What Finnish president Alexander Stubb learned from golfing with Trump

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1:17No printer necessary. The Kindle Scribe makes it easy to keep your notes organized with everything you need in one place without having to sort through paper files or type notes on your laptop. I love how the Kindle Scribe brings my notes to life while making them impossible to lose. I know what I'm working on moving forward. What are you working on? Kindle Scribe. I do believe that in politics, you have to be yourself. You have to be genuine. And I actually think that in politics, especially in politics, you get pretty much what you deserve. Of course, this is not a universal theory, as we know, but more or less the ones who are straightforward get up to the top.

2:01Hey everyone, it's Adam Grant. Welcome back to Rethinking, my podcast with Ted on the science of what makes us tick. 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.

2:19Finland's president, Alexander Stub, followed an unusual path into politics. He was an academic specializing in political science, ended up winning a seat in European Parliament, and eventually became Finland's prime minister in 2014. But he left that role after just one year, expecting to leave politics behind altogether. After serving as Finland's finance minister, Alex went into banking and then back to academia. He wrote a book called The Triangle of Power, about understanding and bringing balance to the new world order. But political office eventually called him back. And in 2024, Alex became the president of Finland.

2:55It's a role more suited to him because prime ministers focus on domestic politics, whereas presidents are more involved in foreign policy. When I was prime minister, I started my day with a sulk. And when I'm president, I start my day with a smile. And as it turns out, one of his first foreign affairs classes was actually at college in the U.S., where he studied on a golf scholarship. But before academia, he had a few other career ideas in mind. That's right. I mean, I think my life is pretty much along your book, Think Again, and therefore rethinking. So I had a lot of dreams when I was a kid.

3:29You know, first I wanted to be a professional ice hockey player, and my dad was an NHL scout, so he saw that, no, that guy's not going to be good enough. So I had to rethink, and then I wanted to become a professional golfer, And that actually took me to the U.S. to study at Furman University in Greenville, South Carolina. I'd love to hear a little bit of the backstory on that, particularly because you were told by your dad that even if you didn't become a professional golfer, the skills would come in handy. Yeah, indeed. My dad had said to me when I was young that, you know, even if you don't become professional, it's going to come handy to you.

4:03And he probably meant business, but I never knew that I would end up on a golf course with the president of the United States. Tell me how that happened. I mean, it was kind of matchmaking to a certain extent. So Lindsey Graham, who is a senator in South Carolina, he was quite excited about the fact that the president of Finland, a new NATO country, has studied at Furman in South Carolina. And he knew that I was there in a little golf scholarship. And he sort of said, why don't we go and play with the president? I said, well, if you insist, sure. So we ended up playing around the golf in Florida, which was quite pleasant.

4:38Very, very different context to build a relationship than if you're sitting in the White House. What was that like? Well, it's, you know, anytime you spend the better part of seven hours with someone, so breakfast, then three, four hours in the course, and then lunch, you get to know a person. And anyone who plays golf knows that you play one or two holes with a person, and that reveals the personality more than any meeting room or even quality time at a dinner party, because you're kind of struggling with your own game. how people react to a good shot, a bad shot, you know, how they behave. So it was quite an opening experience.

5:14And as I said, a really pleasant one. I can imagine being a little bit nervous in that situation because on the one hand, you don't want to be terrible. On the other hand, do you want to beat the leader of the free world? Do you want to potentially bruise his ego? How did you approach that? Well, I mean, two points on this. First, when you have a few hundred thousand repetitions in your body, there's no need to be nervous. You know that as a diver as well. You know, you can do a backflip or whatever on command even after a few years. The second issue, it was solved very easy. We were on the same team.

5:50We were playing best ball. So if I made a good score, the president would be happy. If he scored well, he'd be happy. So it was really win-win. And on top of that, we had, you know, legendary Gary Player on our team as well. And as things would happen, we did win the country club tournament. So that was fun. Congratulations. What did you see about President Trump that probably most Americans can't, having not golfed with him? Well, I mean, you know, I think all of us have a media persona, and then we have a private persona. And those two are very often different with many people, also with the president.

