Points of Failure
Points of Failure is a podcast about what actually goes wrong, and the part people don't want to look at.
Most conversations about failure happen after it's been cleaned up, framed, and turned into a lesson. This one starts at the breakdown and works backward. Through guest interviews and solo episodes, we examine the patterns behind failure in work, relationships, identity, and decision-making, with a bias toward what people are avoiding rather than what they're processing.
If you're noticing a pattern you can't explain away anymore, you're probably in the right place.
Questions, topic ideas, or guest suggestions: failurepointspod@gmail.com
Points of Failure
S1E01 - Lack of values and toxic masculinity
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On this inaugural episode, we talk to Jeremiah Beene. He served in Counter-Intelligence in the Army, and pursued a PhD in Psychology. We discuss several points of failure, including a lack of values and the reality of toxic masculinity.
You can support the show by going to: https://pointsoffailure.buzzsprout.com
All right, man. Well let's dive in. Okay. Um have you done any other episodes of this before? Or nope, nope. This is number one.
SPEAKER_01Oh shit.
SPEAKER_00Okay. Yeah. You're the you're the virgin, the or the maybe not the virgin. I am anyway.
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_00I'll take it.
SPEAKER_01Um, which is I think what virgins do. But um, no, I'll try to set the bar high then. Um, I just figured I guess I'd come about it with my perspective. Absolutely. My way of thinking is um sort of philosophical, uh, because I that I have a minor in in logic or whatever, but also um I have a PhD, you know, in psychology. So I thought I'd bring it about in a psychological way. 100%. Yeah. So what brought you to the subject, I guess, in the first place?
SPEAKER_00Honestly, man, it's uh basically my life. You know, it's uh initially I thought, you know, I'll I'll uh I wanted to write a book. And I thought, you know, I'm gonna write something out that would be interesting. And I started thinking, I don't really have any expertise per se. I have no degrees in in something or whatever. So I thought, I'll write for my experience. And actually, uh, I don't know if you're familiar with Jordan Harbinger, he's got a really cool podcast, and I check his shot all the time. And one of his interviews, he actually said something, something about multiple points of failure, and it just like it just clicked or resonated. So I wrote it down. So I just immediately wrote out chapters to a book about multiple points of failure, and I just thought, I'll just write about my life because if my life's been anything, it's been a series of freaking failures. So that's what's funny, is is but those books sell.
SPEAKER_01Like when experts try to write things, they never sell. So, like Amy's always like, Why don't you write some tremor? You know everything about you know a few set of things, because yeah, you know, when you get your PhD, you have to get in very specific things and uh or a specific uh area. And so, like, I'm like, I know it's I know everything about this and this and this, but that's all. Um, but people don't read that because it's just too nerdy, like we don't know how to get like approachable, I guess. Right. And uh, and I keep finding that I was like, Man, I'd like to write a book, but then every time I see someone, they do it, and it's like kind of real, just like from every man's perspective or every woman, you know, where they're just like, here's my experience with this, and it just resonates. I read them too. It's not, I'm not being like, oh, how dirty. But I find myself reading them. I'm like, what the hell am I doing? It's so interesting, though, because everyone can get a hold of it. Um, so I love it. And failure is awesome, I think, for um psychologically speaking, um, and for me, because uh particular kind of therapy I practice as well is uh is focused on acceptance, you know, and of failures and things. But the the funny thing about failure though is that we have an inherent, like we hate it, right? We we have an inherent uh dislike, even even like down to like animals, right? Like an animal, they go to chase after that rabbit, they lose, and they're like, it would be weird if um evolution didn't prepare them to be upset at that, right? It would be weird if they're like that's fine, and then they just starve, right? Yeah, but I don't need that rabbit. Yeah, exactly. They're like that's fine. Uh so obviously, like we don't like it, and uh, but what screws us up, I think, is um, and this is a big gonna be a big thing, a theme about my thoughts on this, is language in general. Because like language opens us up to concepts, right? If we just say, like, if there's a rustling in a bush, we understand that that right, you know, you're walking up to a water hole on this on the savannah and you see that, you're like, whoa, oh shit, and that's normal. But we as humans can conceptualize a future or a could or a would or should or what if bushes rattled, and suddenly we're presently scared about a situation that doesn't exist, yeah. Um, so it's really interesting. And so, like, um, we have this inherent fear of this could, should, what if of failure when we haven't failed yet? Like, what are we so what are we so nervous about?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, it's like going to the bar and you know, and there's that girl over there, and I want to go talk to her, but she's not gonna care about me. Um you know, whatever. Just terrified she's gonna reject you, and you haven't even walked over there yet. She doesn't even know you're there yet. Exactly.
SPEAKER_01And what's funny is that um as humans too, with language, we can rationalize that failure's okay, right? Right. Have you had the like I'm sure you've experienced talking to people and they're like, Well, you're gonna fail, you know, even like your mom, like you fall down, skin your knee when you're trying to do a sweet skateboarding trick when you're a kid or something, you know. Yeah, and she's like, everybody fails, it's fine. Um, and and we rationalize, we understand that. Like, it's hard to find a human besides, like, maybe, well, there's a few, um, but uh who who don't think failure is okay and normal. We just want we just want a teaspoon of it inside of our cups and cups of chicken broth of awesome, right? Yeah, because failure sucks. But it's that's what's so funny, is that our brain knows it's okay, but our when when it comes time to experience it, we're like, I don't think so.
SPEAKER_00That's that that's that amygdala response with the you know, with the uh hardcore emotions like oh, this sucks and it feels bad. But realistically, anybody who is a success will tell you the best things they learned was from their failures. They would never trade their failures for that any better success because it was their success, you know.
SPEAKER_01It's funny too, because uh like with if you're a lioness on the Serengeti or whatever, or the uh you know, Savannah or whatever, you're running around and you fail to get that rabbit, like we were talking about earlier. There's no social shame, right? Right. It's not like on Instagram, they're like, You got clown, you know. So uh there's a funny, there's this funny uh idea too that it it compounds the idea that we're social animals. And uh we we have this uh it's called social comparison theory, where you're constantly it's it's the strange phenomenon where we find that successful more people who tend to succeed more in life and consider themselves successful are comparing themselves up all the time, which is both good and bad because it can also cause you anxiety. But um, people who are like kind of falling short of what they would say are their goals or they self-report that I'm falling short, they compare themselves to people below them because they're like, I only shot a pair of one seven times today. Not hate, so I'm not doing so bad, right?
unknownYeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_01So failure is funny in that way too, because of the concept and um how people deal with it. But for sure, anyway, like what do you think in as far as as far as that goes?
SPEAKER_00So upbringing kids, you know, when you're when a child, you know, so many people say, Oh, our childhood, it's just you know, my my dad beat me and my mom was an alcoholic or whatever, and it turned me into this. I I I guess I wonder for myself, you know, even my own experiences, but what what impact do you think really upbringing has, like your childhood? I mean, how impactful is it to have this horribly abusive family or you know, super competitive dad that wants you to be the all-star on the team and you never quite live up to it? You know, is that affect you later, like no, I gotta be an accountant because it's the only way I can really succeed, you know?
SPEAKER_01Right. Actually, what's fortunate is that we've done a few studies on that in psychology. Um, but uh one of the difficult things is how do you measure success, right? Like, because do you interview the person when they're seven and say, what do you want to be? And they say firefighter and they're not, and you go, failure. Like, you know what I mean? Like so your goals change so much, it's hard to tell. But what we did find is that people who tend to repeatedly make goals and repeatedly achieve those goals, um, that's something we can measure. It just takes a lot of time because developmental, anything in developmental takes, you know, measuring from a certain time to a longer time, which is some further point. But they found that um uh yeah, there's a few different things. One, uh, this is really interesting. Um, I don't know if this is perfectly relevant, but there's one about like high succeeding athletes they did uh that they looked at, and this was really cool because they they looked at like the high the best fencers in the world, the best Olympians in the world, the best uh golden glove boxers in the world and things like that. And they they try to determine how it was they were raised. Um, and one thing they did find um was that those the parents who just chose that activity for them and just pushed them their whole life, rather than giving them a wide birth of experience, won or typically win more. But I hate the message that sends. Yeah. Right? Like mom and dad told me to do this well. Uh, but another thing they found was that uh oh yeah, yeah, yeah, is how how you deal with the failure, right? Like there's kind of two different ways to go about it. There's well, there's only two things you can do in all of life in psychology, right? It's either a petitive, so it brings you towards it, like an appetite, or an aversive, something that pushes you away. So you can punish or you can, you know, reinforce a behavior. And um and you can you can treat failure as two different things. And that this kind of this is starting to get a little, maybe I'm getting a little cerebral, but is uh failure typically isn't aversive, it pushes you away, it makes you feel like um, dude, that sucked. I didn't like that. I don't really care for that. And there's different ways people deal with that, and I could get into that, but there is a way that you can use that as an appetitive. And we found that like some types of students. So one of the other studies was about uh looking at high achievement students, and then they found that uh they they tended to obviously treat failure differently. They actually tried it treated it as an appetitive, so they treat it as like, oh, that's a challenge, right? Sure. Yeah, which is something. Don't tell me I can't do that. Exactly. And since they're students, obviously it has to do with their upbringing, some of which they found on their own, but much of which has to do with with um parents. Yeah. So um that that part's interesting. There's actually four different kinds of students. There was failure accepting students, so students who um, you know, they just kind of realize I'm at, you know, I'm at the bottom rung and the achievement. Um, it's not really working out and I'm kind of okay with that. Um, then there's failure avoiding students. And uh this one is kind of interesting because they would fail, but they would avoid the consequences of it. So they'd say, like, uh, for example, they'd fail a math test, and instead of like just sitting with that and being like, I suck, I'm a failure, I didn't do well. Um, they go, This teacher sucks, and everyone else is smarter. Well, not everyone is smart. I mean, that's actually accepting, but you know, something like that, right? They find a way to make an excuse for what they're doing. Um, the next one is over drivers, so people who just absolutely cannot tolerate failure. And then there's um success-oriented students. And the language kind of screws this up, but which one do you think is the most successful? Or which one do you think is the least successful?
SPEAKER_00Oh, the least successful, I would imagine, probably is the both of the first two you put in that camp is the the avoidant and the accepting, because they're they're both gonna be not really motivated to change much. I guess the avoidant at some point they might be able to come to terms, but I guess then so could the other really. I put those two at the bottom if it were me. Obviously, the the people who use it as a driver are gonna be the more success-oriented ones that you manage that mentioned. I would say would be the most successful.
SPEAKER_01And yeah, that that's intuitive, and it mostly makes sense. Um, one surprising effect was they found that overstrivers, so people could not accept failure, actually fell in the third to last or the second to last place. So it actually fell below the fear accepting or the fear avoiding. Um, because fear accepting obviously it's a motivational issue. They're like, well, I just don't care. It's like me if someone goes, You're not so great at cricket, I'd be like, Okay, that's fine. I'm never gonna get better because I don't care. Yeah, but like failure avoiding means that they do care, but they're just making excuses for themselves. But like exactly like you said, it was perfect, was you said, Yeah, but eventually someday they're gonna have to come, uh, what'd you say, come come to fruition or come to terms with come to terms with yeah. Um, and they but the over strivers actually get to a place where they burn out. There's they try, try, try, try, and then they think every failure, they internalize it, and then eventually they go, they just start burning out and they just fall off. So they actually do. You're exactly right. They fall in third place of four. And obviously, the the the researchers called it success-oriented students. So I was like, that's kind of a giveaway, obviously. They want the organism win. Yeah, um, but they but they measured them mathematically and they found that these you know, factoral analysis. So you look at a scatter graph and they clumped up in four different spots, and that's how you name the four. Um, and they did find that these people did um behave in a certain way, and a lot of it was predicted by developmental stuff of their parents. Yeah, it's about developing those contingencies of a petitive and aversive in kind of clever ways.
SPEAKER_00So that makes me wonder in my adult life, having raised children. One of the things I've come to really, really hate is when I hear parents tell their kids, oh, you can be anything you want to be. You just gotta set your mind to it. And for me, I'm like, but you're just inviting failure because I can't be a fighter pilot. I have to wear contacts, you know. Right. It's just not gonna happen for me. So it's just, you know, there's and what about the kid who ends up with MS? He's not gonna be the world's greatest champion athlete of anything. So I don't know. What's your thoughts on that? I I hate that. I personally hate that you can do anything you want because you cannot, you know. Right.
SPEAKER_01So you have did you have that experience? Like, was that something?
SPEAKER_00No, I mean, yes, my mom did that a lot uh when I grew up, but I I don't know that that ever really stuck. I never I I didn't really, I don't think I got raised with a lot of competitive drive, only in my now my 40s, where I'm at a point where I'm like, okay, this this is not working for me. I need to do something more. You know, I'm I'm more motivated now to, you know, invest in things and and try to build businesses and stuff like that, as opposed to just going in and getting the paycheck and making sure I make enough money. But I never was super competitive. Even when I played sports, I wanted to be good, but I just didn't have that drive to be the best. I just wanted to be good. So that's what I when I practiced, I practiced fundamental things to get better, but I never needed the limelight. I wasn't raised with that competitive drive.
SPEAKER_01That's interesting. You said I never needed the limelight. Um, is that something that you think was differentiate differentiated you between some alternate reality where you would have been this insane athlete or whatever or whatever competitive editor?
