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The first work platform, you'll

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love to work platform. You'll

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love to use. be a Better Human, we

2:04

try to offer you advice that might change

2:06

the way you think about your

2:08

life. And today, I want to

2:10

share another podcast with you that

2:12

I think might also make you

2:14

think differently. It's actually called Rethinking,

2:16

and it's rethinking with Adam Grant.

2:18

Now, if you don't already know

2:20

Adam Grant's work, he's incredible. He's

2:22

an organizational psychologist who explores the

2:24

science of what makes us tick. And

2:27

each week on his show, Adam talks

2:29

to some of the world's most fascinating

2:31

and influential people to uncover bold insights

2:33

and surprising science that can make us

2:35

all a little bit smarter. In

2:37

this episode, Adam is talking to

2:39

Jared Cohen, a historian and businessman

2:42

who spent years working on a

2:44

book about American presidents. Specifically, a

2:46

book about how that kind of

2:49

extraordinary power affected seven very different

2:51

president's perceptions of meaning, purpose, and

2:53

legacy. And I like that this isn't

2:55

necessarily just an episode for history buffs.

2:57

This is an episode for everyone because

2:59

Jared is using history to talk through

3:01

some of the really profound everyday questions

3:03

that we all have about fulfillment and

3:05

purpose and what that looks like even

3:07

at the very highest levels of success.

3:10

If you like this episode, and I

3:12

think you're going to, you can find

3:14

more episodes of rethinking with Adam Grant

3:16

wherever you get your podcasts. We'll be

3:18

back with how to be a better

3:20

human next week, but for now on to the show.

3:24

Hey everyone, it's Adam Grant. Welcome

3:27

back to Rethinking, my podcast on

3:29

the science of what makes us

3:31

tick with the TED Audio Collective.

3:33

I'm an organizational psychologist, and I'm

3:35

taking you inside the minds of

3:37

fascinating people to explore new thoughts

3:40

and new ways of thinking. My guest today

3:42

is Jared Cohen. He was a

3:44

Rhodes Scholar and has been named

3:46

one a times 100 most influential

3:49

people. He worked in the State

3:51

Department under both Condoleeza Rice and

3:53

Hillary Clinton. Then fought extremism as

3:56

founder and CEO Jigsaw at Google.

3:58

Today he leads global affairs in...

4:00

innovation at Goldman Sachs. In his

4:02

spare time, Jared is a history buff,

4:05

and his new book, Life After Power,

4:07

is a riveting look at whose seven

4:09

American presidents became after they left the

4:12

Oval Office. It's brimming with insights for

4:14

anyone who's ever wondered, what's next? I

4:16

have to start at, when did you

4:18

become obsessed with American presidents? Because you've

4:21

been into them as long as I've

4:23

known you, and I know a lot

4:25

longer than that. So look, my career

4:28

has spanned foreign policy, technology, and now

4:30

finance, and the only thing that's consistent

4:32

in my life is an unhealthy obsession

4:35

with the US presidency. I suppose it

4:37

started when I was eight years old.

4:39

My parents bought me this children's book

4:41

called The Buck Stops Here, and it

4:44

had rhymes that went with each president.

4:46

So I remember, you know, 10 and

4:48

7, Johnson A, they almost took his

4:51

job away. And it was kind of

4:53

very catchy for a precocious young kid.

4:55

And presidents, you know, when I was

4:58

growing up, they were the most famous

5:00

people in the world. My early memories

5:02

are of, you know, George H. W.

5:04

Bush. going on TV, announcing the war

5:07

in Panama, Desert Storm. And so for

5:09

me, these were the most visible figures

5:11

that I remember, and I just developed

5:14

an obsession with it. One of the

5:16

big interests that I had was what

5:18

happens when presidents die in office and

5:21

these abrupt transfers of power and how

5:23

they changed the course of history. And

5:25

my last book, Accidental Presidents, kind of

5:27

captured that. And when that book was

5:30

done, I asked myself the question, what

5:32

else am I interested in? And I

5:34

got really consumed by this question of,

5:37

okay, I focused on what happens when

5:39

presidents die in office, but what happens

5:41

when they survive the office and they

5:44

come down from the stratosphere and there's

5:46

years and sometimes decades that they still

5:48

have to live and exist in a

5:50

world where they're constrained and in a

5:53

much lower station. It's such a fascinating

5:55

topic. not just for heads of state,

5:57

but for all of us, because there

6:00

comes a point in our career and

6:02

our lives when we decide we're going

6:04

to step back from our positions of

6:06

greatest influence. And the question is, now

6:09

what? And I want to talk about

6:11

what you learned about the now what,

6:13

but before we do that, I'm struck

6:16

by the fact that you said unhealthy

6:18

obsession. How have you suffered from being

6:20

interested in presidents? of my interest in

6:23

presidents as manifesting itself in strange ways.

