Why Modern Life Feels So Empty | Nicholas Epley

27:22Johnny:And I think going along with this, what we're talking about by losing our voice and losing the social muscle by making these choices, whether conscious or unconscious around our environment and how we're choosing to interact with it, that the social uncertainty we're feeling gets greater and greater over time. So for my dad growing up, he wasn't living on a laptop. He wasn't using a digital communication at all. If he wanted or needed something, he would pick up the phone or most likely just go have the conversation. Just go ask for it. Just go talk to the butcher about what the best cut of meat is.

27:57Johnny:And now we default to, well, it's less uncertain that I'll get a wrong answer or I'll get into conflict or I'll get rejected. So let me just Google it. Let me just type it. Let me just remove my voice from the equation. And as that uncertainty gets greater and greater, we build those walls around us. and getting comfortable with managing the social uncertainty of not listening to your favorite music on the train, which makes you feel good and there's certainty you're going to enjoy it. But stepping into that zone of uncertainty is where life really is. Yeah. Yeah. One thing that we find in our work over and over again is that people are overly uncertain about how social interactions will turn out.

28:38They tend to see it as a much bigger, a much riskier thing than it actually is. Like if I try to have a deep conversation with you AJ, I ask you, you know, look, tell me what your story is. Like, how did you get to where you are right now in life? People, when we ask them to predict how this conversation could go, they tend to predict it could go the entire range of pretty terrible to really great, right? The truth, though, is that when you reach out to other people in these dynamic face-to-face or at least using your voice context, because of reciprocity, the actual range of outcomes is actually much, much narrower.

29:20So that mostly they turn out on the positive side of the spectrum because of reciprocity. If I take an interest in you, you tend to take an interest in me. But to your point, if we are pessimistic about this and if we are overly pessimistic, then we might not reach out and try to have that conversation or try to go a little deeper than we might otherwise or express our gratitude or ask for help when we need it or be honest when we have to in our relationships. and then we don't find out that we might be wrong. And so pessimism, our anxiety, our cynicism, our doubt, our beliefs about indifference, pessimistic expectations are self-fulfilling because they create avoidance where you don't reach out and find out you'd be mistaken.

30:05Your dad, though, who was more optimistic, those expectations get calibrated, right? Because you try, you reach out, you have the interaction, and then you find out what it's really like, and you get more calibrated as a result. You get more accurate.

30:20Johnny:I wasn't sleeping well at night. I tried everything. Turns out my air quality was messing with my sleep quality. Indoor air. It's the thing you don't think about until it's the problem. Air Doctor is the only air purifier we use now. Fewer odors, reduced allergy symptoms, better sleep, and peace of mind. Air Doctor's three-stage filtration captures particles about 100 times smaller than what typical air purifiers can remove. Dust, pollen, mold spores, pet dander, wildfire smoke, bacteria, viruses, odors, and VOCs. All the airborne contaminants you don't want to be breathing in. Whisper quiet operation, not loud like others on the market.

30:56Auto mode ensures optimum air 24-7. Change filter reminders so there's no guesswork.

31:02Johnny:98 % of Air Doctor customers say their home's air feels cleaner, safer, and healthier. Over 93 % notice fewer allergy symptoms, less congestion, less stuffy nose, less itchy eyes.

31:37Johnny:AirDoctorPro.com. I like keeping my money where I can see it. Unfortunately, traditional big wireless carriers also like keeping my money. Crazy high bills, bogus fees, free perks that cost more in the long run. Stop overpaying for wireless just because that's how it's always been. Mint Mobile exists to fix that. Premium wireless plans starting at just$15 a month. All plans come with high-speed data and unlimited talk and text delivered on the nation's largest 5G network. Bring your own phone and number. Activate the eSIM in minutes. Start saving immediately. No long-term contracts. No hassle.

32:13Johnny:If I needed to switch carriers, Mint Mobile is exactly what I'd use. The math just works. You're getting the same network quality and keeping a lot more of your money. If you like your money, Mint Mobile is for you. Shop plans at mintmobile.com slash charm. That's mintmobile.com slash charm. Upfront payment of$45 for three-month, five gigabyte plan required, equivalent to$15 per month. New customer offer for first three months only, then full price plan options available. Taxes and fees extra. See Mint Mobile for details. But I know a lot of people listening would not label themselves as pessimists.

