Episode Highlights

• The people and experiences that shaped the belief that “The most meaningful way to succeed is to help others succeed”
• Givers vs. Takers vs. Matchers: The reciprocity styles and the general thesis behind Give and Take
• The five-minute favor in action, and what makes an introduction a true win-win for everyone involved
• Inside the inbox: what actually goes through the mind of the person you are afraid of bothering
• How a parasocial relationship becomes a real one with synchronized brainwaves and heartbeats
• Why naming the fear of being ghosted is a bid for connection, and how to set a kind boundary for too much inbound
• The eighth-grade basketball that disappeared (and found), and why there are no shortcuts when it comes to meaningful connection
• Getting a psychologist who says he does not help anyone to rethink his own impact
• The adverse selection problem: why the people who hesitate to reach out out of guilt are the exact people everyone is waiting to hear from
• A gratitude practice built on handwritten notes and wax stamps

Useful Links

• The Connection Conference
• Vibe Quiz
• The Curiosity Shop with Brené Brown and Adam Grant
• Jeff Zaslow

About Guest

Adam Grant is an organizational psychologist and bestselling author who explores the science of character, connection, culture, and change. He has been Wharton’s top-rated professor for seven straight years, and he is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of books that have sold millions of copies, including Give and Take, Originals, Think Again, Hidden Potential, and Vibe. His TED talks have over 35 million views and his podcasts have over 100 million downloads; he hosts Re:Thinking and cohosts The Curiosity Shop with Brené Brown. He has been recognized as the world’s #2 most influential management thinker and in Fortune’s 40 Under 40, and he has advised leaders at Google, NASA, Pixar, and the NBA. Adam received his B.A. from Harvard and his Ph.D. from the University of Michigan, and he is a former magician and Junior Olympic springboard diver. He lives in Philadelphia with his wife Allison (a novelist and poet), two cats (who don’t get along), and three children (who mostly do).

Adam’s Website | Vibe Quiz
Adam’s Books: Vibe | Hidden Potential | Think Again | Originals | Give and Take
Adam’s Facebook | Instagram | X | LinkedIn | Threads | YouTube | Substack

Transcript

Adam Grant: Zack Arnold.

Zack Arnold: Mr. Adam Grant.

Adam Grant: Great to finally meet you.

Zack Arnold: It has been 2,185 days that I’ve waited to say, it is nice to meet you, too.

Adam Grant: You’re balder than I expected.

Zack Arnold: Yeah, clearly we have the affinity for the same way that we style our hair. But I don’t think there’s any way to express enough my gratitude for you being here today, but just being there, you know, in my inbox over the years, like, I know you said no, you know, excessive flattery, and I’ll do my best, but I gotta start with a thank you. Like, there’s no other way to say it, I gotta start with a thank you.

Adam Grant: Well, thank you for the thank you, I appreciate it. I think you have single-handedly changed my view about reaching out to people cold.

Zack Arnold: Wow. That’s, that’s a pretty bold statement. And I appreciate that. It’s funny, because literally 15 minutes ago, I did the exact same thing with Angela Duckworth. So that’s so funny. And I was actually looking back at the very first outreach that I sent you, those 2,185 days ago, and funny enough, the PS was… If the barrier of entry is the fear of potentially getting lost in your own work shortly before our scheduled interview time, know that I’m happy to reschedule as many times as necessary to make this happen on a schedule that works for you.

Adam Grant: Here we are. We did it.

Zack Arnold: And, exactly, and here we are. So… Here’s the plan for today. First of all, I just want to start by just being so immensely grateful for the fact that you are giving what I know is very valuable time, you’re in the thick of it, you’re doing the whole podcast circuit, and I know that you could literally be getting yourself in front of millions of people on other podcasts and networks, and you chose to be with us. So, that means the world to me. Thank you.

Adam Grant: Delighted to be here. You are… I mean, part of the reason that I’m such a fan of yours is every single communication that you take the time to craft is thoughtful, it shows care, you do your homework on other people, you go above and beyond to find Unique parts of their background and experience and value system that have resonated with you, and… I don’t think I’ve ever gotten an email from you that didn’t communicate, wow. this guy really cares about other people, and he has a remarkable gift for seeing other people, and understanding what makes them tick. And, I mean, that’s… Zack, that’s why I do what I do. That’s why I became a psychologist. I wanted to understand people, and I just think you’re a master at it.

Zack Arnold: Wow, I’m… I’m kind of speechless. That’s, that’s pretty amazing to hear that from somebody that you admire so much. Alright, so…

Adam Grant: The admiration is mutual, and I… it’s been fun, you know, what has it been now? Five-plus years since we had that.

Zack Arnold: Literally, it’s a week short of 6 years.

Adam Grant: So, over what’s almost 6 years now, I have gotten to see you show up as a giver in more ways than I can count, and the, you know, the invitations that you craft for people, the doors that you open, the gifts that you send, it’s just all above and beyond, and you really have a way of knocking people’s socks off.

Zack Arnold: Wow. Well, I’m gonna do my best to knock your socks off in the next, 58 minutes or so. So here’s the agenda. I know that you love magic and magic tricks, and you’re specifically a slate-of-hand guy, you love car tricks. Now, I personally, I do not do magic, however, I was called the Ricky J of editing, so I don’t know if that counts. But having said that, you and I are gonna do a little bit of magic. I’ve got 3 magic tricks today. Magic trick number one, we’re gonna have a 15-hour conversation in the next 60 minutes. And the reason I say that is because, unfortunately, your team wasn’t able to carve out 15 hours, but the concept behind this entire conference is what I call a syntopical podcast conversation. Which is, I want to talk about one thing, which is how it is that we can truly connect as human beings on multiple levels, how can we support each other and be givers, but also otherish givers that have goals. And because I can’t have you for those 15 hours, you’ve helped me assemble literally the world’s experts, thinkers, and thought leaders to have this one conversation. So that’s the first magic trick that, frankly, I’ve been pulling off for the last 6 months with a lot of your help and your support. So that’s magic trick number one. Magic trick number two’s gonna be a little bit tougher, and here’s why. You’ve been called Mr. Facts by your friends all the way back into grade school.

Adam Grant: It wasn’t a compliment.

Zack Arnold: No, and it wasn’t a compliment. You’ve been called a logic bully, and your wife Allison has had to remind you. Not a compliment. You’ve called yourself a human jukebox, which means that you can recall any studies, statistics, research, or otherwise, which, by the way, I don’t have that, so don’t set that expectation, please don’t quiz me. But the reason that I bring all that up is I want to connect with your ideas, I want to connect with your research, but today’s conversation is about connecting with you. It’s about connecting with Adam through his stories, and I know how much you love talking about yourself. So that’s gonna be a magic trick.

Adam Grant: Good luck with that one.

Zack Arnold: Yeah, exactly.

Adam Grant: There will be no story without a data point attached to it.

Zack Arnold: Yeah, well, and I’m fine with that. But as we’ve talked about in emails before, I don’t want the data points to be the crutch. I’m happy to go into the data, but I want to also understand you and your lived experience, because I think it brings a lot of value to this conversation.

Adam Grant: I will try.

Zack Arnold: And then magic trick number 3 is gonna be the hardest of all. I have something that’s really important to me that I want to see if I can get you to rethink.

Adam Grant: Oh, good, I can’t wait! I love an invitation to think again. Compelling data.

Zack Arnold: We shall see, but we’re gonna leave that as a cliffhanger. So where I actually want to start is I want to start from the beginning of how I initially discovered you, even before I reached out to you. So, it was about back in 2019 or so, I had a friend of mine, he said, you’ve got to read this book, Give and Take. And I said. Never heard of it, nor had I heard of Adam Grant, which, no offense, but back in 2019, wasn’t aware of your work yet. So I started by going to your homepage.

