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Speaker 1: Welcome to two percent. I'm your host, Michael Easter. So

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Speaker 1: if you turn on cable news or open your news

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Speaker 1: feed right now, you will be hit with the sea

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Speaker 1: of negativity. There is global conflict, there is economic instability,

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Speaker 1: there is craziness coming out of Washington as always, and

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Speaker 1: all of this negativity. It can often lead us to

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Speaker 1: think that the world is terrible and focus on the negatives,

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Speaker 1: not to mention when things go wrong in our day

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Speaker 1: to day lives. We tend to really hone in on

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Speaker 1: those things, even when things are overall pretty good. Turns out,

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Speaker 1: there's a good reason for this. Our minds are literally

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Speaker 1: built to work against us and over focus on the negatives.

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Speaker 1: So today we have two guests who are going to

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Speaker 1: give us some solutions for how to bias yourself to

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Speaker 1: a little more positivity and feel a little better in

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Speaker 1: day to day. First, we're going to bring on the

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Speaker 1: meditation teacher Karl Lai. She's going to tell us why

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Speaker 1: acceptance is so important. And then we're going to bring

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Speaker 1: on Roy Baumeister. He is a psychologist who will talk

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Speaker 1: to us about our negativity bias and how we can

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Speaker 1: start to bias our minds more towards the positive. We'll

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Speaker 1: take a quick break and then we'll bring them both.

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Speaker 1: If you have been watching the news at all lately,

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Speaker 1: you might feel like I do, which is that the

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Speaker 1: world is completely falling apart, and that can be a

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Speaker 1: little bit anxiety inducing. But I recently read a substec

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Speaker 1: post by Kara Lai and she is our guest today.

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Speaker 1: Kara is a meditation teacher. She has been meditating for many,

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Speaker 1: many years, and she really provided in this post a

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Speaker 1: new way to think about all the chaos that arises

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Speaker 1: in our world, and it starts in the mind and

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Speaker 1: reframing your relationship to it. Now. I love Kara because

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Speaker 1: she is not your typical woo woo meditation teacher. She's

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Speaker 1: a little bit insane and I love that about her.

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Speaker 1: So she spent a year in the woods in Colorado meditating.

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Speaker 1: She is also a former barefoot runner and I don't

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Speaker 1: mean she had thin shoes. I mean this lady would

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Speaker 1: actually run miles and miles with no shoes at all

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Speaker 1: in January in New England. She also worked on a

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Speaker 1: really hilarious, amazing comedy Central series that we're going to

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Speaker 1: talk about with the most hilariously named character. Ever, so

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Speaker 1: let's get into Cara carl II. Thanks for coming on two.

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Speaker 2: Percent, Thanks for having me Hi.

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Speaker 1: So I want to start with the fact that there

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Speaker 1: is so much wild, horrifying shit happening right now, wars

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Speaker 1: in the Middle East, political polarization, insert one hundred other things.

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Speaker 1: And you recently wrote on substack and this made me

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Speaker 1: start to think about these things differently and how I

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Speaker 1: process them because I find myself when something happens, I'm

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Speaker 1: in my newsfeed, I'm judging, I'm addicted to the Twitter

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Speaker 1: drip of information coming out about this. You wrote, what

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Speaker 1: if what's happening right now is exactly what should be happening?

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Speaker 1: The mind still constantly thinks it knows what's good and

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Speaker 1: is bad, and continues to be at odds with reality

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Speaker 1: nearly all the time. And that same post, it had

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Speaker 1: the subtitle, which I just loved it was the universe

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Speaker 1: does not care about your opinion? So why do you

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Speaker 1: write that post? And how do we understand what you

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Speaker 1: were trying to get through in that post?

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Speaker 3: I wrote that post because I am often finding myself

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Speaker 3: using the question, what if what's happening is exactly what's

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Speaker 3: supposed to be happening. I used that phrase a lot

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Speaker 3: in my guide to meditations, and I hadn't really given

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Speaker 3: much thought to why I use that phrase so much

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Speaker 3: or where that even came from until some of my

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Speaker 3: students called me out on it, because I think they

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Speaker 3: were triggered by it.

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Speaker 1: What did they say? What was the call out?

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Speaker 2: Like?

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Speaker 3: It was a group of students who meets separately on

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Speaker 3: their own, in their own little meditation group, and they

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Speaker 3: apparently had just had a bunch of discussion about this

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Speaker 3: phrase that I use. And some people thought that it

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Speaker 3: felt like I was I was suggesting that there's some

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Speaker 3: kind of predestiny at play or some kind of divine being.

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Speaker 3: And yeah, I think there was a question about the

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Speaker 3: Buddhist origins of that, if there are any, because I'm

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Speaker 3: supposedly a dharma teacher. Yeah, and I'm using this phrase

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Speaker 3: often in my guid meditations, and they're like, what did

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Speaker 3: the Buddhist say that?

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Speaker 2: Why are you saying that?

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Speaker 3: And you know, we always like to point to some

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Speaker 3: voice of authority, And if I'm using that so much,

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Speaker 3: then yeah.

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Speaker 2: Where's who? Where'd you get that? Well?

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Speaker 3: I hadn't thought about it until they asked me, and

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Speaker 3: I Upon thinking about it, I think I realized that

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Speaker 3: it just came to me when I was meditating in

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Speaker 3: a lot of long retreats and at some of my

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Speaker 3: both at some of my darkest moments of suffering and

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Speaker 3: also some of my most blissed out peaceful moments, that

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Speaker 3: question felt relevant and it felt like what it did.

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Speaker 3: The impact that that question had for me was to

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Speaker 3: immediately expose any resistance that I was having to the

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Speaker 3: present moment. And that's why I find it really useful

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Speaker 3: because we might not realize that we're resisting what's happening

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Speaker 3: because we could say this is what's happening, rather than

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Speaker 3: this is supposed to be what's happening, or just say

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Speaker 3: this is what's happening. But we could say that in

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Speaker 3: all different ways. You could see like this is what's happening,

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Speaker 3: or we could say this is what's happening, or you know,

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Speaker 3: you can just flavor it in many different ways. But

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Speaker 3: if one suggests that it's supposed to be what's happening,

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Speaker 3: then you kind of see the resistant lens through which

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Speaker 3: you may have been looking at it until that point.

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Speaker 1: And so is the pushback that you got from people

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Speaker 1: that the things that are happening are when we look

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Speaker 1: at news, they're seemingly so terrible? And that what was

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Speaker 1: the there's a question in there what was people's resistance

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Speaker 1: to that? Because I could see the pushback to that

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Speaker 1: being yeah, but insert x event that is seemingly terrible.

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Speaker 3: Yes, I mean that that's the most obvious reason that

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Speaker 3: it would trigger people. They didn't bring up specific examples,

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Speaker 3: but I think it was just like, well, really, look

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Speaker 3: what's happening. How could we how could we say that

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Speaker 3: this is supposed to be happening? And in my post

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Speaker 3: I talked about just this way way backed up perspective

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Speaker 3: that we could take on things. And most of the

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Speaker 3: time we just have a really narrow perspective on things,

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Speaker 3: and we really, when it comes right down to it,

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Speaker 3: have no idea what's good and what's bad. It's obviously

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Speaker 3: it looks bad, you know, people, people are dying, there's

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Speaker 3: a lot of lack of control, and there's climate change,

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Speaker 3: and there are wars and starvation and all of these

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Speaker 3: things that we could clearly say are unequivocally bad. But

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Speaker 3: then when you look at the grand scheme of things,

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Speaker 3: and the example that I use in the subject post

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Speaker 3: is the Bubonic plague. You know, like a third of

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Speaker 3: Europe's population died as a result of the Bubonic plague.

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Speaker 3: But up until that point, the Catholic Church had such

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Speaker 3: intense control over what people could think and whether or

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Speaker 3: not they would be allowed to read certain books or

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Speaker 3: believe in certain things, and whether or not they could

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Speaker 3: decide whether or not someone's going to go to Hell.

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Speaker 3: And then they lost all this power as a result

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Speaker 3: of the plague and all these people dying and money

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Speaker 3: trickled down to the middle class. The feudal system broke

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Speaker 3: down and the Renaissance started, and so then that was

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Speaker 3: a really big shift that it took a big event

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Speaker 3: like the Bubonic plague to create. Now, all of that

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Speaker 3: is arguable, but it just points to the fact that

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Speaker 3: we really readily will label something based on our very

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Speaker 3: tiny window into it, our little microcosmic momentary understanding of

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Speaker 3: that event, and the question introducing the question is this

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Speaker 3: something that maybe should be happening? It just makes us

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Speaker 3: have to expand into more possibilities, more perspectives. There's more

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Speaker 3: might be more at play here than I am taking

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Speaker 3: into account.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, this idea that dominoes are falling, we can see

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Speaker 1: the one that's falling now, But we have no idea

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Speaker 1: where that path of dominoes leads in the future, and

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Speaker 1: it could could be somewhere good potentially.

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Speaker 2: Yeah.

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Speaker 3: And if we are having such an air of view

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Speaker 3: of this is good and this is bad, what's also

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Speaker 3: happening is since we're not accounting for all those other dominoes,

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Speaker 3: we feel we have this feeling like we have the

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Speaker 3: control over this.

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Speaker 2: We are the ones who.

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Speaker 3: Are somehow responsible for making this bad thing stop happening, right,

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Speaker 3: And you know, does that make sense? If we don't

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Speaker 3: have the big perspective which helps us understand that it's

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Speaker 3: kind of out of our control, then it feels like

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Speaker 3: it's in our control, and that feels really shitty and

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Speaker 3: really intense.

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Speaker 1: And there's some there's some things in daily life where

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Speaker 1: maybe asking that question raises another question of Okay, well,

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Speaker 1: what could I do that leads to action that makes

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Speaker 1: positive change. But with a lot of things, it is

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Speaker 1: totally out of our control. And the more we think

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Speaker 1: we can try and wrestle control from that, probably the

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Speaker 1: more we suffer in the moment.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, And.

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Speaker 3: Oddly enough, if we don't feel like we're in control

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Speaker 3: of the whole situation. We suddenly step into our true

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Speaker 3: sense of agency around what's happening, because we stop feeling

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Speaker 3: overwhelmed by helplessness and we start being available to see

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Speaker 3: what actually could be done about this, and it's often

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Speaker 3: something a lot simpler and more accessible than what we've

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Speaker 3: been thinking. You know, we've been trying to like tackle

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Speaker 3: the entire problem of war single handedly or climate change

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Speaker 3: by like all all of the you know, like oh,

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Speaker 3: like I'm just going to stop driving cars and I'm

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Speaker 3: going to turn off all the lights of my house,

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Speaker 3: or like I'm just going to give all of my

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Speaker 3: money to the world's central kitchen and that'll fix the

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Speaker 3: problem somehow. But that's not actually going to do it.

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Speaker 3: You know, that's not going to fix the problem. But

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Speaker 3: we could be just a presence of calm for the

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Speaker 3: people in the room that we're in, and that actually

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Speaker 3: does have an immediate impact on the situation. And it

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Speaker 3: turns out that's most of the problems in the world

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Speaker 3: are the result well okay, that's I shouldn't make that

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Speaker 3: big of a blank blanket statement, but many of the

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Speaker 3: problems that we are freaked out about in the world

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Speaker 3: are the result of whatever the opposite of pieces in

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Speaker 3: our hearts, you know, like stress in the human heart, greed,

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Speaker 3: a version, feeling like there's not enough, and all of

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Speaker 3: that stress is driving a lot of behavior that's harmful. Yeah,

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Speaker 3: so if we are we are able to change what's

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Speaker 3: going on in our own hearts, that has a major

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Speaker 3: ripple effect and a direct impact on the problem because

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Speaker 3: it gets right at the root of the problem.

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Speaker 1: Well, I can tell you this works because your own

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Speaker 1: calmness is already making me feel calmer.

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Speaker 3: Do I seem calm to you? Because I drank so

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Speaker 3: much caffeine this morning?

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Speaker 1: You do seem calm. You see that you seem calmly caffeinated,

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Speaker 1: not in the sense of you know, calm like a

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Speaker 1: like a sedative, but like peaceful yet caffeinated. Which That's

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Speaker 1: what I'm going for.

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Speaker 2: I like that.

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Speaker 1: That's to take this to a micro level. How do

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Speaker 1: you use it? We're talking about these bigger concepts like now,

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Speaker 1: things like wars, climate change. How do you How have

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Speaker 1: you found yourself using this idea in your day to

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Speaker 1: day life and also with some of the people that

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Speaker 1: you work with. How are they using it?

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Speaker 4: Well?

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Speaker 3: Okay, so I guess I find myself dropping that question

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Speaker 3: in at moments when I've recognized that I believe the

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Speaker 3: opposite is true, which you know happens not infrequently in

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Speaker 3: my day to day life, you know, like things seem

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Speaker 3: to be going just fine, and then all of a sudden,

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Speaker 3: my toddler has a meltdown at the supermarket when I'm

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Speaker 3: like carrying a crying baby and a bunch of people

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Speaker 3: are waiting in line behind me, and then he's pulling

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Speaker 3: stuff off the shelves and making a mess, and it

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Speaker 3: seems inescapable. What if what's happening right now is exactly

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Speaker 3: what's supposed to be happening, You know, there's just immediate,

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Speaker 3: an immediate sense that it's not an emergency that I

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Speaker 3: have to change, and then I can pause. So it

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Speaker 3: just allows me to slow down and reconsider the situation.

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Speaker 3: And and there's so much more space.

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Speaker 2: For that than we realize.

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Speaker 3: We make so many situations into emergencies that really aren't emergencies. Catastrophizing, right,

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Speaker 3: I mean, it's not it's actually really not a catastrophe

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Speaker 3: the situation that I just described, And neither are so

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Speaker 3: many of the situations that we get so bent out

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Speaker 3: of shape about and when I introduced that question, it

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Speaker 3: just brings this immediate sense of relief, like, oh, Okay,

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Speaker 3: this doesn't have to be my problem. What if it's

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Speaker 3: not a problem at all?

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Speaker 2: What if this isn't even about me at all?

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Speaker 3: You know, because I might it might be easy for

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Speaker 3: me to jump to the conclusion that like the universe

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Speaker 3: is testing me, you know, they're testing my ability to

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Speaker 3: be peaceful in the in this like intense situation.

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Speaker 2: But that actually was.

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Speaker 3: An idea about what was happening that was also bringing

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Speaker 3: me stress, you know, like, oh, I have to like

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Speaker 3: do a really good job of not getting stressed out

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Speaker 3: right now. And it's really stressed now, I am.

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Speaker 1: Going to rise to the occasion that life has presented

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Speaker 1: with me. It's this like binary winner loss type.

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Speaker 3: Thing, right, And it just helps me see that that

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Speaker 3: was another way that I was making it harder for myself.

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Speaker 3: And so, yeah, that question is just I find I

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Speaker 3: find it very helpful and my students. I've been talking

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Speaker 3: with my students just over the past couple of days

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Speaker 3: about this because I just put that post out and

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Speaker 3: a lot of people have said it's been really helpful

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Speaker 3: for them too, for the same reason.

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Speaker 2: It just immediately brings this sense of relief.

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Speaker 3: Someone did say that only recently did it start being helpful,

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Speaker 3: but it wasn't for a while because she had a

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Speaker 3: she has a kid who has a disorder that's really

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Speaker 3: like a mental health issue.

