Rethinking your beliefs with Tara Westover | Re:Thinking with Adam Grant

1. 0:00 – 0:06

   Intro

   1. AGAdam Grant0:00

      [upbeat music]

2. 0:06 – 1:18

   Tara Westover’s isolated upbringing and the dilemma of leaving home

   1. AGAdam Grant0:06

      If we have any listeners who have been living under a rock and don't know your story, can you give me kind of the, the high-level summary of what your upbringing was like?

   2. TWTara Westover0:18

      Took me a while to, you know, a few, some great number of pages to explain it the first time. But, um, [chuckles] yeah. I mean, I was, [chuckles] I was born the youngest of seven children in rural Idaho, and my dad was, um, [lip smack] let's just say he wasn't typical. So he had a lot of ideas about the world. Uh, he didn't want us to go to school 'cause he thought the schools were run by the Illuminati. He didn't want us to go to the doctor or the hospital, no vaccines. I didn't have a birth certificate till I was nine. Uh, so I was raised in a, in a kind of, we could just say unorthodox way. And then I left home when I was 17 and, um, [lip smack] got really obsessed with education, hence the title of the book. And, um, yeah, I guess the, the book I wrote is it's really about a lot of difficult decisions that had to be made about kind of trying to move into the mainstream world while staying a part of my family and all the ways that that, uh, was difficult.

3. 1:18 – 2:29

   Music as the gateway to self-education and college

   1. AGAdam Grant1:18

      One thing I've always been fascinated by ever since I read your story and then met you was, at what point did you start to want an education?

   2. TWTara Westover1:29

      I mean, I was pretty obsessed with music when I was younger. I really loved to sing. Uh, I was able to do some plays at the com- at the local theater, which was kind of my first time around people who weren't my family. I asked an older brother of mine, "You know, I w- I wanna study music. Where do I go to study music?" And he, he had, was kind of a genius, you know? He, he had been kept out of school also, but he was older than I was, and he was allowed to go to a few years of school, and then he had taught himself everything else he needed to know. And, you know, freakishly taught himself calculus, the whole thing, and then went off to college. And so he sort of [chuckles] had been trying to convince me to go to college, but I wasn't very interested in it. I didn't even know what it was. I'd never been in a classroom, so I had no idea about it. And then when I got really obsessed with music and said, "Where do I, where do I go to study? You know, I wanna learn opera. I wanna learn choir. I wanna, I wanna be a music teacher," he said, "Well, you have to go to college, obviously." And, um, so I started

4. 2:29 – 3:09

   From self-teaching to intellectual discovery beyond music

   1. TWTara Westover2:29

      this process of trying to do what he did. You know, I started waking up early in the morning, trying to teach myself trigonometry, which is pretty painful actually. And, um, [lip smack] it was purely 'cause I loved to sing. You know, I really taught myself math because I like to sing. And I said, "Okay, fine. I'll sit here and try to figure out sine, cosine, and tangent if it means that one day I can be a church choir director." Then once I got to the university, I discovered all kinds of things, you know, history and philosophy and books of all different kinds. And then I wrote a book, and now I'm talking to you. [chuckles] And, uh, so the path, well, you know, the, I, it took me a lot of different places, but the origin of it was, was just music.

5. 3:09 – 4:12

   Why modern life can be the best—and worst—time to learn

   1. AGAdam Grant3:09

      I think there are a lot of people who dream of being autodidacts. Um, and I think we live in a world where it's easier than it ever was at any point in human history to teach yourself something, right? Thanks to books and the internet and all the tools we have available to us. Um, but I don't feel like everyone is equally good at taking advantage of those tools, right? Some people are, are extremely skilled at teaching themselves. Other people struggle and flounder, and you were remarkably good at it. So what did you learn about educating yourself that the rest of us ought to know?

   2. TWTara Westover3:41

      I mean, I don't know as though it's the best time ever. In some ways it is, because you have access to all these things, and in some ways I feel like it's the worst time ever because I just don't remember life being this distracting. Everything about life is designed to be distracting, and everyone is trying to pull you in a million different directions. And every time you open your phone just to verify an address, you're, there's 20 things that are all yelling at you that you have to do. And,

6. 4:12 – 7:13

   Wholeheartedness vs. exhaustion: choosing primary projects

   1. TWTara Westover4:12

      um, I think that's pretty, that's not a good environment actually for learning, which is... I think requires a lot of focus. And I, um, I heard this, this poet that I, I'm a fan of, David Whyte. He was telling a story once about when he was younger and he was working for a nonprofit and he was just terribly exhausted and he asked his friend what he should do. He said maybe he was gonna have to quit 'cause he was just, he was just exhausted and he needed rest. And his friend said, "You know, the opposite of exhaustion isn't necessarily rest. It's wholeheartedness." Uh, it's like you're do-- What he said was, "You're doing too many things that are secondary to you and not enough things that are primary to you." And I think the world right now is very much designed to make us do a lot of things that are secondary or tertiary [chuckles] or, or, uh, or even further down the line. Everything is, is, is actually trying to just divide you into more and more pieces, and that is exhausting. And, um, I, I do think that the best environments, what people need is time, space, and to know what's important and to actually be able to focus on those things that are important. So in some ways it is the best time to learn. There's so much available. And in a lot of ways it's the worst time.

