Something You Should Know - The Science of Sin: Why We Do Bad Things & How to Lead When You Are Not in Charge

Episode Date: April 8, 2019

Why does traffic just seem to stop for no reason then magically clear up? You are sure there must be an accident or construction but there isn’t. So what causes it? We begin this episode with an explanation of that. (https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/06/090608151550.htm) There are 7 deadly sins: pride, envy, gluttony, lust, wrath, greed and sloth. Why are they so tempting? We humans spend our lives trying to resist the lure of sin. So what’s it all for? Jack Lewis author of the book The Science of Sin: Why We Do the Things We Know We Shouldn’t (https://amzn.to/2HVhXhL) joins me for a fascinating discussion on why we are attracted to things that can do us no good and what determines if we resist or give in to temptation.  Ever have a chain necklace get all tangled in a knot that is hard to get undone? That is just one of several household emergencies that you’ll hear the solution for in this episode. http://www.goodhousekeeping.com/home/cleaning/g3397/quick-cleaning-fixesfor-everyday-issues/ You probably assume that in order to be a leader, you have to have authority – otherwise why should anyone listen to you? Well you don’t, according to my guest Clay Scroggins, author of the book How to Lead When You're Not in Charge: Leveraging Influence When You Lack Authority (https://amzn.to/2UxS7Gc). Listen to understand why it is not about authority so much as it is about influence.  This Week's Sponsors -LinkedIn. For $50 off your first job post, go to www.LinkedIn.com/podcast -BetterHelp. Get help with a counselor you will love at www.BetterHelp.com/SYSK -Care/Of Vitamins. For 50% off your first order go to www.TakecareOf.com and use the promo code: something50 -Ollie. For 60% off your first order plus a free bag of dog treats go to www.myollie.com/try/something -Calming Comfort. For $15 off the displayed price go to www.calmingcomfortblanket.com and use the promo code: something -ADT. To get a secure smart home designed just for you go to www.ADT.com -Capital One. What's in your wallet? www.CapitalOne.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Today on Something You Should Know, why are there phantom traffic jams? Where traffic slows down for no apparent reason. Then the seven deadly sins. Why are they so hard for us to resist? There's definitely a tension between our sort of inner drive to do those seven things, because at least six of those seven, when we give into those temptations, it feels good. You know, giving into these urges, it is hard work resisting temptation. Then some great household hacks for everyday emergencies and understanding that you can still be a leader even if you don't have the authority to lead. The reason why I know that

is because we all know people who have a lot of authority and are not doing a great job leading. And then at the same time, we know a lot of people in our past and our history who have not had authority but have still done great things. All this today on Something You Should Know. 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.

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in delivering quality hires. Post a job today at linkedin.com slash podcast and get $50 off your first job post. That's linkedin.com slash podcast and get $50 off your first job post. That's linkedin.com slash podcast. Terms and conditions apply. 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, welcome. For a podcast to be successful, it needs to have a lot of subscribers, and we have a lot of subscribers. If you don't subscribe yet, you should because A, it is free to subscribe to this podcast, and B, it makes your life easier because you don't have to come and look for the episodes.

The episodes find you because they're sent right to your phone or your tablet or wherever you want them. Every podcast platform, whether it's Apple Podcasts, Google, TuneIn, CastBox, they all have a subscribe button that makes it easy to subscribe, so I recommend you do. First up today, so you're driving along the highway and all of a sudden traffic stops. So you stop, and then you slowly crawl along for a while, and then suddenly everything is fine again. There was no accident, no construction, no police, no nothing. So why did traffic stop in the first place? It's called a phantom traffic jam, and contrary to popular belief, it is not necessarily the result of one bad slow driver.

