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. Hopefully
Speaker 1: we'll also provide a glimpse into human possibility. Thanks for
Speaker 1: listening and enjoy the podcast today. It's my great honor
Speaker 1: to have Brene Brown on the podcast. Brenee is a
Speaker 1: research professor at the University of Houston Graduate College of
Speaker 1: Social Work. She has spent the past thirteen years studying vulnerability, courage, worthiness,
Speaker 1: and shame. Brenee is the author of three number one
Speaker 1: York Time bestsellers, Rising Strong, Daring Greatly, and The Gifts
Speaker 1: of Imperfection. Thanks for talking with me today, Berne. I'm excited.
Speaker 1: I'm looking forward to it. I have a big fan
Speaker 1: of your work, so I'm I'm excited to Wow. That
Speaker 1: means a lot to me that you said that. I'm
Speaker 1: a big fan of yours as well, and I'm really
Speaker 1: looking forward to talking today. And I thought we could
Speaker 1: start with your career starting topic shame. How did you
Speaker 1: get interested in this topic. You know, I didn't have
Speaker 1: any I didn't really have interested in that topic. I
Speaker 1: was very interested in connection and kind of trying to
Speaker 1: understand the anatomy of connection because I was, you know,
Speaker 1: I have bachelor's in social work, a master's and was
Speaker 1: working on my PhD in social work. And I think
Speaker 1: I summarized my you know, fifteen years of higher ed
Speaker 1: and my one hundred thousand dollars in school owns as
Speaker 1: we are wired to be connected to one of me,
Speaker 1: to each other. So that was the big takeaway, and
Speaker 1: so I really wanted to understand what does it mean,
Speaker 1: what does connection really mean, how do we build it?
Speaker 1: And what gets in the way. And I wasn't really
Speaker 1: interested in what gets in the way. I was just
Speaker 1: I thought, you know, if I come across with that,
Speaker 1: it'll be interesting. Well, as it turns out, and you
Speaker 1: know this probably better than most, it's human nature. When
Speaker 1: we don't have vocabulary to describe what is, we rely
Speaker 1: on the easier vocabulary of describing what isn't. So when
Speaker 1: I started asking people about connection, what's important to them
Speaker 1: and what's meaningful for them, they immediately told me stories
Speaker 1: about isolation, heartbreak, pain, disconnection, betrayal, and so I involuntarily,
Speaker 1: very quickly became a shame researcher because I think that
Speaker 1: shame is the experience of believing we're not worthy of connection,
Speaker 1: or the fear of believing we're not worthy of connection.
Speaker 1: And that's how people really just described their experiences of
Speaker 1: connection with me is by describing disconnection. So I became
Speaker 1: literally just I mean dogged about it. And you cannot
Speaker 1: believe how many people are like, you can't study that.
Speaker 1: It's a horrible topic. You'll never get published note, you know,
Speaker 1: just but I don't know. I think I was really
Speaker 1: attracted to it because for the first time in my
Speaker 1: life I felt not alone hearing other people struggles with it. So,
Speaker 1: first of all, you were brave to still continue on
Speaker 1: that topic. So that was an act of bravery right there.
Speaker 1: And then what it led to you sort of had
Speaker 1: this faith in a way. It seems to me that
Speaker 1: it also would lead to into new unexpected directions. So
Speaker 1: I really like this quote of yours. Only when we
Speaker 1: are brave enough to explore the darkness will we discover
Speaker 1: the infinite power of our light. And it seemed like
Speaker 1: you almost had to correct me if I'm wrong, Rene,
Speaker 1: but it seems like you almost had to start with
Speaker 1: this topic. It sort of like was a foundation for
Speaker 1: like everything else you study by starting with the dark
Speaker 1: in a way, Does that make sense? Yeah? Yeah, completely,
Speaker 1: And it was. Honestly, it was an enormous an ask.
Speaker 1: People did not want to hear about it. I couldn't
Speaker 1: even know. I knew I wanted to write very early on.
Speaker 1: I knew I wanted to write, not I wanted to
Speaker 1: write for the public. I didn't want to do that
Speaker 1: kind of thing, you know. I was in a very
Speaker 1: stressful in your dract position. I didn't want to do
Speaker 1: that thing where I was just writing for other academics
Speaker 1: because I had done research before, especially under two of
Speaker 1: my mentors at you of Ah. But it was the
Speaker 1: first time I'd ever done a study where the research
Speaker 1: participants after the interviews would look at me, I mean
Speaker 1: tearfully look at me and say, do you promise when
Speaker 1: you learn what this means and what this is, that
Speaker 1: you'll share it with us? And I felt really terrible
Speaker 1: because the answer was, you know, I'm actually not. I'm
Speaker 1: going to publish it in a article that like three
Speaker 1: people read, and mostly the people that read it will
Speaker 1: be checking to make sure they've been quoted. It's so true,
Speaker 1: so true. I think it was really hard. But I
Speaker 1: do think so much of what's wrong today for me
Speaker 1: about what's out there, you know, the professional literature and
Speaker 1: you know, made available to the public, is people don't
Speaker 1: talk about the stuff that gets in the way. Yeah,
Speaker 1: they almost sort of jump in kind of a masslow
Speaker 1: sort of way. They kind of jump right to the
Speaker 1: self actualization without working on all the steps along the way.
