You 2.0: The Practice of Patience

Patience can sometimes feel like a lost art, particularly in a culture that prizes competition and the idea of "failing fast." But psychologist Sarah Schnitker says patience is a vital skill for success in both our personal and professional lives. We talk with Sarah about the difference between patience and passivity, and how we can train ourselves to be more patient. Then, in our latest installment of "Your Questions Answered," Jennifer Tosti-Kharas responds to listeners' questions about how to find a calling, and how to set one aside if it's no longer serving you well.

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

• 0:02Shankar Vedantam?

  Hidden Brain visited 16 cities with our perceptions tour in 2025, and we're excited to visit even more communities across the US this year. We'll have more announcements about tour stops in the months to come. For now, I want to make sure you know about two live shows that are coming up soon. I'll be in Philadelphia at the Miller Theater on March 21st and at the Town Hall in New York City on March 25th. For tickets to either show, go to hiddenbrain.org/tour. That's hiddenbrain.org/tour. I hope to see you there. Okay, here's today's show. This is Hidden Brain.

• 0:47Shankar Vedantam?

  I'm Shankar Vedantam. In a famous Chinese parable, a man frustrated with all of his failures exiles himself to the woods. There, he meets a hermit with whom he shares his frustrations. "Give me one good reason not to quit," the man tells the hermit. The hermit points to a tall patch of foliage. "You see this bamboo?" he asks. "I nurtured it for a year, and it did not grow as much as an inch." But the hermit did not give up. The second year, he waters and nurtures the plot again. Nothing. A third year goes by. Again, nothing.

• 1:30Shankar Vedantam?

  Year four, the same. "By the fifth year," the hermit says, "a tiny sprout emerged from the earth, and within six months, the tree grew 100 feet tall." During all those years, when it appeared that nothing was happening, the bamboo was growing, underground, hidden from view. It had been rapidly spreading roots. "All the time you had been struggling," the hermit told the man, "you were growing strong roots." In the parable, the man learns his lesson and the value of persistence. He goes back to his life and continues his pursuits.

• 2:14Shankar Vedantam?

  It's beautiful, isn't it? This idea that we think we're getting nowhere, but our efforts might be paying off in ways we cannot see. Yet, it also raises an uncomfortable problem. How can you tell the difference between growing roots underground and when you're simply watering and nurturing a dead plot of land?

• 2:37Shankar Vedantam?

  Today on the show, we explore the conundrum of patience, when it makes sense to persist, even when you can't see what's happening below the surface, and when we should be impatient. Also, practical ways we can learn to be more patient, even in trying circumstances.

• 2:56Shankar Vedantam?

  Learning to Wait, this week, on Hidden Brain.

• 3:19Shankar Vedantam?

  Support for Hidden Brain comes from Farmers Insurance. At Farmers, they believe insurance should be in terms you can understand. Like with coverage on a page, you get a clear view of what is and isn't covered in your policy in plain, simple language, so you're not left with any surprises. Does your insurance do that? Check them out at farmers.com, underwritten by Farmers Truck or Fire Insurance Exchanges or Affilia. Products not available in every state.

• 3:50Speaker 01

  Working as a dedicated Fidelity advisor, I always ask, what's important to you? A look at those priorities and goals alongside your full financial picture to build a comprehensive plan designed to help grow and protect your wealth. With proactive portfolio insights and an eye on taxes, I'm here to help you make the most of your money. I'm Laura Maxwell, and I'm a dedicated Fidelity advisor. Learn more at fidelity.com/wealth. Investment minimums apply. Fidelity Brokerage Services, LLC, member NYSE, SIPC.

• 4:21Shankar Vedantam?

  Support for Hidden Brain comes from ADT. It's that time of year, back to school, back to work, back to routine. ADT wants to help you get back to home. With their customizable systems that can be professionally installed and the ADT Plus app that lets you access your whole system from your phone, ADT has your home security covered. Visit ADT.com or call 1-800-ADT-ASAP. When every second counts, count on ADT. From a young age, we are taught to be patient. Sit still, wait quietly, hold off eating one marshmallow in order to enjoy two later on.

• 5:05Shankar Vedantam?

  When we become adults, with more power over how many marshmallows we can have, patience often falls by the wayside. At Baylor University, psychologist Sarah Schnitker studies the science of patience. She says that being patient may be a lost skill for many of us, but it's also one that's frequently misunderstood. Sarah Schnitker, welcome to Hidden Brain.

• 5:27Speaker 02

  Thank you so much for having me today.

• 5:29Shankar Vedantam?

  Sarah, in 2012, a quarterback for the Washington DC football team was injured during a game against the Baltimore Ravens. What happened to Robert Griffin III, or RG3 as he was called?

• 5:42Speaker 02

  Yes, RG3, Baylor's hometown hero. What happened in that game is that he was tackled and they took him off the field, said, no, we're not going to play the rest of the game. They brought in Kirk Cousins, able to actually win the game. But RG3 really sustained this tough injury.

• 6:03Speaker 03

  RG3, now it looks like he's hurt his right leg. I mean, this would be devastating. You can watch his right leg. He's going to get... Oh, that didn't look good.

• 6:13Shankar Vedantam?

  So the next day was confirmed that he had a sprain and RG3 was asked to sit out the next game to heal. But the team's head coach reported that the star quarterback had been medically cleared to play. So he came back in that game to success. But all was not well with his knee, was it?

• 6:29Speaker 02

  No, all was not well. And the team doctor, who had supposedly medically cleared him, has since then said, no, I did not clear him. He should not have been playing. And I think there was just this immense pressure for RG3 to move back in. He was the superstar. He was this rookie sensation, the Heisman Trophy winner. He was all this energy behind him. And the coach and team just wanted him out there.

• 7:00Shankar Vedantam?

  The fans wanted him out there as well. I mean, I remember, you know, reading the newspapers in Washington DC at the time. And, you know, there was incredible excitement about RG3 coming to town. The Washington Football Team had not been a good team for a long time. And the belief was that he was going to turn everything around. And, you know, everywhere he went, he was treated like the, you know, like the second coming of the Messiah.

• 7:22Speaker 02

  Indeed. Indeed, he was. And, and I think in the United States, and especially in our sports stories, we love a recovery story, that someone gets injured, and they show this amazing grit, and push through and come out of it. And so I think this narrative of this superstar, almost superhuman, who can instantly recover, was pushing RG3 to come back.

• 7:59Shankar Vedantam?

  So he came back that same season to some success. But later on this season, during a wild card game in January of the following year, things took a turn for the worse. What happened, Sarah?

• 8:11Speaker 02

  Yes, things took a turn for the worst indeed. And he was tackled again and he re-injured his LCL. And he also tore a reconstructed ACL. And this is pretty devastating. I actually remember the fans at the time just being so sad that this rookie quarterback, who was seen kind of as the Messiah of the team, was injured again and had to sit out that season.

• 8:48Shankar Vedantam?

  So he ended up getting reconstructive surgery in the offseason. But of course, a few months later, the new season began. RG3 was encouraged to rush back into his starting role, even though he had not played a single game in the preseason. Adidas even got behind his return with a campaign all in for Week 1.

• 9:06Speaker 02

  It's wild to me how intense this became. And I mean, I think in many ways, it's unheard of to have your first game back be on Week 1 and not do any preseason. And what you saw in that game was exactly what you'd expect, that this person was not ready. They were getting tackled a lot, that there was not that speed and agility. RG3 needed more time to recover and needed more time to practice before going out into a real live game. And you saw then throughout that year, never really got back to his condition that he

• 9:50Speaker 02

  was in when he began as a rookie the year before.

• 10:02Shankar Vedantam?

  And in many ways, this is a tragic story, Sarah, because again, RG3 entered the Football League with just such incredible promise and hype. What became of his career?

• 10:12Speaker 02

  Well, you know, he never really performed the way that was hoped. And on social media said he regrets his decision to go back so quickly and wishes he had taken the time because he might have had a different career.

• 10:27Speaker 04

  I know I shouldn't have played that year. But when you're a player and you're in fight or flight mode, you're always going to choose to fight. Sometimes we want something so bad that we're willing to hurt ourselves for it. But there's a difference between doing something because you love it and doing the smart thing.

• 10:55Shankar Vedantam?

  Let's go from the world of sports to politics. In 2003, Howard Dean, a former governor of Vermont, announced his bid to become the Democratic presidential nominee for the 2004 election. He was an early critic of the US war in Iraq at a time when the war was still popular. Talk about how he rode a wave of anti-war sentiment among Democratic Party voters, especially younger voters, Sarah.

• 11:19Speaker 02

  He got this huge, incredible early lead from this energy and really had such a grassroots upswelling that people were excited. They were eager. He just went into Iowa with all this energy and excitement.

• 11:40Shankar Vedantam?

  There was a US senator who called Dean the Harry Truman of our time, the kind of plainspoken Democrat that we need. So he had a lot of enthusiasm behind him. What happened in that Iowa caucus?

• 11:52Speaker 02

  Oh, the Iowa caucus, it did not go so well for him. His main rivals, John Kerry, John Edwards, they really outperformed him. He came out third and he might have been able to recover from that. But there is this infamous speech he gave that night after coming in third that many say may have doomed him.

• 12:24Shankar Vedantam?

  So this was on January 19, 2004. Dean and his supporters gathered at the Valer Ballroom in West Des Moines, Iowa. And what he was looking to do was not just to concede Iowa, but to quickly reignite the enthusiasm of his supporters. What happened, Sarah?

• 12:43Speaker 02

  Well, his supporters were really enthusiastic at this speech. So he started yelling louder and louder. Now, unfortunately, the TV viewers who are watching this could not actually hear just how loud the crowd was. And so as he begins to shout over these cheers and get louder and louder, he starts to sound a little bit unhinged. And he ends with this full-throated kind of scream.

