Malcolm Gladwell Is Lord Of All Things Overlooked and Misunderstood | Rich Roll Podcast

LeBron James is exceptionally intellectually sophisticated, having designed complex systems with teams of specialists to ensure his success at elite level for 20 years, demonstrating that modern elite athletes must be cognitively elite.

“Do you think LeBron James isn't a brilliant guy? Of course he has to be. He's done what no one else has done, he's figured out all this stuff about how to succeed at the high level for 20 years. Employing teams of people and spending millions of dollars to ensure his success, by surrounding himself with the smartest people to make him the smartest athlete that he can possibly be.”

What we thought was a decline in physiological capacity as we age may in large part simply be an increased tendency to get injured, and the last generation has seen a revolution in keeping older people healthy, extending the useful career of athletes.

“What we thought was a decline in physiological capacity as we age, may in a large part simply be an increased tendency to get it injured. I think the injury thing is huge here. That the last generation has seen this revolution in keeping older people healthy. And that when you extend the career of a whole group of athletes, you're gonna get the base of the pyramid is now just a lot broader, so we're obviously gonna see changes in the top.”

Harry Edwards, a sociologist at San Jose State, invented the sociology of sport and led protest movements; he convinced the San Jose State sprinters to use their athletic platform for social justice, which culminated in the 1968 Olympic protest.

“There's another guy on his track team called Harry Edwards. Then has now, one of the most important figures in understanding he's the guy who invents the sociology of sport, who leads all of these protest movements around sport. He comes and he joins with these athletes. And he convinces them they should use their sprinting prowess as a platform for social justice.”

The 1967 long hot summer saw 152 race riots in the United States; it was an extraordinarily traumatic period when the optimism of Martin Luther King's civil rights movement dissipated into violence and rage.

“Which is the Mexico games are '68. So '67 is the long hot summer, there were I think 152 race riots in the United States in 1967. It's where the optimism that accompanied Martin Luther King's version of civil rights dissipates in violence and rage. I think the summer of '67 is about as traumatic a summer as America has had in its history. We've sort of forgotten that now.”

When it comes to evaluating the greatness of elite performers, we overemphasize peak performance and underemphasize longevity, and that is driving a lot of young people out of the sport and discouraging a lot of people and frustrating our attempt to restore the health of our society.

“When it comes to evaluating the greatness of elite performers, we overemphasize peak performance and underemphasize longevity. And that is driving a lot of young people out of the sport and discouraging a lot of people and frustrating our attempt to restore the health of our society.”

The idea of having a standard of performance that spans 20 years matters because when someone like Nick Willis is 70 years old, he's gonna be healthy and running and competing, and that's something that makes you proud to be part of the same group of runners.

“So my argument about Nick Willis, the idea of having a standard of performance that spans 20 years, that matters, why? Because when he 70, Nick's gonna be healthy and running and competing, and that's what I want. I don't care whether he's winning at 70, but the idea that he could put together a portfolio of running that starts in his teens and ends in his 70s is something that makes me just proud to be part of the same group of runners as he is.”

Paul Simon is perhaps the greatest rock star of his time because he has maintained musical relevance across five decades, which raises the question of how that's possible given that most artists fade or become irrelevant.

“He's been musically relevant five decades, how's that possible? The thesis being that he's perhaps the greatest rockstar of our time because of his ability to maintain relevance over so many decades.”

The best podcast episodes are episodes that could not be done in print—stories that wouldn't work on the page but work in audio, whereas B-level episodes might work in both media.

“When I think about podcast episodes, the best podcast episodes I do in 'Revisionist History' are episodes that could not be done in print. Just the story wouldn't work, wouldn't be interesting, and vice versa. Now, there are some that can work but they tend to be B-level podcast episodes.”

'Talking to Strangers' was written in a conversational form as if Gladwell was reading it to you, making it feel more personal and emotional, and because of this approach it works well as both a print book and audio book.

“The way the book is written is very much it's written as if I'm reading it to you, it's written in a conversational form. And that, I think it totally works as a print book. It feels a little different, it feels more personal and emotional. But if you go in that direction, from audio to print, I think that works, it's just hard to go in the other direction.”

