1064: Timeless Wisdom for Greater Success and and Meaning in Work–According to the Torah–with Mark Gerson

Pete Mockaitis
Mark, welcome!

Mark Gerson
Pete, great to be with you.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, I’ve been so excited to have this conversation with you for a while. One of my good friends and mentors, Mawi Asgedom, episode one guest, said you were one of the most unique, interesting people he has met in his life.

Mark Gerson
That’s so nice. Wow! I would say the same thing about him. Thank you.

Pete Mockaitis
So, no pressure, Mark, we’re just expecting uniquely interesting things to be falling out of your mouth, nonstop here.

Mark Gerson
We’ll see.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, I’m so excited to dig into your wisdom here, and you’ve got an interesting book title that’s a little different than some of the book titles we’ve had on the show and I just want to set the stage a bit. Religiously speaking, our listeners come from all sorts of backgrounds – Jews, Christians, Muslims, Hindus, atheists, agnostics, the so-called nones from the Pew Research folks.

And you’ve got a provocative title, God Was Right: How Modern Social Science Proves the Torah Is True. Can you set the stage for us? Is the goal of this book to convert folks to Judaism?

Mark Gerson
No.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay, what are we doing here?

Mark Gerson
Okay. So, the first question to ask is, “What is the Torah?” So, the Torah is the first five books of the Bible – Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy, what’s called The Five Books of Moses. What Christians call the Old Testament, we call the Torah, we Jews, or The Five Books of Moses. And then you have to ask, “What is the genre of the Torah? What kind of book is the Torah?” And that’s the first question you have to ask approaching any text.

If you’re reading a book of science fiction, and you think it’s science, you’ll say it’s not true, but then the answer is, “No, no, no, you’re reading science fiction. It’s not meant to be science.” So, the first thing we got to do is to get the genre right. What kind of book is the Torah? What kind of book is the Bible? The Bible, and I go in the book as to why it’s not the following things.

It’s not a history book. It’s not a science book. It’s not a cookbook. It’s exactly what Moses says in Deuteronomy 29 it is, it’s a guidebook. Moses says in Deuteronomy, “This book is for your benefit.” The Bible should not be in the religion section of bookstores. It should be in the self-help section of bookstores because it gives intensely practical guidance for everybody about how to live better lives, how to make better decisions, how to find meaning, how to find purpose, how to be healthy, how to negotiate any kind of challenges facing you, how to approach any kind of opportunity that you seek.

The Bible is the most relevant, eternally practical guidebook ever written. So, whatever anyone is thinking about, the Bible is likely to have the answer. And the Bible makes, in the course of being a guidebook, it makes hundreds, maybe thousands of psychological claims, sociological claims, all of which have intensely practical relevance to our daily lives in 2025, regardless of what faith tradition we come from.

And so, what I do in God Was Right, in several dozen chapters, on several dozen subjects, I go through, “Here’s what the Bible says. Here’s what modern social science says,” and then, “Do we see if they line up?” And they always do. And the reason why I approached it that way is because, for 3,000 years, people have asked, “Is the Torah true?”

And until now, we’ve only had faith and experience to go by. But in the 21st century, social scientists have, usually without knowing it, asked the same questions that the Biblical authors asked. So, now we can assess, with social scientific certitude, “Is the Bible true? Is it false? Or is it just a good book that’s right some places, wrong other places?”

And what I’ve discovered, in the course of doing this research, is that the Bible is true on every subject it touches, and it touches every subject relevant to our lives today.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Mark, thank you. Well, I just want to set the scene, set the stage, in that folks of all stripes can appreciate this, and if listeners are thinking, “Well, hey, this book seems to be doing it for people for thousands of years, and some folks are finding wisdom in it to this day, and Mark has some extra layers, then there’s richness to be enjoyed here in this conversation.”

And I love it, like you’ve got dozens of chapters in 700 pages unpacking this with fun titles, like, “Why the Israelites Hated the Perfect Food,” and “IKEA Succeeds the Torah and Science of Effort,” so it’s really fun to dig into these pieces. So, lay it on us, Mark, here, we’re all about being awesome at our jobs, why don’t we dig into maybe three insights or so that are really rich?

And if I may be choosy to prioritize, I’d like you to think through what are some of the most transformational insights that can really just be game-changing for a career, and yet are often overlooked? They’re not common practice, so they’re rare but powerful and they point to this ancient wisdom text. No pressure, Mark, but lay it on us.

Mark Gerson
So, let’s just talk about one example. Let’s talk about the Biblical Joseph. So, Joseph is the only person in the Bible who’s called a success.

So, Joseph has the most amazing career of anybody in the Bible. He goes from being an arrogant young man, and then he’s sold into slavery by his brothers, he becomes a slave, then he becomes a prisoner, and then he rises to become the number two man in Egypt, and the number two man in the world. So, he has an incredible career, and he’s the only person called a success.

