Re:Thinking with Adam GrantRewriting your story with Allison Sweet Grant | ReThinking with Adam Grant
EVERY SPOKEN WORD
35 min read · 7,469 words- 0:00 – 1:49
Adam welcomes Allison (his wife) and sets up the episode & novel premise
- AGAdam Grant
I can't believe you're doing this.
- AGAllison Sweet Grant
Aren't you gonna welcome me to the show?
- AGAdam Grant
Oh, I don't have to do that. You're my wife.
- AGAllison Sweet Grant
Thank you so much for having me.
- AGAdam Grant
Oh, [laughs] I'm, I'm so, I'm so happy you're here. Welcome to ReThinking, Allison Sweet Grant.
- AGAllison Sweet Grant
It's my pleasure. I really traveled 15 feet from my office to yours-
- AGAdam Grant
[laughs]
- AGAllison Sweet Grant
... to get here. It's quite an effort. [upbeat music]
- AGAdam Grant
Hey, everyone. It's Adam Grant. Welcome back to ReThinking, my podcast on the science of what makes us tick, with the TED Audio Collective. I'm an organizational psychologist, and I'm taking you inside the minds of fascinating people to explore new thoughts and new ways of thinking. I have a special guest today, Allison Sweet Grant, my wife and the real writer in our household. Allison's debut novel, I Am The Cage, was inspired by her experience growing up with a limb discrepancy, and the emotional impact of medical intervention to fix it. She delves into themes of identity, agency and control, shame, and trust and betrayal.
- AGAllison Sweet Grant
It's easy to want to sugarcoat things, right? We don't want our children to be afraid, and we don't want them to be in pain, but the truth is, is that some things in life hurt, right? And it's so much better to be honest with them.
- AGAdam Grant
Allison's book is bracingly honest. I found it raw, heartbreaking, and ultimately uplifting, and the advanced praise made it clear that I'm not [laughs] blinded by love. John Green called it brilliant, visceral, beautiful, and triumphant. And in their starred review, Booklist describes it as a moving, powerful work, an outstanding character study with a captivating sparkle. I Am The Cage is available now. Do
- 1:49 – 4:46
Why Allison avoided the spotlight: introversion, shyness, and “the typewriter in the head”
- AGAdam Grant
you know how many times I've tried to get you to appear on my podcast?
- AGAllison Sweet Grant
I'm not one to promote myself, and so, I mean, I'm a very private person, as you well know. It's a very vulnerable position to just sit on a couch and expect you to ask good and relevant questions, and-
- AGAdam Grant
Do you have that little faith in me after 21 years?
- AGAllison Sweet Grant
No, I'm, I have no doubt you'll do a good job. It's just, you know, it's, I'm not used to it. I'm not a public figure, so it's a little nerve-wracking.
- AGAdam Grant
I thought it was gonna be a lot of work to get you to agree to do this-
- AGAllison Sweet Grant
Okay
- AGAdam Grant
... but it was way less work-
- AGAllison Sweet Grant
Oh, really?
- AGAdam Grant
... to convince you to come on the podcast than it was to get you to write a book.
- AGAllison Sweet Grant
Uh, that may be true. It took a little bit of convincing.
- AGAdam Grant
[laughs] A little bit.
- AGAllison Sweet Grant
Yeah.
- AGAdam Grant
A decade and a half.
- AGAllison Sweet Grant
Yeah.
- AGAdam Grant
And here we are. I think part of your hesitation to put yourself out there is because you're even more introverted than I am.
- AGAllison Sweet Grant
Mm-hmm.
- AGAdam Grant
I think part of it, though, also is shyness.
- AGAllison Sweet Grant
It, it just always feels like a lot of pressure, you know. Like, there are some people who can talk and talk and talk, and it just comes out of this, like, bottomless well. I was explaining it to someone-
- AGAdam Grant
[laughs]
- AGAllison Sweet Grant
... actually earlier. When I see people who can talk about anything to anything, to me it looks like they have, like, somebody sitting at a little typewriter inside their head, and they're typing, and this, like, stream of paper just, like, keeps coming out of them, right?
- AGAdam Grant
I love that image.
- AGAllison Sweet Grant
And I don't know how they... Like, where do I get somebody like that? Where do I get a little typewriter man sitting-
- AGAdam Grant
[laughs]
- AGAllison Sweet Grant
... inside my head to tell me what to say? I would like that, but I don't have it.
- AGAdam Grant
But, okay, but a lot of people would, would throw that back to you and say, "How did you pour a whole novel out of your head?"
- AGAllison Sweet Grant
Right.
- AGAdam Grant
And a lot of people can't write, so-
- AGAllison Sweet Grant
Right
- AGAdam Grant
... you have a little typewriter. I don't think it's a man, but-
- AGAllison Sweet Grant
[laughs]
- 4:46 – 6:16
Writing for herself—until she decided to share
- AGAdam Grant
You, you've said a lot of times when I've praised I Am The Cage, you've said, like, "Well, but of course you're gonna love it. You love me." But I loved your writing before I loved you. I remember, it must have been on our, I think it was on our third date. Could have been second date. You told me that you had written more than one novel, and no one had ever read them.
