Speaker 1: Welcome to the Psychology Podcast, where we give you insights
Speaker 1: into the mind, brained 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 us a better experience for
Speaker 1: you all. Until then, enjoy these episodes from our archives.
Speaker 1: Today we have Robert Green on the podcast. Robert is
Speaker 1: the number one New York Times bestselling author of The
Speaker 1: Eight Laws of Power, The Thirty three Strategies of War,
Speaker 1: The Art of Seduction and Mastery, and as an internationally
Speaker 1: renowned expert on power strategies. His latest book is The
Speaker 1: Laws of Human Nature. Robert really great to chat with
Speaker 1: you again on the podcast. Thanks for having me against
Speaker 1: Scott my pleasure. Yeah, so there's lots of talk about
Speaker 1: with this book. It's quite an insightful book that spans
Speaker 1: a wide range of territory. I thought we could start
Speaker 1: off with the question of your own definition of human
Speaker 1: nature that you present your book, because it was a
Speaker 1: I thought it was quite a unique definition. Well, my
Speaker 1: definition is that there are forces within us. We're not
Speaker 1: aware of it. In other words, there's kind of a
Speaker 1: stranger within each of us. There are patterns of behavior
Speaker 1: that are ingrained in us going back hundreds of thousands
Speaker 1: of years, based on how we evolved as a species,
Speaker 1: and we're not aware of these forces as they operate
Speaker 1: within us. They kind of move us around like pawns
Speaker 1: on a chain board. They sort of control a lot
Speaker 1: of our behavior if we don't make an effort to
Speaker 1: become aware of them. They just give you one simple example.
Speaker 1: We're extremely susceptible to the emotions of other people. If
Speaker 1: we're in a group or a crowd and people are
Speaker 1: suddenly getting excited or angry, we find ourselves getting swept
Speaker 1: up in those emotions. If we're in an office and
Speaker 1: somebody is kind of depressed, that we're talking to a
Speaker 1: lot that we have a lot of. You know that
Speaker 1: we're around a lot, we kind of absorb their emotion
Speaker 1: and we're not aware of this. We're not aware that
Speaker 1: we're not as autonomous and independent as we think that
Speaker 1: something like that is actually altering our emotions. And this
Speaker 1: goes back to how we evolved, in which the contagiousness
Speaker 1: of emotions served a very important evolutionary process. But now,
Speaker 1: as we're evolved and we no longer live in small
Speaker 1: bands of thirty or forty people, that kind of viral
Speaker 1: contagion of emotions can become very dangerous, and so we
Speaker 1: see that very much playing out in our politics today.
Speaker 1: So consider that one kind of elemental, primal force that
Speaker 1: moves us around and that we're not aware of, and
Speaker 1: that I call human nature. And I have several other forces.
Speaker 1: I have eighteen of them, if you will, that I
Speaker 1: believe we need to become aware of to be conscious,
Speaker 1: rational human beings. So our consciousness is part of our
Speaker 1: human nature, right, yes, very much. So our awareness is
Speaker 1: also part of our human nature. So it could also,
Speaker 1: but you don't include that as in your definition. Oh
Speaker 1: of course, you know what I'm saying. Oh, okay, well,
Speaker 1: part of our nature. The point of my book is
Speaker 1: to become aware of our nature so that we can
Speaker 1: use it for productive purposes. And I include in each
Speaker 1: of the laws a way that we can do that,
Speaker 1: So the awareness part, Like I say, there's a lower
Speaker 1: and a higher self within all of us. The lower
Speaker 1: self is this animal self that's very much wanting immediate pleasures,
Speaker 1: that takes the path of least resistance, that wants everything
Speaker 1: easy and simple and fast. But within all of us,
Speaker 1: part of our nature is a higher self, a self
Speaker 1: that is disciplined, that gets things done, that is able
Speaker 1: to work in a group with other people, that feels
Speaker 1: empathy for others. This is a potential within all of us.
Speaker 1: It is part of our nature. It is deeply wired
Speaker 1: within us. But that higher self takes effort. It doesn't
Speaker 1: come naturally or easy to us. So, for instance, one
Speaker 1: of the forces that we're talking about that I think
Speaker 1: is very powerful, that I talk about in the book
Speaker 1: is empathy. I know it's a word that gets used
Speaker 1: a lot, and I try and define it in a
Speaker 1: more kind of practical way, bring it down to earth
Speaker 1: and sort of show you where empathy are originated. But
Speaker 1: as we evolved as a species, the ability to take
Speaker 1: the perspective of other people, to get inside their mindset
Speaker 1: to understand how they are feeling their moods was very
Speaker 1: critical survival skill, and I maintain that before the invention
Speaker 1: of language, our ancestors had an almost telepathic ability to
Speaker 1: understand the moods and emotions of other people around them.
Speaker 1: Empathy is a very powerful force within us. That is
Speaker 1: a potential, and the problem is that it's something that
Speaker 1: is like a muscle that atrophies, that we don't use
Speaker 1: very much, and that needs to be brought out. So
Speaker 1: sort of the easy animal parts of our nature, like
Speaker 1: the fact that we feel envy or that we react
Speaker 1: emotionally that doesn't take any effort, that just comes to
Speaker 1: us naturally. But the ability to be rational, which is
Speaker 1: part of our nature, which is a potential, or the
Speaker 1: ability to feel empathy wire's effort and awareness and consciousness.
Speaker 1: Thank you for that. So what do you make of
Speaker 1: the distinction in psychology between effective and cognitive empathy. It
Speaker 1: seems like you're focusing on the cognitive empathy part, right, No,
Speaker 1: I very much want to mix the two. Okay, cool,
Speaker 1: I'm kind of following Jung's sort of definition where there's visceral, well,
Speaker 1: I call it visceral empathy, which is maybe what you
Speaker 1: call effective empathy, which is very easy. We can pick
Speaker 1: up the moods of people much more easily than we
Speaker 1: can pick up their thoughts. And then I combine it
Speaker 1: with analytic empathy. If you simply have this visceral kind
Speaker 1: of empathic energy where you just pick up people's moods,
Speaker 1: it can be a bit dangerous. You need to be
Speaker 1: able to analyze the information that you're receiving from people.
Speaker 1: There are many errors you can make in your interpretation
Speaker 1: of the moods that you pick up. You need to
Speaker 1: be able to get inside the mindset of other people
Speaker 1: and to analyze where that's coming from. So I like
Speaker 1: to try and make the cognitive and the visceral, and
Speaker 1: I make a very big point about how you need
Speaker 1: to do that. Okay, great, So when we jump into
Speaker 1: some of I mean, obviously don't have time to talk
Speaker 1: about all these different aspects of human nature, and but
Speaker 1: I'd like to pick out some themes that I thought
Speaker 1: would be neat for us to discuss. Sure, let's start
Speaker 1: with transforming self love into empathy, because since we were
Speaker 1: to rip off of the fact that we're just talking
Speaker 1: about empathy a little bit. Can you talk about what
Speaker 1: the deep narcissist is. Well, the point I'm trying to
Speaker 1: make that I think is not usually popular in our
Speaker 1: culture today, is that all of us are narcissists. All
Speaker 1: of us are on the scale of narcissists. Think for yourself,
Speaker 1: not talking about I am speaking for myself. I know,
Speaker 1: I know, I'm joking very much. The degree of my
Speaker 1: own narcissism. Yeah, I try and say that it's in
Speaker 1: our nature to be self absorbed, and part of that
Speaker 1: is the need that we have at a very early
Speaker 1: age to develop some kind of self love, some kind
Speaker 1: of self esteem that protects us from a harsh, very
Speaker 1: competitive world. So we are all on the scale of narcissism.
Speaker 1: We are all to some degree self absorbed. And I
Speaker 1: like to make it almost like a water mark, where
Speaker 1: at sort of the halfway point is kind of the
Speaker 1: difference between our self absorption and becoming aware of other
Speaker 1: people and being able to be empathetic. And at the
Speaker 1: high point, let's say, at the point one hundred, would
Speaker 1: be complete empathy with other people, the complete ability to
Speaker 1: get inside their mindset, and at zero would be total
Speaker 1: self absorption, and most of us are sort of above
Speaker 1: that fifty percent mark. We are able to get outside
Speaker 1: of ourselves at moments and get inside other people and
Speaker 1: understand them to some degree. But then some moments we
Speaker 1: sink below that fifty percent mark when we feel depressed
Speaker 1: or there's some kind of trauma in our life, and
Speaker 1: we tend to become self absorbed, so we fluctuate. But
Speaker 1: a deep narcissist is someone who is always below that level,
Speaker 1: who can never rise above. They have probably suffered some
Speaker 1: kind of deep wounds in early childhood. They never were
Speaker 1: able to develop that kind of self love that protects people.
Speaker 1: So I maintain we humans desperately need validation and recognition
Speaker 1: and attention from other people. I believe that would be
Speaker 1: one of Maslow's needs in the hierarchy esteem, and if
Speaker 1: we're not able to get that from our parents or
Speaker 1: from other people when we're very young, it's very wounding.
Speaker 1: And so what we do is we develop a self
Speaker 1: that we can love and that we can feel can
Speaker 1: be appreciated, and so in moments of doubt, when we're
Speaker 1: not getting attention from people, we withdraw. We retreat into
Speaker 1: that self where we can tell ourselves we are still good,
Speaker 1: we are still worthy, we're still somebody that can be loved.
