No Stupid Questions

I wish I had whatever Adam has now like three bestselling books.

Adam Grant, your colleague has written this book called Think Again.

There's this book called Yes Man. I think they later made a movie about it.

But this guy, Danny Wallace, who lived in London, he was getting bored. His life was getting boring. His friends were worried about him. So he makes this decision that for six months he's just going to say yes to literally everything.

And the story goes that he never actually wires the money, but he does. He's in London. He flies to Amsterdam. He like meets up with these people.

It's a very beautiful and somewhat dangerous way to live.

Oh, it's a true story. Yeah. Danny Wallace is a real human.

There's this book called Yes Man.

I think they later made a movie about it.

But this guy, Danny Wallace who lived in London, he was getting bored. His life was getting boring. His friends were worried about him.

So he makes this decision that for six months he's just gonna say yes to literally everything.

No, it's a true book that then became a Hollywood movie.

I discovered that my advisor, Marty Seligman, was the founder of Paws of Psychology.

And I say that I discovered that after signing up to be his graduate student because I literally didn't know that's this whole shtick.

You thought he was a plumber?

Well, I knew he was a psychologist but I didn't know that he was trying to revolutionize psychology by getting people to think about their strengths and happiness and not focus on weaknesses.

He tells the story in his memoir of being a very young Will Smith, a certain deal has come his way.

Will there's one way to fail in this industry and that is paralysis by analysis and it was basically like just stop thinking and go forward.

In the first half of the show, Angela says she was introduced to the expression, paralysis by analysis in Will Smith's 2021 memoir, Will.

He talked about going through this weird time in his life and he takes, I think it was 14 days, he goes to Utah and he basically locks himself in this house and he's all by himself.

Day one, it's terrible. Day two, he's bouncing off the walls. Day three, it's a mess. Day four, finally he begins to quiet in his heart and his mind and then he just says creativity explodes.

She is a pediatric surgeon and she wrote this book called 'Parent Nations' about what we have to do as a society To take care of all children.

And it's very much about the kids who are overlooked the kids who don't have advantages

It is really a policy book more than a behavioral family book

The doctor and researcher Dana Susskind at the University of Chicago is just published a book called Parent Nation, which makes a larger similar argument that the U.S. just does not support parents very well from the governmental level at least.

Mitch Princeton's thesis here is that there's really at least two kinds of Popular.

And he wrote this book called Popular, Finding Happiness and Success in a World That Cares Too Much About the Wrong Kinds of Relationships.

Mitch Princeton's thesis here is that there's really at least two kinds of Popular.

Finding Happiness and Success in a World That Cares Too Much About the Wrong Kinds of Relationships.

I knew you were going to either invoke Bob Putnam or Ray Oldenburg, who wrote The Great Good Place and talked about the loss of third places.

And we used to have all of these third places to which we would go like bowling leagues or churches or pubs or bookstores, barbershops, whatever that was.

I knew you were going to either invoke Bob Putnam or Ray Oldenburg who wrote The Great Good Place and talked about the loss of third places

so home being the first place, work being the second place and we used to have all of these third places to which we would go like bowling leagues or churches or pubs or bookstores, barbershops whatever that was and that's where we would gather in these areas

I once set out to write a book about this very topic. It was called 'Money Makes Me Happy', Parenthesis Except When It Doesn't.

I once set out to write a book about this very topic. It was called 'Money Makes Me Happy', Parenthesis Except When It Doesn't.

But the quote I remember was something along the lines of, with knowledge comes memory for knowledge and memory are one and the same.

as he writes, the missing bullet holes were on the missing planes

One is in a book by Jordan Ellenberg, who I believe is a mathematician himself. And his book is called How Not to Be Wrong.

And as he writes, the missing bullet holes were on the missing planes.

skill learning, he writes, is like high intensity interval training for your brain.

in science, if you know what you are doing, you should not be doing it. In engineering, if you don't know what you are doing, you should not be doing it.

The author is Tom Vanderbilt. The book is called Beginners, the Joy and Transformative Power of Lifelong Learning.

Skill learning, he writes, is like high intensity interval training for your brain.

I have received a copy of this book by Tom Vanderbilt.

And at one point, Vanderbilt includes a comparison that I love. It's attributed to the mathematician Richard Hemming, who was describing the difference between engineers and scientists.

So anyway, Richard Hemming says, as quoted in Tom Vanderbilt's book, in science, if you know what you are doing, you should not be doing it. In engineering, if you don't know what you are doing, you should not be doing it.

he wrote this about our different elements, I may venture to affirm of the rest of mankind that they are nothing but a bundle of different perceptions which succeed each other with an inconceivable rapidity and are in perpetual flux and movement

our eyes cannot turn in their sockets without varying our perceptions, our thought is still more variable than our sight, nor is there any single power of the soul which remains unalterably the same perhaps for one moment

the mind is a kind of theater where several perceptions successively make their appearance pass repass glide away and mingle in an infinite variety of postures and situations

I may venture to affirm of the rest of mankind that they are nothing but a bundle of different perceptions which succeed each other with an inconceivable rapidity and are in perpetual flux and movement. Our eyes cannot turn in their sockets without varying our perceptions. Our thought is still more variable than our sight. Nor is there any single power of the soul which remains unalterably the same, perhaps for one moment.

The mind is a kind of theater where several perceptions successively make their appearance, pass, repass, glide away, and mingle in an infinite variety of postures and situations.

the importance of filial piety was ingrained in Chinese culture through tradition rather than law the value is perhaps exemplified by Yuan Dynasty scholar Gua Zhu Jing's book the 24 Paragons of Filial Piety

the work includes a story of an exemplary son born to a couple too poor to afford a mosquito net and so the son would sit shirtless by his parents bed allowing the mosquitoes to bite him so that his parents could rest peacefully

the book was temporarily banned during the Chinese cultural revolution as the government emphasized loyalty to the Communist Party over loyalty to one's family but it was modernized and republished in 2012 with new suggestions for keeping parents happy including teaching them how to use the internet and purchasing healthcare for them

the book is actually written by former NFL player John W. Wright the coach in the story is his father Robert C. Wright and the sprinter is Nigerian track and field star Charlton Aheezwillen

the story takes place at the 1974 NCAA track and field championships an hour before his triple jump competition Aheezwillen was feeling under the weather and considered dropping out of the contest

Wright encouraged Aheezwillen to run 100 meters as a test of his physical state and as Angela recalled he secretly gave him the head start by not quite starting the stopwatch on time

according to the book this trick gave Aheezwillen the confidence to participate in the competition and an hour later he became the NCAA champion in triple jump with the second longest jump in the world that year

the book is actually written by former NFL player John W. Wright

the coach in the story is his father Robert C. Wright

and the sprinter is Nigerian track and field star Charlton Aheezwillen

the story takes place at the 1974 NCAA track and field championships

an hour before his triple jump competition Aheezwillen was feeling under the weather and considered dropping out of the contest