Speaker 1: So we live in a performance obsessed culture, certainly in
Speaker 1: the West, you know, and so it makes perfect sense
Speaker 1: if that's the culture, that's the water we're swimming in.
Speaker 1: So then when I go do the thing that I
Speaker 1: love doing, or that i'm quote unquote good at, or
Speaker 1: I've identified with, my entire identity is at stake.
Speaker 2: On this episode of the Psychology Podcast, it was great
Speaker 2: chatting with my buddy Michael Gervais. Michael is one of
Speaker 2: the world's foremost sports psychologists. It was great fun to
Speaker 2: riff with Michael, which we did live in his studio.
Speaker 2: In this episode, we discussed FOPO, which is the topic
Speaker 2: of his most recent book, The First Role of Mastery.
Speaker 2: POPO stands for fear of other people's opinions, and Michael
Speaker 2: argues it's one of the biggest inhibitors of human potential.
Speaker 2: We discussed the on ramps to FOPO, such as a
Speaker 2: poor sense of self and a performance based identity. We
Speaker 2: also discussed the off ramps to FOPO, such as the
Speaker 2: importance of grounding your actions and often city and integrity,
Speaker 2: and cultivating an inner sense of self worth and competence.
Speaker 2: This was such a fun chat as it always is
Speaker 2: with Michael, and I think you'll really learn something you
Speaker 2: can apply in your own life to stop thinking so
Speaker 2: much about what other people are thinking about you, and
Speaker 2: care about what you actually think about yourself, and really
Speaker 2: developing a strong sense of self. So, without further ado,
Speaker 2: I bring you Michael Gervais. Michael Gervais, It's so good
Speaker 2: to talk to you today. I'm still here in person
Speaker 2: and in person, yeah, you look great, man, Thank you,
Speaker 2: Thank you so to you.
Speaker 1: As always, I appreciate the way that you show up
Speaker 1: in the world, the way that you show up in
Speaker 1: my life, the way that you show up in my consciousness.
Speaker 1: Like I really appreciate you, and so I'm honored to
Speaker 1: be here.
Speaker 2: Likewise, and I love how hardfelt you are. But this
Speaker 2: is turning to a love fest already. We ask a
Speaker 2: technical question quick before that's awkward. No, no, it's I
Speaker 2: really appreciate that I loved your new book. It's really
Speaker 2: it hit it hit you know, it's a it's a
Speaker 2: I think a lot of people reading it will really
Speaker 2: feel a personal connection to this idea of FOPO. Let
Speaker 2: me just start off and ask, Okay, what does PHOBO stand.
Speaker 3: For Fear of people's opinions.
Speaker 1: Okay, And it's a little play on fomo, right, Like
Speaker 1: it's fun and the origin of it is fundamentally different
Speaker 1: but related to fomo. But fear of people's opinions I
Speaker 1: think is one of the great constrictors of one's potential.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, I actually I wrote a quote there that
Speaker 2: you said that you said, our fear of people's opinions
Speaker 2: FOPO is a hidden epidemic and maybe the single greatest
Speaker 2: constrictor of human potential. I pulled that out because wow,
Speaker 2: what a quote that you know, I'm all into human
Speaker 2: potential my thing, that's kind of my thing, and uh,
Speaker 2: and that that quote really stood out to me. So
Speaker 2: fear of people's opinions? Is that just simply what it
Speaker 2: sounds like.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I don't think it's more complicated.
Speaker 2: It's not anxiety. It's fear. Like you chose those words carefully,
Speaker 2: like fear is a strong word, right, But we do
Speaker 2: seem to have a great fear for things that it's
Speaker 2: ridiculous that we're fearful over, you know, like talking like
Speaker 2: social anxiety. I don't think it's social fear for a
Speaker 2: lot of these people. It's not just anxiety. Right, there's
Speaker 2: a fear there.
Speaker 1: Yeah, So the reason I work from the fear base,
Speaker 1: So anxiety for me is an excessive worry, you know.
Speaker 1: And so there's a problematic note to the word anxiety, right,
Speaker 1: it's maladaptive. Fear is adaptive. There's a reason that we
Speaker 1: should have and need to have fears. And the fear
Speaker 1: that I'm pointing to here is a fear that doesn't
Speaker 1: get enough attention. We're afraid of, you know, people holding guns.
Speaker 1: That's probably a good thing, right, you know, the point
Speaker 1: is all I don't want them, Yeah, right, Yeah, we're
Speaker 1: we're we're if we should. We ought to be afraid
Speaker 1: when we're standing next to heights, We ought to be
Speaker 1: afraid when there's heat in the environment, there's a flame.
Speaker 1: We ought there's things that we're supposed to be afraid of. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and and one of the things that I know you
Speaker 1: know this, So I'm I'm speaking just to make sure
Speaker 1: we're on the same page with these things. And please,
Speaker 1: like I respect your acumen and your science acuity, so well,
Speaker 1: like please poke holes, point at it, let's wrestle it down,
Speaker 1: let's have fun.
Speaker 2: With Wait till we get to the Neuves science chapter.
Speaker 1: Yeah, good, So so to when a saber to tiger
Speaker 1: or a grizzly bear or a wildebese is running towards us,
Speaker 1: there's supposed to be a fair response. We're not even
Speaker 1: going to think about it. We're going to mobilize our
Speaker 1: bodies to be able to fight, fight, freeze, sometimes submit.
Speaker 1: And but what we what we don't point to enough,
Speaker 1: is that hundreds of thousands of years ago, if we
Speaker 1: didn't perform well in the tribe, if we if you
Speaker 1: and I are in we're in the same tribe, and
Speaker 1: we're expected to go do something and we come back
Speaker 1: empty handed too many times, or we come back and
Speaker 1: we we screw up, or we're distraction to something. All
Speaker 1: it took were a couple people and maybe some senior
Speaker 1: folks in the tribe to look at us a certain
Speaker 1: way and squint a little bit, have a little bit
Speaker 1: of disdain and say, you know, Scott, you know, Mike,
Speaker 1: I think this is about the end of the road
Speaker 1: here for you. It's time to go. That was a
Speaker 1: near descence, because now we have to hunt and gather
Speaker 1: and forge and protect. And you know, if you've got
Speaker 1: a couple of kids and I got a couple kids
Speaker 1: and an aunt and maybe an uncle, and maybe there's
Speaker 1: eight of us. It's a near descence to be able
Speaker 1: to fend in the wild. So other people's opinions matter,
Speaker 1: they're mattered. Yes, it's like really mattered and really mattered.
Speaker 1: And so that that's why we're we're very sensitive to
Speaker 1: picking up slightest reaching action because one hundred thousand years
Speaker 1: ago that was that was a near does sence? You know,
Speaker 1: it's not the same anymore, same operating system, different conditions.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's so true. I mean, it's we think back. Well,
Speaker 2: for I was, I was touched by your story of
Speaker 2: your mentor who said some offhan comment about like why
Speaker 2: are you like behind this you know on the TV
Speaker 2: or whatever, And you took it so personally for how many.
Speaker 3: Years, I mean over a decade.
Speaker 2: Isn't it incredible? How like a comment of like one
Speaker 2: person can like we can obsess and just remember it
Speaker 2: for so many years, And why does it penetrate us
Speaker 2: our soul?
Speaker 1: It got so much that comment that throw a comment
Speaker 1: by him, It just got in.
Speaker 2: And do you remember his name?
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, yeah, of course yes.
Speaker 2: I don't know if you repressed his name because it's like.
Speaker 1: No, no, no, I didn't put in the book because it's
Speaker 1: really I didn't want him to feel a certain way
Speaker 1: like and yeah, so but it got in and the
Speaker 1: throwaway comment was, I was so excited that I was
Speaker 1: working with a UFC fighter. This was you know, early
Speaker 1: days in the UFC, and we practiced everything you know
Speaker 1: as a sports psychologist. We dialed everything in and he
Speaker 1: had a great camp. We did really good, honest internal work.
Speaker 1: And fight night in Vegas, I don't know, twenty thousand people,
Speaker 1: millions of people watching, and he's walking the five steps
Speaker 1: up to get into the cage. All there's three coaches, myself,
Speaker 1: the head coach and the striking coach, and we were
Speaker 1: following him as we're told to do and then stay
Speaker 1: on the outside of the octagon and kind of meet
Speaker 1: him at his point. And so we did exactly that.
Speaker 1: But to do that, we happened to cut in line,
Speaker 1: cut in front of the camera, like that's where we're
Speaker 1: supposed to be walking. So my mentor calls me on
Speaker 1: my drive home it says just a throwaway Commet was like, yeah, congratulations,
Speaker 1: but what are you doing in front of the camera,
Speaker 1: Like that's not where.
Speaker 3: Sports sykes are supposed to be.
Speaker 2: Did you say that too?
Speaker 3: That's how I took it.
Speaker 2: Maybe he just simply meant like I noticed that you accidentally,
Speaker 2: you know, like when I took it a whole different way.
