Good Life Project - How to Stop Feeling Like It's You Against the World | Scott Barry Kaufman

Episode Date: September 8, 2025

Ever wondered why some people move past hardships while others get stuck in them?In this transformative conversation, Columbia professor Scott Barry Kaufman reveals the crucial difference between experiencing hardship and adopting a victim mindset, sharing research-backed strategies from his book, Rise Above: Overcome a Victim Mindset, Empower Yourself, and Realize Your Full Potential. Learn how shifting your perspective on boredom, lowering certain life expectations, and changing simple self-talk patterns can unlock new levels of personal power and possibility.You can find Scott at: Website | Instagram | Episode TranscriptIf you LOVED this episode, you’ll also love the conversations we had with Brené Brown about embracing Vulnerability to fuel creative growth.Check out our offerings & partners: Join My New Writing Project: Awake at the WheelVisit Our Sponsor Page For Great Resources & Discount CodesCheck out our offerings & partners: Beam Dream Powder: Visit https://shopbeam.com/GOODLIFE and use code GOODLIFE to get our exclusive discount of up to 40% off. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

So have you ever had that moment where you just kind of feel like the world or maybe in one person or community was kind of conspiring against you or holding your back or keeping you stuck or trapped or small, kind of like you're a victim without a whole lot of power to change things? If so, you are not alone. But sometimes there is a meaningful difference between feeling trapped or beaten down and the actual facts of our experience. And that's at the heart of today's conversation about the surprising difference between being a victim and living with what now calls a victim mindset and what we can do about it. Think about those moments when you catch yourself feeling that the world is against you. Like just every circumstance is a conspiracy to hold you back. What if that feeling itself could become a signal, not of hopelessness, but of an opportunity to transform your entire relationship with life's challenges. And this is not also saying put your head in the sand and ignore the reality of circumstance. And what if boredom of all things could be a gateway to unleashes?

limited possibility along the way. So my guest today is Dr. Scott Barry Cow from an A professor at Columbia University and one of the world's most cited researchers on intelligence, creativity, and human potential. As director of the Center for Human Potential and founder of self-actualization coaching, Scott has dedicated his career to understanding how we can realize our fullest potential. In his latest book, Rise Above, Overcome a Victim Mindset, Empower Yourself, and Realize Your Full Potential, he offers a really fresh perspective on moving from victimhood to empowerment. One of the things that really fascinated me in our conversation was Scott's surprising take on boredom as a state of infinite possibility rather than limitation. We explore how changing just one word and how you talk to yourself can dramatically shift your entire experience of daily challenges.

And you're going to want to hear his perspective on why lowering your expectations about life might actually be a key to finding greater joy. So excited to share this provocative conversation with you. I'm Jonathan Fields and this is Good Life Project. Good Life Project is brought to you by Colgate. So our homes are ready for pretty much any kind of cuts and scrapes. We have bandages, sprays, gels to quickly self-treat these things. But we often ignore gum bleeding and inflammation. We brush it off, literally.

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into this state of mind. It's this notion of feeling like you're a victim. And really, we're going to drop in and explore that in a lot of different ways. But I want to make a distinction because you tease out this distinction in the beginning. And it's the difference between victim mindset and being a victim. Tease this out for me a little bit. Yeah, I think that it's very important, first of all, to distinguish between these things. Having been the recipient of a terrible event, it can be anything abused in childhood. It can be going through a pandemic. I think we kind of went through a collective situation there where we're all victims, for sure, of something that was out of our control. But the victim mindset is when you stay there

perpetually and you blame all your current problems on that one thing that happened to you and you stop taking responsibility and even you might forget that you have agency left and you stop trying to be productive and hopeful it can lead to a very dark place it can leave to a real sense of helplessness and we can forget the resiliency that we actually have within us so does a victim mindset always get precipitated by actually being a victim. No, it's interesting because I cover different types in my book. Yeah. It's possible to have not been, it's possible to play the victim. That's a thing. People do that. People do that. People play the victim to get attention,

to get social status, get rewards. I tend to have less empathy for those people than I do for those who have really had, truly had horrible things happen to them. And the only thing they know how to cope is by having a victim mindset. And I want to show compassionately, I want to show people that it's not their only option to cope. Yeah. I mean, I think that word compassion is really important in this conversation too.

Extremely. Because so often, you know, like somebody, maybe they are a victim, maybe they aren't an actual victim, but somehow they end up in this place where they feel like the world is against me. Like everything's inspiring against me. And we tend to look at that person.

And if we can't point to something objective, effectively that put them there. Or maybe it was like a decade ago. Like there's this tendency that's sort of like, even if you don't verbalize or say this to the person, it kind of be like, seriously, skill? Like, like, can't you get? And there's like, there's a level of shame and blame that we tend to sort of like offer into the case. They know it. They feel it. They're not, they don't like it themselves. I mean, every time they hear themselves saying, you know, uh, in conversation, oh, sorry, I can't go into Starbucks. My trauma when I was three. And like, they know it in their own bones. We don't need to like doubly shame them. And they already feel

the sense of shame and they want an escape. I mean, so many of these individuals feel stuck and imprisoned in their past. Irving Yalom has this wonderful quote sooner or later. You have to give up all hope for a better past. Yeah, I love that quote. How do we know if we're in this? Yeah, somebody's listening to this. And maybe they're on the other side where like all these people like, oh, yeah, they're that person. Or maybe somebody's listening to this, and they're like, huh, how do I know if I'm actually, like, walking around and carrying a victim mindset myself? Well, really, my book is about, it's funny, I'm trying to get the subtitle changed for the reprint edition. Really, my book is about the science of self-enpowerment.

