Speaker 1: I'll get a team. Welcome to another installment of that
Speaker 1: you project Professor Nick Haslam is here. We just met
Speaker 1: thirteen seconds ago, so we're going to get to know
Speaker 1: each other over the next forty five fifty sixty minutes.
Speaker 1: Who knows, could be three hours. I mean we could connect,
Speaker 1: we could start something that goes on forever. But before
Speaker 1: I predict that, I'll say hi to Nick. Hi, Nick,
Speaker 1: How are you very well?
Speaker 2: Craigan?
Speaker 1: Well, thanks very much for doing this? How often do
Speaker 1: you you were just marveling at the amount of podcast
Speaker 1: or the lack of life that I have and the
Speaker 1: amount of podcasts that I do seven a week. How
Speaker 1: often do you do something like this?
Speaker 2: Very rarely? You know, I do the occasional podcast, but
Speaker 2: I don't have my own gig. I mean, we run
Speaker 2: a podcast in my department, and I think we do
Speaker 2: something like seven episodes a year, So I think we
Speaker 2: must be just very lazy compared to you. So I'm
Speaker 2: not sure how you manage it.
Speaker 1: I'm sure it's a much better product than what I
Speaker 1: churn out here at typ Central on a daily basis.
Speaker 1: But fortunately for me, I do have a good team
Speaker 1: around me who know how to make me look and
Speaker 1: sound smarter than I actually am. So I think that's
Speaker 1: always good to have good people in the background. Tell
Speaker 1: us a little bit about you. If you could tell
Speaker 1: my audience who you are and what rather than me
Speaker 1: read some potentially stale bio that could be outdated, which
Speaker 1: I've done in the past, could you just give my
Speaker 1: audience a snapshot of who you are, what you're doing,
Speaker 1: what lights you up?
Speaker 2: Maybe sure. I'm a psychology academic at the University of Melbourne.
Speaker 2: I've been here about twenty four years. Before that, I
Speaker 2: taught at a university in New York City, and I
Speaker 2: did my PhD before that at the University of Pennsylvania
Speaker 2: with people you and your listeners may know, people like
Speaker 2: Marty Seligman, my team, Aaron Beck, the founder of Cognitive Therapy.
Speaker 2: I worked in his unit for a while. So I
Speaker 2: trained as a clinical psychologist, but then sort of moved
Speaker 2: away from actually helping people to doing social psychology, and
Speaker 2: so I do a lot of research on things like
Speaker 2: stigma and prejudice and how concepts have harm have changed
Speaker 2: through time and metric classification and all sorts of things.
Speaker 2: So I'm basically a university egghead, but also do quite
Speaker 2: a lot of science communication, so I write widely for
Speaker 2: The Conversation, Australian Book Review, Inside Story. I try to
Speaker 2: get the word of psychology out there to the intelligent
Speaker 2: lay public.
Speaker 1: A self aware egghead, though, I'm going to say that,
Speaker 1: you know that's good.
Speaker 2: We aspire to him. If you're not self aware as
Speaker 2: a psychology person, I think you're probably in the wrong business.
Speaker 1: I tell you what, there's a few. There's a few,
Speaker 1: and you know a few, and I know a few.
Speaker 1: But anyway, let's hope that we're not in that group.
Speaker 1: I don't know, but I love the fact that you
Speaker 1: said a science communicator. One of the challenges for me,
Speaker 1: I'm not really I'm a pseudo academic. I'm more a
Speaker 1: pro academic. You're an actual academic. But for me, trying
Speaker 1: to share thoughts and ideas and concepts and science in
Speaker 1: a way which makes sense the public. So it's not
Speaker 1: only you know they can understand, but also they can
Speaker 1: potentially operationalize it, they can do something with it. It's like, well, cool, Craig,
Speaker 1: you're talking about all this stuff with a really smart dude. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm not understanding half of it. And if I can't
Speaker 1: understand it, I can't do something with it. So every
Speaker 1: time I talk, I'm trying to have at least a
Speaker 1: vague awareness of what is the listener experience or the
Speaker 1: observer or the viewer experience, so that this might be Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's a good conversation, but more importantly, it's a good
Speaker 1: conversation for them, not us. Hopefully it's good for us,
Speaker 1: but more importantly it's good for them, so that there
Speaker 1: might be a light bulb moment, or there might be
Speaker 1: some door that opens on awareness or understanding or insight
Speaker 1: that actually is a value to people.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's so important to communicate. And again I mean
Speaker 2: I think you're doing a fine job of that and
Speaker 2: making it smart but also accessible, I mean, not dumbing
Speaker 2: things down, but also so you know, not losing some
Speaker 2: of the fine texture of the detail. And look, I
Speaker 2: think in my business in the university system, a lot
Speaker 2: of us are writing for one another. A lot of
Speaker 2: us are writing in a jargon y kind of way.
Speaker 2: There's so many exciting things happening in psychology research, but
Speaker 2: not everyone feels the need to disseminate it or to
Speaker 2: learn from how the public receives it. So often things
Speaker 2: you think are very smart. You mention it to your
Speaker 2: strange uncle at Christmas and they think it's common sense.
Speaker 2: So I think there's a two way street, really, and
Speaker 2: I think it's so important that we do it, and
Speaker 2: we do it well.
Speaker 1: How much of about how much of understanding human behavior
Speaker 1: happens in, for one of better terms than laboratory, and
Speaker 1: how much happens just out in the real world at
Speaker 1: the interface of humanity, just situation, circumstance, environment, conversation, resolving conflicts,
Speaker 1: solving problems. For me, who's kind of I straddled both
Speaker 1: worlds a little bit. I love what I'm doing with
Speaker 1: my research, and I love my academic journey that's been
Speaker 1: quite interrupted over the years. But for me, I feel
Speaker 1: like I'm a better teacher and educator and communicator and
Speaker 1: coach more based on my experience than anything I've even
Speaker 1: researched personally or my own studies.
Speaker 2: Yeah, look, I think you're right, and I think that's
Speaker 2: true of everyone. Really. You know, no matter how many
Speaker 2: degrees you have and how much time you've spent doing research,
Speaker 2: you still learn most about people just from interacting with them.
Speaker 2: I mean, that's the thing. All of us are psychologists
Speaker 2: only some of us are allowed to call us a
Speaker 2: psychologist because we've been through registration, and I haven't, so
Speaker 2: I don't call myself a psychologist. But yeah, we're all
Speaker 2: sort of learning about human behavior from the moment we're born,
Speaker 2: and we're all learning how others stick, how others behave.
Speaker 2: We're incredibly good at sucking up information from the environment
Speaker 2: about thinking, feeling, emotion, action, all of these sorts of things.
Speaker 2: And really the academic side to it is really just
Speaker 2: trying to make some of that unfamiliar and strange and
Speaker 2: try to sort of take steps beyond that kind of
Speaker 2: common sense. But generally the common sense is right. I mean,
Speaker 2: you know, often you know the fact that we've spent
Speaker 2: so much time immersed in social interaction, learning about people
Speaker 2: and introspecting about ourselves means that we are experts even
Speaker 2: without having done psychology degrees. So I think you're spot
Speaker 2: on that that's where we get most of our wisdom.