32:51Johnny:So when we hear that, you know, we go, that's the other person. I get the loner. I get the person who isolates themselves, but I'm an optimistic person. Yeah. And what I'm sharing is, you know, I have a buddy who lives in London and we were planning a group trip in Europe. And I was like, hey, can you get the rental car and just we'll coordinate from there? And he called me and was like, AJ, I have to be honest with you. I haven't driven a car in seven years. Now, his uncertainty around how getting around driving a car is at an all time high because he hasn't done it in seven years. Me living in L.A., I do it every single day.

33:28Johnny:So I'm like, what are you talking? Uncertainty. So that's the difference here. When we're not using our muscle, our social muscle on a daily basis, that uncertainty just gets greater and greater and greater subconsciously without us realizing that we have turned into a pessimist around these things. We have allowed that subconscious to create a pessimism that might be invisible to us. If we're like, hey, I'm an entrepreneur. I'm optimistic. Hey, I believe in AI. I'm optimistic. I'm a futurist. I think everything's getting better. But we don't recognize the social uncertainty has turned us as it's ramped up over time by not using this muscle into being more pessimistic about reaching out to that long lost friend, asking that person out at the bar that we're attracted to, asking for a raise at work or stepping into the conflict that we're having with the co-worker that we think is going to blow up in our face.

34:18Yeah, that could be. As a psychologist, I'm always a little leery about conscious and subconscious or unconscious kind of language because most of the things that we're talking about are things that people can recognize if you ask them. I think though often, and this is I think the phenomena that you're describing is that we're just not thinking about these things. It's not occurring to us, perhaps. And so we're passing through, not taking opportunities to do things that we might otherwise be able to. But the other thing that I think might resonate with listeners a little bit, too, is our data suggests people are overly pessimistic in that our expectations are more pessimistic than they ought to be.

35:02But if you actually look at where they exist at an absolute level, really, I think in many of these phenomena, the better description is that we're not optimistic enough. So people, for instance, and so I've done this now with several thousand people in my classes at the University of Chicago. I have them reach out to express gratitude to someone who they really appreciate, but who they've never expressed their gratitude to before for whatever reason. My students, these folks, are not confused that the recipient of their gratitude letter will feel good. They think that they will be considerably happier than normal.

35:42What they don't anticipate is that their recipient will feel even better than that, that they will be delighted, three emojis, multiple crying faces, actual tears when they call, that they will be maxing out their positive mood. That's what they don't get. So you're right. The pessimism language is relative. I think the way this shows up in experience often is that, you know, people are somewhat optimistic, but not optimistic enough about the power they have to lift people up.

36:15Johnny:yeah i think in general when you've been on the receiving end of it it feels far more obvious to us like when we get that message and we're overwhelmed with joy of being seen in that way validated for what we have taken in our mind as steps to really nurture the relationship to care about the other person to invest in them and we're recognized for that yeah it feels incredible but then when we're sitting there writing it or talking it into existence it just doesn't feel like it's going to land that way and that awkwardness comes up and a lot of what we're talking about here and you touched on earlier is is the labeling and the self-identity that we then lean into around that labeling small talk is awkward i'm an introvert i have these beliefs about myself that color my expectations of how the world will react to these behaviors Yep.

37:07And keep me stuck, you know, missing opportunities that could have to lift myself up and other people up as well. Yeah, that's very, that is very powerful. And this shift in perspective is also really important. It is one of the reasons why we consistently underestimate how well reaching out will go. When we think about ourselves, we view ourselves through a different lens than we view other people and that other people view us through. When we're thinking about ourselves, we tend to think about ourselves in terms of our competency. So you sit down to write a gratitude letter to somebody you love, but who you just haven't shared this with before.

37:43What's on the top of your mind is, what on earth am I going to say? How am I going to do this? You sit down next to somebody and think about having a conversation or a meaningful conversation with somebody. You think about, how am I going to carry on this conversation? You're thinking about your competency. other people though when they're evaluating us they're not thinking as much about our competency think they're caring a lot more about our warmth is this somebody who is kind is trustworthy seems like somebody i should approach versus reach out you know avoid and stay away from and so when we're reaching out to other people in these social these pro-social ways that connect us with other people those are inherently warm activities inherently warm actions that other people tend to evaluate fairly highly.

38:28But if we're worried about our competence, right, that's what's going to lead us to underestimate how well these are going to turn out. And you can feel that if you just flip the lens on it, right? So think about a gratitude letter you received. Were you really spell checking it? Like, were you really checking the grammar to make sure they got that exactly right? I mean, really? No, you weren't. You just knew that was lovely and nice, but it can be hard for us to see when we're in a different perspective.

