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Actually, having a camera gave me access to people.

They smiled. They let me into their groups when I had a camera in my hand.

Editing it then allowed me to show what I could do and people would

accept me further with that.

Hey everyone, it's Adam Grant. Welcome back to Rethinking, my podcast on the science of what makes us tick with the Ted Audio Collective.

I'm an organizational psychologist and I'm taking you inside the minds of fascinating people to explore new thoughts and new ways of thinking.

My guest today is John M. Chu, the filmmaker behind the smash hit Crazy Rich Asians. He also directed In The Heights and is

helming the movie adaptations of two of my all-time favorite musicals, Wicked

and Joseph in the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat. John's one of the biggest directors in Hollywood today,

but his journey there was full of trial and error.

Every time I did something, everything something bad would happen,

I'd be like, this is going to be a great chapter in my book one day.

And that really helped me see the longer vision of what I was going to do.

Speaking of that book, John recently released his first one. It's called Viewfinder, a memoir of seeing and being seen.

One of the major themes in the book,

and in John's filmmaking, is questioning the status quo. All right,

...