How To Discover & Unlock Your Fullest Potential w/Psychologist Scott Barry Kaufman EP 1116

“Greatness is realizing your full powers of your entire being."Today's guest is humanistic psychologist Scott Barry Kaufman. He received a P.h. D. in cognitive science from Yale University and has taught at Columbia , NYU, the University of Pennsylvania. He hosts The Psychology Podcast and is author of 9 books, including his new book, Transcend: The New Science of Self-Actualization. In 2015, he was named one of "50 Groundbreaking Scientists who are changing the way we see the world" by Business InsiderIn this episode Lewis and Scott discuss Scott’s revision of the hierarchy of needs and what it means to be fully human, the best psychological practices to help you improve your life, how to discover your purpose and define your core belief system, why self-doubt destroys our ability to achieve greatness, and so much more! For more go to: www.lewishowes.com/1116Check out his book: Transcend: The New Science of Self-ActualizationCheck out his website: www.scottbarrykaufman.com Check out his podcast: The Phycology Podcast The Power of Erotic Intelligence with Esther Perel: https://link.chtbl.com/732-podFind Lasting Love with Matthew Hussey: https://link.chtbl.com/811-pod Get more from Lewis! Get my New York Times Bestselling book, Make Money Easy! Get The Greatness Mindset audiobook on SpotifyText Lewis AIYouTubeInstagramWebsiteTiktokFacebookX

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

• 0:00Lewis Howes?

  This is episode number 1,116 with New York Times bestselling author and one of the top psychologists in the world, Scott Barry Kaufman. Welcome to the School of Greatness. My name is Lewis Howes, a former pro athlete turned lifestyle entrepreneur. And each week, we bring you an inspiring person or message to help you discover how to unlock your inner greatness. Thanks for spending some time with me today. Now let the class begin.

• 0:32Lewis Howes?

  Psychologist Abram Maslow said, "If you deliberately plan on being less than you are capable of, then I warn you that you'll be unhappy for the rest of your life." And Winston Churchill said, "Attitude is a little thing that makes a big difference." My guest today is humanistic psychologist Scott Barry Kaufman, and he received a PhD in cognitive science from Yale University and has taught at Columbia, NYU, and the University of Pennsylvania. And he hosts the Psychology Podcast and is the author of nine books, including his latest book, Transcend: The New Science of Self-Actualization. And in 2015, he was named one of 50 groundbreaking scientists who are changing the way we see

• 1:16Lewis Howes?

  the world by Business Insider. And in this episode, we discuss Scott's revision of the hierarchy of needs and what it means to be fully human, the best psychological practices to help you improve your life today, how to discover your purpose and define your core belief system, why self-doubt destroys our ability to achieve greatness, and so much more. This is an extremely powerful and insightful episode. Make sure to share this with someone that you think would be benefited from it, someone that would be inspired by it, someone that could help improve the quality of their life as well. Just text them the link on the show notes or lewishowes.com/1116, or you can just copy and paste wherever you're at on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. And as well, make sure to subscribe to the School of Greatness over on Apple Podcasts

• 2:01Lewis Howes?

  and Spotify if you haven't yet, so you can stay up to date from the latest and greatest from the School of Greatness podcast. Okay, in just a moment, the one and only Scott Barry Kaufman.

• 2:15Lewis Howes?

  Welcome back everyone to the School of Greatness Podcast. Very excited about our guest. We've got my man Scott Barry Kaufman in the house.

• 2:21Scott Barry Kaufman?

  Yeah.

• 2:21Lewis Howes?

  Good to see you, brother.

• 2:22Scott Barry Kaufman?

  Good to see you too. Good to see you.

• 2:23Lewis Howes?

  Very excited about this. We've had a crazy year. And the new science of self-actualization, what you're talking about in your new book, Transcend, is stuff that I'm fascinated with because we're all looking to improve the quality of our life. We're looking to have more love, more connection, more purpose. We're looking to have more fulfillment, happiness, self-esteem, all these things. And you have broken down and reimagined Maslow's hierarchy of needs, essentially.

• 2:54Scott Barry Kaufman?

  Yeah.

• 2:54Lewis Howes?

  And created a new process, a new framework for living a great life. And what we need in order to go through the waves of life in order to transcend to be the best version of ourselves.

• 3:06Scott Barry Kaufman?

  I like the way you put this.

• 3:07Lewis Howes?

  Right? So I'd love to break it down. And first, here, if you can share, what is Maslow's hierarchy of needs? For those that don't understand it fully, what does that process and framework look like? And then what is your Kaufman Sail Belt in order for us to learn what that is too?

• 3:25Scott Barry Kaufman?

  So a lot of people might not have heard of Maslow's hierarchy of needs, but surely they've seen the meme on the internet with maybe toilet paper at the bottom. Like it's a pyramid, you know, with the various levels of needs that one needs to fulfill in order to be able to focus your attention on self-actualization, which is becoming all that you're uniquely capable of becoming. So the needs for connection, the needs for self-esteem, the need for safety, and all these things that clearly if your mind's preoccupied, you're hungry, right? Like you're not focused on self-actualization, you know? So it's contextual as well throughout the course of our day. You know, if you feel very lonely, your mind is preoccupied with the deprivation of your loneliness, you know?

• 4:09Scott Barry Kaufman?

  If you don't feel like you're getting any respect, you know, your whole consciousness is directed towards "respect me", and you're kind of in part onto the world. You know, you want the world to kind of bend to your will in a way.

• 4:21Lewis Howes?

  Where is respect on that chain of needs?

• 4:23Scott Barry Kaufman?

  In Maslow's original, it was the highest up before self-actualization.

• 4:27Lewis Howes?

  Respect.

• 4:28Scott Barry Kaufman?

  Esteem, esteem, esteem. He called it esteem. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 4:31Lewis Howes?

  So we want, we need, if we can't eat, the only thing we're thinking about is food.

• 4:35Scott Barry Kaufman?

  Yes.

• 4:36Lewis Howes?

  If we're sick, the only thing we're thinking about is getting healthy. If we have nowhere to sleep, the only thing we're thinking about is shelter.

• 4:41Scott Barry Kaufman?

  Yeah.

• 4:41Lewis Howes?

  And then, once we have that foundation, it's the next level.

• 4:44Scott Barry Kaufman?

  Loneliness, then loneliness, social connection, and then esteem.

• 4:47Lewis Howes?

  Then esteem, which is respect, credibility, I guess, or being respected within your community.

• 4:53Scott Barry Kaufman?

  Respecting yourself and then getting respect from others. Yes, he had both of those forms of esteem he talked about.

• 4:59Lewis Howes?

  Okay, and the next one is?

• 5:01Scott Barry Kaufman?

  So the, so the connection comes before belonging and connection, the need to belong, the need to, you know, make connections with others, and then esteem was higher in his, in his original model.

• 5:13Lewis Howes?

  And then the top is?

• 5:15Scott Barry Kaufman?

  Then boo, so then you self-actualize.

• 5:17Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 5:17Scott Barry Kaufman?

  And it's-

• 5:18Lewis Howes?

  And what does self-actualization mean?

• 5:20Scott Barry Kaufman?

  You know, Maslow, here's, here's some like cheeky, not cheeky things, but things that like reveals, grand reveals. First of all, Maslow never drew a pyramid.

• 5:27Lewis Howes?

  Oh.

• 5:27Scott Barry Kaufman?

  You know, people don't know that, it's in all the textbooks, and it's like management textbook, all these management, business schools, they learn it, there's no, there's no pyramid. Also, he didn't, he didn't like the term self-actualization. I found in an unpublished essay, because I read all of his unpublished stuff, like just researching, I found in a footnote, he said, "I hate that damn word, self-actualization."

• 5:47Lewis Howes?

  Really?

• 5:48Scott Barry Kaufman?

  Oh my god, I should, I should send you, send you a, you know, take a picture, because it's like, when I discovered, I almost fell off my chair, you know. He actually-

• 5:55Lewis Howes?

  He never said the words.

• 5:57Scott Barry Kaufman?

  He did, he definitely used the term self-actualization, but towards the end of his life, he started to think of it more, he, he preferred the term fully human.

• 6:04Lewis Howes?

  Ooh, I like that.

• 6:05Scott Barry Kaufman?

  Yeah, yeah, and, and that's how he started talking about it later in his life. He, he just wasn't, didn't use the term as much.

• 6:12Lewis Howes?

  What does fully human mean in your mind?

• 6:14Scott Barry Kaufman?

  Sure, I'll tell you, sort of like, in his earliest years, what he meant by self-actualization first, he thought of self-actualization as becoming your unique creative potential. You know, like, what is the thing within you that, what's the song within you, right? Sort of thing. That's definitely how he viewed it in his early life. But becoming fully human, as he started to think about this concept more broadly, was how can you kind of bring your whole self to the table? You know, not just like your talent, you know? You can become self-actualized and not be very transcendent, not be very, you know, not give back to others, not kind of get outside yourself. And towards the end of his life, he started to distinguish between self-actualizing non-transcenders-

• 6:55Scott Barry Kaufman?

  And self-actualizing transcenders, two different classes of self-actualizers. You know, the self-actualizing non-transenders, the person who goes to work, you know, like, they clock in, they do their job, maybe their job isn't something that necessarily contributes much to society, but you know, they're, they're, they're good, they go home.

• 7:16Lewis Howes?

  It's not fulfilling to them personally?

• 7:17Scott Barry Kaufman?

  It might, it might even be a little bit fulfilling, but it's not something that's really getting outside of themselves, you know, and doesn't have, be in line with, with what Mazel called the B values.

• 7:28Lewis Howes?

  The B values.

• 7:29Scott Barry Kaufman?

  The B values, the values of being itself. So these are values that you don't need to do them for any other reason. Truth, justice, beauty, meaningfulness, he has a long list of the B values, we call the B of perfection, excellence, excellence is one of his B values. You know, you strive for excellence for excellence sake, you strive for beauty for beauty sake, you strive for truth for truth sake.

• 7:51Lewis Howes?

  Not to get likes, not to get followers, not for accomplishments, but just to be in that state.

• 7:57Scott Barry Kaufman?

  To be, you know, you want more meaning in your life, not so that you get famous. You want meaning.

• 8:02Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 8:03Scott Barry Kaufman?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 8:04Lewis Howes?

  Okay, so self-actualization and then self-actualization plus?

• 8:07Scott Barry Kaufman?

  Transcendence.

• 8:08Lewis Howes?

  Transcendence, and what's transcendence mean?

• 8:10Scott Barry Kaufman?

  Well, you know, it's, I wish I had a really pithy, well, actually I do have a pithy, I have a definition, but it ain't, it ain't pithy, I have a, I have a complicated definition, because I just want to distinguish between, as I do in my book, between healthy transcendence and unhealthy transcendence. So you see a lot of these gurus who preach transcendence and then they kind of molest everyone, you know, in their parish or wherever, you know, and it's like, you're like, oh, you're really, you're really transcending, like really, you know, you know, there, it's built on a very faulty foundation, as Mazel put it, you know, he called it, he called it pseudo-growth, growth built on a faulty foundation, and I call it pseudo-transcendence. Yeah, it's transcendence built on, really, you're trying to get your esteem needs, self-esteem needs met, you know, you're really trying to get, you know, you're lonely, so you, you

• 8:54Scott Barry Kaufman?

  know, you've built all this stuff to have connections with others, but healthy transcendence is a viewpoint of, I didn't even get into my sailboat model, so maybe we're going to, we're skipping ahead, but yeah, it's the view of the seabird, yeah.

• 9:06Lewis Howes?

  A bird that's looking above.

• 9:08Scott Barry Kaufman?

  Yeah.

• 9:08Lewis Howes?

  Your life.

• 9:09Scott Barry Kaufman?

  You know what I love about you? I love that we just like jumped transcendence. We're like, you know, hold on.

• 9:13Lewis Howes?

  Let's get there.

• 9:14Scott Barry Kaufman?

  Like, let's just like go right to.

• 9:16Lewis Howes?

  Well, this is what everyone wants, right? Everyone want, well, you want safety, you want connection, you want to feel loved, you want to feel purpose, mission, but ultimately you want to feel like.

• 9:23Scott Barry Kaufman?

  Connected to the rest of humanity.

• 9:25Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, well, what's the greatest potential for my life? What's the meaning of my life? Why am I here? How can I serve my purpose?

• 9:32Scott Barry Kaufman?

  Yeah.

• 9:32Lewis Howes?

  And do it fully?

• 9:33Scott Barry Kaufman?

  That's right.

• 9:34Lewis Howes?

  And so what is healthy?

• 9:36Scott Barry Kaufman?

  Healthy transcendence is an emergent phenomenon, and I'll explain every part of this. Healthy transcendence is an emergent phenomenon resulting from the harmonious integration of one's whole self in the service of cultivating the good society.

• 9:50Lewis Howes?

  Hmm.

• 9:51Scott Barry Kaufman?

  I can break that down, you know, so.

• 9:54Lewis Howes?

  For me, that's kind of like my definition of greatness. I always tell people that.

• 9:57Scott Barry Kaufman?

  Isn't that interesting?

• 9:57Lewis Howes?

  The way that I I view greatness is, um, it's discovering your unique talents and gifts that are inside of you and pursuing your dreams, using those gifts and making an impact on the most people you can.

• 10:13Scott Barry Kaufman?

  Yeah.

• 10:13Lewis Howes?

  In the pursuit of those dreams. Um, so it's figuring out who you are to pursue.

• 10:18Scott Barry Kaufman?

  Yours is pithier.

• 10:19Lewis Howes?

  And then helping as many people as you can along the way. Maybe helping as many people as 10 people. It's maybe it's 100 people. Maybe it's your whole community. It's your city or your country. Maybe it is, but maybe it's just your family and that's fine too. But helping as many people along the way that you're you're capable of helping.

• 10:35Scott Barry Kaufman?

  And yeah, I love that. And the key, uh, thing I try to point out there is also that it's important to be have integration there of all the various sides of yourself. Because, um, you know, and I feel like you, I don't know, can we get personal about you for a second?

• 10:50Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, of course.

• 10:50Scott Barry Kaufman?

  I mean, I feel like you've really, um, uh, your whole growth process has really been a process of integration. You know, you had certain sides of yourself you weren't proud of at some points in your life. And you didn't like, and you brought it into the rest of you. You didn't like, you you started to have acceptance, right?

• 11:06Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, absolutely.

• 11:07Scott Barry Kaufman?

  And, and.

• 11:07Lewis Howes?

  Well, it's very shameful for most of my childhood, I mean, most of my adulthood. I was shameful of things that had happened or things that I'd done, happened to me or things that I created in the world.

• 11:18Lewis Howes?

  And I hid those shames.

• 11:20Scott Barry Kaufman?

  Yeah.

• 11:20Lewis Howes?

  I didn't talk about them, which made me suffer. So when I started to talk about them and forgive myself and forgive others and heal.

• 11:27Scott Barry Kaufman?

  Yeah.

• 11:27Lewis Howes?

  Then it allowed me to go beyond that state of being that I was in. I was able to create and accomplish a lot, but I still wasn't feeling connected. I wasn't feeling like things mattered as much. I was still suffering. So I was wondering, why am I?

• 11:42Scott Barry Kaufman?

  You felt a disconnection between self and world.

• 11:44Lewis Howes?

  Absolutely. And I was like, why am I feeling this? Let me just do more and work harder and.

• 11:48Scott Barry Kaufman?

  Yeah.

• 11:48Lewis Howes?

  You know, win more, but it wasn't supporting my overall growth.

• 11:53Scott Barry Kaufman?

  Yeah, and see now you're very comfortable in your own body. It's obvious to me, you know, like you're very, it is with your being.

• 11:59Lewis Howes?

  Absolutely.

• 11:59Scott Barry Kaufman?

  Is a phrase I like to use.

• 12:01Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 12:01Scott Barry Kaufman?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 12:02Lewis Howes?

  So transcendence, healthy transcendence is essentially the definition of greatness.

• 12:09Lewis Howes?

  And we're all trying to get there essentially. Is that what I'm hearing you say? We should all be striving to get there, but it's going to take safety, connection, self-esteem first before we can really get to those levels.

• 12:20Scott Barry Kaufman?

  So I'll explain my new revised Kaufman sailboat model. So my revised hierarchy of needs, there's no longer a higher, like a pyramid, you know, because Maslow never even drew a pyramid.

• 12:33Scott Barry Kaufman?

  We're a whole vehicle that needs to be integrated. That's why a sailboat works. You know, all the parts have to work together optimally in order for that sailboat to really move in its most purposeful direction, you know?

