Finding Mastery with Dr. Michael Gervais - Strengthen Your Self Esteem: Insights on Belonging and Social Approval | Dr. Mark Leary

Episode Date: December 27, 2023

In a world increasingly obsessed with self-image and social validation, how do we truly understand the role of self-esteem in our lives? Is it merely a reflection of our ego? What purpose does it serve?These questions form the core of our conversation with Dr. Mark Leary, a former professor of psychology and neuroscience at Duke University, who retired after 39 years of teaching, publishing 14 books and 250+ scholarly articles and chapters on topics such as social motivation, emotion, and self-relevant thought.Mark is also a disruptor – and that’s not usually a word we associate with professors of psychology and neuroscience. But in this case it’s appropriate because Mark’s sociometer theory didn't just make waves; it created a whole new ocean in the field of psychology. This was a groundbreaking idea that redefined self-esteem. It's a perspective that turned heads and opened minds in a way that challenged academics and practitioners alike.In this episode, we peel back the layers on how to reshape your self-esteem into a dynamic tool for personal and professional growth, strategies to shift from external validation to a more authentic, self-grounded approach, navigating social anxiety with ease to enhance your everyday performance, the keys to unlocking effective leadership by tuning into the fundamental needs of your team, and so much more...Whether you're leading a team, competing in sports, studying for your future, or simply navigating the complexities of daily interactions, there's a wealth of insights waiting for you in this conversation._________________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/Subscribe to the Finding Mastery newsletter for weekly high performance insights: https://www.findingmastery.com/newsletter Download Dr. Mike's Morning Mindset Routine! https://www.findingmastery.com/morningmindsetFollow us on Instagram, LinkedIn, and X.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Finding Mastery is brought to you by Remarkable. In a world that's full of distractions, focused thinking is becoming a rare skill and a massive competitive advantage. That's why I've been using the Remarkable Paper Pro, a digital notebook designed to help you think clearly and work deliberately. It's not another device filled with notifications or apps.

It's intentionally built for deep work. So there's no social media, no email, no noise. The writing experience, it feels just like pen on paper. I love it. And it has the intelligence of digital tools like converting your handwriting to text, organizing your notes, tagging files, and using productivity templates

to help you be more effective. It is sleek, minimal. It's incredibly lightweight. It feels really good. I take it with me anywhere from meetings to travel without missing a beat. What I love most is that it doesn't try to do everything. It just helps me do one very important thing really well,

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. I think the best way to feel good about yourself is to do an inventory of all of your characteristics and behaviors

that make you potentially valuable to the people around you. And I think most people, if they do that, will be surprised. It doesn't take much. All right, welcome back, or welcome to the Finding Mastery podcast. I'm your host, Dr. Michael Gervais, by trade and training, a high-performance psychologist. And today we're taking a deep dive into two very powerful concepts, self-esteem and belonging. We're doing that with Dr. Mark Leary. Mark is a former professor of psychology and neuroscience at Duke University, retiring after 39 years, who has published 14 books and over 250 scholarly

articles and chapters on topics such as social motivation, emotion, and self-relevant thought. He's also a disruptor. And that's not something that I usually say in association with professors of psychology and neuroscience. But in this case, it's appropriate because Mark's sociometer theory didn't just make waves. It created a whole new ocean in the field of psychology. It was a groundbreaking idea that redefined self-esteem. It's a perspective that turned heads and opened minds in a way that challenged academics and practitioners alike. What makes Mark's work resonate with me and many others is how it transforms self-esteem into a practical, usable tool. It's moving from a theory to a framework for personal growth and leadership and understanding the core of human connections. These insights, they've been instrumental in

my own professional work in the areas of self-esteem and belonging. And needless to say, I'm beyond excited to have this conversation with Mark. It's like stepping into a treasure trove of psychological insights. In this episode, we're peeling back the layers on all things self-esteem and belonging, whether you're leading a team, competing in sports, studying for your future, or simply navigating the complexities of daily interactions. There's a wealth of practical tools waiting for you in this conversation. So rethinking self-esteem can help us apply it in ways that we might not have ever imagined. And so with that, let's jump right in and explore

with Dr. Mark Leary. Mark, this is really exciting for me because you've done landmark research in two areas that I've been fascinated by, self-esteem and belonging. So I'd love to jump right into self-esteem if that's cool for you. Okay. Sorry to meet. Okay, good. So back in 2012, you published the theory that upended the commonly held view on self-esteem. And I don't know if you meant to be disruptive, but I definitely want to understand that part of you. Now, there's huge implications for our entire community, including me, at home and inside of organizations, for the lens that you put on self-esteem and how we think about it. Can you

talk about that disruptive nature and the difference between the commonly held view and the one that you disrupted with? Sure. That's a good place to start. For the first 15 years of my career, I avoided the topic of self-esteem like it was to play. Almost everything I studied, which has to do with people's thoughts about themselves, that sort of core thing that centers all my research around. Almost everything I studied, people would say, well, how's this relate to self-esteem? And I couldn't answer the question. The concept of self-esteem completely baffled me because for years, people had suggested that we have an inherent need for self-esteem, that a lot of our behavior is motivated by a desire for self-esteem, that we should work

very hard to have high self-esteem. We should give kids high self-esteem. And frankly, none of that made any sense to me. And the reason is this. Self-esteem is how good we feel about ourselves. How positively or negatively do we evaluate ourselves? And yes, we all want to feel good about ourselves. It's better to think that you're a good, decent person than a bad person. But why would we have a need just to feel good about ourselves and boost our self-esteem even when it's not necessarily

deserved? You know what I mean? Sometimes we don't deserve to have high self-esteem. I couldn't make self-esteem fit in my understanding of human nature, so I avoided it. I tried not to talk about it. I didn't understand it. There were proposals around the country in the early 1990s to raise everybody's self-esteem. They'll behave better. They feel better about themselves. That's increased kids' self-esteem. And on one hand, that sounded good, but it also just didn't make sense. Well, you mentioned the other topic that you want to talk about, and that's the topic belonging and acceptance. And at the time I was studying acceptance and belonging, how people seek acceptance, the importance of being accepted by other people, how we react when we feel rejected. And what I happened to find just quite accidentally is that when people feel rejected, we would do laboratory studies where we would lead very gently for people to feel like they weren't accepted by other people in the study.

When people feel rejected, they experience a number of negative emotions. Their feelings are hurt. They're kind of down. But what we also found is rejection invariably lowered people's self-esteem. Always happen. It's hard not to have your self-esteem go down when you're rejected. And we got that finding so many times that it began to dawn on me, maybe self-esteem is somehow inherently related to our reactions to acceptance and rejection.

So I posed this idea called sociometer theory that says that what self-esteem really is, is that it's a monitor or a gauge. We have a lot of monitors in the human brain that keep track of a lot of things. One thing we need to keep track of is how accepted or rejected are we in a particular situation so that we can behave in ways that forge strong connections with other people. What self-esteem seems to be is the internal gauge that sort of signals to us that, hey, you're being accepted. Feel good about myself. No, these other people are dismissing you. They don't like you very much. They don't want to hang around with you. Makes me feel bad about

myself. So it's an internal monitor. And its function is to alert us to when we need to change our behavior in order to increase our acceptance by other people. So what that means is people don't really need self-esteem. They're not seeking self-esteem for its own sake. What they're doing is they're behaving in ways that will make them feel good about themselves, not just to feel good, but because those ways of behaving increase the degree to which they're valued and accepted by other people. So it takes away some of the steam that's inherent. Yes, sorry. No, no. There's so much gold in here. And it's so good for so many reasons because you fundamentally... Oh, hold on, hold on, hold on. I agree with you on the first note that you

said, and maybe for similar or different reasons, is that you and I were classically trained and I had a rash to this idea of self-esteem. And I think maybe both of us had some sort of blowback by the give every kid a medal type of thing, like that's going to build self-esteem. And I don't know why I had such a reaction to it, but when I read your take on it, I was like, that's going to build self-esteem. And I don't know why I had such a reaction to it, but when I read your take on it, I was like, that's gold. And it's going from, I need to prop myself up, or I need to be given external validation for me to be propped up for my esteem to rise or to grow. And what you did is you said, no, there's this relationship between other people. Yes. And what I'm actually trying to do is not be rejected. What I'm trying to do is be accepted.

