WEBVTT - What IS Courage? (Like Actually) | Professor Cynthia Pury - 908 0:00:01.680 --> 0:00:03.840 She said, it's now never. 0:00:04.760 --> 0:00:07.480 I got fighting in my blood. 0:00:09.039 --> 0:00:09.639 I'm tiff. 0:00:10.200 --> 0:00:13.240 This is Roll with the Punches and we're turning life's 0:00:13.280 --> 0:00:17.640 hardest hits into wins. Nobody wants to go to court, 0:00:18.280 --> 0:00:21.400 and don't. My friends are test Art Family Lawyers. Know 0:00:21.600 --> 0:00:25.919 that they offer all forms of alternative dispute resolution. Their 0:00:25.960 --> 0:00:29.640 team of Melbourne family lawyers have extensive experience in all 0:00:29.680 --> 0:00:32.960 areas of family law to facto and same sex couples, 0:00:33.159 --> 0:00:37.280 custody and children, family violence and intervention orders, property settlements 0:00:37.360 --> 0:00:41.720 and financial agreements. Test Art is in your corner, so 0:00:41.840 --> 0:00:45.440 reach out to Mark and the team at www dot 0:00:45.800 --> 0:00:49.199 test Artfamilylawyers dot com dot au. 0:00:51.479 --> 0:00:54.120 See Perry, welcome to Roll with the Punches. Thank you, 0:00:54.200 --> 0:00:55.319 thank you, thank you, thank you. 0:00:55.960 --> 0:00:57.960 I thought i'd open the door for the listeners to 0:00:58.000 --> 0:01:00.200 come in because we've gotten online and we've been chat 0:01:00.280 --> 0:01:02.640 chat chat chat chatting, and I'm loving it already, and 0:01:02.680 --> 0:01:03.280 I was like, oh. 0:01:03.200 --> 0:01:08.959 We probably should do a podcast. Yeah, definitely, definitely. How 0:01:09.400 --> 0:01:10.600 are you over there? 0:01:10.600 --> 0:01:10.679 In? 0:01:10.840 --> 0:01:14.560 Was it Norville, South Carolina? South Carolina? See, I'm pretty 0:01:14.560 --> 0:01:16.760 proud that I could remember that already. I am. I 0:01:16.800 --> 0:01:22.920 am impressed. I don't know places in Australia at all. 0:01:23.000 --> 0:01:23.959 So you're ahead of me. 0:01:26.040 --> 0:01:27.520 Film and that's the only one you need to know, 0:01:27.520 --> 0:01:28.760 and that's the coolest place to be. 0:01:31.280 --> 0:01:32.560 There you go, Box, There you go. 0:01:33.240 --> 0:01:36.000 I've been really excited to talk to you because I've 0:01:36.040 --> 0:01:39.880 been thinking and talking and obsessing a lot and starting 0:01:39.920 --> 0:01:46.120 to get really into the psychology and concept of courage. 0:01:46.200 --> 0:01:48.120 Resilience was a bit of a rant that I was 0:01:48.200 --> 0:01:51.800 going on, but it seems to be intersecting for me 0:01:52.240 --> 0:01:56.080 with courage, and I'm developing a real interest in I 0:01:56.240 --> 0:02:00.720 like to take the simple memes and if you don't 0:02:00.760 --> 0:02:05.559 mind me swearing bullshit and las answers and magic pills 0:02:05.600 --> 0:02:08.440 out there, that is people saying I can be resilient, 0:02:08.520 --> 0:02:11.120 do hard work? Do these do that be five seconds 0:02:11.160 --> 0:02:13.800 of courage with no context. I'm like, well, five seconds 0:02:13.840 --> 0:02:16.280 of courage. It's all well and good, but what the 0:02:16.320 --> 0:02:16.960 fuck is that? 0:02:17.840 --> 0:02:20.120 Yeah? And how do you and how do you get there? 0:02:20.880 --> 0:02:24.160 You know, it's it's you know, it's one thing to 0:02:24.240 --> 0:02:27.920 say like I can recognize it when it's happening, versus 0:02:27.919 --> 0:02:29.800 it's another thing to be like, I'm going to go 0:02:29.880 --> 0:02:33.679 do this thing now. And that's a that's a very 0:02:33.720 --> 0:02:41.359 different experience and they In our research, we're finding that 0:02:41.440 --> 0:02:45.680 there there's a difference between whether you're going to take 0:02:45.720 --> 0:02:48.680 a courageous action and whether you're going to call something 0:02:48.760 --> 0:02:51.359 that you're seeing or even that you see in yourself 0:02:51.400 --> 0:02:57.520 in the past, courageous. So in my theory, all of 0:02:57.639 --> 0:03:02.200 courage comes down to taking a worthwhile risk. So it's 0:03:03.560 --> 0:03:06.320 a situation where a person is aware of some kind 0:03:06.360 --> 0:03:09.240 of a risk. There's a thing a person wants to do, 0:03:09.639 --> 0:03:11.400 and there's some kind of a risk they have to 0:03:11.440 --> 0:03:15.640 take to do the thing. The question is is it worthwhile? 0:03:15.760 --> 0:03:17.600 Is it worth doing? And you have to add the 0:03:17.600 --> 0:03:21.160 worthwhile part to it because otherwise you end up with 0:03:21.200 --> 0:03:26.079 situations where people doing some ridiculous TikTok challenge is courageous 0:03:26.240 --> 0:03:32.480 and it's like thank you, not really, not really, And 0:03:34.120 --> 0:03:38.160 the people are more likely to say something's courageous and 0:03:38.280 --> 0:03:42.240 more likely to do the courageous thing when the goal 0:03:43.000 --> 0:03:47.440 is very clearly worthwhile, is very clearly important to you, 0:03:47.760 --> 0:03:52.360 or good or valuable or societally lauded or something like that, 0:03:53.400 --> 0:03:58.280 but the risk runs the opposite direction in the two 0:03:58.320 --> 0:04:02.680 different forms, the higher the perceived risk, the more likely 0:04:02.760 --> 0:04:05.680 you are to say the action is courageous up to 0:04:05.720 --> 0:04:08.240 a point where the risk overwhelms how good the goal is. 0:04:10.040 --> 0:04:13.320 But the more risky something is, the less likely you 0:04:13.400 --> 0:04:19.159 are to actually do it. So we call the two 0:04:19.160 --> 0:04:22.200 different kinds of courage accolade courage and process courage. So 0:04:22.279 --> 0:04:26.160 accolade courage is calling the thing courageous. Process courage is 0:04:26.200 --> 0:04:31.720 do you do the thing. Accolade courage is increased when 0:04:32.080 --> 0:04:34.960 the action seems riskier or when you build up the risk, 0:04:35.600 --> 0:04:39.640 and process courage is decreased when you build up the risk. 0:04:41.760 --> 0:04:46.320 So it's already so yeah. So a really great example 0:04:46.360 --> 0:04:49.520 of that is I saw a thing online the other 0:04:49.600 --> 0:04:52.880 day that Monty Python in The Holy Grail is fifty 0:04:52.960 --> 0:04:55.359 years old, and if your listeners are familiar with that 0:04:55.440 --> 0:04:57.760 movie at all, there's a character in it named Sir Robin. 0:04:58.440 --> 0:05:01.400 And not to give away too many spoilers or anything, 0:05:01.440 --> 0:05:03.960 it's a delightful old movie if you have a chance 0:05:04.000 --> 0:05:10.760 to see it. But this Sir Robin character is one 0:05:10.760 --> 0:05:13.120 of the knights who's seeking the Holy Grail, and he 0:05:13.240 --> 0:05:17.280 has a minstrel who follows after him talking about brave, brave, brave, 0:05:17.320 --> 0:05:21.400 Sir Robin. But Sir Rabin's minstrel just follows him around 0:05:21.440 --> 0:05:23.640 talking about how he's not afraid to be killed in 0:05:23.720 --> 0:05:27.360 nasty ways, and then proceeds to delineate all the nasty 0:05:27.400 --> 0:05:29.280 ways in which Sir Robin might die. And of course 0:05:29.279 --> 0:05:32.800 Sir Robyn does not find this encouraging and chickens out. 0:05:34.160 --> 0:05:39.200 And it is a peak professional moment for me that 0:05:39.279 --> 0:05:44.320 I'm able to quote Monty Python in professional settings. So 0:05:45.120 --> 0:05:51.640 you know, life goal achieved, but there is it's funny 0:05:51.680 --> 0:05:55.400 because there's some truth to it. So if you are 0:05:55.640 --> 0:05:59.560 telling someone I see you have a you have a 0:05:59.600 --> 0:06:01.839 boxing career, yes, yes. 0:06:01.720 --> 0:06:04.600 Yeah, yeah, yes, my background he's boxing, yeah yeah. 0:06:04.640 --> 0:06:09.400 So if if I'm your coach and I'm going to say, Tiff, 0:06:09.640 --> 0:06:13.680 you're super super brave for going up against her. She 0:06:13.880 --> 0:06:17.920 is so tough, you know, the last person she put, 0:06:17.920 --> 0:06:21.200 the last person in a hospital, You're so freaking brave 0:06:21.279 --> 0:06:24.760 to go in there. Like, that's not really the pep 0:06:24.800 --> 0:06:28.320 talk that you need. You need the pep talk of 0:06:28.480 --> 0:06:32.240 you've got this right, You've got this, Your training's going 0:06:32.320 --> 0:06:35.720 to kick in, you know, get her do this. You know, 0:06:35.880 --> 0:06:39.719 here's some professional technical advice that I have for you, 0:06:40.200 --> 0:06:42.599 based on my knowledge of boxing, which for me is nothing. 0:06:42.640 --> 0:06:47.839 But you know, here's what you want to do that's 0:06:47.880 --> 0:06:50.960 going to be helpful. It's in the it might be 0:06:51.160 --> 0:06:54.160 helpful at the end. It might make you feel good 0:06:54.200 --> 0:06:56.400 at the end if I say, wow, you were so 0:06:56.600 --> 0:07:01.000 brave in there. But if I if I lead with 0:07:01.160 --> 0:07:03.400 that before you go into the ring, you're going to 0:07:03.440 --> 0:07:06.200 be like, well, I don't want to know how tough 0:07:06.240 --> 0:07:08.760 she is. I don't want to know that she's probably 0:07:08.800 --> 0:07:10.360 going to briecklay nose. I don't want to know that 0:07:10.480 --> 0:07:11.400 right now. Thanks. 0:07:12.360 --> 0:07:16.560 So, yeah, it's like you've listened in on some of 0:07:16.640 --> 0:07:18.800 I've got a brutal boxing coach. 0:07:18.960 --> 0:07:21.960 I'm not fighting anymore. But like one of one of 0:07:22.040 --> 0:07:22.840 the last. 0:07:24.080 --> 0:07:25.800 Times I was fighting under him, and i'd had a 0:07:25.800 --> 0:07:27.920 break and I was coming back, and the pep talk 0:07:28.000 --> 0:07:31.200 that day was so you're fighting and I'd had I'd 0:07:31.200 --> 0:07:34.600 had bugger all training. I was like, I'd gone in 0:07:34.680 --> 0:07:36.680 and I said, I want to start training, but I 0:07:36.720 --> 0:07:39.720 can't fight because I'm about to open two brand. 