WorkLife: How you can do more for others with Rutger Bregman

Summary

Episode Summary: WorkLife with Adam Grant – "How You Can Do More for Others with Rutger Bregman"

Podcast: WorkLife with Adam Grant
Date: August 26, 2025
Guests: Rutger Bregman (Dutch historian, author of "Moral Ambition")
Host(s): Adam Grant, Elise Hu (moderator)

Overview

This episode explores the intersection of ambition and morality with Rutger Bregman, whose work asks whether driven, ambitious people can direct their efforts toward making a dramatic positive difference in the world. The conversation, recorded for the Authors at Wharton series, examines how individuals and organizations can cultivate "moral ambition"—combining entrepreneurial drive with idealism to bring about massive social good.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Defining Moral Ambition

(02:12 - 03:14)

• Bregman's Core Thesis:
  • Moral ambition is the fusion of activist idealism and entrepreneurial drive.
  • People are remembered not for their wealth or privilege, but for channeling those assets into meaningful social impact.
• Quote:

  "You don't do good things because you are a good person. It's the other way around. You become a good person by doing good things, and that can be infectious as well."
  —Rutger Bregman (02:59)

2. Historical Lessons: The British Abolitionists

(03:40 - 05:17)

• Successful movements tend to start among elites who redefine success for their peers.
• British abolition succeeded where others failed because entrepreneurs applied their skills and networks to moral causes.
• Quote:

  "It was only in Britain that it became this huge movement. And the interesting thing is that it started among elites...people who had built their own companies, who knew how to get shit done."
  —Rutger Bregman (05:17)

3. Wealth, Success, and Meaning

(06:44 - 08:52)

• While some research suggests happiness increases with income, Bregman warns of diminishing fulfillment from status symbols.
• He proposes reframing ambition to focus on significance and legacy, not just accumulation.
• Quote:

  "You have the freedom to be boring. But moral ambition is an invitation to do something much more interesting and meaningful with your limited time."
  —Rutger Bregman (07:54)

4. Measuring Impact: The Road to Hell and Good Intentions

(08:52 - 10:30)

• Addressing the risk of causing harm with good intentions, Bregman roots his approach in historical evidence, suggesting major global inequities remain unaddressed and ambitious people should strive to make the world "wildly better," not merely a bit less bad.
• Quote:

  "I've always hated that phrase, 'make the world a little bit better.' No, make the world wildly better. That's what we can do."
  —Rutger Bregman (10:12)

5. Elite Career Paths and Moral Ambition

(10:30 - 13:38)

• Bregman is skeptical of talented grads entering consulting, law, and finance ("the Bermuda Triangle of talent").
• Caveat: Early career "career capital" and learning environments can be valuable; it's strategic to build skills and networks before pivoting to impactful work.
• Quote:

  "Especially early in your career, you need that career capital...You want to work with people who are really ambitious and want to work for the big project."
  —Rutger Bregman (12:19)

6. Timing and Career Choices: “Don’t Rush to Save the World”

(15:56 - 19:56)

• Adam Grant argues against immediate leaps into do-good careers, emphasizing first building capacity, skills, and networks.
• Bregman partly agrees but warns environments (like finance) may alter values over time, referencing Sam Bankman-Fried and effective altruism's "earning to give" debate.

7. Finding Direction: The Gandalf-Frodo Model

(19:12 - 20:14)

• Rather than wait for personal "passion discoveries," Bregman suggests finding wise mentors ("Gandalfs") who understand what work needs to be done for the world and joining them on top-priority missions.
• Quote:

  "If you don't really know what needs to happen, just find yourself a Gandalf...You can just co start at the very top of [the world's to-do list] and make a difference."
  —Rutger Bregman (19:12)

8. Balancing Moral Urgency and Sanctimony

(20:14 - 21:39)

• The risk of sounding sanctimonious is outweighed by the urgent need for action in times of great crisis.
• Bregman believes action is contagious and creates moral exemplars others emulate.

9. Cowardice vs. Learned Helplessness: Overcoming Inaction

(21:39 - 26:20)

• Adam Grant draws a distinction:
  • Cowardice is fear-driven inaction.
  • Learned helplessness is discouragement from believing action won't have impact.
• Solution: Demonstrate examples of positive impact and encourage reflection on past successes to build self-efficacy.
• Quote:

  "What you do is you show people their behavior does make a difference...remind people they have been able to make a difference in the past."
  —Adam Grant (25:49)

10. Moral Upbringing and Socialization

(26:21 - 29:03)

• Research on Holocaust rescuers suggests moral reasoning and compassion, cultivated in childhood, correlate with courageous action.
• Upbringing that emphasizes empathy, internal locus of control, and responsibility for impact can shape future moral ambition.

11. Guilt vs. Shame: Motivators for Doing Good

(29:03 - 31:12)

• Both host and guest advocate for guilt ("I did a bad thing, I can fix it") as a powerful motivator, but critique shame ("I am a bad person") as less productive except in certain cultural or small-group contexts.