And I'm going to sort that out. And there's a gauge, if you will, right, that I'm constantly monitoring, I'm constantly using to see if I'm okay in the eyes of others. Is that, am I making it too simple? No, no, that's exactly it. I think what happened with the concept of self-esteem historically is researchers mistook the gauge for the thing. It's almost like if you had an alien psychologist come to Earth and they were trying to understand why people stop their vehicles at these places and stick tubes in them and pump liquid in, because this alien is not familiar with gasoline. So the alien is trying to say,

why are people pumping gas in this car? And what they see is the fuel gauge goes up from E toward the F, toward full. And when it gets up to full, the person stops and they seem more relaxed. They get in their car and drive away. And the alien says, oh, human beings have a need to maintain a high level of F, whatever that thing is, not recognizing that that's just the F on the fuel gauge and the important things what's in the tank. I think self-esteem is the same way. We were looking at the gauge and thought that the gauge was important when really what's in the tank, your connections with other people, the degree to which you feel valued and accepted was the thing that was really centrally important to human well-being. I'm going to pause the conversation here for just a few minutes

to talk about our sponsors. Finding Mastery is brought to you by LinkedIn Sales Solutions. In any high-performing environment that I've been part of, from elite teams to executive boardrooms, one thing holds true. Meaningful relationships are at the center of sustained success. And building those relationships, it takes more than effort. It takes a real caring about your people. It takes the right tools,

the right information at the right time. And that's where LinkedIn Sales Navigator can come in. It's a tool designed specifically for thoughtful sales professionals, helping you find the right people that are ready to engage, track key account changes, and connect with key decision makers more effectively. It surfaces real-time signals, like when someone changes jobs or when an account becomes high priority, so that you can reach out at exactly the right moment with context and thoroughness that builds trust.

It also helps tap into your own network more strategically, showing you who you already know that can help you open doors or make a warm introduction. In other words, it's not about more outreach, it's about smarter, more human outreach. And that's something here at Finding Mastery that our team lives and breathes by. If you're ready to start building stronger relationships that actually convert, try LinkedIn Sales Navigator for free for 60 days at linkedin.com slash deal.

That's linkedin.com. For two full months for free, terms and conditions apply. Finding Mastery is brought to you by David Protein. I'm pretty intentional about what I eat, and the majority of my nutrition comes from whole foods. And when I'm traveling or in between meals, on a demanding day certainly, I need something quick that will support the way that I feel and think and perform. And that's why I've been leaning on David Protein Bars. And so has the team here at Finding Mastery. In fact, our GM, Stuart, he loves them so much. I just want to kind of quickly put them on the spot. Stuart, I know you're listening. I think you might

be the reason that we're running out of these bars so quickly. They're incredible, Mike. I love them. One a day, one a day. What do you mean one a day? There's way more than that happening here. Don't tell. Okay. All right. Look, they're incredibly simple. They're effective. 28 grams of protein, just 150 calories and zero grams of sugar. It's rare to find something that fits so conveniently into a performance-based lifestyle and actually tastes good. Dr. Peter Attia, someone who's been on the show,

it's a great episode by the way, is also their chief science officer. So I know they've done their due diligence in that category. My favorite flavor right now is the chocolate chip cookie dough. And a few of our teammates here at Finding Mastery have been loving the fudge brownie and peanut butter. I know, Stuart, you're still listening here. So getting enough protein matters. And that can't be understated, not just for

strength, but for energy and focus, recovery, for longevity. And I love that David is making that easier. So if you're trying to hit your daily protein goals with something seamless, I'd love for you to go check them out. Get a free variety pack, a $25 value and 10% off for life when you head to davidprotein.com slash finding mastery. That's David, D-A-V-I-D, protein, P-R-O-T-E-I-N.com slash finding mastery. And with that, let's jump right back into this conversation. So this idea that other people's opinions are paramount to our sense of esteem, to our sense of safety, actually belonging is part of safety. How did you come to find this to be true? And why do you think that it is true? We found it to be true in a number of studies, both experimental studies in our laboratory and

also survey studies of other people that continually showed us that people have a strong need for belonging and acceptance, and when it's not fulfilled, all kinds of bad things happen. They sometimes behave in negative ways to get acceptance. If they can't do good things to be accepted, they feel badly about themselves. They have negative emotions, but when people feel valued and accepted, they flourish more. They can kind of relax and go about what they want to do, knowing that at least a few other people care about them and value them. And the follow-on to that is like, once you've got some, you've amassed some research around it. Cause I thought what you were going to say maybe is that

you felt it first, but what actually happened is that you observed it in clinical trials or research that that was, that was how it happened. Do I have that correct? That it wasn't intuitive first, it was research-based first. Yes. So once we found that self-esteem was strongly tied to people's acceptance and rejection, so I have to ask the question, why? Why would we have this monitor? So we take a step back and we think about what do human beings need to survive? What did they need to do to survive throughout evolutionary history? Human evolution goes back six or seven million years. And during most of that time, we were living as hunters and gatherers and scavengers out on the plains of Africa.

One of the central things that you had to do in order to survive and to reproduce was to be a member of a tight-knit clan, tight-knit community. An individual is not going to survive out there on the plains of Africa for very long. The predators are going to get them. So not only did you need to live in groups with other people, people will say that for a long time, but you had to work very hard to make sure you didn't get kicked out of the group. because if you got ostracized and you got sent away, you weren't going to survive. So we are the descendants of prehistoric peoples for millions of years who were the most concerned about their connections with other people. And part of having connections and acceptance by other people is being concerned with what they think of you. And, you know, I know there's sort of a almost like a norm, I think, in our society where we're not supposed to care what other people

think. My parents told me, don't worry about what other people think. Just march to your own drummer, be your own person. That's really, really bad advice. I know what they meant. You can be too concerned, worry about it when it doesn't matter. It might lead you to do things you shouldn't do. But you cannot even in today's world get by if you are completely oblivious to and unconcerned with what other people think. You're not going to get jobs, hold jobs. You're not going to have friends. You're not going to have romantic partners. How well we succeed in life does depend to some extent on other people's evaluations of us. So that's why the sociometer is important. It's telling us when we may be doing things that may result in rejection by other people. So even when we're by ourselves, we can do things

we feel badly about. Oh, that was sinful. That was bad. I shouldn't have done that. Well, why would you have that reaction by yourself? Because the sociometer has to warn you not to do things in private. And if other people found out, they would devalue you for it. So there's such a happy medium here, an optimal place. Yes, we have to be somewhat concerned with what other people think, but not overdo it to where it makes us miserable and makes us behave in bad ways. Can you split the hairs between caring about what people think and worrying? Can you go down into that a bit? Because as you would recognize that I've written a bunch about worrying about what other people think of you and that being something that is incredibly toxic for our potential.