In newspaper reporting, you get so many reps—you might write 4, 5, or 6 stories per week for 10 years—which is a massive amount of repetition that develops pattern recognition and efficiency in a way that no other training could replicate.

“But you're getting so many reps. You might write four, five, six stories a week for 20 years. Actually I wasn't a newspaper reporter for 20 years, I was newspaper reporter for 10, I always doubled it. It was 10 years, 10 years. Is that a senior moment? Well, I'm conflating it with my magazine stuff, it was 20 years of newspaper and magazine.”

Discipline is a very close corollary of cognitive sophistication, so the amount of discipline necessary in any kind of sport at a high level now demonstrates the intellectual engagement required.

“And the amount of discipline that's necessary in any kind of sport at a high level now. We've always known that discipline is a very close corollary of cognitive sophistication.”

As a culture, we are somehow dismissive of long periods of elite performance and infatuated with brief windows of extraordinary elite performance, and this is wrong because it distorts our evaluation of greatness.

“I think as a culture, we are somehow dismissive of long periods of elite performance and infatuated with brief windows of extraordinary elite performance, and I think that's wrong.”

You can't be intellectually honest about the value of longevity unless you recognize that occasional outstanding performers are the spark that inspires us all—you need the Michael Phelps's and the LeBrons to set the bar that gets us excited about engaging in that sport to begin with.

“But you can't be intellectually honest about this unless you recognize that that occasional outstanding performer is the spark that inspires us all. You need the Michael Phelps's and the LeBrons to set this bar that gets us excited about maybe engaging in that sport to begin with.”

Much of running is about holding back and economy—not about maximal effort but about efficient energy utilization—which is why Malcolm Gladwell's conversation with a Nobel Prize-winning economist who couldn't understand why runners don't just go as hard as they can for as long as they can is revealing about the gap between expert and lay knowledge.

“This is funny, I once had a conversation, I won't use his name, with a Nobel prize winning economist who you've probably heard of, who I genuinely like, I've done it for a long time. He's a brilliant lovely guy, not an athlete. And he said, we were talking about running and we're talking about middle distance running. He was like he found it all baffling, he said, 'I don't understand why you just don't go out and run as hard as you can for as long as you can.'”

The analogy to running applies to interviewing—you need to hold yourself back, have confidence in your conversational ability, be present and listen, and trust that the conversation will go in the direction it needs to go, like a dinner party where you don't prepare but engage genuinely with the person.

“Like in running, I'm gonna hold myself back. I know I could read all this other stuff, but I'm not gonna do that. Do I have enough confidence in my conversational ability to just show up and be present and listen? You go to a dinner party, you don't prepare for a dinner party, you go and you engage with the person. Can we have that type of experience and trust that it will go in the direction that it needs to go?”

The Elvis/Jack White podcast episode exemplified the gold standard of audio—a story about Elvis botching lyrics, with Jack White in the studio, a woman named Casey Bowls singing and breaking down in tears, creating an emotional moment that couldn't work on the page and must be heard to be understood.

“The great ones, like I did it one a couple years ago on Elvis, there's a song that Elvis sang. And he would always botch the lyrics of it. The one with Jack White. Yeah, yeah, yeah, with Jack White. That's one, you can write that, it would be interesting kind of. You had to hear it, you gotta hear Elvis, you gotta hear Jack. I'm in the studio with Jack White, there's this woman named Casey Bowls, who sings a song in the middle of that, where she breaks down in the middle of the thing, everyone's crying. It was just this nuts thing. But you have to hear it, it doesn't work on the page, that's the gold standard.”

The Paul Simon audiobook 'Miracle and Wonder' was created by having 10 five-hour conversations with Paul Simon (who had a guitar in his hands) at various locations around the world, then edited with Gladwell writing riffs to explore the significance of various parts of Simon's life and work.

“The Paul Simon book we did, is a good example of this, where it wouldn't work at all as a print book. It was so far in the audio direction where we just simply I called up Paul Simon and I said, 'I have an idea. Me and my friend Bruce, let us come to you and sit down and just have conversations and just see where it goes.' And he said yes to my surprise. So we went 10 times, we met with Paul Simon in his various places, wherever he was in the world. And we would encourage him to have a guitar in his hands and we would record it, and we were just like, see what happens. We had 10, 5-hour conversations. And we turned it into a six hour audio book called 'Miracle and Wonder.'”

