House Calls Podcast

How Do Our Minds Help (or Hinder) Finding Connection & Purpose? (Part 2)

With guest Shankar Vedantam,

Host, “Hidden Brain” Podcast 

Hello and welcome to House Calls. I'm Vivek Murthy and I have the honor of serving as U.S. Surgeon General. I'd like to introduce you to Shankar Vedantam science journalist and host of the radio show and podcast Hidden Brain. Today, we talk about the power of purpose in our lives and the unexpected way our brain can sometimes hinder our ability to connect. This is Part Two of a two-part conversation. Have you ever had a moment when you wanted to connect with someone but something stops you like the worry you'll say the wrong thing? Or have you had the experience of assuming that someone who disagrees with you must also dislike you? It turns out there's a lot we misperceive when we try to build connection with someone else. Our mind plays tricks on us that make it harder to connect. That's why I wanted to talk to Shankar Vedantam, host and creator of Hidden Brain, a podcast and radio show that explores the unconscious patterns that drive human behavior. Considered one of the best science journalists in the country, Shankar is a master translator of the latest discoveries in neuroscience, psychology and behavioral science. And he helps us better understand the paradoxes of human behavior. As we settled into our conversation, it was clear that talking to Shankar felt like talking to an old friend who shares a similar curiosity about the world. You'll hear us follow many threads. How can we get over our fears of connecting? Why is there a gap between my values and my actions? What is the real impact of an act of kindness? In the second part of the conversation, we explore purpose. Why is it a necessary ingredient of life? How does having a sense of purpose impact our health? How is purpose different from our goals? And what is it about that feeling of being connected to something greater, to something bigger than ourselves, that we all need? At moments, Shankar, ever, the journalist turns the tables and ask me questions too. This conversation, with Shankar made me reflect deeply on my own life, my own sense of purpose, and how I create connections. I hope you find this conversation as moving as I did. As always, the House Calls team is eager to hear from you. You can always reach us at HouseCalls@HHS.gov There’s a Ted Talk that you had given some years ago, which I thought was incredibly powerful and related to what we're talking about now, which is about the fact that you can't know your future self, right? And when you, I remember listening to that talk and thinking, wow, this seems so obvious, like it makes sense, but I never thought about that before, you know, which is to me the hallmark of a great idea. But I was wondering if you could speak a little bit about that, Shankar, about why it is so hard for us to know our future selves and, and in particular, I have a question about parenting that I want to ask you related to that, which is, this is a selfish question because I'm thinking about it for my own kids, who are six and seven. But I know it's common for parents to ask their child, so what do you want to be when you grow up? And I found myself thinking about that question that I sometimes ask my kids after I heard your talk and wondering, how do I make sure that I encourage them to dream without making sure that they. somehow feel like they need to know with certainty who it is that they're gonna be in the future, because that seems like an impossible task. But I would love if you could speak more to this.

