Malcolm Gladwell on: Working From Home, Kindness, Sacrifice, and Making Mistakes
10% Happier with Dan Harris
10% Media, LLC
4.6 • 12.9K Ratings
🗓️ 16 September 2022
⏱️ 62 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
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In this previously released episode, Malcolm Gladwell responds to backlash he received over his belief that working in an office—and the collaborative creative environment it can offer—is in your best interest (and in the interest of others). We also dive deep into some of the important themes featured in the seventh season of his podcast Revisionist History, including: kindness, generosity, and sacrifice. And, Dan and Gladwell share their biggest mistakes as journalists.
Malcolm Gladwell is the president and co-founder of Pushkin Industries, and the author of six New York Times bestselling books including The Tipping Point, Blink, Outliers, David and Goliath, and Talking to Strangers. He's also the host of the new Pushkin podcast Legacy of Speed.
In this episode we talk about:
- The backlash Malcolm faced from his work from home comments
- Pushing the noise aside when it comes to social media
- Lessons in kindness from a recent Revisionist History episode
- The importance of flow states
- How he personally relaxes
- Why people should have a lifelong pursuit or practice
- What he thinks now about his famous 10,000 hours argument
- Why we need to engage and investigate the views of others to be morally alert as human beings
- His biggest journalistic mistake
Content Warning: Brief mention of eating disorders.
Full Shownotes: https://www.tenpercent.com/podcast-episode/malcolm-gladwell-486
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | This is the 10% Happier Podcast. I'm Dan Harris. |
| 0:10.0 | Hey, gang, today we have what we in the journalism business call a big get. |
| 0:17.0 | It's Malcolm Gladwell, author of six New York Times bestsellers, including the tipping point, |
| 0:21.6 | Blink and Outliers. He's also host of the massively popular revisionist history podcast and host of a |
| 0:29.3 | new podcast called The Legacy of Speed, which we'll talk about in this interview. I should say he's also |
| 0:35.1 | the co-founder of Pushkin Industries, which produces all kinds of great podcasts. |
| 0:40.3 | I wanted to have him on the show to talk about some of the issues he's been addressing on his podcasts of late, including kindness, generosity, and self-sacrifice. |
| 0:49.0 | And we do, in fact, talk to him about all of the above. |
| 0:53.1 | But our interview happened to fall on a day when |
| 0:55.2 | Gladwell was at the center of a tabloid slash Twitter dustup over some comments he recently made |
| 1:02.2 | about working from home, which he said, and I'm quoting here, is not in your best interest. |
| 1:09.0 | There has been, as you might imagine, quite a backlash against that comment, |
| 1:12.6 | and in this interview you will hear Gladwell respond at length. |
| 1:18.6 | We also talk about the importance of flow states, how he personally relaxes, |
| 1:23.6 | his favorite hack for improving his daily life, |
| 1:26.6 | why he thinks everybody should have a lifelong |
| 1:28.5 | practice or pursuit, his is running, why writing and reading about other people is such an |
| 1:34.7 | important human act, what he thinks now about his famous 10,000 hours argument, and what he says |
| 1:42.4 | may be one of his biggest journalistic mistakes. |
| 1:46.4 | Okay, we'll get started with Malcolm Gladwell right after this. |
| 1:50.6 | Before we dive in, just to say, we've got some exciting things happening in the 10% happier universe. |
| 1:56.8 | We are now offering bespoke guided meditations to go with every podcast episode. Those meditations |
... |
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