So I'd love to hear your take on the splitting the hairs between the two. Because when I say that one of the great constrictors of human potential is this excessive worry about what they might think, people almost reflexively come back with like, okay, well, don't I need to care? And I go, no, right. Yep. I'm talking about this excessive worry. And I don't think that I'm not talking about something that reaches the threshold for anxiety, but it's this quiet, pervasive, latent filter for decision-making that's kind of always on is I think one of the great constrictors. But can you tease out the difference between in your language, caring and worrying? When I think, one of the great constrictors. But can you tease out the difference between,

in your language, caring and worrying? When I think of caring about what other people think, I think you're just simply motivated to generally make a reasonably acceptable impression on other people. You're not trying to blow their socks off. You're not trying to impress everybody you meet. But you don't want to give indications that you're unacceptable and you ought to be ostracized and rejected or you're despised by other people. So it's simply just a motivation there that sort of alerts you to the fact that, yes, I need to keep one eye on what other people may think of me. Now, if I carry that with me all the time and I'm always obsessing about it and worried about what every person thinks about every little thing that I do. Well, yes, that's paralyzing. You do become anxious. My earliest research was on social anxiety, which is fundamentally anxiety about

my concerns with other people's impressions of me. And yes, a lot of people suffer from that and it undermines the quality of their life. But there is a difference. And if it's turned into anxiety, then I think people need to sort of ask why. Either I'm too concerned with what other people think. I'm worried about it when it shouldn't be. There's people I'm concerned about their impressions when their impressions don't matter really in my life at all. Or maybe I'm not overly concerned, but for some reason I doubt my ability to make the impressions that I would like to make. And maybe I doubt them because I really do have problems interacting with other people. But most of the time I doubt it simply because I lack my social confidence. Really, I'm doing just fine. It's clear that socially anxious people tend to underestimate

how well they come across. So, yes, I think that's a very important distinction. And caring too much about what other people think will make you worry, and it's paralyzing. And it leads to negative behaviors. That's the other problem. People, I think, would much rather be accepted for doing good things than doing bad things. But acceptance is so important. If I can't be accepted for being a nice person or highly competent for achieving or the other things that lead to acceptance, then I'll go off and do antisocial things and join an antisocial group or act out or something.

But I think most people would choose to do good things in order to make impressions on others. Yeah. So this idea of a persistent worry, but not reaching the threshold of social anxiety, maybe it would be useful because you've done so much work here to talk about in the most kind of available language, what is social anxiety? Social anxiety is simply feelings of tension and anxiety because you're concerned with what other people will think of you. And it's not necessarily a clinical level. We all experience this. I mean, when I was getting ready to log on to do this podcast, I had this little surge of anxiety. Boy, I hope I don't make a complete fool out of myself. When people get up in a public speaking context or meet new people for the first time or go on a job interview, there's this low-level

nervousness and tension and awkwardness that come about because I am so concerned with what other people may think of me in this context. Perfectly natural, perfectly normal, we all push through it. It becomes a problem when you're experiencing that anxiety when it doesn't matter or is so much anxiety that you're miserable or you're so preoccupied that you're kind of frozen, almost like people have test anxiety and they can't think straight. Some people have a high level of social anxiety and they can't think straight. So a little bit of social anxiety is not necessarily a bad thing. It comes and goes. I don't want listeners to think, oh, if I felt nervous because I had to give a talk at work today, that's a bad thing. No.

Outstanding performers still report after 20 years in the business, they still get nervous before they go out on stage. That kind of energizes people. Some of the worst talks I ever gave were talks where I had no anxiety whatsoever. I was just flat. I didn't have anything pumping me up. Yeah. So I differentiate between pre-performance anxiousness and social anxiety disorder, which is like it can be a chronic mental health condition, which isoraphobia where it's like, I, social phobia is like, I can't be around other people. I'm terrified by it. Social anxiety disorder is just a click under. And then like, it's overwhelming and sometimes you fight through it, but it's really hard.

And then a click underneath of that, we're calling it FOPO, which is for fun, fear of people's opinions, but it's not, you'll still go for it. It's just all this machination that happens prior to the party. Yes. And once you get to the party, you're actually probably, if you have a fear of people's opinions, you're chronically checking and scanning and seeing if you're okay. Yes. For acceptance and rejection, right?

Yes. And do you think that the issue is all of the pre-activity or is it the obsessive checking to see if you're okay? Where would you draw the line for the maladaptive behavior? Because it is adaptive to fit in. It is adapted to belong. It's adaptive to find yourself at times at the center of a group, right? Because at the edges, we used to get plucked off. Okay. But so there is adaptive, but there's also maladaptive. Would you say the maladaptive part is it starts in the closet when you're deciding what to wear to the

party later, but you're only doing it for the approval of others rather than your own sense of comfort? Or is it when you're in the environment and you're scanning like, does he think I'm okay? Did I laugh enough? Did I laugh too much? Did I laugh not enough? Like that chronic worry about am I being accepted or rejected? Well, I think it happens in both places. And the only difference in the terminology you and I are using, I mean, when I talk about social anxiety, I'm talking about this low level thing that's concerned with others' opinions. If there's an anxiety input, if the sympathetic nervous system

is active and somebody would say, well, yes, you're experiencing some anxiety, getting ready for the party or walking in the door of the party or being at the party, I'd say, well, that person's socially anxious. They don't have social anxiety disorder. That's the important distinction. You can have social anxiety disorder without having social anxiety disorder. The question is, is it dysfunctional? If I can push through giving a talk, for example, yeah, I've got a little nervousness. That's the greatest fear in surveys of things people are afraid of is public speaking. There's one study that showed people are more afraid of public speaking than dying. I don't make a good impression. I'm not sure I can get up here and do that while I'm giving this talk. If it doesn't interfere, if it's not preoccupying, it doesn't freeze me, it doesn't change my behavior, make me obsessed, a little bit of anxiety is perfectly fine. But again, I'm using the word anxiety a little bit more loosely in a non-clinical way. Yes, you can have social phobia and social anxiety disorder uh but

but most of us know we just get nervous now and then when we have to make impressions on other people and the reason we want to make impressions is because we don't want to be rejected because that was a near death sentence you know hundreds of thousands of years ago if we track it back long enough that's the thing that motivates. I often talk about the fact we all want to be relationally valued. We want to feel like at least some other people value having a connection with us, having a relationship with us, whether it's a friend or a coworker or somebody we're sitting with on a bus at the moment, do they value interacting with us? And it's very unsettling to feel like I'm dealing with somebody here who doesn't value having an interaction with me us? And it's very unsettling to feel like I'm dealing with somebody here who doesn't value

having an interaction with me at all. That's very disconcerting. And again, it all comes back to, I want to be accepted by at least a certain number of people who will support me when I need it and I can mutually support them. So can you wrap what we've just been talking about with this need to be accepted and rejected, fear of rejection, and what we can do about developing our self-esteem? I think what we can do to develop self-esteem is to develop an arsenal of things that make us more relationally valued to other people.

What is it that I need to do in my daily life without even trying? And most of us do this automatically. We work with automatically nice people. What is it that I need to do in my daily life without even trying? And most of us do this automatically. We're automatically nice people. We listen to what other people are saying. We try to be supportive. We also then we want to achieve. We want to make some money. We want to be successful. We want to be a great athlete. And all of those things increase our relational value. We wouldn't be very motivated to do all of the good things we do if everybody hated us for it. If other people hated us because we succeeded at something, well, we wouldn't do it. A lot of these things are motivated by a desire for acceptance and belonging. So I think the best way to feel good about yourself is to do an inventory of all of your characteristics and behaviors that make you potentially valuable

to the people around you. And I think most people, if they do that, will be surprised. It doesn't take much to be an acceptable human being that other people like to hang out with. A lot of people just don't see themselves that way. They need to take an inventory and say, well, no, really, I can see, yeah, I'm kind of funny and I'm nice and I can talk about this and these other people can count on me. And yes, I've done pretty well in school or I'm doing okay in my job or whatever it is that shows you you have some kind of value to other people. Your self-esteem will be fine. I think if you can do that. If you can't find those things, then maybe a person needs to stop and say, what can I do to develop those sorts of things? My concern is a lot of people underestimate how acceptable they are.

So there's, okay. So, and how many, how many items would you imagine make that list? Is it an exhaustive list of all the things that you think are really wonderful about yourself in relationship to other people? Which is the key distinguisher, not just the things that you think are special about you, but as they relate to other people, is it a long list, a short list? I don't know. I mean, I could imagine some people have a few key things that sort of pervade their interactions.