Adam Grant: How dare you?

Zack Arnold: I know, right? And when I think…

Adam Grant: You didn’t know of me? What is wrong with you, Zack Arnold?

Zack Arnold: But in hindsight, when I… like, 2019, I kind of should have known about you, so it’s almost like, how was I not aware of your work 6 years after the book came out? The point being, I go to your website, and right there, front and center on the homepage, it says, and still to this day, the most meaningful way to succeed is to help others succeed. What I want to know is where does this core belief come from, and who in your life helped shape this belief?

Adam Grant: It comes from the fact that… Succeeding for yourself alone is empty. You end up with a wall of trophies and accolades, and they mean nothing to anybody. And everyone I have ever admired has been powered by the desire to not only accomplish great things, but elevate other people along the way. I saw it in my diving coach, Eric Best, who… The first day of practice, when I walked like Frankenstein, and I couldn’t touch my toes without bending my knees, and I was the worst diver in my whole school, Eric sat me down and said, I will never cut anyone who wants to be here. You want a spot on this team? You are here? And I will invest as much as you do. And proceeded to… volunteer in his free time to coach me in the off-season. He showed up twice a week. And I couldn’t believe it. And Eric was just completely invested in helping his divers grow. And he… he felt like my success was his success. And I just… I wanted to make him proud. I saw it in my mentors in academia. I think Brian Little is the quintessential example from undergrad, Jane Dutton in grad school. Both of them just would… in a way that I thought was… Almost self-sacrificing, but not quite. Would go out of their way to… give feedback on papers, to give career advice, to think through personal challenges, and they basically showed up and said, I am here to help you achieve your goals, whatever those are. And to do that, I need to help you find your goals. It was extraordinarily generous, and, you know, Brian is one of the greatest personality psychologists of our time, and he didn’t become an award-winning teacher by accident. That care is something that every one of his students feels. Jane is one of the most cited researchers in our field, and that’s happened in part because she is, like, she’s going around… Jane would always say. I’m… like, I’m trying to plant seeds, and then water them. And guess what? There are a lot of flowers blooming in the field because of Jane. And I think, you know, obviously, there are a lot of people that I’ve met over the years who… have… shown that you do not have to choose between achieving your own aspirations and lifting other people up. And anybody who believes that you have to pick one or the other, I think, is lying to themselves, and they’re also lying to you.

Zack Arnold: And I think that that’s why I gravitated to the book so quickly, is that I essentially walked away with, wait a second, nice guys can finish first. And what I… what was so interesting, and this is probably something you can relate to as well, given, you know, the Midwestern upbringings, P.S. Go Blue, love that you got that in the, you know, the background there. One of the most immediate and negative pieces of feedback that I got as soon as I moved out to Los Angeles and I started to work in entertainment was, you’re too polite. Not like, oh, you’re so polite, no, you’re too polite. I was like, whoa, okay, so culture shock, I’m in a very, very different place. And I remember telling myself, driving across the country for my first job, I cannot let this industry and this place change me, and as soon as it changes me. I don’t care how much I’m enjoying the work or how successful I am, I have to drive back. And that was a hard fight through much of my career, but then I read your book, I’m like, alright, there’s another way to do this, and it completely shifted my perspective on everything, and has essentially launched me in the direction of the work that I do now, helping others connect with others. So that’s kind of where it all started. I’m gonna do my best to minimize any kind of rehashing of old materials, things you’ve talked about for the last 13 years. What I do want to do, however, is something that I know you do enjoy, which is building scaffolding. So just very briefly, can we build the scaffolding for anybody that’s not familiar with give and take? Just the general thesis of it, what reciprocity styles are, and what you really found about givers versus takers versus matchers, and what that means for our success.

Adam Grant: I was really interested in styles of interaction, and I found there was a whole bunch of research from many cultures, many industries, that there are basically three styles that people bring to their workplaces, and only later did I realize, oh. We could also look at these in parenting. We could look at these in marriages. But I was very focused as an organizational psychologist on work interactions. And I found that… giving, taking, and matching showed up over and over again. They had different language, there were different terms and labels for them in different bodies of research, but the same basic tendencies showed up. So givers are people who are always trying to figure out, what can I do for you? They enjoy helping others with no strings attached. Takers are doing the exact opposite. They’re on a mission to find out, what can you do for me? And they want to get ahead. Matchers are people who are afraid of being too selfish or too generous, so they follow the law of reciprocity, and they say, I’ll do something for you if you do something for me. I was interested in the success of each of those groups, and so I looked at data on engineers, productivity, salespeople’s revenue, medical students’ grades, very different professions. And consistently, the givers were the worst performers. They basically either burned out or got burned by takers, because they were always putting other people’s needs ahead of their own. So then, a lot of people think the takers are gonna be the best performers, and they often were in the short term, but in the long term, their reputations caught up with them. And people didn’t trust them, they didn’t like them, they didn’t want to be around them. as Mark Cuban once put it to me, he said. If you are not kind to other people, no one is going to want to collaborate with you. And that’s what takers found. They tended to rise quickly, but then they would also fall quickly. And… So then it must be the matchers who are the best performers, is the logical conclusion. What the data suggested was no, and I’d seen this over and over again in my own research. The best performers were the givers again. They were overrepresented on both extremes of the performance spectrum. And there was something that successful givers were doing that was allowing them to succeed while also helping others. And the basic thesis of Give and Take was there is something that successful givers know that the rest of us ought to learn, and I thought, Zack, I was utterly convinced that if the book was successful, I was gonna convince takers and matchers to be more generous. That has not been…

Zack Arnold: Sorry, but that didn’t surprise me that didn’t happen.

Adam Grant: I mean, that has not been the feedback. When I hear from readers, it’s overwhelmingly what you just said. It is the givers who are failing. who were sacrificing themselves for others, who said, oh, I don’t have to choose between my values and my success. And it’s… I think I’m thrilled with that, but I would still like more takers and matchers to give more.

Zack Arnold: Yeah, and the challenge there, and you and I have kind of talked about this in our many email exchanges, is that I have to be very careful in how I teach this, because my approach to outreach is very effective. Case in point, you’re here, all of your closest friends are here, right? And we want to make sure that the takers don’t use all of these strategies that I’ve used over the years to surround myself with mentors, and this is something I just talked about with Angela Duckworth, but the number one rule for everything that I teach is that. actually have to mean it. And if you’re a taker, that means you gotta be a faker, and ultimately, the other thing that I think is the barrier of entry for takers is that my system is really hard. You gotta put in effort, you gotta do the work, you gotta learn about people, and anybody… like, I can sniff out the takers, like, oh, like, you don’t have a bunch of templates, and like, oh, alright, like, no, no, you gotta… this is hard, the effort is the point. But I’m not surprised that you’re like, oh, I didn’t convert all the takers and the matchers.

Adam Grant: No, and you know, it’s interesting that you bring this up, because I think that there are some takers who are very good fakers. But two things tend to happen. One thing that happens is people start to expect them to be givers, and they ask them for help, and then the takers are held accountable. And I’ve… this has become a consistent practice of mine. If I think somebody has a history or a reputation of selfish behavior. I will not help them. Or, if I’m not sure, I will help them, and then I ask them to help somebody else I’m trying to help. And if they don’t do it, guess what? They are dead to me.

Adam Grant: I think the other thing that happens to these takers is they sometimes become it through enacting it over and over again. Because, you know, they discover if they’re doing it just to get ahead, it usually doesn’t work, and so they have to work really hard to be sincere, and then… They find themselves, like, looking for real needs that other people have, and feeling some concern for their problems, and then appreciating the appreciation that other people show to them, and then they sometimes morph over time, and so I think if you’re committed to doing this to succeed, it’s either not gonna work, or it might change you, and the joke is on you.

