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Stop Faking Confidence. Do This Instead. — Transcript

by Mark Manson · 46,693 words · 6,945 segments · language en · Watch on YouTube

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0:00This is an interesting one, Drew,
0:01because I feel like maybe I'm
0:04overconfident about this episode.
0:07>> I've not worried about this episode one
0:09bit.
0:10>> I know.
0:10>> In the entire month we've been prepping
0:12for it.
0:12>> I got that since
0:13>> zero zero concerns yet. I've been
0:16surprised that you have seemed quite
0:18underconfident.
0:19>> Yeah. I think that's what makes it work
0:21though, too. [laughter]
0:22>> Is my overconfidence merged with your
0:25under we somehow form a balance. Yeah. I
0:28think so. Okay. There's a balance in the
0:29force. I think so. I'm not confident
0:30about a lot of things to be honest with
0:32you.
0:32>> Like what? You know, just anything. I
0:35don't know. I've never put a whole lot
0:36of stock in confidence anyway. So, I
0:38don't know.
0:38>> Well, you you might be ahead of the
0:39curve on that one. I just feel like this
0:41is such a breadandbut topic and I have
0:43been writing about this and talking
0:45about it for my entire career. It's a
0:47breadandbut topic since we've been
0:49working together. I mean, the last 14
0:50years. We've discussed confidence so
0:52many times. We've researched it so many
0:54times.
0:55I just feel like why worry, man? What do
0:59you like? Hang loose. Like like you see
1:02see what I'm doing with my my hands
1:03here. This is what we do in in LA here.
1:06We hang loose. It's
1:06>> like hakuna matata.
1:07>> Hakuna. Yeah. This is a great intro.
1:11God,
1:11>> people are going to love this. What? Why
1:14don't we get into it?
1:17You've done the thing. You know which
1:19thing I'm talking about. You stood in
1:21the bathroom before the meeting, the
1:22interview, the date, and you did the
1:24pose, the hands on hips, the chest out.
1:27Maybe you whispered to yourself, "I am
1:29confident. I am capable. I deserve
1:31this." Maybe you read a book. Maybe you
1:34wrote an affirmation on a sticky note
1:36and put it on the mirror. Maybe you
1:37visualized the promotion so vividly you
1:40could feel the handshake. And then of
1:42course you walk into the room and you
1:43felt exactly the same or worse because
1:46now there was an expectation that you
1:48told yourself you should feel confident.
1:50And then what you actually felt made
1:53that gap even harder. So you tried it
1:56again. You did another book. You did a
1:58different mantra. You watched another
1:59TED talk. You've been doing this [ __ ]
2:02for years, maybe decades. And here's the
2:04thing. You've never said out loud to
2:05anybody. It has never worked. Or at
2:07least not in the way that they promised.
2:09So here's what nobody tells you about
2:10confidence. The entire concept, the way
2:13that you understand it, the way it's
2:14been sold to you since childhood was
2:17invented by a preacher with an
2:18inferiority complex. Before that, for
2:21centuries, confidence was an insult. It
2:24was vanity. It was a lack of
2:26trustworthiness. It was sin. And the
2:28research, it's even worse. The most
2:31popular confidence technique in history
2:33was based on a study of 42 people that
2:36the lead author themselves had to
2:39eventually abandon. Positive
2:40affirmations make insecure people feel
2:42less secure. Visualizing success
2:45decreases motivation. The entire
2:47confidence industry is built on the same
2:49error repeated for decades. And that
2:51error is exactly what we're going to
2:53explain to you in this episode. Today,
2:55we're going to tell you the story of a
2:57minister so crippled by his own
2:58insecurity that he built an empire
3:00around overcoming it. We'll tell you
3:02about a singer that sold out Carnegie
3:04Hall without being able to sing a single
3:06note. We'll talk about the Stanford
3:08psychologist who discovered how to cure
3:10lifelong phobias in a matter of just a
3:12few hours. So, here are just a few of
3:14the things that you're going to learn in
3:15this episode. You're going to learn why
3:17everything you've been told about
3:18confidence, from the affirmations to the
3:20power poses to the positive thinking, is
3:22built on a single fundamental error
3:24that's been repackaged and resold for 70
3:27years. You're going to learn the
3:29accidental discovery in a room full of
3:31snakes that revealed how confidence
3:33actually works in people and why the
3:35sequence runs exactly backwards from
3:37everything you've been taught. You're
3:39going to learn why affirmations reliably
3:41make people who need them the most feel
3:43worse. You're going to learn why you
3:45can't think or visualize your way into
3:47confidence and what the science actually
3:49says about the only thing that builds
3:51it. We're going to talk about the
3:52cultlike psychological movement that
3:54convinced an entire generation of
3:56parents, teachers, and school systems to
3:59do something that research quietly
4:00showed was not working from the
4:02beginning. We're going to talk about why
4:03the most psychologically healthy people
4:06are slightly delusional about themselves
4:08and the precise reason that same trick
4:10fails for the rest of us. We're going to
4:12talk about why some people seem
4:13unshakable in every situation that they
4:15walk into and why it has nothing to do
4:18with what they believe they can
4:19accomplish. We'll also cover the
4:212,000-year-old framework that turns out
4:23to be empirically correct, confirmed by
4:25studies on spiderphobic women, air force
4:27cadets, and a basketball player who
4:29vomited before every game. This and
4:32much, much more. So, before we take a
4:34deep dive into this subject, I just want
4:37you, the listener, to sit with a
4:38question. What if confidence isn't
4:40something that you actually build? What
4:42if it's not a feeling that you generate
4:44or a mindset that you adopt or a muscle
4:46that you strengthen? What if the entire
4:48framework, the books, the seminars, the
4:50affirmations, the poses, is based on a
4:52fundamental misunderstanding of what
4:54confidence is, where it comes from, and
4:57what it's actually good for. My name is
4:58Mark Manson. I'm a three-time New York
5:00Times bestselling author and this is
5:01Drew Bernie, my co-host, producer, lead
5:03researcher, and the man whose entire
5:06life has been one neverending power
5:08pose.
5:10Look at you. So confident over there. So
5:13confident. [gasps and laughter]
5:15>> And this is the solve podcast. We aim to
5:17be the most comprehensive podcast in the
5:20entire world where every episode we try
5:22to solve one practical life problem for
5:25you once and for all. And today we are
5:28solving confidence. I'm pumped, Drew.
5:32Not only because this is just a classic
5:34topic that we've been addressing our
5:37entire careers. I I love these episodes
5:40where we get to do the little switcheroo
5:42where it's like, "Oh, you think you want
5:43to be confident?" Actually, the research
5:46shows that you probably shouldn't want
5:47to be that. I think of out of all the
5:49topics we've done so far on the Salt
5:51podcast, this is probably the topic
5:53where the self-help advice in the actual
5:56psychological research are the most
5:58diametrically opposed to one another.
6:00>> Oh yeah. Like we're going to see that
6:02>> this is one area that the industry just
6:04flat out gets wrong repeatedly.
6:07>> Yeah. Astonishingly repeatingly at over
6:09a long long period of time.
6:10>> Over many decades. Many decades. Many
6:13culprits. We will name names and we will
6:15correct the factual errors.
6:19We'll be right back after this message
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7:45[music]
7:47All of the confidence advice that you
7:49and I have ever heard started in the
7:51same place. Came from a preacher in the
7:531940s who was terrified of everything.
7:56So, his name was Norman Vincent Peele.
7:59And when he was young, he was just
8:01absolutely
8:03freaked out and anxious about
8:05everything. He couldn't sleep at night.
8:07He couldn't stop comparing himself to
8:08the other preachers in seminary school.
8:11He was constantly afraid that he was
8:13failing to live up to his father's
8:14enormous expectations of him. He
8:17genuinely believed that he had what
8:19Alfred Adler called an inferiority
8:21complex. He just felt bad about himself
8:24all the time. And every time he had to
8:26go up to the pulpit to speak, he was
8:28just so overrun by anxiety and nerves
8:31that he could barely function. So
8:33eventually Peele developed kind of a
8:34system for himself. He called these
8:36thought conditioners. And really what
8:38they were was just a series of
8:40affirmations,
8:42positive visualizations, and some prayer
8:44techniques that he kind of cobbled
8:46together for himself. And he essentially
8:48just used them to kind of pump himself
8:51up enough to get up and deliver a
8:53sermon. And he found that the more he
8:54was able to do this, the more likely he
8:56was to get up in front of people and
8:57have a good sermon and, you know,
8:59perform really well. Now, the critical
9:00point here is that this was a personal
9:04coping mechanism that he developed for a
9:06very specific context and situation that
9:09was unique to him. Most people don't
9:11have a profession where they're forced
9:12to speak publicly on a regular basis,
9:15but Peele did. And so, because he was a
9:18highly neurotic, anxious person, he had
9:20to find some sort of system for himself.
9:21He found that thing. All of that is
9:23great. That's all like everything up
9:25until now, I think, is like pretty
9:27normal and okay. Here's where things
9:28changed. because he decided that his
9:32little personal coping mechanism was the
9:36solution to everybody's problem in the
9:38entire world. In 1948, he wrote a book
9:40called A Guide to Confident Living that
9:42became a bestseller. And then in 1952,
9:45he followed that up with a book called
9:47The Power of Positive Thinking, which a
9:49lot of our listeners have probably heard
9:51of. Maybe they've even read it. It's
9:53been 186 consecutive weeks on the New
9:55York Times bestseller list. Not bad.
9:58It's not um you know 325 weeks.
10:02>> Okay. Okay.
10:04>> You know it's it's a good
10:06a respectable showing. It spent 48 weeks
10:09at number one. Sold over 5 million
10:11copies. Has been translated in over 40
10:13languages on and on and on. It's been a
10:14massive hit. It's it's a self-help
10:16classic. It gets recommended all sorts
10:18of places. And inside the power of
10:20positive thinking, he recommended 10
10:22simple rules for developing confidence
10:24in your everyday life. The promise of
10:27the book was essentially that confidence
10:29is a feeling or a belief that you can
10:33generate through consistent mental
10:35habits. And the implication of the
10:38message of the book was that you feel
10:41confident first and then you act or
10:44perform second. That is kind of the
10:47chain of events that happens around
10:50confidence. For the purposes of our
10:52episode here, I would like to call this
10:55the peel fallacy because this is 100%
10:59wrong. And we're going to spend most of
11:01this episode digging into why this is
11:04wrong and why this leads people astray.
11:06So the peel fallacy is essentially the
11:09belief that to be successful at anything
11:11you must feel confident and then because
11:13you feel confident, you will perform
11:15better. And I think this fallacy has
11:18persisted across the decades because I
11:21think it a it feels intuitively true.
11:24Let's say I'm really nervous about
11:25coming in here and shooting this
11:27podcast. In that moment that I feel
11:29nervous, I am looking for something to
11:32solve that anxiety and there is an
11:35erroneous belief that if that anxiety
11:37gets solved then the podcast will go
11:40well.
11:41>> Right. We want it to be true. Right.
11:42>> Right. Whereas like that is actually not
11:44necessarily true. the research has borne
11:46out over and over again that that is not
11:48always the case. I think the other
11:50reason this has persisted for so long is
11:53that it's extremely marketable to
11:55people, right? Like people look at high
11:58performers and they perceive that high
12:01performers don't seem to be very worried
12:04or anxious about their performance and
12:06they assume that that high performer was
12:08confident and that's what made them a
12:10high performer. Whereas the causation is
12:12completely backwards. the high performer
12:13is a high performer and because they're
12:15a high performer, they don't really
12:17worry about their performance a whole
12:18lot. The other aspect of of the peel
12:20fallacy that we're going to come back to
12:21in the next chapter quite a bit is that
12:24there is a tendency both with us as
12:27individuals but also in in the self-help
12:29industry just as a market to take
12:32something that works in a specific
12:33context and then generalize that across
12:35the population. Right? So, it's like I
12:37have found things in my life that ease
12:41my anxiety, that make me feel a little
12:43bit better about myself, that help me
12:45get through the day. And it's human
12:47nature to assume that because it worked
12:49for me, it must also work for you, and
12:51it must work for everybody else in this
12:52studio, and it must work for everybody
12:54listening to this. And that is just not
12:56true. A vast majority of personal advice
13:00that works is personal. It is very
13:03specific to our personality, our
13:05history, our environment, our goals, our
13:07dreams, ambitions, all those things. So
13:09again, we're going to see this aspect of
13:11the fallacy crop up time and time again.
13:14And again, I think this persists because
13:16as consumers, we want to believe that
13:19there's a trick. We want to believe that
13:21there's a one-sizefits-all solution to
13:24all of our confidence issues to make us
13:26to ease our anxieties, to make us feel
13:28good in high pressure sit situations, to
13:31uh improve our beliefs about ourselves.
13:33And it's a very seductive thing to buy
13:35into, but it's just not the case.
13:37>> You just you've come right out and said,
13:38"Okay, this is wrong, right?" And you've
13:40been harping against this
13:41>> my whole career,
13:42>> 15 20 years at this point, right? Yeah.
13:44What I found shocking a little bit was
13:46that it hasn't just been that, oh, we
13:48kind of figured out along the way that
13:49though, this isn't right. People were
13:51like, "No, this isn't right." right
13:52away. I didn't know this either. There
13:53were like harsh critics right out of the
13:55gate. We kind of take it for granted
13:57now. I was like, "Oh, yeah, of course
13:58you want to be confident and then you
13:59can act and you can perform better and
14:01all this." We kind of like just assumed
14:02that or I assumed that when I was a kid
14:04anyway, for sure when I was younger.
14:05>> This is the water we you and I grew up,
14:08right? It's like my teachers and parents
14:10told me when I was a kid is just think
14:11positive, just believe in yourself,
14:12right? This was actually kind of a crazy
14:14idea at the time. For instance, there
14:16was this guy RC Murphy who came right
14:18out same year or maybe a couple years
14:20after the book was was published that
14:22the power of positive thinking was
14:23published. And he pointed out right away
14:26he's like Peele was exaggerating the
14:28fears of the readers, right? Like when
14:30you're taught that negative thoughts are
14:33going to ruin your life, you're not
14:34going to tolerate those at all in
14:35yourself, right? you're and then not
14:37only that though, what his big point
14:38that he wanted to make was that you're
14:40not going to tolerate the other people
14:41who point that out to you either, right?
14:43There's like a whole social aspect to
14:44it. And we we saw this as like the
14:46self-help movements grew and grew, you
14:48know, through the 70s, '8s, '90s. If you
14:50came into some self-help movement and
14:51you tried to point out, hey, this
14:52probably is a little bit toxic, you
14:54guys. You would get a this huge backlash
14:56from it, right? That was happening right
14:59away. So Peele had all these fans, like
15:01these fanatic fans. Murphy came and
15:03pointed out. He's like, "These people,
15:05if you come and point out something
15:06realistic and some fault with this, they
15:08just double down back at you." Which we
15:10see this all the time now, too, right?
15:12Your favorite method or whatever,
15:13somebody criticizes it, you just double
15:15down on it.
15:15>> Yeah. Well, and you see this also just I
15:17guess kind of in the therapy culture of
15:19Instagram and Tik Tok, right? It's it's
15:21like just block out the haters, cut
15:23people out of your life, don't tolerate
15:24any sort of like
15:25>> regular call someone a narcissist. And
15:28somebody's like, "Well, I don't know if
15:29they are." And then you get like, "Oh,
15:30you're enabling the narcissist."
15:31>> Yes. It's a it's a total incapacity to
15:34tolerate criticism
15:35>> that was already present right after
15:37this book came out which kind of shocked
15:39me. I just thought it was kind of like
15:40this big cultural thing and everybody
15:41hopped on board and it was a big
15:42bandwagon and there wasn't a lot. There
15:44was some real push back against this.
15:46Another guy Donald Meyer he wrote this
15:48piece in the New Republic and he called
15:50it the competence man and it was a
15:52critique against Peele. That's that is
15:54not a compliment. Okay, that is not a
15:56compliment. This is actually where the
15:57the term con man,
15:59>> I didn't know this until we researched
16:00this episode, but yes, con man comes
16:02from
16:02>> con man comes from confidence man. Meer
16:05pointed out it was a specific American
16:07archetype. And this is a little bit of
16:09foreshadowing we're going to get to
16:10later, but this was a very American
16:12thing at the time. The con artist or the
16:14con man was somebody who sold you a
16:16belief in something that wasn't real.
16:18And so he it was very much an insult to
16:20Peele. He said he would that he was more
16:22of a gri a grifter that you're trying to
16:24manufacture something in yourself that
16:25isn't real, that isn't there, that isn't
16:27actually based in anything. His real
16:29indictment though was that these Peele
16:33fans, these these fanboys and fan girls
16:34that signed up for this, they don't
16:36actually trust ability. They don't trust
16:38competence. They don't trust work. They
16:39don't trust talent, right? They trust
16:42the chant. They trust kind of the the
16:44the mantra that that Peele was peding,
16:46right? in older traditions or in
16:49traditions up to this point or even
16:50maybe a few decades before this.
16:53This had a name that he [snorts] pointed
16:55to, okay? And it wasn't faith. It wasn't
16:58an undying belief in yourself or
17:00anything like that. It was actually an
17:02appeal to a lower power at this point.
17:04Like in Christian theology, let's just
17:06take that for example up to this point.
17:08Claiming some sort of mastery through
17:11like ritual or incantation. Because
17:13that's what Pet was saying is like if
17:14you just repeat this enough and if you
17:15just have the right set of words and
17:17mindset and you you can overcome
17:19anything up to that point like bypassing
17:22genuine effort and faith especially like
17:24in the Protestant tradition you know the
17:25Protestant work ethic that was kind of
17:27seen as sinful
17:28>> right that wasn't an innovation this was
17:30heresy this was like black magic almost
17:33and there was a real backlash against
17:35this a small but vocal group of people
17:36led by this like like people like Donald
17:39Meyer who pointed this out and said it's
17:40almost like a cult that you're selling
17:43here. So, this was very I just found
17:44this really interesting that this was
17:46actually very present right away. It
17:48It's interesting to me that this
17:50backlash existed in the ' 50s because
17:52you don't really see this backlash show
17:54up in the preceding decades. By the time
17:57the 60s and 70s come around, you're into
18:00all the free love, hippie- dippy, eelin
18:02institute, you know, human potential
18:04movement. It seemed to be just the whole
18:06culture was moving towards that,
18:07>> right? It's just if it feels good, it is
18:09good, right? And these these people,
18:10there was a small group of people like,
18:11"Hey, hold on. We've been we we haven't
18:13thought this for a long time for a very
18:14good reason, and they just weren't
18:16listened to."
