Inflection Point with Lauren Schiller; #59; America The Anxious; Cooperative Games; Negotiate in "Man Pants"

thirty three the first in the united states are more likely to suffer from anxiety disorders clinic for anxiety disorder that anyone anywhere else in the world and learn show airs every week on infection i talk with women are changing the wealth that with republican and he's the author of america the party is leading a deletion with rags and familiar one of the most important things i found in my life keep your heart open to everybody that the president is talking about that was recorded i learned this inflection point three welcome back to

inflection point i'm lauren shuler in the united states are more likely to suffer from anxiety disorder clinical anxiety disorder than anyone anywhere else in the world not to read the author of american teenagers our pursuit of happiness is making of the nation of nervous wreck i'm lauren shuler and this inflection point conversations of women changing the status quo are you saying in your daily affirmations for three d standing in your power poses perhaps meditating or how many books about being happy are your shelf a spy working for according to ruth whitman maybe not so much written i spoke on stage at the twenty sixteen berkeley festival of it as ruth moved here with her husband from london eye for his job like a good wife at what is the first thing they you do know when you moved to a new town you try and make some friends and you find a good an

ecologist at another one and anyway so that it's where her book opens is on the examination table that her ovaries office in the star outs and ends and your doctor is talking about a book on happiness that she read so why why did you just open the book so candidly it is a terrible price because i mean it reads epic event when actually read the paper just read the first page of my my father doesn't mean i started reading about it and then there was his uncle's was never mentioned ever it had been said you know we made that as he said inmates he and california from the cache and we did an aerosol and so he does have lots of different processes people come to china make friends and things i have the same topic kept coming up again and again some variation on this theme of happiness so well as people kind of

agonizing about happiness in my happy am i happy enough is my husband makes me happy and i do more to become happier and slicing about different methods that they were trying to become happier say in a way that was you know god or meditation handle positive thinking of various types of self help is a mindfulness as another huge one like groundhog day and i am having this conversation again and again and i was in an ecologist with my faith and starts you know it started out as a man reading this big code happier at home by gretchen rubin is very good have you read it i was thinking ok i can't escape from this talk but what is it about this whole idea of happiness that is so compelling for people i guess this book come appointed made it without my marriage the same sex training i think in the league have some anatomic not talking about it in the past or finding lists for the obituary and then i think it i would have not believed them that you think of where all my scales can retain

a generation iv remember i moved here as a kid and i'm from the east coast and i remember thinking my god everyone is so stinkin happy with what i've been doing wrong so is that when you started to dig into this how big is this industry what levies conversations about happiness is this just you know a very small sliver of kind of high income california that you guys talking about this was this a wider phenomenon started digging around i found that happiness in america is a multi billion dollar industry i mean people spend millions of dollars every year in trying to find this happy ever after this can wrestle kingdom that people think exists but when you look at the evidence in a bi writes considering you know how much you know monday and time and emotional energy people spend enough i'm finding happiness in america by rights americans should be the happiest people on the planet but when you start digging into the evidence especially america falls

really far down the list of developed countries when it comes to happiness well being and contentment and there was one study that came out recently that as she had america the united states to places behind rwanda in terms of contentment and then when it where americans did the way is on anxiety i mean according to the world health organization americans the most anxious people on the planet people in and in the united states are more likely to suffer from anxiety disorder clinical anxiety disorder than anyone anywhere else in the world said this is that is a fight asparagus you know he's got these people who are really focused on this idea of becoming happier been trying very very hard to be happier yeah something's not quite working to the sock can inspire me to like the beer can to dig into the whole industry and what what was going on where this was coming from paris or this chicken and egg you know when i always pursuing happiness cars were so anxious to regain anxious because we're spending so much time pursuing the city of happiness and i think it's definitely a bit of by famine that was the

conclusion that i can take it not genuine reasons why life in america which was anxiety compared to like in other developed countries and the main won a scene i lack of a social safety net hey and talks about health care nurse at each one things like pay lanes adam maternity policies that of the things i think they did it a lot of anxiety in american life but i think it works the other way as well that somehow this obsession all focus really on this happy ever after this the idea that we can just work harder become a bit happier is leading to anxiety and there's some pretty strong sense that that backs that up you know that the defectors by flies what how is happiness measured and then imagining the phone ringing and i know i'll go deep on my third set of dishes in the city that day and the phone rings and john wants to know how i'm doing how it matter at what i think that's a really interesting question which i think has a lot of past i