Right. And a lot of the interviews really do focus on the victimhood part. But really, what I wrote is a book about how to harness the most optimal mindset for your own success, no matter. what you've been through in your life. So yes, it is about overcoming a victim mindset, but I don't want to get so hung up on diagnosing you and figuring out, like, precisely whether or not you have the victim mindset. Look, you know you have the victim. You know that you're stuck.

If you feel stuck in life, you know you're stuck. Right. You know, and there's a whole science. Yeah. Just to push back, is that true? That you don't know. That you really do know. I mean, do you walk around, because do you walk around, is there a voice inside of that everyone who's experiencing this, like where they feel like the world is against him, where they're like, they really know. It's not against him. It's like if I'm the single unifying factor in all these different circumstances as me, or are there folks who walk around? And legitimately, they're like, I really do feel like the world is conspiring against me at every place in my life. And I have no idea why. And like, it's not me.

It's all too easy to slip into that way of thinking. Which is, I think, it's a very human thing. And I want to argue that we all fall, pray to it every now and then. Even throughout the course of our day, we might, you know, find, we're looking for someone to curse. Curse the gods, curse the person in front of us, the car in front of us, whatever. If you're in New York, you're in New York, everyone's cursing each other. And it's a very human thing. I wanted to, this book to not be about, like, just about your ex-boyfriend or it's just about your mother.

It's about our potential to kind of hold ourselves back, also through our own being a victim to ourselves. So you know that you're harnessing this mindset when you, A, you take your emotions way too seriously and you can become a victim to your emotions, I talk about, you know, you identify with them, you feel a little anxiety, and then you think, oh, I'm an anxious person, and that's holding you back. You're becoming, you're victimizing yourself. cognitive distortions as well. There are a whole bunch of ways in which the way that we interpret situations. So, like, give me an example of cognitive distortion. One big one associated with the victim mindset is seeing malevolent intent in ambiguous stimuli, which is a nerdy-ass way.

A nerdy-ass way of saying that you assume the worst about people. Even in situations where you have no information one way or the other, you know, and I think we do that a lot. You know, if, like, we smile at someone, they don't smile back at us. I would say they just have a neutral facial expression. To us, that's an act of aggression. Comedians feel that a lot when they're on stage. Like, even if there's just neutral facial expressions, they feel like that's personal. Right.

It's like the audience is against me. Yeah, but it's very easy to kind of fall prey to and personalize things in our daily life. constantly, if someone doesn't text us back when we want to. You know, we want to have some semblance of control, but we can't really have a control over other humans or, you know, whether or not someone's interested in us, whether or not, you know, there are a lot of things that it's very easy to fall into that victim mindset, right? But it's a lot harder, but more rewarding to not fall into that mindset and to sort of even feel a sense of empowerment over it not affecting you so much at a personal level and being able to handle rejection and being

able to flex those muscles of resiliency where you know when it's a 108 degree day and you're stuck in traffic you don't curse the gods but you think of what you're grateful for in your life that's going well i mean there are so many things that are much more empowering yeah and and i do want to i want to get into the empowerment side of this sure but i do want to linger on this a little bit more also, because I'm trying to really understand the mindset. And also, I want folks joining us to understand that this is one of those, there but for God's grace, go I, and I will be that person at some point, and I may be in and out of it on a regular basis. Rather than saying, I mean, is having a victim mindset a dysfunction? I think that it can lead a dysfunction

in our lives, and that's where I see it. often heading, not in and of itself. In fact, someone asked me a really interesting question the other day. She said, when is it good to have a victim mindset? And I was like, okay, you know what? I like the way you think about this. It's not maybe always bad, but I think that on net, compared to what I call an empowerment mindset, it often leads to a sense of helplessness. It leads to a sense of a lack of agency. It could give us a false sense of harmony in the moments. It could make us feel like we're getting attention that we desperately crave. But it's not authentic connection. It's not long-lasting connection. People tend to, I really believe in

the goodness of humans. I think that when someone signals victimhood, I think that most humans really care about that and they really want to jump in and help. Yeah, that impulse is sort of like the compassionate impulse. Yes. But I also, yes. And I also think. think that humans at the end of the day want to be seen for something deeper than just their victimhood. Does that make sense? Yeah. No, it totally does. I mean, then, like, what does the victim mindset want? Yeah, I think that attention is a big one. Yeah. And I think, and help. You know, sometimes when people have been through terrible things, it's so natural to want to signal, you know, I need resources. I need help. And, and in all.

lot of ways, um, that's a beautiful thing. The victim mindset I make very clear as a generalized mindset. Yeah. So it's not about a specific event that you try to get help for. Right. You know, it's a, it's a, it's a just a total mentality that we could snap into where we suddenly see, we get paranoid. We kind of see the world is against us. Um, it can happen if we are not reaching our goals, um, how we want to. Um, it can, we can, we can feel it, uh, in an instant going on Instagram and you're scrolling and let's see you see like you know Andrew Huberman or someone doing better than you like oh god damn Andrew Huberman do you know what I mean and then you start to get a victim mindset I don't know where that example came from but uh two podcasts you're saying

talk to you pocket right but you know what I mean like it's so much healthier to to catch yourself mindfully going into that headspace and not spiral downward but say huh okay I can see where this is going yeah and instead I'm going to focus my day on what makes me unique what gives what my live most unique center of being is you know what is what is it within what's my unique value proposition in the world you know what can i do um even in the smallest way you know just like call my mom and see how she's doing today like to help me appreciate again that i'm still alive the people i love are alive there's so many things to get out of that it doesn't lead down the best pathway does that make sense yeah i mean so it's really interesting right because the way

you're describing it's like and tell me if this if this makes sense to you sure that within the experience of being a victim or feeling like you were a victim, whether objectively you are or not, that there is a certain energy to that feeling. And we can use that energy to either deepen into a place of stuckness or almost like activation energy to somehow act in a more constructive. Well, I like that. Bring us out of it. Does that make sense?

