Know Thyself - E11 - Dr. Scott Barry Kaufman: The Psychology of Self Actualization

Episode Date: September 13, 2022

Psychologist, Dr. Scott Barry Kaufman, reveals the path of authentic self actualization in life. He shares his story of discovering his genius, after going through most of school labeled as "special ed" - reminding us that our gifts don't always fit in the traditional boxes we are told they should. He dives deep today on growth mindset, healthy self esteem, and defining purpose in life. To help us understand on a psychology level, the true journey of Knowing Thyself.   ___________ Timecodes: 0:00 Intro 2:03 From Special Ed to Psychologist  12:05 Choose Growth 19:54 Gratefulness & Expectation  23:48 Mundane moments  29:03 Defining Narcissism  35:13 Healthy Self Esteem  48:20 Understand your strengths 50:08 Purpose & Clarity 1:00:26 Self actualization  1:07:18 Authentic transcendence  1:09:29 To Know Thyself  1:19:08 Yes, and… 1:21:50 Tapping into our creativity 1:24:40 Conclusion ___________ Dr. Scott Barry Kaufman   Scott Barry Kaufman is a cognitive scientist and humanistic psychologist exploring the mind, creativity, and the depths of human potential. He is a professor at Columbia University and founder and director of the Center for the Science of Human Potential. Dr. Kaufman has taught at Columbia University, Yale, NYU, the University of Pennsylvania, and elsewhere.   Dr. Kaufman hosts the #1 psychology podcast in the world— The Psychology Podcast— which has received over 20 million downloads and was included in Business Insider’s list of “9 podcasts that will change how you think about human behavior.” Dr. Kaufman is interested in using his research to help all kinds of minds live a creative, fulfilling, and self-actualized life. His early educational experiences made him realize the deep reservoir of untapped potential of students, including bright and creative children who have been diagnosed with a learning disability. In 2015, he was named one of “50 groundbreaking scientists who are changing the way we see the world” by Business Insider.   Dr. Kaufman likes to share his enthusiasm and knowledge of the science of potential through his books, teaching, self-actualization coaching, podcast, blog, articles, and speaking engagements. If you’d like him to speak at one of your events, you can make a request here.   Dr. Kaufman’s writing has appeared in The Atlantic, Scientific American, Psychology Today, and Harvard Business Review, and he is the author and editor of 9 books.   Website: https://scottbarrykaufman.com Podcast: https://scottbarrykaufman.com/podcast/ Self-Actualization Tests: https://scottbarrykaufman.com/selfactualizationtests/ Books: https://scottbarrykaufman.com/books/ ___________   Know Thyself Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/knowthyself/ Website: https://www.knowthyself.one Clips Channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCJ4wglCWTJeWQC0exBalgKg   Listen to all episodes on Audio:  Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/4FSiemtvZrWesGtO2MqTZ4?si=d389c8dee8fa4026 Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/know-thyself/id1633725927     André Duqum Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/andreduqum/   Meraki Media https://merakimedia.com https://www.instagram.com/merakimedia/See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

There's only one version of the best version of you that's possible to be created in this world and that you're the only one that can create it. Yeah. That's it. I also ask this question, like, what would you even mean to self-actualize someone else's self? How often do we give ourselves the time to savor and to really appreciate where we've come in our lives? We spend so much time focusing on where we need to go. Hello, beautiful humans.

Welcome back to the Know Thyself podcast where every single week we had the privilege and opportunities sit down with a brilliant mind who can help us. live a more liberated human experience. Today, my guest is Dr. Scott Barry Kaufman. He is a very fascinating individual. I'm really excited to dive into this conversation today. He is somebody that is a professor at Columbia University. He is a founder and director at the Center for Human Potential. He is somebody that had various different challenges and learning difficulties early in his life that led him down this passion and curiosity of human potential, what it means to become a transcendent human being, what does it mean to know yourself? And he's a host of the psychology

podcast. He is a coach. He does various talks and seminars and courses. And he is releasing a new book that is available now called Choose Growth. And today we're going to be talking about all the various different aspects of what it means to choose growth, why to choose growth, the different facets of the diamond of becoming a transcendent human being, finding our strengths, our values, clarifying our purpose in life, and how to then go from there and live a more liberated human experience.

So first off, Scott, welcome to the podcast. Thank you. I'm excited to be here. Yeah, thanks for being here, man. Yeah. It's been fun getting to know you a little bit. We went and got lunch probably, what was it, a year ago at the beach. It's crazy. How time flies. Time flies, yeah.

it's in preparation reading your book and getting to study some of your material. First off, I would actually like to start with your story because I think that you, you know, the work that you have and the wisdom that you put out and the books that you write, it's very inspirational and can really assist people in living a more liberated human experience. But for you, it's been a journey getting to that place, you know, and it's still a constant journey. But I think most people would be, you know, really interested to hear a little bit, of your background. So if you can...

I appreciate the question. You know, it's funny about journeys because we have lots of journeys in our life, right? And this was a journey that happened from age zero to about 18, about 21, you know, that story. And now I'm on a different journey.

So when people ask me to tell that story of that journey, I think it's really interesting because I've actually reinterpreted that story and I've kind of thought about it differently over the years. So I can talk a little bit about it and then kind of explain how I've kind of thought about it a little bit differently.

Yeah, please. For the first couple years of my life, I was essentially deaf. I had a lot of fluid in my ears. It made it very hard for me to hear things in a real time. So the school system, for instance, I was very slow. And that teachers interpreted that as I was stupid. And bullies interpreted that as I was stupid. And I was getting that message from everywhere that, you know, I was not a very smart individual.

And I was bullied a lot. And I kind of kept it myself. and had a rich imagination that no one saw. Like I would go home and I would like write, I would do creative writing. I would write like stories like about time travel and stuff. And I would act out soap opera plot lines in my head. And every day it would be like to be continued.

I was like the leading man, you know. It's like six. It's kind of weird in my fantasy. And you know, when I was really young, I was like, and then to be continued tomorrow. And I had this rich fantasy life I'd just build up by myself and no one saw all or anything, this creativity. But I was kept in special education actually until ninth grade

because of this auditory disability I had. It was called Central Auditor Processing Disorder, which I eventually outgrew. And then after I outgrew it, I got anxiety as a result of that because, you know, how else would someone act if people treated them like they were incapable of anything? And then they said, like, oh, we got to still keep him in special ed because he's anxious all the time.

It's like, well, you all created that situation. So you're not helping the matter at all. So I was kept in there until ninth grade. when there was this really pivotal moment where this special ed teacher, who had never seen me before, she was covering for the regular teacher, she took me aside after class, and she said, I think I see you.

And I was like a really, I was like, freaking out. What is she saying? And she's like, I think, you know, I see her frustration. And I was wondering why you're still here, you know. And in my head, I was thinking myself, why am I still here? Why am I still? And it turned quickly into like, yeah, why am I?

I still here and I think I wanted someone to ask me that question and I didn't know until that moment that I needed someone asking that question to like trigger this whole transformation and I just ran out of the pay phones I felt this like moment of inspiration I ran the painful I called my mom was like I'm not going to return to special ed tomorrow and she's like what's going on and you know I made like all these um I made him had a meeting with the whole school district because no one's ever uh tried to break out a special ed before like the student themselves you know right The student's not allowed to talk. Right.

So it was a really big deal, and they let me out on a trial basis. They were like, yeah, if you felt your classes, you're going right back in. I was like, thanks for the vote of confidence. I appreciate that. That was a joke because there was no vote of confidence. So I got out, and I just signed up for everything. I was just fascinated to see what I was capable of doing. And I realized I loved learning.

I loved music. My grandfather was a cellist in the Philadelphia Orchestra, and he was retired at that point. And I just went right up to him. And I said, well, you teach me how to play cello. I want to be in the school orchestra. And we must have practiced like eight, nine hours. I must have practiced eight nine hours a day over the summer.

Wow. And it was really intense. And I joined the orchestra and started shifting from everyone having low expectations to me to like people starting to have high expectations for me. And it was like mind boggling how you can like cause a gestalt shift in people's consciousness. We're like, oh, I thought he was dumb. to like, oh, he's brilliant. It's like, which is it, folks?

