These Fukken Feelings Podcast© - Stop Toxic Positivity: Embrace Your True Feelings with Dr. Nick Holton's | Season 3 Episode 329

Episode Date: June 12, 2024

Send us a Text Message.What if you could truly harness your human potential and thrive, even in the face of adversity? Join us on "These Fucking Feelings Podcast" as we sit down with Dr. Nick Holton, a leading expert in human potential and flourishing. Dr. Holton shares his incredible journey from teaching in the classroom to earning a doctorate in psychology and becoming a coach and consultant. He breaks down the mindsets, habits, and psychological skills essential for performance and well-b...

you don't have to be positive all the time it's perfectly okay to feel sad angry annoyed frustrated scared and anxious having feelings doesn't make you a negative person it doesn't even make you weak it makes you human and we are here to talk through it all we welcome you to these fucking feelings podcast a safe space for all who needs it grab a drink and take a seat. The session begins now. What is up, guys? Welcome to these fucking feelings podcast. I am a Micah. Got producer Crystal out of her producer seat today. She's over here sitting next to me. And we are on with our guest today dr nick holton are you doing dr nick i'm

doing all right thanks how are you both doing we are okay so i've been traveling like crazy so i think i'm still jet lagged yeah it's leaving me yeah where you been traveling i was in kentucky last week so i did kentucky virginia and new y City. We live upstate New York, but it was just a lot of traveling. From Sunday to Sunday, travel. Nice, nice. I'll be in Kentucky next week, actually. Their internet, like, do not stay at the NBC Suite. I've been calling out the NBC Suite all week, right?

Because we're an indie podcast, so I kind of upload. You know, I do a lot of things myself, so I upload videos and those kind of things. And I went to upload last week's episode and it said 14 hours and 8 minutes. I was like, come on, Embassy Suites in Kentucky and Lexington, I'm calling you out. You can do better than that.

That ain't going to get it done. That ain't going to get it done. So we had to skip a whole week. I'm like, messed up my schedule now because I had to skip a week. But that's here to a day. Kentucky is beautiful, though. I mean, it's so green. Yeah, for sure.

That's one thing. You know, we're New Yorkers. So, you know, for it to be green, I'm like, wow, the grass is really grassy, you know? Yeah, yeah, I get you. Here you find piles of snow somewhere. Yeah. know yeah yeah i get you yeah here you find piles of snow somewhere yeah so one thing we do here dr nick is we actually ask our guests to introduce themselves to our audience because we feel like one can tell your story more than you so tell our audience a little bit about yourself sure essentially what i do or what i've done for a couple decades now is is all under the

umbrella of human potential. So for me, that started out kind of down a track of education. I was a classroom teacher for a long time and really, like I said, wanted to kind of harness this potential and really, I think, help develop and cultivate young people into adults that were, whatever it might be, more creative, problem solvers, productive, like do all sorts of good things that could help society. And long story short, I think over years in education, I kind of realized maybe that wasn't the environment best suited to do those things. And so I went back, got a doctorate in psychology, and then immediately just started coaching and consulting. And so what I do now is really human flourishing, thriving,

anti-fragility science. And so it really comes down to anything that we can, I think, understand and, you know, back up with good scientific evidence and then help people learn to increase their ability to feel better and or perform better, which is really kind of what we mean by flourishing and thriving. And so that's everything from coaching and consulting and well-being to mental performance with athletes and executives to resilience training with first responders, you name it, but it's all under that umbrella of potential, right? Mental performance, psychological health, things like that. So now when we say potential, what are we talking about? I mean, people say it all the time, right? You have potential, you have potential, but what does that really mean?

Yeah, well, so it's a great question because I think it, there's always like the psychologist kind of cop-out answer is it depends, right? So I think in our case, what we're looking at is generally, not always, but generally, the sort of mindsets, habits, behaviors, psychological skills, tangible strategies that more often than not are going to increase performance, are going to increase productivity, are going to help you manage stress, right? When you're taking on meaningful challenges, are going to help you understand the difference between, for example, like kind of these loosey-goosey, kind of hand-wavy types of happiness that don't really connect with life satisfaction or fulfillment versus ones that do, right? And what's different

about those and how do you build those sort of things into your life, right? So it covers the gamut really, but it's ultimately about how do we help individuals, teams, communities tap into kind of what some of their highest potentials are through these mindsets and behaviors and then ideally put them on a track or trajectory towards, you know, their dreams and goals and all the things that they hope to do and ideally contribute, right? Not just in the self-centered way, but in a, in a very kind of communal altruistic way. Okay. So now do you think that person could have like the, well, do people have like their limits? Like they're, I guess my example is me. I'm really good at creating content. You know, it was like, started the podcast. It's kind of been a year. We've been top rated.

I mean, three million views and it's been crazy. But I also feel like I should be a millionaire because I got all this right. But I don't know the business aspect of it and I just don't understand it. So it's like, you know, to me, you know, people always tell me, well, you need to chase this. So they always want to give you things to do. But I'm like, that is not my core competency. Like I I'm not good at the business aspect of things. Like that's where I'm good at creating content, but I'm not good at the business aspect of things. So I feel

like that's not my limitation. Is that like a realistic thing or am I selling myself? A hundred percent. Yeah. A hundred percent. Well, so it's hard to know, right. As we're just getting to know each other in terms of like whether or not you're selling yourself short, but in general, are there limitations on certain skill sets and propensities? Sure. I use this, it's a little hyperbolic, but I use this example all the time. You guys have probably heard of the difference between say like a growth mindset and a fixed mindset. This is language you see a lot of times out there in the self-help kind of psychology world as well. And so you'll often hear, for instance, well, like you should have a growth mindset. You can learn this skill to your question

here, Micah, right? You can develop this capacity, right? You can kind of do whatever you put your mind to. And I always say, like, I've got a podcast with Harvard and my co-host is in London, you know, and I always say, should I have a growth mindset that if i want to go have a pint with john i can swim there right should i be optimistic should i be positive should i have a growth mindset um you know i don't know if i can swear or not but like fuck no i shouldn't yeah i figured with a title yeah yeah right like my ass will be dead right and so there's a little bit of a yes and like it's it's hard and And I think you want to be resistant to the idea of putting barriers on a person when we don't always know where those barriers are in terms of their potential, their capacity, what could develop. But there I would argue there are objective realities kind of putting upper limits or ceilings on these things at the same time. So I think what's important is to understand what some of those, you know, you know, Micah, you were able to list some of your core competencies, right? We would call them strengths. What are those strengths? Who values them? Because just

