Written by Christopher Kelly
Aug. 4, 2017
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Tommy: Hello and welcome to the Nourish Balance Thrive Podcast. My name is Tommy Wood and today I'm joined by Christopher Kelly. Say hello, Chris.
Christopher: Hi, Tommy. Thank you for having me.
Tommy: So, people may have noticed we've flipped things around a little bit. And that's because I wanted to ask Chris about an event he went to recently and then some other things that have sort of stemmed from that related to that. And then the conversation will probably deteriorate from there.
Christopher: Okay.
Tommy: So, you recently went to an event called the Mastermind Talks and this essentially means that you've made it, right? This is where all the big people like Dave Asprey and JJ Virgin and Ben Greenfield go and hang out with each other for a few days. You got yourself an invite. So, why don't you tell us a bit about it?
Christopher: That's right, yeah. And I'm probably burning my bridges as we speak. It's funny. Yeah, it's true. I was there with Julie, my wife, in the last night and we had dinner with Dave Asprey and his wife Lana and then Ben Greenfield and his wife Jessa, and that was all the people that were on the table. So, it was a real honor and a privilege, really fun.
Yeah, I'd been, I guess, it's taken me over a year to actually get into this thing. I got introduction from two people. Three people, in fact. And Jayson, who is the organizer of Mastermind Talks, tells me that they have 40,000 applicants and there's only 150 spots. So, I think, it's quite hard to get into. It was a real privilege. It honestly was a privilege to be with all these amazing people in Carmel for four days to learn about how they're doing so well in business. We had a ton of fun but it was really interesting to note the environment there. It was different from anything else I've ever experienced.
Tommy: So, you've had, I mean, I've heard those guys you mentioned talk about Mastermind Talks and how great it is. So, how was the set up? How does it work?
Christopher: Yeah. So, the set up is -- It's in a different place each year. This year is at Carmel Valley Ranch in Carmel, which I think we were the closest people. Everybody else had come from all around the world. And we'd driven 60 miles down the road from Santa Cruz, which was fantastic. But it really is a peaceful part of the world. You can understand why they'd want to have it there. It's a fancy hotel on a golf course. You get a room that's more like a suite. It's got a bathroom that you could have a full size snooker table in there, that sort of size place.
And Carmel is really interesting. We just got a dog, as you know, Tommy, but nobody else listening knows. We just got a dog. And rich people, they like dogs apparently. So, we were able to bring our dog and that was really fun too. The set up is -- I think, in the past they've done more formal presentations and now they don't. They have one or maybe two keynotes which are Ted Talks style. And the rest of it, they break you into little groups of mastermind discussions and you were free to choose whichever discussion you'd like to go to. There's separate tracks. So, the talks are going on at the same time.
And the coolest thing about the whole thing is all of the seating is curated by Jayson. So, he's put a ton of effort into stalking people on Facebook and on LinkedIn and on finding out exactly who they really are. And then every time you sit down for a presentation, for a roundtable or for dinner, then the seating arrangement had been curated, so the first question for the guy next to you is, "Okay, so why are we sat next to each other?" It leads to some really, really interesting conversations. Jayson did an amazing job on curating those seating positions.
Tommy: That sounds really cool. I guess, that all the people, or it sounds that all the people who were sat next to you were sort of in a similar sphere but not always. What's some of the best stuff you learned from the guys sat next to you?
Christopher: You know this, that some of the things that we find hardest are marketing. So, biochemistry, we got it covered. We've got a bunch of really great doctors in our Slack now. So, all the technical stuff, we got it covered. I think we do a really good job of making people feel good. The difficult thing always is how do you reach out to people and persuade them that what you're doing is going to transform their life? It's difficult and it's not a problem that's specific to what we do. That's marketing and it's based maybe primarily in social psychology and storytelling and empathy and it's a really difficult skill.
And so getting to sit next to some people who do it world class level was really, really interesting. I'm not sure I really learned too much new. It's about storytelling. But the main thing that I learned was I got to meet a bunch of people. I'm like, yeah, I would really like to work with this guy at some point. I really love what he does.
Tommy: Okay. I guess, part of the reason why I wanted to ask you about this is what are sort of the positive aspects or the potential negative aspects. That's only because we spent a lot of time in our sphere interacting with people. Every time we interact with somebody there's always the inherent drive, and I think it's definitely stronger in me than it is in you, to be nice to people and just always be very flattering and very complimentary and very supportive.
And that is very important to a point especially you're trying to build relationships, work with other people, get the message out there. But it kind of stops you from either challenging ideas that you don't agree with or helping other people learn something that maybe they don't understand as well as you might want him to or think they should.
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And then that also stops people from growing. Because if everybody just sort of like is all back slaps and hand jobs then nobody really sort of grows as a person. So, I was kind of interested to hear about whether that's the case in something like this. So, everybody's very successful, everybody's doing out in the world either making lots of money or developing lots of clients and having good relationship with people who are very successful. Does that mean that it's much less likely for somebody to turn around and say, "Hang on a second. I don't think you're doing that right."
