Something You Should Know - SYSK Choice: Become a Brilliant Negotiator & Finding Your Purpose in Life

Episode Date: October 5, 2019

Almost all voice guided apps – like Siri and Alexa – have a female voice. Ever wonder why? This episode begins with the explanation as to why the female voice is favored in most apps. https://abcnews.go.com/Technology/apples-siri-female-voice/story?id=14802733 Are you a good negotiator or would you prefer to avoid negotiation like the plague? Well, the fact is we all negotiate every single day – and a big part of the problem with negotiation is how we approach it. Dan Shapiro is going to give a fresh and rather positive outlook on negotiation and help you become much better at it. Dan is one of the world’s leading authorities on the subject of negotiation. He is the founder and director of the Harvard International Negotiation Program, associate professor in psychology at Harvard Medical School/McLean Hospital and author of the book Negotiating the Nonnegotiable (https://amzn.to/3328Ty8). We tend to use the word “busy” a lot. As in – “I’ve been really busy.” There is a problem with that though. Telling people how busy you are tends to push them away. Listen as I explain why. What is your purpose in life? Maybe you have multiple purposes. If so, that is a good thing according to Victor Strecher author of Life On Purpose (https://amzn.to/334m41x). Victor explains the importance of having a purpose and living a life in harmony with that purpose. It turns out when you do, amazing things can happen.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

As a listener to Something You Should Know, I can only assume that you are someone who likes to learn about new and interesting things and bring more knowledge to work for you in your everyday life. I mean, that's kind of what Something You Should Know was all about. And so I want to invite you to listen to another podcast called TED Talks Daily. Now, you know about TED Talks, right? Many of the guests on Something You Should Know have done TED Talks. Well, you see, TED Talks Daily is a podcast that brings you a new TED Talk every weekday in less than 15 minutes. Join host Elise Hu.

She goes beyond the headlines so you can hear about the big ideas shaping our future. Learn about things like sustainable fashion, embracing your entrepreneurial spirit, the future of robotics, and so much more. Like I said, if you like this podcast, Something You Should Know, I'm pretty sure you're going to like TED Talks Daily. And you get TED Talks Daily wherever you get your podcasts. Today on Something You Should Know, why does Siri and almost every other voice-guided app have a female voice? Then, strategies to be a much better negotiator, even when you're dealing with someone who seems irrational.

I don't believe in irrationality most of the time. And I think at the end of the day, each side has some rationality for doing what they're doing. You might not agree with it, but the first and most effective step toward reconciliation is trying to appreciate that other side's perspectives. Also, why you should probably stop telling people how busy you are all the time. And if you don't have a purpose in life, there are some great reasons to get one. If we can help people find purpose in life, we now know that we can help them live longer, reduce their risk of heart disease and stroke, reduce their risk of depression, even have better sex. All this today on Something You Should Know. People who listen to Something You Should Know

are curious about the world, looking to hear new ideas and perspectives. So I want to tell you about a podcast that is full of new ideas and perspectives and one I've started listening to called Intelligence Squared. It's the podcast where great minds meet. Listen in for some great talks on science, tech, politics, creativity, wellness, and a lot more.

A couple of recent examples, Mustafa Suleiman, the CEO of Microsoft AI, discussing the future of technology. That's pretty cool. And writer, podcaster, and filmmaker John Ronson discussing the rise of conspiracies and culture wars. Intelligence Squared is the kind of podcast that gets you thinking a little more openly about the important conversations going on today. Being curious, you're probably just the type of person Intelligence Squared is meant for. Check out Intelligence Squared wherever you get your podcasts. Something you should know. Fascinating intel. The world's top experts. And practical advice

you can use in your life. Today, Something You Should Know with Mike Carruthers. Hi, and welcome to another Saturday edition of Something You Should Know. I don't know if you've ever thought much about this, but when you get a new iPhone, at least in the United States, Siri on that iPhone has a female voice. In fact, when you think about it, really almost all GPS or other voice-guided apps and programs have a female voice by default. So why is that? Well, there are a lot of reasons, actually. For one, studies show that people, especially women, prefer to hear a woman's voice. It may also be preference from birth. Babies will typically pay more attention to a female voice than to a male voice. History may also play a role. Traditionally, telephone operators have been female,

and there was a time when airplane pilots were given instructions by females to differentiate the instructions from the voices of other men operating the plane. And also, ever since the movie 2001 A Space Odyssey, Hal the robot forever made the male robot voice pretty creepy. The preference does change from country to country. In some countries, Siri comes as a male voice by default.