18:17>> Not to jump ahead too much. I mean, and
18:20and not to toot my own horn too. I
18:22promise I will not like [ __ ] self-
18:25congratulate myself this entire episode.
18:27>> I will hold you to that. I will hold
18:28[laughter] you to that.
18:29>> So, like I said earlier, like you and I
18:31grew up in this water and like all of
18:34our teachers told us this stuff. Our
18:36parents told us this stuff. you turned
18:37on TV and like Oprah and Heraldo were
18:40like telling you this stuff. It was
18:42mainstream that that you should always
18:43just think positive and believe in
18:45yourself and you know it's if you can
18:47dream it, you can do it all this stuff.
18:48I think our generation because we grew
18:51up in this we became very cynical about
18:54it. If I was to do kind of like an
18:55objective assessment of my own career, I
18:58like I think the first five or 10 years
18:59of my career, I really made my name on
19:03being kind of the millennial who calls
19:05out a lot of this [ __ ] If you just
19:07like blindly tell yourself positive
19:10stuff, you're going to become untethered
19:12to reality and you're not going to be
19:13able to deal with consequences and
19:15you're not going to be able to accept
19:17feedback or criticism. So, you're not
19:19going to grow, right? all this stuff
19:20that sounds pretty obvious on the
19:22surface and especially now in 2026 it
19:24sounds very obvious but like back in
19:252012 2013 like this was pretty uh
19:30transgressive right especially in the
19:32self-help space but it's been
19:34interesting because I I do feel like the
19:36self-help industry has gotten much
19:38healthier and more realistic over the
19:40last 10 or 15 years. It is interesting
19:42to see like these sorts of critiques
19:45have become quite common place now like
19:47you know not just us but like there's
19:49plenty of podcasters and authors and
19:51people on YouTube and and seminars and
19:53stuff that like openly talk about this
19:55now. So it's interesting that we've kind
19:57of come back to this after a few
19:59generations. Okay. So how much credit
20:01can we give ourselves here though?
20:02Because was it just kind of like that
20:04youth rebellion that we had too? Because
20:06I remember this too growing up like in
20:07the 90s and like watching Heraldo or or
20:10Oprah or something like that and I'd
20:11just be like what the hell is these old
20:13people? I think some of it is just like
20:15youthful rebellion too, right?
20:18>> A little bit of it. I mean I mean it
20:20didn't sit right with me either. I was
20:21just like this doesn't make any sense to
20:22me and like I I read uh Think and Grow
20:25Rich when I was like in my late teens,
20:27early 20s and I'm just like what the
20:28[ __ ] is this guy talking about here?
20:30>> I remember my mom and all of her friends
20:32became obsessed with The Secret when it
20:34came out.
20:34>> Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Yeah, that's a good
20:35one. Yeah.
20:36>> And I remember reading that in high
20:37school and just being like, "What the
20:39actual [ __ ] is going on here?" The
20:41youthful rebellion piece like opens you
20:44up to kind of right like you you always
20:46want to look for the counter-argument to
20:47whatever your parents believe when
20:49you're young.
20:49>> Now it would be called cringe. Like
20:51that's what I felt back then. It's like,
20:52"Oh, this is cringey."
20:53>> Well, what's interesting too is that
20:54you're you're seeing a return to these
20:57sorts of beliefs and mindsets with Gen
20:59Z, right? So if you go on self-help Tik
21:01Tok and you like watch all these Jenzers
21:03who are posting stuff, it's all it's all
21:05this [ __ ] It's like manifestation and
21:07like
21:07>> you know don't let anybody kill your
21:09vibe and cuz I asked myself I'm like do
21:11I do any of this stuff in my life like
21:14>> any of it?
21:15>> There is one thing I do.
21:17>> Oh what is it? Okay.
21:18>> There is one thing I do. It's actually
21:20ironically quite similar to what Vincent
21:22Peele used to do. So, when I go on
21:24speaking tours, obviously, like when
21:26you're going to get up in a theater in
21:28front of 2,000 people, like it's [ __ ]
21:31nerve-wracking. There's something too
21:32about being a solo speaker. You're
21:35backstage in the green room like by
21:36yourself in the dressing room alone and
21:39it's just you. The whole show is you.
21:41So, it is a lot of pressure and it is
21:43like pretty [ __ ] nerve-wracking. And
21:45so I remember on my first big speaking
21:47tour back in 2018 2019, I developed a
21:50ritual which is music has always been
21:52kind of my state pump, you know, it's
21:54like always the thing that makes me feel
21:55better. So I found a song uh it's so
21:58cheesy, dude. I feel I'm like so
22:00embarrassed.
22:01>> No, no, you got to say it.
22:03>> So Oasis has this song on their first
22:05album called Rock and Roll Star.
22:07>> Okay. Okay.
22:07>> And it's and I just started playing that
22:09backstage on repeat before my shows and
22:12and it became like my pump up. It's
22:14like, "Yeah, dude. You're a [ __ ] rock
22:15and roll star." You know, like it would
22:18just get me over the hump to get me on
22:21stage and then and then I was fine.
22:23>> Well, I'm not saying like not none of
22:24this stuff like doesn't change the way
22:26you feel necessarily in the moment,
22:27right?
22:28>> No, but but but that's the whole thing,
22:29right? It's like what if imagine if I
22:31came on this podcast and I like looked
22:34into the camera and I told a million
22:36people watching this, you need to
22:38download Rock and Roll Star by Oasis
22:40because that's what's going to make you
22:42confident. Like that is essentially what
22:43Norman Vincent Peiel did.
22:44>> I see. Okay. You're saying you're taking
22:46that specific thing and generalizing it.
22:48I see.
22:49>> And we we will cover this once we get
22:51into all the confidence research about
22:52how domain specific confidence is and
22:54how domain specific interventions are.
22:57But that is essentially what is
22:58happening is that Norman Mincent Peele
23:00found a handful of his version of
23:03Oasis's Rock and Roll Star and then
23:06wrote a bestselling book and sold it to
23:08millions of people and it's still around
23:11today. I was racking my brain like, do I
23:13do any of these things? I think the one
23:15thing I might do is if I don't feel
23:16confident about something, I just avoid
23:18it. I'll I'll say that, but I don't like
23:21I don't think there's a lot of things. I
23:22don't try
23:24I really don't try to give myself a pep
23:26talk before anything. I'm just like,
23:27I'll just throw yourself into it. I've
23:29noticed if I hesitate that, you know,
23:32yeah, it's that sucks. Like I guess my
23:34my method is just jump into it and go,
23:37which we'll kind of get to that too, but
23:38I wonder if some of it was like I I grew
23:41up in a small town in the middle of
23:42nowhere, right, in in the in the '9s.
23:45And it always seemed like we were a
23:47decade or two behind everybody else. I
23:49don't know. The people around me were
23:50never like they were just like just do
23:51it, just go, just just work.
23:53>> That's what that's all it was. Maybe
23:55that's just in my head what what was
23:56going on there.
23:57>> Have you heard about this new thing
23:58called [ __ ] maxing?
24:00>> No.
24:02What is that? Maybe we should do a
24:05Return magazine solved episode.
24:07>> What is this?
24:08>> So, apparently it's just some random guy
24:11on YouTube. His life advice is literally
24:13what you just said. It's like, don't
24:15think about it. Just do it. Like, it's
24:18you you know the Midwit meme, right?
24:20Where it's like the Jedi on one side and
24:22the Mid and the idiot on the other side
24:24and then the Midwit's like freaking out
24:25and obsessing about all this complicated
24:26stuff in the middle. His argument is
24:28basically like just be the idiot as much
24:30as possible because in a lot of cases
24:33you're gonna end up doing the same thing
24:35the Jedi does, right? So it's like if
24:36you want to be confident, it's just like
24:38don't worry about confidence, just go do
24:39the thing. And
24:41>> not to spoil this 4 hour.
24:42>> There you go. There's the episode. We're
24:44done. [laughter]
24:45>> Maybe we should just go home.
24:48>> I do want to talk on just kind of the
24:50lineage of this strain of thought
24:53through through the industry over the
24:55years. I don't I don't want to spend too
24:56much time on this cuz it's like I could
24:58do a whole podcast just on the history
24:59of the self-help industry, but it it is
25:02you do see this lineage show up again
25:04and again and again. You know, Tony
25:05Robbins in the '90s and 2000s. Tony has
25:08a more nuanced approach to to the
25:10positive thinking angle. I think what I
25:13appreciate about Tony's work is that he
25:14does implement a lot of legitimate
25:16psychological principles and recognizing
25:19your emotions and working with your
25:20emotions and the powers of your, you
25:22know, your belief and challenging
25:24beliefs and dealing with trauma. Like it
25:25there there is a lot of soundness to the
25:28advice that he gives even though it's
25:29often packaged in kind of the same like
25:31rahrh just believe in yourself type
25:34packaging. The worst culprits of this
25:36are very much kind of the manifestation
25:39whatever thoughts you put into the
25:41universe that's what the universe sends
25:42back to you crowd. We already mentioned
25:43the secret by Ronda Burns. The most
25:46recent iteration of this is Joe
25:47Despensza. Like it is just an
25:50everpresent
25:53segment of this market.
25:54>> Yeah. Well, it goes back to the Think
25:56and Grow Rich. Like that's basically
25:58just the secret, right? Like I mean and
26:00and this strain of thought goes it goes
26:02well back into the 19th century. Like
26:04there was a a movement in the early
26:061800s called New Thought that actually
26:07emerged out of the transcendentalists.
26:09If we wanted to go back in time and
26:11murder somebody in the cradle to get rid
26:13of this, it would ironically it would
26:15actually probably be Ralph Waldo
26:16Emerson.
26:16>> Oh no, really?
26:18>> Which sucks because Emerson is awesome.
26:21>> Emerson planted the seeds though. I see.
26:23>> But you know, Emerson really uh
26:26spearheaded transcendentalism, which
26:27transcendentalism was kind of this idea
26:29of like you can like we have a a
26:31capacity to kind of evolve beyond like
26:33who we are when we're born and we can
26:35control the direction that our lives
26:36grow in. And then that got like kind of
26:38perverted in the mid 19th century into
26:40this this concept called new thought
26:43which was that whatever you believe is
26:45going to be true about yourself will
26:46become true about yourself. And then
26:48that's kind of where that that strain
26:51began. The whole point is that this is
26:53still alive and well. It is alive and
26:55well because of what I mentioned
26:57earlier. A it is in the moment that we
27:00are feeling in crisis when we are
27:02feeling most unconfident.
27:04This intuitively feels like the problem
27:06that needs to be solved even though it's
27:08not. And then B, you have that fallacy
27:11of people look at high performers and
27:13they see that they appear confident and
27:15so they erroneously assume that the
27:17confidence preceded the high performance
27:21when it's actually the other way around.
27:22It's the high performance generates the
27:24confidence. There's other modern
27:26renditions of this too that like certain
27:28techniques or whatever that that get
27:30pedled in those circles I think and
27:31there's some interesting research around
27:33some of these as well. So we have things
27:35like affirmations, visualizations, power
27:37posing even too. So if we want to real
27:39quick just run through some of this this
27:41research because it's kind of
27:42interesting actually. Let's start with
27:43affirmations. Okay. So there's a study
27:45in 2009 that that was the first to
27:47really seriously uh kind of test if
27:50affirmations work or not. And so they
27:52gathered these participants. They and
27:54had them repeat uh I am a lovable person
27:57every 15 seconds. And they had them do
27:59this uh 16 times I guess. Okay. What
28:02happens is that the the exact kind of
28:04people who need this actually it doesn't
28:06work for them. Right? Basically, so if
28:09you have already have kind of a low
28:10self-esteem and you repeat to yourself,
28:12I'm a lovable person. I can do this. I'm
28:14I'm I'm going to be okay. I'm I'm
28:16awesome. While you have low self-esteem,
28:19it actually makes it worse,
28:20>> right? Because you you sit there and
28:22you're like, "Wow, I'm such a loser. I
28:24have to repeat to myself that I'm
28:25lovable." Exactly.
28:26>> Over and over and over again. Which just
28:28makes you feel worse. And then if you do
28:30feel good about yourself, you're like,
28:31"Wow, I don't really need to do this
28:33because I feel good about myself."
28:35>> Exactly what they found. It's just
28:36cognitive dissonance is all it is,
28:38right? If you have beliefs about
28:40yourself that you are
28:42>> you're not a worthy person or whatever
28:43and you you're telling yourself I am a
28:45worthy person or I am lovable, whatever,
28:47all it's doing is highlighting that gap
28:49and it creates that cognitive dissonance
28:51and you have to resolve that cognitive
28:52dissonance in some way. And usually what
28:54it is is making yourself feel worse.
28:56yourself has to be aligned in some way,
28:59you know, it has to be consistent.
29:01There's been some other studies around
29:02this. There's like a 2020 study that
29:03didn't quite replicate that, but they
29:04also just found no effect on it. So,
29:06it's either no effect or a bad effect on
29:08this. If you are somebody who has a high
29:10level of like self-confidence and
29:12self-efficacy and all of that, like your
29:14example, when you go and speak, right,
29:16like you've done it before, you know you
29:17can do it, you throw the the tunes on,
29:20you say you're a rockstar, and it it
29:21helps a little bit just to get you over
29:23the hump. it's fine because there's not
29:24a huge gap between that and what you've
29:26already done.
29:27>> There are techniques to pump up your
29:28emotional state in the short term,
29:30right? So you listen I listen to that
29:32song or Norman Vincent Peele like does
29:34his affirmations or whatever like the
29:36the ending result of that is that it
29:38improves your mood very temporarily and
29:42once your mood is improved that can make
29:44you feel a little bit better about what
29:46you're about to do. Where things go a
29:48miss is this assumption that anything
29:49permanent is happening. I've met a lot
29:51of people who swear by affirmations and
29:53and I've it's funny. I've been on a
29:54number of podcasts where people have
29:55like come at me and they're like, I do
29:58affirmations every morning. Like, why
29:59why do you tell people they don't work?
30:01And I'm like, well, hate to break it to
30:03you. It gives them that little mood
30:04boost, makes them feel better maybe, you
30:07know, at the beginning of the day for a
30:09minute, 5 minutes, and then they just
30:12kind of falsely think that that is
30:15carrying on through in a more permanent
30:18way throughout their lives when it's
30:19it's actually not.
30:20>> The podcasters or whatever come at you,
30:22they probably have a good track record
30:24of, you know, doing well. And so telling
30:26themselves they're going to do well,
30:27they're like, "Oh, yeah, I'm going to do
30:28well. It's fine.
30:29>> It works out."
30:29>> And then they move on.
30:30>> Yeah.
30:31>> Like that's fine. But if you're telling
30:32yourself, "I'm going to do well," and
30:33you're just a wreck. No, that's not
30:36going to help you. Just telling yourself
30:37it's going to work out is not going to
30:38help you. Okay,
30:40>> clip that. Put it on repeat. [laughter]
30:44>> Okay. Okay. Anyway, anyway, okay. Let's
30:46go on to the next one. Very related one
30:47though, too, is the visualizations,
30:49right? This is a big one, you know,
30:50vision boarding or or whatever. There's
30:52this uh psychologist from NYU, uh
30:54Gabrielle Odigen, I think is how you say
30:57um her name, has been testing this for
30:58like decades and like really got into
31:00the weeds on this. Basically, what she's
31:02found is that like positive
31:04visualization on its own, it's really
31:07interesting. It actually reduces the
31:08energy you want to put towards whatever
31:10goal. So, if you visualizing a goal you
31:12have and you put a lot of like positive
31:13visualization of you attaining that
31:15goal, it reduces the the motivation you
31:19have for that goal. It's like you've
31:21already consumed part of that goal. You
31:22get a small hit of satisfaction from
31:25>> so your motivation decrease from like
31:27your brain kind of almost treats it as
31:28like oh you've already got the goal so I
31:30don't need to be as motivated towards
31:32it.
31:32>> Why bother?
31:33>> So why bother at that point? Right. One
31:34of the studies she found like women who
31:36fantasize more positively about uh
31:39losing weight actually lose fewer
31:40pounds. Like they don't lose as much
31:42weight. Um, another one she did it on uh
31:45hip replacement patients and those who
31:47have these rosy recovery like goals.
31:50They're like, "Oh, no. I'm going to be
31:51fine by next week or whatever." They did
31:52worse. Students uh who who fantasize
31:56about job offers like, "Oh, I'm going to
31:57get this job offer. You know, I I can
31:59see myself getting and all that, they
32:01end up doing worse in their interviews
32:02and everything like that. Exam grades,
32:04all this." She did this in all these
32:05different situations and found the same
32:07thing over and over again. So, this is
32:09where we we run into the manifestation
32:12crowd because you you get a lot of
32:14people who are like, I manifested this,
32:16right? It's like, I dreamed about this
32:18and then I made it happen. When you do
32:21visualize something you want in your
32:22life, there's a usefulness in that it
32:26orients you towards,
32:29I guess, thinking more critically about
32:31how to attain that thing. you leverage
32:33your your perceptual biases to like help
32:36you get it.
32:38But so maybe there's there's like a a
32:41fine line between simply like
32:44explicitly defining a goal for yourself
32:46and then like actively fantasizing
32:48visualizing about it on a regular basis.
32:50>> She actually found kind of where that
32:52boundary is. Visualization isn't all
32:54bad. But the the thing is is that just
32:56like only visualizing the end goal, only
32:59visualizing having done the thing.
33:01>> That's what's bad.
