And by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. Thank you. So in a book about economics calls freakenomics, you know youre not dealing with conventional thinking for sure. The pair behind that book which also became a documentary and a radio show. Steven and stephen, good to have you both on the program. Let me jump in. The best way i have discovered and i have read all of the stuff you guys have done and for me, as a host, the best way to give the audience what is in this, i want to make room for you to do that. I do want to start by asking what are the biases to learning to think like a freak . Politically, idealogical, the way our family raised us. The key is to figure out where your vices are holding you back from solving problems. If you lead with your moral compass, always, or with your political compass or whatnot, youre going to decide whats the right answer before you explore and investigate. And thats the mistake were trying to avoid. Learn what you know and what you dont know. I want to come back to the moral compass. Thats the one i want to push back on. You want to add to that . I think its great. What we have put together is kind of the quote magic in what we do and turned out not to be that magical. We actually didnt realize how common sense our approach with us. Then being willing to act like a child, think like a child. We have a list of a set of tenants which have proven really valuable to us in life and thought maybe they would be valuable to other peoples a well. Lets start with one tenant of setting aside the moral compass. I dont want to sound like a moralalist but part of what is wrong with our society is too many people set aside their moral compass in their Decision Making and thats why were in the mess were in. I wanted to push back on that with you. I agree with you. Especially if youre it depends on what realm were talking about. If you have a problem you want to solve. If youre talking about the world of high finance, i think a lot of people would argue that they have entirely set aside their moral compass and that does produce a lot of problems. It coelessed around the time of the three mile island. As a result of that fear. We basically stopped Building Nuclear reactors. Instead what did he do. If you look at how damaging coal is to the environment, to miners and also the pollution, if you approach a problem like that from a purely moral stance of we have to protect the environment and Nuclear Power is bad, it might lead you to a worse place which is more coal. Put away your moral compass temporarily. What you think you know is right, put that aside and find the facts once you understand where the world works. Now that i know that Nuclear Power has a lot of benefits. How do i trade off. One of the things i resonated, my staff noticed and i told this story a thousand times. Back in indiana, mrs. Otis, who was just back here in la for a big celebration a few weeks ago. I learned when called on in class. She asked me a question and i said i dont know. She looked at me and said and i said i dont know. She said you get an f for the day. You can redeem this f for the day if you come back in tomorrow with the answer. She said mr. Smiley, not that it mattered, but im a black kid in an all white high school. She is demanding as much out of me as every other white kid. Mr. Smiley, here is what i want you to say if you ever do not know the answer. You say dr. Otis, i do not know the answer to that question today but i will know the answer to that question tomorrow. Everybody who works with me knows do not come to me without an answer. Tell me you dont know and you will figure it out tomorrow. You dont just throw your hands up and say i dont know. But again, that is so counter culture. Nobody in our world today, not politicians, nobody wants to admit and say i dont know. Can you imagine a president ial candidate saying i dont know. Ill look into it. I vote for that one for sure. I would, personally. But the media would get you. You named two realms where it does not happen. Media and politics. And business. It does happen in the military. You are trained to say i will find out, sir. Either i dont know and i will find out. It is just the spirit of inquiry. We argue that until you admit what you dont know you will never find the answer. There is a lot of bluffing and a lot of faking it and a lot of bsing. The reason people do it is because it makes them look good and you can get away with it, frankly. If you want to really solve problems, learn what you dont know and say it. Dont you think that the audience can see what you really dont know when youre trying to talk around and fluff an answer . Not so much. Really . I teach mba sometimes and i have come to believe that the primary thing you learn is how to fake when you dont have any idea of what is going on. Looked a person right in the eye and say with complete confidence and you just hope that nobody has google on the iphone so that they cannot catch you until youre out of the room. Thats crazy. Think small. Yeah. You know, education, this country we used to be near the top of the world in education. Now were down towards the middle at best. Used to be that most College Educated women were schoolteachers. Then, those women went into different fields. If you look at the whole thing of lets fix our schools and make them better. A lot of people come up with big grand plans so we give one example. Its very small but this is the kind of thinking we advocate. Economists who went to china and they noticed something very small. You look at the kids in the fourth or fifth grade classes. None of them were weari ining glasses. Tested them, set up an experiment and got 15 glasses from the world bank or something. Those kids did about one years worth of School Better in a year would you rather answer a small problem well or flail around at the big ones. One thing i love about your books is you always challenge conventional wisdom. We live in a world again where we are always told the value of sticking it out, finishing the project. Quitters never win and winners never quit and you guys say that you have to you are praised to value quitting sometimes. Somehow we have gotten the notion that failure and quitting are the same thing, which is completely wrong. The real true failure is you keep on sticking with something and you get old and say i wish i had done something completely different from that. All that we know from psychology to keep on doing what theyre doing. When you want to quit you feel the pain today and the benefit in the future. We have actually done research. We have gotten 40,000 people to come to a website where they would flip a coin to help them decide a big decision. Should i get divorced or should i quit my job and people actually followed a coin flip. They came to a website and made Big Decisions based on that. Quitting is