Christopher: It's absolutely right. Yeah. It's like a ton of successful people and me. Honestly. I recently have -- So, it was amazing. It's funny how things happen at the right time sometimes when you're an entrepreneur. I'd just been down to San Diego to do the Belgian Waffle Ride which is a mixed terrain. That means it's on road and on dirt, 133 miles, 10,000 or 11,000 feet of climbing. It was by far the longest bike race or ride I've ever done.
So, that was interesting in itself. But that trip, I was able to very kindly get an invite from Lesley Patterson who I just recently interviewed for my podcast, from her and her husband, to stay in their apartment in San Diego. And Simon Marshall, who was a retired associate professor in family and preventative medicine at the University of California San Diego -- He retired about three years ago. And together, they now have a company called Braveheart Coaching.
Simon, he does sports psychology coaching for elite athletes. And, I mean, like truly elite athletes like people who are really, really good. And I had this amazing conversation with Simon before and after the Belgian Waffle Ride and one of these conversations, I can't remember exactly how it started but we were talking about somebody I know who's a parent and they have a child who like all children is sometimes unruly and the parent just refuses to discipline the child. They will not say the "no, don't do that" word.
And Simon says to me, "Oh, that's ruinous empathy." And I said, "Wow, ruinous empathy." That is the coolest term I've ever heard in the whole world and I can't stop saying ruinous empathy. It's just the most amazing thing ever. I thought, "Wow, this must be some sort of super power that only professors of family preventative medicine have." And he said, "No, it's in this book Radical Candor." And he just showed it to me. It was right there on the coffee table which I thought was hilarious. It was nothing to do with his prestigious academic career. It was in this book.
So, maybe, at this point, I should describe this incredible chart that I will link in the show notes, if people want to see this, that describes the quadrants of being radically candid. So, there's two axis that are of interest. The first one is how much you care personally. So, the ruinous empathy, obviously, the person is caring an awful lot. In fact, they care as much as is humanly possible.
But there's another axis that you should consider and that is to challenge directly. So, in order to help somebody grow personally you need to first care personally and then, second of all, you need to challenge directly. And when you achieve both of those two things you are radically candid. That is the theme of this book Radical Candor. And ruinous empathy is perhaps or maybe that's a little bit harsh but I think that was what's going on at Mastermind Talks. It's just a lot of people who are very successful celebrating their success.
There's a lot of energy and a lot of positivity and I'm sure part of those people's success comes from the positivity and their energy. But there can come a problem with this. Like how do you grow personally? How do you know what's right and wrong when all you ever do is give someone praise? The praise just gets lost in the noise. And I have a different pathology. So, this is a different quadrant on the radically candid chart, which is obnoxious aggression.
So, I don't do this with our clients because I understand that they're paying my mortgage and I also understand that when you're nice to people, I think, there's a much better chance of them getting better more quickly. And that might be some of the problems they've experienced with their primary care or other doctor in the past, is that those people didn't have time for them and were obnoxiously aggressive towards them. And the outcomes were worse as a result.
But when it comes to a roundtable discussion or somebody giving a presentation at AHS or somebody giving a presentation somewhere else or maybe in one of the interviews I do for the podcast, I tend towards this obnoxious aggression quadrant which is to challenge directly without first showing that you care personally. So, the first thing I say is, "Oh, that's wrong. That could never work."
Tommy: So then, I guess, how do you -- I mean, you've listened to the books. How do you balance all of these things? I think you're right about that it's really balance between being candid and being empathic or were empathetic. And I'm not sure how mutually exclusive they necessarily are. And maybe it depends on the individual. I guess, we have some examples where you and I obviously communicate pretty much continuously about most of our clients and if somebody sends you a question then you will send the question to me and then I'll give you a response and then the response goes back to the client.
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And sometimes my response is radically candid because I think I'm filtering it through you. But then you would just send the whole response on. And sometimes people really appreciate that. It works really well. But there are other times they don't appreciate it so much. And it's something that you've actually tried to get me to do more of because I will always, I guess, I blame on my typical British-ness but I can't really do that because you're not like that.
Christopher: No.
Tommy: But I always want to be nice and tied up in bow and make everybody happy. And if I'm going to say something negative I always present it in the shit sandwich. So, I'd say something nice then I say what I really want to say and then I say something nice again. So, you're kind of like the candid stuff between some nice stuff. How do you kind of balance all these things to make sure that you're doing the right thing? And more radical candor is probably -- I mean, that's almost certainly what we need in our sphere, interacting with other people, doing the kind of stuff that we do. But how do you balance all of that?
Christopher: It's a difficult question. So, I should mention a couple of books here. So, the Shit Sandwich comes from another book that everybody should read. In fact, I don't think that this book invented the shit sandwich but it certainly references it. It's the Hard Thing About Hard Things by Ben Horowitz, which is another truly splendid book.
I think maybe what radical candor is, it's the open face shit sandwich. So, you're first nice and then you deliver the shit. And it's not that difficult to be nice. In the book by Kim Scott, Radical Candor by Kim Scott -- I'll link to this, obviously, in the show notes. She gives a few examples. The first I thought was really interesting with the dog where she's got this six-month old Labrador puppy that will not stop pulling the lead. She's walking this dog and she wants to cross the street on a busy street in Palo Alto and this dog just gone bonkers trying to get across the street. And the traffic is whizzing past.