6:25

Somebody can ask me about anything and

6:27

I can take it on a tangent

6:29

into some seriously obscure geeky presidential history

6:32

that people may or may not be

6:34

interested in. I collect presidential oddities as

6:36

well. I like owning these pieces of

6:39

history. that make you feel like you

6:41

exist in the past. So I have

6:43

the vial of poison that Charles Gato's

6:46

sister sent to him when he was

6:48

in prison after he murdered President Garfield.

6:50

You know, I have the one of

6:52

the few surviving champagne glasses from the

6:55

John Adams White House. You know, these

6:57

artifacts are these things owned by presidents

6:59

or that touch different parts of presidential

7:02

history. You picked a series of presidents.

7:04

You obviously weren't going to write a

7:06

book about all of them. But I

7:09

think one of the things you did

7:11

was you chose presidents who were archetypes

7:13

for different choices that you can make

7:15

about what to do once you were

7:18

done leading the country. Whose choice has

7:20

surprised you the most? So the first

7:22

thing that I'll say, Adam, is that

7:25

look, there's no more dramatic retirement or

7:27

firing. than leaving the presidency of the

7:29

United States. I mean, you go from

7:31

having more power than anybody else in

7:34

the world to living with a muzzle.

7:36

on your mouth and being constrained with

7:38

a sense that there's nothing left to

7:41

achieve. So the question itself was very

7:43

interesting. And as you mentioned, all of

7:45

us at different stages of life are

7:48

asking this question of what's next. We

7:50

ask it in micro ways throughout the

7:52

course of our life, and then we

7:54

eventually get to this thing that we

7:57

call retirement, which is really more of

7:59

a mirage and a transition. and a

8:01

milestone than anything else. And what I

8:04

was struck by is very few presidents

8:06

of the United States after leaving office.

8:08

had a good experience in, quote, the

8:11

political afterlife. For a lot of them,

8:13

they got stuck and bogged down in

8:15

settling old scores, and they were grumpy.

8:17

Some were alcoholics. One of them joined

8:20

the Confederacy. One of them was a

8:22

northerner who became a southern sympathizer during

8:24

the Civil War. But the combination of

8:27

health, finances, broken relationships, lack of purpose,

8:29

all these things aggregate in the post-presidency

8:31

to create conditions for a pretty unpleasant

8:34

life for a lot of life. of

8:36

them. So the question is, who's left

8:38

standing? I focus on Thomas Jefferson and

8:40

the founding of the University of Virginia,

8:43

John Quincy Adams, who became the leader

8:45

of the abolitionists in the House of

8:47

Representatives, Grover Cleveland, who mounted a successful

8:50

comeback to the presidency, William Howard Taft,

8:52

who finally got his dream job of

8:54

being Chief Justice of the Supreme Court,

8:57

Herbert Hoover, who was on a long

8:59

path to recover a path to serving

9:01

the world after being broken by the

9:03

Great Depression, Jimmy Carter, who found a

9:06

way to create a way to create

9:08

a... a never-ending presidency as a former

9:10

president and George W. Bush, who found

9:13

a way to completely move on, he

9:15

stood out in the sense that his

9:17

popularity has gone up and he's done

9:19

less to invest in it than any

9:22

others, and that for me was worthy

9:24

of a study. But what's interesting is

9:26

there really were only seven that I

9:29

thought warranted a deeper look, and they

9:31

had some things in common, but each

9:33

of them pursued life after power. in

9:36

a very different way. And they do

9:38

represent seven different archetypes. And what I

9:40

find fascinating about that is there's not

9:42

a perfect monolithic blueprint or playbook for

9:45

how when we are going through transitions

9:47

in our lives, whether it's towards the

9:49

end in the early stages of life

9:52

or the middle of life, there's not

9:54

a playbook or perfect blueprint for how

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I think the one that I found

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most interesting in the book was John

13:27

Quincy Adams. What was powerful for me

13:29

about his story was he had higher

13:32

impact from a lower seat. Talk to

13:34

me about what he did and what

13:36

you took away from it. Here's a

13:39

man who began his career appointed by

13:41

George Washington to serve in his administration.

13:43

And then he dies. serving in the

13:46

House of Representatives alongside a freshman congressman

13:48

from Illinois named Abraham Lincoln. I mean,

13:50

talk about a living connection between the

13:53

past and the future. His presidency was

13:55

the least eventful part of his life.

13:57

It was basically an intermission between two

14:00

of the greatest acts in America. history.

