Episode 465: Dr. Scott Barry Kaufman: Why Everyone's Playing Victim (And How to Stop)

Are we living in a victim culture? Cognitive psychologist Scott Barry Kaufman thinks so - and his new book "Rise Above" is the antidote we desperately need. In this Habits and Hustle episode, Scott and I dive into what separates those who rise above their circumstances from those who stay stuck. We discuss the difference between being victimized and having a victim mindset, explain why vulnerable narcissism is worse than grandiose narcissism, and reveal how "affirming therapy" might actually be keeping people trapped. Plus, Kaufman shares his sailboat model of self-actualization and why psychological flexibility is the key to resilience. Scott Barry Kaufman is a cognitive psychologist, author, and podcaster who teaches at Columbia University. His research focuses on intelligence, creativity, and human potential. He's the author of several books including "Ungifted" and runs the Center for Human Potential coaching program. What We Discuss: (01:00) Self-Actualization and Overcoming Victim Mindset (10:05) The Complexity of Narcissism Mindset (14:37) Rise Above (29:40) Understanding Victim Mindset and Toxic Activism (37:49) Left-Wing Authoritarianism and Victim Mindset (44:45) Therapy Trends and Personal Growth (52:34) The Psychology of Polarization and Shame (58:52) Cultivating Psychological Flexibility and Identity Evolution (01:08:41) The Importance of Curiosity in Intelligence …and more! Thank you to our sponsors: Momentous: Shop this link https://www.livemomentous.com/?srsltid=AfmBOorDUIZz3psr1Qsq_n1yE8_6JTq_QUFabOO9lH65HDEXCIoJOPLj and use code Jen for 20% off Therasage: Head over to therasage.com http://therasage.com/ and use code Be Bold for 15% off TruNiagen: Head over to truniagen.com http://truniagen.com/ and use code HUSTLE20 to get $20 off any purchase over $100. Magic Mind: Head over to www http://www/.magicmind.com http://magicmind.com//jen and use code Jen at checkout. Bio.me: Link to daily prebiotic fiber here https://bio.me/?utm_source=Jennifer, code Jennifer20 for 20% off. David: Buy 4, get the 5th free at davidprotein.com/habitsandhustle http://davidprotein.com/habitsandhustle. Find more from Jen: Website: https://www.jennifercohen.com/ Instagram: @therealjencohen Books: https://www.jennifercohen.com/books Speaking: https://www.jennifercohen.com/speaking-engagement Find more from Dr. Scott Barry Kaufman: Website: https://scottbarrykaufman.com/ Instagram: @scottbarrykaufman https://www.instagram.com/scottbarrykaufman/?hl=en

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:01Speaker 00

  Hi guys, this is Tony Robbins. You're listening to Habits and Hustle. Crush it.

• 0:10Jen Cohen?

  Before we dive into today's episode, I first want to thank our sponsor Therasage. Their Trillight Panel has become my favorite biohacking thing for healing my body. It's a portable red light panel that I simply cannot live without. I literally bring it with me everywhere I go. And I personally use their red light therapy to help reduce inflammations in places in my body where honestly, I have pain. You can use it on a sore back, stomach cramps, shoulder, ankle. Red light therapy is my go-to. Plus, it also has amazing anti-aging benefits, including reducing signs of fine lines and wrinkles on your face, which I also use it for.

• 0:52Jen Cohen?

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• 1:46Jen Cohen?

  Okay, so today, we have somebody that I've been trying to get on for a long time. I don't know if you've known, if you know that or not.

• 1:53Speaker 02

  I didn't know that.

• 1:54Jen Cohen?

  Okay, it's Scott Barry Kaufman. He's a cognitive psychologist.

• 1:59Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:59Jen Cohen?

  His work is just really good. I don't even know how well, in so many ways, he talks about, I said that when he walked in, about different types of intelligence, self-actualization. He, and the way you break things down. I think is very, very like it, it very good to the point where I it, you, you take something complicated and you can break it down in a simplistic way.

• 2:23Speaker 02

  I try, I try. I'm also really nerdy though, so it's.

• 2:27Jen Cohen?

  Well.

• 2:27Speaker 02

  It's, uh.

• 2:28Jen Cohen?

  It's okay.

• 2:28Speaker 02

  You know, but I definitely try to do exactly what you just said. So, thank you.

• 2:32Jen Cohen?

  It's working. Scott's new book is called Rise Above, Overcome a Victim Mindset, Empower Yourself, and Realize Your Full Potential. And like I said, like if you have not read any of his books, this one also did not disappoint. So again.

• 2:48Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:49Jen Cohen?

  Thank you for being here today.

• 2:51Speaker 02

  Yeah, it's a real honor. It's a real honor. I, I had no idea you've, you've wanted me on for so long.

• 2:56Jen Cohen?

  I, I, I really did because there's, you know, the thing is, social media is a funny thing and a funny place, right? And you know, what, when you, for what I do especially, you meet a lot of people, you read a lot of things and it's very, there's a lot of noise. So there are only like, for me anyway, there's a few people that really stand out and you've been one of them.

• 3:15Speaker 02

  Wow.

• 3:16Jen Cohen?

  And I really like, I'm not just saying this because we're on a podcast and I'm, and you're a guest in my show, but I really do, it resonates, your stuff resonates with me and I think it's, I think it's great. So.

• 3:28Speaker 02

  Cool.

• 3:28Jen Cohen?

  Yeah. I want to start with something that you've talked about a lot, which is self-actualization. And I just want to start off and open the podcast with how does somebody self-actualize?

• 3:43Speaker 02

  Hmm. Wow. What a big question.

• 3:45Jen Cohen?

  I know. And that's why I was like, that's why I said it's a big question to start with. And normally I kind of like ease into it.

• 3:51Speaker 02

  Let me say this, um, because I teach a course at Columbia University called The Science of Living Well. And to me, living well is self-actualizing. So I kind of view them as very similar things. And I will say that there is no protocol to self-actualization. So I'm sorry for those, I just pissed off a bunch of bros.

• 4:09Jen Cohen?

  No, no, no.

• 4:11Speaker 02

  You can't optimize.

• 4:13Jen Cohen?

  You can't optimize.

• 4:13Speaker 02

  Self-actualization, you know, and I just wanted to start off there because I really believe in order to self-actualize, you and only you can walk that path. Only you can understand and figure out what is the bridge that you want to take? What bridge do you want to even create, you know? And that really takes a lot of listening to the deepest recesses of your soul. It takes a lot of really trusting yourself and listening to what I call self-actualizing compass that I think each one of us has. But there is no podcast guru that is going to tell you how to self-actualize. So I really want to answer that question in that way. But we can help people, you know, and move in their own direction that's best for them, you know? As a self-actualization coach, I'm a self-actualization coach.

• 4:56Speaker 02

  I'm really, I want to help people move in the direction that is best suited for them and discover what are, what are the direction? What is the direction best suited for them? That we can help with.

• 5:06Jen Cohen?

  So this is why I wanted to start off with that, that question because you, in my opinion, you kind of self-actualize. I feel, you know, it's true. And I kind of feel I did the same thing, you know? You talk a lot even about in your new book, Rise Above, you talk about how, you know, sometimes we can get pigeonholed into doing something and then it gets, and I don't know which, which part of the book you talk about this, but then it's really taking the onus on ourselves to break free from that and then do more and, and, and action.

• 5:36Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 5:37Jen Cohen?

  And can you just talk a little bit about that whole thing and how you self-actualize? And that's why I think you're such a good example of what happened with you and how you were in special, in a special ed program.

• 5:49Speaker 02

  Yeah, when I was really young, I really didn't have much people, many people believe in me. And I was in special ed for an auditory disability that I had. And there was a teacher that took me aside in ninth grade and she said, what are you still doing here? And she saw a higher potential in me that I didn't see in myself. But it really like set off this, this whole drive to kind of show people and myself what I was capable of. And I think a lot of self-actualization is trusting that inner recesses of your soul. I really think there's something there, you know? There's something to not being a victim of your, not, not, not having a victim mindset, but turning within.

• 6:31Speaker 02

  And really focusing your limited energy you have on this time, on this planet, really actualizing what's within you. It breaks my heart to see how many people waste so much of this precious life that we've all been given through petty resentment, hostility, jealousy, trying to take others down. It breaks my heart because what I see in those people is a real squandering of their potential. Does that make sense?

• 7:00Jen Cohen?

  It makes a lot of sense, and that's what you talk about. It's like, how, but, so, would it, can you just maybe define what is a victim mindset? So people listening, maybe they'll be like, aha, maybe that is what I'm doing.

• 7:11Speaker 02

  Absolutely. It's possible to have been victimized and not have a victim mindset. I want to make that very clear. It's, it's possible, you know, we, we go through horrible things in our lives, you know? And, and when you have a victim mindset, you're blaming all of your problems, your current problems on some external force, whether it's an individual or it's a group of people. And you don't have productive ways of moving forward with your life with purpose and intention, because you spend so much of your time planning revenge and planning sort of some way to get back at the world that has wronged you. And so that's a victim mindset. And I really do contrast that from what I call an empowerment mindset.

• 7:53Speaker 02

  And empowerment mindset is not ignoring the terrible things that have happened to us. It's a very, have you ever done improv?

• 8:00Jen Cohen?

  I haven't, but I mean, I, I, I haven't, but I know what you're going to say.

• 8:05Speaker 02

  Yeah, I know. You need to be, yes, and.

• 8:07Jen Cohen?

  Yes, and.

• 8:07Speaker 02

  Yes, you've, you've been through some terrible things in your life. And I believe in your greater potential for growth and development and resilience. We all have a lot more resilience within us than we realize. Often, unfortunately, it takes being really tested, you know, before we realize that. But let's not wait till we're tested.

• 8:28Jen Cohen?

  Well, I find it's also, some people are, they don't have the self-awareness to even know that they are in this victim mindset loop, right?

• 8:37Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 8:38Jen Cohen?

  And it's, you know, people from the outside looking, looking at that person can say, look at that, you know, that's what they're doing. How do you overcome a victim mindset? And I guess it's a two-parter. How do you even have self-awareness enough to even know that you're in this victim mindset?

• 8:56Speaker 02

  Oh, self-awareness takes a lot of meditation, takes a lot of patience and discussions and feedback. You're not going to get that feedback unless you put yourself out there on the line to fail and put yourself out there to face your fears. I'm a big believer in behavioral activation, that approach to self-awareness, you know, where the best way to become self-aware is to have it reflected back to you, even in a painful way, you know? For instance, I've recently taken up magic, you know, I became a professional mentalist in the last year.

• 9:33Jen Cohen?

  You did?

