Barbara: [00:00:00] So I think being willing to go back to first principles and think independently and work in a corner all by yourself, but still be willing to have people look at what you've come up with because, you know, they can shoot legitimate holes, set things. All of these have helped underpin the luck that has manifested in my life.

Harpreet: [00:00:38] What's up, everybody? Welcome to the artists of Data Science podcast, the only self development podcast for Data scientists. You're going to learn from and be inspired by the people, ideas and conversations that'll encourage creativity and innovation in yourself so that you can do the same for others. I also host open office hours. You can register to attend by going to Italy dot com forward. Slash a d. S o h. I look forward to seeing you all there. Let's ride this beat out into another awesome episode and don't forget to subscribe to the show and leave a five star review. Our guest today is an author, scholar and adventurer who loves gaining new perspectives after graduating high school, she enlisted in the U.S. Army, where she rose from the ranks of private to captain, during which time she was recognized as a distinguished military scholar. She worked as a communication expert at the South Pole station in Antarctica and has served as a Russian translator on board Soviet trawlers on the Bering Sea. And if that wasn't cool enough already, she's [00:02:00] gone from absolutely hating science and math, flunking her way through those courses in high school to eventually earning a Ph.D.

Harpreet: [00:02:08] in engineering. She's published in some of the top journals in her field and is an elected fellow of the American Institute for Medical and Biomedical Engineering. Her research focuses on the fascinating and complex relationship between neuroscience and social behavior and has been described as revolutionary in The Wall Street Journal. She's published in outlets as varied as the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times. She's also authored 10 books on topics ranging from the negative aspects of altruism to career development in bioengineering. If you're one of the two point seven million people who have taken her course on Coursera, you might recognize her as the instructor of the world's most popular online course, learning how to learn powerful mental tools to help you master tough subjects. So please help me in welcoming our guest today, The New York Times best selling author of A Mind for Numbers How to Excel at Math and Science Even If You Flunked Algebra. Dr. Barbara Oakley, Dr. Ugly, thank you so much for taking time out of your schedule to come on to the show. I really appreciate you being here.

Barbara: [00:03:18] Oh, it's my pleasure, Harp. Please call me Barb.

Harpreet: [00:03:22] Definitely, Barb. Well, Barb, talk to us about the type of kid you were in high school. What did you think your future is going to look like when you in high school?

Barbara: [00:03:30] Oh, gosh, that was a bit long ago. Too long ago, too. I'm a little embarrassed to admit I was, but I.

Barbara: [00:03:40] I remember my chemistry

Barbara: [00:03:43] Teacher, for example. I was flunking chemistry

Barbara: [00:03:46] And he was my

Barbara: [00:03:49] Parents were like, and I'll go in and talk to him and see, you know, he'll explain some of these things. And I remember going in and I was almost

Barbara: [00:03:58] Belligerent, sort [00:04:00] of

Barbara: [00:04:00] Like, you know, dare yet to try and put it in my brain because my brain just is not going to learn anything. Of course, you know, I was not I didn't want to learn. And so I was not making it easy. I was one of those just

Barbara: [00:04:14] Raw

Barbara: [00:04:15] Adolescence and. I almost have to laugh now because I was just convinced that there was really no need for math or science in my life. I remember being called into a dean of students when I was in eighth grade because I just read books during a math class and I really remonstrated and just said, this stuff is useless and I won't need it. And yes, you can get through life without a math and science, but you can also get through life if you just eat rice and beans and very plain food. And it's it's just not it's not nearly as colorful or wonderful or life as it could be if you embrace it with everything that was really, truly available. And I didn't understand that learning math and science helps open all your doors for you, whereas without those, without at least some background in those, it really closes off the opportunities that you might have. And so but fortunately, it is not like something where you just

Barbara: [00:05:35] If you don't

Barbara: [00:05:36] Learn it when you're young, you're just shut out forever. I started learning remedial high school algebra in when I was twenty six when I got out of the military and it wasn't like it was easy and it was scary and intimidating. But still to say slowly and persistently continuing on with the study's success [00:06:00] eventually came my way.

Harpreet: [00:06:03] And what was that journey that kind of led you towards wanting to cultivate this understanding and mastery of mathematics because you went from hating it to, you know, give me a PhD in engineering, which is pretty much all math and science. So was that transformation like to want to pursue excellence in this area?

Barbara: [00:06:22] I think reality can be a Harp teacher, so for me, just getting out and then

Barbara: [00:06:29] Seeing my

Barbara: [00:06:31] Friends and colleagues in the military who were W4 engineers very easily getting jobs and I with my bachelor's degree in Slavic languages and literature. Well, no one was looking to hire someone with that kind of expertize. And I just didn't realize that by following my passion, which is what everybody told me to do. I was actually selfishly putting myself in a box because I wasn't also looking at what the world's needs were.

Barbara: [00:07:06] And and also like now I like I do like adventures.

Barbara: [00:07:10] I do like trying new things. And so when I suddenly begin to realize that, wait a minute, learning in math and science is as much of an adventure is going out and working on the Bering Sea or at the South Pole, why don't I see if I can open my mind to that,

Barbara: [00:07:27] That

Barbara: [00:07:29] They're really having that that kind of attitude about the potential in the field really helped change my mind. But I think the biggest thing was just seeing that the exciting jobs that I was looking

Barbara: [00:07:41] For

Barbara: [00:07:43] Are open to me because I closed myself off to learning about careers in the background you needed for careers in math and science.

Harpreet: [00:07:53] So when you kind of think back to those those days, when you force yourself to this transition of wanting to get better at math and [00:08:00] learning it and convincing yourself that you can learn it, what was that like? Like did you first have to understand that? Actually, I can learn things. The brain is plastic. It's malleable, like, I guess what kind of came first or interest in the brain and learning or what would they kind of hand in hand?

Barbara: [00:08:18] Well, I think what happened was I was lucky enough to study Russian at the Defense Language Institute, and they have devised methods for teaching language that are very successful for a wide variety of languages. And it's certainly not going to

Barbara: [00:08:38] Make you and you're not

Barbara: [00:08:40] Going to go there and a week later walk out to be a native speaker like a person,

Barbara: [00:08:46] You know,

Barbara: [00:08:47] Speaking in Farsi or something. But it's it's about the best we know of to help you learn efficiently in any language. And so what I did was I applied some of those same techniques that I used to learn language to learning in math and science. And I didn't realize that actually, I didn't realize at the time that there are deep underlying similarities between learning in language and learning in math and science. And for some important parts of learning and math and science, you need that procedural fluency. You need that interleaving. You need a lot of the different approaches that are used in teaching language. So when I applied those kinds of approaches, I could make breakthroughs in understanding that I could never make when I was a younger person.

Harpreet: [00:09:44] I'm definitely excited to get into some of these techniques that you talk about in your book, A Mind for Numbers. I really, really enjoyed that book. In fact, I've got it on the bottom rung of my bookshelf because when my son is old enough, I want him to be able to easily grab that book [00:10:00] and pick it up because I wish it's you know, I wish I had learned a lot of this stuff when I was younger. I think it would have made for a much more rewarding period of life in my in my 20s and in high school. But before we get into your book, I love the quote that you open your book with that The Law of Serendipity. Lady Luck favors those who try to talk to us about, I guess why include this quote and what does serendipity mean to you?

Barbara: [00:10:26] Well, sometimes my students would ask me, well, what particular problems should I study? And you I think that's a very important and good question. In its essence, behind the answer to that question

Barbara: [00:10:44] Is, what are the

Barbara: [00:10:46] Nugget kernel problems that you really want to internalize so that you can see them in your sleep? Practically, you understand every facet of them. And what I was really meaning by

Barbara: [00:11:01] That that

Barbara: [00:11:02] Expression about lady luck is that sometimes people are so agonizing about which problems they should study intensively that they don't do any of. And so what I'm trying to encourage people to do is to just start to speak of a problem that feels like it might be an important

Barbara: [00:11:24] One and

Barbara: [00:11:26] Really internalize that problems so that you're not memorizing it instead of you. Or you can look at the phrasing of the

Barbara: [00:11:35] Problem and

Barbara: [00:11:36] Know it so well that instantly in your mind, you can you can step through

Barbara: [00:11:41] All

Barbara: [00:11:42] All the solution process for that problem. And so I'm just encouraging people to get

Barbara: [00:11:49] Started in

Barbara: [00:11:51] Really knowing some aspects of what you're learning. Well, and it really it kind of doesn't matter if you a problem, a person's [00:12:00] problem,

Barbara: [00:12:00] See or problem, Jay.

Barbara: [00:12:03] It's simply a question of internalizing some of the main idea problems.

Harpreet: [00:12:10] I like that a lot. That's completely different than what I had that I've been studying the luck recently in the last few months. I guess it's just I go through these phases of intellectual curiosity, one of which is luck and serendipity. I read quite a few books around this topic. I'm trying to deconstruct what luck is. So I'm just curious, like, what would you say your relationship with with Luck is and how have you managed to create your own luck in your life?

