How do you stop caring what others think? A filmmaker and a therapist answer | TED Talks Daily

How do you quit people-pleasing? Internet filmmaker Baron Ryan and family therapist Stephanie R. Yates-Anyabwile unpack the all-too-common fear of rejection and explore the practices necessary to reclaim your ability to finally say “no” and stop caring about what other people think. (This conversation is part of “TED Intersections,” a series featuring thought-provoking conversations between experts navigating the ideas shaping our world.) For the full text transcript, visit go.ted.com/BHTranscripts https://go.ted.com/BHTranscripts Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy https://acast.com/privacy for more information.

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

• 0:00Speaker 00

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• 0:31Chris Duffy?

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• 1:17Chris Duffy?

  Hi, everyone. You know, even though many of us may be ashamed to admit it, we all care about what other people think, to an extent. And sometimes that care is important, but sometimes it is also so not important. I'm excited to be sharing today a special episode of a TED Talks Daily mini-series called Intersections that explores the concept of caring about what other people think about us. Intersections as a mini-series is a place where TED Talks Daily is featuring thought-provoking conversations between experts who are exploring the ideas that shape our world. And today, in this episode, it is internet personality Baron Ryan talking with family therapist Stephanie Yates-Aña Bule. And what you may remember is that Stephanie has been on our show before.

• 1:59Chris Duffy?

  We talked to her back in May about how to navigate changes in a relationship without fear. So I'm really thrilled to be spotlighting her again today on the show. She's talking with Baron today about how you can quit people-pleasing and reclaim your ability to say no. After listening to this episode, if you want to hear more TED Intersections, you can find it on TED Talks Daily wherever you get your podcasts. And now, onto the conversation.

• 2:26Speaker 02

  You're listening to TED Talks Daily, where we bring you new ideas and conversations to spark your curiosity every day. I'm your host, Elise Hu. TED Intersections is back for a second season. This original series features unscripted conversations between TED speakers taking on subjects at the intersection of their expertise. In this conversation, internet filmmaker Baron Ryan sits down with marriage and family therapist Stephanie R. Yates-Anye Buile to answer the question, "How do you learn to love yourself?" They dig into the struggles of people pleasing, why we care so much about what people think of us, and how we can resist that sneaky urge to compare ourselves to others.

• 3:14Speaker 03

  I respect my dad's opinion a lot. And so oftentimes, I won't call him for advice because I'm scared.

• 3:21Speaker 04

  That I'm wrong.

• 3:21Speaker 03

  That I'm wrong. And because I respect it so much that I know there's something inside that says, "He is right no matter what."

• 3:28Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 3:29Speaker 03

  Yeah. But I think one of the wisest things we can do is not listen to our elders too closely. There's a great value in discovery, in doing the wrong thing and learning for yourself, as opposed to learning what the wrong thing is and never trying the wrong thing.

• 4:00Speaker 03

  So the first question I have is, how do you see people pleasing manifest in your relationship with yourself and others?

• 4:09Speaker 04

  I think you could probably answer this question better than I could. But I think for me, realizing that I have people-pleasing tendencies was a slow evolution, a slow revelation. I realized that I was comparing myself to people that I thought were obvious people-pleasers, like my clients even, you know? But I started realizing that when certain people would ask me for things... Even if it was something I was dreading for weeks beforehand, I wouldn't say no. Um, just because I think I was afraid that if a specific person saw me as difficult, then that's true.

• 4:48Speaker 04

  So I think for me, it was very much based on my level of respect or desire for a person to love or appreciate me. And, you know, if they, a person didn't fall into those categories, I could say no. But if they did, then I had a really hard time with just even saying, this is going to be a challenge for me, but sure, I'll do it for you. And I would almost act as though I was excited about it. Um, so people pleasing has shown up for me in multiple ways. And I think in the last two or three years, it's been a lot more obvious for me and something I've been working on a little bit more intentionally addressing. How about for you?

• 5:22Speaker 03

  Uh, you said people pleasing, you never had it, it's for other people problem. I am the other people.

• 5:30Speaker 03

  Yeah, no, I, I had, I, I think I still am a people pleaser and it's very funny that I can admit that because my talk is about people pleasing. But I think you'll see it, there's no solutions.

• 5:41Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 5:42Speaker 03

  Uh, I think I just see the solution, I see the light and I don't, I don't know how to get to it. I think we, I especially have this tendency where once I'm aware of what I'm doing, I think that's it. Oh, problem solved, I'm done. And that's not it.