   2. AGAdam Grant5:26

      It reminds me of, of this great insight from my favorite psychologist, Brian Little, who found that wellbeing is dependent on what he calls the sustainable pursuit of core projects. Um, the, the passionate-

   3. TWTara Westover5:37

      Mm-hmm

   4. AGAdam Grant5:38

      ... commitments, um, that align with our values and make us feel alive. And I think what you're bringing to the table is a lot of us are distracted by peripheral projects, uh, and that prevents us from being able to pursue the ones that are nearest and dearest to us.

   5. TWTara Westover5:53

      Yeah, I think that's true. I think that's one of the challenges I think of our media environment, of the social media environment, is I, I think so many things in our lives are not actually there to help us in the ways that we want. They're more there to imp- You know, recruit us for the things they want us to be doing. And that is a very challenging environment, I think, uh, just to be in emotionally, educationally, and professionally [chuckles] , uh, in every way, so.

   6. AGAdam Grant6:23

      So Tara, one of the things that, that I would love to, to hear your take on a little bit, um, is this, this show is about rethinking things, and you've basically rethought your entire life. Um, you threw deep-seated beliefs out the window. Um, you reimagined your relationship with your family. Uh, you transformed your identity. Uh, you went from having never sat in a classroom to getting a PhD in history. Um, and the, the opening of your mind through that process, to me, is a remarkable thing. And so I'd love to, to learn from you about what was it that, that opened that door, um, and how did you go about rethinking all these things? Did you enjoy it? Was it painful? Um, how can we all bring more of that into our lives? As you can see, I have a lot of questions, but let me start with, um-

   7. TWTara Westover7:09

      [laughs]

   8. AGAdam Grant7:09

      ... from all the things you've rethought, what have you learned about rethinking?

7. 7:13 – 10:15

   How Tara ‘rethinks’: tracking joy, then confronting inherited ideology

   1. TWTara Westover7:13

      Oof. Yeah, how do you even begin that? Um, I mean, I think there's different... You've outlined it already. There's different types of change and different ways that you can change. I think the decision for me to leave rural Idaho, fairly isolated upbringing, leave a farm, my dad's scrapyard, and become a student, and then ultimately even go so far as, as to pursue a PhD, I think for me, um, it was, I think, just a process of learning how to pay attention to how I felt when I was doing something. And I didn't hate working in my dad's scrapyard, other than it was, like, pretty dangerous [chuckles] 'cause he wasn't super into safety. Um, but it wasn't, I didn't wake up to do that. That wasn't joyful for me. Music was joyful for me. And I think following that led me to go to Brigham Young University, which was very hard 'cause I'd never been to school before. So I took biology, and it was very interesting, and I took geology, and it was very interesting. And then I took philosophy, and it was very interesting. It was like, "I really like this." You know, I started reading literature. I really like this. You know, just that basic skill of paying attention to what feels good to you and, um, I think led to a lot of transformation for me, just that really simple thing of what actually makes you wanna get up in the morning and, and do it. So, and I think that took me pretty far from where I thought. You know, I'm not an opera singer. I don't teach choir. I thought I would be teaching voice lessons. That was my big dream when I was 14, 15. Uh, but just continuing to follow that branched off in all these unexpected ways. And in terms of education, and then there's the other topic you mentioned, which is opening your mind, allowing your mind to change about big ethical and political questions. That, um... I know I changed my mind about a lot of things. I had a lot of crazy ideas. My dad had some pretty extreme ideas about women, pretty extreme ideas about race, pretty homophobic ideas, and I shared all of those ideas more or less when I left home. And that process was, um, that was a painful process, yeah, because I think it's very, it was very difficult for me to separate out what I'd been told from what I wanted to actually carry forward in my life, and to separate out the voices in my head that were my father's voice, but they really sounded like my voice for a long time. [chuckles] And I think one of the things that helped me a lot is I met a lot of mature people, and I, and what I mean by maturity is just I met people who knew what they believed, and they knew how they thought the world should be, but they didn't just treat me like a disappointment because I was a little bit lost or imperfect, or maybe even just wrong and hurtful about things. It's a difficult balance to strike between saying, like, "I want to be on the side of progress and of things I believe in," um,

