The Daily Stoic - Commitment Devices For Creating Lasting Change | Katy Milkman

Episode Date: June 19, 2024

How can we make real, lasting changes in our lives? Katy Milkman talks with Ryan about strategic methods we can use to overcome barriers to change, examples we can learn from The Odyssey, powerful commitment devices, empathy gaps, and more. Katy Milkman is a Behavioral Scientist, Wharton Professor, and Co-Director of the Behavior Change for Good Initiative. She is the Author of How to Change and podcast host of Choicology. You can connect with Katy on X: @katy_milkman and on Instagram: @katymilkman 📕 Right Thing, Right Now is out now! To purchase your own copy, head here✉️ Want Stoic wisdom delivered to your inbox daily? Sign up for the FREE Daily Stoic email at https://dailystoic.com/dailyemail🏛 Get Stoic inspired books, medallions, and prints to remember these lessons at the Daily Stoic Store: https://store.dailystoic.com/📱 Follow us: Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, TikTok, and FacebookSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Wondery Plus subscribers can listen to the daily Stoic early and ad free right now. Just join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple podcasts. I've been writing books for a long time now and one of the things I've noticed is how every year, every book that I do, I'm just here in New York putting right thing right now out. What a bigger percentage of my audience is listening to them in audiobooks, specifically on Audible. I've had people had me sign their phones, sign their phone case because they're like I've listened to all your audiobooks here and my sons they love audiobooks we've been doing it in the car to get them off their screens because audible helps your imagination soar. It helps you

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You can sign up right now for a free 30-day Audible trial and try your first audio book for free. You'll get right thing right now, totally for free. Visit audible.ca to sign up. Hello, I'm Emily. And I'm Anna, and we're the hosts of Terribly Famous, the show that takes you inside the lives for free visit audible.ca to sign up. Why I'm Ant? Oh, Ant, and or death? I'm afraid not and it's not Alan Shearer either. I am talking about a young woman plucked from obscurity

who rose to become the Neershin sweetheart. A woman who's had a lot of surnames? And has ditched them all to become just Cheryl. Love it. Girls Aloud fans, strap in. We're going to follow Cheryl from her Girl Band Glory days getting together with Ashley Cole and the many scandals and humiliations that followed. Not to mention a near-death experience.

Oh, she's been through a lot. And she has needed every ounce of her northern grit to see her through. I promise you it's going to be an emotional rollercoaster. Follow Terribly Famous wherever you listen to podcasts or listen early and ad-free on Wondery Plus on Apple Podcast podcasts or the Wondery app. Welcome to the Daily Stoic podcast where each weekday we bring you a meditation inspired by the ancient Stoics, a short passage of ancient wisdom designed to help you find strength and insight here in everyday life. And on Wednesdays, we talk to some of our fellow

students of ancient philosophy, well known and obscure, fascinating and powerful. With them, we discuss the strategies and habits that have helped them become who they are, and also to find peace and wisdom in their actual lives. But first we've got a quick message from one of our sponsors. Hey, it's Ryan. Welcome to another episode of the Daily Stoic Podcast. So we have this expression that comes to us from the Greeks that I talk a lot about, Stoics

we're fond of. It's this idea that character is fate. Who we are, what our values are, they determine what we're going to do, who we're going to be. And I think that's true, right? As the other expression goes, like when someone tells you who they are, believe them. And that's why you see people make the same mistakes over and over again.

This is why you see people, even if they've pretended to change, even if they're spouse or whatever things they fixed them, they really haven't, right? It's because change is hard and a lot of these things get built into us or we're not really serious about changing. But I do think it's an interesting idea because while that's true, that right, character is fate, does that mean that your character is fixed and it can't be improved? I don't think that's true.

If it is, like what's the point of Stoicism? This is all predetermined and what was Marcus Realis writing and meditations for if he just simply was who he was? Why did he talk? He said, fight to be the person that philosophy tried to make you. He said we had to work at it. If we were just naturally living in accordance with nature, the Stoics wouldn't have to remind us to live in accordance with nature. So of course the Stoics believed we could change. So it's Seneca and Lucilius are trying to do. They're both trying to improve each other.

Seneca says, we learn as we teach. So the idea is of course that we can change, but how? That is the hard part. And so I wanted to talk to Katie Milkman, who wrote a wonderful book called, How to Change, which is a book full of strategic methods for identifying and overcoming the things that get between us and that change,

what Steven Pressfield would call the resistance. And she knows what she's talking about because she's a behavioral scientist at Wharton and she's the co-director of the Behavioral Change for Good initiative. I think we had an awesome conversation. I did not think we were gonna spend so much time talking about the Odyssey, but as it happens,

that's where we began. Because as she points out, that's one of the first devices for change that we have on record, like how Odysseus comes up with this way of not doing something he'd be inclined to do and forcing himself to do something he does wanna do. So I thought we had a great conversation.

We actually talked to some parenting stuff, which I thought was great. But going back to that Odysseus thing, we talked a lot about commitment devices, which I thought were awesome. And then what are the strategies, the ideas humans have come up with over the long amount of time we have here

in recorded history to make progress, to make changes, to improve ourselves, to improve the world around us, which of course I spend a lot of time talking about in Right Thing right now, which you can grab everywhere books are sold. Thank you to everyone who supported it. At the time of this recording,

I don't know how it did on the list or what the first week sales are. Maybe I'll know by the time you're listening, but one of my commitment devices is I tune all that out. I try to focus on what I have to be doing, which right now is packing for the book tour. And then I want to spend as much time, not refreshing Amazon and checking the rank, but I want to spend as much time not refreshing Amazon and checking the rank, but

I want to spend as much time as possible writing the fourth book in the series, which I have to finish. It's really kicking my ass. So thanks to Katie Milkman for coming on the podcast. Her book, How to Change is wonderful. You can grab that anywhere books are sold and you can listen to her podcast, Choiceology. And I've had a couple of Wharton professors on the podcast lately. Angela Duckworth was on recently. I would love to have Emily Wilson on, the translator of The

Odyssey, who we talk about in this episode. I have made my appeals many, many times. I love her book on Seneca, but she hasn't been on. So I will settle in quotes. I mean this ironically, because I was very excited to have her for today's guest, the one and only Professor Katie Mopen. I just talked to your colleague on Saturday, Angela Duckworth. Oh, amazing. That's good timing. Yeah, that's really funny. I'm like, am I talking to her later today? Yes, I am talking to her

later today. So I will tell her, I will tell her what a coincidence. Did you get to see her in person? She was traveling this weekend. She was in Austin. So she came to I have a little bookstore here in Texas, and then my studio is next to the bookstore. Awesome. I didn't know where she was. I just knew she was flying somewhere this weekend. So sometimes I keep track of her that closely that I'm like, oh my God, she was in this city. But sometimes I give her more privacy than that.