0:07:39.400 --> 0:07:41.480 New gyms, so I'm very busy. 0:07:42.160 --> 0:07:44.840 And that went from I walked in at week three 0:07:44.880 --> 0:07:47.280 and he goes, you're fighting on whatever whatever I've made 0:07:47.320 --> 0:07:50.559 and I was like, okay, right, so that's how he rolls, 0:07:50.720 --> 0:07:54.120 and that was that was his tact was you're fighting it, 0:07:54.240 --> 0:07:57.360 you're fighting an ex Commonwealth Games Chicken. I'm like, and 0:07:57.400 --> 0:07:59.360 I never but I wouldn't know. I was like, you 0:07:59.440 --> 0:08:01.080 do everything to get a rise out of me. I 0:08:01.080 --> 0:08:02.600 don't know whether that's true or not. 0:08:04.280 --> 0:08:08.200 Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah yeah. But it's not building 0:08:08.320 --> 0:08:12.560 up how incredibly risky this is. It's instead like I 0:08:13.240 --> 0:08:15.880 hear you say that, and I mean I wasn't there, 0:08:15.920 --> 0:08:17.640 but I hear you say that, and it sounds like 0:08:17.680 --> 0:08:20.040 it's the sort of thing that's meant to be motivating, 0:08:20.200 --> 0:08:25.800 Like I have faith that you can do this. Yeah yeah, 0:08:26.000 --> 0:08:27.920 yeah yeah. 0:08:27.960 --> 0:08:32.120 My curiosity I think first started around this area when 0:08:32.200 --> 0:08:34.000 so I was twenty nine, when I had my first fight, 0:08:34.040 --> 0:08:35.120 and I was a bit of a gung ho. 0:08:35.240 --> 0:08:36.680 Oh yeah, oh do this look at me? 0:08:36.880 --> 0:08:40.320 And I had this facade of look at like of 0:08:40.360 --> 0:08:44.200 who I was at the time, with a fair lack 0:08:44.240 --> 0:08:47.079 of self awareness that I now have when I reflect back, 0:08:47.480 --> 0:08:49.320 and so I look at now, I look back at 0:08:49.320 --> 0:08:51.880 that and I go, that was a girl who was 0:08:51.920 --> 0:08:57.040 doing everything that she could to do the things that 0:08:57.240 --> 0:09:00.400 other people were scared of and called and curR and 0:09:00.440 --> 0:09:01.400 believed it was courage. 0:09:01.400 --> 0:09:02.400 I'm like, oh, people are. 0:09:02.280 --> 0:09:05.640 Scared of this pool And it was only the penny 0:09:05.720 --> 0:09:08.120 only dropped when people kept asking are you're scared of 0:09:08.120 --> 0:09:10.360 being punched in the face? That's crazy? And I was like, 0:09:10.400 --> 0:09:12.560 that's a bit crazy. I'm not really scared of that. 0:09:12.920 --> 0:09:16.079 What am I scared of? And then it's like, okay, well, 0:09:16.120 --> 0:09:20.120 what is courage if it's because because we paint pictures 0:09:20.160 --> 0:09:23.839 of courage and then we believe it and it's not true. 0:09:24.040 --> 0:09:26.800 And also it can be reckless. 0:09:27.480 --> 0:09:30.319 Yes, yeah, and I think and that's that's where the 0:09:30.360 --> 0:09:35.720 worthwhile goal comes in. And so if you imagine two 0:09:35.800 --> 0:09:39.000 people running into a burning building to save a baby, 0:09:39.559 --> 0:09:46.160 so that's a really good goal, right, and one person 0:09:46.760 --> 0:09:49.400 is really afraid to run into that burning building and 0:09:49.440 --> 0:09:51.559 the other person's a little less afraid to run into 0:09:51.640 --> 0:09:57.760 that building. They both are heroes, and they both are 0:09:58.040 --> 0:10:02.079 are are lauded as being courageous, even though it kind 0:10:02.120 --> 0:10:04.120 of took more for the one person to do it 0:10:04.160 --> 0:10:10.120 than the other. And there's some of the early research 0:10:10.160 --> 0:10:14.920 in psychology by Jack Rafman on courage looked at the 0:10:15.960 --> 0:10:20.400 fear proneness of people who were decorated bomb disposal operators 0:10:20.920 --> 0:10:24.000 and found that they were not they experienced less fear 0:10:24.200 --> 0:10:27.120 than other people, and so he's like, well, maybe they're 0:10:27.160 --> 0:10:31.240 not courageous, maybe they're fearless. And I'm like, I don't know. 0:10:31.280 --> 0:10:35.840 I feel like that's not how we talk about it, 0:10:36.000 --> 0:10:39.000 and that's not how we think about it as a society. 0:10:42.240 --> 0:10:44.360 And that got me headed down the road of thinking 0:10:44.440 --> 0:10:47.000 about like this difference between what it takes to do 0:10:47.080 --> 0:10:50.520 the action and what the action and how it looks 0:10:50.559 --> 0:10:56.480 to the outside. And there are some situations in which 0:10:56.600 --> 0:11:00.000 someone can be incredibly courageous, but it's really only career, 0:11:00.160 --> 0:11:03.600 just just for them. So any sort of like personal 0:11:03.640 --> 0:11:08.640 fear that you have that's more specific to you is 0:11:08.720 --> 0:11:13.440 going to take more accolade courage for you to do. Now, 0:11:13.520 --> 0:11:16.040 does that mean that I think you deserve a metal 0:11:16.080 --> 0:11:20.720 for it? Not necessarily, but maybe just within your own self, 0:11:20.760 --> 0:11:23.760 you can be like, oh, I was really afraid to 0:11:24.640 --> 0:11:26.720 speak in public, or I was really afraid to ask 0:11:26.720 --> 0:11:28.600 for a raise, or I was really afraid to ask 0:11:28.640 --> 0:11:32.960 out this person, or I was really afraid to I 0:11:33.000 --> 0:11:35.600 was really afraid to go up in a high place, 0:11:35.840 --> 0:11:39.000 or some sort of thing like that, and we kind 0:11:39.040 --> 0:11:43.520 of neglect those. I think the other thing with the 0:11:43.520 --> 0:11:49.560 burning building example is that it has to be for 0:11:49.960 --> 0:11:55.559 a good reason. And so if there's two people again 0:11:55.600 --> 0:11:57.840 in the burn unit, they ran into a burning building, 0:11:58.360 --> 0:12:02.520 let's pretend they're equally afraid. This time the one person 0:12:02.600 --> 0:12:04.719 ran into, say a baby, but the other person ran 0:12:04.760 --> 0:12:07.840 into make a TikTok video. Like that other person's just 0:12:07.880 --> 0:12:10.959 an idiot, right, most of us think that other person's 0:12:11.080 --> 0:12:16.360 just an idiot. But I guess I could see where 0:12:16.800 --> 0:12:19.280 you know, that person might be thinking, oh, I'm pursuing 0:12:19.320 --> 0:12:27.360 this super important thing, and but yeah, our view of 0:12:27.400 --> 0:12:30.080 what the risk of what the both the risk and 0:12:30.160 --> 0:12:31.720 the goal is matters a lot. 0:12:33.559 --> 0:12:37.840 What do you think about I feel like everyone wants 0:12:37.880 --> 0:12:44.040 to wear the courage badge but also be feearless, and 0:12:44.080 --> 0:12:45.839 they talk about it like it's the same thing. I 0:12:45.880 --> 0:12:48.720 want to be fearless, which I don't want to feel 0:12:48.720 --> 0:12:52.280 fear but I want to do I want to be courageous. 0:12:52.920 --> 0:12:57.800 I yes, Well, some people think that and other people 0:12:58.040 --> 0:13:02.760 kind of lean into the I am going to exhibit 0:13:02.840 --> 0:13:06.040 personal growth by doing one thing per year that scares me, 0:13:06.679 --> 0:13:09.800 and I have encountered people who have said that to 0:13:09.920 --> 0:13:14.200 me that I teach improv and and people take the 0:13:14.240 --> 0:13:17.520 intro improv class and they'll be like, I'm doing this 0:13:17.600 --> 0:13:21.520 because it scares me. I'm doing one challenge per month 0:13:22.080 --> 0:13:25.000 or whatever, and I'm like, great, come on in, We're 0:13:25.040 --> 0:13:31.360 happy to have you. But it's it's a There's a 0:13:31.440 --> 0:13:36.079 famous book in the US that a ton of i 0:13:36.240 --> 0:13:39.160 think middle school basically kids have to read called The 0:13:39.160 --> 0:13:42.880 Red Badge of Courage, which spoiler is about a soldier 0:13:43.200 --> 0:13:46.240 who's excited for the war because he gets to prove 0:13:46.280 --> 0:13:48.440 he's courageous and then he finds out that that sucks 0:13:50.840 --> 0:13:57.840 and that's the Uh. It's kind of like so it's 0:13:58.360 --> 0:14:01.800 I think you'd get like these weird extremes, and I 0:14:01.800 --> 0:14:04.000 think people don't know what to do with the fear 0:14:04.080 --> 0:14:05.880 sort of thing and courage, and so to me, it's 0:14:05.920 --> 0:14:09.800 easier to just talk about it as risk rather than fear. 0:14:10.280 --> 0:14:12.360 So you have to think that it's some kind of 0:14:12.400 --> 0:14:16.000 a risk, whether you focus on that risk or not. 0:14:17.600 --> 0:14:20.640 If there's absolutely no risk, I don't think people would 0:14:20.760 --> 0:14:23.120 necessarily think that it was courage, but I think that 0:14:23.160 --> 0:14:26.320 they could see how other people could see it. As courage. 