How to Choose Growth with Scott Barry Kaufman & Jordyn Feingold

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:07):
Welcome to the one you feed. Throughout time, great thinkers
have recognized the importance of the thoughts we have. Quotes
like garbage in, garbage out, or you are what you
think ring true. And yet for many of us, our
thoughts don't strengthen or empower us. We tend toward negativity,
self pity, jealousy, or fear. We see what we don't

(00:30):
have instead of what we do. We think things that
hold us back and dampen our spirit. But it's not
just about thinking. Our actions matter. It takes conscious, consistent,
and creative effort to make a life worth living. This
podcast is about how other people keep themselves moving in
the right direction, how they feed their good wolf. Thanks

(01:05):
for joining us. Our guests on this episode That's Too
are Scott Berry Kaufman, who's been on the show before.
He's a cognitive scientist and humanistic psychologist exploring the depths
of human potential. He's a professor at Columbia University and
director of the Center for Human Potential. Scott has also
authored ten books and is host of the Psychology Podcast.

(01:28):
In two thousand fifteen, he was named one of the
fifty groundbreaking scientists who are changing the Way We See
the World by Business Insider. And also on the episode
is Jordan's Fine Gold, a resident physician in psychiatry at
the Icon School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New
York City. She's a well being researcher and positive psychology practitioner.

(01:49):
Her research and clinical interests involved protecting and promoting healthcare
worker and patient well being and incorporating positive psychology approaches
into healthcare delivery. Jordan is also co author of Choose Growth,
a Workbook for Transcending Trauma, fear and Self Doubt. Hi Scott,
Hi Jordan, Welcome to the show. Hi Eric, thank you

(02:10):
so much for having us on. It's a real honor
to be on your podcast. It's good to see you again.
I don't know when we had you on. I think
it was after your book, before this one was released,
so it's been a couple of years. You and Jordan's
have just released a new book called Choose Growth, a
Workbook for Transcending Trauma, fear and Self Doubt. And we're
going to get into that book in a moment, but

(02:33):
we have to start the podcast like we always do,
with a parable. I'm going to ask this to Jordan's
because Scott, you've already had a chance to answer this once.
In the parable, there's a grandparent who's talking with their
grandchild and they say, in life, there are two wolves
inside of us that are always at battle. One is
a good wolf, which represents things like kindness and bravery
and love, and the other is a bad wolf, which

(02:55):
represents things like greed and hatred and fear. And the
grandchild stops and thinks about it for second, looks up
at their grandparents as well. Which one wins, and the
grandparents says, the one you feed. So I'd like to
start off by asking you what that parable means to
you in your life and in the work that you do. Oh,
I love this so much, and I only wish now

(03:15):
that I could remember how Scott answered this, because I
worry that my answer is going to be similar to
what he said. So Scott, of course, what comes to
mind is rawle O'May that we are full of potentialities
for both good and evil, and it is the daimonic
that can take over the whole being. And of course

(03:37):
we are not just one wolf. We have all of
these potentialities inside of us, and multiple potentialities toward good
evil and all of that in between. And the idea
in what we talk about in our book and what
I helped my patients within the psychiatry setting is that
we don't necessarily want to starve the evil potentiality, but

(04:02):
welcome it in and understand from a trauma informed perspective
how that wolf got to be who it is, and
rather than suppress it or push it aside, to learn
to welcome it in and nurture it and maybe with
a lot of love and tender kindness, that wolf won't
be so evil after all. And how can we bring

(04:25):
it into the pack and befriended and really understand how
how it came to be, just like we can honor
those dark parts of ourselves. I love that in your book.
I pulled that line out from Rollo May also saying
that virtually all humans are bundles of both evil and
good potentialities, And so that got my attention in the

(04:46):
latest book, Scott, and I think you want to add
to that. Well, even roll May, you know, made a
mistake there by labeling evil, you know, potentialities as evil.
I guess he's saying their potentialities, but we don't always
know what potentialities we think are good will actually turn
out to be evil. Right, There's a lot of things
that were done in the name of good that turned
out to be evil. So I think the point there,

(05:06):
and I guess I'm correcting role may is that we
have lots of potentialities. We have some that we label
is bad, we have some that we label is good.
We do know that there are certain potentialities that the
more we feed them, the stronger they yet. And I
think it's really important to have an awareness of the
extent to which what you're growing stronger and what potentialities

(05:26):
you're realizing are the ones that you really want to
be the predominant part of your whole system. Just having
that awareness, that awareness is so essential. When you see
yourself going down a certain path, you know, you do
the thought experiment where is that going to lead? You know,
and you really think it through. The way you read
that parable it makes it sound like an emotion like

(05:48):
fear is a bad thing. It's not that emotion of
fear is a bad thing. It's just that fear, if
we let it run, our lives could lead it. There's
a whole lot of difference among people I love about
what you do, Scott. Is you really honor the fact
that that what works for me may not work for

(06:12):
you and what I want, you know, Jordan may not want,
and really honoring that sort of wide distinction. And so
I'm kind of curious about what made you want to
go from the book Transcend to the workbook. There's lots
of exercises in that book. Given the variation among people,

(06:32):
how do you think about how to use that book?
Will all interventions be good for all people? Only some
of them? How might someone know? Just kind of curious
your thoughts on putting it into practice. There are a
lot of questions in one there, my friend, I know
it's bad interview etiquette. We can talk about the origin
of why we created exercises, and we can talk about
user manual for the person on how to use it.