Barbara: [00:12:38] I say that's that's a tough question, because sometimes students will come up to me

Barbara: [00:12:45] And they'll

Barbara: [00:12:47] They just want to know the answers so

Barbara: [00:12:49] They can or

Barbara: [00:12:51] They just want to get a good grade in the course. And they were a decent grade. They don't really want to learn the essence for for love, of learning of the

Barbara: [00:13:03] Of the material. And that's

Barbara: [00:13:06] Perfectly OK. I mean, I've had teachers I didn't like with subjects I really didn't like, and I just kind of wanted to get through them

Barbara: [00:13:14] And

Barbara: [00:13:15] And it worked. And it's OK to do that. But I think that when you

Barbara: [00:13:23] Are I

Barbara: [00:13:25] Mean, luck has played an enormous role in my life. I could very easily see that I could have become

Barbara: [00:13:31] A

Barbara: [00:13:32] Server at a restaurant and I would have been a very bad one because I don't have a good working memory. And, you know, I was I

Barbara: [00:13:40] Was a

Barbara: [00:13:42] Server at all levels of the waitress at

Barbara: [00:13:44] A old

Barbara: [00:13:46] Fashioned restaurant, you know, as Victorian home and everything. And and I was so bad that when I went to give my notice, they said, you know, it's OK. You don't need to give us your two week [00:14:00] notice. Now, you can quit right now, you know, because I was well intentioned, but I would just keep forgetting things. And, you know, I can easily see in all sorts of different quantum universes, I would have gone in very different directions. But I think in essence, by always following

Barbara: [00:14:20] My own lodestar

Barbara: [00:14:24] Of what I've been interested in, it has

Barbara: [00:14:28] Accidentally created

Barbara: [00:14:31] All of these opportunities.

Barbara: [00:14:33] For example, when I, I,

Barbara: [00:14:36] I got interested in why

Barbara: [00:14:38] New people do what they do,

Barbara: [00:14:41] Not psychopaths, but sort of like, you know, your coworker who has been really nice for a couple of years, and then you find out that they've been stabbing you in the back all the way. Why would anybody do something like that? That's the kind of question I became interested in. And so I thought, well, gosh, you know, I'm an engineering professor. I should be able to understand the psychological literature about people. Well, I found out, you know, when I really researched

Barbara: [00:15:11] It, that

Barbara: [00:15:13] Pretty much all the psychological literature on that phenomenon was based on thin air. There wasn't any solid scientific research. It was all just people fighting each other in the psychology literature. But nobody actually done any genuine ephemerally studies or anything like that. So I became very interested in this project problem

Barbara: [00:15:37] In I

Barbara: [00:15:38] Was trying to get. And, you know, my father is dying of Alzheimer's, I

Barbara: [00:15:44] Have a young family and every

Barbara: [00:15:46] Little minute that I could, I'm trying to research this problem of a million people. And I did this for six years in a corner. And I'm like, who's ever even going to look at a book by an engineer, [00:16:00] not a psychologist, but an engineer on the on what's going on with this phenomena?

Barbara: [00:16:06] But I just

Barbara: [00:16:06] I was really curious. And so I just kept on it. And it turns out that, of course, that laid the foundation for my later work in pathologies of altruism and and even in education. But I think it's set you know what lay the foundation for all this luck was always being willing to really delve into something when I got really curious about it and look at it from first principles, not just like you when I'm looking up altruism. I didn't go reading all these books on altruism. You know what? I'm trying to look at pathological altruism. That's actually it's misleading to look at the work on altruism. There's there's so much of it. And it's much of it has nothing to do with what we understood of the brain from science. So you had to kind of go back to first principles and look at things yourself. So I think being willing to go back to first

Barbara: [00:17:05] Principles and

Barbara: [00:17:07] Think independently and work in a corner all by yourself, but still be willing to have people look at what you've come up with because, you know, they can shoot legitimate holes and things. All of these have helped underpin the luck that has manifested in my life.

Harpreet: [00:17:27] I absolutely love that. It's like you follow your own obsession and you study things that are interesting to you and that allows you to kind of connect the dots between things and maybe you start finding the intersection between topics that you find interesting and then you combine them and come up with some research or some new type of work addressing that intersection. And you just create more opportunities for yourself to collaborate with other people and things like that. I think that's really fascinating. So I was one of those students back in the days where I just wanted one of the apps or I just wanted to know, you know, the [00:18:00] Badger wasn't really too I didn't really care too much about internalizing stuff. I had the my slogan in undergrad was CS get degrees.

Barbara: [00:18:12] Well, what's it one that they the students end up working for the C students is left to right.

Harpreet: [00:18:21] But I feel like I was limiting myself in that way. Right. Um, so I guess this kind of leads me to the question of, you know, self self image and self perception. So what role do these two play like what role does self-image and self perception play when we're trying to learn something new or maybe even advance in our own field?

Barbara: [00:18:44] Yes, sometimes I think Heist's high self-esteem, especially in learning, is really overrated. Most of the things that I've been successful in studying or learning or making breakthroughs about, I've felt like the most deeply inadequate person around. I'm like the village idiot who comes in and you know, the way I don't understand this basic concept or this foundational thing. Well, sometimes it turns out that's actually that everyone is taking for granted this basic concept. But actually it's erroneous. So sometimes when you're coming in as a fresh person

Barbara: [00:19:27] Who's the village idiot, you can

Barbara: [00:19:30] See things on you. You cannot see if you had been trained in that discipline. So I just I

Barbara: [00:19:39] Think for me, a big

Barbara: [00:19:42] Key idea has been in growing comfortable with feeling uncomfortable in whatever unlearning are doing. And indeed, it's perfectly OK to be the village idiot, although, I mean, you don't want to, like, slow other people down all the time

Barbara: [00:19:59] Because you [00:20:00] don't

Barbara: [00:20:00] Know you can't even get to first base with what's going on. You got to go in and learn

Barbara: [00:20:05] On your own

Barbara: [00:20:07] As well as interact with others. But your freshest work will almost inevitably involve things that you feel like the village idiot when you're trying to learn it.

Harpreet: [00:20:20] I, for one, love feeling uncomfortable and I love feeling stupid because that means there's an opportunity for me to go learn something new and that's to say such a rewarding feeling. Not knowing something. I personally look back like two weeks later, like look at all of this stuff that I've been able to figure out. I started off just completely confused and now like, look at me. I can I can kind of talk with the best of them about this topic.

Barbara: [00:20:46] I do it to say that sometimes my C students were the best students. They're the ones who come back to me years later and saying, you know, I want the boss tutoring, awarded Genom for my creative breakthroughs. You know, sometimes these students are really superstars and they can break kubernetes of things. But sometimes I think it's pretty clear that some many students are more interested in the grade. And, you know, they're they're they're willing the they want to henpecked you about the details just to get a slightly better grade. But they're not really creatively thinking about the material. And C, students are much more they can be much more likely and also seem to care so much about the grade. And so they might be just learning it a lot better because they're not like just doing it for the test.

Harpreet: [00:21:39] Yeah, I used to be in a profession. I was an actuary for a while and that profession required me to take so many exams and I just could not. I was done with that. That was so stressful for me because I'm not like the best exam taker. I felt like I was learning the material, but having to then sit in like a stressful environment where it's three hours, it's just you [00:22:00] quiet room having take the super stressful exam, I just was like I did not want the rest of my career to be like that. But you made an interesting point in your book about following your inner passions. Were just talking about that before and how if you follow your inner passion without being open to developing new ones, you you felt like you're pigeonholed. I think this is common among Data professionals in a. A different way, there's such a huge push for everyone to specialize in one aspect of this profession or another. I'm wondering, do you count specialization the same as being pigeonholed?

Barbara: [00:22:39] Well, if you're being paid well for it, that's one day. It's slightly different than I mean, in essence, the idea is similar. You have one one

Barbara: [00:22:53] Job

Barbara: [00:22:53] Ability that you're really good at, but it's a really nice job ability that you're really good at, that you get paid

Barbara: [00:23:02] For

Barbara: [00:23:03] As opposed to a job, ability that you're really good at that nobody really wants. And you can't get a very good pay for, as they often say for writers,

Barbara: [00:23:13] You don't

Barbara: [00:23:14] Basically do not quit your day job. And and so it's a wonderful thing to have a good profession like that. And that's not to be discounted. But I do think that it's it will make you a happier human being if you also are dabbling on the side with completely different angles. I don't care what it is, whether it's studying Sanskrit or, you know, learning about photography or, you know, any kind of thing, that's really different. But there's a there's plenty of evidence that learning new things and I think especially that means learning new and different

Barbara: [00:23:58] Things helps [00:24:00] with

Barbara: [00:24:00] Neurogenesis. That is the the growth of new neurons. And these new neurons help get you out of that rut because it's neutrons that really help with your learning, not the, you know, neurons. So much with software

Barbara: [00:24:18] You've you've already

Barbara: [00:24:19] Learned it's the new neurons. And so when you're learning new things, the new

Barbara: [00:24:24] Neurons like have

Barbara: [00:24:25] A reason to hang around. And that actually has been affiliated

Barbara: [00:24:30] With feeling better. In fact, some forms of cancer

Barbara: [00:24:34] Therapies, but they have been shown to cause depression in large part, it seems, because they stop neurogenesis. So anything you can do to help encourage the growth of new neurons and of course, that's exercise, getting enough sleep, but also learning new things that are really different can help you feel better.

