Speaker 1: Welcome to the Psychology Podcast, where we give you insights
Speaker 1: into the mind, brain, behavior, and creativity. I'm doctor Scott
Speaker 1: Barry Kaufman, and in each episode I have a conversation
Speaker 1: with a guest who will stimulate your mind and give
Speaker 1: you a greater understanding of yourself, others, and the world
Speaker 1: to live in. Hopefully we'll also provide a glimpse into
Speaker 1: human possibility. Thanks for listening and enjoy the podcast. Just
Speaker 1: a quick note that today's episode is going to be
Speaker 1: a rerun the next season of the Psychology Podcast we'll
Speaker 1: begin later this year. I haven't taken any break in
Speaker 1: five years of doing this podcast, so I thought it
Speaker 1: was about time to take a step back and think
Speaker 1: about how it can make this a better experience for
Speaker 1: you all. Until then, enjoy these episodes from our archives.
Speaker 1: Hey Toddcasted, thanks for coming on my show. You are
Speaker 1: a professor, psychologist, public speaker, and family man. You recently
Speaker 1: wrote the book The Upside of Your Dark Side Why
Speaker 1: being your whole self not just your quote good self, drive,
Speaker 1: success and fulfillment. And you wrote it with doctor Robert
Speaker 1: biswas diner. And something else I noticed in your bio, Todd,
Speaker 1: is that you say, you say the things other people
Speaker 1: want to but are afraid to, And I think that
Speaker 1: segues nicely into kind of the main thesis of your book,
Speaker 1: that we need to achieve wholeness. One of the problems
Speaker 1: in particularly in American culture, is we have this cheerfulness, happiness,
Speaker 1: optimism culture that prevents people from accessing information that they
Speaker 1: kind of know already that negative emotions are relatively useful.
Speaker 1: There are sides of our personality that are not socially
Speaker 1: desirable to talk about. We don't talk about our grandiose narcissm.
Speaker 1: We don't talk about that there are parts of our
Speaker 1: personality that are similar to Dexter on the Showtime show.
Speaker 1: We don't talk about the fact that sometimes you like
Speaker 1: to be elfish. And we're not interested in talking to
Speaker 1: our colleagues, and we're not interested in collaborating, and we're
Speaker 1: very interested in spending some alone time focus on what
Speaker 1: we care about, what we're interested in, and we don't
Speaker 1: want to spend time with our kids that we want
Speaker 1: to go out for a walk by ourselves. And these
Speaker 1: aspects of our personality when we recognize that they're useful
Speaker 1: at particular times in particular doses in our life. That's
Speaker 1: when we've become whole. Yeah, I like that. Something that
Speaker 1: I was trying to understand though, is that terminology used
Speaker 1: use the word dark side on the cover. You know,
Speaker 1: I don't really equate personally, just like in my own conceptuzation,
Speaker 1: I don't quate negative emotions necessarily with the dark side.
Speaker 1: I think like positive emotions can be dark side as well.
Speaker 1: A psychopath could be really happy while they're killing someone,
Speaker 1: right like they can have right, well, they have positive emotions.
Speaker 1: So why do you why why A lot of examples
Speaker 1: like fear, and we're going to get into this stuff.
Speaker 1: But in your chapter you have on negative emotions, why
Speaker 1: are those things necessarily Why is that the dark side?
Speaker 1: Do you know what I mean? Sure? Well, one is
Speaker 1: you're a psychologist, and you're a scientist, and you were
Speaker 1: trained with an evolutionary perspective on We were designed architecturally
Speaker 1: to have particular emotions that help us survive, reproduce, find friends,
Speaker 1: fend off rivals, find mates, and take care of our kids.
Speaker 1: That's why we have all these different this whole spectrum
Speaker 1: of emotions. And so for you, I mean, you know,
Speaker 1: it's not the dark side that you take up what
Speaker 1: we take, which is a functional approach, which is, instead
Speaker 1: of asking the question how does something make me feel?
Speaker 1: How do I think something will make me feel? And
Speaker 1: that's the driving factor that makes me decide where I
Speaker 1: go on vacation, what house do I purchase, Who do
Speaker 1: I decide to be my friends? What do I do
Speaker 1: on a Friday night? What's the next MP three that
Speaker 1: I pick up from iTunes? Instead of asking how does
Speaker 1: it make me feel? We ask what's the use of it?
Speaker 1: And so if I think about music that I want,
Speaker 1: restaurants I want to go to, trips that I want
Speaker 1: to take, and people that I want my social world,
Speaker 1: I think to myself, will these people be of value?
Speaker 1: Add because there's already a lot of things in my
Speaker 1: life and from that perspective, it's not the dark side.
Speaker 1: But when you ask people to report on a regular
Speaker 1: basis of what emotion they experience and were they valuable
Speaker 1: to you? And I've done this with my college students
Speaker 1: and my Science of well Being class, regardless of the consequence,
Speaker 1: So regardless of feeling angry made them have an improved
Speaker 1: relationship with their romantic partner, regardless of being anxious, made
Speaker 1: them study harder and do well on the test. They
Speaker 1: regularly report that the negative emotional experiences were problematic regardless
Speaker 1: of the consequence. And that's fascinating. You've got people that
Speaker 1: are saying the final outcome, the endgame worked out for me,
Speaker 1: but because it didn't feel good, I'm going to say
Speaker 1: this was the dysfunctional moment in my life. And that's
Speaker 1: what I mean by the dark side. That makes sense,
Speaker 1: and I could pletely agree. I come from this adaptation
Speaker 1: perspective from every psychology where I watch these traits without
Speaker 1: context are not necessarily good or bad, dark side or
Speaker 1: light side. But your dark side it just does have
Speaker 1: that very much like Star Wars connotation, you know, like
Speaker 1: use the force of it and you are in a
Speaker 1: lot of ways. It's like the Star Wars the Science
Speaker 1: of Star Wars. It could have called your book maybe
Speaker 1: the Science of the dark Side. Well, we also want
Speaker 1: to be provocative because I think when we talk about
Speaker 1: anxiety and anger being useful, there are a number of
Speaker 1: people that just shake their head and say, yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: of course. Superficially, I know that if I'm going to
Speaker 1: fight with somebody and they're picking on my fifteen year
Speaker 1: old son, I'm going to step in with anger and say, listen,
Speaker 1: leave my son alone. And when it comes to anxiety,
Speaker 1: if it ends up being that someone's going to say,
Speaker 1: if you don't do this, I will vote against you
Speaker 1: for tenure for your job, well then yeah, anxiety is
Speaker 1: useful because you should be worring. So people now their
Speaker 1: heads superficially, and what we're saying is superficial assessment of
Speaker 1: the value of negative emotions and parts of your personality
Speaker 1: that are uncomfortable. They don't feel you that's not satisfactory.
Speaker 1: It's that these parts of your personality you specifically want
Speaker 1: to harness more in certain situations than happiness, than kindness
Speaker 1: and compassionate and things that are also incredibly beneficiable, but
Speaker 1: not pantasas and not things you want to be in,
Speaker 1: not states you want to be in at all times
Speaker 1: of your life. Right, But you would not say that.
Speaker 1: You would certainly agree there are certain times in our
Speaker 1: life where we there are things that don't make us
Speaker 1: feel good about ourselves and really shouldn't Like that's a
Speaker 1: signal as well that we shouldn't continue down that line,
Speaker 1: like if we're fering, like if we're like intentionally like
Speaker 1: hurting someone or something and emotionally or something, and we
Speaker 1: just don't feel right about this anymore. So you have
Speaker 1: a very contextual approach to it, right, Oh, I think
Speaker 1: you can come up with simpler examples than that. I mean,
Speaker 1: you know, if you think about envy and jealousy, sure
Speaker 1: they're helpful because there's signals of potentially your position with
Speaker 1: your romantic partner or friends of yours is unstable and
Speaker 1: you're likely to be rejected. But the more you communicate
Speaker 1: that with your friends and your partners, they get burnt out,
Speaker 1: they don't want to be around with you, and ends
Speaker 1: up toxifying the relationship. So it's very simple to come
Speaker 1: up with examples where negative emotions are unhealthy. It's harder
Speaker 1: to come up with examples some positive emotions are unhealthy,
Speaker 1: but there aren't quite a number of them. And I
Speaker 1: think the beauty is the science is now available with
Speaker 1: decades of research of we know exactly when it's better
Speaker 1: to be in a sadder, an angry state than a
Speaker 1: cheerful and optimistic state. And that's the wonders of science.