Yeah, so the origin for that idea was in a brilliant paper by Dan Gilbert and Tim Wilson and Jordi Quoidbach.. Many years ago, they did this study where they asked people at different decades of their lives, people who are 30, 40, 50, 60. They asked them, how much has your life changed in the last 10 years? How much have you changed in the last 10 years? And how much do you think your life is going to change? How much do you expect to change in the next 10 years? And what they found is that at every point, thirty-year-olds said, I've changed a huge amount since I was 20, but now I'm the person I'm going to be. I'm not going to change very much. Forty-year-olds said, my 30 year old self didn't know a single thing. I've changed enormously in the last 10 years, but now I'm done. 50 year old said, I knew nothing when I was 40. I've changed enormously in the last decade, but now I'm baked. I'm done. Nothing more is going to change. And this was true at 60 and 70 and 80. And there's an interesting mystery and paradox here again, which is at every stage, even though we have seen the same thing happen in past decades, we somehow imagine that where we are is where we're going to end up being. That in some ways we've changed a lot in getting to the present, but from the present onwards, we are not going to change. And in many ways, you know, we've talked earlier about the… the error we make in how we perceive ourselves and how the world perceives us. This is sort of an internal error, if you will, because we are misperceiving who we are going to be in the future. We're not very accurate at predicting who we'll be in the future. And of course, this raises really… tricky questions because so much of life does involve planning. It involves forethought. It involves asking yourself, you know, am I willing to go through, you know, four years of medical school and multiple years of training and a residency to become a doctor? You can't just snap your fingers overnight and decide I'm a doctor today. So it requires planning and forethought. But if you don't know what you're going to be or what you'd want to be 10 years from now, why does anyone go to medical school? Why does anyone embark on anything that takes 10 years to build? And there's a tension here between those two things. And so the TED Talk was really about that idea of how we sort of think about the challenge of the fact that the people for whom we are investing, the people we are trying to become, those people are not us. We are going to be different people 20 years from now. And so the things that I am doing for Shankar 20 years in the future are really for a person who might have an entirely different view of the world, might have different priorities and different interests. And when I get to that point 20 years from now, I might well ask myself, what made you think that all those things you thought you would do that would make me happy, what made you think that that would actually make me happy? In fact, that's not what makes me happy at all. And I think many people sort of recognize this. You know, people wake up at age 45 and they realize they've spent the last 20 years of their lives, you know, fulfilling a vision of who they thought they should be at age 25. But at age 45, they actually, that's not their vision of who they want to be anymore. So the question is, what do you do about this? Because of course, we can't foresee the future, and yet we're asked to foresee the future. And so there's a tension and a paradox there. And I think the answer comes back to something that you mentioned a second ago, which is that simultaneously, I think it actually is important to ask ourselves the question, what do I want to be 20 years from now? And potentially take steps to make that vision a reality, but not hold on to that vision so tightly that we… are unwilling to give it up six months from now. So there's a paradox here because on the one hand, if you want to learn a musical instrument, it's going to take you 10 years to learn the musical instrument. And so you actually have to start. And so you actually have to put in the time and effort to actually climb up that mountain of learning the musical instrument, but it's OK to decide a year in or two years in, maybe, in fact, I don't want to be learning the piano. Maybe I want to be learning the violin. Maybe I don't want to be learning the violin. Maybe I want to be doing something else. And so in some ways, The answer is not don't have goals or don't have a destination or don't have a vision. Because if you don't have a goal or a destination or a vision, it's very hard to take the next step in front of you because you don't know what step to take. I think the answer really is have those goals, have those visions, but don't hold them so tightly that you're like this missile that goes through the world ignoring everything else that's around you. Because as you take the step towards your goal, you know, and the story you asked about engineering is a very good example. As I went through my engineering degree, I learned that I didn't want to become an engineer. It was actually valuable to take that step. I had a vision of becoming an engineer. I started on that journey. And I realized that this was the wrong path for me, and it allowed me to change. And I think that's the second part of that, I think, is what we often miss. We ask children, you know, what do you want to be in your life? And it's great when they say, I want to be an astronaut, or I want to be a doctor, or I want to be a firefighter. Whatever they say is fine. But it's important, even as they start to march toward that goal, to basically ask them periodically, where are you now? Is there still something that is close to your heart? Have your dreams changed?

That tension is, is I think something a lot of people are going to be able to relate to. And I like how you're describing how to navigate that because what you're not saying is that holding these ideas loosely about what we want to do in the future means that we should give up easily. Like that's not what you're saying. What you are saying is that we should be open to be inspired to going in a different path if we're called to do that and not so rigidly hold on to our plans that we miss those signals. those moments of inspiration that tell us another path may be calling us. And I'm grateful that you paid attention to those signals that led you from engineering to journalism, because otherwise we may not be here and millions of people would not be hearing the wonderful episodes you've created. But that's something I want for my kids. I want them to be able to know themselves well enough that they can pay attention to those signals that tell them, hey, I'm really excited and inspired by this. Like maybe, Maybe I want to explore it, even though it doesn't seem to make sense in the plan that I had before.

