Speaker 1: Really now, really.
Speaker 2: Really hello, and welcome to really no really, with day's
Speaker 2: Alexander and Peter Tilden, who propt for the idea that
Speaker 2: if everyone subscribed to our show, the whole world might
Speaker 2: suddenly get along. Sadly, some of you haven't subscribed, and
Speaker 2: arguably even sadder the world seems like a place where
Speaker 2: it's harder and harder to get along. People seem to
Speaker 2: be behaving horribly. We're seeing tirades in supermarkets, live performers
Speaker 2: being pelted with projectiles, drunken moviegoers getting into brawls and
Speaker 2: tantrums on airplanes that results in fistfights and arrests, and
Speaker 2: it seems to be getting worse. Really no, really, So
Speaker 2: Jason and Peter have called upon an expert in human behavior,
Speaker 2: doctor Ryan Sultan, Assistant Professor of Clinical Psychiatry at Columbia University,
Speaker 2: to help explain our growing inability to get along.
Speaker 1: So here they are, and please try to behave.
Speaker 3: R. We can hear you, know, we can hear you,
Speaker 3: but we're ready to start. We're ready. We're ready as
Speaker 3: soon as we can't hear you now or maybe here's
Speaker 3: the thought close to do now.
Speaker 4: You're acting out, you're acting out. Is this the kind
Speaker 4: of behavior you would.
Speaker 5: Display in a public area you have no displayed and
Speaker 5: a kind of behavior in a public forum you are
Speaker 5: abusive to the to the person yelling, rolling. So so
Speaker 5: our test today, yes, is about the epidemic of people
Speaker 5: behaving badly.
Speaker 3: A couple examples on Broadway, a sub theater. Yeah, somebody
Speaker 3: took a dump in the in the island. The lights
Speaker 3: came up and the Clinton's were there.
Speaker 5: Actually, I got to tell you there's not a lot
Speaker 5: of restaurant facilities in his own hipps.
Speaker 4: I can kind of understand what I love.
Speaker 3: Though, is the part of this that made me laugh.
Speaker 3: As they interviewed the house manager later, saying how could
Speaker 3: this happen? He said, this is the fourth thought.
Speaker 5: Yeah, that's the part of it that there's a serial
Speaker 5: defecator on Broadway.
Speaker 3: He has to be stopped or she or she has
Speaker 3: to be stopped. There's got to be an underlying pause
Speaker 3: pausing all this outrage, and we have some thoughts about that,
Speaker 3: but we have an expert coming on, Brian.
Speaker 5: My mother would have said, not raised well, not raised well,
Speaker 5: That's what my mother would have said.
Speaker 3: Mother, simplist, simplist, Yeah, she she liked to cut through
Speaker 3: because a lot of noise, a lot of the getty. Yeah,
Speaker 3: maybe a generational thing. We'll find out a bit, but
Speaker 3: I wanted to give you since you're used to Broadway
Speaker 3: in theater. I am going to open with some examples
Speaker 3: before we get our expert out here.
Speaker 4: This is the examples of of of.
Speaker 3: Of performers calling out the audience members. It got so bad,
Speaker 3: so you know this this person feeling. My friend Patty
Speaker 3: Lapone did it a couple times. Number one. Not only
Speaker 3: did she yell at at an audience member who was
Speaker 3: wearing a mask in correctly going COVID, she said, she
Speaker 3: said something like we may have to bleep it, something
Speaker 3: like put them pull the mask up, and then the
Speaker 3: VIDEOSO member shots back, I pay your salary, to which
Speaker 3: she res responded, both Chris Harper pays myself. He's the
Speaker 3: guy who does the show, so pull up the FN mask.
Speaker 3: She also grabbed somebody's self and went out and grabbed
Speaker 3: somebody's cell phone, returned it after the show, so she
Speaker 3: doesn't suffer for Gladly she did return it. Lin Manuel
Speaker 3: Miranda stopped Madonna from coming backstage after the show because
Speaker 3: she was using her phone, apparently doing a performance.
Speaker 4: Lin Manuel Miranda was performing.
Speaker 3: Madonnas in the attended a performance and supportedly called herself
Speaker 3: out by Miranda in the now deleted tweet that said
Speaker 3: he refused to allow her backstage to meet the cast
Speaker 3: after due to her. Babe Kanye Kanye West was called
Speaker 3: out for using his cell phone during the opening musical
Speaker 3: The Share Show. I refuse to believe that Kanye. During
Speaker 3: the Wrong Man twenty eighteen performance, Joshua Henry reportedly left
Speaker 3: the stage mid performance to grab the phone of an
Speaker 3: audience member was texting him. Proceeded to throw the phone
Speaker 3: under the risers during this.
Speaker 5: Let me tell you some Joshua Henry is not a
Speaker 5: small man. He's a big, really big talented man, and
Speaker 5: he is in good shape.
Speaker 3: So and the interesting thing though, I wanted to go
Speaker 3: back and look at history. Do you know that there
Speaker 3: was a performance that was met with catballs and hisses
Speaker 3: and people ran on the stage to actually protest this performance.
Speaker 3: You know what it was cats a pro coffee of
Speaker 3: piano concerto in nineteen thirteen. So audience behavior apparently goes
Speaker 3: way way back, and they're very vocal.