8. 10:15 – 13:16

   A Cambridge case study: what actually changes someone’s mind

   1. TWTara Westover10:15

      but to have the maturity when you encounter people who, who are not there. You know, the world isn't always the way it should be. In fact, a lot of the times it isn't. Uh, to be able to encounter that person and not just treat them as another thing that is a disappointment, that isn't the way it's supposed to be. I got to Cambridge University in 2008, which is when California was first had, you know, Proposition 8 on the ballot. And the Mormon Church gave a lot of money to, um, to essentially prop up this very homophobic piece of legislation. And I went off to Cambridge with a pretty, um, offensive set of beliefs about people who are gay. And I arrived in Cambridge and started spouting them off, you know? And, uh, and I encountered, I remember my first night there, I hadn't said anything. All I said was that I w- had, was Mormon, and the woman next to me just turned right away from me in this bar in Cambridge and just said loudly to the whole table, "I don't wanna talk to anybody that's homophobic," and just wouldn't speak to me the rest of the night. And, um, that wasn't so helpful for changing my mind actually. But then the next night, I, I went to a dinner, and I sat next to this guy who, uh, and I started saying all these things, and he just kept drilling down, asking me more and more questions. And I said things, I can't even say them here. They're so offensive. I'm just, they upset me even just to think about them. But I was saying these things, and he had the most incredible response. He, he essentially separated me out from the ideas, and he was saying things to me that were, they were sort of like, "You seem like a nice person. Help me understand how these ideas fit into your life." You know? And, and it was an amazing way of dealing with, with, with, with me because he didn't put me on the defensive. You know, he wasn't attacking me. And I'm sure you know this better than anyone, when we're under attack, we really can't take in new information. Our, a lot of our cognitive capacity just goes completely offline, and you're never gonna convince anybody of anything when you make them feel attacked. And so he had this incredible way of reassuring me, like, "I'm not attacking you. I just wanna understand." And, you know, we argued till 3:00 or 4:00 in the morning. And, and then the next morning, I woke up at 7:00 or 8:00, and I sent the weirdest email I've maybe ever sent in my life. And I just wrote him, and I said, "Hey, Andrew. It was lovely to meet you yesterday. Um-" Just want you to know I've been thinking about what we talked about, and you're right and I'm wrong. And, uh, hope to see you later, you know? [both laugh] And it was, it was the beginning, it was the beginning of a big change for me. Um, realizing, like, my identity didn't have to be completely fixed on all of these ideas that I had, and that I could, I could change, and that there was room for that. But I, I, I think a part of it was me, and I think a big part of it was some of the people I encountered who had conviction. You know, they were never gonna agree with me and my offensive ideas, but they, they also had some compassion and curiosity to give me space to change.

9. 13:16 – 15:15

   Curiosity over condemnation: motivational interviewing in real life

   1. AGAdam Grant13:16

      It's an incredible story. It, it sounds like Andrew was a master of what the psychologists Bill Miller and Steve Rollnick have called motivational interviewing, where, you know, instead of trying to shove a bunch of beliefs down your throat, um, actually he approached you with curiosity, trying to understand where you're coming from, and helped you see the complexity of your own beliefs, or in this case, the inconsistency and cognitive dissonance between your values on the one hand and some of the beliefs you espoused on the other, and then led you to find your own reasons to change.

   2. TWTara Westover13:46

      Well, I think it was because he wasn't attacking me. He wasn't saying, "You're the worst person in the world. I can't believe you believe these horrible things. Do you have any idea how horrible it is, what you're saying?" He had this incredible way of making me feel like I was good. Like, "You're a good person. I don't, I really don't understand how you can believe these things, but you seem great, so help me, help me understand it." And I think what that does is that I could hear myself talk. [chuckles] You know? I felt calm enough that I could hear my own self speaking. And what I felt in those moments was, "I never wanna say this again. [laughs] I actually don't like saying this. This doesn't feel good." And, and I think it was probably that more than anything he said. I don't remember anything he said, not a single thing he said. What I remember is the way I felt when I was speaking, and I remember saying things, studies, studies I had read, horrible things that were not true, that I just was like, "I don't even like saying this. I never wanna say this again." And, uh, yeah, it, it's a funny thing. He allowed me to feel calm enough that I could hear myself talk.

   3. AGAdam Grant14:50

      That's, that's such a powerful thing to do, and it's frankly something I've struggled to do frequently. Um, I-

   4. TWTara Westover14:56

      Oh, I struggle with it hugely.

   5. AGAdam Grant14:59

      [laughs] I'm glad I'm not alone. Um, I, I think, though, that the moments where I've remembered to do it or found the wherewithal to do it, um, I've always come away feeling like, you know, instead of bullying or prosecuting the other person, um, we actually had a thoughtful dialogue.