Speaker 1: When you put all this stuff together into a complete package,
Speaker 1: I love that. When did you I'd love to hear
Speaker 1: more about how you got to this perspective, Like when
Speaker 1: you start off in grad school, what was your dissertation title?
Speaker 1: Let's start there. What was your dissertation title? The role
Speaker 1: of social anxiety in group treatment for depression? How does
Speaker 1: it interfere with your engagement? And how does it interfere
Speaker 1: with the effectiveness? Is that what the subdiscipline of psychology
Speaker 1: was that technically categorized in I got a PhD in
Speaker 1: clinical psychology, So I spent years while and then I
Speaker 1: realized that that is not my strength. There are people
Speaker 1: that are incredible and empathizing and taking people's perspective and
Speaker 1: soaking in people's pain, and I am not one of
Speaker 1: those people. Wow, So you start off in clinical I
Speaker 1: didn't even know that about you? And then you how
Speaker 1: did you get into should we say, like did you start?
Speaker 1: Did you didn't transition to like positive psychology the beginning.
Speaker 1: So my initial work was in social anxiety disorder. And
Speaker 1: one of the things that's fun about treating people with
Speaker 1: social anxiety problems is everybody has a fear of being
Speaker 1: evaluated and rejected. These people, it's it's such a profound
Speaker 1: part of their lives that they don't. They're not willing
Speaker 1: to raise their hand and ask questions and aren't really
Speaker 1: they're not willing to start conversations, and so they don't
Speaker 1: have they don't have close friends, they don't have close
Speaker 1: romantic relationships. They have impoverished sex lives. And when you
Speaker 1: treat these people, you shake their hand and say, listen,
Speaker 1: you no longer have social anxiety problems. And then what
Speaker 1: happened was many of them would ask me, so what
Speaker 1: do I do now? I mean, what do I do
Speaker 1: with my day? My entire life has been and hacking
Speaker 1: computer programs in my basement and spending time by myself
Speaker 1: reading comic books or avoiding other people? Where do I
Speaker 1: begin with my life? And hearing that repeatedly in my
Speaker 1: clinical career made me think of I don't just want
Speaker 1: to take away people's pain, And now we've gotten to
Speaker 1: the point where I don't even not even sure that
Speaker 1: I want. I want to make sure that actually, in
Speaker 1: some cases, pain is actually present. But I want to
Speaker 1: help people construct a life that's meaningful and it's surrounded
Speaker 1: by goals and people that are important to them that
Speaker 1: they want to spend time with, that are engaging and
Speaker 1: help their personal growth, and none of this has anything
Speaker 1: to do with the presence or absology present absence of
Speaker 1: what psychopathology psychopathology? Wow, so that does seem to beligned
Speaker 1: very well with with the ideas of positive psychology, right. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I started grad school the year that Marty Seligman had
Speaker 1: his speech ship as the APA president in the age
Speaker 1: ninety eight. And so there's you know, this beautiful consilience
Speaker 1: of events that happened. That's so cool, that's so cool.
Speaker 1: That's a good history. I'm glad I asked you for
Speaker 1: the history of this. Thanks Terressing. Yeah. So what is
Speaker 1: the false knows of happiness? What does that mean? Well,
Speaker 1: we give a story, a historical account in the book,
Speaker 1: which I'm not going to reveal so people can learn
Speaker 1: for themselves. Essentially, it's we think happiness is the endgame
Speaker 1: and the thing that should be the ultimate reason that
Speaker 1: we're alive and the thing we should be pursuing, and
Speaker 1: we should be making decisions based on does this thing
Speaker 1: make me happy or unhappy? And if you if you
Speaker 1: look at these panel studies of tens of thousands of
Speaker 1: people around the world, about eighty to ninety percent of
Speaker 1: people will say their fundamental objective in life is to
Speaker 1: be happy. We're saying is in some way it's it's
Speaker 1: it's a fault else idle that we obey and we
Speaker 1: give too much credence to because if you think about
Speaker 1: the amount of effort that we put in and trying
Speaker 1: to be happy actually makes it more difficult to be happy.
Speaker 1: And we're not the first piece people to say this.
Speaker 1: We're actually probably the you know, the three thousandth to
Speaker 1: say this, which is you find happiness on the journey
Speaker 1: to pursuing things you care about. But once you make
Speaker 1: it the fundamental objective, it becomes extremely difficult because your
Speaker 1: emotions set you astray when it becomes the thing you're
Speaker 1: trying to pursue. Your hormones affect your emotions, the time
Speaker 1: of day affects your emotions, the circadian rhythm effects your emotions,
Speaker 1: Weather effects your emotions. And it's just like if you
Speaker 1: end up being a farmer, No farmer would ever say
Speaker 1: that I want to have a bomby seventy five degree
Speaker 1: cool day that's sunny outside every single day of the year.
Speaker 1: They wouldn't have crops. You need rain, you need storms,
Speaker 1: you need gusty winds to you know, for seeds to
Speaker 1: power and eat all over the fields that they have
Speaker 1: and in the same vein that a farmer is going
Speaker 1: to want of, you know, the varied seasons and varied weather.
Speaker 1: We don't. We can't. We can't have a happiness in
Speaker 1: every moment of our lives, and we don't even want to.
Speaker 1: It's because when we're in these states of happiness, I mean,
Speaker 1: just to bring a little bit of the science into here.
Speaker 1: When you're in a happy state of mind, you tend
Speaker 1: to think to yourself, the status quo is great, there's
Speaker 1: no reason for me to double down on effort to
Speaker 1: pursue meaningful goals. And you feel as where I am
Speaker 1: now is where I want to be, and so you
Speaker 1: pull away from effortful pursuits. And when you're mildly unhappy,
Speaker 1: I'm not talking about the pits of despair. I'm not
Speaker 1: even talking about having bad posture in terms of you know, uh,
Speaker 1: unable to smile at someone else, but just being kind
Speaker 1: of like mildly despondent or just in a neutral state
Speaker 1: of mind, we tend to think of ourselves, what can
Speaker 1: I devote my time and energy to right now to
Speaker 1: put myself in a place where I'm close to things
Speaker 1: that I value most, and that state, that mindset, that
Speaker 1: effort for activity is less likely to occur when you're
Speaker 1: in a happy state. That is a that's all fighting
Speaker 1: words for optimistic people. That's that. That's a funny juxta position, right,
Speaker 1: I said fighting words for people. But it is, I mean,
Speaker 1: that's so it's so interesting. It is a challenge. You're
Speaker 1: challenging a zecheist, right there. Really is. You know, you
Speaker 1: go to the self help section of the bookstore. You know,
Speaker 1: you see like, you know, think only happy thoughts, and
Speaker 1: then you look at like Facebook feeds and Twitter, and
Speaker 1: you know, of inspirational speakers. It's all day long inspirational
Speaker 1: thing saying like smile, be happy. Do you think like
Speaker 1: we should? We should? We should mix it up at
Speaker 1: least twenty percent, and we'll get to the bias at
Speaker 1: twenty percent obviously in a second, with some inspirational quotes
Speaker 1: such as today, well, we know from studying social media
Speaker 1: that people are demotivated when they go on Facebook, particularly,
Speaker 1: and when they go on Instagram would be second. Twitter
Speaker 1: is a little bit different because you're using mostly words,
Speaker 1: not images. But when people go on Facebook and Instagram,
Speaker 1: and they see that everyone's kids are always smiling and laughing,
Speaker 1: and everyone's marriages or are imbued with adolescent passion where
Speaker 1: they can't keep their hands off each other. They're still
Speaker 1: writing handwritten love letters even though it's been eighteen years.
Speaker 1: And then you think about your own relationships and your
Speaker 1: own parenting practices, and you're demoralized and you feel as if,
Speaker 1: why am I the only person that has kids that
Speaker 1: talk back to me, that will slam the door on
Speaker 1: me and won't listen to me, and won't do their homework,
Speaker 1: and don't, you know, don't clean the dishes, and despite
Speaker 1: having two chores a week, won't take the garbage out
Speaker 1: on Tuesdays and Thursdays? You know, why am I the
Speaker 1: only person that do this? And there's a couple things
Speaker 1: that happened here. Is one is this our culture has
Speaker 1: a particular bias such that all of us are trying
Speaker 1: to showcase just how amazing our lives are and show
Speaker 1: that we're intelligent, we're attractive in terms of we're open
Speaker 1: to people's new ideas, and we're agreeable, and we're kind
Speaker 1: and we're loving, and we're forgiving and we're grateful and
Speaker 1: then when you meet these yoga instructors, and you meet
Speaker 1: these gurus in their free time at the bar, and
Speaker 1: you find out they complain and gossip, and you know,
Speaker 1: and have as many adversaries and problems with obnoxious people
Speaker 1: as the rest of us, they're just not talking about them.
