Wondery Plus subscribers can listen to Armchair Expert early and ad free right now. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts, or you can listen for free wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome, welcome, welcome to Armchair Expert Experts on Expert. I'm Dan Shepherd. I'm joined by Monica Mouse.

Hi.

Hello. Today, we have doctor Sunita Saw on, and she is an award winning professor at Cornell University and an expert in organizational psychology. She has a new book out called Defy the Power of No in a World That Demands Yes.

I loved this topic.

Yes.

I think it's really important to know how to stick up for yourself and when to stick up for yourself

once you know. I see this book as being enormously helpful for a huge amount of the population.

Yes.

It's very, very, very good. And, also, the amount of, her own story she includes

Mhmm.

And acknowledges how hard it is for her, I think, is always helpful.

What we like on this show is sort of looking at the opposite side of it. And we talked in the episode, and she starts a book with George Floyd and the rookie cops that

were there. Yeah.

And we

get into all that, and it's really fascinating and thinking about if you really put yourself in that position, what would you do?

Yeah. What would you do versus what you think you would do?

Yeah. And what you should do.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And how you yeah, some tools to make sure you do what you think you would do. Yeah.

Please enjoy doctor Sunita Soh.

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What's more popular, Monica, for Indian kids? To be a Neil or a Monica?

They're both pretty common.

Because Neil, I'm finding really is

Common.

If I'm life or death and I've gotta guess what someone's name is, I gotta go Neil. It just feels highest percentage. Yeah. Yeah.

I think you should go Jay.

Oh, really? Uh-huh. That's the most common.

Do you disagree? Yeah.

Because you've been here for 16 years.

Oh my goodness. Has it been that long?

It'll be 17 this year, 2025. 2008. Yeah?

2008. Now, you're making me feel nervous. That's no wonder my son says that. He's American now. Right?

Yeah. Yeah. Right. How long has he been?

He moved when he was 1. We almost went back to the UK in 2020 during the pandemic. So I got offered a position at the University of Cambridge. We were all like, let's go. And then he said, no, I am American.

Wow. He really planted a flag literally.

But you all were living there when he was 5 when the Olympics came through town?

We went back. When you said 2,008, so that last year, I finished my PhD, and I was doing my postdoc down at Duke, but we're living in Chapel Hill. And then you get 1 year of this extra you can stay. And then the 2nd year of my postdoc, my family didn't get visas. So they went back to London, and I was going back and forth.

Oh, boy.

You travel a lot even just now before Monica is here. You're saying you're teaching in Utica, is it, or Syracuse?

Utica and Roosevelt Island. Oh, wow.

Those are on opposite ends of the state of New York.

It's about 4 hours between 4 and a half.

And you're doing that

at the same time? Occasionally. It hasn't worked that well. Now, just 1 semester in 1 place, 1 semester in

the other

place because going back and forth.

That's a lot.

You grew up in the UK? Yeah. Okay. And your parents, did they immigrated there?

I was 1 when I came to England.

Okay.

I grew up my whole life there and also in Scotland. So my dad first came to England from India and did his PhD then went back to India and then brought the family.

You are a polymath. You've done many, many things. You've studied a lot of things. You've done research in a lot of things, but you were first a medical doctor.

That's right.

And so tell me, being a kid, when do we get the idea to be a doctor, and what is that experience before you change goals?

So in our community, medicine is 1 of the best things you can do. Right? So I had the grades. I was a good kid. I asked my dad when I was young what does my name mean, and he said in Sanskrit, Sunita means good.

Oh, wow.

And so I mostly lived up to that. I was a good girl in their eyes. So I did exactly what I was told. I did all my homework as expected. I was what in Yorkshire they call Swati, which means you're a Swat.

You work really hard. You do all your homework. Maybe it's equivalent to nerd here.

Oh, okay. Yeah. I guess if you ask me where the derivative nerd comes from, I have no clue because I was gonna say where does that originate? SWAT. What is that an abbreviation for?

Who knows?

I don't know. But when you talk about SWAT now, especially at business schools, it means something totally different, strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats. That's not what it means when I was growing up. Okay. So I got the grades, and it's like, why wouldn't you want to do medicine?

Yeah.

And I was like, well, I'm not sure. It's really for me. But in the UK, it's a combined undergraduate and graduate degree. So you basically start at the age of 18, medical school, and you finished. I was on the wards in my early twenties.

Oh, no kidding. From entering your first intro to biology class to having a patient, how short can that be in England?

Biology, we had to do as egg levels before you go in. At that point, it was 5 years, I think. That's it. But when you say first seeing a patient, the first 2 years are preclinical, so you're learning things. Then the 3rd year, you're on the wards and you're a clinical.

By the time you're 22, 23, you're qualified, you're on the wards. Wow.

Okay. Is that better or worse?

There's pros and cons. Here, you have to work so hard. I got all my education for free, which is pretty impressive. There's a small cost now in the UK, but I went through the whole medical school. I mean, earning peanuts once you start as a junior doctor, but that aspect of working earlier is great so you can get through.

Making the decision so early, questionable. Yeah. Although I say my career is perfectly planned. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. It's perfectly planned how I ended up. Yeah. But suddenly, there was a lot of pressure, and I lived up to those expectations of going to medical school and then finishing medical school and ended up working as a doctor.

And did you enjoy being a doctor?

I knew it wasn't for me. There were certain aspects I really loved, like the analytical part. I'm always analytical. I was always thinking, always questioning.

It's problem solving. Yes. Yeah.

I'm really fascinated by people as well. So just talking to people, meeting people, learning about their lives. So that aspect was great. I wasn't actually into the blood and gore aspect, and I remember talking to my teachers about that. Like, oh, I don't know about medicine.

Should and they were like, it's just 2 years preclinical. You're gonna do that fine. And then just get through the clinical years, and then you can end up doing research.

So when do we get interested in organizational psychology?

So we're always interested in psychology. So when I was at medical school, I did my 2 years preclinical, and then I took a year out to do what they call an intercalated degree in psychology. So they basically throw you in the 4th year of psychology, and you catch up on the 4th year. Oh, wow. I did that 1 year.

But that was such a wonderful year. It was amazing. That's when I started reading about Milgram Stanley's famous experiments, obedience to authority. I became fascinated with that, who did what we call the electric shock experiment.

Yes. Yes. Yes.

So finally Milgram was really fascinated by why the Nazis in World War 2 always kept saying, I was just following orders afterwards when they were being investigated for war crimes. Yeah. And so he decided to set up this experiment which was quite elaborate where he would bring people in from the community and they would be an actor. It was designed as an experiment on memory. That's what they thought they were coming into and whether sort of giving someone electric shocks would help them learn better.

Wow.

Yeah.

So that was the setup. First experiments were conducted at Yale in their basement, I think. So people would come in, they would meet somebody else that they thought was another participant, but it was actually an actor that they had, and they would rig it so the actor would be what they call the learner. So, then he would go into this room and the participant who was the teacher would see him being rigged up to what looked like an electric chair, and they would feel 1 of the shocks 15 volts or something. So it all looked really real.

And then the teacher would go to another room, and they would be sat in front of this box that was sort of labeled from 15 volts to 450 volts.

Right.

And it would go up in 15 volt increments and it would be labeled. So right at the end, it was 3 x's. Danger. Huge shock. Yeah.

So they are they can be lethal shocks at that point. Then the teacher had to read out some word pairs, and the learner had to memorize and repeat them back. And if they got something wrong, they would get a shock, and then it would go up 15 volts.

And the test subject would be in charge of administering the shock. Right?

So they had to read out the word pairs, and the experimenter was usually in the room just sort of overseeing. And if the teacher protested, they would tell them, you know, please go on with the experiment. They had, like, 4 prompts to tell them, please go on, it's essential that you continue, the experiment requires that you go on.

Yeah.

And when psychiatrists predicted beforehand what would happen, they thought that most people would not go past a 150 volts. And, in fact, every single participant in the first experiment went past that.

And the actor is screaming.

About a 150 volts, there's thumping on the wall, and there's verbal complaints that I don't want to go on with this.

I don't wanna go on.

Oh my god. Get me out of here. I refuse to go on with the experiment. And it was also told to the participants he had a heart condition.

Oh. And so Oh my god.

Really horrifying. They predicted only about 1 in 1,000 would go up to 450 volts. But they found that everyone pulled the lever for a 150 volts, everyone pulled it for 300 volts, and 66% went out to 450 volts. Holy shit. Yeah.

Even Milgram was shocked. Yeah. Yeah. He was shocked at the results because he didn't think that he would find that, and he was like, I really thought this was something unique about German culture, but everybody is doing this.

I understand that you're in a class, you learn that. That is intrinsically interesting. I think everyone would be a bit interested in that. But then I also am curious, was there an additional layer for you personally where that is extra interesting?

As I said, I was always known for being an obedient daughter and seduit, but I was fascinated by people who could defy. And I was good friends with someone at high school. Let's call her Clara. She was able to defy. I started at Saint Joseph's College, which is an all girls Catholic school at the other side of town.

My dad thought that I'm gonna get a good education there, so I would catch 2 busses to go to Saint Joseph's. It was the roughest school I've been to. Oh, wow. That's a little bit more he thought, but

it was

also a lot of fun.

Everyone's sorry you wanna send your good

girl. Yeah.

And Clara came in 2 weeks late. She had moved from Hastings in the south of England to the north, and so she was different a little bit. I was also different. I was just 1 of a handful of non white girls at the school, and we became really close friends even though we were so different from each other.

Were you so attracted to her ability to defy?

Absolutely. I was like, how can she do that? Because she just walked in. We had this sort of checkered blue and white blouse that we'd wear and a red sweater. She walked in without the red sweater.

I thought she just stood out so much, and I was like, who is she? You know? Especially because the headmistress had said before, I want everybody in their red sweaters because when I look out, I just wanna see a sea of red.

Can I bring him to speed a little bit on our own personal dynamic? Her other best friend other than me is 6 foot 7 redhead, the most assertive, loud. He's openly gay without any fear of it.

He's so him.

He's fearlessly himself.

Yeah. Yeah.

And then I will fit in that box a bit as well. So there's a 1 thing with Monica and I, and then Monica and Jess

because I was also very good.

Yeah.

I was gonna

say Yeah.

You're a

good girl. You're a good girl. Thank you.

Is it a good thing, though?

Right. And I think I've grown into I totally defy.

You've transcended, for what I know about your school experience and trying to acclimate and blend in and all those things. I don't see you as that way at all, but certainly, you did spend a good deal of your life.

Oh, yeah. Just trying to be good. Just trying to do everything I needed to do to not get removed

Or singled out.

From

society or singled out. I grew up in Georgia, and as you're saying, you were 1 of the only brown kids. Yeah. You just wanted to be I did.

Bless you.

Wanna be like everyone else. So, yes, when there's someone there, I actually commend you for being attracted to that at that time because if there's someone there who's being so themselves, that at that time would have terrified me.

Well, they might have sucked you in Yeah.

That the attention

might have gotten.

If I

become friends with them, then everyone's gonna be so aware of me. I didn't want anyone to be aware of me.

I remember, I think a few years before that, maybe when I was at middle school, my dad got me these bright red, like, warmers. When my dad bought them for me, I was like, I just didn't wanna wear them. They're too bright. Yeah. Give me black so I can kinda blend in.

And I was like, no. We can't return them now. So I have to wear these things to school. And it was excruciating. Right?

I was trying to hide them with my coat. I was like, no. No. I don't wanna be wearing this. But then I kinda changed when I went to Saint Joseph's and when the headmistress said, like, a sea of red, I was like, I'm not sure about that.

And I had the song of Another Brick in the Wall by Oh, yeah. Kind of playing. Right? So I was getting quite attracted to these kind of things.

Like rebelliousness.

I was more questioning. Oh, that's right. Why do they want us to conform so much? Because I was so used to obeying, right, and doing and getting rewards for that. I would see teachers doing things that I thought were unfair.

So when I was at middle school, I saw 1 of my teachers beating up another kid. Oh. And that was horrifying to me. And I remember meeting him in the corner shop that we had just down the road, and I was really scared, But he was so nice and friendly to me, and in my child's mind, I basically thought that was because he thought I was good.

Yeah.

You were good. Yeah.

He only beats bad people.