SPEAKER_00I think maybe. Um, I think some of the ways that I looked at that was like my uh a good friend of mine growing up, he was like the of course we went to a tiny school. We had a graduating class of like 17 people. So, but he was the star athlete. He was the one. And I think maybe, maybe I got the sour taste because he was very like egocentric and he was like all the attention on me, which we all are in high school, but when you're the star athlete in a school of like 40 people, you have literally all the attention. So I think it may have been sort of, I don't know, it may have been off-putting for me, you know, on a on a deeper level then. So I probably couldn't have identified that then.
SPEAKER_01It's interesting too, because uh you're talking about you know cultivating competition and stuff. And it does have the premise that competition is or the desire for competition is what produces success. But I also think it's interesting that um developmental-wise, we do find that around like and every I think everybody knows this, but it's I think it's a lot of people feel validation doing this, is around 14, 15 um individuals who are you know developing find that they have more social influence than they do, you know, parental. And so um at that point, it's difficult because we were talking about fostering competition to um have much more influence past that time. So like I always try to, or I'd like to put a timer on it, you know, parents and be like, all right, look, you know, around this time, you know, you got to dig them in with you know the kind of friends that you know you think is best for them. Because God, I made the worst decisions of my friends, I think everyone would. So uh I'd be like, whatever, duh, whatever, or whatever mom mcot now, or you know, whatever. So which is not who I am, but yeah, that's interesting. Uh the competition thing. There is some biological research. Um, I remember that was done um because they were trying to look at like the brains of people who were um more uh successful and who um how they treated conceptualizations of success. And I do remember that there is um there was a small correlation with testosterone development, you know, which kind of makes sense considering we're actually a trophy species. Have you heard about this? No. Oh, okay. So there's two different kinds, you know, trophy species and um the sexual dimorphism dimorphic species. There's a certain kind of bird, for example, where unless you look at their junk, you cannot tell which one's which. Whereas, like, let's say a buck versus a doe is kind of a classic trophy trophy species. They call it that because you know the male is so sexual dimorphic, di being no different, morphic meaning the body, so um sexually dimorphic because they're male and female are very different. And so, and they behave very differently. Whereas in or sexually non-dimorphic, sorry, um, uh species, those are the ones that are um more typically also behaviorally more alike, and they tend to be more monogamous too, which is kind of weird. Well, isn't weird because the idea of the trophy species is that the male goes out and what does a buck do when it's mating season? Yeah, everything go crazy that they do something called the rut, which is like they just start digging into things, they just like rubbing, like they're literally they'll walk in with blood on their face because they went kind of crazy, and then they fight each other for a female. Um, and the idea is very much like a lion's pride where the male they call it trophy because they treat uh women as trophies, like you know, if they're like, Oh, I have like five of them, and so I have this big pride, but it's just me and my brother, or just me and um, you know, got all these women, but those species have higher levels of testosterone, and so obviously the testosterone is what's driving them to be so competitive. Um, so we have found a small um idea of that, but but the strange thing is that a lot of it isn't explained by the testosterone. We find people that aren't just like jacked up on roids that are succeeding. Obviously, they may be getting in fights in IHOP or something at midnight, but they're not arguments. Yeah, yeah. Oh, yeah, I know. That's definitely me every time I'm like, someone's talking about psychology on the net. I'm like, there we go. But um uh but that's not always uh testosterone either. So much of it, this is what's so great about being a human and having language and conceptualization and intelligence, is that we can form concepts of things, like for example, failure. Like a lion doesn't really necessarily know what that is, right? They may be a failure, they may be someone who doesn't do so well, and they leave. And but it's it's not because they have a concept of failure, it's just that every time they interact with the larger ones, they have to do this thing called displacement, which means you know backing up and and showing like deference to the you know the bigger male. And then, but we get that by concept. A successful guy isn't the biggest, you know, lion, it's just a guy who was like, you know, he's done pretty well in life and we find him intimidating, and then suddenly we like kind of avert our eyes and we feel like um because the answer is this crazy part. Okay, that's what I was gonna get to. Sorry, last last bit is that in those species, they ostracize themselves from their own pack. So, like a young um adolescent male uh lion who's you know his dad's kind of the main dude, and he's got you know, she he's got some some lionesses and they're doing great, and this guy doesn't do so well, they they actually ostracize themselves. If this is chimpanzees, this is an apes, this is uh baboons, this is um everyone, they ostracize themselves, and then they oftentimes, and this is sad, but they slowly die. And so the idea is that um, because they can't, you know, support themselves, it's not that they're just like laying there, like, oh, this is terrible. I'm gonna watch Netflix all day. Um, they just slowly don't make it, uh failure to thrive. So we get that, but we get that. But what's crazy is we get that as a concept. We don't even have to be like this, you know, unsuccessful male who's trying to catch these gazelles and can't. We just go, Well, I feel like he does it better than me. So, and we just depress ourselves and socially isolate.
SPEAKER_00But I don't know, I thought it's interesting. That is very interesting. You can kind of see it too, even in you know, guys, and you have the one or two guys in in a group that are going to be the alphas, and then you have, you know, you got the guy at the bottom, which we'll get to that later. But I I actually think the alpha beta thing is bullshit, but whatever. It's uh there's some reality to it, I suppose. But but you know, you had those guys that, like you said, sort of kind of pull away from the group and just sort of, oh, Tim over there, man, he just keeps getting all the girls, and so I can't ever get the girls, or those guys so cool, he's got the big job, and I'm just you know, I'm still in the mail room or whatever it is, you know, and so they they will eventually sort of, yeah, you just never really see them again, whether they whether they die or not. But I mean, you know, you just what what happened uh to Jim? Where'd you go? That's when you said the mail room when we're talking about getting girls. You are stuck in the mail room, isn't it? Yeah, no doubt. The the meat locker. Yeah, so going from there, how how do you think that do you think that has any sort of play, you know, moving into like academic and career choices going from there? Like, what do you think in terms of all that upbringing? You went into the into the army and then you know decided on a career in psychology and those kinds of things outside of just an interest in psychology or whatever it was that motivated you to you know to enlist. What sort of things do you think came from upbringing? Or do you think those were just you know random choices? One day you thought, gosh, I think getting screamed at for six months will be great and then shipped off, you know. What's what motivated those things for you?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I mean, I think it was. I mean, this is why I think it speaks to me is that it it was a lot of failure. It was like, well, it's perceived failure. And that's what's so interesting is we were talking about concepts, and I think that's important because once we know that a failure is a perceived failure, because um, as we said before, like let's say someone shoots up heroin seven times, eight times, and they don't consider that a failure, they're not gonna quote unquote learn from that lesson, like their behavior doesn't change. But um, if they do perceive it as a failure, they do. And so for me, I perceived my shortcomings as failures. Um, whereas, you know, I mean, I was come from a like kind of a really bad job kind of thing, and uh sure and you're super poor, like uh we, you know, couldn't afford our own clothes and stuff. And so our neighbor, we worked at Project Love, which is obviously an army, would bring us these back. So I had these weird shirts that were just like a rainbow and I was on a green shirt, and it just said like love. And then so I got picked on a lot, and but I consider those social shortcomings my fault because I did pretty well in school and I was like, man, I don't know. Like, I feel like I had friends, like a few, and I feel like I'm succeeding when I press myself on things, and I was a big look begin to drawing and just just small things as a kid that you consider a success. It didn't make sense to me that I was failing in other things, but I perceive it as failure, sure. And uh failure gives that unpleasant situation, it's that aversive if you allow it to be that causes you to go, like, like I don't want to fail anymore, or I don't want that bad feeling. I push forward into this successful thing or this thing where I can be successful. Yeah, and so like I never got into like um athletics or anything until I was much older. Um, I was just all about the cerebral stuff. I just wanted to be like the smart kid, yeah, you know, and and then of course, you know, once puberty hits, you want to be successful with girls because all of a sudden the very first girl was like, You look kind of cute. And then I was like, She's clearly lying, and she wasn't. Then I was like very interested in being like, Oh, I need to learn how to be handsome. So yeah, and so so I think I think a lot of it is that is people's perceptions of fear because that's the interesting thing, is we were talking about failure being a concept and not a reality, it's not a it's there's no tangible thing that's called a failure. Sure, there are behaviors that can be termed as failures, but like if you try to catch a light particle, you're always gonna quote unquote fail. But if you try to catch like a the only reason why it's embarrassing too, like a lion, for example, and again, not embarrassing, but why why he perceives himself to fail is because you can catch a gazelle. Like, you know, he's seen it happen, he's he's seen his friends do it, he's seen other people do it. Um, if he they've never caught a light particle and then like, dude, look what I got for dinner. It's never happened, and so they don't consider themselves failures. And so um, we you can, I was fortunate enough to operate on that concept of what failure is termed and what success is is termed, I guess. And so I was like, This this is a way in which I that brings me to another subject, but um, yeah, how how people deal with success and failure psychologically, and then how that makes you go down or up, like kind of therapeutically.
SPEAKER_00But yeah, thinking back to what you were saying about, you know, being the always wanting to be the smarter guy or whatever, and then girls start showing you some attention. I think I learned. Early on that I wasn't like the physical prowess. I mean, I was a skinny kid growing up, uh, you know, never was the best looking guy in the room, kind of thing. So I was always like, How do how do I motivate this? You know, what's because my failures with girls were pretty excessive. So as a high schooler, I was like, all right, I gotta figure this out. So it motivated me then to to be able to think on my feet, to to try to develop a sense of humor and those kinds of learn to talk and whatnot. So yeah, it motivates it motivated something, you know, those failures did.
SPEAKER_01So that brings me to my yeah, my next thought is did you consider those? Um, we were saying failure. Do you consider those failures a um was it kind of like a slight or a dig at your self-worth, or was it something different?
SPEAKER_00Oh, absolutely. At that time for sure, being, you know, a young kid, absolutely it made me feel, you know, very unworthy, I guess, very small uh and insignificant. Um, and even when I did experience any success, as it were in high school, it just it's didn't do a lot for my self self-esteem anyway. It didn't boost me in such a way it's you know, it didn't motivate much in that respect. Right.
SPEAKER_01So it wasn't until I got older that and then you said athletically though that you also experienced, you know, failure, but um, but that didn't sort of boost you to be like, I'm gonna go get jacked, like I mean, right away. And then so I wonder what did that have to do with in relationship with self-worth? Did you have an idea that that was attacking your self-worth? Um, did you compartmentalize it? Did you uh I guess like how did you deal with that? Uh, why was it different?
SPEAKER_00You know, I don't know that I dealt with it all that well. I think it motivated the slight changes, like I said, to to look at, you know, how was I dressing, how was I interacting. Um, and at the time I didn't think that I could do much about the uh the physical prowess. I couldn't change how I looked and I didn't think I could get any bigger because I tried and tried and tried to lift weights and put weight on it, never happened. So that was just, I mean, even now, most of the weight I've gained is in the middle. So, you know, it's just one of those things. But yeah, I don't um it's kind of hard to I don't know how to articulate the impact it actually had because it it didn't stop me. So I didn't just sit around and mope and you know become the kid in my grandma's basement kind of thing. But I also it didn't motivate me to be some, you know, get jacked in the gym and become this Don Juan, you know, and be whatever Dan Bill's area and on Instagram and being a fool. So I guess it just sort of was uh maybe it was mitigating the impact on on what my success could have been to some extent.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah, that makes sense. Uh, because there's kind of two different ways to make yourself remember if if if all of how we interact is based on our evolution, which is to pull forward or push back, repetitive or aversive. Um, the most important thing to think about is well, what we call reinforcement schedules, which is schedule, you know, is just when you do something, obviously. That's all that's up when you reinforce. Um, and if you make those too lean, so if I go, look, the first time you run uh 15 feet to your mailbox, I'm gonna give you a new car. And you're like, Well, shit. I mean, almost everyone would do that. Yeah. But it's not that okay, you did it once. Now when you run 6,000 miles, I'm gonna give you about 15 bucks. That schedule is too lean, like that. We call do learning, it's not meaty enough, it's it doesn't produce enough results. So we need to tighten those down. So oftentimes, I what I'm wondering is it sounds like you had this desire, this um, this this desire to be like you you didn't perform athletically, like I didn't either. I was the exact same boat where I could not put on weight, but like it didn't quite work. And no matter how much you worked, you were like, you know, that didn't produce a whole lot of reinforcement. But this, you know, me kind of spending a lot a little more time, like, you know, with you know, hygiene or more, you know, interacting with girls or be trying to be funny, like that did work. Um, and so as that that was a little more like a better schedule, and so it pulled you towards that that form of you know, quote unquote success. So um that's interesting. But what's really cool is the flip side of that. So you get those schedules that are real lean and real um you know, kind of meaty that are their the contingencies work out, but you can also make those conceptual. So, like uh, you know, it's it's as simple as saying this. You have a kid, and instead of just giving them a car, you know, or car is extreme, but like giving him like, let's say I like steak, for example, like giving myself a flamignon when I run 12 feet or 15 feet. Um, instead for the kid, we just say, like, like, hey, that's a really good job. And that's a concept, right? Like, if you don't speak English, you have no idea what I just said, and you go, Fuck is this guy talking to me for? But the concept of good job and my you know approval and you know, um, and what I'm doing is quote unquote right, um, is you know, gives you a small little buzz, you know, you go, yeah, that worked out. So you can use conceptual, you know, petitives and aversives as well. Um, so you know, uh that could have been both ways. You could have been, you know, getting kissed right in the face, which is you know an obvious normal, um, like as a young boy, you're like, that was the best. Or it could just be like uh the concept that, like, you know, you're hot shit, because like you walk in and you know, you notice more eye attention, more um, you know, behavioral attention, laughing, things like that. So, yeah, that's kind of cool because they can give you those two different, um, two different ways to attack.