33:03>> Interesting. So visualizing the process
33:05of getting there.
33:06>> She calls it whoop. W first is the wish.
33:09>> Okay. This is something you want to
33:10attain. So that's the like the the thing
33:12you want, right? Then the outcome. So
33:14you do have to visualize the outcome,
33:16getting the outcome and all that. But
33:17then importantly, the next two I think
33:18are the most important. Obstacle.
33:21visualize the obstacles that you're
33:22going to encounter along the way, okay?
33:25And and really see like, okay, this is
33:27probably going to come up. I'm It's kind
33:28of like that stoic negative
33:29visualization. Something wrong is going
33:31to happen, right? And I need to be ready
33:32for it. And then the last one is to have
33:34a actually create a plan around it. So,
33:36it's a whole visualization arc that you
33:38can use, but it's not really a
33:40visualization necessarily. It's more
33:41engaging in a process.
33:43>> So, most people just they stop at wo,
33:46which is the wish and the wish and the
33:48outcome and the outcome. And and that
33:50that's essentially just fantasizing.
33:51>> Wo. Yeah.
33:52>> Yeah. Whoa.
33:53>> I I wish it was woo because that would
33:55be so perfect. But yeah, the obstacle
33:57and the plan that like that's actually
33:58where the rubber meets the road. That
34:00that's what generates I guess the
34:02momentum or the velocity towards the
34:04outcome.
34:05>> That's a very active engagement with I
34:08don't even know if I would would call
34:09that a visualization necessarily, but I
34:10mean there's visualization elements to
34:12it, but it's more just like a an
34:14approach to something because you're
34:16you're creating a plan. You're
34:17envisioning the obstacles. as you're
34:18getting ready for them or and it's just
34:20a lot more realistic than
34:21>> Do you Do you visualize like outcomes
34:24you want in your life? Cuz like I do I
34:26and it's funny. I don't do it
34:27intentionally. I just kind of like I'll
34:29just daydream about stuff I want.
34:31>> No, I don't. I guess I don't really do a
34:32whole lot of that.
34:33>> Interesting. Take me through your
34:34process.
34:35>> I've always done this naturally. I've I
34:36never did this. I remember when I read
34:38visualization stuff, I was like, "Well,
34:39yeah, sure, whatever." You know, like it
34:42just seemed like very obvious and kind
34:43of dumb to me. Like if I have a certain
34:45goal or something, I will just think
34:48about not only the outcome, but like the
34:50process of attaining that goal, right?
34:52So it's like I just kind of will
34:53mentally rehearse what it will take to
34:56get there and also like some of the
34:57benefits of having it, like how cool
34:58it'll be if I, you know, I don't know,
35:00whatever. I actually have started doing
35:02this more recently. One of them, um, I
35:04was just talking with you about this
35:05earlier. I've been getting into running,
35:07uh, like longer distances and more
35:08endurance stuff. And I have a good
35:10friend who does like crazy endurance
35:12stuff and he's kind of taking me under
35:14his wing a little bit. I start I guess I
35:16did start kind of doing this a little
35:17bit with that. Oh, that'd be so cool to
35:18do these like crazy trail runs. These
35:20guys are up in the mountains, you know,
35:21middle of nowhere and like you're
35:23running overnight and stuff like that.
35:24I'm like, oh, that'd be crazy. So,
35:25there's kind of the wish and the outcome
35:27too, crossing that finish line or
35:28whatever. But what I really started
35:29doing lately was more of the okay, the
35:31obstacles, the training is rigorous
35:35and so I have to like really plan for
35:37that. So he got me signed up for like a
35:39coaching app and stuff like that. From
35:40that you get a plan out of it too. But
35:42the the obstacles I've really been
35:44thinking more around like almost like
35:46visualizing the the process around it
35:48running by myself
35:50>> in the in the heat in the mountains or
35:52or the the cold in the mountains even
35:54too
35:54>> I guess kind of when I visualize or
35:56fantasize about stuff. Yeah, it is the
35:58both the positive and the negative are
36:00present which I guess it's worth noting
36:02that
36:04entire findings are essentially that
36:06visualization is only useful if you
36:08include the negative thoughts as well.
36:10>> Yeah, you have to be realistic about it,
36:11>> right? Like if you if you block the
36:12negative thoughts
36:14>> and you're just focused on the
36:16>> as soon as they come in, those are going
36:17to wreck the fantasy, right?
36:18>> It's a rehearsal for action is what it
36:20is. It's not a rehearsal for like I get
36:22to sit back and just enjoy all this cuz
36:24that's what the motivating part. It's
36:26not a rehearsal for being awesome. It's
36:28a It's a rehearsal for accomplishing
36:30work. Yeah. Putting work in for sure.
36:31Yeah. Okay. Okay. Last one that I'm
36:34going to cover this time. Power posing.
36:36>> Oh, yeah.
36:36>> Okay. [laughter]
36:37>> I remember this.
36:38>> Have you ever tried this?
36:39>> No.
36:40>> We We'll get into this. We'll get into
36:41this. Okay. So, in 2010, again, not that
36:43long ago,
36:45a study comes up.
36:46>> I I remember this TED talk. It was
36:48massive. Mass the most viewed TED talks.
36:52But what it was bas Yeah. What it was
36:54based on was this 2010 study they did.
36:56Okay. 42 people. So already small as you
36:59see, right? They had the high power pose
37:01and a low power pose. So basically, you
37:02know, the high power like
37:03>> Should we demonstrate?
37:04>> You should demonstrate this. I I
37:06>> Is this is this the high power?
37:08>> I don't know when you're sitting down if
37:09it's very
37:10>> chest out, hands on the hip. Like that's
37:12the power pose, right?
37:13>> Wait, I got to suck my stomach in. Okay,
37:14now now I'm now I'm confident.
37:16>> You look powerful, Mark. You look so
37:19powerful.
37:20>> I'm so confident right now. Their claim
37:22in this study though was that um just
37:25doing that that you would have
37:28measurable increases in certain hormones
37:30like raised testosterone lowered
37:32cortisol which is a stress hormone right
37:34not only that but then they took more
37:36risks after this too. So they had them
37:38perform you know task that involve some
37:39risk and the people who power pose would
37:41take more risks that culminated in 2012
37:43in this huge TED talk and it again one
37:45of the most viewed TED talks out there.
37:47It was kind of just one of those fake it
37:49till you make it
37:50>> data points. problem was it didn't
37:51replicate. In 2015, there was another uh
37:54set of researchers who did a
37:56pre-registered study of 200 people. They
37:58found no effect on testosterone, no
38:00effect on cortisol, no effect on
38:02risk-taking. The only thing that
38:03survived was that people did report
38:05feeling a little bit more powerful, a
38:07little bit better, a little bit more
38:09confident in themselves.
38:10>> State pump
38:12>> just like before you go on stage, right?
38:13Same type of thing.
38:14>> This is not confidence, people. This is
38:16this is a a momentary state pump. the
38:18lead researcher, I think the senior
38:20researcher on this in 2016, finally
38:22>> gave up,
38:23>> retracted. Yeah. And and she said no,
38:24this was Dana Carney. She said that she
38:26doesn't believe that the power pose
38:28effects are real. She even walked
38:30through all the uh flaws in this study.
38:32Good credit on her. I'm sure she had a
38:33lot of pressure.
38:34>> Good for her. Like honestly, more
38:36researchers should do this.
38:37>> She noted the tiny sample. There was
38:39participants who d they didn't include
38:41in this. They had a whole bunch of
38:43measures that they took that they didn't
38:44report even to. So they were
38:46cherry-picking big time out of this. Um,
38:48and it was just this one small study and
38:50outlier effects that they saw. So
38:51>> you know what this reminds me of? I
38:53remember uh back in the like back when I
38:56was like 20 years old, I read this but
38:57there was a book I think it was called
38:59the book of body language and it had all
39:01this research in it. Like I remember
39:02there was one study supposedly where
39:05people in an audience if they cross
39:07their arms they're less likely to agree
39:11with the the lecturer or something.
39:13whereas like people who like put their
39:14arms by their side and opened up their
39:16body were like more receptive to
39:17information poses. Yeah.
39:19>> All of it turned out to be [ __ ] and
39:21and I actually think the lead research I
39:23think it was a Dutch guy it turned out
39:25he was just like making up a lot of
39:26data. All this is to say is that this
39:28sort of like nothing burger has been
39:33around for a long time.
39:34>> This is kind of pointed at as one of the
39:36poster childs of the replication crisis
39:38that happened in psychology that I think
39:40we're kind of starting to come out of a
39:41little bit like people were aware of it.
39:42the late 2000s, mid2010s, there was just
39:45this whole like, oh [ __ ] we can't
39:46>> like nothing's replicated.
39:48>> And this was one of them. And it had a a
39:50TED talk behind it, right, that blew up
39:52that everybody I mean, people still
39:53probably watch it today and and believe
39:55it.
39:56>> This was the poster child for the
39:58replication crisis.
39:59>> Affirmations,
40:01>> [ __ ]
40:02>> Yeah. Yeah.
40:03>> Visualization's mixed bag.
40:04[clears throat]
40:04>> You you need to visualize the obstacles
40:06and and the problem solving,
40:08>> which I would argue isn't really using
40:10visualization, but anyway. Yeah. News
40:11alert everybody. Planning works. Power
40:13posing, body language, embodiment stuff,
40:16>> right? [ __ ] I have you tried Do
40:18Have Have you ever tried like the power?
40:19>> I tried all this [ __ ] I tried all this
40:21[ __ ] Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I got really
40:23into all this stuff uh in my teens and
40:27and early 20s. I remember doing the
40:28whole thing like looking at myself in
40:30the mirror and telling myself things. I
40:31felt ridiculous. I was like, "This is so
40:34stupid, right?" Like, if I actually felt
40:36these things, I wouldn't have to look in
40:38the mirror and say them. you know, the
40:39visualization stuff, like I have a very
40:41active imagination and I visualize a lot
40:44of things very easily. So, like I never
40:46understood that. And then the power
40:47posing thing, it's funny because I
40:48remember back when I was a day in
40:50relationships coach, a huge emphasis was
40:52put on body language.
40:53>> Body language. Yeah. Sure.
40:54>> And it was interesting because it was
40:55body language was first of all a huge
40:57component of just physical
40:59attractiveness is is body language and
41:01posture and you know standing up tall.
41:03It was interesting because it's like
41:05when you do correct people's posture and
41:07body language like you do there is a
41:09noticeable kind of
41:10>> oh there's a state change for sure.
41:11>> There's a little emotional pump that
41:13happens right and they do feel a little
41:14bit like yeah yeah I'm I got this right
41:18a useful question is like is there
41:20anything from this that is salvageable
41:22from
41:22>> okay yeah
41:23>> let's call it the mainstream corpus of
41:25self-help advice.
41:26>> You've tried it all so you tell me.
41:28>> The only person that I will like give a
41:30little bit of credit here is Tony. What
41:33most classic self self-help people do is
41:36they just state pump you endlessly,
41:39right? Like you you just go to one of
41:40these seminars or you read the secret
41:41and it's just like you are just getting
41:44bathed. You're getting showered in
41:46positive affirmation and just being like
41:48told that you are [ __ ] amazing in the
41:50center of the universe for for hours and
41:54that feels really good for a short
41:56period of time. I think Tonyy's a little
41:59bit more sophisticated in what he does.
42:01He still does the state pumping. Like a
42:04lot of his methodology is really like if
42:06you look at what he does in his
42:07seminars, it's like very driven by like
42:09state pumping people. He's a little bit
42:11smarter in that he recognizes that
42:14people are a little bit more open and
42:16suggestible when they're in a good mood.
42:19So like when you're feeling like [ __ ]
42:21when you haven't slept, when you're
42:22cranky and you're angry, you had a big
42:24fight with your mom or your sister or
42:26whatever, like you don't want to listen
42:28to anybody's
42:28>> advice. Your focus is very narrow.
42:30>> Yeah. You're like, "Dude, dude, don't
42:32tell me
42:33>> what my morning routine should be."
42:34Like, [ __ ] you, right? But like, if
42:36you're in a great mood and you're just
42:38like vibing and you're having a great
42:40time and
42:41>> you're meeting all these cool people,
42:43right, and then you get hit with a piece
42:45of life advice of like, hey, you should
42:47try this. Like, you're going to be much
42:48more receptive to that advice. And so, I
42:50think he uses it as a tool. He he still
42:54sells it as like, we're going to make
42:55you confident. We're going to make you
42:56feel good about yourself. We're going to
42:58unleash the giant within, right? That's
42:59his whole That's his whole thing. It is
43:01a means to an end in in his program at
43:04least. So like
43:06So I'll give I'll give a like h like I
43:08guess half credit there. Yeah. I I I
43:10just think a lot most of this stuff is
43:11feel good [ __ ] What do you think
43:13about anything though like uh like
43:14limiting beliefs or anything like that?
43:16I don't know if this is in the same
43:17category or not, but you know, we just
43:19did the episode on change and I get I
43:21think you could you could kind of think
43:23of limiting beliefs as adaptations that
43:25we talked about in that episode where
43:27it's like a layer of your identity
43:30almost that you buy into. I don't know
43:32if that's a different category though,
43:33maybe. Yeah, we're going to talk about
43:34beliefs quite a bit in the next chapter.
43:37I I I do think there is a lot more
43:39credit around the belief stuff because
43:41you you beliefs really do create kind of
43:44a self-fulfilling prophecy, right?
43:46>> Like that's further downstream and
43:47you're it takes some work to get to them
43:49and
43:50>> yeah it well and it is tricky, right? So
43:52I mean we will talk about this but like
43:54if you go back to the example of like me
43:56backstage about to go on you know talk
43:58in front of a bunch of people my belief
44:00about myself in that moment and my
44:01ability to deliver a good talk matters a
44:05lot. If I believe I'm not capable of
44:07delivering a good talk, I'm I'm gonna be
44:10I'm gonna struggle and suffer a lot more
44:12than if I do believe I'm able to give a
44:14good talk. This is where maybe a little
44:17bit of moderate delusional thinking can
44:21sometimes be beneficial.
44:22>> You're not going to change a belief with
44:23an affirmation necessarily though is
44:25what you're saying or a visualization or
44:27or correct anything like that or a power
44:29pose. Yeah. To sum up, everything we've
44:31been told about confidence from the
44:33affirmations, the body language, the
44:35positive thinking, the rahrrah stuff,
44:37it's essentially been built on a
44:39mistake, which we call the peel fallacy,
44:41which is this idea that you need to feel
44:43a certain way in order to perform a
44:45certain way. And that is not the case.
44:47Not only is that not the case, but it's
44:49also not useful because you can't really
44:52just jin up confidence out of thin air.
44:54Ultimately, confidence is built by
44:56evidence. It's built by experience. It's
44:59built by being in situations and coming
45:03out the other end, okay? And therefore
45:06knowing that you can handle other
45:07situations like that one in the future.
45:09In a way, confidence is actually not
45:12very complicated at all. It's this is
45:14one of those topics where the the
45:15research in some ways is kind of just
45:18obvious, but it's all the narratives and
45:20stories and and beliefs and and things
45:23that we tell ourselves that make it
45:25complicated around it. So, we're going
45:27to spend most of next chapter dispelling
45:29a lot of those narratives and false
45:30beliefs around confidence. We're going
45:31to get into the actual nitty-gritty of
45:34what confidence is, how do you actually
45:35build it, what the research actually
45:37says about it. The interesting thing is
45:39that the most successful confidence
45:40researcher ever. A, you've probably
45:44never heard of him, and B, he figured it
45:47out on accident, and C, it involved a
45:52room full of snakes.
45:55We'll be right back [music] after a word
45:57from our sponsors. This episode is
45:59brought to you by Quo. Confidence is
46:02technically invisible. Nobody can see
46:04how sure of yourself you feel. They can
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46:11in the world at what you do, but the
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46:53quo.com/solved.
46:55That's quo.com/solved.
46:58All right, let's get back into it.
47:03[music]
47:05So, as we covered in chapter 1, for the
47:07last 70 years, the self-help industry
47:09has been selling us the same formula.
47:12You feel confident first, then that
47:14allows you to act and perform at a high
47:17level. This is just simply not true. And
47:20in this chapter, we're going to dig into
47:21the research of what confidence actually
47:23is. How do you actually develop it? And
47:26how does it really play out across your
47:28life? And interestingly, this started
47:30with a single psychologist who stumbled
47:32onto this topic on accident. And it
47:34involves a room full of snakes, which
47:37I'm always a fan of. So, the researcher
47:39was a man by the name of Albert Bendor,
47:41and he was a researcher at Stanford for
47:44over 60 years. I did not realize this
47:46until we were prepping for this episode,
47:48but he was the most cited living
47:51psychologist before he died.
47:53>> He was huge. Yeah.
47:54>> Which you went to grad school.
47:55>> You learn about him in psych 101 for
47:56sure. Yeah.
47:57>> Yeah. You went to grad school. I'm sure
47:58you heard a lot more about him. But it's
48:00just funny like I I would never have
48:02guessed that he was the most cited
48:04psychologist. Bur had an interesting
48:06life story. He grew up in a extremely
48:08remote town in northern Canada. He went
48:10to a high school with only two teachers
48:13and pretty much from an early age he
48:16learned that you know whatever you
48:18wanted to do you kind of had to figure
48:19it out yourself. Now he never aspired to
48:21be a psychologist. He kind of stumbled
48:23into it on accident by going to such a
48:26small school. There was large gaps in
48:28the scheduling and there weren't tons of
48:31classes available. So he took an intro
48:33site class just to kind of fulfill a
48:35credit and to kill some time be before
48:37his other courses and he immediately
48:39became obsessed. He couldn't get enough
48:41of it and he would go on to become one
48:44of the most revered researchers we've
48:46ever had. So the study in question here
48:48is a very classic dramatic study. Is it
48:52me Drew or did they not make
48:54psychological studies the way they used
48:56to?
48:56They have all these review boards now
48:59and yeah, ethical considerations kind of
49:01get in the way.