12. Lightning Round:

(35:25 - 36:47)

• Worst advice about ambition: "Follow your passion." Bregman: "No one cares about your passion...Ask other people what needs to happen and be compassionate about that." (35:33)
• Unpopular opinion: Bregman: "I don’t believe in free will." (35:56)

13. Building a Movement & Practical Steps for Listeners

(36:47 - end)

• Grant proposes combining big vision with immediate, actionable steps to counteract learned helplessness.
• Bregman highlights his "Moral Ambition Circles" as an approach: small groups holding each other accountable for working on big, neglected problems step by step.
• Quote:

  "It's not being a good person that leads you to do good things. It's doing good things that makes you a good person."
  —Elise Hu paraphrasing Bregman (38:51)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments (with Timestamps)

• "You become a good person by doing good things, and that can be infectious as well."
  Rutger Bregman (02:59)

• "You have the freedom to be boring. But moral ambition is an invitation to do something much more interesting and much more meaningful with your limited time on this earth."
  Rutger Bregman (07:54)

• "If you can accomplish your goals during your lifetime, then you're just not thinking big enough."
  Shared by Bregman, quoting an entrepreneur (37:52)

• "If you don't really know what needs to happen, just find yourself a Gandalf...That's at the top of the world's to-do list."
  Rutger Bregman (19:12)

• "I don’t believe in free will."
  Rutger Bregman (35:56)

• "It's not being a good person that leads you to do good things. It's doing good things that makes you a good person."
  Elise Hu, paraphrasing Bregman (38:51)

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Important Segments with Timestamps

• Introduction to Moral Ambition: (02:12–03:14)
• Abolitionist History Lessons: (03:40–05:17)
• Ambition vs. Meaningful Impact: (06:44–08:52)
• Consulting/Finance & “Career Capital”: (10:30–13:38)
• Effective Altruism and Values Drift: (17:02–19:56)
• Gandalf/Frodo Model: (19:12–20:14)
• Cowardice vs. Learned Helplessness: (21:39–26:20)
• Parenting for Moral Ambition: (27:06–29:03)
• Guilt vs. Shame: (29:03–31:12)
• Lightning Round (e.g., "Follow your passion" challenged): (35:25–36:47)
• Practical Advice for Starting Small & Building Movements: (36:47–38:51)

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Tone & Style

The discussion is thoughtful, candid, and often playful, with Bregman mixing blunt European directness and anecdotes from history, while Grant and Hu challenge and refine each other's arguments. The audience is encouraged to reflect honestly about their ambitions, privileges, and potential for impact—not just in career choices but as a life philosophy.

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Bottom Line

This episode calls upon ambitious, talented people to aim higher than personal gain—by joining communities and taking concrete actions that enable outsized social impact. The path to moral ambition is not about personal perfection, but about “doing good things, and letting that transform you.” Listeners are invited to take bold steps, seek mentors, and build circles of accountability while holding onto the vision of a wilder, better world.

Transcript

[Elise Hu]

Hi TED Podcast listeners. It's Elise Hu here from TED Talks Daily. Thanks for making our podcast part of your routine. We really appreciate it and we want.

[Adam Grant]

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[Elise Hu]

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[Adam Grant]

Support for this podcast comes from Greenhouse. Greenhouse is the only hiring platform you'll ever need from Outreach to offer. Greenhouse helps companies increase efficiency, save money and get measurably better at hiring with AI powered solutions. With Greenhouse, you can quickly clean up your candidate pipeline to source high quality talent faster. Automate manual tasks with AI tools so you can focus on matching dream candidates with their dream job plus get instant access to all your data in one place with Greenhouse Analytics. Greenhouse has helped over 7,500 customers across diverse industry verticals from early stage to enterprise become great at hiring, including companies like HubSpot, Block, the NFL, Lyft, Trivago, and HelloFresh. If you're ready to simplify recruiting and make the right hires faster, you can visit greenhouse.com to learn more. What's up? Adam Grant from WorkLife, a TED podcast here and I want to tell you about something exciting. You're watching every dollar and Walmart Business helps you stretch each one. From office supplies to snacks and cleaning gear. You'll get everyday low prices plus easy bulk ordering and fast delivery. And with tools like spend tracking and multi user accounts, staying organized is simple. Save time, money and hassle. @business.walmart.com it's free to sign up. This episode is sponsored by IBM. Is your AI built for everyone or is it built to work with the tools your business relies on? IBM's AI agents are tailored to your business and can easily integrate with the tools you're already using so they can work across your business, not just some parts of it. Get started with AI [e-mail], the AI built for business. IBM.

[Rucker Bregman]

That really is what moral ambition is. It's not about just saying, oh, you should check your privilege. No, use your privilege. Use what you have to make a big difference.