Speaker 1: And so I completely agree with you. It would be
Speaker 1: a wonderful thing if people present themselves as they are.
Speaker 1: And in fact, the science is really clear that the quickest,
Speaker 1: most efficient way to bond with a group of strangers
Speaker 1: who never met before is to go through shared painful
Speaker 1: experiences together or share some of the difficulties in your lives,
Speaker 1: as opposed to sharing your triumphs and successes. Jeeuz Todd,
Speaker 1: you know we should collaborate on a an antist inspirational
Speaker 1: campaign or something. What we do is we come up
Speaker 1: with like these slogans like be your authentic pissed off
Speaker 1: self today, you know what I mean? Like? Or do
Speaker 1: you know what I'm saying? Share the most obnoxious person
Speaker 1: that you met today, Share the story, and you would
Speaker 1: find more people talking with more enthusiasm and excitement than
Speaker 1: any other conversation you have. You know, I was just
Speaker 1: watching my wife and I were watching Louis CS Suis
Speaker 1: cs C s Lewis. Is that his name, yeah? C.
Speaker 1: K Lewis, C k Lewis, And they had this very
Speaker 1: interesting moment in the episode last night where you had
Speaker 1: two single parents their kids are running around in a playdate,
Speaker 1: and they were on the couch and they were exhausted.
Speaker 1: It was the end of the day. And then this
Speaker 1: woman asked, Louis, all right, so tell me the thought
Speaker 1: that is most terrifying to you that you have about
Speaker 1: your kids. You would never share it to anyone. And
Speaker 1: she shares the thought of, when my kid is boring,
Speaker 1: not when I'm upset, not when I'm pissed, but they're
Speaker 1: so their stories go nowhere. I just have this urge
Speaker 1: to want to bunch them in the face. And I
Speaker 1: would never do it. I would never harm them, but
Speaker 1: I get this thought. And then Louise this looks at
Speaker 1: her says, damn, I would have never thought you would
Speaker 1: have went there, but and he went up, went up, sir.
Speaker 1: And it's the bonding that they have by sharing these
Speaker 1: uncomfortable thoughts that you're never supposed to talk about. Just
Speaker 1: not that you will hurt your kids, but you have
Speaker 1: the thought of Oh my god, they're so annoying. I
Speaker 1: actually have the idea I could imagine addressing towards my kid,
Speaker 1: sharing that moment brings them closer together than anything else
Speaker 1: that they could be talking about at that time. So true.
Speaker 1: I know we've become Facebook friends recently and I try
Speaker 1: to and so therefore you're on my mind. So I
Speaker 1: tag you sometimes and things. And I talked about how
Speaker 1: I made a call for people to complain to cafetch
Speaker 1: more on Facebook, citing your work, and dozens of people
Speaker 1: respond to that saying please, I want to hear people's problems.
Speaker 1: I want to feel I'm not the only one. It's
Speaker 1: so true. Getting back before, just before I forget about
Speaker 1: the false nose of happiness, that phrase, could you just
Speaker 1: say like where it stems from? Sure, So there's there's
Speaker 1: a kind of a renaissance man Brock and what he
Speaker 1: was was he you know, he was like this is
Speaker 1: back in the you know, the eighteenth century when everyone
Speaker 1: was an astronomer, a philosopher, a botanist as zoologists those days. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean I wish I was in that time period
Speaker 1: as well. And you know also he was in and
Speaker 1: you know, his sword fight and he lost his nose,
Speaker 1: and he ended up purchasing a bronze or a golden
Speaker 1: nose to put onto his face, thinking of, not only
Speaker 1: would this be a replacement for my lost nose, but
Speaker 1: I'd even be more attractive because I can show my
Speaker 1: conspicuous wealth because this beautiful gold nose that I have there.
Speaker 1: And if you read the accounts of other people in
Speaker 1: his life, which was nowaday, they find it weird and terrifying.
Speaker 1: But they were incredibly confused of why you would waste
Speaker 1: gold to cover your nostrils on your face. And it's
Speaker 1: the false stones of happiness. It's the way we think
Speaker 1: of happiness, which is that if I cover my life
Speaker 1: with the pursuit of happiness and think about happiness, dream
Speaker 1: about happiness, and design my calendar in the beginning of
Speaker 1: the day of what are the five things I'm going
Speaker 1: to do so that it's going to bring happiness in
Speaker 1: my life. And you are a full time working parent,
Speaker 1: or you are a full time stay at home mom
Speaker 1: or dad, the odds are that you're setting yourself up
Speaker 1: for incredible disappointment. As imagine in contrast, that you set
Speaker 1: up your day for what are the important things I
Speaker 1: want to accomplish, and what are the time periods today
Speaker 1: that I'm going to set time for myself to do
Speaker 1: whatever the heck I want that's going to satisfy me.
Speaker 1: So I'm not trying to pursue happiness. I'm creating space
Speaker 1: for myself. I'm creating space for the things that are
Speaker 1: important to me. And then probably that second person on
Speaker 1: the way of getting through the entire day, they're going
Speaker 1: to feel happier. They're going to connect more with other people,
Speaker 1: and they're going to be more energized, and they're not
Speaker 1: going to have this disappointment of you can't control your
Speaker 1: happiness because you can't control other people how they're going
Speaker 1: to how they're going to talk to you, how they're
Speaker 1: going to behave to you, and how they're going to
Speaker 1: drive next to you on the road. So I'm hearing
Speaker 1: all of this and I'm trying to think of how
Speaker 1: to reconcile this. Did do you still conceptualize yourself as
Speaker 1: a positive psychologist? First of all, I never have I
Speaker 1: ever have. Okay, I'm just I'm a pragmatist. I'm thinking
Speaker 1: of how do you get through this world with the
Speaker 1: satisfactory level of engagement meeting pleasure and connecting with other people.
Speaker 1: So do you think there's no point for a positive
Speaker 1: psychology then as a field? Oh no, no, no, absolutely not.
Speaker 1: I mean you're asking very specific questions. You know, if
Speaker 1: I was to ask, if if you were to ask
Speaker 1: me of you know, what proportion of your day should
Speaker 1: be focused on kindness and and what proportion of your
Speaker 1: conversation should be about positively charged themes, I would say
Speaker 1: the vast majority. You say eighty percent, right? Yeah, about
Speaker 1: eighty percent right? And the best and what we're really
Speaker 1: aiming for when we talk about having negotiations, whether we're
Speaker 1: trying to buy a house or we're trying to talk
Speaker 1: to our romantic partner, of how do we divvy up
Speaker 1: the chores in a way where both people feel valued,
Speaker 1: understood and there's some level of gratitude. It's going to
Speaker 1: be difficult conversation, but in the end, the goal is
Speaker 1: for people to feel understood, it for intimacy to be
Speaker 1: there and eventually to be at a higher level of
Speaker 1: positivity and connection. And so this doesn't discount the place
Speaker 1: for happiness and positive emotions and gratitude and awe and
Speaker 1: and just pure you know, physical sensations of pleasure of
Speaker 1: having a lollipop, eating an ice cream cone, and jumping
Speaker 1: into a pool that's seventy seven degrees. This is about
Speaker 1: what else are we missing? What are we prematurely discarding
Speaker 1: because we're trying to pursue a life of happiness. Thank
Speaker 1: you for clarifying that. That was I think I was
Speaker 1: like really important to quarify because you can, you know,
Speaker 1: you can easily get misrepresented right by the media and
Speaker 1: people if you take sound bites away from this conversation
Speaker 1: and people. You know, the most the greatest criticisms of
Speaker 1: our book are people that didn't read it of saying
Speaker 1: I know, I know, you know, you're saying that don't
Speaker 1: be grateful and don't don't have self compassion, and don't
Speaker 1: have loving feelings for your kids in your romantic partner.
Speaker 1: And it's nothing of the sort. We're just doing a
Speaker 1: value add in terms of what tools and weapons are
Speaker 1: in your arsenal that you have decided I will never
Speaker 1: pull them out because they're uncomfortable. Yeah, so there's this
Speaker 1: idea of being uncomfortable or discomfort I thought that was
Speaker 1: really interesting. In your book, we talk about cultural differences. Uh,
Speaker 1: there so there's research showing that Asian people from Asian
Speaker 1: countries are able to tolerate this comfort better than Americans.
