Listen to the chapter here
[Shawn Achor]
If you look at this world, especially with AI and with advances in biotechnology, it feels like the role of human belief is on the decline. There's this hunger for people to find meaning and belief that they don't know what to do with. We're comparing ourselves to people who have more, when there are so many people who have so much less.
These moments of awe, I feel like are fleeting in adult life because we feel like we've seen everything and I feel like we've lost it. Hey everybody, this is Neil Pasricha and welcome or welcome back to chapter 162, 62, 62 of three books. I'm so excited about this podcast chapter.
I've been looking forward to this one for a long time. I think it was about 10, 12 years ago when I was invited to go to Abu Dhabi, of all places, to speak to the royal family. I was a new speaker at the time.
I was like, I'll go whenever they want me. I'll stay till whenever they need me. I was there like a week.
I was doing rehearsals. I was doing all these dinners, but there was this other speaker there, this rock star who like flew in, nailed the talk, basically handled all the questions for the Q and A, and then he took off. And I was like, who was that masked man?
It was indeed the one and only Sean Achor, A-C-H-O-R. You might know Sean from his TED talk, The Happy Secret of Better Work, which is no joke, one of the most viewed TED talks of all time. He's probably best known for his book, The Happiness Advantage, but he's also written Big Potential, Before Happiness, and this brand new book, which I'm holding up if you're watching me on video, which I absolutely love called The Power of Beliefs.
The launch of this book, which just came out, which just hit the New York Times Best Seller list, is the impetus for our kind of first formal conversation. I've known Sean for years, he's been a friend for years, but this book really blew me away. In our heads, we get to choose what we believe, and by adopting new beliefs or a different set of beliefs that address our scars, as Sean calls them, we can actually lead a happier life, a longer life, a more fulfilling life.
What are those beliefs? How do we kind of create them or deepen them in our own lives? That is the topic of our conversation today.
We are going to discuss the placebo effect, the cost of measuring your worth through comparison, understanding the psychology of awe, whether or not reading fantasy novels can help us identify the magic of living, why we all need to feel like we matter, and of course, Sean Acor's three most formative books. Let's flip the page right now. The Happiest Advantage was a seismic book in the happiness world, you know, you were very kind enough to let me kind of like, you know, jump on your coattails with some of the ideas in there.
You blurred my book. You're so kind and so gracious, you know, and we've kind of gone different directions under this field. You know, I have this whole thing about retirement.
I'm like, really anti-retirement. You've gone into like potential and beliefs and meaning. It's kind of cool now, like 10 years later, to be reconnecting and be like, yeah, we're both in this umbrella of like living a great life and how do you do that?
And the power of beliefs, I mean, I really want to ask you before we jump into your three formative books, you know, what took you to this topic? Kind of like, why this book? Why now?
Tell us about the book. Sure. Well, so part of the reason I haven't seen you in a while is that I took time away.
You know this, but a lot of people don't that eight years ago when my last book came out, Big Potential, the day before the book launch, Michelle's water broke three months early. So instead of going on a book tour to talk about research on how you pursue happiness and success, instead my happiness sat in an incubator in NICU for the next 50 days while they tried to keep my daughter alive. And so it was this pivotal moment in my life because you and I both travel a lot, but we're one of the things I respect about you so much is that there's so many people that are in the space and they take as many talks as they possibly can and they're a lot about self-promotion and not only are you genuine and authentic, I think everyone listening to this already knows that, but also how family oriented you are. And I found myself, you know, wanting time at home, you know, you're praying for it. A few years later, the pandemic happened.
So I've got to be careful what I pray for in terms of decreasing talks. But this was a pivotal moment for me because Zoe being born early wasn't on my plan. I had a plan about lunch.
What week was she born? How much did she weigh? She was born almost three months early and she was three pounds.
And Michelle was just telling me this for the book about three pounds. So she was little. And there's this moment where I held her hand and she's hooked up to all these wires where they're trying to keep her alive.
We almost lost her three times in this two day period of time. We didn't have a name for her. She kept sparking back to life.
As you know, her name is Zoe Sparks Acor. So we found her name. But I remember when I was holding her hand, how quickly my beliefs changed about where I felt like my meaning was in the world, but also what I cared about.
And very quickly in that hospital, I can't remember if it was the first day or it was in the first couple of days, I made a decision to step back away from work and that I would still give talks, but I was going to stop doing media, stop doing everything except whatever was just coming in. And I basically became a stay at home dad. And it was glorious.
I was a stay at home dad for several years. Basically, I had, as you know, I give occasional talks, but then I would race back home to be there with my kids. And it was this wonderful period of time.
But it was also challenging too, honestly, because you see, it feels like the world's passing you by and these opportunities are passing you by. But it was also this moment where it gave me space to reflect on what I believed, what I cared about. And it actually led into this work in two ways.
One was because I had that space when the pandemic actually happened, there was space that the world gave. But also I had this mental space where I wanted to help the people that were suffering the most, which was the hospital systems in the schools. And I know Leslie's just starting back up, working as a public school teacher.
My mom was a public school teacher for 30 years. That's where my heart was. My dad too.
Oh, really? Yeah. So we had the opportunity to research in these places where they were struggling, but also had a heart for.
And what I learned there was exactly what I was learning with Zoe, but also struggling, feeling like I was missing out. The beliefs that we hold about the world don't just change our experience of the present. They predict what happens next.
And it's the next part that was so exciting, I think. But while I was doing that, I have to tell you, maybe I'm skipping ahead, but just the thing that also Zoe triggered was I started looking at some studies. It was initially some studies on a condition we were worried that Zoe might have.
We were worried she could have anything, just being born so early. And I happened to notice that the placebo effect on this medication in 2000 and 2011 was wildly different. And I was like, that's weird that they clearly didn't run the study well.
It's the same drug. But then I stumbled across it in a depression article where someone was saying that the placebo effect, the effect that if you give a fake drug or medication to someone and they believe that it's real, it can have real health outcomes, depending on the condition, it varies how much the effect actually is. But the placebo effect for depression, for some reason, has increased by 7% every decade for the last three decades.
And it occurred to me, like, why in the world would the power of— The placebo effect for the depression drug? Yes. So if you tell somebody you're giving them an antidepressant, but it's not real.
It's a sugar pill. They don't actually use sugar because that changes blood sugar. But just a fake, inert substance that should have no effect upon depression, but people believe that this is going to heal me.
And you see the healing effect of that, of that pure belief, because it's an inert substance, actually was rising over time. And then I started looking at pain articles. I looked at 23 different— I'm confused.
Sorry, why is that? Why does that happen? Or you're about to tell us.
Well, so we can talk about why, but let me just say before that there was everything, like heart disease, 23 different types of chronic pain, depression, anxiety, childhood epilepsy, like very serious conditions that you wouldn't think giving somebody a fake medication would have an effect. But their belief, the power of their belief, had doubled over the past two decades for many of these conditions and tripled sometimes in some of these studies that I found. So the question is why, right?
