#224: Why Smart People Do Stupid Things With Malcolm Gladwell
The Art of Manliness
The Art of Manliness
4.7 • 14.8K Ratings
🗓️ 9 August 2016
⏱️ 36 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Why do smart people do dumb things?
This is one of the many questions my guest has explored during his writing career. His name Malcom Gladwell, writer at the New Yorker, author of several New York Times Bestselling books, and now host of the podcast Revisionist History. Today on the podcast, Malcom and I explore the question of smart people doing dumb things by looking at the basketball career of Wilt Chamberlin. We discuss how Wilt discovered a way to increase his free-throw shooting percentage dramatically, but why he consciously decided not to continue using that technique.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | [♪ INTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ |
| 0:13.9 | Brett McKay here and welcome to another edition of the Art of Manliness Podcast. |
| 0:18.9 | Why do we sometimes not do the thing we know that works or works better? |
| 0:24.0 | We've all probably had instances in our lives where we knew there was a better way to achieve |
| 0:27.9 | our goal or our goal or our success, but we don't do it. |
| 0:30.9 | Why? |
| 0:31.9 | Why is that? |
| 0:32.9 | Well, that's one of the many questions my guest is explored in his writing career. |
| 0:35.2 | His name is Malcolm Gladwell. |
| 0:36.7 | Many of you have probably read some of his books like Outliers or Tipping Point or David |
| 0:40.6 | and Goliath. |
| 0:41.6 | Malcolm's got a new podcast out called Revisionist History where he goes back in history, |
| 0:45.1 | uncover overlooked or misinterpreted stories and polls insights from him so we can apply |
| 0:49.4 | them to our lives today or at least think about him. |
| 0:51.6 | Today on the show, Malcolm and I discuss how Wilk Chamberlain found a better way to shoot |
| 0:56.2 | free throws that increases free throw percentage rate considerably, but he purposely decided |
| 1:01.4 | to stop doing it and what we can learn from him on avoiding that mistake. |
| 1:05.3 | We also discuss the art of finding insightful stories in the mundane, asking good questions |
| 1:09.9 | and why you might want to decline that acceptance to a prestigious university. |
| 1:14.2 | Lots of stuff to chew on on this podcast. |
| 1:15.8 | After you're done, check out the show notes at a-o-m.ias slash gladwell. |
| 1:23.3 | Malcolm Gladwell, welcome to the show. |
... |
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