Speaker 1: Pushkin.
Speaker 2: Cynics might see injustice just like the rest of us do,
Speaker 2: but cynicism suggests that there's nothing really to be done
Speaker 2: about it, because if a broken system reflects our broken nature,
Speaker 2: if the worst of us is who we really are,
Speaker 2: then any change, any attempt to improve the world or
Speaker 2: the systems that we live in, is doomed from the outset.
Speaker 1: Psychologist Jimil Zaki studies the science of human connection, and
Speaker 1: he believes that cynicism is holding us back. It's not
Speaker 1: just harmful for health, it's also misguided. The alternative, he says,
Speaker 1: is a mindset called full skepticism.
Speaker 2: And the reason that I call it hopeful skepticism is
Speaker 2: because our default tends to be negative. When you adopt
Speaker 2: a skeptical perspective, you do tend to move towards a
Speaker 2: slightly more hopeful and positive place because you're correcting for
Speaker 2: the biases that we already have. People always say, what
Speaker 2: you want me to put on a pair of rose
Speaker 2: colored glasses, and I say, no, you're probably already wearing
Speaker 2: a pair of glasses that's like mud colored, So just
Speaker 2: take those off right, so that I'm actually not asking
Speaker 2: people to pay less attention, but to pay more attention
Speaker 2: to the folks around them.
Speaker 1: On today's episode, the Life Changing Benefits of being a
Speaker 1: Hopeful Skeptic, I'm Maya Shunker and this is a slight
Speaker 1: change of plans, a show about who we are and
Speaker 1: who we become in the face of a big change.
Speaker 1: Jamil Zaki is a professor of psychology at Stanford University
Speaker 1: and the director of the Stanford Social Neuroscience Lab. You
Speaker 1: might remember him from his first appearance on this show,
Speaker 1: when he talked about the power of empathy. Jamil has
Speaker 1: spent the last twenty years studying the sunny side of
Speaker 1: human nature, things like compassion, kindness, and togetherness. He says
Speaker 1: he's widely known as a kind of ambassador for humanity's
Speaker 1: better angels. But in his new book Hope for Cynics,
Speaker 1: The Surprising Science of Human Goodness, Jamil talks about struggling
Speaker 1: with this image. He begins the book with a confession.
Speaker 2: This entire time that I've been advocating for and talking
Speaker 2: about human goodness, I myself have been pretty cynical. I
Speaker 2: tend to suspect people and look at the worst sides
Speaker 2: of lots of situations, becoming anxious, neurotic pessimistic, and I
Speaker 2: feel like that split between my outer persona on the
Speaker 2: one hand and my deepest experiences on the other has
Speaker 2: been a problem for me and did something that I
Speaker 2: wanted to bring out into the light and address.
Speaker 1: I'm curious if you can tell me a bit more
Speaker 1: about that disconnect. Do you remember a story in which
Speaker 1: you met with someone who were giving a group council
Speaker 1: and then you went home and you were kind of like, oh, darn,
Speaker 1: I don't actually think I'm buying what I'm saying. I'm
Speaker 1: not internalizing this, oh one hundred percent.
Speaker 2: One of the most intense moments came after TED, the
Speaker 2: global conference that has a lot of great speakers, asked
Speaker 2: me to come and give a talk on optimism as
Speaker 2: a path to positive social change. I pulled out my
Speaker 2: notebook and I said, I'm going to start drafting this
Speaker 2: talk on the first I think Wednesday of the year
Speaker 2: in twenty twenty one, which happened to be January. And
Speaker 2: I remember I started drafting this talk about how you
Speaker 2: know optimism is so important, and my friend texted me
Speaker 2: and said, you have to turn on the television right now,
Speaker 2: and I saw what the rest of the nation and
Speaker 2: world saw with the insurrection at the Capitol Building, and
Speaker 2: I thought, to myself, am I full of shit? Is
Speaker 2: everything that I talk about a lie? I know it's
Speaker 2: not because I do the research, I see the data,
Speaker 2: but there's sometimes such a huge distance between your head
Speaker 2: and your heart, you know, And like I just couldn't
Speaker 2: believe deeper inside myself that people were good as I
Speaker 2: watched this tragedy unfold.
Speaker 1: Yeah, what were the personal costs to being cynical for you?
Speaker 1: I'm curious to hear how that played out.