Speaker 1: Is that right? Yeah, there's there's even more, because you know,
Speaker 1: we often do all the comparisons between people of Asian
Speaker 1: descent and Americans. I mean, if you look at Russia,
Speaker 1: and I've been there several times, and you talk about
Speaker 1: a business meeting between two strangers that never met, the
Speaker 1: optimistic cheerfulness of people in the United States is seen
Speaker 1: as superficial, childish and irreverent and inappropriate in Russia in business,
Speaker 1: in business meetings, and there's a somber said attitude that's
Speaker 1: actually seen as more respectful and appropriate to haveing a
Speaker 1: conversation that involves financial and financial financial considerations, and you know,
Speaker 1: the exchange your property and cheerfulness will not get you
Speaker 1: anywhere in Russian culture in a business meeting compared to
Speaker 1: somber serious attitudes. I don't think I'd last in Russia
Speaker 1: more than two minutes. Neither did I. I just really
Speaker 1: came to that great, great realization. However, my whole ancestry
Speaker 1: is is Ukrainian, So is it the same in Ukraine
Speaker 1: even though it's so close? Well, I mean, yeah, most
Speaker 1: of this research occurred where everything was kind of interconnected,
Speaker 1: so it's we don't really know about these I mean,
Speaker 1: this is the problem across culture research is the culture.
Speaker 1: The cultural changes are far outstripped the speed of biological changes. Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 1: And I also with these cultural differences. I see that
Speaker 1: when it because I give talks at different countries and
Speaker 1: I was in the I was in the Netherlands, and
Speaker 1: I was also in Denmark, and my jokes just like
Speaker 1: all my jokes just fell completely flat. It was like
Speaker 1: I felt like Rodney Dangerfield, like sweating, like with a handkerchief,
Speaker 1: like like you're you know, no good, you know sort
Speaker 1: of thing. And it's just so interesting to like see like,
Speaker 1: you know, you know, the differences in how much like
Speaker 1: cheerfulness is appreciated. And my jokes tended to be like
Speaker 1: very you know, like well cheerful, teeky, I would say,
Speaker 1: I mean, I mean sarcasm, right, I mean sarcasm and
Speaker 1: playfulness is often seen as we both know, is scientists oftener.
Speaker 1: You're not supposed to be playful and funny. You're supposed
Speaker 1: to be very data driven and very serious and analyzing
Speaker 1: this information and not telling emotionally provocative stories. Where I
Speaker 1: say that the best scientists have much to learn from
Speaker 1: science journalists. I completely agree with. I completely agree with
Speaker 1: that statement. But that's another element too, right, Like cultural
Speaker 1: differences in how you show what's going on inside you.
Speaker 1: So that's another element too. Absolutely, if you know, if
Speaker 1: you're in a negotiation with a really tough negotiator in
Speaker 1: Japan and you express your anger outwardly in terms of
Speaker 1: you know, your facial expression, squeezing your fists, or you know,
Speaker 1: just spouting profanity, it won't get you anywhere. I mean again,
Speaker 1: You'll be seen as lacking humility, disrespectful, and showing you know,
Speaker 1: a lack of control is viewed as breach of contract.
Speaker 1: Where in America, if you transition from being content and
Speaker 1: having a fun conversation and all of a sudden you
Speaker 1: transition to realizing, you know, wait a second, I'm not
Speaker 1: comfortable with where you're going with this particular point in
Speaker 1: this bargaining situation. That transition from happiness to anger is
Speaker 1: the most effective display of anger to get concessions in negotiation,
Speaker 1: but it will not work at all in a Japanese culture.
Speaker 1: On average, it will not work in Japanese culture. So
Speaker 1: have you been to Japan a lot? No, I just
Speaker 1: study these things for analogies and metaphors. I would well,
Speaker 1: we should go to Japan sometimes done. That would be
Speaker 1: the best thing to come from this podcast. Well, we
Speaker 1: have to change our entire personalities. We will be serious
Speaker 1: and stuff are faced with a sushi at all times. Yes,
Speaker 1: I really like that idea depends on what kind of
Speaker 1: sushi though, I don't want like the you know, I
Speaker 1: don't know. There's certain I imagine there are certain kinds
Speaker 1: of sushi that I wouldn't be comfortable in embracing my
Speaker 1: dark eye on Oh, I take whatever the culture norm is.
Speaker 1: I mean, I'm ready for the chocolate scorpion and a
Speaker 1: stick when I get to Japan. I'm not I'm not
Speaker 1: having a California role when I'm in Japan. Okay, I'll
Speaker 1: pass the scorpion role over to you. So this is
Speaker 1: interesting because you talk about how the pursuit of happiness
Speaker 1: itself can weaken you, and what should I be pursuing, like,
Speaker 1: for for if I want to be fulfilled love a
Speaker 1: fulfilled life, you're saying really embracing this eighty twenty rule,
Speaker 1: This wholeness. So you're you're sucially saying wholeness is the
Speaker 1: best is the best route to the most direct route
Speaker 1: to a fulfilled life? Is that right? That's the direct route.
Speaker 1: But in terms of if you had asked me what
Speaker 1: is what are you in a replace the pursuit of
Speaker 1: happiness with right? So we know that the declaration of
Speaker 1: independence gets misunderstood. Where Jefferson wasn't talking about a pleasure
Speaker 1: in ratio to pain, you know he was, That's not
Speaker 1: what he was talking about. He was talking about, you know,
Speaker 1: social social virtues, contributing to society and kind of you
Speaker 1: know this, you know, it's basically strength deployment was his
Speaker 1: was in his definition of happiness. If you're going to
Speaker 1: replace it, I would say, it's be present with an
Speaker 1: attitude of openness and curiosity and do what matters most
Speaker 1: to you. And so you have a combination of being
Speaker 1: mindfully aware, being curious and exploratory and experimenting with your life.
Speaker 1: Because no one has the answers, no one knows what's
Speaker 1: what works best for them. Everything I just described right now,
Speaker 1: in terms of the scientific research is on average for
Speaker 1: the people that were studied, which is a good starting point,
Speaker 1: But you have to figure out when you're talking to
Speaker 1: someone of higher status who's angry towards you, what emotional
Speaker 1: states puts you in the best state of mind such
Speaker 1: that you can handle yourself in an intelligent, you know,
Speaker 1: an intelligent and agile way in that conversation and not
Speaker 1: be stomped on. And what emotional state works best when
Speaker 1: you're writing, and what emotional state works best when you're exercising,
Speaker 1: And the difference between when you're running or your weightlifting,
Speaker 1: or when you're having a difficult conversation with your friends
Speaker 1: trying to alter the relationship dynamics such that your opinion
Speaker 1: has given more value when you're having a conversation. You know.
Speaker 1: To know the answers to these questions requires an openness
Speaker 1: to exploring and experimenting with different ways of behaving and
Speaker 1: taking note of what works and what doesn't, with what
Speaker 1: people and with what and what display of those emotions
Speaker 1: is most effective. And so I'm suggesting is have a
Speaker 1: focus on what's meaningful to you, be open about different
Speaker 1: ways of doing it, and be present for what what
Speaker 1: the different sides of your personality, what arises, what emotions
Speaker 1: do for you, What emotions are interfere with your pursuits
Speaker 1: that you care about, and on the way of doing
Speaker 1: this work, you'll find happiness sometimes and sometimes you will.
Speaker 1: So there's so much meat there. I think something I
Speaker 1: could pull out from that that is an areative mutual
Speaker 1: interest of ours? Is this under this this interesting paradox
Speaker 1: between mindfulness and mindlessness, and you know, I see I
Speaker 1: see all these studies looking at different types targeting different
Speaker 1: types of mindfulness meditation. There's this recent study that came
Speaker 1: out to found that mindfulness open it's sort of kind
Speaker 1: of open minded mindfulness, open minded awareness was more corelate
Speaker 1: with creative thinking than this very this very like concentrated
Speaker 1: focused kind of mindfulness. So there's different kinds of mindfulness
Speaker 1: that exists. I completely agree about this open mindedness aspect
Speaker 1: and awareness and of the world. How how is it
Speaker 1: compatible to have that open minded awareness? Can you? Can
Speaker 1: you have that and be mindless at the same time?