He only beats

bad people.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

And so I tried, like hell, never to be bad so I wouldn't get treated like the way that boy got treated. But it really unnerved me. Right? It left something there as to why our teachers expected us to behave in this particular way. And when I realized that people in authority can do things like that, they can be unethical, incompetent, and just plain stupid, then you start to question, the people that are in charge maybe don't have our best interests in mind.

The structure has put them there, not their character. Right. And when you kinda realize that, like, oh, the principal of the school has a title. Doesn't mean that he's been vetted as a good person necessarily. There's a real dissonance when you recognize, oh, no.

They're humans, and who knows? I'm friends with a ton of addict doctors, and people will be shocked that doctors are addicts. I'm like, do you think they're different people?

In some

ways, it's excessive at medical school. Right? Yeah. And when I came to the US, it was fascinating when we were trying to find an apartment to rent. As soon as you say I'm a doctor

Yeah.

Some of the people I know that are completely wild and off track are doctors.

Of course. Yeah.

There's a lot of stress release.

Yeah. If you wanna have a good night party, you can go out with some nurses or some doctors, and it's on.

Oh, yeah. We had some good nights. So

I'm really, really interested in that as well. I'm aware of that experiment. And then, of course, the Stanford Prison one's very famous, and people are kind of aware of that. But your book starts out in a really wonderful and timely place, and you start by looking at the George Floyd case. And there were elements of this I had no idea, and it's really something.

So you're not focusing on the asshole that had his knee on his neck. No. What's far more interesting is there are 2 rookies there. 1 guy's on his 3rd day, a black rookie, and then the white rookie is on his 4th day at work.

That really haunted me because they were rookie officers, and the guy with the knee on the neck was their training supervisor. So that image of George Floyd is ingrained in lots of people's minds, and it's horrific. Also, when I think about the rookie officers, I always think, what would I have done? Because they're obeying. They're in a line of hierarchy.

They've been trained to obey. And even though in the manual, if your officer is asking you to do something unethical and things, you should defy or say something. It's impossible. And people are saying, why did they do that? Why did they not say no?

It's so impossible to

do that in certain situations, especially if you haven't anticipated it, confronted it before, know how to react, practice it

Yeah.

Rather than just intellectually knowing.

And if we're inclined to judge them, we have the benefit of knowing the outcome of that, which is it resulted in a death.

Yes.

I think their back stories are really compelling as well. The white cop's grandfather was a homicide detective. His great grandfather was the chief of police of Minneapolis. The black rookie intentionally joined the police force to help change it from the inside.

To build bridges.

You wanna talk about the right values and intentions, these 2 have it in spades.

Yeah. And so often, our actions just don't align with our values. And we see this time and time again. And this is what I wanted to study in more depth. Why is that?

We can sit here in our chairs, right, and just say, oh, we wouldn't do that. We would act in this particular way. But when you're actually in that situation, it's so difficult. You're up against a lot of forces. Yeah.

So you end that

You're up against a lot of forces. Yeah. So you end that description by saying, I'd like to think I would have done differently, but here's the situation I was in that I also would have thought I would have done differently. So talk about going to the hospital with chest pains.

That day, I had this immense central chest pain, and I hadn't felt any pain like this before. So I was worried about it, and I thought I need to get this checked out. I was fairly new to having moved to the US, and so I went to the emergency room. And immediately, there's loads of tests being done, and they did an electrocardiogram which was the main thing I was concerned about. Like, am I having a heart attack or not?

And everything was normal. Thank goodness. And the pain was subsiding. It was going away. So, I thought, great, I'm gonna be discharged.

And then the doctor came in, she was kind of young and confident, and she just said, oh, I'll need you to have a CT scan before you go. And I was like, why? And she was like, oh, we just wanna make sure you don't have a pulmonary embolism. PE is a blood clot in the lungs, and it has a specific type of pain. And I worked for 6 months in respiratory medicine, which you call pulmonary here.

And this type of pain when you have an embolism in the lung is what we call pleuritic chest pain. It's a sharp pain. It catches your breath when you breathe in and breathe out, and I didn't have that type of pain. I didn't want to have this CT scan she was talking about because it's on average 70 times the amount of radiation of an x-ray. And even though it's still small, why have ionizing radiation, which can cause cancer many years into the future?

Why take the risk, right, if it's unnecessary? Yeah. So I had the knowledge in that situation, and I should have said no. And yet, I just couldn't say no. And so I was then wheeled into the room with a CT scan and the technician, and I couldn't even say no then.

I would just ask questions in this polite way, like, oh, it's not a lot of radiation, is it? Even though I knew because I

wanted them to pick up on my discomfort and say, oh, do you not want this? Right. Yeah.

And that didn't discomfort and say, oh, do you

not want this?

Right. Yeah. And that didn't happen.

Yeah.

So I ended up having the CT scan. Why couldn't I just say no in that situation? It was safe for me to say no. It would have been effective, and yet something held me back. The only reason I had it was because the doctor told me to.

So here's the doctor in a safe situation. She's even smiling. I can't say no, and I'm a doctor myself. So what would I have done in this situation with George Boyd, with a police officer wearing a gun? That's how difficult this is.

It's terrifying when you think about it, and there was a survey of 1700 crew members of commercial airlines. About half of them did not feel comfortable to speak up when they saw an error.

Yeah. Well, and then there's a really disturbing not disturbing, actually. It's kind of encouraging that we can figure this out. You can correlate these culturally, there are different fears of power. So then you have this cultural element on top of it.

Right?

So there's this psychological process that I call insinuation anxiety that I uncovered in my experiments, but the actual experience, I experienced it when I was having the CT scan. I knew this feeling for years years. The name for it only came after I started doing research in it. And insinuation anxiety is this aversive emotional state that we have when we believe that not complying with someone else will be a signal of distrust to that person. So it basically insinuates that the other person is incompetent, biased, corrupt, and trustworthy in some way, and you don't want to give them that signal.

And so the copilot is telling the pilots, you haven't observed this. You're doing something wrong here. Like, I don't think we should do that. It's really difficult. Yeah.

Yeah. And I see it in experiments in the hospital as well and surveys. Nurses can't speak up when they see a colleague making an error for the same reason.

Well, especially if they're in charge of you, if they're your boss or they're above you. How can you?

Even with physicians in this particular survey, it was less than 1% whether you had a supervisory role of the physician or not. Less than 1% could actually tell them if it was something about their physician's incompetence. You don't want that. You want your copilots to speak up. You want supervising physicians and nurses working with physicians to speak up if they see something going wrong because these life and death situations are huge.

But even when it's not life and death, and sometimes you don't know. Like, as the rookie cops, right, they probably didn't know this was gonna turn out to be an unfolding murder or a life and death type situation. But you don't wanna end up in those situations because you're so wired to go along with it. You're so socialized to say, okay, I'm going to obey.

Let's start by defining defiance. I think that would be most helpful.

The Oxford English Dictionary definition of defiance is to challenge the power of someone else boldly and openly, and I shouldn't really disagree with that having been brought up in English. I do. I think it's way too narrow, and I think a better definition of defiance, considering everything that we've spoken about, is that to defy is simply to act in accordance with your own true values, your core values when there is pressure to do otherwise. Oh.

I like that because, you know, part of the social angst of it all is that we all have a relative amount of codependency as well. We're not prone to hurt people's feelings or call them incompetent or insinuate things. But if it's just about you, when you depersonalize that and detach from that, it's just like, no, no, it's actually just living in accordance with my values, really has nothing to do with that person. Yeah. I like that.

That feels liberating.

And also, values can involve other people too. Speaking up when you see somebody causing harm to someone else is really a communal act in a way. So redefining, reframing defiance from this negative connotation to being a proactive positive force in society, because if you think about it, every single act of consent and dissent and compliance, that creates the society that we live in.

Yeah. You say defiance is the exception and obedience is the rule. So let's talk about the forces at play. What happens neurologically?

So if you're socialized to comply from a young age, if you're rewarded for being compliant, and I know I was, you probably were I don't know if you were I

was rewarded for being rebellious. Really? I got lucky in that I have a mother that prized that.

That's fascinating. So for many of us Yeah.

Yeah. I think most, I got very lucky.

That was encouraged. Right?

Yes.

So Can

you say I know what you're about to say.

Yeah. I know all the time. But we come from a family with a lot of trauma. We've been victimized a lot. My mother's been victimized a lot.

I was victimized a lot. So our family was like, fuck this. We're never getting victimized again. We've paid that price, and we won't pay it again. That was the ethos in the house, born out of a lot of victimization, unfortunately, but I do like the results of it all.

1 of the things that I really noticed in the people that I've interviewed is if you have seen your parents defy as well, it's so powerful, and I do have 1 or 2 moments where my parents did defy even though they were compliant most of the time, and that stayed with me.

Way more than the times they were acquiesced, probably. Yeah.

And it changed my view of compliance and defiance being personality traits. I realized this is a skill. We can choose to use it or not because even the most compliant person, my mother, she does all the shopping, the groceries, looking after all the family. I had very neatly put her into the box of being compliant. And 1 day when she was defiant, it just blew my mind.

I was like, woah, that's so impressive. She's actually really strong. Yeah. And she can be defiant when she needs to be.

It could be harder for some of us than others, but it's also possible for everyone.

If I can do it, right, with the upbringing I had, I think most people can learn how to defy. It's just you have to learn that skill set. You have to get out. So if you're talking about neurologically, I was rewarded for being compliant. That's when the neural pathways start to form.

Like, obedience, it becomes our default. We start equating obedience with being good, compliance with being good.

You get good chemicals, you get dopamine, the reward center is activated, and it does change the format of your brain.

Absolutely. So we become what I call wired to comply. Right? It becomes the default without thinking. Somebody says to do something, we go along, and we do it.

And so that's really powerful socialization, the messages that we get, to obey, to be polite, you know, don't make a scene, don't question authority, listen to them. And that makes a difference to the rest of our lives in a way and our default setting. But if we think about situations where we learn how to defy, we need to really practice so we can change that default setting. The more that we practice, the more those other pathways start to strengthen. For example, I have these 5 stages of defiance.

So the first 1, like, usually when we're in a situation where we want to defy or we think we should, we feel some kind of tension. So our body immediately tells us, we don't think this is quite right. So I felt it with a CT scan. I'm sure you've been in situations where you felt like, oh, I don't know about that. Yeah.

And so often, we just ignore it. We think that it's not worth our doubt. Exactly.

Is it worth it? Yeah.

You see, you might feel anxiety or nervousness or dread, sweaty palms, fast beating heart, not in the stomach. These are all signals.

And we probably have our own signs. Right? People will probably feel it differently. Maybe for some people, it's a headache. Maybe for some people, it's their throat constricting.

Maybe it's feeling butterflies. So we all have a sign that comes up. And then the second stage is to acknowledge that. Rather than disregard it, is just admit it to yourself. Right?

I'm feeling something.

Yeah. Because I think most people are stuck in a pattern of, so I'm feeling these things. That's my actual cue to push through and ignore and compartmentalize and throw away.

Yeah. Avoid it. And that's a shame because it's a warning sign. And if we actually listen to it, it could help us because we just need to, like, why am I feeling this way? What does it actually mean?

I felt it with a CT scan, and I was like, okay. But it actually got worse. As I carried on having the CT scan, it didn't go away.

Yeah. You didn't push it aside. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

And so I felt it more, and then I felt so much regret afterwards. Like, how easy would it have been for me to say no? Why couldn't I say no? Actually, it wasn't that easy, but what can I do to make sure I say no next time? And so feeling the tension, acknowledging it to yourself.

And then stage 3 is the real critical stage, is just vocalizing it to someone else. And the reason that stage is so critical is because if you tell someone else you're not comfortable with this, you've stated how you feel. You can't then go back and rationalize to yourself, I was actually okay with it after all. Right? You know, it's fine.

So once you've said that, all you have to do then is continue saying it. And this was the same in the Milgram experiment. So there were people, even though 2 thirds of the subjects went up to 450 dangerous shocks, and they were called the obedient subjects. Not all of them did this willingly. Right?

Yes. I'm gonna shock that person.

Let's go. I wish this thing went to 700. Let's get some memorization going. Gayle know this on his deathbed.

Milgram call them the moral imbeciles, but they were well. Groaning, nervous laughter. They had these signs of tension. The nervous laughter, oh, I have that for sure. And then

I will smile.

I have what a colleague of mine called the crocodile smile. Is that as soon as I'm uncomfortable, I'll be like, yeah. Okay. Yeah. That would be yeah.