49:02>> I feel like like it's when you read
49:04about psych studies from the 50s and 60s
49:06like there's crazy [ __ ]
49:07>> Pilgrim experiment and there's like
49:09[ __ ] prison experiments and like
49:11snake experiments
49:13>> shocking people and making them thinking
49:16that they're torturing somebody
49:17>> and the good old days. [laughter]
49:20>> What happened to us? What happened?
49:23>> This one they were at least trying to
49:24help people. So that was
49:25>> No, this this one is awesome. So what he
49:27did is he recruited uh a bunch of adults
49:30with life crippling phobias. So I mean
49:33we're talking phobias that was deeply
49:35interfering with their ability to to
49:38just get by on a day-to-day basis. And
49:40in this case it was people with extreme
49:42phobias of snakes. And so just to give
49:45listeners a sense of the extent of these
49:48phobias, you had people who changed
49:51their routes to work because they didn't
49:53want to drive past a park. You had a
49:56woman who refused who had never worn a
49:58necklace in her life because necklaces
50:00reminded her of snakes. You had people
50:02who obsessively checked rooms and under
50:05furniture. Every single room they ever
50:06went into, they would have to
50:07obsessively check under all the
50:09furniture to confirm that there was not
50:10a snake in the room. like hardcore
50:13phobias. And what's incredible is that
50:15the intervention that he designed, it
50:18involved no pills, no therapy, no
50:22visualizations, no mirror affirmations,
50:25definitely no [ __ ] power poses. It
50:28was a simple intervention that he called
50:30guided mastery. And the process was
50:33really straightforward. First, they
50:34would watch through a window as he
50:36handled snakes.
50:38And after they got comfortable with him
50:40handling the snakes, he would simply
50:42invite them into the room. They didn't
50:44have to do anything. They just had this
50:46step into the room. Once he got them
50:48into the room, then he would invite them
50:50to touch simply touch a snake with thick
50:53gloves on. Once they were able to touch
50:55the snake with thick gloves, he would
50:57invite them to take the glove off and
50:59then touch them again. And then
51:00eventually he would get them holding the
51:02snakes in their laps, putting it on
51:05themselves, holding it. And essentially
51:07within an afternoon he would take these
51:10people from crippling phobias to holding
51:13and handling snakes for an extended
51:16period of time. I know CBT and exposure
51:18therapy was kind of just getting off the
51:21ground around the same time. I mean, he
51:24called it guided mastery, but I read
51:25this and I was like, that's just
51:27exposure therapy essentially, right?
51:29It's like you break off a little piece
51:31of the thing you're afraid of and you do
51:32that first and then you get a little
51:34bigger piece and then a little bigger
51:35piece and then eventually you're not
51:37afraid to do it at all. But that's a bit
51:38of an aside cuz the point here is not
51:40about fear. It's it's actually you know
51:42this is an episode about confidence and
51:43this was the most stunning and
51:45unexpected finding that Bender found
51:47which was that when he followed up with
51:49these people who had the snake
51:51experience they reported feeling more
51:54confident in other areas of their lives.
51:56They were more willing to speak up in
51:58meetings at work. They were more likely
52:00to ask for a raise. They were more
52:03confrontational with difficult people in
52:05their lives. They had a better time
52:06sticking to diets, sticking to routines.
52:10But basically, the snake cure had kind
52:14of wide-ranging subtle effects in other
52:17areas of their lives. As a specific
52:19example, like I mentioned, the woman who
52:21never wore what? A necklace because it
52:23reminded her of snakes. Sure enough,
52:25after the experiment, she started
52:27wearing necklaces. And what's
52:28interesting is that nobody told her to
52:30wear necklaces. She just started wearing
52:32them. Now the reason this experiment is
52:35important, the reason this whole concept
52:36of guided mastery is important is that
52:39the peel fallacy tells us believe in
52:42yourself first then act. But what Bur's
52:46research shows us is that you act first
52:50then you start to believe in yourself.
52:52So confidence doesn't precede
52:53experience. It is produced by the
52:56experience. A simpler way to put this is
53:00that a feeling of confidence, an
53:03expectation of success or an ability to
53:05handle a situation, it is built through
53:08evidence. When you accumulate evidence
53:10in your life that you are able to handle
53:13certain things, then that is going to
53:16create a belief that you are able to
53:18handle subsequent things. If you've
53:20never handled anything difficult before
53:21and you try to believe that you can, you
53:24have no evidence to base that on.
53:25>> Yeah. Nobody came into that lab like I
53:27want to be more confident in my life,
53:29right? They just came in to like solve a
53:31problem. They had this crippling problem
53:33in their life and they wanted to come in
53:35and solve that problem. And they left
53:37being like, oh, I can solve problems
53:39now. And that kind of gave them a more
53:42just a more confident outlook in life.
53:44What you're pointing at, I think, is is
53:45a very important pattern that we need to
53:49hammer on repeatedly throughout this
53:50episode, which is that generalizable
53:53confidence is not built in general. What
53:57happens is is you build confidence in
54:00specific domains, specific contexts, and
54:03once you do that enough, it it kind of
54:06bleeds out into the rest of your life.
54:08>> It's like a skill almost. Yeah.
54:10>> Yeah. And this is what Bura found is
54:12that confidence is domain specific. You
54:15tend to only feel confident about the
54:17things that you have already accumulated
54:19evidence for that you've shown yourself
54:22that you can handle in your life. And
54:23then once you've shown yourself that you
54:25can handle that, you tend to feel
54:26confident in that specific domain. But
54:29you've also built evidence that you have
54:31handled something difficult before.
54:33Therefore, when confronted with other
54:34difficult things, you have a little bit
54:37more self-belief going into it. It
54:39starts specific and then it moves into
54:42the general, not the other way around.
54:44It's also related a little bit to the
54:46self-determination theory, which is
54:48another big theory in psychology that
54:49was came up by these two researchers, DC
54:51and Ryan. We've mentioned it before in a
54:53lot of different contexts, but it's a
54:54wide-ranging theory. One of the key
54:56points in that is that people who do
54:58seek like I want to be more confident
55:00and they seek ways to be more confident
55:02end up being not as confident when the
55:05people who just seek out competence in
55:08some domain just like you're saying.
55:09They're the ones who end up being conf
55:11confident. It's a byproduct of all of
55:13it, right? It's not what they're
55:15seeking. They're just seeking
55:16competence. They don't really have
55:17confidence in mind at all. But then they
55:20come back and they're like, "Oh yeah,
55:21since I was able to do this thing and I
55:23proved to myself I can do this thing
55:25now. I feel a little bit better about
55:26all these other things."
55:27>> You know what the irony of this? I want
55:28to come back to Norman Vincent Peele for
55:30a second. It the irony is I imagine what
55:34happened. I've not studied his life
55:35closely, but he's in seminary school.
55:37He's terrified of public speaking. He's
55:39extremely anxious. He develops all these
55:42little tools and systems that get him up
55:44onto the pulpit and delivering sermons.
55:46It goes well. There was one domain in
55:49his life that he was particularly
55:50insecure about. He developed a handful
55:52of techniques that helped him accumulate
55:54that evidence that allowed him to be
55:57confident in that narrow context. And
55:59then once he became confident in that
56:01narrow context, it generalized a little
56:04bit across the rest of his life. But he
56:07drew the wrong conclusion from it. He
56:09looked at it and he said, "Oh, it must
56:11have been my affirmations and techniques
56:13that made me confident, not I got up and
56:16delivered a thousand sermons that made
56:18me confident."
56:19>> The solution was actually hiding in
56:20plain sight. And he got the exact wrong
56:22lesson out of it. He did. Yeah. Bandura
56:24though, like he he did have this
56:26specific framework around what what he
56:28called self-efficacy. This isn't
56:29confidence. It's self-efficacy is what
56:31we're talking about. It's competence
56:32really is what it is, right? He said,
56:34"What predicts whether somebody will
56:36attempt like a difficult task or or try
56:38something difficult or something that's
56:40uncertain even too, right?" Which is
56:41really what we're trying to do here with
56:43like when people are trying to be
56:44confident and then act. That's what
56:46they're trying to do. Act on something
56:47that's uncertain. He says that it's not
56:50about how you feel about yourself
56:53generally, but it's whether or not it's
56:55based on that actual evidence that they
56:57can actually execute those specific
56:59behaviors for a specific task.
57:02>> Okay. So there's really three features
57:04that he highlighted out of this. It's
57:06it's not really a feeling that you have.
57:07It's more of a just a belief that you
57:10can at least address whatever situation
57:12you're in. Not even necessarily that
57:14you're going to succeed, just like,
57:15well, I can try this. Right? So it's not
57:17a feeling of, oh, I can definitely do
57:19this. It's let me give this a shot.
57:21Also, it's taskspecific as well. Okay.
57:24Like you were just saying, it's not
57:26>> I have this general belief about myself
57:28that I can do anything. No, it's like
57:30here's a thing in front of me. I can
57:32probably do this. Let me see if I can.
57:34This self-efficacy, this this belief in
57:37yourself is evidence-based. It's not
57:39based on just some affirmation.
57:42>> It's based on experience.
57:43>> It's based on experience with a specific
57:46task.
57:46>> You live through it. You're you're not
57:48sitting at home putting Post-it stickers
57:50on your bathroom mirror. You've actually
57:53gone out and done the thing a hundred
57:55times.
57:56>> So, right there, you can just see the
57:57whole industry got it backwards, right?
57:59It was like, "No, you have to act first
58:00and then you're going to feel like you
58:02can't actually do it." Right?
58:03>> So, if confidence starts with a a domain
58:06specific
58:07experience, probably what happens for
58:09most people, right? It's like when we're
58:12when we hit adolescence, we become
58:14socially aware. We start measuring
58:17ourselves against others. And when
58:20you're a teenager, you haven't done a
58:21[ __ ] thing. So, of course, every
58:22nobody's confident. Everybody's highly
58:24insecure. And I feel like what happens
58:27for most people is that they develop
58:29competence around one thing when they're
58:31young that allows them to build
58:34confidence which then allows them to
58:36approach other challenges later on in
58:39their life. I'm curious what that first
58:42thing was for you that allowed you to to
58:44develop confidence and do you feel like
58:46it bled over into other things?
58:48>> Like I was good at school. I I don't say
58:51like that was necessar I was smart or
58:52anything like that. I just knew I was
58:53good at school. And as a little kid,
58:55like that's probably pretty important
58:57for a lot of little kids. If you're not,
58:59then that's that's pretty hard. That
59:01makes for a pretty hard life as a as a
59:02kid. So for me anyway, like that kind of
59:04like bled into other areas, too. I was
59:06like, "Oh, maybe sports, too." And I was
59:07okay at some sports as well. And then it
59:09did kind of build out from that for me
59:11anyway. That's what it felt like.
59:12>> I feel like that's kind of the classic
59:14>> that's a very classic one. traditional,
59:16you know, like if you talk to parents
59:17and teachers like that what you just
59:19described as like the goal for for kids.
59:22>> This is also like when I talk about when
59:24I grew when and where I grew up, I'm
59:25like it was it was a really good place
59:27and good time to do it. Well, because I
59:29kind of fit in with that that
59:31traditional kind of uh value, I guess.
59:33Yeah.
59:33>> I I was a mess.
59:35>> Yeah. Yeah.
59:35>> I was a mess.
59:36>> Where did you find your first domain of
59:37experience that gave you some
59:39confidence?
59:39>> Honestly, with me, it probably happened
59:40pretty late. We'll we'll get into this
59:42in the following chapters. Like I de I
59:44definitely developed like some
59:45narcissistic tendencies as like a
59:47defense mechanism.
59:48>> Interesting. Yeah.
59:48>> So I was not great at school. I was
59:50terrible at sports. All the things I was
59:53really into like music and uh reading
59:56and philosophy and art weren't really
59:59celebrated or appreciated where I grew
1:00:00up. So yeah. I mean the two things I got
1:00:03good at when I was a teenager were like
1:00:05music and video games. I guess music
1:00:07gave me a little bit but honestly like
1:00:09not a ton. I don't think I actually
1:00:11developed real self-confidence until I
1:00:14was well into my 20s and I think I
1:00:18compensated.
1:00:20Chapter three will talk through you know
1:00:22some of the coping mechanisms and
1:00:25overcompensations that happen for people
1:00:27who are not confident. I think I I
1:00:28definitely like struggled through a lot
1:00:30of that through my 20s. I I was very
1:00:32insecure for a while.
1:00:34>> Where's an area now that you still have
1:00:36low self-efficacy? Would you say
1:00:37>> anything physical? Like I'm terrible
1:00:39with my hands. I'm terrible like I'm bad
1:00:43at sports. I'm not coordinated. I'm not
1:00:45athletic. So anytime I'm in a situation
1:00:48where you're supposed to
1:00:50do something that that requires a lot of
1:00:52physical acuity or coordination or
1:00:54strength or something, I'm just like, h
1:00:56I'm going to suck at this.
1:00:57>> Does it does it really bother you though
1:00:59anymore?
1:00:59>> No. I don't really care. Yeah. But when
1:01:01I was young, it did.
1:01:03>> It really did. Yeah. certain things get
1:01:05rewarded socially when you're young and
1:01:08some so for for example like the first
1:01:10thing that I was actually really good at
1:01:12when I was young was was video games and
1:01:15I know like a lot of people say that but
1:01:18like I competed in tournaments I
1:01:20competed nationally I competed intern I
1:01:22won tens of thousands of dollars playing
1:01:23video games nobody at school thought
1:01:25that was cool like it was there was
1:01:27nothing nothing at there was like I make
1:01:30maybe one dorky friend who was like
1:01:32really impressed by that but it was it
1:01:34was mostly just me on the internet in
1:01:35the late '9s like playing these games
1:01:38with a bunch of strangers. There was no
1:01:40sustenance to that evidence, right? I I
1:01:43built all this evidence that I was good
1:01:44at a thing, but I wasn't being socially
1:01:46rewarded for it. In fact, I was being
1:01:48shamed for it. So, it like didn't it
1:01:50didn't bleed out into other areas of my
1:01:52life the way that like say the snake
1:01:54example did.
1:01:55>> I didn't feel like very confident around
1:01:56girls for a long time. I can tell you
1:01:58that. You know, that's a whole another
1:02:00>> that's a whole another one. when you do
1:02:01develop that kind of um kind of a base
1:02:04level of I can acquire these skills and
1:02:06whatever if anything does seem a little
1:02:08bit out of your reach at that point like
1:02:10I developed a perfectionism around that
1:02:12and an avoidance around it too. So, I
1:02:14think that's what some people you got to
1:02:15watch out for because you sit here like
1:02:16I've been saying like, "Yeah, I know. I
1:02:18don't I don't really I don't do these
1:02:19things and I don't visualize and I
1:02:20didn't have to do that all this because
1:02:22I just avoided it, [laughter] you know,
1:02:24if it wasn't if it if I didn't feel even
1:02:27a little bit of confident about it. I
1:02:28didn't try to make myself confident, I
1:02:30just wouldn't do it."
1:02:31>> Yeah.
1:02:31>> So, I think there's some of that too
1:02:33going on.
1:02:34>> Yeah. Well, we're going to talk about
1:02:36self-esteem and the self-esteem movement
1:02:37in chapter 4 cuz it it's one of one of
1:02:40the things that we have since learned
1:02:41about the self-esteem movement is that
1:02:43if you tell people to feel good about
1:02:45themselves without them earning it, it
1:02:47backfires. What what you what you create
1:02:49as a little narcissist and I grew up
1:02:52being told that I was amazing and could
1:02:55be amazing at everything without earning
1:02:57it, without accumulating that evidence.
1:02:59And so I I became a bit of a
1:03:01narcissistic [ __ ] Okay. Which which we
1:03:03will
1:03:04>> we'll get we'll get to that. Yeah.
1:03:05>> We will definitely talk about
1:03:06>> we'll definitely get to that. [laughter]
1:03:07First though, first though, let's let's
1:03:09talk about where where self-efficacy
1:03:10comes from.
1:03:11>> So do specific confidence.
1:03:13>> Yes. Let's talk about that. So he came
1:03:14up with where where does the self
1:03:17efficacy come from? Like how do we build
1:03:19this? You know, we've talked about the
1:03:20evidence and all that.
1:03:21>> He had these four sources that he came
1:03:23up with though. First and foremost, and
1:03:25these are in order of of how big of an
1:03:28effect they have.
1:03:28>> Yeah. how big of an impact they'll have.
1:03:30First is the mastery experiences kind of
1:03:32what we've just been talking about. You
1:03:34do it, you have some success with it and
1:03:36it it kind of feeds on itself and you
1:03:38build up that evidence. It updates the
1:03:40beliefs in the most durable way, okay?
1:03:42Because you have direct experience with
1:03:43it. You have a felt experience with it.
1:03:45You have all the emotional stuff that
1:03:46comes with it. You have the evidence
1:03:48right in front of you. Importantly too
1:03:49though, like early on like failures,
1:03:52especially early on can be can kind of
1:03:54wreck that process as well. So it's
1:03:56fragile at first. it gets more durable
1:03:58as you accumulate more and more
1:04:00evidence. That's pretty obvious, right?
1:04:02The second one is vicarious experiences.
1:04:04So, watching other people do it um and
1:04:07succeed, that can have a lot of impact,
1:04:09too. Importantly, though, it needs to be
1:04:11someone you see as a peer or near peer.
1:04:14>> So, this is why like if you see like a I
1:04:17don't know, an NBA player doing, you
1:04:18know, something crazy like slam dunking
1:04:20from the the free throw line or
1:04:22something and then there's
1:04:23>> Yeah, you you and I have no chance. that
1:04:25is not motivating whatsoever. That does
1:04:27not make me feel like I can do that. But
1:04:29if it's like somebody else who maybe I
1:04:31grew up with or maybe just a little bit
1:04:33older than me, maybe they're just a
1:04:34little bit ahead of me, that makes a lot
1:04:36of sense to us, too. Like we can watch
1:04:38other people succeed in a domain that we
1:04:41have some experience in. Maybe we're
1:04:42just starting out. Maybe we're just
1:04:44starting in those mastery experiences
1:04:45and then we see them do it like, "Oh,
1:04:47that's a little bit motivating for us."