- AGAllison Sweet Grant
Parts of novels. Like, yes.
- AGAdam Grant
I'd never heard of someone just writing that way for themselves before.
- AGAllison Sweet Grant
Stories.
- AGAdam Grant
Yeah.
- AGAllison Sweet Grant
Yeah.
- AGAdam Grant
But normally when people write a story, they're writing it to share.
- AGAllison Sweet Grant
Right.
- AGAdam Grant
And you didn't want to share it.
- AGAllison Sweet Grant
Yeah.
- AGAdam Grant
Why?
- AGAllison Sweet Grant
Because I wasn't writing it for anybody else. I was just writing it for myself.
- AGAdam Grant
It was like journaling, but maybe more like creative self-expression the way, like, people paint without trying to sell a painting.
- AGAllison Sweet Grant
Sure.
- AGAdam Grant
Yeah. That, I'd, I'd never come across that before. I guess I think about writing as such a communicative act if it's not a journal, that it seems like you'd want to put your creative ideas out into the world.
- AGAllison Sweet Grant
But it's not not communicating. I'm communicating with myself in a way, right?
- AGAdam Grant
That's true. I could not be more excited that you finally decided to take all this skill that you've been hiding from the world and share it.
- AGAllison Sweet Grant
Wow. Thank you. I don't know if it's skill. It's a story, and, uh, a story that I really wanted to tell. It was really important to me to put it out there, and I'm just delighted that it finally is.
- 6:16 – 8:22
The real-life inspiration: limb discrepancy and the Ilizarov leg-lengthening procedure
- AGAdam Grant
What was your inspiration for I Am the Cage?
- AGAllison Sweet Grant
So I Am the Cage is a work of fiction about a young girl who undergoes a very serious and complicated medical procedure in order to correct a congenital limb discrepancy, and the story really is about how she deals with it as she becomes an adult. Um, it is fiction, but it was inspired by my own personal experience with the same diagnosis and undergoing the same treatment when I was 11. I was born with one leg shorter than the other, significantly shorter, um, and the procedure, which was called the Ilizarov procedure, is a external fixator, like a metal device that's attached to the leg, and the bones are cut strategically, and then the fixator is used to pull the bones apart over a period of time. And then new bone grows within the cut portions and, essentially, the goal at the end of the whole thing is for both limbs to be equal in size and length.
- AGAdam Grant
It sounds barbaric.
- AGAllison Sweet Grant
Well, at least my experience was that it was definitely not fun. [laughs] Um, obviously, I can't speak for anybody else, but it was a very arduous and painful experience. Um, it was both physically and emotionally taxing at a really difficult time. That's where the motivation to write it came from the struggle.
- AGAdam Grant
Well, I think, I think you turned something extremely traumatic into a really beautiful story that's gonna move and help a lot of people.
- AGAllison Sweet Grant
Thank you. I hope so. I mean, that's absolutely, you know, my aim in putting this out there, in talking about it, you know, is to help somebody who might be going, if not through the exact same thing, of course, something similar.
- 8:22 – 11:36
The “junk drawer” metaphor: where shame and hurtful moments get stored
- AGAdam Grant
Allison, I- I've gotten already so many notes from people who have read early copies of the book complimenting what an incredible writer you are. Some of that, I think, is they love the poetry and the descriptions of scenery. Um, for me, the best parts are the mic drops. Let's talk about a, a few of the, the mic drop sentences that really stuck with me.
- AGAllison Sweet Grant
Okay.
- AGAdam Grant
Maybe my favorite concept in the book is the junk drawer.
- AGAllison Sweet Grant
Mm-hmm.
- AGAdam Grant
Can I read you your writing?
- AGAllison Sweet Grant
Yeah.
- AGAdam Grant
At one point in the book, you write, "I imagined real me hiding in the back of my mind somewhere in a junk drawer, and every day more junk gets thrown into it. Spare pennies, some Post-It notes, a snide comment, a judgmental laugh, shoving real me to the back."
- AGAllison Sweet Grant
The idea of the junk drawer is something that I carried throughout the book. For me, it's like this really deep visual, right, of a part of us that we all have where we keep the things that we don't want other people to see, maybe that we don't wanna see ourselves. Like, I don't know about you, but I can think back to a comment that somebody made when I was a kid, right, or a look that somebody gave me or even maybe something negative that I thought about myself, and it's been filed away. And the junk drawer is the place where I keep all those files, where I keep all those comments.
- AGAdam Grant
You, you end up shifting your view of what to do with the contents of the junk drawer over the course of the book.
- AGAllison Sweet Grant
Mm-hmm.
