Speaker 1: It's one thing to know who you are, know what
Speaker 1: your strengths are, know what you're motivated by, what you're
Speaker 1: passionate about, and what you want to do. But if
Speaker 1: that doesn't have a context, an ecosystem, a community to
Speaker 1: exist in, you're not necessarily going to get the pleasant
Speaker 1: emotion that's associated with it. So I think it's really
Speaker 1: this kind of nice combination of me and we, right
Speaker 1: these me needs and these we needs and finding ways
Speaker 1: for those to fit together.
Speaker 2: Hello, and welcome to the Psychology Podcast. Today we welcome
Speaker 2: doctor Nick Holton to the show. Nick is an international speaker, consultant, trainer,
Speaker 2: and coach. His work focuses on helping individuals become better
Speaker 2: versions on themselves through the application of the cutting edge
Speaker 2: science of human flourishing, a synergenistic development of both peak
Speaker 2: performance and overall well being. In fulfillment, he works with individuals, teams, businesses,
Speaker 2: and organizations ranging from professional athletes, NCAA programs, educational institutions,
Speaker 2: first responders, and Fortune one hundred executives. He is co
Speaker 2: founder of the Anti Fragile Academy, and he also hosts
Speaker 2: the podcast Flourish FM, which is sponsored by the Human
Speaker 2: Flourishing Program at Harvard and the Department of Education at Oxford.
Speaker 2: Nick has worked with clients, given talks, and delivered trainings
Speaker 2: across the US, Europe, India, Australia, Uganda, Singapore, Mexico, and
Speaker 2: South America. In this episode, I talked to Nick Holton
Speaker 2: about human flourishing. Our current education system is primarily concerned
Speaker 2: with teaching academic subjects. While building knowledge is essential, this
Speaker 2: is not enough to allow students to self actualize. Nick
Speaker 2: points out that young people's need to matter should be
Speaker 2: addressed as well. To facilitate human flourishing, we need to
Speaker 2: embed the different principles of positive psychology both inside and
Speaker 2: outside of the classrooms. Nick and I believe that education
Speaker 2: can transform society for the better, and we exchange ideas
Speaker 2: on how we can build an ecosystem that fosters holistic development.
Speaker 2: This is a topic really near and dear to my heart,
Speaker 2: and it was great to have this chat with someone
Speaker 2: who I really admire. Nick's a great guy. He's super smart,
Speaker 2: super caring, and he has a really amazing go get
Speaker 2: him attitude. So that further ado I bring you doctor
Speaker 2: Nick Holton. Hey, buddy, how you doing?
Speaker 1: Good Man? It's good to see you. It's so good
Speaker 1: to see you too.
Speaker 2: Oh boy, well, I'm really looking forward to chatting with
Speaker 2: you today, and thank you so much for me on
Speaker 2: my podcast.
Speaker 1: Oh it's my pleasure. I've been looking forward to this
Speaker 1: as well. It's nice to see you again.
Speaker 2: Yeah, good to see you too. I'd love for you
Speaker 2: to introduce yourself to our audience a little bit, because
Speaker 2: you are many things, as we all are, but you
Speaker 2: are many unique things.
Speaker 1: Oh, I appreciate that. I don't know how unique they are.
Speaker 1: But doctor Nickoleton, So, as I tell people, I really
Speaker 1: focus on, I think the science of human flourishing and
Speaker 1: sort of the three ease. So that's entrepreneurs and exacts,
Speaker 1: elite athletes, and as we'll probably talk about a little
Speaker 1: bit today, education or educators as well. So my PhD
Speaker 1: is in educational psychology. I'm traditionally an educator trained as
Speaker 1: an educator, but have moved sort of into the world
Speaker 1: of our scientific understanding of human flourishing and the good life.
Speaker 2: Okay, so you are interested in the science. What was
Speaker 2: your training?
Speaker 1: My training is an educational psychology, so primarily focused on
Speaker 1: research and application of educational principles, pedagogical principles, psychological principles
Speaker 1: in educational spaces. You could interpret educational spaces rather broadly,
Speaker 1: but in this particular degree, it was focused on classroom
Speaker 1: experiences and school experiences. And I've just taken some of
Speaker 1: those and transferred them to other contexts.
Speaker 2: Okay, when you studied educational psychology, when you say education,
Speaker 2: did you bring in were there some favorite theories in
Speaker 2: the field of psychology that you brought into your work.
Speaker 2: This is the Psychology podcast, So let's integrate, you know,
Speaker 2: psychology into this. You know, where there's certain things you're like, wow,
Speaker 2: like I really love that psychologists and how they were
Speaker 2: thinking about education.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and it's not even less necessarily the way they
Speaker 1: were thinking about education, because I think part of what
Speaker 1: I found is that I didn't necessarily come across a researcher,
Speaker 1: researchers that were thinking about education the big picture and
Speaker 1: the way that I really wanted to or thought we should.
Speaker 1: We'll probably talk about it in reference Ken Robinson, sir
Speaker 1: Ken Robinson, the late great sir Ken Robinson, who I
Speaker 1: know you're a big fan of. There were people like that,
Speaker 1: just not necessarily folks I would qualify as academic researchers.
Speaker 1: The closest people I would come to are, of course
Speaker 1: ME High, chicks at ME High, and Richard Ryan and
Speaker 1: ed dec. So my introduction was basically coming through a
Speaker 1: master's program teaching for a long time, looking at the
Speaker 1: situation around me and saying, this ain't it. This is
Speaker 1: not as good as it gets, despite being in a
Speaker 1: context where it could have probably been about as good
Speaker 1: as it gets if you remove that context from the
Speaker 1: educational system. And so so when I entered my PhD program,
Speaker 1: I really went searching not just for research, but really
Speaker 1: for examples and understanding of how we could do this better,
Speaker 1: because I was looking at young people who were, you know,
Speaker 1: who found their element so to speak, right, who were passionate,
Speaker 1: who were excited, who weren't just jumping through the hoops
Speaker 1: and chasing grades and admission to certain schools, and those
Speaker 1: sorts of things. And the closest thing I came to,
Speaker 1: where DC Ryan intrinsic motivation, passion, purpose, flow, those sorts
Speaker 1: of things, and that eventually opened me up to the
Speaker 1: world of positive psychology and flourishing more generally awesome.
Speaker 2: So when was your introduction into the field of positive psychology.
Speaker 3: So I started finding and then studying and writing about
Speaker 3: you diemonia or daemoniam, depending on how you want to
Speaker 3: pronounce it.
Speaker 1: In it must have been twenty twelve. That was pretty
Speaker 1: early into my doctoral program. That opened me up up
Speaker 1: to sort of these different versions and scientific conceptualizations of
Speaker 1: well being, and that eventually led me down the road
Speaker 1: to sort of just reading different things that have and
Speaker 1: then his fate would have it in two thousand and fourteen,
Speaker 1: twenty fifteen. It must have been twenty fifteen. It was
Speaker 1: the graduating class of twenty fifteen the school I was
Speaker 1: working at brought in doctor tal Ben Shahar, and so
Speaker 1: I was mid dissertation writing a lot about sort of
Speaker 1: the science of well being, daemonia, engagement, intrinsic motivation, flow,
Speaker 1: and then here comes Tall And if your listeners don't know,
Speaker 1: Tall Tall started the positive psychology program at Harvard that
Speaker 1: became wildly popular, and I think in many ways was
Speaker 1: sort of on the front line of the development of
Speaker 1: this field. It was very fortunate I went up and
Speaker 1: introduced myself. He was incredibly kind. He offered to read
Speaker 1: my dissertation, He was very supportive, offered to help in
Speaker 1: any way he could, So that only kind of furthered
Speaker 1: my dive and enthusiasm into the field as a whole,
Speaker 1: and it evolved from there.
