Joe Gitchell
My vision is a world where people don't lose years of life because of how they consume nicotine. 

Dr James Murphy
Is there an opportunity to reframe nicotine? 

Joe Gitchell
It is a daunting reality of how prevalent these misperceptions are. It's not just education or communication. I believe we need to have differential policy approaches. 

Dr James Murphy
Do you see any other good examples around the world where you've seen that play out? 

Joe Gitchell
Japan, New Zealand, Sweden, Iceland. 

Dr James Murphy
It's not tobacco harm reduction or tobacco control, it's an and, not an or. Welcome to the Smokeless Word, Live from the Lab. I'm James Murphy, Director of Research and Science at British American Tobacco, and your host for this new series. On the Smokeless Word, hosted by my friend and colleague Kingsley Wheaton, we explore stories of transformation, leadership, and innovation. Live from the Lab, we'll drill deeper into the science behind smokeless products. We'll hear from experts who share our vision of Building a Smokeless World. I'm privileged to lead BAT's incredible team of talented scientists and researchers, and I'm excited to share their work with you. On today's episode, I'm joined by Joe Gitchell, CEO of Pinney Associates. Joe and I will talk about what tobacco harm reduction is really trying to achieve, the remarkable progress some nations have made with smokeless products and the misperceptions around nicotine, and crucially, what we can do to fix them. This podcast is intended for regulators, scientists, policymakers, and investors only. The views expressed in this podcast are the personal opinions of the speaker only. Any references to products having a reduced risk or reduced harm are based on the weight of evidence and assume no continued smoking. This material is not intended for U.S. audiences. Joe, welcome to the podcast. Great to have you here. What do you think of the studio? Oh, it's very nice. Excellent. Great, so to get things going, I'd really like to start talking about your background, especially to hear about, you know, you were a Yale aluminous and a history major. So, what made you pick history, and how did you get to go to Yale? 

Joe Gitchell
Well, I'm probably the most fortunate human you will ever encounter. I chose my parents very wisely, and then got a lot of lucky breaks. We don't have time to cover anywhere near all of them, but I'm just very fortunate. I went to Yale, thinking I was going to be an applied math major, and then I took multi-variable calculus, and that corrected that misunderstanding, and the history department is very strong. Had my best friend was going to be a history major, and I said, "Oh, that looks pretty good." So I can still remember calling my parents following my sophomore year. Oh, I figured out what I'm going to major in. Oh, what's that? History, silence. My father was an orthopaedic surgeon. My mother has a master's in hospital administration. I was like, oh, it's strong department, you know, general, and still silent. I was like, well, I won't be overqualified for any job, and that has borne out. 

Dr James Murphy
Very, very good. I really got their comparison and going from maths to history, but just to dig a little bit deeper. I mean, Yale's like one of the must be one of the best schools in the, in the world. What was it like being there? And in terms of your developments, what were the sort of key learnings you got from that? 

Joe Gitchell
It was a wonderful experience, again, one of the contributions to my good fortune. Just, I think the amazing people that were there, I mean, classes, yes, had to work hard, activities, sure, but just friends, lifelong friends, and so interesting, clever, fun, so that was probably the most important element. 

Dr James Murphy
Was there a very competitive nature? You sort of had to be on your A-game every day, or,

Joe Gitchell
Didn't seem to be an overweening, and certainly not in a competitive sense, in terms of, oh, looking over your shoulder, or, oh, I, you know, I don't want to share my notes, or something like that. But, and certainly, there were people who worked harder, and people who worked less hard, but that, that I don't remember that being a particularly strong thread. 

Dr James Murphy
Okay, very good. More, more of a collaborative environment, then, but you know, you move forward to today, and you're the Chief Executive Officer of a company called Pinney Associates. You know, you're working across a wide variety, you're in pharmaceuticals, you're in consumer health care, you know, you're even advising on alternative tobacco, tobacco harm reduction. Before we get into that, there can you sort of tell us a bit more about about Pinney? 