(06:55):
Let me take it one at a time. Here in Transcend,
there's an appendix. I think it's appendix too, or it
might be a pendix. One are forgetting It has some
of these activities that can help you become a whole person.
And if you look at that page of the book,
it says co authored with Dr Jordan Fine Gold says
that right there and transcend. So this was a way

(07:16):
to what that breathe more in a full collaboration with
Jordan who did a terrific job with that appendix in transcend,
and we thought, well, you know, we're like, we really
have a book here, especially during the time of the
last two years, you know, in light of the pandemic,
We're like, wow, we can actually adapt a lot of
these exercises for this moment, in particular, helping people realize

(07:41):
their potentials even amidst the unknown and all the confusion
that we have gone on in the world right now
and within our own selves. So for people reading this book,
we hope that it's a journey for them for self insight.
Karen Hornet called it self analysis. I don't know if
you're familiar with that term at all, self ANALYSI us
it's a way to also get outside your comfort zone

(08:03):
and do these exercises. If you take these exercises seriously,
you can't help but grow. It's like there's certain things
you do in your life that you don't want to
do them, but you know you're gonna grow. Like every
time I talk to a beautiful woman, you know, my
my heart is beating fast and I can't breathe. But
you know, I know that if I do it, I
will grow. You know, I will talk to someone, I

(08:24):
will get outside my covers it every time. That was
just one example. But every time I go and ride
a motorcycle. You know, we can get away from the
first example. But every time I ride a motorcycle, every time,
I know that if I go and even fly. I
used to be really scared of flying. I know every
time I just make that decision, I know that the
outcome is going to be growth. So it's like, you
choose growth, you know, you don't choose fear. That's the

(08:46):
bottom line here. And I think what's so important about
the workbook and why we included the practices and Transcend
in the first place, is that there's so much good
information and knowledge and theory out there, and as is
a goal of this podcast, it's not enough to just
know the stuff. We actually have to learn how to

(09:07):
integrate it into our lives and actually practice it and
do it time and time again. We can know something
perfectly well, but perhaps we avoid actually doing it, and
then we realize the avoidance magnifies the anxiety, and and
then we become extra self critical because there's all this
stuff we know we should be doing. We should ourselves
to death another Karen horn I proclamation that we should

(09:30):
break free from the tyrannical shoulds in our lives. And
this presents readers and listeners of the audio book with
an opportunity not to generate their own ideas necessarily about
how to apply the concepts. But we make it pretty simple.
We put the questions out there, We put the prompts
out there so that people are in alone, that they
can actually do this in the company of others, in

(09:52):
the company of a whole public who's engaging in these
practices together. Yes, yeah, I think we know that writing
is a very powerful way of understanding ourselves better, of
changing and growing. And this book has I mean a
lifetime is worth of prompts really, right, I mean, if
you were to really take the exercises in this book

(10:12):
seriously and really sit down and write out all these things,
I think you're right, Scott, there will be no choice
but to grow. It is about what are we going
to apply? What ideas are we going to apply? And
where I wanted to talk about something that's in the
transcend model and sort of weaves its way through this book.

(10:33):
And I know it's a big idea of your Scott,
but I'm first going to let Jordan take it and
then kind of let you follow up, which is this
relationship between security and growth. On one hand, it's easy
to say, well, in order to grow, I need to
have a certain amount of security. It seems to me
that a lot of people where psychological safety isn't there,

(10:57):
there's a certain amount of growth that has to happen
to get to that psychological safety. And so I'm kind
of curious how you think about those two things. So
I think that the idea that growth necessarily comes after
security is a misconception. I think that these things can
happen in tandem and parallel, and that they can reinforce

(11:17):
one another. And Scott, I want to hear if you
disagree with anything that I'm saying, so exactly as you said, Eric,
it can take a lot of how did you put it,
that it takes growth in order to bolster our security,
and it can take security in order to bolster our growth.
And that's why we use the sailboat metaphor that Scott
put forth in transcend, which is not a pyramid, even

(11:39):
though Moslow never actually depicted a pyramid, which really seems
to suggest that it's like climbing a mountain or unlocking
the next level, and that these things happen in sequence,
that first we have to be safe, and then we
bolster our self esteem and then we can experience connection.
It doesn't work like that. All of these things are
integrated processes that reinforce one another. So while I think

