Malcolm Gladwell

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Hello, I'm Kirsty Young. Thank you for downloading this podcast of Desert Island Discs from BBC Radio 4. For rights reasons the music choices are shorter than in the radio broadcast.

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For more information about the programme, please visit bbc.co.uk/slash radio four.

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My castaway this week is the writer Malcolm Gladwell. To read his work is to experience the sense that, after years of bumbling about short sightedly in the human experience, one has suddenly put on a pair of perfectly intellectually focussed spectacles. Always concise, frequently counterintuitive, and unexpectedly beguiling, his work orders the world in such a way as to make previously opaque human behaviour into vividly illuminating patterns.

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He believes that only by understanding people's backgrounds can we unravel the logic behind their success. His own achievements can presumably then be attributed not just to his keen mind and polished prose,

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But also to the concerned cultivation of his parents, an English mathematician and a Jamaican psychotherapist. He says I am the bird attached to the top of a very large beast, pecking away and eating the gnats. I am someone who draws inspiration from the brilliance of others and repackages it. I am a populariser, a simplifier, and a synthesiser. By your own admission, then, Malcolm Gladwell, you're interested in things that tend to be considered every day, whether it's sort of mid-price cars or hinds ketchup or hair dye. Why is it that you focus your considerable talents on these rather middling subjects?

Malcolm Gladwell1:51

Well, because I'm middling.

Malcolm Gladwell1:55

The things in the middle are the interesting things. You know, I always use the example of cars. I'm a huge car lover. But a Ferrari is actually, at the end of the day, not interesting. Because if I give you a million dollars, you really should make an interesting car. Not that hard to fail at the task. If I give you 10,000 pounds and ask you to make an interesting car, that's an incredibly difficult proposition. So I'm also drawn to the things that I think are the most kind of interesting and complex explorations, which are the things that

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Middle

Malcolm Gladwell2:26

Uh

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And you often begin, you realize in by telling a story. You are, by your own characterization, a teller of stories. You're a reteller of true stories. You begin at the point of saying this happened. And from all of this, we can weave in evidence that most of you will never even be aware of or have bothered to read because it comes from dense intellectual sources.

Speaker 22:39

And for more

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And you draw a conclusion at the end of it. Do you think of yourself primarily as a writer or as a thinker?

Malcolm Gladwell2:55

Oh, I think of myself as a storyteller. What I've tried to do in many of my books is to bring.

Malcolm Gladwell3:00

Insights from social science or history.

Malcolm Gladwell3:03

and use stories as a way of exploring those ideas. But the you know, to wrap something in a story is to give it a kind of power that it wouldn't otherwise have.

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You may know my role to day is to cast you away to this island for a solitary existence, and to do that we surround you with only a few things, among them eight discs. What's been your criteria for picking your disks to day?

Malcolm Gladwell3:25

Were they all um

Malcolm Gladwell3:26

Profoundly depressing.

Malcolm Gladwell3:28

To my mind

Malcolm Gladwell3:29

Music is at its finest when it explores the melancholy side of human nature. I'm not a morose person, I just like morose music almost exclusively.

Presenter3:37

Tell me first about your maruse choice, and this one really does take the biscuit.

Malcolm Gladwell3:42

Well, it's Billy Bragg's Levi Stubbs Tears, and it has the most depressing opening couplet. I think in the history of modern music. I mean, it's an extraordinary achievement. With the money from her accident, she bought herself a mobile home so at least she could get some enjoyment out of being alone. I don't think you can top that. The achievement of bringing someone to tears is infinitely greater than the achievement of bringing them to laughter.

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T

Malcolm Gladwell4:08

I happened to be obsessed with this notion.

Malcolm Gladwell4:10

We laugh all the time and easily. I have probably laughed five times already to day, and will laugh another twenty times, and yet we continue to reward people who bring us to laughter, as if it's some great feat.

Malcolm Gladwell4:23

It's not. It's the easiest thing in the world. I will make you laugh over the next whatever minutes. I will not make you cry. I am simply not good enough to make you cry. So I think the people who bring us at least to the brink of tears are geniuses. And to do it in

Malcolm Gladwell4:38

Two lines? I am ready to be moved after I hear those two lines.

Speaker 34:45

Money from her accident, she bought herself a mobile

Speaker 34:52

So I wish she could get some enjoyment out of being alive.