Harpreet: [00:24:57] It's a very interesting point. I spent a significant portion of my professional career, about five years of it, as a clinical trial statistician. I was a biostatistician for a while and every day was essentially kind of the same type of work. Like there wasn't much variety in the type of work that I was doing. It's, you know, writing protocols, writing statistical analysis plans. And my life at that time, I wasn't doing anything different or anything new. Fast forward a couple of years, you know, breaking into data science and then having to learn all of these cool new technologies for data science. It's just made me feel so much happier, so much more excited. And just this last year, doing stuff that is completely outside my comfort zone, like creating a podcast and then doing all the promotion that comes with it, the graphic design for blog posts and waveforms for podcast promotions, things like that, completely different than what I'm used to. But it just made me feel so much more happier and so much more just I don't know how to describe it. I just think I'm addicted to creating new things now. It's been fun. I really, really enjoyed it.

Barbara: [00:25:56] You know, in it is it's so different from that very [00:26:00] closely. And you're you're typing something instead. You're talking with others. You're learning about the technology involved in it, microphones that work and those that don't. But I think that's one of the things I really enjoy, too, about writing, is reaching out to other researchers and talking with them. I think what you're doing with podcasting is just such a thrilling way to help us all. And even listening to podcasts can just open a whole new worlds to the conversations that you have with others. And then we get to listen in on. And it's yeah, I can definitely see that both what you're doing as a podcast server and what we're doing is audiences of, you know, the podcasts all help to contribute

Barbara: [00:26:53] To broadening

Barbara: [00:26:54] Our horizons and just looking for a happier sense of self.

Harpreet: [00:27:00] It's the coolest thing to be able to just talk to the authors that wrote books that you found interesting that that have inspired you and helped you and reaching out to them. And they're just nice. Like you're so nice. You just figure out your podcast.

Barbara: [00:27:15] My husband, L'Italia Grump's is insane. So have you thought about writing a book?

Harpreet: [00:27:24] I tried to dabble with blogging a little bit. I went on this like three week old essay writing binge where I had developed a framework for persuasion called The Epic Framework for Persuasion. That persuasion is empathy, perspective, taking influence and concurrence. And I was like starting to write that out. But then it just felt like it was like a research paper, like a really academic research paper. And I took the foot off the gas for that have pivoted more towards writing online courses. I find like that's going to be what I'm focusing mostly on in twenty twenty one is coming up with online courses for [00:28:00] four Data scientists.

Barbara: [00:28:01] Oh that's

Barbara: [00:28:01] So awesome. We're going to I mean, I'm creating now, of course, for teachers called Uncommon Sense Teaching, and that's based on the book that's coming out in June. But it's on the neuroscience of learning, but it's for teachers. So it talks about some of these kinds of things like like how does learning a language and using the procedural system help with learning when you're learning coding or something? So I think what you're doing in moving into the online teaching world, that is just so awesome. You're going to have great fun.

Barbara: [00:28:41] And anything

Barbara: [00:28:42] I can do to support you, just

Barbara: [00:28:44] Let me know.

Harpreet: [00:28:44] Yeah, definitely. I'm excited to to sign up for the course and read the book. And I mean, with online courses, it's more than just the creation of the course that you learn. It's I have to market this thing. You have to drive traffic to it. I've got to create, you know, good copy that will encourage people to sign up for the course. There's so much more to just the creation of the course that you learn that I just found interesting. And this just brings me back to this concept that you talk about in your book, and you briefly touched on it just now, this concept of transfer. So the ability to take what you've learned in one context and apply it to something else. And this for some reason reminded me of people who are mid career transitions. You know how the work that you've done in the past might not have a one to one correlation to what you're trying to move into now, but there's still some elements of that job that you can apply as you head to this new direction. So I'm curious how you've used transfer to your advantage during your varied career?

Barbara: [00:29:50] Oh, there is a good question. I don't think I ever deliberately set out to use transfer,

Barbara: [00:29:58] Even

Barbara: [00:29:58] Though it's always it's [00:30:00] often there. It's more of the idea that, for example, it's been bothering me for years. It's like now

Barbara: [00:30:10] How come I

Barbara: [00:30:11] Got I got this sense that learning a language helped me learning in math and science.

Barbara: [00:30:17] I haven't really

Barbara: [00:30:18] Seen good Stallmann write ups about why that's the case, why you said there was absolutely

Barbara: [00:30:26] Transferring

Barbara: [00:30:27] Learning by learning how to learn language helped me in learning how to learn math.

Barbara: [00:30:34] So there was a

Barbara: [00:30:34] Real transfer going

Barbara: [00:30:36] On there.

Barbara: [00:30:37] But I think starting stepping back and trying to look at it metacognitive and say, well, what precisely was the transfer that was taking place

Barbara: [00:30:47] That helped

Barbara: [00:30:48] Me to better understand that I don't see how can I summarize this? You have

Barbara: [00:30:55] A learning

Barbara: [00:30:56] Pathway where you create long term memories and normally it goes from working memory through the hippocampus into your home to memory. And those are that's how you learn declaratively. You learn facts. You learn steps in solving a an equation. It's all in boom, boom, boom.

Barbara: [00:31:16] And that's what I've learned. But for really understanding

Barbara: [00:31:21] Unusual patterns that you can't really explicitly

Barbara: [00:31:25] State. For example,

Barbara: [00:31:27] How do you tie your shoes? I mean, you're learning a complex pattern. I it's pretty hard to say

Barbara: [00:31:33] It and the

Barbara: [00:31:35] Complex patterns of language and so forth, you're using your procedural system to learn those and that's going through the basal ganglia and up to create new sets of links in long term memory there.

Barbara: [00:31:48] It turns out

Barbara: [00:31:49] That when you are when you're drawing from information in your long term memory, you need to have a double set of

Barbara: [00:31:58] Links. We [00:32:00] need to have

Barbara: [00:32:01] All the same material. I mean, you can do it with just one set of rules, but you're like limping. If you if

Barbara: [00:32:09] You learn a language

Barbara: [00:32:11] And you know what declaratively, then you can explain,

Barbara: [00:32:15] For example,

Barbara: [00:32:16] The grammatical structure of how you conjugate a verb. If you learn it procedurally, you can just conjugate it without even thinking about it.

Barbara: [00:32:25] If you

Barbara: [00:32:26] Learn how to type on a keyboard, you're learning procedurally so you can do it really quickly without even thinking

Barbara: [00:32:33] About things you learn

Barbara: [00:32:34] Procedurally. You could do without thinking about it and swiftly.

Barbara: [00:32:38] And so you

Barbara: [00:32:38] Need to kind of cultivate both types of both types of sets of links because they both contribute to you be able to be able to think swiftly and flexibly

Barbara: [00:32:53] About whatever

Barbara: [00:32:54] You're

Barbara: [00:32:54] Learning.

Barbara: [00:32:55] And so let's see, how did we how did how did we circle around to this? What was the original question?

Harpreet: [00:33:03] Well, the original question was how you transfer to your advantage in your career. But that's an interesting point there about procedural type of learning, though. It's it's like, for example, some people learn how to solve a algebra equation one way. Right. And if they only ever learn how to solve it one way, they just memorize that one when they're not able to abstract to the general like it's problem solving pattern pattern. And I guess that's one thing that I've noticed in my career, being, you know, I've worked in insurance as an actuary. I worked in clinical trials as a statistician, and e-commerce as a data scientist is being exposed to a bunch of different problem statements has given me an ability to match strategy to problem type. And I think I don't know if that's transferal work or if that's just being exposed to a bunch of different types of problems.

Barbara: [00:33:54] I think that's the kind of deep mastery that occurs

Barbara: [00:33:58] When you've

Barbara: [00:33:59] Learned both ways [00:34:00] really well, because sometimes stuff will just come to you quickly.

Barbara: [00:34:04] You'll look at something and you

Barbara: [00:34:06] Go, oh, well, that's

Barbara: [00:34:07] This. And and that's in part arising

Barbara: [00:34:11] From procedural knowledge that you have gained from just practicing with a wide variety of different types of Data.

Barbara: [00:34:20] But I guess

Barbara: [00:34:21] What I was really kind of circling around to that idea of transfer is that if you have lots of different backgrounds or fields or knowledge that you have gained in many different areas, that you

Barbara: [00:34:39] Can create

Barbara: [00:34:40] New ways for you to look at the material

Barbara: [00:34:44] In part

Barbara: [00:34:44] Through

Barbara: [00:34:45] Transfer that

Barbara: [00:34:48] Really fuels creativity in what you're doing. So I just think that's fascinating that you worked in so many areas that you've kind of begun to gain mastery on your on specific or, you know, so no matter it's almost like no matter what angle somebody throws the ball at you, you can still hit it.