0:14:26.760 --> 0:14:32.880 So I had an interesting discussion once with somebody who, Oh, 0:14:32.920 --> 0:14:35.320 my gosh, what kind of a He was some sort 0:14:35.320 --> 0:14:39.960 of a surgeon type person who did what I'd consider 0:14:40.120 --> 0:14:42.800 like scary operations. Plus I've got a little bit of 0:14:42.800 --> 0:14:48.200 that ill factor for blood, and so for me his job, 0:14:48.240 --> 0:14:51.480 I'm like, oh, no, I would be horrified if I 0:14:51.520 --> 0:14:53.840 had to do your job. But I was telling him 0:14:53.960 --> 0:14:57.400 something about my class that I was teaching that morning, 0:14:58.280 --> 0:15:00.360 and somehow it came up that there were like three 0:15:00.440 --> 0:15:02.760 hundred people in the class, and he's like, how do 0:15:02.840 --> 0:15:05.920 you do that? You know? And I think we were 0:15:05.920 --> 0:15:09.320 both like, thinking, how do you do that? That's you know, wow, 0:15:09.400 --> 0:15:17.960 I couldn't do that. So it depends on courage. I often, 0:15:18.120 --> 0:15:22.160 really often get asked a question about courageous people, and 0:15:22.400 --> 0:15:26.400 I the longer I do this, the harder I push 0:15:26.520 --> 0:15:29.880 back against thinking about courageous people just as a whole, 0:15:30.520 --> 0:15:34.960 because I think we all move through the world with 0:15:35.120 --> 0:15:39.920 our own sense of what's risky for us, what seems risky, 0:15:40.440 --> 0:15:42.440 what we may have a fear response to, or we 0:15:42.560 --> 0:15:47.880 might just think to ourselves that's risky, and or even 0:15:48.000 --> 0:15:51.920 just that's very hard for me to do well, and 0:15:52.040 --> 0:15:56.400 we all have our own goals that we're pursuing, and 0:15:56.440 --> 0:16:01.640 we often end up with situation so that the things 0:16:01.640 --> 0:16:04.880 that are held up as as sort of peak courage, 0:16:04.920 --> 0:16:12.320 that there are monuments to for courage are almost always 0:16:12.400 --> 0:16:19.760 situations in which the society that puts up that monument 0:16:21.040 --> 0:16:26.160 thinks that interprets the goal of whatever the action is 0:16:26.160 --> 0:16:30.720 is really good as a worthwhile, valuable one, and interprets 0:16:30.920 --> 0:16:35.160 the situation as having a lot of risk for that person. 0:16:36.200 --> 0:16:42.040 So we have monuments to fallen heroes, especially who died 0:16:42.120 --> 0:16:46.880 in service of their country, and we have monuments to 0:16:49.040 --> 0:16:53.720 great leaders who risk things that are considered societally appropriate. 0:16:54.160 --> 0:17:00.000 In the US, we had a lot of things happen 0:17:00.040 --> 0:17:02.720 and where monuments were taken down to causes that people 0:17:02.760 --> 0:17:06.120 no longer believe in, and monuments put up to other 0:17:06.480 --> 0:17:12.160 and it's a huge especially with civil rights stuff. It's 0:17:12.240 --> 0:17:16.760 been a civil rights versus civil war, which interestingly I'm 0:17:16.800 --> 0:17:20.040 only connecting now have exactly the same start to them 0:17:20.080 --> 0:17:28.680 of civil But the rhetoric around that has been absolutely 0:17:28.720 --> 0:17:33.879 fascinating and I think really gets at what a society, 0:17:34.800 --> 0:17:36.919 or at least the loudest people in a society are 0:17:37.000 --> 0:17:42.840 valuing at any given time, or the richest people or 0:17:42.880 --> 0:17:45.120 the people who own the land who put up the monument, 0:17:45.840 --> 0:17:50.919 and this whole area of accolade courage can end up 0:17:50.920 --> 0:17:55.199 being really controversial and people have really strong opinions about it. 0:17:56.200 --> 0:17:59.520 When I first started doing research and courage, I would 0:17:59.520 --> 0:18:02.480 go to a conferences, and the way academic conferences work 0:18:02.520 --> 0:18:05.000 if you're on some sort of a panel discussion or 0:18:05.000 --> 0:18:08.679 some sort of a symposium, is that usually the speakers 0:18:08.760 --> 0:18:13.320 meet beforehand briefly to talk about logistics. Who is going 0:18:13.320 --> 0:18:15.879 to run the PowerPoint? Do we want all our powerpoints 0:18:15.920 --> 0:18:18.560 on one computer or do we want them on to 0:18:18.720 --> 0:18:23.800 plug in our computers separately? Do we want questions after 0:18:24.200 --> 0:18:28.960 everybody's talk or after each individual talk. And I would 0:18:29.000 --> 0:18:31.399 be in a group of people who'd done research on courage, 0:18:31.440 --> 0:18:34.520 and we would we would have these conversations, but then 0:18:34.560 --> 0:18:38.560 it would always turn into what I got to calling 0:18:38.720 --> 0:18:42.840 the Courage Researcher support group, where we sat around and 0:18:43.040 --> 0:18:46.080 we talked about how people would get offended by our 0:18:46.119 --> 0:18:51.800 research because they would be offended by our research. This 0:18:51.840 --> 0:18:54.480 one woman, I'll never forget, she would on a job 0:18:54.600 --> 0:18:59.479 interview talking about her dissertation research, and someone like banged 0:18:59.520 --> 0:19:02.399 on the table ball at dinner and stood up and said, 0:19:02.400 --> 0:19:05.480 you're cheapening the idea of courage. And he huffed out, 0:19:06.080 --> 0:19:10.040 and I'm like, wow, that's kind of a lot. That's 0:19:10.080 --> 0:19:14.720 a lot, And I think that a lot of it 0:19:14.800 --> 0:19:20.440 is this accolade courage sort of idea that if I 0:19:20.520 --> 0:19:25.480 call something courageous that you don't agree with the goal 0:19:26.440 --> 0:19:30.400 or you don't see as risky, you're gonna be kind 0:19:30.440 --> 0:19:32.760 of offended by it, Like how do how do you 0:19:32.800 --> 0:19:36.040 don't see that as risky? So at that same conference, 0:19:36.040 --> 0:19:39.000 we had a discussant, the person at the end who 0:19:39.119 --> 0:19:42.920 kind of summarizes what all three people talked about, who 0:19:43.000 --> 0:19:46.720 was just simply offended by me. Because I had a 0:19:46.760 --> 0:19:51.120 scale where we asked people. It had a whole bunch 0:19:51.200 --> 0:19:55.720 of questions about I would willingly give my life for 0:19:55.840 --> 0:20:01.080 my country if needed, down to I I would have 0:20:01.240 --> 0:20:05.160 dental surgery to save a tooth, or I would ask 0:20:05.200 --> 0:20:06.840 for a raise if I really needed one. It had 0:20:06.880 --> 0:20:09.399 sort of these lower level ones also, and he was 0:20:09.480 --> 0:20:13.800 just super offended by this, and he asked everybody, He's like, cool, 0:20:13.840 --> 0:20:15.919 here thinks it's courageous to ask for a raise if 0:20:15.960 --> 0:20:19.159 you need one, that's just being good at work. And 0:20:19.200 --> 0:20:24.439 I was like, wow, okay, Bud. And outside of the 0:20:24.440 --> 0:20:27.680 clinical psychology community, I've gotten a lot of pushback from 0:20:27.720 --> 0:20:32.560 people about these risky kind of actions that people take 0:20:32.640 --> 0:20:36.760 that feel risky to them but not to most other people. Weirdly, 0:20:36.840 --> 0:20:40.520 within like this therapy kind of community, people get that 0:20:40.680 --> 0:20:43.400 because that's what therapists see. They see people who come 0:20:43.400 --> 0:20:46.120 in and they say, here's this thing that everyone else 0:20:46.119 --> 0:20:47.719 can do and I can't do, and I want your 0:20:47.760 --> 0:20:54.560 help doing it. But yeah, it's it's just wild. And 0:20:54.640 --> 0:21:01.280 people also have really strong opinions about the the worth 0:21:01.320 --> 0:21:04.520 of the action and what that risk benefit thing turns 0:21:04.520 --> 0:21:08.399 out to be. So I do a lot of research 0:21:08.400 --> 0:21:11.440 where I ask people to describe a time they've acted courageously, 0:21:12.080 --> 0:21:15.480 and then I will have undergraduate students help me code 0:21:15.520 --> 0:21:20.000 them into different categories. Every single person who's done some 0:21:20.160 --> 0:21:23.440 coding for me has encountered something where they read it 0:21:23.680 --> 0:21:27.720 and they think to themselves, that's not courageous. And what's 0:21:27.760 --> 0:21:31.560 happening is they're identifying that they don't really see that 0:21:31.640 --> 0:21:33.960 as risky and or they don't see it as valuable. 0:21:34.520 --> 0:21:38.479 So a couple of my favorite examples. I had a 0:21:38.520 --> 0:21:42.879 student who was from South Africa and she had a 0:21:42.880 --> 0:21:48.639 hard time reading any of our statements that people in 0:21:48.680 --> 0:21:52.120 the US had made about being courageous when dealing with 0:21:52.480 --> 0:21:58.560 a vicious dog because she grew up with lions near 0:21:59.240 --> 0:22:01.520 The kids were worn about lions. You know, if you're 0:22:01.560 --> 0:22:03.760 outside you see a lion, they're going to eat you, 0:22:03.840 --> 0:22:10.879 so watch out. And that's different and perhaps so Australia. 0:22:10.960 --> 0:22:12.680 You have a different thing. I don't know. The perception 0:22:12.800 --> 0:22:15.120 in the US is that Australia is filled with dangerous 0:22:15.119 --> 0:22:18.639 animals who will kill you. But that may be a 0:22:18.640 --> 0:22:24.679 little bit of an overstatement, but the I thought that 0:22:24.840 --> 0:22:30.600 was super interesting. I was later on talking with a physician, 0:22:31.520 --> 0:22:34.960 one of my a personal physician of mine, and he 0:22:35.040 --> 0:22:37.760 did the little you know, like let me chat with 0:22:37.800 --> 0:22:39.719 you a little bit before you're sitting there in your 0:22:39.720 --> 0:22:45.280 paper gown and it's awkward, And he was asking me 0:22:45.280 --> 0:22:48.320 about my research, and I told her about an older 0:22:48.359 --> 0:22:51.919 person we had interviewed who talked about how her doctor 0:22:52.000 --> 0:22:55.359 told her that she couldn't have any more, that she 0:22:55.440 --> 0:22:58.720 should not get pregnant again because it could kill her, 0:22:58.760 --> 0:23:01.320 but she really wanted another child. So she went ahead 0:23:01.359 --> 0:23:04.159 and had another baby, and he just like, he just 0:23:04.320 --> 0:23:07.680 was like, that's a terrible idea. That's not courageous, that's 0:23:07.760 --> 0:23:12.640 just dumb, and you know, but he's seen very different things, right, 0:23:12.760 --> 0:23:17.000 so he's seeing that from a totally different perspective. For me, 0:23:18.359 --> 0:23:22.520 the one that stood out for me was reading a 0:23:22.920 --> 0:23:28.879 was reading a narrative of someone who said that she 0:23:29.520 --> 0:23:33.120 was dating this guy and they were really in love 0:23:33.280 --> 0:23:36.680 and they'd talked about marriage, but the problem was that 0:23:37.080 --> 0:23:42.639 her that his parents, his mom didn't like her, and 0:23:43.600 --> 0:23:46.600 one day the