The Saad Truth with Dr. Saad - Leadership Insights Series at Northwood University (The Saad Truth with Dr. Saad_713)

00:00:00.000 With great excitement, I introduce you to Northwood University, a truly exceptional

00:00:05.260 institution in American higher education. Since 1959, this private, accredited university has

00:00:12.880 been a vibrant bastion of free thought and enterprise, standing out among the thousands

00:00:18.980 of other schools in the U.S. Known as America's free enterprise university, Northwood is dedicated

00:00:26.080 to nurturing the next generation of leaders who drive global social and economic progress.

00:00:33.720 At the heart of Northwood lies the Northwood idea, a philosophy that celebrates individual

00:00:40.060 freedom, responsibility, and the importance of moral law and free enterprise. This entrepreneurial

00:00:46.840 spirit is evident in that one-third of Northwood alumni own businesses. Northwood is more than

00:00:54.020 an institution. It's a movement that empowers students to think critically and champion

00:00:59.940 liberty. It is a rare gem in today's academic world. If you're passionate about supporting

00:01:06.080 a university that values intellectual growth and free enterprise, or to learn more about

00:01:11.680 its academic programs, visit northwood.edu.

00:01:15.660 Good evening, everyone. Great to have you here. And Kristen will mention those online as well.

00:01:22.980 Well, this is another great event here in the McNair Center. And from in the late 80s, early 90s,

00:01:34.320 there was a gentleman by the name of Dr. James Dutterstadt. He was president at the University

00:01:38.600 of Michigan. And sadly, he passed away less than a month ago on August 21st. In 2009, he wrote

00:01:47.100 a wonderful book called A View from the Helm. And it was his perspective of what is it like to lead this

00:01:54.260 complex organization called a university from the position of a president. And it was Dr.

00:02:00.700 Stahauer's idea of how could we take that concept of view from the helm and extend it out into leadership

00:02:07.380 writ large. And so that's what we did. And in fact, the very first session of leadership insights,

00:02:14.920 a view from the helm, we had Dr. Bill Stavropoulos and Dr. Terry Moore were here and they let it off.

00:02:22.200 And then Bill and Terry are here. So welcome back, gentlemen, and great to have you.

00:02:30.840 A number of other individuals from the community, I welcome you all here. And this is essentially

00:02:38.380 what Northwood is trying to do as a university is to create opportunities for people to explore

00:02:44.580 different perspectives. And as I said to our students and their parents often, sometimes topics

00:02:49.900 are uncomfortable. But I also follow that up by saying we will fail as an institution if we

00:02:56.200 don't have a student be uncomfortable at some point in their time here at Northwood. That is

00:03:01.540 essentially what we're supposed to do is have them explore ideas and hear thought leaders and we have

00:03:08.460 a great one tonight. Before we get into the formal introduction of Dr. Saad, I'm going to ask my

00:03:16.300 colleague, Dr. Alex Tokarev, a fantastic professor here of economics who has lived his life, early years

00:03:26.440 of living in a communist socialist state, and what that was like now to live in a land that is supposed

00:03:32.920 to provide a tremendous amount of freedom. His gift to our students as they get to spend time with

00:03:39.400 them in our classrooms. So Alex, if you could come on up and set the context. Thank you.

00:03:48.080 Thank you, Kent, and welcome everyone. I was asked to briefly talk about why Dr.

00:03:54.480 Ghat Saad and Northwood University are a match made in heaven. For 65 years, we have been America's

00:04:03.320 free enterprise business school. Let's start with the fact that Northwood will always stand

00:04:10.360 for capitalism, not socialism, not cronyism, not wokeism. Because capitalism is the only economic

00:04:20.820 system that respects the right of the individual to control his life. Private property and free

00:04:28.320 enterprise secure both the resources and the opportunities to do what the First Amendment

00:04:38.240 to the U.S. Constitution guarantees on paper to every American. I appreciate, more than most of you

00:04:46.080 probably, capitalism, free enterprise, and using my rights to worship God, to say and to publish what I

00:04:54.840 think. Because I grew up with none of those rights. Bulgaria under socialism was a politically correct 0.97

00:05:04.280 dystopia of the kind that Kamala wants to build here. All our views on politics, science, the economy,

00:05:13.500 arts, culture, international affairs, and much more were prescribed by the government. Express dissent

00:05:22.400 in private, any risk being reported, detained, shamed, expelled from school, or losing your work,

00:05:32.040 home, family, and even your life. In his book, The Parasitic Mind, Dr. Saad refers to a Harvard

00:05:41.500 biologist who said of socialism, great idea, wrong species. Any system that is built on a false

00:05:51.840 misunderstanding of human nature is doomed to fail. With the fall of the Berlin Wall, I thought that I had

00:06:00.800 seen the end of all the PC intimidation, the self-censorship, and everyone snitching on everyone else.

00:06:10.700 I started a family in the land of the free. For the first time in my life, I enjoyed the opportunity to

00:06:18.260 criticize our presidents. Clinton, Bush, Obama, Trump. I published scathing comments on their policies.

00:06:28.780 But I slept in peace knowing that the police won't show up at my door. Then came the COVID restrictions

00:06:37.420 of governors like Whitmer, Newsom, and Waltz. And it seemed that the home of the brave was full of

00:06:46.560 cowards. Half of America believed that by complying with the insane tyrannical orders, we can regain the 0.85

00:06:54.420 freedom that we give up. For me, it was a nightmarish deja vu. Colleagues and classmates snitching on each

00:07:03.860 other. Biden's people forcing the media to censor all dissent and opposition, then using the justice

00:07:11.120 system to go after his rival in this year's elections. The left used the emergency well.

00:07:17.640 Infectious, neo-Marxist ideas like CRT, ESG, and DEI were spreading faster than the Chinese virus

00:07:27.080 in government schools, on college campuses, and in the corporate world. Christians, conservatives,

00:07:34.860 libertarians, white, heterosexual men, they all needed re-education. Expressing any doubts about men using

00:07:43.600 women's bathrooms, bodily mutilations of minors, or drag shows in libraries during toddler programming

00:07:51.940 will get you canceled. Why should people in a free country be afraid of saying what they believe?

00:08:00.100 Naughty Dr. Saad. Think about that, and you will know the direction that the progressives want to take

00:08:08.300 us. It says, at Northwood University, we consider your free speech to be much more important than your

00:08:17.880 feelings. So, with that, I rest my case and welcome God to our family. I know that you too soon will find

00:08:27.200 out how perfectly we fit. Now, it is my pleasure to introduce today's moderator, Dr. Christine Stehauer,

00:08:35.100 Northwood University's academic vice president and provost. She earned her doctorate in political

00:08:42.020 science and international relations at Northwestern University and completed postgraduate work in

00:08:48.500 higher education at Harvard University. Dr. Stehauer's scholarly work has focused on east-west relations

00:08:56.520 during the Cold War, American foreign policy, and the unification of Germany. Her business career

00:09:03.600 has focused on strategy formulation and implementation, and she has worked with large and small

00:09:10.020 organizations, both domestic and global, spanning many sectors. So, please join me in welcoming

00:09:16.520 Dr. Christine Stehauer.