think everybody individually measures their unhappiness instinctively i'm in you know when you're happy they missing his happiness has become an academic discipline to develop some what people are trying to talk about as objective massive measures of happiness ads teammate it's controversial whether resurrection of ballot measures the fast is i kind of overall what michael life satisfaction measure their thighs eighty eight you know all things considered take everything in your life to get back how happy are you on a scale of one to ten then you come up with a number that will whatever that me and stevie and then the other measure is a kind of momentum i'm a measure of happiness as a you know that is it did the dishes and so this right now how happy anything and you know i mean you answered and what's interesting what scientists believe is that these two measures of happiness work independently of each other see can have lots and lots of it in the moment that moment something quite right now either all you rate your happiness quite yet although iran's that he can have kind of miserable

minor to my rants but still i got the dusk light highly and there's an interesting paradox is in that is well i mean one of the heat's once is parenthood's i mean parents when he often debate over arching question you know how happy it and how happy are you as a parents most parents i like it's my greatest source of joy i am so happy to be that moment that you know that are there and they're not when you ask him in any given moment how happy they are actually want to be doing anything else there are eighteen other studies as i remained there was a group of women in texas that they studied you would rather be cleaning the bar brame and looking after them and heads and saying we're going to pretty much anything saved you know it's an interesting it's an interesting than i i i played this little game with myself yesterday actually because i am and the number of times i've said i have to have this meaning because of childcare issues i can't attend this event because of childcare issues like that what i substituted

childcare issues with it issues or less than it is today so what did you try in your quest for happiness you and you've tried i believe you've done all the legwork for us to learn from you hear interested in this phenomenon ice is a journalist i'm in my background is in the comanche making anti slut for the baby say times in journalism and so i was interested from a kind of detached journalistic went to va to find out more about this industry and you know what was happening but i was also very interested on a personal level his hair was in this new country i wasn't politically have a you know i was lonely i thought this prized enough and chris kuc high paying him to cover an ally with the journalistic says find the secret you know maybe i'll find this sneaky little free writer for

happiness or united or says the things i did some self help things i when i went on some controversial so how self help programs at the landmark for madame if anyone here is done that i've tried to err mindfulness meditation but quite quickly into i realized that i didn't just want to make this a kind of stunt but why hair was made trying another self publish and another one another one that it is limited by it in that and you can express to get repetitive cited as a lot of them as i went to see you spent some time in the fire threatened as part of las vegas that is a community called the downtown project where tech billionaire named tiny shiny huge made a lot of money and they earn selling shoes online and she retail accords actors and he's very motivated by principles of positive psychology happiness or the rest of it he said top he bought the whole of downtown las vegas they survey sixty it as buildings business a slanted sucher and is running as a kind of he's a lazy type in happiness community and

connect means of innovation his book people from all over the country and funded their startups and that their businesses and span is working on the principles that were i can i should not be separate survey of anti semite to me no lies in a name have potties of the time it was a slice together they'll work together they run these kinds of violins paradigm where they monitor where people berries in their cells fines suspensions and that and that was a very strange and oddly dark place for a number of reasons one of which is that they had a very worrying spite of suicides for a tragic spate of suicides in this happiness community which honestly raised some big questions so is the idea that there is too much pressure to be happy i think that was one of the big things that was coming three i when i when i started talking to people you know i went i tried to get into these when i went with that might occur as a charter to ten it's a tie me down for ninety four he's busy for the next while yours is very idea now why he sent me a list of all his

pastoral priorities for the next five years and victimize the things i was telling people what they'll wear in their words never hurt brands or rap and you know sentiments of that of the product and if that's going to be but yeah absolutely people within that iran's it from this kind of pressure happiness was so highly prized that there was a real pressure on people to be happy on a pay happy and i always felt like there were kind of financial motives lurking behind people's happiness is part of a wider mission as a big chance with happiness in the workplace at the moment the night these companies opposes the elite in this but it's kind of filtering through corporate america you know where employees get sent on mindfulness training happiness training as a kind of blaring of the lines between work and self in the workplace and i think people do find it quite a source of anxiety you're listening to my conversation with ruth leitman her book is america the anxious our pursuit of happiness is making as a nation of nervous wrecks coming up later the show off with donna jaffe

