Speaker 1: Hello, and welcome to the Psychology Podcast with Doctor Scott
Speaker 1: Barry Kaufman, where we give you insights into the mind, brain, behavior,
Speaker 1: and creativity. Each episode will feature a new guest who
Speaker 1: will stimulate your mind and give you a greater understanding
Speaker 1: of yourself, others, and the world we live in. Thanks
Speaker 1: for listening and enjoy the podcast. So today we have
Speaker 1: Ryan Holiday on the show. I'm really excited to have
Speaker 1: Ryan on. He's an author, writer, and marketer. He's the
Speaker 1: former director of marketing for American Apparel and an editor
Speaker 1: at large for The New York Observer. His latest book
Speaker 1: is The Obstacle is the Way. Thanks Ryan for being
Speaker 1: on here. It's very good to be here. Good to
Speaker 1: talk to you again. Yeah, it's really good to talk
Speaker 1: to you. And preparing for this interview, there's so many
Speaker 1: different threads, you know. I feel like we could like
Speaker 1: chat for days, but we don't have dates. So okay,
Speaker 1: I'll try to try to focus us a little bit.
Speaker 1: Do you mind if we trace a little bit of
Speaker 1: your background because I found that particularly interesting and personal perspective.
Speaker 1: I'm really interested in people who take alternative pathways to
Speaker 1: get to greatness or get to success. So Okay, I
Speaker 1: noticed that it said on your Wikipedia page that you
Speaker 1: dropped out of college at age nineteen. Is that correct,
Speaker 1: because now everything is, you know, necessarily correct that you
Speaker 1: read on Wikipedia. So yes, Well, so I dropped out ironically.
Speaker 1: So I left school when I was nineteen, right, is
Speaker 1: the end of the year. And then I moved in
Speaker 1: with Tucker Max. So I think you've had on the
Speaker 1: show before, right, I've been on his show. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: And so he was he was someone that i'd met
Speaker 1: in college. I'd interviewed him, and I sort of became
Speaker 1: his intern when he was first publishing his books and
Speaker 1: he had a media company at the time, and so
Speaker 1: I moved in with him. We lived in La and
Speaker 1: I I had a job at a talent management agency,
Speaker 1: like a summer job, and sort of at the end
Speaker 1: of it, they were like, what if you never went back?
Speaker 1: And so I never did. I never went back to school.
Speaker 1: And it's nineteen but I turned like twenty, like the
Speaker 1: next day. But yeah, so I dropped out of school
Speaker 1: the end of my sophomore year. So this is really
Speaker 1: interesting because you obviously had like the seeds of or
Speaker 1: the passion for journalism, because yeah, I read somewhere that
Speaker 1: you were invited to a small private summit that doctor
Speaker 1: Drew was hosting, Right, yeah, in freshman year then, right, yeah,
Speaker 1: that would have been my freshman freshman year, very beginning
Speaker 1: of my sophomore year. I don't remember, but yeah, it was.
Speaker 1: It was basically I really liked writing, and that was
Speaker 1: like my sort of passion. But I also saw working
Speaker 1: for this newspaper as this chance to meet people that
Speaker 1: I wouldn't be able to meet like as me, but
Speaker 1: as a journalist quote unquote, you can like interview anyone, right,
Speaker 1: So I met Tucker by interviewing him, I met doctor Drew,
Speaker 1: who ended up introducing men to stoicism, which changed my
Speaker 1: life because I because I was covering him for this newspaper.
Speaker 1: And so it was this like little hustle I guess
Speaker 1: that I had on the side that one was my
Speaker 1: passion for writing and made me a much better writer.
Speaker 1: But it opened a bunch of doors as a student
Speaker 1: journalist that would have never been opened to me, like
Speaker 1: just as a random person or or as like a
Speaker 1: you know, a college dropout. Yeah. Absolutely, And so it's
Speaker 1: like you made this this this concerted decision at one
Speaker 1: point where you know, like I don't need this formal
Speaker 1: education to realize this vision I have in my head.
Speaker 1: Did it sort of go that way? Like kind of
Speaker 1: so like I had like a love hate relationship with school,
Speaker 1: Like I had all these dreams for like what college
Speaker 1: was going to be, like, like it was this place
Speaker 1: where everyone loved books and I would talk to all
Speaker 1: these smart people and it would be amazing, and it
Speaker 1: was sort of like that, and then it was also
Speaker 1: not like that. And so when this opportunity came to
Speaker 1: sort of I remember thinking when I got the job offer,
Speaker 1: because I got the job offer to stay at the
Speaker 1: management firm, and then Robert Green, who'd been another person
Speaker 1: that I met, I was looking for a recent surch assistant,
Speaker 1: and these sort of two things happened at the same time.
Speaker 1: I remember thinking, Okay, I was going to graduate early.
Speaker 1: I've got like a year year and a half left
Speaker 1: of school. And if at the end of that time
Speaker 1: these offers were there for me, I would think that
Speaker 1: college had been a huge success and I would be
Speaker 1: very grateful for these jobs. So why would I turn
Speaker 1: my My justification was why would I turn them down?
Speaker 1: If I have them right now? Why wouldn't I jump
Speaker 1: on them, and I did. It was still a very
Speaker 1: difficult decision, a very scary one. But I felt like
Speaker 1: I could learn more out of school than in school. Absolutely,
Speaker 1: And you must have learned quite a bit working with
Speaker 1: Tucker Max and Robert Green doing both of them have
Speaker 1: pretty good I mean, both of them have different personality.
Speaker 1: Probably out with both of them, and yeah, they have
Speaker 1: different personalities, but I admire various characteristics that both of
Speaker 1: them have. Yeah, it was sort of this thing where
Speaker 1: I could I had instead of having like one mentor,
Speaker 1: I had like three or four, and I was able
Speaker 1: to like take the pieces, the strongest parts of each
Speaker 1: of them. And they were each sort of directing me
Speaker 1: to read things and showing me things and introducing me
Speaker 1: to things. So it was this period of probably three
Speaker 1: solid years where I was just it was like a
Speaker 1: different kind of education, but an equally rigorous one. Absolutely.
Speaker 1: And so when did you make contact with American Apparel?
Speaker 1: So Robert Green was on the board of directors for
Speaker 1: American Apparel. So I've been working for Robert for two
Speaker 1: years or so. My thing in Hollywood was going okay,
Speaker 1: and he introduced me to Douve because he was having
Speaker 1: some sort of problem with his like internet, so his
Speaker 1: online persona was not what he needed it to be.
Speaker 1: And I came in, we met and it's sort of
Speaker 1: another friendship, you know, came about and I ended up
Speaker 1: joining there with no real title or position or job,
Speaker 1: and then a few years later I ended up becoming
Speaker 1: the director of marketing. Wow, so so much of your
Speaker 1: marketing advice that you gave them and your was basically
Speaker 1: it seems to give some sort of intuition for a
Speaker 1: lot of this stuff. I mean you didn't have formal training, right, Well,
Speaker 1: I didn't have formal training, but I think what I
Speaker 1: was really what I read a lot and I learned
Speaker 1: a lot. But I think what was crazy is that
Speaker 1: I would like learn something from Tucker, and then I
Speaker 1: would apply it to Robert, and then I would learn
Speaker 1: something from Robert, and I would apply to Tucker. That
Speaker 1: I'd learn something from each of them and applied to
Speaker 1: American Apparel, and I think they both all thought that
Speaker 1: I was like just bringing this to the table myself,
Speaker 1: But it was really like if I'd only done one
Speaker 1: of them at one time, I don't think it would
Speaker 1: have been nearly as rapid of a sort of rise
Speaker 1: through the ranks. It was these It was the convergence
Speaker 1: of very different schools of thinking and then my own
Speaker 1: sort of rigorous like learning and trial and air kind
Speaker 1: of stuff that made it possible. So I'm trying to
Speaker 1: fit you with in the positive psychology framework because are
Speaker 1: you familiar with like the character strengths. There's twenty four
Speaker 1: character strenths, no study. Yeah, So like Martin Sell and
Speaker 1: Chris Peterson set out this big project to create the
Speaker 1: antithesis to the DSM. So instead of like, you know,
Speaker 1: what's wrong with people, let's look at the history of
Speaker 1: the last three thousand years and look at They looked
Speaker 1: at two hundred of the greatest texts from you know,
Speaker 1: ancient Greek and to the Stoicism, which we're gonna talk
Speaker 1: about later, et cetera, et cetera, and they narrowed down
Speaker 1: to six virtues and then twenty four character strengths. And
Speaker 1: I'm just in my head, I think I'll give you that.
Speaker 1: You know what, I'll give you the test later. You
Speaker 1: can take your you can find out what your signatures.
Speaker 1: That's awesome. Yeah, and maybe I'll put on the show
Speaker 1: notes your results. Sure, your test results. But I'm just
Speaker 1: one predicting I don't want to buy me? Is this
Speaker 1: kind of bias you now now you'll buy, Yes, But
Speaker 1: I feel like love of learning is probably one of
Speaker 1: your signature strengths, is what I'm feeling, and perseverance is
Speaker 1: definitely one of them. What do you think, Taylor? Creativity, curiosity, creativity, curiosity, curiosity,
Speaker 1: So you know, these sorts of things I predict, but
Speaker 1: you know, we'll see, we'll see. Sure. Yeah, No, it was,
Speaker 1: it was. It was a hell of an experience. I'm
Speaker 1: obviously very great full to all of them, and it
Speaker 1: was I think for me, like the big thing was
Speaker 1: like how do I not blow this? Like That's what
Speaker 1: I was like thinking all the time, right, like because
Speaker 1: like I could see how like you know, living on
Speaker 1: Tucker Max's floor, there are certain temptations there, and like
Speaker 1: working for Robert Green, there's certain temptations. Working for an
Speaker 1: American appair, there's certain temptations to say nothing of like
Speaker 1: the stress and you know, high stakes of it, like
Speaker 1: it could have gone the other way. I feel like
Speaker 1: I got very lucky, but it was also like, yeah,
Speaker 1: just how do I not this is all very lucky?