Speaker 1: Deep narcissists never develop that anchor, that sense of self
Speaker 1: that will control them. They are always in need of
Speaker 1: getting attention from other people. They can't get it from themselves.
Speaker 1: They can't get that love or that sense of a
Speaker 1: self from within. They must get it from without. So
Speaker 1: they're constantly playing to other people and it can make
Speaker 1: them kind of crazed. There are introverts who are deep narcissists,
Speaker 1: who tend to go into their own shell, into their
Speaker 1: own fantasy world and reality, And they're extroverts sort of
Speaker 1: like the classic sort of Donald Trump paradigm, who must
Speaker 1: get that attention constantly from other people and stir up
Speaker 1: all kinds of drama. But the main thing that I
Speaker 1: want to emphasize here is that we always like to
Speaker 1: point fingers and say, oh, that person's a narcissist or
Speaker 1: they are, and we never like to think of ourselves
Speaker 1: in that category. And I want to make I want
Speaker 1: to get you away from this idea that there's somehow people,
Speaker 1: some people are different, some people aren't subject to these laws.
Speaker 1: Of human nature. We all have various degrees of self absorption,
Speaker 1: and we're all capable of becoming deep narcissists if we
Speaker 1: suffer some kind of trauma. Yeah. I like that. And
Speaker 1: you know, that was the conceptulation of like the earlier
Speaker 1: psychoanalysts like Cohort. You know, it is so very much
Speaker 1: influenced by code. He was sort of the main influence there. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but it seems like we may have lost that perspective
Speaker 1: a little bit. I mean, that was much more in
Speaker 1: the consciousness of the psychoanomic perspective, but it's not maybe
Speaker 1: so much anymore. So I'm really glad that you made
Speaker 1: that point, and and I was so glad that you
Speaker 1: talk about it as you know, the spectrum, the narcssic spectrum,
Speaker 1: and we have a deep narciss and then we have
Speaker 1: something kind of in the middle, which you call functional narcissists,
Speaker 1: and then you have on the kind of the far
Speaker 1: right of the spectrum, you have the healthy narcissis. Could
Speaker 1: you maybe talk about the difference between the functional and
Speaker 1: the healthy. Well, I've maintained that most of us are
Speaker 1: sort of functional narcissists. We fluctuate between moments of self absorption,
Speaker 1: and then the ability to feel empathy for other people,
Speaker 1: for our children, for our loved ones, etc. So we're
Speaker 1: able to get outside of ourselves. That's what empathy is.
Speaker 1: It's the ability to get outside of ourselves. At the
Speaker 1: highest end of that spectrum would be what I call
Speaker 1: a healthy narcissist. That is, somebody who has a much
Speaker 1: higher level, much deeper ability to get inside the perspective
Speaker 1: of other people. They are not so quick to judge others.
Speaker 1: Their first instinct is to understand where people are coming from,
Speaker 1: as opposed to judging them. If you measure by the
Speaker 1: ability to get outside of ourselves, it's not just the
Speaker 1: ability to get inside other people, but it's also the
Speaker 1: ability to get inside your work. So work is a
Speaker 1: main area in which you can kind of heal some
Speaker 1: of the narcissistic wounds that you might have. And I
Speaker 1: have in the book an example that I actually took
Speaker 1: out because the book is so long. One of them
Speaker 1: is the scientists, the great scientist Robert Oppenheimer, the physicist.
Speaker 1: He was what we would definitely categorize as a deep narcissist.
Speaker 1: He had tremendous wounds from his childhood. He felt he
Speaker 1: continually felt like he was a victim, and he was
Speaker 1: actually sometimes on the verge of sort of psychotic behavior.
Speaker 1: He once tried to murder one of his professors, and
Speaker 1: he was later in life able to heal himself by
Speaker 1: completely absorbing his mind in his work. And it all
Speaker 1: kind of came together on the Manhattan Project where he
Speaker 1: was the head. I know it was for the purpose
Speaker 1: of creating an Adam bomb, so that's the whole other
Speaker 1: issue Ye gloss over. But in that project, in working
Speaker 1: with other people and absorbing his mind in his work,
Speaker 1: he was aware that he was actually healing his own
Speaker 1: narcissistic wounds. So work is another area where we can
Speaker 1: get outside of ourselves and feel like we're contributing and
Speaker 1: producing something positive. So that's what a healthy narcissist is.
Speaker 1: He or she is able to put their energy into
Speaker 1: other people, into taking their perspective and into their work.
Speaker 1: I love that. Just to circle back to Heinz Cohort again,
Speaker 1: it sounds a lot like in his language, it would
Speaker 1: be like a wholesome transformation or something like that. You know,
Speaker 1: like this is actually a quote from presentation he gave
Speaker 1: nineteen sixty five that I think really highlights that really
Speaker 1: well in many instances, the reshaping of the narcissis structures
Speaker 1: and their integration into the personality, the strengthening of ideals,
Speaker 1: and the achievement, even to a modest degree of such
Speaker 1: wholesome transformation of narcissism as humor, creativity, empathy, and wisdom
Speaker 1: must be rated as a more genuine and valid result
Speaker 1: of a therapy than that patient's precarious compliance with demands
Speaker 1: for a change of his narcissism into object love. And
Speaker 1: you know object love was, you know, the drive to
Speaker 1: form close relationships with others and things. You know. So
Speaker 1: we're not saying like we're trying to change you into
Speaker 1: a completely different person. We're trying to have a healthy
Speaker 1: whole I like that phrase wholesome. What do you think
Speaker 1: that phrase, wholesome transformation? I kind of like it. I
Speaker 1: like it very much. And what's it? I'm so glad
Speaker 1: that you're familiar with Kohut because I'm a big fan.
Speaker 1: He's very difficult to read nobody's especially in German. Oh God.
Speaker 1: But the interesting thing about Coohout is he knows what
Speaker 1: he's talking about because he was a deep narcissist. He
Speaker 1: is like Robert Oppenheimer. He was very much aware of
Speaker 1: how profound he was on that narcissistic spectrum. He had
Speaker 1: a troubled childhood, he was alienated, he had a sort
Speaker 1: of a suffocating mother, and he was constantly trying to
Speaker 1: transform himself. It was a struggle for him, so he
Speaker 1: was very It was not just some intellectual idea. It
Speaker 1: was something very very close to him. But yeah, I
Speaker 1: love the expression wholesome transformation. Yeah, and that part of
Speaker 1: that is, you know, whole the word hole in there,
Speaker 1: and it just really dealt us so nicely with some
Speaker 1: core themes were meant were meant as humans to be.
Speaker 1: You're a social animal. We're not meant to be so atimistic,
Speaker 1: to be kind of balkanized like the way we are now.
Speaker 1: We were designed to be completely social and to the
Speaker 1: sense that we can heal ourselves. It is in the ability.
Speaker 1: This is an idea from Adler more than anything. That's
Speaker 1: what he called social interest, and he judged a person
Speaker 1: as healthy by their degree of social interest, by their
Speaker 1: ability to have their interest applied to other people, to society,
Speaker 1: to the group. That is, I believe our ideal, but
Speaker 1: it doesn't come easier naturally, particularly in this world, it
Speaker 1: is a struggle. But by the fact that you're aware,
Speaker 1: I want to make the reader aware that you're a narcissist.
Speaker 1: So you don't get to escape this and think that
Speaker 1: you can just be who you are and that you're
Speaker 1: naturally healthy. I want you to be aware that it's
Speaker 1: a struggle, that you must work at this, that you
Speaker 1: must overcome your own tendencies towards being self absorbed. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's that's an important point. By the way, do you
Speaker 1: know how to pronounce Oddwor's notion of socialis just like
Speaker 1: a minugle full something like that. Do you know how
Speaker 1: to pronounce it? The German word for it, he would
Speaker 1: be gazelle shot for society. Yeah, I don't know, gazelle shops.
Speaker 1: I don't know what it would be. I've seen it
Speaker 1: spelled out before, and I always have to I learned
Speaker 1: German diction when I studied opera and undergraduate, and I've
Speaker 1: always had trouble pronouncing that whole It's like it's spelled
Speaker 1: g E M E I N s c h A
Speaker 1: f T s g E f u h lay. Let's
Speaker 1: just say social interest good mind shoft, dude, mind shot
Speaker 1: full something like that. Yeah, mind shocked. Yeah, f u
Speaker 1: h L. Yeah, I feel that's feeling. Yeah, I feel yeah,
Speaker 1: the feeling yes, So yeah, yeah, there you go. You know,
Speaker 1: reading your book, it just occurs to me like how
Speaker 1: many areas of mutual I guess nerdiness and we have
Speaker 1: we share I don't know, lack of a better word
Speaker 1: for it, that is the right way put because and
Speaker 1: you know, we both are appreciated Abraham Maslow's work and
Speaker 1: he was deeply, deep influenced by Adler. I mean, his
Speaker 1: whole thesis was a way of trying to kind of
Speaker 1: prove Audward's theory of power. It was right, but among monkeys,
Speaker 1: you know, like he looked at it among monkeys. And
Speaker 1: I don't know if you heard this story, but he
Speaker 1: met Adler in New York when he moved to New
Speaker 1: York and was so excited to tell him about all
Speaker 1: his research, and they became friends until one day, I
Speaker 1: think you'll appreciate the story, until they were having lunch
Speaker 1: in the grammar Sy or something in New York and
Speaker 1: he hit a very sore spot, you know, about his
Speaker 1: rift with Freud, and he said something like about that
Speaker 1: rift with Freud, or whatever, and he said, this was
Speaker 1: not the rift, and it was just you know, he
Speaker 1: hit a very sore spuand they never were the same
Speaker 1: ever since. And at the end of Maslow's life I
Speaker 1: saw a note he wrote in something where he said,
Speaker 1: I have always had this regret that I never patched
Speaker 1: things up with that or before he died, because we
Speaker 1: were never good after that. Yeah. Well, I guess as
Speaker 1: I was a bit hypersensitive, that sort of doesn't show
Speaker 1: thee Yeah. And apparently like Maswell was disagreeing with him
Speaker 1: at one of these intellectual so is that Adam had
Speaker 1: in his apartment, and Award threw Maswell up against the
Speaker 1: wall and said, do you agree with me or don't you? Wow? Yeah,
Speaker 1: isn't this amazing? So it's exciting to live in a
Speaker 1: world where people took these ideas so seriously that these
Speaker 1: kind of rifts and battles. It feels so old fashioned.