• 13:16Speaker 05

  We're going to Washington, D.C. to take back the White House! Ah!

• 13:22Speaker 02

  To me, it sounds like a dying goat. And this final "yeah" became known as the Dean scream or the "I have a scream" speech. But this was just replayed over and over on the news and really undermined kind of the seriousness of his candidacy.

• 13:48Shankar Vedantam?

  I think he was trying very quickly to get his supporters turned around after this defeat. And I think part of the problem was a mismatch between how urgent he felt the situation was and how urgent the situation actually was.

• 14:03Speaker 02

  Indeed. And, you know, sometimes when you have a loss or defeat, it's actually OK to take a few moments and lick your wounds, to just take the time, heal a little bit. But you see, when you watch this video, that he just wanted everyone to be pumped up and have that same energy that he had a week before Iowa. And instead of kind of letting that loss take its course and then come back, he just wanted instantly to push back into that energy and excitement and that kind of winning celebration mode. But he wasn't there. And so this scream just encapsulates that.

• 14:50Shankar Vedantam?

  I want to talk about one other case of impatience that had serious consequences, Sarah. We've all heard the phrase fail fast. Companies are often encouraged to rush their products to market and to fix problems later on. In 2016, Samsung rushed to release their new phone, the Galaxy Note 7. They wanted to beat Apple's release of the iPhone 7. Here's a clip from a news report about what happened next.

• 15:17Speaker 06

  It shows a Galaxy Note 7 apparently smoking, yeah, on fire, it would appear, at a fast food restaurant. One store employee, as you can see there, actually used her oven mittens to grab the device. That is not a good thing when one is trying to sell those devices to consumers.

• 15:37Shankar Vedantam?

  What happened to the Apple-Samsung race, Sarah?

• 15:41Speaker 02

  So Samsung had seen that they might have an opportunity. Apple iPhone 7 was going to be coming out that year, and everyone had heard, oh, it's going to be kind of a dull update. And Samsung thought this could be a great opportunity to deliver their new splashy product with the Galaxy Note 7. And so they were rushing to this deadline. However, as we heard in that clip, things did not go well. In their rush, they had some fatal flaws to those batteries. And this was creating all kinds of issues worldwide. And I think most ominously on airplanes,

• 16:25Speaker 02

  that the devices were overheating. And there was serious fear that this could cause a fire on a plane that would be really catastrophic. And so people were afraid to travel with their devices. There were warnings that came out. It was not good.

• 16:43Shankar Vedantam?

  I mean, I understand that Samsung eventually had to issue a recall. Regulators started banning the phone from various locations. This is not what you want when you're trying to sell a device to consumers.

• 16:54Speaker 02

  This is not what you want. And I was actually a Samsung owner at the time. And I remember like, oh, no, should I still be having this Samsung? I hadn't upgraded. It led to some serious loss of confidence in the brand. And so instead of doing the thing of actually capturing this new market by releasing before Apple, they actually were losing customers and losing profits because of that rush.

• 17:32Shankar Vedantam?

  In a world where we are encouraged to fail fast and make overnight recoveries from illness, injury, and setbacks, patience can seem like a lost art. When we come back, the psychology of patience and techniques to master the art of waiting. You're listening to Hidden Brain. I'm Shankar Vedantam.

• 18:06Shankar Vedantam?

  Support for Hidden Brain comes from Stripe. Stripe is built for whatever comes next because scaling your business model isn't a set it and forget a thing. You want to test, iterate, and launch new pricing plans constantly. With Stripe Billing, you can easily experiment with new subscriptions and launch new usage-based and hybrid pricing models so your revenue model can change as fast as your product and market fit evolve. Reach new customers, expand globally, and keep revenue operations ready for whatever comes next. Stripe billing powers any business model. It's built to support you no matter how much you scale with a network powering more than

• 18:45Shankar Vedantam?

  1.6% of global GDP and the partner of choice for 86% of Forbes AI 50 companies that have monetized to date. Learn how you can power any business model at stripe.com/billing.

• 18:59Speaker 07

  A rewarding workout shouldn't require rearranging your schedule or your floor plan. The Peloton Tread Flex delivers full instructor-led workouts, scenic hikes, and streaming in a foldable, movable tread. Unfold the deck to fit movement into your day. When you finish, the frame falls vertically to be easily moved out of the way. Everyday flexibility. Built to move. The new Peloton Tread Flex. Terms apply.

• 19:24Shankar Vedantam?

  This is Hidden Brain. I'm Shankar Vedantam. As a rule, human beings are not inclined toward patience. It's hard to sit quietly in traffic, to deal with a small screaming child in the seat behind you on a plane, to go through a global pandemic where many sources of avocation and entertainment are cut off.

• 19:45Shankar Vedantam?

  At Baylor University, Sarah Schnitker studies the psychology of patients. Sarah, let's go back to the height of the COVID pandemic. The world was scrambling to find answers to so many questions, including how to treat this rapidly spreading virus. In our fear and in our panic and our desire to get this behind us as quickly as possible, people reached for all manner of outlandish interventions. Here's one news clip that described the moment.

• 20:12Speaker 08

  The Poison Center is again warning you, drinking bleach will not prevent catching COVID-19. The Poison Center says 46 North Texans drank bleach since the start of August.

• 20:24Shankar Vedantam?

  Sarah, you say that our brains are wired for certainty. What do you mean by this?

• 20:30Speaker 02

  Yes, human beings want to have answers. We want to have a predictable world where we know when I do X, I get Y. And so we really struggle in situations like the global pandemic when we don't know what's going on. We don't know what to do. And you see people resorting to really dangerous behaviors like drinking bleach because someone told them this is a way to fix it, said it with certainty. And so we rush forward toward that certainty, even though it might actually harm us.

• 21:15Shankar Vedantam?

  And in some ways, when you see a story like this with a compassionate lens, the people who are doing this are doing this because they're afraid. They're doing this because they're worried. They're doing this because they're scared. They don't know what's going to happen and they're trying to protect themselves.

• 21:30Speaker 02

  Exactly. And I think this is not just kind of a minor fear. It's a global pandemic and I'm afraid I'm going to die or my loved ones are going to die. And our minds just latch on to something that sounds certain and take action. And that feels better and helps reduce that uncertainty.

• 21:54Shankar Vedantam?

  I'm wondering if you can talk a moment about why our brains despise uncertainty as much as they do, Sarah. What is the origin for this, do you think?

• 22:03Speaker 02

  Well, if you think about kind of our hunter gatherer ancestors, uncertainty often means a threat that when things are certain, even if there's something bad happening, you know at least what to expect and what to do. But when things are uncertain, it's just such an aversive state for people. And we have to not only prepare for threat, but we don't know what the solution is. And it really is tough. It takes a lot of effort to persist in that uncertainty. And it just doesn't feel good.

• 22:47Shankar Vedantam?

  I understand that you had a moment when you were a kid when you had to decide whether to invest in basketball. And in some ways, this was an example of your capacity to sit with uncertainty. Tell me that story. What were you like as a kid? And what was your basketball story?

• 23:05Speaker 02

  I grew up very tall, very quickly. So by the age 12, I was at my current height, which is 5 foot 11, which is quite tall for a woman in the United States. So everyone, when I was young, was telling me, oh, you must be so great at sports. You must be an athlete. You must play basketball or volleyball. And so when I joined the basketball team in fourth grade, I could not meet these expectations that I wasn't actually that great. I was new to it. The work arts were hard. I ended up crying at every single game

• 23:41Speaker 02

  we had. I know, it was so sad. And I remember my mother, who played basketball in college, was just like, what, why can't my daughter figure this out? What's wrong with her? At the end of that fourth grade season, I said, you know what? I'm not athletic. That felt much safer and more certain and secure, rather than saying, oh, maybe I stick with this for a couple of years and try it out. And maybe, maybe I actually can be good. I just need more practice. And you know, it's kind of one of those things. When I got to college, I started working out, just because my friends were. And I actually

• 24:26Speaker 02

  realized, I'm not bad at this. I can actually be somewhat athletic and strong and good at things related to sports. And so it's one of those things you look back on and say, oh, maybe I missed out from all the benefits of kind of a team sport that we see for female athletes in particular, just because it didn't come quickly and I was afraid, maybe I couldn't be good.

• 25:00Shankar Vedantam?

  So we've talked about how aversive it is to feel uncertainty, how miserable it can feel to wait. Can you talk about the role of boredom in driving impatience, Sarah?

• 25:10Speaker 02

  Yes, especially in the United States. But I think in plenty of cultures around the world, we really hate to be bored. I just think of myself as a child and now my own child. When you go on a road trip, it's just the constant, are we there yet? Are we there yet? Like, you asked me five minutes ago. No, we are not there. We just, we hate to be bored. And part of that boredom, too, is that I want the situation to be different. And yet I'm stuck in it and it's uncertain when it will end. That's why kids are constantly asking, are we there yet? But we're just stuck in it.

• 25:54Shankar Vedantam?

  We talked earlier about RG3, the football player who was rushed back to the sport after a set of serious injuries. You say that athletes are often discouraged from taking time off to heal because we want them back quickly. And I understand this played out with the Olympic gymnast Simone Biles.

• 26:13Speaker 02

  So Simone Biles, she had been at the Olympics in Tokyo and was finding herself on her twists and turns, losing kind of that sense of equilibrium in the air, and decided that she was not going to finish the competition, was going to take a break, take care of her mental health. She withdrew from the all-around and several finals and said, I've got to prioritize my well-being. I'm afraid I'm going to injure myself. I don't feel safe. I'm stopping and took that step back. People did not like this at the time.