Speaker 1: How do I not blow it? Yeah? No, I hear
Speaker 1: you do you but you have a great sense of
Speaker 1: confidence now from many years of this kind of experience.
Speaker 1: I mean, do you still have that attitude when you
Speaker 1: to try to not blow it? Yeah? Yeah, I mean
Speaker 1: I do think It's like I'm sort of I think
Speaker 1: the confidence maybe now comes from like feeling like I'm
Speaker 1: playing with house money, like like I'm very ahead of
Speaker 1: the game. So like in some ways that makes me
Speaker 1: both confident and all the bit conservative. Yeah. But but
Speaker 1: then and now I try very much to see, like
Speaker 1: maybe this is from the stoicism part. I try to
Speaker 1: see like where it could go wrong and what I
Speaker 1: could do to and how could how someone could mess
Speaker 1: it up? And then I tried not to do that thing.
Speaker 1: Yeah that's great, and that actually you talk a lot
Speaker 1: about about that strategy in your new book. Before we
Speaker 1: get to your new book, your prior book on Confessions
Speaker 1: of a So in the subtitle, there's the phrase mediam manipulator. Right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: Confessions of a medium manipulator. That's what I wanted the
Speaker 1: title to be. But it's so funny because I can't
Speaker 1: actually remember it was I'm lying or was there I'm lying?
Speaker 1: Isn't that funny, I actually remember your subtitle, but yeah,
Speaker 1: well that was my argument with the publisher that they
Speaker 1: want Well okay, so I really like your sub title,
Speaker 1: and I like the title too, but obviously it wasn't
Speaker 1: as easy for me to remember. But yeah, that's so.
Speaker 1: It's it's a really good book, and you bring a
Speaker 1: lot of your personal experiences in the industry or whatever.
Speaker 1: I don't know the word is for what you experienced, sure,
Speaker 1: the media world or the world of lots of smokes
Speaker 1: and mirrors, right, yeah, do you So? How did you
Speaker 1: like choose the phrase media manipulator because I could have
Speaker 1: like a negative connotation to some people. Yeah. Sure. So
Speaker 1: one of the books I'd read when I was starting
Speaker 1: in an American prepare was this book called The Brass
Speaker 1: Check by Upton Sinclair. He wrote this sort of like
Speaker 1: expose in the first person of how the media system worked.
Speaker 1: It was it was right. He wrote it right after
Speaker 1: The Jungle, and I remember reading it and thinking like, man,
Speaker 1: this is like very true to what I was experiencing
Speaker 1: at American Apparel seeing Tuckers somewhat controversial reputation, and so
Speaker 1: I wanted to write a similar book because I've been
Speaker 1: searching around for like a book that explained how the
Speaker 1: media system was working as someone who who both was
Speaker 1: a writer and someone who who'd worked with people who
Speaker 1: are in the public eye, and I didn't see one.
Speaker 1: But I felt like when I was doing my research,
Speaker 1: I saw that, like, nobody reads books about the media
Speaker 1: that are not in the media. So if I wanted
Speaker 1: to reach a wider audience, which I did, I felt
Speaker 1: like I had to sort of go with that angle.
Speaker 1: So it was about sort of packaging when I wanted
Speaker 1: to be really like my dream was to write it
Speaker 1: at like an academic book of media criticism, but I
Speaker 1: realized that would get a very small market, and so
Speaker 1: it was like, how can I how can I position
Speaker 1: this in such a way. And it's funny, I think
Speaker 1: when you and I first met, I was it was
Speaker 1: out of dinner with Neil Strauss, and I was asking
Speaker 1: him like a lot of these questions like whocause I
Speaker 1: know he'd gone through it with his books, because like,
Speaker 1: when you know Neil, he's like the smartest, most like
Speaker 1: literary person you would ever meet, which is not what
Speaker 1: you would expect at all, and yet he's built this
Speaker 1: massive brand that is true to him, and it's true
Speaker 1: to parts of him, but there's also like this other side,
Speaker 1: and so that was definitely something I struggled with and
Speaker 1: thought a lot with the book. I really like that
Speaker 1: this other side, Like, let's just talk about that for
Speaker 1: a second. Yeah, I'm totally fascinated with this whole thing.
Speaker 1: So I'm fascinated with like being you're like living your
Speaker 1: authentic self, right, sure, Like, and I do think in
Speaker 1: a lot of ways. I mean, you know, is as
Speaker 1: all of us, you know, it's a journey to actually
Speaker 1: figure out what the hell that is. So sure, I
Speaker 1: think something that's a great strength of a lot of
Speaker 1: his ratings is that he like is so honest about
Speaker 1: his journey to figure that out, you know. Sure, and
Speaker 1: you know he has a new book coming out, right, Like, yeah,
Speaker 1: so the authentic selfing but you know, part of you
Speaker 1: can live your authentic self, but also you can live
Speaker 1: your out think self and no one never know it
Speaker 1: because you don't ever like broadcast it, right. So yeah,
Speaker 1: so it seems like there is this part that is
Speaker 1: important that you that you talk about. I don't know
Speaker 1: if it's manipulation or it's amplification. Amplification, right, but Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's it's taking these best strengths of of what you're
Speaker 1: proud of and figure out a way to actually like
Speaker 1: make that known to lots of people. Yeah. I mean,
Speaker 1: so the book, it's like, on the one hand, I'm
Speaker 1: talking about how appalling like the way that media can
Speaker 1: be manipulated is, and at the same time, I'm saying, like,
Speaker 1: I did all this right and I and I figured
Speaker 1: it out and I benefited from it. And it's at
Speaker 1: first it was like, are these is this hypocrisy? Are
Speaker 1: these two separate parts of myself? Am I being dishonest?
Speaker 1: And then when I started to realize, someone gave me
Speaker 1: the word and I talk about it in the intro,
Speaker 1: It's like I had two parts of myself and I
Speaker 1: believed in both of them, but they were not integrated
Speaker 1: in any way. So it's like I could like manipulate
Speaker 1: the media and show how something could work to benefit
Speaker 1: a client that I've believed in. And then on the
Speaker 1: other hand, I felt like this was not how the
Speaker 1: media system should be and so and that it was
Speaker 1: bad generally even though I was taking advantage of it,
Speaker 1: I'd rather not be able to take advantage of it,
Speaker 1: and it not exists, So the book was like kind
Speaker 1: of an integration of those two selves. And that's what
Speaker 1: I think Neil does really well, is like his books
Speaker 1: are like a journey that he goes on that the
Speaker 1: reader comes along with. And I hope my book kind
Speaker 1: of accomplished that, which is like, here's what I learned,
Speaker 1: here's what I realized. I'm moving on now. But this
Speaker 1: book is sort of a testament to how things were
Speaker 1: in a period in my life. Yeah, I think it does,
Speaker 1: and I think that I think it's a really good
Speaker 1: way to live your life. You know, the authentic self
Speaker 1: is not shying away from the like the perhaps darker
Speaker 1: aspects of yourself, but quite you know, embracing all the aspects.
Speaker 1: And it's a big, big common theme in in positive psychology.
Speaker 1: Right now, I'm just looking at my bookshelf for a
Speaker 1: new books like toddcast and on embracing both the good
Speaker 1: and the bed of the self. But anyway, what's it
Speaker 1: called The Side of Your Dark Side? Oh? That's great, Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's a great it's a really great book by Tad Cast.
Speaker 1: And I'm writing Robert Robert Biswastiner, who are two leaders
Speaker 1: in our field. Okay, yeah, great, guys, So let's talk
Speaker 1: about your new book then, Because I teach positive psychology
Speaker 1: here at Penn, and my first class I go through history,
Speaker 1: trace the history of of ideas of the good life,
Speaker 1: and we of course I cover stoicism and and your
Speaker 1: book did a great service in bringing this to a
Speaker 1: more and wider audience and making it very easily digestible
Speaker 1: and accessible. How can you? In fact, I think I'm
Speaker 1: going to have my next cohort of students listen to
Speaker 1: your podcasts now as a homework assignment. So you guys
Speaker 1: also put that on your CV you pen, you know,
Speaker 1: but I think I will though, I think, so, can
Speaker 1: you just define stoicism then? How you see what? How
Speaker 1: do you see as the essential really getting at the
Speaker 1: core of what they were all about? Yeah, I mean
Speaker 1: it's interesting, like what the stoicism that I talked about
Speaker 1: in the book and then stoicism in general are similar,
Speaker 1: although not totally aligned. My sort of personal definition of
Speaker 1: stoicism is we live in a world that we don't control.
Speaker 1: Stoicism is a set of exercises and philosophy, practical philosophy
Speaker 1: for how to navigate that world, right, And I like
Speaker 1: that it was it was a manual for are not
Speaker 1: just like thinkers but also doers. Right. So the most
Speaker 1: prominent stokes you have Marcus Aurelius. On the one hand.