6:26So to be honest, not only is he a good golfer, but he's a lot of fun to play with. You know, there are a lot of jokes, doesn't get flustered, you know, bad shot, good shot. same type of reaction. So it was unusually good because I've seen a lot of my very good friends get completely het up about golf and going bananas, but there was none of that with the president of the US. Fascinating and a little surprising to me, frankly. As I told you, media persona is different from private persona. You've had obviously dealings with the president since then. I would love to hear a little bit about how has foreign policy been shaped by a golf game?

7:06Well, you can't make a direct correlation or causality there. But what quite often happens in these kinds of a setting is that you establish a relationship and then it becomes a network. So, you know, it can be a good or a bad relationship. I would argue that I have a good relationship with the president of the United States to the point where we don't agree on everything, obviously, so we can respectfully disagree, which is a good thing. But what happens then is suddenly if you spend that much time with the president of the US, other leaders get interested because they start privately to ask exactly the same questions.

7:43And then, you know, I come from a small country, so I don't have much power. But for me, information is power. So if I can then start informing my colleagues about what I think that the US might be doing, or then I can inform what my colleagues might be doing, give that info to the US, or I can be a matchmaker between, say, the president of Ukraine and the president of the US. That's then what happens through networking. But it's very much a two-way street. And you can lose that very quickly. I mean, if you don't sort of gather information, if you're not able to share information, then you're a little bit out of the game.

8:20So you have to stay active all the time. And that's what I tried to do. Sometimes it goes well, at other times they can be a bit of an ebb. But, you know, Adam, I'm adamant about this. I don't want to inflate my own role with the president of the United States. I mean, it's good to have a relationship, but if he picks up one out of 10 ideas, you know, I should feel lucky. So he's very much a man of his own mind, as everyone would know by now. So we've seen. Has this made you rethink how leaders interact? Because it seems like a lot of the formality of diplomacy meetings. And even, you know, when you go to a major conference, you could strip that away really quickly by playing sports together.

8:59And I wonder why we don't do this more often. Well, actually, many of us go jogging. That's one of the things that we do. And I remember being at a peace conference on Ukraine in Switzerland. I think we're about four or five leaders went up in the mountains for a little hike and a jog. But it hasn't made me rethink about it because I have always felt that diplomacy is really about two things. One is your traditional state-to-state relations, which are about history, culture, values, interests, and quite often geography. So do you sort of click or do you have common interests and values to work together?

9:36And then the other side is the personal one. The personal one, you know, which is really about your capacity to communicate with someone. It's about your emotional intelligence. It's really about behavioral psychology. And the idea is that you kind of have to scrape the surface because all of us in these types of positions, we have a surface. And then it's a question of, are you able through conversation to open that person up? And then suddenly if that person opens up in a private setting or in a small meeting, he or she will give you much more information than you would get otherwise. So it's really about building trust.

10:13When you talk behavioral psychology, do you have go-to questions that you ask other leaders to get them to open up? No, I try to read the room. I mean, quite often it can be a link to a hobby or I've read something that they have said. So that kind of opens up, but I allow the conversation to go into a flow. So today, for instance, when we're recording this podcast, it's a great day because Finland just won the world championships in ice hockey in Switzerland. So I've been getting a lot of messages from colleagues, congratulations. So it's these kinds of small things. So it's almost like, well, it's not almost, it is normal human interaction.

10:53But we just have this sort of image of political leaders being somehow extremely different from your bogstander Joe Sixpack. But the truth is that we're not. Well, congrats on the hockey victory. I was fishing for that, Adam. So I want to talk a little bit about the effect of sports on your work in a different way, which is you are an avid Ironman athlete. Are you still training? I mean, Ironman athlete always sounds a little bit inflated. I have a philosophy, and the philosophy is that one hour of exercise gives you two more hours of energy for each day. But the reverse is true. If I over-train, so say two hours a day, it'll take one hour of energy away.

11:37So I'm not anymore what you would call an avid Ironman triathlete. I have done a few Ironmen. I like triathlons. So yes, when I do my daily exercises, I swim, bike, and run depending a little bit on the day. So I try to get in my training, but it's much less than what it used to be because of the constraints of time, but also because all we're trying to do now with my coaches and doctors is to maximize my energy levels. One of the research findings I really liked recently was it was a series of studies about morning workouts and why they might be good for us. And, you know, I always thought about it from an energy perspective.