Speaker 2: It was my internal narrative and drama and concern.
Speaker 1: And actually I kind of liked that I was in
Speaker 1: the in the in the fold of it, and it
Speaker 1: was exciting and like I'm not supposed to say that.
Speaker 3: Out loud, but I did. I totally get it, you know.
Speaker 1: I liked it, and I felt part of something that
Speaker 1: was big and special and it was not about me,
Speaker 1: but I liked that I was part of it.
Speaker 3: And then just this dig right in the.
Speaker 1: You know, a knife right in the liver, and I
Speaker 1: was like, I didn't know what to do with it,
Speaker 1: and so I metabolized it. And I was a you know,
Speaker 1: a good practitioner, and I just kind of folded back
Speaker 1: into you know, the recesses, which is cool, no problem,
Speaker 1: Like I knew my place, but it I don't think
Speaker 1: I did it an honest service to what I wanted
Speaker 1: to do, which is celebrate this beautiful science that we
Speaker 1: both love, like put it, put it on on front street,
Speaker 1: like talk about the power of psychology and point to
Speaker 1: the strong humans that are doing the vulnerable, risk taking
Speaker 1: internal work to go to the frontier. We have to
Speaker 1: we have to celebrate that work. And so I pulled
Speaker 1: back and so that it was about a.
Speaker 2: Decade knowing what you know now. And let's say that
Speaker 2: happened again, that you took you took a time machine,
Speaker 2: you went back there and you had alreadytten this book,
Speaker 2: like you know, you had the mind of you today.
Speaker 2: How would you respond differently to that? Would it just
Speaker 2: bounce off you?
Speaker 3: I don't.
Speaker 1: I so I don't think. Okay, be clear, I am
Speaker 1: the book. The subtitle is stop worrying about what people think.
Speaker 1: It's not stop caring so nice, right, So I can't.
Speaker 1: I do deeply care about the people who care. So
Speaker 1: the people that are on the the inner circle that
Speaker 1: I know they've we've spent enough time under tension that
Speaker 1: I know they care.
Speaker 3: I care too.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And so the worrying so back in time. So
Speaker 1: he says that comment. What I would like to hope
Speaker 1: I do is that I'm more available to see it.
Speaker 1: So I know the water I'm swimming in that other
Speaker 1: people's opinions really matter. So i'd see the water, I'd
Speaker 1: see that ripple just a little bit easier, and then
Speaker 1: and then it wouldn't be like nonchalantly bouncing off, but
Speaker 1: I would see him as opposed to just like feeling
Speaker 1: that it's my thing, so I feel like that's my
Speaker 1: hope would be I'd see him.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it was in the comment. Yeah, and I think
Speaker 2: it was just really interesting. You said you saw him
Speaker 2: later on life and he looked really frail, and you
Speaker 2: kind of just saw him in a different way.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I saw him in different way.
Speaker 2: Something somewhere happened to me too, with a school psychologist
Speaker 2: when I was ten years old or seventeen years old,
Speaker 2: who said, you know, you're not smart enough to be
Speaker 2: in gift education and drew a bell curve on a
Speaker 2: napkin for me and kind of pointed out where I was.
Speaker 2: But I saw him years years, years years later, like
Speaker 2: only a couple of years ago, in the park, and
Speaker 2: he was very old and frail, and there was a
Speaker 2: certain sort of humanity there where I was like, oh,
Speaker 2: I didn't even I didn't even feel the need to
Speaker 2: bring it up, you know. I talked to him, and
Speaker 2: I noticed you didn't even feel the need to bring
Speaker 2: it up at that moment.
Speaker 3: I didn't.
Speaker 2: There's something about that. I experienced that too with someone
Speaker 2: similar way.
Speaker 1: So wait, you had you had a moment. I know
Speaker 1: some of this in your origin story, right, I know
Speaker 1: some of this part, but you're mapping the faux po.
Speaker 1: So the book triggered that for.
Speaker 2: You, triggered many things, that's one thing.
Speaker 1: But one of them is that you had that initial insult.
Speaker 2: And I fear of Yeah, oh yeah, I thought I was.
Speaker 3: Changed you in some way.
Speaker 1: I say it, I metabolized it, like I took it in,
Speaker 1: I swallowed it it.
Speaker 3: And then and then when you saw.
Speaker 1: That that that person you had compassion, You didn't feel
Speaker 1: the need to fight or to defend.
Speaker 2: Very old and frail, And I think that you know, now,
Speaker 2: as an adult, I could be like, oh, he probably
Speaker 2: meant well, I don't think he was pernicious. But at
Speaker 2: the time it actually fueled me. It fired me up
Speaker 2: to become who I am today. So I wondered, to
Speaker 2: what extent can our fear of people's pins actually can
Speaker 2: it be a motivating force to like disprove people wrong?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 2: I think wrong?
Speaker 1: Yeah, maybe even both right, But I think the answer
Speaker 1: is clearly yes, and so can O c D and
Speaker 1: anxiety and narcissism and so all of those I have.
Speaker 3: Yeah, just go down the list, Michael.
Speaker 4: Social pathology.
Speaker 2: No, probably, I'm not.
Speaker 4: Okay, you're not torturing little little dogs.
Speaker 3: Not so. But all of those.
Speaker 1: Traditionally considered maladaptive responses to wellness and well being, put
Speaker 1: in the right context in certain environments, can fuel us
Speaker 1: to be maybe the best in the world, maybe maybe
Speaker 1: our our very best, but not necessarily joy and happy
Speaker 1: and flourishing. So yes, chip on your shoulder might get
Speaker 1: you really good enough. Anxiety might get you to work hard,
Speaker 1: but it doesn't allow you to get there right wherever
Speaker 1: there is for you.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's not sustainable in the long run to be
Speaker 2: fueled by that emotion, but it can be a nice launching.
Speaker 3: Bad I know it too.
Speaker 2: It launchs me to like prove everyone wrong and you know,
Speaker 2: be like I'm going to put a CARDI email and
Speaker 2: screw you all, you know, and that's it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, would you? Would you trade it? That approach that?
Speaker 2: You know? I think it's what made me Yeah, me too,
Speaker 2: in a way. Yeah, no, not a way, And it did.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's right.
Speaker 2: It's part of me. It's part of my history. Well
Speaker 2: who am I outside of my genes and my history? Right?
Speaker 1: The way you interpret your experiences, well that's that part.
Speaker 2: I forgot about that. But how we interpret our experience
Speaker 2: as a result of our genes and our experience, I
Speaker 2: think that's fair. There's nothing outside. You know, we can
Speaker 2: get into the topic of free will. Because I was
Speaker 2: reading your book, like you have this section like you're like,
Speaker 2: what's one hundred percent within your control? You know? And
Speaker 2: I'm like, is anything one hundred percent within your control?
Speaker 1: Though?
Speaker 3: I think so?
Speaker 2: It sounds like you do.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so I just had suppose Kate.
Speaker 2: Oh he didn't agree with that though.
Speaker 3: Oh my god.
Speaker 1: So his book determined is it? You know, is like flat.
Speaker 1: He's like, look, you're living in a fantasy land, right right. Yeah,
Speaker 1: he goes, you probably you probably believe in Easter Bunny,
Speaker 1: and and you know, he was like like he's on it,
Speaker 1: and you yeah, he was great, and he was smart,
Speaker 1: and he was wonderful and and and and he still
Speaker 1: wrestles with it too. So he slips into the free
Speaker 1: will narratives. Yeah, and I slipped into FOPO and like,
Speaker 1: so you know, like we're studying the things that we
Speaker 1: need to study for a reason.
Speaker 2: But you do think we can distinguish between things that
Speaker 2: we don't have control over and things we do have
Speaker 2: control over.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, I think that volitional control is a
Speaker 1: real thing. And once we become aware of once we
Speaker 1: become aware of the thoughts that are impacting our emotions,
Speaker 1: or once we become aware of the triggers that impact
Speaker 1: thoughts and emotions, like, yeah, I think we can.
Speaker 3: We have the the.
Speaker 1: Available skills to build to work with those potential micro choices.
Speaker 1: But when you're numb, when you are working like below
Speaker 1: the surface, you know, it's all kind of in football
Speaker 1: we call it bang bang plays like it happens so
Speaker 1: fast that you know, you didn't really have a chance
Speaker 1: to respond, is it bang bang? And so like that's
Speaker 1: when you're kind of asleep to what's actually happening inside
Speaker 1: of you. But once you work on awareness and you
Speaker 1: honestly invest in the study of yourself, whether that's their meditation, practice,
Speaker 1: conversations with people of wisdom like you, journaling, those are
Speaker 1: the big three for me. Those are the ways that
Speaker 1: we can practice studying self. And with that, I think
Speaker 1: we do have micro choices.
Speaker 2: Yeah, those things do help for sure.
Speaker 3: So you wait, where are you in the side of
Speaker 3: free will?
Speaker 2: Where do those choices come from?
Speaker 4: See?
Speaker 2: Ultimately, ultimately there's nothing outside of our biology or environment.