• 26:56Speaker 02

  Some people applauded her, but others said she was letting down her teammates. Piers Morgan, I remember, said she's letting down her teammates, her fans, and even her country, that how dare she do this? And she should have pushed through and had that story of grit, like RG3. But what we actually see is that Simone Biles took all the time she needed and comes back to Paris in 2024 and absolutely killed it at the next Olympics. Became really the most decorated Olympic gymnast ever. So you see that she was able to actually be patient and wait.

• 27:37Speaker 02

  And instead of pushing to come back to competition too early, really listened to herself and prioritized her body and her mind and what it needed instead of pushing forward.

• 27:57Shankar Vedantam?

  You know, I recall when she withdrew from the Tokyo Olympics because she actually was with her teammates in Tokyo and she had been selected, she was representing the country. And there was a sense, I think, among some commentators that she was being selfish, that she had taken a spot on the national team and now was pulling out and, in fact, had deprived somebody else of the opportunity of competing in the Olympics. And of course, there was this trope of Simone Biles is a selfish person for not putting herself out there, no matter the cost. But of course, in the long run, it was not just the right decision for Simone Biles, it was the right decision for gymnastics in general and certainly for the United States in particular.

• 28:37Speaker 02

  Yes, she needed that time. And I mean, she just dominated later in 2024. And so I think it's a short sighted perspective in general in our culture. Instead of saying, things take time and we have to be patient, we want instant results. I mean, I'm truly amazed that Simone Biles had the strength to not cave into that pressure. I just thought it was incredibly courageous and patient what she did.

• 29:16Shankar Vedantam?

  I'm curious, Sarah, about the potential limits of patience. In his famous "Letter from Birmingham Jail," the Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. expressed his frustration with hearing the word "wait" time and time again when it came to civil rights. In another speech he made on the subject, he actually makes a case for the virtues of impatience. Here he is.

• 29:37Speaker 09

  We have also come to this hallowed spot to remind America of the fierce urgency of now. This is no time to engage in the luxury of cooling off or to take the tranquilizing drug of gradualism.

• 30:01Shankar Vedantam?

  Is patience always a virtue, Sarah?

• 30:03Speaker 02

  I think what we might say is that virtuous patience, good patience, is always a virtue. But there is a vice of what might be called too much patience. So you can be reckless and move forward with violence and recklessness toward your goal, which we often think about as impatience. But you can also fall prey to passivity or inaction or in waiting too long. And so to truly be doing patience well, we have to find that real sweet spot, that golden mean between recklessness and passivity.

• 30:42Speaker 02

  And so you see that MLK is calling out in this speech that, no, we should not be waiting any longer. We demand rights and equality. And MLK is just a really interesting example for patience because it takes immense patience to practice civil disobedience. And yet, he knew that patience had its limits and that just waiting around is not going to get you there towards a just and good society. And so you see this real tension of patience and action that people have to work out in their daily lives and in these historic events as well.

• 31:27Shankar Vedantam?

  How do we tell when we are at that sweet spot of patience, where we're not waiting too much, but we're not being reckless either?

• 31:35Speaker 02

  You know, one of the things that we've shown in our research is that a great indicator is that we should see that we're acting both with courage and patience. If you're only practicing patience and you don't see instances of courage, you might be coming too passive. So really, instead of thinking about patience just by itself, and as the only thing you should be trying to do, also thinking about, am I being courageous? And am I pursuing things even when I might be afraid or feel under threat? And balancing those two really seems to help to ensure that you're not becoming too patient and passive.

• 32:20Shankar Vedantam?

  And of course, we see that certainly in MLK's life. We see abundant patience, but also abundant courage.

• 32:26Speaker 02

  Exactly. We, in one of our studies, we tracked participants over four weeks and were looking at the goals they were pursuing and asked them about how much patience they were using in each goal and how much courage. And what we found is that when people had both patience and courage, like MLK, they did not show passivity or recklessness. But when they had one and not the other, that's when you see them starting not to pursue their goals really well and either becoming passive or reckless. So those two together are really key.

• 33:08Shankar Vedantam?

  When we come back, how we can all learn to be more patient and why we should. You're listening to Hidden Brain. I'm Shankar Vedantam.

• 33:29Speaker 10

  The Peloton Cross Training Series makes every workout personal. Peloton IQ helps you move smarter with personalized guidance based on your performance. Ready to lift heavier? Weight suggestions help you choose the right dumbbells, while form feedback perfects your posture, and rep tracking keeps count. Get accurate, real-time support from your built-in personal coach. Workout confidently on the Cross Training Series.

• 33:54Speaker 11

  If your child lives with type 1 diabetes, a low blood sugar is hard enough without trying to convince them to eat another chalky glucose tablet. That's where Glow Gummies come in. Delicious glucose gummies made with fast-acting dextrose to raise blood sugar quickly. In a soft gummy they'll actually want to eat. They're vegan, gluten-free, dye-free, don't melt or stick to teeth, and taste just as good as candy. Head to glowgummies.com, that's G-L-O-W gummies dot com, and use code PODCAST20 for 20% off.

• 34:28Shankar Vedantam?

  This is Hidden Brain. I'm Shankar Vedantam. Do you have questions about today's episode? Maybe you're someone who's known as exceptionally patient. What helps you to keep your cool? Have you ever lost your patience and paid a huge price for it? If you have a personal story you would be willing to share with the Hidden Brain audience, or a question or comment about this episode, please find a very quiet room and record a voice memo on your phone. Two or three minutes is plenty. Email the file to us at [email protected]. Use the subject line PATIENCE. That email address again is [email protected].

• 35:12Shankar Vedantam?

  In a world that thrives on instant gratification, it's easy to believe that patience is passive, something that involves sacrifice and clenched teeth. At Baylor University, psychologist Sarah Schnitker challenges this idea. She says there are ways to learn the art of patience and to make it less painful.

• 35:31Shankar Vedantam?

  Sarah, you say that there are three types of patience. You call the first interpersonal patience?

• 35:38Speaker 02

  Yes. The first type is really about being patient with other people. Being patient with your relationship partners, with your spouse, your children, your coworkers, with the person in front of you in line who can't seem to find the coins to make change because why are they paying in cash, right? This is all the people in our lives who require patience from us.

• 36:05Shankar Vedantam?

  Have you found that to be true in your life, Sarah? That when you have been patient with the relationships, in fact, they transform and become quite different than what you might have imagined at first?

• 36:15Speaker 02

  Yes, I have. And, you know, there's lots of things that can be disruptive to a relationship and things that annoy us about others. But as I got older, I've learned, like, you know what? Maybe this friend and I aren't on the same page right now. Let's still keep in touch. I might try to talk to them. But even if we can't resolve that specific conflict, we can come back around. And that there's something really lost when you give up on a new friendship or even an old one, when the person's having a hard time too soon. And that continuing just to be patient with others allows for the richness of deep relationships to really be a part of your life. And it just takes a lot of patience and waiting.

• 37:10Shankar Vedantam?

  So we've talked about interpersonal patience, but there is also the patience involved in dealing with setbacks at work and in life. Can you talk about the role of this challenge in your own life, Sarah? I understand that in the third year of grad school, you became very sick with a mysterious illness. What were the symptoms of this illness?

• 37:30Speaker 02

  Oh, it was, it was a really rough time. I started throwing up one night in the middle of the night. And I proceeded to kind of have chronic vomiting for months on end. I came to find out later, after I got a diagnosis, I have what's called cyclic vomiting syndrome, which is a pretty rare disorder. It's kind of like abdominal migraines. So it's in the brain, similar to migraines. But instead of getting a headache, I just would start throwing up. And it was really, really hard. It took me six months to find out a diagnosis.

• 38:12Speaker 02

  And I was studying patients and then given this life hardship where I had to actually practice my patients and deal with this chronic illness now for my entire life. It became apparent that this is not something that would go away. It was something that I'd have to learn to manage.

• 38:42Shankar Vedantam?

  I'm wondering, Sarah, if there were times when you felt so frustrated that you wanted to give up, but also felt somewhat hypocritical because you were studying patients?

• 38:52Speaker 02

  So I definitely felt that. But then there were other times when I also found that my research on patients encouraged me to take the time my body needed. I think I was learning, you know what? Pushing through is not always the answer. And I would actually make little rules for myself of like, okay, if you feel nauseous or are feeling ill, maybe go lay down for 20 minutes and see if that rest and kind of practicing mindfulness or kind of taking time, instead of just trying to push through on my work and write, taking the time and coming back and being a little bit more gentle with myself.

• 39:35Speaker 02

  I found when I did that, I could be much more successful across the course of a month and actually getting my work done. And so. Trying to learn instead of being like RG3, with just always pushing forward. I don't care about my body. My nausea doesn't matter. I'm just going to push forward. It would lead to like getting so sick that I would have to be hospitalized for fluids and dehydration. So just learning the lesson of Simone Biles of listening to my own mental health, listening to my own physical health, prioritizing those because without my body and my mind in a good place, I couldn't achieve my other goals.

• 40:18Speaker 02

  And so it was a really useful lesson to learn earlier in life because I think a lot of us don't learn that till later in life.

• 40:43Shankar Vedantam?

  So besides the challenges that come with our interactions with other people and the challenges that come with these life hardships, there's also the impatience we feel with daily hassles. Now, these don't rise to the level of crisis and catastrophe, but they're still a pain, right, Sarah?

• 41:02Speaker 02

  I think for a lot of people, when they hear the term patience, they think of being stuck in traffic and stuck in line. And what is it, the six months of life you'll probably stand in line? This is a huge amount of our time. You know, when we practice our patience in these daily hassles, not only does it improve that moment, but I also like to think of it as good practice for the bigger life hardships and for our relationships, that the daily hassles might be a nice lower stakes game to practice patience so that you're ready when you have that illness come up

• 41:45Speaker 02

  or your child frustrates you in a new way, that you're prepared for those things that might actually be more monumental.

• 41:58Shankar Vedantam?