• 12:43Lewis Howes?

  I'll put up a graphic or something here as well for people so I can see it.

• 12:47Scott Barry Kaufman?

  Wow, that can zoom in or something?

• 12:48Lewis Howes?

  We can do that, yeah.

• 12:49Scott Barry Kaufman?

  You've got mad.

• 12:50Lewis Howes?

  We've got technology here, you know? So how is yours different than his? What is?

• 12:55Scott Barry Kaufman?

  Well, it keeps the spirit of what Maslow. See, remember there was no Maslow's pyramid. He never drew a pyramid. If you actually, people betrayed the spirit of his original theory. So I'm trying to like bring in the original spirit with my own flavor, you know? So in his original theory, he distinguished between the being realm of human existence and the deficiency realm, D versus B realm of human existence. When we're in the deficiency realm or we're deficiently motivated. So another way of saying is deficiency motivation versus growth motivation. When we're in. The realm of deficiency motivation, we're motivated by what we are lacking. And like I said earlier, you know, we try to, we basically are screaming for the things we're lacking in the world.

• 13:39Scott Barry Kaufman?

  Like if we're hungry, feed me, you know, if we're lonely, like be my friend. You know, which paradoxically makes people not want to be friends with you because you come across as needy. And that's really an interesting paradox. But if you're really like low in respect, you demand, you demand respect.

• 13:55Lewis Howes?

  You need to respect me.

• 13:56Scott Barry Kaufman?

  Yeah, demand it, you demand it. But the growth realm of human existence is a whole different realm. If you can get to the growth realm of being, you no longer want the world to conform to you. You actually start admiring the world on its own terms. You know, you start to admire people on their own terms and that's called be love. Love for the being of others, that's what Maslow called it. In the, so in the D realm, you have the need for connection. But in the B realm, you have be love, which is just love for the being of others, not for what they offer to you. You know, like maybe someone wouldn't, doesn't even offer you connection, but you can still admire them. You can still love them, you know, you can still be curious about them, right? So the be love is a whole different.

• 14:39Scott Barry Kaufman?

  So, so what I did with the sailboat is the boat itself is the D realm, right? You need, if you have too many holes in the boat, you know, the boat's going to sink, right? The water's going to come in and sink. If you're too deficient in the needs for safety, the need for connection, the need for self-esteem. And they all work together as a system is another point I want to make. They all, it's a feedback loop. I call it the insecurity cycle. People who are deficient in any one of those three tend to start quickly becoming deficient in the other two, right?

• 15:10Lewis Howes?

  So if safety is deficient, then your self-esteem and your connection is low. If your connection is low, then you don't have self-esteem or confidence and you don't feel safe.

• 15:20Scott Barry Kaufman?

  That's exactly right.

• 15:21Lewis Howes?

  And if you have low self-esteem, then you feel disconnected and lack of safety as well.

• 15:25Scott Barry Kaufman?

  That's right.

• 15:26Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 15:26Scott Barry Kaufman?

  Yeah, and you feel like, nobody respects me, nobody cares about me, you know? Um, so it's a cycle. Um, so that's the boat. Um, but if the boat is safe and secure, you're, you're still not gonna go anywhere unless you open up the sail, right? So it, it's not enough to just be safe and secure. Some people are acting these days like the ultimate is just to be, uh, the lack of what they have, you know, not, no longer lack what they have and then they're gonna be happy. It's like, no, no, no, there needs to be something above zero, right? You can't just get from negative fifty to zero, right? You don't go to, you go to a psych- a psychologist and you're anxious, you have generalized anxiety disorder. Um, a lot of people, are you just satisfied if you leave the psychologist no longer being anxious in the world? You know, there, there's still nothing added to that.

• 16:08Scott Barry Kaufman?

  So you, once you can open the sail and move with a vulnerability against the inevitable winds and waves of the sea, um, you move in a purposeful direction with a spirit of exploration, um, be love and purpose. Um, despite knowing that the waves could come crashing down on us at any time. And even though we're all in our own boat, we're moving in the sea, the same sea together. So that, that wave can come crashing on many boats at the same time, you know? So we need to be connected to rest of humanity. Um, and also still have that bravery and, uh, and exploration drive to just go despite our fears, you know? I was nervous today, I was nervous this morning, this is the first time I've put on a suit in a year. That is the farthest I've driven in, in over a year.

• 16:51Lewis Howes?

  Five miles, yeah.

• 16:53Scott Barry Kaufman?

  Six miles, you know, and it's like, I was a little nervous. But the thing is, you just, you have to move in life, you have to keep moving, you know? And, uh, and that's the, that's the sailboat metaphor is you have to open that sail ultimately, or else you're not gonna grow. You know, you have to get outside your comfort zone.

• 17:07Lewis Howes?

  And when you open the sail, there's exploration, love and purpose.

• 17:10Scott Barry Kaufman?

  Yeah, yeah. So another way of putting that is whereas, uh, security is, um, the base of security is safety, the base of growth is exploration. Does that make sense?

• 17:20Lewis Howes?

  So safety and exploration. Because you could have safety, connection, self-esteem, but if you don't have exploration, exploration, you don't, you're not, if you're not growing, then you feel stagnant, you feel disconnected, you probably feel less safe then also, right?

• 17:35Scott Barry Kaufman?

  Yeah, that's exactly.

• 17:36Lewis Howes?

  Something's missing, I gotta shake something up in my life.

• 17:38Scott Barry Kaufman?

  Yeah, and you know, sometimes we might not even feel safe and still choose, say, fuck it, I'm gonna choose exploration. You know, like sometimes we don't have to wait till we're fully safe in order to explore and...

• 17:48Lewis Howes?

  Why is that?

• 17:50Scott Barry Kaufman?

  Why are some people like, you know, take two people, some people have the fear and they don't grow, and some people have the fear and they do, is that kind of the question?

• 17:56Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 17:57Scott Barry Kaufman?

  That's a great question, yeah.

• 17:58Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, I like that.

• 17:59Scott Barry Kaufman?

  I just wanted to zoom in on the question. You know, because it's like, I wish I knew the precise answer. Some have done personality differences. Maslow did write that like, the self-actualizers he studied seemed to, as opposed to being frightened by the unknown, they get, they were turned on by the unknown. Excited, he used the word excited.

• 18:19Lewis Howes?

  I get excited.

• 18:20Scott Barry Kaufman?

  Yeah.

• 18:21Lewis Howes?

  I get excited because I don't, I don't know if there's ever been like a bad moment, when something didn't work out, or I failed, or like, I was humiliated. I don't, I can't look back and say, that ruined my life.

• 18:34Scott Barry Kaufman?

  Yeah.

• 18:34Lewis Howes?

  Like, it might have been a moment of embarrassment, and it might have affected me the earlier in my life, when I didn't know how to use those emotions for good, or I didn't know how to transcend the feeling of embarrassment, or loneliness, or rejection. But as I look back at my life, and you talk about this in your book, about the history of looking back, we should look back at the history of our life, like a historian, I think you mentioned that.

• 18:55Scott Barry Kaufman?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 18:56Lewis Howes?

  And.

• 18:56Scott Barry Kaufman?

  Maslow talked a lot about that.

• 18:57Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, and as we look back like a historian, like, okay, look at all these different moments, and years, and timelines, and chapters, and pages that we turned. And if I look back, I'm like, every decision I made that had a risk, that was scary, turned out for the better.

• 19:12Scott Barry Kaufman?

  Yeah.

• 19:12Lewis Howes?

  Like, even if it turned out for the worse, it eventually, it built some, a foundation of like, I can do this, I can go after what I want, and I'm still gonna be alive.

• 19:22Scott Barry Kaufman?

  Yeah.

• 19:23Lewis Howes?

  And my family's still there for me, my friends, you know, it's going to be okay. And I think a lot of people live in a state of deficiency realm, or a state of fear, that they don't want to go after what they could be, or what they are, they're interested in doing, because that risk is too big, and they're too afraid of, I guess, feeling a lack of safety, connection, and self-esteem. If I risk and I fail, then I'm gonna lose my house, no one's gonna be my friend, and I'm gonna have zero confidence in myself.

• 19:56Scott Barry Kaufman?

  Yeah.

• 19:57Lewis Howes?

  Which makes it very, then there's no foundation to the sailboat.

• 20:00Scott Barry Kaufman?

  You got it, you nailed it. A lot of people who fear their self-esteem need is so important to them, what's really going on with them underneath it is they have a fear of shame.

• 20:11Lewis Howes?

  In terms of what? Like if I fail.

• 20:13Scott Barry Kaufman?

  If they fail, they'll be shamed, you know, they'll be like, revealed as not as smart as they thought they were, or not as great, you know, as they thought they were. I mean, you've interviewed so many great, you know, great people, and do you find a common theme in terms of, like, there are many moments in their life where they definitely weren't great?

• 20:31Lewis Howes?

  Absolutely.

• 20:32Scott Barry Kaufman?

  And they're okay with that? Like, it didn't put them in a downward spiral of depression?

• 20:38Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 20:39Scott Barry Kaufman?

  Where they were no longer able to pick themselves up again, right?

• 20:41Lewis Howes?

  So how do we free frame life in a way so we can actually take on risks, take on growth, take on challenges, and it not hurt our self-esteem when we do fail? Because we're all going to be failing in order to grow. It's not going to be like, I'm going to win at everything, it'll be perfect, and it's always going to be a New York Times bestseller, and everyone's got to praise every decision I make.

• 21:03Scott Barry Kaufman?

  That's right.

• 21:04Lewis Howes?

  So how do we build our self-esteem foundation so that no matter what happens in the results of our life, we're still confident and esteemed in who we are?

• 21:13Scott Barry Kaufman?

  I think the best way to look at self-esteem, and the healthiest form of self-esteem is as, again, I'm going to use the phrase emergent phenomenon, I'm a really big fan of that phrase, you know? It's not something that you shoot for. The problem with people who show mental health issues is that they have made self-esteem itself the goal, as opposed to the outgrowth, of a natural outgrowth of pride, healthy pride in something you built, some form of mastery, as well as your social relationships. Psychologists distinguish between hubristic pride and authentic pride. And I think the healthiest route to self-esteem, the kind of self-esteem that'll really lead to growth, is authentic pride.

• 21:52Lewis Howes?

  What's the difference? Authentic pride versus?

• 21:54Scott Barry Kaufman?

  Hubristic pride is driven by the path of the need for dominance, the need for power. The self-esteem becomes the goal in itself, you know?

• 22:05Lewis Howes?

  Being confident, demanding respect is the goal.

• 22:10Scott Barry Kaufman?

  It's the goal, yeah. It's having the accolades as much as possible so that it reflects on your ego.

• 22:19Lewis Howes?

  Why do people live in that state? What do you call that, the hubristic?

• 22:22Scott Barry Kaufman?

  Hubristic pride.

• 22:23Lewis Howes?

  Hubristic pride. Why do people, and what happens when we come from that place if that is our goal?

• 22:29Scott Barry Kaufman?

  You know, both evolutionary psychologists have studied this because both evolve. And there's a reason why it exists in the human gene pool. You know, both paths evolved over the course of human history for different purposes. They both served its function. You know, dominance, you know, being able to be the, you know, the top person in your clan, you know, on the savanna certainly had its meaning benefits, you know what I'm saying?

• 22:55Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, of course. Sure.

• 22:57Scott Barry Kaufman?

  But that wasn't the only pathway to meaning. See, the thing is, there was also people in the tribe who were the experts, you know, the professors who were getting laid, you know, just as much, you know.

• 23:09Lewis Howes?

  The wise man.

• 23:11Scott Barry Kaufman?

  Yeah, the wise, yeah, exactly. And both pathways evolved and still exist in our gene pool. And I also, there also are some genetic factors here. Some people are actually more predisposed to one path or the other, you know, some people, you know. But it doesn't mean we can't change or can't grow in our life and we can't kind of shift our pathway.

• 23:29Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, okay. So the authentic pride, so what happens when we live from that state of hubristic, hubristic?

• 23:36Scott Barry Kaufman?

  Yeah.

• 23:36Lewis Howes?

  Hubristic pride. Will we ever feel fulfilled? Even if we get command, the respect, and get all the accolades and accomplishments and money and houses? If that is the goal, will we be fulfilled and happy inside?

• 23:51Scott Barry Kaufman?

  No, it really is like a hedonic treadmill. Yeah, yeah, you keep running on this treadmill, but it never, you never get to the end of the treadmill.

• 23:59Lewis Howes?

  Have psychologists studied people that have lived in that state of being who have actually are happy?

• 24:05Scott Barry Kaufman?

  I'm sure they exist. I'm not the kind of person who will say that there's never, never, or that one must live their life. In fact, I want to be clear about something in my book is I'm very clear that self-actualization and the path to self-actualization is one where you find the path that works best for you and your own unique constellation of traits, characteristics, life experiences. Only you can choose what path works for you and you should own it. I think there are a lot of people who have made their life work for them, who know that who they at various points in their life, you know, and these things change. The thought of, for some reason, Tucker Maxx is coming to my mind. There was a point in his life where he

• 24:46Lewis Howes?

  He changed.

• 24:47Scott Barry Kaufman?

  He did, but I also, there was a point in his life where he owned being an asshole. And this is what I think is interesting is that, I don't know why that example, I think that's irrelevant, actually, that why that example, because I feel like I knew him before and then after as well. And then, you know, he put on his website at one point, he's like, "I am Tucker Maxx and I am an asshole." And I don't know if he was fulfilled in that moment of his life, but he found something that met his own unique constellation of traits. And I think it's interesting because I'm not, I'm not a judge, I'm like the least judgmental person. You know, maybe not the absolute least, because you've met a lot of cool people, but I'm very non-judgmental. So, I, for instance, I do personal coaching now, right, and I have like seventeen clients.

• 25:29Scott Barry Kaufman?

  And for every single one of them, I just like, I be love, you know. I sit, it's not my job to like condemn someone. It's my job to sit back and listen to them and see what is, at this moment in their life, what kind of life works for them, you know. And maybe at this moment in life, for some people, they have such this excess of anger and excess of, that they need to get out. And so I want to kind of help them cultivate it in a productive direction. But, you know, I'm not here to say what works and what doesn't work, if that makes sense.

• 26:04Lewis Howes?

  Of course. But the authentic pride is more in a state of being as, "I'm doing this for the art of it. I'm doing this for the..." For the process of gaining excellence in the process.

• 26:15Scott Barry Kaufman?

  Yeah.

• 26:16Lewis Howes?

  And being prideful in what I accomplished for myself, not what others recognize as something great.

• 26:21Scott Barry Kaufman?

  Yeah, it's the more sustainable path. I'll say that. It's more sustainable overall. If you're thinking about this over the long haul, you're not about flash and burn, right? For some people, maybe they just want to flash and burn, you know? But if you're thinking about a life well-lived, you know, I teach the course, The Science of Living Well. It really is about this kind of authentic mastery of yourself, the world, and other people.

• 26:46Lewis Howes?

  Yeah. I love that. So how do we rid ourselves of insecurity?

• 26:53Scott Barry Kaufman?

  I wish there was a magic wand.

• 26:55Lewis Howes?

  Is it possible too? I mean, are we always going to be insecure at different... if we're seeking growth, will there be insecurity in our life?

• 27:03Scott Barry Kaufman?

  As I write about in the book, I think it's unrealistic to say that anyone gets it to zero because we're such a social species. And if you were to get to zero, you probably would dip into the realm of psychopaths.

• 27:16Lewis Howes?

  Really?

• 27:16Scott Barry Kaufman?

  They're a unique breed of humans that don't seem to give a [bleep] about anyone, you know? And I'm not saying that we should get to that point. So I think the fact that we do have a little, you know, that we don't get to zero is actually means that we're human, you know?

• 27:32Lewis Howes?

  Is there a way to be compassionate, caring, and completely secure, like not insecure?

• 27:39Scott Barry Kaufman?

  Yeah.

• 27:39Lewis Howes?

  You know, self-confident?

• 27:40Scott Barry Kaufman?

  I do.

• 27:41Lewis Howes?

  And being aware that, hey, if I fail, it's going to be okay and it's, I still love myself?

• 27:46Scott Barry Kaufman?

  Yeah.

• 27:46Lewis Howes?

  Is that possible?

• 27:47Scott Barry Kaufman?

  I do think so. I think you can still keep caring about what people think of you to a certain degree because it'll help you be better, but without personalizing it so much and without it stopping you dead in your tracks, you know? I do think we can get to that state, absolutely, yeah.

