Finding Mastery with Dr. Michael Gervais - Cognitive Psychologist: Break Free from a Victim Mindset | Scott Barry Kaufman

Episode Date: June 4, 2025

What if the greatest obstacle to reaching your potential isn't external barriers, but a mindset in which you see yourself as a victim?   Today, I’m stoked to welcome back my good friend and one of my favorite thinkers, Dr. Scott Barry Kaufman. This is Scott’s third time on the podcast, and he always delivers. Scott is a humanistic psychologist, bestselling author, and host of The Psychology Podcast. His new book Rise Above: Overcome a Victim Mindset, Empower Yourself, and Realize Your Full Potential dives deep into what it means to move through suffering with both self-awareness and strength.In this conversation, we talk about the difference between victimization and a victim mindset, how subtle thought patterns like hostile attribution bias or over-personalization can limit growth, and why a mindset rooted in empowerment is the key to self-actualization.As you listen, reflect on your own internal narratives…. Maybe even the core triggers for when you tend to blame, deflect, or shrink back when things get hard? How might a shift toward a more powerful mindset — toward a deeper trust in yourself — change how you respond to life’s challenges? Please enjoy this powerful conversation with my friend, Dr. Scott Barry Kaufman.__________________Subscribe to our Youtube Channel for more powerful conversations at the intersection of high performance, leadership, and meaning: https://www.youtube.com/c/FindingMasteryGet exclusive discounts and support our amazing sponsors! Go to: https://findingmastery.com/sponsors/Get an exclusive discount on the iRestore Elite to restore your natural hair at https://irestore.com/findingmastery when you use the code FINDINGMASTERY at checkout.Subscribe to the Finding Mastery newsletter for weekly high performance insights: https://www.findingmastery.com/newsletterDownload Dr. Mike's Morning Mindset Routine!Follow on YouTube, Instagram, LinkedIn, and XScott Barry Kaufman: https://scottbarrykaufman.comSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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stay present and engaged with my thinking and writing. If you wanna slow down, if you wanna work smarter, I highly encourage you to check them out. Visit remarkable.com to learn more and grab your paper pro today. A victim mindset is one where you blame all of your problems on external circumstances. You don't take any responsibility

for how you respond to situations and you devote most of your life to attempts to punish or get back at people who you feel have situations and you devote most of your life to attempts to punish or get back at people who you feel have wronged you without actually creating constructive ways of moving forward with hope and purpose in your own life. What if the greatest obstacle to you reaching your potential isn't external barriers, but a mindset in which you see yourself as a victim. People with a victim mindset will take neutral responses to them as aggressive without really caring for the facts of the matter. If you smile at someone and they just don't smile back,

chances are they have nothing against you. You're not even on their radar at that moment. Do you know what I mean? Welcome back. Welcome to the Finding Mastery podcast, where we dive into the minds of the world's greatest thinkers and doers. I am your host, Dr. Michael Gervais, by trade and training a high-performance psychologist. And today, I am stoked to welcome back a good friend and one of my favorite thinkers, Dr. Scott Barry Kaufman. This is Scott's third time on the podcast, and he always delivers.

Well-being is not the opposite of high performance. It's the foundation. It's the foundation, yes! And you nail it. Scott is a humanistic psychologist. He's a best-selling author and host of the Psychology Podcast. In his new book, Rise Above, overcome a victim mindset, empower yourself, and realize your full potential, dives deep into what it means to move through suffering

with both self-awareness and strength. You can have confidence in your views, listen to others, be willing to change. But if you have no self-belief and no trust that you have what it takes to reach your goals or to formulate your own opinions outside of other people's opinions, you're going to fall to pieces. With that, let's jump into this powerful conversation with my friend, Dr. Scott Barry Kaufman. You ready for things to get real? Yeah. You sure? Yeah, yeah.

The one and only Scott Barry Kaufman. How are you, mate? I'm doing really well, thanks. How are you, mate? I'm doing really well, thanks. How are you? You know, I think that I relate to being super inspired and a little tired, you know? And I know that, I don't know, like I love, I feel like I'm living a great life right now. And so, but I'm at the edge with a lot of things and by choice. So, so that's kind of how I feel right in this moment. And to be more concrete, Scott, the last three days of sleep have been pretty poor. So I'm really sorry to hear that. Yeah,

no, it's okay. It's all, these are all choices. It's all the price of admission of being human. Yeah. Right. Okay. So revise yours. How are you? Well, there's so much going on right now that I've decided just to take the absurd humor path to dealing with it all. But yeah, there's just so many. I'm in the middle of massive transformation and change. You are? Yes, sir.

Yes, sir. Okay. So I just have to like... Hold on, I just felt it. Okay, cool. I have to lean into it. What else So I just have to like... Hold on. I just felt it. Okay, cool. I have to lean into it or else, you know, what else am I going to do? Yeah. The reason I just felt it is because I see it in your eyes and like, so what's happening?

I mean, there's a million things going on. My mom was just diagnosed with breast cancer, moving back to the East Coast. I just got a full-time job at Columbia University. I've never had a full-time academic job before. So I'm excited and terrified at the same time. I mean, I have this book coming out that I really desperately want to do well. And I mean, I want it to give the value to the world that I think it needs to offer to the world. So much, I mean, I can keep going down the line.