Speaker 2: That's awesome. Yeah, yeah, he's he's a prior guest of
Speaker 2: our podcast as well.
Speaker 1: I would imagine. Yeah, he's a great guy.
Speaker 2: Great, yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely. Okay, So when did you
Speaker 2: get into coaching and consulting? Because you've worked with professional
Speaker 2: and collegiate athletes Fortune five hundred business leaders obviously educators,
Speaker 2: but also thought leaders from around the world. It's in
Speaker 2: your bio, So can you when did when did that happen?
Speaker 2: So that's like an add on, an add on to
Speaker 2: your career.
Speaker 1: Right, yeah, well in some ways, yeah, I mean to
Speaker 1: the coaching question depends on how you want to frame
Speaker 1: up coaching. I had been coaching soccer for a decade
Speaker 1: already by the time I entered my doctoral program. It
Speaker 1: was my gig in college during undergrad Right, I was
Speaker 1: a pretty good player myself, and knew I wanted to
Speaker 1: go into education, knew I wanted to work with young people,
Speaker 1: and so coaching the sport that I played, seem like
Speaker 1: a nice natural transition, right, So I have in some way,
Speaker 1: shape or form been instructing, coaching, teaching, whatever you want
Speaker 1: to call it, you know, whatever semantic debate you want
Speaker 1: to have around those terms. Really since two thousand and three, probably, right,
Speaker 1: so fifteen years or so in each field, you know,
Speaker 1: combined thirty years experience across basically every age group in
Speaker 1: most I think, probably different demographic populations as well. So
Speaker 1: there was a lot of coaching, a lot of teaching
Speaker 1: from two thousand and three to really within the last
Speaker 1: a few years, handful of years, probably, Like once I've
Speaker 1: defended my dissertation twenty sixteen, I started my own business,
Speaker 1: started coaching, started consulting because I basically looked at what
Speaker 1: I was doing inside a classroom around flourishing, pause, psych wellness, motivation, purpose,
Speaker 1: you know, a lot of the stuff that you write
Speaker 1: about and transcend as well, and said, well, this can
Speaker 1: apply to anybody, right, Like, it's great to be able
Speaker 1: to sit here and do this with young people, but
Speaker 1: I can do more and I want to do more.
Speaker 1: So that turned eventually into adult courses. So I was
Speaker 1: teaching a lot of parents of the school that I
Speaker 1: worked at, I was teaching a lot of alumni, and
Speaker 1: then I started kind of as a side gig advising
Speaker 1: some business leaders, working with athletes here and there, and
Speaker 1: then it just sort of developed to the point where
Speaker 1: and then eventually you and I met this way. Eventually
Speaker 1: I left that school, moved to Philadelphia, your original hood,
Speaker 1: and was kind of walking around downtown. In fact, I
Speaker 1: remember it very specifically, walking around downtown Washington Square Park
Speaker 1: listening to your episode with Glenn Fox on FRC radio.
Speaker 2: That's funny.
Speaker 1: So I had followed Steven Stephen Kttler were talking about
Speaker 1: for a while and and had been a fan, and
Speaker 1: I listened to that episode. I knew you already, not personally,
Speaker 1: but I knew of you. Went back and left I
Speaker 1: think a comment on social media somewhere and just said, hey,
Speaker 1: great episode, really enjoyed it. And then the CEO of
Speaker 1: Flow Research Collective reached out said, hey, it looks like
Speaker 1: you're doing a lot of this sort of work already.
Speaker 1: Why don't you come coach for us? And that led
Speaker 1: to I think my sort of official entry into formal coaching,
Speaker 1: if you will, right, and then you and I met,
Speaker 1: and I've been doing mostly that work for the last
Speaker 1: couple of years.
Speaker 2: Got some intel from Full Research Collective that you're killing
Speaker 2: it over there.
Speaker 1: That's very nice. I'm happy to hear that.
Speaker 2: I've recently was talking to someone very high up over there,
Speaker 2: said he said, I said, who's your favorite coach over there? Well,
Speaker 2: I shouldn't say that publy, just off the record, off
Speaker 2: the record, appreciate it. I asked them who their favorite
Speaker 2: coach was, and they sent you.
Speaker 1: Okay, awesome. Well, we have a slate of tremendous coaches,
Speaker 1: you know. But I'm glad to hear that. I feel
Speaker 1: like it's a good fit and I hope I add
Speaker 1: value not only to that organization but to the people
Speaker 1: who come through it.
Speaker 2: Absolutely so. Look, there are so many mutual areas of
Speaker 2: overlap of interest between us, it makes it a bit
Speaker 2: overwhelming in order to think where does one begin in
Speaker 2: our discussion. Well, one could start with the coaching more broadly,
Speaker 2: education more specifically. I would really love to combine these
Speaker 2: two things because it's something that's just been on my
Speaker 2: heart lately. Is this idea of I would love to
Speaker 2: be able to train teachers to be self actualization coaches,
Speaker 2: you know, And I know that's an idea that really
Speaker 2: resonated with you too. What do you think are some
Speaker 2: of the mean sort of principles or things you've learned
Speaker 2: from your coaching experience you think we can apply in
Speaker 2: schools to help bring in the best in students. I
Speaker 2: think that'd be a good way to kind of start
Speaker 2: kickoff our discussion.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, if you want to do this and
Speaker 1: sort of in levels, and like you said, we have
Speaker 1: a lot of areas I think mutual interest and probably
Speaker 1: mutual agreement to a certain extent as well. The idea
Speaker 1: that there should be a universal approach is not just
Speaker 1: problematic but actually harmful in many cases. But when I'm
Speaker 1: working with a client, a student, whoever it might be,
Speaker 1: the educational term is differentiation, and I think you have
Speaker 1: a very personal experience with this as well, given your
Speaker 1: time as a kid in school and going through the system,
Speaker 1: to be able to look at each young person or
Speaker 1: adult for who they are, what their situation is, what
Speaker 1: their context is, and then start to work and develop
Speaker 1: a plan from there. Now, the tricky part there, of course,
Speaker 1: is plan for what. There's a larger systemic question involved
Speaker 1: in that, right, but it starts with I think having
Speaker 1: the time and the space to be able to get
Speaker 1: to know each person you're working with on a deeper
Speaker 1: one to one level, which typically is not the case
Speaker 1: in a lot of classrooms these days.
Speaker 2: So do you think personalized attention is a key part
Speaker 2: of what's so valuable about the coaching process? Is that
Speaker 2: what I'm hearing from what you're saying? Percent so cool? Cool, Yeah,
Speaker 2: there is something really special there. I No, You're right,
Speaker 2: and I think we should, as Angel Duckler says, let's
Speaker 2: double click on that. I think that to be able
Speaker 2: to feel as though you matter, you know that your
Speaker 2: individual existence matters in an education environment would be huge.
Speaker 2: And I think that coaching and being that one and
Speaker 2: one attention signals that in a way. Right, do you
Speaker 2: see that need for mattering as playing a big role
Speaker 2: in the work you do?
Speaker 1: One hundred percent? Yeah. I mean it makes me think
Speaker 1: of your book right in these different ways to access meaning.
Speaker 1: And I'd be really interested in having a deep conversation
Speaker 1: with developmental psychologists on this, because if we're just talking
Speaker 1: about young people. So we had an interview with Waters
Speaker 1: a couple of months ago. Yeah, I know, you know Lee.