• 9:33Speaker 02

  Yeah, I read people's minds. And so I go out, you know, to restaurants and whatever. Sometimes just for fun, I'll go to bars and read people's minds and go, hey, can I read your mind? You know, and then we do that. And sometimes I get horribly rejected, you know, some people are just not interested. They don't know what's going on. They're not into it. And it's totally fine, you know, and being able to handle rejection, but still, you know, get feedback and, you know, because I want to be good.

• 10:00Jen Cohen?

  Right.

• 10:01Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 10:01Jen Cohen?

  And so, you know, a couple of things. First of all, I want you to kind of read my mind, which I'm going to ask you about in two seconds. But yeah, I think I'm a big believer in that, right? Like, I think that we learn from our failures, right?

• 10:11Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 10:12Jen Cohen?

  And the only way to get comfortable with failure is to fail.

• 10:15Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 10:15Jen Cohen?

  Right? We're not going to like, get comfortable or desensitize with it if we don't ever do it, you know? That's why I believe like, sometimes like, being mediocre is actually the best thing that could have happened. Because, you know, A, there's not, like, you'll always fall and you'll, they'll never, ever, you know, like, you don't have that same kind of pressure on you. So, but that's how you build resilience, in my opinion, right?

• 10:38Speaker 02

  Absolutely. Yeah, it sounds like you, you got the habits.

• 10:42Jen Cohen?

  I got the habits. But wait, so could you really read my mind right now?

• 10:46Speaker 02

  Oh, well, maybe later I'll do.

• 10:48Jen Cohen?

  Could you, but how do you even go to school for that?

• 10:50Speaker 02

  I don't want to, I want to stay in this frame of frame before.

• 10:53Jen Cohen?

  No, no, for sure. But I was just wondering, like, is it something that you can actually learn? I thought it's something that either people either have innately or they don't. You go to school for that?

• 11:01Speaker 02

  Yeah, you can train. Yeah, I have mentors that have taken me under their wing.

• 11:07Jen Cohen?

  I love that. That's great. You also say something that's very, I saw in the book that I found very interesting, was like, over-medicalizing natural human behaviors and over-labeling.

• 11:17Speaker 02

  It's kind of a pet peeve of mine.

• 11:18Jen Cohen?

  Yeah.

• 11:19Speaker 02

  Yeah, TikTok therapy is a thing.

• 11:21Jen Cohen?

  It's a huge thing. Like words like, you know, what's happening is we're like, everyone's in a trauma mode. Everything is like, there's hashtags and trends and then people just kind of like narcissism is a big label, you know, people, you know, they find something that kind of um tracks and then they glom onto it and that becomes your thing, right?

• 11:41Speaker 02

  Trauma, yeah, well, yes, yes, this is true. People take, you know, psychology, language, diagnoses, even narcissism. Now everyone's ex-boyfriend is a narcissist?

• 11:50Jen Cohen?

  Mm hmm.

• 11:51Speaker 02

  I don't know how everyone's ex-boyfriend can be a narcissist.

• 11:53Jen Cohen?

  Right, it's a lot of narcissists, right.

• 11:55Speaker 02

  Certainly some of them. But, you know, there, there, we, we call people, you know, things, people we don't like, we call them psychopaths, narcissists, we, everything that is uncomfortable to us, we now say it's because of our trauma, you know? You know, things like trauma, it exists, uh, but it's not, it's not everything. Uh, it's also, humans are so complex, it's hard to um reduce everything to that one thing that happened to us when we were five, you know? There are so many reasons and things that have formed who we are today.

• 12:26Jen Cohen?

  Well narcissism is a big one, right?

• 12:28Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah.

• 12:29Jen Cohen?

  It's a very popular one. There's a lot, and you talk about narcissism a lot in this book. There's like, you talk about like vulnerable narcissism and there's like, what is vulnerable narcissism?

• 12:40Speaker 02

  Vulnerable narcissism is feeling justified as special privileges because you've suffered in the past. Not necessarily that you're superior to others, that's grandiose narcissism, but because you've suffered in the past.

• 12:53Jen Cohen?

  What percentage of people actually have narcissistic qualities? Like, is it a big percentage? Because we're talking about how everybody now is a narcissist and this narcissism, is there like, is, is?

• 13:04Speaker 02

  It's a continuum.

• 13:04Jen Cohen?

  It's a continuum, right?

• 13:05Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 13:06Jen Cohen?

  Like, we, we can be narcissistic and be a nice person, right? Like, it not just one thing doesn't always automatically mean another thing.

• 13:14Speaker 02

  That's right. It's like any personality variation. You ask me, what percentage of the population are introverts? Well, we all go in and out of this. I actually like to think of it more as a mindset. Like victim, the victim mindset is a mindset. It's a dynamic mindset that all of us can fall prey to. You know narcissism is a mindset as well. Some people do habitually score high in vulnerable narcissism. That's true. But there is no demarcation line between the vulnerable narcissist and the non-vulnerable narcissist. Cause we're all human.

• 13:46Jen Cohen?

  Right, right. But there's what, but is there one kind that's more like the good, the good kind? Is there a good type versus like?

• 13:54Speaker 02

  If I had to choose one type of narcissism, I would rather be a grandiose narcissist than a vulnerable narcissist. That is true.

• 14:01Jen Cohen?

  Really? Why?

• 14:03Speaker 02

  Grandiose narcissism is associated with leadership skills. It's associated with greater well-being, even if you don't increase the well-being of others, you're still.

• 14:14Jen Cohen?

  That's like a lot of entrepreneurs are narcissists.

• 14:17Speaker 02

  Oh, a hundred percent.

• 14:18Jen Cohen?

  Right?

• 14:18Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah. And we actually have a study we just published showing we may need to rethink grandiose narcissism. Because we found a profile of people who score high in grandiose narcissism, but low in vulnerable narcissism. And those individuals seem, there seems to be no downside to it.

• 14:36Jen Cohen?

  Really?

• 14:36Speaker 02

  Yeah, we probably don't want to believe that because we like to believe that, you know, they come, they get their comeuppance because they're so full of themselves. But there really seems to be a lot of benefits of having such self-belief in yourself.

• 14:48Jen Cohen?

  Well, I think you have to be a little bit narcissistic to even to, to go after big dreams, right? And to take risks, right?

• 14:56Speaker 02

  Yeah, I think so. And a lot of it is dependent on your, your field, right? So if you're an NBA basketball player.

• 15:05Jen Cohen?

  Right.

• 15:06Speaker 02

  And you show some grandiose narcissism, your fans love you.

• 15:09Jen Cohen?

  Mm hmm. That's true. But if you're an accountant, probably not so much, right?

• 15:13Speaker 02

  You don't want to puffed up or sell his flying airplane. He was overconfident.

• 15:19Jen Cohen?

  Yeah.

• 15:19Speaker 02

  We can deal with some overconfidence here and there with an NBA player, but.

• 15:22Jen Cohen?

  Also a brain surgeon. I want my, I want my brain surgeon to have that too.

• 15:26Speaker 02

  Sure. So I think it's contextual too.

• 15:28Jen Cohen?

  It is contextual. What about, you're saying about the vulnerable nar- why would you not want to be a vulnerable narcissist?

• 15:35Speaker 02

  Oh, well, it's associated with depression. It's associated with constant self-esteem uncertainty. People who score very high in vulnerable narcissism are constantly unsure of who they are. And they need constant, not necessarily praise, but they need constant acceptance. If they're rejected or even the slightest hint of rejection, they fall into pieces.

• 15:56Jen Cohen?

  So let me, why did you decide to write this book now? Like, why Rise Above Now? You wrote Transcend. Was there something like, did you, were you seeing a lot of people in like the, in the zeitgeist with victim mindsets with what was happening? Like, what was the kind of like the reason why you were kind of swaying towards this?

• 16:13Speaker 02

  I did feel a need. It's exciting to see that, by the way.

• 16:16Jen Cohen?

  Yeah, is it?

• 16:16Speaker 02

  Yeah. You put your heart and soul into something for so long and then you see it come to fruition. Um, I did think that it, um, was really, uh, in the culture, a victimhood culture that we're living in right now. Um, Jean Twenge, who wrote the book Generations, talks about, you know, there, the, two generations ago, we had, um, kids. I forget what that was, generation what? But, uh, if we, if we not, not this generation, not the last generation, but the generation before that.

• 16:44Jen Cohen?

  Gen X?

• 16:46Speaker 02

  In the eight, they grew up in the eighties and nineties.

• 16:48Jen Cohen?

  That's me. No, millennials is after, generation X.

• 16:53Speaker 02

  Generation X, I think it's, there's like confusion about whether or not.

• 16:57Jen Cohen?

  Tell me a check?

• 16:57Speaker 02

  No, that's okay. Whatever you are and me, and me, I think we're the same age.

• 17:02Jen Cohen?

  Okay. Well, I don't know. How old are you?

• 17:03Speaker 02

  You tell me first.

• 17:04Jen Cohen?

  I know. You tell me for, you don't want to say that to me. You may be kicked off the show. If you say you're 64, we're in big trouble.

• 17:11Speaker 02

  I'm 45.

• 17:12Jen Cohen?

  Okay, good. Yeah, we're, yeah. So then basically we're, I think we're called, we're, um, Gen X.

• 17:17Speaker 02

  Okay. Gen Xers are all about, uh, and then, and as well as the one that came before them, we're really about self, the self-esteem movement, you know?

• 17:25Jen Cohen?

  Hmm.

• 17:26Speaker 02

  Um, you know, when you think about Saturday Night Live, like, I'm good enough. I'm strong enough. God darn it. People like me.

• 17:33Jen Cohen?

  Exactly.

• 17:34Speaker 02

  That was Stuart Smiley from Saturday Night Live. Um, great skit. But then the generation after that, that morphed too much into grandiose narcissism. So a self-esteem movement really turned into, you know, we're the best.

• 17:48Jen Cohen?

  Yeah.

• 17:48Speaker 02

  But for some reason, that has morphed into a generation of vulnerable narcissists. All these kids, they feel they're entitled to special privileges because of whatever special thing that makes their suffering unique.

• 18:02Jen Cohen?

  Hmm, that's, yes, you're preaching to the choir. No, you're preaching to the converted because I agree with you 100%. What do you think the rise of, of what happened?

• 18:13Speaker 02

  Well, Jonathan Haidt would say coddling.

• 18:15Jen Cohen?

  Coddling.

• 18:15Speaker 02

  We're coddling these kids, Greg Lukianoff and Jonathan.

• 18:18Jen Cohen?

  I was at the same, I just did a TED Talk on how to, basically how to, it's called how to raise mentally, mentally strong kids in a fragile world. Because I'm a big believer.

• 18:29Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 18:29Jen Cohen?

  That that's what's happening.

• 18:30Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 18:31Jen Cohen?