So I need to say it because people won't necessarily, the listener might not know it is like, dude, I really respect you. And I don't say this lightly, but I have such love for you. I really appreciate you. And I don't say this lightly, but I have such love for you. I really appreciate you. And so when I feel what you're just saying, I heard the words, but when I feel it, two things happen. One is like, yeah, he's in it. And the second is like, oh, he's totally built for it. Like, I can't wait to see how he teaches. That's the empowerment mindset.

You are that. And so we've got time with each other. We can do a bunch of things with our time. One is I do want to understand how you're right now navigating hard times, let's say, or difficult experiences. I do want to open that up because it's honest, it's real. And I think that we can all learn from you. And then the second is your book is outstanding.

Oh, thank you. Yeah. Your book is outstanding. And you said you desperately want it to do well. Why did you choose the word desperately because you know i i want it to make an impact um i have written uh i guess like there's i have 10 other books other than this book this i think is my 11th one but they were very academic and um i didn't go in with the mission i'm going to make this as general pop popul as possible. They were like, oh, I really am passionate about this topic and I want to tell the truth about something and I want to, in a nerdy way, I revised Maslow's hierarchy of needs.

But this one I went in with an intentionality that I've never gone in. This is another part of my transformation I'm going through. I set out an intention with this book contract with Penguin Random House. I said to them, you know, this Penguin Random House, which is like, you know, one of the big three. Yeah. Yeah. I went in with the intentionality that like I'm going to put my all into this and I'm going to make it as accessible language wise as possible. And I really buckled down.

I learned how to write. I hired an editor, you know, big, big props to Kelly Madrone. I like to give credit where credit's due. You know, like she taught me so much about popular writing and about creating stories that are compelling. I just, I wanted to do it right. You know what's cool is so you and I, we both think on this

and I don't think I've ever talked about it outside of just kind of friend conversations, but Kevin Lake was my editor co-writer for my book. And I know how to write like from an academic standpoint and it's dry and it's hopefully clear, but sometimes, you know, like we go a little bit too deep into detail sometimes and he brings it right to the surface and makes it so much more available. So like, um, I appreciate that you're pointing to the support

because, um, you're writing, this writing is clear. Good. Yeah. And so before we like, we'll come, let's come back around to like how you are working through difficult challenges and let's frame it through what you learned or what you're bringing forward from the book standpoint. Because you're going after something that I think is complicated. And when I read it, it's about victimhood, vulnerability, a bit of narcissism, but you're squaring up with the mindset of victimism. Did I just make the word up? Victimization. Victimization. So let's just talk about why

this book, why now, and what do you hope folks learn from your research and writing? These are obviously very tricky, thorny topics, but that's not ever a reason for me not to tackle something. In fact, it's a fun little challenge or big challenge. How can I get the tone just right? So first of all, I lay the tone down in the intro. I say I'm all about honest love. I've been seeing a lot of extreme one way or the other, either extreme coddling, where we say, you know, oh my gosh, you've suffered. It's okay. You don't have to do anything the rest of your life, you know. And then on the other end, I've seen extreme, you know, pull yourself up by your bootstraps way of going about it, which is

stop your complaining and get over it. And neither felt like my voice. So part of the whole process of writing this book was also finding my own voice and what is my own sort of where do I belong? Because I don't really feel like I belong anywhere and it's always like a feeling that I always feel like so confused about like I don't really resonate with that approach or that approach. So I have this honest love approach in the book that feels like me. What do you mean you don't feel like you belong anywhere? Well – You know you're not going to slip that by me. What do you mean you don't feel like you belong anywhere? Well, you know, you're not going to slip that by me. What does that mean?

Um, I feel like the world has become so, uh, you either have to take one extreme side or the other on every issue now. Uh, and, and I always, and I feel like there's not as much place in the world for people who want to

be like, hold on. Like, can we like, can I try to understand both perspectives? and then can I think about it? Can I try to see if there's something to be gained from this one and something to be gained from that one? And what would a meta theory look like?

But I feel like everyone immediately jumps to a side on everything. And that makes me kind of feel like, where do I belong with my way of being yeah so black and white thinking is kind of what you're pointing to is extreme thinking yeah extreme thinking um which as both of us would recognize is a cognitive distortion absolutely which a fancy phrase for like you know a mental thing that we do that distorts reality. But it makes it easier to deal with something in the moment if you can say, it's never, it's always, which is black and white type of thinking, which we know leads to or is evidence of anxiety, depression, or addiction, fill in the blanks. So you're pointing to, you're recognizing the extreme nature of polarizing thinking, polarizing thought, polarizing behaviors. And you're saying, I feel like I'm more in the

middle, I'm more contemplative. Yeah. And, and I'm all about like, yes, and improv approaches to life. You know, that's what my empowerment mindset is. It's not ignoring suffering, but it's saying, yes, some terrible things have happened to me and I can handle it. You know, I can move forward, you know? So why go after victimization as a mindset? Yeah, fair enough. So I actually want to make a really important distinction between victimization and a victim mindset because they're not the same thing. So you can have been victimized and not have a victim mindset. You can also have not been victimized and have a victim mindset, you know, just to get attention and rewards because we reward victimization so much in our society right now. And it's also possible to have experienced trauma

but not be traumatized by it. And no one seems to have gotten that memo as well. So I really wanted to pull out some of these distinctions and give people a lot more hope than I think the prominent trauma narratives that exist right now I feel are very disempowering. And I felt like there was a more empowering message that could be made here that I think is more in line with reality, actually, about the complexity of being human and the complexity of

the determinants of our developmental experiences. I slipped back into nerdy talk. I can't help myself. No, you didn't. Okay, so let's pull that apart. You can, victimization and a victim mindset are different. Absolutely. You know, a victim mindset is one where you blame all of your problems on external circumstances. You don't take any responsibility for how you respond to situations and you devote most of your life to attempts to punish or get back at people who you feel have wronged you without actually creating constructive ways of moving forward with hope and purpose in your own life. Then double click on it is that, and I want to read a handful of characteristics that you outlined, but double click, you don't have to be victimized to have a victim mindset. So you can adopt a mindset.

