The Dark Side of Achievement & The Astonishing Science of the Sea-SYSK Choice

Summary

Podcast Summary: "The Dark Side of Achievement & The Astonishing Science of the Sea"

Podcast: Something You Should Know
Host: Mike Carruthers
Air Date: November 1, 2025
Guests: Jennifer Wallace (journalist & author), Helen Czersky (physicist & oceanographer)

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Episode Overview

This episode of Something You Should Know dives into two distinctive but thought-provoking topics. The first half explores the pitfalls of linking self-worth too closely to achievement with journalist and author Jennifer Wallace. The second half journeys into the fascinating world of ocean science with physicist and oceanographer Helen Czersky. Both conversations are interwoven with practical insights, surprising facts, and memorable anecdotes, offering listeners wisdom they can apply to their personal and intellectual lives.

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Segment 1: The Dark Side of Achievement with Jennifer Wallace

Timestamps: 05:49 – 27:25

Key Topics & Insights

When Achievement Becomes Toxic

• Achievement turns toxic when your self-worth is wholly tethered to success or failure.

  • Quote:
    "Achievement becomes toxic when our sense of self is so deeply intertwined with our successes or our failures...when our sense of worth rests on our accomplishments, it becomes toxic." — Jennifer Wallace [06:01]

• It's normal to feel upset after a setback, but problems arise when failure is internalized as an indictment of one’s entire worth, potentially leading to depression or unhealthy coping mechanisms.

Where Does Toxic Achievement Culture Come From?

• Wallace situates the root of anxiety, depression, and the modern "loneliness epidemic" in a basic unmet psychological need: to matter.
  • The concept of “mattering”—feeling significant and valued—originated with sociologist Morris Rosenberg in the 1980s.
  • Lack of mattering leads people to seek validation through achievement.
  • Quote:
    "What I believe is at the root of much of our anxiety and depression, the loneliness epidemic, is this unmet need to matter...people feel easily replaced. They don't feel known or seen or heard." — Jennifer Wallace [08:01]

The Link Between Achievement and Mattering

• In many high-achieving cultures (schools, workplaces), worth is mistakenly communicated as conditional on performance ("you only matter when you achieve").

• Two vulnerable groups:

  1. Those whose sense of mattering is completely performance-based.
  2. Those who are told they matter but never given a role to help or impact others, lacking "social proof" of their importance.

• Quote:
  "The kids that I met who seemed to be suffering the most were kids who felt like their mattering was completely contingent on their performance..." — Jennifer Wallace [09:54]

Healthy vs. Unhealthy Forms of Ambition

• Wallace differentiates between “healthy fuel” for ambition (not defined by outcomes) and the fragile state of those seeking achievement solely for validation.
  • Quote:
    "I'm able to reach higher to for bigger goals because I know if I don't succeed, it's not an indictment of who I am..." — Jennifer Wallace [11:38]

Origins of Self-Worth

• Core beliefs about worth develop early, through parental feedback and early social experiences—a concept encapsulated by “what gets in early gets in deep.”
  • Quote:
    "Our first sense of...self worth and self esteem is not created in a vacuum. It is...a social barometer to see how we are doing in the eyes of others." — Jennifer Wallace [12:47]

Achievement Pressure in Youth

• Wallace discusses the risks of growing up in "high-achieving" environments—students in elite schools are now seen as "at-risk" due to elevated levels of anxiety, depression, and substance abuse.
  • Quote:
    "Those kids are now at risk, meaning they are two to six times more likely to suffer from anxiety and depression and substance abuse disorder than the average American teen...There is something upside down wrong in our culture." — Jennifer Wallace [14:30]

The Solution: Strong Social Relationships

• Wellness trends (apps, self-care) are no substitute for genuine relationships; resilience depends on deep, dependable connections, especially outside the immediate family.
  • Quote:
    "Resilience rests...on the strength and depth of our relationships...What they didn't have was the time and the bandwidth to deepen those friendships so that they could be sources of support when needed." — Jennifer Wallace [19:04]

Mattering and the Loneliness Epidemic

• Many adults and young people admit they don’t feel they matter, contributing to loneliness and even substance abuse epidemics.
• Mattering fluctuates through life stages.

How To Increase Your Sense of Mattering

• Mattering is best unlocked by helping others feel like they matter—express gratitude, acknowledge others’ contributions.

  • Quote:
    "The way to unlock our mattering is by unlocking it in others...Sincerely thank someone for doing something for you. That is how we build up our own sense of mattering." — Jennifer Wallace [23:16]

• Gratitude acts as a "social glue," boosting relationships and fostering a durable sense of value.

  • Theory Mentioned: The "Find, Bind, Remind" theory of gratitude.

Rethinking Success

• Wallace’s core message: Don’t "lower your sights", but broaden your definition of ambition to include relationships, joy, rest, hobbies—not just professional or academic wins.
  • Quote:
    "My message is be ambitious for more. Be ambitious for more than just a narrow definition of success...What a successful life looks like to me is having a successful marriage, having a successful strong relationship with my kids, being a friend that people know they can depend on, enjoying hobbies, having time for joy in my life, having enough time to rest." — Jennifer Wallace [26:04]

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Quick Intel Segments

Timestamps: 03:23–05:49; 50:36–52:00

Why Are Calculator and Phone Keypads Reversed?

• Calculator keypads derive from adding machines (low numbers bottom); phone pads derive from rotary dials (low numbers top). [03:23]

Why Are Ship Windows (Portholes) Round?

• Round shapes reduce stress and cracking in metal hulls, unlike square windows. [03:43]

What Time Is It at the North Pole?