Speaker 2: During that lockdown period late twenty twenty early twenty twenty one,
Speaker 2: I really probably had the rock bottom of my own
Speaker 2: personal cynicism, and it was extremely apparent to me that
Speaker 2: entire time that it was not helping me, that it
Speaker 2: was hurting me emotionally, it was diminishing my relationships. It
Speaker 2: was it felt like a form of social depression, right,
Speaker 2: depression kind of casts this gray light over everything, and
Speaker 2: especially over your sense of self and the world at large.
Speaker 2: I felt like cynicism was doing that for my vision
Speaker 2: of other people, you know, sort of it made it
Speaker 2: extremely difficult for me to see people in a positive light.
Speaker 2: And I started exploring the science of cynicism because I
Speaker 2: wanted to figure out what was happening inside me and
Speaker 2: whether there was anything that I could do for myself
Speaker 2: to dig out of this trap that I felt my
Speaker 2: mind was in. And it's only then that I discovered
Speaker 2: how common this sense of hopelessness, exhaustion, and cynicism really is,
Speaker 2: which first of all made me feel better because I
Speaker 2: was like, well, at least I'm not alone, but then
Speaker 2: made me feel as I learned more and more about
Speaker 2: how harmful cynicism is, and not only how harmful, but
Speaker 2: how unnecessary it is, I thought, Wow, this could actually
Speaker 2: help a lot of people who feel like I.
Speaker 1: Do you know when you say the word cynicism, Jimille,
Speaker 1: so many images come to mind. What is your definition
Speaker 1: of cynicism?
Speaker 2: Cynicism can be defined as a theory about the world
Speaker 2: and about people in particular. It's the theory that humanity
Speaker 2: in general is selfish, greedy, and dishonest. Okay, that is
Speaker 2: not to say that a cynic will doubt that anybody
Speaker 2: will ever do a kind thing in their lives. They
Speaker 2: just think that at our core, who we are is
Speaker 2: defined by self interest. Now, if you have that theory,
Speaker 2: you might notice a bunch of things happening inside you
Speaker 2: and a bunch of things in your behavior. Right first,
Speaker 2: you might find self suspecting other people's motives, even when
Speaker 2: they do things that appear positive. You might find yourself
Speaker 2: very quick to judge others based on the harms that
Speaker 2: they produce, not on the best things that they do.
Speaker 2: It might also change what you do and what you
Speaker 2: don't do. One place that we see cynicism play out
Speaker 2: very strongly is in trust. Trust is our willingness to
Speaker 2: be vulnerable to other people on the belief that they
Speaker 2: have our best interest in mind. Loaning somebody money, letting
Speaker 2: somebody babysit your kid, giving somebody more responsibility at work,
Speaker 2: on your team. All of these are types of trust,
Speaker 2: and trust is a social gamble. We can't know what
Speaker 2: the outcome will be. We need to count on other people.
Speaker 2: And if you're cynical, that gamble feels like it's for suckers.
Speaker 2: It feels like a losing bet. So cynics tend to
Speaker 2: trust a lot less often than non cynics.
Speaker 1: You have a very people focused definition. So is that
Speaker 1: intentional and does it exclude those who just think irrespective
Speaker 1: of a human involvement you know, an asteroid might hit us, Like,
Speaker 1: how do you bucket those folks?
Speaker 2: Yeah? I think that what you're describing is pessimism, the
Speaker 2: idea that the future will unfold in ways that we
Speaker 2: don't want. And I think that pessimism and cynicism are
Speaker 2: quite related because a lot of what we expect about
Speaker 2: the future has to do with who's around us right now.
Speaker 2: But I do think of cynicism as generally a social theory.
Speaker 1: Okay, okay, that's very helpful. Would you call cynicism the
Speaker 1: default state of the human or like, is that what
Speaker 1: you see in the data or do you think that
Speaker 1: it's somewhat acquired. I'm just curious to know what we're
Speaker 1: running up against.
Speaker 2: So there are some defaults in the human brain and
Speaker 2: mind that tip us towards cynicism. Psychologists talk about negativity bias,
Speaker 2: the idea that it's often much easier to pay attention to,
Speaker 2: to remember, and much more tempting to talk about negative
Speaker 2: events and people than positive events in people. And you
Speaker 2: can see why that would be evolutionarily adaptive, right. You know,
Speaker 2: if you're thinking back one hundred thousand years, the people
Speaker 2: who paid lots of attention to threats in their environment
Speaker 2: might be more likely to survive. And so that's I
Speaker 2: think one thing that makes fighting cynicism an uphill battle.
Speaker 1: You've already alluded to some of the negative impacts of
Speaker 1: cynicism on our well being and relationships. Are there any
Speaker 1: other studies or research that you would want to share?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean so. One is that cinics unfortunately live
Speaker 2: far less healthy lives, even at a physical level, so
Speaker 2: they tend to show greater signs of cellular aging and inflammation.