[Adam Grant]

Hey everyone, it's Adam Grant. Welcome back to Rethinking My Podcast with TED on the Science of what Makes Us Tick. I'm an organizational psychologist and I'm taking you inside the minds of fascinating people to explore new thoughts and new ways of thinking. Rucker Bregman is a Dutch historian and bestselling author.

[Elise Hu]

His new book is called Moral Ambition.

[Adam Grant]

And he's also the founder of the School for Moral Ambition and an organization of driven entrepreneurs and idealists looking to combine forces for good. I hosted him in the Authors at Wharton series for a discussion and debate about how we can do more for others.

[Rucker Bregman]

You don't do good things because you are a good person. It's the other way around. You become a good person by doing good things, and that can be infectious as well.

[Elise Hu]

Let me start by just saying when you sent me an early PDF of this book, I was completely fascinated by the idea that morality and ambition could go hand in hand, because normally we think about them as either independent or even opposites. Ambitious people lack morals in American society frequently, and moral people sometimes are seen as lacking ambition. What gave you the idea that these two things could actually coexist?

[Rucker Bregman]

I was just fascinated by the great moral pioneers of the past. I wanted to write this big book about the abolitionists, the suffragettes, the civil rights campaigners, the animal rights activists. Maybe you know that book by Peter Singer, the Expanding Circle, in which he makes a philosophical argument that over the centuries our moral circle has expanded and that that has been one of the main drivers of moral progress. And I wanted to write the historical version of that and basically tell the stories of the people who did that. And then I started working on the first part about abolitionism, and I learned so many lessons about who these people were and what they had in common. And I indeed discovered that they had something that I started to call moral ambition, which is this rare combination of the idealism of an activist and the ambition of an entrepreneur. And when that comes together, the magic happens.

[Elise Hu]

I think it's a brilliant way to get people who both have clear principles and also a lot of drive to think about how to put those two things together. When I was reading Moral Ambition, I was thinking about Enron, one of the great corporate scandals of what, early 21st century? I remember one of the sort of the foreshadowing comments that Enron was going to go down in flames was Ken Lay, the longtime CEO. He had a comment from his business school professor, if I remember correctly, that said, very ambitious, maybe too ambitious. And I thought if you study those cases, the solution to the excess ambition problem is to dial down ambition. And I think what you're encouraging us to do instead is redirect it. Exactly, exactly. So talk to us about how. What does it mean to pursue moral ambition?

[Rucker Bregman]

You Know, I studied the British abolitionist movement. I spent a lot of time studying that one. And the reason I was so fascinated by it was that most movements against the slave trade and against slavery were utter failures. So I'm from the Netherlands, and in the Netherlands, it was a bunch of Calvinists who got nothing done. You know, they were idealistic, but not very ambitious and not very effective. In France, there was a bunch of writers and intellectuals. Well, you can predict how much they got done. In Portugal, there was pretty much nothing. In Spain, there was very little. In the US Obviously, it took a civil war in the end. And abolitionism was extremely unpopular before that. It was only in Britain that it became this huge movement. And the interesting thing is that it started among elites. It was a countercultural revolution among elites who wanted to redefine what it means to be successful. The British Society for the Abolition of the Slave Trade was founded by 12 individuals. One was a writer, one was a lawyer. But 10 out of 12, they were entrepreneurs, people who had built their own companies, who had scaled their own companies, who knew how to get shit done. But the reason we remember them today is not because they were rich now. The reason we remember them is because they used what they had, their capital, their network, their talent, basically their precious resources and their precious time on this earth to make a massive difference. And that really is what moral ambition is. It's not about just saying, oh, you should check your privilege. No, use your privilege. Use what you have to make a big difference.

[Elise Hu]

So how do you think about the problem of, I have career goals that I want to achieve. I want to be conventionally successful. I want to be able to support my family. And also now you're saying I need to be ambitious about the amount of good that I do.

[Rucker Bregman]

So you can take things too far, right? We don't want all of you getting a burnout or, like, give all your wealth away so that you have to live under a bridge somewhere. Sure, there are limits, but I think that a lot of people can actually do a lot more. I mean, you're a psychologist, right? We know that there are diminishing returns to certain status symbols. And for me, with wealth, it has always seemed so obvious to me that this is like, a fairly shallow way of pursuing success. And at some point, I was also, personally, I was like, okay, what's the next thing? How can I really leave my mark?

[Elise Hu]

Our own Matt Killingsworth has published some research showing that we used to always say, yeah, income has diminishing returns for happiness. His data suggests that was Wrong. And, in fact, people who get richer and richer actually tend to get a little happier. Do you believe that?

[Rucker Bregman]

Yeah.

[Elise Hu]

Yeah, but you're saying we should forego that.

[Rucker Bregman]

But it's not, like, purely linear, right?

[Elise Hu]

No, it probably does taper a little.

