Choose Your Seven Humans Wisely with author Fredrik Backman

0:00 My best friend and my wife, if they would have gone on one of the matchmaking websites or something, if they would have put themselves through an algorithm and said, find me a person, they would have never found me. Like never in a million years would an algorithm have said, this lunatic, he's the guy for you.

0:28 Never. I was fortunate in the way that I stumbled upon people early on in my life that was very different for me. And I found out very quickly that that was a good thing for me. That was like I needed people who were not like me. So that I could look at their best qualities and strive for them. If you're an avid listener of this podcast, you may know something about me, that I'm not a reader.

0:59 I've actually written more books than I've read. But this conversation with Frederick Bachman makes me want to read. The way he thinks, the way he sees the world, the way he sees humans and friendships and people, it inspired me. I actually bought two of his novels, Anxious People and A Man Called Ove, which was later made into a movie, A Man Called Otto, starring Tom Hanks.

1:22 We live in a world where loneliness is an epidemic, and Frederick reminds us that meaningful relationships are built with intention. They take showing up again and again and again, even when it's inconvenient. His new book, My Friends, drives that point home. The people who have deep, meaningful connections in the world, they're not lucky.

1:47 They do the work, and that work is worth it. I wanted to begin this episode talking about Frederick's fantastic viral speech that he gave about creative anxiety and procrastination at Simon & Schuster's Centennial. He is, of course, humble about the video's success, but it's easy to see why his words connected with so many people.

2:09 It's brilliant, hilarious, and painfully relatable for introverts like me. And that is a perfect description for the conversation that follows. This is a bit of optimism. Oh, and P.S. If you ever go to Stockholm, Frederick and I reveal who has the best cardamom buns in the world. This episode is brought to you by Porsche.

2:38 And like all great brands with great products, it's the people behind the products that make them so spectacular. You already know this, irrespective of whether people are fans of your books or not. the little video you did at the publishing thing went viral and made you a bit of an internet sensation yeah fueled by pure panic my wife has this thing where she doesn't give me all of the information which she finds to be very effective so she didn't I thought my publisher was celebrating their 100 years Simon & Schuster and they only invited me because they needed like a Scandinavian like they needed to show we have authors from all over the world and at some point someone in a meeting was like do we have anyone from scandinavia and they were like yeah i think we have a guy

3:28 my wife also explained to me like oh they're gonna have a thing and i you know and i thought based on what she told me that i was going to give a speech at a dinner and then i arrived and it was at a theater in the presence of of a lot of a lot of writers and a lot of people that i really, really admire and really look up to.

3:51 And I had prepared a speech full of stupid jokes. I don't know how to write a speech. Good evening. My name is Fredrik Backman. I'm here tonight because my agent said that this would be good for my career. She said I need to learn how to speak in front of people. It will be fun, she said. So I told her that I write books.

4:21 I spend eight hours every day locked inside a room with people I have made up. If I was comfortable talking to real people, I would have a real job. But my agent said, you know, just go up there and talk about the life of a writer. And I said, all right. Being a writer is the best way I know how to get paid for being insane.

4:45 so it was it was pure panic what you saw on on the video that was just me panicking and thinking this is going to be the end of my time at this very nice publishing house well the good news is they hire you for being a writer not a speech giver and the better news is you nailed but inherently audience is always rooting for who's ever on the stage i've found and where things are the best and we most enjoy what we hear is that somebody is showing who they truly are which is if they're nervous or if they speak slowly as long as that's who they are i think people fall in love i am here tonight with all of my anxiety because i know that in this room there might be someone who is dreaming about writing a book dreaming of becoming an author

5:33 so I'm here to tell you that I am obviously an idiot. I have no idea what I'm doing but I became an author anyway. So you can too. And I hope that one day I will be able to tell my agent that the reason that my next book is not finished yet is because I was busy reading yours. Thank you very much. I think that's what happened which is we fell in love with somebody who was very honest about how you were actually feeling in the day and age where we filter everything and everything's performing i'm glad if it felt that way um there was a lot of people who told me afterwards like it was so good because you know it wasn't perfect it wasn't like practiced and i'm like i well i tried i it wasn't my intention not to i it was my intention for it

6:22 to be good you know you walk up on stage and i had a piece of paper with the speech written down and they said no no we can put that on the teleprompter and I was like absolutely not I'm holding on to the paper that this is my life raft on open sea I'm holding on to this like I'm holding on to the edge of a mountain it went alright but there was a lot of panic involved this is also a lot of panic involved we talked about that earlier But the reason that I said yes to this, I was going to explain to my children what I was going to do today.

7:01 I said, well, I'm going to be on this podcast. And they said, what kind of podcast is this? This incredibly intelligent man who has written these books on leadership. And he invites these incredibly smart people to his podcast. And they talk about profound things. And they talk about research and science and the world and the society.