So, then we have to ask, “When is he called a success?” He’s not called a success when he’s the number two man in Egypt, the pharaoh’s right-hand man. He’s called a success when he’s a slave in the home of Potiphar, and when he’s a prisoner in pharaoh’s jail. So, he achieved success in both these places. And the text goes through, not only that he’s called a success but that he receives promotions in both places.

He goes from being a lowly slave to the head slave. He goes from being a lowly prisoner to the head prisoner. He’s a success. He gets promotions. He achieves success in the same way that we would look at success. So, then we have to ask, “How does he achieve success?” So, what Joseph is, is the God-laden man in the Bible. He talks about God all the time.

So, what does that tell us? That tells us that Joseph is always finding meaning in his work. And when he’s always finding meaning in his work, when he thinks that God is with him everywhere, then he becomes a success. Okay, so how do we think about that in 21st century context? Well, in the 21st century, social scientists have identified a term called job crafting.

So, what is job crafting? Well, a great example of it was, and this story is attributed to both President Kennedy and President Johnson, but one of them visited the NASA headquarters, and they noticed how clean the premises were and they complimented the custodian on what a good job he was doing cleaning the floors.

And the custodian said, “I’m not cleaning the floors. I’m putting a man on the moon.” We see the same thing in a 2001 study from the University of Pennsylvania about hospital custodians, where certain hospital custodians view their jobs as cleaning the rooms, and other hospital custodians view the same job as creating a healthy healing environment for patients.

The people who find meaning in their work, the custodians who view their job as creating a healthy and healing environment for patients, end up getting far more promotions, making far more money than those who don’t. So, what does this teach us? It teaches us that success is not defined by the job you have but how well you do in that job.

So, Joseph is a success as a slave and as a prisoner, but he does very well in those jobs, therefore, he’s called a success. And by the virtue of being successful, he gets promotions. And what we see is exactly the same thing playing out in our day, it’s that those who find meaning in their work, those who can tell themselves a story about how they’re an integral part of creating something important, they get promotions and they make more money than those who don’t.

That’s job crafting. Joseph is the first job crafter. Now there’s a whole social science literature about it.

Pete Mockaitis
You know, Mark, I like that a lot. We had Gary Burnison on the show, who’s the CEO of Korn Ferry, and I think, “Well, this guy probably knows a thing or two about advancement in career.” And I go back to this quote all the time, and he says, “I think you have to first start with purpose and start with happiness, because, if you’ve got that purpose and happiness, you’re probably motivated. If you’re motivated, you’re probably going to outperform and love what you’re doing.” And I think that that just resonates deeply right there.

Mark Gerson
Absolutely. The studies on job crafting just keeps showing how beneficial it is for one’s career. There was an analysis in 2019 of 122 independent studies that found that job crafting was associated with improved job performance, job satisfaction, and reduced burnout. And that’s in addition to the promotions and the financial benefits that accrue to people who job-craft.

So, I think what Gary said is exactly right, people who find meaning and purpose in their job, and people can find meaning and purpose in every job, because whatever job someone has is contributing to the production of a good or service that’s valued by others who are willing to part with their money for it.

So, there’s satisfaction, there’s meaning, there’s purpose to be found in every job. And people who find that meaning and purpose in their job, people who job-craft, just like the Biblical Joseph, end up getting that promotion and enjoying successful careers.

Pete Mockaitis
I like that. And what you described are some roles that seem like they wouldn’t be the most fun or rewarding in terms of janitorial services or, in Joseph’s case, you know, being literally a slave.

Mark Gerson
Right.

Pete Mockaitis
And yet they’re bringing this purpose, this perspective. When you say job crafting, how does one do that in practice?

Mark Gerson
So, one does it in practice by, first, asking oneself, “What job am I in?” And then recognizing that every job has an important function and a crucial purpose. And then they have to articulate what that purpose is. So, the perfect example, I think, is of the hospital custodian from the University of Pennsylvania study. Hospital custodians are creating a healthy, safe, and healing environment for their patients. All they have to do is tell themselves the truth. They’re doing that.

And by telling themselves that truth, they’re setting themselves up for not only to be awesome at their job, but to be successful in the ways that we conventionally define success. So, no matter what job somebody has, the person with the job should think, “What purpose am I serving? What function am I realizing?” And by asking those questions and giving the very truthful answers that will come out of those questions, they’re job crafting and they’re setting themselves up for success.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Well, just to get some reps in, could you share, let’s say someone works in the finance function of a content streaming organization, like Disney Plus or Paramount or something. Lay it on us the job crafting and the purpose.