(12:02):
it can be very helpful to think about the base
of our sailboat being able to open up our sail
as distinct parts of achieving transcendence, we're constantly working on
all of these. So one example is thinking about self esteem,
which we put in the security cycle, which is part
of the base of our sailboat. Self esteem is generated

(12:25):
and we talk about healthy self esteem, but self esteem
develops through our development when we are children and implicitly
get the message that we are worthy and that we
are able to affect change in our environment. And that
often happens when we have love in our lives, which
is a higher order need in which we talk about

(12:46):
in the growth cycle. And often for many people, self
esteem isn't something that necessarily happens in isolation. It happens
from connection in the presence of other people. Self esteem.
It's easier to derive when we feel validation and love
from other people, or we feel like we're working towards
our purpose, which is another higher order need. So I

(13:10):
think it's important and it actually recapitulates the way we
can use this book. We don't suggest that anyone actually
read the book necessarily from start to finish, but that
they go through the first chapter and recognize where are
my unmet needs. And for some people, they may have
a ton of purpose in their life and they don't
necessarily feel safe in their relationship, or they have low

(13:33):
quality connections with neighbors and colleagues, although they are experiencing
a tremendous amount of exploration in their environment. So it's
not necessarily that we have to go sequentially to meet
all these needs. It's about understanding where we are in
relation to the needs and starting where we're most compelled
and most drawn. Beautifully put, yeah, I don't want people

(13:54):
to think about the hierarchy as an ordering of needs
that you must meet to some degree. The most important
aierarchy is the one between safety and growth, but within
the finally grain needs themselves. We really shouldn't look at
it as you're not allowed to address other needs until
certain are met. You can actually address multiple needs simultaneously.

(14:14):
That you can be extraordinarily poor and being an environment
that is full of violence and still get your needs
for connection met through community and through people working together
to make the community a better place and helping those
around you. Right, Like, I just don't understand the concept
of some of the ways people have taken Maslow's theory
and have corrupted it. So yeah, we want to make

(14:35):
that clear and why I'll still recognizing that there are
certain safety needs that are at the table too and
are extraordinary important and do become stronger and prominence the
more deprived they are. I want to bring up something, Scott,
that you discussed back in a podcast you did with
Sean Carroll, the physicist who also has been a guest
on our show, Great Guy. There was a short conversation

(14:57):
that you guys had that I want to take from.
You were speaking generally, and I'd actually like to take
it and bring it down more individually. You were talking
about the idea of this conflict between you as a
researcher and as sort of a clinician or a person,
and what you were saying was, sometimes you feel like
people say, well, we can't make that any better. Everything

(15:18):
we've tried to do to make that better hasn't worked,
and they almost say that gleefully, you know, and that
you're very much like, well, just because we haven't cracked
the code on how to make that better doesn't mean
we should stop trying. I want to take that from
a broad statement about psychology in general, and I'd love
to bring that down to the individual and I'd love
to talk about how, as individuals, even if we haven't

(15:41):
found the growth the healing that we want, the importance
of continuing to try different things. And so I'm wondering
if either of you have anything you'd like to kind
of say about that piece. I just saw a patient
a few minutes ago, and the conclusion that we came
to is that the most important word in her avocabulary
is the word yet, which is I don't believe this yet.

(16:06):
I haven't found the solution yet. This is someone who
has experienced trauma in her life, serious interpersonal violence, and
someone who is in extensive therapy, has been through extensive therapy,
and who is so deeply committed to getting better and
still struggles with the ability to believe validating things that

(16:29):
people are saying about her, the ability to not listen
to the own negative internal dialogue, and just by putting
that one word into her vocabulary, I don't believe you
yet that I am all of these things you're telling
me I am. It opens up a window of possibility
of hope. It shows us that there are still opportunities

(16:51):
to have that growth, and it puts the idea forth
that change can happen when we're so closed off to
the possibility that changes possible. Of course, it's not going
to happen because with all of these interventions, the belief
is so important. As a doctor, I prescribe medications all
the time, and I believe that the placebo effect is

(17:11):
incredibly important. If I have a patient who doesn't believe
that a medication is going to help them, the medication
probably won't help them. And I think the same is
true for behavioral interventions. Yeah, are you referring a little
bit maybe Ali crumbs work. Oh yes, I'm a huge
fan of alle crumbs work, me too for sure. Um yea.
The placebo effect and there is a really good point

(17:31):
there about being ready and open for growth. You can
go out and explore, but having the spirit of exploration
is also important. If you can go out and explore
and don't have the spirit of it, you know, it's
not good. You know. Sometimes I'm in a crabby mood
and I go out. I forced myself to explore, and
that doesn't often go well because I, like, I know,

(17:52):
I really just want to go home. I really don't
want to talk to people right now. So opening yourself
up to the spirit of exploration is super important as well,
and having the desire. I think it's so important. There's
a joke in my field, how many psychiatrists does it
take to turn in a light bulb. It's one, but
the light bulb has to really want to change. So
there has to be that degree of motivation present too.