SPEAKER_00And is it possible then, you know, with the appetitive and the um aversive, is it possible that in our brains we sometimes switch those? Because Mark Manson, I don't know if you're familiar with him, he talks a little bit about the idea of emotional highs. And even sometimes you could be doing something that a lot of other people might be repulsed by, socially repulsed, I suppose, like thinking of, you know, everybody call that guy over there, he's kind of a man whore, and we're kind of like but you know, some people might subtly be like, I wish I was a man, whatever. But for the most part, though, that socially it's kind of it's experienced some disgust with somebody that just bounces around with partners, but that person is experiencing emotional highs from what they're doing, and that's why they keep doing it. They're getting some sort of reward somewhere. So is it is that just like a switch up in the brain, or is that just because they just don't know what they're or they don't understand the difference between actual good reward?
SPEAKER_01Well, sometimes it can be like, for example, masochism, right? Like people who like to get beat, like they honestly do get a pleasure sensation from getting hit, and we've measured it, and they do get a larger hit in their ventral tegmental area. So we know that that pain was pleasurable uh in the same way that like taking a quarter of a benzo would be, right? Like they literally go, whoa, like that felt great. So we know that that sometimes happens, but that's typically it's it's people's that's the the separation between concepts and actual behavioral understanding, because a lot of people try to mystify, I say this on purpose, mystify, not demystify things that are actually pretty simple. Well, they're deceptively complex. So, like in that example, like someone like you know, being a quote unquote man where they think like, oh, well, that's something that is socially, you know, an aversive, and he's still, you know, he's still approaching it, it's still repetitive to him. So it must be like that there's some, you know, uh disconnect there. Maybe there's something oftentimes they say, you know, maybe he was raised wrong, maybe it's a screw loose in the head, like this, you know, mechanistic behavior or a mechanistic physicalist way of thinking. Um, but it's often not that. It's often that like um whatever is pulling them towards is just greater than what's pushing them away. They understand the concept that people have towards them, they're not naive of that subject. Sure. And so typically in therapy or whenever I'm trying to analyze the situation, it's it's that. Like I try to understand, like, okay, but it's more than it isn't. Because like I don't like running. Like, yeah, and people say they like running, I'm always like, you don't know anything about psychology, because you don't. If I could take away all of the terribleness of running and you could have all the benefits the runner's high, the health, the um the body, everything you wanted, you'd do it. And then they're like, No, I wouldn't. I'm like, then you're dumb. Yes, you do, because there's parts of it you like, but there are parts you hate. And we joke about, and I know this because I've been to tons of races, and we talk about it. We say things like, Oh, you ever get those blisters on your feet and you're only at like mile 10? And they're like, Yes, you know, or like you know, like, um, oh, I forgot my you know, my nutrition one time and had to run a half marathon and it was terrible. And you're like, Yeah, or like that kind of thing. You have bad moments and and things that push you away from it, but you have more that bring you towards it. And so, usually for those sorts of things, it's people bringing themselves towards it sometimes conceptually, because people are somewhat good at understanding a reinforcer that's physical. Um, something that, you know, because I mean you give a kid a piece of candy and they're like, Well, you did it for the candy, and you go, Great, we understand that. But there are different kinds, there's positive reinforcers, so things like candy, like if I said, you know, um, or Steve, well, you know, run with me. Uh, you know, I say running a lot, I use this in therapy a lot because running sucks. And people, once they realize it, they're like, Yeah, it does. Oh, I hate running. Yeah, yeah, nobody loves it. I run all the time. I don't like it. I like it. I like it more than I don't like it, but I don't like it. But if I said, run with me five miles, and and let's say, and you would let's say haven't run in years, and you were just like, fuck it, all right. And I paid you a hundred bucks to do it. That's easy for people to understand. They look at the hundred bucks and they go, Well, you know, maybe you go out and a nice dinner or something. Yeah, of course, yeah, it makes sense. But if I did it, there's that's a called a positive reinforcer. Positive meaning I've introduced something into your environment, reinforcer, all reinforcement means is it has now improved the chance or the probability that you'll do that in the future. Um, so when people go the reinforcer didn't work, I go, then it wasn't a reinforcement. It has necessarily speaking, it has to be, and when it doesn't, you go, Oh, I guess that wasn't to reinforce it. And so, like, um, so if I give you 100 bucks and you you were like, I don't need five miles. Let's say you make, you know, let's say you're Jeff Bezos, you'd be like, I don't need 100 bucks. No, you know, because it's less important. Um, but a negative reinforcer is something that's kind of uh people don't understand. Um, and that's like, let's say I was your wife and I've just been bugging you. Negative means taking something out of your environment and it increases the probability. Let's say I'm your wife and I'm like, you fat piece of shit, get off the back every day, every day at 9 a.m., you know it's coming. And then one day you go, damn it, all right. And you get out, you do it, you come back. And she doesn't do anything, she's taken the argument out of the environment, but now you're more likely to do it. The problem with that is often people go, Well, that was intrinsic. And you go, no, no, no. If you were home alone, sitting in your grandma's basement, you wouldn't have run just then. You did it because you knew it would mean a day that was one day less of kind of getting harangued for bad habits or or or a habit you wanted to do. Um, so you know, so so that one that's another explanation of those sorts of things is people start to uh misunderstand this because there's also negative punishes and positive punishers. Positive punishes would be like a ticket when you drive, a negative punisher would be like uh a tax cut when you um, you know, when you engage in business opportunities, right? You've taken the tax out and now you're more likely to do that in the future. Um, but people people and people un misunderstand those two negatives as like intrinsic, or like, you know, I'm the better person now. You know, like oh hardly. I'm I'm the same person I was when I was born. I just have I was fortunate enough to have appetitives that brought me towards good things and reinforced or uh uh aversives that brought me away from bad things. Yeah, all right. Maybe that's too nerdy. I'm I I I tend to fluctuate between way too nerdy and not nerdy.
SPEAKER_00Oh no, no, good stuff. You know, some of a lot of these concepts I don't put a lot of thought into. Sometimes I do, and I think I know things and I'm like, I'm not sure I actually know that. So, like risk. Risk is one that for me, most of my life I've been pretty risk averse. Like I didn't want to go do this thing because whoa, I didn't, you know, I didn't want to invest my money here, put it there, whatever it was. And risk I think necessarily leads to probably more failure than it does success, but maybe then after that it leads to more success. So I mean, I I think there's like sort of a maybe it's uh counterintuitive that the risk may lead to some failure, but eventually it will lead to more success. And I think that that's a big part of what for me has held me back and created more failure in my life than success was that I was just too afraid of risk. You think that's uh that does that make sense?
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Do you did you find that people who were particularly risk aversive had a predictable relationship with success in your in in your experience?
SPEAKER_00I would think so. Yeah. I mean, anybody that I mean, I think mostly of myself, but people that I do know that have also been like, oh, I don't really want, you know, investing is gambling. You know, I think of an example. I was uh years ago, um, I had some money when my dad passed and I was going to invest it. And someone convinced me that it was, you know, it was uh even it was a good investment, it wasn't a stock thing, it was right um something called like an active managed fund. It's kind of like a mutual fund, but it's a little bit more aggressive. And it was Apple computers. Yeah, it's so silly. Why would you want to buy Microsoft stock? But uh yeah, so they convinced me that it was a bad idea, that it was a gamble, and I should, you know, just hold on to it, put it in my savings account where it would be safe and that kind of thing. It led to, you know, I I would have had probably three times as much money now than I did then if I had invested it when I wanted to. That mentality, I think, that that those people didn't take a lot of risks. They did the career the, you know, the degree and the good job and the whatever and and then retire kind of thing. So, yeah, to answer that question in a slightly shorter way, I would say yes. I think that the risk averse necessarily leads to more failure than it does success and sort of creates that just that cycle that I didn't risk that money, even though I watch other people. Oh, I'm gonna take this thousand dollars I've got, it's all I've got, I'm gonna put it in this thing, and then boom, they're like, I'm a millionaire. I'm like, what? You know, so yeah, it's uh it's a strange thing to to see, but I uh yeah, I do think so. I I think that that in my experience the risk aversion has created more failure, or at least led to more failure.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, okay. Uh this is interesting because um this is sort of like uh male and female IQ. I don't know if you've heard this before, but it's something we've you know studied IQ extensively. We know IQ better than we understand, you know, insulin diabetes. That's how much uh and and that that's an empirical statement that was you know was published in JAMA, uh Journal of American Medical Association, but one of the post prestigious in the world, the third most prestigious in the world, um, is that they were like psychology, IQ knows more about that. So when people are like, You don't know IQ IQ, I'm like, bro, have you ever had known anyone who got a blood test? We know more about that than we you know about that. Uh but oh, so you know, some of the interesting differences is obviously, you know, there's race and gender, and you know, uh like a place in the world, nationality. There's all kinds of cool answers you can come up with. And obviously a lot of caution needs to be done because you know, like obviously there's been this. This guy who pushed off on this whole thing of he was like, Well, African Americans are have a lower IQ than you know, bell curve. African Americans, yeah. And I was like, I was like, Well, yeah, be weird if they didn't. If they were, yeah, anyway, because of what's happening, yeah. Women, it's it has nothing to do with their ability, they're not like born with smaller brains, like, oh, look at me, I'm small. No, dude, that's just achievement. So there's been a lot of controversy, but I could I could totally address all that. But um, but it's legit. And but one of the things that's interesting, and this is I'll bring this back, this is why, is male and female are interestingly different in IQ. Women are on average more intelligent than men. So, like the average male is you know, about 100. That's about right. I think it's like 90, 99 last in like 2015. But the female is like 102, 103, 104 um on average. Interesting. But there's something way more interesting about that is that actually women have less variability. So they're a cluster like this. So, like if you took a bell curve, it'd be kind of a tight one, right? Males have this weird long tails on both sides. So, like we have a lot of intellectual disabilities, like on the low side, like the extreme disability uh intellectually disabled are males, but also the super geniuses are males. Is this weird? And I don't have no idea why that's the case. I mean, you could make up tons of theories, but we don't know. Yeah, and so the same thing with risk. And so with risk, you find that people who are risk-aversed are in this tight curve of fairly successful because they don't make dumb mistakes like buying 1600 lottery tickets, and uh, but you also see that they don't tend to, yeah, they don't tend to really just nail it. And when they do, it's really strange, like mathematically, it's strange. That's exactly what it sounds like. It's an insurance that you're gonna stay where you're at. You don't have the risk of failing, but you also don't, it's very difficult to succeed, you know, because everybody knows that guy from high school who was like the risk, the non-risk adverse who would like just headbutt the coke machine, you know, those people where you're like, that doesn't make any sense, it's not funny, and now you're going home and suspended. Then you've got people who are risk-adversed who ended up, you know, diversifying their portfolio, yeah, undiversifying their portfolio and going all into Dogecoin or something and making millions, and you're like, What happened? Uh, but it's it's so there's a lot of luck they found, but also the biggest thing is that again, it comes back to that, you know, appetitive and aversive. If you're if you if you have an appetitive or if if you're super versed to risk, let me put it this way my form of therapy is um is very that makes sense, you're not crazy. I say that every single patient, every person I've ever seen. Because if I don't understand it, I'll think they're weird, and then I fail as a clinician because everything makes sense. If it's true that people go towards things they want and put away from things they don't, there's never a case I should not understand. And if I don't, I need to ask more questions. And so far, I've never had a case I didn't understand. I get there and I go, Oh, okay, nope, it just clicked. I got it. You feel this, and that's you know, and so um, with the risk aversion, like what causes that person, they there's more that attracts them. So obviously, people because I'm also risk aversed and I'm attracted to that um large payday. Um, but I'm also too averse to it, it's why I don't gamble. It's because I go, right, yeah, I could make money, but I could also, but it's more likely that I would lose money, and it is more likely, but um, and and more, and this is the big part is that I don't have the safety net to save me if I lose, you know what I'm saying? Yeah, yeah. So like I came from a non-privileged background in the sense of economically at least. I'm obviously my weight assist mail, I'm doing okay, but like money wise, I didn't I had no safety net. But my friends who did were like, Oh, now I'm a private pilot and I fly to like you know, Aruba. And I'm like, must have been nice to pay those $16,000 to get those private license hours. Uh but yeah, while you were also diversifying your businesses, you had four different ones. Wish I had that. Because if I fail, I'm literally out in the streets because my mom even told me, she's like, If you don't go to college, I cannot. I don't even have a place for you to stay. Whereas uh people who were like, Oh, my first eight businesses failed and I won. You're like, Yeah, I mean, like, I don't have cool. So, yeah, it was that was that the case with you. I if I remember it, you didn't you didn't necessarily come from like millions of dollars.