Speaker 34:59

Now I can sight as she was left up on the shelf And she leaned me against the wall Keep she mumbled to herself

Presenter5:10

That was Billy Bragg with Levi Stubbs Tears. As well as your writing, you do a lot of public speaking. You're a sort of public intellectual, if you like. And you do this at various thought forums people will have seen, I'm sure, online, your TED talks and so on. And you go out and talk to companies and try to, I don't know, what are you trying to do? Inspire people, make them think in a different way, turn their world a little bit upside down and shake things about a bit. Performing, do you like performing?

Speaker 25:19

Like a new

Malcolm Gladwell5:34

Yeah.

Malcolm Gladwell5:38

I suppose I do. You know, I'm not an extrovert, and so it's always a good idea.

Malcolm Gladwell5:45

Yeah, so I like the challenge of standing up in front of a group of people and being required to reach them is a really interesting problem to me.

Presenter5:54

It appears to me when I've watched your talks, and I've only seen them online, I haven't seen you as part of a live audience, that you are almost daring people to be bored by you. You walk out and you don't hit them between the eyes with a big opener. You don't make them laugh immediately. You you come out and you amble around the stage and you might say, I'd like to talk to you about spaghetti sauce.

Malcolm Gladwell6:12

Yeah. When you are giving a live performance, you have a certain grace period. I believe that by virtue of making the journey to wherever the event is taking place and buying the ticket, and people are like, All right, give me, I'll give you fifteen minutes to prove your case. So I think you should take full advantage of that. It's much more fun.

Presenter6:33

That takes a terrific amount of underlying confidence. Where does your confidence come from? Is it just i your belief in your own intellectual rigor and capability?

Malcolm Gladwell6:40

Does it take confidence? Or I just sort of felt like I sort of felt I had nothing to lose. The only thing you have to lose is to be perceived as as uninteresting. What an audience wants is to be taken seriously. They're willing to

Malcolm Gladwell6:57

Put up with a lot if they have the sense that you have thought about.

Malcolm Gladwell7:02

what you're doing with them in some kind of considered way.

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Yeah.

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Right.

Malcolm Gladwell7:06

Once they get that sense from you, they will travel with you in many far and distant directions. What turns off an audience is the notion that you're giving them the same talk that you have given to you-you didn't even think about them when you were thinking about that morning what you wanted to say. As long as I communicate that notion that you are special to me, I'm giving you this talk for a reason, then you're fine.

Presenter7:30

Let's have your second piece of music, Malcolm Gladwell. Tell me about this. Why have you chosen this one?

Malcolm Gladwell7:34

This is a song by a kind of sophisticated. She's from New York, Gillian Welch, and she sort of picked up edgy folk music. And she's written a song that is utterly disdainful about a woman, a young woman who's won the Miss Ohio contest and thinks that she's achieved something great in her life. And Gillian Welch is saying, No, you haven't. This song brings up so many.

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And

Malcolm Gladwell7:57

Complicated emotions in me because she's so brutal.

Malcolm Gladwell8:02

About the kind of fatuousness of the subject of her songs, life, you know?

Malcolm Gladwell8:10

It's heartbreaking.

Speaker 28:11

Oh me oh my god

Speaker 28:15

Look at Miss Ohio She's running around with a ragtop down

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She says I want to do right, but not right now

Speaker 28:35

Gonna drive to Atlanta

Presenter8:40

Look at Miss Ohio from Gillian Welch there. So, Malcolm Gladwell, you have described yourself rather wonderfully as a Commonwealth baby.

Presenter8:47

Tell me about the background of this Commonwealth baby.

Malcolm Gladwell8:50

Well, my mother is Jamaican, my father is English from Kent.

Malcolm Gladwell8:57

I grew up in Canada. What more do you want? I you know, the only thing missing is a kind of extended stint in Australia and New Zealand, right? It's sort of and you know, my parents are a kind of metaphor for the British Imperial Experiment.

Presenter9:10

I feel a degree of self consciousness in asking you about your I often do with guests, I say, tell me about your childhood, what was it like? When and I know that you yourself think that most of our memories you've said are actually reconstructions anyway. So on that basis, I want you to reconstruct a bit of your early childhood and tell me about it. What do you now imagine it was?