• 28:03Lewis Howes?

  And you also talk about in the book that I saw around self-esteem versus narcissism.

• 28:09Scott Barry Kaufman?

  I love that distinction.

• 28:10Lewis Howes?

  Confidence versus narcissism.

• 28:12Scott Barry Kaufman?

  You read my book.

• 28:13Lewis Howes?

  I went through it. I know.

• 28:14Scott Barry Kaufman?

  Oh, yeah.

• 28:15Lewis Howes?

  It's hard for me to finish any book, but I went through it.

• 28:17Scott Barry Kaufman?

  I'm impressed. Yeah, I'm a big fan of that distinction.

• 28:20Lewis Howes?

  Yeah. So what, how do we know when someone is a narcissist versus someone who's just extremely self-confident?

• 28:27Scott Barry Kaufman?

  Yeah.

• 28:27Lewis Howes?

  And how do we make sure we don't cross over from confidence to narcissism?

• 28:32Scott Barry Kaufman?

  I got into a Twitter fight with Scott Adams. Did you see that?

• 28:35Lewis Howes?

  I didn't see it.

• 28:36Scott Barry Kaufman?

  He's like, he's like psychologists who studies narcissism are stupid, basically. They don't know what they're talking about. Like narcissism is a great thing, you know, like it's just, it's just what they're doing is people who are just confident. And we're just calling them narcissists. Now, I beg to differ with that because I actually think there's a really important difference between confidence and narcissism that needs to be recognized. People who score really, really high narcissistic traits, and by the way, I think we all are somewhere on the spectrum. So I don't, I'm actually not a fan of saying there are narcissists and that they're not narcissists. You know, people who score high in narcissistic characteristics is like how I like to phrase it.

• 29:13Lewis Howes?

  Which is, what are those characteristics?

• 29:15Scott Barry Kaufman?

  Well, the core of it that distinguishes it from just run-of-the-mill confidence is entitlement.

• 29:21Lewis Howes?

  That is narcissism.

• 29:23Scott Barry Kaufman?

  That's like you're throwing darts. Where's narcissism? Where's narcissism? Center? Oh, entitlement.

• 29:29Lewis Howes?

  Anyone that thinks they're entitled to anything?

• 29:31Scott Barry Kaufman?

  Everything.

• 29:32Lewis Howes?

  Everything.

• 29:32Scott Barry Kaufman?

  They think they're entitled to everything in the world, even things they haven't earned, things because they think they were born special.

• 29:38Lewis Howes?

  Ooh.

• 29:39Scott Barry Kaufman?

  That's the thing.

• 29:40Lewis Howes?

  Heart of a narcissist.

• 29:41Scott Barry Kaufman?

  Yeah, that's the heart of the narcissist.

• 29:45Scott Barry Kaufman?

  Yes, that's the heart of a narcissist. Yes, yes. Beautifully put. People with confidence, you know, can think they're enough without thinking they're the best or superior, you know? And even people who are great, you know, who do great things in their life can still be great without thinking they're the greatest human being, you know? You see what I'm saying?

• 30:08Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 30:08Scott Barry Kaufman?

  You can, you can own that you're great at what you do and that you've, you've put in the work, you've mastered it, you know? But that, you know, you're not entitled to special privileges more than anyone else who's suffering in this world because we're all suffering in this world, you know, the Buddha.

• 30:22Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 30:23Scott Barry Kaufman?

  As he noted. Right, right. You know, like, you're not, you know, entitled to everything. Like, if you're in line at an airport, you know, the person who scores high narcissists will be like, I demand to be the first one in line. And it's like, well, why? You know, why exactly? You know, but you absolutely have a cultivated sense of confidence and, and and in a lot of ways, the most authentically confident people tend to be the least narcissistic, which is an interesting paradox.

• 30:53Lewis Howes?

  The least entitled.

• 30:55Scott Barry Kaufman?

  Yeah, I find that really interesting. There's an ease of being about them. I'm gonna go back to that phrase.

• 31:01Lewis Howes?

  So how do we get to a place of that confidence level? What's the keys to confidence?

• 31:07Scott Barry Kaufman?

  So the two major forms of confidence are mastery and self-worth. Self-worth is I'm enough. I, there's nothing else I have to achieve in order to be any more worthy as a human being.

• 31:23Lewis Howes?

  How does someone believe that when everything is against them? When they're broke, they just got dumped, they just got fired, they're, you know, they're 100 pounds overweight, they're sick. How does someone believe I'm enough with all the breakdowns they might be going through? Or even one breakdown? This person left me, I'm worthless. How do we change that?

• 31:46Scott Barry Kaufman?

  You know, it's such a good question, and I would say that no matter your circumstances, no matter how dire things are, if you just go out and you just smile at a stranger on the street and make their day, they see you as worthy.

• 32:04Lewis Howes?

  You improve their life in a moment, which means you're worthy.

• 32:07Scott Barry Kaufman?

  And you just prove to yourself that you're a worthy human being. See, this is the thing, is like, there are little things you can do to just remind yourself. Because I think the fact is that we're worthy without doing anything else, you know? But the problem, as you describe, is that we forget it because we have so many things telling us that we're not.

• 32:24Lewis Howes?

  Or we isolate ourselves.

• 32:26Scott Barry Kaufman?

  Does that make sense?

• 32:26Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, of course. We isolate ourselves and we stay in this story, in this script that keeps us small, stuck. Worthless feeling, you know, it's not the it's not truth.

• 32:35Scott Barry Kaufman?

  Go volunteer for a soup kitchen, you know, for one day and you and then you'll be reminded of the humanity of others. You'll be reminded, oh, I'm a human too, you know. Um, now there are things I need to work on um so that I can just have a sustainable life and maybe even be great at something. It's wonderful to aspire to greatness, right? But you're not aspiring to be superior as a, you know, you get the, you know, the puffed up, you know, kind of narcissism.

• 32:59Lewis Howes?

  Someone else.

• 32:59Scott Barry Kaufman?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 33:00Lewis Howes?

  So confidence equals mastery plus self-worth.

• 33:03Scott Barry Kaufman?

  Self-worth, yeah.

• 33:04Lewis Howes?

  And what are some other ways that we could build self-worth besides just remembering that we are worthy? Even if we remember, but we look at our body in the mirror and we say, but I'm not proud of the person I see in the mirror. I'm not proud of the actions I've had in the past. I'm not proud of losing my job or my partner leaving me. How can I build self-worth besides just smiling at people?

• 33:27Scott Barry Kaufman?

  Right, right. Well, I would frame the question a little differently, if I may, because I think that like the self-worth should be taken as the assumption of the starting point, not the thing that you're trying to build. And the reason why I say it that way is because what if you flipped it around and you looked at your facts? No, not you, but the person looks at themselves in the mirror and they're like, I'm a, COVID has made me a complete slob.

• 33:51Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 33:53Scott Barry Kaufman?

  Then I would argue the the best framing of is, well, I'm worthy. So therefore I'm gonna lose the weight.

• 33:59Lewis Howes?

  Hmm.

• 34:00Scott Barry Kaufman?

  The the unworthiness start is what motivates you to get to work.

• 34:05Lewis Howes?

  Not the destination.

• 34:06Scott Barry Kaufman?

  To, I need to get to work so that I can be worthy.

• 34:10Lewis Howes?

  Wow. So self-worth is the starting point, not the goal.

• 34:13Scott Barry Kaufman?

  I'm worth it. I'm worth it to take care of my body once and for all.

• 34:17Lewis Howes?

  How do we realize that?

• 34:19Scott Barry Kaufman?

  I mean, can you just like, just start telling yourself that? Sometimes we can believe things, you know, that we, over time, if we, if we, if we tell ourselves enough. Now, I'm starting to sound a little bit like Stuart Smalley from the um Saturday Night Live skits in the eighties. I don't know if you remember those, like, I'm good enough, I'm smart enough, and by God, and I'm worth it, you know? Uh, I know, it's, I'm hearing myself talking now, like, I sound like Stuart Smalley. But, you know, in a way, there's a truth to it, you know, the affirmations are not the worst things in the world.

• 34:47Lewis Howes?

  So now you're a psychologist and I'm hearing you talk a lot about.

• 34:50Scott Barry Kaufman?

  I have to get a drink.

• 34:51Lewis Howes?

  Go for it. I'm hearing you talk a lot about um not being needy. In society, because then I'll actually repel people.

• 34:59Scott Barry Kaufman?

  Maslow distinguishes between needing love and unneeding love.

• 35:03Lewis Howes?

  What is the difference?

• 35:04Scott Barry Kaufman?

  Well, or you could even say needy love and unneeding love. Needy love is like where you're demanding, "Love me, you know, because I love you, you must love me." You know, where unneeding love is, you don't ask for any, anything in return from the person. You actually just admire them like you're watching a sunset. Carl Rogers, the humanistic psychologist, said, "When you watch a sunset, you don't say, 'Oh, it's a beautiful sunset, but I wish the bottom corner was just up a little bit this way and that the hue of the redness was a little bit lighter.'" You know, you admire the fucking sunset, you know? Why don't we admire humans like we admire sunsets?

• 35:37Lewis Howes?

  Why do we want, demand love in return in certain ways? Or why do we need that?

• 35:43Scott Barry Kaufman?

  It's conditional. Other people's love is conditional on the extent to which they return your love. You know, but it, but that, it shouldn't be that way.

• 35:50Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 35:50Scott Barry Kaufman?

  Yeah, but you're, but I'm sorry, I feel like I interrupted you because you were getting at the paradox of being needy.

• 35:54Lewis Howes?

  No, yeah, I think, I love, you're a psychologist at Columbia. You, you write these deep research books on all these topics around human behavior and psychology. And there's another world that you're starting to sound like to me, which is this law of attraction world.

• 36:14Scott Barry Kaufman?

  Oh, no!

• 36:14Lewis Howes?

  Which is, you know, don't be needy because then you'll repel people.

• 36:18Scott Barry Kaufman?

  Is that one of the principles in the law of attraction?

• 36:20Lewis Howes?

  It's like, you know, be a magnet for attracting what you want in your life. And in order to be a magnet to attract, you know, great business relationships or the career opportunity or the right intimate partnerships, you can't be chasing them. You can't be like, "I need you, please pick me, please, will you be my boyfriend? Will you be my girlfriend? Please, will you hire me?" Like, you can't be in this begging, needing state.

• 36:45Scott Barry Kaufman?

  Yeah.

• 36:45Lewis Howes?

  You need to like be unattached.

• 36:47Scott Barry Kaufman?

  You have to let it go.

• 36:48Lewis Howes?

  You gotta let it go.

• 36:49Scott Barry Kaufman?

  That's, that's true.

• 36:50Lewis Howes?

  You gotta be unattached and you got to build your... Your own confidence, your own self-worth, in order to be a magnet to attract those things to you. And you have to start looking at yourself in a more positive light and things like that. So you're sounding similar to what I hear in the law of attraction woo-woo world, if you will.

• 37:08Scott Barry Kaufman?

  Oh shit, well, I've made the case there can be wisdom in the woo-woo. I've made that case.

• 37:14Lewis Howes?

  Is there science in the woo-woo as well?

• 37:16Scott Barry Kaufman?

  Yes, so that's where I said, where I say can, that's what transcend is. I'm trying to do the science of woo-woo.

• 37:21Lewis Howes?

  Right, right, right.

• 37:22Scott Barry Kaufman?

  Yeah, that's exactly what transcend is all about. By the way, to your point, there was this cat who I emailed like almost every week when my podcast first started. I was like, will you be on my podcast?

• 37:33Lewis Howes?

  And he was like, get away from me.

• 37:34Scott Barry Kaufman?

  He ignored me, you know, like then I would like talk to his people and they'd be like, you know, like, yeah, like, um, yeah, no, he's really busy.

• 37:41Lewis Howes?

  You're too needy, yeah.

• 37:42Scott Barry Kaufman?

  No, they didn't say that explicitly, you know, but I'm just like two, three, and then I was like, you know, I'm just not gonna even just. Maybe like two, three years went by. I get an email from this cat, you know, uh, he's like, all my friends keep like mentioning you. And every conversation I'm having these days, like they're like, do you know Scott Barrett Kaufman? And he's like, can I be on your podcast? And I'm like, of course, my immediate reaction was like.

• 38:07Lewis Howes?

  You're like, huh, inside.

• 38:11Lewis Howes?

  Screw you, I asked you for years. So now you want to be on my show, yeah, now I'm big enough for you.

• 38:16Scott Barry Kaufman?

  Yeah, I'm not even gonna lie, my immediate reaction was like, oh, I'm busy, sorry, I had my assistant respond, you know, like. But once that ego like subsided, we ended up having a talk and it was just a wonderful conversation.

• 38:28Lewis Howes?

  I used to do this 15 years ago when I started salsa dancing.

• 38:32Scott Barry Kaufman?

  Really?

• 38:33Lewis Howes?

  I did the same strategy in a sense for just kind of like a cheeky ego, I guess, that I had back then where I was very passionate about salsa dancing. I still am, I haven't done it as much because of the pandemic. But for 15 years, I've been salsa dancing around the world. I've traveled the world to the best salsa clubs, I've danced with some of the greatest. You know, professional dancers at clubs, right? And it's been, it's been a joy of mine. It, it was a skill that I learned to master, which built self-worth and confidence and all these different things in me because it was hard because it wasn't something I was good at. And when you get good at something that you are afraid of, man, your confidence level goes up to another level, at least it does for me.

• 39:11Scott Barry Kaufman?

  Yeah.

• 39:12Lewis Howes?

  Anyways, I stand out in a salsa club, if you can imagine. It's mostly, mostly Latin, people that are mostly about a foot taller than me. I'm this tall, white dude, right, that doesn't speak the language.

• 39:23Scott Barry Kaufman?

  They're taller than you?

• 39:24Lewis Howes?

  No, I'm, I'm a foot taller than like pretty much everyone, one I'm dancing with essentially, right?

• 39:29Scott Barry Kaufman?

  Gotcha.

• 39:30Lewis Howes?

  Guys, girls, everything. And I would walk into a club and I would observe and I would look for the best dancer on the dance floor. The one that scared me, the one that intimidated me, that she was so great that I was like, I don't know if I can dance with this girl. And I would look to see who she was. And then when there was a moment after a song would end and a new song would start, I would go up and ask them to dance because it scared me. It was terrifying, terrifying because it was a new city, it was a new place that I'd never been to, I didn't know the people, they didn't know who I was. But I don't look the part in a salsa club. I look like I'm an outsider.

• 40:07Lewis Howes?

  And most of the time, these girls would reject me. They would say, no, I'm okay.

• 40:12Scott Barry Kaufman?

  Oh, yeah.

• 40:12Lewis Howes?

  I would go up there and kind of be like, hey, I'd love to dance with you. They would reject me. Then, then what I would do is made it my mission by the end of the night for them to come.

• 40:20Scott Barry Kaufman?

  To show that you're good.

• 40:21Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 40:22Scott Barry Kaufman?

  Yeah.

• 40:22Lewis Howes?

  And I would go find other girls and dance right next to them.

• 40:25Scott Barry Kaufman?

  Yeah.

• 40:25Lewis Howes?

  For hours.

• 40:26Scott Barry Kaufman?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 40:26Lewis Howes?

  And I wouldn't go approach them until they came back to me. And most of the time, they'd be like, hey, you want to dance? I'm like, no, I'm good.

• 40:32Scott Barry Kaufman?

  Yeah, you really did that?

• 40:35Lewis Howes?

  So I did the same thing as you.

• 40:36Scott Barry Kaufman?

  I can really resonate with that.

• 40:38Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, it was like, no, you didn't want to dance with me before because you judged me and now you see me and now you want to? But it was, you know, I stopped doing that after a while, but.

• 40:45Scott Barry Kaufman?

  That's ego, it too, but, but I really resonate with it. Like, and I feel like a lot of people can really resonate with that.

• 40:51Lewis Howes?

  Of course.

• 40:51Scott Barry Kaufman?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 40:53Lewis Howes?

  What is this, uh, where is the science of neediness? In terms of like, why is that repel people? The need to chase something, to have something that you don't have. Is it, is there science behind it, why that doesn't work?

• 41:07Scott Barry Kaufman?

