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. You 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. Hi. Everyone,
Speaker 1: Today we're going to do something a bit different. I'm
Speaker 1: going to be the guest today on the Psychology Podcast.
Speaker 1: I'm going to be interviewed by the physicist Sean Carroll
Speaker 1: about my new book, Transcend, the New Science of Self Actualization,
Speaker 1: which is out this week. Book is a culmination of
Speaker 1: many years of my research and readings of the wisdom
Speaker 1: of the humanist psychologists from the thirties to sixties. I
Speaker 1: think that a lot of their ideas about how to
Speaker 1: become our best selves, how to fully realize our potential
Speaker 1: and even transcend and have peak experiences, these most wondrous
Speaker 1: moments that make life worth living even despite great times
Speaker 1: of great uncertainty, very important ideas that I'm trying to
Speaker 1: bring back and I think Maslow matters more now than ever.
Speaker 1: So just a little bit of a bio about my
Speaker 1: interviewer today. Sean Carol is a theoretical physicist specializing in
Speaker 1: quantum mechanics, gravitation, cosmology, statistical mechanics, and foundations of physics,
Speaker 1: with occasional dabblings elsewhere. Sean is Research Professor of Physics
Speaker 1: at Caltech and external professor at the Santa Fe Institute.
Speaker 1: His latest book, Something Deeply Hidden, is about quantum mechanics,
Speaker 1: many worlds, and the emergence of time. His excellent podcast
Speaker 1: is called Mindscape, where he interviews smart people about interesting ideas.
Speaker 1: It was truly an honor for me to appear on
Speaker 1: his show, and I'm really excited to share that interview
Speaker 1: with you all today. Scott Berry Kaufman, Welcome to the
Speaker 1: Mindscape podcast. Oh thanks, Shan. I've been looking forward to
Speaker 1: this chat for a while. You know, I thought while
Speaker 1: thinking about this chat that in some ways psychology is
Speaker 1: as ambitious as physics and cosmology. Right, Like physics and
Speaker 1: cosmology tries to understand the whole universe, which is very big,
Speaker 1: but psychology tries to understand people, which are very complicated.
Speaker 1: The idea of writing a book that actually gives useful
Speaker 1: advice to people living their lives and how they think
Speaker 1: and things like that. It's a daunting task. So before
Speaker 1: we get into before we even get into the details,
Speaker 1: I mean, what are your thoughts about the hubris of
Speaker 1: being a psychologist and trying to help people with psychology? Okay? Sure? Yeah,
Speaker 1: So I think in a lot of ways, one could
Speaker 1: make the argument that studying humans is more complicated than
Speaker 1: studying the universe. Oh yeah, I get more communicated. Doubt
Speaker 1: well it let me. I was like, let me elaborate,
Speaker 1: because I feel like those are fighting words perhaps for
Speaker 1: you know, physicists. But I think that, you know, in
Speaker 1: some ways, humans are more unpredictable then you know, we
Speaker 1: get the sun. You know, you get the sun. Okay,
Speaker 1: the sun rotates. Yeah that's fine. Okay, no, no, no,
Speaker 1: but I'm joking. But you know, we get we get
Speaker 1: how the universe works in some ways, right, and there's
Speaker 1: a certain predictability or regularity there, right, But my gosh,
Speaker 1: studying humans is so confusing because we first of all,
Speaker 1: there's individual differences, and as you know, that's the area
Speaker 1: that I focus on mostly. I'm fascinated with human variation,
Speaker 1: and when you start looking at individual differences, then it's
Speaker 1: kind of like all bets are off in a sense.
Speaker 1: So some psychologists focus the universals and that may give
Speaker 1: us a false sense of predictability about humans. But then
Speaker 1: you say, well, well what if we look at the
Speaker 1: variation that you're as, Oh my gosh, like these these
Speaker 1: general principles really break down because you have this a
Speaker 1: hole who broke all the rules, you know what I mean.
Speaker 1: It's like with the universe. You don't have that many
Speaker 1: a holes, you know, who get out of line when
Speaker 1: you have the equation that's beautiful. When when you come
Speaker 1: up with the beautiful equation? Am I right? You know? Yeah? No,
Speaker 1: I mean this is why it's not fighting words at all.
Speaker 1: Like I think that physicists and cosmologists be the first
Speaker 1: to agree that studying human beings is way more complicated.
Speaker 1: I mean, that's the beauty of physics is that it
Speaker 1: actually is at heart super simple and elegant and pristine.
Speaker 1: But aside from so, so we totally agree that human
Speaker 1: beings are complicated and hard. So what gives you the
Speaker 1: sort of you know, how do you get through the
Speaker 1: day telling yourself, and nevertheless, I have really good insights
Speaker 1: to share with you all. Yeah, especially with all these
Speaker 1: replication crisses happening and and the fact that a lot
Speaker 1: of things aren't aren't coming out well. I think that
Speaker 1: it's just there's a spirit and excitement of let me
Speaker 1: share with you what we discovered. But I think that
Speaker 1: you have to have that humility as a psychologist to
Speaker 1: not say we've found it once and for all in
Speaker 1: any sort of way, and and to not have such
Speaker 1: confidence that people can't change as well. You see, there's
Speaker 1: a lot of research on what is, and I think
Speaker 1: there's a dearth of research in psychology and what could be,
Speaker 1: you know. I mean, there are people to try to
Speaker 1: do interventions, and a lot of interventions don't work. But
Speaker 1: you do see this tendency, especially like in the intelligence field,
Speaker 1: for instance, there's been no good intervention. I'm going to
Speaker 1: say this, you know right now, there's been no really
Speaker 1: strong intervention that has dramatically improved IQ scorers and intelligence researchers.
Speaker 1: There's a bunch of intelligence researchers who almost get a
Speaker 1: lee from that finding, which I don't understand why there's
Speaker 1: a glee for it. You know, but almost a sense
Speaker 1: of like, see, we told you intelligence, don't you know,
Speaker 1: none of that doesn't change, but that it's it's pretty
Speaker 1: genetically determined, you know, or influence, very heavily influenced, and
Speaker 1: and and yet I still want to maintain the spirit of,
Speaker 1: oh that's interesting. Well, let's just keep trying, you know,
Speaker 1: like like we shouldn't. It's not like we just stopped
Speaker 1: trying to do interventions just because we haven't been able
Speaker 1: to find the one that that really had a striking effect.
Speaker 1: You know, you're interested in the sort of the engineering
Speaker 1: and technology side of psychology as well as the science
Speaker 1: descriptive side of tech of psychology. Yeah, I think equally,
Speaker 1: which makes me weird, and not only weird, but it
Speaker 1: makes me it makes me have a fight within a
Speaker 1: civil war within myself because I have That was a
Speaker 1: phrase mas Well used these. You know, it's in terms
Speaker 1: of like trying to become integrated human beings, you know,
Speaker 1: like we need to we need to transcend that civil
Speaker 1: war within ourselves, these these these different sides of ourselves
Speaker 1: that are fighting each other. But you know, I have
Speaker 1: the scientist hat, and when that hat is on in
Speaker 1: full force, it does not really like the intervention hat
Speaker 1: or side of myself, and when the intervention side of
Speaker 1: myself is on, I'm like, I'm not really into the
Speaker 1: scientist that much. So it is it is an interesting
Speaker 1: sort of balance that I that I try to strike
Speaker 1: within myself. Well, you mentioned Maslow. Tell us about Maslow
Speaker 1: is we're going to go into your new book this
Speaker 1: is coming out called Transcendence. Is that right? That's it's
Speaker 1: called transcends. That's a verb, got it, transcend Is it?
Speaker 1: Is it like an order you're giving people or telling
Speaker 1: imperative please transcend? Yes, yes, that's the idea. It's an action,
Speaker 1: you know, action word for sure. It's it's a hopefully
Speaker 1: an inspirational north Star kind of book that kind of
Speaker 1: shows what humans could be. Well, and it builds all
Speaker 1: the work of Abraham Maslow. So tell us a little
Speaker 1: bit about who he is. I mean, we all we've
Speaker 1: all heard of him, but fill us in as if
Speaker 1: we didn't know. Oh good, I'm really glad you said that,
Speaker 1: because I've had other people be well, no one's not
Speaker 1: good good nosing Maslow is? Why should anyone care about
Speaker 1: your book? I'm like, thanks, appreciate that. So I like
Speaker 1: your attitude about that. Everyone knows mass well. I think
Speaker 1: most people who've taken an introductory psychology class, who have
Speaker 1: taken an introductory management class, have come across Maslow's writings. Yeah,
Speaker 1: for sure, I've come across at least if they never
Speaker 1: even heard of Maso, have come across that iconic pyramid. Now,
Speaker 1: so Abraham Azo was a humanistic psychologist, or the pyramid?
Speaker 1: Is the hierarchy of needs that we're talking about. Correct
Speaker 1: Maso's hierarchy of needs, and it's usually depicted as a
Speaker 1: pyramid where you have an order of needs that must
Speaker 1: be met before one can become everything they're capable of
Speaker 1: becoming self, which is labeled self actualization. Now, this is
Speaker 1: the story. This is the this is the story that's
Speaker 1: being told to so many introductory psychology management students and
Speaker 1: people who see it diagrammed on the internet. However, it
Speaker 1: turns out that Maso never drew a pyramid, and and
Speaker 1: there's so many misc inceptions about the hierarchy of needs.
Speaker 1: It's it's incorrect, how how it's been taught the past
Speaker 1: sixty years. So he did incorrect a list of needs,
Speaker 1: a hierarchy, but he just never drew them in the
Speaker 1: form of a pyramid. Correct, he never conceptualized in that way.
Speaker 1: His theory was very developmental. He made it very clear
Speaker 1: that we are constantly in this dynamic of moving two
Speaker 1: steps forward and one step back, and that we can
Speaker 1: also that we can we can target multiple needs simultaneously.
Speaker 1: We don't have the weight to start self actualizing until
Speaker 1: everything else is done, until we check all the boxes.