And in any event, you can always change Siri's voice from male to female, or back the other way. And that is something you should know. The idea of negotiating turns a lot of people off. Yet, we all have to do it. Every day. At work, in relationships, with kids, we're always negotiating. So why does it have this negative feeling associated with it? And is there a better, more positive way to approach negotiation? Well, Dan Shapiro thinks so. Dan is considered one of the top experts in the world on negotiating.

He is the founder and director of the Harvard International Negotiation Program. He's an associate professor of psychology at Harvard Medical School, and he's author of the book, Negotiating the Non-Negotiable. Hey, Dan, so what is your general philosophy on negotiation? I am a negotiation imperialist. My definition is anytime you are interacting for some purpose, you are negotiating, which means you're doing it all the time. Most of us, though, I think, feel like we're really not very good at it.

There are people like you, people who do this for a living, are really good negotiators, and I feel like, yeah, I'm out of my league, I'm going to get taken advantage of, and I'd really rather not. Most people have this anxiety toward negotiation. It's something scary. We feel like we're going to have to give something up. We're going to have to concede. It's going to be a hard bargaining game. And the approach that we found tends to be much more effective is helping people work together. How do you try and reach some sort of mutual gains where both people walk away better than the alternative? So we think of negotiation in the classic sense of two business people

sitting at the negotiation table. It's a sterile environment. They're staring each other down. They're being ultra-stubborn, and everybody walks away shaking, having gotten nothing that they wanted. That approach doesn't really work that well. You know, so the approach that we tend to advocate is one where the parties, you know, literally or at least metaphorically sit side by side and try and work out their differences

as a problem-solving effort rather than as a battle or a competition. Doesn't that require, though, that both parties agree to that? That we both agree, okay, we're not going to go at this in an adversarial way, and if both parties don't agree, then what you said wouldn't work. That's the fallacy. I think that's the dangerous assumption, that in order to negotiate with the other side, we both have to desperately want to negotiate and, you know, to be open to a friendly relationship. What tends to happen is we each react to the other side's worst fears. You know, I walk in thinking you're going to be stubborn and adversarial. You walk

in the same way and we create that environment, but it doesn't have to be that way. A single side walks in and recognizes you have a lot of power to frame this conversation the way you want it to be framed and to be tough in framing it, relentless in framing it as a joint process, you know, the two of us working together, that's power. You know, that is absolutely power. It's not soft either. You know, it takes strength to be able to do that effectively and you end up with more. It seems that just by its nature, negotiation has a lot of potential pitfalls, a lot of potential ways for it to go off the rails because people can get emotional, there's conflict inherently, seemingly in negotiation, and things can easily go wrong. One of the key concepts that I talk about, I call it vertigo.

And it is that experience that we all have, I think we all have it, when you're in the midst of a conflict and you start to get consumed by that conflict and by the relationship. You can't think of anything else other than the conflict. You have a fight with your spouse in the morning, you go to work, but you're not really at work. You're in your head, and you're still thinking about that conflict from the morning. Just as true at work, the same thing can happen. You get into a tough conflict with your boss, with a colleague, and all of a sudden you can't focus on anything but that conflict.

You go home. There's your spouse. There are the kids, But you're not thinking about them. You're not there mentally, emotionally. You're still at work with that angry colleague. The first and most important thing to do is to recognize when you get into vertigo or when you're falling into that place of vertigo, where you're starting to get consumed by the relationship, because that's your moment of opportunity. You know, if my wife and I get into a conflict and I can feel it starting to go into that spiraling downward cycle, it's, you know, I can just allow it to happen and react.