  I have often thought that there needs to be a book on this topic. The, uh, the paradox of neediness, you know, um, could be the title of the book or something. Um, because, um, people always asking, why do people, why do, why do young women, why are they like the bad boy? You know, well, it's like, it's not that they love this hole. It's not, they're like, oh, I love people who are mean to others, you know? They, um, there's, um, a detached detachment there. Where you feel, and I think what might be going on to a certain degree is what you do is you feel like you're the one has agency in making the choice. When you feel, you feel coerced if the other person is needy, right? You wanna, because humans wanna feel like, you know, I wanna hear what you think of this take.

• 41:48Scott Barry Kaufman?

  But for instance, if someone is completely not interested in you, whatever, and you approach them, you feel like, you know what, I'm the one that's in control of this situation. I made the choice. I want this person, you know? There's also the obviously supply and demand aspect of it as well. We all want what we can't have, right? That's the obvious one, but I think there's a more subtle thing going on. Where we, you know, like if someone, we wanna feel like we made the choice, you know? Like even in the case where they saw you later on, like killing it on the dance floor, and then they, then they approach you, they feel like, okay, now I'm the one that has, I, I'm in control of my life. I've made the decision, you know? As opposed to if they're coming at me and I say, okay, we kind of lacks agency.

• 42:31Lewis Howes?

  Interesting.

• 42:32Scott Barry Kaufman?

  What do you think of that take?

• 42:33Lewis Howes?

  I think so, yeah. Um, us making a conscious decision of what we wanna do, not someone like, not that I was like needy or begging, but when someone's like, please stay in a relationship with me. I can't live without you. It's like, ah, it's like.

• 42:45Scott Barry Kaufman?

  Do I wanna do that?

• 42:46Lewis Howes?

  No, do I want that responsibility and that weight of like someone who can't live without me? Or someone that needs me right now for this business deal or needs this job? If someone is in that state, it's, it's almost like you can sense they're lacking confidence. If they need something, that means they're, they're lacking something. They're not complete human being, they're not a whole, healthy human being. And that energy is. Kind of repels people, I think.

• 43:11Scott Barry Kaufman?

  And we've all been there.

• 43:12Lewis Howes?

  We've all been there. I mean, I've been there. I've been needy in relationships and all these things.

• 43:16Scott Barry Kaufman?

  You know, I wish, I wish we had more compassion for needy people.

• 43:19Lewis Howes?

  But it's, what? Yeah, it's so hard, though.

• 43:21Scott Barry Kaufman?

  It's the paradox, you know, like, I, I wish, like, in, in an ultimate world, we would be able to have a common humanity there. Like, even on like, you know, like, I just, I remember the dance club is like in the twenties, you know, that's, that's the traumatic experience to me, to approach, you know, when, and they, you know, they're like, ew, you know, it's like, what do you mean ew? Like, I'm a nice guy. My mother tells me I'm great. You should talk to my mother. But no, it's such, when you're young, twenties, twenty-one, twenty-two, that's like traumatic.

• 43:50Lewis Howes?

  Traumatic, when a girl ejects you.

• 43:52Scott Barry Kaufman?

  It's traumatic.

• 43:53Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 43:53Scott Barry Kaufman?

  But, you know, also, you can also see it from the women's perspective as well. It must be traumatic of them to have these guys like grinding up on that. Like, all around, it's, you know, for everyone. And I don't feel like dance clubs are, are really wonderful situations.

• 44:06Lewis Howes?

  So how do we learn to detach?

• 44:08Scott Barry Kaufman?

  Yeah.

• 44:09Lewis Howes?

  The outcome of what another person says about us, to us. How does someone learn detachment? Because it sounds like detachment is the key to helping you attract certain things, maybe not always, all the time. You want to have a goal. You talked about you want to have an aim. You want to have a goal.

• 44:26Scott Barry Kaufman?

  Yeah.

• 44:27Lewis Howes?

  Put your sail up and be in a direction towards something, but not being attached.

• 44:31Scott Barry Kaufman?

  It's Buddha.

• 44:31Lewis Howes?

  To the result.

• 44:32Scott Barry Kaufman?

  Buddhist non-attachment, Buddhist non-attachment. And here's the, here's the, here's the, here's an interesting psychology finding. People, you know, have you heard of attachment theory, you know, like secure and insecure and anxious attachment?

• 44:43Lewis Howes?

  Yes, avoidance.

• 44:44Scott Barry Kaufman?

  Avoidance and, well, researchers were curious, how does the Buddha concept of, of non-attachment relate to attachment theory? They found that those who scored high on a scale of Buddha non-attachment scored up the kazoo high in secure attachment for attachment theory.

• 45:02Lewis Howes?

  Insecure attachment, is that the best one we want to be?

• 45:04Scott Barry Kaufman?

  Yeah, well, I wouldn't phrase it that way, but it's the healthiest.

• 45:07Lewis Howes?

  The healthiest, yeah.

• 45:09Scott Barry Kaufman?

  It's the greatest.

• 45:11Lewis Howes?

  The healthiest attachment style.

• 45:13Scott Barry Kaufman?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 45:13Lewis Howes?

  Cause I'm secure.

• 45:14Scott Barry Kaufman?

  Yeah, for, for, um, for if you wanna cultivate a, a healthy relationship, yeah. Some people, by the way, score high in avoidant attachment style and they're perfectly content with that. They just don't wanna be in relationships. It's the anxious attachment that's really most problematic.

• 45:29Lewis Howes?

  What is the anxious attachment?

• 45:30Scott Barry Kaufman?

  You're clingy, clingy. It's the needy, it's the needy, it's needy. But isn't that an interesting finding that those Buddhist non-attachment, like I don't need this outcome to, um, define me. I don't need this out, you're not so tied to the outcome, right? They tended to feel more secure in their attachments with people. They tended to feel more, less anxious in their attachments with people. I think there's an interesting.

• 45:53Lewis Howes?

  How do we get there, though?

• 45:55Scott Barry Kaufman?

  Yeah, you're, you, you love the, those questions, how do we get there, which are good questions. But I'm like, um, I'm, I'm better at the descriptive and then the prescriptive. It's kind of, I am, I am getting more in the prescriptive world.

• 46:07Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 46:07Scott Barry Kaufman?

  Um, uh, there's, there are cheesy answers to that question with meditation, you know, more, but I, that are true. Cheesy, but true, you know, cause I say cheesy, cause that's what they answer everything nowadays. It's like, well, how do I meditate more, you know? But it, it does help a lot to help you detach from your thoughts, you know? Cause the key there is you want to not identify with yourself as much as we do. And we automatically identify with ourself and then it causes us to, without thinking about it, act, act in ways that we later regret.

• 46:37Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 46:38Scott Barry Kaufman?

  But the more that we can create that space, you know, between stimulus and response.

• 46:40Lewis Howes?

  Separation from self.

• 46:42Scott Barry Kaufman?

  Yeah, yeah, and not, it's not, we're not identified, we actually see it as for what it is, um, but it's not, um, who we, it's not, you know, it's, it, there's a, there's a higher eye.

• 46:52Lewis Howes?

  It's transcendence, it's in the book where the book, the bird is above the sailboat.

• 46:55Scott Barry Kaufman?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 46:56Lewis Howes?

  Where you're looking down at yourself.

• 46:56Scott Barry Kaufman?

  Perspective of the seabird, that's nice.

• 46:58Lewis Howes?

  You're looking down at yourself.

• 47:00Scott Barry Kaufman?

  Yeah, yeah, and humanity, uh, you know, all humanity.

• 47:03Lewis Howes?

  It's interesting because when I went to, uh, when I, I went to India for a few weeks to study meditation about five years ago now, I guess it was. And we practiced.

• 47:12Scott Barry Kaufman?

  Did you stick out there?

• 47:13Lewis Howes?

  I did stick out there too, yeah, but we, we practiced many times. In a weird way, leaving our body, like in meditation practice, our mind leaving our body and like.

• 47:26Lewis Howes?

  Seeing ourself mentally kind of rise above and looking down at ourself, right? And then it got to the point where it was like, okay, we're above ourself 10 feet. Then we're in the clouds looking down at ourselves. Then we're going beyond the world, looking down at all of humanity. And then we're going into other, it sounds weird and woo wee, but it's like going into the universe and seeing the earth as a speck. And then going farther and expanding out and seeing the earth gone. And if you expand yourself from yourself mentally, visually, and some type of practice, then you can look at things from a different perspective, like you talk about in your book.

• 48:02Scott Barry Kaufman?

  Yeah.

• 48:03Lewis Howes?

  I think that's the key, is seeing yourself from a different perspective than in the chaos of self all day long.

• 48:10Scott Barry Kaufman?

  Absolutely. I have a friend, David Yaden, who is my research collaborator. He now does a lot of work on LSD and well-being at Johns Hopkins. But he has this like virtual reality device and he brought me into his office once. He's like, put this on, put this on. And then it was the view from space. He called it the overview effect and wrote a really cool paper on the overview effect.

• 48:30Lewis Howes?

  How did it feel when you experienced it?

• 48:31Scott Barry Kaufman?

  You know, a different perspective. My whole self-reference changed. I was from, it was the view from space, from the view from an astronaut looking at earth. And it really does shift, it shifts everything around, you know? You're like, wow, you know, like where's myself now? You know? Where's myself when I'm not in earth, when I'm not even on earth?

• 48:54Lewis Howes?

  It's crazy, man. What's a psychological practice that you think we could take on a daily basis? Three, four, or five things that you think, hey, no matter what you're going through, life is great.

• 49:08Scott Barry Kaufman?

  Maslow had a whole list of, and I reprinted them. They were unpublished ways to get into the B realm of existence.

• 49:17Lewis Howes?

  They weren't published?

• 49:18Scott Barry Kaufman?

  Yeah, no, no. I gathered them together through various things.

• 49:21Lewis Howes?

  Research. Seeker, you're just like diving into all of it.

• 49:25Scott Barry Kaufman?

  I am a nerd. That's what you're trying to say.

• 49:30Scott Barry Kaufman?

  Live more in the B realm. And there are a whole bunch of things. I'm just gonna rattle through.

• 49:33Lewis Howes?

  Rattle them.

• 49:35Scott Barry Kaufman?

  Sample things. Keep your eye on the ends, not only on the means. Fight familiarization. Seek fresh experiences. Get out of the deficiency world by deliberately going into the B realm. Seek out art galleries, libraries, museums, beautiful grand trees in the mountains or seashore. Avoid dichotomizing the D realm and the B realm. They should be hierarchically integrated. An either-or choice is not necessary. The firmest foundation for the being realm is to have satisfied deficiency needs, such as for safety, connection, or self-esteem. But the important thing is to know that it's still part of you, right?

• 50:11Lewis Howes?

  Deficiency is a part of us?

• 50:12Scott Barry Kaufman?

  Deficiency is always going to, could be at any moment. You know, at any moment, you could be hungry again, you know? And you need, it's not like once you get in the B realm, you're above others. You know, you're above humanity. And I think that's the point he was trying to make there. It's important to keep your grounded in humanity.

• 50:29Lewis Howes?

  So we want to be in both realms or more in the B realm?

• 50:31Scott Barry Kaufman?

  Well, we want to be, live more in the B realm, for sure. But we want to not suddenly think like life's a video game where we've reached that level and then we're now seeing other humans from a higher view to vantage.

• 50:42Lewis Howes?

  That we're better than.

• 50:43Scott Barry Kaufman?

  We're still human. You know, we're still human. I think that's the point I was trying to say. Cultivate periods of quiet, meditation, getting out of the world and getting out of our usual locality, immediate concerns, apprehensions, and forebodings. Periodically get away from time and space concerns, away from clocks, calendars, responsibilities, demands from the world, duties, and other people. Go into the dreamy state. I've often said the daydream, you should create daydreaming time.

• 51:04Lewis Howes?

  Yes. I'm such a, I call this strategic messing around.

• 51:08Scott Barry Kaufman?

  Yes.

• 51:09Lewis Howes?

  It's like the time where you schedule it.

• 51:12Scott Barry Kaufman?

  Yeah.

• 51:12Lewis Howes?

  So where you can just do nothing. And allow yourself, I want to play a game, I want to read, I want to explore, I want to brainstorm, I want to just daydream.

• 51:19Scott Barry Kaufman?

  It should be on your to-do list.

• 51:20Lewis Howes?

  It should be.

• 51:21Scott Barry Kaufman?

  You know, sponsor a, embrace your past. Embrace your guilt rather than running from it.

• 51:26Lewis Howes?

  Ooh.

• 51:27Scott Barry Kaufman?

  Be compassionate with yourself. Be understanding, accepting, forgiving, and perhaps even loving about your fobos as expressions of human nature. Enjoy and smile at yourself.

• 51:39Scott Barry Kaufman?

  Ask yourself, how would this situation look to a child, to the innocent, to a very old person who's beyond personal ambition and competition?

• 51:46Lewis Howes?

  Oh wow.

• 51:47Scott Barry Kaufman?

  Isn't that good? This is good.

• 51:49Lewis Howes?

  All people just, you know, older people, I would say the generation, I think it's the, in Bronnie Ware's book, The Five Regrets of the Dying, it's like they wish they didn't, there's so many wishes that they wish they didn't have done, looking back, and they're like, okay, this just doesn't matter at this stage in my life, you know?

• 52:08Scott Barry Kaufman?

  I love that.

• 52:09Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, it doesn't matter.

• 52:10Scott Barry Kaufman?

  That's a different vantage point.

• 52:11Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, when you're, when you're, you've got five years left, or two years left, you're like, this stuff doesn't matter.

• 52:16Scott Barry Kaufman?

  Doesn't matter.

• 52:17Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 52:18Scott Barry Kaufman?

  This stuff's so good, can I read a couple more?

• 52:20Lewis Howes?

  Go ahead.

• 52:21Scott Barry Kaufman?

  Do not conceal your ignorance, admit it. Do not let anyone force roles on you, that is, do not act the way other people think that a doctor, a minister, a teacher should act if it is not natural for you, you know? I like this one, engage in deliberate experimental philanthropy. If sometimes you are no good for yourself, depressed, anxious, at least you can be good for someone else. Isn't that good? Isn't that good? And this perhaps is my favorite one, if you find yourself becoming egoistic, arrogant, conceited, or puffed up, think of mortality, or think of other arrogant and conceited people and see how they look. Do you want to look like that? Do you want to take yourself that seriously, to be that unhumorous? This is a sampling of things.

• 53:04Lewis Howes?

  Wow. So, the B realm.

• 53:07Scott Barry Kaufman?

  Yeah.

• 53:08Lewis Howes?

  Is the state that we want to be in more frequently.

• 53:11Scott Barry Kaufman?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 53:12Lewis Howes?

  But, even if we're in there frequently, the deficiency realm will pop up from time to time.

• 53:19Scott Barry Kaufman?

  It's in that, and we need, Mazel said, human development is always two steps forwards, one step back. It's not like a video game. And that's, I think, how we need to think.

• 53:27Lewis Howes?

  You're not always leveling up?

• 53:28Scott Barry Kaufman?

  It's not a leveling up, you need to choose growth. Here's this quote, you know, you can move back towards fear, you can move forward towards growth, you just have to keep choosing the fear option again and again, and avoiding, no, choosing the growth option again and again, and avoiding the fear option again and again. And that's life.

• 53:44Lewis Howes?

  Well, and the growth option is probably leaning into the fear, and not... Holding back and saying I'm afraid, so I'm not gonna act.

• 53:51Scott Barry Kaufman?

  Right.

• 53:51Lewis Howes?

  It's this is a fear. It's I feel fearful, so I need to move towards it. I need to grow. I need to overcome. And there's never a stage in our life, at least I haven't realized, I just turned thirty eight. And there's never a stage in our life where it's like, oh, I've got it figured out. I've grown so much, I don't need to grow anymore. There's always a new experience or level that we need to grow into, right?

• 54:13Scott Barry Kaufman?

  Yeah.

• 54:14Lewis Howes?

  What happens if we stop growing?

• 54:15Scott Barry Kaufman?

  Yeah, I would say, um, you know, with growth is it's again, it's not like levels. I know a lot of people use that metaphor. You know, we don't, we never stop growing. I mean, Karen Horni, the, um, the, one of my favorite, most underrated psychoanalysts, you know, says we have the potential to learn and grow until the day we die. You know, this is a quote of hers, and I really do believe that to be true. And I think that even like the, there are examples of people, the last two days of their life, um, they're on their deathbed. And they look back at their life and they decide they're gonna like forgive someone, you know, like they're going, like make a big decision, you know, they're going. And even in their last breath, they have made it, they've cho, they've chosen growth, you know?

• 54:59Scott Barry Kaufman?

  So I think we could choose growth until we die, yeah.

• 55:01Lewis Howes?