So we knew in science that beliefs were powerful. That's why we measure placebos. That's why every drug that we test that's new, we compare to the power of belief.
We've known it in politics and religion for thousands of years. But what was stunning was that we could quantify that the power of belief was rising. So to get to your question, I think it's a really interesting one.
Because if you look at this world, especially with AI and with advances in biotechnology, it feels like the role of human belief is on the decline, right? That belief is becoming less powerful because we've got so much technological precision and advancement. And you know, Chad, GPT can do things that we can't do, and it can do it instantaneously for 100 million people at the same time, right?
So it feels like our beliefs, our hopes might have less to do with how well you'll survive cancer or get a job in the world of AI. And yet, what we were finding was the opposite. We were actually finding, not just in the medical space, but in other spaces as well, that the power of belief was rising.
I think the reason that's happening is because we're in this unique period of time that you and I have been working throughout. I'm calling it the Great Drift, but other people have called it something different. But our beliefs, our shared beliefs, for all of humanity, came from our job, our village, the government, or our religion.
But if you look at the past 20 years, we've actually become untethered from all four of those. People don't stay in the same job anymore. Only 16 percent of Americans want to keep their same job next year that they have this year, which is historic lows.
People don't stay in the same village. They scatter across the world for work and for school. And even if they stay in the same village, face-to-face contact is down by 60 percent, right?
So the village has changed. Face-to-face contact is down 60 percent. Go ahead.
Yes. I'm just repeating because it just sounds shocking to me. I guess this doesn't count, what we're doing right now.
I don't know if this actually counts for the study. So they were looking at adult males in the United States for the study, which are the ones that are getting hit the hardest for this. And the reason for that is that guys are just not as good at creating those social connections.
I know that the friends we meet up for dinners are the ones Michelle organized for me. All my friends were me riding on coattails to be like, why didn't the husband get invited? It's so common, right?
And then you have situations where you're very close to me. I won't share names, but there was a divorce in my extended family, and the man is out to sea socially. And the woman in this situation was still going to her ski retreats and her dinner parties.
Because it became obvious post-divorce that, oh, this was all through the one side of the relationship. And so he was very untethered, and it was very uncomfortable. I'm agreeing with you, but just with an acute example that I have close to me.
Job, village, government, religion. Decline of all four. The government in the United States, we're seeing historic lows in terms of the trust that people have in government.
For the first time ever, actually, there are more people that are not a Democrat or a Republican than ever before, right? Oh, interesting. There's more people that are neither than there are Democrats or Republicans.
Not together. 45%, and stunningly high, right? The people are just like, neither of these parties represent me.
So you've got an untethering that's occurring there, and that's new. And then also, in 2000, 5% of people claimed to not have religious beliefs. And that number has gone from 5% to 24% last year.
What we're seeing is a size... In 2025. Yeah.
Which is super fast. It's like a percent a year-ish. You know what I mean?
Right, and what happened? A million Americans every year are like, I'm out. Yeah, and you know what I find fascinating?
It's not like people are like, oh, well, there was a scientific study and we found out there's no God. Right? It's not like there was this moment where we're like, oh, here's the proof.
That's why 24%, one out of four, it's been this creep in terms of this lack of trust. But you know what? It's people not having that village where they went to that same religious institution, or that being part of what their family did, or their social connections, that hub of social support.
But I think what we've been left with in the midst of this great drift away from those four things is this hunger that I believe you've seen too, and that you write towards as well, that there's this hunger for people to find meaning and belief that they don't know what to do with. And so we become alone as a society, so people grab onto OnlyFans subscriptions, or they follow influencers who are full of anger like they are, but they don't have many... Sure, yeah.
My new idol is Mel Robbins or Tim Ferriss. Right. Yes, exactly.
And as a result of that, a lot of the times what we're grabbing onto is this hope that this person is the one, right? That this person can satisfy a lot of what I felt like I've lost when I don't have a village, right? So my village is now my friends on X, which are...
If you scroll through there, as you know, you get a few hits of dopamine, but you usually leave feeling either more alone or feel like you're missing out. And when those things occur, it leaves these seven scars that I write about in the book, these seven markers of the great drift, which are these beliefs that my behavior doesn't matter, which we get when we get those news alerts or we feel it in politics. My behavior doesn't matter.
I'm alone. I don't matter. This work is not meaningful.
I have nothing to give. I'm missing out, and there's nothing greater than me. And when we have those...
Can you say those one more time? Sure. I did them really fast.
Seven scars. Seven scars, you called them. Yeah.
So they're the polar opposites of what I write about in the book. Yeah, because your book is subtitled, by the way, for those that don't have a copy yet, although I highly recommend this book. I mean, I really...
Although I'm hosting a books podcast, I rarely say that. I highly recommend this book. The subtitle is, How Strengthening Seven Core Beliefs Predicts Greater Success and a Better Life.
And you're saying those seven core beliefs are exact opposites of the seven scars. And say those seven scars one more time, because I want us all to just... You know, me, you, the person in the love seat beside us, or the chair beside us, they're driving a truck right now.
They're walking a dog right now. They're in a gym and a hotel basement. And just, as Sean goes through these seven scars, just, you know, close your eyes if you have a sec or you touch your heart and just ask yourself honestly, how many of those do I feel?
Because I'm going to do that as you do it again. Yeah, I'm willing to bet the majority of the listeners, including myself, have felt one of these beliefs over the past 24 hours. It's the belief that my behavior doesn't matter.
I'm alone, that I don't matter, that this work is not meaningful, that I have nothing to give, that I'm missing out, or that there's nothing greater than me. And when I look at my friends, like, when my friends and myself, or when I look at people suffering in this world, and when I think about, I'm thinking about friends right now that are going through hard periods of time in their life, I feel like they're struggling with at least one of those, right? Like a student, like one of the parents I know is struggling with their kid who has ADHD.
And we actually have two, which is, I have two sets of friends I'm thinking about. One, they both have kids who have ADHD. One feels like that he's not very smart now.
And he also feels like there's nothing he can do. So he got this diagnosis, so there's nothing he can do, so he's just kind of, like, doing worse in school. Drifting.
Yeah, drifting. And he, I believe that he, in that moment, he believes my behavior doesn't matter. And maybe some feelings like, I don't matter.
But we have this other friend who, their kid who has ADHD, and they're differing degrees, I'm sure, of ADHD, but he's getting some help. He feels like that this makes him more creative. He is getting into music right now.
He's starting up a band. He is, he feels like that he is still smart. He just learns in a different way.
And he'll tell you all the celebrities that have ADHD, just like him. And he's like, yeah, Michael Jordan, Albert Einstein. Exactly.
And what happened, he feels like my behavior matters. I am not alone. I matter, right?