Speaker 2: They tend to develop heart disease more than nonsnics and
Speaker 2: even die younger than non cynics. And I think this
Speaker 2: comes from the fact that cynics have a harder time
Speaker 2: tapping into one of the things that de stresses and
Speaker 2: it nourishes us the most connection to other people. There's
Speaker 2: one really fascinating study where researchers brought people in the
Speaker 2: lab and asked them to give an extemporaneous speech on
Speaker 2: a topic they didn't know very well, which of course
Speaker 2: is not pleasant for anybody. And in some cases people
Speaker 2: had a cheerleader, a friendly stranger who was with them
Speaker 2: while they prepared and said, you've got this. I believe
Speaker 2: in you. And in other cases they were alone. Now,
Speaker 2: for noncnics, their blood pressure went up when they were
Speaker 2: preparing this speech, that would happen for any of us.
Speaker 2: But when they had a supportive stranger there, their blood
Speaker 2: pressure went up a lot less. For cynics, having a
Speaker 2: supportive person there didn't make a difference at all. So
Speaker 2: their blood pressure increased just as much if they were
Speaker 2: alone or if somebody was there to help them. That
Speaker 2: is so telling to me. It almost strikes me that
Speaker 2: if you're cynical, if you don't believe in people, then
Speaker 2: you kind of can't digest or metabolize the social nourishment
Speaker 2: of connection. And I think that that's just such a
Speaker 2: tragic way to live.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so much of your book I see as mythbusting cynicism.
Speaker 1: And so what are some common misconceptions that people have
Speaker 1: about cynicism.
Speaker 2: Yeah, this was one of the things that was most
Speaker 2: surprising for me when I started doing this research, because
Speaker 2: I thought to myself, Wow, cynicism feels terrible. It's awful
Speaker 2: for our health and relationships, it's not very good for
Speaker 2: our communities. Why are so many people adopting this as
Speaker 2: a view of life and as a view of humanity.
Speaker 2: And there are three myths that I realized our culture
Speaker 2: propagates about cynicism. The first is that it's wise. Now,
Speaker 2: over the last three years since starting this project, I've
Speaker 2: talked to so many self proclaimed cynics, and one thing
Speaker 2: that they have in common, besides hostility and a little
Speaker 2: bit of contempt, is a sort of bitter pride. A
Speaker 2: lot of cynics will say, I'm actually a realist. You
Speaker 2: know that if you don't think in cynical terms, you're
Speaker 2: a naive roub or a chump. That if you pay
Speaker 2: close enough attention and become wise enough, then you will
Speaker 2: realize that people are really terrible. And in fact, it's
Speaker 2: not just cynics who think this. Surveys find that seventy
Speaker 2: percent of people think that cynics are smarter than non cynics,
Speaker 2: and eighty five percent of people think that cynics are
Speaker 2: more socially smart, for instance, that they'll be better at
Speaker 2: picking out liars than nonsnics. It turns out that that's
Speaker 2: not true. So there's data from hundreds of thousands of people,
Speaker 2: lots of national surveys that finds that cnics actually perform
Speaker 2: less well on cognitive tests. Than non cynics, and there
Speaker 2: is other research that finds that cynics are worse at
Speaker 2: spotting liars than non cynics. So it's important to know
Speaker 2: that that perception of cynicism as a type of intelligence
Speaker 2: is clearly at odds with the data.
Speaker 1: Let's talk a bit more about some of the other
Speaker 1: misconceptions we have about cynicism.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think that another misconception that I think people
Speaker 2: have about cynicism is that it's safe. You know, I
Speaker 2: think a lot of us who feel cynical about others
Speaker 2: feel that way because we've been hurt, betrayed, disappointed, you know.
Speaker 2: I know for me, my cynicism comes from a lot
Speaker 2: of early parts of my life where I didn't feel
Speaker 2: like I could really count on people. And so it's
Speaker 2: not saying that I feel because I think I'm superior
Speaker 2: to others or because I want to have a negative attitude.
Speaker 2: It's sort of a response to pain. And one response
Speaker 2: that we might have to pain is to put our
Speaker 2: guard up to feel like, well, I never want to
Speaker 2: experience that again. I don't want to be betrayed or
Speaker 2: hurt again. And the only way I can guarantee my
Speaker 2: own safety moving forward is to shut off any type
Speaker 2: of social risk. And that's why I think you often
Speaker 2: see cynics not willing to trust people because they don't
Speaker 2: want to risk betrayal, They don't want to risk being
Speaker 2: taken advantage of.