Harpreet: [00:35:10] Yeah, because even these different job titles, the different industries, that they're different. But at the core of what I'm doing, it's still just quantitatively rigorous work. And, you know, in e-commerce, we might call this customer churn, but in clinical trials, we call this survival analysis. Right. And it's being able to step back and say, OK, well, these are actually the same problem. They're just different, I guess, context, different vocabulary terms that you're using to describe what's happening. But they're really the same problem. And just being able to to make that connection, I guess, has been helpful for me. I guess that helpful creative Problem-Solving as well. So I'd like to take a different direction now to talk about some of the more nuts and bolts of the book, starting with one of the first concepts you talk about, and that's the focus and diffuse mode of thinking. Can [00:36:00] you describe these for us and also describe how they work together to help us solve problems?

Barbara: [00:36:07] So I just start by saying part of the reason I fell off the math track when I was very young was I would look at the other kids. I was seven years old and they could like doing the multiplication tables and I just couldn't see the pattern or the use of it. So I just gave up and it just didn't like stuff, didn't come to me swiftly. But if I had known it, it is perfectly normal. The first time you sit down to look at something

Barbara: [00:36:40] For the the

Barbara: [00:36:41] Answer to not seem obvious or for you to be unable to pick it out and pick it, you know, solve it, that that is a very

Barbara: [00:36:50] Normal part of, you know, the

Barbara: [00:36:53] Human condition. I think it would have made a big difference for me even early on. It would have been like a vaccine. All this is what's happening when I'm getting really frustrated,

Barbara: [00:37:04] It's the fact

Barbara: [00:37:05] That when you are focusing on a specific problem, for example,

Barbara: [00:37:11] It's using you can kind

Barbara: [00:37:14] Of think of it as using a small network in a specific area of the brain.

Barbara: [00:37:18] But this it may not

Barbara: [00:37:20] Get you to the solution. You may need

Barbara: [00:37:24] Actually this

Barbara: [00:37:26] Area that's over here, that's a different, you know, slightly different set

Barbara: [00:37:31] Of neural links.

Barbara: [00:37:33] Well, you can't get there from here if you're really focusing on this one little area, you're stuck. And the only way or the best way to get yourself unstuck is didn't get your focus off what you're doing. And if you get your focus off, it turns out the what the brain defaults to when it's not focusing [00:38:00] on something is called the default mode network.

Barbara: [00:38:03] And and what

Barbara: [00:38:05] Happens then

Barbara: [00:38:07] Is it's a very

Barbara: [00:38:08] Different set of, you know, of neural connections.

Barbara: [00:38:14] And so you

Barbara: [00:38:16] You kind of have if you have a break, if you get up and go have coffee or go to sleep that night, take a

Barbara: [00:38:23] Nap or

Barbara: [00:38:24] Work on something very different, your brain goes into default mode network for part of that time. And all of that

Barbara: [00:38:33] Helps to

Barbara: [00:38:35] Give you a fresh perspective. And also during that time, consolidation processes are taking place. So it's like your hippocampus is kind of talking to your the sets of links in the long term memory in the neocortex and in the hippocampus is trying to figure out what the heck is she working on. So in between the default mode network, that helps you just look with a fresh perspective.

Barbara: [00:39:04] It may be a

Barbara: [00:39:05] Slightly different area that will help you with the problem. There's also consolidation processes that are making sense of what you're trying to learn. And between the two of those, when you eventually return to the problem, as long as it's not so long that, you know, it's kind of fallen away,

Barbara: [00:39:24] You

Barbara: [00:39:24] Can find yourself making oh, it's like, gosh, you know, what a fluke. Now it's easy and I understand it. How come I couldn't see that before? And it's this

Barbara: [00:39:37] Transition

Barbara: [00:39:38] From focusing to taking a break then that's really important to help your brain. It's almost like you got several one foot, then you got to step on the other foot in order to move forward with the first foot again. So you got to go back and forth between those two different amounts. And they're

Barbara: [00:39:55] Really an important part of

Barbara: [00:39:58] Learning. So I think for me, [00:40:00] learning language again, you know, I'd be like, oh, my lord, those Russians, they have such a weird way of saying or thinking about whatever. And of course, it's just not the way I'm used to. But then you practice with it for a couple of days and then it's like, well, of course you say it that way.

Barbara: [00:40:18] That's easy.

Barbara: [00:40:19] And, you know, it's these processes taking place in the background. And it's the same thing when you're learning, coding, math, chemistry, whatever you're studying.

Harpreet: [00:40:34] Are you an aspiring Data scientist struggling to break into the field or then check out DSG Dsdj.co/artists for artists to reserve your spot for a free informational webinar on how you can break into the field, that's going to be filled with amazing tips that are specifically designed to help you land your first job. Check it out. DSG Jayco for Egressed. This is the way we would recognize we're in one mood or the other is that, let's say when we're writing some code to to solve some machine learning problem, like we're focused really, really intently anywhere in the zone. We type in a way that's kind of like the focus mode. And when we're, let's say, walking at lunch and just getting some air and then all of a sudden, like the answer that we were looking for, just kind of pops up in our head, that's that's when we're in the diffuse mode.

Barbara: [00:41:27] Yep.

Barbara: [00:41:28] And about the only time we really, really consciously aware of what's going on in diffused mode is when that answer pops to the surface. A lot of times we're really not aware of it. It's it's more of it's like a danger, I'm wondering sort of mode. And it slid back because it's often self-referential. In other words, you're

Barbara: [00:41:50] Like, what were they really

Barbara: [00:41:52] Thinking about me? You know, that's anxiety and it's also self-referential. What were they thinking about me? And [00:42:00] so diffuse mode or default mode network can't be the more anxious type of network, but it is also very definitely affiliated with creativity. That's where a lot of the scientific and other creative breakthroughs come from. And in fact, there is evidence that if you you can't suppress focus mode by, for example, being very tired

Barbara: [00:42:25] Or being

Barbara: [00:42:26] Drunk. And so it kind of shuts down your prefrontal cortex and there is evidence that you are more creative when you're tired and, you know, when other sorts of things get, you know, when you're indulging in other things.

Harpreet: [00:42:43] It's interesting. I was interviewing somebody last year, Alex Paying, who wrote the book Rest, and he talks about how a lot of creative individuals throughout history, they are able to just go for a walk and have these creative breakthroughs happen. And I guess that is kind of that that the diffuse mode at work. But how do we tell when it's time? Like how do we know that, OK, this is really draining. I need to I need to switch this up and get into the diffuse mode. Are there any things that we should be kind of mindful of when we're working on something that. OK, it's time to take a break?

Barbara: [00:43:18] Well, there's always this back and forth of, you know, how soon does what you need to get done need to be done? And so one must always be mindful of, you know, some crunch time crunch time just may not leave time for for breaks and so forth. But I think most, you know, the biggest the biggest clue that something is that it's time to take and a you smoke break is,

Barbara: [00:43:46] Is that you're

Barbara: [00:43:47] Feeling stuck on

Barbara: [00:43:48] Something.

Barbara: [00:43:49] Now, one thing they often tell us, like I'm a big fan of teleports work. And he wrote the book, of course, deep work.

Barbara: [00:43:58] And it's about really [00:44:00]

Barbara: [00:44:00] Focusing and not being distracted by externalities since you can really deeply get into a subject. But it turns out that that's not the complete

Barbara: [00:44:12] Solution, because what

Barbara: [00:44:15] Can happen is you

Barbara: [00:44:16] Can you can end up becoming

Barbara: [00:44:18] Fixated on an idea that's a wrong idea. And then if you just keep driving deeper and deeper into it, you're you're going the wrong way and you can't get out of it until you take a break or. And so I have noticed myself. I'm always like, OK, I'm going to focus really intently on something. And I get a lot done during that time. But other times I don't make myself focus 100 percent like if I'm writing a law and then I'll find myself. Gosh, I just don't know what to say here. I just I don't know how to get that done.

Barbara: [00:44:58] It's OK. I'll do a quick

Barbara: [00:44:59] Glance at my email, which, of course they tell you never to do. And then, you know, there's nothing there and I'll come back. But even that a little break is enough to get me out of that situation and I'm able to.

Barbara: [00:45:14] Oh, yeah, of course.

Barbara: [00:45:16] There was this, you know, and so I think there's this yin and yang of. Yes. Going deep and deep work and not being distracted is really important, but also being aware that sometimes it's OK to be. Distracted, there's evidence that, for example, working in a coffee shop can be helpful because those Klank of, you know, don't we wish we could all be experiencing coffee shop work, but that there actually are apps off of coffee shops for that little click and clank can draw you momentarily into the diffuse mode and or default mode network and allow [00:46:00] you to think more creatively about what you're learning, what you're trying to work on.

Harpreet: [00:46:06] It's almost like a fine line between diffuse mode and distraction, right? Because I find myself sometimes, you know, working on something and I'll just distract myself by going to LinkedIn Rookwood, check my email address, check my download numbers. And and it's almost like a compulsion to do so. And it's hard to kind of resist that because I know that I'm checking those things, not because I need a break, but just because I'm addicted to social media.

Barbara: [00:46:31] Right. Right. Well, I think it does work, though, to have sometimes when you

Barbara: [00:46:36] Work and don't

Barbara: [00:46:38] Allow yourself to take these little random breaks occasionally, but sometimes to work and do a lot of yourself. And very

Barbara: [00:46:45] Interestingly,

Barbara: [00:46:47] Meditation.