SPEAKER_00Oh no, yeah. Yeah, actually, my uh my parents did try to, you know, they definitely lived as though we had more than we did, which I think impacted the way that I managed my money in my early 20s, you know, because I saw my parents, they didn't paint a realistic picture, you know. They didn't uh they weren't like, no, we can't do that, we don't have the money for that. You know, they always found a way to make it happen, but not creatively. It was, you know, a credit card or something like that, and those kinds of things that it just didn't make a lot of sense to somebody who would look at that financially. So no, it didn't come from money for sure. And I think that I think that is a big part of why I did the whole, oh, I'm gonna go off to to college. You know, I went to John Brown and I was, you know, I was an engineering major originally um and found that within about two weeks that I really wasn't into that because the the calculus blew my mind. I thought I was good at math in high school. And I got to college, I was like, oh no, this is not what I learned in high school. So, but yeah, I you know, I drove towards that. Take the take the necessary steps to build that secure life, you know, and the reality is that it it's just there isn't any security in it. And I think that's why maybe now as I'm getting older, I'm learning more to be like, I think that take a little risk here, you know, as I'm got this much money, I'm still though, I'm like, well, I don't want to put all that into one thing because if that goes, you know, tits up, then I'm like, well, shit, I want all my money. So, you know, it's still a hard push, you know, um, um, to to get myself to take some risk. But that was that was definitely my my thing, you know. Like you mentioned the gambling. Anytime I've been to a casino, I'll take 20 bucks. You know, that's it. If I want to gamble, 20 bucks, that's it. Doesn't matter if I win, lose, whatever, that's all I'm doing. I'm not putting my money in. And I think one time I won in a casino and I I had three bucks on me that night and I put it in one of the machines. I ended up making like seven, and then I went ahead and played that and I ended up making like 50 bucks. You know, I was like, Oh, sweet, you know, that's it. Then I I still though, you know, I was like, Oh, I could hit it one more time and who knows what'll be. And I was like, nah, cash it up, and I walk away.
SPEAKER_01I was just about to break that. I was about to go, then what did you do? And did you find yourself back at the casino more often? I see no, no, no, yeah, it wasn't an of the the aversive was too strong for the appetitive because that's what happened to me. Like, I went to uh man, do you remember Michael from the coffee shop? Uh dark hair, he's Iranian. Um, I think so, yeah. Sounds familiar. Yeah, well, when I managed it, he was he was a friend of mine and he had poker night, and he was like, Oh, you have to first it's free. And he's like, But after a while you can get into the $10 buy-in. And I was like, All right, and so like eventually it was like, Oh, but now you can get into the $40, $50 buy-in. And come to think of it, guys, probably a gambling problem. But uh I was like, All right, so one time I was like, I'll go one time, but I don't really, I mean, I was like, I don't like poker, it's too chance, and uh there's a lot of you know skill, obviously, but but a lot of it is chance, and I don't, I'm not a gambler. But eventually I win. Well, when I went, I did pretty well, you know, like I made some decent decisions, but you know, most of his luck. And uh as soon as I got a big hand and I bluffed them into going all the way, I was like, cool them out, and they're like, Oh, you can't, and I was like, excuse me. And they're like, Like, no, it's considered bad manners to like win a big pot and then just leave because people have the chance to win it back. And because and then and I was like, I was like, Ah, but what's the premise of that? And he was like, Um, you know, not being a person of logic. He was like, Um, oh, the premise is that um, you know, it's based on the logic that over time a better player will win their money back, and anybody can get lucky on a hand. And I go, correct. And I go, and which I did, yeah, and which I agree with and I understand you're gonna make the money back, it would be foolish for me to stay then, would it not? And then he's like, Yeah, and I'm like, I'm cashing out. He was like, Well, you might not get invited back again. I was like, Okay, literally wasn't gonna come back anyway. But like, and even though I made my one time at the big money, you know, big money at the time, big money table that I won big. I mean, big, I won like 400 bucks or something crazy. And you know, as a college student, you're like, What? I never went back, and they were like, Come on back, come on back. And I was like, No, like I'm not dumb. I know what happened.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, that's great. That's that's funny. You can't leave the mafia.
SPEAKER_01So we have a gun or I'm leaving with 400 bucks, bro.
SPEAKER_00I don't know if you guys can see what I'm doing right now, but I'm actually taking the money and I'm putting it in my pocket and I'm heading for the door. So stop me if you can. Wow, yeah, that's uh yeah, exactly. I mean, that's the thing. I can't I can't bring myself to to do that. Even with poker, I'm like, all right, I got five bucks, you know. No, it's a ten dollar buy in. Well, then I'll uh I'll watch because I'm not gonna do more than five bucks.
SPEAKER_01Well, once you've been truly hungry, you never want to be back there again. And that's the thing, I think, is you if you know that that's a possibility, and it is, if you don't come from privilege, it or at least in economics. Privilege. Um, you you have to think to yourself, that's real. And once you have kids, it mixes it up, doesn't it? Because I'm like, Well, I don't want to have kids in that mix. I would, I constantly as a kid, you can't help but go, like, I want I want a ticket to go. You had to be in the top 10 in the school academically, and you could go to space camp. It was in the um, I don't remember, but it was in the south, and we were in Arkansas, and they drive you down there. And I really want to go. And I was like, space camp. And they're like, Well, $69, which ha ha, but also um, that's a lot of money because we had no money. And and even the vice principal was like, Look, we're gonna get this down. We got you know, a little bit of money in, and you know, we can get it down to 29 bucks. And my mom was like, We literally are so far in the red, we can't do that. And I was like, fuck. And so I had to say no, and they handed it over, and it sucks. So my name got called an intercom and everything. I mean, like, that's how poor we were. And so, knowing that I was like, All right, that's not something I want to do. And I remember thinking to my mom, I was like, Mom, what the dude? Like, I was I couldn't help but be upset. I was like, Why would you put us in this situation? Like, what decisions did you make to get us here? And I don't blame my mom now because I understand her situation, but um, but at the time, you know, as a kid, irrationally, I was just like, What the heck? And I never wanted to have my kids experience that. So, yeah, it was a lot of that middle, you know, the bell curve, real tight, none of these, because I don't want any of that.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, that's interesting, you know, because I I I think about that in your situation there where your mom was like, We just can't do it. And then I think to my situation where my parents would have just figured it out, they would have gone into debt for 30 bucks to so I could go on this and not miss out on the experience. And I wonder, Bobby's talked before about how the way that he grew up, you know, he did not want to live like his dad, you know, in a double wide and whatever. He did not want to do that. And so now I wouldn't say that Bobby lives a whole lot better than his dad did. I mean he is he's in a better, he's not in a double wide, but the money that Bobby sits on, I have no idea how I mean there's Bobby has probably just a shitload of money he's sitting on. Yeah, as far as I know. Yeah, right. To me, I'm just like, why is he such a miser all the time? You know, with anything, like you know, Bobby as well as I do. So I just I think about that and I think, you know, your situation, his situation, mine. And I think that I I wonder the how the impact was different because for me, my parents created this environment where I didn't ever miss out. I always I almost never was told no. You know, then when I have kids and my kids are growing up, I don't know if it subconsciously motivated me or consciously motivated me, but I didn't just let my kids have everything they wanted, you know. And there were times that I just said, Hey, look, we can't afford that guys. Because there were times that I struggled financially with, you know, with all three of my kids when I was a single dad. I just wonder, you know, what do you think? How does that those those different impacts of being told no as a child or never being told no as a child, you know? I know that I was spoiled, but I was rarely told no. Hey there, podcast listener. Have you always wanted to start your own podcast? Have you been listening to this one and thinking to yourself, man, if he can do it, I can do it. Well, you're not wrong. And thanks to Anchor, you too can have your own podcast. It's super easy to do. So easy, in fact, I've been doing it, but I probably couldn't do it without Anchor. All you have to do is record your episodes, upload them to Anchor's website, and they'll do all the heavy lifting for you, including distribution to the groovy stats to see if you're awesome or if you sock, and even finding sponsorships like this one, that I'm doing. So if it's your lifelong goal to have your own podcast or even just a useful type rank, Anchor can help you with that. Just go to www.anchor.fm to get started. That's www.anchhor.fm. Anchor. All your podcasting needs in one place.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, that's really interesting. I think one of the most interesting things is that it sounds like it's almost like two different because I also have this propensity to just go, like I want to provide for my kids in a way that my mom couldn't. Like we never went on, I didn't even know what a family trip was. Like I didn't even know what that was. And people like vacation, vacation. I thought it was like a rich kid thing. But then one of my neighbors did it down the street who had, you know, a regular home. And I was like, regular people go on vacations? Like, yeah, I'm like, what the fuck? I've never been on it. They're like, never? But at Disney World's like, no. And they're like, you've been like across the street. I was like, no, like because like we were so far in debt, I wasn't allowed to answer the phone because we were bankrupt. And uh, and and so I was like, I was like, okay, but it also so it caused this sort of you know, like the tightening down of the bell curve, which we were talking about, like where I don't want to take too many risks, but it also caused me to want to, like, you know, I bought virtual reality for my kids. Like, what the fuck is wrong with me? You know what I'm saying? Like, it because I was like, I was like, man, I really want my kids to have a cool experience. Yeah, um, and it's interesting because Bobby's on the other side of that where he tightened down so hard that it's uh, I mean, he's probably happy with his life, but like uh I wouldn't be happy with his life. I I don't I don't like that level of constriction, but I I don't know. I mean, like, I maybe it's because uh part of mine too is anxiety driven. Like I'm very uh from more of an anxious background, you know, where danger was very real and around the corner at all times. And so because of that, it's like you you're obviously averse to those situations, but also you're really driven towards this idea of tranquility and peace and like a different lifestyle. You're you want to go, you know, like do these more important things. But I don't know, I don't know about research for that. I that that that'd be really interesting to look into.
SPEAKER_00I'm thinking of things like um kind of shifting gears away from risk and moving towards um some of these other things. What do you think about the influence of other people in terms of a circle? You know, like your circle of influence, not having like if your circle's too small, you know, if you only got two or three people as opposed to, I mean, I don't, you know, you know, on thousands of people, but how much impact do you think having too small a circle as opposed to, you know, people with eight million friends or whatever, or you know, I don't know what the cap is on Facebook now, like 5,000 or something. You don't have 5,000 friends. Nobody does that. You know, how much do you think that actually influences someone in their decision making? Something that my therapist said to me once was um, you know, if you listen to yourself too much, you're gonna become selfish and alone. And if you listen to other people too much, you won't ever know who you are. You know, you're just it's everybody else's, it's not even your decision anymore. So striking that balance, I think, makes sense. Um I guess maybe I'm answering the question myself now, but um, but where do you think that balance is? Do you think, you know, can you have too small a circle or too big a circle?
SPEAKER_01It's interesting because I actually um studied this when I was looking at internet relationships because of uh mass murder suicide, one of the ideas was that it happened. That that was my thesis, that was my specialty with mass murder suicides and violent propensities and how you know acquisition models, like how how it comes about and that kind of thing. But uh one of the things I was looking at was um, you know, was I had to understand a lot about internet relationships. And the reason why I bring up internet relationships is because there is no way a human like us could have 8,000 friends, right? But you can have 8,000 followers easily on social media, and so it's really screwed our our problems because in reality and how we were were raised and and how we um evolved is that you only have so much time in the day. Like you can only have so many friends, and some people do select smaller groups of friends, and some people try to you know diversify their time. Um, and that's almost exactly as you'd predict. That one's pretty safe and easy to understand. And it's that um, you know, if you have a tight group of friends, you typically obviously you value their friends more, you tend to go to them for it was um uh recommendations, you go for them for opinions, and you go for them for oh, just time, yeah, just fun, fun times makes sense. But then when you as you start getting bigger and bigger, it started kind of getting a little hairier because it was like, well, you typically get a close group of friends, and some people said there were three groups, you know, concentric circles of friends, and some people said it was like these you know trained graphs. I tend to think those people are silly, but the three circles make sense to me. Your tight group of friends, your quasi-group of friends, and your acquaintances. Um, but social media, unfortunately, here's here's the thing why this is important type group of friends. If like my type group of friends said something like, if my wife walked up and she goes, That shirt looks stupid, I would go, uh, like you would hurt, right? Like and if the second group of friends, like just my kind of friends, but like that shirt looks stupid, I go, uh but if an acquaintance walked up and said shirt was stupid, I go, you know what I mean? That makes sense. Those are three, you know, usefully different responses. But what's crazy is social media doesn't do that. You can get 20,000 followers, and suddenly you think 20,000 acquaintances are more important than your closer circle. You know what I'm saying? So like 20,000 people go, like, oh, cute bad things too. And then people look close to you are like, you should cut your hair short. And then the person close to you goes, No, you shouldn't. And then they, you know, and you go, What are you doing? And so, like, it's this strange relationship between numbers, and we conflate that with intimacy. So the sheer number of people, um, the frequency of likes, it we think is intimacy, and it's just not, but it makes sense because typically it's it's wired in the idea of that frequency means intimacy. Like the more I'm with my wife, the more she can positively reinforce me. And so she does, and so she has more interactions with me. And so necessarily she influences me more than other people, but now with social media, not so much. And so I just hope people can get that concept and then um push that out. But I don't know how to battle it because the petitives are so strong. I mean, you get paid for having tons of followers nowadays, and so YouTube and whatnot, yeah, and like you know, like Instagram and like stuff, you know, like we I mean, I'm sure you've seen them, they hold up a little bottle and they're like, fit aid, yeah. Try it, and you're like, Really? Yeah, so or just if you're an influencer, you know, you get these opportunities to fly to these spots and take pictures, and so so it's almost like two separate questions. One is like real world and then social media, and the real world, you know, we know a decent amount about it, but social media we found that previously thought that it was interactions because it was actually worth one tenth. Yeah, it was one tenth when we measured things like video games, like when people played like Call of Duty or like World of Warcraft or just interacted with people on chat and stuff, it was about worth one tenth of a friend as far as like influence and uh their propensity to help or harm our mental health. Um, because we understood that it's online. Even if I talked to someone 10 times as much online, it was only worth one actual friend that's semi-close. Um, but then I don't know how I haven't seen studies since then based on the number, the frequency of likes basically versus you know, someone's influence closer. But I do know that it's been talked about much in the literature about the fact that yeah, they they it it hits harder when there's more likes or miss more dislikes. They go, This guy sucks. It's like tons of them. We just have this negative cognitive bias where we just focus in on that. So interesting.
