0:00

When did you last do

0:02

something totally and utterly new?

0:05

Not something that will bring more money, but

0:07

for the simple pure joy

0:09

of learning. In this

0:11

classic episode, I speak to

0:13

author Tom Vanderbilt about his

0:15

year of trying new things, chosen

0:18

on the basis of difficulty and

0:20

lack of marketability. We

0:22

talk about why so many of

0:25

us as adults stop learning new

0:27

skills, All the while we're

0:29

encouraging our children to be adventurous and

0:31

to try new things. We

0:34

are creatures of desire. What

0:37

we most desire is meaning. What

0:40

makes us suffer most is a

0:42

lack of meaning. The

0:44

Meaningful Life with Andrew

0:47

G. Marshall Marital

0:49

therapist, author and communications trainer

0:51

Andrew G. Marshall invites guests

0:53

from all walks of life

0:55

to discuss what makes life meaningful.

1:00

Hello, I'm Andrew G. Marshall

1:02

and welcome to The Meaningful

1:04

Life. My witness today is

1:06

the journalist and New York Times

1:08

bestselling author Tom Vanderbilt and our

1:11

topic is The Beginner's Mind.

1:13

Tom is the author of a

1:16

brand new book, Beginners? power

1:18

and pleasure of lifelong learning. Stuck

1:20

in a mid -life, mid -career

1:22

and mid -competence rut, he decided

1:24

to investigate what would happen if

1:26

he learned a whole series

1:28

of new skills and cultivated a

1:31

beginner's mind. He learned chess

1:33

with his four -year -old daughter. I

1:35

think you can guess what

1:37

happened. He takes up snowboarding, singing,

1:39

surfing, drawing, taekwondo, and he

1:41

makes his own wedding ring. So

1:43

what drew me to this topic?

1:45

Over and over again, when working

1:47

with my clients, they feel that

1:49

the key to the meaningful life

1:52

is either a job or doing

1:54

some hobby at the highest level. But

1:56

what if we're all missing something when we

1:58

take out the fun? Does being

2:00

so focused make us

2:02

one -dimensional? Could we all

2:04

benefit from a beginner's mind? Tom,

2:07

welcome. Thank you for being my guest.

2:10

So what was the journey of playing chess together

2:12

with your daughter? Well, first of all, thank

2:14

you, Andrew. Pleasure to be here. And yeah, that

2:16

journey began when, as you mentioned, my daughter

2:18

was four and she asked a very innocent question,

2:20

can we play a game of chess? She

2:22

saw this board in a library and it was

2:24

very visually appealing to her. And I thought

2:26

that would be a wonderful idea because chess is,

2:29

of course, reputed to be very good for the

2:31

young mind. But there was just one problem

2:33

in that I actually didn't really know how to

2:35

play the game. Not even really, I didn't

2:37

know how to play the game. I might

2:39

have learned the moves a long time ago, but

2:41

I had forgotten them. So I was sort

2:43

of panicked and I tried to learn quickly myself

2:45

online, which was, you know, got me to

2:47

a certain point, but I didn't feel that

2:50

capable of really being a competent teacher. So I

2:52

thought, well, I'll just hire a coach and

2:54

just see if this chess thing sticks with her.

2:56

And the first time the coach came by,

2:58

I suddenly made this impromptu decision to also

3:00

join the lesson, which was a bit unusual

3:02

for him. He hadn't really seen that, but.

3:04

I thought, well, why not? Why should I

3:06

sit on the sidelines when there's this thing

3:08

right in front of me that I would

3:11

like to learn and if someone is being

3:13

taught? So I joined. To my mind, an

3:15

interesting little experiment, two beginners at one task

3:17

separated by four decades. And I was so

3:19

struck by the whole experience that it opened

3:21

up this, you know, I don't know what

3:23

the word is. A door. Well, a

3:26

door, but I was seized

3:28

by this almost paroxysm of self

3:30

-realization that I hadn't learned any substance

3:32

of new skills in quite a

3:34

while. And I was sort of resting

3:36

on. whatever laurels you might say

3:38

had professionally and just feeling a little

3:40

bit stuck without even being aware

3:42

that I was stuck. So you were

3:44

effectively a subset of two about

3:46

what it's like to learn. So

3:48

your daughter was four and I'm

3:50

guessing you were 40 something. What

3:52

was the difference between the way a four

3:54

year old and a 40 something year old

3:56

learns? I mean, there are many differences.

3:58

I mean, there are many cognitive differences and then

4:01

many lifestyle differences on the lifestyle

4:03

front. Children, of course, basically have

4:05

nothing to do but learn and

4:07

do so in an environment that

4:09

is completely structured, completely welcoming, completely

4:11

full of parents, giving them

4:13

positive feedback at everything they do.

4:16

It's a very low pressure environment. They

4:18

are encouraged to do as many things

4:20

as possible and not necessarily achieve any sort

4:22

of competence in any of them except

4:24

for your basic. life skills, like walking or

4:26

things like that, which they sort of

4:29

put on there. shoes. Yeah, well, I mean,

4:31

trying their shoes, yeah, they need help. Walking, they

4:33

don't really need help. So there's that difference. Adults

4:35

don't really have any of those things. Cognitively,

4:37

these are sort of a set of

4:39

things going on that the young brain

4:41

is just, again, a sort of learning

4:44

machine that has yet to be fully

4:46

completed. There are synapses that are being

4:48

formed and connected going on. I mean,

4:50

my brain has had five decades now

4:52

of things that I've learned, memories I've

4:54

had, muscle memories, to use that phrase

4:56

that I've had. When I

4:58

learned something new, I'm adding that

5:00

on top of an already very stacked

5:02

deck. My daughter, every new skill she

5:05

was learning, it was like, oh,

5:07

I now know three skills instead of

5:09

two. So she had a very fresh

5:11

It's very fresh outlook for this

5:13

thing. So those are some of the

5:15

key differences, I think. And before very

5:17

long, you stopped being part of

5:19

your daughter's lessons, and you both learned

5:21

in quite different ways. Now, your daughter

5:23

did deliberate practice, and you did

5:25

mindless repetition. I

5:27

have a feeling the first one's going to be better

5:29

than the second one, but explain to me the difference.