• Any time you want—time zones converge at the poles. [04:34]

One Simple Thing Women Can Do to Motivate Any Man

• According to Dr. David Clark, author of The Total Marriage Makeover, praise is a deep need for men and motivates better behavior, unlike criticism. [50:36–51:35]

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Segment 2: The Astonishing Science of the Sea with Helen Czersky

Timestamps: 29:39–50:31

Key Topics & Insights

Seeing the Ocean for What It Is

• The ocean is multifaceted: a place, an ecosystem, an engine that shapes climate.
• Quote:
  "There's lots of different ways of looking at what the ocean is...there's all this richness behind it." — Helen Czersky [30:34]

Why Is the Ocean So "Mysterious"?

• Its depths are literally hidden—light only travels a few hundred meters into water.
• Water appears transparent in small quantities, but vast volumes absorb and scatter light, obscuring the view.

Ocean Basics: Facts & Figures

• Covers about 70% of Earth; there is only one global ocean, all interconnected.
• Oceans average just under 4km in depth.
• Nearly half of Earth's photosynthesis takes place in oceans—a major driver of life. [32:46]
• Notable Map: The Spilhaus projection shows the Earth with the ocean as the focal point, making the land the "interrupted" area.

Do Oceans Mix?

• While boundaries (e.g., Atlantic vs. Pacific) can appear distinct visually, the waters are connected. Some lines are due to slow mixing and differing properties (e.g., temperature or salinity).
  • Fish and marine life migrate between water masses, seeking advantageous environments, like nutrient-rich “eddies” (large swirling masses of water).
  • Quote:
    "The Gulf Stream is...budding spinning islands of water that we call mesoscale eddies...tuna and sharks seek out these eddies as hunting grounds." — Helen Czersky [35:05]

Why Is the Ocean Salty?

• Salt comes mostly from minerals dissolved by ancient acid rain and from underwater volcanic activity.
• Once in the ocean, salt remains, accumulating over millions of years.
  • A bathtub filled as salty as seawater needs a whole bucket of salt! [39:47]

Ocean Temperatures & Currents

• Oceans are heated by the sun from above; the bottom is filled by cold polar water.
• Surface waters can be over 30°C in the tropics; depths are just above freezing.
• Oceans transport heat from the equator to the poles, shaping global weather. [41:35]

Is Ocean Water Always on the Move?

• Yes—surface and deep waters move and mix; the same spot on a beach will have different water week to week (and sometimes, water that has been out of sunlight for centuries may rise to the surface).
• Quote:
  "All water has probably been everywhere...some water hasn't seen sunlight for a few hundred years." — Helen Czersky [41:58]

The Surprising Role of Sound

• Ocean life relies on sound, not sight. Coral reefs, for example, “chatter”; fish larvae are attracted to reefs by the soundscape.
• Quote:
  "If you've got a dead coral reef...if you play the sound of a live coral reef, [larvae] are more likely to settle there." — Helen Czersky [43:46]

Surface Calmness vs. Underwater Action

• The surface may look turbulent, but underwater is teeming with activity—especially at night, when tiny creatures migrate upward in vast numbers.
• 60%+ of ocean life is microscopic, invisible to the naked eye. [45:51]

Misconceptions That Bug Ocean Scientists

• The myth: “We know more about the moon than the ocean.” Not true—the ocean is far richer, more complex, and more dynamic.
  • Quote:
    "It's wrong in every possible way...if you want mystery, look into space. It's empty. The ocean is doing so many interesting and beautiful things." — Helen Czersky [47:59]

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Notable Quotes (with Timestamps & Attribution)

• “When our self esteem, when our sense of self, when our sense of worth rests on our accomplishments, it becomes toxic.” — Jennifer Wallace [06:01]
• “What I believe is at the root...is this unmet need to matter.” — Jennifer Wallace [08:01]
• “The kids that I met who seemed to be suffering the most were kids who felt like their mattering was completely contingent on their performance.” — Jennifer Wallace [09:54]
• “The way to unlock our mattering is by unlocking it in others.” — Jennifer Wallace [23:16]
• “We need to get away from this idea that the dominant thing we know about the ocean is that it’s mysterious. You know, if you want mystery, look into space. It’s empty. The ocean is doing so many interesting and beautiful things.” — Helen Czersky [49:59]

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Memorable Moments & Takeaways

• The episode opens and closes with “something you should know”—factoids about calculators, portholes, and the psychology of praise in relationships.
• Jennifer Wallace’s research exposes the dangers of a culture that equates human value strictly with achievement—and offers tangible solutions.
• Helen Czersky reawakens listeners to the intricate, dynamic engine that is the ocean, countering the myth that the sea is simply a mysterious blue expanse.
• Both interviews challenge listeners to broaden their intellectual and emotional horizons—to seek depth, connection, and wonder in both themselves and the world.

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For Further Reading:

• Never Enough: When Achievement Culture Becomes Toxic and What We Can Do About It by Jennifer Wallace
• The Blue Machine: How the Ocean Works by Helen Czersky

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Recommended Segments for a Quick Listen:

• [06:01–08:01] – Jennifer Wallace on toxic achievement and mattering
• [14:30–15:21] – The dangers facing “at-risk” high-achievement students
• [23:16–26:04] – Gratitude, mattering, and broadening ambition
• [32:46–35:05] – Helen Czersky on ocean connectivity, currents, and life
• [43:46–45:15] – The secret life of sound in the ocean
• [47:59–49:59] – Myths about ocean knowledge

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Transcript

[Sponsor Voice]

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[Mike Carruthers]

Today on something you should know the answers to three questions you've probably wondered about about calculators, portholes, and time, then toxic achievement it's when you define yourself by your success.

[Jennifer Wallace]

The messages, perhaps, that you got growing up were that you're only as good as your success. So when you're not successful, that's when you can really, really struggle. When we really couple our worth to our achievements makes us less resilient.