  What's the thing that you're most afraid of these days that you haven't chosen to grow into?

• 55:06Scott Barry Kaufman?

  Oh, interesting.

• 55:09Scott Barry Kaufman?

  Yeah, okay.

• 55:10Lewis Howes?

  Or you're struggling to.

• 55:11Scott Barry Kaufman?

  This is a really personal question, Louis.

• 55:13Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 55:14Scott Barry Kaufman?

  But committing to a long-term romantic relationship.

• 55:18Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 55:19Scott Barry Kaufman?

  That's a really personal admission.

• 55:20Lewis Howes?

  So you're a voident attachment style? What is that attachment style?

• 55:25Scott Barry Kaufman?

  You know, I'm secure attachment. But I, I like to play. I don't know how else to say this. I don't know how else to say this. I do believe in honesty.

• 55:39Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 55:39Scott Barry Kaufman?

  You asked me a question, you know? I love, I, my need for exploration is so freaking high that I love partners and lovers that are high in that as well, but it can make it hard to. Commit one monogamy, one person. And maybe I don't have to make that choice. So I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm working on that. It's a very personal admission. I feel like I never admitted that on an interview before.

• 56:05Lewis Howes?

  That's interesting.

• 56:06Scott Barry Kaufman?

  But, um, yeah, yeah.

• 56:07Lewis Howes?

  So why is that, uh, something meaningful to you right now? Like a committed intimate relationship? Why is that meaningful?

• 56:14Scott Barry Kaufman?

  Well, after COVID, after, um, being so, um, alone for so long and reaching a level, a, a depth of loneliness that I have not experienced my whole life prior to this year, um, I feel like I'm yearning for something, a, a, a higher form of spiritual love. That, um, I've been content not having up to this point, really, to the degree that I've had. And so I, I definitely, that's where my mind is going these days. Yeah.

• 56:40Lewis Howes?

  Interesting. You've been okay without that deeper spiritual love up until now?

• 56:44Scott Barry Kaufman?

  With one person, yeah.

• 56:45Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 56:46Scott Barry Kaufman?

  Yeah.

• 56:46Lewis Howes?

  But now it's something you're seeking.

• 56:47Scott Barry Kaufman?

  I can see the merits of it, you know? And I can, I can see the merits of it.

• 56:52Lewis Howes?

  Do you feel like once you create that, you'll be like, oh, but I really, that exploration stage in me is like, now that I have it, uh, it's not as exploratory, like, and you feel like that part of you will have to die?

• 57:06Scott Barry Kaufman?

  No, I think the ideal thing would be, and, and I am, you know, this is why I am seeking it, you know? Find someone, uh, you don't have to compromise yourself. I don't think that's, that's what anyone should do. You have to find the life that works for you. So I'm in the process of finding the life that works for me and, and owning it. And, uh, and, you know, finding some, someone who's on that same, uh, journey of self-actualization, you know? So, you know, I'm dating, trying to find someone who's on that same, you know, you know, someone whose openness to experience levels are as high as mine, which is hard to find because my openness to, quite frankly, quite frankly, my openness experience levels are three standard deviations above the mean, which means high.

• 57:44Lewis Howes?

  Three standard deviations above, what does that mean?

• 57:47Scott Barry Kaufman?

  Bell curve, bell curve. After one standard deviation of the mean, you know, you have like 85%. After two standard deviation, point, top 2%. Once you get to three, we're talking point oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, one.

• 57:58Lewis Howes?

  Of a standard of living or of a standard?

• 58:00Scott Barry Kaufman?

  No, no, this, it's statistics. You know, you have to take a statistics course to really understand what a standard deviation is. But when you have a bell curve, it's all normalized, a percentage proportion of the population or various things. When you're in the middle, it's like the most people are, you know, most populous and you're the tail, some of the tail, tail of the right, the very tail.

• 58:17Lewis Howes?

  Is this based on what, your, your standard for living or your quality of life?

• 58:21Scott Barry Kaufman?

  No, openness to experience. Uh, how, you know, like, how high am I relative to other people?

• 58:27Lewis Howes?

  Threshold for experiencing newness and?

• 58:30Scott Barry Kaufman?

  I'm so open.

• 58:31Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 58:32Scott Barry Kaufman?

  And that sometimes if you want to commit to something, you gotta close something.

• 58:35Lewis Howes?

  Right, right.

• 58:37Scott Barry Kaufman?

  Sometimes you gotta.

• 58:38Lewis Howes?

  Someone may not feel safe next to you in that situation if they're on the other side.

• 58:43Scott Barry Kaufman?

  Oh yeah, I mean, if you're like all the way extreme, like closed minded, like if you're on the, if you're closed minded to that degree, those people I don't really feel comfortable with, you know? But I think, you know, striking maybe a healthier balance in my life would be good. You know, cause I'm so open, like, I don't care who you are, like, you know, like if you're a serial killer, I'm like, well, don't, A, don't kill me, but B, tell me all about, you know, what it's like to be a serial killer. Cause isn't that interesting? It's interesting.

• 59:05Lewis Howes?

  Fascinating. They probably shouldn't, they should be in jail, but yeah.

• 59:08Scott Barry Kaufman?

  Like, A, like, don't kill me. Like, I don't want that, I'm not that open.

• 59:12Lewis Howes?

  With your curious mind.

• 59:13Scott Barry Kaufman?

  I'm so curious about people, about, um, I don't like to limit my options, my freedom to explore, but you know, I mean, look, I, so anyway, you, you asked me, I'm, I'm telling you where, what I'm struggling with, uh, you know, is kind of finding the, the right, the right life for me.

• 59:32Lewis Howes?

  Yeah. How does a psychologist who studies this stuff approach a committed long-term relationship if that's the fear or the uncertainty in your life?

• 59:43Scott Barry Kaufman?

  Yeah. I think it's just one of those things that maybe I will decide, I'm in, I'm still in exploring mode. So, um, people, um, are explaining to me what the, uh, the, um, the, uh, polyamorous life looks like. And I haven't fully explored it, but I'm still in exploring.

• 1:00:00Lewis Howes?

  You're in the right city for that.

• 1:00:01Scott Barry Kaufman?

  Yeah, right, right.

• 1:00:02Lewis Howes?

  I have some friends in Venice, Santa Monica.

• 1:00:04Scott Barry Kaufman?

  Do you know what I'm saying? The people who are into that world, they love it. Like, they swear by it. And I'm not a.

• 1:00:10Lewis Howes?

  I also don't know anyone, I also don't know anyone who's been in that world for over 10 years and is still healthy.

• 1:00:17Scott Barry Kaufman?

  Interesting.

• 1:00:18Lewis Howes?

  Whole and still swears by it.

• 1:00:19Scott Barry Kaufman?

  That's really interesting.

• 1:00:21Lewis Howes?

  I haven't, I've met people who are like.

• 1:00:22Scott Barry Kaufman?

  Really?

• 1:00:23Lewis Howes?

  Three to five years in and still, okay. But I haven't met couples like after 10, 15, 20 years who are like. This is the way, we swear by this, it's worked for two decades for us, it still works today. I just haven't, I haven't, maybe because I'm not in those circles necessarily, but

• 1:00:40Scott Barry Kaufman?

  I hear you.

• 1:00:41Lewis Howes?

  I don't see that being talked about a lot.

• 1:00:43Scott Barry Kaufman?

  The reason why I'm not 100% sure it's for me is because I feel like, I'm not necessarily dealing with one person's hard enough, but I did kind of just say that, but cultivating a healthy, meaningful relationship with one person is hard enough.

• 1:00:58Lewis Howes?

  Well, I think also cultivating a spiritual loving relationship with one person is a

• 1:01:02Scott Barry Kaufman?

  A higher form of spiritual love.

• 1:01:04Lewis Howes?

  Full-time energy commitment.

• 1:01:06Scott Barry Kaufman?

  It feels like it.

• 1:01:06Lewis Howes?

  And if you're in three to five, it's hard to give the spiritual love.

• 1:01:12Scott Barry Kaufman?

  I'm ADD. I feel like that would be so, I know that I would inadvertently [__] up. You know, there'd be one woman to be like, "How come you didn't attend to my needs with this?" And it's like, look, I didn't mean to not do it. I just, my brain scattered across five women here, you know what I'm saying? Like, give me a break. It's a lot of needs. You know, but, but, you know.

• 1:01:34Lewis Howes?

  And if one of them are needing, you're gonna repel them and say, "You're not for me."

• 1:01:38Scott Barry Kaufman?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, it's, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, the whole, that's the callback in improv that you just did, I love that. So, you know, but, so, you see what I'm saying, it's like, I feel like I would rather come, and this is where I think I'm going, is really just trying to just commit to really building something beautiful that's, because I think I could, I mean, I do it with my work. You know, when I wrote a book, you know, Transcend, I put my heart and soul into it, you know? You know, I feel like I could certainly put my heart and soul into a relationship.

• 1:02:07Lewis Howes?

  Do you think human beings can put their heart and soul in their purpose, which is the top of the sailboat? The purpose and their love life? Can you put your heart and soul in both, full energy, full commitment, and both thrive to accomplish the levels of?

• 1:02:24Scott Barry Kaufman?

  I want to know. I wanna know. It's one of that Casey and Jodi song you're saying. No, but I really wanna know the answer to that question. And I've devoted so much of my life to my work, you know, and like nine books. It's like, just like, and then it's like, you know, I'm curious if I put that same energy into cultivating a relationship. But you're saying, can you cultivate both?

• 1:02:43Lewis Howes?

  Can you both at the same time?

• 1:02:44Scott Barry Kaufman?

  And that's the really, truly interesting question that I wanna know the answer to. Can I ask you a personal question?

• 1:02:51Lewis Howes?

  Sure.

• 1:02:51Scott Barry Kaufman?

  Do you, are you in a relationship right now?

• 1:02:53Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 1:02:55Scott Barry Kaufman?

  How's that process been? Were you skeptical that, that you could do it? And then now you've realized?

• 1:03:00Lewis Howes?

  I'm still skeptical. You know, it's like, I mean, was I skeptical? I've been in long-term relationships for the last decade. So I wasn't skeptical I could be in a long-term relationship.

• 1:03:09Scott Barry Kaufman?

  Gotcha.

• 1:03:10Lewis Howes?

  But it's always for me, the fear lies in, is this gonna take me away from my mission? Or support me in going after my mission more? Because for me, it's weird to say, I hate to say this. Maybe I shouldn't say I hate to say it, but I feel guilty sometimes saying that the most important thing to me in my life, beyond my health and my, uh, my personal, I guess, the health of my mind, my body and my spirit is my mission. That's the most important thing at this stage of my life. Now, maybe when I'm 70 or 60 or whatever, in a few years, I might say the most important thing is my family.

• 1:03:50Scott Barry Kaufman?

  Yeah.

• 1:03:51Lewis Howes?

  My family is important. It is a priority. It's not the only, the top priority. And I feel guilty sometimes saying that publicly even, because I know so many people say, family is everything. The only thing that matters is family. The relationships you have are the only thing that matters. The intimate relationship is the most important thing.

• 1:04:10Scott Barry Kaufman?

  So pressures, societal pressures.

• 1:04:11Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, and I agree that it is an important thing. And I want it to be a high priority. I just don't know at this stage of my life, if it's a greater priority to put more time and energy and attention into that over my mission.

• 1:04:26Scott Barry Kaufman?

  How's your girlfriend feel about that?

• 1:04:28Lewis Howes?

  Well, it doesn't mean I don't neglect her. I mean, I spend a lot of time and energy, a lot of commitment, a lot of-

• 1:04:33Scott Barry Kaufman?

  You tend to her needs.

• 1:04:34Lewis Howes?

  A hundred percent. At least I do my best.

• 1:04:37Scott Barry Kaufman?

  Yeah, you a hundred percent do your best.

• 1:04:39Lewis Howes?

  I understand my best, and I believe I, you know, I'm there for all of her needs.

• 1:04:42Scott Barry Kaufman?

  Yeah.

• 1:04:44Lewis Howes?

  But I'm also, but it means if I'm, the rest of my time's on my mission, I'm- Letting go of other things that I wouldn't be able to do as much based on just time. So it's learning, how do I evolve? How do I grow into a new version of myself? So that I can be a hundred percent in my mission. And what I've learned in the last couple of years is like, okay, I've got to build a team. It can't just be all me and a couple of us.

• 1:05:05Scott Barry Kaufman?

  That's right.

• 1:05:05Lewis Howes?

  Doing it all, all day long, obsessing over the mission. We've got to build a team, let go of responsibilities, you know, trust people. It's like you have to elevate and grow.

• 1:05:14Scott Barry Kaufman?

  Yeah.

• 1:05:15Lewis Howes?

  Into the sailboat.

• 1:05:16Scott Barry Kaufman?

  Yeah.

• 1:05:16Lewis Howes?

  It's like you've got to reach out beyond what you're comfortable with, learn new skills, master new things, build confidence, fail, take a step back, whatever. In order to be able to be there in the relationship, my health and the mission.

• 1:05:28Scott Barry Kaufman?

  Yeah.

• 1:05:29Lewis Howes?

  And so it's been a, definitely been a journey.

• 1:05:31Scott Barry Kaufman?

  Yeah.

• 1:05:32Lewis Howes?

  It's, you know, it's beautiful, but it's challenging at the same time.

• 1:05:35Scott Barry Kaufman?

  Yeah.

• 1:05:36Lewis Howes?

  So I think it's, I think for you it'd be like, okay, you're obsessive in the books every year and, you know, and this is all you do. But maybe you have to hire a couple more people to help you with that. You've got a researcher now, but maybe you need three researchers in the future. If you want to have three hours a day with your partner and explore.

• 1:05:52Scott Barry Kaufman?

  It's a great point.

• 1:05:52Lewis Howes?

  It's like, that's a challenge.

• 1:05:55Scott Barry Kaufman?

  It's a challenge. I think it's also one of the things, once you find the right person, things kind of take care of themselves, you know, as well, you know, and. I could, I could definitely see a universe in which I found the right person and then these issues just wouldn't be an issue anymore, you know, like. It'd be nice to have like an adventure partner, a life adventure partner, you know, like I really would like to support someone else in what they're doing. It's, I don't want it to be all about me, you know? But it has got to be the right person. Until then, I'm going to play.

• 1:06:22Lewis Howes?

  Keep playing, man. So exploration, love and purpose.

• 1:06:25Scott Barry Kaufman?

  Yes.

• 1:06:26Lewis Howes?

  Is, once we have safety, connection and self-esteem, those are the next three things we're seeking.

• 1:06:32Scott Barry Kaufman?

  By the way, can I just say, I want to show, someday with my wife, I want her to watch this episode.

• 1:06:36Lewis Howes?

  You should, yeah.

• 1:06:37Scott Barry Kaufman?

  I feel like I'm glad we documented this pre, pre me finding the one. But I feel like I do get a feeling someday I'm going to find the person and then I want to have them watch this episode.

• 1:06:46Lewis Howes?

  Watch this episode. I love that.

• 1:06:47Scott Barry Kaufman?

  Yeah. Sorry to interrupt you.

• 1:06:48Lewis Howes?

  No worries. We got safety, connection and self-esteem are the things that we need as our foundation.

• 1:06:54Scott Barry Kaufman?

  Yeah.

• 1:06:55Lewis Howes?

  And then after that, it's exploration, love and purpose.

• 1:06:59Scott Barry Kaufman?

  Yeah.

• 1:07:00Lewis Howes?

  Why is love not something, is that the same thing as connection?

• 1:07:03Scott Barry Kaufman?

  Be love, love for the being of others, it's different than connection.

• 1:07:07Lewis Howes?

  A higher sense of love.

• 1:07:07Scott Barry Kaufman?

  Higher form of spiritual.

• 1:07:08Lewis Howes?

  Loving humanity, the world, the universe, everything.

• 1:07:11Scott Barry Kaufman?

  Treating each human as sacred, each individual existence as sacred. Love for the being of others, not what they do for you, or what they can provide for you, or even if they offer a way to satisfy your loneliness, independent of all that.

• 1:07:30Lewis Howes?

  Independent. And how do we discover our purpose?

• 1:07:34Scott Barry Kaufman?

  That's a good question. I don't know if we, there's one purpose that we discover, but I think that there are a lot of callings that, that if we're listening outside of ourself, we can hear them, and that we can see ourselves as having a reasonable number of skillset to be able to contribute to it. I don't think it's any more dramatic than that. You know, like people act as though like, you know, what if I never find my one true purpose? You know, it's like chill.