And suddenly, you get a completely different outcome, which is what I found so fascinating before we even get into the research part of it, which is, if you take the same world, but change a belief, same world, but a different belief, you get a different outcome. If you have the same kid with ADHD, or the same person with stage four cancer, or the same person who's trying to find a job or find love, if you change just one of those beliefs, like if you have somebody working at a company and they believe this work is meaningful versus work is not meaningful, complete split in what happens next. Or someone who's going through cancer, who believes that their behavior matters versus they don't, or that they're alone or they're not.
You get a split not only in how acute their symptoms are, but scientifically, what these beliefs do is they also predict what happens next. These beliefs don't just change the math. If you can strengthen those beliefs inside yourself, you change the outcomes of your life, your health, your longevity, your ability to connect with friends.
Everything improves. It's the classic Shawn Achor twist. It's not this, it's that.
It's the classic Achorism. You thought it was X, it's actually Y. You've done it again.
It feels so similar, in a good way, to when I first saw your TED Talk. I was like, what? I didn't know Sonia Lubomirsky at the time.
I didn't know Diener. At the time, I was like, what is he talking about? It's flipped.
You're doing it again. How'd you come to the seven, by the way? Is that from the research that you gathered?
You distilled it down to these seven? Where did those seven scars slash beliefs evolve from? I didn't know how many we were going to come up with.
What I did was, I took all these beliefs. We have so many beliefs about everything. We have beliefs about who drives a cyber truck, liberal or conservative.
We have beliefs about whether you should wear collars. That's a good example. Those beliefs don't really change us very much.
In the literature, I just kept looking for patterns. I was looking for, is there one thing that could predict what happens next for people? The belief that my behavior matters comes up over and over again.
But then there's these other ones where you get the loneliness epidemic. We started seeing, I'm alone versus I'm not, having huge implications. When I started putting these umbrellas, they came down to seven.
I didn't want it to be some catchy number. They'd be like, the seven secrets, but they... The seven beliefs of highly effective people.
Exactly. But to be honest, I know we've missed some. Because as I'm starting to talk to people, they're like, hey, you could have framed some of these differently.
The one, I'm alone versus I'm not alone. I'm not sure it's the same thing as the world is for you versus the world is against you. That might have been a separate category.
Or I said that the belief in my behavior matters. But people are like, how about the change is possible? I was about to say that.
I was about to say, it is possible for me to be successful in this place. There's that nihilistic kind of thing. So my guest in chapter 34 of this podcast was Jim Levine, who was also my literary agent.
And I asked him, Jim, what's going on with nonfiction book sales right now? And he's like, they're declining because of this exposition-based podcast tendency. I was like, what are you talking about, Jim?
He's like, well, you know, these are all the shows you're going to go on. When Oprah has a guest, and Diary of a CEO has a guest, and Rich Roll has a guest, and they spend two to three hours fully examining the book. So people are not buying the book because they've...
People say to me, and they do say this to me. They're like, oh, Neil, have you read this Peter Attia book? I'm like, no.
Well, then listen to this four-hour conversation he had with Andrew Huberman about it, right?
[Neil Pasricha]
Or whatever it is.
[Shawn Achor]
So I only mention that because where you are right now is like... Because I've read this thing. You're like a third of the way in, right?
You're like about a third of the way in. There's all the research backing all these things. There's then how to build all these things.
I mean, I love the DeLorean, you know, like the Wednesday nights, going through camera rolls with your kids. And you have all these cool exercises and practical tips for people. I don't want to say go get the book and find out, but I'm going to kind of say it because I also know we got time crunch here.
We got time crunch. And I want to be sensitive to your time. Sean is giving you basically half of the book here.
And I can't recommend this book enough. The reason I highlight it, by the way, is because I know when I give it to my wife or give it to my kids, they're going to say, oh, a whole book? You want me...
Well, then I'm going to say, you can just read my highlights. That's why I have a lot of highlights. But I want them to read it.
It's vital to me that everybody in my family reads this. In fact, I already am in our kitchen. We have like little mantras pasted up and stuff.
I'm going to write down these seven beliefs. I'm going to paste them on my kitchen cabinets. And I'm going to send you a picture when I do it.
Because that's how much I want the text from this book to live in my home. That's awesome. It's so good, man.
You've outdone yourself. I sent you a message right after I got off the plane. And I was like, I want you to know how good this is.
You already know it probably. But I was like, I think this is your best work. I really do.
I think you're getting better. The amount of research you have in here is staggering. You can't flip two pages in this book without getting eight research studies.
And if you're a research fiend, this guy's done all... You've done all the work. You're like, here's one sentence on this.
So I want to kind of hold this. I have Sean Aker here. This is one of the best researchers, best nonfiction writers, best speakers on the planet.
Before you came here, I asked you, hey, what three books shaped you? And that's a question I don't think they're going to get when they listen to you on Oprah, and they listen to you on Mel Robbins, and all these amazing shows that you do. And so I hope you don't mind.
Why don't we leave The Power of Belief there, holding on a pedestal. And if you're watching this on YouTube, you can see it right behind Sean. We'll put links for everybody to buy and grab a copy.
Like I said, please do. But can we go a little bit into you, a little bit into Sean, a little bit into which three books most shaped your life? Let's do it.
That sounds great. And you can either say, do you have a preference on where we begin? That's the other question I have.
Like, I guess which of these books did you read earliest in your life, maybe? Without saying the other two titles. Yeah.
I read The Great Divorce first. Ah, The Great Divorce by C.S. Lewis. Cover is a deep navy blue with white rays of light streaming in from the top right corner, red flames sparking in front, and on top of a red bus driving through the middle of the cover.
On top, it says, best-selling author of The Chronicles of Narnia, in small caps, followed by a gigantic C.S. Lewis. I always heard, when the name is bigger than the title, that's when you're a star. You know, have you heard that before?
It's like Stephen King. Who cares what he wrote? It's just like whatever the Stephen King is, right?
Yeah. This book was first published in an Anglican newspaper called The Guardian, not The Guardian that we know today, but a previous newspaper that kind of went under in the 50s, as a serial, you know, like the old Dickens format. And then it was published in a book in 1945 over in the UK by Geoffrey Bless, B-L-E-S, Clive Staple Lewis, that's what the C.S. stands for, was born in Belfast, Ireland in 1898. He died very young, 1963. I guess he was 65. I say very young, but at the time, that was probably average lifespan.
You can follow this one, Dewey Decimals, under 236.2 for religion slash Christianity slash after death. What is it about? It's a timeless novel about a bus ride from hell to heaven.
Sean Achor, please tell us about your relationship with the great divorce of C.S. Lewis. With hell. Okay, good.
So I thought that this was a risky one to suggest to you, but it was actually one that it moved me so much in my life. C.S. Lewis is who I wanted to be and who I want to be. I just haven't figured out how to do it yet.
C.S. Lewis, the reason I respect him so much is that he was able to blend academia. He was an Oxford Don, a professor of literature with fascination with theology. Did you say Oxford Don?
Yeah, I don't know. That's what you're supposed to say. He's an Oxford Don.