38:59Johnny:With that label, we see this all the time with our clients who self-identify as introvert. They then follow along saying, well, introverts enjoy being alone. So therefore, I'm taking rational behaviors of being alone. I'm these choices of wearing headphones and not interacting and reaching out like, well, that's the label. I'm an introvert. And it's actually not true. And we find this again and again in our clients who then step outside of that label. and just take a little action towards connection. And then the way they feel after receiving that connection back is far better than sitting in solitude, is far better than making the choice to watch another Netflix show.

39:39Your summer starts now with Memorial Day deals at The Home Depot. It's time to fire up summer cookouts with the Next Grill four burner gas grill on special buy for only$199. and entertain all season with the Hampton Bay West Grove seven-piece outdoor dining set for only$499. This Memorial Day, get low prices guaranteed at the Home Depot. While supplies last, price invalid May 14th through May 27th. U.S. only exclusions apply. See homedepot.com slash price match for details. Expedia and Visit Scotland invite you to come step into centuries of history that await in Scotland. Castles steeped in legend.

40:19walk along cobblestone streets. Come share the warmth of stories passed down through generations. This is a place with a past that is fully present today and all yours to explore. Plan your Scottish escape today at expedia.com slash visit Scotland. Yeah, this is one, so this is where I think I get the most pushback from research in the field and from how I write about it in the book as well. And I want to be gentle here. I mean, because it's a little, I think the way to think about this is in terms of exercise where we don't quite have these reactions. But when it comes to things like introversion and extroversion or our personality, we often think of these things as describing the type of people that we are, that extroverts like connecting with other people, introverts prefer keeping to themselves.

41:13That just doesn't show up in the data. In fact, what shows up in the data is that people across that spectrum over the course of their day or in a given interaction are actually reporting feeling more positive when they're connecting with other people than when they're keeping to themselves. But what differs are, as you point out, people's beliefs about this. And so personality like extroversion or introversion describes less the type of person you are than it does the types of beliefs you hold and therefore the types of choices you make and therefore the types of habits you develop. And we can think about this like we would think about analogously to physical exercise.

41:54So some of us exercise a lot. Some of us exercise not at all. We'd all be a little healthier if we exercised a little bit more. I mean, in varying degrees, if you're already exercising a ton, exercising more is not going to matter that much. But if we were exercising more, you'd increase how healthy you were, including, especially perhaps, if you're not exercising at all. And that's true in terms of our social exercise as well. We've known since the 1980s that extroversion is strongly correlated with how much positive affect, how much happiness people report feeling over the course of a day, how satisfied they are with their lives, and that you can also increase well-being by encouraging or prompting people to be a little more social in their days, to act a little more extroverted.

42:43And you can take that on gently, just like you would exercise. So if you're not somebody who exercises a lot, you wouldn't go out and run a marathon today, right? You'd maybe choose to walk or take the stairs and then take those steps where you have an opportunity to do it and try it, see how it feels. Maybe there are activities that are easier for you than others. Try those, see how they feel, and then just take note of that and see, can you do this again? That's all. Same thing like physical exercise. We can do that in our social lives too. And if you would like to have a little more positive mood over the course of your day, the data suggests saying hello every now and then, giving somebody a smile, So patting a back when you have a chance to walking with somebody to get coffee together rather than alone are good ways to try doing it.

43:34Johnny:And oftentimes that labeling we might not have even thought about. And this is something that my wife and I are really thinking a lot about with our young daughter. We encounter parents who will say, oh, my child's this shy. And it's like, well, they're a toddler. Like, are they really shy or are they just really connected to mom? Do they really feel comfortable around strangers or is it stranger danger? So this labeling, oftentimes I'm shy, may have come from a family member or a friend who just labeled you as that and then you held on to that. And now you're making choices that go along with this identity and belief you have about how a shy person interacts.

44:10Johnny:A shy person can't talk to people on the train. It can't do your morning routine. Nick, I'm shy. Right, right. There's another challenge to this kind of labeling when it comes to sociality, extroversion and introversion too. we find that people tend to overestimate how introverted they are. That is, if you ask people to put themselves on a percentile scale, for most dimensions, people tend to think of themselves as above average on the traits that are desirable, on the desirable end of the spectrum. But when it comes to extroversion and introversion, people actually tend to think that they are more introverted on these scales than they actually are.

