The Explorer's Gene with Alex Hutchinson

Foreign.

Welcome to the Man Talk Show. How you doing today?

I'm good. Thanks so much for having me, Connor.

Good man. Likewise. Well, I'm, I'm excited to explore, no pun intended. I'm excited to jump into this, this topic. Let's start a little broad with what role has expansion really played within us as human beings? Why is it so important? And maybe why do you feel like it's dying out?

Yeah, the tempt question, of course, when I was writing a book on exploring was to have the subtitle be How Exploring Makes Us Human or something like that, because it really is fundamental. But of course, every book that is How X Makes Us Human is a little bit too on the nose.

To some extent. Every living thing has an impulse to explore.

As a sort of precondition of being alive, that you have to be looking for new sources of sustenance and new ways to live. But there's something specific about humans. And if you look at the way humans settled the globe in the last 50,000 years, there's a, there's a sort of inflection point where about 50,000 years ago humans sudden, instead of like the Neanderthals just kind of hanging around Europe for hundreds of thousands of years, suddenly modern humans went everywhere. They went, you know, to the, to the Arctic, to the southern tip of South America, to the islands of Polynesia. And that coincides with.

A time when a new gene variant that affects our dopamine receptors appeared. That, and the dopamine receptors are involved in this sort of pursuit of novelty and the feeling of wanting to try something new, experience something different. And so that is. You. Look, I don't want to. It's a very complex topic and behavior is very complex. But to me that's maybe one way of saying that there's something specific about humans. There's something in us that was formed over, you know, the last 50,000 years of we are people who are looking for what's over the next horizon, both literally and metaphorically. And that's, that's still, you know, imprinted in us.

Talk, talk me a little bit more about the role that exploration has played. Like, I, I think it's fascinating. Like in the beginning of the book you talk about the great expansion and like, you know, moving out into the.

I think there are these correlations between how we have as a species have operated over time and how we as individuals can thrive. And when we kind of go, I think at least when we go against some of these natural species oriented ways of being and we start to collapse on those we, we suffer, you know, we struggle in some way. And so I'd love to hear a little bit more about the great expansion because I do think that that would be interesting for people to know about.

Yeah, I mean, so this, this great expansion again over the last sort of 50,000 years.

We really unlike any other species, got to every part of the globe. And so that's a sort of, that's the big picture. Like how are human populations moving? What happens on an individual level? Right. So it doesn't mean that everybody always has to be exploring. But you know, you can think in, in the context of, for instance, you can, you can look at this dopamine receptor gene that I, that I was talking about that relates to exploring in modern hunter, hunter gatherer populations and people who have the version of the gene that really drives them to explore more. If they're in a hunter gatherer population, they thrive more, they tend to be, you know, have more muscle mass, which means they're successfully getting more food. Whereas if in populations that have settled down into agricultures from the same, you know, tribal groups, those with the explorers gene are in some cases less well nourished. The, the, the same impulse that made, would, made, would, would make someone a really good hunter gatherer sometimes then fits less well into the modern context into, you know, seeing the crops are, you know, seeded and weeded and harvested correctly. So I think we often see this kind of tension in our, you know, especially in, you know, boys in school who are maybe try, you know, have the impulse that would have made them really good hunter gatherers, but maybe not so good at sitting at their desks all day long. So, so there's a tension that's, that's been around for all of modernity like for you know, hundreds of years. And then there's a new sort of tension.

In this, the sort of age of, of you know, iPhones and social media where I think they're giving us tapping into this feeling that we need to be exploring. And, and, and that's part of the reason that we're so into scrolling down, you know, to see what the next TikTok video is or whatever is that it's, it's tapping into this circuitry that, that tells us that something new, if something is new and novel, that it's, it's good but we're not getting, it's not teaching us anything about the world. So we're, there's a tension where there's less opportunity to explore, but there's also.

Forms of exploration. Yeah. Sorry, am I gone?

No, yeah, just.

You just cut out there a little bit, but go ahead.

Yeah. I just think that in the. In the modern world, in the sort of social media, personal tech world.