And to be clear, a mindset is a particular way that you're orienting yourself to a set of experiences or circumstances. 100%. It's a dynamic mindset. Yeah. All mindsets are dynamic. And so you can shift and I can shift in this moment. If you and I have the right requisite skills, we can shift from two. We can catch ourselves doing it and want better

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So, okay. Now, let me just, let me list out, yeah, a victim mindset. Let me just hit a couple of these, okay? You attribute all or most negative outcomes or challenges in your life to your past or that one thing that happened to you. That's a victim mindset. And then how is that different than victimization or being a victim? They're very different things. I mean, you can have had very challenging, difficult experiences in your life and we should never devalue that, right? We

should recognize that and a lot of these things can cause immense pain and suffering. Having empathy and validating people's real felt experiences is really important. The mindset is something different, though. It's a form of consciousness that you generalize to all situations in your life. And I think fundamentally, I don't just think my research over 10 years, and that's why I felt it was really time to put it all together into a book, showed over and over again, it was the number one biggest inhibitor of self-actualization out of any of the other traits that I studied. So I thought when I started my career,

that I was studying intelligence, right? I thought that was my initial thing. I thought that was, you know, that would be the, you know, human potential and intelligence was the most important thing. And then I, and then I got into, I was like, that really wasn't it. And I turned into creativity and studied creativity. Then I studied, you know, human needs like Maslow, Harkin, and then I started studying just for fun. I put some measures of vulnerable narcissism into my studies, and I couldn't believe how predictive it was of depression, of basically a loss of a sense of self, a loss of a sense of purpose in life. You just go down the line.

We should probably pause on explaining victim narcissism. Yeah, we're throwing out a lot of terms. Yeah. It's really, um, yeah, it's really a clever adaptation. It's a really, um, it's just clever. So we're okay. So again, we're going from mindset and victim mindset you're saying is one of the greatest constrictors, inhibitors. That's right. Of self-actualization. And self-actualization is the idea that you can actualize your potential. Yeah. That you can be in tune or aligned with what you're capable of. Nailed it.

And actualization is, there's two parts to it. There's the actual moment of full alignment where you are actually in tune with what you're capable of in a present moment. And there's also a path toward it. Okay. So there's two parts to that. So you're saying a victim mindset is one of the greatest constrictors of self-actualization. And then you're saying victim narcissism was this kind of aha thing that you had. Like, wait, what is that? And why is it showing up in the way that... Okay, so open that up just a little bit. Yeah, and I try really hard to make that clear in the intro

how all these things are related because there are a lot of terms here. Vulnerable narcissism. And at the core... Did I say vulnerable narcissism? You said victim narcissism. And at the core... Did I say vulnerable narcissism? You said victim narcissism. But I think that's fair, actually. Well, technically it is vulnerable narcissism. But technically it's vulnerable narcissism. And the thing that's interesting about vulnerable

narcissism is that the core central feature of it is what I call in the book, vulnerable-based entitlement. So it's where you feel like you're entitled to special things more so than everyone else because you've suffered more than others. You view suffering as a competition. And in this great competition you feel like you're the winner.

And that it means you can act however you want. You don't need to take responsibility for how you show up. You can just show up and be like whatever, I'm an I'm an asshole, but you need to like do what I say because I'm a highly sensitive person. It's like, I don't know, like, is that right? Like part of being an adult is taking responsibility for how you show up in the world. So do this for a moment is, what is your working definition of narcissism? Well, at the core of all forms of narcissism is entitlement. That's right. But different forms of narcissism have different forms of entitlement. So the

grandiose narcissist or the person who scores very high in grandiose narcissism, at the core of that is I'm entitled to special privileges because I'm superior to others. But vulnerable narcissism is I feel entitled to special privileges because I've suffered more than others. It has a very different flavor to it. Yeah. And again, it's really clever because they end up weaving a trap in some ways, which is they present with a need, a sensitivity or a vulnerability,

but it's not authentic. And so vulnerable narcissism is like... It's not authentic. It's not authentic. It's a way to be seen. It's a way to gain power. It's a way to control the situation is by presenting as a victim, as if you were

vulnerable, but it's not that. And so there's pain underneath that for them. It's a difficult, difficult way to go through life. What is the easiest way for you to spot somebody who's a vulnerable narcissist? Well, it's funny because you slipped into the them language. And I would argue this book is for everyone. I'm sure you can think of moments where you feel the temptation to, it's like a momentary, even if it's a flicker, to feel helpless, to feel, oh, I need to signal to the world that I'm helpless.