I always think that. I always think there's somebody up there who's just going 20 miles an hour and screwing up everything. But apparently that's not the case. However, humans are the problem. According to mathematician Benjamin Seibold, who studies this at Temple University, when a roadway becomes densely packed with vehicles, small, almost imperceptible changes in otherwise perfectly normal driving,

like just barely letting off the gas and slowing down by a couple of miles per hour, those little changes are amplified by other cars until they actually become waves of cars suddenly breaking. What's fascinating is that in a computer model, Benjamin Seibold found that if only 2% of the cars on the road were self-driving cars, it would solve 50% of the problem, because self-driving cars have the ability to read traffic patterns up ahead and make adjustments, forcing cars behind them to make the same adjustments. And that is something you should know. No one is perfect.

People do bad things. We sin. There are supposedly seven deadly sins. Pride, envy, gluttony, lust, anger or wrath, greed and sloth. And when these sins are committed, they are said to impede our spiritual progress. So why do we consider these behaviors so bad? Why, knowing they are so bad, why do we do them anyway? Why do people sin?

And we all sin. Jack Lewis has taken a look at sin through a scientific lens. Jack is a scientist who studies the brain, and he's written a book called The Science of Sin, Why We Do the Things We Know We Shouldn't. Hey Jack, welcome. Hi, thanks very much for having me. So, why do we sin? We sin because it's part of our repertoire of very normal, perfectly natural human behaviors.

But when those behaviors go into the extreme, they end up having antisocial consequences. That's how me, a scientist from the secular world, sees those seven categories of behavior. Pope Gregory the Great, who kind of came up with those seven as being particularly troublesome, he would have been thinking more about the fate of people's souls, and he was worried that those seven very natural human behaviors in excess would ruin people's appreciation of God, and thereby probably not gain their soul's passage to heaven in the afterlife, and he was worried that everyone would end up frying in hell. So it's two different ways of looking at the same batch of typically encountered behaviors. And yet, why is it that some people sin more than others,

some people are better at walking the straight and narrow and doing the right thing, and other people succumb to temptation much more often. Oh, it's a tricky one. There's no clear answers. But at the end of the day, those seven things, we need them in moderation. So everyone's doing it a little bit all of the time. For example, if you abolished lust, we'd never pass on our genes into the next generation. If you abolish greed, people wouldn't end up building enough of a surplus to get them through hard times. Similarly, gluttony, rather than being an excess of money or cash or resources, it's an excess of food, tucking it away into the fatty deposits under your skin so that

our ancestors could survive the lean times, literally avoid starving to death when no food was available if you'd managed to store some fat away. But the extremes of these behaviors, it's partly to do with how much our families tolerate it in us. You know, how much does the carrot and stick of, say, verbal feedback on whether our conduct is appropriate or not throughout childhood, if kids get practice reining in their sort of impulsive behaviors, then later on in life, that practice will turn into the reinforcement of specific brain pathways, which enable us to sort of self-soothe, if you like. So let's talk about the individual sins, like pride. We can start with that. I mean, pride is also a good thing. You should have pride. So at what point does pride become so bad that it becomes sinful? Well, you should start getting feedback from the people around you. You know, I can't speak with any authority about the difference between keeping a lid on pride

sufficiently to avoid going to hell. But in terms of ending up with the positive sort of physical and mental health benefits, if other people are ending up getting hacked off with you to the point where they no longer want to associate with you because you're forever bringing the topic of conversation to yourself you're forever trying to gain people's attention with your vanity you're forever trying to elicit compliments from others that can end up being extremely irritating to other people so I think the point at which you are succumbing to the sin of pride is when you start finding yourself isolated and being socially isolated ultimately is what is deadly about all which you're succumbing to the sin of pride is when you start finding yourself isolated.

And being socially isolated ultimately is what is deadly about all of the seven deadly sins, because people who find themselves isolated, who are lonely, they end up with worse health outcomes. So when you look at this at sin scientifically here, would we all sin in excess if it weren't for self-control? In other words, is sin the norm and then society and family and all that keep us from falling off the edge, or is falling off the edge abnormal? It's a great question. There's definitely a tension between our sort of inner drive to do those seven things, because at least six of those seven, when we give in to those temptations, it's hard work resisting temptation. And so I think everyone will have a tendency in the absence of other people around them to go too far with all of those. Well, envy is by definition a social comparison emotion. So you need, you have to have other people around for that one, for sure. But in general, if there weren't other people around, we'd all have a tendency to get carried away with all of those behaviors. And indeed, it is other people around