14:02

The first act of his life was

14:04

a series of steps and jobs that

14:07

led him on the path to be

14:09

president and that was largely architected for

14:11

him by his famous parents John and

14:14

Abigail Adams. But his presidency is a

14:16

political stillborn and cries of corrupt bargain,

14:18

you know, basically make it impossible for

14:21

him to achieve anything as president. And

14:23

so then much like his father, he's

14:25

defeated for re-election in 1828. and he's

14:28

completely distraught. I mean, I got really,

14:30

really deep into reading his diaries, and

14:32

I would say I sort of appropriated

14:35

some of his melancholy in the process.

14:37

I mean, it's hard to imagine a

14:39

more self-loathing, self-pitting, miserable human being than

14:42

John Quincy Adams after he's defeated. Okay,

14:44

you actually just explained why this is

14:46

an unhealthy obsession, because you went into

14:49

the depths of somebody else's despair. His

14:51

writings and his diary, they describe a

14:53

man just completely destroyed destroyed destroyed destroyed.

14:56

And so he goes back home to

14:58

Quincy, Massachusetts, and he annoys his wife,

15:00

he's annoying his kids, he's annoying his

15:03

friends, he's spending all of his time

15:05

fighting with people who wronged him at

15:07

every stage of his life, and finally

15:10

everybody sort of gravitates around this idea

15:12

that like just get back into service

15:14

so you stop annoying the rest of

15:17

us. And the only thing that John

15:19

Quincy Adams knew was a life of

15:21

service, and he'd already been Secretary of

15:24

State. he'd been president, he served in

15:26

the US Senate, he'd been an ambassador

15:28

to multiple countries, and the only thing

15:31

left was like the lowest station of

15:33

all, which is a mere representative in

15:35

the House of Representatives, and he basically

15:38

agrees to run, he's elected, and he

15:40

ends up as this sort of ex-presidential

15:42

novelty, and sort of a joke in

15:45

the lowest station he's ever had in

15:47

his career. For his first year and

15:49

a half, He does what a member

15:52

of the House does in the late

15:54

1820s, early 1830s, which is you get

15:56

petitions and you read them. And what

15:59

happens is some of these petitions are

16:01

petitions to abolish the slave trade in

16:03

DC, petitions to emancipate. the slaves, and

16:06

then the reaction from the slaveocracy in

16:08

the House of Representatives really astonishes him,

16:10

and he realizes, wait a minute, they

16:13

don't want me to read these petitions,

16:15

that's an abomination to the right to

16:17

petition. So then he starts reading more

16:20

of them, and as he reads more

16:22

of them, the slaveocracy gets increasingly agitated,

16:24

and they end up gagging him. And

16:27

so then it's the right to petition

16:29

is curbed, then the right to speech

16:31

is curbed, and you know, it all

16:34

sort of culminates culminates when he... fights

16:36

to rescind the gag order and defends

16:38

the Amistad slaves before the Supreme Court.

16:41

And what he realizes is that without

16:43

searching for it, the cause of abolition

16:45

found him and in a much lower

16:48

station he found a much greater calling.

16:50

And he stumbled into this mission that

16:52

frankly he had never championed at any

16:55

other stage. in his life. And he

16:57

gets elected to nine terms in the

16:59

House of Representatives. And before John Quincy

17:02

Adams, the abolitionist cause was viewed largely

17:04

as a fringe movement or a radical

17:06

movement. And we know that Abraham Lincoln

17:09

was inspired by what he saw from

17:11

John Quincy Adams, and that the intellectual

17:13

architecture around the need for a constitutional

17:16

amendment to get emancipation inspired that young

17:18

congressman who would go on to become

17:20

one of the great presidents of the

17:23

United States. That's an extreme example of

17:25

not just bouncing back but bouncing forward.

17:27

To go from complete despair, an unsuccessful

17:30

presidency, to helping to plant the seeds

17:32

of the emancipation proclamation, pretty extraordinary. His

17:34

story tells you that if you're patient

17:37

and you just kind of let things

17:39

play out, you may actually find the

17:41

greatest cause of your life. I wouldn't

17:44

describe him as an open-minded... person, I

17:46

would describe him as an impatient person.