7:24 And you can see my kids looking at me like, when are we going to get to the part of why you're here? Why are you going to be on it? But the reason that I couldn't say no was that my best friend, we've known each other since we were teenagers of 30 plus years. He's a great extrovert. You know, always was always a good leader, always one of those guys that you followed everywhere because he just had that charisma.

7:47 And he when he was 19, he started working as a forklift driver at a warehouse, food and vegetables. And then over the course of 25 years, he's worked his way up. And now he's the head of HR for the company of 900 people. He talks about your books and your writing and how it's affected his view on leadership, how it's affected his view on how to be of service to others.

8:18 like he talks a lot about he talks a lot about how he learned that leadership it's not about the position it's about the responsibility and responsibility to others and being of service to others we talk about it a lot um so i couldn't like there was no way that he would forgive me if i said no to this that's very kind thank you what i'm taking away from that story which is so beautiful is how proud you are of him you're glowing as you talk about it and as i've been looking at friendship and trying to understand friendship there's this very interesting observation that we all i hope have at least one but a few a group of people that we can turn to in dark times when we're at our worst when we're struggling we can go to these people and say i

9:07 i just need to vent i need your help i'm not doing well you know i i hope that everybody has that that group of friends. What I've found fascinating is that it's a smaller group of friends that we can call to brag, that we can call to say, I did something great. Something great happened to me. My book hit the bestseller list.

9:26 I'm so proud of myself. And there's no jealousy on the other side. And there's no envy. And what I find so fascinating is the number of people that we can brag to is smaller than the number of people we can go to in hard times. And so this says a lot, I think, about the quality of your friendship. You said he's such a close friend.

9:45 You've been friends since you were teenagers, that you were talking about his accomplishments as if they're your own. Has it always been like that? Or have you ever had times in that friendship where you were jealous or something he did highlighted an insecurity in you? No, I think it's always been that we were really proud of each other i think it's always it was always that we we rooted so strongly for each other he's always been insanely proud of me like for whatever i accomplished and i but i think i really really think that i he was the person who taught me how to be that it was important to be happy for others like that that was a genuine part of the friendship to be to have that to be able to be genuinely happy for each other.

10:38 It's funny that you say that because I have that with him that I call him sometimes. And I say, I can't say, I can't say this to anyone else because I'm going to sound like a, like a douchebag. I'm going to sound really full of myself, but this thing happened and I'm super proud of it. And we also have this, he can call me once in a while and he'll say, you know, I'm this thing happened.

11:02 I'm really, you know, I'm, I'm upset with this person. I just need to vent. Is that okay? And then he just goes off. And then at the end of it, it's like, I know I'm exaggerating. I'm overreacting. I know that. But I have to like, sometimes you need to get it out to edit yourself. I'm like, yeah, this is not how I'm going to say it to them, but I needed to say it to you first.

11:24 I think you just summed up the problem with social media, which is our initial reaction, which is not the best reaction. It's the venting reaction. It's not the way we actually want to say something to somebody it's not constructive but it is necessary for us to get it all out in the most exaggerated form so that we can be calmer and rational again that i think a lot of people are using the social media the comment section as that outlet not not the friend if you're married and you're upset you know you have an argument with your wife and you go to your friends and you say you know i i just you know it's this and this and this and this and this and you know and we had this argument she didn't listen and whatever it is your friends will tell you yeah but you know

12:14 but you are that way like you're she's right about these three things like you might be right about this one thing but the other three things she's spot on there like you're you're the annoying one you're in the wrong and you have to go like all right all right fine and then you kind of edit yourself yeah because they're your editors and you go back and you you're like okay this is how i feel you need people around you who edit you when people have read one of my books and they tell me like well i'm excited to meet you because i read one of your books and i want to tell them like you need to tone down your expectations because you read my book i edited the book for a year that's the best version of me and if you didn't like the book that's still

12:58 the most you're gonna like me because that that was that was the that was all i had that was the best that was the best way that i could phrase this like i i maybe i rewrote that sentence 150 times before i'm like yeah this is how i feel about it um if you meet me in real life before editing then um that's how i found writing when i was a kid i was very bad at being in an argument being in a confrontation i didn't know like i i always went away like oh i should have said that i should have said that i should have said that so writing was my way to find i was in argument i think i was in an argument with my dad he's very good with words so he would win all the time because he knew more words i mean he he could like twist an argument and uh i was maybe six or

13:50 seven years old and I was like, I went into my room and I was really angry. And instead of like engaging in the argument, I went to my room and I wrote him a letter. And I started doing that a little bit with people. Like when I was upset with them, I sat down and I wrote them a letter because then I could edit myself.