And maybe it's only three things because of those three things, everybody adores. Maybe there's other people who don't have the big things but they have a dozen little things that you know that they display as they interact and go through their lives that make them relationally valued by others so i i can imagine people it plays out differently for different people i'm making that up completely i don't have any evidence for that at all but no research here okay if we were to like make it super concrete do you have a few that you rest your hat on with the without you know with all of the permission to sound as arrogant or as confident or as bombastic as you you would want like what does it sound like for you it depends on the social context because you know that makes you valuable at work

you know maybe things that are different when you're hanging out with the neighbors in the backyard. They may be very different things. But for example, things like I feel like I'm a reasonably good listener. I mean, I really am interested in other people and I want to listen and you tell me your story. I'll comment and hope you ask me about mine. I'm probably not going to tell you unless you ask me because I'm interested in you. So being a good listener, having a reasonably good sense of humor. I don't mean being a jokester all the time, but being able to create a little bit of lightness and levity just in mundane, boring

situations might be one of mine. And again, when you do that, you realize that other people kind of enjoy talking to you a little. They don't idolize you. They don't think you're the greatest person on earth. None of us are. But are you doing little things during the day or at work? Yeah, just asking people how they're doing, helping people when they need to do something. Low selfishness, I think, is a big part of being relationally valued. Of course, we have to look out for ourselves. We all do. But we also do have to look out for other people, and that increases our social value to them. So I think it differs so much based on people's personalities and abilities and experience and what they feel comfortable doing. You can't force yourself to be a different kind of person, particularly if

you're not a really humorous person. Maybe humor is not your way to be valued by other people. We all have that though. And I think too many of us overlook it. Okay. Quick pause here to share some of the sponsors of this conversation. Finding Mastery is brought to you by Momentous. When it comes to high performance, whether you're leading a team, raising a family, pushing physical limits, or simply trying to be better today than you were yesterday. What you put in your body matters. And that's why I trust Momentus. From the moment I sat down with Jeff Byers, their co-founder and CEO, I could tell this was not your average supplement company. And I was immediately drawn to their mission, helping people achieve performance for life.

And to do that, they developed what they call the Momentus Standard. Every product is formulated with top experts and every batch is third-party tested. NSF certified for sport or informed sport. So you know exactly what you're getting. Personally, I'm anchored by what they call the Momentus 3. Protein, creatine, and omega-3. And together, these foundational nutrients support muscle recovery, brain function, and long-term energy. They're part of my daily routine.

And if you're ready to fuel your brain and body with the best, Momentus has a great new offer just for our community right here. Use the code FINDINGMASTERY for 35% off your first subscription order at livemomentous.com. Again, that's L-I-V-E, momentous, M-O-M-E-N-T-O-U-S, livemomentous.com, and use the code FINDINGMASTERY for 35% off your first subscription order. Finding Mastery is brought to you by Felix Grey. I spend a lot of time thinking about how we can create the conditions for high performance. How do we protect our ability to focus, to recover, to be present? And one of the biggest challenges we face today is our sheer amount of screen time. It messes with our sleep, our clarity, even our mood.

And that's why I've been using Felix Grey glasses. What I appreciate most about Felix Gray is that they're just not another wellness product. They're rooted in real science. Developed alongside leading researchers and ophthalmologists, they've demonstrated these types of glasses boost melatonin, help you fall asleep faster, and hit deeper stages of rest. When I'm on the road and bouncing around between time zones, slipping on my Felix Gray's in the evening, it's a simple way to cue my body just to wind down. And when I'm locked into deep work, they also help me stay focused for longer without digital fatigue creeping in. Plus they look great, clean, clear, no funky color distortion, just good design, great science. And

if you're ready to feel the difference for yourself, Felix Gray is offering all Finding Mastery listeners 20% off. Just head to felixgray.com and use the code findingmastery20 at checkout. 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 and now back to the conversation i carried your original research around for a long time you know in my backpack just thinking about it how it shows up and the application of it can you can you talk about how self-esteem and sociometer theory relate to organizations and how people inside of businesses could apply this work? I think the key thing is to realize that no matter where people go, they're at home and

they're with their friends, they're with their partners, they're doing leisure activities, or they're at work, this desire for acceptance and belonging is always going to be there. Historically, I think business organizations have ignored that. You know, we just want people to come to work, do their job, we'll pay them. We don't want to hear anything out of them. Yet, you're going to get better performance and happier employees if they feel like they're being relationally valued as members of that work community, whatever that is. Now, there's two dimensions of this that I think is important. One is they need to feel like they belong. And belonging is feeling like you have relational

value as a member of a group. So I'm on a committee or I'm on a work team or I'm part of a particular department at work, do I feel that the other members of my group value their relationship with me as a fellow group member? Or are they just indifferent to the fact that I'm even there? Or maybe they wish I wasn't there. They think I'm a pain. Do I feel like I belong to the group? On top of that, though, people want to feel accepted one by one outside of the work context. So in a work organization, it's not just that I want to feel like I belong to the work organization and the groups I'm a member of. I want to feel there's individuals there who value their relationships with me. The coworker who chats in the hallway, somebody who stopped by to say hi in the morning.

Not everybody at work is going to want to hang out with you. Of course not. But it's really important for employees to feel like there's at least a few people who care that they're there in a non-work-related context. We have a lot of social interactions and social relationships where we work. So do I feel accepted by the people around me, at least some of them. That's a really important distinction. Do I belong to the groups and am I accepted by the individuals as a person? Both of those have to do with my relational value, but sort of on different levels. I think work organizations can improve productivity, happiness, negative employee behaviors to the degree that people can feel like they belong and are accepted. And I think most organizations just let that happen by itself, but maybe there's ways that the organization can facilitate that kind of thing.

As a leader, what would be some things that you do? And as, let's say, a team member, what would be some things that you would suggest people do? I think more explicitly, explicitly acknowledging the contributions of various members. Not, I mean, we do that when people have great successes at work. Hey, yeah, Joe won an award, but just on a daily basis, just thanking people for their participation. Hey, I'm glad you were at that meeting. That was a good point that you brought up. Little things because otherwise, how do we know how we're doing unless we get a little

bit of feedback? We can't wait for our annual performance evaluation to find out what the boss thinks. Why not along the way? Same thing with the acceptance factor. Individual conversations. Do we convey to one another that, yeah, I'm delighted to chat with you out here in the hall? Or do I just ignore you as

we pass without stopping to say, hey, how was your kid's soccer game last weekend? So I think if organizations can simply promote ways for people to interact in a more affirming way, and a lot of people want to hear that it sounds touchy-feely, kind of lame. We're not making things up. We're not trying to get people to behave in ways that are false or duplicitous. We're trying to get them to convey their own heartfelt feelings. Because there's a lot of people at work that I have valued over the years. And looking back now, I suspect they don't have a clue how much I enjoy talking to them. And that's a shame. And so a lot of us go to work and come home and feel like, well, nobody cared. Well, maybe that's true, but maybe we just don't

express it to each other. Okay. So how would you square that with a teammate? So that sounds like in some respects a leader, but I can see where a teammate could do this. But I think what I want to drill into is that you've got a deep understanding about the gauge. You could be sensitive or insensitive, and you could be accurate or inaccurate to the signs that other people are explicitly saying or not saying related to your relational value. So what is something that I can get better at as a teammate? If my supervisor or my leader is not explicit, has not gotten the memo here and rewards with financial levers only, which no problems there. So their one lever is not belonging. It's not a sense of inclusion. It's like, listen, when you do a good job, you get paid. How would you help that person understand how they belong?

Yeah. And that's very tough because if there's not the external evidence coming from other people, it's hard for me to know what evidence do I have, whether it's my boss or my romantic partner or who I thought was my best friend. If they're not indicating to me that I'm relationally valued, how can I figure that out? The one problem that arises is we have research suggesting that in the absence of information, people assume the worst. That if people are getting neutral feedback or no feedback, they assume that they're being devalued. And that's not necessarily the case. Some of us just aren't very good at giving positive feedback or conveying how much we value other people. I'm not even sure I'm particularly good at that.

So if we feel like we're not being valued, we can't just automatically assume that that perception is accurate. We need to dig deeper. But how we find out whether our boss really values us or not, I don't know. That's a really good question, but I don't have an answer for that. Okay. Yeah. Okay.