That's like his title afterwards, which I think just means professor. Okay, okay. Not like lived in residence like you did at Harvard, which is what I thought it meant.
Because in Canada, Don means an older student who lives in residence for the younger kids. That's what I thought. I have no idea.
Okay, so this guy's an Oxford professor. I gotcha. Keep going.
So you went to Harvard. Not bad. Okay, not bad.
But he was interested in theology too. So he was an atheist and he was in academia. And then he started having these thoughts and conversations with some of these great thinkers at Oxford, many of whom are atheists as well.
And he had this conversion. So he started not only doing his work at Oxford, but also doing these radio spots on faith in the midst of World War Two. And he got an incredible following, even though he wasn't a theologian himself.
And then he wrote these children's books that were about magic. And yes, they were allegories for some religious aspects as well. But he was able to do everything.
And when I look at my life, I love academia. My father was a professor. That's what I planned on doing.
I'm fascinated by faith and went to the Divinity School. And with my kids, that's what I did with my time off, is we just created magic for them in every way possible. I have a closet that people don't know about, actually.
A closet that's full of, we counted, it's 25 costumes that I just had. Zoe loved Michelle more than me. So I tried to rectify that.
So I got a suit. And I was like, well, I could be Spider-Man. And I came out of a bathroom wearing a Spider-Man outfit when she was three.
And I think she's still traumatized. But that did not help my case at all. We have these cute pictures of me holding her.
And she's leaning back away from me, trying to understand Spider-Man. But I have a ferocious Viking. It should also be said, you're quite tall.
So it's like an actual superhero emerges from the bathroom here. I have an abominable snowman and a ferocious Viking. And we have a Harry Potter party that lasts now over a month in our house with owls flying and potion making and parties.
We have four or five parties where we bring kids in and adult friends. And we have like... Sorry, you have a month-long party?
So our house just gets transformed. So our entire attic is full of these artificial trees and things that help set up the Patronus charms and glass bottles that we use for potion making that glow in the dark and scavenger hunts. And so anyway, my point of all this is that I love bringing magic to life.
I love bringing research to life. And that's what C.S. Lewis did. And what he did in this book, which I thought was fascinating, is he's not a theologian.
He's not a trained theologian, but he's great at telling stories. So he tells a story that's obviously fictional about a bus that goes from a gray town to heaven. And so you'd assume, like, why would you stay in a gray town?
Let's go to heaven. That seems like a much better deal. But there's all these challenges along the way of all these different characters that for some reason or other either choose not to get on the bus in the first place, or they decide to get back onto the bus after being in heaven.
There's all these little tidbits. Like the grass feels sharp because it's so real. But whatever they are that are on this bus, they're not used to it.
[Neil Pasricha]
Spirits almost, yeah. Yeah, spirits.
[Shawn Achor]
So there's all these people. What happens is I think it's this beautiful blend of theology and psychology. And I see myself in so many of these characters.
For example, there's an academic who's excited to get on the bus to go to heaven so that he can come back to the gray town and write this amazing paper about his thoughts about what heaven is like and sell this and would help him become an amazing, famous academic in the gray town. So his interest was not in heaven. It was in writing books and the academic side, right?
Or there's this guy who goes up there and he's so excited about going to heaven, and you see him just breaking his back trying to carry an apple back onto the bus. But the apple is so real. But if he got a real commodity down in gray town, just think how much money he would make.
And or you see people there that are like the most poignant one for me is there's a character who goes there. There's two. There's a character that goes up to heaven.
He finds his wife up there, and his wife was kind of like downtrodden in life that was just caring for other people. But the husband was everything and so important, like kind of like controlled her. And then in the midst, he gets up there and he's like, how dare you be in heaven?
You should be down here with me. Like, I would have never gone to heaven if I knew that someone was in hell or gray town, like just trying to. And at one point, she's like, you can't put even like a little bit of hell into this heaven.
And what it meant was not something theological is that this person was trying to pull others down to not feel alone instead of going in this positive direction, which, you know, I feel like we see within our lives where there's this one character who had this like lizard or something on its shoulder, and it was supposed to be like a demon or something bad. But one of the angels like, I can take that off for you. Just just ask me to.
And he's like, great. Well, you know what? I was thinking about doing that.
But, you know, like, I'm going to work on this. Like, I've got this. Actually, it's not even a problem.
I don't even know this. Notice this lizard. Basically, it's something that they're doing in their life that's not helping them, right?
[Neil Pasricha]
Exactly.
[Shawn Achor]
Yeah. And finally, finally, after all this cajoling, he's like, fine, fine, fine, angel, you can do it. And so the angel touches and the lizard falls off and he's in agony for one second.
But then the lizard falls off and it turns into a horse and he gets onto this horse and he rides further into heaven. So it's this moment that there's these things are holding us back. But we're like, I need that.
That's who I am. Or it's not a problem. And then but then when we were able to overcome it, it allows us to move towards a better life.
So I think someone could read it. I can't relate to that. Yeah.
Right. So I think you could read it whether or not you had religious beliefs or not. And C.S. Lewis saw both sides of it. But it was just this beautiful moment of like, which direction am I going? I love that there is choice, but it's like, am I moving in a positive direction towards love or am I moving away from it? Thank you.
That was like an unbelievable summary of your relationship. You're a speaker for a reason, man. You just crushed that.
This book is short. It's got it's like triple space, not even double space. The margins are massive.
It's like this is like a plane ride read. It's the shortest of the three books you gave us. I read about a third of it, I'd say.
I mean, by the way, through I was captivated by it. I found it really interesting and enjoyable. C.S. Lewis, of course, who you want to be like. He wrote the Chronicles of Narnia, no big deal, sold 100 million copies, right? But one of his friends, one of his pals at Oxford, who was in the group called the Inklings that he was in, sold a series that sold more than that. Can you believe it?
Imagine being friends with a guy at university, right? When you're done, you're like, I sold 100 million books and your buddy's like, yeah, I sold 300. Like that's J.R.R. Tolkien, right? So he wrote The Lord of the Rings. I might be wrong about the 300, but I know it was bigger. I mean, thus far, the world is still moving ahead.
And in chapter eight of The Power of Belief, you write on page 79 about waking up in Minneapolis the morning of a talk to Target. You say, this is your writing. The morning of the talk, I woke up and read two news alerts back to back that one of my contemporaries book hit number one on the New York Times bestseller list, and another wrote a book on happiness research with Oprah.
One moment, I was okay. Two news stories later, I was in a tailspin. I was thinking about C.S. Lewis, who you want to be like. I don't know how he felt about Tolkien, obviously. I mean, I think they had a great bromance to use today. I don't, I didn't, there was never any stories about any tension between them, but I was, I was wondering if you could, because I felt connected to that when you wrote that.
I felt I related to that. I felt myself in your vulnerability. And so I wonder if you could share with us, like, why did that affect you so much?
I can relate. And how did you navigate those feelings? And how can we all learn to do that?
