Hi everyone. It's Madupa here. Today we're sharing an episode of a podcast we think you'll

love. It's been handpicked by the TED staff, and we think that as TED business listeners,

you'll come away with a fresh idea and a totally new perspective. Enjoy and head to the link in the description for more.

I just think people need to understand that they need to give themselves permission to be courageous about everything, about who they are, about what they make, about what they think.

From the TED Audio Collective, this is Design Matters with Debbie Millman.

On Design Matters, Debbie talks with some of the most creative people in the world about what they do, how they got to be who they are, and what they're thinking about and working on.

On this episode, Stephen Dubner talks about 20 years of Freakonomics and about our extraordinary capacities to adapt and change.

Your minds or brain is a muscle and you can control it.

Stephen J. Dubner is an award-winning journalist, best-selling author, and the co-creator of Freakonomics,

the book that became a cultural phenomena and has changed the way millions of people think about how the world really works.

Twenty years after its publication, Freakonomics has grown into a global franchise, spawning sequels, films,

and some of the most popular podcasts in the world, including Freakonomics Radio, which Stephen Dubner hosts with wit, rigor, and curiosity.

Along the way, he has built an empire of smart, surprising storytelling, showing us the hidden side of everything,

and inviting us to question what we think we know.

Stephen Dougner, welcome to Design Matters.

Hi, Debbie. I'm blushing hard, but that's very nice. Thank you.

Thank you, Stephen. Now, I understand you published your first, your very first piece of

writing when you were 11 years old. Can you tell us a little bit more about what you wrote?

That is true. So it's not a long story, but it takes a minute. So do you mind? Absolutely. I want to hear the whole thing. So I was sitting there in sixth grade. And I had a teacher that year that I did not like. I'm not going to name her name. She knows who she is. And I was having a shitty year. It was the year my dad had died. I was a kid. I was the youngest in a big family in upstate New York, and my dad had died. And, you know, that sucks. And someone knocks on the door and it's Mrs. Peterson,

my fourth grade teacher. And she comes in, she says to the sixth grade teacher, I have something to say,

I guess she said about Steve Dubner. And I said, oh, shit. Like what did I do in fourth grade that was so

bad that the statute of limitations

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