Chapter 37: Malcolm Gladwell on strangers, spies, and silencing the system
Release Date: 12/20/2025
3 Books With Neil Pasricha
I sat down with at the Sherbourne Health Centre on the east side of downtown Toronto, an area of the city sometimes known for its challenges with drug abuse. Who is Dr. Andrea Sereda? She is a family physician who practices street outreach medicine and provides care through the in London, Ontario. She works with the emergency safer supply substitution program, prescribing hydromorphone, an opioid used by injection drug users to reduce the risk of contaminated street drugs. Wait! What? Yes, on the face of it, Dr. Andrea Sereda gives drugs to drug users but there is a...
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Happy Strawberry Moon, everyone! As we ease into summer and the hydrangeas and garden roses begin blooming here in Toronto, I find myself struck by the awe and beauty that quietly surrounds us each day. There’s so much science behind how we experience the world. My guest on this moon’s chapter of 3 Books has spent his career proving just that. Join me in welcoming one of the world’s leading experts on happiness and human potential, a Harvard-trained positive psychologist and researcher whose has been watched over 30 million (!) times, and a genuinely warm human I am proud to call a...
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On a pair of folding lawn chairs on his front porch in Toronto's Roncesvalles neighborhood, I sat down with my friend Michael Bungay Stanier. Michael’s mind is like a box that you open and a whole bunch of springs suddenly fly out in all directions. Here’s a bit of to give you a taste of this guy: “I’ve never quite fit the traditional mold, and honestly, I think that’s been the advantage that has shaped my life. Smart and successful don’t have to look one way. But making space for that – for different voices, different ambitions, different ways of moving through...
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Happy blue moon, everyone! Yes, it is indeed the second full moon of the month which brings us a second May chapter of 3 Books. This one features an author I’ve been hoping to have on our show for years. Join me in welcoming the Booker Prize–winning novelist, deeply philosophical storyteller, and one of Canada’s most distinctive literary voices ... Mr. Yann Martel! Yann is best known for ‘, the global phenomenon that won , sold over 15 million copies worldwide, and was later adapted into an . Born in Salamanca, Spain in 1963,...
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Nestled into a beautiful century-old brownstone in Park Slope, Brooklyn, I spoke with the amazing —a preacher of love, letting love in, sending love out, and using that as a way to deepen our connection with ourselves and our children. Who is Dr. Laura Markham? She’s a Columbia-trained clinical psychologist, founder and editor at , author of including my favorite, a parenting expert, and a life-changer for many, many families—including mine. (You’ll hear what my wife Leslie thinks at the beginning of this chapter!) Dr. Laura Markham translates...
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Happy , everyone! Up in Toronto we're experiencing a wonderful blooming, a beautiful , and lots of slowly-getting-warmer days as we inch towards summer. With this warm spring breeze I’m thrilled to welcome our latest 3 Books guest: a luminous force in publishing, a powerhouse editor-turned-author, and a wonderful storyteller ... the one and only ! Today Nita is best known for her mystery series which features three main titles and a holiday edition—‘,’ ‘,’ ‘,’ and ‘’—which have collectively sold over 2 million copies. Raised in Ontario’s Simcoe County, Nita began...
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Happy new moon, everybody! Today we fly down to the hills of Calabasas, California, overlooking the Pacific Ocean, where I sat behind a microphone at a walnut desk across from the one and only Rich Roll. Rich went to Stanford and Cornell and was a national athlete in swimming before his career was cut short by a decade-long struggle with alcohol—eventually landing him in jail and rehab. On the eve of his 40th birthday, as he walked up the stairs he was left totally winded… and decided it was time to make a change. The next day, Rich overhauled his life. He switched to a 100% vegan,...
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We welcome global gallivant and raging bibliophile Eve Harlow on 3 Books! Born in Russia, raised in Israel, living in Canada and the U.S., is a talented actress best known for roles in , , and her current star turn as Dr. Ingrid Derian in , the medical-mystery thriller inspired by stories of Sherlock Holmes. Somehow between her busy acting schedule, Eve finds time to read a book a week. She's a library junkie, a reading phenom, and posts stacks of her latest reads between red carpet shots and behind-the-scenes clips from...
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Join me on the couch in Molly Bloom's hotel room at the Four Seasons in downtown Toronto. Molly began her career as a world-class skier, but while training as a pre-teen was diagnosed with severe scoliosis. Her doctor told her she could never ski again, but even as a pre-teen Molly had incredible strength of mind and she ended up back on the slopes only a year after her surgery. By age 21, she was ranked #3 in North America. She then took off to LA and began running one of the most exclusive, high-stakes, underground poker games in the world, featuring players like Alex...
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is one of the most influential happiness researchers of our time. Sonja moved to the United States from Moscow at age 9 in the 70s. She went to Harvard and Stanford in the 80s and began studying happiness in 1989 ... longer than almost anyone else alive! Positive psychology wasn't "founded" by and for another decade. Sonja has published hundreds of papers including her which defined the field by flipping a long-held assumption on its head: That happiness doesn’t follow success but causes it. Sonja is now following up her bestsellers '' and '' with a new book called '', a joint...
info_outlineWho we are is a function of where we are.
Do you agree with that?
Who you are depends on where you are.
We’re different people in different places, right?
You’re different in the board room than you are on vacation. You’re different with your parents than you are with your kids. I’m different hanging out with Malcolm Gladwell in his West Village apartment than I am sitting in my basement as I type up a little note about it.
That theme is one that we get to open up in this chapter of 3 Books with the one and only Malcolm Gladwell. I flew down to New York and joined Malcolm at his place where we settled around a table surrounded by books. Top to bottom! Floor to ceiling! And, no big deal, all hardcovers. "This is a fraction of my books, I should say," he told me as we began the chat.
We talk about raising nerds in a world forcing us into being average, how to find tribes where we truly fit in, who Malcolm thinks is the best non-fiction author alive, why thrillers are instructive, what Malcolm's biggest advice is for aspiring authors, and, of course, his 3 most formative books.
It was a rare treat to sit down with Malcolm Gladwell in this classic chapter of 3 Books...