[Mike Carruthers]

Also, one simple thing women can do to motivate any man and a peek below the surface at what's going on in our oceans. And there's a lot going on.

[Helen Czersky]

I do think that we need to get away from this idea that the dominant thing we know about the ocean is that it's mysterious. You know, if you want mystery, look into space. It's empty. The ocean is doing so many interesting and beautiful things.

[Mike Carruthers]

All this today on something you should know. One thing I've learned about running a business is just because you can run a business doesn't mean you're good at hiring. Hiring is a skill all its own, and if you get it wrong, it.

[Interviewer/Host Assistant]

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[Mike Carruthers]

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[Interviewer/Host Assistant]

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[Mike Carruthers]

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[Interviewer/Host Assistant]

Can use in your life today.

[Mike Carruthers]

Something YOU SHOULD Know with Mike Carruthers. Hello, welcome to SOMETHING YOU SHOULD know. We're going to start today's episode with three questions. Three questions you may have wondered about. Didn't know the answers and now you'll have the answers. Number one on a telephone keypad. The lowest numbers, 1, 2 and 3 are across the top on a calculator. They're at the bottom. Why are they different? Well, they each traveled down different evolutionary roads. The calculator descended from the old adding machine which had lower numbers at the bottom. The touchtone telephone descended from the dial telephone which had lower numbers at the top. Why are the windows on many ships round? They're portholes rather than windows. Actually, on many old wooden boats, the windows were square. But when ships switched to metal hulls, that's when things changed. When you cut a rectangle or a square into a piece of metal, the metal is subject to more fatigue at those corner points. Naval architects quickly learned that round portholes eliminate the problem. And the third question, what time is it in the North Pole? And the answer is anytime you want it to be. Theoretically, all time zones converge at the north and South Poles, so there is technically no time. And that is something you should know. It's hard to argue with the concept of achievement. We are taught to achieve in school and at work. Achievement is good. It's how we get ahead. We judge our success by our achievements. But can achievement become toxic? Can we become so wrapped up in our achievements that they define us? That may not be so good, and it seems to happen quite a bit. Joining me to talk about this is Jennifer Wallace. She is an award winning journalist, social commentator covering parenting and lifestyle trends. She used to work at 60 Minutes and she is a frequent contributor to the Wall Street Journal and the Washington Post. She's author of a book called Never When Achievement Culture Becomes Toxic and what we can do about It. Hi Jennifer, welcome to something you should know.

[Jennifer Wallace]

Oh, thanks so much for having me on.

[Mike Carruthers]

So state your case here because, you.

[Interviewer/Host Assistant]

Know, achievement seems like a good thing. So at what point does achievement become.

[Mike Carruthers]

Not a good thing?

[Jennifer Wallace]

Achievement becomes toxic when our sense of self is so deeply intertwined with Our successes or our failures, that's when it becomes toxic. When we only feel as good as our next achievement or we feel as bad as our failure. So when our self esteem, when our sense of self, when our sense of worth rests on our accomplishments, it becomes toxic.

[Mike Carruthers]

So it would seem to me, though.

[Interviewer/Host Assistant]

That we are wrapped up in our achievements, that achievements are a big part of us. That if you, for example, get a job you've always wanted and you finally achieve that, and then say the company goes out of business or you get fired or whatever, that's gonna be a huge blow. You're gonna feel terrible about that because your achievements are a big part of you.

[Mike Carruthers]

So at what point do you say.

[Interviewer/Host Assistant]

It'S toxic and at the other point there's a line where you feel horrible and that's okay.

[Jennifer Wallace]

Yeah, that's obviously a normal reaction, right? So mental health is not about having positive emotions all the time. But as psychologists point out, having good mental health means that you have a reaction that's appropriate to what you're going through. Where it would become toxic is if getting fired really becomes an indictment of your worth and you sink into a depression or you turn to substances to cope. That the messages perhaps that you got growing up were that you're only as good as your success. And so when you're not successful, that's when you can really, really struggle. When we really couple our worth to our achievements, it makes us less resilient.

[Interviewer/Host Assistant]

And where does this come from? Why are people feeling this way?

[Jennifer Wallace]

What I believe is at the root of much of our anxiety and depression, the loneliness epidemic, is this unmet need to matter. And mattering is a psychological construct that's been around since the early 1980s. It was an idea, a concept that was initially conceived by Morris Rosenberg, who is the social psychologist who brought us the idea of self esteem in the 1960s. And what he found in the early 80s was that kids who did well, who enjoyed healthy self esteem, felt like they mattered to their parents, that they were important and significant. What I am seeing now in my own research, what I'm reading from national surveys, is that there are many people in the world who feel like they don't matter, meaning they don't feel valued by anyone, by family, by friends, at the workplace. They feel easily replaced. They don't feel known or seen or heard. And these are basic human needs that are going unmet. When researchers who study it say that after the drive, the human motivation for food and shelter, it is the instinct to matter that drives human behavior. For Better and for worse.

[Interviewer/Host Assistant]

I get that people don't feel like they matter and that it would be good if they did, but what does that have to do with achievement? I mean, I know, I get it.

[Mike Carruthers]

But I want you to make the.

[Interviewer/Host Assistant]

Case because it seems like we're talking about two different things.

[Jennifer Wallace]

We're not. Right. Okay. So when we talk about achievement, that is excessive and felt like excessive pressure. What we are talking about is the idea that our sense of self is contingent on our achievements. That we only matter when we achieve. So the kids that I met who seemed to be suffering the most were kids who felt like they're mattering was completely contingent on their performance. That they only mattered if they got good grades or if they made the A team or they got the starring role. They felt that they that only certain people in this world mattered. And then if they weren't performing at a high level, then they didn't actually matter. The other group of kids who were suffering that I met were kids who got the messages at home that they mattered. They heard from their parents that they were important and significant, but no one ever relied on them or depended on them to give back in any way other than to themselves and their own resumes. And so what these kids lacked was what I call social proof that they mattered. They heard it in words, but they didn't see how they actually made a positive impact on the world around them.

