 02

  We did this big experiment recently called the pandemic. And people went into various kinds of lockdowns. And what we found is that people missed the water dearly. The people who had access to it fared better. The people who could go out their backyard and run to the beach or go to the lake or the river could walk to it. Those who had a hot tub, a spa, or a pool that they could access when we were in this lockdown mode. And then people freaked out when they shut down the beaches. And they said, no, you're not even allowed to go to the beach. You can't even swim. You have to stay away.

• 40:59Speaker 02

  And they started arresting people with their surfboards. That was a really interesting experiment. And people really got it. They said, wow, when you take that away from me, that made people really uncomfortable. We are water beings on a water planet. And when you cut us off from it, it feels bad.

• 41:20Mike Carruthers?

  Is there any sense, though, of, so we've talked about, you know, people kind of crave or seek out water, that it's

• 41:30Mike Carruthers?

  Something that's kind of part of being human and can help your creativity. But what is it? Is it seeing it? Is it hearing it? Is it? Is there a sixth sense that you somehow perceive it's nearby? What is it exactly? Other than, yeah, it's nice to have some water over there.

• 41:50Speaker 02

  Yeah, when we take it apart, we pull this concept apart into its components. Like, we like to do that as scientists. And look at it through each of the senses. There's a special thing that water does related to each of our senses. Now, the way we experience it, in fact, is all together. So you pull it apart to study it. But then, the actual experience of blue mind is all of it together at the same time. So you taste it, and you smell it, and you hear it, and you feel it. So if you jump into a body of water, you're getting the multisensory experience. If you're looking, merely looking at a nice video of some waves on your laptop,

• 42:35Speaker 02

  it may be purely visual. If you turn up the volume, you might get the wave sound. That's nice. But it really goes to the next level when you use all of your senses. You know, the somatic experience of water, of the water really surrounding you and touching all of your skin cells at the same time. The pressure of it, the buoyancy of it, the temperature of it. So it's all of that at the same time. And so as we pull it apart, we can kind of look at what makes it special in each of its components. But the experience of blue mind is a simultaneous sensory experience. And there's really nothing quite like it.

• 43:15Speaker 02

  I mean, really, the best comparison in our lives is to music. The way music can bring you up and take you down and move you and boost your creativity and pull your emotions around. And music that we like to get us going in the morning, and music that helps us relax, and music that makes us sad, other songs that make us happy. You can feel the music kind of hitting you when you're at a concert. And that's really the best comparison would be to music. Water and music together, well, that's a really extra special.

• 43:54Mike Carruthers?

  But like music, I mean, there's water that may do things for you in a positive way, like, you know, sitting in a hot tub. But, but if you fall into a lake that's, you know, partially frozen and the water is freezing cold, that it's not so pleasant to be around that water.

• 44:13Speaker 02

  That's right. You can play music that bothers you. You know, sometimes my kids play music. It's not my style. Ask them to turn it down or turn it off. You can blow your eardrums out if it's too loud. It can be distracting and annoying. And, and like water, you know, you, it's dangerous. There is a downside. And I think that tension is, adds to the experience that there's with the ocean. The ocean deserves our respect. A big river, a frozen lake requires our knowledge and our respect in order to approach it correctly and safely. So that tension actually adds, adds a component to, to this experience.

• 44:58Mike Carruthers?

  Well, I, you know, something's always, I find interesting is, I used to have a house in, on a lake in Vermont and would go up there and sit out on the balcony there and look at the lake and look at it for hours. I mean, just people would congregate out there. If the lake wasn't there, if it was just trees and bushes and whatever, everybody wouldn't gravitate out there. There's something, and, and it isn't that it changes much. It, I mean, it's, I mean, it's a lake, but, you know, the water, the water's the water. But it, it pulls you. It, it, you want to go out there. And I've never really understood why, but I always want to go out there.

• 45:44Speaker 02

  And hopefully you're starting to understand why. And, you know, we started at that, how is this, how is this conversation any more than just a tweet? And now here we go. Now we're, we're going down the path and. Understanding why sitting by that lake, it holds you in that place and pulls you back. And psychologists call it soft fascination. So it holds you in that place. It doesn't overwhelm you. The lake isn't chattering and telling you things and distracting you. It's holding your attention, though. It's giving you just enough visual and auditory stimulation that you go, this is, this is interesting, but it's not requiring you to process

• 46:26Speaker 02

  words and images and language and, and, and solve puzzles. So it allows you to kick back and create and, or have a conversation with someone you care about while being held in this place of soft fascination. That's mildly mesmerizing and soothing. And, you know, to kind of extend that, it also pulls us at romantic moments, at memorialization moments where we, we want to go deeper emotionally with someone or with a group of people. Sacred vows or commitments to each other. So it's almost a cliche that ceremonies are held by the water

• 47:11Speaker 02

  and honeymoons are, go to the water and memorializations happen by the water. And we, we don't really think about that, but we just kind of go there to do those things because the water brings this multi-sensory experience that doesn't overwhelm us. It's not like loud music or a, a big show. It's just the perfect backdrop to these important moments in our lives from birth all the way through death.

• 47:43Mike Carruthers?