12:15What I hadn't seen coming was the finding that when you work out in the morning, it actually boosts your confidence through the workday. Because just the simple experience of, OK, I navigated that challenge. I overcame that hurdle reminds you, hey, I can do the same thing in my job. And I'm curious about whether you've experienced that and whether on days where you might miss a morning workout or not have a good workout, you actually see your performance as a president suffer. I would say yes. I do feel that my spine is a little bit straighter if I train in the morning. And sometimes depending a little bit on the travel regime and others, we try to do what we call quick and short intervals because that is what sort of increases your testosterone level very quickly, but it doesn't sort of exhaust you as probably longer intervals do.

13:06So I do believe in the confidence and some, you know, I'm grumpy if I don't train and my team knows it. You know, Alex, I have to tell you, I don't think that world leaders need more testosterone. I think you're right. Right now, there are a few that have way too many, even without training. I don't know what they do to get them. Exactly. This episode is brought to you by National Business Furniture. You can find them at nbf.com. I've been thinking about how the environment of our workspaces can help or hinder the way we work. So many organizations claim values like productivity and collaboration, but their spaces are built for a different era of work and tell an entirely different story.

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16:27So let's talk about your big rethinking decision. You ended up becoming prime minister, I think, in ways that were probably surprising to a lot of people. We don't see a lot of political scientists run for office, let alone win. And then I have a vivid memory of you saying after you finish that role, I will never be in politics again. I am done with that. So why did you go in the first place? And why are you back now? Okay, so I probably have to rewind a little bit because I wanted to be a sportsman. Then I wanted to be an academic. And then I was a civil servant. And when I was a civil servant, I felt a little bit constrained and never wanted to do domestic politics.

17:07And I wanted to do European politics, but that was it. But then one thing led to another and I was asked to become a foreign minister in 2008. And again, my mentality was, I just want to do foreign policy. So I was trade and Europe foreign minister total six years. And then I was supposed to go to Brussels to become commissioner, but my predecessor as prime minister and party chairman said, he's going to do it. So there wasn't much I could do. And my first reaction was, well, I'm not going to run for party chairman or prime minister because that's not my thing. But then a week's worth of reflection, I did some rethinking.

17:42And again, against all odds, because I came from outside of politics. I won. Probably with the wisdom of hindsight, not only was it a difficult period, but it wasn't my thing. So my sort of via dolorosa or my two difficult years in life were from 2014 to 2016, when I was PM finance minister and party chairman and things were not going that well. So in 2016, when I was relieved of my duties by my good friend who is now prime minister who challenge me for a leadership challenge, I felt very relieved. And I thought, okay, I went to banking, I did academia. And the only thing that brought me back to politics was Russia's war of aggression in Ukraine, because that made a lifelong dream of mine come true that Finland joined NATO.

18:29And then at home with my wife and family, we discussed, should we go for one more round? And sure enough, we did. And here I am a little bit over two years into the mandate. And you haven't rethought it yet? No, to be honest, I know world politics is challenging. It's tough. But, you know, I'm enjoying every day of this job. I feel very privileged to serve. I love what I'm doing. It's stuff that I've been either studying or doing for over 30 years, ever since I took my first international relations class at Furman University in 1990. So I love every day of this job as difficult as it can sometimes be.

19:08How does your training as a political scientist affect the way that you lead? Big time, I think. You know me personally well enough to know that there is a scientist in me, albeit a social scientist. So first of all, I do two things at least. One is I create these frameworks in my head. So I try to read a lot, I write a lot, and that helps me to conceptualize things. So I wrote a book called The Triangle of Power, Rebalancing the New World Order when I was in academia. And that has helped me to frame my thinking. The second thing is that I believe in the way in which science is structured. And that allows me also to accept failure in the sense that I test ideas.