• 5:58Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 5:58Speaker 03

  Um, I see it happening pretty much like, uh, just everywhere. Um, I don't know, I just walking, just like the Uber here, the air conditioning was just way too hard. And I just didn't say anything.

• 6:15Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 6:15Speaker 03

  And he asked like, is it too cold? And I said, no.

• 6:18Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 6:19Speaker 03

  It was too cold.

• 6:20Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 6:20Speaker 03

  And I just, I, I recognized it and then I didn't do anything about it.

• 6:24Speaker 04

  Yeah. And see, I'm the type of person who that kind of situation, I would absolutely say something. Um, I, even when we were just sitting in a talk, I saw the lady next to me pull out mints. I'm like, ooh, can I have some of your mints? I don't know her, but I didn't have any issue asking for that. But I have some family members, um, that I'm very close to that kind of. They would never do, they would never ask because they're just that cognizant of being an inconvenience or feeling like a burden on someone. I think, I do believe that there are things that can be done about people pleasing. I don't think that it's something that is solutionless. I think the first thing is admitting to ourselves that something is bothering us

• 7:09Speaker 04

  or could bother us and feeling comfortable to even just communicate that possibility to ourselves. And as we get more comfortable with admitting, because sometimes it's like after the fact, you realize like, damn, I was, oh, can I cuss?

• 7:23Speaker 03

  Sure.

• 7:23Speaker 04

  Okay. It's kind of like, man, I was cold. And so maybe in a situation with a stranger, no, but maybe you start with your close friends just saying, I'm dreading this, but I'm willing to do it for you or family.

• 7:36Speaker 03

  I mean, there's a, I guess the big problem was you never quite feel safe opening up.

• 7:43Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 7:43Speaker 03

  Because every time you, see, that's another problem of mine. I say you instead of I.

• 7:49Speaker 04

  That's okay, I get it.

• 7:50Speaker 03

  And it's really good for storytelling because people relate and say you. And if I said I, no one would care. But I never felt safe expressing and getting out there because I always thought if I do that, bad things will happen because bad things almost always do happen. But in reality, I just didn't know how to stand up for myself when I did open up. So I was having this discussion with a friend and he has people pleasing tendencies. I have people pleasing tendencies. And we were saying, I think the solution is it's about resilience as opposed to shelling up and never opening up. It's about opening up. And if you get hurt, you get back up instead of just never trying or never coming out of your shell. And.

• 8:37Speaker 03

  I don't know if that's true or not. I'm workshopping that tactic right now. But that, as far as I can tell, that seems to me to be a bit of a better solution than never opening up.

• 8:50Speaker 04

  Definitely agree. I think, and it's hard for me to engage in like more surface level conversations because as a therapist I go right to it. But I do think it's interesting how you said that bad things almost always do happen. That's an interesting understanding of the world and life. I think that, to me, that means that your people pleasing is probably a result of some sort of trauma experience. If bad things always happen, what does that mean?

• 9:18Speaker 03

  I could, I could never pinpoint a certain moments, but I think I was the youngest child. And so as the youngest, you're almost always giving in.

• 9:28Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 9:28Speaker 03

  And I think you're just trained, I am just trained to do that. And that training serves you well in adulthood, but in very bad ways.

• 9:39Speaker 04

  What I, what I hear you say is that basically you people please to avoid the humiliation of hearing no or asking for what you need and a person basically telling you you're not important enough for that accommodation. Like when we go back to the example of being in the Uber. If you tell that Uber driver that you're cold and goes, oh, well, I'm hot and keeps it on, now it's like, I put myself out there. I admitted I was cold and he didn't care. He didn't make the accommodation. So maybe it's easier to not experience that rejection than it is to take the chance of getting what you want.

• 10:18Speaker 03

  Sure.

• 10:19Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 10:19Speaker 03

  It could also be that I need to be more anxious as opposed to more depressed.

• 10:24Speaker 04

  Oh, okay. Interesting perspective.

• 10:27Speaker 03

  Okay, because like I'm always thinking in hindsight, you know, you, you have an interaction with someone. You're like, oh, did I come off too strong? Did I, I could, why didn't I just tell the Uber driver to turn the air conditioning off? But if I was anxious, I would look forward and be like, oh, I'm going to be cold. I'm going to regret this if I don't turn off the AC. I'm going to get a cold or something. And so out of anxiety, I'll, I'll say, hey, can you, uh, and so I'll, I'll try and beat the disaster.

