Creative anxiety, self-doubt, and procrastination with Fredrik Backman | ReThinking

1. 0:00 – 1:12

   Success doesn’t cure self-doubt: “I still don’t know if I want to be a writer”

   1. FBFredrik Backman0:00

      After I wrote My Friends, I said, "I don't think I should do this anymore." People ask me all the time when I, "When did you know that you wanted to be a writer?" And I say, "I still don't know if I wanna be a writer." I'm still not t- there. [upbeat music]

   2. AGAdam Grant0:16

      Would you say you're a beneficiary or a victim of the law of Jante?

   3. FBFredrik Backman0:20

      I mean, we use it. We u- like, we make fun of ourselves a lot in Scandinavia, and we use that as kind of like explaining the Scandinavian mentality or the Swedish mentality that, you know, don't be too full of yourself or don't think too highly about yourself or, you know, don't, don't walk around thinking that you're something. And I think it's, it's, it's good to be reminded to not let things go to your head.

   4. AGAdam Grant0:43

      That ethos of humility is one of my favorite things about spending time in Scandinavia. At the same time, I've often heard from people that it can sort c- stand in the way of confidence a little bit, self-confidence in particular. I understand that that's been a, a bit of a, a challenge for you as a writer, which is ironic given [laughs] how widely acclaimed your, your work has been. I know My Friends has sold over a million copies, and you've built quite an audience. So how in the world do you experience a crisis of confidence in the very moment when you're achieving your biggest success?

2. 1:12 – 2:20

   The “free fall” of every new book: expectations, darkness, and recurring career panic

   1. FBFredrik Backman1:12

      I mean, I've always had a crisis of confidence. I, I don't remember a time in my life when I didn't have a crisis of confidence. I don't think that's anyone's fault. Like, I can't blame the law of Jante for that. I deal very poorly with expectations. I do good with people who have no expectations of me. [laughs] I can, I can exceed no expectations, but, but-

   2. AGAdam Grant1:33

      [laughs]

   3. FBFredrik Backman1:34

      ... everything else is, everything else is a struggle for me, and it's always been like that. And I think at this point, I think, um, it's probably never gonna change. I don't think I'll ever be in a situation where I feel, oh, I know how to do this now. It's always, like, I start a new book, it's always just free fall. My wife will tell you that d- during the writing of each book, there's a point where I am convinced that my career is over and this is the end of it, where I'm convinced by it. And she's like, "It's not an act. It's not... It's an actual thing." It happens at least once every book where for a couple of weeks there's just darkness, and I don't know why, and I don't know how to fix it. [laughs] I, I would love to.

   4. AGAdam Grant2:16

      Wow.

   5. FBFredrik Backman2:16

      I would love to fix it, but it's just, it's just there every time. That's, that's how it works.

3. 2:20 – 3:11

   Why keep writing if it hurts? Identity, retirement, and being ready to walk away

   1. AGAdam Grant2:20

      And yet you keep doing it. Why?

   2. FBFredrik Backman2:22

      [laughs] I don't know. I, I honestly, I d- and it was a psychological thing. I get too obsessed with everything within the story that I'm trying to create because there's also this whole thing, if I'm not a writer, I don't know who I am. I don't have any hobbies. Like, I don't know what I would be instead of this, so I kinda had to tell myself I could not be this and, and still be fine. I mean, after I wrote My Friends, I retired, and my wife still says that, "That was the most relaxed and happy I've seen you in years." And I felt 100% ready to leave it, and I'm still 100% ready to leave it. So now I've sent a new book to my publisher, and we'll see how that goes. But people ask me all the time when I, "When did you know that you wanted to be a writer?" And I say, "I still don't know if I wanna be a writer." I'm still not t- there. I don't know.

4. 3:11 – 4:46

   From forklift driver to novelist: discovering storytelling as an obsession and escape

   1. AGAdam Grant3:11

      Wow. So what, why did you start? If I remember correctly, you were driving a forklift when you started writing?

   2. FBFredrik Backman3:18

      I mean, I, I dropped out of university, and then my, my best friend gave me a job as a forklift driver. He's given, like, wherever he has work, he has always given me a job. So he worked at a restaurant, so I worked at a restaurant. So he worked at a warehouse, so I worked at a warehouse. Like, every, he has to give me jobs. And I drove a forklift for a while because then I just had this idea that, you know, I'll try to write something, like, for magazines. And then I became a freelancer, and then after a few years I had this idea to maybe try to write a novel, and then that became my first novel. But it's just-

   3. AGAdam Grant3:52

      Wow. [laughs]

   4. FBFredrik Backman3:52

      ... I really enjoy writing. I really enjoy, like, storytelling is the one thing that I en- really, really enjoy. It's the only thing other than, you know, my, my wife and my kids that I've ever l- can say I, like, ever truly loved and been obsessed. I just love stories, and I always loved stories. That was the vehicle to escape when I was a kid. You know, when you... I didn't have a lot of friends. I was very socially awkward, so stories was my way of escaping everything. It was books, and it was sports that I could use as a vehicle to escape reality.