Speaker 2: There's no I don't believe in a magical sauce that
Speaker 2: gives us a will that's independent of the force the
Speaker 2: laws of nature. So someone could ask, well, where do
Speaker 2: those things? Where does that come from? Those choices? But
Speaker 2: I do believe that the things you just describe our
Speaker 2: free will is a free wild worth wanting, you know.
Speaker 2: And I have a broad and broader definition of free
Speaker 2: will than Sepolski one that I think you would like,
Speaker 2: yeah or yeah like.
Speaker 1: And I understand I've been conditioned by the world I
Speaker 1: live in, philosophically and otherwise, and so at some level
Speaker 1: I'm attracted to the deterministic approach. There is something that
Speaker 1: is really interesting about trying to solve that rubric.
Speaker 3: But I don't want it, you know.
Speaker 2: William james said, my first actor free will will be
Speaker 2: to not believe in free will. Or no, I try
Speaker 2: that again. My friend William Jameson said, my first actor
Speaker 2: free will will be to believe in free will will. Yes,
Speaker 2: that's right, Yes, it sounds like, well that's what you're saying.
Speaker 2: You're saying like fuck you. Yeah, like a deterministic world.
Speaker 1: I think it's interesting. It's like a really interesting puzzle
Speaker 1: to try to solve. It's bigger than anybody can solve
Speaker 1: right now because we don't according to like Sepolsky's approach,
Speaker 1: like if we could determine everything that or characterize and
Speaker 1: quantify and calculate all the things that have uniquely happened
Speaker 1: to you. Of course, Mike, you're gonna pick this Jasmine tea.
Speaker 1: Of course you're gonna pick it, right, because there's no
Speaker 1: other real option you just think there is.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And you just reminded me that I have tea here,
Speaker 2: So I wouldn't have been able to do that if
Speaker 2: you didn't remind me. So it's not like I made
Speaker 2: the choice to that I to remember to have the tea. No,
Speaker 2: So everything is prompted by and if you go farther
Speaker 2: back in the causal chain. That's point.
Speaker 3: That's his point.
Speaker 2: And I think he's right with what he's saying, but
Speaker 2: he's leaving out a lot of emergent humanness, that's right.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Like Qualia, I'm gonna peppermint. No, this is not peppermint.
Speaker 1: This is a blue butterfly.
Speaker 2: And I was wondering because it's like it looks blue.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's a blue butterfly.
Speaker 2: Like, are you poisoning?
Speaker 1: They did not have peppermint or meant for you. But
Speaker 1: this is a really interesting, non caffeinated blue butterfly. Okay, yeah,
Speaker 1: I love I love boutique tea.
Speaker 2: Actually that's really good.
Speaker 3: Yeah it's different.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm down cool. Uh sorry, do you we're about
Speaker 2: say something?
Speaker 1: No, I'm just if there's an interactionist approach, I would
Speaker 1: check the box there, right, like an interaction between free
Speaker 1: will and of course the determinants for favor.
Speaker 2: Maybe there's something unique about humans that you don't see
Speaker 2: another app animals. You know, the human consciousness can give
Speaker 2: us all sorts of possibilities and possible futures, you know.
Speaker 2: But maybe we should go back to photo.
Speaker 1: We have a whole conversation about Listen. I oh, yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm following your lead, and I've been really excited to
Speaker 1: have this conversation me too.
Speaker 2: Yeah, oh my god, for a while. I'm gladly do it.
Speaker 2: I want to get into the mechanics of faux poe
Speaker 2: a little bit. I love this cycle. Uh, this loop,
Speaker 2: this loop. As you put it, you have this anticipation phase,
Speaker 2: then the checking phase, and then the response phase. Do
Speaker 2: you mind going through each of those three and just
Speaker 2: explaining what they are?
Speaker 1: Yeah, and I'm I hope as I describe these some
Speaker 1: of the academics in your world and researchers might want
Speaker 1: to collaborate on on to actually test this right, because
Speaker 1: this is all theoretical at this point. And so anticipation
Speaker 1: phase is all of the massination machinations that take place
Speaker 1: prior to a engagement with another person. So this is like,
Speaker 1: this is the bulk of the time spent in faux po.
Speaker 1: It's the internal wondering what somebody later might be thinking. So,
Speaker 1: for example, you're gonna go to a holiday party and
Speaker 1: you go into your closet and you say, what am
Speaker 1: I going to wear? What do I think other people
Speaker 1: are going to wear? And who's going to be there? Well,
Speaker 1: Susie's going to be there, and man, I've been wanting
Speaker 1: to talk to Susie for a while. Do you think
Speaker 1: she would like this or that? So it's that type
Speaker 1: of like very subtle trying to anticipate favor or approval
Speaker 1: from another person and or avoiding rejection. So FOPO is
Speaker 1: all about acceptance and rejection management. So that's the anticipation phase.
Speaker 1: And then the second phase is once you're actually in
Speaker 1: front of a person, and again this is marked by
Speaker 1: a fear or worry. Okay, non clinical, so we haven't
Speaker 1: risen to the level of like it's a there's a
Speaker 1: DSM code to it.
Speaker 2: It can feel clinical.
Speaker 4: Sometimes it can feel clinical.
Speaker 1: Yeah, oh it can be if it is one of
Speaker 1: the great constrictors of people's potential, that this might be
Speaker 1: the beginnings of something that makes it later one day
Speaker 1: into but it's we're just at the beginnings of it.
Speaker 1: So the second phase is the checking phase. So you
Speaker 1: and I are together and there is a very specific
Speaker 1: mechanism that I am doing. I'm not immune to this.
Speaker 1: I'm not a sociopath, I'm not fully enlightened. I'm not
Speaker 1: the narcissist, you know. So I'm checking because I value
Speaker 1: you and I value the social harmony that we would have.
Speaker 1: But so I'm checking to see if I'm okay, are
Speaker 1: we okay? Is this okay? But I'm not doing it.
Speaker 1: So this is where I've come a long way, I'm
Speaker 1: not checking right now at the at the abandonment of myself.
Speaker 1: So I'm not going to contour or confront or conform
Speaker 1: to just you finding just so that you'll favor me.
Speaker 2: Smart, right, smart.
Speaker 1: But before that's what I found myself doing, I would
Speaker 1: abandon much of myself. Nobody knew it, nobody would know it,
Speaker 1: but I know. So there's this checking. It's constantly checking
Speaker 1: micro expressions. It's trying to make sense. Are we good?
Speaker 3: You know? Am I okay? Are we okay?
Speaker 1: And so then that's the checking, and it's expensive to
Speaker 1: be in that type of relationship. It's expensive as a
Speaker 1: human organism to be in that anticipation phase. And then
Speaker 1: the third phase is the responding phase. So now at
Speaker 1: the slightest hint of potential rejection, so I see your
Speaker 1: frontalis muscles tighten up, there's a slight little frown. You
Speaker 1: cock your head just a little bit, and you lower
Speaker 1: your chin just a bit, and you look at me
Speaker 1: in this way like what did you just say? And
Speaker 1: so I know you didn't just do that, but I'm
Speaker 1: picking up as much as I possibly can. And then
Speaker 1: in that response, I do I either fully control okay,
Speaker 1: So that that's a big one, right, Yeah, I do that. No,
Speaker 1: but maybe I just shape shift a little bit. I
Speaker 1: call it conforming, contort, conform. Maybe I'll confront you did
Speaker 1: I say something?
Speaker 3: What just happened? Like, oh you didn't disagree? Huh okay.
Speaker 1: So it could be confront like that, or it could
Speaker 1: be confront like wait, wait did I miss something? Now
Speaker 1: I'm giving myself a second chance to try to to
Speaker 1: navigate that.
Speaker 2: For approval your scanner.
Speaker 1: Yeah, no, so that's the checking phase.
Speaker 2: Yeah. But the people who are scanners, they are so
Speaker 2: attuned to the slightest changes. And that's right, you know.
Speaker 1: And so we can also call them high EQ high
Speaker 1: social intelligence.
Speaker 2: That's more positive, that's more positive. Scanning is a term
Speaker 2: used with wordlind personality.
Speaker 1: That's right, that's right, And that's used for manipulation. That's
Speaker 1: used for like secondary gain. And so so contort, conform, confront.
Speaker 1: This is kind of fun, isn't it.
Speaker 2: No, it's great.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: And then the other one is critique. And so what
Speaker 1: we do with critique is like say I think that
Speaker 1: there's some it's not it's going a little sideways.
Speaker 3: I might say, hey, what do you think about Roger?
Speaker 2: Now?
