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and welcome back to Beyond the

0:49

To-Do List, a podcast about productivity.

0:51

I'm your host, Eric Fisher, and

0:54

in this episode, I'm excited to

0:56

welcome Ben Orlin, author of Math

0:58

for English majors, a human take

1:00

on the universal language. He's an

1:02

educator, a writer, and has a

1:04

book series that makes math more

1:07

accessible, humorous, and relatable. And in

1:09

this conversation, we are talking about

1:11

how to understand math as a

1:13

form of communication and getting over

1:15

some of the. stigma and negative

1:17

experiences that like me, you may

1:20

have had with math in school.

1:22

But Ben reframes it through storytelling

1:24

and humor and makes math more

1:26

engaging and approachable. And then how

1:28

that relates to productivity is this

1:30

concept of stuckness. We've all been

1:32

stuck at a point in a

1:35

math problem. Sometimes, as you'll hear

1:37

in this conversation, mathematicians will get

1:39

stuck. for over seven years and

1:41

then some. But it's all about

1:43

what you do in that stuckness,

1:45

insights into how to flip and frame

1:47

that problem solving moment you're stuck in,

1:49

as well as making better decisions because

1:51

of it. So even if you love

1:53

math, I think you're still gonna get

1:55

a lot out of this conversation with

1:57

Ben. Well this week it is my

1:59

privilege to welcome to the show Ben

2:02

Orlin Ben welcome to beyond the to-do

2:04

list. Thanks so much. Okay I'm really

2:06

excited to chat with you. Really excited

2:08

to have you here. I never thought

2:10

we'd be talking about math. Almost everywhere

2:12

I go I got that including in

2:14

classes so I did not expect we'd

2:16

have to do math today. Why are

2:18

we talking about math in our math

2:20

class today? The students said. But you've

2:22

got to book out. called math for

2:24

English majors a human take on the

2:26

universal language and I'm very curious. You

2:28

mean you're describing math as a language

2:30

so I guess unpack that analogy for

2:32

us. How does the perspectives shift there

2:34

help people to approach math differently and

2:36

why? Yeah, yeah. So first of all,

2:38

I want to say English majors is

2:40

not meant to be an exclusionary term.

2:42

It's been fun actually since the book

2:44

came out, having so many people come

2:46

out of the woodwork, people I didn't

2:48

know majored in English, but they all

2:50

come to be, oh, you know, I

2:52

was an English major back in college.

2:54

So that's been fun. But it's really,

2:56

it's sort of really math for human

2:58

beings, math for anyone. And yeah, as

3:00

you say, the reason English majors shows

3:02

up in the title shows up in

3:04

the title is that I wanted to

3:06

focus on. the language side of math.

3:08

I think the glamorous side of math

3:10

is when you're talking about huge numbers.

3:12

That's the closest we get to glamour,

3:14

you talk about how many stars or

3:16

in a galaxy or how many atoms

3:18

or in the universe. I wanted to

3:20

focus on something a little humbler than

3:22

that actually, and especially, kind of drawn

3:24

on my experience as a teacher, what

3:26

are the places where students get off

3:28

the train? There's like a few stops

3:30

on the train of mathematics, where just

3:32

the train empties out. I'm done with

3:34

that. You know, numbers I was fine

3:36

with, but one number over another number,

3:38

and there's a million different ways to

3:40

say a half, I don't like that,

3:42

they get off the train. And then

3:44

really the one where the train empties

3:46

out is algebra. You know, often around

3:48

8th or 9th grade, when, you know,

3:50

and the way everyone always, everyone always

3:52

says it, is, you know, and the

3:54

way everyone always says it, is, you

3:56

know, and the way everyone, when, everyone

3:58

always, even if people keep taking mathematics,

4:00

even if people keep taking mathematics, people

4:02

keep taking mathematics, people keep taking mathematics,

4:04

people keep taking mathematics, And so in

4:06

both cases it really is it's the

4:08

language that's throwing people. It's the, you

4:10

know, there's something written down on the

4:12

page. And that thing isn't feeling like

4:14

language to them. It's feeling like this

4:16

inscrutable series of marks. And there's these

4:18

rules you have to follow for these

4:20

rules you have to follow for moving

4:22

the marks. And there's these rules you

4:24

have to follow for moving the marks

4:26

around moving the marks. And it's these

4:28

rules you have to follow for, just.