[Rucker Bregman]

Yeah. Yeah. I'm not like, oh, you shouldn't care about money. You shouldn't care about material possessions. I mean, I like my new shoes. I bought them for today. But, yeah, at some point, it becomes a little bit shallow, I would say. And I guess that's also my message to really ambitious people out there. It's like, look, if this is really what you want out of life, right, you really care about, you know, going on a ski holiday as often as possible, having the biggest possible house, you know, being the richest person in your circle of friends, then, sure, you live that life, right? This is a free country, but you have the freedom to be boring. But moral ambition is an invitation to do something much more interesting and much more meaningful with your limited time on this earth, because this is true for everyone. We're going to die. That, for me, is the most essential fact of life. It's very short. That's also one of the main messages in this book. No matter how wealthy you are, your precious time on this earth, that's your most valuable resource. How do you want to be remembered?

[Elise Hu]

So I found that to be a really compelling argument, and it reminded me a little bit of some research that Jeremy Frymer led years ago, looking at what do moral exemplars do differently from the rest of us? And not surprisingly, the people that we tend to put on a pedestal as role models tended to be much higher in concern for others than their peers, but they were also higher in ambition than their peers. And I think that is the fundamental point that you're making here. I think it gets really complicated when it starts to get practical. Okay, so one of the questions I was grappling with here is, isn't the road to hell paved with good intentions? Haven't we seen tremendous amounts of harm of people who thought they were making the world better and actually made it worse? So if you take the call to do more seriously, how do you know whether you're actually doing better?

[Rucker Bregman]

I would say that this book is grounded in a philosophical, ethical tradition that goes back all the way to the abolitionists, who deeply believe that everyone's equal. For me, it's more grounded in history. I see a certain moral progress in the last two centuries, and I think it's. If you believe in that deep equality of all humans on Earth, that we all have the same dignity and the same worth, then yeah, we're not nearly done yet because we still live in a world where 15,000 kids die every day and where 85% of the world population lives under the US poverty line. You know, it's such an unjust and unequal world and there's still a lot of low hanging fruit that brilliant, ambitious, driven people can do to make this world not a little bit better. I've always hated that phrase, like, oh, make the world a little bit better. No, make the world wildly better. That's what we can do.

[Elise Hu]

Are you suggesting then that our Penn graduates should not go into banking and consulting?

[Rucker Bregman]

They should be very, very careful about it, let's put it like that. So a good friend of mine went to Oxford University and a couple of years ago he got an offer from McKinsey and he always calls it the Bermuda Triangle of talent. So you've got consultancy, corporate law and finance. It's this dark chasm that sucks up so much talent and we never hear from these people again and they become incredibly boring. And once they're past the age of 30, you know, they've got the mortgage, they've got a house and you're at a birthday party like you don't want to. Okay, maybe I'm a bit too blunt. Now we Dutch, we're known to be blunt.

[Elise Hu]

You did say earlier we have the freedom to be boring. So are you trying to take away that freedom?

[Rucker Bregman]

No, no, no, don't want to take away that freedom at all. I'm just warning you. Look, there is light at the end of the tunnel. So I co founded an organization called the School for Moral Ambition. And we like to see ourselves as the Robin Hoods of talent. We started in Europe last year. We have these fellowship programs very, very hard to get into. We recruit people who have about 10 years of working experience and some of them have Indeed come from McKinsey and have now been liberated by us. And yeah, they're very happy about it.

[Elise Hu]

Do you think though, I have an easier time making the case for consulting than banking. I think that the learning and development systems that management consulting firms have built are quite valuable early stage in a career, especially if you don't know what you want to do. And we've seen lots of consultants go on to do great things. But even in the banking world, I think about great leaders like Jacqueline Novogratz, who took her investment banking expertise and built the Acumen Fund.

[Rucker Bregman]

Absolutely.

[Elise Hu]

So it seems like what you're advocating for is not against that necessarily.

[Rucker Bregman]

No, absolutely. There's a really good argument to be made that especially early in your career, you need that career capital, right? You want to work with the best and brightest. And again, I come from a leftist progressive background and people like me often have a discomfort in acknowledging that there are vast differences in just how talented and effective people are. I mean, I do think we should broaden our definition of talent. I don't think that this country or universities like this one, they're not meritocracies. You often have to be lucky to get in in all kinds of ways. But there are differences. And it's often power law shaped, right? So any venture capitalist will tell you that there's often like this one investment that will generate most of the return of the WHO fund. And I think that's often true in the talent space as well. So it does make sense if you're young and really ambitious, that you want to go to a place where you feel really challenged. You want to work 70, 80 hours a week. You want to work with people who are really ambitious and want to work for the big project. I think that is an uncomfortable truth to acknowledge that sometimes there are awesome NGOs out there, of course, but they have that deep yearning to do hard work and they don't always find it in that space.