19:54And then some of the ideas fly, others don't. Of course, I have to avoid a major failure because it's about war and peace. So we're not testing anything of that. But when I lead to my team, I always say they have to be the guys who basically contain me. So if I come up with five ideas, I'm happy for them to shoot down four and say maybe on one. And then we test these concepts and then sometimes they work. And also in terms of leadership, I allow for a lot of failure. So, you know, my nucleus team is seven members in the cabinet, plus, you know, a few others, assistants and helping out. And I always tell them that if we succeed, it's thanks to you.

20:39If we fail, I take the blame. And that, for me, comes from academia and this sort of slightly scientific way of thinking. I'd just love to give our listeners a vivid view of, you know, when you're testing ideas and trying to figure out what will work and what won't. Is there an anecdote or an illustration you could give us to bring that to life? Well, sometimes it's about communication. You know, what do we say or what do we not say? When I travel, when I give press conferences, etc., etc. So, you know, for instance, if I have information that Ukraine is winning on the battlefield, but we know that this information could change next week.

21:20So we pose the question, should we come out with this now and say that in the past five months, Ukraine has been able to decapacitate 35 ,000 Russian soldiers per month, and the Russians are only able to recruit 27 ,000. So therefore, mathematically, statistically, we see that Ukraine has an edge. And the question is, do we do it or not? And when do we do it? So these are the types of questions that we do. Then I'm also quite scientific. I want to use a lot of numbers in my speeches and also in my interviews because they stick with people. So a lot of my team has to do probably more academic kind of research before we come up with a thesis or a hypothesis.

22:08And it has helped, I think, me personally, hopefully also my communication. How are you leading differently this time with the benefit of the two years that you did originally as PM? First of all, the team is smaller. But the big difference is that everyone works in one direction. So the first meeting I had with my EDECAMP, so I have three military officers who basically take care that I survive. And the first thing, my first EDECAMP said, Mr. President, we're here to protect you. as an institution. So it's a team. Whereas if you are a prime minister in a coalition government, or if you are a party chairman with some conservatives, some liberals, some centrists, there's always going to be intrigue.

22:53The party doesn't work as a team. The government doesn't work as a team. And on top of that, you're fighting an opposition and probably a media that in the right way works against you because of media freedom. The other big difference is that when you're prime minister, a majority of the population wants you to fail for ideological reasons. Whereas as president, I'm in charge of foreign policy and I'm the commander in chief. And for us, foreign policy with a border of 830 miles with Russia is existential. So everyone wants the president to succeed. And I feel very much more confident as president than I was as prime minister because that was about domestic politics, which wasn't my strength.

23:41You mentioned the extensive border that you share with Russia. You've spent time up close with Vladimir Putin, and you've obviously spent a lot of time trying to understand his psychology. I'd love to hear you just make sense of how do you influence, persuade, negotiate with somebody who is very difficult, first of all, to move, and secondly, to reason with? Well, I mean, first of all, I probably have to qualify. So when I have met Putin, I was usually a minister in a delegation with the then president or then prime minister. So I was a backbencher, and it didn't happen very often. I've only met him a handful of times.

24:21I know Sergei Lavrov much better, who is the foreign minister of Russia. So I think the first thing you have to understand is never underestimate someone like Vladimir Putin or someone like Sergei Lavrov. They're extremely intelligent, well-read human beings. Secondly, understand that they are strong Russian nationalists And we're all prisoners of our own identity, the narratives of history that we have grown up with. And the narrative of history for someone like Vladimir Putin, who is former KGB, comes not only from the Cold War, so very much a zero-sum ideological thinking, but it's also historical perspective where he sees Russia as a major power and as an empire.

25:11That's why he talks about the biggest travesty in recent history being the dismantling of the Soviet Union. That's why he hails someone like Stalin, who after all was a mass murderer, killing millions of people of his own and around the world. So his philosophy is very much what we call Ruskimir, which is one Russia, which means basically Russia's borders of the 1800s when it was a great power. And that means that there is one Russia, one language, one religion, and one leader. And then when you understand that, you can try to have an impact or an influence. But as we can see, Vladimir Putin doesn't exactly take advice from anyone, not from the president of Finland, let alone from the president of the United States.