president of corporate board game maker peaceable kingdom will be right back oh no i'm lauren shuler and nurses inflection point my guest is ruth leitman her book is america the anxious our pursuit of happiness is making as a nation of nervous wrecks we spoke on stage at the twenty sixteen berkeley festival of ideas for one of the other things that you looked into was this sort of it's all about me that you personally only you can control how happy you are you have nothing whatsoever to do with your community or your circumstances or were you ever when you left you bitter

big flame running through this question a happiness industry and they're kind of academic part of it is rather positive psychology in a police into lots of his ted talks another aspect and that is a very strong threat in the philosophy of these commitments which is the individual is responsible for their unhappiness and that we can control our unhappiness that we can constantly upgrade our happiness by thinking the right thoughts are doing enough questions exercises are thinking positive or whatever and they very much play down the effect that circumstances have on our happiness you know whether that's how much money we have forty nine where we gave our relationships our universes of things i think of the same people who are in the happiness business are financially incentivized to believe that we have a lot of control of our happiness and there's a lot of kind of mess are essentially say of the evidence in that direction it doesn't that they were the real genuine evidence doesn't really support that could quite easily come off into kind of victim blaming you know this idea that if you're not happy

he did haven't worked hard enough you know somehow your own thoughts for me to say the title of this a particular challenge because i just positive psychology or if you're not happy it's your own fault you lazy smart what was coming out to say is that what i found when i was looking into this that academic positive psychology services unit at the university of pennsylvania and harvard at yale in at these top notch universities nice to this discipline is funded by one organization for the templeton foundation which is one man all until last year when he died and was won by a right way and philanthropist named jack john templeton gm it pumps millions of dollars in state ban the republican party into and see at government closes anti gay marriage initiatives all sorts of initiatives that were to do with believing that the

individual is paramount and that governments should play a lesser role and he funded also the studies in positive psychology which all about individual asset so he says that the terms of the debate very much on it because i just try harder to become happy if i do positive thinking and sizes of prestige exercises on mindfulness exercises that's what's going to be the cause of my well didn't bother them any wider social context for this has huge implications for policy that it will pay family leave yeah vincent of that nature absolutely and so i mean there's been adaptation recent years to lend to think eh apple's of psychology and happiness within our policymaking measures to have i didn't have anybody's head about these measures that in advertising or supplementing gdp with some tough happiness measure and it's become very popular at income she's been in places like the united arab emirates in india and places where democracy is maybe not quite so strong where there's human rights issues as well it's excellent

payoff for raisins is very popular in the uk with david cameron asked prime minister haiti with very debased this idea of stripping back to welfare states but at the same time pushing forward this mission that happiness is an individual act is highly influential and it's i think quite dangerous that that is a counter movement yes whereas a backlash in a few tears fans among days and it's kind of a small thing but it's a it's a wonderful trip wraps very apropos ehrenreich youssef fantastical third of many books including bright side it's how positive thinking undermined america and which is i want to be absolutely recommend and spend some attack on aids and tonight it in our own hands and james klein his estate is out their psychosis of masters says that statistical by and i have been working together to try and

she inject some caution into this movement and to look at some of the evidence to really take a detailed look at some of this evidence for these positive psychology principles because once you start digging into this circle academic studies you realize that there is a world of fluid evidence head i mean that you know as a journalist and used to kind of take in the hate for spinning things and see naked creating narratives but what i really honest when i was done with this was that academics do exactly the same thing i mean is we sent ed wood reed and also the same people who were conducting the academic research are often the people who are out selling it in the form of you know self help parents encouraging causes and three thousand dollar residential were treats another spitzer that's quite a conflict of interest there in terms of the recession are these people of very incentivized to show good results in the research for their techniques but when you start digging into it find

they're missing studies the studies do not say what's people planned they say the results so much we can't offer non existence is there hope of science can do it and we can do it and you know and community can copy communities can be engineered to do it like where we get ill defined so as i was saying in a happiness studies generally are incredibly inconsistent says you can find a steady see you make whatever point that you want to make whatever agenda you have to pristine as if you want to make the point that women are less happy sense of them as a big band you can you can find one of days if you wanna make the point that women are more happy to five hundred days if you want to make the point that republicans are happy year democrats are happier still people showed people circumstances matter money matters money doesn't matter set it inconsistent that there is one point on which all of this research is consistent unit quite soaking a consistent