SPEAKER_00So that that's what sort of drives the friend whoring and whatnot, so that people are like, you know, I gotta have 3,000 friends because every time I post this awesome selfie or this hilarious comment. And it's funny because I I mean I'll be honest, I I've even found myself, you know, I'll find something funny somewhere else and I'll post it, I'll share that. Yeah, and then I'll be like, oh man, only three people thought that was funny. But then I'm like, that's not even my joke. Why do I care? I didn't come up with that, I just shared something else that made me laugh. And other people might not think it's funny. It's funny how you know, and I I I'll dial that back and catch myself then why am I upset about this? Dumb. You know, so yeah, there's a uh a distinction then, and obviously I think makes sense that at least it's intuitive that the distinction, of course, in the real world having 3,000 friends would be impossible, where in the in the virtual world you can have 3,000 friends if as it were.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, it's almost like studying those pop icons, you know, like Justin Bieber or whatever. It's that you can't possibly have you know six million fans or friends, and yeah, every time you walk out, you know, like if I go out on stage, like this is exactly what it's akin to it's going out on stage and be like, six million people, and they all look and they go, Here's my breakfast, here's a close-up, and me as a selfie. You know, that's Instagram. And then getting six million people to be like, you know, that's you're like, whoa, eating breakfast is awesome. But it's not that you, you know, we contextualize, we're not stupid. We understand that you know, that that's just internet likes, but it is positively reinforcing. Whereas, yeah, when you and I post and I'm like, look, eggs and bacon, like my my mom is like, Cool, honey, make sure you get vaccinated, or whatever. And I'm like, okay, you know, it's not the same.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, six million people don't give a shit about my breakfast.
SPEAKER_01I'll do that too. I put up funny stuff for like, you know, some amazing dinner I made. I'm like, dude, check it out. I slow roasted this for six hours, you know, or whatever some real accomplishment. And then they're like, they're like, Oh, that's cool. Like one person, you know, is like, oh, that's awesome. Hey, I saw a cat dead cat on the side of the road, and I'm like, not important, rude. Uh that's my thing. But uh anyway, yeah, it's crazy. Don't hijack my post. That's just as interesting.
SPEAKER_00So I guess just bouncing right off of that. The next thing is not knowing who you are. Like, and I and I mentioned that a minute ago is you know, taking too much influence or you know, not having your own thoughts. I think that is a huge part of for myself what has led to a number of failures for me in my life is that for the longest time, I don't think I really knew conceptually who I was. I didn't know what I valued. I didn't, I didn't, you know, put those things down. And not knowing that led to just, oh, do I want to be a bartender? Do I want to be a project manager? Do I want to be an actor? Do I want to just this constant slew of trying new jobs as opposed to just this is what I think I'm good at and this is what I want to do? You know, only now in my in my late age, my old age, have I come to those grips with those things. So what do you think of that? How do how does knowing who you who we are lead to those things?
SPEAKER_01Well, that's interesting. What do you what do you think you mean by um knowing who you are?
SPEAKER_00Well, I guess in the sense that, and I think it would probably come back to knowing the things that we value, because I guess who we are is pretty fluid, knowing what we value and being able to say these are the things that are important to me, and always being able to, for the most part, act on those I value integrity, you know, and that's one thing. And so then my actions should align with that. And so if I'm doing things, you know, if I don't know that I value integrity, I can't say that I might do things that are somewhat unethical and that kind of thing and lead to failures.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Oh, it sounds like you've started to look into that. I I found that um values is obviously a huge part of you know how I practice because I came from I was trained by Kelly Wilson, who's the guy who one of the guys who invented ACT, accept acceptance commitment therapy, which kind of like the new hotness in the research. But values, he was the values guy. That was his portion of act. Um, and so I trained under him. So obviously, I'm huge on values. And uh he would say that values is the compass on your boat. Like there, you can sail all day, but it doesn't matter. Good, you sailed, you know, and like five years later, you're like still sailing. I'm the best sailor in the world. And you couldn't be the best sailor in the world, but you never really got to where you wanted to be. And so, like, uh, so I I yeah, I do think that. I mean, you know, it's no surprise, but I do obviously think that values work is great, and there's so many cool abilities or things you could do in therapy. There's simple things like uh the one that spoke to me the most um was that, and the one I like to use is I say, and you know, you slow this down. I'm gonna do this quick because I don't, you know, I don't want to waste your time, but you slow down and you say, like, so I'll give you an example and then I'll just speak over it quickly. But first you say, like, okay, you know, I'd like you to, you know, close your eyes and come into contact with the present. Now think about people you value the most. You see their face, it brings you joy. You can't help but as you think of them now, you may find yourself smiling a little bit. So anyway, you go about that slow because what that does is it it shuts out if you go do this too fast, people have this tendency to cerebralize it or intellectualize it. And then they just kind of skip over and they're like, yeah, okay, I get the point. And you're like, no, no, no, no, this is important because our brain operates differently when it's pressed than when it's not. There's two different parts of well, there's three, four, or five different parts of the brain that happens. But generally speaking, there's two different ways to process it, and we tend to process it too fast when we go too fast. But the idea is this think of those people you love the most, and you think, okay, now it's you're at your death bed, and now you've passed. And now they're giving your eulogy. You're, you know, the person you love most, they they slowly picture the person, select it, they're there, all five senses. And then what are they saying about you? You know, what are the things they're saying? Another one I really like is because this has happened to me, is that you catch your friends, your best group of friends. Let's say it's your bachelor party, bachelorette party, whatever, just the people you can bring in from anywhere, no expenses cost. They come around the corner, or you come around the corner and you just happen, you come back with like maybe the beer is early, or you're like, oh, I got the food or whatever, right? And as you come around the corner, they don't know you're there. And then you hear them speaking before you get there. And sometimes it's bad. But imagine in this situation, it's the best possible things they could possibly be saying. And I find that so useful because the people often, and I myself included, find self-stuff about ourselves that I didn't know. Is I'm like, I guess. And you think of each person, like maybe I say maybe four or five people, and you go to each person, what would they be saying? And so not only is it the values aren't, you know, they're somewhat objective, but also we requ we desire different behaviors to meet these values out of different people. And so I find that um doing values work like that um is super important because, like you said, like you you find out it's the compass on your boat, like you go, oh, that's when I want to go. And it sounds like you have been driven since the very beginning because you were talking about contacting um these desires early in life, and then, but and you worked your ass off in all different areas. And I've I've worked with you, I know you work your ass off. Like you're a hard worker. I mean, we did fucking landscaping the other. I understand we busted our ass. Um, I know what it's like to work hard, but you know, you're saying, like, you know, you were you were the best fucking sailor on the water, you just your compass was like kind of jacked. You were like, What's wrong with my compass? Yeah. So I think values work is incredibly important. Um, yeah, in fact, the most important thing I think that you can do in life. And there's a lot of cool activities. Um, if anyone ever gets interested, they can ask or whatever. But yeah, I think I think it's awesome. Incongruence of values is where you act in a way where you say you value something and you don't, you act oppositely. We've all done it, and I've done it. For sure. Where I'm like, oh, dude, I value health, and then like I'm just cramming food, chili cheese dogs repeat. I ate four.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, for sure. Yeah, I think that what I I got turned on to those values, kind of understanding the values, I suppose, was I mentioned it before Mark Manson. He uh wrote a book called The Subtle Art of Not Giving a Fuck. And it's oh for me, it was a game changer. That's it's and that's kind of what led me to think about writing from experiences because that's what he does. He's no he's no certified, you know, degreed expert in some such or another. He just started writing things on a blog and then started traveling and whatever, writing his experiences out. He talks about values and understanding that that's where you have to come from and being able to not react emotionally and let our feelings take control and all those things, and just knowing all the time and grounding, everything comes back to grounding the values. And I think that's kind of then knowing who you are, because who we are, like I said, is kind of fluid in my book. But knowing my values, if once I could say, okay, these are the things that are important to me, then I was able to look at everything in my life and go, Oh, that's gotta go. You know, and so and I did that. I dropped a lot of dead weight when I started understanding my values. And so, yeah, I think it's pretty critical.
SPEAKER_01Well, I think there's a great quote that comes from Kelly as well. Like my guy who uh one of my mentors, he said that values and vulnerabilities are pulled from the same vessel. And the idea is this like if you get hurt by something, you have something to learn just as much as in failure, like we're talking about here, that's why I bring this up. You have something to learn just as much as you do when you succeed, you feel good. So, like, let's say you, you know, you're a filmmaker, you make a movie, like Dustin Sullivan, you know, uh succeeded in this movie venture where he was, you know, doing CG and stuff, and he learned a lot about himself. He's like, Whoa, CG's pretty cool too. I like the production side of it as well as I do the director side, but failure can also teach us just as much. And because you know that um the vessel you hold that you're value in, you also find vulnerabilities. You find that, like, um, so for example, like I want to be a good husband, for example, or like a good uh, well, in this context, let's say a good psychologist. And so um, if I do something correct, it feels great. Like if I help someone and they go, You like legit, you know, saved our marriage, or like I was on the brink of suicide and everything's better now. Like, I don't even need therapy. I go, Whoa, like I feel good, but obviously flip side of the coin, and this is the concept I use a lot, flip side of the coin, because it's the same coin, and just like in marriage, you you like someone who's ambitious, but you also don't like when they're bullheaded, those are the same thing, you just ran against it in two different ways. So the same thing here is that um, yeah, like like I just because I I value um this expertise in psychology and helping people in uh understanding theirs themselves better, not even so much as like therapy's fun, but like I really enjoy the science of it. And and because of that, if I fail or if I say something wrong, I like I listened to an old podcast I did like probably four years ago. I remember I said one study incorrectly. I came up with it wrong, and I still sometimes wake up at night and go, they're gonna think I'm wrong. Like it's you know, they're gonna believe this, like it bugs me. And so, yeah, I think that's interesting, is that we're talking about the psychology of failure, but as you probably already know, we're also talking about the psychology of success because it's the exact same thing. Yeah, because it doesn't matter what you fail in if you don't want to succeed.