And I think that it is a mindset as well. You know, it is a trait. There are some people who score consistently high on this. That's true. But I wrote this book to not us-versus-them this. Does that make sense? Yeah, you're really clear in your writing that we all have, and this is true for any type of psychological symptomology,

is that I have all of them, right? You have all of the symptoms, the characteristics, but which ones, if any, do you hover around so much that it kind of gets in the way of like, let's call it self-actualization? Well, I would say that the victim mindset one is a really big core component of it. So I do see it as a big part of vulnerable narcissism. It's a certain mentality that you have where every little thing that is annoying, your brain immediately starts trying to find who to blame outside of yourself. And it's a pervasive mentality. I want to be very clear. I'm not talking about a single moment of victimization. I'm talking about a pervasive mentality that

generalizes to everything you do throughout the course of your day, from you're waiting in line at Starbucks and it's a long line and you're cursing the other people in the line, right? Like somehow you're more important than the other people. you know, be like, you know, like you, you know, you all don't understand. I have to pick up three children, you know, like, you know. That, so that you just described vulnerable narcissism again, which is a victim mindset. Victim mindset is a big part of it. Yeah. Right. I totally see how the two are linked. And again, let's open that up one more time. I'm in Starbucks and it's a really slow line.

Okay. So a victim mindset is like, man, why does this always happen to me? And don't people understand? The world is wronging me. Yeah. Why can't they get their stuff together? Why does this always happen to me? And as opposed to do the counter rotation to a victim mindset.

So empowerment mindset is very yes and about things. It's like acknowledges the situation you're in, but does not stop there. It goes, and I have the inner resilience to deal with this situation. And let me not forget that I've been through this before and I've overcome it. And let me recognize that I'm not the only one suffering here. See, that's one of the items on my empowerment scale. I don't know if you have that printed out here, the empowerment scale items as well.

Yeah, no, I wanted to get through the list. I don't think we're going to get through all the lists. No, that was pretty cool that you had that printed out. I'm like well impressed. But in case you had the empowerment one, we can go through some of those items. But some of those items are things like, I don't think I'm the only one suffering, you know,

in this world, right? Okay. So, okay. But so on this piece here, let's go back to a cognitive distortion over personalization, because what I hear you describing is it's anchored in it's about me, which is an over personalization. Somebody cuts me off on the road and I say, didn't they see me? As opposed to, I hope that they're okay. You know, wow, that was, that was an aggressive move.

Man, I probably would never do that unless like I really needed to get somewhere, but there's a reflective, like, no, that was to me. And so how much of a victim mindset is involved in over-personalization as a cognitive dissonance? Hugely. So in part one of my book is all the ways that we're become a victim to things inside of ourselves. See, a lot of times we think about a victim mindset as like the external world, you know, that we blame. But actually part one of my book are all the things we're victims to that's inside ourselves. When I read the chapter titles, you know, that we blame. But actually part one of my book are all the things we're victims to that's inside ourselves. When I read the chapter titles, I was like, oh, he's going after this. Yeah.

And one of the chapters relates to exactly what you just said. Don't be a victim to your self-esteem. But we talk about, or don't be a victim to your cognitive distortions, right? So a lot of times we get really distorted and overgeneralized. And I actually hone in on some of the cognitive distortions most related to a victim mindset, but these things are very much related to each other and really are holding us back in our lives. And let's be clear that cognitive distortions we think are earned. You develop them. It's not like, I just saw you go, it's not like i just saw you go are you sure i

just saw your the word earned the word earned is fascinating i'm trying to process it i'm trying to process you have to develop them i don't think i don't think based on my understanding research that not original research but understanding the research that uh their genetic components um of course all things will easily be explained as an interactionalist approach between genetics and and life experiences but we earn the distortions meaning that um if we practice if we try something out and go wow and i'm i'm really struggling here like okay then and there's a bit of vulnerability but it's manipulative let's say, and people come to our help. We go, ooh, wait, hold on, this worked.

Over and over again. If black and white thinking gives us more a felt sense of power, but at some point we're distorting reality as we build it, and so it becomes a problem. So all of them are distortions in the way we process that and con make contact with reality that's why we call it cognitive distortions and you're pointing to over personalization um vulnerable narcissism you're pointing to a handful of them that lead to a victim mindset yeah a big one here's a big one um hostile attribution bias oh open that's a huge one that i talk about in the book people with a victim mindset

will take neutral responses to them as aggressive um without really caring for the facts of the matter you know um they will see a mal intent in everything as long as it's not overly positive. But the fact is that people throughout the course of the day are not thinking about you. When you're walking down the street, if you smile at someone and they just don't smile back, chances are they have nothing against you. You're not even're not even you're not even on their radar at that moment do you know what i mean are you pointing to the research on neutral frontalis expression no okay so neutral frontalis expression is the frontalis muscles are the the muscles kind of in your forehead between your eyes and when it's neutral meaning maybe botoxed

oh right but this this happened this this research was like in the 80s, 90s. It's very rarely neutral for me, though. I feel like I'm very expressive on my face. Yeah. Yeah. But the research was about the interpretation of neutral frontalis expression. Yeah. So if somebody's walking by you and they lift their eyebrows, and this happens often in

like sidewalks or whatever you're walking, and you're walking next to somebody and somebody, just their eyes open up a little bit, forehead is expressive, and they give you a thing like I see you, as opposed to frowning when they walk by. That's like, ooh, wait, that's intimidating. But neutral is, when somebody is neutral, it almost is the perfect window into their psychology about the interaction because if it's neutral, it's like a Rorschach test. And then you ask the person, would you think? And they go, man, they were pissed off at what? Me? I don't know. No, the world. So it's like this great Rorschach test when you're interpreting the micro expressions that didn't happen.