10. 15:15 – 18:33

    The hard rule for productive disagreement: care more about the person than changing them

    1. TWTara Westover15:15

       I think what I've come to believe is key about that dynamic is that you don't go into the conversation needing it to be the case that the next day the person come to you and say, "Oh, you've opened my eyes, and I've changed." You know, sometimes it happens. It happened that way for me that one time. But I think the, the reason that you, that it works, actually, is that your, your interest in the person has to be fundamentally different than just changing them, and that is a really difficult [chuckles] emotional space to occupy, especially with issues that you feel strongly about, that you believe are important, that you know are gonna hurt people. Um, I think it takes a l- a lot of maturity to be able to meet the world where it is and to accept the way the world's made, and at the same time be committed to the things that you believe and that are important to you. But I do think that anybody whose mind has ever been changed, it's almost always because the people who are having these conversations with them have a greater interest in them than just, "I need you to not be homophobic. I need you to not be sexist. I need you to be what I need you to be," or, "I need you to meet some ideal of the way I know the world should be." I think those conversations almost never work in the long or the short term, and it's frustrating, 'cause it would be really great if they did. [laughs]

    2. AGAdam Grant16:38

       [laughs] Yeah. I'd, I'd like, I'd like the overnight version, please. I, I think you just, you touched on something profound, which is I need to care more about you than I do about changing you. That's hard.

    3. TWTara Westover16:51

       Yeah. I think especially when it comes to politics, I think there's a way where, um, people were so shocked, you know, at the 20- 2016 election, and Trump won, and I think there was suddenly this huge interest in people that there hadn't really been before. And we were all, a lot of people, I think especially on the left, were looking at people on the right, and they were suddenly very interested in them, you know? But what they were really interested in was, "Why did you vote for this person?" And I always thought, like, that distortion by itself means you're never gonna understand it. I'm from Idaho, and I'm friends with a lot of people from there. The shape of their lives from their own perspective, like, that vote is not the apex of their life, you know? That's not the terminal moment everything is building to. It's one thing that happened, and it's not even the most important thing. But if your interest in them is you're already deforming the shape of their life. So you get all these, like, very strange interviews and stories that are kind of interested in people's life situation, but really they're just trying to get an answer to that one question. "Why do you believe the things you believe? Why do you vote the way you vote?" And I think as long as that's your only interest, you will never understand that. You can't understand that, because that's not the shape of people's lives from their own perspective. And, um, uh, I, I think that there's very little good that happens, actually, from the kinds of conversations that just take place to try to change someone's mind, as, as admirable as that is, because these are important questions. But I think that more substantive change does come from being able to hold a space where it's all right that the world is imperfect, but we do wanna make it better.

11. 18:33 – 22:19

    Why Tara resists the ‘American dream’ framing: outliers vs. institutions

    1. AGAdam Grant18:33

       One of the, one of the things our team was really struck by in, you know, in going over your background and your expertise and insights is This, this point about how it would be really easy to mischaracterize your life to date as having lived the American dream, and how you don't want-

    2. TWTara Westover18:50

       Hmm

    3. AGAdam Grant18:50

       ... your story to be seen as one of just individual grit and resilience, but to highlight where institutions have failed. And so I wondered if you wanted to talk a little bit about that.

    4. TWTara Westover19:01

       Stories like mine and memoirs that are written that are maybe similar to mine, they do tend to get, sometimes get deployed as evidence that everything is sort of fine. And, um, that if someone like me who never went to school was able to make it to Cambridge and Harvard, then clearly we live in a meritocracy and, and it's fine. And I mean, you're a social scientist, so you know if you take the outliers, it doesn't necessarily give you a representative idea of what's going on. And, um, so I would say there's, there's that argument to it, which is just that I don't think it matters so much what happened to me as it does what happens to most people. And if you look at those numbers, we don't particularly live in a meritocracy, and the US has a lot less social mobility than it used to have. It has a lot less than a lot of other countries, in fact. And I think we wanna pay attention to that. We wanna pay attention to the fact that it used to be the case that people who were born into the bottom income quartile could move a little bit easier than they do now. That's something you just wanna know about your country and your system and, and pay attention to it. And so I think using the outliers is not a good, not a good case for that. But then I thought, even if you are gonna look at, at someone like me, um, you really wanna look. [chuckles] And, uh, I had a whole bunch of things in place that helped me. You know, I went to a Mormon university. It's heavily subsidized by the Mormon Church, heavily, heavily, and it's a good school. Um, at the time I went, it was academically ranked, I think about the same as Rutgers, and tuition was $1,600 a semester, and my rent was $190 a month. And, um, you know, you could, you could do that. You-- I was an early morning janitor. I made $7 an hour cleaning toilets at 4:00 in the morning, and I worked the summers either for my dad or at a grocery store, and I got a Pell Grant, and I had no debt be-- and I could do it. And debt would've been really terrifying and kind of unthinkable for me, let alone, you know, the $40,000 of debt that it would take now, so... A year, [chuckles] you know. So I, I think there were, there were institutions in place when I went through. There w- it was hard. It was really miserable, but it wasn't impossible. I think it can be a lot to ask individuals to be resilient all the time. I'm not sure that individuals can always be resilient, but I do think communities can be, and I do think countries can be, that there can be an environment that we create where if people work hard, they can do well. And I'm not arguing it should be totally easy, but I, I do think it should be a little easier than it is right now.