- AGAdam Grant
And I think that arc actually paralleled how I've experienced it. I guess my junk drawer for a long time was full of embarrassing memories, which I just wanted to crawl into a hole and hide from. Remember when Jimmy Kimmel made fun of me?
- AGAllison Sweet Grant
Yeah. [laughs]
- AGAdam Grant
And I wasn't even on Jimmy Kimmel, [laughs] but I looked like such a, like a robot on another show that he picked it up.
- AGAllison Sweet Grant
Yeah.
- AGAdam Grant
That, that was awful at the time. I, I, I remember never wanting to go on TV again. I'd still rather never go on TV if I could avoid it. But at some point, it hit me that most people just thought it was amusing.
- AGAllison Sweet Grant
Mm-hmm.
- AGAdam Grant
They, they didn't think the fact that I looked like a, a stiff weirdo on TV meant that I was a stiff weirdo all the time. And at some point I decided I'm gonna start showing this video to my students because I wanna get comfortable putting it out there and being able to laugh at myself-
- AGAllison Sweet Grant
Mm-hmm
- AGAdam Grant
... and not be ashamed of the experience.
- AGAllison Sweet Grant
Everyone has their own junk drawer, and you do with it what you want, right? It can be a motivator. It can also be something that, you know, keeps you from doing great things.
- AGAdam Grant
You wrote about it so powerfully. You said, "Maybe instead of looking at the junk drawer as this hidden, disgraceful part of me, instead of fearing it as something that can take me over, maybe I can think of it as something that I overcame, something that I conquered."
- AGAllison Sweet Grant
Mm-hmm. Well, I think that's part of the character arc of this story, right? Like she starts out feeling very differently about all of the stuff that's been collecting in her junk drawer, and then at the end, right, there's a different use for it.
- 11:36 – 13:07
Dumping the drawer: unspoken memories, layered shame, and loss of agency
- AGAdam Grant
I think the act of writing this book was, for you, a way of opening and dumping out some of the contents of the junk drawer.
- AGAllison Sweet Grant
100%. Yeah.
- AGAdam Grant
I, the, the flashbacks to age 11 were based on some things that happened to you that you had n- never even told anyone.
- AGAllison Sweet Grant
Yeah. Not only the, the actual experiences, but my thoughts about them, my feelings about them, and then my feelings about myself as a result of these things that happened. It was all in the junk drawer, and this book really is a physical embodiment of all of that crap that was stuck in there and just bursting to get out.
- AGAdam Grant
On that note, you also wrote about the shame of feeling ashamed.
- AGAllison Sweet Grant
Mm-hmm.
- AGAdam Grant
What, what is that?
- AGAllison Sweet Grant
There's a shame in being told there's something wrong with you. And then there's this battle within, right? Like, do I believe this? Do I not believe it? And depending on what I choose to believe, there can be a second layer of shame, right? The shame of letting other people define you, not taking charge of your own destiny yourself. That's something that I struggled with. Having this difference, being born with a, quote-unquote, "defect" or abnormality or problem, whatever you wanna call it. There were many ways in which I felt shame and which I felt that I caused shame to other people as a result of this problem that I had no control over.
- 13:07 – 14:27
A humiliating middle-school moment: the hallway fall and social abandonment
- AGAdam Grant
There's a scene in the book that's based on something that you went through when you were in middle school, when you fell in the hallway. You write, "Then I slung my backpack over my shoulder, gripped my crutches, and continued slowly down the hall, leaving my pencils and my dignity behind me."
- AGAllison Sweet Grant
That scene is based upon reality. When I fell in the hallway at school and my crutches slid across the linoleum, and I sort of bounced on the ground and my backpack spilled open and, and a circle of students formed around me, but nobody was willing to help me. Nobody wanted to touch me, and it was humiliating and mortifying. And when you're in that situation, you have no control over how people are looking at you. And on top of that, I had really very little control over my body, let alone what people thought of it. It's a very humbling experience on top of the lack of agency and control and autonomy.
- AGAdam Grant
I remember reading it and [laughs] wanting to travel back to the past and pick up the pencils.
- AGAllison Sweet Grant
Oh, that would've been nice.
- 14:27 – 16:07
The “suffocation” chapter: deprivation vs oppression and the book’s many opposites
- AGAdam Grant
One of the moments that's really stuck with me from I Am the Cage is when you wrote about suffocation.
- AGAllison Sweet Grant
That's actually my favorite chapter in the whole book, the suffocation chapter, because it's so inside the character's head in a way that is almost stream of consciousness, and it really just gives you a peek into not only the frame of mind of this adolescent, but it, the connection between how she got from where she was at age 11 to where she is at 19.
- AGAdam Grant
I thought the distinction you made between the two types of suffocation was really powerful. You said type one is deprivation, where you're missing something good, like air.
- AGAllison Sweet Grant
Yeah.
- AGAdam Grant
And type two is oppression, where you have too much of something bad.
- AGAllison Sweet Grant
Right.