Zack Arnold: Yeah. So I want to do my best to make sure to put it out there in the world. If there are any takers here, you know, you’re welcome to stick around, but just know that, you know, this might be more for the givers that want to see how can I bring value to others and value to the world.

Adam Grant: One thing that’s interesting is, I remember when I first got your first email, and I thought, wow, this is a masterclass in how to write a cold email. And it’s… it was hands down… it was on my top 5 list of the best cold emails I’ve ever gotten from readers. And generally speaking, when I’ve engaged with people who write an email that thoughtful, this was pre-AI, so I didn’t have to wonder if you had any assistance, this was clearly you, I’ve been delighted by my interactions with the person. I’ve also found that this is becoming more of a… sort of an art form, and more and more people are doing this, and so… you know, I thought, okay, like, I don’t have to… like, let me take my own message seriously. You know my wife, Allison. Allison was constantly saying to me, why are you helping that person? Like, you only hear from them when they want something from you. And, you know, just telling me, like, stop being, like, stop being a, like, a giver who gets taken advantage of. And so what I started doing was, I said, okay. I learned in the data that successful givers don’t help all the people all the time with all the requests. They’re thoughtful about when they help and who they help and how they help. And so… I’m gonna, like, I’m just gonna do a little bit. I’m gonna do what Adam Rifkin calls a 5-minute favor. And so, I remember the first time you asked me to appear on your podcast, I said, no, but let me recommend someone else who I think would actually benefit from going on. And hopefully you would benefit from having them on, and then it’ll be a win-win, and I can also gauge what their experience is like. And I got the nicest thank-you note afterward from the person… I don’t even remember, do you remember who you had on your show first?

Zack Arnold: I think it might have been Annie Duke?

Adam Grant: Potentially, it was Annie Duke. She was the name I was wondering about. I got the loveliest note from Annie saying, had a great time with Zack Arnold, thank you for referring me. And to me, that is the hallmark of a successful introduction. You don’t have one person taking from the other. Both people feel they’ve benefited from the connection. And every time I have connected you to somebody else, they’ve come back and said, that was a wonderful experience, I loved interacting with Zack, I learned a lot, and I would happily recommend other people going on his show and refer other people. And so, it was just a matter of time then to say, okay, I need to find the right thing. that I’m not doing this just because I like Zack, and I want to do him a favor. I’m doing it because I’m excited for this conversation.

Zack Arnold: Here’s what’s really interesting about this, is one of my questions that I was going to ask that I think you’ve already answered in spades, but it’s that I fear I’m a taker. Because I just feel like I’m constantly in your inbox, and just to crawl into my brain for a second, and this is something I talked about extensively with Kristen Carter, with this idea of rejection sensitivity dysphoria. I have no evidence to back this up, so I want to make sure anybody listening, I don’t have information about Adam Grant that you don’t, but with every message, my brain says, your response is going to be, please stop emailing me. The fear of reaching out is real, and I’m really good at it, and the fear is, no, this time I’m bothering him, this time he’s not gonna make an introduction, and there are so many people that never reach out because of this fear, and even I still have it with all the evidence that points to the contrary.

Adam Grant: Well, I think part of that is because we’ve only had email interaction. And I think… I hope that changes, now that we’ve met each other. I think part of that also comes from your inability to see what you do that’s so effective. Which is, not only are you helping the person that I send your way. You also make it so easy for me to do it. Every time you come into my inbox, and my… actually, let me tell you this exactly. I’m gonna narrate to you my inner monologue when you arrive in my inbox. So I’m sitting at my computer. I open my inbox, usually because I’m procrastinating on writing something. And I’m like, oh, I could at least knock off a few emails, and then I’ll get some momentum here. So I open my inbox, and pop… Zack Arnold pops up. And I get an immediate jolt of. I am gonna spend the next 2 minutes reading an email that gives me a chance to be helpful that costs me nothing. This is gonna make my day. Like, I see your name, and I think, oh, I’m gonna be able to help Zack, who I think is a great person, doing great work to help a lot of other people, and so he helps me amplify my impact, and who… usually, it’s an introduction that Zack is looking for, I have the great fortune of knowing a lot of interesting people in a lot of interesting fields who are not as visible as they should be. would be thrilled to be in Zack’s orbit. And so, this is gonna be… I think I have a missed calling to be a romantic matchmaker. I love… I love trying to set people up on dates, because I think finding love is one of the greatest connections that can happen. It is really freaking hard to matchmake, because you just can’t… Like, there’s nothing you can do to grease the wheels of attraction, romantically, right? Physical attraction. It’s just a barrier. I, like, I have pairs of people that I think would have great marriages if only they liked each other’s faces, and they don’t, for whatever reason. I think what I have tried to do as a substitute to answer that unanswered calling is I love matchmaking for friends, I love matchmaking for colleagues, basically, like, anything non-romantic. It’s my favorite way of trying to be helpful, and you make it easier to do that than anybody else I know.

Zack Arnold: Wow. Well, all of that, I appreciate you saying all of those things, and I think this is the perfect segue with where I want to go next, which it’s so interesting. The You Nailed It, which is just short of 6 years of nothing but an inbox. And in the inbox, it’s just words. We’ve done our best to learn tone, we’ve done our best to kind of figure out what’s digital body language, which I talk about extensively with Erica Dhawan, again, because of the introduction. Right? But there’s no real tone, there’s no real emotion, there’s no real vibe. And what’s interesting is that in 20 minutes of you and I interacting, I’m never going to fear again that you’re going to respond with, stop emailing me. what’s going on here? How is it that you and I are vibing, and all of a sudden, 6 years of this fear is gone? I’m like, oh, we’re good. What’s going on?

Adam Grant: Well, I think part of what happened is we’ve just gone from a parasocial relationship to a real relationship. And the immediate feedback back and forth is very different in, you know, the multi-channel interaction that we’re having here than it is in the very… sort of impoverished, spare, sparse, like, sort of, here are some words going back and forth. But, you know, I think you know from reading Vibe that We… well… you… how do I want to say this? I think what I want to say is that… You know from reading Vibe that oxytocin is released when we hear other people’s voices, but not when we read their writing. And so… you know, you could maybe feel that listening to me on a podcast or watching a TED talk I gave, but it’s not to you. And so, you might feel, you know, some general affinity with the kind of work I do, or the principles that I stand for, or, you know, the class I taught. But it’s not personal, and so there’s not actually a connection. It’s a one-to-many thing still. And I think we’ve just gone to the one-to-one. I think one of the things that happens when people are afraid to reach out, and this could be to people that are total strangers, it could also be to people that they’ve met before, but don’t have a lot of personal interaction with, or it’s been a long time. And they become dormant ties. I think one of the things that happens is, you start filling in a narrative in their head that’s not real. Brene Brown likes to say, the story I’m making up is… And Zack, you are a very sophisticated story inventor. You made a career out of it, right? In Hollywood, and you are still doing that job now, even though it is not relevant to interpersonal interaction. But… You’re… you’re afraid, obviously, you know, you’re afraid of being rejected. You want to have a connection with me. I assume some of that is because you… you like something about me, and some of that is because I am useful to you. And both things can be true and should be true. I think that’s a healthy relationship. We should be helpful to each other, and we should like each other in an ideal world. And I think the fear of, you know, of a misstep or of causing offense leads you to fill in a lot of blanks that are just not consistent with how my brain works. And I think now I’ve hopefully reduced that uncertainty for you, but I don’t know, you tell me. Why do you feel better about that situation now?

Zack Arnold: Well, I think that the first one is what you talk about in vibe, and I thought this was fascinating about, like, the word vibe literally comes from vibrations, and we have literal wavelengths, right? Like, we can synchronize on a neural level when we’re in the middle of a state of flow, right?