There'S this opportunity to scratch that exploring itch that doesn't yield any of the benefits of exploration. You know what the next TikTok video is. But you haven't learned anything new about the world or the people around you. So there's less opportunity to explore in the modern world, but also forms of exploration that are maybe kind of circular and not productive.

Yeah, I mean, it's interesting because I definitely noticed that one. I have that explorer part in me. Like, I love going out in the world. I love adventuring, I love camping, hiking, you know, kind of like getting lost in the wilderness. I mean, we moved on to this piece of land. We've got like six acres, and behind us is just, I don't even know, hundreds or thousands of acres of forest. And when we first moved in, one of the first things that I did was I basically just wandered off into the forest behind the house. And my. I was like, I'm going to go for a walk. I was like, okay. And she was outside, and instead of going down the driveway, I just, you know, took a left at the house and then walked into the backyard and into the. She's like, where are you going? I was like, I gotta go explore this. I gotta see what's behind our home. You know, this is interesting. This is unknown. And she. She just, you know, for her, that was like, what are you doing? But I've kind of always done that, you know, like, as a kid, I remember growing up, my. Was my favorite thing to go into our backyard and there was trees and bushes off to the side and, you know, sort of like a traditional backyard. And I would just venture off into the bushes and the trees, you know. And in formative times in my life, through. Throughout my development, as. As a person, I've definitely ventured off. You know, I remember multiple times where I just. When I was living in Vancouver in British Columbia, I would just, you know, drive up a couple hours and find a spot to go and hike and camp overnight and, you know, find places to go and explore and adv. And Even for my 40th, you know, I went to the Isle of Skye and. And went hiking and kind of went back to my heritage and my roots. But I definitely can see that there's that part in me. And it's so funny that you're mentioning social media Because I feel like I, I, I can tell when I need more adventure. When my YouTube channel starts showing me just like dudes hiking in different places around the world. I find myself watching. I'm like 10, 15 minutes into some, you know, hiking in Patagonia or Mongolia or something like that. And I'm like, oh, that looks amazing. So, but talk to us a little bit about the correlation between you're mentioning this like, dopamine reward for some people and not others, or that there's a gene that sort of activates that. Talk a little bit more about that.

Yeah, that's a really actually important thing to, to kind of clarify a bit. So there's a gene variant that makes this dopamine receptor, DRD4, a little more sensitive to novelty. Basically, you get a bigger bang for your buck. And so this is the Explorers gene that, that showed up about 50,000 years ago. And you know, interestingly enough.

It varies around the world. In the southern tip of South America, people have more of that gene because their ancestors migrated farther, you know, whereas in Sardinia or somewhere where people have been fairly stable for a long time, that they have less of it. But the key thing, the really important thing is it's not that some people have an explorer's gene and some people don't. We all have the DRD4 gene. The, what the variant does is just kind of turn up the volume a little bit. So some people have a louder version of the Explorers gene than others. So it's really not a case of like, that guy was born to explore and that guy was not. It's like humans were born to explore. And some of us are called in a way that is useful for society. In the same way you want some people who are, you know, strong and some people who are fast and some people, you know, like some people who are introverted and some people who are extroverted. You want some people who are really always pushing the limits, others who are kind of keeping the home fires burning, but we all are, have some element of this call for novelty that can manifest in different ways. It's like, so you and I, I think it sounds like we're wired pretty similarly. There's just something about, like heading into the forest that, that calls to me. And I, you know, my backyard doesn't have the forest, but a block, a block away from me is, is a river valley with tons of forest. And I, I grew up here. I, I spent tons of time playing in that sort of unstructured place as a kid. And now, you know, I, I like, I love going back with my kids and reenacting those games. My, you know, my kids are 9 and 11. So, um, I'm called for that. But there's other ways of exploring, there's other ways of pushing, you know, and it can be not, not to make it too broad a topic, but you can, you can be exploring in the music you listen to, in the food you choose to cook, in the books you read and the ideas you think. So there's. There's ways of getting novelty that aren't just about the physical side of it or in your career path or in, you know, or in the, you know, the way you choose to navigate the. The world or, you know, your romantic life, which is maybe another question. Um, but so I think all of us, when I talk to people about exploring, there's definitely. I. A lot of people will say, like, oh, yeah, I. I'm not like that. I know, you know, my friend is, my brother is. This person is whatever. But I don't explore. And I think in most cases, if you were to. If you probe them, they're like, yeah, but I really, I'm always, you know, pushing the boundaries on the music I listen to or whatever. Like people, people find ways of scratching that itch in some way.