Speaker 1: And also it's is, I like to say in the
Speaker 1: book Later Life is not a video game. It's not
Speaker 1: like we reach one level of the hierarchy like connection
Speaker 1: and then some voice from above is like, congrats, you've
Speaker 1: unlocked esteem, you know, moratl Kombat or something. It's just
Speaker 1: that's not the way the world works. And Maso was
Speaker 1: very clear about that. So I really tried to infuse
Speaker 1: the spirit of what Maso actually meant as well as
Speaker 1: the rest of the humanistic psychologist. And it really is
Speaker 1: an attempt more globally in this day and age, in
Speaker 1: this world today to bring back a lot of the
Speaker 1: ideas of the humanistic psychologists that have been lost. But
Speaker 1: tell us what the hierarchy is, what are the levels
Speaker 1: the original model and I revised it. I revised it,
Speaker 1: but in the original model, you had the safety needs
Speaker 1: or sorry even had below that. You had physiological needs
Speaker 1: like food, water, shelter, and you had safety needs need
Speaker 1: for a certain sense of predictability in your environment. And
Speaker 1: then you have belonging in love and he lumped them together,
Speaker 1: which I've teased them apart, and we can talk about
Speaker 1: that in my my revised model. But he had love
Speaker 1: and belonging together, and then he had esteem needs, which
Speaker 1: is esteem from others. You know, that was a big
Speaker 1: component of self esteem. It's the esteem that others hold
Speaker 1: us in. Both I would say he has two self
Speaker 1: components of that, both esteem from others as well as
Speaker 1: our own self esteem. But the problem with that is
Speaker 1: it's hard to actually disentangle that because we do draw
Speaker 1: so much of our own self esteem on the esteem
Speaker 1: it's almost like redundant in like ninety percent of humans.
Speaker 1: And then but then you can get to the self
Speaker 1: actualized individual. So that's so that's the next level is
Speaker 1: self actualization. So they's a big it's a big leap.
Speaker 1: It's I've always viewed that as quite a jump. I'm like, okay,
Speaker 1: I feel you know, really pumped up ego wise boom,
Speaker 1: Now can self actualize. I I you know, it seems
Speaker 1: to be a lot of steps along the way there,
Speaker 1: and in a lot of ways. That's what I try
Speaker 1: to do in my book is connect those dots. And
Speaker 1: I mean I took self actualization out as a stage.
Speaker 1: It's not because it's not like we ever reach again,
Speaker 1: life is not a video game. It's not like you
Speaker 1: ever reach self actuization and then you win the princess
Speaker 1: or whatever that was, whatever, my my video game metaphor
Speaker 1: from most people understand just an ordinary language, the words
Speaker 1: you know, physiology, safety, love, belonging, esteem, but self actualization.
Speaker 1: I'm betting most people heard either directly or indirectly from
Speaker 1: Meslow's hierarchy of needs. Can you can you tell us
Speaker 1: a little bit about what he meant by that concept?
Speaker 1: Maslow talks about in different ways, but there is one
Speaker 1: quote he used to if you give me a moment
Speaker 1: to actually find it, I really love this quote. It
Speaker 1: was the best description of self actualization I could find. Okay, Sure,
Speaker 1: So I found an unpublished essay that he really wanted
Speaker 1: to publish. He was calling it critique of self actualization.
Speaker 1: This was really his attack. He really wanted to publish
Speaker 1: this before he died and instead it was left in
Speaker 1: an unpublished collection. But this is the quote, and I
Speaker 1: think this really gets the heart of what he really
Speaker 1: thought about self actuisation. We try to make a rose
Speaker 1: into a good rose, rather than seek to change roses
Speaker 1: into lilli's. It necessitates a pleasure in the self actualization
Speaker 1: of a person who may be quite different from yourself.
Speaker 1: It even implies an ultimate respect and acknowledgment of the
Speaker 1: sacredness and uniqueness of each kind of person. So, in
Speaker 1: a lot of ways, he viewed self actualization as being
Speaker 1: able to real it's that unique part of your human
Speaker 1: potential that is unique to you. Because these other forms
Speaker 1: of these other needs, these these basic needs that I
Speaker 1: mentioned are things we all share and we're we're all
Speaker 1: striving toward. But the focus of self actuization is more
Speaker 1: in realizing that unique potential, potential potential within you that
Speaker 1: is in a lot of ways, some people would call
Speaker 1: it your best self, you know, in modern day language,
Speaker 1: although I don't like that phrase because I, you know,
Speaker 1: I think that there's no such thing as the real self. Well,
Speaker 1: I actually really don't like the phrase the real self
Speaker 1: because there's no such thing. But you know, but you know,
Speaker 1: I think that's really what he was getting at, was
Speaker 1: this this unique, full potential of what we can all
Speaker 1: for the world. And I do think he There are
Speaker 1: misconceptions about it as being selfish. So David Brooks, you know,
Speaker 1: the the New York Times columnist was hating a Maslow
Speaker 1: in a column a couple of years ago, and I
Speaker 1: was like, oh, hell no, I was reading the column
Speaker 1: you actually got even though you update him, you're you know,
Speaker 1: you're definitely is. I view him as a good friend,
Speaker 1: you know, who I've never met, you know, And I
Speaker 1: did what I do think as Maslow did. Mazwell thought
Speaker 1: this too, that we could have friends that from prior generations.
Speaker 1: It may sound a bit creepy, but but we could.
Speaker 1: You know, we can really have such a fondness for
Speaker 1: someone and get to know them so well. I mean,
Speaker 1: I met his Maslow's daughter only remaining daughter and granddaughter,
Speaker 1: granddaughter Jeanie, who he had ridden about lovingly in his
Speaker 1: personal journal Personal Diaries. Genie was three years old when
Speaker 1: Maso died, but he would say that Genie was the
Speaker 1: greatest source of my peak experiences in life. And it
Speaker 1: kills me knowing that I won't be able to live
Speaker 1: to see how Genie turns out. So it was such
Speaker 1: a peak experience for me to meet Genie, you know,
Speaker 1: and and and she's looking at me as we're talking.
Speaker 1: I'm geeking out over her grandfather, and she's like, my gosh,
Speaker 1: you know so much more about my grandfather than I
Speaker 1: know about my I even care to know about my grandfather.
Speaker 1: And there was there was something, there was something about
Speaker 1: that where it really made me feel connection to him
Speaker 1: even though I never met him. If that makes sense, yeah, no, absolutely,
Speaker 1: but the important good So that is very helpful to
Speaker 1: understanding self actualization. And I do want to move on
Speaker 1: to your version of this, so I don't want to
Speaker 1: spend too much time, but I do want to tease
Speaker 1: out the idea that it's a hierarchy, because this is
Speaker 1: both important but also can be overdone and caricatured. Right,
Speaker 1: the idea that it's a hierarchy being that first you
Speaker 1: solve all your physiological needs or secure them, and then
Speaker 1: then you go on to safety, and then you go
Speaker 1: onto a love, et cetera. And is that the way
Speaker 1: it works? Is that the way Maslow thought it worked,
Speaker 1: is that is that a good way of thinking about it. No,
Speaker 1: not that we must one hundred percent satisfy something before
Speaker 1: we can go onto the next That would be a
Speaker 1: mis representation case. He argued, at any given point in time,
Speaker 1: there's a certain percentage, certain fraction of each of those
Speaker 1: needs that we have satisfied. So right now I could
Speaker 1: ask you, I could go down the list with you
Speaker 1: and ask you, you know, maybe you're sixty percent connection,
Speaker 1: maybe you're ninety percent esteem, you're pretty few a lot
Speaker 1: of Twitter followers, maybe you're you know, very high in safety,
Speaker 1: and and then some other needs. You know, if we
Speaker 1: talk about some of my needs that I added, and
Speaker 1: we can go down the percentages. So I think he
Speaker 1: made it clear that at any given time we can
Speaker 1: target multiple needs simultaneously. We're not at one hundred percent
Speaker 1: on any of them. However, he did argue, he did
Speaker 1: make the case there was a hierarchy of prepotency is
Speaker 1: what he called it. And whenever I use that word
Speaker 1: in people, what are you talking about? I try to
Speaker 1: use that word my book. My public is like, no
Speaker 1: one's going to what prepotency means? Well, now what does
Speaker 1: he mean by that? Well? I think he are He
Speaker 1: did believe that there are certain needs that are he
Speaker 1: called deprivation needs. When we're deprived of these things, they
Speaker 1: they shift our entire worldview and and narrow in a sense,
Speaker 1: they narrow our worldview to a particular worldview, and they
Speaker 1: really do make it harder to be all that we
Speaker 1: could become, which is self actualization. So they really do
Speaker 1: get in the way of self actualization. And I think
Speaker 1: that is quite right. I think that what he really
Speaker 1: emphasized is not this lockstep progression of the of a triangle,
Speaker 1: you know, of like something that you have to climb,
Speaker 1: like a mountain new climb, but more of like an
Speaker 1: integrative process where if you don't have well integrated some
Speaker 1: of these deprivation needs, the whole system is really going
Speaker 1: to be out of whack. If that makes sense. Yeah, no,
Speaker 1: it actually does. It does make sense. But okay, so
Speaker 1: I think so there. But there's a hierarchy in the
Speaker 1: sense that in Maslow's view, some of these needs are
Speaker 1: a little bit more basic, even though you don't one
Speaker 1: hundred percent satisfy them before moving on. As I think
Speaker 1: you correctly point out, there is there are levels. They're
Speaker 1: not just a list in random order. Yes, there are
Speaker 1: levels which could be are I don't think that a
Speaker 1: firm scientific ground. We can say that the precise there
Speaker 1: is a precise order, because there's individual differences, there are
Speaker 1: culture differences in which of those are more propotent than others.
Speaker 1: We could probably all at the very basic level say
Speaker 1: that things like food, water, shelter are essential. I think, well,
Speaker 1: you know, there's some things that they're hard to argue universally,
Speaker 1: but there are some cultures where a steam might be
Speaker 1: more important than connection, or some cultures connection might be.