Speaker 1: What is yes? Yeah? Yeah, I mean there are different
Speaker 1: ways of thinking about mindless. And to to go in
Speaker 1: conserut with what you're talking about is while we're being
Speaker 1: mindful about a bunch of people collaborating together to think
Speaker 1: about what's the most creative way that we can present
Speaker 1: new research on imagination to a group of engineers so
Speaker 1: that they bring imagination to the forefront when they're thinking
Speaker 1: about what's the best way to create a facility that
Speaker 1: where people are efficient and effective at what they're doing.
Speaker 1: So you don't typically think of engineers with being imaginative.
Speaker 1: So when you have all these creative ideas that are
Speaker 1: coming there, part of you has to be mindful and
Speaker 1: with a sense of openness to hearing what people are
Speaker 1: saying before you shoot things down. But then a part
Speaker 1: of you is also automatic, automatically making to touristics and
Speaker 1: shortcuts to figure out how do I synthesize all of
Speaker 1: this information that's occurring and it's coming at me at
Speaker 1: one time. And so part of you is mindful of
Speaker 1: what people are offering, and part of you is also
Speaker 1: categorizing a tiny bit and making not let's avoid the
Speaker 1: word judgment and say you're discerning in terms of what
Speaker 1: information should I ask a question about next? Just like
Speaker 1: this podcast, I say five sentences and then you pick
Speaker 1: one nugget that we add on to for the next
Speaker 1: piece of the conversation. So you're mindfully attentive. You know,
Speaker 1: none of this was scripted. We didn't talk about what
Speaker 1: we're going to talk We didn't talk about in advance
Speaker 1: what conversations we're going to have and what you're going
Speaker 1: to ask me. So you're you're mindful and yet at
Speaker 1: the same time, you're discerning of what do I want
Speaker 1: to build on as lego blocks to make this conversation
Speaker 1: move forward. And so I think, you know what, I
Speaker 1: think what's important is what works best in the real
Speaker 1: world when there's a lot of information, there's a lot
Speaker 1: of people. We can't control how other people behave we
Speaker 1: can to some degree, be in control of how we
Speaker 1: react to other people. We've got all these emotional experiences.
Speaker 1: We have no idea what's going to come up in
Speaker 1: terms of our emotional experiences. We do have some degree
Speaker 1: of altering our emotions and to figure out what works
Speaker 1: best in the situation I'm in to get the best
Speaker 1: possible outcome, and often it can't be clear cut, as
Speaker 1: mindfulness is the state I'm going to enter into solely,
Speaker 1: and most of our experiences are blended. Are blends. You know,
Speaker 1: we've been talking about negative emotions and positive emotions and
Speaker 1: happiness and other states of mind, but normally it's a blend.
Speaker 1: And you think about first dates roller coasters, being on
Speaker 1: a podcast, talking to twenty five hundred people in an audience,
Speaker 1: and and getting the floor when a bunch of executives
Speaker 1: are around the table from you you're talking about You're excited,
Speaker 1: you're curious, and you're fearful all the same time. And
Speaker 1: that's the typical emotional experience when you're thinking about the
Speaker 1: real world as opposed to a scientific experiment. Have you
Speaker 1: done a talk recently for twenty five hundred executives? No,
Speaker 1: but I've given it twenty one hundred people. And one
Speaker 1: of the things that happens when you get in front
Speaker 1: of twenty one hundred people and you know this is
Speaker 1: as good or better than I do, is if you
Speaker 1: don't experience anxiety and concern about what they think about you,
Speaker 1: it means you're not attending to what is unique about
Speaker 1: this audience that I think is going to be important
Speaker 1: to them. It's different from any of the audience that
Speaker 1: I've ever speke spoken to before. I know, I gave
Speaker 1: a talk recently and I I don't know it came
Speaker 1: over me. I got so nervous, like right before I
Speaker 1: was I was like, I'm gonna have I'm gonna I
Speaker 1: had to pee again. I had to pe again. I
Speaker 1: didn't have to pee at all, and I ran and
Speaker 1: I missed the introduced they introduced me, and you know,
Speaker 1: I came back in and the whole room was like
Speaker 1: thousands of people silent, you know, like I guess they've
Speaker 1: been waiting a couple of seconds for me to like
Speaker 1: come on, and I just, you know, I just played
Speaker 1: it off as like when I went up there, I
Speaker 1: was like, that was most dramatic entrance I've ever had,
Speaker 1: and they were like, oh, you know, like I needed
Speaker 1: to say something to kind of relieve the tension. But
Speaker 1: it ended up being I think one of my best talks.
Speaker 1: And so I just don't tell so well with everything
Speaker 1: you're talking about. You know, it's almost become a rule
Speaker 1: for me that, like the more discomfort I feel or
Speaker 1: the things I have to overcome, it's almost like a
Speaker 1: rule now that like, the better the outcome is gonna be.
Speaker 1: It's so it's a fossible, freaking fascinating Ewicks and Scott
Speaker 1: on the same way. So, I mean, Robert and I
Speaker 1: have been traveling around the world together. We just got
Speaker 1: back from Dubai and we got paid and you know
Speaker 1: a good chunk of money, and so we were really
Speaker 1: nervous to make sure that we deliver the best workshop
Speaker 1: of our lives. And what was I think what was
Speaker 1: different from this workshop than it was a five day
Speaker 1: one at the Ritz Carlton in Dubai was almost every day,
Speaker 1: you know, we actually mentioned them as like, this was
Speaker 1: one hundred and seventy people chosen by Standard Charter Bank
Speaker 1: to be who are going to be the next coos
Speaker 1: and CFOs and CEOs CEOs of different branches around the
Speaker 1: world in the next ten years. And so these were
Speaker 1: the young guns. Wow, and it was it was an
Speaker 1: honor and also nerve wrecking. And I can't tell you
Speaker 1: how many times we acknowledged to this group of one
Speaker 1: hundred and seventy people of you know, I'm a little
Speaker 1: bit uncomfortable because you guys are so intelligent and you're
Speaker 1: so much further in your career than we have ever
Speaker 1: been in ours that that this is even useful information.
Speaker 1: With that said, dot dot dot, you know, we would
Speaker 1: go into things and I think acknowledging that vulnerability brought
Speaker 1: down people's defenses and let them become more open. The
Speaker 1: conversations were so much more potent that I've ever had
Speaker 1: in a workshop before, and like you said, all that nervousness,
Speaker 1: I think translated into being so fully present. What do
Speaker 1: these people need right now? And I thought very hard
Speaker 1: about this in the moment as every question they asked,
Speaker 1: I thought of like, Okay, how do I need to
Speaker 1: ulter my material to match exactly what they appear to
Speaker 1: be needing right now? And what we because what we
Speaker 1: realized was we had a lot of things planned and
Speaker 1: then we realized that the ethics, ethics of being a
Speaker 1: businessman and a business woman were important. This is not
Speaker 1: our Arab expertise, but we realized that they had a
Speaker 1: gap there and so we dived into that and it
Speaker 1: wasn't our Arab expertise, and we explain why based on
Speaker 1: based on things that people were saying in terms of
Speaker 1: how they related to each other, the competitive nature, their
Speaker 1: willingness to skirt regulatory rules. And so it became a
Speaker 1: big full from of the workshop. And I think that anxiety,
Speaker 1: that fear, that that worry about the unknown, that you know,
Speaker 1: Harnessing that anxiety as opposed to avoiding it is the
Speaker 1: difference between having an effective performance and connecting with these
Speaker 1: people and not and I would actually put a good
Speaker 1: chunk of my money. Is that's what made this work awesome? Well,
Speaker 1: that's a great Another illustration of this. While Dubai must
Speaker 1: have been just amazing, I had I had such such
Speaker 1: unbelievable insomnia while I was there. I just that I
Speaker 1: rarely got to barely got to experience it. I'm going
Speaker 1: to have insomnia now thinking about your experience there. That's incredible.
Speaker 1: Did you did you gain some weight? Did you like
Speaker 1: Sultan's feasts and things? We had a Bedwin dinner that
Speaker 1: I'm pretty sure that it was eight thousand calories that
Speaker 1: meal and it was worth seventy of them. That sounds awesome.
Speaker 1: So I want to go back to a little bit
Speaker 1: earlier that this idea of mindless creativity that we talk
Speaker 1: that you talk about in your book, is it. I
Speaker 1: don't so. I personally, I don't think of it as mindful.