It does seem that exploring in the physical world and getting out into the territory of the unknown, like the real territory of the unknown, of I don't know what that place is going to look like, I don't know how things are going to go, I don't speak that language, has become a lot more confronting for people, it seems as we get more insular, you know, we get more online and digital and social circles collapse, it does seem like more people. And maybe, I don't know, it's interesting because I kind of see people going to like, extremes, you know, that like, some people are very afraid to adventure out and explore, and then there's other people. It's like they can't stop doing that because they've made a business off of it and now they're just traveling the world and, you know, doing the whole travel influencer vibe or something like that. So, yeah, I mean, it's. It's interesting because I do see people kind of pulling back on that. Do you think that. Do you think that social media and those types of pieces have had a net negative impact on our willingness to kind of get out into the unknown and start to explore?

I. I think there's. There's conflicting. So, I mean, yeah, the answer is yes. And, and, and the reason is I think we have conflicting urges. So when I say that people are called to explore, that we're driven to explore, it's not so much that we necessarily like the feeling of being lost and alone and confused and scared. It's that we like heading in that direction and then having the feeling resolved, like not knowing what's around the next corner and then finding out what's around the next corner. So in a sense, our drive to explore is not a drive like in, in the, in the, in the literature about, like, decision theory. People talk about an uncertainty bonus that, that when you're weighing up options, if there's something you don't know about, there's a, you're kind of unconsciously putting a bonus on the, the choice that you know less about. But there's other people in that field who would say, actually it's not an uncertainty bonus, it's an information bonus. What we're really drawn to is the, the opportunity to learn something. So, so this is a circuitous way of answering your question, which is that the era of social media or of, you know, the Internet in general has given us a way of answering questions instantly. You know, you're like, you're, you're sitting at the dinner table. You wonder, I wonder what that would be like. Well, let's Google. We'll find out what that is. Like, you know, I wonder what the answer to that question is. And so in the context of travel, you know, I think back to in the 19, in the 90s, when I finished university and went backpacking around Europe, and I had the, I had the let's Go guide, I think, you know, all of Europe in one book. And so I would get to a new city and I'd be like, okay, which is the place I'm the hostel I'm going to stay in, and what is the restaurant I'm going to go to. And I, you know, me and, you know, 2,000 other dirtbags were reading the same book and going to the same place. And so, sure, there was adventure for me, but also I had a limited, you know, for each city, I had like two paragraphs. So then if I was there for two days, I was like, well, I guess I'm just going to have to find. And I had maybe a sketch map of the downtown, but not really detailed information. So there was still unknown. Now if I, you know, when I go traveling, say if I go to a city, I've got, first of all, like, instant map all, all over the time. I'VE got Yelp, I've got, you know, a billion recommendations about where to go. And that applies even if I'm going. Like, I've gone on some pretty, like, obscure hikes. That's kind of my thing. Or, or canoe trips. Like, I really want to go places like off the beaten track where people don't go. But there is. It's still almost impossible to find a place where there is not. 52 travel blogs that have been there and have posted their photos of the experience. And so what I've realized is, is there's kind of a tension between this desire for the unknown and this desire to satisfy your. What you're to. To. To resolve the unknown. And so we're now used to traveling in a way where I can go on a hike in like the middle of the wilderness in Newfoundland and I'll be know. I think there's a waterfall around the corner up here because I saw it on someone's travel blog. And then so I'm robbed of the opportunity of having that discovery for myself because I've done so much research. So in a way I'm like, one of my resolutions is like, I'm not going to be quite so obsessive about researching. But it's hard to give that up because, you know, there's something reassuring when you're going traveling to be like, okay, I have that translation app on my phone and I, I've done enough research to know if I need crampons or, you know, all we're trying to answer these questions for ourselves. So to get back to your point, I think that big trend has made people less comfortable with the idea of, no, let's really go where we don't know what's going to happen. Let's. Let's not like pre.