[Adam Grant]

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[Elise Hu]

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[Adam Grant]

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[Elise Hu]

I've had the privilege of teaching some of the students who are here with us today, and there's a message I've tried to deliver to them a few times that I want to get your reaction to. And maybe your version of it will land more effectively than mine has. But the question from those who are morally ambitious, from those who are tempted to go to a non profit or an NGO or to build a social enterprise, they are very impatient generally and they tend to come by office hours and say I want to go and do that immediately. And my reaction to them consistently is, what's the rush? I think the single most important investment you can make at the beginning of your career is in your learning and growth. So that means you should not join the organization that you think is going to do the most good in years one or two, you should join the organization that's going to prepare you to do the most good in years 10 and 20 and 30. And I get so much resistance to that. And really the only success I've had in pushing back against the pushback has been to say something along the following like, why did you come to Penn? You've chosen to invest in your learning. Why should that investment end the day you graduate? So help me out here. What is the more effective version of this argument?

[Rucker Bregman]

A couple of things to keep in mind. Work isn't just work, right? It changes you as a person. So there was this movement, it still exists, the effective altruism movement. And these people made the argument, what is it more than A decade ago now that you should actually go into finance because you can earn a shitload of money and then donate that to highly effective charities. And it seems like a really reasonable argument. The pushback here though could be that finance is such, how do you say that problematic environment that it changes you as a person so you may not be the same person a decade later. And then obviously, well, we all know what came out of that. Sam Bankman Fried is the most notorious example who was one of the earlier earning to givers and now in prison.

[Elise Hu]

I would like to think that's a self selection effect more than a socialization effect. That maybe the kinds of people who are drawn to some of these fields are more inclined to have their values or their decisions correct.

[Rucker Bregman]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. That's maybe true. There's a good argument to be made that this can actually be done. But what you also need is a very powerful community that makes sure that you, that you're still idealistic. Right. That you don't change too much as a person, that you don't get used to a certain lifestyle. That's also honestly one of the reasons why we co founded this organization, the School for Moral Ambition. Because we want to build a little bit of. Well, in the book I call it a cult of like minded ambitious idealists. I've got one story in the book about a school in London that is sometimes described as the Hogwarts for do Gooders. It's a little bit like Y Combinator, the organization, that startup accelerator. Exactly. And they're like the nonprofit version of that. So they launch These high impact NGOs also very, very hard to get into. But when I interviewed the founder of that school, I also asked him this question, like shouldn't people wait for a bit? And he was like, no, no time to waste. If you really have that energy, if you're super ambitious, if you're super idealistic, like do it now.

[Elise Hu]

I think if you have that clarity of vision. Absolutely right. I'm thinking more of the person who says look, I want to do good, but I don't exactly know what that looks like yet. So shouldn't I join an organization that's heavily socially conscious? Maybe, but don't you want to build the knowledge and skills and network that will allow you to do that in a more meaningful way?

[Rucker Bregman]

Again, there's something to be said for that. But if I can push back again a little bit. At our organization we believe in the Gandalf Frodo model of doing good. So Gandalf never Really asked Frodo, hey Frodo, what's your passion? Right? He was like, this needs to happen. Throw the ring into the mountain. That's at the top of the world's to do list. And I think that's also very much what moral ambition is about. If you don't really know what needs to happen, just find yourself a Gandalf, right? You don't need to go out in the world and spend years figuring out who you are gazing at your navel. Just ask some really smart people. There are a lot of Gandalfs out there who've done a huge amount of prioritization research, as it's called in social science. And we have the world's to do list. And you can just co start, you know, at the very top of it and make a difference.

[Elise Hu]

Is this what your curriculum looks like at the School for Moral Ambition? Do you just read Lord of the Rings?

[Rucker Bregman]

Well, it's difficult to resist making the comparisons to all these fantasy novels. Also the Robin Hood model of talent were basically trying to convince people to leave the empire and join the rebel alliance. And anyway, there are many.

[Elise Hu]

It sounds like fun. So one of the things I was really grappling with as I read the book and that I've been thinking about ever since is the line between moral responsibility and sanctimoniousness. I think there's a real risk when you tell other people to be morally ambitious of leaving them feeling judged. How do you think about navigating that?

[Rucker Bregman]

So you've probably experienced that as well. You know, sitting in class as a student or maybe in high school, learning for the first time about some of these terrible periods in history and then wondering, like, what would I have done? Well, today is the day to find out. We are living through one of those moments in history and this is a time when characters are being tested and you can basically show who you really are. So this is really one of those moments. So if you're worried of being seen as too sanctimonious or like a do gooder, I don't know, that would be the last worry on my mind right now. Also because honestly, I think doing good can be contagious. It's one of the simplest. But I think also one of the most important insights in the book is that you don't do good things because you are a good person. It's the other way around. You become a good person by doing good things and then that can be infectious as well because people see you being bold, being brave, being courageous, and they're like, hey, maybe I can do that as well. And then it could spread like a virus.