Speaker 1: You have epictet who's the emperor of Rome. You have Epictetus,
Speaker 1: who is a former slave. You have Seneca, who I
Speaker 1: think is a we're talking about sort of the darker
Speaker 1: and lighter sides of your nature. You have Seneca, who
Speaker 1: on the one hand is this brilliant play prayer, playwright,
Speaker 1: and philosopher, and on the other hand is the personal
Speaker 1: tutor and friend of Nero and this sort of backstabbing
Speaker 1: political conniver. So there's this like he's this disintegrated person
Speaker 1: but also integrated in his writing. And I like that
Speaker 1: Stoicism is this sort of struggle both with and against
Speaker 1: human nature, right. And so for me, like my favorite
Speaker 1: Stoke line is the idea of like, there is no
Speaker 1: good or bad, there's only perception, right. And so to me,
Speaker 1: the way I see stoicism is a framework for managing
Speaker 1: those perceptions, for taking advantage of them, and again for
Speaker 1: making sense of the parts of life that we don't control.
Speaker 1: I don't I don't agree with all the tenants, like
Speaker 1: I don't believe in like predetermination. I don't believe in
Speaker 1: like persecuting Christians, let's say, or any of the other stuff.
Speaker 1: But I think we I think we can take what
Speaker 1: we like from the Stoics, balance it out with other philosophers,
Speaker 1: and then most importantly, balance it out with the sort
Speaker 1: of modern you know, innovations in psychology and biology and
Speaker 1: and I think it gives us a pretty good framework
Speaker 1: for life in a sort of post religious world. It
Speaker 1: absolutely does. I mean, I was very excited reading your
Speaker 1: book and you talk about post traumatic growth, you know, yeah,
Speaker 1: a very emerging field. When then positive psychologists, I was like, yeah,
Speaker 1: rock on, and yeah, lots of things you talk about
Speaker 1: are grounded in the latest science of resiliency and grit,
Speaker 1: you know. And Duckworth does grit literally right next door
Speaker 1: to me, really yeah, literally, like right there. That's awesome.
Speaker 1: Their whole their whole wing line for is the grit.
Speaker 1: The grit for I'm the imagination creativity for okay, and
Speaker 1: they're the grit for so I actually, I should say,
Speaker 1: imagine corctivity and World Wellbeing Project is at the end,
Speaker 1: do you know what the World Well Being Project is doing?
Speaker 1: Down now? They actually have. They're being able to predict
Speaker 1: heart disease and how long you're going to live in
Speaker 1: mortality based on your tweets. So really it's big data. Yeah,
Speaker 1: they're looking at like like hundreds of thousands of tweets
Speaker 1: and being able to predict at a county wide level,
Speaker 1: like like whether or not that county is has high
Speaker 1: degrees of and they're predicting it better though than like
Speaker 1: traditional markers of heart disease. Do you know? Do you
Speaker 1: know Sep Kambar he's at MIT Media Lab. He wrote
Speaker 1: that book. He did that project We Feel Fine, where
Speaker 1: it took like huge amounts of big data. He was
Speaker 1: like one of the first people to do this, but
Speaker 1: he took huge amounts of like Google blog searches and
Speaker 1: social media searches where people would like say what they're
Speaker 1: feeling and why. Yeah, and he was like he was
Speaker 1: I remember talking to him about it, and now he
Speaker 1: was like the irony is like when you look at
Speaker 1: all these like modern sort of psychological tools that we're
Speaker 1: doing with big data, all it basically does is prove
Speaker 1: ancient philosophy, which I thought was very cool. Like he
Speaker 1: was saying, like, like, for instance, like young people associate
Speaker 1: happiness with like accomplishment, right, like a cheat, like I
Speaker 1: feel good because I like found, you know, a new job,
Speaker 1: or I feel good because like I got a new
Speaker 1: car or something like that. And then he's like, as
Speaker 1: you get older, increasingly you feel happiness around contentment. And
Speaker 1: he was like, you know, these are like timeless ideas
Speaker 1: that were that were just sort of like hypotheses before,
Speaker 1: or at best they were proven in like a study
Speaker 1: of seventy two male college students being forced to apply
Speaker 1: being forced to do it for psychology credit or and
Speaker 1: he's like, now finally we can see it like you know,
Speaker 1: across thirty five million tweets or something like that. I
Speaker 1: thought it was very cool, very cool, And you just
Speaker 1: made me think of something in your book. You say
Speaker 1: that action and philosophy are not contradictions. Yeah, I mean
Speaker 1: I don't think they are. I think I think certainly
Speaker 1: academic philosophy or like what most people assume is philosophy,
Speaker 1: seems very at odds with philosophy. But like one of
Speaker 1: the most prominent Stokes is is Cato, you know, the
Speaker 1: sort of mortal enemy of Julius Caesar, and he never
Speaker 1: wrote anything down like the Stokes talk about him constantly
Speaker 1: as if he as if he said this, you know,
Speaker 1: in a book, but really he said it in real
Speaker 1: life like stoicism or Stockdale, Like Jan Stockdale when he's
Speaker 1: parachuting into Vietnam out of his plane, he's like saying
Speaker 1: to himself, like, I'm going to be testing the ideas
Speaker 1: of stoicism in the laboratory of human experience. Like stoicism
Speaker 1: is not like this idle sort of philosophy about how
Speaker 1: life might be. It was like tested by some of
Speaker 1: the most prominent or you know, important people in history.
Speaker 1: I think that's like totally fascinating. Yeah. So you talk
Speaker 1: about in your book about things that all great men
Speaker 1: and women of history seem to have in common? Yeahah,
Speaker 1: what what is that? I mean, I know what it is?
Speaker 1: That one way Yeah yeah, I mean what I'm saying
Speaker 1: in the book is that everyone faces adversity, right good,
Speaker 1: and like we don't choose whether we're going to face
Speaker 1: lots of adversity or a little bit of adversity. But
Speaker 1: like I think when you look at great men and
Speaker 1: women in history, what they've done is instead of being
Speaker 1: sort of stymied by that adversity, they somehow turn it
Speaker 1: into a source of advantage, right, which is what you
Speaker 1: have to do as an entrepreneur, as a writer, as
Speaker 1: a as a leader. You have to take you know,
Speaker 1: you have to take the things that happen to you,
Speaker 1: and you have to take advantage of them, like as
Speaker 1: Obama says, like things are teachable moments. Right. As a politician,
Speaker 1: you don't get to choose that this story breaks or
Speaker 1: that story breaks, or this world event happens, or you know,
Speaker 1: this current event occurs. What you can do is make
Speaker 1: the most of it. Right. You can decide how you're
Speaker 1: going to respond to that thing. And that's a I
Speaker 1: think that's a very philosophical idea. On the one hand,
Speaker 1: it's it's sort of heady and intellectual to think like,
Speaker 1: oh yeah, like what happened is outside me, but what
Speaker 1: respond how I respond to within me? But it's also
Speaker 1: like a very pragmatic, realistic idea, and that that's something
Speaker 1: that I try to apply obviously in my real life.
Speaker 1: Can I get like really nerdy for a second, let's
Speaker 1: do it. Like I mean, my background, I went to
Speaker 1: Carnegie Mellon and I was HERB. Simon's last research assistant,
Speaker 1: you know, her who Herb Simon is he No, I
Speaker 1: mean he basically was the one of the founders of
Speaker 1: artificial intelligence. He wont to noble prize and economics for
Speaker 1: satisficing you. You've heard of satisficing I think, so it's
Speaker 1: better for us to decide what's good enough than being optimizers. Sure,
Speaker 1: so he talks about lots of his famous seminal like
Speaker 1: nineteen seventy one book was like General Problem Solving Strategies, okay,
Speaker 1: and with Alan Newall, And this book outlines various heuristics
Speaker 1: that the humans use to solve problems, but in there
Speaker 1: there is no houristic, Like I feel like we should
Speaker 1: invent a heuristic right now, like it just dawned in me,
Speaker 1: like the means and analysis is one of the most
Speaker 1: popular heuristics that's talked about in the literature. And means
Speaker 1: EN's analysis is when you try to do whatever you
Speaker 1: can do to reduce the discrepancy between your starting state
Speaker 1: and your goal state. But there's nothing it means as
Speaker 1: analysis about the obstacle. And you know, it's almost like
Speaker 1: treated as though, like you know, everything you need to
Speaker 1: do is to reduce the state. But if an optic comes,
Speaker 1: like there's no explanation of like what to do there
Speaker 1: really necessarily sure, like maybe I feel like there needs
Speaker 1: to be like a heuristic. Like literally the heuristic is
Speaker 1: whenever I face an obstacle, I turn it into an advantage,
Speaker 1: like like that could be that could be like a
Speaker 1: human like heuristic in the literature on heuristics. Do you
Speaker 1: know what I mean totally? I mean what the stote
Speaker 1: say is that, like everything that happens to you is
Speaker 1: that is an opportunity to practice virtue. And like that
Speaker 1: like when I say that, like when I give talks
Speaker 1: or what I write, like I know it, like I
Speaker 1: can see people like instantly become resistant. Like the idea
Speaker 1: of like virtue as like being a modern idea is
Speaker 1: like very it's almost like repellent to people for some reason,
Speaker 1: Like it sounds very morealistic. But like what they're saying
Speaker 1: is like it's a chance to do something that you
Speaker 1: weren't planning but is also good. Right, Like we're we're
Speaker 1: having this and like you know, maybe like my computer
Speaker 1: starts sucking, I could get angry about it, or I
Speaker 1: could say like, okay, this is a chance to like
Speaker 1: practice patience, right, or like all of a sudden, like
Speaker 1: you're like a really hostile interviewer and you're like trying
Speaker 1: to like you know, you're there like trying to like
Speaker 1: get me right. I could get frustrated and I could
Speaker 1: shut down, or I could say like this is a
Speaker 1: chance for me to practice and get better, or like
Speaker 1: this is a chance for me to be like gracious
Speaker 1: or or or pleasant despite like a route encounter, right,
Speaker 1: Like I hope I'm not being an asshole, by the way,
Speaker 1: No, no no, not at all, not at all, but but
Speaker 1: like if you were, if you were, that's not like
Speaker 1: what the Stokes would say is like that's not only
Speaker 1: is that not in my control, it's not my problem, right,
Speaker 1: Like I don't control people aren't going to be rude.