Well, I'm still, I'm still working on that one. You're so good at this because you're able to pair a line in the book to C.S. Lewis' Great Deportes. That's incredible that you made that connection.
And with Tolkien as well. And you write that they had so much respect for one another. We've heard over and over again, the comparison is the thief of joy.
And I, I've felt that thief multiple times in my life and have to fight against it. Because it's so easy to compare. That's why I don't go on social media unless I usually I'm getting paid for or I'm required to.
Because I, I can't do it. I know a lot of people that can, but I immediately start comparing myself to other people. And like, I'll put up a picture of me in a costume and I'll be like, I look really cool.
And I get like three likes. And I'm like, I'm not as cool as I thought I was, right? So that moment, that moment you and I could relate to because we're in a very similar space.
Where our contemporaries are writing books and having incredible opportunities. But also, I think if for other people in the world, it sounds petty. And I think most of the time when we feel like, that I don't matter as much, it sounds petty because we're comparing ourselves to people who have more.
When there's so many people who have so much less. Like, yes, that's true. I felt bad in that moment.
But I also, you know, much rather have been me than, than the me that was going through back surgery three years before. Or someone who's going through cancer treatment. Or someone who's just going through divorce.
So I say this with some humility in the midst of it. But let me answer your question. But let me preface it by saying it's petty.
So I had taken this time to be with the kids. And I intentionally did that. But then you see these opportunities come.
And normally when they come, normally when I'm in a good space, I'm like, well, I would have loved that, but good for them. I'm glad they're getting good messages out there, right? And then I move on with my life.
I'm back with the kids. But I got two at once. And I arrived at three in the morning.
And I know you were up till 4 a.m. last night. So we won't do any comparisons. But I was tired.
And it hit me. And in that moment, I started to think, you know, if I stopped doing my work completely, the world's not going to be like, no, they're gonna be like, who was that, right? Or they'll be like, they were just shrug.
And then I started to think like, well, maybe I don't matter as much anymore to the world. And then I thought, maybe I don't matter. And in that moment, something happened.
I suddenly became blind to the fact that I was there to give a talk, which was a great opportunity to share this research with at least one other person, maybe help them, right? I became blind to the fact that people were suffering, blind to the fact that I had been there with my kids. All I could see was, I don't matter in that moment.
I remember I got into a bar. Arthur Brooks. All you could see was Arthur Brooks and Oprah.
Yeah, yeah. Hanging out together. Right.
Just having a great time. Being like, remember, Sean, me either. So, and I, no, it was, and you know what?
I, it wasn't about one person or another getting something great. It was like feeling like I just, I don't matter. So I sat in the back of this car going to this talk.
And I felt like the world was passing me by. I just looked out that window that, you know, I've looked out many times before. And just like the world's passing me by and it doesn't matter.
The driver took me to the wrong location. And I called Target. They sent me to Target headquarters.
I was supposed to go to a theater. And I called them and they were like, hey, stay where you are. We're sending someone.
It's clear you're lost. And I felt lost. And I didn't listen.
I went up the escalator in that Target headquarters. And this guy ran in and ran up the stairs next to me. And he said, are you Sean Acorn?
I thought it was the escort. So I was like, yes, I'm Sean. And he shook my hand over the escalator.
We're all walking up. So he's on the stairs. I'm on the escalator.
This awkward exchange. We get to the top of it. And he said, I just want to let you know that your book changed my life.
And then he disappeared behind these turnstiles at Target headquarters and was gone. He wasn't the escort. I have no idea who he was.
I have no idea why the research had an impact upon him. I was in the wrong place, but at the right time. I went to the Divinity School, as you know.
We learned that the word for angel in Greek, it's just messenger. And I felt like this person was such an angel in my life, because he delivered a message to my brain right when I needed to hear it, which was, hey, you still matter. And as soon as that happened, these scales fell from my eyes.
I could see again, like I suddenly was like, I could see, hey, this talk. Maybe there's somebody like him in this talk, right? And then the talk went so much better because it wasn't about me.
It was about the people in the audience. And then when I got back into that same car that had waited for me, and I looked out that same window this time, instead of looking at a despondent, I pulled these two Paw Patrol characters, Chase and Rubble, out that Zoe made me keep. And I made a video for Zoe up on the windowsill.
So it was the same window out in the world. But that belief of, I don't matter versus I matter, completely changed what I could see in those moments, which is exactly what the book is about. Our beliefs change what happens next.
But also, it's this struggle that I think that we all feel, that we feel like I don't matter for some reason. I don't matter because I hear it a lot from stay-at-home moms and dads, right? Or you hear it from people that, you know, I did some work out at Kaiser Permanente.
They did something so cool. I have to tell you this. I don't know if you know, I saved a life program.
But this is amazing. So they took receptionists who answer the phones. And it's so easy to trick yourself into thinking, I just answer phones.
And then maybe I don't matter as much. And then maybe I don't matter. I'm just answering phones.
I'm not like a doctor. I'm not like saving people's lives, right? I can hear someone's brain creating those negative thoughts.
And what they did was, they made it so if you called in for an earache, they could sign you up in their division for an ear appointment. But they could also see if you have screenings you need to do, like a colonoscopy or a mammogram. And they gave them the ability on their calendar to create an appointment for one of those screenings.
And then they tracked it. And I think that's the important part because there is a feedback loop that oftentimes is missed when we do something good. And they tracked if somebody got a screening because of these receptionists and they found a life-threatening cancer and they were cured or healed from it, then it was considered a life saved.
And by the time that I was working with them, the receptionists had already saved 417 people's lives. And you could feel the pride because they felt like they mattered because they were part of the healthcare process as opposed to feeling like, I just answered phones. And I remember one last example that I just thought of because our family's full of teachers.
I was at Harvard. And I remember somebody wanted to become a teacher. And I overheard them at lunch being like, why would you become a teacher?
Such a waste of your education. You spend all this money to get this Harvard degree and you're going to become like a, I don't know what grade level teacher. Such a warped vision of education and the world, but also this belief that certain occupations matter and then others don't.
And then if somebody gets 100 likes versus my three, that I don't matter. And in those moments, it warps not only our world, but it warps our ability to help that world. And it changes what happens next.
That's a powerful connection. And what an amazing study. I've been lucky enough to give a talk to Kaiser Permanente before.
You have a knack that I don't, which is you stay and hang out and see what they're doing inside the company. You're always pulling out a research study, you know what I mean? I'm doing the book signing.
I'm doing selfie pictures. You're on the side doing research. I love that about you because I remember when we were hanging out in Abu Dhabi, which sounds crazy to say that sentence, but I remember when we were in Abu Dhabi together, both giving talks, you telling me that when I take a speech, I really look for an opportunity to do some research.
And it's just, it comes through in the work. And I kept thinking when I was reading your book, Power of Beliefs, I kept thinking, well, he must take notes after every speech and write down what I learned from this company, what I learned from that company. I was in awe about how many connections you made with the work you do.