SPEAKER_00I I think that the values thing then too kind of leads into kind of I hate the idea of when people say find your purpose, you know, discover your purpose. I don't, I mean, I think you probably all have a like mind. That's not something that's just out there to, well, there it is. There's Jeremiah's purpose, there's Steve's purpose. It's something that we create ourselves, you know, that we understand, oh, this is what I want to do with myself. And I think it's driven by values and passions and whatnot. And I think that one of the things that, and this may seem obvious, that leads to huge failures is not having that purpose, not knowing what it is. What am I doing? I'm I'm, you know, I'm swinging a pickaxe all day because I'm planting trees in the ground and making people's houses look pretty. But what is my purpose in that? Where's my value in that? I think that's pretty key. And even now, I I'll admit I'm not entirely certain that I have crafted that purpose just yet. I think I have a good idea where I'm headed, but I think that leads to failure. What are your thoughts on that? And then the sense of having an actual purpose and what drives you every day and whether or not you fail, succeed, et cetera.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I find that one of the this is that's interesting that you you put it that way. Um, is that I I think that I've one of the I find myself come to metaphors a lot, you know, when you work with people. And one of them is that you find yourself in a rut. Because for me, this spoke to me whenever I first heard it, and it was like, what happens is rut, obviously it's used all the time, but I mean the this concept of you find yourself in a valley between two mountains, and you know, on the other side of both mountains is where you'd rather be, but it's such a struggle, and what you're doing kind of works, you know. You're looking at the valley in front of you, and you're like, I can just keep walking this way, and everything's kind of it's not gonna get bad, you know, it won't it won't get better, but it won't get bad. But if I go up over this mountains, it's a possible, I can't see it, so I don't know, but it could be better. But then you go, I'm so exhausted from trying because I've been, you know, I'm in this rut. Yeah, that I don't know if I have the energy to get up over there. And so I think that um, yeah, I'm talking about um the idea that like um people get stuck in some some situation where they're swinging a pickaxe, you know, digging a hole, they're doing whatever they're doing, and then I often find, and this is a lot, I find that people um are find themselves, you know, questioning, yeah, purpose, values, uh, who they are, quote unquote, like all these concepts of like, yeah, but like I've been working hard, I don't understand why things aren't working out. One of the okay, this is the best one in merit. This is huge, is I'm like, because you interview the person and you say, like, you go, what's going on? And what's going on? Each person talks. And this part, you know, for this example, this part's irrelevant. They blah blah blah blah blah. And it's just some terrible story, something terrible going on. They both like really feel like it's failing. Literally, had people show up with the divorce things in hand and had to sign it. Three sessions and I fix the marriage, and they're better now. But um, and one of the things is I was like, Okay, so what is this? You know, what's going on? And it is just oh, just terrible stories. And then I'm I'm like, okay, uh, here's the trap trap question. What are they doing? What could they do to fix the marriage? And you ask them, you don't ask with the other person, you know, because you don't want to offend them. You don't say, like, I'm gonna interview you personally, and you can leave them for a bit, and I'm gonna do the same thing with you. I'll ask the same questions, there's no secrets here. And and you just said, What could they do to really help this? And they say, and then you go, What are you doing to help this after you ask that? Because it's important for the context for them to understand that they're asking a lot. So, what are you giving? Yeah, and so then you go, okay, and you ask the other person. And what's funny is you find that both people, no matter how bad the marriage is, it are really working, doing a lot of shit. And so you're like, You do this, you do this, you do this. Like you're making coffee, you're trying to give him a kiss in the morning, he doesn't like it, you know, you're you're like leaving them little notes. Um, you're doing this, you're and the other person's like, I fill their car with gas, I you know, change the boil, I you know, make sure the yard's always mowed, like there's all these things they're doing, but the other person just doesn't get it. And so that's the idea of like, you know, just working and working and working towards something without a clear connection to the value in marriage, it's for the other person, but personally, it's it's your own value, and they're they're spinning their wheels. I always say spinning your wheels, and they're like, Yes, yeah, that's what I'm doing. And I'm like, that's it. Like you can be working really, really hard and appear that you're doing no work when you are. And so, same thing with the values thing. It's I think once you connect with those values, it's you know, it's so much more use a nerdy word fecund, right? Like each action causes sprouts more opportunity for action, like it's it's you know, exponential growth. And so, so I think I think that's yeah, that's exactly it. It's that people swing your pickaxe or like, you know, or working like our normal job and or cubicle job, you know, is the typical idea. They're working their ass off and they are working hard, and then they're confused because they're like, I don't feel any better. Like, what's going on? Yeah, I think I think that's huge, is that contacting your values, and then it makes it so much more because people go, I don't have any more time in the day to work towards my values. And I go, That's not what I'm asking. I want you to get rid of your time of the day because all everything you're doing sucks. I know it's use your time of the day more wisely, and so that's that's well, not wise that sounds offensive, but I mean like use your time of the day in a way that let's try out some new ideas, and then sometimes they work. Um, most of the time they do, sometimes they don't, and then I think that's fine.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I think something that has kind of stood out to me that I've I've come to I think that the not having a purpose and understanding values, a lot of times, for me anyway, has led almost to inaction. Where an example I I've read once was if you're walking down a path and suddenly you can see off in the distance in two different directions to go. On one side, there's this, you know, these mountains and this gorgeous lake in the middle of it, and it's just beautiful. On the other side is, you know, a beach, and you stand there and you look at both options. And if you go right, you miss out on the left. If you go left, you miss out on the right. And because you don't know what you want in life, and you not don't have a purpose, you don't have your values, you don't, you're not aligned, you stand there and miss out on both because you can't pick one, because you don't know what you want. And I think that's been a big thing for me is understanding okay, I've got this and this, I gotta pick something. I can't stand here and just stare at it. I gotta pick something because I can miss out on both or miss out on one.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, that's what really inaction is an action. And that actually comes from a philosophical argument. It's called uh, oh, it's the guy's name. It's someone's ass. And it's funny because that's the literal name of it, you know, but it's a donkey. Um, like so. Let's say I'm gonna make up a word, Jonathan's ass, right? That's what it's called. And I remember thinking lol, because I was only 17 at the time when I started stuffing it up. Uh, what it is is that they say that, and this is the idea of decision making, you know, it has to do with philosophy of the mind. And anyway, there's this donkey that you bring up to a city gate. And at the time there was these two troughs water, and it's often like two things of bales of hay. And they said that like donkeys are so weird because, like, you know, whichever one they're closest to, they just go towards, you know, they're simple animals, you know, they're half mule, half the horse. Wait, no, mule is half donkey, half donkey, whatever the case. They're not particularly bred for their intelligence, they're just kind of you know, do what they're you know, do what they do. They're they they're good at what they do. And they said that so where whichever one is closer, and then they said this philosopher said, but so what's interesting is what you're saying is that there are these factors that impact their decisions, and you know, it has to do with like how let's say one is like one bale of hail is particularly large and tasty looking. Well, there you go, like, or if you're equidistant from both of them, if one the wind's blowing a certain way, holy smell from the left, it might go that way. And then he said, But what if we used a you know thought experiment and I isolated all those variables and he stood right, literally equidistant. If I can measure to the infinitesimal atom, you know, between the two, that he would starve to death. And that was his hypothesis, and uh it would cause a lot of controversy, obviously, because people are like, no, because I mean you you have some something that pushes you, and he goes, Then what is that? And anyway, it became this idea of this quantum uh they call it quantum coin toss, which means like there's this idea that in your brain just go tink and it lands, and you just go, I don't know that one. And uh, but anyway, uh, but you know, I honestly don't think that's true. I do think that um, because quantum coin toss, first of all, we know that randomicity isn't a thing we can create. We've tested that, we can't do it, we're bad at it. Um, so and computers can't do it either. We don't know how to make random things, uh, because there's no mathematical formulation that truly produces randomicity. Same thing with our brains, if we're just organic, which we are. They the same thing with the donkeys. So then that logic should hold true and they die in between. And I truly believe that and I bring it up a lot because I'm I'm like, you're right. The funny thing is, is you say that donkey though is it's called a paralysis of option. You have too many options, it's it's two perfectly appetizing options, but pretend it was 17 or 30 or 80. Um, if you have too many, we're not equipped to analyze those ideas as well. So often we just go, oh, inaction though, is an action because I say, I say, you know, in behaviorism, we measure things by what I can observe. And if I can observe you standing there, you're doing something, you're standing there, you're choosing to stand there rather than to act. I think reframing it as saying, like, not walking to the right bale of hay and not walking to the left bale of hay, but walking to the right, left, or none. And what you're choosing is none and to die. And so um, once people can connect with that consequence, I think if I could teach that donkey English, I think if I could say, You're okay, so you choose to die, he would go, no, and then I'd be like, well, I'm picking one. And then that's when I'd force a quantum point toss, or what really happens is you start behaving towards one, and then you make a narrative of why you did it, that's how we think, then we can force that option. So yeah, that's that's interesting, and it's true, like it's it gives us comfort.
SPEAKER_00For sure. And I think another thing is the multitude of options. One of the examples I've used is the Cheesecake Factory's menu. When you have so many options, it actually makes it almost impossible to make a choice. And you find yourself sitting there just like, uh, their menu is a it's a fucking novel, man. It's huge. It's man, how many, how many different salads can you have? I couldn't imagine working there. That would be the worst serving job ever. But I I think in in that sort of way, I think that also on the on sort of the flip side of or maybe in conjunction with that is having so many options, I think that also becomes kind of a problematic thing where you're or waiting for maybe maybe trying to create the options. You know, I want to have all these different investment ideas or have all these different things and not just narrowing that down to what actually aligns with what I want to do.
SPEAKER_01Whoa, okay. So do you think, and I don't know any research on this, but theoretically it makes sense. Do you think that risk aversion, that that propensity towards risk aversion is what motivates paralysis of choice? Because you're afraid of that. You said FOMO. You said, or you didn't say FOMO, but you said, you know, what if I make the beach choice and the mountains was right? Yeah. Like I wonder if that's not it.
SPEAKER_00I think, yeah, maybe so. That seems to make sense. Maybe it does just kind of come down to that, just the FOMO. You know, it's like, yeah, if I if I pick one, then I don't, you know, I'm not gonna experience all the others. But I think the reality is, even like I was talking to Holly um early on when we were first we're dating and we were talking about going on a trip together. And I was like, Oh, well, where would you want to go? And she's like, I don't care, we can go anywhere. It's like, well, I mean, if you had to narrow it down to like one choice, like what would you pick? She's like, I don't care, I just want to go somewhere. And I was just, you know, so in my head, I'm like, no, no, we have to pick something. In her mind, she's like, No, I just want to go somewhere, you know. So I'm just like, oh, okay. I'm thinking, oh, I would love to go here for these reasons, there for those reasons. And it's just like, just pick something, you know, we'll just blindly poke the map and go there, as long as it's not like South Africa or something, but you know, so but yeah, so I I I I think so. I think there's uh maybe it does, maybe it does just boil down to to the FOMO bit.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, that's really interesting. Uh, it makes sense though, too, because I I also do that. Like, I return fire when my wife does that. She's like, It's like, what do you want to get takeout tonight? And I'm like, sure. She's like, What do you want? And I go, and like, I won't do one, I always do two or three. Like, I'm like, here's my top three, and then I give it to them because uh, but I'm I'm also like, honestly, if I can be honest, I'm also a little anxious that I'm gonna make the quote unquote wrong decision, not to say there isn't one, but like, you know, the kids complain, Amy complains, you know, and then I'm like, Well, it's what I wanted, and you know, well, you're the ones who let me decide, you know, like you don't say those things, but that's how you feel. Somehow I think that's how you feel inside because you go, you will find yourself being like a little resentful, I in my opinion. I go, Well, I don't know, like I did my best. Like, I don't know, you know, like that's kind of what I'm thinking inside.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure. I can see that. As Holly has mentioned that because we've talked, and I'll be like, What do you want to eat tonight? She's like, I don't care. I'm like, Well, just pick something, and and you know, a few times she's picked something, and I'm like, Yeah, I don't know if I'm in the mood for that. So she's like, Oh, then you just pick, you know. So I'm like, I don't know, you pick something. Like, no, it's my pick something. I'm like, all right, she's decided she wants me to get one of those, you know, the old speak and say again, you know, with the the cows and animals or whatever, and just put different restaurants on it and pull the spring and pick one that way. I'm like, all right, we can do that.
SPEAKER_01Do you know we actually legitimately did something like that? We took popsicle sticks and put it in a jar and you had to draw without looking. We didn't know the exact thing is that, yeah, I mean, yeah, it was just this, it gives you this uh because people are so much better with um coping than we give ourselves credit for, first of all, but also than um um coping with randomicity than we do about like you know a choice they made, right? So nobody wants to be the last decider. Yeah, so so yeah, it's that seems to be fine, which is funny because there's no if it's true that there's no such thing as true random, which you know, mathematically there doesn't seem to be, and philosophically there doesn't seem to be, and definitely with computers there doesn't seem to be, and with psychology there doesn't seem to be, then you know the only comfort that random can give you is that well, I don't have to make a decision, you know, and like you don't have anyone to blame, and so it is sort of like a again psychology of failure, like we're talking about. Yeah, it's funny.
SPEAKER_00Sure. Awesome. I like the popsicle idea. That's good, hunt to try that and see what she thinks. It works out.
SPEAKER_02It works out.
SPEAKER_00So the the subject of toxic masculinity versus healthy masculinity, I have a little source of uh maybe a bone to pick with society, if you will, that the idea of toxic masculinity, I'm not sure if I think that it actually exists as a concept, like an actual thing, toxic masculinity, more like you think of the douchebags. I think it's more just a weakness and not actually being a strong masculine presence. Um, and so I kind of like just like a rundown of things like you know, I mentioned the alpha beta thing. Of course, you know, because that came from watching wolves in captivity and whatnot, and wolves in the wild don't behave the same way as wolves in captivity. So um, so jumping off right there, what do you think in your your experience? What do you think and uh do you think that exists? Do you think there are truly alpha males by that definition and beta males, you know, the the weak guys? How do you think that plays out?