because they're a strength doesn't mean they're valued. So a simple example is like, if you're a high level athlete, if your strength is in your physiology, you damn lucky to be born in the United States where we value sports and we pay athletes a lot of money and there's a lot of structure for those sorts of things. Right. And so it's one thing to know the strengths, but then you want to try to match them to a context where they can really flourish and be built and thrive. Right. And then if you do have those weaknesses, which we all do, doesn't mean ignore them. You got to try to pick them up a little bit. But, you know, ultimately people who have a victim mentality are basically going to die. Because if you wait for someone to help you, no one's coming to help. And I was like, wow, that's such a finite thing to say when I feel like victim mentality or being a victim is so broad. Not everything fits under that umbrella.

And there are exceptions to the rules. Some people need help, you know? So I feel like that's sending the wrong message. I absolutely agree with you. I think, and I've got a good colleague who's a really reputable and friend, a really reputable psychologist, literally in the middle of writing a book on this exact topic. And so this is the psychology of victimhood mentality. And there's a good connection to anti-fragility as well. But here's the simple way to say it. A victim mentality is often driven by pessimism and a fixed mindset and a perceived

lack of control, right? So we don't think we control our circumstances. We're pessimistic about things getting better. We externalize, meaning we tend to blame others. Right. And it's, and I don't want to suggest that that's never accurate. Right. Sometimes it is other people. Sometimes it is environment. Sometimes it is systems and structures and policies. I think the point that you wisely brought up, Mike is so the fuck what There's only one thing you can do, right? Which is believe you have some control, try to be optimistic, try to take those swings because it's the only possible shot you have at making a difference, right? And so that's a long way of saying optimism does not guarantee positive outcomes and success, but pessimism and inaction typically guarantees failure.

Right. Those are more often than not going to be what we call them self-fulfilling prophecies. Definitely. You hear that, Crystal? She is the most pessimistic person I ever met. And she's the most happy person. And it's such a paradox that she can be like jittery and happy and then just everything is just horrible like she doesn't want to go over bridge because the bridge is going to collapse if she goes on a plane the plane's going to crash if you know it's like it's always going to be something and i'll

be like i just want to punch her in the nose sometimes which i know is not the proper response but maybe she just let maybe you just love life crystal you're savoring it and so grateful for like I just want to punch her in the nose sometimes, which I know is not the proper response, but. Maybe you just love life, Crystal. You're savoring it and so grateful for you that that just induces more fear. You don't want to lose it. Yeah. I don't want to be that one person to go over that bridge.

You know? She makes me laugh every day. We have to go somewhere the other day and she was like, can you drive? Because I'm scared to go over the bridge. But I'm like, if the bridge is going to collapse, it doesn't matter whether I'm driving or you drive. If it's going to collapse, it's going to collapse, right? Yeah, but I'm more likely to probably cause a car accident going over that bridge because I'm going to go on a panic attack.

And then I'm not going to pay attention. I'm going to close my eyes and we're going to go off that bridge her life is limited so four block radius right it's whatever well and it's interesting that because mikey brought it up earlier too like when you're talking about strengths i'd make the argument you'd like all of this stuff that we're talking about optimism pessimism like these these different things that are kind of on these spectrums, they all have utility, right? They all serve a purpose. But what you want to do because you only have certain strengths is ideally pair up, team up, partner up with other people who have those complementary strengths. So in this case, if Micah, you tend to be the optimist and you're taking risks and you're coming up with ideas and whatnot and christo as the pessimist and i think i

heard producer you might be like hey micah pump the brakes that's a terrible idea or that's a great idea or right and and that give and take typically in a team setting is awesome it's a win-win-win because you both get to use your strengths but they're different and complementary and both have utility definitely yeah that might be why we work i'm good right okay that's why we work i was wondering why we weren't so well because i'm like sometimes she drives me crazy it was like if if they're there she thinks of situations then like i wouldn't even think of like like she is like all the ceiling is gonna collapse and it's to break the chair and the chair is going to fall through the floor and it's going to hit me on my head. And it's like, where the hell do you get this from?

But we'll table that. I want to actually keep saying anti-fragility. So explain a little bit more about that. Yeah. So. Excuse me. Sorry. Fighting a little bit of a cold.

Well, I'm going to say you said decades. And I'm like, you look like you're 22. Oh, thank you. I'll take it. Yeah. So I just recently turned 41. So I'll take that, actually. Oh, the 21st of April.

Oh, on May 2nd. May 2nd. Okay. Well, happy belated. Just last week, right? Yeah. So, happy belated just last week, right? Yeah. So, all right. So if you're thinking about human potential, right, then you really have to deal with,

I think, a few different realities. Number one is if you want to tap into human potential, there generally has to be whatever you want to call well-being, happiness, some sort of pleasantness, right? Like it's pretty hard to be your best self if you're just being beaten down by trauma and unpleasantness all day, every day. Okay. That's languishing generally, right? Flourishing, thriving, like I said, are they kind of generally feeling well and performing

well is really kind of the consistent goal. That's where we're going to see potential fulfillment, meaning, purpose, social connection. We can get into the ingredients if, if you feel like it, but, but then you still run into an issue, which is flourishing sounds great. And I bet it feels good, but that's not life. Like shit hits the fan in life right what do i do about that shit that part and so myself and my co-founder dr adam wright who directs mental performance for the washington nationals and has been coaching and consulting in this for decades brilliant guy we're kind of looking at this and saying well there's this model out there called PTG. So most people, your listeners are going to know PTSD, right? Post-traumatic stress disorder. What most people do not know is PTG, which is

post-traumatic growth. And what's interesting is PTSD gets most of the publicity, but PTG is actually the default. Most human beings by default are resilient, meaning we bounce back and we experience growth after hard, difficult things. But not all of us, right? Some of us fall into PTSD and understandably so. And there's different mechanisms. It's complex, right? But this is the basic idea of anti-fragility. How do we proactively help people learn skills that make them more flexible,