- AGAdam Grant
Like you've ingested something-
- AGAllison Sweet Grant
And you can't get the air
- AGAdam Grant
... poisonous.
- AGAllison Sweet Grant
Yeah.
- AGAdam Grant
Yeah. Talk to me about that distinction.
- AGAllison Sweet Grant
What I was trying to convey was that sometimes in this situation, this traumatic situation, right, there's not always one right answer. There's not always one right choice. There's not always one specific thing that you're feeling. Sometimes they could be totally polarized from one another. Like the dichotomy of childhood, wanting to be independent, but knowing that you're not quite independent, right? Tr- wanting to trust your parents and, and in the situation, the doctors, but maybe not completely being able to. Wanting to have friends, but maybe not these friends, right? It-- This book is full of so many opposites, and the suffocation chapter is one place where that's really visible.
- 16:07 – 20:35
Parenting lesson #1: don’t sugarcoat pain—honesty builds trust
- AGAdam Grant
I, I was surprised by how much I learned about you that I didn't know reading your novel. And I, I think maybe this goes back to you being such a private person, but it was heartbreaking to read, like, about all these, you know, these experiences that were informed by what you actually lived and what they could do to an 11-year-old. One of the things that I didn't realize you taught me from that experience was that one of my parenting instincts was dead wrong. I remember the first time that, like, we had to explain to our kids that they were gonna get a shot, and my, my impulse was to say, "Don't worry, this will only hurt a little."
- AGAllison Sweet Grant
Yeah.
- AGAdam Grant
And you said, "No."
- AGAllison Sweet Grant
Well, of course, like, no parent wants to see their child in pain. Not that routine vaccinations are anything extraordinary, but it's hard. We want to protect our children from everything, but by misleading them or deceiving them, especially when you can't change the outcome of what's going to happen, it really erodes trust. That's the experience that I had. I was not given a complete or honest picture about what was going to happen to me when I went through this complicated procedure, and I think it was sugar-coated. I knew the basics about what was going to happen, but I didn't understand the extent of how physically painful it was going to be. We don't want our children to be afraid, and we don't want them to be in pain. But the truth is, is that some things in life hurt, right? And it's so much better to be honest with them, let them know that they can come to you with questions, and for the truth, as opposed to feeling like you're gonna tell them what they wanna hear, which I think can just be so damaging.
- AGAdam Grant
I, I think culturally, it's, it's common and normal for parents to tell white lies to their kids, like the Tooth Fairy.
- AGAllison Sweet Grant
Yeah. Well, the Tooth Fairy, like, that doesn't hurt anybody, right? Telling a kid that, about the Tooth Fairy. But what, I think what you're talking about is parents making themselves more comfortable by lying to their kids, right? So the parent doesn't want to tell the kid, "Yes, this shot is gonna hurt," because- They don't wanna hurt their kids, right? But, uh, uh, so in order to spare them the discomfort of having to tell their kid that something is gonna hurt, they're really just postponing the pain is what they're doing, as opposed to giving their kids the tools to have, like, a mature emotional reaction.
- AGAdam Grant
This is the same mistake that people make every day when they don't tell someone that they have food in their teeth. It's not gonna hurt the other person. I'm just avoiding the discomfort of being the one to point it out.
- AGAllison Sweet Grant
Is that a thing? Like-
- AGAdam Grant
Yeah
- AGAllison Sweet Grant
... a re- i- uh, is there research about that?
- AGAdam Grant
People are remarkably hesitant to-
- AGAllison Sweet Grant
Because they don't wanna embarrass th- the other person-
- AGAdam Grant
They're trying not to embarrass the other person
- AGAllison Sweet Grant
... or themselves.
- AGAdam Grant
They don't wanna feel like they're the one who embarrassed the other person.
- AGAllison Sweet Grant
Yeah.
- AGAdam Grant
And in doing that, they set the other person up for much more embarrassment-
- AGAllison Sweet Grant
Right
- AGAdam Grant
... because now everyone else is gonna see the food in their teeth too.
- AGAllison Sweet Grant
Oh, yeah. That's interesting.
- AGAdam Grant
So I loved what you did instead when it came to preparing our kids for a shot.
- AGAllison Sweet Grant
Telling them the truth, telling them what it's actually gonna feel like. It's gonna feel like a pinch, or it's gonna feel like a poke, or whatever it happens to be. Because then you follow up with, "But Hey, like, y- you can deal with this, right? Like, your sister pinches you all the time. It's not gonna be any worse than that," or, "Remember last week when you stubbed your toe? It's not gonna be nearly as bad as that." You know? And just giving them something to work with, it takes the fear out of it too, I think.
- AGAdam Grant
It resonated right away, but you know me, I had to go look up the research.
- AGAllison Sweet Grant
Mm-hmm.
- AGAdam Grant
And sure enough, you were right.
- AGAllison Sweet Grant
What? What was that?
- AGAdam Grant
You were right.
- AGAllison Sweet Grant
Oh, my God.