  I want to go over some of your ideas on how we can build patience. You say that one way to do this is that when we're feeling impatient, we should stop and reflect on the experience. Now, I think most people want to do exactly the opposite. They don't want to focus on the fact that they're feeling impatient. In fact, they want to get rid of that feeling as quickly as possible. What's the point of dwelling on it, Sarah?

• 42:23Speaker 02

  Yes, I think it's somewhat counterintuitive, right? We often think of patience like, don't be upset, don't be upset. But we actually find that does not work. And people who are patient don't actually try to suppress their feelings. Instead, they acknowledge them and that it's OK to take that moment and say, oh, I'm really frustrated with this person in the workplace who is asking me the same question for the 15th time this week, or my partner who is doing, making that funny noise that they always make, or my child who's throwing a temper tantrum, right?

• 43:02Speaker 02

  We, we actually stop and pause and say, oh, this is what I'm feeling. And just let that feeling be there for a moment. That actually removes some of the power of that feeling. And what you also see is if you can almost try to observe that feeling as a third person, instead of just feeling it, to say, OK, this is what I'm feeling. I can understand why. That really is the first step to actually being patient.

• 43:32Shankar Vedantam?

  You also talk about the value of something you call reappraisal. What is reappraisal, Sarah?

• 43:38Speaker 02

  Yeah, so reappraisal is really just this trick of learning to think about a situation differently. So one common reappraisal strategy is benefit finding. So what is the good thing that I can notice in this scenario? And I know for myself, sometimes it's just, oh, great, this is an opportunity to practice my patience waiting in this line. Reappraisal could also include thinking about it from someone else's perspective. So why is this three-year-old screaming on the ground and kicking? Oh, because they don't have the words or the capacities to tell me what they want. And so this is all they've got, and I'm going to feel for them and how they're feeling. And so that reappraisal

• 44:24Speaker 02

  Is just shown across many, many studies just to be a highly effective way of regulating and helping yourself become more patient.

• 44:33Shankar Vedantam?

  The researcher Kate Sweeney ran a study that looked at how people spent their time during the COVID-19 pandemic. She found that some people were better able to deal with their impatience than others. Can you describe for me what the study found?

• 44:47Speaker 02

  Yes. What Kate and her colleagues found is that when people were able to immerse themselves in activities and experience what we call flow, that state really helped people to cope well with COVID-19 and all the stressors of the pandemic in China in particular during the most intense lockdowns. And so engaging in these flow experiences really helped people across time, not just in the moment, but even later, when the researchers followed up with them, people who were able to do that were able to be patient, whether it was cooking homemade meals or playing video games even,

• 45:32Speaker 02

  which we often think of as a negative thing. They found that that can actually induce a flow state. And this was important in that time of really heightened uncertainty.

• 45:51Shankar Vedantam?

  You know, I find sometimes when I'm waiting in line or waiting on hold, I'll pull out my phone and I'll start playing a game of chess. And within about five or six minutes, I'm so absorbed in the game that when someone finally comes on the phone, I'm like, why are you interrupting my game? This is, this is far more important than anything I need to talk to you about.

• 46:08Speaker 02

  Exactly. How dare you come back so quickly. Yes, I feel the same way. I love to do my writing when I travel. And so it makes that wait in the airport or on the plane just so much faster when I'm like, oh, no, the flight's almost over. I want longer. Yes, it's a good strategy.

• 46:38Shankar Vedantam?

  We've talked previously on the show, Sarah, about how purpose can give us patience when it comes to achieving difficult goals. When we know why we are doing something, it becomes easier to bear the setbacks along the way. Talk about the role of purpose in helping us deal with our impatience.

• 46:57Speaker 02

  It can really motivate us to do better when it comes to patience, when we have a reason for that waiting and for that suffering, that we need a higher order purpose, a why. Why do I continue to suffer in this way? Why should I wait for this thing patiently? When you have that big why, it becomes much easier to practice the how, to actually practice your reappraisal, to practice your naming of the emotion, to get into that flow state. And what we find is that when that purpose is bigger than yourself,

• 47:40Speaker 02

  it's not just about me and my pleasure and my positive emotions. Instead, it's something bigger than me. We find in our research that when people have that, they're actually able to be more patient and they actually grow more impatience over time.

• 47:58Shankar Vedantam?

  You ran a study involving Muslim adolescents during the month of Ramadan. What were these adolescents doing during Ramadan? And what did you find, Sarah?

• 48:07Speaker 02

  Yes, so Ramadan in Islam actually is called the month of patience. And so during the month of Ramadan, devout Muslims will dry fast from sunrise to sunset. So that means no food or drink, not even water, across all of daylight. And this is an incredibly challenging time, but it's also a time of great spirituality. And that the Islamic community, you see there are all kinds of special rituals and prayers and meals to break the fast or to begin it. And so what we found in our research is that when teenagers were engaged in this Ramadan

• 48:52Speaker 02

  sacred time, that they actually grew in their patience. And then what was really cool is that a month after Ramadan was over, so back to just kind of normal daily life, they actually sustained some gains in patience. So they were still more patient than before Ramadan had began. So what we interpret is going on here is that they are doing this really difficult training in patience, and it feels like suffering in the moment. And you really want to be able to get that drink, and having to wait for that sun to set is difficult. So when they practice their patience, but do it for a bigger reason, to bring glory

• 49:35Speaker 02

  to Allah and to be a part of their community and do this together with others, it really seems to be a powerful intervention that, I'm not doing this for myself or my physical fitness, I'm doing this because this is what good Muslims do, and we are doing this for the sake of this higher power. And that is an incredibly potent experience, and our data show that it indeed has these benefits for patience long term.

• 50:07Shankar Vedantam?

  I understand that this work has been echoed by other research you did that looked at young adults who were training for marathons?

• 50:14Speaker 02

  Yes, we also looked at adolescents and young adults who were running half or full marathons with a philanthropic training team. And what we found is that they didn't necessarily grow in patience if they were just doing the training for health and fitness reasons. The philanthropic purpose of the training team was to raise money for clean water efforts in about eight African countries when they were running for the sake of helping those other people, or running to grow spiritually, to get closer to God. When they ran for those motives that were bigger than themselves, that's when you see them also grow in their patience through this training activity.

• 51:06Shankar Vedantam?

  I'm wondering, Sarah, if we can take a moment and talk about what scientists like yourself are finding about the costs of impatience.

• 51:15Speaker 02

  Yes, we see that impatience leads to not just irritability or negative emotions, but higher risk of heart problems, difficulty handling stressors, stress starts to actually become anxiety. We see it can lead to a lack of self-control. We also see that impatience is associated with loneliness. So I think this makes a lot of sense. If you are unable to be patient with other people and you are impatient toward them, that's going to be a strain on the relationship. It's going to be harder to have those deep connections.

• 51:54Speaker 02

  Then we also see one of the most robust associations we found in my research is that impatience is associated with greater depressive symptoms. And conversely, that patience helps to ameliorate depression symptoms over time.

• 52:31Shankar Vedantam?

  There's one form of patience that I think we have not discussed, Sarah, and that is patience with ourselves. We've talked about how we need to be patient with others, with the illnesses that afflict us, with hardships, with the hassles of daily life. But as we look at ourselves, and especially if we look at ourselves honestly and critically, we will find flaws and we will find limitations. And that is a source of frustration as well. Can you talk a moment about the value of being patient with ourselves?

• 53:02Speaker 02

  Patience with ourselves is quite critical. Oftentimes, people have expectations for themselves that might even be higher than the expectations they have for others. And so patience with ourselves is partly recognizing our own limitations as humans, that we are not superhuman, that we are just human beings and flawed like everyone else. Just like we have to have self-compassion, we also have to have patience with ourselves

• 53:39Speaker 02

  and realize that growth, and whether that's growth in our character, our morals, our abilities, our relationships, that we're not going to be where we want to be right now, and that it's a long game. There was a famous quote, I think it was Stanislaw Leck, said, "You have to have a lot of patience to become more patient." And someone might listen to a session like this and say, "Okay, I'm going to become more patient," and really try to do it quickly, and then become discouraged and just give up and say, "Oh, I'm just an impatient person. I can't be good at this."

• 54:21Speaker 02

  So I think learning to have patience is a slow go, and it's going to take lots of practice. And I don't think anyone gets it done very quickly.

• 54:41Shankar Vedantam?

  Sarah Schnitker is a psychologist at Baylor University. Sarah, thank you so much for joining me today on Hidden Brain.

• 54:48Speaker 02

  Thank you for having me.

• 54:55Shankar Vedantam?

  Do you have a story to share with the Hidden Brain audience on the subject of patience? Maybe you're someone who's known as exceptionally patient. What helps you to keep your cool? Have you ever lost your patience and paid a huge price for it? If you have a personal story you would be willing to share with the Hidden Brain audience, or a question or comment about this episode, please find a very quiet room and record a voice memo on your phone. Two or three minutes is plenty. Email the file to us at [email protected]. Use the subject line, "Patience." That email address again is [email protected]. You're listening to Hidden Brain. I'm Shankar Vedantam.

• 55:50Speaker 07

  A rewarding workout shouldn't require rearranging your schedule or your floor plan. The Peloton Tread Flex delivers full instructor-led workouts, scenic hikes, and streaming in a foldable, movable tread. Unfold the deck to fit movement into your day. When you finish, the frame falls vertically to be easily moved out of the way. Everyday flexibility. Built to move. The new Peloton Tread Flex. Terms apply.

• 56:12Speaker 11

  If your child lives with type 1 diabetes, a low blood sugar is hard enough without trying to convince them to eat another chalky glucose tablet. That's where Glow Gummies come in. Delicious glucose gummies made with fast-acting dextrose to raise blood sugar quickly. In a soft gummy, they'll actually want to eat. They're vegan, gluten-free, dye-free, don't melt or stick to teeth, and taste just as good as candy. Head to glowgummies.com, that's G-L-O-W gummies dot com, and use code PODCAST20 for 20% off.