is that the single biggest factor affecting our happiness is ossetia relationships and our involvement in community and so that whites both on a kind of micro level say whether that's unity actually spending more time with your family and friends you know just as an individual and on a macro level say in countries where they have a stronger social welfare programs where they have more of a kind of social contract that shows that people our responsibility responsible for one another's welfare guys come she's a happier something that represents the big hype and what what would be example the shining example the ring up in the book is denmark yesterday mr levy yeah i mean this is the thing is it's almost become a cliche that standard yeah say mr peanut always writes highly on there have studies except the ones which are the saudi arabia of the highest rates and consistently inconsistency here but yeah absolutely day denmark has very strong social welfare programs

very strong emphasis on to reinstate they work my shows hours that we do in the united states an answer that communities within the united states that would follow more of the kind of patton so i spent a lot of time with at the mormons anytime and that's an instinct mean is he very very strong emphasis on an community spirit you know if you need somebody to make your casserole or look after a baby or whatever in mormon utah then you know you're you're right i regret that they rate their happiest city and mac and yet surprise a tie when close to ninety percent of the residents of religious moment is rated the happiest city in america but existing a high spite of antidepressants says that's amazing that it was said you know what's going on that in a minute

but i can spend some time with a moment from inchon to come in and pick up what's going on you know why is this happening in our people any happy because of the drugs all is a community that works very well for some people but not others and there's all things politics poll i actually take some question can fail and this question's murdered my heard actually i'm an optimist and a pretty happy person i think i'm more obsessed with being more productive mr t someone who gets a lot done is happiness the thing we're looking for are the description of her own individual sense of contentment and wellbeing right i get more than any happier than maybe some reason feel like they won the protective they're happy for other other reasons it in america this link between happiness impressive it's a it's quite an american cultural phenomenon and i think that people eat thousand so that they can be more productive in other ways in that war it incidentally leaps of becoming happier but actually people can be more productive with their unhappiness say if people can just i had a nice another yoga class and can i get another meditation

semitism in iran and had it and i just i read another piece of topics and has this always this i'd add we talk about the american dream as i do that we keep striving that we live in a meritocracy and if we try hard it was the results and i think we've been applying that same logic to the emotions i'm not sure the happiness actually works that way i mean i just think that the evidence supports the fact they're trying harder to be happy can backfire quite startling well you and you actually point out in the book that it's all this time spent on meditating and yoga as you can find happiness is all at the expense of any of your neighbors or seeing your friends or going to the park yes i think there is a very strong trend in the happiness instead the moment see paris happiness it was the finding happiness which we dated on our own either technically on our own all as part of an intimate part of the great but the idea is that we all kind of locked in topper and private in

their experience and this idea that happiness is somehow a personal journey an individual quest of the south that you know ants into perfecting your thoughts affecting your own self when actually that really runs counter to what we as she know about happiness which is happens generally is france collectively it's and there's some interesting research that came out of uc berkeley recently that says that in america the most on the people at value happiness and the more relentlessly people perceive happiness i'm happy if they become the more anxious they become the more likely they become the more depressed they become whereas in other cultures where happiness is defined animal collective way and if you ask people you know how bad how deep is he happiness when they say that base does it by spending time with friends or family or community then the effect is the opposite way says if you define happiness in that way the more you could see happiness happy to come

one of the questions that i ask them on my show at the end of every show has an advice question and so because you have taken and thousands of coins a day here in boston great advice to to give other than boiling down to one point or even everything we've talked about that last half hour savage i'm a what would you say is the best advice that you have been given year about the ceiling truly happy am i think it is to just to focus and social relationships then it's commonsense it so overwhelmingly supported by the research that means different things to different people i mean for a lot of people people kind of recoil in horror insane on intention that hey party's i don't want to spend time people but in fact it's just as drunk and that's that not necessarily having lots and lots of people in your life about having you know really measuring the relationships that you have with the ones that matter tv spending time investing time in their eyes and to china rises and why their agenda of well being is kind of session connected

hands focused on unit that means in social justice have a wonderful thing here if you thank you thank you off that was ruth wittman the author of america the anxious our pursuit of happiness is making as a nation of nervous wrecks conversation was recorded on stage at the twenty sixteen berkeley festival of ideas you can hear more from our conversation at infection play radio dot org there's beer