Speaker 5: Do you remember what they used to do at the
Speaker 5: Globe Theater back in Shakespeare's day.
Speaker 4: They used to yell, yell, they would throw, they threw.
Speaker 5: That's where that trope of throwing rotten tomatoes, and that's
Speaker 5: where rotten tomatoes come from, people throwing.
Speaker 3: Bad So then we went through a period of that,
Speaker 3: and then we went through a paier to being more
Speaker 3: civil and people got the etiquette and how to perform
Speaker 3: in public, and now we're back in a worse way.
Speaker 3: I have some thoughts about that. I have some thoughts.
Speaker 3: You want initial thoughts before we bring on our guest. Yeah. Yes,
Speaker 3: you can see it during COVID, where people we were
Speaker 3: so divided, especially on the mask thing and the vaxxed thing,
Speaker 3: that people got into fights with people who weren't wearing masks,
Speaker 3: and people were getting to fights with people who were
Speaker 3: wearing masks because you're not agreeing with what I believe
Speaker 3: as far as the vaccination is concerned. So and then,
Speaker 3: of course divisiveness and behavior has gotten worse.
Speaker 4: See I will play off the divisiveness.
Speaker 5: One of the things that's always struck me is in
Speaker 5: some of these cases, not all by any stretch, but
Speaker 5: in some of these cases people get rankled because somebody,
Speaker 5: in their estimation, is getting away with something. It's doing
Speaker 5: something they can't. And I think that there is again
Speaker 5: that divide of the have the have not, or the
Speaker 5: entitled the unentitled, whatever it may be, where people are
Speaker 5: more sensitive to I'm not going to take it anymore.
Speaker 5: It's literally network, I'm mad as hell, and I'm not
Speaker 5: going to take it anymore. You're doing something doesn't directly
Speaker 5: affect me, but I don't like that you're doing it,
Speaker 5: and so I'm gonna.
Speaker 3: Well, I'll see you and I'll raise you. We see
Speaker 3: all over the internet people filming the anger stuff, so
Speaker 3: we now have behavior you can model that other people
Speaker 3: are doing it, and I think some people possibly are
Speaker 3: doing it intentionally. Well, that's going to.
Speaker 5: Be an interesting question, I guess, because that's one of
Speaker 5: my big questions. Is you know, you can become famous
Speaker 5: or notorious by being filmed at your worst moment. And
Speaker 5: some people have paid a price for it, others have not.
Speaker 5: And I wonder how many people are going I don't care.
Speaker 5: At least everybody's.
Speaker 3: Talking about on that note, let's yeah, let's let's find
Speaker 3: out when an expert has sate so joining us now
Speaker 3: is doctor Bryan Sultan, Assistant Professor of Clinical Psychiatry in
Speaker 3: the Department of Psychiatry at Columbia University School. I know
Speaker 3: you go to schools and the Irving Medical Center in
Speaker 3: New York State Psychiatric Institute is an expert in the
Speaker 3: area's a d h D and cannabis use. But I
Speaker 3: read a bunch of stuff that you said, we'll say, welcome,
Speaker 3: welcome there you go, welcome to this. Why do you
Speaker 3: always have to hit me? Why is it? Can you
Speaker 3: answer that question? Why he gets physical? Why does he
Speaker 3: go to physical right away?
Speaker 6: I mean, he's he's trying, he's got a feeling, he's
Speaker 6: trying to express it. It's coming out. I mean, are
Speaker 6: we going to interpret it in a positive way? Are
Speaker 6: we going to choose to interpret it? How are we.
Speaker 7: Going to how are we going to feel it?
Speaker 4: I know what you were trying to do.
Speaker 3: Well. I saw a lot of stuff you talked about
Speaker 3: about the personality of audience personalities and why they're getting
Speaker 3: worse and what the cause of that is. And we
Speaker 3: had we theorized that maybe the COVID thing, the mask thing,
Speaker 3: was very divisive. That was a new thing. It was
Speaker 3: very divisive, but also that societally right now, what we
Speaker 3: see is this behavior, and there's modeling. The question is
Speaker 3: have we forgotten as a society? Can you forget that quickly?
Speaker 4: How to put I have gotten? As my mother would say,
Speaker 4: how to behave?
Speaker 6: You know, this is definitely a complex issue, and it
Speaker 6: pulls in a lot of different disciplines and it's got
Speaker 6: a number of things coming into it. And I think
Speaker 6: you're right that lockdown in the pandemic is certainly like
Speaker 6: the most acute and directly related thing, you know, when
Speaker 6: we think about the fact that your social skills got rusty.
Speaker 6: And for people, lockdown varied in both intensity and duration.
Speaker 6: So for some people this is going to be more substantial.
Speaker 6: I mean, there are patients in my practice that I
Speaker 6: saw before the pandemic and I'm still seeing them now
Speaker 6: that have never come in again for an appointment, and
Speaker 6: they continue to stay virtual and they are are still
Speaker 6: overwhelmingly at home a lot.
Speaker 7: And this is this is today. So people's variation there was.
Speaker 4: I'm sorry to interrupt. Do you see children in your
Speaker 4: practice at all?