Barbara: [00:46:48] There's two

Barbara: [00:46:49] Fundamental different types of

Barbara: [00:46:51] Meditation.

Barbara: [00:46:52] One is focus mode, which enhances your focus mode and the other is

Barbara: [00:46:58] Sort of

Barbara: [00:46:59] Open monitoring and that enhances the more default mode network.

Barbara: [00:47:04] And it turns out,

Barbara: [00:47:06] You know, I don't know whether this is true for the open monitoring type, but if you are really big time into focus movement attention, there is some evidence that it can suppress your ability to activate the default mode network. So it may it may affect your ability to be creative in the

Barbara: [00:47:27] Sense that you keep

Barbara: [00:47:28] Your default mode is suppressed more. But on the other hand, it can sometimes make you more creative because you're less anxious if you're not activating that default mode. So depending on you, it might make you more or less creative

Barbara: [00:47:44] Through focusing

Barbara: [00:47:45] On meditation.

Harpreet: [00:47:47] I do two types of meditation in the morning. I'll do like ten minutes that focused and then in the evening I get an hour to myself. I just do completely nothing. And I just sit and I just monitor the thoughts that happen in my head like that. I put [00:48:00] no effort into stillness, no effort into monitoring my breath or whatever. I just sit and I just sit with the thoughts and let them just bounce around my head. And I like the second kind more better than the sitting and focusing and trying to steal your mind. It's a lot less effort for to do that. So there's a couple of networks I always hear about in the brain. There's the default mode network that you talk about. Then there's this reticular activating system. What are the differences between the two and I guess what effects do they have on creativity?

Barbara: [00:48:32] Well, I'm not a neuroscientist, although I play one on TV. Well, but the reticular activating system is more of a foundational system that is involved in whether you are awake and aware and sentient. So, for

Barbara: [00:48:53] Example, when I was

Barbara: [00:48:54] Working on the book Evil Genius, it was really an effort to better understand my sister Carolyn, who had some very deeply pathological behavior.

Barbara: [00:49:07] The full name of

Barbara: [00:49:08] The book is Evil Genes Why Rotel Hitler Rose and Failed and my sister stole my mother's boyfriend and and she did this and that kind of thing. How could anybody do something like that? Well, when I really, really researched research from back in the 1940s when polio was ravaging the country, my sister was one of the last of the kids who got polio. And she was in an iron lung for months

Barbara: [00:49:41] And

Barbara: [00:49:42] It pretty much destroyed one of her legs.

Barbara: [00:49:45] And but it turns

Barbara: [00:49:47] Out my father had said, you know, she was a different person after she got polio, which is when she was like three and a half

Barbara: [00:49:54] Or something.

Barbara: [00:49:55] And what polio can do is it can affect the reticular activating [00:50:00] system. So that's why you pay attention to things or don't. And so she realized sister did like this. So she she ran away from home when she was about 19 and she was gone for four, ten years. And my parents were frantic, but it wasn't like, now are you going to look people up very easily? And then she after 10 years, she wrote my father and said, oh, you know, I'm so sorry for all the problems. And of course, I want to come home. So he said to them, I need to come home and she sent it on something else. So he's sending the money and she spent it on something else. You know, she had good excuses. So he got smart and he sent her plane tickets.

Barbara: [00:50:46] And then

Barbara: [00:50:47] She came. And I remember

Barbara: [00:50:48] Her hugging

Barbara: [00:50:50] Me and she said, oh, blah, my little sister, I'm so glad to catch you and you're so special. You're really the very best. And I just want to reacquaint with the whole family. You know, we talked

Barbara: [00:51:03] For about 50

Barbara: [00:51:05] Minutes and then she went off to the store

Barbara: [00:51:07] To get some

Barbara: [00:51:08] Things and she met a man and moved in with him. And I didn't see her for five more years. So you think, wow, how can anyone do something like that? But the thing is, remember her attentional system, that reticular activating system was messed up. I wasn't in front of her when she's standing in front of that guy in the store. So it's kind of like,

Barbara: [00:51:30] You

Barbara: [00:51:30] Know, I'm just out of the picture.

Barbara: [00:51:32] And so the

Barbara: [00:51:34] Default mode network, on the other hand, it involves all sorts of different areas of the brain that are interconnected in a way that they're not connected, even when you're focusing on things. So it's it's very different. It's a network

Barbara: [00:51:49] Involved in all of that.

Barbara: [00:51:52] Often you're not conscious of the kinds of thinking going on there, but the reticular activating system is much a much [00:52:00] deeper network and it's involved more in, you know, the the basic things that keep you aware and alive. From what I understand,

Harpreet: [00:52:13] That's really, really fascinating. I guess that's the reason why if you buy a new car, all of a sudden you see that new car everywhere. It's part of that particular activating system, I guess.

Barbara: [00:52:24] Yeah, that's something I really want to focus more on in future work is just because if you even in teaching, like when you're creating online courses, sometimes it bugs the heck out of me because educators will be like, well, we've got to have the students engaged, you know, we've got to have them have ways to talk to one another. And that's, you know, and that's engaging the students. And so that's the most important thing. And then they'll slap these crash videos if they even bother to create videos of Saddam online and then put in a discussion forum and ask students to talk to one another. And it's like,

Barbara: [00:53:06] Why should

Barbara: [00:53:07] They even bother to engage if you can't even get their attention in the first place with quality materials? So I think, you know, before engagement comes attention, and that's where quality online materials really come to the fore.

Harpreet: [00:53:26] Yeah, I definitely, definitely agree with that. So I'm curious because you've got such an interesting combination of experiences and the stuff you research your writing. We talk about creativity here as well. So what would you say is the difference between art and science?

Barbara: [00:53:43] All see and developed

Barbara: [00:53:47] Into one another. I mean, Santiago really called my hero in science. He was an artist. He was he was a wannabe artist and of course, his father. It's funny,

Barbara: [00:53:59] In the

Barbara: [00:53:59] 1950s [00:54:00] in Spain, fathers are pretty much then, you know, they were then as they are now or can't make as an artist, you know, I want you to be a doctor. And so

Barbara: [00:54:12] His father

Barbara: [00:54:13] Was very deeply resistant to him doing anything with art. And yet when he decided to study medicine, he brought his love of art in and he he drew these. He could really see perceptively what was going on in and draw it and allow others to see what was going on. And from his very perceptive observations, he can kind of figure out which way neurons were sending signals. So his love of art allowed him to see more perceptively and shaped his science. I think in part, I suppose one could say that science is has more math flavor

Barbara: [00:55:03] To it, although

Barbara: [00:55:05] It sort of depends on the discipline. But then you look at Leonardo da Vinci's art, and that was math flavor, too, and that's part of why he was such a brilliant artist.

Barbara: [00:55:17] So, you know,

Barbara: [00:55:18] I guess there's a melding between the two. I do like to think that having a bit of a background in math can can help you in all sorts of things in the modern world, either if you're studying art or you're studying sciences

Barbara: [00:55:37] Or anything in

Barbara: [00:55:38] Between.

Harpreet: [00:55:39] What role does creativity play in science sometimes?

Barbara: [00:55:43] None. You know, some some researchers just have a kind of a formula that they follow. They know that there's there's a difference, I think was Thomas Kean talked about sort of ordinary [00:56:00] science. And then there's a paradigm shift break through science.

Barbara: [00:56:05] But I think a lot of

Barbara: [00:56:08] Really interesting and good science

Barbara: [00:56:10] Is, you know, you're

Barbara: [00:56:12] Just like you. You take an idea from somewhere and you apply it in a very fresh way to whatever you're working on. And, you know, you may be a surfer.

Barbara: [00:56:25] And so you

Barbara: [00:56:26] Use that to inform your your understanding of chemical reactions as what the most in with

Barbara: [00:56:33] Is, you know,

Barbara: [00:56:35] Groundbreaking work in,

Barbara: [00:56:37] You know, that

Barbara: [00:56:38] Won him the new Nobel Prize in chemistry. So sometimes people have told me, you know, I have no creativity. And I used to say, oh, that's just not true. But now I've come to realize, oh, no, some people are less creative in a particular area, but they they may be really super creative in other areas. And I think it's maybe part of it depends on your the way you have learned a topic.

Barbara: [00:57:11] And also,

Barbara: [00:57:12] Your upbringing, for example, if you have been brought up that what the teacher says is always to be respected, even if you would have in another environment been a very creative person

Barbara: [00:57:26] To kind

Barbara: [00:57:27] Of cut off some of your creativity. I do notice that, like, you know, I was at the Santa Fe Institute

Barbara: [00:57:34] And they were they were you

Barbara: [00:57:36] Know, someone told me how there are a really tough crowd here. And, you know, I was like I gave my presentation. They were like pussycats to easy questions. And I was like I was laughing to myself because fourth graders are not cheering you. They can be the toughest crowd around because they don't know what they're not supposed to ask. There's always this kind

Barbara: [00:57:58] Of, you know,

Barbara: [00:57:59] Feeling [00:58:00] of when you ask questions, you never want to embarrass somebody. And so people of, you know, unless they are intentionally trying to embarrass somebody, which is very rare, they will restrict their questions to things. They they are pretty confident that the person can answer. But fourth graders don't know that. So they'll just ask you about anything. And then it's like, well, I don't know the answer to that. Or you kind of punt or something. And so the fourth graders, to my mind, are around the most creative, at least in the U.S., where I think we have some very good teachers who really encourage thinking more broadly.