• 56:45Shankar Vedantam?

  This is Hidden Brain. I'm Shankar Vedantam. In his final semester in college, a young Harrison Ford took an acting class. A self-described loner, he used acting to get over his shyness. In the process, he became obsessed with learning how to tell a story. Harrison Ford pursued acting as a career and secured a weekly contract with a Hollywood studio as a small-time TV actor. It was a decent start, but he craved more. He wanted to be a star.

• 57:21Shankar Vedantam?

  At the same time, the struggling actor had a wife and two young sons. He had purchased a rundown home in the Hollywood Hills and spent his free time teaching himself to fix it up. Eventually, to pay the bills, he decided to quit his TV contract and become a full-time carpenter.

• 57:42Shankar Vedantam?

  But Harrison Ford never quite gave up the dream of landing a major film role. One day, he ran into an old acquaintance as he was working on a carpentry project for the director Francis Ford Coppola. The acquaintance? A young director named George Lucas. The director asked the wannabe movie star to read lines with actors auditioning for his new film. It was a little project called Star Wars.

• 58:11Shankar Vedantam?

  The rest, as they say, is history. Harrison Ford landed a starring role in one of the most significant movie franchises of the 20th century. He hasn't done many carpentry gigs since then.

• 58:26Shankar Vedantam?

  We hear success stories like this all the time. The actress waiting tables, the musician ghostwriting songs, the writer toiling at an advertising agency. They labor in obscurity until one fine day, they catch a break and become famous.

• 58:45Shankar Vedantam?

  There's something irresistible about these stories. They give us hope that we too will catch a break, that we too will get to pursue meaningful work that we love.

• 58:57Shankar Vedantam?

  At Babson College, Jennifer Toasty-Carras studies the benefits and the costs of having a calling. She joined us for a recent episode. It was titled Passion Versus Paycheck. Today, we welcome Jennifer back to answer listener questions in our popular segment, Your Questions Answered. Jennifer Toasty-Carras, welcome back to Hidden Brain.

• 59:19Speaker 12

  Thank you so much, Shankar. I am beyond thrilled to be back.

• 59:24Shankar Vedantam?

  Jen, your graduate school advisor, Amy Rizneski, came up with a framework to help us understand how people think about their relationships to work. She suggested that people think of their work in one of three ways: as a job, as a career, or as a calling. Talk about these three categories and what Amy found when she asked people to talk about their work.

• 59:45Speaker 12

  So, just to break them down, a job orientation is when you work primarily for the extrinsic rewards from that work. So, work is a means to an end, and it's typically a financial end. So, working primarily for the money it provides, and maybe then you pursue a passion outside of work, that's a job. A career is when you similarly work as a means to an end, but this time it is the means to advancing within either an organizational hierarchy, picture climbing the typical career ladder, or gaining respect and centrality in an occupational community.

• 1:00:26Speaker 12

  So, picture like, you know, coders who like to gain the respect of others, like, whoa, you wrote that code. That would be a career orientation toward the work. Then finally, we have a calling. And when work is a calling, it is not a means to an end, but a meaningful end in and of itself. It is a source of fulfillment, of passion. You often feel consumed by the work, and often, but not always, you would say, your work makes the world a better place. It's just a major, major part of who you are, pretty much inseparable from life compared to the other two.

• 1:01:06Shankar Vedantam?

  One of the things that I find intriguing is that Amy found that people who fell into all three categories, regardless of what their jobs were, so you could ask the same questions of three surgeons, or three accountants, or three journalists, and find that the same job did not hold the same meaning for different people. What do we make from that, Jen?

• 1:01:25Speaker 12

  Yeah, absolutely. So the meaning of the work in this framework is really in the eye of the beholder. So just as you said, you can have two people, same job, same organization, you know, same occupation, and one feels it's a job and one feels it's a calling. And that means I could be working right alongside you or even with you on a work team, and we feel very differently about about the meaning that that work has within our lives. I think another interesting thing that Amy found is that this distribution of jobs, careers, and callings, which was about a third, a third, and a third across

• 1:02:04Speaker 12

  people in a given population, really held regardless of the type of work. So it was as common in professionals as it was in, for example, administrative assistants. So this notion that, oh, you know, everybody who works or more people who work as a, you know, lower level in the organization feel their work is a job, and people with, you know, very immersive or important occupations might feel their work as a calling, that didn't really hold either. So really, I think what we make of this is that it's less about

• 1:02:42Speaker 12

  what you're doing, and even maybe less about you and this interaction of you and the job that creates the meaning.

• 1:02:54Shankar Vedantam?

  We discussed this during our last conversation, but can you remind us of some of the benefits of having passion in your work or finding a calling?

• 1:03:03Speaker 12

  Yeah, a lot of the benefits of calling are really driven by an extra engagement in and motivation to do that work. So these are the employees who go above and beyond. They put in the effort. They, you know, show up to work even, you know, they don't miss as much work. The work they do is is potentially very good and very high quality. They're very, very diligent about it. They just, they care about doing that work a lot. And then, similarly, there are benefits for the worker themself. So, research, including my own, has found that experiencing a calling toward your work

• 1:03:47Speaker 12

  spills over to benefit your life as a whole. So, we might say, it gives your life meaning, it gives you a purpose. That's really good for us in general. It can lead us to feel our lives are good, thinking about life as a whole and not just life at work.

• 1:04:03Shankar Vedantam?

  Hmm. One of the things that I really enjoyed about our last conversation is that you not only talked about the benefits of having a calling, but some of the potential downsides of having a calling. What are some of them?

• 1:04:17Speaker 12

  Yeah, so this is sort of that other side of the coin, that as good as callings can be, there's also this side of it where that extra passion, that extra effort, that willingness to go above and beyond, can turn into an overcommitment, where you're almost doing too much. You're putting in too much of yourself and then not leaving room for other areas of your life and potentially opening yourself up to exploitation. So, along with my co-author on my book, Is Your Work Worth It?, Christopher Michelson, we've started exploring in some more recent work, this notion that maybe callings are

• 1:05:01Speaker 12

  best experienced not as an extreme high or an extreme low, but really in this sort of middle space. And when we push to those extremes is when we see some of the downsides, either we're not at all committed or we're overcommitted.

• 1:05:19Shankar Vedantam?

  Let's turn now to questions from the audience. We heard from a listener named Elizabeth, who says she and her husband have very different expectations about what they will get out of work.

• 1:05:31Speaker 13

  I grew up in a family focused on each of us kids finding our calling. Fast forward to me as an adult, and I've tried all different kinds of helping professions in my 15 years post-college in the work field, and I'm still trying to figure it out. And my husband is tired of me complaining about work not being the perfect fit for me. My husband grew up in a blue collar community, and to him, work is work.

• 1:06:14Speaker 13

  You just find something that pays the bills, and the idea of a calling was kind of a foreign concept. And so this has been this tension that I've been examining more and more as I continue to seek and not find my calling.

• 1:06:32Shankar Vedantam?

  In some ways, Jen, what Elizabeth is saying is that people who think of their work as a job and people who think of their work as a calling might look at one another with mutual incomprehension.

• 1:06:43Speaker 12

  So Elizabeth, thank you for sharing that perspective. That is actually such a common occurrence for couples to have what we might call incongruent work orientations. One feels it's a job, the other feels it's a calling, that it can make it hard to know, what do I really want in work? And that this is, and you almost question, just as Elizabeth is doing, you know, is this really what I want? And is, you know, what, sort of what am I looking for and what do I value? And greater incongruence not only leads to, you know, uncertainty and a longer job

• 1:07:25Speaker 12

  search, but ultimately a lower probability of reemployment. The more incongruence of your work orientation with your partner, The less satisfied you are with your job. There's an interesting caveat to that unless you are the one with the higher calling, and then you are more satisfied with your job. So it's almost this like social comparison. Now Elizabeth's example, I think, speaks more to the seeker nature of this. But it suggests that if she were to be employed and feel that that work was her calling, she might actually experience more satisfaction as a function of her husband viewing his

• 1:08:10Speaker 12

  work as just a job.

• 1:08:12Shankar Vedantam?

  Is there any research that explains why it is different people might look at work as a job versus look at it as a calling? Does it have to do with our upbringing and what we've been taught as children?

• 1:08:24Speaker 12

  Yeah, so there, I mean, definitely needs to be significantly more work done on this. But there are a few studies, and I want to point to one by Catherine DeGuss and Wayne Baker, that looked at exactly what happens in adolescents through socialization with parents. So no surprise, we start thinking about work early in our lives through interaction with, you know, significant others, but a huge influence on us is our parents. What our parents, you know, feel about their work, the meaning they make of their work, influences us, and it does so in some pretty interesting ways.

• 1:09:02Speaker 12

  So kids develop stronger calling orientations when both parents possess strong calling orientations. Other work has looked at the journey toward when we feel our work is a calling and finds that just having role models and influences, seeing people kind of model the way of experiencing their work as a calling, can be inspiring to us. Now, of course, the other side of that is pressure, but it can be inspiring to us. And so, parents might be our earliest form of those role models.

• 1:09:37Shankar Vedantam?

  There are many professions that people enter into as a calling. But once in the profession, they find that there are significant portions of that profession that involve boring activities or mundane activities. I'm thinking about someone who decides to become a firefighter. And so they have this very glamorous vision of running into burning buildings and rescuing people. But if you're a firefighter, much of your time actually is just spent sitting around, waiting for someone to call. And a lot of the job might actually be quite boring. I'm wondering what happens, Jen, when people who expect that their work is going to be unendingly interesting and glamorous encounter the boring parts that come with every profession?