5:32

Yeah. I mean, deliberate practice is the famous

5:34

thing from the psychologist Erickson about that

5:36

related to the 10 ,000 hours rule that

5:38

this is what is required at a bare

5:40

minimum to achieve expert level performance in

5:42

a task. And deliberate practice in the world

5:44

of chess, for example, would mean playing

5:46

a game. But then after you've played, whether

5:48

you won or lost, analyzing that game,

5:50

preferably with a coach or with some sort

5:53

of instruction going on and really understanding

5:55

why it was that you won or lost.

5:57

My mindless repetition that I was doing was

5:59

simply to play because I enjoyed the competitive

6:01

thing going on there. But if I won,

6:03

I would feel, well, I'm a great chess

6:05

player. If I lost, I would chalk it

6:07

up to sort of bad luck and then

6:09

press on and play another short game. So

6:11

anytime you basically have a coach, I think

6:13

you're probably engaging in some kind of deliberate

6:16

practice. But there's a difference here that it's

6:18

worth talking about, which is that Getting back

6:20

to the idea of professionals. I mean, to

6:22

be an expert level performer often means to

6:24

be a professional. You're being paid for something. The

6:27

idea of practice is part of your job.

6:29

It is not meant to be necessarily

6:31

a fun exercise. So Erickson

6:33

in his book talked about some professional singers

6:35

that they were interviewed about this and

6:37

asked about their feelings, how they felt while

6:39

rehearsing. Joy wasn't really a part of

6:41

the equation. Whereas for amateur singers who had

6:44

no responsibilities at the end of the

6:46

day to put on some concert that paying

6:48

people were going to see. treated

6:50

it much more as sort of a

6:52

joyful, to them a broad pleasure. Whether

6:54

it was actually the best pedagogical tool

6:56

is another question, but I think, you

6:59

know, for someone who's not going to

7:01

be an expert level performer or

7:03

anywhere near an expert level performer, my

7:05

question is why should we have

7:07

to take it all so seriously as

7:09

you hinted it in your introduction?

7:11

So you and your daughter played chess

7:13

together. How long before she started

7:15

wiping the floor with you? It didn't

7:17

take long. I mean, maybe I'll

7:19

say a year, but what happened, I

7:21

sort of faded away from the

7:23

lessons she kept on. She was learning

7:25

pattern recognition, opening variations, strategy

7:27

tactics. I was sort of blundering on

7:29

my own through playing and once in a while I

7:31

would sort of crack a book or something. Through

7:33

sheer persistence, I have kept at it

7:35

and I've gotten a bit better. And to

7:38

be certain, I could approach this whole

7:40

thing and I much weren't. methodical way and

7:42

raise my rating points and rating points

7:44

are what we talk about in chess are

7:46

kind of the end all be all

7:48

but again I've gotten out of it what

7:50

I've put into it, roughly. And what

7:52

I've gotten out of it, though, is some

7:54

appreciation for the nuances of the game

7:56

that were completely absent before, a great amount

7:59

of pleasure in playing people, in sometimes

8:01

beating people, sometimes losing. It

8:03

just opened a world, you know, outdoors. You

8:05

mentioned that that wasn't there to me before.

8:07

And so when something like just, for example,

8:09

the recent film, The Queen's Gambit that came

8:11

out, which was incredibly popular, this is something

8:13

where chess may have seemed like a foreign

8:15

language to me. But now I could actually

8:18

understand it. I felt sort of vindicated. I

8:20

was like, yes, the world is seeing chess

8:22

for once here. So again, I'm not on

8:24

track to be anywhere even near the lowest

8:26

level of a fide master or anything like

8:28

that. Not that it wouldn't be interesting. But

8:30

I talked to one person who both has

8:32

a PhD and is a chess grandmaster. And

8:34

he said that becoming a chess grandmaster was

8:37

a harder thing than getting the PhD. So

8:39

these are the sort of stakes that are

8:41

on the table. So you quickly have to

8:43

decide, if that's one goal, what else can

8:45

you do with chess? So this is partially

8:47

why I wrote the book, is to show

8:49

people that there's this entire spectrum of experience

8:51

that is out there on the learning curve

8:53

that is nowhere approaching expert performance, but still

8:56

brings a lot of reward and meaning. just

8:58

joy, I think, into people's lives.

9:00

And what I found incredibly interesting

9:02

reading your book is that you

9:05

fell into a trap that a

9:07

lot of parents fall into and

9:09

you became a chess dad. You

9:11

would take your daughter to various

9:13

tournaments, and then you were

9:15

left twiddling your thumbs on the sidelines.

9:17

What was that experience like? Time -consuming, boring,

9:19

but sitting on a school floor at a

9:21

basement with no air, watching kids play

9:23

chess, sort of has its limits. And of

9:25

course, I would sometimes do work then,

9:28

but then it was always a weekend, and

9:30

then that felt a little bit defeating.

9:32

So, but this is an experience that anyone

9:34

who's a parent has probably gone through

9:36

of shepherding their child to any number of

9:38

lessons. And I've found myself facing a

9:40

certain self hypocrisy here where I was telling

9:42

my daughter, you know, we were living

9:44

this life of learning for her. And I

9:46

was preaching how important it was and

9:48

how important to try different things. And it

9:50

doesn't matter if you're the best and

9:52

just giving all these messages that when I

9:54

turned the mirror back on myself, I

9:56

wasn't really. walking that walk of the talk

9:59

I was talking so it was a

10:01

moment there that another motivation for writing this

10:03

book and I decided rather than simply

10:05

take her to these things were there things

10:07

that we could both learn together in

10:09

concert and this is not to say I

10:11

wanted to completely become a domineering presence

10:13

in her life and she would have have

10:15

no autonomy apart from me because this

10:17

is something that you know I think is

10:19

an issue but. When possible, it was

10:21

a great way to sort of kill two

10:23

birds with one stone. And I developed

10:25

a little motto, which was if you have

10:27

to take them, join them. Hmm. I

10:30

think that's a motto we should give to

10:32

all parents if you have to take

10:34

them, join them. Because as adults, we're terrified

10:36

of looking stupid, aren't we? We sort

10:38

of feel we've got to have a basic

10:40

knowledge of, give me another example of

10:42

something that you did. Surfing, for example. I

10:44

was well early on in my surfing

10:46

journey when my daughter decided, or I decided

10:48

she wanted to do a summer surf

10:50

camp in Rockaway Beach, Queens, which she really

10:52

turned out to enjoy. But I found

10:54

the same dynamic there. Just all of these

10:56

parents basically sitting on the beach. once

10:58

a while filming their kids, but often just

11:01

looking at their phones. And I would

11:03

talk to people once in a while, and

11:05

I would get a range of responses.