that make them more robust, that allow them to take shocks, take chaos, take volatility, and maintain thriving through it and maybe even thrive or become better because of it. That's not resilience, right? Resilience is bouncing back to baseline. Anti-fragility is about thriving through it and because of it. So we always use the comparison between two mythical creatures in Greek mythology, the phoenix would, you know, burst into flames and then rises from the ashes. Yeah, that's resilience. That's coming back, right? Cool. Great. yeah that's resilience that's coming back right cool great like that's that's a dope skill set we all need that but anti-fragility that's the hydra if you remember the hydra nine-headed i think different serpent like sort of uh beast and if you cut off

one of its heads it grew back two more right that's anti-fragility. That's the difference, right? That imagery bouncing back from adversity versus leveraging adversity. And so our argument is if you can learn and develop anti-fragility, you're giving yourself a higher likelihood of consistently thriving and flourishing. And not only is that going to feel good, but you're going to kick ass along with it. You're going to be your best self. So like for me if i have a bad day i allow myself to have a bad day like i just know i always say like i have to have a reset moment and resetting of course is when you go to sleep and wake up to me that's

when i'm reset but if i wake up and it's just a bad day i kind of just live in that bad day krista tell you i am a monster you hear me i'm I'm probably that nine headed thing you were just talking about. But I, you know, it's like I allow myself to have it today just because I feel like there's nothing I can do about it. You know, it's like sometimes I try to fix it. It's like, you know, I feel my boss always says this weird thing. He says, we're not weird, but I think it's corny. Right. But it's like it's pretty dope. But he says that every day you can choose it. You can choose happiness. Like every day you can choose to be happy. And I'm like, oh, this guy is so corny. But then I started to think about it. And it's like, yo, it's kind of true that like you can choose happiness. But I do allow myself to like have

those bad days knowing that tomorrow is not going to be the same thing now. Yeah. How is that a good practice or do I need to work on my bad days? Super happy you brought us here because there's a yes and. So you mentioned your boss, right? You can choose happiness. So what they're referring to is a basic sort of scientific fact that oftentimes our perception of reality is just that. It's perception. It's based on what we're seeing. So there's a famous video, maybe you've seen it, it's made

the rounds a little bit, where six different people are in the screen and they're split up into two teams of three, white shirts, black shirts. And the instructions come across the screen and they say, watch how many times the players wearing white shirts pass black shirts. And the instructions come across the screen and they say, watch how many times the players wearing white shirts pass a basketball. And then they just start passing the basketball, right? They're moving around, they're throwing the ball, you're sitting there counting, counting, counting. And about 10, 12, 15 seconds in a person walks through the middle of the screen and a giant gorilla suit beats their chest, walks out of the screen, right? And some of the, you know, it's changed since this video has become popularized,

but somewhere around as many as half of the people watching that video will not see that gorilla. Okay. This is called attentional or inattentional blindness. People will know this is tunnel vision. So why do I bring that up? If you're watching that video, let's say the two of you are watching that video, right? And Micah, you see the gorilla to you i would see the well i didn't see it's not good or bad it's not a good or bad right but but point being is like okay so if you're missing slices of reality right sometimes taking time to intentionally look at the other realities look for the gorilla in other cases choose, choose happiness, right? So Micah, you're having that shitty day, right? It's whatever, like, so, you know, your alarm didn't go off. So you woke up late, you were out of coffee, you stubbed your toe on your way out

the door, like whatever the hell it is, right? There's a line of research and thinking that says you can take that day and you can find something good and you can find gratitude and you can induce some of that pleasant, right? However, there's a fine line between that and toxic ass positivity where you never feel anything unpleasant. And that is wildly unhealthy. So to your point, the other end of this is don't just try to look for the gorilla and reframe and take different perspectives and bullshit yourself into feeling good all the time. The other end of this is what we call acceptance commitment.

Accept in and allow in what you feel, pay attention to it, process it, respond to it in a values aligned way, and then move the fuck on. Don't luminate on it. Right. So there's, there's distraction and reframing because sometimes we get our realities wrong. We have to do that work, but we don't want to use that to just suppress unpleasant emotion, right? We want to allow that in, use it, understand it, leverage it, if that makes sense. Definitely. I think I'm really good at that. Look, I allow myself to have them. But to me, like you said, to me, it's very important to understand kind of like why was it bad? Why did I feel this way? You know, what made it get worse or what made it get better? You know, I woke up and it was bad and then eventually it just got better.

But there have been days where I woke up a monster and went to sleep a monster, you know. Do you actively like are you OK with that? Do you actively try to get rid of it? Is it just a bad day? You know, do you do you journal? Do you talk it out or is it you just kind of flying by the seat of your pants when those days show up? Yeah, I kind of, you know, it's like I so I never I'm one of those people. I'm optimistic all the time. Right. So I don't want to have bad days. I know they exist. I know that's a human experience. Like I'm not naive, you know, but I. So I started this podcast and I always help for it because I learned what peace was.

You know, I learned that I had a moment of peace and it was like the greatest thing ever. And I felt like everybody in the world needed to know that they could have a moment of peace. Right. And that is like, you know, comes to hope. I'm a person to fill with trauma, kind of like you mentioned. I mean, I wanted to bring that up. It was a question to you, but, you know, had a whole bunch of trauma. And then finally realized, like, hey, I need to move on and get a grips on life. And, you know, it took me 40 years. I'm actually 44 now. But it took me a really long time to realize that I needed to heal and had to heal from a lot of my traumas. But, you know, it's like if I'm in a bad day, I'll try. I'll attempt to make it better. And sometimes in attempting to make it better, I irritate myself and I make it worse. You make it worse. Yeah.

Right. And I just stay away from them. Yeah. Everybody knows to stay away from me because I'm truly a monster. I'm never mean. I'm never mean. They just don't know how to take me when I'm not laughing and joking. You know, people don't know.