• 1:08:01Lewis Howes?

  It's multiple things.

• 1:08:02Scott Barry Kaufman?

  Trust me, there's a lot of needs in the world that need fulfilling, and you can offer that.

• 1:08:08Lewis Howes?

  I love the idea of just listening. I think we're too caught up in reacting to things, constantly on our phone observing other things, or responding, as opposed to being still, listening. From a young, as a young child, I was alone a lot, and I remember feeling very insecure. I didn't have safety connection or self-esteem for many years of my childhood. I didn't feel those things. And I would sit alone, I didn't have many friends, and I would sit alone and just ask questions. So it's like, why am I here? What's the purpose is? What's the reason of my life? Am I even, should I even be here?

• 1:08:45Lewis Howes?

  And I, and I would listen, and I would eventually get out of all the noise, and I'd listen, and I'd hear, be like, something was calling me. Like I could hear something inside when I listened, when I was still, when I wasn't stressed and anxious, I could hear something saying, no, stick around, like, go after this, try this thing, like, go do this, keep going after it. Like, there's a reason behind it all. And I didn't know what it all meant, but it makes, as, if we're a historian of our past, like you write about in your book. It starts to make more sense. Every chapter that we're in in our life. And, you know, in ten years, I'm gonna be looking back at these, you know, where I am now and be like, oh yeah, this made sense for what I'm doing then.

• 1:09:26Scott Barry Kaufman?

  Yes.

• 1:09:26Lewis Howes?

  I think if we look at it that way, it's more beneficial, but it's scary because we don't know what our purpose is a lot of the times. But I think if we can be purpose in the moment, if we can say, I'm going to be purpose, I'm gonna live in purpose by contributing to the person I see next to me, by working on myself, by helping others, and just being it, not trying to find purpose, then it's gonna be a little easier.

• 1:09:48Scott Barry Kaufman?

  Do you realize you just added a new term to the self-worth model? Uh, there's be love and there's be purpose.

• 1:09:54Lewis Howes?

  Oh, really?

• 1:09:55Scott Barry Kaufman?

  You just added that. I love it.

• 1:09:57Lewis Howes?

  Cause I thought that was already it.

• 1:09:58Scott Barry Kaufman?

  I never used that phrase.

• 1:09:59Lewis Howes?

  Be purpose.

• 1:10:00Scott Barry Kaufman?

  Yeah, being, being purpose.

• 1:10:01Lewis Howes?

  Being, knowing that I am purpose.

• 1:10:03Scott Barry Kaufman?

  With love.

• 1:10:03Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 1:10:03Scott Barry Kaufman?

  You extrapolated that to purpose. It's brilliant.

• 1:10:06Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 1:10:06Scott Barry Kaufman?

  Yeah.

• 1:10:06Lewis Howes?

  We'll add that as a footnote in the next book.

• 1:10:08Scott Barry Kaufman?

  No, I'm not even joking. Thanks for referencing this interview.

• 1:10:12Lewis Howes?

  There you go. So I think that's, um, that's interesting. It's, we don't, even if we don't know what our purpose is, we can be it though.

• 1:10:18Scott Barry Kaufman?

  Yeah, that's exactly right.

• 1:10:19Lewis Howes?

  Just showing up today is knowing that I am enough.

• 1:10:22Scott Barry Kaufman?

  Yeah.

• 1:10:22Lewis Howes?

  Building a self-worth and saying, I don't need to have something to be enough.

• 1:10:26Scott Barry Kaufman?

  That's exactly right.

• 1:10:27Lewis Howes?

  I am it.

• 1:10:28Scott Barry Kaufman?

  That's exactly right.

• 1:10:28Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 1:10:29Scott Barry Kaufman?

  That's exactly right. And I just don't like that idea of the, you know, I have a lot of my students and they'll, what is the one true purpose? You know, I just don't like the way you're thinking about that, you know, that's put way too much pressure on someone and limits you from seeing all of the callings, listening, listening to all of the callings, you know, that, that, that, uh, that are coming outside of yourself. It's, the key there is getting outside of your ego, getting outside of your own self-needs and be aware of the needs of others. Um, you know, your purpose can be a small, uh, well, I wouldn't even call it small, but like if you're just a stay-at-home mom, you know, like, and you raise a child, I mean, that's actually, it could be a big purpose, you know, I, you know?

• 1:11:02Lewis Howes?

  Yeah. It's. I adopted a cat about a month ago and, um.

• 1:11:07Scott Barry Kaufman?

  How's that going for you?

• 1:11:08Lewis Howes?

  It's been great, actually.

• 1:11:09Scott Barry Kaufman?

  I've been thinking about adopting a dog.

• 1:11:11Lewis Howes?

  I adopted this cat. I have a dog already. That was my girlfriend and I had a.

• 1:11:15Scott Barry Kaufman?

  Your dog was your girlfriend?

• 1:11:16Lewis Howes?

  I have a dog with my girlfriend.

• 1:11:17Scott Barry Kaufman?

  Oh, my God.

• 1:11:18Lewis Howes?

  I have a dog with my girlfriend, but I've been, I had a cat like eight years ago that I loved. It was a great cat that I adopted as well.

• 1:11:25Scott Barry Kaufman?

  Okay.

• 1:11:26Lewis Howes?

  But I gave him to my mom when I started moving. I moved to New York City and I was traveling a lot, and so I gave it to my mom. And I've always been like, for some reason, when you find a great cat, it's like it added so much joy to my life.

• 1:11:37Scott Barry Kaufman?

  Really?

• 1:11:38Lewis Howes?

  It's, you gotta find the right cat. It's like finding the right partner, you know, it's like if it's the wrong cat, it's gonna be a nightmare, just like if it was the wrong partner.

• 1:11:45Scott Barry Kaufman?

  Yes.

• 1:11:46Lewis Howes?

  This cat has been a great addition to my life and the purpose of just caring for the animal. And, and supporting the cat and feeding the cat and like, you know, petting, petting her and just being in that energy. She brings me calm and peace, she purrs on me, I'm contributing to her life well-being hopefully. And that sense of like, oh, I've got somewhere to go tonight to like, take care of.

• 1:12:13Scott Barry Kaufman?

  Yes.

• 1:12:14Lewis Howes?

  That purpose, just even with an animal.

• 1:12:16Scott Barry Kaufman?

  Yeah.

• 1:12:16Lewis Howes?

  Is meaningful to me, it's added value in the first month of adopting her, so. There's, there's things we can create in our life to develop that sense of purpose.

• 1:12:25Scott Barry Kaufman?

  Love that.

• 1:12:26Lewis Howes?

  And being purpose on a daily basis.

• 1:12:28Scott Barry Kaufman?

  That's it, you create it, you create, you don't discover it, you create it, that we, we just.

• 1:12:32Lewis Howes?

  We just nailed.

• 1:12:34Scott Barry Kaufman?

  That's it.

• 1:12:35Lewis Howes?

  But I have a theory and a thesis, help me flush this out in your psychological researching approach. That it is near impossible to achieve greatness if we doubt ourselves. If we, if we lack the belief in ourselves, if we constantly live in self-doubt, it's really hard to accomplish. I think that there's, I've seen so many different great athletes over the years, who were way more talented than me. Freaks of nature, but they didn't believe in themselves. The coaches believed in them, teammates were like, you're the best on the team, you're a freak of nature, but for whatever reason, inside, they didn't believe it.

• 1:13:18Scott Barry Kaufman?

  Yeah.

• 1:13:19Lewis Howes?

  And I have a theory that it doesn't matter if the world believes in you and says, you're the greatest, you're the greatest of all time. You have the most talent, the most skill, the most potential, but if the person doesn't learn to build that self-esteem, that self-belief. That they will never be able to fulfill that potential or that purpose, or whatever it is for them. And I also have this belief that it doesn't matter if everyone says, you're the worst in the world or something. If everyone's against you, if you learn to build that confidence within and eliminate that self-doubt. That you can go accomplish what you're supposed to do, that what you wanna do. So I'm curious your thoughts on this from a psychologist researcher point of view. About self doubt. If if we learn the ability to build confidence.

• 1:14:03Lewis Howes?

  Or if we only doubt ourselves, can we still fulfill that with that doubt inside of us?

• 1:14:08Scott Barry Kaufman?

  It does make it more difficult, for sure. And the interesting thing there is that that your self doubt can be separated from your confidence in your specific skill set like you you might have a very, I don't know, like Michael Phelps. Well, Michael Phelps, you know, suffered from depression, you know, but I think he would understand that he was pretty darn skilled in swimming.

• 1:14:31Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 1:14:32Scott Barry Kaufman?

  But but these things can separate from each other, so this sort of sense of self. The kind of a core belief, it comes to it comes down to what psychologists call core belief. Within cognitive behavioral therapy. The core belief there is sometimes I'm unworthy. Or I'm, you know, like I'm rotten at the core, you know, of me. And and and that can form completely independently of your your whole mastery journey. That can form very young, that belief can form very young in your life.

• 1:15:03Lewis Howes?

  Like I'm bad, wrong, rotten.

• 1:15:05Scott Barry Kaufman?

  Yeah, it often forms in the result of maybe if you're bullied when you're young, or maybe even you had parents who.

• 1:15:15Scott Barry Kaufman?

  Who who.

• 1:15:17Lewis Howes?

  Were passive aggressive.

• 1:15:18Scott Barry Kaufman?

  Verbally abusive.

• 1:15:19Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 1:15:19Scott Barry Kaufman?

  Verbally abusive or passive, there's actually a long list of things that parents can do. Including giving you bad genes, by the way, that's another way they fuck you up. It's not always the way they treat you. They give you their genes. But.

• 1:15:33Scott Barry Kaufman?

  We don't talk about that.

• 1:15:34Lewis Howes?

  Sure.

• 1:15:35Scott Barry Kaufman?

  But um. But these are things that can be unlearned, and I think that it takes an active process of learned hopefulness. To do it, because word helpfulness is the default response, that's Martin Seligman's most recent discovery is that the research he's done on word helpfulness, helplessness, word helplessness, where we feel like we do have things that are open to us, but we have gone so long thinking that we're not capable of it, so we no longer, we don't, we don't, we don't, we don't get, or get what really we could have. You know, like we do hold ourselves back. We have to actively learn hopefulness. It's not a process that just comes automatically because we get older.

• 1:16:17Lewis Howes?

  Learn hopefulness.

• 1:16:19Scott Barry Kaufman?

  The whole process, yeah. We, you know, there's, we have to learn all the skills that allow us to re-center our attention and focus on our, on our, on our real chosen values in alignment of our values with what we're doing in our lives and to, to constantly shift that focus away from, from a self-concept to what we're doing, you know, in the, what are we doing, not who are we, you know, you know, just take for, take, take for granted that who you are is enough, you know, okay, move on, move on. And, you know, now the focus is on what am I doing, you know, that's my focus. And you just have to keep exercising that muscle day in and day out.

• 1:17:04Scott Barry Kaufman?

  You wake up in the mornings, boom, you spring out of bed, what am I doing today? Not, you don't wake out of, wake up, spring out, say, who am I today? It's like, get, get over that, get over that, you know? Like, if your self is gonna shift from every morning you wake up, that's not a very healthy way of, of, of, of being in the world.

• 1:17:21Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, I have a, a contract that I created with myself about seven years ago that is a mantra, a statement, or a contract that I created with myself that says, I'm a loving, passionate, wise man. And I say that because previous to seven years ago, I didn't think I was that. And so I created a process where I would say this to myself on a daily basis and I would find evidence to continue to prove to myself why I'm a loving, passionate, wise man. Because I always felt like I was this stupid, ignorant, unworthy type of mentality. I had confidence in certain areas in my life, in sports and other things, but then I also had doubts. And I found evidence on why I was like the dumbest in the class and, you know, dyslexic

• 1:18:06Lewis Howes?

  and all these things, but now I'm just like, well, I'm a loving, passionate, wise man. And I find evidence and I create and I do things daily that support that evidence, that support that belief.

• 1:18:16Scott Barry Kaufman?

  So good.

• 1:18:17Lewis Howes?

  So it's not just like... Fake belief, it's like, okay, no, I am this, I need to remind myself that I am this. And I can do little things on a daily basis to show myself that I'm a loving man.

• 1:18:28Scott Barry Kaufman?

  You grew into it.

• 1:18:28Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, that I'm a passionate man, that I'm a wise man. And, you know, I don't need to be the most intelligent human being, but I'm a wise man. And I make better decisions every day.

• 1:18:38Scott Barry Kaufman?

  You're intelligent, though.

• 1:18:39Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, I appreciate it, thank you, thank you. But it's, I think it's that learned hopefulness, you know. Sometimes we're, I believed that I was bad at the core of me for many years. I felt like I was rotten. I would have dreams that my teeth were falling out all the time. And I remember talking to a dream analyst that was like.

• 1:18:58Scott Barry Kaufman?

  That's actually a common dream.

• 1:18:59Lewis Howes?

  Right, why? And she was like, yeah, it's because you think you're a rotten person. And so your teeth fall out in your dream. And you're like, wake up, and you're like, ah, where are my teeth? You know, it's like.

• 1:19:08Scott Barry Kaufman?

  Or there's a string stuck in the back of your throat, and you keep pulling it out, and you can't.

• 1:19:11Lewis Howes?

  I've never had that one.

• 1:19:12Scott Barry Kaufman?

  That's another one, yeah.

• 1:19:13Lewis Howes?

  And so I had this dream for many, many years, and my teeth were like falling out or something. And I'd wake up in fear, and I was like, why is this happening? And that's what I heard, so I have no idea if that's true or not. But I think that when we start to shift our, our level of thinking about ourself, and create different values, and then act accordingly to fulfill on those things. How important is it, from a psychologist's point of view, the way we think and the things we say to ourselves internally on a daily basis?

• 1:19:43Scott Barry Kaufman?

  Oh, very important. Self-talk is, is so key.

• 1:19:46Lewis Howes?

  Wait a minute, so it's not woo-woo?

• 1:19:48Scott Barry Kaufman?

  No, there's science to that woo-woo.

• 1:19:50Lewis Howes?

  There's science to self-talk.

• 1:19:51Scott Barry Kaufman?

  Yeah.

• 1:19:51Lewis Howes?

  Give me the science to self-talk.

• 1:19:53Scott Barry Kaufman?

  You know, the, the secret, is, are you referring to the secret earlier? I mean, the woo-woo would be saying that whatever you conjure in your head automatically happens in the world.

• 1:20:02Lewis Howes?

  Without work.

• 1:20:03Scott Barry Kaufman?

  That would be woo-woo, yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, you know, like, I'm gonna have a lot of money in my bank account, and then I'll check my bank account. Boom! I wish, I wish the world operated that way. But, yeah, self-talk is very important. And particularly the narratives we tell ourselves, you know, about who we are and what we're capable of are really, really important.

• 1:20:26Lewis Howes?

  What is the science or the research proving about self-talk? Is there studies around this?

• 1:20:31Scott Barry Kaufman?

  Oh, for sure, I mean, there's surely studies about. Various mindsets, you know, if you want to go in that direction.

• 1:20:37Lewis Howes?

  Growth versus fixed.

• 1:20:38Scott Barry Kaufman?

  Yeah, that's one of them. Um, yeah, there are a lot of healthier mindsets versus unhealthier mindsets. You know, there's the whole victimhood mentality, right? I mean, that's, that's a version of self-talk, in my opinion. If you have convinced yourself that because you were a victim in the past, you will never, ever get out of it, you know, and be able to have hope in your life. If you tell yourself that story, um, you start to live that story.

• 1:21:03Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 1:21:03Scott Barry Kaufman?

  Yeah.

• 1:21:04Lewis Howes?

  So how do we get out of that victimhood, victimhood mentality and negative self-talk mentality? If that's been a narrative we lived with for decades?

• 1:21:13Scott Barry Kaufman?

  Yeah, I mean, you can't rip people's defenses, uh, you know, as a clinician, you know, we, the one thing you learn is, you know, you need to gradually, uh, until someone's ready, you know, they're right, you can't, you know.

• 1:21:24Lewis Howes?

  Can't force it.

• 1:21:25Scott Barry Kaufman?