11:07

There was just such a lack of willingness

11:09

to even... the idea of getting in

11:11

the water. And I would tell people, you

11:13

know, they have these extra surfboards you

11:15

could use. You could do a little private

11:17

lesson on the side. It's a lovely

11:19

warm day. The water is right

11:21

here. And I just found it frustrating. And I

11:23

tried to explain, you know, it's not as

11:25

hard as it looks. These are also sort of

11:27

mild days at the ocean when the best

11:30

surfers wouldn't be there. So it wasn't even the

11:32

idea that so much that they would be

11:34

intimidated by the skill of other surfers because there

11:36

were a lot of kids just having fun

11:38

in the water. I see this often just this

11:40

whether it comes from fear or a certain

11:42

stasis or just an uncertainty about the unknown, that

11:44

people unwilling to bridge that gap. And people

11:46

who'd be perfectly, you know, physically capable, perhaps not.

11:48

mentally ready to take that. But that was

11:50

another example. I'm afraid to say I think it's

11:52

a bit of a man problem. For

11:55

many years, I used to do agility classes

11:57

with my dog. And this is a bit

11:59

like horse of the year, but the dog

12:01

runs around and you go with it. I

12:03

say it's a bit like playing chess while

12:05

running because you have to get your body

12:07

into certain positions so that the dog follows

12:09

around. So you have to think ahead and

12:11

run at the same time. I did it

12:13

for many years with different dogs, never at

12:15

any particular level, only it's just a bit

12:17

of a fun thing to do with your

12:19

dog on a Monday night. But over that

12:21

time, lots of men would join the club.

12:23

But unless they became good, they

12:25

just dropped out. Whereas the women could come

12:27

along and they would enjoy themselves. And if

12:29

they did well, fine. And if they didn't,

12:31

it didn't really matter as long as they

12:33

had a good time and the dogs had

12:36

a good time. But the men had to

12:38

be good. Do you think it is something

12:40

to do with being a man and

12:42

our expectations of ourselves? I think you're absolutely

12:44

right. And this is something I encountered in

12:46

any number of my classes that they seem

12:48

to be dominated by women, particularly sort of

12:50

older women. But to be willing to learn,

12:52

one has to admit that they have something

12:54

to learn and that they are open to

12:57

this, you know, what's called intellectual humility. And

12:59

this is, I love that word,

13:02

intellectual humility. the courage to admit what

13:04

you don't know. And there are

13:06

some research on this that men, let's

13:08

say, do worse on this component.

13:10

I mean, men, that is the gender

13:12

that brought you mansplaining. I need

13:14

only. explain. We don't hear

13:16

about women explaining, but you know, so in

13:18

talking to a lot of these women, it's

13:20

not like they had any less fear or

13:23

about surfing, for example. It's just that they

13:25

just seem to have more of this, again,

13:27

willingness to learn to put themselves out there,

13:29

often doing it in groups with friends, which

13:31

is another thing that unfortunately doesn't seem to

13:33

shake out as well for men as particularly

13:35

as we age, the idea of groups of

13:37

friends, friendships, we tend to rely on sort

13:39

of a core group of older friendships, and

13:41

it's harder for men to make new friendships.

13:44

And many of the instructors I would talk

13:46

to, you know, would sort of reflect this

13:48

idea back to me that, yeah, men come

13:50

in with these very strong, strict goals that,

13:52

for example, with surfing, that they're going to

13:54

be surfing jaws in Maui, which is ferocious,

13:56

you know, surf break after a year. And

13:58

this is something that really is a lifetime

14:00

progression that one is working on. And that

14:02

is a pretty unrealistic. goal, not impossible maybe,

14:05

but is probably only going to backfire. So

14:07

that might explain some of the attrition rate

14:09

that you mentioned where I try and this

14:11

is something that I tried to not put

14:13

anything on my make the goals pretty open

14:15

-ended, pretty low stakes. The goal for me

14:17

was really the learning process, not some and

14:19

I didn't have a chest rating in mind.

14:21

I didn't have a singing goal in mind

14:23

per se other than to simply give it

14:26

a try. So how did you decide what

14:28

you were going to learn? At first, I

14:30

solicited some comments from friends and even on

14:32

an internet chat group that I sometimes look

14:34

at where you can sort of post inquiries

14:36

like this. And I've got a lot of

14:38

interesting responses, but these were things I thought

14:40

for me to do them would be, you

14:42

know, it was someone else's idea. They weren't

14:44

things I could feel an instinctual pull towards.

14:46

But I did have this kind of short

14:49

list I came up with that were things

14:51

that I had. wanted to sort of dabble

14:53

in over the years, but had just never

14:55

found the right moment. And maybe I had

14:57

even done as a child, like a lot

14:59

of us have, such as singing or drawing,

15:01

and had sort of been gently or not

15:03

so gently steered away from and never found

15:05

a way to sort of get back. And

15:07

with singing, for example, this is the classic

15:10

trap where it's something that, again, that kids

15:12

are encouraged to do quite freely. We don't

15:14

put huge expectations that they're going to be

15:16

great. Often they are actually pretty great. Singing

15:18

is sort of a natural impulse that we

15:20

all have. I think that should be nurtured.