Speaker 2: But you would hope that there are some things which
Speaker 2: we don't have common sense about. We don't know how
Speaker 2: the brain works, we don't have intuitions about brains. We
Speaker 2: have brains, and our brains help us have intuitions but
Speaker 2: we don't have intuitions about how the brain works, so
Speaker 2: you have to do neuroscience to find that out. And
Speaker 2: I think it also we don't know what sort of
Speaker 2: treatments are most effective for certain sorts of problems, and
Speaker 2: we might have guesses, but unless you do the research,
Speaker 2: you don't know. So there's a place of research. But
Speaker 2: I completely agree with you that we get most of
Speaker 2: our knowledge about might have behavior just from interacting with
Speaker 2: other people.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, My background before my current PhD and psyche
Speaker 1: is excise physiology. And it's funny coming from that background
Speaker 1: where I'm working with bodies and teams and athletes, and
Speaker 1: it's like the protocol or the prescription or whatever for
Speaker 1: one person that will be highly effective will be totally
Speaker 1: inappropriate for somebody, even if somebody else, even if they've
Speaker 1: got what seems to be similar needs and similar goals,
Speaker 1: you know, And so this kind of what's the best
Speaker 1: process or what's the best program, or what's the best
Speaker 1: dose or what's the best prescription for this or that?
Speaker 1: It's it's almost like, yeah, for who like you and
Speaker 1: I could go to the gym tonight and we train
Speaker 1: and we're probably similar ages and maybe I'm older than you,
Speaker 1: but you know, we do the same workout and we've
Speaker 1: got to say, yeah, we want to be fitting strong
Speaker 1: and you pull up great and I can't move for
Speaker 1: four days, or vice versa.
Speaker 2: It's like, well, it's not vice versa.
Speaker 1: I'm guessing, Well, it's trying to figure out, you know, well,
Speaker 1: what's best for Craig, what's best for Nick? That could
Speaker 1: be anything from you know, what's the best job, or
Speaker 1: what's the best work environment, or what's the best breakfast
Speaker 1: or what's the best relationship context or what's the best
Speaker 1: way for you know, for me, I have a certain
Speaker 1: model of study and research and remembering and like managing
Speaker 1: my mind around this task of study and research that
Speaker 1: works well for me, but it wouldn't work well for
Speaker 1: someone else. So I think, on top of the you know,
Speaker 1: the research that comes out of all of the labs,
Speaker 1: also trying to figure out on an individual level, how
Speaker 1: do I work? Like what is my body? Tell me?
Speaker 1: What is my energy? Tell me? What are my results?
Speaker 1: Tell me? You know that N equals one thing?
Speaker 2: Yeah, and look at you know, research just takes care
Speaker 2: of that as well, though I have to say, look,
Speaker 2: I do personality psychology, that's what I teach at first
Speaker 2: year level, and it's all about how people vary. And
Speaker 2: I've always thought that the variation, you know, the variability
Speaker 2: between people is the most interesting thing. You know, what
Speaker 2: makes us unique. How you describe our differences, how you
Speaker 2: tailor treatments or careers or whatever to human individuality. And
Speaker 2: as you say, our bodies are highly individual, but of
Speaker 2: course so are our minds. And understanding and measuring and
Speaker 2: thinking hard about individual differences, I think is just one
Speaker 2: of the most fascinating things about doing psychology.
Speaker 1: I'm sure there's a million answers to this question, or
Speaker 1: multiple answers anyway, But what are some of the biggest
Speaker 1: kind of breakthroughs or perhaps even one eighties that we've
Speaker 1: seen in psychology in the last I don't know, as
Speaker 1: long as you've been involved, where we've really become aware
Speaker 1: of something else or something profound that we didn't realize
Speaker 1: or perhaps changed our thinking about something. Has there been
Speaker 1: any kind of big shifts in research and understanding of
Speaker 1: not only human behavior, but the mind in general and
Speaker 1: the brain.
Speaker 2: They've probably been thousands. It's so hard to pick something.
Speaker 2: I mean, I'll just do the ecocentric thing and pick
Speaker 2: on something that I've been part of Perfect Perfect, and
Speaker 2: that's I think this idea in the mental health space
Speaker 2: that we used to believe that people either had one
Speaker 2: condition or they didn't, that it was a matter of kind.
Speaker 2: You know, you had depression, or you had schizophrenia, or
Speaker 2: you had anorex cinerversa or you didn't. And you know
Speaker 2: DSM Diagnostic Institutical Manual American you know, Psychiatric Association's classification
Speaker 2: of mental illness puts of synboxes. It believes that we
Speaker 2: have mental illnesses as categories. And one of the big
Speaker 2: I think revolutions of the last twenty years is realizing
Speaker 2: that pretty much everything's on a spectrum, everything's a matter
Speaker 2: of degree. Was sort of moving away from this categorical
Speaker 2: mindset the differences between people types, and that goes for
Speaker 2: personality types as well as mental illnesses, and that everything
Speaker 2: is really on the bell curve. And at some level,
Speaker 2: once you say that, you think, wow, wasn't that sort
Speaker 2: of obvious? Well, no, it wasn't obvious to smart people
Speaker 2: for a couple of centuries. It's still not obvious today.
Speaker 2: People are often saying I have you know, condition X,
Speaker 2: as if it's something that makes them categorically different from
Speaker 2: everyone who doesn't have a condition X. But the reality
Speaker 2: is everything's a blur, everything's a smear, And that's a
Speaker 2: sort of revolution in thinking. That's changing how we formulate
Speaker 2: cases in psychotherapy and how we do research on the
Speaker 2: underpinnings of mental illness, on the treatments of mental illness.
Speaker 2: I think that's quite a radical change. May not sound
Speaker 2: so radically. It's not that we suddenly found a new
Speaker 2: part of the brain or that we overturn some theory,
Speaker 2: but we sort of had this common sense that people
Speaker 2: fall into boxes and they just don't.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, And I think it also, I could almost
Speaker 1: I reckon if you tested me, depends on when you
Speaker 1: tested me, what time of day, what day of the month,
Speaker 1: what I'm going through, you might deduce a whole lot
Speaker 1: of different things for me, depending on you know, It's
Speaker 1: like if you tested my IQ, sometimes it might be
Speaker 1: decent and other times it might be very low, depending
Speaker 1: on my level of fatigue and my level of distraction
Speaker 1: and my level of dress and anxiety. And yeah, so's
Speaker 1: it's kind of a lot of it's fluid, not so
Speaker 1: much fixed.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and you said that beautifully. You know, I think
Speaker 2: understanding that everything is dynamic. The thing is things very
Speaker 2: even when you say someone's personality, even if you know
Speaker 2: saying you know, back in the old days, you'd say
Speaker 2: she's an introvert or he's an extrovert. That sort of
Speaker 2: categorical language, which doesn't recognize the fact that people you know,
Speaker 2: exist on the bell curve, but beyond being on the
Speaker 2: bell curve, like you say, we can vary along that
Speaker 2: spectrum on a daily basis. That doesn't mean some people
Speaker 2: on average aren't more introverted than others. But you're right,
Speaker 2: context really matters. Everything's fluid, everything's dynamic, and understanding that
Speaker 2: sort of dynamics, I think is something that's happening more
Speaker 2: and more so if you just allow me to give
Speaker 2: a plug to some colleagues. You know, back in the
Speaker 2: old days again, we used to measure a lot of
Speaker 2: individual differences like personality, characteristics or you know, abilities, using
Speaker 2: some sort of static tests and assume that the score
Speaker 2: that you got was some fact about how you would
Speaker 2: be for eternity. And you know, now what they do
Speaker 2: is they have smartphone measures and you can sort of
Speaker 2: measure things continuously throughout the day. You know, you just
Speaker 2: randomly send people sort of twenty prompts during the day
Speaker 2: on their smartphone and say, how are you feeling now,
Speaker 2: what are you thinking about now? What are you observing
Speaker 2: now in the world, And you can get a much
Speaker 2: more sort of fluid, continuous idea of how people's mental
Speaker 2: processes are changing in real time, rather than just people's
Speaker 2: summaries on a questionnaire form, which might be biased in
Speaker 2: all sorts of ways. So we're sort of getting at
Speaker 2: the texture of experience, I think a lot more directly
Speaker 2: than we used to.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, even something like that we get introduced to
Speaker 1: when we're young, you know, the concept of intelligence. I'm like, well,
Speaker 1: he's he or she is intelligent? Oh, he's he's one
Speaker 1: for his IQ is one forty his genius. Yeah, but
Speaker 1: he can't catch a ball, and he can't hold a
Speaker 1: conversation and he can't clean a floor. And you know,
Speaker 1: it's like, well, you know this whole thing that it's
Speaker 1: all myost situation or task dependent. It depends what we're
Speaker 1: doing and where. You know, sometimes I go into a
Speaker 1: room and I feel like I'm pretty smart. I'm pretty smart.