Speaker 1: Is everything that you're paying attention to outside outside of
Speaker 1: your these two eyes and mindless as all my inner
Speaker 1: rich day dreams. I consider it more of like inner
Speaker 1: outer versus mindful mindless, Like I can be mindful of
Speaker 1: my inner day dreams and that's not mindless. Agreed. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's nice. That's a nice framework. You can have it.
Speaker 1: You can be focused your attention internal or external, and
Speaker 1: with that you could be mindful or mindless. I think
Speaker 1: that's a great framework exactly, Thank you. And you know,
Speaker 1: executive functioning, which is really hot right now. Everyone's like
Speaker 1: because mindfulness meditation trains executive functions like your cognitive attention
Speaker 1: of flexibility. But I think what doesn't get appreciated as
Speaker 1: much is that we can use those attentional control mechanisms
Speaker 1: just as much to ignore outside distractions as we can
Speaker 1: to ignore our mind wandering. So cognitive scientists focus so
Speaker 1: much on using executive functions to ignore your inner stream
Speaker 1: because they really want you to pay attention to their
Speaker 1: boring techology experiment, right, But you can in the real world.
Speaker 1: You can use those same functions just as much to
Speaker 1: ignore all the distractions from all the people around you,
Speaker 1: like Twitter or Facebook, you know, like maybe may maybe emails,
Speaker 1: you know, maybe I want this from you, I want
Speaker 1: this from you. Right, you can use their executive functions
Speaker 1: just as much to ignore all that so you can
Speaker 1: dip into your imagination. So I think we're probably both
Speaker 1: on agreement on that, you know. I mean, let me
Speaker 1: give you a concrete example that happened in my class
Speaker 1: yesterday that fits to this conversation where we were talking
Speaker 1: about curiosity and I was saying that, you know, one
Speaker 1: of the things of why I let people use their
Speaker 1: smartphones and laptops in my class is it's the onus
Speaker 1: is on me as the instructor, and the onnest is
Speaker 1: on me. If I'm a lecturer or giving a workshop,
Speaker 1: if I can't trigger your interest, if I can't sustain
Speaker 1: your attention to what I'm talking about, either one I'm
Speaker 1: not interesting and the contest content delivery is not interesting,
Speaker 1: or two you need time to consolidate information or synthesize
Speaker 1: the information. And your time away from me and away
Speaker 1: from whatever I'm talking about is probably more valuable than
Speaker 1: me stuffing more meat and vegetables and food and information
Speaker 1: and data into your head. Is if you could take
Speaker 1: one idea and build on it in a single class
Speaker 1: or a one hour workshop or a two hour workshop.
Speaker 1: I mean, that's more valuable. Then you can reiterate, you know,
Speaker 1: exactly what I said, and give a five page of
Speaker 1: bullets of what the content was so we need to
Speaker 1: let people wander. And I would say for you know,
Speaker 1: I know scientists are afraid to go prescriptive, but I'll
Speaker 1: go here when it comes to the educational system, I
Speaker 1: know this is your cup of tea as opposed to me,
Speaker 1: Which is when you think about kids who are seven
Speaker 1: to eleven years old and their prefunct to cortex has
Speaker 1: rearely developed. The idea of them spending six hours sitting
Speaker 1: passively in the classroom absorbing information from one content area
Speaker 1: to the next every forty five minutes, and not allowing
Speaker 1: them to talk to the person next to them, and
Speaker 1: not allowing them to doodle on a piece of paper,
Speaker 1: and actually calling them out and shaming them in front
Speaker 1: of the room is not understanding what you've written about
Speaker 1: mind wandering. And the few researchers that have written about
Speaker 1: the benefits of mind wandering, they need time away from
Speaker 1: that constant collection of information to make sense of it
Speaker 1: and make connections to it. And when you don't allow
Speaker 1: them to do it, it doesn't stick. It's not sticky,
Speaker 1: and it won't last beyond the period why you're feeding
Speaker 1: them information. And that's not the goal of any educator.
Speaker 1: No educator says, I want you to retain information for
Speaker 1: forty five minutes. But that's what's the consequence of not
Speaker 1: allowing them for their minds to wander for a little bit.
Speaker 1: So true, and especially with certain special populations like kids
Speaker 1: that get the label ADHD who have their hyper mind wanderers,
Speaker 1: you know, hyper over active imaginations. It's it's particularly hard.
Speaker 1: There's individual differences, right. A lot of the kids that
Speaker 1: we labels gifted, A lot of those kids have a
Speaker 1: great gift of executive attention, of being able to really
Speaker 1: you know, learn quickly and efficiently in the classroom environment.
Speaker 1: And then you know, we praise them. And I'm not
Speaker 1: saying that we shouldn't praise them. I'm not saying take
Speaker 1: away all their resources. I'm not trying to be cruel,
Speaker 1: but I'm saying we also need to appreciate there's other
Speaker 1: forms of giftness that can come from that inattention as well. Right, Yeah, No,
Speaker 1: I mean the question is is the question is for
Speaker 1: every single culture, and that includes you know, your research laboratory,
Speaker 1: in my classroom, what do you do to cultivate creativity
Speaker 1: and not just the ability to intellectually regurgitate information that
Speaker 1: was given to you and if you can't give a
Speaker 1: good answer of one to three to one, two or
Speaker 1: three things that you do, it's time to stop teaching
Speaker 1: and take a little a sabbatical and think about why
Speaker 1: are you not value creativity? No, I think I'm completely
Speaker 1: on board with with what you're saying. I think we
Speaker 1: could shift gears like like really like like sharp turn
Speaker 1: two to what I think is the actual dark side.
Speaker 1: I see, I don't in your book. I didn't up
Speaker 1: to chapter six, I didn't view any of that as
Speaker 1: the dark side. But as you know, that's just like
Speaker 1: maybe my background stuff. But chapter six I think, really,
Speaker 1: you know, that's like that really is like the dark side. Right,
Speaker 1: we're talking about narcissism. We talk about the dark Triad, narcissism, psychopathy, Macavelianism. Absolutely,
Speaker 1: this is another mutual interest of ours is the dark Triad.
Speaker 1: This this it is so interesting and there's so much
Speaker 1: you know, you look at do do you read a
Speaker 1: paid you know, the journal personality and every iget they
Speaker 1: love they love the Dark Triad. They're like, I feel
Speaker 1: like every EPISODEY are obsessed with, Like I think the
Speaker 1: editors have dark bry tattoos on their ankle, so you
Speaker 1: can't see it because they're usually wearing long pants or
Speaker 1: complete So I'm not imagining this, right. I've never actually
Speaker 1: I've never actually openly discussed this with any of my colleagues.
Speaker 1: But it's I'm almost like, come on, give me a break, Like,
Speaker 1: do you guys study anything else other than like narcissism?
Speaker 1: Like this is crazy. I know there was a special
Speaker 1: issue that's part of it, but even outside the special issue,
Speaker 1: it's like yet another hexico correlation with dark triad. Here's
Speaker 1: the ten Texaco replication in China with a dark triad.
Speaker 1: It's like, okay, okay, we get it, but it's still
Speaker 1: it's a very important topic. And it's so the dark
Speaker 1: triad could maybe explain from my audience a little bit though,
Speaker 1: what what is the dark triad? How is that different
Speaker 1: from clinical levels of these traits? Sure, so there's the triad.
Speaker 1: There's there's three qualities that we're talking about. One is narcissism,
Speaker 1: and they're you know, there's actually two sized narcisism, and
Speaker 1: when we talk about the benefits of narcissm, we're actually
Speaker 1: talking about only one of these types. So one you
Speaker 1: can think of as the striving for supremacy. And this
Speaker 1: is about having a grandiose vision. This is the self assuredness.
Speaker 1: This is the sense of entitlement. This is the charismatic
Speaker 1: aspect of narcissism. There's another side narcissism, which is about
Speaker 1: really squelching rivals. It's a it's an obsession with rivalry,
Speaker 1: the obsession with not intercompetitiveness, but really competing with other people.
Speaker 1: It would be you know, me talking to you and
Speaker 1: this conversation is the goal is for me to sound
Speaker 1: more intelligent, more fluid, more open. Work thousands of people
Speaker 1: in Dubai. You've only been to the Netherlands. So they're
Speaker 1: two side narcissism. And we tend to use that term
Speaker 1: loosely about other people. And there is a clinical side
Speaker 1: where we call narcissistic personality disorder, which is the sense
Speaker 1: of grandiosity, the sense of entitlement. The the exploitiveness of
Speaker 1: other people is one of the fundamental psycho psychopathological, the
Speaker 1: pathological features of narcissistic personality disorder, and really the tendency
Speaker 1: to see people as objects that get in your way
Speaker 1: or there to be manipulated pawns for you to move
Speaker 1: around as opposed to people that you connect with, So
Speaker 1: there's often very shallow relationship ships. And there's got to
Speaker 1: be functional impairment for to have narcissic personality disorder. So
Speaker 1: that's one of the trial one piece of the tribe.