17:48

He was meandering at the right moment,

17:51

but had he leaned into some sort

17:53

of deliberate cause, he may never have

17:55

become the champion for the abolitionist movement

17:58

that changed the course of history. It's

18:00

a strong case for patience. It also

18:02

makes me... think about something that developmental

18:05

psychologists have been interested in ever since

18:07

Eric Erickson first coined the distinction between

18:09

generativity and stagnation. The question that I

18:12

think all of us face around, am

18:14

I going to contribute to the next

18:16

generation? Or am I going to basically

18:19

let my knowledge kind of ossify and

18:21

not share it with others? And it

18:23

seems to me that in some ways

18:26

John Quincy Adams confronted the... the tension

18:28

between happiness and meaning. He could have

18:30

done lots of things that were personally

18:33

pleasurable and enjoyable, but a little bit

18:35

devoid of purpose. And through seeking something

18:37

that was more meaningful, he found what

18:40

might have been a little bit less

18:42

fun work, but ultimately more enjoyable contributions

18:44

to make. I think that's right. There's

18:47

something else about John Quincy Adams that's

18:49

worth calling out, and this won't be

18:51

relatable to everybody, but he had a

18:54

fighting spirit. He loved fighting with people

18:56

and quarreling with people and intellectually out-foxing

18:58

people. And he shows up in the

19:01

House of Representatives and he just thinks

19:03

these members are just the epitome of

19:05

mediocrity. His success in the house was

19:08

a combination of being motivated by this

19:10

cause, but it was gradual. What keeps

19:12

him going is just the day-to-day, play-by-play

19:15

of winning. outsmarting and it's what drives

19:17

him. At the end of the day

19:19

he's a political and an intellectual animal.

19:22

There's so many sayings about how power

19:24

affects people, right? So we think about

19:26

Lord Acton, power corrupts. I found that

19:29

to be oversimplified, and I feel like

19:31

a lot of the research in psychology

19:33

says, actually, power doesn't corrupt so much

19:36

as reveal. It amplifies the values and

19:38

traits that you might have hidden when

19:40

you were on your way up the

19:43

latter, but once you've gained enough influence

19:45

and status and authority, you feel like

19:47

now you can kind of show your

19:50

true colors without major risk. I'm interested

19:52

in how these dynamics... out when people

19:54

power. So I guess the question for

19:57

you Jared is, does losing power uncorrupt

19:59

people? Or does it also have a

20:01

way of revealing or concealing who they

20:04

really are? If I reflect on the

20:06

seven presidents that I write about, the

20:08

only one that I think really enjoyed

20:11

being president and reveled in the power

20:13

of the office was Jimmy Carter. And

20:15

I think therefore it's fitting that what

20:18

Jimmy Carter did that's different from any

20:20

of the others is he was the

20:22

first one to really build infrastructure around

20:25

being a former president. He basically built

20:27

a former presidential administration. But I think

20:29

for the rest of them, the power

20:32

of the presidency and a lot of

20:34

respects, it actually got in the way

20:36

of what they wanted to do. And

20:39

the architecture of the presidency ended up

20:41

hindering the areas where they were most

20:43

passionate, right? Jefferson, his entire life was

20:46

very clear about what he wanted to

20:48

do. All he wanted to do was

20:50

create the very first arts and sciences

20:53

university, but he had this founder's obligation

20:55

where he had to keep coming back

20:57

and serving. He had to be vice

21:00

president. He had to be secretary of

21:02

state. Then he had to be president

21:04

twice. And all that did was cut

21:07

years off his life and delay what

21:09

he actually wanted to do, which was

21:11

found a university. Herbert Hoover, before he

21:14

became president was one of the most

21:16

revered revered. men in not just the

21:18

United States, but the world. He was

21:21

the man who fed the world after

21:23

World War I. He was the hero

21:25

of the recovery after the Mississippi floods.

21:28

He was an orphan who rose to

21:30

be a self-made millionaire. He lived 90

21:32

years, and he's defined by three and

21:35

a half of the Great Depression. I

21:37

think his view is, one, democracy's a

21:39

harsh employer, something that he had said,

21:42

but I think that he would have

21:44

been a very happy man had he

21:46

never had to be... president because he

21:49

would have been the great humanitarian for

21:51

his whole life. And so at least

21:53

for the seven presidents or six of

21:56

the seven that I focus on, I

21:58

think what's fascinating is once they move

22:00

to life after power, once they leave

22:03

the presidency behind, there's a period of

22:05

time where they work to kind of

22:07

rediscover who they were before they were

22:10

president. They almost have to exercise out

22:12

of them all of the sort of

22:14

poison of the office and the politics

22:17

and the baggage of the presidency, and

22:19

each of them. got to that pretty

22:21

quickly and rediscovered their raise in debtry

22:24

and it looked a little bit different

22:26

and it evolved from the time from

22:28

before they were president. It's kind of

22:31

a tale of two types of power,

22:33

the power of the office, which is

22:35

intoxicating for some, but the power of

22:38

purpose, which I think defined a lot

22:40

of these men that I write about.

22:42

It also makes me think about the

22:45

classic triad of implicit motives that David

22:47

McClellan put on the map in psychology.

22:49

The idea that some people are driven

22:52

by achievement, they want to succeed. Others

22:54

are primarily guided by a desire for

22:56

power. They want to have influence and

22:59

control. And then some are drawn to

23:01

affiliation. They want to connect and belong.