(18:15):
We can't force this upon anybody. It really has to
be intrinsically motivated, I think in order for it to
be sustained. I'm recovering addict alcoholic and my time in
a every a A meeting ends the vast vast majority
of end by saying keep coming back, you know, And
I'm not saying you always keep coming back to a
you might want to try different things, but the spirit

(18:37):
of just because you haven't gotten this yet, to use
your word Jordan's, doesn't mean you won't, right. You know,
the idea of the belief is if you keep trying,
And that was certainly that my case with addiction, and
I've seen countless other people. It took multiple runs at
this before anything looking like lasting sobriety was achieved. And

(18:58):
so that word yet is really important, you know, the
belief that I can heal. I may not have cracked
the code yet, but I'll keep trying, and maybe not
trying the same thing every time, right, because that's the
definition of insanity. I'm curious, Eric, do you remember there
being a discreet or acute change in your experience between

(19:19):
sobriety and alcohol use or drug use or was it
more incremental gradual change. No, in my case, it was
not incremental or gradual. I ended up getting sober twice
once at twenty four from heroin addiction, and I had
a very low bottom. I was a homeless heroin addict,

(19:40):
and I went into inpatient treatment and then a halfway house.
So there was a very clear cut. Now I had
gone into impatient treatment before and it hadn't worked. And
then I stayed sober about eight years and I drank
again and a very similar thing. It was all of
a sudden. It was just like I had to sort
of cut it off. Although now that we mentioned it,
I think there were incremental steps along the way of trying.

(20:04):
You know, when I knew I had to get sober
the second time, I went to moderation management, which is
a program, and I was determined I was the best
moderation management student of all time because I did not
want to give up drinking. I was like, I have
got to figure this out because I know what the
answer is, which is abstinence, and I don't want that.
But in my case, that turned out to be what

(20:26):
the answer was. So there were incremental steps. There are
some people, I think, who walk in the door and
get sober immediately, but most people, even if they haven't
been actively seeking professional help or support help, have been
wrestling inside themselves for a long time. Well, maybe I
just won't drink on weekends. Maybe I'll just drink beer,

(20:47):
but not whiskey. We're wrestling with ourselves. So I do
think there is some measure of incremental change, even in
what looks like a sudden story. It's kind of like,
you know, you see somebody who's an overnight success, it's
just because you haven't seen what they were doing behind
the scenes all that time. Thank you for sharing that
with us. By the way, just hearing that speaks to
the fact and a big message throughout our book, and

(21:08):
that was in transcend is the idea that life is
not a video game. Once you unlock the path of sobriety,
it doesn't mean that it's just a clear cut path
to the future and no looking back, that that is
unlocked forever. Sometimes there's many steps back. So I think
this idea of learning from quote unquote failure and not

(21:34):
letting ourselves be so bogged down by the fear of
failure that through every experience there is wisdom to be learned.

(22:01):
I'd love to ask you guys, how you think about
an idea that was embedded in what you just said,
which is we can get so focused on growth that
we never are where we actually are. We always think
it's going to be when I heal this, when I
heal that, when I'm more confident talking to women, when
I'm all these things, and I know we talked about

(22:22):
the I'll be happy when story, and we talked about
it with external things, I'll be happy when I get
the right job, I'll be happy when I get But
we also do it with internal states, as if we're
going to arrive at a state that which life no
longer is difficult. I'm kind of curious how you guys
work on that, both in yourselves and in the people
that you work with. I got that a lot. I

(22:43):
get like, hey, can I ever take a break from growth?
Because it's exhausting. And so some growth experiences are growth
experiences in themselves, even though you're fully present in the
moment with them. So, for instance, we have lots of
exercise in our book for savoring for what we call
the Plato living living more in the being realm where

(23:05):
you are fully present and you are fully connecting. I
would make the case that some of the most profound
growth experiences in life come about when you're not intentionally
trying to change, but you're engaging in an experience where
you're being changed. Never put it like that before, but
I like it. I like it. I know I love that.

(23:28):
Scott next edition of the book, it's in there. Remember
that for our future interviews. Seriously, I felt this tension
really strongly when I was writing the book, because I
don't know, Scott, if you remember this, I probably texted
you a bunch of times like I love writing this
book and I need to go out and do the things,
like I was thinking about growth so much, and through

(23:50):
the process of writing and reading all the research and
collating the exercises, I was like, and I need to
go just live my life, like I'm spending all this
time thinking about growth, and not only do I want
to go out and actually do the things, I just
want to live and talk to others. And I find
that that was a real tension, and it was a challenge.