Speaker 1: We both love Lee. She's terrific, and we were talking
Speaker 1: to her a bit about her Visible well Being program
Speaker 1: and the different sort of components of it, and myself
Speaker 1: and my co host for our podcast kind of pressed
Speaker 1: her a little bit on the purpose and meaning question,
Speaker 1: said where is it? Where is it in your framework?
Speaker 1: Where is it in your model? And she made the
Speaker 1: argument that in their very large scale studies you often
Speaker 1: don't see that need or at least have meaning and
Speaker 1: purpose come to sort of the top of the list
Speaker 1: for people at that age. On some level, that makes sense,
Speaker 1: And I think it actually is a good pushback against
Speaker 1: what I just said about personalized attention, because I don't
Speaker 1: want personalized attention to sound like everyone should just do
Speaker 1: whatever they want, because we need to learn to live
Speaker 1: in community and groups and ecosystems and all those sorts
Speaker 1: of things. So on the one hand, you know, I'm
Speaker 1: taking that very good research from somebody I deeply respect, right,
Speaker 1: and at the same time looking at the if you will,
Speaker 1: anekdata right, this term I keep hearing getting thrown around
Speaker 1: all people want to matter, But it seems to me
Speaker 1: that young people especially are really driven to find someone
Speaker 1: or something that gives them that sense of mattering. It
Speaker 1: might not be purpose, but at some level of probably
Speaker 1: you know the boat, you know, self esteem, connection, relationships,
Speaker 1: I matter to someone or something right, So I think
Speaker 1: there's it's not really an either or. I think there's
Speaker 1: room for a both and and yeah, one hundred percent
Speaker 1: young people are looking for that, And I think that's
Speaker 1: that is the crux of what we're getting into in
Speaker 1: the world of education is I think a lot of
Speaker 1: young people feel like they matter to the extent that
Speaker 1: they can get the grades, get the test scores, get
Speaker 1: into the schools, and go get the job.
Speaker 2: Right, And yeah, yeah, you're right.
Speaker 1: Well, no, like the system primarily is designed for that. Well,
Speaker 1: what about the hundreds of thousands of kids right year
Speaker 1: after year for whom that path and that trajectory and
Speaker 1: that skill set right propensity doesn't fit. How do we
Speaker 1: help them matter right? How do we find ways and
Speaker 1: channels to kind of pull that out of them, to
Speaker 1: help them become more aware of that and then execute
Speaker 1: it on a way that creates that sense of mattering
Speaker 1: for themselves rather than having it kind of just be
Speaker 1: up to what the system dictates.
Speaker 2: Yeah, absolutely, well that's a good question.
Speaker 1: How do we.
Speaker 2: How do we I am so excited to announce that
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Speaker 2: helping clients thrive. For twenty years, I've dedicated my career
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Speaker 2: Go to sacoaching dot o RG that's s A coaching
Speaker 2: dot org and get twenty percent off today. I look
Speaker 2: forward to welcoming you in December. Its long occurred to
Speaker 2: me that we need to do something different about how
Speaker 2: we handle troublemakers, you know. That's something that occurred to
Speaker 2: me as you were talking, and not just help the
Speaker 2: ones who are already succeeding, succeed more, you know. But
Speaker 2: we do a terrible job handling the troublemakers, don't we,
Speaker 2: And we completely neglect the fact that they may have
Speaker 2: a lot of creative potential, and because you know, they're
Speaker 2: they're defiant, or let's say they're rebellious. Elliousness is not
Speaker 2: necessarily a bad characteristic right, if integrated and harnessed in
Speaker 2: a good way. So it's so, what role do you
Speaker 2: see in coaching young kids the idea of being able
Speaker 2: to kind of see a force spectrum of who they
Speaker 2: could be than just their bad behavior.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's a great question, thanks Nick. Well, and those
Speaker 1: are my favorite, to be honest, I mean, throughout my
Speaker 1: career as an educator, it was I often would request
Speaker 1: the quote unquote troublemakers, like the difficult ones to deal with,
Speaker 1: so to speak, for exactly that reason. Like, it's, in
Speaker 1: my opinion, not all that difficult to just get a
Speaker 1: let's say, naturally academically intelligent person to do well right,
Speaker 1: to just learn and take the test and jump through
Speaker 1: the hoops and those sorts of things. But the ones
Speaker 1: who don't fit that mold and who really need somebody
Speaker 1: to lean on, those are the fun ones to work
Speaker 1: with me. I mean, they're all fun to work with,
Speaker 1: but those are kind of the special cases. How do
Speaker 1: you go about doing that in a coaching situation? I
Speaker 1: think again, it comes back to personalization. It's a lot
Speaker 1: of one on one time or small group time. It's
Speaker 1: helping them see their strengths and their talents, right, not
Speaker 1: only those things, but certainly those things and having a
Speaker 1: strengths focus to combat in experience in a system that
Speaker 1: often makes them feel like they're mostly made up of weaknesses. Right.
Speaker 1: I mean that's a really hard thing for anyone to
Speaker 1: sustain and navigate, let alone a person who's twelve, fifteen, seventeen,
Speaker 1: those sorts of things helping them to really reflect on
Speaker 1: and clarify and think about what they want, you know,
Speaker 1: I'm going to say out of life. That's a big
Speaker 1: question for a teenager, but at least getting them like, okay,
Speaker 1: so maybe school isn't your thing right right now, maybe
Speaker 1: a particular trajectory isn't your thing. That's okay, Like you
Speaker 1: should give permission to yourself for that to be okay,
Speaker 1: But that doesn't mean do nothing, Right, who are you
Speaker 1: going to be? Or what do you want to be?
Speaker 1: Or what do you want to do instead of those things?
Speaker 1: And then once we can start to zero in on that,
Speaker 1: we can come back to what I said earlier, which
Speaker 1: is start to develop a plant. Right, Okay, if this
Speaker 1: is the destination, what's the trajectory right? What's the path right?
Speaker 1: And that's not always super clear, but at least it's
Speaker 1: a starting point for a young person.
Speaker 2: Yeah, definitely. This notion of flourishing is it crops up?
Speaker 2: It pops up a lot in your work. So what
Speaker 2: is flourishing? First of all, how do you conceptualize it?
Speaker 2: And then I want to Yeah, I just want to
Speaker 2: think through like what would it mean for students to
Speaker 2: flourish in an education context?
Speaker 1: Yeah? To me, it's really kind of a synergistic combination
Speaker 1: of well being, which itself, it can be a complicated
Speaker 1: concept scientifically, right, but I'm just going to use it
Speaker 1: very generally. Sure, more often than not feeling pretty good.
Speaker 1: That doesn't mean constantly, it doesn't mean a lack of
Speaker 1: so called negative emotion or what you and I would
Speaker 1: probably call unpleasant emotion. So it's a synergistic combination of
Speaker 1: well being and whether you want to call it high performance,
Speaker 1: optimal performance, optimal functioning. I like Carol Riff's language around
Speaker 1: environmental mastery right too. Yeah, you know, just developing these
Speaker 1: competencies that give you a sense of self esteem, self concept,
Speaker 1: self efficacy, and allow you to, I think, start to
Speaker 1: access that word we mentioned earlier, which is mattering. Right.