Speaker 1: Is that a fair way of putting it. I think
Speaker 1: it's a really weird way of putting it. And for
Speaker 1: those of us who are you know, perfect For myself,
Speaker 1: I need to normalize about how hard it is, how
Speaker 1: human it is, what I'm experiencing, how this is not
Speaker 1: going to be easy, and I need someone to say,
Speaker 1: you know what, just because it doesn't mean putting it
Speaker 1: into practice makes it, you know, it's still hard. And
Speaker 1: so I think starting a shame. While it was really
Speaker 1: really hard on me professionally and personally, I don't think
Speaker 1: I could have done what I've done had I not
Speaker 1: started there. That makes a lot of sense. And also
Speaker 1: I find it really important to hihilate that you do
Speaker 1: qualitative analysis. Yeah, grounded theory, which was pioneered by your mentor,
Speaker 1: Barney Glazier. And I'd love for you to talk a
Speaker 1: little bit about the differences, you know, really quickly, you know,
Speaker 1: I know we could talk all day about this, but
Speaker 1: why do you prefer personally? What kind of data do
Speaker 1: you think you can get out of quality of that
Speaker 1: you can't get from quantitative you know. I think what's
Speaker 1: interesting about grounded theory is I think it's normally associated
Speaker 1: with qualitative research, but a lot of people myself included
Speaker 1: now using secondary data can use the methodology with qualitative
Speaker 1: or quantitative data. The thing that I love about, you know,
Speaker 1: And for people listening to her like what you know
Speaker 1: you can use Yeah, you can use this theory to
Speaker 1: understand numbers, you know, kind of hard data, or you
Speaker 1: can use this approach to find the patterns and themes
Speaker 1: that emerge from stories and interviews. And so for me,
Speaker 1: what I really love about grounded theory is that, unlike
Speaker 1: a lot of traditional research qualitative and quantitative, rather than
Speaker 1: starting with an existing theory and then proving or disproving
Speaker 1: that theory, it calls into questions the validity of existing
Speaker 1: theories and says, you know what, build a theory from
Speaker 1: the ground up, not based on other theorists, but based
Speaker 1: on people's lived experiences. Then when you find the themes
Speaker 1: and patterns saturating and emerging so they're almost predictable, then
Speaker 1: start developing that theory. Then you do the lit review,
Speaker 1: then you look into it. But anything before that will
Speaker 1: fill your mind with kind of preconceived notions, and that
Speaker 1: is not building a theory on what people really live.
Speaker 1: And so to me, I was going in researching a
Speaker 1: topic that was, you know, no one talks about. And
Speaker 1: if you look at Glazer and Strauss who developed it,
Speaker 1: it was really interesting because a lot of times grounded
Speaker 1: theories are controversial. They really push on a existing theories
Speaker 1: because you know from Kriglazer and Strauss they wanted to
Speaker 1: understand dying and they really wanted to understand dying and children,
Speaker 1: and so they had to find a way to talk
Speaker 1: to children about their experiences during a time where doctors, nurses, parents,
Speaker 1: clergy conspired to not tell children that they were actually
Speaker 1: eternal as they were dying. So they had to find
Speaker 1: a way to really be loyal and truthful about these
Speaker 1: children's experiences and not rely on what was already out there,
Speaker 1: and so it is really the other thing I love
Speaker 1: about it that just is like, I know, I'm kind
Speaker 1: of geeking otters, so thanks for putting me to And
Speaker 1: by the way, this is what our listeners will love
Speaker 1: to hear, is the geeking parts good. What I really
Speaker 1: love about it is that it's not descriptive. It's not
Speaker 1: like a lot of qualitative researchers that descript This is
Speaker 1: conceptualizing from data in a very rigorous scientific way. It's
Speaker 1: kind of a brutal methodology, very time consuming, very hands on.
Speaker 1: You're not allowed to use any kind of software to
Speaker 1: quote to code data. It's really about staying in a
Speaker 1: process and being true to a process and being true
Speaker 1: to what people are saying, not your academic interests or
Speaker 1: pet peeves. So it's it's challenging, but I've become a
Speaker 1: huge lover of it, and it's fun because I get
Speaker 1: to share a lot of dissertations now for people kind
Speaker 1: of around the world who are doing grounded theory research.