23:03

As I hear you talk about the

23:06

six that were not that happy as

23:08

presidents, they sound like they follow the

23:10

arc that David Winter is captured in

23:13

some of his research, where it's almost

23:15

misplaced ambition. You're an achievement motivated person.

23:17

And the highest form of success is

23:20

to become president. But then the process

23:22

of having to campaign and also to

23:24

govern is not about achievement. It's about

23:27

power. And if you're not somebody whose

23:29

power motivated, it's extremely frustrating to be

23:31

blocked from achieving your goals, to be

23:34

constantly having to wheel and deal the

23:36

amount of schmoozing that's required is really

23:38

counterproductive and annoying for an achievement motivated

23:41

person. And then you leave the office

23:43

and you have to recalibrate. You're freed

23:45

from having to accumulate and exercise power.

23:48

But your achievement seemed really small. Or

23:50

what you're capable of achieving seems really

23:52

small. And so then trying to figure

23:55

out how do you express that motivation,

23:57

it's a bit of an adjustment at

23:59

some level. What do you make of

24:02

all that? With each of the presidents

24:04

that I write about. Each of them

24:06

either enters the post-presidency or discovers something

24:09

in the post-presidency that they become dogmatic

24:11

about in terms of some kind of

24:13

cause or motivation. And whether they realize

24:16

it at the beginning of their post-presidency,

24:18

or later in their post-presidency, they come

24:20

to discover that unshackled from the office

24:23

and all the politics and constraints their

24:25

better positioned... to do something about it

24:27

than they were in office. means that

24:30

I can basically do all the things

24:32

with the presidency that I loved and

24:34

I don't have to deal with any

24:37

of the garbage that bogged me down.

24:39

We all know people, they got offered

24:41

the dream job that they wanted and

24:44

the timing wasn't right, maybe they had

24:46

a challenge with one of their kids

24:48

or they didn't want to move somewhere

24:51

and they had to turn down something

24:53

that they really lusted after. That was

24:55

William Howard Taft, except it's because he

24:58

chose to basically be subservic. turned down

25:00

the court multiple times because everybody else

25:02

wanted him to be president. But he

25:05

never lost this sort of desire or

25:07

this sense of purpose to one day

25:09

serve on the court. And William Howard

25:12

Taft, his final 10 years of life

25:14

were the happiest years of his life

25:16

because he served as Chief Justice. of

25:19

the Supreme Court. Each of these presidents,

25:21

what's fascinating is as they get older,

25:23

as their legs give out, as their

25:26

health fails, as all their friends start

25:28

dying, they actually accelerate their activities. Herbert

25:30

Hoover was the most busy from the

25:33

ages of 80 to 90. William Howard

25:35

Taft was most busy in his last

25:37

10 years. And I have a theory

25:40

on this that because those first years

25:42

out of office are such a challenging

25:44

transition, and because they reflect back on

25:47

the presidency sometimes as lost years, which

25:49

is interesting, that towards the end of

25:51

life they become conscious of their own

25:54

mortality and they accelerate their activities because

25:56

they feel like they have to make

25:58

up for lost time. And that brings

26:01

us to your presidential outlier George W.

26:03

Bush, who you spent a lot of

26:05

time with and who is just a

26:08

complete enigma to me. When I think

26:10

about the motive profiles, the research I've

26:12

read scores him low in both achievement

26:15

and power compared to affiliation. And I

26:17

guess that shed some light on his

26:19

choices. But it's just so hard for

26:22

me to fathom going from the enormous

26:24

station of president and also the complicated

26:26

legacy, the guilt of an Iraq war

26:29

that didn't need to be fought, to

26:31

saying, I'm just going to paint. I

26:33

can't imagine it. Can you help make

26:36

sense of this? If you look at

26:38

the active post-presidents, Bush's popularity has gone

26:40

up more than any of them. And

26:43

so among the living ex-presidents or the

26:45

active living ex-presidents, he's the outlier. It's

26:47

also true that he has probably done

26:50

less to proactively invest in his legacy.

26:52

than any of the other active living

26:54

president. So I think we can all

26:57

agree that that's worthy of a study.

26:59

A journey into George W. Bush's brain

27:01

is like a psychological thriller into things

27:04

that for most of us are impossible

27:06

to understand, right? When I sat down

27:08

with him, the first thing that he

27:11

said, he said, look, when it's over,

27:13

it's over, I don't miss it. He

27:15

lives his life in chapters, right? So

27:18

once the political chapter was over, he

27:20

just completely... moved on. That's one aspect

27:22

that I think just makes him unique

27:25

to the other presidents. He's just able

27:27

to do that. So that's point one.