Harpreet: [00:58:42] Yeah, my son is eight months old almost, and I'm excited for him to get to that that age when he can ask fun, challenging questions that I don't know the answer to, because I think those are the most interesting type of questions

Barbara: [00:58:55] This way about two years

Barbara: [00:58:57] From now.

Harpreet: [00:58:59] You mentioned Thomas Kuhn and that book is The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. Yes. You have got that in my list of books to read on Audible. Haven't gotten to it yet, but I think in science, like the creativity really, in my opinion, expresses itself with experiments and experimentation. Like you look at some of these experiments that you have to do to test whatever type of cognition in babies. And you see how they devise these really cool, crazy experiments to to test something. I find that to be just pure creativity, to come up with these types of experiments.

Barbara: [00:59:36] Yeah. Like most people would say, oh, Barb, you're really creative. You know, you come up with these courses, you've got all these creative metaphors, you're able to teach these things. But if you put me in a

Barbara: [00:59:47] Laboratory and said, now

Barbara: [00:59:48] Figure out a way

Barbara: [00:59:50] To

Barbara: [00:59:51] Learn this thing about babies, I feel a

Barbara: [00:59:54] Complete you know,

Barbara: [00:59:56] I look at experimenters and I'm just like, how did [01:00:00] you think to do that? I'm like, I'm not great. They're probably zero

Barbara: [01:00:05] Creativity or and most

Barbara: [01:00:07] Assoc., you know, but there's people who are way more creative. And then they would probably call themselves very uncreative

Barbara: [01:00:15] As

Barbara: [01:00:16] Teachers or something. You know, they could. So there's areas you're creative in, areas you're not so creative in, but it all has to do with experience and,

Barbara: [01:00:27] You know, levels of

Barbara: [01:00:28] Mastery.

Harpreet: [01:00:28] I think this might be kind of a hard question. It just kind of along the lines of how do I know my purpose in life? But it's how do you find out what it is that you're actually creative, that you talked about how some people are creative in certain aspects, not creative in others. What can we do to help us recognize that? Actually, I'm creative in this way.

Barbara: [01:00:48] I think it's back to that opening question. You know, the opening comment, Lady Luck favors the one who tries. It's really hard to get an answer unless you just kind of try lots of different things

Barbara: [01:01:04] And then

Barbara: [01:01:05] Your internal procedural system will begin to deduce patterns of what seems to work well for you. So I think just doing as you're doing and trying lots of different things while still

Barbara: [01:01:22] Having you know,

Barbara: [01:01:24] You don't want to, like, throw away your job completely. You want to have some kind of mechanism for bringing in, you know, something to live on. But continuing to try different things is is probably the best thing that we can do without, you know, since we can't really know the answer until maybe on

Barbara: [01:01:45] The other side of the, you know,

Barbara: [01:01:47] End of life experience.

Harpreet: [01:01:50] So I like that. I just try a bunch of different things, kick up a jar of dust, see what works and make connections between things get through essentially [01:02:00] just kind of hustle and motion. I know that we are running longer time. Are you good for your time?

Barbara: [01:02:08] Sure. If you're less.

Barbara: [01:02:10] Oh, yes,

Harpreet: [01:02:11] They are used to an hour and a half long broadcast for me, I love talking to authors that I really admire about stuff, and I know the audience enjoys it as well. So I guess the next kind of question I want to move on to now, it's just the relationship between emotional state and our capacity to learn things. What is that relationship? I found it that when I was that, when I'm just like angry or upset or depressed and I try to learn something, it just it nothing sticks. So why is that? What is that relationship?

Barbara: [01:02:44] It's it's a very complicated relationship. And so I'm not sure I can do it just to hear. You know, I'm I'm not sure that I have the knowledge base to do it justice.

Barbara: [01:02:55] But I will say that what I what

Barbara: [01:02:57] I think is fascinating is if we get curious about something

Barbara: [01:03:03] Did so

Barbara: [01:03:04] There, you know, people talk about dopamine and you know that that relates to harm or motivation and so forth. Well, in terms of the dopamine, there's two very different effects. So there's there's faizi dopamine, which is like releasing these little tiny bursts spurred by dopamine neurons. And they kind of detected it. And then there's tonic dopamine, which is sort of released at low level through more of your brain. And it's kind of like music. When you're in a grocery store, it's kind of all around

Barbara: [01:03:43] And on

Barbara: [01:03:45] The tonic

Barbara: [01:03:45] Dopamine.

Barbara: [01:03:47] Those levels are what help you become motivated. So so that's why when you might take you know, not that I'm encouraging this, because work if you take [01:04:00] something like Adderall, it it can increase that that ton of

Barbara: [01:04:05] Dopamine and it makes you

Barbara: [01:04:08] Feel more motivated to work on whatever you're doing. The problem is, of course, if you

Barbara: [01:04:13] Do it very often,

Barbara: [01:04:15] It changes the ratios of what's happening and it can kind of monkey around with your ability to be motivated

Barbara: [01:04:22] Overall. So it's like

Barbara: [01:04:24] A one time

Barbara: [01:04:25] Deal.

Barbara: [01:04:26] It'll help the next time. It'll help a little less and a little less and so forth, because it moves around the things. But as you can see from that, that this you know, these kinds of dopamine levels are the tonic is what helps. Did you motivate for things crazy, on the other hand, that's released when you're curious about something and you get that. So like somebody gives you a hook to a

Barbara: [01:04:53] Story, like

Barbara: [01:04:54] I lost the ability to read and write when I was thirty six years

Barbara: [01:04:59] Old.

Barbara: [01:05:00] And now I'm going to talk about this related thing or just kind of sitting there going, I want to hear about how you lost the ability to read or write when you're thirty six years old. So you kind of follow along and you're curious this whole time and then you get, you know, you get this stuff said to you that they want to teach you and then they tell you, ah, this is what

Barbara: [01:05:24] Happened to me. You know, I

Barbara: [01:05:25] Fell down the stairs or whatever, and you get a sense of closure.

Barbara: [01:05:30] And what

Barbara: [01:05:31] Happens in that process

Barbara: [01:05:33] Is this

Barbara: [01:05:34] Phase. If dopamine is

Barbara: [01:05:35] Released and

Barbara: [01:05:37] All those neural pathways that you've been learning using like over the last half an hour that visit me, it kind of like sniffs out all your recently used pathways and it strengthens them.

Barbara: [01:05:49] So it helps you learn.

Barbara: [01:05:52] So if you get curious about what you want to learn,

Barbara: [01:05:56] It can help.

Barbara: [01:05:57] It actually helps those new [01:06:00] neural links to cement together, especially once you get your to your city satisfied. So, you know, I think that's to me, that's a fascinating aspect of learning. And it shows why good teachers,

Barbara: [01:06:17] For example,

Barbara: [01:06:17] When you will be teaching online, one of the best things you can do is set a hook at the beginning. And as engineers use what engineers like to do, they tell the answer to the hook because it's you don't want to leave people hanging. So you just say, yes, OK, here's the answer. And then you go on and it's like, no, that ruins the purpose of the OK,

Barbara: [01:06:40] You got to

Barbara: [01:06:41] Set it and then leave them dangling

Barbara: [01:06:44] For a while.

Barbara: [01:06:45] And this is something that is well known, of course, to marketers. You know, it's big in the marketing industry. That wonderful book influenced by ChildNet talks a little bit about that in presentation, his subsequent book. But novelists really understand that. And if you look at good nonfiction, writing it often. It has a hook and then you got to follow along with it and bad nonfiction writing is here is the information about Neanderthals or whatever, and it doesn't hold.

Harpreet: [01:07:21] You want to get your opinion on how I get curious about new things that I'm studying. So let's say there's a new algorithm. Whatever technique that I want to study and I get a book on it, I'll go through the chapter first. I'll just kind of skim through the chapter, look at pictures and stuff, and then just come up with some questions before I even start reading about this thing that I'm learning so that I kind of prime the pump, so to speak. I get myself curious to find those answers. Is that a good way to use curiosity to

Barbara: [01:07:55] An optimal way to use curiosity? That's fantastic. You [01:08:00] couldn't do any better than that. So, yeah, I love it.

Harpreet: [01:08:04] Awesome. So I found it interesting that we can change our brain by changing the way we think, which to me was just like what? How's that? Doesn't your brain make you think how can you change your brain by thinking, how does that happen?