  And the gentle parenting era is very detrimental to the kids. I think the kids, even where we live, right? The entitlement with the anxiety, with the depression, with the social anxiety, there's so much of it. Part of it is, I think that there's no time to play, right?

• 18:49Speaker 02

  It's a big part of it. I'm a big believer in play, yeah. But also, part of it is, what happened to the narratives that were rewarded, like in our, in our childhood?

• 18:57Jen Cohen?

  Right.

• 18:57Speaker 02

  Wasn't it, do you remember when it was rewarded to overcome things? Like, in, in college essays, the story wasn't how vulnerable we are, but the story was what we've done to overcome it. Now, college admissions rewards just the vulnerability, you know?

• 19:13Jen Cohen?

  Well, that's the thing. Well, I think when Brene Brown did this whole, as you know, the vulnerability.

• 19:17Speaker 02

  Yeah, but steroids.

• 19:18Jen Cohen?

  And that became the new, kind of, the new, kind of, like rhetoric, right? Like, the more vulnerable you are, the more you talk about your problems, the more you expose who you are, that's what kind of has become the thing. Our generation, to your point, was more like, more like coping skills, like, you know, doing things for ourselves, like resilience, you know, kind of like.

• 19:45Jen Cohen?

  Independence, it's a very, and like sucking it up type of thing, right? But like to you, you were saying earlier about self-esteem, you're right, back then was much more about self-esteem.

• 19:55Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 19:55Jen Cohen?

  So where is the, where is the line between being overly confident and narcissistic, let's say, and self-esteem? What is the difference?

• 20:07Speaker 02

  There is actually a difference between self-esteem and narcissism. Those are two separate constructs, as we say in psychology.

• 20:14Jen Cohen?

  Okay.

• 20:14Speaker 02

  They actually have two different developmental trajectories. So when kids are younger, their narcissism tends to peak in adolescence and then start to decline.

• 20:26Jen Cohen?

  Hmm.

• 20:26Speaker 02

  Whereas self-esteem is very low in adolescence and starts to improve as people get older. Self-esteem is really just feeling a sense that you're worth it, you know? In a lot of ways narcissism, which is, I'm great, I'm the best, is a compensation for low self-esteem. Sometimes, especially when it comes to vulnerable narcissism.

• 20:47Jen Cohen?

  So, because you were saying like in a book, how, what's the parenting, like the way people parent, are making the kids have either a higher self-esteem or a lower self-esteem? Can you talk about that?

• 21:00Speaker 02

  Yeah, absolutely. So parental warmth and acceptance tends to lead to a secure self-esteem. And a secure self-esteem is a great thing, by the way.

• 21:10Jen Cohen?

  Mm-hmm. It is.

• 21:11Speaker 02

  So, um, it's something we want in our children. And healthy self-esteem is one where just the child feels like they're enough, you know? They are worth, they're a worthy human being. And then take, accept that and then move on, you know? The ones who get really preoccupied with their self-esteem, that's a different issue. That's like not healthy, you know? We want you to have a secure self-esteem and then focus on other things.

• 21:35Jen Cohen?

  Right.

• 21:36Speaker 02

  We don't want you to be preoccupied with your self-esteem every day.

• 21:40Jen Cohen?

  But what is the parent, how is the, what is the parent doing or the adult doing with the child to make them have a lower self-esteem?

• 21:48Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 21:49Jen Cohen?

  Like, what's the style?

• 21:50Speaker 02

  The opposite of warmth and acceptance?

• 21:51Jen Cohen?

  Yeah. What's the opposite of warmth?

• 21:53Speaker 02

  Well, in terms of narcissism, there is research showing that overpraise for things that the child has not really actually earned does relate to grandiose narcissism. Having a feeling like your child always has to, you know, pressure them to always win the trophy, but always telling everyone, "My child's the best," you know?

• 22:11Jen Cohen?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I know that.

• 22:13Speaker 02

  That can lead over, it's called overvaluation in psychology. That's the technical term.

• 22:17Jen Cohen?

  Oh, really? Is that what it's called?

• 22:19Speaker 02

  Yes, that's it.

• 22:20Jen Cohen?

  Because I see a lot of that around here.

• 22:29Jen Cohen?

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• 23:09Jen Cohen?

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• 23:56Jen Cohen?

  You also talk, even in this, you talk this in this book, that how about where does attachment style come into this, right? Because if you're an anxious person, anxious attachment, all these things that, does that play into someone's self-esteem as well? And does it, first of all, does it play into someone's self-esteem?

• 24:13Speaker 02

  Yes. Attachment is a whole

• 24:16Jen Cohen?

  Different area.

• 24:17Speaker 02

  beast, but the causal chain is not clear. A lot of people who have a genetic proclivity towards a certain personality trait, let's say there's a tendency towards a low self-esteem just as a person, as a just a baseline, that could lead to the development of anxious attachment style, for sure. We also know people with anxious attachment style tend to have a low self-esteem. The causality is probably bidirectional.

• 24:48Jen Cohen?

  Right.

• 24:49Speaker 02

  They feed off each other, but they're definitely related.

• 24:51Jen Cohen?

  Because what I thought was interesting was that how anxious attachment is, I didn't realize until I read your book that some of it is genetic.

• 25:00Speaker 02

  Hmm. Everything is somewhat genetic.

• 25:04Jen Cohen?

  Not just, well, because I thought like, so I've been, I was taught that attachment style is very much like a nurturing thing, like environmental, like how you were raised, what were you doing? But you were talking about in your book.

• 25:17Speaker 02

  There's a genetic component to attachment styles. There really is. You can take two identical twins who have the same nurturing or not nurturing parent, not identical twins, let's say fraternal twins, who share 50% of the same genes, you know, and you, and you'll find a difference between if they have the identical same genes, you know, and how they react. You know, there is a difference between, genes influence what colors our world. It's all part of a, to me, it's all part of a broader personality temperament, you know? If you, some people have a temperament, maybe a, not such a rose-colored glasses temperament, you know, whatever the opposite.

• 25:55Jen Cohen?

  They're naturally more pessimistic.

• 25:56Speaker 02

  That's the word I was looking for.

• 25:57Jen Cohen?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I know, you bet, yeah.

• 26:00Speaker 02

  And that colors things, or, or anxiety. You know, people with a lot of anxiety, right off the bat, you see some of these kids coming out of the womb crying, you know, with a more intense rate than other kids. And that already is setting them up for anxious attachment. Some people actually have avoidant attachment. So maybe they're, it's not so much anxiety, it's just disagreeableness. They don't feel like they need people.

• 26:27Jen Cohen?

  That's true. I mean, I know a lot of people like that, too. I'm sure you do as well.

• 26:31Speaker 02

  I'm a little like that, to be honest.

• 26:32Jen Cohen?

  Really?

• 26:33Speaker 02

  I think I have some avoidant attachment style.

• 26:35Jen Cohen?

  Really?

• 26:36Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah. And I'm like, okay with that.

• 26:38Jen Cohen?

  Yeah.

• 26:38Speaker 02

  There's actually research showing two different types of avoidant attachment. There's one type that is correlated with high well-being. And there's another type that is more correlated with psychopathology. I think I'm the one with high well-being. There's like chosen, you choose to have avoidant attachment, yeah.

• 26:52Jen Cohen?

  So that's interesting, because I think, no, I think that's like, because in your, again, when I was like saying earlier, like you're, like you, you in general just really fascinate me because like you've, like you have a lot of background in this. Like you went to Yale, you went to Carnegie Mellon, like you, like, is there, is that why you kind of went, like you delved deep into the psychology? Because like I said, you were, you were like, kind of, you were kind of somebody who did all these things. And you use yourself as a, as a Petri dish, right?

• 27:20Speaker 02

  Yeah, definitely. Earlier in my career, absolutely, I wanted to kind of prove people wrong. You know, all the hate naysayers, telling that I was stupid. And I couldn't even, they said I couldn't graduate, I shouldn't be able to graduate high school. You know, when I was in high school. And so I was like, okay, well, screw you. I'm gonna not only graduate high school, but I'm gonna like go to Yale someday, you know, and like, so yeah. But that was early on, but that's not, and I have a whole chapter in the book about the underdog motivation and how that can fuel you.

• 27:47Jen Cohen?

  I want to talk about that. That's why I was bringing it up.

• 27:49Speaker 02

  Cool.

• 27:50Jen Cohen?

  Because I think that the chip on the shoulder or the underdog motivation is a lot of times fire, that the fuel and the fire to kind of motivate people who otherwise wouldn't have, you know, self-actualized.

• 28:04Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 28:05Jen Cohen?

  So do you want to talk about this under? I want to.

• 28:07Speaker 02

  Yeah, it's a, it's a big, you know, the most common sort of amount of, the most obvious is like Michael Jordan, you know, who like creates enemies. You know.

• 28:17Jen Cohen?

  So he can like, so people, so he has a reason to fight.

• 28:20Speaker 02

  Motivation. Yeah.

• 28:21Jen Cohen?

  Yeah.

• 28:22Speaker 02

  But um, I think any of us can kind of tap into that motivation if we are feeling rejected. But I don't think it's the most sustainable and healthiest in the long run.

• 28:33Jen Cohen?

  Okay.

• 28:33Speaker 02

  Like, I don't, I'm glad I don't, I'm glad my whole life is not revolving around an under, an underdog motivation anymore. I'm also glad I'm not an underdog anymore.

• 28:43Jen Cohen?

  Right.

• 28:44Speaker 02

  Both of those things I'm glad about.

• 28:45Jen Cohen?

  Does that change though? So can someone, does that happen often? Like if someone starts off as having that underdog mentality? And then as they achieve success, does it, does the, does that mentality wane?

• 28:58Speaker 02

  Well, I don't know. Look at, again, Michael Jordan.

• 29:00Jen Cohen?

  But he's one of a kind, right?

• 29:02Speaker 02

  Kind. Yeah, yeah. Well, it does, it does tend to.

• 29:04Jen Cohen?

  Because how, how do, how do we, I think this is the, the big, long question you talk, you, it's on the cover of your book. But like, how can we discover in ourselves our greatest potential?

• 29:16Speaker 02

  Oh, you're asking a heavy hitting question today.

• 29:19Jen Cohen?

  Well, listen, you didn't cover this, you know, talk about the weather, did you?

• 29:22Speaker 02

  No, I didn't.

• 29:23Jen Cohen?

  No.

• 29:23Speaker 02

  Although let's be honest, the weather's been kind of shit lately.

• 29:25Jen Cohen?

  I know. Today's been terrible.