Imani, you'd call that fawning?

Yeah. It's an appeasement. Okay. I'm not a threat. Exactly.

I can't let my face betray me. Yeah. I can put in the most exaggerated version of my face.

That third stage, if you could say, I'm not comfortable with this, or the people in the Milgram experiments, is he actually okay? If they had resisted 4 times, that was the experiment, that was 4 prompts, then the experiment would have ended. So you just then need to continue, and stage 4 is that threat of noncompliance. I can't go through with it.

Could we call that a boundary, like stating a boundary? Yeah.

Stage 3, it's still in a subservient position.

You're saying how you feel about it. You haven't said you're not gonna do it. You're just saying I feel this way.

Yes. And then 4 is stating that you can't. And then 5 is your final act of defiance.

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So understanding those stages, it might not be linear. You might skip some stages. There are certain situations that I found that I find it easier to define, and you can go from stage 2 to stage 5. And we can all find those places where, oh, this is actually more natural for me to do it.

I need to add some of the stages in as more my direction to be better. I go from tension to act of defiance.

You know,

I'm gonna tell you right now so you can't go any further with the you know?

I think it also just depends on the situation because it depends on the punishment.

On the consequence. The consequences. Exactly. Don't you think sometimes it isn't worth it? Right.

So they are consequences for being defined for sure. That's what a horse's back a lot of the time. So, you know, when we think about why don't we defy, why do we actively even resist defiance, number 1, immense pressure from other people to do what they want you to do, the insinuation anxiety aspect about what the psychological process is. And then number 2 is actually we don't really understand what consent and dissent actually is. We don't understand what defiance actually is, and I'll come back to that.

And then the third 1 is about once you want to define, you understand that you don't have the skill set to define, so we need to learn it. But the consequences of defiance, people always think about is gonna affect this relationship. You know, I'm gonna disrupt the harmony. It might even cost me my job or might be some physical danger. So we do need to think about the consequences of defiance, like, what type of situation is this?

There's sort of 2 questions we ask. Is it safe for me to defy, and will it be effective? But what we don't often think about are the consequences and the costs of complying because there's a lot of costs for continually complying with other people and putting aside your values. If you're always bowing your head to someone else, disregarding your values, it really has an effect on you.

Yeah. So that's where my personal willingness to do this is is I have 2 kind of very seminal moments where I didn't defy, and it was both destructive and painful. But beyond the events, the shame and disappointment in myself was so intense for so long that for me, any other option was worth it. Like, I just experienced such a level of regret and shame and and self flagellation for not getting myself out of a couple different situations that for me, I can immediately go to what that feels like. Mhmm.

And so, yeah, this feels uncomfortable, but that feels like a 20. I know what that is. Yeah. And I can do a very quick cost benefit analysis for me. It's very crystal clear.

It's like, I know what that other thing feels like, so it's very easy for me. I guess that's the benefit of those things.

Yeah. If we reflect on what happened in that situation, you in these particular incidents that happened, me with a CT scan, and then think about what factors enable our defiance and what makes it harder for us. Understanding that is really key. But Understanding that is really key. But anticipating, even when we think about all the big heroes that defied and had huge moments like Rosa Parks saying, no, I'm not gonna move on the bus, there were lots of compliance moments before that moment.

Mhmm.

And so we shouldn't have so much shame, but that rumination is actually really helpful to think about what is it I wish I had done in that situation. Because if we can then visualize it, if we can anticipate it, then that takes away the surprise. Right? So the next time I was asked to go for some more radiation that I didn't need, I wasn't as surprised. I was anticipating it.

I had practiced what I wish I would have said, and then I was able to say it.

And we could probably get in quickly to the biology of that, which is interesting, which is if you anticipate it versus it comes up on you in a flash and you're not prepared, you've not thought this through at all, you don't have an executive game plan, and now you're just scared and frazzled, and you're in a part of your brain that doesn't do well with that. So, yeah, the benefit of not being taken off guard is half of the battle perhaps.

Oh, yeah. Absolutely. That anticipation is so key. There's this famous saying that's often attributed to Bruce Lee, but it's actually a Greek poet that said, like, under duress, we don't rise to the level of our expectations. We fall to our level of training.

And so that training aspect is so key and I didn't realize it, right, because it does change those neural pathways. So anticipating, and we can anticipate more than we actually think. Sometimes we're caught off, but I know because we've experienced situations before when at the workplace a particular colleague is gonna say something inappropriate or they're gonna make a sexist remark. We can kinda predict things that might happen, so we can start anticipating

Yeah. If you've been out to a work dinner with a coworker who has 5 other times made a sexist joke, pretty good odds that's coming your way

again. Again. Yes. Then we can visualize it and practice it. If you don't have, like, that behavioral training of actually practicing, if it's just the intellectual part, it's not gonna make a difference.

So you need to actually practice it. And this presentation workshop I went to, I just loved the phrase that they used. If you practice, your ears get used to hearing it and your mouth gets used to saying those words. That's really useful to know that that's what makes a difference.

Can we go back to the forces at play? Because I wanna talk about the social 1. Of course, I wanna interject kind of my anthropological lens onto it. Yeah. I think it could reduce some of the shame people experience from not being able to rise to that occasion.

I think the primary hardwired evolved state we inherited is we are a social primate. 300000 years ago, if you weren't obedient, you got kicked out. And 3000 years ago to not be with your group is death, and that's real evolution. That's actually how your brain is still functioning. So give yourself a little bit of a break.

Although it is menial, it's, you know, the person at Starbucks or whatever it is, your body doesn't know that your body thinks to be excluded from my group right now is death. So you have a very over exaggerated response to what our modern world is, but let's just grant everyone that we're not designed to be defiant.

Even the insinuation anxiety feeling, I've said, is an aversive state, it's uncomfortable for a reason because your defiance might be causing harm to someone else. Or you. Yeah. It's there for a reason that somebody is expecting something of you. What does it mean?

Right? So I think understanding that too, sort of naming it, and knowing that we have 2 kind of ideal selves, especially in America. We have this ideal independent self. We want to act on our agency. We want to do what we think is right, but we also have this interdependent self, which is that we want to remain in harmony with everybody around us.

And there are 2 sort of ideals like Hazel Marcus and Shinobu Kitayana talk about these ideal selves. We can't ever achieve 1 state or the other state, and they're there for a reason.

It wouldn't be great to achieve either state exclusively.

Exactly.

Yeah.

And so we do need to to think about that, but we also need to hold dear to ourselves what are our values. But if you're at

home going, I'm a spineless piece of shit, no, you're a social primate. And then you have to kinda transcend some of the stuff that is not useful anymore or that is vestigial and doesn't serve you. I wanna maybe acknowledge it's not across the board. It's not totally equal for every group of people, I think we should acknowledge that. It's easier for me to be defiant than either of you.

That's what I was gonna say earlier when I said, oh, I think you should say it. That's what I thought you were gonna say. Some people have a little bit of a leg up doing it with less consequences. Yeah.

I got a double whammy. Like, my sister still will fight anybody over nothing. She came from the same culture as I did, so she got that leg up. But then I have also the leg up of being 62 in male overall.

It's what I call those defiance hierarchy. Some people are allowed to defy, even rewarded for it. Yes. And others, they have more costs. There's more severe consequences.

There's more backlash for being defiant. And it's interesting that the people that are in that category, which is anything from sort of the dominant norm, the tall white male, anything that deviates from that group, you actually need to be defiant more often because you're expected to be more compliant.

The paradox is more confident. You're going to need to be defiant more Yes. And you're gonna be more harshly

Punished. Yeah. Yes.

Defiant. Yes. So unfair.

Yep. That keeps on giving.

So that's why I just

get so tired. Don't you just get exhausted of having to just constantly be that person?

It can be exhausting. You have those extra burdens that you carry.

But not to put a silver lining on it, you get all the upside of the extra challenge. So you get a skill set. My trauma gave me something too, so it's negative, but also you have an empathy probably that other people don't have. It's a suite of behaviors and thoughts.

I mean, it'd be interesting what people might choose between those things. It's 1 where I often describe as being on a balance beam for some people. There's only a narrow set of behaviors that are possible for you to do without being punished. Yeah. But sometimes you can get to firmer ground where you can find, this is now safe and effective for me to defy and find places where that is accepted.

What's the difference between compliance and consent?

So compliance is something that we just go along with someone else. It's usually externally imposed or default. We're not really thinking about it. We kind of slide into it. I like

the word reactive in there as well. It's kinda put on you when you're reacting all of a sudden.

Exactly. Consent, I take the definition of informed consent in medicine, and I apply it to the other decisions that we make in life, which I find really useful. There's 5 elements that are required for informed consent. So first of all, this capacity, that we have the mental capacity to make a decision. So we're not under the influence of drugs or alcohol or we're not sick.

And then knowledge. So we need to know about the situation, have full information about that situation. And 3rd, understanding of that. Do we understand the risks, the benefits, the alternatives? Then number 4, do we have the freedom to say no?

In some situations, we don't have the freedom to say no. It might be too risky. Your life might be on the line in some situations.

Well, it could be structurally defined. You could be in the military.

Exactly. You might not have the freedom to say no. Another 1 is if you're a black guy and you're stopped at a traffic stop. Right? That's not the place to defy.

Yeah. So freedom to say no, and then if you have those 4 things, the 5th element is your considered authorization of an informed consent. And if you want to say no, informed refusal.

I think that's 1 of the trickier zones. My personal experience with this was my father was dying of small cell carcinoma, and it had spread everywhere. And we had done all the treatments, and it was clearly towards the end. We knew the time horizon was 3 months to begin with, and at the very end of this experience, the oncologist comes on to say he'd like to do brain radiation. And I said, is it worse to die of brain cancer than the lung cancer or the bone cancer everywhere it's at?

And he said, well, yeah, it could be worse. And I said, okay. It just feels like it's another treatment more towards the end, and it's gonna be 1 of these cancers that gets them. And then I asked my dad, and he had been letting me make all these decisions, but, of course, I was running them all by him, and I said, do you wanna do this brain radiation thing? And he said, I do.

And I said, okay. I don't think it's gonna, you know but ultimately, it was his cancer and his so I backed away, did it. The result was nothing positive, and it severely impacted his cognition. And I'm so resentful at that whole experience. Now I at least have the distance of he made the decision.

I did say I think it's a bad idea. You know, I'm not carrying around a ton about it, but it pissed me off. And again, I think, a, I'm totally up for a confrontation. I'm in the best situation possible for this, still didn't go my way. But, yeah, your average person, there's a doctor telling them this is a good idea, and what are you to do?

And we do have trust in our doctors, and it would be a shame if that disappeared. Right? That element of public trust. But there's also a lot being written on end of life treatment and how aggressive it can be, but it's really difficult. Again, it's an ideal that can never be fully attained in medicine and elsewhere.

Now, here's a great example of where the anticipation's helpful. So, like, Atul Gawande would advise you have an end of life plan. Yes.

What do

you wanna do in this last few months?

Do you

wanna go out with your kids and have ice cream?

What's quality of life for you?

Because if you just show up and you get bombarded with all this information you don't understand, you're gonna react and you don't really know, but that's a good use of an hour of your life to kinda map out what you want that to be at the end.

I think if people wanna have that conversation, and then even as I told Guande talks about, people prefer different types of care. Right? Somebody wants the paternalistic advice. Just tell me what to do, and I'll follow it. Other people want more of a guided, informed, shared decision making and the doctor to be more of a coach.

I want a buffet of options that are explained to me, and then I wanna pick.

Yeah. Some people find that really hard.

And overwhelming. Yeah. Yeah. What's a true yes?

So true yes is consent. So having those 5 elements there would be your true yes, or a true no is the same. The informed confuser is just having those 5 elements. But sometimes you have those 5 factors there, but you decide to actually do what I call conscious compliance. So you consciously comply because the cost might be too big or this is not the right time to do it, and because, as you said, it's exhausting.

Yeah. So you need to choose, is this situation going against my values? Otherwise, we'd be defying every day. We wouldn't get anything done. Yeah.

And we need to really choose what situations are going against our values that this is worth me speaking up and saying something about.

I couldn't help but think of some situations where I felt like I don't know if defiance is productive to the mission. Do we want a battalion of soldiers thinking we should go over the left flank and they think we should go over the right? Are there not some implicit situations where it's like, no?