44:47They tend to think, for instance, they're in the 70th percentile of introversion on average when they're actually in the 50th percentile, say. And the reason for that is that there's an asymmetry in the information that we have about ourselves and other people. So you, for instance, notice that after you spend a lot of time talking with people, you go home and you're tired. It turns out that doesn't make you introverted. That makes you human being. Other people are going home and feeling the same way. you are not seeing that, right? You also see other people's extroverted behavior, right? You are around other people when they are around you, right?

45:25When you are talking with each other, you don't see them when they are alone by themselves on a Friday night, just wanting to have some time to themselves watching Netflix, right? And so there's an asymmetry in the information we have about ourselves. We see our own quote unquote introverted behavior, but we tend to only see other people's extroverted behavior. And that makes us think that we are more introverted than we actually are. The other thing that is, I think is important to recognize is that there are a lot of myths about extroversion and introversion that can then come from this. I spend a lot of time in the book talking about this, about people's experience.

46:03A big one is that people get their happiness from different places. That doesn't look to be, that doesn't look to be true. and that also there are differences in how fatigued or tired, for instance, people get, that extroverts are energized by interacting with other people. Introverts are fatigued by it. It turns out when scientists actually look at this across the spectrum, people are more energized when they're engaging with other people. And then afterwards, just like if you do physical exercise, you get tired because it's tiring. You're doing stuff, right? And so you get this drop in how much energy you feel.

46:36You get tired afterwards. But that drop, research suggests, comes at the same point, whether you report being extroverted or introverted, you know, a few hours after you've engaged in some social activity, just like we all get fatigued after we exercise too. So there's often a disconnect between our beliefs about these labels and reality, and those beliefs can keep us in places we don't necessarily want to be. Some people are more of an effort to hang out with than other people. Some people fit your personality or very easy. And imagine being the person who has to deal with an extreme introverted person.

47:17And I'm like, I have to go home because dealing with your introverted ass has made me exhausted. That is true. I would be a little gentler with that, John. Well, I'm not known for that.

47:34Yes. Yeah. So some of this can, you know, can certainly affect our social relationships and not, look, I don't mean to suggest that everybody's the same. Not everybody's the same. We have, there's plenty of diversity here. What we find, though, is that across our differences, this tendency to be not optimistic enough, as AJ might put it, seems to be quite robust. And they just suggest, you know, our data don't suggest you should be reaching out all the time or that it's always going to turn out well. I mean, that's not at all what it suggests. It suggests that we get the odds that it will turn out well wrong, that we get the odds that somebody will reach back well to us in a way that feels good to both of us if we reach out to connect with them first.

48:17We get the odds wrong. And as a result, we're just we're a little overly reluctant to reach out and engage. And so it suggests when you have those red flags go off in your mind, maybe this person doesn't want to engage even though I'd be happy to talk, or maybe I won't get the words right in this gratitude letter, or maybe they won't want to help me if I ask for this thing that I really need and that they can help me with, that you should just test it. Just test that flag. We find in our data over and over again in our research that when we test those flags, people aren't optimistic enough. And I find in my own life that when I test those flags, these interactions often turn out notably better than I would expect that they expect they would.

49:01I've kind of worked that out of my system after years of doing it, but that was certainly the place that I started from.

49:06Johnny:what's interesting to me is because of this need for social connectedness those failures tend to stand out more those rejections those parts where we put ourselves out there and we didn't get the response we had hoped we can hold on to those for years and we see this with our clients where even after that event you can have tons and tons and tons of data if i was a scientist collecting where it did go well, where they did respond well, that one negative experience we can hold onto to not only self-label, but then to adjust our behavior, to avoid the pain of feeling that way. Vulnerability and authenticity open us up to pain.

49:46Johnny:And if you've had the pain, the challenge, the difficulty of not getting the result you want or not feeling connected in that moment or feeling rejected, that can feel emotionally very traumatizing for you and then create a pattern behavior to avoid that in the future. Yeah. So psychologists refer to that as negativity dominance. We actually came into this research thinking that that would be a really, really powerful mechanism. Interestingly, and this is surprising to me, we've had a harder time finding support for that in our data than I would have guessed, that the negative moments don't stand out quite as much as I might have imagined, at least when people have lots of experience to learn from.

50:30But I think what you are seeing in your clients and what we were imagining in our data and what I think happens out in the world a lot is that these bad experiences, they can stand out for you. And often they can stop you from trying to continue learning. They change your behavior, right? So we don't then get the same kind of data after a rejection that we might have before one because you stop trying as much. Oh, I won't do that again. You learn when you have a bad conversation on a plane. And then people will maybe talk to you. So maybe you'll get more data like that. But you might be reluctant to reach out and engage again in the same way you once were.