4:30

kind of go through symbol by symbol

4:32

almost and just on packet like what

4:34

are we talking about when we when

4:36

we write those letters next to each

4:38

other. Yeah it's like understanding the components

4:40

of a spell I guess. Yeah no

4:42

exactly we're showing the spells aren't actually

4:44

the spells aren't actually magic that there's

4:46

just patterns you know there's just patterns

4:48

out there in the world you know

4:50

patterns that like my one-year-old my five-year-old

4:52

come across when they play with blocks

4:54

or when they you know draw little

4:56

dots on a page and we've So

4:58

one of the reasons why I never

5:00

thought we'd be talking math on this

5:02

show is because I guess I'd given

5:04

math a stigma myself. I understood fractions,

5:06

totally didn't have a problem there. It

5:08

was high school and it was algebra

5:10

and it wasn't that I didn't understand

5:13

that those letters were placeholders, but it's

5:15

that I just couldn't get it to

5:17

work or click in my brain and

5:19

I didn't really have either the courage

5:21

myself to ask for help or the

5:23

confidence in the teacher or teachers to

5:25

ask them for help, but got through,

5:27

I squeaked by, graduated high school, but

5:29

then I needed a math course in

5:31

college and took one my very last

5:33

semester, barely failed it, barely, was allowed

5:35

to walk with all my friends, but

5:37

then I had to take a May

5:39

term right after and make up that

5:41

class and then of all people, one

5:43

of the tennis coaches at the school

5:45

taught that. math class and it clicked.

5:47

He was able to get it to

5:49

click. Something fell in place, I got

5:51

it, and then I was whipping through

5:53

it and I was doing it correctly.

5:55

And as I was taking, I think,

5:57

one of my finals, I was taking

5:59

it over in the phys ed or

6:01

whatever, office, athletics office, and he was

6:03

walking by and I heard him talk,

6:05

I mean, basically I was able to

6:07

tell him, hey, you were the one

6:09

that finally helped me get this and

6:11

thank you so much. That was a

6:13

moment of stuckness for me, which I

6:15

know you have. That was years long.

6:17

Like we're talking late 90s into early

6:19

2001 or something, five, six years of

6:21

stuckness with math. But you talk about

6:23

stuckness in the book. Talk a little

6:25

bit about that and how that relates

6:27

to math and how you talk about

6:29

that in this book. Yeah, well, no,

6:31

thanks for sharing the story. Hear a

6:33

lot of variations on stories like that.

6:35

They're always interesting for me. You know,

6:37

math can be, it can be puzzles,

6:39

and it can be games, and it

6:41

can be kind of fun stuff, or

6:43

it can be a series of hoops

6:45

you have to jump through in your

6:47

education to walk down the aisle and

6:49

get to where you're trying to go.

6:51

And yeah, it makes me sad to

6:53

hear all those stories of people who

6:55

got thwarted or got blocked on their

6:57

path because of, you know, a mathematics

6:59

course that just wasn't working for them.

7:01

But yeah, so stuckness, right. So for

7:03

example, I'm a teacher, my wife is

7:05

a research mathematician, so she has her

7:07

doctorate in math, and so lots of

7:09

the folks I know through her are

7:11

research mathematicians, which is to say basically

7:13

what they're trying to do is they're

7:15

trying to solve a math problem and

7:17

no one has ever solved. You know,

7:19

when I give problems to my students,

7:21

I generally don't give problems to my

7:23

students. I generally don't give them ones

7:25

that no one has ever solved. I

7:27

generally don't know the answer to these.

7:29

of what do you do when you're

7:31

stuck? Because inevitably they're stuck. If you're

7:33

working on a math problem, no one

7:35

has ever solved before. You definitely don't

7:37

sit down and just be like, oh,

7:39

I don't know what to do. carry

7:41

the one, there we go, we're done.

7:43

It's gonna take years. And so one

7:45

of the famous examples I like to

7:47

cite is a problem called from Oz

7:49

last theorem, which I won't keep the

7:51

punchline away, but this was a problem

7:53

sort of first being down in the

7:55

1600s. And he was reading a book,

7:57

and this is about Pythagorean theorem, actually,

7:59

so about how you can take a

8:01

square number, and often you can break

8:03

it down into two smaller square. So

8:05

take like a five by five square.