Speaker 1: So it's really fun. And I still am in contact
Speaker 1: with Barney Blazer. Yeah, incredible. You know, one of the
Speaker 1: kind of founding people of Chicago's School Qualitative Research. So
Speaker 1: it's really interesting. Yeah. Yeah, And grounded theory is definitely
Speaker 1: considered one of the most rigorous qualitative methods that exist today.
Speaker 1: And I think it's so interesting, like it's both top
Speaker 1: down and bottom up. It's like an iterative process. It
Speaker 1: is completely Yeah. In fact, Barney was on my you know,
Speaker 1: the methodologist on my dissert, and I gave them a
Speaker 1: pen for the gifts, like a really beautiful pen, and
Speaker 1: I had it inscribed and it said trust an emergence
Speaker 1: because the whole theory grounded theory is trust that what
Speaker 1: you need will emerge from the data if you stay regress.
Speaker 1: Sounds like the nature of consciousness. Oh my, you know.
Speaker 1: And what's really funny too, is I'm not a clinician.
Speaker 1: I've never been a clinician, but it is very similar
Speaker 1: to the clinical process of being with clients and listening
Speaker 1: to their stories and not getting ahead of them or
Speaker 1: behind them, but just staying with them in their process,
Speaker 1: just being with them. Yeah. So interesting. Well, thanks for
Speaker 1: talking about that a little bit, sir. So I want
Speaker 1: to move on now to this major point in your life,
Speaker 1: your two thousand and seven breakdown. I mean, spiritual awakening. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I thought maybe we could talk a little bit about that,
Speaker 1: and you know what happened around then that made you
Speaker 1: shift a little bit in your research interests, you know,
Speaker 1: I think for me, you know, I came to the
Speaker 1: end of this reekon shame feeling like I had a
Speaker 1: really good understanding of what it is, what it isn't,
Speaker 1: how it operates, how to distinguish it from other self
Speaker 1: conscious affect like guilt, humiliation, embarrassment. And what I realized
Speaker 1: is I was sitting on some data that could really
Speaker 1: mine for a different question, a question that I was
Speaker 1: really interested in, which is Okay, I understand how shame works.
Speaker 1: But there are you know, there are a lot of
Speaker 1: men and women who I've interviewed who, rather than waking
Speaker 1: up in the morning and saying, you know, I'm not enough,
Speaker 1: I don't have enough, there's never enough, nothing's good enough,
Speaker 1: these people woke up in the morning really and saying, yeah,
Speaker 1: there's a lot of scurcity, there's a lot of perfectionism,
Speaker 1: that I am enough, And so what did they have
Speaker 1: in common? And so I really wanted to to look
Speaker 1: back into the data ask me that question. And so
Speaker 1: for me, the kind of breakdown slash spiritual awakening came
Speaker 1: when what really emerged from that, you know, we call
Speaker 1: it constant care, comparative method. That's the big method we
Speaker 1: use in gravied theory. What really emerged from working with
Speaker 1: doctoral students and other people in the research is what
Speaker 1: these men and women had in common, kind of above
Speaker 1: all else, was the willingness and capacity to be vulnerable.
Speaker 1: And that was devastating for me because I became a
Speaker 1: researcher strictly because I hate vulnerability, and so I'm not
Speaker 1: a fan of vulnerability really at all. And I like certainty.
Speaker 1: I like control. I like prediction and control, you know,
Speaker 1: I like that. That's the bill of goods. I got
Speaker 1: sold on research, but is there's also a part of
Speaker 1: it that's like we I don't want to speak for you,
Speaker 1: but like intellectualization was kind of a way for me
Speaker 1: and my childhood to suppress feelings I didn't want to
Speaker 1: feel at home yea percent. You know, you don't have
Speaker 1: to feel them, just understand them. And as a child,
Speaker 1: you know, safety is not always in feeling what you're feeling,
Speaker 1: but it's understanding why you're feeling it and what you
Speaker 1: can do to change it. I think it was really
Speaker 1: You know, it's funny because one of the quotes that
Speaker 1: I see all the time that people use and like
Speaker 1: on their blogs or people is a quote from mine
Speaker 1: that I it's like one of my least favorite quotes.
Speaker 1: I'm always surprised when I see it. But it's something
Speaker 1: like I think it's from the gifts of imperfection that
Speaker 1: knowing ourselves matters but not as much as loving ourselves
Speaker 1: or something which still pisses me off. I wish the
Speaker 1: love and the magic was in the knowing, not the feeling.