Mark Gerson
Yeah, great example. So, if someone is in the accounts receivable department, they could say that, “Because of me, our company is able to get the revenues that it’s earned and, consequently, is able to pay all these employees, all my colleagues, and to create a life and a living for all of their families. If the finance function of the streaming department of a content studio did poorly, there would be a lot less revenue to go around. The company wouldn’t get what it earned, and lots of people would not be able to provide for their families.”

If that person in the finance function is in charge of, let’s say, audit or something like that, they can say, “Because of me and because I’m performing this role excellent, because I’m awesome at my job, the company’s books are going to be honest.”

And when a company’s books are honest, it’s the fundamental thing. It’s the foundation of any enterprise’s success. The company’s books have to be reconciled. They have to be honest. They have to be true and they have to be right. And without really good finance people, no organization can make that claim confidently.

So, if someone is doing audits in the finance section of a streaming company, they should tell themselves the absolutely truthful story that, “Because of me, my CEO, my colleagues, my shareholders, my vendors, every other stakeholder, can trust the numbers and, consequently, trust the business.”

Pete Mockaitis
Now, I like that pathway in terms of, because, in a way, we can point to multiple stakeholders. Because where I thought that we were going to go first was the end consumer or customers.  And so, in a way, if you’re in the finance function, you’re a bit more removed from the end consumers’ experience of actually streaming the stuff.  But I suppose that you might draw your purpose pathway connections along that vector instead.

Mark Gerson
Right. I mean, the customer is not going to have any music to listen to or films to watch if the company blows up because its books are wrong.

Pete Mockaitis
That’s true.

Mark Gerson
And who’s there to assure that the books are right? The person at the finance function of the streaming company.

Pete Mockaitis
Now it’s funny, Mark, I’ve done this sort of exercise, and when I do so, sometimes it’s really inspiring and motivating, like, “Heck, yeah, I do have this purpose, and it’s really meaningful and that’s cool.”

Mark Gerson
Exactly.

Pete Mockaitis
And other times it’s just like, “Yeah, I guess.” It doesn’t have as much sort of emotional resonance for me. And maybe that’s just the human condition of moodiness that we all have. But do you have any pro tips for thinking through, getting the most motivational purpose juice force from the exercise?

Mark Gerson
Let’s just take your example of the finance person at the streaming company. Everything that I said that he should think is absolutely true, right? If the revenues aren’t collected, the company’s in trouble. If the costs aren’t reconciled, the company’s in trouble. There’s no customer experience if the company is in trouble. There’s no other employees being paid and their families being provided for if the company is in trouble.

So, the job crafter is telling the absolute truth. He just has to liberate himself to tell that truth and to give meaning to his work, all of which is completely right. I mean, take the hospital custodian, no one would want to be a patient in a dirty hospital.

Pete Mockaitis
I’ve smelled the urine in medical facilities and it’s a real bummer. A real bummer.

Mark Gerson
It’s a real bummer in a lot of ways. So, how much do we appreciate the custodian who makes it smell like the clean establishment it should be, the clean hospital it should be? A lot. We should a lot. And that custodian should be the one who appreciates his work as much as anybody because patients can only have the kind of experience that leads to health if they’re in a clean and sanitary environment. And the environment can only be clean and sanitary if the custodian is awesome at his job.

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah, what I like about this is the chains of logic feel unassailable, like, “Yeah, this is true and it is hard to argue the counter.”

Mark Gerson
Well, that’s exactly the gift of the Torah. The Torah’s chains of logic are unassailable, exactly as you said so beautifully. It’s exactly right. Which is why we said at the beginning of the conversation that the Torah is a book, it’s a guidebook that can be appreciated, learned from and lived by, by people of all faiths because its secular logic is unassailable.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Well, I think we got one really handy nugget here associated with job crafting and purpose and how that ties to the story of Joseph. Lay another one on us, Mark.

Mark Gerson
Okay. So, the Bible says, “Six days you shall work.” God says in the Bible, “Six days you shall work, and on the seventh you shall rest.” Okay. It’s interesting. He doesn’t say six days work shall be done. He says, “Six days you shall work,” teaching us that there’s something fundamentally important about work, independent of the output. That it’s important for the human soul to work. And there are lots of ways to work.

Someone who throws themselves into volunteering is absolutely working. Someone who’s home with her kids is absolutely working. There are lots of ways to work, but, “Six days you shall work, and on the seventh you shall rest.” Okay. So, let’s say someone follows that, and observant Jews follow it, Sabbath-observant Jews follow it, how many hours a week can you work if you follow that?