Pre answer all our questions so that all we're doing is going through the form of this journey without any of the actual discovery.

Yeah, it's almost as though.

There'S a certain level of planning and preparation.

That most people deploy as a means of hedging against the unknown. It's like, let me be as prepared as humanly possible and know every step of the way so that, you know, there's no, there's not a lot of like true wandering.

And I think that's interesting. Like, when I went to Scotland, I didn't actually have a plan. I just, I knew that there were some places I wanted to go see, but there was no schedule, there was no plan. I was just like, there's some landmarks I want to go see there's no order to it. I'm just going to go and see what the land, you know, has to offer and I would, I would just like literally drive around and find things and I tried, I tried my best to not get caught in like the over indexing of the Google maps and because the first time I went to Scotland I took my wife and we drove around and I, I applauded every single step of the way. You know, I like mapped the entire thing out and Yeah, I, I wonder what you're taking. I know you talk about the unknown, maybe speak a little bit to, to our relationship as humans to the unknown and how that kind of us all up.

Yeah, it's, it's interesting the like you mentioned sky earlier. The Isle of. When I was in my early 20s, I was living in Britain and.

One Friday afternoon I was chatting with one of my friends and talking about how we'd always wanted to go to Scotland. And we're like, well, why don't we just go, why don't we go, why don't we go to the Isle of Sky and do some hiking? When do you want to go? I don't know. Should we go this weekend? Okay, so this is like Friday afternoon at 5:00. We're like, okay. We bought a plane ticket for the next Saturday morning to fly up to Scotland. We took it. We figured out to get a train over to wherever it is on the, on the west coast and figured out, eventually figured out how to get the ferry over to Sky. So we had zero plan. We didn't have a guidebook. We knew there was a. We climbed a mountain. I guess I, I borrowed a tent from a friend at the last minute and it turned out the mesh on the tent was so coarse that midges could just fly right through.

Oh no.

So we got. Absolutely. I've never been so like I, I come from, I'm from Canada. Like I've dealt with a lot of black flies, a lot of mosquitoes. Those things were just merciless. They just massacred us. I remember the, at the campground we were camping at, there was a shot like a public shower and I was just standing in the shower because it was the only place that the midges weren't fighting me anyway, all. Which is to say that was one kind of experience and the kind of experience that it sounds like you, you were having when you went to Scotland. The, the trend in my life has been to get both, both at, you know, because more information is available and maybe just because I, I don't know. I'm, you know, I'm getting older, getting quote unquote smarter about doing more preparation has been to prepare more and more. And one of the realizations that I've come to in the last few years, especially, you know, working on a book about exploring is like, there's something lost. When I actually, when I could, I could write my trip blog or my trip diary before I even left. I know exactly what's going to happen at every step. And so, and the definition of a good trip is everything happened exactly the way I expect it to. It's like, well, why did I even go like, you know, so I'm trying to get back to this.

Push the pendulum back a little bit to, to recognize that the uncertainty is actually like. If you ask me to tell stories about things that happened on my trips, it's not so much that it's always like bad stuff, although the bad stuff does make good stories. I think that what, what the real thing is, it's, it's things you didn't expect for better or worse or just, or whatever. It's like when, yeah, I had no idea that this, you know, in this restaurant, the waiter was going to invite us to just stick around and sing songs with his guitar for three hours in Greece or whatever. It's like the things you, the things you didn't plan and that are unique to you rather than just checking off the book that's in the. Checking off the, the, the suggestion from the guidebook that everyone, when you're in this town, you should see this and do this and eat this and think this. I'm trying to get back to that because that, I really do think that uncertainty is.

It's. I mean, maybe on an evolutionary sense, it's like, it's fulfilling. It's telling us we're learning about the world and this is why we're wired to, to enjoy this. But just on a pure experiential level, it's like, this is what's fun and meaningful and memorable. This is. And so it's. I, I do think, yeah, I've. I had gotten to a point in my life where I'd pushed beyond the point of useful information to just like, let's hyper plan every moment of this experience.