15:22

But, you know, we're sort of steered away

15:24

from that in the classroom environment. And sometimes

15:26

we're actively told with singing that we can't

15:28

do it when we're kids, you know, sort

15:31

of go to the back of the class,

15:33

don't sing so loud, Andrew. Yes. Yeah. And

15:35

this is often, you know, someone who has

15:37

been... you know, after a few outings, they're

15:39

sort of told this. And if you had

15:41

a little bit of trouble learning to read,

15:43

you wouldn't be just told, you can't read

15:45

and you're never going to read in your

15:47

life. I mean, we just, we put this

15:49

such that this performance emphasis on something like

15:52

singing, rather than it being a tool of

15:54

social communication that we're built to perform even

15:56

before we had language, you know, it becomes

15:58

this thing that's a God given gift that

16:00

only the right people can do. So, so

16:02

we quickly fall out of practice. And then

16:04

the studies on this are interesting. the time

16:06

you reach your college age, you've already sort

16:08

of lost whatever capacity for singing you had. And

16:11

three times or four times a year, we're

16:13

asked to sing happy birthday or something like

16:15

that. Or someplace that's different. For example, in

16:17

England, there's quite a bit of lusty singing

16:19

that goes on in football matches, for example,

16:21

which is one of those few genres of

16:24

public singing that is still out there. But

16:26

I think for a lot of us, it

16:28

becomes this sort of rarefied thing that only

16:30

professionals can indulge in or people with talent.

16:32

Long -winded answer here. But basic response, though,

16:34

is that there were things I felt I

16:36

wanted to do, because this is going to

16:38

be an important thing, motivation. If I

16:40

didn't think I wanted it, I didn't want to

16:42

learn something like coding where I felt like it

16:44

was being sort of suggested on me that there

16:46

was a social expectation this would be a good

16:48

thing for my job, for example. I wanted a

16:50

genuine interest. I don't want to say the P

16:52

word, passion, because I wasn't sure if it would

16:54

be a passion, which I think is another thing

16:56

people can get hung up on, the idea that

16:59

if they start something like a pursuit, like singing

17:01

or drawing, that they have to go all in.

17:03

and go to the top and it has to

17:05

be a passion. I think it's

17:07

okay to stop things, to quit things. You don't

17:09

know ahead of time what something's actually going

17:11

to be like. So this is yet another trap

17:13

I think we should avoid that you're going

17:15

to have this one passion with a capital P.

17:18

One of the things I think that

17:20

stops a lot of people is

17:22

this idea that old dogs can't learn

17:24

new tricks. Now as somebody who's

17:26

tried to learn an awful lot of

17:28

new tricks, what would you say

17:31

to that famous furries? That it's untrue.

17:33

I think a lot of us

17:35

have this idea in mind of perfection

17:37

of this 10 ,000 hours goal of

17:39

reaching the highest levels in some

17:41

sort of pursuit. Yes,

17:43

it would be a very difficult thing

17:45

for me to become a chess

17:47

grandmaster, perhaps almost impossible being a parent,

17:49

having a full -time job and being

17:52

52. This would be

17:54

an almost impossible quest. Yes. But again,

17:56

that's just the highest level. There

17:58

are a lot of things that I

18:00

can pick up that any of

18:02

us can. And why actually have to

18:04

go for the highest level? Why

18:06

can't we say there's something in there

18:08

that we can use from it,

18:10

we can learn from it, and we

18:12

can have fun? I mean, what

18:14

is this obsession with having to be

18:16

good? Yeah, it's something that

18:18

is trickling down already into this. You know,

18:20

was talking before about this golden age

18:22

of youth learning where you were expected to

18:24

be able to try any number of

18:27

things and give them up after six weeks

18:29

or not be good at them. But

18:31

we've seen that obviously creeping down into those

18:33

worlds as well, where children are having

18:35

these performance burdens placed on them where they

18:37

are dropping out of youth sports because

18:39

it's too competitive. We saw in the United

18:41

States the whole scandal with people faking

18:43

resumes in sports like lacrosse. So their children

18:45

would get into elite level colleges. Let

18:47

me sort of, where does it end there?

18:49

But you know, I met so many

18:51

interesting people in the course of doing this

18:53

book. Just for example, one guy, a

18:55

guy named Steve in New York City, who

18:57

was in his 80s and was trying

18:59

to learn to juggle. And he wanted to

19:01

get to five balls, which is a

19:04

very hard thing to do. It takes sort

19:06

of like a year. If you're amazing,

19:08

it might take less time, but it's a

19:10

very hard thing to do. It really

19:12

requires a lot of practice. But already in

19:14

learning to juggle three or four balls

19:16

as someone of that age, this was already

19:18

such an achievement. One

19:20

thing that interests me in doing this

19:22

book was that I found that you

19:24

can have these small moments of improvement

19:26

that really felt meaningful. I mean, something

19:28

like juggling three balls, it sounds ridiculous,

19:30

but if you go into a crowded

19:32

room and ask who here can juggle

19:34

three balls, not that many people will

19:36

raise their hand, maybe less than you

19:38

would think. So just by taking on

19:40

this one little thing, he had this

19:42

moment of growth at an age when,

19:44

let's be honest, growth is not often

19:46

in people's front of their mind. But

19:48

it's also incredibly important because this is

19:50

actually keeping one, his mind active. And

19:52

number two, it's actually keeping his dexterous

19:54

skills up. You know, my father is

19:56

90 and he spent the last few

19:58

years giving things up. And that feels

20:00

incredibly sad. It would be

20:03

wonderful if actually at 80, we

20:05

were learning new things. Yes.

20:07

I mean, something like juggling a week's

20:09

worth of learning to juggle is

20:11

shown in studies to produce significant changes

20:13

in neuroplasticity, even at age 81.