SPEAKER_01Um this is the struggle I always have. It's like, okay, imagine you studied something for like 12 years, and then you have to try to put it in a small package. Some people are brilliant at that. They really are. I mean, like, I have so many colleagues who, you know, I've taught, we've all taught like at the university level. And sometimes I just find myself and I'm talking at the end of the 50 minutes, I'm like, or if 50 minutes class of like 200 people, I'm like, oh, so we didn't do anything we're supposed to do today. Um, but some people do it perfectly, and I don't do so well because on this one I feel like it's really complex. And part of it is that sure, of course, there's we're trophy species. You're gonna have the idea that you're in competition with other males, and that does kind of suck. And there are obviously um times where uh we look towards physicality, um, as both biologically speaking, but also psychologically speaking, um, because we're bred to think that way. I mean, like men are are held less within the first five minutes of their life, they're held less, 40% less than females. Um, there's a lot of behavioral things that go on with this. And you know, and then you teach your kids superheroes, you give them weapons, and then you scold them when they learn to fight, and you go, no, like this is partly you and partly it is also testosterone. We do see a huge spike right around puberty. Yeah, but here's the second part of it is I I'm in that business and habit, both literally both, the business, of never scolding the person for okay, because for for how they were how they are. So, like the rat is always right. That's a term in behaviorism, and it means exactly this. There was a whole an old, old experiment that happened where um we used rats to explain like behaviors. So you have them like do like a maze, for example, and you say, like, you know, let's say you know, there's a maze and like there's a a cheese right here, and there's a long one to a cheese way back here. Well, it goes to the short one, and you go, right, makes sense. You record it, makes sense. Then you you elongate it and you try to just determine at what point does this curiosity of this new thing, because rats have this ability and sodomized, um, they have this innate abil or innate desire to look at new things, so they scurry and they'll go look at different things. And you say, Oh, what point does his um his you know innate desire to go check out a new thing overrate the fact that he goes, Oh, that's cheese. I'm actually all hungry. Um, it's a cool question. Um, but anyway, there was a famous example where they the rat um they put it in and they put the cheese right here, and then the rat would go to curiosity and they go, This one rat, what is the deal? And they do it again and again and again. They're like, He's hungry, he hasn't eaten in a full day. Like we made sure he was like this time we kept pulling it back, and at this point, he's starving, like he won't get this cheese. And so the the research assistant says, says, Um, what is wrong with this rat? This rat isn't behaving like he's supposed to. And then the famous quote is, the rat is always right. There's a reason you don't understand it, but there's a reason he's behaving that way, and it doesn't make you know him any weirder. It's just you don't understand it. The second that you think he's weird means you're bad, not him. And so um, you don't understand it. And it doesn't mean that you can't be morally incorrect, like you know, Jeffrey Dahmer murdered people and try and ate their brains and stuff. Obviously, that's wrong, um, morally speaking. But like the second that you don't understand and empathize with it, then you're the one who's wrong. Like my first challenge was I had to work with a pedophile, and I was like, I can't do this. And they're they were like, No, no, you have to. And I was like, No, and a straight up pedophile, like uh, you know, kids. And I was like, I I can't, I can't, there's no possible way I'm gonna empathize with this. And then, but once we got down to it, you know, uh victims create victims, and like, you know, there's a long history that this this person had that had a long uh an upbringing that was um oh horrifying. And at that point, I was like, look, I mean, it's not okay, but I understand those are two different things. Sure, of course, not okay. Pedophilia is the worst thing you could possibly do. Um, maybe pedophilia with cannibalism, but like it's one of the worst things you do. Um, but I understand it now, and so um, I think with this here, it's the same thing toxic masculinity. I don't like the term because it'd be like saying toxic femininity. It's the same, there's there's a similar situation. I studied aggression, and um, females are more aggressive than males, and that that's shocking to most people. Uh because you're like, wait, how? And then you go, well, it just depends. And this this was not by me, me or men, you know, uh people or male researchers. This is by females who who who identified this as true. I have nothing to do with this, I'm just reporting science. And they said, they said, we just measured it. And the reason why is because they said we just looked at it differently. Instead of saying, like a guy would walk up to a boy and go like this, and you go, Oh, I can measure that as aggression, and you would point it down. It's an intent for violence or an intent for harm, not violence, harm. And then another time, you know, they'd flip their tray, you know, and food would go everywhere in the in the lunchroom, and you go, Oh, there's no intent for violence but harm, like you want social harm. But once they go, okay, well, it it measures social harm too, we're in big trouble. Because then what we found was that that females were actually being um way more aggressive than males. Um, they just don't do it in a physical sense very often at all, which is sure um good, I guess. Uh uh that's good. I mean, like hopefully no females get hit while they're growing up, but males uh are getting hit more, but they're not having as many um social altercations.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Um anyway, so the whole point is to say like if you frame something in a certain way, anyone can be the other or the bad guy. Um, just like you know, I use the extreme of a pedophile for God's sakes. They're definitely bad people and they belong in jail every time. And any offense is egregious and terrible. But we have to understand that there's a reason that that that is that way. And the second that you don't understand that, you're the bad guy, not them. And then we need to not give them any excuses, but we also need to go, all right, that's true. So toxamasculinity, like my my idea on that is that um it definitely exists in the sense that like the concept it and this is another problem, it's so amorphous. The concept when you try to nail someone down, it's different a lot of times. Um, but if you just define it as this, there are parts of being inherently male, our male culture. Again, this is a culture, this is not um, so if you're not in the culture, you look at it from the outside and you go, Oh, that appears to me to be uh maladaptive. And it is, there's many things we do that are maladaptive, males, our culture. Um, many things are very adaptive. For example, um, like my wife doesn't understand male culture where we give each other shit. Um, and I say, like, okay, I can understand that how you might consider that bad. Uh, but what we do know, and and there's there are many things we don't know, but there one thing we do know is actually leads to resilience, psychological resilience to PTSD. So we found that members or uh individuals who are exposed to traumatic incidents caught or uh got PTSD less often if they uh reported like friendly harassment, friendly harassment meaning I never once thought I was in harm, and I but I was in you know, in a sense that others could perceive as like giving me shit, basically. Gotcha. Um, so I said that's actually a good thing. And like and it, you know, if you work with veterans like myself, then you go, okay, that's actually really interesting, and we want to look at that for sure, because like resilience is getting millions of dollars poured into it every year right now. Um, so I'm like, you can't, you know, you can't say tax masculinity is perfectly bad, and also say in the same breath it's very good in some situations, because it is. And just like you know, you could say if you said if you use the same term toxic femininity, you'd sound like a douchebag. So let's just drop both those terms because I don't like either of them. I think they're both bad. I think just any culture, male, female, um, veteran, non-veteran, um, minority, non-minority, uh, you know, African, uh, Caribbean, you know, whatever. I think they all have things to offer. And then they also have things that are probably not so great. Yeah. Um, yeah. So that's how I feel about toxic maximum. I think that we're being a little silly if we pretend like it's bad capital P and uh other one and femininity is suddenly how we all should do it. But of course, men should have things to learn, of course. But I also think that um I don't think it'd be completely crazy to say that like people identify as female might learn something people as from people identify as male. I think that's a normal statement. Sure. Anyway, no, go ahead.
SPEAKER_00Sorry. No, no, I I I follow you there. I think that, you know, for for me, I I'd heard that term toxic masculinity so many times, and it seemed like almost all those times, like 90% of them, were always in reference to the, you know, the the guy with the tribal tats and the you know, out jacked up and always wanting to fight. Yeah, yeah. Total, yeah, total douchebag, you know, frat douche, whatever. And so I always to me, I always thought, you know, well, not always, of late. I have thought, gosh, is that really is that toxic masculinity? Because I don't think that's toxic in the sense that it's masculine. I think it's maybe toxic in the sense that his behavior just sucks. Because I don't think it's because he's a guy that he acts some of those ways. You know, that douchey shit isn't being a male, I don't think. I think that what I've come to, I think there's like subsets of things and behaviors that make a guy weak, if you will, if that's a good way to say that. You know, things like you think of a guy that can't do anything without asking permission first or needing everybody to validate his opinion. You know, it's like, oh, I got 10 friends and ask all 10 of my friends if I should do this this business and get all their, you know, their points of view on it. And then he may or may not, he still may or may not actually do it. Those are the kind of things that I think of when I think of like toxic masculinity, more in the terms I think maybe like just weak, just being a weak person, perhaps. Um, I don't know that it's supposed to be masculine that we act without asking, but um those kinds of things, you know, the the excessive humility, the trying too hard to be cool or needing to be liked so badly, the neediness factor, you know, those guys that are you see, those guys that are constantly like, oh, you know, uh telling girls like, oh my gosh, you're so pretty or whatever, that that kind of neediness, that begging for the attention. I guess that's where I kind of roll with that is the is that that's what I see as the unhealthiness of it. I'm with you. I don't like the term toxic masculinity, as it were, as I I think it paints the wrong picture.
SPEAKER_01Well, I mean, there's yeah, I mean, because uh language is only as useful as it is, and that that's a big thing in act, is that um, or or you say, like when someone goes, it's not really useful for me to push myself this hard, and you go, Well, it is until it's not. Because I mean, the same anxiety, like we were talking about students um who over over um those drivers who overperform, it's it was useful for you until it stopped being useful for you. And so I think the same thing is like language is only as useful as it is to get your point across. The whole idea, and I tell this to my to my kids probably six times a week, is like, oh, the whole idea of communication is to get this into that. That's it. And I'm only successful unless I did that. And so it's because sometimes they go, you Said this, and I go, I purposely purposefully said that. And the reason why I said that exact word, like if I said, um, you're lying, for example, is to go with the lying. I just I knew the truth, but I said something different. I go, right, but the concept that in my mind is you're this injurious person to society and this injurious person to society who behaves in a way which who has a relationship with truth that is unhealthy. And so to say that would be liar. If I said you were non-truthful, then it mitigates your failure to succeed in moral, um, having moral compunction. And so I'm not going to do that. I'm going to say liar. Now, I don't agree with the term liar. Everyone lies, everyone's a liar, but I'm saying that I'm trying to get this to your head. And so the same thing with toxic masculinity is you're saying, like, I'm trying to get the concept of um the bad parts of male culture into your head. Um, that's not a good term for it. And so, same thing with female like culture is it's not a good term for me to get the the bad parts of female culture, which are aren't that far explored, nor should they be right now, because you know, we need to advise me to calm the fuck down. I'm not saying like, let's get into it, you know, when they just fucking got the right to vote like six years ago, whatever it was. And so um, I'm not I'm not saying that, but I'm saying, like, you know, there's bad parts of every culture. Whenever it's useful to look at it, let's do it. But the language isn't useful to say toxic masculinity masculinity because you're either telling the concept to someone who is also female, if you're a female, let's say the speaker's female, then it might be useful because then they go, Oh, I understand that. I kind of this sub this set of things comes in their head. This is starting to get too geeky, but like it's like if I say the word bird, you have an exemplar that comes in your head, one bird that comes in your head, right? It's probably a songbird or flight bird, probably not an emu, right? Right, like or cast bird.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, right.
SPEAKER_01I'm sorry about that last one, but those are all equally valid. They were both they're all birds, birds. And but the idea is we get a simpler, and then you get a small, and then it's called um a uh yeah, a category of things that exist within it, but you only consider that one, you consider the bird. So every time you keep saying bird, bird, bird, bird, I consider song bird, songbird, song bird. So it's instantly scary to me when all of a sudden you're like, and here's the bird about you, and it's an emo, and it kills my kids, you know, like that's that's crazy. And so the same thing with toxic masculinity. If you say that, it activates a certain thought in my mind as this other female, and I go, Yeah, I've had some really bad run-ins with males. That makes sense. I like that. Um, I like I understand the idea. However, if you're looking to convey any change, because you're gonna need to talk to guy necessarily by saying that word, all you do is you uh you you activate a whole different part of you activate the emo. So then we go, no, and we're just as right as they are to say yes. But the difference is we're just not connecting, and so they always go when I talk to people who are like I don't know if I'm a feminist or not. I don't again, this has to do with that word, yeah. There's plenty of context where I go, Yeah, of course I'm a feminist. Duh, yeah, of course. But there's other times where I go, no, if I was in a situation where this really happened, a white woman told a black woman she doesn't know what it's like to be a minority in America, and I was like, Whoop, I'm out. So, like I just I was like, gotta go, and so I just left. And because at that point it wasn't useful to say that I'm for women's rights, of course. But um, but do I identify as that term? Yeah, of course, and until I don't, and then I don't. Um, anyway, so so my idea is that the same thing here is that toxic masculinity is exactly as useful as it is until it's not, and so it's if I'm talking to a man, another male, and I say something like if I say like, well, like there's toxic femininity, and they go, I understand that, and it's pretty useful, but I risk pissing women off, right? And I really want to do that, and I don't think it's helpful, so I'm not really gonna do that. I'm just gonna say, like, oh, there's parts of women culture that don't don't work very well in today's society, and so same thing, yeah. So, anyway, that's like I said, I knew I was gonna talk way too long on that, but I didn't no, it's it's good, it's good, good coverage so sensitive and it's so nuanced that I think it's yeah, it needs a long talk, but for sure.
SPEAKER_00I think that that's uh that's why I wanted to I kind of save that for the end because I wanted to to to pick that apart because I I'm I'm of the same mind as you are in the sense that yeah, I hate the term and I think that it's not useful, even the douchebag term. Some guy does something. I mean, show me a guy, any any man, say in his, you know, my age and his whatever, whatever age, that never in his life did something that was douchey. I mean, I can look back at my early 30s. Hell, I can look back when I was 40, and there were times I was like, oh my god, I was such a douchebag. But sweet. Yeah, right. So I think even that term, like, oh, that guy's a douche. Yeah, you know, I guess he could be. It could be that he is, in fact, that's his who what he is, but more more than likely he's probably just acting in some sort of unsavory way in that moment. So yeah, I I just I guess terminologies aren't always useful, and I think that's why I kind of wanted to shred that and then kind of pin him.
SPEAKER_01Once one step further, I don't want to put in too much, but I think this is super important. One step further, not just terminologies, but narratives are important. So, what you say is super important because I learned this much later in life, but it's more useful for me and my mental health and my belief in humanity to assume that that person is not a douche and that they're acting douchey because of some external reason, because then I have more faith in humanity and I have faith that the world is still a just place.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_01So narratives are just as well.