Speaker 1: But I go to another room, I'm like, no, I'm
Speaker 1: actually a moron. It's just like when I started my PhD,
Speaker 1: right and I'm doing it at Monash in what's called
Speaker 1: Brain Park, which is a neuroscience neuropsych lab, and you know,
Speaker 1: and I'm not a genius anyway, but I've never felt
Speaker 1: so stupid as my first six months in that environment
Speaker 1: with those people and trying to learn the language, learn
Speaker 1: the culture, learn the you know, just just how it worked.
Speaker 1: And I'm like, I am actually in the wrong place.
Speaker 1: I'm too stupid to be here. But over time you
Speaker 1: kind of adapt and you start to learn how to think,
Speaker 1: how to think differently, how to do research, how to
Speaker 1: speak that language, how to write that language. Because my
Speaker 1: last he was twenty years ago, right or twenty years
Speaker 1: before my PhD, And so it was like, oh, I
Speaker 1: went to Italy twenty years ago for three months and
Speaker 1: I could speak one hundred words. But now I'm back
Speaker 1: and I'm living here and it's like, I don't get it.
Speaker 1: So for me, such a steep learning curve, but it's like, oh,
Speaker 1: well now actually, and I submit in about four weeks,
Speaker 1: so I'm really at the pointy end. So but I
Speaker 1: will say six years later because I've been kind of busy.
Speaker 1: But six years later, so the same guy with the
Speaker 1: same brain, arguably the same brain and the same potential
Speaker 1: and all of that. Oh, now it's like, oh, it's
Speaker 1: very familiar. It's it's not easy, but it's like, oh,
Speaker 1: I understand this now. I understand the protocol and the
Speaker 1: process and the culture and the language and the dynamics,
Speaker 1: and I understand all. You know. It's like, ah, so
Speaker 1: I can even at my old age, you can still adapt,
Speaker 1: you can still learn, you can still evolve. But I
Speaker 1: think a lot of these things are a bit context
Speaker 1: dependent and situation dependent.
Speaker 2: Oh absolutely, But I think also what I'd say is,
Speaker 2: you know, you might have thought that your early cluelessness
Speaker 2: was a sign of low intelligence, but it was just
Speaker 2: a matter of low knowledge. You know, you didn't know
Speaker 2: the rules, and the fact that you climb that learning curve,
Speaker 2: you know, steeply, is what the intelligence was. It's your
Speaker 2: capacity to learn. And I think we often confuse ignorance
Speaker 2: with stupidity. You know what you don't know, and you know,
Speaker 2: I think what I've always found is the best cue
Speaker 2: of feeling not smart enough or an impostor, which most
Speaker 2: of us feel at some point in life. I think
Speaker 2: is just when someone even younger and stupider comes up
Speaker 2: underneath us and we realize, actually, I do know more
Speaker 2: than this individual, and maybe it's more about of acquiring
Speaker 2: knowledge rather than having some sort of fixed amount of
Speaker 2: skill or ability or intelligence.
Speaker 1: Do you think that do you think that the average person?
Speaker 1: And I'm not this not a loaded question, and I'm
Speaker 1: trying to throw anyone under any bus, but do you
Speaker 1: think that typically we think about how we think? Like
Speaker 1: do you think about what do I think this way?
Speaker 1: Why do I see the world this way? Where does
Speaker 1: this story come from? Why do I process that experience?
Speaker 1: Do you think that people think about what's going on
Speaker 1: cognitively and emotionally and mentally. Do you think that the
Speaker 1: average person ponders that at all?
Speaker 2: Yeah? I do, Actually, I mean I think some more
Speaker 2: than others, of course, like everything else, but I think
Speaker 2: most of us are curious, are about our own minds,
Speaker 2: and have theories about our own minds, are always forming
Speaker 2: ideas about who we are. I mean, you can think
Speaker 2: about that as being sort of adolescent self focused if
Speaker 2: you like, But I think we're always trying to get
Speaker 2: a sense of what sort of person we are, you know,
Speaker 2: and again, it can take unhealthy forms or healthy forms.
Speaker 2: So I think it's entirely healthy to be psychologically minded
Speaker 2: and to always be interested in this lump of meat
Speaker 2: in our head which is capable of doing incredible things,
Speaker 2: and you know, learning from our mistakes and reflecting on
Speaker 2: our values. I think that's really important. I think most
Speaker 2: of us do that to some point, maybe lesser as
Speaker 2: we get older, I don't know. But they're also the
Speaker 2: unhealthy form of rumination. So I think you could also say,
Speaker 2: you know, getting stuck in a rut thinking constantly about
Speaker 2: why did I say that? Why did I say that
Speaker 2: dumb thing? Does she love me? Does he love me?
Speaker 2: A lot of that kind of repetitive thinking is also
Speaker 2: thinking about one's own mental process, but it's completely unproductive.
Speaker 2: But I guess the short answer is I think I've
Speaker 2: got a lot of time for the late person. I
Speaker 2: think everyday people are sophisticated. They care about their own
Speaker 2: thinking as well as other people's thinking. I think it's
Speaker 2: just part of being human.
Speaker 1: How do we I know there's no three step plan,
Speaker 1: but I'm just you're a straight up smarty pants, So
Speaker 1: while you're here, I'm just going to exploit you how
Speaker 1: do we start to understand how other people think, you know,
Speaker 1: theory of mind. Obviously, it's really important that we at
Speaker 1: least have an insight into how not that we need
Speaker 1: to agree with them or align with them or support
Speaker 1: them necessarily whatever their ideas are. But how do we
Speaker 1: begin to understand others thinking that we might be able
Speaker 1: to build you know, greater apport connection, trust, respect, better
Speaker 1: into personal experiences. Where would we start with that?
Speaker 2: Here are my three steps, Greig, Actually I'm joking.
Speaker 1: Look, I think they thought there were four that I
Speaker 1: was surprised. I thought there was four.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, No, if it's four, people can't at least
Speaker 2: I can't remember more than three things at once, So
Speaker 2: it has to be three steps. Look, I think there's
Speaker 2: no straightforward answer to that, but I think a really
Speaker 2: good start point is one of humility, where you think,
Speaker 2: you know, they're probably a little bit like us. Other
Speaker 2: people's minds probably not that different from our own. There's
Speaker 2: probably a default tendency with many people to imagine that
Speaker 2: other people are sort of less sophisticated, less thoughtful than others.