Speaker 1: But Maslow, we're talking about this health wholesome transformation. Maslow
Speaker 1: talks about this a lot as well. The book that
Speaker 1: I used was The Farther Reaches of Human Nature, which
Speaker 1: is an excellent book, and he to himself talks a
Speaker 1: lot about well in the hierarchy of needs that that
Speaker 1: highest need is to feel whole, and a lot of
Speaker 1: that does come through your work Etca. So he's definitely
Speaker 1: mirroring what we're talking about here, definitely, and he was
Speaker 1: influenced by these other people that we're talking about, so
Speaker 1: it's not coincidence. So I think I'm trying to, like
Speaker 1: in real time, like segue into the ones that naturally fit.
Speaker 1: So I think the one confront your dark Side feels
Speaker 1: right to talk about as right. This seems to naturally
Speaker 1: fit with what we're talking about. So you talk about
Speaker 1: confront your dark side, and you say, quote I'm quoting
Speaker 1: Robert Green, by integrating the dark side into your personality,
Speaker 1: you'll become a more complete human and will radiate and
Speaker 1: authenticity that will draw people to you. Wow, I mean
Speaker 1: talk about truth pretty you have this way of like
Speaker 1: having piercing statements of reality. It's like interesting, Yeah, well
Speaker 1: the idea is, you know, I'm very much one of
Speaker 1: the main influences on this book was young, but there
Speaker 1: were of course other people like Cohu et Cetera and
Speaker 1: Fairburn and beyond. But his concept of the shadow I
Speaker 1: was extremely interested in, and I try and based on
Speaker 1: him and others. I try and trace it in the
Speaker 1: following source, in that when we were born, we're very young,
Speaker 1: we were like complete individuals. We felt a wide range
Speaker 1: of emotions that were naturally to us. Natural tous. I
Speaker 1: can remember when I was a child, I could be
Speaker 1: quite angry and destructive and mean, but at the same
Speaker 1: time I could also be very loving and empathetic. But
Speaker 1: children are like that, They're just complete. They don't know
Speaker 1: how to regulate their emotions, so they simply vent them.
Speaker 1: And then as we get older, we're socialized and we
Speaker 1: have to learn to repress a lot of these qualities
Speaker 1: that are very natural to us. Perhaps these are aggressive impulses.
Speaker 1: A lot of them are aggressive impulses, and they go
Speaker 1: into what Jung called the shadow, and they cause as
Speaker 1: we get older and we repress them more, they cause
Speaker 1: all kinds of weird behavior. And I try and go
Speaker 1: into that weird behavior. I call it like looking for
Speaker 1: signs of the shadow. So, for instance, you see people
Speaker 1: to sudden very contradictory behavior. Some very stodgy professor will
Speaker 1: suddenly leave his wife and run away with an act
Speaker 1: or something, or a politician will get caught out doing
Speaker 1: some behavior that completely contradicts the image they've presented. So
Speaker 1: we notice or someone who's so quiet and timid suddenly
Speaker 1: lashes out in an outburst of anger that seems very violent,
Speaker 1: and we see in those moments another side to a person,
Speaker 1: And our tendency is to think, well, that was just
Speaker 1: sort of some weird behavior, some eccentricity, that's not who
Speaker 1: they are. They'll usually excuse themselves saying, you know, I
Speaker 1: don't know what came over me. But in fact, what
Speaker 1: is happening is the shadow part of the personality is speaking,
Speaker 1: it's coming out, it's leaking, and the fact that we're
Speaker 1: always trying to hide it and contain it and repress us,
Speaker 1: I believe has a very long term deleterious effect on us.
Speaker 1: I think it tamps down a lot of our creative energies,
Speaker 1: among other things. And so I want to try and
Speaker 1: bring you back in some way to that child, to
Speaker 1: the more authentic self and which you could express the
Speaker 1: full range of your emotions. Of course, some of it
Speaker 1: is destructive, and some of it you naturally had to
Speaker 1: kind of you had to become socialized, and you had
Speaker 1: to sort of adapt and mold, and you can't just
Speaker 1: be or say whatever you want. But I think there
Speaker 1: is a way to take the shadow side, the repress
Speaker 1: part of your personality and bring it out in your work,
Speaker 1: for instance, or express it in your relationships, but in
Speaker 1: a healthy way, in a productive way. And I think
Speaker 1: that there are people out there who we see as
Speaker 1: more authentic because they express more of their shadow and
Speaker 1: they're admired for that. And as you say, they are
Speaker 1: more you know, there are people to seem like you know,
Speaker 1: people like me and you seem very comfortable with ourselves.
Speaker 1: Well yeah no, but you say, people who seem comfortable
Speaker 1: in their own skin sort of thing is a good thing.
Speaker 1: You know. You made me think of Raoul may the daimonic.
Speaker 1: His notion of the daimonic. You know, it was just
Speaker 1: different than the demon, as he was very clear to say,
Speaker 1: it could be demon, but if it's integrated healthily, it's
Speaker 1: creative power prowess. So that was nice. I also really
Speaker 1: like this you say here, the emphatic trait generally rests
Speaker 1: on top of the opposite trait, distracting and concealing it
Speaker 1: from public view. Now this is very interesting me because
Speaker 1: you know, on the one hand, I don't want to
Speaker 1: become too cynical about people. I don't want to suddenly
Speaker 1: think that every single person who has some And you
Speaker 1: aren't saying this at all. I'm not saying that, but
Speaker 1: I'm saying I want you to help me kind of
Speaker 1: find this sealthy awareness of this without automatically assuming that
Speaker 1: everyone who is. And I'll give you a specific example.
Speaker 1: I mean, what do you make of people who I
Speaker 1: know some people who are just hyper hyper spiritual, and
Speaker 1: it just seems every time you talk to them, like
Speaker 1: everything is just like they're just these they radiate light
Speaker 1: and sun and it's like this person doesn't have any
Speaker 1: darkness at all. Right, but there's got to be right.
Speaker 1: This is where young comes in and he ICs to
Speaker 1: say that there is something else going on here that
Speaker 1: the complete person can't possibly be. He calls that one sidedness,
Speaker 1: and people who are one sided are definitely concealing the
Speaker 1: opposite trait because that's not natural. It's not natural to
Speaker 1: be completely spiritual like that. Because we are bodily creatures,
Speaker 1: we all feel deep physical needs, we all feel frustration,
Speaker 1: we all have moments of anger and depression. And so
Speaker 1: the person who is continually trying to project an aura
Speaker 1: of being saintly and calm is more than likely disguising something.
Speaker 1: And I don't think that's being cynical. I just think
Speaker 1: that's looking at the human animal as we are without
Speaker 1: judging it, you know. And I made the point in
Speaker 1: another chapter that a generation can have a shadow, and
Speaker 1: I talked about the people in the sixties with everything
Speaker 1: being so spiritual and about a cause, and the whole
Speaker 1: New Age movement that's just sort of came out of that,
Speaker 1: and how the hippies would seemed to be people who
Speaker 1: were not materialistic, but underneath that was a shadow, which
Speaker 1: is the need to be always the best hippie, to
Speaker 1: have always the best pot, to have to know the
Speaker 1: best guru, and that kind of morph later on into
Speaker 1: yuppies having the best pasta machine. So there's a shadow
Speaker 1: side to that incredibly spiritual person who's revealed through their
Speaker 1: obsessive need to have something be the best, and then
Speaker 1: maybe they'll have the best yoga mat, or they'll find
Speaker 1: the best retreat to go to. So there's there's a
Speaker 1: physical element that's sneaking through that isn't so high brow
Speaker 1: and spiritual. But this principle doesn't seem to work in reverse.
Speaker 1: And now that's maybe like a cheeky quo question, but
Speaker 1: I'm just trying to think of illogically. It's not like
Speaker 1: people who are emphatically assholes are actually secretly nice, great people,
Speaker 1: do you I'm saying. So it seems that there doesn't
Speaker 1: seem to be a bi directionality of this. There is
Speaker 1: a bidirection, So you have to look at it differently.