I feel this happens to me every time I travel to another city, Vivek. I found myself some time ago in Mexico City, and I had a little bit of time during the day. And I hadn't made any plans, so I didn't know exactly what I was going to be doing. I knew I wanted to go to a museum, but I had a lot of time before and after. And what happened was, even though I had a destination in mind, I wanted to go and see this wonderful National Anthropology Museum in Mexico City. I was not very tightly scheduled. And so it allowed me to basically say as I was walking to the museum, it allowed me to say, let me take the side street and see what happens on the side street. Let me take this other path and see what happens. Let me sit down in a park and just listen to the birds for like 15 minutes. And I still had a goal. I was still trying to get to the anthropology museum. But I was able to take in the world. in a very rich fashion. And I mention this example of tourism because I think it's a very useful metaphor for how we should think about our own lives. All of us, when we go to another city, will take in that city in a way that is very fresh and very curious. And our eyes are open and our ears are open and our minds and our hearts are open. And you might not understand the language, but because you can't understand the language, you're actually listening very closely to the signals that you're hearing from the outside world. You're really present. because you have to be present. You're in a strange land. But of course, when you look around you at all the other people who are walking around in Mexico City or in Paris or in Barcelona or whichever city you happen to be in, most of the people in the city… are so blind and deaf to what's happening because they've lived there for 10 years that they have stopped noticing the buildings, they've stopped noticing the birds, they're so set on getting from home to their offices and from their offices back to their homes to pick up their kids at daycare that at this point the entire world in which you're actually living has fallen away from you. And so in some ways the challenge is how do we bring that sense of freshness and curiosity. to our daily lives, not just the 10 days of the year when we're tourists in another country, but to when we are living our daily lives. And how do we bring that not just to our physical lives, but how do we bring that to our psychological lives? And I use the metaphor of trying to become tourists in our own lives. And when we become a tourist in our own life, we see our own life, our own choices, our own behavior with freshness and curiosity. And at that point, we discover things about ourselves that in some ways we're always hiding in plain sight.

Do you have any suggestions, Shankar, for how we can become tourists in our own lives and keep that fresh pair of eyes on what's happening around us?

It is really difficult, I think, Vivek, and I think some of us do this better than others. And I think actually you might be one of the people who actually does this incredibly well. At least that's a sense that I get from my interactions with you. I think many spiritual traditions tell us that one of the things that helps us be more aware is to actually live more in our bodies than in our minds. And that is something that I personally find very difficult. I live very much in my mind and I live very much in the future. I'm thinking about the episodes that we'll be building, you know, five months from now, six months from now. I'm often not paying attention to what's happening around me. But our bodies are designed in some ways to live in the present. Our bodies can't live six months in the future. You know, you can't breathe for the Vivek who's going to be alive six months from now. You can only breathe for the Vivek who's here in the here and now. And so our bodies in some ways anchor us to the present in ways that our minds in some ways are not anchored to the present. And of course, the fact that our minds can time travel, this is a very useful capability that our minds have. But the downside of it is that we're often not spending time in the present. And I think one technique that some spiritual traditions have recommended is, in fact, to spend more time with the body, to actually ask yourself, how am I breathing? What am I seeing? What am I hearing? Let me. close my eyes for 45 seconds and try and listen to everything that's happening around me and just catalog all the different things I'm hearing. Let me close my eyes for two minutes and just catalog all the different sensations that are coming to me through my skin. And the more we're able to anchor ourselves in our bodies, the more it forces our minds to do a little less of time travel and a little more of living in the present.