Make up your mind. Yeah, wow. So interesting. It's like so wild how you can just by virtue of having a simple reflection from somebody that allows you to see something deeper within yourself. And you're like, yeah, I've actually, I do have these curiosities. I do feel like there is more and then it allows you to tap into. So like how, as you've grown on your journey, how have you shifted how you view that time

in that period of your life? Yeah. So I think I used to have. this kind of mentality of like oh i'm going to prove them wrong you know i think i had this under is the underdog motivation can be a really powerful motivation yeah so i don't want to like denigrate the motivation itself because i think a lot of people go from this underdog mentality uh or to like you know i'm going to just show how wrong they all are and then like but that shouldn't be your leading motivation for growth you know throughout your life so it really got me to a point where it got me in a college it got me i

persevered. There's a lot more to the story that I, you know, we don't have time. We don't have all day. Two minutes. But real quick, I applied to Carnegie Mell University for psychology, and I wrote my personal essay that we need to redefine intelligence and the standard metrics of intelligence. And they rejected me. I don't think my SAT scores were high enough to redefine the standard metrics of intelligence,

which is so funny. So I did audition for the opera program there. I went through my music talent. And I did get accepted and I persevered. So that kind of, again, I was like, I want to prove them wrong. You know, and like that was a motivation. I think it did get me through. But how I've thought about it more recently is I don't think for lifelong growth,

staying in that kind of vulnerability mentality is really the best route to growth. And so I'm really happy that there was a point where I shifted, my motivation shifted more towards just like humanitarian concerns. and I want to help others who had similar things happen as opposed to the main motivation being, you know, like, like, I will have the last laugh. You know, like, you know. And I think that it was a really good shift in my motivation.

Amazing. And then you, where did the desire to dive deeper into psychology come in place there? Yeah, I think I've always been interested in psychology. That's something really interesting. Because when I look back at my reports at age like 10, They say, when you grow up, when Scott grows up, he wants to be dot to dot, and I wrote an academic PhD psychologist.

So I think there was some seed in me for psychology. I mean, so my parents tell me this. I don't know if this is true, but my mom and my grandmom always used to argue in the front seat of the car. They always just argue all the time. And there's one day where they're arguing the front seat of the car, and I had not talked up to that point, and I was in the back seat of the car. And apparently I said something like, guys, guys,

what grandmom's trying to say. is blah, blah, blah. And then I turned to my mom's like, or I turned to grandma. I was like, well, my mom's trying to say, can you both, like, cut it out? You know, like, and they're like shocked. Yeah, yeah. I don't know, I've always been fascinated with individual differences. I remember why are the gifted kids, you know, who are the gifted kids?

I remember thinking myself and what makes the kids a special ed diametrically opposed to gifted? Why are they ungifted? These questions I was obsessed with in young. I used to take IQ tests all the time just out of curiosity, and I'd only save the ones that had a good score. Yeah, yeah. Amazing. So getting to this point now, I mean, you've written many books

and choose growth, which is now available to check out. What was the impetus? Obviously, in this post-pandemic era where a lot of people have been going through various different challenges, you know, you on your own journey have been given the opportunity many times to choose growth, right? And it's such a beautiful framework and to believe that you can choose. It is a choice. And so what was the impetus to writing this book?

And then we can begin to go from there. Sure. Well, I wrote this book, Transcend, which was my prior book before Choose Growth. And in that, I reimagined Mazel's hierarchy of needs. And I have this whole sailboat metaphor, you know, that there are various different, the integration is important, not the levels. Like, life's not a video game. Like, a lot of people think about Mazel's hierarchy of needs. Like, you need your safety.

I mean, sure, safety is important. Don't get me wrong. But, you know, it's not like a, you know, you're not allowed to, it's not like you're not allowed to work in your higher needs until you, you know, eat. Right. Although sometimes it may feel that way when you're really hungry. But, yeah, and so that was my prior framework. And then for Choose Growth, I decided to pair this. I co-authored it with a superstar.

Her name is Jordan Feingold. She was my student at Penn when I was teaching there a long time ago. And now she's, she created a new field called Positive Medicine. and she just got her MD, and she's created this new field of positive medicine. How can we bring into health care treating patients as humans? And that aspect, you know, which is something that's often left out in health care. Actually, you know, how many doctors care about the happiness of their patients, you know,

as opposed to their physical health. So I paired up with her. I said, hey, you want to write the book to really figure out a way of making a lot of the ideas and transcend really practical. And also the pandemic happened between transcend and that book. So we're like, let's help people through this time using a lot of those principles. So we, yeah, we talk a lot about the field of post-traumatic growth. And what you can do when you have faced hardships to grow as opposed to kind of stay in that mentality your whole life.

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Can you break down a little bit of the framework? Because I think most people would be surprised to first off in the Maslow's hierarchy, needs that people see the triangle and learn from you that it maslo actually never talked about there being a triangle that's true um and i love this framework of the sailboat and can you give a depiction of really what that is like what's in the sail what's in the boat and how that kind of integrates together sure sure um so a lot of people might have be familiar with the traditional hierarchy of needs you know it's a pyramid um you have need for safety need for connection need for um self-esteem and

then boop you go up to self-actualization you know like this do do do do do but he never drew maso never drew a pyramid when i really started to study the writings of masel i realized that his the way he's his thinking of all this was very different than it's the way it's depicted he's even is thinking about self-actualization and everything was very different than way it's been depicted he really focused on the fact that we have deficiency needs yeah and we have growth needs or being being needs if you want to really uh be cool about it it. B, B needs. Yeah. And when you have D needs, so D needs and B needs. And the D needs have a different flavor than the B needs. So when you're in the kind of deficiency realm of human existence, everything

in the world in your perceptional view has to do with like what extent will it help me not be deficient in it. So if you're hungry, you know, you're basically screaming to the world, feed me. You're trying to change the world to fit your deprivations. If you're lonely, you know, people can feel that right everyone you meet you're like desperate you're like you know please love me please you know can I belong um if you're really well in self-esteem you demand respect right you're like I demand respect you know that usually comes from the ones that have low self-esteem right yeah but the point there is that if you can satisfy and those are and really important things to satisfy right and a lot of people all of us to some degree are deficient in those things not like there's any super human um but if you can satisfy them

so they're not playing such a role in your consciousness and in driving your life. You can enter this being realm of human existence where you really focus on exploration, you focus on creativity, you focus on your calling or your purpose, and then, God forbid, transcendence. That's a whole other topic, which maybe you want to talk about today. Absolutely. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But there are different realms of existence, and I think we all intuitively can understand what it feels like to be in one or the other, you know. Yeah. Oh yeah, so my cellboat model.

Do you want to know about my cell boat? Yeah, yeah. So my cell model really wanted to reflect that difference between those two realms. So if you think about a sailboat, you have the boat, which, you have the boat, which is the, if too much, too many holes in the boat, it'll sink, obviously. So the needs for safety, connection, and self-esteem are obviously really important. And I do keep that in my model. But if you just have that foundation, if you just feel safe and secure,

But you don't open up your sail. You're not going to move anywhere. Yeah. So ultimately you're going to open up that sale and go in the direction, your most valued direction. And you need to know what port you're sailing to. You know, you have to think to yourself, like, you know, you can't just move. You have to, like, have a direction to move in. And then I have transcendence is actually the view of the seabird.

It's not the sailboat at all. It's a view that's a lot that can go down. And sure, like transcendence can really get into the weeds of our deficiencies. and really experience that, but it also can zoom out. It just has this amazing capacity to zoom in and out. So the emphasis of the cellboat model

is integration, not moving up levels. You know, like a sailboat needs to operate as a whole sailboat, right? And all those parts are super important to the whole, you know, but we are more than the sum of our parts, you know? Yeah, absolutely. So with that in mind, now if you look at these PTGs,

right, this post-traumatic growth that many people have been going through, especially the past two years with the COVID pandemic and all the things. What have you seen the key characteristics or traits that separate people from choosing growth and using this time and difficulties as almost a stepping stone to become more self-actualized versus somebody that continue to be withered away by the experience? Oh, yeah. Wow. What a great question. I mean, the choosing growth process is something that you just have to just get up again and again.

you know, Abraham has a quote that you can choose to move forward towards growth or you can stay back in fear and you just have to keep choosing the growth option again and again. So I guess the interesting question is, well, Scott, what is the growth option? You know, what are you talking about here? And I can't really define that precisely for a person because it's actually a complicated question. Because like, for instance, if I'm doing self-actualization coaching with a client, my goal is not to tell them how to live their life or even tell them what the growth option is for them, but to really help them understand, well, first of all, have clarity on where do you

want to go, you know, what is the direction you want to grow in, you know, and kind of start with like, what is that desire for that human? And then really think through, what are the decisions that you're making that are detracting you from that? And it's usually, usually the fear option is the option that is something, at least I can give you something generalizable. I don't, that seems like very unsatisfactory to say, yeah, it's all for grabs, folks. But yeah, it really depends on really understanding the wholeness of a person and how do they feel when they engage in certain things in their life. Do they feel like they're being controlled by it or do they feel like they are in control of their life?