mom asked her to break up with him, 0:23:46.720 --> 0:23:50.400 and so she did, and she never told him why, 0:23:52.040 --> 0:23:55.600 and she described this as courageous. I know, it goes 0:23:55.680 --> 0:23:58.679 against it goes against the narrative that we all have 0:23:58.840 --> 0:24:03.919 of how true love should go. But her description of 0:24:03.960 --> 0:24:08.880 why this was courageous was that she knew that he 0:24:08.960 --> 0:24:13.720 always came with his mom and this was setting him 0:24:13.800 --> 0:24:18.919 up for lifelong tension with her, and if she didn't 0:24:18.960 --> 0:24:23.320 tell him that it was his mom, then he would 0:24:23.359 --> 0:24:27.160 continue to have a good relationship with her. And now 0:24:27.800 --> 0:24:29.800 I still have a hard time wrapping my head around 0:24:29.840 --> 0:24:35.879 that one, but it is what it is, and there's 0:24:37.960 --> 0:24:42.439 in the extreme sort of a version of it. People 0:24:42.480 --> 0:24:46.399 who've done heinous things will call themselves courageous, and you 0:24:46.440 --> 0:24:50.680 think to yourself, no, that was a really bad thing 0:24:50.720 --> 0:24:52.680 you did. You shouldn't do that. But if you read 0:24:54.359 --> 0:24:58.320 writings that they have put out in their crazy manifesto, 0:24:58.400 --> 0:25:02.520 for example, they'll use the language of courage like, nope, 0:25:02.560 --> 0:25:05.280 this is this is a good thing, and I'm risking 0:25:05.320 --> 0:25:07.560 it all for this good thing that everybody's going to hate. 0:25:07.640 --> 0:25:10.560 But it's it's. 0:25:12.240 --> 0:25:16.320 People have very strong opinions about what counts as courage 0:25:16.320 --> 0:25:22.480 and what doesn't. And it almost always says a lot 0:25:22.680 --> 0:25:26.880 a lot more about the person saying that it's courageous, 0:25:27.000 --> 0:25:29.560 I think, then it says about the actual person doing 0:25:29.600 --> 0:25:36.359 the thing. It says I I see what you did. 0:25:36.440 --> 0:25:38.560 I see it as valuable, and I see that you 0:25:38.600 --> 0:25:41.960 took a risk to do it. Not necessarily that it'd 0:25:41.960 --> 0:25:44.640 be risky for me, but I see that you took 0:25:44.640 --> 0:25:47.240 a risk to do it. So if I can understand 0:25:47.280 --> 0:25:50.280 where you're coming from. And we did this with little kids, right, 0:25:50.400 --> 0:25:55.320 so we'll tell little kids that they're brave or courageous 0:25:55.320 --> 0:26:00.560 for having done some kind of a thing. It's super 0:26:00.560 --> 0:26:04.040 common here in the US, if you get little kids 0:26:04.160 --> 0:26:06.479 after they get their vaccines, they'll get a little sticker 0:26:06.480 --> 0:26:08.960 from the doctor's office. Very commonly they'll say, oh, it 0:26:09.040 --> 0:26:15.800 was brave, right, And you know, is it courageous to 0:26:15.840 --> 0:26:18.199 get poked with a needle? You know, if you're an adult, 0:26:18.240 --> 0:26:21.840 probably not, unless you're fearful of needles, in which case 0:26:21.920 --> 0:26:24.159 it probably is. But you're not going to go around 0:26:24.240 --> 0:26:26.520 being like, I was so brave I got a vaccine 0:26:26.560 --> 0:26:29.479 today and I'm forty five. You know, you're not going 0:26:29.560 --> 0:26:30.760 to say that that. 0:26:30.920 --> 0:26:37.720 Stupid courage in the in academia. Does courage full under psychology? 0:26:37.960 --> 0:26:40.160 Does your research full under psychology? 0:26:41.040 --> 0:26:45.400 There are I think my research has ended up being 0:26:45.720 --> 0:26:49.560 more being kind of at the intersection of psychology and philosophy, 0:26:49.760 --> 0:26:54.040 and I've collaborated with philosophers a lot. They're actually more 0:26:54.080 --> 0:26:56.879 philosophers interested in courage than psychologists. 0:26:58.000 --> 0:27:02.199 Interesting is there was there before your work? And I 0:27:02.240 --> 0:27:08.680 guess is there broadly a consensus on what courage is? 0:27:08.680 --> 0:27:09.960 Is there? Is it easily? 0:27:11.000 --> 0:27:11.280 Oh? 0:27:11.400 --> 0:27:14.760 Yeah, no, not at all, not at all. Uh yeah, 0:27:14.920 --> 0:27:18.960 that's that's that's also probably part of the traction issue. 0:27:18.960 --> 0:27:21.959 That's why I'm so so keen to say, my definition 0:27:22.119 --> 0:27:27.640 is my this is how I see it. So the 0:27:27.680 --> 0:27:34.960 strongest definition of courage in psychology, the one that gets 0:27:35.080 --> 0:27:39.679 the most study, is probably that courage is acting despite fear. 0:27:40.560 --> 0:27:44.160 And I think that this definition comes at this, well, 0:27:44.200 --> 0:27:48.440 I know this definition comes out of clinical work, where 0:27:50.119 --> 0:27:55.440 my theory says that, well, sure, within a clinical context, 0:27:55.480 --> 0:28:00.280 courage is acting despite fear, because that's the problem people 0:28:00.320 --> 0:28:03.280 are coming to you to solve, Right, They're afraid of 0:28:03.320 --> 0:28:06.760 doing something. They want help doing the thing, and so 0:28:06.800 --> 0:28:09.560 they've come to you for assistance doing the thing that 0:28:09.560 --> 0:28:17.080 they're afraid of. And because because you know you're good therapist, 0:28:17.560 --> 0:28:22.000 you're not going to treat somebody who comes in and says, 0:28:23.600 --> 0:28:28.359 I'm afraid of standing in the middle of traffic on 0:28:28.880 --> 0:28:32.600 an interstate, but i'd like some help in being able 0:28:32.680 --> 0:28:35.639 to do that. That person is going to get a 0:28:35.680 --> 0:28:37.919 different kind of evaluation and they're going to get a 0:28:37.960 --> 0:28:41.120 different kind of treatment, and you would never help to 0:28:41.520 --> 0:28:45.960 systematically desensitize them to standing in traffic. Right, that would 0:28:46.000 --> 0:28:47.800 never even occur to you that that's a thing you 0:28:47.800 --> 0:28:56.760 should consider. But if you describe courage, if you define 0:28:56.800 --> 0:29:00.680 courage as acting despite fear, you end up saying that 0:29:00.720 --> 0:29:04.200 those folks are courageous, that that would be a courteous action, 0:29:04.320 --> 0:29:08.240 because that's a terrifying thing to stand on the interstate 0:29:08.240 --> 0:29:10.840 and like face down a semi truck, Like why would 0:29:10.880 --> 0:29:12.920 you do that? You shouldn't do that, don't do that. 0:29:12.920 --> 0:29:18.480 It's a bad idea. But the if you just leave 0:29:18.560 --> 0:29:26.520 courage that way, that's how it ends up, and if 0:29:26.680 --> 0:29:31.360 you define that. The philosophy definition of courage, on the 0:29:31.360 --> 0:29:38.200 other hand, is super heavy on the objective good of 0:29:38.240 --> 0:29:42.840 all of it and the objective fear that people feel 0:29:42.960 --> 0:29:48.000 or feeling the proper amount of fear. And as a psychologist, 0:29:48.000 --> 0:29:51.920 that doesn't resonate with me very much, because we all 0:29:52.000 --> 0:29:56.120 have very different opinions about what the good is and 0:29:56.200 --> 0:30:00.360 about what risks are for us, and about what feels 0:30:00.360 --> 0:30:03.640 appropriately risky for us and what we are the risk 0:30:03.760 --> 0:30:12.960 is overblown. But I think that those are really personal 0:30:13.640 --> 0:30:18.560 excuse me kind of things, and I always have to Oh, 0:30:18.600 --> 0:30:24.080 and also, philosophers are excited about moral exemplars and exemplars 0:30:24.080 --> 0:30:29.120 of things, and I am not a giant fan of 0:30:29.160 --> 0:30:33.000 exemplars because I think that people who can be very 0:30:33.000 --> 0:30:36.880 courageous in one situation might not be courageous at all 0:30:36.920 --> 0:30:42.560 in a different situation. So someone who's afraid of public speaking, 0:30:42.600 --> 0:30:46.200 I think, would see my life and think, oh, you 0:30:46.240 --> 0:30:49.160 do all these courageous things. You must be a very 0:30:49.200 --> 0:30:50.120 courageous person. 0:30:50.880 --> 0:30:51.120 Yeah. 0:30:52.000 --> 0:30:55.160 I talk in front of hundreds of people all the time, 0:30:55.240 --> 0:30:58.720 like it's literally my job. I seek out those very 0:30:58.800 --> 0:31:02.200 large classes and I'm excited by them. I do improv 0:31:02.240 --> 0:31:05.160 comedy where I make up things in front of people 0:31:06.880 --> 0:31:12.440 and hope they laugh. But I'm really afraid of heights, 0:31:12.480 --> 0:31:15.080 and I'm really afraid of inclosed spaces. So if you 0:31:15.160 --> 0:31:17.040 asked me to change a light bulb on top of 0:31:17.080 --> 0:31:21.120 the auditorium, I'd be like, no, that's not me. And 0:31:21.200 --> 0:31:23.680 I found out I was afraid of inclosed spaces when 0:31:23.720 --> 0:31:26.760 I had an MRI, or tried to have an MRI once, 0:31:27.440 --> 0:31:30.920 And so I'm in the MRI machine and I'm going, oh, 0:31:31.040 --> 0:31:36.400 this is very tight and very loud, and then at 0:31:36.440 --> 0:31:38.959 one point I wiggled a little bit and they were like, 0:31:39.520 --> 0:31:42.320 we have to start over again. Lay still, and I 0:31:42.360 --> 0:31:44.440 was like, oh, I can't, you know. And I did 0:31:44.640 --> 0:31:47.200 everything I could think of to do this. I trained 0:31:47.200 --> 0:31:51.480 as a clinical psychologist specializing in anxiety disorders and desensitization. 0:31:51.960 --> 0:31:55.640 So I tried all of those things. I teach an 0:31:55.680 --> 0:32:00.680 online class that involves a ton of breathing exercises and relaxation, 0:32:01.160 --> 0:32:05.360 mindfulness kinds of things. I tried all of those things. 