Or I can say in my head and possibly to my wife, wait a minute, you know, we're heading toward vertigo. Do we really want to go there right now? And you create a choice where there wasn't before. That's power. I like that. But it's always easy to talk about this, you know, calmly now, but it's in the moment that doing that is so difficult. And that's why, you know, I think there's some who advocate for the quick fix. You know, here's the secret to effective negotiating. Here's the secret to having a happy marriage, you know, all the time.

I think the secret, there is no instant coffee when it comes to these really important relationships in our life. Another concept I talk about connected to that is what Freud, Sigmund Freud, initially called the repetition compulsion. And this is the idea that we tend to repeat the same dysfunctional patterns of behavior again and again. Whether it's at work with the team, you know, the team gets together to do the next project, and we have the same problematic conflict with the same people yelling at each other, not talking, avoiding, and so on. That's the repetition compulsion. It happens at home.

You know, with the family, you get into the same conflict again and again and again and again, and you don't know how to get out. And one of the most useful ways to try and get out when you're stuck is not to try and deal with it in the moment, but preventively. You know, so when my wife and I are in a good place, you know, I walk home today after talking with you, I say, you know what, let's sit down for a few minutes and think about our conflict patterns. You know, what typically happens?

What parts work? What parts don't work? That's the moment of power. When we are in the conflict and my wife glares at me or I glare at her, that's the hardest moment to get out of that vertigo and that cycle of repetition that people tend to get in. So prevention is worth its value in gold. And nobody ever thinks to do that.

I guess it's because the whole idea of conflict is so emotionally charged that if you're not in a conflict and you start talking about conflict, that you'll end up starting one. Oh, and that happens. It's true. So I think even talking about how you're going to talk about it, it starts to feel like a loop cycle, but I think that's true. But the point is that we're not talking about the conflict itself. We're talking about the pattern of conflict.

I'm not talking about the fact that, you know, with my wife, that I forgot to do the dishes or she did, whose fault is it? What we're really talking about is how are we going to have a conversation? You know, normally, Mia, my wife, normally when you and I have a conflict, you know, I, the negotiator, try and collaborate and you withdraw. And then I start to get defensive. You can start to see the pattern that typically happens. You know, why is she withdrawing? Because she needs a little space. Why am I collaborating? I want to get this thing over with as quickly as possible. Yeah, and you know, it's good to hear that you have, I mean, you're like one of the big negotiation experts on the planet,

and it's good to hear that you have the same kind of problems that the rest of us do. I'm very pleased to say that I am a human being, yes. I'm talking with Dan Shapiro. He is founder and director of the Harvard International Negotiation Program and author of the book, Negotiating the Non-Negotiable. Contained herein are the heresies of red off punt wine first while monk turned traveling medical investigator join me as i study the secrets of the divine plagues and uncover the blasphemous truth that ours is not a loving god and we are not its favored children the heresies of Redolph Bantwine. Wherever podcasts are available. Since I host a podcast,

it's pretty common for me to be asked to recommend a podcast. And I tell people, if you like something you should know, you're gonna like The Jordan Harbinger Show. Every episode is a conversation with a fascinating guest. Of course, a lot of podcasts are conversations with guests, but Jordan does it better than most. Recently, he had a fascinating conversation with a British woman who was recruited and radicalized by ISIS

and went to prison for three years. She now works to raise awareness on this issue. It's a great conversation. And he spoke with Dr. Sarah Hill about how taking birth control not only prevents pregnancy, it can influence a woman's partner preferences, career choices, and overall behavior due to the hormonal changes it causes.

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There isn't this sense of collaboration or anything. Well, I think the first step is to recognize your mindset, the mindset you're in. I mean, your mindset is what controls your behavior and your feelings. And there's a term that I've coined for the book. I call it the tribe's effect. And the tribe's effect is an adversarial mindset. It is that notion of me versus you, us versus them. And so I think the first step is really to become very aware of when you and your team at work, your family at home, when you're moving toward that mindset. When all of a sudden it's not, oh, we're a family, but no, it's me versus you. And sensitivity to that can

allow you to preempt that mindset before it actually takes a hold on you. It sounds like what you're getting at here, too, is it's not so much how you do it as much as it is how you prepare to do it so that you're prepared to do it right when you do it. Yes, I think that's absolutely right. A huge part of effective conflict resolution is preparation. It's thinking in advance, who am I negotiating with? Who's this conflict with? And how can we work most effectively together? Down to even, you know, what might you say? What might you do to try