1:04:48Right.
1:04:49>> Yeah. I think it's there's a
1:04:50relatability component that has to be
1:04:52there and it's the role model thing,
1:04:54right? like it's growing up or having
1:04:56somebody around you that it's like,
1:04:57okay, if they can do it, I can do it.
1:04:58>> We already [ __ ] on one TED talk, but in
1:05:00general, I do actually like TED talks
1:05:02cuz a lot of times it's somebody you
1:05:04don't you've never heard of that has
1:05:06this like amazing talk and they're like,
1:05:07oh, I was this way and then I did this
1:05:09and something happened. I love those
1:05:12kind of the people I follow maybe in our
1:05:13industry, they usually have some sort of
1:05:15background or was like, I was in a
1:05:16really [ __ ] place, right? I relate to
1:05:19those people way more than somebody who
1:05:20is just like, "Oh yeah, I came out of
1:05:22the womb just like [ __ ] and excellence,
1:05:24right?" Like, this is interesting you
1:05:26bring this up because I I actually think
1:05:28you just touched on like a really really
1:05:30important point about the personal
1:05:32growth and self-help industry in
1:05:34general. It's this piece, right? It's
1:05:35the relatability of the person that
1:05:38you're listening to, right? Like tons of
1:05:40people listen to Mel Robbins. She's a
1:05:44middle-aged woman. I imagine a a large
1:05:46percentage of her of her audience is
1:05:48middle-aged women, right? Moms, like
1:05:51with minivans, living in the suburbs
1:05:53because it's when you hear it from her,
1:05:55it's going to land differently than if
1:05:57you hear it from me or you. There's a
1:05:59demographic component of this because
1:06:01it's we need to feel like somebody who
1:06:05came from our background or came from
1:06:07our situation
1:06:09made the transformation that we want to
1:06:11make. It's having those two ingredients
1:06:13side by side that is is what inspires
1:06:15us.
1:06:16>> Well, and I think that was the part of
1:06:17the problem with the kind of last
1:06:20generation of the whole self-help thing
1:06:22was a lot of them, you know, were put up
1:06:24on a pedestal or tried to come out and
1:06:25say like, I'm super human and here's how
1:06:27you should do.
1:06:28>> It was the guru model.
1:06:28>> The guru model. Yeah.
1:06:30>> These days, it's much more about, hey,
1:06:31I'm just a person like you. Right. which
1:06:34I I said I was going to check you if you
1:06:35patted yourself on your back, but I'll
1:06:37pat I'll pat you on the back a little
1:06:38bit because that was one of the like
1:06:39early on, you know, you were somebody
1:06:41who was like, "Man, I [ __ ] this up."
1:06:43>> Very anti-guru.
1:06:44>> Yeah. Yeah. And and that was a big
1:06:46appeal um and still is a big appeal to a
1:06:48lot of people um that you're very honest
1:06:50about that kind of stuff. And that's
1:06:50what we try to do here, too. So, I I I
1:06:53get that. But those vicarious
1:06:55experiences need to be rooted in some
1:06:56sense of reality for somebody to
1:06:58actually be able to relate to them and
1:07:00learn from them and and gain some
1:07:02self-efficacy from them. Right? Third
1:07:04one, verbal persuasion. So, we're
1:07:05getting down the rung here. Okay, pretty
1:07:07quick. Being told you're capable can can
1:07:11actually help you develop some
1:07:12self-efficacy. Okay. Again, though, it's
1:07:16very similar to the vicarious
1:07:17experience. This has to come from like a
1:07:18credible source, somebody you're
1:07:20familiar with and somebody who is giving
1:07:22you some grounding in reality around
1:07:25what they're telling you. A close mentor
1:07:27or coach who you've worked with for a
1:07:28while, they know you. They know your
1:07:30flaws. They know your strengths, your
1:07:31weaknesses, all of that. Something
1:07:33coming from them telling you, "Hey, no,
1:07:34you can actually do this and I've seen
1:07:35you do it a few times before." That
1:07:38means a lot more than the guru telling
1:07:41you, "You can do this. I know you can."
1:07:43and or you know just somebody on YouTube
1:07:45staring at the camera saying I know you
1:07:47can do this that come on. So the
1:07:49evidence is getting weaker as we go down
1:07:50a little bit here. Uh the last one that
1:07:52he he he talked about was physiological
1:07:55and affective states.
1:07:57This one we talked about this the state
1:08:00pump, the emotional pumps. Yeah. Yeah.
1:08:02>> There's a way you interpret those types
1:08:03of things. So somebody could be like
1:08:05super jacked up, high heart rate, like
1:08:07thoughts going crazy and whatever and
1:08:08just be like on a meltdown and somebody
1:08:10could be like, "Wow, I'm really like
1:08:11this is awesome. I'm locked in. I'm
1:08:13getting going. It it's it's not real
1:08:16dependable. It's not a dependable source
1:08:18of self-efficacy. So, that's kind of the
1:08:20hierarchy he came from. Again, those
1:08:23masterybased experiences are the ones
1:08:25that produce the most durable, longest
1:08:27lasting states of self-efficacy that we
1:08:30can have. So, that's what we you really
1:08:32should be focusing on. That was his
1:08:33whole point was like just go out and do
1:08:35[ __ ] I think if you look at effective
1:08:37interventions, whether it's Bura or we
1:08:39talked a little bit about Tony Robbins,
1:08:41like there's kind of a lattering up of
1:08:44these four sources, right? Like, you
1:08:46know, Bur just didn't didn't bring them
1:08:48in and throw snakes in their lap. He
1:08:49like brought them in. He probably talked
1:08:51to them for a while first and kind of
1:08:53like built a little bit of credibility
1:08:54and confidence. Then he had them watch
1:08:57him do it and he probably did it in a
1:09:00way that it's like, see, I'm just a
1:09:02normal I'm not even a snake handler. I'm
1:09:03just a guy at Stanford, right? And then
1:09:06he like once he's kind of built a little
1:09:09smidgen of self-efficacy enough for them
1:09:11to actually try it and do it themselves,
1:09:12then they get to have the mastery
1:09:14experience,
1:09:14>> right? But so many people in the
1:09:15industry just stop at that those
1:09:17physiological states, right? You just
1:09:18need to pump yourself up and you'll be
1:09:19good. It's like, no, there's a ladder to
1:09:21it
1:09:21>> because it's easy.
1:09:21>> Yeah, it's easy and it feels good. And
1:09:23also people spend money when they're
1:09:25emotionally pumped up.
1:09:26>> So ultimately it's those mastery
1:09:28experiences that you have to get to
1:09:30wherever you start.
1:09:31>> Okay. So this get this gets us into like
1:09:33what is the actual mechanism for
1:09:35building this self-efficacy this domain
1:09:37specific confidence you know in in the
1:09:39subtle art of not giving a [ __ ] I had a
1:09:41thing called the do something principle
1:09:42where I point out that most people
1:09:44assume that the loop is you have
1:09:47inspiration that creates motivation and
1:09:49then that creates action and I pointed
1:09:51out that that loop actually starts with
1:09:53the action it's action generates
1:09:56motivation which generates inspiration
1:09:57which generates action right so it's the
1:09:59entry point is actually the action
1:10:01action. It's not the exit point. I think
1:10:02there's a similar loop with confidence.
1:10:04Like people assume that you know they
1:10:07have to develop a high amount of self
1:10:10self-belief that will create good
1:10:12performance that will create a feeling
1:10:14of confidence which will then create
1:10:16high self-belief and so on and so forth.
1:10:18And it's like no you actually begin with
1:10:20the performance the action that builds
1:10:23some self-belief which then that builds
1:10:26a feeling of confidence. The feeling of
1:10:28confidence is the output at the end of
1:10:30the algorithm. It's not the input at the
1:10:33beginning of the algorithm. So, there's
1:10:34actually a really cool metaanalysis in
1:10:362018 about self-efficacy and
1:10:38performance. And it found that
1:10:40performance shapes self-efficacy nearly
1:10:43three times as strongly as self-efficacy
1:10:46shapes future performance. So, they've
1:10:50actually been able to deduce like a
1:10:52ratio between these two variables,
1:10:54right? like where it's your belief in
1:10:55yourself is about a third as impactful
1:10:59on your subsequent performance as your
1:11:03performance is on your belief on
1:11:05yourself. Right? So the performance is
1:11:07the higher leverage entry point. You're
1:11:09just going to you're going to generate a
1:11:10lot more momentum in your life if you
1:11:12start with the action rather than
1:11:14starting with the self-belief.
1:11:16>> But the self-belief you you still get
1:11:17something out of that.
1:11:18>> You still get something out of it. It
1:11:19still matters.
1:11:20>> It's way higher leverage if you go at it
1:11:22from the other way. If you start with
1:11:23the the the performance and the mastery
1:11:26experience.
1:11:27>> Yeah,
1:11:27>> I see. And then it builds more
1:11:28self-efficacy that way. Okay.
1:11:30>> So, here's a really important caveat.
1:11:32There's an age split here. So, for
1:11:35adults, you you get this kind of mutual
1:11:38benefit between performance and and
1:11:40confidence. Whereas with kids, it's more
1:11:43unidirectional. So, with children,
1:11:46performance leads to confidence. Whereas
1:11:48if you try to make the child confident,
1:11:50it doesn't have an effect on the
1:11:52performance. Wow. So, so in many ways,
1:11:55telling students that they can do
1:11:57something that they haven't done is not
1:11:59helpful. We will when we come back to
1:12:01self-esteem in a later chapter, we're
1:12:04going to discover that it's actually
1:12:05unhelpful in many ways.
1:12:06>> And see, this was the thing. Like I
1:12:07said, when I was growing up, I never
1:12:08felt like the teachers around me or
1:12:10anybody said, "You can do it." They just
1:12:12said, "Do it."
1:12:14Maybe that maybe that was just my
1:12:16interpretation of the whole thing. I
1:12:17don't Maybe it's where we grew up,
1:12:18right? Like,
1:12:19>> yeah, it could be.
1:12:19>> I went to a hoy toy private school where
1:12:22everybody was [ __ ] special. So, we've
1:12:25established this loop, right? The the
1:12:28correct entry point is action that kicks
1:12:31off everything else. So, then the the
1:12:33question becomes like how do you get the
1:12:36loop going? Like this this is the
1:12:38problem that everybody faces is like how
1:12:40do I start, right? Like it's a catch 22.
1:12:42I am anxious, insecure. I have no
1:12:46experience. So like how do I get
1:12:48experience? It's like the confidence
1:12:50version of the classic job conundrum of
1:12:52like how do I get a job if I have no
1:12:54work experience? How do I get work
1:12:56experience if I have no job? Right? It's
1:12:58it's how do I get confidence if I have
1:13:00no evidence? How do I get evidence if I
1:13:02have no confidence? The trick is to
1:13:05break it down into small wins. We've
1:13:07talked many times about a concept that I
1:13:10call minimum viable action. It's been in
1:13:12every course I've ever produced. It's
1:13:14been in like probably a third of our
1:13:16episodes of Solve that we've done. It is
1:13:18the solution that just comes up over and
1:13:20over and over again throughout any
1:13:22psychological intervention, which is
1:13:24whatever the desired action or behavior
1:13:26is, you break it down to a point that it
1:13:29feels feasible and doable and then you
1:13:31just start there. A really simple
1:13:33example that I use all the time is
1:13:35meditation. That if it feels
1:13:38intimidating to sit down and meditate
1:13:39for 15 minutes, sit down for 1 minute.
1:13:42If one minute feels intimidating, then
1:13:44just [ __ ] sit down, close your eyes
1:13:47for five seconds, right? Anybody can do
1:13:49that for five seconds. And then once you
1:13:50do it for five seconds, you're like,
1:13:52"Oh, this isn't so bad." Then you do it
1:13:54for a minute. After a minute, you're
1:13:56like, "Oh, okay. Yeah, I can do this."
1:13:58Then you do it for 15. So the same way
1:14:00we kind of talked about that entry point
1:14:02to building up self-efficacy through
1:14:05guided mastery, there's also just an
1:14:07entry point with the actions themselves.
1:14:10If you can start with the smallest
1:14:11possible action, it removes a lot of the
1:14:14intimidation. It removes a lot of the
1:14:16the narratives and whatifs that are
1:14:18going on. It removes it lowers the
1:14:19stakes to the point that it feels
1:14:22doable. So, that's a good example. What
1:14:23are some other examples of this though?
1:14:25Because I think this is a really
1:14:26important point and like what are
1:14:28there's lots of areas where people
1:14:29aren't confident. We just did a a
1:14:32webinar for our uh community members a
1:14:35couple months ago and one of the
1:14:36questions that I I was asked and I get
1:14:38asked this quite a bit is that when you
1:14:39started writing, when you first started
1:14:41publishing your writing online, were you
1:14:44confident? Did you have self-efficacy?
1:14:47Right? And my answer is no. But the
1:14:50answer I I always give people is that
1:14:51when I started writing online, the
1:14:53stakes were so unbelievably low. Like I
1:14:55started blogging because my roommate had
1:14:58a blog and he was like, "It's pretty
1:15:00cool. You have some good ideas. You
1:15:01should write a blog." And I was like,
1:15:02"Okay." My expectation was that I was
1:15:06going to write a couple hundred words
1:15:08each week and like my roommates and my
1:15:11mom would read it and that was kind of
1:15:13it. I didn't have any of these grand
1:15:14visions about being an author and having
1:15:17millions of readers and followers and
1:15:18all this stuff. If I did, I probably
1:15:21would have [ __ ] my pants and never
1:15:23published anything because it would have
1:15:24been terrifying. Absolutely terrifying.
1:15:27I I hadn't built any self-efficacy in
1:15:30that domain yet. But because my audience
1:15:32was just like three or four people, I'm
1:15:34like, well, I talk to my roommates all
1:15:36the time, so let me just write down some
1:15:38of the stuff that I would talk to them
1:15:40about. And then that built up a little
1:15:42bit of confidence, and then they started
1:15:43sharing it with some of their friends.
1:15:45Now I'm like writing some stuff for some
1:15:47people that I've maybe like met once
1:15:49before or I've heard about once before
1:15:52and they like it and so they start
1:15:53sharing it with people and after about
1:15:55six months you start strangers start
1:15:58showing up right people I've never met
1:16:00in my life but I remember the first time
1:16:01that started happening I was like oh my
1:16:03god I have no idea who this person is
1:16:06they don't even live in my city and
1:16:07they're like reading my blog that's like
1:16:09such a strange thing and so it was a
1:16:11very gradual ascent right whereas Like a
1:16:15counter example to that would be when I
1:16:18went into music, I really did have
1:16:20aspirations of like I want to be a
1:16:23professional musician. I want to play
1:16:25arenas. I want to play theaters. I want
1:16:26to play stages. I want to record albums.
1:16:28I want to do all these things. And there
1:16:31was just an incredible
1:16:34expectation put on myself. I went to
1:16:36music school where I'm like surrounded
1:16:37by just unbelievably talented people and
1:16:42it was extremely intimidating. It was
1:16:44very difficult to to keep with it. I was
1:16:48insanely insecure despite the fact that
1:16:51I was good at music. I put myself in an
1:16:53environment where I'm like, "Okay, I
1:16:54know I'm a good musician, but I don't
1:16:56know if I'm this good and I'm about to
1:16:58be judged in critiques and like my life
1:17:01is going to be based on those judgments
1:17:03and critiques and it was just too much.
1:17:05I couldn't handle it."
1:17:06>> That that's an important point too.
1:17:07Vandura makes that point and also DC and
1:17:09Ryan and self determination theory make
1:17:11that point that usually in those mastery
1:17:12experiences like it has to be kind of
1:17:15like just maybe a little bit past your
1:17:17comfort zone where you were kind of
1:17:18trying to shoot for I need to be mega
1:17:21star mega rockstar guy you know and
1:17:23you're like well no you need to practice
1:17:25your scales a little bit more is what it
1:17:27was right okay let me return to the
1:17:29blogging example because like what ended
1:17:30up happening I I ended up mostly writing
1:17:32about my dating life because that that
1:17:34was mostly what my roommates and I
1:17:35talked about And that started getting
1:17:38traction. The readership started to grow
1:17:41and pretty soon like hundreds of
1:17:43strangers who I had never met in my life
1:17:44were reading about my dating life and
1:17:46they started emailing me and asking me
1:17:47for advice. Long story short, I became a
1:17:49dating coach. And it was my first
1:17:52business and it was kind of the very
1:17:54nent stage of this career. And so there
1:17:57was a period of time where I I took
1:18:00socially awkward single people out and
1:18:02helped them meet other single people.
1:18:04Like that was my entire job. I was like
1:18:06a professional wingman.
1:18:07>> Good job.
1:18:08>> You had lived a weird life, Mark.
1:18:10Anyway, go on. Go on.
1:18:11>> It was interesting because it was the
1:18:13exact same principles. I would get these
1:18:16people. It was usually like very nerdy
1:18:18men, right? like some engineering guy
1:18:22who had read 16 books about evolutionary
1:18:25psychology and mating theories and like
1:18:28you know social cues and all this stuff
1:18:30who had all of these aspirations for
1:18:33what kind of woman he wanted to marry
1:18:35and how many girlfriends he wanted to
1:18:36have and what his dates were going to be
1:18:39like. Meanwhile, I'm I'm talking to him.
1:18:41I'm like, "Okay, you can't hold eye
1:18:42contact. You don't know how to even say
1:18:44hello to a stranger. Um you haven't
1:18:47showered in 3 days. like, okay, let's
1:18:49take care of the basics first. And so, I
1:18:51used to get clients. I was usually the
1:18:53guy that they they came to when like
1:18:55nothing else worked cuz I was very
1:18:57practical and I was very critical of
1:18:58that industry. These people would show
1:19:00up and they're like, I've tried
1:19:01everything. It like nothing's working.