• 29:27Speaker 02

  But how can we, that's the, my whole reason why I created self actualization coaching. We're actually in the middle of a six month program right now where we're training coaches. So that, um, there's, so these coaches can help clients identify what is their greatest potential. So much of it has, has to come, it comes down to this kind of existential, humanistic perspective that I take. You know, where we have to get in touch with this destiny within us. And some of us evade our destiny because we think it's destructive. Um, and some, and yet it's teaching us things that we really should be listening to. Raul May, the humanistic psychologist, calls it the demonic.

• 30:07Speaker 02

  He said, you know, what is this guiding force that, you know, this destiny that has the power to overtake all of you? That, you know, what is this thing within, sometimes when it has the power to overtake all of you, you, all of you, it's, that terrifies you and you run away from it. And you evade your destiny your whole life. But some of the most creative people have embraced it and have found a way to channel it for their greatest creativity.

• 30:32Jen Cohen?

  But if someone's stuck, right, and they don't like, they don't know how, where even to begin, can you talk, do you have any, like, even in your coaching program?

• 30:41Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 30:42Jen Cohen?

  What are some, like, actionable steps someone can take to even see what their potential is?

• 30:50Speaker 02

  So, yeah, we have a workbook called Choose Growth. We have all sorts of things where you try to constantly get in touch with, like, what are the sparks during your day that really, you know, keeping a journal is a really helpful way of doing this, getting in touch with, like, what aspects of your job are lighting you up versus what aspects of your job aren't lighting you up. Also, learning character strengths and, and, and, like, you can take tests for free.

• 31:15Jen Cohen?

  Yeah.

• 31:15Speaker 02

  Self-actualizationtest.com. I put up a bunch of tests. Self-reflection and self-knowledge is a great first step. You may have certain strengths you didn't even know you had, right? And, and so first of all, I would say never give up. I would say always have this, this, this, um, this spirit of curiosity about yourself, you know? So, start there, that curiosity.

• 31:37Jen Cohen?

  Yeah.

• 31:37Speaker 02

  And be like, well, okay, I'm stuck, but I just, I haven't, I don't, usually stuckness is a reflection of you're not really self-connected, you know? And so, going through the process of, of deeper self-connection, a lot of people feel stuck because they hear other people's, other people's voices in their heads. They'll hear, like, you know, their mother telling them, you should do this, or that, you should that, or, or maybe you're thinking to yourself, maybe you ignore certain messages that are sending you because they're not societally acceptable, or they're not, like, or you're like, I can't make money from that. So you, like, I, I would just guarantee you that if you feel stuck and hopeless in a lot of ways, there are so many things that, that are passing you by, signals within, um, as

• 32:21Speaker 02

  well as signals other people are sending you that you're really missing out on, you're not paying attention to.

• 32:26Jen Cohen?

  Right.

• 32:27Speaker 02

  Um, there's, there's some really cool research on the difference between lucky people and unlucky people. Uh, this is self, self. And people who report that they lead really lucky lives, like in a psychology experiment, they are more likely to be open to experience new experiences and notice some good things that are happening during the experiment that the other people did not even notice because they're so focused on how unlucky they are in life. So much this does relate to the victim mindset thing.

• 32:54Jen Cohen?

  That is, that's exactly it. Like, so that's why this whole victim mindset is such a good thing to kind of like really delve into because I think a lot of times the people who are stuck and not moving forward is because they are stuck in this victim mindset, but they don't even know they're in the victim mindset because they can't see what they can't see. So that's when that whole, the whole self, that's why I was curious, like, again, like, I've said this on this show tons of times, like, if someone doesn't have the self-awareness ability or the EQ to even know, or they can be, or they're just are not able to connect the dots, what's the first step for someone to even know they even have this victim mindset? And then you talk about how to, you know, the difference between learned helplessness.

• 33:37Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 33:37Jen Cohen?

  Versus learned hopelessness.

• 33:40Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 33:40Jen Cohen?

  Right? Can you just kind of talk about both of those?

• 33:43Speaker 02

  And? Yeah, I could, I could.

• 33:45Jen Cohen?

  Okay, good.

• 33:46Speaker 02

  There, there, there's this classic research by Martin Seligman and his colleagues looking at learned helplessness as they started with rats and dogs where they were shocked. And there's some ethical considerations about that as well, but I'm putting that aside.

• 33:59Jen Cohen?

  Yeah, yeah, okay.

• 34:01Speaker 02

  Yeah. After a certain amount of shocking, even when they opened up the cage, the dogs didn't realize that they could leave the cage. They have, they had learned this sense of helplessness. And then they tried to extend this to humans as well. I don't know how much they, if they did shocking of humans, maybe they did, but it sounds, it sounds terrible, doesn't

• 34:21Jen Cohen?

  it? Yeah, yeah, yeah, but I, I'm following.

• 34:23Speaker 02

  The things psychologists do in the name of.

• 34:26Jen Cohen?

  Of

• 34:27Speaker 02

  Data.

• 34:27Jen Cohen?

  Of data, yeah.

• 34:28Speaker 02

  But what they realized fifty years later is that they had gotten it completely wrong um in humans. That in humans, the default state in humans is helplessness, but what is learned is hopefulness. So it's actually a theory of word hopefulness in in humans, not a theory of word helplessness. Um, and we have to remember that because a victim mindset is is our default state of being. It's the easiest way to get attention, sympathy from others. Yeah, sure. When you're a kid, how many times did you lie to your mom about being sick? Or exaggerate, exaggerate a little bit like, hey, mom, my tummy hurts. I don't think I go to school today.

• 35:12Speaker 02

  It's the default state, but we have to overcome that. We have to rise above that instinct. If we're gonna lead a a life with agency and intentionality and um and and reaching our highest potential.

• 35:26Jen Cohen?

  So do you think the rise of social media, TikTok, Instagram, has made people's victim mindset even more like out of control? Because you get now, you now you're becoming like you get you get a pat on the back for it, right?

• 35:40Speaker 02

  Yes, I do.

• 35:41Jen Cohen?

  Right.

• 35:41Speaker 02

  I do.

• 35:42Jen Cohen?

  So how what what should people do? Do they just not like how like because technology is just it's going, right? Like, and it's so invasive in our lives, right? How do like how like and you're getting and you're getting a pat on the back for it? How do we kind of take those people yet again out of that mindset into this whole this whole empowerment mindset? By the way, do you remember when empowerment was a big thing too? That was a whole trend for a while.

• 36:09Speaker 02

  When when women's empowerment?

• 36:13Jen Cohen?

  Yeah, maybe, yeah, women's empowerment. Well.

• 36:15Speaker 02

  That's a thing.

• 36:16Jen Cohen?

  There it you know, the thing is, I think that even with social media, this idea of like women empowerment was a big thing or like, but the obsession over like the trauma, like all the pages that are like obsessed with trauma or and even vulnerability, I guess, and authenticity is another one. They've override all the other stuff. So if you are feeling bad about yourself, it's that that's actually that that actually you you get bonus, you get brownie points for that. Right? That's what I've noticed.

• 36:53Speaker 02

  If you what?

• 36:54Jen Cohen?

  You get brownie points if you feel, you know, like you've been put upon or like, look, how about this? Even like, you know,

• 37:03Speaker 02

  If you've been wronged by the world?

• 37:04Jen Cohen?

  If you're wronged by the world, like, look, even like you talk about the activism stuff

• 37:08Speaker 02

  I do.

• 37:08Jen Cohen?

  in the book. Can we talk about that?

• 37:10Speaker 02

  Yeah, of course.

• 37:11Jen Cohen?

  Okay. Can you please talk about it? Because I think it's great that you put it in the book.

• 37:14Speaker 02

  Well, I have a section on narcissistic activism. There is research showing that the more you identify with certain causes, I mean, that's your whole life becomes about just those things. And you feel entitled to special privileges because you have this cause. There's actually research showing that people who, um, they're called virtuous victim signalers, people who feel the need to almost 24/7 signal to others how much they've suffered, but how angelic they are. That tends to be correlated with the dark triad of personality, things like narcissism, which we already mentioned, but also psychopathy

• 37:53Speaker 02

  and Machiavellianism and this sort of sadistic kind of enjoyment in taking down others. So there are some darker personality traits that you see among some type, some types of activists. And I should be very clear, not all of activism is bad. Throughout the course of human history, a lot of healthy activism has really moved society forward. But I think it's important to distinguish between toxic activism and healthy activism.

• 38:23Jen Cohen?

  Can you, can we talk about the toxic activism?

• 38:25Speaker 02

  Yeah, it's not helping anything. It's just annoying everyone.

• 38:28Jen Cohen?

  Give me an example, like you talk about in the book.

• 38:30Speaker 02

  Uh, what is an example? Um, I don't know.

• 38:36Jen Cohen?

  You don't have, you don't have a specific example?

• 38:38Speaker 02

  In the book, I talk about people who identify more strongly, like extremely with LBT causes, with environmentalism cause, with like a lot of the liberal, the standard liberal sort of things. So we often think about like, you know, Authoritarianism or as just like a right wing phenomenon. But there's emerging research suggesting there is a left wing authoritarianism that it that mirrors kind of in a horseshoe way, they both meet together at some point.

• 39:09Jen Cohen?

  Wow.

• 39:10Speaker 02

  The far right and the far left, you know, and it's left like 99% of people who are in the middle kind of shake their heads like what's going on here?

• 39:19Jen Cohen?

  Right, because it's not just on the right, it's on the left as well.

• 39:22Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 39:23Jen Cohen?

  Can you talk about some of the things that you've given us?

• 39:24Speaker 02

  Causes that by themselves, there's not an issue with like, you know, there's, there's no problem having, you know, believing in rights for gay, bisexual, you know, individuals, right, lesbians, so whatever the whole rainbow stands for, don't make me say what it currently stands for.

• 39:41Jen Cohen?

  I think they added another letter, or maybe not.

• 39:44Speaker 02

  There's a Q.

• 39:45Jen Cohen?

  LBGQ, no, LB.

• 39:48Speaker 02

  T, and then there's a fight between should the T be part of it or not?

• 39:52Jen Cohen?

  Yes, that's the thing I didn't understand.

• 39:53Speaker 02

  There's a bifurcation within that community. I don't want to get into any of that bifur, you know, the bifurcation, but there's no problem having a certain causes. But this research is showing what happens when you have a certain extremist mindset about the activism where your way is the right way. Anyone who doesn't agree with you deserves to be treated poorly, even violently, you know? There's this kind of way of thinking that that can be very damaging to society.

• 40:25Jen Cohen?

  So what's the call to action for that? What are the things that people have, where the cat, like the qualities of a dark triad? I think you called it?

• 40:32Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 40:32Jen Cohen?

  What's in that tri, like what is those things?

• 40:34Speaker 02

  Well, that's the narcissism, psychopathy and Machiavellianism.