Speaker 5: I have to imagine that that to your interruption in
Speaker 5: what would be their normal socialization pattern or learning is
Speaker 5: and will continue to be a really disruptive source. Is
Speaker 5: there just a generation of kids that are socially behind
Speaker 5: the curve at this point? Yeah, So when we think
Speaker 5: about that, it's important. I always talk about with parents.
Speaker 6: School is obviously about learning knowledge, Like I mean, I'm
Speaker 6: like super nerdy, I've gone and become a researcher and
Speaker 6: I did an MD, like I love school. I want
Speaker 6: to learn things. But schools also about your development. You're
Speaker 6: development socially, you're development emotionally. How do you tolerate things
Speaker 6: that are uncomfortable for you? How do you navigate difficult
Speaker 6: situations successfully? And because our switch to virtual school was
Speaker 6: done so rapidly, teachers and parents and even kids, you know,
Speaker 6: I think universally found it to be sort of not
Speaker 6: a great substitute for most individuals. And I think the
Speaker 6: most obvious thing that it's missing out on is this
Speaker 6: social emotional development, this stuff that that really was happening
Speaker 6: spontaneously in real life, interacting with one another in a
Speaker 6: classroom setting, and and and it was hard to replicate
Speaker 6: uh uh, you know through a remote a remote setup.
Speaker 5: Are you are you concerned about where how will those
Speaker 5: kids catch up?
Speaker 4: Or will they catch up.
Speaker 6: I think it's reasonable to think that they're going to
Speaker 6: catch up or that they could catch up. We do
Speaker 6: think about neuroplasticity, which is the idea of like your
Speaker 6: brain and and and how pliable it is in learning
Speaker 6: new things. And we think about windows of time where
Speaker 6: you're better learning things, which is why like the younger
Speaker 6: you are, typically the easier is to learn another language, right,
Speaker 6: uh so, so like there's a little bit of that
Speaker 6: that's that's working against us. But in general, these things
Speaker 6: can be uh learned in sort of a delayed way.
Speaker 6: And if you if you talk to to undergrad faculty,
Speaker 6: a lot of them will say that the last couple
Speaker 6: of years, they feel like the incoming freshmen have felt
Speaker 6: a little more fragile than than they were in the past,
Speaker 6: and and a little younger that those kids seem to
Speaker 6: be coming added maybe a couple of years younger than
Speaker 6: what it felt like before.
Speaker 3: The other thing is a lot of this bad behavior
Speaker 3: in these groups. When you get together with a big
Speaker 3: group like that, it's a rare time when you have
Speaker 3: different socio economic groups in there, a different race, coll
Speaker 3: of religion, creators. It's not often that that happen, and
Speaker 3: that behavior seems to be getting worse and worse. More
Speaker 3: incidents happen when that happens. Do you think that is
Speaker 3: a partially because of COVID, but be because we're so
Speaker 3: divided and we don't yet we always stay with our
Speaker 3: own group. Does that make sense? Yeah?
Speaker 7: Yeah, so I think I think that.
Speaker 6: That there's a way that this even interacts with another
Speaker 6: thing that we haven't touched on yet, which is smartphones
Speaker 6: and social media. And so social media creates these micro
Speaker 6: realities that we're all living in, right, these curated worlds.
Speaker 6: When I opened my Apple News, so like what I
Speaker 6: get is very specific. When I look at my my
Speaker 6: Facebook or my Instagram feed, it's very specific to me.
Speaker 6: And and and so I think that that that is
Speaker 6: another way that we are sort of staying in a
Speaker 6: small group. Then is our that is that community, but
Speaker 6: interacting with other communities?
Speaker 3: Right? You know?
Speaker 6: I I have a friend of mine that loves to
Speaker 6: talk about the idea that like the reality of like
Speaker 6: what is going on in the world appears to be
Speaker 6: different to different people, which.
Speaker 3: Is which is by the way, really scary. How do
Speaker 3: you navigate that? And it's dividing, so it's dividing us
Speaker 3: more and more and more because we don't forget shared experience,
Speaker 3: concert experience, we don't even share info.
Speaker 6: So I mean, I think this is a huge problem
Speaker 6: that we have to be thinking about on a societal level.
Speaker 6: The your social media, the devices that we use, they
Speaker 6: were they were thoughtfully constructed on how to keep us engaged,
Speaker 6: right so the purpose of like marketing and things like that.
Speaker 6: But in doing so, they sort of created this back
Speaker 6: door into our mind that tends to bypass a lot
Speaker 6: of critical thinking that we have, which is one of
Speaker 6: the things that I always find like disturbing about it.
Speaker 6: And I periodically will like delete one of these programs
Speaker 6: and take a hiatus from it, and I'll even feel
Speaker 6: something that is kind of like a withdrawal. There's a
Speaker 6: real connection, there's a real connection to that thing, and
Speaker 6: it plays with our mind.
Speaker 7: So if I.
Speaker 6: See negative behavior on there, getting back to the original conversation,
Speaker 6: I'm more likely to replicate that because it's actually contagious.
Speaker 6: The negative behavior that we might see. The algorithm is
Speaker 6: more than likely going to favor that, right because it's
Speaker 6: going to get a lot more attention. So now you're
Speaker 6: even more likely to see it. So it's it's proliferating
Speaker 6: throughout this system. But it's a consequence of the way
Speaker 6: this is said up.