Yeah, absolutely. And I think being in touch with these different energies through a regular mindfulness practice and non-judgmentally playing around with the different energies. I love, love doing that. I just took a 21-day course by my friend Cory Moscair, who like, I love going to. I can't talk more positively about. And I just took a 21, I take all his classes.

He's like a walking hug with wisdom. I agree. He's one of those wise individuals I've ever known. And I just took this 21-day course on overcoming your compulsions and your addictions. And what I really like about his approach, And it's one that I would like to say is my approach, too, is I believe, an unconditional positive regard, which is Carl Rogers, you know, letting people experience things is valid, non-judgmentally and kind of figure out for themselves what works and what doesn't work. But playing around with different energies is really beneficial. So I practiced playing around with, like, getting into like some things that I feel like I'm afraid I might be having compulsions and kind of seeing how that feels.

and it feels much more restricted, you know, it feels much more, like, my options are limited. But then I started playing around in the space of embracing boredom and started to reframe boredom is actually the greatest source of possibility. You know, starting to love boredom. And when you're in the state of boredom, you're actually in a greater state of possibility than when you're addicted, in your addicted state. And that was a huge insight for me. But I must skip over that because that's what you just said is. I can astonishingly... Mind-blowing.

Actually, mind-blowing. She said that a little bit more. Yeah. When you're in this a compulsive or an addictive state, all your options actually narrow to your system only wanting to reach a very, very narrow goal. Okay. And you suddenly don't care about anything else in this world. And that's not the state of pure possibility, pure bliss, inner peace.

Wanting something so desperately that you can't bear taking your attention away from it is not the path to inner peace. Yeah. And also, like you said, it narrows a field so much that, like, possibilities off the table. Yeah. If there's one thing, one focus, one choice. That's the only thing that you must have. Right. But what's so interesting there is that, like, if you said to somebody, what's the opposite of that, I doubt many people would say boredom.

Right, right. They might say aliveness or excitement. Right, which is more than that, like the next step after boredom. It's a great point. You know, Corey has this example of his girlfriend, or his wife, is now his wife, walking past a bakery. And his wife is Brianna, her name is Brianna. It was like, you know, Corey, let's go in the bakery and not buy anything, but let's smell everything. And in a way, that's boredom.

That's like, oh, that sounds boring. But the more you can kind of live in that space of, hmm, I wonder what that would taste. Sometimes that's more exciting, ultimately, than the feeling you have eating the big donut and all the consequences that come from that afterwards. Sometimes you can actually just, if you just reframe the situation and reframe

what you would typically consider boredom into something else, because I'm reframing boredom. And boredom is getting more excited. Bortem itself is getting more exciting now that I'm reframing it. Yeah. So reframing it as a space where there is no clear direction. There's only possibility. There's no compulsion.

Right. You know what? I could go in that direction. But I also could go in that direction. I'd be equally okay going in that direction. I'd be okay if that direction I didn't go in that direction. I'd be okay with that. And that's a sense of, you know, like, okay, it's boring.

you know, okay, I'm not jumping into anything, you know. But there is a kind of piece that comes along with that that I think is underestimated. Yeah, and a piece that we have all but annihilated from our lives was sort of like digital distracted. It's sort of like the minute we hear, like there's even like a hint of boredom, it's like, what can I reach to sort of like, and we can reach for something all the time, like 24-7 now. 24-7. I mean, but it's a really interesting sort of hypothesis to say that by removing boredom from our experience,

by basically saying every time you're online, every time you're in a stoplight, every time you're in the bathroom, like there's something right there where you're immediately distracting yourself. We're not just sort of treating the anxiety of the moment, but we're actually doing something, which is taking us out of a state

that would open the door to unlimited possibilities. Yes, and I love yes-ending things. And we've become so used to the feeling of anxiety that we treat the absence of anxiety as boredom, but it's not actually boredom. Like, if you actually think about it, it's peace, and we're so uncomfortable with peace.

And I think really kind of changing, it's game-changing if you can shift your relationship to the feeling of peace and not conflate it with boredom, you know. But now when I have a moment where there's not a lot of chaos going on around me, I take a deep breath and I'm like, oh this is good like no i i like this this is what i actually want and um i don't know i think it's

a pretty radical for a lot of people who maybe like me you know have a history of being workaholics you know it's it's a it's a kind of a not kind of it is a better place to live yeah and it's a place that is not really centered or valued it's not value it's like it's like you're bored do something yeah you know like or how could you be bored with so much to do But, you know, like, it really is that. I mean, how would you distinguish between something like boredom and meditation? Meditation for a lot of people is boring. And I think they don't realize that's the point.

