Brett August 9, This is one of the many questions my guest has explored during his writing career. Today on the podcast, Malcolm and I explore the question of why smart people do dumb things by looking at, among other things, the basketball career of Wilt Chamberlain. We discuss how Wilt discovered a way to increase his free-throw shooting percentage dramatically, but why he consciously decided not to continue using that technique.

This is a great discussion with a fascinating mind.

He does a masterful job of pulling out amazing insights from topics as mundane as ketchup varieties. Listen to the episode on a separate page. Subscribe to the podcast in the media player of your choice.

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Welcome to another edition of The Art of Manliness podcast. Why do we sometimes not do the thing we know that works or works better? His name is Malcolm Gladwell. Many of you have probably read some of his books like Outliers or Tipping Point or David and Goliath.

Today on the show, Malcolm and I discuss how Wilt Chamberlain found a better way to shoot free throws that increases free throw percentage rate considerably, but he purposely decided to stop doing it, and what we can learn from him on avoiding that mistake. We also discuss the art of finding insightful stories in the mundane, asking good questions, and why you might want to decline that acceptance to a prestigious university.

Lots of stuff to chew on in this podcast. It seems like it requires a lot of curiosity. How did you develop that curiosity? I never know how to answer that question. I am just puzzled by people who go deep. It seems like it requires asking good questions.

One thing I remember in What the Dog Saw, you talked about there are certain people you want to ask questions, like the higher ups. Why are people who are in the middle or who are actually doing the work the best people to ask questions?

Just to give you an example, there was a quote that came out from the Rand Corporation some months ago that was talking about how that staff at the SEC had increased dramatically in size over the last couple of years. A nice sentence was actually you want the person in the middle because they actually see the … you want to get into the nitty-gritty of what happens when you make crucial time with the decisions with 50 people and before you used to do it with 6. I want to know what that feels like.

I was doing mundane things like is it harder to schedule a meeting [inaudible Is it harder or less hard to reach consensus? Anyway yeah, I only care about the subject. The person who could answer that question, I almost want to talk to … I just want to go as low as I can. They have to report to the sensitivities and the materials.

No, but it was very much a part of my upbringing. I remember as a child being very kind of taken by how clear her writing was. She was a model for me. I still feel it in my blood somehow to want to …. I always found instructions lacking. No, like even the very simple thing, instructions on games, the first thing you should tell, you should say is what the point of the game is.

What is winning in this game? The first line should be in monopoly, the winner is the person who … and then explain the rules. Somehow they would feel learn trade stocks podcast the point of the game is supposed to emerge from an understanding of the rules, which strikes me as crazy, completely backwards. You explore this idea that I thought was completely fascinating in your podcast about the granny shot in basketball.

Yeah, that was the first episode. The Jewish Basketball League of Philadelphia, a guy named Cy Castleman, famous free throw shooter who shot under hand. It was brought into coach this way of shooting and all of a sudden Wilt Chamberlain becomes a fantastic free throw shooter. The first thing he does after becoming a fantastic free throw shooter is go back to shooting the old way so he could be a terrible one again, trader forex suisse struck me as being so bizarre that I thought … but also more than just bizarre, so typical of human being.

People who have a problem with alcohol relapse. I thought it will be very interesting to use the free throw story as a way of talking about that, their human tendency to behave stupidly even when we know better.

What made the show work I think is I went and interviewed Rick Barry who was one of the few basketball players every consistently used the underhanded free throw. He turns out to be this incredibly compelling character, and so the episode is just all about Wilt Chamberlain and Rick Barry and then trying to make sense of why is it that some people can do some kind of … because first, be willing to try some new idea and the rest of us are hostiles. Wilt Chamberlain was a high threshold person.

He was not going to continue shooting the underhanded free throw if he was going to be the only one or one of the only people. Whereas Rick Barry is someone who was quite happy being the only person in the NBA to shoot that way. That way of understanding our behavior is really interesting because it frames our choices in social terms.

Fractals forex ea says the reason you do certain things may have nothing to do with the quality of the idea or your own personal preference. That is a profoundly human reaction. They asked students what percentage of students they work from home utility warehouse engaged in binge drinking.

They felt they were … to not binge drink would be to stand out. Everyone would remark on it. They would think you are weird and strange. The kind of social pressure now around wearing your seatbelt is overwhelming. That was not true in You exposed this idea of how much did twilight breaking dawn part 2 make in theaters knowing what they should do.

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That seems to be related. The game becomes impossible to play so you have to be willing to disrupt the game in a really profound way to play that way. You talked about his biography, his quotes from his parents who just like eviscerated him a little bit and he was okay with that.

He does what he think is right and that is a really sure way to make enemies. He does not understand why in the NBA, when someone misses a free throw, all the members of his team congratulate him.

You should be shaming this guy for admitting the free throw. Rick Barry would be the guy learn trade stocks podcast at …. I saw the tweet storm that you did a while back ago. In David and Goliath, you talk about how the way many college students go about deciding which college to attend actually can stunt their academic growth.

Can you flesh that idea out a bit? I used the example of science and math classes. The best college for you is not the best college you can get into. That consideration, that simple rule I think is very often ignored and students are so obsessed with the kind of getting into the most prestigious school they can that they forget that the most prestigious school may not be the best school for you. Once you account for that, you realize the additional advantage that accrues from the reputation of your undergraduate school is small.

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We exaggerate it, which is not the case. It makes a huge amount of difference where you go. Why would you … what sense does it make to give money to people who are already rich? The institutions are already rich. The second point, so the broader point is that when we give money away we usually give a kind of return on our investment calculation where we say how much good can be purchased with my money.

There seems like a little bit of that Matthew effect going on, like success, we just want to go with the winner so we give them more. Yeah, which makes no sense. I actually said in an interview recently I thought that anyone who gives money to Princeton which is on a per capita basis, the wealthiest educational institution in the history of mankind, anyone who gives money to Princeton is committing a crime.

Stocks, like the idea is that you want to … one of the things you do is you find the stocks are undervalued and you invest in that. In other areas, so we think rationally about stocks usually but when it comes to educational funds plp are completely unwilling to … or not always, but many people, many wealthy people who are normally very thoughtful and intelligent are unwilling to use their same … think as rationally when it comes to their educational giving.

Malcolm, one thing just shifting gears here a bit. In fact, I just learned this, 2 years ago you are 50 years old, you ran a 4-minute second mile. It blows my mind because it takes me like 13 minutes to run a mile. Although I ran a little bit but I decided to run seriously again in my 50s. Malcolm, this has been a great conversation.

Where can people learn more about your work and your podcast Revisionist History? We have a website, revisionisthistory. I think between the two of those, you can pretty much get the full story.

Malcolm Gladwell, thank you so much for your time. My guest here is Malcolm Gladwell. Let me share his new podcast Revisionist History.

You can go to revisionisthistory. Also check out the show notes for this podcast at aom. That wraps up another edition of the Art of Manliness podcast. For more manly tips and advice, make sure to check out the Art of Manliness website at artofmanliness. It helps us out a lot. As always, thank you for your continuous support and until next time this Brett McKay telling you to stay manly. Craft of Strength Cars Just For Fun Outdoors Survival Tactical Skills Browse Manly Skills. Brett August 9, Podcast Podcast Why Smart People Do Dumb Things.

Why do smart people do dumb things?

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