That's a really great suggestion, Shankar. And I think your point also about the 45 seconds is that these moments don't have to take a long period of time in our lives, but sometimes we can significantly shift how we feel and how open or closed our mind is with just a minute of closing our eyes, being quiet, reflecting on how we're feeling, what we're hearing, being in nature. These, I think, cause shifts in our state, and they don't have to take very long. Hmm. do want to ask you Shankar about another topic, the time that we have left. And this is one that's been on my mind because I recently had a flight delay when I was traveling. And it was a multi -hour flight delay. And I initially was frustrated and was like, oh gosh, what am I going to do here? I had all this other stuff I was supposed to do. And then I paused and I was like, wait a minute. I have some podcasts that I've downloaded on my phone. I'm going to listen to them. So one of the episodes I listened to during that recent flight delay was the episode that you did on purpose. And this was incredibly powerful. This was with Anthony Burrow, I believe. And I wanted to talk to you a bit about purpose because I think one of the things that I have found in my travels around the country, not just talking to young people, but even to older people, is that this seems to be a moment in time where a lot of people are struggling with the question of what their purpose is. And maybe they had one before that was clear, maybe they didn't have one. But just everything happening in the world and the sort of tumultuous nature of people's lives, I think, is raising this question. And we're seeing on surveys, including of young people, that a large portion of people do not feel like they have a sense of purpose. So I was wondering if you could talk to us a little bit about the power and importance of purpose in our lives, and also make the distinction, which I found very helpful that you made, between purpose and goals, because I think we often conflate the two.

I'd be glad to. Anthony Burrow does work at Cornell University, brilliant psychologist. And he points out something that I think the moment he says it feels intuitively true for many of us, which is, you know, we think about burnout and stress and challenge as being difficult things in our lives. And those things, in fact, are difficult things in our lives. But when we look at our own lives, we often notice that there are some things we're able to work at for very long periods of time and not burnout. and other things we can do for like 15 minutes a day and we feel exhausted by them. And I think the difference between these two things is sort of where the inner motivation is coming from. When you have a sense that you're actually motivated by a sense of purpose, you have a vision of not just what you are doing, but why you are doing it. And that why is really an intensely personal thing. The way the world sees what your why is, is almost completely unimportant. What matters is how you see, what your why is. We had another episode some years ago featuring the researcher Amy Wrzesniewski, who has done work at hospitals, for example. And she finds that across the board at hospitals, whether you're talking about surgeons or janitors, there are some people who think about their jobs as jobs. They think of themselves as basically saying, I'm a professional. I'm coming here to do a professional job. I expect to be paid at the end of my services. And that's the end of my relationship. And there are other people who say, my job here is I'm a healer. I'm here to actually improve people's lives. And yes, they are performing a job and they are being compensated and they are getting salaries and benefits and all of those things are true. But what actually is motivating them is the sense of saying, I'm actually transforming this other person's life. I'm actually making this person better. And what Amy Wrzesniewski finds and what Anthony Burrow finds is that when you have that internal drive, when you have an internal drive that's not just about saying, I'm doing this for the money or I'm doing this because I'm getting something in exchange, it's not transactional. where the motivation actually comes from inside you, it buffers us from the slings and arrows of burnout and stress and exhaustion. That in some ways when you know why you're doing something and you have a why, it almost allows you to endure almost any amount of upheaval. And we talked a little bit about parenting a second ago. Parenting is a very good example of this. Parents understand and they derive purpose and meaning from being parents, at least many parents do. And I think these are the people who are happy being parents. They derive great inner satisfaction from being a parent. And it's that inner satisfaction that allows you to battle and endure what is really a fairly difficult time, especially in the early years of a child's life. There's so much that you have to do as a parent. But the reason, you know, parents don't necessarily… you know, go to their HR manager saying, I'm complaining of burnout. The reason that doesn't happen is that parents actually have the sense that I know why it is that I'm doing this. I know what the higher purpose is. I know what the goal is. And Amy Resnetsky finds in hospitals that when janitors think of themselves as healers, as opposed to just someone who are someone who's a custodian of the building, those people actually enjoy their jobs better. They are far more long lived in their jobs. They are far less likely to suffer from burnout. So it has really powerful and pervasive effects in our lives. And I think you know, one of the things that I'm curious about in your travels and what you've heard is not just the role of purpose in our individual lives, which is very important, but there's also in some ways, I think, a question of national purpose. There's a question of what is it we are all together here for? What is it that we are trying to do? And I think great leaders in some ways are able to inspire that. I mean, you know, you see that down history that people are able to get, you know, their followers to perform. incredible acts of self -sacrifice. And the reason they're performing that self -sacrifice is not because the sacrifice is fun. It's because the sacrifice becomes unimportant compared to that higher sense of purpose. And one of the things that I'm curious about, I mean, I think I know a little bit more about purpose at an individual level, but I'm curious in your travels, Vivek, do you see lessons that people are telling you about how they can, how they miss not just a sense of purpose in their individual lives, but a sense of collective purpose?

