Joe: Lewis, what's the first thing you do when you're facing a massive, overwhelming project? Lewis: Panic. Then, make a very, very detailed plan that I'll inevitably abandon by day two. Joe: Exactly. We're all taught to plan everything down to the last detail. But the book we're talking about today argues that for the world's biggest problems—poverty, climate change, pandemics—the most effective first step is often to jump in, make a mess, and maybe even apologize later. Lewis: I like the apologizing part. That I can do. But jumping in without a plan sounds like a recipe for disaster. Joe: It sounds like it, but it’s the core of Big Bets: How Large-Scale Change Really Happens by Dr. Rajiv J. Shah. And Shah is a fascinating figure to be making this argument. He's the son of Indian immigrants, a doctor and an economist, who ended up running USAID, America's massive foreign aid agency. Lewis: Wow, so he's seen it all from the inside. Joe: He has. And he actually wrote this book during the COVID-19 pandemic, apparently out of a deep frustration. He was watching the wealthiest country in the world, with all its resources, fail so spectacularly and wanted to offer a dose of what he calls 'realistic optimism.' Lewis: 'Realistic optimism.' That sounds like an oxymoron in today's world. I'm intrigued. Where do we even start with an idea that big? Joe: Well, Shah argues that before you can build something new, you have to understand what's holding you back. And for him, the biggest obstacle is a psychological one he calls the 'aspiration trap.'

Lewis: The aspiration trap. It sounds like something I fall into every Monday morning. What does he mean by that? Joe: It’s that feeling of being so overwhelmed by the sheer scale of a problem that you lower your ambitions. You aim for small, manageable, incremental improvements instead of trying to solve the root cause. You end up just tinkering at the edges. Lewis: Okay, but isn't doing something small better than doing nothing at all? At least you're making some progress. Joe: That's the seductive part of the trap. But Shah illustrates this with a really powerful story from his own life, long before he was in charge of anything. In his early twenties, before medical school, he went to India to work with a legendary humanitarian, a man called Dr. H. Lewis: A real-life saint, basically. Joe: Totally. This doctor had dedicated his life to serving the Soliga people in one of India's poorest regions. He'd practically eliminated leprosy there. So Shah's job was to go hut-to-hut in the oppressive heat, checking people for signs of the disease. Lewis: That sounds incredibly noble and difficult. Joe: It was. But what Shah found was that leprosy was now rare because of Dr. H's success. The much bigger problem was hunger. He was finding empty pantries and starving children. The most effective 'treatment' he could offer was a ball of millet paste. And at the end of a long, exhausting day, he'd look at the global statistics—700 million people hungry, millions of children dying from malnutrition—and he felt this profound sense of futility. Lewis: I can see that. He’s saving one person, but a million more are suffering. Joe: Exactly. He deeply respected Dr. H, but he realized he was 'not cut out to be a saint.' He felt like their heroic efforts were just 'alleviating suffering at the edges of an unacceptable status quo.' He was trapped, aspiring only to help the next person in front of him, because the bigger problem felt too massive to even contemplate. That’s the aspiration trap. Lewis: Huh. That’s a powerful way to frame it. But I have to push back a little here, Joe. It's easy for him to say 'think bigger' now that he's the President of the Rockefeller Foundation. That's a criticism I've seen from some readers—that this advice comes from a place of immense privilege. For that young intern in the field, what was the real alternative? He didn't have a billion-dollar endowment. Joe: That is the perfect question, and it's the one that haunted him and drove the rest of his career. The book's answer is that the alternative isn't just having more money; it's about using completely different tools. It’s about realizing that you, as an individual, can't solve it alone. The goal is to build a system, an alliance, so big and so effective that it can. And the tools to build that alliance are often surprisingly human.