They are consciously and intentionally making decisions that will lead to the direction that they most want to move in. but interesting enough Carl Rogers who is one of my favorite humanistic psychologists really believed that we have something called and I don't really like

the way it's the name of it but he called it the OVP the Organismic Valuing process that's his thing the OVP you know with your OVP

you know me yeah yeah yeah and I want to rename that something something more sexier yeah yeah it's like I don't know but organismic

valuing process, but he believed we all had this evolution actually gave us this certain inner compass where we do want to choose the growth option. And we do actually over time when given the choice. And there's been some studies on this that show that humans actually do. You know, they're just to be positive about humans for a second. You know, we do over time tend to choose the growth option, but we can get really distracted and lots of distractions right now. Yeah, I think, I mean, absolutely right. Evolution and growth is hardwired within us. We want to inherently expand and grow as individuals and it will happen whether or not we're conscious of it or not. But I think what's really interesting is for people that go through traumatic experiences or through difficult moments in their life, it's really the meaning that we attach to it and the perspective that we place on it that then completely shapes the direction that we're going to go in. And so, yeah, how have you seen the importance of the meaning that we attach to external circumstance

and how that informs how we live our life? Wow. You're asking me good questions. I don't have scripted answers, so I need to reflect. I would be surprised if you did have one. I never have scripted answers. I actually never know what's going to come in my mouth. So external circumstances.

Can you rephrase the question in a way? Sure. Yeah, I mean, like anybody that's going through a day. difficult situation in life, right? And there's been many, over the past years, there's been an abundance of those for many people in their lives, right? Whether it's through individuals getting sick, whether it's through loss of jobs, whether it's through the various different difficulties that even the COVID time, and just in life in general, we're going to be faced with, right? You know, I think it's just a conversation of the meaning that we place on certain external

circumstances are. It's like that perspective that we hold. And, you know, and how we can view something is one, I'm interested in, I guess based on the heap of impressions that we've cultivated in our life, is going to push us in a direction of viewing things in a certain way, right? This is happening to me or it's happening for me. And that's a big shift. So, yeah, have you seen certain things that allow people to see that it can be happening for them instead of to them?

Yeah, I think that expectations is a big part of this. my colleague, Christy Nelson, who I adore, she has this whole model of gratefulness, and she distinguishes it from gratitude. Gratitude might be, you know, like you think of just being happy for positive things that happen in your life. But gratefulness, and even this concept I talk about in an article I wrote for the Atlantic, I called it existential gratefulness, which is just like, what are your expectations? I mean, do you really feel like you're entitled to anything good in this world?

Like, a lot of people do. But are we really entitled to, you know, like when bad things happen to us, you know, we get so angry, right? Who are we getting angry at? You know? And I think a lot of it comes down to just being able to cultivate this gratefulness sort of mentality of like, well, I'm alive, you know, like I always have my breath, you know, and also being able to generate meaning. Because you did, I love that you mentioned meaning because I'm a big fan of Victor, Frankl and he had this he called it tragic optimism which is your ability to be able to find the meaning and like the worst of human suffering I mean he knows he was in the concentration camps

the worst of the worst situation that you could probably think of yeah yeah and so I kind of wanted to bring that phrase back as well you know and just the whole idea and link that to christie's notion of gratefulness you know because we really can we can't change well we can't change all the challenges we have and and we also can't control it we can't I mean we can do as much as we possibly want to make sure our boat is intact but we can't predict when the the waves are going to come crashing down on us and come crashing down on all of us at once like happened with COVID right so the best we can do is is to to have is change our mentality about what we expect out of life you know and again I don't want to say that we shouldn't have hope for our lives or that we shouldn't plan

or go towards purpose. But I think being able to be adaptable to think through how certain things can be processed through lens of meaning and just even just what we're grateful for in our day, not just the good, you know, is a huge way on that path. You see why it's a very complicated question. Yeah, yeah.

No, these are big questions for sure. Big questions. I like the big questions in life. I love that. Me too. Yeah, yeah. I read one of the quotes in the book, I forgot, maybe you know who wrote it, but said one day you eventually have to give up the hope for a better past.

Oh, yeah, yeah, Irving Yolm. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Right.

Because, I mean, we can plan, predict, prepare, expect for a future and create what we want in our life. But the past is completely out of our hands, right? And we, but so often we stay defined by them. That's true. I love what you're speaking to and finding gratitude. for the mundane moments also. It's like we have these big desires

of what we want to create in our life and it's almost like we become these future-based creatures where we're living for a time that's other than right now, which is going to leave us not living with fulfilled existence because we're leaving the only place where we can actually experience love, joy, and gratitude. And yeah, how have you? you know, there's been various different studies and even in the book that I read of just like how important it is we find gratitude and apply meaning to the importance of the small moments as well, not just the big ones.

That's huge. Maslow distinguished between peak experiences, which are like these one-off, you know, these magical experiences we have. We're like in nature and then we have like, oh my gosh, I see God. You know, okay, that's great when that happens, but you can't expect that every day. And then he distinguished that from what he called plateau experiences, which are these experiences in life where he said it's like lounging in heaven, but not getting so excited about it. It's being able through it in the course,

I love that you laughed at that. That's awesome. Yeah, you get an asshole too. I get it. I know, that's my life. I know,

you got it. You know, being able to just go through your day and being able to walk around and be like, oh, wow, that's a beautiful flower. Oh, that's a beautiful woman. You know, like, wow, that's, you know, wow, that's, you know, that coffee tastes really good, you know, like,

and being able to just kind of live an end game of transcendence as opposed to the end game of, got to get my to do-do list done, got to make as much money as possible, make sure we're growing our profits every year, you know? There's just like, it's a totally different way of living. He called it living in the bee realm. And in my book, Transcendant,

I actually have a bunch of exercises. I was able to dig up. He called them bee activities. I love this cat. I love this guy now. I feel like I like re-resorrected a lot of his stuff. These idea of be activities, like, what are the activities to help you get more to live in the place of pure being in your daily life?

And he's got all these different exercises. Like even little things like look at someone who just really repulses you, you know, like an asshole, you know, and like think to yourself, hmm, do I want to be like that? You know, and then reflect on what that would mean for how you live your life. You know, like there's, you know, to go out of nature, which is the obvious one. But he has all sorts of different things, you know, to just get in the B realm more and to reflect. Yeah.

And, yeah. When you see the Mazel's hierarchy needs, typically in the pyramid, which we all saw in schools growing up, transcendence, you know, is like, it's at the top, right? It's something that we're going to get to in the future when we take care of all the other stuff. But I love the framework of bringing it into no is actually here in this moment. It doesn't have to be something that you get one day. And of course, if we're starving and we don't have the very basic fundamental. needs met. But for the most part, the people that are listening to this podcast right now have their basic needs met to varying degrees, but we can all embody a deeper level of transcendence in our

day-to-day life. Definitely. Except Joey, we know who you are. Joey from Montana. Yeah, yeah. But everyone else, you're right. I'm joking if there is a Joey. Joey from Montana. I'm sorry. That guy. But everyone else, I think you're right. Yeah, that is exactly right. transcendence as a it's just a mindset right not a state of of being you know where like you you reach

differences in enlightenment I'm not a big fan of ideas of enlightenment that refer to it in a vertical fashion as though like there's actually a something called I'm enlightened you're not effect in psychology which is highly correlated with grandiose narcissism so you see a lot of people

in the spiritual community and actually a piece about spiritual narcissism. You see a lot of people in the spiritual community who they act as though because they like took a couple yoga courses, you know, or like did one silent retreat over the weekend. Now they're, you know, above others, you know. Yeah. They have to get a whole new set of friends. You know, you know, those people?

There's this funny meme I think I saw. It was like, somebody's like, ah, I finally let go of my ego. Finally better than everyone else. Yeah, exactly. I love that. I can't believe I never followed that myself, which is an egoistic thing to say. I love that. I love that.

That's so good. That's so good. What's the source of that? I don't know. It's a meme page on Instagram. I actually love that. Yeah. Yeah.

And we just have to be careful to understand that humans have this potential within all of us for us to attach our ego to whatever skill set we're learning. And I think a lot of people aren't aware of that. They think somehow the spiritual domain of mastery is different than that. Right. Like somehow we're, we're learning how to meditate. suddenly our ego is like, oh, we're meditating, I'm going to completely take a back seat. No, that's not how it works. We have to be really on the lookout for that spiritual narcissism potential that's within all of us and transcend that.

Yeah. Since we're here, might as well, can you give the distinction between grandiose and vulnerable narcissism? Because most people are familiar with grandiose narcissism, right? The overt kind of, you know, narcissist that we're most familiar with. but there is many different facets of narcissism. It's true. I'm really obsessed with this specific topic. And I noticed that in almost every interview, they bring it up.

So I feel like other people are too. I think a lot of people are fascinated by it too because, I mean, I don't know. Give me your perspective as well. But to just label one person as a narcissist, I think maybe it's a bigger spectrum in which we all operate and find, you know, our narcissists in many different aspects. It's sometimes more obvious than others, but... We all have the potential for narcissism within ourselves, you know? I actually thought Cheekly a good book title would be like, maybe you're the narcissist.

