Late-Blooming Success
Rainn Wilson landed the role of Dwight Schrute on The Office after more than a decade of struggling as an actor.
1ReThinking with Adam Grant
Rainn Wilson Explores Meaning, Happiness, and Existential Questions
The actor discusses his late-blooming career, the complexities of success, and insights from philosophy and psychology.
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Sunday Pick: The Office’s Rainn Wilson on meaning and happiness | ReThinking with Adam Grant
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Keep the question moving.
“What specific philosophical insights did Rainn Wilson find most impactful?”
“How does Adam Grant's psychological framework apply to Rainn Wilson's experiences?”
“What are the new problems created by success that Rainn Wilson mentions?”
Background reading
The context behind the episode.
Context
Authors@Wharton Series
This conversation is part of the Authors@Wharton series, featuring a dialogue between Rainn Wilson and organizational psychologist Adam Grant.
3Questions
Questions to carry into the episode.
How did Rainn Wilson's career path lead to his role in The Office?
He was a late bloomer who secured the role of Dwight Schrute after over a decade of struggling as an actor.
1Did success resolve Rainn Wilson's personal challenges?
No, success did not solve all his problems and even created some new ones.
2What disciplines does Wilson explore to understand existential questions?
He explores insights from philosophy, psychology, and the world's great spiritual traditions.
3What additional activities are included in the conversation?
They discuss favorite moments from The Office and engage in improv involving Dunder Mifflin and Dwight.
4Experts
Voices named in the source.
Rainn Wilson
Actor
1Sources and disclosure
Where this guide comes from.
Transcripts for ReThinking are available at go.ted.com/RWAGscripts. Hosted on Acast.
- Publisher show notes
Rainn Wilson was a late bloomer: he landed the role of Dwight Schrute on The Office after over a decade of struggling as an actor.
- Publisher show notes
But success didn’t solve all of his problems -- and it even created some new ones.
- Publisher show notes
In this live conversation for the Authors@Wharton series, Adam asks Rainn about his unlikely journey to stardom and how it led him into exploring the insights that philosophy, psychology, and the world’s great spiritual traditions can offer on modern life’s existential questions.
- Publisher show notes
They also discuss Rainn’s favorite moments from The Office and do some improv when Dunder Mifflin invites a certain organizational psychologist to talk to Dwight.
- Publisher show notes
Transcripts for ReThinking are available at go.ted.com/RWAGscripts
- Publisher show notes
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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