Speaker 1: No. I totally appreciate that. Why don't we cover genial
Speaker 1: The third misconception that people have when it comes to cynicism.
Speaker 2: Yeah, the third misconception around cynicism is the idea that
Speaker 2: cynicism is moral, that that really it's so important to
Speaker 2: be aware of injustice, corruption and harm, and that cynics
Speaker 2: are the only ones who are adequately responsive to all
Speaker 2: the terrible things that happen in the world, and as
Speaker 2: a result, that being hopeful or positive is kind of
Speaker 2: an abandonment of our species and our problems, that it's
Speaker 2: a pair of rose colored glasses. You know, when I
Speaker 2: talk about hope and overcoming cynicism, a lot of people say, well,
Speaker 2: that's rich coming from you, an ultra privileged professor at
Speaker 2: an elite university. You know, a lot of us don't
Speaker 2: have the luxury of feeling good about humanity. We have
Speaker 2: to speak truth to power and challenge injustice. And first
Speaker 2: of all, I think cynics might see injustice just like
Speaker 2: the rest of us do, but cynicism suggests that there's
Speaker 2: nothing really to be done about it, because if a
Speaker 2: broken system reflects our broken nature, if the worst of
Speaker 2: us is who we really are, than any change, any
Speaker 2: attempt to improve the world or the systems that we
Speaker 2: live in, is doomed from the outset. And so you
Speaker 2: actually see more cynical people are less likely to take
Speaker 2: part in social movements, they're less likely to vote, they're
Speaker 2: more willing to do things like spread conspiracy theories. And
Speaker 2: in fact, I think that autocrats and authoritarians often benefit
Speaker 2: from cynicism and use it as a way of promoting
Speaker 2: the status quo. I mean, a population that doesn't trust
Speaker 2: itself is an easy one to manipulate.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, Do you think there's an element of guilt?
Speaker 1: Do people feel guilty when they express optimism? Because it
Speaker 1: just feels jarring when you see all the pain and
Speaker 1: suffering around you.
Speaker 2: This is such a deep question, and I do want
Speaker 2: to separate optimism from hope here. Yeah, Optimism is the
Speaker 2: idea that things will turn out well. Hope is the
Speaker 2: idea that they could turn out well. And I think
Speaker 2: that's a huge distinction, because optimism can lead a little
Speaker 2: bit to complacency. You know, if things are going to
Speaker 2: go great, then I don't really have to do anything
Speaker 2: to make a difference. And in fact, I think that
Speaker 2: what you could call toxic optimism is not that different
Speaker 2: from cynicism. If cynics think, well, things are going to
Speaker 2: go terribly no matter what I do, they can also
Speaker 2: be complacent.
Speaker 1: Yeah, an optimists are like, things are going to go
Speaker 1: great no matter what I do, so I'm not going
Speaker 1: to do anything.
Speaker 2: So you've got two groups of people who have fundamentally
Speaker 2: different beliefs, but neither one of them might be inspired
Speaker 2: to do much. Hope takes the deep uncertainty that we
Speaker 2: have about the future as the place where our actions matter,
Speaker 2: and so hopeful people tend to focus on their agency
Speaker 2: and they think, well, there's a vision of the world
Speaker 2: where things could be better. I'm not saying that's what
Speaker 2: will happen, but it's a possibility, and in order for
Speaker 2: that possibility to become more likely, I need to take action.
Speaker 2: Hopeful individuals, for instance, tend to be more resilient during adversity.
Speaker 2: Lower socio economic and underrepresented minority students who have hope,
Speaker 2: are more likely to pursue their academic goals, and socially
Speaker 2: as well, Hopeful people are more willing to engage in protests.
Speaker 2: A protest is not a complacent, rose colored glasses type
Speaker 2: of thing to do. It's taking major problems head on.
Speaker 2: But why do we take those problems head on? Because
Speaker 2: we think that there's a difference to be made.
Speaker 1: You advocate in your book for quote, Unlearning Cynicism, and
Speaker 1: you introduce this concept of hopeful skepticism. You've already explained
Speaker 1: how hope is different from optimism. Can you explain what
Speaker 1: you mean by hopeful skepticism.