(24:11):
It was my first book I've ever written, and it
made it really hard, this tension of living and and
doing while also getting the work done. And I think
some of the growth that I've experienced through this journey
has really just been in talking about the work, not
even in doing the practices myself, but in hearing the
perspectives of others and being challenged in my own thoughts

(24:34):
when I would bring up a topic with someone else,
And yeah, I don't think growth is always necessarily something
that we go out like you said, Scott, and do actively.
It's also about the integration of all the stuff when
we're like lying in bed at night and all the
day residues are in our heads and we go to
sleep and sort of wake up feeling like, huh, I

(24:55):
feel a little bit different today. Yeah, that paradox is
embedded in a lot of areas that I spend time
a lot of contemplative type practices because you're doing them
for a reason. Right, You're not sitting down to meditate
without any reason. Right. We do things for reasons. And
yet during meditation, it seems that one of the biggest

(25:16):
blockers to having and I don't even like this word,
but I'll use it successful meditation is simply not trying
to achieve anything, you know, And so there's always that
sort of paradox. And I think that's what's really interesting here.
Sometimes we need the energy, you know, the desire for
growth to take us to the point where we start
to do some of the growth related things. And then

(25:38):
I think what you said, Scott is really important, which
is how do we let go enough that the experiences
that we're having actually are able to transform us. Because
if we take that same grasping spirit. There's an openness
we need to grow. I'm just constantly interested in striking
that right balance between those two energies. That one of
my best friend's weddings this weekend, and something that I

(26:01):
noticed was just dancing to live music and and losing myself,
getting so far out of my head and just into
my physical body, dancing and sweating and just not caring
about what I looked like. I was so in flow
dancing at this wedding. And we spend some one time

(26:22):
thinking about how to find ourselves and how to grow
and how to be so deliberate, and I think it's
so important to balance that with losing ourselves and having
those experiences where we are just fully experiencing something out
of our heads and more into our bodies. You know,
the interesting thing about losing yourself is that you haven't
lost yourself forever. There's a psycho pathology where you have

(26:45):
no idea who yourself is and who you are. I
mean a lot of people with borderline personality sort of
report not feeling like they have a basic sense of self.
In my research, I've tried to distinguish between healthy transcendence
and on healthy transcendence, and I think that kind of
losing oneself that Jordan's talking about. I have a whole

(27:06):
section in transcend where I try to, in a very
minutily fashion, try to distinguish the finer distinctions, what that
really means in the brain, what that really means when
that's happening. It's that I actually think what's happening in
those moments is, yes, you're not so self focused, but
there's still is a really deep, deep connection between yourself

(27:27):
and the world. And I think that the self still
matters in that moment, even if you're not being consciously
aware of it. You know, you may have lost your
attention on your self focus because it's so integrated with
the world. But for me, healthy transcendence is one where
you haven't completely lost yourself and you also haven't completely

(27:48):
lost the world, but the two are fused in a
oneness sort of way. To me, it's an important level
of nuance that I don't see discussed even in some
of Buddhist discussions about this kind of stuff. I know
you're not allowed to ever criticize the Buddhist they're perfect,
but I think that's so important, and I actually think
as you said, being able to lose yourself in that

(28:09):
way temporarily is actually contingent upon having a very strong
sense of self. As I was having this revelation, then
I was observing people around me and looking at who
else was losing themselves. And I think that I know
a lot of people who may have some of those
inter receptive difficulties as we see in borderline personality disorder,

(28:31):
who lack a clear sense of self, and we can
unpack what that really means further, who have a lot
of difficulty accessing that temporary loss of self, because if
you don't know who you are in the first place,
it can feel incredibly destabilizing to put yourself in situations
where you may become further unable to feel where you are,

(28:53):
or to have that deliberate loss of self consciousness. Wonderful,
wonderful changing direction to slight bit there. In your section
on healthy transcendence, you talk about a lot of people
these days are striving towards transcendence, but are doing so
without first building a healthy foundation, which is kind of
what we're speaking to here, is that there are some

(29:15):
elements of a healthy self that can be very helpful
in eventually getting to the point where we're able to
let go of that self a little bit more or
be less focused on it. In that section of the book,
you say that in healthy transcendence, we don't choose ourselves
over others, and we don't choose others over ourselves. There's
a harmonious integration between self and world. Yeah, yeah, absolutely,

(29:39):
you know. I'm also just wondering if there's an important
distinction to be made between self and being, you know,
sort of pure being. Maslow talked about the state of
pure being and how that's what happens when you're in
a peak experience, and I've been trying to understand what
that means exactly from a scientific point of view. How
can we measure what not someone's in the state of

(29:59):
pure being or not? And I think some of it
is not being focused on your self representations, um not
being focused on yourself critical feedback about what's happening in
the moment, like oh, what I'm doing is awkward or
this is wrong, or I'm wrong or I'm bad, you know,
So the self critical part reflecting on the system aren't active.