us that sort of rein us in, help to guide us, point us to areas of our behavior that just aren't going down well with the group. And at the end of the day, if you want to maintain your membership of the in-group, whether it's family, community, whatever, sports team, business, colleagues at work, if you want to be a part of that team, then you have to pull your weight. And the extremes of those seven tend to involve someone thinking, you know what? I'm better than everyone. I want more than everyone in terms of fair share. It's all about me, me, me, me. Other people aren't going to like that, and they will push you away. I guess it's hard to imagine that the answer would be yes, but because everybody sins, is there any benefit to sin?

Well, what you call sin, I call extremes of antisocial behavior because sin has so much religious connotation attached to it. If you say sin, then people are thinking about God and the devil, heaven and hell. So yes, the behaviors described as the seven deadly sins in moderation are vital to a happy, healthy existence on planet earth. Take someone that has, you know, not enough pride. They're not going to think themselves important enough to even fight for their fair share of anything if they have, you know, low self-esteem. A poverty of pride, the closest thing we've got to that is a poverty of self-esteem. And that's vital to feel that you are worthy of love. You are worthy of having your voice heard in a group.

We need a little bit of pride. It only becomes a sin when it crosses a threshold where on balance it's causing more trouble than it is delivering benefits. So for me, sin across all seven of the cardinal vices, once it crosses a threshold, it becomes a sin. Up until that point, where it crosses that threshold into the extreme, then it's a perfectly normal, necessary impulse, which helps us to thrive. It's a fine line. It's a fine line indeed. Jack Lewis is my guest, and his book is The Science of Sin, Why We Do the Things We Know We Shouldn't. So now that spring is here, it's time to make a commitment to a healthier you. And you can start with Care-of.

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for 60% off plus a free bag of treats. Spelled my-o-l-l-iI-E my Ali dot com slash try slash something. And that link is also in the show notes. So, Jack, does it seem to you, as it seems to me, that the line between acceptable behavior and extreme behavior, sinful behavior, has moved and keeps moving. That what was once sinful is now on the other side, on the acceptable side of the line, and the line keeps moving. Absolutely. And there is good evidence to support that, especially in the case of narcissism. So in the late 70s, this narcissistic personality inventory was invented,

and it's been carried out on your side of the pond in the United States every year for decades now. And on average, the score that people get has gone up and up and up from one decade to the next. So there is objective evidence attesting to the suspicion that at least in the case of pride, we have got more prideful in the sense that narcissism rates have gone up and up. Then doesn't it worry you as a scientist that if what was once sinful is now acceptable, if that line keeps moving, that eventually it will move to the point where we just destroy ourselves well I mean if you take the example of Roth you know the problem with a little bit of Roth like as in a deterrent to

keep people away from you and your loved ones if they if they have ill intent in their mind oh and so Jack let me just jump in here, because you're British and you're saying wrath, and we say wrath here, so I just want to make it clear that your wrath is our wrath or anger in your discussion. So go ahead. You know, extremes of wrath include, you know, meeting your death through violent means,

whether it's a war, whether it's a murder, whether it's some other kind of sort of unpleasant, violent interaction with other people. If you look at the data, we have never lived in a more peaceful time when we are less likely, if you look back across thousands and thousands of years, never before in the history of humanity has Roth been less of a problem. We really don't, if we're worrying that we might get blown up by a terrorist or we might get shot, then if you look at the stats, there's no need to worry about that now. 50 years ago, sure. 500 years ago, sure. But now it is an unbelievably peaceful time in the history of humanity.