51:14And so I think just treating those as single data points, continuing to be a good scientist or a good experimentalist in your own life, then continue testing those beliefs is the way to go. You know, maybe one out of a hundred will turn out poorly. Maybe not that, maybe even not that poorly. But if you get that one early, it doesn't mean that you should stop running the experiment and testing, testing yourself.

51:39Johnny:I think another belief that a lot of people have is the sequencing of communication. So I have to do small talk first. I have to exchange pleasantries and then I can get to the deeper talk. But actuality, I just enjoy the deeper talk. And that's why I only want to be with my friends and not with strangers. Yeah. Yeah. So in fact, psychologists thought this. Art and Elaine Aaron, two famous social psychologists, married couple, they study relationships, wonderful people, developed this procedure known as the Fast Friends Procedure. Early 1990s, this became famous thanks to Mandy Lee Canton's New York Times piece about the 36 questions that will lead you to fall in love with anyone, essentially.

52:18And Art and Elaine Aaron designed this procedure where you ask a series, 36 different questions that are increasingly deep or they remain kind of shallow. And they thought you needed a long runway in order to really get deep with someone. You needed all of these questions. They thought lots of other things too that turned out not to be true in these conversations. They thought that you had to want to become friends with somebody, that you had to be similar with someone in order for these deeper conversations to really connect you. Those things turned out not to be true. All you needed was talking about the deep stuff.

52:56And we find in our work that you can get to those deep questions very quickly if you want, and that those conversations then tend to go not just well, but surprisingly well. I've run deep conversations now, people through these experiments, thousands of times, over 5 ,000 times. In fact, by this point, where we have people talk about things like, what are you most grateful for in your life? Can you tell me about it? Or can you tell me about when the last times you cried in front of another person? Those are taken right from Art and Elaine Aaron's Fast Friends procedure. And they're asking those questions right away in these conversations.

53:32And what folks find is that when they reach out and take an interest in another person through these questions, in a context that allows the other person to take an interest in them too, these conversations go much better than they expect them to. You don't have to, you don't have to beat around the bush forever in order to ask somebody, tell me, what's your story? How'd you get here today? Right? What do you do? Fine. Do you love what you do? Right? Who's a great friend of yours? Tell me about a friend you love, right? What's an activity you love doing? What would you, what would your dream job be?

54:11You don't have to await 36 questions to get to that. That can be question number two, if you'd like to. Yeah.

54:18Johnny:And what I love about all those examples is it really touches on their core values, positive emotions that they feel, their passions, things that drive them. And it cuts through a lot of the stuff that we put in front of ourselves. Like we have to talk about the weather. We have to talk about how we got here on the train. Yep. Yep. It gets from outside conversation, conversation outside of the person to stuff that's really inside a person, right? So why, right? Gets to motivations and goals and desires, or how are you feeling, right? It gets to focusing on the future. What would you hope to do in the future?

54:57That gets outside of the kind of the mundane small talk, which is outside the person to stuff that's more meaningful. What do you actually care about? What's important to you? That's what we mean by deeper conversation.

55:11Johnny:Another belief we find a lot of our clients have is that honesty kills rapport. So once you've started to create a connection, you got momentum working, you really feel good about the potential here, then I have to soften things. I can't be quite so honest. I can't share what I'm really feeling. I can't be authentic. And they remove the authenticity that's actually needed for that deeper connection. I know the science is really interesting here too. Yeah, no, this has surprised me some too and surprises our participants as well. So some of this research comes from my colleague, Emma Levine here at the University of Chicago.

55:47And what she asked people to do, for instance, is to spend their entire day either being as kind as they possibly can in all of their relationships or being as honest as they possibly can in all of their relationships. And then there's a third condition where people are just asked to be more mindful about their relationships, which is their control condition. And going into this day, right, so before the day, people think that being kind is going to be a happy day and is going to strengthen their relationships. And being mindful is also going to be okay. But being honest is going to be bad for it, right?

56:23It's going to harm my relationships and not going to be a nice day. When they actually go through the day, they find that being honest is just as good an experience as being kind and in some ways better because they feel more authentic in their relationships. And that part is uplifting. And what Emma finds that people miss is that people tend to think that they tend to think about the content of what they're conveying, whether it is kind or unkind, positive or negative, the content of what I'm saying to you. And they don't quite fully appreciate what the act of being honest with someone is also conveying beyond just the words.