0:32:05.520 --> 0:32:11.600 I actually it was a General Electric MRI machine. My 0:32:11.800 --> 0:32:18.880 father designed X ray equipment for General Electric. Although he 0:32:18.960 --> 0:32:23.360 never designed MRIs, he was friends with the MRI group, 0:32:23.840 --> 0:32:27.600 and one of his friends probably got a patent on 0:32:27.720 --> 0:32:30.240 some of the stuff that was in that very machine. 0:32:30.320 --> 0:32:33.640 So I thought about my dad's friend, who I was 0:32:33.720 --> 0:32:36.880 sure had designed this. None of that helped. I pressed 0:32:36.880 --> 0:32:39.360 the little panic button and I noped out of it, 0:32:41.200 --> 0:32:46.880 and yeah it, Yeah, I'm going to need sedation if 0:32:46.920 --> 0:32:50.320 I need another one of those. But anyways, the the 0:32:51.120 --> 0:32:53.360 you know, the if you look at me in a 0:32:53.440 --> 0:32:56.520 medical context, or you look at me in the context 0:32:56.600 --> 0:33:01.400 of free climbers, for example, I and the biggest chicken 0:33:01.440 --> 0:33:07.360 in the world, and I think that's true. I mean, 0:33:07.360 --> 0:33:09.480 I'm kind of extreme on both of those. I think. 0:33:09.520 --> 0:33:11.360 I think I'm more fearful than most people of the 0:33:11.400 --> 0:33:13.520 one thing, and I'm less fearful than most people of 0:33:13.560 --> 0:33:19.400 the other thing. But I all of us have some 0:33:19.640 --> 0:33:25.600 of those different characteristics, right, So you'll often see first responders, 0:33:25.640 --> 0:33:32.640 for example, who are super courageous in doing and taking 0:33:32.800 --> 0:33:37.040 physical risks of some sort for their own for the 0:33:37.120 --> 0:33:41.760 sake of other people. I mean, admirably so. But you'll 0:33:41.800 --> 0:33:45.760 see that if some sort of traumatic kind of thing 0:33:45.880 --> 0:33:50.520 happens on the job, they're now very often sent to 0:33:50.680 --> 0:33:55.880 talk to someone, and a lot of them just don't 0:33:56.000 --> 0:33:59.640 want to do it and find that threatening to their 0:33:59.680 --> 0:34:03.320 idea of who they are that they would even need this, 0:34:04.800 --> 0:34:08.399 or threatening to you know, it's threatening to open up 0:34:08.440 --> 0:34:13.400 like that. So that would be a case where the 0:34:14.239 --> 0:34:18.359 person who's not taken physical risks but who jumps wholeheartedly 0:34:18.440 --> 0:34:24.600 into therapy when needed would be more courageous in that context. 0:34:23.760 --> 0:34:29.279 And so that's mostly about like the differences in the risk, 0:34:29.360 --> 0:34:32.200 but I think the difference in the goals are striking too. 0:34:32.400 --> 0:34:37.879 So we had a study published a couple of years 0:34:37.880 --> 0:34:44.840 ago now looking at how courageous Americans rated two different 0:34:44.840 --> 0:34:48.200 women who both were in the news at the time 0:34:48.239 --> 0:34:53.080 that the data was collected, Kitlyn Jenner and Kim Davis. 0:34:53.360 --> 0:34:59.400 And so Kitlyn Jenner is a famous transgender woman who 0:35:00.400 --> 0:35:07.360 had rose to fame as a male athlete and publicly 0:35:07.400 --> 0:35:10.920 came out and since has had a whole lot of 0:35:11.360 --> 0:35:14.719 political weirdness that wasn't a part of it at the 0:35:14.719 --> 0:35:17.640 time of the study. At the time we collected the data, 0:35:17.760 --> 0:35:20.759 it was really just her being on the cover of 0:35:20.840 --> 0:35:29.920 various magazines saying I'm Caitlin and I'm transitioning. And Kim 0:35:30.000 --> 0:35:36.440 Davis was a county clerk who issued marriage licenses, and 0:35:36.520 --> 0:35:41.279 when same sex marriage became legal in the US, she 0:35:41.360 --> 0:35:45.840 refused to issue marriage licenses to same sex couples because 0:35:45.880 --> 0:35:52.200 of her religious beliefs, she said. And so those two 0:35:52.360 --> 0:35:55.239 women were both in the news for sort of politically 0:35:55.280 --> 0:35:59.960 opposite reasons, and we asked people how We gave people 0:36:00.120 --> 0:36:03.799 little description of what one of the two women did, 0:36:03.960 --> 0:36:07.160 and we said, how courageous is this person? How much 0:36:07.280 --> 0:36:09.200 risk did she take? How much did she do a 0:36:09.239 --> 0:36:13.560 valuable thing? And how much she did a valuable thing 0:36:14.200 --> 0:36:19.279 predicted their ratings of courage better than anything else. How 0:36:19.360 --> 0:36:21.879 much she did a valuable thing was also very much 0:36:21.960 --> 0:36:28.240 predicted by their traditionalism, their their belief in traditional gender 0:36:28.320 --> 0:36:33.680 roles and traditional family structure. And it was exactly the 0:36:33.719 --> 0:36:38.040 results that you would predict. And since then, I've had 0:36:38.120 --> 0:36:44.080 this weird little hobby of looking at whenever anybody calls 0:36:44.080 --> 0:36:49.320 someone else courageous in the news, and it's virtually always 0:36:49.360 --> 0:36:53.000 someone calling somebody courageous for doing a thing that they 0:36:53.160 --> 0:37:02.719 that the person saying it's courageous believes in. It's never Oh, 0:37:01.200 --> 0:37:06.759 I'm pro right to choose, but I can see how 0:37:06.800 --> 0:37:12.240 these pro lifers are are courageous, Like, no, that never happens. 0:37:12.280 --> 0:37:14.960 That doesn't happen. That's a thing where we kind of 0:37:14.960 --> 0:37:18.440 fight against. And that's that's part of your horrified expression 0:37:18.480 --> 0:37:21.520 when I was for those listening, she had had a 0:37:21.560 --> 0:37:25.600 horrified expression when I was describing the woman who dropped 0:37:25.600 --> 0:37:27.400 her boyfriend and didn't tell him why. 0:37:31.480 --> 0:37:41.640 The uh, the extent to which you disagree with what 0:37:41.680 --> 0:37:46.000 that goal is prevents you from seeing someone else's courageous. 0:37:46.040 --> 0:37:50.000 And I think sometimes we see what is an apparent 0:37:50.080 --> 0:37:56.240 counter example to that in soldiers or in other sorts 0:37:56.239 --> 0:37:59.840 of situations, like I can definitely, I'm just presuming that 0:38:00.120 --> 0:38:03.600 you have thought of courageous opponents that you've had in 0:38:03.640 --> 0:38:11.000 the ring. But you both are boxers, they both are soldiers. 0:38:12.000 --> 0:38:15.640 They kind of have the same sort of ethos and 0:38:15.719 --> 0:38:18.839 it's the same activity it just so happens that you're 0:38:18.880 --> 0:38:21.320 paired up against each other for some kind of a reason. 0:38:22.239 --> 0:38:28.879 But it's it's usually my spineless, my spineless colleagues from 0:38:28.920 --> 0:38:34.480 the other party are trying to do this cowardly something 0:38:34.560 --> 0:38:38.279 some some some compared to my brave colleagues from my 0:38:38.400 --> 0:38:42.640 own party, who are doing this heroic and noble thing 0:38:43.239 --> 0:38:47.040 and standing up to evil blah blah blah. And it's 0:38:47.080 --> 0:38:53.520 it's a it's it is so wrapped up in how 0:38:53.640 --> 0:38:56.640 much you believe in what that goal is. 0:38:58.360 --> 0:39:01.719 It's fascinating and it makes me think of what a 0:39:01.760 --> 0:39:05.719 profound impact Atlas of the Heart, which was one of 0:39:05.760 --> 0:39:08.920 Brede Brown's more recent books, was written. When I read 0:39:08.960 --> 0:39:16.680 that and leaned into language and definitions and how we 0:39:16.760 --> 0:39:20.120 understand and when you were talking before about how we 0:39:20.480 --> 0:39:23.880 tell kids they're courageous, and as you were talking before, 0:39:23.920 --> 0:39:26.759 at some point I had an epiphany and I had 0:39:26.760 --> 0:39:30.480 to google it was like, is encourage and courage are 0:39:30.480 --> 0:39:33.200 those two words related? I had to google it because 0:39:33.520 --> 0:39:37.200 they do. Yeah, because encourage has it feels like it 0:39:37.239 --> 0:39:38.480 has a very different context. 0:39:38.480 --> 0:39:38.920 But they are. 0:39:40.000 --> 0:39:42.440 But I don't feel like when we encourage someone, we 0:39:42.480 --> 0:39:47.319 feel like we I don't know, like convinced them too, 0:39:47.480 --> 0:39:52.240 but without some sort of veil of bravery or fear. 0:39:53.239 --> 0:39:56.680 Yeah, but often, I mean often I think that like 0:39:56.760 --> 0:40:00.719 a reallycoag like an encouraging kind of statement, things like 0:40:01.040 --> 0:40:04.399 you're gonna be okay, you got this, you can do this, 0:40:05.239 --> 0:40:10.040 and that building up the likelihood that you're going to 0:40:10.120 --> 0:40:12.359 succeed is a thing that people do to try to 0:40:12.480 --> 0:40:15.040 encourage themselves as well, to try to make themselves feel 0:40:15.080 --> 0:40:18.279 more courageous. I mean, I tried it in the MRI. 0:40:18.400 --> 0:40:20.000 It didn't work for me there, but It's worked for 0:40:20.000 --> 0:40:23.200 me in other situations where I'm like, yeah, yeah, you 0:40:23.200 --> 0:40:28.560 can you totally you can do this. And that's a 0:40:28.640 --> 0:40:31.640 common kind of a thing. But a thing that most 0:40:31.440 --> 0:40:33.680 the thing that people do most often to try to 0:40:33.719 --> 0:40:37.279 make themselves feel more courageous is they think about how 0:40:37.360 --> 0:40:40.160 valuable the goal is. They think about how good that 0:40:40.320 --> 0:40:44.040 outcome is going to be if they get it, and 0:40:44.120 --> 0:40:47.520 that you know, at least if they try excuse me, 0:40:47.560 --> 0:40:50.719 And that's also sort of a kind of encouragement, right, 0:40:50.880 --> 0:40:53.200 so you know, like if you if you just say 0:40:53.280 --> 0:40:56.719 he was encouraged to do he was encouraged to make 0:40:56.719 --> 0:41:00.719 this investment, well, probably he was told that the investment 0:41:00.760 --> 0:41:03.400 would pay off in the long run. Right now, is 0:41:03.400 --> 0:41:04.799 that a good thing or is that a bad thing? 