This man comes up to her and he says, "I can see that you care deeply about your dog. But if you don't teach it some discipline, it's going to get killed." And so what that man did was, first of all, that he demonstrated that he cared deeply and then he was perfectly candid with her. And I'll give you another example which was a presentation that Kim was giving at Google. Kim's got -- She's this amazing woman. I don't know that much about her, the person. I've certainly never met her. Maybe if people are interested in topic, I should track her down and see if she'd come on the podcast.
But she had 700 people reporting to her at Google and then she's also worked at Apple, Twitter. She has a string of startups, failed startups, I believe, actually, that came before those corporate jobs. So, another example of the radical candidness is that she was giving a presentation at Google and one of her supervisors, I think it was, listened to the presentation and she said to her, "Look, Kim, you totally knocked that ball out the part. That was the most amazing presentation. It was really, really good."
And she's thinking, "Hello, something bad's coming here. I've heard this before." And what the boss said was, "Your speech fluency is so bad you sound like a complete dumbass. And so what we have to do is get you a speech coach so that you say "am" and "are" a lot less." Again, it's the same thing. First of all, you show that you care deeply or care personally and then you challenge directly. I think maybe in this instant the word "direct" is very important.
You have to be very specific about your criticism. You can't just give the person a hug and then say that shit. Because saying that shit is not specific enough. You have to be very, very specific in your criticism. So, I think, that's really there was all there is to it. I mean, she talks about a lot of tips and tricks for achieving this radical candidness in the book. And it can be as simple as just giving people a hug.
So, this is very, very un-British and maybe you're different from me, Tommy, but this is sort of thing that since I've come to America makes my skin crawl a little bit and I've got over it to a large extent. You know those kind of big burly American guys that hug us and they'll just like practically collapse your chest when they meet you rather than a nice firm handshake?
Tommy: Oh, yeah. No, I'm definitely a hugger.
Christopher: Oh, really? Okay. So, there's definitely -- I like to think both of us have got some ideas on mind that maybe this is a cultural difference and really it's not. It's a person to person difference. So, that's maybe one way that you can show that you care personally, is you go up to the person, you give them a big hug and you say, "You've got a piece of spinach stuck in your teeth." That's radically candid. I mean, it's very specific and it's something that the person would want to do something about because, otherwise, more people are going to see what they're doing. And that's my greatest fear with the podcast, actually, is I'm talking about something, giving information that's wrong or not helpful and nobody is bloody talking about it. No one is telling me. That's the worst scenario, isn't it?
Tommy: Yeah. And, I guess, I know that we've talked about this previously, is that as a podcast host, you're kind of charged with being that filter. You've got to be on the ball enough to be listening to exact -- Because often you're interviewing somebody and you're not listening to what they're saying. You're thinking about the next question.
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So, you're constantly making sure that you're sounding engaged even though maybe you're not as engaged as you would be if you were just listening. So then at the same time, so you got to be on the ball in terms of what they're saying but then you also got to be willing to say, "Hang on a second. That's not right." And that, obviously, includes having enough information about the topic or knowledge about the topic such that you can actually do that. So, I think, you mentioned that that's something you sort of developed along the way. Is that true? Something that you like almost had to practice?
Christopher: Yeah, definitely. It's really, really hard. You're listening and trying to think at the same time. And then when I'm doing this podcast I've got an outline in front of me and then I'm trying to think where I want to go next with this interview. It's really, really difficult. I think that doing the podcast has put me in this position where I'm constantly talking to experts and so I'm standing on the shoulders of giants, right?
Like you find out about things that you only would have found out about through doing the podcast. And so maybe I should just give you another example. One of the keynote presentations was by Viome and they've got some really interesting biomedical testing that they've just released. I think it was launched just before Mastermind Talks. The CEO was there. He's just an amazing guy that's doing all sorts of incredible things including putting man back on the moon. He's like Richard Branson in his grandeur and his aspirations.
And he's talking about Viome and how doing this testing gave him this additional insight to change his diet that enabled him to lose weight. And specifically, he was talking about doing some stool testing that looked at his gut microbiota, and that was what gave him the insight to be able to change his diet. And I'm sat there thinking, hang on a minute. When you do a stool test, you're looking at what's inside of the large intestine, aren't you? And all the carbohydrate absorption, it happens in the small intestine if not the mouth. It's all gone by the time you get to the large intestine.
And so there I am, what am I going to do? I'm going to challenge directly without first showing that I care personally. Actually, I did a really good job because I had already read the book at that point. And I feel like I have done this in the past. This is not completely new. I got the catchbox. A catchbox, if you don't know what that is, it's a microphone that you can throw around the audience. They're super cool. You'll probably see one now that I've said somewhere in a conference coming to near you.
What I did was I said, "Oh, I love what you're doing. I think it's really exciting. I'm very excited about all of these new biomedical startups happening. But hang on a minute, carbohydrate gets absorbed--" Do you see what I mean? So, I hope I did a good job of that. He didn't seem terribly upset.
Tommy: But what did he say?
Christopher: He said that it's not just about the stool. He said that also looking at -- the word, I can't -- the transcriptome in blood, so they're looking at the sum total of all of the RNA and by doing that analysis in blood they can also tell what's going on with his ability to process carbohydrates. I didn't really understand his answer and I never got a chance to speak to him again, unfortunately. But, yeah.