They're like, oh, this is boring. I can't do this. And you're actually, it's kind of in a way it's a practice to get comfortable with boredom. It's like you're literally building your boredom muscles, your tolerance of boredom muscles. So you can have greater flexibility to. move in any direction you want. Ultimately, meditation gives you freedom, you know. But it might not seem that way, you know, when you're just sitting there and like you're

thinking all these thoughts around your head, like, oh my God, I could do like this, this, this, this, and this right now as opposed to sitting down and just thinking about it. Yeah. No, that makes a lot of sense. And we'll be right back after a word from our sponsors. I do want to sort of wrap the conversation around the victim mindset and some of the empowerment exploration, too. There are a couple of other things that you talk about in this context.

One is the notion of self-esteem, which is this loaded word in conversation these days. Talk to me about this a bit. Yeah, I don't think it's always such a bad thing to have low self-esteem. That's one thing I talk about in the book is the benefits of low self-esteem. So tell me what. Self-esteem is just how you regard yourself, and it's different than narcissism. Well, narcissism is, I guess, a way of regarding yourself, been a way that is superior to others. High self-esteem is one

when you just feel worthy. You know, I regard myself as worthy. I regard myself as a competent, worthy and competent are the two main aspects of self-esteem. And usually our self-esteem takes a hit when either a social situation happens where we don't feel as worthy in life or we don't reach our goals and then our competence takes a hit. It's usually one of those two things and our self-esteem takes a hit. But as I talk about in that chapter, there are benefits of feeling bad about yourself. We don't... It's very countertude. It's so countertitive, but I would say if people get the reverse, is it always good to feel good about yourself? I think most people are like, actually no. That's the same thing I'm saying, just in the other direction,

but mathematically they equal the same thing. But do you want to protect yourself like a fort at all times where when you legitimately aren't reaching your goals or legitimately hurting someone's feelings, you do all you can to restore that feeling of feeling good about yourself? Is that what you're solving for? Or are you solving for making an impact on the world, for finding the meaning out of the situation, for maybe correcting a wrong you made? You know, a lot of people with this incessant need to be seen in a positive light can't bear the thought of feeling bad about themselves. And that means more to them than making others people feel bad. Do you know what I mean? Yeah. I mean, I mean,

I mean, there's such a social context around all of this also. I remember years ago doing research on the Ellsberg Paradox, where you basically, you know, there are so many versions of it, you know it well. Like, for those who've never heard of it, it's effectively a scenario where you have to make a decision and you assume that there are significant stakes and you don't have enough information.

And, you know, like, and I've seen studies that actually, the MRI studies that show that the amygdala and the brain lights up, so the fear center has really come alive when you sort of like, you have to make decision that tilts you towards uncertainty. But I also saw a version of that, that effectively had the same experiment, and you would make a decision, but people were told in the beginning, no one will ever know what your decision is. You don't have to tell anyone. You have to share it.

Like, you write it down and put it away. There will be zero social context, social stakes at all. It eliminated the bias away from uncertainty. You know, so, which is kind of like it ties into what we're saying here, because, like, It wasn't that people were afraid of making a decision when they didn't have all the information. The stakes were high. It seemed, at least, from the data, that they were afraid of making a decision without good information. Stakes were high, being wrong, and then being socially judged for having made the wrong call.

That's the big one. The social judgment is the big one. The amygdala is an interesting brain region, which is the source of so much debate in the field about what exactly it is, It is four. And people have concluded, there seems to be an merging consensus that it has to do with just emotional significance. Without it, we don't register an emotional significance of something. So, like, cyclopass really don't activate their amygdala that much. I guess that would make sense.

Yeah. Yeah, everything's like, oh, I killed that person. Okay, there's not much emotional significance. There probably should be. Not also like past or zero killers, of course. but yeah. But yeah, so it's an interesting finding. And for people who suffer with neuroticism, where their brains are constantly feeding them negative thoughts and anxiety, they would prefer a certain negative outcome over an uncertain outcome that could be good. They can't stand the uncertainty. Yeah. Yeah, they just want to know. Either way. Even if it's bad.

I'd rather have that. They prefer the devil, you know. Right. Huh. Yeah. I mean, it kind of makes sense. And I think probably anyone joining us now has been that person.

Yeah. I would hope. You know, it's like nobody's immune. I hope we don't have too many psychopaths listening. No. One of the other things you tease out in the context of this, and then we'll bounce over to the empowerment side, is this notion of meaning to please other people.

Yes. And, of course, nobody's experienced that before. Oh, man. And this is just such a tough one. For kind, empathetic humans, this is an eternal struggle. And one that there's no quick fix, and I don't think there should be a quick fix, because those who try to do the quick fix, you'll see an overcompensation effect where, like, no more Mr. Nice guy, you know. And it's like, I'm sick of people pleasing, and they become an asshole. And that's not the way.

That's not the answer. But you are people pleasing whenever you're totally putting your own needs aside for someone else in a way that causes you harm. You know, you're allowed to stand up for yourself. You're allowed to have healthy assertiveness. I called healthy selfishness, actually, in the book. I think a lot of people, people pleasing tendencies could learn some of the tools of healthy selfishness, not feel like they're always being selfishness. when they're just taking care of themselves. Yeah.

And there is a, again, social context, right? Yeah. There's so much cultural stuff. So much. Around the orientation of like, you're just doing that for you. Yeah. There are a lot of sheds. At a time like this also, it's like, seriously.