Well, and we talked about a third colleague of yours who I'm a big fan of, which is Emily Wilson, the translator and biographer of Seneca. Awesome. Has she done both the Iliad and the Odyssey? Is that right? Yes. Yeah.

She did. I actually don't know her personally. I'm just wowed by the amazing people we have at Penn. But I'm a fan too from afar or from closer than you, but still kind of afar. I am as well. It's weird. We have her biography of Seneca in the bookstore,

and then we also sell her Iliad and Odyssey ones. It's weird to be selling a book that's like thousands of years old. Do you know what I mean? There's something. It's amazing. It's so neat. It's really, it's the opposite of weird to me. It's like magic.

It's like, that's why we write books. It's cause of some fantasy that you'll live forever. Yeah. Or, or just like the themes of this, that the themes of this poem have endured for so long is pretty incredible. And then of course, it's not just like, oh, this this old thing, like there's, I guess we rediscovered Gilgamesh in the 1800s, which would have been cool. And but with the Odyssey, it's not just like that it's 1000s of years old. It's that, like, so many other books are built on top of it, you know? Yes, and stories and yeah, right.

Every book, Harry Potter, whatever you pick it. My kid is really into the Rick Riordan series that they just made onto Disney Plus, but he reads the books that I literally can't think of what they're called right now, which is so embarrassing. But they're all about Greek gods who are still alive. Oh, Percy Jackson? Yes, yes. Percy Jackson. Thank you. Yes. Which is also you know, tons of things still anyway. And

greeking out is really popular podcast with kiddos. I don't know if you have kids, but I have an eight year old. So he's into all of this. I do have kids. And that's what I was telling Angela, which is I am reading him Emily Wilson's translation of the Odyssey right now, which he is he is obsessed with. How old is your son? He's seven, turning eight this year.

Oh my God, that's amazing that he's really into that. That's really cool. I'll have to try it. Now that you're giving me license to do that. We haven't gone beyond Rick Riordan, Harry Potter. We haven't done really high quality stuff. Well, those are both good. And actually- Yeah, they're great.

They're great, but they're not like adult. We got into it because he saw like a comic or a video about it. And then we found a graphic novel about it. And then from there, you just sort of build. It's actually been this like pretty incredible thing. That's amazing. I love that.

My son has loved the Greek myth stuff in part because when he was six and you know, screen time was limited, I have Duolingo on my phone, which means it's like on the iPad he uses. And he decided, well, we said, you know, you could use this to do some Spanish because he's learning that in school. But he's like, I don't want to learn Spanish. This other flag is cooler. And he randomly selected Greek. And then he got really into it. And over three months, he taught himself. I mean, Duolingo taught him. He could read Greek more fluently,

frankly, than English when he was six. And he'd learned like hundreds of words. It was amazing. It was because his brains are so plastic. And then he sort of started being proud of it because it was like a party trick. He could show off all the things he could translate into Greek. And then then the Greek Miss and we went to a wedding in Greece. And he sort of started being proud of it because it was like a party trick. He could show off all the things he could translate into Greek. And then the Greek myths, and we went to a wedding in Greece, and he sort of like has this whole vision of Greek as a part of his persona.

So anyway, I feel like- No, that's amazing. I never thought to do that. I'm gonna do that because I was just, I have this other thing that I do called Daily Dad. And I was talking about, I was just writing about this before I came down, was I was like, what are this other thing that I do called Daily Dad. And I was talking about, I was just writing about this before I came down, was I was like,

what are the things to spoil your children about? And the three I came up with are books. So anytime they want a book, you should buy it. And then I said, anytime they're interested in trying a new kind of food. So like Indian food is a thing. Okay, we'll go to an Indian food restaurant like right now. And then anytime they're interested in a place place like if he watches a video about a place or he learns about something

in school, my first thing is like, we're gonna go there. Yeah, let's let's go. And when he wants screen time, and I feel like it's been a bit much one of the things we let him watch is like travel vloggers like it it's not video game, watching people play video games. It's like learning about the world and then hopefully planting a seed that he'll be interested in going to those places. And so those are the three I came up with, food, books and travel.

I love that. That's a really, really great list. But I think you could add Duolingo language learning probably to the list and it would be safe. But it's free. So that doesn't count, I guess. Well, it's true. You could upgrade to the list and it would be safe. But it's free, so that doesn't count, I guess. Well, it's true. You could upgrade to the paid subscription

so he doesn't have to, you know, whatever, watch ads. I don't even know what happens in the non-paid one. We were happy to give our money to the cause, so. Yes. That's so funny. Well, let's connect what we're talking about with your work, which is one of the things I think you notice when you read the Odyssey or anything, the Stoics, whomever, is like any of our fundamental

human issues, like trying to be better at stuff, wanting to make changes in our life, we've effectively made no progress in any of these things. Like, you read these ancient works, and you get the sense that people were like, Hey, I wish I could wake up earlier, but it's so hard, right? That's one of my favorite passages in meditations is like, Mark Ceruleus opens one of the books, struggling to get out of bed in the morning, like just like somebody else is hitting

snooze on their alarm, just a few hours ago, there's something perennially human about sort of knowing what we want to do, or knowing what we need to do or knowing what we need to do and then just not being able to do it. It's so true. And you're right that it comes up in, even in these ancient works, I actually talk a lot about the Odyssey in my class

when I teach at Wharton, because we learn about commitment devices, which are these tools we can use to constrain ourselves in order to help us achieve our goals. And the original story of a commitment device is in this great story of Odysseus knows that he's going to confront the sirens, and they're going to sing sweet songs to lure him and his ship closer to the shore, and he'll inevitably face shipwreck. He's been warned that this is going to be the end for him. And he has to come up with a solution.

And the solution he comes up with is the original example of a commitment device. He says, okay, I'm going to have you bind my hands to the mast so that I can't control the direction of the ship. Everyone who's rowing is going to plug their ears with wax so they can't be lured by these sweet siren songs. And by doing this, I'll prevent giving

into the temptation to go closer, but I'll also get to have the positive experience of hearing what their voices sound like. And it's this amazing, clever solution. It's, you know, talked about in every behavioral science book and every behavioral science class, because we think of it as sort of the original person or the oldest example we can think of, of someone basically facing temptation and coming up with this kind of clever workaround to prevent giving in. And that's exactly what my research is about.