• 10:53Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 10:54Speaker 03

  And instead of let the disaster happen and then just look back in depression.

• 10:58Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 10:58Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 10:59Speaker 04

  I could see that look, and I think anxiety works both ways because alternatively, you could be thinking,

• 11:06Speaker 04

  if I tell him about the fact that I'm cold, then this will happen, this will happen. Anxiety is just looking at every worst case scenario almost, you know, so I think even if you were super anxious, it could be the same situation. So how did the opinions of others impact your relationship with yourself?

• 11:25Speaker 03

  The opinions of others can really impact me, especially if I care about those people. And what I've learned is that in order to, for the criticism and for the negative opinion to not affect me, I have to also forget about the positive opinions and the complimentary opinions. And so I always saw opinions, comments, likes, anything on social media even.

• 11:51Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 11:51Speaker 03

  As sugar. Uh, you know, we know not to take too much sugar. So I know in my mind not to take too much compliments, not to take too much praise.

• 12:02Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 12:03Speaker 03

  It's not good for you.

• 12:04Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 12:04Speaker 03

  And a little bit's fine, a little bit of sugar's fine. Don't take too much, though, because then you'll feel sick the next morning. You'll get withdrawals when it doesn't come, right?

• 12:13Speaker 04

  Mm hmm.

• 12:14Speaker 03

  So I guess right back at you. How does the opinion of others affect, uh, you know, your relationship with yourself?

• 12:24Speaker 04

  Yeah, I've always cared way too much what people think. I actually remember I was riding with my grandma back in 2019 and she always struck me as someone who just, she was the founder of a church, you know, small church, lots of opinions, um, especially once my grandfather passed away and she was like the head of the ministry. And so I was like, Grandma, how do you deal with? The opinions of so many people. And she was like, Stephanie, they're just people. That made no sense to me. That still makes no sense to me. Because I was just like, I guess, in a way, we kind of put people on this pedestal, which is so interesting because as a human being myself, my opinions are so flawed and they change.

• 13:10Speaker 04

  But I look at other people's views or opinions of me and give them so much weight and look at them as though they can't change or that they're correct. And so sometimes I just reflect on that conversation to remind myself, like, these are just people. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. But the opinion of people has always mattered a lot to me. I think we're talking about birth order. I'm the oldest. And I think sometimes with the oldest parents, that's when they, they put their best foot forward. Like, they want to raise the next, you know, top athlete or the next big politician, whatever. So they put a lot more energy sometimes to that oldest child than they do with the subsequent children.

• 13:52Speaker 04

  And so there's this pressure to do very well. And so I know for me, even as an adult, I still crave that I'm proud of you from my dad. You know, and he gives it to me, but I hear it more from other people than from him. And I always, every time somebody's like, oh, my gosh, your dad is so proud of you. I'm always thinking, oh, I wish he told me that, you know? But I know he is. But I think that's where it started for me is just feeling like, you want that parental approval, then expands to the authorities of teachers and, you know, administration at your school. Then it's your boss. Then it's everybody, you know? Everybody has an opinion. And as the older we get, I think

• 14:35Speaker 04

  the more confident we get that our opinions are right. And if someone has a negative opinion, especially being in the online space, it is hard to just say, that's one person's opinion. I love what you said about. You have to give similar weight to the positive opinions, just like you do the negative. And that's something that I think when you're online for years, you kind of, you come to a point because I'm like, everybody, it could be the exact same content and all the initial comments are so positive. And then one person says something and it takes a turn. You know, and a lot of people kind of follow the crowd, whether it's positive or negative. So.

• 15:13Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 15:14Speaker 04

  You can even look at the numbers of it, really.

• 15:17Speaker 03

  And, but what's hard is that on social media, the comment section is generally not the general consensus of most of your viewers. I always thought that was a big problem with reviews online of restaurants.

• 15:33Speaker 04

  True.

• 15:34Speaker 03

  Who has the time to pull out their app, sign into the app and make a review of this restaurant? Whoever has the time to do that gets angry pretty quick or gets, is a little bitter about a little too many things. Maybe the comment section is the same thing. I think the comment section is a demographic. It's a type of viewer. It's not your overall audience, though.

• 15:57Speaker 04

  That's a good point. Would you say that most of your comments are more negative or more positive?

• 16:03Speaker 03

  Oh, they're all, they're mostly all positive, but my theory on that is that whoever has all positive comments, the haters are out there somewhere.

• 16:14Speaker 04

  Yeah, they are.