Joe Gitchell
Sure, so there are about 20 of us, and we have three practice areas. We help pharma companies take prescription medications and switch them to over the counter status, and that's like applied behavioural science, essentially, because the medicine's known, but how it's being used then is changing dramatically. We do regulatory and clinical consulting on CNS-active compounds, so psychedelics, cannabinoids, kratom, and then I spend most of my client-facing time for Juul Labs on tobacco harm minimization, which is the term I prefer, and we can dive into that, but and that's colleagues who are proper scientists, data analysis, and then I spend most of my time on the policy scientific community engagement. 

Dr James Murphy
Fantastic, and so those areas are so relevant for today's discussion, but before we go any deeper on that, there, Joe, not many people get to be CEO, so what's what's that like, and what's, what's a day in the life of Joe Gitchell like? 

Joe Gitchell
So I mentioned I'm very fortunate, and that also includes working with amazing colleagues, long time experienced, savvy, thoughtful, committed, so there are times when my management demands are a little bit higher, but for the most part people like what they do. It's challenging, it's interesting, and I see mostly my job is to enable them to do what they need to do. 

Dr James Murphy
That's really great, you know. If they feel they've got a purpose and they enjoy the work, then they respond in kind. Yeah, 

Joe Gitchell
And they will still like sometimes they know, oh, we better brief Joe in on x, y, or z, and those are challenging, but it, it all seems to work.

Dr James Murphy
Very good, so Joe, we just mentioned there a moment ago about tobacco harm reduction, but before we get on to that, there I want to get your expert view on harm reduction and not being a general public health policy. Can you talk a little bit about defining harm reduction as public health policy? 

Joe Gitchell
I, as I note in my Substack, like my vision is a world where people don't lose years of life because of how they consume nicotine, and the world we live in now is that's the main point. So if we can get to a world where if the people need to or feel they want to, that they are able to consume non-combusted nicotine, and that I believe will greatly improve their health and well-being. And since we have such a burden of smoking-caused disease, that switch has an enormous harm-reducing potential.  

Dr James Murphy
So you reduce risk, but you don't completely eliminate it. Could you reflect not a bit in terms of in the world of tobacco harm reduction? 

Joe Gitchell
Well, and I would say that's why I prefer tobacco harm minimization, and there the goal is I want to minimize any harm, and that includes zero, but it expresses a goal, an objective to try to create as small a burden on health and welfare as possible. And it is, it is a puzzle why those, that concept, that approach, which we use in lots of domains of our lives, it doesn't seem to be afforded the same status in smoking. 

Dr James Murphy
Very good, and I think we can get to that there, get to that there in a moment. But I want to, I know you've published broadly in this area of harm reduction, harm minimization. Can you sort of paint a picture, the types of stakeholders that are involved in that. 

Joe Gitchell
I think it's pretty broad, from academic researchers, policy makers at federal, state, local, international levels, certainly the NGO, health voluntary community, medical professional societies obviously the entire knowledge curation and communication system, the media thought leaders, it's a pretty wide and varied universe.

Dr James Murphy
And in your background, you know, you paint a picture there of like a multitude of stakeholders. Do you have any examples where you see in the world of harm minimization, where you see those stakeholders collaborating or being brought together? 

Joe Gitchell
Hmm, so that's, I would say that's a development opportunity. I don't think there is. There are some signs, that the actual consumers, users of these products, to manufacturers, retailers. There are obviously there's a divide in the research community on how to proceed, and I do think the convenings, the conferences that roll throughout the year, are present kind of natural opportunities for humans to interact directly, and that's a special thing. 

Dr James Murphy
Very good, and then if we sort of then take the next click down and we move from sort of the general policy of harm reduction, harm minimization. I really like this term harm minimisation and apply that there to tobacco. Could you paint simply the picture of sort of what are we really trying to do in this space? 

Joe Gitchell
Well, I think the opportunity is to reduce the toll that smoking tobacco has on populations worldwide. My focus is mostly on the U.S., that's where I'm most familiar. I have had the chance to work when we were consulting for GSK, more work globally when we had worked with Reynolds and then BAT in the past, had some of those opportunities, but my focus really has been on the U.S.. I think this notion of confronting, identifying, and then resolving the trade-offs that the current marketplace embodies, that's really the step that needs to happen.