They don't understand when I'm not happy. But I allow myself just to have it. And I reflect on it at night before i go to sleep and go to sleep usually with person you know my one goal is always be better than i was yesterday so yeah i can't have two bad days in a row you know yeah i can't you know have two bad days okay yeah yeah yeah uh so psychology what made you i know you kind of answered that but it's like i don't know i always think about like me like would i go into psychology now that i'm learning about mental health and i feel like no it's too hard well yeah you know it's like there's so many different routes to take and different ways that you can kind of learn or use it to support. And so for me, it's been a really long trajectory.

And it's worth I guess probably worth, you know, your listeners hearing this tends to be the way passion unfolds. It's not discovered. It's developed. I think that's an important distinction because a lot of times we'll see, you know, sports stars or musicians or actors or actresses, whatever it might be. And it's like, oh, I just knew at age four, this was the thing I wanted to do my entire life. And that's just not really the way it works for most people. You have to explore and then you have to take feedback and data. What do I like? What do I want to keep following? Those sorts of things. And so I say that because for me, I mean, there's like, there's a longer story here,

but I started, I had a really early coaching experience with my little sister. Like I was a pretty good soccer player. I could have played college soccer back in Michigan. We were young. I took my sister out the driveway one day and showed her a few things. And she happened to go out that day and had a great game and like took it to this boy that was twice her size. And she was happy and i just remember that experience i was probably in sixth grade i remember that experience and seeing that just be like fuck yeah i did that

that was my takeaway right and that's not true but but the feeling of i took time and energy and attention and something i felt like i knew and was good at. And that made somebody else's experience better and made them feel good. I liked that feeling. That was a kind of my first taste of that drug, if you will. And so eventually like I kind of, I think reflected on where's the best place to get that as frequently as possible. And that's where I said, oh, it's education, be in front of young people as much as possible and try to help them and guide them and support and teach and whatever. So then I actually got a bachelor's degree in history. I got a master's in education. It wasn't until later on to your question that I finally realized it's not just being in a

classroom. It's not just teaching them random things that they may or may not learn. I really want to get into what makes these people tick. And sometimes I'd see students in front of me that just have that drive and that passion and that like got deeply engaged and could just sort of, you know, crush stuff. That doesn't mean all A's. You could just see a different spark. Spark's the right word, right? The late Sir Ken Robinson calls it the element,

but it's that passion and that drive where they're excited about something. And I just kind of said, man, if we could figure out like what creates that, and then bottle that shit up and give it to everybody else, right? Now you're talking about an education system that can really like magnify the hell out of what's possible. So that's kind of a long answer, but that's eventually how I arrived at psychology. Yeah. And it's actually very true. I always think about like degrees and just going to school. And I feel like I'd never used my degree for anything. Like I'd never used anything I learned in school for anything. Like, and then I couldn't, but see, there's a lot of things I forgot

to, like, I couldn't list the presidents. I don't even know what president number we're on right now. Like I couldn't give you the capitals of every state. It could be, you know. Look, I can tell you how to heal from some trauma. I had to start anyway, you know. So it was like, you know, when I think about life and like you said, the lessons taught is like, I really, you know, I didn't have a favorite teacher. I don't remember a time where a teacher impacted me too much, but I also went to school trying to be invisible just because I was going through

so much trauma, you know? So it's like, is that my fault? Right. That stuff. I mean, you just brought up, you know, not to get too much into education, but like typically I think, think the number two single greatest predictor of a student's success is relationship with at least like one teacher. You know, one kind of significant connection or whatever it might be. But to your point, a lot of people just go through the system or slip through the cracks or whatever it might be or actively, like you said, it makes sense. Maybe, you know, trying to not be noticed, right? Or trying to hide a little bit as well. Right.

Yeah. I mean, my daughter, Madison, she's a kick-ass volleyball player. Yeah. And she loves school. She loved the sport. And she was having some issues in the school with bullying. And now she's being homeschooled so all of that got taken away from her because now she can't play what she loves so i think that that's true if there was

that one person that she could go to in the school one teacher could have probably turned it around for middle school and high school is fucking hard. Definitely really hard. I don't, I think for just about everybody, even the people who, you know, maybe are whatever popular can get by, but I think everyone's just anxious and worried and trying to make their

way. And it's important to have somebody to first support, I think in those moments. And by the way, that's not just kids. Right. And I think like, you know, we're talking about anti-fragility. We're not talking about kids or adults just

sucking it up or like in the case of your daughter, which I'm sorry to hear, Crystal, you know, like being bullied and then saying, oh, just be anti-fragile. Like that's not what we're talking about here, right? What we're talking about is like having emotional intelligence, right? Having skill sets and mindsets that allow you to take in these things and still feel them like you were just talking about, Micah, right? Still feel the shitty feeling that comes with those, but just have some optionality in terms of like how you respond and what you do with it and those sorts of things. So hopefully, hopefully you feel like you got a little bit more control and can maintain

that optimism and come through it in some way, shape or form. Right. So now we, so we actually have a large listening base of people who are curious about mental health healing and, and just, you know, a better day, a better tomorrow, happiness, you know, all these things that aren't real, but so we get a lot of emails and just a lot of messages from people who feel like their problems aren't big enough. You know, like there's other people that have it worse or, you know, that's little, like, I don't need to heal from this or I don't, I don't need to, you know, I don't need to talk to somebody or see somebody for this issue, whatever it is, because so and so is worse.

And at least I'm not homeless. At least I'm not this and I'm not that, which I'm completely against that message. I feel like if you have an issue like we can have compassion for yourself and others, you know, like it can too can exist. You know, you can know or think that this person has it worse, but still also deal with your issue. But my question to you or my, yeah, my question is, what advice would you give to those people who don't feel like, you know, they're, they're worthy of healing? Because that's really what I think it is. Well, so that's a trickier question, right? Worthy of healing. Oh man, the thing about that, but like my, my head first goes to a really, really wonderful researcher and psychologist by the name of Kristen Neff. And she's a self-compassion expert. And it's just,

I think I'll give her a shout. I think it's just Kristen Neff.com. She has free workbooks, meditation, self-compassion exercises, all science-based. But if you're talking about worth, that's a complex thing, I think, to untangle. Right. And I'll give you an example. Right. I have this this longtime, wonderful client who's a total badass in her domain. And the domain is typically male dominator.