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Speaker 2: Actually that's really really painful for.

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Speaker 3: Him, and for her to bring that statement in or

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Speaker 3: that question in it, it kind of suggested to her

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Speaker 3: that he should be suffering in that way, like he's

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Speaker 3: supposed to somehow be suffering, and that was really really.

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Speaker 2: Not okay with her. But what I guess what started

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Speaker 2: to turn it for her was that first.

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Speaker 3: Of all, it was what should be happening, was that

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Speaker 3: she should be hating what's happening, you know, because that's

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Speaker 3: part of what's happening too, is your reaction is also

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Speaker 3: a thing, So that the suggestion of should this be

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Speaker 3: happening or not is also an invitation for your reactions

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Speaker 3: and your strong emotions and your difficult emotions to be

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Speaker 3: part of that. Like all of this, including your resistance

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Speaker 3: to it, what if that's also supposed to be happening.

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Speaker 2: And so there's like there's some space.

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Speaker 3: Kind of grew around this situation for her, and eventually

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Speaker 3: there was a real turning point for her where she

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Speaker 3: felt like she could really drop a shitload of resistance

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Speaker 3: that she was having to her son having this this

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Speaker 3: this real mental health challenge, and then that led to

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Speaker 3: a really really loving, connected moment between the two of

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Speaker 3: them that they hadn't been able to have. Yeah, so

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Speaker 3: it's like the resistance to these these what we have

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Speaker 3: decided our problems can fall away and then we can

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Speaker 3: really open our hearts to them.

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Speaker 1: This kind of reminds me of I've been sober for

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Speaker 1: about ten years, and I know a lot of sober people,

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Speaker 1: and I have a friend who I think one point

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Speaker 1: he was living on the streets and he said, I

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Speaker 1: never thought the worst thing that ever happened to me

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Speaker 1: would become the best thing because he had to go

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Speaker 1: through this. You know, he had this period that was

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Speaker 1: just absolute hell, but it gave him these insights that

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Speaker 1: in retrospect, he started taking action and his life became

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Speaker 1: better than it ever would have been had he not

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Speaker 1: gone through that hell. And it's like he had to

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Speaker 1: kind of go to the bottom to see what it

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Speaker 1: was like down there, and he learned something down there

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Speaker 1: and then started doing things that improve things. And so

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Speaker 1: I think if you would have asked him, you know,

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Speaker 1: twenty four hours before he decided to get sober, he

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Speaker 1: would have been like, this is the end. I'm never

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Speaker 1: coming back from this. But it was in that time

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Speaker 1: and that, you know, the action it took. It totally

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Speaker 1: changed his perspective about that moment in his life.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, And I think I think what you're describing is

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Speaker 3: a theme in spiritual practic that the hardest moments become

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Speaker 3: the most important transformative moments, And I myself can definitely

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Speaker 3: reflect on We talked about that year long retreat that

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Speaker 3: I did and the previous recording, and that was maybe

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Speaker 3: the hardest thing that I've ever been through and also

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Speaker 3: maybe the biggest transformative experience that I ever went through.

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Speaker 3: And a difference I think between me and your friend's

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Speaker 3: I didn't come out on the other side of that

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Speaker 3: because I was like, Wow, I got to turn my

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Speaker 3: life around and make different choices.

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Speaker 2: That just wasn't. That wasn't what happened. It just kind

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Speaker 2: of like.

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Speaker 3: Slowly the lime disease that I was going through is

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Speaker 3: slowly started to heal itself, and that happened. But I

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Speaker 3: think just being in this state of confusion and continuously

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Speaker 3: being willing to show up for myself had a huge

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Speaker 3: impact where all this patients grew and all this understanding

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Speaker 3: and compassion grew for human suffering.

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Speaker 1: So for context for listeners, this was in Was it

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Speaker 1: in twenty twenty or twenty twenty one?

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Speaker 2: Yeah?

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Speaker 1: Yeah, your long retreat and you were alone?

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Speaker 2: Yeah and you yeah.

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Speaker 1: Were it was basically a year long meditation retreat and

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Speaker 1: you were you in a cabin or yeah.

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Speaker 3: I was in a cabin at a meditation retreat center

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Speaker 3: in Colorado called Tara Mondola, And they had these little

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Speaker 3: individual cabins where they were set up because that tradition

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Speaker 3: that Tibetan Buddhist tradition has a feature of really long retreats.

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Speaker 3: Sometimes I think three years is the traditional, like three years,

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Speaker 3: three months and three days.

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Speaker 2: I just did one, just one.

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Speaker 1: Year, just one, just one. Yeah, you really cut it

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Speaker 1: short there. What were some of the swings you went

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Speaker 1: through on that? Like what were the lows? What were

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Speaker 1: the highs? Did you ever have times where you were like,

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Speaker 1: all right, I got to get the hell out of

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Speaker 1: here immediately, But obviously you didn't. So what was going

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Speaker 1: through that?

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Speaker 3: Like, yeah, well I was, I was excited going into

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Speaker 3: the retreat because it was something that I had wanted

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Speaker 3: to do for a really long time, and it felt

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Speaker 3: like the perfect time to do it because it was

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Speaker 3: a pandemic and there was not much going on, you know.

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Speaker 2: Not much fomo to have. Yeah, and.

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Speaker 3: I was excited because I had only really had positive

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Speaker 3: retreat experiences, and I had done a lot of retreat

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Speaker 3: leaning up to that, and my mind had really understood

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Speaker 3: how to meditate and how to get into these really deep, blissful,

365
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Speaker 3: even stays of concentration. And when I got on the retreat,

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Speaker 3: it was just it felt impossible to concentrate for the

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Speaker 3: first time in my life, because well, I had just

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Speaker 3: recently found out that I had had chronic lime disease

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Speaker 3: for like five years or something, and it was somehow

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Speaker 3: coming to a head right as I was entering the retreat,

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Speaker 3: and I was in a lot of pain and a

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Speaker 3: lot of mental fog. And evidently the mental fog was

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Speaker 3: enough and the pain was enough that for the first time,

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Speaker 3: I just couldn't My mind just wouldn't focus no matter

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Speaker 3: what I tried, and I tried everything, it did not

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Speaker 3: It just couldn't.

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Speaker 2: Land in my experience, and I.

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Speaker 3: Felt like I was pretty good at I was pretty

379
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Speaker 3: good at meta at that point, and so nothing, it

380
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Speaker 3: felt like nothing worked, nothing worked, and I just remember

381
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Speaker 3: breaking down and crying over and over again. There was

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Speaker 3: like months where I was crying every day because I

383
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Speaker 3: felt so helpless and there was just nothing to do it.

384
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Speaker 3: It felt like I was just steeping in my helplessness

385
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Speaker 3: and so that was that was a low, but it

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Speaker 3: also felt really cathartic. It felt like there was this

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Speaker 3: helpless place in me that needed had needed to cry

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Speaker 3: for a really long time, and I had been on

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Speaker 3: this ever since I discovered meditation. It was like, oh

390
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Speaker 3: my god, I finally found the thing that's going to

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Speaker 3: help me feel better in life, and like I have

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Speaker 3: a direction and I know how, I know what to

393
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Speaker 3: do if I'm suffering.

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Speaker 1: It's this, yeah, and so then you take it. You

395
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Speaker 1: sort of take it almost to the edge of I'm

396
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Speaker 1: going to do this for a year because of what

397
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Speaker 1: I have been doing has led to this, the year

398
00:24:14,080 --> 00:24:16,800
Speaker 1: will be almost this next level. And then you get

399
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Speaker 1: there and you find that as like, ope, this is

400
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Speaker 1: not what I planned for.

401
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Speaker 2: Yeah.

402
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Speaker 3: It was like deeply, deeply disappointing, and and it also

403
00:24:31,760 --> 00:24:34,520
Speaker 3: what I didn't realize is that at the time, I

404
00:24:34,520 --> 00:24:41,320
Speaker 3: didn't realize that it was actually just expanding my perspective

405
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Speaker 3: on what practice was, and it was helping me see

406
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Speaker 3: that I didn't have to be so in control and

407
00:24:48,720 --> 00:24:53,919
Speaker 3: in charge of my destiny, and how how good I

408
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Speaker 3: was and how much I freed my mind that I could,

409
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Speaker 3: I could really surrender it. I had to surrender to

410
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Speaker 3: where the path was taking me, and it was taking

411
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Speaker 3: me to some dark places that I didn't understand and

412
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Speaker 3: and I had learnings and I had I just got

413
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Speaker 3: lessons that I didn't expect to get but that I

414
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Speaker 3: really needed. I really really needed that kind of surrender.

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Speaker 1: What was your biggest insights from those You know.

416
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Speaker 2: I had been used to having.

417
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Speaker 3: A certain flavor of insight up until I went on

418
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Speaker 3: that retreat, and the flavor was just deep release and

419
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Speaker 3: bliss Yeah, but it t yeah yeah, And insight does

420
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Speaker 3: feel good, but it doesn't always have to feel that

421
00:25:46,960 --> 00:25:52,360
Speaker 3: blissful kind of release, and it didn't this time. It

422
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Speaker 3: felt just it felt like a lot of compassion and

423
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Speaker 3: recognition that.

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Speaker 2: It was just it's just hard to be alive. And

425
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Speaker 2: somehow naming.

426
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Speaker 3: That was a really was a really big belief because

427
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Speaker 3: I didn't. I don't think I realized that I was

428
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Speaker 3: at odds with that, like it, Oh, it doesn't have

429
00:26:19,000 --> 00:26:23,040
Speaker 3: to be so hard to be alive, but maybe it's

430
00:26:23,080 --> 00:26:26,399
Speaker 3: just is it just is hard to be alive. And

431
00:26:27,359 --> 00:26:32,119
Speaker 3: the the difficult things in life don't necessarily go away.

432
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Speaker 2: The more you work with your mind around them.

433
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Speaker 3: We just get more open to all of the feelings

434
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Speaker 3: we have around them. And so I think I'm just

435
00:26:49,520 --> 00:26:52,760
Speaker 3: much more open now than I was before, and I

436
00:26:52,760 --> 00:26:56,199
Speaker 3: can when something bad happens, I feel it more intensely,

437
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Speaker 3: But then it's done. You know, it doesn't like get

438
00:27:03,560 --> 00:27:06,160
Speaker 3: stuck in me the way you used to.

439
00:27:06,480 --> 00:27:09,840
Speaker 1: Are you better able to navigate it through actions or

440
00:27:09,920 --> 00:27:12,960
Speaker 1: is it totally just your sort of I guess mindset

441
00:27:13,000 --> 00:27:16,240
Speaker 1: around it has shifted what it's going to mean to

442
00:27:16,280 --> 00:27:17,200
Speaker 1: you moving forward.

443
00:27:17,520 --> 00:27:21,919
Speaker 3: I definitely feel way more available to act than I

444
00:27:21,960 --> 00:27:28,720
Speaker 3: did before, because when something is blocked up in you,

445
00:27:28,000 --> 00:27:33,000
Speaker 3: you don't have that much energy available to do something

446
00:27:33,000 --> 00:27:37,360
Speaker 3: about it. When your mind is like really resisting something

447
00:27:37,920 --> 00:27:42,399
Speaker 3: or still having unprocessed emotions about it, A lot of

448
00:27:42,400 --> 00:27:45,760
Speaker 3: your energy is going towards dealing with that in your body,

449
00:27:45,880 --> 00:27:49,600
Speaker 3: and there's tension there. But when things move through you

450
00:27:49,640 --> 00:27:55,320
Speaker 3: more readily, you're just more consistently available to do what's

451
00:27:55,359 --> 00:27:58,159
Speaker 3: needed to be done, and your mind is clearer and

452
00:27:58,200 --> 00:28:00,840
Speaker 3: more able to see what is needed to be done.

453
00:28:01,000 --> 00:28:04,879
Speaker 1: Yeah, and you had to kind of go into the

454
00:28:04,920 --> 00:28:09,520
Speaker 1: depths of the hardship in order to see that. I'll

455
00:28:09,520 --> 00:28:13,040
Speaker 1: tell you about my own experience with meditation. So after

456
00:28:13,080 --> 00:28:17,280
Speaker 1: I got sober, I started meditating like twenty minutes a

457
00:28:17,359 --> 00:28:20,240
Speaker 1: day for maybe four or five years. I think it

458
00:28:20,240 --> 00:28:24,160
Speaker 1: was good, definitely helped me. Then I ended up going

459
00:28:24,200 --> 00:28:29,040
Speaker 1: to the Arctic for more than a month, and for

460
00:28:29,080 --> 00:28:34,840
Speaker 1: whatever reason, it's like the highest highs I'd experienced in meditation.

461
00:28:34,920 --> 00:28:36,840
Speaker 1: It was like, well beyond that, but it was also

462
00:28:36,960 --> 00:28:41,280
Speaker 1: I mean, it came with these hardships and insights, and

463
00:28:41,320 --> 00:28:45,120
Speaker 1: it's like when I got home, I feel like that

464
00:28:45,200 --> 00:28:49,880
Speaker 1: experience had shifted my relationship to all these things in

465
00:28:49,920 --> 00:28:53,080
Speaker 1: my life that I think would have been challenging before that.

466
00:28:53,120 --> 00:28:55,400
Speaker 1: It was just kind of a reframing of what am

467
00:28:55,440 --> 00:29:01,360
Speaker 1: I going to consider a problem and how is this me? So,

468
00:29:01,800 --> 00:29:04,479
Speaker 1: for example, if some you know, hassle came up in

469
00:29:04,520 --> 00:29:08,000
Speaker 1: my life before, it would be like, oh, this is

470
00:29:08,000 --> 00:29:10,000
Speaker 1: a disaster. This is what am I and I would

471
00:29:10,080 --> 00:29:15,320
Speaker 1: just ruminate on that, and after that experience, it's like

472
00:29:15,360 --> 00:29:17,520
Speaker 1: I could come home and that same thing might happen.

473
00:29:18,440 --> 00:29:21,040
Speaker 1: I'd be like, you got a roof over your head,

474
00:29:21,320 --> 00:29:24,480
Speaker 1: it's not minus forty out, you got clean running water. Yeah,

475
00:29:24,520 --> 00:29:27,720
Speaker 1: this is great, You'll probably survive it. So do you

476
00:29:27,760 --> 00:29:33,000
Speaker 1: feel like there are like what things can people do

477
00:29:34,040 --> 00:29:36,280
Speaker 1: to get there? Because I think, on one hand, you

478
00:29:36,280 --> 00:29:41,000
Speaker 1: know your experience with meditation taught you that online. My

479
00:29:41,160 --> 00:29:43,360
Speaker 1: experience too, almost gave me a flavor of that. I

480
00:29:43,400 --> 00:29:47,360
Speaker 1: would say it was probably somewhat different. But what's kind

481
00:29:47,400 --> 00:29:49,040
Speaker 1: of the What do you think the takeaway is for

482
00:29:49,080 --> 00:29:50,720
Speaker 1: the average person about what they can do?

483
00:29:51,320 --> 00:29:55,960
Speaker 3: I believe that, and maybe this is also going to

484
00:29:55,960 --> 00:29:57,960
Speaker 3: be a controversial statement to make, but I.

485
00:29:58,240 --> 00:30:00,160
Speaker 1: Love controversy around here. Good.