14:08 So it didn't come out. It came out the way that I wanted it come out. That's how I started writing. I think. I absolutely love this idea as friend, as editor. and there are people who are better editors than they are writers you know um where they can see the flaws in the argument or they can see how to make the argument better more than we can they have clarity and we're open to editors the good writers are open to editors the good writers know that they won't get it right and they need somebody's input to see the things that we can't see.

14:41 And to think of a friend, to have that same clarity and objectivity and to be able to see what we're trying to say. And for us to be open to an editor rather than to just hire somebody to just agree with our writing. You said that you learned to be proud of somebody else from him. Did he actually sit down and teach you the lesson or did you just feel his joy for you and and you learned it by example by watching him no with him i think i learned with that that particular thing i think i learned by example uh and and uh still do i mean he's still my he's still very much my role model he's always you know showed showed me how to be a better person i'm always trying to give me an example he was always the first with a lot of things so he was the first to get a

15:41 serious relationship we were 22 23 and we would always watch movies we would always end up at you know whatever night it was we were up usually at my apartment and we would watch movies and or play video games he met a girl and and and uh you know after a while they got serious and one night he just he just sat there and he like just looked at me and he said you know what um i think this is gonna be the last time for a very long time that i watch a movie with you guys i was like what and he's like no i've been thinking about it and this is something that we do but we're gonna do other things like we're gonna go we're gonna go grab a beer we're gonna go grab dinner we're gonna hang out we're gonna go to concerts we're still gonna go do all that but this like tuesday night just

16:35 sitting around watching a movie i'm gonna do that with my girlfriend now because that time is really important for me to have with her if this is gonna work and i want this to work and he had this really discussion with us that that you know you need to be happy for me for this and um and we would you know we were 22 which was a you know and it was such a mature way of telling your friends like i love you i i but but i have to invest time in her and then a few years later he was 25 and they had their first child and uh we were 25 years old you know you're not the smartest and we were all single the rest of us so we i remember we were in a room and three of his friends started as a joke and then it went a

17:35 little too far and then we kind of said well you never you know you never hang out with us anymore because you always have to be with your family now that you have a kid. You always have to be with your family. And he sat down and he did it in the nicest, most compassionate way. But he sat down and he looked at us and he says, it's not that I have to be with them.

17:59 It's that I want to be with them. And he says, you know, I love you. I love hanging out with you. But there is no situation where I wouldn't rather be with my kid. and he was so just it was such uh such a moment for the rest of us we were all single we didn't have kids we didn't know anything about that and we all and remember and we've talked about it afterwards like it was for such a profound moment for the rest of us in the room and it kind of it impacted the way i really think it impacted the way that we looked at a relationship because after that we were we were all okay that's what i'm looking for that's the thing i'm looking for over the next five six years we all met someone we're still with that person

18:53 10-15 years later we're still with that person and we all have kids and we all look at our families the way that he told the way that he said that that day we still were all like we're all invested in our families in the same way we we all have this discussion all the time that people talk about quality time over quantity time yeah and i think that's the part where where we would wildly disagree like all four of us is like i would rather have quantity I would rather have 100 hours with you over the phone than going on this trip to Las Vegas and watch a Formula One race or whatever super experience that you could have with a group of friends.

19:46 I would much rather have 100 hours with you over the phone. He's impacted me tremendously because he's always been the one to do something first. very often he said something and then three years later i'm like i get it though i i didn't get it at the time but i get it now you were right there's so many things that i'm taking away from this he's also talking about growing up and that our life changes we grow and we have to by we have to reprioritize and sometimes that'll come at the expense of the people who aren't at the place we're at you know as you said you were single he was in a relationship you learned some of the things he was saying you understand some of the things he was saying only three years

20:28 later when some of your life caught up with some his life but i so appreciate that level of communication where you tell your friends just so you know and they get to have the reaction no no no you know as opposed to getting angry because it's more passive which is i think unfortunately what most of us do a because i think it's easier and b because i don't think we know how to tell our friends for fear of disappointing them or upsetting them and he didn't seem to have that fear no no i think i practiced talking about my emotions because we we were that kind of group of friends um it was always very normal to us to to talk about how we felt especially me and him um and it it so i had a lot of practice talking about my emotions and he also you know

21:19 he's a great editor he's very good at telling me like yeah you're way off here you know you're talking about honesty he's honest and he was always uh but it was also also this you know he taught me how to um to view time we live seven hours apart in sweden now because i i moved north so uh we talk over the phone a lot and um so we can text each other like are you we both have dogs so i'll i'll text him like are you gonna walk the dog he's like yeah at 9 p.m i'm gonna walk the dog i'll call them but we were always talking about time like time like he was so clear so early on in life that this is the amount of time i have you know and these are the things that i need to do and i like we're still gonna hang out but i'm gonna have to take a little bit of it

22:17 he said on multiple occasions that like the only thing i can give you is time like that's what i have like that's that's what i'm that's what i have a deemable precious commodity yeah and and for him it was i can give you time whenever there's someone who loses someone, he's that person who he just gets in the car and he goes to their house and he says, I'm here.