Adam Grant: Zack Arnold, that is what I should have said. Yes! Like, wait, we are experiencing both brainwaves and heartbeats synchronizing right now. And that is why you feel different, but… but I don’t think that’s enough by itself, because you can have that instantaneous chemistry with someone, and then go home later tonight and start to wonder, did I say the wrong thing? Did I mess up? You can then send an email tomorrow, and I’ve done this more times than I can count. Like, oh no, is this person gonna ghost me? Like, did I burn that bridge? I actually just… I’m trying to get somebody to show up to one of my book tour events, who… I’ll just tell you a quick story on this, because I think you will find it relatable, and you asked me to talk about me, and I’m gonna tell you something about me that I have not shared with anybody, which is… there is somebody that I have great admiration for, whose show I love, who is the perfect person to host my event in a city I’m going to. And he wrote back… I texted him, and I’ve only met him twice, but I texted him and said, I would love it if you could host this event. And I know you’re busy, and I know you don’t even live there, but this is a place that is very strongly associated with you. Is there any chance you might be in the neighborhood, or can I fly you there? And he texted back right away and said, I’m actually there the next day. I’m pretty sure I can get in early. and then sent me to his manager, we connected, his manager wrote back and said, I think this makes a ton of sense, give me more info. Two months have gone by, and it has been crickets since then. I’ve texted him and emailed his manager, and it is complete radio silence. And… one of… Like, you know, I start to make up all these stories in my head that, you know, I offended him by being overeager. maybe, you know, I sent too many follow-up emails because we were eager to announce the tour, and, you know, that was just one too many. And so, I had texted him about a month ago, and I haven’t heard anything, and he’s never not answered one of my texts before. And so… Two days ago, I sent him a text saying, just making sure I didn’t do something to offend you. And I’m waiting to hear back, I think he’s really busy at the moment, but one of the things I’ve learned, Zack, is the fears that we have, if we put them out there. are almost always unfounded. But even if we’re right, putting it out there is a chance to learn. And get feedback from the other person. And so… My advice to me, that I’ve taken, and my advice to you, and everyone who’s coming to learn about building and maintaining connections, because this is the Connections Conference, right? It’s more than a conference, but it’s all about connection. I think… For anybody who’s ever grappled with that. I have never regretted saying to somebody, you know what? I’m afraid that you’re gonna tell me to go away. I’m afraid that you’re gonna ghost me. I’m afraid that you’re not gonna wanna answer. That is a real display of vulnerability. It shows that you care about connecting with the other person. And that kind of gesture is a bid for connection. And worst case scenario, the other person says, hey, you know what? I think I… this happened to me once. I connected with an author, and all of a sudden, I tried to be helpful with this person’s book launch, and they were literally in my inbox every day, and it happened for 2 months. And what I’ve learned now is they mistook my responsiveness of… out of a general desire to be helpful. They mistook that for a specific connection to them. And eventually, I checked in with a few other people who knew this author, and they said the same thing happened to me. And what I said to the person was. I have more emails from you than from my wife. Or from my closest friends, or my closest collaborators.

Zack Arnold: More from Zack Arnold.

Adam Grant: Way more than from you, Zack, for sure. And I like you, and I think the work you’re doing is important. But I just don’t have the capacity in my life to have this kind of relationship, and I reserve my mentoring for PhD students in our program. And I can’t be a mentor to you, and I’m really sorry. I can be helpful to you, and I would love to be, but… I, you know, I just… I can’t deal with this much inbound. And I got a very gracious response back, and, you know, the person was overly apologetic, and he basically said to me, like, I’m really sorry, I won’t make this mistake again, and I think his ego was a little bruised. But, you know what? He was burning bridges with a bunch of other authors who were ready to write him off. And I felt like… I shouldn’t let my discomfort at being the messenger interfere with his opportunity to learn, and to build better connections moving forward. And so, I think that’s the worst case scenario. The best case scenario is you get back what you got, which is, I love hearing from you, Zack. Please, keep asking me for connections to people who might be helpful in your world.

Zack Arnold: You might end up regretting those words, but 6 years in, you haven’t. So, I’ll consider it an open invitation to keep doing what we’ve been doing, which is great.

Adam Grant: You should consider it an open invitation, and, you know, I think that also this requires… You know, the other test for me is… I said no to some asks. I said, I don’t know that person well enough, or… I don’t feel comfortable imposing on that person because I’m not as convinced that it’s gonna be a win for them, given what they’re up to right now and what I understand of what they’re trying to achieve. And if you had taken that poorly, I would have said, oh, Zack Arnold, entitled. Thinks that he deserves access to all of these people, as opposed to admires these people, is excited to learn from them and amplify the reach of their experience and their expertise. And, you know, you had the opposite reaction, right? You said, oh, I would never assume that you even know this person, let alone you’re comfortable opening that door. But if I can help them, you know, please connect the dots. And so, that was another validating experience that led me to say, yeah, I have no qualms. I will never regret opening that door.

Zack Arnold: Well, I love that. I appreciate that. Where I want to go next, which I think is going to be the perfect segue from here, is how we misconstrue relationships, where, you know, according to the research, I’ll go pull out a little research here, I’m, you know, bringing a… you know, a knife to a machine gun, fine to the world’s best at this. But essentially, there’s, you know, roughly a 53% chance that we’re gonna get right how somebody feels about us the way that we feel about them, and this is gonna bring us back to one of your stories. I’m only going there because you wrote about it. But you begin your book, Vibe, talking about your misunderstanding of your relationship in 8th grade to your best friend that you were playing pickup basketball with. So tell us a little bit more about that.

Adam Grant: Well, I was a very introverted, shy, nerdy kid. And my friendships revolved basically around two things. One was collecting sports cards and comic books, and the other was playing sports. And… I had a friend that I’d known literally since I was born, who went to a different school. And I introduced him to my friend group, and encouraged him to come to our school. And he joined. And… I felt like we were sort of drifting apart a little bit. He did something really hurtful, spreading a rumor about some other friends of mine that I was involved in, and the whole school found out, and it was embarrassing, and jeopardized one of my closest friendships. And just something… like, the vibe fell off. I didn’t have the language for it at the time. And I really didn’t… I didn’t understand that the friendship was not real. Or at least that he was not gonna be a good friend to me. Until we went to play pickup basketball one day, and we had our whole group together. And… I, I had… I had saved up babysitting money for a while, and I bought the official NBA edition basketball. I… I was not a good basketball player. The one thing I could do was shoot. And I love the feeling of having the NBA ball in my hands. And, you know, it was the closest I thought I would ever get to feeling like I could make the NBA. And I brought the ball, I’d just gotten it, I brought it to our pickup game so we could feel like we were playing official NBA basketball. And at the end of the game, the ball was missing. Like, you know, there were a bunch of basketballs around, people were shooting around before, they were shooting around afterward, and when it was time to leave, I couldn’t find my ball. And I must have spent half an hour searching for it. I, you know, did it roll out the door? Is it down the hallway? Couldn’t find it. And eventually, I just had to go home. And I was… I was just sort of… confused more than anything else. Like, I was sad, because I, you know, I lost the ball that I’d saved up for, and I was like, where did it go? I don’t know what happened. Two weeks later. Somebody who is a friend of a friend, who was not even one of my friends, said to me, hey, I just want you to know, your buddy stole your basketball and was laughing about it. Like, he thought it was ridiculous that you were so proud of it, he was making fun of you, and he was… he was telling all of us, like, haha, I stole Adam’s ball, and he doesn’t know it. And… I just thought that was cruel. And Zack, in that moment, I think I realized, okay. this is not a friend. But also, the rest of the group, these people are not my friends, because they knew about it, and they didn’t tell me. It was the one person I was not close with, or supposedly close with, who, you know, who had the, like, the decency to let me know. And… I have… I don’t think about it regularly, but when I sat down to write this book. I thought of that experience, and thought, you know what, that was a defining moment where… I really misperceived a vibe. And sociologists, you know this, have found that just over half the people, when you list your friends, that you think are your friends, will not list you back. And, like, I felt the pain of those studies when I read them. I felt, oh, I was in that situation. I thought I had a whole group of basketball buddies. They turned out to not be my real friends. Maybe they had been, I think we were in elementary school, and it… you know, I think I was too dorky for them in middle school, and so it just… it fizzled. And they didn’t know how to tell me, and we don’t have a script for a friendship breakup, and… Yeah, we drifted apart, and, you know, that was the defining moment that signaled it for me. I have since… Started to feel a little bit differently about this research. I just thought it was sad for a long time. I thought it was sad when I finished writing the book. And only recently have I realized there is a silver lining. Because if there are people who you think are your friends. that do not see you as friends. It also means there are people out there who believe that you’re their friend, and who want to be friends with you. And you don’t know it. And I think that means we’re missing out on connections that are waiting to be found.