26:01Well, I think this relates to one of my big takeaways from the Triangle of Power, which is you make a case that listening is an underrated leadership skill. Yeah, it's true. I think sometimes we have leaders who simply don't listen. I try to go into any meeting, sometimes succeeding at other times, not to learn something, learn something from that person. There's a reason why I travel a lot. So in the first two years, I've done 75 travels abroad, 25 in Finland. I was just in Jordan, meeting the King of Jordan. I was in Egypt, meeting the president of Egypt. I was in Canada, meeting the prime minister of Canada, et cetera, et cetera.

26:43So I tried to sort of soak in information and listen to what they have to say. And when we prepare for these meetings with my team, like we had today with the president of Slovenia, I wanted to understand the dynamics of countries such as Slovenia, Croatia, Serbia, Kosovo, Bosnia, Herzegovina, Albania, Montenegro, North Macedonia. And so I try to listen as much as I possibly can. But of course, sometimes you fail. You know, people in my line of work are not usually very shy. Sometimes they are pretty bad listeners, including myself, but I try to work at it all the time. This makes me wonder a little bit about the Nordic tendencies toward, I've heard it described as janteloven.

27:31Janteloven. Okay, I don't know that word. Oh, well, okay. So I'm going to try to teach you something about your world. Are you ready for this? Very good. See, there you go. I'm listening. This is Nord-splaining. But it sounds like Icelandic. I think it's originally Danish, maybe. But the basic concept is you follow the law of janteloven. And one of the core laws is you have to remember you're no better than anybody else. It's supposed to be a Nordic code that enforces humility or at least cultivates and nurtures humility. And it's such an interesting thing to me to think about. On the one hand, we know the value of humility in leadership.

28:07It reminds you that you don't know everything. You have lots to learn from the other people around you. At the same time, politics is not a sphere of life that we associate much with humility. And I'd just love to hear a little bit about how you walk that tightrope. Sure. Well, first of all, actually, if you look at the five Nordics, so Iceland, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, and Finland, you would probably make an argument that the most understated and humble and modest are the Finns. It's because we are... He says with pride. He says with pride. And a lot of my Finnish compatriots, they say, Alex, you don't resemble a Finn at all, of it.

28:47They just laugh at it. But the bottom line is that we are actually inherently quite shy. We speak a very different language, a language which is expressive when you speak it to your kin and your countrymen, but doesn't translate well into other languages. So we do have that humbleness and modesty that is very inherent. But then if you look at the Icelanders, probably same thing, you know, and the Norwegians. And the reason for all of this is that we actually gained our political independence quite late. Norway from Sweden, Iceland from Denmark, Finland from Russia. So, you know, there is this sort of modesty.

29:27So we haven't been a major power ever like Sweden, for instance. But there is this, you know, all of us Nordics, we are at the end of the day quite humble. We're quite proud of what we do. You know, if you look at all the top rankings in the world, whether it's, you know, quality of life, environment, quality of water, democracy, freedom index, et cetera, or happiness. I was waiting for you to mention happiness, finally. Finland's been the happiest country in the world for eight years running. So, you know, we're proud of that. But at the same time, there's this sort of toned down happiness with it.

30:08And we're quite at ease with who we are. I quite often say that, you know, in Finland, we are calm, cool, and collected. And then when the X hits the fan, as you would say in a public program, we go into the sauna and take a cold bath. And I think that's quite descriptive of who we Finns are. How do you think about the Finnish happiness advantage? I'm so curious about what do you, I mean, obviously there are lots of factors that come into play, but what do you think are the key contributing factors? Well, first of all, you know that happiness is subjective. So, you know, it's something that comes from who you are.

30:50Then there is another subjective matter, and that is that I think the happiness index accumulates. So if you're ahead for eight years, you're going to continue to be there quite high up for a while, the way in which the UN has set it up. But I think it comes from pretty basic things. So it's a bit of, you know, Maslow's hierarchy of needs type of thinking that in my mind, happiness comes from meaning and meaning comes from helping someone else. And in order for you to be able to do that, you need a society which is egalitarian. So you give everyone pretty much equal opportunity through education.