Speaker 2: One of the most important things that I learned in
Speaker 2: doing research for this project was the difference between cynicism
Speaker 2: and skepticism. You know, as we've talked about, cynicism is
Speaker 2: a theory about the world. Well as you know as
Speaker 2: a scientist, once you have a theory, you start to
Speaker 2: kind of see it everywhere and even want to support it,
Speaker 2: and so there can be some confirmation bias around theories,
Speaker 2: and cynics often have a biased way of looking at
Speaker 2: the world. They almost look at it like lawyers, right,
Speaker 2: and the prosecution against humanity. They really pay lots of
Speaker 2: attention to the terrible things that people do, or they
Speaker 2: might explain away the others' kindness and trustworthiness. Skepticism is
Speaker 2: not thinking like a lawyer, but thinking like a scientist.
Speaker 2: Skeptics don't necessarily have some huge, huge assumption or theory
Speaker 2: about what people are like. Instead, they look for evidence.
Speaker 2: They're unwilling to rest on early and easy judgments, and
Speaker 2: because of that, skepticism is really different from cynicism, and skeptics,
Speaker 2: unlike cinics, can learn really quickly, can adapt to new situations,
Speaker 2: and become much more accurate about people than cinics do.
Speaker 1: One of the quotes that I really enjoyed from your book,
Speaker 1: and I thought articulated the point well, is that hope
Speaker 1: is not a naive way of approaching the world. It's
Speaker 1: an accurate response to the best data available.
Speaker 2: It's really a point I want to drive home because
Speaker 2: a lot of people when they hear hope, they think
Speaker 2: of somebody with their head in the sand. They think
Speaker 2: of somebody ignoring data as opposed to approaching data. One
Speaker 2: of the important points, though, and the reason that I
Speaker 2: call it hopeful skepticism, is because our default tends to
Speaker 2: be negative. When you adopt a skeptical perspective, you do
Speaker 2: tend to move towards a slightly more hopeful and positive
Speaker 2: place because you're correcting for the biases that we already have.
Speaker 2: People always say, what you want me to put on
Speaker 2: a pair of rose colored glasses, and I say, no,
Speaker 2: you're probably already wearing a pair of glasses that's like
Speaker 2: mud colored, So just take those off right, so that
Speaker 2: I'm actually not asking people to pay less attention, but
Speaker 2: to pay more attention to the folks around them.
Speaker 1: After the break, Jamil teaches us how to practice hopeful skepticism.
Speaker 1: We'll be back in a moment with a slight change
Speaker 1: of plans, Jimil. The hopeful part of all this is
Speaker 1: that hopeful skepticism is in fact a skill that we
Speaker 1: can build. So why don't we talk a bit about
Speaker 1: how it is that we can build that muscle. In
Speaker 1: your book, you have this wonderful practical guide, and I'm
Speaker 1: hoping that we can share with listeners a few examples
Speaker 1: of some of these overarching strategies. The first you say
Speaker 1: is to connect with your core values. Tell me what
Speaker 1: that looks like.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, it's interesting. It turns out that although
Speaker 2: cynics have a lot of judgment and contempt for other people.
Speaker 2: They also tend to say that they rely on other
Speaker 2: people more for their sense of self worth the non cynics.
Speaker 2: So there's a sense that when we can't trust ourselves
Speaker 2: very deeply, it's hard to trust others. Yeah, it turns
Speaker 2: out that one of the best ways to start overcoming
Speaker 2: cynicism is to connect in new ways to ourselves. My
Speaker 2: colleague at Stanford, Jeff Cohen, has a lot of work
Speaker 2: on this through what he calls values affirmation. So values
Speaker 2: affirmation is where you so consider what matters most to
Speaker 2: you in life. You'll see a list of, for instance,
Speaker 2: twenty things that people often say they care a lot about,
Speaker 2: and you'll be asked, well, what are your top three
Speaker 2: or what's your top one, And then you're asked to
Speaker 2: write about, well, why does it matter to you and
Speaker 2: what are some ways that you express that value in
Speaker 2: your life. And it turns out that this simple exercise,
Speaker 2: just ten fifteen minutes of writing about what really matters
Speaker 2: to you and how you live your values, instills a
Speaker 2: kind of deep confidence in people. I'm not talking about
Speaker 2: braggadocious arrogance, but rather a sense of sturdiness, a sense
Speaker 2: of solid foundation, and when we have that sense of
Speaker 2: sturdiness internally, we're more willing to be open to others.
Speaker 2: Jeff finds that when people affirm their own values, they
Speaker 2: feel less threatened by information that conflicts with their beliefs
Speaker 2: and more open minded. And that's why I think it
Speaker 2: might tap us in also to a sense of skepticism
Speaker 2: and hopeful skepticism about other people.