Speaker 1: I still wish that. Sometimes I don't believe it anymore,
Speaker 1: but I still wish it. That's interesting. Can you elaborate
Speaker 1: a little bit on that? So I want to make
Speaker 1: sure I fully understand that point. I can have full
Speaker 1: awareness of how vulnerability works at the constant, what it is,
Speaker 1: what the pieces and the elements are. But unless I'm
Speaker 1: really willing to embrace uncertainty, unless I'm really willing to
Speaker 1: be vulnerable, it doesn't matter how well I academically understand it.
Speaker 1: And so well. Yeah, and so that's the part that's
Speaker 1: still hard for me, because I'm much more comfortable in
Speaker 1: my head than I am in my heart. Okay, that
Speaker 1: makes a lot of sense. You know, a lot of
Speaker 1: people say that, like a lot of research is research.
Speaker 1: Maybe in a way that's a good thing. You know,
Speaker 1: I've never heard that, but that's funny. Yeah, it seems like,
Speaker 1: you know, it's a good like it's important to kind
Speaker 1: of see it from the inside as well as the outside. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, just more basically, for me, why would you
Speaker 1: ever spend your career studying something that had no personal
Speaker 1: value to you? Like for me, I'm really passionate about
Speaker 1: figuring these things out sometimes because I think it makes
Speaker 1: me a better partner and a better parent and a
Speaker 1: better person, a better leader. And so I just didn't
Speaker 1: expect font to find things that were going to kick
Speaker 1: my ass to the level that they did. Totally. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so that's cool. I mean it's like your stories that
Speaker 1: you collected inspired you to be a better person in
Speaker 1: a way, or to be a dit to to prove
Speaker 1: in certain areas of your life. Oh for sure. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's cool. I mean I'm just trying to think that's
Speaker 1: something that I don't I don't always get so inspired
Speaker 1: when I look at my quantitative numbers. Your methodology kind
Speaker 1: of affords that in an additional way. So I really
Speaker 1: like that cool. And I think sometimes even like we're
Speaker 1: doing some quantitative work right now, which you know, I enjoy,
Speaker 1: I don't have the same kind of maybe deep passion
Speaker 1: for quantitative work as I do for qualitative work, only
Speaker 1: because you know, I'm a storyteller and a story catcher,
Speaker 1: and so I love that part. But I think the quantitative.
Speaker 1: You know, it's funny because I had the first qualitative
Speaker 1: dissertation in my college and it was a real kind
Speaker 1: of scandal. I had to get all kinds of special
Speaker 1: dispensation from the provost. It was hard, but I was
Speaker 1: taught by really great people who told me he really
Speaker 1: taught me, like my mentor my academic mentor study femicide
Speaker 1: the killing of women by intimate partners. And she was
Speaker 1: domestic violence researcher, and she was a mixed methods researcher,
Speaker 1: and she always used to tell me, she said, if
Speaker 1: I could change the face of domestic violence with really
Speaker 1: powerful stories, I would do that. If I could change
Speaker 1: the face of domestic violence with numbers, I would do that.
Speaker 1: But it takes both to really speak to human behavior
Speaker 1: and human thinking. You have to have the numbers and
Speaker 1: the stories. And so to me, that's kind of how
Speaker 1: I was academically raised. So I don't really see it
Speaker 1: as an either or, but I do think for the
Speaker 1: things that really shook my soul, it was the qualitative stuff. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that was very well put. I like that. So let's
Speaker 1: talk about wholehearted living. There's so much that it encompasses.
Speaker 1: It's not just one thing. How do you define? First
Speaker 1: of all, how do you define wholehearted living? To you know,
Speaker 1: I have a definition in the gifts of imperfection of it.
Speaker 1: And I can again try to quote myself maybe, but
Speaker 1: you know, to me, it's about the willingness. To you,
Speaker 1: it's the courage to be imperfect, to be vulnerable. It's
Speaker 1: about the courage to wake up in the morning and
Speaker 1: really acknowledge that no matter what gets done and what
Speaker 1: doesn't get done, that I'm enough, and that I'm worthy
Speaker 1: of love and belonging and joy those things that we
Speaker 1: just are irreducible needs for humans. And so to me,
Speaker 1: wholeheartedness is really about, I think, the opposite of it.
Speaker 1: Here I go, doing exactly what told you my research
Speaker 1: participants did, using the opposite to explain I think it's
Speaker 1: really about the opposite of it is really scarcity, that
Speaker 1: I'm not enough. What I produce, what I create dictates
Speaker 1: who I am and dictates my worth. And I think
Speaker 1: wholeheartedness is different than that. I think it's that I
Speaker 1: am enough. Yeah, I like that, and so a lot
Speaker 1: of these things to fall naturally from that holding courage, compassion, connection.