Speaker 1: I'm going to critique Roger to pair bond with you
Speaker 1: at Roger's expense. So the critique mechanism is a way
Speaker 1: to pair bond and into actually at the cost of
Speaker 1: somebody else. Sometimes I'll critique you. So if I critique
Speaker 1: you and and my vengeance is attacking you, you're no
Speaker 1: longer like critiquing me, okay. And then the last is like,
Speaker 1: if this is too much and I'm exhausted by this
Speaker 1: checking and I don't like how I'm responding around you,
Speaker 1: I'll just disconnect. I just pull away from the relationship
Speaker 1: and I'm not going to confront. I'm not going to
Speaker 1: do any of these things, like I'm just too overwhelmed
Speaker 1: because I don't feel like if you this is like
Speaker 1: the the borderline, back to the borderline, I'm going to
Speaker 1: disconnect before you ever have a chance to do.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Right, And so that's a little bit a nod to
Speaker 1: those two.
Speaker 2: Because you know, a lot of ways bordline is an
Speaker 2: extreme version of FOPO.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think same with a lot of stuff exactly.
Speaker 1: You know, like there's such an original insult somewhere that
Speaker 1: you're not good enough, and then we create these maladaptive
Speaker 1: but survival approaches to life. Call that personality.
Speaker 2: But like I believe reality alignment is what it's all about.
Speaker 2: You know what does that mean to Well, in certain instances,
Speaker 2: I may not be enough and just admitting that to myself,
Speaker 2: you know, the thing is, why do I always have
Speaker 2: to defend my ego like some fort at all times.
Speaker 2: That's just doesn't seem healthy. Actually, I'm working on a
Speaker 2: new book right now, which I won't talk about the topic,
Speaker 2: but I have a section in there with the title
Speaker 2: are you an impostor? Because with an imposter syndrome, no
Speaker 2: one ever actually like entertains the fact. Well, actually you
Speaker 2: might be an impostor. You might be feeling imposter syndrome
Speaker 2: because you're a fucking imposter. It's right, yeah, Well every
Speaker 2: book you read on this is like trying to make
Speaker 2: people feel good, you know, like, oh, well, you know,
Speaker 2: don't listen to Peters blah blah blah blah blah blah.
Speaker 2: And it's like, okay, you know what, you start med
Speaker 2: school right, like, you're an imposter. You're not. You're not
Speaker 2: a like twenty year veteran yet have humility and that's good.
Speaker 2: That can be adaptive, that can be adaptive. Do you
Speaker 2: see what I'm a.
Speaker 1: Thousand percent like, so imposter syndrome. The way I relate
Speaker 1: it from a sport and performance psychology standpoint is, if
Speaker 1: you want to ski a line in the back country
Speaker 1: that maybe has never been done before, or you haven't
Speaker 1: skied it the way you want to ski it, with
Speaker 1: the speed you want to ski it, you don't know,
Speaker 1: you don't know, you don't know what you're gonna feel like.
Speaker 1: So you've got to conjure up this ability that I'm
Speaker 1: going to do something I've never been done, that's been
Speaker 1: done before, either by me or anyone else.
Speaker 3: Perfect And so.
Speaker 1: There there isn't getting over your skis approach to imposter syndrome.
Speaker 1: But that is where growth happens. It's where adaptation takes place.
Speaker 2: Thank you, yeah, so, thank you.
Speaker 3: So that's the idea.
Speaker 2: Yeah you still you still move You can feel imposter syndrome,
Speaker 2: but still move forward. And that's that's you know, but
Speaker 2: both things can be true at the same time. You
Speaker 2: don't always have to get rid of the feelings of
Speaker 2: you know, like that's the thing that I that I
Speaker 2: think I criticize with a lot of the advice if
Speaker 2: you feel imposter syndrome is like everything these days, and self
Speaker 2: help seems to be like get rid of the uncomfortable motion,
Speaker 2: you know, like.
Speaker 1: No, no, no, stay in it longer. It's yeah, stay in
Speaker 1: it longer.
Speaker 2: And I think this relates to what you're talking about
Speaker 2: and used to the difference between caring and fearing really
Speaker 2: relevant to this discussion, right, because you can you're human, right,
Speaker 2: and you're not a psychopath, So you can be like, Okay,
Speaker 2: that's stung what that person just said and or the
Speaker 2: way I'm interpreting it stung. But then you can get
Speaker 2: curious about it. You can do all the things but
Speaker 2: still be with that feeling. And I love that approach.
Speaker 1: And and the thing that I want to just double
Speaker 1: click on is that there's a funnel exercise that it's
Speaker 1: nothing novel, but like who whose opinions do you want
Speaker 1: to care about? And I just I just did the roundtable.
Speaker 1: You know, I live I live in a city that
Speaker 1: is kind of attuned to this, but like Rodondo, you know,
Speaker 1: the round and so like who's on your roundtable? And
Speaker 1: I don't want a huge roundtable neither. Yeah, And so
Speaker 1: you can you can extend it like people that are
Speaker 1: in the room, but not on the roundtable, but like
Speaker 1: tuned to the roundtable. And if you invited people as
Speaker 1: guests in the room, that's cool, but it's not a
Speaker 1: big room now. So if somebody says something to me,
Speaker 1: like Mike, I don't know why you wear blue and
Speaker 1: black so much.
Speaker 2: Those are the.
Speaker 1: Colors I like much, And now I don't know that person.
Speaker 1: Like this tea it is, Yeah, that's a vibr this
Speaker 1: is a butterfly.
Speaker 2: You're like, oh, it's just the butterfly, be stinging tea.
Speaker 2: I'm like, oh, yeah.
Speaker 4: See how well you're thinking here in twenty minutes sounds good?
Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: So like but if somebody really close that I know
Speaker 1: cares and has an awareness about color and satata and
Speaker 1: they kind of talk to me, I'm like, oh, okay,
Speaker 1: tell me more.
Speaker 3: Yeah yeah, So anyways, I love it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think we're aligned there for sure. What are
Speaker 2: some on ramps to faux po and then I also
Speaker 2: want to know what are the all ramps and let's
Speaker 2: definitely get to the off rams. Yeah, but what are
Speaker 2: some on rams?
Speaker 1: Well, one on ramp, Like I think the big on
Speaker 1: ramp is performance based identity. So we live in a
Speaker 1: performance obsessed culture, certainly in the West, we do, you know,
Speaker 1: and so it makes perfect sense if that's the culture,
Speaker 1: that's the water we're swimming in, that the emergence of
Speaker 1: a performance based identity makes perfect sense, okay. And so
Speaker 1: a performance based identity is my identity is wrapped in
Speaker 1: primarily how well I do what I do relative to
Speaker 1: other people. So it's very different than a off ramp
Speaker 1: purpose based identity. So the on ramp to faupo is
Speaker 1: I am what I do relative to how well I
Speaker 1: do it to other people. So then when I go
Speaker 1: do the thing that I love doing or that i'm
Speaker 1: quote unquote good at or I've identified with, my entire
Speaker 1: identity is at stake. And typically what is the holder
Speaker 1: of power in those environments are the observers. Okay, So
Speaker 1: let's say that public speaking one of the great fears
Speaker 1: for so many people. In most public setting, whether public
Speaker 1: speaking is taking place, there's not a sniper in the
Speaker 1: first balcony row. There is not somebody with a you know,
Speaker 1: some sort of handgun in the first that that when
Speaker 1: you make a mistake, game over, it's more of a
Speaker 1: death of identity, yes, right, because you're going up on
Speaker 1: stage to perform, and your identity is commingled with your
Speaker 1: performance ability, and if you stutter, if you missque, if
Speaker 1: you're off base on your logic, if if the most
Speaker 1: dangerous thing in those environments are the eyeballs of other people.
Speaker 1: So the on ramp to great care about people's opinions
Speaker 1: is when you have a performance based identity. And I
Speaker 1: think detangling that is a bit trickier than it sounds,
Speaker 1: but I would say that just take a look like,
Speaker 1: is your identity wrapped into what you do and how
Speaker 1: well you do it? And if you go, yeah, it
Speaker 1: kind of is, and say, okay, I'm not going to
Speaker 1: say detangle that. I'm going to say, let's see if
Speaker 1: we can override it. Let's see if we can saturate
Speaker 1: it with something bigger and more powerful.
Speaker 3: You say, what is that?
Speaker 1: This is the off ramp develop a purpose based identity.
Speaker 1: So if you think about every one of your historic heroes,
Speaker 1: anyone you fill in the blanks from mother Teresa at
Speaker 1: a Gandhi to oh yeah how about it? Yes, I
Speaker 1: couldn't hear you. So you go to all of the greats.
Speaker 1: They are purpose based? Yeah, yeah, yeah, right.
Speaker 2: They are. They it's such a good point. I've been
Speaker 2: trying to think in my head how I overcame my
Speaker 2: fear of speaking, because that was a real serious issue
Speaker 2: for me when I first started out twenty thirteen, right
Speaker 2: now came out.
Speaker 4: Now, look, prof come on, are you kidding me?
Speaker 3: So it was a real thing for you.
Speaker 2: Yes, So when I started out, it was a huge
Speaker 2: source of anxiety. But what I have done the last
Speaker 2: ten years to really help me overcome this is that
Speaker 2: part of when people think of SBK or Scott very Coffin,
Speaker 2: they think, oh, he's a little weird, he's a little
Speaker 2: he's a little awkward, And I just own that part
Speaker 2: of me now, and so I'm not nervous on stage
Speaker 2: because I'm just Does that make it so not purpose
Speaker 2: as much as authenticity?
