Intro

Gorav Menon 0:03

The first step with storytelling is just understanding how important it is. That it is everywhere. The way you talk to other people. It's the way you talk to yourself. It's the stories you interact with. We consume these stories And it makes us feel like, oh, we should be doing this. And then we get into shoulding on myself, where I'm constantly saying, I should, I should, I should. if you reframe that to, could you get a much better understanding of, I'm making decisions for what's best for me, not what's best for everyone else at all times.

Vanessa Vakharia 0:33

Hey guys, it's Vanessa, and welcome to another episode of Math Therapy. Okay. I love when this happens because it's only happened a few times, and every time it does it's extra special. Today's guest is an old student of mine. And another thing that's extra special, this podcast isn't specifically about math, but about the stories we tell ourselves about who we are when it comes to math. I'm not a math person. That's a story. This isn't even just about math stories. This episode is about the stories we tell ourselves, period. The ones that empower us to follow big dreams, the ones that strip away our power by convincing us we don't have what it takes to follow those dreams, and the ones that hold us down, stuck and stagnant because they tell us we can't change. That we don't deserve to change. My guest, AKA,

1:23

my old student, Gorav Menon, is the host of the Linen Suit and Plastic Tie podcast, which explores

Vanessa Vakharia 1:29

the power of storytelling. Our conversation was unbelievably fascinating because we didn't just talk about stories, but about how the stories we consume become the stories we tell ourselves about what we are and aren't capable of. Yes, of course we talk about math stories and the labels that come with them, but this

1:47

episode will affect you far beyond the math classroom.

Vanessa Vakharia 1:50

This episode is honestly gonna change your life. It definitely changed mine. Gorav shares three steps, everyone including you can take right now, like the second this episode ends to change any story that is no longer serving you. And if you're already thinking about that friend who has like that story that keeps them stuck in a loop. Do them a favor and send them this episode right now, it might be what they finally need to hear to kick that story to the curb. I also can't help but think that like this is the perfect episode for this exact moment because this is the week when the year of the snake came to a close asking us all to embody the snake and shed the stories that are no longer serving us. So are you ready to understand where your stories even come from and how to truly shed them? Let's get into it.

What makes someone a great storyteller?

Vanessa Vakharia 2:38

hello, welcome. You have a podcast that's about storytelling. I love the way you talk about storytelling, and such a big part of my work is, you know, as you know, math trauma, math therapy, our math identities are based in the story, our stories. Like it's, and I've never had anyone on to really talk about storytelling. So like, I think my first question is, can you tell us like, what inspired your podcast? What's the vibe of it other than like, it's a storytelling podcast. What does that mean?

Gorav Menon 3:05

The Linen Suit and Plastic Tie podcast is about unlocking the power of storytelling as a skill that everyone can and should develop. And it came about because uh, my co-host, Kevin and I, we had just graduated UCLA. I was interning, he was starting his grad school program, and we were having a lot of conversations, a lot of interviews, and we were, we were seeing more and more how important storytelling was and we realized, man, we are bad at it. So this idea was, okay, so we are bad at this thing. How can we get better? Let's talk to a lot of people that are great at it. So that's what we have been doing for a long time. We actually have been doing this since 2020. We just haven't improved as much as we should, but we've, we've improved in the important ways. Like we have gone much better at asking questions, having conversations. And every season we start off by saying, Hey Kevin, are you an expert storyteller? Every season he says, no, same with me. are not experts at this. We are learning this with our audience. We actually both think we're quite bad at it, but the first step with storytelling is just understanding how important it is. That it is everywhere. It is the way you talk to other people. It's the way you talk to yourself. It's the stories you consume and the stories you interact with.

Vanessa Vakharia 4:15

Okay. I'm getting goosebumps. I mean, I love, just that final line. It's the way we interact with people. It's the way we interact with ourselves. And my, my, I have a question because you're saying, you know, we're not expert storytellers and we realize we were bad at it. What makes someone a good storyteller?

Gorav Menon 4:30

I think confidence is a lot of it. We've asked that question hundreds of times in hundreds of different ways, and the thing about it is that there's no, and this is the beauty thing about this as a craft. There's no one clear answer. Storytelling is so unique to all of us I think we, we live in this world where we believe that it's for extroverts or it's for confident people, even though I just said confidence, but it's for confident people, it's for extroverts, for loud people. These are inherently untrue kind stories in themselves we're telling ourselves, right, that it's for someone else. In fact, storytelling is so diverse and so different, and so individual that we all can become better story tells and we all should. So I do wanna say confidence, but not in the loud, boisterous way you think. It's more just the belief that you are a storyteller. It's the essential skill that makes us human, and it's something we can get better at.

Vanessa Vakharia 5:23

Yeah, but like I've heard really confident people tell the worst fucking stories.

Gorav Menon 5:27

Yeah.

Vanessa Vakharia 5:27

Do you know what I mean? So like it can't just be that you're confident. And you earlier said, I realized I was bad at it. So what made you bad at telling stories? What was it? Like, what did you perceive? What was the story you were telling yourself about your storytelling?

Gorav Menon 5:40

Yeah. It is honestly such a meta question. It's an amazing question. It's funny 'cause I don't, I don't see myself as bad as it now, but I don't know if, think that's because I've kind of learned how diverse this is. It's not about being Steve Jobs.

Vanessa Vakharia 5:55

Is he a good storyteller?

Gorav Menon 5:56

He is one of the best.

Vanessa Vakharia 5:57

Oh,

Gorav Menon 5:58

But he is not actually the example I use most often. I use Gordon Ramsey. The reason I use Gordon Ramsey is because you stop a hundred people on the street and say, is Gordon Ramsey a good cook? They will say yes. Like most of 'em will say yes. I love talking about Gordon Ramsey because many people have never tasted his food, but will name him the best chef in the world. And it's because he has such an intense brand, right? He goes on these television shows, he talks about this stuff. He reminds people that he's a cook every single day. That's storytelling. It's your brand. It's the way you communicate the world. It's the way what you're passionate about.