There are a lot of shoulds. Yeah, like, you probably get tons of requests. And do you ever feel bad, like, saying no? to request, even though you just know you don't have the time for it. I mean, you're allowed to just be in charge of your own schedule. Yeah. I mean, it's interesting. And this has been a journey for me, and I would imagine for you as well. You know, I've been doing this. I've been public facing in some way, shape, or form for, you know, like the two decades or so now. Amazing. And yeah, you do have a lot of folks who are like, they resonate with something that

you might share, a way that you see the world, or a piece of insight or information. And there's a sense that maybe that person can help me. And it's a really interesting phenomenon to have people who you don't know reach out to you and say, like, I'm in need. And I feel like something you shared really made a difference for me. It landed for me.

Is there any way that I could, XYZ, we could work together. What I get a lot is, hey, can we put 10 minutes on a Zoom call so I can pick your brain? Yeah. And that's a trigger for me. And it's a beautiful,

because you would love to be able to say yes to all of that. you know and it's a like it is a real privilege and a blessing to be in a position yes and it's also a trigger right so how do you handle that now like do you are are you when you say it's a trigger like do you still have an emotional rate i haven't yeah i feel a great conflict great inner conflict um which maybe is okay if that if the feeling never goes away you know because then maybe you reach a state of indifference and i'm not convinced i ever want to reach a state of indifference to human my fellow humans but um there is like this feeling of like you know uh my mom not to go to a real psychoanalytic level but you know like her oh just call me honey

whenever you want all i want is 10 minutes of your time it's never only 10 minutes of my time you know it's like energetically i have to experience that and then and then the conversation usually goes on and then i once i made it i feel bad to say like hey i really have to go now i really have to go now I keep saying it over and over again. I have to go now. And so that was a little bit of a trauma for me, you know, is kind of feeling trapped, right, in a situation where I can't go. I can't leave a conversation. And so it's hard, you know, with complete strangers.

I don't have any, I mean, where's the trust there, you know? Like, I don't know who you are at all, you know. So, I mean, I try to help as much as I can through email. Yeah. I'm like, hey, ask me your question through email. Like, do you have to talk to me? Yeah, and I think it's also, I found it really helpful, maybe anyone joining us, to be fairly public about your boundaries. You know, I remember literally, you know, like I write a substack and I wrote a piece and it generated a lot of comments.

And in a subsequent piece, somebody wrote in the comments, hey, you know, like, if you really care so much, why didn't you answer my comment in that last piece? And I was like, you know, like an arrow through my heart, I was like, oh, am I a terrible person? Like, wow, like, I didn't answer that person. am I? But then I also, like, I'm very clear at this point that, you know, I have a general policy. So I don't make sort of like, my general policy is if I'm offering something on a platform, and that platform also happens to have functionality for direct messaging to me, just because that functionality exists doesn't mean that I need to make that another door into my psyche. And I make that just an across-the-board policy. And I actually, I respond.

it in the comment has said, listen, I completely understand your feelings. Thank you so much for sharing it. I really honor that and appreciate it. I want you to understand more clearly just how I approach this, you know, because honoring my own personal, like, commitments and responsibilities and also my commitment to making and creation and offering is so strong and it takes all of my time. I've just created a very clear universal boundary that I don't respond to DMs and to messages. And it's not, it's not even you. It's not, I don't even see. see it. So I hope you understand that. And maybe even invite you to explore, like, do you have a similar surely policy or boundary? This person was actually appreciative. I just, thank you. Like, I understand, I understand and I agree. And now I understand it wasn't personal also. That's what you're doing is depersonalizing that for people. You know, that's beautiful. I think that, was it Oliver Berkman who said that? Yeah, that's the best way to do it, is create a general rule and make it very clear to people, that's your general rule. And so everyone knows what's up. That's that's the best you can do. But, you know, some people really do just take the path of

just saying as their general rule, they're like, look, I'm an asshole, you know. And there's actually a certain freedom in that, you know, just saying, you know what, I'm not what you all want me to be in this world and take it or leave it. And there's a certain attraction to that way of being as well that I, you know, I don't want to roll that out. You're being really nice and polite, but I'm like, you know, maybe I'll try experiment in a year, the year of being an asshole, and write a book about it, that experience. I feel like that's something my friend, you know A.J. Jacobs? Yeah. Yeah, I feel like that's something he would do. I could tell us. The year of being an asshole, but I think it could be kind of fun. There's a certain kind of freedom there. I mean, it is interesting, just getting crystal clear and seeing how people respond.

But it's also a really interesting task, right? Because what you're effectively saying to people is, is the value that I'm able to offer you? Because I'm really focusing on doing the work and then sharing, like, what I do, is that enough alone to give you something that's worthy? Even if you know that, like, there's no other access beyond that. So it's an interesting experiment to run. I think a lot of people would probably want to run something like that. They might not call it my year of being an asshole. But effectively, it's like the same thing.

But that'd make a good TED talk, wouldn't it? It probably would, actually. And we'll be right back after a word from our sponsors. Good Life Project is sponsored by Nutra Falls. You know, there's something powerful about seeing a product make a real difference in someone's life. When my wife Stephanie started using Nutra Falls' women's balance formula, I just noticed how it transformed not just her hair, but her whole sense of confidence. And after watching her journey over the past five years,

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For a limited time, NutraFal is offering our listeners $10 off your first month subscription and free shipping when you go to NutraFall.com and enter the promo code Good Life. Find out why NutraFall is the best-selling hair grill supplement brand at NutraFol.com that's spelled N-U-T-R-A-F-O-L dot com promo code Good Life. That's Nutrafall.com promo code Good Life. Let's kind of turn the page a little bit to the empowerment side. Yeah. We talked about the victim mindset and some of the contributors that go into this. Yeah.