- AGAdam Grant
My instincts were wrong. You were right. You're smart. I'm stupid. You're good-looking. I'm not attractive.
- AGAllison Sweet Grant
[laughs]
- 20:35 – 23:29
Parenting lesson #2: raising kind kids includes noticing who helps you
- AGAdam Grant
I wanna talk about one of the other parenting lessons that you taught me.
- AGAllison Sweet Grant
Oh, my gosh.
- AGAdam Grant
Do you remember that, that study where when you asked parents what they wanted most for their kids, they said they wanted their kids to be happy and kind, but when you asked their kids what their parents wanted most for them, their kids said successful.
- AGAllison Sweet Grant
Right. I do remember that, yeah.
- AGAdam Grant
One of the things that was really clear is, like, the messages that, that parents communicate all the time emphasize achievement, right?
- AGAllison Sweet Grant
Right.
- AGAdam Grant
Your kid gets home from school. "What grade did you get on the math test?"
- AGAllison Sweet Grant
Yeah.
- AGAdam Grant
Um, you hear about the soccer game. "Did you score a goal?" What we pay attention to sends a real signal to our kids about what we value, and so I said, "I want our kids to know that, that kindness matters as much or even more than, than success." So we started a weekly dinner conversation where we would ask our kids, "Who did you help this week?"
- AGAllison Sweet Grant
Right, and then, "Who helped you?"
- AGAdam Grant
That was the surprise for me.
- AGAllison Sweet Grant
Okay.
- AGAdam Grant
I didn't get it at all because I, I thought, "Look, we wanna teach our kids to be givers, not takers."
- AGAllison Sweet Grant
Right.
- AGAdam Grant
And then you said we should ask them who helped them. I'm like, "Why, why do you want them to be in the receiving position? I want them to be the ones doing for others."
- AGAllison Sweet Grant
Right. But didn't you say, like, there's a few different paths to popularity at school, right? I want our kids to be friends with the other kids, not with, like, the most popular kid in school or the best dressed or, you know, whatever. I want them to look for the kids that they have a, a different type of connection with, the kids that have a different type of appeal, and I think by asking them, "Who helped you?" it really encourages them to look to others in the classroom.
- AGAdam Grant
Th- this is, this is Mitch Prinstein. There's the, the dominance status path, and then there's the likability-
- AGAllison Sweet Grant
Likability, yeah
- AGAdam Grant
... kindness path. And this is a big ReThinking moment for me because I realized that by asking them, like, what you taught me in that moment was that when we started asking them regularly, "Who helped you?" we were encouraging them to notice who were the most caring kids as opposed to who are the coolest kids.
- AGAllison Sweet Grant
I don't know if you remember this. Our middle daughter told us this story about how she was sitting at lunch with a group of girls a number of years ago, and she just realized, "This is not the group for me. They're not talking about things that I'm wanna talk about. They're not behaving in ways that I'm interested in behaving." And she just literally stood up and walked away [laughs] which I told her she could have done that a little bit differently.
- AGAdam Grant
More gracefully.
- AGAllison Sweet Grant
Yeah, a little more gracefully, but it was pretty amazing to see a kid just realize that, "These are not the people that I want to be associating with," and to have the strength to stand up and make a different choice.
- 23:29 – 27:01
Lightning round: Allison’s unpopular opinion (magic) and her favorite prose stylists
- AGAdam Grant
Let's go to a lightning round. What's a hot take or unpopular opinion you're excited to defend?
- AGAllison Sweet Grant
Oh, I don't even need to think about that. I don't think people like magic.
- AGAdam Grant
I- I'm, I'm asking all of our listeners right now to back me up on this one because the pure joy that people get when they even just find out that I do magic tricks, let alone how fun it is then to do a little impromptu performance and s- astonish them, like, people love magic. It's just you. You're an outlier, and you're projecting.
- AGAllison Sweet Grant
I don't see the appeal in magic at all. You know it's not real, so what is the big deal? I don't get it. When you're sitting there with a deck of cards and you make something disappear or reappear, it's basically you saying, "Lookit, I tricked you." And I, like, "Okay, congratulations. You did. I, I don't know how you did that, but-" Wh- what else is there?
- AGAdam Grant
Oh.
- AGAllison Sweet Grant
Like, I just don't understand, you know?
- AGAdam Grant
No, I, like, I, I think so many people get the joy watching a magic show that you get watching, um, a ballet, right? It's the same, like, the artistry-
- AGAllison Sweet Grant
Okay
- AGAdam Grant
... the aesthetic appeal, and it has the extra element of, "And I really wanna know how you did it-
- AGAllison Sweet Grant
Yeah, but the, the-
- AGAdam Grant
"... and I can't figure it out." It's just fun.
- AGAllison Sweet Grant
It's like we all know it's a joke, but you're pretending it's not a joke, but I know it's a joke. Like, I just don't understand what's happening there.