and enlist the other person as a partner and not as an adversary. All this stuff might sound like a panacea, a pie-in-the-sky thinking. It's not. It takes strong effort to actually move things in a cooperative direction. Do you, though, think it's human nature that people will buy into this collaborative, let's work together to resolve this kind of negotiating when you set the table for it? No, I think it's necessary. I don't think it's easy. I mean, the patterns that we have in terms of how we deal with conflict are very set. It's extremely difficult to move to a more cooperative mindset if we're in the midst of this sort of tribal

me versus you mindset. And that becomes the core of the problem. Because if you and I are in the midst of an argument, you know, we're yelling back and forth and we do this every day, the most unnatural thing to do for both of us is to change our pattern. That feels unnatural. The conflict feels natural. That's the problem. And so it is useful to take a step back and to think, well, what is our pattern? What's one small thing I could do to try to change my relationship with my working relationship so that we don't end up in the same place that we've been in the past two years as colleagues at work? What about the times, what's the strategy for when a conflict seems unresolvable, when it's non-negotiable, when it's this way and this way and there's no common ground,

there's no how do we resolve this together, it's just head-butting and it's my way, no, it's my way, what do you do then? I think the first thing to do is to recognize that most conflicts are resolvable. You can deal with them. The problem is not with the conflict objectively. The problem is with your mind and with your mindset in the conflict situation. That's where the transformation has to happen. I mean, just as an example, you take a divorcing couple who really just despise one another.

Every time they're near each other, it's like two cats clawing at one another. They build that pattern. And meanwhile, what's happening? You have the seven-year-old kids watching these fights, and it's good for nobody. So I think the first step is to recognize it might feel non-negotiable, but most of the time there is a way to move toward at least some greater degree of reconciliation between people. Not all situations, but more often than not. For that couple, one of the first questions I'd want to ask is, you know, what's your purpose?

You know, what interest is this serving for the two of you to be clawing at each other day and night and, you know, ultimately to be causing despair to each of yourselves? You're causing financial ruin for your family, and your child is over here crying. So in other words, are you open to the possibility of trying to move your mindset away from me versus you, that other is the bad person, towards something that's more mutually compassionate? And that's a big, tough question. And I think if people jump into the skills of negotiation without dealing with the mindset, they are going to get nowhere. It will be non-negotiable. By walking, I say to the angry divorcing couple, hey, you know the answer to your problem? You just

need to listen more and ask more open-ended questions. They're going to look at me like I'm crazy. That's not the problem. You know, the problem is in their mindset. Each thinks the other is evil. Each thinks their own perspective is right. The other is wrong, on all counts. It's a blanket division. So I think you need to start with a shift in the mindset, and from there, the skills can work much more effectively as well,

listening, asking open-ended questions, and so on. Yeah, if you can make that your purpose. But I've seen negotiations or conflicts, confrontations, particularly with couples, where there does seem to be some perverse satisfaction, happiness, in just making the other person angry, of just trying to be right for the sake of being right, and the other person's wrong, and that seems like victory,

that that's what makes them happy. Yes, you can get that short-term moment of happiness. I don't know if you call it happiness, but... Satisfaction, I think. Exactly, satisfaction. I'm not sure I'd call that happiness, though. It's not harmony. It's not positive equilibrium.

And it's not healthy. That form of negative emotion can wear on health and well-being as well. If you ask an individual, would you rather have, you know, that spouse you hate suffer, or would you rather be in a happy relationship and enjoy life? Now, they might choose the former, but I'm not sure it's the wiser choice. But if it is the choice, and whether it's divorcing couples or just a negotiation where you're dealing with a real jerk who's just being a jerk to be a jerk, is there a way to fix that, or do you just walk away?