Speaker 1: The person who is an asshole or who is extremely
Speaker 1: manipulated is probably covering up deep insecurities and vulnerability. There
Speaker 1: is a soft side to them that they hate, they
Speaker 1: hate interesting. They have to repress that down and they
Speaker 1: have to be tough and verri isle and masculine and
Speaker 1: macho and aggressive. But deep inside their wound is they
Speaker 1: know that they have a soft spot. They know there's
Speaker 1: a feminine part of their personality that they just don't
Speaker 1: want others to see. They're covering it up, and it's
Speaker 1: very much there. And we often see that where the
Speaker 1: gangster I mean in old movies suddenly has an incredible
Speaker 1: soft spot. I talked in the forty eight Laws of
Speaker 1: Power how al capone, most violent, kind of macho trump
Speaker 1: like man around would sometimes be conned by a con artist,
Speaker 1: because who would give a story about his grandmother who
Speaker 1: was ill or something and al Capone would kind of
Speaker 1: melt and give you give him this five thousand dollars
Speaker 1: for this cause. So a con artist knows that this
Speaker 1: is always a part of someone's personality, that the tough
Speaker 1: guy is concealing deep vulnerabilities and insecurities, and that you
Speaker 1: can play on those. So I think the asshole definitely
Speaker 1: does have a shadow side. It's just there is a
Speaker 1: soft part of them that they're trying to cover up
Speaker 1: and run from. Yeah, no, you're right. I'm now recalling
Speaker 1: this paper from nineteen thirty seven. Masow wrote on dominance, feeling, behavior,
Speaker 1: and status, where he distinguishes between the feeling of dominance
Speaker 1: and dominance behavior. So there are those who are projecting
Speaker 1: this dominance behavior, but they're not actually authentically these people, right,
Speaker 1: So he actually made this clever distinction, you know, between
Speaker 1: the behavior and the feeling. Well, you know, in a
Speaker 1: different chapter on aggression, I look at like the hyper
Speaker 1: aggressive person, someone like a Trump or a Putin, And
Speaker 1: when you look at these people, you realize that they
Speaker 1: cannot tolerate any kind of criticism. They need to be
Speaker 1: surrounded by sycophants, by people who are always adulating them.
Speaker 1: Any kind of criticism makes them fears they go into
Speaker 1: a narcissistic rage, and so we like to think of
Speaker 1: them as being incredibly strong. Look how strong that putin
Speaker 1: guy is. But in fact they're riddled with deep, deep insecurities.
Speaker 1: Because a person who was really strong from within would
Speaker 1: be able to take some criticism from other people and
Speaker 1: absorb it and not be so hyper sensitive. So these
Speaker 1: very aggressive people are always concealing some kind of wound
Speaker 1: or insecurity. That's definitely a Union perspective, and I think
Speaker 1: there's a lot of truth there for sure. I'm trying
Speaker 1: to think, you know, we all have insecurities, so it's
Speaker 1: not like you ever meet someone who doesn't have in security.
Speaker 1: I find personally, I don't know what you find, but
Speaker 1: I find it really helpful that when I have these
Speaker 1: and security is like I really enjoy like telling people,
Speaker 1: like just saying it out loud. Like even sometimes in
Speaker 1: some of my talks, I'll just like have stream of consciousness.
Speaker 1: I'll be like, look, I'm really nervous right now. Like
Speaker 1: I don't try to like project something different, I just
Speaker 1: like try to just state what I what is in
Speaker 1: the moment, and I find that really helps calm me down. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think that's that's a good strategy for you. Everybody
Speaker 1: is different. I mean, I do have the idea in
Speaker 1: the book that we are actors, that in the social realm,
Speaker 1: we're never just who we are. That's kind of an
Speaker 1: absurd notion, that a human being is always performing. We
Speaker 1: naturally conceal our flaws. We don't want people to see
Speaker 1: everything that's going on inside of us. We don't want
Speaker 1: them to know about our dark moods or our moments
Speaker 1: of deepest doubt about ourselves. So we project something that's
Speaker 1: more consistent than we really are. One of the main
Speaker 1: points in my book, and something that kind of overwhelmed
Speaker 1: me as I wrote it, is that human beings are
Speaker 1: incredibly complex, much more complicated than we think. In the
Speaker 1: course of a day, we're feeling dozens of emotions that
Speaker 1: are constantly conflicting. We are very ambivalent. We never feel
Speaker 1: pure love or pure hatred. It's always mixed with something else.
Speaker 1: We're much more complicated and interesting than we think we are.
Speaker 1: But we're trying to present a persona to the world
Speaker 1: that's more consistent. So we are wearing masks, and so
Speaker 1: I think at some point your strategy is very effective
Speaker 1: to sometimes let the mask down and to kind of
Speaker 1: reveal what's going on. But in the sense of irving
Speaker 1: Goffman to rehabilitate him, I would have to say Scott
Speaker 1: that he would say that you're doing that is a
Speaker 1: kind of a performance in its own right. Well, Mark
Speaker 1: Leary would say that, yeah, modern psychologist Mark Leary does
Speaker 1: study self presentational strategies, you know. I think that we
Speaker 1: can run amok with this idea though, and see everything
Speaker 1: as a self presentation strategy and kind of lose a
Speaker 1: humanity there of Like, no, I think there's a lot
Speaker 1: of truth to that. You know. It's like I am
Speaker 1: trying to kind of put a stop to I want
Speaker 1: to be run in control of what people think, right,
Speaker 1: you know, like by expressing it. But I am genuinely
Speaker 1: feeling that way though, So I'm not making that up. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I don't deny that. But as part of the complexity
Speaker 1: of humans, people can have two things going on at
Speaker 1: the same time. They can be genuinely wanting to share something.
Speaker 1: I know this happens with myself because I am like
Speaker 1: you in many ways. I do the same strategy. You
Speaker 1: can genuinely feel the need to open up and show
Speaker 1: your vulnerability, and at the same time you are aware
Speaker 1: that you are performing on a kind of subconscious level. Yeah,
Speaker 1: two things can go on at the same time. In
Speaker 1: the human we're more complicated than we think. Yeah, so true.
Speaker 1: And you know, I try not to take another thing.
Speaker 1: I think it's just important. It's just don't take yourself
Speaker 1: too seriously. Like no one should take themselves too seriously.
Speaker 1: That's extremely important. Like I try not. I try to
Speaker 1: kind of just walk around this world. It's very absurdist,
Speaker 1: sort of like attitude about everything. So could you maybe
Speaker 1: give some strategies to people and how you can see
Speaker 1: through people's masks? And I'd like to combine these two.
Speaker 1: If you don't mind seeing through people's masks and determining
Speaker 1: the strength of their character, I'd combine two of yours well.
Speaker 1: The Seeing through People's Masks is a chapter that I
Speaker 1: wrote on nonverbal communication. Now I know people write entire
Speaker 1: books on it, and it's the subject that people go
Speaker 1: over a lot. So I try to navigate to explore
Speaker 1: some new territory and nonverbal communication and make it very
Speaker 1: clear on how you can practice and become better at it.
Speaker 1: But the idea is that there's a human beings have
Speaker 1: two languages. One is the verbal language in which we're
Speaker 1: conscious and we say things. But then there's a second language.
Speaker 1: It's just nonverbal, which comes from our tone of voice,
Speaker 1: where how our eyes move, from our smile, from our energy,
Speaker 1: from the moods that we have, from our body posture, etc.
Speaker 1: And this second language is extremely eloquent. It is revealing
Speaker 1: all kinds of information about people. And you must understand
Speaker 1: we existed for hundreds of thousands of years before the
Speaker 1: invention of language, so nonverbal communication was an extremely important
Speaker 1: part of human survival, an important part of communication. But
Speaker 1: we don't pay attention to this. And I use as
Speaker 1: my icon for this, Milton Erickson, who is a therapist.
Speaker 1: He sort of invented hypnotherapy. Some people don't take him
Speaker 1: so seriously. That's sure known Erickson, right. I think he's
Speaker 1: absolutely brilliant. I think he was very practical, and some
Speaker 1: people don't like that about him, but I think the
Speaker 1: man was incredibly brilliant and he was a master at
Speaker 1: picking up this second language, and you could say he
Speaker 1: was fluent in it. In a way that no human
Speaker 1: that I know of was, at least by the way
Speaker 1: it was recorded, mostly because he was had polio and
Speaker 1: he was paralyzed as a young man, and he couldn't
Speaker 1: move his mouth, he couldn't move a single muscle on
Speaker 1: his body. So he spent years just absorbing and looking
Speaker 1: at people and learning that language of their nonverbal communication.
Speaker 1: And his point was that we go around sleepwalking. We're
Speaker 1: so taken in by people's words that were not paying
Speaker 1: attention to all of the signs they're revealing of what's
Speaker 1: really going on behind the mask. So, for instance, one
Speaker 1: of the main signals of what's going on behind the
Speaker 1: mask that people wear is mixed signals, which is very common.
Speaker 1: A person will say something to you that seems very
Speaker 1: nice and polite, but their body language expresses something else.
Speaker 1: It's not natural, it's not comfortable. So they're kind of
Speaker 1: praising you or saying something good, but there's a slight
Speaker 1: coldness about it, and unconsciously you register this and it
Speaker 1: makes you a little bit anxious, but then you forget
Speaker 1: about it, but it kind of gets under your skin. Well,
Speaker 1: you need to pay more attention to that negative signal
Speaker 1: that's coming through in that mixed signal, because most often
Speaker 1: the mixed signal involved the negative is with real And
Speaker 1: this is a language that you can develop. It could
Speaker 1: be used for very cynical, manipulative purposes, and a lot
Speaker 1: of psychopaths are actually very very good at picking up
Speaker 1: these signals in this language. But I think it's something
Speaker 1: that can be extremely positive because it can give you
Speaker 1: insights into people that you can't get in any other way.