I thought that'd be a cool, like, book title. But I don't know. I'll go for it. You know, because we all, we tend to say, like, oh, that person's a narcissist, you know, like, and it immediately, like, separates humans from each other, you know, like, oh, my partner doesn't pay attention to all my needs. There are the narcissist. But there are different types of narcissism, and that is true and very important to distinguish.

There is the obvious kind of grandiose puffed-up kind. So there certainly are differences among people. So some people do kind of have this kind of attitude of like, I'm entitled to things because I'm superior. You know, I don't know if you can think of anyone, but people who kind of walk around with a puffed-up chest and they're like, oh, I'll take that, I'll take that. You know, because they think they're superior at everyone, right? And they eat. It's a vibe. I'm sure you must have met someone in your life who has that vibe

yes I say that sometimes too so I probably have that it's a vibe yeah not as much that not as much yeah I totally hear that but vulnerable narcissism is a very different vibe yeah vulnerable narcissism is I feel entitled to things because I've suffered in the past right and I think we all have to be worried about that that is a psychological principle I call it the entitlement paradox which is that the more that we have faced hardships in our past, the more likely we are to kind of think

that we're entitled to things that we don't have that others have. And that can actually go down a very dark path and not lead to growth at all. So all this is in the service of helping people with growth. You know, I'm not in the business of labeling. I'm not in the business of... Like if a label or if a set of somebody I'm talking about

doesn't resonate with someone in a helpful way, then forget it. You know, I don't want to like... That person's a vulnerable narcissist. That person's a grandiose narcissist. By the way, there's lots of other times in narcissism. You can go, there's communal narcissism. So those are those who they're like,

I'm going to be the best in the world at helping people. You know, like me and one of the items on the questionnaire is, me and me alone will save the world. You know, that's communal narcissism. So there's all different. The need to regulate our self-esteem is a really big one. And there's lots of different ways and outlets upon which we do it. I've also studied another form toxic altruism.

So those are people who are desperate to be needed. You know, so on the scale are things like I need to be needed. And that's actually a form of narcissism because you find that those individuals actually tend to have a lot of strife with others. They're not actually helping others. They're only helping others the extent to which it feeds their ego. They're not actually really doing the real felt needs of the other person. They're helping others because it helps their sense of self in a certain way. Exactly.

They'd actually score well in empathy measures, which is fascinating. So there's all these different facets, but I just want to be clear that we all have these, all these potentials within us. You know, I'm not a big fan of labeling, but the interesting question is, what extent does all that stuff inhibit our growth? You know, a lot of those are avoidance mechanisms to avoid facing maybe our imperfections in a way. They're defense mechanisms. Do they, does vulnerable narcissists or communal narcissists or grandiose, does it stem from the same feeling of lack of self within? Or do they, why do they manifest differently? They are very different.

Self-esteem is different. So you tend to find very low self-esteem among vulnerable narcissism, whereas you do find pretty high self-esteem among grandiose narcissism. It's not a stable self-esteem in either case. Both are dependent on others, right? So like the grandiose narcissists almost needs, like it's like crack. They need validation, right? Like they need to surround themselves with people who are constantly, you know,

kissing their butt, you know? But with vulnerable narcissism, it's a little bit different because it's a lot more, there's a lot more shame involved. You almost have a little more compassion for vulnerable narcissists than you do grandiose narcissists because grandiose narcissists will never go to the clinician's couch, right? I have a friend who, you know, a big time narcissism researcher and clinical psychology. He said the only time that grandiose narcissist ever ends up on the couch is when their girlfriend made them come. Someone's like, you've got to see someone.

But the vulnerable narcissists will seek out therapy, and they know something's not right. You know, that like, well, I shouldn't see something not right. That's not a good way of putting it. But, you know, it's something, they're not reaching their goals in the best possible way because there's a lot of shame. A lot of those folks, the paradox there, I mentioned the entitlement paradox. The paradox is a very interesting one, which is that they feel rotten at the core, and yet they feel like angry that the, world has not given them everything they deserve.

And to me, that's a fascinating, fascinating juxtaposition. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. What does that stem from? Do you, you look into that, I'm sure. Well, trauma. Yeah.

And there is a general psychological mechanism, which is if you feel like you've been wronged, you're more likely to feel entitled to take things that maybe you didn't earn. And, but I think that's part of being human. And we all need to be aware of that. So what does healthy self-esteem look like? Yeah, let's get out of the dark side for a second. It's a little solipsistic. There is such a thing as healthy self-esteem.

I think we're all capable of that as well. That encompasses a general sense of self-worth and a sense of competency. So you feel a basic, not that you're superior others, but you feel worthy. You know, you feel worthy. You just go along your life with a secure foundation of worthiness. and also that you feel like you can reach your goals, that you are the owner of your own life, that you can, you're not a loser, you know,

like everything I try, I fail, that's not a good place to be in mentality-wise. That will lead to low self-esteem. But a secure, healthy self-esteem is one that has those two main components. And, I mean, it's not easy to have those and develop those, but I think they can be developed in anyone, even those who feel, because of their suffering, They feel like rotten to the core, which is tragic, by the way.

I mean, it's tragic. Let's have empathy for people who kind of feel that way at their core. You know, a lot of, I would say more than average number of my clients really do feel that way. I mean, they may be really successful people in lots of ways, but they can't, like, shake this lingering feeling that they're somehow, like, unworthy. And so being able to address that and change and transform that and integrate that into the rest of your being is, like, really underrated. I think a lot of people sometimes have a hard time letting that go too because maybe if they got a lot of money or external success by virtue of their unworthiness, it's like, well, if I change who I am or if I finally am worthy, then what does that mean about my business or what

does that mean about my relationship? That's interesting. Yeah, that's a really good point. Except for the grandiose narcissist too thinks they are entitled to it. But no, absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. So let's dive into a little bit about, you have this phrase, healthy selfishness. Cool. You've really, you've read my stuff. Yeah, man. I read your book.

But I think it's when you look at PTG, right, and post-traumatic growth, obviously, when you're faced with something difficult, you can become defined by it and, you know, withered by it. Or you can grow from it. But you don't have to go through trauma to grow. You can also choose difficulty in your life. and show up from a place where your cup is full. So talk a little bit about healthy selfishness.

Sure. And also there's such a thing as post-static growth that people don't know about. They only know about the post-traumatic growth. But you can actually grow from amazingly static experiences. Yeah. You know, doing shrooms and then you're like, you're like, you see God. And you're like, I'm going to grow from that. That's not a traumatic experience.

You're still growing, you know. Or, you know, you can call. cause certain challenges. Like, I'm going to drive in a sailboat, sail in a sailboat around the world. You're choosing a challenge to grow. Sorry, what was your question? Well, I think it's just interesting that, like, one, you can choose, instead of difficulties choosing you, you can choose difficulties, and that'll fill up your own cup, right?

By, like, taking care of self before trying to help others. And you can choose to engage in positive experiences as well. So all these things are absolutely possible. You know, it's like how intentional are you about the growth you want to have in your life? Right. I think that's what the question is at the end of the day. Yeah. I think it's a really important question to ask yourself.

I've been thinking about this the past couple of days how right now we're living in our future's history. Like we have the opportunity right now to, and whoever's listening to this, get really intentional, get quiet within ourselves and see what is going to matter to us 20 years from now. And are the actions that we're taking currently pushing, you know, helping us go and move into that direction. I love the invitation to bring difficulty into your life, whether it's through exercise or through going to therapy or through doing sauna and coal plunge or self-inquiry. Like everybody, that's going to be different for everybody.

Whatever is that kind of edge, that leaning into that discomfort, that's, I feel like how we can actually choose to grow and not have to life have to make us grow, right? Because it's so painful. Yeah, I mean, there's a, biohacking is really big, you know, and like it kind of, there's this kind of assumption sometimes like there's one size fits all, you know, that like, you know, no matter who you are if you take this supplement, you know, like, and you get eye, do something with your eyes at a certain time of the day, you know, you're going to be, reach, reach and see God, you know. But, you know, it's like, you really do have to integrate this stuff into your life. into your life, not someone else's life, you know?

And a lot of the stuff can really go wrong if you don't see the purpose of it all. And where's it all going? I think one of the big things of like going on that journey is first becoming aware of as you want to become a self-actualized individual, first becoming aware of what your own strengths are. One of the surveys that you mentioned in the book as well is that roughly two-thirds of people are completely unaware, have no meaningful understanding of their own. strengths in life. Yes. Which is pretty wild. It's like if you want to create a life of fulfillment and meaning, it's a combination of like, you know, Iki guy, which I've talked about. And you mentioned

in your book as well, finding these things that you're good at, that you love doing that the world needs that you can get paid for. Yeah. But it's, it's really fascinating to just see how much people are unaware of what their strengths are. So I would love to speak to really how to become aware of what strengths are. Sure, I can do that. I also realize I never answered what healthy selfishness is. Sure. Healthy selfishness is a construct that I developed because I wanted to think about what are different paradoxical forms of selfishness. We have this assumption that everything that is for others is unselfish and everything that's for our self is selfish in some sort of bad way.