Dr James Murphy
So you have you have people who are smoking risky cigarettes, and you're trying to, you're trying to switch these consumers to,

Joe Gitchell
Low-risk non-combusted nicotine products.

Dr James Murphy
Correct in terms of tobacco harm reduction, you know, do you see any other good examples around the world where you've seen that play out? 

Joe Gitchell
Well, certainly, yes, the experience in Japan seems to be one where there's been substantial migration away from a conventional cigarette to the heated products. Certainly in New Zealand, that had more of a centrally kind of conceived and plan behind it, where you see the same phenomena. Sweden again more of a ground up than a clear top down approach, Iceland apparently is seeing similar effects, and in the U.S. by age you see tremendous changes in nicotine consumption patterns over these last 10 to 15 years. So the big population level changes are possible, and are happening. The frustration is seeing that it's entirely possible that it could happen even faster and reach people who haven't made those transitions yet. 

Dr James Murphy
You know, it's really, it's fascinating. I really appreciate your global view there. You know, heated products in Japan. You mentioned oral products in Sweden, you know, even in the UK. You know, we've just now got the higher prevalence of people who vape

Joe Gitchell
Stunning!

Dr James Murphy
than smoke. Do you see any threads between any of those examples to give that could be taken as examples of, you know, how we could move things forward in other countries. 

Joe Gitchell
I would like to think so, even in the first instance, would be acknowledging and accepting them as successes, and that seems to be an important block at this point, with the kind of establishment tobacco control perspective not wanting, or not seeming to embrace the progress that those nations have had. 

Dr James Murphy
If we look back, there was the theory of tobacco harm reduction. Then you had countries like Sweden, where smokers switched to snus, and the beneficial population health impacts, and you know we have now a whole body of evidence on these different types of smokers, plus vapour, heating products, etc. But I want to give some balance as well. What will be some of the reasons why stakeholders would not want to accept about harm reduction or minimization, as you say? 

Joe Gitchell
No, either one, that is a really important question. I think that there are reasons that are primarily evidentiary or scientific, and then I think there are reasons that derive from deeply held values or emotional feelings, which is so important to all of us. We all feel, and then we find the reasons that help to justify and support our feeling. It's not any one group that does that, more or less. We all do it. It's just that we may not hold the exact same values, and then those very foundational beliefs literally shape the way we look for evidence, the way we perceive any evidence, and then the way we value and process that evidence. So I think when you have an issue, the consumption of nicotine that has become divisive has become polarized has become moralized. Those are real challenges to the kind of discourse, the kind of bridging differences, the kind of disagreeing constructively that are our collective path for progress as humans. 

Dr James Murphy
And you know, you, you, you speak a lot publicly at conferences, you've published a lot, you talk a lot about collaboration, you talk a lot about bringing people together. Can you, can you give a few suggestions of how you know you would see you could bring differing bodies together in this world of people who are supportive of tobacco harm minimization, maybe people who may be maybe against it. 

Joe Gitchell
Well, so I think that there is a lot of work to do. It feels from my part that with the establishment tobacco control movement really embodying the resistance, the exclusion of anyone with industry ties. Either at conferences, at other convenings, it really complicates the process of even starting a disagreement, let alone progressing it and finding a compromise. There are venues that do allow for everyone to be in the same room, and those are special moments. Shortly, there will be a conference, the Food Drug Law Institute annual conference, that would be an example where people can from all the tribes essentially can gather, and that creates the opportunity for meeting.

Dr James Murphy
And at such a meeting, do you have you experienced in the past like there's the ability to present different evidence to have a dialog trying to come to some, you know, collaborative conclusions. 

Joe Gitchell
Absolutely, the what I would say, that's just the beginning. I would like to think that there will be, because much of this really would need to happen in more private settings, because while public exposure has its place and its values. It may not be as promising for the kind of discussions that would need to be had. And so much of this is trying to establish some level of trust, and we hear about trust in institutions and trust across differences in people, we have a big deficit of trust around this issue. And I don't know another way to improve that than to create relationships between people who wouldn't have expected to be friendly or communicating across those differences.