Speaker 1: People are gonna be assholes. Like you don't control that,
Speaker 1: and you're gonna you're gonna give yourself an aneurism if
Speaker 1: you try to like force everyone to be good all
Speaker 1: the time. Instead you should just try to be good,
Speaker 1: and you should try this. I think this is a
Speaker 1: another part of so and it's like you you try
Speaker 1: to be an example. And of course all this is
Speaker 1: easier said than done, but I think it's like a
Speaker 1: framework that certainly there's no harm in trying to apply
Speaker 1: as often as possible. I think there's a great misconception
Speaker 1: about Stoicism that it means that you don't have emotions.
Speaker 1: Sure you're And it's also a common misconception about mindfulness,
Speaker 1: which is I think is associated with Stoicism, and it's
Speaker 1: kind of the modern movement of detachment from your thoughts
Speaker 1: in a sense that you get perspective, right, you kind
Speaker 1: of yep down on it from like a bird's eye
Speaker 1: view and decide how you want to do it. But
Speaker 1: I don't think that Stoics would have said that passion
Speaker 1: is not is bad? Am I? Right now? I think
Speaker 1: the Stoll it's ironic because the Stokes talk about passions
Speaker 1: like the Greek word for like like sort of emotions, right,
Speaker 1: as being not emotions, but like extreme emotions as being bad,
Speaker 1: like sort of being ruled by your passions was very
Speaker 1: important to them. Yeah. Yeah, But like passion for what
Speaker 1: you do or for good things or for purpose like
Speaker 1: is obviously part of Stoicism. And it's proven by the
Speaker 1: fact that you know, Mark Surrealis didn't didn't he accepted
Speaker 1: being emperor, right, He wasn't actually born to be the
Speaker 1: Emperor of Rome. He was he was adopted into it.
Speaker 1: He could have rejected it at any moment, right or
Speaker 1: he could have he could have retreated from it, but
Speaker 1: he didn't. And and I think you see that in
Speaker 1: a lot of the people who adhered to Stoicism, who
Speaker 1: were also sort of accomplished people in whatever their field was.
Speaker 1: Like you've written a lot and you and I have
Speaker 1: talked about like Victor Frankel, who's who is influenced by
Speaker 1: Stoicism and experienced it and tested it and probably the
Speaker 1: worst man made environment in history, and and and in
Speaker 1: one way it got him through what he went through,
Speaker 1: but it also was like he saw it as this
Speaker 1: like chance to to take his work to like the
Speaker 1: highest level that it could go, and like and and
Speaker 1: and and was a prodigious producer of writing and thinking
Speaker 1: both before and after and like, I don't think you
Speaker 1: see Stoics as being these people who like remove They're
Speaker 1: not the cynics, right, who like remove themselves from the
Speaker 1: world and take vows of poverty and and and negativity.
Speaker 1: It's it's just a way to protect yourself and balance
Speaker 1: out the uncertainties of the world. I would say, yeah,
Speaker 1: I agree, And Also, you talk in your book about
Speaker 1: how it also reduced the fluctuations of emotions, so that's
Speaker 1: not this constant you know, up and down, up and down.
Speaker 1: I mean, I think a lot of the ancient Greeks
Speaker 1: and I mean some of the greatest thinkers of all
Speaker 1: time have talked about the importance of timeless values or yeah,
Speaker 1: and I actually I really like that because you do
Speaker 1: notice that no matter what it is in the moment,
Speaker 1: when you get a greater perspective, no matter what it is,
Speaker 1: once you get greater perspective, you know that it's it's
Speaker 1: the emotion is not gonna have the same intensity. Yeah,
Speaker 1: there's this one there's this one play that is it
Speaker 1: by Lucian or Lucius I forget. I think it's Lucian.
Speaker 1: He's talking about it's this like poem and he's getting
Speaker 1: he's getting wings, and he flies above the earth. And
Speaker 1: as he's flying above the earth, he's seeing all the
Speaker 1: things that he thought were important get smaller and smaller
Speaker 1: and smaller. Right, So it's like first like people are
Speaker 1: getting smaller than like warring armies, Our looks start to
Speaker 1: look like ants, and like giant mountains start to look
Speaker 1: like molehills, and like as he's getting further and further away,
Speaker 1: he's seeing just like how small human existence is and
Speaker 1: how how massive the the how massive things appear small
Speaker 1: from a different perspective. And like I don't think the
Speaker 1: Stokes are saying, like, you know, these things are small
Speaker 1: and tiny. I think what they're people forget that Stoicism
Speaker 1: is a set of exercises, right, Like Mark Serrius didn't
Speaker 1: write a book of philosophy. He wrote a series of
Speaker 1: exercises that were meant for his It used to like
Speaker 1: remind him of stuff. So like that's where I think
Speaker 1: the connection to like cognitive behavioral therapy and some of
Speaker 1: the stuff that you do comes in. It's like stoicism
Speaker 1: is just like aphorisms and reminders of how to think
Speaker 1: about things. They're not like commandments or rules. They're like
Speaker 1: like sort of mental puzzles. And I think that's what
Speaker 1: philosophy does really well. It makes you just think about
Speaker 1: something in a different capacity. It's not like you know
Speaker 1: a religious tenant that if you violate, you our sinful
Speaker 1: and then aren't going to hell. Like the way I
Speaker 1: think about it is like when the Stokes say something
Speaker 1: and then when the storks are saying something, they are
Speaker 1: saying it primarily as a admonishment or reminder to themselves
Speaker 1: for having recently done the opposite of that thing, rather
Speaker 1: than like preaching to you that you need to be
Speaker 1: like that. I would agree with that, and I definitely
Speaker 1: agree with that. That cool. I'm definitely gonna sign this
Speaker 1: as a homework assignment. That right, this is good. So
Speaker 1: I noticed some I don't know if there are direct
Speaker 1: influences of Robert Green's or just happened to be similar viewpoints,
Speaker 1: but I noticed a couple of the things that are
Speaker 1: in common. Okay, so let me mention One, you're you're
Speaker 1: you discuss the importance of reality. This is something I
Speaker 1: point out to Robert when I when he was on
Speaker 1: the podcast, how I noticed He's I woudn't want to
Speaker 1: say obsessed with reality. I mean, like just like he
Speaker 1: over in all of his books. Like if you read
Speaker 1: all of his books and you just like sit down
Speaker 1: like in three days, in like a week, and just
Speaker 1: read all his books from start to finish, you'll notice
Speaker 1: that like he used the word reality more than any
Speaker 1: other words. Something I've noticed. I have the greatest respect
Speaker 1: for it, but I think there's a reason for that
Speaker 1: is because he obviously thinks it's very important to see
Speaker 1: things for how they are, not for our own biases
Speaker 1: and our own emotions or perspectives or background experiences or
Speaker 1: quirky experience, you know, quirk experiences. We have color work,
Speaker 1: And so I see that as as another as important
Speaker 1: in your book as well, when you talk about how
Speaker 1: perspective is everything. So were you influenced a little bit
Speaker 1: by Robert on that totally? I mean, like Robert sort
Speaker 1: of taught me in terms of writing and thinking, Like
Speaker 1: Robert has been the primary influence in my sort of
Speaker 1: intellectual life. And it was funny. I was just going
Speaker 1: through a bunch of quotes from Robert on reality for
Speaker 1: this project I'm working now. He has this great line,
Speaker 1: He's like, you have to take you have to take
Speaker 1: to reality like a spider takes to its web, which
Speaker 1: I think is like a really good line. And I
Speaker 1: think I think it's important for two reasons. And maybe
Speaker 1: I'm speaking for Robert a little bit, but it's one.
Speaker 1: It's that if you're not looking at things objectively, I
Speaker 1: think the human mind and our society sort of gravitates
Speaker 1: you towards certain fantasies and certain like generous accounts of
Speaker 1: your own talents, skills and place in the world. And
Speaker 1: if you're trying to do something or build something, like
Speaker 1: you know, an architect doesn't look at a plan and
Speaker 1: then based on how they'd like grab to be or
Speaker 1: how they'd like the lot size to be, or they'd
Speaker 1: like their budget to be. It has to be base
Speaker 1: and objective fact. And of course that's not totally possible
Speaker 1: for like a human being judging you know, other human
Speaker 1: beings and what you're doing. But like, the more you
Speaker 1: can strip out your own, i would say, unhelpful interpretations
Speaker 1: of things, the easier it is to do whatever you're
Speaker 1: trying to do. And I think the Stokes do that too,
Speaker 1: Like Marcus Reelis and Seneca and Appetitas are constantly talking about,
Speaker 1: you know, seeing what things really are. Like Mark Surrealis
Speaker 1: is like he's like, look like, you wear the purple cape,
Speaker 1: which is what the emperor wears. But it's just it's
Speaker 1: just the case. It's the same as the regular cape.