22:49 And he says, if you don't need me for anything, I'll go sit in the car. But I just want you to know that I'm here. And at so many occasions, someone lost someone and there's this thing that happens when you lose someone that everyone thinks, well, I don't want to call. I don't want to disturb. I don't want to intrude in there.

23:13 So they end up sitting there alone. And he would say, like, there are probably people who can stay smart at things or give you, like, more profound words at this time. Or like, but I can give you, like, I can be around. I can be here. I can do the dishes or, you know, go get food or, or I'll you know if there's a chore around the house I'll do that like I'll I'll give me something to do a lot of people listening to this are I don't want to use the word jealous or envious maybe the feeling of longing to have that in their lives and I know people are asking this how do I get a friend like your friend look who you are and who you've become that we have to we have to admit in some way shape or form whether it's you as a father you as a husband you as a friend you as an author

24:07 in some way shape or form you have become good at those things in part because of this person in your life who's rooting for you since the beginning who's been honest with you since the beginning who's been helping manage time since the beginning i've been modeling what all of it looks like for you. And I know a lot of people listening to this are thinking to themselves, how do I get that?

24:29 I want that. There's beauty in what you're talking about. There's also profound sadness. That could still happen. We interrupt this podcast with an ad with Authenticity. Authentic because we do our ads a little differently. And thank you to Porsche for being open to something a little different. I met up with race car driver Patrick Long.

24:59 He's competed with Porsche in some of the most iconic races in the world, which is why I thought it would be safer if I did the driving. How did you come to Porsche? I was a young Southern California kid who was just chasing a dream of being a pro racing driver, if it was for one weekend or for what it ended up being multiple decades.

25:21 I was living in Europe and I had a phone call from Porsche. I showed up to Germany not knowing much. I knew I loved Porsches as a kid growing up, but I didn't really understand what was behind this brand, their story, their DNA, and just how successful they've been in racing. Every little boy wants to be an astronaut or a race car driver.

25:39 Where did your dream of being a race car driver, where did it come from, and how did you actually get into it? Yeah, my little league was go-karts and at six years old on a closed circuit dirt road I was in control of my destiny there was no one telling me what to do what was your first professional race how old were you I was 21 and I was racing on the German DTM schedule in a one make 911 cup series where down to the steering wheel in the seat everybody's cars were identical as delivered from Porsche and basically the driver was the differentiator.

26:13 It was my college career, if you will. You know, I was the first non-German to be signed into the Porsche Junior Team, the Farm League, where they developed their factory fighter pilots. By the fourth race, I had my first victory. And I think people were shocked, not only because I was a rookie, but because I was an American.

26:32 And Americans racing in Europe are sort of black sheeps, for whatever reason, and just still loving every new journey within the brand. How do people get a friend like that? I mean, part of it is just I was lucky. Just the way that I talk about my wife. Well, I was lucky. I ran into someone, and they were my humans.

27:08 me and rio my best friend and and that friend group like that i still have like those three friends i still have in my life and it's they're still my my my most important people and and and i figured out with them and then i did the same with my wife we figured out that okay there's there's two things that we need to be aware of here first we need to have rules of fighting if that makes sense and like my wife and i very early on in our relationship when we had been just started dating like we we agreed that we would never in a fight no one could say no one could threaten with like maybe we shouldn't be together maybe we shouldn't you know, maybe, well, maybe this relationship is a mistake.

28:04 Maybe you should leave me. Like no one could do that because that's like an atomic bomb in, in, in, in like the discussion is immediately over. Someone threatens to leave. Yeah. Then the argument is immediately over. Then you won. Like we set up boundaries for fighting. And I think we talked about the way we fought.

28:23 Like after the fight, we would talk for hours and hours and hours and hours about the fight. If that made sense. Like we would try to analyze each other and we would try to figure each other out. And I think it was coming from a place where we understood that we are very, very, very different. And I think it's the same thing with my wife.

28:45 We knew immediately going into that relationship, like we are really different people. This is going to be a journey for both of us. When you're young, people tell you that, well, a relationship is a lot of work. and when you're young you think it sounds unromantic because you think like well in that case it's not true love if you have to work on it it's not true love but that's because when you're young you don't understand that the work is not on the relationship and it's not it's not it's on you the work is on you that's what people mean when they say a relationship is a lot of work The work is on me.