   5. AGAdam Grant4:27

      That sounds very familiar.

   6. FBFredrik Backman4:28

      And I'm still like that. I don't care for reality very much. I like stories. So that's why I still do it. It's just that I was on a book tour and someone asked me, "Isn't this great?" [laughs] Being on stage. I'm like, "Yeah, yeah. I just wish that it was a l- smaller room."

5. 4:46 – 6:25

   Stage fright and the “life raft” script: panic-fueled public speaking

   1. AGAdam Grant4:46

      Well, it d- it does make sense, although I think [laughs] if that's true, you're dramatically underestimating your skills as a speaker because I first became aware of you not through reading your work but rather through watching a, a speech you gave, I think it was at Simon & Schuster. I laughed so hard watching that speech.

   2. FBFredrik Backman5:03

      Th- you know, in short, it helps that my wife doesn't always tell me where I'm going and what I'm doing. So she had dramatically undersold what I was gonna do. So I thought I was giving... Like, your American publisher where you've been your entire career, whom you owe a great debt of gratitude, wants you to come and give a speech. They're celebrating 100 years. And I thought it was a speech at a dinner, and it was a speech at a theater, and Jerry Seinfeld was there. Like, proper people. Like, Judy Blume was there, and it was just this insane collection of authors and, and people that I, I look up to immensely. And the seconds before I walk out on stage, I was standing just outside of the stage just feeling, "Oh, this is what a heart attack l- feels like." Like, this has to be it. Like, I can't feel my arms. So that was just fueled by pure panic.

   3. AGAdam Grant5:54

      Was the whole thing written or improvised or a mix of the two?

   4. FBFredrik Backman5:57

      No, no, no, it was written. I also had to insist because they wanted to put it on the teleprompter, and I was like, "No, I, I have it written down. I need the paper." And they were like, "Well, we'll put it on the teleprompter for you." I'm like, "I have to explain to you, this, this is like holding on to a life raft." ... on the open sea. This is what I hold onto so I don't die. If you take this pic- piece of paper from me, then this is th- this, this is not gonna work.

6. 6:25 – 8:17

   Creative anxiety as fuel: chaos → book, and learning to befriend the fear

   1. AGAdam Grant6:25

      Well, I was fascinated by the way that you framed creative anxiety and procrastination, and I know you only had four minutes in that speech, but I wanted to go deeper on those themes. Talk to me about how you experience creative anxiety and, and what causes you to procrastinate.

   2. FBFredrik Backman6:39

      Well, I think I'm in a constant state of creative anxiety because I know that some critics who don't like my work very much wouldn't believe it, but I work very, very hard. Like, it takes a lot of, takes a lot for me to do the things that I do. Like, I, I, when I write something, I've given it my very best. Even though the, though, you know, some critics think that it still sucks, I'm like, "Yeah, it might suck, but I give it, I gave it all I had." Like, it took everything out of me to write this. Like, I'm always in a state of I'm struggling, I'm struggling, I'm struggling, I'm struggling. Like, the, the process is chaos, chaos, chaos, chaos, book. And then when I hold the book, like, I have no idea how this happened. I don't know how I climbed out of that hole. I, I have no idea how I, you know, got it all together somehow. But I've, I'm, I'm trying to accept that it will never go away, if that makes sense. I think I always had this idea that I will get to a point where I feel that I know what I'm doing. Like, I will eventually just wake up one day and have it all figured out, and I will be more sure of myself, and I won't question myself as badly, and I'll just be good. I'll just arrive. And I've tried to accept that that will never happen and that this is the state that I'm in, and it's gonna be that way. Like, you can be on the bestseller list and you can get awards and it, it doesn't matter. Like, that's not how confidence works. It's not how anxiety works. So I'm still there, but I've tried to make a friend out of it. I've tried to accept that it's the anxiety that makes you go back and edit three extra times.

   3. AGAdam Grant8:17

      Yeah.