I talk, a great example. I talk in the book about comedians. They're kind of like, they're like this. They're very neurotic and, uh, high and vulnerable narcissism. I mean, I had a whole podcast episode with a very prominent, uh, comedian. The whole title was, are all comedians narcissists. But we had, we had a really open, honest conversation. She's like, basically, yeah, because we, um, we're like, why aren't you laughing at me even if they're just neutral you know what i mean that upsets them so much right yeah you know they're not angry or or you know but if they if they're just if so there's nothing worse than having watching someone in the audience just be like you know and you're and you're and you're trying to be funny, you know, it drives them nuts. Totally. Finding Mastery is brought to you by Momentus.

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Again, that's Felix Gray. You spell it F-E-L-I-X-G-R-A-Y.com and use the code FINDINGMASTERY20 at FelixGray.com for 20% off. All right. Vulnerable narcissism, victim mindset. I love where you're going. and empowering mindset. Why did you go to empower as a mindset? Yeah, I should be very clear. I mean, my whole book is not just like, oh, victim, you know, that's part one. Part two is really how do we overcome it and how do we see the parts of ourselves that aren't broken, you know? And I just want to emphasize that all of us are whole complex beings that I see too much of us in this society today reducing ourselves to the worst parts of ourselves or the worst things that have happened to us. I don't know why people would want to do that. It's perplexing.

Why would someone want to reduce themselves to the worst thing that happened to them when there are so much character strengths in them and resiliency. I love that you don't get that. I don't get it. I love that you're bringing this forward. Thank you. As long as I've known you, you don't get that. It's not the way I see the world. Yeah.

Okay, let's be clear that post-traumatic stress disorder is real. Yeah. It's a bad name, okay? I see it and understand it as a pervasive avoidance of trying to be avoiding to, of re-traumatization. So it's like, I'm going to do whatever it takes to not go through that again. And some, some of it's, oh, I'm conscious of, I will not go in a grocery store again. I will not go in a car fast around that corner or corners like that

corner. And then some is non-conscious, right? So it's this radical organization of my life internally and externally to not be re-traumatized. And I have great respect for it. It's maladaptive, but it keeps them safe. Yeah. For some people, they're not ready to get rid of their defense mechanisms or their coping mechanisms. And who am I to say what point in people's journey they are? But this is what I take issue with. Are you ready? You ready for things to get real? Yeah. Are you sure? Yeah. I don't like this idea that any one person can speak for how everyone should heal. Yeah. I think everyone's at the different part of their journey. I would not claim that this book is for every, is for everyone at every stage of the journey. I think, but I think it's a message that is, it's already, you know,

people who've just like read an excerpt of chapter one in Psychology Today, it really resonates with them. There's some people, they're at that part of their, where this works, this approach is working for them for their healing journey.

But I see a lot of people act as though their way is the only way to heal. You know, we must, you know, keep you in this victim mindset. We're not allowed to tell you that you have hope. It's almost become a taboo in our society to give people hope. Why do you have so much energy around this? It's the thread that runs through my whole life.

It's my destiny. If I was the only one – sorry, this is getting really dramatic. It is my destiny. I was the only one in my entire school district, in the history of my school district, who was in special ed. And I said, I want to get out of here. Like, how come no one else around me wants to get out of here? Like, everyone was caught in this learned helplessness. And so I've always kind of been different that way, you know?

And so there's something in me that led to this moment, fate-wise, because I see that mentality missing from our society today. People think that they're in this mental prison when they actually can walk out of it. It's an amazing statement. And you and I right now can, if we have the skill, can adopt whatever mindset that we choose. But if we only have a narrow range of mindsets or a narrow range of skills, or we don't have great awareness of how our inner life is actually working and contributing to the set experience at this moment, then we really don't

have a chance. And sometimes though we need models. So, okay, hold on. You use destiny. Yes, because I do believe in the demonic. Okay, hold that thought. Let's come back to that. But you know what I want to go to is there's, okay, hold on. Let me get my thoughts on this because. I'm very existential about this stuff. Yeah. Oh, I know that about you. And I love that about you.

That being said is I want to understand the first moment that you remember where you said, wait a minute. Oh, I remember precisely. Okay. Bring me into that moment. I remember ninth grade. I was still kept in special education for an auditory disability that I had when I was five and I had outgrown and they still kept me in special ed and treated me like I wasn't capable of anything in my life. I wasn't college expected or college bound or anything. And I remember all the way ninth grade, I was removed from the mainstream history class to like get an A just like anyone else could get an A.

I didn't want to be forced to be removed and then get it easy. Like I was like, I can do this. You know, like you're telling me I can't do it, but I know I can. And so there was a teacher who just the stars aligned that day. She was a special ed teacher who I've never seen before and she'd never seen me before. It took a fresh eye for a real big change. And she asked me after, she said, well, you stay after class. And when all the other kids left, she just stared at me and she goes, why are you still here? And I repeated the question back in my head. Why am I still here? And I was like, why?

Yes, why am I? This is exactly how I feel. And it took someone to empower me. I saw her as a coach. I think this is what a great coach is. And this is why I created a whole form of coaching called self-actualization coaching. And we're currently training people right now on this method. That's awesome. Because I think that's what a good coach is, is asking one powerful question that can transform

your whole freaking life. That's right. Yeah. And so let's stay here for a minute because I think I recognize in me, I see it in other people. I feel like I know that on an efficacy scale, I have developed efficacy and I got a boost from my parents. You know, like they gave me all of the right broth for the soup of efficacy. Wonderful. Yeah.

And efficacy means that, well, the way I define it, it's like this sense of power. Like, no, I can make a change. I can do stuff in my life. How do you kind of pedestrianize? That's not a word either. But how do you make self-efficacy pedestrian in more folksy? What a great question. How do we democratize self-efficacy?