Yeah, I think that's very astute observation, Shankar. I do think that people draw great strength and motivation from being part of a community, a group that has a sense of purpose. I think about 1992 when Hurricane Andrew slammed into South Florida, where I was a high school student, and utterly devastated the community, leveled homes. tore down power lines and made the entire landscape unrecognizable. And at that time, as much pain as we were all in, as much loss as we had sustained, what actually brought people strength was a sense of collective purpose. Our purpose was to rebuild our community. It wasn't just to rebuild my home. It wasn't just to clear out my lawn. It was to rebuild our community. And so you had this surge of people who stepped up to bring food to other families, to help clear out other people's lawns, to get to public spaces and try to make them safer for others. I mean, there was a real sense that we had a purpose as a community, and it was to stand up again after we had been knocked down. And so I do think that those moments are incredibly powerful. You know, we've seen them historically in World War II or other moments where we have felt compelled to come together as a country and we were often called. to come together for a singular purpose. And we did that, contributed to that in our own way. I think that kind of, when you have the individual purpose and collective purpose, I think it brings incredible meaning to people's lives. And when we have that sense of meaning, I think that can motivate us and mobilize us to do extraordinary things that on our own we may not do. I do think that what's really powerful here too is that, when people have a sense of purpose, it's often most powerful, I find, when it's connected to something bigger than themselves. And this is where I do worry at times when I, when I often, this is a question I actually ask students everywhere I travel. I will often ask them, how do you define success? Or what are you being told success is? And what worries me is when, is the answer I hear often, which is young people saying, often with resignation, honestly, not with great enthusiasm, but saying, you know, I feel like to be successful, I've just gotta build my brand. I've gotta get more followers. I've just gotta be known. And if I do that, then I can be successful. And that sort of becomes, in a way, their sense of purpose. But the two challenges that worry me about that is one is, I do think it's very different when… you have a purpose that's connected to something and to someone bigger than yourself. But I also think this gets to the distinction I think that you made so beautifully in that podcast episode, which is a distinction between goals and purpose. And I would love for you to speak to that, because that was an important insight for me when I heard you say that.

Yes, and I think it's so easy to confuse those two things because goals are tangible. They're easily defined. You know, you can say I want to write a bestselling book or I want to make a million dollars or I want to become I want to get elected president of the United States. We can have goals that in some ways are very tangible things that are accomplishable. And in some ways, they allow us to have a ledger which allows us to either check things off the list and basically say, OK, I've achieved this goal. I've achieved that goal. The world can see the same ledger. The world often checks the same boxes. The world says, OK, you must be successful because you're a rich person or you must be successful because you won this big award. But in some ways, the distinction, I think, is purpose is really completely internally focused. It really is actually about what is driving you from the inside out as opposed to what's driving you from the outside in. When we go to a sports stadium to watch a match, you know, there is a goal that we have, which is we want our team to win. You know, if we care about, you know, football or baseball or cricket or whatever the sport is, you know, you go to the stadium because you want your team to win. And that's the goal. And if your team wins, you're going to be happy. And if your team loses, you're going to be sad. But here's the thing. Why is it that sports fans come back to the stadiums over and over again, even when their teams keep losing? They're not meeting their goals. They must be getting something else out of being at the stadium. And what they're getting, I think, is a sense that you indicated a second ago, Vivek, which is even in the domain of sports, when you're in a stadium and you're part of a group of 100 ,000 people who are cheering for something, you actually feel like you're part of something that is bigger than yourself. And that's perhaps a very trivial example of how we can be part of something that's bigger than ourselves. But the passion that many people have for sports, I think, is connected to this hunger that we actually have, that our lives are not circumscribed by our own narrow interests, that it's not just about me and my goals and my lawn and my house and my career, but it actually feels like I'm part of something bigger than myself. I think that's why we love to listen to music and we love to listen to music with other people. It feels wonderful not just to be moved by a piece of music, but to feel I'm in an auditorium where… 700 other people are experiencing the same beauty that I'm experiencing. And then you feel like you're part of something that is bigger and grander than yourself. So the distinction between goals and purpose, I think, is really an important distinction. I think at the level of of national policy and and again, if you don't mind, I'm going to try and toss a question back to you. We often hear, I think, from leaders who talk about what our goals should be. Our goals should be whatever, a certain number of people vaccinated, a certain number of, you know, the burden of disease should be X, you know, life expectancy should be Y. And those goals are, in fact, very important. They're ways we can hold each other accountable. We can measure progress that way. But as someone who is a researcher, a thinker, but also wears a policy hat, if you could wave a magic wand and give the country a sense of purpose, what would you do? How would you go about doing it, Vivek?