And I wanted us to kind of rethink that. So that was part of a larger program where I developed two scales, a toxic altruism scale or pathological altruism and healthy selfishness. So with the healthy selfishness that I wanted to show that there are lots of things we do in our lives, that even if it's not directly benefiting others, it is still very, very healthy for us and for the world. I mean, ultimately, we want healthy humans in this world. When I see people who are tyrannical or highly, highly psychopathing, narcissistic, I think, well, I do loving kindness meditation for them. And I got some pushback from this.

They're like, well, do you love a kindness meditation for Hitler? You know, I don't know anyone. You know, but it's like, well, the idea is that like, well, the net positive of the world will be benefit if that person is better. Obviously, that person's not well. Yeah. You know, some of these individuals, it's coming from, you know,

you know, the phrase like, who hurt you? You know, like, that person's not well. But I really would wish, you know, even my bullies, you know, like I wish them well. Because that would, well, first of all, they wouldn't bully me as much. But it'd be a net positive for the world. So I think healthy, we really downplay the value of healthy selfishness. Yeah. And sometimes I think we do like, we do like altruism shaming, you know, like people get obsessed with like,

well, what are you doing for the world? What are you doing for the world? It's just like, calm down. You know, like, settle down. People can really profoundly impact the world in lots of ways that you might surprise you and might not, don't always have to be like, you have the non-profit where you're saving children in Africa and that's the only thing that matters. You're being.

That's also a point I wanted to make is your being can make the world a better place, not just your doing. And that's why I have this whole concept of be love that, that might as well talked about being love and I've really wanted to extend that, you know, and talk about that. Yeah, I think. it's really interesting in the society, especially Western culture, we almost only value what we can quantify. It's true. I think money is easy to quantify. Money is easy to quantify views, likes, you know, quote unquote external impact and that comes from doing, right? But healthy selfishness,

I mean, it's essentially self-care, right? And it's not selfish to care for a self, because you're not going to be able to be an effective servant to the world if you're not, if your cup's not full first. I really love that understanding of how your beingness can be valuable in and of itself because it is to the world. I think a lot of times we, again, try to quantify our impact in money and dollars and likes and views and all the things that society kind of deems as successful externally. But I'm sure we all know people in our lives where we've been profoundly impacted just by being

around them. just by their beingness. Totally. And so having that perspective shift and that prioritization of saying, you know, I don't need to accomplish X, Y, and Z to one, either feel worthy, but then also to see the impact that I have. And I find that just by being present with another individual, it can be so, so impactful in our life.

And it's hard to quantify. I've helped this many people. But when you kind of lose that, that desire to quantify your worth, but you feel it inherently, that radiance is like so impactful for the time. I've tried to quantify it because I'm a scientist. Yeah. And I try to create this scale called the light triad scale, which people go on my website

and take it for free. We have a Star Wars metaphor. It tells you if you're more on the Darth Vader side or on the Yoda side. What's the website? She's like, I'm going to take it right now. It's, well, it's go to Scott Barakoffman.com and go to self-acturization tests. Or actually, this is even better, self-actualizationtests.com. And you'll find the light versus dark triad scale.

Cool. Yeah, yeah. So yeah, please break that down for us. Of course, yeah. So I wanted to quantify, well, what are the implications of people who, by their being, are consistently high in three major facets? One is a sense of humanism that you treat all individuals with dignity and respect. Another is faith in humanity.

You tend to have a worldview that at the end of the day, even though people are imperfect, humans are basically good. By the way, that's the exact mere opposite of the psychopathic worldview. I believe Ted Bundy is quoted as saying, well, what's one less person on the earth anyway? So that's like a complete different. And then Kantanism, which is the third facet, which is a really nerdy inside joke because it's the opposite of Machiavellianism, which was on the dark triad. McAvalianism is being able to, you know, strategically manipulating everyone.

Well, Kant had a moral imperative. Don't treat people as a means to an end. Treat them as ends to themselves. So we have that facet as well, you know. And so these three facets, people who score high in them, we wanted to quantify in some way what the implication is and they're huge implications. I mean, really huge in ways that go far beyond just looking at someone's money

or how successful their nonprofit is, you know. You know, it's just like huge things. like they give more love to others in the world and they're just they're happier they score higher in life satisfaction questionnaires that's another interesting thing we found that psychopaths aren't happy who would have thought that's interesting yeah maybe some of them some people would think that yeah yeah I think they get whatever they want you know yeah I don't think anyone thinks they're an evil person right somebody that's a suicide bomber thinks they're doing God's work right and so

somebody as a psychopath thinks that that's the right view of the world. So I'm sure a lot of them are maybe happy in their own bubble evolution. They're always disgruntled. They never see some. What was the guy's name? Jeff. Oh, is it Justin? No.

From Montana, Joey. Joey, we know you're, we hope you can get to the late triad. Send you loving meditation, Joey. It was Joe, yeah. Yeah, so yeah, I did one in some way quantify because that's what scientists do, you know, can we capture this under a microscope, you know? And we've now, on our website, we've had millions of people take the test, which is a gold mine for researchers.

And we're still going through all that data. And we're doing country-by-country comparisons, you know, and state-by-state, we want to come with this map, you know, where you can, like, look to see which, where if you want to move somewhere, are they light their dark trial? Yeah, yeah. Fascinating. Beautiful.

Let's touch on strengths as well because we briefly mentioned it, you know, how important it is that, you know, most people aren't completely unaware of what their strengths are and how important it is that we pay attention to that to live a life of meaning. Yeah, and that's really true. The strengths can mean lots of different things. It can mean character strengths, and there's a scale for that, too, that can tell you what your top three character strengths are. And out of a list of like 24 and, you know, things from curiosity to maybe love is your

character strength to one of my top is humor. and I also have like creativity you know would be up there but also talents our strengths as well you know what are the things we have a knack for what are the things that really resonate

we really resonate with do we have crystallizing experiences with that's a phrase that Howard Garner used to describe things where we when we encounter them in our lives we're like wow that's me you know that's that's totally me you know and there's no expiration date for that which is the

beautiful thing you know like I'm a big believer in late bloomer's you know we can we can have that at any point in our lives where we discover that thing um yes our strengths could can accomplish a lot of things but we tend to to not really know what they are and uh i think it's good there are these tools that can can help you at least give you some idea i think uh you know purpose is a big topic right a lot of people are looking for their purpose they want to know what their meaning is and how they can find usefulness for their life and strengths are a big part of that right being able to feel like you're being put to good use almost by life yeah you're if you're not capitalizing on what you're

good at it can sometimes feel like you don't have as much utility especially if you're comparing yourself to others right yeah how have you looked at when you look at purpose and for people to find meaning in their life what uh yeah what are some of the frameworks that you look at for helping people actually develop a sense of feeling like they're living their purpose. Yeah. First of all, I want to say that a lot of people put too much pressure themselves to find the one true purpose. I know my college students freak out if they're like, oh my God, I haven't felt my calling

yet. And I want to be very clear that it changes throughout our lives. Like my purpose now feels a little bit different than I felt when it was 21, you know. And so we need to leave room in our life to grow up. Oh, you know. But at any moment in time, I think it is very valuable to have a set of, you can think of it, I'm going to get really nerdy real quick. Okay, you think of in terms of the goal hierarchy, you know, and we study this in psychology,

goal hierarchies of different levels of abstraction. So at the very top level of this goal hierarchy, you have, what is your North Star? You know, what is, maybe it's a future image of yourself. It doesn't always have to be like a thing you want to do in the world. Sometimes it could actually your North goal. purpose could be like the person I want to be. So we don't, there's being, I just, I'm coming up this on the spot, but there's being purpose and doing purpose, you know,

and sometimes it's valuable also to visualize our being purpose. But underneath that top level, you can have more specific goals that will help lead there. And then under each one of those, those you have even more specific goals that help each of those. But having a goal hierarchy in your life where they're in harmony with each other and they're all feeding into a top level North Star is a good way to live your life, right? So like I can make that more concrete because that was an extraordinary abstract.

Let's say at the top level, it's like, I want to be healthy. Like that's your, well, under that you may have like, okay, well, what domains of your life can contribute to being healthy? So diet. And then you may have exercise. Let's just take those two. So for diet, underneath that, you have more specific goals, like very specific goals. like I am now on the paleo diet or I am now whatever it is.