Speaker 29:23

Uh

Malcolm Gladwell9:30

Well, I I know that I've edited out anything unpleasant, but I don't think there was a lot of unpleasantness. I think that I was bored a lot as a child, because I do remember telling my mother this, and my mother telling me that it was good to be bored, and it took me

Malcolm Gladwell9:44

Many, many years to understand that she's absolutely right. That to be eleven and bored is not a bad thing. To be forced to kind of construct an imaginative world for yourself.

Presenter9:55

So would I have found you catching tadpoles in a jar, or reading a book, or painting a picture, or just dawdling among the trees? What how would you have been spending time?

Malcolm Gladwell10:03

Lots and lots of

Malcolm Gladwell10:04

Time was killed, bicycles were ridden, I used to construct these elaborate.

Malcolm Gladwell10:11

Maps of imaginary worlds which I would revise endlessly, which I realize now is sort of a metaphor for how badly I wanted to get out of Canada. And I read a lot and I became a runner and I

Malcolm Gladwell10:27

In comparison to the lives of a contemporary eleven-year-old, it was completely empty of any activity. We had no television, and we you know, sort of like but in retrospect.

Malcolm Gladwell10:38

I realized how incredibly valuable it was. I am comfortable.

Malcolm Gladwell10:42

Sort of with my own thoughts, and that's what happened in those years. I think I learned how to do that.

Presenter10:47

And not having a television, given the background of your parents, I'm imagining that wasn't a financial decision, that was they just didn't want one in the house.

Malcolm Gladwell10:54

Yeah, I don't think uh we thought there was much value to what was on the television, which in nineteen seventies Canada is probably an accurate statement.

Presenter11:02

And it was a very religious household?

Malcolm Gladwell11:04

A very religious household and a in a very religious part of Canada. Uh it's a Mennonite community, so it was a religion was a huge part of the world that I grew up in.

Presenter11:13

So among Mennonites there would be groupings who, for example, would be in ponies and traps and that sort of thing. That wasn't. Yeah, our neighbors, for example.

Malcolm Gladwell11:19

Yeah, our neighbors, for example, uh had no electricity and a horse and buggy. They were old older Mennonites. Most of the people I would go to school with would be what's called modern Mennonites. Many of them would still quit school at sixteen to work on the farm and I didn't realize it at the time, but it's qu it was quite exotic as a

Malcolm Gladwell11:37

Place to grow up

Presenter11:38

And your parents, as your mother black, your father white, when they had been in in London, I understand that they had met a fair degree of prejudice. This was uh how did that work in in Canada?

Malcolm Gladwell11:48

One of the wonderful things about the community that we

Malcolm Gladwell11:51

Moved into was the Mennonites having a real open-mindedness.

Malcolm Gladwell11:56

They were extraordinarily accepting of my mother. I think we got very lucky. I don't think there were many places in the world where a mixed race couple in the sixties, early seventies, could have been

Malcolm Gladwell12:06

As happy, my father made this great leap of faith. We moved from Southampton to

Malcolm Gladwell12:11

Rural Ontario. You know, that's uh quite dramatic.

Presenter12:15

Let's have some more music, Malcolm. Tell me about your third.

Malcolm Gladwell12:18

Daniel Lenoir, a French Canadian, and it's a song about his family. I didn't realize it was a song about his father, but it's a song about his father who was abusive to the family and leaves. It sounds very upbeat, but when you start to listen closely to the lyrics, it brings you down in the way that I so love.

Speaker 312:37

Majorly, how do you?

Speaker 312:40

Bon au er jeans, quieti bau leu.

Speaker 312:44

I come from east of Betty No, my name is Jean-Guy Majoli.

Speaker 312:50

Je unmaisons were à la fontaine.

Speaker 312:54

Where we can live if you marry me

Speaker 312:58

In Balmazon, A la Fontaine.

Speaker 313:01

Where we will live

Speaker 313:03

You heard me?

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Only we deserve

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Majority

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That was Danielle Lanoir and Jolie Louise. You tell us in your book Outliers, Malcolm Gladwell, that 10,000 hours is the magic number for achievement. You were, as a young teenager, a middle-distance runner, is that right? What was your chosen distance? 1,500 metres. 1,500 metres. So what would uh typically in a week how much running would you be doing? How many hours would you be doing?