That's cool. All right. Let's stay on the organizational level one more level, because I think one of the, you know, we give annual rewards, quarterly rewards, we prop people up in meetings. It can feel celebratory in one respect and almost performative in another. And it is something that drives me a bit nutty when somebody comes onto a meeting and they're like, I just want to celebrate what A, B, and C person did or what A person did, A, B, and C this way. It's nice. I appreciate it at one level, but when it feels performative, I start to get like, why are we grandstanding? What are we doing here? So help me here in that leader is wanting to celebrate what somebody has done. But when it feels performative, I start to go, it's over the top.

And maybe you just got, Dr. Leary, just say to me, listen, back off. Like this is gold and just it's gold. And because let me finish my neuroticism here for just a moment is that I start wondering, am I only getting one message? Am I only getting half the story here? And there's all this other stuff that is maybe not being celebrated that is maybe not celebrated, but not rising to the level of importance because we don't want to shine light on the dust in the corner. So again, maybe a bit of neuroticism and I'm happy for you to take it wherever you will. I've never thought about that, but I resonate exactly with what

you're talking about. I don't know that celebration is exactly the solution because we only celebrate the greatest achievements. You know, maybe once a month, somebody gets recognized for being the best salesperson or getting an award or whatever it happens to be. Number one, that's probably not enough, even for that person. But it does make all the rest of us sort of feel like, well, we only get attention if we do something really, really grand. And you don't do that that often. How often are each of us really, truly, completely celebrated? And it does have a performance element to it. I agree with that. It's just too showy. Yeah, we're going to bring

cupcakes and have them today because we're going to celebrate the best salesperson. Yeah, the kind of thing I'm talking about is something that is just more ongoing, much smaller. It's not just the big accomplishments. It's the little things that make you valuable to the organization and to the other people in it. You nailed my concern, which is it's the little things that make you valuable to the organization and to the other people in it. You nailed my concern, which is the, it's the performative aspect of it, as opposed to the organic, honest, private, semi-public moments in hallways. Like, Hey, you know, Jane, like what you did last week, I'm telling you, it was awesome to watch you work as opposed to celebrating in a performative

way on a, you know, a monthly meeting in front of like everybody. If people think about how they do this with their children, I think there's, it's instructive. You don't just compliment your kids, or I don't think you should for that twice a year great achievement. Yes, they won the game for the team or they came home with all A's and you celebrate that. And that's great, but you don't give them any other indication. The whole rest of the year that you value them as a member of the family, that would be terrible, but that's what we kind of do at work.

We just celebrate the biggest things. And other than that, we often get ignored. So I think it's the little daily small nudges of validation and that we're happy that you're here. Heartfelt again, we're not lying about it. Everybody has people they like at work and people they don't like. You don't have to lie to the ones you don't like. That's their problem, but we should affirm the ones that we do value. I want to help athletes and performers and individuals know how to develop a sense of self-confidence in any environment, any condition. And if the culture and or a coach or a parent or myself is the one that is feeding them their self-narrative, feeding them the script

of self-talk, giving them evidence obnoxiously so, insensitively so, that it can become a, oh gosh, there's an other reliance that becomes problematic where the performer or the individual is reliant on the others or the organization to tell them that they're okay. So how do we help people avoid the trap of externalizing their self-esteem, looking to others for that sense of being okay, even if somebody thinks that what they say is stupid, even if they are like flat out rejecting? How do we avoid that trap? That's a really important question because we don't have to wait for explicit feedback from other people for our self-esteem to be affected. We sort of analyze ourselves. Did I do a good thing here? Did I do a bad thing here? How well did that come across? And so we can sort

of put ourselves in the minds of others and evaluate ourselves from their perspective, even without explicit feedback. Now, that's more difficult and it's more subject to biases we have, either good or bad, depending on how we view ourselves. We may see ourselves better or worse than we really are. But yes, we don't need to rely on other people for our self-esteem to be affected. I can get up and do a talk and know that I nailed this thing. Nobody told me so.

And I feel good about it. Or I can get up and give a talk and nobody told me how lousy it was, but I knew it. I go home with my head hung down. So it is partly the process of taking that guidance from the external person, from the coach, for example. The life coach is showing you, here's how you ought to be thinking about and analyzing this, but then weaning them away from that to where they do it spontaneously. Because the whole self-esteem system was designed to run on its own based on all of the cues and all of your interpretations of what's going on. Am I behaving in a socially acceptable way that other people will value?

And you can analyze that to some extent. We know when to feel really good and really bad about ourselves without anybody saying a word to us about it. And so, yeah, we don't want to get people locked up into just looking for external validation all the time. That would be bad. A hundred percent. And I'm glad we're talking about this because this is that drug bit, you know, where it's,

we train Olympians and sports psychs to deliver the intellectual property of how to help people become their very best from a sport or performance psychology standpoint. In early days, this was like 10 years ago, I'd ask one of our Olympians or sports psychs, like, okay, what'd you think? And they were presenting in front of, say, 500 people or 50 people. What do you think? And they go, well, did you see right after there was like four people that came up and were like, thanking me for it. I think it was good. I said, oh boy, hold on a minute. That's the wrong variable to discern if what you just did was honest

and deep and rich and fun and compelling and would move people along a path. And this is the same thing with self-esteem is it sounds like what you are, you are holding a person accountable for their own self-esteem. And you're also illuminating that there is this need

to be valuable in the eyes of others but don't get drunk on their approval that's right right okay all right so how do we how do we do that how do we not get drunk on their approval how do what do you do internally through that evaluation process to um to have an honest evaluation of your self-esteem and it's not whipped around by the external approval or rejection of others? Well, it's still going to be, if not whipped around, nudged around by the external approval or rejection of other people because that's the way the system is designed. One thing people have to realize is that these changes in self-esteem that go along with feeling more or less relationally valued, more or less accepted or rejected, it's not necessarily accurate. The other people's reactions may not be accurate.

I mean, they may be unusually critical or they may be unusually fawning and it's not true. And your own interpretations are not always accurate. There's just tons of research in social psychology about all of the self-serving biases we have. And we know that if you already have a negative view of yourself, you're going to be self-denigrating. So I don't want to give people the impression that this monitor works great all the time. It's just like the fuel gauge in the old cars we used to have where, yeah, it says we have a half a tank of gas, but no, it's empty. Or it says that we have three quarters of a tank, but it's actually full. Our sociometer is doing the best it can based upon our own interpretations of what other people are doing.

But that means there's two things standing between us and the truth. Are the other people, are their evaluations of us accurate? First of all, are they too positive or negative? And are our interpretations of their evaluations of us accurate? And sometimes that's not necessarily the case. So it's really it's a guessing game at times. I would just suggest that people don't pay quite as much attention to the changes in their self-esteem until it really matters. And when they have concrete evidence that in fact,

they were socially unacceptable or socially acceptable. And now one final word from our sponsors. Finding Mastery 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. And what surprised me the most is how much it actually helps regulate temperature. I tend to run warm at night, and these sheets have helped me sleep cooler and more consistently, which has made a meaningful difference in how I show up the

next day for myself, my family, and our team here at Finding Mastery. It's become part of my nightly routine. Throw on their lounge pants or pajamas, crawl into bed under their sheets, and my nervous system starts to settle. They also offer a 100-night sleep trial and a 10-year warranty on all of their bedding, which tells me, tells you, that they believe in the long-term value of what they're creating. If you're ready to upgrade your rest and turn your bed into a better recovery zone, use the code FINDINGMASTERY for 40% off at CozyEarth.com. That's a great discount for our community. Again, the code is Finding Mastery for 40% off at CozyEarth.com.