• 16:15Speaker 03

  They're lurking. They're waiting for their moment to strike. And the second you screw up, there'll be a few negative comments and then here they come.

• 16:24Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 16:24Speaker 03

  And then it happens all at once. That's how that works, I think. So they're, they're all there. They're all there waiting. I'm waiting to get canceled one day.

• 16:32Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 16:32Speaker 03

  Everyone does.

• 16:33Speaker 04

  I know. It's terrifying.

• 16:34Speaker 03

  But in, you were talking about how you're, you still look for that good job from your dad.

• 16:40Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 16:41Speaker 03

  Whose approval feels the best and where do strangers fall into that ranking?

• 16:47Speaker 04

  Ooh, that's a good question.

• 16:51Speaker 04

  I still think.

• 16:55Speaker 04

  I still think my dad's at the top.

• 16:57Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 16:58Speaker 04

  I definitely do.

• 17:01Speaker 04

  My household dynamic was very different in that my mom, she struggled with a lot of mental health issues. She experienced so much trauma growing up and it's really miraculous, the life she was able to build. But you know, behind the scenes, you kind of experience that on a closer level, at a closer level. So my dad was kind of given this, I would say hero role. Like you're the parent that's gonna save us from, like they were married and everything, but you're the parent that's gonna save us from this tyrant or this person, whatever, whatever was happening in the moment. It wasn't always like that, but you know, some moments were like that and we never really ever had that with him. So I think I view him as like stability, security, and with that comes contentment.

• 17:44Speaker 04

  So sometimes like seeing that moment of pride or knowing I'm working on a project that he really cares about, that means everything to me. And when things that he cares about, you know, when they fall through, I think I'm more embarrassed about that than the world seeing something fail. Sometimes I wait months before I even tell him about a certain project just because I'm nervous it's not going to pan out. And I'm worried about, he would never say anything mean, you know, my dad's not like that. But I just don't want him to feel disappointed. Even though he's not expressing that, I just internalize it in a certain way.

• 18:22Speaker 03

  Yeah. I think I respect my dad's opinion a lot. And then so oftentimes I won't call him for advice because I'm scared.

• 18:32Speaker 04

  That I'm wrong.

• 18:32Speaker 03

  That I'm wrong and because I respect it so much that I know there's something inside that says he is right no matter what.

• 18:40Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 18:40Speaker 03

  Yeah, but I think the, one of the widest things we can do is not listen to our elders too closely. They have things to say, but there's a great value in discovery, in doing the wrong thing and learning for yourself as opposed to learning what the wrong thing is and never trying the wrong thing.

• 18:58Speaker 04

  Yeah, I think a big moment for me was when I was buying my house. And at that point, it was a crazy summer. Like I got engaged, married, bought a house, all in the same summer. Everybody thought I was pregnant because it was happening so fast. I wasn't pregnant. I was just ready to be married. We've been together for 60 years. And I think that. In that moment when I was buying my house and I was asking my dad for his feedback on everything and I was just, I needed his approval, like, what do you think about this? I don't want to make the wrong decision. It hit me, like, my dad's never bought a house before. You know, at that point, I was living in experience outside of his experience.

• 19:39Speaker 04

  Like, I couldn't go to him as the person that could give me all of the advice. And he always has opinions, you know? He definitely wanted me to have, you know, he had recommendations for who should do the my inspection and everything, but he'd never bought a house before. We lived in a house growing up and my mom bought it before she met him. And so it was just this moment where I was like, I'm at a point where I'm having experiences that I can't lean on my dad for. My mom passed away, by the way, so that's why I'm referring to him a lot in adulthood. But it was just interesting to be in this very surreal position of like, wow, I'm in a stage of life that my dad never was in.

• 20:24Speaker 04

  And, you know, it's kind of like swimming without a life vest for the first time. So I agree with you about kind of recognizing, just because a person is older doesn't necessarily mean they have all of the answers.

• 20:36Speaker 03

  Fun stuff.

• 20:38Speaker 04

  I know. We're doing a therapy session for each other.

• 20:41Speaker 03

  Okay, this is a long one, but I'm gonna, I'm gonna, I'm gonna go for it, all right?

• 20:45Speaker 04

  Okay.

• 20:46Speaker 03

  You say that relationships are difficult because people base their metric of success on what they see other people do.

• 20:53Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 20:54Speaker 03

  Is this a form of relationship imposter syndrome? And how do couples break out of that mold?