8:07

Right there's 25 little if you draw

8:09

like 25 dots of five rows of

8:11

five you get 25 You can break

8:13

that into 25 can break down into

8:15

16 and nine The 16 can make

8:17

a little four by four square and

8:19

the nine can make a little three

8:21

by three square in terms of you

8:24

can do that with other squares too

8:26

And so what this guy appeared in

8:28

Vermont writes down in the margin. He's

8:30

like oh, you know what you can't

8:32

do this with cubes You can't do

8:34

this with cubes You can never take

8:36

a cube and break into two cubes

8:38

and so on for fourth powers and

8:40

fifth powers, six powers. Anyway, he writes

8:42

that down, he says, and I know

8:44

how to prove this is true, but

8:46

you know, I'm writing in the margin

8:48

here, doesn't quite fit in the margin,

8:50

can't quite fit here, but I've got

8:52

a great proof of this thing that

8:54

I just claimed is true, I just

8:56

can't quite write it down here. I

8:58

just can't quite write it down here.

9:00

And in hindsight, he did not have

9:02

a proof, he sort of left it

9:04

in his papers, his son, his son

9:06

published it, he published it, he published

9:08

it, he had, he published it, he

9:10

had, he published it, he had, he

9:12

published it, he had, he published it,

9:14

he published it, he had, he published

9:16

it, he published it, he published it,

9:18

he had, he published it, he published

9:20

it, he published it, he had, he

9:22

published it, he published it, he published

9:24

it, he published it, he published it,

9:26

he published it, he published it It

9:28

was a problem that mathematicians kept working

9:30

on, kept thinking about, and just couldn't

9:32

get over it. They make a little

9:34

progress here or there. They'd sort of

9:36

solve it for some of the cases,

9:38

but they were trying to prove this

9:40

thing he'd written down in a margin

9:42

in 1638. And here we are rounding

9:44

into the 20th century, and nobody solved

9:46

it. Nobody can find the proof. And

9:48

then finally, this guy Andrew Wiles, now

9:50

Sir Andrew Wiles, thanks to his work

9:52

he done on this problem who gets

9:54

tenure, which gets tenure, which I think

9:56

afforded him a kind of kind of

9:58

protection. And then he goes up to

10:00

his office in the attic at his

10:02

house and he spends the next seven

10:04

years there just working on this, just

10:06

trying to find a path at this

10:08

point. It's connected to other problems. So

10:10

he's doing kind of rich interesting work

10:12

and he knows that even if he

10:14

doesn't solve this problem, it'll still be

10:16

worthwhile. Anyway, seven years go by and

10:18

you know, he's not. up there the

10:20

entire time. He comes down for dinner

10:22

with his family. And then finally he

10:24

emerges at the end. He says, oh,

10:26

I've solved it. And it turns out

10:28

he's wrong. There's a mistake in there.

10:30

But then another year goes by and

10:32

he works with a friend and they

10:34

solve it. And so finally, he's able

10:36

to publish it. And now it's no

10:38

longer for Ma's last theorem. It's the

10:40

Ferma-Wiles theorem. And so this is like,

10:42

he's now, I mean, we don't have

10:44

famous mathematicicians. We don't have famous mathematicians.

10:46

sort of that's an oxymoron. But the

10:48

closest thing we had in the 1990s

10:50

was Andrew Wiles. He was sort of,

10:52

you know, there was a BBC documentary,

10:54

there were books written about it. It

10:56

was this really celebrated problem. And the

10:58

reason I love the story is just

11:00

that we were stuck for so long.

11:02

I mean, we knew what the problem

11:04

was, we knew what the answer should

11:06

kind of look like, and it still

11:08

took, you know, most of four centuries.