27:29

Yeah, I would I would maybe add

27:32

low tolerance for ambiguity to that puzzle.

27:34

Very very low tolerance for ambiguity. And

27:36

he didn't just sort of stop being

27:39

an ambitious person. So the question is

27:41

where does all of that go? So

27:43

the way Bush ends up painting is

27:46

after he raises money for the Bush

27:48

Center and has this nervous energy just

27:50

by happenstance he's meeting with historian John

27:53

Lewis Gaddis and Gaddis basically says to

27:55

him you seem kind of bored you

27:57

should paint Churchill painted and the way

28:00

Bush describes it is he got sort

28:02

of historically competitive that if Churchill could

28:04

paint he could paint also. He didn't

28:07

embark on painting for any esoteric deep

28:09

reason. It was just like, oh, I'll

28:11

try this. And the more he did

28:14

it, the more he realized, you know

28:16

what, this is giving him an endless

28:18

learning experience. It's something that he will

28:21

never master. Through painting, he can actually

28:23

embrace a post-presidential voice around things that

28:25

he cares about and categories of people

28:28

that he cares about and push an

28:30

agenda without undermining his successor. And that's

28:32

what it's become. It did not start

28:35

that way. And he has a very

28:37

quarrelsome view about legacy. I mean, he

28:39

said over and over again that this

28:42

idea of spending the present investing in

28:44

when you're dead, it just doesn't make

28:46

any sense to him, right? His view

28:49

is that they're still writing books about

28:51

George Washington. By the time they get

28:53

to him, he's going to be long

28:56

dead. And so he really just has

28:58

this adversarial view of spending any time

29:00

investing in legacy, and yet he's conscious

29:03

of, and sort of I'm used by

29:05

the fact that by basically not doing

29:07

that. you know, the joke sort of

29:10

on everybody else, because his legacy seems

29:12

to be the one that's actually gone

29:14

up. I was going to ask you,

29:17

and you've shifted already my thinking about

29:19

the answer, about, does he not care

29:21

about his legacy? But I think what

29:24

you're saying is he's not indifferent to

29:26

it. He just knows it's mostly out

29:28

of his control. I asked him if

29:31

he paints out of guilt. I said

29:33

a lot of people think you paint

29:35

out of guilt. And there's no evidence

29:38

of deviation from the decisions that he

29:40

made other than that he acknowledges they

29:42

were controversial. And he just has this

29:45

view that decisions are made, and it

29:47

takes decades upon decades to understand whether

29:49

those decisions were worth it. And he

29:52

thinks that legacy is something that gets

29:54

written about in the history books, and

29:56

life is meant to be lived. He's

29:59

invested so much in his faith and

30:01

in his family. I mean, the one

30:03

thing that I'll say about him, a

30:06

lot of these presidents that I write

30:08

about, they leave the presidency with

30:10

their family just in complete

30:12

tatters. He is authentically close to

30:14

his family. Authentically close. It's something

30:16

that he did before he was

30:18

president, and as soon as he

30:20

had more time at his disposal,

30:22

he made sure that he doubled

30:24

down on that. And I think that

30:27

that's also a pretty important. Set of

30:29

things that kind of keep him grounded

30:31

because his view is like the history

30:33

books will write about me as president

30:35

But when I'm kind of old and

30:37

you know frail it's a question

30:39

of like do my daughters love me? Does

30:41

my family love me? Do they want to

30:44

be around me? The ambition that takes one

30:46

to be governor and president not

30:48

once but twice Doesn't lend itself

30:51

towards somebody who can live in

30:53

the present and yet he's like totally

30:55

at peace and he doesn't think about

30:57

the past and

31:00

this is bothersome

31:02

to people who

31:05

want him to

31:07

kind of have

31:09

a reckoning

31:11

about Ladies

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32:11

Ryan Reynolds Ryan

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Reynolds here for Mint Mobile.

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I don't know if you

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today. I'm told it's super easy

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to do at mintmobile.com. terms

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at mintmobile.com. I want to do

32:46

the lightning round through the

32:48

lens of your presidential history

32:50

obsessions. Most overrated

32:52

president. John F. Kennedy. Worst

32:55

advice a president has

32:57

given. I would say the

32:59

worst advice a president has

33:01

ever given is some combination

33:04

of the multiple slave-owning civil

33:06

rights obstructing presidents

33:09

that through the platform of

33:11

the presidency have slowed

33:13

social and racial progress

33:16

in this country. Best advice

33:18

a president has given.