• 1:10:18Speaker 12

  Yeah, I try to really give my students a realistic preview of that. Like, even the most meaningful work does not feel meaningful all the time. So I think just even having this realistic preview of like, you're a firefighter, but it's not all glamour and excitement and how it seems on TV shows and movies. Now, of course, when we're talking about firefighters, I do think about work by Mike Pratt and colleagues that looked specifically at callings and firefighters and found that a lot of what really drives them is the camaraderie with the other firefighter. So it's funny, like, I could be bored, sitting around the firehouse, but I'm with my buddies, and that's really, that's who I show up for.

• 1:11:02Speaker 12

  And even in the glamorous role of putting out a five-alarm blaze, I'm thinking about them and keeping them safe, and it sort of translates over. But I want to entertain your idea of, you know, I have lofty goals, and then I get in my job, and it is just, you know, there is not a lot to remind me about that bigger picture. Sometimes what I would recommend is just trying to see the way that the work, though boring, is still helping. And that could be helping you. It could be helping, you know, you and your pursuits, or your family, or what happens outside of work.

• 1:11:42Speaker 12

  It could be helping society, just you don't feel you're personally responsible for it. But I think it's sort of this, there needs to be some kind of a balance between having a realistic expectation that even the most lovable work is not lovable every single minute of every single day, and also thinking about, you know, how much... There does become a point at which I think if you are unable to sustain a meaningful connection to the work you're actually doing, you do need to listen to that and think about, when is it time to change things up?

• 1:12:24Shankar Vedantam?

  When we come back, how our passions change over time and ways to find a new calling when your old one no longer satisfies you. You're listening to Hidden Brain. I'm Shankar Vedantam.

• 1:12:48Speaker 10

  The Peloton Cross Training Series makes every workout personal. Peloton IQ helps you move smarter with personalized guidance based on your performance. Ready to lift heavier? Weight suggestions help you choose the right dumbbells, while form feedback perfects your posture, and rep tracking keeps count. Get accurate, real-time support from your built-in personal coach. Work out confidently on the Cross Training Series.

• 1:13:12Speaker 11

  If your child lives with type 1 diabetes, a low blood sugar is hard enough without trying to convince them to eat another chalky glucose tablet. That's where Glow Gummies come in. Delicious glucose gummies made with fast-acting dextrose to raise blood sugar quickly. In a soft gummy, they'll actually want to eat. They're vegan, gluten-free, dye-free, don't melt or stick to teeth, and taste just as good as candy. Head to glowgummies.com, that's G-L-O-W-gummies.com, and use code PODCAST20 for 20% off.

• 1:13:46Shankar Vedantam?

  This is Hidden Brain. I'm Shankar Vedantam. Do what you love, and you'll never work a day in your life. It's a phrase we've all heard, and many of us have internalized the idea that if you experience a deep passion for what you do, your work won't feel like a burden. In fact, the word work itself comes from the ancient Greek term ergon, which means the outcome of someone who achieves an inner desire, a purpose.

• 1:14:17Shankar Vedantam?

  At Babson College, Jennifer Toasty-Carras studies how we find meaning in our work and the benefits and the costs of pursuing a calling.

• 1:14:28Shankar Vedantam?

  Jen, one interesting sentiment we heard from listeners is that one's passion for work can evolve over time, perhaps because of the work itself or changing life circumstances. A listener named Christina is in her mid-30s and has been able to make ends meet as a part-time singer in New York City, but she recently decided to take a full-time day job.

• 1:14:49Speaker 14

  Things changed for me in the past few years. I just realized that I needed more structure, more stability, and there are other things I want in life, like I've wanted a cat for a long time. I'd like to travel a little bit more, see my family without having to worry about every single cent I spend on plane tickets to go see them, you know, own a home someday. And those things just wouldn't be possible if I continued on the trajectory I was on. And so, starting this new day job has been interesting because rather than making me feel like I've lost something, I feel like I've gained something.

• 1:15:24Shankar Vedantam?

  What I find striking about Christina's story, Jen, is that she doesn't seem to feel what many others feel. She doesn't feel like she has sold out or traded down or given up on what matters to her. In some ways, she has expanded her definition of what matters to her.

• 1:15:39Speaker 12

  Yeah, so I love Christina's story, and I think that this is very emblematic that the only way for work to have meaning is not just to feel that work has to be a calling. So, work can be meaningful and, in fact, a lot to one's life if it's a job that fuels our passion or our meaningful life outside of work. And I think Christina's story is an example of this. And we tend to, we venerate callings in our society, but they're not the end-all, be-all. We talked earlier about the problems that they can cause for people and actually directly for having a more balanced life. And so, I think that...

• 1:16:25Speaker 12

  You know, a typical life change that might affect how we view our work is partnering, maybe having kids or other dependents and suddenly feeling like the best use of my time is to not only provide for those other people in our lives, but be able to spend time with them. So shifting away from sort of what I always thought I wanted to do in an ideal world where money didn't matter or, you know, other things in life didn't matter and sort of this, you know, ideal bumps up against the reality of how we actually want to live our lives.

• 1:17:04Shankar Vedantam?

  Hmm.

• 1:17:07Shankar Vedantam?

  Many of us do struggle when our passion is no longer within reach. Perhaps we lose a job or we fall out of love with our current one. A listener named Wendy was a federal worker who recently got fired as part of the Trump administration's mass layoffs. Here she is.

• 1:17:23Speaker 15

  All of my stuff went into storage yesterday. I'm moving out of my place to go stay with my little sister while I try to figure out a new career. But there's a lot of emotional processing that I'll need to do as well as I come to understand what the loss of this job, this work means for me.

• 1:17:42Shankar Vedantam?

  What does this process look like for most people, Jen? As I hear Wendy, I'm hearing grief, someone who's dealing with a loss.

• 1:17:49Speaker 12

  Absolutely. So I'm so glad and honored to hear Wendy's story, and I think I'm also really holding some very deep sympathy for her because these layoffs affected government workers who, many of them, chose government work specifically to help in a broader, in a broader way, help our society, help our country. They weren't necessarily thinking about more extrinsic reasons for working. I mean, again, this is a prototypical kind of area. We would expect to see some strong callings. And so I think, you know, regardless of your orientation toward your work, losing a job is really hard.

• 1:18:33Speaker 12

  It can lead to everything from just a more fundamental question about, you know, will I be able to? Put food on the table, maintain my rent, keep my lifestyle, what else will have to change in my life? To these really higher order questions of who am I? What is my identity now that I'm not working? I miss my friends who were part of that workplace. I mean, it's a loss on sort of every level. So I think to equate it to, you know, grief, loss, and to have a grieving process, I mean, that is borne out in research on job loss. There is absolutely, if you will, more loss than just the job. There's sort of everything that goes with it. And including, and especially for someone for whom the work was a strong calling,

• 1:19:18Speaker 12

  this idea that it's part of my identity. It gives meaning to my life. So there's a, there's really a lot that's lost there. And I think this notion that we can just easily, you know, plug and play and replace that loss becomes even harder the more attached we were to that job.

• 1:19:39Shankar Vedantam?

  We heard from a journalist named David, who's struggling with the state of his industry. He finds himself questioning the stories he was told about his supposed calling.

• 1:19:49Speaker 16

  If your original belief in a calling was predicated on something that you subsequently learned was wrong, you start to question whether the work is your calling. So what do you do then? What happens if you realize your work might not be your calling? Or no longer is your calling? I know that people pivot in life. Can people have multiple callings within their careers and lifespans?

• 1:20:14Shankar Vedantam?

  In some ways here, Jen, I'm hearing an echo of what Wendy said. David is also saying in some ways that he was given a promise, and the promise didn't hold up. And I'm hearing almost a sense that he feels betrayed by the promise not working out. What do you make of this question? Can people in fact have multiple callings within one lifetime?

• 1:20:35Speaker 12

  Let me start by saying I think David's story will resonate with a fair number of people. The world is changing so much. Technology is coming online. I mean, all the endless discussions about AI and what will be left of a lot of our jobs once we, you know, fully realize sentient AI. And I think there's a lot of concern that the callings that we imagined might not be the callings that we're living out. And that's a, that's a real concern and I think a real problem. So, you know, beyond journalism or government work, sort of, I think a lot of people can, can really identify with that. When it comes to multiple callings, there's interesting research by Justin Berg, Adam

• 1:21:20Speaker 12

  Grant, and Victoria Johnson. And they find that even if we have, on the one hand, fulfilled one of our callings, we're still very acutely aware that there's something else out there that we're not doing. And that every time we're sort of reminded of that unfulfilled calling, we are really motivated to go seek it out. So absolutely, the notion that this metaphor of calling is like a romantic partner and there's just one out there for you and you just have to find it. And once you find it, it's smooth sailing. I mean, just the same way that we are unpacking this notion about romantic partners or, you know, life partners.

• 1:22:05Speaker 12

  It's a very similar thing for work and for callings. For most of us, there's not just one calling out there and we have to venture to find it, but rather that we can, there can be multiple things that would fulfill us and that, I always say, when in doubt, just have experiences, try to, you know, learn from trial and error and reflect on what's working and what's not. Because odds are, it's out there if you are attentive to it and looking for it.

• 1:22:42Shankar Vedantam?

  We got a lot of listener questions about your research, Jen. It was a really popular topic with our audience. And I think the reason is because, especially in the US, our work lives play such a central role in our identities. A listener named Midian called in. She's worked in the film industry for more than 20 years as a makeup effects artist. But recently, she became jaded. So she's transitioned into a role that involves teaching and training other makeup artists. But she says it's been a tricky change to navigate.

• 1:23:12Speaker 12

  This transition has been so painful, mostly because I am makeup effects. And what am I without that? Has been quite a process. And I've had to just like, go again. Get rid of everything. I'm moving to Albania. I'm going to just let it all go. And the more I let go, the better I am feeling.