Speaker 1: What I really wanted to emphasize was was this this
Speaker 1: distinction between I didn't want to get hung up on
Speaker 1: the precise order, but I wanted to talk about the dialect,
Speaker 1: the very interesting dialect dialectical between security and growth. And
Speaker 1: that's really what what Maso was fascinated with was that
Speaker 1: dialectical and that leads us directly into your reimagining of it.
Speaker 1: So you've thrown away the pyramid two boring too stationary.
Speaker 1: You have a new metaphor. Yes, So I think a
Speaker 1: sail boat offers at multiple levels, so to speak, a
Speaker 1: different a better conceptisation of what it means to live
Speaker 1: a good life, what it means just just what it
Speaker 1: means to live life. Period. You know, we're all in
Speaker 1: this vast unknown of the sea. We're all traveling in
Speaker 1: our own direction, but we're all in kind of the
Speaker 1: same sea of unpredictability. We don't know when there's going
Speaker 1: to be waves coming. We have to secure our boat
Speaker 1: as much as possible before we can go anywhere. If
Speaker 1: there's a leak in our boat, if there's severe deprivations,
Speaker 1: we're not going anywhere. But once we can do that,
Speaker 1: we can feel safe and comfortable to open our sail.
Speaker 1: And how we open our sail also affects how where
Speaker 1: we can go, and how fast we can go, and
Speaker 1: all these things. So I really think that the sail
Speaker 1: boat does a nice job of capturing that that interaction
Speaker 1: between the boat and the sail, or between safety and growth.
Speaker 1: Right So you if I understand it correctly, the hull
Speaker 1: of the boat sitting there in the water is the
Speaker 1: story of our security and you know, these needs that
Speaker 1: we absolutely have to have met, whereas the sail of
Speaker 1: the boat and the air around it is the story
Speaker 1: of growth and change and trying to move through life
Speaker 1: in the best way we can. Yes, and at the
Speaker 1: top of this sail is purpose and really having a clear,
Speaker 1: clear direction and being very focused and having the whole unit.
Speaker 1: So another thing I like about the sail but metaphor
Speaker 1: is that it's all about an integration of a whole vehicle.
Speaker 1: It's the whole vehicle that travels through the ocean. You're
Speaker 1: not climbing piece by piece different parts of you up
Speaker 1: this mountain that it doesn't seem to be our humans
Speaker 1: or even how thermodynamic systems work. You know, like whole
Speaker 1: systems are greater than the sum of the parts. And
Speaker 1: that's a big, big thing I try to emphasize my
Speaker 1: book because I am into evolutionary psychology. I mean I
Speaker 1: went through a phase of evolis psychology maybe like fifteen
Speaker 1: years ago, where that I thought it was the cat's pajamas.
Speaker 1: And now what I want to do is I want
Speaker 1: to really show that humans can be greater than the
Speaker 1: sum of their parts. We're not just identified with our modules.
Speaker 1: So I think there's something we can use the evolutionary
Speaker 1: approach to understand the parts of us. But I'm ultimately
Speaker 1: interested in how the whole organism deals with those paradoxes
Speaker 1: of human existence and lives their own good life in
Speaker 1: their own way, you know, how do they self actualize
Speaker 1: in their own direction or as mass we put it,
Speaker 1: in their own style. And to me, that's what's really
Speaker 1: really fascinating about humans, our ability to supersede or to
Speaker 1: become greater than the sum of the parts. And this
Speaker 1: is where the uniqueness of every person comes in. And
Speaker 1: you want to sort of emphasize yeah, well no, I
Speaker 1: ultimately one emphasize transcendence. Okay, well we'll get there. That's
Speaker 1: like I'm going to get all of the layers on
Speaker 1: the tables. I mean, even though you have a different
Speaker 1: metaphor for the sale board boat rather than the pyramid,
Speaker 1: you still have some needs, right, You still have a
Speaker 1: list of needs that we're meeting in the form of
Speaker 1: this sail boat. Do you do you even call them
Speaker 1: needs still or do you have a different name? I
Speaker 1: do call them needs. I call them basicly, I call
Speaker 1: them human needs for sure. And there this is I
Speaker 1: call this the integrated hierarchy of needs, the revised hierarchy
Speaker 1: of the revised integrated hierarchy of needs, Yes, yes, good,
Speaker 1: and so which which are the needs associated with the
Speaker 1: hull of the boat? Safety which I've combined Maslow's physiological
Speaker 1: and safety needs into one because I think there's so
Speaker 1: much research showing that how our body and mind are
Speaker 1: so interconnected, and it made sense to talk about a
Speaker 1: general level that should say level, but I don't know
Speaker 1: what to call it now, you know, general process in
Speaker 1: which there's a we can be pitched into the state
Speaker 1: of psychological entropy, the state of great uncertainty, where there's
Speaker 1: too much unpredictable in our environment that our brain really
Speaker 1: is full of fear and anxiety. And so that that
Speaker 1: would be that stage, and that could happen from hunger,
Speaker 1: it could have happened from having no food on your
Speaker 1: on your table, or a roof on your head, on
Speaker 1: your head above your head, yep. Two. But it could
Speaker 1: also be living in an environment where there's a lot
Speaker 1: of violence in your environment that pervades your environment, or
Speaker 1: there's just things that are so unstable. So that would
Speaker 1: all be under that aspect. And in the chapter on safety,
Speaker 1: you actually talk a lot about attachment to other people.
Speaker 1: So maybe that is not what comes to people's mind
Speaker 1: when you first start talking about safety, and it's it's
Speaker 1: part of safety is you know, having a house and
Speaker 1: food and water, but you're also there's that seems to
Speaker 1: be I would have put that in connection, but you
Speaker 1: put it in safety, the attachment we have to other people. Yes,
Speaker 1: because the opposite of secure attachment is insecure attachment. When
Speaker 1: you're insecurely attached, there's such anxiety, especially if you're if
Speaker 1: you have the anxious attachment style, you're you're pitched into
Speaker 1: that state of inserting anxiety. You don't trust people. See.
Speaker 1: I see trust as a really core part of this
Speaker 1: of this need for safety, so coherence in the environment,
Speaker 1: but also trust that your environment will be safe to
Speaker 1: me is a central part of this. This this need
Speaker 1: so an ability to treat other people like they're your friends,
Speaker 1: not your enemies, and that you can depend on them
Speaker 1: in times of of of great need. See that's what's
Speaker 1: That's what attachment theory is all about. Can I do
Speaker 1: I have trust and confidence in this caregiver when we're
Speaker 1: a vulnerable you know, And it's been studied a lot
Speaker 1: in children, but there also been a lot of studies
Speaker 1: and adults as well. Like my relationship partner, do I
Speaker 1: trust that when I you know, when things really get tough,
Speaker 1: that that they'll protect and help me in those situations?
Speaker 1: And as a working psychologist. You must know I mean,
Speaker 1: you must be very familiar with all the different ways
Speaker 1: in which attachment is tricky, right, I mean attachment to
Speaker 1: other people. Like you can be overly attached, you can
Speaker 1: be clingy, right. You want to have that trust and
Speaker 1: respect for other people without I don't know, without getting
Speaker 1: in their way. I'm not sure how you would put it,
Speaker 1: but there's definitely a balance to be struck there absolutely,
Speaker 1: So not to get too nerdy about this, but it's
Speaker 1: really good to view attachment styles as continuums not types.
Speaker 1: I think that this type way of thinking is not
Speaker 1: really been very profitable for psychologists, and we really need
Speaker 1: to think about things as and this applies to everything.
Speaker 1: I mean, this is this is actually quite profound. I
Speaker 1: think a whole revision of the DSM needs to occur.
Speaker 1: So that could be a whole other conversation where we
Speaker 1: view everything, all disorders as as on a continue. But
Speaker 1: if we view there's two main dimensions that we all
Speaker 1: differ on, anxious attachment style and avoidant attachment style. Those
Speaker 1: are the two fundamental dimensions we differ on. And and
Speaker 1: there's no such thing as secure attachment type. None of
Speaker 1: us are just like none of us are ever one
Speaker 1: hundred percent self actualized, none of us are ever one
Speaker 1: hundred percent securely attached. So if you just have these
Speaker 1: two dimensions, anxious and avoidant attachment styles, you can actually
Speaker 1: create a space of different combinations of those two of
Speaker 1: different ways that one can be and securely attached, or
Speaker 1: or you can only and then you can only conceptualize
Speaker 1: secure attachment the extent to which both of those are
Speaker 1: high if you see what I'm say so, but explain
Speaker 1: to us what they are. What is an anxious attachment
Speaker 1: continuum and what is the avoidance? Well, this is the
Speaker 1: place to get nerdy, go nuts? Can I really get nerdy? Okay,
Speaker 1: give me a moment I actually say it sometimes again,
Speaker 1: these moments where I've never said it better than I
Speaker 1: did in the book. So can I just find that part? Okay? Sure,
Speaker 1: so I think so. The anxious attachment dimension reflects a
Speaker 1: concern about being rejected and abandoned and is abandoned and
Speaker 1: is the product of beliefs about whether others will be
Speaker 1: for you in times of great need. The avoidant attachment
Speaker 1: to mention has less to do with a sense of
Speaker 1: safety and more to do with how you regulate your
Speaker 1: emotions in response to stress, whether you use others as
Speaker 1: a secure base or pull away and withdrawal from them. Now,
Speaker 1: it's interesting because I've looked really closely into the literature
Speaker 1: and found some thing that I think is interesting and
Speaker 1: that it's much more detrimental and mental health to score
Speaker 1: very very high on the anxious dimension then the avoidant dimension.
Speaker 1: I found interestingly that there are a lot of people
Speaker 1: who score high on just the anxious asseria, to score
Speaker 1: very high on the just the avoidance dimension, who are
Speaker 1: quite content with their life. Well, I was going to say,
Speaker 1: from the description you just gave, it doesn't sound like
Speaker 1: one end or the other is clearly good and clearly
Speaker 1: bad for the anxious one. Yeah, being anxious is bad,
Speaker 1: being less anxious is good. But how much of ourselves
Speaker 1: we secure through other people? Seems like there's a happy
Speaker 1: middle ground. Yes, I mean, there is a lot of
Speaker 1: research showing that if both of those dimensions are very
Speaker 1: very low, so very low avoidance attachment, very low anxious touch,
Speaker 1: it does tend to be correlated positive with lots of
Speaker 1: forms of well being in life and lots of other
Speaker 1: indicators of mental health, as well as even epigenetic research
Speaker 1: and how certain genes come activated in the stress response.