I interviewed a few of my students that have been in the military, which is really fascinating to hear their stories. And in fact, 1 of the first ones, and I remember it really well because we were speaking on Zoom on a Sunday afternoon, I was calling Matthew. He told me about when he went into the military, and he did it because he grew up with 911, so seared into his memory. And he wanted to prove that he's an American, he's a patriot, and it was deployed to Iraq. And his best friend got killed in the 1st few months, and there was an incident where they were on some nighttime mission and he's like, nothing usually happens at nighttime, but there was this flash and then a grenade going off that was too close for comfort.

And they immediately started opening fire. Some people went off in his squad, and they came back with 4 prisoners. 1 of them, Matthew, had and had to look after. And this person was just screaming out in Arabic and his supervisor said to him, he's talking too much, he's screaming, shut him up. And Matthew said, what should I do?

And he was like, oh, it's simple. He did it in the mouth. And so he looked at the man and there was load coming out from his nose into his beard, so he hit him. And the man didn't stop talking, and his sergeant said, he's not stopped. Hit him again.

Hit him in the stomach. And Matthew just looked at me, and he just said, and that's what I did.

Oh, yeah. Yeah.

And then later on, he told me that he found out that these weren't insurgents at all. They were young teenage boys.

Wrong place at the wrong time.

They were 15 or 16 years old. Mhmm. He couldn't understand what they were saying, and he felt really bad about it. And he said in that instant, he just trusted. He had no option.

The next time they were on some kind of mission and they stopped and they basically formed like a circle, what they do in war. Right? And what he told me is that you're not supposed to get out and just spray and pray. You have to have a target, otherwise, you can hurt civilians. And he said, but they just got out and they did spray and pray.

And in that moment, he did not do that. He kind of turned around and looked at the desert behind him. And later on, his superior said to him, what were you doing? And he said, oh, I was just providing security. I was looking at providing cover.

And he said that was the only thing he could think of for not doing it, but it actually was because his feelings were getting really complicated about whether he was doing the right thing or not. And he didn't describe his actions as defiant. He even said they were kind of cowardly. If he had actually said what he felt, he would have gone to military prison, and he said, and maybe they'd be right. But that 1 incident that he said was half conscious, he did start becoming a little bit more defiant.

So I call that quiet defiance where you're not actively saying no to someone else, but you're not going against what you think is the right thing

to do. Betraying your own ethics in service of this other person.

Right. And so later on then, he became less quietly defiant. There was another nighttime mission that he thought was way unsafe. He involved going out at the nighttime with goggles very close to a cliff edge, and he went to see his superior, and he just said, I don't think we should do this. It's far too dangerous.

And his superior was just like, shut up. Do as I say. Are you disobeying me? He's like, no. But I'm adamantly against the idea.

And, of course, the mission went ahead. People came back after half an hour. It didn't work out. It was too unsafe, but he wasn't rewarded for that. He was basically punished.

He didn't get his promotion, but he said it was the right thing to do, and he became a little bit more comfortable with sort of saying those things. But, yes, in the military, I hear time and time again from my students that have been there, it's yes, yes, yes. And 1 of them said you are trained to do, not to think.

And it's very complicated. Right? So you're talking to a guy who's seemingly intelligent and thoughtful, and then there's also a dipshit there who shouldn't be doing a ton of thinking. So it's a very complex situation. It's not clean.

Yeah. So in war, that type of compliance is very helpful on the battlefield, for sure.

I was thinking about something much more benign, which is a movie set. So what is a common conflict between an actor and a director, and both have very legitimate points of view, is the director will go to the actor and say, okay, let's do it again, but this time don't be so sad. And then the actor will say, that's what my character would be in this moment. My character would be this sad. And now the director's juggling the entire movie, not the moment, not the scene.

If you cry in this scene, your next scene, we need you crying at a 10. For the arc of your character, I need this to not be what is true to you right now because we have to service this broader thing. So that's like a very benign example.

That doesn't feel too much like a values values driven by that.

So if you've dedicated your life to being an actor and you went to Juilliard and your commitment is to tell the truth every time you open your mouth, that's your North star.

Yeah. I think there's many situations where it is complicated. That's why we struggle with it too. If it was that simple, then we would get it right every single time, and we don't.

I've added on a set early in my comedic career where you would still make homophobic jokes that was standard. And I remember getting in a huge fight with 1 of my directors, like, I'm not saying that. There's a 12 year old kid gonna watch this who's gay in Michigan.

That makes a ton of sense. That to me is, like, more value driven. Driven. Not as an actor because that's an identity we place on ourselves.

It's an occupation.

It's an occupation. Yeah. A value of I refuse to take someone down.

Yeah. Yeah.

That makes a ton of sense, and I think that is fully worth defying.

I think that's definitely worth I'm I'm with you totally, I imagine.

You have some good historic and contemporary kind of examples in the book. Is there any that you would like to share with us that aren't your favorites?

So when I said earlier on that there's some stories of my parents to find that have really stayed with me, 1 of my mom is 1 that really I think was transformative. So I was about 7 or 8, and I was walking back from the grocery store with my mom. And it was quite a long walk back, and we had this rickety shopping cart. And we were rolling that back home, and we decided to take a shortcut through what you call in Yorkshire a snicket, which is just a narrow alleyway. Right?

So But

you gave a bit of

terrible name. Yeah. Snicket Yahtzee.

What were you doing there? Swati.

Swati. Swati. Yeah. When I went to elementary school, I was not supposed to go through that Snicket. Mhmm.

That's exciting.

Family house.

I just

realized that.

It was the way we went all the time.

It was there. But anyway, mom and I, we went through the Snicket, and we were confronted by about 7 or 8 teenage boys. And they blocked our path, and they started shouting out some stuff to us, like some racist comments, go back home.

We're trying to.

Get back. Literally,

we're on

our way. Right?

Take carriage. You're just naked.

You're talking. That would've been a good

idea. Yeah. Whatever.

But my reaction was instant, which is what you had described before. Right? Immediately, eyes down, averted. All I wanted to do was not look at them and maneuver my way through and get home as fast as I could. And my mom, she's petite she's smaller than me now.

She was taller than me at the time, but she's, like, 4 10. She had, like, her hair very neatly plaited back, single braid at the back, and I had thought of her as completely compliant person. And she did something that really surprised me that day. She put the shopping cart up vertical, and she put 1 hand on her hip, and she looked at them and she said, what do you mean? My fear was going up at this point.

So I grabbed her arm even tighter, and I started whispering to her. I was like, come on, ma. Yeah. And I wanted to be the compliant person and that, and she shook me off. Right?

She was like, no. And she looked at them again, and she said, what do you mean? They stared at her. She stared at them, and then she said, oh, you think you're big, tough boys. Right?

Big, strong boys. And she started telling them off in broken English. Oh, wow. And they, like, just looking at each other thinking, what's going on here? And 1 of them just said, let's go.

Yeah. And they just dispersed. Yeah. And I was like, what happened? My mom grabbed the cart and she walked as fast as she could through that snicket.

I never thought the day would come that she would tell off a group of boys on the street in that way.

There's something sad and beautiful about it, which is people will do that for their children.

Exactly.

Because even before the social primate evolution Protection,

responsibility, and people do. Like, I can defy for my son so much easier than I can defy for my son.

Isn't that sad? That's the sad part. The beauty of it is

There's something beautiful about having responsibility for someone else.

I do too. What's heartbreaking to me is that you can't advocate for yourself.

But you can tap into that.

That's a tool even. Imagine this is being said to your

Exactly. To a loved 1. What would you do in that situation? I say that to my son at times when he gets stressed about things. Like, what advice would you give a loved 1?

What would you tell someone who's in 9th grade right now how to handle this situation? But what that really taught me was that defiance is a skill set, it's a practice, it's not a personality. And even though compliance might be our default, it's not our destiny, so we can change. I had seen her come home several times, and she would be muttering away. So I'm pretty sure she had seen those boys before

Wow. And

not said anything. But now, I was with her, and she showed me that. And even though it might have changed her because I do think defiance changes your brain, how you react, it also changes the people that observe it because that had a ripple effect on me and made me feel like we can all be defined if we want to be, and that does give quite a bit of hope.

1 part I like about your book too is whether it's explicit or not, you do it by example. It's also a good call to monitor yourself when you're doing it to other people. So you have this example where you want your 5 year old to see the Olympic torch pass.

Yes. We were in London, and we were on our way to see the flame that they hold. And it was like, oh, it's a once in a lifetime experience. And he's, like, not impressed with this at all. I was like, yeah.

And he just wouldn't walk there, and he sat down on the pavement. And I was like, no. Come on. I was like pulling his arm and trying to pick him up, and I could only get a few steps. He was heavy at the point.

I was like, no. I can't carry you. And we just completely missed the whole thing. And we went home, and he's just not realizing this moment in history that I have now missed.

He's lost.

Forever. And I said to him, why can't you be good? And that kept me up at night. I was like, why did I say that when that's what I learned? Right?

This whole obedience equals good and defiance equals bad. And here, I was just repeating it. That really took me back to why is it so strong? Even when he was a baby, I would have relatives asking me, is he good? Right?

It's a baby.

What what

can I do? There's no such thing.

No. He's bad. We got a bad 1.

And what they mean is, like, does he sleep? Is he crying? Yeah.

Does he cry? Yeah.

Stay tuned for more Armchair Expert, if you dare.

It's amazing what we equate with being good, which is not being a bother to someone else at all.

Well, yeah, you say it really explicitly and beautifully. You say, to be good is for him to do what I want. I want him to sleep through the night. Yeah. I want him to eat on a schedule.

Those are my wants.

And sometimes, that's how we feel in organizations, right, when we work. Managers love the yes man or the yes woman. Do as I say, don't question it. And we then just sort of narrow our vision to how well we are pleasing the boss rather than the wider. Like, what is it we're actually doing that has a value

to the world? What kind of tools other than anticipating is a good 1 and kinda modeling what you're gonna get into, but are there some other things that you could recommend?

1 of the major things that was really crucial to sort of changing how I thought about defiance is getting rid of some of the myths that defiance has to be aggressive, loud. You have to have a larger than life personality.

You gotta

be me.

You gotta be you. Right?

Tattooed up ideally, too much muscle, let's go.

Monograph and I are never gonna be you.

Don't rule that out. I can put you on a program.

We can find our own way. Right? Yeah. We can be defiant in a way that's unique to us. So understanding that defiance isn't just for the brave or the extraordinary, right, it's available and it's necessary for all of us.

I think that's 1 mindset shift that we can really all use and understand. And then the other is what I call the defiance compass, which I think is very useful, which is when we're faced with a situation and we're trying to decide what to do, we have that tension then we take the pause and we try to understand. These 3 questions came from James Marsh who's a sociologist. But I've sort of adapted them to be not just 3 questions that we ask implicitly for every decision, but to put them in a circle because I think it is a circular thing. So the first question is, who am I?

And that's really connecting with your values. So if you aspire to be someone who's fair, compassionate, has integrity, that's what you really need to think about. That's who you are because that's really important. If you've not found that out, spend some time doing that because people that clarify their values are more likely to act in alignment with them. And also, there's research showing that it reduces your stress and cortisol levels if you actually know what your values are.

Mhmm.

So really know, who am I? You can ask yourself that. And then the second question, so that's internal, then you go external. What type of situation is this? Is it safe and effective for me to define?

And then the last question is, these particular values, fair, full of integrity, all those things. What does a person like me do in a situation like this? If you believe you're 1 type of person but you're never acting in that way, you want to sort of start thinking about whether that really is who you are or not. And I found those 3 questions really powerful in terms of knowing this is what I would like to do, really tapping into our aspirational selves. I wanna decrease that gap between the intention, what we think we'll do in a situation, and how we actually act.

Also, that first question, I think all of us would go, like, I know who I am, but then we haven't actually listed it. Because I remember I got judoed by a therapist, like, 20 years ago because I was laying out this list of grievances I had about my father. And on this last trip, this happened. He smashed my truck. He did this and that.

And I said, you know, at this point, I just don't know that I really need to have a relationship with him. I just don't think I wanna do this anymore. And he said, you're totally entitled to make that decision with this list of things you've just given me. But very simply, do you think you're the type of person that doesn't talk to their dad? And I was like, oh, fuck.