[Mike Carruthers]

But what you just said sounds like an argument to try to achieve.

[Interviewer/Host Assistant]

To use that feeling of not mattering as fuel to show the world that you can achieve, that you can do something, that you do matter. And one way to be acknowledged as mattering is, is for people to see what you've accomplished, what you've achieved.

[Jennifer Wallace]

Oh, I think it's the opposite of that. I'll talk about myself. I am extremely ambitious. I am a high performer. I get a lot of joy out of my achievements. But what I am driven by is what I call a healthy fuel. And that healthy fuel is that I don't feel defined by my achievements or my failures. I'm able to reach higher to for bigger goals because I know if I don't succeed, it's not an indictment of who I am versus other people I know in my life who have a very fragile sense of mattering, a very fragile sense of self worth, that they only feel worthy when they're achieving. And so this can backfire. They are less likely to reach for super high goals because they are holding on to the little mattering that they have. I suppose what we're talking about, if you really zoom out, is about values and how they impact achievement and our well being.

[Interviewer/Host Assistant]

And so your values of having this healthy outlook on achievement comes from where? From it. Was it from your parents? From your.

[Jennifer Wallace]

Yeah. There's a social psychologist, Gregory Elliot, who writes what gets in early gets in deep. So our first sense of, you know, self worth and self esteem is not created in a vacuum. It is, you know, what researchers call a social barometer to see how we are doing in the eyes of others. And the first people that we get this sense of self worth from are our parents. The feedback that they give us, the signals they send us about whether or not we are worthy just for being who we are. And I will tell you, I grew up with a deep sense of mattering and I didn't realize how unusual that was until I went out into the world and I was working in very hyper competitive environments like 60 minutes. And many of my colleagues really struggled with feeling worthy. One colleague said to me, you're only as good as your next story here. That is not a great environment to raise children in, to be working in ourselves.

[Interviewer/Host Assistant]

It seems that we live in a culture where it's a never ending wheel that if you want to achieve one way you achieve and you get opportunities to achieve is because of your past.

[Mike Carruthers]

Achievements, your experience achieving other things. So it never ends. And like with school, I have a.

[Interviewer/Host Assistant]

Son who's going into college.

[Mike Carruthers]

And I mean the pressure of getting into a college is all about what have you achieved? It's all about achievement.

[Jennifer Wallace]

I wrote an article in 2019 that was for the Washington Post about a newly named at risk group. And these are kids attending what researchers call high achieving schools. Those are public and private schools around the country where kids go off to competitive four year colleges. Those kids are now at risk, meaning they are two to six times more likely to suffer from anxiety and depression and substance abuse disorder than the average American teen. That is a problem when the kids in our culture who are given so many opportunities are doing as poorly as students living in poverty. There is something upside down wrong in our culture.

[Mike Carruthers]

We're talking about achievement, toxic achievement and the human need to matter. My guest is Jennifer Wallace. She is an award winning journalist and author of the book Never When Achievement Culture Becomes Toxic and what We Can Do About It. With the weather getting colder and the holidays upon us, I just want my.

[Interviewer/Host Assistant]

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[Mike Carruthers]

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[Interviewer/Host Assistant]

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[Mike Carruthers]

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[Interviewer/Host Assistant]

What you're talking about in the sense that we hear things about, you know.

[Mike Carruthers]

Mental health days and self care and.

[Interviewer/Host Assistant]

The four day work week and you know, flexible schedules. That there's some attempt to address this or is that in your view just lip service?

[Jennifer Wallace]

No, I think there is an attempt to address it. I think you're absolutely right. There's certainly more of an awareness. But I do believe that we are sold a bill of goods when it comes to the multibillion dollar wellness industry. You can't download a meditation app or have a mindful day at work. Resilience rests. Fundamentally, this is according to decades worth of resilience research on the strength and depth of our relationships. The problem I saw, and I saw it over and over again, was not that adults today didn't have friends. The adults I interviewed had friends. What they didn't have was the time and the bandwidth to deepen those friendships so that they could be sources of support when needed. So in order for parents, for example, to act as first responders to our kids struggles, we need one or two people in our lives outside of the home. And I want to underscore that because our in home relationships are already overtaxed, trying to be these, you know, one household villages. So really it's one or two people outside of our home that we can open up to, that we can feel heard, that we can feel seen, that we know we matter and that is what builds up our resilience.

[Mike Carruthers]

Do you think, you know, if you.

[Interviewer/Host Assistant]

Stopped people on the street and asked them if they saw this as a problem in their life that they would agree with you or because you know your life is your life, you don't really have anything to compare it to that they don't see this as a problem. This is just the way things are.

[Jennifer Wallace]

No, there have been studies done asking the very question, do you feel like you matter? Do people notice you? Do people depend on you. And a very large percentage of adults and youth do not feel like they matter and they're aware of it. This is an instinct to matter. This is something that we have all evolved to feel. So you can feel like you don't matter. You can feel invisible, but you notice, you know that you're. I mean, do you think about it in your, in your own life? I mean there have been times, it's. Our sense of mattering fluctuates throughout our lifespan. So you could be a busy young mother and actually feel like you matter too much because you're exhausted and your kids Are pulling at you all day long. And then your children could leave and go to college and start their own lives. And you wonder if you're not sort of feeling like you matter in other domains of your life. You can really struggle with not feeling like you matter. People in retirement can feel like they matter at work and then feel invisible when they're out of the workplace. No one is asking anything of them. No one is depending on them anymore.