Speaker 1: So working as a interaction or combination I think is interesting.
Speaker 1: But there are people who aren't very anxious attachment at all,
Speaker 1: but are very high and avoidant, and that's an interesting combination.
Speaker 1: I think it's been understudied in the research literature. There
Speaker 1: are plenty people who actually quite fine being single, you know,
Speaker 1: not being in a relationship. And we found doctor Keltner
Speaker 1: and their colleagues have done some interesting research looking at
Speaker 1: different correlations between these different attachment styles and personality traits.
Speaker 1: And they found that those who who score very high
Speaker 1: on avoidant but not anxious, they just don't score particularly
Speaker 1: high on compassion. They're just not high in compassion and love, like,
Speaker 1: they don't report being a very well, I'm not a
Speaker 1: loving person, but they actually report higher levels of contentment
Speaker 1: in life. Yeah, so I think that's interesting. I think
Speaker 1: it's interesting. So this is a good point to digress
Speaker 1: a little bit because you're mentioning, you know, the research
Speaker 1: that's been done. I mean, how much of the conversation
Speaker 1: we're having here is base on data, is based on
Speaker 1: experiments and empirical research, versus how much of it is
Speaker 1: a theory that you're hoping will be tested using data
Speaker 1: down the road. Oh my gosh, well if I may,
Speaker 1: if if I don't know, if I made what I
Speaker 1: want to, may do, but if I may full to
Speaker 1: my own horne in a second. I really meticulously tried
Speaker 1: to make sure everything I said in this book could
Speaker 1: be linked to robust studies. So I have a pretty
Speaker 1: extensive references list in the back. This was a lot
Speaker 1: of footnotes. Yes, yeah, this was something that I've been
Speaker 1: working on for years and years and wanted to get
Speaker 1: right or at least as right as could be in
Speaker 1: the moment. So when you do when you make choices
Speaker 1: like collapsing Maslow's first two levels into one, sessed over it,
Speaker 1: like yeah, yeah, so you but you looked at the
Speaker 1: data when you chose to do that. It's not just
Speaker 1: like an idea you had that sounded cool, That's exactly right.
Speaker 1: I mean I obsessed over every little detail of this book.
Speaker 1: For instance, I mean it gets really nerdy. I have
Speaker 1: some I put the most nerdy things in the footnotes.
Speaker 1: So you got that. Like, it's like, believe me when
Speaker 1: I say, like I say something like throw a line
Speaker 1: in the book like and modern personality. Psychologists have confirmed
Speaker 1: this model of security and growth this distinction. But then
Speaker 1: I have like a huge footnote for any nerves that
Speaker 1: want to go to the back of the book to
Speaker 1: see what I actually mean, and I actually link it
Speaker 1: to recent research on cybernetics and research being done in
Speaker 1: artificial intelligence, not just in humans. I think that there's
Speaker 1: a whole there are lots of different areas of human
Speaker 1: knowledge that are coalescing that that I think is quite
Speaker 1: exciting pointing to this distinction that Maslow put out that
Speaker 1: we did that a whole system. In order for fully
Speaker 1: to be fully functioning, it needs both the ability to
Speaker 1: resist distractions, so stability, as well as plasticity, the ability
Speaker 1: to have come up with new goals, so you can
Speaker 1: get really there's a level which you can get. I
Speaker 1: can like explain a lot of my decisions at the
Speaker 1: nerdiest level of physicus is what I'm trying to see.
Speaker 1: Let's let's get to some more of the decisions you're
Speaker 1: making here. So we're still in the hull of the boat.
Speaker 1: There's three needs that we talked about in the hull.
Speaker 1: One is the safety we just talked about. The next
Speaker 1: is connection. What does that mean, yes, the need for
Speaker 1: connection is the need to have at least a minimal
Speaker 1: number of intimate, mutually loving, or appreciating relationships in your life.
Speaker 1: And so this is more than just getting likes on Twitter, correct,
Speaker 1: And this is the point I wanted to make, because
Speaker 1: I had two sub needs that comprise connection, and that's
Speaker 1: the need for belonging and the need for intimacy. And
Speaker 1: I think a lot of people in the field of
Speaker 1: psychology have conflated the two, or maybe I've treated them
Speaker 1: as synonymous. But when I was really looking deep into
Speaker 1: the literature on bewall, it seems like there are lots
Speaker 1: and lots of instances in which people strive for the
Speaker 1: need to belong. They may do so in a way
Speaker 1: that lacks intimacy. So let's say you join a violent
Speaker 1: extremism you know, or you join a cult or a
Speaker 1: religious organization or political organization because you have a desperate,
Speaker 1: desperate deprivation of the need to belong, and the leaders
Speaker 1: of this thing you join don't care at all about you.
Speaker 1: I mean, they only care about you to the extent
Speaker 1: to which you are furthering their cause. But in what
Speaker 1: way is there a reciprocal loving relationship there, So it
Speaker 1: seemed to me like both of those things are really important.
Speaker 1: And also for the loneliness epidemic, it dawned on me
Speaker 1: that there's so much of a deprivation of a need
Speaker 1: for belonging that people are going about hope in the
Speaker 1: hopes that it will satisfy that whole within themselves of
Speaker 1: loneliness and then they're surprised when it never does. You know, Sorry,
Speaker 1: is there a loneliness epidemic? Well? It I use that phrase.
Speaker 1: Then I had Stephen Pinker on my podcast and he's like,
Speaker 1: He's like, I would not call that. He's like, if
Speaker 1: you're wook at the history of you. I'm like, yeah,
Speaker 1: I get your shtick. Stephen Bigger. I love him. I
Speaker 1: love him to death. Don't get me wrong. He's a
Speaker 1: friend and all the good things about him. But he's
Speaker 1: got he likes to take the long, long, long view.
Speaker 1: And I'm like, yes, but that's cold comfort for the
Speaker 1: billions of people on this planet who in this generation,
Speaker 1: right now, in this moment of history, would quite characterize
Speaker 1: it as an epidemic. Do you know what I'm saying?
Speaker 1: But well, tell me, I mean, what do you mean
Speaker 1: by the lonelies and this epidemic, well, the rates, especially
Speaker 1: among the elderly, are quite staggering of reports, just simple
Speaker 1: reports of loneliness, like if you do self report questionnaires
Speaker 1: and you ask people to report how lonely they are,
Speaker 1: and it is really high among among the elderly. But
Speaker 1: you also see it even in college students. You see
Speaker 1: the rates are high end. And not just the rates,
Speaker 1: but the impact of loneliness. Yes, John Cappyopo, I believe
Speaker 1: that's how you pronounce his name. He was a loneliness
Speaker 1: researcher and unfortunately passed away as I was researching the book.
Speaker 1: But he had shown that the effects of loneliness on
Speaker 1: our physical health is even greater than smoking or obesity
Speaker 1: or lots of other factors that we know are are
Speaker 1: our risk factors for mortality. This is a but you're
Speaker 1: saying that there is a you know, a quantitative difference
Speaker 1: the amount of loneliness now versus when versus last year. Yes,
Speaker 1: so years ago, Yes, that is so. That is a
Speaker 1: if we want to take the long long view, I
Speaker 1: could get on board a pinker sort of argument that
Speaker 1: it's not technically an epidemic because it's hard to make
Speaker 1: the case that this generation is lonelier than the hippies were,
Speaker 1: for instance, you know, in the sixties. And I think
Speaker 1: there is a point there that could be made, so
Speaker 1: perhaps we shouldn't call it. And I want to say
Speaker 1: something as well, because I am very open to being,
Speaker 1: you know, for people making these arguments. I after my
Speaker 1: podcast chat I had with Steven Pinker, I went back
Speaker 1: in my book and actually changed my book and I
Speaker 1: took I think I took out the word epidemic. So
Speaker 1: I'm just trying to understand is the claim that loneliness
Speaker 1: is increasing or is the claim simply that there's a
Speaker 1: lot of it. There's a lot of it. I want
Speaker 1: to focus on the oh, there's a lot of it, yeah, aspect,
Speaker 1: And I don't want to get stuck too much on,
Speaker 1: you know, making it a competition of some sort with
Speaker 1: with with prior epics or generations, you know, but it is.
Speaker 1: I mean, I can totally get on board with the
Speaker 1: idea there's a lot of that's out there. Almost by definition,
Speaker 1: it can be hidden from us because if other people
Speaker 1: are lonely, maybe we're not connecting with them, and the
Speaker 1: effects of it could be very bad. The effects that's
Speaker 1: also what I wanted to focus on because I was
Speaker 1: that was mind boggling to me to look into that
Speaker 1: literature and seeing just how strong an effect loneliness can
Speaker 1: have not just on our minds, but also our bodies
Speaker 1: and on mortality. And it's a risk factor for death.
Speaker 1: So that's a greater risk factor than a lot of
Speaker 1: physical risk factors that people look at. And so that's
Speaker 1: where this connection need comes in. This is the second
Speaker 1: need in the whole of your sailboat, correct And how
Speaker 1: does it relate to the issue of introverts versus extroverts? Right?
Speaker 1: I mean we're introverts are having their day in the sun.
Speaker 1: Now we have Susan Kaine's book. You know, let us
Speaker 1: love introverts again, because it's not that they don't like people,
Speaker 1: it's just they need their own space. Is that related
Speaker 1: to this need for connections somehow, one way or the other.