Speaker 1: If people are telling you about their childhood or about
Speaker 1: their insecurities, they're not probably giving you the unvarnished truth.
Speaker 1: And unless you're jung Raalo may or heinzkh, you're not
Speaker 1: going to be able to decipher what there's really the
Speaker 1: subtext behind what they're saying. But their body language is
Speaker 1: revealing so much, so much information, and you're just not
Speaker 1: paying attention. So I want to ground you in skills
Speaker 1: and how you can and make it like like you
Speaker 1: learn how to play basketball, you learn how to play
Speaker 1: the piano. I want you to learn how to pick
Speaker 1: up these nonverbal signs from people because it's a fascinating subject.
Speaker 1: It's like a masterclass in human nature apprenticeship. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: so throughout my book, I'm talking about the signs, like,
Speaker 1: I have a chapter on envy, and envy is probably
Speaker 1: the hardest emotion to detect in other people because it's
Speaker 1: the one that people disguise the most. But even with envy,
Speaker 1: there are nonverbal signs of it. I'm kind of very
Speaker 1: excited by Paul Ekman's notion of micro expressions. I don't
Speaker 1: know if he invented it. I know, maybe he just
Speaker 1: picked it up. You know that flicker, that instance of
Speaker 1: kind of displeasure when you first encounter someone where they're
Speaker 1: trying to show that that they like you, but in
Speaker 1: fact there's a flicker of kind of oh why are
Speaker 1: you here? So yeah, Robert, I kind of got that
Speaker 1: from you a little bit at the beginning of this.
Speaker 1: And now I'm joking. I'm joking. I was like, should
Speaker 1: not have ignored that flicker. I'm just joking. I could
Speaker 1: have been I'm just really, is that true? I remember
Speaker 1: in high school, know, in college, I was staying with
Speaker 1: my girlfriend at her house in Chicago or Evanston, and
Speaker 1: I was like being very friendly and vivacious and trying
Speaker 1: to please her family. In the middle of the night,
Speaker 1: she woke me up and said, Robert, you have to
Speaker 1: get out of the house. You have to leave, Like
Speaker 1: why my mother just was picking up such aggressive, angry
Speaker 1: energy from you, and you know, she couldn't believe it. It
Speaker 1: It was so strong, and you have to get out
Speaker 1: of the house. I left, and I thought about it later,
Speaker 1: and it's probably was very much true because I didn't
Speaker 1: like her. I knew I didn't like I felt her
Speaker 1: really false and phony and her and all that, and
Speaker 1: so she was picking up something that was sort of
Speaker 1: leaking out from me. So I'm capable. Wait, do you
Speaker 1: feel that way about me? It wasn't a subtle way
Speaker 1: to say that. Oh, okay, I feel quite the opposite
Speaker 1: of you, Scott. Thanks m a nerdy jewish boond Oh.
Speaker 1: I mean it's like, yeah, so let me ask you something,
Speaker 1: because like in the when you determine the strens of
Speaker 1: people's character, you talked about the importance of assessing their
Speaker 1: character over their actions over time. Yeah, And I just
Speaker 1: want to stress that point because I feel like, you know,
Speaker 1: we can be wrong sometimes in what we're picking up.
Speaker 1: And some people that I thought, you know, I'm like, oh,
Speaker 1: this person really doesn't like me or whatever, you know,
Speaker 1: I realized that like they had a bad day. It
Speaker 1: was like totally impersonal. It had nothing to do with
Speaker 1: me at all, Right, And so I just want you
Speaker 1: to riff on that point a little more because you
Speaker 1: do emphasize that in your book that we need to
Speaker 1: think of this as an overtime issue. Right, Yeah, Well
Speaker 1: you need to be humble in your assessments of people.
Speaker 1: There's this idea of Othello's arrow I don't know if
Speaker 1: your error not errow error, in which he assumes that
Speaker 1: Desdemona is guilty of adultery because she's so insecure and
Speaker 1: defensive when he confronts her, but in fact she's just
Speaker 1: simply really worried about his aggressive energy. So they call
Speaker 1: this Othello's error because often when you see someone's overt behavior,
Speaker 1: like particularly anger, your first assumption is that it's personal,
Speaker 1: that it's about you, and you interpret it while that's
Speaker 1: an asshole. Why is he so angry when in fact
Speaker 1: maybe that isn't really anger. Maybe it's some sort of
Speaker 1: frustration that's boiling over from some other issue. There's nothing
Speaker 1: to do with you. So I'm trying to teach you
Speaker 1: to not rush to judgment, to be a bit humble
Speaker 1: that your assessments of people are quite often wrong, and
Speaker 1: that you need to take a step back and develop
Speaker 1: the skill. And one of the key things is viewing
Speaker 1: people over time. So the idea is that people tend
Speaker 1: to reveal who they are. They reveal their character through
Speaker 1: patterns of behavior. I've always, for some reason, going back
Speaker 1: to my days in college, interested in this idea of character,
Speaker 1: coming from the Greek word chiros, which literally means an engravement,
Speaker 1: something engraved in stone or whatever the engraving is. And
Speaker 1: so your character is something that's carved deep deep within you,
Speaker 1: your core of your being. It's qualities that you really
Speaker 1: aren't even conscious or control. They come from your DNA,
Speaker 1: they come from your early attachments to your parents or
Speaker 1: not attachment to them. They come from your experiences in childhood,
Speaker 1: and it causes you to behave in compulsive ways to
Speaker 1: repeat certain patterns of behavior. People will repeat patterns of behavior,
Speaker 1: and particularly I want you to be looking for the
Speaker 1: toxic types among us. Can we talk about some of them?
Speaker 1: I wrote down some of my favorite ones. Do you
Speaker 1: mind if we talk about some of them? No? And
Speaker 1: it's funny because, okay, if you could see my notes
Speaker 1: in your book. By the way, I have notes on
Speaker 1: every page. But if you could see my notes in
Speaker 1: that section in particular, you would see every page it
Speaker 1: says Trump at the top. Trump. It's very interesting stuff.
Speaker 1: Because I was writing the book it kind of you know,
Speaker 1: overlapped his rise to power. So I started, you know,
Speaker 1: in twenty fifteen, and then as I'm writing it, like
Speaker 1: I'm writing a chapter on grandiosity, just at the moment
Speaker 1: where his grandiosity is so evident. Yeah, the chapter on aggression,
Speaker 1: or the chapter on the shadow, or the chapter on
Speaker 1: gender and toxic masculine. He's all the toxic types, like
Speaker 1: the integration, the unhealthy integration of all the toxic types.
Speaker 1: And yet and yet the shocking thing is that has
Speaker 1: tremendous appeal to one third of the population our country
Speaker 1: or less, probably one quarter. Because I feel like we're
Speaker 1: just stating some facts that like he conforms to some
Speaker 1: of these archetypes that throughout history that you've identified. It's obvious,
Speaker 1: it's obvious, right, Yeah, But you know, on the other hand,
Speaker 1: you have to recognize the attraction that it has to people.
Speaker 1: So I try and talk in the book how very
Speaker 1: toxic types, how people who are grandiose or aggressive have
Speaker 1: this peculiar kind of charm. Why do they have this charm?
Speaker 1: You know, it's fascinating because we should never undervaluate them
Speaker 1: or underestimate them, like a lot of people on the
Speaker 1: left have underestimated the power of a Donald Trump. Okay,
Speaker 1: so I identify people, I know, I can think of
Speaker 1: people like that moment in names in this podcast, but
Speaker 1: for each one of these, so we all know the
Speaker 1: relentless rebel right. I know people you know that seem
Speaker 1: to have this psychopath the logical need to say the opposite,
Speaker 1: like to non conform to anything, even when like the
Speaker 1: conforming would actually be the healthy choice for them, or
Speaker 1: would be the obvious like normal. Like it's like, you know,
Speaker 1: you could say the world is round, you know, the
Speaker 1: Earth is around, there be like it's flat, you know,
Speaker 1: like they have to say that. You know, they think
Speaker 1: that that's a sign of intelligence, that intelligence that they're
Speaker 1: able to think for themselves, as opposed to you who
Speaker 1: are just accepting, you know, the conventional wisdom. Yeah. Well,
Speaker 1: you know what I try to say about these people,
Speaker 1: the toxic types that I'm pointing out, going back to
Speaker 1: what I said earlier, is I have a quote in
Speaker 1: there from Schopenhauer that evil people don't go around with
Speaker 1: horns on their head, and fools don't go around wearing
Speaker 1: caps and bells. In other words, people learn who are
Speaker 1: toxic from an early age to disguise it and to
Speaker 1: present a persona that will get them some kind of
Speaker 1: social power. They know that if they are truly showing
Speaker 1: their toxicity to everyone, they'll be alienated, and they will,
Speaker 1: you know, they won't get very far. So they learn
Speaker 1: to disguise it. And the relentless rebel is someone who's
Speaker 1: probably dealing, in this particular instance, with a lot of
Speaker 1: deep rooted issues from childhood with perhaps the father figure.