• 1:23:39Shankar Vedantam?

  I'm wondering, Jen, if you can talk about the link between who we are and what we do for work. Because one thing I'm hearing in Midian's question is that for her, her job was not just a calling. Her job was who she was.

• 1:23:52Speaker 12

  Yeah, I actually wrote down Midian's quote, "I am makeup effects. What am I without that?" That's such a powerful way of stating, I think, the emotional experience of callings for many people, that it's not just what I do, it's who I am. And I think part of that is, it's very American. I think it's a very culturally situated view. But I also think it's something that is definitional to a strong calling. It's certainly the way I think about it. It is not just the fact that I understand why I'm doing my work in a broader picture, but it really says something about me and my values and then transmits it to others.

• 1:24:36Speaker 12

  Often, when we measure callings, one of the scale items that we use, that we ask people to agree or disagree with, is one of the first things that I tell people about myself is what I do for work. And I just think that really says it all. It's a point of pride. It's a point of identity. And so then, of course, as Midian is saying, to go without it feels...

• 1:25:01Speaker 12

  Especially challenging. We almost can't imagine it. I do wonder, can that give you the sense that I found it once before, I can find it again? I think that's what I would like to be the optimistic view of this for those who have experienced a calling and then maybe fallen, you know, whether it was taken away from them or they chose something different, fallen out from their calling. I would like to think there's some hope.

• 1:25:28Shankar Vedantam?

  You know, hearing these notes from listeners really shows me how much of a hunger there is for callings out there. So many people really want to feel inspired by what they're doing. We heard from many listeners wondering about finding a calling in retirement. Has there been research looking specifically at finding a passion later in life, Jen?

• 1:25:50Speaker 12

  I mean, there is research on how to think about retirement and actually embracing retirement, sort of not as an endpoint when life is over. I mean, I think a lot of people view it like that. So I can't imagine what I would do if I wasn't working. And again, this is part of this cultural message that we're often fed that says, who you are is what you do. And if you're no longer doing work, you know, do you even have value? But I think that retirement is an opportunity for people to, I think, pursue passions or do meaningful, I mean, work or do meaningful, you know, volunteer activities or hobbies

• 1:26:32Speaker 12

  that maybe work got in the way of. So the people that I, you know, and again, this isn't research, but more anecdotal, but the people I know who are happiest in retirement really see the benefits. They're not sort of focusing on the fact that work went away, but they're focusing on the benefits that retirement opens up for them in terms of, wow, I could never hike all the high peaks in my area when I had a day job. I could never learn a new skill that now I, you know, practice every day when I was working. What does retirement open up? Time and other resources to do that you couldn't do before.

• 1:27:16Speaker 12

  So it's really not an ending of anything, or sort of an ending of certainly life, but a chance to live in a new and hopefully more meaningful way.

• 1:27:36Shankar Vedantam?

  When we come back, Jen shares her advice for people still searching for their calling. You're listening to Hidden Brain. I'm Shankar Vedantam.

• 1:27:55Speaker 11

  If your child lives with type 1 diabetes, a low blood sugar is hard enough without trying to convince them to eat another chalky glucose tablet. That's where Glow Gummies come in. Delicious glucose gummies made with fast-acting dextrose to raise blood sugar quickly. In a soft gummy, they'll actually want to eat. They're vegan, gluten-free, dye-free, don't melt or stick to teeth, and taste just as good as candy. Head to glowgummies.com, that's G-L-O-W gummies dot com, and use code PODCAST20 for 20% off.

• 1:28:26Speaker 17

  Quick question, how much of your day is spent typing? Emails, Slack, notes, prompts to ChatGPT. Whisperflow is a voice-to-text app. Instead of typing, you talk, and it types for you. And any app on your Mac, Windows, iPhone, or Android. It takes out the ums, fixes the typos, and the result sounds like you wrote it, four times faster than typing. So the email that used to take two minutes now takes 30 seconds. Whisperflow is free. Download it at whisperflow.ai. That's W-I-S-P-R flow dot AI.

• 1:28:56Speaker 18

  Don't you wish everything was more rewarding? With Rakuten, almost everything is. You can earn cash back on those shoes you've been wanting. You can save on the next trip you book. You can cash in on groceries. Just shop your favorite brands and save. It's that easy. And there are several ways to get paid, including PayPal, check, points, and gift cards. So go ahead, take a trip, build that cart. Join a world of rewards. Go to rakuten.com or get the app.

• 1:29:27Shankar Vedantam?

  This is Hidden Brain. I'm Shankar Vedantam. At Babson College, Jennifer Toasty-Carras says finding a calling in work can lead to a range of benefits for our physical and mental health. But the pursuit of a calling can also come at a cost. Jen, let's talk a moment about some of those drawbacks. Here's a listener named Catherine who had a question about it.

• 1:29:48Speaker 19

  I just turned 40 yesterday, and what I really wanted to do for my birthday was work. I run a company that makes artwork, and it's a luxury brand. And it looks very successful on the outside. But when I was recently featured in The Wall Street Journal, I couldn't even afford more than two copies of the paper. Most weeks, I end up with just a few dollars in my own account. And more than that, the sacrifices you talked about really resonated. The work is exhausting and sometimes even dangerous. I will probably die from the work.

• 1:30:29Speaker 19

  I have to get heavy metal blood testing every month and will probably develop psilocosis, or have already. But it feels meaningful to support artists and create something lasting. Thank you for reminding me that I'm not alone in trying to balance passion with paycheck.

• 1:30:47Shankar Vedantam?

  So if I'm hearing Catherine right, Jen, she's really driven and she feels passionately about her work, but she's also struggling economically and sacrificing her health to do what she loves. How can a person think about balancing those competing priorities in their life?

• 1:31:03Speaker 12

  So what I think is so telling and powerful about Catherine's, what Catherine said just now, is that, I mean, to me, this is such a prototypical downside of a strong calling story, in that it's almost like you can't help but not do it. You know it's probably too much. You know that probably it's not great for your health or not great for your relationships, but you just, you've... You've got to do it almost at all costs. I mean, to me, this is that strong calling verging on a too strong calling. And so in terms of how to balance this better, I do think, I mean, Catherine seems nothing,

• 1:31:47Speaker 12

  if not self-aware about the situation. That would be the first step is just, are you even sort of aware of the toll that it's taking on you? She seems to be, and then at the same time saying, but she still continues to choose it. I think it's very important to pay attention to if this is a long game and if you are, your, you know, psychological health, your physical health, your relationships with others who enable your life or keep you grounded are compromised, but it actually can affect the longevity and sustainability of your ability to do that work. So I think if things get too out of whack, that in and of itself can keep you from doing

• 1:32:31Speaker 12

  the work that is so meaningful to you. So if that really is a priority in a big picture, longer-term way, are these actions sustained? You know, can I sustain these actions over time?

• 1:32:44Shankar Vedantam?

  I mean, in some ways, we're talking about callings that are spilling over into obsessions. We talked in our last episode about the very word calling. I mean, originally, it started in a religious context. You were called by God. That was what a calling was. God was basically telling you, set down your work and come and do the things that I have set out for you. And you can easily see if, you know, God is actually calling you to do something, you know, maybe you don't have time to have a shower, maybe you don't have time to to meet a friend for a cup of coffee because God's on the other line.

• 1:33:19Speaker 12

  So you're absolutely right. And in fact, the moralization of callings is something that is happening increasingly, and I think is one of the primary drivers of these effects, is the fact Stort Bunderson and Jeff Thompson, in their study of zookeepers, described it as a moral duty. I have to do it. The animals need me. Some beneficiary needs me. It's my drive to do this, but it feels morally significant that if I were to choose something else, that would be a problem. And we see this showing up. So we do see a cultural veneration of callings,

• 1:34:03Speaker 12

  that it's sort of, we believe it's better to have a calling than a career or a job. Certainly, we sometimes refer to jobs as just a job. And there's increasing evidence that in the workplace, callings are venerated, that, for example, those with stronger callings are perceived to be the better performers, putting in more effort, deserving of more pay and promotions. And interestingly, even when that's not objectively the case, that's the subjective sense we have of them, is that they're the good employees. There's another study about believing that those who are intrinsically motivated by and passionate for the job are deserving of more help than others.

• 1:34:45Speaker 12

  So all of this kind of combines to create this both, I think, pressure to feel like work is a calling. And also, if you found it, this moral imperative to just do the work at any cost, that it's that much more important.

• 1:35:03Shankar Vedantam?

  We heard from a number of listeners who pointed out that not everyone has the ability to pursue a calling. Here's a listener who is also named Jen.

• 1:35:13Speaker 20

  I listened to your episode about calling, and I think that I would push back against it because many of us don't have the privilege to do something that we would love because we would have no way to pay to live while we did that. So. When I graduated college, I had a degree, wanted to work in documentary film. That did not work out. And my degree is pretty worthless. So I had to go back to school and did something extremely practical, which is nursing.

• 1:35:49Speaker 20

  And I very much dislike it, but it allows me to pay the mortgage and pay for hobbies. So I think it's actually safe to detach yourself from what you do for work because it can be a pretty sad road. And I was depressed for several years because I had been raised thinking that you identify yourself based on your so-called calling. Because ever since I can remember in the eighties, it was, what do you want to be when you grow up? But what you want to be when you grow up isn't necessarily what you can be when you grow up, unless you're independently wealthy or extremely talented or just very, very lucky.

• 1:36:32Shankar Vedantam?

  So we heard earlier from Christina Jen. She has chosen to do more practical things because they allow her to do things that she now wants. She wants to travel, spend time with her family, get a cat. We're hearing in some ways a mirror image of that story here. Listener Jen is telling us she made similar trade-offs, but takes no pleasure in the work that she's doing. I don't hear relief. I hear sadness, regret, maybe even some resentment.