1:19:03I've I've studied all the the I've done
1:19:04seminars. I've hired coaches. I've like
1:19:07hired matchmakers. It's like nothing's
1:19:09working. And I would take them out and
1:19:12I'd be like, "Okay, so your goal today
1:19:15is to stop and say hello to 10
1:19:18attractive women." That's the whole
1:19:20goal. That's all we're doing. Just stop,
1:19:22say, "Hello. How's your day going?"
1:19:25That's it. And they would look at me
1:19:27like, they would almost be insulted.
1:19:29They're like, "I'm paying you all this
1:19:31money and you brought me to a mall to
1:19:33say hello to random women." And I'm
1:19:34like, "Yes, that is what we're doing."
1:19:37And it was amazing because they had all
1:19:40these theories and ideas in their head
1:19:41of like what was supposed to happen. And
1:19:44it turned out that for the majority of
1:19:47them, if they just walked up to somebody
1:19:50politely and said hello and introduced
1:19:53themselves and asked her for her name,
1:19:56things went pretty well. The piece that
1:19:59was missing was just really basic social
1:20:01skills and kind of getting over that
1:20:03initial anxiety about an interaction.
1:20:05And then once they were kind of in the
1:20:07pool, so to speak, they figured out how
1:20:10to swim. Like the rest kind of took care
1:20:12of itself. I remember regularly having
1:20:16experiences with clients who they would
1:20:19get angry. Like they would actually like
1:20:21I would spend a weekend with them and
1:20:22they would get [ __ ] angry because
1:20:24they were like I've spent tens of
1:20:26thousands of dollars and I've spent two
1:20:28years trying to figure this out and you
1:20:29took me to a mall and made me say hello
1:20:31to a bunch of random women and it's like
1:20:34that's all I ever had to do that like
1:20:36this whole time that's what I had to do.
1:20:38And it it comes back to the
1:20:39self-efficacy thing of like they just
1:20:40need to get those small wins under their
1:20:42belt, right? It's like, stop reading
1:20:44about women. Actually go talk to one and
1:20:46and then once they talk to one, they're
1:20:48like, "Oh, this isn't this actually
1:20:49isn't that hard. Like, why why was I
1:20:51obsessing over this? Why was I worrying
1:20:53about this so much?" And then, you know,
1:20:55after they talk to a certain amount,
1:20:56maybe they get a phone number, maybe
1:20:58they get a date, they're like, "Oh,
1:21:00okay. Yeah, I just go do this a 100
1:21:02times and then I find my wife." And like
1:21:05that's it. I mean, when you break it
1:21:06down like that, it's like, "Oh, okay."
1:21:08like it's because you have a very
1:21:10actionable thing you can do that you can
1:21:12approach. It removes a lot of the worry
1:21:16and anxiety around it because that thing
1:21:18is so simple and so low stakes. So I get
1:21:21I definitely get that. Yeah, dating
1:21:23itself is a good example of
1:21:25self-efficacy in general because it is
1:21:27something that you kind of have to be
1:21:29bad at to become good at. And being bad
1:21:32at it is very uncomfortable and very
1:21:35painful. But there there isn't really a
1:21:37way around getting good at it without
1:21:40doing it. It's something that you have
1:21:42to actually like get out there,
1:21:43experience, build that evidence because
1:21:45so much of attraction and chemistry is
1:21:49confidence dependent, right? Like you
1:21:51can't really truly present yourself
1:21:54authentically if you don't feel good
1:21:56about yourself in that situation. There
1:21:58is no other way to do it than to do it.
1:22:01>> What about if you're in a relationship
1:22:03>> and you're not confident in that
1:22:04relationship? Maybe you had some
1:22:05confidence at one point, some
1:22:07self-efficacy at one point even too.
1:22:09>> What then?
1:22:11>> It's interesting because I think in the
1:22:12context of relationships,
1:22:15>> you know, a lot of the output is outside
1:22:16of your control. So, for example, if
1:22:18you're learning woodworking or whatever,
1:22:19the output's 100% within your control.
1:22:21>> It's very tangible. Yeah.
1:22:22>> And so, you can watch yourself slowly
1:22:24get better at it over time and then that
1:22:25build that accumulates the evidence.
1:22:27It's very straightforward. It's like,
1:22:28you know, a lot of things in life are
1:22:29like that with social skills, dating,
1:22:32relationships. So much of the outcome is
1:22:35outside of your control and so much of
1:22:37the outcome is is actually dependent on
1:22:39one specific person or maybe a small
1:22:41group of people. At a certain point, you
1:22:43have to ask yourself, what self-efficacy
1:22:46are you trying to build? If the
1:22:47confidence I'm trying to build is that
1:22:49my wife likes me,
1:22:51that is not going to go well
1:22:53>> because I can't control how she feels.
1:22:56She is her own person. She has her own
1:22:58thoughts, feelings.
1:23:00There are so many things that are
1:23:01outside of my control that happen in her
1:23:02life that have absolutely like nothing
1:23:05to do with me but can affect how she
1:23:07feels about me in that very moment. So
1:23:08if I base how I feel about myself, if
1:23:11I'm using her reactions to me as the
1:23:13evidence from my own self-worth, it's
1:23:16not going to go well. If I decide to
1:23:18build confidence on my ability to manage
1:23:22the ups and downs of a relationship,
1:23:24that is a skill that is 100% within my
1:23:26control. I guess there's a there's a
1:23:28control piece here. Yeah. Yeah. And
1:23:30where you're targeting your your your
1:23:32efforts there, too. Yeah.
1:23:33>> Well, and this also comes back to SDT,
1:23:36self-determination theory, because I I
1:23:37believe part of their framework is
1:23:39there's an autonomy component of it,
1:23:41which means that it's it's something
1:23:42that you do have control over. Like if
1:23:45you don't have control over, you don't
1:23:46have autonomy. So, you don't develop
1:23:48that sense of confidence or motivation.
1:23:49And then there's the with them. I
1:23:52believe it's belongingness. There's a
1:23:53there's a social component of it.
1:23:55building self-efficacy. Whatever you
1:23:57target to build your confidence in to
1:24:00generate that generalizable confidence,
1:24:02it needs to be something within your
1:24:03control. For it to generalize outside of
1:24:05that specific domain, I I do think there
1:24:07needs to be some sort of tangible
1:24:08benefit or observable benefit. You know,
1:24:11my problem was was the thing that I got
1:24:13really good at was not helping me
1:24:14anywhere else in my life or it wasn't
1:24:16winning me any points anywhere else in
1:24:18my life. Whereas like I guess, you know,
1:24:20somebody who got really good at football
1:24:21or basketball, it builds friendships. It
1:24:25builds relationships. It gets them, you
1:24:27know, noticed and admired at school and
1:24:31it the teachers take notice and
1:24:33compliment them and applaud them and
1:24:34reward them. Right. And it's whereas
1:24:36what I was doing, I was sitting by
1:24:38myself in a bedroom with a bunch of, you
1:24:41know,
1:24:42random strangers on a screen.
1:24:44>> Right. Right. Okay. Okay. you're you
1:24:46were starting to touch on what I wanted
1:24:47to get into next here actually which is
1:24:50there's one little gap in Bura's
1:24:53u theory in his framework here and that
1:24:56is you and someone else we could go
1:24:58through the exact same experience right
1:25:01same failure same result same success
1:25:03same circumstances one of us comes out
1:25:07more confident and one of us comes out
1:25:09not so confident right exact same
1:25:12experience like why is that is this guy
1:25:14called Bernard Weiner
1:25:16Okay.
1:25:16>> Okay.
1:25:16>> Nice name.
1:25:17>> I'm sorry. I'm going to laugh like a
1:25:18little teenager through this. I'm sorry.
1:25:20>> Around the name Weiner. This is what got
1:25:22you. Okay.
1:25:23>> Maybe it's whiner, but it's spelled
1:25:24Weini. So, yeah. He has this framework
1:25:26though, and you just mentioned this. So,
1:25:27there's there's two dimensions that
1:25:29matter most like where how do you
1:25:30attribute the confidence that you get
1:25:32from these mastery experiences or
1:25:34whatever, right? One of them is the
1:25:35locust of control. What you just said,
1:25:37like do what kind of control do you
1:25:38think you have? Is it internal like oh I
1:25:40did this and then something happened or
1:25:43oh I just got lucky right so there's
1:25:46kind of an internal versus an external
1:25:47control that's self-determination theory
1:25:49too yeah very much so the other side of
1:25:52it though is also stability okay so is
1:25:56it the outcome is it a fixed and
1:25:58permanent is just just kind of what
1:25:59always happens or is there some sort of
1:26:01variation to it okay so you have these
1:26:03two dimensions and then what you can see
1:26:05here is there's like these two axes you
1:26:06know and you can get all nerdy about it
1:26:08I won't too deep into it, but like
1:26:10someone who attributes their success
1:26:12internally. They said, "Okay, I did this
1:26:14thing. Yeah, I had control over it and I
1:26:16did it
1:26:17>> and it paid off." That's internal and
1:26:20it's variable. I did something and it
1:26:21could have went bad or it could have
1:26:22went good and it went good. If like you
1:26:25have that mindset with it, you get a
1:26:27really strong signal of efficacy from
1:26:29that. Okay, maybe that exact same thing
1:26:31happened where you know whatever the
1:26:33interaction went well with someone or
1:26:34whatever and like somebody comes in and
1:26:37they say okay I went up to them I was
1:26:39you know made strong eye contact or you
1:26:41know whatever it is that they did and
1:26:43the interaction went well
1:26:45>> cool I can do this somebody else might
1:26:47do the same thing and say well they were
1:26:48just being nice to me and so it doesn't
1:26:50really count right so
1:26:52>> it doesn't build any self
1:26:53>> exact same experience that happened
1:26:55totally different internal experience
1:26:57that happened within them Right. This is
1:26:59part of a attribution theory basically
1:27:01that that Bernard Weiner came up with.
1:27:03>> Can I throw something into this really
1:27:05quick because I think it relates to
1:27:06this. So remember Malcolm Gladwell's
1:27:09whole 10,000 hours thing which turned
1:27:11out to not be a thing. The thing of the
1:27:1210,000 hour rule that actually is a
1:27:14thing is is is the concept of deliberate
1:27:16practice. the researcher Ericson who
1:27:17like did all the research behind the
1:27:1910,000 hour thing he actually found some
1:27:21some interesting findings that are
1:27:22related to this which is that when you
1:27:24are practicing the thing when you are
1:27:26accumulating that evidence there's kind
1:27:28of two principles at work that are
1:27:30really important one is is that it's
1:27:32it's more valuable to to do things more
1:27:35frequently at like kind of a steady
1:27:37state than to just occasionally like go
1:27:40all out. Say you want to get good at
1:27:41something, instead of doing it once a
1:27:44month, but doing it really hardcore,
1:27:45like it's not really gonna build that
1:27:47confidence the same way it does if if
1:27:50you do it like say an hour and a half
1:27:51every single day for 30 days straight.
1:27:53So there's like a consistency
1:27:55that seems to matter a little bit more
1:27:57than intensity. But the other thing
1:27:59that's really interesting is that he
1:28:01found that you don't really build
1:28:03self-effocacy unless you are what he
1:28:05called your the edge of your ability
1:28:06zone, which is essentially like you need
1:28:08to find the the limit of what you're
1:28:11currently capable of and try to expand
1:28:12that limit. So if you try to do
1:28:14something insanely hard and you fail at
1:28:16it, uh like dunking from a free throw
1:28:18line, obviously that's not really going
1:28:19to build any self-efficacy. Whereas if
1:28:21you do something extremely easy, and I
1:28:24think this is much more common with
1:28:25insecure people, is they don't want to
1:28:27push themselves to the edge of their
1:28:28ability. So they like stay in the in the
1:28:31the kitty pool and do things very safe
1:28:33and easily over and over again. That
1:28:35doesn't build self-efficacy either. So
1:28:37if you're not being challenged, it
1:28:39doesn't build any confidence. And then
1:28:41if you challenge yourself too much to
1:28:43the point that it's impossible, it also
1:28:46doesn't build any confidence. He was
1:28:48kind of vocal against the 10,000hour
1:28:50rule if I remember right.
1:28:51>> It was one of those things where like
1:28:52yeah it got completely butchered and
1:28:54bastardized by pop psych writers like
1:28:58Malcolm Gladwell and then he came out
1:28:59and he was like you know what forget it.
1:29:01From what I recall, it was like it was
1:29:03literally just a throwaway line in one
1:29:05of his papers is he was just like, "Oh,
1:29:08generally it seems that people who
1:29:10achieve mastery, they've put in at least
1:29:1310,000 hours, but they there was like a
1:29:15very wide range of hours that people put
1:29:17in. It's like some put in 3,000 hours,
1:29:20some put in 30,000 hours." He kind of
1:29:22just made a generalized statement of
1:29:24like it seems most masters at crafts
1:29:27have put in over 10,000 hours. and then
1:29:30Gladwell zeroed in on that and turned it
1:29:32into a quote unquote rule. But the
1:29:34reason I bring this up because I do
1:29:36think it relates to the attribution
1:29:37thing. I mean, ultimately there is such
1:29:39a thing as quality of evidence. The same
1:29:41way there's shitty evidence in a
1:29:43courtroom that like nobody really
1:29:44believes, there's shitty evidence that
1:29:46you can show yourself that you probably
1:29:49won't really believe. And so if you were
1:29:51playing basketball 30 hours a week and
1:29:54you're just beating up on a bunch of
1:29:56sixth graders over and over again,
1:29:58you're not going to build any confidence
1:30:00because that's not good evidence that
1:30:01you're good at basketball. That's
1:30:03[ __ ] evidence. So the quality of
1:30:04that evidence really boils down to is it
1:30:07something that's in your control? Is it
1:30:09something that has a variable output?
1:30:11Right? Like does your effort matter? Is
1:30:13it something that you are challenging
1:30:15yourself? Are you at [snorts] the edge
1:30:17of your ability? and is it something
1:30:19that you're doing consistently
1:30:20repeatedly? Right? It's like and if
1:30:22you're hitting all those things, then it
1:30:24becomes good evidence because then you
1:30:26get to see the progress you're making.
1:30:27You get to feel the challenge. You get
1:30:29to feel yourself overcoming the
1:30:30challenge. Basically, what you're saying
1:30:32is like the work that you do put in has
1:30:33to be interpreted correctly, more or
1:30:36less, right? Like there is a way where
1:30:39we can interpret all of those things in
1:30:40in the wrong way. Like, oh, I just got
1:30:43lucky even though you did put in the
1:30:44work. I actually just thought of a
1:30:46really interesting example of this. So,
1:30:49back when I was coaching, one thing I
1:30:51noticed is that, you know, a lot of
1:30:53clients that I worked with had social
1:30:55anxiety. And so, I would take them out
1:30:56to a bar or a party or whatever, you
1:30:59know, to meet single people. And a lot
1:31:02of the socially anxious people would
1:31:03drink. And one thing I noticed over time
1:31:06is that all of my socially anxious
1:31:08clients that drank, they never got over
1:31:11the social anxiety. The social anxiety
1:31:13never improved. They used it as a
1:31:15crutch.
1:31:15>> They used it as a crutch. And I think
1:31:17what was happening, right, because it's,
1:31:19you know, to build self-efficacy, you
1:31:21need that evidence, but that evidence
1:31:22needs to be grounded in reality. You
1:31:24need to feel like it's you that's doing
1:31:27it.
1:31:27>> But if you're drunk, it's not you.
1:31:30>> It's not you doing it.
1:31:31>> It's the booze.
1:31:32>> And you're not getting an accurate
1:31:35reflection of the result, right? Cuz
1:31:39you're drunk. So, you probably think
1:31:41she's totally into you and you're just
1:31:43like [ __ ] making a fool out of
1:31:44yourself.
1:31:45>> It's filtered through the booze. Yeah.
1:31:46>> Yeah.
1:31:47>> So, it's good.
1:31:48>> I never put that together until just
1:31:50now. It's an interesting I never knew
1:31:52why that was, but that actually the
1:31:53self-efficacy loop explains that
1:31:56>> really what Bandura is showing and what
1:31:58we're trying to say is you have to base
1:31:59it on evidence and that evidence has to
1:32:01be grounded in some sort of reality,
1:32:03>> right? Has to be high quality evidence.
1:32:06Can't be [ __ ] evidence. There's one
1:32:07little caveat I want to bring up here,
1:32:09though. There there was a little bit of
1:32:11a monkey wrench that that got thrown
1:32:12into this. All right. There was a couple
1:32:14of researchers back in the 80s, Taylor
1:32:16and Brown, and they actually found that
1:32:18mentally healthy people
1:32:21kind of fudge this a little bit maybe
1:32:23like they actually tend to overestimate
1:32:26just a little bit on their evidence.
1:32:28Okay? So, they see the evidence out
1:32:29there and they embellish it maybe just a
1:32:31little bit. They see and they're like,
1:32:32"Oh yeah, look, I did that thing and it
1:32:34was a really good when it maybe was due
1:32:35a little bit to luck or circumstance or
1:32:37whatever it was
1:32:38>> like that was me.
1:32:39>> Yeah, there's three positive illusions
1:32:41that they hold. Okay. One was an
1:32:44unrealistically favorable view of
1:32:46themselves. An exaggerated sense of of
1:32:48control. So, we talked about that locus
1:32:50of control and they're like, "Oh, no. I
1:32:51control this. I I definitely control
1:32:52this." Where again, it might have been
1:32:54due to outside circumstances or luck.
1:32:56And then there's a a tad bit of
1:32:57unrealistic optimism around it, too.
1:32:59Okay. So people who are like generally
1:33:02mentally healthier and stable over time
1:33:06kind of have a little bit of a bias.
1:33:08They're a little bit unrealistic in
1:33:10these things. So we've been arguing
1:33:12again like base the this evidence in the
1:33:15reality of of the situation and not
1:33:17based on trumped up thoughts about
1:33:19yourself, right? Which I that is true.
1:33:21At the same time too, a little bit of
1:33:23positive self-d delusion seems to go a
1:33:25long ways. Couple of caveats to this
1:33:27though. So they found that people who
1:33:29were actually like more depressed though
1:33:31or even anxious actually tended to have
1:33:33a more accurate view of themselves
1:33:35unfortunately, right? So there is a
1:33:38little bit of truth to that saying like
1:33:40oh smart people are depressed, right?