I don't think I'm the type of person that wouldn't talk to their dad. That's very incongruous with this thing I wanna do. But, yeah, in a very simple way, do I think I'm the type of person that doesn't talk to their dad? I don't think I'm that type of person. I don't wanna be that type of person.

Right.

So I guess we're just gonna have to do a lot harder work to figure out how I am not that person, yet I don't come out on the wrong end of all these interactions.

Right. And that's fascinating.

I was telling him this thinking he'll sign off on this, and I'm never talking to my dad. I've worked it all out of my head.

But you wouldn't have felt good about it in the long run.

No. It was the simplest question I wouldn't have asked myself.

So powerful.

I also like the last question because it sort of depersonalizes it. If you're saying, what does a person like that do in this situation? It's not like, what am I gonna do in this situation? It's what does someone that holds those values do? You can remove yourself, and

I think that's really helpful. And then experiment after experiment. I've seen people say their 1 thing and then behave in a different way. So anything that helps us reduce that gap. Gosh, I wonder

if they repeated that experiment, and before going in the shocks Yes. They made them write down their values. I wonder if that would have impacted it.

The people that could defy, they're really fascinating. So, I mean, I told you there's a basic setup of the Milgram experiment, but when you look at all the different deviations that they had, that's where I find the work really fascinating. And the people that defied, what was it about them that they defied? And many of them, it was because of responsibility. So 1 was a professor of the old testament, so values Yeah.

Were there and very high on that. So even though he was stuttering and things when they said the experiment requires you to go on, he kind of asked, does it like maybe if we're in Russia but not here? Right. So he was be able to stand up to that because he'd done so much thinking about those types of values and humanity and not harming another person. And then the other person that really stands out for me is an engineer that had the knowledge of how powerful these shots are.

It's interesting. And he lived through World War 2, and so he was fascinated by this afterwards. And he said he just felt really bad that he went as far as he did before he stopped because he's like, if you throw the responsibility onto someone else and just say you were taking orders, that's really quite a cowardly thing to do. You're the 1 that's causing the shocks to someone else, and I know what kind of harm those shocks can do. And there was another participant, a woman that said the same thing, I don't wanna be responsible for causing harm to another person.

So I do think that responsibility element is really powerful when we think about what does a person might be doing a situation.

There's so many variables though as well. Yeah. Because even engineers, they over index on disagreeability on the personality test. Right? So it's like you start with there's been a filth

Really? Yes. I'm just saying that because my son wants to be an engineer.

Yes. And your son, when you tell him not to play his Xbox, he walks right in there and plays his Xbox.

It's in

your book.

He won't go to the

He won't be bothered by

the Olympics. Yeah. Of course, he wants

to be an engineer.

Well, my dad always says this. Engineers are hyper focused on seeing problems. That's the whole point of the job because, building will collapse if they don't do that. So it is looking at the world with a critical lens, which I do think can come with some defiance. Yeah.

I think so the critical thinking element of it is key of knowing actually when to defy or not to defy. Yeah.

Have they ever done versions of this test? So my assumption about the electrocution test is that the participants were probably students?

No. They weren't actually.

Oh, I guess you just listed some people that weren't students.

Yeah. Big members of the community came in. They had different races, and he ran a bunch of experiments, but there was 1 experiment that was all women. And in that experiment, same rates of compliance as the other ones. So there wasn't a gender difference, surprisingly.

Right. So what I was curious about as we're sitting here talking and learning about it is I wonder if they looked at age. I have some intuition that as you get older and older and older

You're more likely to be

you're more likely to be defiant.

Yeah. Maybe because you have more knowledge, more

You have more knowledge. You've lived through more stuff. You see the racket. You care a little less. You've achieved your social status.

You have cultural capital. You have raised your kid. Like, anecdotally, talk to some old people. They'll tell you like it is.

Yeah.

They're not 7th graders. What's everyone doing? They've somehow transcended that through life experience.

I think that would be interesting. Those rookie officers, if they had that situation again, wouldn't do it. So how can we learn from the experience of other people?

Yeah.

And that's really fascinating because I was speaking to another rookie officer, and he was trained during the time that the incident with George Floyd took place, and he thought about it a lot. And so when it came to a situation that he was on this night run with his partner and a few others and they wanted to go and search a garage for stolen bicycles. He said, no. We can't just go in there without permission of the homeowner to go, and they were like, no. We're just gonna go in, and he said, no.

So he went and knocked on the door, and it was about 4 o'clock in the morning. No answer at all, but the car was there, and the neighbor said, oh, I think he's there. He's just asleep. And so he was the only 1 as this rookie officer that refused to go in. And the reason he did that wasn't because he was brave or anything like that.

He said he was motivated by fear because he saw what happened to the rookie officers. And in his mind, he went to the worst case scenario that we're gonna go in there, and we don't have any standing to go in there. There's no blood. There's nobody screaming. No

problem at all.

Yeah. And

so he knew the law, and he'd just been trained. And then he was with police officers 20 years older than him saying, you were telling us what to do. F it. We're going in. He refused to go in because he thought the homeowner's gonna come out with a gun.

Yeah. Something terrible's gonna come

out. Bicycles.

So he said no, and homeowner came down and actually thanked them and everything. So everything was fine, and the ride back to the station for him was just awful. And within an hour, he was called in to see his supervisor, and it was a bit like, read this, you got it wrong. And he was like, no, with all due respect, I knew that we didn't have any standing and we shouldn't have gone in. And he said to me, you know, his childhood stutter came back, but he knew in this job, it was gonna be difficult, and he was gonna be asked to do some things that weren't right.

And because he'd seen the George Floyd thing

Anticipating. Anticipating.

Wow. He thought I'm not gonna be that police officer, but he was ostracized for a bit. He said the whole thing went round the station even though he was right. But he ultimately got transferred to another unit where he said they were younger officers, but they had more understanding of the law, and he's very hopeful and very optimistic about a new era of policing. So that was great to hear, but it also shows that learning from other people, I think, would be wonderful.

Well, it's a wonderful book. I so appreciate you coming in. This has been wonderful. Unfortunately, I need a book that says just fucking get with the program. I need, like, the opposite book, but I still very much appreciate it.

And I live and love so many people that have a really hard time with it, and I can see the amount of weight on them.

I'm thinking, is there a thing as being too defiant? Because I'm not talking about defiance as a knee jerk reaction to defiance, but more considered defiance. So maybe that's what you need.

Supposed to just get with the program. She's saying, like

Yeah.

Instead

I think what I could do is give a lot more benefit of the doubt to people around me and not assume from my past that everyone's trying to get 1 over on me. It's all my own baggage.

Healthy amount of skepticism, but not too much.

Yeah. I have too much. The book is called Defy the Power of No in a World That Demands Yes. I think so many people will be very empowered by this, and I think you make it very simple to follow how you could start advocating for yourself and staying true to your values.

Appreciate that. Yeah.

It's a great topic. It's important.

It is. Thanks so much for coming.

Thank you. Thank you. This is wonderful.

Hi there. This is Hermium Permian. If you like that, you're gonna love the fact check with miss Monica. Steady, are you ready? What's going on?

You don't know that song, do you, Soul 2 Soul?

You sing it a lot.

I do, but you don't know the source, do you?

No.

Does it ring a bell when I sing it, does it? Right?

I don't know it. I didn't grow up on it.

Yeah. It was hot, and then it disappeared.

1 hit wonder?

Keep on moving, don't stop. They had 2. 2 hits.

2 hit wonder.

Does that ring a bell? Keep on moving, don't stop? No. Okay. Really nice.

Really nice. I guess maybe Neo's soul dance music, 92.

Oh, 90 2. I was 5. I wasn't listening to music then.

You weren't going out dancing much when you were 5?

Not that I know of.

You may notice I'm feeling a little, energized because I just blew past 1 of my goals, and I'm just feeling incredible.

What was it?

Well, I got these bike riding goals. Yep. I'm gonna back up. I had an issue with my bike that I love. It's so beautiful.

The chain got sucked into the sprocket. It bent the sprocket. Now it's having a really hard time, staying in gear. So when I ride it and I'm I'm putting a lot of force on it, it's popping gear. It's it's rough.

Okay.

And I bought it used a while ago, and I decided on Sunday, perhaps Sustainable. Sustainable?

Yeah. Yeah. That's a good job.

Yes. Well, then you'll like where this story goes. So then I was like, okay. I'm I'm I've proven that I'm into this. I need to get a bike with clip ons and the whole 9 and really commit.

Yeah. Looked online. I was gonna go to Pasadena. I found a bike store. I was looking at all the options.

They looked it's really funny if you've ever priced a bike. These bikes are imperceptibly the same. One's $15,000 and 1 is 1900.

This is like sweaters.

And I'm like, what I can't see what's different. I mean, presumably, one's carbon fiber and all this shit. Mhmm. So I'm looking at it, and, I'm already going through my game plan. Like, I'm gonna get there.

I'm gonna listen, buster. I know you think I'm here to buy an $18,000 bike, but I'm not. I don't care. I just wanna be able to change gears.

Your sword and your belt?

Yeah. I was all fired up to go to battle with a salesman. And then I thought, okay, my friend, Jeff MacFarlane, who I love shout out Jeff MacFarlane. He's helped me navigate many things in life. He's not too dissimilar than me.

He loves cars. He loves things. He loves

love things. I'm gonna go ahead and say that. You love cars, but I don't I would never classify you.

He loves motorcycles, and he loves cars.

Motor stuff, but I I don't think it would be fair for you to say you like things.

Right. I don't have I don't whatever. The point is

I'm trying to be nice and say that.

Thank you so much. I appreciate you defending me to myself. But Jeff competed in Ironmans, which there's a huge biking portion. Yeah. Knowing him, I just crossed my mind.

I'm like, I bet he has a lot of bikes.

Oh, yeah.

Because they you have all these different applications. Right?

Yeah.

And, also, I know that he has downsized. He is 61 now. He's just been appointed a judge. He has been a lawyer.

Oh, my gosh. Yeah. It's really exciting. Yeah.

I'm so happy for him. So he's gonna be an LA superior judge, which is really cool.

Awesome.

I'm gonna go to the swearing in. But at any rate

Oh, cool.

I know he's, like, he's, like, he's getting older. His kids have moved out, and he's, like, he moved into a smaller place. And then I thought, I wonder if he wants to get rid of bikes. So hit him up. Hey.

By any chance, do you have any bikes that you wanna get rid of? And he said, as a matter of fact, I do. Come over. So I go over, and I go into his garage, and there's 3 hanging on the

wall. What colors?

Oh, man. Couple that are, like, black carbon fiber and then this 1 that is, like, silver and orange.

Oh, flames.

Not flames, but but still silver and orange. And as I'm looking at them, I'm realizing I'm in the same situation I was with the bike shop, which is I know these are these are to compete in Ironman.

Yeah.

And I know what these price tags can be.

Sure.

So once I look at my I go I go, Jeff, I realize this is a disaster because I was gonna spend basically blank on a new bike, and I I don't want to try to rip you off. Yeah. And he said, dude, the bikes are 10 years old. I I I don't know how else to get rid of them. He's like, I'll give you 1 for $25100, which is what was gonna be my budget for Okay.

To be honest.

Okay. And I

was like, okay. Well, I'll give you more. The bike is was hand built. It's a Oh. Race.

He's like, everywhere you go, people are gonna wanna talk to you about this bike.

Is it the flames 1, or is it a black 1?

No. No. I got the flames 1.

Okay.

All to say, I have this insanely beautiful hand built bike.

Wow.

I don't even wanna say what it costs brand new. It was like a $22,000 bicycle.

Oh my god.

So the thrill I had of getting a bike that expensive that I myself would have never bought

Yes.

Just put a

Pep in your step.

Yes. So I'm so excited about the bike, and I come home, and now I need to buy the shoes that go into the clip on pedals.

Sure.

I ordered those. They're coming on Saturday, but I'm too impatient today. I'm like, I wonder if I can ride it with the clip on pedals but just with normal shoes.

Oh my god. Yeah.

So I can't I just can't wait, basically. Yeah. So this morning, I went that's why I asked if we could record a little later.

Oh, okay.

Yeah. I said

a hunch I might do this. So I went all the way up to the observatory. Then I went on a road that's closed, you can bike on it, up to the Hollywood sign

Uh-huh.

Down the backside of the mountain into Burbank

Oh, wow. To travel

town. Wow.