7. 8:17 – 12:04

   Procrastination as productive thinking: routines for incubation and not quitting

   1. FBFredrik Backman8:17

      It's the anxiety that makes you try harder. It's the anxiety that makes you question everything. It's the, the anxiety that makes you evolve all the time, that you never settle. You try to be better all the time. And I think with the procrastination, I think I've just tried to learn how to be productive even when I'm procrastinating, [laughs] if that makes sense. Like, I try to, "All right, I, I don't feel I'm gonna get any writing done today, but maybe I can edit, or maybe I can do research. Maybe I can just-

   2. AGAdam Grant8:45

      Yeah

   3. FBFredrik Backman8:45

      ... Google a lot of things today. Or maybe I can just sit by the computer and read, and maybe if I read something really good, then maybe I'll get an idea and I start writing." Also try to teach myself that doing the writing is li- like, you tend to not take the thinking part into consideration. Like, everyone asks you if you have a writing routine, and I, I don't have a writing routine. But I have a thinking routine. There's a morning routine. I drop my kids off at school, and then I drive to my office and I think, and I walk the forest with my dog and I thi- like, I, "Okay, now I'm just gonna think about the writing. I'm not gonna think about anything else." And that's my routine. And then some days I write and some days I don't. But I always think, so I'm always, like, writing the story in my head, if that makes sense.

   4. AGAdam Grant9:31

      Oh, there's so much to react to here. Well, first of all, I think it was Aaron Sorkin who said, "You call it procrastinating, I call it thinking." I have found in some of my research that there is truth to that. Uh, Jihae Shin and I published some studies showing that people who procrastinate moderately tend to be more creative than people who procrastinate a lot, but also than pr- people who procrastinate a little because some degree of delay, even though it might be uncomfortable or stressful or anxiety inducing or maybe even guilt inducing, some degree of delay forces you to incubate. It prevents you from rushing ahead with your first idea and allows you to wait for your best idea. It makes it possible to maybe reframe the problem and access more remote kind of unexpected directions for a storyline or, you know, more novel possibilities for an idea. And I'm, I'm so curious to hear about is that your experience? Do you find that some of the procrastinating actually leads you to new ideas and more exciting directions?

   5. FBFredrik Backman10:30

      I think it sounds really good, so I'm gonna take it.

   6. AGAdam Grant10:33

      [laughs]

   7. FBFredrik Backman10:34

      Uh, but I, yeah, I think there's a lot of truth to that. I think it's, like, for me, everything that I write down, I have to think first. I have to think and think and think and think and think and think and think before I have something that I can put down on paper. The procrastinating sometimes is even if you're walking circles around your computer, you're still at the computer. Like, you're still trying to do... You haven't given up. As long as you're procrastinating, you haven't given up yet.

   8. AGAdam Grant11:00

      Oh, that's, that's a, that's a frame I have not heard before. You know, Fredrik, I, I like that because I think when I, when I first started sharing the research we did, we studied people, you know, trying to do creative work in their jobs. We did experiments where we tempted them to procrastinate to different degrees and, you know, we kept finding there's this sweet spot where you do wanna procrastinate a little. I then started saying, "Well, you know, we should all procrastinate, maybe a little, maybe a little more." And I got so much pushback from people on that saying, "Procrastination is already the bane of my existence. I do not need to procrastinate more." And all of a sudden it hit me, I'm positioning this wrong. This is not about motivating people to procrastinate. It's about normalizing the procrastination they already do and saying, "This is actually sometimes a necessary part of the creative process." Even though the postponing and the delay, um, might be unintentional, you, you wish you could avoid it, sometimes you actually derive unexpected benefits from it. I never thought of the possibility that [laughs] you could, you could frame that just as, "You know what? This means I am still at it. I haven't quit yet." And that, that counts for something

8. 12:04 – 14:54

   Effort over outcome: shrinking the world to what’s in front of you

   1. FBFredrik Backman12:04

      It's how I view my entire life. It's just, I'm just barely hanging on. I feel that way as a parent, and I feel that way as a writer, and I feel that way as a friend. I think I view the procrastinating and, and the, you know, walking circles around your computer the same way as I do when I talk to my kids. Like, a lot of the argument between me and my children ends up with them or me saying, "Hey, I'm doing the best I can. I'm still here. I'm just hanging on." That's the way that I battle anxiety now. That's been the most useful technique for me. It's to value effort and not outcome. Like, what I do then is the same thing that I do when I struggle with writing now, when I s- when I feel like everything I- I'm doing is really bad and I, I don't know how to make the story. I don't know how to put what is in my head on paper. It feels like I'm failing. And I try to tell myself, like, "Hey, did you, did you do your best today? Did you give this your b- Yeah, I did." Like, I just didn't have more in me today than, than this, but I did the best I could.