Malcolm Gladwell13:30

Oh, well, you know, I don't think this applies to sport, but nonetheless, uh

Malcolm Gladwell13:34

You know, I would run five, six days a week, I suppose. Uh, runners, you know, you can't over especially when you're young, you shouldn't run too much. I think of the ten thousand hour rule as applying to cognitive activities more than sports. So this can be

Presenter13:45

I see

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So this can be learning the violin or

Malcolm Gladwell13:49

Yeah, you know, brain surgery, computer programming, these are things that um sports is is a comm although the interesting question is, are there sports for which this you could apply this principle? So do you have to do ten thousand hours before you're a good golfer?

Malcolm Gladwell14:06

I could see that, or a tennis player I could see that. Running is not, because there's nothing cognitive about that, right?

Presenter14:12

Um j just to quantify quite how good you were, um in high school I understand you beat somebody called David Reid, who went on to be one of Canada's top runners. Why did you chuck it all in if you were so good at it?

Malcolm Gladwell14:24

Well, I sensed accurately that I had peaked at 14. So when I was 14, I won the Ontario Championship. I set a Canadian record when I was 13, and I repeated as Ontario Champion when I was 14. And I sort of had this sense that even though I was winning, it wasn't going to last. And I think I was right.

Malcolm Gladwell14:44

I also got a sense of that to continue to

Malcolm Gladwell14:47

excel at sports would require an enormous chunk of my physical and mental and psychological energy. And I wasn't willing to make that sacrifice. There were too many other things I wanted to do.

Presenter15:01

So what other things would you have been doing then, as a young teenager? What else was occupying your your mind?

Malcolm Gladwell15:04

It was okay.

Malcolm Gladwell15:06

If you're going to be an elite runner, the thing that people don't think a lot enough about is that.

Malcolm Gladwell15:10

It occupies your imagination.

Malcolm Gladwell15:12

You have to think about it, and you have to rehearse your races, and you have to you end up obsessing about your own performances and your training, and you.

Malcolm Gladwell15:24

Even back then it struck me that my imagination is a finite resource.

Malcolm Gladwell15:28

And if I dole out half of it to something as kind of ultimately

Malcolm Gladwell15:35

Trivial as running.

Malcolm Gladwell15:37

much as I loved it, it's just that you know, I wasn't Sebastian Koe. I wasn't gonna go to the Olympics. It was just something fun that I did. Why was I kind of mortgaging my intellectual future for something that for running around a track? It just seemed it didn't make any sense to me.

Presenter15:52

Let's have some more music, Malcolm Gladwell. Tell me about your fourth disc of the morning.

Malcolm Gladwell15:56

Well, no, I won't go to the Deseram without Brian Eno, um, who I regard as a kind of god. And this song is very moving to me because the first woman I fell in love with in college was a huge Brian Eno fan, and I had never heard of him, and she was incredibly cool.

Presenter15:59

Okay.

Malcolm Gladwell16:14

And Brony Know ever since then, correctly, stands in for He represents all that is insanely cool in the world. And this is the song that the first song she introduced to me, but she later broke my heart. And this happens to be a song about hopeless infatuation.

Speaker 316:30

I want to be the wandering sailor.

Speaker 316:38

We're silhouettes by the light of the moon.

Speaker 316:46

I sit playing solid there by the window.

Speaker 316:54

They didn't see it.

Speaker 316:56

You'll see. One day these reach will put you through my door. And I'll come running to tie your shoe.

Presenter17:05

That was Brian Eno, and I'll come running. I have to tell people, Malcolm Gladwell, that during that you were glancing down your list and you said there's an awful lot of unrequited love in here. I wonder, are you slow to heal from having your heart broken?

Malcolm Gladwell17:17

Oh dear, uh prob uh possibly, yes.

Presenter17:22

Is that it?

Malcolm Gladwell17:24

It's all you're getting, I'm afraid.

Presenter17:26

Because you're single. You are and I oh I do you know I nearly said famously single there, because everything I've read about you leading up to today, you know, people say, Well, he's single, Malcolm Blenow, and we think, you know, we we hope that you have another life that's not just a thinking life. Yes.

Malcolm Gladwell17:40

I do, yes.

Presenter17:42

Any more than that? You're wearing

Malcolm Gladwell17:43

Anything to share? No, you know, it's uh English journalists are always you don't expect them to be nosy about people's priv private life, but they are. You always think the English are going to be very kind of um uh reserved in their questions, but they're not.