11:10

for you know and it wasn't just

11:12

wilds obviously he was building on the

11:14

work of hundreds and hundreds of brilliant

11:16

people who had come before to get

11:18

an answer there so anyway that's why

11:20

i like to think of math as

11:22

as a model of like what does

11:24

it look like intellectually what do you

11:26

do when you're stuck on something how

11:28

do you be productively stuck oh that's

11:30

a really good question productively stuck is

11:32

not something i think anybody's ever said

11:35

here but obviously that's the problem we're

11:37

all trying to solve Oh man, it's

11:39

a great perspective to have, I can't

11:41

get over the 300 plus years and

11:43

then he decides seven or eight really

11:45

to work on it and dedicate to

11:47

it and obviously not sitting there the

11:49

whole time, but what else was he

11:51

doing during that time? Was he doing

11:53

anything else? I mean obviously the tenure

11:55

allowed him to read it. He was

11:57

at Princeton or possibly the IAS, the

11:59

Institute for Advanced Study. If he's at

12:01

Princeton, then he would have had some

12:03

teaching requirements. I'm sure he was teaching

12:05

a few classes in the time, probably

12:07

teaching some classes for grad students. But

12:09

yeah, I choose to retain the romantic

12:11

image of him just, you know, every

12:13

day he gets out of bed, he

12:15

has a little breakfast, little coffee goes

12:17

up to his office in the attic,

12:19

it just works and works and works,

12:21

comes down for meals. I'm sure it

12:23

wasn't quite 24-7 or even, you know,

12:25

eat five or whatever, but I think

12:27

it was pretty much his singular. where

12:29

to go? When he hasn't been published

12:31

much lately, is he? Oh, I hear

12:33

he's working on that problem. Part of

12:35

the reason he chose, I've heard him

12:37

speak about it, and part of the

12:39

reason he chose that problem was he

12:41

knew that even if he didn't get

12:43

it, it had been, you know, when

12:45

it was first stated in the 1600s,

12:47

it was kind of this little, it

12:49

had been, you know, when it was

12:51

first stated in the 1600, it was

12:53

kind of other important problems in isolation.

12:55

it wouldn't have been worth putting seven

12:57

years in because you know part of

12:59

struggling productively is picking something where even

13:01

if you fail at the stated goal

13:03

something of value will emerge and so

13:05

there are problems in math that don't

13:07

fit that description and so people don't

13:09

tend to work on them and then

13:11

problems that do and it's you know

13:13

it's okay to pour years of real

13:15

life into them because even if you

13:17

don't get the prize you know you're

13:19

going to get consolation prizes that they

13:21

make up for it. all the while,

13:23

probably yes, probably teaching courses, but then

13:25

he, okay, I got my course, you

13:27

know, I went and did, I did

13:29

facetime today and now I'm back in

13:31

my attic and I'm working on the

13:33

real problem that I'm working on, that

13:35

all the while his continued exercise there,

13:37

you know, most people if they were

13:39

in his position, they would say something

13:41

along the lines of, well yeah, that's

13:43

the problem I'm trying to solve, but

13:45

in the meantime, it's helping me exercise

13:47

my brain in ways that I hadn't

13:49

or wouldn't have been doing. up till

13:51

that point and so by taking on

13:53

this challenge, you know, creative choice here,

13:55

that other things, that it's yielding other

13:57

things in his other areas or other

13:59

things he'd been working on, etc. What

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then we have to stop, but it's dinner

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time, whatever, you gotta go, I gotta go.

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up to seven. And the question is, how

25:32

should we split the winnings? Turns out that

25:34

problem, just thinking about like, oh, we've been

25:36

playing a game, how do we divide the

25:38

prize? was this really important problem in early

25:40

probability. There are two, actually, Pierre de Formaga

25:42

and Blaze Pascal, who's the other, a mathematician

25:44

who's corresponding with, there's this famous series of

25:46

letters back and forth between them, where they're

25:48

kind of bouncing around that problem, which their

25:50

friend had showed up with their friend, who

25:52

was like an inveterate gambler, and he had

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given them that problem. So just messing around