Zack Arnold: And clearly, the story resonated with you, because it was in the prologue of your book, and you even said, like, I know that you protected the name of the, you know, the person, but you said, I still want my ball back, Alvin, right? So, that resonated with me, and here’s the reason that that resonated with me. I think… what I find really interesting, kind of… I’m just thinking about this out loud. What is it about it, when I saw Adam Grant on the TED Talk, when I read the book, whatever it was, like, you’re a great writer, right? You’re a great speaker. But that wasn’t what it was. There was something that I connected with even asynchronously on a much deeper level, and I think it was seeing the version of you that went through your childhood years constantly being bullied, and being picked on, and being underestimated. And that… when I read that story about the basketball, that tapped into something really deep for me, and I think that’s what I’ve seen in the connection. It wasn’t like, here’s somebody that’s important. He knows all the right people, he can help me succeed, or even I can help the people that he knows succeed. It’s like, there’s a connection here that I can’t even put my finger on, and when I read that story, I’m like, that’s what I have vibed with for all those years, because I was incessantly Bullied. all through childhood. Like, it’s no surprise that I ended up getting a black belt in martial arts, that I ended up becoming, you know, lead editor and producer of Cobra Kai, like, it’s such a core part of who I am. Just dealing with the bullies and the takers in the world is such a core mission for me, and I think that’s what I connected with more than anything else.

Adam Grant: Wow. Well, first of all, Zack, I’m sorry that you went through that. Bullying… I don’t need to quote the evidence for you to know, like, what… what a toll it takes on people to be the target of it. I mean, it’s just the most basic violation of care and belonging and respect, and we are… we are hardwired. to be sensitive to signals of exclusion. And for somebody to actively try to insult you… attack you, hurt you. Like, there’s nothing more exclusionary than that. I’m sorry that you went through that, number one. Number two, I mean, I’ve been so curious about how martial arts became central to your life, in part because I did 6 years of karate, starting at age 8, like, right when the bullying began. And I didn’t make it as far as you do, but I love that you not only got a black belt, but you also said, I’m gonna, like, I’m gonna work on a show that is about the Karate Kid, because I need to be that strong.

Zack Arnold: Yeah, I mean, the Karate Kid was my Star Wars growing up. I actually talked about this with Angela, but while everybody else was obsessed with Star Wars, and, you know, Luke Skywalker, and Han Solo, and Obi-Wan, like, I wanted to be Mr. Miyagi. I didn’t even want to be Daniel LaRusso, I wanted to be Mr. Miyagi. I’m obsessed with the idea of mentorship since I was a child. I don’t know how to not be a mentor. I literally don’t know how to not be a mentor, and this is something I talked about with Angela, too. Where I have this ability to see potential in others, which again, is why I think we connected, because you literally wrote a book about potential. I see potential in others, and I like to bring it out of them, and I think a part of that is because so many people try to diminish my potential. I didn’t have a Biff Tannen, I had 5. I had 5 Biff Tannins in middle school, and it was a daily constant, like, all day, every day, in the hallway, like, just living in a constant state of fear. Martial arts for me wasn’t, this would be a great way to broaden my mind, it was survival. It’s like, I just need to protect myself and not get beaten down every single day. So I think that’s why a lot of your work has resonated in this very specific story.

Adam Grant: Wow. I love the Karate Kid, and Mr. Miyagi was my favorite character, too. I think I just… I can never wrap my mind around the crane kick.

Zack Arnold: Yeah, I’m right there with you, by the way. I’m right there with you.

Adam Grant: Your whole body is exposed, it happens so slowly, you’re gonna get… you’re gonna get the shit beaten out of you if you try to do that. It just… it was ridiculous, and it lost… I couldn’t suspend disbelief in that moment.

Zack Arnold: Yeah, and as a side note, if you… there’s an amazing comedy bit by Gary Gulman where he talks all about how ridiculous the crane kick is. It’s one of the best 5-minute bits I’ve ever seen, so I’ll link to it, you can go find it afterwards, I’ll send it to you.

Adam Grant: I can’t wait to watch this.

Zack Arnold: It’s so good.

Adam Grant: Zack, I think this goes back to something really important, which is… We… we try to help people where we’ve hurt. We know the pain, viscerally, and I think, you know, in some ways, writing Vibe was… was me going back to I never really thought about it until I sat down to write it, but… I never really thought about it fully until now. when I… When our oldest started elementary school, I got invited to… like, a bunch of dads had a pickup basketball game. And I found myself shaking, driving there. And I thought it was because I haven’t played basketball seriously since 8th grade, when, like, I got caught from the team for the third year in a row, and then my friends, so-called friends dropped me. That was the end. I have not… like, I’ve shot around, but I have not played an actual basketball game since then. And so I thought I was just nervous, because I used to have this identity around, like, I’m short, and I can’t jump, but I can shoot, and now I probably can’t shoot anymore. But as you talk about this, like, no, the idea of joining a basketball game, it brings back that pain a little bit. And I associate it with being isolated, with being excluded, being rejected. And… I just want to say thank you, because you have changed that association for me. I… I got a package… I opened a package in the mail. I got a package in the mail. And you sent me a basketball. And not only did you send me a basketball, but it is the… you figured out what year it was, that it was 1994, when my friend stole my ball. You found the 1994 NBA Edition basketball, and you sent it to me. And not only did you do that. You, you sent me this. You sent me a page out of Vibe. Where I wrote about this experience, and you said, found your ball, with a smiley face. And Zack, I gotta tell you that since I’ve opened that package. Every time I think about playing basketball, I smile. And I think, you know what, there are probably a lot of bullied kids out there. Who are waiting to find their Zack Arnold. Who, instead of stealing their ball. has the care and the creativity and the courage to find it and to replace it. And I think that’s a tremendous gift. It’s a gift I didn’t know I needed, and I just wanted to… I want to say thank you for it.

Zack Arnold: Wow, I’m glad that I was able to do that for you. The… I really… again, it was just… the funny thing is, as I was reading that, it was the most ridiculous thought of my mind. As soon as I read it, I’m like, oh my god, I have to find Adam’s ball. Like, I just… I have to get him his ball. Like, it was this weird compulsion, but then the other thought was. But somebody’s gonna beat me to it. So I, like, I literally put the book down, and like, well, I need to read…

Adam Grant: Good thing you got an early copy.

Zack Arnold: Right, but which is insane, right? But I knew that I had an early galley copy, and I knew that nobody else had it, but my thought was, somebody’s gonna get to this before me, so I stopped reading, and I found the ball right there. It wasn’t, this is gonna be on the to-do list. There was just something about seeing that gap, and if I could help fill that gap, I wanted to fill it. So…

Adam Grant: Well, you have, and… This goes right back to what we were talking about earlier, about being a giver. No taker is gonna put the effort in to find the 1994 official ball, and then send it to me with that note. And if you have the instinct to do that. You are already getting inside somebody else’s head and heart, and you’re thinking about what would matter to them in a way that A sociopath could not do. And I think that that just underscores the point you make, that there are no shortcuts when it comes to building meaningful connections. You can accelerate connection, but you can’t skip the effort that it takes to show that you’re taking a genuine interest in another human.