Speaker 1: So why is being vulnerable and active courage? Yeah, this
Speaker 1: is the big P. I think this is the research
Speaker 1: that has been meant the most to me and probably
Speaker 1: I think has changed my career the most. And that
Speaker 1: is this, you know, dispelling the mythology that I think
Speaker 1: vulnerability is important to courage. I think vulnerability is courage.
Speaker 1: And in fact, we were looking at data the other
Speaker 1: day and you know, we have the two hundred thousand
Speaker 1: pieces of data now that I can't find a single
Speaker 1: example or what we would call incident of courage that
Speaker 1: is not completely defined by vulnerability. And it's one of
Speaker 1: the things that I really challenged people to do. I
Speaker 1: do a lot of speaking, and like I was just
Speaker 1: recently at Fort Bragg speaking to soldiers in joint special
Speaker 1: operations like special ops soldiers. Yeah, but I even challenge
Speaker 1: them because you know, it's a hard it's a hard
Speaker 1: group to talk about vulnerability with because basically, in a
Speaker 1: combat situation, vulnerability equals death and so and their job
Speaker 1: is really to minimize vulnerability. Even that's even language they use.
Speaker 1: And so I ask them to, you know, come up
Speaker 1: with an example a courage that they've ever seen done
Speaker 1: themselves witnessed that wasn't completely defined by a willingness to
Speaker 1: be vulnerable, you know, a willingness to put yourself engage
Speaker 1: in risk, uncertainty and emotional exposure. And no one could
Speaker 1: come up with an example. And so to me, it's
Speaker 1: not that courage requires vulnerability. I think vulnerability is our
Speaker 1: most accurate measure of courage. Tell me how vulnerable someone
Speaker 1: is willing to be, and I'll tell you how brave
Speaker 1: they'll be. That's so interesting. That makes a lot of sense.
Speaker 1: And I kind of like this. You kind of talk
Speaker 1: about the flip side of vulnerability in a way of
Speaker 1: like being acting cool. I thought that was so interesting,
Speaker 1: Like you're talking about people who act cool, you know. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: can you librate a little bit on that, Yeah, I
Speaker 1: mean I think the opposite of vulnerability, you know, the
Speaker 1: definition I use for vulnerability emerge from the data, and
Speaker 1: it's simply uncertainty, risk and emotional expl mesure. And so
Speaker 1: cool is the need to be perceived as completely in control,
Speaker 1: completely certain and risking no emotional exposure at all. So
Speaker 1: it's kind of the straight jacket of I'm in control,
Speaker 1: I've got everything managed. It's emotional stoicism, not emotional exposure.
Speaker 1: And so I think cool is just really dangerous. I agree.
Speaker 1: I don't know. There's that great quote from Almost Famous.
Speaker 1: The only true currency in this bankrupt world is what
Speaker 1: you say to someone when you're being uncool. I like that.
Speaker 1: I mean that I wish like my twenty one year
Speaker 1: old self heard in this conversation. You know, I feel
Speaker 1: like I went through my whole twenties trying to be
Speaker 1: someone I wasn't like, trying to be like I bought
Speaker 1: like Abercrombie and pitch clothes like I'm not. I mean
Speaker 1: that is for someone that is who they are, but
Speaker 1: I'm saying for me, it is I spent my twenties
Speaker 1: trying to be cool, and then my al you know,
Speaker 1: I started giving talks about my experiences as being in
Speaker 1: special ed as a kid and just being really honest
Speaker 1: about that, and and I think people think I'm a
Speaker 1: lot cooler when I do that then when I was
Speaker 1: trying to act cool. Yeah, because there's some authentic badassory
Speaker 1: in that piece, right, Yeah, because it's brave, because that's brave,
Speaker 1: because it's vulnerable, and there's really there's nothing really that
Speaker 1: brave about being cool. It cool is by definition self protection,
Speaker 1: you know. And for me, I came from a family
Speaker 1: where cool was really important. And so you know, I
Speaker 1: do a lot of parenting research right now, I'm doing
Speaker 1: it right now or teaching a class, and it's one
Speaker 1: of the things I really talked to parents about that
Speaker 1: if you are consciously or unconsciously positioning cool as a
Speaker 1: family value, you know, you've got to be really clear
Speaker 1: on the implications that will have on children, because kids
Speaker 1: will engage in very, very high risk behaviors without thinking much.
Speaker 1: If cool is a value you put forward as a
Speaker 1: big family value, I agree. And something I thought was
Speaker 1: really cool was this phrase wholehearted parenting that I saw
Speaker 1: you use in one context and just made me think of, like,
Speaker 1: what would a wholehearted school look like? What would wholehearted
Speaker 1: education look like? You know, it's so it dovetails nicely
Speaker 1: with the work we're doing on positive education and all
Speaker 1: these interventions we're trying to do to look at increases
Speaker 1: in gratitude and mindfulness and a lot of the things
Speaker 1: you talk about. But it really a lot of ways.