SPEAKER_00So, anyway, you I agree. Absolutely. And even to a great example is you know, um, when Holly and I first started dating, um, there was a guy that she's friends with, and I actually knew him before a while back several years ago before I met her. Um, and I was kind of friends with him then, but hadn't been friends with him in a long time. And probably a year before Holly and I met, I bumped into this guy and he just acted in just this horrible way. He was just just speaking really crass to to the women around there, and just it was it was just gross his behavior. So I just didn't like that guy. And then when I found out they were friends, I instantly got into this space where I was like, I don't know if I want you to be friends with that guy. He's he's a he's a fucking douche, he's disgusting and all these different things. And I I got an opportunity to actually talk to him at one point, kind of face to face, just spend time with him. I didn't, you know, like bring anything to his attention. But I think it occurred to me that what I had done was I identified something that he was doing that I didn't like, and I decided that he was this thing and that I was right and he was wrong, and I just refused to let it go and just just accept that as oh well, he just had a he acted out because of what other reasons. And then when people called me out on it, I doubled down. I was like, no, no, no, no, no. I'm not just being superior, I'm I'm right, you know. So and I I I realized that. So I guess the the now he and I are actually pretty good friends again. But yeah, I I think that labeling that kind of put up a barrier and made it almost at the time almost impossible for us to actually have any kind of friendship because I just decided he was this thing and I labeled that, that was that. I I think in the same way that to some extent, calling a guy a douche or a toxic, you know, whatever, I I think that that kind of does the same thing. I think it eliminates or at least hinders the possibility of uh healing or whatever, having some kind of connection there.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, and I think that it kind of almost brings us around because use the term miser, which I appreciate it, um, because there's a clinical term called cognitive miser, which means someone who's lazy about their thinking. And we all are, and we're identified as humans as being cognitive misers. We're um lazy about our thinking. And so we need to put things in boxes, we need to think make things uh it's the same reason why you cut up your food into digestible parts. You don't just you don't just stab your steak and just start not your slice bits off, yeah. Um, because that's how is the most efficient, that's uh it's the most pleasurable and makes sense, and we don't have time to think about every single thing, and so often we want to put people in boxes and say, like, well, okay, good, bad, this good, this bad, this bad, that guy good, this guy bad. And it's useful a lot, but uh way more than we talk about. It's very, very useful, but also sometimes it's not, and it kind of screws us over. Um, again, because the concept, you know, what is a douchebag? That doesn't mean anything if I bark those words to a you know, a um, you know, a Rhesus macaque, a monkey, he'd be like, What? Like he'd have no idea. You know, I'm like, You're a douchebag. He'd be like, cool. And he keeps eating, he's fine. And then, but but it matters to us because we have this, you know, all this concept, all this burden. Yeah, but also I think that knowing that, knowing that we're cognitive minders, that we we are, you know, intellectually lazy because we have to be. We only have so much time in the day. I can't think about you know why this person cut me off in traffic for 12 hours and truly understand it and like interview his friends and family and like you know, check on his, you know, marital status or his, you know, I mean, like, yeah, I don't have that time. And so um, because of that, we instead of double or instead of um thinking about what we think, what how we came to a conclusion, we can we just I think the the biggest thing is we hold it lightly, and that's kind of the best way to think about it is that um your brain is a bubble machine, like this is the best way to put it, and it pops up bubbles to you, right? Like in any situation, sometimes they're helpful, sometimes they're not. So, like let's say you're in a situation you're standing in line for like a funnel cake at the you know park, I don't know, and uh and all of a sudden it goes, it goes, dude, this funnel cake's gonna be so good, and like that pops up, but it also goes like dude, this is fatty, you can't afford this, and then it goes like these people are terrible in front of me. That guy stinks. This it just keeps offering thoughts. Well, the great thing about us is that we have this great ability to pull ourselves back and observe those thoughts and just observe them and grab the bubbles we want and then let the other ones pass away because so many people flick the bubble, they go, I don't like that one. And I go, that's exactly the same as grabbing it. It's like when you say, Don't think about a white bear, and then you know, you go, Oh as soon as you interact with it, you have an interaction with it, and then you have a you start building a history. So instead, you just allow it to pass and then you grab the ones that are helpful. And so I think that, yeah, in those situations, you're gonna have thoughts that this guy's a dick because you're human. And uh, you're also gonna have things like that, you know, this guy who has a bad upraising, he's kind of you know, he's toxically masculine or whatever, but then you just go, like that's not that's not one I want to grab, and you just kind of let it pass. Don't scold yourself, just observe it, it'll go away. All thoughts go away. And you're not like you know, six years later, you're like, I'm still thinking about those pizza rolls liquid in the oven. Like, you know, no, that's it doesn't happen. And so you do great, and then the ones that are helpful you grab onto, and so you say, like, like, like, and there's always a chance that like he, you know, and you grab on those, you know. You find the same thing when you're in a fight and you're angry and you say stupid things, and then helpful, those are unhelpful thoughts, and then later helpful thoughts pop up, and you come back and you go, sorry about blah blah blah. Here's what I actually think. That's you grabbing all the bubbles rather than just letting the bad one pass. Yeah, grabbing the ones that are helpful. Like when the mad ones come, you go, I'm gonna be the present moment. I'm gonna observe those bubbles, they're real, but let them pass. And then I'm gonna grab the ones later here in a second. Yeah, um, anyway, so I think I think that's really useful. What I'm talking broadly, but also and specifically to the ideas of like um judging people of different cultures, you know, gender, stereotype, whatever. Like just maybe just let those pass and maybe don't use terms that are actively harmful for your own cause. Right.
SPEAKER_00Absolutely. Um, I agree. And you know, you mentioned lazy thinking, and uh, I'll plug another book. It's David McRae, I think is his name, but it's You're not so smart. I love that book. It's literally like just a list of I think there's 40 some in there of different cognitive biases, heuristics, and just logical fallacies, just things that we're totally wrong about. And literally, and I I read through that book and I was like, wow, you know, and I mean, you know this, I don't have to tell you, we're all susceptible. None of us are immune to all these things. You know, we all do it. You know, the uh confirmation bias to whatever. I mean, they're all there. Um, one of my favorites, I think, right now, uh, I've really latched onto was the spotlight effect. And just imagine that everybody thinks, you know, whatever it is, they're looking, oh, I can see that guy there. He's, you know, whatever size, his shirt's not tucked in, it's the wrong color, whatever it is, you know, those kinds of things, and nobody actually cares kind of. You know, they're they're more worried about themselves. So kind of pushing that toxic thing in, I'm gonna pin you down toxic relationships. How do you uh what do you think of um? Because I mean, again, it's probably not productive to call them a toxic relationship in the sense where you're trying to figure out what you should or shouldn't do in it. But I think it's also realistic to say that to some extent they do exist. I mean, there's definitely some unhealthy relationships out there. What are your thoughts there?
SPEAKER_01Isn't that exactly funny though? Because you mentioned you you said that as a thought I had, and I was like, is that a you know a rabbit hole I really want to go down? Uh, is that you know, when you say the term toxic, it automatically, because on purpose and by design, it's meant to give you an idea of the response you're supposed to have, which is if you if someone goes, Oh, that that snake you have is venomous, you go, oops, you know, you drop it, or that that those fumes you're breathing are toxic. You go, I need to run as fast as I can. And so toxic masculinity, necessarily, I'm like, so you just run? Like, what are we supposed to do with those people? Like, but same thing with the toxic relationships is it it it is someone judging your relationship from the outside, telling you you need to run. And they don't have any business doing that. Like, I've done marital therapy for years, and I would, and even then, like I've worked with people sometimes five, six years, and I'm still like, I can't tell you if this is the right relationship or not. And I have no business doing that. I can tell you here's how your values align, here's how things are working out, here's your theme, here's your motifs, here's things that are working towards and against you. And I want you to make the decision. You're an adult, like you're a smart person, you can do this. Um, and so yeah, toxic relationship is not a term you should ever use. And I'm taking a pretty hard stance on that one because um just come out and be brave and say it. Because what happens is they want to hide behind these terms when what they really want, what they're trying to tell you is that you need to get out of the relationship. I don't believe it's healthy for you. That's what toxic relationship means. You do you don't gonna make the decision, not a professional. You know what I'm saying? Like, you know, I understand, but heavily encase that, then that's your opinion. You know, I think people should say, like, look, my belief is that's what I would call a toxic relationship. And by that I mean that it is one that will never go well and it does nothing but poison you along the way. And I think that that's a non-coward way to say it. Like, just say it. Like it, it's like I hate when people imply things, especially in relationships and marriages, and you know, to say things like, like, well, I don't know where you were, and I go, No, no, stop, okay, stop, both of you. What are you saying? And then they go, they go, Well, I don't know where he was or she was. And I go, I go, I don't, I don't know where you were five seconds before this meeting. So and then they're like, Well, I'm just saying she could have been anywhere. I go, Yeah, you could have been anywhere too. You could have been in the galaxy, you could have been in the zero zone, you could be in that place in the in Superman where they're flying on that little, you know, the diamond. I don't know, like you could be anywhere, but what do you think they were? What are you implying? And then they're like, Yeah, I'm just saying, like, she has a history of you know this. And I go, Oh, so you're not saying you don't know where she was, you're trying to say you think that she was cheating on you, right? Say that man up or woman up or person up and do it. Like, don't don't in that's such a coward thing to do. And so I say I think the same thing with talks relationships is that you know, just say it, like just say it because that's what you're saying. You're just trying to have all the benefits of saying it without any of the aversives, and that's not okay with me. So I I think I think that's definitely not something that people should do, but I also think that um I've heard people use in the context of both people and relationships with concepts. So I can see how it'd be useful with a concept because there's no victim concept.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, that makes sense. And and I I think I could I could get on board with that because even in the sense of a relationship where you've got a guy that's beating his wife or something or his girlfriend, well, we're not gonna call that toxic, we're gonna call that unsafe. You know, that's that's a crime. That's that's beyond you don't, you know, you don't what woman comes in and she's all busted up, you're like, hmm, that seems like an unhealthy relationship. I mean, that's you know, you're not gonna say that. So yeah, in those cases, I think it doesn't make and even in the cases of you know, it might maybe it's emotional abuse or mental abuse, those things are, I think it's still those we wouldn't call them toxic. We would say, hey, that's you know, I mean in my opinion, of course, I'm not a professional, but yeah, I'm I'm right there with you. I think that putting these labels on things, and I think that's why I wanted to address those now, was because I've hated the term toxic masculinity for a long time, and I've wondered, hmm, does that also then apply the same hatred that I have for that? Well, that also apply here. So it's kind of why I wanted to throw that out there and just see what your thoughts were on it.
SPEAKER_01Well, I I think it's it's it's uh really okay. It's it's almost like uh when people talk about rallying the troops or persuading, right? You know, it's like in like people talk about this in ways of thinking, like politics or like religious beliefs, is sometimes when you're at church and they call it speaking to the choir. That that's what I would call rallying the troops. That's where you turn around and you go, We have the only God, they're the best God, yay, and then uh, and then you drink coffee and eat some bunt cakes with some lady with a huge, super nice hat. That's what happens at church. And I'm I'm like, yeah, that's probably as useful as it is, as long as you hold it light, light, right? Light, lightly. It's like, well, you know, if you if you're if you're a fighter, you know, in the UFC and you beat a guy, um, and you have a shot to the title and you go, I'm the best in the world, it's not true. You know it's not true, but it feels good to say, and it doesn't hurt anyone. Um, it helps you towards your goals. And so I think the same thing with the idea of like um as long as there's no toxic relationship with a thing, or as long as uh someone is talking to their friend and they're saying toxic relationship, but to make an actual judgment call on it and to convict someone as a toxic relationship attendee, you know, it seems like I'm like, I don't know, man. Like I can see how it would be useful, but gosh, I see a lot of reasons why it's not useful. Sure. Anyway, it's exactly as useful as it is, I think. It's like say bad parent. I've had multiple, you know, patients or clients come in who say they're bad parents and they they're concerned about it. And then I was like, that's only as useful as it is. Like if you're beating your kid, yes, you're a bad parent. Um, or it's useful to use that term to stop beating your goddamn kid, right? Um, but if you're like, you know, doing your best and you just don't have enough time and you're doing your best, you're not about I mean, it's not useful to use that language. You might be, let's say you measured it and you were exactly the same as like honey boo-boo's mom, right? That's you know, that that's still not useful to say like there's an objective term for you know what I'm saying? Like yeah, sure, because you're not, you're like, you're doing your best. You it it looks the same as honey, honey boo-boo's mom, maybe in some situations, but you know, that's not that's not helpful because do you are you is your behavior changing? And no, not in a way that's useful. You're just getting more depressed, getting a better parent, you know. Say things, say something like, I'm a good parent who's trying my best. That that's helpful, I think. And same thing with the toxic masculinity, but that this man is trapped in a situation or this toxic relationship person is trapped in a situation that has been historically not good or helpful, and uh hopefully they're trying their best you have. Yeah, long, long story.
SPEAKER_00I don't know. That's all it's good, it's good to have. Awesome. Well, man, that's that's pretty much everything that I had. All the things I really wanted to to dig into. Any any final thoughts you want to leave it with?
SPEAKER_01No, I think uh the acceptance bit of failure is probably the best bit, is that we all do it. Uh, we we often conceptualize it as um digging into our self-worth, but it doesn't. It's this weird, useful, sometimes useful lie that like people who fail. Actually, okay, yeah, that's one part. Just world hypothesis. Have you heard about this? No, there's this hypothesis that all humans go by, and we all operate by this, and it'll become pretty darn obvious after I talk about it. Everybody believes that we live in a just world. Not that everything's fair, but that generally speaking, that if someone works hard, they do better. And people go, I don't believe that. And you go, yes, you do, because how do you act every day, better or worse? And they go, Well, better. And you go, because you want it to pay off, right? And yeah, you then you do. You're not saying that you believe it does, but you believe that if I try, it should be it should get better. And if it doesn't, you feel a little, you know, you're like, doesn't feel very fair. Like, I don't like this. I feel bad. I feel like I ex I did my best. I expected this to get better. Failure is based on that, and um, it's just not true. Drop that, hold things lightly, just understand that like I did my best, that guy did his best, he's Jeff Bezos, and I'm, you know, some rando. And uh, we both did our best. And like, that doesn't mean that like I'm a failure or that you know things are bad or I'm a bad person. It just means that like it worked out, it worked out for them. You know what I'm saying?
SPEAKER_00Absolutely. Well, thanks, man. Appreciate your time.
SPEAKER_01Oh, yeah.
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