Zack Arnold: And I think that’s a really big part of why we’re here, is that I want to give people the tools to find reasons to connect in a more meaningful way, beyond, you know, hey, I want to connect with you, especially, like, the LinkedIn Connect button, this whole ecosystem of digital connection, AI connection. Just as a quick side note, I have to give a small amount of credit to Will Guidara, and here’s why. So we talked all about this idea of legends, about unreasonable hospitality. After we recorded our conversation, I’m like, Will, can you stick around for a couple of minutes? I’ve got this idea for Adam, but I don’t want to make it weird. I don’t want it to be like, wait, what is this? So I told him the idea, it’s like, oh my god, I love this idea, but my idea was to say, found your ball in a post-it. He’s like, no, dude. You pull the page out of the book, and you’re out, find your ball. So, credit goes where credit is due. Will’s like, use the page. So that one, that’s Will. I’ll take the rest of the credit.

Adam Grant: I have never met a more creative giver than Will Gadara. Will not only goes the extra mile to think of how to help, he also comes up with a way of helping that nobody else would have dreamed up. And I think he has really meaningful relationships with exceptional people because he puts that effort in, and it’s the same exact thing that you do.

Zack Arnold: So, the reason I say all that is, first of all, looking at the notes that I have in front of me, we’ve covered maybe one or two things, which means that we’ve really been vibing, been in a state of flow, because I’ve completely forgotten about all my notes. But, I have to come back to we’re missing one magic trick. We’ve done the first two, we’ve got the 15-hour podcast conversation, and I’ve actually gotten you to talk about yourself, which is amazing! Third magic trick is gonna be the hardest one, which is there’s something else that I want you to rethink. Tell me. So, what I want you to rethink, and I’ve got evidence, you said you better bring facts, I brought some evidence. I want you to rethink the contributions that you’re making to other people and that you’re making to the world. And here’s why I bring this up. So, in your inaugural episode of your new podcast, The Curiosity Shop with Brene Brown, technically it was episode 3, but it was when you were on stage at South by Southwest. Do you already know what I’m gonna bring up, by the way? Or you’re like, what is this?

Adam Grant: No.

Zack Arnold: So, you were having a conversation with her, and you guys have real fun banter back and forth, and she was talking about how, oh yeah, everybody comes up to me asking for advice, they think I’m their therapist, and you talked about how she gets that a lot more than you do. Right? And she talked about, well, maybe it’s because I’m a social worker, and you said, well, yeah, but that’s because you actually help people. And then she turned around, and she said, well, you know, you’re a psychologist, and your response was, well, I’m not the kind of psychologist who actually helps anyone. But wait, there’s more. Then, going backwards to your interaction with Jennifer Garner, which is really the instigator of where you discovered this idea of vibe, and, you know, like, she had filled in for Rainn Wilson. I was there live, by the way, it was a great event. But you were having banter back and forth, and she started talking about how she was thanking you for helping her with the TED Talk. And you, and I quote, interrupted her, and you said in this tone, I did nothing. But now I’m gonna flip it on its head. You did an interview with Oprah, talking about Hidden Potential, and she was sharing how she realized at one point that her show was not just a show. It had become an entire platform that was helping to improve people’s lives. So now I’m gonna use your own words. You said, and I’m paraphrasing a little bit, so I’m quoting, but kind of condensing, right? You said, it is amazing that you didn’t see that, Oprah. You have given hope and inspiration to millions, and as a role model that’s watching your success, and all of that you’ve achieved, and knowing where you’ve come from. Once we see that role model, we believe that we are capable of more than we think, and you have been that person for more people than I can count. Do you not see that for yourself?

Adam Grant: Well, this is good timing. You’re preparing me for my Vibe interview with Oprah tomorrow.

Zack Arnold: Wow, that is good timing.

Adam Grant: Excellent timing. You did it again, Zack. I think… Okay, I see what you’re doing. I respect it. I don’t entirely accept it.

Zack Arnold: You hate taking compliments, I knew that going in, so I knew, like I said, this is the hardest magic trick of all.

Adam Grant: I do, I do hate taking compliments. I think… Look, I recognize that I do work that’s helpful to people, and that’s… it’s the major reason why I do it. I think it’s really different, though, from… Like, the work that I do is really different from what a therapist might do for someone. I don’t expect a book I write to change somebody’s life. I expect it to spark a new thought. I think in the best-case scenario, it might shift their worldview a little bit, but… The work is on them to, you know, to carry forward whatever that changes. I think, you know, the same is true in a podcast, the same is true in an op-ed, right? I think the kind of impact I’m trying to have is I’m trying to change how people see the world, how they think, how they interact, how they pursue their goals, and… I think there’s a pretty distal connection between doing that successfully and then producing a direct benefit in their life. I think when I hear from someone like you, it just makes my day, Zack, because I know you’re sincere in saying that Give and Take really mattered to you, and you’ve given me very specific feedback about other work I’ve produced since then that has been beneficial to you. I think that is a rare case. I think for the most part, like, people read a book, and they’re like, oh, that was interesting. Or they end up, you know, talking about a study that I, you know, that I wrote about in, you know, in a water cooler conversation. Or they listen to a podcast, and they say, huh. Okay, I’m gonna share that with a few people, and it’s gonna spark a great conversation. There are very rare cases. I’ll tell you something that… I was trying to figure out if there was a way to include it in Vibe, and it just didn’t make sense in the arc of the book, but… One of… one of the few Zack Arnold-level emails I’ve gotten. Was from somebody who wrote and said, I was… I was on Tinder, I think it was Tinder, it might have been Hinge, whatever. A woman wrote to me, and she said. I was on a dating app. And I saw a profile that was NOT for me. Just… the vibe was all wrong. And he had… Picture of his car. And it immediately said to me, oh, flashy, superficial, trying to flaunt wealth, like, I do not want to interact with this person. I don’t want to talk to them, let alone go on a date with them. And she said, and then I caught that in his profile, it might have been Bumble. It was… I think it was Bumble. she said, I was… I just… I saw the picture, and before I fully rejected the picture, I think because I was so disgusted by him, I was like, oh, what other things are there? Looking for a sign of misogyny or something really distasteful. And she’s scanning through the profile, and he says that His… the person he most wants to have dinner with is Adam Grant. And she said, I swore to myself that if anybody expressed an interest in Adam Grant’s work, I would give them a chance. And we’re getting married next month.

Zack Arnold: Wow.

Adam Grant: And I thought, okay, okay, we want to talk about helping people. That is a marriage that probably wouldn’t have existed if she hadn’t rethought her critical opinion of this guy based on the fact that they had both, for whatever reason, resonated with my books. But… You know, that’s really different from the kind of impact I normally have, and I think… Like… when I think about real impact and changing people’s lives. I think I do that much more reliably as a teacher than I do as a writer, or a speaker, or a podcaster. And I’m okay with that.

Zack Arnold: But are those any different, though? Like, aren’t you a teacher in all of those contexts?

Adam Grant: Of course. But it’s just different when you have a real relationship with the person. And I just don’t think parasocial relationships are the same. And… I don’t think it’s possible to have real relationships with more people than I can teach in a year. And also, that would detract from my ability to… to produce the work that I do. And… I think the… I care a lot about the books that I write, and the topics that I study, and the ideas that I communicate, and I think… I think, you know, in an ideal world, what happens is there’s a cultural shift as a result of the evidence, the frameworks, the language, the stories, too, that I’m bringing out into the world. But, like, is any one thing gonna have a life-changing impact on any one person?