Tommy: So then that makes me wonder, and I'm not sure if we can think of an example, is there a time when you've interviewed somebody on the podcast and you listened back and you're like, "Shit, I should have stopped them and said, hang on a second, that's not right."
Christopher: Yeah. Jason Fung, don't you remember? We did the addendum.
Tommy: Yeah. Which didn't go down very well.
Christopher: It didn't go down very well because, I mean, Jason Fung is somebody that -- He's part of our community. He's a very well respected nephrologist. He's a senior doctor. He's an academic as well to some degree. And we basically stabbed him in the back with that addendum we put on the podcast. I'll probably have to link to it now so people can listen to it. It was difficult because if you don't challenge directly then you're going to have to explain yourself to your clients one by one.
Like somebody's says, "Oh, you should be counting calories to lose weight," on your podcast. Well then you have to do, all of my calls the next well, "Oh, I listened to your podcast of Chris Masterjohn. Should I be counting calories?" No, I don't think you should be counting calories and it's really annoying to have that conversation one to many on the podcast and then one to one to mop up the mess afterwards.
Tommy: Yeah. I think those two scenarios kind of come together such that with Jason Fung, he was obviously doing -- And we've actually mentioned many times since then is that the context of the work that he's doing is very important. So, the context of prolonged fasting from metabolic health and prolonged survival is really important for people who are type II diabetic and they're going to lose limbs very soon.
Christopher: His context is very misunderstood. I'm not sure people understand his context in many instances.
Tommy: That's super important. But when you're an athlete trying to apply that, if you don't know the original context that it came from, then it becomes very confusing. So, that's kind of part of where that needed to be cleared up. But when you do that, you risk doing what Robb Wolf calls the absentee hatchet job.
Christopher: That's another great expression, isn't it?
Tommy: Where you, basically, you sit and commentate on something and then the person who's directly involved or said the things that you're talking about doesn't have any chance to kind of come back to you and explain their reasoning. I think that's kind of, at least with that example, it kind of, I think that was part of the problem. Quite a few people have said, say with Jason Fung, that the answer that he's got in terms of the treatment is right but the way he got there in terms of understanding the physiology isn't necessarily correct.
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But there's also a certain amount of how would you explain these physiological processes such that the average person can understand them and they're more then engaged with the treatment. And so you're trying to juggle all of this kind of stuff at the same time which then makes it really tricky to sort of figure your way out of it.
Christopher: Right. And, of course, Josh talked about that on the podcast recently. Really what you care about is the game level interventions. So, Jason Fung is making game level interventions and then he's going to get those interventions with his explanations which are, I mean, they make you scratch your head a little bit if I'm going to put you on the spot here and say they do really make your head scratch a bit. But at the end of the day he gets the behavior change which is what you're after.
Tommy: Yeah, absolutely. And that's the really important thing. You can kind of, depending on your perspective, you could be radically candid about the minutia of the physiology but is the overall benefit of teaching people if they're diabetic with their fasting blood sugar of 300 that they should not eat for a period of time then that's probably the lesser of two evils.
Christopher: Right.
Tommy: So then the other example you brought up was Chris Masterjohn and we had that podcast a while back -- I think it was back for a few months now -- where you interviewed the two of us, me and him, about sort of weight gain and then weight loss. And we sort of had two slightly different approaches and his one is largely to count calories because that worked for him. Then there was a video that he released about that with his Masterjohn lights, just tell me what works and see how many calories you're eating now and cut that by 500. In our experience, it just doesn't work.
Christopher: No. It's completely -- Not only that. But he used the words -- The words that really riled me were "the most reliable way to lose weight." And only somebody that had not worked with clients would say that. So, we've worked with a thousand people over the last three years, many of them with the weight loss goal. I can tell you that is not the most reliable way to lose weight. And it's especially not the most reliable way to keep the weight off. So, probably everybody knows somebody that lost some weight by counting calories, including my father did it very successfully. But, I mean, all of that weight and then some came back on over the coming months and years.
Tommy: And the data supports them and the literature too. I think the one thing that you really wanted to be explained better was that you have to understand why that person gained weight in the first place. And, yes, you could say, "Well, they just ate too many calories. They're in a positive calorie balance," which is technically true. But there's so many things going on in the environment that will continuously push you to gain that weight back both externally and physiologically unless you fix what's going on around you.
And the reason why this is relevant to this particular conversation is because Chris Masterjohn, he probably knows who you are. I know when we were on the podcast, he literally had no idea who I was. He's like, who's this guy with a funny accent who's being put on the same level as me? That's fine. I literally have no problem with that. He's been in the game much longer than I have. He has a much larger following as he should because he's so clever and his content is so, so good.
Then there was this one thing that comes out of the blue, you're like, "Wait." Like somebody you really like, you love their work, you want to support as much as you can and then they say something and you're just like, "Hang on a second. That's wrong." And you care. Like we care about him deeply. I did write an article sort of explaining our viewpoint, A, because we had so many people who are confused then by the message and then, B, to kind of outline why we think it's important to give the other side.