It's what my book is about. It's what you were just mentioning that you spoke with my colleague and collaborator, Angela Duckworth. It's what she thinks about all day too. And yeah, we love that it connects back to these ancient texts. Well, to me, one of the lessons of that story is sort of the knowledge is not enough, right?

So the knowledge that like he has what most sailors don't have, which is like sort of the puncturing of the myth. Like, this seems really attractive. This seems wonderfully wonderful, but it's a trick and you will crash your ship and everyone will die. That should be sufficient to steer away from the sirens, right? But it's not. He knows that it's not. And the commitment device is this thing that's getting between him and the part of himself that can't resist. Absolutely. And it's such a nice way of putting it. And that is sort of when you say we haven't made a lot of progress,

I actually do think we have because we've basically identified a series of tools that look like that, that sort of once you have this meta knowledge, not just the knowledge that I want to get up in the morning, not just the knowledge that I want to build a workout routine and healthy and save money for retirement and, you know, be a good parent and spouse and be on time to meetings, right? We all have those kinds of knowledge and we have those goals. But we need an additional level of knowledge about what are the tools that will allow us to achieve those goals, because

just wanting them and knowing I should do this isn't enough. Well, maybe maybe saying progress is the wrong word there because so in the one sense, like we don't fight enormous wars, because somebody's wife runs away with somebody else, right? We fight some crazy wars over some crazy things. But fair enough. But my point is, we've evolved in some ways, right? As a society as a world. And then in other ways, when I say we don't, we haven't made progress. You're right,

we've invented these devices, but the devices are still addressing the same fundamental human deficiencies or problems. So there's something timeless about this struggle, I guess, is why. Absolutely, yeah. And I would expect that in hundreds of years, even when our AI overlords are in charge or whatever,

like thousands of years in the future, however long it'll take us to get there, humans will still have those struggles. It feels fundamental to the human condition. And then the question is just, are we learning how to overcome the struggles or win more often? And I think we have made progress on that, although we have a long way to go. It is interesting that we don't talk about these things as inventions, but they are like the commitment advice being an invention, right? We think of the wheel as an invention or the sword as an invention. But the idea of a commitment device as an invention, I was just reading this book, it's this

fascinating book, I'm forgetting who it's by, but it's about the history of notebooks, like just the app. And they're talking about how, which I don't fully understand the invention of like, double book accounting, being a thing that allows, like basically all commerce and trading to exist. The to do list is an invention, right? Like, like there's all these kind of minor things that we take for granted. But it's interesting to think like they didn't exist at one

point and how these were invented, these were added to solve some of these perennial human issues, that it's easy to forget things, that we're bad at delaying gratification, that we can't keep multiple things in our head at the same time, that these were cultural creations that just didn't exist. And their invention allowed people to free up resources and make progress, not make the same mistakes over and over again. No, absolutely. And I will tell you that because I have a an eight year old who is very interested in inventions and science, I have been asked many times, Mom, have you invented anything? What have you invented? So I like to claim that some of the science around this is an invention. I've been busy claiming that in order to get street cred with my child. But I agree with

you that outside of my household, most people wouldn't think figuring out a way to get people to go to the gym more regularly by encouraging them to bundle temptations with workouts, which we call temptation bundling. Most wouldn't acknowledge that as an invention, but, but actually at some level it is, and it's particularly useful when you're trying to pursue your goals to think about these things as inventions, because I think it gives you the opportunity to say without this tool, I can't get done what I need to get done. That's one of the most critical steps in being more effective is acknowledging these tools are going to be critical to your success, and you can't just push through and achieve everything. I'm talking about this in the book

that I just finished that comes out in June, which is like, I was thinking about Gandhi, who I'm fascinated with. And it's like nonviolence as a political strategy is an invention, right? He's like, oh, you don't have to assassinate the people that you disagree with. You don't have to destroy or an insurrection is not the only way to change the policy of a government. Right?

Like there's other forms of political revolution, peaceful protest the the petition I'm like given what's happening on my campus right now here in Philadelphia So I mean the petition is an invention the consumer boycott is an invention These are all things that humans came up with to create change Not the kind of change that you talk about but still change nevertheless and and that these kind of social strategies for resolving conflicts, or, you know, failure, where we think willpower would be sufficient and it isn't, we come up with these inventions or strategies

that allow us more often than not. I mean, Alcoholics Anonymous is an invention, right? Absolutely. We have this book in the bookstore that I that I think about all the time. It's this book called Asylum by this guy, William Seabrook. And he was a very famous travel writer in the 1920s. And he's an alcoholic, but before alcoholism is a thing.

So he's a drunk, which is what they would call them. And there's no place he can go or thing he can do to not be a drunk. Like willpower was at that time the only option. So he checks himself into an insane asylum. And this is where he dries out and he writes this memoir, like a travel memoir about being in this insane asylum as a non insane person trying to get clean.

The book, spoiler it in somewhat tragically, but there's this sadness that I felt after I finished it because it's like, if he had lived long enough for the invention of Alcoholics Anonymous or 12-Step a Recovery, the story might have ended differently. And just to think like human beings have invented a lot of things in our struggle to change or to be different or to not make

the same mistakes over and over again. That's so interesting. I often think about the support structures that we have now and how it might change who's successful if you think about things like, you know, being able to even just have a digital calendar or being able to search for things on Google. You could just imagine that with and without those tools, very different people, certainly obviously social media, very different people end up succeeding and achieving their goals. And it's interesting to think about that, those

as inventions that have completely reshaped who can achieve what. I like to think that personally, if I had been an academic in the 1970s, I'm confident I would have no career because I have a terrible memory and there's absolutely no chance that without sort of the search tools that are available now, I would ever be able to do the work that I need to do. But because I came along in an era where we have Google Scholar and it's straightforward to go find that thing you've forgotten who wrote it. It's completely changed.