Because it is this word that feels so ivory tower. It's interesting. There are some communities and cultures where it's so normalized. You know, I have a friend who led the first women, all women's expedition up Mount Everest, for instance. I adore her. Alison Levine. And, you know, I talked to her. I was like, what are you going to do if you're up there, the winds are, and you have a victim mindset about the winds. You're dead. You know, like you can't, like there, like certain mentalities are normalized in certain cultures because there it's normalized that, you know, you don't, you know, it's not like Michael Jordan would shoot a shot, miss the shot and then give up, you know, but we normalize it in other cultures.

Okay. But this is where I was going with it. What is your layman's term of self-efficacy? See, I associate self-efficacy with self-competence. So it is your ability to believe and have, it's your confidence and your ability to achieve the goals you want for yourself. Yeah. And so an agency is like, I determine, right? Like I'm an agent, I'm an active agent in the experiences of my life, right? And so you're saying competence and agency are interrelated. Yes. And I want,

I want the listener to go look these words up. Wikipedia might be just fine. You know, it's probably not, it's not the source, but just to get your head around it. And then you'll also know that there's a whole set of skills in psychology that you can train to have higher agency, higher efficacy, greater esteem, higher self-confidence. Okay. Take your course. Take my course, take your course. Okay, good. That's a nice plug. But the big point here is that even for folks that are doing pretty good in life, they can still have this identification with a victim mindset. That's why I think this is more for more people that maybe might at first turn look at the subtitle, which is overcome victim mindset. Oh, that's for

them. And I go, oh, wait a minute. That's great. Great point. Yeah. So, okay. But you went to empower mindset and I need to understand why you love that word. Go back to that coach in ninth grade in special ed. She was a teacher, but she trigger for you to answer it in any way you wanted. Why are you still here? Let's say, and you go, because they told me to, or yeah, yeah, that's a good question. Okay. So, so the, I felt a surge of empowerment in that moment though. Yeah. So tell me why, what is an empowered? I took myself out, you know, immediately, immediately. Like that was just like a jolt of inspiration shot through me that I was like, I'm out. So when you had that energy, that clarity, why did you follow up with it? Cause I noticed the times with me, I'll have this, I want to, and I've got the surge and then I don't quite put the structure

to follow up. But I had gone through how many years of feeling this inside myself, you know, like it took that moment for someone, you know, I felt empowered by her because I felt like someone in position of authority was finally seeing me for who I really was. What did you do with that? Did you get pissed? Did you? Absolutely. I got, I have a whole chapter there on harnessing your underdog motivation. Oh, I harnessed the beep, beep, beep out of my underdog motivation. Almost everything I did was I'm going to prove everyone wrong. I'm going to, am I college bound?

Okay, I'll go to Yale. Like not just go to college, but I'm getting a PhD from Yale and Harvard, you know, Cambridge University, you know, like I'm going to like prove everyone. This is what. Be clear. Where did you go to college, but I'm getting a PhD from Yale and Harvard, you know, Cambridge university, you know, like I'm going to like prove everyone. This is what. Be clear. Where did you go to undergraduate? Undergrad.

I went to Carnegie Mellon, but then I went to Cambridge university for my master's and then did my PhD at Yale. Yeah. And so, and I rejected Harvard. You want to get that in there? And so that's you, you were fueled by a chip on your shoulder. Correct. Let's talk about that. Do we want to describe it in there. And so you were fueled by a chip on your shoulder. Correct. Let's talk about that.

Do we want to describe it as chip on shoulder? I was fueled by a bunch of things. I think that it wouldn't be fair to say it was just a chip on the shoulder. It was also fueled by a genuine curiosity to discover the depths of my being. I don't believe you. Okay. I think that that sounds great. I think that you were pissed off that you were stuck in this position.

Well, that's true. Yeah. I think you did have a chip and you're like, fuck these guys. Fuck this system. Like I got more in me and there's a cost to that now. There's a dark side to that. And it also can give you the fuel to go through some barriers, perceived or real, to kind of push you through, to study a little bit more, to take your testing a little bit more

serious. So yes, I hear the smart part of you, that you are empowered, but I don't know if that happened before you actually got out of your PhD program. Interesting. I'm always open to rethinking the narrative that I am telling myself about things. But there's a lot of truth in that I was definitely fueled by, like, I'll show you, I'll prove you. And man, look what it got me through. It got you through so much. of like, I'll show you, I'll prove you, you know? And man, look what it got me through. It got you through so much.

What a powerful motivation that can be. I mean, I talk about some more recent research being conducted on the underdog motivation about people from low SES backgrounds. And, you know, we assume that- Social economic status. Correct. We assume that certain, and we assume that failure is a bad thing. And

I want to start completely rethink, rethink that for a certain group of people, you know, with a certain mindset, failure fuels them to, that's what they, that's what, that is the thing that it, that, that fuels them to. The fear of failure or the actual failure? Yeah. Facing like being told by people that they don't have what it takes but their dream doesn't matter their dream doesn't matter the reason i i was provocative in my attempt to say i understand your psychology is that i recognize that in me too and that feeling of um wanting to prove other people. And it served me well, and it hurt me mightily.

And so can you talk about... There's a dark side to it. The dark side of it. There is a dark side to it. And I wouldn't recommend, unless you're Michael Jordan and you create, because he did this in his whole career, he created enemies just to fuel him. But I think that for most of us, you don't want to live there your whole life with being fueled by that.