Whether or not the news leaves that impression, it is actually objectively true. So just because one sin has gone to an extreme or seems to be sort of creeping ever upwards, doesn't mean that all will follow suit. There are so many different factors influencing the degree to which a society will tolerate ill behavior of other people. Well, what's interesting to me is, for example, drinking, smoking marijuana, and some recreational drugs, the line has moved to be more accepting of what used to be considered wrong, sinful behavior. Premarital sex used to be much more taboo than it is now. The line only moves that way. It never goes back the other way. It only moves in one direction, if it moves at all. It's very interesting you should say that, because it's sort of, where is the sin and lust,

just to take that example that you brought up. You know, i don't think there's anything sinful in the sense of it has anti-social outcomes about trying before you buy in the sexual market because the advent of effective contraception has changed what happens like i think the the the you know lust can become a a real powerful force for anti-social. If you consider the burden that unwanted offspring place on society, someone has got to look after every child that's born. You know, and if the parents had not planned for it, it was unexpected. It was just a sort of premarital bit of fun, which ended up meaning they had to carry more baggage than they perhaps had realized. Like that is obviously awful for the kid who could potentially get bounced from foster home to foster home. It's also awful for the parents who will presumably feel quite guilty

about having to have given away a child at a young age. No one wants to be in that situation. So, but with the advent of contraception, that's changed. The goalposts have shifted somewhat in the sense of the net sum antisocial outcomes that can come of it. So will it go back the other way? I can imagine people getting so bored of loveless sex that they end up becoming slightly more puritanical in the sense of saving themselves until marriage just so that the sex can go back to being special. Also mentioned the booze thing. You're right. People drink to excess as a matter of course, what was considered 20, 30 years ago, a normal intake of alcohol that that surely has rocketed

too. And gluttony comes from the latin word to gulp so it really is about shoving anything down your throat in whether it's kind of food or liquids in excess never before has there been a situation on planet earth where people are statistically more likely to die of obesity related diseases in other, dying from an excess of food consumption rather than starvation. Up until very recently in time, the main peril globally in terms of people meeting an untimely demise when it comes to calories is too few calories. I wonder how much more sinful we are than we think we are that because it's a sin people cover up when they sin and that is there a lot more sinning going on than anybody ever imagined even though we live

in a more permissive society i think there's a natural process whereby yeah when you're not worried that the vicar is going to see or the priest is going to sort of catch you doing something which is going to ruin not just your name but your family name then people will be happy to just do whatever they want a little bit more but they're always reined in by a sense of common decency on the whole. People do have a moral compass, even if they are not regularly attending church. Generally speaking, the vast majority of people have a sense of where the line is between right and wrong. And although they may disagree over it, for exactly where that line is, everyone, most people, you can never say everyone, there's always outliers, but the majority of think, you know, what, what other people

observe. And there's a, there's a lot of talk now, movement towards not judging. Who are you to judge me? And I wonder if that plays into this at all. I think to ask someone to not be judgmental is, is slightly ridiculous ridiculous it's not possible to not judge sharing those judgments is another matter and i guess that's what you're getting at i think the minute we start we stop sharing our judgments of one another then we're in trouble because one of the main problems with being socially isolated is that you can start entertaining ideas and notions and concepts that are utterly ridiculous. And their madness lies.

You know, people who are, you know, socially isolated, they have a higher incidence of, you know, I wasn't being glib, but higher incidence of depression, higher incidence of psychosis, higher incidence of personality disorders. And it's partly because when we bounce our ideas off of other people around us then they act as a sort of stabilizing mechanism they'll either go yeah yeah that sounds reasonable yeah maybe that is happening or they'll say what are you talking about that might be how you see things but that I was there I witnessed it that's not how it came across to me because a lot of the social cues that we're having to analyze on a daily basis that then it's it's not black and white that there's a lot of grayscale and trying to interpret

the way a person looks at us their body language the the way they respond to things we say we need other people to help us interpret what their meanings were what their what their real meaning was what their true motives were um when no one is perfect at all things, and we need others to bounce ideas off of. So I know that your big takeaway and your message, which I like, has to do with how all these sins are related to pain. So talk about pain. When you're on the receiving end of antisocial behavior, more often than not, it's going to come from a place of pain in the brain of the person who is being antisocial.