Speaker 1: I've done quite a bit of research on introverse extra
Speaker 1: versus dimension, but I actually see that as irrelevant to
Speaker 1: this need because the need suggests a minimal I said
Speaker 1: minimal number. We're talking about one or two, and I
Speaker 1: think that is a need regardless of where you are
Speaker 1: on the introversion extravers dimension of personality, and we could
Speaker 1: have a whole separate podcast on the science the latest
Speaker 1: science of introversion, because I'm super super interested in that
Speaker 1: topic and I've written a lot about it. But I
Speaker 1: think that's a that's actually a separate dimension. That that
Speaker 1: dimension of personality has more to do with your levels
Speaker 1: of assertiveness and your levels of enthusiasm or what's called
Speaker 1: positive positive emotions that are of the high kind. So
Speaker 1: I think like introverts can have contentness and calmness, but
Speaker 1: you find extroverts tend to report higher levels of these
Speaker 1: other kinds of static states you know all the time,
Speaker 1: and and also assertiveness, but that's a connection. Need is
Speaker 1: more about having you know, a small number of really
Speaker 1: solid stable minimal number of minimal number of stable and
Speaker 1: and and intimate, so mutual relatedness. There's a relatedness aspect
Speaker 1: to it. That's right, Okay, good? And the third need
Speaker 1: within the hull of the boat is self esteem. And
Speaker 1: you do put the word self in there. Yes, I
Speaker 1: just want more think about introverts. You could be the
Speaker 1: most you know, introversion doesn't track anti sociality. This is
Speaker 1: a common misconception. So now you know at all. Right, yeah,
Speaker 1: and I know you know that, you know, I want
Speaker 1: to make that This is why I think this is
Speaker 1: separate from this basic need. I mean, we're talking something else.
Speaker 1: If you have this extreme sort of aversion of any
Speaker 1: human connection, well then I think there's something else going
Speaker 1: on with you, which we could talk about later, dark
Speaker 1: triad stuff. But yeah, that's not introversion. Does that make
Speaker 1: sense right? Okay, yeah, one hundred percent. Well so maybe
Speaker 1: that's what introversion is. Not why don't tell us what
Speaker 1: introversion is? Oh boy? Well this is why this is
Speaker 1: so this is so hotly contested because scientists have a
Speaker 1: different view of what introversion is from what everyday people
Speaker 1: on the Internet who identify themselves self identify as introverts
Speaker 1: think of themselves. So on the Internet, if you ask
Speaker 1: most people the intervious will say, well, it's how I
Speaker 1: recharge my batteries. You know. They'll say, yeah, it's you know,
Speaker 1: do I get energized by people or not energized by people? Well,
Speaker 1: scientists view it more in terms of levels of dopamine
Speaker 1: and social reward. So it's it's more simply a matter
Speaker 1: in the scientific literature of if you're an introvert, you
Speaker 1: simply get less reward from social information or from social rewards,
Speaker 1: and that can conclude things like the possibility of getting
Speaker 1: esteem from person, a person you're talking to, or what
Speaker 1: you know, not like being excited for lots of novel
Speaker 1: social situations. That's why you tend to find that introverts
Speaker 1: tend to prefer a couple close people than going and
Speaker 1: networking with a million people. It's because when you network
Speaker 1: with a million people, your dopamine system is more activated
Speaker 1: than your oxytocin system. And I think it's just simply
Speaker 1: a matter physiologically. Introverts don't get as much dopamine release
Speaker 1: at the possibility for social reward with novel social encounters.
Speaker 1: I think that's technically all all that dimension means. But people, Okay,
Speaker 1: that makes that makes sense, That makes sense, it does.
Speaker 1: But now is there? And now I need a word
Speaker 1: for the feature that I need to be alone to
Speaker 1: have time to recharge my batteries. Well, what do we
Speaker 1: call that? I mean, there are some people who are
Speaker 1: energized by being out in public, and there's some people
Speaker 1: who are you know, the energy seeps away when they're
Speaker 1: well if if few, it is a dopamine thing, though,
Speaker 1: which is what's really going on. Then you can map
Speaker 1: it on too that in a way, because dopamine predicts
Speaker 1: how much effort we are motivated to put into something.
Speaker 1: So if we're not getting a lot of dopamine push
Speaker 1: for something, it actually will take greater effort. It'll be
Speaker 1: more exhausting to put in the energy to do something.
Speaker 1: So they're not wrong. So that metaphor of the of
Speaker 1: the recharge battery thing, it can roughly be blamed physiologically
Speaker 1: through what we know about the dopamine system, as you
Speaker 1: have to work harder, like introverts would have to put
Speaker 1: in more effort to be motivated and to talk to
Speaker 1: lots and lots of people, and you could see how
Speaker 1: it would be exhausting to them quicker than extroverts. However,
Speaker 1: I mean I did. I wrote a paper showing that
Speaker 1: there's some misconceptions here, because there's been some study showing
Speaker 1: that both introverts and extroverts do get tired. Extroverts do
Speaker 1: get tired from at a certain point. We're just talking
Speaker 1: about thresholds. That's all personality is. We're all human, like
Speaker 1: you know, we're all and this is a big point
Speaker 1: in my book We're all human. We can get too
Speaker 1: stuck on these different types personality types, not realizing that, Look,
Speaker 1: you could talk to extroverts and they would still be
Speaker 1: able to resonate with that feeling of Yes, I've talked
Speaker 1: to too many people today. I need to sleep. Okay,
Speaker 1: they're human too, they're human too. So we're really just
Speaker 1: talking about thresholds. And I think that it could be
Speaker 1: explained physio logically through the dopamine system and how we
Speaker 1: know don't mean when you have is an doping can
Speaker 1: be an energizing force, you know what I mean for
Speaker 1: things that are possibility of rewards. M Yeah, good, Okay,
Speaker 1: I think that does clear something up that's very easeful. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and it's certainly separate from your notion of connection. So
Speaker 1: let's move on to self esteem. That's the third need
Speaker 1: right there in the hull of the boat. So what
Speaker 1: do you mean by that? So self esteem is uh
Speaker 1: and I focus on a healthy self esteem having just
Speaker 1: two components, a healthy sense of self worth of I'm
Speaker 1: good enough, doesn't mean that I'm better than others. And
Speaker 1: I go great pains to distinguish self esteem from narcissism
Speaker 1: because they're different things, and they have different developmental pathways.
Speaker 1: It's just I'm worthy. And the second component of self
Speaker 1: of a healthy self esteem is mastery, or some people
Speaker 1: call it self competence or even just competence just or
Speaker 1: self efficacy, a generalized form of self efficacy. So across
Speaker 1: all the different areas of my life, I feel a
Speaker 1: general sense of I'm in control of my life. I'm
Speaker 1: the driver of this life. I can do things, I
Speaker 1: can make things happen. I have agency. And the self
Speaker 1: worth part is not just about agency. It is a
Speaker 1: distinguishable component from competence. So with self worth, it's more
Speaker 1: tied to social relations. Am I valued social partner? We
Speaker 1: tend to tie our self worth to being viewed as
Speaker 1: a social partner as well as or liking ourselves. Some
Speaker 1: people actually will call that component in the psychologic culture,
Speaker 1: they're called self liking versus self competence, and they can
Speaker 1: actually come apart these two forms of self esteem. You
Speaker 1: can so, for instance, those who score very very high
Speaker 1: in narcissism tend to feel a great sense of competence,
Speaker 1: almost an exaggerated sense, but they don't actually like They
Speaker 1: don't actually like themselves that much. This is fascinating when
Speaker 1: you have that'll be terrible to be that kind of narcissist.
Speaker 1: You can't even like yourself. Yeah, like narcissist at all, exactly. Well,
Speaker 1: that's so funny. Well they can fully admit, especially grandiose narcissists.
Speaker 1: And I actually distinguish between different types of narcissists. I
Speaker 1: tell you I'm really nerdy, so, like, you know, I
Speaker 1: could distinguish between vulnerable, vulnerable, quiet, introverted form of narcissm
Speaker 1: from the more bragging, braggadoso or whatever that you know,
Speaker 1: form of narcisism. But grandiose narcissists, they they have such
Speaker 1: an inflated sense of their competence. But if you do
Speaker 1: these kinds of even implicit self esteem measures, and you
Speaker 1: have measures like I'm a good person, or I'm a
Speaker 1: good I'm a valued social partner, or I like myself
Speaker 1: but I think i'm you know, I like myself. I'm
Speaker 1: They're kind of neutral to negative on that aspect. All right, Yes,
Speaker 1: that's good to know. We'll keep that. It's helpful knowledge
Speaker 1: when we meet narcissists to go like, yeah, you probably
Speaker 1: are not with yourself. Maybe that makes me a bad person.
Speaker 1: That I want to do that. But okay, so that's security.
Speaker 1: We have it. We have it sused right. The water
Speaker 1: that our boat floats in and the boat itself are
Speaker 1: a story of safety and connection and self esteem. But
Speaker 1: you're kind of you know, as important as those things are,
Speaker 1: you really get juiced up when we start talking about
Speaker 1: the sale and how we can move and how we
Speaker 1: can do things. That the growth aspect of all this,
Speaker 1: that's exactly right that they as we called it, the
Speaker 1: growing tip. You know, when you have a tree, there's
Speaker 1: a certain portion of the tree that grows much much
Speaker 1: more than the other parts of the tree. And I
Speaker 1: always like that metaphor of the growing tip. So that
Speaker 1: was kind of brilliant. But yeah, I'm really interested in
Speaker 1: what are these potentialities within us and humans that really
Speaker 1: help us grow and evolve as a species. And your
Speaker 1: first one, you again once again have three needs that
Speaker 1: we associate with this sale. The first one is exploration.