Lewis: Okay, so we're moving from the 'why'—escaping the aspiration trap—to the 'how.' What are these surprisingly human tools? Joe: Let's start with a story from the most chaotic environment imaginable: the 2010 Haiti earthquake. A catastrophic event, over 220,000 people dead, the country's government and infrastructure completely flattened. Lewis: I remember the images. It was devastating. Joe: And at the time, Raj Shah was brand new on the job as the head of USAID. He was only 36. He walks into the Oval Office for his first major briefing, and he overhears Vice President Biden whispering to President Obama, 'Are we sure about putting this guy in charge? He's like thirty-something.' Lewis: Oh, that’s brutal. No pressure, right? Joe: Zero pressure. Shah felt completely out of his depth. He knew he couldn't 'own' the problem. So his first move wasn't to create a master plan. It was to ask for help from everyone. He brought in the head of FEMA, military generals, everyone. He created a culture where the only goal was solving the problem in Haiti, not protecting your agency's turf in Washington. Lewis: That makes sense in theory, but inter-agency rivalry is legendary. How did he actually make that happen? Joe: With a simple, symbolic act. Weeks into the crisis, the USAID headquarters was a bustling hub of people from the military, state department, and other agencies, all working on the Haiti response. But to get into the building, all the non-USAID people had to wait in a long line every morning for a temporary security pass, while USAID employees just swiped their badges and walked right in. Lewis: Ah, the classic insiders and outsiders. Joe: Precisely. It was a tiny thing, but it sent a huge message: 'You don't really belong here.' So Shah just asked a simple question: 'Can we just open the turnstiles? Just leave the security gates open for everyone on the response team?' Lewis: And could they? Joe: The security team was hesitant, but they did it. And Shah says it was transformative. It wasn't about saving five minutes in line; it was about sending a crystal-clear signal that we are all one team with one mission. It broke down the 'us vs. them' mentality. He calls this principle 'opening the turnstiles'—radically including everyone and removing any barrier, no matter how small, that gets in the way of collaboration. Lewis: Wow. That's brilliant. It's such a small physical change, but it's a massive cultural one. It’s a metaphor for leadership. Joe: It is. And this idea of human connection works in the complete opposite environment too—not just in a fast-moving crisis, but in the slow, grinding, hyper-partisan world of Washington politics. Lewis: Okay, now I'm skeptical. That feels like a much harder place to 'open the turnstiles.' Joe: For sure. Years later, Shah was trying to get bipartisan support for a massive initiative to fight global hunger. He was a Democratic appointee, and the House was controlled by Republicans who wanted to slash his budget. His initial approach was to hit them with data. He went into a hearing and said, 'Your proposed cuts will lead to seventy thousand kids dying.' Lewis: Oof. I can imagine how well that went over. Joe: It was a disaster. He got called 'tone-deaf' and 'partisan.' He had alienated the very people he needed to persuade. He realized that facts and arguments weren't enough. He had to make it personal. So he went on what he calls an 'apology tour,' meeting with these congressmen one-on-one, not to argue, but to listen and find common ground. Lewis: And did he find it? Joe: He did, often in unexpected ways. He tells this one story about being on a trip in Ethiopia with a group of Republican senators, including a very conservative, very powerful senator from Oklahoma named Jim Inhofe. Their van gets stuck in the mud during a torrential downpour. Lewis: That sounds like the setup for a very awkward road trip movie. Joe: Totally. And Senator Inhofe, who was almost 80 at the time, just barks out, 'Okay, everyone under the age of seventy get out and push.' So you have Shah, the young Democratic appointee, shoulder-to-shoulder in the pouring rain with these old-school Republican senators, all covered in mud, pushing a van together. Lewis: Come on, Joe. You're not really telling me a powerful senator who wanted to gut his budget suddenly became an ally because they pushed a van together? That sounds like a nice story, but politics is brutal. Joe: It does sound a little too good to be true, and Shah admits it wasn't just that one moment. But that moment was the start of a real relationship. It broke the ice. It allowed them to see each other as people, not just political opponents. Shah started attending the Senate's weekly prayer breakfast with these guys. They found a shared moral purpose in the idea of feeding the hungry. And that trust, built over time through these personal connections, is what ultimately allowed them to pass the Global Food Security Act with overwhelming bipartisan support. It was a huge 'big bet' that has lifted over 100 million people out of food insecurity. The mud was just the beginning.

Lewis: Okay, that actually makes a lot of sense. The mud didn't change the policy, but it changed the relationship, which then made the policy possible. Joe: Exactly. And that’s the thread that connects everything in Big Bets. The mindset isn't about being a lone genius with a perfect master plan. It's about having the audacity to aim for a real, fundamental solution—to not get caught in the aspiration trap. Lewis: But it's also about having the humility to know you can't possibly do it alone. Joe: That's the key. It's about building the biggest, most inclusive team you can. It’s about breaking down walls—whether they're physical turnstiles that create an 'us vs. them' culture in a crisis, or the ideological barriers that paralyze our politics. The 'big bet' is ultimately a bet on people. Lewis: It makes you wonder what 'turnstiles' exist in our own workplaces or communities that we just accept as normal. Small things that signal who's an insider and who's an outsider. Joe: That’s a great question. It could be anything from who gets invited to certain meetings, to the jargon a team uses that excludes newcomers, to where people sit in the lunchroom. They seem trivial, but they create the very divisions that prevent real collaboration. Lewis: I'm genuinely curious what our listeners think. What's a small, symbolic barrier in your world that you could remove to foster a better team? A 'turnstile' you could open? Let us know your thoughts on our social channels. It’s a fascinating idea to apply to our own lives. Joe: It really is. It’s a reminder that sometimes the biggest changes start with the smallest acts of inclusion. Lewis: A powerful and, dare I say, optimistic thought to end on. Joe: This is Aibrary, signing off.