20:15

So it's still there, that ability to

20:18

rework the muscles of the brain

20:20

to reshape based on an activity. And

20:22

the problem with older people and

20:24

skill learning is that, yeah, the fear

20:26

becomes more intense. There might actually

20:28

be physical limitations, but a lot of

20:30

people sort of seem to go

20:32

out of their way to avoid learning

20:35

new things. And it sets in

20:37

motion this non -virtuous cycle that ends

20:39

up making their situation actually worse cognitively

20:41

and developmentally because I'm afraid of

20:43

this new iPhone just to give some

20:45

example. And so they'll sort of

20:47

avoid that and only use their old

20:50

landline. Oh, I recognize that. You

20:53

know, you see entire groups of people

20:55

doing this, or even being hostile to new

20:57

information and only watching a certain news

20:59

channel, for example, and just not having that

21:01

openness to experience. This is the term

21:03

that psychologists use, and it's one of these

21:05

big five of the personality factors that

21:07

seem to sort of define who you are.

21:09

So let's think about the beginner's mind. What

21:12

do we need to have

21:14

a beginner's mind? To be

21:16

liberated from the burden of

21:18

expertise and experience. How

21:20

do you do that, except for going back

21:22

in time and being a child again? But I

21:25

think one of the most powerful and easily

21:27

approachable ways is to simply try to learn a

21:29

new skill. And skill could also

21:31

extend to something like language or even field

21:33

of study, I think, because it's, again,

21:35

activating. You're plunging into something where you have

21:37

no pre -existing knowledge. What I like about

21:39

skills is that it's not just your

21:41

brain having to do this new work, having

21:43

to have this beginner's mind, but it's

21:45

also generally your body. And I find it

21:48

very... combination of doing something like jewelry

21:50

making where I really found this interesting connection

21:52

going on between my fingers and my

21:54

brain. And it seemed like a two -way

21:56

connection that my brain was learning from my

21:58

fingers as much as my fingers were

22:00

learning from my brain or being told what

22:02

to do. In all these pursuits, I

22:04

really felt like I was experiencing beginner's mind.

22:06

I mean, I had a vague sense

22:08

of some of these things just from people

22:11

who had done them, but something like

22:13

learning to draw what the actual experience was

22:15

was really nothing like I thought it

22:17

was. and it just opened me up to

22:19

a new world that was not new

22:21

people, new tools that I had to purchase,

22:23

new ways of using my hand, new

22:25

ways of using my eyes, and kind of

22:27

going through this almost rebirth, not to

22:29

get too sort of metaphysical about it, but

22:31

that kind of starting at the zero

22:33

on the learning curve just felt to be

22:36

very regenerative. powerful. And

22:38

again, without necessarily having to achieve

22:40

mastery, I found that that any growth

22:42

and not even so much the

22:44

growth, but just again, getting back to

22:46

that zero state was strangely exhilarating.

22:48

And I would imagine that it was

22:50

very good for you because you're

22:52

like me. I write as well. You

22:54

know, I sit there and tap

22:56

a keyboard all day long. I'm using

22:58

my brain. I'm not really using

23:00

my body. Whereas with these things, you

23:02

are getting your body to do

23:05

new things. That feels quite important to

23:07

get the body moving in a

23:09

different kind of way and coordinating a

23:11

different type of way. Did you

23:13

find that? Absolutely. Yeah. I mean,

23:15

because I felt like on the information front,

23:17

as a journalist, I sort of had that

23:19

covered. It's not that I'm not learning something

23:21

new every day, but that whole process of

23:23

learning is very familiar to me. And as

23:25

is the process of writing, apart from doing

23:27

haiku or free verse or some novel form,

23:29

I'm not going to experience the pain of

23:31

learning a new skill through writing. I've

23:33

done it too much, so I'm not

23:35

learning in that regard. But with a

23:38

skill like juggling, I could actually feel my

23:40

brain hurting. is the only word I

23:42

can think to describe it. And then the

23:44

funny thing would be, I would work

23:46

on something for a while, juggling three

23:48

balls, and I would get it, and

23:50

I would be doing 40 or 50

23:52

cycles in a row. And then the

23:54

teacher would say, okay, now start with your

23:56

right hand. And suddenly there was my

23:58

brain hurting again. And that was when

24:00

the learning moment was happening. And sort

24:02

of like doing physical exercise, when you

24:04

start a new exercise regime, you're using

24:06

your muscles in new ways. So you will

24:09

have some new forms of pain during

24:11

the first weeks of that exercise. And

24:13

then you'll gradually condition into that. And

24:15

I think the same thing happens with

24:17

learning. So most of these skills I

24:19

was taking on there, there were always new

24:21

plateaus to sort of reach. So I

24:23

felt like I wasn't ever stagnating. And

24:25

there were always ways that could make

24:27

my brain hurt again if I wanted

24:29

to. And in your research, you found

24:31

that beginners all make the same mistakes. Tell

24:33

me about that. With motor skills, the

24:35

key thing I think that beginners do

24:37

is that they're too focused on their

24:39

own body. And this is a quite

24:41

natural thing to do if you're out

24:43

in the ocean trying to stand up on

24:46

this flimsy piece of styrofoam as a

24:48

wave is bearing down on you. You're

24:50

going to panic and look, for example,

24:52

at your feet on the board and

24:54

make sure you're actually standing on the

24:56

board. And you might then fixate on the

24:58

nose of the surfboard. The problem

25:00

with this is that it sort of triggers

25:02

this set of actions that because you're looking

25:04

at the front of the surfboard, you subconsciously

25:06

emphasize your body forward and you push down

25:08

a little bit and the surfboard will tend

25:11

to nose dive as they call it. And

25:13

it's not a fun thing to happen. So

25:15

a beginner driver, for example, learning to drive

25:17

looks at the front of the car, which

25:19

is an extension of their body. So it's

25:21

sort of like looking at themselves through time

25:23

and practice and gaining of capability. We start

25:25

to look at other places. We make automatic

25:27

some of these motions and we can sort

25:29

of state on other things, which is tremendously

25:32

useful. The whole thing with motor skills is

25:34

that the more you actually think about them,

25:36

the worse you perform them. And just think

25:38

of the last time you went walking, I'm

25:40

sure you didn't give a thought. to how

25:42

you're walking. And if you did, you would

25:44

probably start to walk a little bit strangely.