Zack Arnold: I had a feeling that I might… that I might not be able to knock this one completely home. I have… I have one more thought that I want to bring in here. And this is gonna be a thought from somebody that I understand is incredibly important and influential to you, so much so, that you dedicated give and take to him. And that is Jeff Zaslow. And in your dedication, it says, in memory of my friend Jeff Zaslow, who lived life as a role model for the principles in this book. And then you shared how he has this philosophy of gatherings that are simple, but also profound. And to paraphrase Thomas Jefferson, it was that he understood that when you light another candle, it doesn’t darken yours. It can brighten yours, too. So I want you to think of this through the lens of, you know that you’ve had an impact on me, now think about the impact that I can have on others because of our interactions. That, to me, is real impact.

Adam Grant: Ugh, hoists with my own petard, as Shakespeare would have put it. Gosh, Zack, you got me there. I… Well, first of all, you were the first person to connect the story of Jeff Zaslow in Chapter 7 of Vibe, with… Jeff Zaslow being the person I dedicated Give and Take to, and the attention to detail there, that you noticed and remembered who Give and Take was dedicated to, and then… Wow, that’s… that is next level. blown away by that I think in terms of your argument, you have forced me to think again here. Because… I, I don’t think… I don’t think that lighting candles is the same as directly solving somebody’s problem, or helping them out of a bad situation, or, you know, if somebody is a healthcare professional. curing their disease. But I think it matters just as much, especially in the long run. And… You know, I think Jeff helped people in a lot of ways as a journalist and an advice columnist, but I think the most meaningful way that he helped other people was he convened gatherings where he helped people find love, and he took so much pride and joy. In, like, in counting the number of marriages that existed because of these singles parties, these zazz bashes that he hosted. And now we’ve tried to count with the help of his daughter and her husband. We think there are probably about 200 children who were born because Jeff Created the conditions for people to connect. And singles parties aren’t my thing, Zack.

Zack Arnold: Yeah.

Adam Grant: I do love connecting people and ideas, and… I definitely feel the glow from candles that I’ve lit, and it’s what makes my work feel meaningful. It’s why I think it matters. And I can’t dispute that that’s a contribution that shouldn’t be undermined, or minimized, or understated. I’m uncomfortable just saying, like, yeah, my work is really important, people, and you should all read it, and you should listen to it, and you should internalize it, and everything I say should be parroted by you. Like, no, think for yourself. That’s what my work is about. Find ways to help people that are meaningful to you. That’s what my work is about, but… I… You’ve basically… you’ve created a syllogism problem for me, which is… I accept that… My work lights candles, and what I do lights candles. And I am on the record believing strongly, and I can’t imagine rethinking this one. Like, I’m on the record, like, firmly believing that lighting candles is one of the most important contributions we make to the world, and therefore, if I light candles, and lighting candles is important, I can’t say my work is irrelevant. I begrudgingly accept.

Zack Arnold: Well, I’ll take that as I’ve achieved all three magic tricks, and I’m going to continue to gather evidence just in case. One of the most important, if not the most important feature of this conference is I’m going to build a Reciprocity Ring. And we’re going to create a culture of giving, and we’re going to send people into this virtual space, so if they’re seeking guidance, support, expertise, mentorship, introductions, they have a place to seek that help in a safe space, but just as, or more importantly, they have a place to give to people. So I’m going to bombard you with all of the evidence of all of the candles that we have lit because of our interaction here today. So, having said that, I, as you know, could literally go on for hours, but I also want to be very respectful of your time. Is there anything else that you want to leave us with that we haven’t covered?

Adam Grant: Well, first of all, thank you. I think you’re doing a great service to help people who are hesitant about networking, because it’s a dirty word, who don’t want to be instrumental or transactional, who don’t want to be takers. find… I think you’re helping all of those people realize there’s a different way to operate. And you can connect with other people, and bring something to the table, and feel good about the fact that you added value, and you had a contribution to make. I think that’s… that’s… that’s really… that’s important. I appreciate you doing that, and I’m honored to be a part of it. In my life, I have an adverse selection problem. Which is… I hear mostly from takers who have no qualms about reaching out, and demanding things, or asking for things. And so, if you are the kind of person who’s hesitating because you don’t want to have a one-sided interaction. Or you feel guilty about being a burden to somebody else, or you don’t want to waste their time, or you feel like you need to be the giver in every relationship. You are the exact person that I most want to hear from. You are the person that other people are waiting to hear from, too. And please, do us the favor of hearing from somebody who Zack is like you, who is bringing something really valuable and meaningful and sincere and genuine to the table, as opposed to just letting us be bombarded by takers all the time.

Zack Arnold: I love that you said that. That has never occurred to me until now, and you’re so right. If somebody is stuck in their head, like, I can’t reach out, I don’t want to feel like I’m burdening them, then yeah, you’re probably the kind of person that’s actually a giver, because the takers don’t even worry about these fears, so…

Adam Grant: They don’t.

Zack Arnold: That is an amazing place to leave this.

Adam Grant: Well thank you.

Zack Arnold: Yes, you’re more than welcome.

Adam Grant: One other thing, I want to ask you a question, because you…

Zack Arnold: Yes, please.

Adam Grant: I… I’m really fascinated by your story of, like, taking… sort of making good on the bullying that you suffered from, and, like, sort of not only protecting yourself, but… You know, helping others in all these ways. And I’m curious about… I guess two things. One is… What is your most important lesson about connection and outreach that you haven’t shared yet in all the conversations you’ve recorded? And then, because I always ask overly complicated questions, and I fail to learn from this feedback.

Zack Arnold: We suffer from this affliction.

Adam Grant: Yeah, the other thing I really want to know is… What did you learn and vibe about building or sustaining a connection that surprised you, or that has challenged one of your assumptions or shifted your behavior?

Zack Arnold: Mmm… let’s see, if I’m gonna break this down in two parts, I think… what I’ve learned more than anything else in all of the work I’ve done in connecting creatives and artists and teaching outreach and building relationships, and it’s… I literally have it on one of my keynote slides, and I tell my students that of the 900 keynote slides I have, this is the one you print. On a 27×41 poster, and you put it above your computer. It’s that it’s not that people don’t want to help you, it’s that people don’t know how to help you. People genuinely want to be helpful, they want to feel useful to the world and to society, especially people that are like them, where they empathize, like, oh, I remember when I had that struggle, I want to help. The problem is we don’t tell clear enough stories, and they’re like, I don’t really know what you’re asking, or this is too complicated, or you told me your whole life story, what do you want from me? People genuinely want to help, they just don’t know how. I think that’s the biggest realization I’ve had.

Adam Grant: I love that, I love that, and… you know, I think that, if I could just react to that quickly, I think… You just sparked two thoughts for me. One is… this is one of the ways that you’ve really helped me, is you notice there’s a lot more… there are a lot more personal stories in my more recent books than there were in the early ones, and you were a catalyst for that. You said, like, it’s… Telling your story does not make it about you. It allows people to understand the evidence you’re covering in a way that’s more personal. And feel a connection to it. And that’s been enormously helpful, and I think that… I didn’t realize until you explained that, that sharing your story actually shows people how they can help you.

Zack Arnold: Yeah, they connect beyond the research, right? They connect with you, and I’m glad that email had such an effect. That was one that I was terrified of sending, because I’m like, this is a kind message, but this is very constructive feedback, and I don’t know how he’s going to react, so I’m excited to hear that it had that impact.

Adam Grant: It was extremely constructive, I think about it regularly. And the other thing is. I think I might modify your mantra a little bit. I think your mantra is right. I think for people… I’m thinking about the people who aren’t succeeding in their outreach. I think that sometimes… People want to help, but they don’t want to help the version of you that’s shown up. And that’s an invitation to rethink your approach. That’s… that’s an opportunity to say, okay, maybe there’s a different side of me that I should show. Maybe I should offer something before I ask. Maybe I should make the ask lower cost, so that people actually do want to help me and see how that goes.