• 21:00Speaker 04

  Ooh, that's a good question. Relationship imposter syndrome. I don't know if I would say it's imposter syndrome, only because I think of imposter syndrome as a feeling where we've basically tricked an organization or a person into thinking we're one way, and it's that constant fear of being exposed for not really being that. You know, I call myself a therapist. Are you really a therapist? I call myself an artist. I call myself an actor, you know, and someone kind of tearing that down. So I don't think of it as imposter syndrome, because I don't think, I don't know, maybe there, there are some parallels, but I think basically that...

• 21:41Speaker 04

  We have clear trajectories of how relationships are supposed to develop. You know, you meet the love of your life. Eventually, you might move in together. Maybe you get engaged, you get married, you have kids, you buy a house, you know, whatever the order is. And I think sometimes we don't stop enough to ask ourselves, like, why am I doing this? You know, like, maybe you did find the love of your life, but do you guys need to live together? If you live together, do you need to share a bed? Like, do you have to sleep in the same bed with that person every night for the rest of your life? I think sometimes we just get so stuck and this is just how it's always done. And if I don't do it this way, maybe that is the imposter syndrome part.

• 22:23Speaker 04

  Because the question is, if I don't do it this way, is my relationship legitimate? How would people feel if they found out that we don't sleep in the same bed, for example?

• 22:31Speaker 03

  Yeah, how should we? Like, what should our metric of relationships be then? Who should we be comparing ourselves to?

• 22:40Speaker 04

  I think the challenge is to try to avoid the comparison because there's so many different models for what a healthy relationship looks like. And even what looked good in your relationship 10 years ago might not look good today. You know, so I think it's very much about checking in with yourself about what is and isn't working for you. And I think this takes us back to the people pleasing part of the conversation. Because if you're afraid to open up to your partner, which is what I see a lot. A lot of the work I do with clients is like, you guys have been together 30 years and you're afraid to tell your partner that you don't like XYZ that they do. And so I think that it's about being honest about where you're at today, what your hopes are today.

• 23:24Speaker 04

  And seeing how you and your partner can negotiate that. If I say to my husband, like, I don't think it's making sense for us to share the same bathroom. Like, we're constantly getting in arguments about the bathroom. Your hair is everywhere, my hair is everywhere. I leave the lids off of everything, whatever the case may be. We've got an extra bathroom, why don't we just, you have that one, I have this one? If you can have that conversation and they're cool with it, why not save yourself from some arguments? There are a lot of opportunities like that that we miss.

• 23:54Speaker 03

  Yeah, I, I think I always, um, I was always scared about, of this part in relationships because the, the big danger is you get in a relationship with the fantasized version you have in your head of someone else. You've projected that onto this person and they're going to inevitably fall from that imagined reality that you just gave them.

• 24:16Speaker 04

  Mm-hmm.

• 24:17Speaker 03

  And so, of course, you need a little bit of reality in there. You need, maybe a little bit of comparison might do you well, but for the most part, maybe it's just about checking in whether or not you are happy. Just as is, you know, there's a, there's a short story by Lucas Shepard, I think, called The Jaguar Hunter.

• 24:36Speaker 04

  Okay.

• 24:37Speaker 03

  And the story begins, it opens with this tribe in South America and everyone's happy, everyone's calm and life is good. And then someone brings a TV into the tribe and they hook up the electricity and suddenly the tribe just goes to pieces because they see what the outside world is like. They see what it's like to have hot and cold water. They see what it's like to have, to go to the grocery store and just pick out any fruit you want, no matter what the season is. And suddenly they feel like they can't be happy because that, that they're living in heaven, not us.

• 25:13Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 25:13Speaker 03

  And I think with the relationship things, I think that's, for the most part, that is what the hole, we all go down. We all put a TV in, metaphorically, in our, in our relationship and we see what it's like and we see, we say, why, why isn't my life like that? Why aren't we like that?

• 25:33Speaker 03

  And in reality, just, just take a look, maybe just take a look around. Do you feel good?

• 25:38Speaker 04

  Mm-hmm.

• 25:38Speaker 03

  Are you happy when you, are you happy when you make coffee and put dishes in the dishwasher and is that a, is that a pleasurable thing to do because you like this person? Maybe that's enough and, I don't know, uh, it's just a theory, you know?

• 25:50Speaker 04

  I totally agree with that. Um, I think we don't check in with ourselves a lot, especially in the...

• 25:59Speaker 04

  Learning someone phase. Sometimes, like you said, we ignore things that would make us very unhappy. Because we are really not even enjoying the fantasy of them, but the fantasy of being in a relationship in general.