Barbara: [01:08:18] I think, you know, I mean, that can be all sorts of different things going on. But for example, Tom Sawyer was a very famous you know, I mean, Mark Mark Twain

Barbara: [01:08:28] Wrote the book, Tom

Barbara: [01:08:29] Sawyer and Tom Sawyer was this kid who was sort of a mischief maker and he made some trouble at school, got kicked out of school. And then as his punishment, he was asked to paint a fence. So, of course, he didn't want to paint the fence. So what he did was, you know, people were the other kids were coming by and

Barbara: [01:08:50] Assumed that

Barbara: [01:08:51] Painting the fence. And he he's like, oh, yeah. Well, you know, it's really it's a very special sort of thing. And no, you can't try it. No, it's it's only for people who really kind of know what's going on. Well, eventually he worked it. So there kind of like paying him for the chance to paint the fence. So he completely shifted their internal motivations just by, you know, by rethinking things. How what exactly what exactly is going on from a neuroscientific perspective when that happens? You know, all I can think is that change in how you're thinking about things is changing your your tonic, dopamine levels, those underlying levels. And in just a shift, they're kind of shifts those underlying levels. And it can make it so that you're, you know, can you become motivated for something that you were never motivated for before? And like, I had that happen when I was in the military. I mean, I wasn't motivated to do math and science. And [01:10:00] then I can get, you know, a really good job. And besides, I can actually

Barbara: [01:10:04] See the use

Barbara: [01:10:06] Of this radio equipment with the group that I'm you know, I'm supposed to be leading and I'm the village idiot in leading these

Barbara: [01:10:13] People.

Barbara: [01:10:15] It changed my motivation and I'm sure it changed, you know, that just that shift of how I'm thinking about things probably, you know, just kind of mucking around with those tonic dopamine levels in them that made it easier to be motivated to do it, even though I you know, at the beginning, you're still not sure you like it. And then, of course, once you get used to it, you start studying it, you start getting these occasional good grades and then that's helping your motivation and then you get serious about it and that's

Barbara: [01:10:47] Helping your learning.

Barbara: [01:10:48] And so it kind of plays back and forth.

Harpreet: [01:10:51] What implication does this have for the way we talk to ourselves, our inner monologue and our ability to learn?

Barbara: [01:10:59] I think that our inner dialog is far more important than many people ever think of. Well, there's a book that I've just started on how to get over negative self talk. And it's a very good book. But we often talk negatively to ourselves and I think it really does. There's plenty of evidence from behavioral therapy that if you change how you're thinking about things like, for example, instead of

Barbara: [01:11:32] Thinking, that's just it

Barbara: [01:11:34] Doesn't like me. I know he doesn't like

Barbara: [01:11:36] Me to instead

Barbara: [01:11:38] Write down. You know, this is this is known as mind reading. I'm putting thoughts into what I think that guy is thinking, but I have no actual evidence for that in writing. All of that down

Barbara: [01:11:51] Can

Barbara: [01:11:51] Help. Your mind is like, oh, wait a minute, break through that negative self taught that you've been [01:12:00] giving yourself. So I think self talk is turning that into something more positive. It's a really important thing to do.

Harpreet: [01:12:08] Is there kind of like a relationship? Between yourself talk and your particular activating system, or maybe even default mode network, if you're constantly telling yourself like, oh, I'm not really good at this thing, I'm so dumb, so stupid, you'll just start finding ways to make that reality. Kind of,

Barbara: [01:12:25] You know, I don't know enough to say whether that's related to either system. But I suspect it may be related to the procedural system in the sense that, let's say you were a procedural system is often related to physical things, but it is now we're beginning to understand it's related to mental things, too.

Barbara: [01:12:47] But if you

Barbara: [01:12:48] Hit a ball a bunch of times, you know, you hit it, then somebody throws a ball. You can you can just instantly react and you don't have to think about it.

Barbara: [01:12:57] Or like, let's

Barbara: [01:12:59] Say you're you're driving

Barbara: [01:13:00] Home.

Barbara: [01:13:01] You you can actually think about some other completely different problem as you're driving home and not be thinking about how you're so long and you're like, how did that happen? It's because you're a procedural system took over because you've done it so many times.

Barbara: [01:13:17] It's a habit sort of.

Barbara: [01:13:19] And I think that when we self talk negatively, it becomes this habit. It's a default way. And it a lot of times we will give somebody asked us a question about why we're doing something or our thoughts of something. And we think we're answering in a logical way. But actually that answer is coming from our procedural system and we don't have access to how it came up with these things. It's just we get the output from the procedural system.

Barbara: [01:13:56] So I

Barbara: [01:13:57] Think when we're always feeling [01:14:00] that procedural system, negative stuff, it will it will spit negative stuff back out when we call on it or even when we don't call

Barbara: [01:14:10] On it.

Barbara: [01:14:12] And and of course, we think we're being irrational, but we're actually not being rational because it is coming from this invisible black of the procedural system, which we are fed with, you know, patterns and all sorts of things for bicycle ride, doing all sorts of other things, but also negative mental patterns.

Harpreet: [01:14:35] I'm curious if this is at all related to this. I Stelling effect that. If I recall correctly, that's when you're working on a problem and you're telling yourself, yeah, I know this is the way to do it. I know the right answer. Any kind of lead yourself down the wrong path. And we kind of touched on that earlier. But is that at all related or am I just, like, mixing things up?

Barbara: [01:14:56] No, that's a very interesting question. I don't know whether it's related because, you know, it could be I never really thought of that before because I always felt I'm selling and installing is more like it's a little bit like function or a like fixation in your thinking. You're thinking in one way, but actually you need to be over here. But for example, you know, the famous person of Peerson coefficients and so forth, that brilliant statistician he was the notorious for, he he would never accept that he was wrong about anything.

Barbara: [01:15:36] And so

Barbara: [01:15:37] This one fellow got up and gave a big speech in which she kind

Barbara: [01:15:42] Of pointed to some errors in Pearsons work.

Barbara: [01:15:46] And by golly, several days later, that guy went into his office and it was destroyed. Somebody had gotten into it and just took a sledgehammer to everything. And the only in, [01:16:00] you know, person was back in the day, what was that, 1920s, 1930s or something.

Barbara: [01:16:05] And he's like

Barbara: [01:16:07] The most preeminent statistician in the world. Yet he simply all evidence points to the fact that it was actually Peerson that went into the office to do that because he was so angry about somebody saying that he can possibly be incorrect. And, of course, he was incorrect. But it just goes to show and we always kind of think these wrong scientists or people who are unable to correct their errors in their thinking. That was only back in the day. But now in modern day, we just don't have that kind of thing in it. It's all over. It's everywhere nowadays. It's just that people don't talk about it until those individuals are safely dead because, you know, you don't want them doing the modern equivalent of wrecking your office, which is instead

Barbara: [01:16:58] Suing

Barbara: [01:16:58] You,

Barbara: [01:16:59] You know.

Barbara: [01:17:00] So but there's just so much evidence and I see it everywhere,

Barbara: [01:17:04] You know, in

Barbara: [01:17:05] Science, in education, it's in every field because people. They can have a vested interest in whatever, you know, there's motivated reasoning because your whole career, you may have been teaching one approach

Barbara: [01:17:19] To, you know, how

Barbara: [01:17:21] Children learn or psychology or whatever you're doing.

Barbara: [01:17:24] And if you if

Barbara: [01:17:26] You accepted this other counterpose idea, you know, it's kind of overturning your entire life. Some people can do that. There's one fellow

Barbara: [01:17:35] Who

Barbara: [01:17:35] Really at the National Institutes of Health and he said this study is coming out and it means that most of my work is overturned because it shows that it's a problem. You don't. You know, I've always loved Harare's work and now I love him even more because he's actually willing to say, oh, gee, I've got to throw out a bunch of work because of this latest finding. But [01:18:00] those kinds of that caliber of scientists is very, very rare, unfortunately.

Harpreet: [01:18:05] Yeah, I guess it's OK to be wrong about things, right? You just have to accept that. Yeah. I got this thing wrong. Um, I didn't know what I didn't know. Now I know some stuff and update my beliefs and update my research in light of these new findings. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. I know what that's like in the time of frequent tests. I was a patient. That's rough.

Barbara: [01:18:28] There we go.

Barbara: [01:18:29] Yeah, I was rough.

Harpreet: [01:18:31] I went to UC Davis for most of my statistics and it was a frequent test school of statistics. And I had left leaning Bayesian tendencies. It was. Isn't that happy times for me?

Barbara: [01:18:43] Well, you know, in the latest book that I'm really enjoying, though, is Judea Pearl's

Barbara: [01:18:48] Book on of why is that the one

Barbara: [01:18:52] The causal analysis? It's just it's a wonderful book. And he tells the Pearson story. So if you want to

Barbara: [01:19:01] Just see a

Barbara: [01:19:02] Nice, interesting angle on the newest things that are unfolding

Barbara: [01:19:05] In

Barbara: [01:19:07] Bayesian analysis, you probably know these things, but it's just so important. You know, causal analysis is it's thought to be that that will be a key in, you know, how artificial intelligence will forge ahead. So it's a fascinating area.

Harpreet: [01:19:26] Yet I try to get them on the show, but to no avail. It's OK, though. Oh, we got the last question before a random round here. It's one hundred years in the future. What do you want to be remembered for?

Barbara: [01:19:40] Helping to put education on a solid scientific foundation that really helps students to learn in ways that we know will help them to invest.

Harpreet: [01:19:53] I think you're well on your way to accomplishing that with all the wonderful work you've done and the wonderful content [01:20:00] you've put out there. So let's jump into a quick random round here. Oh, no, they're fun questions.