And then on the right, or veganism for Bobby. You know what's the case of you? Joey. Yeah, jelly, Joey. Yeah, jelly, Joey. And then on the right, she's not picking on jelly,

but, and then on the right hand side, you know, exercise and you have very specific goals. But the point is, are you intentionally designing your goal hierarchy? So all these things feed into that top level goal or are you just a disintegrated human? You're just like, now I'm going to eat that. And now I'm going to do that.

You know, like, it's possible to live a very disintegrated existence, but that really is not very fulfilling. In the book, you showed one of Maslow's quote, which is what's not worth doing is not worth doing well. I love that quote. It's so great, you know, because it's like, what in our life do we feel like is worth doing? And that ties into values as well. Totally, totally. Yeah, being able to make wise choices of your goals is really important. A lot of people talk about growth mindset.

And I've kind of argued that, you know, that's not the end-all and be-all, right? You can have a growth mindset like, I want to learn and grow for the wrong goals for you. And then so what? You accomplished it and you applied your growth mindset to accomplish it, but it wasn't the right, really right goal for you. So I really think that really thinking. through, well, is this even the right goal to begin with? And there's also no shame in saying no to things too. Like, there's some people might tell you something's your purpose. You know, like I get the craziest offers, my man. I just tell you some of this shit, I get

like emails, you know, like, hey, we, we want you do this TV show. You know, I almost did TV show one. I never said, I never made this before. It was like, it was like this show that, like, it got to the point where like it just like didn't feel. like me at all like got to a point where it was like really um like you're gonna shock people in the street you know i was like yeah i don't know about this and and and but but they're trying to convince me that was my purpose you know they're like no this is just perfect for you and i was like no i think i know it's perfect for me i bet more at least more than you do i would hope so yeah yeah so i had to like curtail that curtail that project but anyway um you know what i mean yeah there's no

shortage of people who would tell you including gurus including you know know, including the self-help world, you know? Like, I'm critical a lot of things I see in the self-help world. Yeah, absolutely. I love a lot of the quotes that you put in the book. Another one by Seneca is one who does not know to which port one is sailing. No wind is favorable. Yes.

And you just... I love that quote as well. It's because, you know, it's like, if you don't know who you are, if you don't know thyself, you're going to be pushed by the winds of life. and the winds of life and different individuals to fit what the world wants you to be. And if you're a secondhand version of somebody else, if you're walking around as who people want you to be

and not who you want to be and get clear on what your North Star is, then you're not going to be a happy, fulfilled individual. It's so true. And also the people that know themselves are more comfortable in their own skin. And they also don't sacrifice that like chameleons based on who they're talking to or anything like that. I've tried to really cultivate in my life and just like all my podcast interviews

just like make sure I don't lose the core wackiness that I am, which I was shameful of as a kid, you know, and now as an idol, I'm like, well, you know what? People like it. I'm not going to hide that side of myself. People like authenticity. Yeah, that's what is, you know. I'm not going to hide, you know,

why hide aspects of yourself that are quirky or weird instead you should actually be accentuating those very things. Getting, yeah, I think getting clear on what those values are, right? Because whatever our North Star is, whatever we feel like this is ideal version of how we can operate and be in the world, how does one clarify what they really value in life? Damn. You're jumping in the deep end. It's important. It's important question.

It's so important. It's so important. To clarify what's important in your life, I think it involves a lot of clarifying what is not important in your life, you know, like really getting clear, what are the boundaries of your life? Like, a boundary setting is a huge one, and I do see it as related to your question. Yeah. Because are you the kind of, are you just floating in the wind where you're just, you know, your general purpose service to the world? Yeah.

Or are you at service to what is actually meaningful in value to you. There are a lot of people that really don't know. They're desperate for a purpose. They don't know what it is. And they have this sort of like, I'm a general purpose service, you know, to the world. Like, use me as you will, world. And I'm not sure that's the most productive or are we satisfying in existence as if you have at least some idea of in what domains you think align well with your skill set, align well with your passion, align well with what you can offer the world, you know. And being able to align all these things together.

It takes a lot of levels of alignment and thoughtfulness there. Also, I see we don't necessarily want to open up this Pandora's box. But it's another time. I'm fascinated with Colts as well. This is like another psychology of Colts is fascinating to me. And like the idea of like you tend to find a lot of these people who end up in Colts are really, really kindhearted people who do have the attitude of like, I don't know what I want to do, but I want to be a service to the world. And they get exploited. So I think it's really important to recognize that there are a lot of light triad individuals actually are, and I have found that the major downside of that is they can be exploited by dark triad individuals.

So that's another area of topic I study. Yeah. No, it's so fascinating. Isn't that interesting? It is very. I love this stuff. Yeah. I could talk about it all day.

Same. Same. I mean, we have very similar, I think, golden threads between both of our podcasts and just internal desires for curiosities in the world. I think asking these questions of why we do what we do is it's so important to ask early in our life. No matter where we are, here we are. So it's like if you're in your 50s, 70s, you can still ask yourself and course correct and to becoming whoever you want to be. Not if you're 71.

If you're 71 and your name's Joey. Yeah, it's over. It's over for you, bro. Oh man, the 70-year-old Joey psychopath killer and vegan killer for Joey. Imagine he exists. I never said he was a killer, though. That's true. We did say psychopath.

Psychopath doesn't actually mean killer. True. Yeah, true. Absolutely. It could just be like a liar. Yes. So, so yeah, I mean, ask, going back to really asking the important question of why we do what we do and getting clear, it feels like the first step is just awareness. And there's so many different ways to gain awareness in our life.

Whoever is listening that maybe doesn't feel like they know their purpose. They know what their strengths and values are. First of all, I love how you spoke to you just like, take a deep breath. like relax a little bit. We live in the society that has so much pressure. So much pressure. To find your one true purpose. Yeah.

And it can be, it can feel so liberating to first just gain awareness and it's a process of experimenting. There's so many different tools in terms of, you know, getting to stillness, finding, you know, awareness being involved in different groups, reading material, watching podcasts, to, you know, start to ask yourself,

what are the things that you really love to do? I love that. And I think these important questions that are like the perennial questions that are important to ask yourselves that we've been exploring today are really valuable for people to sit with and to contemplate on not to feel like you need to have the answer to right away. Yeah. But know that it's a process. It's a process that I love that. Self-acturization is a process. It's not a designation.

Yeah. It's a direction. Yeah. Would you describe the difference between healthy and unhealthy transcendence? yeah i talked i alluded earlier to spiritual narcissism yeah that's what it would be a healthy transcendence a vertical but healthy transcendence to me is more horizontal and what i mean by that is there's a great synergy between yourself and the world like what is good for you uh your healthy selfiness automatically is good for the world as well yeah um and once you could do that and once you become

more like one with um your environment with the world um that's healthy transcendence in my view um but you do see a lot of unhealthy transcendence, a lot of this kind of like looking down on others who aren't living the exact lifestyle you're living, you know, and everyone's on their own path and everyone's on their own part of the journey. And I guarantee you, no matter where you are on your journey,

there's someone else who's ahead of you, buddy. I don't even like thinking of it that way, but if you really wanted to think of that way, you know, if you've done four retreats, I bet there's someone who's done eight, is I'm what I'm saying? You know, like, so you can always go that game and that's not a healthy game. So, but really, what is it developing within you that only you can develop, you know?

Yeah. Like you, there's only one version of the best version of you that's possible to be created in this world and that you're the only one that can create it. Yeah. That's it. I also asked this question, like, what would you even mean to self-actualize someone else's self? What does they even mean?

Yeah, people try. Yeah. Is that even possible? No. No. People like, you know, you're like, I want to be like, like Michael Jordan, you know, or you look at the people on TikTok and you're like, oh, I want her butt, you know, these young girls. I mean, it's actually sad, you know, a lot of them are prone

for like suicide and like eating disorders because, you know, they're, they're constant comparing themselves to what they see. And I think the self-actuation path is really being able to be, okay, what can I develop within myself that the others would want to emulate, you know, and what's that path? I tried that with myself because I've taken a very unconventional, academic path. You know, I just, I'm kind of an oddball in that way. And I was like, well, what, what is my own sort of, things I can combine in my own life that would be uniquely me?

So what do you feel like are a few of your own unique geniuses unique to you? Oh, yeah. My unique sort of quirkiness, I wouldn't say genius. That seems like, that little, like, sorry, sorry, I just had a laugh just. because the way it was so like matter of fact, you're like, oh, yes. I cannot hold myself back. Was that funny?

We'll take it from the battle. It was funny. Oh, my genius. You should keep this in. Oh, my God. Because that's like a heavy question. No, let me enumerate. It's my genius.