Speaker 3: As you're saying that if Jason and I see or
Speaker 3: you send me an our question and you're in our
Speaker 3: that somebody went crazy on a flight, now the algorithm
Speaker 3: is pushing me more of that stuff. And I'm thinking
Speaker 3: that all of society, this is happening all over every day,
Speaker 3: and it's much bigger than it is or not act.
Speaker 5: But I also don't understand why the algorithm doesn't feed
Speaker 5: us the things that are gonna make us happier as
Speaker 5: opposed to the things that they know are probably going
Speaker 5: to agitate us to the extent that the algorithm can discern,
Speaker 5: which is which for any.
Speaker 3: Anger appears to be much. They used to say about
Speaker 3: the Howard Stern Show, people that like Howard listen for
Speaker 3: an hour and twenty minute, people hate him listen for
Speaker 3: an hour forty minutes, And that probably applies. So if
Speaker 3: they can stimulate you that way and they find out boy,
Speaker 3: that works, they're gonna keep hitting that count of product
Speaker 3: to stimulate it that way.
Speaker 7: Correct one hundred percent.
Speaker 6: I mean, that's something that you're going to get pulled
Speaker 6: much more into We appear to be a little pre
Speaker 6: programmed our minds to respond in that way.
Speaker 7: I think about these like as blind.
Speaker 6: Spots that we have as a species that we need
Speaker 6: to be thinking about when we develop new technology and
Speaker 6: how it can affect us. And you know, the other
Speaker 6: thing that comes to mind we think about social media,
Speaker 6: for me is is this idea of like, how is
Speaker 6: it affecting our mental health? There is so much data
Speaker 6: that keeps supporting this idea that it's linked to depression
Speaker 6: and anxiety and suicidal thoughts. There's a number of ways
Speaker 6: it could be doing that, but but for me, one
Speaker 6: of them is that it being on your phone all
Speaker 6: the time is not interacting with people in real life,
Speaker 6: and it tends to be less substantial interpersonal relationships, and
Speaker 6: we all need interpersonal relationships. That is, that is one
Speaker 6: of the most restorative thing we have. And you know,
Speaker 6: it's the basis for building out like a larger community,
Speaker 6: which again we're social creatures.
Speaker 7: That's that's what matters to us.
Speaker 3: Didn't you didn't you write I think it was you
Speaker 3: who said it used to be way back that we
Speaker 3: had about one hundred person one hundred people in our sphere,
Speaker 3: and that was our network, that was our morality, that
Speaker 3: was our modeling, that was our mentorship. So that group
Speaker 3: constantly kept you in check because you got to advocate
Speaker 3: with the group and understand who they were. They looked
Speaker 3: out for you. Today, our group is what how many
Speaker 3: people do we think as a community. So kids have
Speaker 3: Facebook friends that are like twenty seven hundred Facebook friends
Speaker 3: forty thousand Facebook where he tries to build that number out,
Speaker 3: So we've lost that sense of community. Correct, it doesn't
Speaker 3: exist anymore.
Speaker 6: We know from anthropology that that is like what our
Speaker 6: mind has been fine tuned to do well with is
Speaker 6: that number of relationships. Because you can trust the person,
Speaker 6: you know each other, you feel comfortable you're going to
Speaker 6: manage your own behavior if for no other reason, it
Speaker 6: is actually like detrimental for you to not do it
Speaker 6: in such a small community. If not, hopefully you're doing
Speaker 6: it out of kindness and wanting to sort of be
Speaker 6: be giving to someone else. But there's a built in
Speaker 6: system around that that I think is completely diffused and
Speaker 6: diluted in the kind of social network you're describing.
Speaker 4: I want to jump to something.
Speaker 5: So we're talking about the reasons why we live in
Speaker 5: some agitation, why we're pressed while we're anxietal. But the
Speaker 5: phenomena that we're talking about in this episode is where
Speaker 5: people start to act it's just bad behavior. Something has
Speaker 5: put them over the top. Is there a common thread
Speaker 5: between a guy who flips out on an airplane because
Speaker 5: he's been asked to move his seat or a woman
Speaker 5: that goes up to a stranger in the park and goes,
Speaker 5: who are you? You don't live in this neighborhood, you
Speaker 5: know what they call the Karen phenomena. Is there a
Speaker 5: common thread that runs through these people that tend to
Speaker 5: begin to behave badly.
Speaker 6: I was thinking a lot about that leading up to this,
Speaker 6: because the exams samples of this bad behavior do vary
Speaker 6: a lot, as you just pointed out in that example.
Speaker 6: I think they fall into a couple of different categories.
Speaker 7: One of them is.
Speaker 6: I was thinking a lot about that leading up to this,
Speaker 6: because the examples of this bad behavior do vary a lot,
Speaker 6: as you just pointed out in that example. I think
Speaker 6: they fall into a couple of different categories. One of
Speaker 6: them is, you know, just general. I think the most
Speaker 6: just way to think about all this is like acting
Speaker 6: out what is the skill that you have available to
Speaker 6: you to manage a situation. So if you're having trouble
Speaker 6: getting your overhead luggage up and you're stressed out and
Speaker 6: there are people behind you that want you to move,
Speaker 6: and you know, is there enough space and are they
Speaker 6: going to make me put the thing under? That kind
Speaker 6: of situation is putting a lot of pressure on someone
Speaker 6: and they may or may not have the skills to
Speaker 6: sort of manage it, and they then may act out
Speaker 6: in some way. They may act in an obnoxious or
Speaker 6: rude way, or be nasty to someone, to be irritable,
Speaker 6: which is very upsetting to everyone else and is contagious. Unfortunately,
Speaker 6: that's sort of one version of something that we might
Speaker 6: that we.