[Elise Hu]

I mean, I love that idea. I think it, you know, it speaks to what Jonathan Haidt has called moral elevation. Witnessing somebody else engaging in an act of moral excellence and that lifting us up and making us more interested in doing the same. I want to push back, though, on your claim that we're seeing a lot of cowardice right now, because I'm not seeing a lot of cowards. I'm seeing a lot of people who are falling victim to what our own psychologist, Marty Seligman, called learned helplessness. The basic idea is that you get feedback from your environment that what you do doesn't make a difference, and you overgeneralize the conclusion that nothing I do makes a difference, so why try? And I think that's not a crisis of cowardice. I think it's a crisis of both confidence and also of mechanisms for organizing and having collective impact. So I think it's maybe a collective action problem is underlying it. And I love to hear you talk a little bit about what is the antidote to learn helplessness for people who ten years ago might have been morally ambitious, or five years ago might have been morally ambitious and now are saying nothing worked. Why try?

[Rucker Bregman]

I would say that this is a moment where if you have any kind of comfort still today, you're like, oh, it's very bad when I switch on the news, but it's not really affecting me. Then you are exactly the kind of person who should do something today. Right? That, for me, is very much the main audience for moral ambition. That's why I'm glad to be here today. If you have that power, if you have that we call privilege sometimes, or you have the talent or the skill set, et cetera, well, use it to make a difference. And I'm not really sure whether I buy your difference between learned helplessness and cowardice. I mean, it's got to start somewhere, right? Someone has got to break through that collective action problem. I've got a whole chapter in the book about resistance heroes during the Second World War. Like, why did some people have the courage to stand up and help persecute Jews? And why did they risk their own lives to do that? And I always assumed that there must have been some kind of psychology of the resistance hero. And indeed, there's been quite a lot of research into this area. There was one big project a couple of decades ago by Samuel and Pearl Oliner, who wrote this big book called the Altruistic Personality project. They couldn't really find anything. Like, the effect sizes were very small. There wasn't really anything like the altruistic personality. But then later researchers did find this. One really interesting thing is that there was this one very predictive factor, like, were you asked to join the resistance? Were you asked to frankly risk your own life to help someone else? And then in most cases, people said yes, yes, of course there was some selection effect going on. Like, you wouldn't ask anyone. Like, it would be risky to ask any kind of Nazi or something like that. But this also explains why resistance was a very local phenomenon. Right. It wasn't evenly distributed across the country, but you could really see it popping up in certain villages, for example, certain communities. And you could also see the role of certain super spreaders. And I guess, honestly, that's also how I see the spread of moral ambition. It could start on a campus like this. And maybe initially we have this collective action problem. And maybe initially some people are really skeptical, but then you have those people who really are able to act in line with their own ideals, who don't need that social support from a lot of people around them. And I think that's often where it could start.

[Elise Hu]

So I think we're mostly in agreement on that. But I think I have to fight you on two things here. First, one is I think there's an important distinction between being a coward and suffering from learned helplessness. I think about cowardice as basically a psychological state where people say, my fear overcomes my will to act. And I think that if I take this action, the risks are too great. I think about learned helplessness as saying, instead of being worried about the negative downside of my action, I just don't believe that there's any positive upside. And so the former is fear, the latter is futility. It doesn't matter. Why bother? Don't you think those are different empirically? They show up as different, yeah.

[Rucker Bregman]

Yeah. And how do you overcome learned helplessness?

[Elise Hu]

Well, I think ideally what you do is you show people their behavior does make a difference. And I think one of the ways you do that is show them. Here are other people taking action. Here's a technique that works. Here's a strategy that moves the needle. I think the other approach that I think has some good data behind it is we remind people that they have been able to make a difference in the past. Right. So I've shown this in some of my research where we ask people to reflect on times where they were able to help others and had an Unexpectedly positive impact. And all of a sudden they say, huh, I've done it before, maybe I can do it again.

[Rucker Bregman]

Well, that makes a lot of sense.

[Elise Hu]

Okay. All right, let's try the second one then. So the Olina research on the Holocaust rescuers, one of the patterns that I thought was interesting and not only reached statistical meaningfulness in their data, but also has been replicated in future studies is the rescuers compared to basically bystanders who had similar upbringings.

[Rucker Bregman]

Yeah.

[Elise Hu]

One of the things that distinguished them was their parents had more discussions of the consequences of their actions. So when their kid did something that they thought was hurtful or wrong, instead of just punishing them, they would explain, here is the impact that had on others and how do you think they feel? And they taught, I think, a fair amount of perspective taking and compassion. What did you make of that? Because you seem fairly dismissive of that program.

[Rucker Bregman]

Yeah, maybe I was too dismissive. So, indeed, there were some things in that research that I also quite liked, reminded me of the Dutch way of bringing up our kids. So the idea is that you basically give much more freedom to your children within a certain defined set of boundaries. Right. And then if something goes wrong, well, you use that as a learning opportunity and indeed also explain the reasoning why some things are immoral. So it's not just rules? Not just, like, because I say so? No, it's because there's a whole set of moral principles that we care about and that you should probably care about as well. So, indeed, the researchers emphasized that many of the rescuers had relatively high. What's the word? Internal locus of control, feeling that they were in charge of their own life, while many of the bystanders, indeed, had this learned helplessness where they were saying, like, yeah, what can I do? How can I make a difference?