And it kind of made me think of -- I guess, there's two examples that are very similar. When you have a grandparent who you love to bit, they've just been this hugely supportive wonderful person in your life, looked after you when you were a kid, as you grew up, go to graduations, whatever, always very supportive. And then they say something really racist or bigotry. You're like, this person that I love has just said something that I just like completely disagree with and it sort of like it completely boggles your mind because it's taken--
And these people out in the health sphere who I love their work and then they say something about politics and I'm like, "Oh, no, I just don't--" It's just one of those things. Another time I was thinking of -- So, my dad is an incredibly clever scientist. He's like in the 70s published at least, he still publishes at least one paper in Nature a year, super, super clever. And then like says something very [0:24:23] [Indiscernible]. He's like, "Oh, yeah, well, these people are just lazy and they eat too much." I'm like, no, it's not just right.
I mean, that's part of it but it's much more complicated than that. So, this is exactly an example of that, wasn't it, where somebody you really trust on so many levels just gave this information that just was completely -- They just didn't support anything else. Because we cared, we felt we then had to present the other side.
Christopher: Yeah. I don't know what it is about health and fitness that really smart people just seem to completely lose their mind and come up with solutions that just do not make any sense whatsoever. So, let me give you an example. Many of the people listening to this podcast will ride bikes and so they'll know what it's like to get a flat tire or a puncture as what we call it in the UK.
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So, you're riding along, maybe get a thorn in your tire, and the tire goes flat and you stop and like, "Oh, crap, I need to fix this." And luckily, you've got a spare tube in your back pocket. So, you pull out the spare tube and you pull out the wheel and you pull off the tire and then you pull out the tube. It's got a hole in it from the thorn. What do you do? You don't just shove the new tube in and put the whole thing back together and pump it up because if you do the thorn that's still stuck in the carcass of the tire is just going to puncture the new tube.
You need to understand what caused that problem in the first place before you attempt to make any repair to the problem. And so that's like a fundamental principle of solving any problem, is you need to know what caused it. So, why is it any different in obesity? How can you just say, "Oh, what we need to do now is just cut some calories." It just doesn't make sense. You didn't understand the environment that caused the obesity in the first place. I mean, it just blows my mind.
Tommy: I guess, actually, not everybody agrees everything he says but Gary Taubes does give a really nice history of the obesity research field and how that kind of changed around World War II and sort of shifted from a largely Germanic based research area, which then shifted over to more of an American or Western model afterwards because of the war. And then at that time sort of like everybody's focus sort of completely changed. You should listen to, I think it was a good [0:26:31] [Indiscernible] STEM-Talk podcast that maybe you can--
Christopher: Yeah, I'll link to that. That was a really good one.
Tommy: It was a very good one.
Christopher: Yeah. [0:26:38] [Indiscernible] I'd been doing a really good job on the IHMC STEM-Talk podcast recently. That's always at the top of my list.
Tommy: Yeah. It's definitely one of my favorites. All right. So, we've thrown a few people under the bus by being radically candid.
Christopher: By being radically candid. But really we've done absentee hatchet job.
Tommy: Was there anything else that we have to talk about?
Christopher: Yes. So, there's one more thing. There's another quadrant of pathology in our chart that I haven't talked about and this is the manipulative insincerity. And I'll give you an example of this. Examples are super helpful, I realized, on day naught of Mastermind Talks. Someone will say to you, "So, what do you do?" So, normally, when people say to you, "What do you do," really what they're doing is they want to know what you do so that they can compare themselves to you, which is not very friendly. And so, generally, it's not a great way to start a conversation, I think.
But when you're at Mastermind Talks, when people are asking that, it's because they're genuinely interested in what you do and they want to know whether maybe they can learn something from you because everybody at Mastermind Talks is pretty cool. So, I think it's okay to ask that there. What I realized was that the best way to explain what you do is to give an example. When people didn't do that, sometimes they would talk for ten minutes and at the end of ten minutes I would be like I still have no clue what this guy does. Absolutely no idea.
When you give an example, I mean, I would give the example of the last person -- I literally spoke to somebody in the airport before I, in fact, I did a few calls in the airport before I went to Mastermind Talks. This was on the way back to San Diego. And so I just told the story of the last person that I worked with. I didn't mention any names or go to too many details but the real life example, I think, did a much better job of helping people understand what the heck is that we did. Because it's a little bit complicated, I think.
So, I'll give you an example of manipulative insincerity. This happened to me last night when I was walking our new dog, Kipper. I know people are going to hate me for this but we got this dog from a breeder because I'm very risk averse. I've never had a dog in my life and I was like, well, this go to the pound and this could be the best dog in the world or it could be my worst nightmare. I really don't know. I'm taking a gamble here. I wanted to lower the risk. We went to the breeder. We got a blue heeler. He's the most amazing dog.
The story is the breeder was like, "I want this one for myself." She kept him and then she got to the four-month mark and realized that she was hoarding dogs like people hoard their material possessions and so he had to go. There was another litter on the way. And we just got lucky with our timing that we just happened to show up at the right time so we got this amazing new dog and he's the best dog in the world. He's so well behaved.