and wine cellar and just his inflection point conversations of women changing the status quo one of the most important things i've done in my life having just keep your heart open to everybody that's donna jaffe president peaceable kingdom which makes cooperate or games for kids which frankly it feels like we could all use a lot more welcome to the program yuki so much for having me we we need to talk about what's happening in our country where the situation where i would say most of the country is feeling pretty contentious and that we have a dry and each of us a line in the sand that we're at this face off and no one's getting along with anyone and they don't agree with from the standpoint where you come from how do you get people working cooperatively how your games help this situation calms an agreement and not a particularly political person and i'm

overwhelmed by what's happening and i feel like we're in the shadow of something that's completely negative for so many different people in our country so do the games have the potential to actually help people come together think differently about other news i don't know what we've seeing in the playing of the games is that unlike a competitive game where people are really playing against one another they're fighting for themselves victoria stimulated with a win and they're working together as a team owners buries her to go away and that the nie in the situation and it really has become the way how are we together going to figure out how to win in some of her against their youngest children are not particularly strategic com but those for older kids they really need to work together and they really need to come together to make decisions together potentially even sacrifice their own movie for the benefit of the team so that's where i see that there is the possibility of sega games in anyway will

change how people are in the world but even if they could change slightly if you could make a difference in how they relate to each other that that's really what we're going for do you think there are certain characteristics of a person who is willing to play corporate labor says one who is directly committed to the competitive average absolutely not and i'll tell you why i think some really strongly that there is a huge degree of competition within the game so someone who is inherently more competitive than someone else will still be competing against the game the game could win the straw that structure is built into all of our games so we you can be as competitive you want you're just working as a team that's the difference how do you think that that applies to situation outside of playing the games would think about how often you cooperate in new in your life are so many ways you think it's it's people who are figuring out how to collaborate how to let go a little bit of what their intention is on a personal level and look at the greater good for the group i just was listening to something

on on the radio the other day about i'm going to do the taxes which has actually nothing to do with getting a good at that but that kind of again re you know working with the spanish but they said that if an mri was placed on the which i don't know that mrs keep listening once had an mri was there some ahead of your public in that talking about the economic gains with light their brain up and it was this on the head of a of a democrat former liberal person that talking about the baroness with lead their brain that fascinating that you know you would you would you think about that and you said you're not a political person so this is just you know discussion i'm going to guess that for most people democrat or republican and the part of their brains are going to look for different kinds of things i mean all of us to a degree or another have little bits of all kinds of qualities in ice raids have some are more cooperative some are more competitive some people are kinder some people are more humble some people are so and that's just the nature of the world so how do we encourage those qualities those values that promote cooperation in the greater world

how do we do that from a young age so that the day visit last of the country right now the fear that's going on the country isn't great that's our goal and then in a lot of ways that's a peaceable kingdom is trying to do we're trying to help children learn what they more peaceable kingdom could look like and then make that happen in there do you as you observe kids playing the games as they're testing out new games or games they've already catch do you see any differences from and to understand why you know i really don't that doesn't come into play at all having kids becoming gauges engaged in the story of the game they're engaged in the game what are some examples of games that you've that you've got out there in a well who held to one of our games probably one of our most are bestselling games i guess i should say is a great strategic game even for the youngest players and a lot of people when they open the game and look inside the box parents my telescope reminds me of can join in some way in a lot of

ways it's the antithesis of candy land on candy land is says a random dame you might be you tore the head you might be think you're laying and then all of a sudden you're sent all the way back and often ends in tears are games never ending to nurse nobody ever throws up the board so in all the players working together strategically and the parents are super engaged as well because they're sinking that goes on in their game and the strategy can be tough because you're pulling cooperatively so the parrot doesn't have to lose when they're playing with a young kid and in order to make that feel good they're all working together to figure out with the objective to move the owls around the board and into the mass before the sun rises saw a little baby owls are out at night morning is coming you want to hurry up and get those calls home yeah very simple it's very straightforward because you're very compelled by the story but the game is fairly straightforward when you look at it just highly strategic i was at an event and we do events all of the time there was an event a few years

ago there were people of all ages they're and sometimes kids were there they sat down to play her talent and they lost the first time he played which is pretty typical for our games players tend to lose the first time until they come and get it and understand it which is also great is that really encourages them for the next play and the scouts can sat down to play the game best and they really hunkered down and they added more how they rule is that what we need to do here to win this game so was fun to see older people as kids are there is there is still tension about whether or not may get there absolutely is there's this feeling of urgency so you really are playing against something that is extremely in the game you really can see that that the potential for loss and i'm so aware of all the things to do in the world why a white shoes to running ian company hired have always loved games since i was a little girl he and played cards with my grandma and her friends and i felt so grown up and i felt