Speaker 7: Might interact with.
Speaker 6: I think that there's another version, and I'm not sure
Speaker 6: what exactly to call this.
Speaker 7: It's sort of like a I'm going to.
Speaker 6: Do whatever I want to do regardless of how it
Speaker 6: affects the people around me.
Speaker 5: And it feels I've just heard a term Peter, and
Speaker 5: I came across this main character syndrome or something like that.
Speaker 6: Yeah, feels a little bit like almost like an extreme
Speaker 6: version of individualism.
Speaker 3: But Ryan, we've been in power good luck twenty five
Speaker 3: years ago, calling the company and saying I'm going to
Speaker 3: rat you out because I had bad service click forget
Speaker 3: it today, I'm going to write a bad review. Oh no,
Speaker 3: and they'll do They'll send you a free product whatever.
Speaker 3: All of a sudden, a lot of people feel like VIPs,
Speaker 3: which I guess is part of that mean character syndrome
Speaker 3: where you feel like you have control over every situation.
Speaker 3: Prices are higher for stuff, so you feel more entitled. Hey,
Speaker 3: this should have been because of COVID. People fired a
Speaker 3: lot of people, so customer service is down. We hired
Speaker 3: a lot, companies are purging, so you can't get the
Speaker 3: kind of service you did before. And then the behavior
Speaker 3: you're seeing from politicians, from sports celebrities, from people who
Speaker 3: are angry and do this stuff gets not only not punished,
Speaker 3: but rewarded. Why wouldn't I model that behavior if everything's
Speaker 3: built around me to complain to yelp?
Speaker 5: But building off of what you just said, there's also
Speaker 5: a certain kind of learned narcissism because of the exalted
Speaker 5: ways that people are seeing celebrities treated, So they.
Speaker 4: Go why them, why not me? And they're right by
Speaker 4: the way, why them?
Speaker 5: Why not me, And so they start to have an
Speaker 5: expectation I think of also going uh huh, not just him,
Speaker 5: me too.
Speaker 3: Well. And by the way, the instagram and influencers are
Speaker 3: celebrity sure, and they become celebrities by doing whatever they
Speaker 3: have to do to put out there in social media.
Speaker 3: It's hey, that could be me, you know, that's attainable.
Speaker 5: I also didn't want to apply that I shouldn't be
Speaker 5: treated that way when I'm dining out, or I didn't
Speaker 5: mean to understand that.
Speaker 3: I understand he's still a prince princess when he goes
Speaker 3: out to that he expects, he expects to be Actually,
Speaker 3: you don't know. You're very you're very cool about it.
Speaker 6: There's not a lot of thinking about the consequence of
Speaker 6: my behavior, right, not.
Speaker 3: Only that bad behaviors. You're told don't do this in school,
Speaker 3: and then you see people who are making a living
Speaker 3: doing it. You see people who are rewarded for doing
Speaker 3: You're seeing people lying, stealing, getting away with stuff, and
Speaker 3: you're going, wait a minute, I'm an idiot.
Speaker 5: I feel like, but this is well, maybe this is
Speaker 5: a new phenomena. I was going to say, is for instance,
Speaker 5: to the extent that you know, is the Karen phenomena
Speaker 5: a new thing or is it just we have more
Speaker 5: cell phones now? There's are there just as many incidents
Speaker 5: as there ever were of people freaking out and mistreating
Speaker 5: people at random, but now we're capturing it or.
Speaker 6: Is it a heightened There's data that supports that things
Speaker 6: have gone up. The FAA's number of unruly passengers per
Speaker 6: year has gone up. The likelihood that healthcare workers are
Speaker 6: reporting like disagreements, non violent confrontations with patients, that's gone up.
Speaker 3: Road rage is I did look.
Speaker 6: New York thinks it is because they're now going to
Speaker 6: police the subway somewhere.
Speaker 5: Just on a practical level, if I'm on an airplane
Speaker 5: and someone is freaking out, is there something I can
Speaker 5: do to either protect myself or to help sort of
Speaker 5: diffuse the situation?
Speaker 6: Is there something is happening either to you or around you.
Speaker 7: You're not the one doing it?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 7: Uh yeah, I mean I think that you know you.
Speaker 6: You you want to choose the kindest way to think
Speaker 6: about what might be going on with that person, And
Speaker 6: so how can I react in a way that de
Speaker 6: escalates the situation, right, rather than escalating the situation, so
Speaker 6: that everyone can get to like a calmer place.
Speaker 4: My wife did a.
Speaker 5: Thing years ago that she was waiting for a train
Speaker 5: in New York sembly and I guess when the train
Speaker 5: pulled in, the doors open, and one guy waiting to
Speaker 5: go on cut in front of another guy waiting to
Speaker 5: go on. And the guy that got cut off spun
Speaker 5: the first guy around and punched him in the face
Speaker 5: and was about to do it again.