00:09:18.160 Thank you, Alex, for your inspiring words and context for this evening's fireside chat.

00:09:33.800 We really appreciate all of you joining us this evening, both here in the McNair Center and via live

00:09:39.820 streaming. Dr. Gadsad is joining us for the seventh in our series, which we hear from top leaders as

00:09:47.660 President McDonald mentioned, leadership insights, a view from the helm. Dr. Saad is a recognized

00:09:54.920 thought leader and scholar, and we recently appointed him at Northwood University as visiting

00:10:00.780 professor and global ambassador for the Northwood idea. His appointment is a bold affirmation of our

00:10:08.960 unwavering commitment to promoting a culture rooted deep in intellectual freedom, personal responsibility,

00:10:16.740 and the defense of free enterprise and liberty. Dr. Saad is professor of marketing at Concordia

00:10:23.960 University in Montreal, Canada, and former holder of the Concordia University Research Chair in

00:10:31.000 Evolutionary Behavioral Sciences and Darwinian Consumption. Dr. Saad has received numerous awards

00:10:39.000 from Concordia University for teaching and for his media work, including as co-recipient of the

00:10:45.320 President's Media Outreach Award Researcher Communicator of the Year, which goes to the

00:10:51.560 professor at Concordia University whose research receives the greatest amount of global media

00:10:57.180 coverage. To that point, you could call Dr. Saad a viral thought leader. He's appeared on many

00:11:04.240 leading media outlets, including 10 times on Joe Rogan's podcast, and he has a sizable social media

00:11:11.740 following, including nearly 1 million followers on X. In his scholarly work, Dr. Saad has pioneered the

00:11:19.760 use of evolutionary psychology in consumer and marketing and consumer behavior. His works include

00:11:27.620 multiple books on consumer behavior, along with over 75 scientific papers, many at the intersection

00:11:35.760 of evolutionary psychology, and a broad range of disciplines, including consumer behavior,

00:11:42.080 marketing, advertising, psychology, medicine, and economics. He has authored 311 articles on his

00:11:50.460 Psychology Today blog that have garnered over 7 million views. His YouTube channel, The Sad Truth,

00:11:58.580 has generated nearly 35 million total views, and his podcast titled The Sad Truth with Dr. Gad Saad,

00:12:07.480 which is available on all leading podcast platforms, has yielded 9.4 million, over 9.4 million downloads

00:12:15.740 since June 2020, and counting. In addition to his scientific work, Dr. Saad is a leading public intellectual

00:12:23.740 who often writes and speaks about idea pathogens that are destroying logic, science, reason,

00:12:32.640 and common sense. His fourth book, The Parasitic Mind, How Infectious Ideas Are Killing Common Sense,

00:12:39.420 was released in October 2020. It has since become an international bestseller, and we've selected it

00:12:45.660 as our OmniQuest Plus book for this academic year. His fifth book, The Sad Truth About Happiness,

00:12:53.420 Eight Secrets for Leading the Good Life, was released in July 2023, and he's currently working on a book

00:13:01.540 called Suicidal Empathy. Please join me in formally welcoming Dr. Gad Saad.

00:13:18.320 Thank you for that lovely introduction. It's a real honor to be here. Thank you all for showing

00:13:23.320 up, and I look forward to some exciting questions. Great. Well, we look forward to it. We're going

00:13:28.660 to dive right in, and we'll be able to take some Q&A from our audience participants, both via online.

00:13:36.280 There's a QR code on the sheets on your, the programs on your chairs, and so we look forward to

00:13:43.640 taking the questions at the end. But first, we have compiled some questions from our students.

00:13:48.820 Sure. So you've mentioned your life ideals are freedom and truth. Could you tell us more about

00:13:57.240 how these became so important to you, and also what early life experiences led to these being

00:14:03.160 important to you? Right. So I discussed that in chapter one of the parasitic mind, and you might

00:14:09.000 think of freedom and truth as only being applied to my academic life, but actually those two ideals

00:14:15.160 apply in areas that you wouldn't have thought it might apply to. So for example, I used to be a

00:14:20.200 soccer player, a competitive soccer player. And the position that I played was attacking midfielder,

00:14:26.340 a playmaker, so that my whole purpose on the field was to float around freely looking for spaces to

00:14:35.720 exploit. Whenever I had a coach who would say, you have to play on the left side of midfield today,

00:14:41.540 suddenly my, it's as if you had guillotined me because you removed my ability to be free. And so

00:14:48.700 freedom and truth is not something that I only adhere to in my academic life. It's something that

00:14:54.100 shapes almost all the decisions that I've ever made. And your family were political refugees from

00:15:03.420 Lebanon, the Lebanon War. Could you speak to that as well and how that plays into these values?

00:15:08.780 Sure. So we were part of the last remaining group of Lebanese Jews that had steadfastly refused to

00:15:17.600 leave Lebanon in 1975. So we were a very small minority. And then when the civil war broke out in

00:15:24.580 1975, old neighbors became bitter enemies because one of the reasons I talk about this in the book is

00:15:32.820 that identity politics, which seems to be a great idea according to progressives, is exactly the Lebanon 0.99

00:15:39.540 that I experienced. Because in Lebanon, everything is organized according to your religious apakhtonance, 1.00

00:15:45.540 your belongingness, right? So you're a Maronite, you're a Shia Muslim, you're a Sunni Muslim, you're a Jew. 0.99

00:15:53.680 And so it was untenable for us to remain in Lebanon as Jews. There was almost no chance that we could

00:15:59.500 survive the ordeal. And so after the first year of the civil war, we ended up leaving Lebanon. And so I

00:16:06.020 often remind Westerners that it often takes immigrants such as myself to actually remind

00:16:14.420 Westerners about the values that you take for granted. Because we've sampled from the full buffet

00:16:20.740 of societies that exist out there. And we know that it is an anomaly to have the freedoms that we have in

00:16:25.860 the West. And so it becomes incumbent on folks like me to tell people, don't take your freedoms for

00:16:32.240 granted. Thanks for that important reminder. One question that our students are interested in,

00:16:38.200 and we're talking about your early life, what advice would you give your younger self?

00:16:43.260 So, you know, I was once asked on a show, not too long ago, what is the singular greatest

00:16:49.840 advice that I've ever received? And there are many contenders. And I thought of one thing that my

00:16:56.020 mother told me, which in a sense speaks to your first question about truth and freedom. She always

00:17:02.760 told me, you know, God, the sooner that you find out that the world doesn't abide to your purity bubble,

00:17:09.360 the better adjusted you'll be. Because I kind of live in this platonic ideal, this purity bubble,

00:17:15.460 where it really offends me when someone is dishonest or someone is ungracious. And I think

00:17:22.000 maybe I would have gone back to that early guy and said, don't live your life according to how you

00:17:29.140 want the world to be, but accept the impurities that exist in the world. Because it has brought

00:17:34.360 me a lot of friction in my life when I put my trust in someone and then they end up disappointing

00:17:40.460 me. And then I hear my mother's voice saying, the world doesn't abide to your purity bubble.