Speaker 3: That's authenticity?
Speaker 1: Yeah, that authenticity, Well, I would want to know what
Speaker 1: your purpose is because you can. So authenticity is awesome.
Speaker 1: There's freedom in that, and then what do you do
Speaker 1: with that freedom? Where are you pointing? And if you
Speaker 1: can point to something that is bigger than you, it
Speaker 1: matters to you. It's good for fill in the blanks,
Speaker 1: and you're really about it, like you're honestly, really about it,
Speaker 1: You don't. The authenticity just kind of happens. That's true, right,
Speaker 1: because it's more like you are working to find the
Speaker 1: right words to string together, and you care so much
Speaker 1: about the inspiration of moving people towards maybe enrolling them
Speaker 1: in it, or understanding what the purpose is, so you
Speaker 1: become the narrow more narrow in focus to the task
Speaker 1: rather than like, am I okay in the eyes of others,
Speaker 1: that just fades away? And that is authenticity, how about it? No?
Speaker 2: I think that's that's spot on. You just stop thinking
Speaker 2: about yourself when you're foocused on you know, your excitement
Speaker 2: to share something with someone else.
Speaker 3: Did you pick up in the book?
Speaker 1: I don't know if I was demonstrative enough about this,
Speaker 1: but my aversion to the self industry?
Speaker 2: Yeah, oh yeah, did.
Speaker 3: That come through?
Speaker 2: Did it come through? It come through? You said so
Speaker 2: much that I think i've quote here. You said, yeah,
Speaker 2: like so much of the self help industry is obsessed
Speaker 2: with the self. Yeah, why does it the self help
Speaker 2: industry fuel the obsession with self? Yeah? It's like, yeah,
Speaker 2: you're really wondering that, and I think it's such a
Speaker 2: good point. I wrote an article once I was like,
Speaker 2: you never go to the bookstore and see the other
Speaker 2: help section.
Speaker 3: Oh my god, that's great.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that is great, all about self help, you know.
Speaker 2: And it's it's perplexing considering we know how good it
Speaker 2: feels to help others and how not good it feels
Speaker 2: to be so obsessed with yourself.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and that if I get that, we got to
Speaker 1: put our vest on for our lifevest on first. And
Speaker 1: that's where the probably the benevolent approach to self help started.
Speaker 1: But man, if we keep just nasal navel gazing, if
Speaker 1: we keep focusing on being better for the sake of
Speaker 1: being better, like, it's nauseating. So I'm down with like,
Speaker 1: we're more like a coral reef, you know, and be part,
Speaker 1: be a contributing member of a of a beautiful, flourishing
Speaker 1: coral reef.
Speaker 3: And our coral reef right now is pretty poor.
Speaker 2: That's a whole other topic.
Speaker 3: It's a different topic. Yeah, but like, right, yeah.
Speaker 2: Well, what what are off? So what if you're like, okay,
Speaker 2: I want to get off the fauco train.
Speaker 3: Yeah yeah, Well I think purpose base I think it's
Speaker 3: a big one. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I think purpose based identity is if you just if
Speaker 1: you got really clear about your purpose And that's not
Speaker 1: an easy bit of work to do, but.
Speaker 2: It's worth it. It's like it's the kind of work
Speaker 2: that's hard, but it's worth.
Speaker 1: And if you say, okay, man, I've been thinking about
Speaker 1: this for a long time, I don't know where do
Speaker 1: I start start with?
Speaker 3: Like what is your purpose for today? Okay?
Speaker 1: What is your purpose for this week? What is your
Speaker 1: purpose for this holiday season? What is your purpose for
Speaker 1: like twenty twenty four? So you can thin slice it
Speaker 1: to practice it for a while, and then over time
Speaker 1: you're practicing this idea of purpose and underneath the underneath
Speaker 1: the current if you're having conversations about big life purpose
Speaker 1: with people that you respect, or you're writing about it,
Speaker 1: or you're reading about it, and you carve out enough
Speaker 1: discipline time or time where you can be disciplined with
Speaker 1: like thinking about the time that you're here, the hell
Speaker 1: you're doing with it, and so like, it's it's not
Speaker 1: that it's unavailable, it just is a muscle that we
Speaker 1: don't practice properly because we're spoon fed so much. We've
Speaker 1: been shoveled, you know, this performance based identity that we
Speaker 1: haven't just we haven't blossomed or hydrated or metabolized any
Speaker 1: of the purpose to based stuff. So it's it's good work.
Speaker 1: It's good honest work.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah it is.
Speaker 1: I want to know more about you. Why you said
Speaker 1: this hits for you?
Speaker 2: Oh my god, I don't want to turn this into
Speaker 2: a psychotherapy session.
Speaker 3: No, two guys.
Speaker 2: I mean there's just been a lot of instances in
Speaker 2: my life, like because I'm a highly sensitive person. So
Speaker 2: I think these things hit more for HSPs. That's the thing.
Speaker 2: Hs fifty percent of the population. Michael or HSPs.
Speaker 5: Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know it sounds silly, No it doesn't.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but HSPs, you know, just you feel things more deeply.
Speaker 2: You just feel everything, you know, so like super Having
Speaker 2: to just over the course of my life not take
Speaker 2: everything so personally and so deeply has been a journey
Speaker 2: for me. And I think I've I've come a long way.
Speaker 2: Maybe overcorrect we're now. I don't give a fuck up.
Speaker 2: I'm not anyone, no joking, but.
Speaker 3: You need a roundtable.
Speaker 4: Yeah, OK, let's get your round I think our different
Speaker 4: correct too much.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I really, but I really don't. I mean, I'm joking,
Speaker 2: but you know, I am at the point where I like,
Speaker 2: don't really take things personally anymore. You know, I really
Speaker 2: like always trying to, you know, think, oh, well, what
Speaker 2: is true in that? What's not true in that? You know,
Speaker 2: is that where is it coming from? What's the intentionality?
Speaker 2: Et cetera. But not in my twenties, oh boy, especially
Speaker 2: approaching women. And that's that's the thing, you know, we
Speaker 2: don't need to go into great detail about, but in
Speaker 2: my twenties, in my twenties, I think a lot of
Speaker 2: young men have a fear of approaching women. I should
Speaker 2: coin the a W f OD fear of approaching women.
Speaker 1: Fear of women's opinion. Oh there you go, or f
Speaker 1: A f O A W or f O W.
Speaker 2: I can't be the only twenty two year old that
Speaker 2: had a fear of women's opinions, right, No, that must
Speaker 2: be a common thing among young men. But you know,
Speaker 2: how do you deal with that? How do you develop
Speaker 2: the inner sense of self esteem that's not so dependent
Speaker 2: on whether you get rejected or accepted, you know, And
Speaker 2: I'm sure there's plenty of women that also have a
Speaker 2: fear of being rejected too. For men, it's a very
Speaker 2: common human experience. But that was a big one for
Speaker 2: me in my twenties.
Speaker 1: So you had a phase where fauco fear of it
Speaker 1: happened to be a woman, but fear of the other's
Speaker 1: opinion of you was in.
Speaker 2: A romantic context being rejected.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, right, Yeah, it is intimate.
Speaker 2: Yeah, because you're putting yourself out there, which is required
Speaker 2: and you have to do it, you have Yeah, and
Speaker 2: it's dangerous. Yeah. Well my mom says, Scott, you're never
Speaker 2: going to find So if you don't leave your room,
Speaker 2: Oh my.
Speaker 4: God, you really went there, didn't you. Yeah, we mad
Speaker 4: edit that out.
Speaker 2: We've man at that out.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, So that that.
Speaker 1: That idea is the intimacy of of bringing yourself forward. Yes,
Speaker 1: and then if if you're callous and you don't care,
Speaker 1: like then you never you don't bring the sensitivity into
Speaker 1: the into the relationship.
Speaker 2: You actually increase the chances they'll be attractive to you
Speaker 2: if you bring us all.
Speaker 3: That's all. That's a difference.
Speaker 2: Interesting though, the bad boy. There's something to the bad boy.
Speaker 1: Well, yeah, because you know what, the bad boy might
Speaker 1: protect me because he in care, like he might step
Speaker 1: in front of a bully, might he might tell the other,
Speaker 1: you know, a predator over there, like to back up, like.
Speaker 2: I'm a bad boy, Now are you part of my journey?
Speaker 4: Are you? Are you really? I don't see your neck tattoo?
Speaker 4: Is that coming?
Speaker 2: That's hidden? It's hidden?
Speaker 3: Yeah, right, hidden?
Speaker 4: Yeah, hidden bad boy? Yeah? Cool.