At earlier levels of sports and education, we cannot impose adult models of hyper-competitiveness on kids; kids sports must look and be structured completely differently from elite sports.

“The fact that we have to get away I think at earlier levels of sports at all levels, we can't impose adult models of hyper competitiveness on kids. Kids sports must look and be structured completely differently from elite sports. We cannot get away with this. We're indulging the fantasy life of parents who wanna believe that their 12-year-old is mimicking LeBron when they play basketball or the greatest American runners when they run cross country. No, we're playing a different game when you're 12 and 14 and 16.”

The goal of a high school athletic director should be to create in teenagers a set of habits around physical exercise that will stay with them for the rest of their lives, not to win state titles; this is the correct goal but is not what most athletic directors are motivated to do.

“Imagine that, Rich, I make you the athletic head at one of these local high schools. And you stand up in front of the entire school on your first day in the job, what is the speech you give? Now, I'm gonna put words, I know the speech you're gonna give. You're gonna write the speech for me. Well, I know what you're gonna say. You're gonna say, 'I am here to create in you, teenagers, a set of habits around physical exercise that will stay with you for the rest of your life.' Right?... I'm gonna use my job as athletic director to teach you how to live a healthy life... You are not gonna say, 'I'm gonna try and win as many California State titles over the next five years as I possibly can.' You're not gonna give that. And the tragedy is that everybody else who gets that job says, 'I'm here to win as many California titles as I can over the next five years.' Everyone should give the speech you give, that is the speech that's not being given.”

Only 1% of the population in middle age is practicing healthy habits, because no one bothered to teach them at the moment when those habits need to be taught.

“1% of the population in middle age is practicing healthy habits. Why is that? 'Cause no one bothered to teach them at the moment when those habits need to be taught.”

High school cross country should require teams of minimum 20 people with combined time scoring (not elite-weighted points), so that the 20th runner matters as much as the first, creating equal motivation for all team members to participate and improving base participation.

“I had this idea that I was talking to someone about recently which is, think about something as simple as high school cross country. The way high school cross country is scored is you'll have a team, maybe it's five people, and you'll combine, you get X number of points for first place, so many points for second place, you combine the points. It's heavily weighted the team with the fastest runners, the team with the most elite runner tends to win right? Because you get extra. Why do we structure it that way? Why don't we say, first of all, in order to compete in a cross country meet, you must have a minimum of 20 people on your team. And then why don't we say scoring is simply the combined time of all 20 of your runners... So your 20th runner matters as much as your first runner.”

In order to make sports more interesting to mainstream audiences, compelling narratives around sports must be crafted; look at F1 after Netflix—it opened the sport to new audiences by telling compelling stories.

“Every sport that's taken off has had a moment when it's... Look at what happened with F1 after the Netflix- Oh, I'm a a product of that, I'm obsessed now. And I previously found that sport impenetrable So a group of people with imagination chose to tell a story around a sport that opened it up to all kinds of... And you could do the same thing with, you can look at sports that have taken off and you see some moment where there is a compelling story that people were choosing.”

Nick Willis, a New Zealand middle-distance runner who maintained elite performance for 15 years, had medals (silver and bronze) in two separate Olympics, and broke 4 minutes for the mile in 20 consecutive years, is a more impressive athlete than Matt Centrowitz despite not winning an Olympic gold.

“I said that Myer Nick Willis, 'Does not belong in the same conversation as Matt Centrowitz.' And it was Willis is up here, Centrowitz is a step below even though LetsRun said Matt Centrowitz won the gold medal in the 1500 meters. How can you say that Nick Willis, who has never won a gold medal in any games is his equal? And I would say well, the answer is that Matt Centrowitz had one great shining moment, that gold medal. And he was a relevant runner for three-four year window and had one very, very fast 1500 meters that he ran. Nick Willis was relevant for 15 years. He doesn't have a gold, but he had a silver in a bronze in two separate Olympics separated by a lot of years. He was a threat to win almost any race he entered. For over a decade, his top three times were all faster than Matt Centrowitz's times, he's broken four minutes for the mile in 20 consecutive years.”