What are the limits? And I think with ChatGPT, it's completely changed. You know, what are the limits? And I think with chat GPT, it's changing things. Again, I'm watching doctoral students who have brilliant ideas, but aren't great writers start to be able to actually accomplish a lot more because they have this new tool that allows them to overcome that limitation. It's really interesting to think about. Well, I think you would like this book on the notebooks, because it's weird to think that the notebook is basically

invented in like the 14 and 1500s, right? Like, because paper becomes accessible, literacy rates get to the degree and then also the rise of the printing press, people are are reading enough books that there's things that they're losing track of all the things that they read in their books, plural, right? Like, if you only had the family Bible, you could just write notes in the margin of the family Bible or whatever. But if you've read now hundreds of books, and some of those books contradict each other, or

you yourself want to write your own book, now you're needing to create what they would call a commonplace book where maybe one person would record all their knowledge of life or a whole family would keep a commonplace book for generations. This idea of like, how do I organize this information that I have uncovered or has struck me so I can come back to it and use it later. Again, that doesn't feel like an invention, but it would unlock so much unless you know,

you're a genius who can just keep all of this in your head at one time and very few of us are that person. Right, but it is interesting if you look at someone like Ben Franklin, who was so successful, right? And you sort of see like, wow, even without any tools, this person could thrive. But then today, someone without many of the skills he had can accomplish great feats.

And it is really interesting to think about, like, what are the differences and the traits we need in different successive generations to thrive based are the differences and the traits we need in different successive generations to thrive based on the tools and inventions that exist. Well, don't you think the audio book and podcasts are one of those too, because if, let's say you're a smart, curious, intellectual person, but you're dyslexic,

or you have ADD and just focusing is hard or reading is unpleasant for you, or you just were failed by your schooling system and so reading wasn't like a skill that you really came to naturally. It's kind of crazy to think only in the last few decades and then really with the invention of smartphones has have books been available to those kinds of people

and podcasts being sort of another way have books been available to those kinds of people? And podcasts being sort of another way to have sort of intellectual conversations. What would you have listened to before podcasts? Probably nothing. There wasn't that, you could listen to talk radio, but that's very different. No, I love that. It's such a good point.

I think it's a good point. I think it's a good point. I think it's a good point. I think it's a good point. Hello, I'm Matt Ford. And I'm Alice Levine, and we're the hosts of Wanderys podcast, British Scandal. In our latest series, Michelle Mone, we tell the story of a woman from Glasgow who left school at 15 and devised an idea, a next level bra that remoulds the cleavage. An uplifting story, which gives you a real boost. I hate myself.

She moved from business to politics and when Covid hit, says she knows a great company to supply PPE. And the company, PPE Medpro, made millions of pounds of profit from the contract. Oh, and a lot of the equipment was unusable. Oh, a minor detail. And having said that she had nothing to do with that profit repeatedly, she then goes on national television and says that Hona Children are actually in line to receive nearly £30 million as a result of it.

To find out the full incredible story, follow British Scandal wherever you listen to podcasts or listen early and ad free on Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. I've been a fan of audiobooks for a really long time in part because growing up I had older grandparents who were their health was failing and I had a grandmother who was completely intellectually with it but bedridden and you know she loved fiction and reading, but just her, you know, she wasn't at a point where she could do that. And I imagined, wouldn't it be wonderful someone could read to her all day, but of course, that's not really feasible.

And we sort of found places where we could get tons and tons, this was back cassette tapes, cassette tape, audiobooks, and we were like, you know, finding all the cassette tape audiobooks we could get. But it was a huge project to set that up. It required a lot of effort and energy from family members to realize this was the thing that was gonna improve for quality of life.

And today, as you say, everybody has it on their phone. You can get audible. And I think it's a wonderful change. And anyway, it's something I take advantage of too. Whenever I commute to work on foot and I'm listening to books and podcasts constantly and loving it. You realize there are people who thought they didn't like books, but really they didn't like

reading. They love the ideas and the knowledge. Yeah, and it just wasn't accessible to them. And I feel like a lot of the strategies you talk about, and then also just in the sort of science of change is like, what people thought had to require a lot of willpower or brute strength or brilliance. There's often these sort of end runs or ways of thinking about it differently or ways of creating momentum or reducing friction. And so you thought you were the problem. But really, the way you were thinking about it or going about it was the problem. And these shifts can open up whole new ways of doing things.

Yeah, I love that summary. I think that's exactly right. That's a really perfect summary of sort of maybe the whole body of research I have done and that so many others in my field have also made hugely important contributions to on the science of behavior change. It's really about these sets of strategies need hugely important contributions to on the science of behavior change.

It's really about these sets of strategies that allow us to outsmart our foes, our adversaries, whether it's procrastination or forgetfulness or lack of confidence or bad habits, or even just a social structure that's pushing us in the wrong direction. And as you say, if we don't realize that it takes more than willpower, then we won't know to look for these solutions. But once we realize these inventions can help us, we can make a lot more progress.

Yeah, that was one of the things I talked to Angela about her read on stoicism was that it was sort of all about willpower, that it was this sort of raw strength of this brute force. Obviously, I think she's also thinking about some of the misreading of her own work, which is like grit is always about pushing forward. But sometimes it takes more grit, or more strength, yet to go around or to

question the whole thing to begin with, to ask, where am I going? Or why am I trying to go there? And so, yeah, there's this kind of work smarter, not harder element to it, I think. Absolutely. Yeah. No, and I know that drives Angela crazy. And actually, you know, having worked with her for almost a decade, very closely, more closely than with really anyone else in that the last decade. I will tell you that she practices what she preaches, which is she's incredibly hardworking, but she also re thinks whether she's taking the right strategy.

She quits a lot of things. She pivots a lot because she realizes that, you know, if you're hitting a brick wall, you don't just like push or willpower your way through it. There's a lot of bending and adjusting. And I do feel like if you take the sort of caricature of grit, all you hear is just push and work harder. And it's really not right.

Yeah, it's funny because I did this book, The Obstacle is the Way, and I think for some reason when people hear that, they're going like, you're supposed to go through the obstacle, right? Like that's what the obstacle is the way means, I guess literally, but no, the idea is that in struggling with the obstacle and failing, you come up with another way around, right?

Or because that path is blocked, you end up going in a very different direction that you wouldn't have thought of otherwise, and that becomes the way, right? So there's something weird about our understanding of obstacles where we think you're supposed to smash the obstacle and that's what the obstacle is telling you.

No, the obstacle is the big flashing stop sign or the red light or the road is out. And then in having to come up with a new way, you discover that that should have been the way all along. That was a better way to do it. I love that, yeah. And it absolutely applies to thinking about these strategies for behavior change.

And by the way, also to their durability, because one of the things that frustrates me most about talking to people about sort of, how are you gonna create change or how are you gonna achieve a goal, is often people will be excited to learn about these scientific tools that, or scientifically proven tools that can help them.