Speaker 2: No. But but so that I think that's a big
Speaker 2: one for a lot of people. You know, it's a
Speaker 2: big part of the foco journey for people who's within
Speaker 2: the romantic demean And then so the off ramp there
Speaker 2: is what like if we just double click on that
Speaker 2: tomean Let's say you're approaching someone. Let's say let's say
Speaker 2: it's someone that you've been friends with a while, and
Speaker 2: you are like, hey, I'm actually catching feelings for you
Speaker 2: or whatever. That was maybe not a smooth way of
Speaker 2: putting it, but whatever is that whatever the smoothest way
Speaker 2: of saying that is. And then and then the person's like,
Speaker 2: now I'm good. How do you you know? Off ramp
Speaker 2: your faux po in that situation?
Speaker 3: Oh, I think you back yourself.
Speaker 1: So in sport, we've got what's really interesting in elite
Speaker 1: sport is you've got sometimes you know, the ratio is
Speaker 1: one to one, one coach per athlete, or it's like
Speaker 1: it's small groups, you know, one coach for four athletes.
Speaker 4: So in the in the real world, we don't.
Speaker 1: Have that ratio at work, right, we don't have like
Speaker 1: a coach that's supporting and challenging us and seeing us
Speaker 1: and knowing us and like holding us accountable and understanding.
Speaker 1: But we need to get better at say socially or
Speaker 1: tactically in business or email writing. Like, we don't have it.
Speaker 1: So we're kind of on our own. But what great
Speaker 1: coaches do is they see the person, they understand what
Speaker 1: they're trying to work on. They create, they co create
Speaker 1: an idea of what could be if we really did
Speaker 1: some really great work together. Like so that's using imagination
Speaker 1: for a better future. And then we make that image
Speaker 1: so clear that we could almost feel the fabric of it.
Speaker 1: We nod our head and we commit to each other.
Speaker 1: So the coach and the athlete commit to each other
Speaker 1: to go on that adventure. And if we make it
Speaker 1: bold enough, it's like do you think though, yeah, I
Speaker 1: think you know, and you know what, let's do it
Speaker 1: in the right way together. That's like, how are we
Speaker 1: going to coach each other? How are we going to
Speaker 1: be in this thing? And then the athlete will say,
Speaker 1: I don't know, man, give it to me straight, he
Speaker 1: goes straight. Are you sure straight? Okay, well maybe maybe
Speaker 1: not publicly, you know, Like so that you start to
Speaker 1: calibrate the that you want that relationship with coach and
Speaker 1: an athlete. Okay, So there's a calibration there on how
Speaker 1: to be coached.
Speaker 3: My point is.
Speaker 1: We become sophisticated in the way that the coach speaks
Speaker 1: to the athlete. So that's coach speak. And then if
Speaker 1: you take that for just a moment, because we don't
Speaker 1: have that in our daily lives and we talk now,
Speaker 1: replace it with self coaching is what I'm talking about, right, Okay,
Speaker 1: So when I say back yourself, a great coach will say,
Speaker 1: keep going.
Speaker 3: I know you just dropped it.
Speaker 1: Keep going, put your hands here, like, keep going, you
Speaker 1: got this, Like get back out there. What do you
Speaker 1: There's no time right now to like come on now,
Speaker 1: we'll process this thing later.
Speaker 2: Okay.
Speaker 1: So so so back yourself like a great coach would
Speaker 1: back you like the greatest coach you can imagine. Most
Speaker 1: coaches are so kind and they are so connected to
Speaker 1: support that they really want to see you be great
Speaker 1: and they dedicated their life to it. The ones that
Speaker 1: go sideways they're in it for themselves. Yeah, okay, and
Speaker 1: so and we know who they are. You can feel
Speaker 1: it like this person's in it more for themselves than me. Yeah, okay,
Speaker 1: So be a great coach to yourself. That's a trainers
Speaker 1: like that.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: I feel like it's more about them beating me up.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: And it's about the way they look, yeah, and then
Speaker 1: the way they're perceived. And like as a bad coach.
Speaker 2: Now, I love the self coach idea. As you know,
Speaker 2: I'm starting a form of coaching called self actualization coaching.
Speaker 2: But there's no reason why we can't be our own
Speaker 2: self actualization coaches. I had Dick Schwartz on my podcast
Speaker 2: recently and was founder of Internal Family Systems Therapy, and
Speaker 2: he actually did therapy on the spot about this topic
Speaker 2: of fear of you know, women on you with Family
Speaker 2: System fifteen minute psychotherapy session with Dick Schwartz and attitude
Speaker 2: in Cool can come out soon. Yeah, and he uh,
Speaker 2: it was really I mean it was really emotional. I
Speaker 2: was getting really emotional because I was tracing it back
Speaker 2: to this time I was rejected in summer camp at
Speaker 2: age ten. He does a lot there, right, Yeah, and
Speaker 2: he really helped me find you know, another part of
Speaker 2: myself that's going to be that inner coach for me
Speaker 2: and that so it just so relates to what you're
Speaker 2: just saying. He's like, he's like, who is you know
Speaker 2: this other guy that takes that and kind of like says,
Speaker 2: just brush it off, bro, keep going, you know who's
Speaker 2: that friend? Can you have that friend inside you in
Speaker 2: your ear? I just thought it was really transformational.
Speaker 1: And and can you So there's like if we're not
Speaker 1: if we're not sophisticated here, we think that coaching ourselves
Speaker 1: can come from a voice of like critique and judgment.
Speaker 3: That's not good enough.
Speaker 1: What are you gonna do? You're gonna you're gonna sit here,
Speaker 1: or you're gonna get it doesn't have to be anything
Speaker 1: close to that.
Speaker 2: I can actually be supportive.
Speaker 3: Yeah, go find that.
Speaker 1: So if this is what I would I do with
Speaker 1: athletes all the time, Like, can you point to a
Speaker 1: coach that you had in your life that was amazing?
Speaker 1: What was that like? How did they speak to how
Speaker 1: did you feel around them? I felt like I could
Speaker 1: do anything. I felt like like like really it was
Speaker 1: all available to me. I just needed to grab it
Speaker 1: and do the work and like I could make mistakes
Speaker 1: and they were still there. They're still in it with me.
Speaker 1: They're not embarrassed, like they have my back. And so like,
Speaker 1: go find those coaches and if you haven't had one,
Speaker 1: create one you can. You can be that for other people.
Speaker 1: You can be it for yourself. And so just index two, three, four,
Speaker 1: five values that matter. So start with three values kindness, accuracy, excellence,
Speaker 1: about maybe okay, and then every word you choose you
Speaker 1: line up with kindness, accuracy, excellence. I just made those
Speaker 1: three up. It could be any virtue or values that
Speaker 1: matter to you. And then so that's where like, that's
Speaker 1: where the inner world, investing in your inner world is
Speaker 1: really dynamic. Is that I believe free will. So you
Speaker 1: can choose the words that you're going to say to
Speaker 1: yourself or others. You can choose your thoughts, your words,
Speaker 1: and your actions. And if you line them up, like
Speaker 1: you've got bell wethers of values, you only need a
Speaker 1: couple of them, and then you practice thoughts, words and
Speaker 1: actions that are in context of the values that matter
Speaker 1: most to you, that are pointing.
Speaker 3: At the purpose. Now we got it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, this is not that complicated, right, but it takes
Speaker 1: a lot of time. It takes a lot of time
Speaker 1: to get those bell weathers, those values lined up to
Speaker 1: practice with great awareness your thoughts, words and actions that
Speaker 1: are pointing towards that purpose.
Speaker 2: It sure does, especially if your sociometer is woefully miscalibrated
Speaker 2: ther theory. I love that you drew in that huge
Speaker 2: shout out to Mark Leary.
Speaker 1: This was your inspiration. It's in the book because of
Speaker 1: our friendship. And you said, Hey, you know there's a
Speaker 1: thing here. I know what you're writing about, and there's
Speaker 1: a thing here. Check out Mark Larry's work and appreciate you.
Speaker 1: Appreciate Mark, I really.
Speaker 2: Appreciate a lot of appreciation. Appreciate this weirdest tea. It's
Speaker 2: gonna be my new favorite go to tea now, especially
Speaker 2: with guests, you know my podcast, like this Dragonfly tea.
Speaker 1: And you know what's fun about this this tea is
Speaker 1: that if you put some citrus in it, it turns
Speaker 1: a whole different colors. It's a go to Like like
Speaker 1: I said, I love like hand picked, hand picked.
Speaker 3: Tea leaves, and so this is one of them.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think this tea is a kind of thread
Speaker 2: throughout a lot of this wonderful we do we talk
Speaker 2: about neuroscience at all, or do we get to grab
Speaker 2: a beer some other day and talk about neuroscience.
Speaker 3: Now follow your.
Speaker 1: Lead, like like we're we're give me a grade. I
Speaker 1: traveled in your territory here. I kept it pretty thin
Speaker 1: because I didn't think. I didn't want to unravel too much.
Speaker 2: Do you run it by Mary Helen and Urdida Gang?
Speaker 2: And she approved it?
Speaker 4: Yeah, she's Oh, so you defer to Mary Helen.