Speaker 1: That's what it is. It's you know, it's like a
Speaker 1: wholehearted school. Wow, now it is. We have a new
Speaker 1: programmat called Daring Schools. We really talk about what does
Speaker 1: it take to create a culture in education where vulnerability
Speaker 1: is a requirement for learning and you can't learn with
Speaker 1: your mouth shutting your head down. So you can't learn
Speaker 1: in classrooms where vulnerability is not you know, promoted, they're
Speaker 1: got a safe space for it. You just can't learn.
Speaker 1: And so that means just by definition that any kind
Speaker 1: of shame based environment, you know, prohibits that really prohibits learning.
Speaker 1: So we're kind of looking at the same things from
Speaker 1: a different perspective that y'all we're looking at. And I
Speaker 1: think there's an incredibly powerful intersection I think of the
Speaker 1: work that y'all are doing the work we're trying to do,
Speaker 1: because I think it's going to take the combination of
Speaker 1: what we're all looking at to pull together the kind
Speaker 1: of schools that we're going to need to put together
Speaker 1: moving forward. So how I was saying, no, a critical
Speaker 1: component of compassion because they're not often treated in the
Speaker 1: same sentence, right, Like boundaries and compassion are not often
Speaker 1: treated together. But I really like how you put them together.
Speaker 1: So could you obrate on that a bit? Sure? And
Speaker 1: I think that was a real surprise to me. I
Speaker 1: had this kind of stack of data for about six months,
Speaker 1: and I laughingly called it the Compassion SmackDown stat because
Speaker 1: I was like, this was a stack of people who
Speaker 1: I interviewed who I was just kind of really blown
Speaker 1: away by their level of just human compassion. And I
Speaker 1: wanted to figure out what was it that these people
Speaker 1: shared in common. I was, you know, I made a
Speaker 1: hundred guesses. I was like, you know, is it kindness?
Speaker 1: Is it faith? Is it spirituality? What do these men
Speaker 1: and women who are so incredibly compassionate toward themselves, toward
Speaker 1: each other, toward just their thoughts about human nature? What
Speaker 1: do they share in common? And it turns out that
Speaker 1: the only variable they shared in common was they were
Speaker 1: the most boundary people I've ever interviewed. And it took
Speaker 1: me a while to put two and two together to understand, like, wow,
Speaker 1: these boundary people happen to also be the you know,
Speaker 1: the compassion people. And as I started looking into it
Speaker 1: and then doing kind of what we call selective coding,
Speaker 1: going back now that I haven't understanding of what's emerging,
Speaker 1: and doing more interviewing specifically around those questions, it became
Speaker 1: really clear to me that you know, when you go,
Speaker 1: I do like ninety percent of my work right now
Speaker 1: in you know, kind of fortune five hundred companies and
Speaker 1: large organizations, and I always strive me that how many
Speaker 1: of these organizations have assumption of positive intent as a
Speaker 1: standard value, But no one talks about the prerequisite for that,
Speaker 1: which is you cannot be generous and tolerant and accepting
Speaker 1: of people who are not respecting you, not respecting your boundaries.
Speaker 1: And so we call it in my research, we call
Speaker 1: it big that it's boundaries, integrity, generosity. In order to
Speaker 1: really approach people's thoughts, behaviors, and actions with a hypothesis
Speaker 1: of generosity, you have to ensure that your boundaries are
Speaker 1: being respected by those people. That makes a lot of sense,
Speaker 1: and bringing in their self compassion seems to be an
Speaker 1: important thing that you talk about as well and acceptance.
Speaker 1: So it seems like you really have to know who
Speaker 1: you are and what you want to set up those boundaries,
Speaker 1: and in order to do that, you have to accept
Speaker 1: who you are and what you want, right, I think
Speaker 1: it does. It's interesting with grounded theory because we don't
Speaker 1: do the lit review until the theory emerges, because you know,
Speaker 1: it gets in the way of us, you know, trying
Speaker 1: to figure out how people are actually living. It's interesting
Speaker 1: because then once you do the lit review after your
Speaker 1: theory has emerged, you're looking for existing literature that supports
Speaker 1: or existing literature that really conflicts with what you found,
Speaker 1: and you know, addressing that and so and sometimes that
Speaker 1: means just saying, you know, this is not what I find.
Speaker 1: I disagree, you know, the times it's digging in further
Speaker 1: and making sure that you didn't miss something. And so
Speaker 1: for me, when I was doing the compassion work and
Speaker 1: after I finished coding that data, I found Kristin Neff
Speaker 1: from the University of Texas at Austin Kristin Neff's work
Speaker 1: on compassion and it was just such a powerful fit
Speaker 1: with what I had seen in the data. So I
Speaker 1: rely on her work a lot. Yeah, she's been on
Speaker 1: this podcast, and I'm going to, in fact, when I
Speaker 1: feature my podcast my website, I'm going to put yours
Speaker 1: next to krisin NEPs. I decided I'd like to neighbors
Speaker 1: with her. Yeah, I just decided. Yeah, it dovetails so nicely.