[Elise Hu]

Yeah. I like the point about parents teaching moral reasoning, really. And I think that moral emotions are a big part of this process. And there's something I've been thinking about a lot since reading your book. I think that oftentimes what you see with parents who are really good at teaching kids to be kind, caring, responsible, upstanding, is they actually express disappointment when you don't live up to moral expectations. What we want to do is say, that action was disappointing to me. And what that does is it highlights a standard behavior gap. And then kids are more likely to want to close the gap. And the question is why? What happens is, when parents express the right kind of disappointment, kids start to feel guilty. And as Erma Bombeck I think Put it best, guilt is the gift that keeps on giving. But we actually do see that guilt is a powerful motivator of pro social behavior. That when you feel like your actions violated expectations or standards or you hurt somebody else, you want to make amends and right your wrongs. And so I was starting to think a little bit about. Is one of your goals here to make people feel guiltier?

[Rucker Bregman]

A little bit, yeah. Yeah. I think that there's been a lot of dunking on shame and guilt in the pop psychology world. But I'm like, no, I'm a pluralist. We need the whole spectrum of human emotions and we've evolved to be able to feel shame. We are one of the very few species in the whole animal kingdom with the ability to blush. There's probably a reason for that, and that's probably also useful in some situations. I earlier mentioned this movement of, of the effective altruists, and I think that's very much grounded in guild for quite a few of the people in that movement who I'm very often, by the way, deeply admire. I don't think that you can build a big movement on just guilt alone. So for me, the right mix is probably like 80% enthusiasm and 20% guilt, but it's gotta be in the mix a little bit.

[Elise Hu]

I do need the record to show I'm pro guilt in healthy doses, but much more anti shame. Because if, if you follow the trail of June Tangney's research, what she shows is that the two emotions tend to have opposite effects, right? So when people feel guilt, they say, I did a bad thing. I gotta make it right. When they feel shame, they say, I'm a bad person. And then they tend to either attack whoever's making them feel ashamed, or they tend to withdraw and become small. That is not true in all cultures. I've read at least one paper, Rick Bozzi and colleagues, showing that in the Philippines, for example, shame is actually dealt with in a much more constructive way than we do in most of the Western world. And you have to restore your honor at that point as opposed to just kind of aggressing or retreating.

[Rucker Bregman]

Interesting.

[Elise Hu]

But I was curious to hear your Dutch take on this.

[Rucker Bregman]

A couple of things. My previous book, Humankind, made an argument that we humans have evolved to work together and that we are the product of survival of the friendliest, as some evolutionary psychologists call it. And for that book, I did a lot of research into these nomadic hunter gatherer cultures, where indeed, shame also plays a really important role in stabilizing these societies and especially Controlling people who are getting a little bit too arrogant and a little bit too shameless. So how would you deal with them? Well, you use a lot of gossip. You use ridicule. And, yeah, sometimes we could use a little bit of that. Right. I know that I could sometimes use it. Like power is a dangerous thing. Like attention is a dangerous thing.

[Elise Hu]

I think you're right. I think it's problematic to build a society where anyone is shameless. But I don't know that we need to get to the point of shame to get the benefit. I think what people want is anticipated shame. I want people to feel anticipatory shame about doing something wrong or harmful. And the hope is that that emotion then prevents the action and they never have to live with the shame itself.

[Rucker Bregman]

The distinction you make reminds me of someone who recently explained this distinction between anger and disgust to me in a relationship. So the point this person was making is like that anger leads to connection, while discuss leads to separation. So for example, you have a little bit of a conflict going on or a big conflict. If you're angry, then you take someone seriously, you say, like, I expect the better of you. Like, why did you do this? This is a betrayal of our confidence. So, yeah, you really recognize that person. But if it's disgusted, that kind of leads to separation. Right. So I'm very much pro anger, which reminds me of you being pro guilt. So, yeah, we're pro anger. Pro guilt. What else?

[Elise Hu]

I don't know if I want to come down on the pro anger side here, Rucker. I could get behind empathetic anger or righteous indignation. The kinds of injustices that you've been talking about today, if that leads to a sense of moral outrage, might be useful. I think that it's much more effective, though, for propelling you into action than it is for getting you to be persuasive to others. Because oftentimes when people are morally outraged, what they do is then they start to blame and shame other people, and that leads other people to then not want to rise to the occasion. So I worry a little bit about the tactics that come out of that intense emotion.

[Rucker Bregman]

Fair enough. Yeah.

[Adam Grant]

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[Elise Hu]

Let'S shift gears here. You ready for a lightning round?

[Rucker Bregman]

Yeah.

[Elise Hu]

Okay, first question. Worst advice you hear people given when it comes to ambition, Follow your passion.

[Rucker Bregman]

No one cares about your passion.

[Elise Hu]

I care about your passion. Just to be clear.