1:33:41Because it's like they they kind of do
1:33:43see themselves more accurately.
1:33:44>> You know, you know what drives me crazy
1:33:46is like every time somebody's really
1:33:47pessimistic and you tell them stop being
1:33:50pessimistic, they're like I'm not
1:33:51pessimistic, I'm realistic. Like that
1:33:54that is always a pessimist default
1:33:56defense. Just being realistic. Yeah.
1:33:58>> And I [ __ ] hate that the data shows
1:34:00that they're correct.
1:34:01>> Yeah. Well, I mean, so what if you're
1:34:03right? You're miserable.
1:34:04>> Exactly. Exactly. [laughter]
1:34:05>> Right. Like like believe what's what's
1:34:07useful, not true type of thing, right?
1:34:09Like we've talked about that a lot.
1:34:10There's a kernel of of appeal in there
1:34:12almost that you could say, right? Like
1:34:14you could be a little bit delusional
1:34:15about yourself. And we've already said
1:34:16that yeah, if you you can kind of trick
1:34:18yourself for a little bit.
1:34:19Another though important caveat to this
1:34:21too though is the kind of durability of
1:34:24that stability I guess comes from actual
1:34:27evidence already being there to begin
1:34:29with. Like you kind of have to be
1:34:31someone with a a healthy self-esteem and
1:34:34evidence
1:34:36to be able to benefit from that
1:34:38delusional slight delusional positivity
1:34:40that you have about yourself. Okay? So,
1:34:42like let's say a brain surgeon or
1:34:43something like that who just thinks
1:34:44they're awesome, you know, and they're
1:34:48super smart and all of this. Well,
1:34:49there's a little bit of truth to that
1:34:50already. They might be a little bit
1:34:52inflated in that, but there's already
1:34:53something underneath that. It it goes
1:34:55back to like this doesn't help the
1:34:57people who are already in a just a
1:34:59horrible place. You can't delude
1:35:01yourself from a horrible place. So there
1:35:03does still have to be kind of like that
1:35:04baseline of realistic evidence
1:35:06underneath all of this before this
1:35:07actually holds
1:35:09>> before the delusion actually benefits
1:35:11>> actually benefits you in a healthy way.
1:35:13Okay.
1:35:13>> That's so ironic.
1:35:14>> Isn't that weird?
1:35:15>> It's like the the people who don't need
1:35:17to be delusional are the ones who
1:35:18benefit from it.
1:35:19>> Yeah.
1:35:20>> And the ones who could kind of use the
1:35:21delusion, it just makes them feel worse.
1:35:24>> So it's a cruel fact of life, I guess.
1:35:26>> The rich get richer. Yeah.
1:35:28>> As usual. I mean, this reminds me a lot
1:35:29of of Daniel Gilbert's research. He
1:35:32found a very similar thing around
1:35:33happiness which is that happy people
1:35:35tend to be slightly delusional and that
1:35:38depressed people tend to be pretty
1:35:40accurate in how they see the [laughter]
1:35:41world and how they see themselves. Um he
1:35:44called it the psychological immune
1:35:45system. We kind of need to be moderately
1:35:50delusional on the positive side to keep
1:35:53ourselves motivated and functional and I
1:35:56guess taking risks that day-to-day life
1:35:58requires. Taking the social risks, the
1:36:00physical risk, the financial risk that
1:36:02that life requires. I mean, we're all a
1:36:04little bit narcissistic, right? We kind
1:36:06of have to be. Absolutely.
1:36:08>> If you did just look around and like and
1:36:10see reality for what it was at every
1:36:12single second of every single day, that
1:36:14would be tough. It would be rough. Yeah,
1:36:16it it's but it is important to note that
1:36:20there is a sweet spot here, right? Like
1:36:22it's the optimal amount of delusion is
1:36:26is more than zero, but it is it is still
1:36:28a small amount, right? You don't want to
1:36:30be like full-fledged delusional
1:36:33thinking you're the queen of England and
1:36:35you know that you're going to cure
1:36:36cancer with a bottle of snake oil.
1:36:38Basically, what we've covered here,
1:36:40we've covered Bura's research, right?
1:36:42Confidence starts in a specific domain
1:36:45and then once you achieve it in that
1:36:46domain, you accumulate the evidence in
1:36:48that that domain, it then kind of bleeds
1:36:51out into other areas of your life and
1:36:53and it makes it more achievable in other
1:36:54areas. But that accumulation of evidence
1:36:57within that single domain, it really has
1:37:00to happen in a particular way. The most
1:37:01important method to do it is through
1:37:03actual action and experience. But you
1:37:06can also accumulate it through watching
1:37:08other people do it, through being told
1:37:10and persuaded by people you admire that
1:37:11you can do it. But most importantly,
1:37:13that evidence cannot be bullshitted. You
1:37:15cannot fake the evidence. You cannot put
1:37:18it on easy mode and convince yourself
1:37:20that you're an expert. Like you actually
1:37:22have to genuinely challenge yourself,
1:37:25put yourself in situations that have
1:37:26real stakes and then also pursue
1:37:30confidence in something that you have
1:37:31control over, that you actually affect
1:37:33the outcome in a significant way. And so
1:37:36these are the fundamental principles of
1:37:38building confidence. If that wasn't
1:37:40already complicated enough, as you just
1:37:42covered, there's a whole attribution
1:37:44process to this, which is that you could
1:37:47do something amazing, but if you don't
1:37:48believe you're responsible for doing it,
1:37:50or if you think you just got lucky or if
1:37:53you think that it doesn't really matter,
1:37:55you're not going to benefit from that
1:37:57evidence. You're not going to get that
1:37:58that confidence boost. And so
1:38:01attribution is a big part of this. And
1:38:03what we're going to find is that we make
1:38:05attribution errors all the time. And
1:38:08that's what we're going to get into in
1:38:09chapter 3, the ways that we all
1:38:11misattribute
1:38:13the effects of our actions. And this is
1:38:17going to get into everybody's favorite
1:38:18topics. We're going to talk about
1:38:20narcissism. We're going to talk about
1:38:22imposttor syndrome. We're going to talk
1:38:24about overestimating yourself,
1:38:25underestimating yourself, like
1:38:27completely missing the clues to your own
1:38:29abilities. Things that all of us have
1:38:31experienced. And it turns out that it's
1:38:34actually very difficult, I think, to be
1:38:37realistic about your own skills and your
1:38:40own competence around a lot of things.
1:38:42And we're going to kick it off with
1:38:46maybe my favorite story we've ever done,
1:38:48Unsolved. I can't believe this is a true
1:38:50story. I'm so excited to tell it. It's
1:38:54utterly incredible.
1:38:57Stay right there. More Solved coming up
1:38:59after this. This episode is brought to
1:39:02you by Factor. Confidence is hard to
1:39:04fake, especially when you feel like
1:39:06garbage. You skip lunch, you run on
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1:40:25Let's jump back into it.
1:40:31Her name was Florence Foster Jenkins and
1:40:33she might have been the most
1:40:35delusionally overconfident person who
1:40:36ever lived. I love this story, Drew. I
1:40:38don't totally know why I love it. It is
1:40:40so absurd and just ridiculous, but I do
1:40:44think it proves a really important point
1:40:47that is important for this episode. So,
1:40:49Florence, she was born in 1868 in
1:40:52Pennsylvania. Her father was extremely
1:40:54wealthy and rich, and it turned out that
1:40:57she was actually a child prodigy at
1:40:58piano. So, she competed in a bunch of
1:41:01competitions, was, you know, lauded and
1:41:03celebrated. But at age 15, she eloped
1:41:08with a 30-year-old guy and got married
1:41:11to him. Shocker, that guy gave her
1:41:13syphilis, and so she left him.
1:41:15[laughter]
1:41:18But in the process, her father disowned
1:41:20her. And so she ended up moving to New
1:41:23York City where she was this broke,
1:41:26single, sypholytic
1:41:29woman who gave piano lessons to survive.
1:41:32And this went on for decades. Now, once
1:41:34she got to her 40s, her father passed
1:41:36away and he left her a lot of money. And
1:41:40once she inherited all of her father's
1:41:42money, she decided that she was going to
1:41:44pursue a lifelong dream of becoming a
1:41:46professional singer. So, she went out,
1:41:48she hired a singing coach, she hired an
1:41:50agent, she hired a manager, she hired an
1:41:52accompanyist, and she started
1:41:54practicing. And it quickly became
1:41:57apparent that she could not carry a tune
1:41:59to save her life. She was completely
1:42:01tonedeaf. She had no rhythm. She was
1:42:04always offbeat, but she had so much
1:42:08money and she was paying people so much
1:42:09to support her singing career that
1:42:12nobody really wanted to tell her.
1:42:13Everybody just kept encouraging her,
1:42:15told her to keep going. So, this went on
1:42:17for a while. She wasn't really getting
1:42:18any better. And it soon became apparent
1:42:22that she couldn't get a gig because she
1:42:24couldn't sing. And so, she decided
1:42:26instead of singing for somebody else's
1:42:28venue, why don't I just create a club
1:42:31myself? And so she founded the Verdie
1:42:33Club. It had over 400 members. It had a
1:42:36lot of members of New York's elite
1:42:38society as part of it. And she started
1:42:41hosting annual charity events,
1:42:43fundraisers, all sorts of things where
1:42:46of course she would sing and she would
1:42:49perform. And again, she ended up in
1:42:51situations where everybody in the
1:42:54audience is there because of her money.
1:42:57Everybody is there because they want to
1:43:00maintain a relationship with her because
1:43:02she has all these connections in high
1:43:03society in New York. And so the fact
1:43:05that she can't carry a tune to save her
1:43:07life, everybody just kind of overlooked
1:43:09it and was polite and applauded. Anyway,
1:43:12this continued to escalate and after a
1:43:15number of years, Florence decided, you
1:43:18know what, I really want to take my
1:43:20singing career to the top. I'm going to
1:43:22sing in Carnegie Hall, the most
1:43:24prestigious venue in the Americas. And
1:43:26so she booked herself at Carnegie Hall
1:43:28and invited all of her friends. It's
1:43:30amazing because this was the 1940s. And
1:43:33at this point, she became a kind of meme
1:43:36before there were even memes. Like word
1:43:38got around that this woman thought she
1:43:40was a professional singer, but she
1:43:42actually couldn't sing. And people
1:43:44thought this was funny, so they just
1:43:46kind of bought tickets because it was
1:43:48funny. So she sold out Carnegie Hall in
1:43:502 hours. There was a waiting list two
1:43:52months long to get a ticket. And when
1:43:55she showed up, she showed up with uh
1:43:57little tinsel angel wings, uh a little
1:44:00cheap plastic tiara, and threw out roses
1:44:02to the audience. And on top of that, she
1:44:05selected the most difficult operas in
1:44:08existence. I have a list here of the
1:44:11pieces she tried to sing. She tried to
1:44:12sing Queen of the Night from Mozart's
1:44:15Magic Flute. She tried to sing Braum.
1:44:17She tried to sing Strauss. These were
1:44:19catastrophically beyond her
1:44:21capabilities. And anytime the audience
1:44:23started bursting into laughter, they
1:44:25just covered it up with more applause.
1:44:27So the end result is a ridiculous
1:44:30situation, which is that Carnegie Hall
1:44:33is being sold out
1:44:35night after night has a waiting list to
1:44:38get in for a woman who can't sing. It
1:44:42shows the absurdity of what happens when
1:44:45confidence goes too far. This is the end
1:44:47result, right? Like if you do just
1:44:50believe in yourself, if you apply the
1:44:51peel fallacy and just blindly believe in
1:44:54yourself with no attribution to reality
1:44:58and just assume that anything you want
1:45:01is going to happen and you are enabled
1:45:04by the world around you, this is the end
1:45:06result
1:45:08is just absolute absurdity.
1:45:11Ridiculousness. So in last chapter we
1:45:13talked about how confidence is built
1:45:15through accumulating evidence and that
1:45:17evidence that's accumulated it must be
1:45:21tethered or mapping to reality. But the
1:45:25complication is that often our
1:45:27understanding of reality is relative
1:45:30based on what the people around us see
1:45:33as reality. Florence Foster Jenkins
1:45:35thought she could sing largely because
1:45:38the people around her continued to let
1:45:40her think she could sing. And so she
1:45:41developed a delusional level of
1:45:44confidence around this one area of life
1:45:46that she was actually [ __ ] terrible
1:45:48at. And this is where we get into
1:45:50trouble. When we are completely
1:45:51miscalibrated towards our actual
1:45:54competence in a specific domain. When we
1:45:57think we are excellent at something, but
1:45:59we're actually terrible at it. Or when
1:46:01we think we're terrible at something,
1:46:02but we're actually excellent. Both of
1:46:04these traps crop up time and time again.
1:46:08We all succumb to them. We all get
1:46:10tricked by them and we all tend to make
1:46:13the same mistake over and over again. If
1:46:15we drastically overestimate our
1:46:18abilities, we will become delusional and
1:46:21narcissistic and completely untethered
1:46:24to reality. And not only will this cause
1:46:27us to fail, but it will cause us to fail
1:46:29in some of the most embarrassing and
1:46:31catastrophic ways. And then if we
1:46:32drastically underestimate our own
1:46:34abilities, then we prevent ourselves
1:46:37from taking action. we hold ourselves
1:46:40back and prevent ourselves from being
1:46:42able to succeed as much as we
1:46:43potentially could. And so it turns out
1:46:45that there's actually a number of
1:46:46mechanisms in our minds that can get out
1:46:49of whack or lose an accurate reading on
1:46:53where our own abilities and our own
1:46:55competence lies. We easily succumb to
1:46:58either overestimating or underestimating
1:47:00ourselves in certain domains. And when
1:47:02we overestimate or underestimate
1:47:04ourselves, our confidence works against
1:47:05us rather than for us. Okay. So, the
1:47:08most common of these is the Dunning
1:47:10Krueger effect. And a lot of people have
1:47:11probably heard of this one, right? And
1:47:12it's what Florence fell victim to here.
1:47:15This is when uh somebody who's really
1:47:16incompetent thinks they're actually
1:47:18competent or like a stupid person thinks
1:47:20they're really smart or an incapable
1:47:22person thinks they're capable with
1:47:23something, right? A lot of times too,
1:47:25it's when capable people don't realize
1:47:27how capable they are. They think they're
1:47:28incapable or stupid or whatever it is,
1:47:30right? Okay. So, there were two
1:47:32researchers who figured this out back in
1:47:34the 90s, Dunning and Krueger. That's why
1:47:36it's called the Dunning Krueger effect,
1:47:37right? And what they did is they had
1:47:39this study where they brought students
1:47:40in and they gave them all sorts of
1:47:42different tests on like logic and
1:47:43grammar and humor. Before they gave them
1:47:45their scores, they had them rate
1:47:46themselves. What they found was pretty
1:47:48interesting is that people who scored
1:47:50low on these different tests, like the
1:47:52bottom 25%, they thought they actually
1:47:54scored in like the top 30%, 30 or 40%.
1:47:57Right? They overestimated their ability
1:47:58by that on all these different tests.
1:48:00Some of the people who scored higher too
1:48:01thought they scored lower and all that.
1:48:02The the main finding is that incompetent
1:48:05people think they're way more competent
1:48:07than they are. Dumb people think they're
1:48:08smarter than they actually are. The
1:48:10conclusion they came to out of this was
1:48:13that the skills you need to do a task
1:48:16are the exact same skills that you need
1:48:18to assess that task to evaluate how good
1:48:21it is. Right? So if you don't actually
1:48:22have those skills in the first place,
1:48:24you can't evaluate yourself accurately,
1:48:27which is exactly what we've been talking
1:48:28about. It's like you need accurate
1:48:30evidence, right? In order to have real
1:48:32confidence,
1:48:33>> you know so little that you don't know
1:48:35what you don't know.
1:48:35>> Exactly. Kind of like the beginner's
1:48:36fallacy. A lot of times you start out
1:48:38and you figure out something and you
1:48:39think you know everything about it. I do
1:48:40this all the time. Like I get into one
1:48:41little thing. I'm like, "Oh, I know
1:48:42everything about this." The thing is
1:48:45though is that once you get trained in
1:48:47this a little bit or like once you are
1:48:49shown that you can correct that evidence
1:48:52back to what it was, right? I didn't
1:48:53realize this too, but the story that
1:48:54that kicked this whole thing off for
1:48:56them. It happened in Pittsburgh. Another
1:48:58Pennsylvania uh reference here. It was
1:49:00this guy MacArthur Wheeler. He robbed a
1:49:02couple of banks in Pittsburgh in the mid
1:49:0490s. He was on camera. He got caught and
1:49:08the police show him the He's like
1:49:09denying it. The police show him the
1:49:11footage with him on it and he said, "But
1:49:13I wore the juice." And they're like,
1:49:15"What the hell are you talking about?"
1:49:18The guy rubbed lemon juice on his face
1:49:20thinking that would hide him from the
1:49:22cameras.
1:49:23>> Okay.
1:49:23>> Okay. So it's like his incompetence and
1:49:26robbery was only matched by his
1:49:27incompetence and not noticing what he
1:49:30didn't know basically like not knowing
1:49:32what he didn't know.
1:49:32>> He was so scientifically illiterate it
1:49:35made him confident.
1:49:36>> Yes. He he knew so little about this
1:49:38that he was so sure about it. Okay.
1:49:40That's the Dunning Krueger effect.
1:49:41>> One of my favorite quotes ever. It comes
1:49:43from Bert and Russell and he said, "The
1:49:44whole problem with the world is that
1:49:46idiots are so sure of themselves and
1:49:49smart people are so full of doubt." And
1:49:52I always think about that when I come
1:49:54across the Dunning Krueger.