Vanessa Vakharia 6:35

Oh my God. Okay. Wow. No, because now you're making me think about, I mean, I'm thinking about storytelling like I tell you a story about what happened to me yesterday and am I good at it? Like me and David, for example, like I'm clearly the superior storyteller. The reasons I would say why he's, he's nodding in agreement, by the way. The reasons I would say why Even though this is hard to believe, 'cause I'm not that coherent when I tell a story, I feel like I have a pretty good through line and it doesn't take me that long to get to my point. And I can be like descriptive and illustrative and like there's different tones in my voice. Like, you know what I mean? I can get someone engaged in this. This is how I'm thinking about stories. How, however you've just flipped that to say, this Gordon Ramsey example is actually throwing me for a loop, 'cause you're kind of throwing it to say, well,

Storytelling as therapy

Vanessa Vakharia 7:20

storytelling is kind of like you having a strong brandand, like the way you're speaking about yourself is, almost consistently pointing to something. Is that,

Gorav Menon 7:34

Yeah,

Vanessa Vakharia 7:35

am I onto something?

Gorav Menon 7:36

Uh, for sure. I think there's two sides to this coin, and we call it internal and external storytelling. We did not come up with that. I'm sure that's a thing. Uh, but we call it internal external storytelling. And the show started as external storytelling. So the Gordon Ramsey, right, the building the brand, reminding yourself, this is the story I'm telling you about myself, I'm the hero of this story. If my goal is to be, for me, it has a lot to do with tech and consumer tech and making an impact in that realm. So how do I add things to enhance that story, whether it's through branding on LinkedIn for the classes I take, whatever. The other side is internal storytelling, and this came up on the show by accident through bringing on psychologists. Right.

Vanessa Vakharia 8:14

Oh.

Gorav Menon 8:14

Through me, I've been in therapy since I was 17, right, it's a huge part of my life, and in therapy, we talk a lot about the stories we're telling ourselves, right? And when we brought psychologists on the show, we started talking about, okay, how are we communicating ourselves? How are we talking to ourselves? How are we dealing with our own trauma? And so there's two sides of storytelling. One is the external branding, the more obvious side. And then the other is like, okay, what are the conversations we're having with ourselves?

Vanessa Vakharia 8:38

Oh my God. Okay. Well we, that's what I really wanna talk about, and I love that you were. You're, you're open to sharing that you've been in therapy because I also have been in therapy for years and years, and I feel like this is something we don't talk about enough because we all obviously have these narratives. And when I started talking to students when I was tutoring them math, I would notice they would make these statements like, oh, I've always been bad at math, or I'm just not a math person. This isn't this thing I can do, or, you know, that kind of thing. And I started realizing. There is an entire storyline that has preceded this, that has led up to this point and has led to, I mean, I would call what they're doing negative self, self-talk, right? They're saying it to me externally, but they're saying it internally. So would negative self-talk be a type of internal story?

Gorav Menon 9:26

Yeah, it's one of the most prevalent types, and we've had so many amazing psychologists on the show talk about this. Like we had, there's a psychologist from Berkeley, Dr. Saha Yusef, who talked to us about this productivity issue we have where we are telling ourselves we always have to be productive.

Vanessa Vakharia 9:43

Oh my God. Talk to me about this. This is so my issue.

Gorav Menon 9:46

It, I, my issue too, and I deal with this every day, I still deal with this, but it's this thing where we get to such a state where we're always trying to quantify everything, where it's the worst thing you can do for productivity, right? Because we end up just being productive on things that matter, not at all. Right? And it's, the point is you have to schedule, do nothing time where we're breaking that story. And this is negative self-talk, right? Because we are ourselves these stories and they become true because we're telling ourselves these stories, right? That's the only reason they are becoming true. You tell yourself you're bad at math. For me, it's always been, I'm bad at languages. Right. I've always told myself, I, I grew up in Toronto as you know, um, and took French for 10 years and it was always this,

Vanessa Vakharia 10:28

Mm. No one likes it.

Gorav Menon 10:30

This last year or so, I've been really trying to learn. I'm learning Italian, but it's 'cause I lost a bet. But I'm learning Italian, but I'm trying to learn languages again because I've told myself I can't do it 'cause I'm bad at it. And when you start doing things like that, it's, it breaks that narrative.

Vanessa Vakharia 10:47

Okay. I have a, a bunch of questions here. The first one is the psychologist that came on, do we all have that productivity story or it was just like you have it? Like, is this a common thing?

Gorav Menon 10:57

Yeah. She was mostly addressing us because Kevin and I are both very, very type A people. We are very productive people and we often, when psychologists come on the show, we use it as an excuse to for free therapy.

Vanessa Vakharia 11:08

Of course.

Gorav Menon 11:09

This is something we do, but a lot of people do a lot, a lot of people deal with this productivity hack and it's this really messed up narrative where, so you feel like, oh, I'm not being productive enough, so I'm gonna clean my email inbox. Right? And

Vanessa Vakharia 11:21

Oh my God. This is me. This is me. Yep.

Gorav Menon 11:25

And this is toxic. It's extremely toxic, right? Because we're like, I'm gonna do this thing that seems productive in this moment to make me feel better when doing nothing would actually help you much better.

Vanessa Vakharia 11:34

Okay. But that productivity story, let's like dig in here the story, because this, this ties into anyone's math story, but we're gonna go with productivity. 'cause I actually bet a lot of people listening have this same story. Okay. It's like, I just need to be doing something. I feel guilty if I'm not doing something. I need to be productive. Now I listen to a whole episode on this and then on the Mel Robbins podcast, and that's why I feel confident that every what, like most people feel this way. And my question here is. That productivity story that is in your head that you're telling yourself, yeah, it's only true because you're telling yourself that story. However, doesn't that story come from somewhere? Doesn't it come from, for example, school where we were actually taught that if we weren't being productive, we were lazy? Like, doesn't it come from like a society that values hustle over everything else? Like our stories come from somewhere, don't they? Or do we just create them out of thin air?