Right. So built up this startup, total badass in this area, works with the government, built the company into, you know, $100 million sort of company. Doesn't really think she's done much or accomplished much, right? Like doesn't struggles with the ability to look at those things and savor them and sort of feel rewarded by it. Right. And the reason I bring that up in response to your question is, again, the gorilla, so much of this is based on perception, right? So much of this is based on what we choose to see about ourselves or potentially what we choose to ignore, right?

To the earlier point, that's also why I think it's really critical that you always have at least one person that you can lean on in these moments maybe that therapist that you said earlier but it might just be a good friend family member whatever it might be because a lot of times we don't see the gorilla we don't see the other realities we don't see our worth right or why it might make sense to go talk to a therapist right or why why it might make sense to go talk to a therapist, right? Or why it might just make sense to try this action step, whatever it is, may be able to go well. But a lot of times somebody else, and again, right, here's where, you know, like a crystal, maybe you compliment each other as well, but somebody else is going to see a

different perspective. They're going to have sort of that different way of viewing it. They're going to be able to challenge some of those thoughts and maybe spur action, you know, a little bit more. I think that wasn't it at all. Yeah, I think I challenged everything she does the other day. It was like, just I just want to hear you say now. I know it was her birthday. And so our calendar has been like completely booked up for like a year. And it was her birthday.

And I didn't realize it was her birthday. And that day we had two interviews. And I was like, you know, it's my bad. I forgot that it's your birthday. But we can go through with the schedule as normal. Or you can go home and celebrate your birthday with your family. Like, it's cool. I'm pretty sure guests understand because, you know, it's just who we are.

Like, we believe in celebrating each other. But I needed her to give me the answer. And it was so difficult. And she kept saying like, oh, well, we could just do it. But you could tell the hesitant in it. Like she really didn't believe or I wasn't believing what she was saying. You know, I knew it was like and I was like, no, I just need you to give me the answer. Like, no, it's an OK answer. You can say no, we're not going to do it. You know, like, no, I just need you to give me the answer. Like, no is an okay answer.

You can say no, we're not going to do them. You know, like, yes, let's cancel. Like, choose you. But I need you to be that person to give me that answer. I'm not going to make the decision for you. You know, and it took all day long, you know. I was like, fine, just cancel. Finally, she gave me the answer.

And she was like, just cancel. And I'm like, yeah, great. Now we got 10 minutes to tell this person that we're canceling. You want to take all day, but I do challenge her in that kind of way. And I think she challenges me too. So we do have each other, but I did

go to therapy. I did therapy for two years. The greatest thing I ever did. Mine wasn't so good. My therapist. So that's the trick, right? It is. And I think for a lot of people, sometimes it's, listen, there's all levels of this. So there might be total resistance to healing. There might be resistance to healing through therapy.

There might be interest in healing through therapy. But to your point, Chris, I just haven't found the right therapist, right? Or somebody to actually talk to, whatever it might be. Where I come in and my background comes primarily from positive psychology. So like everything I just laid out is, is making miserable people in the words of Marty Seligman, less miserable. That's awesome. And there's a whole nother end of the spectrum. What if for some of your listeners, it's not about healing the bad, it's about building more of the good, right? And so here's the difference, right? What that looks

like is not necessarily, and it's not an either or, there's plenty of both and, and I'm not mitigating healing the bad, right? But sometimes people have a lot of success with saying, what are the things I can control? I can try to control the engagement in and the quality of my relationship. Okay. That's the single greatest predictor of happiness worldwide. Not even close. It's the single greatest predictor of life satisfaction worldwide. Not anywhere close, right? Okay. I can't necessarily deal with my trauma. I don't want to go see a therapist, but I can invest in other people. Potentially I can invest in these relationships that I'm building. Maybe right. Everyone's different. Another example, like the second most associated ingredient with, with life

satisfaction or fulfillment is meaning. So what's meaning? Meaning could be spirituality. It could be religiosity. It could be community. It could be pursuing certain values or causes, but it's something that gets somebody outside of themselves, right? They transcend themselves. This is one of the single best ways to heal and feel better. Go do shit for other people. I want you to hear, I want your people, your audience to hear that again. It's really, really important, right? It's one of the single best ways to heal. Go do for other people. Don't spend money, spend time, spend energy, spend attention, right? Get outside of yourself a little bit. And, you know, gratitude's another example, like, you know,

meditation, exercise, nutrition. These are all things where they're not about necessarily healing a bad. They're about building a good. And I think having both lenses can sometimes be really helpful to people because they don't always control the healing part. Right. But some of the things I just mentioned, you can have more control over a little more tangible. Right. And that's kind of one of the biggest things that we stand on here is that, you know, there's no, you know, two people don't have the same problems. So there's no same method of healing or getting better or those kinds of things. Like there's something different for everybody and you just need to find what works for you.

And sometimes that takes searching. You know, it took me 10 therapists before I found the therapist that I fell in love with. You know, can I make a comment on that, too, because you mentioned earlier and I wanted to say I forgot about it, but it's important for people to understand. Now, this is tricky here, but let's just say that we're talking about. All right, let's get a little nerdy here just for a second. Okay, so you mentioned happiness earlier. There's a bunch of different ways in the science to measure and define happiness. Okay, so one of them is hedonism. You've maybe heard of the hedonic treadmill or hedonic adaptation, but hedonism is basically pleasure and displeasure, and it's a ratio. How much is there?