Competing is useful in some contexts and not in others; Gladwell has spent significant time thinking about when competition is productive and when it is destructive, and there are many domains where the competitive model is counterproductive.

“I have been thinking really long and hard about competition and when it's useful and when it's not. I'm someone who is deeply competitive and who growing up there was not a game or a sport or a thing that I didn't try to win at, you know I'm that kind of person. And now I'm beginning to understand that there are lots of places where that attitude is productive. And not just in sports, but across all...”

Triathlon was clearly invented by non-swimmers because the swim is irrelevant in almost every triathlon—it's so short by comparison to the other legs, it really favors other sports and penalizes non-swimmers, and putting the swim last instead of first would make it more interesting.

“The swim is irrelevant in almost every triathlon. It's so short by comparison to the other legs. So it really favors the other sports and coddles the non-swimmer, which drives me crazy as somebody who is first and foremost a swimmer. It was clearly invented by non-swimmers.”

The things that podcasters are giving people to listen to are generally bad—you write a book and just read the book into a microphone in a closet, which is horrible, and most audiobook experiences are terrible.

“Then my question was, well, why are the things that we're giving them to listen to so bad? You write a book and you just read the book into a microphone in a closet. Horrible. What's that? It's horrible It's horrible. Most of those experiences are terrible.”

The stupidity with which we conduct competition among pre-adults drives one to distraction—we have races, competitions, academic or athletic involving 12 or 13-year-olds, and we have confidence in the results, which is nuts.

“This drives me nuts. The stupidity with which we conduct any kind of competition among pre-adults drives me to distraction. It's like, what are we doing? Why are we having races? Any kind of competition, why are we having any, academic or athletic involving 12 or 13-year-olds and having any confidence in the result? This is just nuts”

The decision to participate in the 1968 Olympics rather than boycott was strategically superior because going to the Olympics and making a statement reached a global audience watching the games, whereas boycotting would have meant surrendering the platform.

“Originally the idea was that black athletes in America would boycott the '68 games. And they said, 'Actually you know what, it's better that we go and use that platform to make a stand than to stay home and turn our back on the institution.' I think in both cases going and making a statement is superior to staying home.”

People's research or work is only an approximation of their knowledge—just a little window—so if you know that little piece, you understand you need to ask questions about all the hidden underpinnings.

“People's research or people's work is only an approximation of their knowledge, it's a little window. So if I know, oh okay, I can see this little piece of it, then I know oh, I need to ask questions about all of the hidden underpinnings.”

A radical proposal: create schools with arbitrary admissions criteria (like requiring sub-6-minute miles for men, sub-6:30 for women) to test whether selecting for people with similar athletic commitment levels creates better peer relationships and community than traditional selective admissions.

“I said to Adam, 'What if you created schools that had totally arbitrary admissions criteria?' So what if you had a school where you said, all right, in order to be considered for admission to our school, you've gotta be able to break six minutes in a mile for men and for women, 6:30, let's just say. Well, let's have the bar a little higher for women. Like just random shit like that and see what happens. Well, if you got someone like Adam to design the testing, you could select for the kind of people that would get along with each other and benefit from being in each other's company.”

We should not rank and grade children under age 14-15 in education; there is no particular need to do so, and you can keep tabs on who's behind while maintaining student motivation and avoiding false ability tracking.

“We don't have to rank and grade kids under the age of 14 or 15. There's no particular need to, what's at stake?... We could teach the same things and keep tabs on who's behind.”

LeBron James, despite being 6'9" and 250 lbs, could likely break a sub-5-minute mile because modern basketball training has transformed him into an endurance athlete who exerts full effort for extended periods, similar to milers.

“At the time I was probably good for around a five minute mile. I honestly believe that LeBron can go sub five. And I think it's because there's two things going on here, well, one thing. That basketball has been turned into an aerobic sport over the last generation... I watched a video of LeBron doing this exercise, where he was dribbling the length of the court dunking. And then without stopping, dribbling back to the other end, dunking. And he did this, it must have, I dunno how long it was, 10 minutes. And I was like, 'Oh my God, this guy is an endurance athlete.' And I thought LeBron can easily break five.”