Then all the way through Griffith Park, past the zoo.

Wow. Then

out on the Los Feliz Boulevard, past your house. I looked over as I was pedaling. I mean, that was that was the end of I was, like, an hour and 45 minutes in at that

point. Shit.

And so I was a little I looked over,

and then I was, like,

I was in a state by that point.

Wow. That's so long.

Yeah. So I did that.

You're like a bonafide biker now bicyclist.

Now I have to because I have this absurdly special bicycle that I got for such a deal.

I understand. This can be the chicken or the egg with items. This is a lot like fashion.

Sure.

Sure. You sometimes you go on The RealReal

Uh-huh.

Great website, not sponsored yet.

Yep.

And there's, like, a a very fancy purse, let's say a purse Yeah. That you know is outrageously expensive.

Like, it was originally $10 or something.

Yes.

Yeah.

And then it's there for 1 grand.

1 g.

And you and you start doing this whole, like, oh, my god. Obviously, I have to get it.

Do you think you're making $9,000? Yes. Like, when I left, I was like, oh my god. I just made $18,000?

Yeah. Shopping match. So you get it. You get it.

You got it.

And then you have the purse, and it's like, well, I have the purse, so I guess I gotta get the scarf so that I'm I'm this person. Like, I'm this person now that carries this bag, so now the rest of me has to fit.

You have to live up to the item.

Yeah. It's a slippery slope.

Yeah. Yeah. I don't know if you remember when my therapist, Mark, had said that, like, often you change to accomplish something, and other times, you get something that you have that will force you to grow into it or you'll lose it.

And I

thought that was interesting.

I like that. Yeah. Yeah. That's true. Yeah.

Okay. So that was really exciting. And then I I got back, and then I and then I lifted weights

Wow.

Because I'm going to Detroit, and I have

to look

as swole as possible Oh. Because that's where all the guys that want to kick my ass live.

You think you're gonna run into that?

I hope so because I'm ready.

Oh my god. I've already

had a fantasy because, you know, Kid Rock picked the fight with me 1 time

Yeah.

Years ago. And he was with 2 buddies, and I did stand up to him. And then it got it got kinda mitigated, or or de escalated. Yeah. And I was like, oh, wow.

You know, he'll likely be at this game.

Oh, he trained?

Yeah. He's from Detroit.

But does he go to all of them?

I think

I don't know enough about him.

Yeah. I mean, that

But it did cross my mind. You gotta be ready. Who knows? You bump into Kid Rocky. He takes another run at you.

Okay.

And I'm ready.

I like that. Okay. You're allowed.

Yes. This is like Kristen is only green lit. Yeah. I've only got a couple green lights where fighting's okay.

Sure. Okay. I'm I'm fine with that.

It's a bummer, actually, because I love Kid Rock's music, and I wish he wasn't.

You do.

Oh, yeah. There's some great

stuff.

You love Bawah Taba?

No. I don't love that 1, but he likes southern rock, and I grew up loving southern rock.

I know you're trying to find middle ground, but let's be his no. Bawah Daba was on TRL number 1 for so long, and I I hated it so much.

I can imagine it was a very scary.

Yeah. Yep. It's so it's I mean It's

a white dude with long blonde hair and a Trans Am.

Yeah.

He Yeah.

Hated me then, and he hates me now.

But

yeah. And that song was just so it was so aggressive. Like, it's exactly But I

think the lions are bringing people together because Aaron told me that of course, I was talking to Aaron about this. Yeah.

Is he ready? Is he

Oh, yeah.

Yeah. He he knows what yeah. He okay. And he said, oh, yeah. Now now, Kid Rock and Eminem are friends.

They've become friends, I think, because of the lions. Oh. And Kid Rock had

to say woke.

Right. Aaron informed me that they are they're friends officially, and that Kid Rock said, we don't have the same political views, but we we have found common ground as friends. So I think lions are bringing people together.

That's nice. I mean, sports will do that.

Sports have that power.

They do.

Okay. I have some more updates.

Okay.

I did something really cool last night.

Okay.

I saw on Instagram I don't even know how I saw this. Yeah. It was a video of a man meeting a guy in the 711 parking lot to receive a pizza. Okay. And then the guy opened it up, and it was the most gorgeous pizza.

And then he took a bite, and he's like a pizza reviewer. Oh. And he said, yeah. It's the best pizza in LA.

Wait. It's like black market?

Yes. The guy makes them in his house.

No. I want this.

I'll turn you on to him. So I see that so you have to order through only through Instagram. There's, like, no number to call, so I DM the guy. The guy is incredibly sweet. He's got a sourdough he uses, and I was like, okay.

And you ate it.

If I am ever to eat bread, it is very it's best to eat sourdough because it has the lowest gluten content.

Got it.

In fact, I think you can almost make sourdough without any gluten. And it has no brewer's yeast, which is also some people like Eric is not gluten insensitive, but he can't have brewer's yeast, which is it it's in everything with gluten, virtually, but not sourdough.

So I

was like, okay. I love the idea of meeting in a parking lot, and a guy opens his trunk. It's very my drug deal's back from the old days. So I arranged this whole thing.

I was

supposed to get on Wednesday, the night the fires broke out. Oh. That was my first appointment.

Got it.

And mind you, it's at 6, and I gotta drive to Sunland, which for people don't know, I'm driving from to Sunland very much.

Drive to the east side? No.

No. Oh, wow. He's got a dude that works for him that drives a very short distance from wherever he's making them to this

say hot?

Yeah. They're piping hot. And he tells you take a bite of and he wants you to take a bite of a very specific pie. Oh my god. So I got 4 the 4 different varieties he makes, and he said, take a bite of the hot piggy immediately.

Hot piggy? Yeah.

What's on it?

It was pepperoni with, I think, a little bit of, hot honey.

Ah.

Oh, Monica. So

Oh my god. That sounds so good.

So this kinda worked out brilliantly. Lincoln had a soccer game in Westlake.

Okay.

Which is virtually like driving to Santa Barbara. Westlake is very far away.

God. Okay.

So we left at 2, took an hour to get to the game. Yesterday. Yesterday. Okay. Then watched the game.

I think that's an hour and a half. Get back in the car at 4:30, and now we gotta get to Sunland by 6, which is not gonna be an issue. I think it's only supposed to take an hour 9 minutes. It said on my

Oh, this is miserable. Oh my god. I think I'd got pizza reward.

Side note, all of Simi Valley didn't have any power.

Still.

Well, so, yes, I thought still, but this morning not even this morning. 7 minutes ago, I was in the shower. Mhmm. My hair is still damp, if you don't believe me.

I didn't I can tell because your hat I

didn't look

like you didn't believe me,

so I had

to show you.

Thank you.

I was like, god, maybe they actually turned the power off intentionally because it was the last day of the Santa Anas. That would have been smart. So I don't know if they they lost their power or they preemptively

Got it.

Turned it off, which would have been very bright. Couldn't help but notice because it's a strip mall after strip mall. Nothing's open. Yeah. Anyways, Lincoln's gotta pee.

I'm telling you way too much shit. Tried to stop at a Starbucks. Someone blew up both Starbucks bathrooms. Both were inoperable from duty. Oh.

So then they had to

go to the grocery store.

A bomb. I mean, they they painted the place.

I got

yeah. Ew.

Ew. Ew.

Ew. Ew. Ew. Okay.

So it's a whole saga to get to the toilet in this strip mall in Sunland. Then I was getting nervous. Oh my god. We're gonna be late. I thought I was gonna get there a half hour early.

The girls were gonna get impatient. I was gonna have to put them in an Uber to send them home while I waited for the pizza. But as it turned out, it took so long to find a bathroom. We rolled in at, like, 5:59. The appointment was at 6.

6 o'clock, guy in a black car pulls up. I get out, fucking cash, pay, get these 4 pies, get in the truck. I did exactly as he instructed. First 1 was

your gun?

Hot I didn't have my gun.

Just in case.

I gotta tell you, it was as I said, it was very reminiscent of the old days in in in a very good and healthy way. It was like, I'm meeting a guy in a parking lot that I don't know. Yeah. I'm gonna pay cash, and then I'm something really good is on the other end.

You're still getting that high, but it's healthy.

It's a high that it comes with no cost.

Does your voice change when you talk to them?

I'm here for more pieces. Like that.

No. Like, more, like, you're trying to be scary.

6. That was all on text.

Oh, wow. Okay.

No. I was very nice to the guy. There was another guy there that was also picking up some pies, which is really funny. It's, like, me 2 dudes and me and the drug dealer at the same time. That's funny.

Oh, wow. Get in the car, open it up right away. It's so beautiful. Yay. The pepperonis are so tiny.

Oh, I love those tiny ones.

Dished in the cooking process, and there's oil in it. And there's I can see the honey, and I take a bite. And, by god, it's fucking so good. Oh, you got a picture of it?

Oh. Wow. That looks

so yummy.

Oh my god. I'm starving.

I got the girls that pineapple Hawaiian, which was outrageous. I don't even like Hawaiian pizza, but that was my second favorite. We got umami hot pepper pizza, which was a 1000000 peppers, and it was hot. Very good. Oh.

And then the hot piggy, and and I said umami. And then yeah.

Is that their cheese? Is that just like a cheese 1?

That's a great question, what's on the upper far right.

It looks kinda like

A margarita. Yeah. I should ask him about that because I'm going back.

Looks so good. It looks so crispy.

It's great.

Oh, I'm

gonna have to go. This looks delicious.

So, the car ride home is long from Sunland at 6 o'clock on a weekday. Yeah. And I and it well, Kristen had 2 pieces of hot piggy. I the remainder. So I ate 3 quarters of the hot piggy.

Yeah.

And I ate a third of the Hawaiian. Okay. And then I had a slice of hot pepper and a slice of umami. So I had, like, a pizza and a half or 2 pizzas.

Wow. That's a lot of pizza.

No wonder I tackled that hill today and kept going.

It's probably because you had all the energy and all those carbs.

Fuel, glycogen. So that was really fun. That that was I really liked it. That was a fun experience for the whole family being in that parking lot once in the guy roll in.

Very fun.

Yeah. Whew. Yum. Lot of updates. Are you watching Bad Sisters season 2?

No. I didn't watch the first season.

Oh, you didn't?

I started it. It seems so good. I'm sure it's fantastic. Oh. I'm sure it's fantastic.

What happened?

You know, I sometimes don't like

British content?

Yeah. Okay.

I guess this is Irish in this kind

of I know, but it's the same.

Yeah.

It gives me the feeling.

They would not like that, but yes.

As far as the feeling I get, it's the same.

Uh-huh.

And,

Can you articulate the feeling?

No. It's it's

The feeling.

Yeah. I've talked about it a lot on here. The only person who really gets it gets it is Anthony. He can always he can always tell me. He's like, that's gonna give you the feeling.

Don't watch it. And then I watch it, and it is exactly right. He, like, knows. Yeah. And it's just really hard to explain.

There are a few things that I know that trigger it. Suicide stuff often triggers it. Okay. I

don't think there's any suicide, but continue.

Okay. But British and, I guess, now Irish stuff, often does, which is weird because I love London so much. I love it.

Yeah.

I don't get the feeling when I'm there. It's all, like, meaty. It's movies and TV and stuff. Uh-huh. And then the first time I identified this feeling was, was Wonder Years when I was young.

Oh, that's the origin of the feeling.

The o f.

Original feeling.

I don't know. I just feel it just makes me feel really, like, really uncomfortable. Ah. And Anthony says things that are overly earnest.

You were like Fleabag, though.

I did. I loved it. So some things make their way through. I don't know. It's hard.

It's hard.

But I started Bad Sisters, and it gave me the feeling. Sure.

So I

just had to stop.

Okay.

I'm making a new mocktail that my friend Maddie taught me about. It's called it doesn't have a name, but it is seltzer water. I've been using Perrier and, a little bit of a 100% tangerine juice.

Oh, is that hard to find, 100% tangerine juice?

I the brand is Natalie's. Shout out. Okay. Shout out, Rob. Yeah.

And it isn't that hard to find. I found it at Lazy Acres.

Oh, great. Okay. 100%.

Yeah. Is it rich? Yeah. It it's not sweet at all.

Oh, it's not? No.

It's, very citrusy.

Oh, okay.

And Crisp. Clean. Nice. Oh, good. Nice.

Maddie invented it. I need to give Is this seltzer

and a 100% tangerine juice?