I, I do think that there's something wired within us. I mean, I talk a lot about how psychologically when we, when we try and hedge against the unknown or avoid the unknown entirely, that we end up, we end up suffering to some degree. Right. We don't take the risks that we want to take. We don't press ourselves into this space of the unknown where we test ourselves, where we face rejection, we face failure. You know, that that does something to us psychologically. It develops something within us psychologically. And I think that with technology, it's been this very interesting paradox where on one hand you're constantly seeing the unknown, right? Like, I mean, just scroll through social media and there's just like a whole bunch of unknown videos, like, what's going to come next? What's going to happen next? And there's this, like, little bit of dopamine hit that you get this little bit of excitement, but it doesn't come with any real risk, it doesn't come with any real failure. And so it doesn't actually develop us in the way that we crave. And I think long for when we put ourselves into these situations intentionally of like, I don't know what's going to happen. I don't know how this is going to unfold, talking to this person, adventuring in this space, et cetera. So do you think that there's merit in people finding more intentional ways of confronting or venturing into the territory of the unknown?

Absolutely. And I think the distinction I would make is between kind of passive and active exploring. So are you required to make any decisions? Because are you really going to learn anything? So you scroll through TikTok and maybe you learn some new memes or whatever, but it's. And you don't. There is this feeling of there's. I don't know. You know, on some level, I don't know what the next video is going to be or I don't know how it's going to. It's exciting to find out. So you're getting the dopamine hit, but it doesn't require you to do anything. It doesn't require any action on your part. So you don't get a chance to respond to uncertainty in a given way and learn that this was a good way to respond or this was a bad way to respond. It's like being the passenger in a car instead of being the driver in a car. That's the same. You can drive through a city and you're looking through the same windshield, seeing the same things, but you ask the driver in the car to retrace their steps, they're going to do a much better job than the passenger in the car who's going to be like, I don't know. I think we passed the buildings. I can't remember there's just a fundamental different experience. And so I think I would connect this to the debate about like risk and kids and bringing. Bringing up kids. And there's a sort of literature in the psychology or there's a psychology literature suggesting that.

One of the losses when you de. Risk everything for kids is that they don't. They have, they lose the opportunity to confront risks that. With. With relatively small stakes. That, so they're, you know, they're. Is it okay to jump off this fence or whatever and, and you know, maybe they're going to break an ankle or something like that. Like there, it's not that there's not risks but that this is what the. They talk about scaffolding risks that you, you learn to handle larger and larger uncertainties. So that when you're facing, you know, when you lose your job when you're 28 or something like that, it's not the first time you've encountered a challenging situation and, and you have a set of behaviors and, and tactics and, and thought patterns to help you deal with uncertainty and challenge as opposed to having. Being cocooned. So anyway, yeah, I really, I really think that.

Both. Yeah. That deliberately going out and experiencing actual uncertainty in the world as opposed to, you know, cosplaying it on. On your phone.

Is a totally different thing.

Yeah, I think, I mean it's, it's Jonathan Haidt's work on this I think has been phenomenal with the development of kids and the anxious generation, some of the pieces that he's put out. But it's interesting because I've even seen that, you know, with my four year old I'm pretty risk. Encouraging, unknown, encouraging uncertainty encouraging. And we had my, my wife's parents here. Her, her father and her mother. And our property, you know, it's like, it's a big piece of land but there's a lot of big rocks and we've situated them. Right. So when you come up the driveway on the one side there's like this natural rock formation that's got like probably a seven or eight foot drop. It's just a drop. And on the other side of the driveway we created just like using rocks that got blasted out from the foundation. This kind of like little, you know, makeshift rock wall that we had an excavator and just like move some rocks over there. And so my son loves to play on those. You know, he loves to play the big blue stone rocks. And then we have one right beside the house as well. On the back of the house there's this Big rock wall. And so you can stand out on the patio on the side of the house. And there's this rock wall not too far off that my son likes to go on. Right. And watching my wife's parents almost have an aneurysm, you know, like, he's standing. He's gonna break his leg. He's gonna fall. He's got. He's like, no, he's okay. He's all right. Like, usually tell them, and he can't play on there. I was like, no, he's okay. He knows that it's dangerous, and he's test. He's testing his limits, you know, and it's not so dangerous that, you know, I mean, for sure, if he felt he could hurt himself, without question. But it's one of those things where I think we've gone through these generations of parenting in such a way where. Where we have taught our. We have not taught our kids how to take proper, healthy risks. And so the unknown and the uncertain is just terrifying. And I see this show up in work environments, political conversations. I mean, relationships so much. Oh, my gosh. In relationships that, you know, people can have opposing ways of being within the uncertainty. I mean, my wife and I, as you can imagine, have had, like, that's been part of our exploration, is that I'm very. Let's take the risk, let's go out, let's adventure, let's explore, you know, part of. When we got together, one of the things that I said to her is at some point, I want us as a family to go and travel for six to 12 months and to take our kids into the world. And for her, the idea of that was just like, crippling and freezing.