Speaker 2: We've got this, you know, this set of of biases
Speaker 2: where we tend to think that we're a little bit
Speaker 2: better than average, and other sort of bit people a
Speaker 2: little bit less, less, less clever and thoughtful. But get
Speaker 2: over that bias and recognize, maybe you know, the other
Speaker 2: people's mental life is as complicated as us. Recognize that
Speaker 2: you have your own. So we know from social psychology,
Speaker 2: for instance, that people tend to over attribute their own
Speaker 2: behavior to their context, but other people's baby too much
Speaker 2: to their personality. So recognize that maybe we're a bit
Speaker 2: too quick to imagine that other people's behavior reflects their
Speaker 2: character rather than just how they're responding to the environment
Speaker 2: as they see it. So I think partly just giving
Speaker 2: people the benefit of the doubt, some humility, recognizing that
Speaker 2: other people are responding to the world as they see it,
Speaker 2: thinking a little bit about the background they might have
Speaker 2: come from, how their values might not be different from ours.
Speaker 2: I don't know. I think it's very hard to come
Speaker 2: up with a good answer to that, partly because I
Speaker 2: think we're not really reflecting on it as we're doing it.
Speaker 2: We're just doing it, and we're doing it because theory
Speaker 2: of mind, if you want to call it that, or
Speaker 2: mentalizing or mind reading, whatever you want to call it,
Speaker 2: it's a very natural thing that we're always doing.
Speaker 1: I think also we unintentionally and probably unconsciously, I think
Speaker 1: that other people think like us, you know, false consensus effect.
Speaker 1: I think that's called feel free to correct me, but
Speaker 1: it's where I assume that my intention will be your experience.
Speaker 1: So I see you Nick, and I think, oh, I've
Speaker 1: got some advice for Nick that would be really helpful
Speaker 1: for him. I don't know what that would look like,
Speaker 1: but you know, so I share with you some what
Speaker 1: I think is well meaning kind of feedback or advice
Speaker 1: or whatever. And your experience is that I'm just a meddling, interfering,
Speaker 1: arrogant bullfaired right. So you know that that that intention
Speaker 1: doesn't always land well. And even though my you know,
Speaker 1: I have good motives and what's what's in my head
Speaker 1: is not going to be necessarily your experience.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but you know, false consensus is real, as you said,
Speaker 2: and it's a it's a bias, but it's a pretty
Speaker 2: good bias to have. I mean, if if you start
Speaker 2: from the position that other people are like yourself, you know,
Speaker 2: with your own complexity, with your own you know, cleverness
Speaker 2: and thoughtfulness and feelings and intelligence and all of the
Speaker 2: rest of it. That's a pretty good place to start,
Speaker 2: you know, rather than imagining, I mean to take the opposite.
Speaker 2: If you had a false dissensus and you imagined everyone
Speaker 2: was dumber, stupid, or uglier, less well intentioned than yourself,
Speaker 2: that'll be terrible. Much better to start from the idea
Speaker 2: that others are similar to you, and then you know,
Speaker 2: be open to learning when they're not. I think the
Speaker 2: problem is not the false consensus to start with. It's
Speaker 2: more not learning when there is evidence that the person's
Speaker 2: different from you.
Speaker 1: Right right when when you are in front of a group.
Speaker 1: You do corporate stuff as well as academic stuff like
Speaker 1: do you stand in front of corporates?
Speaker 2: No, not really, I've never really got into that. The
Speaker 2: closest thing I get is I do a little bit
Speaker 2: of sub lecturing for officers in training at the ADF
Speaker 2: on sort of leadership, but it's really not my main thing.
Speaker 2: I yeah, I never thought that sort of work and
Speaker 2: probably wouldn't be terrifically good at it.
Speaker 1: Come on, bro, I think you'd be all right. I
Speaker 1: think you're a smarty pants and you can string a
Speaker 1: few words together. I think you'd be all right. So
Speaker 1: this is just a curiosity for me. What do you
Speaker 1: think the Nick experience is like for the world. Not
Speaker 1: that that's something you should be stressed or preoccupied with,
Speaker 1: but do you ever think of that? Do you ever
Speaker 1: think what is it like being around me?
Speaker 2: Yeah? I do a bit. I mean, yeah, I'm not
Speaker 2: sure I want to go too much into the psychodrama
Speaker 2: of this. Look, I'm a bit of an odd cat,
Speaker 2: I think in some ways. You know, I've always been
Speaker 2: pretty quiet, pretty sort of intellectually in my interests. I
Speaker 2: don't think it's a very typical kind of pattern for
Speaker 2: an Australian male. So I've always assumed that I might
Speaker 2: be a little bit intense for some people, and some
Speaker 2: people might be a bit off put by the fact
Speaker 2: that I really care about ideas, maybe more than average.
Speaker 2: But I don't know, you know, I think I've tried
Speaker 2: to sand off some of the sharper part of my
Speaker 2: younger personality, and I'm probably reasonably good company some of
Speaker 2: the time.
Speaker 1: I concur your honor, I concur Yeah. I mean, for me,
Speaker 1: it's something I was probably way more insecure and way
Speaker 1: more issues than you. But you know, I was just
Speaker 1: this growing up. I was just this fat kid this
Speaker 1: morbidly OBUs teenager living in rural Victoria with all the issues.
Speaker 1: So I was always obsessed about being liked and belonging
Speaker 1: and what people thought, and you know, completely unhealthy and rational,
Speaker 1: but nonetheless that was just my reality at that time.
Speaker 1: And so then over the years as I worked in
Speaker 1: media a little bit, and I've written a few books,
Speaker 1: and I set up Australia's first personal training centers, and
Speaker 1: so I've always been in front of people talking and
Speaker 1: even with this show, this show's eight years down the
Speaker 1: track and as you asked me before the show, seven
Speaker 1: days a week, really, yeah, seven days a week. So
Speaker 1: I always say, there's this kind of there's this duality
Speaker 1: of trying to just meet be me and be in
Speaker 1: the moment and just be raw and real and authentic,
Speaker 1: but at the same time having an awareness that thousands
Speaker 1: of people are listening to you and me have this conversation.
Speaker 1: So how do I be relaxed and real and authentic
Speaker 1: and me but still have an awareness that, you know,
Speaker 1: if I say fuck, some people are going to be
Speaker 1: absolutely fine and some people aren't. So do I do
Speaker 1: that or not? Because when I talk, I'm not you know,
Speaker 1: So just this whole kind of you know, level of
Speaker 1: other awareness, you know, this kind of social awareness and this. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So for me, it's just that's why I ask people.
Speaker 1: I even ask CEOs when I work with companies. I go,
Speaker 1: what do you think it's like being around you? And
Speaker 1: the responses are fascinating, Yeah, because I.
Speaker 2: Think it's like we probably don't reflect done explicitly. We
Speaker 2: probably have our own guesses and private thoughts about it,
Speaker 2: but we probably don't get asked that kind of direct
Speaker 2: question too often. And it's a good one to answer.
Speaker 2: I think it's probably very revealing to the person who's
Speaker 2: giving the answer as well, because you know, I don't
Speaker 2: have a prepared answer to that. That's why my response
Speaker 2: was a bit garbled having been asked it before, and
Speaker 2: probably a really revealing question for the CEOs in question.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, I've been told everything from wow, I've never
Speaker 1: thought of that. Thank you for asking. That's I need
Speaker 1: to I need to go away and think too. I
Speaker 1: don't give a shit, Like literally, I don't care what
Speaker 1: they think of me. I'm like, okay, Roger that I
Speaker 1: think I found the problem in the culture. HiT's up
Speaker 1: behind this door here?
Speaker 2: Well, it's very very important for someone who's powerful to
Speaker 2: know that, because you know, they're not really going to
Speaker 2: be getting people's authentic judgments of them. They're going to
Speaker 2: be getting the supervient term people pleasing sort of response.