25:47

So walking being the ultimate skills that

25:49

we've all mastered. So it's a

25:51

bit like cycling in the sense that

25:53

I've now moved to Berlin. So I

25:55

had to learn two new sets of

25:57

skills. I had to learn German or

25:59

I'm still learning German. I'm just having

26:01

to accept the fact that to my

26:03

dying day, I will be doing German

26:05

and trying to improve it. I did

26:07

learn it when I was 13 to

26:09

16. And that's a wonderful foundation. But

26:12

the other thing that I had to

26:14

do again was cycling because it's a

26:16

very flat city it's a very small

26:18

city and you can really get around

26:20

well on a bicycle and I hadn't

26:22

actually ridden a bicycle for 40

26:24

years, something like never forget, right? But

26:26

you don't forget, but my God, are you

26:29

self -conscious when you get on that bicycle

26:31

the first time? You raise a great

26:33

point there with bicycling, and it just has

26:35

another way to demonstrate the hard -wiredness of

26:37

skills. It's not really something I went

26:39

on at length in the book, but as

26:41

an experiment, I met a person who

26:43

was a rocket scientist, actually, and had an

26:45

interesting bike that many people have probably

26:47

seen at something like a carnival. It's a

26:49

bike that when you steer left, it

26:52

actually has been engineered so that it turns

26:54

right. which is kind of a nonsensical

26:56

thing. But as a very experienced cyclist myself,

26:58

when presented with this challenge of riding

27:00

this contraption, I thought, well, I know how

27:02

to ride a bike, so I can

27:04

figure this thing out. In fact, that knowledge

27:06

of knowing how to ride a regular

27:08

bike quite well made it even harder. And

27:11

the person who was trying to show me

27:13

how to do this, it had taken him

27:15

six months to learn. And it sounds like

27:17

such a minor adjustment, but it really recalibrates

27:19

your, you have to recalibrate your entire body

27:21

and your mind and your sense of balance

27:23

and people were giving me all these tips

27:25

like, well, just cross your hands and put

27:27

your right hand on the left handlebar. Things

27:30

that sound good in theory, but actually do

27:32

not help at all. So just the skills

27:34

that we're so good at, we actually really

27:36

tend to forget how good we are at

27:38

them. And again, to have this beginner's mind,

27:40

to have your body go through this period

27:42

of clumsiness is not something that a lot

27:44

of us face as we get older. And,

27:46

you know, some people encounter it sort of

27:48

unwillingly, stroke victims, for example, who have to

27:50

relearn how to walk. This is where the

27:52

trouble is as I mentioned, if we think

27:54

about walking, this creates trouble. And these stroke

27:56

victims, they know in their mind how to

27:58

walk, but they're having trouble convincing their muscles

28:01

to do the right thing. And the mirror

28:03

thinking about it adds this pressure. The

28:05

theory is called reinvestment. It simply makes it

28:07

harder. At some point, you want to step

28:09

out of the way, and the brain wants

28:11

to go onto autopilot. But that gets difficult.

28:13

So of all the things you learned as

28:15

a beginner, is there anything you're going to

28:17

stick with? I mean, I really have tried

28:19

to stick with all of the things. Some

28:21

are a little bit sort of easier and

28:23

more convenient. And whether it's that or the

28:25

fact that I really like those things the

28:27

most is an open question. But for example,

28:30

singing is something I've probably do the most

28:32

of on an average week because, you know,

28:34

it requires no special equipment. You can

28:36

do it wherever in the shower

28:38

in the car on the street if

28:40

you're so inclined. And it does

28:43

bring me great pleasure and even practicing

28:45

singing to the extent that I

28:47

practice it nowadays, you know, with warm

28:49

up drills or just scales or

28:51

things like that. Even that I find

28:53

to be such a almost therapeutic

28:55

exercise that just makes the body feel

28:57

good, sort of meditative or something

28:59

like that. So it's great to find

29:01

something you're trying to learn where

29:03

the practice is as rewarding as the

29:05

actual performance. And what did

29:07

you learn about yourself from

29:09

doing this book? Well, I

29:12

wouldn't say that I'm any sort of,

29:14

you know, master learner or polymath or anything

29:16

like that. I think I'm just, you

29:18

know, sort of average in many regards, like

29:20

many people are perhaps. So, you know,

29:22

I don't think you need to have any

29:25

sort of special. dispensation to take up

29:27

various things. And I do think the more

29:29

the better. But I found that I

29:31

think a lot of people often think that

29:33

something like a hobby or a pursuit

29:35

or this thing must be prompted by some

29:37

lack in one's life that their job

29:39

isn't satisfying or they feel unhappy. And before

29:41

going to this book, I had certainly

29:43

nothing to complain about. I had no deep

29:45

sources of unhappiness, and I love my

29:47

job. And this can be often the problem,

29:49

though, is that you become so obsessed

29:51

with your job that you never see the

29:53

need or the desire for to do

29:55

anything but that job. So it wasn't until

29:58

I actually started doing these things that

30:00

I felt I realized what I had been

30:02

missing. And I think it also, for

30:04

me, and perhaps for other people that

30:06

do this, is that we often tend

30:08

to think of ourselves as fixed beings.

30:10

This is what I call just Daniel

30:12

Gilbert has called this the end of

30:14

history illusion, where we think we are

30:16

now the people we are going to

30:18

be 10 years from now, which really

30:20

isn't generally true. So I found this

30:23

exercise particularly useful in just reframing my

30:25

self -identity and, you know, opening these

30:27

doors, showing that there were other facets

30:29

to my personality, to my skill set,

30:31

to my life. And it really opened

30:33

up so many things, new sorts of

30:35

new friends, new things to think about,

30:37

new skills, new things to do with

30:39

my daughter, my wife. So just sometimes

30:41

I'll be talking about this and thinking

30:43

it sounds so completely obvious, yet I

30:45

feel like there are people like myself

30:47

before I started this that just weren't

30:49

quite taking this advice on board for

30:51

whatever reason. And people like myself, you

30:53

know, I've always wanted to learn to

30:55

paint, for example, but I just keep

30:57

on putting it off and putting it

30:59

off. Well, I'm 61, you know, how

31:01

much longer am I going to put

31:03

this off for? And I think that's

31:05

a problem that we sort of think

31:08

we've got to be good at it.