00:17:45.460 That mom knows best. Mom knows best. Often. So speaking of your social media presence,

00:17:54.820 you've often had a viral social media presence and even standard media presence.

00:18:01.880 How do you explain that? So many scholars quietly

00:18:04.800 do things in their scholarly bubble and you're touching the world with these powerful ideas.

00:18:11.560 That again speaks to the first question you asked, that I can't be constrained. So I'm not a stay in

00:18:19.220 your lane professor. Yes, I love to publish academic papers. I love the peer review process. It's part of

00:18:24.600 my job as a professor. But then that paper that takes three or four years to go through the peer review

00:18:30.220 process, it'll be considered a success if a hundred scholars cite it in 10 years. But I'm a bit more

00:18:38.180 impatient. So yes, I want to do that. But I also want to use the megaphone that is afforded to me

00:18:42.800 today to share ideas to 10 million people rather than 10 people in the seminar. And so I very quickly

00:18:49.480 decided, hey, there are all these wonderful opportunities to spread the message. I'm just

00:18:54.140 going. And a lot of people warn me, that's not professorial. Don't do it. It means you don't go on

00:19:00.260 Joe Rogan. Serious scholars don't go on Joe Rogan. What do you mean, serious scholars? If I can go on Joe

00:19:06.020 Rogan and ignite an interest in 10 million people to study consumer behavior or evolutionary psychology,

00:19:12.960 how is that not something very laudable? And so I resisted all of the sort of ivory tower

00:19:18.380 elitism, presented myself to the world in an authentic way, and apparently it worked out all well.

00:19:24.320 There must be something, though, that's giving you traction because so many people are on those

00:19:27.920 platforms and not getting invited. Look at that smile. Look at this look. No, look,

00:19:35.580 it's, I think it's just, it's a combination of, look, I use, I use humor a lot. That's a very

00:19:43.080 powerful tool, right? I mean, dictators, Alex earlier was talking about Bulgaria, how it is,

00:19:48.460 right? The first group of folks that dictators get rid of are the satirists. It's not the people

00:19:54.640 with the big muscles. It's the people with the sharp tongues because it's the people with the sharp

00:19:58.760 tongues that serve as a threat to my ideological control, right? And so satire, sarcasm, humor,

00:20:08.360 when properly deployed, are incredibly powerful tools. So I'll often get stopped on the street,

00:20:14.020 not because someone wants to talk about some academic thing I've done, but they'll say,

00:20:18.760 oh my God, you had me laughing in stitches when you did X, Y, Z. So I think it's that combination of

00:20:24.040 things. The fact that I'm multifaceted, that allows me to break through the academic constraints.

00:20:32.540 So you've established your reputation, as we mentioned in the intro, with your work in

00:20:37.460 evolutionary psychology and consumer behavior. Given Northwood's reputation as a thought leader

00:20:43.080 in the automotive space, I'd love for you to illustrate the nature of your work in that realm

00:20:48.160 with your early study on the biological impact of cars on their drivers.

00:20:53.720 So I'll start maybe, can I take a minute or two just explaining what evolutionary psychology is?

00:20:57.660 Absolutely.

00:20:58.180 Because many people may not know what that is. Should I look at the audience or should I only look at...

00:21:02.840 Okay.

00:21:03.460 Whatever's comfortable.

00:21:04.440 Okay. Just because I feel like I should be looking at them. So evolutionary psychology is basically the

00:21:10.180 application of evolution to study how our human mind is structured the way that it is. Why do we

00:21:16.080 experience the emotions that we do? Why do we behave the way that we do? So for example, if I say,

00:21:21.420 why are men so sexually territorial? Well, you can give an answer like, well, it's because their

00:21:28.180 egos are fragile. Well, that may be true, but that can't be the ultimate Darwinian explanation.

00:21:34.860 The reason why men have evolved this capacity to be sexually territorial is because men face the very

00:21:41.640 real threat of paternity uncertainty, right? We're a bi-parental species, meaning that human males

00:21:47.920 invest a lot in their children. Therefore, because we're a bi-parental species and because

00:21:53.040 human males face paternity uncertainty, everybody in this room comes from a long descendant of male

00:22:00.120 ancestors who would have cared whether their women go around or not. Because I don't want to spend 18 0.98

00:22:05.580 years raising a child that looks a lot like my sexy gardener, right? I want to make sure that it is my

00:22:12.180 child, right? So that offers you a very simple example of how an evolutionary psychologist studies

00:22:18.740 the Darwinian why. Why have we evolved that preference, that choice, that behavior, that emotion?

00:22:25.240 So then I took this principle from evolutionary psychology and I said, well, why don't I apply this

00:22:31.840 to the study of consumer behavior? But consumer behavior very broadly, we consume relationships,

00:22:37.600 we consume religion, we consume popular culture. So it's not just the consumption of driving a Ford

00:22:43.140 or drinking Starbucks. Everything is consumatory. So I study the Darwinian underpinnings that make us

00:22:50.840 the consumers that we are. Now relating to the automotive part, I'll give two very cool examples of how

00:22:58.140 I've married evolutionary psychology to consumer behavior to an area that's relevant to the automotive

00:23:04.480 industry. So one of my most cited studies with a former graduate student of mine, we studied what

00:23:13.280 happens to men's testosterone levels when they engage in conspicuous consumption. So conspicuous

00:23:20.400 consumption is showy behavior, right? So if you're holding a Prada bag, that's conspicuous

00:23:27.660 consumption, right? If you're driving a Maserati, that's conspicuous consumption. So what we did is we brought

00:23:33.440 young men into the lab, we rented an actual Porsche, as I told some folks earlier at lunch, try to get a

00:23:41.400 scientific granting agency to give you money so that you could rent a Porsche for scientific purposes. And so we

00:23:49.420 brought young men into the lab and we had them drive a fancy Porsche or a beaten up old sedan in two

00:23:57.780 environments, either on a semi deserted highway where nobody sees you, or in downtown Montreal on the

00:24:04.440 weekend where there's a lot of people hanging around so they could see you driving either the beaten up car

00:24:08.840 or the fancy car. And the dependent measure was salivary assays that we took from them so that we can measure

00:24:16.040 their fluctuating levels of testosterone. So we took a baseline marker before they get into the cars and 0.95

00:24:23.200 then after each of those driving conditions and then again at the end for another post-experimental

00:24:29.540 baseline. Not surprising probably to anybody in this room, I won't get into all the details, but if you put

00:24:37.300 young men in a Porsche, their endocrinological system explodes, meaning their testosterone goes up