Presenter17:55

Reserved in there.

Presenter17:58

Well, I'm Scottish and I'm very nosy, so I'm going to keep on at it. Let's talk for a little bit about your background some more. Your mother wrote, I understand in fact it was at the time a best-selling book called Brown Face Big Master. She released that for the first time in 1969. Do you think that maybe you did inherit some of your talent from writing? You have a very concise and fluid way of writing. Yes. Do you see some of her ability there in yourself?

Malcolm Gladwell18:00

Danger.

Malcolm Gladwell18:23

Absolutely, and m more than that, my mother is extraordinarily articulate. I think her speech was as more of an influence than her writing even.

Malcolm Gladwell18:32

I always have had that in my mind as a model.

Presenter18:35

You've written in your book, Outliers, about how crucial good timing luck, we could call it, is to success. What do you think the most profound piece of luck you've experienced in your career has been? I'm wondering if it might have just happened early on when you went to work at your first jobs in journalism and

Malcolm Gladwell18:51

Yeah.

Presenter18:52

And find that it the glove fitted.

Malcolm Gladwell18:54

I was living in Washington D C and I knew no one and was a Canadian, was actually illegal, and I had a roommate who answered an ad in a newspaper and took a room in the house I was living in, who was the most supremely connected person.

Malcolm Gladwell19:08

And his name is Jacob Weisberg. And it's because of Jacob that basically I got all my early jobs in journalism and met everyone who would prove crucial in my life. It's this incredibly random act. A 21-year-old walks into my house in 1985 and unlocks the world of American journalism. If that's not luck.

Presenter19:09

Yeah.

Presenter19:28

And the rigours of working at The New Yorker I mean famously, you know, the very definition of what it means to be a a great journalist, and I mean that with a capital G none of that was overwhelming for you. You took it all in your stride, did you?

Malcolm Gladwell19:42

Yeah.

Malcolm Gladwell19:43

Well, no, I mean, it was a really interesting transition, difficult but interest in an interesting way. As I've developed as a writer,

Malcolm Gladwell19:51

The crucial thing has been not the development of self-confidence, but the dismantling of self-confidence. So, as a newspaper writer, what you learn is self-confidence. I can do it in ten minutes, right? And you think you're king of the hill. You come to the New Yorker and you have to be all of that has to be taken down. You can do it in a week, but it's not any good. You think it's good, it's not, it's terrible. Go back and do it ten more times. So now I am far more appropriately, I think, insecure and humble about my writing skills than I was when I started twenty years ago.

Presenter20:25

Let's have some more music, Malcolm Gladwell. Tell me about your fifth choice.

Malcolm Gladwell20:29

It's Alvis Costello Deportee, a song about an Englishman in America. It's basically an Englishman depressed sitting in America, like wondering how in God's name did he end up in this horrible, brutal country. So I have a great deal of uh I warm to it.

Speaker 320:45

Standing in the fiberglass rooms, watching time stand still.

Speaker 320:55

All your troubles you confess To another baseless peckless dress Snap ski and to butter and booze oh burn oh brokers emboucher I love you so

Presenter21:14

That was Elvis Costello and Deportee. The success of your books and the millions in which they have sold inevitably leads to an enormous degree of scrutiny, and the people who would be scrutinizing you are normally people in print, so they are

Presenter21:32

If not quite your fellow journalists, people who have travelled a similar path. And inevitably, the amount of success that you've had engenders a huge amount of well, my mother would have called it green cheese. You know, they're very jealous of you. How do you cope with the criticism that, you know, really, you're somebody who does not much original thinking, you're just very good at telling us about the original thinkers, and that, you know, beyond that, there's not much to it?

Malcolm Gladwell21:58

Oh.

Malcolm Gladwell22:00

Well, um

Malcolm Gladwell22:02

I don't think it's jealousy, first of all. The element of that that I would object to is simply that there are people who denigrate the contribution of the storyteller. Sometimes, for example, academics will think that the step that someone like me takes, which is to take an idea and refashion it in a form that is accessible, they won't understand that I've actually helped their cause. They think it's sort of a slick act of repackaging, as opposed to a way of giving an idea new life.