Right.

It's like, how and why? And logistically, it's overwhelming. And so I do think that this is a real thing that, you know, we as a culture and society have. Have kind of stripped out of how we are raising people and encouraging a lot of young folks. And then I do think it's also a challenge that a lot of couples face in their relationship is you have two people that have completely different perspectives on exploration, risk, uncertainty, you know, those types of pieces. So do you talk about any of that in the book? Like, how to mitigate that, how to work with that?

Yeah, I mean, it's definitely a big topic. And I will say, like.

You know, I have that dynamic with. With my wife and. But it's actually the opposite way around. My wife is better at encouraging risk and taking the unknown, whereas I'm a Bit more of a control freak. But it's. It's because it's one thing to intellectually understand my kids need to handle risks, but it's like, it's not like the. Some of the risks are real, right? Like, they. They go bike to school. It's like, there's some busy roads. They could get pegged by a cement truck, like, and that would not be like, oh, well, let's make another one. It's, you know, that's. That. That's a serious problem. And. And.

So. So I. I happen to live in the. In the same house that I grew up in. Like, I. I took it over for my parents, so I have. And so my kids are going to the same school that I went to, along the same route, playing in the same parks. So I have some real, like, generational context as to how things have changed, and they've changed a lot. And interestingly, like, I found myself trying to push my kids, like, you know, when they were probably, you know, four or five, six. Like, hey, do you want to walk over to your friend's house by yourself? I don't need to walk. You, like, it's two blocks away. You know where it is. And they're like, no, no. I'm like, what do you. Shouldn't you want to. So. But it's. There's an environmental context where it's like. Or, you know, kids just go play on the street. You don't need. Like, you don't need structure. You don't need. Well, there's nobody else there. Or if there. If there is another kid there, the kid has a parent supervising them, and that parent feels uncomfortable. It's like. So then I feel like, oh, am I the bad parent that I just want my. My kids? So anyway, it's all. Which say. It's just like, it's. It's easy to say in theory, yes, I want my kid to be exposed to risks, and I want to, uh, give them the opportunity to grow and learn these things. And then, you know, my kids started biking to school this year, and, you know, we give them all the lectures, and then we're watching out the window as they head out in the first day, as they go on the wrong side of the street and blow through a stop sign. It's like, this is literally, like they're. They're 15 meters from our door, and they've already broken, like, the two most fundamental, like, right side of the road stop signs that they've. They've violated. And then we don't know what happens on the rest of the way to school? But they made it home and they've continued to make it home. So. So these are challenging and, and we're, you know, in terms of how you negotiate these tensions, it's like, you know, communication and. And just like, for me, it's like, state my fears. Because sometimes if. If my wife is like, saying, come on, we can let them do this. We think, you know, what's the worst that happens? They make a big mess in the kitchen or whatever. And so I state my fears, like, but they're going to get stuff all over the place if we let them do that by themselves. And then it's like, yeah, that does sound like a pretty crappy reason to not let them do something just because I'm worried about. So sometimes I think just by talking through.

By really putting your finger on what it is you're worried, like, what is the scenario you're scared of? Then it's like, maybe that's not something I need to be scared of. Maybe if I have to clean up the kitchen because they use the blender wrong and things go all over the walls, it's like, I can live with that. Yeah.