Speaker 1: So this is great. You know, when I talk about creativity,
Speaker 1: I bring in stuff like authenticity and meaning, and you know,
Speaker 1: in Wired to Create, I talk about how really creativity
Speaker 1: is not much more than finding your personal meaning in
Speaker 1: a way, and you talk about it in similar terms.
Speaker 1: I'd love to hear your thoughts and let's just have
Speaker 1: a discussion and jam on this topic. Yeah, I love it.
Speaker 1: I love Wired to Create. Oh, I just think it's it.
Speaker 1: I just I love what you say in it. I
Speaker 1: think it's the title is like, it's just soul whole
Speaker 1: truth telling. I love it. Oh that just made my
Speaker 1: wife right there. But thanks I forgot. Yeah, I just do.
Speaker 1: I think everything about everything that you have found, everything
Speaker 1: that you pause it is exactly I think it's exactly right.
Speaker 1: I just believe it heart and soul. So tell me
Speaker 1: your question again because I was Fonny. Yeah, I love
Speaker 1: like these associated constructs that we both I totally agree
Speaker 1: are part or kind of part and parcel of creativity.
Speaker 1: So meaning having a uniqueness, not like comparison, but having
Speaker 1: your own path that you are accept in a way
Speaker 1: and you and then drives you and all these things.
Speaker 1: And authenticity is another one. So there's all these related
Speaker 1: topics and I just wanted to just talk about how
Speaker 1: they relate to creativity. Yeah, I think, I don't know.
Speaker 1: I think you know. One of the most I don't
Speaker 1: know if the word controversial, but one of the findings
Speaker 1: from my work that I thought about a lot when
Speaker 1: I read Wired to Create, which was met has been
Speaker 1: still still met, Like I just did a talk in
Speaker 1: Denver on Saturday. It's still met with Like people get
Speaker 1: really fussy but crunchy about it. Is my belief that
Speaker 1: you know, and I think it's a shared belief that
Speaker 1: we have, is that you know, there's no such thing
Speaker 1: as creative or not creative people. There's people who use
Speaker 1: it and people who don't, right, But I do believe,
Speaker 1: and this is where people get upset that unused creativity
Speaker 1: is not benign. I think ignoring that part of our
Speaker 1: humanity comes at a cost, because I do believe, as
Speaker 1: you say in your title, that we are wired for creativity.
Speaker 1: It's part of our DNA. And so I think the
Speaker 1: question for me, and this goes back to starting as
Speaker 1: a shame researcher, and that lends really informing my entire career.
Speaker 1: So my question is like, if we are really wired
Speaker 1: to be created, but yet people are not doing it?
Speaker 1: What gets in the way, And so much of what
Speaker 1: gets in the way is shame. Oh yeah, absolutely, and
Speaker 1: and a lot of these other emotions that kind of
Speaker 1: block us up. So you know what's interesting. I started,
Speaker 1: I'm working on this project about Abraham Maslow, and I've
Speaker 1: ring all those journals, and he believed that self actuization
Speaker 1: is the height of creativity and that self actualization really
Speaker 1: can only come about when you, piece by piece start
Speaker 1: unblocking yourself. It's sort of like our default state is
Speaker 1: self actualization. And then all these other things in the
Speaker 1: pyramid are things that are kind of clogging it up
Speaker 1: in a way. I think I agree with that. I mean,
Speaker 1: my question would be, does he think that they were
Speaker 1: born with them plogged? Are that? Well, we're born with
Speaker 1: the creative instinct, And I definitely agree with that. There's
Speaker 1: just a sort of you know what, it's no, the
Speaker 1: way I like to think about there's sort of like
Speaker 1: there's an inner freedom that comes with creativity. That all
Speaker 1: these things like shame and fear and what they do
Speaker 1: is they limit our degrees of freedom. But how do
Speaker 1: you think they get there? Lizzy is pointing something she
Speaker 1: wrote down in her hands. She wrote, arts, art scars
Speaker 1: that that's that's Lizzie, that's exactly that will never serve you,
Speaker 1: Lizzy the podcast. So I was, no, it's OK, I'm
Speaker 1: going to keep this same and I'm going to keep
Speaker 1: this in also, that's a question I'm asking, like, I
Speaker 1: believe the reason why I'm asking you is because I
Speaker 1: think that what I find in my work is that
Speaker 1: the stuff that Maslow would say clogs freedom or clogs
Speaker 1: or you know, creates inhibition or whatever it is. Inhibition
Speaker 1: may be the wrong word, but I think a lot
Speaker 1: of that is learned, and I think that in many
Speaker 1: ways we're born with a lot of freedom. And you know,
Speaker 1: when you have as many people that we've interviewed and
Speaker 1: fifty percent of I mean sorry, eighty five percent of
Speaker 1: them can remember something that happened in school that was
Speaker 1: so shaming it changed how they thought of themselves as learners.