• 40:37Jen Cohen?

  Okay, so then what's, what do people do about that? I guess is the question, like you just.

• 40:43Speaker 02

  Avoid these people like the plague.

• 40:45Jen Cohen?

  Well, I know, so like, but like, but they're the, but they have a, it's the, it's the squeaky, squeaky oil, the squeaky wheel that gets the oil, right?

• 40:54Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 40:55Jen Cohen?

  And it's like damaging to our society.

• 40:58Speaker 02

  It is, it is. It's also, we have lost nuance, you know, which I'm trying to do right now. Because, you know, I, I'm the last one who wants to be quoted as saying, you know, that it's, it's, it's, uh, it's bad to believe in certain causes.

• 41:14Jen Cohen?

  No, that's not what you're saying.

• 41:15Speaker 02

  Well, that's definitely not what I'm saying, but, but I think we've lost all nuance because the loudest voices have taken over and, and make any other voice feel like there's no place for their voice.

• 41:29Jen Cohen?

  No, exactly. So you, so basically though, you're, you, so you basically, you were seeing the victim, you're saying, that's why you're, you wanted to write the book because you saw this stuff happening and you wanted to kind of like,

• 41:40Speaker 02

  See it everywhere.

• 41:41Jen Cohen?

  Like the, what is it, what other word? I love that you said something that you was like the, instead of saying like the trauma, what I loved, you gave other options for, for how to, how to talk about something.

• 41:52Speaker 02

  Survival stress?

• 41:53Jen Cohen?

  Like survival stress. Yes. Like you talk about how language makes such a big difference in how the, like how,

• 42:01Speaker 02

  I really think it does.

• 42:02Jen Cohen?

  It makes a big difference, right? Because if you think of yourself as someone who has trauma, you're going to act a certain way, right?

• 42:08Speaker 02

  Yes. Yes. I mean, how the self, like self-talk, the way the narratives and the things we tell ourselves about the cause of why we are the way we are, really does impact our empowerment versus whether or not we're going to have a victim mindset over something.

• 42:22Jen Cohen?

  Right. So like, how, how do we start, how do we start changing the way we talk to ourselves?

• 42:28Speaker 02

  Start by changing the way you talk to yourself.

• 42:30Jen Cohen?

  Exactly. Because what happens in our, in our brain, like if, I heard that no matter how, like what, our brain doesn't know the difference between what we say or what we do. Like if, if we, if we say something, then our body acts as if it's actually true, correct?

• 42:46Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 42:47Jen Cohen?

  Is that not true? Cause I'm not the doctor, but you are. But I thought that's what I, that's what a lot of other people have said to me that, that like if,

• 42:55Speaker 02

  There is a whole psychology of self-talk and the real importance of how we interpret certain situations, right? There's a whole field of cognitive behavioral therapy, right? That is all about, do we catastrophize things? Do we see things in black and white terms? You know, the trauma thing is just, it's a word that has become exhausted.

• 43:18Jen Cohen?

  Okay, it's exhausting.

• 43:20Speaker 02

  In our society, because it's become everything. It's become, uh, this one word, word, this one word has, has, is now used to describe back pain, every, every, everything, you know?

• 43:33Jen Cohen?

  Oh yeah, there's a book out, Your Body Keeps Score.

• 43:35Speaker 02

  The Body Keeps the Score.

• 43:36Jen Cohen?

  The Body Keeps Score.

• 43:37Speaker 02

  It's an immensely popular book.

• 43:38Jen Cohen?

  Yeah.

• 43:39Speaker 02

  And it's become like a cult-like book. And it's like, for me to even have some, a little bit of criticism over some of the things that are said in that book, drives them crazy.

• 43:51Jen Cohen?

  Right.

• 43:52Speaker 02

  The ones that treat it like it's a religion, you know? But that's, science is not a cult or religion. I mean, science, we have to look at the data, where it comes, you know? Um, there, there are a lot of limitations to that. You know, pre-existing personality traits matter too. Not everything is environmentally determined.

• 44:06Jen Cohen?

  Right.

• 44:07Speaker 02

  We don't live in a completely environmentally determined universe, right? Um, a lot of, also a lot of our choices are within our own control that we just refuse to take responsibility for, you know? It's much easier to blame, much easier to blame that one thing that happened to you when you were four, than to, at now age 50, take steps to lead, to lead a better, healthier, happier life.

• 44:29Jen Cohen?

  Right. Because also, the rumination of it, right? Like you, the, because ruminate-

• 44:34Speaker 02

  It's a big part of it.

• 44:35Jen Cohen?

  It's a big part of it.

• 44:42Jen Cohen?

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• 45:24Jen Cohen?

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• 45:51Jen Cohen?

  What's your take on talk therapy?

• 45:54Speaker 02

  You're asking good questions.

• 45:55Jen Cohen?

  Thanks.

• 45:55Speaker 02

  You're a great interviewer.

• 45:56Jen Cohen?

  Oh, thank you.

• 45:58Speaker 02

  You're welcome.

• 45:58Jen Cohen?

  Thank you.

• 45:59Speaker 02

  Talk therapy is good, can be good. Yeah, it's like having a friend.

• 46:05Jen Cohen?

  Yeah.

• 46:05Speaker 02

  That that listens to.

• 46:06Jen Cohen?

  So you pay a lot of money to.

• 46:08Speaker 02

  You're paying for unconditional positive regard.

• 46:11Jen Cohen?

  Yeah.

• 46:12Speaker 02

  There are a lot of lonely people out there that often need a little bit of validation. There is a whole form of therapy now called affirming therapy that where, and I don't know how I feel about this.

• 46:26Jen Cohen?

  Right.

• 46:26Speaker 02

  No matter what meshugana you have going on with you.

• 46:28Jen Cohen?

  Yeah.

• 46:29Speaker 02

  That's a Jewish.

• 46:30Jen Cohen?

  I got it right away. Meshuggah is like crazy. Yeah.

• 46:32Speaker 02

  Yeah, whatever meshuggah you have, you go to this affirming therapist and then you just affirm it. But don't worry, it's good that you're, you know, a psychopath, like, don't worry, you know, like I, you know, affirming care now, you know, no matter whatever you are, it's great, you know, and it makes you feel good about yourself, you know? I'm not convinced that's the best form of therapy, but that is a very popular form of therapy that's cropping up now.

• 46:55Jen Cohen?

  Is it worth that? Are you serious?

• 46:57Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah, it's a thing now. It's a really big thing.

• 46:58Jen Cohen?

  So if I were to Google affirm like affirming.

• 47:02Speaker 02

  You go in psychology day, you're looking for a therapist, look, I'm looking for an affirming psychologist. Yeah.

• 47:07Jen Cohen?

  So people are literally paying for someone just to kind of affirm.

• 47:11Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah.

• 47:11Jen Cohen?

  That they, whatever they say is.

• 47:13Speaker 02

  Whatever it is, acceptance, right? Now, look, I am a believer in Carl Rogers' notion of unconditional positive regard. But as even Carl Rogers made clear, acceptance doesn't necessarily mean liking or that you don't want to change. Self-acceptance is the first step to change.

• 47:29Jen Cohen?

  Right.

• 47:29Speaker 02

  But change is also. A good thing. And it's also, you know, if a lot of people are struggling horribly with depression or the experience of depression, or whatever it is and they're seeking, they need help. I don't know about the affirm, how helpful the affirming part is, you know, maybe as a first step, but, but there needs to be another step.

• 47:50Jen Cohen?

  Well, also, that's like, it kind of reminds me of just hanging around people who just validate you all the time.

• 47:55Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 47:55Jen Cohen?

  Right? Like movie stars do that all the time.

• 47:57Speaker 02

  It's like fast food, you know, like it feels good in the moment, but you go home and you're the same person.

• 48:04Jen Cohen?

  Exactly. And like, there's no growth there. There's no challenge. There's no nothing.

• 48:08Speaker 02

  That's right. That's right.

• 48:09Jen Cohen?

  So is that really something that people are, is growing?

• 48:12Speaker 02

  I would kid you not.

• 48:13Jen Cohen?

  Wow. That's crazy. See, like, I would think that also just over, like, and I'm sure you, we both, we all know people who have been going to the same therapist for 20 years, twice a week, once a week. And where, like, at what point is it just like, you know, a bad habit that you're spending money on, right? Because and/or and the rumination of talking about your problem and, you know, when, when people go to a therapist, it's like they put a label on you or psychiatrist, oh yeah, you have your OCD and ADD. And now that you think that you are these things, you walk through life, this goes back to the beginning of the podcast, and you think that's what you

• 48:55Jen Cohen?

  are, unless you break free from those things and say, that doesn't, that's not going to stop me from trying to achieve this and go after that. Right? Like, these things are putting shackles on people's ankles a lot of times.

• 49:06Speaker 02

  This is why I prefer coaching. You know, I create a form of coaching, which is very forward looking as opposed to past look looking. I self talk, self therapy, self talk therapy.

• 49:17Jen Cohen?

  Yeah.

• 49:17Speaker 02

  I mean, it can be damaging. Like you're pointing out, it's not always great. And it's also not for everyone. I saw a very funny Bill Maher, sort of, he has a podcast.

• 49:27Jen Cohen?

  I love him.

• 49:28Speaker 02

  Yeah, me too. Yeah, I tend to agree with a lot of his.

• 49:31Jen Cohen?

  Me too. I tend to agree with almost everything lately.

• 49:33Speaker 02

  But I like people like him. I like people like David, you know, I like these like honest Jews.

• 49:39Speaker 02

  Like I just like there's like, you know, they say things that they how they really feel, even if it's not societally, you know, like, like Bill Maher, Bill Maher is like, is he Jewish?

• 49:48Jen Cohen?

  Bill Maher?

• 49:49Speaker 02

  Bill Maher.

• 49:50Jen Cohen?

  Bill Maher.

• 49:51Speaker 02

  Come to think of it, I mean, he might not be.

• 49:52Jen Cohen?

  I don't know if he's Jewish. He's very pro-Israel right now. I mean, but then again.

• 49:57Speaker 02

  But Larry David certainly is.

• 49:58Jen Cohen?

  Yeah, who? Larry David? Of course it is. Wait, is Bill Maher Jewish? You know, I think he is.

• 50:03Speaker 02

  He's ish.

• 50:04Jen Cohen?

  He's Jewish. But if your mom's Jewish, you're Jewish, right?

• 50:07Speaker 02

  Yeah, but he was talking about, he's like, he's like, you know.

• 50:10Jen Cohen?

  Not a practicing Jew.