Anyway, let's keep moving to your second most formative book, which is, of course, A Short History of Nearly Everything by Bill Bryson. B-R-Y-S-O-N. Published in 2003 by Doubleday in the UK and Broadway Books over in the US.
Cover, I don't know which cover you have. I got a couple of different covers here. This cover is like a big navy blue kind of half earth.
And there's an asterisk on the earth, which is cool. You never see that. And it goes to a small title again, A Short History of Nearly Everything underneath a giant, all caps, Bill Bryson.
The guy had clearly made it. Name, name is bigger than the title. Oh, oh, look on yours.
Okay, you, you, you, this is a Sean Acor book, too. Your name is on the title, bigger than thing. Whereas the next book, you know, the title's bigger.
So I don't know. I'm just making up what I hear in publishing circles. So what's this book about?
Well, it is a fun and spirited quest to understanding everything from the Big Bang to the rise of civilization. How we got from there being nothing at all to here being us. Bill Bryson was born in 1951 in Des Moines, Iowa, and he's alive and well today at age 74, living over in the UK.
He's retired from writing as of six years ago. He's no longer writing, he says, but he is alive and well. Sean, please tell us about your relationship with A Short History of Nearly Everything by Bill Bryson.
Well, it's an incredible book. You don't have to be a scientist to love it. In fact, what it makes you do is love science because you hear the stories behind what gets people excited or the adventures that they go on to find these things or the foibles along the way.
For example, dinosaurs were actually discovered 70 years earlier than we came up with the word dinosaurs and discovered it. But the guy had it in his hands and instead like a bone and was like, yep, I'm the best botanist, not botanist, the best biologist in the world. And this is clearly a large hippo.
And then it sat in a museum for 70 years and they had a dinosaur bone. But like this amazing move from like a world, which 250 years ago till the beginning of time, we didn't know that there were these huge creatures roaming the earth. And then suddenly, oh, hey, there's dinosaurs that existed for millions of years and we can find their bones and they're incredible.
Like it makes you feel like, what else are we going to find? Like, yeah, we didn't know about dinosaurs till like even a few hundred years ago is what you're saying, but even 70 years later than we could have. But even still, it's pretty new that we didn't even know about them.
Or you hear about people that could have discovered, that actually discovered 12 elements, but they got credit for none of them, right? And it's just the way that science worked and people take credit and all the things we talked about, you know, whether or not you mattered. Like in history, they discovered 12 elements, but no one knew it during their lifetime.
It feels like an artist who dies penniless and then they make money in the future. So it makes you feel like you want to be one of these scientists. And it makes you feel like there was so much hope where somebody was like, they weren't even a geologist, but they got into it and they discovered all this incredible change.
And then they discovered elements, but they were like a business person or people were racing to figure out why the earth was, which was actually really hard to do. And they went on these ships and voyages and everything, and they got back and somebody had already figured it out, right? So I actually, if somebody's gonna read this, it's a long book.
It's a great one to share a few of those chapters with kids, especially the dinosaur one, because it'll make them like learning. It's basically the history of science. What I do is I've listened to the book probably 15, maybe 20 times, because I listened to it on Audible and actually use it to go to sleep, which sounds like it makes you want to go to sleep.
And it can, but along the way, I'm just trying to soak it in so it absorbs and stays. Because you feel like if you've read this book, you start seeing the world differently because you feel like you understand how electricity works and how the geology works and how people discovered how big the world is. Wow, you nailed it.
The only other guest on the show who has picked that book, is our guest in chapter 48, who I don't know if you know or not, Michael Bungay Stanier, who is the author of a book called The Coaching Habit. And he, like you, has a really sparky energy and he's super curious and super smart and super clever and super metaphorical in his language. And he said, when I was talking to him about this book on his porch in Toronto, face to face, you know, like we try, he's like, you know, our moon happens to be the biggest moon that we've ever seen.
Not in terms of its actual size, but in terms of its relative size to the planet near it. So because it's so big, you get, you know, if it wasn't so big, you wouldn't have mountains and seas. And if you didn't have mountains and seas, the entire world will be under six feet of water.
And if the entire world was under six feet of water, you wouldn't be here. Thanks, big moon. Like it's like stuff like that.
So, okay. Got a couple of questions here. I want to ask you about awe and I want to ask you about speaking.
I'll try to go quick. On awe, the introduction of this book induces massive awe. Welcome and congratulations.
I'm delighted that you can make it. Getting here wasn't easy. I know.
In fact, I suspect it was a little tougher than you realize. So it induces awe because he starts talking about atoms and they're not alive. If you pick them all off you, they're not alive.
But yet together they are with you. So I want to ask, how do you think about awe in your work on happiness, belonging, and meaning? How do we induce the feeling of awe more if indeed we do?
And then I'm curious for your thoughts on psychedelics actually, because there's so much emerging science and research on psychedelics happening fast. And you're so quick on the research. I'm curious where you see psychedelics fitting into this space, if at all.
I wish we had more awe. I wish I had more awe. That's why I love magic with the kids.
That's why I love young kids. In many ways, my 12-year-old son is moving out of some of those awe phases. So I try and get them with different types of things.
Like this book is a great one to reintroduce awe. But the fact that I could show a three-year-old an acorn and be like, see that huge oak tree behind us? This little thing turned into that.
It doesn't even seem possible. Or take a dead tree that looks dead in winter but comes back with life. You wouldn't think that if you saw it in December.
Those moments of awe, I feel like are fleeting in adult life because we feel like we've seen everything and I feel like we've lost it. And that's why I like this book, is because it gives you some opportunity to feel some of that awe in our lives. We know awe has a neurological basis to it and it changes how much we learn.
It changes the peace that we feel. Stanford's doing some great research on just getting people to walk out in a forest versus trying to stay in an office building or stay in an urban environment after learning a skill set. Or trying to learn a new skill.
And in those moments where they induced awe, they actually encoded the new skill faster. So awe is incredible. I think that's maybe part of the reason.
There's other reasons, of course, that kids learn so fast. In terms of psychedelics, I haven't explored it too much and I'm worried about adding anything new into my life. I had to get off social media.
And I'm trying to cut some of those things out of my life so I have more time. So you see psychedelics as a potential vice? No, well, potential if it has any addictive value to it.
But also, I like the idea of being able to have some sort of relevatory experience or growth that you can do based upon your own actions as opposed to the insertion of another substance into the formula. Yeah, yeah, the agency aspect. Which is why I didn't start drinking until I was in my last year of college because I was so worried about lack of agency, lack of control.
I didn't drink until 24. So I didn't drink until- I was 21. I thought that was old.
No, I- 22, maybe. Thank you, John. So thanks for going there.
I appreciate that. It's nice to hear your thoughts on it. I totally get that.
And I live in Toronto, by the way, surrounded by founders and startups. And I'll tell you, the psychedelic scene here is partly why I'm asking is because I don't really meet people anymore that don't use psychedelics. Everyone's like, okay, what's your dosage?