Speaker 1: You talk about this in terms of, you know, better
Speaker 1: connecting to ourselves, and I wonder I'm just thinking out loud.
Speaker 1: I mean, here's one way in which I think increasing
Speaker 1: self compassion could be a vehicle through which we have
Speaker 1: more hope. So when we do fail or we make
Speaker 1: some sort of mistake, we can overconclude from that incident. Right,
Speaker 1: So rather than saying I made a mistake, it's I'm
Speaker 1: a mistake. There's no redemption.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: And if I have more self compassion and I believe, okay,
Speaker 1: well I made a mistake, I myself not a mistake,
Speaker 1: I might be more willing to assume that posture with
Speaker 1: other people in my life, like, oh, that person hurt me,
Speaker 1: but they might not be like a hurtful person, like
Speaker 1: someone who loves hurting others. They might just have aired
Speaker 1: in a particular way.
Speaker 2: That's beautifully put. I love that. And I think there's
Speaker 2: a lot of evidence that when we judge people in
Speaker 2: a trait based way, we see an action that they
Speaker 2: take and we decide that action defines them. That closes
Speaker 2: us off not just to compassion for that person, but
Speaker 2: it makes it very easy for us to think cynically
Speaker 2: about that individual. In fact, cynicism is a sort of
Speaker 2: fixed view of humanity.
Speaker 1: Right, exactly. That's what I'm trying to get at. It's like, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: there is actually hope for this person to change, because
Speaker 1: I think I can change. I love that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, No, I think that's right.
Speaker 1: Let's go to the second strategy for building hopeful skepticism,
Speaker 1: and you say that is to be skeptical of your cynicism.
Speaker 1: So tell me a bit more about what that process
Speaker 1: can look like.
Speaker 2: This is something that I drew in trying to overcome
Speaker 2: my own cynicism from tools in cognitive behavioral therapy or CBT. Right, So,
Speaker 2: when I started CBT in my twenties, my therapist told me, Okay,
Speaker 2: what are your beliefs about yourself and about the world.
Speaker 2: Write them down and then try to think about them scientifically.
Speaker 2: What evidence do you have to support them? And I
Speaker 2: wrote down some of my very negative beliefs at the time.
Speaker 2: At the time, I really felt like if I am
Speaker 2: not positive all the time, people won't like me. That
Speaker 2: I need to entertain or provide people with good vibes
Speaker 2: in order for them to stay in my life. I
Speaker 2: felt like expressing that true self when my true self
Speaker 2: was unattractive or gloomy, would lead people to flee. But
Speaker 2: I had no evidence for it because I had never
Speaker 2: really tried. I had never been open with other people
Speaker 2: about what I was going through or feeling. And so
Speaker 2: my therapist then said, Okay, you've got this belief, you
Speaker 2: don't have any evidence for it. Why don't you collect
Speaker 2: some data, Why don't you try to test your hypotheses?
Speaker 2: And both of these steps understanding what our beliefs are
Speaker 2: and whether we have evidence for them and then testing
Speaker 2: them could be tools for being skeptical of our own cynicism.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I wonder how that played out for you, because
Speaker 1: I own your book. You said people used to call
Speaker 1: you Guy Smiley, so you were definitely battling a pretty
Speaker 1: strong reputation so what steps did you take to test
Speaker 1: out this theory that you had to be a certain
Speaker 1: way in order to be liked.
Speaker 2: One example from more recently, a few years ago now,
Speaker 2: a couple of new faculty members joined my department and
Speaker 2: we went out for drinks and they said, well, what's
Speaker 2: it like to be a professor here at Stanford? And
Speaker 2: you know, I had my guy smiley response already, you know,
Speaker 2: it's the best job in the world. I can't believe it.
Speaker 2: But instead I decided to answer honestly, and I said,
Speaker 2: it's terrifying. You know, you you never feel like you
Speaker 2: deserved this job, because nobody really deserves it. You have
Speaker 2: to be so lucky to get here, and it's incredibly
Speaker 2: easy to feel like an impostor and to feel like
Speaker 2: any mistake you make is just proof that the university
Speaker 2: made a mistake in hiring you. And I still remember
Speaker 2: the seconds of silence that followed this, you know, rant
Speaker 2: that these people had not asked for and our first
Speaker 2: time hanging out, and they felt like ours to me.
Speaker 2: And I also remember the relief that poured out of
Speaker 2: these new faculty members. They said, Wow, it means so
Speaker 2: much to hear somebody who we see as succeeding open
Speaker 2: up about this, and we ended up becoming really fast friends.