29:25 It's I have to work. I have to work on who I am, communicating better, explaining my feelings better, understanding me better so that I can explain myself better. But also the fact that me and Riyad, we've been friends for 30 plus years. My wife and I have been together for 18 years. and we change all the time like we've changed a lot like we've changed immensely it's like the you you find someone you get married and then you have kids like you become a completely different person in some regards when you have kids because then then there's this whole other responsibility that i have to you're unraveling some of the tropes and the and the and the punch lines you know like relationships are a lot of work and to your point it was like yes but the

30:21 work is on yourself like that's that's not people don't say that um you know i love my relationship because i've been working on myself and i'm a better version of myself and that's my definition of a great relationship whether it's a friendship or romantic relationship the youth do the growth yourself the other person can only support you they can't grow for you and and i think when we talk about sort of the sadness that goes along with hearing about a friendship like yours i I can't accept that it's a lottery.

30:48 I can't accept that it's like some people are good looking, some people are smart and some people get great friends. Like, I can't accept that. You know, the good looking and the smart, you know, that's genetics. That really is a lottery. But the friendship, I know you said you were lucky and that's probably how you feel.

31:07 but based on everything you've been describing in the in the in your relationship about the choice to do the work and your friend's choice to spend time with his family and his choice to spend time with his his his girlfriend i think the way you get one of those friends that you want is you choose to be that friend first you choose to show up at someone's house and say i'm here give me give me give me something to do that's the work on yourself like first you have to choose to be the good friend your friend made the choice to be a good friend and what he got back was a great friend what's the term you use in business roi return of investment that's why i talk more about quantity time than quality time i think it's a return of investment for me i'm the same way with

31:52 my kids i'm um i know that i'm not a great dad i know that i'm not like i'm aiming to be an okay dad i i know that i because i live in my head a lot and i'm easily distracted and i have all these things and i i i'm bad with stress and all of that but i'm i'm like if i'm around enough then i will have time to make up for my mistakes does your wife think that you're a bad dad no i think she would agree that i'm i'm i'm usually distracted i think she she would say that I'm a good dad because I really try.

32:33 So that's because that's her. That's that's her definition. She's a better judge of the quality of your parenting than you, I would imagine, because they're her kids, too. And she doesn't want you to screw them up. No, no, no. She tells me that a lot. Like you like you, you are good. Like they think you're a good dad because they can see how hard you try to be a good dad.

32:55 And then you make mistakes sometimes. And that's all right. And, you know, you mess it up. But I think it's the same way with friendships and it's the same way with my relationship with my wife. The thing we invest in is our friendship, if that makes sense. Like if we would like I view that relationship as it's a romantic relationship.

33:20 It's husband and wife. It's all of that. but it's also at its core, we invested in our friendship, like hanging out, doing things together. This whole conversation to me goes right back to where we started on the four-minute speech you gave at Seiden & Schuster, which is you tried. And I think you're tying together a lot of things.

33:48 I've said a lot of things before that you're tying together for me. my girlfriend, we were having a fight that went like this. I said, here's what I got right. And here's what you got wrong. And she responded, well, here's what I got right. And here's what you got wrong. And you can see how this goes backwards and forwards.

34:02 And at some point, like, you know, I interrupted the fight and said, this is not going to go anywhere good. I'm changing the rules. And the rules are, I'm going to tell you what I did wrong. I'm going to tell you what you did right. Then you're going to go. And that's what we did. And within 30 seconds, what we both discovered is we're trying.

34:22 And I think this idea of letting people see that you're trying, not just tell them that you're trying, but let them see that you're trying. When you show up at someone's house and say, I'm here, give me something to do, meaning I don't know what to say. I didn't prepare anything. I don't have a sense of what right or wrong is in this situation, but I'm here, give me something to do, is the greatest indication of I'm trying.

34:45 telling your friends, guys, just so you know, this will be the last time I come to movie night, which is I'm going to try this relationship thing. And that's the respect we had for him was the effort, the visual effort, the measurable effort is the most romantic thing in the world in a romantic relationship or a friendship or a work relationship is effort that someone is investing in a person.

35:17 Not that they get it right. And I think you're an amazing father because you're trying so hard to be a good father. Yeah, and I... I don't know why I'm so emotional today. Like, I have close friends and I have a good relationship with my folks and they're both amazing parents, you know? I don't know why this is touching me so much I mean this is super emotional to me too because we're talking about you know we're talking about these are my most important like my wife my kids and my best friends these are my you know humans I always separate like I always try to explain that I don't there are people and there are humans like humans you have maybe seven humans that you chose these are your and then people are the

36:08 ones at the airport you can be annoyed by people as they love humans my best friend and my wife if they would have if they would have gone on one of like the matchmaking websites or something one of the apps or whatever it is now it's like i i'm too old for that but i'm too old to understand the technology now but if like if they would have put themselves through an algorithm and said find me a person they would have never found me like never in a million years would an algorithm have said this this lunatic he's the guy for you never i was fortunate in the way that i stumble upon people early on in my life that was very different for me yeah and i found out very quickly that that was a good thing for me that was like i needed people who were not like me um so so that i

37:12 could look at their best qualities and strive for them i want to sort of double click on one other thing which is you're very self-deprecating and there's a difference between being self-deprecating and having low self-esteem. And I think you're self-deprecating. You accept you. I think you find you funny.