486
00:30:01,800 --> 00:30:06,640
Speaker 3: I believe that life is constantly presenting us with exactly

487
00:30:06,680 --> 00:30:12,080
Speaker 3: what we need to learn, the lessons that we're needing

488
00:30:12,120 --> 00:30:15,840
Speaker 3: to learn in that moment. And so it's we don't

489
00:30:15,920 --> 00:30:21,000
Speaker 3: have to go looking for trouble or looking for something

490
00:30:21,040 --> 00:30:26,760
Speaker 3: that's gonna transform us, and we don't have to work

491
00:30:26,880 --> 00:30:31,320
Speaker 3: so hard to figure out our problems. All we have

492
00:30:31,400 --> 00:30:35,400
Speaker 3: to do is open to exactly what's here right in

493
00:30:35,440 --> 00:30:41,960
Speaker 3: front of us that we're resisting and bring it in

494
00:30:42,080 --> 00:30:48,280
Speaker 3: as potentially something that's going to somehow transform us. We

495
00:30:48,440 --> 00:30:50,440
Speaker 3: just have not given it a chance because we've been

496
00:30:50,720 --> 00:30:56,040
Speaker 3: so busy deeming it wrong and bad and trying to

497
00:30:56,120 --> 00:31:01,480
Speaker 3: keep it at bay. And so if for you the

498
00:31:01,520 --> 00:31:04,600
Speaker 3: thing that is the hardest is every time you read

499
00:31:04,600 --> 00:31:08,720
Speaker 3: the news you get activated, then that could be something

500
00:31:08,760 --> 00:31:13,400
Speaker 3: that is transformative to for you to just what's actually

501
00:31:13,600 --> 00:31:18,880
Speaker 3: happening for me when let me really feel deeply into

502
00:31:18,880 --> 00:31:22,400
Speaker 3: this moment, whatever moment of reactivity you might be having.

503
00:31:23,400 --> 00:31:26,160
Speaker 3: What is this about for me? Why is this so

504
00:31:26,360 --> 00:31:31,440
Speaker 3: troubling for me? What's when I can get past my rage?

505
00:31:31,520 --> 00:31:33,880
Speaker 3: Because that's what the tricky.

506
00:31:33,520 --> 00:31:36,200
Speaker 2: Thing that our minds do is we just try to

507
00:31:36,280 --> 00:31:38,120
Speaker 2: blame the world.

508
00:31:39,080 --> 00:31:42,240
Speaker 3: You shouldn't be acting that way, This shouldn't be happening, No,

509
00:31:42,680 --> 00:31:45,400
Speaker 3: like shouldn't, should and shouldn't. And that is all just

510
00:31:45,520 --> 00:31:49,240
Speaker 3: ways of deflecting the attention away from your own experience.

511
00:31:50,080 --> 00:31:54,280
Speaker 3: What is happening for me when I'm having this reaction?

512
00:31:54,600 --> 00:31:59,400
Speaker 2: Oh there's fear. Oh I'm I'm afraid that.

513
00:31:59,760 --> 00:32:07,760
Speaker 3: My my world, my life is somehow being threatened, or

514
00:32:07,880 --> 00:32:08,840
Speaker 3: maybe that's not it.

515
00:32:08,960 --> 00:32:11,960
Speaker 2: Maybe it's maybe it's.

516
00:32:11,920 --> 00:32:18,160
Speaker 3: That I feel guilty somehow for living in a place

517
00:32:18,240 --> 00:32:21,040
Speaker 3: at a time and with an abundance that other people

518
00:32:21,080 --> 00:32:25,200
Speaker 3: don't have, and that's not fair and I don't know

519
00:32:25,240 --> 00:32:28,280
Speaker 3: what to do about that other than to get mad

520
00:32:28,720 --> 00:32:33,200
Speaker 3: at the situation and feel helpless. And so if we

521
00:32:33,240 --> 00:32:36,800
Speaker 3: can touch into that sense of guilt or shame and

522
00:32:36,920 --> 00:32:40,160
Speaker 3: just see, oh, well, actually, I didn't choose this life,

523
00:32:41,280 --> 00:32:44,480
Speaker 3: and it's not going to help anyone for me to

524
00:32:44,600 --> 00:32:51,920
Speaker 3: keep myself apart from what is keeping me feeling comfortable.

525
00:32:52,520 --> 00:32:56,040
Speaker 3: It's not going to help somebody who doesn't have food.

526
00:32:56,200 --> 00:33:03,480
Speaker 3: If I don't eat today, then we can really let

527
00:33:03,600 --> 00:33:07,080
Speaker 3: in the abundance of our lives, drop the guilt, and

528
00:33:07,120 --> 00:33:10,280
Speaker 3: then become more available to actually do something that would

529
00:33:10,320 --> 00:33:10,840
Speaker 3: be helpful.

530
00:33:11,600 --> 00:33:15,280
Speaker 1: Yeah. I think that you mentioned fear, and I think

531
00:33:15,400 --> 00:33:20,040
Speaker 1: that that underlies so much of what we do. I'll

532
00:33:20,040 --> 00:33:23,240
Speaker 1: give you an example. I have German short hair pointers.

533
00:33:23,640 --> 00:33:29,240
Speaker 1: They are absolutely nuts dogs because they're bread for hunting

534
00:33:29,800 --> 00:33:32,360
Speaker 1: and so they're wired. They're moving around all the time.

535
00:33:32,400 --> 00:33:36,160
Speaker 1: They get into trouble and when we would have people

536
00:33:36,600 --> 00:33:40,160
Speaker 1: come over, my dog would like jump on them, and

537
00:33:40,200 --> 00:33:42,800
Speaker 1: it would frustrate me and I would get mad at

538
00:33:42,840 --> 00:33:45,360
Speaker 1: be like, God, damn it stocked in why can't you

539
00:33:45,480 --> 00:33:48,600
Speaker 1: just chill out for a bit? And then when I

540
00:33:48,600 --> 00:33:51,480
Speaker 1: spent time unpacking that, I was like, why do I

541
00:33:51,520 --> 00:33:55,240
Speaker 1: get frustrated this dog jumps on people? And once I

542
00:33:55,240 --> 00:33:58,600
Speaker 1: started unpeeling those layers, I go, oh, because I think

543
00:33:58,720 --> 00:34:02,000
Speaker 1: that person is going to judge me as this shitty

544
00:34:02,080 --> 00:34:04,360
Speaker 1: dog owner, Like this person doesn't have his life together,

545
00:34:04,400 --> 00:34:07,080
Speaker 1: he can't. He has this dog that's insane. And so

546
00:34:07,120 --> 00:34:08,840
Speaker 1: it came to me and then what's under that? And

547
00:34:08,880 --> 00:34:11,520
Speaker 1: it's like, oh, well, that's a fear of almost a

548
00:34:11,600 --> 00:34:15,560
Speaker 1: social rejection. And I had this guy who helped me

549
00:34:15,560 --> 00:34:17,640
Speaker 1: out a lot in life, and he said, and he'd

550
00:34:17,640 --> 00:34:21,080
Speaker 1: worked with a lot of people who'd gone through sobriety

551
00:34:21,120 --> 00:34:24,000
Speaker 1: and gotten sober, and he basically said, of all these

552
00:34:24,040 --> 00:34:26,719
Speaker 1: people he's helped, and there's a lot of people, he said,

553
00:34:26,760 --> 00:34:28,040
Speaker 1: at the end of the day, I found the common

554
00:34:28,080 --> 00:34:31,759
Speaker 1: theme is that people want two things. They want to

555
00:34:31,760 --> 00:34:34,040
Speaker 1: be loved and they don't want to be alone. That's

556
00:34:34,080 --> 00:34:37,360
Speaker 1: it at the bottom of it. And all these reactions

557
00:34:37,360 --> 00:34:40,360
Speaker 1: we have a lot of time. It's a fear about

558
00:34:40,480 --> 00:34:41,200
Speaker 1: losing that.

559
00:34:42,040 --> 00:34:44,280
Speaker 2: Yes, yeah, I love.

560
00:34:45,120 --> 00:34:48,399
Speaker 3: I love getting to the bottom of things like that,

561
00:34:48,880 --> 00:34:51,080
Speaker 3: Like what you did with your own mind around the dogs,

562
00:34:51,120 --> 00:34:54,160
Speaker 3: like that is so interesting and fun for me. What

563
00:34:54,960 --> 00:34:59,279
Speaker 3: is really at the heart of this reactivity, and there's

564
00:34:59,320 --> 00:35:04,359
Speaker 3: almost all is some real vulnerability there that actually is a.

565
00:35:04,320 --> 00:35:06,160
Speaker 2: Share of very shared experience.

566
00:35:07,040 --> 00:35:09,960
Speaker 3: And here we were thinking we were so alone and

567
00:35:10,000 --> 00:35:14,440
Speaker 3: we felt so ashamed and separate, But when we really

568
00:35:14,480 --> 00:35:18,440
Speaker 3: get underneath the layers of anger and fear and shame,

569
00:35:19,000 --> 00:35:22,239
Speaker 3: what's at the bottom is just this shared sense of

570
00:35:22,880 --> 00:35:26,200
Speaker 3: wanting to be connected, wanting to be loved, and feeling

571
00:35:26,280 --> 00:35:31,719
Speaker 3: vulnerable in our human experience. And and like that when

572
00:35:31,880 --> 00:35:34,680
Speaker 3: the more you see it, the more the easier it

573
00:35:34,719 --> 00:35:37,480
Speaker 3: becomes to look into your own experience and to look

574
00:35:37,520 --> 00:35:41,520
Speaker 3: into your own reactivity, because it's it usually ends well.

575
00:35:41,800 --> 00:35:44,400
Speaker 1: Yeah, well it's like for me, it's it allowed me

576
00:35:44,480 --> 00:35:48,880
Speaker 1: to go, you're you're not actually frustrated with the dog,

577
00:35:49,840 --> 00:35:53,520
Speaker 1: and being frustrated with the dog is not really going

578
00:35:53,600 --> 00:35:57,640
Speaker 1: to do anything to fix this underlying thing. And I

579
00:35:57,680 --> 00:36:00,040
Speaker 1: would have to go, what do I care if the

580
00:36:00,080 --> 00:36:02,640
Speaker 1: dog jumps on the mailman? A little bit? Like, do

581
00:36:02,719 --> 00:36:05,040
Speaker 1: I really care if the mailman rejects me, like no,

582
00:36:05,120 --> 00:36:07,319
Speaker 1: I love the dog, Like okay, we're going to try

583
00:36:07,360 --> 00:36:09,799
Speaker 1: and work on the training a bit, but like it's

584
00:36:09,800 --> 00:36:12,359
Speaker 1: going to be fine, Like the mailman doesn't really care.

585
00:36:12,400 --> 00:36:14,919
Speaker 1: I'm spinning up these narratives that like the mailman is going,

586
00:36:15,520 --> 00:36:17,719
Speaker 1: this person does not have their life together, what is

587
00:36:17,760 --> 00:36:20,360
Speaker 1: wrong with them? And that's not maybe he's doing that,

588
00:36:20,480 --> 00:36:23,120
Speaker 1: but like one who cares too, he's probably not, you know,

589
00:36:23,160 --> 00:36:25,960
Speaker 1: and so right that unpacking of right.

590
00:36:26,120 --> 00:36:29,040
Speaker 2: People are only really thinking about themselves.

591
00:36:30,080 --> 00:36:30,560
Speaker 1: Exactly.

592
00:36:30,719 --> 00:36:34,320
Speaker 3: And also what you're describing is so familiar as a parent,

593
00:36:34,680 --> 00:36:37,719
Speaker 3: because that's what that's what parents do when their kid

594
00:36:37,840 --> 00:36:39,000
Speaker 3: is behaving a certain way.

595
00:36:39,040 --> 00:36:40,799
Speaker 2: It's like, oh, this, you.

596
00:36:40,920 --> 00:36:44,800
Speaker 3: Are a reflection of me, and if you don't stop

597
00:36:44,880 --> 00:36:47,759
Speaker 3: doing that, I'm going to look so bad. And then

598
00:36:47,840 --> 00:36:50,239
Speaker 3: we treat our kids in a way that is really

599
00:36:50,360 --> 00:36:53,839
Speaker 3: unfair because they're kids and they're actually not extensions of us.

600
00:36:53,880 --> 00:36:56,080
Speaker 2: They're they're their own person totally.

601
00:36:56,520 --> 00:36:59,520
Speaker 1: I want to talk about how you ended up on this.

602
00:37:00,280 --> 00:37:03,000
Speaker 1: I guess i'll call it that you're on. I want

603
00:37:03,000 --> 00:37:08,560
Speaker 1: to start though, with McGee. Tell about this, the great

604
00:37:08,560 --> 00:37:11,440
Speaker 1: American mister McGee.

605
00:37:13,000 --> 00:37:16,240
Speaker 3: Well, okay, so I went to I went to risdy

606
00:37:16,680 --> 00:37:20,719
Speaker 3: for for undergrad wrote down school design, and I had

607
00:37:20,719 --> 00:37:22,520
Speaker 3: the idea that I was going to be an illustrator,

608
00:37:23,600 --> 00:37:27,759
Speaker 3: and so I started. My first job was as a

609
00:37:27,800 --> 00:37:34,640
Speaker 3: storyboard artist for this this cartoon that was on Adult

610
00:37:34,680 --> 00:37:39,880
Speaker 3: Swim called McGee, which was I'm sure just a bunch

611
00:37:39,960 --> 00:37:44,440
Speaker 3: of stoner guys sitting around laughing and coming up with

612
00:37:44,760 --> 00:37:47,360
Speaker 3: dumb ideas for cartoons, and this one actually took off.

613
00:37:48,520 --> 00:37:56,560
Speaker 3: And the main character was a butt. He was a butt. Yeah,

614
00:37:57,960 --> 00:38:01,239
Speaker 3: he was a talking butt and a walking butt. So

615
00:38:01,239 --> 00:38:03,239
Speaker 3: it was a human from the waist down. And he

616
00:38:03,360 --> 00:38:06,840
Speaker 3: was a detective and he was just really trigger happy,

617
00:38:07,280 --> 00:38:10,279
Speaker 3: so he would just come in and shoot everything, and

618
00:38:10,360 --> 00:38:13,319
Speaker 3: somehow he would have shot only the bad guys and

619
00:38:13,680 --> 00:38:18,359
Speaker 3: have solved the crime in this brutish way. And I

620
00:38:18,400 --> 00:38:21,000
Speaker 3: was in this climate controlled office and we were all

621
00:38:21,040 --> 00:38:22,359
Speaker 3: just sitting at computers all the.

622
00:38:22,320 --> 00:38:24,960
Speaker 2: Time, and I felt like I really.

623
00:38:24,800 --> 00:38:28,239
Speaker 3: Didn't like it, and so eventually I was just like,

624
00:38:28,280 --> 00:38:31,960
Speaker 3: you know, I'm just gonna do what feels good. I'm

625
00:38:32,000 --> 00:38:36,120
Speaker 3: just going to quit this job and do what feels

626
00:38:36,160 --> 00:38:39,160
Speaker 3: good in my body and what feels fun to me.

627
00:38:39,320 --> 00:38:40,520
Speaker 3: And that ended up.

628
00:38:40,440 --> 00:38:44,080
Speaker 2: Being working at a bunch of different outdoor jobs with kids.