    5. AGAdam Grant21:43

       I, I think it's, it's worth noting that if our institutions were working, your story wouldn't be remarkable. It would be ordinary.

    6. TWTara Westover21:51

       A lot of people do fall into this once they've made it through to look back and say, "Well, it was all my own doing and I'm great and I worked really hard, and if I could do it..." It's very tempting. That narrative ex- is extremely appealing. [chuckles] But, um, but I, I, if I'm honest with myself, I got a lot of help, and, uh, systemic help and individual help, and I f- I f- and I look back at that ladder and some of the rungs have fallen out since I climbed up it.

12. 22:19 – 24:32

    Lightning round: toxic-relationship platitudes, work ethic retained

    1. AGAdam Grant22:19

       You ready for a lightning round? What's a book we should all read to educate ourselves that you didn't write?

    2. TWTara Westover22:25

       "The Power of Influence."

    3. AGAdam Grant22:26

       Is there a piece of common advice that you think is bad?

    4. TWTara Westover22:30

       [sighs] Yeah. I mean, this is a kind of deeper topic we haven't really touched yet, but I ended up becoming estranged from my family when I was in my 20s for what I think were really good, well-thought-out, carefully considered reasons. And I, I found a lot of people, when you finally come to the conclusion that a relationship in your life is hurtful or toxic or whatever, a lot of really well-meaning, lovely people will, um, try to change your mind about that and, uh, will try to say, "Oh, family's the most important thing, and they really do love you." And that, that, that was hard. I, I think it was well-meaning, but I think it's hard for people to understand when you really do need to make a difficult decision like that, just for your own sanity, maybe even for your own life. Uh, a lot of people, having not lived that life, will, will have a lot of kind of platitude aphoristic advice, uh, that, that was hard for me, 'cause I believed all those things, and it was already very hard for me to, to make the boundary that I was trying to make.

    5. AGAdam Grant23:29

       Is there something you've rethought recently?

    6. TWTara Westover23:31

       I'm trying to get up earlier, but I'm not rethinking that. I'm more recommitting myself. [both laugh]

    7. AGAdam Grant23:37

       That's fair. I'll take it.

    8. TWTara Westover23:38

       I'm not good at the lightning round. I think we've established I'm not good at the lightning round. [chuckles]

    9. AGAdam Grant23:43

       It's okay. I only have two more.

    10. TWTara Westover23:45

        Nothing lightning about me. [chuckles]

    11. AGAdam Grant23:47

        No, no, but that's okay. What's, what's a belief that you didn't rethink from your upbringing?

    12. TWTara Westover23:51

        My parents are p- they, they have a really good work ethic, uh, and I think they gave us all a pretty good work ethic. We were taught to work. We were taught to like working. Um, so I, I don't think I've rethought that. I have rethought it probably a little bit. I don't work the way that I used to. But, uh, but yeah. I think that was something from my childhood I do value.

    13. AGAdam Grant24:12

        And then, uh, finally, I've, I've started to notice that these podcast conversations can be very one-sided, where I get to ask all the questions, uh, which is a great way for me to maintain control of the conversation. Uh, and I'm trying to give some of that up.

    14. TWTara Westover24:26

        Fun.

    15. AGAdam Grant24:26

        So, uh, is there a question that you wanna pose to your friendly neighborhood organizational psychologist?

13. 24:32 – 27:04

    Adam’s late-arrival confession and the social meaning of being late

    1. TWTara Westover24:32

       Well, I like your what have you rethought recently, so what have you rethought recently?

    2. AGAdam Grant24:37

       I, I got a really funny email the other day from someone who's a coach who said, "I, I heard you talk recently on a podcast about how ... you're, you know, you have really struggled with being late. Uh, and-

    3. TWTara Westover24:51

       You were late for this session, so

    4. AGAdam Grant24:53

       I, I was late for this session.

    5. TWTara Westover24:54

       [laughs]

    6. AGAdam Grant24:54

       I apologize for that.