57:07So when I am honest with a friend or with a colleague or with someone I love, or even with a stranger, I am conveying content in my words, right, about whatever it is I'm talking about. But I'm also signaling to them that I trust them because I'm being honest with them and I'm being authentic with them. And that is a warm characteristic. And that kind of honesty, like to my PhD students or postdocs or to me even, like if I give a talk and I wasn't doing a very good job, it is unkind to lie to me about that. Giving honest feedback is kind, or it can be kind when it's well-intended and it is something that somebody can do something about.

57:55And it is then also interpreted by the people who receive it in those cases as also being kind. When you tell me this talk didn't go very well you just gave, Nick, or this lecture wasn't very good if you're a student of mine in these ways, these are the ways you can make it better. That's kindness to me, right? And that's what Emma and we find as well that people misunderstand is how honesty can also be kind to people and interpret it as kind.

58:23Johnny:What's interesting is this warmth factor. So our warmth is well-received, but giving people an opportunity to be warm to us is also well-received. And this is a roadblock to many of our high performers who joined the course because they feel like asking for help is a burden, shows weakness in areas where they are already judging themselves. And they withhold these opportunities to give someone else in their life an opportunity to be warm to them, to help support them. Right, right. So these barriers to reaching out and engaging with other people that will create relationships to show up all over the place.

59:02So what you're describing here are barriers to asking for help when you need it, right? Nobody gets along in life on their own. We all need help from other people at times. And it turns out when we are providing help to other people, it tends to lift us up. If I want to make somebody feel good on any given day, I should ask them to do an act of kindness. As a researcher, as a scientist, ask them to do an act of kindness. That's going to make you feel better on any given day. And when you ask for help from somebody, you are giving them an opportunity to be kind to you. And so what we find in our work is that people who are asked for help do in fact feel a little better after they're helping, things that they can do that are pretty easy to do, but that those who are asking for help from these people tend to underestimate how willing they'll be to help, how happy they'll feel to help.

59:52They tend to perceive this as in terms of the content that they're asking for. I'm asking you to do something for me without thinking about the meaning of that act, which is an act of kindness for that other person that's going to make them feel better about themselves. This has really changed the way I think about asking for help. I am not a person maybe like many men or many people who are worried about seeming maybe weak if they ask for help or incompetent if they ask for help. This has changed the way I think about asking for help. I now think of it as being unkind if I don't ask somebody for help that they could give to me because I would create a stronger relationship there.

1:00:34And I would give them a chance to feel better for giving me a helping hand and makes me be more open to asking for help when I need it.

1:00:44Johnny:Part of this is this attempt to hide our flaws. Our analytical clients want to appear as super competent because they feel they get a lot of value through their competence and their information work, knowledge job in their career. They've seen this loop play out again and again. And therefore, the asking of help or showing that things are messy or flawed in their mind may lose status, may lose the connection they have with people that matter. That might be true in the moment, just kind of a glimmer of the moment, but not as much as people expect. But over time, notice that asking somebody for help encourages them to help you, to do something for you, and makes that person feel more connected to you.

1:01:28Ben Franklin knew of this, right? He knew of this years and years ago. He said he had this famous story he told about wanting to make or to encourage this other person who was somewhat antagonistic towards him, kind of shift his mood and break the ice between them. And so he went and he asked if he could borrow a book from this person. And he didn't really need it, but wanted to ask for help from him because he knew that if the other person helped by lending him the book, the other person would like him a little more and feel a little more positive about him. And this has come to be known as the Ben Franklin effect, in fact, in psychology, that asking for help actually connects other people to you more, makes them like you more, not less.

1:02:13Johnny:Well, thank you so much for joining us, Nick. Appreciate it, especially with the quick turnaround. Where can our audience find out about your latest book? So if you search for a little more social online, you will find it. It's available everywhere you look for your books. If you happen to like my voice in this podcast, I did the audio recording for it as well, which is pretty fun. I've also been doing LinkedIn a little bit. I don't do a lot of social media because it makes me unhappy and miserable. But I have started doing LinkedIn. And there I tell some stories about folks who are living a little more social in their own lives.

1:02:45And that's kind of fun. So those are the places.

1:02:47Johnny:Well, thank you again. Absolutely. Thank you, AJ.

1:03:01Johnny:There's a new way to sweet green. Meet Wraps. Handheld, hearty, and made for life on the moon. With bold, chef-crafted flavors, fresh ingredients, and over 40 grams of protein, they're built to satisfy without slowing you down. Try Wraps today in the app or at order.sweetgreen.com. Available at all participating locations.