Presenter22:21

In a four

Malcolm Gladwell22:35

There's a long intellectual food chain, and I think all of us on that food chain, and I'm on I'm somewhere on the food chain too, sometimes make the mistake of overvaluing our own contribution and undervaluing.

Malcolm Gladwell22:46

Everyone else's.

Presenter22:48

How difficult is it for you, I wonder? You know, twenty odd years ago when you began as a journalist and throughout your early career, you know, you just arrived on people's doorsteps or you made appointments to see academics or you meandered into a coffee shop and overheard something that sparked your imagination and asked to speak to the person, and you were just a guy with a notebook and a tape recorder. Now you're Malcolm Gladwell. Do you find it more difficult to source authenticity, if you will, and to get people to talk to you on a

Malcolm Gladwell23:16

It's much easier now. And it's easier for a reason, and that is that I have tried very hard in my writing to write generously. So one of my rules is, if at all possible, I never want the person who I talk to to regret having talked to me. Now, this does not mean that I'm nice to everyone.

Malcolm Gladwell23:35

I interview. But even in those cases where I disagree with them, I would like them to think, oh, that is a fair representation.

Malcolm Gladwell23:43

Of what I said.

Malcolm Gladwell23:44

That does not mean I am uncritical.

Malcolm Gladwell23:47

It means that I am not hostile.

Malcolm Gladwell23:49

those I talk to. As I get older, more and more understand how many doors close when there is a lack of generosity on the part of the journalist towards his or her subject.

Presenter24:01

Three cheers to that. Let's have some more music then. We are on your sixth, Malcolm Gladwell. Tell me why you've chosen this and what it is.

Malcolm Gladwell24:08

Yeah.

Malcolm Gladwell24:08

This is Marvin Gaye's. It's a song called Piece of Clay, which is bizarrely not one of his better-known songs. I don't understand why. The opening line is Father, stop criticizing your son. And of course what's heartbreaking is that Marvin Gay, not that long after he records the song, is shot to death by his own father. You cannot listen to the song without bearing in mind what happened next.

Speaker 324:31

Father Star

Speaker 324:34

Pritasil in your son.

Speaker 324:41

Mother f

Speaker 324:44

Easy.

Speaker 324:46

Leave your daughters alone

Speaker 324:51

Don't you see that's what's wrong?

Speaker 324:55

With the world today.

Speaker 325:02

Everybody wants

Presenter25:04

That was Piece of Clay Sung There by Marvin Gaye. Um you once uh said Malcolm Gladwell that if you wanted to rebel in Canada in the seventies uh you had a poster of Ronald Reagan on your wall, which indeed you did. You were a rut. Yeah. Were you being ironic or were you indeed

Malcolm Gladwell25:16

Corrupted.

Malcolm Gladwell25:18

Had a brief rush of spell as a conservative American. Think about it, you're in Canada, it's 1978.

Malcolm Gladwell25:26

Your Prime Minister is a socialist, who.

Malcolm Gladwell25:29

Goes and holidays in Cuba. There's no room on the left. Meanwhile, in America, what's going on? There's a kind of revolution happening. You know, an ideological revolution. Also in England, there's a revolution happening. My friend Terry and I, we became these kind of gleeful right-wingers for a little spell in high school, at the beginning of college. You know, it ended when the real world came into focus. And I had a poster of Ronald Reagan on my wall. And I spent two summers in Washington working at various right-wing organizations when I was in college. We never think that the people on the right are having the most fun. Of course, the great regret of all conservatives is that they understand that culturally those on the left are doing all the drugs, having all the sex, listening to the much better music, you know, going to all the cool clubs while they're being all stuffy and smoking cigars at White's. But I feel like for a magic moment in the late 70s and early 80s, the tables were turned and right-wingers had the fun. And that's when I was lucky enough to be a right-winger.

Presenter26:28

Do you get a kick out of being a contrarian? I am a mischief maker.

Malcolm Gladwell26:33

Yes.

Presenter26:33

I know you made it clear to me earlier that you're always slightly confused and maybe even perturbed by English British journalists' preoccupation with people's private lives. But when you're as popular as Malcolm Gladwell, it is good to try to get a sense of what you don't do when you're pumping out these great big beefy bestsellers that we all love. I mean, what do you spend your time doing when you're not writing?