Gorav Menon 12:23

We definitely don't create things out of thin air. One of the central concepts we talk about on the show is that, we are what we consume in stories,

Vanessa Vakharia 12:31

okay.

Gorav Menon 12:31

So when we're consuming a lot of social media content, right, where you see 1% of someone's life, probably the most productive part of their life, constantly, right? And then you're not watching this one person's life. You're jumping between different people's most productive moments, right? And then you are feeling, you're creating this thing in your head where it's like. Okay, so I just saw this person being super productive. Then I saw this person being super productive. And even with TikTok where you see more fun stuff, it's still value, right? So this is the thing where you feel like everyone around you is being really productive. Because we don't hear the billionaires talk about the six hour Netflix binge. We don't, and it happens, and this is something in therapy I deal with a lot with. You know, they're sleeping too. Right? And it's just, it's that reminder that that's not what we see. So we consume these stories that everyone else is doing this. And it makes us feel like, oh, we should be doing this. And then we get into what my favorites called shoulding on myself, where it's just such an essential story where I'm constantly saying, I should, I should, I should. When, if you reframe that to, could you get a much better understanding of, oh. I'm making decisions for what's best for me, not what's best for everyone else at all times.

Vanessa Vakharia 13:45

Oh my God, I am getting so much free therapy right now. These are all my issues. I'm always shutting myself. I should is like the, the worst. It's the four letter word that isn't four letters. Like we have to stop saying that. And I, you know, so it's interesting. So okay, we're saying that our stories, we are what we consume, that's part one. But aren't we also like what we've previously experienced? Like what determines whether or not something that has happened to us once or maybe a few times, makes it into our permanent internal story about ourselves versus other things that don't. And let me just, that sounded very vague, but for example, so much math trauma is legitimately caused by poor negative experiences in math. You know, you were shamed in front of a classroom, you couldn't answer a question, and you know, people in the class laughed at you. You were yelled at by a parent for not getting something as quick as your sibling. So the the actual experience, this isn't consumption now, right? The actual experience makes its way into your own personal narrative. But then you might have experiences that counteract that. Maybe you do really well on a test, or maybe you have somebody congratulates you on doing something, but that doesn't make its way into your personal narrative. Like your internal story remains. I can't do math. Do you have, did, did that make sense?

Gorav Menon 14:58

No, it makes perfect sense. I mean, I will clarify. I'm not a psychologist,

Vanessa Vakharia 15:03

No, I know, I know you're not. I know you're not.

Gorav Menon 15:05

but, uh,

Vanessa Vakharia 15:05

But in the stories you've heard and like the story, the power of storytelling, like is it, is it because of our brain's negativity bias where we are just more likely to focus on those negative things and we need to like really put in the effort and do work around seeing those positive things as part of our story as opposed to exceptions to the rule that is our story?

Gorav Menon 15:27

Yeah, and I think, you know, it's funny, we joke a lot on the show about this idea of like it, imagine if when we were three years old we were told we were good at dancing. Right. We'd all be dancers, right? It's this thing where we are told the story when we're young and we latch onto that 'cause we don't

Vanessa Vakharia 15:45

yep. Yep.

Gorav Menon 15:46

reinforce it, right? We

Vanessa Vakharia 15:47

Hmm.

Gorav Menon 15:48

passionate about. And it's, it's funny 'cause we're like, well, I wonder what we were

Vanessa Vakharia 15:52

David. Oh my. Okay. This is such a good point. No, no, no. This is.

Gorav Menon 15:57

something?

Vanessa Vakharia 15:58

Well, yesterday we had this whole debate about natural ability or natural affinity, and David and I were arguing, and again, we are not psychologists either, and we're not neuroscientists, but you, what you're saying is very interesting. I wanna put a storytelling lens on this. He was saying, well, some, you know, like I just naturally gravitated towards puzzles. Like there must be some like innate biological, natural affinity or ability towards let's say puzzles or math or whatever, and yes, maybe it's so small and we can overcome it with nurture. And I was saying, I just dunno how true that is because exactly what you said, when we're very young, you are what you consume. So number one, our stories are what are we watching on tv? What are our friends saying? What is a teacher doing in class? What are the people around us doing? Or exactly, an adult hands us a story. Like says something like, oh, I noticed you doing this. You are so good at solving puzzles. Here are more puzzles to solve, and now that behavior reinforces the story you were literally given. Right?

Gorav Menon 16:57

Yeah, no, I, that happens. Genetic's a huge part to play in a lot of things, obviously, like, uh, if you're tall basketball, things like that

Vanessa Vakharia 17:05

Fine.

Gorav Menon 17:06

all the time. But no, it does much more nuance in like. way we encourage kids, right? Because we are, if you find something you're good at, especially as a kid, you latch onto it and then you reinforce it, then you practice it, right? No one, no one wins anything because they were naturally good at it, right? It's a lot of work between natural ability and actual success and the sy, that storytelling, right? Where it's like we get into a space where I've always thought I was good at this, so I've always focused on this. it becomes just what we spend our time on.

How labels affect us

Gorav Menon 17:36

Labels are really important to us because labels have this ability to empower us and limit us.

Vanessa Vakharia 17:43

Oh my God. You're like, that's exactly what I say all the time. Wow. 10 years later and we're just like on the same page. Okay. Yeah. Tell, tell me more.

Gorav Menon 17:50

labels are often seen as bad 'cause there's so many terrible labels. But you can label yourself as like bad at math. So you're not gonna go out and try to be better. That's just what you are, which is a terribly limiting label. But you can also label yourself as saying, um. I am an kind person, and then I'm gonna go out in the world and try to be kind. Right? Or I am an economist. That's a incredibly empowering label because it's a title that makes you feel valued in certain rooms. So the labels we use for ourselves is really, really important. We're learning because it, it's how we shape and how we move through the world,

Vanessa Vakharia 18:26

I would add that labels that could seem quote unquote good can also be really harmful. Like there's so much research right now that, it's been out for the past decade that the label gifted. It seems like a good label.