Speaker 2: And even now years later, we get together about once
Speaker 2: a quarter and we have something called beer and wine
Speaker 2: where we drink beer and wine, but with an h
Speaker 2: you know, we complain and vent and open up and again.
Speaker 2: So for me, being positive was inauthentic. Sometimes it was
Speaker 2: a defense mechanism, and being honest about my struggles showed
Speaker 2: that I believed in the people around me. I believed
Speaker 2: that they would have my back, and more often than
Speaker 2: not they did. So the experiments that I did in
Speaker 2: my life, the data came back shockingly positive.
Speaker 1: Yeah. So the final strategy is to practice what you
Speaker 1: call social saving. Tell me more.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Savoring is generally the practice of appreciating good things
Speaker 2: as they happen, and it's related to, but distinct from gratitude,
Speaker 2: which is generally appreciating the good things that have happened.
Speaker 2: So I practice savoring a lot with my kids. We
Speaker 2: will do things like ice cream eating class or sunset
Speaker 2: watching class, where we will enjoy something, but we'll enjoy
Speaker 2: it very carefully. I'll say, well, what do you like
Speaker 2: about how this tastes or the texture of the ice cream.
Speaker 2: What do you want to remember about this moment? Just
Speaker 2: pointing our awareness towards the good things in our lives.
Speaker 2: And social savoring is in essence, taking that same general strategy,
Speaker 2: but pointing it towards other people. And so for me,
Speaker 2: social saving has two parts. One is paying attention to
Speaker 2: and looking for examples of people doing good in the world.
Speaker 2: And I'm not talking about heroics that you see in
Speaker 2: the news. I'm talking about walking around a city and
Speaker 2: seeing people pick up litter or helping somebody who's in need,
Speaker 2: for instance. The second part of social savoring is not
Speaker 2: just to notice the goodness that's all around us all
Speaker 2: the time, but to share it. When you socially savor
Speaker 2: with others, you help fight their cynicism. But you also
Speaker 2: in changing what you say, change the way that you think,
Speaker 2: your habits of speech become habits of mind, and help
Speaker 2: kind of pop up in antenna in your own mind
Speaker 2: for the goodness of others, which of course is not
Speaker 2: that hard to find once you start to look for it. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah. One lesson I internalized early for my mom is,
Speaker 1: especially when engaging with people in the service industries, they're
Speaker 1: always hearing complaints and so her goal is always to
Speaker 1: counteract that by every time she has a really positive experience,
Speaker 1: making sure she calls in the manager and says, you know,
Speaker 1: so and so is so amazing and so excellent and
Speaker 1: so just the other day flying back from New York,
Speaker 1: and our flight attendant was just so kind, and I
Speaker 1: just called her over and I was like, Hey, I
Speaker 1: just need you to know you are such a kind,
Speaker 1: cheerful presence. And it's made my day and it's made
Speaker 1: this flight so much better. And I thought in that
Speaker 1: moment about the impact that sharing that with her would
Speaker 1: have on her. But I didn't think in that moment
Speaker 1: about what you're sharing with me now, which is what
Speaker 1: impact it probably had on me and my view of humanity.
Speaker 2: I love that. It's a lot. I mean, our culture
Speaker 2: is so full of people giving life one star reviews
Speaker 2: on Yelcha you and I'm giving all the people around
Speaker 2: them one star reviews. But if that's all we do,
Speaker 2: if the loudest conversations we have are about the worst
Speaker 2: things that happen, yeah, then we will end up with
Speaker 2: a skewed view of the world and of each other.
Speaker 1: I'm curious to know how writing this book and engaging
Speaker 1: with the research on hope and cynicism has transformed your
Speaker 1: own outlook on life. Right, So you came into this saying, Okay,
Speaker 1: I'm going to confess that I am a cynic. How
Speaker 1: has it changed the way that you live your life?
Speaker 1: How has it changed your relationship with some of your
Speaker 1: big fears? Yeah, share with me any reflections you have.
Speaker 2: I don't consider myself an ex cynic. I consider myself
Speaker 2: a recovering cynic.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Right. In that I work on this all the time,
Speaker 2: I still have the same defaults. I still have the
Speaker 2: same instincts. I think that one of the things that
Speaker 2: this project has changed in me is that I'm more
Speaker 2: aware that when I'm thinking in gloomy or cynical terms,
Speaker 2: that that doesn't mean that I'm right. So I guess
Speaker 2: I trust my cynicism less. I'm more skeptical of it.