629
00:38:44,360 --> 00:38:46,400
Speaker 3: So I went and worked at summer camps and outdoor

630
00:38:46,520 --> 00:38:49,640
Speaker 3: education programs, and of course there's all kinds of hippie

631
00:38:49,640 --> 00:38:51,920
Speaker 3: people there, and one of the hippie people was like,

632
00:38:52,040 --> 00:38:55,759
Speaker 3: you should meditate. You would love it. And I did,

633
00:38:56,120 --> 00:38:58,799
Speaker 3: and so I was like, this feels good. This is

634
00:38:58,800 --> 00:39:00,640
Speaker 3: the thing that feels good. Keep doing this.

635
00:39:01,000 --> 00:39:02,440
Speaker 1: Where did you how did you start?

636
00:39:02,680 --> 00:39:04,040
Speaker 2: I just had.

637
00:39:04,160 --> 00:39:06,640
Speaker 3: He gave me a book that was called eight Minute Meditate,

638
00:39:06,920 --> 00:39:11,080
Speaker 3: eight Minute Meditation, and I meditated for eight minutes every day. Cool,

639
00:39:11,520 --> 00:39:15,200
Speaker 3: and that was all and I just had. I don't

640
00:39:15,239 --> 00:39:19,120
Speaker 3: know what it was, but it had a very quick

641
00:39:19,239 --> 00:39:24,000
Speaker 3: impact on me, where I started to have basically trippy

642
00:39:24,080 --> 00:39:28,800
Speaker 3: experiences of being really moved by beautiful things like a sunset,

643
00:39:29,360 --> 00:39:36,840
Speaker 3: and also feeling suddenly not as caught in my social

644
00:39:36,880 --> 00:39:40,280
Speaker 3: anxiety as I had.

645
00:39:40,120 --> 00:39:41,200
Speaker 2: Been up until that point.

646
00:39:41,239 --> 00:39:44,840
Speaker 3: It was like I could watch myself being anxious instead

647
00:39:44,880 --> 00:39:48,040
Speaker 3: of being lost in it and feeling so stuck in it.

648
00:39:48,840 --> 00:39:51,960
Speaker 3: And so it felt like there was some kind of

649
00:39:52,080 --> 00:39:54,919
Speaker 3: perspective that was starting to unfold, even though I really

650
00:39:54,960 --> 00:39:57,080
Speaker 3: had no idea what I was doing, and I didn't

651
00:39:57,120 --> 00:40:04,000
Speaker 3: even really connect the those experiences with the meditation for

652
00:40:04,040 --> 00:40:07,399
Speaker 3: a while, because I didn't really know that much about

653
00:40:07,440 --> 00:40:09,360
Speaker 3: meditation and what it was supposed to do.

654
00:40:09,440 --> 00:40:11,080
Speaker 2: I was just kind of doing it.

655
00:40:11,360 --> 00:40:13,680
Speaker 1: Yeah, that was actually what you said reminds me of

656
00:40:13,680 --> 00:40:18,160
Speaker 1: one of the first times after I'd been meditating that

657
00:40:18,200 --> 00:40:21,320
Speaker 1: I had an aha, this is working is I've always

658
00:40:21,320 --> 00:40:25,319
Speaker 1: hated speaking in front of groups, and I had to

659
00:40:25,920 --> 00:40:28,440
Speaker 1: kind of give a talk thing and I stood up

660
00:40:28,440 --> 00:40:29,920
Speaker 1: there and I could film my heart racing and my

661
00:40:29,960 --> 00:40:33,719
Speaker 1: head going and I went I just noticed it, and

662
00:40:33,800 --> 00:40:36,680
Speaker 1: internally I laughed. I was just like, oh, yeah, this

663
00:40:36,719 --> 00:40:39,000
Speaker 1: is what's happening. And then it led into this talk

664
00:40:39,040 --> 00:40:40,840
Speaker 1: where I was just totally normal and had I not

665
00:40:41,040 --> 00:40:44,600
Speaker 1: done that and been able to almost detached, I don't

666
00:40:44,600 --> 00:40:45,840
Speaker 1: know if that's the word, but it was just like

667
00:40:45,880 --> 00:40:48,560
Speaker 1: have a perspective on it that like this is hilarious,

668
00:40:48,600 --> 00:40:50,400
Speaker 1: You're gonna survive this, You're fine. And then it just

669
00:40:50,520 --> 00:40:53,160
Speaker 1: ended immediately when I saw that, it just went like

670
00:40:53,239 --> 00:40:55,200
Speaker 1: my heartright went from me you know, one fifty to

671
00:40:55,360 --> 00:40:57,440
Speaker 1: like sixty. It was crazy.

672
00:40:57,680 --> 00:41:03,880
Speaker 3: Yeah, the mic drop there, because meditation can have it's powerful,

673
00:41:04,000 --> 00:41:09,560
Speaker 3: it's really powerful. I so then so I was having

674
00:41:09,600 --> 00:41:12,440
Speaker 3: all these experiences, and then I just got on a

675
00:41:12,520 --> 00:41:15,360
Speaker 3: roll with it because it felt like I was onto something.

676
00:41:15,400 --> 00:41:20,440
Speaker 3: It felt like it was it was addressing all the

677
00:41:20,480 --> 00:41:23,160
Speaker 3: problems that I felt like I had at the time.

678
00:41:24,040 --> 00:41:26,279
Speaker 1: And you was this one because I remember you were

679
00:41:26,440 --> 00:41:29,600
Speaker 1: a big barefoot runner. And when I say barefoot, I

680
00:41:29,640 --> 00:41:31,759
Speaker 1: don't mean you put on some like minimal shoes. I

681
00:41:31,800 --> 00:41:33,880
Speaker 1: meant I mean like you had no shoes and you

682
00:41:34,080 --> 00:41:35,799
Speaker 1: go out and do these long runs. Was that during

683
00:41:35,840 --> 00:41:38,600
Speaker 1: your outdoor stint before after?

684
00:41:39,400 --> 00:41:42,120
Speaker 3: Yeah, the barefoot running started at the end of college

685
00:41:43,000 --> 00:41:46,800
Speaker 3: and I did a year of Assie McGee and barefoot running.

686
00:41:49,560 --> 00:41:49,800
Speaker 1: I know.

687
00:41:49,880 --> 00:41:52,600
Speaker 3: It was the only thing that kept me saying and

688
00:41:52,640 --> 00:41:57,000
Speaker 3: then I and then I went into these outdoor at jobs.

689
00:41:57,040 --> 00:42:04,640
Speaker 3: They did a lot of barefoot backpacking and yes, yeah,

690
00:42:04,680 --> 00:42:07,680
Speaker 3: so it was all weather conditions. I was also doing

691
00:42:07,680 --> 00:42:11,400
Speaker 3: other extreme things, like one of the places where I

692
00:42:11,440 --> 00:42:14,160
Speaker 3: worked had a lake and it was in Maine, and

693
00:42:14,200 --> 00:42:16,359
Speaker 3: I was jumping in the lake every day, and then

694
00:42:16,400 --> 00:42:19,080
Speaker 3: I was continuing to jump into the lake every day

695
00:42:19,120 --> 00:42:25,280
Speaker 3: even into December, and it was awesome. But now polar

696
00:42:25,280 --> 00:42:27,799
Speaker 3: plunging is really popular. At the time, it was like

697
00:42:28,000 --> 00:42:29,160
Speaker 3: people thought I was insane.

698
00:42:29,440 --> 00:42:33,040
Speaker 1: Yeah you were. You're like an og in that people

699
00:42:33,040 --> 00:42:34,839
Speaker 1: thought you did you were insane. Now they just think

700
00:42:34,880 --> 00:42:37,399
Speaker 1: you listened to like some crazy hell podcasts. That's telling

701
00:42:37,400 --> 00:42:38,600
Speaker 1: you to do it right.

702
00:42:38,880 --> 00:42:40,279
Speaker 2: Yeah, what did you How.

703
00:42:40,200 --> 00:42:45,480
Speaker 1: Did meditation change your relationship to the sort of i'll

704
00:42:45,480 --> 00:42:48,400
Speaker 1: call them extreme physical things you were doing, if at

705
00:42:48,400 --> 00:42:49,640
Speaker 1: all it.

706
00:42:49,880 --> 00:42:52,720
Speaker 2: Wore away at them over the course of time.

707
00:42:53,600 --> 00:42:58,080
Speaker 3: I think I still, for years at the beginning of

708
00:42:58,080 --> 00:43:03,359
Speaker 3: my meditation loved doing those things and integrated them into

709
00:43:03,360 --> 00:43:06,680
Speaker 3: my practice. And there are still aspects of that type

710
00:43:06,719 --> 00:43:11,080
Speaker 3: of extreme physical experience that I really love and feel

711
00:43:11,080 --> 00:43:13,880
Speaker 3: like it they help me surrender.

712
00:43:14,960 --> 00:43:16,120
Speaker 2: But there was.

713
00:43:18,400 --> 00:43:22,520
Speaker 3: A motivation behind me doing those things that was not

714
00:43:22,800 --> 00:43:28,040
Speaker 3: helpful or friendly towards myself. There was this belief that

715
00:43:28,160 --> 00:43:33,400
Speaker 3: I was not adequate that I was, and also there

716
00:43:33,440 --> 00:43:36,480
Speaker 3: was a lot of fear that I had to somehow

717
00:43:36,719 --> 00:43:44,200
Speaker 3: like build myself up to a point where I couldn't

718
00:43:44,239 --> 00:43:51,640
Speaker 3: feel pain anymore or emotional vulnerability anymore. So there's basically

719
00:43:51,680 --> 00:43:53,959
Speaker 3: it was a fear of vulnerability, and if I could

720
00:43:54,000 --> 00:43:57,560
Speaker 3: just make myself invulnerable, then I wouldn't have to be

721
00:43:57,640 --> 00:44:01,000
Speaker 3: with that fear. But through meditation, I could really see

722
00:44:01,680 --> 00:44:05,400
Speaker 3: that that was a driving force, and I could be

723
00:44:05,640 --> 00:44:06,839
Speaker 3: with that fear.

724
00:44:07,400 --> 00:44:09,640
Speaker 2: And tend to that fear and.

725
00:44:09,719 --> 00:44:13,600
Speaker 3: Acknowledged that I was never going to get away from it.

726
00:44:14,200 --> 00:44:19,400
Speaker 3: I was never going to overcome it by doing enough

727
00:44:19,440 --> 00:44:23,600
Speaker 3: miles of barefoot running. It was always going to be there.

728
00:44:23,640 --> 00:44:26,040
Speaker 3: And it was just it was like a seeing and

729
00:44:26,120 --> 00:44:31,200
Speaker 3: recognizing a small child that just was afraid and that

730
00:44:31,320 --> 00:44:33,759
Speaker 3: I had been kind of like punishing and forcing to

731
00:44:33,800 --> 00:44:37,760
Speaker 3: do these really challenging things. And it was so tender

732
00:44:37,880 --> 00:44:43,359
Speaker 3: to see that and be with her and finally give

733
00:44:43,400 --> 00:44:47,480
Speaker 3: her what she was wanting and needing, which was just

734
00:44:47,880 --> 00:44:52,640
Speaker 3: some company and like a hug. And so meditation really

735
00:44:52,719 --> 00:44:55,200
Speaker 3: changed a lot of that behavior for me.

736
00:44:55,719 --> 00:45:00,400
Speaker 1: Do you think that those behaviors almost I think you

737
00:45:00,520 --> 00:45:04,960
Speaker 1: use the words healthy addictions in one of your substact posts.

738
00:45:06,160 --> 00:45:10,440
Speaker 1: It's like they become almost an escape and people get

739
00:45:10,480 --> 00:45:13,960
Speaker 1: in this almost like compulsive addicted loop with them. But

740
00:45:14,080 --> 00:45:18,759
Speaker 1: because it's running instead of drinking or eating a certain way,

741
00:45:18,800 --> 00:45:21,759
Speaker 1: instead of you know, cocaine or whatever the hell, it is,

742
00:45:21,960 --> 00:45:25,880
Speaker 1: like it becomes I think it's totally fine, and it

743
00:45:25,920 --> 00:45:29,480
Speaker 1: is you know, hey probably beat smoke and crack at

744
00:45:29,480 --> 00:45:33,719
Speaker 1: the same time. The underlying reason we're doing it, which

745
00:45:33,760 --> 00:45:38,279
Speaker 1: is almost a form of escape, is the same, Is

746
00:45:38,320 --> 00:45:41,080
Speaker 1: that right? Kind of what I was picking up in

747
00:45:41,200 --> 00:45:41,919
Speaker 1: that post, I.

748
00:45:41,800 --> 00:45:46,160
Speaker 3: Think you did, yeah totally, And I could see, I

749
00:45:46,160 --> 00:45:51,120
Speaker 3: could see to where meditation had become that for me,

750
00:45:51,160 --> 00:45:54,840
Speaker 3: it was like, if I can just do enough meditation,

751
00:45:55,960 --> 00:46:01,440
Speaker 3: then i'll, you know, again, like I won't have to

752
00:46:01,440 --> 00:46:06,759
Speaker 3: feel so vulnerable, vulnerable and so scared, And it was

753
00:46:06,920 --> 00:46:09,640
Speaker 3: It's just that the mind is a slippery thing, and

754
00:46:09,680 --> 00:46:16,879
Speaker 3: it finds ways to keep these habits going. And one

755
00:46:16,920 --> 00:46:21,360
Speaker 3: of to me, one of the most appealing things about

756
00:46:21,800 --> 00:46:25,000
Speaker 3: this spiritual path that I found myself on is that

757
00:46:25,239 --> 00:46:30,320
Speaker 3: it can help us recognize even that, you know everything,

758
00:46:30,440 --> 00:46:36,359
Speaker 3: how the mind just wants to commandeer everything to try

759
00:46:36,400 --> 00:46:41,759
Speaker 3: to fuel its on healthy habits. And if there's a

760
00:46:41,800 --> 00:46:44,840
Speaker 3: practice that helps me see that and undo that pattern,

761
00:46:45,000 --> 00:46:46,839
Speaker 3: then that practice is for me.

762
00:46:47,600 --> 00:46:51,799
Speaker 2: And that retreat was kind of what that was.

763
00:46:51,880 --> 00:46:56,680
Speaker 3: It was like this forced surrender into helplessness and I

764
00:46:56,760 --> 00:46:59,400
Speaker 3: because I didn't have any of I couldn't run, I

765
00:46:59,400 --> 00:47:01,920
Speaker 3: couldn't even meditate. I just had to be with this

766
00:47:02,120 --> 00:47:06,839
Speaker 3: raw human experience and not fight it anymore. And that

767
00:47:07,040 --> 00:47:09,640
Speaker 3: was one of the most transformative things that ever happened

768
00:47:09,640 --> 00:47:13,600
Speaker 3: to me. And it was also the hardest thing that

769
00:47:13,680 --> 00:47:18,320
Speaker 3: ever happened to me. But maybe that's what was supposed

770
00:47:18,360 --> 00:47:18,600
Speaker 3: to be.

771
00:47:18,600 --> 00:47:20,520
Speaker 1: Happening there, you go.

772
00:47:20,680 --> 00:47:21,600
Speaker 2: Do you like what I did there?