• 50:10Speaker 02

  He's like, look, I've done, I've done therapy and eh, he's like, honestly, like, it's like, they're, they're, I want them to push me a little more, you know, they're like, they're like, oh, that's, oh, really? Okay. You know, it's like, it's like, you know, what, what am I getting out of that? You know? So I, I think that, um, it's not for everyone. I also don't think you should feel ashamed if you're in therapy and you're not getting something out of it. There, it, it can be awkward sometimes breaking up with a therapist, but sometimes it needs to happen.

• 50:36Jen Cohen?

  Yeah.

• 50:37Speaker 02

  I had a therapist I didn't really like, to be honest.

• 50:39Jen Cohen?

  Really?

• 50:39Speaker 02

  Yes, to deal with mother issues.

• 50:41Jen Cohen?

  And what happened?

• 50:43Speaker 02

  I felt like this therapist was being too hard on my mom.

• 50:46Jen Cohen?

  Yeah.

• 50:48Speaker 02

  I felt sorry for my mom. Like, I didn't want to have bashing sessions about my, that's not like, I had some issues with my mom. Yes, she's overprotective, she's crazy, but, but, you know, she has a big heart, she means well, but then the, you know, the therapist like trying to have me convinced that like, trauma was there, you know, and all this stuff that I was like, I don't know, like, I don't, I don't, I don't, I don't know if I agree with you.

• 51:10Jen Cohen?

  A hundred percent. But by the way, were you a psychologist already by this point?

• 51:13Speaker 02

  Yeah, this is recently.

• 51:15Jen Cohen?

  This is recently? So that's even better. By the way, that's hilarious. So I think they have, a lot of therapists have to like, feel like they're earning their pay, right? So they have to find somebody to blame it on.

• 51:26Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 51:26Jen Cohen?

  And they have to label you or else they're not doing their job.

• 51:29Speaker 02

  She's like giving me a victim mindset.

• 51:30Jen Cohen?

  Right. You're like, you know, I wrote this book on how to overcome.

• 51:34Speaker 02

  I wrote the book.

• 51:34Jen Cohen?

  Yeah, the book on how to overcome a victim mindset and you're telling me. But this is the problem.

• 51:39Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 51:40Jen Cohen?

  Right? But I, I wonder if it's, is it because people don't have enough, like, the social element, right? Like, people don't socialize anymore. People need an outlet. And is that, do you think that's why a lot of people go to therapy? Or is it because they don't have someone they can trust? Like, what's your, what do you think? This is more just a question like I would add. What do you think the reason is that people are just going, like now, it's, it's become such a. It's become so popular to have a therapist that it it's becoming someone's part of everyone's habitual day. That wasn't how it was when I was a kid and I don't have a therapist. I'm the only one of my friends, by the way, who doesn't have one and I get made fun of.

• 52:20Speaker 02

  That's horrible. You should not be meant to feel shame for that. In fact, I think sometimes choosing a coach or a therapist is a very wise choice.

• 52:27Jen Cohen?

  A coach, but I think I agree with what you said because a lot of times coaches push you forward and they're not, they're not doing the blame game.

• 52:34Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 52:34Jen Cohen?

  Because in my opinion, blaming somebody is not going to move you, it's not going to move the puck.

• 52:39Speaker 02

  Look, I'm of, I'm of mind that we, no one should feel shamed for how they choose to heal. I argue that there's something called narcissist.

• 52:50Jen Cohen?

  Exactly.

• 52:51Speaker 02

  For everything, for everything I have narcissism.

• 52:53Jen Cohen?

  Yeah.

• 52:53Speaker 02

  There's narcissistic spirituality, there's narcissistic, so there are people who they'll go to one silent meditation retreat and they'll come back, they'll cancel half their friends. Because now their friends, they've, they've, they've had an epiphany that their, their friends are not as enlightened as they are. You had one freaking yoga retreat.

• 53:12Jen Cohen?

  Yeah.

• 53:12Speaker 02

  Like, that doesn't make you more enlightened all of a sudden than all your friends, you know, but they'll come back and they'll feel like they're more enlightened. So it's called the I'm enlightened and you're not effect. It's actually a real effect in psychology.

• 53:23Jen Cohen?

  Really? And what happens with that person? Does the pendulum swing back and they make amends or?

• 53:29Speaker 02

  Interesting question. I don't know. I don't know about over time, but you do tend to see this effect after, after engagement in spiritual practices. Um, I also could see this happening with therapy. The person who goes to a therapist, you know, thinks that they're now the better person than those who don't go to therapy. Um, you see this actually in so many different domains.

• 53:47Jen Cohen?

  Yeah.

• 53:48Speaker 02

  You see this a lot in the fitness community with like fat phobia, you know, with like, oh, because you work, like if you've had, if you were overweight and you lost a lot of weight. And that's your story, you know, those people tend to like really have a deep visceral like reaction to fat people, you know?

• 54:04Jen Cohen?

  Really?

• 54:05Speaker 02

  They're, they're, they're, they represent to them what they hated about themselves back in the day.

• 54:09Jen Cohen?

  Right.

• 54:09Speaker 02

  Yeah, but, but that's horrible. Like.

• 54:12Jen Cohen?

  That's true, but that's also like me, like most of the times people hate things that remind them of themselves. Like when I, when you don't like something about someone, like typically it's because you see it.

• 54:23Speaker 02

  Or who you used to be and you feel like you've overcome as well.

• 54:26Jen Cohen?

  Exactly. So that makes actual sense to me. That makes sense to me. And then that it's a really, it's true. And then you shame them, which by the way, you talk about the shame in the book, right?

• 54:35Speaker 02

  I'm not about shaming. Yeah, yeah. Like my, my tone in this book is what I call honest love. You know, like I'm not trying to shame anyone for their choices. Um, I want what's best for everyone, you know? And I want people to figure that out for themselves and then to go after it, not with a victim mindset.

• 54:54Jen Cohen?

  Right, right, right, right, right. So with, but with, you're saying something about with the shame. People tend to feel shame because how they are societal, how they're, how people see them in society.

• 55:05Speaker 02

  How people see, yes, that's exactly right. Even if we didn't have shame, so people might not have had any shame over something. And then they talk about something they're excited about and then they see how it's reacted, you know, like, and then they're like, oh shit. Like now I, now I have shame over this. I didn't, I didn't a minute ago.

• 55:23Jen Cohen?

  Right, right, right. Now you do. Right, right, right.

• 55:26Speaker 02

  Last time I'm telling anyone what Bobby and I did sexually in the bedroom last year.

• 55:29Jen Cohen?

  Right, right, right, right.

• 55:30Speaker 02

  Because.

• 55:31Jen Cohen?

  Because once you get judged, that's it, right?

• 55:33Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah.

• 55:34Jen Cohen?

  It has nothing to do with like what you actually did, what the, what, what, anything.

• 55:39Speaker 02

  It's how people react to you.

• 55:40Jen Cohen?

  Yeah.

• 55:41Speaker 02

  Yep. We're so sensitive as a social species, you know? But isn't it interesting? You could have no shame at all of things you're doing in your life if you never had to talk to another human.

• 55:50Jen Cohen?

  If I never told anybody.

• 55:51Speaker 02

  You would just blissfully go about your life, doing what you want to do.

• 55:54Jen Cohen?

  I was gonna say, isn't that then, do you have guilt? Because is guilt when you just, when you don't tell somebody, can you feel?

• 56:00Speaker 02

  Well, guilt is different than shame.

• 56:01Jen Cohen?

  Right. That's what I'm saying. It's more guilt.

• 56:03Speaker 02

  Is actually more productive. Guilt, with guilt, you, you've done something to cause someone harm. And you want to make a repair, but you don't take it personally. You don't, you don't say you're, you're bad. Well, shame is something different. Sometimes with shame, you're not even harming someone else. Your social approval, you know? Everyone is so judgy these days. Have you noticed that like?

• 56:23Jen Cohen?

  Yes, are you joking me?

• 56:25Speaker 02

  If you go on like

• 56:26Jen Cohen?

  Yes.

• 56:26Speaker 02

  Social media, everyone is judging everyone for their life choices.

• 56:31Jen Cohen?

  That's what it is, but it's all about polarization, right?

• 56:34Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 56:34Jen Cohen?

  And there's, there's no, it's like you were saying, there's no in between.

• 56:38Speaker 02

  It's no.

• 56:38Jen Cohen?

  You're either on this side or you're that side. God forbid.

• 56:41Speaker 02

  You're right. Either you're sex positive or a conservative Christian. Those are the only two options we got right now.

• 56:46Jen Cohen?

  And not at all. And if you, and if you even are on one side and you, and you see something on the other side that makes a little sense and you make mention of it, you'll get bashed by your, whoever your contingency is.

• 56:58Speaker 02

  Oh, absolutely. Or like, it would be like, like every now and then something comes along that Trump does that I'm like, I'm glad he's doing that.

• 57:06Jen Cohen?

  Right.

• 57:06Speaker 02

  And it's like my, all my, my friend, right? You can't, you can't even, you know, it's like this guy can't ever do any right.

• 57:12Jen Cohen?

  I know. But that, exactly.

• 57:14Speaker 02

  You know what I'm saying?

• 57:15Jen Cohen?

  By the way, do I know what you're saying? I mean, I think I said one thing on social media that I was like very, that I was really happy about. And people went nuts.

• 57:25Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 57:25Jen Cohen?

  Because I was like, I was, I was basically applauding the devil, right? But then if on the other side, you know what I mean? So it's very, very hard. Like, so that's what I'm saying. Like it's even, it's hard to have. Right now, I feel we're in a very interesting time because your friend group

• 57:40Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 57:40Jen Cohen?

  has to also be who you're politically sided with.

• 57:43Speaker 02

  I think it's a shame.

• 57:44Jen Cohen?

  Right?

• 57:44Speaker 02

  You're right. You're absolutely right.

• 57:45Jen Cohen?

  And if you are not sided with them, you will literally have no, you will lose that person as a friend.

• 57:50Speaker 02

  That's right.

• 57:50Jen Cohen?

  It is, we've never been in a time like this in, in history, I don't think.

• 57:55Speaker 02

  Crazy time that we're living in right now.

• 57:56Jen Cohen?

  Isn't it just insane?

• 57:58Speaker 02

  It's, it's absolutely insane. Everything is politicized.

• 58:01Jen Cohen?

  Everything is.

• 58:02Speaker 02

  I can say, I wish everyone love today and I'll get, oh, you Dems are always virtue signaling.

• 58:11Jen Cohen?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 58:12Speaker 02

  I'm like, virtue signaling, what?

• 58:14Jen Cohen?

  It's true, though, and that everything's a conspiracy theory.

• 58:17Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah.

• 58:17Jen Cohen?

  But what what's the psychological, what is this, what is the psychosis on that? That why we cannot be friends with the other side now, like what's happening in our society psychologically?