Well, it's a really good question. It's one that's been on my mind actually a lot. I think about purpose for our country as being very tied to identity. And I think both at an individual and a collective level that is true. Our purpose often gives us a sense of identity. And when I was younger, Shankar, when we had just moved to the United States, my parents made a long journey from India to the UK to Canada, ultimately to Miami, Florida. But I remember the earliest understanding I had of America came from my parents. And it was about the identity of our country. Hmm. they said, and what they taught me is that America was a place full of courageous, compassionate optimists. That was the identity, courageous, compassionate optimists. And that meant that even in the face of hardship, we had the courage to persevere, but we didn't do so all just looking out for ourselves. We cared about one another. We looked out for one another, we lifted each other up. And they knew that that wasn't always true, but they knew that those are the ideals to which we aspired. you know, as a country, and that's where they wanted their kids to grow up. And I think of that identity as being most powerful when it's in service of a powerful purpose. And the purpose to me that is incredibly powerful is the power to make people's lives better. Like, we have done that at various times as a country. Like, as, look, the role the United States played in helping rebuild Europe after World War II, that was a choice. Yes. that we could have just said, hey, we're the last remaining superpower at this point. We can just enjoy this victory. We can let others rebuild. We can take this advantage that we have and just run with it. Yet I actually think that there was a real sense of purpose that we gained as a country by knowing that we could make people's lives better all around the world. And when I think about our country's role in the world as diverse and varied as it has been. over the last nearly two and a half centuries. I think our best moments have been when we are contributing in some way, either economically or from a health perspective or in other ways to making other people's lives better. We also know just in our individual lives, Shankar, that it feels really good when we're able to do that, whether it's in this small act of extending a kind word to somebody who's having a hard day or whether it's helping somebody rebuild their home after a hurricane. Mm -hmm. Mm. These moments where we can help in smaller big ways, help other people, make other people's lives better, those are powerful sources of purpose. And I think at a time where in the world, many countries are struggling with the questions that you and I have talked about today about why is there so much negativity in the world? Do people only care about themselves? Is the future really brighter than the past or are we destined to really suffer and struggle more in the future? It makes a difference, I believe, for us as a nation to know that our purpose is to make other people's lives better, to lift other people up, not just inside our country, but around the world, and to do so with courage, with compassion, and with the trademark optimism that has brought generations of immigrants to our shores.

You know, many, many years ago, Vivek, I remember hearing Barack Obama speak for You know, many, many years ago, Vivek, I remember hearing Barack Obama speak for the very first time on the national stage at the 2004 Democratic National Convention. And during that speech, you know, he described his own origin story and how he came to be where he was on that stage. And he said… He said something that really has stayed with me for the last 20 years. He said, in no other country on earth is my story even possible. And I remember feeling tears spring to my eyes when I heard him say that. And not just because of who he was, but because that felt true to me, that as an immigrant to this country myself, I too feel like in no other country on earth is my story even possible. And I think this is not just true for the people among us who are immigrants. I think people who have been here for a long time also, I think, intuit that at some level, that in some ways this is a special country. It allows people to do incredible things. It allows us to actually look out for others and not just for ourselves. But it seems that from time to time we lose sight of that vision and we lose sight of that vision because of the conflicts and the dissensions and the narrow disagreements that we have. And it requires us to stop from time to time and actually remind ourselves how special the United States is and what it's allowed us to do.