Dr James Murphy
Excellent, and you know, so I want to take a little another step, another click down. You've got so many wonderful, you know, scientific experts in your organization now. I want to go back to say, like a decade ago, and smoking prevalence in countries 10 years later, as we see more and more promises, smokeless products. Do you see that decline in smoking prevalence having happening any, any faster than it was 10 years ago? What is your, what is your modelling?

Joe Gitchell
So, my sense, and my colleague Floe Foxon, on was the first author on a paper that we published, I think, in 2024 in the Harm Reduction Journal, we're focused on the U.S. using the NHIS data set, so we're repeating cross-sectional survey. What we saw was overall decline, but when you looked at the data by age, you saw much steeper declines in smoking among younger adults, and also much steeper uptake of vaping products. Now, that doesn't prove that one is directly related to the other It does kind of move your priors a little bit to say, well, there seems like there's something there. And in the very oldest population, there's hardly no uptake of vaping products, and almost no decline in smoking prevalence among older people who smoke, which is where the risk is concentrated for people, and that is a huge unmet need. 

Dr James Murphy
I want to shift gears a little bit as well. Then talk about nicotine, and for decades, you know, nicotine within cigarette smoke, and the risks of nicotine probably conflated as per the risks of smoke. But in this new world of smokeless products, and even oral products, is there an opportunity to reframe nicotine? 

Joe Gitchell
So I've used the hashtag on Twitter, Rethink Nicotine, a lot. I still believe that that will be important part of a future where essentially no one smokes, and I really don't know how we get to that place without confronting. I think what's behind your point here is the misperceptions that people have about the relative risks of these products. My colleague, Sooyong Kim, is first author on a paper we have in press, looking at both the path data, most recent available, and trends over time, and it is a daunting reality of how prevalent these misperceptions are. And where that leads me is it's not just education or communication, I believe we need to have differential policy approaches, tax, retail, where you can use it. Those would all need to be brought to bear to be able to help people make better choices about if I'm going to use nicotine, how should I get it.

Dr James Murphy
And you know, on a similar note, Joe, we've conducted, you know, studies in a variety of countries all around the world, and you see a lot of these misperceptions, you know, in terms of nicotine risk profile and the relative risk of smokeless products. Do you have any suggestions around what could be done with these different stakeholder groups to improve that it?

Joe Gitchell
It feels like the starting place is to somehow get an agreement that that extent of misperception is a problem worthy of a public health response. I think that's not a shared truth in this arena. I think some experts who disagree, see the world differently to me are happy, or would say the public is catching up with the data to have hold these beliefs. So I, I'm very optimistic by nature, but I think it's a, it's unfortunately a very daunting challenge we face around that, but I also don't see another way to realize the opportunities without it.

Dr James Murphy
And what I've seen in some markets, some countries around the world, is you can have often like the leading public health body in the, in the country, like, like the NHS is quite clear guidance on vaping and the risk profile of nicotine, but then still, as you go down through, you know, with healthcare providers, doctors, etc. their views then don't seem to be sort of aligned to the National Public Health Authority. Any insights into why you think that may happen, and any way that could be improved? 

Joe Gitchell
So, my I think an important starting place is that as much time and focus and attention that we give to these issues for a GP or a busy healthcare administrator or a health commissioner? This is one of fifty things and the entire kind of cultural belief around nicotine is a polluted one, so again, I, I don't, I can't point to great examples where there has been meaningful progress made on this. It is, it is daunting, but I do believe that if we could get enough of, and I think the UK is as close as an example, New Zealand also has more alignment, even if it's not 100%. But yeah, this is this is not easy.

Dr James Murphy
Yeah, yeah, and then so just just trying to get into the, you know, you talked about there, the fifty things on people's minds, but you know, if we could, if we could migrate smokers to low-risk profile products that's, you know, going to reduce the public health burden, and then you know eventually that will make the lives of the doctors easier. Is there anything then that we can accelerate, accelerate that? 