- AGAdam Grant
I, I think there's one point that, that you've gotten through to me on, on, on the magic theme, which is magicians are not cool. Was that Family Guy line?
- AGAllison Sweet Grant
There's a hierarchy of entertainers-
- AGAdam Grant
Yes
- AGAllison Sweet Grant
... and magicians are right above mimes and right below ventriloquists, I think, right?
- AGAdam Grant
Exactly.
- AGAllison Sweet Grant
Something like that.
- AGAdam Grant
Yes.
- AGAllison Sweet Grant
Yeah. I, I think that's about right.
- AGAdam Grant
It's amazing that you were willing to go out with me despite the fact that I like doing magic tricks.
- AGAllison Sweet Grant
Well, it's a good thing you didn't tell me that upfront.
- AGAdam Grant
Who are the authors whose writing you admire the most, or who are some authors whose writing you especially admire? I think that most people, they read because they love plot and character.
- AGAllison Sweet Grant
Yeah.
- AGAdam Grant
And you are much more attuned to, like, the literary quality of the prose.
- AGAllison Sweet Grant
Yeah. Well, I think two people come to mind immediately. The first is André Aciman, who wrote Call Me By Your Name, which I think is one of my favorite books ever, and surely the o- one of the most beautiful books that I've ever read. The second one that comes to mind is Tracy Chevalier, who I've been a fan of for years and years and years, and really describes things in the most beautiful and delicate way. And then there's a third who I've discovered more recently, which is Hanya Yanagihara, and her books are like dreamscapes, basically.
- AGAdam Grant
The juxtaposition between your highbrow taste in books and-
- AGAllison Sweet Grant
Highbrow?
- AGAdam Grant
... your lowbrow taste in movies is hilarious.
- AGAllison Sweet Grant
It's... Look, art is in the eye of the beholder.
- 27:01 – 30:08
Couple ‘rethinks’: walking ahead, driving speed, and everyday consideration
- AGAdam Grant
You've kindly invited me to rethink a lot of things over time. What's on your list right now of what you want me to rethink?
- AGAllison Sweet Grant
Oh, gosh. Just one thing?
- AGAdam Grant
You can give me multiple.
- AGAllison Sweet Grant
Well, there was something that I mentioned to you not that long ago that I think you agree it's something you need to be rethinking, right? And that is that-
- AGAdam Grant
It took me a little while, but I came around.
- AGAllison Sweet Grant
Yeah. And that is that oftentimes when we are in public, um, walking somewhere, like walking from the car to a restaurant or just walking around a park or wherever, you are often 10, 15, 20 feet ahead of me, and I hate that. [laughs]
- AGAdam Grant
I was completely oblivious to it when you first mentioned it.
- AGAllison Sweet Grant
Yeah.
- AGAdam Grant
It hadn't even crossed my mind. I, I'm on a mission, right? We're in an airport, I'm trying to get to the gate-
- AGAllison Sweet Grant
Mm-hmm
- AGAdam Grant
... 'cause I've managed the timing so that we can leave as late as possible and not have to stop walking from the airport to getting right on the plane.
- AGAllison Sweet Grant
Yeah, but I'm not talking about in an airport where you're on a mission. I'm talking about, you know, just walking down the street, walking from the car into a building, um, walking around a museum, right? You, you don't like to stick by my side. You're always... I'm always staring at the back of your head.
- AGAdam Grant
I'm sorry. I, I feel bad about that, and it just... I, I think even in those situations, like, I'm... Yeah, I have a destination that I'm going toward, and I've failed to realize we're supposed to be going there together-
- AGAllison Sweet Grant
Mm-hmm
- AGAdam Grant
... in lockstep, side by side.
- AGAllison Sweet Grant
Mm-hmm.
- AGAdam Grant
And that's something I am working on improving, and sometimes I'm still not aware of it, and so you have to point it out-
- AGAllison Sweet Grant
Yeah
- AGAdam Grant
... for me to even notice.
- AGAllison Sweet Grant
Right.
- AGAdam Grant
I, I do wanna invite you to rethink one aspect of this.
- AGAllison Sweet Grant
Okay.
- AGAdam Grant
If we're taking two cars somewhere-
- AGAllison Sweet Grant
Yeah
- AGAdam Grant
... just like we walk at different paces, we also drive at different speeds.
- AGAllison Sweet Grant
Mm-hmm.
- AGAdam Grant
And if you're following me-
- AGAllison Sweet Grant
Mm-hmm
- AGAdam Grant
... I think it's the person following who's responsible for keeping up.
- AGAllison Sweet Grant
No.
- 30:08 – 31:58
Why Allison rewatches movies: anxiety reduction, familiarity, and “a lullaby” effect
- AGAdam Grant
True. Okay. That's a good point. All right. Noted. Okay. I wanna, I wanna talk about movies for a second. You rewatch movies more than anyone I've ever met. I, I can't imagine rewatching a movie unless there's either someone that I'm excited to experience it with who's never seen it- Or if it's so funny that it makes me laugh again. Like, if it, if it's a non-comedy, like rewatching it, I already know what's gonna happen, so what's the point? Help me make sense of this.