Gorav Menon 18:39

Mm-hmm.

Vanessa Vakharia 18:40

Many kids as adults have come out and said it was the worst thing that could have happened. Because what happens is when you label a kid as gifted, they think they have a gift. So their math ability is the result of a gift, not a result of their effort, not a result of their hard work. So somewhere along the line, when they fuck up at math or like they don't know the answer to something, the perception isn't, oh, I made a mistake, like I could work on this and that. The perception is, oh my God, have I lost my gift? Has my gift expired? And it actually becomes very limiting. Or they never wanna show that they don't know something or don't understand something. So they don't ask that question because they're the gifted person. They're supposed to be naturally good at math. So like, I actually think like in that way too, that labels can help or hinder us, right? It's like. Yeah, obviously like, you know, the label ADHD can be helpful because now we have a diagnosis, let's say. However, it can also be limiting if you identify it with it so much that you don't see that. You see it as like, well I have ADHD, so I can't do this. I was just listening to this podcast about anxiety. And when we identify as being like I have anxiety, we use that as a label. It actually is the most limiting thing because anxiety is not a diagnosis, it's a symptom of an underlying problem. It's like me being like, I'm a Gemini. It's like, I'm always like, well, I'm such a Gemini. Like that's just the way it is.

How do we change our stories?

Vanessa Vakharia 19:57

My question is like, let's bring it back to somebody who has a story about their math ability and their story might go something like. Well, when I was young, like I really understood math and I did really, really great. But then, you know, I got to fractions and things just really fell off the wagon there. Like I could never quite understand it. My teachers put me in the lowest level in the classroom. It was so clear that I couldn't do it. And from that point on, I just never really got it. It didn't really click. I was just more of an arts person and that's what I gravitated towards. And now the sight of numbers just freaks me out because I'm just not meant to do it. You talk about the power of storytelling, is there a way to change our stories?

Gorav Menon 20:31

Change is such a big word 'cause it feels like something we have to do,

Vanessa Vakharia 20:35

Okay.

Gorav Menon 20:36

we're constantly changing, right? We're changing our stories every single day. The way we do everything, right, so we are already changing our stories, so it's like, how do we change it in a good way

Vanessa Vakharia 20:44

What do you mean?

Gorav Menon 20:46

Because when you, for example, talking about negative self-talk, like if every day I'm telling myself I'm bad at math, so I'm not doing math, that's reinforcing the pathways, that's reinforcing the story. So you aren't changing that story. You're just reinforcing it, right?

Vanessa Vakharia 21:00

So you're making it like stronger, like more salient.

Gorav Menon 21:03

This is too, is you can know this intellectually and it can be incredibly hard to fix

Vanessa Vakharia 21:08

Yeah.

Gorav Menon 21:08

You have to do the effort of like, okay, why don't I do something mathematical today? Like, why don't I take this course? Why don't I try this thing? And it's like me in languages, right? I'm trying to learn Italian because I've always told myself that I'm bad at languages. So I'm trying to learn a language, I'm

Vanessa Vakharia 21:24

What are you doing? What are you doing to learn it? Duolingo? Well, and it's the perfect thing to say because guess what, language? Duolingo now has?

Gorav Menon 21:32

Math

Vanessa Vakharia 21:32

Math and now has math.

Gorav Menon 21:35

And I love Duolingo 'cause it's a game. It's a game. And it's this thing where it's like, it's fun and, and I'm not trying to move to Italy, right? I'm literally learning Italian because I lost a vote and then everyone else quit. And I was like, well, I'm not gonna quit. I lost a vote. I wanted to learn Swedish. 'Cause I thought it'd be so funny if we knew Swedish.

Vanessa Vakharia 21:53

Why? Just 'cause the language is like hilarious,

Gorav Menon 21:55

I just thought it'd be funny if like me, and my two friends randomly walked into a bar and just started talking Swedish. I just thought that would be hilarious.

Vanessa Vakharia 22:03

But like that's funnier than Italian?

Gorav Menon 22:04

I feel like a lot of people know Italian now. I think it's just

Vanessa Vakharia 22:07

Yeah. I get what you're saying. It's more, it's definitely more common.

Gorav Menon 22:09

It's one of the popular languages. It'd be very funny if three people have never been to Sweden, were just talking Swedish.

Vanessa Vakharia 22:15

So you're learning it on Duolingo. Has it changed your story about your language ability?

Gorav Menon 22:20

Yeah, because I feel more confident with certain words and certain phrases, things, ways I never felt with learning French. Right. And it has to do with the fact that I, I think I'm doing it with a different purpose. Right? Before it was about, in the beginning with French, it was about getting the grade, doing well. And then it became getting it done, getting it over with.

Vanessa Vakharia 22:42

Yeah.

Gorav Menon 22:43

These are really negative feelings I have towards French to a fact where when I, in college needed to take a language, I did, I passed out of like the first two French and I still didn't do it because I had all these negative feelings. French is a beautiful language. It is. It

Vanessa Vakharia 22:57

You have to say that as a Canadian actually, so.

Gorav Menon 22:59

That and like I do know some of it, but I just, the way I was taught it in the, the years of kind of trauma I had around me feel like I was bad at it. I never felt French was bad. I felt like I was bad at it, like I was bad at languages. But I realized that that's just something I was telling myself and it's, I can, I, I believe I can learn French. I, I believe that now. And that's because I'm trying, you know, that's it.

Vanessa Vakharia 23:26

You're hitting on such interesting points, like the idea of, you've been through, you're, you know, you're in therapy, so I'm assuming part of this, like, has come from that, is that correct? Like this, this, this idea, like when did the idea get born of being like, you know what, I've been telling myself this story about languages and I want to change that. Where did that, what was that spark?