Finding Mastery is brought to you by Caldera Lab. I believe that the way we do small things in life is how we do all things. And for me, that includes how I take care of my body. I've been using Caldera Lab for years now. And what keeps me coming back, it's really simple. Their products are simple and they reflect the kind of intentional living that I want to build into every part of my day. And they make my morning routine really easy. They've got some great new products I think you'll be interested in. A shampoo, conditioner, and a hair serum. With Caldera Lab, it's not about adding more. It's about choosing better. And when your day demands clarity

and energy and presence, the way you prepare for it matters. If you're looking for high quality personal care products that elevate your routine without complicating it, I'd love for you to check them out. Head to calderalab.com slash finding mastery and use the code finding mastery at checkout for 20% off your first order. That's calderalab, C-A-L-D-E-R-L-A-B.com slash finding mastery. And with that, let's jump right back into our conversation. Is the gauge continually checking, meaning the gauge is rising and falling on a regular's feedback, other people's reactions pretty much on a nonstop basis at an automatic level. And you can sort of pick up on that is you're not, you know, consciously you don't walk through life that you shouldn't say, oh, what's this person think of me? What's this person think of me? But think how easy it is just to be going along, having a pretty good day until you just get that one quick dismissive reaction, that one frown, that one person who stares.

That's right. What that suggests is that we're monitoring all of the time, just like we're monitoring our room temperature all the time. We're not thinking about it until it suddenly becomes too cold or too hot. And then we then we become conscious of the temperature. We're monitoring other people's reactions to us, I think, pretty much continually because it's continually important. Again, if you go back to the evolutionary argument, I couldn't afford to turn that mechanism off. I had to always be alerted to the possibility that I made somebody mad and they're going to drag me out of here and throw me out of the group.

So I think it's going on all the time that that is why public speaking is so uh intense for people because it's you know it's a lightning bolt right to a very primal origin story for belonging for safety yes and yeah right it is beyond you can train through that, no problem. Sure. Right? Like you can totally do it. How would you suggest people that whether their public stage is in front of a thousand people or a board of 12 people, you know, a board of directors or whatever, how would you help people be just a little bit better at being grounded, being at home with themselves to express their ideas in a quote unquote public setting? Two things. One is, and these are both things I have tried myself

and they sometimes work. I don't have good research evidence of this, but with an N of one, here goes. One is I tell myself when I'm starting, let's say, that talk where I feel nervous. It doesn't matter right at this moment. Now, at the end, by the time this is over, if I've completely made a fool out of myself and they drag me out of here because I'm something I said, well, yeah, then I have a problem to deal with. But at this very moment, why am I trying to assess this in advance? And this anxiety and concern I have aren't going to help me anyway. So what can I do to sort of say, I don't need to be doing this to myself right now.

If it all explodes in my face, same thing with a job interview. Yes, of course, I'm nervous going into the job interview. But why am I worried about the outcome right now? All I can do is do my best. And this preoccupation and this high anxiety is not helping me do my best. What can I do to pull back? So it's sort of a way of sort of like delaying the pain.

Let's wait to see if it really blows up in my face. And then I can be pained about it. If everybody laughs at me and ridicules me and says, we never want to see you again, then I'll deal with it. But why am I worrying about that in advance? The thing that helps with that a lot is what people today would call mindfulness. Back when I first learned to meditate in the mid-90s, it's just meditation techniques to try to find ways to let those thoughts pass through your brain

without being pulled off task by them. All of our brains think without our permission. And when I realized that, that blew me away. I thought, it's my brain. Can't I tell it what to think? No, it's thinking without my permission. And a lot of the work that you do is trying to get people to have a little more control over their unruly brains. And if you can do that, you can take some of the edge off of those anxiety producing thoughts. Some of the edge off of that excessive concern with what other people are thinking. It's not going to go away. You know, human nature, that's what it is. We're concerned with what other people think, but you can take the edge off so that you perform a little bit better.

It's awesome. I think framing, I'll add one more because yes, yes, yes. To everything you're saying. And then one more is the way I frame it and the way I've seen people frame a situation. I mean, it's like an almost an outsized impact. If somebody says, man, I don't want to blow it. I don't want to look stupid. I don't want to. And that's how they're framing it. Or I've got to, this is my chance.

This is the only time. So there's some sort of always, always never black, white, big, big and disastrous, you know, as opposed to this is a great opportunity. And I can't wait to see where they go with the information I'm going to share. And I can't wait to see, you know, the questions that, that, that rise to see where I can get better as well. So there's a framing of gratitude, of hope, of others, what's going to happen for them as opposed to what's going to happen to you. So it's an external and then a framing in a way that has some buoyancy and excitement. I like that. And the work you do, you know that what people say to themselves is often terribly negative,

much more negative than they would ever say to somebody else, which brings in the topic of self-compassion. Can I be nicer to myself in these situations instead of flogging myself over every little misstep? And I know public speakers, for example, who afterwards tell me, you know, oh, yeah, I said that stupid thing and I couldn't get that out of my mind after I after I did that. Well, you wouldn't talk to somebody else that way. You wouldn't say, hey, what an idiot. Why did you say that? You need to just shut up now. Can you stop being mean to yourself?

Now, that doesn't mean you don't say critical things if they're justified. That's the only way we improve. But I found in my own life that I was far harder on myself than I needed to be because I had the mistaken assumption that I needed to beat myself up when the mistaken assumption that I needed to beat myself up when I did things that made people reject me or that when I wasn't successful. And I realized,

no, I didn't really need to. I just needed to recognize what needed to be changed and then to take steps to change it. So in a lot of these contexts, the things people are saying to themselves are just far more negative than they should be. And you can learn to reorient that to a more self-compassionate way of thinking about the challenge that you're facing. I love that. Yes, that is a very simple framing and takes years. Well, you know, it can take years. And I'll argue with myself out loud right now is that it can take years to train and

you could make that decision right now and be great at it, you know? And so in an instant you could change it. And I love that framing. I learned that I was fortunate to sit with a small room. I'm totally bragging right now in a small room with the Dalai Lama. And yeah, it was was it was unbelievable and um and one of the insights is that uh somebody asked a question and he says oh yeah i think you need to keep working and he says the the fun part about the work is it could take lifetimes okay reincarnation

or the next moment you know like enlightenment can happen this moment you know but you've got to prepare for you know to kind of keep be prepared to, you know, but you've got to prepare for, you know, to kind of keep, be prepared to keep working for lifetimes. It was his note. So I just thought that was fun. That's great. Okay. So I want to, I want to go back to, um, kind of shifting just a little bit to this deep calling for interconnectedness. Can you respond to this, this maybe toxic, I don't want to put too much of a label on it, this Western individualistic way of living? Can you respond to the phrase that we are social animals masquerading as separate selves? Oh, that's interesting. We are certainly social animals. There are a lot of different social animals that depend on other members of their animal groups.

But you're absolutely right. Here our brain gets in the way again because we begin to conceptualize ourselves as completely separate from the other animals in our group, the other human beings. When, in fact, we probably are more interconnected than most of us think. ourselves as completely separate from the other animals in our group, the other human beings, when in fact we probably are more interconnected than most of us think. So I had a student do a dissertation a number of years ago on people who believe in the oneness of all things. And there's a lot of different ways to conceptualize oneness, whether everything is God or everything is cosmic consciousness or everything is Buddha nature. It depends on your own orientation. Everything is part of the universe. all parts of one big thing seem to fare better psychologically and emotionally than those who feel like everything's separate, including them as a disconnected member of the universe.

And that really got me to thinking in terms of this kind of thing you're talking about, that we see ourselves as so separate, so distinct, that then it's us against everybody and everything else, which is far more threatening than feeling like there are connections and that we have the support that we need and that there's some kind of universal thing that binds all of us together. So I don't know if that really answered your question, but there is a value to seeing connections among other people. Some people draw the distinction between individualist versus collectivist cultures, for example, but that doesn't really quite get at the thing you're talking about. Because even in a collectivist culture, yes, I feel more connected to my group, more obligated to my

group. My identity is rooted in my group, but yet I see as my group, my group is separate from all other groups. So it's still not like we're all connected with everybody and everything. It's just that we're looking at it at the group level instead of the individual level. Is there a dark side to the psychology of being self-focused? This self-esteem, self-confidence, self-worth, sense of self, as opposed to this pouring into the center, this giving to help the tide rise. I have a bit of a reaction to the self-help industry because it's focused on self rather than other.