Speaker 4: And my wife, I don't want to make up a story, she.
Speaker 5: Either got in front of him or or grabbed his
Speaker 5: arm and just looked at him and in this very
Speaker 5: almost maternal way, went hey, hey, hey, don't do that.
Speaker 4: Don't do that.
Speaker 5: And the guy, she said, the guy kind of came
Speaker 5: back to reality and it drained out of him.
Speaker 3: And you may have read that she pushed him on
Speaker 3: the track.
Speaker 6: This beautiful, beautiful that she was able to come over
Speaker 6: with a different energy. Yeah, I mean, I don't think
Speaker 6: we talk enough about energy, probably because it's just a
Speaker 6: difficult thing to sort of like quantify scientifically or medically,
Speaker 6: But like, what is the vibe you're coming over with?
Speaker 7: And it sounds like in the story she came over
Speaker 7: with like a.
Speaker 6: Hey, we don't need to do this right, Like there's something.
Speaker 3: Else we can do here.
Speaker 5: I always think about I mean, I've never been on
Speaker 5: the on the victim side of a Karen like situation,
Speaker 5: but I know the minute the cell phone comes out,
Speaker 5: it's gonna it's going to become more confrontational. Not I
Speaker 5: wonder if and I don't know the situation that anybody
Speaker 5: who's been approached by this is like. So I'm not
Speaker 5: saying that they did anything that was not right, but
Speaker 5: if I were approached by someone with that kind of agitation,
Speaker 5: I think my natural reaction would be to go, something
Speaker 5: I'm doing is aggravating you, something I'm doing is scaring you.
Speaker 4: I don't mean to give you that, So how what
Speaker 4: how can I help you?
Speaker 6: That's a very different stance, And that's a stance that
Speaker 6: I think will diffuse that for most people. It's it's
Speaker 6: not an aggressive stance. It's like a hey, tell me
Speaker 6: how I can be helpful. I'm really happy. I'm happy
Speaker 6: to hear that.
Speaker 3: Doctor Ryan Sultan's thank you, thanks for coming in, appreciate
Speaker 3: it so much, and thanks for helping us a little
Speaker 3: bit with the audience. The audience anger. So the answer
Speaker 3: to that is we're getting angrier, and it's really complicated.
Speaker 3: It's a lot of levels of stuff. That a fact,
Speaker 3: that's I know that.
Speaker 4: Why are you telling me like I don't know that?
Speaker 3: How dare you? As your mother would say, just listen, listen,
Speaker 3: don't always jump in an answer, don't be so ready
Speaker 3: with an answer, mister, mister, I know everything. There you go.
Speaker 3: Do you feel like you're sitting down?
Speaker 4: I'm trying to figure out what I can do with it.
Speaker 4: I neither your mama, And again.
Speaker 5: I never knew you have an advantage.
Speaker 3: My mother would have said, don't bother me. Don't bother me.
Speaker 3: Now I'm in the bedroom getting dressed, which is, by
Speaker 3: the way, you're sitting me up. And a lot of
Speaker 3: reasons for my problems today.
Speaker 5: Thank you, sir, Thank you guys for having me a pleasure.
Speaker 5: So I hear what I didn't learn today from the
Speaker 5: good doctor. If I'm on stage and there's an outburst
Speaker 5: in the audience, what.
Speaker 3: Am I suppose? Have you ever done it?
Speaker 5: I've had Honestly, in all these years, I've had two
Speaker 5: things happen. I had I was in a play. I
Speaker 5: was in a Neil Simon play on Broadway. And yes
Speaker 5: I can imagine if I was sitting in the front
Speaker 5: row as an audience member, it would be a little
Speaker 5: uncomfortable because that stage is right in your face.
Speaker 3: You're right up close.
Speaker 5: And a lot of our Broadway one was during the winter,
Speaker 5: and people would put their winter coats up on the stage,
Speaker 5: on the stage, and I routinely would go and either
Speaker 5: kick them off. One time, I actually I grabbed a
Speaker 5: coat that was really on the stage and put it
Speaker 5: in the on stage closet and let that guy figure out.
Speaker 5: And then no, I had a guy During Jerome Robbins Broadway,
Speaker 5: someone yelled out. You could hear a commotion. Is there
Speaker 5: a doctor in the house? Is there a doctor in
Speaker 5: the Oh my god. Okay, now now there's like something
Speaker 5: real And I'm on stage with this woman and we
Speaker 5: don't know what What are we supposed to do?
Speaker 4: Are we supposed to go? Uh, someone's asking for a doctor?
Speaker 4: Do we stop? Do we do we go on? Do
Speaker 4: we ignore it? Let them do them? And we do us?
Speaker 4: What do we do?
Speaker 5: Which is a real question for any of these interruptions. Now,
Speaker 5: it turned out in that particular case that someone sitting
Speaker 5: in the middle of an aisle had a wave of
Speaker 5: nausea and began to vomit. Now, that to me is
Speaker 5: a big interruption. It does not require a doctor to
Speaker 5: be in the house.
Speaker 4: It requires you to go. I'm feeling a little queasy.