31:10

We've got to really throw ourselves into

31:12

it. And actually, you can just have

31:14

fun with it. Yeah, I think that's

31:16

a great point. I mean, painting, I

31:18

think, is sort of like a lot

31:20

of writers say, you know, I have

31:22

a novel. in the drawer, or I

31:24

want to write a novel. And of

31:26

course, sometimes just the act of saying

31:28

I want to do something just allows

31:30

you to put it off indefinitely. Or

31:32

we might hold it in sort of

31:34

this high esteem where it seems remote

31:36

and rarified that, oh, it's this thing

31:38

I'm going to take on someday, where

31:40

I think the best thing is really

31:42

just find a class as quickly as

31:44

possible and just show up. Because,

31:46

yeah, I was like you, or I

31:48

would, oh, surfing, I'd like to get to

31:50

that someday. And it seemed like this

31:53

possible remote thing when, in fact, there was

31:55

a surf break 45 minutes from my

31:57

house that was unbeknownst to me. I sort

31:59

of had in mind you know, I

32:01

had to be in Hawaii or something and

32:03

I made it into this vision that

32:05

was simply too abstract and too highfalutin for

32:07

lack of a better word. And so

32:09

I think sometimes just plunging in and just

32:11

doing it, it doesn't have to be

32:13

pretty, You don't have to be great, but

32:15

just start. I think your motto that

32:17

if you're going to take your child to

32:19

it, do it yourself as well, I

32:21

think that's another motto to throw in as

32:23

well. Yeah, and that's motivation as well.

32:25

I mean, sometimes that is just the biggest

32:27

hurdle. I mean, making the first call,

32:29

getting the door, and children are great that

32:32

way because as a parent, you sort

32:34

of feel obligated to, many parents do it,

32:36

to have them do things. You don't

32:38

want your child just inside all day, you

32:40

know, or feel a responsibility to show

32:42

them the world. So, you know, not do

32:44

the same for yourself? The

32:48

Meaningful Life with Andrew G.

32:50

Marshall. Please follow us on Twitter, like

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podcast and I could be reading

35:40

out your letter. I

35:42

feel that I've fulfilled my mission in

35:44

life. I brought up my three

35:46

children, two at university and one will

35:48

be cross fingers there soon and

35:51

it seems like I'm facing a big

35:53

black hole. I'm in my early

35:55

50s. What next? I've spent

35:57

so long thinking about what other

35:59

people want. my children, my husband, my

36:01

mother, that I have really no

36:03

idea what I want. The

36:05

few things I've come up with like

36:07

travelling seem more of a distraction than

36:09

a way to live or simply impractical. I

36:12

have an okay job, it's interesting

36:14

but no more than something that pays

36:16

the bills. I think like

36:18

a lot of people listen to your

36:20

podcast, I suppose I'm looking for a

36:22

purpose or something meaningful, but I have

36:24

no idea where to start or even

36:26

what questions to ask myself. So

36:28

what are your thoughts, Tom? Well,

36:31

it's something I'll say that I

36:33

heard a version of this quite often

36:35

from people that were engaged in

36:37

the various things I was engaged in.

36:39

For example, surfing, I met people

36:41

who were going through a divorce or

36:43

overcoming some other personal life hurdle.

36:45

And that question of identity came up

36:48

a lot as well in that,

36:50

you know, I've been this person for

36:52

X number of years, I

36:54

want something for myself in this sort

36:56

of act of surfing, which I think

36:58

the goal was, you know, we can

37:00

think about surfing as a verb, they

37:02

were surfing, they wanted to become a

37:04

surfer, they wanted to go from that

37:06

verb to a noun. And I think

37:08

that itself has a certain meaning there,

37:10

but the person mentioned things might seem

37:12

like more of a distraction than having

37:14

meaning. I would be careful not to, there

37:17

might be things that seem like distractions

37:19

that may actually turn out to be

37:21

very meaningful or purposeful. Something like surfing,

37:23

you know, on the one hand, does

37:25

seem like a very indulgent recreational activity,

37:27

but talking to a lot of people

37:29

at the end of the day, I

37:31

found it really wasn't about surfing. mean,

37:33

yes, surfing is amazing. It puts you

37:35

in tune with what's nature, with your

37:37

body, but it was an arena in

37:39

which they were working out other things

37:41

and deriving meaning. In terms of offering

37:43

other advice, you know, I think everyone

37:45

must have some little short list of

37:47

things in their head or even just

37:49

whims or ideas of things they've once

37:51

wanted to try and just go with

37:53

sort of a gut level consideration of

37:56

what those things are, not worry about

37:58

what they are or whether someone might...

38:00

I think it's frivolous or, and

38:02

just try. I mean, I

38:05

agree that something like

38:07

travel can, you know, sort

38:09

of done the wrong way be just

38:11

a way to seek meaning where it's sort

38:13

of an artificial way rather than actually

38:15

getting at the root of some of the

38:18

things that are troubling you. I mean,

38:20

that said, what I found over the past

38:22

few years, particularly in doing some of

38:24

these skills, is that traveling to go learn

38:26

something has been sort of an amazing

38:28

combination for me. Give me an example when

38:30

you've traveled and learned something. Well, a

38:32

surf camp would be, you know, one, for

38:34

example. But I'm trying to think of

38:37

some other things. So there was a painting

38:39

class that happened in Maine because I'm

38:41

admittedly a restless person at this age, and

38:43

I can't sort of go to a

38:45

beach and basically sit there. I need to

38:47

be sort of doing something. I feel

38:49

like that doing something engages you in so

38:51

many ways, yet you still have the

38:53

leisure component, but you're meeting new people, you're

38:55

engaging in a new skill, you're in

38:58

a new place. And I have this long

39:00

list of internet bookmarks of classes I

39:02

would like to take that include everything from

39:04

stone cutting in England, it's sort of

39:06

just these like workshops and things. I think

39:08

that that can be a nice way

39:10

to get both that sense of novelty that

39:12

the travel brings. And yet

39:14

also you sort of come back having

39:17

learned something, which is to my

39:19

mind sort of the best souvenir of

39:21

all. I think that the most

39:23

important thing is seeing the meaningful life,

39:25

not as a destination, where you

39:27

have to know where you're going for,

39:29

a goal that you're aiming for,

39:32

like I don't know, building a monastery

39:34

in the Himalayas, because then immediately,

39:36

as soon as you've got the monastery

39:38

in the Himalayas as your goal,

39:40

and you can't get planning permission for

39:42

your monastery, then you're stuffed. But

39:45

actually if you see it as a

39:47

journey, and it doesn't really

39:49

matter where you start the journey,

39:51

as long as you actually bring

39:53

something new into your life. So

39:55

stone cutting in England sounds like

39:57

a perfectly good place to start.