Malcolm Gladwell26:53

Well, I'm still a big runner, so I do a lot of that. I'm a huge sports fan, so I'm tracking international track and field on obscure websites. I spend a lot of my time traveling.

Malcolm Gladwell27:07

Both for fun and for work. I don't make a sharp division between my work and my play.

Presenter27:13

As something of the outsider, do you think that makes you a better writer and understander of America? Because you're engaged but you're one distance away from more than

Malcolm Gladwell27:20

And more than that, as an outsider, you can take far more risks. I can always go home to Canada. If I offend everyone in sight,

Presenter27:29

Let's have some more music, Malcolm. Tell me about your seventh choice.

Malcolm Gladwell27:33

Another Marvin Gaye, you can't have too much. At the 1983 National Basketball Association All-Star Game, they always sing the national anthem and they bring in someone famous to sing it, and he sang it that year. And he did this, gave this extraordinary rendition of this very familiar song. And you have to know that he was probably high on coke as he sang it. This was the height of the cocaine era in American society. So he's high, and he is doing this bizarre thing to the song. And it's only when you hear the song out of context that you realize what a kind of nasty piece of work the American National Anthem is. They're blowing stuff up. This is their national anthem. It's about rockets and bombs. Do you need better insight into the heart of the American soul?

Speaker 328:21

Head to the rocket red

Speaker 328:28

Come down this brothers leave me there.

Speaker 328:34

Get your

Speaker 328:36

You mine.

Speaker 328:40

That I should

Speaker 328:44

Spirit

Speaker 328:51

I will take

Presenter28:53

Recorded live before the NBA All-Star Game in 1983. That was Marvin Gaye singing part of the Star-Spangled Banner. So, Malcolm Gladwell, your latest book, David and Goliath, you talk there about how you have, would it be fair to say, rediscovered your faith? We heard earlier this morning about the fact that you were brought up by religious parents and you went to church and you read the Bible at home and all of that was normal.

Presenter29:16

Why have you come back to it, and what effect has it had upon you?

Malcolm Gladwell29:19

Well, I came back to it because in the course of I was trying to write a book about conflict.

Malcolm Gladwell29:25

and about how the things we think that determine outcomes in conflicts aren't as important as we imagine. So resources, conventional sources of power and might

Malcolm Gladwell29:38

You know, the things that Goliath has size, strength, armour.

Malcolm Gladwell29:43

They don't end up being as important as we think, and that other things

Malcolm Gladwell29:47

The weapons of the spirit, determination.

Malcolm Gladwell29:50

Audacity, imagination.

Malcolm Gladwell29:52

Those end up being actually really crucial, lots and lots of cases.

Malcolm Gladwell29:56

Began walking through what I thought were obvious examples.

Malcolm Gladwell30:00

Insurgencies. Why are so many entrepreneurs dyslexic? Cases where people have kind of you wouldn't have thought they would have won, but they did. After you sort of do that for a while

Malcolm Gladwell30:12

You start to ask yourself, okay, so the weapons of the spirit are more powerful than conventional weapons. Well, what are the weapons of the spirit? At the end of the day, you end up with this extraordinary respect, then it grows to more than that, of what faith is about. Because ultimately, what underdogs have when they triumph is they have faith in their ability to overcome all kinds of obstacles, and that faith turns out to be.

Malcolm Gladwell30:37

Phenomenally powerful. And that was a very kind of transformative moment, you know, for for me.

Presenter30:44

So it's present now in your life, does it tangibly change things now that you've you're closer to to faith and to belief than you were in your twenties and thirties?

Malcolm Gladwell30:53

I am still in the process of kind of unraveling what this insight means for me. It's almost as if it's it sort of opened up a new dimension. I'm not being very articulate about it, I'm afraid.

Presenter31:07

Well, you're in the middle y you know.

Malcolm Gladwell31:08

It's a process, I suppose. It's just funny. After spending thirty years.

Presenter31:08

It's a process, I suppose, yeah.

Malcolm Gladwell31:13

Not thinking about a subject like faith at all, to suddenly pivot.

Malcolm Gladwell31:19

At the age of fifty, and start to think about it, is disruptive in the Silicon Valley sense of the word, which is a good thing.

Malcolm Gladwell31:27

Yeah.

Presenter31:27

I'm going to cast you away to a desert island, as you know. How will you deal with your own company day after day after day after day?