Speaker 2: That is something that I can say I've achieved. And
Speaker 2: then this project has changed how I parent. I'm much
Speaker 2: more aware of how even if I'm taking risks, even
Speaker 2: if I'm trusting people, my default is to stop my
Speaker 2: kids from taking any risks and to protect them from
Speaker 2: all sorts of harm, and especially from harmful people. I
Speaker 2: stand by that instinct one thousand percent, but I think
Speaker 2: oftentimes as a parent, my default has been protection over freedom,
Speaker 2: protection over exploration, and protection over learning, and so I've
Speaker 2: been trying to balance that. And so one of our
Speaker 2: daughters is eight years old and we live in the
Speaker 2: middle of a big city here in San Francisco, and
Speaker 2: she really wants to be able to go buy something
Speaker 2: on her own, right. She wants to be able to
Speaker 2: go a couple of blocks and pick something up. And
Speaker 2: we've gone back and forth on this for over a
Speaker 2: year now, and I won't say that she's done it yet,
Speaker 2: but we're on the cusp of doing it. I got
Speaker 2: her some walkie talkies so that she can be in
Speaker 2: contact if she needs us. But you know, before working
Speaker 2: on this project, I would have thought, no way, I'm
Speaker 2: letting her go even two blocks. You know, there's just
Speaker 2: too many people out there who could try to harm her.
Speaker 2: And of course, I want, above and beyond anything in
Speaker 2: the world for my daughter to be safe. But I
Speaker 2: also think now that her going a block or two
Speaker 2: is actually a pretty safe thing to do. It's something
Speaker 2: that children have done for generations, and that keeping her
Speaker 2: from doing that isn't actually keeping her safe, it's in
Speaker 2: fact keeping her from learning about the world and how
Speaker 2: to interact with it.
Speaker 1: Jimille can feel like a huge shift to move from
Speaker 1: cynicisms to hopeful skepticism, especially during the time we live in.
Speaker 1: I mean, I'm thinking about areas of life that I'm
Speaker 1: very cynical about, and it seems like a herculean effort
Speaker 1: to do that, And so I do wonder you can
Speaker 1: talk just a bit about that.
Speaker 2: This is a process of small steps, right, I mean,
Speaker 2: nobody changes fundamentally how they view the world overnight, really
Speaker 2: change fundamental deep change is a process of building new habits,
Speaker 2: little things that we do slightly differently each day. Another
Speaker 2: thing that I'll say is that cynicism is really most
Speaker 2: powerful in the abstract. If you ask people what are
Speaker 2: people like, they're pretty gloomy. But if you ask them
Speaker 2: what are the people in your life like? And I'm
Speaker 2: not saying your friends and family, but the strangers you
Speaker 2: interact with, your grosser, your neighbor, the person you sit
Speaker 2: next to on the bus. If you ask people about
Speaker 2: their actual communities, they're much more bullish. They think that
Speaker 2: those people are very trustworthy, are kind, They think that
Speaker 2: those communities are generally pretty good, and so I think
Speaker 2: it's important to remember that hope oftentimes isn't out there
Speaker 2: in the ether, it's right here all around us, in
Speaker 2: the communities that we live in.
Speaker 1: Hey, thanks so much for listening. If you enjoyed this
Speaker 1: conversation with Jamil, we on the Slight Change team would
Speaker 1: be so grateful if you could share the episode with
Speaker 1: someone you know, it helps us get the word out
Speaker 1: so we can keep making more episodes for you. And
Speaker 1: if you're looking for more stories of change later this month,
Speaker 1: I'm sharing one of my all time favorite episodes from
Speaker 1: the archives, and we've got some great new episodes coming
Speaker 1: later this fall. And as always, I highly recommend checking
Speaker 1: out the back catalog. That's where you can find Jamil's
Speaker 1: first episode called how to Build Empathy and Avoid Burnout.
Speaker 1: Thanks so much and see you soon. A Slight Change
Speaker 1: of Plans is created, written, and executive produced by me
Speaker 1: Maya Schunker. The Slight Change family includes our showrunner Tyler Green,
Speaker 1: our senior editor Kate Parkinson Morgan, our senior producer Trisha Bobida,
Speaker 1: and our engineer Eric o'huang. Luis Scara wrote our delightful
Speaker 1: theme song and Ginger Smith helped arrange the vocals. A
Speaker 1: Slight Change of Plans is a production of Pushkin Industries,
Speaker 1: so a big thanks to everyone there, and of course
Speaker 1: a very special thanks to Jimmy Lee. You can follow
Speaker 1: a Slight Change of Plans on Instagram at doctor Maya Schunker.
Speaker 1: See you next week.