Yeah.

Okay. What what what, ratio?

I just do a splash of the juice.

Okay.

And mainly the drink the seltzer.

And how many of those will you have? Ice cubes?

No ice cubes. Okay. But I do freeze the glass.

Okay. Great. You ventize it.

I do. I ventize it.

And is it satiating your cocktail urge?

It's helping.

Okay. Great.

It's helping. Yeah. What's been interesting is so I think we talked about it. I'm trying not to drink Monday through Thursday.

Yeah.

Then the world got really turned upside down.

Uh-huh. Topsy-turvy.

Yeah. And I, I said fuck that.

Uh-huh.

So I drank last week, I think Wednesday Thursday Yeah. And Saturday Sunday. Okay. I think. I forget all the days, but I definitely didn't stick to my thing.

Right.

But what has been interesting, and you told me to do this in my journal. I've been journaling Uh-huh. To, like it's a good place to tally and mark.

Oh, yes. Yes.

So I've been doing that, and it is in my head when I'm about to drink, like, well, tomorrow I'm gonna have to put 0.

Or you have to write 1, day 1.

Well, I

You'll go day 0.

I do 0. Okay. Which is it's like back at nothing, you know? Right. And I think about that, and even just the thinking about it for a second Yeah.

Is nice. It makes me really make the decision. Like, do I really want it?

Yes. And I think it makes you just acknowledge there'll be a tomorrow. Yeah. I will have to account for this decision. It Yes.

Yeah. And sometimes the answer is yeah. You're right. I don't care if

I am

because I want it. Yeah.

Because yours are fun. And other times, I'm like, I don't really I don't really need it.

I don't really want

it. So overall, even though I've broken my goal, I am drinking much less

Okay. Great.

Which is helpful.

I'm gonna make a small pitch for not 0.

Oh, okay.

Okay? Because it is the morning Yeah. And it is day 1 of being sober.

I see.

It's not day 0. Day 0 doesn't exist.

Right.

So day day 1, it's this is the date, and this is day 1. And I'm not gonna drink today. This is a 1. Uh-huh. Interesting.

Now if you write 0 in some weird way, there's almost nothing to lose because if you drink later that night. But when you write 1, you're also committing to this is this is day 1 of not drinking. Does that make any sense mentally?

Yeah. It does.

It's a commitment.

It does.

Because on this date, Olive had 1 day of not drinking, which is true. I didn't drink that day. That's day 1.

In the morning, though.

Yeah. So you gotta make it through the night. Right. But it's true so long as you don't drink that night.

Yeah. I think that makes sense.

And then it's a little more positive.

Yeah. I guess for me, it's not it's because I'm not trying to be sober. Right.

I'm

trying to get to day 4, really. Uh-huh.

I see what you're doing.

I'm more I mainly just like Jose

and I have 0 days of sobriety in the morning.

Yeah. I it feels a little I don't know why. It feels a little, like, intense to call it sobriety. Also, because that's something really I'm sober.

What are

you gonna say? Clean, no drinky poo. Yeah. Like, you you have 1 day of no drink. Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah. I didn't drink last night.

Right.

That's what it it's it's like yeah. That that I didn't I did drink, So I'm at 0 days as opposed to 1 day that I didn't successfully.

Right.

Anyway, what else? Anything else? Let's see. Are you reading any new books?

I'm listening to We Contain Multitudes, Ed Yong's book. As I told you, I was listening to Men's World over and over again. Yeah. And then I decided to go and try the first book. Yeah.

Or, anyway, it was his first, but the previous bestseller. Oh, it's mind blowing.

Oh,

god. It's all about microbes and your micro Biome? Biome. Thank you. Microbiome.

Wow. He's so Your body has so it says £9. Did I already tell you this? Mm-mm. The average person has £9 of microbes in them, and there's there are many animals that couldn't even exist without the microbes.

They would die.

Right.

The microbes perform all these tasks. They really they've evolved with the microbes, and they they themselves can't even exist. Then there's this all this weird stuff where they raise these rats completely free of microbes, which is almost impossible, but they're born into a hermetically sealed case.

Uh-huh.

And they don't ever accumulate any microbes, and they can eat however they want. They don't gain any weight. Yeah. Doesn't matter.

That's wild.

And then they introduce different microbes, and then they'll eat way less food and gain way more weight. Yeah. And then all the health stuff. Like, there's so much health stuff.

Yeah.

And then talks about, you know, this kinda scary proposition that you're supposed to get all, as we know, all these microbes from your mom's vagina as you come out.

Right.

And then the other huge source is breast milk.

Right.

And a third of children in the US are now born cesarean sections. They're not getting the vaginal microbes.

Right.

And then if they also don't breastfeed

Yeah.

You know, they're they're ripe for some issues, a lot of allergies and a lot of different things. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. When I went to my acupuncturist, that's the first thing she asked.

About your gut health?

No. If I was born vaginally.

Well, that was her first question.

Yeah. Yeah.

And I was.

And you were breastfed?

Yes.

I was not.

Yeah. You were And

I have

an autoimmune disease and allergies. Syrup. That's right. And heroin. Don't forget the heroin.

Uh-huh. Not to get controversial, but I Oh. I do I feel like I'm pro animal testing.

Oh, yeah. We gotta be.

I know, but people hate that.

They yeah. Some people hate it. Some people

Like, how will we learn anything?

Exactly. If you subtract animal testing from our history I

think we just lost a lot of listeners, but I think

it's true.

I don't think so.

I don't think so. I think it's a very fringe group that do not want mice to be tested on. Yeah. Now a lot of us I'm

a mouse, so I can say that.

Yes. It's kind of preposterous to think you should test on humans Mhmm. Instead of mice,

which you

can they procreate so quickly. Their lifetime is very short anyways. Blah blah blah. Now I think it's a sliding scale. I think probably most of us don't wanna see chimpanzees tested on.

Right.

Right?

And I guess it's a scale of what you're testing. Like, I know, like, the beauty products,

that that's bad.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

And I do think that's bad. Yeah. But, like, learning about

Oh, if we can figure out bodies what microbes would eliminate obesity before you'd ever even need Ozempic or would eliminate allergies or limit you of course, we must do that.

Know.

Yeah. I don't think any rational person has that point of view.

Yeah. People have all kinds of points of view.

They do. They do. And they're entitled. We have a country that has free speech, so you can think anything you want. That's right.

That's great.

I'm rewatching Sex and the City, and I it's been a long time since I watched it, and it is funny. There are some things that are very ahead of its time, like some of the things they're talking about.

Uh-huh.

And I don't know. It's been really interesting to watch. But also, separately, they have 2 episodes where they're in LA.

Uh-huh.

And and it is so funny because they're they're, like, pointing out the differences between LA

and New York,

and it's so cliche.

Like Yeah. New Yorkers love to do this. It starts with Annie Hall.

Yeah. Exactly. They're being so extreme. Yeah. But then I had to recognize, like, they make a joke about this guy, Miranda comes and visits his her old friend who now lives in LA, writes for a TV show

Uh-huh.

And used to live in New York, and he's really positive. Yeah. And she's like, what's what happened to you? We used to hate on everybody. Yeah.

He was like, yeah. I just I'm so much I am so much happier here.

I know. Somehow people don't they distrust that or it's, like, fake.

Yeah. The big thing

on the East Coast is calling someone fake. Yeah. It's a huge thing. Remember, like, in Geeb and Jersey Shore, to be fake was as is as low as you can get. I don't even hear people in LA ever say that as a a pejorative or a put down.

I mean, I say that about some some sector of the South.

Oh, would it be more okay. Do you think it'd be more accurate to say, like, insincere? Aren't you really saying, like, a lot of the hospitality feels obligatory and insincere?

Yeah. Yeah. But that's just another word for it.

I guess. Fake is a total character assassination. It's like they're fake.

Yeah.

They're a fake.

I think that's what they mean. But, anyway, it was just so funny because he, he was like, I'm so much happier here, and then he ordered he he took her to this, like, macrobiotic sandwich shop. You know, some place that I was like, oh, that does sound good.

Okay.

And then

and then

he was like, let's go on a hike. And that was like the the culmination of the joke.

Oh, okay. Right.

Like, let's go

on a hike.

And I was like

Yeah.

Yeah. I'm I'm here. I'm indoctrinated.

Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

It's funny.

Yeah. We're into health or into being positive.

Into health.

We're into feeling good and eating good and exercise, and that's true.

I mean, I don't know why anyone would be mad about it.

Exactly. I can't really lock into the why that's frustrating for people. I think, like, the Woody Allen joke, if I have it remembered correctly, is, like, in LA, their definition of culture is the right to turn on red, which is great.

Yeah.

I like it.

Yeah. And

we have no history. I mean

We do, but I

don't know. Fair to say to the indigenous folks or

the Right.

Spanish, missionaries that were here. Right. But, you know, we don't have we don't have New York's deep cultural history.

Yeah. I suppose.

But once we got in the mix, boy, we really started shaping it.

I was thinking about when we did our first fact check of the year while you were gone, and we were doing it virtual, and I was saying that I was this is the first time I was calling LA home

Yeah.

And not Georgia home even though we realized I was calling everything home.

Right.

But in light of what's been happening the past couple weeks, I've been thinking about that and

Right. And Like, maybe leaving?

No. God, no. Oh.

I think a lot of people are debating to whether they're gonna leave or not.

I under I understand why, but I don't feel like that at all. I feel more I feel like double down

Oh, yeah. Yeah. Okay. Great.

That I love it here, and I'm so happy to be here and

Yeah.

Grateful. And, it is funny. This is not to disparage any other place and how they handle situations, But in a lot of places, when bad things happen, there's a lot of requests for prayers and,

For God to intervene?

Yes. And for, you know, meeting at the church and and x, y, and z. And that's great. Like, I have nothing against that. We didn't have that.

I didn't see I saw maybe, like, 1 person say it.

Well, John Mayer say he's gonna say a prayer. Yeah.

He said, I don't do this. Yeah. But Yeah. Yeah.

This will be my first

time doing it.

Yeah. Exactly. And and I and, like, some people I do know are religious and and were, but overall, the city, no 1 was safe.

The solution was gonna come from a wall.

And but what is so heartening is, like, I've never seen a city mobilize so fast. Mhmm. No 1 was asking for prayers. They were asking for, meet here, give this, do this. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah.

It was instruction, and it was, specific. It was action.

Right.

And I really I was like, yeah. Yeah. That's

You like that?

That's in alignment

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

With me. So, anyway, alright.

Okay. Fact let's get factual.

Let's get facts.

Oh, 1 last thing.

Mhmm.

Many people in the comments suggested this, and I want to tell them we had already done it. So a lot of people want were like, invite Nikki Glaser on. I just wanna say we we the second after we had that long talk on the previous fact check, we were, like, we should definitely invite her.

Yeah.

So we have invited her.

You even set you set it on

Oh, I did?

Yeah. You did. And then we did. And we're trying.

Yeah. Yeah.

Stay tuned for more Armchair Expert, if you dare.

Okay. So this is for Sunita

k.

Which I just thought was a great episode. I love her message.

I experienced it.

Oh, it's here.

I just experienced it. Yeah. I was getting blood drawn, and the nurse basically told me that the doctor that they work for forced them to get a flu shot, and they didn't want it. And I thought, yeah. Here's a nurse who is

Who knows?

Very qualified opinion. It's not like they're ignorant. If they've they've probably made some analysis, and probably she would have liked to have said no somehow.

Yeah. It's really tricky. And especially in that situation with her, I don't know the details of how that works, but he's her superior, I would assume.

Employer. Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. And that it's so it's so hard. It's it's so much easier said than done

Yeah.

To stick up for yourself when your job is on the line or when your employer is upset with you or I mean, there's just things that you that honestly put you into fight or flight. Yeah. And it's it's intense.

I find myself I don't wanna say it's hard because it's not. And and and, again, I'm the beneficiary of having not said no, and it haunted me for the rest of my life. So So that's, like, that's a huge gift for me for the rest of my life. I just don't you know? And I have so many options.

Yeah.

Like, if this person is pressuring me to get this shot, I don't want it. Like, I have options. I can go to another doctor. I can you know, I I I I'm gifted with a ton of luxuries.

Yeah.

And so and even me, I'm like, okay. We gotta say no, and we gotta hold our ground. Like, you know, it's a tough

It's really hard. I too have been thinking a lot about what what are my true beliefs and values, kinda what she said. She's you know, she said, think about your values

Uh-huh.