37:36 I think your ego is healthy. And I think the ability to be self-deprecating in a way that is owning either real shortcomings or perceived shortcomings is by naming it, you can say, I'm working on it. I'm trying. you can make it a thing as opposed to not naming it. Keeping it hidden means it can never be addressed.

38:00 It can never grow. And that then becomes an insecurity. And I'm fascinated by healthy self-deprecators, you know, where by putting it as a way to put it. I mean, I do. I think there's a difference between I'm I'm no good at this versus, yeah, I'm no good at this. But it's not a giving up. it's an identifying and that's the difference i think low self-esteem is giving up and accepting this is this is my luck this is how i am self-deprecation when it's healthy is simply identifying something and saying look i'm maybe sometimes it goes better sometimes it gets worse i'm working on it you know haven't conquered it yet but still doing it that probably might take me my whole life and i may never get to the standard i want but i'm working on it and i

38:45 think the ability to put it out there does so many things a i think it's super healthy it also makes you super authentic it also allows others to support you in whatever journey you're trying to grow in i mean i watched your speech and i was so inspired by it because i just loved that you just put it out there and said this is what i'm going to try and do and here you go i also wonder how much of it is just because you're swedish you know what is it yenta what's it called yanta yanta yanta law yet the yanta there's a certain part of it so that people know what we're talking about i do they teach it at school in sweden yeah it's just a common everybody knows don't pick up yourself never brag never think you're better than anybody else don't

39:35 seek attention it's all of these forced humility things and swedes you know i know like if you walk through the very very fancy street with all the fancy shops in downtown stockholm like in the gucci and the prada in the window nothing has a logo on it you know no conspicuous displays of wealth is looked down upon and talking about yourself and bragging about yourself i think a certain part of it sure and i think it's to a certain extent i defend yanta i think it's uh I mean, for some of us, it's kind of good.

40:11 It's like, you know, don't get too full of yourself. The bad quality of it is what you call crabs in a bucket. Like one crab tries to get out of the buckets and the other crabs pull him back down. Yeah. But I think part of it is that Sweden is a small country. And I think it's the same if you grow up in America, but in a small town.

40:34 Yeah. It does something to you. You have this idea that we kind of have to stick together a little bit. Yes. And we have to find a way to get along because there's fewer of us. And so I think there's a positive quality to it. But I also think, honestly, I think it's a huge part of it. I've always looked for people who are different from me.

40:59 I think it was good for me to very early on in life understand the people that I butt head with, the people that I get annoyed by, are very often people who are more like me. I get annoyed with someone at the airport. My wife and my kids will go like, yeah, because he's like you. That's how you are when you're having a bad day.

41:24 That's how you are when you're annoyed by something. It was a blessing for me very early on in my life that I have stumbled on, but also have sought out people who were very different from me. So that, I mean, what you call self-deprecating, it's also, part of it is also that, you know, if you hang out with people who are very different from you, you kind of learn how to make jokes about how different you are.

41:52 So you understand the way that you are different from the people around you. Sure, it can be self-deprecating, but it can also be this, we never feel that we deserve each other. We always feel that we have to earn it. Like, I always feel like I have to earn the attention of my wife. like i always feel like i have to try a little harder to make her laugh or to to you know to make her think that i'm i'm doing okay what you're talking about is doing the work what you're talking is is you're doing the work of the relationship like it requires effort like you can't take it even for granted you have to earn it every single day that's the work like i have very few close friends i have very few humans in my life because i figured out very early on that i i

42:47 you for you to get the best out of me you have to spend a lot of time with me because i'm also going to be very annoying and i'm also going to be very intense sometimes because i can't you know i'm very often at a one or an eleven i talk too little or i can't shut up it's so there's a lot of things that i'm going to do that you're going to find highly annoying yeah so i need so i need a lot of time from you so that you can see my good qualities too.