Speaker 2: So yeah, they're not actively seeking to find out how
Speaker 2: they're seen by others. They're never going to learn.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we spoke before a little bit about like understanding
Speaker 1: ourselves and our own mind. Where do we again, this
Speaker 1: is not meant to be an interview, by the way,
Speaker 1: I prof this is just a chat, but your idea
Speaker 1: of identity, like do we I don't even know that.
Speaker 1: It's like the who am I question? I don't really
Speaker 1: even think about it. I'm like, I don't know, I'm
Speaker 1: you know, where we need to almost define who we
Speaker 1: are for the world. Craig, what is your purpose? I
Speaker 1: don't know. Just watch how I live and you'll probably
Speaker 1: figure it out. Just watch what I do, how I
Speaker 1: treat people, how I work. You probably figure out what
Speaker 1: my values and purpose are. But I don't know. This
Speaker 1: seems like, and maybe not in your space, but outside
Speaker 1: of your outside of academia, there seems to be a
Speaker 1: lot of emphasis on who am I? What am I about?
Speaker 1: What's my mission, what's my purpose? And I'm like, well, fuck,
Speaker 1: I don't know what day of the week is it,
Speaker 1: because my mission and purpose today not the same as
Speaker 1: they were on Monday. You know these things. Also, do
Speaker 1: we need to know our identity or define our identity
Speaker 1: in that sense?
Speaker 2: Probably not. I mean I think probably we ought to
Speaker 2: have some sort of set of principles we live by,
Speaker 2: and we can be very confusing to other people if
Speaker 2: we're not somewhat consistent about what we seem to stand
Speaker 2: for and what we're pursuing in life. But yeah, whether
Speaker 2: you need to formulate it, whether you need to have
Speaker 2: some sort of sort of glossy brochure of who you
Speaker 2: are to present to the world, that's not clear to me.
Speaker 2: I do think it's important to have some sort of
Speaker 2: sense of consistency and who you are. But the idea
Speaker 2: that you need to publicize it rather than just manifest it,
Speaker 2: I think is strange. And again a lot of people,
Speaker 2: maybe our age, maybe a bit taken aback by how
Speaker 2: much personal branding there is that goes among especially younger people,
Speaker 2: where it's an attempt to say this is my identity,
Speaker 2: this is what I stand for. Well, don't just say it,
Speaker 2: you know, do it. Doing it. It's much more persuasive
Speaker 2: than than saying it. And I think also, you know,
Speaker 2: I think this is one of the things where your identity,
Speaker 2: I mean, there's this you know, you'll know Eric Erickson,
Speaker 2: this unfashionable psychoanalyst from back in the day who wrote
Speaker 2: a lot about identity and identity and adolescence and as
Speaker 2: an achievement of adolescens. You know, figuring out who you
Speaker 2: are is something that you sort of need to do
Speaker 2: in some way when you were younger, but at some
Speaker 2: point you sort of become settled. It becomes of crystallized
Speaker 2: who you think you are. You may not even have
Speaker 2: it sort of worked out in a series of statements
Speaker 2: in your head, but you've still sort of figured out
Speaker 2: who you are, and from then on you don't need
Speaker 2: to think about it quite so much. But forming it
Speaker 2: in the first place and sort of trying on different identities,
Speaker 2: putting on different hats. I'm this sort of person, I'm
Speaker 2: that sort of person. Maybe different careers, maybe different interests,
Speaker 2: maybe it's different ways of dressing, whatever it might be.
Speaker 2: You go through that sort of stage of figuring out
Speaker 2: who you are, and then you settle on something, and
Speaker 2: I think it's worth having that sense of self. But
Speaker 2: you don't need to obsess about it, and you don't
Speaker 2: need to be always telling people about it.
Speaker 1: All right, So I'm going to ask you. So we've
Speaker 1: had the easy interlude. Now I'm going to push your
Speaker 1: buttons or I'm going to test you. Tell me about
Speaker 1: like your interest in the mind, Like what drew you
Speaker 1: to research how the mind works, how we work, Like
Speaker 1: what was the genesis for that? If anything, was there,
Speaker 1: something that happened. Was it just always existing fascination or curiosity.
Speaker 2: No, I don't think it was always existing fascination. I
Speaker 2: think you know my story. Again, this is a very
Speaker 2: long time ago. I was always nature boy. So when
Speaker 2: I was growing up, I was rested in a bird watching,
Speaker 2: I collected insects. I had a much loved uncle who
Speaker 2: worked for the CSIO, who was a botanist and who
Speaker 2: was interested in plants. And I just loved being out
Speaker 2: in nature. Did a lot of hiking, a lot of
Speaker 2: cross country skiing. Just just loved the bush basically, And
Speaker 2: I wanted to study animal behavior, so I got turned
Speaker 2: onto this field called ethology, the study of instinctive animal behavior,
Speaker 2: by this uncle and you know, even in high school
Speaker 2: I was sort of getting into that and reading complicated
Speaker 2: books about that, and I thought, this is what I
Speaker 2: want to do, and how will you do that? Well,
Speaker 2: I've thought of do psychology, so I enrolled in a
Speaker 2: psychology degree. And then that's when I started getting to
Speaker 2: the people, you know, rather than animals, partly because when
Speaker 2: there was no animal behavior in psychology at Melbourne University
Speaker 2: at that time, nor is there now. So I sort
Speaker 2: of started off interested in just you know, living creatures
Speaker 2: as a sort of part of biology. And then I
Speaker 2: just got turned on by actually psychoanalysis, by you know,
Speaker 2: ideas which are very unfashionable now, you know Freud. I've
Speaker 2: became very sort of passionate about understanding so the deeper
Speaker 2: unconscious sides of human experience, and you know, that just
Speaker 2: sort of took me forward until grad school, and you know,
Speaker 2: I got on the sort of research path rather than
Speaker 2: getting to this idea that I'd be a therapist of
Speaker 2: some sort. And yeah, I sort of taken all sorts
Speaker 2: of twists and turns since then. So you know, I
Speaker 2: started with animals and got into humans. And my PhD
Speaker 2: supervisor was actually anthropologist and he was interested in how
Speaker 2: people form social relationships all around the world. He'd done
Speaker 2: he'd done anthological field work in West Africa, and so
Speaker 2: it got me into culture. So and I've just sort
Speaker 2: of flitted around, I mean, compared to the average academic career,
Speaker 2: I've sort of, you know, wanted side to side and
Speaker 2: just found new things fascinating. Some of it personality, some
Speaker 2: of its social psychology, some of it clinical psychology. Again,
Speaker 2: this might all seem a little bit narrow from the
Speaker 2: point of view of you know, life in general, but
Speaker 2: within psychology, I just get curious about stuff. So it
Speaker 2: sort of started with insects and ended with people.
Speaker 1: Wow, I love it. I was talking to somebody this
Speaker 1: morning at the cafe as I do, and they were
Speaker 1: talking to me about this new doctor that they've got
Speaker 1: and how they love this doctor. I'm like, why do
Speaker 1: you love this doctor? Oh? He's awesome, Like he's funny,
Speaker 1: he gets me, he asked good questions, he doesn't rush
Speaker 1: me out the door, he looks at me. He doesn't
Speaker 1: sit there staring at his computer screen like the last one. Dad.