33:20

Theodore Roosevelt's advice to

33:22

get in the arena. Hard to

33:24

argue with that one. What's the

33:27

presidential biography that most people haven't

33:29

read but should? Ooh, that's a

33:31

good one. There's a book called

33:33

Destiny of the Republic by Candace

33:36

Millard that is like a thriller

33:38

into how James Garfield's doctors in

33:40

an attempt to try to save

33:42

him from a non-lethal wound ended

33:44

up killing the president. Wow.

33:46

All right, putting it at the top

33:49

of my thriller list. What's something you've

33:51

rethought in your life from studying I

33:53

think that there's this

33:56

assumption that we all

33:58

have that you can wait. until

34:00

later. I think what I've learned

34:02

is if you defer all of

34:04

that until later, the investments that

34:06

make for a good final chapter

34:09

in life, they start at the

34:11

middle of life. The people you

34:13

have around you, the relationships, the

34:15

family, the hobbies, the intellectual interests,

34:17

the ability to detach from the

34:19

burdens of the past. I think

34:22

what I've learned is if you

34:24

defer all of that until later.

34:26

it's too much. And what you

34:28

really want towards the end of

34:30

life is to have something purposeful

34:32

that keeps you going, something that

34:35

you can keep learning and people

34:37

around you who love you despite

34:39

any of the things that you've

34:41

achieved in your life. What's a

34:43

question you have for me? Out

34:46

of all of the seven presidents

34:48

and all the different paths that

34:50

they've taken from a behavioral psychology

34:52

perspective, What surprises you most? I

34:54

think for me the biggest surprise

34:56

is that more of them aren't

34:59

like Jefferson. I really would have

35:01

thought that a successful post-presidency is

35:03

about doing something bigger and more

35:05

meaningful and lasting. And I guess

35:07

I expected them to be more

35:09

grandiose and the sort of walking

35:12

out of the office, like you

35:14

described it, you're giving up some

35:16

of your power, but you're also

35:18

free of all kinds of constraints.

35:20

So you have enormous status. you

35:23

have a world-class network, and now

35:25

you can pursue your vision. And

35:27

so I guess I'm surprised that

35:29

not every one of them sat

35:31

down and said, okay, I'm going

35:33

to build a great university and

35:36

change the face of education in

35:38

America, and that it was, that

35:40

their ambitions were so much more

35:42

diffuse and kind of... I don't

35:44

know. I don't want to say

35:46

pedestrian, but ordinary. I guess I'm

35:49

curious Jared, I think you know

35:51

more heads of state than anyone

35:53

in our generation on Earth here

35:55

in frequent communication with many Presidents

35:57

and Prime Ministers around the world.

36:00

It seems to me so narcissistic

36:02

to even think that you could

36:04

be capable of doing a job

36:06

that complex. What do you make

36:08

of them? It's a very lonely

36:11

job, and it's a very isolating

36:13

job, and the longer you are

36:15

in a role, the more isolated

36:17

you become, the lonelier you become,

36:19

trust becomes very difficult, information flow

36:21

changes. And so I think when

36:23

I'm struck by with a lot

36:25

of these leaders, I get to

36:27

know them in a very personal...

36:29

I spend big chunks of my

36:31

day joking around with them and

36:34

sending each other memes and engaging

36:36

them on a very informal way.

36:38

There's plenty of substantive engagement as

36:40

well. But when you break down

36:42

those barriers of formality, I'm struck

36:44

by how little space they have

36:46

for just regular friendship and emotion

36:48

and the value that they feel

36:50

when they can let their guard

36:52

down and when they know they

36:54

can really... trust somebody, right? So

36:56

things like trust and informality and

36:59

friendship become really, really sought after,

37:01

verified things, and the walls and

37:03

the barriers only get higher as

37:05

they accumulate more power. And so

37:07

it's interesting is when they eventually

37:09

leave office, and I found this

37:11

also with the presidents in my

37:13

book, they lose the power and

37:15

they lose the platform, but all

37:17

those barriers are still up. And

37:19

the transition comes, they may be

37:22

the same person, but they're psychologically

37:24

discombobulated because the guardrails are still

37:26

up and the presidents who are

37:28

able to break that down end

37:30

up I think being the happiest.