00:24:43.700 because they're being imbued with an immediate social win, right? So that would be an example of using

00:24:50.820 cars as the peacock's tail. So that would be one example. The second example, which I regret to say

00:24:57.980 has yet to be published, but it is co-authored with someone who may be visiting Northwood, one of my,

00:25:06.400 well, one of my former doctoral students, but certainly the most illustrious one. He's himself a chaired

00:25:12.460 professor right now in Canada. So we created personal ads of men, two versions of those personal ads for

00:25:22.180 dating purposes. We have a picture of a guy, we describe who he is, and we have another picture of

00:25:27.940 his personal, his favorite personal possession. And the only thing we manipulated was what that personal

00:25:34.660 possession was. It was either a beaten up, apologies to anybody who owes a Kia, it was a beaten up old

00:25:42.240 Kia, or it was a very shiny red Porsche. And then we asked both men and women to tell us, rate a whole

00:25:51.140 bunch of traits on this otherwise exact same guy. The only thing that's changed is the favorite

00:25:56.500 possession. One particular trait we looked at is how tall do you think this guy is, okay? So now here's

00:26:05.380 the incredible thing that you could only have gotten that finding if you understood evolutionary

00:26:09.680 psychology. When women look at the guy in the fancy Porsche, the guy magically becomes taller because 0.98

00:26:18.500 status is associated with height. And therefore, so we call this the status elongation effect. And so I

00:26:26.820 always tell my wife, I'm not a tall guy, so maybe I need to get a Porsche so that I can gain a few extra

00:26:32.600 inches. On the other hand, men looking at the exact same stimuli, when they see the guy in the Porsche,

00:26:41.140 the guy becomes shorter. Why? Because I am intimidated by other men who have high status. I don't care if

00:26:48.660 he's got, you know, a better GPA than me, but I care if he has, you know, higher status in this case,

00:26:55.900 in terms of what he can afford. So then I'm going to denigrate him by saying, oh, he must be some short

00:27:01.200 little guy because he must be compensating. So the exact same stimulus causes women to elongate me or 0.98

00:27:08.160 men to contract me, right? And so that would be two examples of how I've used evolutionary psychology

00:27:16.140 and consumer behavior. Thank you for that. And it gives our audience certainly a feel for the kind of

00:27:21.500 work you've done in the influence of that work. Your work was recently featured in Newsweek and on Fox

00:27:28.100 News pertaining to the election. Right. Could you share what voters should be aware of as they

00:27:32.480 evaluate their options vis-a-vis the candidates and any advice? Right. So here I'm going to give a bit

00:27:39.720 of a background. So in psychology of advertising, advertisers usually try to engage the consumer's

00:27:48.560 either central route of persuasion or peripheral route of persuasion. Central route means I engage

00:27:55.180 your cognitive system. So if I tell you, here are the seven reasons why you should invest in this

00:28:01.440 reverse mortgage. I'm engaging your cognitive system. On the other hand, if let's say I'm trying

00:28:07.540 to sell you a hedonic product. Hedonic means it's feelings, it's pleasure, a perfume. I don't tell you

00:28:14.380 here are the eight reasons physiologists at Harvard say you should buy this perfume, you'd all fall asleep.

00:28:19.840 I show you some imagery, a beautiful woman on a horse with her hair flowing, and then I say

00:28:26.160 mister, right? I give you some exotic sounding name. So I'm activating your peripheral system, right?

00:28:32.960 So depending on the product, I either activate your cognitive system or your affective system,

00:28:38.440 your feelings. Well, it's perfectly fair that we are both, we're both a thinking animal and a feeling

00:28:44.660 animal. But when it comes to choosing the leader of the free world, you'd like it to be that you're

00:28:52.000 engaging the cognitive system of people, right? Here are the six reasons why I think I'm going to

00:28:57.740 vote. I'm Canadian, so I'm not voting, but I'm voting for Trump. I like him on immigration policy,

00:29:03.540 fiscal policy, and so on. On the other hand, what is the central feature that Kamala's campaign is?

00:29:11.280 It's joy, it's happiness, it's excitement, right? So they are trying to hijack the peripheral system

00:29:20.000 precisely because they don't want you to be engaging the cognitive system. Because if you engage the

00:29:25.520 cognitive system, they may not be doing as well. And so as I watch this, I say this is straight out

00:29:31.460 of psychology of advertising 101, and apparently they're being quite successful, they meaning Kamala's

00:29:37.240 team. Because when I even engage my own colleagues, who you would think might be less likely to be

00:29:44.140 hijacked by these types of strategies, they will just ape exactly the same stuff. This is exciting, it's a

00:29:51.180 new start, it's joy, it's, so no, no, no, I understand it's all joy and excitement. Can you give me specific

00:29:57.560 cognitive reasons? No, I don't want to hear that. It's exciting, it's joyful, she's the first woman, she's the

00:30:02.920 first person of color, and so on. So I took a principle that advertisers have known for, you know,

00:30:09.700 40, 50 years, and I demonstrate how it exactly applies to today's political campaigns.

00:30:15.920 Thank you for that. We mentioned the parasitic mind earlier. Here's the book, and this is a book that

00:30:21.560 we're reading across the university over this academic year. And I'd love for you to share with

00:30:27.740 the audience what you mean by the parasitic mind, and then what is your call to action to protect

00:30:35.560 ourselves from those dangerous, infectious ideas, including current ones, but maybe future ones that

00:30:41.500 we don't even know about yet. Sure. So let me explain the term parasitic, where it comes from. So in the

00:30:47.820 animal kingdom, there is the field of parasitology, the study of parasites and how they interact with

00:30:52.860 their hosts. So for example, a tapeworm is a parasite that ends up in your intestinal tract, okay?

00:30:59.960 A neuroparasite is a parasite that seeks to get as its final destination to the host's brain,

00:31:07.560 altering its circuitry to suit its reproductive interests. So let me give you a specific example.

00:31:14.600 So the wood cricket abhors water, but when it is parasitized by a hairworm, the hairworm needs the

00:31:22.780 wood cricket to jump into water in order for it to complete its reproductive cycle. So when a wood

00:31:29.880 cricket is parasitized by that hairworm, it merrily jumps and commits suicide in the service of the

00:31:37.480 parasite's interest. So that was my eureka moment that I had when I delved into the neuroparasitology

00:31:43.660 literature. I thought to myself, human beings could be parasitized by actual brainworms, for example,

00:31:50.980 Toxoplasma gandhi, but they could be parasitized by a second class of parasites, ideological parasites.

