Embracing Bittersweetness

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Susan Cain (@susancain) is the author of Quiet Journal: Discover Your Secret Strengths and Unleash Your Inner Power, Quiet Power: The Secret Strengths of Introverts, and Quiet: The Power of Introverts in A World That Can’t Stop Talking, the latter of which spent eight years on the New York Times Best Sellers list and has been translated into 40 languages.

Susan’s first record-smashing TED Talk has been viewed more than 40 million times and was named by Bill Gates as one of his all-time favorite talks (and if you like that one, you should check out her most recent TED Talk with violinist Min Kym). LinkedIn named her the top sixth influencer in the world, just behind Richard Branson and Melinda Gates. Susan partners with Malcolm Gladwell, Adam Grant, and Dan Pink to curate the Next Big Idea Club. They donate all of their proceeds to children’s literacy programs.

Her new book is Bittersweet: How Sorrow and Longing Make Us Whole.

Please enjoy!

This episode is brought to you by Pique! I first learned about Pique through my friends Dr. Peter Attia and Kevin Rose, and now Pique’s fermented pu’er tea crystals have become my daily go-to. I often kickstart my mornings with their Pu’er Green Tea and Pu’er Black Tea, and I alternate between the two. This rare type of naturally fermented tea is more concentrated in polyphenol antioxidants than any other tea—it supports focus and mental clarity, healthy digestion, metabolism, and a healthy immune system. Their crystals are cold extracted, using only wild-harvested leaves from 250-year-old tea trees. Plus, they triple toxin screen for heavy metals, pesticides, and toxic mold—contaminants commonly found in tea. I also use the crystals for iced tea, which saves a ton of time and hassle. 

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This episode is also brought to you by Athletic Greens. I get asked all the time, “If you could use only one supplement, what would it be?” My answer is usually AG1 by Athletic Greens, my all-in-one nutritional insurance. I recommended it in The 4-Hour Body in 2010 and did not get paid to do so. I do my best with nutrient-dense meals, of course, but AG further covers my bases with vitamins, minerals, and whole-food-sourced micronutrients that support gut health and the immune system. 

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This episode is also brought to you by LinkedIn Jobs. Whether you are looking to hire now for a critical role or thinking about needs that you may have in the future, LinkedIn Jobs can help. LinkedIn screens candidates for the hard and soft skills you’re looking for and puts your job in front of candidates looking for job opportunities that match what you have to offer.

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Conversation around a book titled Bittersweet should always begin with dark chocolate. [06:00]

How did Susan arrive at the thesis for Bittersweet, and what did she learn about bittersweetness as a timeless human tradition? [06:52]

Where can someone curious about bittersweet music taste a sample of Susan’s favorites? [11:46]

Parallel wisdom for people of faith, hardcore atheists, and everyone in between from two of bittersweet art’s heaviest hitters: Leonard Cohen and Rumi. [12:14]

Why does minor key music often invoke melancholy? [16:31]

“Days of honey, days of onions.” Psychology may not (yet) distinguish between melancholy and depression, but wisdom traditions have known the difference for thousands of years. [20:04]

For those of us who closely associate depression and melancholy, what’s the value in seeking out the latter when we try so hard to avoid the former? [23:28]

Where Sufism fits in to Susan’s exploration of bittersweetness and search for a language of longing. [29:35]

Creativity as a byproduct of bittersweetness. [36:00]

Thoughts on the song “Hinach Yafah” by Idan Raichel. [39:08]

How is mono no aware expressed in your part of the world? [44:44]

How can someone begin attuning their senses to the feelings that feed into bittersweetness? [50:17]

Susan shares the now-framed email the man who would become her husband sent after their second date. [53:11]

Most of us long for people, places, and things that didn’t make it through the pandemic. RIP, Doma. [55:50]

An empathy exercise: what captions and subtitles would accompany the people around you? [56:53]

Can grief be inherited? Here’s what the science says. [1:00:49]

Learning to heal others helps us heal ourselves. [1:10:26]

What’s the unexpected benefit Susan enjoys by immersing herself in the theses of her books during the lengthy writing process? [1:13:08]

Favorite quotations from Art Is the Highest Form of Hope, a book Susan gifted my way a few years ago. [1:14:51]

A point Susan feels some readers of Bittersweet might underappreciate or misinterpret. [1:16:26]

A brief bask in the warm wisdom of Jana Levin and C.S. Lewis. [1:18:30]

Susan asks what made me shift gears from being an “I’m going to teach you to be successful” author to someone in search of ways to turn pain into beauty. [1:21:54]

Susan’s advice to her 30-year-old-self (and the any-aged rest of us), moral obligation, coping with life’s crossroads, and other parting thoughts. [1:37:12]

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Past guests on The Tim Ferriss Show include Jerry Seinfeld, Hugh Jackman, Dr. Jane Goodall, LeBron James, Kevin Hart, Doris Kearns Goodwin, Jamie Foxx, Matthew McConaughey, Esther Perel, Elizabeth Gilbert, Terry Crews, Sia, Yuval Noah Harari, Malcolm Gladwell, Madeleine Albright, Cheryl Strayed, Jim Collins, Mary Karr, Maria Popova, Sam Harris, Michael Phelps, Bob Iger, Edward Norton, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Neil Strauss, Ken Burns, Maria Sharapova, Marc Andreessen, Neil Gaiman, Neil de Grasse Tyson, Jocko Willink, Daniel Ek, Kelly Slater, Dr. Peter Attia, Seth Godin, Howard Marks, Dr. Brené Brown, Eric Schmidt, Michael Lewis, Joe Gebbia, Michael Pollan, Dr. Jordan Peterson, Vince Vaughn, Brian Koppelman, Ramit Sethi, Dax Shepard, Tony Robbins, Jim Dethmer, Dan Harris, Ray Dalio, Naval Ravikant, Vitalik Buterin, Elizabeth Lesser, Amanda Palmer, Katie Haun, Sir Richard Branson, Chuck Palahniuk, Arianna Huffington, Reid Hoffman, Bill Burr, Whitney Cummings, Rick Rubin, Dr. Vivek Murthy, Darren Aronofsky, and many more.

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