Barbara: [01:20:07] An easy one

Harpreet: [01:20:09] If you were to write a fiction novel, but what would it be about and what would you title it?

Barbara: [01:20:14] Oh, you know, for one thing, that's a really hard question because, like, I'm the

Barbara: [01:20:19] World's worst title, author

Barbara: [01:20:21] Of books. I like. I write. But, you know, I

Barbara: [01:20:26] Can't I'm

Barbara: [01:20:27] Pretty bad at coming up every once in a while. It's like, you know, the clock comes around and strikes 12:00. Oh, my goodness. I was right once, but mostly my conscience grew protests. So I will punch in the title.

Barbara: [01:20:40] But I

Barbara: [01:20:41] Think I would like to write

Barbara: [01:20:43] A

Barbara: [01:20:44] International thriller of intrigue. It's whatever it is, it

Barbara: [01:20:50] Involves travel to

Barbara: [01:20:51] All sorts of different places in the world to figure out a fundamental issue. I but I have no idea what that would be. And I have great off for Thriller writers. So it's so hard just kind of keeping up with what's going on in education and learning about all sorts of different things

Barbara: [01:21:10] That

Barbara: [01:21:11] I think that's a career that I will handle in an alternative universe.

Harpreet: [01:21:17] I think that's actually a good title, an international thriller. I forgot the exact words you used, but it does get. So what do you think the first video to hit one million views on YouTube will be about? And what do you think that would happen?

Barbara: [01:21:34] It'll be a music video and it'll have great dancing and it will have love and super catchy tunes and and also end up with big groups of people all

Barbara: [01:21:49] Dancing happily together.

Harpreet: [01:21:51] I love that. I love that image. When do you think that this will happen?

Barbara: [01:21:56] A trillion views

Barbara: [01:21:59] Pulling in maybe [01:22:00] about 50 years, I think.

Barbara: [01:22:03] And I think we need a bigger population to get to a trillion views.

Harpreet: [01:22:08] This is part of my cohort study I'm doing. This is a question that I ask everyone. So I'm going to like take all the answers and see the wisdom of the crowds will help us identify with the

Barbara: [01:22:18] Good probably way, way too long. But then I'm a curmudgeon's wolf. You know, I

Barbara: [01:22:25] Figure if, you know, it's always it's always

Barbara: [01:22:30] Best to have low key expectations, then you can be surprised when things are better.

Harpreet: [01:22:35] What song do you have on repeat

Barbara: [01:22:38] Song to repeat? Lately I've had this little song that I'm going to use is the song that is the main song for Uncommon Sense Teaching. And it it's called Practice Makes Perfect. And it's by a

Barbara: [01:22:53] Fellow named Zach.

Barbara: [01:22:54] I can't remember his last name, but it's all three blocks and it's just a wonderful song.

Barbara: [01:23:00] So I often

Barbara: [01:23:02] But that's one thing I'm in fear I'm very bad about because when I listen to music, I really listen to music and but I'm often working. So that means I just don't have time to listen to music. And when I do relax reading books,

Barbara: [01:23:17] So and

Barbara: [01:23:18] I'm not, you know, you might say, well, do it when you're driving someplace, when you know we're going someplace. My husband's usually driving and I'm working on the computer. So I you know, I don't have as much time to listen to music as I would like. I like techno record year old Harp, you know, that kind of thing, and classical music. And I like some hip hop.

Barbara: [01:23:40] You know, I,

Harpreet: [01:23:42] I like I like your hip hop as well. That techno Harp. That's some of my favorite type of stuff. Speaking of really, what are you currently reading?

Barbara: [01:23:49] So the book Awide,

Barbara: [01:23:51] A

Barbara: [01:23:52] Book of Neanderthal's, which is telling me more detail than I ever wanted to know about Neanderthals, I'm like, [01:24:00] you know, has this author heard about the idea of giving just sort of a synopsis of some ideas, please? You know, because it's like every single one I listed, they did this. And, um, and then I'm reading I just finished a book. It's a wonderful book of cinema shoot. And I'm just going to write it up today. But it's this wonderful book

Barbara: [01:24:27] On how this

Barbara: [01:24:29] Fellow tried to just start learning things,

Barbara: [01:24:32] You know,

Barbara: [01:24:33] As a as a beginner. And oh, that's the name of the book Beginners. And it's a wonderful book. And he talks about things like learning how to sing and voice lessons and learning how to surf and just doing all sorts of things as a beginner. And it's a really it's a great book. So I'm

Barbara: [01:24:55] Reading

Barbara: [01:24:56] Up because it's I will. Tout it in my cheery Friday next week, and then

Barbara: [01:25:01] I'm just about to

Barbara: [01:25:03] Finish the book on self negative self talk. See, usually I have like a number of books going on, like, oh, there's one on various last theorem. And my daughter is like, oh, God. And so I just started that. And she's right. It is really good. And I just finished this so called The Last of

Barbara: [01:25:23] Sason, and it was

Barbara: [01:25:25] About, you know, Cesar's last killer who was left alive because Augustus was like not going to leave any of them. There's like 30 or 40 that were

Barbara: [01:25:34] Involved to

Barbara: [01:25:35] Some greater or lesser extent in the conspiracy. But it had the best beginning hook of anything I've ever any historical novel I've ever read. And it was the pharmacist who was the last killer. Helike knows his last. And it's evening time and he's kind of wondering what's going to happen [01:26:00] and reflecting back on the whole episode. And it was, you know, all the killings, you know, in the civil war that ensued, it was the best opening hook because of course, then you're curious also the way you know, OK, what's happened? How is Thomas going to get killed, you know, years. But how and you

Harpreet: [01:26:23] Definitely have to add some of these to show notes. You're a lot like me. Have a bunch of different books that you're reading at once. I just love getting information and ideas into the head and then letting them bounce around and cloud with each other and see what happens with it. So interesting thing about Neanderthal's, though. My wife's cousin got the twenty three and me test done and I think he has something like two or three percent Neanderthal DNA, which was 90 percent more Neanderthal DNA than anybody in the twenty three in my database. I thought that was really interesting.

Barbara: [01:26:55] There's supposed to be, you know, I read something and it wasn't Polish and probably wasn't published because it's not politically correct or something. But did some study have indicated that Neanderthals, they seem to be affiliated with the genetics for learning math or doing math more easily?

Barbara: [01:27:17] Interesting.

Barbara: [01:27:18] I said I thought, I don't know, but I to read more on that. But, you know, I'm not sure that that study was published. And of course, it's a little you know, it's a sketchy area, but there is evidence, very solid evidence that if you have trouble, like with you know, I wonder if he's like a night owl because night owl behavior is more affiliated with having come from that Neanderthal gene pool. And it's sort it's just like they were up in the north and you had these long periods where you didn't have light. And so it kind of skewed your, you know, your night owl and daylight. [01:28:00] So it seems like Neanderthal is genetics are affiliated somehow with, you know, you being more of a night owl sort of person. So my colleague who's Norwegian and we we're working on this book together and it just makes me laugh because he I have to be you know, it's five o'clock East Coast time. I'm done for the day. I you know, I'm going to now just sort of relaxing and reading and having dinner. And he's just getting started six hours later and always like he's in prime time. You know, it's one o'clock at night. Yeah. You know, it's just guys got such a different, you know, night owl mindset thing. I'm a total morning mark. Oh, four o'clock. I'm going to go

Harpreet: [01:28:49] Get that's me 4:00 a.m. in the morning. That's usually when I'm up. Daniel Pink wrote an interesting book about this Chronobiology. It's called Win the Science is like perfect timing or something like that. It came out some number of years ago, but it was a really, really good book. I really enjoyed that one.

Barbara: [01:29:05] Oh, Daniel Pink is a wonderful guy and he's a wonderful human being, too. I watched his master class course on, you know, it was on selling and so forth. And it just came out. And it's it's just it's like you feel like you're sitting there listening to your favorite brother or Fevre uncle giving you really sound advice. And it's just it's a wonderful class.

Harpreet: [01:29:30] Yeah. He's one of my favorite authors, so I've seen the promo for that class. I'm excited to carve some time out to go through that. He is amazing. Barbara, where can people find you? How can they connect with you online?

Barbara: [01:29:46] Oh, if you just go to Barbara Oakley, dot com, you'll see all my books and classes. And and incidentally, there's a. So I have there's. Kind of a massive open online [01:30:00] course, which is free, they may ask you to to get a certificate. But if you say no, then you can get all the course materials for free, just not the certificate. But there's also learning how to learn for youth, which is for kids. And there's a book that goes along with that. So it's like a kid's version of learning how to learn or a mind for numbers. And so that one is also similarly free on Coursera from university or from Arizona State University. But all the books, all the courses and so forth

Barbara: [01:30:36] Are right there on my

Barbara: [01:30:38] Website.

Harpreet: [01:30:39] I'll be sure to link those all in the show notes. Barb, thank you so much for carving time out of your schedule to be on the show. I know we went a little bit older than we anticipated, but it's just because I enjoyed talking to you so much. Thank you again for coming on the show, you know.

Barbara: [01:30:54] My pleasure.