Gorav Menon 23:48

That actually probably is more of the podcast.

Vanessa Vakharia 23:49

okay?

Gorav Menon 23:50

Has been more targeted, I would say, because it's more about like the shoulding on myself comes from therapy where. Uh, I was talking to Kevin about this, and then he challenged me to count how many times I said in my head, should in a day. And I did for like a week, and I was so proud of myself because like, oh, it's not that many. And I told them the numbers, like Kevin and another of my friend, and they're like, that's a lot. I'm like, what?

Vanessa Vakharia 24:10

You have such good friends.

Gorav Menon 24:12

They're like, that's a way too much. And so I was like, okay. So the podcast and therapy kind of really play off each other now. It's so interconnected. It is hard for me to distill what therapy has done for me 'cause I've been doing it for so long now. I started at 17, it's been almost 10 years. Right? but I think the podcast was the more of like, okay, acknowledging my stories, acknowledging these labels I'm putting on myself. And seeing which ones serve me and which ones don't.

Vanessa Vakharia 24:37

Ugh.

Gorav Menon 24:38

And that helped me drop the ones that don't. It's hard to be very, very clear. I work on this every day of my life.

Vanessa Vakharia 24:45

It's extremely

Gorav Menon 24:46

hard, but at least I'm cognizant of it now, which is kind of a big game changer.

Vanessa Vakharia 24:52

Well, and we can't just drop our stories, can we? Like we, we, like you said, it's worked. So, so let's go to this language one, because I think this is what a lot of our listeners are going to want to be doing with math, or I, we, me and Gorav have want you to do this with math. Like we're gonna teach you how to do it. So first was acknowledging, Hey, I have this story that I've been telling myself that I'm bad at languages. Did you pause to say, where did that story come from? Like you said, you mentioned something about how the way you were taught you were, uh, looking towards grades and getting a good mark, and then it was just getting it done and getting it over with. So that's a part of what added to that whole negativity around it. You said there was, you had some trauma in the way you were taught. Is there anything specific that stood out?

Gorav Menon 25:35

Yeah, no, and I, it is really important to go to sources and try to find those because it can help. But I think with, for French, it, it's hard because I think I just, I think I just did badly early on

Vanessa Vakharia 25:47

Yep.

Gorav Menon 25:48

and then I just reinforced it because

Vanessa Vakharia 25:50

Grades. Grades. So grades were a source of trauma.

Gorav Menon 25:53

like I am, I'm a, I'm a high achieving

Vanessa Vakharia 25:56

Yep.

Gorav Menon 25:57

like I'm, I'm a high achiever and like grades obviously is a really big part of being a kid and like being a high achiever and doing well, and I think French was just always my worst one. I don't even think it was that bad if I probably look back at, but because it was my worst one, I reinforced that belief, and then it got anxious because I wanted to be better, but I struggled with it and I did tutoring and I did all the things. And I just wanted it done at the end.

Vanessa Vakharia 26:24

You're really speaking how so many people I bet, would describe their math story. Honestly, like, I'm really happy you're sharing this because that idea of grades being almost the first thing you know, I hear from so many of the students, I'll hear from their parents and they'll say, well, she gets good marks everywhere else, but math is, it's always about the grade, right? Like when, when they're, um, trying to explain to me why math is a quote unquote problem or why their kid is not good at math, it'll be because their grade in that is the lowest. And the kid the same thing. My grade, it's like the goal is my, to get my grade where everything else is. What a source of math trauma that can be. Right. Because for you, you're, you're basically saying it kind of started with that once you got this impression because of this number that you just weren't, it wasn't as good as everything else. You were like, well, there must be a deficit in this area.

Gorav Menon 27:16

Yeah, for sure. And it's this, the thing of math that I, I love math and I'm like, I'm an Indian male. No one never told me like, oh, you don't look like you could do math. Right?

Vanessa Vakharia 27:26

Yeah,

Gorav Menon 27:27

I, I never got that negative, terrible story of certain people that they're. suited

Vanessa Vakharia 27:34

look like math people. Yeah,

Gorav Menon 27:36

an insane thing to say or think about. Like who, what does the math person look like? That's

Vanessa Vakharia 27:41

no, we, we don't have time for that in this episode, but.

Gorav Menon 27:43

but. so with math, I mean it, it's always been one of my favorite subjects. It's always been, I think, my best instructors and educators with math because math's problem solving, right. I think the biggest thing we have issue we have with math too and with all courses is we have to not have to, but we are assigned grades. Right. And that's just kind of how we value ourselves and where it's like, how do I get into this school? How do I get to college from here? Great. Right? That's a huge part of it. It's this thing about math is that I remember I was in like high school and one of my friends like asked professor, well, when am I ever gonna use X, Y, and Z in my life? Right. It's a very classic question. I think, I didn't really even realize till college that, we were learning math more so we could learn logic, There's certain levels of math I don't use every day, but I definitely use logical thinking. And when I actually took my first Logic course, I was like, oh, this is what math has been teaching me for 10 years. And this is the thing about math that I love, is that we are teaching kids how to think logically, how to make trade offs, how to decide between two options, how to see a problem, break it down and figure out how to solve it. And all of that is math, but it's not math. I dunno if that made any sense.

Vanessa Vakharia 28:56

Well, I mean, you're just making so much sense because I, I just, I'm just more stunned. I'm more just listening to this being, I'm trying to process because I'm like, this is what I talk about all the time. And this is what, you know, my math teacher friends talk about a lot of the time and, and probably so many people listening to this podcast will be nodding vigorously in agreement saying exactly. You know, I like to call them math adjacent skills. That's my own term. It's like, I think the most important skills adjacent to the content we're learning, right? We're almost learning these skills through the content. I, I'm more surprised because you're not a math educator and I'm kind of listening to you thinking, wow, did you really feel like you, l I'm curious, do you feel you learned those skills in your high school math classes?

Gorav Menon 29:37

In the 11th grade.