At some point, you do want to shift the gear to growth. Yeah, right. Because, well, there certainly is a dark side to it. You know, you don't want to be stuck in an ego-based motivation for doing things that you do in your life, right? Ego-based, that's cool. Yeah, approval-based.

Yeah. Like, I'll show you. Yeah, by the way yeah by the way i have a whole section of this book that features you did you i hope you read that i hope you thank you did you read that it was so sweet did you read that yes thank you yeah and you talk about a performance-based mindset and uh so i i know i i appreciate your work i've i i've it's contributed to my own thinking as well yeah yeah oh very good obviously yeah thank you mate yeah and this this thing that you're on about the dark side of a chip

it can fuel you but i see it as fire it can be immense it can be but but but that's the thing with fire and burn fire is not always if you go back to your 15-year-old self. Oh, boy. You're in ninth grade. Talk about driven. Let's go, yeah, let's go actually your 22-year-old self. So you're probably in undergraduate school. Would you say keep your chip? I would never trade it for anything. It got me 100% to where I am today.

And then let's say that you can access the wisest part of yourself. Because I'm getting chills right now because this is some really deep stuff. But you have to understand the realization I had in ninth grade is the one that I put in this book, which is no one's coming to save you. People don't realize that. There is no one. As much as my parents believed in me, loved me, as much as, you know, at the end of the day, I had this profound realization in that one moment, age 14, holy cow, no one is going to recognize my potential unless I show them. Like, that's my responsibility. It is my responsibility.

I can't go my whole life complaining, oh, why doesn't the world see how great I am? Why doesn't the world know how intelligent I am? Or making excuses. Or making excuses or cursing the gods, cursing I've been wronged. I had this, I don't know. It hit me in a moment that I am so driven right now to do what I have to do, put in the work, not complain and do what needs to do because no one's going to come to save me. And I want to, and I really believe there's something inside me that's worth showing the world. Speak on it, Scott. I mean, that I, so, okay. You know what I love about this

is that I do want to get into steep stuff though, isn't it? Yeah. I want to get into the sensitivity of the human experience that you're really on right now. But I also want to make sure that we're hitting, um, for like parents. Finding master is brought to you by cozy earth. Over the years, I've learned that recovery doesn't just happen when we sleep. It starts with how we transition and wind down. And that's why I've built intentional routines into the way that I close my day. And Cozy Earth has become a new part of that. Their bedding, it's incredibly soft, like next level soft.

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I adore her. Yeah. And so she lights up and she goes, oh, you were talking last night about you coming on and she just lights up, you know, I adore her. Yeah. And so she lights up and she goes, oh, that's awesome. She says, you know, she hasn't read your book. And she said, what's it about? And I started getting into it. And she said, you know, how does he speak to parents? Because so she's, her primary focus is on like being the best version of herself for

our son. And, and so how do you, like when like when a kid goes through a tough thing, and fill in the blanks, whatever it is, it can be radical or it could be perceived to be radical, but it's actually, you know, in perspective, not that tough. But how do you help a parent help a child feel all of the pain that is requisite for insight and change? It's a big statement I just made. And also not compound the suffering so that they get smothered in it. Because I think one of the greatest gifts a psychologist, a coach, a friend,

a wise person can do for another person is to help them feel pain, to help them be in touch with the suffering that they're experiencing and not minimize, take away, explain away, find a solution for. Definitely. Because you felt the pain. Yeah. And you worked extraordinarily well with it. So the question is, how do you help a parent, how do you help them not promote a victim mindset? Well, honest love. I think honest love parenting is the way forward. What does that mean to you? So the way I define honest love in my book is the love part is the validation of a person's real felt experience with unconditional positive regard. That's Carl Rogers. That's the love part.

And the honest part is what the part I see missing a lot in our culture today, which is, you know, and have you thought, how are you contributing to this? You know, how are you holding yourself back? How are you, you know, have you considered maybe you have the resiliency muscles that can get you through this, you know? What are you doing to show up in the world? How are you contributing to this problem? And how do you balance that? I love your framing with the sensitivity. And I'm using that word in quotes because you're bringing it forward in your writing that is required to do well in life. And this, the sometimes more armadillo experience where, you know, they've got a hard shell and things kind of roll right off of them you know how do you how do you balance those two because the armor dillo thing can be

it's a great gift for resilience because it actually doesn't knock you back it just kind of rolls over you but you miss some sensitivity in that approach it's funny when i see you know who you know david goggins is oh when I see him, I actually see a really sensitive guy. And, um, I mean, that's not what everyone sees when they see him, but I'm so attuned to this. He was one of our most downloaded podcasts. It was his third interview he ever did was on Finding Mastery. Oh, cool. Yeah, it was cool. I, I, I admire him very much. Um, but I also think that we have this false dichotomy that you can't be strong and sensitive. Where do you see sensitivity? Where do I see it in him? Yeah, that's a fair question.

It's an interesting kind of sensitivity. It's one that I kind of resonate with from my childhood. Because I think he's a chip on his shoulder too. It's like, you don't have that extreme. You don't become extreme without some sort of chip. But I think... He's made fun of for being overweight his whole life. There's something. Maybe there's something there where there's a deep, deep sensitivity to not... I'm so committed to not being affected by what people think of me. But you have

to be sensitive in order to care that much it like an over rotation yeah yeah yeah yeah like you have to really really care to not care that much that much it's interesting because he i don't see him as a narcissist no i don't either yeah not at all just like a counter rotation to being bullied made fun of where he was sick and tired of being that felt that way. So he adopted. But maybe he's a great case of what I'm saying of someone who maybe was a highly sensitive person who channeled it into strength. So you see yourself as a highly sensitive person? Well, at least in the past. See, I've really, I don't know if I am anymore. You know, it's interesting. I think that we need to leave room for change and transformations of identities. There's actually a movie coming out right now. Who's playing you? Yeah, good man. you know, where I feel like I'm starting to admit to myself, it is possible to be too sensitive. And that a lot of highly sensitive people, sensitive people don't want to go there.