So bearing that in mind can really, it certainly helped me over the last sort of year or two since I first noticed this in the data, noticed these patterns. But rather than reacting impulsively and emotionally when you're on the receiving end of unpleasant behavior of others, if you imagine what's going on in those pain circuits of their brain, and then it can help you re-evaluate their actions in a way that helps you to not take it so personally and in a way that sort of helps you to be more empathetic of their suffering. So by feeling sorry for the person who's being aggressive to you, it can help reduce your own suffering.

And I think that's tremendously powerful. So reconcile something for me, because you've been saying all along that sinful behavior, what we consider sinful, is really normal behavior just gone to an extreme. Now you're saying it's the result of pain, that if you're on the receiving end of antisocial behavior, it's because the person is suffering some pain. So can you reconcile that? it doesn't it have to be one or the other what an interesting question so if we don't try to keep excesses of pride in check then we're going to end up getting a reputation for being an absolutely horrific narcissistic person that no one wants to spend any time with. And so once you start

heading in the direction of those extremes, because no one else has given you feedback that's made you try to be more thoughtful of other people to not, you know, rein in those impulses to draw attention, to feed your own sort of ego with compliments from other people. As you start tending towards excesses of pride, that's when the pain kicks in. Because as people start to desert you, you're going to start seeking that reassurance more and more and more because it's treatment, essentially. It's a sort of form of self-soothing,

the attention you get from others if you're a narcissistic person, that you crave more and more as the pain of loneliness increases and increases. So does that reconcile the two ideas? Yeah, and it's an interesting take on the topic. I've never looked at sin quite this way before. Jack Lewis has been my guest. The name of his book is The Science of Sin, Why We Do the Things We Know We Shouldn't, and you will find a link to his book in the show notes. Thanks, Jack. Thanks, Mike. It's been a pleasure. I have been sleeping with a calming comfort blanket on my bed

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you're going to 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. Apple named The Jordan Harbinger Show one of the best podcasts a few years back, and in a nutshell, the show is aimed at making you a better, more informed, critical thinker. Check out The Jordan Harbinger Show. There's so much for you in this podcast. The Jordan Harbinger Show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hi, I'm Jennifer, a founder of the Go Kid Go Network.

At Go Kid Go, putting kids first is at the heart of every show that we produce. That's why we're so excited to introduce a brand new show to our network called The Search for the Silver Lining, a fantasy adventure series about a spirited young girl named Isla who time travels to the mythical land of Camelot. Look for The Search for the Silver Lining on Spotify, Apple, or wherever you get your podcasts. In order to lead, you must have the authority, right? I mean, how many times have you wished that you had the authority to make things go your way because you knew your way was a better way, but you didn't have the power or the authority to do it? Well, perhaps you don't need it. Clay Scroggins is a

student of leadership, and he's also a church pastor who has written a fascinating book called How to Lead When You're Not in Charge, Leveraging Influence When You Lack Authority. Hey, Clay, welcome. Thanks, Michael. Glad to be on. So how did you get involved in this topic? What made you look at this idea of leading without authority? I think along the way in my professional career, I started realizing that I had more dreams and ideas and hopes and wishes and desires for what we were doing than I had authority for. And I think the more I started gaining more authority, the more I started realizing that what I was really looking for, I actually had the whole time. I think I used to think that if I only had my boss's job, then I'll be able to do all that I want to do because I was buying into the myth or the lie that you have to be in charge in order to lead. And the more authority I've gained, actually, the more that bubble has been popped,

that you don't have to have authority in order to lead. And the reason why I know that is because we all know people who have a lot of authority and are not doing a great job leading. And then at the same time, we know a lot of people in our past and our history who have not had authority but have still done great things. And it just caused me to learn personally what I think everyone knows at an intellectual level, that leadership is not necessarily relegated to authority, that leadership is really something far greater than authority. Leadership is not necessarily relegated to authority. That leadership is really something far greater than authority.

