Grow Big Always

If you listen to this podcast it’s not a surprise that I love bizarre. What better way to extend that lens then to look beyond people? So when author Matt Simon was recommended by a listener as a guest for Grow Big Always, I thought it was a great idea because he’s a science writer at Wired and specializes on Zoology, specifically some crazy fucking creatures. It’s hard to describe his book, The Wasp That Brainwashed the Caterpillar, because it’s a fusion of the insane things creatures do and also incredibly funny. Where else can you glance at a title of a section that says, “Adventures in having a six inch long clitoris.” Actually, don’t answer that. The book is an incredible collection of super bizarre creatures, packed with interesting facts that both impress you and creep you out. I know I did a few spit takes while reading it. So if you want to be “that person” at the next party that whips out some crazy facts that blow other people away, be sure to listen to this conversation with Matt Simon. That said, if you’re in the middle of eating some Panang curry or some Turkish-style poached eggs, you may want to take a break from that until after the show. That is, unless the stranger side of evolution is an appetite stimulant. And if so, breakfast is served.

This episode couldn’t be more timely as we recover from the national fear-mongering that drove our unprecedented 2016 presidential election. It’s amazing when you stop and think about how much we’re told about what shouldn’t be lovable. So much is vilified. It could be our own feelings, other groups of people, different faiths, or distant countries. There’s so much that falls into this unlovable category— so many stories where, “those people are the bad ones.” Now imagine you’re someone who decides to unravel those narrative containers. To build bridges to them and shine lights on the kinds of families, emotions, places in the world that keep us apart and keep us from understanding them. That’s exactly what this week’s guest, author Andrew Solomon, has done with his life. He’s a writer and lecturer on politics, culture, and psychology as well as a very important activist and philanthropist and behalf of LGBT rights, mental health, education and the arts. He’s won The National Book Award, he’s a Pulitzer Prize Finalist, and he was included in The New York Times list of 100 best books of the decade. In our chat we cover lots of his different work from "Far and Away," his latest book dedicated to helping us understand the world better. To “Far from the Tree,” which is a compassionate book about raising difficult children and ends up as an affirmation about what it is to be human. In fact that might be the most important thread through all of Andrew’s efforts and work. Just how much love there is in the things we might initially think are unlovable. Link: http://www.growbigalways.com/episodes/andrew-solomon

As we begin to heal on the other side of a painful presidential election, we're left with deep cultural divides that frankly have been growing there for a while. So it's worth taking a giant step back and examining ourselves and the insulated bubbles we've put ourselves in. As comfortable as this social insulation is, it--along with a culture of intense sensitivity that lobotomizes what we say for fear of offending others-- keeps us from the free exchange of ideas. Instead we perceive someone with even the smallest deviation from our point of view as "one of them.” While those with extreme liberal views fight for a unrealistic level of absolute inclusion which flies in face of our objective differences, extreme conservatives feel their side of the coin is just as right and they passionately defending their own strict point of view and seek inclusion as well. Both sides arm themselves with friends and Facebook feeds which reinforce and fuel what they already believe. It’s worth taking a step out of that fray and examining ourselves and yes— fearlessly climbing out of our safe and comfy pods to try to understand and accept people who are different.  This week’s guest, professor Gad Saad (affectionately called “The Gadfather”) is a popular evolutionary psychologist who applies science to how we consume ideas, products and perspectives. He has two books, “The Evolutionary Bases of Consumption” and “The Consuming Instinct” and hosts a Youtube channel called “The Saad Truth,” which critiques political correctness, the ideology of multiculturalism, and goes against the grain of incredibly homogeneous and overly sensitive academic environments. Besides the election, Gad and I take on how our culture has grown to be so divided, how it’s  continually censored in how we listen, share and debate ideas.  Link: http://www.growbigalways.com/episodes/gad-saad