[Rucker Bregman]

No, no, no, no, no, no. Just ask other people who've thought long and hard about it what needs to happen and then be compassionate about that.

[Elise Hu]

So don't follow your passion, follow your compassion. Yeah, you've already given us a few hot takes, but is there an Unpopular opinion that you're excited to defend.

[Rucker Bregman]

I don't believe in free will.

[Elise Hu]

Oh, you're one of those.

[Rucker Bregman]

Yeah.

[Elise Hu]

We're gonna have a whole conversation about free will later.

[Rucker Bregman]

Okay.

[Elise Hu]

At minimum, I'm gonna convince you that this is topic for anyone to discuss ever. And at maximum, I want to convince you we do have free will. But that is another conversation. What's the question you have for me?

[Rucker Bregman]

I'm curious about the point around learned helplessness and maybe also how you would advise me to help build a movement that's actually helpful for these people because it's easier for me to have some fun and dunk on the McKinsey's of this world. But people in the audience here today, it's their lives and they got to make real choices, and you work with them a lot. So I'm very, very curious. As I embark on this adventure of trying to build a movement that convinces as many people as possible to become ambitious idealists, what should I do?

[Elise Hu]

Well, I'm actually really torn on this one because on the one hand, I loved in the book the way that you encouraged us to aim higher. And I think that's one of the most uplifting aspects of your philosophy, is it doesn't allow people to make excuses and just kind of focus on little things that don't really matter. At the same time, I keep thinking about this classic paper that Carl Weich wrote in the 80s on small wins and the importance of redefining the scale of social problems. And there's been a lot of research in the last few decades showing that one of the simplest antidotes to learn helplessness is actually just breaking what people need to do down into smaller pieces? And so what I wonder is, is there an opportunity with your school for moral ambition and with this movement for that you're building to start with the high ideals and say, look, here's the level of aspiration that we should all have. And now here are the first three actions that will move the needle that you could begin taking tomorrow.

[Rucker Bregman]

Yeah, I love that.

[Elise Hu]

So what are those actions for people who do want to do more? For people who are morally ambitious? Where should they begin?

[Rucker Bregman]

Okay, I want to say three things. One is, I recently spoke to this entrepreneur who said, if you can accomplish your goals during your lifetime, then you're just not thinking big enough. So thinking big is important. Then you reminded me of the research about the resistance heroes, because they didn't start by saying, yes, I'll have a place for five people in the attic right now. It very often started with smaller acts of resistance, like you distribute an illegal newspaper, for example, or you sabotage a car of the Nazis or something like that. And then you start becoming a different person. So maybe we got to find those kind of equivalents. I started this organization called the School for Moral Ambition. And one of the things we've developed is pretty simple. It's called a moral ambition circle. So it's a group of six to eight people who don't know all the answers, but who are interested in the same questions, like, what are my super talents? What are some of the biggest, most neglected problems in the world? How can I take the first step? How can we hold each other accountable?

[Elise Hu]

Would love to see some people join. Rucker, I think you said something really profound earlier. I love your point that it's not being a good person that leads you to do good things. It's doing good things that makes you a good person. And I think it's your best defense against virtue, signaling to say you actually have to go out and earn moral ambition, not just claim it. I think for me, knowing you has been a major force toward inspiring me to want to do more for other people. And I think you always challenge me to think differently. I think your book genuinely will lead people to want to become better humans. And I thank you.

[Rucker Bregman]

Thanks so much, Adam.

[Adam Grant]

Rethinking is hosted by me, Adam Grant. The show is produced by Ted with Cosmic Standard. Our producer is Jessica Glaser. Our editor is Alejandra Salazar. Our engineer is Asia Pilar Simpson. Our technical director is Jacob Winick, and our fact checker is Paul Durbin. Our team includes eliza Smith, Roxanne. Hi. Lash VanBancheng, Julia Dickerson, Tansika Sung Manivong and Whitney Pennington Rogers. Original music by Hans Dale Su and Alison Leighton Brown.

[Elise Hu]

How many of you are planning to go into the Bermuda Triangle as Rutger described? That's about a third of the room.

[Rucker Bregman]

Yeah, well, it's wars at Harvard. Harvard. It's 45% of graduates who go into consultancy and finance.

[Elise Hu]

I don't think we're doing better here. I just think many of those people did not want to see you talk today. No one wanted to deal with the cognitive dissonance and the existential anxiety that this conversation was going to promote.

[Adam Grant]

This episode is sponsored by Deal. Deal's not just another payroll platform. It's one your team might actually enjoy. Hr IT and payroll together finally built in house built for peace of mind. Visit D E L.com WorkLife Popsicles Sprinklers A cool breeze.

[Elise Hu]

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[Rucker Bregman]

In a good way.

[Elise Hu]

He'd also tell you that this podcast is his favorite podcast too. Ah really? Thanks Capital One Bank Guy. What's in your wallet? Term Supply see capitalone.com bank capital1na member FDIC.