43:18 And I figured that out and realized from, you know, Riyad's lesson that, okay, so everything is about time. Then I can't have, I can't have 300 friends. It's because I'm never going to be able to give them the best of me. For the record, I like the Yantel law. My only complaint about it is that all of those things are expressed in the negative don't do this don't be this don't do this don't do this and i would love to see it updated for the modern world that says be humble be appreciative of others see the value in others i'd rather the young law tells us what to do rather than not what not to do and i wonder if it's a bucket of crabs because everybody's saying you can't do that as opposed to let's lift

44:05 each other up as opposed to pull each other down i was actually incredibly clever and very very true and i have to admit that i've been living with this my entire life and i haven't thought about it that way but it's exactly that it should be if you if you would just turn around and say these are the things you should do then it would be a list of very positive things because that's the kind of like all of the things are things that you try to teach your kids i like yanta i just wish it was expressed and i'm going to rewrite all the yanta laws and in the affirmative that's what i'm going to do you should this i think i think this could really benefit all of us i wish i could have 10 more hours the i i'm so profoundly

44:57 moved by this idea of time and choice you know and i'm so i'm so curious about riad and his if he's if his his obsession with time if it's born out of fear or something else so you know this is a very personal thing to say about someone that you you have in your life and that i love you you know immensely i think it's a fear for him it's always been a fear of not being enough for people like that's his main fear for a long time he's tried like every if you rise within a company you get a new role you become all of a sudden you're the boss of people you used to work with yeah and you have to change your identity a little you have to there's a certain there's a new responsibility now and i have to think differently i have to be a service to others

45:49 and all that yeah i think he he had this self-esteem problem at every new level he felt everyone knows more than i do they have more education than i do they come from this huge background they bring so much to the table yeah and i don't have anything that i'm bringing so he always felt that he had to outwork everybody he had to come the best prepared the the most like he had to just find so much things to bring to the table everyone else just showed up but he felt to deserve a seat at a table i have to bring so much more than everyone else this is something that i learned later on in life that i'm dealing trying to learn now trying to deal with now but i think i kind of i developed this fear of disappointing people which my wife has told me

46:44 a lot like you you have this fear of disappointing people and it's so strong in you that you do like you try to do too much and then when you don't feel appreciated or you feel like oh i think they're disappointed me you kind of lash out even before they've reacted you're so afraid that they'll be disappointed that you're you lash out at them you become angry before they're even disappointed in you yeah you you kind of you you took it out in advance and i'm really trying to become better at that my wife told me in so many words sometimes you the only thing you want is for the kids to be happy and you want that so much so if we're at some place and you wanted them to be so happy when we got to this place and you get kind of upset with them for not being happy enough

47:46 and and and that's not on them that's on you because you raised your expectations of how happy you were going to make them and so this is this is a you problem i had a guest on my on the podcast and mo got it and he talked about expectations and fantasy like and what happens is we have these expectations we have these fantasies and then what happens is if real life doesn't match that that's where the disappointment happens so you you you plan something for your kids and in your mind they scream and shout dad you're the main this is the best thing ever that's that's the fantasy that you concocted in your mind when you show up and when reality shows up and it's not that it's the delta that leaves you so disappointed leaves us so disappointed and his

48:29 whole point was like can you let go of the fantasy that you plan the thing and the reaction will be whatever the reaction will be and trying to let go of the expectation uh because you're only going to be disappointed no but it's it's entirely true i've been plagued by this my whole life like i i so i am more excited for the things i plan for people than they are and i i've had to learn that the gesture is the thing and not the reaction uh and i still struggle with it here's another question for you how can we understand bullies without excusing them I think for me it's to see how much I have in common with them.

49:09 I write books, and it's not to be self-deprecating, it's not to be humble, but I often tell people that the worst people in my books, the worst characters, they're very often from me. The most annoying characters, the characters with a lot of flaws and a lot of who do stupid things, they're very often from me.

49:27 And the best characters are from people around me. those are the people that I aspire to if people find something in my writing or in my characters that they connect to it's very often that I don't start I I don't I don't write about the best parts of me I write about the really you know the parts of me that I'm not super proud of the the you know when I'm envious or I'm, you know, I'm petty or I'm mean.

49:58 I don't excuse bullies by seeing, oh, but there's good in them. I excuse them by seeing, but the things that they do, they are within me too. And maybe I'm not that far from them that I wish I was. That is such a brilliant device, which is instead of forcing each other to find the good of the people we don't like or disagree with but rather to find what we have in common with the people we don't like or who bully us uh i i find that much more humbling and it's not so it's not so arrogant which is boy i'm pretty flawed too and i think what it does is it it produces empathy it helps you understand another person who's who we don't like or disagree with I do that a lot with my wife that I say, you know, someone did something at a, you know, we see someone do something or say something or behave badly and we come home, you know, maybe we're at a party or a dinner or something.

50:59 And I come home and I say, you know what, I saw him say this or I saw him behave in this way. And I got this shame that that is probably something that I do once in a while and I have to become better at fighting that part of me. And it's not to be self-deprecating or humble, but I think that I'm in large parts a narcissist.