In fact, you may have heard it just a moment ago, he barked just a little bit. I think that's like the third time I've ever heard him bark. It must be because I'm not paying attention. I'm talking into this microphone and looking out for danger maybe. So, he's the most amazing dog. And he walks with me off the lead. No problems at all. We're in the countryside in Santa Cruz. He follows me on the bike as well. I'm really excited about that.
I know that I shouldn't be running him too hard before he's orthopedically mature but he followed me for five miles on the mountain bike on the trails. No worries. He's going to be an absolutely amazing trail dog. I'm walking the usual loop around the house is here in Bonny Doon and there's this lady walking in the opposite direction. She's got these two small yappy dogs that are just pulling like crazy on the lead looking at Kipper. Kipper's kind of interested as he is in all other dogs. He's keeping a safe distance. He's pretty much staying within about six or eight feet of me.
[0:30:00]
And as I'm walking past the woman, who we actually know, I said hello to her. We've met them several times before. She said to me, "A leash would be good." That's all she said. "A lease should be good." And so she didn't demonstrate that she cared personally and she also didn't challenge directly. She just said, "A leash should be good." That, for me, is manipulative insincerity. In Northern California, this maybe a closely related concept that I hear people mention a lot of passive aggression.
Tommy: Yeah. That's exactly what it made think of, is passive aggression.
Christopher: I think we're talking about much the same thing. She's not going to challenge me directly. She's just going to make some snide comment. I think part of the reason she did that was maybe out of jealousy. I've got these two small yappy dogs I can't stop from pulling on a lead and making lots or horrible noise and your dog is just chilling and staying within six feet of you without a leash and that's kind of annoying. It's maybe you have motivation but maybe I'm reading into that too far.
But I thought it was slightly important for people to understand. So, there's ruinous empathy, there's manipulative insincerity, obnoxious aggression, which is where I tend to land, and then there's radical candor in the top right hand corner. You're going to understand this so much better when you come to the show notes and see this image.
Tommy: So, that's something that we got to practice more than is a lot of candor. You made some notes before we started recording and I'll read it verbatim. It says, "Tommy, I love you but in public you tend towards ruinous diplomacy," as a subtype of ruinous empathy. And I know what you mean. We've been to a couple of conferences together, say, and say there's somebody on the stage who I very much respect.
Christopher: Right.
Tommy: Because they usually are. Usually, we go to these conferences and everybody who's speaking is somebody like I follow for years, they do great work, and then they say something and I'm like, "Hang on a second, that's not right." And then I want to say that but I'm very uncomfortable being radically candid. So, I'll stand up and then I'll talk for like five minutes and it's a statement that disguises as a question to kind of show somebody that they're wrong but it's sort of like getting the long way round and then sounds like -- There's been a few times that I'm like, "Hang on a second, can you just say that again?" Because I've taken -- I've sort of [0:32:07] [Indiscernible] just trying to be nice about it.
Christopher: Exactly.
Tommy: It would have been better to just be like, "You, I love you, you're great, but that's wrong."
Christopher: Exactly. And I can probably come up with several examples where you've done that. Remember when we were at the Buck Institute and somebody who remain nameless was on stage talking about insulin and you turned to me and said, "That's all completely wrong. It's just completely wrong." I was like, "Tell him. Tell him. He's not going to stop saying that unless you tell him why it's wrong."
Tommy: Yeah. I didn't do it.
Christopher: You didn't do it. No, you didn't say anything at all which is that's the absentee manager. I also tend towards that pathology as well. Okay, if you don't have anything nice to say then don't say anything at all, is another direction that I tend to go in. It's not helpful. Like that guy, that doctor, that medical doctor is still giving that presentation to other medical doctors and the content is completely wrong.
Tommy: Yeah, and it's somebody who works for the IFM as well so then--
Christopher: It was a senior guy at the IFM.
Tommy: Yeah. My bad. I definitely dropped the ball on that one.
Christopher: I mean, so the way you do it is you could say something like, run up on stage, give the guy a big hug and a sloppy kiss, and then you say, "Okay, so if what you're saying is true--" And then just think of some examples. This is very, very -- I just finished listening to Surely You're joking, Mr. Feyman, which is completely brilliant and everybody should listen to that book or read it. I'll have to listen to books now because I can walk and consume information at the same time.
And that was his thing. Somebody would present something as a fact to him and in his head, he's trying to think of examples. Okay, if that's true then let me think of an example and what would the implications be? And you could totally do that with insulin. You could say, "Well, if that's true then we would expect to see this and we don't." That would be your question. Like how do you explain this contradiction in the data with what you're saying? It's just inconsistent. How do you explain that? And then the person says, "Oh, yeah. I guess, it's wrong."
Tommy: You had a nice example of that from that paper people might have seen where they guesstimated the temperature of mitochondria and showed them to be like 50 degrees Celsius, so like ten or 12 degrees higher than the rest of the cell. I think they were cells in culture, sort of like this temperature they're being kept at. And then just like one person replied. He was like, "Yes, but if that's the case then you're producing like this many Giga watts per cell which is completely impossible." And like, "Yeah."
Christopher: That would mean we have the ten megawatt human.
Tommy: Yeah, exactly.
Christopher: Everybody is so wrapped up in the surprise factor of this new fact in science that actually the mitochondria ten degrees hotter than the rest of the cell. They don't even think like, oh, what would this mean? What are the implications? Can you think of an example where this would be different from what we already know?