You know, there's being able to, to, to use that label. I'm a highly sensitive person as armor, you know, to, do you know what I mean? As a way to, as an excuse or what, but I actually, I think there's, i think i started to feel more empowered once i started to like recognize that i think sometimes i can be too sensitive and yeah and that's not the greatest thing for my growth and what do you hope that folks that go through your book because you've gone through a transformation writing this yes what do you hope people will learn from, experience differently after your writings, after reading your writings? Well, I do hope that this book helps to transform people's lives from a sense of helplessness and a lack of hope in their lives because something unfortunate may

have happened in their lives or challenging, even traumatic, traumatic things happen, but transform that sense of helplessness to a sense of empowerment and hope and, um, and, uh, and, uh, a positive vision for their future. What are a handful of really important practices that you use to help you be the Scott Berry Kaufman. Meditation is definitely one. Reaching out to friends, I have found, is an underrated

thing that people don't really utilize as much. It turns out that your friends want to help you. And I forget that sometimes, you know, and, you know, your friends, you're not a burden on your friends, you know, by telling them you need help, you know, or that you want to talk. I also like to, well, exercise is a game changer. And that's like the most obvious. And like everyone says that, but it's so incredible. The difference between a full, if I go a full day without exercising, like how I feel

the next day versus, you know, just getting a brisk walk in, you know, and we can end on this, but I think it's so important. Trusting yourself. That having that core, you know, in when you do workouts, they say practice your core, you know, practice your core, you know, in work, when you do workouts, they say, practice your core, you know, practice your core, you know, start with, but how often do we really train the core of our being? You know, we train the core of, you know, like pushups, but trusting yourself is the core of everything else. You can have confidence in your views. You can have confidence in your worldview and still hold it all a little bit gently, be listened to others, be willing to change. But if you have no self-belief in yourself and no trust that you have what it takes to reach your goals or to formulate your own opinions outside of other people's opinions, you're going to fall to pieces. And how do you build a sense of self-trust?

A lot of it, you know, getting yourself out there. There's no other way sometimes, but facing your fears and desensitizing yourself in some ways to the opinions of others and, and, and, and really like starting a blog, you know, you know, like, you know, like just, just speaking your opinion and, and, and being able to formulate your own opinions and being confident in them. I say you have to have time under tension so that you earn the right to know that you can work well with tension. And tension can be anything that brings emotional tension, you know, not attention, tension. And then when you have time under that tension, you do earn the right to say, you know, I can, I can really, I can back myself. I can do that.

I can do hard things. Yeah. Yeah. So time under tension, I think is, is what makes elite athletes. Um, one of the things that I'm so special is because they organize their life around that. Oh man, I love it. It's just, you know, this mentality that elite

athletes have, like how do we democratize that, right? Because I think anyone could benefit from some of this mentality. Not the push yourself, not the stereotype of elite athletes where you push yourself beyond all well-being, but the kind of stuff you talk about so beautifully, like well-being is not the opposite of high performance. It's the foundation. It's the foundation, yes. And you nail it. You nail it when you say that.

Yes. Oh my God, you are awesome. And look, your book is awesome. It's really well-written. You are always research-based. The sensitive part of you makes it available, a page-turner, just great to read. As you can see, I really want folks to find

themselves in this book that you've written. And so I think we can all benefit from it. So thank you, Scott. Thank you, Mike. Yeah, man. It's so much fun. It's awesome. And so before we jump, what is next for you? I know you're in the thick of sharing your book, but what is next that you're excited about? I'm in a real big transformational stage right now. And I wish I could answer that with the full certainty. I'm actually entering a really uncertain stage of my life. I'm very excited right now at this moment in time in promoting this book and getting these messages out there. But I also feel like I'm entering a very interesting time being a

full-time professor at Columbia and with everything that's going on on that campus right now, I'm going to be in the middle of it. There's going to be a lot. It's going to be an exciting, uncertain time. And I'm excited about confronting the uncertainties of human existence. And I think that's the most honest answer I can give you at this moment. I can't wait to, I know you're going to lead from the front and the back. Thank you. And we're all going to benefit from you being seeped in that world right now on those, on that campus to really understand the position that academia has for all of us. So Scott, as always, rooting for you. Love that you're here.

Love you. Love you too, man. What a great conversation. Okay, Emma, who's up next? Next up, we actually flew to Seattle to talk all things leadership with Ben Minacucci. That's right. So good. Ben is extraordinary. And for those of you who might not know Ben, he is the CEO of Alaska Airlines. And we got to sit down with him at the values that guide his leadership. With a background that's shaped by his immigrant parents and a degree in engineering, Ben reveals the principles that have driven his company's transformation into a global airline. Tune in to hear why leadership is not about making decisions. It's about guiding others to act in alignment with purpose and values.

So join us next time with Alaska Airlines' very own Ben Minacucci. All right. Thank you so much for diving into another episode of Finding Mastery with us. Our team loves creating this podcast and sharing these conversations with you. We really appreciate you being part of this community. And if you're enjoying the show,

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