part of a community along i felt listen to i felt like my voice mattered in that little world even as a little girl i loved the idea of the puzzle that i'm a particularly brainy pursuit that i i like that in a game i like being challenged in thinking about something and my company peaceable kingdom we've been around since two thousand he made other children's products on but we when we had the opportunity to move into games and we started playing these corporate games we realize that we've come up with an idea that was not really on the marketplace and that could alter the way people actually play games together and to pass the competitive spirit in something that teaches cooperation so it felt in a lot of ways like this was my sole work i have to say on something i felt incredibly passionate about you in i wanted to do write a show where you doing something else before he started the company i was actually in film for a short

period of time and i've always loved the idea of stories i think and so in film you're telling a story and know as a writer i've been a writer and in the game says well there's there's a piece of story to the games especially in a children's game but not always in strategic at all games there's a story a new move into another world when you are in that world for a short period of time in a children's game maybe ten fifteen twenty minutes a little game you can play for hours in another world and i just love them and anne you have the narrative arc of the challenge and the choice that their heroin or your estimate is you know you should do what i understand they hear your dad was part of starting this company as well yes it's a family business actually another and peaceable is one of the divisions be spooking is one of the divisions in a larger family business and he also love story he was in the book business on he still part of the company as are both of my brothers they're all based in st louis and one of the division's cells trade paperback

books to the education market public schools around the us and in two thousand he was seen he my dad was looking for additional companies to acquire basically and i was at berkeley and i loved this kind of product and he felt like it would be a great match and i just so appreciate the opportunity to join the family business and be a part of this incredible growth we've had peace and what will was happening in your career at the time where it seemed like the right thing to do was to switch gears and run this company yeah it really it was exactly the right moment i have been in film from last ten years my son at the time was about five i was ready to go back to work and this was a company of children's products it felt like such a good match for me on a personal level where you were you done with what you were doing and you taken a break i did take a break and in fact i wanted to go back to film it and i was able to do a job share was wonderful at this

incredible bar scenario allowed me to surge on share with another woman had a child at home and it worked out pretty well it worked but you know it didn't work out great at home and i didn't it like leaving my simon family and i wanted to be able to raise my child so i made the choice to stay home and that was a profound choice for me i've always seen myself as a working woman in the world i'd love to be having something to do that stimulates me thats challenging where i'm learning all the time and i feel like child rearing actually was that for me during those years it gave me time to kind of settle into being a mother may be finding myself a little bit and i was ready to take on the challenge of being in business i was not a good business primary here is it took a long time for me to really understand what it meant to you be in business but i had great teachers and my brothers and my data and others in the company we turn to run the running game business and you

hadn't had a ton of experience in business was your first obstacle was the first thing you had to figure out if they completely surprised you're writing a business plan i have to say here i've been in the company for a few years were sort of moving along step by step and it suddenly dawned on me that we probably should have a strategy for where we're going and what we're doing and at the time i found out about an organ station that helps ios and i joined an organization and it kind of caught my informal mba i was with a facilitator and a group of individuals all who had businesses been the same size as mine and we learned from them i learned a ton about writing a business plan which i did right away but had a higher how to fire how to set a budget on how to really look at what are the key issues in any business doesn't really matter what their business is a hand and be able to think about finding solutions that work for us done here now in this position where you that this whole

event shall fall of cooperate and games for katz and it feels light maybe adults should start playing his name as an adult can play them with their children but it seems like there's something to be learned from these games they could help was out with where we are right now yeah i'm in complete agreement with iraq on that i'm sure a lot of people in our country are in agreement on that and one of the things that our games try to do is really encourage empathy in people really looking at the other in a steaming in the other she is what's it all about to be in that situation and to be able to carry it outside the game and is this pretty important you know now it's always really important i would love to see some adults sit down and play to al who or feeder was all our memory palace or friends or neighbors any of our games that are out there it's a simple way to kind of put this was under