Say, I mentioned one earlier, so I'll take that as an example, temptation bundling, which is if there's some chore that you find it unpleasant to do, only allowing yourself to enjoy something you find tempting while you pursue the chore. So you can only binge watch your favorite TV shows, say while you're on the elliptical at the gym,

and that's how you're gonna motivate yourself to work out regularly. Now you're gonna wanna come to the gym to find out what happens to your favorite characters, time will fly while you're using the elliptical at the gym. And that's how you're gonna motivate yourself to work out regularly. Now you're gonna wanna come to the gym to find out what happens to your favorite characters. Time will fly while you're using the elliptical. You won't feel guilty wasting time watching whatever junk it is, cause you're at the gym. Okay, so that's temptation bundling.

But a lot of times people will say, okay, you know, I'm gonna try that and I'm gonna get into gym routine and I'm gonna have a habit and then I'll be all set. And then I'll just, you know, I won't need to do this anymore. And most of the tools we have that we've proven can be effective for helping people,

they're not one and done, they're not sort of like, oh yeah, temptation bundle for a month and then you can watch your favorite shows anywhere. Doesn't have to just be at the gym and you don't even need them to get to the gym. You'll just be motivated enough that you'll do it. It's really, no, that obstacle that forced you to use temptation bundling, which was you hated the gym,

that's now the way forever. You're always gonna need to have shows that are set aside for your workouts. So, and there is this misconception with a lot of things, like they're startup solutions, and then you can set them aside because you'll have built the habit and everything will be all set. You you know you don't need a workout buddy

forever just to get off the ground and anyway almost all of the tools that will successfully help people change need to be used durably because that path is is the right path forever not just in startup mode right there they're not training wheels exactly exactly they're not training wheels. Exactly, exactly. They're permanent wheels. What we always need, we always need the supports. They're not training wheels, they're guardrails. And so, yeah, like, this is supposed to be this box

that prevents you from going somewhere you don't wanna go or keeps you going where you do want to go. It's not, oh yeah, it worked for a little bit and then now I'm good. You didn't actually resolve the fundamental human conflict or temptation that's still there. Exactly, but people miss that and it's very funny. It's critical.

The irony is like, yeah, we go, like let's say you try to quit something, right? Like the alcoholic goes to 12 steps for a while, it works. And then they go, and now I'm good, I can drink sometimes. And that is the thing that you've been, the insidiousness with which we begin to make exceptions or begin to convince. That's the real siren song to go back to what we're talking about earlier is that this idea that you're all better that you've resolved it you've gotten over it and and no it's

it's it's an unresolvable human conflict and and you have to find a process for dealing with it that's right and that's why 2,000 years ago people were grappling with the same problems because you know know, it's in your nature forever. It's been in the nature of humans forever. And so the solutions we find aren't quick fixes or band aids. They're permanent solutions we need to rely on forever after to get through the tough times. I heard this expression once and obviously it's not totally true, but I think it goes

to what you're saying, which is like, traditions are solutions to problems we've forgotten about. And so you have these things that society does, right? There's norms in politics, let's say, or systems or like, just general age ranges that we do things that and then and then somebody comes along, you know, they do ayahuasca, and then they go, well, why are we doing these things this way? You know, they just sort of blow or technological change comes and disrupts things. And then we go,

Oh, we invented the way we used to do things for a reason. There. There's a reason that I don't know, journalism developed the idea of objectivity or multiple sourcing or, you know, like, there's a reason there's such things as editors or fact checkers, you know, like we came up with these things to solve problems. Yeah, the old the old way cause some serious problem or tragedy. And we said, we've got to stop doing it this way. And then that becomes normal. And then like the person

who goes, Oh, I can just binge watch this anytime now or I can smoke one cigarette. And it's like, No, you can just binge watch this anytime now, or I can smoke one cigarette, and it's like, no, you can't, you can't do that. I love that. I mean, of course there are lots of things that are norms that are dysfunctional and that we do wanna break, but you're right that sort of sorting through

which are the norms that exist, not just because this tradition has been here forever and we keep doing it, but because it's really serving a purpose. It's actually one of the things I find most interesting as a researcher to think about and to think about, you know, look at religion, for example, there are many elements of religion that we can tie back to some of the best tools in behavioral science and say, Oh, look, like this has actually been in there for a while. So one of my favorite examples is I've done research on this topic called the fresh start effect. At new beginnings, we feel more motivated to pursue our goals.

So January 1 is sort of the best known, most famous, but there are lots of moments that feel like new beginnings. Monday is the start of a new month, the start of celebration of a birthday. Yeah, season if it's brought to our attention, particularly spring seems to feel really like a fresh start and people are at those moments, especially when you highlight them to them, they're more motivated to pursue their goals. Both naturally you'll see it happen. And when we highlight it,

we can get a little uptick in goal pursuit. And when you look at religion, you see fresh starts built in to every religion, right? So if you think about things like, and by fresh start, I mean, giving you a sense that that was the old me, this is the new me and the new me is going to be able to overcome and achieve more. And we can sort of say blank slate, start over,

my old failures are behind me and they're not going to trip me up in the future. So, you know, confession, uh, you can think of Yom Kippur where, uh, you know, atonement is, is built in and then, and Rosh Hashanah in the Jewish tradition, Easter and rebirth. Being born again. Being born again, exactly. All of these elements and there are rituals like this in non-Western tradition, of course, as well. And it's so interesting to see basically all these religions invented different ways of making us feel like, yeah, you've done something that you're not pleased with, whether it was, you know, something that harmed others or something that just

harmed yourself, right? You weren't exercising enough or whatever it is. You know, right, that's not a sin, but it's still we need that clean slate feeling to be motivated. And then, you know, here we come and whatever it was, and we started studying it in the 2010s. And without religion, we see the same patterns arising, but religion was hooking into that and giving people extra fresh start moments so that they could achieve more and be more motivated and behave better towards others.

And I think it's just really fascinating. As you say, these traditions, they exist for a reason. Yeah, yeah, of course. There's so many obviously broken traditions and conventions that we need to question. And then at the same time, it's like, oh, hey, maybe we I don't know, we came up with monogamy or marriage as a way of resolving the conflict that would come from the inequity of say, rich, powerful people having 20 wives, or husbands. Yeah, sure, sure, of course.