[Interviewer/Host Assistant]

I don't know if that's the actual question you would ask people, but if you ask somebody, do you think you matter? I mean, there's kind of a tendency to say no because of the way the question is served up. And it isn't like you don't matter to everybody. Maybe you don't feel like you matter at work, but you. I don't think too many people feel like they don't matter to anybody, to anywhere.

[Jennifer Wallace]

Oh, I think you're wrong. I think this is part of our devastating loneliness epidemic. I don't have the data in front of me, but, you know, there have been national surveys asking people, if you were to go in for surgery, would you have someone to call you to pick you up? I mean, there are so many lonely people in the world. I don't think it's the majority of people, but I think it's an alarming percentage of people. And I think what we're seeing with the opioid epidemic, with substance abuse disorder that's running rampant in our society is a way of coping with feeling like you don't matter.

[Interviewer/Host Assistant]

So if you feel like you don't matter, how do you fix that?

[Jennifer Wallace]

So it was funny. I was doing a presentation for a major corporation that I won't name, and a 30 year old raised their hand and said, you know, some days I really don't feel like I matter. Some days I really don't. And is there a mantra that I could say to myself and I said, I have something better than a mantra. I said, what I think you should do on those days is go to the cafeteria and say to the man or the woman who serves you that delicious warm lunch that brings a smile on your face and thank them for always making your day a little brighter. So the way to unlock our mattering is by unlocking it in others. The more we can unlock mattering, even just small talk at the deli or thanking someone sincerely for doing something for you. That is how we build up our own sense of mattering. It's one way.

[Mike Carruthers]

That's an interesting way of.

[Interviewer/Host Assistant]

Because I Wouldn't think that would be a way. But anytime you have one of those conversations, you always feel pretty good. You always feel like when you tell somebody how grateful you are for what they do, that feels good to you.

[Jennifer Wallace]

Exactly. It's a, you know, they call gratitude a social glue. What binds people together. So when you feel appreciated, the person you know, even let's, let's, let's call it a colleague, let's not say it's a stranger, let's say it's someone in, in your workplace. Really takes time to appreciate something that you've done and say it out loud. What does that do? It binds you to them. It helps you notice that they are potentially a good relationship partner, somebody that maybe a relationship, a friendship that you want to nurture and then it binds you to them. The find, bind, remind theory is what I'm talking about, which is something researchers who studied gratitude have found with couples and with long term friendships that expressions of gratitude can actually act like a booster shot, reminding you of the value of that relationship and bonding you to them. That gratitude plays an evolutionary role in making our social connection strong.

[Interviewer/Host Assistant]

So I guess. And you kind of questioned where I.

[Mike Carruthers]

Was coming from early on.

[Interviewer/Host Assistant]

And I think what I was thinking was more when I saw the title this Overachievement Culture. And the solution is to lower your sights, don't try so hard, you're just ruining your life and settle for less. And that's not your message.

[Jennifer Wallace]

No, my message is the opposite. My message is be ambitious for more. Be ambitious for more than just a narrow definition of success. What does it mean to you to live a successful life? And what a successful life looks like to me is having a successful marriage, having a successful strong relationship with my kids, being a friend that people know they can depend on, enjoying hobbies, having time for joy in my life, having enough time to rest. So what I'm saying is not to be not ambitious, but to be ambitious for more than just being a cog in the machine.

[Mike Carruthers]

Well, it's a great message and I think one a lot of us can take to heart.

[Interviewer/Host Assistant]

Those of us who perhaps have put.

[Mike Carruthers]

Too much emphasis on achievement in our life and maybe there's a different way. I've been speaking with Jennifer Wallace. She is a journalist and social commentator. She's a frequent contributor to the Wall Street Journal and the Washington Post. And she is author of a book called Never When Achievement Culture Becomes Toxic and what We Can Do About It. There's a link to that book at Amazon in the show notes. Appreciate you coming on. Thanks Jennifer.

[Jennifer Wallace]

Thank you so much.

[Mike Carruthers]

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[Mike Carruthers]

There is something awe inspiring about the ocean. Just looking at it can give you an amazing sense of wonder. The oceans cover so much of our planet and yet many of us know very little about what goes on beneath the surface or even on top of the surface. And many of us don't really understand what the oceans do. Here to take us on a fascinating journey of the world's oceans is Helen Czersky. Helen is a physicist and oceanographer at University College London's Department of Mechanical Engineering and she is author of a book called the Blue how the Oceans Work. Hi Helen, welcome to something you should know.

[Helen Czersky]

Thanks for having me on.

[Mike Carruthers]

So I have always loved the ocean.

[Interviewer/Host Assistant]

I've lived near the ocean.

[Mike Carruthers]

The ocean.

[Interviewer/Host Assistant]

There's something about it that, that just does it for me.

[Mike Carruthers]

But what is it you find so fascinating about the ocean?

[Helen Czersky]

It's that it's so many different things. It's the way. The way you see the ocean depends on your perspective at that time. And it's. It's kind of the same as, you know, we. We all understand that a human being can be many different things, right? Someone can be a poet and a great badminton player and also a skeleton that's got, you know, some lungs and kidneys hanging off it. And there's all these different ways of looking at what human being is. And in the same way, there's lots of different ways of looking at what the ocean is. And I think the great shame is that our society really only sees one or perhaps two of those things, and there's all this richness behind it.

[Mike Carruthers]

Yeah, well, of course, that richness is all underwater, so it's kind of hard to see unless you really make an effort to go look. And I think that's why we're so mystified by it, because it's.

[Interviewer/Host Assistant]

It isn't easy to see.