I also think existential level, the unknown and the uncertain is the territory of death, you know, And I think at a very base level, what happens for a lot of people is they have to come into some type of contact with their relationship to death whenever the unknown is present, you know, and sometimes that's more clear. Like, I remember when I was on the Isle of Sky, I was doing this one hike and I had. I knew nothing about it. I just was like, oh, that's one of the hikes that I wanted to go do. And so I didn't know that there was an easier route and a harder route. And so I ended up on the harder route. And I'm basically on this, like, you know, foot and a half wide path that has a full drop off on the other side, you know, a couple hundred feet. And I was like, oh, if I slip, I will die. And I don't really like heights. And so all of a sudden I found myself in this situation. I was like, I have to confront my fear of death in this moment. And so, you know, that's. That's a very real, tangible example. But I think at a subconscious or unconscious level that that's something that's usually in the background, that that happens with the unknown.

I agree. And I think that's, in a sense, that's why, like, bringing it out into the light and say, like, what exactly are you afraid of? Because.

To.

You know, if it's a question of letting the kids make something by themselves in the kitchen, they're not going to die. And so once you, once you express openly, once you have to put into words what you're worried about, you realize that it's different than what was kind of in the pit of your stomach, what you were feeling that could go wrong. It's like, oh, actually this is, this is not such a big deal.

Yeah, talk to us a little bit about the distinction between exploration and exploitation. You write about this in the book. I think it's, that's an important one.

Yeah, I mean, and so look, we, we've been talking in very positive terms about the power of exploration. And, and I think when I set out on this journey, I would have expected that the book was going to be a kind of an, an ode to the powers of exploration. And, and what I came away with was the realization that actually exploration's a super powerful force. It's great, it's, it's, it's productive, but it's not always the right choice there. And so that in the decision literature, there's this explore, exploit dilemma, where in a lot of contexts you're facing a choice between exploring a new path or exploiting the knowledge you already have to stay on the path you're already on. And the classic example that, you know, researchers in the field always use is you're in a restaurant, you've been there before. Should you order the, the burger that you had last time, which was pretty good, or do you should make, should you order the special, which might be amazing, or it might be last week's fish that they're trying to get rid of, and you have no way of knowing without ordering it. So do you stick with the no. 1, or do you swing for the fences and give it a shot? And we're all familiar with.

That sort of feeling of in a restaurant, you try something new and then someone else at your table gets the thing that you got last time and you spent the whole meal being like, oh, crap, that burger looks good. Why did I get this horrible thing? But anyway, so that's a kind of simple example. But this, these kinds of choices recur on every scale, right? Like from, from ordering at a restaurant to, you know, making career decisions to getting married, to whether a company is investing in R&D versus marketing. Like, so they occur all the time. And, and, and again, that it's not that exploring is always the right Choice. Sometimes exploring is absolutely the wrong choice. And in fact, in any given life or in any given context, there's going to be times when exploring is the right thing to do, times when exploiting is, and there's going to be a sort of yin and yang or shift back and forth between these things.

Do you, do you talk at all about how people can sort of tactically face the innate fear that comes up around exploring? Because I think sometimes people know that they need to take a little bit more risk. They need to explore in certain areas, whatever that area might be. Right. It might actually be going out in the world and camping. It might be within the relationship, sexually, it might be, you know, within their career. There's so many different areas. But I think fear oftentimes just roots people in. So any advice or sort of tactical insight on that front?

Yeah, I mean, I think just a couple things. One is to again, understand what the, the, the, the positive potential payoff is and understand what the negative. Like you, you can't make a rational decision. You're just going with your gut. Unless you're actually going to lay out like, what is the upside that I could see and what if things go wrong? Like, is this.

So let me give you an example. There's a principle in.

Intensive choices is to consider not just what's the most likely outcome, but what's the best case outcome with a realistic chance. And, and you go for that. So in other words, an example might be you're, you're weighing two jobs or job options. One of them is pretty stable, you know, reasonable salary, but it's not going to go anywhere that's just, that's you'll be kind of stuck in that position. The other is less stable, maybe a slower starting salary, but it's going to lead to, or it has a potential pathway to kind of your, what you think is your dream position. And so.