Speaker 1: What's at the core of mattering? Well, I need to
Speaker 1: have an entity that I matter too, right, but why
Speaker 1: might I matter to them? I don't mean to be
Speaker 1: overly crass about it, but you serve some sort of utility,
Speaker 1: right That might be love, affection, companionship, but it might
Speaker 1: be a skill set, right, sort of a quote unquot
Speaker 1: traditionally hard skill set, so to speak. Right. So in
Speaker 1: an educational context, that's where I think you get back
Speaker 1: into that balance of the individual and the community. It's
Speaker 1: one thing to know who you are and know what
Speaker 1: your strengths are, and know what you're motivated by, what
Speaker 1: you're passionate about, and what you want to do. But
Speaker 1: if that doesn't have a context, an ecosystem, a community
Speaker 1: to exist in, you're not necessarily going to get the
Speaker 1: pleasant emotion that's associated with it. Right. So I think
Speaker 1: it's really this kind of nice combination of me and we, right,
Speaker 1: these me needs and these we needs and finding ways
Speaker 1: for those to fit together.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I love that you bring that in. I'm a
Speaker 2: really big fan of Isaac Prolotinsky's research, and he's one
Speaker 2: of the ones in the positis ecology world who really
Speaker 2: is trying to think through how these things combined to
Speaker 2: influence our sense of our need to matter, our influence
Speaker 2: or sense of or are mattering? Yeah, No, I love
Speaker 2: that you do that, me and the we yesh. It's
Speaker 2: not all about helping students self actualize independent of their environment, right, yeah, yeah, right?
Speaker 2: Can you even self actualize independent of your environment? Is
Speaker 2: that even possible? Yeah? Is that possible?
Speaker 1: I was just gonna ask that, right, Like I clok
Speaker 1: people all the time, you can't. You know. My opinion is,
Speaker 1: you don't flourish in a vacuum, right, Like you can
Speaker 1: look at simple things, whether it's emotional contagion, pygmalion effect. Right,
Speaker 1: we're starting to understand this more and more on a
Speaker 1: biological level as well. But obviously our surroundings matter, our
Speaker 1: relationships matter, right, So to suggest that we're just doing
Speaker 1: this in complete isolation seems to me to be a
Speaker 1: bit of a denial of reality.
Speaker 2: Yeah, to even push that metaphor a little bit further,
Speaker 2: all you do in a vacuum is collec dust.
Speaker 1: There you go, love it.
Speaker 2: So no one never takes nover, No one ever takes
Speaker 2: that metaphor like a little bit further, you know, Yeah,
Speaker 2: I'll be the one to do that. You don't flourish
Speaker 2: in a vacuum, You just collec dust. Okay, yeah, okay,
Speaker 2: this is this is my sense of humor. Okay, so
Speaker 2: what are some of your greatest words that come from teaching?
Speaker 2: You know, why make this, uh this part of your
Speaker 2: life's mission?
Speaker 1: Mattering?
Speaker 2: Really so we really have kind of hint yeah, you know,
Speaker 2: coincidentally on some of the core things for you.
Speaker 1: I mean, listen, like, I don't I don't know anyone
Speaker 1: in the educational space who has said, like, yeah, I
Speaker 1: got in it for the money or you know, the stress,
Speaker 1: or candidly, and I want to be very clear here
Speaker 1: when we talk about you know, we and what people
Speaker 1: are doing and what's happening in classrooms, I don't I
Speaker 1: don't want to put that on teachers because I think
Speaker 1: teachers have candidly some really unrealistic expectations. In a lot
Speaker 1: of cases, they have a ton on their plates and
Speaker 1: a lot of stuff overflows off of that plate as
Speaker 1: a consequence. When it comes to good educators, the best
Speaker 1: educators and the type of educator that I have always
Speaker 1: wanted to be and to a certain extent, continue to
Speaker 1: want to be even though I'm working with some other populations.
Speaker 1: Now it comes down to contributing having an impact. Now,
Speaker 1: that could be directly to a young person, or it
Speaker 1: could be more indirectly to the young person who then
Speaker 1: is going to go out in impact society or their family,
Speaker 1: or their community or whatever it might be, whatever nested
Speaker 1: level you know, you want to think about. Ultimately, I
Speaker 1: think that's why you're interested in this too. Like, I
Speaker 1: still believe that education is the way to transform an
Speaker 1: entire society. I don't think we're doing that at this moment,
Speaker 1: but I still believe in the system. And so when
Speaker 1: I was oh jeez, it must have been sixth grade,
Speaker 1: I was probably about twelve years old. I distinctly remember
Speaker 1: taking my sister. I have two younger sisters. Took the
Speaker 1: youngest one out into the driveway. She had a soccer
Speaker 1: game that day, and I remember helping her with a
Speaker 1: couple of things, and she went out to the game
Speaker 1: later that day, had a great game, you know, big
Speaker 1: mile on her face, like really took it to this
Speaker 1: boy that was, you know, twice her size, that sort
Speaker 1: of thing. And I remember thinking, oh, I did that right, Like,
Speaker 1: not not terribly humbly and certainly naively, but I remember thinking, well,
Speaker 1: the correlation is I worked with her. She went out
Speaker 1: and had this great game. She happy about it. That
Speaker 1: makes me feel good? Yeah, right, And so that feeling
Speaker 1: I grabbed onto and then it was a three years later.
Speaker 1: I did a like a day at work sort of
Speaker 1: thing through my high school with my uncles. An incredible guy,
Speaker 1: and he was an athletic director at the time. And
Speaker 1: I remember leaving a school where I had a bunch
Speaker 1: of great relationships with my teachers, awesome teachers, you know,
Speaker 1: but just actually better people, people who looked out for
Speaker 1: me and felt kind of like friends, right, and going
Speaker 1: to work with my uncle and seeing him on the
Speaker 1: other side of that same relationships, right, but he was
Speaker 1: on the adult side, and I had that same feeling.
Speaker 1: It's like, oh, I want more of that. That's the
Speaker 1: way to get that same feeling I had with my
Speaker 1: sister time and time and time again. So what do
Speaker 1: I want to do. I want to go into education. Right.
Speaker 1: So when you ask about meaning mattering purpose, ultimately it
Speaker 1: boils down to trying to work with someone more often
Speaker 1: than not, young people who need a little bit of help, support, guidance,
Speaker 1: a friend, whatever it might. It's just adding value. It's
Speaker 1: just impacting them positively so that they can go be
Speaker 1: a better version of themselves and ideally impact other people positively.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, you're a good person.
Speaker 1: I don't know about that, but not everyone's motivated to
Speaker 1: do that. I am fortunate enough to have those experiences
Speaker 1: early on and have them supported by family and friends
Speaker 1: who I think. You know, a lot of educators believe
Speaker 1: in education and believe in the potential of education. So
Speaker 1: I got like, you know, it doesn't happen in a vacuum.
Speaker 1: I got lucky.
Speaker 2: I love that. I said, you're a good person. You're like,
Speaker 2: I don't know about that. You ask I love that
Speaker 2: you that you responded, You're like, I wouldn't go that far.
Speaker 1: I wouldn't go that far.
Speaker 2: No, I mean it's it's a well, it's a beautiful
Speaker 2: pro social motivation. I mean, not everyone has pro social motivations.
Speaker 2: So yeah, there's like an under Yeah, correct, you gotta
Speaker 2: at least give give that to yourself. So there is
Speaker 2: this field that's that's popped up in in the past
Speaker 2: couple of years. They're calling themselves the field of positive education.
Speaker 2: I was wondering, how involved are you in that field?
Speaker 2: Do you go to the conferences, do you know the
Speaker 2: main players in that field, and then what is the
Speaker 2: current state of the field, because I can't say I've
Speaker 2: kept up too much with it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, So the background here is that I mentioned that
Speaker 1: story about meeting Tall Tall then Shahar, right, and after
Speaker 1: that visit to my former school in Los Angeles, the
Speaker 1: school kind of said, Hey, we want to do more
Speaker 1: of this. This sounds great. Why wouldn't we focus on
Speaker 1: well being in the good life for our young people? Right,
Speaker 1: And there's so much potential to be had here. And
Speaker 1: then I was kind of sitting here mid dissertation saying, Okay, cool,
Speaker 1: let me run with it. I've been at that school
Speaker 1: about a decade. I think had some credibility and respect
Speaker 1: and cloud enough to kind of push that thing forward.
