Steve Levitt

For me, I spent 16 years failing to learn any math at all.

And then when I got admitted to MIT and I looked in those first syllabi at what I was going to have to know, I learned...

five years of math in three weeks because I needed to learn it.

I didn't have the words for it then, but I realized what just-in-time learning was.

Or another example, I fiddled around all through high school, didn't care about anything, did all my box checking.

And then when they opened a racetrack in Minnesota, Canterbury Downs, and I was losing all my money trying to bet on horses, I need to be better.

And that's when I decided I would really learn how to computer program.

And so I would stay up all night

doing something that had never occurred to me that would have any value, but it was with the purpose of trying to win at the racetrack.

I've lived these things that I'm now preaching.

But going back to your question, it is true that being an interviewer was roughly the last thing that I ever should have done.

You and I have been on book tours.

And there's nothing better for me than going on a book tour with you because you are the ultimate extrovert and you love to talk to people.

And I can spend the entire time just sitting there looking around.

Well, that's kind of you to say, but like my wife would say, what do you want for your birthday?

And the answer I don't say, because it's too rude, is I would like everyone to go away and I have a week where I didn't talk to a single person and nobody bothered me for a week.

That would be my dream.

And I might get tired after a week, but I can't remember a time where I was alone and I ever thought, geez, I wish I weren't alone.

Why are you not going to a silent retreat every week?

The problem with silent retreats is they actually have a lot of routine.