So it's very affective, emotional, sort of how do I feel, right? So those feelings, those sensations are often going to be connected to our dopaminergic system. Some of your listeners probably heard dopamine before, buzzword a lot of times, right? So on our podcast, we've had on Dr. Anna Lemke, who's an addiction specialist out of Stanford, and she's got a great book on the dopamine system. If you ever saw Social Dilemma on Netflix, just about addiction to social media, she was one of the advisors. So she's an expert in the dopamine system. Why do I bring this up for your question? because hedonistic happiness or pleasure is relative. Okay. What do I mean by that? So I've got, I've got two young nieces, right? Six and three. If their expect, I would

just, just with them Saturday night. Okay. If their expectation was we're getting ice cream after dinner and ice cream doesn't show up and ice cream would have boosted the hell out of their dopamine, then guess what kind of neurochemical reaction you get? You get kind of that equal displeasure on the other direction because it was based on expectation, right? So to go back to your point, if an American who is maybe below the poverty line, but nonetheless has a really hard life, they're going to have different expectations than say a lot of the students I used to teach in LA or Philadelphia who are high SES. They're going to have really negative reactions to seemingly

innocuous, like things that don't matter, you know, the phrase sort of like first world problems, but it's based on expectations. It's based on experiences. It's based on distrust tolerance. And so to your listeners, stop judging the things that are difficult or hard for you, right? They are relative and they are about your individual experience. There's, I don't think there's a right or wrong as like a granted. Well, I think we'd probably look at some things and say they're more serious than others, but that's not the lived experience for individuals. Right. So you got to give yourself a little permission there. Right. Right. And I guess that goes back to the compassion, right? You're having compassion for yourself and what you're experiencing,

what you're going through. Yeah. You know, Tal Ben-Shahar, who started the positive psychology program at Harvard, which became Harvard's most popular class ever for years. He calls it permission to feel, but just kind of getting yourself out of the way and just kind of making space for those things. Definitely. Now I'm just going to say I'm dyslexic as hell. I cannot work with you.

I can't pronounce nothing you just said. Fortunately, you don't need to. Right. That's a good part. I mean, everything that you said and all to right that's a good part because I'm like and all the people that you mentioned are going to list their information and websites and all those kind of things because we just believe

in providing as much information as possible but I was like I can't pronounce I can't pronounce none of these words I can spell it for you no you don't need to that's why there's no pop quizzes right okay good good because we were scared there for a minute but so now do you work with just

anybody or is there a certain client so yeah generally the the category of person we tend to work with is what we would say are like high burnout professions. But it's not always professions. So what is burnout? Burnout is typically both biological and psychological. So it's mental and physical exhaustion, lack of motivation, values misalignment. And it can come from excessive work, excessive stress, feeling like you have a lack of control. And so you tend to see those sorts of things in either two settings, really, really high pressure or extremely bureaucratic or both.

So that is first responders, that's C-suite, that's law, that's surgeon and medical, right? We just gave a keynote at a thoracic surgeons conference that is high level elite athlete so collegiate or professional sometimes high school if they're high level that way but it's it's where it have those characteristics there's a performance pressure right and some sort of it tends to be like a high burnout field. And so we'll go in and work with them on really three pieces under anti-fragility. The well-being side, build the good. The resilience side, what are tools and tricks to navigate the shitty moments in between. And then the performance side, what are some things we can put into place that just help

you be better at the shit you care about? It's not like success and accolades and money and awards. It's just, what do you give a damn about? How can you learn science that can help you be better at that stuff? Right. So science-based. 100%. Yeah, 100%.

We do the best we can to try to make sure that what we're sharing works or is highly suggestive that it will work for lots of people, but nothing works for all people. That's like this, a misnomer that there is no silver bullet, including even on the diet. Like you can see all the time and like diet wars and debate, but so much of this stuff is so highly individualistic that it's about, I think you said it earlier, finding a set of tools, a toolbox, if you will, and then pulling out the right tools that work for your unique self, right? Definitely.

Like for me, exercise gives me extreme discomfort. So I just don't do it, you know? Sure, sure. I'm not gonna put myself through that, you know? I'm not gonna, you know, I know it's healthy. I know, but no, it gives me discomfort, okay? It causes trauma. No, I'm just joking, people.

Exercise, I think you should exercise if you can, or if you want to, I'm just, I'm not going to, but I probably should. I'm such a horrible person, right? Not horrible. It's not a horrible person. I keep, do you have things that are, so what's interesting about that? I mentioned on a Lemke stuff earlier, right? So here's the idea dopamine and that pleasantness is a teeter-totter, okay? So what does that suggest? You actually have to teeter and totter. One of the reasons we're seeing so much addiction is because people reject unpleasantness and will not allow it to exist. I will chase the jewel, right? I'll eat the junk food. I'll watch the TV. I'll get on social media,

whatever, but it's a constant dopamine hit. So what's interesting about that is if you keep, according to Dr. Lemke, that teeter totter, that seesaw locked at one angle, you actually, this is a weird idea, but you actually make it increasingly harder to experience pleasure or happiness so here's the simple way to think about it tolerance okay so anyone you know that drinks or engage with any substance whatsoever if you do it too much you build up a tolerance to the point where it basically has no impact on you the same thing can happen with pleasure and happiness so how do you combat that and this is what my question was for you, Micah. You got to do hard shit that doesn't feel good.

Right. Safely. Safely. Right. And for a lot of people, that's exercise. Right. But not for everybody.

Sorry. Look, we did. We walked around the block a few times. I'm going to tell you, Dr. Nick, we started at lunch. We started to walk.

Right. Awesome. I'm a city boy, though though so and now we live in so i live like upstate new york which is far more country than i thought it would be where are you from originally what city um harlem we were born and raised all right cool yeah upper west side city i live in virginia for a while but it's still i kept myself away from anything that was nature right okay? Okay, got it. So we start walking and first we see chipmunks. Okay, they're cute.

Fine. It's the chipmunks. We're walking a little further. Now we see a deer. What the fuck? I done seen videos where deers done kick people's asses, right? So I, and then I look down and one of the women we're walking with is stepping on a snake all in one day. That was the end of the walking for us.

We never went for a walk again. And I said, it's bad that I influenced them not to go on a walk no more. But I wasn't walking anymore. That was very... You took our leader. That was very, very uncomfortable for me. Yeah. either that was very very uncomfortable for me yeah honestly when it comes to working out so i have a hypothalamus issue and my body overheats quickly and so i always end up throwing up and

just because of that i kind of like stick stay away from it and it's bad i feel like and then i feel like trainers look now we're getting into a whole other thing right but sometimes i feel like trainers because like i give people my medical history. I'm a cancer survivor. I had a 15-year battle with cancer. So my body is a lot different. I was on chemo for four years. I had two bone marrow transplants.

I need someone that's going to be patient because I've been sick my whole life. So trying to get healthy is new. And it's been hard to find a trainer that will be patient with me or will consider the thing. You know, it's like when I tell you I'm going to throw up, I'm going to throw up. Like it's about to happen.