37:32

I love the point you made

37:34

earlier about how sometimes it's a

37:36

mistake to rush into finding your

37:38

purpose, that actually sitting in a

37:40

transition and sort of allowing your

37:42

peripheral vision to kick in can

37:44

prevent you from diving headfirst into

37:47

something that might not end up

37:49

being aligned with your values or

37:51

interests. Are there any other life

37:53

lessons that you've taken away from

37:55

this project? that we should be

37:57

aware of because now would be

37:59

the time to tell us. I

38:01

think whether you're a president of

38:03

the United States or a CEO,

38:05

one of the most important things

38:07

to do, and I would argue

38:10

it's a necessary step in order

38:12

to be able to have a

38:14

successful life after power, which is

38:16

to unburden yourself from what your

38:18

successor is doing. Whether it's your

38:20

chosen successor or successor you don't

38:22

want. you're going to have to

38:24

watch them dismantle some portion of

38:26

your legacy. You can completely detach

38:28

from it and move on, and

38:30

that clears a lot of brush

38:32

for you. You can say, you

38:35

know what? My thing is going

38:37

to be that whether it's this

38:39

successor or another successor, I'm going

38:41

to be completely unchecked. And that's

38:43

the Carter principle, and it worked

38:45

for him. The problem is most

38:47

people end up in this in-between,

38:49

which is a bad place to

38:51

be, where you... say that you

38:53

want to move on, but you

38:55

can't resist the urge to settle

38:58

scores of the past and press

39:00

rewind and undermine your successor. And

39:02

by the way, whether you do

39:04

that in public or private doesn't

39:06

matter, because the interesting thing with

39:08

a lot of the presidents that

39:10

I write about, their biggest obstacle

39:12

is their own head. Right? They

39:14

mentally just have a hard time

39:16

getting past what's happening to things

39:18

that they created and what's happening

39:20

to their reputation and what's happening

39:23

to their legacy. And so that

39:25

limbo or that hybrid of intellectually

39:27

telling yourself you've moved on but

39:29

impulsively not moving on is I

39:31

believe the greatest obstacle that prevents

39:33

people from making a proper transition.

39:35

It's obvious how that applies to

39:37

job transitions. I think anybody who's

39:39

going through a transition at work

39:41

can make a commitment to giving

39:43

up the reins and actually moving

39:46

on and not interfering with the

39:48

person who's filled their shoes. I

39:50

also think this applies generationally in

39:52

families. that it would be really

39:54

nice if parents stopped telling their

39:56

kids how to parent. It's a

39:58

version of the same mistake. I

40:00

remember saying to my mom at

40:02

some point, if you wanted me

40:04

to learn this lesson, you should

40:06

have taught it to me when

40:08

I was growing up. Your window

40:11

has passed. Now it's my job

40:13

to figure out how I want

40:15

to raise my kids. And I

40:17

wonder if you think this lesson

40:19

applies to that kind of transition

40:21

too. Yeah, absolutely. On the surface,

40:23

it shouldn't seem like... learning about

40:25

and reading about the lives of

40:27

seven presidents and their search for

40:29

meaning and purpose after the White

40:31

House could be applied to something

40:34

like the relationship between a parent

40:36

and a child over how the

40:38

next generation parents. And I think

40:40

it's an extraordinary story that something

40:42

so kind of other stratosphere would

40:44

have so many prescriptions for something

40:46

that in some respects seem so

40:48

relatively mundane. when compared to like

40:50

things we read about in the

40:52

history books. And I think that's

40:54

an amazing part of behavioral psychology,

40:56

which is look at the end

40:59

of the day, you know this

41:01

better than anyone else had it.

41:03

And there's only so many different

41:05

types of human beings or archetypes

41:07

of human beings. And whether their

41:09

presidents or parents or CEOs or

41:11

middle managers, human beings are complicated

41:13

in only a certain number of

41:15

ways and the prescriptions for how

41:17

they navigate their complicated brains and

41:19

their complicated lives, they kind of

41:22

transcend. whether one is at the

41:24

pinnacle of power or whether one's

41:26

power is simply a matter of

41:28

the fact that this is my

41:30

child mom and dad, not yours.

41:32

So leave me alone. Well put.

41:34

Jared, as always, this has been

41:36

a lot of fun. I've learned

41:38

a lot. Thank you, Adam. I

41:40

really enjoyed it. This conversation got

41:42

me thinking about the arc of

41:44

success over the course of a

41:47

lifetime. It's good to plan your

41:49

path up a mountain. But it's

41:51

also important to consider what you'll

41:53

do once you reach the summit

41:55

and who you want to become

41:57

on the way back down. Rethinkingking

42:01

is hosted by me, Adam Grant.

42:03

This show is part of the

42:05

Ted Audio Collective, and this episode

42:08

was produced and mixed by Cosmic

42:10

Standard. Our producers are Hannah Kingsley

42:13

Ma and Asia Simpson. Our editor

42:15

is Alejandro Salazar. Our fact-checker is

42:17

Paul Durbin, original music by Hans-L-Sue

42:20

and Alison Layton Brown. Our team

42:22

includes Eliza Smith, Jacob Winnick, Samaya

42:24

Adams, Michelle Quint, Bonbonne, Julia, Julia

42:27

Dickerson, and Whitney Pennington, Rogers. Ladies

42:38

and gentlemen, we are now boarding

42:40

group A. Please have your boarding

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passes ready to scan. If your

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