  And you can't talk to, and also you can't like, you can't talk to someone who's like in that mentality and let's say they're screaming at you and then, and you, you think it's going to work if you say, you know, you have a bit of a victimhood mentality right now and it's not the healthiest for your growth and development. I read transcend by Scott Barry-Cooper, they're gonna get even more angry then. You can't, you know, you need to, you can't rip it off of people and you can't rip it, you know, when you're not ready yourself. I think it needs to be a gradual process where you keep testing the waters. That's one of the, uh, I have a, I, I teach an online course for, around my book, um, where I have these growth challenges. And one of them is called test the waters, you know, and, and it's about, um, uh, you know,

• 1:22:06Scott Barry Kaufman?

  so if there's a certain type of person you fear, like, like, like a lot of women, um, who, it's, it's, it's a great shame, you know, that they've been abused, you know, sexually abused, but then they start to generalize a fear of men, right?

• 1:22:20Lewis Howes?

  In general, I can't trust all men, all men do this.

• 1:22:23Scott Barry Kaufman?

  So they visually react whenever they see any man, um, you know, that they, they visually react like, you know, men are horrible, you know, and then, so testing the waters, you know, like, what if you engage in a conversation with a man, you know, and it, and, and, you know, did it go that bad, you know, like, what are all men like that? And I don't mean to just pick on women, you know, they can happen in anything. That was just one example I used, you know, like, you know, people in all sorts of ways can start to generalize a fear of a whole general class of something. Whether it's a whole general class of people or a whole general class of water, like I'm scared of water, you know, talking about test the waters, you know. And then what you do is, you know, a little bit, but exposure therapy is the only way forward.

• 1:23:06Scott Barry Kaufman?

  It's the only way, it's, you know, you have to, you have to move in the direction or else you stay in the fear option your whole life.

• 1:23:12Lewis Howes?

  Exposure therapy, what does that mean?

• 1:23:14Scott Barry Kaufman?

  You know, like little by little, not having experiential avoidance. You know, experiential avoidance is constantly avoiding anything that could even slightly give you the experience again of what you had, you know. You know, so slowly, you know, starting to integrate yourself into the world, into the thing that you fear the most, you know, and, and and of course, you know, you still want to be safe, you know, you know, I'm not saying you escape the clutches of serial killer. You go back to that serial killer and test the waters with the serial killer, that's not what I'm saying. You, I'm saying be reasonable, but, but, but the point is the problem becomes when we generalize the fear to everything in the world and holds us back from realizing our full potential.

• 1:23:56Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, I have this thing called the fear list. Since I was younger, in my teens, I would create this fear list because I had many fears, tons of them. A lot of insecurities, doubt, things like that, and I would write down my fears every year. And in order to become more fearless, I had to overcome the fear list and check them off the list. So I realized that it only, the only way that I could have more confidence, the only way I could believe in myself more was by going all in on the fear until the fear disappeared.

• 1:24:26Scott Barry Kaufman?

  That's right.

• 1:24:26Lewis Howes?

  And I was fortunate enough to find that out like in my teens. And it's been a huge gift for me over the last, you know, two decades, I guess, by. Okay, what's missing in my life? Where am I, where am I not willing to take risks? What am I still afraid of? What am I still resistant to? And I write the, I'll write these lists and I'm like, oh, that's the top of the, that's the biggest react. Ah, I'm nervous about that one the most. Dang it, means I gotta go all in on that.

• 1:24:52Scott Barry Kaufman?

  Yeah.

• 1:24:52Lewis Howes?

  And what I like to do is create an experience or a game around executing it. And one experience, I've told this on my, my show before is, um, I was terrified of girls when I was a teenager. I don't know if you ever were, or if you've just been this confident human being.

• 1:25:08Scott Barry Kaufman?

  Definitely was, definitely was.

• 1:25:10Lewis Howes?

  And I remember saying like, I'm sick and tired of just like being nervous around girls. Like not even be able to have a conversation.

• 1:25:16Scott Barry Kaufman?

  You feared rejection.

• 1:25:17Lewis Howes?

  Absolutely. That was the biggest fear, rejection, judgment, humiliation was the biggest fear.

• 1:25:23Scott Barry Kaufman?

  Yeah.

• 1:25:23Lewis Howes?

  And I created the experiments and games for the last 20 years to overcome that fear, to throw myself into rejection. To do things that, uh, I shouldn't succeed at. In order to see like, what can I do if people reject me? I'm still here, like feel it all, like feel the pain, the embarrassment, the loneliness. Like, oh, but I still have this skill and this tool and this relationship, like I'm still here. And I did that with girls in my teens where I was like, I created an experiment for a summer, for two and a half months, where every day, whenever I saw a girl that I was nervous around, I had to go right up to them and have a conversation. And it was terrifying the first few weeks because I got rejected and laughed at. One girl literally ran away from me. Can you imagine me a 16 year old and a girl running away from me?

• 1:26:07Lewis Howes?

  I was just like, I am worthless. No one loves me. Why am I doing this? This is stupid, right?

• 1:26:13Scott Barry Kaufman?

  Yes.

• 1:26:14Lewis Howes?

  But you learn new strategies, you learn ways of being, you learn how to overcome that, the more you do it.

• 1:26:21Scott Barry Kaufman?

  Yeah.

• 1:26:21Lewis Howes?

  And if you take that rejection or failure as feedback and information, then you can apply it to the next thing that you're doing.

• 1:26:28Scott Barry Kaufman?

  I would even add one thing, I love everything you said. I, I would add that if you can cultivate be love, you start to realize the sacredness of each existence. And if the person is, if the girl's running away from you, you cultivate a be love for her. Where you say, oh, you know what? She made that choice and I totally respect.

• 1:26:46Lewis Howes?

  I love and accept her for what she is.

• 1:26:47Scott Barry Kaufman?

  Yeah, you know what I'm saying? Not what she offers to me. But I'm gonna show Be Love to her, you know, like obviously like whatever was going on there like you it wasn't a good match, you know, and she made her choice, you know, honor it, honor it, you know?

• 1:27:01Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, exactly.

• 1:27:02Scott Barry Kaufman?

  Yeah.

• 1:27:03Lewis Howes?

  How do we?

• 1:27:03Scott Barry Kaufman?

  Isn't Be Love great? It changes your life.

• 1:27:05Lewis Howes?

  It does. How do we create these, how do we discover these core beliefs and values that will support our journey?

• 1:27:16Lewis Howes?

  And what are some of the more supportive values and beliefs that you've seen or studied?

• 1:27:23Scott Barry Kaufman?

  Yeah.

• 1:27:26Scott Barry Kaufman?

  A lot of these deficiency motivated ways of thinking really do hold us back and

• 1:27:34Scott Barry Kaufman?

  the kind of, the kind of like thoughts and habits of pattern that allow us to move in the direction of growth are ones where we ask ourselves, what is going to lead me to more wholeness and integration? And growth as opposed to what is going to

• 1:27:54Scott Barry Kaufman?

  make me look better than others, make me achieve more than others, you know? They're, they're very much as we call it an exploration mindset. And if, once you kind of adopt an exploration mindset, you, everything changes in your life. I mean, everything like you're curious about everything, you know, you're

• 1:28:15Scott Barry Kaufman?

  you're, you become kind of a little adventure seeker.

• 1:28:18Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 1:28:18Scott Barry Kaufman?

  You know, even, even within your own mind, you become a little adventure seeker, you know, it does not always exploring adventures outside, but you can have a rich fantasy life, you can have a rich, you know, ideas and

• 1:28:31Scott Barry Kaufman?

  I think it's, it's really keep choosing those habits over and over again.

• 1:28:35Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 1:28:35Scott Barry Kaufman?

  And committing yourself to it.

• 1:28:37Lewis Howes?

  I like that, man. How do you think we can let go of limiting beliefs?

• 1:28:46Scott Barry Kaufman?

  Isn't it a matter of practice, you know, little by little? You know, these things don't happen overnight.

• 1:28:53Scott Barry Kaufman?

  There are people, I think both of us and everyone listening to this interview can think of, think of yourself when you were 16, like even like everybody, everybody right now, listening to us, think of yourself when you're 16 and think about those limiting beliefs you had. Now, think of yourself now. I imagine there's a lot of people listening that will be like, they don't even recognize who that person was. You know, so clearly you proved that you were capable of shedding it. But it happens over time. You need to have patience and self-compassion with yourself. I think I'm a big proponent of cultivating both of those things with yourself. Patience with yourself and self-compassion.

• 1:29:33Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 1:29:34Scott Barry Kaufman?

  For yourself.

• 1:29:34Lewis Howes?

  The challenge is, most of us beat ourselves up. When we do something wrong, or we fail, or someone rejects us, oh, you know, we beat ourselves, at least I did for many years of my life. We say, oh, you were an idiot, you shouldn't have done that, that was stupid, why did you do that? And we don't move beyond that. Why do we, why do we kind of tend to go back into this beat-up mode, do you think?

• 1:29:57Scott Barry Kaufman?

  Yeah, well, I'll also say narcissists tend to beat up others for their failures.

• 1:30:02Lewis Howes?

  They don't beat up themselves because they're godly.

• 1:30:04Scott Barry Kaufman?

  They blame it on every single person in their orbit. And they never blame it on themselves.

• 1:30:09Lewis Howes?

  They never take responsibility.

• 1:30:10Scott Barry Kaufman?

  There's an inverse of that, too, that's unhealthy.

• 1:30:12Lewis Howes?

  That's the heart of narcissism, too.

• 1:30:14Scott Barry Kaufman?

  The heart of narcissism. I love that when you say that earlier.

• 1:30:17Lewis Howes?

  The first one was?

• 1:30:19Scott Barry Kaufman?

  Entitlement.

• 1:30:20Lewis Howes?

  Entitlement, the second one would be they blame, they don't take accountability.

• 1:30:22Scott Barry Kaufman?

  When you fail, you beat up on everyone else but yourself.

• 1:30:25Lewis Howes?

  You gotta take accountability and responsibility. I'm a huge fan of responsibility.

• 1:30:29Scott Barry Kaufman?

  Yes, and you can take responsibility for actions without beating yourself up. And I think that's what we're trying to nail.

• 1:30:35Lewis Howes?

  That is key.

• 1:30:36Scott Barry Kaufman?

  That's what we're doing.

• 1:30:36Lewis Howes?

  So how do we take responsibility for our actions and not beat ourselves up in a negative way?

• 1:30:42Scott Barry Kaufman?

  Because you can acknowledge that if something didn't land, you can be like, huh, you know, I need to work on it. I need to improve it, you know? But the point you don't beat yourself up on is your self-belief that you're capable of change. You're capable of growth. I wrote a tweet the other day, did not land the way I wanted it to. Boy, did it not land the way I wanted to. But I thought to myself, and I started, I got a lot of, you know, like trolls and stuff, but then I responded to the trolls and I said, you know what, I clearly didn't explain it the way that I meant to explain it. I think in the future, I'm gonna try to be clear what I meant. And they're like, like, you know, they didn't like, they know how to respond to that, you know?

• 1:31:19Lewis Howes?

  Sure, sure.

• 1:31:20Scott Barry Kaufman?

  But, but I meant it, you know, it's like, you know, clearly that's, that's what it is, you know? I'm not, I'm gonna take responsibility. I, I don't feel like I'm a loser, you know? I don't feel like I, you know, any, any, some deep core I revealed about my, it's like, wow, I really, that didn't, that didn't land. I'm gonna take responsibility for that, you know?

• 1:31:38Lewis Howes?

  Yeah. Well, it's something you discovered in the last year since writing this book. New research or new findings about human beings, about psychology? Is there anything that you've discovered new?

• 1:31:52Scott Barry Kaufman?

  I'm really fascinated with the LSD research. It's like, research come out recently showing that people are healthier physically when they do more LSD.

• 1:32:02Lewis Howes?

  Really?

• 1:32:02Scott Barry Kaufman?

  Like, where'd that come from, right? Like, that's amazing. You know, it can, it can decrease, you know, I'm not talking about the abuse of it, obviously, but, you know, use responsibility. I feel you always had to have to kind of use responsibly. It, it seems to be decreasing depression, you know, like expanding your sense of self. I'm fascinated with that line of research. I'm fascinated with other techniques that are being used. Like technologies like transcranial direct stimulation, these like caps you can put in your head.

• 1:32:31Lewis Howes?

  You go in the brain, you put something in there?

• 1:32:33Scott Barry Kaufman?

  It doesn't go in the brain. No, you just, it's like a thinking cap. You're gonna be able to buy it from Walmart someday.

• 1:32:37Lewis Howes?

  What is it gonna do?

• 1:32:38Scott Barry Kaufman?

  Put in your head, it deactivates certain parts of your brain and turns up the juice on the creative parts of your brain. It allows you to overcome thinking blocks, you know, like,

• 1:32:46Lewis Howes?

  Really?

• 1:32:46Scott Barry Kaufman?

  But it's, but it's also showing some problems for depression. Yeah. It's non-invasive. I have never been under, but it's, it's non-invasive. And apparently people who say it just you feel a tingle. Yeah, and it doesn't last forever. I mean, it's time limited as well. It's not like your prefrontal cortex is forever going to be deactivated, you know? So that's kind of interesting. I think there's a lot of hot areas, you know, I find the narcissism research on the topic of vulnerable narcissism that I've studied.

• 1:33:16Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, I saw this in your book too. What does this mean, vulnerable narcissism?

• 1:33:19Scott Barry Kaufman?

  It's you feel like you're entitled to special privileges not because you think you're great, but because you've suffered in the past.

• 1:33:26Lewis Howes?

  Ooh, explain that.

• 1:33:28Scott Barry Kaufman?

  That opens up a whole, that opens up.

• 1:33:30Lewis Howes?

  Vulnerable narcissism.

• 1:33:32Scott Barry Kaufman?

  Yeah, that opens up a whole can.

• 1:33:33Lewis Howes?

  So, because I'm a victim.

• 1:33:35Scott Barry Kaufman?

  Because in my past, I've been wronged. I've been wronged in particular.

• 1:33:40Lewis Howes?

  I'm entitled.

• 1:33:41Scott Barry Kaufman?

  I deserve everything.

• 1:33:43Lewis Howes?

  Ooh, man, that's a hot topic.

• 1:33:46Scott Barry Kaufman?

  I know.

• 1:33:47Lewis Howes?

  That's a touchy.

• 1:33:48Scott Barry Kaufman?

  But at the end of our interview, we don't want to, yeah, that's a whole other interview.

• 1:33:53Lewis Howes?

  So why, well, let's talk about it briefly. What does vulnerable narcissism do to the person who is being that state? What is the benefit to that? And what is the negative side of saying, "Well, I'm entitled to this because this happened to me when I was younger, or this happened to my family, or my parents, or this happened, you know, I didn't get what I deserved."

• 1:34:12Scott Barry Kaufman?

  It's a very self-limiting viewpoint. It really does hold you back from growth. It culls your interactions with others, it makes you miss out on opportunities for growth with others, you know? And it's not a good way to make friends. It's not a good way to be trusted by others. It's not a good way to, it's not the best way to live one's life, a good life.

• 1:34:37Lewis Howes?

  So vulnerable narcissism equals entitlement, essentially, right?

• 1:34:41Scott Barry Kaufman?

  Well, here's the thing, I'll tell you my three-way, my three-factor narcissism model.

• 1:34:46Lewis Howes?

  Give it to me.

• 1:34:47Scott Barry Kaufman?

  Entitlement is the thread that runs through all, it is the heart, as you put it, it is the heart of all forms of narcissism. But there are moderators. So people who tend to be more extroverted tend to become more grandiose narcissists, whereas those who are introverted tend to become more vulnerable narcissists. Now, I'm not saying that.

• 1:35:07Scott Barry Kaufman?

  Most extroverts are not grandiose narcissists, most introverts are not vulnerable narcissists. But I'm saying if you have the entitlement plus extroversion, or do you have the entitlement plus the neuroticism? It's actually more, less introversion, I would say more the trait neuroticism. So you can be an entitled, you can be an entitled neurotic, or you can be an entitled grandiose extrovert. And there are two forms.

• 1:35:31Lewis Howes?

  Sure.

• 1:35:31Scott Barry Kaufman?

  Does that make sense?

• 1:35:31Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, of course. Okay.

• 1:35:34Scott Barry Kaufman?

  And if you're neurotic, you're, you see threat everywhere. You know, you think everyone's out to get you, you have a, you start to get a complex. You know, that's vulnerable narcissism, you know? I've been wronged, and I don't trust anyone, you know? Like, the slightest criticism, you go crazy, you know? You go, you're fragile, you know? And you're fragile within, so you tend to be more prone to inner depression. Whereas grandiose narcissists tend to take out their anger on others, but they tend to be content and happy. Actually, we found research showing that grandiose narcissists score higher in life satisfaction, even though everyone else around them shows lower life satisfaction.

• 1:36:11Lewis Howes?