Well, you might want to walk away, but before doing it, I mean, if it's, let's say, a marriage and there are children involved, I think that's an important question to think through. Do you just want to walk away? Is the marriage redeemable in some sort of way? Is the work team redeemable in some sort of way? It's very—once you get into this thing I call the tribe's effect, this mindset of division, it's very easy to write off that other person as irrational. In my own work internationally, whether working with hostage negotiators, working with businesses,

the moment people get in that mindset, what ends up happening is they ask the question, how do I negotiate with somebody who's irrational? These are wonderful ideas, but this isn't going to work with this person. I don't think you know who I'm negotiating with. And the problem is twofold. One, the other side is saying the same thing about that person who I'm talking with. And two, things aren't getting dealt with effectively. I don't believe in irrationality most of the time.

And I think at the end of the day, each side has some rationality for doing what they're doing, for feeling what they're feeling. You might not agree with it, but the first and most effective steps toward reconciliation is trying to appreciate what is going on from that other side's perspective. I don't necessarily agree with it,

but I want to understand it in order to influence them and to change the nature of the relationship. When you step back from all the data and everything you know about negotiation as it relates to what you see in other people, is there something that you wish people knew or something you wish they didn't believe or something about negotiation that would really kind of open the door and make this a whole lot easier for everybody? One of the concepts that has struck me more than anything else is the power of appreciation. It sounds so soft and, you know, I'm looking out the window

now like, you know, like a floating cloud. Oh, it's appreciation. It is one of the most powerful tools in helping people deal with utterly contentious conflict situations. The ability for the hostage negotiator to understand and see value in the perspective of that hostage taker on the other side of the door, that's huge power. The couple who's in the midst of constant conflict, they get sucked into their own mind, their own world. What's the power? The power is to try to understand and see the value in the other side's perspective.

You know what? Maybe my husband, maybe my wife, they're not as irrational as I thought they were. Boy, it might be a little hard to live with me, you know. I don't necessarily agree with why they're so upset, but now I understand it. It creates a whole different environment, you know, possibility at the end of the day. So I think that power of appreciation, you know, should not and cannot be underestimated in helping to reconcile even the most intractable feeling conflicts. You're right. It does have kind of a soft, you know, power of appreciation. But it rings true, you know, it does seem that if you can appreciate the other side, that would really go a long way in helping resolve the conflict.

Dan Shapiro has been my guest. He is founder and director of the Harvard International Negotiation Program, an associate professor of psychology at the Harvard Medical School, and author of the book, Negotiating the Non-Negotiable. There's a link to his book in the show notes. Thanks, Dan. Hey, everyone. Join me, Megan Rinks. And me, Melissa Demonts, for Don't Blame Me, But Am I Wrong? Each week, we deliver four fun-filled shows. In Don't Blame Me, But Am I Wrong? Each week, we deliver four fun-filled shows. In Don't Blame Me, we tackle our listeners' dilemmas with hilariously honest advice. Then we have But Am I Wrong?, which is for the listeners that didn't take our advice.

Plus, we share our hot takes on current events. Then tune in to see you next Tuesday for our Lister poll results from But Am I Wrong? And finally, wrap up your week with Fisting Friday, where we catch up and talk all things pop culture. Listen to Don't Blame Me, But Am I Wrong on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. New episodes every Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday.

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Do you have a purpose in life, or maybe more than one purpose in life? And if you don't have a purpose, how do you find one? Victor Strecker is a professor at the University of Michigan School of Public Health, and he's author of the book Life on Purpose. And I think when you hear what he has to say about the importance of your life's purpose, you'll probably make it a real priority in your life. So, Victor, explain your journey of discovery here. How did you figure out that finding your purpose is so important? Well, I'm a behavioral scientist. I've helped people make big changes in their lives for over 35 years, helping people quit smoking, lose weight, manage stress. But I've always felt that there's something deeper and kind of a fundamental underlying

condition that often causes these things. And what we've found increasingly is that that might be purpose in life. If we can help people find purpose in life, we now know that we can help them live longer, reduce their risk of heart disease and stroke, reduce their risk of depression, literally help repair their DNA, improve their antibody count when they're assaulted with stressful diseases, even have better sex. So there are so many positive things as a result of having purpose in life. I thought maybe I should work on this since this is maybe fundamental to so many other behavior changes. It's fundamental to being happy.