Speaker 1: I don't want to get too Freudian here, but you know,
Speaker 1: a deep level of resentment towards the father figure, perhaps
Speaker 1: the mother figure, if the mother figure was the dominant
Speaker 1: one in the relationship. And so they present this in
Speaker 1: extremely positive light. Oh, I'm so cool. I'm such an
Speaker 1: anti authoritarian. I'm James Dean, I'm really him. I'm against this,
Speaker 1: I'm against that. You know, I don't want to vote
Speaker 1: for Hillary Clinton. I'm going to go for Jill Stein
Speaker 1: because you know, man, you know, that's just kind of thing,
Speaker 1: that's just the rebel post. Yeah, that's a really rebel
Speaker 1: vote for Jill Stein. Yeah. Well, I know people like
Speaker 1: that cool someone in particular, Okay, you know, and they
Speaker 1: present themselves as like it's a really strong thing, that
Speaker 1: they're not so stodgy as you are. They're just full
Speaker 1: of this rebellious energy, but in fact it comes from
Speaker 1: kind of an ugly place where this is their only
Speaker 1: way of asserting themselves and feeling like it's a form
Speaker 1: of superiority. Right, Yeah, A flight in that is you
Speaker 1: are kind of stodgy and conventional, and I'm sort of
Speaker 1: the bearer of truth. And you know, you'll get attracted
Speaker 1: to this person because you kind of we're all attracted
Speaker 1: to the maverick, to the underdog. But then in a
Speaker 1: relationship we'll find that that rebelliousness turns against us. That
Speaker 1: it's very hard to get along with someone who's always
Speaker 1: seen the contrary sign to things, for sure. You know,
Speaker 1: there's a statistical technique called factor analysis in psychology where
Speaker 1: you take a bunch of things and you smified into
Speaker 1: their main dimensions. I feel like I want to run
Speaker 1: this empirical analysis of all your toxic types because I
Speaker 1: intuitively it's I can see some clusters like it seems
Speaker 1: to me like and I'm sure you'd agree so like
Speaker 1: I found personal experience that the following tend to cluster together,
Speaker 1: drama magnet, sexualized, and princess, but it could be prince
Speaker 1: as well. You know, do you see what I'm saying?
Speaker 1: I see those three tend to go together. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: would agree with you there, although I imagine there are
Speaker 1: drama magnets who don't sexualize everything. But I believe every
Speaker 1: sexualizer is a drama It seems so, it seems so right.
Speaker 1: They're drawing you into the drama through their sexual lore, right,
Speaker 1: And then you know, you talk about the pleaser. I
Speaker 1: worry sometimes that's perhaps my biggest problem is people pleaser. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I have a people pleasing ten. I have a real
Speaker 1: people pleasing tendency, and I don't like it, Like I
Speaker 1: don't want it, you know, but I can't help it.
Speaker 1: Sometimes there's the kind of benign form of all of
Speaker 1: these types, which we all are, and then there's the
Speaker 1: toxic types. And so you're not the toxic type of pleaser,
Speaker 1: because the toxic type of pleaser is basically disguising a
Speaker 1: desire to wound others. Oh, so they don't actually want
Speaker 1: to reach out genuinely. Well, they do, but they want
Speaker 1: to protect themselves from any kind of conflict. But a
Speaker 1: lot of them are very passive aggressive, So their way
Speaker 1: of pleasing you is to get you sort of entangled
Speaker 1: into their drama, sort of become their friend, and then
Speaker 1: they're going to find some way to wound you or
Speaker 1: hurt you in some way. The toxic pleaser type is
Speaker 1: not benign. So for instance, you meet somebody and instantly
Speaker 1: they're like, Wow, you're amazing. You're one to be friends,
Speaker 1: I mean friends, you want Facebook? You really really connect?
Speaker 1: Your very wary of that. Yeah, I'm very aware of that.
Speaker 1: That is not natural. That's not natural because what's natural
Speaker 1: is for us to be wary of strangers. Yeah, to
Speaker 1: have a little bit of distance. But it's very seductive
Speaker 1: when people do that. You're not the toxic type. Well, well,
Speaker 1: that's glad to hear that. I do sometimes want to
Speaker 1: just somehow like a false turn off my you know,
Speaker 1: like I've got to answer all my email that, you
Speaker 1: know what I mean, that kind of people pleaser. It's
Speaker 1: like I gotta gotta answer all the emails, got to
Speaker 1: like you know, check this box in this box, and
Speaker 1: and sometimes I just want to just like give myself
Speaker 1: permission to just like I'm taking a day off from
Speaker 1: pleasing anyone. You know. Yeah, well that maybe should be
Speaker 1: part of your shadow side that you're labeled to get out.
Speaker 1: I like that. Oh gosh, I'm going to embrace that
Speaker 1: shadow side once a week. How about one like Sunday's
Speaker 1: or something. I've been starting to do that, Like Sundays,
Speaker 1: be like, that's my dark side day. So yeah, let
Speaker 1: me get to some of my my last couple that
Speaker 1: I think take us into more of a higher nature,
Speaker 1: because some people listening to this podcast might feel like
Speaker 1: we're kind of maybe stuck in the look in a way.
Speaker 1: But that's not all of your book, and so I
Speaker 1: want to make that very very clear by focusing on
Speaker 1: some of these others. So you say, advance with a
Speaker 1: sense of purpose. So we do have as part of
Speaker 1: our human nature of the capacity for a sense of
Speaker 1: mission or a pro social drive to get outside of ourselves.
Speaker 1: Is that right? Yes? That chapter is sort of an
Speaker 1: elaboration or a continuation of Mastery of a chapter in Mastery,
Speaker 1: And essentially I'm saying, as part of our nature. The
Speaker 1: problem that we humans face is that we don't seem
Speaker 1: to be born with a purpose. Like today, I wake
Speaker 1: up and I could play golf, although I don't play golf.
Speaker 1: Or I could get drunk, or I could try and
Speaker 1: start writing my novel, or I could just go watch
Speaker 1: a movie, or I could read a book. Nothing tells
Speaker 1: me what I have to do. You know, there's no
Speaker 1: direction in life. And I feel that that is what
Speaker 1: causes a deep degrees of pain in people, the sense
Speaker 1: that they have no natural direction in life. What guides
Speaker 1: me towards this career, what guides me towards having this
Speaker 1: partner in my life? Why am I doing this instead
Speaker 1: of that? And that sense of swimming in the sea
Speaker 1: of possibility of being able to do anything can create
Speaker 1: deep wells of depression and pain in people. And you know,
Speaker 1: an animal has a built in sense of purpose. They
Speaker 1: know who they are. A tiger as a tiger, a
Speaker 1: dog is a dog. We don't know what we were
Speaker 1: intended to do. But I maintain that we do have
Speaker 1: a sense of purpose actually, but it's hidden. We have
Speaker 1: to discover it. It It doesn't come immediately apparent to us
Speaker 1: when we're suddenly twenty one years old. When we enter
Speaker 1: the workworld, it actually involves a process. But if you
Speaker 1: can discover this sense of purpose, I call it a
Speaker 1: form of internal radar. Now gives you a sense of
Speaker 1: direction and a sense of channeling your energies. This is
Speaker 1: where I should go, not wasting my time over there.
Speaker 1: It gives you concentrated energy and force, and it's an
Speaker 1: extremely liberating and beautiful thing to discover that sense of purpose.
Speaker 1: Once you have it, everything kind of falls into place.
Speaker 1: You're able to prioritize your life. And a lot of
Speaker 1: young people, particularly nowadays, are really really suffering in this
Speaker 1: way because in some ways, like with the Internet, you
Speaker 1: believe that this whole feast is opened up in front
Speaker 1: of you, that you can learn anything that you want,
Speaker 1: that you could become this or that, or you know,
Speaker 1: tomorrow I could study online and become a great psychologist
Speaker 1: or something whatever it is. But you know it's not true.
Speaker 1: It's not true that you can become anything. You only
Speaker 1: have a limited amount of time and a limited amount
Speaker 1: of energy, and that sense of purpose comes from the
Speaker 1: fact that you have to be aware of what makes
Speaker 1: you different. I was very much taken by a phrase
Speaker 1: that Maslow used in that book that I mentioned. He
Speaker 1: calls it impulse voices, And what he meant by impulse
Speaker 1: voices is an infant knows that it likes this particular food,
Speaker 1: and it eats it and it enjoys it. It's an
Speaker 1: impulse voice saying this is what I like, what I love.
Speaker 1: And when we're young, we feel these voices. They say
Speaker 1: this is I love, you know, playing sports, I love music,
Speaker 1: et cetera. And what happens is most people, as they
Speaker 1: get older, lose that impulse voice. They don't longer know
Speaker 1: what they like or what they dislike. They only know
Speaker 1: what other people like and dislike, and they're conforming to that.
Speaker 1: Oh that kind of movie or entertainment is cool, I
Speaker 1: better like it, Whereas in fact it may not be
Speaker 1: natural or authentic to you. You have impulse voices. They
Speaker 1: were telling you when you were three or four, what
Speaker 1: you naturally love, what you gravitate towards. What is an
Speaker 1: intellectual area that you should be moving towards them. I
Speaker 1: don't mean just into sellectual. It could be working with
Speaker 1: your hands or working with other people, et cetera, or
Speaker 1: sports or physical activity. You know, I'm very much taken
Speaker 1: in by Gardner's book The Five Frames of Mind, that
Speaker 1: there are five forms of intelligence, that every person has
Speaker 1: a natural bent towards one of these forms of intelligence,
Speaker 1: and you need to connect to that. That voice is
Speaker 1: deep within you. It's an impulse voice. It's telling you,
Speaker 1: you know, what makes you different, what makes you special,
Speaker 1: what makes your energy different from other people's energy, and
Speaker 1: that is your internal radar system. You know, the Oracle
Speaker 1: of Delphi, the main font of wisdom was know thyself.