Joe Gitchell
I mean, I, I, we don't, you don't have a magic wand. I do not. I think it is the hard work of convincing medical societies, the payers of healthcare, whether it's governments or private sector, to embrace this notion that there is a continuum of risk across these products. It's big enough and and important enough that it should be relied upon to reduce the health burden, but that there's a lot of hearts and minds that need to be changed to get to that.

Dr James Murphy
And now let me switch gears again, talk a bit about about regulation, because you've been involved in regulation across a multitude of different industries, and you know the regulation of tobacco nicotine products well. You know, the smokeless products world is a world that's, if you think of things like vaping and heated products in the new nicotine pouches, it's a world that's probably been around for, say, fifteen years. I know snus been around for decades, so it's early on the innovation sort of S curve, and new products are coming in all the time, and sometimes if the, if the regulation doesn't keep up with the innovation and innovation gets stopped, you can often create these sort of grey and black markets. Do you see a problem with that there, and any thoughts about how that could be solved? 

Joe Gitchell
So I think your diagnosis, I know you're not a medical doctor, but I would agree with your diagnosis. When regulation stops being a guide and an enabler of innovation that supports good consumer choices and trust in the products, it then inevitably will lead to those distortions, because the demand from these consumers is going to be there. Clive Bates has written thoughtfully on this. I've tried to do a little bit on my Substack to weigh some of these things out, but for the folks trying to implement regulation, I do believe that absent the kind of higher order agreement, consensus, comfort that we want to see more non combusted products to be in the U.S., it would be authorized and made available to consumers. Until that's seen as a worthy goal, we're going to have this frustration where substantial consumer demand is met by illicit products. 

Dr James Murphy
And do you see any risks there for the consumers if they're using illicit products? 

Joe Gitchell
So I would.. it's a.. it is an important question, and I think that's kind of the point. There's so many questions that were we able to have a market dominated by authorized products, we would have ways to get answers. Now we have a situation where we are worried about just what are the questions, and no real mechanism to derive answers. Except things that take too long and will be too late to be helpful. 

Dr James Murphy
And are the blockages, is it, is it a question of resource, do you think, or is it a question of ideology of evaluating the regulatory submissions? 

Joe Gitchell
So, I, my own belief is that the most important contributor is this lack of society granting permission to a regulator to implement on what their statutory authorities are, and what the emerging evidence shows. I think everyone will say more resources could make things go faster, but I think that alignment, that consensus, or at least that direction is the single most important thing. 

Dr James Murphy
Do you want one of the, one of the things you know, and you touched, you touched on there a bit when you were talking about, you know, consumers and products, and you know there's there's there's many product features that consumers like, you know, things like flavours, for example. If it was up to you, what would be your sort of strategic approach to creating a flavour strategy for a marketplace for smokeless products? 

Joe Gitchell
So I'll pitch my Substack, my first Substack tried to encourage people to engage in the thought process. It starts with, so what is our goal here? My goal is to shrink the market for combustible products. I believe that the non-combusted products, to varying degrees, are substitutes for cigarettes, so I want to use that substitution effect and make those non-combusted products appealing, satisfying, compelling, so there I don't know what the ultimate answer is. It may vary by country or circumstance, but certainly making the non-combusted products more appealing, more attractive is going to be an important part of them being able to displace the cigarettes that the intended consumer is currently using. 

Dr James Murphy
What's what's your view on, you know, ideally what we need for tobacco harm reduction work is that the smokers switch completely and move to these low-risk smokeless products. 

Joe Gitchell
My own view is that there is a lot of variability across people. How long have they smoked? What tight is their relationship to their cigarettes? How does it fit into the rest of their lives? And certainly the available evidence is clear that some people are able to switch fairly quickly, and other people literally take months or even years. I do believe that that just reinforces the need to be able to develop and get authorization or market availability to products that maybe they're stuck, but then there's a new product that comes out that offers some advantage that would then allow them to make that next step. So at some level to be concerned about that period of dual use, part of responding to that is addressing the misperceptions that people hold. There's published evidence on the what seems to indicate the importance of that, and to want to have new products to offer and entice those people to make that complete switch. Have you, do you have markets where you think that's working better or worse since you have such a global scope? 