Then ask yourself, what would a person with these values do?

Yes.

Not what would I

do Yeah.

But really, you know, force yourself to sort of be objective about who you want to be Yeah. And what actions match that. And and, yeah, I think it's good to know the parts of yourself that you're unwilling to forego Mhmm. For peace, really.

I mean,

that's what it that that's what it can come down to, and that sucks. But at the end of the day, all you have is you and and those beliefs and those values, so, like, you really just can't let people take them.

Also a good moment to check your own pushiness as a person. Mhmm. You know? Like, when you're in a position what people do with their kids all the time. Yeah.

I watch kids people force their kids to do these things

Yeah.

That really don't have much of a significant impact on their life. It's how they did it Mhmm. And they would like it done that way.

Yeah.

It's very tempting.

Yeah.

But, you know, and and probably, you know, a lot of people are bosses. Yeah. And it's very tempting and easy to wanna keep pushing. So I think it's also a call to every 1 of us who

Are in charge.

When we have the that role that we check our own pushiness.

Yeah. Also, for people in charge to think about why, like, why there's a pushiness or why you're forcing the nurse to get the thing. Like, there can I think that's also an element of control, and maybe there's a lack there's a feeling of lack of control, and so there's a grasping for it?

I think a lot of people feel this way, and I I have felt this way to as a parent many times. It's like, you feel like if you let this go, it's gonna be a domino effect.

Mhmm. Mhmm.

Then you'll not have any say in anything.

Yes. Yeah. Yeah.

It can be kinda misleading in that moment.

Totally. So, yeah, I thought this was a great, great episode. Okay. She was talking about visas, the types of visas, I wanted to go through because I was sort of dumb enough to think that you could just, like, ask to come here, and it would take a while, but that, like, you could.

Yeah. Yeah.

And you can't. You have to have a reason to come. You have the student visa

Uh-huh.

Tourist visa, business visa, transit visa. That's so that's a temporary visa that allows travelers to pass through a country for a limited time

Okay.

Work visa, immigrant visa, a visa for people traveling to a country to live permanently. So I don't really know.

Is that kinda like That's

kinda what I thought.

Yeah. Like, I just like I like it there. I would like to live there.

Yeah. But I don't think we have that here in the United States.

Really?

I don't think so.

We have to because we have tons of legal, Latino immigrants that didn't get here on a h 1 b or a student.

They probably got a work visa. Maybe not h 1 b, but there's different kinds. I think h 1 b is specific to tech, maybe.

Sure.

Let me see, actually, because Okay. Right now, I'm curious. Okay. Oh, god. So many news articles.

How would you feel about 1 that was just hot?

Hot? If you're hot, you can

call them. Of course,

if you're incredibly intelligent and incredibly intelligent and have a skill set that would benefit the country, come on in. We we want that clearly.

Yeah.

What about hot? If there was 1 that was just, like I'm for that. Smoke show.

I'm for that.

Let's keep this place

If you're single.

Full of gorgeous people. If you're single, that's a great point. Yeah.

If

you're single and hot. Because then

that way, you could you could you could Procreate. You could procreate and you could lift

That's right. Bring people up. The whole

yeah.

A lot of Americans. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Like the girl who was half Indian.

Right. Right.

Right. We need more of that.

Right.

Okay. H 1 b status is available to a person who has been offered a temporary professional position by a US employer. Bachelor's degree or higher in a related area is the minimum educational level. Okay. So it's not tech.

It's just any with the degree. I guess that because my my dad and my grandpa got h 1 b's.

But in engineering, we were not?

That would be tech. But my grandpa was a professor.

Okay. Alright.

Although he came on a student visa, I guess.

And just stuck around. Got a job as a professor Yeah. Then got a work visa.

Yeah. Exactly. Then became a citizen.

Then became very patriotic.

He did. Xenophobic.

No. Never. He did become very patriotic.

Yeah. I bet.

Okay. Anyway, so can't just come here.

Right. Can't see. I like the weather, and that's why I'm going.

Yeah. Swatty. Swatty is the nerdy term it's the term for nerd in in British, and it started as an army slang, meaning sweaty. I think it's a variation of sweaty, but slang referring to hard work.

And we're nervous about it because it sounds very much like a derivative of swastika.

And twat.

And twat. Yeah. But, also, we think a Swatty Potty would be a very cool Invention. Invention.

For the Brits. To for

the Brits. For the Brainiac Brits. Yeah.

Stanford Prison Experiment. The guy's name is fuck. I wanna

William Randolph's house.

I wanted to see if I could remember it.

Yeah.

And I can't, again.

Yeah. That's okay. Fuck. He's not relevant. The takeaway is what's relevant.

Don't say that about

him. Philip Zimbardo. Zimbardo. Zimbardo. It sounds like a football coach.

It sounds exactly like Anthony's last name.

And a football coach.

And a football coach.

And a Cubs pitcher, Carlos Sembrono.

Okay. So between the 3 of us, why don't we remember it?

And a Cubs. I've already declared I'm not even committed to memory. I I'm committed to knowing about the the Stanford Prison Experiment and and what the result was. That's important for me to know. What is it?

It's not important for

me to know who

If everyone remembered arm tracks or but they didn't know it was you?

That's fine. Again, that's fine.

Really? Yeah. I guess you're dead, so who cares?

I'm dead.

Rob, can you can you join me in a pursuit to remember his name?

Yeah.

Yeah. Maybe we can write it somewhere and, like, touch

it every time we leave.

Have to memorize it.

Yeah. We'll see it, though, and and commit it to memory. I have to wait

for a while.

This. I'm gonna have to ask you guys sporadically. Definitely. Yeah. Okay.

Alright.

Okay.

He recently died.

Just recently?

Oct October 2024.

Woah. Wow. Woah. I feel bad for saying he's dead. I mean, he is, but just recently

bad for being right?

I almost was wrong. I've only been

You feel bad for assuming he was dead?

I'm I'm I care. Charles Dunn. What's the guy's name Done grew. Podcast again?

Christopher Leiden. Christopher

Leiden. Christopher Leiden.

God. Oh. God. Alright. Okay.

The Greek poet that said, under duress, we don't rise to the level of our expectations, we fall to the level of our training, that's attributed to Bruce Lee. But it was a Greek poet, Archilochus. I don't know if that's how you say it, but And

you're not gonna try to memorize that. Right? No. See, this is interesting. It's very arbitrary.

Fine. I will. Archilochus. I'll I'll remember everything. I mean, I like to remember everything I can.

Yeah. It just if I have to choose whether I know an individual's name or I know a concept, I I'm gonna definitely favor the concept because that's gonna help me process the reality. Yeah. Someone's name's not gonna help me do anything

Yes.

Other than seem well read at a party.

I think I'm I think overall, I'm pretty good at names.

It is impressive.

Thank you.

I am often impressed that you remember someone's name. Actually, more than I'm impressed, I'm just grateful because I'm trying to reference the person, and I don't I don't have their name.

Yeah. Hung Van Gogh. That's a name I know.

Oh, wow. What's the who's he?

He's a makeup artist. Oh,

Hung Van Gogh.

Yeah. He's great. I watch his videos. Alright. Do engineers over index on disagreeability?

According to Research and Common Perception, engineers are often considered to be the lower end of the agreeableness, jeez, agreeableness spectrum on personality tests, meaning they may sometimes be perceived as disagreeable due to their strong focus on logic, data, and problem solving, which can sometimes lead to a more direct or critical approach when discussing ideas or solutions. So you

think it's

a kind of just a long way to say because they're generally right?

Yeah. No. Sometimes yeah.

I think that's really what it is.

It says, however, this is not always the case. An individual personality is very greatly within the engineering field. They AI has to say that.

I'm glad they put that caveat out.

Me

too. I'd hate for anyone to.

I do think though there is my dad and I have talked about this because he

He's disagreeable.

He's disagreeable.

He's My stepfather both stepfathers that were engineers were highly disagreeable.

Yeah. He is picking apart everything.

Yeah.

And He's looking for a flaw.

Exactly.

His job is literally to look for a structural flaw.

Yes. Or things will collapse, and that will be on his shoulders. People will die. So he and I we talked about this 1. There was, like, is it chicken or the egg?

Were you drawn to the career because that's your personality, or has that job made you like this? We don't really know.

Think egg.

I do too. He thinks b.

Well, yeah. It implies more growth on his end. Well, but I It's more flattering. We like to think we we achieved this thing, not that we were just born with it. All of us.

You know? And your dad's not unique.

No. I

know. Well, he is. He I've been kinda like, what are you doing? Because the sim has been rowdy.

Uh-huh. But that's all part of it.

Yeah. It's part

of it. There's no highs without

the lows. That's true. And then yesterday, I was doing connections

Uh-huh.

And 1 of the answers was big, mister big from Sex and the City as I was watching it.

Right.

So he was trying to make up for it a little bit.

Yeah. Just saying, hang in there. I'm still I'm still watching.

Still here. Yeah. Anyway, yeah. He if if you talk to my uncles, they my dad doesn't really let them talk too much about this, but they, like, have all these stories about my dad. Like, I think he was more like my brother.

No kidding.

Yeah.

Really?

Yeah. And

I don't believe that.

Well, they knew him Yeah. When I didn't. Yeah. Like, as a kid as a yeah. They're older.

That's why I don't trust him.

He's the youngest.

Right. Older brothers, they you can't trust their opinion.

Well

because they they see him as a baby and incompetent and all these things. And and all they're really seeing is an age difference, but they don't realize they're seeing

an age difference. A little bit fair, but there's also personality traits that come with being the youngest.

And don't start with little

brother syndrome. Syndrome.

I do not have little brother syndrome.

They have a version of his personality that I don't know, that I never saw. And I think that's interesting and sort of lends itself to maybe he did grow into a lot of these traits.

Yeah.

Or or they just got sharpened, probably.

Yeah. I'm a go along with whatever. I just I really feel in my heart he's he's exactly who he was.

Yeah. That's probably right. That's probably right.

My name was always a salesman.

Yeah.

My name was born to sell shit.

Yeah.

He didn't grow I mean, he got better at it.

Right.

But he was a salesman. He wanted an extra slice of cake. He he figured out how. You know, he he's charming.

Charming.

He got what he needed.

Yeah. And I guess you can tell down the line. Right? Like, I have a lot of those qualities that he has Uh-huh. And I'm not an engineer, so I probably got it from him.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Which means it's just generic.

Disagreeable. Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I'm, I'm doing what Sunita tells me to do.

You're already

you're already at the finish line for that.

Can you think of times that, though, you did go along with stuff?

Yes. Okay. Yes. Yeah. I think I spent a lot of my life not going along with I mean, going along with stuff.

Because you divine yourself as being someone that never succame to peer pressure.

Exactly. That is true, but I was walking a line. Right? Because I also I wasn't gonna add a dinner table with my friends whose parents had much different political views than me or even just things I thought were wrong. Yeah.

If I'm at a dinner with them, I'm not gonna say, oh, actually, I disagree. Like, I'm gonna agree. Right. So I can maintain

that friendship. Yeah.

Kind of like you who you for different reasons, much different reasons.

Uh-huh.

You feel like you are rewarded for speaking up for yourself.

Yeah. And I just as an ethos, I'd rather have been wrong

Mhmm.

And I'd rather be the victim of a bad decision so long as it's my decision. Yeah. And some people don't feel that way, which is totally fair. Yeah. And I just do.

I would rather again, if I'm gonna die in a car, I better be holding the steering wheel. Right. No fucking way am I letting you know?

Yeah. And I I think I have a lot of that too for these other reasons. Yeah. Like, I'm not gonna

And also, we might just genetically be this way.

Maybe. Again, it's so hard to

It's hard to know.

So hard to know.

It's hard to know.

Anyhoo, that's it.

Okay. Well, I loved her.

Yeah. Me too.

I hope I didn't make her do anything she didn't wanna do.

Hopefully, she would've stood up for herself. What if you test manipulative

and I was, yeah, now you have planned a test.

Let's start doing weird stuff.

Don't miss out on trying that coffee. It's the world's best.

Drink it.

Drink it now.

Why didn't you drink it? Drink it.

A man made that, and I brought it here on a bicycle. He rode it 60 miles to bring you this coffee. Alright. Love you.

Love you.

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