That's what I do in my life. I try to help people become well, and I think this is the fundamental cause of wellness. Gee, is that all it does? Yeah, I know. And, oh, what are the side effects? Better sex and more friends. Better sex, more friends, and less disease, and a million other things. So it seems like there might be a good reason to find a purpose in life. If purpose in life were a pill, it would be a multi-billion dollar drug, or it would be in our drinking water. So let's define what it means to have a purpose in life, other than, you know, get up in the

morning and, you know, brush your teeth and off you go on your day. What does it mean to have a purpose? And do you only have one purpose? I want to demystify the concept of purpose. What we're really talking about are our core values set in motion, operationalized with goals. In other words, I really value at work teaching my students. I really value my students. So I set a goal around that, which is to teach every one of my students as if they're my own daughter. And so that becomes my purpose at work. I have a purpose at home. I very much value my relationship with my wife.

And so I set a goal around that, to be an engaged husband. So that's a purpose. In other words, we can have multiple purposes. We have purposes at work. We have purposes at home with our family. We may have personal purposes. We may have global or community purposes. Do you need more than one, or is one enough, or is more the better, or what? Well, I think we have different dimensions in our lives. So I think it's important to have purposes related to these different dimensions of our lives. Also, we go through life. So we may find a job. We may decide to get married. We may decide to have children. We may retire. We may get sick. All those points in time, all those transitions in life, may require that you reconsider your purpose and literally repurpose your life. Do you think most people have a purpose?

We find that most people do have a purpose in their lives. But I want to make sure that I distinguish just having a purpose from living in alignment with your purpose every day. Aristotle basically said, it's not just about having purpose and now I can go to Disney World. It's about being in alignment with your purpose every day. And that, at least for me, and I think for other people, requires a lot of energy. It requires wind in my sails if I'm a boat, and it requires willpower like a rudder. But you know, even if I have a lot of energy, it requires wind in my sails if I'm a boat, and it requires willpower, like a rudder. But you know, even if I have a lot of wind in my sails and I have a rudder,

I still need a harbor, I still need a purpose, a direction for my boat. Do you find that a lot of people have found themselves in a place where they're doing something, maybe they have a job that they're getting paid for, but it's not in alignment or part of their work. And yet we have found, even looking at custodians at our medical center, that some custodians just work for the dollar, but other custodians feel like they're part of the medical team. They read books to the children who are sick in the hospital with cancer because their parents never go to see them. Maybe they're too busy, but they read a book every evening to that child or a person who's in a coma, they'll put a fresh flower in front of that

person just in case if they ever wake up, the first thing they'll see is something of great beauty. That's a purpose. And those people are never absent. And they love their role. They love being at work. So I would say you can find purpose in nearly any job. It doesn't matter how dirty or grubby the job is. I think it's so important that we try to find purpose, that we craft a purpose in our lives and in our work. Every example that you have mentioned thus far has involved somebody else. You know, we're reading stories to children, or leaving flowers for people, or being dedicated to your wife, or there's always somebody on the other end. Is that part of the definition of a purpose?

Well, again, Aristotle talked about this over 2,400 years ago. He said there are hedonic purposes related to hedonism where, you know, we're focused on pleasure for ourselves. And we all love to have pleasure. We totally understand that. But he said, if that's all we are, then we're like grazing animals. And we all like to graze, you know, on food or drink or sex or whatever those things are. We like to graze, of course. And he said, that's fine. It's just that we should also be in touch with something bigger than ourselves, something self-transcending, in other words. And it turns out that self-transcending core values and purpose seems to be much better for us physically. So that's why having

self-transcending purpose, thinking about other people, other things, things about, you know, other than ourselves, actually is better for ourselves. Those people with stronger self-transcending purpose end up doing better themselves. Interestingly enough, organizations who have revenue-transcending purpose actually make more revenue. So there's something kind of interesting, almost zen-like, about this process. Do you find that purpose comes as a result of just living your life and you kind of stumble into things that light you on fire, or is purpose more the result of sitting down and thinking more academically about, you know,