Speaker 1: The second one is probably the simplest one is Machiavelianism,
Speaker 1: which is really about selfishness and manipulativeness. And and I
Speaker 1: know that both of us are fans of Robert Green
Speaker 1: and his forty eight Laws of Power. And he spends
Speaker 1: a lot of time talking about the when it's beneficial
Speaker 1: and when it's not beneficial, to think about the importance
Speaker 1: of manipulating other people. And can I interject for Oh sure.
Speaker 1: In my interview I did with him for my podcast,
Speaker 1: he had never heard of the Dark Triad. Oh that's amazing.
Speaker 1: And I said, I said, you are the god of Macavlien,
Speaker 1: you know, in terms of what you study. And I'm not.
Speaker 1: He's not. I don't know if he's Macamlian. But and
Speaker 1: he's like, he's like, what's that? What do you say? Yeah?
Speaker 1: His writings are his writings are probably some of the
Speaker 1: best ever written on exploitation, manipulativeness e ever I would
Speaker 1: agree all your reviewers should read, should read the forty
Speaker 1: eight Laws of Power. And actually it's interesting. It has
Speaker 1: some really bad ratings on Amazon because people are very
Speaker 1: uncomfortable with this topic. And so let me, well, let me,
Speaker 1: let me, let me go through the dark Triad and
Speaker 1: then I'll we can dive into why I think that's problematic.
Speaker 1: So it's about you know, selfishness, manipultiveness, and exploiting, exploit exploitiveness.
Speaker 1: That's Matchivellianism. And the third one which gets you know showtime,
Speaker 1: HBO and foreign documentaries love to focus on, is psychopathy.
Speaker 1: And this is really you know, you've got some pieces
Speaker 1: of one part, which is the healthy part that we
Speaker 1: talk about, and we have Teddy Roosevelt as really the
Speaker 1: exemplar of healthy psychopathy is fearless dominance, which is the
Speaker 1: willingness to do things that really challenge other people, really
Speaker 1: upset other people and very controversial and not have a
Speaker 1: strong emotional reaction to this, or actually have almost no
Speaker 1: emotional reactions. So no fear, no guild, no embarrassment, none
Speaker 1: of these moral emotions that arise when we potentially upset
Speaker 1: and bother other people, where you're able to you know,
Speaker 1: engage in leadership behaviors and not really worry what other
Speaker 1: people think. So that's part of the fearless dominance side.
Speaker 1: But there are other sides where there's the delinquency, the
Speaker 1: unwillingness to follow social rules, the unwillingness to conform with
Speaker 1: social mores, and just you know, the inability to form
Speaker 1: close relationships with other people, and the inability to value
Speaker 1: the emotions of other people. So all of that together
Speaker 1: and a few other pieces is psychopathy. And when we
Speaker 1: think of the exemplar in television might be dexter On,
Speaker 1: who's the serial killer on Showtime, where he essentially has
Speaker 1: no emotional reaction to killing other people, but he created
Speaker 1: specific rules with his father about who he would kill
Speaker 1: as a serial killer, and he works for the Miami
Speaker 1: Metro Police Department and will only kill people that have
Speaker 1: actually harmed multiple people over the course of their lives
Speaker 1: in the criminal justice system and have all been taking
Speaker 1: all none of them have received a sense of retribution
Speaker 1: because there was some sort of you know, technicality in
Speaker 1: the criminal justice system where they were let go free.
Speaker 1: And so essentially he's a vigilante serial killer. And you're
Speaker 1: saying that we should all be that way? No, No,
Speaker 1: that's not what you're saying. What are you saying? What
Speaker 1: are you saying about the dark triad? Why should what
Speaker 1: aspects of it should we embrace? And what shouldn't we embrace? Good?
Speaker 1: So that's so, that's the three psychopathy, narcissism, macuvilianism. And
Speaker 1: there are pieces of every one of those personality dimensions
Speaker 1: that are useful to us in particular situations. And I
Speaker 1: should I should tell you that Robert and I writing
Speaker 1: this chapter was challenging because we interviewed people in the military,
Speaker 1: Navy seals, Army rangers. We interviewed CEOs, We interviewed people
Speaker 1: in Silicon Valley that were big players in the tech
Speaker 1: startups that are now, you know, part of our everyday world.
Speaker 1: We interview people in government and politics, journalists, writers, scientists,
Speaker 1: everybody had a story. Nobody wanted to go on record
Speaker 1: that they engage in these behaviors. And I think that
Speaker 1: speaks to, you know, the unwillingness to touch the dark side,
Speaker 1: the unwillingness to recognize the tools that are at our
Speaker 1: disposal that are often useful to help us in situations
Speaker 1: that because they're socially inappropriate based on our culture because
Speaker 1: they're uncomfortable. We don't go there. And this, this topic
Speaker 1: will not go over well with a large number of people,
Speaker 1: But let me give some Let me give some everyday
Speaker 1: examples to kind of make you realize that we all
Speaker 1: engage in the dark, dark tried behaviors. And what I'm
Speaker 1: what I am saying is this is not about becoming
Speaker 1: a narcissist. This is not about becoming a psychopath. It's
Speaker 1: not about becoming Machiavelli. This is about behavior, taking some
Speaker 1: of these behaviors and using them when warranted. And so
Speaker 1: if you think about, you know, chores around the household,
Speaker 1: I mean, some of us went to college and some
Speaker 1: of us have just lived with multiple roommates. In terms
Speaker 1: of one of the biggest problems that people have living
Speaker 1: with other people is who cleans the dishes, Who's going
Speaker 1: to you know, snake toilet when it overflows, and you
Speaker 1: know who's going to you know, who's going to clean
Speaker 1: the floor that you know for all the all the
Speaker 1: people that have left their sneakers on over the years,
Speaker 1: and often you know, what we do is we engage
Speaker 1: in these chores when we know our other roommates are
Speaker 1: going to be watching us. We don't do it at
Speaker 1: three o'clock in the morning when everyone's sleeping. We don't
Speaker 1: do what everyone's outside of the house. We often do
Speaker 1: it when they're there, so they know that we're contributing
Speaker 1: to the household. We're doing our share, and it's important
Speaker 1: to us. And we often just start the dishwasher or
Speaker 1: the laundry machine when our spouse walks, you know, as
Speaker 1: we know that they're walking down the stairs or you know,
Speaker 1: we'll make sure that someone you know, if if they're
Speaker 1: raising a kid with somebody else, we'll make sure that
Speaker 1: they'll see it. At some point. They'll see us changing
Speaker 1: the diapers, carrying it to the garbage, knowing that we're
Speaker 1: willing to get our hands dirty. We do as opposed
Speaker 1: to all the things that are unappreciated, because no one
Speaker 1: ever gets to see what people contribute, and the same
Speaker 1: thing happens at work. Is one of the I've read
Speaker 1: an article about the five things that graduate students should
Speaker 1: know about how to be a superstar and to have
Speaker 1: your mentor love you, and one of these five factors
Speaker 1: was visibility. Your mentor should see should see you when
Speaker 1: you're doing hard work. So as wonderful it is that
Speaker 1: we can do because of technological advances and Google Hangout
Speaker 1: and Skype, you can work from anywhere. It's good to
Speaker 1: be physically present so people can see all the sweat
Speaker 1: equity that you put into a project. And there's something
Speaker 1: about this in any single, any workplace that you should
Speaker 1: be seen doing the hard work. And part of that
Speaker 1: is exploitive and manipulative. Cool. So I think we can
Speaker 1: move on. I mean, there's so much we could talk about,
Speaker 1: all this stuff, and like the link between the dark
Speaker 1: tried and creativity, for instance, right, I mean, there's there's
Speaker 1: some of the greatest genius. The people that we confer
Speaker 1: the label genius on were not the nicest people in
Speaker 1: the world, were they some of them? Yes. So at
Speaker 1: one end you have Steve Jobs, who was clearly I
Speaker 1: mean plenty of dark Triad characteristics and plenty even more
Speaker 1: of dark Triad behaviors. And then on the other end
Speaker 1: you've got the Franz Kopcas of the world, who were
Speaker 1: incredibly desponded, not necessarily clinically depressed, but just a despondent
Speaker 1: said temperament. I mean, this is just like a just
Speaker 1: a not the guy you'd want to go out to
Speaker 1: a dance club with, you know, this was this was
Speaker 1: he took himself very seriously and was very sad and
Speaker 1: tragic about the world, about his life and about his future.