   2. AGAdam Grant13:10

      Yeah.

   3. FBFredrik Backman13:10

      And I think that's how I frame it now.

   4. AGAdam Grant13:12

      Yeah. No, that, that makes a lot of sense. I, I find myself thinking of a couple things as, as you articulate this. The, the first is my diving coach sent me a meme one day that I, I loved. It just said, "You are not a machine. Your best looks different every day." And I realized that for most of my life, I have been grading my work every day based on my best ever, and I should know better as a psychologist, right? I should know that when you hit a personal best, running for example or lifting, you're, you're not just gonna [chuckles] exceed that every single day. And yet I- I've carried around this in- implicit expectation that I will. I made the mistake of i- you know, valuing the outcome every day, and I wanna make sure I value the effort daily. But I don't wanna lose the outcome. I just need to stretch it into a, a larger time horizon. So I wanna value my effort daily, and I wanna value the outcome on a monthly or yearly basis and say, "Okay, if I put in my best every day, whatever that best is, if I, if I zoom out enough, it's gonna add up to something of value."

   5. FBFredrik Backman14:12

      And I think I try to not value the outcome at all. [chuckles]

   6. AGAdam Grant14:16

      Wow.

   7. FBFredrik Backman14:16

      And try to... No, I, I really, really... I try to, I try to make it smaller. I try to make my world smaller. I'm just gonna do the thing that's in front of me now, and, and I know it sounds incredibly ungrateful, but I have a really hard time with trying to take in what people actually think about the writing I've done. I kinda steer away from it, especially when I'm writing something else. Because the only thing that happens when people tell me that something was great is that I think, I immediately go to, "Well, you're not gonna like the next thing I'm doing, because I'm not gonna be able to do that again." Like, I'm not gonna be able to replicate it, and that's kinda how I've worked.

9. 14:54 – 16:16

   Defensive pessimism, therapy insights, and the cost of making anxiety your job

   1. AGAdam Grant14:54

      I mean, from everything you've said so far, psychologists would, would probably describe you as a-

   2. FBFredrik Backman14:59

      As a moron and a maniac?

   3. AGAdam Grant15:01

      No, neither. I, I think your self-portrait would, would fit with what Julie Norem called defensive pessimism, uh-

   4. FBFredrik Backman15:06

      Yeah, probably

   5. AGAdam Grant15:06

      ... as opposed to sh- strategic optimism, where you, you basically anticipate the worst scenario constantly and then you try to harness your anxiety as motivation.

   6. FBFredrik Backman15:15

      Yeah. I went to a little bit of therapy. Obviously, I've needed some therapy in my life. My therapist has a very nice little house by the lake and a boat, and he's done good business on me. It's been lucrative. And he said, at one point he said, "I think the problem for you is that the thing that made people respond to your books is you diving into the parts of you that if you had any other line of work, we would tell you, like, you need to think about those things less." And he said, "You, you kinda managed to manufacture a career where whenever someone says, like, you should do less of this or you should really work on these parts of yourself, but you find a way to defend yourself with, yeah, but all of those, I need all of those things. Like, I can't fix my anxiety. It's my... That's how I make a living." [chuckles] It's, uh... Does that make sense?

   7. AGAdam Grant16:07

      It does.

   8. FBFredrik Backman16:08

      I understand now that I use it as a defense mechanism, so I understand now that I have to, like, work on these things, but it takes time. It's, uh, it's a lot of work.

10. 16:16 – 19:00

    Autobiography in “My Friends”: self-dislike, abandonment fears, and self-compassion for others

    1. AGAdam Grant16:16

       I mean, it, it, it does make sense. One, you just answered actually two of the questions I wanted to ask you about. There were a couple lines in "My Friends" that, that really stuck with me, and they, they seem to be very self-descriptive now as I, you know, as I hear you talk about yourself. So I'll, I'll just read them to you. One was you wrote, "He was good at seeing beauty in everything. That happens if you're no good at seeing it in yourself." Oh, yeah, that, [chuckles] that, that might be something you have lived. And then the other, the other one is, "It's a lie that people are scared of being alone, because what we fear is being abandoned. You can choose to be alone, but no one chooses to be left."

    2. FBFredrik Backman16:52

       Yeah.

    3. AGAdam Grant16:52

       Were those both autobiographical statements?