Way back before capitalism, it used to be that self-welfare was the key part of our lives. We would face formidable physical and situational challenges and have to endure them, alone and with our tribe. It was likely those trials were the most meaningful experiences for our prior relatives— the very thing they could depend on and take comfort in.  Today we’ve lost that ability. Comfort is handed to industries that insulate us for a fee. We spend money and depend on hermetically sealed homes, cars, drugs, food and clothing. If things get rough we rely on doctors, pills, and booze. But recently, there’s a rising voice that we’ve come to the end of the Western Medical Model. An awareness that those things don’t make life better anymore. That there are other roads. Some, like this week’s guest Wim Hof, believe it’s time to tap back into our natural abilities. That they’ve been forgotten. If there’s anyone that knows about getting out of their comfort zone, it’s him. His journey started when--with four children at home--his wife took her life by jumping out an eight story window. To deal with his grief, he went out into the extreme cold. Since then, he’s shown through examples of enduring extreme cold like being submerged in ice for nearly two hours or using his mind to ward off disease, that anyone has amazing power to face anything and literally self-regulate. He’s now using the best scientists in the world to back up what he’s learned and therefore challenge science, culture and the very industries we’ve come to assume are the answer.  This week is a change up from the normal show format. I guess it’s the best show for it, as it’s show about how extreme challenge can change what you think is possible. This weeks show started from an email from Chris Ryan. You might remember him from the episode “Why everything feels so fake” or know him from his book Sex at Dawn or his podcast “Tangentially Speaking.” We’ve continued our relationship, he’s the one who recommended his ex-professor and friend, Stanley Krippner as a guest. Anyway, Chris dropped me a line and asked me if I knew, “The Iceman," Wim Hof. He said he had become friends with Wim and that Wim was coming to Stanford so that Stanford neuroscientists could further study him and recommended that we co-host an episode not only with Wim but with Stanley. How could I say no to that? So, much like we did for Chris, April and I hosted a cocktail party and BBQ reception for Wim following the show.  But unlike when I met Chris, I wasn’t at all prepared for the insanity that showed up at my door. When I opened it, Wim was standing there in flip flops with his adult his son and daughter and bust inside immediately chasing our toddler in circles around the house until finally stopping to ask our teenager if he had dumbbells he could use, which he did. Then he immediately started vigorously using them on our deck while more and more people showed up. The next time I turned around he was balancing himself on the floor in an unrecognizable way. All this while more and more friends of ours, of Chris’ and neuroscientists filled the house.  Imagine that crazy picture—the packed house while the Iceman, Stanley, Chris and I ducked into my studio and had the following amazing, chaotic and inspiring conversation. Link: http://www.growbigalways.com/episodes/wim-hof

I don’t know about you when I was growing up, I had a super-skewed perspective on what business and working was all about. Everywhere I looked were articles about entrepreneurs raising tons of money or celebrities in the business world reinventing everything. Or it was my parents that pushed specific occupations— be a doctor, a lawyer, get to work and sit in an office— but that’s a super limited and incredibly unrealistic view of the working world. The professional options that you’re exposed to are incredibly limited. So many of us end up finding a safe place pretty early and staying there because it’s safe. Imagine if you actually had the power of seeing a spectrum of choices in front of you. That power of visibility would be incredible. You’d have the ability to see what other people were doing, what options you were attracted to and various paths you could go. It would totally open the world up to you. Especially if you had the deck stacked against you as a woman.  I talk about that very thing, along with  the importance of being “antifragile,” with this week’s guest, Design Sponge CEO Grace Bonney. She started Design Sponge as a blog and it turned into a new media brand with over a million readers a day. It’s even been called a “Martha Stewart Living for the Millennials” by the New York Times. While building Design Sponge, Grace has dedicated herself to helping creative female entrepreneurs with national meet-ups, a column and now her new book (which she created in just two months), called “In the Company of Women.” It tops the NY Times Best Seller list already and features 1x1s with a hundred women small business owners, especially in creative fields. Grace was nice enough to stop by during her book tour and we had a super fun, content packed conversation covering everything from whether softness is a weakness, the power of seeing the spectrum of options in front of you and how to use life’s challenges as an advantage.

I guess I’m naive because I watch heist movies like Ocean’s Eleven and think nothing that elaborate happens in real life, but after my conversation with this week’s guest, architectural writer Geoff Manaugh, I have a dramatically different point of view. There’s sort of x-ray glasses that burglars use when they look at where we live or where we work, that the rest of us never see. Encompassing nearly 2,000 years of heists and break-ins, A Burglar’s Guide to the City, draws on the expertise of reformed bank robbers, FBI Special Agents, private security consultants, the L.A.P.D. Air Support Division, and architects past and present. Whether picking locks or climbing the walls of high-rise apartments, finding gaps in a museum’s surveillance routine or discussing home invasions in ancient Rome, the book ensures readers will never enter a bank again without imagining how to loot the vault or walk down the street without planning the perfect getaway. After listening to this episode with Geoff, I know I saw my house differently and it would be impossible for the same thing not to happen to you. Link: http://www.growbigalways.com/episodes/geoff-manaugh

I’m not sure how manytimes I’ve given up or almost given up but it’s got to be way more then the times I’ve gone for it. Especially, when life has thrown me a curve ball or fifty. I went to grad school to be a poet and gave up to make money. I wanted to work creating animation features but it was easier to sell out and get an office job. Then there are the people who stick with it, the people who have even more grit and likely a bigger chip on their shoulder—but the sad news is that road is littered with them, too. Folks who sacrifice everything and still don’t make it. Then there’s those who do. Who, against all odds, somehow catch a break and find an irregular path to success. I have a wildly candid conversation about that with this week’s guest, In the Valley Below. Jeff and Angela share deeply personal stories they’ve never shared in any interview before for fear their big label or even fans wouldn’t understand. After a trip to SXSW in Austin, Texas, they fell in love, Angela left her girlfriend and they decided they needed to write music together. The band started as a studio project, and as you’ll hear, nearly walked away from music. Then, after a crazy turn of events, they made their television debut on The Late Show With David Letterman and have since appeared on Conan and tons of music festivals. LA Weekly listed their debut album among the 10 Best Albums of 2014 and The Huffington Post named “Peaches,” the song you just heard, the #5 song of that same year. Sometimes listening to other people’s rollercoaster can inspire us just how important it is to hold on. Even when the world tells you to let go.