What's your stack? What's your- And they're all sober is how they describe themselves. They describe themselves as sober.
They don't use any alcohol. They don't really use any cannabis. They're talking about once a year, once every half a year, I do these massive doses of whatever it is, MDMA or psilocybin or LSD with guides in settings or in a forest or ayahuasca or whatever.
And I'm watching that happen around me without doing it myself. And I'm just so curious. And that's kind of- I'm waiting for the thing to crack it open.
But I know the research is emerging quick. Okay, your third and final book. Let's jump all the way up here now to a more recent book called The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss.
R-O-T-H-F-U-S-S. This is a big me. I got a 722-page mass market paperback, which I love, book.
Patrick, Patrick, I keep saying Patrick because he has a TH in his last name. Patrick Rothfuss is a fantasy writer born in 1973 in Madison, Wisconsin. And his work is widely loved by influential folks like, you know, the who's who of fantasy writers love this book like Orson Scott Card or so Ursula Le Guin.
They love this book. We can follow us under 813.6 for literature slash fiction slash 21 century. It's an ominous looking fantasy book, a dark sinister character on the cover in like a desolate blue field with a single tree and dark clouds in the distance.
What's it about? Well, let's tip it over to you, Sean. Tell us about your relationship with the 2007 published The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss.
S- So I mentioned that I love magic. So actually I was thinking about C.S. Lewis and the three things I liked were the three books I picked. So I picked a theology book, a science book, and this is fantasy and magic.
So I guess they're all in there. I read a ton of fantasy. So if there's a fantasy book that's come out in the past several years, 20 years, I've probably read it a couple of times.
So there's Brandon Sanders. I love The Wheel of Time. I love with Robert Jordan.
But this to me is the very best of the books that I've read. He's an incredible author and storyteller. And his I heard Andy Weir, who wrote The Martian, say that when he did Mark Watney, I think that was the main character for The Martian.
He designed that character to be like himself, but 10% better across the board, like just a little bit funnier and knows more about science, right? And knows the right thing to say and is cool under pressure. And people love those characters.
And the second character he wrote was somebody that no one liked. And he was like, the book just wasn't as good. And that was not Project Caramel.
Oh, Mary, that was the third one. I think that this character is who I wish I was. He's funny.
He's a storyteller. So you constantly are trying to... The whole book is him telling the story, but you know that something bad or crazy things have happened.
And he's sitting in this inn and you're trying to figure out why. And so there's only two of the three books in the series. But over the course of it, it's like who you want to be.
He's great at romance, although he makes mistakes along the way. He's an incredible musician. And he is constantly trying to help other people and sacrificing along the way.
But every time you think something great is about to happen, the floor moves out from underneath him and you have to deal with disappointment along the way as you're cheering for this character. It's amazing. The only challenge is he's only written two of the three books.
And the third book, I think we've been waiting 17 years for. Is that right? It's been a long time.
So Patrick Rothfuss is the best fantasy author I know, but he has been struggling to get this one out. And I think the reason for it is, and if he's listening, I love your work. I've listened to this book every year, usually twice a year since this come out.
But I think he wrote such a good first two books that it's really hard to finish it. So it's a great problem to have. And I hope he's able to finish it at some point.
But I hope people read it. It's incredible. Yeah, I'm on page five and I already love it.
Like I have 717 pages to go, but I will tell you now, I can tell already I'm going to love this book. I can just feel it. I'm going to carry it with me.
It's small. It's going to fit my bag. So when I email you in 2034 and tell you, I will text you when I'm done it.
And so we'll time how long it takes me. But on that open-endedness, because he's written two, not the third. Did you know the most popular quote from The Name of the Wind is based on Goodreads quote rankings?
It is the questions we can't answer that teach us the most. They teach us how to think. If you give a man an answer, all he gains is a little fact.
But give him a question and he'll look for his own answers. And an interesting way to close this off, and I know, you know, with this book coming out, you're buried in media, which I'm happy for. I'm excited for everyone to kind of be following along as you launch this thing.
Might you, with all your multiple decades now unhappiness, I mean, you were Tal Ben-Shahar's TA, you taught happiness at Harvard, the most popular class. You wrote a book that sold a million copies on happiness. You've given one of the 10 most popular talents of all time.
You've expanded your thinking and your work into covering things like potential and beliefs and meaning. Might you close this off, Sean, and take as long as you want with one or two questions you would leave us with as we all keep moving forward on our own paths towards happiness? This is a huge question, and if I don't get it in at the end, I just want to say, I think this is what you're brilliant at.
While I'm trying to get research from people, you're authentically connecting with them and you have what Patrick Rothfuss has, which I've always admired in fiction writers, is that they are able to see people so clearly and to make the connections to the work that they're doing in ways that I think it's not only inspiring, but you see the world in a way that I want to see the world more like. So I think that's why so many people follow you. There's so many questions that are still driving me.
Like, I want to know why I still struggle with some of those things. Like, I still struggle with feeling like a matter when I feel like I've got my kids, you know, and like, it's my brain saying, well, what have you done for me recently, right? Whereas if we could hold onto that meaning better, then it'd be great.
And as I think about those seven core beliefs, I think the one that's fascinating me the most, that's always fascinated me since the divinity school and before that, probably since I was a kid, was that sense that there's something more. That's what I love about fantasy books, that there's more you don't know about, there's magic out there. And the science book is there's so much more, you don't even know what the moon does for you, right?
And that these beliefs are unconsciously shaping how you view obstacles in life. You don't even know that. And one of those, the final belief in the book, the, that there's something greater than me.
I think people see that, you know, people are like, well, you know, stay in your lane, Sean, like you mean a God there. And I do mean, I mean a loving God, but that's not what other people mean. That something greater than them is justice, or it's nature, or it's energy, or the universe, or collective humanity.
And I think that so often we get focused on what is in front of us or presented to us in social or media, that we oftentimes forget those moments of awe that allow us to see that there's so much more than what I'm seeing right now. And how do I see just something, just a little bit of something more that's greater than me. Sean Acor, thank you so much for coming on Three Books.
It's been a real pleasure. Thank you. Thank you.
Hey everybody, it's just me, just Neil again, hanging out in my basement. Listen back to the very wise Sean Acor, as we kind of sped up the very ending of that conversation there. I loved his Three Books.
I really did. I love the conversation itself. And there's a lot of quotes I picked out, like, the beliefs that we hold about the world don't just change our experience of the present, but they predict what happens next.
Why not tell yourself a different story? You know, Seth Godin gave us that adage back in chapter three of this program. You know, we get to decide what we believe.
It's hard to do, but we get to choose that. I like that. I like that idea.
Sean says, I'm willing to bet that the majority of listeners, including myself, have felt one of these beliefs over the past 24 hours. And these are the seven scars, he calls them. My behavior doesn't matter.
I'm alone. I don't matter. This work is not meaningful.