No, no, but I mean, today people talk about incels. You sort of have these disaffected angry men who are sort of on the fringes of society outside the dating market. And you're like, yeah, what would it look like if like 10% of the society was that? Or we complain about income inequality if there's other forms of inequality, you go, Oh, yeah,

like, through by trial and error, the these societies or these cultural norms came, and they were trying to adjust for or anticipate sources of conflict between people and groups or, you know, don't covet your neighbor's ox, right? You're like, I could see I could see why a religion might encourage that tradition, right? Or, you know, you know, don't covet your neighbor's ox, right? You're like, I could see, I could see why a religion might encourage that tradition, right? Or, you know, you know, turn the other cheek. These are these are things that make sense. You're making me think of this wonderful work. I don't know if you've come across it by Michelle Gelfand, who's at Stanford, and she studies

whether or not cultures evolve tight versus loose norms. So tight being, you know, like we follow all the rules, loose being, you know, we walk barefoot in banks, and which apparently is a thing in New Zealand, but you know, not so much in Singapore. So we're, you know, Singapore being an example of a really tight culture, New Zealand being a very loose culture. And one of the things she's found that gives rise to these different degrees to which we are norm followers is the degree of threat that a society is faced over its evolution. More threat gives rise to tighter norms and better responses to things like war, famine, plague. And actually, by the way, she did some really interesting research in the early days of COVID and showed that there were higher death rates in looser societies than in tighter cultures. But then, of course, you see more creativity and innovation under looser norms. So there's these trade-offs. But anyway, that's what I'm thinking of as you're describing this.

I really love that work and think which of these social norms we adopt and how tightly we conform to them is such a fascinating aspect of human nature. Well, I mean, I think we found this in the United States the last eight or so years, which is like, we were not aware of just how voluntary most of the norms in our political system were, right? And so when you have the force of a singular personality, or you have a party whose moral compass has collapsed, right, then you have suddenly things that you thought were unquestionable, or were, or were solved for by traditions. And this can be both parties. I mean, like, most

presidents understood before Franklin Roosevelt that you didn't seek a third term. And then somebody, somebody comes along goes, I think I'm gonna stay in office. And then afterwards, the norm has to be tightened or made literal, because we were made aware of how susceptible that norm was to one person or one group that said, I don't feel like following that. And, and sometimes you think things are more stable or clear than they are. And I'm sure there's an analogy here to personal behavior too.

You think that there's bright lines in your life, or you're good at something and then something changes. You go, oh, nope, I'm going to have to come up with a policy or a practice that helps me with this. Yeah, no, absolutely. Or a strategy that's going to stand in the way of this particular temptation that I've never faced before. Yeah, well, yeah, I mean, how many people think that they wouldn't do certain things? The Stokes talk about this, they, you know, you think you wouldn't do it, and that's really only

because you've never actually been in the position to do that, you know? That's right, right, no, and our imaginations are very different than our experiences, which is part of this whole conflict. We, you know, when you look at the temptation, one of the most fundamental things about temptation is our misunderstanding of how strong it will be.

When we're in a cool state and we're looking towards the future, we're sure, you know, someone offers me that drug or that experience, I will say no, because I realize it's bad for me. But then you can't anticipate how powerful your drive and motive and temptation state will be. And that's one of the most important things science has sort of taught us about the nature

of temptation is that we can't anticipate it unless we're in the moment. We're really poor forecasters of how strong our urges will be. Well, don't you think it's also you can't conceive of what the new environment will be and the, don't you think it's also you can't conceive of what the new environment will be and the context in which you're making that decision. So you would be like, if I was a politician, I

would never choose my job over the right thing, right. And that's because you can't imagine what it's like to make this decision where, okay, so yeah, sure, you're not going to win reelection. But also now your whole staff loses their job too. And your kids have to change schools and all these, you know, like, you can't conceive of- And all the things you really care about, you think maybe, you know, if I give up this one, I can do good in these other ways.

Of course, yeah, no, I think that's right. I think there's so many forecasting errors we make when we're in a cold state or a different, it it's you know Behavioral scientists would call an empathy gap and they're everywhere whether it has to do with temptation or Just almost anything we have amazing imaginations But they're not nearly as good as we we would need them to be in order to properly forecast the future We do it in other directions too, right? We overestimate the impact some things will have on us. This is one of, so Dan Gilbert of Harvard University

is sort of most famous for doing these really incredible studies that show, we think the impact of some catastrophe or some great outcome on our happiness will be much larger than it is in reality. Because again, of an empathy gap, this time in the opposite direction, we don't understand it's due to focalism.

We focus so much on how horrible it would be to say, lose your vision or lose use of a limb. And those things would be absolutely horrible. But what you don't focus on is that you would still have your friends and you would still be grateful for being alive. And so many other things that make life rich would remain. And actually, while you may be a little bit less happy,

it wouldn't be as dramatic as you expect. And the same is true, you expect a lottery. If I won the lottery, I'd be elated for the rest of my life. And it's actually an incredibly small and maybe almost zero effect in terms of actual happiness improvement relative to this huge thing you anticipate.

So there's this empathy gap in a lot of situations. It goes in different directions depending on what we're trying to imagine. Do you want some more positive news in your headlines? Well, here's some. So the second hand clothing market is on track to make up 10% of the global fashion industry by next year. And the gender pay gap in the UK has shrunk to its lowest level in seven years. Well if you want a more balanced and uplifting view of the world, search for the Positive News podcast. With me, Dr Rod and Modgil.

And me, journalist and broadcaster Shea Rhodes. Out now on all podcast apps. I'm Afua Hirsch. I'm Peter Frankopan. And in our podcast Legacy, we explore the lives of some of the biggest characters in history. This season, we're going to be exploring the life of Margaret Thatcher, the first female leader of Britain. Her 11 year premiership completely overhauled British society.

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about what we can include. And this is of all the characters we've done so far, the one who's had the most personal impact on my conscious, waking, real-time life. I mean, I lived through her, I was born under her. I'm a Thatcher baby. That's gonna be set to dance music. So follow Legacy Now from wherever you get your podcasts.

Or binge entire seasons early and ad free on Wondery Plus. Is that because for better or for worse humans are master adjusters? We think it would be terrible, you know, if X, Y, or Z happened. And it would be in one sense, but in another sense, we'd still have to wake up and take our kids to school and have lunch. And so, we just, like, that's kind of what humans do, which is we've, for thousands of years,

just adjusted to the circumstances that we're in. In our own histories, you know, we thought our life was over when we got dumped by our high school boyfriend or girlfriend. And then in retrospect, we obviously figured it out. Life was fine. Yeah, exactly. Yes, yes.