00:31:57.720 I call them idea pathogens. So postmodernism is the granddaddy of idea pathogens because it purports 0.56

00:32:04.980 that there are no objective truths. It's precisely that framework that allows us to say, well, we can't

00:32:11.080 really know what is male or female. Until 15 minutes ago, the 117 billion people who've ever lived on Earth

00:32:17.800 were able to navigate through that conundrum. But now we no longer have the biological acuity to

00:32:24.440 fully define what is male or female. That's what a parasitic ideological rapture is. So I go through

00:32:31.080 all of these parasitic ideas, cultural relativism, social constructivism, radical feminism, biophobia, 0.81

00:32:38.920 the fear of using biology to explain human behavior. Each of these parasitic ideas regrettably were spawned on

00:32:45.500 university campuses because it takes intellectuals to come up with some of the dumbest ideas. 0.94

00:32:50.940 And then at the end of the book, I offer a mind vaccine against these parasitic ideas. 0.97

00:32:58.300 Now, for me to explain the mind vaccine, it's about a five, 10-minute explanation. Can I do that? Or do you

00:33:03.780 want me to kind of just give you a quick synopsis? Or how do you want me to do it?

00:33:07.680 Well, we have copies of the book, so maybe that's a great teaser for people to read them.

00:33:12.120 There is a vaccine.

00:33:12.920 The mind vaccine.

00:33:13.780 Yes, okay.

00:33:14.200 Exactly. But let's talk about your book on happiness that came out in 23. And could you speak to the

00:33:23.460 importance of persistence and the anti-fragility of failure? Because our students could really benefit

00:33:31.560 from that. So the term anti-fragility comes from a fellow Lebanese author. His name is Nassim

00:33:38.020 Talib. But the concept of anti-fragility has existed for thousands of years. So for example, Seneca,

00:33:46.080 the Stoic, many thousands of years ago, I don't have the exact quotes, I'm going to paraphrase it,

00:33:50.860 said that when you look at trees, the trees that have deep roots that can't be uprooted are precisely

00:33:57.820 those that grew facing a lot of wind stressors. Because by precisely facing a lot of wind stressors,

00:34:05.020 that's how they become able to withstand future stressors. Those that are too brittle to ever

00:34:11.580 have faced wind stressors, then they're gone, right? And so that concept of anti-fragility

00:34:17.060 is a foundational principle for leading a optimally flourishing life in that. So if you look at many

00:34:24.020 of the greatest people who've accomplished things in different domains, I was talking earlier to

00:34:30.280 Kristen, Lionel Messi, the greatest soccer player of all time, was told he's too small and frail to

00:34:37.280 ever be a professional soccer player, let alone the greatest player who's ever played. Zinedine Zidane,

00:34:43.120 who's the greatest French soccer player of all time, who's won the World Cup, was rejected because he

00:34:48.020 could have played for the French national team or the Algerian national team by heritage. The Algerian

00:34:53.820 coach rejected him as being too slow. He ends up being the greatest French soccer player of all

00:34:59.040 time. Michael Jordan was rejected from his sophomore high school team. So there was a coach who looked

00:35:06.220 at Michael Jordan at the high school level and said, you're not making the team, right? Steven Spielberg,

00:35:13.080 one of our great, our meaning North America, I'm Canadian, but a filmmaker was rejected not once,

00:35:20.400 not twice, but three times from film school, right? So some admissions folks said, this guy's going

00:35:27.300 nowhere. He's not good enough to get into our film school. He becomes Steven Spielberg. J.K. Rowling,

00:35:32.080 you all know the story, was rejected by every single publisher until the last one that didn't reject

00:35:36.620 So the idea of anti-fragility is that you have to be anti-fragile to rejection because almost anyone

00:35:45.340 who's ever accomplished something has one of those stories to tell. So if you are a student,

00:35:50.480 it's okay if you get rejected, get back on the proverbial horse, and hopefully you'll be sitting

00:35:55.320 in this seat one day sharing your wisdom with the rest of us. So Gad, your current book project has a

00:36:02.280 very provocative title, Suicidal Empathy. Could you tell us what that means and what you're working on

00:36:09.620 there? Right. So, you know, life has so much serendipity in it. When you open up the email, I always tell my

00:36:19.500 wife it's like playing a slot machine, right? You get an email from Kent McDonald saying, hey, have you

00:36:27.560 heard of Northwood and can we talk? And I didn't know Northwood and look where we are now. So one of the

00:36:32.860 emails that I got regarding that book was the executive editor of Harper, I guess I can publicly

00:36:40.440 say it now because we're signing the contract, Harper Collins, which is the second biggest publisher

00:36:44.760 in the world. I had put out a tweet explaining my idea of what Suicidal Empathy is, but it was just a

00:36:51.080 tweet that I was putting out. I was mulling whether I should write a book about it. He reaches out to me

00:36:55.560 and says, so he puts the link to that tweet and he said, well, I guess we just found the topic of your

00:37:01.060 next book. Let's talk. And that's how it started. So the idea of that book is empathy is a wonderful

00:37:09.080 emotion to have. It's a virtuous emotion. There are evolutionary reasons why we've evolved empathy

00:37:15.160 within our repertoire of emotions, right? We're a social species. We need to put ourselves in the

00:37:21.580 mind of the other when we're having meaningful interactions. So there are all sorts of very easy

00:37:26.420 to explain evolutionary reasons why empathy exists. But like anything in life, it has to be activated

00:37:32.760 within the sweet spot. So in the happiness book, I talk about the inverted U as the most important

00:37:38.280 universal law in nature. Too much of something is not good. Too little of something is not good. And the

00:37:43.720 sweet spot is always in the middle. Aristotle already knew that. He told us about that, the golden mean.

00:37:48.660 And so empathy becomes problematic when it is hyperactive and on the wrong target. So we often

00:37:57.920 joke with our daughter who's so empathetic that if she sees a discarded inanimate object on the street,

00:38:05.480 her first question is, daddy, is it sad? And I have to explain to her, but it's an inanimate object. It

00:38:13.080 doesn't have any feelings. But in that case, her empathy is so great that it becomes, in a sense,

00:38:19.560 maladaptive. Now, how do we apply it, say, to the plight of the West? I argue that many of the problems

00:38:25.780 that we're seeing in the West stem from suicidal empathy, the hyperactivation of that emotional system

00:38:33.660 and targeting the wrong target. So, for example, it doesn't make sense that

00:38:40.260 South American or Central American illegal immigrants would receive greater benefits when 0.99

00:38:48.580 they come in illegally than American vets. It shouldn't need me to tell you this, but that 0.97

00:38:54.560 becomes part of suicidal empathy. It doesn't make sense that we let in millions of people into the West 0.90

00:39:03.040 who do not share a single one of the foundational values that define the West. But the reflex of why

00:39:10.680 we do that is because it would be racist to criticize any other culture. It is unbecoming of us to judge

00:39:19.120 others. No, that's suicidal empathy. It doesn't make sense that we cast no judgment on anyone, right? So,

00:39:26.740 for example, now we see a gigantic and orgiastic growth, explosion of Jew hatred across the West.