The phrase that I come up with was a title of a book I wrote in 2004 called The Curse of the Self, which gets exactly what you're talking about. And even more, this capacity to think about ourselves consciously that all human beings have. It's unusual. Other animals don't think about themselves in the complex and symbolic ways that we do. We put ourselves in categories. We evaluate ourselves in certain ways. We have beliefs about what we're like. All of that is incredibly important. We wouldn't be human if we didn't have this ability to think consciously about ourselves, including putting ourselves in groups with other people. If you think of the accomplishments of human civilization, all of that required people to think about what they were doing and make plans for the future. What am I trying to achieve? So we have government and health care and education and science and religion and philosophy and all of the things that are human that other animals don't have.

But there is a dark side exactly as you've described. Several dark sides. One is this putting ourselves into a category, thinking of ourselves as a member of a group and then distancing ourselves from all of the other groups. We wouldn't do that if we didn't have a way to conceptualize ourselves as a member of a group. That's our self-operating. Our evaluations of ourselves. Sometimes we've been talking about this in this podcast. Sometimes they're far too positive, and that's bad. Sometimes they're far too negative, and that's bad. But it's the way we evaluate ourselves isn't always accurate. We talked about anxiety. That's taking yourself and extending it into the future and imagining the bad things that are going to

happen an hour from now or a month from now or 20 years from now, becoming anxious about it. So one of the biggest challenges, I think, to having a happy life is how do you get your self-reflection under control? How do you manage all of these thoughts that can take you in the wrong direction and be very unhelpful to your well-being and quality of life? Psychology ignored that for many years. At the time I went to graduate school, the sense was the more you thought about yourself, the better. You would keep your behavior in line and you'd be a good person. You needed to know who you were and think about yourself all the time.

Well, there's some truth to that, but it ignored the downsides. And so I've been fascinated by the downsides of too much self-reflection. Okay. That's clean. I love that. What about self-actualization or a sense of power? Yeah. I have never believed there's a need for self-actualization.

Oh, that's a bold statement. That is a bold. Okay. I believe that the behaviors of people that he studied that he called self-actualized, I think self-actualization is a real thing. I think there's a point at which people have got together so much that they are flourishing. They've got all the right characteristics. They're the epitome of a human being and they're self-actualized. I buy that. I don't see evidence exactly that people are motivated, that there's an inherent motive that evolves somehow as a part of human nature that pushes people towards self-actualization, they're motivated to do all of these other kinds of things that psychologists have studied. And when they succeed at a whole lot of those things, they feel like they're accepted and they know what's going on and they feel good about themselves. Then they begin to act like a self-actualized person. I don't have evidence one way or another. I just have never been able to sort of put that in as a motive that's pushing us more and more toward, even if we don't do anything special

and there's not other motives that self-actualization motive is pushing us toward great achievement and mastery and being a epitome of a good person. I think that's actually motivated by all these other motives when they work. If people are meeting all of their basic needs and motives, then they don't have to worry about stuff.

They're, they're thriving and they're self-actualized. So again, that's a person. I don't have any other. Yeah. Go ahead. Let me make sure I understand this though,

before we go to power and control that you're, you resonate with the idea of a motive being to become actualized, but you don't resonate with the, that it's a prime driver that we need some of the basic kind of drivers to be in place before we can entertain flourishing. Is that, is that how I'm thinking? Oh, not quite. I don't know. I mean, this is one of those things where I'm just speculating on the wazoo. I just don't know that there is a motive, a freestanding motive that's operating, that's nudging us all towards self-actualization. I think any more than a very well-behaved dog who knows a whole lot of tricks and is the best dog that anybody's ever had became that way because

it moved towards self-actualization. It was just raised properly, trained properly, had a lot of good experiences. It was doing all kinds of dog things and worked out real well. So I don't know. I just don't have any reason to think that there's something pushing us

towards self-actualization. It's independent of us meeting all of these fundamentally basic needs that we needed to survive during human evolution. It's not clear that our prehistoric ancestors were motivated by self-actualization. No, they just wanted to have sexual partners to be accepted, to have social influence, not be eaten by things. And if they were living and everything was gone great for a while, they might act like a self-actualized person, but not because there was a motive that pushed them into that.

Again, that's completely- Oh, that's really interesting. That is really interesting. Finding Mastery is brought to you by iRestore. When it comes to my health, I try to approach things with a proactive mindset. It's not about avoiding poor health. This is about creating the conditions for growth.

Now, hair health is one of those areas that often gets overlooked until your hair starts to change. That's when people pay attention. Now, that's why I've been loving iRestore Elite. It's a hands-free red light therapy device that helps stimulate dormant hair follicles, helps to support regrowth. It's a clinical grade device. It's simple to use. It fits right into the rhythm of my day, whether I'm meditating, reading, prepping for one of our clients here at Finding Mastery. It's really simple. Now, red light therapy has some pretty amazing research behind it when it comes to cellular energy, tissue repair, inflammation control, as well as healing.

iRestore is using those same principles to help your hair thrive. I really like this product. I used it last night. I use it on a regular basis. They also offer a 12-month money-back guarantee. So if you don't see results, they'll refund you. No questions. I love that. They have real confidence in their product. And because you're a member of the Finding Mastery community, right now they're offering our listeners huge savings on the iRestore Elite. When you use the code FINDINGMASTERY at iRestore.com slash FINDINGMASTERY. Again, that code is FINDINGMASTERY at iRestore.com slash FINDINGMASTERY for exclusive savings. Finding Mastery is brought to you by Lisa.

Sleep is one of the foundational pillars of high performance. There's no arguing that. And when we have great sleep consistently and deeply, we give ourselves the best chance to operate at our best. Physically, cognitively, emotionally, sleep affects it all. That's why I care about the environment that I sleep in so much. And of course, a great mattress, it matters. One of our teammates here at Finding Mastery has been sleeping on a Le mattress for over a year now, and it's made a noticeable difference.

They specifically chose one from their Chill Collection because they sleep hot, something I know many of us can relate to, myself included. What are they reporting back? Fewer wake-ups, deeper rest, and feeling more recovered when they jump into their work here at Finding Mastery. Lisa has several models to choose from. So whether you're a side sleeper, a stomach sleeper, or somewhere in between, there's a fit designed specifically for you. And what I appreciate most is their purpose. They've donated over 41,000 mattresses to people in need.

I love that. So right now you can get 25% off all mattresses at lisa.com plus an extra $50 off when you use the code finding mastery at checkout. That's lisa.com. The promo code is finding mastery for 25% off and then plus an extra $50 on us because quality sleep is just too important to leave to chance. Yeah, cool. Okay, what about purpose? There's a lot of work right now at the organizational level and for individuals to know their purpose. And I like ringing that bell.

I found it to be applied and valuable. And so I'd love to hear your take on the desire for purpose or the need to have purpose. People certainly need to have goals that they're moving toward, whatever that may be. Now, I don't know if the way you think about purpose is just sort of the package of goals that motivate you and guide your behavior. We do have to have a focus. We have to have a purpose in the sense,

if we don't, we're just scattered, chasing all kinds of motives and interests and ideas and lifestyles, and there's no coherence to it. And that's just scattered. And I don't think people have a great sense of well-being if they're just kind of randomly making choices. So yes, a sense of direction and purpose, something I'm trying to do. I tend to think of it just simply in terms of goals, maybe because the word purpose just seems. I don't know that I've ever had a purpose in my life. Maybe that's what it is. I certainly had really clear cut goals. But if you said, has your life ever had a purpose? I would have to think about it. A purpose that was independent of goals. I don't know. But people have to be goal directed. They have to have something that they're focusing on. What am I trying to do to make tomorrow better than today?

Absolutely. Yeah. I would say that purpose is the one order above that, which is like the big question to wrestle down is like, what am I doing here? What's the purpose of me living? What's the purpose of me living? What's the purpose of us living? Like, like, what am I going to do with my time that I'm physically here is kind of a, almost too big of a question to get your arms around for most people until you start practicing.