Speaker 1: So what is that? That's right, you could in a
Speaker 1: way view these this whole thing is to two different triangles,
Speaker 1: two different two different hierarchies. When you're pitched in the
Speaker 1: state of security, and that's your whole world, that bas
Speaker 1: is safety. But when you're in the growth realm of
Speaker 1: human existence, so you can actually have two different realms
Speaker 1: of human existence. I don't know if you knew that, Sean,
Speaker 1: I did not have, you know, the deprivation form of
Speaker 1: human existence, where everything becomes about you trying to impart
Speaker 1: on the world, you know, like you're making demands in
Speaker 1: the world like feed me, love me, respect me. But
Speaker 1: when you're in the growth realm of existence, which is
Speaker 1: the realm we're entering now in this conversation, the base
Speaker 1: of that is exploration. So you're no longer everything is
Speaker 1: not pivoting around the need to resolve a deprivation. Now
Speaker 1: everything revolves around a general spirit of actively entering the unknown. Right,
Speaker 1: you can exist from moment to moment, but you're going
Speaker 1: to seek out some new experiences. Correct, you're excited by
Speaker 1: the unknown as opposed to fearing it intensely, which is
Speaker 1: what you know psychological entropy is all about. Well, actually,
Speaker 1: let's talk about psychological entropy because I just had a
Speaker 1: good I know this is my thing, but I had
Speaker 1: a very interesting conversation with Carl Fristen, the neuroscientist who
Speaker 1: has a whole theory of free energy and so forth,
Speaker 1: and it gets very technical, but the very short version
Speaker 1: is that he thinks that brains and even organisms work
Speaker 1: to model the world in such a way so as
Speaker 1: to minimize the surprise that they experience. And of course
Speaker 1: one question was, you know, but we seek out surprise
Speaker 1: all the time, like we do explore, we do read
Speaker 1: mystery novels or whatever. And his answer to that, which
Speaker 1: I thought was interesting, was that it seeks a strategy
Speaker 1: on the part of the brain to anticipate the future,
Speaker 1: so be surprised now so that you have a more
Speaker 1: complete and flexible model of the world so as to
Speaker 1: minimize a total amount of surprise integrated over your future life.
Speaker 1: Do you think that makes sense? I do. I think
Speaker 1: that the need for exploration evolved as a need all
Speaker 1: in its own, but it primarily as an anxiety reducing function.
Speaker 1: So I think that's consistent with what he just what
Speaker 1: he said, and also by the way I could sold
Speaker 1: it these folks, I had skype chats with this whole
Speaker 1: the whole group that a lot of these people who
Speaker 1: studied the physics of being trying to apply it to
Speaker 1: the brain. And I think that I could make and
Speaker 1: I hope I did make a good case in the
Speaker 1: book for the need for exploration having its own evolved
Speaker 1: function and not being reduced to the need for safety
Speaker 1: or anxiety. But I do think it evolved in order
Speaker 1: to help us with that anxiety reducing functioning. It helps,
Speaker 1: you know, the more that we can prepare ahead of time,
Speaker 1: and the more that we can reduce that uncertainty by
Speaker 1: actively seeking information. So I really connect the need for
Speaker 1: exploration with with the information seeking aspects of dopamine. So
Speaker 1: there's some recent research distinguishing between the social aspects of
Speaker 1: dopamine or the more what are called competitive rewards cocaine, sex,
Speaker 1: you know, status, and there are dopamine pathways. They get
Speaker 1: us really excited at the possibility of those things. And
Speaker 1: they are listeners that when I said those three things,
Speaker 1: their brain, their brain is particularly releasing. It's just releasing
Speaker 1: the dopamine in the synapse, is like in MOFO. But
Speaker 1: there are also and I suspect a lot of your
Speaker 1: listeners who just by what the nerdier we get in
Speaker 1: this conversation, they also are releasing dopamine into other dopamine
Speaker 1: projections more related to the dorsal lateral prefontal cortex. And
Speaker 1: I think that's a really interesting new line of research
Speaker 1: and understanding how there might be dopamine pathways that give
Speaker 1: us excitement, the possibility of information, not just the possibility
Speaker 1: for mating opportunities. So you're saying that equations lead to
Speaker 1: dopamine release, Yes, I do. I think that there's there's
Speaker 1: some good. There's there's some there's some suggestive evidence that
Speaker 1: that that that that may be a separate pathway. And
Speaker 1: I think it can still be debated and we're still
Speaker 1: trying to understand is it really just the same pathways,
Speaker 1: But there's individual differences and etcetera. And and there's there's
Speaker 1: ways that this can be argued. But I think that
Speaker 1: it is possible too. There are there are different pathways.
Speaker 1: There are pathways that project specifically to the dorser lateral
Speaker 1: prefontal cortex and are working memory that gives us excitement
Speaker 1: when our working memory is active with with with things
Speaker 1: that may give us greater information to survive. And yeah,
Speaker 1: I think this is your next book right here. You
Speaker 1: know why math releases dopamine like this is going to
Speaker 1: be absolutely killer. There's there's I know, people who would
Speaker 1: buy this book Scott telling it, But also it makes
Speaker 1: me wonder about there are since we're talking about the
Speaker 1: uniqueness of different individuals, there are absolutely people who hate
Speaker 1: being in a routine, and there are absolutely other people
Speaker 1: who love being in a routine. Right. There are people
Speaker 1: who love having a job where you get to wear
Speaker 1: the same uniform every day, and there's other people who
Speaker 1: would find that, you know, inner torment. So how do
Speaker 1: we distinguish between those people? How do we give them
Speaker 1: both space to be valid? Well, this is a great point,
Speaker 1: and this is where we get to the realm of
Speaker 1: individual differences. And as I talk about in the need
Speaker 1: for a Safety chapter, there are people who maybe the
Speaker 1: high in neuroticism personality trait. They have obsessive compulsive disorder
Speaker 1: at of our high level, or other things that give
Speaker 1: them a intense need to control the world. And that
Speaker 1: may be a more pressing need for them than the
Speaker 1: need for exploration. And I've spent you know, maybe ten
Speaker 1: years of my career studying the personality trait openness to experience,
Speaker 1: which predicts, you know, to the extent which neuroticism predicts
Speaker 1: the need the need for security. Openness to experiences predicts
Speaker 1: the need for exploration, I think, and there these are
Speaker 1: elements in the Big five personality inventory, right, correct? Correct?
Speaker 1: I just mentioned two of the Big five and we
Speaker 1: already went deep into the extraversion introversion one. So which
Speaker 1: are the ones we have left to discuss today? We
Speaker 1: call conscient grit, and we haven't talked about grit conscientiousness,
Speaker 1: and we haven't talked about agreeableness being a good person,
Speaker 1: although we did kind of talk about a holes a
Speaker 1: little bit. Yeah, we talked about agreeableness a little bit. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we'll have to get to conscientious. But your question is good,
Speaker 1: and I wanted to make it clear that while these
Speaker 1: are all basic, While these are all needs of humans,
Speaker 1: we do differ quite a bit in at different points
Speaker 1: in our life how pressing they are for us. So
Speaker 1: I think, regardless of our personality, I think contextually as well,
Speaker 1: these things, these needs can ebb and flow. But also
Speaker 1: based on our own temper, these needs can can ebb
Speaker 1: and flow. There are some people that really do. I
Speaker 1: think genetics plays a role here, care a lot more
Speaker 1: about being belonging and an intimacy. But I think that
Speaker 1: the lesson of what you're saying here is that I
Speaker 1: mean exploration is important as a part of this growth
Speaker 1: aspect of the needs, but it is something where you
Speaker 1: don't try to just push it to the maximum. You
Speaker 1: don't be surprised every moment of your life. There is
Speaker 1: an appropriate amount of newness and newness to experience and
Speaker 1: exploration for any one person, given who they are and
Speaker 1: what they're interested in. Yes, I really do think that
Speaker 1: any fully functioning system requires both safety and growth. Security
Speaker 1: and growth. And also there's been other labels like I
Speaker 1: used earlier, like stability and plasticity, but I think any
Speaker 1: fully functioned system is going to have to reconcile with
Speaker 1: both at some point in their life. Good. Okay, the
Speaker 1: next need on our sale is love you. So it's
Speaker 1: interesting because you're putting love here in the growth part
Speaker 1: of the needs, not in the security part. Yeah, I did,
Speaker 1: and I wanted to separate. So one thing I did
Speaker 1: is I separate belonging from intimacy within the need for connection.
Speaker 1: But the other thing I want to do is I
Speaker 1: wanted to separate an unconditional form of love, a higher
Speaker 1: spiritual form of love, entirely from connection. I wanted to
Speaker 1: get it out. I wanted to get it out of
Speaker 1: the boat and into the sail, and into the sail,
Speaker 1: because when you project that in your sale, you can
Speaker 1: do that to anyone. It doesn't have to be those
Speaker 1: only the people you like or only the people you
Speaker 1: feel a sense of relatedness. Told, there's a more cosmic
Speaker 1: aspect of love. Yes, absolutely, it's an attitude. Love is
Speaker 1: an attitude, not necessarily a feeling. In fact, you could
Speaker 1: hate someone if in terms of what the feeling you know,
Speaker 1: the label we put hate on the on that feeling,
Speaker 1: but still have be love. And this is what Maslow
Speaker 1: talk called bee love. Love for the being of others
Speaker 1: and the sacredness of others, even if they're different from
Speaker 1: who we who are being is we can just admire
Speaker 1: people for who they are, not what we're trying to
Speaker 1: get out of them or what they can or the
Speaker 1: usefulness they have for us. Even in the level of connection,
Speaker 1: it's still about usefulness, you know. It's you know, you're
Speaker 1: still making demands on people to connect with me. But
Speaker 1: at the be love level of human existence, you don't
Speaker 1: make those sorts of demands. It's more that you're offering
Speaker 1: something to the world rather than just asking things of it.
Speaker 1: That's right, Okay, and and then the third need in
Speaker 1: the sale is purpose. And this is the one I
Speaker 1: want to talk about the most, but because I have
Speaker 1: my doubts, but I want to hear your sales pitch first,
Speaker 1: So I can't wait to hear your your own thoughts
Speaker 1: on this because it's the most important one to you.
Speaker 1: I know, Well I wouldn't. I wouldn't actually say it's
Speaker 1: the most important if if you actually asked me to choose,
Speaker 1: I may actually choose like transcendency, which were where we're
Speaker 1: going in a second, you know. But but but purpose.
Speaker 1: The point I wanted to make there is if I
Speaker 1: had to choose, I would choose the integration of them all.