not bad. Quitting is good. I wondered if you had ever quit anything big. I have walked away from things that i think didnt work. I have trouble with the word quitting. I have made decisions to stop doing some things. Right. I was on npr for a few years. I am the first africanamerican to have his own daily show. Shows how slow we are, approximate public media, im the first negro in 2004 with his own daily show. Im back in the news again about why i left npr after three years. I left because i didnt see that as quitting. There were a lot of member stations who were mad at me that i made that decision because they saw themselves as taking a chance on me. How do you quit on us . I kept this email. Ewe quit on us after we gave you a chance. I had my reasons for leaving. I thought i had done everything that i could do at npr. Im back on public radio now. But it was time to move on from that particular thing. To retrain your brain, we argue. Were just two guys who work it through and no one should follow what we say is gospel. But there is a lot aftof ways, easiest and most Important Message is the first word, think. It is astonishing how easy we can go through the world. We live in a world where we can get by and be pretty happy. Set aside a half hour or an hour to rethink the way you make decisions. The habits you have, the biases you may have. And if you think and come with a little bit of a blank slate. You would be willing to think like a child. Awe dhors of books to tell you how to retrain your brain, Stephen Dubner and steven levitt. Brian culbertson has never met an instrument that he cannot play. He has had 27 number one hits and his latest cd is called another night out and he will close our show tonight playing a song called horizon. I will not put him to the test and make him play all seven at the same time. You got the vinyl this time . I do. First time ever. First in your career . First time ever. I have been doing this 20 years. Right when i started, vinyl was not cool. It was all about the cds. Now it is making a resurgence. What do you make of it . It is all about the experience of listening to music again. And now to put vinyl on a record player it brings you back to my early years. I will put you on the spot. The thing you like most about the way the business has changed in the two days you have been at it and the things you like least about the way the music business has changed in the two decades you have been at it. I think the most thing that i like is there is a lot more interaction directly with fans. Used to be there is a huge divide between okay. You were making a record. No one was supposed to know about it. Then all of the sudden you release it on the world. Now im all about opening that wall, that curtain and putting videos up while im making the record, tweeting, facebook and doing all of this stuff because its right there. The fans had this whole new way. What do you like least . We have all heard of declining record sales. Back in the day people used to sell records. Now the cd or the vinyl now are more about kind of a Business Card to be able to then go on tour. Its kind of reversed. Nobody really made money touring. It was all about that was to promote the sale of an album. How do you process that and not take it personally . I was fascinated the other day. Maybe that is too strong of a word but i was reading an article that Anderson Cooper did with donald sterling, the owner of the clippers. Barbara walters, the biggest interview she ever did, monica lewinski, 50 Million People watched that interview. 50 Million People watched her interview monica lewinski. Anderson got a big gig with donald sterling. 720,000 people. Thats all. I mean, 720,000, versus 50 million. Its not just about the subject matter. The business of television has changed so much. Its so diluted. So much content now. Is that the music business . Everybody can make a cd now in their bedroom, put it on i tunes by themselves. Used to be you had to have a machine behind you. How do you sift through all of this noise. Its difficult. Yours is always a beautiful noise. Well thanks. And this project, everybody and their mamma is on here. Im not on here. Everybody else in hollywood is. And you got great people. I dont want to call names but i will. Chuck rose, reuss freeman. Good lord. Nathan butler. You called in all your friends . I basically called everybody. I mean, here is the thing. This album of mine its to celebrate my 20 years making music. Its a total remake of my first album i was in chicago and basically it was me and talking about in the bedroom. Thats how i made that one. That was the beginning of the new technology these days where you could make records in your bedroom. I did that. It was not the greatest production so i have always wanted to go back and redo it with the greatest people in the world. So the production is infinitely better than 20 year ace go . So what about the content . Are you were you as excited to revisit the material 20 years in . Does the material hold up . Thats why i wanted to redo it. I always liked the songs. The songs and arrangements were really interesting. And not jaded by the industry. You know . I was just writing music that i thought was personally interesting. So to go back and revisit these songs with the great players, that is what was exciting to me. They brought this whole new life out of these songs that i never had initially. I remember doing the first record, i was trying to program the drums on a drum machine to try to sound like together. Now i called him to play on this version. Hes playing what i was trying to do. I guess you got the sound you wanted since he showed up for it. Oh yeah. Fantastic. When you hear these tracks 20 years later with this production and these players, obviously it sounds better but did any of these songs hit you in a different way . It did because youre thinking of the last 20 years and how you have grown as a person and how the world has changed and wow, these songs are now that old. And so, you cant help but to get nostalgic. His latest cd is called another long night out. Its out in vinyl and of course cd. For you fans, youre in for a treat because he came by not just to talk but to play a bit for us. Hes going to play horizon off of this new project. Brian, good to have you on the program. Congratulations on your 20th anniversary and thank you for the good music. Im going to say goodbye so i can say good buy. Keep the faith. Enjoy Brian Culbertson playing horizon from his new project. Until next time, keep the faith. [ applause ] for more information on todays show, visit tavis smiley at pbs. Org. Hi, join me next time as we take a deep dive into what is grabbing the countrys attention in the coming week. Thats next time. Well see you then. And by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. Thank you. Be more, pbs. Be more, pbs