The things that raise our head. and you said early on you're like this is really about empowerment so there's data within the context of this experience within that experience of a victim mindset that we can turn around and use as that activation energy um you know so some of the things that you talk about it and it's just like you describe this finding the light within um it's kind of like the opening move here so take me into this um well there are parts of us that aren't broken and i think that if we focus so much in our victimhood we can not get in touch with those parts of our side you know, in a lot of ways where you put your attention is where you put your life, right? And a lot of people really identify so strongly, like, oh, my trauma, my trauma when I was two. And that's their overarching thing for how they live and experiences, whenever they're interpreted, they're interpreting everything through that lens. If they're thinking, oh, don't want to go on this trip to, no, I can't fly my trauma when I was two. And so, okay, well, do you have any parts of you, any character strengths that, uh, maybe

that are craving exploration. Are parts of you that values creativity, values meaning? Are you letting those parts of you suffer by only focusing on this small part of you? It's not all of you, you know?

And so that's what I mean by that, finding the light within. And there's some cool examples. The Atman brothers and their friend Gonzalez go around to schools where a lot of these kids under-surfed communities are really ridden off and just date the kids themselves probably feel in a lot of ways broken. And he teaches them yoga.

They teach them yoga and mindfulness techniques. And they start to feel good about themselves. They start to realize that they have resiliency. They have coping skills. They have a future. You know, it's in some ways my book, is kind of a response to a cultural kind of sense of helplessness I see in a lot of even underserved communities, you know, minorities, you know, I, you know, and I try to make clear I believe in the

higher potential of all people, regardless of your skin color or where you came from, you know, and I think the more we can kind of give people hope, the better. Yeah, I mean, the notion of helplessness is really interesting also. So I think, you know, we're having this conversation at a moment in culture in the world where... It's a moment. We're going through a moment, man. We are. And I think a lot of people are looking out and they're, like, the feeling of helplessness has probably never been higher for so many people.

They're looking at it and they're like, this is so big. This is so heavy. This is so complex. What can I do? Like, I'm literally, there's nothing that I can do to make a difference to, like, and there's this feeling of helplessness. And... you don't always have to do something either. So tell, yeah, tease that out.

Your value in this world is not always tied up one to one with what you're doing in the world to help others. I mean, I think we need to get rid of that mindset. I saw once, I forget what it was, but someone said the real key to life is find ways to have joy and find ways to bring joy to others. And I'm like, down with, I actually like that. I mean, you know, you can watch one of these bro podcasters and feel like your life is crap because you haven't gotten up at five in the morning and that you didn't like do that you know 50,000 burpees by nine yeah sure you can feel like crap about yourself but I'm not convinced they haven't figured it out even as though they think they haven't figured out I'm not convinced that's the key to life

you know I think the key to life is experiencing it life to be grateful for the consciousness that we've been given to be grateful for others who are on this planet with us and who are you know who are we're all in this together you know um and And that feeling of helplessness sometimes comes from a false sense that you can only feel hopeful to the extent to which you're tackling your goals. But not everything in life is goal-oriented and needing to be goal-oriented in order. That's a very masculine, you know, it really is. So tell me the alternative to a goal-driven life. Yeah, or to just like the alternative approach to helplessness.

Like if it's not about what do I do to remove this feeling of helplessness from me? Like, how do I reframe that? What experiences do I want to create for myself today and for those around me? What kind of feeling do I want to? How do I want to show up? And what kind of energy? If I'm going down the streets to the coffee shop, what frame of mind do I want to be in when I enter this coffee shop? Do I want to be on the lookout or have an openness for connection for, for,

um for bringing some sort of joy to someone i mean i um i recently took up magic uh a mentalism and i saw that on your website nice nice it's a thing it's a real thing it's like i'm so into it and the reason why i'm into it and i almost feel like it's like the thing i'm most excited about these days is because no matter how crappy my day is or whatever is going on wherever i go i have something in my pocket that can bring someone joy you know um you know and and whatever it is whatever you have in your pocket to bring others joy or bring yourself joy amidst the crap of life. I mean, I think that's what it's all about. So I really do kind of want to push back against this this bro goal-oriented, crushing it culture that makes people feel as though

their value is only tied up to how many things they've checked off their to-do list. And if that makes it a little, me a little controversial for saying that, so be it. I'll work on my people-pleasing skills, but that's where I feel aligned these days. Yeah, I mean, that lands well with me also. Like, I love, like, I have big things on my list. You know, there are big aspirations that I want. And at the same

time, you know, I love sitting on my front porch when I can catch the sunrise and just sort of like, see that first glimmer of light and hear like the birds started to come alive in the background. And then you realize this is life. Yeah. This is life. Right. Life doesn't exist in the

trying to reach my goals. Right. It's like all the doing basically land me back in that seat, being able to do the exact same thing. It's like, huh. Like, where it is life, really, really, you know? Yeah, it's not out there. It's like not the thing that happens after the big thing. You know, it's every moment along the way, as cliche as that is. I guess there's a reason that people keep repeating it to generations.

You brought up something also, and this is in the book as well. It's this notion of not just having one self. I think the phrasing was a symphony of selves. Yeah, I'm glad you brought that up. I glad you brought that up. What is Walt Woodman has a phrase like if I contain multitudes?