773
00:47:21,719 --> 00:47:25,560
Speaker 1: I like what you did there. We're like closing the circle,

774
00:47:25,719 --> 00:47:29,560
Speaker 1: you know. Forty minutes later that was good? Thanks? Yeah,

775
00:47:29,600 --> 00:47:33,520
Speaker 1: I do think to your point. I mean, some of

776
00:47:33,560 --> 00:47:36,879
Speaker 1: my own experiences have been that you event there's there's

777
00:47:36,880 --> 00:47:40,640
Speaker 1: some breakthrough can happen in these like paths that almost

778
00:47:40,640 --> 00:47:43,560
Speaker 1: feel like a breakdown. I remember I did this long

779
00:47:43,640 --> 00:47:47,640
Speaker 1: hike for a book I have coming out, and hike

780
00:47:47,800 --> 00:47:50,759
Speaker 1: was definitely hard. It's like forty five days, but it

781
00:47:50,800 --> 00:47:53,799
Speaker 1: was probably on day thirty three where I just had

782
00:47:53,800 --> 00:47:56,640
Speaker 1: this like insight. It was in like the Grand Canyon,

783
00:47:57,719 --> 00:48:01,160
Speaker 1: and it was kind of like this understanding of why

784
00:48:01,200 --> 00:48:03,960
Speaker 1: I was there and this release of like kind of

785
00:48:04,560 --> 00:48:07,480
Speaker 1: I feel like maybe since getting sober, i'd kind of

786
00:48:07,520 --> 00:48:10,000
Speaker 1: tried to like, Okay, your life was a complete train

787
00:48:10,120 --> 00:48:13,640
Speaker 1: wreck for so long, and I'd almost overcorrected and tried

788
00:48:13,640 --> 00:48:16,520
Speaker 1: to over control things, and I just had this insight

789
00:48:16,600 --> 00:48:19,560
Speaker 1: where it was like it's okay, You're gonna be okay.

790
00:48:19,600 --> 00:48:22,080
Speaker 1: You can forgive yourself for all that shit, just move on.

791
00:48:22,960 --> 00:48:25,400
Speaker 1: And it was like, oh, but I don't think that

792
00:48:25,440 --> 00:48:29,680
Speaker 1: would have happened had I not had all those miles

793
00:48:30,080 --> 00:48:32,680
Speaker 1: and time out doors of thinking like that just wouldn't

794
00:48:32,680 --> 00:48:34,560
Speaker 1: have happened. It's almost like sometimes you have to get

795
00:48:34,560 --> 00:48:40,919
Speaker 1: into these experiences that are really hard in the short term,

796
00:48:41,000 --> 00:48:42,360
Speaker 1: but like if you can kind of stick with this,

797
00:48:42,520 --> 00:48:45,200
Speaker 1: that like some sort of insight can arise.

798
00:48:45,800 --> 00:48:52,720
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, that I love that, And I think there's

799
00:48:52,840 --> 00:48:55,880
Speaker 3: definitely something to be said about the healthy addictions for

800
00:48:55,880 --> 00:48:56,440
Speaker 3: that reason.

801
00:48:56,680 --> 00:48:59,640
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, like it is, it's it is.

802
00:49:00,400 --> 00:49:06,120
Speaker 3: Our mind just needs stepping stones, and it needs ways

803
00:49:06,200 --> 00:49:12,960
Speaker 3: to transition away, not just suddenly be awake to everything,

804
00:49:13,040 --> 00:49:17,600
Speaker 3: you know, and we need these other meditative practices. And

805
00:49:17,680 --> 00:49:21,120
Speaker 3: of course, you know, like a meditation retreat where you

806
00:49:21,160 --> 00:49:23,480
Speaker 3: go away and you separate yourself from everyone and you

807
00:49:23,520 --> 00:49:27,239
Speaker 3: just meditate all the time is not a realistic way

808
00:49:27,320 --> 00:49:30,240
Speaker 3: to live your life, you know. I mean, I guess

809
00:49:30,400 --> 00:49:32,839
Speaker 3: there are people who are monastics who do that, but

810
00:49:33,400 --> 00:49:38,480
Speaker 3: not everybody could do that, and it doesn't it's not sustainable.

811
00:49:38,719 --> 00:49:44,480
Speaker 3: And so it's everything I think is a new experience

812
00:49:44,520 --> 00:49:46,840
Speaker 3: to learn from and we don't have to force ourselves

813
00:49:46,880 --> 00:49:50,840
Speaker 3: to stop. And I never recommend forcing ourselves to stop

814
00:49:50,880 --> 00:49:55,000
Speaker 3: some habit just because we think it's wrong or bad.

815
00:49:55,800 --> 00:50:00,480
Speaker 3: I think the approach should be really gentle and just what's.

816
00:50:00,239 --> 00:50:02,839
Speaker 2: Happening right now, like literally right now?

817
00:50:03,080 --> 00:50:06,319
Speaker 3: Not okay, how do I change what's happening right now

818
00:50:06,400 --> 00:50:08,279
Speaker 3: so that I can be with the moment better and

819
00:50:08,280 --> 00:50:11,279
Speaker 3: feel better about what I'm doing. But let's open to

820
00:50:11,560 --> 00:50:14,839
Speaker 3: what I'm doing now and why I might be doing

821
00:50:14,880 --> 00:50:16,759
Speaker 3: it and what I might be feeling while I'm doing it,

822
00:50:16,800 --> 00:50:23,560
Speaker 3: because quote unhealthy the quote healthy addiction is doing something

823
00:50:23,719 --> 00:50:24,400
Speaker 3: to serve.

824
00:50:24,239 --> 00:50:26,799
Speaker 1: Us is that where people The first place people can

825
00:50:26,840 --> 00:50:29,359
Speaker 1: start is just asking that question, Like if someone wants

826
00:50:29,360 --> 00:50:31,359
Speaker 1: to get into meditation, I.

827
00:50:31,280 --> 00:50:34,920
Speaker 3: Think it depends yeah, I think it depends on your

828
00:50:38,560 --> 00:50:43,080
Speaker 3: style or what feels easier for you. I definitely recommend

829
00:50:43,080 --> 00:50:46,080
Speaker 3: people start where it feels easiest. And if what feels

830
00:50:46,080 --> 00:50:49,400
Speaker 3: easiest for you is not sitting still with your eyes closed,

831
00:50:50,160 --> 00:50:56,880
Speaker 3: but just asking themselves what they're feeling right now, no

832
00:50:56,960 --> 00:51:00,359
Speaker 3: matter what they might be doing, whether it's like doom

833
00:51:00,400 --> 00:51:04,480
Speaker 3: scrolling on your phone or doing the dishes or driving,

834
00:51:05,280 --> 00:51:10,160
Speaker 3: then perfect, because that means you don't have to change.

835
00:51:10,440 --> 00:51:12,439
Speaker 3: You don't have to sit still and close your eyes,

836
00:51:12,440 --> 00:51:14,440
Speaker 3: which for a lot of people can be really hard.

837
00:51:15,640 --> 00:51:18,880
Speaker 3: Some people don't have as much difficulty with that, or

838
00:51:19,000 --> 00:51:22,960
Speaker 3: have a little less difficulty with it. So for those people,

839
00:51:23,320 --> 00:51:25,719
Speaker 3: you could try sitting for a little while, like sit

840
00:51:25,800 --> 00:51:29,359
Speaker 3: for five minutes or two minutes or ten minutes, just.

841
00:51:29,360 --> 00:51:30,520
Speaker 2: See what feels.

842
00:51:32,040 --> 00:51:34,760
Speaker 3: What is a useful way for you to stay present.

843
00:51:35,320 --> 00:51:40,080
Speaker 3: That's maybe the question that I can ask people is

844
00:51:40,360 --> 00:51:43,400
Speaker 3: what's going to help you stay present? Is setting aside

845
00:51:44,000 --> 00:51:47,279
Speaker 3: designated time to meditate going to help you learn the

846
00:51:47,280 --> 00:51:49,879
Speaker 3: habit of being present or is that not going to.

847
00:51:49,840 --> 00:51:50,400
Speaker 2: Be so helpful.

848
00:51:50,440 --> 00:51:52,480
Speaker 3: Maybe what's going to be helpful is picking something that

849
00:51:52,520 --> 00:51:55,799
Speaker 3: you do regularly and just using that as your time

850
00:51:55,840 --> 00:51:58,680
Speaker 3: to meditate, like brushing your teeth or taking a shower,

851
00:51:59,200 --> 00:52:03,359
Speaker 3: or drinking your more cup of coffee. And then another approach, too,

852
00:52:03,560 --> 00:52:07,120
Speaker 3: is just starting to pay attention to the times when

853
00:52:08,120 --> 00:52:13,319
Speaker 3: you're having a strong reaction to something. Maybe it doesn't

854
00:52:13,360 --> 00:52:16,240
Speaker 3: have to be when you're in this highest state of overwhelm,

855
00:52:16,640 --> 00:52:19,120
Speaker 3: but when you're just having a strong reaction to something,

856
00:52:19,239 --> 00:52:22,080
Speaker 3: can you notice and do a little bit of gentle

857
00:52:22,160 --> 00:52:26,879
Speaker 3: inquiry what is this about for me? You know, because

858
00:52:26,920 --> 00:52:33,080
Speaker 3: we're going to have to retract the focus on blaming

859
00:52:33,480 --> 00:52:38,120
Speaker 3: someone else or the world and just get put that

860
00:52:38,200 --> 00:52:40,759
Speaker 3: on pause for a second, and look what's going on

861
00:52:40,960 --> 00:52:45,120
Speaker 3: for me right now, and don't make it about blaming yourself.

862
00:52:45,360 --> 00:52:46,279
Speaker 2: It's not about that.

863
00:52:46,680 --> 00:52:50,000
Speaker 3: It's not to say that other people aren't accountable for

864
00:52:50,040 --> 00:52:54,040
Speaker 3: their actions. It's just to set that aside and not

865
00:52:54,280 --> 00:52:57,600
Speaker 3: look at that right now and instead look at what's

866
00:52:57,640 --> 00:53:01,200
Speaker 3: going on for me, because I'm suffering and I care

867
00:53:01,239 --> 00:53:04,880
Speaker 3: about that, and if there's anything that can be done

868
00:53:05,080 --> 00:53:09,960
Speaker 3: to meet this moment of suffering, meet this suffering heart,

869
00:53:10,680 --> 00:53:11,480
Speaker 3: then I want to know.

870
00:53:12,600 --> 00:53:16,520
Speaker 1: It feels like a perfect place to end actionable wise.

871
00:53:17,280 --> 00:53:20,279
Speaker 1: I love it, kra Thanks for coming on, Thanks for

872
00:53:20,320 --> 00:53:24,120
Speaker 1: having me. Next, we're going to bring on Roy Baumeister.

873
00:53:24,320 --> 00:53:26,440
Speaker 1: He's one of the most cited psychologists in the world,

874
00:53:26,520 --> 00:53:28,680
Speaker 1: and I have some questions for him about why we

875
00:53:28,760 --> 00:53:31,360
Speaker 1: tend to focus so much on the negative when everything

876
00:53:31,400 --> 00:53:33,800
Speaker 1: around us is going pretty good. And he's going to

877
00:53:33,840 --> 00:53:36,520
Speaker 1: give us some tactics on how to find a little positivity.

878
00:53:36,920 --> 00:53:48,239
Speaker 1: We'll take a quick break before we bring him on. Well, Roy,

879
00:53:48,280 --> 00:53:50,239
Speaker 1: it's great to have you here, Well, thank you for

880
00:53:50,719 --> 00:53:52,680
Speaker 1: inviting me. So, Roy, we're going to be talking about

881
00:53:52,719 --> 00:53:54,920
Speaker 1: your work that looks at why in a sea of

882
00:53:55,000 --> 00:53:58,000
Speaker 1: good we focus so much on the bad And a

883
00:53:58,000 --> 00:54:00,600
Speaker 1: lot of your work started in psychology, but there was

884
00:54:00,640 --> 00:54:03,040
Speaker 1: some work in the financial realm. So tell us how

885
00:54:03,080 --> 00:54:04,120
Speaker 1: you got on this path.

886
00:54:04,719 --> 00:54:07,640
Speaker 4: A variety of things made me just notice that there

887
00:54:07,680 --> 00:54:10,920
Speaker 4: was a pattern in multiple places. In my own work,

888
00:54:11,239 --> 00:54:16,160
Speaker 4: we had experiments where we manipulated success and failure to

889
00:54:16,200 --> 00:54:18,160
Speaker 4: see how people respond to that, and there would be

890
00:54:18,160 --> 00:54:21,880
Speaker 4: a neutral control, and the neutral control and the success

891
00:54:21,920 --> 00:54:26,200
Speaker 4: condition had similar effects, but the failure condition was different.

892
00:54:27,080 --> 00:54:29,280
Speaker 4: And then in another line of work, I was studying

893
00:54:29,360 --> 00:54:33,880
Speaker 4: interpersonal acceptance versus rejection, and again we'd have a neutral

894
00:54:33,920 --> 00:54:37,400
Speaker 4: control and the acceptance, which is a good thing. Again,

895
00:54:37,440 --> 00:54:40,680
Speaker 4: it was pretty similar and its consequences to the neutral control,

896
00:54:41,320 --> 00:54:45,600
Speaker 4: whereas the rejection really stood out. So I noticed it

897
00:54:45,640 --> 00:54:50,480
Speaker 4: there and other place psychologists had noticed it was in

898
00:54:50,560 --> 00:54:54,280
Speaker 4: first impressions, when you meet somebody new, if you learned

899
00:54:54,280 --> 00:54:57,319
Speaker 4: something bad about them, that has a bigger effect on

900
00:54:58,239 --> 00:55:02,880
Speaker 4: your total impression than learning something good. And this seems

901
00:55:02,880 --> 00:55:05,520
Speaker 4: to hold up over the long term as well. So

902
00:55:07,280 --> 00:55:10,680
Speaker 4: that made me think there may be a broader pattern here,

903
00:55:11,200 --> 00:55:14,360
Speaker 4: and I started looking around for it and got a

904
00:55:14,400 --> 00:55:19,719
Speaker 4: couple colleagues and students to help comb the literature. We

905
00:55:19,719 --> 00:55:22,080
Speaker 4: were looking for exceptions initially because I thought it would

906
00:55:22,080 --> 00:55:24,239
Speaker 4: make an interesting theories he wears is true and where

907
00:55:24,320 --> 00:55:28,280
Speaker 4: is it falls? We all had our own pet theories

908
00:55:28,320 --> 00:55:31,480
Speaker 4: about what the exceptions would be. Maybe bad things in

909
00:55:31,520 --> 00:55:34,600
Speaker 4: the past have more influence, but in the future it's

910
00:55:34,640 --> 00:55:37,360
Speaker 4: the good things that you But no, none of that

911
00:55:37,440 --> 00:55:41,239
Speaker 4: held up. It just seemed to be true everywhere that

912
00:55:41,960 --> 00:55:45,319
Speaker 4: bad things had a higher impact. So this is not

913
00:55:45,680 --> 00:55:47,920
Speaker 4: a major part of my research. It was kind of

914
00:55:47,920 --> 00:55:52,040
Speaker 4: a spin off and a side project, but it's become

915
00:55:52,120 --> 00:55:57,480
Speaker 4: one of my most frequently discussed papers. Something like twelve

916
00:55:57,480 --> 00:56:01,840
Speaker 4: thousand other publications have mentioned that original paper.