We haven't had to deal with that stage with our kids yet, but it's coming. So part of it is that, so we do have amazing psychologists like to talk about them as psychological immune systems. One of, you know, cognitive dissonance is that it's uncomfortable to hold two competing thoughts in mind. And so we tend to resolve that tension, like, oh, you know, it's so miserable to be dumped, but I'm not a loser, like, because no one like to think of themselves as a loser. So you sort of like one of those has to win out because either you're a loser, who's the

kind of person who gets dumped or you're not. And so you sort of get there and you're like, oh, I'm not a loser. It was for the best. It was for the best, right? You resolve the tension by convincing yourself the outcome that you ended up with was the best outcome. So we do have these amazing psychological immune systems. And I'm sure that's part of it. But the main finding in the literature where it says we miss forecast our future happiness and response to extreme events is just that we focus too much on one thing and life is composed of many, many more things. So for instance, when you ask Midwesterners and Californians, this is sort of the classic study in this literature that started people thinking about this,

how happy do you think Midwesterners are versus Californians? Everybody thinks Californians are happier. I'm not sure by the way that would replicate today because of high housing prices, but let's say in an earlier economy when people are just gonna think about the weather, everybody thought Californians were happier. But in reality they're basically the same. Californians are a little bit happier with the weather they have than Midwesterners, but life is not about weather. But when you're asked to make a comparison of two things, life with or without vision, or life with or without winning the lottery, you focus on only what's different

and don't remember all the things that are the same. And all the things that are the same are the things that matter more for your life happiness, it turns out, which is family, job, mission, you know, hell, other kinds of, you know, you're alive, and you you're able to do things that you care about. And so we we make that mistake. And that's what leads to the empathy gap in this case. Right, because they're forgetting people are poor in California, people get divorced in California, people have accidents in California. They're not thinking that life is exactly the same

there. It's just maybe sunnier some days. Although as someone who grew up in Sacramento, I try to remind people that California is not all Malibu and, you know, the Golden Gate Bridge. It's a little more complicated. That's true. But even if it were, it would still be wrong to assume that people are always going to be happier in California. Because as you said, there's all these other things that matter so much more than the weather. Well, when we think about people, you're like, if I was a billionaire, I would do X, Y or Z. I think what we're also missing is like, what it takes to become the billionaire. So nobody just wakes up and suddenly has a billion dollars. The person who-

Well, some people do actually, if you're born in the right family. Even then, right? You wonder why doesn't the heir to the Walmart fortune do X, Y, or Z? Well, they grew up an heir to the Walmart fortune. They didn't have your experiences and then woke up one day with these things.

The example I always think about is Tim Cook, the successor to Steve Jobs. People, they wonder why he's not as like charismatic, why he hasn't invent, like why he's not as much of a product visionary, et cetera, as Steve Jobs. And it's like, it's because he worked for Steve Jobs. Like how you don't work for, like, there's a difference between a person who creates a company from nothing, and a person

who is able to successfully operate inside a company for so long that eventually they could be anointed the successor of that company. If he was a take huge risks, burn it all down, bet everything a an unlikely thing the way Steve Jobs would be, he would have been Steve Jobs and not the employee of Steve Jobs, you know, like, like, so the context that it requires to get to that point, inevitably shapes the decisions and the values and the options available to that person.

I love that point. It reminds me of research from the 70s and 80s on the fundamental attribution error, where people tend to ascribe too much of behavior to an individual's fixed personality traits and not enough to the situation, right? You see somebody cut someone else off on the highway, and you're like, that person's a jerk. But if you were the one cutting them off as you swerve, realizing you were about to miss your exit see somebody cut someone else off on the highway and you're like, that person's a jerk. But

if you were the one cutting them off as you swerve realizing you were about to miss your exit because you're in a community, you know, you're not driving in an area or you're familiar or you're late for something, you wouldn't think I'm such a jerk. Right? You'd think like I'm late. Hopefully they'll understand. And so we have these different attributions we make. And I think that relates to what you're describing about the mistakes we make in trying to figure out why aren't these two people handling the situation the same way?

It's not actually the same situation because they've come to it from really different paths. And so, and our situation isn't just that static moment, it's the entire journey we took to get there and all of the forces that we had to navigate in order to reach the point. I think about that when I when I'm jealous or comparing myself to someone or something and I go, you can't just have what you

have and what they have. It doesn't work that way. Like what they have and who they are is context dependent on what it took to get there. You know,? So like, you don't just get to take your brain and put it in the presidents or put it in, you know, the CEOs or the rock star, whatever. I hope you're not jealous of the president. We could spend the next 20 minutes disabusing you of that envy.

I think that, I love the onion headline the day that Barack Obama was elected. I think it said, black man gets America's worst job. So I hope you don't envy the presidency because that seems like a pretty rough gig. But isn't that the point? There are people who want that gig, right? Like somebody who think about it differently than you. Yeah, that's true.

But the onion was right. Yeah, no, absolutely. But I really love your point that we can't have all the things and recognizing when we feel that envy, what it would take to have the thing we envy and what we would have to sacrifice can help diffuse a lot of that feeling and allow us to focus on, no, what is it I really want? Because I have to take the path to get it. We were talking about the Odyssey earlier.

I think that was one of the things that struck me the most when I read all the way through Emily Wilson's translation. And I don't know if I just never made it that far, or if they'd skipped over when I read it in school. But again, spoiler, at the end, after Odysseus murders like 50 people, again, it's pretty gruesome there at the end where he just murders all the suitors. I think in the kids' version,

he wins the contest and they all go home and admit defeat. But no, he and his son mercilessly slaughter them. But then like the last chapter of the Odyssey, after 10 years at home, Odysseus starts packing up to go on another trip. Basically he's been gone this whole time, so his kingdom is in ruins. He has to go make money and, and

whatever. But the point is, oh, yeah, Odysseus is an adventurer. And this whole desire to get home was the fundamental journey, not the destination. Yeah, it's have you read the Cavafy poem, Ithaca? No, do you? Oh, it's wonderful. Okay, you'll have to read but basically, it's fantastic. And the point of the poem is to say, you thought you were on a journey to a destination, but it's actually about the journey itself.

That was the Ithaca, not getting to Ithaca. I thought, Odysseus is this guy, he just wants to get home to be with his wife and kids. Exactly. And you're like, no, you didn't. That's not who you are. You wouldn't have left to fight in this stupid war if you liked being at home with your wife and kids so much, you know, like

it's realizing, I think every generation finds something new in it. But it's like, oh, wait, he's not the hero. He's this flawed, tragic figure who sort of condemned to always be on these oddities. Oh, that's interesting. I mean, I, of thinking it's flawed and tragic, I think the poem Ithaca would say, at least I read it as saying, it's not flawed and tragic. Life is an adventure. And if you're too hung up on the destination, you're missing the whole point. And by the way, this is very related

to sort of the most effective strategies for achieving your goals, which many people are much too fixated on. I just have to get to the goal. I will take the most efficient route because the goal is what it's all about. And what the research shows is actually you do better if you find a way to make the journey enjoyable because then you'll persist. And achieving a goal is all about persistence. So people make this mistake. They look for efficient paths, but those efficient paths lead to quitting, whereas more winding, circuitous route that is enjoyable will lead you to persist and succeed at a higher rate. But yeah, I don't think of the journey being enjoyed as a tragic flaw.