    7. TWTara Westover24:55

       No, I've outed you. No, I'm sorry.

    8. AGAdam Grant24:57

       Thank you. So the, the coach emailed me and said, you know, "Normally I ask for a client's permission before giving a, a suggestion, but you're not my client. So, you know, have you ever considered, given that one of your values is, you know, is helping others, like, what, what impact it would have on others if you showed up on time?"

    9. TWTara Westover25:14

       [laughs]

    10. AGAdam Grant25:15

        And I was like, "Oh, this is delightful." Um-

    11. TWTara Westover25:19

        Amazing

    12. AGAdam Grant25:19

        ... and I thought about it, and I've been saying for years that one of my vices is being late. And what I've rethought in light of that email is, I don't actually consider it a vice. Other people do. And if I thought there was something genuinely wrong with being late, I wouldn't be late.

    13. TWTara Westover25:39

        How do you feel when other people are late?

    14. AGAdam Grant25:41

        Most of the time, if somebody else is late, like, I'm like, "Yes, I have, I, like, I have time to get a little bit of s- I'll squeeze a little bit of reading in, or I'll answer an email, or I'll do my social media post for the day."

    15. TWTara Westover25:51

        So your lightning response once we've... Your lightning response w- once we've edited this all out and made it totally perfect is, you've rethought whether being late is a vice.

    16. AGAdam Grant26:01

        Yes, exactly. I don't think it's a vice.

    17. TWTara Westover26:03

        And decided that it is. [laughs]

    18. AGAdam Grant26:06

        Of course. I, it's, it's a priority to, to me to be on time if, if something important is dependent on me. I'm not late to class. I'm not late on stage, right? But if there's flexibility on when the thing can begin, I will be seizing that flexibility, and often it's because, you know, I'm trying to do too many things or I'm trying to be available to too many people. But I really don't think it's a vice.

    19. TWTara Westover26:29

        I just imagine some people are really gonna feel it, you know? If somebody's, like, a little bit self-important, and I know they're gonna be sitting there tapping their fingernails, I don't mind that situation as much. [laughs] But it's, like, people that I think are gonna read into it or feel like I don't care about the meeting, I, then I hate being late. Yeah, I hate it. I worry, I guess, they're gonna think I think I'm, you know, that their time isn't important or something. And so I'll be that person on the train texting 20 times about how apologetic I am that I'm five minutes late, and, and they're probably thinking, "You should talk to your therapist about this. This is not a big deal-"

    20. AGAdam Grant27:02

        [laughs]

    21. TWTara Westover27:03

        "... but you seem upset about it."

14. 27:04 – 36:40

    Talking conspiracy theories without triggering defensiveness

    1. AGAdam Grant27:04

       I would never want anyone to think that I don't care about them or that, you know, their time isn't important to me. I think where I struggle on this is, you can't waste my time, because there's always something else I could be doing, right? Like, even just having time to think. Like, I love to think. I think for a living. I picked it as my career. Can we talk for a second about conspiracy theories? Uh, you used to subscribe to a lot of them. Uh, you still have, uh, relationships with people [laughs] who, who believe in many of them.

    2. TWTara Westover27:29

       It wasn't even that I subscribed to them. It was like they were the only things I'd ever heard. [laughs] Like I'd, I, they were the mainstream for me, but that's another issue. Anyway, go ahead.

    3. AGAdam Grant27:40

       I don't know, a month or two ago, um, I, I walked into a hornet's nest without meaning to. Um, I'd, I'd been reading all this research-

    4. TWTara Westover27:48

       A literal hornet's nest?

    5. AGAdam Grant27:49

       It was a metaphorical hornet's nest. Um, and the hornets were humans who did not like the evidence I was sharing. So, um, I'd, I've been reading for a number of years research on why people believe in conspiracy theories, and I'm, I'm not talking about just one theory, right? But why do, why do many people cling to many conspiracy theories? And the, one of the key findings that I, I thought was worth sharing is that oftentimes, um, it stems from narcissism, um, and that different flavors of narcissism predispose people toward liking conspiracy theories for different reasons. Um, if you're a grandiose narcissist, you really wanna feel special and say, "Well, I know something you don't." If you're more of a, a vulnerable narcissist, you're paranoid, and your paranoia is self-centered. And I, I have to say, this, this, this to me is a little bit comical. Like, yes, of course there are powerful groups out there, right? And they are trying to orchestrate the world to their benefit. But of all the people they could take advantage of, they're out to get me. Me. They want to manipulate me, 'cause I'm that important, right? So I, I shared this evidence a little bit tongue in cheek, and a lot of people freaked out and said like, "But I'm not a narcissist." I'm like, "Um, uh, uh, this is not about you. I think you missed the point of the research I'm sharing."

