The Active Voice

Michael Easter wants you to take the stairs

Michael Easter is a bestselling author, journalist, and professor whose work explores how we can leverage modern science and evolutionary wisdom to perform better and live healthier. Through his Substack, Two Percent with Michael Easter, he offers readers insights to help them ignore the noise and focus on research-backed tips for a happier, healthier life. Michael’s reach is vast: his ideas have been adopted by professional athletes, astronauts, musicians, and Fortune 500 companies, and his work has been featured by outlets including Good Morning America, the New York Times, NPR, Fox News, MSNBC, and The Joe Rogan Experience. His books, The Comfort Crisis and Scarcity Brain, have both earned spots on the New York Times bestseller list. His work has had an impact in unexpected places, too—one of his books, as he was told by an inmate at Rikers Island, is “the most popular book in prison,” and that same book is also a favorite among some of the largest church groups in the U.S.During our conversation, Michael shared the most important things you can do for your health, how he writes fitness tips that work for Tour de France cyclists and 80-year-olds alike, and how taking the stairs—both literally and metaphorically—can change your life.Quotes from the conversationOn starting Two PercentA book might run at 80,000 words, but I would write 160,000 words, and I’d have all this useful stuff that would just go nowhere. And it seemed like Substack might be a good way to cover topics in health and wellness in a way that brought people in, that felt a little more timely, and that allowed me to write in real time. I didn’t know what would happen when I launched this, but I decided to roll the dice—you know, I live in Vegas, so yeah, roll the dice! But it’s been awesome. It’s been one of the best career decisions I’ve ever made, if not the best career decision I’ve ever made. On the benefits of discomfortIf you look at what most improves human health and well-being and mental health in the context of modern life, it’s uncomfortable, right? It’s exercise. Exercise is uncomfortable. It’s not eating the ninth slice of pizza in one sitting; it’s having some rails on your eating. It’s having hard conversations to unpeel deeper elements of mental health. And when I was working at Men’s Health [magazine], I could see that there were benefits to discomfort. And if you really look at how the world has changed, over the last 100, 200, 500, 2 million years, we’ve slowly added more and more comfort into our lives. And that’s been a good thing for progress, but it hasn’t always been good for health and wellness.On the traditional Japanese ritual “misogi”If you look at how humans learn and grow, we don’t learn when things are perfect, right? We learn by being pushed up to an edge, learning what it’s like there, and then seeing, “I figured this out. I’m actually a lot more capable than I realized.” Now, the issue is that today, even though things are great, we don’t really have these moments that are great teachers that show us what we’re capable of. So the idea of misogi is that you take on one big epic task a year in nature in order to expand those edges, to see what you’re capable of. There are two rules to misogi: One is that your misogi task has to be really hard. And two is don’t die.On what the government gets rightI think the number one thing that you can do for your health is exercise. I think that the government’s exercise recommendations are actually rather reasonable. They’re low, but the reason they’re low is because the government also goes, well, we don’t want you guys exercising all the time; we also need an economy here, right? So as long as you can hit a couple hours of cardio total a week and lift some weights a couple of days, I think that that is one of the best things you can do for your health.On mental health vs. physical health The internet has made a lot of people crazy, long story short. So having practices that help your mental health is great. If you have a six-pack and can run a five-minute mile yet you’re a crazy person, we probably need to rebalance those books a little bit. So finding practices for mental health, things like extended time in nature. I think meditation can be very useful for some people—it doesn’t work for all people all the time, but that can help build strong relationships with others. Time and silence, really figuring out your own path with all these things, is important.On chasing dopamineI think it’s really about giving people context instead of just saying, “Hey, if you get in an ice bath, a study showed that dopamine rises.” It’s like, yeah, well, dopamine rises if I go down to the casino down the road and smoke a heater and hit the spin button 50 times. Just because dopamine rises doesn’t mean s**t, right? Show notes* Subscribe to Two Percent* [2:30] On joining Substack* [3:06] The Comfort Crisis* [4:18] Scarcity Brain* [8:27] Pushing the envelope* [12:42] Misogi* [21:36] Writing for a range of athletic abilities* [24:18] Trends in health writing* [28:31] The most important things you can do for your health* [32:13] Michael’s own training* [35:07] Michael’s badass mom* [39:44] Allowing kids to face challenges* [41:00] Why it’s called Two Percent* [45:20] Discussions with Tim Mak of The Counteroffensive with Tim Mak   This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit post.substack.com

Nate Silver on the edge

Chris here, Co-founder and CEO of Substack. I’m sharing a conversation with Nate Silver that I just published on my Substack.is a man of many talents. He’s been a baseball analyst, a blogger, a legendary election forecaster, and founder of 538. He’s worked in media at the Times, ABC, and ESPN. He’s a professional poker player, and a bestselling author. I was introduced to his work through his book The Signal and the Noise, and he has a new book coming out in August called On the Edge: The Art of Risking Everything. He has a wildly successful Substack, which you should subscribe to now. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit post.substack.com