0:41:04.840 --> 0:41:06.680 I guess it depends on if it pays off or not, 0:41:06.920 --> 0:41:11.440 and if you believe in whatever the investment is. But 0:41:13.000 --> 0:41:21.160 the the but yeah, the whole idea of encouragement. We 0:41:21.480 --> 0:41:26.799 do encourage others. We usually encourage them to do things 0:41:26.880 --> 0:41:29.600 that we want them to do, though we don't encourage 0:41:29.600 --> 0:41:31.440 them to do something that we think is bad. Like 0:41:31.440 --> 0:41:34.759 you would be a terrible friend if you encouraged your 0:41:34.760 --> 0:41:38.319 friend to date someone who you thought was really inappropriate 0:41:38.360 --> 0:41:42.200 for them, Like, that's that's wrong. You shouldn't do that. 0:41:42.360 --> 0:41:45.799 It should be you know, you'd encourage them to date 0:41:45.840 --> 0:41:48.760 the person if you thought, oh, they'd make a good couple. 0:41:50.200 --> 0:41:54.239 Where did your interest in all of this begin? And 0:41:54.280 --> 0:41:56.759 what was like? Was there somewhere where you got to 0:41:56.800 --> 0:41:59.879 a crossroad? And when discourage thing is a thing? 0:42:00.040 --> 0:42:05.440 Look way to stop? So there's kind of two answers. 0:42:05.480 --> 0:42:08.640 I think I've always been interested in it. I've always 0:42:08.640 --> 0:42:12.280 been very interested in stories of people doing hard things, 0:42:13.040 --> 0:42:20.439 and I've always found that compelling and interesting. I had 0:42:21.040 --> 0:42:29.640 been doing research in the psychology of fear and attention. 0:42:31.120 --> 0:42:36.800 And the short summary of thousands and thousands, maybe tens 0:42:36.880 --> 0:42:41.240 of thousands of psychology studies is that when people are afraid, 0:42:41.280 --> 0:42:47.280 they pay more attention to threat. And I got bored 0:42:47.320 --> 0:42:50.440 with my research. I honestly, I got very bored with it. 0:42:52.440 --> 0:42:55.760 And in the US we have I'm in a tenure track. 0:42:55.880 --> 0:42:57.880 I was in a tenure track job. I'm now tenured. 0:42:59.600 --> 0:43:02.799 What that means is you have about six years to 0:43:02.920 --> 0:43:08.000 publish a certain amount of research or you're fired. And unfortunately, 0:43:08.040 --> 0:43:10.880 I discovered I was very bored with my research probably 0:43:10.880 --> 0:43:14.240 about three years, two or three years into my tenure 0:43:14.280 --> 0:43:21.279 track job, and that was really unpleasant. Another article would 0:43:21.320 --> 0:43:21.680 come out. 0:43:21.960 --> 0:43:25.719 Bottom was it that you did? It feel like it 0:43:26.360 --> 0:43:28.560 just made too much sense. There was no way to 0:43:28.640 --> 0:43:29.239 go with it. 0:43:29.840 --> 0:43:32.440 Yeah, it felt like it felt like this is an 0:43:32.520 --> 0:43:36.440 area that has been very thoroughly explored, this is an 0:43:36.560 --> 0:43:39.360 area that's well known, and we're now down to my 0:43:40.080 --> 0:43:44.200 We were looking at minutia instead of looking at bigger, 0:43:44.280 --> 0:43:49.680 broader swaths of things, and it did not seem like 0:43:49.760 --> 0:43:53.760 the sort of it seemed like that's a very valuable 0:43:53.760 --> 0:43:56.480 part of science. I do not mean to denigrate that 0:43:56.560 --> 0:43:58.960 at all. That's a super valuable part of science. It's 0:43:59.000 --> 0:44:01.960 just not a part of science that I personally have 0:44:02.160 --> 0:44:07.200 the attention span for. And I've never been good at 0:44:07.239 --> 0:44:11.760 the fuying details, finishing things. I remember in middle school. 0:44:13.120 --> 0:44:16.080 I had loved art up until this point, but in 0:44:16.080 --> 0:44:18.000 middle school, all of a sudden you had to like 0:44:18.160 --> 0:44:21.640 polish your art and finish it completely. It couldn't be 0:44:21.760 --> 0:44:25.560 just like, you know, here's the general outline, Oh I'm done. No, 0:44:25.719 --> 0:44:29.200 it was it was all about like craft and completing things. 0:44:29.239 --> 0:44:32.440 And I remember we did this statue right, and halfway 0:44:32.480 --> 0:44:35.759 through the statue it was time to sand our statues, 0:44:35.800 --> 0:44:40.319 and the teacher, mister Ackert, he was great, but he 0:44:40.480 --> 0:44:42.440 was like, you know, now it's time to stand it. 0:44:42.520 --> 0:44:44.239 You know this is going to be most of your time. 0:44:44.800 --> 0:44:48.000 And I was just like, oh no, it's not. I 0:44:48.040 --> 0:44:50.840 got so It's like I had the overall sort of 0:44:50.880 --> 0:44:53.160 thing right, but I couldn't stand it. I just I 0:44:53.200 --> 0:44:56.239 took like a wirebrush and I scraped it so that 0:44:56.320 --> 0:45:00.640 it just looked done faster. But anyway, I felt like 0:45:00.800 --> 0:45:05.279 the research on fear and attention felt like that to me. 0:45:05.360 --> 0:45:07.719 It felt like the standing part. And I thought I 0:45:07.800 --> 0:45:11.160 just I can't do this, and every time a new 0:45:11.280 --> 0:45:14.720 article would come out, I would think to myself, crap, 0:45:14.760 --> 0:45:19.399 another thing to read. And that was really long. It 0:45:19.480 --> 0:45:23.000 was really it was a long, long, long three years 0:45:23.040 --> 0:45:25.279 to finish that out and to get enough done, and 0:45:25.320 --> 0:45:30.959 I just barely made it eat. But around the time 0:45:30.960 --> 0:45:37.719 that I got tenure, I had a colleague asked me 0:45:37.880 --> 0:45:42.440 to do an honor seminar for fear and about fear 0:45:42.440 --> 0:45:46.520 and horror, and I said sure, And so I put 0:45:46.560 --> 0:45:50.399 together the readings for this seminar and they were all 0:45:50.400 --> 0:45:53.879 pretty depressing, and so at the end I thought, well, 0:45:54.080 --> 0:45:56.759 let me put together let me have them read some 0:45:56.800 --> 0:46:00.719 things about what you can do about this. Okay, what 0:46:00.760 --> 0:46:05.920 if your fear is reasonable? Is unreasonable? Well, gosh, there's 0:46:06.040 --> 0:46:09.000 so many good treatments for that. Let's do some readings 0:46:09.120 --> 0:46:13.839 on treatments for phobias and for anxiety disorders. What if 0:46:13.880 --> 0:46:17.479 your fear is reasonable? Well, oh wow, there's so much 0:46:17.600 --> 0:46:20.960 safety sort of things, so much safety research being done, 0:46:21.080 --> 0:46:23.840 much of it in my own department. We have a 0:46:23.880 --> 0:46:28.759 thriving human factors program and graduate students with degrees in 0:46:28.800 --> 0:46:31.600 how to make products safer. So let's read some stuff 0:46:31.640 --> 0:46:35.080 about that. Oh gosh, but what about threats? What about 0:46:35.400 --> 0:46:38.279 like if you're afraid of something and it's reasonable and 0:46:38.320 --> 0:46:40.680 you can't do anything about it, Well, I guess you 0:46:40.680 --> 0:46:43.440 can respond with courage. So I thought, well, I'm going 0:46:43.520 --> 0:46:45.680 to look up the research on courage. And I found 0:46:45.719 --> 0:46:48.719 out that the research on courage literally like fit in 0:46:48.760 --> 0:46:49.280 my purse. 0:46:50.080 --> 0:46:50.440 It was. 0:46:50.960 --> 0:46:53.120 I printed it all out, and I was like, I 0:46:53.120 --> 0:46:55.360 don't even need to bring out a tote bag. I 0:46:55.400 --> 0:46:57.880 can just puld this up and take it home in 0:46:57.960 --> 0:47:03.160 my regular old purse. And so I saw it was 0:47:03.440 --> 0:47:08.839 a really neat delineation of the two different jobs that 0:47:11.040 --> 0:47:15.640 many faculty professors have, which is as a teacher and 0:47:15.680 --> 0:47:18.120 as a researcher. So as a teacher, it was really 0:47:18.160 --> 0:47:21.719 sad that there was nothing to really share with students, 0:47:21.920 --> 0:47:24.480 but as a researcher, it was a really exciting opportunity. 0:47:24.800 --> 0:47:30.200 And so I've been running with that kind of ever since. 0:47:32.239 --> 0:47:36.920 I was terrifically encouraged myself by the late Shane Lopez, 0:47:36.960 --> 0:47:42.239 who I met at a conference in twenty twenty three 0:47:42.400 --> 0:47:44.120 or two thousand and three, two thousand and three. I 0:47:44.120 --> 0:47:46.839 guess that's the right way we say that now, and 0:47:47.080 --> 0:47:50.440 it was just now two thousand and four doesn't matter anyways. 0:47:50.480 --> 0:47:53.040 It was just a life changing experience because he was 0:47:53.080 --> 0:47:58.560 so warm and so encouraging, and it was one of 0:47:58.600 --> 0:48:01.400 the most It was like the best professional conversation of 0:48:01.400 --> 0:48:04.040 my life. And that was a real turning point for me. 0:48:04.120 --> 0:48:08.239 And I went, Yes, this is very exciting, and this 0:48:08.320 --> 0:48:10.399 is new. And I was right that this is new, 0:48:10.440 --> 0:48:12.200 and I was right that this is in set, that 0:48:12.320 --> 0:48:17.600 this is meaningful to people, and that it can help people. 0:48:18.680 --> 0:48:22.480 And so that was super helpful. But I also realized 0:48:23.080 --> 0:48:28.279 well before that. Before I finished my graduate degree, I 0:48:28.480 --> 0:48:32.040 was an intern at a veteran's affairs hospital and I 0:48:32.239 --> 0:48:36.400 was lucky enough to work on a unit or severe 0:48:36.440 --> 0:48:39.440 post traumatic stress disorder from the viet mostly from the 0:48:39.520 --> 0:48:49.360 Vietnam War, and we had all these patients who had 0:48:49.480 --> 0:48:53.600 this blend of like trauma and courage and it was 0:48:53.800 --> 0:49:00.680 really remarkable. And it was and the themes courage of 0:49:00.719 --> 0:49:04.800 things that they talked about and the consequences of failure 0:49:05.040 --> 0:49:09.359 to act courageously and what that did to what that 0:49:09.520 --> 0:49:11.600 the implications that had for them later in their life, 0:49:11.640 --> 0:49:18.439 and trying to get over things, and watching patient after 0:49:18.520 --> 0:49:22.959 patient after patient confront like the worst thing that ever 0:49:23.160 --> 0:49:28.319 happened to him for the goal of getting better or 0:49:28.360 --> 0:49:30.560 in some cases, for the goal of being a better 0:49:30.680 --> 0:49:37.759 family member. Was actually really inspiring. And yeah, and I 0:49:38.280 --> 0:49:41.960 kind of took that with me and I didn't realize 0:49:42.160 --> 0:49:46.440 at the time that, but I think a lot of 0:49:46.480 --> 0:49:54.360 what I liked about that rotation was seeing the courage 0:49:54.400 --> 0:49:58.359 up close like that. One of my really neat Yeah. 0:49:58.400 --> 0:50:01.279 One of my favorite guests was Captain Charlie Plumb and 0:50:01.320 --> 0:50:03.880 he was a prisoner of war for six years in 0:50:03.920 --> 0:50:04.840 the Hanoi Hilton. 