Over-preparation for interviews paradoxically boxes the conversation into a corner because you've already decided on the trajectory, eliminating the possibility of surprising turns; preparation should generate questions about what you *don't* know, not dictate the conversation.

“The way I would phrase it is that, the best kind of preparation is it simply allows you to understand all the things that you don't know. So for example, if I'm talking to some scientist who's written a research paper, I would totally read the research paper first, but that's only to generate a whole series of questions.”

The notion that sport should be separate from the rest of society is a Brundage legacy that persists in institutional rules and cultural assumptions, yet there's no logical reason why athletes should be barred from reflecting on their social context.

“Really doing this series really made me think hard about our notions about amateurism and how did sport in those years, and it still lingers today, how do we come to think of sport as something that ought to be separate from the rest of society? Why is it so shocking to us that Colin Kaepernick would want to reflect at a football game what was going on outside the stadium? Why does that upset us?”

Journalists are uniquely positioned to develop humility because they repeatedly discover, in interviews, that the gap between their knowledge and an expert's knowledge is 10 times larger than they assumed, providing constant reinforcement of epistemic limitations.

“The great privilege of being a journalist is that you learn, in the best possible way, how large gap is between lay understanding of some field and expert understanding... Journalism is reversed Dunning Kruger.”

Schools are treated as brands with rankings (US News, etc.) that have power and resonance, causing students to choose schools based on ranking status rather than fit or happiness, creating a damaging system of aspirational brand consumption.

“And schools being brands, and these brands have a lot of power and resonance in a way that is really damaging. That objectively this is a place where she would be happy. And yet she doesn't wanna go there because the world tells her that you have to go to a place that's ranked one through 25.”

Audio publishing still has vast untapped creative potential; most audiobooks are poorly produced (just someone reading into a microphone), but there is enormous room for innovation in audio-first storytelling.

“When I got to New York 20 some odd years ago, I'd ride the subway and everyone would be reading magazines and books. And then five years ago, get in a subway and everyone was listening to something with their ears. And I realized, oh, I've just lost an audience... Then my question was, well, why are the things that we're giving them to listen to so bad?”

We don't grow the base of running sports aggressively enough; the sports institutions focus on serving elite athlete needs rather than broadening the base, and these goals are sometimes in conflict.

“Part two I would say is, and this is a bigger problem with running in particular, is we're not growing the base aggressively enough.”

John Carlos is a figure from the West Indian diaspora in New York City with a Jamaican mother, and he is a firebrand—more charismatic and outspoken than Tommy Smith—and the construction of iconic moments like the 1968 Olympics protest invariably requires a John Carlos-like figure who has the imagination to see the possibilities of a moment.

“John Carlos is interesting. John Carlos, it's like I have a special affection for Carlos because like me, he has a Jamaican mom. And he's part of the West Indian diaspora to New York City. And he's so Jamaican in some, I realize I'm engaging in cultural stereotypes here, but he's just a firebrand, he's the kind of outspoken- More charismatic. Charismatic performer one. And it doesn't really happen. I talk a little bit in the series about how you need to have a John Carlos if you're ever gonna do... The construction of these iconic moments, invariably includes a John Carlos like figure, someone who has the, we were talking earlier about that liberal of imagination, someone who has the imagination to see the possibilities of a moment like that.”

Basketball has been transformed from an anaerobic sport (1970s) to an aerobic sport (modern era) due to changes in defensive intensity and effort requirements; players in the 1970s could smoke cigarettes in the locker room whereas modern players exert full effort for the entire game.

“That basketball has been turned into an aerobic sport over the last generation. In the '70s, they were smoking cigarettes in the locker room. And when you watch a '70s basketball game, no one's playing any defense. It's defense, of course, where you exert all your effort. What they're doing is they're loafing until the ball's in their hands and then they explode to the hoop, right?... That's an anaerobic sport. So you can smoke cigarettes in the locker room and you can be fine. Now, the players are exerting full effort the entire game, the entire time they're on the floor. They're two different sports.”

Only through transgressive acts can we transcend the idea that athletes should 'shut up and dribble'—there is no other way past that cultural norm.