Vanessa Vakharia 29:38

And that's really cool. Your teacher must have done an incredible job actually.

Gorav Menon 29:42

Teacher was, uh, Mr. Stevens in the 11th grade cent school in Toronto. I genuinely believe that was the first time I learned how to learn. Um, and I think up until that point, I knew how to memorize real well, and I think that's why I learned how to learn, because you learn how things are connected. You're not just learning how fun, how to memorize things. You learn how, okay, so if I have this problem and I, there's three ways I could solve it. This way, I can do this. If I write it out step by step. And just logically makes sense. And then when I really started to get into that is in UCLA as well where, I had this professor named Michael Andrews, again, he's not someone you'd expect as a math professor. Like he's very young. Now he has this long beard, he's. Uh, very surfer blonde

Vanessa Vakharia 30:26

So you're just kind of going back on your statement you just said where you were like, I can't believe we would ever tell someone that they,

Gorav Menon 30:32

No, but this is the point where, where you have, you, he, you wouldn't expect this, right?

Vanessa Vakharia 30:37

okay.

Gorav Menon 30:37

A genius and he was like very young, MIT PhD or something like that. I would look it up later. Uh, but he, he was just like, math can be fun and math doesn't have to be what you think it is. And in these courses, you learn how to think logically and what crystallized it for me is when I actually finally took logic

Vanessa Vakharia 30:57

Yeah.

Gorav Menon 30:58

oh, this is just math, just without the numbers

Vanessa Vakharia 31:01

Does Mr. Stevens know? Have we talked to Mr. Stevens about how that was the first time you learned how to learn?

Gorav Menon 31:06

in high school. I definitely told 'em that. Um,

Vanessa Vakharia 31:09

did okay.

Gorav Menon 31:09

to 'em in a while, but

Vanessa Vakharia 31:10

We're gonna find him obviously.

Gorav Menon 31:12

Yeah.

Vanessa Vakharia 31:13

I'm, I'm glad you actually told him and this is so cool. Okay. Sorry, I've also lost the thread. We need to go backwards because we were giving people steps, but this is great 'cause I honestly think this is, it's so cool to hear someone who is just a student, not a math educator, say so many of the things that we've, we hope that students get from math. We really hope, right? We know that so much of it has been memorizing and we want kids to think, and you walked away with that skill, but it took you until grade 11. And then it's interesting for you to be like, I only realize that when I took this logic course. And so many students will never take that logic course. They never will. They're never gonna get there. So as long as they're at least learning these skills along the way, maybe they don't realize they are, but perhaps it's our job to, show them, to prove to them that, that we are giving them something useful. This not the content, but the skills associated with the content. Okay. Who cares? Let's back up for a second. We were talking about the steps to change our stories. This first step was to recognize that we had this story to maybe go back. This is what I always get students to do. I get, or teachers or adults to write their mathography. I'm like, go back and write your earliest math memories. Just pausing and being like, I don't love the relationship I have with math. Okay, this is what you did with languages. I don't love the story I have about languages. Where did it come from? Maybe you put a few things together, you found the source of something. At the end of the day, maybe it was the grade thing. We don't really know, but at this point in time, you're like, I can tell that this is a story and I'm reinforcing it with my behavior and I'd like to change it. So the next step is I'm gonna try and learn math. I'm gonna try and do the thing that I've told myself I cannot do. And then you said something really profound earlier, and I don't know if you remember this, you said something about, I like learning through Duolingo because it's a game, it's fun, it's not how I used to learn languages, which was for grades and to get it done,

Gorav Menon 32:56

Yeah, the thing about duolingo too, and I don't wanna do a Duolingo ad,

Vanessa Vakharia 33:01

Yeah. But Duolingo should be sponsoring this fucking podcast.

Gorav Menon 33:04

I love Duolingo. I talk about it all the time on

Vanessa Vakharia 33:06

Okay. Well save it for when we're sponsored.

Gorav Menon 33:08

I will say this, they, we designed the app a few years ago and they, they talk about this in their product handbook. Essentially they were approached, by their designers for a kids' version of Duolingo, and they're like, that's great. Let's just do it for the full version. And it's because they prioritize joy and fun, and we don't do that enough as adults. Even in child education, we don't do it enough. But as adults, why did we stop trying to make things games?

Vanessa Vakharia 33:32

Right.

Gorav Menon 33:33

Why did we stop trying to have fun with things that we're doing. And that's, that's the thing with learning too, where if I can make it a game, um, oh my God, amazing. I don't need to be the best at everything I do. I just need to adjust my stories.

Vanessa Vakharia 33:47

Well, oh my God, I love it. And know that Gorav was like, okay. So he recognized he had this story, he did some digging into where it came from. He was like, you know what? This is a story I wanna change. And he didn't say, and now I'm gonna become the best like linguist in the world. I'm gonna become the best at Swedish

Gorav Menon 34:03

I'm learning Italian, but I wanted to learn Swedish.

Vanessa Vakharia 34:05

Oh, sorry. Italian. Italian, the best at Italian. He was like, okay, so what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna just try and do the thing I've told myself I can't do, and I'm gonna see what happens. I'm gonna do it for fun. I don't need to be the best, I just wanna see in a low stakes way. Which is what I always tell people. Just try to do math in a low stakes way. And honestly, my number one recommendation is Duolingo. And I have to tell you, I have over a hundred teachers who this past year has have done this and I get messages every week, oh my God, I never thought this would happen, I'm on day a hundred. So it works. So now you've been doing this, you've been, how long have you been at Duolingo?

Gorav Menon 34:39

I think I'm on like 260 or

Vanessa Vakharia 34:42

Oh my God.

Gorav Menon 34:43

I'm big on streaks. I love a streak.

Vanessa Vakharia 34:45

Great. We all love a streak. Honestly, it's human nature. We don't have to go into that, but it is fine. So you're on day two, you've been doing this for over 200 days. What happened at the beginning? Was there, was there ever a point where your old story was getting reinforced and you thought of giving up?