(30:21):
And I think that's why psychedelics is so helpful for
so many people. To tap into their pure being because
you don't have the self critical facilities when you're in
a psychedelic trip, is what I hear at least, what
does that mean? It t happen to pure being? And
what I think is beautiful is that so many people
describe that when they're in pure being, like they all

(30:42):
describe love, a sense of oneness, and a sense of peace.
And I think there's something really, really deeply profound here.
I'm trying to scientifically understand, but I think there's a
deep truth about what it means to feel God. Even
if you don't believe in God, I believe there is
the experience of God. You're wandering into territory that I
think about an awful lot, because we talk about self

(31:06):
in so many different ways and we mean so many
different things by it. My experience of having had a
few what we would consider sort of classic mystical type
experiences where any sense of separation between me and anything
else like truly vanished. It was less that there was
no self present, It was more that everything was self.

(31:31):
Normally what we feel, at least for me, normally, what
I feel most connected to is me and what I
want In these experiences. It was the difference between me
and the other things wasn't really there. The tree felt
as important as Eric felt in that moment. But what
I think is totally fascinating is I think there are

(31:52):
layers of this, of shedding layers of self, and how
am I moving closer to my true self, which is
still my individual weight itself? And then this sort of
pure being and what is my individuated self because it's
certainly deeply conditioned, you know, it's deeply conditioned by all
my experiences. So if I were to strip those experiences away,

(32:14):
these topics get very heavy, very quickly, but I find
them fascinating. What we're talking about right now is probably
the first foremost on my mind right now, um in life.
I just constantly meditate on it and try to figure
out how I can recalibrate myself. So I'm in deeply
touch with And then the question is what, what with?
What what am I talking about? But there it's something,

(32:37):
There is something within me and I think within everyone
that when you can quiet everything else around you, you
can quiet the social media, you can quiet all the
influences of other people on you, and you get in
touch with something that is so uniquely you as unique
creative potential. It makes you feel alive if you can

(32:58):
get in touch with that. I do think you are
getting in touch with the potentiality for a real calling
that only you can answer. And uh, I don't know
if this sounds too oprah at this point, but I
really do believe this to be true. It's so interesting
because the way that you're describing the dissolution of self
consciousness that for me, hearkens the flow state, which requires

(33:22):
a certain amount of expertise and ability to meet a challenge.
So I think it's hard to find that in areas
where we haven't yet cultivated some high degree of mastery.
I suppose that that could certainly unlock new potentials in
the area in which we've already like had this optimal

(33:42):
balance of skill and challenge. But are you referring to
like brand new potentiality, Scott, or are these born out
of areas where we already have some degree of excellence
or ordered psychic energy. Well, I do think talent is
a thing. I think that we have some potentialities. They
grow greater greater than other potentialities. My full potentiality for

(34:07):
NBA basketball playing isn't as wide in scope as Lebron James's,
you know, and getting in touch with um which lanes
we can really make a real contribution to the world.
And if we put our heart and soul into it,
if we get into the flow state, if we have grit.
It takes a lot. I mean, I'm not saying it's
easy to fully realize our potentials, but part of the

(34:30):
self actualation process is getting in touch with those potentials
to begin with, and to really get get clear on
what they are. Humans aren't born with a manual that
tells you all of your genes and what you're capable
of if you mix and match certan genes with certain environments.
Were in the dark. We're in the dark about all that.
That's the process of creating ourselves and discovering ourselves and

(34:54):
what we're capable of is through that interaction between us
and the environment and real rising. Wow, I really can
make a huge, huge difference if I go in this
direction versus if I go in this direction, maybe I'm
purely having hedonistic pleasures, But am I making a big contribution?
You know? And being able to sort all of that

(35:14):
out and commit to certain directions to me, I just
see as part of the transcender journey and then meeting
the practical concerns of our environments and the needs that
we have to contribute to our communities and our families,
and how we can actually support people, which I know,
Scott is part of your vision is supporting young people
in their journey from very early on in life to

(35:38):
figure out and to get on some of those paths.
I think, Scott, we struggle with this, is transcendence an
equitable resource in our current world? And how do we
make it more equitable? And I think the practices in
our book are totally accessible to anyone wherever they are

(35:58):
coming from. And I think that we also recognize that
the ability to grow can be easier for some than others,
just based on their circumstances and the very real practical
realities of life. You talk about character strengths, and you

(36:39):
also talk about finding values and purpose, because I think
what we're trying to find out is what is my
unique stamp, what is my ability to contribute based on
Some things are going to be external, my family of origin,
where I live, my financial situation. Some things are going
to be internal, my genetic makeup. Some things are going

(37:01):
to be the conditions I've had, But how do I
start to puzzle out what that is what's important to me?
And I wanted to talk about strengths for a second,
because you guys talk about strengths and there's something that
I love. I think you're quoting somebody else, but it's
a really important idea, and you're talking about character strengths,
and you say that talent can be squandered, skills can diminish,

(37:24):
and resources can be lost, but strengths crystallize and evolve
and can integrate with these other positive qualities to contribute
to the greater good. So share a little bit about
why character strength is such an important piece in this book.
That question. That is Ryan Nemick, by the way, that
comes from his amazing book Mindfulness and Character Strength. So