Speaker 1: And so I within a year or so became kind
Speaker 1: of the director of that program. That opened me up
Speaker 1: to the world of, for lack of a better phrase,
Speaker 1: although we'll talk about this and maybe in a couple
Speaker 1: of minutes, positive education. And we started offering student electives,
Speaker 1: which quickly became intensely popular, probably a variety of reasons
Speaker 1: for that, and then eventually started teaching the parents and
Speaker 1: the alumni who were really interested in it as well.
Speaker 1: That got us to a point where where I was
Speaker 1: starting to ask questions more so about the ecosystem around us. So,
Speaker 1: for instance, you know, kid comes into the elective and
Speaker 1: we talk about something like grit cause you mentioned Angela
Speaker 1: or you know, Carol stuff, or on growth and fixed mindset.
Speaker 1: But then they go home and they get a completely
Speaker 1: different message, or they go to the next teacher and
Speaker 1: they get a completely different message, right, And it felt
Speaker 1: this might not be a bad thing, but it felt
Speaker 1: a little like Sisyphis and you know, hey, are we
Speaker 1: really going to get to the top of this hill
Speaker 1: like I'd really like to? Right, which remember was the
Speaker 1: whole reason I went into my PhD program in the
Speaker 1: first place. Yeah, how do we get the best out
Speaker 1: of our young people? Right? And it quickly became apparent
Speaker 1: to me that that had to be an ecosystemic question
Speaker 1: on some level. So that led me to get connected
Speaker 1: with different organizations like IPEN, the International Positive Education Network.
Speaker 1: They wanted to get in with our school. We had
Speaker 1: a variety of different plans, and suffice to say, at
Speaker 1: some point early on in the pandemic, we went through
Speaker 1: some transitions and it became clear to me that part
Speaker 1: of the ecosystemic question has to involve my colleagues, and
Speaker 1: it became clear that colleague well being might not be
Speaker 1: of the utmost priority. And to be candidly, Scott, I
Speaker 1: didn't want to be the jackass walking around talking about
Speaker 1: positive psyche and well being with a bunch of people
Speaker 1: who are miserable. That was of no interest to me.
Speaker 1: Right So, fortuitously, within the same week of sort of
Speaker 1: having that insight or at least judgment, I connected with
Speaker 1: my co director of Human Flourishing at the Shipley School,
Speaker 1: right which is right down the road from where you're from.
Speaker 1: And I had reached out to her. Name's doctor Sharon Russell.
Speaker 1: Shout out to Sharon, She's awesome. I had reached out
Speaker 1: to her her because we were seeking essentially a counselor
Speaker 1: a counseling position at the school in Los Angeles, and
Speaker 1: she responded to me and said, well, we're seeking an
Speaker 1: associate director of positive education, which is what it was
Speaker 1: called at the time. And so I called her the
Speaker 1: next day and said, hey, how about me. We knew
Speaker 1: each other a little bit already. She was a little
Speaker 1: surprised that I was considering moving, but I knew Shipley
Speaker 1: I knew its reputation, and it's the long way of
Speaker 1: answering the question what we're going to get there?
Speaker 2: It's okay, take your time.
Speaker 1: Yeah, So my wife and I picked up moved to
Speaker 1: Philadelphia because the Shipley School, where I now still do
Speaker 1: consulting and in that co director position, this is a
Speaker 1: school where a lot of notable psychologists I'll leave names
Speaker 1: out just for privacy, but people that a lot of
Speaker 1: people would know they send their kids to Shipley because
Speaker 1: of the emphasis. You can call it pause, psyche, you
Speaker 1: can call it human flourishing, well being, whatever it might be.
Speaker 1: But I think we at Shipley are at least a
Speaker 1: firing to do things a bit differently, and so coming
Speaker 1: from my school in Los Angeles, I thought this would
Speaker 1: be a really great opportunity to get even more embedded
Speaker 1: in this field. Right. So to answer your question, Yes,
Speaker 1: through my work in LA, through my work with the
Speaker 1: Shipley School, I've had the opportunity to kind of collaborate
Speaker 1: with or be in meetings with the likes of Angela
Speaker 1: and Marty Seligman and others who are really really big
Speaker 1: names in that field, as well as attend some of
Speaker 1: these conferences get exposed to some of these other leaders
Speaker 1: like Lee Waters and others, and so to a say
Speaker 1: yeah to a certain extent embedded in it and at
Speaker 1: the same time critical of it. I don't mean to
Speaker 1: be overly derogatory about it, Yeah, somewhat. I mean, here's
Speaker 1: why I keep changing language. I'll give you another side note. So,
Speaker 1: a friend of yours who I told you I met
Speaker 1: in LA because we had her out for talk, Sonya
Speaker 1: Leer Burmirski. She came and gave a talk at my
Speaker 1: school in Los Angeles, and we talked a little bit
Speaker 1: about the name positive psychology. I haven't met a person
Speaker 1: that's a big fan of it, that title, right, and
Speaker 1: a lot of the reason why you know, we had
Speaker 1: Todd cash in on our podcast. I know, you know
Speaker 1: Todd is the shadow side, right, the upside of your
Speaker 1: dark side, the way unpleasant or so called. You know,
Speaker 1: negative emotions are actually associated with like different markers of
Speaker 1: psychological health and well being and keep us safe and
Speaker 1: keep us motivated and these sorts of things. Oftentimes it
Speaker 1: gets confused with toxic positivity. Oftentimes it gets criticized, somewhat
Speaker 1: fairly so for being a little too individualistic, right, and
Speaker 1: not having enough of a community focus, and so pretty
Speaker 1: quickly into my tenure at Shipley, Sharon and I started
Speaker 1: talking about whether positive psychology or positive of education was
Speaker 1: really the term that we were going for, not only
Speaker 1: because we had some concerns about it, but I mean
Speaker 1: to be crass from a marketing perspective, that sounds a
Speaker 1: little hand wavy as well, right when you're trying to
Speaker 1: essentially recruit families. So you know, there's been an evolution
Speaker 1: from sort of you know, the kids in front of
Speaker 1: me are not all becoming their best selves? To oh,
Speaker 1: is it a motivation question? Is it a flow question?
Speaker 1: Is it a well being question? Is it a purpose question?
Speaker 1: To well, it's all of that. How do we help
Speaker 1: them like collect this recipe so to speak, right, which
Speaker 1: you've done really nicely in transcend and then start reorganizing
Speaker 1: and rethinking systems to make sure that that can happen.
Speaker 2: I love that, and I love that you said systems,
Speaker 2: Peggy Kern and Australia is doing great work on applying
Speaker 2: a systems way of thinking to education. You talked about
Speaker 2: the label. It's a shame when the when a label
Speaker 2: can detract or get in a way of what we're
Speaker 2: trying to change, you know, fundamentally, it's just a distraction.
Speaker 2: It's not We don't want to harp on on an
Speaker 2: un label in any way, you know, I don't want to.
Speaker 2: I don't want to label a student, right, But I've
Speaker 2: referred to it sort of my mission, and I want
Speaker 2: to see what you think of this label. And you
Speaker 2: can be honest with me. You can shatter my dreams
Speaker 2: too if you want. But but I'd like to call
Speaker 2: it toward a human centered education system. And I was
Speaker 2: wondering what your thoughts on that. I was even thinking
Speaker 2: about me. We wring a book about that, and we've
Speaker 2: talked about this before.