31:25I think we're also a fair society. I mean, never perfect. I don't claim that. We have a very close attachment to nature, but all of those things can be found in Norway or in Sweden or in Denmark or in Iceland as well let alone the Baltic state so you know we've been lucky because we also we don't exactly show our happiness so give me any Monday morning in a tram in Helsinki in November and you're not going to go into that tram feeling that whoa these people are really happy because that's just how it is but believe me after we won the world championships in ice hockey and because of summer we are very happy.

32:04Which is still probably understated by American standards. Exactly. You've mentioned the education system, which also has been, I think, a great source of Finnish pride for a long time. One of the things that I was blown away by when I studied the Finnish education system was just the amount of care and attention that goes to each student to say, we want to bring out the best in every student. And so instead of like the American, no child left behind, in Finland, the goal is for every child to get ahead. And I really, I could not believe that the norm is for every school to have a team of psychologists and social workers who are actually checking in on the well-being of each student, not just their grades.

32:46You were obviously shaped in formative ways by the Finnish education system. What mattered most from your perspective and what could the rest of the world learn from what Finland is doing well? Well, I probably wasn't the model student at school. I'm quite open about that. But I think a lot of it starts from the sort of Aristotelian thinking that there's nothing more noble than teaching the young. And that mentality then goes into the education system. It's extremely difficult to become a fully qualified teacher because you need a master's degree in education. The community itself is good as well.

33:22And, you know, no school is, of course, perfect. As we know, no teacher is perfect, no kid is perfect, but we try to bring everyone up in an egalitarian way. We don't have too many private schools here. They're all public schools. And the good thing is also that the teachers get a lot of autonomy to teach. There is a curriculum, but you're not forced to follow one particular curriculum. And the pride that I see in the eyes of the teachers when I visit was really good. Now, I have to admit that as president, I've probably now been to 10 schools since I started, even 15. And all the schools they take me to are brand new and they're in great shape.

34:00And of course, I'm getting a slightly skewed, you know, but it's the system seems to work well and we're very proud of it. You said something earlier that really surprised me. You said you lost because you were challenged by your good friend. Who is friends with the person who causes them to lose their job? So basically it's Finnish politics, so it's a bit complicated, but he, Petteri Orpa, who is now our prime minister, he defeated me in 2016 for a party chairman. And he was really humming and hawing about challenging, and he felt really sorry about it. And I said, you know, don't feel sorry about it, just go for it.

34:34But for me, it was one of those things that I never give up. So I went in for the fight, knowing that I might lose, but I didn't allow that, you know, to cross my mind. And when I lost, I felt it was like liberation day. So So to be honest, my wife and I at the conference center, when I lost the vote, we went out for a jog and opened a bottle of champagne and started to think about what our world would look like after the job. And I hold no grudges because I think he's a good guy. And in politics, there are people, to be honest, who are good. And then there are people who are really bad, who I simply cannot stand.

35:10And so had it been someone who I disliked, I would probably not be as positive about it. But I was happy to hand it over to him. And for all intents and purposes, it seems to me that he's done a good job for himself. That's fair. Well, you know, I think you're also demonstrating something right now that has been a real asset for you, but could easily be a liability, which is just the level of candor and straightforwardness that you speak with. I think you're probably unusually blunt both for a fin and for a politician. And we can imagine all sorts of ways in which being unfiltered could be a problem.

35:46But I think you've used it to your advantage. I'd love to hear a story about how and a little bit of explanation of what's behind this. Well, I think because I came from outside of politics, I was 36 when I went into politics. So that's relatively late. And I was very much running on the ticket of being an expert on European affairs and running for the European Parliament. And I said things that, you know, I felt that were true and quite bold. And I think a lot of people at the time felt that, you know, he not only knows his things, but he's honest about it. The problem, of course, in politics is quite often you might get into trouble for being too blunt.

36:26So you do have to filter stuff. I mean, you know, even when we're speaking right now, subconsciously, I am filtering and not saying things that I know that might get me into trouble. And this is not only because behind the camera, I can see my head of communication. And I know that she will pop her head up from behind the screen and give me angry faces if I go in the wrong direction. So, you know, it's not complete. Now she got up. So it's not, you know, completely unfiltered. You always do that. But, you know, I see a lot of people who I think are not honest. I think they're fake. And I never see them really climbing up the highest ladder.