The stories we told around campfires have been replaced by animated fairytales that frame our cultural values to kids and adults. Those stories live inside us well beyond childhood. Not too long ago, they used to represent a misogynistic, racist culture and told us that, for example, if you’re a good girl, you’ll get married and live happily ever after. Today, they approach more authentic and meatier issues like depression, loss, and warnings on what could happen if we rely too much on technology. There are people, like this week’s guest, the first academy-award winning director for an animated feature, Brenda Chapman, who fought tooth and nail to stop telling silly princess stories and finally show women who wanted something beyond true love. That movie was Brave, and it was a movie she conceived of, wrote, directed and then, at the last minute was forcibly removed from the project. Brenda has led a new generation of creators who understand the gravity of these stories and aren’t afraid to tackle tough subjects that feel relevant and meaningful instead of idyllic fantasies. She's has worked on legendary movies like Who Framed Roger Rabbit, The Little Mermaid, The Rescuers Down Under, Beauty and the Beast, The Lion King, Prince of Egypt, Cars, and of course her baby, Brave. She remains the only woman to have directed a feature length animated film. In our very candid conversation Brenda offers a behind-the-scenes look at what it’s taken to turn the tide on how women are portrayed and the dreams we tell our children. We talk about how these stories can create social change and how to use the rules of character development for your own life and personal fairytale. It takes real bravery to go up against the establishment and Brenda had the character to do it. I’m sure that when you listen to her talk about how she develops other characters, it will help you build your own.

I have to say, after this week’s guest, I’m pretty embarrassed. And if you live in America, y ou should be, too. While America has pointed the finger with disgust at the genocides conducted by ISIL, German, and Bosnian powers— for example— we have yet to come to grips with our own Holocaust: The several millions of Native American families we slaughtered, enslaved and tortured in order to occupy and control their land and resources. This invasion and genocide doesn’t even show up in our culture— from classrooms, to memorials to even Wikipedia— we don’t even recognize it as a genocide, even though it meets every criteria. We have isolated ourselves from this narrative, responsibility and even the remaining Indian populations themselves, who we’ve cast off into camps far from us. Even our national conversation on racism, doesn’t include Native Americans. While the people of Germany, have their “Nazi past” front and center in classrooms, socially, with memorials and with political support we, as a nation, have continued to somehow escape the same atonement. Isn’t it time? Much like the importance of facing your demons as an individual, this country needs a big revision to our national story and the blind levels of patriotism we smack the world with. A humble country would be a stronger one. We’ve seen when the opposite happens and only a social movement can turn the tide. This week’s guest, UCLA Professor Benjamin Madley, documents the state-sectioned genocide of the California Native American population like no one else has. In this week’s very emotional conversation, we approach a subject far too neglected: Our own government-sponsored ethnic cleans

Want a drug-free consciousness-shifting experience that only takes a minute and has good side-effects? There’s good reason our brains love poetry, people have spoken it for generations way before we wrote stuff down. Poetry is that thing that lifts your brain outside of everyday life and instantly transports your consciousness. I think of Poems like little mental Altoids you can pop in your mind and let slowly unravel, stimulating and guiding your memories to reconfigure in heart-opening ways. Today, our culture puts all its value on science. Those are the classes and jobs that pay. But it’s our poetry that for hundreds of years, has upset the establishment’s apple cart, that has brought us close together and created a sense of community and experience of being alive that nothing else can in the same way. It’s Poets that have challenged us to think differently. Recently, our National attention gets inspired by the poetry shared at revolutions in Washington whether it’s MLK’s “I have a dream,” during the Human Rights March of 1963, Maya Angelou’s, “On the Pulse of Morning,” who followed Robert Frost as the second poet ever to read at a president’s inauguration or this week’s guest, Elizabeth Alexander, the only other poet to read following Bill Clinton’s presidency when she read “Praise Song for the Day” at our country’s first black President, Barak Obama’s inauguration. In this conversation with Yale Professor and Pulitzer Prize nominated poet Elizabeth Alexander, we talk about the importance of Poetry as well as her recent profound and excruciating loss, which she writes about in “The Light of the World.”