It's going down. Oh, you got to push yourself through it. And then get mad when I throw up. I told your ass I was going to throw up. Yeah. So that part is the part that discourages me. Like, I don't know enough about working out. People are always like, oh, well, watch YouTube videos or buy a book or get an app. And I'm like, I don't know enough about working out. People are always like, oh, well, watch YouTube videos

or buy a book or get an app. And I'm like, I don't learn that way, you know? I need to like be shown and then, you know, I'll get it. But I haven't been able to find a trainer that like can have that patience that I know I really do need. Like, it's not an excuse, I promise. You know, like I promise.

And it doesn't need to be an excuse. You know, like, I promise. And it doesn't need to be an excuse. You know, listen, I'm not going to say don't exercise because it's good for you in so many fucking ways, but you also don't need to judge yourself for not doing it, right? Like different strokes for different folks. I think that my general point, so there's an interesting line of research about a particular network of the brain

that seems to be tightly connected to discipline or what we call self-regulation so will i do shit when i don't feel like doing shit okay the only way this network seems to get activated and grow is if you do shit when you don't want to okay so what so what are we saying if you want to develop discipline, self-regulation, consistency around behaviors and habits that help you feel better, perform better, the inevitable reality is you have to practice doing stuff you don't feel like doing. Maybe that's exercise for some people, but it might be finishing the shower with 60 seconds of cold ass water. Right.

It might be, you know, taking that walk. It might be, well, I'm a little scared. I'm definitely scared of chipmunks and snakes. Right. So I'm just going to venture a little further into the park and deer. Okay. So I'm, I'm sitting in West Michigan. That's literally the state animal of Michigan is the white tail deer. So they're out in the yard basically all the time.

But again, it's all relative, right? Different strokes for different folks. But the idea is, okay, how do I build up distress tolerance by doing things I don't feel like doing incrementally, bit by bit, so that they become more and more and more comfortable? That's one element of building up anti-fragility. But this is a key piece, and this is a good phrase from Paul Bloom's research at Yale. He's got a great book called The Sweet Spot. Chosen suffering. There is a big difference between something like trauma, or in your case, Micah, and thank you for sharing that with me, like cancer. That's not chosen. That probably chiseled you, that probably built you and helped you grow and made you incredibly resilient and all sorts of things. But that's not the same thing

as chosen suffering. I'll give you the simplest example. And this is somewhat comical. I'm not trying to be mean here, but the best example of chosen suffering is often like becoming a parent. And Bloom's book will mention research for parents. Happiness often goes down, but meaning goes up. And meaning is more tightly correlated with life satisfaction. So what I'm saying to you is parents become less happy, they get more meaning, and they become more fulfilled, generally speaking. And why? Because it's fucking hard.

That's what gives it the meaning, right? Chris, so you get it, right? That's what gives it the meaning. It's difficult. She definitely gets it. Yeah, it's difficult, right? And so that's the takeaway here is just because something is unpleasant doesn't mean it's quote-unquote negative. There's a lot of good things that come from it. So there's some utility in us choosing to take on meaningfully unpleasant, hard things because of the way it helps us keep our dopamine system healthy, the way it's correlated with meaning in life, right? The way it helps us

grow and take on stressful events. That's all we're saying, right? Is there some utility in it? So I always thought I wanted kids. And then I went through cancer and sickness. And I was like, I'm not passing my genes on to nobody, right? So then my next thing was to foster. But I was like, but dad, but then you're right. I just said, look, I'm making excuses. So I'm like, now I got to learn to love somebody past their pain. I don't know if I can do that. All right.

Like, that's pretty deep. Like, you know, there's pretty unique situations with foster care. Like, you have to be a strong person to foster a parent. You know, it's like, I don't know if I'm that strong yet. I'm working on getting there, people, though. Don't worry. I'm going to get some kids. All right.

It's a process. It's a process. Yeah, it is a process. So my biggest issue, though, is like, so I'm in a pretty good place. I started healing. I kind of really enjoy my life. I love who I am now. And I kind of, you know, like things are OK.

They're not perfect. And I'm cool with the imperfection I have. However, everybody else in my life are so negative and so freaking miserable that it like drives me crazy and so it gets bad sometimes because like i don't even want to be around people i don't even want to have a conversation i'm not talking about is that what i have a conversation with i'm like how about you that's why i didn't go to work today but no seriously it's like it's like, yeah, I don't know. I kind of got to... You're just making me realize

that I guess I just don't like being uncomfortable. But it comes from being uncomfortable so much in my life. You know, like I went through so much of trauma and molestation and all those kind of things and where other people kind of controlled how I felt and my destiny.

And now, because I can't choose it, it's, I just want to stay away from all that stuff. And I know it's not realistic, you know, it is like, and some people don't know how to take it, but it's just my way of kind of protecting me right now. You know, I'm like, I know where I'm at in my healing journey that I probably could be brought back to the dark side. Like I ain't there yet, you know? So I'm kind of just trying to stay away from going to who I used to be and, and people don't get that. And it's frustrating. So I hope y'all watch this and y'all get it now. There's, it's a really important point you bring up. There's also different types

of discomfort, right? So like you said, being, being careful and thoughtful about the discomfort that might, you know, send you in the wrong direction versus discomfort that helps move you forward. Right. So it's, you know, good, really good buddy of mine struggled with some addiction, worked himself into rehab, like crushing it, doing great. I think like the discomfort in that case of not having the high, right, for him was eventually replaced by the discomfort of like hardcore running and training and things like that. Right. And he just he just tried to find, I think, other ways to not avoid discomfort altogether, but just sort of redirect it. But that's, again, very personal, right? That's going to be a little bit different for everybody. Yeah. And I think it's pretty cool, pretty dope what you were saying about basically, you know, sometimes it's not about the healing journey, but just about the growing journey, you know, like doing things to improve your life. And, you know, me, I'm very big on healing because I've been doing it. So I think it's amazing and great and those kind of things. But as I'm learning also is like not everything works for everybody. So it's amazing and great and those kinds of things. But as I'm learning also was like,

not everything works for everybody. So it was like, you know, like, and we need to consider that maybe healing is not the way to go. We're not saying that you shouldn't heal. And maybe I'm saying it wrong, but to start looking at things that just add value to your life.