“How do we transcend that? Only through these types of transgressive acts, I think. I don't see any other way past that.”

Simone Biles is the greatest gymnast ever to live and is participating in one of the most dangerous high-wire acts in sports, doing things that no one in the history of the world has ever done in gymnastics, so when she made a call based on an experience that shook her, the appropriate response would be 'Tell us more, what can we learn?' rather than a tidal wave of criticism from people who haven't strapped on running shoes in 15 years.

“She's the GOAT, and she's doing something which is not a... She's engaged in a sport which is nuts. It's like the most dangerous high wire act and she's doing stuff that no one in the history of the world has ever done in gymnastics. She makes a call, she has an experience that shakes her and shakes her, this is the toughest athlete that ever walked into a gymnastics arena. And she says, 'It's in my own best interest not to go on.' I would have thought that we would all have just sat there and said, 'Oh my God, tell us more, what can we learn?' And then instead, what she gets is this tidal wave of criticism from people who probably haven't even strapped down a pair of running shoes in the last 15 years.”

Twenty years of newspaper reporting gave Gladwell a masterclass in efficiency: how to quickly master a subject, identify a story, and represent it, skills that still inform all his work today.

“I was 20 years a newspaper reporter, and what you learn in being a newspaper reporter is efficiency, it's all about efficiency. So it's about how quickly can I master a subject? How quickly can I spot a story? How quickly can I represent the story? That was a 20 year long masterclass, and I'm still living off those lessons I learned.”

David Epstein said that Malcolm Gladwell is 'the world's ultimate sandbagger'—someone who underpromises and overdelivers—which is a strategy with precious little downside in any area of life and is an underestimated superpower.

“Our mutual friend David Epstein. Who has gone on the record to say that you are the world's ultimate sandbagger. Now, that's, first of all, I will only say that there is precious little upside to overstating your expectations in any, so better to underpromise and overdeliver. In all areas of life, not just in writing. To have people underestimate you is a sort of underestimated superpower.”

The backlash against Simone Biles withdrawing from the vault was 'one of the lowest moments in American public discourse in a very long time' because critics lacked standing to judge her decision and misunderstood the distinction between perseverance and wisdom.

“I would have thought that we would all have just sat there and said, 'Oh my God, tell us more, what can we learn?' And then instead, what she gets is this tidal wave of criticism from people who probably haven't even strapped down a pair of running shoes in the last 15 years. I was like, this was one of the lowest moments in American public discourse in a very long time.”

The psychological sophistication required to distinguish between wise and unwise perseverance is lacking in people who are not elite athletes or performers; society at large conflates all perseverance as virtuous.

“I think that there's a class of people who didn't appreciate that distinction.”

The Olympics should be restructured to take place in a fixed location (Oslo or Athens) rotating every four years, rather than bidding processes that incentivize massive spending and infrastructure that is rarely used afterward.

“I think it should be in Oslo, they have a ton of money the Norwegians. I don't know if they have enough hotel rooms. But the weather's nice and cool in the summer. Stick it in Oslo and just say, we're all going to Oslo every four years.”

Making systemic changes to sports is harder to achieve than making similar changes to education, which is the bigger lift.

“What's the bigger lift seeing that kind of change happen in sport or in education? I feel like education is- Way harder.”

The question of whether America should have boycotted the 1936 Berlin Olympics is philosophically complex; attending allowed Jesse Owens to dominate and disprove Hitler's aryan supremacy narrative, which may have been more effective than boycotting.

“I actually think it was appropriate for America to attend the '36 games even though Adolf Hitler was intending those games to be a showcase for his Nazi state. And the reason I think it was appropriate was that we went there and Jesse Owens and a bunch of others kicked everyone's ass and stole the show. And Hitler had this vision of aryan supremacy and a black guy from Ohio shows up and dominates the games. So it's like, be careful what you wish for if you're Adolf Hitler.”

Chris Chavez is an example of the kind of creative, imaginative person the sports world needs more of—someone who loves track and field and uses creativity to promote and make the sport interesting rather than simply administering existing events.

“part one is we need more people like Chris Chavez. So those listening, Chris is a just a young man who has a lot of imagination and creativity and who's chosen to put that to work to promote a sport he loves, track and field.”