  Because they get all their anger or frustration out.

• 1:36:13Scott Barry Kaufman?

  They take it out on everyone else. They fire everyone in your cabinet, for instance, you know? Like, it's not my fault. But the vulnerable narcissist tends to be the one that shows up in the clinical realm. I think in-

• 1:36:25Lewis Howes?

  Because they keep it all inside.

• 1:36:26Scott Barry Kaufman?

  They keep it all inside and implode as, instead of exploding.

• 1:36:30Lewis Howes?

  Interesting.

• 1:36:31Scott Barry Kaufman?

  In a way, I think it's a lot easier to have compassion for the vulnerable narcissist. It's harder to have compassion for the grandiose narcissist, you know?

• 1:36:39Lewis Howes?

  Sure, sure. Wow.

• 1:36:41Scott Barry Kaufman?

  Even though we should have compassion for everyone.

• 1:36:43Lewis Howes?

  Of course, of course, yeah. How does someone command respect?

• 1:36:51Lewis Howes?

  As opposed to saying, "You need to respect me." What's the person that is actually well-respected? What is their way of being? How do they build themselves up so that they actually do attract respect, opportunities, love?

• 1:37:05Scott Barry Kaufman?

  You answered that earlier, though, with your example. Yeah, you answered that with the dancing, or dancing example. You didn't command the respect at a certain point in time. There are people who command respect by their presence, by their essence, their being. And I think that crosses introversion, extroversion lines. There's a lot of quiet people who command respect. Not even by, not even by talking, you know? Some people can just enter a room, you know, and sit down. Everyone's like, "Oh shit, like, who's this person?"

• 1:37:33Lewis Howes?

  What have they done in order to command that, you think?

• 1:37:37Scott Barry Kaufman?

  They do have a very, very strong core belief in themselves.

• 1:37:42Lewis Howes?

  Believe you mean a self-esteem. They have a strong confidence level, they have a strong belief, calm, what is that?

• 1:37:48Scott Barry Kaufman?

  I would say, I would go further, I would say in my sailboat metaphor, their boat is rock solid. And that's, that's all the things that I put in the boat. They feel safe, they feel, um, they don't feel like they need people, um, for their own.

• 1:38:05Lewis Howes?

  To be happy.

• 1:38:06Scott Barry Kaufman?

  To for their own, even loneliness, you know, they don't feel, they don't need people to satisfy that whole. And then they feel, um, a sense of self-worth and they feel like they've mastered things in their lives. I think when you get the complete package of the, of the boat, you know, I think that probably you start to witness someone who.

• 1:38:24Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 1:38:24Scott Barry Kaufman?

  Commands respect without commanding it.

• 1:38:28Lewis Howes?

  I, one of the things that was on my fear list was being alone when I was younger, in my early twenties. I remember thinking like, I'd never had a spare hour by myself, really. It was always like, okay, I'm in school, I'm in sports class, and then right afterwards, it's like, I go hang out with friends until I go to bed. And there was never this, and when I was alone, I was like insecure. So I remember saying, I need to be alone, I get to be alone to master this insecurity, this is a fear of mine. And for years, I said, I'm going on dates by myself, I'm going to lunch by myself, I'm going to movies alone, which was like terrifying to go to a movie by myself. I was like, this is weird.

• 1:39:09Lewis Howes?

  I would do everything that I could alone, not my whole life, but I was like, I'm scheduling alone time.

• 1:39:14Scott Barry Kaufman?

  Do you feel like you're a loner?

• 1:39:16Lewis Howes?

  Now?

• 1:39:17Scott Barry Kaufman?

  No, no, did, did you feel like?

• 1:39:18Lewis Howes?

  No, I felt like I was insecure, I needed to be, I, I only could be around other people to be happy.

• 1:39:23Scott Barry Kaufman?

  I see.

• 1:39:24Lewis Howes?

  And so I was like, I need to be alone, learn how to be happy on my own, enjoy my own company, which I didn't enjoy. And then I started to really like fall in love with myself, if that sounds weird, by being like, okay, like I just enjoy being here, I enjoy my own thoughts. But before I didn't enjoy.

• 1:39:40Scott Barry Kaufman?

  I love being with myself.

• 1:39:40Lewis Howes?

  Exactly.

• 1:39:41Scott Barry Kaufman?

  No, it's great.

• 1:39:42Lewis Howes?

  And I think, uh, it is great, yeah.

• 1:39:44Scott Barry Kaufman?

  I laugh at myself all the time.

• 1:39:46Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, yeah, and be okay with it, I'm happy being alone. So it's now become like something I'm really grateful to be alone a lot of time, to have the space and time. But something we talked about as well is in terms of confidence, self-worth, knowing that I am enough. But mastery, you said, is also another element. Is it mastering one thing, is it mastering many things? Is it the more things you master, the more confident you become? Or you can just be, you know, an excellent researcher for your whole life? And that will still give you confidence in other areas of your life?

• 1:40:18Scott Barry Kaufman?

  I don't know if you have to achieve. Mastery is, seems like a different concept than necessarily external achievement. I mean, Abraham Maslow distinguished between self-actualization and achievement. He actually thought that he wasn't self-actualized, but he thought his wife, Bertha's mother, was self-actualized. And his wife, his wife's mother was just a very good person. He actually viewed self-actualization as a project of understanding who are good people in the world. He started his whole project with the Good Human Being Notebook, GHB Notebook, he called it. I got access to it, it was really cool.

• 1:40:59Lewis Howes?

  Really?

• 1:40:59Scott Barry Kaufman?

  Yeah, it was cool to see. He has, he has the Good Human Being Notebook, where he just took notes of people. That's how his whole research started, people don't realize that. It started with him just observing who are the best specimens of humanity that he could find. He called it, and that's really what he was, his search was, to understand. And that's not always tied to achievement.

• 1:41:20Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, success and money doesn't mean you're the best human being.

• 1:41:22Scott Barry Kaufman?

  And you can master things. You can master a craft without, you know, getting the accolades, without getting the achievement. The question is, are you proud of your life? I mean, isn't that it? You know, like, you know, like, you, you have to be, only you can make that decision. You can't, and people read so many self-help books, they have gurus, they have this and that, thinking that someone else is gonna ask, and you can pay people to make that answer for you, you know? You could, there are people that'd be happy to take your money and tell you, you know, what you should do in your life before you can be proud of your life. But I hate to break it to you, but you know, it's like, you're the only one, you know, they can decide, you know?

• 1:42:02Scott Barry Kaufman?

  And if you're just, if you're proud of, you know, like, the relationships you've cultivated, and, and your, your job, you know, and you're like, that's enough for you? That should be, that should be enough for you, yeah.

• 1:42:16Lewis Howes?

  I love this man. What's the thing you think you wish more?

• 1:42:20Scott Barry Kaufman?

  You came prepared! You like, you really came prepared.

• 1:42:24Lewis Howes?

  I love this stuff, though. I love this stuff, yeah. Couple final questions for you. What's the question you wish more people would ask you about this topic around transcendence and self-actualization?

• 1:42:39Scott Barry Kaufman?

  I think like, I don't know if it's a cop-out to say, I wish people would ask me less around this topic. They often ask me how-tos, you know? How do you self-actua... It's like, you know, the point of, the whole point of self-actualization is what does it mean to be the best you in the whole freaking world? Like, no one else has as much potential to be you than you. People who spend their whole lives trying to be someone else, like, it's like, like, for instance, they play basketball and they're like, "I'm gonna be Michael Jordan." Basically, what you're saying is, "Hey Scott, how do I self-actualize someone else's self? What the hell does that mean?

• 1:43:24Scott Barry Kaufman?

  Like, what a stupid question! Like, how do I self-actualize someone else's self? You know, like, that is, it doesn't make any sense, you know? Like, that's, that's, that's the shortest way to waste your life, you know? You know, what, the question that is a good question, but that people don't ask me, that I want people to ask me, you know, is not "how to," but, you know, what does it mean to live a self-actualized life? Not "how to self-actualize." What does it mean? And it means finding the life that works best for you, owning it, creating, creating yourself who you want to become, like you did, you created it, you know? You create it.

• 1:44:05Scott Barry Kaufman?

  And you, and you, and you take full ownership over, over what you, what you are and what you've decided, you know?

• 1:44:14Lewis Howes?

  Not vulnerable narcissism. I love that. I want people to get the book. Powerful book. "Transcend: The New Science of Self-Actualization" by Scott Barry Kaufman. Make sure you guys check this out. Really powerful. It's like the... Uh, researched version of a great self-help book with all the data, science that's in there that backs all these.

• 1:44:37Scott Barry Kaufman?

  Nerdy self-help.

• 1:44:38Lewis Howes?

  It's really cool. And um, I enjoyed it very much. For me, it's, you've got a lot of great stuff in here that, that helps you just improve the quality of your life, your relationships. So many great exercises and examples in here. Really love what you created. Uh, very excited for the growth and the success of this book. Make sure you check out Transcend.

• 1:44:58Scott Barry Kaufman?

  Thank you.

• 1:45:00Lewis Howes?

  Two final questions.

• 1:45:01Scott Barry Kaufman?

  Yeah.

• 1:45:02Lewis Howes?

  This is called the three truths. I don't think I asked you this the last time, because I don't think I started asking this question until later. But I'd like you to uh, answer a hypothetical question, scenario. That you get to live as long as you want to live. And you get to accomplish all of your greatest dreams. Uh, but at some point, you gotta turn the lights off in your life. And transcend into the next realm.

• 1:45:24Scott Barry Kaufman?

  Yeah.

• 1:45:25Lewis Howes?

  You gotta leave your body and go to the next place. And you've accomplished everything. But for whatever reason, you gotta take all of your written, or audio or video work with you. So no one has uh, any of your written word or recordings of your content anymore.

• 1:45:41Scott Barry Kaufman?

  Wow.

• 1:45:42Lewis Howes?

  It's all gone to the next place with you.

• 1:45:44Scott Barry Kaufman?

  Holy shit.

• 1:45:46Lewis Howes?

  But you get to leave behind three lessons that you know to be true. The three lessons you've learned that have helped you and supported you throughout your life, that you would then share with the world, that this is all we would have to remember you by. Are these three lessons, or what I like to call the three truths? What would you say would be your three truths?

• 1:46:03Scott Barry Kaufman?

  Don't play the games people impose on you.

• 1:46:09Scott Barry Kaufman?

  You have a choice to love. And, are you getting this down?

• 1:46:14Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:46:15Scott Barry Kaufman?

  Cause I don't know what's coming out of my mouth next. Um, and um,

• 1:46:22Scott Barry Kaufman?

  Trust yourself.

• 1:46:26Scott Barry Kaufman?

  Are they good? Are those good?

• 1:46:27Lewis Howes?

  Of course, yeah.

• 1:46:29Scott Barry Kaufman?

  It's just what I felt. I didn't know what was gonna come out of my mouth, that's what I felt.

• 1:46:33Lewis Howes?

  It's your truth, yeah, I like that. I want to acknowledge you for a second, Scott, for your constant pursuit of finding these answers in science and in research.

• 1:46:43Scott Barry Kaufman?

  Thank you.

• 1:46:43Lewis Howes?

  You do the work that most people don't have the patience or time to do. You study things deeper and deeper than people are willing to study them to find. And then you bridge the gap from hard things to understand, science of things, and then making it more accessible, which is what I really appreciate about you is bringing the nerdy science into practicality, into a place where we can understand it and use it for a benefit. And so I acknowledge you for making this art, the work, and bringing it to life for your authenticity and constantly showing up for who you are. And the journey that you're on, man, I really acknowledge you for this.

• 1:47:23Scott Barry Kaufman?

  Likewise.

• 1:47:24Lewis Howes?

  I want people to get the book, they can follow you on social media. Is there one website that they should go to as well to learn more about you?

• 1:47:29Scott Barry Kaufman?

  Yeah, you know, scottbarrykaufman.com has like all the goodies. I also, I host a podcast called The Psychology Podcast that you've been on.

• 1:47:36Lewis Howes?

  Yes, great.

• 1:47:37Scott Barry Kaufman?

  And people, people might be interested in some of those interviews.

• 1:47:41Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 1:47:42Scott Barry Kaufman?

  But can I just praise you for a second as well?

• 1:47:44Lewis Howes?

  Sure.

• 1:47:45Scott Barry Kaufman?

  Would you mind if I?

• 1:47:46Lewis Howes?

  Sure, go ahead.

• 1:47:46Scott Barry Kaufman?

  I am so proud of just, like, Be Love, watching you with Be Love over the years and what you've built up and the way that, the manner you have, the way you command presence by selfishly getting outside of yourself in your interviews.

• 1:48:03Lewis Howes?

  Thank you.

• 1:48:03Scott Barry Kaufman?

  It's a beautiful thing to behold.

• 1:48:05Lewis Howes?

  I appreciate it, man, thank you very much. I've learned that

• 1:48:10Lewis Howes?

  hiding or trying to pretend that I'm better than I am, or that I have it all put together, that I'm perfect in some way or polished, for me, was the old version of me that didn't serve me about eight years ago. And I realized that like, oh, I've got a lot of crap I need to let go of. So it's a constant journey of, you know, being love, and I think it takes being vulnerable and talking about what you said, well, here's what I'm at in my life and relationships and stuff. I think the more human beings are being that way, we drop the narcissism, we drop the entitlement, and we're saying, well, we're just figuring it out.

• 1:48:44Scott Barry Kaufman?

  And sometimes when you're vulnerable, you never know what happens. And who knows, maybe my Instagram will light up with women who want to be the one.

• 1:48:51Lewis Howes?

  I love that.

• 1:48:52Scott Barry Kaufman?

  But I'm not needing, I'm not needing.

• 1:48:54Lewis Howes?

  You don't need it right now.

• 1:48:55Scott Barry Kaufman?

  I don't need it, I don't need it. I'm cool, I'm cool, I'm cool.

• 1:48:57Lewis Howes?

  You're cool.

• 1:48:58Scott Barry Kaufman?

  But I really love this interview. It was just, I'm so glad we're able to do this.

• 1:49:01Lewis Howes?

  Appreciate it, man. Final question, what's your definition of greatness?

• 1:49:06Scott Barry Kaufman?

  Boy, it's a wonderful question. Geez, I think I need to think about that.

• 1:49:12Scott Barry Kaufman?

  Greatness for me is, is realizing your full powers of, of your entire being, bringing your entire being to the table. So not leaving any part of you on the table, but bring your entire being on the table. So it can have the maximum positive impact on the world.

• 1:49:39Lewis Howes?

  Thanks, my man. Appreciate you, brother.

• 1:49:40Scott Barry Kaufman?

  Thank you, appreciate you too.

• 1:49:41Lewis Howes?

  My friend, thank you so much for being here and listening to this episode. I got so much value being across from Scott and learning these new strategies, this new science to help improve the quality of our life. If you got as much value, make sure to spread the message of greatness and help some friends out. Text a few people, post it over on social media. Make sure to tag me and Scott as well over on social media so we can see who's listening and make sure to connect with you over there as well. And would love to hear the part of this episode you enjoyed the most. Make sure to leave a review over on Apple Podcast and a rating to let us know which part impacted you the most from this episode. And as well, make sure to subscribe over on Apple Podcast or Spotify. Just go ahead and click that subscribe button right now so you can stay up to date on the

• 1:50:23Lewis Howes?

  world's greatest individuals, on how they unlock greatness and teach you their strategies as well. And if you want inspiring messages sent to your phone every single week from me, then text the word PODCAST to 614-350-3960 to get on our special texting community list. And I want to leave you with this quote from Andy Rooney, who says, "Everyone wants to live on the top of the mountain, but all the happiness and growth occurs while you're climbing it." Oh, man, isn't that true? There's so many times in my life where I've accomplished some of the biggest dreams and goals and was actually unfulfilled when I accomplished them, but... The parts of learning, of growing, of feeling, of who I got to meet along the way,

• 1:51:04Lewis Howes?

  of who I became, of overcoming the challenges to get there, were some of the most rewarding moments that I look back on. And still today, I'm so grateful of the opportunities for growth every single day. And now I've learned how to really celebrate the accomplishments. Before, I didn't know how to, but now I can really celebrate them, the achievements, the accomplishments, the big moments. But man, it's the daily journey, the daily breath, and the process of getting there that is so rich and full of life. And I hope you're enjoying those daily moments as well. And I want to remind you, if no one's told you lately, that you are loved, you are worthy, and you matter. I'm so grateful for you. And you know what time it is. It's time to go out there and do something great.