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27:44

it was, I could probably rattle off

27:46

a bunch of them, one of them,

27:48

it was while he was riding a

27:50

train, another one brushing his teeth, another

27:52

one, the person was dropping their kids

27:54

off at like a birthday party, another

27:57

one like their kid's soccer game, another

27:59

one walking around campus, going. to get

28:01

lunch. I mean, everybody made their moment

28:03

of discovery, not while they were working on

28:05

the problem. Right? Like, the pieces

28:07

clicked into place at some other moment

28:09

in time, at some other place, not

28:12

at their desk, not at their

28:14

chalkboard, not while they were hunched

28:16

over a PDF, they were hunched

28:18

over a PDF, they'd printed out,

28:20

but while they were just going

28:22

about living their life, absorbed this

28:24

problem, and then it was running through

28:26

their mind and moving through their

28:28

bloodstream. Out walking is a good

28:31

place for ideas. taking a shower, great time

28:33

to get ideas. Sometimes I think I'm getting good ideas when I'm

28:35

running, but I think I'm getting less oxygen to my brain then,

28:37

when I get back, the running ideas, usually not that good, but

28:39

walking ideas are good. So there's some optimal speed, maybe to be

28:41

moving, to have good ideas, to be moving, to have good, to

28:43

be moving, the perfect velocity. To be moving, the perfect velocity. Maybe

28:45

to be moving, to have good, to have good, to be moving,

28:47

to have good, to be moving, to have good, to have good,

28:49

to have good, to be moving, to have good, to have good,

28:51

to be moving, to have good, to have good, to be moving,

28:53

to have good, to be moving, to have good, to be moving,

28:55

to have good, to have good, to be moving, to be moving,

28:57

to have good, to have good, to be moving, to be moving,

29:00

to have good, to be moving, to be moving, to have

29:02

Right, having computers so ubiquitous in the

29:04

world, we can kind of think of

29:06

ourselves like computers. We're not that

29:08

kind of computer. That is not how we

29:10

work. We need breaks and we need a

29:13

chance to breathe and different experiences to keep

29:15

thoughts circulating in an interesting way. That's

29:17

why I'm guessing that in the mix

29:19

of his solving of that problem for

29:21

seven years or getting close and then

29:23

having the friend help. that he had other

29:25

routines going on and that was one

29:28

component of revisiting over and over, but

29:30

then it was like, okay, I have

29:32

this class these days, at this time,

29:34

I have my regular routines. Yeah, yeah,

29:36

no, I'm sure that's true. Simon Singh

29:38

wrote a great book, called, Simon Singh,

29:40

wrote a great book, called, called, Simon

29:42

Singh, wrote a great book, called, from

29:45

Asa Nigma, about the history of the

29:47

problem, and about while solving it. And

29:49

I've read that book, while I've heard,

29:51

while I've heard, while I've heard, while

29:53

I'll, who write books, what their writing

29:55

routine is. You can't ever copy it because

29:57

everybody's a little bit different. You gotta kind

29:59

of create. sculpt your own patterns. But I'm

30:01

sure you're right, that whatever it was he

30:03

was doing in that time, he needed probably

30:05

a lot of pieces in place to keep

30:07

himself sane while continuing to swack his forehead

30:09

against that problem. I think, you know, for

30:12

people who are listening to this and they're

30:14

hesitant about math or they've felt disconnected from

30:16

it at a time and they want to

30:18

maybe enter in. We may have sparked some

30:20

curiosity here. What's some piece of advice or

30:22

encouragement that you'd... offer other than grabbing your

30:24

book, which I'll link up to in the

30:26

show notes, to help them see math in

30:28

a new light. First thing I would say

30:30

is that math is thinking, sort of in

30:32

its purest form, its ideas. And so the

30:34

part in school that you often see is

30:36

almost math more as like a technical craft.

30:38

It's more like a knitting, where if you

30:40

drop a stitch, you've kind of messed it

30:42

up. And if you don't carry the three,

30:44

you've messed it up now. And so it's

30:46

very much about almost this physical product of

30:48

the number on the page you're creating. For

30:50

most people, for most purposes, math isn't really

30:52

about that precise number. It's about a way

30:54

of thinking. And the other thing I would

30:56

say, and I say this from experience, I

30:58

don't just say this as someone who... got

31:01

a degree in math, I don't think everybody

31:03

could do exactly the coursework I did. But

31:05

I've taught middle school, I've taught high school,

31:07

I teach community college now, and I've met

31:09

so many people who think they can't do

31:11

math, who can do wonderful math, who can

31:13

solve problems, who can learn skills, they didn't

31:15

think they could learn, and the obstacle is

31:17

almost always emotional more than it is cognitive.

31:19

Well, it's like I would have different brains

31:21

have different abilities, I would never make the

31:23

NBA, I would never make the NBA, love

31:25

basketball. There's nothing I could do to make

31:27

the NBA. Most of us, there's nothing we

31:29

could do to, we would never be Andrew

31:31

Wiles, right? We're not going to solve that

31:33

problem. But that's fine. Most of us don't

31:35

need to. Like I don't need to make

31:37

the NBA. I can still get a lot

31:39

of joy out of playing basketball. And most

31:41

people can still get a lot of use

31:43

and a lot of value out of mathematics

31:45

they learn. The obstacle, and this is actually

31:47

a lot of joy out of playing basketball.

