What motivates great Americans with Ron Chernow
ReThinking
TED
4.7 • 626 Ratings
🗓️ 8 July 2025
⏱️ 42 minutes
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Summary
Ron Chernow is a Pulitzer Prize-winning biographer whose work has deepened our understanding of the men who made history in America, and even inspired Lin Manuel Miranda to write his musical about Alexander Hamilton. In this episode, he and Adam discuss Ron’s new book on Mark Twain, analyze what fuels outsized accomplishments, and dig into what it takes to uncover new insights into the lives of historical figures.
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Host: Adam Grant (Instagram: @adamgrant | LinkedIn: @adammgrant | Website: adamgrant.net/)
Guest: Ron Chernow (Website: ronchernow.com/)
Links
Mark Twain by Ron Chernow
Alexander Hamilton by Ron Chernow
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Debbie was in a bit of a pickle. |
| 0:03.0 | A Crisp and Gurkin sandwiches just weren't selling. |
| 0:07.0 | Until she had the good idea to use Canva to design her logo, |
| 0:11.0 | menus and social posts. |
| 0:14.0 | They looked good. |
| 0:17.0 | Really, really good. |
| 0:19.0 | Turns out Crisp and Gurkin sandwiches are right up everyone's street. |
| 0:23.8 | Even if that street now smells of pickles. |
| 0:26.7 | Thanks, Canber. |
| 0:29.9 | Hey Kitty, time to eat your profits. |
| 0:33.3 | Good kitty, look how fat you've gotten. |
| 0:36.7 | That's the sound of some workplace pension providers paying their shareholders instead of you. |
| 0:41.8 | At People's Pension, we don't have shareholders to pamper. |
| 0:45.1 | That's why over the last five years we've given £100 million back to our members instead. |
| 0:51.1 | You've broken the cat flap again. |
| 0:53.2 | People's pension. Now that's a pension with purpose. |
| 0:56.4 | Visit people'spension.com.com.uk forward slash pays you. Hi, I'm Frances Fry. And I'm Anne Morris. And we are the hosts of a new TED podcast called Fixable. |
| 1:06.6 | We've helped leaders at some of the world's most competitive companies solve all kinds of problems. |
| 1:12.2 | On our show, we'll pull back the curtain and give you the type of honest, unfiltered advice we usually reserve for top executives. |
| 1:19.3 | Maybe you have a coworker with boundary issues, or you want to know how to inspire and motivate your team. |
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| 1:30.3 | Find fixable wherever you listen to podcasts. |
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