what should be my purpose? I think that people who are religious are very naturally drawn toward purposes, because religion talks about core values, you know, sets up core values, and helps you build a purpose from those core values. But increasingly, people who are not religious are saying, you know what, we have purposes too. And I completely agree with that. I think it's very important, whether you're religious or not, to think about what your core values are. What do you care about the most, in other words? And by the way, you can walk home, you know, turn around, look around to your family and say, maybe that's what I value the most, in other words. And by the way, you can walk home, you know, turn around, look around to your family and say, maybe that's what I value the most. Or at work, look around. What are the

things you value the most? What in your community do you value the most? Set a goal around that. That becomes your purpose. Try that purpose out, like a suit. See if that suit fits. And if it does, wear that suit. Have you ever talked to someone who clearly has a purpose, but when you dig a little deeper, it's the wrong purpose? It isn't really their purpose. It's just something they think is their purpose, but they'd be better off with another one? You know, one of the things I think about a lot is the authenticity of a person's purpose. And I think there are probably multiple purposes. We all have aspirational purposes, things that relate to what we want to become. But we also all have

a shadow purpose, something that maybe we need to work on, that we need to, first of all, acknowledge, yeah, that probably is something that I really am striving to do. I wouldn't tell anybody about that. I'm not that proud of that. And I actually need to work on maybe exercising that less or getting rid of that. So yes, I would say that some purposes are not authentic, and we should be striving toward an authenticity. Again, I'll go back to Aristotle. He called this our true self, our inner daimon. He called it D-A-I-M-O-N. And he said eudaimonic well-being, being in touch with your true self or inner daimon, is related to being truly happy and truly well. But it does require being in touch with this authentic, true self inside of you. Have you ever come across people who clearly don't have a purpose or don't know what their purpose is and maybe couldn't care less? I run across people every day who don't have purpose.

But very often I meet people who want to have a purpose in their lives. And by the way, these might be very wealthy people, very well-off people who have everything else in their lives, but they really lack this eudaimonic or true self-transcending purpose. So they've gotten all the money they need. They've had all the hedonistic purposes fulfilled in their lives. And they're still really hollow. They feel unhappy.

And, you know, of course, this has been our zeitgeist for 30 years. We've talked about things like this. So the big question, though, is how do you get rid of that? How do you start focusing on something that's bigger than yourself and a real purpose? So I do help people with that all the time. But of course, there are many people who don't have purpose in their lives. That's part of what's called nihilism. And I would say increasingly, our society is nihilistic, which is one of the reasons I'm doing this. So what are the first steps? What are the toe-in-the-water procedures to find your purpose

and really feel connected to it? One of the first things to do is simply ask yourself, what do I care about the most? What do I value the most? Do I value my family, my spouse, my kids, my friends, my community? What part of my community? What part of work do I value? What are the things personally do I value? What part, what are the things personally that I value? So maybe breaking this out into your personal values, your family values, your work values, your community values, and then start setting goals to those values. So if I care a lot about my students

at the University of Michigan where I teach, I can set a goal around that. I'm going to teach every one of those students as if they're my own daughter. And that turns into a purpose. So that's a good first step. Another step to think about, who are the people that you admire the most? Is it a parent? Is it a neighbor? Is it a sports hero?

Is it somebody in the past? Who is a person or people who you care about, who you would like to emulate? Not imitate, by the way, but emulate. Think about that. And once you've done this, again, think about this as a suit of clothes. Try on the suit. See if the suit fits. Wear this for a while. Wear it for a few days. See if you can be aligned with this purpose. And if it is, then wear it. And then think about how I can build more energy and more self-control or willpower every day to be aligned with that purpose. And I believe you will find yourself becoming happier. What happens when you have this purpose where you're going to teach every one of your students like they're your own daughter, and you kind of fall off the wagon? You have a bad day or some student just rubs you the wrong way, and you don't live in alignment with that. How do you deal with that? What a great question. Yeah, well, I treat those lapses, not as relapses, not as falling off the wagon, but more as lapses. And I try to learn from them.

What did I do? What happened? Did I sleep well? Was I present that day? Was I active that day, physically? Was I creative that day? Did I eat well? I actually think about my own behaviors. Was it a tough day? But I think about my behaviors. I think about the environment. What happened? Was it raining? Was it sunny? Was it hot? Was it freezing cold? What was it like? And I start trying to examine my own life to figure out what's giving me more energy and more willpower or less energy and less willpower. When is it that I just lose it and I can't deal with a student suddenly? What is my problem in this?