37:09Or if they climb there, they fall down very quickly. And I take comfort in that. One of the things I've been thinking a lot about when it comes to the rise of a particular style of a political leader is we have seen an authoritarian turn in the past decade or so around the world. And one of the patterns I've seen in the evidence that at first surprised me and then was ultimately illuminating was in times of turbulence and in times of especially stress, people are often drawn to the confidence of a strong man or a strong woman leader. And they take the assurances that I'm in charge as a signal that this person is also going to do right by their country or look out for their people's best interests.

37:56And I look at that and I think, well, there's a big gap between what authoritarian leaders stand for and what a servant leader would do. I worry a lot that we end up with takers instead of givers if we elevate that style. And it sort of creates a chicken and the egg problem because we need a more stable world in order to get people to be less drawn to authoritarians and not get that false sense of security from strength. but it's those leaders who are contributing to the instability in the first place. So I would love it if you could enlighten me a little bit on where do we intervene in that cycle?

38:35How do we change that dynamic? Okay, well, let me preface this by saying, you know, a thing that I said in the book as well. I think we human beings make three mistakes. We over-rationalize the past. So think that something happened a certain way, even though it's a few hundred years away. Second, we over-dramatize the present. So you and I live very much in the present and think that this is probably the most challenging time in the history of mankind, which obviously we know it's not. And then thirdly, when we make these two mistakes, we underestimate the future. So that's where we come to your intervention question.

39:12I personally think that democracy has not adapted to modern technology because modern technology allows us to express ourselves within seconds. And democracy was supposed to be slow and compromise-seeking and all of these things. And now we live in this sort of cacophony of stuff. Information is thrown at us all the time and we have to react to it. And that makes the world seem quite messy. Then there's a big promise of democracy that everyone's GDP per capita will grow. And some people feel that, well, you know, the promise that I was given didn't happen. And therefore, we start basically voting for people who promise things which they then can't keep.

39:55So then we seek for these usually actually strong men who promise us stability from around the world. And this is a cycle of democracy. But the good thing with democracy, it's a little bit like an academic study. It does test in different directions, and then you get a solution. And that's why I think that liberal democracy with all of its weaknesses is still the best one. Final point. Yeah, we seek stability. We human beings are conservative. You know, I mean, we like to sometimes just feel that there's nothing new in life. We don't want to rethink, you know. Rethinking is tough. It's hard. It hurts the brain.

40:32You know, you have to connect your neural laces. It's painful. But all I'm saying to everyone listening today is just have faith. You know, things have a tendency to work out, but you have to work actively at democracy. You have to take the agency that is given to you. You have to vote. You have to try to have impact. You have to be an activist of sorts. This episode is sponsored by Kohler Smart Toilets. The objects we interact with most are often the ones we notice least. Kohler's Smart Toilet challenges that assumption. What if the most overlooked space in your home could become the most considered?

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43:31All right, let's go to a lightning round. Are you ready? I'm ready. I'm ready. All right, what is the worst advice you've ever been given career-wise? Run for prime minister. I'm glad you followed it anyway, because you wouldn't be here where you are now probably without it. Exactly. Nevertheless, you get to arrange a dinner party with anyone from history. Who are you inviting? Okay. I would like to go back to the big figures in history and probably have a mix of intellectuals and politicians. So off the top of my head, I would like to have Nelson Mandela and Martin Luther King. I would like to have Virginia Woolf, Mahatma Gandhi, Alexander Hamilton, because I was a huge fan of him even before the musical.

44:25I would probably like to have someone like Bertrand Russell, just to get the sort of philosophical thing. I would like to have Freud there. Oh, you lost me on Freud, Alex. I know, I know. But, you know, it's just I also would like to have Marx there, Adam Smith, probably Keynes. So people who have thought big about the big issues in mankind and humanity. And then finally, I would probably have a few industrialists on the way to understand the first industrial revolution, the second and the third. Sounds like an incredible group. I think the one thing missing is a comedian because every court needs a jester.