So, let’s say you can work 10 hours a day for five days a week. Now the sixth day, you really can’t work the whole day because part of the Sabbath is preparing for the Sabbath. So, you have to get home before the Sabbath and prepare for it so you’re ready for the Sabbath. So, let’s say you can work a half day on the sixth day. So, five days at 10 hours, one day at five hours, 55 hours a week. Someone who follows the Biblical formula for how much you should work and how much you should rest, and we can get into what rest is, it’s definitely not relaxing, can work 55 hours a week.

Social scientific studies of machinists in World War I and of Twitter employees in 2018 found that the optimal amounts of hours to work in a week is 55, the exact number. From 55 to 60, you have significantly-diminishing margin returns to your work. After 60, the work turns so bad that you start to compromise what you did in the previous 59.

So, the Bible gets it exactly right. The Bible’s telling us you should work 55 hours a week. And modern social science has completely, independently, the study of machinists from World War I and the Twitter study from 2018, they weren’t thinking about the laws of the Sabbath at all. But it turns out the Bible has exactly the number, to the number, of the amounts of hours that a week one should work to optimize production.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay, 55 hours. That’s a good number to have in mind. And I’m thinking we had Morten Hansen on the show who had done a great deal of studying associated with high performers and what was the story there.

And I think he also landed in that zone. It’s, like, what they see when they study high performers, it’s somewhere between like 50 to 65-ish hours a week is the max. And beyond that, it’s sort of counterproductive. You’re better off just not doing that because it’s a negative. It’s harmful to push there.

Mark Gerson
Exactly, yeah. After 55, it goes to diminishing returns and then it quickly goes to negative returns. And the shocking thing is that’s exactly what the Bible says, “Six days you shall work,” 10 hours for five days, half a day on Friday, and that’s it, and then you have to rest. And what’s the rest? And this has also been proven by modern social science.

So, six days of work, the seventh day of rest. The rest is not relaxing. The rest is purposeful rest. So, what do we do on Shabbat? What we do on Shabbat is we inaugurate Shabbat on Friday night. We have a dinner with our family and friends. We pray. We have a great time. And then on Saturday, it’s not a day of sleeping as late as you can. Someone who sleeps as late as he can is considered a Sabbath violator. It’s a day of purposeful rest.

We play games with the kids. You might go to synagogue. You might study. You’re renewing the soul. And in that time of purposeful rest, what we’re effectively doing is preparing ourselves to be awesome at our job in the six days to come. So, if you want to be awesome at your job, what the Bible says is work six days and have purposeful rest on the seventh. And that purposeful rest will give you the mental and physical energy that you’re going to need to be great in the following six days.

So, if you want to be great at your job, keep the Sabbath. And, of course, someone could say, “I want to keep Saturday,” “I want to keep Sunday,” “I want to keep Wednesday,” whatever it is, but take one day and commit that day to purposeful rest.

Pete Mockaitis
And again, to the notion of work, a portion of that can be…it’s funny. If we count the childcare, Mark, then I’m blowing past my 55 hours, and maybe that’s why I’m so stressed and exhausted so often.

Mark Gerson
Right, yeah. Well, I mean, childcare can be, I guess some of it can be considered work and some of it can be considered purposeful rest. But let’s just take what we traditionally define as work. Like, more than 55 hours, people who brag about working 60, 80, 100 hours a week, they’re just wasting lots of hours and they shouldn’t brag about it. They shouldn’t do it. No boss should ask it. Why shouldn’t they ask it? Because modern social science is very clear that there will be limited productivity after 55 and negative productivity after 60.

Pete Mockaitis
Yes. And I believe there’s also studies about video game developers will commonly enter a crazy busy season shortly before the release of the game. I don’t know if they call it crunch time. They have a name for it, but they see that exact phenomenon in terms of, actually, you’re just causing problems that you and others have to, now, undo.

Mark Gerson
Oh, very interesting. Yeah, I’m sure. Yeah, very interesting. I mean, it applies to everybody, and that’s kind of the point of the Bible. And why I wrote this book is because it doesn’t say, “Six days, you shall work, and seven days you shall rest for certain jobs.” It says it for everybody. So, the Biblical author might not have known about video game developers, but this formula certainly works for them.

Pete Mockaitis
Certainly. And you brought up the point at the very beginning, like, “You shall work.” It’s not so much about output needs to unfold, but rather we, as humans, need to do work for our own benefit, the doing of the work is necessary. And even if AI makes universal basic income unlock for everyone effortlessly, it would be to our detriment to not be doing work.

Mark Gerson
Yeah, exactly. I remember, so Dr. Ruth was a very close friend of ours, and she would come over for Shabbat on most weeks. And I remember, I had a friend who was over and she said to him, “What do you do?” And he said, “Well, I just retired.” And we just saw this look on her face and she stares right at him, and she says, “You cannot retire. You can rewire but you cannot retire.” Dr. Ruth, as always, was exactly right.