Speaker 1: Then yeah, ok, yeah, yeah, that's that's that's like, that's
Speaker 1: like the spoiler, that's the spoiler ahead. Yeah. But but purpose,
Speaker 1: it's a tough one to define, although I do have
Speaker 1: a precise definition in the book How did I define it?
Speaker 1: The need for purpose can be defined as the need
Speaker 1: for an overarching aspiration that energizes one's efforts and provides
Speaker 1: a central source of meaning and significance in one's life.
Speaker 1: The way I think about purpose, and we can have
Speaker 1: multiple purposes, but it's a more superordinate goal, and it
Speaker 1: serves as an organizing framework, so to speak, for all
Speaker 1: of our other goals, so that we can see if
Speaker 1: our other goals in our hierarchy may be at a
Speaker 1: less abstract levels or broad levels of abstraction, are working
Speaker 1: together as a whole unit in making sure that we're
Speaker 1: realizing that highest level goal or aspiration, or one could
Speaker 1: just colloquially called a dream dream if we've lost everyone
Speaker 1: and what I just said, we say just having a dream,
Speaker 1: you know, a really broad dream, making sure that we
Speaker 1: really can reach it to our full capacity, that we're
Speaker 1: not having things that are taking away unnecessarily from our
Speaker 1: capacity to realize that dream. But I'd love to get
Speaker 1: your thoughts. Yeah, well, I completely agree that having a
Speaker 1: purpose of the form that you talk about can really help, right,
Speaker 1: can really give somebody momentum, direction and fulfillment in their lives.
Speaker 1: But I have a bunch of questions, one of which
Speaker 1: is do we really need that? I mean, can people
Speaker 1: be just as happy without some sort of big picture
Speaker 1: future goal in mind? Can there be real more living
Speaker 1: in the moment without necessarily having a purpose and can
Speaker 1: that be just as rewarding? Yeah? And this is a
Speaker 1: legitimate question. It's not like a leading question, like I'm
Speaker 1: open to whatever the answer might be. So yes, and
Speaker 1: it's a terrific, terrific question. It's one that I had
Speaker 1: quite a bit back and forth with Kennon Sheldon, who
Speaker 1: did a lot of the research that I tried to
Speaker 1: synthesize in that chapter. He doesn't talk about he doesn't
Speaker 1: use the word purpose. He talks about self concordant goals,
Speaker 1: the importance of setting the right goals that will lead
Speaker 1: to growth. And when I told him I was kind
Speaker 1: of framing this in terms of purpose and everything, he
Speaker 1: was very skeptical of that. And he, you know, he said, well,
Speaker 1: like I teach my students, don't worry about this purpose
Speaker 1: so dramatics, so dramatic and daunting, you know, but you know, there,
Speaker 1: I'm also can be a bit of a dramatic person too,
Speaker 1: So purpose, yeah, resonates more with my being, you know,
Speaker 1: like like, there's there's something exciting and thrilling about about uh,
Speaker 1: about having a a super ornate goal that that gives
Speaker 1: you like like a hierarchy of meaning in your life.
Speaker 1: You know. They're like, I think it's fair to say
Speaker 1: there are some goals you have that give you a
Speaker 1: deeper sense of meaning than other goals, you know, like
Speaker 1: the goal to just get out of bed in the morning,
Speaker 1: you know, is not is not your purpose in life,
Speaker 1: you know, but it's an important goal. Well, I mean,
Speaker 1: this is where I mean, this is what I if
Speaker 1: I were to be more playing the devil's advocate, which
Speaker 1: I sometimes try to do in other podcast context. You know.
Speaker 1: One of the criticisms against Maslow was that it was
Speaker 1: a little elitist his conception of psychology, right, like, he
Speaker 1: was looking at the people who had been most successful
Speaker 1: in life, not successful, I would correct you there, He didn't.
Speaker 1: He did not equate self actuization with achievement. Okay, but
Speaker 1: he was looking people like Gandhian Einstein and so forth, right,
Speaker 1: I mean, he was not looking at people who he
Speaker 1: met randomly on the street. Well, that's a fair point.
Speaker 1: That's a fair point. Although he I saw an interview
Speaker 1: with his very precious interview with his wife Bertha after
Speaker 1: Mazow died, and their interviewing, you know, her about how
Speaker 1: he thought about self actuation, and she said, you know,
Speaker 1: he really thought my mother was self actualized, was way
Speaker 1: more self actualized than he thought he himself was and
Speaker 1: his and his his mother was really a good a
Speaker 1: good kind Her mother was a good kind person, but
Speaker 1: not a not someone who had achieved a lot. And
Speaker 1: if you actually look at Mazow's writings, he started off
Speaker 1: the whole idea of self actualation. He started what's called
Speaker 1: what he called the Good human Being Notebook. He was
Speaker 1: just taking down notes of who he thought were the
Speaker 1: best specimens of humanity in the sense that they were
Speaker 1: good people. And I think that gets lost a lot
Speaker 1: in this notion of self actualation and actually the spirit
Speaker 1: upon which he went into this. He thought that self
Speaker 1: actualized people represent what's best in humanity, but he did
Speaker 1: not equit it with high achievement. Okay, that aside Maslow's
Speaker 1: individual thoughts. Aside, I think that there is a danger
Speaker 1: because it's not so. I mean, for you, it might
Speaker 1: have been Maslow for me. When I think about people
Speaker 1: in moral philosophy, for example, like John Stuart Mill trying
Speaker 1: to make distinctions between higher and lower pleasures, or people
Speaker 1: who talk about the meaning of life and they associate
Speaker 1: it with, you know, some sort of creative work or
Speaker 1: changing the world in some way, and all of this
Speaker 1: sounds and you know, I have those goals and purposes myself,
Speaker 1: but the idea that that's what it should be does
Speaker 1: sound a little bit elitist to me. I think there's
Speaker 1: plenty of space out there again playing the Devil's advocate
Speaker 1: for just living, for just saying like, no, I don't
Speaker 1: wake up in the morning like with my grand plan.
Speaker 1: I just want to like be good at the day.
Speaker 1: And I can find meaningfulness in the competency and compassion
Speaker 1: with which I approach the everyday small things. And if
Speaker 1: you if you want to say, well that counts as
Speaker 1: a purpose, then that's fine. But I don't think it's
Speaker 1: what people think of when you say the word purpose.
Speaker 1: I think you're right. And you know, if if you
Speaker 1: want to talk about transcendence, we do. We do. At
Speaker 1: some point. There is a kind of a there is
Speaker 1: a grand reveal or not Grandville. There is a twist.
Speaker 1: There's a twist ending to this book. And I've been
Speaker 1: holding off on it because it's like I want people
Speaker 1: to read the mood, but I you know, there is
Speaker 1: a twist ending and and and and okay, and it
Speaker 1: gets to get what do you say? What do you say? Okay?
Speaker 1: M night shoveling. Oh I know, I know, I'm night
Speaker 1: shavel on them. Psychology. No, no, there, that speaks directly
Speaker 1: to the heart of what you're saying. And that was
Speaker 1: a twist of Masows as well, because he thought it
Speaker 1: was all about self actization, all about this grand purpose
Speaker 1: and mission, having a mission outside your self. And then
Speaker 1: he faced his own mortality and he suddenly didn't care
Speaker 1: about any of that stuff anymore, and it confused the
Speaker 1: heck out of him, and he wrote, you know in
Speaker 1: his book, this is so strange that this experience of mortality,
Speaker 1: which has in a sense taken me all the way
Speaker 1: to the bottom, not of a pyramid, but you know,
Speaker 1: made me focus on this low or need, has actually
Speaker 1: increased my sense of transcendence and appreciation of the world
Speaker 1: more than I've ever had in my entire life. And
Speaker 1: it has made me care less about the competitiveness drive,
Speaker 1: or the achievement drive, or the ego. So this was
Speaker 1: a real paradox that he was trying to work out
Speaker 1: in the last year and a half of his life
Speaker 1: before he did succumb to a heart attack at the
Speaker 1: age of sixty two. Suddenly, you know, you know, I
Speaker 1: think so yeah, this is good, and I do want
Speaker 1: to sort of I'm sorry about your book and your
Speaker 1: dramatic instincts. I want to totally spoil the ending of
Speaker 1: your book here in the podcast and talk about transcendence.
Speaker 1: But I do have one more question about purpose, which
Speaker 1: is sure, I think you know one that many people
Speaker 1: will have, which is where is it supposed to come from?
Speaker 1: I mean, can it be completely arbitrary? Does it matter
Speaker 1: which purpose we have? You know, there are people here
Speaker 1: in the United States of America who, you know, build
Speaker 1: the world's largest ball of twine or something like that.
Speaker 1: And is that just as good as people who find
Speaker 1: a cure for cancer? Oh? Just as good? Wow. Well,
Speaker 1: that's a heavy question. And I would be the last
Speaker 1: one to start to to claim I'm the arbitrator of
Speaker 1: whose purpose I think you are. I think it's your job.
Speaker 1: Oh boy, that's something. But I want to emphasize is
Speaker 1: that this is an integrated hierarchy of needs. We can't
Speaker 1: view any one of these as separate from the whole
Speaker 1: system or the whole sale boat, and and and and
Speaker 1: and I've really thought this out. I really thought this
Speaker 1: out at a very a at a very very O
Speaker 1: C D level, but you know, if we're talking about
Speaker 1: building purpose on a foundation of expiation and love, that's
Speaker 1: the way of being that I think leads to the
Speaker 1: transcendence that I'm talking about. And I'm not talking about
Speaker 1: a purpose that's that's being driven by your deprivation needs
Speaker 1: like ego and and the desperate need to fulfill a
Speaker 1: hole within yourself. I do think that we can call purpose.
Speaker 1: We can call it just a deep, deep or a
Speaker 1: goal that gives us a deep sense of satisfaction when
Speaker 1: we work toward it. If that, if that's fine, we
Speaker 1: can get let's get rid of that for the purpose
Speaker 1: of this conversation, just so we're on the same page.