Dr James Murphy
Yeah, I think you know one thing, it's you know we have businesses, you know, obviously in Europe, Asia, etc. and we have businesses, you know, in the United States, and what I see today is the world sort of lives on a couple of different domains. We have markets today where we've over 80% of the value of the company is in smokeless products, you know, the sort of the Sweden's of the world. Then we have markets where you've over 50% of the company is in smokeless products, you know, so Japan, UK, etc. etc. Then there's a whole lot of products who are, but are countries, sorry, who are a bit early in their journey, around the 20 to 30%. And then there's there's markets where you can't legally sell smokeless products, so we're still, we're not able to sell any, any products there. So the thing with the world is, it's, it's not a sort of a black or white situation, it's like a spectrum. But what I, what I do think is that when, when sort of the regulators permit these products, when the manufacturers produce the products, if society supports these products, and consumers want these products, if all those four things can come together, you can very quickly reduce smoking prevalence as people will switch to these products. 

Joe Gitchell
So and that's one of my.. when I'm in discussions with people, well, how fast could this happen? And one, my argument, without a lot of evidence, though I'm encouraged to hear this, is I believe, that it could actually happen very quickly. Most people who smoke would prefer not to smoke. So you have this latent energy that, if untapped by the right product choice, the right setting, the right encouragement from a friend or a family member, like we could really activate that in a way that could be dramatically helpful. 

Dr James Murphy
You know, when we, we were first drafting, and you know, the Omni, which was, you know, as BAT's manifesto for a Smokeless World. But we went right back to the start to see a sort of around 2010 and before the volume of cigarettes that was sold, and this was World Health Organization data, was pretty stable. Now I know population increases, but it was pretty stable, the volume of cigarettes this is being sold annually. But from 2012 to the current day there was about a 25% reduction, so upon the introduction of smokeless products, that decline was really significant. 

Joe Gitchell
Now, to be more comprehensive, there's obviously lots of tools that are driving down those numbers, including the empower tools of the establishment tobacco control, and I think part of the opportunity of offering non-combusted alternatives is to make those policy approaches actually derive more benefit. A tax increase on cigarettes in the presence of a adequate substitute, you'll get more switching, more reductions in smoking than you would in the absence of that substitute. So these could be very complementary if the alignment around a goal of we need to end the use of a combustible cigarette as soon as possible. 

Dr James Murphy
Yeah, and I think you know what you've been describing there for me is really what happened in Sweden, where you had a risk proportionate regulation with cigarettes at the high end and oral products at the low end, and I think going back to your earlier point about collaboration and dialog and seeing from other people's perspectives, I agree with you. It's not tobacco harm reduction "or" tobacco control, it's an "and", not an "or". Joe, it's, before I get it, I always let people ask me a question, but just before I get to that, there, I think it's been a great conversation, starting with, you know, your time at Yale, you know, moving into

Joe Gitchell
It's a long time ago, I'm old, 

Dr James Murphy
Oh, come on, you're only a young man! All your work across these different domains, it's been, it's been great insights. I do have a few quick fire questions, but before I get that, there, I don't know if you had a had a question for me?

Joe Gitchell
I will pose a question to you, so what would you, where do you look if you're like, I need a booster, I need a reason to like recharge batteries, like, because you face business decisions, you face research prioritization decisions, interactions with regulators? Do you have either a consistent, like almost.. if we're bringing up, we weren't before, but we are now Tolkien. I don't know if you're a Tolkien fan, but like the Phial of Galadriel, right? Like, do you have one of those in your that you carry with you? 

Dr James Murphy
There are two parts to that question. It's a lovely question. Thank you. I think in the first thing, the reason why I joined the tobacco industry, I walked through the doors of the research and development department, and this was back in 2005 when we only sold cigarettes then. And it was that, you know, we aspire to be the first company to produce a tobacco product that would over time be recognized by public health as reduced risk. And you know, my family smoked, I, my, you know, I knew so many people who smoked, and I sort of thought I would like to go in there and help solve that problem rather than stand the outside and say that's somebody else's problem. And what I've learned over the last 20 years is, and it's not, it's not just me, and working in the industry here could be any person for any role. It's great to be in a job where you have both rewards that you can have to afford your life, and purpose, and I think that's truly, truly, truly wonderful. So, in those moments where I'm a bit tired and stressed, etc. I think back to the purpose. But that the Phial of Galadriel, I don't particularly have it there, but I've got my lovely little dog, Killian, who I love so dearly, and I love taking him for walks, and we go off in these lovely forest walks and stuff, and I find that just completely re-bases me.  