    6. TWTara Westover29:06

       [laughs]

    7. AGAdam Grant29:07

       Um, and I realized at that point that I was, th- sort of being misperceived as, as, you know, trying to ripe pe- rile people up or, or get attention. Is there a better way into the conversation about conspiracy theories altogether that doesn't rely on evidence? Do I have to give up my identity as a social scientist if I wanna talk about what I know about these things? Uh, help me think about how to engage this conversation better in the future.

    8. TWTara Westover29:33

       I remember when I first had to start doing events. I'd never done any public speaking. I'd never done any media, and I had to learn a lot real fast when my book came out. And, um, I watched some video somewhere where somebody was talking about, um, when you're giving a talk, that what you really wanna do is you wanna build a fence around your idea. And so you have your idea, but in order for, to make sure people don't misunderstand you, you build a fence and say all the things it isn't. And I think that can be very reassuring for people so they don't feel attacked. And you know, when you were talking, I was thinking, um, if narcissism is the reason that these conspiracy theories take hold or is a contributing factor, a big contributing factor, then I have, I have some questions. Do we have more narcissists now than we used to? 'Cause it does feel like we have more conspiracy theories than we used to.

    9. AGAdam Grant30:19

       [laughs]

    10. TWTara Westover30:19

        I think it can be helpful to acknowledge all those things that we don't know f- right up front, you know? Um, as a way of saying, "I actually don't have the perfect explanation for this, because here, here are the questions that come off this that I can't answer," or, "Here are possible answers." But I think that can help people feel more like they're part of the exploration, not that they're being told, "Oh, I found the answer. Let me give you the answer." Rather to say, "Here's a thing I've noticed, but it doesn't explain this and it doesn't explain this, and I have a huge question about why this, and why don't we think through it?" I think sometimes conviction Just is met with an equal degree of certain- of resistance, you know? [chuckles]

    11. AGAdam Grant31:01

        Yes. You're-

    12. TWTara Westover31:01

        And so-

    13. AGAdam Grant31:02

        You're spot on.

    14. TWTara Westover31:03

        [chuckles] I think you never wanna present information in a way that triggers people's resistance, because that is not a rational or a cognitive process, and you can't penetrate it with, with reason, I think.

    15. AGAdam Grant31:17

        This is, this is a lesson I need to relearn over-

    16. TWTara Westover31:18

        Mine can't be penetrated with reason either. [chuckles]

    17. AGAdam Grant31:20

        I, I think, I think this is exactly what I needed to hear, which is i- I could've presented the same information, but as a little bit of a puzzle or a mystery. There's, there's a lot of evidence that shows that [chuckles] if you take a bunch of people from the population and you expose them to a bunch of cons- conspiracy theories, narcissists are more likely to be drawn to them, um, than the rest of us. What's going on there? And how does that fit into the explosion of conspiracy theories we're seeing right now? That is a much more interesting conversation that people can contribute to, as opposed to feeling judged by.

    18. TWTara Westover31:55

        Yeah. I think puzzles, anything that feels collaborative. It's that disarming quality where you don't, you don't trigger someone's defenses, and then they're just... They're there with you, you know? It's attunement. As long as you stay attuned with people, there's trust. And as soon as you start getting heavy-handed or trying to lead people by the hand too much, they, they know. I don't know how they know, but they know, and they just resist, even if they agree with you. I've had, especially when I was younger, I got in a lot of arguments with people about things I fundamentally agreed with j- just because I did not like being pushed, you know? Uh, I think as I've gotten older, I do a little bit less of that, but I s- I'm no better than anybody else if I feel, um, [lips smack] talked down to. Uh, and certain parts of the population, I think parts of the population that are used to being excluded from the conversations, hard to find a more sensitive group of people to being talked down to than people who've been left out of the culture for 30, 40, 50, 100 years. And, um, yeah, their, their resistance gets triggered pretty easily. But I'm, I'm from there, so mine does too. [chuckles]

    19. AGAdam Grant33:02

        [laughs] I think we're all human. Mine does as well in these situations. It really bothers me when p- p- when people believe things that, uh, that I think strong evidence falsifies, and I, I think it's part of my mission as a social scientist, right, to replace false beliefs with better ones. And so, you know, there's, there's a button that gets pushed when I, I come across people believing things that I think are, you know, highly unlikely to be true. And what I'm trying to do when I engage in those situations is to basically say, "I know you're smarter than this, and let me share with you information that, you know, is locked up behind a bunch of walls," right? Um-

    20. TWTara Westover33:39

        Does that, does that work?

    21. AGAdam Grant33:40

        Or, or paywalls.

    22. TWTara Westover33:40

        Do you find this effective?