[Helen Czersky]

No, it isn't. Of course, we're land mammals and, you know, the ocean is far away from many of us, and it's quite hard to get out into the middle of the ocean, all of those things. But really, the great tragedy of the ocean, I mean, all of that is also true for the sky and for the moon and, you know, for the stars. The great tragedy of the ocean from. From a human point of view, is that you can't see into it. That light doesn't travel very far. Because just imagine if you could really see into the ocean. You know, we think that water is transparent to light because when you turn on the tap, you know, what comes out is. Is colorless. Even though actually we all teach our children to draw, you know, with blue crayons. To draw water with blue crayons, which is just crazy. If there's enough water altogether, it does look blue. But we think of water as something that light travels through, but actually it doesn't. It'll go a couple of hundred meters on a good day. And so it stops us. The ocean hides itself from us. And that's the thing that, you know, we're such visual creatures that because we can't look into it, it's in the same way that we can look into the sky. We sort of think it isn't there. And as you say, that makes it harder to appreciate. But it does mean that once you start to be able to look, you know, as technology gets better, as we get better at telling these stories, there's a lot to see there.

[Mike Carruthers]

Can you give me just some of.

[Interviewer/Host Assistant]

The ABCs of oceans? Like, you know, how many are there? How much of the Earth does it cover? Just some of the basic facts and figures about the ocean as it relates to us.

[Helen Czersky]

Well, I guess the statistic that most people are familiar with is that the Ocean covers about 70% of Earth's surface. The thing that the statistic, interestingly I think most people are less familiar with, is that there's only one ocean. That's it. There's one, because it's all connected and you can see it like this. There's a type of map known as the spillhouse projection, because the guy who came up with it was called Athelstan Spilhouse. And you know, so every two dimensional map is a version of a three. You know, you take a three dimensional sphere and this spherical surface and you kind of try and flatten it out somehow so you can put it on a piece of paper. And he said this very profound thing. He said that in order to see the land, we always cut the ocean. So in order to see the ocean, we must cut the land. And when you draw the map like that, when you unwrap Earth so that you cut the land instead of the ocean, then you can see it's one big global ocean. On average, it's just a little bit under 4km deep. And I guess one other perhaps statistic about it is that just under half of all photosynthesis on Earth happens in the ocean. So, you know, we think on land, we think about trees, plants, all those green things harvesting sunlight and turning it into a form that other, you know, other life can, can eat, basically like us. And just under half of all of that process for Earth happens in the ocean. Even though we can't see plants and trees and that sort of thing in most of the ocean. So, yeah, it's an important place. There's lots going on there.

[Mike Carruthers]

Well, you say it's all one ocean, but I remember it wasn't that long.

[Interviewer/Host Assistant]

Ago I saw that picture, or maybe it was a video of where the Atlantic. I think it's the Atlantic and the Pacific Ocean meet and the waters don't mingle, that you can see the line between one and the other.

[Mike Carruthers]

So how are they all one if they don't mingle?

[Helen Czersky]

So the area you're talking about, and I think you're talking about the area of South Africa, that's the most famous place where you see that, you know, fish can just swim from one side to the other. It's clearly connected, but the water doesn't have time to mix up. Whatever's generating the distinctiveness is kind of generating distinctiveness faster than the mixing can even it out.

[Interviewer/Host Assistant]

But you say fish could swim between the two things. They can go and do they?

[Helen Czersky]

Yeah, that's right. So. And actually there are. Because of this distinctive anatomy. You know, if you. So to us, it just looks like water and more water and other water. But if you're a fish, especially if you're a predator that can swim long distances to find food, the ocean to you is a. Has structure in the same way that we look at land and we see hills and forests and streams, you know, we see different types of environment. If you're underwater and you're a predator, you can effectively distinguish different types of environments. So, for example, the Gulf Stream. So the Gulf Stream is the big, fast, warm current that comes up the side of North America in the Atlantic and then turns across and comes out towards us in Europe. And it's generally drawn on a map as a kind of smooth line kind of curving around. But actually, if you look at what it's really doing, it's much more interesting than that, because this river of water within other water is sort of wobbling and meandering as it goes. And sometimes as those wobbles grow, they get big enough. So imagine a kind of a stream going along that starts to generate a loop, and the loop gets bigger and bigger until eventually a whole part of that loop can kind of break away and it just spins by itself. And so the Gulf Stream is doing that all the time. And it's kind of budding these spinning islands of water that we call mesoscale eddies. And they can be 50 to 100 kilometers across. They can last for several months, up to two years. And that little spinning island, either of warm water within cold water or a spinning island of cold water within warm water, the Gulf Stream kind of buds these off, and then they sort of drift off either north or south. And they've got quite distinctive ecosystems. And so, for example, bluefin tuna will go looking for those eddies because they know that they're good places to hunt. And the yellowfin and big eye tuna, they'll go looking for the cold ones, and the bluefin tuna go looking for the warm ones. And the sharks are often found at the bottom of the warm ones. And the swordfish hang around outside. So absolutely, they can swim across the ocean because they know that these features are going to be there, they know that it'll have the thing they want to hunt, and so they can swim into them. And once they've found one, they'll kind of stay with it and, you know, scoff themselves silly, fill themselves with food. And then if it starts to dissipate or to mix in with the rest of the ocean, they'll just go and find another one.

[Mike Carruthers]

What makes the ocean salty?