51:25 I really do. I just fight it. And I think that's, maybe that was my, you know, survival mechanism kicking in that, that I have to find people around me who are different from me and better from me so that they constantly remind me not to be a jerk. because I struggle with my narcissism all the time. I fight it actively to be better because I think if I let it loose, I would be a horrible, horrible person.

52:02 I think of myself as an idiot. There are people who are much smarter than me, much more disciplined than me, much more schooled than me. The thing that I have, though, that I do recognize is, and I don't joke. When I say that I'm an idiot, I'm not being self-deprecating and I'm not sort of it's not false humility.

52:20 The one thing that I'm very comfortable being is outwardly curious and saying I don't know or saying, can you explain that again, please? Because I don't understand the way you explained it the first time and saying and asking the questions that other people are afraid to ask because it'll make them look dumb.

52:39 And I already know I'm an idiot, so I'm not going to look any dumber than I already think I am. And so I asked those questions and I, the result is I get to learn more because I simply asked the question and hopefully whatever I learn, I want to share, but I don't believe in being selfish with anything I learned because I think the lessons are interesting.

52:59 And the other thing I hate is tadas. Like I hate, I write my books. I never wanted to be like, wait for it, wait for it. And look how smart I am. I always want my reader to come to my conclusion one page before I reveal it so that by the time I reveal it they go oh yeah yeah totally that makes perfect sense yeah of course it's the whole I think it's a very generous way of writing it's a very generous way of telling a story it's why I like Sweden it's why I like I just wanted to put that affirmatively but it's why I like all those things because because and you said it like it's that small country small town like it's either us or none of us like i don't necessarily like you but like we got to do this you know so we all have different

53:48 jobs to make the machine go and just everybody has to do their job but it's every job is important to the machine because i write that's what i do i i i'm only interested in like writing and storytelling but you have this incredible inclusive way of writing you have this way of writing where you feel immediately that someone is talking with you not to you not down to you there are so many people that i know my best friend included who will say i don't read a lot of books and Riyad will say like, they're like, I'll read Frederick's books because he's my best friend.

54:33 And, but I don't, you know, I'm not a great book reader. And he says that all the time, but he's read all of yours. And I think a lot of people will say that, no, I don't read books, but I read Simon. And that's like the best compliment I get as a writer. The ones I value the most is when people come up to me at book signings when teachers or parents and they say no I have a teenage kid or my husband or someone in their life and they say they don't read books they don't read ever but they read one of your books and now they're reading other books like being a gateway to harder literature if that makes sense it's the greatest thing that a person can be and I think you're opening a lot of doors to people they read you and they feel like

55:21 maybe I can read other stuff too and that's amazing thank you frederick this is um i know why they gave me this question to ask you this is the because i have a very strong opinion about this this uh question um who has the world's best cardamom bun or the world's best yeah we do the sweets i know a bakery in stockholm that i will walk i walk out of town to go to it's called et bagheri and it is profoundly good how good that cardamom bun is.

55:55 Yeah, but I think you would... Raisin bun with butter? Oh, I could just sit there and eat bread all day. Yeah, but you'll get... I think from a lot of Swedes, you will get the same answer that you would get if you asked an Italian about the best pasta, they would say my mother. Well, I would like to compare your mother's to Ed Bagheri, and we'll have a bun-off.

56:21 she's right up there i promise you i love cardamom and i love bread and i i also know that it ends with the letter n not the letter m it's not cardamom it's cardamon i know that like orangutan not orangutan uh but it's these little things anyway very complicated there's a lot of things to keep in your head and this is why i stay up all night you're absolutely right about that that bakery it's it's uh it's uh it's awesome i think we have a you know bakery wise stockholm is the best what an absolute joy uh didn't expect it to be so emotional and i'm really grateful i got to learn from you i get to try to be a little better version of myself today thanks to this thanks to you so i really really appreciate it really love really look at the

57:09 conversation lovely meeting i i really appreciated you having me on it was really nice i never know what people expect i don't know what you were hoping for with this so i i i really hope your viewers aren't disappointed that because i i imagine they they tune in for someone to be super smart and have profound insights and maybe know a lot of research and science well then they wouldn't be coming to me because i know no research and no science so they'd be disappointed with with there without you, that wouldn't have been the thing they're coming for.

57:41 It was a real pleasure. A real joy. A Bit of Optimism is a production of the Optimism Company. Lovingly produced by our team, Lindsay Garbenius, Phoebe Bradford, and Devin Johnson. Subscribe wherever you enjoy listening to podcasts, and if you want even more cool stuff, visit simonsenic.com. Thanks for listening.

58:03 Take care of yourself. Take care of each other.