(37:47):
we need to give him credit. He is like the
strength mastermind. He's at VIA Institute in Cincinnati, Ohio, which
is a physical place and a robust online resource with
lots of educational programming. And there's actually an inventory that
we refer to in the book and we list the
twenty four character strengths that VIA has outlined. It was

(38:10):
one of the earliest projects in positive psychology to outline
these strengths of character that have been observed in all
people in all cultures across the world. And the idea
is that with a few pathological exceptions, we all have
all of these character strengths in different compositions and perhaps
two different degrees, but we all have all of them,

(38:34):
and they can vary, and we can use different ones
across different settings and times and developmental stages of our lives.
But our character strengths, and especially the signature strengths, those
few strengths that really are fundamental to who we are,
that if they were taken away from us, we would
not be us. That when we use those, they're like

(38:54):
our superpowers. They are human superpowers that help us connect
with others, achieve our goals, engage in the world. And
like any superpower, there can be too much of a
good thing. It's not like we just want to slap
these on to everything that we do in our lives
in every way and discriminately. That there is this golden
mean of strengths and we should use them deliberately and mindfully,

(39:18):
which is the whole goal of Ryan's last book is
how to how to mindfully use our character strengths, but
that when we can tap into these, I think that
is one very potent, potential pathway to do exactly what
Scott is talking about, which is to find our path
and live our potential. Yeah. I really like that, And
I want to be clear that when we talk strengths, yeah,
I didn't just mean talents. I do mean aspects of

(39:41):
our character as well can be great seeds for making
a real contribution in the world. Even just realizing like
maybe humor, maybe humor is your strength. That happens to
me one of my top three for people who are
of humor is one of their top strengths. They use
it to diffuse tense situations. They can use it to

(40:02):
create world peace. Never underestimate how much your aspects of
your character can china light in the world. I love
that part of the book because you guys said that,
you know, one of the ways that people respond to
whether it be doing the exercise in your book or
taking the test online from via, is they get their strengths.
But then we tend to sort of soft pedal. I'm like, well, yeah,

(40:24):
but everybody's funny. You know, everybody has a sense of
humor and no, no, that is clearly not true. But
you talk about really learning to sort of step into
those and you know, embrace them. You should see the
Character Strengths Classic Columbia, the section we do in character Strengths,
and I run through each one and asked the students
to raise their hand, and they're so proud of their characters,

(40:45):
their top strength. I said, who in the class whose
top strength is love? And they're like me, me, you know,
like and um, well that could just be the you know,
college students. But there's a great sense of excitement and
uh and revealing to others what is your top strength.
It's also just so antithetical to the way we normally

(41:05):
think about ourselves. I mean, the way I think the
average human being thinks about themselves is probably not in
terms of what they're great at. In character. They may
think about talents or skills, and I would bet that
most often they're thinking about what they can work on
and what their weaknesses are, because that is how we're wired.
That's the negativity bias, the vestigial gift of our evolution.

(41:28):
And I'm joking when I call it a gift, because
it really taints the way we think and focuses us
to think about what's wrong with us, and I do
the same thing Scott. With medical students and residents. We
spot strengths in one another, and after we do this exercise,
I swear the class it's a different energy altogether. So

(41:51):
often and in medicine and in psychology, we're focused on
characterizing a chief complaint and dissecting every dimension of what's
wrong with someone. And then when we can bring character
strengths in the discussion, that offers a path forward to
how we can actually not just use what's right with us,
but how we can start to adroitly move up those

(42:13):
lower strengths or start to improve a weakness by using
our top strength. So you know, maybe self regulation is
something that someone struggles with, and if love is a
top character strength, how can we use love and connection
to bolster self regulation and physical activity? For example, do

(42:33):
it with another person, get an accountability partner. So I
love strengths because they help shine a light on how
we can improve the things that the humans naturally default to,
which is thinking about the things that aren't so great
about us. Slight pivot from strengths is values and purpose.
I love this section your book I've got a program
called Spiritual Habits and you can go through one level.

(42:55):
Level two is a Circle of Connection, and we spend
a lot of time working on values and you know,
going through a lot of different ways of looking at values.
I'm curious for you, guys, what are some of the
best ways you think for people to elicit what is
most important to them, what matters most of them. Well,
I think, as we talk about in the book, when

(43:18):
we've worked together to co teach and teaching Scott's online
Transcend course, what I'm most shocked by is how few
people have ever been encouraged to even think about this
question of what matters most to me? Given how important
our values are in guiding our behavior and our decisions,
it's bananas that it's not something that's necessarily on the

(43:40):
top of our minds every day. So the question is
so important because I think it's so important to get
people to think about their values, to understand their behaviors,
and to understand how to live more deliberately in line
with those things that actually do matter to them, rather
than being on autopilot sort of going through the day
to day slog of life. So I love the Shalom

(44:01):
Schwartz is nineteen values that we depict in our book
in the in the Circular Wheel, because that model shows
how values can be related to each other and can
sometimes conflict with one another or complement each other and
lead to entra personal conflict, conflict within our own selves
when they're contrasting values that we hold that maybe guiding

(44:24):
behavior and causing some some psychic conflict. And then when
we think about the last time we were really mad
or had really strong negative feelings about something, it's probably
because one of our deeply held values was violated in
some way. So I love thinking about how values that
oppose each other can cause both intrapersonal and interpersonal conflict.