917
00:56:02,080 --> 00:56:06,120
Speaker 1: Yeah, so the paper comes out in two thousand and one. Yes,

918
00:56:06,160 --> 00:56:08,520
Speaker 1: I think that was right, and it's titled Bad is

919
00:56:08,800 --> 00:56:11,319
Speaker 1: Stronger Than Good? And to your point, it's one of

920
00:56:11,320 --> 00:56:15,960
Speaker 1: the most cited papers in the game. How do you

921
00:56:16,160 --> 00:56:20,759
Speaker 1: explain the phenomenon to the average person? Someone says, okay, well,

922
00:56:20,800 --> 00:56:22,440
Speaker 1: what did you find in the paper? What do you

923
00:56:22,480 --> 00:56:22,919
Speaker 1: tell them?

924
00:56:23,000 --> 00:56:25,839
Speaker 4: Okay, So the basic idea is that the human mind

925
00:56:25,880 --> 00:56:30,000
Speaker 4: reacts to bad things and to negative information more strongly

926
00:56:30,120 --> 00:56:34,160
Speaker 4: than to parallel good things. So you mentioned the economists.

927
00:56:35,040 --> 00:56:37,960
Speaker 4: What they'd found is people are more upset about losing

928
00:56:38,000 --> 00:56:41,760
Speaker 4: one hundred dollars then they're happy about gaining one hundred dollars.

929
00:56:43,320 --> 00:56:46,520
Speaker 4: And this actually will warp people's investment decisions and so on,

930
00:56:46,560 --> 00:56:50,320
Speaker 4: because you need to take some risk to get larger rewards,

931
00:56:50,360 --> 00:56:52,560
Speaker 4: but people are afraid of risk. You know, I might

932
00:56:52,600 --> 00:56:57,080
Speaker 4: lose my money, right, And then we've found it in

933
00:56:57,239 --> 00:57:03,839
Speaker 4: one place after another. So I mentioned the first impressions thing,

934
00:57:04,000 --> 00:57:07,920
Speaker 4: and that had been done all different ways. There's even

935
00:57:08,960 --> 00:57:13,560
Speaker 4: some guy who had a very mathematical approach to interpersonal understanding.

936
00:57:14,239 --> 00:57:17,160
Speaker 4: They had all the adjectives you could get five hundred

937
00:57:17,160 --> 00:57:20,120
Speaker 4: of them to describe people, and had them rated for

938
00:57:20,200 --> 00:57:23,920
Speaker 4: how favorable or unfavorable they were. So if you give

939
00:57:23,960 --> 00:57:26,160
Speaker 4: somebody a list of five and say, okay, here's a

940
00:57:26,160 --> 00:57:30,400
Speaker 4: person described by these five traits, what's your impression. So

941
00:57:30,560 --> 00:57:33,480
Speaker 4: you would think the average of the favorability of each

942
00:57:33,480 --> 00:57:37,720
Speaker 4: of those five traits would exactly get on predict the

943
00:57:37,720 --> 00:57:41,720
Speaker 4: global impression right when you add them up. But it

944
00:57:41,800 --> 00:57:46,040
Speaker 4: never worked. The overall impression was more negative than the

945
00:57:46,120 --> 00:57:48,680
Speaker 4: average of the five traits, which meant that the bad

946
00:57:48,720 --> 00:57:53,160
Speaker 4: ones had a bigger impact on your total impression than

947
00:57:53,160 --> 00:57:53,720
Speaker 4: the good ones.

948
00:57:53,840 --> 00:57:56,440
Speaker 1: Interesting, so if you had if someone was looking at

949
00:57:56,680 --> 00:58:00,320
Speaker 1: five descriptive words of a person, four of them are

950
00:58:00,680 --> 00:58:03,720
Speaker 1: seemingly somewhat positive, but then there's one that could be negative,

951
00:58:04,080 --> 00:58:06,760
Speaker 1: they would have then have a bad impression of the person,

952
00:58:06,840 --> 00:58:09,240
Speaker 1: even though there's just one negative out of the five.

953
00:58:10,440 --> 00:58:14,160
Speaker 4: Yes, well, I don't you know. Everything's on a continuum here,

954
00:58:14,240 --> 00:58:17,600
Speaker 4: we're relating it. So you're rating your impression of the

955
00:58:17,600 --> 00:58:22,040
Speaker 4: person on the same five point scale. Perhaps, but again

956
00:58:22,080 --> 00:58:24,800
Speaker 4: it would be more negative that one negative one, or

957
00:58:24,800 --> 00:58:28,160
Speaker 4: if there are two negative ones, they have a stronger

958
00:58:28,200 --> 00:58:29,800
Speaker 4: impact on the global impression.

959
00:58:29,920 --> 00:58:32,320
Speaker 1: Yeah, so roy where else did you see this pop up?

960
00:58:32,880 --> 00:58:37,560
Speaker 4: Well, so, some psychologists track how people feel. If you

961
00:58:37,600 --> 00:58:38,880
Speaker 4: have a good day, you feel good. If you have

962
00:58:38,920 --> 00:58:41,840
Speaker 4: a bad day, you feel bad. So that's not a surprise.

963
00:58:42,320 --> 00:58:44,880
Speaker 4: But the good day wears off and so the next

964
00:58:44,920 --> 00:58:47,880
Speaker 4: day there's no lasting effect, whereas a bad day, we'll

965
00:58:47,920 --> 00:58:52,320
Speaker 4: have a carryover effect and we'll have an impact on

966
00:58:52,360 --> 00:58:57,120
Speaker 4: how happy you are the next day. Also, if they

967
00:58:57,160 --> 00:59:00,760
Speaker 4: track the individual events. The bad events have a bigger

968
00:59:01,480 --> 00:59:05,800
Speaker 4: impact totally than the good things. I mean, one of

969
00:59:05,800 --> 00:59:08,480
Speaker 4: my favorite examples, if you go back in history, I

970
00:59:08,480 --> 00:59:12,240
Speaker 4: think it was Ben Franklin. He said, if mankind could

971
00:59:12,280 --> 00:59:15,880
Speaker 4: only solve the problem of toothaches, everybody would just be

972
00:59:15,920 --> 00:59:18,560
Speaker 4: happy forever. And you think of what it must have

973
00:59:18,600 --> 00:59:22,600
Speaker 4: been like before modern dentistry, that you got a toothache

974
00:59:22,640 --> 00:59:25,120
Speaker 4: and you just had pain in your jaw for a

975
00:59:25,240 --> 00:59:30,360
Speaker 4: couple of weeks at a time, And so I could sympathize.

976
00:59:31,280 --> 00:59:34,000
Speaker 4: But you know, we hardly have toothaches anymore, and yet

977
00:59:34,040 --> 00:59:37,160
Speaker 4: we're not all living in perpetual happiness enjoy.

978
00:59:37,680 --> 00:59:41,840
Speaker 1: That's what's so interesting is that if you look at

979
00:59:41,960 --> 00:59:45,360
Speaker 1: if you look at the grand sweep of time, I

980
00:59:45,400 --> 00:59:49,200
Speaker 1: think we've never been more comfortable or safer than ever.

981
00:59:50,080 --> 00:59:52,520
Speaker 1: And yet when you pull the average American, only six

982
00:59:52,600 --> 00:59:55,320
Speaker 1: percent of people think that the world is improving. Do

983
00:59:55,360 --> 01:00:00,120
Speaker 1: you think that your research explains why that trend is.

984
01:00:00,920 --> 01:00:03,480
Speaker 4: Well, that's one of the factors. Yes, that people have

985
01:00:03,760 --> 01:00:08,320
Speaker 4: more negative It filters through the media, but it goes

986
01:00:08,480 --> 01:00:13,640
Speaker 4: that if you want to sell books, say that there's

987
01:00:13,680 --> 01:00:15,920
Speaker 4: a crisis. The book I wrote from this is just

988
01:00:16,040 --> 01:00:18,680
Speaker 4: much more recent was with John Tierney. He's the first author,

989
01:00:18,760 --> 01:00:22,520
Speaker 4: and he's just a wonderful writer. So I can say

990
01:00:23,200 --> 01:00:26,800
Speaker 4: I'm not boasting about myself, but about my co author.

991
01:00:27,600 --> 01:00:29,480
Speaker 4: He was a journalist, and he said, yeah, he learned

992
01:00:29,480 --> 01:00:30,880
Speaker 4: early in his career, if you want to get on

993
01:00:30,920 --> 01:00:34,880
Speaker 4: the front page, your story better be a crisis.

994
01:00:34,240 --> 01:00:38,520
Speaker 1: If it bleeds, it leads. In other words, yeah, yeah,

995
01:00:38,640 --> 01:00:41,560
Speaker 1: we said. His first assignment was that there was a

996
01:00:41,560 --> 01:00:44,320
Speaker 1: heat wave in the east and so people were going

997
01:00:44,360 --> 01:00:47,960
Speaker 1: to the beach and there was a traffic jam, and

998
01:00:48,040 --> 01:00:50,440
Speaker 1: so it was sent out to cover the traffic jam

999
01:00:50,840 --> 01:00:54,040
Speaker 1: and to get on the front page, it had to be, oh,

1000
01:00:54,040 --> 01:00:56,600
Speaker 1: there's a crisis. Come on, a lot of people are

1001
01:00:56,640 --> 01:01:01,360
Speaker 1: going to the beach because it's hot, but presenting it

1002
01:01:01,360 --> 01:01:05,720
Speaker 1: as a crisis. I mean, the environmental movement is another example.

1003
01:01:05,800 --> 01:01:09,720
Speaker 1: I've been predicting disasters one after another, and they still are.

1004
01:01:10,880 --> 01:01:14,440
Speaker 1: Most of them have not come true. Indeed, I started

1005
01:01:14,480 --> 01:01:17,280
Speaker 1: with the I think that book Silent Spring back in

1006
01:01:17,320 --> 01:01:19,440
Speaker 1: the early sixties, saying pretty soon there are going to

1007
01:01:19,440 --> 01:01:23,640
Speaker 1: be any more birds? Well we still got birds? Yeah,

1008
01:01:23,680 --> 01:01:24,120
Speaker 1: what is it?

1009
01:01:24,120 --> 01:01:27,360
Speaker 4: Eighty years later and we're going to run out of

1010
01:01:27,400 --> 01:01:30,840
Speaker 4: food and We're going to run out of energy, run

1011
01:01:30,880 --> 01:01:34,720
Speaker 4: out of this and that, and people be starving all

1012
01:01:34,760 --> 01:01:41,160
Speaker 4: these things, and that what carries. So the media compete

1013
01:01:42,000 --> 01:01:47,680
Speaker 4: for attention by emphasizing bad things, and that's why people

1014
01:01:47,720 --> 01:01:51,760
Speaker 4: get the impression that everything is so awful when you know,

1015
01:01:51,840 --> 01:01:54,120
Speaker 4: this is really the best time to be alive in

1016
01:01:54,240 --> 01:01:56,280
Speaker 4: the in the history of the world.

1017
01:01:56,680 --> 01:01:59,440
Speaker 1: Where do you say? This pop up in sort of

1018
01:01:59,440 --> 01:02:02,240
Speaker 1: every day for people. So an example that comes to

1019
01:02:02,320 --> 01:02:06,280
Speaker 1: mind at a personal level is if I go out

1020
01:02:06,320 --> 01:02:10,880
Speaker 1: to dinner and I order, say a salad with no bacon,

1021
01:02:10,960 --> 01:02:13,360
Speaker 1: but I want no bacon, and everything about the dinner

1022
01:02:13,400 --> 01:02:15,840
Speaker 1: is perfect, everything about the restaurant, the people I'm with,

1023
01:02:15,920 --> 01:02:17,560
Speaker 1: But then they bring it out and it has the

1024
01:02:17,560 --> 01:02:20,000
Speaker 1: bacon that I said, don't put on there, all of

1025
01:02:20,000 --> 01:02:22,560
Speaker 1: a sudden that colors the night, and I have not

1026
01:02:22,640 --> 01:02:24,440
Speaker 1: as good of a night. Because that is that like

1027
01:02:24,520 --> 01:02:28,120
Speaker 1: a good example of how this plays out in day

1028
01:02:28,160 --> 01:02:30,040
Speaker 1: to day life. It's like one little thing can go

1029
01:02:30,120 --> 01:02:31,400
Speaker 1: wrong in a sea of good and all of a

1030
01:02:31,400 --> 01:02:34,600
Speaker 1: sudden that colors how I viewed that experience.

1031
01:02:35,200 --> 01:02:40,360
Speaker 4: Yes, that would be a fine example. Because the mind

1032
01:02:40,360 --> 01:02:43,800
Speaker 4: attends to and overreacts to bad things. It won't notice

1033
01:02:43,800 --> 01:02:46,600
Speaker 4: all of the good things. And you know, maybe a

1034
01:02:46,640 --> 01:02:48,520
Speaker 4: dinner is not a big thing, but certainly in a

1035
01:02:48,600 --> 01:02:54,200
Speaker 4: relationship with another person, a few bad things will have

1036
01:02:54,240 --> 01:02:59,840
Speaker 4: a much bigger impact on the total relationship than the

1037
01:03:00,040 --> 01:03:00,520
Speaker 4: good ones.

1038
01:03:00,760 --> 01:03:02,640
Speaker 1: Didn't you find that there needs to be some ratio

1039
01:03:02,760 --> 01:03:07,040
Speaker 1: of positive interactions to negative with couples? Wasn't like you

1040
01:03:07,080 --> 01:03:09,840
Speaker 1: need five positive interactions for every negative and then once

1041
01:03:09,840 --> 01:03:11,240
Speaker 1: it gets down the one to one.

1042
01:03:11,160 --> 01:03:15,680
Speaker 4: Called that's called the Goutman ratio, the Gotman ratio named

1043
01:03:15,720 --> 01:03:19,680
Speaker 4: after John Gottman. I guess it first came up. He

1044
01:03:19,680 --> 01:03:23,600
Speaker 4: had a big longitudinal study to track couples over time

1045
01:03:23,640 --> 01:03:26,600
Speaker 4: and see who stayed together and who broke up. And

1046
01:03:26,640 --> 01:03:29,040
Speaker 4: he came to a conference and asked all the other

1047
01:03:29,160 --> 01:03:32,680
Speaker 4: relationships experts, well, what he predict is the most powerful thing?

1048
01:03:34,440 --> 01:03:36,480
Speaker 4: And so they said, well, it's whether they like the

1049
01:03:36,520 --> 01:03:39,680
Speaker 4: same things, or they're kind or are intelligent. They are,

1050
01:03:41,600 --> 01:03:45,360
Speaker 4: but what one was the ratio of how often they

1051
01:03:45,360 --> 01:03:48,160
Speaker 4: had sex and how often they had an argument a fight.

1052
01:03:49,800 --> 01:03:53,479
Speaker 4: And so Gotman pursued that and he found if it's

1053
01:03:53,760 --> 01:03:58,600
Speaker 4: five to one or better, then the relationships likely to succeed,

1054
01:03:59,320 --> 01:04:01,960
Speaker 4: and if it's less than that, then it's probably not.