Joe Gitchell
Fantastic, very good. 

Dr James Murphy
Now to you for these quick fire questions. So, Joe, your hero. 

Joe Gitchell
Oh, my hero. 

Dr James Murphy
These are more difficult than the other questions 

Joe Gitchell
You are making me think. Think, like, as a young person, I read, like, a Landmark history book about Nelson, and so I like his, like, sense of commitment and sacrifice, I always found motivating and compelling. 

Dr James Murphy
Very good. I got off your bio, you were a member of the Yale Golf Club, so I'm assuming a little bit of golf knowledge. So, as an Irishman, Rory McIlroy or Scotty Scheffler, 

Joe Gitchell
I'm a.. I like Rory, as I've never met him, and but everything about him seems like, like he's such a competitor, so capable, and he seems to have a lot of joy in his life, and I think that's wonderful. 

Dr James Murphy
And he's like a fine wine, he seems to be hitting a great vein of form. 

Joe Gitchell
It's hard to age out of golf, that's what I keep telling myself.

Dr James Murphy
A surprising fact that people may not know about you?

Joe Gitchell
Well, so I did. As a young person, I trained ballet and jazz, and I was not good, but in dance, if you're a male, you don't have to be good. 

Dr James Murphy
So you did a lot of lifting and all this sort of.. 

Joe Gitchell
Well, a little bit of that, but stand around, not get in the way, but that was such a wonderful experience, and you wouldn't look at me and say, "Oh, he seems to have the natural grace of a ballet dancer." No.

Dr James Murphy
Very good. Your favourite thing to do on a day off?

Joe Gitchell
So I have two dogs, do adore them, and love walking them. I love doing chores around the house. I know I'm definitely coming off as a captivating, oh Joe, why don't you have a 24 hour cam going? No, I do. I love doing stuff around the house. Family is fun. I love comedy. I have so much admiration for comedians. I think their art is just incredible. Yeah, I'm.. I obviously have answers to that. 

Dr James Murphy
Yeah, the finest form of communication, they say comedians.. 

Joe Gitchell
Oh, I would.. I think it is such. if. if we start to lose comedy, we will, that is like a canary in the coal mine, I think. 

Dr James Murphy
I 100% agree with you, and Joe, I was a bit nervous for asking this question, because you're probably the most well-read man I've ever met, but your favourite book?

Joe Gitchell
oh, that's. that is tough, so I, I do have an answer, and I would say it's Jonathan Haidt's 2012, The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion. Okay, it is. It really changed the way I look at my relationships with friends, with colleagues, and my work, and I would commend people to read it. It's very engaging, it's long, but very engaging. 

Dr James Murphy
That must be an author's dream. If somebody reads their book and changes their behaviour, you know.. 

Joe Gitchell
Well, I don't know that it worked. At least it changed the way I think about, but yes, just hugely fascinating, and I think very helpful in our, in our struggles. Since righteousness becomes part of the way any group starts to see itself and what it values. 

Dr James Murphy
Fantastic. Okay, Joe. Last question, favourite movie?

Joe Gitchell
So I have lots of favourite movies, Talladega Nights, Tropic Thunder, but most recently I am a very big fan of K-pop Demon Hunters. 

Dr James Murphy
Wow!

Joe Gitchell
And yes, it's animated, yes, it seems to be appealing to a younger demographic, but it is funny, it has action, it has tension, good versus evil, or is it? And loyalty, friendship, sacrifice, it has tons of stuff, and the music is outstanding.

Dr James Murphy
Fantastic. Joe, thank you so much for coming on the podcast today. It was great having you. Great talking to you. Thank you very much.  

Joe Gitchell
Thanks for the opportunity, James. 

Dr James Murphy
Thank you. Bye.

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