31:49

And most people can still get a lot

31:52

of use and a lot of use and

31:54

a lot of use and a lot of

31:56

use and a lot of value, a lot

31:58

of use and a lot of value, a

32:00

lot of value, a lot of value, a

32:02

lot of value, a lot of value, a

32:04

lot of value, a, a, a, a, a,

32:06

a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a,

32:08

a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a,

32:10

a appreciate the beauty of math, although math

32:12

is beautiful, or you've got to, you know,

32:14

learn how to ask people for help, although

32:16

that's also really useful, you do. It's being

32:18

stuck. You got to accept that it's okay

32:20

to be stuck. And accept that not just

32:22

intellectually, but emotionally, when you're in that stuck

32:24

moment, to kind of quiet that anxiety response,

32:26

you know, this is okay, this is where

32:28

I'm supposed to be. Like, I'm solving a

32:30

problem, I'm not looking at a solved problem.

32:32

to be stuck. It's to not be quite

32:34

sure where to go. And you got to

32:36

try a direction anyway and see what you

32:38

can learn about the landscape of the problem.

32:41

Yeah. Trying and seeing if something works. It's

32:43

scientific experimentation in a sense as well, right?

32:45

I don't often feel very scientific when I'm

32:47

doing it. I feel like an addiction. One

32:49

of the ways you know you've done a

32:51

great job with a math problem is when

32:53

you guess if the answer you're like, oh,

32:55

that was obvious. I feel so stupid not

32:57

having seen that. And the thing is like,

32:59

you know, we all feel that way when

33:01

we solve a problem in math class we're

33:03

taking, but also mathematicians feel that way. There

33:05

will be, you know, one of those open

33:07

problems that stuck where the guy who solved

33:09

the problem was brushing his teeth. Those problems

33:11

that have been open and statistics for 40

33:13

years. And when everybody saw the solution, they're

33:15

like, oh, that's obvious. It's like, well, no,

33:17

it wasn't. It was 40 years. It was

33:19

a little disheartening to have that feeling over

33:21

and over again as part of the reward

33:23

baked in, right? Yeah, I mean, I guess

33:25

the flip side of it is the simplicity

33:27

of it, the fact that you can then

33:30

hold the idea. in your head look at

33:32

it and be like ah that's the thing

33:34

I was seeking and it's kind of lovely

33:36

to have a little jewel you can hold

33:38

like that as opposed to the thing you

33:40

were seeking be something so complicated you're like

33:42

well I found it but I don't understand

33:44

it that's true I hey I solved that

33:46

one and that one was so obvious so

33:48

spin it don't just oh that was so

33:50

stupid no it's oh that one was so

33:52

obvious so that means this one can't be

33:54

that much harder than that one At least

33:56

their first class, you know, a motivation, use

33:58

it as a motivator instead of a... Yeah,

34:00

use it as a motivator and also that

34:02

like, it can be hard to rewrite your...

34:04

own sense of what's a reward. But really

34:06

to see it as like that, the fact

34:08

that you see it as obvious now means

34:10

you really mastered that problem. You really saw

34:12

it. And Wiles has this beautiful analogy he

34:14

would give where when he was working on

34:16

part of the problem, to him it felt

34:19

like stumbling in a room full of furniture,

34:21

the room, the room is totally dark though,

34:23

so he was like bumping into stuff and

34:25

he's banging his shins and getting bruised, no

34:27

idea what's going on. And then finally he

34:29

said, he said, about every six months, about

34:31

every six months, he'd about every six months,

34:33

he'd about every six months, he'd about every

34:35

six months, he'd about every six months, he'd,

34:37

he'd, he'd, he'd, he'd, he'd, he'd, he'd about

34:39

every six months, he'd, he'd, he'd, he'd, he'd,

34:41

he'd, he'd about every six months, he'd, he'd,

34:43

he'd, he'd, he'd, he Oh, that's what I

34:45

was working on. That's what I bumped into.

34:47

That was an ornament. That makes sense. That

34:49

was the couch. All I didn't realize was

34:51

a sectional couch. That explains why I couldn't

34:53

get around it over there. And so suddenly

34:55

that part of the problem he'd been working

34:57

on would become illuminated to him. Once he'd

34:59

kind of banged, he'd been working on would

35:01

become illuminated to him. Once he'd kind of

35:03

banged around on, would become illuminated to him.