0:50:05.640 --> 0:50:06.239 Wow. 0:50:06.400 --> 0:50:10.719 Yeah, And I loved talking to him about adversity and 0:50:10.760 --> 0:50:16.799 resilience because it felt like sitting and speaking to some 0:50:18.200 --> 0:50:21.480 joyous grandfather of mine that had you know, that had 0:50:21.680 --> 0:50:24.640 spent his life in a in an armchair, you know, 0:50:25.120 --> 0:50:28.759 not not a prison cell, you know, getting exposed to 0:50:28.760 --> 0:50:36.239 what he did, and it was it was beautiful to. 0:50:33.920 --> 0:50:35.800 To I guess. 0:50:36.880 --> 0:50:41.800 The curiosity that he gave me around how could people 0:50:41.840 --> 0:50:45.839 be treated like that and be Okay, there is there 0:50:45.920 --> 0:50:49.440 is something that we are not pulling from that experience. 0:50:49.760 --> 0:50:53.600 There's so much because you because everything that was done 0:50:53.600 --> 0:50:58.440 to them was done to break the human spirit and 0:50:58.640 --> 0:51:02.319 came out of there and they had that had kept 0:51:02.400 --> 0:51:06.759 themselves well, They had connected that created language, that created community, 0:51:06.800 --> 0:51:11.040 that created joy, And I'm like, why are the rest 0:51:11.080 --> 0:51:14.160 of us living ourself the lives out here? Why why 0:51:14.239 --> 0:51:16.200 we're not learning? Why are we not learning from this? 0:51:17.120 --> 0:51:21.080 Yeah? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah yeah yeah. That that does 0:51:21.160 --> 0:51:25.200 remind me though of just sort of a general perspective 0:51:25.600 --> 0:51:30.600 that so it. I think it's one thing when you 0:51:30.719 --> 0:51:35.480 come to that realization about yourself, like why am I 0:51:35.600 --> 0:51:39.280 upset about my soft little life compared to this other person? 0:51:39.600 --> 0:51:43.160 But when someone says that to you, it's kind of offensive. 0:51:43.920 --> 0:51:48.440 So because who am I to say what your worst 0:51:48.480 --> 0:51:52.120 thing is and compare it to somebody else? I think 0:51:52.200 --> 0:51:56.759 that's a that's a choice you have to make, yes, 0:51:57.680 --> 0:52:01.280 And I think when people make that choice for themselves 0:52:01.360 --> 0:52:05.680 it can be amazingly powerful and amazingly wonderful. But when 0:52:05.880 --> 0:52:10.680 other people try to make it for you, you just 0:52:10.800 --> 0:52:16.399 feel like they're a calling you weak or be disrespecting 0:52:16.760 --> 0:52:21.279 the actual suffering that you have experienced. And everybody's This 0:52:21.480 --> 0:52:25.680 was a big thing that helped me during the pandemic, 0:52:25.840 --> 0:52:32.120 which was everybody's worst thing is their worst thing? Yeah, whatever, 0:52:32.239 --> 0:52:35.000 it was that you lost during the pandemic. That was 0:52:35.080 --> 0:52:38.680 the worst thing for you, was your worst thing, And 0:52:39.000 --> 0:52:42.880 if you want to mourn that and be sad about 0:52:42.880 --> 0:52:47.040 it for yourself, you should be able to do that. Now. 0:52:47.080 --> 0:52:51.200 If you're going around demanding that other people respect that suffering, 0:52:51.840 --> 0:52:53.920 you know you're probably going to get pushed back from, 0:52:54.120 --> 0:52:57.239 and rightly so, from people who lost relatives or lost 0:52:57.280 --> 0:52:59.880 their job or something like that. But if I want 0:52:59.920 --> 0:53:05.160 to be sad about not taking a couple of planned 0:53:05.280 --> 0:53:07.600 trips with my adult children, I'm going to be sad 0:53:07.640 --> 0:53:10.120 about it because I was looking forward to those. Yeah, 0:53:10.360 --> 0:53:12.440 you just they're never going to happen. 0:53:12.880 --> 0:53:15.040 Yeah, you just made me think of I remember a 0:53:15.080 --> 0:53:20.360 time I'd had a really stressful, shitty period of time 0:53:20.400 --> 0:53:22.880 and a few things had gone wrong, and I'd gone 0:53:22.880 --> 0:53:25.160 to hang out with someone and they said how are you? 0:53:25.280 --> 0:53:26.960 And I was like ah, as I told them a 0:53:26.960 --> 0:53:29.680 few things and I was like, I said, it's just 0:53:29.760 --> 0:53:33.640 the worst. I looked at me and said, is it? 0:53:33.680 --> 0:53:37.120 Though it's not cancer, is it? And I remember thinking, 0:53:37.800 --> 0:53:40.640 I remember thinking it made me so mad. I was like, 0:53:40.400 --> 0:53:45.200 I literally have a podcast where I gained perspective from 0:53:45.200 --> 0:53:48.080 people that go through real shit. I understand that it's 0:53:48.080 --> 0:53:50.640 a pretty fucking cushy problem to have, But right now, 0:53:51.480 --> 0:53:54.120 what I was trying to do was get a bid. 0:53:54.120 --> 0:53:54.840 Was share. 0:53:56.080 --> 0:53:59.719 Some connection with my friend and have someone go yep 0:53:59.800 --> 0:54:04.960 that to beat sheet. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I want to 0:54:05.440 --> 0:54:06.240 them in the face. 0:54:06.840 --> 0:54:11.680 Yes, And you would know how to do that too, So. 0:54:11.760 --> 0:54:14.360 Yeah, bright carriage by not doing it when I want. 0:54:14.239 --> 0:54:20.080 To absolutely absolutely no, And that's that's a yeah, that's that. 0:54:20.560 --> 0:54:23.560 And I think that the courage sort of thing ties 0:54:23.640 --> 0:54:26.920 into that also with you know, like it's a courage 0:54:27.040 --> 0:54:32.680 contest or something. And somehow if if I say that 0:54:32.960 --> 0:54:36.759 I'm brave, or if I think that a thing that 0:54:36.840 --> 0:54:40.359 I did was brave by facing a thing that I'm 0:54:40.400 --> 0:54:43.440 afraid of. In graduate school, I decided I would I 0:54:43.440 --> 0:54:46.720 would work on my fear of heights during my behavior 0:54:46.800 --> 0:54:50.600 therapy exposure each class. And so I did that. And 0:54:50.640 --> 0:54:53.600 so there was a stairwell right outside our classroom and 0:54:54.120 --> 0:54:55.839 we were on the second floor, but it went all 0:54:55.880 --> 0:54:57.680 the way down to the first floor, and they were 0:54:57.719 --> 0:55:01.360 pretty tall. It was pretty tall too, and it's very open. 0:55:01.719 --> 0:55:05.840 And so during our break every week I would or 0:55:05.920 --> 0:55:08.399 every I guess it was every week or every two days, 0:55:08.400 --> 0:55:10.799 I would get a little closer to that railing. And 0:55:10.880 --> 0:55:13.040 my goal is to be able to chat with my 0:55:13.239 --> 0:55:16.759 friends who were checking their mailbox in the basement of 0:55:16.760 --> 0:55:20.760 that stairwell. And I hate it, and I'm still proud 0:55:20.760 --> 0:55:22.560 of that, and I'm still afraid of heides, but I'm 0:55:22.640 --> 0:55:27.120 less afraid of heights than I was. And you know, 0:55:27.239 --> 0:55:29.600 for me to say that it took courage for me 0:55:29.719 --> 0:55:32.359 to move closer to that railing, I think is one 0:55:32.480 --> 0:55:38.480 hundred percent accurate. But you know, if someone goes, you're 0:55:38.560 --> 0:55:41.520 cheapening the idea of courage. What about people who have 0:55:41.640 --> 0:55:44.360 died for our country? You know, I'm going to be like, 0:55:45.120 --> 0:55:49.120 you know, like literally I was trying to say this 0:55:49.160 --> 0:55:53.480 thing about my life or like for me, I have kids, 0:55:53.640 --> 0:55:58.319 and I had an induction with my first pregnancy and 0:55:58.360 --> 0:56:02.399 I remember like standing next to the bed, going you're 0:56:02.400 --> 0:56:04.560 going to hop into that hospital bed and then it's 0:56:04.560 --> 0:56:09.160 gonna hurt a lot. Yeah, and like I had to 0:56:09.239 --> 0:56:11.800 make myself do it, right, I had to make myself 0:56:11.840 --> 0:56:18.840 do that, and it it was you know, and again, 0:56:19.440 --> 0:56:22.720 you know, am I saying that I risked my life 0:56:23.040 --> 0:56:25.600 or you know, no, I'm not saying that am I 0:56:25.680 --> 0:56:29.840 saying that I took a public stand in the face 0:56:29.880 --> 0:56:32.839 of being and being thrown in jail. No, I'm not 0:56:32.920 --> 0:56:37.080 saying that I did that. But I did do this 0:56:37.160 --> 0:56:40.880 thing that I needed to do for me, and that 0:56:41.320 --> 0:56:45.640 kind of that kind of and. 0:56:46.840 --> 0:56:51.040 Yes, we're both watching your background to do an enormous 0:56:51.160 --> 0:56:53.440 leap across the piece of furniture. 