00:39:34.920 Well, I've been predicting that for 25 years because if you let in people who come from societies where 1.00

00:39:41.120 there is endemic Jew hatred as a foundational principle within their society, you shouldn't be

00:39:46.740 surprised then that campuses are going to have massive demonstrations of Jew hatred. And so, in the book,

00:39:53.020 I go through many of these policies in the West and I argue that each of them are rooted in emotional

00:39:59.780 irrationality. So, shifting. Irrationality. So, if I can maybe just, I think I mentioned this earlier at

00:40:09.380 lunch. So, the parasitic mind is what happens to human minds because of distorted thinking. Suicidal empathy

00:40:19.620 is the distortion of the emotional system. One of them is the distortion of the cognitive system and this next

00:40:26.300 book is the distortion of the emotional system.

00:40:29.820 So, your work has gained attention from Elon Musk. He weighed in on one of your future projects. Could you share

00:40:37.600 that with us?

00:40:38.740 Yeah. I mean, one of the things of not being a stay-in-your-lane professor is that you're able to draw the attention of

00:40:46.060 people that otherwise our worlds would never intersect. And so, I'm very pleased and honored

00:40:51.020 to say that Elon has become a huge champion of my work. We've become, you know, we've gotten to know each

00:40:59.200 other. And so, he's stated that the parasitic mind is civilizationally saving, in a sense, because he realizes

00:41:09.080 that the woke mind virus is really the thing that's going to destroy our society. And so, I don't think

00:41:17.600 it's... So, I've often put polls on Twitter. They're not scientific polls, but where I say, which of these

00:41:23.200 is the most dangerous existential threat? And the people who answer bad ideas are exactly correct, because

00:41:31.800 most of the calamities that we face throughout history, short of natural calamities that we can't

00:41:37.260 control stem from the fact that someone had a really bad idea and acted on that bad idea. And so, I'm

00:41:43.800 fortunate enough to have garnered Elon's support, and let's see where that takes us.

00:41:49.520 Good luck with that. Our students are interested, in your opinion, on what technical and interpersonal

00:41:57.320 skills they should develop for their future success.

00:42:00.100 Wow, what a great question. So, technical, I'm going to... So, I hope this doesn't upset anybody, but

00:42:06.460 I'm not... Even though personal skills are really important, and we'll talk about it in a second,

00:42:12.920 I don't think you need to go to school to learn how to be a good person. But learning how to apply

00:42:20.140 mathematics to solve business problems, that's something that would require you going to school.

00:42:26.460 So, for example, my background is in mathematics and computer science, even though eventually I

00:42:31.600 became a behavioral scientist. I only chose mathematics and computer science because... Well,

00:42:36.260 I mean, I was good at it, but also I knew that I would get good mental training. Irrespective of what

00:42:42.400 I would do later in my life in academia, having a background... It may be very difficult to study

00:42:47.380 something more complex than mathematics, right? And so, I said, okay, that's what I'll study. So, I would

00:42:52.600 I would ask the students to spend less time learning at school fuzzy skills and more time learning at

00:43:03.140 school technical skills that they otherwise will never learn, right? The second part was what? What

00:43:09.580 are interpersonal skills? Yes. So, there are many interpersonal skills that I think will either make

00:43:15.460 you a great interlocutor or a bad one. So, active listening. It's surprising to see how poorly many

00:43:23.920 people do in conversations. And I think one of the reasons that maybe I've been successful, say, on my

00:43:29.120 show when I invite guests, because I give the guests time to... A conversation is a tango. I speak,

00:43:37.120 you listen, then you speak, I listen. Apparently, to many people, it's completely foreign to them. So,

00:43:43.860 I will sit down with people where... Well, I won't mention who it is, but I was recently invited by a

00:43:51.780 really top diplomat who invited me under the pretext of, oh, I'm a huge fan of your work. I'd like to meet

00:43:59.600 you. And so, I thought, okay, that's lovely. That's me. I stayed in his office for two hours and 40

00:44:05.160 minutes. He spoke for two hours and 30 minutes. So, students, don't be that diplomat. Okay? I mean,

00:44:14.360 it doesn't make sense that you invite me for an interaction, but most people have the reflex to

00:44:21.300 want to monopolize all the conversation. So, just learning these soft skills, showing interest in

00:44:28.940 someone, restating what they said to demonstrate that you are actively listening to it. These little

00:44:35.300 skills end up being crucially important as you navigate any organizational hierarchy.

00:44:43.060 Thank you for that advice for our students. We hope they're listening.

00:44:47.220 You're extremely prolific as a writer, a scholar, a commentator. What do you like to do in your

00:44:53.840 free time? Well, I like to exercise. I like to watch soccer. And more than anything, spend time

00:45:02.300 with my family. So, I've often been asked, what is it that allows you to have the ability to tackle

00:45:08.820 all these things? It's to have the solace of a happy family life. So, that there's all this

00:45:15.340 ugliness out there. And I'm engaged in all sorts of battles, whether it be on social media or the

00:45:20.080 editor of this journal or whatever it is. But then I come home. It's my children. It's my wife who's

00:45:26.100 here in this audience. And that gives me great solace. So, I'm not someone who needs to be out

00:45:32.820 with the boys. I want to be with my family. And usually, even when I travel without them to events

00:45:38.540 like this, I always feel guilty that my children didn't get an opportunity to experience such events.

00:45:43.920 So, I would say soccer, exercise, reading, which one can argue is part of my work, but I read for

00:45:50.440 pleasure. Those would be top things. So, taking a note from that, what was one of the most influential

00:45:58.900 books you first read? Oh, I love that question. Oh, first read. Yeah. And then how about generally

00:46:05.680 speaking too? So, I'll start with generally because I have an idea. So, probably the book that influenced me

00:46:12.280 the most in terms of my academic career is a book that was assigned to us by, so my first, so I did my

00:46:21.040 PhD at Cornell. And I was taking an advanced social psychology course in my first semester. It wasn't an

00:46:27.380 evolutionary psychology course. It was a social psychology course. About halfway through the

00:46:31.680 semester, the professor assigned a book titled Homicide by two of the pioneers of evolutionary

00:46:38.240 psychology who were at a Canadian university, McMaster, a husband and wife team, Margot Wilson

00:46:43.780 and Martin Daly. And what the book does is it looks at patterns of criminality across cultures and

00:46:51.760 across time periods and offers an evolutionary explanation for why these things happen. So,

00:46:58.680 maybe I could take a minute or two to explain what those are because it also explains evolutionary

00:47:03.060 psychology well. So, the most dangerous person in a woman's life, irrespective of where you are in 1.00

00:47:10.720 the world, irrespective of which time period, by orders of magnitude more than the next most dangerous

00:47:15.640 guy is her husband. In other words, it's not a serial killer who's lurking in the bushes. It's her

00:47:23.100 husband. And what is the number one reason that he is likely to go into a homicidal rage for

00:47:29.320 suspected or realized infidelity? Precisely for what I talked about earlier because of the threats of

00:47:36.120 paternity uncertainty. Second example I'll give, what do you think is the most, the best predictor

00:47:45.560 of there being child abuse in a home? So, usually when I lecture about evolutionary psychology, I'll ask

00:47:52.140 this of the class and they'll propose a whole bunch of factors. Oh, it's if there's alcoholism in the

00:47:58.140 house if you live on the wrong side of the tracks. And all are valid explanations. The number one

00:48:04.620 reason, a hundredfold greater predictor than the next closest predictor. Can anybody guess what it is?