I actually think enjoying the journey and being in it for the journey is part of what makes the whole thing so compelling. And it's like, you know, what we all need to realize more is that each day is a gift and we need to enjoy the journey we're on, not just be fixated on some goal that's in mind. But you're right that it's tragic to the extent that you believed he really thinks what he's up to is getting home. Well, I mean, he's the tragic figure in that, the restlessness and the inability to appreciate

and enjoy what he has. So I'm saying he's tragic in that, like all epic heroes, he's called to this thing and it takes him away. And then he's called to come home and it takes a long time. And then he's called to come home and it takes a long time. And then then he's called to the next thing. Meanwhile, what has he missed in all of this period? And what's the collateral damage? Right. He leaves Ithaca with like 600 people and he's the only one that comes home.

It's hard to go. Well, at least he enjoyed the journey. No, that's fair enough. I guess you don't have the counterfactual of whether any of those 600 have made it and if they'd been in some other war zone. But anyway, true, true. You have to take some metaphorical leaps

in order for it to all make sense. It's not tragic. Well, this is why all the myths are so wonderful is you can see in them what you wanna see them and then tell whatever moral lesson you wanna tell. And it can change from one day to the next. But I think what you just said about, you know, sort of journey versus outcome or process versus, you know, the payoff to me where that intersects with stoicism fundamentally is like,

you don't control the outcome. So like, like, if I enjoy writing books, that is a much better place to go through or way to go through life than needing to be or enjoying being a best selling author, right? Because the latter part is dependent on a whole bunch of things going right. And ultimately, other people giving you the thumbs up or the thumbs down. But if if I enjoyed the process of coming up with the idea and the process of writing, and I learned in doing it, and I got better for doing it,

then whether you get the thing at the end or not, you've succeeded. You just have this potentially extra bonus. And so, you know, when people in sports talk about trusting the process, I think that's what they're meaning is like, you gotta learn to love the day-to-dayness of it separate from whether you get the cheers

or the contract or the winning or losing. Absolutely, and the fact that loving the day-to-day also translates to increasing the likelihood of winning is sort of magic. It's incredible, right? At some level, like, wow, talk about a win-win. So, and yet people again are looking for those shortcuts. They're thinking. So, an example, we've talked a bit about getting to the gym.

So I'll give you an example that I think makes it really clear in that context to sort of classic example would be, I want to get fit. The fastest way to do that is the stair master. So that's efficient. I'm going to get fit. I'll use the stair master. The alternative being, I want to get fit. I'll use the stair master the alternative being I want to get fit

I'd like to enjoy it I'm going to do Zumba classes with my friends and what you see is people think if their goal is to get fit They should choose option one go on the stair master. It's the most efficient turns out probably you get in shape faster However, they're wrong because if they choose option one They will go on the stair master once find it miserable and never. Because if they choose option one, they will go on the Stairmaster once, find it miserable and never come back. If they choose option two, they'll go to Zumba with a friend, enjoy it, and they'll go three times a week. And they will actually get in shape. And so that's sort of what's interesting about this mistake people make on focusing on the outcome versus the path that I find. And there's really wonderful

research on this by Eilat Fischbach at the University of Chicago and Caitlin Woolley at Cornell showing consistently people make the mistake of choosing efficiency over fun, but if they're encouraged to choose fun, they get better outcomes because of persistence. Yeah, there's, what's that Pascal's Wager? There's something about this here too, where it's like, and then let's say neither of them ultimately give you

the outcome that you want for some other reason. You would have been better off picking the one that was at least fun while you did it. That's right, exactly right. So it's the win, win, win. And your friendship would have been better and you would have happy memories of Zumba class and all the things, yeah.

So there are many reasons and they don't even incorporate that in their studies. They're just focusing on what literally leads to the best achievement of your goal, ignoring the fact that there's this other benefit you get of enjoying your day-to-day life. Yeah, I think there's like a cliche. It's like the person who loves walking will walk further. And so you gotta figure out what,

not just what do you love about the thing, but how do you do it in a way that's enjoyable and sustainable, so you can do it over a long period of time. Because when you zoom out, yeah, it's like, you're not just trying to temporarily solve this problem. Because whatever got you there is still there. So if you're trying to lose weight, chances are just losing weight once, okay, you lost it, but now you're just gonna gain it back if you're not enjoying it on an ongoing kind of maintenance level. Exactly, right. Cause life hopefully is very long

and we need to achieve these goals over and over and over again, not just one off. Yes, and the irresolvable human temptation or flaw is there. So you have to come up with something that you're gonna keep doing and not convince yourself. You're fixed. Yes, yes, totally. Because you're never fixed, you'll always be a human.

Unfortunately or fortunately, however, you decide to look at that. I like to think of the glass as helpful, so let's go with fortunately. Yes, agreed. Well, this is amazing, and I didn't think we were gonna end up talking about the Odyssey, most of it, but I'm glad we did. I am too. This was really fun.

And now I have a new book to read to my son. So I'm excited that you convinced me he's ready for it. So thank you for that. I'll send you these translations. And then the other thing, there's this concept album about the Odyssey that's like sort of this rock opera that my son is really into also. So he's like, listening to it. And, and yeah, he's like, he's consuming it in

all the different mediums you could consume it. That's amazing. Well, maybe our kids can hang out someday. But your son sounds like he's gonna turn out as a pretty amazing guy. I hope so. Well, this was awesome. I really appreciate it. We'll talk soon. It was really fun. Thank you so much for having me. So well, this was awesome. I really appreciate it.

We'll talk soon. It was really fun. Thank you so much for having me. Thanks so much for listening. If you could rate this podcast and leave a review on iTunes, that would mean so much to us and would really help the show. We appreciate it.

And I'll see you next episode. If you like The Daily Stoic and thanks for listening, you can listen early and ad free right now by joining Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple podcasts. Prime members can listen ad free on Amazon Music. And before you go, would you tell us about yourself by filling out a short survey on Wondery.com slash survey. Have you ever heard of the term nuclear family? The term was coined by an anthropologist in the 1920s to describe the family structure

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