Speaker 4: Get the hell out of the middle of the aisle, right.
Speaker 3: So what happened? Did everybody around us start doing thereby?
Speaker 4: But there is no that I know of.
Speaker 5: There is no protocol for how to handle a lot of.
Speaker 4: Things that happened theater.
Speaker 5: So you talked about Patty la Own, you know, yelling
Speaker 5: at people for cell phones. They make an announcement, turn
Speaker 5: off your cell phones. There's no photography. People guess how
Speaker 5: people are addicted.
Speaker 4: What do you do?
Speaker 3: Well? Okay, audience, etticate, do you believe in this? Remove
Speaker 3: your hat? Every should have their hat off.
Speaker 4: Yes, I don't know who wears a hat anymore, but
Speaker 4: yes I have.
Speaker 3: I have seen that, checking Facebook, Twitter, texting, doing stuff.
Speaker 5: And no any source of light in a theater, a
Speaker 5: movie theater, or a theater theater is in it.
Speaker 4: It's like you might as well be waving semaphore flags.
Speaker 3: Be mindful of your body odor. I don't know how
Speaker 3: you tell somebody, how would you do that?
Speaker 4: I have to assume I'm leaving the house going, Oh.
Speaker 3: Control your children's behavior. We went to see the movie
Speaker 3: Don't bring Dude. We went to see what's the movie
Speaker 3: where college students, medical students take a guy to death?
Speaker 3: And then yeah, whatever that was for a toddler. Yeah,
Speaker 3: toddler to that movie. Who's running around screaming and crying? Yeah?
Speaker 3: Has anybody also yelled out? That's what she said doing
Speaker 3: a theater performance. No, I don't think so.
Speaker 5: Somebody's been writing how about how about coming in costume?
Speaker 3: How about leaving me consume.
Speaker 4: Is actually okay? Really yeah, it's actually okay.
Speaker 3: The salesman, you're okay, people are coming.
Speaker 4: No, but I mean people do dress for Hamilton.
Speaker 5: They dress like that that people have dressed for Mama Mia,
Speaker 5: some of the some of the jukebox musicals, grease.
Speaker 3: You know, keep your comments neutral or positive. You know,
Speaker 3: you go to intermission to go that show suck. I
Speaker 3: thought that show was pretty.
Speaker 5: You're talking to the author's mother and you don't know
Speaker 5: it's oh wow.
Speaker 3: I've had that friend of mine, believe me.
Speaker 5: Fortunately, to my knowledge, I don't think I've done it.
Speaker 5: But I have fat friends who have made a bit
Speaker 5: of a comment not knowing who is standing?
Speaker 3: How about eating? People bring all kinds of craft that
Speaker 3: makes noise.
Speaker 4: Yes, they make it. It can so they make an announcement.
Speaker 5: Part of the opening announcement is if you've brought a
Speaker 5: lazenge or a hard wrapped candy unwrapped for them now.
Speaker 3: Because it's.
Speaker 5: You know, it's a well who knows? But yeah, eating no,
Speaker 5: but they do you know a lot of the theaters.
Speaker 5: Now you can take your alcoholic drink back to the seat.
Speaker 3: Is that a good idea? Is that?
Speaker 5: On the show Death of a Salesman?
Speaker 3: Probably not helpful?
Speaker 7: Cats go for it.
Speaker 3: Let's say hi to David Brudenheim.
Speaker 8: Babe, Well, listen, we've learned a lot about human nature.
Speaker 9: People are not acting really well.
Speaker 8: There's problems, there's interactions that are negative. So what's a
Speaker 8: way that we, starting as individuals, could maybe start to
Speaker 8: turn things around. And one of the things that has
Speaker 8: come into my life that I think might stem some of.
Speaker 9: These problems is the four Agreements.
Speaker 4: Have you guys heard?
Speaker 3: Yes?
Speaker 4: Four agreements? And I remember vague.
Speaker 3: If I may, I if I can remember, and this
Speaker 3: is probably not in an order, but when I realized
Speaker 3: what they were.
Speaker 5: We're not going to eat fatty foods. Right one, Right,
Speaker 5: I'm not gonna stands a belt.
Speaker 3: No, it was. It was be mindful of your words, right,
Speaker 3: Be careful with what you say.
Speaker 9: Be impeccable with your word.
Speaker 3: Yes, one of those. Don't assume you understand. Don't you
Speaker 3: assume what the other person that you know what the
Speaker 3: other where the other person is coming from, necessarily because
Speaker 3: they have a different mindset than you do. So don't
Speaker 3: assume who they are.
Speaker 4: Don't assume, watch your words.
Speaker 9: Don't make assumptions, Yes.
Speaker 3: Don't make assumptions. Another one, the last one I think
Speaker 3: is just do your don't don't beat yourself up. Just
Speaker 3: do the best you can every day. Do always do
Speaker 3: your best, do your best. And I don't remember the
Speaker 3: fourth one. The fourth one is something about The.
Speaker 9: Fourth one is one of the very important ones. Don't
Speaker 9: take anything personally.
Speaker 3: That's a hard one. That's a hard one. Yeah, that's
Speaker 3: why I didn't remember, because I take everyone That is hard.