Leadership is influence. So then the question is, well, what am I doing to cultivate influence? If I can have influence at any level that I find myself in, then what can I do to start cultivating that kind of influence? And then what am I doing that's costing me influence? And so to have influence may not be to have authority, but what does it mean to have influence? That's really what leadership is. Leadership at its essence is influence. It's the ability to get people to do what they might not want to do in order to accomplish what they want to accomplish. And we all know people in our own life who have

influence. So I think for me, just flipping that around and going, okay, well, if I know what kind of people or if I know the actual people who have had influence on me, then the question is, what am I doing to cultivate that with other people? And am I the kind of person that's growing in my influence? For me to be able to become the leader that I know I want to be. I just have recognized that's what I need to do is I need to learn how to grow. I need to learn how to grow my influence. So how do we be that guy that people go, well, let's listen to him. He doesn't have the authority, but let's listen to him anyway. And I know you say there are four behaviors to cultivate influence. The four behaviors that I just know for myself I'm trying to do that I think ultimately are what cultivates influence with people are number one, to lead

myself well. Number two, to choose positivity, even when things aren't going my way, or even when the job that I'm in is not the job that I want. And then number three, to learn how to think critically. The skill of thinking critically, it really is a lost art in our society because there's so many distractions in the world. And then the last one is to reject passivity, to fight off the passivity that wants to get in me when I'm not in charge. So for me, those four behaviors provide a game plan, if you will, on how to begin to cultivate influence with the people around you, whether it's friends, family, or co or coworkers, or your boss, whoever it may be. So can you take those four behaviors and put them in real-life examples

and walk me through it? Sure. Yeah, the first one to lead yourself well, I mean, you know, to me, the place to begin in trying to lead yourself well is to become more of a student of yourself, which the best way to do that is to be the kind of person that's fearless in getting feedback from other people. I like to think about the directory of a mall. You know, when you walk into a mall and you're looking for a particular store,

you go to that little map and you find the store that you're looking for, you know, B7, that's where I'm trying to get. Well, you can't get to B7 until you know that important piece of data, that star that says you are here. To be able to get to where you want to be, you've got to know exactly where you are. And so to lead yourself well, you've got to know exactly what you're good at, exactly what you're not good at, and to be as aware as possible of your blind spots. Self-awareness is scary because it can feel like rejection when you seek that kind of personal feedback. But as a mom, as a salesperson, as a coach, no matter what you're doing in life,

if you want to get better at it, you have to know exactly where you are. And the great news is once you know exactly where you are, the map, the roadmap on how to lead yourself well, it gets way more clear when you start to really understand exactly where you are. The second big idea of choosing positivity is really the idea that when you are not the boss, when you're getting decisions handed to you, it's really difficult to maintain positivity because no one likes to be told what to do. No one likes to be advised how you're going to handle any certain situation. I love the phrase that Patrick Lencioni, who's written so many fantastic leadership books,

he says, when you allow people to weigh in, they're more likely to buy in. And that is true. The problem is there are so many things in our life where we don't get the opportunity to weigh in, but we're asked to buy in. And how do you maintain positivity in the middle of that kind of situation? I think it really has so much to do with a decision that you make. It really is a decision to be excited about where you are in your life today, to be excited about what you have in your life today.

And that's just a choice of gratitude. It's a choice of perspective. There's somebody in the world today that has a worse situation than you and is more excited about it. And if they can get excited about it, then I think you can get excited about it as well. And that's not always easy to do, obviously, but it really is a choice. When I think about the people on our team, I want people that are excited about what they're working on today. I want people coming to work today like a 100-watt light bulb, not a 40-watt light bulb, but a light bulb that's burning

brightly because that is the kind of attitude that's going to cultivate the most amount of influence. And then thirdly, to be able to think critically. The skill of thinking critically is about noticing things, questioning things, and then connecting things. So Michael, I like to think about somebody going into a restaurant. When you walk into a restaurant, I would imagine, particularly if you're an analytical type person, some people just can't turn it off. And they walk in and they think, wow, why is it so bright in here? Why is it so dark in here? Why is the music so loud? Why is the music so soft? Why didn't they say hello to us right when they walk in? When they sat us, when they seated us at our table, why didn't they say hello to us right when they would walk in? When they sat us,

when they seated us at our table, why didn't they bring the whatever immediately? There are just some people that just do that naturally. They just notice things, they question things, and they connect things between what they noticed and the outcome that they're looking for. And the great news about thinking critically is you can get better at doing that. It requires creating some margin in your life to be able to think about what you're working on today. When's the last time you actually woke up early enough to carve out some space to actually think about your day? It really is a skill. I believe choosing positivity is a posture, but thinking critically is a skill that you can actually improve upon. And then the last one to reject passivity, the problem with not being in charge is that you're getting things handed to you.