- AGAllison Sweet Grant
Well, I think we've determined it's sort of an anxiety reducer, right? Because you know what's coming, and so instead of being anxious for the jump scare or whatever it is, you can really enjoy the nuances of the movie or the book or whatever it is that you're consuming again more because you don't have to have your guard up, I guess, so to speak.
- AGAdam Grant
That's right. We did, we did come across some research on that, that people who are anxious tend to rewatch movies and shows more.
- AGAllison Sweet Grant
Yeah.
- AGAdam Grant
The familiarity brings some comfort.
- AGAllison Sweet Grant
Absolutely.
- AGAdam Grant
This is the difference between us, is it sounds boring to me. But you're not looking for stimulation, you're looking for calm.
- AGAllison Sweet Grant
Yeah, it's actually the opposite. It's sort of like a lullaby, right? Like, it's, it's calming.
- AGAdam Grant
Oh.
- AGAllison Sweet Grant
Because you know what's coming, you know what to expect. There's like a lull to it.
- AGAdam Grant
Oh, this is like listening to music.
- AGAllison Sweet Grant
That you know.
- AGAdam Grant
Yeah.
- AGAllison Sweet Grant
Yeah.
- AGAdam Grant
I don't listen to music that often, right? Sometimes I go months or years without intentionally playing a song, but-
- AGAllison Sweet Grant
Right
- AGAdam Grant
... I almost always-
- AGAllison Sweet Grant
It's like singing a song that you know.
- AGAdam Grant
Yeah.
- AGAllison Sweet Grant
Yeah.
- AGAdam Grant
I, I almost always go back to songs that I do know.
- AGAllison Sweet Grant
It's something that has given me enjoyment or pleasure in some way, and so I'm just recreating that.
- 31:58 – 37:18
Worry time, intrinsic motivation, and rewriting her own story through fiction
- AGAdam Grant
I wanted to bring up something else that you taught me about, which I was not aware of the research on, but I think you might have learned about in your original psychiatric training, which is the idea of worry time. This is one of my favorite things.
- AGAllison Sweet Grant
Yes. This is something we use with our kids, right? When they're feeling-
- AGAdam Grant
And sometimes with us
- AGAllison Sweet Grant
... sometimes when we're feeling anxious about something, um, how to find a designated period of time to focus on those worries, talk about them, express them, and then decide to put them away so that we don't mull on them all day long, and how much this helps with really keeping things in perspective.
- AGAdam Grant
When you start to spin out of control being worried about something, to say like, "Okay, I'm gonna deal with this at worry time," it's like writing something down on a to-do list.
- AGAllison Sweet Grant
Yeah.
- AGAdam Grant
Where then you're kind of offloading it from your, like your mental-
- AGAllison Sweet Grant
Headspace.
- AGAdam Grant
Exactly. Let's come back to writing.
- AGAllison Sweet Grant
Okay.
- AGAdam Grant
I've seen a different side of you, uh, in the last five years since you started working on I Am the Cage. I think before, your job was very much a job when you worked, and this has looked much more like a calling.
- AGAllison Sweet Grant
Yeah. It's felt much more like a calling. I mean, I didn't sit down and start writing this book because I was looking for a paycheck or because somebody asked me to, right, or I was r- fulfilling a requirement or something like that. I literally had this story within me that I felt was bursting to get out. And so by sitting down and writing it, it was a relief in many ways, right? Because I was finally getting it out of myself. Although it was a very long process, in many ways it wasn't, like, long enough, right? Once you write the book, you can't write the book again.
- AGAdam Grant
You've always been extremely disciplined, but the level of, of, of absorption that you had in this process was different than, than I've ever seen you take on a task before.
- AGAllison Sweet Grant
Mm-hmm.
- AGAdam Grant
I, I, there were times [laughs] when I, I check my email in the morning and you've sent me something at 2:00 or 3:00 AM.
- AGAllison Sweet Grant
Yeah.
- AGAdam Grant
You're, you're always asleep-
- AGAllison Sweet Grant
Yeah [laughs]
- AGAdam Grant
... much earlier than that [laughs] . Like, why is, why is Allison awake?
- AGAllison Sweet Grant
Yeah.
- AGAdam Grant
You would drop w- a sh- a movie that you were watching because you had an idea-
- AGAllison Sweet Grant
Right
- AGAdam Grant
... and you race up to the office. It, it felt like there was never a moment where you had to push yourself. Like, you were, you were actually being pulled.
- AGAllison Sweet Grant
Yeah. That's a great way to put it.
- AGAdam Grant
Which is, like, the purest form of intrinsic motivation, and I'm wondering if you have any advice for people who wanna start writing or who wanna start something creative. How did you find that intrinsic motivation?