Speaker 1: It's just dyed with shellfish blood, which is how they
Speaker 1: would get the color purple. Then he's like, it's the
Speaker 1: same cape it's just dyed a different color. And he's
Speaker 1: talking both literally and metaphorically. He's like, you're not different
Speaker 1: than anyone else, Like you're still a human being, You're
Speaker 1: still bound by Like I can only imagine, like if
Speaker 1: you're deified as a god in your own lifetime, how
Speaker 1: hard must it be to like stay connected to reality
Speaker 1: and you see what happens to people in power. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I could tell you firsthand, you know, just hard, that
Speaker 1: is sure. Sure, I'm just messing. Yeah, No, And so
Speaker 1: I really like that emphasis. And also, you know, on
Speaker 1: social intelligence. When Robert in his new book Mastery talks
Speaker 1: about social intelligence, he kind of views it as you know,
Speaker 1: seeing within or just seeing the person for what they are. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and I think that you you have that perspective as well,
Speaker 1: kind of removing the you I think you talk about
Speaker 1: in your book. Yeah. Yeah, that's a good way to
Speaker 1: put it. Yeah, I think you put it that way.
Speaker 1: I don't think I put it that way to be
Speaker 1: fair to you. To be fair to you, So, how
Speaker 1: does you talk about some great examples of of of
Speaker 1: of modern day people who have really incorporated stoicism to
Speaker 1: their life. One example, Steve Jobs. How does Steve Job
Speaker 1: exemplify stoicism, do you think, well? So, ironically, Steve Jobs
Speaker 1: probably had no interest in stoicism and probably found himself
Speaker 1: more on this sort of Buddhist zen end of the spectrum.
Speaker 1: But what I liked, I like and dislike his idea
Speaker 1: of what critics would call his like sort of reality
Speaker 1: distortion field. He would take like what other people said,
Speaker 1: like he has this great line where he's like, at
Speaker 1: some point you realize that all the rules in life
Speaker 1: are in the world were just like made up by
Speaker 1: people who are like no smarter than you, And like,
Speaker 1: I think what he was grasping is like so much
Speaker 1: of what people say is like possible or not possible
Speaker 1: is either based out of fear or it's based out
Speaker 1: of like sort of conservative assumptions, and Steve Jobs was
Speaker 1: like really good at just blowing past that. I mean,
Speaker 1: part of the reason he bounced out of Apple originally
Speaker 1: was like his vision for Apple, what it became seemed
Speaker 1: like so unrealistic and everyone was so everyone was so
Speaker 1: a gassed at what he wanted things to become that
Speaker 1: they didn't bother to think about whether it actually was
Speaker 1: possible or not. And he was just very insistent on
Speaker 1: So the one hand, reality is important. On the other hand,
Speaker 1: it's not to say you have to assume other people's
Speaker 1: pessimistic version of what reality is. If I was going
Speaker 1: to try to connect those two thoughts, well, let's bring
Speaker 1: in my favorite word, imagination. Let's let's toggle between the
Speaker 1: two reality and the importance of like both. Yeah, so
Speaker 1: can you like be discontent with the reality? And so
Speaker 1: I think one of the greatest motivators of imagination is
Speaker 1: discontent with reality. I often say it, yeah, so that
Speaker 1: at the same time you can still have a great,
Speaker 1: deep appreciation for reality, but then have a just terrific
Speaker 1: imagination and vision of what reality could be. And that's
Speaker 1: easily reconcilable, right, Yeah, And I don't think it's just imagination.
Speaker 1: It's like one of the great sort of social and
Speaker 1: political organizers saw Alensky, who is who influenced both Barack
Speaker 1: Obama and Hillary Clinton. He has this famous line. He's like,
Speaker 1: if an organizer wants to do something, it's like, you
Speaker 1: have to accept the world as it is for what
Speaker 1: it is if you want to change it. I think
Speaker 1: part of people think like their imagination is important, and
Speaker 1: it is. That's like where you want to go. But
Speaker 1: if you don't understand where things are and why they
Speaker 1: are the way that they are, you're not going to
Speaker 1: get there. Like there's plenty of there's plenty of other
Speaker 1: people who had equally crazy ideas as Steve Jobs did.
Speaker 1: But what Steve Jobs is really good at is understanding
Speaker 1: how to get from point A to point B and
Speaker 1: pushing past the petty sort of resistance that that hell
Speaker 1: holds other people back from getting there. Right. I can't
Speaker 1: get over this juxtaposition of having this really high level, abstract,
Speaker 1: wonderful discussion with roosters in the background walking by with
Speaker 1: their own Do you see them? It's incredible. Let me
Speaker 1: see it. I have two goats and they're jumping around
Speaker 1: in the back there too. Do you live enough farm? No,
Speaker 1: this is just my back that's my back fence. Like
Speaker 1: I have a very small backyard, but I have I
Speaker 1: have two chickens and two goats. I completely agree with
Speaker 1: what you're saying, and I think that's why I try
Speaker 1: to be as ruthless as I can in my science,
Speaker 1: you know, and take everything else out. But then once
Speaker 1: I had the data in front of me, then I'd
Speaker 1: like to imagine what the data could look like if
Speaker 1: you did X, Y Z interventions, But that first step
Speaker 1: of ruthless science, you know, I think is important by science,
Speaker 1: you know, you would just phrase it as you know,
Speaker 1: like reality, you know. Yeah, And I think people think
Speaker 1: that being that way is somehow like it is somehow bad.
Speaker 1: But in fact, I think if you're not realistic and
Speaker 1: you don't have a real understanding of why things are
Speaker 1: the way they are, you're doing your like dream or
Speaker 1: your imagination like a disservice. Like when I sat down
Speaker 1: to write a book about stoicism, something I was deeply
Speaker 1: passionate about, something I want people to learn about. But
Speaker 1: I also sat down and looked at all the other
Speaker 1: books that were published, and I said, Okay, why did
Speaker 1: they fail? Like what was wrong with them? How Like
Speaker 1: I looked at William Irvine's book who he was an
Speaker 1: academic who wrote a book about Stoicism, and it's done okay,
Speaker 1: But like I was like, what's wrong with it? Why?
Speaker 1: Why is? And I figured out what I didn't like
Speaker 1: about it. I thought about what I could contribute that
Speaker 1: was new and different, and like, it's not just about
Speaker 1: having a good idea or having something that you're passionate
Speaker 1: about I think generally passion is very Passion is much
Speaker 1: more overrated than like purpose, which I think is very important.
Speaker 1: And I think those are two very different ideas. Someone
Speaker 1: who has purpose is going to understand and be willing
Speaker 1: to sort of in a mock yability and sense like,
Speaker 1: let the ends justify the means, right, because they know
Speaker 1: what the ends are and they know what they need
Speaker 1: to do. There, Someone who's passionate things that just like
Speaker 1: emoting or caring about or spending a lot of energy
Speaker 1: on something is a contribution, and I would say that
Speaker 1: it's really not. So I agreed. I think a lot
Speaker 1: of it depends how you define passion. So sure, I'm
Speaker 1: am a big fan of this construct in my field
Speaker 1: called harmonious passion, where it's not about emotional valence, it's
Speaker 1: about how do you integrate an activity into the core
Speaker 1: of your identity. Okay, so I think harmonious passion is
Speaker 1: extremely important, but it's not the stereotypical type of you know,
Speaker 1: passion that you're you're referring to, And I would agree
Speaker 1: with you. So it's so the difference between interest and
Speaker 1: harmonious passion is like an interest is, yeah, I really
Speaker 1: like basketball, but like harmonious passions. I am a basketball player,
Speaker 1: and it seems it seems like, yeah, it seems like
Speaker 1: if you integrate you know, the world into yourself and
Speaker 1: the sense that you I am a writer, you know,
Speaker 1: it actually the game changer, you know, like it actually
Speaker 1: changes like the way that you approach the world. So sure,
Speaker 1: well I'll take it one step further, which is like
Speaker 1: I think people go like I am a writer often
Speaker 1: have trouble versus people who say, like, I have something
Speaker 1: I have to say, You've read an article about that? Actually,
Speaker 1: did you know? It's it's like your identity. Is is
Speaker 1: it that your identity is as a basketball player, because
Speaker 1: what if that's your identity but like you're too short,
Speaker 1: or you get in a car accident your leg gets amputated, right,
Speaker 1: or is it like I deeply care about this sport
Speaker 1: or endeavor or you know, message that I have to
Speaker 1: get out and I'm going to within the confines of
Speaker 1: reality find the best means for expressing that passion and
Speaker 1: bringing it to fruition. Yeah, that's so funny. We just
Speaker 1: have this moment. I actually shared that article you wrote
Speaker 1: on writing on Facebook. I think I like messaged you Facebook. Yeah,
Speaker 1: well it went back in time and looked at Facebook
Speaker 1: like like that article you wrote and ready here I am.
Speaker 1: But but I think that, just to push it a
Speaker 1: little bit further, I think that the aspect of harmonious
Speaker 1: passion construct I really like is that the idea there
Speaker 1: is that that the activity as well is health is
Speaker 1: in a healthy way, integrated with the rest of yourself.