Speaker 1: We have talked about this. I love it. You know.
Speaker 1: When you came on to our podcast, we had a great,
Speaker 1: I think conversation. I wouldn't go so far as calling
Speaker 1: it at debate, but we were kind of using different language.
Speaker 1: Are we talking about flourishing? Are we talking about self actualization? Right?
Speaker 1: You can bring bring in different forms of well being
Speaker 1: and life satisfaction. So this is not going to sound
Speaker 1: super science y coming from an academic, but I think
Speaker 1: we're mostly talking about the same stuff, right, I think
Speaker 1: I actually recently you had a tweet or an IG
Speaker 1: post or something where you more or less said something
Speaker 1: along those lines. We're mostly talking about the same stuff,
Speaker 1: and that stuff is what most human beings really need,
Speaker 1: I mean truly need. Right, So when you say the
Speaker 1: phrase human centered education, I completely jive with that, and
Speaker 1: that's what I would like to see. I do not
Speaker 1: think that's anywhere close to what we currently have.
Speaker 2: I agree, I agree, But I do want to give
Speaker 2: Shipley some credit, and you some credit, because you're moving
Speaker 2: in the in the right direction. I think, you know,
Speaker 2: Can you tell me a little bit more how the
Speaker 2: Shipley School is attempting to help to lead a charge
Speaker 2: into into whatever we want to call it.
Speaker 1: Sure, how's it? How's it?
Speaker 2: How's it moving in a direction we want it? We
Speaker 2: want education to be moving in, I guess, is my question?
Speaker 1: Sure? Yeah, well again, I mean it's aspirational, right. Shipley
Speaker 1: has to exist in this ecosystem as well, so there's
Speaker 1: certain challenges that come with that into existing as an
Speaker 1: independent school. I will just you know, respectfully, push back
Speaker 1: and correct. It has very little to do with me,
Speaker 1: and I think we talked about this when you came
Speaker 1: onto our show. Honestly, my co director, Sharon deserves the
Speaker 1: overwhelming credit for moving a lot of these things forward.
Speaker 1: So Sharon is traditionally a counselor by trade right and
Speaker 1: comes with that sort of background, which is why I
Speaker 1: think she and I make a good team, and always
Speaker 1: felt like we'd make a good team because I was
Speaker 1: coming from the educator pause psych background, right, so there
Speaker 1: was a nice sort of I think, complementary skill set there.
Speaker 1: So Sharon has been at Shipley I can't even remember now,
Speaker 1: at least a couple of decades, with one stint away
Speaker 1: in between. But when she came back, she really started
Speaker 1: to push forward what at that point I think was
Speaker 1: commonly referred to as social emotional or socio emotional learning,
Speaker 1: and that led to the development of our curriculum that's
Speaker 1: known as Seed Seed Social Emotional and Ethical Development. So
Speaker 1: at Shipley, every student takes Seed classes I believe K
Speaker 1: through twelve every year as one of their It's called
Speaker 1: a quote unquote minor, which is essentially it's not an
Speaker 1: elective because they can't opt in or out right, but
Speaker 1: it's not it's not graded. Let's put it that way, okay,
Speaker 1: So that gives any Shipley student the opportunity to at
Speaker 1: least start to get exposed to some of these ideas
Speaker 1: and concepts and exercises and principles in a way that
Speaker 1: we hope gives them different capacities as they move on
Speaker 1: to that next stage in life. Right Now, again that's aspirational.
Speaker 1: My role in that is really to primarily focus on
Speaker 1: our adult population alongside that. So some of it is
Speaker 1: exactly what you said. Primarily, what I do for Shipley
Speaker 1: now is work with the teaching population to help them
Speaker 1: understand where there are organic opportunities to include concepts like flow,
Speaker 1: emotional agility, gratitude, mindfulness, right, any sort of the different
Speaker 1: tools and subcomponents you might think of as being highly
Speaker 1: associated with our field, where the opportunities for them to
Speaker 1: organically embed those into a classroom experience or out of
Speaker 1: classroom experience as well, right, because they're teachers primarily in
Speaker 1: classroom experience. Because many teachers are looking at the situation
Speaker 1: and saying, so I need to teach my core curriculum
Speaker 1: and all the skills associated with it. Now I need
Speaker 1: to teach well being stuff. And by the way, and
Speaker 1: this is something Shipley's deeply committed to, but I need
Speaker 1: to be thinking about concerns of Dee and I as well,
Speaker 1: and you can see how quickly a teachers play will
Speaker 1: start to overflow. Right. That I need to do at
Speaker 1: this point with Shipley and others is try to help
Speaker 1: them comprehend quickly and apply efficiently, right, because there's just
Speaker 1: not a lot of space for teachers to do more.
Speaker 2: I agree, I agree. And then related to that question
Speaker 2: is the question you probably get all the time, which
Speaker 2: is what's the balance or tension between school spending time
Speaker 2: on traditional academic skills and school's focusing and developing human potential?
Speaker 2: Because what if teachers focus so much on the students'
Speaker 2: happiness and self actualization and all that fun stuff and
Speaker 2: then they bomb and tank their standardized tests, Well, the
Speaker 2: school system is not going to be happy with that,
Speaker 2: right school administrators.
Speaker 1: So I think there's a couple of things here, and
Speaker 1: it's a great question. I think you and I chatted
Speaker 1: about it a little bit over lunch in LA back
Speaker 1: in April, but yeah, we I'm not going to purport
Speaker 1: to have the answers. What I will say is it
Speaker 1: goes back to one of my original comments about not
Speaker 1: having universal approaches and standards for a wildly diverse population,
Speaker 1: not just nationally, right, but even within states, even with
Speaker 1: in communities. Right. So, for instance, I have student taught
Speaker 1: and worked in schools that are really at the bottom
Speaker 1: of the socioeconomic spectrum, and I've spent most of my
Speaker 1: career working at schools that are at the top. Now,
Speaker 1: in both circumstances, I would argue, neither group, neither population
Speaker 1: of students, is particularly happy or satisfied. I go back
Speaker 1: to the twenty was it twenty fifteen study Mark Brackett
Speaker 1: mentions this in Permission to Feel That noted. I think
Speaker 1: seventy five percent of the words that students use to
Speaker 1: describe their school experience are negative. Right. It suggests something
Speaker 1: about unpleasant emotion, which is telling us something. It's telling
Speaker 1: us something, right. The more interesting question is why. And
Speaker 1: in some cases you have communities and environments in which
Speaker 1: teachers are they're just trying to keep their head above water, right,
Speaker 1: They're trying. They're getting students who are years behind in
Speaker 1: reading levels. They're getting students who have really no emotional
Speaker 1: awareness or self regulation, no math skills, science skills, writing skills,
Speaker 1: you know, whatever it might be. And so I'm very
Speaker 1: hesitant to say that we should ignore those things because
Speaker 1: there is a practical utility to them, and I and
Speaker 1: you want to live in a country with an educated populace. Right.
Speaker 1: For years I taught a sociology class. My bachelor's degree
Speaker 1: is in history, so critical thinking and research and being
Speaker 1: able to analyze whether information is true, untrue, fact check,
Speaker 1: those sorts of things are important skills. At the same time,
Speaker 1: my years working in sort of the top end of
Speaker 1: the socioeconomic ladder. Right when it comes to schools, a
Speaker 1: lot of those students are dissatisfied, unhappy, even in part
Speaker 1: because that's all they're hearing, and that's all they're getting, Right,
Speaker 1: Take these classes, get the these grades and these test
Speaker 1: scores to get into these schools. One of the schools
Speaker 1: I worked at, sixty percent of the population went to
Speaker 1: about twenty five different schools. Wow, right, that's it. Now, fine,
Speaker 1: those schools might be great, and they might have a
Speaker 1: great experience. But the narrative there is that there's really
Speaker 1: kind of one path or one trajectory in this case,
Speaker 1: to success. But the implicit message there is to the
Speaker 1: good life, right, Like why do we want success? Well
Speaker 1: because we think it's going to lead to a good life.