• 26:14Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 26:14Speaker 04

  And so it's like, hmm, yeah, he's not that romantic, but he's here and I've got someone to take to this wedding. And I have someone who might warm my car up in the morning. But then, you know, we're looking ten years down the line, you're like, my husband's not romantic. And I'm like, was he ever? Right? And most of the time, the answer is no.

• 26:37Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 26:37Speaker 04

  But we develop these hopes for our partner before we ever even commit, before we even communicate to them that these are our needs.

• 26:47Speaker 03

  Okay, can I? I'm gonna, I'm gonna tell, I'm gonna tell you an idea for a short film I have, and I, I don't know how it ends. And I, maybe you can help me, like, okay, no one steal this idea. This is, I want to make this short film, I really do.

• 27:00Speaker 04

  Okay.

• 27:01Speaker 03

  So, we're living in this dystopian world where

• 27:06Speaker 03

  the state of New York is trying to curb the divorce rate, for some reason, but we'll figure out why. And in order to do so, to get married in the state of New York, a couple has to go take a lie detector test that is 100% accurate. Like, this thing always gets it right. They go into these tests, but they ask incredibly intrusive questions. Incredibly intrusive, like,

• 27:34Speaker 03

  who is more attractive, your partner or your partner's sister? Right? If your partner died, do you have someone in mind that you would turn to first? As an alternative?

• 27:49Speaker 04

  Love this.

• 27:50Speaker 03

  These are like incredibly harsh questions that no one wants to ask. And I thought the theory of all this was that Maybe relationships need a little bit of fantasy just to work. Just a little bit. If there's way too much honesty, if we know way too much about each other, that, we might not be ready for that because we don't quite love ourselves that much. I don't think we love humanity that much.

• 28:14Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 28:15Speaker 03

  And if you get that raw, you're not going to like the other person, and I don't think that relationship works.

• 28:20Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 28:20Speaker 03

  But I wanted to follow a couple that does this. And of course, disaster strikes and it's like, I didn't know that's how you felt. I didn't know that's how you felt. And I don't know how it ends. I don't know what the message is. I don't know what any of it is.

• 28:32Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 28:33Speaker 03

  Where would you go with that if you were the writer of this?

• 28:36Speaker 04

  Um, I don't know how you would end that. I really don't. But I love the concept. Maybe that's the ending is that you let the viewer decide for themselves what happens with this couple.

• 28:49Speaker 03

  You want to play it? You want to be the therapist? You want to be the one with the lie detector?

• 28:53Speaker 04

  Sure.

• 28:54Speaker 03

  Hook us up?

• 28:54Speaker 04

  Sure. I've been in short films before. My husband makes a lot of short films.

• 28:58Speaker 03

  Oh, okay. That's fun.

• 29:00Speaker 04

  This is awesome. Thank you.

• 29:01Speaker 03

  Yeah, this was really fun. Uh, let's do this again.

• 29:06Speaker 04

  I love the Dead series pan. Like, I will never do this again.

• 29:16Speaker 02

  That was a conversation between Baron Ryan and Stephanie R. Yates-Anye Boule for our original series, TED Intersections. Visit ted.com to watch this conversation and others from the series. If you're curious about TED's curation, find out more at ted.com/curationguidelines. And that's it for today's show. TED Talks Daily is part of the TED Audio Collective. This episode was produced and edited by our team, Martha Estefanos, Oliver Friedman, Brian Greene, Lucy Little, Alejandra Salazar, and Tonsika Sarmarnevon. It was mixed by Christopher Fazey-Bogan. Additional support from Emma Tobner and Daniela Balarezzo. I'm Elise Hu. I'll be back tomorrow with a fresh idea for your feed. Thanks for listening.

• 30:08Chris Duffy?

  This episode is sponsored by the Natural Resources Defense Council. Here's a question this show asks a lot. What can one person actually do? Take protecting the environment. When the task feels so big, it's hard to know where to even begin. Turns out, the answer isn't doing it alone. It's teaming up with people who care as much as you do. With the help of 3 million supporters, the Natural Resources Defense Council is in court to defend ancient forests, pristine coasts, and the wildlife that depend on them. None of these places or species can be replaced. They're still here because people fought for them, in and out of court. And that fight needs your support today. Donate at N R D C dot org slash human,

• 30:51Chris Duffy?

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• 31:36Chris Duffy?

  purchase in the past year.