Speaker 1: So that's more of the point that I really like
Speaker 1: about it. That So it's it's like, it's that the
Speaker 1: writing activity I am a writer, is it makes me
Speaker 1: feel good about myself. It doesn't contradict you know, X, Y,
Speaker 1: and Z the other values that I have. It's part of,
Speaker 1: you know, the whole complete, integrated itself. So in that sense,
Speaker 1: you know, I like that. But no, no, that makes
Speaker 1: that makes total sense. And I've been thinking about passion
Speaker 1: a lot and I've never heard of that concept, and
Speaker 1: now I want to look into it. That's amazing. Check
Speaker 1: it out. There's a just there's a distinction. I can
Speaker 1: somebody to send you an article. I'll put it in
Speaker 1: the show notes. Taylor does a great job of the
Speaker 1: show notes. Looking at the article post cubed like the
Speaker 1: multiple passionate paths to performance. Okay, there's the obsessively passionate
Speaker 1: path and the harmoniously passionate path. So anyway, yeah, i'd
Speaker 1: love to know. That's great. Great, So I'm want to
Speaker 1: be very respectful of your times. Okay, for like a
Speaker 1: couple more minutes for questions, and then I want to
Speaker 1: give Taylor a chance here too. Okay, he's been dying
Speaker 1: to ask you some fun so thank you so much
Speaker 1: for this opportunity. Okay, Ran, How can you use obstacles
Speaker 1: against themselves? What does that mean? I mean, look, Martin
Speaker 1: Luther King has been on the news a lot recently, right,
Speaker 1: and and some of the passive passive resistance sort of things.
Speaker 1: That's the example that I use in the book. It's
Speaker 1: how does someone who has no power manage to wield
Speaker 1: power or manage to wield influence or create change. This
Speaker 1: is obviously also the idea that underpins a lot of
Speaker 1: the martial arts. How do you how do you sort
Speaker 1: of use the force or size of an enemy against itself? Right?
Speaker 1: Because the idea of going head to head with things
Speaker 1: is not usually the most efficient or effective way to
Speaker 1: do things. So like when you look at Martin Luther King,
Speaker 1: it's like, we're going to meet physical force with soul force.
Speaker 1: And he's saying that one because that's what he believes in.
Speaker 1: But on the on the other hand, like challenging physical
Speaker 1: force when you don't have physical force is not a
Speaker 1: viable option. Right. He's not a martyr. He although he
Speaker 1: ultimately sort of died as one, that's not what he
Speaker 1: wanted to do. He wanted to create change and then
Speaker 1: experience it and benefit from it himself, like a rational
Speaker 1: human being. One. So when I talk about in the book,
Speaker 1: is is how you learn to sort of say, Okay,
Speaker 1: here's what I bring to the table, here's what I'm
Speaker 1: up against. How can I how can I make sure
Speaker 1: that I am challenging them where they're weak and where
Speaker 1: I am strong. That that's sort of the idea I
Speaker 1: looked at it. I think, militarily, this is it. It's
Speaker 1: it's interesting, this is an idea you see militarily. You
Speaker 1: see it in the martial arts, you see it in philosophy,
Speaker 1: you see it in in uh in political movements. It's
Speaker 1: it's a fact of life because there's not any other
Speaker 1: way to do it. Yeah, I think that was very
Speaker 1: well said. So what does this what does this quote mean?
Speaker 1: Don't waste time on false constructs? I think I really,
Speaker 1: by the way, from aesthetic perspective, I love that sentence.
Speaker 1: I like it too. It was actually I'm trying to
Speaker 1: remember where it is in the book. I think it's
Speaker 1: about the perspective. I think it's around when you talk
Speaker 1: about the importance of perspective. Yeah, well, look, it's interesting.
Speaker 1: Like the first thing we when we fail, like when
Speaker 1: something happens, right, it is an objective event, right, like
Speaker 1: you know, my house gets broken into, it's raining outside,
Speaker 1: getting a car accident, you know, my computer won't work.
Speaker 1: These are like objective events. But what we do on
Speaker 1: top of that is then tell ourselves like what they
Speaker 1: mean or what they represent. Right, It's totally unfair. It's
Speaker 1: the end of the world. I'm too late now we
Speaker 1: tell ourselves these things. These are constructs that they're obviously
Speaker 1: adaptive constructs, but they're constructs, and you could argue that
Speaker 1: they're making things worse. And so I try to When
Speaker 1: we're talking about reality, it's about seeing the event for
Speaker 1: what it is and what it is clearly, and not
Speaker 1: focusing so much on the interpretation that you add to it,
Speaker 1: or more importantly, the interpretation to go back to Steve
Speaker 1: jobs that other people put on things, right, just see it,
Speaker 1: Just see it for what it is to you personally
Speaker 1: in that moment, compared to what you need to do,
Speaker 1: and let that sort of be the end of it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that makes sen I just really like I wanted to
Speaker 1: say that sentence out at least time off all that.
Speaker 1: I really like that. It's weird. You've probably experienced this,
Speaker 1: like you write a book. Oh yeah, the book is like,
Speaker 1: you know, sixty plus thousand words. You don't remember all
Speaker 1: the sentences that are in it. And that's where you
Speaker 1: actually learn that that Emerson quote where he's like when
Speaker 1: you see your own thoughts like reflected back to you,
Speaker 1: or you're like holy shit, like who said that? And
Speaker 1: then it's a it's pretty weird. Well, yeah, that funny
Speaker 1: moment where I said this called You're like, you're like, yeah,
Speaker 1: I really we were really well said Scott. I was like,
Speaker 1: you gotta be fair, you know that was I'm quoting you, brother. Anyway,
Speaker 1: I'm not sure I said that one. Okay, you know,
Speaker 1: maybe I'll actually well yeah, I'm not sure we're actually
Speaker 1: now either, but I'm pretty sure. Okay, so blessings and
Speaker 1: burdens are not mutually exclusive. There's another chestnut. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: think that's the court. Would you agree that kind of
Speaker 1: gets to the core of stolicism in a way, Yeah, totally, totally.
Speaker 1: It's that within within the negativity of a given situation,
Speaker 1: there's also positive, right, the clearest being a sort of
Speaker 1: quote that underpins the book, which is that you know,
Speaker 1: everything is an opportunity to practice virtue. Everything is a chance.
Speaker 1: So even even if something bad happens, like even if
Speaker 1: someone you know dies, is that not a chance for
Speaker 1: you to like be supportive to other people? Right? Or
Speaker 1: is that not a chance for you to be reminded
Speaker 1: of your own mortality or or you a chance to
Speaker 1: do something nice or respect Like, everything that happens, even
Speaker 1: really really bad stuff, especially really bad stuff, has has
Speaker 1: within it the chance to do something. So it's not like, oh,
Speaker 1: how do I look at the glasses being half full?
Speaker 1: It's like, how do I how do I fill it
Speaker 1: up with like an action or a choice after the fact?
Speaker 1: Is what I would say. Stoicis amidst and that's what
Speaker 1: the obstacle is. The way ultimately means right, it's the
Speaker 1: obstacle is the way to someone. Yeah, yeah, turn things
Speaker 1: into an advantage, and it's it's not a thing to
Speaker 1: be avoided, so the thing, Yeah, right, exactly. And by
Speaker 1: the way, I think it's interesting like Mark Thwiz is
Speaker 1: saying the impediment to action dances action, that stosis, and
Speaker 1: that's Western philosophy. And then you know the Zen saying
Speaker 1: is the obstacle is the path, and I wanted to
Speaker 1: combine the two. I really like when you see totally disparate,
Speaker 1: unconnected schools of philosophy zeroing in on this same or ideas.
Speaker 1: I think that's the sort of corroboration of some kind
Speaker 1: of real, undeniable wisdom. Awesome. I want to stop here
Speaker 1: and give a chance for my colleague or christ to
Speaker 1: ask you some questions. In a lot of ways, I
Speaker 1: may I'm going to embarrass Hi maybe a little bit heavy.
Speaker 1: I feel like I'm looking at a younger version of
Speaker 1: you right here. He approached me a year ago and
Speaker 1: basically said, I want to learn as much from you
Speaker 1: about the field. I you know, like whatever I can
Speaker 1: do to help out. And he's he's became I let
Speaker 1: him me. I mean, I'm executive director of this podcast,
Speaker 1: and he's just done an amazing job with all the
Speaker 1: show notes and does he does he go to penn
Speaker 1: or no? No? Wow? Nice? He literally Kate, he just
Speaker 1: I mean, you can tell your story, but you came
Speaker 1: from La just like showed up on the footstep of
Speaker 1: the Positive Psychology Center and said for free, I'm here, Like,
Speaker 1: what can I learn from you guys? And I made
Speaker 1: in my TA for my positive Psychology class the teaching
Speaker 1: assistant for the whole place. Yeah, I appreciate that, Ryan. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I would start outright just by saying, like, you know,
Speaker 1: your your work has had a profound effect on my
Speaker 1: philosophical operating system, and it's meant a lot to me
Speaker 1: as a creative person, which is I think it's a
Speaker 1: great opportunity to have you and Scott in particular, both
Speaker 1: being psychologically interested creative types here. I figured i'd fire
Speaker 1: off a question that maybe both of you could weigh
Speaker 1: in on bring me into this. I don't know this
Speaker 1: is gonna happen, the three way thing. So I'm a
Speaker 1: huge fan of your writing for psychology today, and it's
Speaker 1: clear you've done a lot of research in the field.