Zack Arnold: I think… so to go back to your other question real quick, and by the way, I want to be very respectful of your time. I will go all day, but I know you’ve got a schedule, so I’m aware of it, but I want to make sure you’re aware of it. But having said that, I think the biggest thing that I’ve rethought, not necessarily from just, like, a section of Vibe or otherwise, but from the experience of building this entire conference, and you have a section in Vibe as well, but it’s rethinking what it looks like to give gratitude gratitude to somebody, which you’re like, well, what do you mean? You’re already doing gratitude. I’ve always seen gratitude as something that’s a piece of a larger story. So, I have actually talked about this with Angela Duckworth, where she’s like, I don’t understand, what do you do with your outreach? How’s it so good? So I gave her the formula, and I’m like, once you see the matrix, you can’t unsee the matrix. But for me, it was always about, I want to provide value to somebody, show my gratitude, how they impacted me, that I want to tell a story, right? So, here’s where I am now, here’s where I’m going next, here’s what’s stopping me from getting there. I think for these reasons, you might be able to help, you can empathize. Now I have a very simple ask. It’s what I call the VSA outreach formula, value story ask. Once you see it, you can’t unsee it, you look at all the messages that you forwarded, you’re like, oh, there it is! But what I’ve rethought is that it can only be V. And what I mean by that is that I had this really weird memory growing up of being yelled at because I didn’t send thank you notes. This is something that actually came from my aunt, and she would call my mom, and she’s like, why didn’t Zachary send me a thank you note for his birthday present? And I don’t like being told what to do. So as soon as somebody tells me what to do, I immediately think, okay, well, now I’m not going to do it. It’s this very weird thing that I have. And what I’ve rethought through this process, both through the story that you told about after college, how you were sending gratitude letters, specifically talking to Tara Schuster about journaling and a gratitude practice, I developed a thank you note practice, which, as you’ve now seen, I taught myself handwritten calligraphy, and I taught myself how to do wax stamps on letters, because it’s real, and it requires effort, and it’s with our actual physical hands and analog space. I’ve never been a thank you card guy, ever. And between what I read in Vibe, my conversation with Tara, and this is actually something I learned a little bit from Charles Duhigg as well, now, I just send the V. It’s just the value, it’s just the gratitude, and that’s not something I did before putting this conference together.

Adam Grant: Wow. Oh, I love that. That’s really great. I… You know, it makes… it makes me think that… there’s so many… there’s so many different directions that could go, and I know I do need to wrap up. Here’s what I would say to that. I think… Yeah, here’s what I would say. I would say… I think that you are so committed, to… to not wasting people’s time, and to building a real connection, that I think you sometimes overdo it. Sometimes I read your email drafts, and I think. Zack could have had the same impact with half the words. And maybe you could have spent half the time doing the homework, too. And I think one of the things I really value about our relationship is we do not pull punches if we think they’re gonna benefit each other, right? I think maybe you agonized over writing it, but you wrote the feedback exactly as I needed to hear it.

Zack Arnold: Well, not only that, but I sent you a 3,000-word email about your new podcast. I’m like.

Adam Grant: It was amazing.

Zack Arnold: Parked it up this time.

Adam Grant: It took me forever to go through and respond to it, and that made… I felt bad, because then I was delayed in getting back to you on what was really valuable feedback for us. And… I think that… In great relationships, this is one of the things that crystallized for me while I was writing Vibe, when you have a great connection with somebody, you… you know at a visceral level that you’re trying to make each other better. And… That’s part of the value of the relationship. And so, I will just say to you, I think you… You create too much work for yourself sometimes. I think if you cut the amount of time you spend doing homework in half, you could probably get just as much value. I think if you wrote emails that were half as long, you could contribute just as much. and maybe sort of be less self-sacrificing. And so, what I’m trying to say here, Zack, is I still see you being a little bit of a selfless giver. When you tell me you spend a whole day writing a cold email. I look at that, and I think 95% of that work can be accomplished in half of a day. And I want you to be able to connect with more people. I think… you know, what… let me say this a little differently. I think… You are… you’re lighting a lot of candles. And the time you spend in… the time you invest in lighting each one, at some level, comes at an expense of another. There’s an opportunity cost there. And so, if I can offer you one piece of constructive… one piece of constructive advice, it is, can you take your value… what is it? Value?

Zack Arnold: Value, story, and ask. Yeah, value, story, ask.

Adam Grant: Yes, thank you. Can you take your value story and ask framework? And can you spend half the time and still get 95% of the value? That would be my challenge to you. That’s the one thing I want you to rethink in the spirit of the mutuality of this conversation.

Zack Arnold: Well, I very much appreciate it, and I don’t need to rethink it, because I’m already very much aware of it. And working on it. As a recovering perfectionist and massive over-thinker, you’ve even said, holy overthinking, Batman. I don’t need to rethink it. I’m very aware of it, and I’m working on it, but I appreciate the feedback.

Adam Grant: Okay, so it’s habit change, not mindset change at this point.

Zack Arnold: Yeah, no, you don’t need to convince me, I’m very well aware of it. I’m like, ugh, like, this is a struggle of mine. Bravity is very difficult for me, so… Okay.

Adam Grant: Well, I wanted to say it directly to you, because I think it will make it more likely that you will feel accountable. Because what I will say, I will never be… I will never see you in my inbox and say, oh, Zack Arnold again? Go away!

Zack Arnold: Yeah.

Adam Grant: What I will say is, I hurt for Zack Arnold, because he’s not being bullied anymore. And he doesn’t have to prove his worth to anyone. And he doesn’t have to go this far overboard to convince other people that they should spend a little time with him.

Zack Arnold: I can’t imagine a better place to leave this. I’ve rehashed this conversation in my head for 6 years, and it, of course, it has exceeded all of my expectations, went in a completely different direction than I thought it would. I cannot express enough my gratitude for being here today, being present. Obviously I’m gonna do everything I can to promote this, promote your books, promote your work, but the final question that I’ve left everybody with is how can people connect with you?

Adam Grant: I feel like I have an abundance of connection in my life, and I’m really fortunate in that way, and it’s a hell of a turnaround from being an 8th grader with no basketball buddies. But… I don’t know, I mean, I… I… I think it would be… you know, one thing I would love is… I would love it if people take the Vibe quiz on my website.

Zack Arnold: Yes, we’ll make sure to link to that, for sure. We’ll encourage everybody to do that, even before they listen to this.

Adam Grant: The reason I say that is it captured something that was… that I realized only when writing the assessment that was missing from the book, which is… I was trying to figure out how to help people figure out how they can have better bonds in their life, or how they can vibe with more of the people more of the time. And I realized, well, my biggest problem is, like, I seek out one kind of interaction. More than the others. Like, and, you know, in the language of vibe, like, I… my default is to be an ally, and I don’t have enough pal interaction. I don’t know that I want more companion interaction, that’s a different conversation, but… Creating this assessment to figure out, like, okay, what’s kind of the hole in my portfolio of relationships? was eye-opening for me when I took the test. And so, I would love it if people take it, just because I think it might lead to an aha.

Zack Arnold: I will make sure that we have links to that everywhere, and we will very much encourage them to do so. But thank you. beyond gratitude, just thank you for being here. This was well worth the wait, and incredibly meaningful, and I’m gonna walk away feeling… Much richer for the experience.

Adam Grant: Well, glad to have you in my life, Zack, and it’s a pleasure to finally meet, and I look forward to seeing you in LA.

Episode Credits

Edited by: Curtis Fritsch
Published by: Vim Pangantihon
Music by: Thomas Cepeda