    4. FBFredrik Backman16:54

       Yeah. There's a, there's a lot of [chuckles] really autobiographical stuff in it. I think it's in all my books, but I think it's maybe more of me in, in "My Friends" than in any, any other book, and it's those, those two quotes are... I mean, I, I don't like myself very much, and it's the thing that I work on the most, and it took me well into my adult years, you know, way longer than it should've been, that I understood that I have to work on liking myself a little more because... I'm gonna see if I can explain this. You have to understand that English is not my first language, and I don't even speak my first language very well.

    5. AGAdam Grant17:35

       [laughs] Well, you could've fooled me.

    6. FBFredrik Backman17:36

       It's, uh, when you have kids and you have a marriage, I came to the realization that it's if I don't work on liking myself, then that is selfish. Because if I don't find a place within me where I don't struggle so much with this self-hate, then I'm gonna be a really crappy husband and a really crappy father.

    7. AGAdam Grant18:02

       Wow.

    8. FBFredrik Backman18:03

       Like, in order to be there for them I have to do the work on me so that when I'm with them, I'm not consumed by all of my feelings about myself.

    9. AGAdam Grant18:16

       You know, I, I, I find, I find it so difficult sometimes to convince people who are hard on themselves to build self-compassion and show themselves a little more kindness and understanding and not constantly just berate themselves. And I think I've always tried to highlight the benefits to them, and I... Sometimes I'll even go into the research and say, "Look, there's this whole body of, of evidence spearheaded by Kristin Neff that shows that you are happier, you're less depressed, you're less anxious." I never thought to frame self-compassion as something that actually benefits the people around you, that if you are a little bit kinder to yourself, you will be a better parent, better partner, better creator, better colleague. I'm gonna try this.

11. 19:00 – 23:53

    From “be happy” to “be okay”: making peace with yourself and reducing rumination

    1. FBFredrik Backman19:00

       The only thing that I eventually arrived at, it was this notion that I, I think a lot, a lot of people who struggle with depression, I would assume, feel disconnected from themselves. Like, you look in the mirror and it doesn't feel like you. Like, "I don't know who this person is. I'm dragging this body around, but it doesn't feel like it belongs to me. And the person other people view me as, that doesn't feel as me." So what I try to do now is I try to not view it as like, "Oh, I'm gonna find a way so that I feel like myself." I try to find a way to say, "Okay, so there's, there's this person that I'm dragging around. I'm gonna try to make peace with him. I'm gonna try to make our coexistence as good and healthy as I can," because when I'm constantly struggling with myself, then I'm no good to other people because I... then I get self-absorbed. You get to this point where you can't take in what other people are saying or other people need- people's needs or... Like, if you're in a deep depression, it's very hard for you to be... to feel empathy or sympathy or be a good listener or whatever. I'm, I'm working on that. I'm working on framing it as if I do the work, if I do this, it's not necessarily to make myself happy. I think I always had that, that goal before. I had this idea that one day I'm just gonna wake up and I'm just gonna be happy. And one of the most useful things that a therapist told me was, "Well, do you need to be happy?" And it was the most insane thing that everyone, anyone had ever said to me. I was like, "What are you talking about? Do you know how much you cost an hour?" I'm like, "What do you-- why do you think I'm here?" And he said, "But do you need to be happy? And more than that, do you think that that's a reasonable expectation for you?" And then he said, "I think you should aim to be okay." And then if at the end of the day you ask yourself, like, instead of asking yourself, "Am I happy? Am I happy now? Is this happiness? Am I, am I, am I happy enough?" Like, instead of doing that, just ask yourself, "Are you okay? Was this an okay day? Did you get through the day okay?" Like, when I'm really in a dark, when I'm, you know, descend into the real darkness and self-doubt, I just tell myself, "Did you do, did you do your best today?" Yeah, I did my best today. I still messed everything up, but I did, I really did do my best.

    2. AGAdam Grant21:25

       It was my best mess.

    3. FBFredrik Backman21:26

       Th- this was my best mess. This was the best, best mess that I could do. Then, then, then-

    4. AGAdam Grant21:31

       It could've been even messier.

    5. FBFredrik Backman21:32

       Yeah. Did I miss my deadline? Yes, I did. And do I have anything to send for them? No, I don't. Am I even writing the book that I told them that I was gonna write? No. Like, I pitched something and they were all excited, and then I started writing something else. Did you do your best? Yeah, I did my best, and this is what it is.