Gorav Menon 34:59

Yeah. sure. And I think what happened was, in the beginning, for the first month, I was doing it with my friends,

Vanessa Vakharia 35:05

Okay.

Gorav Menon 35:06

and then they, they abandoned it. But, I was doing it with my friends. We made it fun. We were traveling together at the time and we, we liked just repeating some of the sentences over and over again in fun ways. it's like a, because I am such a maximizer in my life where like I try to be the best in so many ways and it's, it's, it's a struggle I'm working

Vanessa Vakharia 35:26

Sounds exhausting.

Gorav Menon 35:28

It, my therapist was legit said to me that your thought process sounds exhausting. And I'm like, amazing. Um, but that's kind of the beauty of it too. When you do something that is just for fun and and just has nothing to do with your future career prospects. Like I'm not choosing a language that's related to my job at

Vanessa Vakharia 35:49

Yeah.

Gorav Menon 35:49

There are languages because I worked in global capacities, but I'm picking one that's, I don't think it's gonna make me monetarily better, but that's kind of the beauty. 'Cause it's so low stakes. It's so fun. You can do it for like five minutes a day and you feel productive, you feel good, and it feeds productivity

Vanessa Vakharia 36:05

It's feeding the productivity story. Okay, in with one addiction out with the other. Okay. So now,

How Gorav's "learning" story changed

Vanessa Vakharia 36:11

so there are points where you were like, Ugh, whatever. You were doing it with your friends, it was fun. At this point, 200 days later, how has it changed? I want you to give me in two sentences, what your old story was about learning languages and what your story is now. It doesn't need to be different. I'm just curious how the story has changed.

Gorav Menon 36:28

I think I would've used the word can't. I think I would've said, I can't learn a language

Vanessa Vakharia 36:32

Okay.

Gorav Menon 36:32

I'm bad at languages. And I think now it's more just I can learn to be better at things.

Vanessa Vakharia 36:41

Oh my God.

Gorav Menon 36:43

I do, I am a person who likes being bad at things like trying things like I, I started kickboxing like two years ago, not two years ago. It's been a while now, but I started boxing and I, I don't get in rings, like I don't fight people. The way I describe it's, I pay someone to let me hit him. Um, but I train with, I train with this amazing coach, James Doyle in Los Angeles. And he just taught me, just go through them, you go through the skills, you're developing the skill not to do anything, and this is the beauty thing about this too, languages, it's so much fun to learn something for no purpose

Vanessa Vakharia 37:18

Mm. Yeah.

Gorav Menon 37:20

You see the progression. When you can see a progression of anything, it reinforces the story that's possible.

Vanessa Vakharia 37:26

Ugh.

Gorav Menon 37:26

The one story with boxing was when I started jumping rope, I was absolutely terrible at it, like just jumping rope. I couldn't do it like I

Vanessa Vakharia 37:34

So hard. I hate that.

Gorav Menon 37:36

And then I just kept doing it week over week, week over week. And I took a rope on vacation with me and now I can jump rope. And it seems so simple, but every time you do one of those things, you see progression and you see, oh, I can learn hard things. It might take time, it might take days, but that enforces that story.

Vanessa Vakharia 37:53

Dude. This is so good. Honestly, I started this by being like, I don't know what we're really gonna talk about, how much could there be to say. I am. This is just one of my favorite conversations ever because

Gorav Menon 38:03

God. Thank you

Vanessa Vakharia 38:04

It really is. It's so beautiful. You're like, I just wanna say something. 'cause I don't know if you heard what you just said. I asked you to tell me your story from a year ago and your story today. Your story from a year ago was, I can't learn languages. Your story today was. I can get better at things. It wasn't even about languages. When you started changing your story around languages, you changed your story around your entire self and your capacity to do anything. I have full fucking body goosebumps. I'm not kidding. I'm like, and this is, you've just like, I, I love when also someone proves you, right? I'm like, you've just, you without me paying you or, or even telling you anything about what this is about, you've kind of proven me. So Right. Of like when you can show yourself you can do math after your story for so long has been, I can't do it. When you can just show yourself, Hey, you know what? I'm not as bad as this is, I think, and wow, I can get better. That's it. I can get a bit better. All of a sudden you start saying, what else can I get better at? What other stories can I challenge if I can get better at this thing? I've, I've, I've for so long told myself I can't do? And I think you have just illustrated the power of storytelling. The power of storytelling is. Our stories don't have to have power over us. We can have power over them by taking control of the narrative.

Gorav Menon 39:19

It's a skill.

Vanessa Vakharia 39:21

It's a skill and you're, you've given us a three step, a two step process. I would say, I'm gonna say three steps. Step number one, recognize your story. What is the story you've been telling yourself? Look at where that story came from. It didn't appear out of nowhere. Look at where the story came from. I, I had, I just listened to a therapist or a, a neuroscientist say, the mind, your mind is not the same as your brain. They're two different things. Your story is not a part of your brain. It's not hardwired into your brain. It is your mind. So the story came from somewhere. It is living in your mind rent free, and you're doing be behaviors that reinforce it. And I think it's helpful to actually look at what those behaviors might be. Oh, I'm avoiding doing math. I'm always giving the bill to someone else. I'm just like avoiding talking about math. Great. Step one. So you recognize it. Kind of dig into a bit. Step two. Take one simple small action to do the thing that your story has been telling you you can't do in a low stakes way.

Gorav Menon 40:13

Mm-hmm.

Vanessa Vakharia 40:15

And step three, stick with it and observe the progress.

Gorav Menon 40:19

Yeah.

Vanessa Vakharia 40:20

Did I do that? A good job? Anything else?

Gorav Menon 40:22

That's amazing. Honestly, you should host my show.

Vanessa Vakharia 40:24

Ah.

Gorav Menon 40:26

I think that's, that's it. I mean, it's this thing where we put so much pressure on it, like to be the best, to be great at this too. be the best, like, to make sure everything we do is productive. And we do that, when we're not the best, it reinforces the story that we can't do things right instead of like just trying stuff and seeing progress. And then every time you see progress in science, it reinforces that you can do things.