1055
01:04:03,480 --> 01:04:05,400
Speaker 4: I mean the beauty of it. It works for couples

1056
01:04:05,400 --> 01:04:07,960
Speaker 4: who might have an argument every week, but as long

1057
01:04:07,960 --> 01:04:10,600
Speaker 4: as they have sex five or six times every week,

1058
01:04:11,000 --> 01:04:13,600
Speaker 4: that's fine. And it works for couples who maybe have

1059
01:04:13,640 --> 01:04:17,240
Speaker 4: a fight once a year and don't have sex very much,

1060
01:04:17,280 --> 01:04:20,680
Speaker 4: but as long as it's more than five, it seems

1061
01:04:20,720 --> 01:04:21,240
Speaker 4: to be there.

1062
01:04:21,520 --> 01:04:21,760
Speaker 1: Yeah.

1063
01:04:22,200 --> 01:04:24,479
Speaker 4: Even with other things, we found the break even point

1064
01:04:24,560 --> 01:04:26,560
Speaker 4: seems to be about three to one or four to one.

1065
01:04:27,200 --> 01:04:29,280
Speaker 4: So if you want things to be good, you need

1066
01:04:29,320 --> 01:04:31,400
Speaker 4: to do a little bit better than that. So there's

1067
01:04:31,440 --> 01:04:35,040
Speaker 4: practical advice. Sometimes you say, oh, I did something to

1068
01:04:35,280 --> 01:04:39,760
Speaker 4: upset my partner the other day, made her angry, bothered

1069
01:04:39,800 --> 01:04:42,320
Speaker 4: him or whatever, so I should do something nice for

1070
01:04:42,360 --> 01:04:44,200
Speaker 4: them to make it up. Well, no, you should do

1071
01:04:44,280 --> 01:04:48,080
Speaker 4: four or five nice things to make up for it.

1072
01:04:48,360 --> 01:04:51,920
Speaker 1: Over index four x that nice thing you had in mind.

1073
01:04:52,200 --> 01:04:54,000
Speaker 1: One other thing that I thought was interesting is that

1074
01:04:54,520 --> 01:04:59,240
Speaker 1: you've pointed out that one criticism can drown out a

1075
01:04:59,400 --> 01:05:03,240
Speaker 1: c of compliments. Is there a ratio there.

1076
01:05:03,520 --> 01:05:09,520
Speaker 4: Well, it's probably around the same, although there's some cases

1077
01:05:09,560 --> 01:05:12,920
Speaker 4: in which compliments don't have You know, if you live

1078
01:05:12,960 --> 01:05:17,320
Speaker 4: in a world where lots of lots of people are

1079
01:05:17,360 --> 01:05:20,960
Speaker 4: giving compliments all the time, then the single negative thing

1080
01:05:21,040 --> 01:05:27,520
Speaker 4: will hand out stand out even much more significantly. My

1081
01:05:29,000 --> 01:05:33,120
Speaker 4: dissertation advisor is educational philosophy. I think was as if

1082
01:05:33,160 --> 01:05:36,520
Speaker 4: the criticism is careful and thorough enough, you didn't have

1083
01:05:36,600 --> 01:05:41,520
Speaker 4: to bother with praise. So I think I remember all

1084
01:05:41,640 --> 01:05:45,160
Speaker 4: four positive things you ever said to me, So those

1085
01:05:45,160 --> 01:05:48,520
Speaker 4: stood up because they were rare. But other people are

1086
01:05:49,320 --> 01:05:51,960
Speaker 4: throwing out compliments all the time, those compliments don't mean

1087
01:05:52,000 --> 01:05:52,800
Speaker 4: nearly as much.

1088
01:05:53,320 --> 01:05:56,760
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's interesting. I experienced this myself. I was on

1089
01:05:56,840 --> 01:05:59,600
Speaker 1: a a handful of years ago. I was on this

1090
01:05:59,600 --> 01:06:04,200
Speaker 1: big park cast called the Joe Rogan Podcast, and once

1091
01:06:04,240 --> 01:06:07,120
Speaker 1: I go on afterwards, he looks at me and he says,

1092
01:06:07,920 --> 01:06:11,720
Speaker 1: don't read the comments, all right? So naturally I read

1093
01:06:11,720 --> 01:06:15,360
Speaker 1: the comments on the YouTube and there's you know, more

1094
01:06:15,400 --> 01:06:18,800
Speaker 1: than one hundred comments. Ninety nine percent of them are good.

1095
01:06:19,200 --> 01:06:21,680
Speaker 1: I can't remember any of those ninety nine percent. But

1096
01:06:21,720 --> 01:06:24,240
Speaker 1: what I can remember are the three that were negative.

1097
01:06:24,320 --> 01:06:26,920
Speaker 1: I just go, oh my gosh, yes, yes, yes, Now

1098
01:06:26,960 --> 01:06:28,880
Speaker 1: I will say. The thing that helped me is kind

1099
01:06:28,880 --> 01:06:31,040
Speaker 1: of pulling back and going, hey, you know what those

1100
01:06:31,040 --> 01:06:33,760
Speaker 1: are kind of those are kind of funny. So what

1101
01:06:33,880 --> 01:06:37,560
Speaker 1: have you learned about how to give criticism to people

1102
01:06:37,560 --> 01:06:40,360
Speaker 1: and also how people can take criticism?

1103
01:06:41,160 --> 01:06:44,960
Speaker 4: Yeah, taking it to My wife and I are both professors.

1104
01:06:45,840 --> 01:06:47,760
Speaker 4: It's the same thing. At the end of the semestery,

1105
01:06:47,800 --> 01:06:52,680
Speaker 4: you get the student comments and they're nearly all positive,

1106
01:06:52,720 --> 01:06:55,360
Speaker 4: but you remember the few negative ones. What we started

1107
01:06:55,400 --> 01:06:58,200
Speaker 4: doing was we would read through each other's because you

1108
01:06:58,200 --> 01:06:59,720
Speaker 4: know what you want to do. You want to be

1109
01:06:59,800 --> 01:07:03,360
Speaker 4: up set by someone who said, oh, I didn't like

1110
01:07:03,400 --> 01:07:08,880
Speaker 4: your socks one day or something like that. But what

1111
01:07:08,920 --> 01:07:11,440
Speaker 4: you want to do is is there any useful feedback

1112
01:07:11,520 --> 01:07:13,520
Speaker 4: for how you can do a better job the next time.

1113
01:07:14,040 --> 01:07:17,160
Speaker 4: So we would each read through them and continue and say, okay,

1114
01:07:17,200 --> 01:07:20,840
Speaker 4: well this, yeah, this would be the interesting constructive suggestion,

1115
01:07:22,280 --> 01:07:26,120
Speaker 4: So you can get around that way. Tierney looked into

1116
01:07:26,160 --> 01:07:30,480
Speaker 4: this the feedback aspect too, as did I. In the

1117
01:07:30,560 --> 01:07:35,560
Speaker 4: In terms of research, people are reluctant to give bad news.

1118
01:07:35,960 --> 01:07:39,280
Speaker 4: So when the boss calls you in for your annual review,

1119
01:07:40,480 --> 01:07:42,840
Speaker 4: he will start or she will start with the positive

1120
01:07:42,880 --> 01:07:45,640
Speaker 4: things because they want to put off the bad. But

1121
01:07:45,760 --> 01:07:48,880
Speaker 4: the thing is the person listening knows there's something bad coming,

1122
01:07:49,520 --> 01:07:52,800
Speaker 4: so almost all the people say, give me the bad

1123
01:07:52,880 --> 01:07:57,280
Speaker 4: news first, and so then you get that over with

1124
01:07:57,400 --> 01:08:00,400
Speaker 4: and you see, well it's not that bad. I wanted

1125
01:08:00,400 --> 01:08:02,160
Speaker 4: two things to work on and then you're ready to

1126
01:08:02,200 --> 01:08:04,800
Speaker 4: hear some good news. But when they start with the

1127
01:08:04,840 --> 01:08:06,760
Speaker 4: good news, yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, come on, get to

1128
01:08:06,800 --> 01:08:13,040
Speaker 4: the get to the real stuff. So that's advice for

1129
01:08:13,640 --> 01:08:18,519
Speaker 4: supervisors and advisors and others and so on. Start with

1130
01:08:18,680 --> 01:08:23,680
Speaker 4: the start with the negative, and then move on to

1131
01:08:23,720 --> 01:08:25,280
Speaker 4: the good stuff, and then you can sort of end

1132
01:08:25,320 --> 01:08:26,360
Speaker 4: on a positive note.

1133
01:08:26,960 --> 01:08:28,640
Speaker 1: Yeah, because a lot of I think a lot of

1134
01:08:28,640 --> 01:08:31,759
Speaker 1: the advice you say is start with the positive, weave

1135
01:08:31,760 --> 01:08:33,800
Speaker 1: in the negative, and then end on the positive. But

1136
01:08:33,880 --> 01:08:36,880
Speaker 1: instead it's just get over the negative first and then

1137
01:08:36,920 --> 01:08:39,559
Speaker 1: say but and then start to highlight the positive. That way,

1138
01:08:39,560 --> 01:08:41,400
Speaker 1: the person just kind of goes okay and they're done

1139
01:08:41,439 --> 01:08:43,320
Speaker 1: with it, and then they can maybe better listen to

1140
01:08:43,400 --> 01:08:47,120
Speaker 1: and accept the positive. Right, Yeah, that makes sense. So

1141
01:08:47,880 --> 01:08:51,160
Speaker 1: question I have a big picture question, why are we

1142
01:08:51,360 --> 01:08:54,040
Speaker 1: like this? Why do we focus so much on the negative?

1143
01:08:55,240 --> 01:08:58,000
Speaker 4: Well that was one of the driving questions. That's when

1144
01:08:58,000 --> 01:09:00,400
Speaker 4: I set up I said, we well, let's see where

1145
01:09:00,439 --> 01:09:03,600
Speaker 4: it's true and where it's not true, and then what

1146
01:09:03,720 --> 01:09:06,000
Speaker 4: it's true about that, we can study the features of

1147
01:09:06,000 --> 01:09:08,960
Speaker 4: that and that will tell us what it's for simihlat

1148
01:09:08,960 --> 01:09:13,439
Speaker 4: To our disappointment, we didn't find any exceptions, so it

1149
01:09:13,479 --> 01:09:16,920
Speaker 4: didn't make that sort of interesting complicated theory. But in

1150
01:09:16,960 --> 01:09:19,400
Speaker 4: a way that was offset by well, this must be

1151
01:09:19,439 --> 01:09:21,840
Speaker 4: one of the basic properties of the mind and something

1152
01:09:22,160 --> 01:09:24,640
Speaker 4: that basic. And there's even some evidence that animals have

1153
01:09:24,720 --> 01:09:30,280
Speaker 4: the same reaction that they react to punishment more than reward.

1154
01:09:31,280 --> 01:09:35,080
Speaker 4: There's some interesting studies with how hard a mouse or

1155
01:09:34,400 --> 01:09:38,160
Speaker 4: a lab rats they will pull neither to get away

1156
01:09:38,200 --> 01:09:42,040
Speaker 4: from something bad or to move towards something good, and

1157
01:09:42,080 --> 01:09:46,200
Speaker 4: so forth, and again the bad seems to be stronger

1158
01:09:46,240 --> 01:09:49,559
Speaker 4: even there. So it made me think it's just part

1159
01:09:49,600 --> 01:09:54,920
Speaker 4: of how we evolved, and evolution is there to prolong life,

1160
01:09:56,120 --> 01:10:02,360
Speaker 4: to survive and reproduce. Just like to say life has

1161
01:10:02,400 --> 01:10:04,599
Speaker 4: to win every day, death only has to win once.

1162
01:10:05,200 --> 01:10:08,240
Speaker 4: So you want to be really alert to any possibility

1163
01:10:08,280 --> 01:10:13,599
Speaker 4: of death. If there's some food that you might be good,

1164
01:10:13,640 --> 01:10:17,000
Speaker 4: but it might poison you, well if you don't eat it,

1165
01:10:17,600 --> 01:10:20,040
Speaker 4: maybe you missed out in some food, but that's not

1166
01:10:20,080 --> 01:10:22,080
Speaker 4: the worst thing. But if you make the raw other

1167
01:10:22,120 --> 01:10:25,439
Speaker 4: mistake and you eat it and it's poisonous. That's really bad.

1168
01:10:26,080 --> 01:10:26,280
Speaker 1: Yea.

1169
01:10:26,600 --> 01:10:30,519
Speaker 4: Indeed, the digestive system is a very strong indicator of

1170
01:10:30,560 --> 01:10:36,040
Speaker 4: this effect. Is the example, say you never had fish

1171
01:10:36,120 --> 01:10:39,519
Speaker 4: until you were seventeen years old, and then you had

1172
01:10:39,520 --> 01:10:42,200
Speaker 4: four meals with fish, and two of them were wonderful

1173
01:10:42,240 --> 01:10:46,800
Speaker 4: and delicious, sublime, and two of them just made you

1174
01:10:46,880 --> 01:10:50,120
Speaker 4: sick and puking your guts out. So too good, too bad?

1175
01:10:50,600 --> 01:10:52,679
Speaker 4: What do you think is that an even trade? No,

1176
01:10:53,080 --> 01:10:56,639
Speaker 4: you probably never eat fish again after that.

1177
01:10:57,720 --> 01:11:02,000
Speaker 1: Yeah, And just from the evolution arguments about where we're

1178
01:11:02,000 --> 01:11:05,120
Speaker 1: going to put our attention. If you were the person

1179
01:11:06,040 --> 01:11:08,840
Speaker 1: you know two hundred and fifty thousand years ago who's

1180
01:11:08,880 --> 01:11:11,200
Speaker 1: standing in the fields going, oh, look at those beautiful

1181
01:11:11,200 --> 01:11:14,280
Speaker 1: wild flowers. Aren't those one? Today's a wonderful day. Meanwhile,

1182
01:11:14,439 --> 01:11:18,280
Speaker 1: there's a tiger creeping up, and you're not focusing on

1183
01:11:18,320 --> 01:11:21,000
Speaker 1: what could possibly go wrong and the bads. In that situation,

1184
01:11:21,080 --> 01:11:23,040
Speaker 1: you're probably not going to survive. Meanwhile, the guy who's

1185
01:11:23,040 --> 01:11:26,040
Speaker 1: going why you want the flowers? I don't care about that.