    6. AGAdam Grant21:47

       Fredrik, I, I have to tell you that [chuckles] the disconnect between your self-talk and the depth of your insight and wisdom is, is as big as I've ever seen. [chuckles] Like, for a guy, for a guy who thinks he's just a moron stumbling around in the dark, you invented a hell of a flashlight. I think, I, I think other people can see that. It's obviously a struggle for you to see that, but, I mean, you've, you've anticipated a, a bunch of research findings that have been hugely influential in psychology and took a lot of data collection to discover. So one, I mean, one thing you reminded me of as, as you were talking is there's a, a paper by a pair of Finnish researchers, it was, uh, Salmela-Aro and Nurmi, who showed that for a long time we just assumed that when people got depressed, that made them self-focused. Uh, so you start to feel down, you turn your attention inward, "What's wrong with me?" You start to ruminate and then, you know, you withdraw and you, you become sort of a less pleasant person to be around, as you were describing. They showed, though, that it also goes a little bit the other way, that if you spend too much time focusing inward, trying to fix what's wrong with you, that that actually can start to precipitate depression, uh, because you end up sort of making yourself miserable and you feel like you're not worthy of being around other people, uh, and that can sink you deeper. And it, it sounds like you've experienced the, the causal arrow going in both of those directions.

    7. FBFredrik Backman23:08

       Yeah. Absolutely. I can, I can relate a lot to that.

    8. AGAdam Grant23:12

       The other one which, you know, which is just very closely connected to that, when you were talking about [chuckles] do I need to be happy, I was thinking about the research of Iris Mauss and colleagues, who show that when people set happiness goals, they often become less happy, especially if they're from individualistic cultures because they get into this, "Well, I need to work on my happiness, and I need to do what is going to bring me joy," and they forget that a great deal of being okay, as you put it, is having meaningful relationships with other people. Um, and happiness is, is rarely... it rarely succeeds as a, a purely solitary pursuit. It sounds like you've, you've come around to that view as well, even though it's not your impulse.

12. 23:53 – 25:29

    Fighting self-absorption: narcissistic tendencies, “hubris or abyss,” and becoming better

    1. FBFredrik Backman23:53

       Yeah, I mean, it's been a long way around before I kind of started to figure, figure out that it, you know, maybe I'm pursuing the wrong things and in the wrong way and, uh, you know, maybe my, my expectations are wrong. Well, this idea, I think it was the m- most important thing that I'm, I'm trying to get through, is the part where I have to make peace with myself. I think I'm an incredibly narcissistic person. At the core of me, and I kinda had to identify that to fight it, to really, really stop being so, stop being so focused on myself and my feelings all the time, which is also, you know, if you're, if you have narcissistic tendencies and you kind of fool yourself, but you also struggle with anxiety, it's either hubris or the abyss. There's only those two, and if you have that kind of a personality and you go into a line of work where it's encouraged that you sit alone in a room and really just dive into yourself, then I think that's a cocktail for a very, very selfish and not very nice person. Try to be aware of all that so I can fight it.

    2. AGAdam Grant25:05

       I respect that. I also have to say, if you're a narcissist, you are the most humble narcissist I've ever met.

    3. FBFredrik Backman25:11

       Yeah, but I think there's a lot [laughs] ... I think you'll f- meet a lot of humble narcissists, and those are just those of us who kind of identified that I think that's a bad part of me and I think I have to fight it.

    4. AGAdam Grant25:23

       Well, I, I've only known you for an hour, but [laughs] you do a lot of torturing of yourself just for being human.

13. 25:29 – 28:15

    Identity as “all my tomorrows”: parenting repair, effort language, and being seen trying