Speaker 1: I was curious if there had been any theories or
Speaker 1: studies in particular that you found very helpful to you
Speaker 1: as a creative professional. I mean, there's the post traumatic
Speaker 1: growth one which I talked about an obstacle, which I
Speaker 1: think was really interesting, and Scott and I were talking
Speaker 1: about that one. I remember really early on I read
Speaker 1: I was reading this one about like one of the
Speaker 1: early studies about learned helplessness, and I remember I remember
Speaker 1: reading that like a certain number of the dogs just
Speaker 1: like didn't give in to learn helplessness. So it's like,
Speaker 1: even though these things might generally be true, there's also
Speaker 1: like exceptions to the rules. I thought that was really interesting,
Speaker 1: and I thought, I remember the study I saw was
Speaker 1: like saying, like the study, I'm trying to remember it exactly,
Speaker 1: but it was like they did it in post post
Speaker 1: Soviet East Germany, and they were looking at they were
Speaker 1: like looking at how people adjusted to like the fall
Speaker 1: of communism, and like how some people like thought they
Speaker 1: were screwed, and then other people saw it as this
Speaker 1: like massive opportunity and so like I think in some
Speaker 1: ways connects to the stoke, which is like if you
Speaker 1: can orient yourself so you see what happens to you
Speaker 1: as not being like negative, as not being universally negative,
Speaker 1: but as being sort of like temporary and alterable. This
Speaker 1: is like a This is as much a toolkit as
Speaker 1: any like actual talent or skill would be. Perhaps more so,
Speaker 1: would be better to be untalented but have a good
Speaker 1: outlook in this sense than to be like highly talented
Speaker 1: but sort of depressed and constrained by how you interpret
Speaker 1: the world. I might be butchering the actual science here,
Speaker 1: so I apologize if so, but those are two that
Speaker 1: I remember standing out to me. That's awesome. I you know,
Speaker 1: one of my great interests in psychology is just how
Speaker 1: it can be so practical and help us live healthier, happier,
Speaker 1: and more creative lives in a lot of ways. I personally,
Speaker 1: I thought that the growth mindset research from Carol Dweck
Speaker 1: has been really helpful as a creative person. I think
Speaker 1: it speaks to one of the main tenets of stoicism,
Speaker 1: which is just really a a cognitive reframing of a situation.
Speaker 1: You know, you have an event. Sure, maybe your most
Speaker 1: recent article didn't get you know, accepted or applauded in
Speaker 1: such a way, right, and growth mindsets for me, I
Speaker 1: kind of I used to would have been the person who, oh, no,
Speaker 1: it means I'm not talented. I was born without any
Speaker 1: sort of ability as a writer. And you know, maybe
Speaker 1: I should stop here. But at growth mindsets, you look
Speaker 1: at this research and you see that if you can
Speaker 1: just change your perspective on the matter and see it
Speaker 1: as a learning opportunity, as a way to hone your skills,
Speaker 1: as an inevitability, and really an opportunity to grow and
Speaker 1: strengthen your creative talents and move on and find the
Speaker 1: success that you wanted in the world. Yeah, no, I
Speaker 1: think what's interesting and maybe this like what I what
Speaker 1: I think one objection to some of the pop psychology
Speaker 1: that we see that the Stokes might have would be, yes,
Speaker 1: it's when you fail or when something bad happens, it
Speaker 1: doesn't say anything about you as a person, right, And
Speaker 1: other than that, it's that it's an opportunity to grow.
Speaker 1: I think what I like about the Stokes and what
Speaker 1: I like about the Ancient is there's also the there's
Speaker 1: also the emphasis that like success doesn't say anything about you.
Speaker 1: Either the fact that it did get accepted does it
Speaker 1: necessarily mean that it's good? Or the fact that you're
Speaker 1: famous or important or rich, does it mean that you're
Speaker 1: like a good person either that, like you're like Marc
Speaker 1: Sirelisi as this Sundery says, like accept it without without
Speaker 1: arrogance and let it go with without indifference or with indifference,
Speaker 1: And like, I think we can be a lot of
Speaker 1: people can practice like this the second half of that
Speaker 1: to like let bad things go with indifference. But can
Speaker 1: you also like accept good things without arrogance? Like that's
Speaker 1: probably the more difficult part of it as well, and
Speaker 1: it's something I certainly struggle with. And like I've always
Speaker 1: been really cognizant of having been or accomplished things like
Speaker 1: early on in my life, like that could also be
Speaker 1: a recipe for like becoming a monster basically the goats
Speaker 1: are So I've come across a lot of research recently
Speaker 1: that has emphasized the ability of meditation to enhance our
Speaker 1: creative outsight, And I was curious, are you are you
Speaker 1: big on meditation? Is that's something you do with some frequency?
Speaker 1: For me, I've I found that like actual meditation doesn't work.
Speaker 1: But I see like exercise or like strenuous physical activity
Speaker 1: as being another way to sort of get in that
Speaker 1: like flow mindfulness state. So like I like swimming and
Speaker 1: running those like my two big ones. I walk a
Speaker 1: lot too, but like I didn't, like, I work hard
Speaker 1: in the mornings and then I stop in the afternoon
Speaker 1: and I usually like do some sort of activity and
Speaker 1: I find that like by the time I get back,
Speaker 1: I like have breakthroughs for whatever I was struggling with
Speaker 1: like earlier in the day. That's great, I really I
Speaker 1: think that speaks to the importance of finding a ritual
Speaker 1: that works for you as a creative person. And yeah,
Speaker 1: it's kind of funny, like Scott and I have said that,
Speaker 1: like we kind of get anxious if we sit into
Speaker 1: traditional meditation just kind of focused attention. There's different kinds
Speaker 1: of meditation coming out. Sure, I'm a big fan of
Speaker 1: active open minus, but I'm not a big fan of
Speaker 1: return of the breath. Yeah. Yeah, I did yoga once
Speaker 1: and I actually like fell asleep. You've done have you done?
Speaker 1: Like sensory deprivation tanks. I've been meaning to try that forever.
Speaker 1: I think the research is really interesting and it sounds
Speaker 1: it sounds like you did experience. Yeah, I've done it
Speaker 1: like three or four times. It's pretty cool, Like for me,
Speaker 1: Like it was weird. It was like the first time
Speaker 1: in my life that I could ever remember like feeling
Speaker 1: and sensing like nothing, like just total nothing. Like I
Speaker 1: didn't like really have hallucinations. Like it was just like
Speaker 1: I was just sitting there like with nothing, and that
Speaker 1: was like that was a refreshing experience. Yeah, I've heard
Speaker 1: it's kind of a nice cleanse. But it's interesting just
Speaker 1: because the studies have found that that kind of open
Speaker 1: minded meditation is the kind that helps you with creativity.
Speaker 1: Where when you go on your default mode network, when
Speaker 1: you're when you're running, when you're exercising, when you're not
Speaker 1: thinking about the problem them at hand, is when you
Speaker 1: know inspiration strikes that it's kind of the way to
Speaker 1: get at your solutions to your problems. So pay touching
Speaker 1: to your day dream This is something I'm big on. Yeah,
Speaker 1: not like not like saying, oh no, I gotta ignore
Speaker 1: the day dreams. Got the day dreams return of the breath,
Speaker 1: you know, but actually like non judgmentally looking at those
Speaker 1: day dreams and seeing what they could add value to. Yeah,
Speaker 1: maybe it's just sort of like letting go of the
Speaker 1: need to be in control of everything as well. That's
Speaker 1: true too. Yeah, And just to raise a conversation between
Speaker 1: you know, two smart guys stoicism and psychology. We were
Speaker 1: talking earlier about how basically modern psychology is proving timeless
Speaker 1: values in philosophies. Have you ever done research into Barbara
Speaker 1: Fredrickson's broaden and build theory? Because I see the obstacles
Speaker 1: the way this whole cognitive reframing of an event as
Speaker 1: falling right into that that research. That's an interesting literature
Speaker 1: that Yeah, what is it? I don't I don't know
Speaker 1: what it is? Do you want to explain the brother
Speaker 1: built through? We're going to sign this to the students,
Speaker 1: So this is literally bit. It's gonna be the most
Speaker 1: instructional for my homework. It's gonna be the most instructional
Speaker 1: like podcast ever. Psychology students are cool. It's easiest for
Speaker 1: me to understand it in light of like the opposite,
Speaker 1: so to speak. So when we have negative emotions, evolutionarily,
Speaker 1: it's adaptive because it narrows the kinds of thoughts and
Speaker 1: actions we might take. You know, you're terrified fight or flight, right,
Speaker 1: there's no time in between that, And I remember you
Speaker 1: said something about your animal brain wanting to shorten the
Speaker 1: time period between appraisal. Yeah, yeah, right, So it's adaptive.
Speaker 1: Negative emotions have a place, you know, sure when you're
Speaker 1: dealing with that kind of thing. But if you can
Speaker 1: put more of a space between the event and the appraisal,
Speaker 1: if you can stop and take this kind of a
Speaker 1: stoic exercise of saying maybe it's not a bad thing,
Speaker 1: then it opens up your ability to think of different options,
Speaker 1: of more available space for you to act in, and
Speaker 1: you know, it helps you pivot and turn what might
Speaker 1: be a disadvantage into an advantage. Says that positive emotions
Speaker 1: place adaptively is to you know, when you're feeling happy,
Speaker 1: you're optimistic, you're more likely to go explore or you know,
Speaker 1: read a new book or have different options come into
Speaker 1: your mind. Basically, No, that makes total sense. I would
Speaker 1: agree with that. How is it standing academically, Scott, Well,
Speaker 1: this is interesting because Frederickson also proposed this positive ratio,
Speaker 1: which has come under fire recently in a big way.
Speaker 1: So the broad and build theory I think is sound
Speaker 1: in a lot of ways. So the specific positive eratio
Speaker 1: are what's called the critical ratio is not to be
Speaker 1: taken seriously, but the overall theory that it's important to
Speaker 1: have more positive emotions and negative emotions on average, I
Speaker 1: think is getting a lot of research support that while
Speaker 1: negative impositiotions aren't good, it is, it is, it is.