35:05

Once he'd kind of banged around, I mean,

35:08

the word for that is wisdom, right? Like,

35:10

I think wisdom feels obvious to the wise.

35:12

And so if something feels obvious to you

35:14

and once it didn't, you know, there was

35:16

a time when it didn't feel obvious, you

35:18

had no idea this was true. You know,

35:20

that's wisdom. Not a bad thing. It doesn't

35:22

mean you were a failure before. It means

35:24

you've learned something about the world. the more

35:26

you navigate dark rooms with lots of furniture

35:28

in them, the better you get it doing

35:30

it the next time around. And or no

35:32

way, an estimated time of reaching a switch

35:34

that then suddenly, oh, okay. Yeah, no, exactly.

35:36

I've never thought about doing it with an

35:38

actual room full of furniture, but you know,

35:40

that might be a good kind of trust

35:42

building exercise with yourself. It's a good example

35:44

for, yeah, it's one of those trust building

35:46

exercises for a team. ordinary room. Yes it's

35:48

seen from an ordinary room just there's no

35:50

lights and lots of furniture. That's right yeah

35:52

yeah that's what life feels like sometimes. Well

35:54

I would like to point people to where

35:57

they can find out more about you've got

35:59

multiple books you've had books previous to this

36:01

I'm sure you'll do more where can people

36:03

go to do that? Yeah, so my website

36:05

is math with bad drawings.com and that's my

36:07

brand title and that comes the bad drawings

36:09

comes from a very authentic place which just

36:11

I really can't draw but I write about

36:13

math I teach math so it math is

36:15

very visual right you really benefit from visuals

36:17

so I just draw anyway even though it's

36:19

really not my strength. Those my first book

36:21

was math with bad drawings and my blog

36:23

is titled math of bad drawings. You can

36:25

find me that same on Facebook and Instagram

36:27

and as of right now when I'm speaking

36:29

I'm still on X slash Twitter although I

36:31

don't know how long that'll last social media

36:33

comes and goes but the blog I've got

36:35

that you are a lockdown so math and

36:37

bad drugs.com should be there perfect yeah so

36:39

Ben I'm gonna link up to that in

36:41

the show notes and I really hope that

36:43

this is something that kind of is intriguing

36:46

and fun and you know, scratch is an

36:48

itch for some people that, and maybe I

36:50

may have triggered some people too with my

36:52

story or something along those lines. I was

36:54

gonna thank you for your effort man to

36:56

talk about math because I know it's not

36:58

everybody's favorite way to spend a Friday afternoon

37:00

is chit-chatting about math. But I appreciate if

37:02

we can open those doors for more people,

37:04

I think people will be excited at what.

37:06

possibilities they can find and what paths it

37:08

opens up in their life if they can

37:10

stop just kind of instinctively moving away from

37:12

any door that's got math written on it.

37:14

Yeah, I appreciate your time. It's a limit

37:16

that I think is too limiting and it

37:18

definitely did that to me and I'm glad

37:20

that I'm kind of past that now. Hopefully

37:22

others can get some encouragement here so. Yeah,

37:24

no, I'm glad. Thanks for being here. Well,

37:28

that's another podcast crossed off your listening to do list.

37:30

I hope that you found new insight in this conversation

37:32

when it comes to math and math as a language

37:34

and Identified some of that stuckness that you might have

37:36

felt. I know for me sometimes a problem can be

37:38

something you're stuck in and a solution can be hard

37:41

to find. But as long as you're embracing that stuckness

37:43

and going about your creativity and your problem solving techniques

37:45

and even finding answers subconsciously in the mundane as you

37:47

go about other things and come back. to it on

37:49

a a routine basis. You'll

37:51

still be able to solve

37:53

those problems or figure out

37:55

and maybe with help with it's

37:57

that it's that's okay and If

37:59

you found this episode helpful

38:01

in any way I would

38:03

love for you to do

38:05

me a favor and share

38:07

this episode with somebody you

38:09

know needs to hear it.

38:11

Hit that share button in

38:13

your podcast player app of

38:16

choice. Send it on over

38:18

to them. Let them know

38:20

about it. app of really help

38:22

share the show. Thank you

38:24

so much for sharing. Thanks

38:26

again for the show. you will see

38:28

you next episode. So,

38:39

So, Outro

38:42

Music Outro

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