Because if I can't deal with that, it is my problem, and I have to figure that out. I would say that one of the major themes of my book, Life on Purpose, is that we are who we choose to be, so we should be very careful who we choose to be. So we should be very careful who we choose to be. If somebody wants to figure out their purpose, should it be a pretty easy task? In other words, if it takes a long time to figure out your purpose, then maybe it's not your purpose. Well, I think finding a purpose is a process that may take many, many years. So you may discover an initial purpose and then work on that. You might revise it.

It may modify a little bit. You may have life's events that cause that purpose to change. It's a living document, but it is the most important document of your life. So you do want to pay some attention to it. And you must be willing to alter that document. If it's not working for you, it is your life. You are who you choose to be. So change it. And make sure that you are careful who you choose to be. Make sure that this purpose is something that you have carefully put together. So if it does take a long time,

that's no problem. This is an important document. If you can come up with a purpose in your life right away and start working on that, wonderful. Well, it's a great topic. I mean, everybody should have or does have a purpose or multiple purposes in life, and it's good to stop and think about it and examine it a bit. My guest has been Victor Strecker. He is a professor at the University of Michigan School of Public Health, and his book is called Life on Purpose. There's a link to his book in the show notes. Thanks for being here, Victor.

Well, thank you. Boy, you asked some great questions. And finally today on the podcast, there's a word you probably use a lot that could be driving a wedge between you and your friends. And the word is busy, as in I've been really busy. Of course, there's nothing wrong with being busy. It's not being busy that drives people away. It's the word busy all by itself.

And here's why. Everyone is busy. So when you say you're busy, you're basically saying you're alive. It's just a vague filler word that doesn't really mean much. And it's open to negative interpretation. While many people will accept being busy as enough of an excuse for not hanging out with them the first couple of times, eventually your friends see it as a veil over some other sinister reason for not wanting to hang out with them. Maybe you don't like them anymore and you're just afraid to say it, so you just say, well, I've been really busy.

Also, it misses the point. Oftentimes being busy simply means you have bigger priorities, higher priorities than seeing your friends, which is fine. You may be caring for a child or launching a new project. And there's lots of legitimate reasons why friendships fall down the list of priorities. But simply saying you're busy doesn't really communicate any of that. So instead, replace the word busy with something specific. And sure, it takes more effort to do that, but it's worth doing because the difference in how the message is received is quite significant.

And that is something you should know. And that brings this weekend edition of the podcast to an end. I'm Micah Ruthers. Thanks for listening today to Something You Should Know. Welcome to the small town of Chinook, where faith runs deep and secrets run deeper. In this new thriller, religion and crime collide when a gruesome murder rocks the isolated Montana community. Everyone is quick to point their fingers at a drug-addicted teenager, but local deputy Ruth Vogel isn't convinced. She suspects connections to a powerful religious group. Enter federal agent V.B. Loro, who has been investigating a local church

for possible criminal activity. The pair form an unlikely partnership to catch the killer, unearthing secrets that leave Ruth torn between her duty to the law, her religious convictions, and her very own family. But something more sinister than murder is afoot, and someone is watching Ruth.

Chinook, starring Kelly Marie Tran and Sanaa Lathan. Listen to Chinook wherever you get your podcasts. Hi, this is Rob Benedict. And I am Richard Spate. We were both on a little show you might know called Supernatural. It had a pretty good run. 15 seasons, 327 episodes. And though we have seen, of course, every episode many times, we figured, hey, now that we're wrapped, let's watch it all again.

And we can't do that alone. So we're inviting the cast and crew that made the show along for the ride. We've got writers, producers, composers, directors, and we'll, of course, have some actors on as well, including some certain guys that played some certain pretty iconic brothers. It was kind of a little bit of a left field choice in the best way possible.

The note from Kripke was, he's great, we love him, but we're looking for like a really intelligent Duchovny type. With 15 seasons to explore, it's going to be the road trip of several lifetimes, so please join us and subscribe to Supernatural then and now.