    23. AGAdam Grant33:42

        No. No, no, no, no. But this, this is what's going on in my head, right? Like i- in a way, Tara, it's a little bit like what, what you had happen at Cambridge, which is I know you're an intelligent person. You don't have access to this evidence. Let me share it, right? But what people are hearing is not... No, it's not, but, and people are hearing even a, a worse version of that, which is, "I think you're stupid," which is not at all what I wanna convey. So how would, how would you approach that differently?

    24. TWTara Westover34:06

        You know, I do think one of the amazing things about, his name was Andrew at Cambridge, is he wasn't even saying, he wasn't even saying, "I know the answer and you don't. Explain to me why you haven't connected this yet." You know? He was-- He had a great sensitivity for the fact that we're all equally lost, and so he would sort of say things to me like, "To me, these views are upsetting, but you seem nice, so I need you to help me." You know, he never... I think it's that kind of talking down thing that becomes difficult, where I just, I've been wrong about so many things in my life that even when there are things that I think, "Oh, I've really thought this through, and I've really read the books about this," and I, I really think even when I'm fairly certain, I do really try to keep hold of the idea that I might still be wrong, or this person might know things that I really don't know, might be wise in ways that I'm not wise. And, um, yeah, I, so I don't think that Andrew was just saying, "Well, I know the answer and you seem smart. How come you haven't arrived at my answer yet?" Uh, 'cause I think that would've, that would've made me resistant, I think, really quickly. He was more... It, it was, it was more relative than that. You know, "To me, this is how these ideas seem, but you don't seem that way, so h- help me get there." And, and then we would basically end up talking about whether, whether the idea... You know, we really could talk about the ideas and whether they were good ideas or bad ideas. But I do think it's that kind of general respect for where everybody is in their process, and giving people, um, as much space and dignity as you can. I think I've developed what I hope is a kind of healthy skepticism of, of anything that claims to have the answer, because it's never really that simple.

    25. AGAdam Grant35:56

        You're also reminding us of the importance of intellectual humility, and I think where a lot of us struggle on that is when, you know, when we're trying to convey our expertise to someone who's less knowledgeable. So in my case, you know, as a personal example of this, I think, okay, you know, I'm, I'm trying... This, the, the reason that I'm communicating these ideas is because I've spent a huge chunk of my life trying to, you know, accumulate this knowledge and building a skill to synthesize it and share it with people. And to, you know, to then be told th- that I don't value that because I have my opinion when I'm trying to, you know, bring together, uh, you know, the, the best possible evidence and, you know, and summarize it in a way that's, you know, that's useful, I'm like, "That, that doesn't resonate with me."

15. 36:40 – 39:01

    Authority is shifting: from local institutions to online identities (and the COVID vaccine test)

    1. TWTara Westover36:40

       You're gonna fail occasionally because that's the nature of life, but you're clearly succeeding on a huge level with all the things that you're doing. So I would say don't be disheartened. But I think there's, um, it's an interesting conversation that we could have about the sources of authority, and I think- The thing is that the world has become so complicated and so... I mean, no one gets, no one has the time to read all of these studies. Absolutely nobody. And look at the methodology and see how they're working. Even in their own field, a lot of people don't really have the ability to truly keep up with everything that's happening and verify that a study wasn't conducted in some horrible way. The sources of authority that people go to in their lives, it becomes really important. I think a concern that I have is that increasingly we don't know who it is. When I left the Mormon Church when I was at Cambridge, I went through this period where I felt like everything about Mormonism was really backward, and if we could just get rid of the Mormon leadership, then feminism would be doing better. You know, sexism wouldn't be a problem, and homophobia would be... You know, I was like, "If we just got rid of these old men telling everyone these horrible things, then everything would be better." And it was sort of interesting 'cause there's a way where that actually has happened with the internet. You know, uh, a lot of rural Mormons who used to really would just listen to what everything the church leadership said are now much more invested in these kind of online identities. And the, we had an interesting test of that with COVID actually, where the Mormon Church leadership all came out and said, 'cause a lot of people in Utah and Idaho were not getting vaccinated, and they, the Mormon Church came out and said, "Please get vaccinated. This is insane. Just go get your COVID vaccine." And the rate of Mormons who got vaccinated changed not at all. Um, because I think what has happened over the last 10 or 20 years is that source of authority has not been completely replaced, but has been significantly weakened as people have found other identities that are more meaningful. That was really interesting to me, to actually live in a world or see, see a world where those local sources were eroded, and it was not the utopia that I thought it would be.

    2. AGAdam Grant38:50

       Wow. That's powerful.

    3. TWTara Westover38:52

       Yeah. [laughs]

    4. AGAdam Grant38:52

       Thank you, Tara.

    5. TWTara Westover38:54

       Thank you very much. Nice to see you again. [upbeat music]

Episode duration: 39:02