Tommy: Yeah. So then we go to find a way to do more of that. I think there's -- and I have definitely tried and I try and do it more in traditional academic context. So, you'll know, Chris, I've had one published but I've got a couple more on the way.
[0:35:02]
I like to write letters to editors in journals. So, like somebody writes a paper and the traditional academic way to try and further the conversation is you write a letter to the editor. And it's not peer reviewed but the editor reads it and says, "Yes, this is a good comment on the paper that we published," and it furthers the conversation. So, usually, like you get your letter published and then the author has a response. So then you can kind of create a discourse that's published.
I try and do it that way just because I feel like it's more of I really get bored of people who [0:35:34] [Indiscernible] on Facebook. And it's just like this continuous stream of noise, and you can just like never figure out what's like a useful comment, where somebody actually has some data to back up their thoughts or whatever. This is the much nicer way to do it. And then often you can end up interacting with the same people but you're doing it through a formal academic process. I think that's much more important. I think that's a much better way to do it.
We've seen something similar in terms of like the cancer field where somebody says something about a ketogenic diet and cancer and then somebody else does an absentee hatchet job on them on a podcast and just like completely says all these terrible things about them and there's no chance for kind of a discourse. And the best way to do that is you then instead, you write a letter to the editor about the paper you disagree with and then it's all out in the open and people can kind of look at the references and figure out what's right.
So, I have tried to do some of these. One of the letters that I wrote was based on a paper, review paper by Ray Cronise and David Sinclair. It's about oxidative priorities. So, basically, showing that carbohydrates tend to be metabolized before fat, which is true. So then you try to find ways to manipulate calorie intake such that you're more like to burn fat and lose weight. Part of the thing that they're very big fans of was calorie restriction, and calorie restriction is going to lead to weight loss and it's also going to lead to longevity. People are going to live longer.
The problem is that there are definitely some interesting data that suggests that that may be true. We don't really have any evidence of that. And there's also some evidence that that may not be true for various reasons. So, I write a letter and it was really interesting because the response from the authors was actually very -- So, I made some points. They definitely accepted them. It was very nice. They wrote some good responses. They backed up their viewpoint. We don't really have the data to kind of separate who's right, and that's fine. It was all very good.
But on social media, somebody was like, "I can't believe you're questioning Ray. He's definitely correct. This is true. So, we can't question it." It just doesn't make any sense. If there's no real definite answer to that question then what you need to do is progress the conversation such that we get closer to the truth. And that's one way to do it. But if people are following their gurus blindly and they're like, this person is super smart. I've decided I'm going to follow them and then everything they say is correct and then anybody who challenges that is the enemy and we have to go after them.
It doesn't make any sense because it doesn't get us any closer to what the true answer is. I think that maybe I don't do it so well in public and that kind of scenario maybe is [0:38:05] [Indiscernible] like that -- I'm just trying to make myself feel better about my--
Christopher: Ruinous diplomacy.
Tommy: Ruinous diplomacy.
Christopher: Maybe I should ask the audience. Perhaps you can come to the show notes and leave a comment like which would you prefer, would you prefer, if you've asked me a question and I don't know the answer -- So that's the context here. Somebody asks me something, I don't know the answer, so I go to Tommy and say, "What do you think about this?" And Tommy always knows the answer. If he doesn't know the answer then he can go to the research and find the answer. If the answer is not in the research then the answer is nobody knows. And so you write up a really good response to me which is radically candid. Would you want me to edit that response and then send it to you?
Tommy: So that it's nicer.
Christopher: It's nicer, yeah.
Tommy: I could think of some -- So, we definitely have quite a few people just because of the people who I work with who are very motivated, very intelligent and do a lot of their own research, which I love because then I often learn from them as much as I can teach them. It's definitely a two-way street. But it leads to people over thinking things. Sometimes there'll be a question and my initial response is, "Oh, jesus, this person just needs like a spliff and a whiskey and just stop worrying about it." But that's not necessarily helpful. They might take that the wrong way. Then there's kind of a would you -- This is the question that you're asking, right? Would somebody prefer that they heard me say, "Jesus, just don't worry about it," or would you prefer a highly technical roundabout way of me saying the same thing?
Christopher: Right, right, right. Yeah, that's exactly the example that came up. The first answer you gave, the first thing you wrote was, "How could anybody answer this question? It's an impossible question to answer." That was the most important piece of information. You then go on and try and answer the question because that's the kind of guy you are. But that was the first thing that I needed to know and understand, is that nobody can really answer this question.
Tommy: Yeah.
Christopher: Most important bit.
Tommy: Okay. So then that's the summary. And then, I mean, I'm definitely -- I definitely want to make the point where, though it seems like we have made a lot of comments on other people's work, in an attempt to be radically candor because we, A, care about their work and think it's important and then also wants to try and move the discussion on.
[0:40:14]
We would definitely expect it in the reverse way. I mean, I'm wrong all the time then I'm very happy to admit that. There's also -- If I write something or say something and you're out there at home and you're thinking, "Hang on a second, Tommy, that's not right," please do come and tell me. Because, I think, that's super, super important. So, we have to be able to accept it as well as dish out. I'm sure it's going to happen many times in the future. So, if I write a blog post or I'm on a podcast and somebody's listening at home and they're like, "Hang on a second, Tommy, you got that wrong," we definitely would like it in the return direction.