Speaker 1: So the ability to know who you are, what makes
Speaker 1: you different, what makes you unique, is to me the
Speaker 1: key towards fulfillment in life. And so, you know, I
Speaker 1: kind of describe a way to discover that path, to
Speaker 1: discover those impulse voices later on when they're drowned out
Speaker 1: by other things and get closer to it. But it's
Speaker 1: it's also a matter of not listening so much to
Speaker 1: your parents, to other people, and getting in tune with
Speaker 1: what makes you different and unique and following that path.
Speaker 1: But you know, you talk about that in mastery, right,
Speaker 1: That's a very big, big component of mastery is getting
Speaker 1: in touch with that. But you say you discover your
Speaker 1: the life's task. That seems similar, right, Yes, it is.
Speaker 1: That's exactly what I'm talking Yeah. Yeah, And then I
Speaker 1: noticed also, like you talk about in a way, this
Speaker 1: current book is like a grand integration right of lots
Speaker 1: of prior walls, because you also talk about the you know,
Speaker 1: how to create an air of mystery, and that was
Speaker 1: in your walls of seduction. Yeah, So it's sort of
Speaker 1: coming together of all the things that I've written into
Speaker 1: this is sort of what grounds all of them, is,
Speaker 1: what's lying the laws underneath all of them. Yeah. But
Speaker 1: just to say one more thing about the sense of purpose.
Speaker 1: I don't mind wax sort of poetic here, but for
Speaker 1: a moment I will, which is I believe that this
Speaker 1: kind of diversity in nature, which is embedded in you
Speaker 1: as you're listening to this podcast, in your DNA and
Speaker 1: what makes you different is actually has a purpose to
Speaker 1: it that we know in ecosystems, when there's a diversity
Speaker 1: in that ecosystem, that things thrive and it becomes a
Speaker 1: self fulfilling process where more in different forms of life
Speaker 1: can evolve. And we know that when a culture has
Speaker 1: a variety of people and a variety of voices, that
Speaker 1: culture is much richer. That's what made Athens in the
Speaker 1: fifth century BC, or Renaissance Italy, or France during the Enlightenment,
Speaker 1: or perhaps Paris in the nineteen twenties, these moments of
Speaker 1: tremendous cultural ferment. But there's incredible diversity of people and
Speaker 1: ideas in there. And so diversity is a positive thing
Speaker 1: for humans in our culture. It's a necessity, I would say.
Speaker 1: And you bringing out your uniqueness, you being Scott very
Speaker 1: Kaufman and finding a way to blame and psychology with
Speaker 1: your podcast, with your books and put it a unique
Speaker 1: my quirky personality. Your quirky personality is fulfilling that sense
Speaker 1: of purpose, that diversity. It's like you're contributing to something
Speaker 1: that's extremely necessary. You know. It's like, well, thank you,
Speaker 1: I hope. So sometimes you know, you don't know. I
Speaker 1: guess you have to really trust that we got lots
Speaker 1: of voices, right, Like, we've got voices that are trying
Speaker 1: to take us away from that purpose, you know, that
Speaker 1: are trying to steer us in a self destructive way.
Speaker 1: So I mean, honing that intuition to tell the difference
Speaker 1: between all these competing impulses is part of the task itself, right, Yes,
Speaker 1: it is, I know. So for instance, for my life,
Speaker 1: I didn't start writing The forty eight Laws of Power,
Speaker 1: my first book, until I was thirty eight, and up
Speaker 1: until that moment, I was kind of a lost cause,
Speaker 1: and even my parents were on the verge of giving
Speaker 1: up on me. And you know, I knew that I
Speaker 1: wanted to write from very early age, but I couldn't
Speaker 1: figure out what I wanted to do, what kind of writing,
Speaker 1: and I messed around. I tried journalism, I tried Hollywood,
Speaker 1: I tried writing plays, novels, and I was really depressed.
Speaker 1: But I had a sense of overall framework. This is
Speaker 1: what I was headed towards. It was writing, but I
Speaker 1: couldn't channel it the right way, and it was causing
Speaker 1: a lot of pain. And then I discovered, through writing
Speaker 1: a book, this is what I was meant to do,
Speaker 1: and it completely eased got rid of all of that
Speaker 1: pain in my life because now I know I don't
Speaker 1: waste my time. I don't start thinking, oh I should
Speaker 1: start writing a screenplay, Oh I should start writing for
Speaker 1: the New York Times magazine or whatever. No, my energy
Speaker 1: is focused on this. This is what I was meant
Speaker 1: to do, This is what it feels right, and it
Speaker 1: cuts out a lot of you know, tangents that I
Speaker 1: could take and wasted time, and it makes me feel
Speaker 1: very guided, and it is a powerful force. You say,
Speaker 1: I'm going to quote Robert Green again quote operating with
Speaker 1: a higher sense of purpose is a force multiplier. All
Speaker 1: of your decisions and actions have greater power behind them
Speaker 1: because they're guided by a central idea and purpose. So
Speaker 1: you're getting more bang for your buck by choosing wisely. Yeah,
Speaker 1: because you only have so much energy in life, and
Speaker 1: when you focus it on something that you want or
Speaker 1: that you love, you're able to accomplish something in one
Speaker 1: year that would have taken you ten years if your
Speaker 1: energies are diffused. You know, we only learn when we
Speaker 1: really learned something deeply, when we're excited by the subject.
Speaker 1: So if we're forced to study physics in high school,
Speaker 1: it goes in one ear or out the other. But
Speaker 1: if we love it like an Einstein, you know, by
Speaker 1: the time you're fourteen or fifteen, you're already on your
Speaker 1: way to becoming a genius because you love it so
Speaker 1: much you want to devote all of your energy and
Speaker 1: you learn really quickly because you're motivated, and so it's
Speaker 1: a force multiplier. In that it concentrates your energy on
Speaker 1: something that you love and it makes you learn more quickly.
Speaker 1: This doesn't mean that you have to focus your whole
Speaker 1: life on one thing. The beauty of this purpose is
Speaker 1: that it can mean combining three or four some central
Speaker 1: interests in your life. You know, I talk in Mastery
Speaker 1: about da Vinci, his interest in architecture, engineering, in science,
Speaker 1: in painting, et cetera, all kind of an anatomy. He
Speaker 1: was able to combine all of these things into something
Speaker 1: very unique. So you could combine several interests. But there's
Speaker 1: an overall framework and overall purpose to that. Yes, and
Speaker 1: we can also be wored by false purposes, which we
Speaker 1: just touched on that for a second, and use the phrase.
Speaker 1: I love this phrase, transcendence on the cheap, and it
Speaker 1: made me think of Maslow's phrase that I saw a
Speaker 1: footnote of one of his books. He called it pseudo growth.
Speaker 1: I think we can have pseudo transcendence as well, because
Speaker 1: he defines pseudo growth as you know, growth built on
Speaker 1: a shaky fountain right of needs. Well, what I'm trying
Speaker 1: to say in the false purpose section is the need
Speaker 1: for a purpose is so deep in humans that if
Speaker 1: we don't find it through what I'm talking about finding
Speaker 1: your career path to your life's task. We will find
Speaker 1: it in other ways. We will find it in the
Speaker 1: pursuit of pleasure, will become a hedonist and that will
Speaker 1: give us a sense of pleasure a sense of purpose,
Speaker 1: or will go in money and becoming successful will become
Speaker 1: our sense of purpose. But that money is not really
Speaker 1: a sense of purpose because it's soul as it's not
Speaker 1: connected to who you are. And a lot of people
Speaker 1: who have a one track mind about obsessed about making
Speaker 1: money end up burning themselves out in their mid thirties,
Speaker 1: becoming alcoholics, porn addicts, whatever. And you know, that kind
Speaker 1: of shadow side comes creeping out. Other kinds of things.
Speaker 1: Would be some sort of cause or cult that you
Speaker 1: can join that will give you a sense of purpose.
Speaker 1: You know, you could feel alienated in your town in
Speaker 1: Illinois and becoming a white supremacist or not trying to
Speaker 1: gloss this over, does literally give you a sense of purpose.
Speaker 1: You're part of a group, you have a cause, you
Speaker 1: believe in, getting some a sense of belonging, a belonging
Speaker 1: and that here is a narrative about what's wrong with
Speaker 1: the world and how we can fix it and everything
Speaker 1: will be great and right. So that can give you
Speaker 1: a sense of purpose as well. But these are faults
Speaker 1: and they lead into rabbit holes, and they don't lead
Speaker 1: to anything deeply fulfilling in the sense that I try
Speaker 1: and say that, you know, or attention can become a
Speaker 1: false sense of purpose that a lot of people have
Speaker 1: now on social media getting the most amount of attention.
Speaker 1: But if you're feeling very empty, the thing is when
Speaker 1: you have a real sense of purpose, you know, when
Speaker 1: you've reached something like I wrote this book, I feel
Speaker 1: good about it, and now I go on to the
Speaker 1: next book. How do you know when you have enough money?