[Helen Czersky]

So it's quite profound question. It was first. Aristotle is the first person we have a record of asking that question. And he came to the conclusion, you know, before the age of what we now recognize as science and experimentation, he thought that the sea was salty because when sunlight hit it, it became salty. And it wasn't until the 1600s when a guy called Robert Boyle, who was very much into experiments, actually left some water out in the sunshine to see if it would go salty. And it didn't. It just started to stink. So that was that idea out the door. And there is a lot of salt in the ocean and where it comes from, a mixture of places. So we think of salt as being a solid because, you know, that's what you put on your chips or whatever, your fries. But actually only what salt really is, is it's a mixture of different components that all dissolved in the water. So you might have chloride and sodium and magnesium and iodide, all these kind of components. But it's only when you take the water away that they join up to form a solid salt. So salt is actually lots of different things that are all mixed in to seawater. And the mixture of them is the same everywhere, which is quite interesting. But it's just because they've had so long to mix up. And so those components came from different places. But there are two major sources. One of them was that on the early Earth there were huge amounts of acid rain. Because way back then, the environment was much more harsh. The rain was slightly acidic, and as it ran over rocks, it dissolved some minerals from the rocks, like sodium. So that's where the sodium comes from. And of course, the rivers then ran down into the sea, and the sea gradually got more and more sodium. And then the other place you get ions from is from underwater volcanoes, which are belching things out from from underneath the Earth. And that's where the chloride came from. But once they're all in the oceans, there's no way for them to get out. So over geological time, you know, they've kind of accumulated in the ocean. And now there's a kind of balance between salt that Goes, you know, the same processes adding little bit, little bits more salt to the ocean and the processes which are kind of putting salt high and dry on land. So you know, in Utah you get those salt flats. Well, that's salt that used to be in an ocean and now it's dry on land. So it's not in the ocean anymore. But there is a huge amount of salt in the ocean. If you, you know, you take a household bath and you want to make it as salty as the ocean, you have to put whole bucke bucket full of salt in it. It's a lot of salt.

[Interviewer/Host Assistant]

The temperature of the ocean is regulated.

[Helen Czersky]

By what temperature is really important in the ocean because it's a. Water is a really good way of storing heat. And we know this because if we try and, you know, if we heat up some water in a pot on the stove or in a kettle, it takes an enormous amount of energy to do it. You have to put a lot of energy in to warm up water by energy, even a little bit. So that means that if you, if you've got some water, you can add lots of energy to it. You can effectively store the energy there, but you've only heated up, heated up the water a little bit. So, so the ocean is an enormous store of heat energy and it comes from the sun, almost all of it. You know, there's a tiny contributions from geothermal energy underneath, but they are absolutely minuscule so that the oceans heated from above. And because of the way the ocean engine turns, it turns out that the bottom of the ocean is filled from the poles and that the poles is obviously much colder water. So the water that flows, that fills up the bottom of the ocean from different places on the world, that's cold water. So at depth it can be maybe 4 degrees Celsius, while at the surface where it's all being heated by the sunlight. In the tropics, it could be 30 degrees Celsius. So you get this temperature structure which is part of the anatomy of the ocean. And, and one of the things the ocean does together with the atmosphere is move heat overall to move heat from the equator towards the poles, helping to drive the weather. And of course that influences what happens on land. So it sounds, you know, the sort of things that a child might know about the ocean are that it's, it's warm or cold, it's salty and it's wet, and, and those are quite fundamental things that determine the character of the ocean and why it's so important for our planet.

[Interviewer/Host Assistant]

So if I go Stand on the beach and look at the water in the ocean that I can see, and I come back a week later and do the same thing. Am I looking at the same water or is this all new water that's moving around? And maybe this was in Japan three weeks ago, because everything's moving or is it pretty stationary?

[Helen Czersky]

It's almost certainly moved somewhere. It does depend a bit on where you are. Yeah, that water's been on a journey and. And you don't always know where it's come from. These days, actually, we have quite clever computer models which we can sort of run backwards. You know, if we say, if we're here, where. Where do we think that water came from? So it will have come from somewhere else and it will have mixed in with water from lots of different places, actually. So as the ocean engine turns, there is a very slow mixing. So, you know, over here, if I was to dip a toe in the water, or off the coast of Scotland, for example, I would be getting some water from over on the American side of the Atlantic that's traveled across with Gulf Stream. I would probably be getting some water that's come down from the Arctic. There might be some water that has. Perhaps it got rained onto land and it went into the Baltic and it's come out into the North Sea. So, you know, if you were to trace the distant origins, all water has probably been everywhere. But the interesting thing is that actually some of the water, if you're in some places in the world where you get an upwelling from the deep, the water that you're seeing might not just have come from another country, but it might have been down in the deep ocean for so long that it hasn't seen sunlight for a few hundred years. So you're also kind of going back in time. You know, the last time it was connected to the atmosphere, connected to the rest of the planet, could have been a long time ago. So the water is also coming to you from different times in time as well as different places in space.

[Interviewer/Host Assistant]

What about the ocean? Do you think people maybe don't know? That would be fascinating because it either affects them, it affects us, or it happens and we don't see it. Or just something that's really rather amazing that is under the radar.

[Helen Czersky]

If I had to pick one thing off the top of my head, I would say how important sound is in the ocean. We have this idea that the ocean is kind of silent partly because of films and partly because of one specific film, the silent world that Jacques Cousteau made. Back in 1956. And we don't prioritize sound very much. On land, we're visual creatures. We look for things, we look at things that are a long way away. And we kind of know that we usually can't hear things that are a very long way away. But in the ocean, it's exactly the other way around. Light doesn't travel very far, light is not a long distance messenger. But sound is absolutely critical. So I think in terms of things that we don't think about when it comes to the ocean, the importance of sound and the number of different sounds there are. So on a coral reef, for example, the fish and the crustaceans, whatever's down there, they're basically chattering away. They're grunting and squeaking and making all kinds of noises. They're talking to each other. They're paying attention to what's around them because they can hear what's around them. And it's been shown, a scientist called Steve Simpson at the University of Exeter recently did a study showing that if you've got a dead coral reef, you know, one that's been bleached and so there's not very much living there. If you play the sounds of a live coral reef in that place, then the larvae of fish that are kind of floating around in the water are more likely to settle there. So coral larvae, for example, or small things that need an anchor point, you know, barnacles and so on, they're more likely to settle in a place that's got the right sound.

