New Podcast Release: Adam Grant
In the latest episode of Lives Well Lived, the podcast I co-host with Kasia de Lazari-Radek, we talk to Adam Grant, organizational psychologist, best-selling author, and professor at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School of Business.
From an early age, Adam developed a unique approach to maximizing his potential that has helped him become the highly successful person he is. We ask him about that approach in the first few minutes of this episode. You’ll definitely want to take notes—it might just work for you too.
Below are some highlights from our conversation, lightly edited for clarity. You can listen to the full episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your preferred platform.
On Intellectual Humility
Adam: “The point of learning is not to affirm what you already believe. It's to evolve what you know.”
On Happiness vs. Meaning
Adam: "If happiness is the target that you're aiming for, you will often take a path that takes you away from that target. I think if meaning is the goal, and you're trying to do things that are worthwhile and spend your time on projects and people that really matter to you, then you stumble onto happiness as a delightful byproduct of pursuing what you care about and expressing your values.
On Free Will
Adam: “It's like weather. A meteorologist is really good at predicting tomorrow's weather because you can track enough of the variables, approximately, to have a sense of whether it's going to snow or rain. But, if you go three or four days out…there's a massive amount of unpredictability there, and I think with a human we have as many complex variables interacting as we do in weather and we get to choose which ones we draw on, don't we?
Peter: “I think we do. And I'm a compatibilist, as it's called, on this question. That is, that determinism may be true in some sense that if you had complete knowledge, you could predict everything that was going to happen, but that doesn't mean that we are not choosing. That's one of the paths through which things happen and since we can't predict all the factors on us, we have to make that choice. And that process is part of the causal process that leads us to do the things we do.”
On Work and Life Balance
Adam: “I don't believe in relying on motivation to do the things that keep me healthy. I try to make those part of my daily routine.”
Adam: “For me, a life well lived is, I get to spend a small fraction of my time in the spotlight, where I think I can have an impact and engage. And the rest of the time, I'm learning and teaching. in the default comfort zone of an introvert.”
On Disagreements Between Friends
Peter: “You know that your friends are going to look askance at the opinions that you now hold because opinions come in packages and you associate with people who tend to share your views. And now suddenly you're saying something that is controversial, critical.”
Adam: “I've certainly had that experience. People have assumed that I would take a stance on things that I don't necessarily agree with, and that can be challenging… I think people often confuse beliefs with values, but they're, they're very much in psychology not the same. Beliefs are what you think is true. Values are what you think is important. And I think that I'm willing to, you know, to accept and respect somebody who believes a whole range of things if I think they have worthy principles.
Should we aim at happiness, or meaning?
Kasia: “You distinguish between pursuing happiness and pursuing meaning. As a hedonist, I wanted to ask you about the difference between those two values and whether you believe that, pursuing meaning is a value on its own.”
Adam: “Oh, that's interesting. Well, as a psychologist, I think about happiness as the pursuit of joy, momentary positive emotions. And I think about meaning as having a more lasting sense of purpose. And I think that a lot of people pursue happiness at the expense of meaning. And ironically, they end up with neither. Particularly people who worry about being unhappy as a cause of unhappiness. And this experience of constantly chasing pleasure that leads people to not experience flow states, that sort of pulls people out of engagement with life and gets them into rumination about like, well, why am I not happier?
And then, you know, over time that becomes a vicious cycle, where rumination breeds depression, and depression causes more rumination, and instead of engaging with the world, people are, are sort of, wrestling constantly with inner demons. I think that the pursuit of meaning is a bit of an antidote to that problem, because it sets an expectation, and I think this is particularly important, for, I'll say, people, teenagers, 20 somethings because those are two groups I spend a lot of time with as a teacher, you know, who are wrestling with what is my idea of a life well lived and what I've seen over time, which very much tracks with the research I've read is that when they think about what do I find meaningful, they usually turn their attention to what impact do I want to have on other people. And a sense of contribution leads people to feel that they matter. It strengthens their relationships. And in doing that, right, they end up ironically connecting themselves. to sources of ongoing joy, and so I think it's an ironic route to happiness.
I think there's a lot of wisdom in that. Like, I think if happiness is the target that you're aiming for, you will often take a path that, that takes you away from that target. I think if meaning is the goal, and you're trying to do things that are worthwhile and spend your time on projects and people that really matter to you, then you stumble onto happiness as a delightful byproduct of pursuing what you care about and expressing your values.
What do you make of that, hedonist?”
Kasia: “I couldn't agree more. I still believe that pleasure is the highest value, but I also agree that psychologically, if we aim at it and if we focus on it, then we lose it.”