1186
01:11:26,080 --> 01:11:27,680
Speaker 1: Something could kill me at any moment, so I'm going

1187
01:11:27,760 --> 01:11:30,880
Speaker 1: to be scanning the horizon looking for creeping death more

1188
01:11:30,960 --> 01:11:33,360
Speaker 1: or less, and then those gems get passed on and

1189
01:11:33,400 --> 01:11:35,519
Speaker 1: now here we are, or here I am at the

1190
01:11:35,560 --> 01:11:37,840
Speaker 1: restaurant and going, I can't believe they put bacon on

1191
01:11:37,880 --> 01:11:42,640
Speaker 1: my salad. We're going to take a quick break and

1192
01:11:42,640 --> 01:11:44,880
Speaker 1: then I'm going to ask Roy about a place where

1193
01:11:44,880 --> 01:11:46,960
Speaker 1: I don't think his idea holds up, and that is

1194
01:11:47,000 --> 01:11:50,120
Speaker 1: in my hometown of Las Vegas. This town, we like

1195
01:11:50,160 --> 01:11:53,040
Speaker 1: to say was not built on winners, and yet people

1196
01:11:53,120 --> 01:11:54,880
Speaker 1: keep coming back to fund it. So I want to

1197
01:11:54,880 --> 01:12:05,000
Speaker 1: hear what he had to say about that. So I

1198
01:12:05,040 --> 01:12:09,280
Speaker 1: have one question that I was a bit I want

1199
01:12:09,360 --> 01:12:11,400
Speaker 1: you to walk me through this because I was trying

1200
01:12:11,400 --> 01:12:15,200
Speaker 1: to square it. So I live in Las Vegas and

1201
01:12:15,280 --> 01:12:19,519
Speaker 1: this is a town built on gambling. Now everyone knows

1202
01:12:19,560 --> 01:12:21,479
Speaker 1: the house always wins in the long run and the

1203
01:12:21,479 --> 01:12:23,320
Speaker 1: long view gamble the more you're going to lose, and

1204
01:12:23,360 --> 01:12:26,839
Speaker 1: yet people keep coming back to play despite that loss

1205
01:12:26,920 --> 01:12:28,040
Speaker 1: and that negative impact.

1206
01:12:28,080 --> 01:12:31,720
Speaker 4: So how do you square that? Some people who've researched it.

1207
01:12:33,000 --> 01:12:38,759
Speaker 4: Tom Gilovich at Cornell as a great psychology professor, He said,

1208
01:12:39,479 --> 01:12:44,360
Speaker 4: what people do is they remember some of their losses

1209
01:12:44,439 --> 01:12:48,559
Speaker 4: as near wins. So if they're betting on a sports

1210
01:12:48,600 --> 01:12:51,680
Speaker 4: game and their team is winning, and then right at

1211
01:12:51,720 --> 01:12:53,639
Speaker 4: the end they give up a touchdown or a home

1212
01:12:53,720 --> 01:12:57,600
Speaker 4: run or something and they lose. They don't put that

1213
01:12:57,760 --> 01:13:02,479
Speaker 4: in their memory, is I shouldn't bet, But they said,

1214
01:13:02,479 --> 01:13:05,599
Speaker 4: oh no, I was right. It was just that that

1215
01:13:05,680 --> 01:13:09,439
Speaker 4: one freak play or a mistake by the referee or

1216
01:13:09,479 --> 01:13:12,960
Speaker 4: something like that. So they record them as near winds

1217
01:13:12,960 --> 01:13:16,439
Speaker 4: and don't count it, so they kind of bias their

1218
01:13:16,479 --> 01:13:19,200
Speaker 4: memory in favor of the positive ones.

1219
01:13:19,600 --> 01:13:20,360
Speaker 1: That's interesting.

1220
01:13:21,040 --> 01:13:25,759
Speaker 4: That seems to be a deliberate memory bias to suppress

1221
01:13:25,840 --> 01:13:31,479
Speaker 4: the negative and sustain the gambling, which I guess people

1222
01:13:31,479 --> 01:13:33,200
Speaker 4: find to be fun. Obviously they do.

1223
01:13:34,000 --> 01:13:36,880
Speaker 1: It's interesting that you bring up the near the near winds.

1224
01:13:37,080 --> 01:13:40,240
Speaker 1: So that makes me think of a lot of slot machines.

1225
01:13:41,320 --> 01:13:44,280
Speaker 1: They'll they have this feature called losses disguised as wins,

1226
01:13:45,040 --> 01:13:49,639
Speaker 1: and it's basically, if I bet a dollar, I might

1227
01:13:49,720 --> 01:13:54,360
Speaker 1: quote unquote win fifty cents. So my dollar bet, I

1228
01:13:54,439 --> 01:13:57,040
Speaker 1: get fifty cents. It goes and then the machine beings.

1229
01:13:57,080 --> 01:14:00,760
Speaker 1: I go, oh, my congratulations, you won fifty on your

1230
01:14:00,800 --> 01:14:03,040
Speaker 1: one dollar. So really you're losing fifty cents, but the

1231
01:14:03,080 --> 01:14:07,920
Speaker 1: machine is behaving as if you have actually won and

1232
01:14:07,920 --> 01:14:09,639
Speaker 1: you're out of head, and so I think that could

1233
01:14:09,680 --> 01:14:10,920
Speaker 1: maybe bias on.

1234
01:14:11,360 --> 01:14:14,040
Speaker 4: Yes, yes they would play into that. I didn't know

1235
01:14:14,120 --> 01:14:18,040
Speaker 4: they did that, but again, I don't gamble, but it

1236
01:14:18,160 --> 01:14:22,080
Speaker 4: sounds like somebody in the gambling industry realized maybe they

1237
01:14:22,120 --> 01:14:24,080
Speaker 4: read Gillitch's paper and they say, well, how can we

1238
01:14:24,120 --> 01:14:27,240
Speaker 4: make people remember their losses or some of their losses

1239
01:14:27,280 --> 01:14:28,080
Speaker 4: as near wins.

1240
01:14:28,240 --> 01:14:32,360
Speaker 1: Yeah, a lot of my work looks at how doing

1241
01:14:32,400 --> 01:14:35,960
Speaker 1: things that are inherently challenging, although they can be somewhat

1242
01:14:36,000 --> 01:14:39,559
Speaker 1: aversive in the short term, can help improve our lives

1243
01:14:39,560 --> 01:14:42,519
Speaker 1: in the long run. How do you think that square

1244
01:14:42,600 --> 01:14:44,519
Speaker 1: is with your work, if at all.

1245
01:14:46,000 --> 01:14:50,000
Speaker 4: We find virginally another point we made in the original

1246
01:14:50,080 --> 01:14:53,240
Speaker 4: article and in the book as well as psychology has

1247
01:14:53,280 --> 01:14:55,880
Speaker 4: a concept of trauma, which is a single bad event

1248
01:14:56,520 --> 01:14:58,479
Speaker 4: that has a lasting effect on you, and there's no

1249
01:14:58,600 --> 01:15:02,960
Speaker 4: real opposite concept that a single good event does not

1250
01:15:03,040 --> 01:15:09,799
Speaker 4: really produce a lasting It reminds me of Woody Allen's

1251
01:15:09,800 --> 01:15:12,480
Speaker 4: old joke that, well, if God exists, he's an underachiever,

1252
01:15:13,960 --> 01:15:16,080
Speaker 4: that it would have been nice if he designed us

1253
01:15:16,120 --> 01:15:19,080
Speaker 4: differently so that the good things had a lasting effect

1254
01:15:19,080 --> 01:15:22,679
Speaker 4: and the bad things were off faster. But you're designed

1255
01:15:22,680 --> 01:15:25,720
Speaker 4: by evolution, which meant you should learn from mistakes and

1256
01:15:26,400 --> 01:15:28,840
Speaker 4: learn not to repeat them. If you do something that

1257
01:15:28,880 --> 01:15:32,920
Speaker 4: produces a negative effect, stay away from that. And trauma

1258
01:15:32,960 --> 01:15:34,880
Speaker 4: would be an extreme case of that.

1259
01:15:35,560 --> 01:15:37,040
Speaker 1: We're going to take a quick break then I'm going

1260
01:15:37,080 --> 01:15:39,880
Speaker 1: to ask Roy about his routine that improves his day

1261
01:15:39,920 --> 01:15:42,000
Speaker 1: to day mindset and leaves them a little more positive.

1262
01:15:50,600 --> 01:15:55,519
Speaker 1: So for people who feel like things are persistently bad

1263
01:15:55,560 --> 01:15:59,920
Speaker 1: in their life, they're overwhelmed, what do you tell that

1264
01:16:00,640 --> 01:16:01,400
Speaker 1: like your students?

1265
01:16:02,000 --> 01:16:05,960
Speaker 4: Well, so there are two pathways into that comment. One

1266
01:16:06,080 --> 01:16:10,080
Speaker 4: is you are having a horrible year and you know

1267
01:16:10,160 --> 01:16:14,200
Speaker 4: your dog died and your boyfriend or girlfriend dumped you,

1268
01:16:14,320 --> 01:16:18,240
Speaker 4: and you lost a lot of money. Okay, well you

1269
01:16:18,360 --> 01:16:21,840
Speaker 4: have to ride those out. It's still probably better than

1270
01:16:22,560 --> 01:16:25,920
Speaker 4: what life was like a couple of hundred years ago.

1271
01:16:26,960 --> 01:16:29,960
Speaker 4: Probably more common, though, is that people get barged down

1272
01:16:30,000 --> 01:16:32,639
Speaker 4: with small things and upset about small things and don't

1273
01:16:33,600 --> 01:16:37,759
Speaker 4: appreciate how lucky it is to live in the Western

1274
01:16:37,800 --> 01:16:43,200
Speaker 4: civilization at this point in history. So stepping back and

1275
01:16:43,240 --> 01:16:47,879
Speaker 4: taking the big picture into Okay, so something bad happened,

1276
01:16:49,560 --> 01:16:55,000
Speaker 4: but still look at all the good things in your life,

1277
01:16:55,000 --> 01:16:58,679
Speaker 4: and you can do things to cultivate positive feelings too.

1278
01:16:59,400 --> 01:17:03,080
Speaker 4: We talked you're about the news focusing on bad things,

1279
01:17:03,120 --> 01:17:06,599
Speaker 4: but you can go around and look for positive things

1280
01:17:06,640 --> 01:17:09,400
Speaker 4: to make you feel good.

1281
01:17:09,479 --> 01:17:09,800
Speaker 1: You can.

1282
01:17:10,160 --> 01:17:14,720
Speaker 4: There's some great humor sights online. You can go and

1283
01:17:15,520 --> 01:17:19,400
Speaker 4: read those, or sign up for a cartoon service to

1284
01:17:19,520 --> 01:17:24,000
Speaker 4: send you a cartoon every day. Many of those will

1285
01:17:24,439 --> 01:17:25,479
Speaker 4: sort of bring a smile.

1286
01:17:25,760 --> 01:17:28,599
Speaker 1: What else do you do that you think helps your

1287
01:17:28,640 --> 01:17:31,960
Speaker 1: outlook every day to not focus on negative.

1288
01:17:32,000 --> 01:17:36,559
Speaker 4: I try to have some bliss every day, do something

1289
01:17:36,600 --> 01:17:44,200
Speaker 4: to feel good and living here up in the mountains,

1290
01:17:44,240 --> 01:17:48,559
Speaker 4: so it's nice to go out for a walk. One

1291
01:17:48,600 --> 01:17:51,439
Speaker 4: thing that has emerged from the positive psychology research is

1292
01:17:51,479 --> 01:17:55,559
Speaker 4: just exposure to the beauties of nature. That's a very

1293
01:17:55,600 --> 01:17:59,439
Speaker 4: positive thing. So injecting some positive feelings into your life.

1294
01:18:00,080 --> 01:18:04,200
Speaker 1: This conversation has made me have a more positive outlook,

1295
01:18:04,960 --> 01:18:07,360
Speaker 1: and I appreciate you taking the time chatting with us. Roy.

1296
01:18:08,040 --> 01:18:10,479
Speaker 4: Okay, my pleasure too. And yes, the world is really

1297
01:18:10,479 --> 01:18:14,920
Speaker 4: a lot better than what you'd think perusing the online stuff.

1298
01:18:16,320 --> 01:18:18,400
Speaker 1: All right, let's land the plan on this episode. So

1299
01:18:18,439 --> 01:18:20,880
Speaker 1: both car and Roy they talked about how media and

1300
01:18:20,920 --> 01:18:25,280
Speaker 1: its constant negativity really biases our perception of reality into

1301
01:18:25,320 --> 01:18:29,000
Speaker 1: the negative. There's a study about this. It is one

1302
01:18:29,040 --> 01:18:31,920
Speaker 1: of the most insane studies I've ever come across, and

1303
01:18:31,960 --> 01:18:34,920
Speaker 1: it's really changed my thinking about media and how much

1304
01:18:34,960 --> 01:18:36,800
Speaker 1: time I'm going to spend on it and how it's

1305
01:18:36,840 --> 01:18:39,920
Speaker 1: going to affect me. So here's how it went. Immediately

1306
01:18:40,000 --> 01:18:44,000
Speaker 1: after the Boston Marathon bombing in twenty thirteen, researchers from

1307
01:18:44,080 --> 01:18:47,719
Speaker 1: UC Irvine they studied two groups. Now, the first group,

1308
01:18:47,960 --> 01:18:51,320
Speaker 1: these were people who binged watched news about the bombing

1309
01:18:51,720 --> 01:18:54,280
Speaker 1: for at least six hours a day. So bombing happens,

1310
01:18:54,320 --> 01:18:56,840
Speaker 1: they immediately turn on CNN or Fox and they just

1311
01:18:56,880 --> 01:19:01,760
Speaker 1: start binge watching bombing coverage. Second group, these were people

1312
01:19:01,840 --> 01:19:04,720
Speaker 1: who were actually at the Boston Marathon. They were either

1313
01:19:04,840 --> 01:19:07,519
Speaker 1: running in it or they were watching it. The bomb

1314
01:19:07,600 --> 01:19:09,960
Speaker 1: went off right at the race where they were at.

1315
01:19:10,680 --> 01:19:14,120
Speaker 1: And the researchers found that the people who watched the

1316
01:19:14,160 --> 01:19:16,840
Speaker 1: news weren't actually at the bombing, but they just watched

1317
01:19:16,840 --> 01:19:19,680
Speaker 1: the news. They had higher rates of PTSD and they

1318
01:19:19,720 --> 01:19:22,280
Speaker 1: had higher rates of trauma compared to the people who

1319
01:19:22,320 --> 01:19:26,600
Speaker 1: were actually at the bombing. That is insane. That is

1320
01:19:26,680 --> 01:19:31,080
Speaker 1: absolutely insane, And what does it tell us. It tells us, maybe,

1321
01:19:31,120 --> 01:19:34,439
Speaker 1: don't spend so much time taking in negative news it

1322
01:19:34,560 --> 01:19:38,880
Speaker 1: actually affects us. So with all that said, thanks for

1323
01:19:38,920 --> 01:19:41,759
Speaker 1: listening to the episode. We are in your feeds twice

1324
01:19:41,800 --> 01:19:44,040
Speaker 1: a week, so please keep an eye out for more.

1325
01:19:44,720 --> 01:19:47,640
Speaker 1: As always, do not forget to hit subscribe. That is

1326
01:19:47,720 --> 01:19:50,559
Speaker 1: super helpful for us. And if you want to check

1327
01:19:50,560 --> 01:19:53,559
Speaker 1: out the show on the new iHeart app, video will

1328
01:19:53,560 --> 01:19:55,960
Speaker 1: be streaming there, so do give it a download. And

1329
01:19:55,960 --> 01:19:58,280
Speaker 1: we're always open to your questions for our Ask Michael

1330
01:19:58,360 --> 01:20:01,760
Speaker 1: Anything section, send them to me at two pc T

1331
01:20:01,920 --> 01:20:03,560
Speaker 1: dot com or dropping in the comments. We'll try and

1332
01:20:03,600 --> 01:20:06,120
Speaker 1: answer as many of your questions as we can and

1333
01:20:06,200 --> 01:20:10,600
Speaker 1: as always, have fun, don't die, maybe don't watch so

1334
01:20:10,680 --> 01:20:20,680
Speaker 1: much news