Speaker 2: I I often do, because you know, she she's a
Speaker 2: real expert in the social cognito or science field. What
Speaker 2: I like about her research is that she shows the
Speaker 2: benefits of the default mode network CORREAT. So without the
Speaker 2: default mode network, we would have a hard time having
Speaker 2: compassion for others. We would not be able to project
Speaker 2: ourselves into the mind of someone else. You know, and
Speaker 2: as you make the point, we are bad perspective takers.
Speaker 2: But the default mode without the default mole network, we'd
Speaker 2: be even worse. You know, we would be able to imagine,
Speaker 2: you know what someone else.
Speaker 1: I've heard some smart people call it the imagine.
Speaker 5: Yes, yes, professor, But I think but I think that
Speaker 5: you are quite right to point out that it can
Speaker 5: be the source of our greatest suffering when we get
Speaker 5: too stuck in our self story.
Speaker 2: Right, there's a lot there that's relevant to what you
Speaker 2: write about in your book. You write about you know,
Speaker 2: interpretation is almost everything. You know, Like you decided to
Speaker 2: interpret that mentors throway common in a certain way that
Speaker 2: caused you a lot of darn suffering, so many for
Speaker 2: many years. So it can be that that brain network
Speaker 2: can be the source of a gress suffering. I would
Speaker 2: also argue it can be the source of regress creativity,
Speaker 2: our greatest compassion. You know, improv they've like they look
Speaker 2: at rappers and improvars and poets and the fMRI machine
Speaker 2: and their defaultile network is just lighting up because they
Speaker 2: are really in touch with their self in a flow
Speaker 2: kind of state, where their executive attention network is quieter.
Speaker 2: So I think it's the interaction between the default and
Speaker 2: the executive that matters, not one or the other. Yes,
Speaker 2: but you're quite right to point out out can be
Speaker 2: such a great source of suffering when we get stuck
Speaker 2: in those self narratives.
Speaker 1: You know, when when so I didn't tie this together
Speaker 1: well enough because so many darlings in this book were
Speaker 1: you know kind of you know, like that that idea.
Speaker 2: You had to kill darlings too, did you have a yeah,
Speaker 2: a bigger draft or a draft and.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'll tell you a fun one that got cut. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I talked about but spotlight effect and default mode network.
Speaker 1: Oh so I think there's a connection there that I
Speaker 1: haven't read that chapter on spotlight Yeah, and I and
Speaker 1: that spotlight effect is a great bit of research, you
Speaker 1: know for folks that are unfamiliar. But essentially it's like
Speaker 1: there's a finding that we walk around thinking that we're
Speaker 1: under the spotlight, and the connection like what is he
Speaker 1: thinking of me? Is basically the spotlight effect? You know,
Speaker 1: does he what is he thinking of the shirt I'm
Speaker 1: wearing or whatever? And you're actually on your your own spotlight?
Speaker 1: What is Mike thinking of me? And so like we're
Speaker 1: walking around with these spotlights on us thinking that we're
Speaker 1: the center of the universe, the center of attention. And
Speaker 1: if we take that one step forward and we get
Speaker 1: stuck in the default mode network like how am I?
Speaker 3: How?
Speaker 1: We need to know how I am? But this internal
Speaker 1: focus only, that's where it becomes. As soon as like
Speaker 1: I can feel my sympathetic nervous system kick on and
Speaker 1: as soon as I feel like there's some sort of
Speaker 1: social threat where I might not be good enough, and
Speaker 1: I'm in this hyper sensitive self mode. I get stuck
Speaker 1: in the default mode type of feeling no, and it's
Speaker 1: a loop and it doesn't matter, like I feel like
Speaker 1: it's really hard to get out of it.
Speaker 2: It happens too. Oh yeah, even nowadays.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean much less than it did before. But
Speaker 1: I'm not immune from it, you know. But if I
Speaker 1: preempt purpose, I preempt gratitude training, I preempt curiosity, and
Speaker 1: I practice those types of things. I preempt with mindfulness
Speaker 1: to be more aware, so I can catch and work
Speaker 1: with my thoughts upstream rather than downstream and the rapids
Speaker 1: those are all off ramps. Okay, So if I can
Speaker 1: work those things, just like when I go to the
Speaker 1: gym and I want to do mobility work and some
Speaker 1: strength work and same thing. So I have to work
Speaker 1: for those I wasn't born like free so and that's
Speaker 1: why it's mental training.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I love that. Yeah, that's a phrase you use
Speaker 2: in your course with coach.
Speaker 3: Yes, one hundred percent.
Speaker 2: Let's talk about death. When we face our mortality head on,
Speaker 2: Can that reduce faux po?
Speaker 3: Possibly?
Speaker 1: It does for me and this idea has been around
Speaker 1: a long time, right, this is this is a stoic idea.
Speaker 1: It's just been around a long time, like square up
Speaker 1: with your death, you know, be honest with yourself. There's
Speaker 1: a one of the kind of the core foundational ideas
Speaker 1: in Buddhism and certainly the Zen traditions, is like everything
Speaker 1: is impermanent and permanence is like one of the foundational things.
Speaker 1: So everything is changing all the time, and we don't
Speaker 1: know when that time runs out.
Speaker 2: You had this quote from Jeff Bezos, right, or he's like,
Speaker 2: in twenty thirty years, yeah, we could totally go bankrupt.
Speaker 1: Yeah right, yeah, yeah right, So yeah, some of the
Speaker 1: multinational companies I work with, they three trilling down the
Speaker 1: cap and they still feel like they're about to go.
Speaker 4: Out of business, you know.
Speaker 1: Like so that's a different fear though that the idea
Speaker 1: of squaring up with the impermanence of all things.
Speaker 2: So death of a company though, it's death of a company.
Speaker 1: But what I'm suggesting in this is that when you
Speaker 1: embrace the fragility by understanding impermanence and embracing what impermanence
Speaker 1: really means, that you'll be more likely to be here
Speaker 1: because here is fleeting and here again is fleet and
Speaker 1: so I want to be I know, I don't know
Speaker 1: when i'll see you against Scott, I don't know when
Speaker 1: i'll talk to again. I don't know when I'll get
Speaker 1: that moment, and so I want to be when I'm here.
Speaker 1: I want to be great. I want to be here
Speaker 1: with you. And it's a forcing function for me to
Speaker 1: be all in in the places I'm in. And so
Speaker 1: I hope that people say, what is success for you?
Speaker 1: Like if my wife were to hear this is she'd say, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: that's how he is with me too, and my son
Speaker 1: you know that we have an adult relationship when when
Speaker 1: he's older, like, yeah, I feel that way too around
Speaker 1: your Mike or Dad.
Speaker 3: So I think what you're going.
Speaker 1: To point to is that this little practice that I
Speaker 1: do when I say goodbye to people, is that just
Speaker 1: take a moment and now it's now weird that I'm
Speaker 1: talking about it, because you'll feel it now probably at
Speaker 1: some level. But when I say goodbye to you, I
Speaker 1: mean it. I don't know if I'll see you again,
Speaker 1: and so I practice that every day, and then that
Speaker 1: practice keeps me tuned to the next person that I'm
Speaker 1: going to see, Like, shit, I don't know if I'm
Speaker 1: going to see Scott again. I mean, I don't know
Speaker 1: if I'm going to see Xavier again. Man, let me
Speaker 1: be here.
Speaker 2: I love it.
Speaker 1: So it's a small little practice I do.
Speaker 2: I love it. Abraham Asil have these exercises where you know,
Speaker 2: when you're when you're with someone, imagine them dead.
Speaker 4: You know, like, is that right?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 3: How does that work?
Speaker 2: I mean he had he had this whole idea of
Speaker 2: the Plateau experience, where you simultaneously see the eternal in
Speaker 2: every situation as well as the impermanence. It's a little complicated,
Speaker 2: it's related to some Eastern philosophy, but you can realize
Speaker 2: that we're all just archetypes of something, you know, like
Speaker 2: there there's going to be two hundred years from now
Speaker 2: a podcast conversation between a Michael lookalike and a Scott lookalike.
Speaker 2: You know, there'll be two people who take up whatever
Speaker 2: role we play in society, right. Yeah, But it's kind
Speaker 2: of a thing where you just recognize there's an impermanence,
Speaker 2: but there's also something that lives on and holding both
Speaker 2: in your mind at the same time. But Also he
Speaker 2: did have exercises for recognizing the impermanence of things and
Speaker 2: while you're taught, while you're not when you're saying goodbye
Speaker 2: to them, but while you're talking to them.
Speaker 4: See, I knew I was not as good as a
Speaker 4: mess though.
Speaker 2: Damn. Why you know yours is good too?
Speaker 3: I'm doing that's a performance space.
Speaker 2: I ye, yours is good like yours too? Yes and yes,
Speaker 2: And so he had all sorts of exercises for really
Speaker 2: confronting the mortality of things. Uh, let's talk about social media.