I couldn't agree more. And I remember hearing those lines years ago and feeling the same feeling you felt, which is this real sense of being able to identify with that sentiment, this real sense of gratitude to our country for what it's provided my family and so many other countries. And I remember years later when I was sworn in as Surgeon General under President Obama, I remember looking out at the people who had gathered that day as I took that oath of office, seeing my grandmother in a wheelchair, thinking about all that she had seen, you know, having been born in India under British rule in the largest, what became the largest democracy in the world and now seeing her son growing up in the world's oldest democracy. I saw my parents there, thought about the journey they had made, thought about the fact that my father was born in an extraordinarily poor family in a small farming village in India. And I remember saying at the time to my family really, but to all who were there that that there are few other places in the world where the son of a poor farmer from India would be asked by the president to look out for the health of an entire nation. That is a beautiful, powerful American story. And I worry about us losing sight of the power of our country's ideals. And there are times where we have to reinforce and remember those ideals and when the noise gets too great. And right now there's a lot of noise. There's a lot of negativity that's distracting us from, I think, our real sense of purpose. But my hope is that we will not allow everything that's broken about the world to distract us from what's beautiful about the world. And there's still a lot of beauty in our world, in our country, in our communities. On that note, Shankar, I want to end this conversation with something that, a gift that you have given to many of us in the form of the Unsung Heroes, you know, sort of segments that you provide often as part of the Hidden Brain podcasts. And, you know, at a time where I do worry that many people are steeped in despair, these episodes are just such beautiful and often entertaining bright spots. You know, when you and I did a podcast together when… You were kind enough to invite me to be a guest on your podcast. I remember you included one of those and the Unsung Hero is my sister. But I was wondering as we close our time together, if you can talk about the Unsung Heroes segments, what inspired you to do them? And if there are any that stick out to you, I would love if you could share them with us.