• 58:28Speaker 02

  Well, that's what politics has become is that the politics is now focusing on um what's bad about the out group as opposed to what's good about your own in group. And that's just what politics has become. Articles have been written about this by political psychologists. That um that's the age of what we're living in. Um, there is a term for this, but I'm blanking on it right now, but um that they coined, but that that is, you know, everyone's only focusing on, you're only defining yourself by what you hate about the other, you know?

• 58:59Jen Cohen?

  Yeah.

• 58:59Speaker 02

  And that's very different than defining your group based on what you love about your group.

• 59:04Jen Cohen?

  You know what that's?

• 59:05Speaker 02

  Nobody loves their, no one actually loves their own group anymore, right?

• 59:08Jen Cohen?

  Oh, I think that, you know, that's so funny.

• 59:10Speaker 02

  Love their group?

• 59:10Jen Cohen?

  No, they don't. But that's actually very true. I didn't even think of it that way.

• 59:14Speaker 02

  Is this too controversial?

• 59:16Jen Cohen?

  No, it's not controversial at all. What I think interest was interesting, I think that's a hundred percent accurate, right? Because how people connect

• 59:25Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 59:25Jen Cohen?

  is through misery and joyous company, right?

• 59:27Speaker 02

  Correct.

• 59:28Jen Cohen?

  So if you and I were connected by saying, by bashing Trump, let's say, as opposed to talking about what we have in common, it's not as interesting.

• 59:35Speaker 02

  No, trauma bonding.

• 59:37Jen Cohen?

  Right, but we're trauma bonding and we're connecting over hating somebody else.

• 59:41Speaker 02

  And I suppose that's what we're doing right now, you know?

• 59:44Jen Cohen?

  That's what we're doing right now, but but that hap, I think that's the way people socialize today.

• 59:49Speaker 02

  Yeah, maybe, maybe, no, not maybe, yes, you are right. That is the way people socialize. It's in the air.

• 59:56Jen Cohen?

  It's in the air. How do we find a happy, where's the pendulum come back? Like what do, like, I know you're not like uh uh, well, actually, you are a mind reader, actually. I was gonna say, I know you're not a mind reader, but you are, but. As a psychologist, like where do you, where do, where do you see the trends going for human behavior in this way for society?

• 1:00:17Speaker 02

  Yeah, I just wish I could be more optimistic about the, the trend lines.

• 1:00:20Jen Cohen?

  Right?

• 1:00:21Speaker 02

  But I think we're in the middle of something historically right now and it's, uh, needs to go through it before it gets better. Um, and I, I, again, I really wish I could just lie to you and say, I feel great sense of optimism.

• 1:00:36Jen Cohen?

  Yeah, but.

• 1:00:37Speaker 02

  Because I am such a, usually such an optimistic guy, but if you read the tea leaves.

• 1:00:41Jen Cohen?

  Yeah.

• 1:00:42Speaker 02

  Um, you know, we're going through a real change in leadership, a change in leader, what, what it means to be America, you know, what is, what does it mean to be an American, you know, and, uh, and a lot of conceptualizations of, you know, we've never been more divided on morality issues, you know, uh, and everyone has, thinks that they're, uh, the, the most moral person of, of them all.

• 1:01:08Jen Cohen?

  Right, exactly, it's true.

• 1:01:10Speaker 02

  And, uh, it, it, it, it, it needs to go, we need to get through it to get to, out to the other side.

• 1:01:16Jen Cohen?

  Yeah, I, I, I see, I, I think we're, we're in a, we're in a bad place personally, but.

• 1:01:21Speaker 02

  But doesn't mean you can't do your best.

• 1:01:23Jen Cohen?

  You can't do, exactly.

• 1:01:24Speaker 02

  To show up in this world how you want to show up, there, there's my optimism.

• 1:01:28Jen Cohen?

  There's your optimism. Okay, well, on that though, how about cultivating psychological flexibility?

• 1:01:33Speaker 02

  Yeah, that's super important because there's a whole research literature on the ACT approach to psychology, ACT.

• 1:01:38Jen Cohen?

  Yeah.

• 1:01:39Speaker 02

  Um, uh, where you develop, uh, a psychological flexibility that allows you to change your goals, change your, even if you're not feeling like you're in the mood to do something.

• 1:01:48Jen Cohen?

  Yeah.

• 1:01:48Speaker 02

  You change based on your higher values, like where do you really want to go? I have this whole sailboat model of self-actualization, you know, like where is the port you want to sail to?

• 1:01:58Jen Cohen?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:01:58Speaker 02

  Get really clear on that. And when you get really clear on that, a lot of your momentary by momentary decisions. Change and are different, you know?

• 1:02:05Jen Cohen?

  Right.

• 1:02:06Speaker 02

  And psychological flexibility is the opposite of what's called experiential avoidance. A lot of people have experiential avoidance for things. They avoid things that may make them feel uncomfortable.

• 1:02:19Jen Cohen?

  Mm hmm.

• 1:02:19Speaker 02

  You know, and and and as all the research shows, experiential avoidance is not the way to growth.

• 1:02:28Jen Cohen?

  Well, that's why they say like, I've I've seen a lot of a lot that the idea of just overall, like psychological flexibility, every type of flexibility, adaptability is how people, that's those are the most healthy people in everything in life, right? Being able to like, go with the punches and change and

• 1:02:47Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 1:02:47Jen Cohen?

  And be malleable.

• 1:02:49Speaker 02

  It's called different things, depending on what researcher you are and but it's all the same.

• 1:02:54Jen Cohen?

  It's all the same shit, yeah.

• 1:02:55Speaker 02

  Uh, George Bonanno calls it the flexibility mindset.

• 1:02:58Jen Cohen?

  Yeah.

• 1:02:59Speaker 02

  He says that's the most important thing for resilience, you know? But, um, yeah, I mean, that that's where it's at is having that flexibility, not even like flexible, having a flexible identity as well, like is it's lacking these days. People are so, you know,

• 1:03:17Jen Cohen?

  Hard set.

• 1:03:17Speaker 02

  This, I am a Democrat.

• 1:03:19Jen Cohen?

  Yeah.

• 1:03:20Speaker 02

  Oh, you know, therefore, don't even talk to me about the good anyone else could do if they're not a Democrat too, or I am a Republican. I don't mean to pick on the Democrats.

• 1:03:29Jen Cohen?

  Right, right, right.

• 1:03:30Speaker 02

  Um, whatever it is, I am this, I am that. And, um, we're we've become such an identity obsessed culture where everything revolves around that, um, that we're not leaving ourselves flexible to different ways of being, different ways of, um, uh, interacting with others, with perspectives that, uh, may seem very different to the way we think, but, you know, getting curious about it, being like, huh, you know, my identity isn't so rigid that I can't accommodate this other worldview at all, you know?

• 1:04:01Jen Cohen?

  Mm hmm.

• 1:04:02Speaker 02

  It's saying you can, you can, you can integrate multiple things in this world.

• 1:04:08Jen Cohen?

  Right, right, right, right. No, I think that's I agree 100%. What else do you want to talk about from your book? Is there anything we're leaving out that's important that you want to talk about?

• 1:04:17Speaker 02

  I mean, part one of the book is all about all the ways that you're a victim to your own inner self. You know, we all talk about like being a victim to external circumstances. But part one is all about being victim to your own need for self-esteem, for people pleasing, for your past, to be a victim to your past, these sorts of things.

• 1:04:32Jen Cohen?

  People pleasing is a big one.

• 1:04:34Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:04:35Jen Cohen?

  That's a big one, too.

• 1:04:36Speaker 02

  Yes. Do you identify with that at all?

• 1:04:38Jen Cohen?

  Um, I don't think so. I don't think I'm a people pleaser.

• 1:04:43Speaker 02

  That's cool.

• 1:04:44Jen Cohen?

  But I do see, what are you smiling at? Am I a people pleaser? Yeah, that's what I thought. That's not one of my problems. I have other issues way bigger than that, but that's not one of them. Are you a people pleaser?

• 1:04:57Speaker 02

  I'm a recovered people pleaser.

• 1:04:59Jen Cohen?

  Really? What comes with that? What comes with being a people pleaser?

• 1:05:03Speaker 02

  Well, I think part of it is, it's a good thing, like you have empathy, right? You don't want to hurt people's feelings. But I've lived long enough on this planet at this point that I've noticed that not everything you do to piss someone off was anything you actually did.

• 1:05:18Jen Cohen?

  Yeah, exactly.

• 1:05:19Speaker 02

  That's what, that's what recovered people pleasers or people who want to be recovered like me need to really realize. You can do, you know, like, like, easy example is I'm in the Uber with this guy on the way here. People are honking their horn at him. We're trying to figure out what the heck is going on. People, you know, like, he's like, I'm doing everything right. I'm moving in the straight in my lane. People are honking their horns. Oh, how dare you? Fuck you, whatever. I don't know if I want to curse. But it's like, you can go and have the best of intentions and you still, and you still won't please everyone. In fact, the more, there's a paradox, actually. It's interesting. The more you try to live a life where you don't ruffle any feathers, like you try to do, I do everything right. I'm going to try to dot every eye. The more you actually piss people off.

• 1:06:02Jen Cohen?

  That's the truth, isn't that?

• 1:06:04Speaker 02

  It's a deep truth.

• 1:06:05Jen Cohen?

  Isn't that, that is like Murphy's Law, though, isn't that true?

• 1:06:08Speaker 02

  Maybe.

• 1:06:08Jen Cohen?

  It's also like no good deed goes unpunished, right?

• 1:06:11Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:06:11Jen Cohen?

  Isn't that so true?

• 1:06:13Speaker 02

  Yeah, like you can't live your life, making your decisions so that it pleases someone else. You know, at a certain point, you lose your authenticity, you lose your soul.

• 1:06:23Jen Cohen?

  You do, you lose your soul.

• 1:06:24Speaker 02

  Unfortunately.

• 1:06:26Jen Cohen?

  And you're recovering, so you're okay, though, right now.

• 1:06:28Speaker 02

  I'm I'm in a good place. This book is um is a real is really like the voice, my voice, where it's at in two thousand twenty five. I don't think I could have written this book in ten years ago.

• 1:06:40Jen Cohen?

  No?

• 1:06:41Speaker 02

  No, no.

• 1:06:42Jen Cohen?

  No.

• 1:06:42Speaker 02

  No.

• 1:06:43Jen Cohen?

  Cause you, cause why?

• 1:06:44Speaker 02

  Oh, my God, my books were always so like trying to please everyone. No, no.

• 1:06:49Jen Cohen?

  Really?

• 1:06:50Speaker 02

  Yeah, well, not, I mean, maybe I'm being too hard on myself, but they were definitely just sugary, sweet books, you know? This book has some truths.