Speaker 1: And of that eighty five percent, fifty percent of those
Speaker 1: scars specifically were around art, writing, drawing, creativity, music. I mean,
Speaker 1: like the stuff that you're doing with schools, Like, it's
Speaker 1: going to be so much easier if you don't create
Speaker 1: the wound then try to heal it. And I'm telling
Speaker 1: you that's what happens. Like people want to believe that that's, oh,
Speaker 1: that must be like you know, resource poor public schools
Speaker 1: where that's happening. It's not. It happens in every school,
Speaker 1: not in every classroom, of course, because there are teachers
Speaker 1: that I've met some of the fiercest, non shaming, wholehearted
Speaker 1: people I've ever met our teachers. But you know, it
Speaker 1: happens a lot. And so if we can change the
Speaker 1: environments in which the clogging happens, that's going to be
Speaker 1: so much more effective and efficient than trying to heal it.
Speaker 1: Great and additionally, create a culture that allows people to
Speaker 1: feel comfortable sharing how they feel, you know, their vulnerability
Speaker 1: about you know, maybe they were bullied and saying like,
Speaker 1: you know what, I really am not cool with that.
Speaker 1: You know, this is how I feel about that you know,
Speaker 1: so just yeah, adding in that vulnerability aspect as well,
Speaker 1: that would have been huge for me. Well, but we
Speaker 1: all have that inner freedom. It really is inside us.
Speaker 1: It's just we don't access it. It is, and I
Speaker 1: think it's hard to make the transition from you know,
Speaker 1: I think I always tell people it's one of the
Speaker 1: most important developmental milestones of midlife is you know, midlife
Speaker 1: is when and midlife can be anything from your you know,
Speaker 1: you know, from your mid thirties to you know, who knows, sixties,
Speaker 1: But it's kind of when the universe grabs you by
Speaker 1: the shoulders and says, you know, I'm not screwing around
Speaker 1: like you're halfway done. And all the armor and all
Speaker 1: the things you put around yourself, the walls, the armor,
Speaker 1: the moats you dug to really protect yourself emotionally, maybe
Speaker 1: even physically. They're keeping you from growing into your gifts.
Speaker 1: And you're an adult now, but it's you know, so
Speaker 1: it's time to take those off, and it's time to
Speaker 1: be vulnerable and be who you are. But you know,
Speaker 1: when you when you grow up having to put armor
Speaker 1: are on to self protect, which we all do to
Speaker 1: some extent, it becomes a great challenge to believing that
Speaker 1: you're safe enough to pull it off. And I think
Speaker 1: that's you know, that's really the part of the work
Speaker 1: that I try to talk to people about is that,
Speaker 1: you know, how do we how do we create environments
Speaker 1: where kids and cultures, family cultures, school cultures where kids
Speaker 1: don't have to armor up so much to begin with,
Speaker 1: And then once those of us who are armored are armored,
Speaker 1: what do we need to start pulling that stuff off?
Speaker 1: I love that, So maybe it would be to end
Speaker 1: on this note, we can like both agree that I
Speaker 1: think society would be benefited if we shifted from this
Speaker 1: focus on what's wrong with people, like you know, your
Speaker 1: test SAT scores are terrible or this and that, and
Speaker 1: focused more on the beauty and potential that's inherited in
Speaker 1: everyone and the creative possibilities. Oh my god, sign me
Speaker 1: up for that. Also, well, thank you so much for
Speaker 1: chatting today and for the really terrific work you do
Speaker 1: and for inspiring me to be more authentic in my
Speaker 1: own life. Oh my god, one hundred percent, And thank
Speaker 1: you for the work you're doing. And it's so fun
Speaker 1: to find like spirited people on the same because it's
Speaker 1: hard sometimes and you're like, oh, and you know, am
Speaker 1: I chasing windmills? But you know, if that's what it is,
Speaker 1: at least are people like you. I can knock them
Speaker 1: over with sounds gonna be. Thanks for Nae. Thanks for
Speaker 1: listening to The Psychology Podcast with Doctor Scott Barry Kaufman.
Speaker 1: I hope you found this episode just as thought for
Speaker 1: booking and interesting as I did. If you'd like to
Speaker 1: read the show notes for this episode or hear past episodes,
Speaker 1: you can visit the Psychology Podcast dot com