Speaker 4: How do you do that? And it is personal? Somebody
Speaker 4: means it personal.
Speaker 3: Because they're projecting, they're projecting their deal on you. Rather
Speaker 3: than this takes us back.
Speaker 4: Talk about cross referencing our episodes.
Speaker 5: Let's remember our dear friend from the Institute of Forgiveness.
Speaker 5: When someone says something to you, the question you ask
Speaker 5: is why are they so broken? Why would they say
Speaker 5: that to me? Because they're broken, they're hurting, they're feeling
Speaker 5: that they're unfinished, unloved.
Speaker 3: Unless unless they're correct. That's why I forgot that one,
Speaker 3: because it's like, say it again, don't, don't what is it,
Speaker 3: don't don't project, don't look so somebody's criticizing you. Don't
Speaker 3: don't and.
Speaker 4: Don't project it.
Speaker 5: Don't assume you know, don't watch your words, and don't.
Speaker 3: Take it personally.
Speaker 4: Don't take it personal.
Speaker 3: If they're accurate, I actually can't take that. First seven
Speaker 3: people are saying, you're asking, yeah, I'm not taking this personally.
Speaker 3: Twenty three paper.
Speaker 4: I think that's when they say it's a coincidence, and
Speaker 4: I'm not.
Speaker 3: If one person saying it's there, it's their thought. If
Speaker 3: it's twenty people, it's coincidence, thank you, thank you. If
Speaker 3: twenty people there were the wrong, coincidence.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 3: And on that note, there's no better note to go
Speaker 3: out than love who you are, because if people criticize you,
Speaker 3: it's just a coincidence. David, thank you, Oh my.
Speaker 4: Really no, really, we are.
Speaker 3: Helping the world, one person at a time. We are
Speaker 3: the waybe maybe if that, if that, I don't take
Speaker 3: it personally, thank you, producer, Laurie, don't take it personally.
Speaker 3: Take it person Thank you for listening. Everybody who's listening
Speaker 3: taking person Yeah, all right, but they're doing it that.
Speaker 3: It's going everybody hates watch my mom. You know what
Speaker 3: every saying about you. I wish I could say he.
Speaker 2: Now, really that's another episode of Really No Really comes
Speaker 2: to a close. They know you're wondering, given all the
Speaker 2: bad and criminal behavior out there, what is the longest
Speaker 2: prison term ever given to a single prisoner? The answer
Speaker 2: will amaze you. But first let's thank our guest, doctor
Speaker 2: Ryan Sultan. He is the director of Integrative psych as
Speaker 2: well as being director of Sultan Live at Columbia University.
Speaker 2: You can follow him on Instagram where he is at
Speaker 2: Our Sultan MD and on x where he is at
Speaker 2: Doctor Ryan Sultan. Our little show hangs out on Instagram, TikTok, YouTube,
Speaker 2: and threads at Really No Really Podcast, and of course
Speaker 2: you can.
Speaker 1: Share your thoughts and feedback with us online at reallynoreally
Speaker 1: dot com.
Speaker 2: If you have a really some amazing fact or story
Speaker 2: that boggles your mind, share it with us and if
Speaker 2: we use it, we will send you a little gift.
Speaker 2: Nothing life changing, obviously, but it's the thought that counts.
Speaker 2: Check out our full episodes on YouTube. Hit that subscribe
Speaker 2: button and take that bell so you're updated when we
Speaker 2: release new videos and episodes, which we do each Tuesday.
Speaker 2: So listen and follow us on the iHeartRadio app, Apple
Speaker 2: Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. And now, now,
Speaker 2: what is the longest prison sentence ever given to a
Speaker 2: single prisoner? That distinction belongs to a woman in Thailand
Speaker 2: named Chamoi Thipiasso. Miss Tipiasso was a former employee of
Speaker 2: the Petroleum Authority of Thailand when she decided to launch
Speaker 2: a deep reaching pyramid scheme. Using her connections to the
Speaker 2: petroleum authority in the Royal Thai Air Force, she managed
Speaker 2: to build nearly sixteen thousand investors into a fraudulent petroleum
Speaker 2: fund that earned her a total take estimated to be
Speaker 2: between two hundred and three hundred million dollars over twenty years.
Speaker 2: When she was finally caught and brought to trial, Not
Speaker 2: only was the vast majority of the fraudulent funds returned
Speaker 2: to the victims, but miss Tipiasso broke all sentencing records
Speaker 2: when the Thai court sentenced her to one hundred and
Speaker 2: forty one thousand, seventy eight years in prison. Now, if
Speaker 2: that seems a little bit harsh to you, take comfort
Speaker 2: in knowing that Thay law at the time only allowed
Speaker 2: for a twenty year maximum term, and Chamoi didn't even
Speaker 2: serve that.
Speaker 1: Her sentence was reduced twice more, and eventually.
Speaker 2: She only wound up serving a total of four year
Speaker 2: years prison time, which had to have been pretty galling
Speaker 2: for that tie judge. I mean, you go to the
Speaker 2: trouble of giving somebody a record breaking prison sentence and
Speaker 2: it gets reduced by thirty five thousand, two hundred and
Speaker 2: fifty times, I'd be mad. No Really, No Really is
Speaker 2: a production of iHeartRadio and Blois Entertainment.