And, Pete, getting to your point, we see this in the social science literature, too. This is the IKEA effect, which was discovered in 2011, which is that people value things more when they build the things themselves. People value the work of their hands. They value work independently of the thing. And the IKEA effect is so interesting because one would think that we would value pre-made furniture more than we would value furniture we have to make with our own hands.

Because everyone would say, “Well, I value my time at something. If I don’t spend my time on it, I should attribute that value to the thing, and I should value the pre-made thing more.” But we don’t. We value the things that we create with our hands more than those that we don’t. Now, why is this? It’s because the Bible was right when it says, “Six days you shall work.” Work has a psychic, spiritual benefit, independent of what the work is and even what the output is.

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah, I think that’s just true. There are also studies associated with elderly folks, folks that maybe they don’t expect much from them because their health is poor and it’s hard to get around and they’re long retired. And yet, when they adopt real responsibilities associated with doing some mentorship and tutoring, for example, this is a good study, their stress levels increase because, okay, now they got some responsibilities on their plate, and yet their life satisfaction and joy increases all the more.

Mark Gerson
Totally right. And, exactly, the Bible says, “Six days you shall work, the seventh you shall rest.” It doesn’t say until age 65, in which case you should rest all the time. It could, but it doesn’t say that. It’s because it’s a fundamental human need. Now, of course, the job that one can do at 20 is probably not the job that one can do at 80, or it might not be. But the person at 80 or at 50, just find another job.

And again, it doesn’t have to be a paying job, but find something else that can be considered work. And your example, Pete, is great. A mentorship program that imposes responsibility. Not something you pop in and out of, but saying, “I have to be at this place to do mentorship, to do teaching, to do tutoring, to do counseling,” which people of all ages can do really well, that’s work.

And if someone hits a certain age when they can’t do the work they used to do anymore, totally fine. Just identify what skills, what gifts, what talents you have and see where else it can be applied, but the answer can’t be nothing.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. Well, Mark, lay it on us a third timeless insight to help us be awesome at our jobs.

Mark Gerson
Okay. So, let’s start with the story of Rebecca.

So, you have Rebecca and her husband, Isaac. And the question becomes, “Which son gets the birthright?” In other words, “Which son gets the mantle of Jewish leadership?” And Isaac, who has the ability to bestow it, he’s going to give it to Esau. Rebecca wants to give it to Esau’s twin brother, Jacob. Rebecca is right. Esau has his strengths, they’re discussed in the text, but the qualities needed for leadership, to perpetuate the Jewish people into the future are not one of them. The birthright has to go to Jacob.

So, Rebecca engineers in the moment, she’s a brilliant woman, engineers in the moment this ruse where Jacob is going to trick his father into thinking that he, Jacob, is his twin brother, Esau. So, how does Rebecca tell him to do it? Rebekah tells Jacob, “Put on Esau’s best clothes.” Now that’s interesting because the old man, Isaac, he’s blind so what does it matter what Jacob is wearing? But she says put on his best clothes.

So, what do we learn from that, and the many other mentions of clothing in the Bible? Well, the reason why Rebecca tells Jacob to put on Esau’s best clothes is because of her insight, which is amplified throughout the Torah, which is that we are what we wear. So, she’s telling Jacob, “If you want to imitate Esau, if you want to be Esau, you have to wear his clothes,” because what we wear defines us.

Okay. So why is this relevant? Well, first, is it true and is it relevant? Well, there was a study out of Northwestern in 2012 where one group of participants was given a white coat. There were two groups of participants. They were given the same white coat.  One group was told it was a doctor’s coat. One group was told it was a painter’s coat. Then they were given tasks that required paying attention to detail.

Those who were told it was a doctor’s coat did much better. Just by thinking it was a doctor’s coat – it was the same coat – by thinking it was a doctor’s coat they did much better on attention-seeking tasks. There was another study out of Yale from 2014, which was a negotiation workshop. And the young men who wore suits made triple the profit of those who wore sweatpants. Same cohort of students, but those who dressed in a suit did vastly better than those who dressed in sweatpants.

And so, what does this teach us? It teaches us that what we wear is of fundamental importance for so many things, particularly being awesome at our job. Now, I think it’s a fortunate thing that this whole work from home culture is ending. But even if one were to work from home, what would be the lesson from the Bible, which has been validated by modern social science? Dress like you’re in the office.

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah, well, it’s funny, as we speak, and you’re looking so sharp, I’m looking at my blazer in the corner, I was like, “I should probably put that on right away.” So, thank you for that. And we have had that come up with Dr. Srini Pillay, what he calls psychological Halloween-ism.

Mark Gerson
Interesting. Great term.

Pete Mockaitis
When we dress the part, it psychologically impacts how you’re approaching things and showing up, so I could see that pathway with the suit. But could you actually give us some more detail on that study, the whole tale there?