Speaker 1: We're going to be satisfied, happy, whatever it might be.
Speaker 1: And so what you get into is this kind of
Speaker 1: vicious cycle of like, well, do the thing to be
Speaker 1: prepared for the next thing, and then do that thing
Speaker 1: to be prepared for the next thing. And I didn't
Speaker 1: see a ton of investment into who the individual was,
Speaker 1: making sure they can explore their interests and their curiosities, right,
Speaker 1: like it was. So I mentioned the elect have I taught.
Speaker 1: Probably about half of the school took that from year
Speaker 1: to year, but the other half that didn't, Right, they
Speaker 1: basically could not once they became juniors or seniors because
Speaker 1: their perception was I got to do the honors track,
Speaker 1: I got to do the ap track. I got to
Speaker 1: do stuff that gives me a five point grading scale,
Speaker 1: and positive psychology does not. So even though it might
Speaker 1: be great for me, it might help my well being,
Speaker 1: my motivation, my sense of self, whatever it might be,
Speaker 1: I cannot risk not getting the test score or not
Speaker 1: getting the grade that's going to get me into this
Speaker 1: school and supposedly unlock the rest of my future. Right.
Speaker 1: So culture, it's a culture, right, And that's why I
Speaker 1: keep saying system and the culture and the larger ecosystem
Speaker 1: because both ends of the spectrum are dealing with really
Speaker 1: different pressures and different challenges. But in both cases it's
Speaker 1: leading to a lot of underwhelm, unhappiness, apathy, a motivation.
Speaker 1: You know, you can go on and on. It's sad,
Speaker 1: It's terribly sad.
Speaker 2: I mean, I'm upset right now.
Speaker 1: It's brutal, just gott. I mean to be very transparent
Speaker 1: with you. This is part of why I've moved in
Speaker 1: different directions in terms of coaching and consulting and then
Speaker 1: launching this program for young athletes, because I'm now starting
Speaker 1: to find ways where i can work outside the system
Speaker 1: right or around the like, how do you get this
Speaker 1: to young people in ways that are a little bit
Speaker 1: more organic, in environments where they actually want it and
Speaker 1: they crave it, rather than just trying to jam it
Speaker 1: into an over an already over crowded system that has
Speaker 1: different values and different priorities.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so look, I'm glad that you're highlighting that a
Speaker 2: big part of the problem is the system and the culture.
Speaker 2: So I'm really glad you brought that up. Have you
Speaker 2: drawn on any of my work? I say that with
Speaker 2: a little bit shyly, but has any of my own
Speaker 2: ideas about education and the culture and how we are
Speaker 2: human potential need to think about differently. Has it brought
Speaker 2: to your work at all?
Speaker 1: Oh, one hundred percent. So I don't know if you
Speaker 1: and I ever talked about this, but like when I
Speaker 1: moved to Philly, So this was like two or three
Speaker 1: months before you and I met, that's when I read Transcend,
Speaker 1: and I already knew about you through a variety of
Speaker 1: different things, probably some of those those pause ed conferences
Speaker 1: back when you were at Penn and still doing some
Speaker 1: of that work. I know you're still doing some of
Speaker 1: that work, but you're a little more embedded I think
Speaker 1: in that world at that point. Yeah. And so like
Speaker 1: when we first met, like I had, I pretty much
Speaker 1: had a fanboy a moment. Oh shit, Scott Barry Kaufman
Speaker 1: right in the same virtual room as me. Right. So
Speaker 1: I had been aware of your work. I had always
Speaker 1: really enjoyed your work, and at the same time, your
Speaker 1: book on creativity, Wired to Create and Ungifted were tremendous
Speaker 1: for me in a variety of ways, but Transcend really
Speaker 1: took it home. That was where, especially as an academic
Speaker 1: in some ways which I sort of fashioned myself to be.
Speaker 1: There was so much good science, so many good references
Speaker 1: and citations and talking about trajectories and different nuances because
Speaker 1: you're a nuanced guy. So we actually, I don't know
Speaker 1: if you're aware of this or not, but at Shipley,
Speaker 1: when we started moving beyond this idea of just positive psychology,
Speaker 1: you mentioned Peggy Kern. We started we had been using
Speaker 1: the perma model for flourishing, right, which has a bunch
Speaker 1: of really wonderful things about it, and there's plenty of
Speaker 1: people who would maybe push back against it. Right. The
Speaker 1: Human Flourishing Program at Harvard, who sponsors our podcast, has
Speaker 1: a different model. We mentioned Carol Riff, different model. You
Speaker 1: would not call your sailboat metaphor a metaphor for flourishing,
Speaker 1: but it speaks to a lot of the same things
Speaker 1: and it's a different model at the same time. Right,
Speaker 1: So I mentioned Sharon. This is a credit to her
Speaker 1: what she did. It was started taking some of these
Speaker 1: different models, putting them side by side, and then we
Speaker 1: kind of said, all right, where's the synthesis, Like, where
Speaker 1: can we pretty confidently say these are the things that
Speaker 1: matter to most people across the lifespan? And then how
Speaker 1: do we start to really deeply embed them not just
Speaker 1: in classrooms, but in the ecosystem of a school or
Speaker 1: a community that includes the parent group and includes alumni
Speaker 1: more holistically. So it's a long way of saying, yeah,
Speaker 1: your work is literally edited in the work that we
Speaker 1: do together.
Speaker 2: That's awesome.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: I just really am passionate about getting the word out
Speaker 2: about all these human needs that are being unaddressed in
Speaker 2: the education system. So I can't help. But when I
Speaker 2: talk to educators, but be like, you know, have you
Speaker 2: considered like the need for exploration? You know, where's that?
Speaker 2: Where's that in the school system? Where's the need for love?
Speaker 1: Yep? Hundred percent. So we just had an episode. So
Speaker 1: I've mentioned a couple of times we have this podcast
Speaker 1: for ASHFM. You were nice enough to be a guest
Speaker 1: on it. So today we had we released an episode
Speaker 1: with a professor at San Francisco excuse me, Calsay State
Speaker 1: San fran who is runs founded in Ronse school in
Speaker 1: East Oakland called the Roses and Concrete School, and the
Speaker 1: whole premise, especially in East Oakland, is trying to focus
Speaker 1: on the material core human needs of young people in
Speaker 1: an environment where those things are often not present or
Speaker 1: at least insecure, right. Yeah. Well, it's a focus on
Speaker 1: well being from the foundation up. So it's interesting that
Speaker 1: we're talking about this because I think more and more
Speaker 1: schools are starting to figure out we got to do
Speaker 1: it differently. We got to focus on exactly the sort
Speaker 1: of stuff you and I are talking about here.
Speaker 2: Yes, well that's awesome, that's awesome. Tell me more about
Speaker 2: this podcast that you co host with doctor John Beal
Speaker 2: and what does the FM mean? Is there a significance
Speaker 2: to that?