What I would say is like, what's my daily purpose? What's my purpose for this week? What's my purpose for this month? Like, it feels like I think I got a thin slice to practice getting clear on overall purpose. But so, so look, I I've loved this conversation with you and you certainly have made me speculate about things that sometimes I know very little about, but I'm glad it was interesting. Well, okay. I feel like we got our arms around compassion. We got our arms around belonging. We got our arms around esteem. Do you feel like we answered those bells properly, the three legs to that stool of your work?

Yeah. I think without beating it to death, I think we covered it fine. Where are you going next in your research? What is next for you? Well, I actually officially retired in 2019. I saw that. Professor Emeritus at Duke.

I'm still continuing to work. I'm still finishing up projects and doing other things. The topic that I've been spending most of my time on since about 2015 is intellectual humility. And so much of what I'm doing has to do with that, which is simply recognizing that for any beliefs that you might have. There's a possibility that it's wrong. It's sort of the recognition that you can't be right about everything. And that's certainly relevant when you see the ideological disputes in this country, where everybody thinks that they're the one that's right about everything. And that can't be, we all can't be right. So how do we learn to live with that uncertainty of, yes,

I firmly believe these things. I'm going to live my life according to these beliefs. But you know, I could be wrong. And I'm going to keep my eye out for any evidence to suggest that I need to fine tune my beliefs. I've been fascinated by this just because we are all way too certain. I'm far too certain in the things that I believe we all are. Well, why? And that works against us, Because if the quality of life depends to some extent on making optimal decisions in life, you want to have the best possible evidence about everything in order to make those decisions. So you have to keep your eyes open, keep your mind open. But how do you do that without feeling like you don't know what's going on? And that's the

critical question. One of my favorite applied scientists, there's many in my community that I have great respect for, but one that I've gotten to know really well, his name is Per Lundstam. And he is on a mission to gather reference points for himself and for the people he works with. And those reference points are just ways, there's unlimited amount of reference points about ideas and experiences and emotional expressions that he uses in some of the same way that you're talking about humility, like there's this unbounded potential for experiences. And so he uses reference points as a way to help calibrate what somebody is actually experiencing and doing. And the downstream impact is that he and his athletes that he works with are incredibly

humble because they're just talking about reference points. It's really, it's pretty amazing. And when you hear reference points related to humility, where do you go? Well, I don't know. I haven't done that much on humility per se because this is intellectual humility in terms of recognizing that you are not always right. Humility is a somewhat different thing. That's just simply not taking your achievements

and accomplishments and characteristics so seriously that you think you should be treated special because of them. Okay. Because that's what he's doing. He's helping with general humility by moving into reference points that are interesting and stimulating and still out there beyond what you've actually experienced. And you're going to intellectual humility, which I know you said, which is the openness to be wrong about a set of ideas. Yes. That's a good way to describe it. Yeah, that's really cool. And when you start getting into it, you start realizing I can't be completely sure about

almost anything. Now, most of the things I believe, I think the sun's going to come up tomorrow, but is it? Maybe it's going to explode overnight. How do I know? So you begin to realize it's okay not to completely know. You have to act. You have to behave on the basis of your beliefs, but you don't have to be dogmatically certain because that insulates you from evidence that you might be wrong. And it also makes you disparage people who disagree with you. And that's where the ideological problems really come up. Are there cultures or organizations or societies that inherently promote intellectual humility? It's becoming an increasingly big topic in management leadership because there's research

showing that intellectually humble leaders are more effective and get better work out of their employees. Because instead of the leader saying, here's what we're going to do and I'm completely right about this and I'm not going to... And implicitly often conveying, well, I don't want to hear about it if you don't like it. Leaders who invite criticism of their ideas and say, okay, here's what I think we ought to do, but let me know if you see any holes in this, please, because we want to try to reformulate this to make it as good as possible and then take their employees' viewpoint seriously. So it is moving its way into organizational psychology. Are there any historical figures or are there modern day leaders that exemplify intellectual humility in your mind? Not to my knowledge.

I would like, for example, any political leader just one time when asked a question to simply say i don't know i'll look into that you never hear anybody say they don't know it's okay not to know how is that different than growth mindset well it certainly has to be related to a growth mindset. Absolutely true that you have to realize that I'm in a continual process of growth and development, and it's not what I think I know right now, but I may actually know different things, new things down the road. So there is a growth mindset sitting behind intellectual humility. I agree with that. It's the opposite of hubris. This arrogance that

my way, I know better. I don't need you. I'm going to stop learning this way or no way. And so I really appreciate the idea of investing in the curiosity to know more, the intellectual humility to know that you can't possibly know all things. There is some research that would suggest that there's timing related to style of leadership, meaning that, oh, you're going to have to help me out here, that under duress or high intensity moments, that there's a style of leadership that is preferred, which is like, say it, name it, give me the directions and we're going to go. Yes.

As opposed to, you know, this idea that when things are easy, you know, that it's like we can afford the intellectual humility. Yeah. If I was in the armed services, I don't want my commander right before the battle saying, here's what we're going to do, man. I think this is going to work, but you know, I could be wrong about this. Yeah. You don't want that.

But there is a distinction between what's in the person's mind and how they convey it. So there's times in which the commander, the leader might in their mind say, this could be wrong. I need to keep collecting information, but they don't convey it to anybody. And there's other times in which somebody is actually completely certain they're right, intellectually arrogant, but they want to convey to other people that they're listening to their ideas anyway. And again, and that can be beneficial as well. So people are heard. So there's a distinction between the cognitive

mental aspects of intellectual humility, do I realize I might be wrong, and the, I always think of performative interpersonal aspects, how intellectually humble do I appear to others. Awesome. Yeah. And I think earlier I said hubris. I meant

hubris. So how about that? I know what you meant. Okay. I appreciate you. Thank you. I appreciate this. Yeah. Thank you for a fun conversation. Thank you for the years and decades of research that you've summarized

and contributed and introduced in new and fresh ways. And I want to say thank you for the contribution you've made in my understanding. Well, thank you. You can't imagine how much I appreciate that. You know, we do our research, we publish it in boring scientific journals, and we very rarely get positive feedback about it. So thank you very much. Oh, good.

Yeah, no, you're right at the center of much of my work. And so I want to say thank you. And where would you like to drive people to check out your research, to check out your work? It depends on which part of it they're interested in. The book, The Curse of the Self, has an awful lot to do with the problems associated with self-awareness and self-thought. Other than that, almost every thing people would look at would be in some scholarly journal somewhere. And I don't know that most people want to go there. Yeah, no, the book is great and it's awesome.

And so it's a great, we'll put, we'll put all the links in the show notes and the podcast. And so Dr. Leary, thank you. It's great meeting you. Enjoy talking to me. Thank you. Thanks. 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, the easiest no-cost way to support

is to hit the subscribe or follow button wherever you're listening. Also, if you haven't already, please consider dropping us a review on Apple or Spotify. We are incredibly grateful for the support and feedback. If you're looking for even more insights, we have a newsletter we send out every Wednesday. Punch over to findingmastery.com slash newsletter to sign up. The show wouldn't be possible without our sponsors and we take our

recommendations seriously. And the team is very thoughtful about making sure we love and endorse every product you hear on the show. If you want to check out any of our sponsor offers you heard about in this episode, you can find those deals at finding mastery.com slash sponsors. And remember, no one does it alone. The door here at finding mastery is always open to those looking to explore the edges and the reaches of their potential so that they can help others do the same. So join our community, share your favorite episode with a friend

and let us know how we can continue to show up for you. Lastly, as a quick reminder, information in this podcast and from any material on the Finding Mastery website and social channels is for information purposes only. If you're looking for meaningful support, which we all need,

one of the best things you can do is to talk to a licensed professional. So seek assistance from your health care providers. Again, a sincere thank you for listening. Until next episode, be well, think well, keep exploring.