Mark Gerson
Well, yeah, the two studies from Northwestern about just by wearing the same coat and being told it’s a doctor’s coat, you get attention-seeking tasks. And you have the Yale study, which showed that men wearing suits did three times better in the negotiation workshop than their colleagues from the same cohort of Yale students who were wearing sweatpants.

There was another study out of UNC from 1998 that said that female students who wore swimsuits scored worse on math tests than those who wore sweaters.

So, the lesson for being awesome at your job is no matter where you are, even if you’re working from home, just dress like you’re working from the office because, I love your term, psychic Halloween-ism, I would have used that in the book if I knew about it at the time, but it’s a great term and it says that we become what we wear, which is exactly what the Bible is telling us in so many different ways, in so many different places.

The canonical place is when Rebecca tells Jacob to put on Esau’s best clothes. Interestingly, not any clothes, “Put on his best clothes. You put on his best clothes; you’ll be Esau. And you got to be Esau to trick your father.” And it works. And, interestingly, there was another study that showed that much of the cure for female depression is in the woman’s closet.

Because when people are feeling depressed, you wake up in the morning, you’re feeling depressed, what will most people typically do? They’ll put on like baggy sweatpants, a big sweatshirt. That makes them more depressed.

So, what this study showed is that if you’re depressed, put on a flowery dress, mix up the colors, and then you feel the vitality that your clothing reflects. So, it’s such an easy hack right from the Bible, which is that if you want to be a certain way, dress that way. Don’t dress how you feel. Dress how you want to feel.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, Mark, this is so good, and it’s funny. I mean, I’ve had years of working from home, and there was an era of my life in which I put a great deal of attention into my attire, and I had shirts made to my measurements, and it was when I was peak dating times, like, find a wife time. And I put serious time and money into my clothing, and I have not since my wedding day.

Mark Gerson
Well, it’s interesting. We can talk about the secrets of the top performers, too. So, Deion Sanders, of course, the NFL Hall of Famer, great quote from Dion Sanders, “If you look good, you feel good. If you feel good, you play good. If you play good, they pay good.” I mean, Tiger Woods, he always wore red on tournament Sundays because red, he said, is his power color.

Michael Jordan. So, Michael Jordan started the trend of wearing baggy shorts in the NBA. Why? He was wearing his UNC shorts under his bull shorts. Why was he wearing his UNC shorts? Because, to him, it channeled his beloved coach, Dean Smith.

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah, that’s good. Well, boy, there’s so much there in terms of the garments. And then, well, now as we talk about these athletes, it feels sort of like in terms of, like, ritual and memory and – what is it – embodied cognition.

Mark Gerson
Embodied cognition, that’s a term, yeah. Or enclothed cognition.

Pete Mockaitis
Or, sit in this place or with these things or see these reminders, that’s triggering an emotional, physiological state of being, and some physiological states of being are way more conducive to having smart, creative thoughts that are useful, versus just the opposite.

Mark Gerson
Right. And so, what it teaches, you want to be awesome at your job? What you wear matters. That doesn’t dictate what you should wear, but it does dictate that you should be intentional about what you wear.

Pete Mockaitis
That’s right. Whether it’s your UNC shorts or a sharp orange jacket, whatever it may be.

Mark Gerson
Exactly. And so, why do I wear this orange jacket? Because I co-founded the charity United Hatzalah of Israel, which is the country’s crowdsourced system of volunteer first responders. We have 8,000 volunteers throughout the country. All EMTs are paramedics. And our goal is to get to a 911 call within the 90 seconds that separate life from death. We do about 2,300 calls a day.

Well, orange is our color because orange is the safest color at night. And we have a thousand volunteers on motorcycles, and so we have to have the safest color at night. So, I wear this jacket every day to channel United Hatzalah and the love I have for the organization, the respect I have for the volunteers and the purpose that I have with being the chairman of this great organization.

So, I have one of our board members sold his fabric company, and I asked him to make me an orange jacket, and I did. I started wearing it every day. He said, “Well, you can’t wear the same jacket every day.” So, he made me five of them. And I have our logo right here.

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah, that is perfect. I remember, I got this suit made to my measurements. It felt amazing. It was delightful in terms of, like, how I felt ready for anything.

Mark Gerson
Exactly, yep. Exactly. You totally nailed it, exactly. By wearing that suit, you felt ready for anything and everything. And what the social science suggests is you were probably more awesome at your job because you felt that way, and you felt that way because of what you’re wearing. It’s one of hundreds of great practical life hacks right from the Bible.

Pete Mockaitis
That’s good. Well, Mark, tell me any final things you want to share before we hear about a couple of your favorite things?