00:48:15.000 What's it? Prior abuse? No.

00:48:17.940 No. I mean, it's a good, it's a good explanation, but that's not the one. No. I'll just take one more

00:48:29.220 then I'll give you the answer. Anybody? No, but it's related to that. Sorry? No. It's if there is a

00:48:39.300 step parent in the home. That's a 100 factor greater predictor. So, just to give you a sense of what that

00:48:48.700 means, in science, when you talk about odds ratio likelihood, if you give a placebo versus a real drug

00:48:55.260 and if the odds ratio is 1.2 and it's a significant effect, that means it's 1.2 to 1. It's 20%. This is

00:49:03.580 1.2 to 100. So, it's orders of magnitude greater than what you would see in science. The reason why

00:49:11.180 the step parent is a problem is precisely because of what I talked about earlier. We have, we're a

00:49:17.980 bi-parental species. So, most people are not very keen on investing in the children that were spawned by 0.99

00:49:25.300 someone else. That doesn't mean, by the way, that in evolutionary psychology you're condoning that

00:49:29.880 behavior, right? Explaining the behavior doesn't mean that you're justifying it any more than if

00:49:34.780 you're an oncologist and you explain cancer, that means you're for cancer. You're justifying cancer.

00:49:40.180 No, you're explaining why it exists. So, explaining that step parents might prove to be a very dangerous

00:49:46.740 dynamic in a home doesn't mean that most step parents are not lovely and kind, right? But if you

00:49:52.320 want to study a phenomenon well and understand it, you better find the actual causative mechanism.

00:49:57.640 So, when I saw that in the book, I saw the explanatory elegance, the parsimony that is afforded by this

00:50:06.600 evolutionary explanation, I had my eureka moment. Okay, I'll take this framework and I'll apply it to

00:50:11.800 decision-making, consumer behavior, and so on. So, professionally speaking, that would probably be

00:50:18.220 the most important book of my life. Earlier, I can't go to, you know, when I was seven or something,

00:50:23.380 but say as a young guy of about 20, maybe, I read a book by a anti-apartheid activist by the name of

00:50:35.080 Steve Biko, and the book was titled, I Write What I Like, which kind of goes with the theme of Northwood,

00:50:43.560 right? You don't shackle me. I speak what I want to speak. So, apparently, it catered to my inner honey

00:50:49.240 badger because I saw this guy who, under immediate, I mean, he ended up being tortured to death,

00:50:55.160 was not going to be shackled. And so, I, so that I write what I like is kind of a battle cry for me.

00:51:01.960 So, when I read that book, I said, well, that's, that's somebody to aspire to be like.

00:51:06.920 You certainly have done that. Thank you.

00:51:09.600 We have some questions from online. Could you please elaborate on how business choices that

00:51:16.160 are, that are at odds with the business mission can be so prevalent in our current institutions?

00:51:23.900 So, in, in, there's a field in mathematics called operations research, which is a field with, by the

00:51:31.700 way, I highly recommend for students to, business students to take such courses, where you're trying

00:51:38.100 to optimize or minimize something, right? So, how should I set up a manufacturing plant to minimize

00:51:46.320 waste? And so, the algorithms that solve these types of optimization problems, that field is

00:51:53.380 called operations research, okay? And so, to that question, I think what ends up happening is that

00:51:59.540 that business organization is optimizing the wrong metric, right? So, when you see a lot of universities

00:52:06.740 right now that put as their number one mission statement to engage in social justice ahead of

00:52:14.800 to intellectually enrich its constituents, that is the wrong maximization algorithm that you're

00:52:21.820 applying. So, I think that's what creates that incongruity. There's an incongruity between what

00:52:26.300 the real mission of the business should be and its sort of woke credentials.

00:52:31.220 Here's another one from online. Do you regret any social media posts you've authored wishing

00:52:37.600 you had paused on publishing?

00:52:41.440 It's going to sound arrogant, but no. No, because I, I, I'm very authentic, maybe to a fault,

00:52:50.280 and if I felt it, there would have been a good reason why I wrote it. So, so maybe the only time I felt

00:52:57.000 it is I've shared something, and then I find out that that which I shared turns out to be a fake

00:53:05.300 thing, right? But the reality is the velocity of how quickly things happen online, you can't sit and do

00:53:12.120 seven weeks of investigative journalism to decide on the veracity of every tweet that you see. So,

00:53:18.380 that would probably be the only time where I say, oh, and then I will usually post a correction, or I

00:53:24.140 usually don't delete it. People say, well, why don't you delete it? I don't want to delete it

00:53:28.680 because I don't want it to disappear from, from the, the ecosystem that I made that error. So,

00:53:34.660 I'll leave it, and then I'll make a correction.

00:53:39.160 Very interesting. Any questions from the room right now? We have a mic over here.

00:53:43.940 I want the student questions to go first, but I didn't sense a hand go up. So, I'm puzzled by

00:53:55.840 something that perhaps you can explain to me. Our current Democratic candidate for president,

00:54:04.880 when she wasn't a candidate, was thought to be an idiot. She went to the, 1.00

00:54:09.420 she went to look at the, you know, end of the United States, nothing happened, you know,

00:54:17.080 she was fighting with the people in her office. The minute she became, it felt like to me, but it

00:54:23.800 was probably two or three days, everything in the news thing flipped. So, I, the question I have is not

00:54:33.500 so much why and how, but I guess the question is why and how. Is it possible that people are in a

00:54:42.560 certain, they see themselves as a certain kind, and I should let you answer really. Right. But, but,

00:54:50.400 so if the person who is designated as your kind, you're automatically for them. I find that as a 0.86

00:54:57.240 voter upsetting because I always look at the policy first. Right. So, that speaks to me. Because they

00:55:02.840 bring people who support the policies. So, you can explain, I hope, why two days earlier, a mess,

00:55:10.440 and now joy. Right. So, earlier, remember I mentioned the two, the two persuasion systems,

00:55:16.780 the emotional versus the cognitive. I'll add to that because it speaks to your question. There's an

00:55:21.680 expression, one of the beautiful things about speaking many languages is that you can borrow an

00:55:26.180 expression from another language that doesn't exist in, say, in English. So, and my mother tongue

00:55:32.080 is Arabic, and Arabic is a very poetic, flowery language. And so, there's an expression that I use

00:55:38.280 that I think speaks, well, not I think, I know speaks to your question. The expression, when directly

00:55:44.280 translated, is getting drunk by smelling the cork of the wine bottle. Okay. And so, what does that

00:55:52.380 literally mean? It means that I'm of such weak constituency that I don't actually have to drink

00:55:57.760 the wine to get drunk. I just have to take a whiff of the cork, and I'm already losing balance. Now,

00:56:04.600 how do we apply that to politics? Well, look, now I'm going to get drunk smelling the Barack Obama

00:56:11.280 cork. You ready? He is tall, he has a radiant smile, and he has a mellifluous voice. You see,

00:56:19.300 I'm getting drunk. I didn't say anything about his fiscal policy. I didn't say anything about his

00:56:24.200 immigration policy. I didn't say anything about anything that is of any substance, but I'm drunk.