Do I contain multitudes? Yeah, I contain multitudes. Like, what are you going to do about it? It is what it is. And this idea or notion that we have a real self, I really want to challenge that. Some spiritual, you know, self-help space are like, get in touch with your real self.

I mean, I think it's all real, But I think we have certain aspects of ourselves that feel more centered, grounded, alive. There's a fertile soil there for growth. And I think we have other sides of ourself that feel like it's entering like a black pit, maybe of despair. But also addictions, I think, is entering a black, it's a black pit of greed in a way. You constantly need that thing, get that thing, that thing, it's a greedy feeling, you know? But, you know, like I said, we talked about the story. playing with the different energies of your different selves, and finding the cells, they're

like, oh, I like being there, and working, committing to living a life where you're there as often as possible, I think it's a life well lived. Where do you land then in the kind of, is there like, I feel like the hot thing in therapy for probably the last five, ten years or so, has been IFS, internal family systems, parts work. A lot of people really like it. I've talked to a number of people who are sort of like in that space. A lot of people really like it. What do you think is going on there?

And interestingly enough, I'm currently seeing a therapist who specializes in IFS. Yeah, yeah. So what's your take? I mean, does that tie into what we're talking about here? Is that something entirely different? I think it's relevant. I do. I do think it's relevant.

And Dick Schwartz, the originator of IFS, has been in my podcast and did a session with me about my fear of women. About this particular thing happened to me in summer camp where this woman, in age 12, this girl rejected me. and made me really shy talking to women. Anyway, he did this, like, he got in touch with that part. I think there's a lot of wisdom there. I think it's also important to recognize that this, this IFS isn't that scientifically validated. It's not that well accepted amongst, like, the, you know, serious scientists, just because it hasn't been tested rigorously and scientifically,

but there's got to be something there. When you look at the way that it resonates with people who go through it, Even me, even me, you know, when Dick Schwartz did it with me on my show, I felt like I wanted to cry. I felt like I released. I wanted to release that self once and for all. What I also like about it is it is so in line with a lot of other traditions. So this notion of facing your beautiful monsters, which is a very Buddhist kind of concept, But Rinpoche has wrote a book about that, and doing the handshake practice with your beautiful.

I see it associated with that. If you can really make deep contact and really try to understand and wrap your head around what a particular self wants, what is it really asking for? What is it really craving and not being scared of it and not being scared of that self and even treating it with tenderness? there is a real softening of it and a wholeness feeling that you can have. So, yeah, I like it. Yeah. I mean, it's interesting, right? Because, you know, the fundamental, if I understand it properly, like, the fundamental idea with parts work is that, you know, like, we are made up of a whole bunch of different parts.

And those parts have different jobs. And often they feel like those jobs have set in motion when we were little kids, you know, when something happened to us, like, ooh, I need to go protect you. And that forms a pattern that just kind of stays with you for life. It was like the fireman. Right, yeah, exactly. You know, and so we have all these little parts running around us with roles that have been assigned, like oftentimes, like, decades before, and they're still doing them, even though our life is very different. Our circumstances are different, yet they're still in there fighting the fight. But my curiosity, which kind of wraps it around to this conversation, too, is like, what is the part that is aware of all of those other parts?

I have this conversation with Corey all the time, all the time. I want to think this through in a different way. You know, Dick is very big in saying we all have multiple personalities, and that's a big part of all this. But I actually think that that's not true for everyone. There are people who've done the work in such a way that I think they're really well integrated, and I don't think they have all these different parts that are constantly pulled them in different directions. I actually see a great, like, consistency of who they are. And it's very clear, you know, what that sort of, whatever that unitary self is, that is the, we'll call it another part.

Dick would say, that's just another part, the integrator. Okay, fine. Hey, I know that's what he would say. And that's fine. Okay, if that's what we want to say, it's just another part that's the integrator. But I see some people who are more in touch with that meta, the meta part than they are with the lower order parts. And I want to be like those people. So I want to study those people.

And I think what's really interesting about them is that they hear the other parts. They hear, they're like, I see you, I hear you, but I have no desire to engage further with it. And just talking to people who, I've sought out people who I think are great, they have a real clear unified self, a real sense of mission, purpose. They're like, I'm not going to mess this up. I think Kobe Bryant was like that maybe later in his life, you know. he's, you know, he's like, I'm just going to do every, I'm going to get, you know, put away all the crap, you know, maybe the bad sides of me and just go all in on what the part that, the part that I really want to engage in the most frequently. And we think of lots of other examples. That name came up to me because I knew him personally in middle school and high school.

I mean, it's interesting, right, because their, this word equanimity has really been in and out of my life a lot lately. Yeah, I love this. I love it. And I think a lot of times, if you're familiar with the word, like, we tend to define it as finding a way to find center and to be a piece no matter what's happening around you without the need to grasp and control it. But I think part of what's going on here also is, and again, that's probably just my overlay here.

I can't sort of like really define it in a detailed way. But part I think the conversation is here, like that person who's really able to touch equanimity on a consistent basis, maybe it's not just about the external circumstance. It's about like, okay, so there are these other pieces of me, there are these parts of me, and they feel like they have jobs to do also, and I see you, and, and cool, like, good on you. And I'm still going to just sit here and breathe and be okay. Like, it's the internal and the external that equanimity is about, not just being okay with the circumstances of the world around you.