The Active Voice: E. Jean Carroll, Mary Trump and Jen Taub are bringing serialization into the mainstream

Today’s episode is guest-hosted by Sarah Fay, creative writing professor at Northwestern University, former interviewer at The Paris Review, devoted serializer, and lover of all things Substack. Her Substack Writers at Work helps creative writers use Substack to bolster their careers, including how to serialize their writing. She’s currently serializing her new memoir Cured on Substack through 2023.—Sophia Efthimiatou, Head of Writer Relations**You may recognize the names of today’s guests: Mary Trump, E. Jean Carroll, and Jennifer Taub. Their new venture is a groundbreaking Substack: Backstory Serial. The content may surprise you—though it shouldn’t, and I’ll explain why during the podcast. Backstory Serial features their romance novel The Italian Lesson, which is bringing serial novels and Substack fiction into the mainstream.The Italian Lesson is a serialization, meaning it appears in your inbox, chapter by chapter, installment by installment. The plot of The Italian Lesson is simple: An American woman moves to a small town in Tuscany and opens a café. Then, as Mary put it in an interview, “some stud walks in and turns out he’s a prince.”Serialization has a long tradition on Substack—I guide writers on how to do it on my Substack, Writers at Work—but no one has had the success that these three have and there are very good reasons why, which we’ll go into. The three women play different roles in the writing of the novel: Mary is the author, E. Jean fields comments from their vibrant community and plays the role of romance-novel fact-checker, and Jen acts as editor.In case you don’t know Mary, E. Jean, and Jen, a bit of background: Mary Trump describes herself as a mom, writer, liberal progressive, and pro-democracy American. She’s the author of Too Much is Never Enough about her uncle (yes, that Donald Trump) and The Reckoning. Her Substack The Good in Us features her commentary on culture, politics, and music (from Tina Turner to Aimee Mann)—plus pet pictures and a community of subscribers who share her vision to use kindness and empathy to ensure that America remains a democracy. E. Jean Carroll’s esteemed Substack, Ask E. Jean, is the longest-running advice column in American publishing. It ran in Elle Magazine until E. Jean accused Donald Trump of assault and sued him for defamation, after which Elle fired her. She’s since made Substack her home. Her wit, smarts, sass, and empathy are unrivaled. She’s also the author of the book What Do We Need Men For?—part satirical treatise in the tradition of Jonathan Swift and part rollicking narrative.Jennifer Traub is a one-woman force against corruption in the United States. In her book, Big Dirty Money, she takes on white-collar criminals. She’s also the author of Other People’s Houses. Jen is a law professor, an activist, and the host of the Booked Up podcast. In her firey—and also fun—Substack Money & Gossip, she clarifies what the rest of us miss or don’t make sense of in the financial and legal world.In our conversation, we talk about everything from why the media has underestimated them as novelists, how they came up with The Italian Lesson’s unique form, why they chose to serialize on Substack, knitting patterns, cocktail recipes, the email novel, and what love really is.—Sarah Fay https://www.backstoryserial.com/ Show notes* Subscribe to Backstory Serial on Substack* Find Mary Trump, Jen Taub, and E. Jean Carroll on Twitter, and Mary, Jen and E. Jean on Instagram, and listen to Jen’s podcast Booked Up with Jen Taub* Big Dirty Money by Jennifer Taub and books by Mary L Trump* [03:31] Writing a romance novel[05:19] Meeting on Zoom[07:58] Choosing to serialize[13:20] Mary’s introduction to writing[16:32] Building a community[22:00] Bringing the book to life[27:27] Collaborating together[32:30] Subverting traditional publishing[38:49] Ideas for the next novel**The Active Voice is a podcast hosted by Hamish McKenzie, featuring weekly conversations with writers about how the internet is affecting the way they live and write. It is produced by Hamish McKenzie, with audio engineering by Seven Morris, and content production by Hannah Ray. All artwork is by Joro Chen, and music is by Phelps & Munro. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit post.substack.com