Speaker 1: And and because of that we got the metamorphosis and
Speaker 1: we've got all these amazing stories the Hunger artists. Right,
Speaker 1: So there's multiple paths to success. You certainly don't have
Speaker 1: to be embrace or dark tribe, but maybe maybe at
Speaker 1: certain times maybe you do have to embrace certain aspects
Speaker 1: like I don't care that much what about this person
Speaker 1: thinks to me, or you know, I'm going to like
Speaker 1: be impulsive in this instance, which is associated with psychopathy. Right,
Speaker 1: So like being a psychopath doesn't mean that you're a
Speaker 1: serio killer. We're focusing on behaviors, not changing your personality.
Speaker 1: I mean, even if Franz Kafka, who is an incredibly distressed, depressed,
Speaker 1: despondent guy, his final wishes with his best friend Max
Speaker 1: was you were to burn all my manuscripts. I don't
Speaker 1: want them published if I die before you. And this
Speaker 1: and what looking looking at his I mean because I've
Speaker 1: actually you know, studied him from some time is if
Speaker 1: you look at his letters and if you look at
Speaker 1: his autobiography, you can see this is strategic, knowing that
Speaker 1: the greatest way to become a legacy and make a
Speaker 1: lasting impact on society is have a very profound, controversial death.
Speaker 1: And you think of you know, all these amazing musicians
Speaker 1: that died at twenty eight with you know, Jim Morrison
Speaker 1: and Kurt Cobain, and you know, Franz Kopka knew that
Speaker 1: his friend Max would not burn those manuscripts, and this
Speaker 1: story would add a little bit more to his legacy.
Speaker 1: And you know, you have this here I am talking
Speaker 1: you know, you know, decades later, I'm still talking about
Speaker 1: you know what he was thinking about. A lot of
Speaker 1: these and a lot of these musicians are are very manipulative,
Speaker 1: you know, like they're they're media manipulators there, you know,
Speaker 1: that's what they that's that's why, that's that's how they
Speaker 1: get so well known. And scientists do this as well,
Speaker 1: of course, yeah, of course, I mean you know how
Speaker 1: you know, you put graphs in there, because what we
Speaker 1: know is if you put a graphical representation of your research,
Speaker 1: people are more likely to believe that it's true, it's credible.
Speaker 1: And it's simple to pass on to another person. And
Speaker 1: it's often it's it's an exploitation of a small piece
Speaker 1: of the study and all the caveats are not in
Speaker 1: that graph, and you know this is this is done
Speaker 1: is it's a sense of a little bit of Mackie villains,
Speaker 1: and that's involved in There's a little bit of psychopicy
Speaker 1: that's involved in there. Sometimes that's why I put lots
Speaker 1: of stories in my career. The journal articles not joking.
Speaker 1: Every time I try to put a story, they like
Speaker 1: they're like reject autoback, reject of my my peer of
Speaker 1: ther journal article I've had. I've had the same thing
Speaker 1: every time I try to make it an interesting interesting Yeah,
Speaker 1: this is not what's noting. It has to be in
Speaker 1: a figure form. But if it's in a any form
Speaker 1: that evokes any sort of emotions in the reader, like
Speaker 1: the reviewer like they're uncomfortable with the feeling emotions, so
Speaker 1: they reject it, it cannot be entertaining. It can't be.
Speaker 1: Let's let's finish on talking about how we can including
Speaker 1: the listeners. But also I want to know too, how
Speaker 1: can we embrace the whole anchilada. You said there's benefits
Speaker 1: of defensive pessimism is that part of the whole enchilada,
Speaker 1: no question. I mean, I mean, you know, you think
Speaker 1: about the amazing work that Martin Slovan is done with
Speaker 1: learned optimism, and this does not discount any of that.
Speaker 1: It's saying that you need to figure out for yourself
Speaker 1: and the people around you, who who is not, by
Speaker 1: nature someone that tends to expect the worst but hope
Speaker 1: for the best. And it's not because they have a
Speaker 1: lifelong history of negative events and they expect negative events
Speaker 1: to happen in the future. So it's not pessimism built
Speaker 1: on a life history of failures and mistakes. It's pessimism
Speaker 1: built on brace themselves so they don't get disappointed, and
Speaker 1: motivating themselves through anxiety to worry about all the possible
Speaker 1: things that can go wrong, such that I can choose
Speaker 1: the most opportune path as I work towards my goals.
Speaker 1: These are not people that are paralyzed by fear. These
Speaker 1: are not people that are that are quiet. These are
Speaker 1: people that are worry These are people that tend to ruminate.
Speaker 1: And these are people that harness anxiety strategically because it
Speaker 1: mobilized the energy and when you try to give them
Speaker 1: relaxation therapy or when you use optimism training and try
Speaker 1: to make them think more cheerfully and positively, they end
Speaker 1: up being substantially less productive, less efficient, and less creative.
Speaker 1: We need to make room for people that harnessing anxiety
Speaker 1: and worry is exactly the route that they take to
Speaker 1: becoming creative and productive. Wow. Yeah, mindfulness meditation makes me
Speaker 1: very anxious. You know, I don't know if I'm maybe
Speaker 1: I fall in this category. I'm just hearing this for
Speaker 1: the first time. Wow. I like to think of myself
Speaker 1: as very optimistic, but I get very nervous, like whenever
Speaker 1: I'm being like forced to do anything actually anything, you know.
Speaker 1: But you have like this playful, Northeast cheerful personality, which, yeah,
Speaker 1: which is just endearing in general. Thanks, I really appreciate it.
Speaker 1: So do you want to end with any with lasting
Speaker 1: advice for people who do want to embrace the whole
Speaker 1: anchilada and they don't want to go to the local
Speaker 1: taco bell to do it. Well, let me let me
Speaker 1: say two things. One is, let me make an important note,
Speaker 1: and then they offer just kind of a tiny bit
Speaker 1: of suggestion, is that you know the reason we wrote
Speaker 1: this book is not is not to discount any of
Speaker 1: the research on strengths, pause, emotions, all the healthy processes
Speaker 1: that make healthy relationships and often them. It's about capitalizing
Speaker 1: on people's triumphs and being grateful for what people contribute
Speaker 1: and benefit to our lives. And that there are no
Speaker 1: lone geniuses. It's just a myth. I mean, there are
Speaker 1: a few, but the grand story is collaboration and strong
Speaker 1: connections is what leads to creativity. And what we're saying
Speaker 1: is if we want people, if we want people to
Speaker 1: change the world, and we want to be leaders that
Speaker 1: help people be productive and creative and innovative, we need
Speaker 1: to see people as they are, not as we hope
Speaker 1: they are or that we would desire people to be.
Speaker 1: And people by definition based on an evolutionary history of
Speaker 1: humans adapting over tens of thousand years, we have this
Speaker 1: great arsenal of flexible strategies at our disposal that range
Speaker 1: from kindness, compassion and loving behavior and positive emotions and
Speaker 1: experiences of the pleasurable variety too, anger, anxiety, guilt, embarrassment,
Speaker 1: social anxiety discussed, narcissism, selfishness, and all of these things
Speaker 1: together are understanding how what motivates a human to do
Speaker 1: what they do, what motivates us to be able to
Speaker 1: function well in an uncertain, unpredictable world, requires us to
Speaker 1: pay homage to the things that are comfortable and positive
Speaker 1: and the things that are uncomfortable and negative. And it's
Speaker 1: just instead of trying to put things in arbitrary bins
Speaker 1: a positive or negative, we should really be thinking about
Speaker 1: what's helpful and useful for this situation and what's not
Speaker 1: helpful or useful in this situation. And so it's not
Speaker 1: about choosing between happiness and the dark side. It's about
Speaker 1: making room for both of them and having more tools
Speaker 1: available so you can match the situation at hand. Thanks Toyt.
Speaker 1: I think that's a really timely message, and I hope
Speaker 1: a lot of people do read your book because it
Speaker 1: really is an excellent book. Thanks for chatting with me. Yeah,
Speaker 1: this is great. Thanks for listening to the Psychology Podcast.
Speaker 1: I hope you enjoyed this episode. If you'd like to
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