Speaker 1: How do you know when you have enough attention from
Speaker 1: other people? How do you know? It's never enough? Well,
Speaker 1: it's never enough. Yeah, it never leads to anything, to
Speaker 1: an endpoint, to something that fulfills you or that you
Speaker 1: can you know. It's a good point. It's a very
Speaker 1: good point. They describe in the literature the psychologial difference
Speaker 1: between authentic pride and hebristic pride. And it seems like
Speaker 1: you're saying we should really foster our authentic pride and
Speaker 1: earned accomplishments. It's another chapter, I talk about grandiosity, which
Speaker 1: is influenced another chapter influenced by Cohud, and I try
Speaker 1: and make the distinction that we all have grandiose tendencies
Speaker 1: to get out of this notion that only some people
Speaker 1: are grandiose. Grandiosity is built into human nature in a
Speaker 1: very deep level, and I don't think it's necessarily a negative.
Speaker 1: I have what I call practical grandiosity, the sense that
Speaker 1: you can actually feel great and greater than yourself through
Speaker 1: your work, through making something that contributes to society. Is
Speaker 1: a practical and realistic form of grandiosity that is healthy.
Speaker 1: Combining these, it seems like having a sense of purpose,
Speaker 1: and combining that with understanding the historical moment and having
Speaker 1: awareness is going to be even a more potent force
Speaker 1: because your purpose will really resonate with the most amount
Speaker 1: of people within your generation. Yeah. I have a chapter
Speaker 1: on the zeitgeist Dan, becoming aware of your generation. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and the spirit of the generation and your sense of
Speaker 1: purpose should fit in with that in some ways. Yeah. Yeah, Okay,
Speaker 1: So I'm going to end with Edroid one of your
Speaker 1: mindful of time. I want to end with this notion
Speaker 1: of open the mind to the sublime. I thought that
Speaker 1: would be. I can't think of a better way of
Speaker 1: ending this conversation with opening your mind to the sublime?
Speaker 1: Any tips for doing that in thirty seconds? I've always
Speaker 1: intended to write a book on the sublime, and it's
Speaker 1: still on my list. I will do it before I die, hopefully.
Speaker 1: Oh you you should. How do we do that though?
Speaker 1: And when you call it the sublime or something like that, yeah,
Speaker 1: I call it towards the Sublime? Yeah. I like that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's a subject in a word that fascinates me, and
Speaker 1: I can't really give it the thirty second treatment, so
Speaker 1: I'll do my best here. I have it in the
Speaker 1: chapter about confronting your Mortality about you know, as far
Speaker 1: as when it comes to human nature, we're the only
Speaker 1: animal that's aware of our mortality and how deeply deeply
Speaker 1: that has wounded us and created all kinds of reactions
Speaker 1: that we're still paying for that we're deeply afraid of
Speaker 1: our mortality and we're fleeing from it, and it creates continual,
Speaker 1: latent anxiety in people. And in the past, people fled
Speaker 1: this sense of mortality through creating it the afterlife, in
Speaker 1: a sense that death is not the end and now
Speaker 1: we flee it by never confronting the reality of death,
Speaker 1: by never seeing a dead person in hospital, by never
Speaker 1: seeing an animal that we eat being killed, by having
Speaker 1: movies filled with kind of cartoonish violence, as if death
Speaker 1: is just like a cartoon thing. So we're in deep,
Speaker 1: deep denial about death in the year twenty eighteen. And
Speaker 1: the sublime is a word that literally means up to
Speaker 1: the threshold from Latin m a threshold. Okay, up to
Speaker 1: the threshold, and it literally The ancient conception of it
Speaker 1: from the Latin writers was that death is the ultimate threshold.
Speaker 1: When you cross that, you don't know what it is.
Speaker 1: We have no idea what death means. The sublime is
Speaker 1: moving up to that threshold. So death is something so
Speaker 1: awesome and so vast that our puny little minds can't
Speaker 1: wrap ourselves around it. Nobody on Scott Berry Kaufman's podcast
Speaker 1: find It It's too great, It's too fast to think
Speaker 1: that you can is rather grandiose, and a lot of
Speaker 1: scientists can be rather grandiose in that sense. It's too vast,
Speaker 1: But a sublime moment is creating that sense of confronting
Speaker 1: anything in life that is almost too vast. To comprehend
Speaker 1: that you can't put it in words, and a lot
Speaker 1: of religions have this notion. The sublime is a notion.
Speaker 1: It's very important in Buddhism. I recently discovered it in Christianity,
Speaker 1: in what is known as the via negativa, which is
Speaker 1: you cannot know God through words. It is nonverbal. It
Speaker 1: is something so vast, so superior to you that only
Speaker 1: in moments of meditation can you begin to experience that
Speaker 1: shiver of the sublime, of something too big for even
Speaker 1: words to encapsulate. And so I believe there are sublime
Speaker 1: moments that we can create in life by opening our
Speaker 1: minds intellectually to experiences that are just blow you away.
Speaker 1: So I have a simple banal example of think of
Speaker 1: yourself that you're alive right now, and think of the
Speaker 1: fact that three billion years ago life on planet Earth began,
Speaker 1: and it was extremely unlikely that life ever began. It
Speaker 1: had a particular combination of chemicals that occurred and life started,
Speaker 1: and so many other planets are lifeless. It was like
Speaker 1: this freak occurrence that occurred. Then in this freak occurrence
Speaker 1: was a vast chain of evolution in which animals were
Speaker 1: appearing and disappearing in very rapid rates. And near the
Speaker 1: end of that comes this weird animal to primate, and
Speaker 1: then comes these early hominids and these early humans, of
Speaker 1: which there were maybe ten different varieties of and nine
Speaker 1: of them disappeared, never to reappear again Australopithecus, etc. But
Speaker 1: one survived, Homo sapiens. And at some point Homo sapiens
Speaker 1: was probably on the verge of extinction because we were
Speaker 1: so small in number, yet we survived. And if we hadn't,
Speaker 1: I would be on a podcast with Scott Barry Hoffman
Speaker 1: right now, and so on and on. You go down
Speaker 1: this chain, and each person meeting another person, having children,
Speaker 1: your parents meeting and begetting you, to use a biblical word,
Speaker 1: depended on all sorts of freak occurrences of other people
Speaker 1: meeting other people meeting other people. You wouldn't have been
Speaker 1: you if your parents hadn't met who. I don't know.
Speaker 1: I don't have the philosophical answer. Maybe you would. Your
Speaker 1: atoms would have been in something else. But the fact
Speaker 1: that that you're you right here stands at the end
Speaker 1: of this insane chain of causation that is so unlikely.
Speaker 1: And if you thought about it. It It would blow your
Speaker 1: mind away, and you would never commit think of committing
Speaker 1: suicide because you would realize that to be alive. It's
Speaker 1: this remarkable, incredible thing that you're conscious, that you're aware
Speaker 1: that is a very sublime thought. And I have others
Speaker 1: that I can talk about, you know, like, what is
Speaker 1: it that you know? I'm very fascinated by the idea
Speaker 1: of how animals think. What is the reality for a
Speaker 1: bad or for a bee. It's completely different from our reality.
Speaker 1: To sort of submerge yourself in what their intelligence and
Speaker 1: what their reality would be is kind of you can't
Speaker 1: intellectually understand it, but you can have a moment of Wow,
Speaker 1: that's amazing. It's beyond anything I can begin to put
Speaker 1: into words. And these things take you out of our banality.
Speaker 1: We're bathed in banality right now in the world. Right now,
Speaker 1: we're bathed in cheap entertainment in all sorts of trivial
Speaker 1: gossip about celebrities. We're obsessed with Donald Trump. We're kind
Speaker 1: of lost in these kind of obsessive thoughts. And the
Speaker 1: sublime opens your mind up to something vaster, and it's
Speaker 1: very liberating and it's very therapeutic, and I want to
Speaker 1: eventually write a book that sort of bathes you in
Speaker 1: the sublime, but in this chapter I sort of show
Speaker 1: you some ways to kind of start to approach that threshold.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much that I can't wait for that book,
Speaker 1: and I have to end on that note. I mean,
Speaker 1: there's nothing I could possibly ask after that that would
Speaker 1: be any more transcendent or higher reach of our human nature.
Speaker 1: So thank you so much for all the work you've
Speaker 1: done through all your books, and really I've learned so
Speaker 1: much from them in literally half of my existence. And
Speaker 1: thanks for being on the chat today. Well, thank you, Scott.
Speaker 1: I must say your interviews are one of the most
Speaker 1: enjoyable for me because I bring out my nerd. Yay,
Speaker 1: I don't have to repress it. No, no, none of
Speaker 1: my guests should ever have to feel like they have
Speaker 1: to repress their nerd. I can talk about COHO and
Speaker 1: not feel like I'm being proposed. Yeah you sure, Ken,
Speaker 1: Thanks Robert, Thanks Scott, Thanks for listening to the Psychology Podcast.
Speaker 1: I hope you enjoyed this episode. If you'd like to
Speaker 1: react in some way to something you heard, I encourage
Speaker 1: you to join in the discussion at the Psychology Podcast
Speaker 1: dot com. That's the Psychology podcast dot com. Also please
Speaker 1: add our reading and review of the podcast on iTunes.
Speaker 1: Thanks for being such a great supporter of the podcast,
Speaker 1: and tune in next season for more on the mind, brain, behavior,
Speaker 1: and creativity.