Speaker 1: It was all this nothing to do with medicine, nothing
Speaker 1: to do with medical knowledge. Like I'm like, you just
Speaker 1: like him, like, and it was the bottom line was
Speaker 1: she felt safe, she felt comfortable, she trusts him, she
Speaker 1: feels confident in his I'm like, it is so interesting
Speaker 1: that you know whatever it is about, you know, it's
Speaker 1: like and even I used to marvel at this. So
Speaker 1: I trained over the years, like I owned multiple gyms,
Speaker 1: and I for a very long time just worked one
Speaker 1: on one with people doing conditioning, personal training, you know, athletes,
Speaker 1: non athletes and teams and all of that. But in
Speaker 1: thirty years of working at the coal face of exercise
Speaker 1: fitness and kind of that physiological change space, I got
Speaker 1: asked once in thirty years what my qualifications were like
Speaker 1: Because people would come in, you'd build rapport, they'd like
Speaker 1: you, you'd have fun, The experience was good. Yes, we'd do
Speaker 1: the workout, we'd get a bit sweaty, we'd talk about food,
Speaker 1: and we'd talk about sleep and life style and behaviors
Speaker 1: and habits and accountability and process and timeline and decision
Speaker 1: making and exercise progression. Like we talk about all this stuff.
Speaker 1: But it's like, but the most important thing was one,
Speaker 1: they liked me too, they trusted me, and three they
Speaker 1: enjoyed the experience it's got. It's funny how little it
Speaker 1: has to do with your knowledge or academic credibility or qualifications.
Speaker 1: Quite often when it's that interpersonal thing, you know, even
Speaker 1: in a medical or clinical setting.
Speaker 2: Absolutely, and you know it's not just you saying that.
Speaker 2: I mean, there's a whole bunch of research on this. Say,
Speaker 2: I don't know the personal training space at all, but psychotherapy,
Speaker 2: i'm sure is not radically different nor being a regular GP. Ultimately,
Speaker 2: it's a sort of form of healing and self improvement
Speaker 2: and building and boosting well being. And we know that
Speaker 2: the best predictor of whether you're going to improve in
Speaker 2: therapy is not the qualification that your therapist has. It's
Speaker 2: not the technique that she or he uses with you.
Speaker 2: It's not the theoretical orientation that they bring to the therapy.
Speaker 2: It's the quality of the relationship and the quality of
Speaker 2: the alliance. Is it a working relationship where there is trust,
Speaker 2: where there is shared understanding, where there's agreement about goals
Speaker 2: and processes, and is it just a sort of fundamental
Speaker 2: gelling of the two people involved. The relationship really matters.
Speaker 2: And that's not exactly how you were framing it. It was,
Speaker 2: but I think ultimately a lot of this is about
Speaker 2: is it a good relationship. Now, some people are better
Speaker 2: than others at forming as therapists or doctors or personal trainers,
Speaker 2: no doubt, at forming those relationships, but the quality of
Speaker 2: that bond is the platform on which the healing happens.
Speaker 2: I think in many cases now I'm still being a
Speaker 2: university people person believe that the knowledge helps at that point,
Speaker 2: but there's no point having all the knowledge in the
Speaker 2: world unless you can form that relationship, and unless you
Speaker 2: can form the human connection on which it builds.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, And I see that too in public speaking,
Speaker 1: you know, with not so much academic settings, but in
Speaker 1: corporate settings where someone will come in. I'll often go
Speaker 1: to an event, it'll be a conference, a full day,
Speaker 1: and I meet someone, I'm talking to them, I'm like, Wow,
Speaker 1: she's amazing. She is she is so smart or he
Speaker 1: is whoever him her, And they've written a book or two,
Speaker 1: they've done all this great research there, you know, like
Speaker 1: very very knowledgeable, and then they get up to talk.
Speaker 1: Some of them are brilliant, of course, but there are
Speaker 1: a percentage that create more confusion than clarity and more
Speaker 1: disconnection than connection, and it's like, oh, wow, you know
Speaker 1: so much, but you don't know how to share that
Speaker 1: in a way that's user friendly for one of a
Speaker 1: less complicated term, you know, And it's it's you know,
Speaker 1: we were talking about that before. How do I share
Speaker 1: this information which might be valuable to people, in a
Speaker 1: way which is actually valuable to them so they can
Speaker 1: do something with it. I think that's that's the ever
Speaker 1: present challenge, you know, well in my job anyway, I
Speaker 1: wanted to ask you about talking about, you know, belief
Speaker 1: and like managing the mind around others, and a big
Speaker 1: part of whether or not this this dynamic between the
Speaker 1: doctor and the patient, or the psychologist and the patient,
Speaker 1: or the personal trainer and the client or whatever is
Speaker 1: going to work on, you know, a lot of that
Speaker 1: is about what's happening in the mind, which reminds me
Speaker 1: of a podcast too. Podcast I've done with a guy
Speaker 1: from Harvard University called Professor Jeffrey Retteger. His whole field
Speaker 1: of research. He's a psychiatry, medical doctors, psychiatrist, researcher who
Speaker 1: last time I spoke with him, which is probably a
Speaker 1: year ago, i'd imagine, is in the same space, was
Speaker 1: just like fully immersed in place ebos and no cebos
Speaker 1: and the power of the mind to here the body,
Speaker 1: whatever we want to call it. Have you ever not
Speaker 1: necessarily gone into that space from a research perspective, but
Speaker 1: have you ever opened that door yourself and just taken
Speaker 1: a peek in and been curious about that stuff?
Speaker 2: Not much, I mean, but I think it's part of
Speaker 2: the common sense of the field that these effects are
Speaker 2: quite powerful on a fairly large proportion of a lot
Speaker 2: of treatments is ultimately place ebo, you know, you know.
Speaker 2: So I think whatever is causing it, the power of expectations,
Speaker 2: the power of the power of the placebo effect, whatever
Speaker 2: is behind it, I'm not one hundred percent clear on.
Speaker 2: But the fact that it's real and the fact that
Speaker 2: you know, a large proportion of the effect of antidepressants,
Speaker 2: for instance, is placebo effect. Is the expectation that this
Speaker 2: is going to work for me. So yeah, I think
Speaker 2: you've got to recognize that, and you've got to take
Speaker 2: it seriously, and I think it makes us more humble
Speaker 2: about again, the role of technique and knowledge versus just
Speaker 2: the role of positive expectations and having a good, if
Speaker 2: you like, connection with a therapist or healer. A lot
Speaker 2: of it's just the power of the expectation or anything
Speaker 2: that that healer is actually doing or that drug is
Speaker 2: actually doing. So I haven't gone into it deeply, I
Speaker 2: think also from the Nasibot point of view. Yeah, I'm
Speaker 2: sort of getting into this a little bit because some
Speaker 2: of what I'm writing about these days has to do
Speaker 2: with the possible downsides of mental health awareness, where people
Speaker 2: are increasingly I think the cause our concepts of mental
Speaker 2: ill health tend to be broadening some people, not the majority,
Speaker 2: but some people are self diagnosing with mental health conditions inappropriately,
Speaker 2: and that can have a no sebo effect. Simply the
Speaker 2: act of classifying oneself as having a mental health problem
Speaker 2: can lead to all sorts of downstream of negative consequences
Speaker 2: for your identity, for your mood, for your behavior. So
Speaker 2: the short answer which I could have given is not
Speaker 2: very much. I haven't really explored it as an academic,
Speaker 2: but I think these things are hugely powerful.
Speaker 1: You should come up with a concept called concept creep.
Speaker 1: I'm just throwing that out there for you should think
Speaker 1: about that. You know, it's brand new, just came to me,
Speaker 1: you know, I'm being facetious. Everybody Professor Nick is quite
Speaker 1: renowned for that idea. Could you just in one of
Speaker 1: as many minutes as you want. I was going to say,
Speaker 1: could you explain you kind of did or you open
Speaker 1: the door a bit, could you explain concept creep to us?