[Mike Carruthers]

So.

[Interviewer/Host Assistant]

But when you see, like a hurricane, a big weather system and the water looks all chopped up and big, huge waves out in the middle of the ocean, ships being thrown around, but you.

[Mike Carruthers]

Get the sense that just below the surface things are quieter.

[Interviewer/Host Assistant]

If you go down not too far, things kind of remain the same.

[Mike Carruthers]

Is that true?

[Helen Czersky]

Or.

[Interviewer/Host Assistant]

And maybe that's because when you swim in the ocean and you go down a few feet, things seem pretty calm versus the waves on the top of the water. Is that true in the ocean?

[Helen Czersky]

No, but the reason it's not true, I mean, waves are pretty turbulent. And that's part of what I study, my academic job. But actually it's to do with how we look at the world. So we have eyes and senses that can see waves, but they can't tell the difference between different types of water, you know, but what we can't see is all the other character of the water. So we, we can't directly detect the amount of living things that are in the water. And most living things in the, in the ocean are really, really tiny. In land, we tend to think of, you know, that kind of life as being trees, big things that we can see. But in the ocean, it's far too small to see. And I estimate, if you look at those numbers, I estimate that just over 60% of all ocean life is too, too small for us to see with the naked eye. So we can't see what's happening with the life, for a start. And even then, there's small things in the water that we technically could see if we were looking for them, but they tend not to come out during daytime. So, for example, the biggest migration on Earth happens at dusk in the ocean, where lots and lots of very tiny creatures that have been hiding down in the darkness as the sun comes, goes down, they rise up in the water column and come up to the surface to hunt. And then when the sun, you know, when the sun rises again, they go, they sink back down. So we tend not to see those because we tend not to be swimming in the dark. So it's not that there aren't things happening, it's just that our senses are biased, so we don't see them. We're not aware of them. In the same way that, you know, smaller creatures or creatures that live in the ocean that have to, you know, navigate through these conditions would be able to tell. So there is. It might be calmer in the sense that, you know, it's not like a washing machine. You know, you've not got that kind of turbulence that's smashing everything about. But it is definitely the case that there are lots of things happening and there is a huge amount of character, but we can't see it directly.

[Mike Carruthers]

Are there any misconceptions, things people say.

[Interviewer/Host Assistant]

About the ocean that drive you crazy, that, that, you know, aren't true or.

[Mike Carruthers]

Or anything like that?

[Helen Czersky]

So I've got a right beer in my bonnet about this comparison between the moon people. Sometimes there's this statement, people say that we know more about the surface of the moon than we do about deep ocean. It drives me mad. It's wrong. It's wrong in every possible way, and I'll spare you the full rant, but the basic reason it's wrong is that there is so much more to know about the ocean. It's a much richer environment, and the moon is a dead rock that hasn't changed for 2 billion years. And, you know, it's perfectly nice. I have nothing against the moon, but it's a static environment, that kind of you know, it's not doing anything. And it's relatively limited in what's on offer there. Whereas the ocean is enormously rich. It's got all these different types of life, it's got all these different types of chemistry. It's moving, it's changing with the seasons, it's changing with the time of day. It's doing things all the time. So it's. It's a far richer environment. And that statement about comparing the moon to the. The deep ocean drives me nuts because it implies that the deep ocean is only as interesting as the moon, and it's much, much better. There are lots of interesting things that we don't know about the ocean. You know, we've never seen giant squid or colossal squid mate, for example. We don't know where they do it or how they do it. There's plenty of, you know, we don't really know what sea turtles do when they're not nesting or feeding because they're off in the beaches. Those are just two biological things. There are lots of physical things that's. Well, so just exactly how water is moving along and how it really mixes in the deep ocean. There's lots of questions there. But we also do know a lot about the ocean. We're just not very good at talking about it. So we absolutely do have a very good picture of this engine and how it works. But I do think that we need to get away from this idea that the dominant thing we know about the ocean is that it's mysterious. You know, if you want mystery, look into space. It's empty. There's. You have your mysteries out there. The ocean is doing so many interesting and beautiful things. We need to look at that for what it really is, to appreciate that for what it really is, rather than just sort of dismissing it as a mystery.

[Mike Carruthers]

Well, okay, if you say so. But one of the things I find.

[Interviewer/Host Assistant]

So interesting about the ocean is the mystery of so much that I have no idea what's going on down there. And that somehow fascinates me.

[Mike Carruthers]

I've been speaking with Helen Czersky. She's a physicist and oceanographer at University College London's Department of Mechanical Engineering, and she's author of a book called the Blue how the Ocean Works. And there's a link to that book at Amazon in the show notes. Thanks for this little tour through the ocean. Appreciate it, Helen.

[Helen Czersky]

No problem. Thanks for inviting me on.

[Mike Carruthers]

Men need praise. That's according to Dr. David Clark, author of a book called the Total Marriage Makeover. He says the more a woman praises her man, the better the relationship will be. But he says most women aren't very good at it. The tendency is to focus on all the things men are not doing or are doing poorly. And maybe all those criticisms are valid, but they totally demotivate a man. So instead of criticizing a man for spending too much time at work, praise him for the time he does spend with you and the kids. When women criticize men for what they're not doing, it breeds more of the same Praise, on the other hand, is such a deep need for men that they will go to great lengths to get more of it, including doing what you want him to do. Try it. Dr. Clark says it always works, and that is something you should know. You know, it's not uncommon for fans of this podcast, and there are many of them. They'll ask me, what can I do to support your podcast? Well, one great thing you can do is to do business with our sponsors. If they're offering something that sounds of interest to you and you do business with them, that helps us. I'm Mike Carruthers. Thanks for listening today to something you should know. Limu Emu and Doug.

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[Jennifer Wallace]

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[Mike Carruthers]

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