0:56:53.760 --> 0:56:57.560 And you know, and and interestingly for her, she has 0:56:57.800 --> 0:57:01.240 pretty bad arthritis. She's very old and she has pretty 0:57:01.239 --> 0:57:07.759 bad arthritis. And she's been getting some some shots from 0:57:07.840 --> 0:57:13.520 the vet that's a high tech Oh I know the 0:57:13.600 --> 0:57:17.120 name for this. My husband does pharmaceutical things. I've forgotten, 0:57:17.200 --> 0:57:21.920 some kind of high tech biologic that works really great 0:57:22.040 --> 0:57:24.360 for arthritis and cats. And she can now do that 0:57:24.480 --> 0:57:27.880 because that was one But what I say courageously, it 0:57:28.120 --> 0:57:30.200 was it was well And you know, and if you 0:57:30.240 --> 0:57:33.280 think about it, like it's courageous if she has the 0:57:33.600 --> 0:57:35.520 if she's in a lot of pain for the arthritis, 0:57:35.560 --> 0:57:37.560 but if you reduce that pain, she's more likely to 0:57:37.560 --> 0:57:39.400 be able to do the thing. I think that's a 0:57:39.400 --> 0:57:42.800 great analogy for courage right, Like if you reduce the 0:57:42.880 --> 0:57:45.439 sense of felt risk, you're going to be more likely 0:57:45.520 --> 0:57:48.240 to be able to do it. If you're with your friends, 0:57:48.280 --> 0:57:51.760 you're gonna and they're giving you social support, or you're 0:57:51.800 --> 0:57:53.560 all doing the same thing, you're going to be more 0:57:53.680 --> 0:57:56.320 likely to be able to do it. We have the 0:57:56.360 --> 0:58:02.400 greatest exercise that the owner of the theater I worked 0:58:02.440 --> 0:58:07.080 for came up with for improv, which is an exercise 0:58:07.200 --> 0:58:13.520 where you play some silly music and y'all stand in 0:58:13.560 --> 0:58:18.200 a circle and one person does a dumb dance move. Right, 0:58:18.280 --> 0:58:21.360 So they're doing this dumb, stupid looking dance move and 0:58:21.400 --> 0:58:24.800 it looks really stupid until everybody else joins in. And 0:58:24.800 --> 0:58:27.920 when everybody else is doing it, like the risk of 0:58:27.960 --> 0:58:30.280 doing it, the risk of looking stupid is totally gone, 0:58:30.360 --> 0:58:32.680 and it actually looks kind of cool and it flips 0:58:32.720 --> 0:58:36.960 from being stupid to sort of cool. Yeah, yeah, I 0:58:37.000 --> 0:58:39.320 love that, And I think that's a lot of the 0:58:39.400 --> 0:58:42.840 social support for some of the socially courageous things we 0:58:42.880 --> 0:58:43.960 see that people do. 0:58:44.760 --> 0:58:49.080 I've really loved this, and I dare say you've given me. 0:58:49.720 --> 0:58:52.480 You've put a lot of fuel into my mind that 0:58:52.520 --> 0:58:55.640 I'm going to be unpacking and thinking of that. So 0:58:55.800 --> 0:58:59.680 thank you, because you're welcome. Yeah, you took me. I 0:58:59.680 --> 0:59:01.920 think I really wanted to go with this, which was 0:59:02.520 --> 0:59:03.760 deeper into curiosity. 0:59:04.480 --> 0:59:07.760 Cool cool, Well, this was totally worth getting up early for. 0:59:09.440 --> 0:59:12.320 Hold day ahead of you. You've written a book. Is 0:59:12.320 --> 0:59:14.960 that an academic book or is that a for everyone book? 0:59:15.280 --> 0:59:18.520 It is an academic book. I have high hopes to 0:59:18.600 --> 0:59:21.920 be writing a for every one book in the relatively 0:59:21.960 --> 0:59:24.919 near future, So stay tuned. And maybe a picture book 0:59:24.960 --> 0:59:28.640 for people like me one day. That would be very fun. 0:59:28.800 --> 0:59:31.080 It would have to have my cat leaping. You can 0:59:31.120 --> 0:59:34.360 cross that gap. Yeah, is there. 0:59:34.200 --> 0:59:37.040 Anywhere you'd like to send people or anything you'd like 0:59:37.120 --> 0:59:38.000 to promote while. 0:59:37.800 --> 0:59:42.840 I have you? Gosh, you know, I mean, this is 0:59:42.920 --> 0:59:45.200 going to sound really silly, but if you're if you're 0:59:45.200 --> 0:59:47.920 trying to increase your social courage, and in proud class 0:59:48.000 --> 0:59:51.800 is actually a great place to do that because you 0:59:51.960 --> 0:59:58.080 will be you will be getting your brain will be 0:59:58.200 --> 1:00:03.160 so full of and doing fun things that you won't 1:00:03.200 --> 1:00:06.120 notice that you're also learning how to do the hard things. 1:00:08.040 --> 1:00:11.400 And yeah, so that I mean and talk about sort 1:00:11.400 --> 1:00:16.240 of like a joyous kind of way to think about courage, 1:00:16.280 --> 1:00:19.200 that would be that would be one of them. So yeah, 1:00:19.360 --> 1:00:22.040 I guess that would be my only My only vague 1:00:22.080 --> 1:00:25.360 recommendation and if you're ever in Greenville, South Carolina, come 1:00:25.400 --> 1:00:28.400 see the Alchemy Comedy Company. I love that. 1:00:28.800 --> 1:00:31.600 I a few years back one of my good mates 1:00:31.760 --> 1:00:34.200 from San Diego, Bobby, he's often on the show, and 1:00:34.360 --> 1:00:39.960 he heard me, Now, I this is completely ignorant of me. 1:00:40.080 --> 1:00:42.439 I guess. I think, now, how could I have not known? 1:00:42.440 --> 1:00:44.360 But I had never I didn't know what improv was. 1:00:44.400 --> 1:00:46.120 He goes, I've got oh, yeah, one of the best 1:00:46.160 --> 1:00:48.600 improv coaches you have to have on your show. And 1:00:48.640 --> 1:00:53.280 I go, okay, what's improv? I'm like, okay, And so 1:00:53.320 --> 1:00:57.200 I look it up. I'm like, so it's pretending. So 1:00:57.320 --> 1:00:59.959 it's pretending. And I'm like, that's okay, that's weird. 1:01:00.840 --> 1:01:01.560 Is it? 1:01:01.600 --> 1:01:03.920 Does he pretend? Is he a pretend coach? Is he 1:01:04.000 --> 1:01:04.840 coaching pretending? 1:01:04.920 --> 1:01:07.680 Like? What does he coach? What is he a coach? Oh? 1:01:07.720 --> 1:01:10.320 I got I love the phrase coaching pretending. I am 1:01:10.400 --> 1:01:12.720 going to I am going to use that. That's a 1:01:12.800 --> 1:01:13.640 delayedful phrase. 1:01:14.000 --> 1:01:17.160 Halfway through this conversation, I had this epiphany and I 1:01:17.200 --> 1:01:20.920 was like, I feel about what you're describing to me 1:01:21.600 --> 1:01:24.640 the way I felt about the metaphoric value to my 1:01:24.760 --> 1:01:27.240 life of the boxing ring. So I started up and 1:01:27.240 --> 1:01:30.440 did an online improv and with friends, and then when 1:01:30.520 --> 1:01:32.560 the world opened up, I went and did an eight 1:01:32.640 --> 1:01:37.320 week in the city improv Beginner's Call and I loved it. 1:01:37.400 --> 1:01:40.360 I love that. That's great. Yeah, it is. It is 1:01:40.400 --> 1:01:43.440 like the nicest it's like the nicest twee to connect 1:01:43.520 --> 1:01:46.680 with people. It really is, really and it is right. 1:01:48.240 --> 1:01:51.680 It is a great place to practice courage because in 1:01:51.720 --> 1:01:57.560 that moment you fear doesn't help. You can't overthink your 1:01:57.560 --> 1:02:01.360 way to a solution because you don't know what's coming exactly. 1:02:01.680 --> 1:02:05.160 There's no place for anxiety. There's no it doesn't do anything. 1:02:05.920 --> 1:02:08.680 Yeah, Kenny, I don't really have time to focus on 1:02:08.760 --> 1:02:10.680 feeling like this is because I've got to be ready 1:02:10.680 --> 1:02:12.880 for when the thing is throwing my way. 1:02:14.120 --> 1:02:17.040 And also I've got a friend who does both stand 1:02:17.120 --> 1:02:20.840 up and improv, and he he always says that, like, 1:02:21.000 --> 1:02:25.040 criticism of his stand up hurts so much more because 1:02:25.120 --> 1:02:28.240 improv you didn't like, you didn't like the show, I 1:02:28.360 --> 1:02:32.000 just made that up, fuck you versus stand up is 1:02:32.040 --> 1:02:35.560 like I worked really hard on that. That was like 1:02:35.680 --> 1:02:41.400 me and so yeah, so that's uh yeah anyways, but 1:02:41.400 --> 1:02:44.400 but yeah, that would be. That would be my takeaway 1:02:44.440 --> 1:02:49.720 to people is if if social courage is the thing 1:02:49.760 --> 1:02:53.120 you're looking for, that is it's kind of the social 1:02:53.120 --> 1:02:56.800 courage equivalence of boxing or ultimate fighting, or you know, 1:02:57.040 --> 1:03:01.720 any of the challenge and rock climb, free climbing, any 1:03:01.840 --> 1:03:05.640 of the sort of physical danger, confrontation sort of things 1:03:05.640 --> 1:03:09.520 you might encounter. I actually love it, and I love it. 1:03:09.560 --> 1:03:12.440 Seems like such a paradox to have an academic on 1:03:12.760 --> 1:03:15.400 that's then going, hey, I also do himprom I'm like, oh, 1:03:15.520 --> 1:03:16.600 I expect that. 1:03:18.400 --> 1:03:21.320 No people usually people usually don't, but there's actually kind 1:03:21.320 --> 1:03:24.440 of a lot of overlap. And I started doing it 1:03:24.480 --> 1:03:26.480 when I had the colleague tell me that I should. 1:03:27.320 --> 1:03:30.160 I should now since I was studying courage, you know, 1:03:30.240 --> 1:03:32.560 at some point you're going to have to jump out 1:03:32.600 --> 1:03:36.680 of an airplane. And I was like no, no, no, 1:03:36.760 --> 1:03:39.640 I'm not. And then he was like trying to trying 1:03:39.680 --> 1:03:43.840 to encourage or cajole me into doing you know, some 1:03:44.080 --> 1:03:46.920 kind of apparently dangerous thing. And I was like, well, 1:03:47.920 --> 1:03:50.600 I'll do something that I think is meaningful to me 1:03:51.440 --> 1:03:53.000 rather than meaningful to others. 1:03:53.360 --> 1:03:56.680 So yeah, I love it. You're right, Yes, I'll have 1:03:56.720 --> 1:04:00.280 links to well of links. 1:04:00.120 --> 1:04:03.600 For Alchemy Comedy. Yeah, I'm telling you Comedy comedy. Yes, 1:04:03.680 --> 1:04:07.880 Alchemy Comedy, Alchemycomedy dot com. We have shows every Thursday, Friday, 1:04:07.880 --> 1:04:10.920 and Saturday night. And we'd love to see anybody in 1:04:10.960 --> 1:04:13.960 your listeners who happens to be in Greenville. All right, 1:04:14.360 --> 1:04:17.520 get over there, guys. Yeah, thank you so much, Cynthia, 1:04:17.600 --> 1:04:19.800 Thank you very much. TIF. It was nice to talk 1:04:19.840 --> 1:04:20.040 to you. 1:04:20.520 --> 1:04:27.880 Hie, Cheers everyone, she said, it's now never I got 1:04:28.160 --> 1:04:36.160 fighting in my blood. 1:04:33.720 --> 1:04:33.760 It