You're getting those decisions that are handed to you, and that sometimes is difficult. And when that happens, it's very easy to get passive. It's very easy to sit on your hands and think, well, if they wanted my opinion, they would have asked me to be in the meeting. If they wanted my opinion, they would have put me in charge. And since I'm not, it's just so easy to get passive. But it's about a decision to reject passivity and instead to choose intentionality or activity. So a couple of years ago, we had an intern. We always ask the interns, their first job for the summer is to clean out this particular prop closet that's filled with all kinds of stuff that we use throughout the year. And there was a particular intern that had heard that was the first assignment,

and she went ahead and started cleaning out the closet. And I thought that was a fantastic word picture of what it looks like to reject passivity. But the truth is, in all of our lives, there is a metaphorical closet. There's a problem that keeps coming up. There's a situation that keeps rearing its head. And instead of just waiting, people that really are becoming great leaders with or without authority, they're the kinds of leaders that say, hey, I'm not going to wait. I think that's what it looks like to reject passivity. And the hope is that if you can begin

to practice those behaviors, you'll become a leader that's worthy of having more authority. It would seem that what you're talking about would be much better suited for some people than others, meaning that it would seem as if you would need quite a bit of self-confidence to attempt to lead when you don't have the authority to lead. Yeah, this is definitely not easy. I mean, most people haven't even thought through the very simple way that they're either cultivating influence or costing themselves influence. But I'm a dad. I've got kids. If for no other reason, but I want to be the best parent possible to those kids, I think it's worth me deciding, am I going to rest on the authority that I have as a parent, or am I going to do whatever I can do to try to cultivate influence with my kids? And am I going to pay attention to the things that's costing me influence with my kids? to affect the government through civic activity, whether they're trying to make their community

a better place, just the simple fact that at a very personal level, when you start to dig into what are the things that are cultivating you influence and what are the things that are costing you influence, I think every one of us begins to realize that when I get better as a leader, everyone around me gets better. When I become more aware of the influence that I have or the influence I don't have, I become a better parent. I become a better husband to my wife. I become a better friend to friends and colleagues and family members. I think it really is true that everyone wins when the leader gets better. So go back to what you were saying about parenting and saying, you know, do I want to rest on my authority or cultivate my influence? What's the difference? If you have the authority, you have the influence. There's a Saturday Night Live sketch from probably 10 or 15 years ago with Will Ferrell, where he's sitting at the dinner table and his kids keep interrupting him or not listening to him.

And he starts banging the table, yelling at his kids. And he says that famous line, shut up and listen to me because I drive a Dodge Stratus, which is the, I don't know, when I was in college, that was the quote that a lot of roommates used to laugh at. It is, to me, that is a really simple example of what it looks like as a parent to rest on your authority. That you're basically saying, hey, listen to me, that because I'm the dad, you're going to shut up and you're going to listen to me.

And that might work when your kids are two or four or six, maybe even 12. But the older we get as humans, the more we really realize that we don't want to be fought. We don't want to follow someone who's relying on their positional influence or their position of authority. We want to follow people who have cultivated influence with us. And so great parents learn that they've got to build relationships with their kids. Great parents learn that there are stages and seasons of parenting

that when your kids are toddlers, you can't parent them the same way when they're 20 as you parented them when they were four, because they're now an adult, or at least a young adult, and they can make decisions on their own. So no, I would say there are plenty of parents that have the authority of a parent, but they don't have the influence of a parent, or they don't have the influence that they could have as a parent. And the same is true of a boss. There's plenty of bosses that have the title of a boss, but they don't have the respect of the people that work for them because they've missed opportunities to gain influence. And the big idea is that as soon as you can begin to separate those two concepts, that just because you have authority doesn't mean you have influence.