Christopher: Yeah, absolutely. Especially me. I'm new to this field of health and fitness. I've only been doing it for four years. My undergraduate degree is in a completely different unrelated topic.
Tommy: Sometimes it's a real bonus, actually.
Christopher: Sometimes it's a real bonus but I'm sure there's many instances when I've said something that's been shown to be wrong or was never right in the first place. Very few people tell me. So, that, for me, is actually quite worrying.
Tommy: I think it's a real benefit of the relationship that we have developed in our work which is that we will often disagree for one reason or another and it results in a brief conversation and then it gets resolved because everybody's candid and you talk about whatever it is and then it continues. And it's often to do with a particular protocol or particular idea or whatever. It definitely goes -- It sort of [0:41:34] [Indiscernible] and it's the same with everybody we work with. And actually, I think that results in a much better -- You progress much faster that way.
Christopher: Yeah. I mean, so part of this has been Slack. Slack has just been amazing for my business, absolutely incredible. And I should thank, I mean, really I should thank Torrea Rodriguez who's been on my podcast a couple of times. She was the first person that mentioned that name to me and it was only once I -- I do this all the time. Somebody gives me the right answer, somebody close to me, and then I have to pay for the advice from someone else before I actually act on it.
So, I hired a business consultant. He said, "Yeah, let's use Slack." I'm like, "Okay, let's use Slack. Sounds like a good idea." And now it's completely invaluable. It's so, so amazing. And that's it. We've got several great doctors. Megan, who's been on the podcast, a researcher, we've got Julie, I'm on there, and we can conform, we can arrive at a consensus very, very quickly and then everybody is on the same page. It doesn't matter who you talk to. Because we've already had this.
And it's almost impossible to have this discussion via email. It's just not the right tool for that job. And in particular, sometimes somebody will ask me a question and then I'll search for the answer in our Slack, and I'm like, "Oh, this is what Tommy said about phosphatidylserine two years ago." And anyone that we add to Slack can do that. You can do that. If you just sent me that as an email, I never would have found it.
Tommy: [0:42:48] [Indiscernible] yeah.
Christopher: It's amazing, absolutely amazing tool.
Tommy: But very good such that you can have these continuing conversations and be -- I think it kind of helps -- Because it's kind of the upside and the downside of like the written form or like the instant messaging form like you can have on Facebook. People would just like to say, "Oh, that's bullshit." And then you can have sort of like descend into these arguments. But because you're not looking at this person in the face, it's easier to be radically candid because you're not sat in front of that person feeling super awkward about the fact that you're going to tell him that you disagree with him. So, it's kind of like you will get that benefit from working in that model too.
Christopher: Yeah. It's so different from Facebook. Facebook, you don't know who you're talking to ever. You've no idea whether this guy is a professor of family medicine or is he like somebody who does air conditioning installs for a living. You've no idea who you're talking to. And, I think, that's part of the problem. And then another problem with Facebook is like once it's on there, it's basically gone forever. But probably will show up [0:43:48] [Indiscernible].
Yeah, apart from the time you made a stupid comment where all like show up everywhere. But whenever, I mean, we've done this in the past trying to manage a private Facebook group and then Tommy will say something and I'll try and find it again afterwards, good luck. It's impossible.
Tommy: Yeah. I mean, the private Facebook group is great. There's a huge amount of great discussion and information that goes on there. But when you try and get it back, like this person posted this paper or this person said this thing, and you will never find that again.
Christopher: No, no. It's almost like Facebook don't want you to find it again.
Tommy: Yeah. And that's really frustrating because there's so much good information but you can't access it and I don't have a good idea of how you could have the same public discourse. Because the idea is you have a thousand people, maybe only ten or 15 of them are doing most of the useful interaction. But you still want that to happen but happen in a really usefully searchable way. So, if somebody's inventing that, tell us about it so that we can translate all of our closed discussion groups on Facebook over to that.
Christopher: Yeah. Well, discourse, you haven't used it yet. But Discourse, the web-based forum that's written in PHP is really probably what you've just described. So, yeah, we will use that for some projects in the future I'm sure.
Tommy: All right. So then you showed me the answer, great.
[0:45:02]
Christopher: Excellent. Or maybe now I should call people. It was started as you interviewing me and you see I've just taken over. Did you see what I did there? I did the little switch to turn the table around. Maybe the call to action for this one then is for me to ask people to be radically candid and tell us if this was useful to them and whether you like this idea of being radically candid. And then if you want me to get Kim Scott -- I have no idea whether I'd be able to do it. She's probably super duper busy as everyone is.
But if it's something that you're interested in -- And in the book, Kim, obviously goes into lots and lots of details on other management techniques which I thought was very cool. If this is a subject that you're interested in, please let me know in the comment section that you'll find in the show notes. And then I'll try and get Kim on the podcast.
Tommy: Yeah. Nothing to add.
Christopher: Cool. All right. Well, that wraps it up. Thank you very much.
Tommy: Thanks, Chris.
Christopher: Cheers then.
[0:45:52] End of Audio
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