    1. FBFredrik Backman25:29

       Yeah, but that's also kind of the... I mean, it's, the job is to try to be better. I wrote a book called Anxious People, and I wrote it when I came out of, I came out of being in a lot of therapy because I burned out, and when I came out of therapy I didn't think I was gonna be able to write anymore because I had had such a deep burnout. So I started writing this thing, this comedy about being in therapy because I thought this is w- gonna be my writing exercise to see if I can write again, and that kind of grew and grew and grew and grew and be, you know, turned into a novel. But there's a line in there, and I seem, if I can quote it in English, but I think the English quote is that we're taught that we're the sum of our experiences, but that's an unbearable thought because we have to let ourselves believe that we're more than all of the things that we have done, that we are also all of the things that we will do. My identity is all of my tomorrows. That's also me. Not just my experiences and mistakes that I made. Also, the things that I might be capable of tomorrow. That's how we get through the day. That's how we get up in the morning, that we're not done. I'm still here. I'm still hanging around. I'm might, might not be producing much, but I'm still here, I'm still around, I'm still, you know, I'm still in the fight. That's how I view myself as a father. Like, my proudest achievement is that my wife is still married to me. We've been together for 19 years, married for 17, and my kids still like me. Like, my kids still wanna go to the movies with me, and my kids still wanna tell me about this video game that they're playing, and they're not terribly ashamed of me when I drop them off at school. These are my proudest achievements and I tell my kids all the time that I know I messed a lot of things up. I know I wasn't the best father at all times. I know I was a lot in my head at times and, you know, I, I missed things and I forgot things and I, I, I didn't listen enough and I didn't understand everything and I made mistake. Like, I know I, I know I messed up, but I'm, I'm, you know, but I'm trying, and I hope that you see that I'm trying, and it's this thing that we're pretty good at telling each other now. We kinda learned that as a technique, me and my kids. When we're in an argument or when we don't see eye to eye, it's like we have this thing where I can turn around and we can be mad at each other and we can, you know, we can be frustrated, but I can turn around and say, "I, I, I see that you're trying." And they turn around and they go like, "I see that you're trying, too." [laughs] We, we can be, you know, and it, there can be a lot of frustration, but it's like, "I see you trying," "I do see you trying, too. Good, good." So just to remind each other that, you know, we're still coming from a place of love here.

14. 28:15 – 31:00

    Lightning round and scheduled grief: Lego typewriter ritual to contain loss

    1. AGAdam Grant28:15

       I'm gonna try that. "I can see that you're trying." I love that. Okay, Fredrik, it's time for a lightning round. Are you ready?

    2. FBFredrik Backman28:20

       Sure.

    3. AGAdam Grant28:21

       The first one is, what is the worst writing advice you've ever gotten?

    4. FBFredrik Backman28:25

       Any advice that just tells you, "Don't do this," or, "Never do this." You can do anything if you make it work.

    5. AGAdam Grant28:32

       What is an unpopular opinion you hold that you're excited to defend?

    6. FBFredrik Backman28:36

       That I think, in general, video games are good for kids.

    7. AGAdam Grant28:39

       Oh, I'm with you there. We did a whole podcast on it.

    8. FBFredrik Backman28:41

       I felt that you would agree with me, but it, it's a, it's a very strong opinion that I have, that in general, not all video games, not for all children, not at all times, but in general I think video games are doing so much good.

    9. AGAdam Grant28:55

       Such good qualifications on that, too. I mean, I th- I think, again, you anticipated the evidence so well. On average, they're great for teaching grit and resilience. They're actually surprisingly social-

    10. FBFredrik Backman29:06

        Yeah

    11. AGAdam Grant29:06

        ... as opposed to isolating. I mean, it's how I learned to find flow as a kid. What is something you've changed your mind about recently?

    12. FBFredrik Backman29:12

        I don't know how to answer it in one sentence, but it's that someone I cared about a lot passed away, childhood friend of mine. I learned that it was good for me to schedule grief, which is a weird thing to say.

    13. AGAdam Grant29:26

        Not weird at all. I, I never thought about this with grief, but there's a whole body of research in psychology on the benefits of scheduling anxiety, right? Uh, setting aside worry time to con- to contain it and have it not take over at all times, and it sounds like you found something similar helpful with grief.

    14. FBFredrik Backman29:43

        And it was a childhood friend, and he passed away, and we hadn't spoken for a while, and someone close to him reached out and said, "You know, he had a gift for you. He bought something for you that he never got around to giving you," and it was Lego because he loved Lego. So it was the Lego typewriter, because I love typewriters. I collect old typewriters. So I spent the last week building this Lego typewriter. For an hour every night I would sit there building Legos, and sometimes I'm like, I'm sitting there holding the pieces looking at the picture for 20 minutes because my mind drifted, but it was like I scheduled grief. So that I didn't break apart during the day, so that I didn't get overwhelmed with-

    15. AGAdam Grant30:26

        Wow

    16. FBFredrik Backman30:26

        ... with whatever emotions I, I was struggling with. And that was like telling myself that it's okay to feel it now. You know, "Go ahead. Feel it now." And then we'll feel it for an hour, and we'll build a little bit of Lego, and I'll remember him, and then it was obvious when I was building it, like you're building it with him now.

    17. AGAdam Grant30:43

        Fredrik, I'm so sorry for your loss, first of all, and secondly, what a, what a powerful way to grieve and also a beautiful way to honor your friend's memory. I have one, one final thing, which is a little Office Hours moment. You have a question for me?