- AGAllison Sweet Grant
The only reason that I was able to do this project in that way was that I knew what I was writing. It was coming from a deep place within me. I did feel compelled to do it. I think when you find something that you feel that passionate about, it just came very o- organically. I don't know that I could have written a different story at that time in that way.
- AGAdam Grant
Part of what's interesting about that is when you started writing, it was much more memoir-like-
- AGAllison Sweet Grant
Mm
- AGAdam Grant
... and you were drawing heavily on your own experiences.
- AGAllison Sweet Grant
Mm-hmm.
- 37:18 – 42:30
Fear, hope, and the close: releasing the novel, mutual gratitude, and what’s next
- AGAdam Grant
Yes [laughs] . What's your biggest fear releasing your debut novel?
- AGAllison Sweet Grant
Oh my God, how long do you have? I, I mean, I'm terrified. I'm terrified that, uh, nobody will read it [laughs] . I'm terrified that nobody will like it.
- AGAdam Grant
And yet, despite those fears, you went forward with it anyway.
- AGAllison Sweet Grant
Yeah.
- AGAdam Grant
What's, what's your hope?
- AGAllison Sweet Grant
My hope is that somebody who's struggling might find a pebble of meaning in the book, you know? That somebody takes something away from it. In writing this story, I was sort of able to rewrite my own, right? And part of that is being really honest about things that had happened to me that were kept secret for so long. And a part of that is putting it out there so that other people who are going through their own traumas, right, know that they're not alone.
- AGAdam Grant
Allison, I tell other people this all the time, but because of your compliment and praise aversion-
- AGAllison Sweet Grant
[laughs]
- AGAdam Grant
... I don't say it to you very often, but I'm gonna, I'm gonna say it now. I am incredibly proud of you. Th- this, this book is extraordinarily beautiful. Um, I, I'm not a crier, as you know, and it brought me to tears more times than I can count. My favorite part of this experience in some ways is I'm more excited for your book launch than when I launch a book, and I'm much prouder of you than I ever have been of anything I've written. One, because the quality of your writing is on a different level. But two, it's, it's been, it's just been really meaningful to watch you share this story. One sign of true love is when you're prouder of someone else and more excited for someone else than yourself, and I, I f- could not feel that more.
- AGAllison Sweet Grant
As you know, it was not an easy couple of years writing this book, and nobody was there for me more than you. And it was because of that, because of your presence and your support and encouragement that I was able to do it, so thank you.
- AGAdam Grant
So this was your first podcast experience. How was it?
- AGAllison Sweet Grant
Good. I mean-
- AGAdam Grant
Really?
- AGAllison Sweet Grant
Yeah.
- AGAdam Grant
I, I think you're gonna ... You are, you, you are my most consistent and reliable source of tough love, and I think you're gonna give me a four and a half later.
- AGAllison Sweet Grant
No.
- AGAdam Grant
So you might as well do it now.
- AGAllison Sweet Grant
I'm not giving you a four and a half. I'm giving you an eight and a half.
- AGAdam Grant
You-
- AGAllison Sweet Grant
I'm giving myself a four and a half, because I, I blundered a lot. But here's my question. Like, this is really nice and easy, right? Because all I had to do was walk into the middle of my own office, apparently.
- AGAdam Grant
Yeah.
- AGAllison Sweet Grant
And it's very comfortable, 'cause I'm in my own house. How do I take this really idyllic podcast situation and translate it to the next podcast, God willing, right? Because it's not gonna be the same, and I'm not gonna have somebody in front of me giving me, like, the easy questions and being really reassuring and considerate and all of those things.
- AGAdam Grant
Well-
- AGAllison Sweet Grant
It'll be harder
- AGAdam Grant
... just like the writing process, you'll get more comfortable with it as you do more of it. And-
- AGAllison Sweet Grant
Yeah
- AGAdam Grant
... I've been thinking it would be fun to have a cohost on ReThinking, and I think it would be a lot of fun to bring you in to cohost some of, if not all of, our conversations. All right. Well, ReThinkers, if you have a point of view on whether Allison should appear more often, I would love to hear it.
- AGAllison Sweet Grant
Oh my gosh, that's giving a lot of freedom to your audience. [upbeat music]
- AGAdam Grant
ReThinking is hosted by me, Adam Grant. The show is part of the TED Audio Collective, and this episode was produced and mixed by Cosmic Standard. Our producers are Hannah Kingsley-Ma and Aja Simpson. Our editor is Alejandra Salazar. Our fact-checker is Paul Durbin. Original music by Hansel Hsu and Allison Leyton-Brown. Our team includes Eliza Smith, Jacob Winick, Samaya Adams, Roxanne Hailash, Fanfan Cheng, Julia Dickerson, Thansika Sungmonivong, and Whitney Pennington Rodgers. I'm trying to think of the movies that you rewatch the most.
- AGAllison Sweet Grant
National Treasure for sure.
Episode duration: 42:30
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