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, I mean earlier you said we had three hours,
Speaker 2: so I figured I'll go to the end of that
Speaker 2: if it's all right. Yeah, Look, concept creep is this
Speaker 2: idea I came up with about nine years ago, and
Speaker 2: it's essentially just saying that in recent decades, our concepts
Speaker 2: related to harm, you know, concepts like bullying, abuse, prejudice,
Speaker 2: mental illness, safety, have tended to broaden their meanings so
Speaker 2: that we now include a wider range of phenomena within them.
Speaker 2: So I mean to make it concrete bullying, let me
Speaker 2: just give you the case study of that. So bullying
Speaker 2: is bad. Bullying is a bad thing. Everyone agrees with that.
Speaker 2: But what we just define as bullying has broadened through time.
Speaker 2: So again to give you the brief version. Bullying was
Speaker 2: introduced to psychology by this Norwegian psychologist called Dan Olius,
Speaker 2: and he was really explicit that bullying is a very
Speaker 2: particular kind of peer aggression among kids. It has to
Speaker 2: be intentional, that is, the bully have to be intentionally
Speaker 2: intimidating or harming another kid. It has to be repeated.
Speaker 2: That is, a single episode of bad behavior is not bullying.
Speaker 2: It has to be perpetrated downward in some sort of hierarchy,
Speaker 2: like a bigger kid against a smaller kid, or multiple
Speaker 2: kids against a single kid. And it's mostly active forms
Speaker 2: of aggression, you know, punching, beating, intimidating, threatening, things like that.
Speaker 2: So that's what he defined bullying as being back in
Speaker 2: the nineteen seventies. But then if you follow how bullying
Speaker 2: is being defined more recently, it's expanded in all sorts
Speaker 2: of ways. So now we include behaviors bullying which isn't intentional.
Speaker 2: Now we allow single episodes of intimidating behavior to be
Speaker 2: counted as bullying. Now we allow you to we define
Speaker 2: as bullying when you behave badly not just to people
Speaker 2: beneath you on some hierarchy, but also according to my
Speaker 2: university's HR modules, I could bully fellow professors or even
Speaker 2: my boss. So bullying can be upwards and lateral. And
Speaker 2: of course, as we all know, the constant of bullying
Speaker 2: has been expanded out of the domain of just childhood
Speaker 2: and playgrounds and schools into boardrooms and at offices. So
Speaker 2: this is simply one example I could give to tell
Speaker 2: the same story about addiction and about abuse, about mental illness,
Speaker 2: about trauma. All of these concepts, for whatever reason, over
Speaker 2: the last few decades have broadened their meanings, so they
Speaker 2: now refer to a much wider range of phenomena than
Speaker 2: they used to. And I'm not saying that's a bad thing.
Speaker 2: I never say that's a bad thing. I just say,
Speaker 2: maybe that cultural change which has made us more sensitive
Speaker 2: to harm and to find more sort of mild experiences
Speaker 2: as being harmful, maybe it has costs but also benefits.
Speaker 1: Is it tricky for you? I mean, obviously who you
Speaker 1: are and what you do, you well, you know, well respected,
Speaker 1: and you've got a you know, a very respectable position
Speaker 1: in an amazing university in all of those things. Do
Speaker 1: you have to be really? Really? Do you really have
Speaker 1: to feelter what you say? Because and I'm not saying
Speaker 1: that everything you just said you don't mean. I believe
Speaker 1: you do. But I feel like for me, who's I'm
Speaker 1: not you? Right? So I can, within reason without being
Speaker 1: inappropriate or distasteful. I can. I can say things that
Speaker 1: you probably can't say, and I'm not going to get
Speaker 1: in trouble. Is that tricky for you to navigate that
Speaker 1: you saying what you truly believe, but also working within
Speaker 1: the confines and the parameters of, as you mentioned, HR
Speaker 1: within the UNI system.
Speaker 2: That's a really good question and a hard one to answer.
Speaker 2: I guess it's not difficult in the sense that no
Speaker 2: one within the university has ever told me stop saying this.
Speaker 2: I don't get any sort of pressure from colleagues to
Speaker 2: reign in what I say, and that's partly because I
Speaker 2: say it always in a very careful, modulated, you know,
Speaker 2: non inflammatory sort of way. But I think it's also
Speaker 2: true that this idea does go against the zeitgeist a
Speaker 2: bit within my field. So I get and I get
Speaker 2: some quite nasty commentary by some colleagues elsewhere and from
Speaker 2: the general public. I did a thing recently on All
Speaker 2: in the Mind, the ABC radio program, talking about concept creep,
Speaker 2: and I got basically hate mail from a couple of people.
Speaker 2: So I think if you wanted an easy life where
Speaker 2: no one was sniping at you, you probably wouldn't talk
Speaker 2: about this sort of topic, but I think it's really important.
Speaker 2: I don't think it's intrinsically a reactionary idea, or don't
Speaker 2: think it's intrinsically an insensitive idea. All I can do
Speaker 2: is speak about it in a way which I think
Speaker 2: is responsible and balanced. So I don't get any official
Speaker 2: pressure against it, but I do get a little bit
Speaker 2: of backlash from people who misunderstanding what I'm saying.
Speaker 1: This is a much bigger question than we have time for,
Speaker 1: so I probably shouldn't ask it, but I'm going to.
Speaker 1: I'm always fascinated. I just want your thoughts on this.
Speaker 1: We don't need an answer or a direction, but just
Speaker 1: your thoughts. So you know, I've been fascinated with my
Speaker 1: whole life the idea of potential, like what's possible for me?
Speaker 1: Because I wasn't talented, gifted, special, intelligent, right, and so
Speaker 1: I realized if I was going to do well, that
Speaker 1: would only be through work and effort and discipline and
Speaker 1: self control and repetition and application. And also so success
Speaker 1: also like the relationship between what's happening in my external
Speaker 1: world and my internal world. So by the time when
Speaker 1: I came out of school, I worked really hard. I
Speaker 1: didn't go to university until I was in my thirties
Speaker 1: for the first time. I did my first degree in
Speaker 1: my thirties, but I just worked in gyms and I
Speaker 1: built a business. I employed five hundred people, I made
Speaker 1: lots of go I did really well. If we're doing
Speaker 1: really well, manas your business succeeded, then I did really well.
Speaker 1: But what was a really interesting revelation for me was,
Speaker 1: in the middle of all of my success, what seemed
Speaker 1: to be outside looking in success Professor, my life was
Speaker 1: a fucking catastrophe. Like I felt mentally, emotionally, physically, spiritually bankrupt,
Speaker 1: and so I'd kind of tick this box. Now. I'm
Speaker 1: not saying my experience is the usual. I'm saying that
Speaker 1: was just my experience. But I'd like to hear about,
Speaker 1: you know, your thoughts on contentment, happiness, fulfillment. I don't know,
Speaker 1: and the relationship between what's happening around us and what's
Speaker 1: happening within us, because I think we kind of grow
Speaker 1: up in a mindset that success is about what you
Speaker 1: have and what you earn, and what your own and
Speaker 1: what you drive, and what people think you and what
Speaker 1: you look like and your brand and your Facebook likes
Speaker 1: or your you know, talk to us a little bit
Speaker 1: about I know that's massive, but what are your thoughts
Speaker 1: on that?