15. 31:00 – 35:35

    Office Hours: defining happiness, meaning over success, and being seen accurately

    1. FBFredrik Backman31:00

       I do. What is happiness?

    2. AGAdam Grant31:02

       [laughs] What is happiness? Oh, how do I do that? Lightning round style. Well, we, we talked about it a little bit earlier. I, I think you, you hit on what for me is, is the most powerful path to happiness, which is finding a way to make other people happier. I also think, though, I maybe have another response to this that's, that's informed by reflecting on what you've shared so far, which is I think a big part of happiness is finding a healthy balance between self-acceptance and self-improvement.

    3. FBFredrik Backman31:30

       Oh, yeah, that's good.

    4. AGAdam Grant31:31

       And you're very good at the second and terrible at the first [laughs] from what I can tell. I think that it's, for me, a big part of happiness, 'cause I've also been someone who just relentlessly strives to get better. I guess one of the things I've learned is that happiness lies in trying to better my present self without hating my past self.

    5. FBFredrik Backman31:51

       That's very good. Trying to see, how can I make this better without falling d- down the dark hole of how bad it was?

    6. AGAdam Grant31:58

       Exactly. Exactly. And it, it almost doesn't matter if it was bad or mediocre or good. I wanna m- I'm gonna wanna make it better regardless, and so I'm just gonna spend less time wallowing in the evaluation of how it was and just try to move forward with, okay, what's the most im- important next step I can take to try to evolve?

    7. FBFredrik Backman32:19

       Do you think there will ever be a point where you feel that your success... Does the responsibility get overwhelming for you?

    8. AGAdam Grant32:26

       I feel like I got really lucky that a door opened, and then there were a bunch of additional doors on the other side of it, and I feel a responsibility to not waste the fact that I got to walk through those, and I feel especially a responsibility to open the door for other people.

    9. FBFredrik Backman32:43

       Yeah, that's good. You have a responsibility to hold, to open the door for someone else. Yeah, that's very useful. Do you think that you will ever be in a s- situation where you feel that your success is standing in, in the way of your happiness?

    10. AGAdam Grant32:55

        Oh, I've definitely been there. I think I was there when I started getting asked to give speeches more often, and as a shy introvert, I was, I was afraid of public speaking. And I decided that in, in those moments it was more important for me to face my fears than it was to feel happy. I'm glad I did that, 'cause now [laughs] I, I actually love speaking most of the time. There are definitely... I mean, there, there's probably a good decade of my life where I traded... I, I'd say, you know, I, on a 0 to 10 scale, it would've been much easier to be at a 9 in happiness if I worked less, and I deliberately chose to be at a 7 or an 8 because I had projects that I found meaningful and things I wanted to get better at, and I said, "I'm, I'm okay not being happy in these moments or not being as happy as I could be in these moments because meaning matters more to me than happiness." And I was okay with that trade-off, but I wouldn't have wanted to, you know, to pursue success and drop myself down to a 2 or 3 in happiness. And I don't think I would've found any happiness or any meaning if success were the main goal. It's always been, how do I create something that's worthwhile for other people? How do I gain the freedom to use my time in ways that are worthwhile for me? And if I can do those two things, I hope success and happiness are byproducts.

    11. FBFredrik Backman34:13

        Yeah.

    12. AGAdam Grant34:14

        Such interesting questions you ask.

    13. FBFredrik Backman34:16

        What was the thing you said? Meaning means more to me than happiness?

    14. AGAdam Grant34:19

        It does.

    15. FBFredrik Backman34:20

        That's something to think about. There's a very good phrasing of that feeling. It's very, very good.

    16. AGAdam Grant34:28

        This has been fascinating. I, I think this is unlike any interview I've done before in that I can't find an ounce of impression management or self-presentation concern in, in the way that you communicate at all. It, it's almost as if you don't care about being seen positively. You just want to be seen accurately. [laughs] That's such a rare quality.

    17. FBFredrik Backman34:50

        No, thank you for saying that. That means a lot to me, you saying that. It's exactly like that.

    18. AGAdam Grant34:54

        There's a whole literature in psychology on the tension that many people feel between self-enhancement, like, "I wanna look good," and self-verification, "I want you to see the real me." And I didn't think it was possible for anyone to [laughs] just, just be in full self-verification mode and not at all in self-enhancement mode, and you, you made me rethink that.

    19. FBFredrik Backman35:14

        Super grateful that you had me on. Thank you so much. [outro music]

Episode duration: 35:36