How does that land? Well, it's got to be the internal and the external. No, I think that that's got to be right. Yeah. Earlier in our conversation, and this is something that you, you like you come to in the empowerment conversation too is this notion of I don't know if it's being of service of gratitude

like finding things that you're actually like put you in a state of gratitude and generosity when you're in experiencing a victim mindset how does this help grateful I like to refer to gratefulness rather than gratitude gratitude is something that you can that you have to wait for something to happen to you

And then be like, oh, I'm so great. I have so much gratitude for this. But gratefulness is an orientation towards life. No matter what happens to you, you can kind of see, well, how does this, what's the upside here? What can I learn from the situation? What can I still be grateful for even amongst? I just made up a word amidst this am amongst. I always invent words that are silly.

There's all this chaos. my friend, Christy Nelson, wrote a wonderful book called Wake Up Grateful, which is about her journey with stage four cancer and how she was committed to still waking up grateful every day, regardless of the uncertainty and the fear she had about her life and what she was still going to be grateful for. So I think that harnessing that practice takes you away from a victim mindset. You're not, if you get yourself caught up in this,

this mindset, you know you're going down a path that doesn't lead to hope, doesn't lead to connection with others, you know, take a pause and enter a different way, a gratefulness mindset. And you can enter a gratefulness mindset like that. It could be as simple as you catch yourself going down the mental pathway. Oh, I have to do this today. I have to do that today. I have to do that today. God, let's curse my assistant for adding that to my schedule. And then you go, you know what? No, no, nope, nope. Let me think, I get to do that.

I get to do that. I get to do that. Oh, my gosh, I get to help at 7 p.m. tonight. I get to have that on my counter and help that person. And in an instant, you've shifted into a different mindset. So I think it's possible. And I mean, I wouldn't have thought so if I didn't write this book. Yeah.

Yeah. And I love how simple things like that are. Because, like, a lot of times you're like, okay, so what's the technique, the process, the strategy? Like, give me the whole method. Salt talk. right and it's like literally change a word yeah yeah yeah it's like oh wait but then you hear something like that you're like it can't be that easy try it you'll see it is that easy right because people are just like if it's that simple it's it couldn't possibly make a difference

and I love the fact that you're saying here saying naturally it does but totally does tension no somebody's finding themselves now in this victim mindset um is there sort of like an easy first step in like you're sitting here or you're listening you're like oh wait this is me yeah like everything i'm hearing right now this is absolutely landing in a way that i kind of wish it wasn't good i would say awesome right and and then what would you say and then yeah i mean it's great that you have that self-awareness and now try to be more mindful of when like catch yourself when you start to enter this mindset you know we've defined find it pretty well in this episode and think to yourself, okay, I am way personalizing

this situation. Am I, or even ask yourself, am I overly personalizing this thing that happened to me? Is this really, am I overgeneralizing this? I know that, you know, this, I got turned down by something, you know, or like a job opportunity or a person, but am I over generalizing to think that like everyone's going to turn to me down? Yeah, I probably am. you know like just like challenge yourself and you'll realize that that gives you a greater sense

of agency yeah challenge yourself to be better in a gentle way what do you say in a chat away not a aggressive dog and scoggins yeah um yeah and even that like what we're just talking about literally like can you change a word in the sentence that like takes you from a place of like obligation or lament to a get you know um like is there a grateful like something where you can just look around or look inside and be like yeah like i appreciate that um even though like i'm not in love with what just happened in this moment there's something like and maybe you can even like tell a different story about it in the moment's like huh and also i find in it in a cheeky way i like to lower my

expectations about life yeah i have a section of my chapter of chapter one the interest says warning you might have a case of life right look you know You know, if you think that you're supposed to be happy all the time or that, like, if you're feeling anxiety, that that's an indication you have to immediately go to a therapist and get medicine, as opposed to like, okay, I'm feeling a human emotion now. Okay, I'm feeling another human emotion now. In 10 minutes, I'm going to feel a completely different human emotion. Or traffic sucks or this. It'll get better, you know. There's a very Buddhist thing there, obviously, about impermanence and everything changes. But also, there's a point here about not identifying so much with these things. now and forever. Yeah, I love that. It feels like a good place for us to come full circle as well. So I've asked you this question in the past, but I'll ask it again.

It's years later in this container of a good life project. If I offer up the phrase to live a good life, what comes out. I wonder how I answered it before. But now I would probably say, I want to repeat what I said earlier. I think living a good life is finding ways to experience joy and to share that joy. with others.

Thank you. Yeah. I think it maybe has changed a little bit. Yeah. I'm going to look back and check it myself. Yeah. Awesome. Thanks, man.

Thank you. We're all set. Woo-hoo. Hey, if you love this episode, a safe bet you'll also love the conversation we have with Bray Brown about embracing vulnerability to fuel creative growth. You can find a link to that episode in the show notes. This episode of Good Life Project was produced by executive producers, Lindsay Fox and me,

Jonathan Fields, editing, help by Alejandro Ramirez and Troy Young, Christopher Carter crafted our theme music. And of course, if you haven't already done so, please go ahead and follow Good Life Project in your favorite listening app or on YouTube too. If you found this conversation interesting or valuable and inspiring, chances are you did because you're still listening here. Do me personal favor. A seventh second favor. Share it with just one person. I mean, if you want to share it with more, that's awesome too, but just one person even. Then invite them to talk with you about what you've both discovered, to reconnect and explore ideas that really matter,

because that's how we all come alive together. Until next time, I'm Jonathan Fields, signing off for Good Life Project.