Speaker 2: Wow? Yeah, that's a big question. Look, I think what
Speaker 2: you were describing is a pretty you know, common experience,
Speaker 2: especially in midlife, you know, among people who have experienced
Speaker 2: certain kinds of conventional success, which evidently you have and
Speaker 2: which you know not everyone does. And it's it's sort
Speaker 2: of masking some you know, some things which you're missing,
Speaker 2: or somethings which aren't going so well, or some costs
Speaker 2: that you've borne in order to have those successes. And
Speaker 2: it's just good that you've got this sense that rather
Speaker 2: than giving up or throwing in the towel or you know,
Speaker 2: you've actually tried to make positive change out of it.
Speaker 2: I think contentments something that just comes slowly, and it's
Speaker 2: comes through balancing, balancing all these complexities and not giving
Speaker 2: up on those initial goals and motives, but just finding
Speaker 2: a way to be a bit softer on yourself. I mean,
Speaker 2: self compassion, I think is so important. I guess I'm
Speaker 2: spinning my wheels here. I don't really have a clear
Speaker 2: a clear out that's good, But I think you know
Speaker 2: what you're describing I can resonate with I haven't had
Speaker 2: the same sort of success in most respects, probably, But yeah,
Speaker 2: I think you sort of you find that the things
Speaker 2: that were working for you in your thirties and forties,
Speaker 2: the sort of drive you think, well, that didn't actually
Speaker 2: give me everything I thought I was going to get
Speaker 2: out of it, but maybe along the way over quite
Speaker 2: some other sort of wisdom, and now I can sort
Speaker 2: of relax and have a bit more perspective on things.
Speaker 2: And I think often, especially with guys, probably a lot
Speaker 2: of what you've done in the first half of your
Speaker 2: life is sort of building for yourself and maybe sometimes
Speaker 2: not saying this is about true about you neglected your
Speaker 2: connection to others, and maybe it's a time to sort
Speaker 2: of reconnect. And the same way that sometimes you find
Speaker 2: the reverse pattern about women, where there's been more giving
Speaker 2: towards others, and later in life there's a sort of
Speaker 2: find that I can sort of invest in myself a
Speaker 2: little bit more. But you know, I think contentment's always
Speaker 2: an achievement, and it's always provisional, and it doesn't always laugh.
Speaker 2: And this idea that you somehow you reached this plateau
Speaker 2: of everlasting happiness is a big illusion. At least that's
Speaker 2: been my experience.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's interesting you say that. I interviewed an English
Speaker 1: lady who had a really traumatic experience. In nine ninety seven,
Speaker 1: she moved to Batan. She became the first Western woman
Speaker 1: to be ordained in as a Buddhist nun. And she's gorgeous,
Speaker 1: like just the nicest person. And I interviewed her yesterday
Speaker 1: and I said, and she almost got grumpy at me
Speaker 1: when I asked her this question, as grumpy as she
Speaker 1: could get, which is not grumpy. I said, essentially, what
Speaker 1: does Buddhism have to say about happiness? You know, like
Speaker 1: the human experience and happiness. And she's like, happiness is
Speaker 1: not a natural state. It's like your brain's job isn't
Speaker 1: to make you happy. And I'm like, yep, and it was.
Speaker 1: It's really interesting because we I just wait, that's so true.
Speaker 1: You know. It's like you it's to you know, whatever
Speaker 1: protect you or predict danger and all of those things.
Speaker 1: But yeah, it's like, happiness is not it's not our
Speaker 1: default setting, is it, But we kind of think it
Speaker 1: should be.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And look, I think it's it's really hard if
Speaker 2: you're pursuing happiness to find it. In fact, I think
Speaker 2: pursuing happiness tends to be counterproductive. And I think what
Speaker 2: I like about some of the sort of well being
Speaker 2: science that's out there at the moment, and I think
Speaker 2: a lot of it's more philosophy and theory than science.
Speaker 2: But that's just my take is that you know, really
Speaker 2: you can choose to some extent according to your life philosophy.
Speaker 2: What are you trying to maximize? Are you trying to
Speaker 2: maximize happiness? If so, probably seeking it won't get you there.
Speaker 2: But or are you trying to maximize meaning and purpose?
Speaker 2: You know, are you trying to you know whether or
Speaker 2: not you're you're happy or unhappy? Do you have a
Speaker 2: sense of you know, what I'm doing matters what I'm
Speaker 2: doing and who I am matters to other people, or
Speaker 2: matters to some sort of transcendent goal I have? You know,
Speaker 2: have I had a life that was meaningful? But then
Speaker 2: I think newish work by a psychologist in the US
Speaker 2: called shige Ishi says you can also separate from that
Speaker 2: have value of life that's just rich, doesn't need to
Speaker 2: be meaningful, but just has diverse experiences. You could pursue
Speaker 2: a rich life, not necessarily a meaningful life, not necessarily
Speaker 2: a happy life, and all of these things, what are
Speaker 2: you whether you're trying to maximize richness, meaning or happiness
Speaker 2: leads to sort of different approaches to what you do
Speaker 2: in your experience. And if you're pursuing the rich life,
Speaker 2: you probably will have more misery than if you're pursuing
Speaker 2: the happy life or the meaningful life. But it'll maybe
Speaker 2: add up to something sort of which on your deathbed
Speaker 2: you'll think, Wow, what a life that was.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, can I be really rude? How old are you? Prof?
Speaker 1: Sixty two were the same? I'm curious where? Yeah, how's
Speaker 1: your brain working?
Speaker 2: I think it's working as well as it ever has
Speaker 2: to be honest. I mean, I think my partner might
Speaker 2: disagree on that and point to a very large number
Speaker 2: of failings. But it's actually as sharp as it's ever been,
Speaker 2: I think, you know, And that's partly because I had
Speaker 2: positions of leadership within the university which really are just
Speaker 2: warm me out and which just consumed all my energies
Speaker 2: and to basically crushed my curiosity. And now I've sort
Speaker 2: of come out the other end of it, and I've
Speaker 2: got time to think and read I'm not overburdened with responsibilities.
Speaker 2: I can choose the sort of activities that I enjoy.
Speaker 2: I mean, I'm the taxpayer is getting good money for
Speaker 2: value for money. I should say, I'm not just sciving off,
Speaker 2: but I'm actually choosing the things I want to do
Speaker 2: in a kind of mindful way and loving it and
Speaker 2: being super productive in the in the sort of things
Speaker 2: that academics are meant to be productive in. I think
Speaker 2: it's as good as ever. So yeah, high idea that
Speaker 2: I think it's all cognitive decline from the forties, I'm
Speaker 2: not buying it.
Speaker 1: Yep, you and me both. Hey, I have to talk
Speaker 1: to you forever. We're going to say goodbye our fair
Speaker 1: But before we go, is there anything you want to
Speaker 1: draw our attention, our listener's attention to books, websites, research,
Speaker 1: anything that you want to push or promote or make
Speaker 1: people aware of.
Speaker 2: I think nothing that I've got necessarily, but I think
Speaker 2: there's some terrific work out there. There's a book I
Speaker 2: just recommended on the Conversations you know Best Books of
Speaker 2: twenty twenty five British neurologists called Susann O'Sullivan called the
Speaker 2: Age of Diagnosis, which I think is a really fascinating
Speaker 2: book about the role sometimes negative I would say, about
Speaker 2: our increasing willingness to diagnose ourselves with anyumber of conditions.
Speaker 2: So I think that's really something I think is a
Speaker 2: very weird thing worth publicizing. Or just look up my wad,
Speaker 2: look at my website and find some of my papers.
Speaker 2: If you want help sleeping.
Speaker 1: We'll say goodbye fair but for the minute, Professor Nick Haslm,
Speaker 1: thanks so much for your time, Yeah, and your generosity.
Speaker 1: It's been really nice. Thank you.
Speaker 2: Thanks Greg, I really enjoyed myself. Thank you.