• 1:07:00Jen Cohen?

  Was a little bit more like you're you're pulling, yeah, you're like you're pulling out some like stops there a little bit.

• 1:07:05Speaker 02

  A little edgy.

• 1:07:06Jen Cohen?

  A little edgier, maybe.

• 1:07:07Speaker 02

  Living on the wild side a little bit.

• 1:07:09Jen Cohen?

  But your stuff that you talked about in earlier years about intelligence, that's not exactly that.

• 1:07:14Speaker 02

  True, did try to challenge the system. Um, that's true, but there's.

• 1:07:19Jen Cohen?

  But why? Tell me why. I love the intelligence part, so you can talk about it all day if you want.

• 1:07:23Speaker 02

  Thank you, thank you. Well, I had for many, many years, I thought my mission on life was to redefine intelligence for the first twenty for the first thirty years of my life, I think I thought that that's why I was on this planet, was to take on the IQ, you know, and and researchers and school psychologists and change the education system and show that we need to broaden our way of thinking about intelligence. And I wrote a book called Ungifted, which outlined a lot of my view on that, but then and then I was like, oh, I'm still alive, you know? What's next? And I and I you you keep seeing their higher mount their higher mountains to climb, even you don't know it at the time.

• 1:08:03Jen Cohen?

  What was your main theme about intelligence that you know that you researched?

• 1:08:07Speaker 02

  Well, it was, you know, neurodiversity, the idea that there are people with a lot of hidden strengths and forms of intelligence that we really don't pick up on in an IQ test, you know, or at school, you know, in a classroom. Um, and I really wanted to shine a spotlight on those individuals. They don't just have to be kids, they could be adults, too.

• 1:08:28Jen Cohen?

  Totally.

• 1:08:28Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:08:28Jen Cohen?

  I think that we get really stuck in this idea that if if you're not academically smart, then you're not smart at all.

• 1:08:35Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:08:35Jen Cohen?

  And there's so many other.

• 1:08:37Speaker 02

  A lot of really stupid academics.

• 1:08:39Jen Cohen?

  Most academics can be really stupid. Well, a lot of them are socially inept. They can't like, they don't know how to socialize at some.

• 1:08:45Speaker 02

  Let's be honest.

• 1:08:46Jen Cohen?

  They don't have, they don't have an EQ.

• 1:08:48Speaker 02

  Let's be honest.

• 1:08:49Jen Cohen?

  Right?

• 1:08:49Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:08:50Jen Cohen?

  They don't have emotional intelligence. They don't, maybe they're not like talented. They don't have like spatial awareness, spatial intelligence. There's a lot of different ways.

• 1:08:57Speaker 02

  I don't have spatial intelligence.

• 1:08:58Jen Cohen?

  You don't?

• 1:08:59Speaker 02

  I suck at spatial.

• 1:08:59Jen Cohen?

  What's your academic, but you know, you're academic.

• 1:09:01Speaker 02

  I have EQ, I have EQ.

• 1:09:02Jen Cohen?

  You do?

• 1:09:03Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:09:03Jen Cohen?

  But I think.

• 1:09:04Speaker 02

  Oh, you surprised?

• 1:09:04Jen Cohen?

  I don't know. I mean, I don't know. You're well enough, but I think you have, you have a lot of academic intelligence. You can, you can retain a lot of information.

• 1:09:13Speaker 02

  Yes, but I'm bad at directions.

• 1:09:16Jen Cohen?

  Well, you can be bad at directions, but like you've spread it out, like you quoted a bunch of people in this podcast, like Carl blah, blah, blah says that in.

• 1:09:25Speaker 02

  I am very scholarly.

• 1:09:26Jen Cohen?

  You're very scholarly.

• 1:09:28Speaker 02

  It's true.

• 1:09:28Jen Cohen?

  So when, in all of your learnings and intelligence, what was like, what are a couple of some, some very cogent points that you can share with us?

• 1:09:36Speaker 02

  It like based on everything I've ever studied in my life.

• 1:09:40Jen Cohen?

  Success and intelligence.

• 1:09:42Speaker 02

  Uh, it's all about the habits and the hustle.

• 1:09:44Jen Cohen?

  It's definitely about the habits and the hustle.

• 1:09:47Speaker 02

  If you ask, if you ask me.

• 1:09:47Jen Cohen?

  Yeah, um, you, you, yes, okay. However, I'm asking you.

• 1:09:50Speaker 02

  And what I mean by that is.

• 1:09:52Jen Cohen?

  Yes, go ahead.

• 1:09:52Speaker 02

  You know, so much of life is, is really connecting with yourself and really getting deep, deep down into, uh, and not, and taking responsibility for your whole self. Not just the parts of you that you like. There's, I call it the authenticity bias. We only circle the adjectives that are positive and say, that's the real me. And all this stuff isn't the real you.

• 1:10:15Jen Cohen?

  Hmm.

• 1:10:16Speaker 02

  But really taking responsibility for your whole existence and, and, and, and being passionate about what you do and, uh, and, and really putting that, putting that grit into it. You know, if you don't have the self belief, you know, like none of this stuff is gonna, you know, no, I hate to say it, but no one's coming to save you.

• 1:10:33Jen Cohen?

  Yeah, no idea. That's true. The reason why I was asking, I really wanted to kind of get into the intelligence thing is

• 1:10:38Speaker 02

  Yeah, oh yeah.

• 1:10:39Jen Cohen?

  I did my first TED Talk a long time ago was about the idea of being bold. And I talk about this idea that it went like pretty viral, that I'm a big believer that it's not about how smart. I think boldness is way more important than intelligence. I think if you're if you're bold enough to go after something, those are the people that win in life. Because a lot of times when you're smart, right, academically, you tend to overthink, you tend to have analysis paralysis. You're very myopic in one way, right, versus people who are out there going. So that's why whenever I see it, that's why how I initially found like, you know, because everything about my stuff was around intelligence and boldness and this you came up. And I love what you were talking about because it's so it's so true.

• 1:11:24Jen Cohen?

  And it's so important. And I think people get so stuck on like, oh, I'm stupid. Because you're bad, you've got bad school grades. But you could be really, really brilliant in other ways that will and you will supersede the rest of those people.

• 1:11:37Speaker 02

  Yeah, for sure. If you want to sell my insights about intelligence specifically, I really do have this whole theory where I argue that we can distinguish between intellectual curiosity and intellectual sort of raw processing speed, you know, so to speak. There are a lot of people that don't have a shred of intellectual curiosity, but are good at solving, you know, IQ type problems. And they can spit out, you know, complex math equations, but are not particularly curious about getting to know others. As well as intellectually curious, I think no matter what your IQ is, you can still be, you know, to a certain degree, you know, like there is there's an intellectual disability, which makes it difficult, very difficult.

• 1:12:20Speaker 02

  But we all can be more curious about the world, how it works and about what the truth is about things. So many smart people right now who are not curious, particularly curious about the truth.

• 1:12:30Jen Cohen?

  Yeah, well, hundred percent. I think that's why the whole intellectually, the whole curiosity piece, I think is the most important part. Because if you're a curious person, that's the pathway to learn, like for opportunity, for communication, for like connection. Like if you don't have that piece, you can be solving problems all day and all night, and you're going to get nowhere fast. Really, like you'll have the ceiling is much lower.

• 1:12:53Speaker 02

  What you said.

• 1:12:54Jen Cohen?

  Yeah, thank you. All right. Well, Scott, thank you for being here. I really appreciate it.

• 1:12:58Speaker 02

  What a wide ranging conversation.

• 1:13:00Jen Cohen?

  I know. I wanted to cover, like I said, I wanted you here for a long time and I, I may have seen a little sprat, like a little bit all over the place because there are so many things like I told you that, that I like that you talk about.

• 1:13:13Speaker 02

  Well, you were great.

• 1:13:14Jen Cohen?

  Oh, thank you. You were great. The book is great. Rise Above is really, really good. And I just, like I said, keep on doing what you're doing. You, you do a lot of research, right? Like, you remember it. Like, you remember everything.

• 1:13:26Speaker 02

  I, I have a bit of something within psychology where I can remember everything. Yeah.

• 1:13:30Jen Cohen?

  But do you, do you have like a photographic memory?

• 1:13:32Speaker 02

  No, only within psychology.

• 1:13:33Jen Cohen?

  But you can remember everything you've ever seen in it? Cause it's pretty good.

• 1:13:36Speaker 02

  Some people have said that, have said that about me. Yeah. There's something about that where I remember every study I've come across and can, it comes, it comes back to me at the right time. I don't know, but I don't, I don't have that about everything in my life.

• 1:13:48Jen Cohen?

  No, but with that, it works. Like, so do you, as a cognitive psychologist, you do a lot of research?

• 1:13:54Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 1:13:54Jen Cohen?

  You have your coaching program, you write books.

• 1:13:56Speaker 02

  The Center for Human Potential.

• 1:13:58Jen Cohen?

  The Center for, and so what, like, what else are you doing with your time? Or that's a bit, that's a lot, that's a lot of stuff.

• 1:14:06Speaker 02

  No, there's a lot. Um, so there's the, the, this book has come out, podcast, I write for my Substack called Beautiful Minds. It's in my Substack and I have, uh, in, in this fall, I'll be, uh, full time at Columbia, Barnard College, Columbia, teaching.

• 1:14:20Jen Cohen?

  Full time?

• 1:14:21Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah. I'm in the process of moving back to New York.

• 1:14:24Jen Cohen?

  You are?

• 1:14:25Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 1:14:26Jen Cohen?

  Congratulations.

• 1:14:27Speaker 02

  Thank you.

• 1:14:29Jen Cohen?

  Full time, huh?

• 1:14:30Speaker 02

  At least for a year, at least for a year.

• 1:14:32Jen Cohen?

  Do you know that they just took away $400, $400 million in funding?

• 1:14:36Speaker 02

  I'm very aware of everything going on over there right now.

• 1:14:38Jen Cohen?

  What do you think about that?

• 1:14:39Speaker 02

  We, we, let's, let's talk about that another time.

• 1:14:42Jen Cohen?

  Okay, okay. Um, so congratulations. Oh, that's a great job. A great job on the book, on the new job. And where do people find, people can find the book wherever, on Amazon, wherever. And you're on Instagram?

• 1:14:55Speaker 02

  Insta, I'm on Insta, at Scott Barrett Kaufman, or The Amazing Dr. Scott, if you want to follow my magician page.

• 1:15:03Jen Cohen?

  Right. That's exactly it. You promised you're gonna do it with me after, after.

• 1:15:07Speaker 02

  Maybe off, once the camera.

• 1:15:09Jen Cohen?

  Yes, of course. Okay. Thank you, guys. Thank you for being on here.