Vanessa Vakharia 40:48

I love it.

Gorav Menon 40:50

I mean, we talk a lot, a lot, a lot about the stories we're telling ourselves and the stories We're reinforcing stories that don't serve us so much. So that when I'm, like, when I go on a rant to Kevin on, in, on text and I'm just like going through my whole anxiety bubble, he, he will say like, okay, so what story are you saying about this? Right? What, how is this serving your story? Like, and when putting in that turns, we see, oh, oh, I see I'm doing this to myself. It's so much of like, you're doing this to yourself, you

Vanessa Vakharia 41:16

You're doing it to yourself. And that is not, I mean, I always have to say this, this isn't to mitigate the fact that real things have happened to us. You know, and like it, you know, it's not like, you know, past trauma is like you're doing this to yourself. Like, absolutely not real things have happened to us. I think the, the question is wherever we can to look at, who we are now. And what stories we're telling ourselves and reinforcing that are no longer serving us, that perhaps we can change and that we can, we can just start to shift.

Gorav Menon 41:44

Mm-hmm. Yeah, and I'm, I'm incredibly lucky that I've had so much access to therapy in my years of. Uh, since I moved out of, uh, since I moved out here, so many people can't, and it's, it's really hard, and, but if you have the ability, because you don't have to do it by yourself. And again, real things have happened to people and people, we need real help. So if you have the ability to reach out to a therapist or find a way to get some kind of mental health support, I'm a big advocate for that because it's been incredibly helpful for me and it's something that not enough people, I know people with access to therapy and I'm like, just do it. Like even if you don't feel like you need it, you have this opportunity. See if you like it. You know?

Vanessa Vakharia 42:26

Thank you for saying that. I, I also am a, I am a huge believer in that and I always forget that not everyone is, and so I think it's really important to say, you know, it's hard to do any of these things on our own. It's hard to even recognize our own stories because we've been telling them to ourselves for so long. We think they're just a part of us. And, you know, in, in a pinch, a really good friend can do. it sounds like you've got Kevin, and hopefully, you know, there's sometimes a good friend can be like, you know, I've known you for a long time and I've noticed this, or, I notice you keep saying this kind of thing to yourself. So we can also lean on each other a bit more and talk openly about this stuff as much as we can, because I know so many people who would love to just talk about this stuff with a friend, but feel like they can't open up. And that friend also wants to really talk about it, but feels like they can't open up. So I think we can all help each other out a bit more. So thank you so much. I'm gonna dart over to the final two questions I ask every single guest, rapid fire.

Q1

Vanessa Vakharia 43:17

Question number one, if there's one thing you could change about the way math class is taught, what would it be?

Gorav Menon 43:22

I would try to apply it to more abstract thinking and try to show the logic connection more and more, but it's incredibly hard to do. So I don't know how you do that, but I'm not an educator.

Vanessa Vakharia 43:34

Okay. No, no, no. I love it. This is, so, hold on. You would try to, to, you would try to do more abstract thinking or less

Gorav Menon 43:40

would try to find ways to connect it to logic

Vanessa Vakharia 43:42

connected to logic. Okay.

Gorav Menon 43:43

yeah.

Vanessa Vakharia 43:44

Yep. Love it. Okay.

Q2

Vanessa Vakharia 43:46

And let's say someone listens to this podcast and they're like, yeah, I get what you're saying, but like, it's not a story, like I'm just not a math person. What would you say?

Gorav Menon 43:56

I would say that's a story. I mean, it's, uh, it is a story, right? That's what is it, if it's not a story, uh, it doesn't, it can be super deep. It can be super light. Anything you say to yourself is a story.

Vanessa Vakharia 44:08

Bam.

Gorav Menon 44:08

the big unlock for us, for our show.

Outro

Vanessa Vakharia 44:11

You rock. This was so fun. What a crazy thing to meet up with someone 10 years later not know very much about them. And so much of where our, our minds are at and what you and I have been learning over the past decade is like paralleling one another. It's very cool.

Gorav Menon 44:29

very cool.

Vanessa Vakharia 44:30

cool. Thank you so much for coming on the show. Everyone go in and listen to tell us where to find you.

Gorav Menon 44:34

I am the co-host of the Linen Suit and Plastic Tie podcast. You can find us anywhere @LSPTpod on most social media or just Google linen suit and plastic tie. It's a weird name. You'll find it.

Vanessa Vakharia 44:47

Amazing. And Gorav and I would like to know if you try these three steps, if you decide there's a story you wanna tackle, you can text the podcast, tell us the story you've been telling yourself, why you want to challenge that story, and the first step you're taking towards doing it, and we will cheer you on every step of the way. Thank you so much, Gorav. It was amazing to have you.

Gorav Menon 45:08

Amazing. Thank you for having me.

Vanessa Vakharia 45:12

Oh my God. I'm still so blown away by all that Gorav shared, and every time I listen back to this interview, it feels like I can't stop noticing just how many stories I'm still holding onto. Stories that have become a part of my narrative, like stories that I have the power to rewrite. So here's your Math Therapy homework this week. I want you to do a little detective work and figure out what one story is that you've been telling yourself that's no longer serving you. That you're ready to shed like a snake. Actually, I wanna hear it. You can text it to me by texting the podcast, hit the link in your show notes, it's right there. DM me on Instagram at the Math Guru, or email me at vanessa@themathguru.ca. What's one story that you've been holding onto that you are ready to shed? And if you know someone who's holding onto a story that's holding them back, share this episode. Send it to your teacher bestie or that friend who thinks they're not ready to go after that promotion or that other friend who thinks they'll never find love. Thoughts have power, but we have the power to change them. And the stories we tell ourselves, they make up our lives and changing them can literally change our entire lives no matter what. Your story is yours to write, and no one can take that away from you. Until next week, xo. Xo.