Let's keep it in. So yeah, what do you feel like are a few of your own unique geniuses? Well, the way I would put it is when I was in grad school, that pathway didn't feel right to me. You know, and I knew that wasn't like what I could uniquely offer. I loved writing. I loved like public dissemination, you know, like of information, like teaching, like professing, like taking lots of complex ideas and making it more simplified for the general audience, helping people in that way. And I also love listening. So like the podcast was really good for me

You know I've been doing like I guess Almost eight years now And just being able to listen to people And humans are fascinating If you let them be Carl Rogers said that Like people can be

It's just as beautiful as sunsets If you treat them like sunsets Like when you have a sunset You don't say oh I wish I could take the corner Of that sunset and just move it a little bit Down a little bit And change the heel a little bit You just appreciate the damn sunset

Yeah. So humans, you can appreciate them if you view them on their own terms, you know. So that's something I really love to do. And yeah, I am this weird combination of like cheeky, quirky, you know, like I try to take myself too seriously. But I also can be extraordinarily serious. So a lot of paradoxes. But within me for sure. But I wrote this book called Wire to create, which talked about how creative people are characterized by these kind of paradoxes.

You know, like they could be intensely playful, but also intensely serious. They could be intensely sensitive, but also have a lot of agency, you know. And being able to have that validity across the various modes of human existence, I think, is a really key part of creativity. So, yeah, I like to be a creative being in this universe. And well, then I'm a genius. That's not for me. Oh, let me tell you about my genius. My geniuses, my many of them, by the way.

I don't know what that. Yeah. Yeah, I think it's so valuable to get clear on what those are. And it's like we can just live such a more happy life when we are who we are. And we're not trying to be somebody else or, you know, a veneer of a projection that our parents or society or, you know, school teachers put on us. Can I give you an example of exactly what you just said? I was at a pivotal mode. I was in grad school.

My advisor, I was driving my advisor crazy. I was not the stand. He's like, he's like, you want me to see him out. He said, you are the most out there person in our department. Because I was auditioning for American Idol at the time. Were you? Oh, yeah, twice. Like singing?

Because I used to be an opera singer. You know, like, I remember I went to Carnegie Mellon and I did opera to get in. So I remember once I was like, hey, I can't make one of your lab meetings because I auditioned for American Idol. And so he wrote me this long email of like, look, we need to talk. You know, this is not going to get you tenure, this path you're going down of like being interest in all these different things. And I responded, okay. fuck tenure. I just made this decision.

I was going to choose me, you know, at a certain point. Doesn't James Ocher have this quote, like, choose you or something like that? But, yeah, there's this point where I was just like, it was like a no-brainer for me. Like, someone put these things in front of me. They're like, well, if you keep going down that path of being you, you're not going to get tenure. You're not going to get a tenure-track job in academia. I was like, okay, then that's not my path. And I think it shocked them because there's a very, like, set path.

that people in grad school take. And it's been nice to be able to know that I've inspired other grad students. You know, like I get emails all the time. They're like, how do I choose your path? It's like, all? Like, at least I can open up that there's other ways of being in this world when you get a PhD other than the very prescribed tenure track path. It's beautiful.

I look at, I mean, we're talking about transcendence, right? And it feels like it's a place that is only authentic when you arrive there without the desire for it. because it's like not wanting to change where you are or who you are is inherently transcendent. And I feel like this desire, and I'm curious, have you looked into this, the people that really feel like they need to transcend who they are, transcend their circumstances, they're probably deeply unhappy with where they're at in life, which is a great place to have awareness of, right?

It's the impetus for change. But it feels like transcendence is a place fully, when you fully arrive at, that can actually be authentic. I love this phrase from John Cabot's in Everywhere you go, there you are. And like I think about that all the time Because I have moments, I'm human too, by the way, I have moments where I'm like, I want to like run away to Costa Rica And just like go off the grid

You know, but then I realized, well, I won't be running away from myself, you know? And I have to keep reminding myself for that, you know, It was like, you know, the best thing you can do is really be able to inhabit the your whole wholeness and integrate it wherever you are you know the almost environment doesn't even matter at a certain point yeah yeah the inner environment is what matters truthfully yeah yeah i think it's so important to have that as a value to prioritize your inner environment and the more that you do that the more that you have a beautiful inner environment the more that your external environment will be beautiful also it's like a reflection as within so without right it's true i want to

say my mom something my mom said to me the other day because i i called her and i was like there was a moment I was like I'm a little lonely you know like this week or whatever my mom's like that's strange she's like usually wherever you go you bring the party and I was like oh mom I love you

that's beautiful you know like I know it's a really corny thing to say that like and then I realize that actually she's kind of right like and then I like inhabited that mindset and it changed and I haven't really been lonely since then it's interesting you can really change your mindset in that way I'm like I'm like you know what like wherever I go I'm going

I'm going to bring the party. Like, that's it. That's just, that's just it, you know? Yeah. Amazing. Yeah. Amazing framework. Okay.

Yeah. We're on the Know That Self podcast. When you first came in, you're like, I really love, you know, love the name and obviously the work that you're doing with self, you know, reaching our full human potential and transcendence and transcendence in life. What do you feel like it truly means to know that self? Well, I am a bigger believer in the idea that there's no such thing as a real self. but and that's also very in line with Buddhist philosophy yeah one Buddhist teacher has this quote that I love

is whoever thinks the self is objectively objectively real is like a dog barking up a tree that doesn't exist I love that yeah yeah do you know who that was I'll put it on as well as the old you said something earlier that I was like I want to know who said that because that was really about the ego the ego thing yeah so

I think the best way of thinking about this is we have we have so many different sides of ourselves we have a as my friend Jim Fattenman calls us Symphony of Selves you know he's also the father of microdosing so I don't know how those two things are related but he wrote this beautiful book on the symphony of selves so I really think we need to embrace the fact that we're a symphony of selves but there is there are there are higher selves there are selves that are more long-term, that give us more greater sense of meaning when we're engaging in them.

They make us feel more alive. They make us feel more creative and they make us feel more centered. And I think a big part of the self-actual journey is being able to know and really trust yourself, to trust yourself to know when you are engaging in those selves versus when you're not engaging in those selves. Like when I work with my clients, I help them get, you know, really get clear with that, you know, like, what are the different selves that when you're like, I'm in this self now, I feel alive. I feel like centered. I don't feel like off my kilter. And, you know, there's definitely moments in people I talk to. I feel very centered in this interview. But there are some interviews I do, you know, I think we were talking about one earlier today, which I won't go into great detail, where I felt totally off my center. I knew it. I could feel it. And I trust myself. enough now to be able to recognize that where I was like okay that's still myself myself is still engaging with this other self but it is in a way it it it feels like

false you know it feels it feels it feels not the most meaningful alive creative center of my being and we all have to figure that out for ourselves yeah it's a journey yeah I love that symphony of selves yeah I love that too and Jim Fatham is amazing yeah you should have him on your podcast. I'd love to. The father of Microdosing. He was, so he was good friends with Abraham Maslow.

He's, you know, he's old or an old man now. Yeah, I was going to say so loud. He's old, I want to be respectful. I don't want to call him an old man, but he's up there.

Yeah, yeah. But he knew Maslow personally, and I get to ask him all these questions of like, well, do you think Maslow would have thought about this thing I wrote here and that, and it's a really beautiful friendship I've had with him. Have you studied Eastern philosophy much? Yeah, through the course of writing Transcend, I got into Eastern Philosophy because Maslow got very interested in Eastern philosophy.

And towards the end of the last two years of his life, in particular, he integrated a lot of those ideas into his theory of transcendence. So yes. But who in particular? I'm just saying as kind of as a whole, like I think a lot of the Indian sages and gurus, Buddhist philosophy, Hindu philosophy, like reading spiritual texts like the Bhagat Gita, various different texts and seeing the overlap really of how it's you know there's an absolute reality you could say there's there's the truth with a capital T that for me in my early part of my journey it was like the the aim in life like I was a seeker of truth I wanted to know the truth and I became a student really of life and you know Western culture I suppose and really just

science in general in the way that we've cultivated in the West. And behavioral psychologists and cognitive scientists coming to a lot of these realizations and things that we've been talking to today where it's like having the same ahas, you know, it's like, yeah. So I'm just curious to see as you've studied Eastern philosophy and your foundation is in Western science, really in cognitive science and humanistic. If there's a conflict there at all? No, I'm just curious to see where your overlap is, right?

The huge overlap is this notion of the plateau experience. Those were actually the highest states of consciousness that a lot of gurus in East India, especially around Mazo's time we're talking about as really, really important, almost identical state. I think that all this kind of leads to, we talk about transcendent states of consciousness. I think that the general outline of it or the general quality of it is so great in alignment between the they're thinking about it.

to end the way, at least I'm trying to operationalize it in psychology right now. So I have things like the all scale I've created. And my colleague David Yaden is an expert on self-transcending experiences and trying to think of a variety of them. And I think there is a grand line in terms of self-transcending experiences and the universality of those experiences that transcend religion. So if we can separate, this would be a huge one. If we can separate belief from experiences, we could get world peace.