Speaker 1: Yeah, great question. So what happened was we approached so
Speaker 1: John and I and my colleague doctor John Beale, who's
Speaker 1: traditionally a philosopher but really focuses on human flourishing and
Speaker 1: also works in schools. He approached me and said, hey,
Speaker 1: what do you think about starting this podcast and approaching
Speaker 1: the folks at the Human Flourishing Program at Harvard in
Speaker 1: the Department of Education at Oxford and Shipley to support
Speaker 1: us and sponsor us. And the whole premise is deep
Speaker 1: diving into the science of human flourishing. I say the
Speaker 1: as if it's this like tight boundary and kind of
Speaker 1: settled category, but we treated I think rather broadly it
Speaker 1: could be a traditional kind of positive psychologist, somebody like
Speaker 1: Lee Waters, but it was somebody like yourself, right, who
Speaker 1: focuses on self actualization humanistic psychology. We have already had educators,
Speaker 1: we've had philosophers, we've had people who write about critical
Speaker 1: thinking and technology, and it is supposed to be a
Speaker 1: deep dive into high quality hard science that helps people
Speaker 1: understand the components of flourishing life and ideally practically how
Speaker 1: to build those different components. Now, the key piece here,
Speaker 1: and I'm glad you asked about the FM is one
Speaker 1: of the things that we wanted to do and that
Speaker 1: Harvard was very much in agreement on, is to get
Speaker 1: this outside of the podcast space, to get it into
Speaker 1: other countries, other parts of the world that very often
Speaker 1: do not have access to these teachings, learnings, these podcasts,
Speaker 1: but they do have access to radio, right, And so
Speaker 1: that FM is aspirational and a reminder that eventually, if
Speaker 1: we're fortunate enough to grow this thing and really develop it,
Speaker 1: then eventually what we'd like to do is to get
Speaker 1: it into some of these parts of the world on
Speaker 1: radio so that it's more accessible for more people. And
Speaker 1: that that's a companied by I think an emphasis on
Speaker 1: having a diverse set of guests, different cultural influences, maybe
Speaker 1: different spiritual influences, and really trying to make sure that
Speaker 1: we represent this in a holistic, diverse way, because you know,
Speaker 1: let's speak candid about it, John and I are a
Speaker 1: couple of thirty something white dudes from the US like
Speaker 1: trying to share this, and so we really are intentional
Speaker 1: about bringing in guests who will bring some of those
Speaker 1: diverse perspectives as long as there's still research based.
Speaker 2: I love that, yo, yo yo. I am so proud
Speaker 2: of what you guys are doing over there.
Speaker 1: I appreciate it.
Speaker 2: Thank you so important and so necessary.
Speaker 1: That means a lot coming from you.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, I mean it. I mean it, And it
Speaker 2: wasn or being on your show. Let me ask you
Speaker 2: kind of a last question here, because you're interested in
Speaker 2: working on ways to help for help bring forsting young people,
Speaker 2: not just inside the classroom, but if I understand correctly,
Speaker 2: you're also trying to help them with to force outside
Speaker 2: of the classroom. It doesn't all just matter inside the classroom, right, Yeah.
Speaker 2: Can you talk a little bit about that, And I
Speaker 2: think that'd be a nice way to kind of end
Speaker 2: this conversation today.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Yeah, So what I'm working on at this moment
Speaker 1: is I guess you could almost kind of call it
Speaker 1: a bit of a Trojan horse. Not the perfect analogy,
Speaker 1: but I think part of what I've seen and the
Speaker 1: trouble you run into is when you try to incorporate
Speaker 1: these things into classrooms, you run into a few different problems.
Speaker 1: Number one I mentioned earlier. If you're doing it with
Speaker 1: other teachers or asking other teachers to do it, they
Speaker 1: don't have the time, the space, the understanding. Often they
Speaker 1: don't have the skill set. Number two. So then if
Speaker 1: you offer it as its own course, if it's not rated,
Speaker 1: the sad reality is it gets deprioritized by the students. Right.
Speaker 1: The next level is if it is then required. I
Speaker 1: mean you've been around enough teenagers, right like that drive
Speaker 1: for autonomy at that age, Anything they are forced to do,
Speaker 1: more often than not, becomes the enemy, right rationally or irrationally,
Speaker 1: it becomes the enemy. So when I say Trojan Horace,
Speaker 1: what we're trying to do right now is get people
Speaker 1: the material through avenues and fields that they're already interested
Speaker 1: in or hooked on. And so what that means for
Speaker 1: me traditionally, is athletics. So I've partnered with I think
Speaker 1: you met him once or twice, a former colleague of mine,
Speaker 1: doctor Adam Wright, who's the director of mental Performance for
Speaker 1: the Washington Nationals and a tremendous coach, a lot of
Speaker 1: clinical background, right, amazing psychologists in a variety of ways.
Speaker 1: And then I'm bringing in a lot of the educational
Speaker 1: piece and we're working hard. Right now, I'm working with
Speaker 1: a Division one soccer program here in Michigan where I'm
Speaker 1: currently sitting and trying to figure out how we can
Speaker 1: create reasonably priced, right concise, effective programming, so asynchronous learning,
Speaker 1: along with maybe group coaching, individual coaching, to ultimately get
Speaker 1: this material to as many young athletes as possible. Just
Speaker 1: in the last few months, five or six, I think
Speaker 1: D one athletes committed suicide. There's over half of Division
Speaker 1: one athletes. And this is just college right, experience some
Speaker 1: sort of mental illness or just have trouble navigating the
Speaker 1: you know, kind of general ebbs and flows of life.
Speaker 1: But it's also the high school athletes, and it's also
Speaker 1: young professional athletes. I've worked with a few who, frankly,
Speaker 1: I mean, if I were to be simplistic about it.
Speaker 1: They've got all the talent in the world, but they're
Speaker 1: they're anxious, they're stress, they're in their own head, they
Speaker 1: have negative self talk, they're unhappy, all the different things
Speaker 1: that can come with it, right, So, so Adam and
Speaker 1: I are trying to combat those trends and get this
Speaker 1: material to people who are asking for it instead of
Speaker 1: getting it to people who are basically being forced into it.
Speaker 2: Oh man, I love that so much. That makes the
Speaker 2: name of the game. Name of the game is to
Speaker 2: is to light the fire from within.
Speaker 1: That's right, That's right. So yeah, so we call it
Speaker 1: the Anti Fragile Athlete. People can check it out. It's
Speaker 1: really kind of drawing this distinction between being fragile, resilient
Speaker 1: anti fragile obviously a nod to the original work there,
Speaker 1: and trying to find different partners, right, different athletes that
Speaker 1: want to learn and want to get this out there.
Speaker 1: I love it.
Speaker 2: I love it. Oh my gosh, I'm so glad that
Speaker 2: we were able to get this in the can Nick
Speaker 2: Holton on the Psychology Podcast. It has been so much
Speaker 2: fun shouting with you and we have. We got to
Speaker 2: keep up this discussion how we can change the education system.
Speaker 1: I would love to. Maybe there's a part two at
Speaker 1: some point, but I just want to thank you Scott
Speaker 1: yet obviously I told the story. I've been a big
Speaker 1: fan of years for a while. I've been a huge
Speaker 1: fan of the show for a long time, so to
Speaker 1: now be on it on the other side is a
Speaker 1: real treat for me.
Speaker 2: I love it. Can't wait to get this out there.
Speaker 1: Thanks nick Yep, Thanks buddy.
Speaker 2: Thanks for listening to this episode of The Psychology Podcast.
Speaker 2: If you'd like to react in some way to something
Speaker 2: you heard, I encourage you to join in the discussion
Speaker 2: at thusycology podcast dot com. We're on our YouTube page,
Speaker 2: The Psychology Podcast. We also put up some videos of
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Speaker 2: want to check that out. Thanks for being such a
Speaker 2: great supporter of the show, and tune in next time
Speaker 2: for more on the mind, brain, behavior, and creativity.