The Active Voice: Taylor Lorenz still believes in the internet

Taylor Lorenz, a tech culture reporter for the Washington Post, has been both observer and participant in an internet culture that has been emerging since the early 2010s, a period of history that has seen the rise of massive social media platforms, the decay of traditional media, and the increasing power of online influencers. That culture can be delightful and enriching, and it can be savage and soul-destroying. Of course, anyone who spends much time on Twitter knows that Taylor herself has had ample experience with both sides of that. She is a lightning rod in the online culture wars, loved and supported as much as she is reviled and targeted. She is a frequent subject of critiques from her ideological opponents, a cast that includes such figures as Tucker Carlson, Jake Paul, and Glenn Greenwald, to name a few. And how does she take that? Well, it’s just how life is online, she says. “What people do on the internet is they build up other people into characters online, and it’s like this crazy soap opera every day.” Her enemies turn her into a character, she says, because it gives them opposition. “It’s just classic influencer tactics, right? You are going to make this other YouTuber into a villain and you’re going to have this feud and then that galvanizes your audience.”And yet she remains a believer in technology as a force for good. “It’s cool to see people use the internet for progress and to bring more freedom to all of us,” she says. “I think that’s what the goal of the internet should be. It should be a liberating force.”In this conversation, we discuss the recent history of the internet, social media, and the rise of influencers—of which Taylor is one. Aside from high-profile reporting jobs at The Atlantic, the New York Times, and the Post, she has also amassed huge followings on TikTok, Twitter, and Instagram. In October, her first book will be published. Its title couldn’t be more appropriate: Extremely Online.https://taylorlorenz.substack.com/Taylor’s recommended reads:Show notes* Subscribe to Taylor Lorenz’s newsletter on Substack* Find Taylor on Twitter* Her upcoming book, Extremely Online[04:54] Becoming a journalist[08:20] Tumblr and blogging[13:05] The “f**k yeah” era of Tumblr[18:14] Tabloid news[22:19] Developing a new beat[26:56] Gaining prominence[32:13] Dealing with online harassment[38:57] The state of the media[42:05] Ephemerality and the internet[53:14] Being a techno-optimist[1:01:19] Extremely Online book[1:05:50] Taylor on her recommended readsThe Active Voice is a podcast hosted by Hamish McKenzie, featuring weekly conversations with writers about how the internet is affecting the way they live and write. It is produced by Hamish McKenzie, with audio engineering by Seven Morris and content production by Hannah Ray. All artwork is by Joro Chen, and music is by Phelps & Munro. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit post.substack.com

The Active Voice: Nadia Bolz-Weber is preaching to break your heart

At a dinner party Substack hosted in San Francisco last week, I found myself sitting next to Kevin Kelly, the founding executive editor of Wired magazine and former publisher of the Whole Earth Review. We were talking about the capital of the world. It no longer felt that New York was it, I was telling him, though it had not been replaced by another physical city either. Rather, the world now had only one, digital, capital. If you made it there, you’d make it anywhere.He agreed, with one amendment. “Silicon Valley is the place least resistant to new ideas today,” he said, which was the original point of the world capital as a destination. I had recently interviewed Nadia Bolz-Weber for this podcast, and her words were still fresh in my mind. I imagined her response to this would be, “The problem is, it is also the place most resistant to old ideas.” Nadia embodies the old and the new. She is a striking figure: tall and lean, with a thick mane of salt-and-pepper hair and a penetrating blue gaze. She is covered in colorful tattoos of Christian mythology and exudes the warmth of wisdom. She practices one of the oldest traditions, that of the preacher. The texts she “wrestles with,” as she puts it, are centuries-old. Her task is to bring them to the here and now, to the self. They become personal to her because, in order to interpret them, she must first study herself anew. Nadia has been an alcoholic, a standup comic, and a sinner. She has been a pastor, a prison preacher, and a saint. She talked about what these qualifiers mean to her, how she understands the concept of faith, the relationship between poetry and prayer, and the danger of innovating without consideration for tradition. One of her observations echoed what Suleika Jaouad and Diego Perez emphasized during their own exchange a couple of weeks ago, when they spoke about the significance of honesty in writing. Nadia reinforced that message when she said:“Some people make a living off of being sort of influencers, who say things that might kind of be true, but they never feel honest. They feel like they’re ignoring a darker side of our hearts. I always want somebody to really acknowledge the sort of more shadowy contours of my human heart, and then talk about where some grace or hope or forgiveness is. Because I feel like when those things are ignored, it just fills me a little bit with despair, even though they’re telling me something really chipper. I like it when writers or preachers are willing to be honest about their own struggles in a real way.” This also brought to mind the conversation that Mike Solana and Ted Gioia had here on the Active Voice. As Ted put it, “There’s been an enormous crisis of trust, and certain voices are emerging and succeeding because they’ve been able to parlay that trust.”What connects all of them is their allegiance to honesty, and the obligation they feel to deliver it to their audience. https://thecorners.substack.com/ Show notesSubscribe to The Corners by Nadia Bolz-Weber on SubstackFind Nadia on Twitter and InstagramNadia’s booksFrancis Spufford’s book Unapologetic“Introduction to Poetry” by Billy Collins[02:00] The House for All Sinners and Saints[06:18] The church after the pandemic[10:18] The process of preaching to oneself[12:54] Finding the Good News[15:29] Nadia’s regrets[21:00] On resurrection[25:00] When we call out to God[29:40] Being clear-eyed about being humanThe Active Voice is a podcast hosted by Hamish McKenzie, featuring weekly conversations with writers about how the internet is affecting the way they live and write. It is produced by Hamish McKenzie, with audio engineering by Seven Morris, and content production by Hannah Ray. All artwork is by Joro Chen, and music is by Phelps & Munro. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit post.substack.com