Sure. So several years ago, Vivek, you know, as we were wrapping up one of the episodes, I think someone had helped us on the episode who was not part of the editorial team. And so on a lark, I basically just thanked the person and called this person an unsung hero. And because we had done it one week, it occurred to us that there was someone else the next week whom we could thank. And so we did it again the next week and then the week after. And of course, once you start noticing the number of people who are required to build anything, you realize the number of helping hands are in fact almost infinite. There are a huge number of people required to build anything. Many of those people are working behind the scenes without recognition. And so we started thanking them on a regular basis as the unsung hero of that episode. And then something very curious happened. And this is another example of how if you just do things sometimes in the world, you will notice the effects they have. And those effects might not be what you anticipated. Many listeners told us that this ended up being one of their favorite parts of the episode, that people would listen to the end of the episode to know who the unsung hero was, to hear the shout out to this person, this moment of gratitude. And from a psychological perspective, I found this fascinating because I am thanking… you know, someone, let's call them person A. The listener doesn't really know me and doesn't really know person A. Why does it make a difference to the listener if I am thanking person A? And so there's something really interesting here psychologically, which is that even if we don't know the parties involved, it makes us happy to see people expressing gratitude to other people, even if both those people are strangers. If I see a child thanking her parent, for being a great parent, it makes me feel happy, even if that's not my child or I'm not the parent. And so a couple of years ago, we decided to expand this project into what's become both a podcast as well as a radio segment on NPR's All Things Considered every Monday afternoon, where we asked people to share stories of their unsung heroes. And we've just had an enormous number of people write to us with these incredible stories. And some of them are very ordinary stories. You know, I was… struggling to get on a plane because I was looking after two children and I couldn't fold my stroller and someone came up behind me and helped fold the stroller. Like really small acts of kindness, but really also sometimes, you know, dramatic acts of kindness. There's one story I remember. This woman in Connecticut tells us -- her name was Lesia Day. Her mother used to live a few miles away. and would drive over to come to Lesia's house and to see Lesia and Lesia's children. But the mom was starting to develop early signs of dementia. And on one of these trips, she missed the exit to Lesher's house and kept driving. And she kept driving and she kept driving. And finally, she realized that she was lost and she pulls off the highway. And at this point, she's actually left the state of Connecticut. She's now in Rhode Island. And she pulls off the highway and she goes to a gas station. And she asks a young man who's filling up his car how to get to her daughter's house and shows him the address. And the young man intuits that this elderly woman is not just lost, but perhaps might be a little disoriented. And so he says, don't worry. I know how to get you back to your place. And so he tells her, get in your car and follow me. And so he basically gets back on the highway and drives her all the way back to Connecticut. makes sure that she is home safe, and then takes off and goes on his way. So he took like two and a half or three or four hours out of his day just to help this woman whom he met at a gas station. And I think it's the kind of story that I think is, first of all, it's a beautiful story. It's a heartwarming story. But I found something very interesting has happened as a result of this project, which is that people have realized two things. One, very small acts of kindness can make a very big difference in somebody else's life. And so people, you know, the trivial thing that you're doing, you know, folding up someone's stroller as they're getting on an airplane, it's something that you don't think about 15 seconds after you've done it. But for that person, it actually meant a lot. So in other words, there's again this mismatch between what we think we're giving other people and how other people receive what we're giving. The second thing that's really striking is that people often remember these moments of kindness, not for hours or days or weeks. but they're remembering these acts of kindness for years or decades after they happened. People would recall these times when someone helped them 35 years ago, and it's clear that they've carried around in their hearts this memory of this person who has done this kind thing. And the remarkable thing that's come out of this project that I think has been the most gratifying for our team is that people are increasingly telling us, you know, when I'm out and about, I'm looking for ways now that I can be an unsung hero. in someone else's life. Someone told us that they were at a checkout line at the grocery store and there was a family in front of them that wasn't able to buy all the groceries that they wanted because they couldn't, they didn't have enough money. And so the person said, you know, they pulled out their credit card and paid for the last amount of groceries that could go into this person's basket. And, you know, at the end of the day, you know, maybe it was 10 bucks or five bucks or whatever it was. But again, it's not so much that you're buying someone the can of tomatoes. I think what you're actually giving this other person is something far more profound than a gift of tomatoes. You're giving them the sense that we are actually in this together, that we are in some ways looking out for each other.

That is so powerful. And I think for the people who are hearing these stories, even if they're not the giver or the receiver, just how nourishing and restorative it is to hear these stories, I think, speak to all of us and to the desire we have to have more compassion and kindness in the world. So I'm so glad that you have created these stories and put them together. Shankar, I've just so enjoyed this conversation with you. I could speak to you for hours about these topics, but… There's a lot that's gonna stick with me from today. Our conversation about purpose, the powerful reminder that how we may perceive an act of kindness is very different from how the recipient perceives it and that our motivation, our why, is really important and to focus more on that than on the what. I'm also thinking about the George Saunders quote that you have referenced in the past, which I find so powerful. which where he says, what I regret most in my life are failures of kindness. And what a powerful and poignant reminder that is, I think to me and hopefully to others as well, that to reach into that well of kindness that exists within each of our hearts and to recognize that in whatever dose we're able to share that with the world, that it will make a difference. And as your stories of unsung heroes, I think evidence, sometimes that impact will last for years or for decades. So thank you for giving us so much insight, so much hope, and for sharing your wisdom today, Shankar. And just thanks for being the, just the incredible optimistic human being that you are, especially during these times where a lot of people are worried about the future. I think your podcasts and you as a journalist just represent real light and hope, and we need that more than ever. So I appreciate you.

Thank you so much for having me on, Vivek. It's been a pleasure and an honor. And as they say, when I grow up, I want to be like you.

You're so kind Shankar, thank you. This concludes Part Two of my conversation with Shankar Vedantam. Join us for our next episode of House Calls with Dr. Vivek Murthy. Wishing you all health and happiness.