00:56:30.020 Now, I'm going to get drunk in the negative sense of, to Trump. He's disgusting. He's brash. He's an 1.00

00:56:36.920 ogre, right? So, notice how all of those getting drunk by the smell of the cork are triggering my

00:56:43.800 emotional system. So, that's how you're able to get someone to flip so quickly, because your emotional

00:56:51.240 system is an autonomic mechanism, right? Those responses do not require careful deliberation.

00:57:00.120 They are fast and frugal. That's why Kamala's campaign uses joy, excitement, fun, because that's 1.00

00:57:09.540 what gets people drunk by this, by smelling the cork of the wine bottle. Worse than not critical

00:57:18.100 thinkers, we are non-thinkers, in that most, most, most people's art. So, the term that I like to use

00:57:24.240 is cognitive misers, which is a fancy academic way of saying profoundly intellectually lazy. So,

00:57:30.760 it's a lot easier for me to get drunk by the mellifluous voice of Obama than to actually think

00:57:35.900 about what his policies are. That just takes too much effort. So, one final question here that

00:57:41.800 came from online. In these turbulent times, what gives you hope? Wow, that's a good one.

00:57:50.600 I'd like to think that truth and freedom are universal values, that when people wake up to the

00:58:00.760 dangers, the silent majority will wake up. So, I'm often asked, I mean, the way you speak about all

00:58:07.540 these things, it's as if we're doomed. But I know that the silent majority hates all that stuff. And I

00:58:13.000 know it because I received the thousands of emails from people. But here's the typical structure of an

00:58:19.540 email, which is going to answer your question in an oblique way. Dear Professor Saad, a whole bunch of

00:58:27.420 nice comments. I support you fully. And then here's the problem with the last line. You ready?

00:58:32.960 Do you know what the last line is? If you decide to share my letter, please don't read my name.

00:58:40.680 And then I write back to them, dear Professor so-and-so, thank you for your kind words.

00:58:44.580 Don't you think that that last sentence is precisely why we are in this problem? And then

00:58:50.560 they'll often write back and say, you're so right. But you know, I'm going up for tenure. I'm going for

00:58:55.300 a chaired professorship. There's always an excuse for why it shouldn't be me that speaks out against

00:59:03.240 the lunacy now. The rest of you maybe should have the courage to speak out, but not me. I have too

00:59:07.780 much to lose. Well, the guys who landed on Normandy, knowing that most of them would be mowed like

00:59:12.980 little mosquitoes, went and did it no matter what. And they suffered many more consequences than not

00:59:19.660 getting tenure or not getting the professorship that they wanted. So what gives me hope is that

00:59:25.500 at some point, the silent majority, which regrettably is still silent, will wake up through

00:59:32.400 my efforts and those of many others who are speaking out. And then I think it will be flipped

00:59:37.480 very quickly. That's what gives me hope. Well, that is a great note to end on. And we bookended our

00:59:43.100 conversation with truth and freedom and a call to action not to be part of the silent majority and

00:59:50.040 give us courage to speak out when we need to. So we thank you for investing your time this evening to

00:59:55.940 help us learn more about your work, your thought and your influence. We've benefited greatly from your

01:00:01.900 insights and wisdom. And I'm now pleased to introduce a student to give her perspective to wrap things up.

01:00:08.500 And we are inviting Gabby Schloop, a senior from Midland, Michigan, who majors in management

01:00:15.260 information systems and cybersecurity to share some of her key takeaways from tonight's fireside chat.

01:00:21.500 Welcome, Gabby.

01:00:27.900 And thank you, Dr. Saad, for generously sharing your wisdom this afternoon. As I prepare for my career,

01:00:33.980 I have a number of valuable takeaways from this evening. I will always remember to exercise my

01:00:40.180 freedom of speech before worrying about who I might, who I might please. I will also remember

01:00:45.480 that the world does not abide by my purity bubble. I have learned, I have learned the difference of

01:00:53.940 peripheral and cognitive activation and how they can influence viewers differently. I have also learned

01:01:00.340 understanding the understanding of infragility and how one or multiple setbacks won't derail a

01:01:04.980 flourished life. Thank you again, Dr. Saad, for allowing us all to benefit from your leadership

01:01:10.060 insight. Dr. Saad, to commemorate your service as a guest for Northwood University Leadership

01:01:16.020 Insight, a view from the helm, we have a gift to appreciate, to appreciate for you.

01:01:21.800 Oh, my. Oh, my goodness. Thank you so much. Oh, wow. Thank you so much. Thank you so much.

01:01:46.880 That's lovely. Thank you.

01:01:51.800 Thank you, Gabby. Well done. This has been a fabulous evening. And so on behalf of our board

01:02:02.760 chair, Dr. Jennifer Panning, who has driven up from the Detroit area and all the trustees,

01:02:08.500 I just want to also thank Dr. Saad Gad. It's wonderful to have you part of the Northwood family.

01:02:15.280 You talk a lot about family last night at lunch today. And I won't draw her out, but you didn't

01:02:21.520 mention that she's here. And Annie's in the room. And Annie is going to become a close

01:02:25.740 member of something that's really important to us at Northwood, and that is community and family.

01:02:31.960 Next time, their two wonderful children might come up here and see our peaceful, humble place.

01:02:37.900 But it's a place that we're proud of what we do. And I think the work we do has never been more

01:02:44.280 important. I say it often that the world and this country needs more Northwood. And to have you part of

01:02:49.600 our community, Gad, is just a wonderful, wonderful thing. I would encourage all of you to join us for a

01:02:58.940 reception. Kristen, marvelous. Again, those who have asked questions, thank you very much. And look forward to

01:03:06.520 the next time we get together for the Leadership's Insight session. This is really important to

01:03:11.660 Northwood to make sure that this community knows that we're Midlands University. We don't have moats

01:03:17.220 around this campus. It's open to all. And you being here is wonderful. The next time you might be able to

01:03:24.480 visit us on campus is next Tuesday night. We have our Freedom Concert, a wonderful rock and roll band who will be

01:03:32.180 playing free for the community. It'll be a great night. And thank you all for coming here tonight. Thanks so much.

The Saad Truth with Dr. Saad - September 23, 2024

Leadership Insights Series at Northwood University (The Saad Truth with Dr. Saad_713)

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