40:00

Just go for a whim, just something

40:02

that you would like to do.

40:04

I'm sitting here at this precise moment,

40:06

I'd like to learn to paint.

40:08

I don't think it's going to be

40:10

the gateway to the meaningful life,

40:12

but who knows? Because you don't know

40:15

until you start. I

40:17

think that Tom's idea of actually

40:19

combining the travel with a bit

40:21

of learning seems to me like

40:23

a particularly good idea if that's

40:25

what you like travel. What is

40:27

it about the travel in particular

40:29

that you like? Borrow down into

40:31

it and begin to see what

40:33

it is. Is it the new

40:35

places? Is it like going to

40:37

a particular kind of place? If

40:40

it is old churches, then maybe

40:42

you want to study more about

40:44

old churches. I don't know, but

40:46

look deeper into those whims that

40:48

you have and experiment. Yeah,

40:50

and if I could just add one thing

40:52

to that, it reminds me of, I

40:54

think it's often very difficult to simply put

40:56

these ideas up in the air, put

40:58

them on a whiteboard, like a list of,

41:00

oh, this is what I will do

41:02

that will bring me meaning. This will be

41:04

my passion. And there's an interesting line

41:06

of thought in the book range by David

41:08

Epstein, which is a very good book,

41:10

very similar in spirit, let's say, to mine,

41:12

which is about the dangers of specialization

41:15

and about being a broad minded person. He's

41:17

sort of looking at it more from

41:19

a career perspective, but there's a line, we

41:21

discover the possibilities by doing, by trying

41:24

new activities, building new networks, finding new

41:26

role models. We learn who we are

41:28

in practice, not in theory. So

41:30

that's why I think, like you say, to

41:32

just jump into painting and see what

41:34

it will do for you rather than

41:36

to present it as the thing that's

41:38

going to change your life ahead of

41:41

time. Because just as we're not sure

41:43

who we're going to be in 10

41:45

years from now, a lot of people

41:47

have changed their entire lives taking a

41:49

simple weekend painting class, ended up changing

41:51

their careers, moving. mean, so you never

41:53

know where revelation is going to come

41:55

from. I love that. We learn who

41:57

we are in practice rather than theory.

41:59

I'll put the details of that book

42:02

and obviously all details about Tom's book

42:04

in the show notes. If you like

42:06

those sort of Malcolm Gladwell kind of

42:08

books where you have lots of interesting

42:10

anecdotes and thoughts, I think you'll

42:12

enjoy this book. And Malcolm even

42:14

recommends it himself. So that's a really

42:16

good accolade. Thank you for being

42:18

my guest on The Meaningful Life. In

42:20

a moment, we're going to look back

42:22

at the interview and see what

42:24

we've both learned from it. And Tom

42:26

is going to share with me three

42:28

things he knows to be true. You

42:31

can get all that extra material

42:33

if you join our supporters circle. And

42:35

we'll be having more details about that

42:37

in a moment. But as you'd

42:39

be my witness on The Meaningful Life,

42:41

I have to ask you the important

42:43

question, what makes your life meaningful? Wow,

42:46

I could write an entire book perhaps. But

42:48

usually when I write a book, it's because

42:50

I don't know the answer to something. So

42:52

I mean, listen, I have

42:54

my, let's say, bulwarks of identity

42:56

that a lot of people have.

42:58

I have my career, my

43:00

role as a husband and father.

43:02

I think these are sort of the

43:04

pillars of what gets me up in

43:06

the morning. And those are very powerful

43:09

things. But I think there's also this

43:11

other thing, which I could just

43:13

call the X factor. I mean, there's

43:15

always, I've always felt the desire for

43:17

just something else for pushing forward a

43:19

little bit more, for having that

43:21

feeling of wanting more than is comfortable. wrong

43:24

way to say it, but pushing beyond the

43:26

comfort zone a little bit. Testing

43:28

yourself. Well, I often feel

43:30

a little bit impatient when I find

43:32

myself cast into a certain role

43:34

where even as a writer, well, okay,

43:37

I did this book. So your

43:39

next book should be sort of a

43:41

continuation of that first book. I

43:43

think, well, no, that sounds boring. And

43:45

I don't know where that impulse

43:47

comes from, just sort of play against

43:49

expectation. I often just enjoy

43:51

branching into these new sorts of possibilities,

43:53

these new selves and while still having

43:55

this core of my identity. So maybe

43:57

it just comes from a fear of

43:59

stasis, of not, you know, fear of

44:01

death. I'm not sure what the impulse

44:03

is, but whether it's, you know, meaning,

44:06

I'm not sure, but it is something

44:08

that also motivates me through the course

44:10

of the day, sort of like the

44:12

question of what's next, which makes me

44:14

sound like I have a very, you

44:16

know, short attention span or something, which

44:18

is probably true, but just kind of

44:20

a forward looking, questing spirit,

44:22

I think that I find animates

44:25

me. Well, thank you very

44:27

much for being my witness today.

44:29

That's where the conversation ends in

44:31

a moment. If you're a supporter,

44:33

you can join us in our

44:35

sort of post -match analysis. Thank

44:38

you, Tom, for being my guest

44:40

today. Thank you. You've been

44:42

listening to the Meaningful Life with Andrew

44:44

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