Malcolm Gladwell31:34

Well, I'm quite good at solitude. I'm sure that else the first few years will be uh a relief that I don't have to interact with the rest of the world.

Malcolm Gladwell31:43

At last some alone time.

Malcolm Gladwell31:45

Do you like it that much, do you? I do like my solitude, yes, that's.

Presenter31:49

Do you take yourself off, do you try to find time?

Malcolm Gladwell31:52

Yes, part of the reason I like to run so much is that running is

Presenter31:52

Yes.

Malcolm Gladwell31:57

Perfect alone time. Something about the fact that you are exerting yourself physically as you are being introspective makes the introspection all the more.

Malcolm Gladwell32:08

Powerful and meaningful.

Presenter32:09

So, the eighth disc, what are you gonna play? Tell us about this.

Malcolm Gladwell32:13

John Prine, this is the ultimate man spurned by lover song. If you listen very, very closely, he's just so upset and sad, but it's so artfully done. You know, the thing that I love about a lot of the music that I've chosen is that it is morbid and depressing, but they managed to make morbid and depressing appealing.

Malcolm Gladwell32:36

And I'm very, very conscious of the fact that if these all of these eight people had lived blissfully happy lives, I would be worse off. I am profiting from their misery.

Malcolm Gladwell32:48

And that's just weird.

Presenter32:50

Yeah.

Speaker 332:50

Uh

Malcolm Gladwell32:52

Let's give it.

Malcolm Gladwell32:53

I wish you you don't.

Speaker 332:56

Do like I do.

Speaker 332:59

Never fall in love with someone like you

Speaker 333:04

Possibly.

Speaker 333:06

Just like I did.

Speaker 333:10

You probably walk around the block like a little kid.

Speaker 333:15

The kids don't know.

Speaker 333:17

They can only guess.

Speaker 333:20

How hard it is?

Speaker 333:22

To wish you happiness

Presenter33:24

That was John Pryne and all the best. So, Malcolm, it's time for me. I always give Castaways books. I give them the Bible and the complete works of Shakespeare. I will give you those now. And you get to take another book along with you to this island. What's it going to be?

Malcolm Gladwell33:38

There's a wonderful English children's book writer named I think he's long dead Geoffrey Trees, who wrote dozens, if not hundreds, of historical novels for kids, for boys, that I read so avidly as a child. And I would take just a random sample of his books with me. They would remind me of a very happy time in my life, because I'm obviously really lonely eventually on his desert island. And they are also just such pristine.

Malcolm Gladwell34:07

Examples of storytelling. To read examples of a master at work would be

Malcolm Gladwell34:11

Enormously comforting in my solitude there.

Presenter34:14

So we will hope that there is a collected works, and we will give you that. And a luxury, too. You're allowed one single thing really not useful, but something that would help you deal.

Presenter34:24

With the privations, what will it be?

Malcolm Gladwell34:26

A set of golf clubs.

Malcolm Gladwell34:28

I don't golf. I've never golfed. I will never golf. Why? Because it's a preposterous sport that chews up enormous amounts of time. It leads to nothing but frustration. But I'm on a desert island. I can construct a little golf course and I can while away the hours, you know, teaching myself how to play. So I thought that would be.

Malcolm Gladwell34:44

The only time in my life when I can actually master that sport.

Presenter34:47

Constantly in the bunker, and I'll even give you some golf balls to go with the clubs. And of these eight tracks, if you had to save just one from the waves, which one would it be?

Malcolm Gladwell34:50

Yeah.

Malcolm Gladwell34:56

Such a good question. I think I would save the Marvin Gaye Star Spangled Banner. Every time I listen to it I hear something else. So I even find when he says Home of the Brave and the Land of the Free, it is always poignant when someone African American

Malcolm Gladwell35:13

Sings that line because it wasn't the land of the free for them until.

Malcolm Gladwell35:18

Relatively recently in America. So, to have a descendant of a slave sing that, there's all these moments in that song that always to hear something.

Malcolm Gladwell35:28

I'm so iconic and so familiar in a different light.

Malcolm Gladwell35:31

is really powerful.

Presenter35:33

It's yours, Malcolm Gladwell. Thank you very much for letting us hear your desert island discs. Thank you.

Presenter36:18

You've been listening to a download from the BBC. You'll find more information on the Radio 4 website: bbc.co. uk slash radio four.