discussion do you think there's a version of the game they kick an outfit that would allow us to talk about the issues that are in front of a capital l la i mean i don frightening maybe that's our charge right now there are adult cooperative games actually and it plays the same way they're so they're much more strategic obviously that our games but they really asked the players to look at one another on one of the most famous cold pandemic is the players are trying to save the world from a pandemic and they're doing they're doing good in the world that could come in handy yes tell me about feeding the week that was off eating it was all so this is as soft win game we call a soft win game where players are feeding silly snacks be a plastics into a sting and apple was all head and whistles little monster cry but the kids find it silly entertaining parents find it's really an entertaining it's a gap a new game it's not a sit downs kind of quiet game itself funny laughing an energetic game that helps kids with

press motor skills with tom language along with fine motor and counting with playfulness pretend play so are always bad really at that age two three maybe four kids are really looking to have fun and parents are really looking for them to learn something along the way what is this week's by age for a prearranged it's really pre school it's three to five what's the best advice you've been given for getting along with someone you don't agree with i would have to say probably came from my grandmother and there was someone in our family who is a little tricky i would say to get along with and she opened her heart to this woman and every person i have to say so i don't know that she said anything in particular but it was how she was in the world he really was how she related to people what a big open heart she had an arm for

everyone infighting people over bringing them into the fold making sure that they felt comfortable when so many people have left them out and i think that's one of the most important things i've learned in my life how to just keep your heart open to everybody wonderful and i think you so much thank you there was donna jaffe the president of corporate board game maker peaceable kingdom you can find the games in your neighborhood play store will put a link to their website on our website and such an iranian dot org at

some people love to negotiate it others not so much but like everything else in life talking about many might just be something you have to practice before you can feel truly comfortable with it megan tan the creator and host of the radio to be a podcast millennial shares her experience with an initiation and her base it and tan the host of a utopia as millennial i never been good at talking about money whenever it comes up right into a different person a stutter my nerves rise to my throat and i immediately feel guilty and apologetic it's a problem especially when you're building a company by yourself and then realize what a big problem it was anti jumped on the phone to negotiate payment with a corporate shoe company one day they were having a big event and want to hire me to speak at a conference they were calling to ask about my rate for some reason when i talk about money i always thought being transparent about not knowing what i

was doing it is a good tactic ran it for the worst tactic wearing my insecurities on my sleeve was some hope that corporate executives will feel bad for me and offer higher rate does not work i learned that the hard way when the shoe company asked me for my speaker age i had no idea what a number to throw out so i said something like i don't know i spoke to a few friends and learning and they said ten thousand should be good i had this conversation next to my belief and ben who is also the owner of his own independent production company plus n disgusted the obvious he's a man i never heard him sound apologetic all talking about money or if he ever was he quickly got over the feeling when i got off the phone settling for five thousand less in my proposal his town literally dropped he knew i should've gone in with a competent negotiating strategy

i felt so naive after that when he would get on the phone to negotiate money i studied he's dropping and taking notes and write down the words that he uses and most importantly the words he didn't i quickly realize how different we walk through the world as business owners he'd asked her what she was worth and get it i've screwed around the issue and not get it for a while i thought it was in the verses him thing but as i came across articles about the female psyche and a corporate setting i realize this is a male vs female issue at parties i became more attuned to the number of times women would apologize for simply standing next to the bathroom or for bumping into your shoulder why were we always saying sorry and why do we bring this into our businesses maybe the better question is as a young woman who's building her business for the first time finally changes about myself title i unlearn being socially condition to be apologetic a few months

ago i got another call of the company who wanted to hire me onto a project before that call ben told me it not to hang up the phone until we discuss money i immediately felt my stomach churn but i knew he was right thirty minutes into the conversation i asked them about their budget and they're going to say i didn't practice i could hear the person on the other side trying to dance around it but i kept asking it worked i weighed how much time that would take away from me making my own shell next to the benefits they were offering they didn't add up so i walked away i don't have to please everyone and some people are going to be disappointed by my decisions understanding in articulating my value as a young mixed race woman as more complicated than i expected as a young female entrepreneur i've had to teach myself to

online these bad habits because if i'd been online them that no one else would ever teach me to but here are some things i'll teach you know before i get on the phone to negotiate money i visualize pulling on may and patience that's right they're not acute they usually khaki pleaded much they make me stand up taller talks clearly an unapologetically then i make a list of things not to say but i just i think maybe and i don't know i'm you know i listen to one of my favorite be on earth i call it might get ready for god ha ha ha ha ha ha ha racially diverse

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