Speaker 1: We can get rid of the word purpose, and we
Speaker 1: just talk about a dream, an overarching aspiration, or even
Speaker 1: just a goal that is higher priority of meaning for
Speaker 1: us than other goals, even just that, even just at
Speaker 1: the basic level, and you combine that with a sense
Speaker 1: of exploration and a sense of bee love for humanity,
Speaker 1: it's being driven by a spirit of wanting to make
Speaker 1: the world a better place. I think those three things
Speaker 1: work as a whole unit in allowing us to transcend ourselves.
Speaker 1: And that's the point I wanted to make in the
Speaker 1: book good. I mean, maybe let's uh, let's focus more
Speaker 1: specifically in on transcendence. You know, when I've read that
Speaker 1: part of your book, I thought of the Zen story
Speaker 1: about the monk who was asked, you know, what is
Speaker 1: the difference in his life before and after he became enlightened.
Speaker 1: Stop me if you've heard this one. But he said, well,
Speaker 1: you know, before I came in, before I became enlightened,
Speaker 1: I would chop wood and carry water, and now that
Speaker 1: I'm in lifened, I chop wood and carry water. That's
Speaker 1: a that's the whole story I have. He does it
Speaker 1: in an enlightened way. Now, yeah, that is that related
Speaker 1: in some way to the idea of transcending the You know,
Speaker 1: I'm sure that he's sort of the idea was he
Speaker 1: conceptualized it and perceived it and got a different kind
Speaker 1: of satisfaction from it post enlightenment, But his stuff that
Speaker 1: he was doing to get through the day was just
Speaker 1: the same stuff. That's exactly That's right, That's very right.
Speaker 1: And I do love that I talk about healthy transcendence
Speaker 1: as different from unhealthy transcendence. So there's a lot of
Speaker 1: this is an overarching framework for everything in life. By
Speaker 1: the way, I think everything in life is neither good
Speaker 1: or bad. It has a deprivation flavor to it and
Speaker 1: a growth flavor to it, and that can apply anything.
Speaker 1: You start to view the world that way. I think
Speaker 1: it really opens your eyes up to a lot. You know,
Speaker 1: you can have deprivation humor, but you can which is
Speaker 1: very self deprecating or maybe aggressive towards others, but you
Speaker 1: can have a more growth, growth oriented form of humor.
Speaker 1: You can have a form of aggression that is very
Speaker 1: deprivation motivated, but you can have kind of the Martin
Speaker 1: Luther King kind of aggression, which is like, we're going
Speaker 1: to use this to uplift all of humanity. You can
Speaker 1: go down the line, you know. And I think the
Speaker 1: same applies to transcendence. I think you have a deprivation
Speaker 1: form of transcendce, which you see in the world today
Speaker 1: with these so called gurus who who claim to be
Speaker 1: above humanity. They're like some I'm not saying all the gurus.
Speaker 1: I'm not trying to miss off the whole all the
Speaker 1: gurus here, but I'm saying there are some that you
Speaker 1: see they abuse their position of power. You see that
Speaker 1: they they sort of have this, it's it's it's being
Speaker 1: it's being motivated clearly as I see it, through narcissism
Speaker 1: and and through uh, these these these security needs not
Speaker 1: through growth through growth. But I do think there's a
Speaker 1: form of healthy transcendence that sits that's well integrated and
Speaker 1: and is not about being above humanity, but it's about
Speaker 1: being a part of humanity as much as possible. And
Speaker 1: I think that's very that's different. Those are different conceptulizations
Speaker 1: of what transcendence means. And the kind I'm talking about
Speaker 1: is a sense of great, great connectedness to the rest
Speaker 1: of humanity just by being who you are. I'm not
Speaker 1: saying that it's you are sacrificing yourself. There's a high
Speaker 1: level of integration where at the highest level of integration,
Speaker 1: there's a seamlessness between you and the world. Okay, no, no,
Speaker 1: that's that's very good. The seamlessness between you and the world,
Speaker 1: I think is a very powerful image and maybe in
Speaker 1: fact it answers the question I was just going to ask,
Speaker 1: which is the word transcend or transcendence kind of begs
Speaker 1: the question about what is it that we are transcending?
Speaker 1: And do you have a simple answer to that? Is
Speaker 1: it a thing that we're transcending or is it more
Speaker 1: vague than that. Well, one could, at the most simplistic level,
Speaker 1: say you're transcending the ego. And then and then that's
Speaker 1: a very simplistic way of saying. And then when we say, well,
Speaker 1: what is the ego? And and I would define the
Speaker 1: ego could be defined in a million different ways, and
Speaker 1: then and then the self has a million different definitions.
Speaker 1: But for purposes of our conversation, one could define the
Speaker 1: ego as all those aspects of ourself that are the
Speaker 1: defensive aspects of ourself, are the ones that tie us
Speaker 1: to security as much as possible, and to the relief
Speaker 1: from risk and the potential for pain. It's our defense mechanisms.
Speaker 1: Mm hmm. So in a lot of ways, it really
Speaker 1: is transcending, no longer needing, no longer needing our needs
Speaker 1: in a way. Got it so that it's the needs
Speaker 1: that are being transcended, or the needs for our needs.
Speaker 1: Maybe that's a better way of saying it. Yeah, correct, correct, Okay,
Speaker 1: very good. Good is that is that people should read
Speaker 1: your book to find out more. I don't want to
Speaker 1: to think that they learned everything. There's a long book
Speaker 1: full of footnotes and a lot more detail than we
Speaker 1: were able to get into here. Thank you. I appreciate
Speaker 1: that there is there is more, but you've really given
Speaker 1: me quite the opportunity here today to to really get hope.
Speaker 1: Not in the weeds. The leads is where we live.
Speaker 1: This is what. Believe me, I'm going to get a
Speaker 1: million comments on YouTube said, thank you for going into
Speaker 1: the weeds. I truly hope that people do like to
Speaker 1: listen to us kind of nerd out at this level,
Speaker 1: and that they can gain value from that because this
Speaker 1: is not your I realized this is not your kind
Speaker 1: of self help book that I'm just telling you the
Speaker 1: five steps to lead a better life. And I do
Speaker 1: have an appendix of exercises. But I think and that
Speaker 1: there are enough people out there that don't want to
Speaker 1: just be told what to do. They want to know
Speaker 1: the theory and science behind it. And I try to
Speaker 1: balance both those things. But let's make it clear for
Speaker 1: potential readers. I mean, in the book and also on
Speaker 1: your website, you do have actual, specific, actionable items that
Speaker 1: people can do to try to help themselves transcend in
Speaker 1: the sense you're talking about, right, I do, and a
Speaker 1: lot of these things I adapted from exercises. I call
Speaker 1: them growth challenges that have my students do. I teach
Speaker 1: a course on the science of living well, and you see,
Speaker 1: I see transformations. This is not only tested through science
Speaker 1: in formally pure reviewed journal articles, through hundred and hundreds
Speaker 1: of students who have said that this way of thinking
Speaker 1: about the world and these kinds of exercises have helped
Speaker 1: them grow and transcend themselves in powerful ways. And these
Speaker 1: exercises are also a lot of them are not your
Speaker 1: standard sort of happiness exercises because happiness is not my
Speaker 1: goal here. My goal is growth. So yeah, this is
Speaker 1: going to be deflationary. But I love the story in
Speaker 1: your book about Maslow moving to Brandeis and you know,
Speaker 1: teaching the class and then at the end, like the
Speaker 1: end of the semester, one of the students says, is
Speaker 1: this going to be on the test? Can you tell
Speaker 1: me what's going to be in the final? And he's like,
Speaker 1: you've learned nothing from anything that I've taught you all
Speaker 1: this course, And ironically that happened to be in my
Speaker 1: class of course, and I couldn't help, but then relay
Speaker 1: the story of Maslow, and I could that student I
Speaker 1: didn't appreciate that obviously, that that's going to undermine that.
Speaker 1: And of course you also have a podcast. Tell me
Speaker 1: about your podcast, so they know about that. Sure, So
Speaker 1: I have something. I have a podcast called the Psychology
Speaker 1: Podcast that I've been doing. It's great that you're able
Speaker 1: to steal it to to sort of you know, get
Speaker 1: that name before God, I got very good market. Yeah,
Speaker 1: now others have to try to steal mine. But I
Speaker 1: didn't steal anything. Yeah, you didn't steal any That was
Speaker 1: a mistake. You you were there first. I was there first.
Speaker 1: And it's such such a great opportunity for me to
Speaker 1: find the leading psychologists, maybe even names of psychologists that
Speaker 1: that aren't the household psychologist names. But I could still
Speaker 1: give them a platform because I still think they're leading,
Speaker 1: and they're doing great and stuff and discussing all aspects
Speaker 1: of of of the human mind and human nature I
Speaker 1: and the human variation I. Nothing. Nothing's off limits for
Speaker 1: discussion respectfully and compassionately on my podcast. So that's been great,
Speaker 1: great fun. I really hope, uh, I think a lot.
Speaker 1: I really do believe a lot of the listeners of
Speaker 1: your podcast it would enjoy some of the episodes, if
Speaker 1: not a lot of the episodes of my podcast. Yeah no,
Speaker 1: I think it's a great thought and a great place
Speaker 1: to end on Scott Perry Calprin, thanks so much for
Speaker 1: being on the Mind Skate Podcast. Thank you for having
Speaker 1: me on. It's been great. Thanks for listening to this
Speaker 1: episode of the Psychology Podcast. If you'd like to react
Speaker 1: in some way to something you heard, I encourage you
Speaker 1: to join in the discussion at the Psychology Podcast dot
Speaker 1: that's the Psychology podcast dot com. Also, please add a
Speaker 1: reading and review of the podcast on iTunes and subscribe
Speaker 1: to the Psychology Podcast YouTube channel, as we're really trying
Speaker 1: to increase our viewership on YouTube. In fact, many of
Speaker 1: these episodes are in video format on YouTube, so you'll
Speaker 1: definitely want to check out that channel. Thanks for being
Speaker 1: such a great supporter of the podcast and today next
Speaker 1: time for more on the mind, brain, behavior and creativity.