  Well, it's also interesting, too, if you look at real estate prices, you know, it's the houses on the beach that are the most expensive compared to the houses, you know, a mile inland in, in a lot of coastal towns. It's the houses on the lake that are real expensive as opposed to the houses in town. It's so, so people know they want to be near water and they're willing to pay more to be there.

• 48:09Speaker 02

  That's right. They they will pay pay sometimes a thousand percent premium for that water view in some locations. On average, across across the US, it's a forty percent premium. And it's lakes, rivers, oceans, bays, any any kind of water. The proximity to water imparts this a very significant financial or economic premium on real estate. And if you ask people, why are you willing to pay, let's say, double for for this? They aren't exactly sure, but they are willing to pay it if, of course, they have the money.

• 48:51Speaker 02

  And sometimes when they don't, they'll go further into debt, pay a bigger mortgage in order to have this feeling. And so it's an emotional response that drives real world hard money decisions. And again, to me, that's worth understanding a bit better. Because it's such a a big part of who we are and the decisions we make and how we live.

• 49:18Mike Carruthers?

  Yeah, and there probably aren't. I can't think of a lot of other things like that that would people would be willing to pay that kind of premium for.

• 49:28Speaker 02

  It's the it's the biggest premium in real estate terms, you know, of course, you know, access to good public transportation and good schools and great restaurants and so-called green space parks. Yes, of course, we'd like those too. Walkability is an index that you see is, you know, is is the community walkable? Well, that's that's really great, too. There's a premium there. But you throw an ocean view outside your window. And, you know, in places like Del Mar, California, it's literally a thousand percent premium compared to that second row, the house right behind that one. It might be a million dollar house, but the one in the front row is a ten million dollar

• 50:09Speaker 02

  house. You go, what the heck is going on there that makes that premium pop so much? And, you know, to my mind, I just I want to understand that better because it is such a strong driver of how we live.

• 50:24Mike Carruthers?

  Yeah, well, think about like on the weekends, families will pile into the car and drive to the beach. Now, there's not necessarily anything to do there other than play in the water, be near the water, make a sand castle. But it's not like going to the movies or, you know, where there's a, not only a destination, but something to do. You go to the beach just to be at the beach. You just, because there's something about being there that, that people like.

• 50:52Speaker 02

  Right. And if you, if you, if you took that family that just piled in the car together and, you know, pulled them aside each one at a time and said, what are you getting out of this? You get it, you get a variety of answers. Uh, maybe mom and dad are, are gonna say, um, this is de-stress. I, it's, it's a hard work week. It's been a rough month and I, I get a little bit of relief from, from my stressful life. The kids are gonna go for the play part. It's, it's joyful. It's playful. They get to run around, a, a sense of freedom. Maybe life in the city is, is just a little more boxed up, but life at the beach, you can run in every direction and you can jump in the water and you can

• 51:35Speaker 02

  dig and you can play and you can throw the ball, throw the frisbee, whatever it is. Um, maybe you get to see dolphins. Maybe you get to see crabs scurrying around. There's a, there's an element of play to it. And then in the evening, the sunset, maybe there's some, some calm, romantic moment there that pulls people together. And, and then the other piece of this conversation, uh, sleep comes, comes on better. And people say they sleep better when they've spent the day in the water or near the water, or they can hear the sound of the water. And that plays out in all these popular, um, sleep apps.

• 52:18Speaker 02

  The number one downloads are ocean sounds, rain sounds, creek sounds, nature sounds. So we know that when we vacation by the water, uh, we sleep better. And so all of that. And so that's why we pile into the car and take the journey and go, go to the edge of the water.

• 52:37Mike Carruthers?

  So you've been studying this a long time. What's your, finally here, what's your message?

• 52:43Speaker 02

  Well, my, I guess my mission in life right now is to make this common knowledge. I'd like every human being, all eight billion of us, to understand their own blue mind, and then apply it accordingly where they live and how they live.

• 53:00Mike Carruthers?

  Well, I've always been one of those people who's attracted to water. I know lots of other people are attracted to water, and yet, I don't think I've ever talked about this with anyone before. So this has been really an eye-opening conversation. I've been speaking with Wallace Nichols, and the name of his book is Blue Mind: The Surprising Science That Shows How Being Near, In, On, or Under Water Can Make You Happier, Healthier, More Connected, and Better at What You Do. And there's a link to that book in the show notes. Thanks, Wallace.

• 53:31Speaker 02

  Excellent. My pleasure.

• 53:36Mike Carruthers?

  If your love life could use a boost, there are some things you can do outside the bedroom that can make a big difference, according to Lou Paget, who is author of a book called The Great Lover Playbook. First of all, when your partner does something that makes you proud, say it out loud and tell other people about it, too. Champion your lover, and that gets noticed. Pay attention. When your partner has something to say, stop what you're doing and really listen. And get touchy. Holding hands, a longer embrace, or spontaneous caress will get noticed when it's not expected. And kissing is one of the easiest ways to jumpstart your love life.

• 54:18Mike Carruthers?

  Long-term couples tend to fall into kissing routines, so consider switching up the routine a bit. Start kissing your partner the way you'd like to be kissed. And that is something you should know. As any podcaster will tell you, word-of-mouth advertising is about the best, so the best way to support this podcast is to tell someone you know and ask them to give a listen. I'm Mike Heruthers. Thanks for listening today to Something You Should Know.

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