Yeah. That kind of change how you look or, and I, and even in that, I feel like we'll come healing. Honestly. Honestly. Yeah. It's not an either or you're totally right.

It's a both and right. You can think about healing and you can think about building the good. And I, you know, just like we've been talking about pleasantness and unpleasantness, like there's space for both of these things. And, and I might argue actually that, that one is necessary for the other, not to get too like philosophical, but this is like yin and yang, right? And yeah, there's a great researcher and somebody we've had on the show before, Todd

Cashton at George Mason. You're probably not far from where you were in Virginia. You've got a term psychological richness, right? Which is this idea of feeling all different types of emotions, having all different types of experiences. Right. And that these things tend to be more highly associated, I think, with psychological health. And so it's like most of this stuff is not an either or. It's not about always being positive and always being optimistic. Right. Or those sorts of things. There's a both both and it's about being strategic and thoughtful and being able to pull these things you know these arrows from your quiver when you need them definitely definitely and i'm really big on experiences i mean i'd say the last three years i've been allowing myself to have all the experiences i can have just in living life you know and taking chances on things, traveling and doing things.

But I would, I guess, I mean, it doesn't surprise me at all. I would guess that would, you tell me if I'm wrong, but it has been spurred by your, your medical experiences among other things. Right. Right. Definitely. Yeah. A lot of gratitude, saber, want to experience, want to get out there sort of mindset.

Yeah. Yeah. You know, I, you know, cancer taught me a lot about love. And I think that's kind of where my change came in and from, you know, it was like I started to realize that I had to learn to love myself in order to beat cancer. And that's just it was my mindset. You know, it was like if I didn't if I didn't stand up against this and love me more, you know, then then I love cancer or love, you know, not love cancer, but, you know, trying to say, you know, we just kind of need it in a way. I kind of had to learn to love cancer too, a little bit. I feel like it was through love that I was able to learn how to destroy it, you know, because sometimes that's what we do, right? We love things until we destroy it. So if we do it to other people, why can I do it to this cancer?

Yeah. Even though that's not healthy, we shouldn't be destroying people just to cover that up real quick. But yeah, before we get to our close here, is there anything that you wanted to say to our audience that we didn't give you a chance to say? Because Crystal talks too much. You know, you mentioned something there

that I'll just comment on really quickly, which is just how much you sometimes feel like you're impacted by the mood or attitudes or whatever of the people around you. there that I'll just comment on really quickly, which is just how much you sometimes feel like you're impacted by the mood or attitudes or whatever of the people around you. And so I'll give your listeners a real simple framework to remember for whenever you're trying to think about well-being or resilience or performance or anti-fragility. We, bio, psycho-social, but just remember top-down, bottom-up, outside-in. Top-down is thinking about your thinking. It's the perspective-taking and looking for the gorilla and it's gratitude and it's growth mindset versus fixed mindset. And it's like, how do my thoughts impact how I feel

and how I behave? Bottom-up is sort of the body-mind connection. It's sleep, it's nutrition, it's exercise, it's temperature, it's biofeedback. It's what we call interoception or somatic awareness. Can I be in tune with whether I'm, I got sweaty palms or not, whether I have an accelerated heart rate, right? Am I exhausted? Those sorts of things. But what you brought up is outside in and outside in are things like social or emotional contagion, mood spreads, happiness can spread, habits and behaviors can spread, right? We're more likely to say drink or eat certain foods or exercise around different types of people, right?

Because those behaviors tend to be contagious as well. Meaning and purpose is other people oriented. I told you the number one predictor of happiness is social connection. Altruism is a great way to heal, right? My point is, is like so much of what we talked about today is totally impacted by other people in the environment. We don't do anything in a vacuum. And so the one thing I didn't say that I'll say right now for your audience is just pay attention to who the fuck you surround yourself with and how much time you spend with them and expose them, because it's just like a common cold.

Shit's going to spread if you spend more time in proximity to them. Definitely. And we don't need no more shit. I feel like this world got enough shit, right? Yeah. Yeah. Well, and then give our audience how they can reach out to you,

listen to your podcast. Sure, yeah. So we do a podcast called Flourish FM. It's sponsored by the Human Flourishing Program at Harvard. It's literally researchers and cool mega nerds, you know, like myself, that just know the research, want to share it. It's supposed to be tangible,

practical, evidence-based ways for people to help improve their lives. If folks are interested in anti-fragility, you can find us on LinkedIn or Instagram, or you can check out our website, theantifragileacademy.com. We've got an assessment on there. We've got free PDFs. We've got a huge video series. Like it's all sorts of free stuff because we're really just trying to take this, what we think is high end science and democratize it so more people can access it. So very little is behind any sort of email wall or anything like that. Just there and available to you. All right. Awesome. And yeah, thanks for that. And of course, you know, to me, it's worth looking into because, look, just being comfortable is important, right?

So whatever that means for you, but there is a million ways to get it. And so, yeah, let's check out Dr. Nick. We thank you so much for being on today. Thank you so much for dealing with Crystal. She just don't shut up. It was a pleasure. Thanks for having me. I enjoyed the chat.

Yeah, thanks. And we definitely did, too. And you gave me a lot to think about. So that's kind of cool. I always tell people this podcast is really selfish. It's my way of getting free therapy. So thanks, Dr. Nick. Happy to try

to be helpful. Yeah, definitely. And thank you guys for watching and we will see you next week. Bye. And with that, we're wrapping up another episode of the Fucking Feelings Podcast. Thank you all for tuning in and engaging in another intense and real discussion on understanding and navigating through our feelings. Don't forget, we're here each Wednesday bringing you brand new episodes filled with stories, advice, and perspectives to help you handle those

fucking feelings. So set a reminder on your calendar, grab your headphones, and join us every week. And if you're interested in exploring more ways to deal with life's stresses, make certain to tune in to our sister podcast. Trauma is expensive. Comment and rating can catapult us further towards reaching those individuals who could really use our discussions. Your feedback is invaluable. Before we close, we want to remind you that discussing feelings is never a sign of weakness, but a display of courage. Stay brave, stay strong, and keep feeling those fucking feelings. Until next week, take care and keep the conversation going.