I have nothing to give. I'm missing out and there's nothing greater than me. But if you felt those, those are the scars that lead themselves into the beliefs that we talk about in this book, this great book, The Power of Beliefs.
Now, he also says, we're comparing ourselves to people who have more when there's so many people who have so much less. That's kind of a human nature, isn't it? We always look up instead of down.
My old boss, Dave Cheesewright, our guest in chapter 96, used to say, we always think the geniuses are at the next level. And then he says, another one, the feeling of awe has a neurological basis and it changes how much we learn. I like that one too.
Lots more jump out. There's a few of them. And Chong gave us two more books to add to our top 1000.
You know, it was supposed to be three, but he gave us The Great Divorce by C.S. Lewis, which we're going to add to the list at number 530. He gave us A Short History of Nearly Everything by Bill Bryson, which was already on the list for chapter 48 from Michael Bungay's standard year 859. So we will add the asterisk to it and update the FAQ.
And finally, The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss, number 529, which if you're into fantasy, I read the first like little bit of this book. It is quite gripping. I can see why it's like considered one of the most popular fantasy novels of all time.
It's so thick that I like, it's daunting me, but I want to get into it. Sean, if you're listening, thank you so much for coming on three books and thank you to all of you for being here. All right.
Are you still here? Did you make a past three second pause? If so, I want to welcome you back to the end of the podcast club.
This is where I play your letters. We talk about the values. We kind of hear your voicemails.
You guys call us at 1-833-READ-ALOT. If you're listening, give me a call. Let me know a formative book.
Tell me a little bit about yourself, a show that you loved or a guest that you'd love to hear on the program. And let's start off that way. Let's start like we always do.
Let's go to the phones. Hi, Neil. This is Julie Workman.
I'm calling you from St. Augustine, Florida. I just want to thank you for bringing light into the world and I want to encourage you. I don't know if you need any encouragement based on all of your successes and victories, but I'm cheering you on.
Thanks for bringing so much positivity into the world. You need it. Thank you.
Thank you so much to Julie from Florida for calling in. You know, it's true about positivity. It's not easy, by the way, for me either, Julie.
I go through good days and bad days. I just remember like back in 2008 when I was sort of coming up with the blog, I needed to focus on something positive. It was just that was kind of what I was clinging to, just that had to be positive.
The problem is positivity often is equated with, you know, being Pollyanna or just being overly positive. And so I hope, you know, through this journey that we're on together here, exploring books, exploring kind of how to live a great life, daily awesome things, you know, those types of things, projects that are positive oriented without being kind of too overbearing. We do have to practice it like a muscle, like a skill set.
Thanks so much for the vote of confidence. By the way, if you're listening to this and you don't get my daily awesome thing, just go to neil.blog, click that free newsletter button in the corner. And every single night for 18 years in a row, I have sent out one new awesome thing.
And I continue to do that to this day for me and for everybody else as well. All right. Now let's move on to a letter of the chapter.
And this chapter letter comes from Graham D. Hi, Neil. Hope you're doing great.
I'm still way behind, but still technically a member of your cover to cover club. Just a couple of years behind the times. I have a guest suggestion for you.
I've been following a great singer songwriter lately, Jesse Wells. He even has a song all about books. It touches on so many of your three books value.
I thought it would be a great opportunity to get someone doing interesting things into your sphere. From Graham. Well, let's hear the song.
Should we hear the song? Let's listen.
[Neil Pasricha]
I can travel around, never leave my seat. I'll tell you something, buddy. Reading books is cool and neat.
Now, books change your perspective. Grab a couple of books and start a book collection. Read a good book, fill your head full of knowledge and you don't never even have to go to a call.
It's trade a book your time. It'll give you. I love this.
Chapters of glass. Every letter gets better. Read a short book and just get your feet wet and you'll be reading big time and no time out that like Shakespeare.
[Shawn Achor]
OK, well, this is great. This is Wells Music, W-E-L-L-E-S-M-U-S-I-C over on Instagram. I see Jesse Wells says come for the song, stay for the songs.
He's on a tour. He's got a book, a song, a book all about music, a song all about books. 2.2 million followers. Don't lie. That is Jesse Wells, courtesy of Graham D. Thank you, Graham, for the letter.
I appreciate that. Nice to hear some of that music. Jesse Wells, W-E-L-L-E-S, for you to check him out.
All right. And now it is time for a word of the chapter. Or should we talk about one of our values?
We haven't done that in a while, have we? I always said, let's talk about the values on the show. OK, which one do we want to talk about before we get into the into the word of the chapter?
How about this one? You don't have to finish the book. OK, it's related to quit more to read more.
But let's remember that when it comes to reading, you don't have to finish it. You don't have to finish a movie. You don't have to finish anything.
But with books, you know, a lot of us grew up with the notion that to finish the book review or the assignment, we have to get to the end. And it really doesn't matter. You can skip chapters.
I remember in our chapter 26 with Mark Manson, he said like he skipped chapters. He just reads the table of contents and index and reads like three chapters that he finds interesting. These days, we are, you know, drowning in information.
We have stuff coming to us and competing for our attention full time. Sometimes not just competing, but hijacking our attention, cajoling our attention, pushing us to think about things we don't necessarily want to be thinking about. And so books offer an alternative.
They're quieter. They are less flashy. They don't have buzzing noises.
And you get to decide where you're going to go and orient yourself. And I just like the premise. It's one of our show's values that you don't have to finish the book.
All right. And now let's turn things back over to Mr. Sean Acor for the word of the chapter. Here we go.
Back to you, Sean. Warped vision. Yes, indeed.
It is warped. Warp, W-A-R-P, a noun. Listen to these definitions, though.
According to Merriam-Webster number one, it's a series of yarns extended lengthwise in a loom crossed by the weft. Did you know that? I did not.
That's the first definition. Number two, it's a rope for warping or mooring a ship or boat. And number three, it's a twist or curve that has developed in something originally flat or straight.
That's the one I'm most familiar with. And then 3B is a mental aberration. Well, kind of right there built into the definition is the etymology itself.
To bend, twist, or distort from the Old English, from the loom, the loom. Okay. Translates as twisting something out of shape to give turn out of straightness or by proper shape in the 1400s.
All from an action that we take on a loom to warp something, to twist it. Threads stretching lengthwise in a loom. Okay.
A warp. Did you know that that's what warped meant? I did not.
I'm guessing Sean didn't either. Who knew? Who knew?
I did not. I am thrilled and excited that you stayed all the way to the very end. If you want, drop me a line.
Let me know that you're here and I will add you to our cover to cover list. We started that recently. I was kind of like, I don't know if we should keep that going, but we're trying everybody.
We're having fun out here. We're looking up to the sky. We're hanging out under the lunar schedule here, talking to people like Yann Martel, Mr. Sean Acor. And then we've got John Klassen coming up. If you are here, if you're listening all the way to the end, remember you are what you eat and you are what you read. Keep turning that page, everybody, and I'll talk to you soon.
Take care.