Mark Gerson
Well, first, what a great conversation. So, I so appreciate it. But, no, I mean, I’d love to share anything and everything in the book. And “God Was Right” will be out in June. And you talked before about, before you were married, you paid great attention to your clothing.

Well, clothing is a separate chapter, but the Biblical formula for dating, romance, and marriage is totally fascinating and it’s been proven absolutely right by modern social science, and it’s unfortunately not practiced today nearly as much as it should be.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, this is not a dating show but we can’t just let that lie. Mark, can you give us the two-minute version of that we need to know?

Mark Gerson
Okay. Okay. Now I’m so glad you asked. Okay, so, the happiest marriage in the Bible is between Isaac and Rebecca, which leads us to ask, “Well, how did they decide to marry each other?” So, Abraham sends his servant, Eliezer, to find a wife for Isaac. So, Eliezer sees this young woman, and he only knows three things, and this is key, only three things about the young woman.

He knows she’s from Haran, which is important because Abraham had made souls in Haran. He knows she’s very fair to look upon, and she’s exceedingly generous. She brings water for him and all of his camels. On the basis of those three and only three things, Eliezer says, “She’s the woman for my man, Isaac.”

Then this young woman, Rebecca, is given the choice, “Do you want to go with Eliezer and marry Isaac?” She has never met Isaac, but she knows only two things about him. One, that he’s rich, so he’s a good provider, and, two, that he loves God. So, on the basis of knowing only two or three things, they decide to get married.

Then the text tells us in Genesis 24:67, he married her, she became his wife, and he loved her, in that order, teaching us that the Biblical formula for finding your spouse is identify two or three characteristics, no more. Whether his friends are funny, or whether she likes to ski, or go to the beach, they’re not in there.

Identify two or three genuinely important characteristics, and there aren’t that many to choose from, then just get married. Then start doing spouse-like things, probably iterative acts of giving, and then love will follow. The opposite of that is what people in secular society do now, which is they date for years, often the same person for years. eHarmony said the average dating before marriage is 2.6 years.

In the process, they’re looking for all kinds of characteristics which are completely irrelevant to a happy marriage. In so doing, passing up perfectly good people for no good reason and they eventually decide to get married when they fall in love because, as I said in the book, you can’t fall in love. Love is something you have to cultivate. Love is saying it’s intentional.

You might fall on your face, you might fall down, but you don’t fall in love. What the Bible tells us is that love follows commitment. First, they get married, then she became his wife, they’re two different things. So, marriage is obviously a legal process, then becoming a wife is a much more substantial process, iterative acts of giving, and then love follows.

And the social science demonstrates that the Bible, as usual, totally gets it right. So, the lesson for young people is identify two or three characteristics, then just get married, then start doing spouse-like things, and then you’ll experience love.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, if I may, now I’m curious about hiring in terms of do the same principles of having a very short list of critical factors in a candidate apply there too?

Mark Gerson
Yes. As long as those characteristics are the right characteristics, and that’s true in dating too, that two or three characteristics have to be the right characteristics. In hiring, it’s going to be two or three characteristics. And then, of course, you have to do background checks and references and all that.

Pete Mockaitis
May I ask for, I mean, you’ve hired a lot of people in your day, what are your top characteristics?

Mark Gerson
Well, I think one of the underrated characteristics is “What’s the character of the man or woman?”

Pete Mockaitis
Character.

Mark Gerson
Yeah, because if you can find, if you can identify, you can do tests or look to experience for technical capabilities, but you want to work with people of good character. You can trust them when there are, inevitably, adversity and challenges. You can have the confidence that they’re going to stick through it and work through it and be with you. That they’re going to be really concerned about customer problems, they’re going to be really good colleagues. So, yeah, I think character is a very important trait to look for in someone you hire.

Pete Mockaitis
So, character, in a way, can encompass many, many different virtues. Here it sounds like you’re talking about honesty, integrity, and, like, discipline or fortitude. So, when you say character, is that kind of what you mean by that?

Mark Gerson
Yeah, you’re absolutely right. Character is encompassing. It’s honesty, integrity, diligence, rigorousness, taking responsibility.

So, I would say, look for people who have it within their character to take responsibility because problems are going to happen, mistakes are going to be made, and someone who takes responsibility for them, that’s the kind of person that you want to work with.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. And is there another key factor in addition to character?

Mark Gerson
Character, I would say, is the most important thing, and it is the encompassing thing. But also, problem-solving ability and resilience. And I have a chapter in the book on anti-fragility, which the Bible asserts in Exodus. And then modern social science has completely validated it as something that is both possible and very positive for people.

So, in Exodus, we’re told the more they were, talking about the Jews in the early days of the slave experience, the more they were afflicted, the stronger they became. Now, one would normally think the point of afflicting somebody is to weaken them. But the Bible says the more they were afflicted, the stronger they became.