And just because you have influence doesn't mean you have to have authority. As soon as you can begin to separate them and see them as different modes of leadership, I think the better you'll be able to start cultivating the one that really matters, the one that we all want to be led by, which is true influence. How do you lead without the authority? How do you begin to exert your influence over people without them thinking, well, who does he think he is? I mean, where does he get off doing this without the authority to do it? I mean, how do you do it in a way that doesn't ruffle feathers? You know, that's all about the posture. That's what's the power of choosing positivity. If you do it in a way that is,

you know, as a pastor, I talk about the word love a lot. Love doesn't necessarily fit in a lot of other contexts. And when I speak about this in the business world, they don't necessarily, it's sometimes tricky. I see people's eyes glazing over when I talk about love. But love is a powerful concept. Love is basically wishing goodwill upon someone. And if you can truly get to a point where you can, you don't even have to like someone, but where you can choose to love someone,

I think you can do it in a positive way. You can do it in a way that is for the best interest of the other person. And if you can get there, I really believe you can say anything to anyone because it really is all about how you say it. So I think it is definitely worth paying attention to. Am I coming off as some arrogant, boastful,

shut up and let me tell you how to do your job kind of person? Or am I coming off as a person who cares and I'm for you? Which goes back to the very essence of what influence, the people that have influence with you, they have somehow communicated care. They have communicated, they care about your world. And so, of course, this isn't just giving people the license to go tell their boss anything and everything, but it's doing it in a way that's to the benefit of the organization and for the good of the boss.

And I think if you can get in that place, if you can get in that posture, then I think you are ready to go have a conversation. But until you get there, you're probably not ready to go do this. How do you know this works? I mean, it works for you, but how do you know, is there any research behind this method? Is there any data that says this is the way to go, this is the road to take? Well, the most indirect mentor for me in leadership has been Daniel Goldman. So much of this is rooted in what he's written about with emotional intelligence, that all of us lead other people based on our own emotional health. And the greatest leaders are the most emotionally aware, the most emotionally healthy leaders. So absolutely,

there's data, there's research behind this. But I would just say that these principles are, though they might be counterintuitive, they're so simple because we all know it works with us. We all know that, listen, the kind of boss that I want, the kind of person that I want to work for me, is the kind of person that is leading themselves really well, the kind of person that's choosing positivity even on the worst day, the kind of person that's thinking critically, they're bringing value. And then the kind of person that's rejecting passivity, they're not sitting around waiting on what somebody's telling them to do, but they're actually taking initiative and being active. So I would say in a way they're self-evident, but certainly there's research that backs it up. But I think they're so simple, and they're also things that we've all seen

prove to be true in our own life. Well, I think it's pretty liberating to hear and have it explained that you don't have to have the authority in order to lead. You just have to lead and come from the right place. Clay Scroggins has been my guest. The name of his book is How to Lead When You Are Not in Charge, Leveraging Influence When You Lack Authority. There's a link to his book in the show notes. Thanks, Clay. Yep, Mike. Thanks so much, man. This has been a

great time for me and thanks for giving me the opportunity. Like everyone else, your life is full of little emergencies. And here are some remedies for some of those emergencies from the experts at Good Housekeeping. If you have gum on your shoe, try putting an ice cube on it to get it really cold and then it should come off more easily. If that doesn't work, pour white vinegar on it. That should soften it up so you can pry it off. Got a red wine stain? Well, there are a lot of home remedies for this, but there's a product called Wyman Red Wine Stain Remover that works really well. You can get it at Amazon, and the

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And that is something you should know. We have great advertisers in this podcast, and we make it easy for you to take advantage of what they offer because we put all of their contact information, promo codes, and everything you need in the show notes. I'm Mike Carruthers. Thanks for listening today to Something You Should Know. People who listen to Something You Should Know are curious about the world,

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