(44:46):
Another thing I like to do is just show people
a list of values. I think we do this in
the book, and I've seen this done in cognitive behavioral
therapy and and DBT exercises where people just see a
list of values and they can sort of look their
it and be like, yeah, like this is so important
to me, and we realize how many things we value,
and then when we try to consolidate and condense that

(45:07):
to maybe a top five or even a top three,
if that can be done. What we encourage folks to
do is to define what the value means, because you know,
maybe family is a value or connection, but those things
can mean different things for different people. And then think
about how are we living by that value every day
or even every week, and how can we close the

(45:31):
gap between the way we are currently living and the
value that we hold. That's what we encourage folks to do,
and I've I've done this with medical students over the years,
and I think it's really awesome. Yes, And sometimes by
understanding that some things in life do conflict and don't
need to be integrated, the legit conflict allows us to

(45:52):
say no to things that are not in our priority
list so that we can make room for the things
that are in our priority list. There are a lot
of people who might feel guilt and saying no to
some things because someone else is so excited about it.
But if you're not so excited about it, if it's
not a hell yes for you, you know you have
a right to honor that within your soul. I love that.

(46:15):
So my last question is directed primarily to you Jordan's
but Scott of course had love to have you pipe in.
But Jordan a lot of your work, as I understand
it listening to you on another podcasts, has been working
with medical professionals on how they take care of themselves.
And so I want to tie this to purpose because

(46:36):
we talked about how important purposes. And I'm not going
to say this is the case for everybody, but I
would imagine that a lot of people who have gone
through medical school and have become doctors did that because
of a sense of purpose. We also know that the
environments we find ourselves in, the situations we find ourselves in,
the circumstances we find ourselves in, often grind that purpose

(47:01):
down until intellectually I might go, well, I became a
doctor because I care about helping people, but there's no
emotional spark to that at all anymore. What are ways
of either reconnecting with that purpose, rekindling that purpose, or
concluding that indeed, that purpose is no longer the right
purpose for us and it's time to pivot. And I

(47:23):
know that's a big question, but Eric, that's exactly right.
And I think we choose to go into health care
for exactly that, to have a career that is inherently purposeful.
And the same is true for psychology and teaching and
so many fields, and exactly what you said. I think
the process, the education, the getting cultured into the field

(47:45):
wears down some of our empathy because the day to
day work just becomes so bereft of the emotional content,
such that if we felt everything that our patients were feeling,
we wouldn't be able to do the job in the
first place. Then we go home exhausted, don't want to
talk about it. I literally had this conversation with my
husband who's also in healthcare, at our dinner table last night,

(48:06):
and he was actually telling me what a great day
he had because he had such a purposeful day. He
was really thinking about the human being and how much
easier it was for him to do that and feel
the purpose when things were going well in the job.
He was actually successful, he was combating some of the
inefficiencies in the system. He was actually able to do
what he needed to do for his patients, and that

(48:27):
felt purposeful. But so often that is the exception to
the rule rather than the norm, because the system is
just there are so many problems. So what I talk
about is doctors and training practicing physicians, how do we
reflect on the day and think about how you made
an impact today in your work, in another person's life.

(48:48):
Maybe it's not something that you think about in the moment,
but retrospectively at the end of the day, similar to
the three good things exercise of reflecting on three good
things that happen, what are three ways that you enacted
your sense of purpose today? And also remembering that as
health care workers, we are also human beings again, with
a multitude of drives and interests and passions, and that

(49:11):
we can connect with our sense of purpose outside of
work as well, So thinking about how to nurture those
other facets of ourselves to find meaning and flow and
not just requiring us to get all of that meaning
in our work, and remembering we are human beings and
sometimes it can be really hard. I'm not going to

(49:32):
feel that I'm capping out on my sense of meaning
and purpose every single day at work, but that it's
a deliberate process of connecting and reconnecting with the things
that do matter to us and also finding it elsewhere.
Anything you'd like to add to that, Scott, No, I
just want to honor Jordan there enter spearheading this field
positive medicine. I think so important. It's going to really

(49:55):
revolutionize the health care industry because it honors that we're
more just our bodies. Yeah, it's so important. I really
admire the work that you're doing there as well. Jordan's well, Scott, Jordan's.
It has been a pleasure to have you on Scott,
A pleasure to see you again, Jordan's pleasure to meet
you for the first time. I really really have appreciated

(50:15):
this conversation and thank you. Thank you, Eric. I'm a
big fan of yours and uh, I love your way
of being. I almost wish we could talk more and
hang out more. Me too. If what you just heard

(50:42):
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Eric Zimmer

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