So, teaching us that afflictions can be strengthening and modern social science has totally validated that, for instance, scientists who’ve had their first paper rejected have more successful careers than scientists who had their first paper accepted, so long as they stay in the profession, showing us that these setbacks, these challenges, these rejections can be a real impetus for growth.

So, I think, when looking for someone to hire, when looking for a vendor to work with, that’s a really important thing. What’s going to happen when things go bad? Are they going to take responsibility? Are they going to complain? Are they going to seek a solution? These are not easily detectable in interviews, but it’s something that every employer should consider and try to ascertain as best as he can.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. Well, now could you share with us a favorite quote, something you find inspiring?

Mark Gerson
Well, I’ll just go with my favorite from the Bible, which I think it was Leviticus 19:2, which is very simple, “Be holy.” Holiness is something that’s available to everybody of every faith in every time, at every strata of society. We can all be holy.

And what does that mean? It means that when confronted with the decision to do the right thing. And it’s such an inspiring piece of wisdom from the Bible because it’s telling us that holiness is completely accessible.

Everybody, anybody can be holy, should be holy. We can understand what holiness is because the Bible wouldn’t tell us to be holy if it were inscrutable. So, we can understand what holiness is and we can do it. And it’s just a great piece of Biblical wisdom to live by.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. And a favorite study or experiment or bit of research?

Mark Gerson
So, there was one study in the early 2000s, it’s a fascinating study, which is available for anybody to look up on YouTube, just go to Gorilla Experiment, where you have a bunch of girls throwing a basketball to each other. And then this big guy in a gorilla costume comes in the middle of the game and starts beating his chest. And then he goes off screen. He’s there for like 10 seconds out of the 60.

And then the question is, “How many people noticed there was a gorilla interrupting the game?” And the answer was fewer than half. So, you have this one-minute game of girls throwing the ball, a guy comes in with a gorilla, but because noticing is so hard and so counterintuitive, very few people actually noticed.

Then there was another study out of an Irish insurance company on this that says, “Who are the best drivers?” And this class of people are the best drivers to such an extent that this insurance company, Carole Nash, gives them lower rates. They’re motorcyclists. So, why are motorcyclists the best car drivers?

Well, let’s look at the cause of motorcycle accidents. The bulk of motorcycle accidents are caused by what the traffic experts have named “Look but failed to see.”

In other words, the driver, he looks at the motorcycle in front of him, but he doesn’t see it. So, it’s in his eyesight, the motorcycle, but because he’s not used to seeing motorcycles on the road, because his brain is conditioned only to see cars, he doesn’t actually see the motorcycle right in front of him, he crashes right into it.

So, that’s how important noticing is, is that car drivers very often don’t even notice the motorcyclist right in front of them, even though they can physically see him. That shows how hard noticing is. So, who are the best car drivers? They’re motorcyclists. So, why are they the best car drivers? Because if you’re a motorcyclist, you better be a really good noticer because there are all kinds of perils on the road.

So, motorcyclists become really good noticers and, consequently, they become really good car drivers. And this is the inspiring thing about it, it’s a skill that can be cultivated. The motorcyclists have cultivated the skill of noticing and, consequently, it helps them as car drivers and elsewhere in life.

And then we have to ask, “Well, why is this relevant in my life?” Well, the answer is motorcyclists know. And lots of accidents, and not just car accidents, lots of mistakes that we make in all endeavors of life just come because we’re not noticing things. I mean, maybe you don’t notice that someone in your life is having problems that you can help with. You just don’t notice it. And you just think it’s a normal course of things, but if you notice it, you’d see there’s something different, and you can step in and help that person.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. And a favorite habit, something you do that helps you be awesome at your job?

Mark Gerson
Probably the most important part of my routine is I run six miles a day, I’ve not missed a day in over 20 years. I have an addiction to exercise. I need to run. And I do my Bible study on the treadmill.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. And, Mark, if folks want to learn more or get in touch, where would you point them?

Mark Gerson
They can go to GodWasRight.com or email me at Mark@GodWasRight.com.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. And do you have a final challenge or call to action for folks looking to be awesome at their jobs?

Mark Gerson
Realize that what you’re doing is important. What you’re doing is, if someone is parting with his or her money for a good or service that you’re involved with creating or producing, what you’re doing is really important.

And you should just understand the importance of it and properly define the importance of it, just like we talked about with the hospital custodian who said, “I’m not just cleaning the floors. I’m creating a healthy environment for patients.” And there’s so much wisdom in that hospital custodian. And I think everyone who wants to be awesome at his job and to find meaning and happiness in his work should take that to heart and be like the Biblical Joseph and job craft.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. Mark, this is beautiful. Thank you.

Mark Gerson
Thank you so much, Pete. What a great conversation.