Speaker 1: It's a balance is not necessarily the key, but to
Speaker 1: actually have like more positive negative because the positive does
Speaker 1: broaden your outlooks and options. No, and that makes total sense. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, I like what you're talking about about, you know,
Speaker 1: putting the space in between your event and then your
Speaker 1: assessment of it. Although like we also have to be realistic, right,
Speaker 1: Like I don't think the Stokes would argue, like if
Speaker 1: you fall and break your arm, you should be like, oh,
Speaker 1: it doesn't hurt right now, because like I'm gonna make
Speaker 1: good from this or whatever. It's like, you're gonna one,
Speaker 1: You're gonna have all your biological reactions and all the
Speaker 1: psychological ones that you can't you know, all the cognitive
Speaker 1: biases that you can't necessarily sort of prevent from happening.
Speaker 1: But it's like before you make a decision or take
Speaker 1: an action. So it's like you fall, you break your arm,
Speaker 1: it hurts that part you can't change that's not in
Speaker 1: your control, but you can decide if you're now gonna
Speaker 1: feel sorry for yourself for the next you know, two
Speaker 1: months as you recover, or if you're gonna if you're gonna,
Speaker 1: you know, whine all the time, or if you're gonna
Speaker 1: not take care of yourself, or you're gonna, you know,
Speaker 1: take your mood out on like a spouse or your
Speaker 1: family or whatever. Like I think, I think we also
Speaker 1: want to we want to distinguish between like what are
Speaker 1: the sort of immediate biological reactions we don't control and
Speaker 1: how can we focus on this sort of Okay, and
Speaker 1: this is what it means, which is definitely in our control.
Speaker 1: You asked, like two more questions. Sure, yeah, I love it.
Speaker 1: I'm sure we could ask. I'm sure you could ask.
Speaker 1: Just let's you know, just let five minutes. Okay. I
Speaker 1: was gonna ask if you have some truly high return
Speaker 1: on investment habit or practice that you engage in that
Speaker 1: you think is especially great for your creative output. Uh, well,
Speaker 1: the two would be reading. I think is one of
Speaker 1: the most high sort of return on investment activities that
Speaker 1: there are period. And I think if you look at
Speaker 1: any real successful person, you're going to find this. Unless
Speaker 1: there was some sort of event in their child that
Speaker 1: are upbringing that made like reading difficult. Like I mean,
Speaker 1: there's doctor Drew introduces me to stoicism at nineteen years old,
Speaker 1: and that totally changes the course of my life, not
Speaker 1: just like career wise, but it also helps me with
Speaker 1: like literally every difficult situation that I face from that
Speaker 1: point forward. And I've only been dealing with the ROI
Speaker 1: for like less than ten years, right, So, like I
Speaker 1: think with books, you see this massive ROI. I think
Speaker 1: the same with exercise, having some sort of separate activity
Speaker 1: that you do that where it's like there's no such
Speaker 1: thing as like it's very rare that you would have
Speaker 1: a bad day exercising, right, because whether it's going to
Speaker 1: be good or not is mostly in your control outside
Speaker 1: of injury. Right, So it's like you decide that you're
Speaker 1: going to go to the gym and do X, Y
Speaker 1: and Z, it's in your control to be able to
Speaker 1: go do X, Y and Z, and it's only a
Speaker 1: matter of commitment to that idea that would prevent you.
Speaker 1: And so it's like for me, it's like a constant
Speaker 1: win that you're like racking up a constant piece of
Speaker 1: sort of positive momentum, and so like, I feel like
Speaker 1: I've done the intro to this book came to me
Speaker 1: while I was on a run, and so did lots
Speaker 1: of the other sentences that you were talking about here
Speaker 1: right like that That's been one of the best things
Speaker 1: I've done ever creatively. So those would be two very cool.
Speaker 1: I really appreciate that is I think the audience will
Speaker 1: just as you know, all of us as farting to
Speaker 1: be creative types out there, it's nice to have some
Speaker 1: actual wonder jactioning real quick. You know, you must have
Speaker 1: been a really good journalist at freshman year to get
Speaker 1: invited to the summit. I mean, how did you get
Speaker 1: invited to that? Well it was it's not a great school,
Speaker 1: but there and there weren't many people in the newspaper staff.
Speaker 1: But yeah, I don't know, it randomly fell in my
Speaker 1: lap like they were they it was. It was hilarious.
Speaker 1: Trojan Condoms had paid for doctor Drew to speak at
Speaker 1: an event that like ten college journalists were invited to,
Speaker 1: and like because it was near LA, I was like
Speaker 1: the one that kind of find it. So it's just
Speaker 1: this like crazy lucky thing that I obviously jumped on. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so Ryan probably is another book Riper. It takes time.
Speaker 1: I think it's it's just so much fun and actually
Speaker 1: really helpful to have this tool in your toolkit. And
Speaker 1: that's it's based on an article you'd written contemptuous expressions.
Speaker 1: I think I think it'd be great if you wouldn't
Speaker 1: mind just sharing that idea with the audience, because I
Speaker 1: think it's awesomest. Yeah, so it's it's a stoic idea
Speaker 1: as well, And you see it in a lot of
Speaker 1: the exercises where they're I almost mentioned earlier, where they're
Speaker 1: like going through and like cataloging like what things are
Speaker 1: in a very like objective session objective sense, like Marcus
Speaker 1: will say like sex is like a bit of rubbing
Speaker 1: and then like a white fluid, Like he says this
Speaker 1: in the meditations, and like obviously sex is more than that,
Speaker 1: but it's also literally all that it is, right, and
Speaker 1: he's he's he's talking about like you know what is
Speaker 1: like a sumptuous feast? Like if you think about it
Speaker 1: in a weird, like cynical way, it's like why are
Speaker 1: there a bunch of like dead cooked animals like on
Speaker 1: your table, Like isn't this like weird and gross, and
Speaker 1: he's like thinking about he's thinking about the sort of
Speaker 1: luxury and riches that he's given as this most powerful
Speaker 1: man in the world. And you see Epictetis do it too.
Speaker 1: He's like, you know, he's like he's talking about like
Speaker 1: what it's like to sort of envision like a famous
Speaker 1: or important person naked. Like they're just trying to get
Speaker 1: you to strip thing like Marcus has like strip things
Speaker 1: of the legend, which encrusts them. Like over over time,
Speaker 1: we've like added all this meaning wrong meaning towards material
Speaker 1: items often or certain experiences, certain like you know, bits
Speaker 1: of status. And they're they're not saying that the things
Speaker 1: are worthless. They're just trying to counterbalance them with like
Speaker 1: an objective take, like like here's one that I came
Speaker 1: up with. I think is interesting. It's hilarious to me
Speaker 1: that like when Obama leaves office right right now, is
Speaker 1: the most powerful man in the world. He can do
Speaker 1: whatever he wants. Essentially, when he leaves office, he's like
Speaker 1: legally and financially obligated almost to like write another crappy
Speaker 1: memoir and then travel on the obnoxious media circuit to
Speaker 1: like promote this book, right, Like all he wants to
Speaker 1: do is like go back to regular life, but instead
Speaker 1: he's gonna have to spend the next like three months
Speaker 1: of his life dealing with like editors at a publisher.
Speaker 1: He's gonna have to deal with the same crap that
Speaker 1: Scott and I have to put up with ashary less
Speaker 1: important authors. So to me, it's just a reminder that
Speaker 1: like even a great position comes with its own still
Speaker 1: comes with, like, you know, its own reminder. I think
Speaker 1: Malcolm Gladwell was talking about once that like airport security
Speaker 1: is like the great equalizer, Like it doesn't matter who
Speaker 1: you are, you just have to go through like the
Speaker 1: TSA right, although if you fly private you really don't
Speaker 1: as I as I've seen a few times. But like
Speaker 1: the point is it every it's about reminding yourself of
Speaker 1: like who you actually are and what the constraints of
Speaker 1: reality are and life are, and like I don't know,
Speaker 1: I don't know if the Stokes actually used the word
Speaker 1: contemptuous exercise, but to me, it's just it's like sometimes
Speaker 1: you can throw a little contempt at something to balance
Speaker 1: out the like adulation that people are projecting onto it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: this is a really great interview Ryan and I. So far,
Speaker 1: I think this might have been one of our best.
Speaker 1: So thank you so much for your time today, and
Speaker 1: I look forward to what's your next project. I'm working
Speaker 1: on a new book now and then just I've got
Speaker 1: like I represent other authors for like marketing and public
Speaker 1: relations and stuff I'm allowed to know. Are we allowed
Speaker 1: to know what the book is about? Or would you?
Speaker 1: I hate talking about projects that are still in the hopper,
Speaker 1: so maybe we can get you back on it. You know, yes,
Speaker 1: I would love that. Something sounds good. Thanks so much
Speaker 1: for Thank you guys for having us is really cool
Speaker 1: and tall. Email me anytime if you ever questions or whatever.
Speaker 1: You're a total sweetheart. I can't say I'm a circuit sa.
Speaker 1: I know I'm a sweetheart. He calls me a sweetheart too,
Speaker 1: like I don't know about that. But thanks for listening
Speaker 1: to The Psychology Podcast with Doctor Scott Barry Kaufman. I
Speaker 1: hope you found this episode just as performing a foker
Speaker 1: lukif I did. If you don't show me the show
Speaker 1: notes for this episode or your past episodes, if you
Speaker 1: go to the Psychology Podcast dot com s