• 1:36:59Speaker 12

  Yeah, I think those themes absolutely came out loud and clear in Jen's story. And I really appreciate the honesty. And I think that's absolutely, we ask people to trade off between money and meaning all the time. I think we don't even as a society always question the fact that we do that. So I think that is a trade-off that a lot of people face. And I think actually to Jen's original point, you know, is it a privilege to do what you love? I think that's absolutely true. I mean, there are so many, if we think about our world and how many people really don't even have freedom to choose whether to work, what they do for work, how much control and autonomy they have over their own, what their own workday looks like.

• 1:37:44Speaker 12

  Absolutely, these are questions of privilege and I don't want to pretend otherwise. I think first of all, It's important that we think about a society in which no one has to do work that is truly meaningless or denigrated, or what David Graeber once referred to as bull jobs that, you know, just sort of exist to perpetuate a hierarchy with, you know, no intrinsic value or purpose. So, within a subset of the people who do have some choice over what they do for their work, I think the decision to prioritize,

• 1:38:26Speaker 12

  well, as Jen says, paying the mortgage and what's safe, I think that's a defensible position. You shouldn't feel less than because you prioritized stability, security, even a certain lifestyle over work that maybe was more lovable or more likeable. However, it would be nice if that work didn't make you feel sad or make you feel that you actively dislike it. If you have the privilege to be able to change what you do or who you do it with, is there a way you can, as we call it job craft, to turn that work of patient care

• 1:39:09Speaker 12

  into something that seems, you know, less like a drudgery and more like a source of what you find meaningful about work? And I think this is one of the mechanisms that gets to one person's job being another person's calling. What are you making of the work? And in some regards, what are you doing? And who are you doing it with?

• 1:39:30Shankar Vedantam?

  Hmm. We heard from one listener who spoke very explicitly about the role of social comparisons in how he is thinking about whether he has a calling. Here's Jesse.

• 1:39:43Speaker 21

  I think the idea of work as a calling is one of the most harmful ideologies in our culture today. If you look at the research about job satisfaction, the predictors are pretty straightforward. You should have good relationships with the people that you work with, fair compensation, a sense of appreciation and respect from those above you and those beside you. A positive work-life balance, opportunities for growth. And in my life, I have all these things, but I still feel unfulfilled because I compare my job with other people who seem to have that sense of calling. And I crave that.

• 1:40:28Speaker 21

  I earned a PhD in research psychology because I found the discipline interesting and I just, I loved learning. It wasn't a calling, but it was a lot of fun. And the work I do now is based on the skills that I learned in my PhD program. It's not really fun or interesting, but it is a really good job. I have all those predictors of job satisfaction, but I don't have that sense of calling. And that one thing seems to undermine all the other positive things in my life. I try to ignore it, but I wonder every day what I should be doing instead of this.

• 1:41:07Shankar Vedantam?

  That is so powerful, Jen. What do you make of it?

• 1:41:11Speaker 12

  Jesse's story is really such a powerful and vivid illustration of the downside of this cultural pressure to find our callings, that anything less really makes us feel like a failure. I mean, if we look at the things that Jesse talked about, he, I mean, he said it very succinctly, it's a really good job. It feels like he would like what he's doing, comes to terms with it, knows why he chose it, sort of went in with eyes wide open. And it's just the fact that he feels that others are more fulfilled or have, you know, this bigger sense of a calling and he doesn't.

• 1:41:53Speaker 12

  That's like the one thing that's standing in the way and the fact that it's sort of swamping all these other things that are really positive for him. I mean, that's, that's powerful. And I think Jesse is really acknowledging this is coming through social comparison and this is coming through cultural pressure. And that doesn't make it any easier to, to dismiss these feelings. These feelings are clearly very real for him.

• 1:42:21Shankar Vedantam?

  We received a flood of messages from listeners sharing their frustrations over not finding a calling in their professional lives. I'd like to play a few of those messages for you, Jen.

• 1:42:32Speaker 22

  I feel that arriving at one's calling is somewhat a function of luck in life.

• 1:42:39Speaker 23

  I'm thirty seven and I still don't know what I want to do with my career.

• 1:42:45Speaker 24

  When I think about a calling, I don't feel like I've had that experience.

• 1:42:49Speaker 02

  I'm wondering what advice you all would give to someone who deeply desires to find that calling in life, but so far, for whatever reason, has not figured that out.

• 1:42:59Shankar Vedantam?

  So those were listeners Dave, Caterina, Alex, and Stacy. I'm wondering about Stacy's last question there, Jen. What are two or three specific steps that people can take if they haven't yet found their calling but hope to do so?

• 1:43:12Speaker 12

  Yeah, so I want to take the pressure off people that it's not a better calling if you knew it from childhood, or it's not a more pure calling if you feel that it's the only one thing you've ever imagined yourself doing. It's a more A to B kind of journey, and it's a little simpler, cleaner than the alternative. But it doesn't make it better, or it doesn't make it any more, more or less a calling. So there are people who have studied the pathways to finding a calling. So Matt Bloom, Amy Colbert, and Jordan Nielsen looked into this, and they found two types of pathways. The one I just described, I know my one true calling and I sort of venture toward it. And then this other path called discerning

• 1:43:57Speaker 12

  a calling, which is really what I see for your callers. It's more about having experiences, but not just at random, not just randomly trying things, you know, throw the spaghetti at the wall and see what sticks, but really thoughtfully learning through trial and error. It has to be an iterative, reflective learning process. So you try something.

• 1:44:22Speaker 12

  You learn what you liked about it. You learn what you didn't like about it. You try, you know, adjust it accordingly and try again. And that that in and of itself is a pathway toward people ultimately, at the end of this, feeling like they're in work that was a calling. And also paying attention to, you know, what kind of signals are you getting from outside? So are there people who are exemplars and have a sort of career that you might want? What can you learn from them? Talking to them, talking about their journey, talking about how they knew. I mean, really, just talking about callings, getting people's stories and finding inspiration from it.

• 1:45:05Speaker 12

  And when all else fails, or not even when all else fails, but just let's not forget, there are also resources, you know? I, for the number of times that people have said they took, talked to a coach or they took a class on, you know, how to change careers or how to make a pivot or how to get to meaningful work. I mean, I do think, and humbly as someone who wrote a book about this, I do think reading books, taking courses, talking to a coach, you know, just putting some time and attention to this question of how can I find a calling? It can help. It certainly beats the alternative of just trying random things and then being, you know, upset when it doesn't work out.

• 1:45:56Shankar Vedantam?

  Jennifer Toasty-Carras is a psychologist at Babson College. With Christopher Wong-Michaelson, she's author of the book, Is Your Work Worth It? How to Think About Meaningful Work. Jen, thank you so much for joining me again today on Hidden Brain.

• 1:46:10Speaker 12

  Shankar, thank you so much. It was great.

• 1:46:16Shankar Vedantam?

  Hidden Brain is produced by Hidden Brain Media. Our audio production team includes Annie Murphy-Paul, Christian Wong, Laura Kwerel, Ryan Katz, Autumn Burns, Andrew Chadwick, and Nick Woodbury. Tara Boyle is our executive producer. I'm Hidden Brain's executive editor.

• 1:46:35Shankar Vedantam?

  If you've listened all the way through the end of the show, we're guessing you may love the topics we cover on Hidden Brain. If that's the case, please consider joining Hidden Brain Plus. It's our podcast subscription where we bring you ideas and interviews you won't hear anywhere else. You can join Hidden Brain Plus with a free seven-day trial by going to support.hiddenbrain.org. If you use an Apple device, you can subscribe at apple.co/hiddenbrain. Those sites again are support.hiddenbrain.org and apple.co/hiddenbrain.

• 1:47:12Shankar Vedantam?

  If you liked this episode, please be sure to share it with one or two friends. Many people tell us that they discovered Hidden Brain because a friend or a coworker suggested it to them. Please think of two or three people who might enjoy today's show and tell them about Hidden Brain. I'm Shankar Vedantam. See you soon.

• 1:47:46Speaker 07

  A rewarding workout shouldn't require rearranging your schedule or your floor plan. The Peloton Tread Flex delivers full instructor-led workouts, scenic hikes, and streaming in a foldable, movable tread. Unfold the deck to fit movement into your day. When you finish, the frame falls vertically to be easily moved out of the way. Everyday flexibility. Built to move. The new Peloton Tread Flex. Terms apply.

• 1:48:08Speaker 25

  Hi, I'm Angie Hicks, co-founder of Angie. When you use Angie for your home projects, you know all your jobs will be done well. Roof repair? Done well. Kitchen sink install? Done well. Deck upgrades? Done well. Electrical upgrades? Done well. Angie's been connecting homeowners with skilled pros for nearly 30 years, so we know the difference between done and done well. Angie, the one you trust to find the ones you trust. Find a pro for your project at angie.com.

• 1:48:40Speaker 17

  Walmart shoppers, meet the debit card designed with you in mind. The Walmart Money Card offers up to $75 cash back on purchases at Walmart each year. Early direct deposit, overdraft protection, and so much more. When Walmart is your everyday store, you need a card to match. That's the Walmart Money Card. Open your account today. The Walmart Money Card is issued by Green Dot Bank, Member FDIC. Fees, terms, and conditions apply. Visit walmartmoneycard.com to learn more.

• 1:49:08Speaker 26

  Talk about regrets. We all know someone who's been in a car accident and said, "I don't need to call a lawyer," only to regret it after their pain and damages were worse than expected. When someone hurts you, you deserve to be compensated fairly. Morgan & Morgan is America's largest injury law firm, fighting for the people for over 35 years. Injured? Visit forthepeople.com/podcast. That's forthepeople.com/podcast. Their fee is free unless they win.