45:13That's true. That's true. My favorite one right now is Norwegian. Her name is Pernilla Holland and she takes the mickey out of me on Instagrams. Ah, can't wait. Okay, we'll look her up. What's something you've changed your mind about recently? Talking to Putin. So basically there has been very much a no-go thinking that Europeans should not speak with Putin when the war is going on, but I have changed my mind on that. I think someone in Europe needs to do that and try to mediate peace. I'm glad that you've come around on that because last I checked, peace does not happen through failing to interact.

45:52You're absolutely right. Peace needs engagement. It needs mediation. It needs compromises. It needs work. It is painful. My big hero is actually President Marti Ahtisadi, who was one of my predecessors, won the Nobel Peace Prize for mediating peace on three continents in Namibia, in Kosovo, and in Indonesia. And he used to say that whatever humans begin, humans can also end. And he also used to say that it's not the mediator that counts, but it's the fact that the two warring parties at the end of the day feel that the deal is part of them. Okay, last question for you. I'll give you the microphone.

46:30What's a question you have for me. If you were 30 years old and you wanted to change the world, would you go into politics? No. You would not. Why is that? I think that most of the politicians that I've gotten to know, I've been surprised by how constrained they feel, by how limited their influence is. And I think that if you want to change the world, I would say, pick a role where you have more freedom as opposed to a role that's heavily constrained by the relationships you have to maintain, by the formal duties that you're charged with. It's not to say that politicians can't or don't change the world, but I think that freedom is a big factor in being able to have influence.

47:18And yeah, I think the entrepreneurs I talk to, for example, they feel much more powerful in terms of their ability to pursue their goals, to try to drive change. and I think that just seems like a more direct path. What do you think? Well, I think it's six of one, half a dozen of the other. So it depends a little bit on whether you want individual freedom and comfort, then I would go with you. But if you strongly feel that you need to have impact, say in a liberal democracy, you need to intervene in this world where we might end up with strongman rule, then someone has to take the sort of community society hit and do it.

48:03So, but all I want to say to all youngsters who are thinking about a political career, it can be tough and most political careers end in tears. So in that sense, that's just how it goes. I have a final question if I'm allowed. Bring it on. What is artificial intelligence going to do to behavior of psychology? And I can only give you one minute to the answer. I think anybody who believes that they can answer that question is lacking the humility that we were talking about. I don't think anyone knows. I think one thing we can see in the data currently is that a lot of people are offloading their thinking to AI and a lot of other people are enriching their thinking with AI.

48:46And my guess is that we're going to see a bimodal distribution. I think that we're probably going to see a significant deficit of critical thinking for a subset of the population and a significant enhancement of critical thinking for the other subset. And I think we're probably looking at a distinction that Jeff Hancock and his colleagues have used to say, look, at the end of the day, what really matters is, are you a passenger or a pilot? And I think the passengers are losing and the pilots are winning. I fully agree with you. And I think to probably anyone listening, what I draw comfort in, because I'm a strong believer in emotional intelligence, and you and I have brains which are about three pounds.

49:29And in order for that brain to work, we only need to produce about 20, 30 watts of power. And we make these types of connections that no machine can make, whereas artificial intelligence needs acres and acres of data centers and millions and millions of watts of power. So don't underestimate the capacity of the brain to deal with issues such as artificial intelligence. That is such a compelling way to make the case for the human edge. Exactly. Alex, it's always a pleasure. Thank you for joining us today on Rethinking. Thank you. My pleasure. Rethinking is hosted by me, Adam Grant. The show is produced by TED with Cosmic Standard.

50:14Our producer is Jessica Glazer. Our editor is Alejandra Salazar. Our engineer is Asia Pillar-Simpson. Our technical director is Jacob Winnick. And our fact-checker is Paul Durbin. Our team includes Eliza Smith, Roxanne Hailash, Banban Chang, Julia Dickerson, Tansika Sung Manivong, and Whitney Pennington Rogers. Original music by Hans Dale Su and Alison Leighton Brown.

50:39I think you told me downhill skiing was for wimps and real athletes do cross country. I don't have anything against downhill skiing. I've been doing it ever since I was six years old. I just like to do mountaineering. I'd much rather walk up the hill than come down.

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