Speaker 2: I do want to talk about I want to be
Speaker 2: remiss if we didn't bring that up, because I feel
Speaker 2: there's so much pressure nowadays to appear popular, happy, good
Speaker 2: And when you feel that pressure, you are, in a
Speaker 2: sense caring what not just caring, but you're fearing negative opinions.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and you're contorting and shaping and presenting. You're presenting
Speaker 1: in a certain way, you know. And so the performative
Speaker 1: aspect of being human has kind of saturated too many
Speaker 1: factors of being And so I mean, look, I mean
Speaker 1: we call it performance psychology. And there is a time
Speaker 1: to perform, you know, and there is a time to
Speaker 1: be And so can you hold the space of your being,
Speaker 1: your authenticity, if you will to use your earlier language
Speaker 1: and express from there. That's radical performance. But when you
Speaker 1: when you're faking it till you make it, when you're
Speaker 1: performative in a way that you want favor, then we've
Speaker 1: got we've got some real problems and challenges in how
Speaker 1: that shows up.
Speaker 3: So why now, why this book? Why now?
Speaker 1: Social media is like gasoline on this thing. We're living
Speaker 1: in a performance obsessed culture. We've got this performance based identity.
Speaker 1: We've got this very general I'm sorry, this very specific
Speaker 1: process in our brain that's scanning for danger, and one
Speaker 1: of the great threats is rejection. And then you add
Speaker 1: social media on top of this unexamined internal way of living,
Speaker 1: and this is a I think this is one of
Speaker 1: the reasons faux po and exactly what I'm talking as
Speaker 1: one of the reasons suicide, anxiety, depression, addiction is on
Speaker 1: the rise for kids. You know, like it's an unexamined
Speaker 1: approach to those conditions I just talked about.
Speaker 2: So true. Jonathan Heights writing a book about this, The
Speaker 2: Anxious Generation, about especially like teenagers, there's so much pressure
Speaker 2: for this. I mean, I wish I knew when I
Speaker 2: was a teenager. I wish I could have read your book.
Speaker 3: I do too.
Speaker 1: I wish my parents would have read it, you know,
Speaker 1: I don't. I wish I would have read it. I
Speaker 1: wish my parents would have read it. I wish my
Speaker 1: coaches would have read it. I wish my aunts and
Speaker 1: uncles would have read it. And just it's like David
Speaker 1: Defoster Wallace has, you know, he's got that classic poem
Speaker 1: that he says, It's a fish, an old fish swim
Speaker 1: in one direction, and two young fish swimming in the
Speaker 1: other direction, and he swims by him, and he says,
Speaker 1: how's the water boys, And the two fish keeps swimming along,
Speaker 1: and they don't say anything to each other. Then one
Speaker 1: look stupid or whatever.
Speaker 3: It might be.
Speaker 1: And then finally one of the young fish says to
Speaker 1: the other young fish, the hell is water. So he's
Speaker 1: just pointing to the obvious that we take for granted,
Speaker 1: we take things for granted. Yeah, and so so anyways,
Speaker 1: I think that it's a little bit like that too.
Speaker 2: You do talk about, you know, asking yourself, what will
Speaker 2: you regret at the end of your life. I wrote
Speaker 2: a cheeky post the other day. You know all those
Speaker 2: kind of studies, they're like, they tell us what people
Speaker 2: are regretting on their death. I want to hear from
Speaker 2: the dude or the human who says it's just like
Speaker 2: he's like, nah, I'm good, I don't have any regrets.
Speaker 2: I want to live like that person.
Speaker 1: Yeah, they're out there, you know, I don't know anyone
Speaker 1: like that, though, Well.
Speaker 2: Isn't it possible to to not regret? I mean, I'm
Speaker 2: not saying you don't live a life of pain or
Speaker 2: you don't live a life of things that you're not
Speaker 2: happy with, But you know, I think there's something we
Speaker 2: can learn from all of our situations.
Speaker 1: Yeah, the things that I regret most of my life,
Speaker 1: and I wish I was better for people when I
Speaker 1: chose words or actions that really hurt them. And so
Speaker 1: those are the ones that I'm like, I got you fuck,
Speaker 1: you know, like what was wrong with me? And so
Speaker 1: those are the ones that sting and I completely get.
Speaker 1: I wouldn't be who I am. I like who I am,
Speaker 1: I wouldn't be who I am without those pains. And
Speaker 1: but man, when it comes to the cost of other people,
Speaker 1: that sucks that I'm not sure that that's the juice
Speaker 1: is worth the squeeze me like you myself, and I've
Speaker 1: heard a bunch of other people. Yess, that's that's pretty poor.
Speaker 2: But that's a regret for something you did not a regret.
Speaker 2: There's something you didn't do, that's right. I don't really
Speaker 2: like to have too man regrets for things I haven't done.
Speaker 2: But I don't know. I can probably think about the
Speaker 2: examples of things that.
Speaker 4: You did not do. Yeah, like the opportunities that you didn't.
Speaker 2: Yeah, opportunities I may not have taken, but another door
Speaker 2: was opened. It's the whole free wall thing. And the
Speaker 2: regrets thing is interesting because Seppolski would say, silly to
Speaker 2: have regrets you couldn't have chosen otherwise.
Speaker 1: Well, you're supposed to have that feeling. Of course you
Speaker 1: are because of your unique experiences prior to it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And of course you would because of your your
Speaker 1: unique genetic experience and all of you da da da da.
Speaker 3: Like.
Speaker 1: Of course you would be depressed too, exactly, and of
Speaker 1: course your unique experience would express anger from that depression.
Speaker 1: That So I yes, and I mean still I can
Speaker 1: get in there. I feel like that I can get
Speaker 1: in my own in my own psychology and make some choices.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I like your your your take there on
Speaker 2: on choices. At least there's a little wiggle room here,
Speaker 2: there is. Look, I loved your book. We could talk
Speaker 2: all day long. I loved all the stories in your book.
Speaker 2: They're captivating. They everyone took me down a rabbit hole,
Speaker 2: you know you I wasn't aware of the as much
Speaker 2: as I was a Bulls fan as a kid. I
Speaker 2: don't remember that game where Caramelone and skytie Pippen Sky
Speaker 2: Pippen Caramelone. He's like the mailman don't deliver on Sundays,
Speaker 2: you know, And he missed both free throws, and then
Speaker 2: of course and I and I I googled, and I
Speaker 2: watched the rest of that game and watched Michael Jordan's
Speaker 2: winning shot. Man. Michael's amazing because nothing phases him amazing.
Speaker 2: That's what probably makes him so amazing is that he's
Speaker 2: not phased. Right Like he he took that situation. He's like, Okay,
Speaker 2: now I'm gonna win the game, you know, And like.
Speaker 1: I don't know my Michael Jordan. I think he's complicated.
Speaker 1: I think that as we all are. Yeah, I think
Speaker 1: there's a lot of pain in there, and there's been
Speaker 1: a lot that he has had to work through that
Speaker 1: is not.
Speaker 3: Quite ready for like a joyous, joyous life.
Speaker 2: But but you just don't see or get into No
Speaker 2: one ever psychoanalyzes players. They just it matters how you perform.
Speaker 1: Right, you know for the most part, you know, And
Speaker 1: but like when I watch him be able to execute
Speaker 1: on demand, it's special.
Speaker 2: It's special.
Speaker 3: Yeah, he is special.
Speaker 2: There were just two sides of that court, you know,
Speaker 2: the Carmelone missing the two because like Jordan doesn't do that.
Speaker 2: You know, they're give him more pressure and he performs better.
Speaker 2: He's the inverse of that.
Speaker 3: He's special.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 2: But but but just the point there with that Scotty
Speaker 2: Pippen going up and really being able to affect him.
Speaker 2: Obviously Carmelone has has a can get affected by that.
Speaker 2: Although and then I started going down a rabbit hole
Speaker 2: of other alternative explanations for why he missed those free throws,
Speaker 2: and people said he had and burns from that game.
Speaker 2: Whatever you get anyway, thank you so much for these
Speaker 2: incredible stories. Everyone got me down a whole rabbit Oh.
Speaker 3: Fun man, thank you. That is so good.
Speaker 1: So I was when I send it to you like
Speaker 1: thinking about the faux post look, and I send it
Speaker 1: to you. Your your opinions about kind of the science
Speaker 1: and the approach. It mattered to me, and so I
Speaker 1: was nervous to send it to you.
Speaker 2: I love the book. I'm going to end on a
Speaker 2: quote I've been saving for a last You have a
Speaker 2: choice at every moment of your life, whether you're going
Speaker 2: to play the faubo game. Are you going to spend
Speaker 2: your precious days, hours, and moments worrying about other people's opinions?
Speaker 2: Are you going to spend your brief time on this
Speaker 2: planet worrying about what other people think you should say,
Speaker 2: or do or feel. Hell no, I'll answer that question.
Speaker 2: I'll answer it. Hell no. Thank you, Rich.
Speaker 3: I appreciate you.
Speaker 2: Appreciate it.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I appreciate you.
Speaker 5: What what Vanus?
Speaker 4: That's what Nan