I'll just like period. Powerful. Powerful. Yeah, you talk to really savoring, right? Savoring life, this experience of life that we have. There is this framework of like one day when, right? That you kind of spoke to you in the book as well. We spoke to it a little bit as well earlier of having these desires for some sort of projected

ideal future that's never going to be in the present moment. and we put off peace and happiness as if it's going to be a byproduct of some sort of results from something that we do. But the carrot at the end of the stick is always going to be further away from us when we get to that next thing. There's going to be a new object, new goal, something that we're trying to, you know, attain and realize in our life. So coming back to that place where you're able to savor the moments in life and the various things that, you know, one, I'm just curious for you know, you to touch on what I just said, but then also how you're, you've been able to cultivate savoring moments in your life.

Existential gratefulness is the concept that has really changed my life. Again, I want to give Christy Nelson a lot of credit for that, you know, and that notion of like being able to savor not just the good, but can you save for the bad? You know, like that's like a concept of Americans can't wrap their head around. Yeah. You know, but can you, can you, can you, savor all of human experience because you're alive and you were alive enough to experience it? and you were present with it and you and you overcame you know and being able to savor the fact

you overcame things is so beautiful as well how often do we give ourselves the time to savor and to really appreciate where we've come in our lives we spend so much time focusing on where we need to go but I reflected on this on Twitter the other day because I was like you know it's so weird like I've written 10 books and I very rarely reflect on the fact well I've written 10 books I'm always like oh what's my next book you know but I was like you know what I'm going to get myself this moment to be like I wrote 10 books like I'm proud of myself and and and just just every now and then let's just take as many moments as we can to just think about where we are you know how what we've overcome where we've where the journey has taken us so far and and just don't lose sight of that

I think it's a form of savoring. I think that, I mean, right now, especially in my life, but like whoever's listening to this, and I'm sure in yours is like the things that we have now, we were praying for, five, 10 years ago. And it's like, for some reason, we just haven't taken a break to, like, actually recognize that. Yeah.

Yeah. Is there a specific example you're thinking of? Yeah. I mean, I've had this, you know, when I was 16, I had this vision of me, like, living out in California and being connected with amazing humans and living my purpose. And I didn't necessarily know it would be in, a form of a podcast or like the form that it would take with the essence I felt of having amazing community of making good money of being healthy and vibrant in my body and like a lot of

things that are just kind of like a way of operating in my day to day life beautiful that uh that are now here and it's like you know just so proud of you oh thank you man how old are you now 25 okay yeah yeah it's more than five years so 10 been 10 years ago you yeah yeah you had these visions and uh yeah yeah just well I want you to take this moment right now to like save her how far you've come i mean thank you man it's pretty awesome yeah it's a pretty awesome pad you have here thank you man yeah no i definitely take moments to reflect and just to be grateful for it you know the existential gratitude is what you call there right yes essential actually even existential gratefulness gratefulness yeah just uh just being so appreciative and we can get lost in the

sauce of our daily life living that we um forget that you know how good we we truly have it. You help me for the rest of today. I'm going to think about this myself. Thank you. And you as well. I really love the framework also that I wanted to touch on as yes and. Oh, cool.

Yeah, yeah. I love improv, first of all. And that's a core foundation of all improv training. Is that whatever someone says to you, no matter how ridiculous, you know, yes and it. You know, like, let's try it right now. Say something to me. The banana mobile that you wrote in on was pretty ridiculous. Yes.

ass and you should imagine how it tasted afterwards. Yeah, so like, you know, just like I love improv and like just being able to, you know, that banana. You should have, yes, and when you add the cream on top. I should have went with cherry because your cherry. Cherry red. Yes, yes. But yeah, the framework for life.

But yeah. So if you apply that to life as well, like whatever comes at you, that's ridiculous in life. Because things are constantly coming at you during the day that are ridiculous. You know, you're walking down Venice on with a, you who. screaming at you. It's like, okay, yes. And I hope you have a good day too, sir. You know, just don't kill me. But, you know, like things are just constantly. This is life. And I do, ultimately, I think that we really can apply a lot of these improv principles to life. I'm really excited actually to announce that I'm going to be co-teaching a course with

the former artistic director of Second City improv in Chicago. We're going to be co-teaching a course improv for self-actualization next year as part of my center. So we're going to join up and kind of help people apply this principles directly. Amazing. Yeah. Sounds beautiful. Yeah. I love also the yes and framework for, I feel like in life, we feel like we have these

either or options. It's like we have to choose, decide, and kind of kill off one option and choose one thing. But there's, you can say yes and to things that are in your personal life, you know, it's like whether you feel like you have to choose between two decisions or, you know, or pursuing a hobby or something that's a passion project or a job or that, you know, or something else. And it's like you can be inclusive in what you want to adventure on in life. Like you were speaking to a little bit about your journey of like you just have to focus on your tenure or do this other thing.

And I think it's a beautiful space to be into where you can be inclusive to many different options in your life. That's creativity. Also, I should mention her name is Anna Libera, the one that co-doing the Second City thing with. I give her a shout-out. Her and actually her husband, Kelly Leonard, are legends in the improv world. Kelly actually wrote a book called Yes End.

It's really inspired me. Oh, cool. Amazing. Another question real quick. How do you feel creativity on the path of self-actualization, how important do you feel it is that we tap into our creativity? I almost view it synonymous. Maslow did.

Maslow viewed creativity and self-factualization and synonymous. You know, being able to have the courage to create as role, may the humanistic psychologists put it, is it takes a lot. The courage to create, the courage to create. It takes a lot, this stuff gets really existential, but I view creativity as an existential thing

where you're bringing into being something that didn't exist before. Even your existence brings into being something never existed before. So you have to take a response. for that you know and uh um role may talk a lot about that that tension between freedom and responsibility and um being able to uh to know that what you're creating and and and how you're showing up and how you're being in the world does in does create things in the world you know and uh creativity

doesn't always just have to involve like these grandiose you know like go we're going to mars you know sort of sort of grandiose things yeah even though that is creativity too yeah absolutely i mean there's so many different ways in which it shows up, right? And it's beautiful to witness all the ways in which humans are creative. There's millions of different ways in which it's expressed, and it's very inspiring. Even just on TikTok. Oh, God, I can't go on TikTok. All day.

It's addictive, right? Yeah, I just don't go on because I just, I don't know. I mean, yeah, of course, I'm sure it's very addictive, but it's just like, I just have resistance to it in general. I do too. I do too. But if I happen to go in there, I'm like, humans are. something oh it's just like dopamine overload you're something look at all this creativity yeah yeah yeah

yeah yeah which can be inspiring in doses right but then you get if you get tapped out or if you get sucked into comparison it's like that sucks whatever whatever is going to inspire you to unleash your own unique creativity and finding what that is which we've spoken to a lot of how to how to clarify that you find a lot of like older people on ticot doing crazy things and then i'm like aw you know like they found a way to be creative, you know, and a TikTok. Yeah, for sure, amazing. Is there anything that we haven't touched on today that's on your heart that you'd like to explore?

I don't think so. This is pretty comprehensive, and I enjoyed it a lot. I can't think of anything in particular. Maybe I will, one in the morning. I'll wake up. I'm like, oh, yeah, I'm coming back. So good. Well, thank you for so much for coming on, man.

It's very early on my podcasting journey. This is like within the first 10 episodes that we've done. But it's just such a pleasure for me to be able to sit down with individuals like yourself and have these conversations super fulfilling. It feels like it's my purpose. I think it is. I feel like it is yours as well.

Yeah. Yeah. It feels like it, man. Amazing. When people want to find more of you, where can they go? Where websites, Instagram, social media, things. Sure. So Scott Barry Kaufman.

com, the psychology podcast. com. Center for Human Potential. com. We're going to be having more offerings. I already mentioned one about the improv, but we'll be having a self-action coaching certification program. We have a transcend course, things like that.

So, yeah, that's good. Then other ways to contact me. The book, choose growth. I'm like, I'm forgetting something, and then I was like, oh, yeah, the book. The book. Yes. Thank you.

Yes. The book, choose growth, available everywhere now. I thought it was beautiful, the framework that you have within the different practices to really ground it and not just theory, but it's almost like a workbook also to where you can use it as a tool for reflection to gain insight into finding your strengths, finding your values, how to clarify your purpose, the different aspects.

A lot of things that we touched on today, but obviously much more in depth. So I highly recommend those, if not. Checked out some of Dr. Scott, Barry Kaufman's work. Choose growth is a great place to start. For everybody that's been coming on this journey, thank you so much. We really appreciate it. there is a separate clips channel where we chop up these interviews

and put them into short, snackable pieces of content. So definitely go check out and subscribe to that channel. Link is below. For those that have been tuning in, thank you very much. Until next time, be well.

That camera can't see you. This is just easy. Is that it? Take it easy.