1:49:55>> There there's interesting too. There's a
1:49:56there's a medical condition which is if
1:49:58someone has a brain injury that
1:50:00paralyzes them on one side, sometimes
1:50:02they will not even realize that they're
1:50:04paralyzed. You can ask them. They're
1:50:06like, "Hey, can you grab that with your
1:50:07left hand?" When their left hand is
1:50:08paralyzed and they're like, "Man, I just
1:50:09don't really feel like it right now."
1:50:11You know,
1:50:11>> that's so weird.
1:50:12>> They will convince themselves to that
1:50:14degree. They have an actual medical
1:50:15condition. Well, there's people without
1:50:17medical conditions who can convince
1:50:18themselves of just as many absurdities,
1:50:21right? Again though, what they did find
1:50:23too in one of the studies that they did,
1:50:24they took all those those people who
1:50:26scored really low like in the bottom 25%
1:50:29and they retrained them on some logic
1:50:31tasks and then gave them another logic
1:50:32assessment. After that, they were much
1:50:35more accurate in assessing themselves.
1:50:38It's a really simple fix. To bring this
1:50:40back to the attribution piece that we
1:50:41talked about, to effectively build
1:50:44confidence in your life, you need to be
1:50:45able to accurately attribute the results
1:50:48of your actions to yourself. And if
1:50:50you're just an idiot and don't
1:50:52understand anything, then you're not
1:50:54going to have an accurate attribution.
1:50:56You don't know what actually produced
1:50:57the result. You don't know how much of
1:50:59it you were responsible for, how much
1:51:01was just luck. And because you don't
1:51:03know any of these things, you probably
1:51:04just assume you're awesome. and with
1:51:08without any basis in reality whatsoever.
1:51:10But then as you build up that knowledge
1:51:12and that understanding of what you're
1:51:14doing, you start realizing all the
1:51:16different variables and factors and all
1:51:18the different ways that you could
1:51:19potentially mess something up or that
1:51:21you could be better and that actually in
1:51:24a sense lowers your sense of confidence,
1:51:27but it makes it more realistic.
1:51:28>> Yeah. But it's all in that attribution
1:51:29like you misattribute your own ability
1:51:31and then you misattribute uh the actual
1:51:34assessment of your ability in that. So
1:51:36yeah, that's there's the mismatch there.
1:51:37You're right. Yeah, it's just kind of
1:51:39funny, too. Just one little little
1:51:40tidbit in that original uh Dunning
1:51:43Krueger study, they ended it with a
1:51:46little joke that said, "This article may
1:51:48contain faulty logic, methodological
1:51:50errors, or poor communication. Let us
1:51:52assure our readers that to the extent
1:51:54this article is imperfect, it is not a
1:51:56sin we have committed knowingly."
1:51:58[laughter]
1:51:58>> So they just came out and said, "We
1:52:00maybe we did the same thing."
1:52:01>> Very ironic. Yeah.
1:52:02>> Yeah. Yeah. Which I thought was kind of
1:52:04funny. So yeah. So the second
1:52:05misattribution error that I want to talk
1:52:07about is another very common one which
1:52:10is imposter syndrome. And interestingly
1:52:12there's not a whole lot of research and
1:52:14literature around imposter syndrome
1:52:15which I find very fascinating especially
1:52:17given like in our industry like it is
1:52:19becoming a pretty hot topic. I mean
1:52:21there's so many prominent examples of
1:52:24imposttor syndrome. You you see this all
1:52:26the time of just like insanely
1:52:28successful
1:52:30prestigious award-winning people who are
1:52:32like I got lucky. Like I don't
1:52:34understand why how this is happening.
1:52:36One of them that I've written about
1:52:38before is Maya Angelou. You know, she
1:52:40published 11 books. She won the
1:52:41Presidential Medal of Freedom. She has
1:52:43three Grammys, a poem read at Bill
1:52:45Clinton's inauguration. She wrote a
1:52:47feature film screenplay, directed
1:52:48another. She collaborated with Martin
1:52:50Luther King Jr. on the civil rights
1:52:52movement. She was nominated for multiple
1:52:54Pulitzer Prizes. Is by any neutral
1:52:56measure, she's one of the most
1:52:57accomplished American writers of the
1:53:0020th century. But it's interesting
1:53:01because apparently before publishing
1:53:03each book, she tells people, she says,
1:53:05"Each time I send a book to the
1:53:07publisher, I think to myself, uhoh,
1:53:10they're finally going to find out.
1:53:12They're going to find me out every book
1:53:14with that. Yeah,
1:53:15>> this was all luck. I had nothing to do
1:53:17with it." So imposter syndrome, I think,
1:53:19is really interesting because in a lot
1:53:20of ways, it's kind of the inverse of the
1:53:22Dunning Krueger effect. With the Dunning
1:53:23Krueger, you're so ignorant about the
1:53:25domain that you're in that you kind of
1:53:26just naively adopt some beliefs that
1:53:29overestimate yourself in that domain.
1:53:31You don't understand what goes into it.
1:53:33So, it seems simple to you, so you just
1:53:35assume you're going to be good at it.
1:53:37Whereas the imposttor syndrome is kind
1:53:38of the reverse where you are so
1:53:41thoroughly educated in your domain and
1:53:44you are so unbelievably aware of all of
1:53:47the variables and factors and different
1:53:50luck and chance that goes into a thing
1:53:52that you can't help but look at it and
1:53:54say how did this happen? Like why me?
1:53:59Right? You know, we talked about
1:54:00building confidence through accumulating
1:54:02evidence and that evidence is
1:54:04accumulated by breaking things down into
1:54:06small task and then slowly building up.
1:54:08The process that you go through when you
1:54:10do that is this process of like starting
1:54:12out like, okay, I only know a little, so
1:54:14I'm going to get a little bit better and
1:54:15then I'm going to get a little bit
1:54:16better. It's kind of like compound
1:54:18interest, right? like you just slowly
1:54:20over the course of years you accumulate
1:54:21all this knowledge and understanding and
1:54:23competence and our brains are calibrated
1:54:26in such a way that that learning curve
1:54:28kind of happens at like a steady rate
1:54:30over a period of time. I think what
1:54:32happens with imposttor syndrome is when
1:54:34the results start to vastly outstrip the
1:54:38effort. Like I went through this when
1:54:40subtle art not giving a [ __ ] took off. I
1:54:42went through a period of pretty intense
1:54:44imposture syndrome because it's like I
1:54:47was just I mean you were there. I was
1:54:48just a [ __ ] dude with a blog and like
1:54:51posting a bunch of [ __ ] on Facebook and
1:54:53next thing I know I'm like number one in
1:54:5612 different countries. I'm being
1:54:57invited to speak in front of thousands
1:54:59of people. I'm being invited to like
1:55:02Fortune 500 companies to speak to
1:55:04executive teams and I'm like, what am I
1:55:07doing here? This is an accident. You're
1:55:09like 32, 33.
1:55:11>> Yeah, I was 32 years old. Yeah. And it
1:55:13again it's another miscalibration right
1:55:16of like I assumed my my improvement and
1:55:20my progress in terms of competence was
1:55:22like pretty steady over a number of
1:55:24years and the real world results that I
1:55:27received reflected that steady
1:55:30inconsistent improvement and then all of
1:55:32a sudden you get this like 10x or 100x
1:55:35jump and it's like well I didn't get 100
1:55:37times better but my results just got 100
1:55:40times better so something's wrong.
1:55:42either I got lucky or somebody made a
1:55:45mistake around here. And I think in
1:55:47essence that is what imposture syndrome
1:55:49is. It's like it's this feeling of like
1:55:51okay I'm good but I'm not that good. I'm
1:55:53I'm sure myAngelou like was like why am
1:55:56I getting invited to the president's
1:55:58inauguration? Why am I being like handed
1:56:00all these awards? It's a mismatch I
1:56:03think in proportion. Yeah. Yeah. The
1:56:05results outstrip your perceived
1:56:07competence there. That that makes sense
1:56:08to me. You know what I mean? Because
1:56:10like Yeah. your results like they like
1:56:11you said your results 100x but your
1:56:13abilities were like you were still the
1:56:15same guy. Right.
1:56:16>> Right. Yeah. What happened in my case
1:56:19and I think this is kind of maybe how I
1:56:21got over imposter syndrome is I
1:56:24eventually just recognized that the
1:56:25industry or the area that I'm in that
1:56:28that curve is extremely exponential.
1:56:31When you're kind of far down on the
1:56:34curve a 5% improvement results in a 5%
1:56:37increased result. But like once you get
1:56:40up towards the top of the curve, once
1:56:42you go from like 98th percentile to 99th
1:56:45percentile, that's not a 1% jump. That's
1:56:48like a 500% jump. And then when you go
1:56:50from 99th percentile to 99.5 percentile,
1:56:53that's another 500% jump. Right? So
1:56:55ironically, I think it is just having an
1:56:59accurate understanding of the domain
1:57:01that I'm in reoriented me appropriately
1:57:05to be like, "Oh, okay. No, this actually
1:57:07makes sense. I'm not this crazy imposter
1:57:09who like randomly
1:57:10>> it's the nature of the industry point.
1:57:12Yeah.
1:57:12>> You don't necessarily have to experience
1:57:14these huge results to experience
1:57:16imposter syndrome either. A lot of times
1:57:17people even see it as a sign of progress
1:57:20because you probably are pushing
1:57:21yourself just a little bit even too and
1:57:23you're in a new situation where you're
1:57:25like oo I don't know if I belong here.
1:57:26That's maybe a good sign. Some people
1:57:28see it as a good sign. I would see it as
1:57:29a good sign too. If you if you think
1:57:31you're an imposttor in a situation it's
1:57:32probably a good sign that you're at
1:57:34least paying attention, right? You're
1:57:36paying attention to what's going on
1:57:37around you. like I'm pushing myself
1:57:38maybe into a new territory or something
1:57:40like that and maybe it's probably good
1:57:42to have a little bit of that. It's
1:57:43definitely better than Dunn in Krueger.
1:57:45>> Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. I've been in
1:57:47rooms with like a lot of extremely
1:57:49successful people and my experience
1:57:54generally is that most of them feel this
1:57:56way. It is interesting that at the top
1:57:59of the pyramid most of the people are
1:58:01like, "How did I get up here? I'm just a
1:58:04guy with a blog or I I just went where
1:58:07they told me to. Whereas when you go to
1:58:08the bottom of the pyramid, you run into
1:58:10Dunning Krueger. You run into people who
1:58:12like think they're the next big thing.
1:58:14John Steinbeck had this amazing quote uh
1:58:16about Americans. He said, "The problem
1:58:18with America is that everyone who's poor
1:58:20thinks that they were just an unlucky
1:58:22millionaire." Anecdotally, like I've
1:58:24seen this quite a bit. When I lived in
1:58:25New York City, I had a neighbor who was
1:58:28one of the top researchers at McKenzie.
1:58:31McKenzie, I mean, you know, they work
1:58:33with all the biggest companies and
1:58:35corporations in the world. And I
1:58:38remember I had dinner with him once and
1:58:39he told like the most fascinating thing.
1:58:41He said that he was actually when he was
1:58:42there, he was in charge of like one of
1:58:44the larger research projects um across
1:58:47all their client companies of really
1:58:50trying to identify top performers very
1:58:53early on. How can you correctly identify
1:58:55maybe a future CEO or a future seuite
1:58:59executive um or a future like brilliant
1:59:02researcher
1:59:03straight out of college? And so they ran
1:59:05like tons of studies and experiments and
1:59:08tracked people for I think like a decade
1:59:10across lots of different companies. And
1:59:13he said that the conclusion that came
1:59:15back is that there are two ingredients
1:59:18that generally have to go together. All
1:59:22of the superstars had both of these
1:59:24ingredients at the same time. And he
1:59:26said the first one was they were
1:59:27obsessive overachievers and
1:59:29perfectionist. The second trait was they
1:59:32chronically underestimated themselves.
1:59:34He described it to me as he said like uh
1:59:37overachievers with crippling
1:59:38insecurities.
1:59:39>> Yeah. Yeah. Just a neurotic ball of net
1:59:41mess. It's basically people who are like
1:59:44excellent at what they they like
1:59:45obsessively pursue excellence and they
1:59:47always think everything they do sucks.
1:59:49He's like, "They're miserable people,
1:59:50but like they will make a great CEO one
1:59:53day." [laughter] Corporate America, the
1:59:55little research they have done on
1:59:57imposter syndrome, they do find that um
2:00:00it's not that these imposters actually
2:00:02underperform. They just expect to
2:00:03underperform. And generally speaking,
2:00:05they're no different than anybody else
2:00:07on any measure that they give, all
2:00:09right, or that they've they've been
2:00:10tested on. The real attribute is is that
2:00:13the bad outcomes, they attribute those
2:00:15to their ability. And then the good
2:00:17outcomes they usually attribute to luck
2:00:19or circumstance. There's a couple good
2:00:21things too. They cheat less. Imposters
2:00:23cheat less. Yeah. People who feel like
2:00:24their imposters cheat less because
2:00:26they're like they're trying to prove
2:00:26themselves all the time, right? There's
2:00:28two different types of imposter
2:00:29syndrome. You have the true imposters
2:00:31who really just they really do think
2:00:33that. It's probably these people at
2:00:34McKenzie. They really think they are
2:00:35imposters. They really do have a
2:00:37negative self-evaluation. And then they
2:00:39have what they call these strategic
2:00:40imposters, which I kind of like this.
2:00:42>> Oh, they like downplay.
2:00:43>> They downplay it because it's more of a
2:00:44social saving and face type of thing.
2:00:46Like They actually are accurate in their
2:00:48assessments, but they just downplay as
2:00:50kind of a socially acceptable kind
2:00:54showing how humble I am. Right.
2:00:56>> You you mentioned something a few
2:00:58minutes ago that I I want to double
2:00:59click on because I do think it's
2:01:00important. I don't want to let it just
2:01:01pass because it is actually really
2:01:03important. You pointed out you said like
2:01:04anytime you are put in a situation that
2:01:07maybe stretches you beyond your current
2:01:09level of competence, it is natural and
2:01:12expected that you should feel a little
2:01:14bit imposterish. Right? And you you see
2:01:16this a lot, you know, people who get
2:01:18maybe a big raise or big promotion or
2:01:20starting a new career or new company or
2:01:22whatever. I've seen this with friends
2:01:23with like when they become parents for
2:01:25the first time, they're like, I don't
2:01:27know what the [ __ ] I'm doing. Like, why
2:01:29is anybody trusting me to like take care
2:01:31of this thing? It's a very natural
2:01:33response. There's that old quadrant
2:01:34thing, right, where you start at
2:01:36unconscious incompetence, then you go to
2:01:38conscious incompetence, then conscious
2:01:39conscious competence, then unconscious
2:01:41competence. you are um being thrust back
2:01:44into the quadrant of conscious
2:01:46incompetence. You you are suddenly very
2:01:48aware of all the things you don't
2:01:49understand and you all the skills you
2:01:51have not yet adopted. But that
2:01:54discomfort and that feeling is what
2:01:56forces you to adopt those skills.
2:01:59>> That's a healthy place to be. That's
2:02:00where growth happens.
2:02:01>> Yeah. The closest thing we have to like
2:02:02a mechanism for it, it's called the
2:02:04spotlight effect, right? We overestimate
2:02:06how much we think people are paying
2:02:07attention to us, right? And they've done
2:02:09various different studies on this.
2:02:10Basically, that's kind of the underlying
2:02:11me mechanism is that we overestimate,
2:02:13oh, everybody's looking at me. I I got
2:02:15this new job, you know, I got this
2:02:16promotion, now everybody's looking at
2:02:18me. When it's like everybody's kind of
2:02:19like, oh, yeah, he's there. Cool. Moving
2:02:22on. People tend to overestimate this
2:02:23one. There's this kind of like cool
2:02:24study they did where uh it was is back
2:02:26in the 2000s where they had people put
2:02:28on a Barry Manalo uh shirt, which for
2:02:31college kids back then, it was like that
2:02:32was embarrassing, right?
2:02:33>> Let's go Barry Manalo.
2:02:34>> That was embarrassing for them. And they
2:02:36predicted about half of the people um
2:02:38who put this on thought, "Oh yeah,
2:02:39everybody's looking at me and making fun
2:02:41of me." It was only about a quarter of
2:02:42the people, not not half. So it's just a
2:02:46simple example of how we overestimate.
2:02:48You probably remember this. I did a
2:02:50video a few years ago about the
2:02:51spotlight effect. I went down to the
2:02:52Venice boardwalk in a chicken suit. I
2:02:54delivered the entire video in the
2:02:55chicken suit. Nobody stopped me. Nobody
2:02:58said anything. Nobody cared. The whole
2:03:00video is about how like nobody [ __ ]
2:03:01cares. Nobody's nobody's paying
2:03:03attention. Everybody's going to forget
2:03:05the spotlight effect thing is important
2:03:07because again a lot of our understanding
2:03:10of what is reality, right? What is
2:03:13evidence is socially based, you know? So
2:03:16if we assume everybody's looking at us
2:03:18and expecting certain things from us
2:03:20falsely, then we can draw the wrong
2:03:23conclusions about our own competence.
2:03:24I've seen a handful of people in our
2:03:27industry who have like very publicly
2:03:29said that imposter syndrome is like not
2:03:31a thing and you should never feel it.
2:03:33And I just think that's like the most
2:03:34[ __ ] up
2:03:36>> unrealistic.
2:03:37>> That's a really good point.
2:03:37>> Unrealistic. Because if you are the type
2:03:39of person who never feels imposter
2:03:41syndrome, never feels like you need to
2:03:43learn more and grow to earn the spot
2:03:45that you're in, there's another name for
2:03:47that, and that is our next
2:03:48miscalibration, which is narcissism.
2:03:50This is the internet's favorite pet
2:03:51subject at the moment. I think the first
2:03:53thing to understand about narcissism is
2:03:55that it's a little bit more nuanced than
2:03:58the lay person probably assumes. I think
2:04:00these days narcissism is often just
2:04:03interchanged with the word selfishness,
2:04:05right? You know, people are like, "That
2:04:07person is selfish. They must be a
2:04:09narcissist." Narcissistic traits are
2:04:10actually there's a lot more subtlety
2:04:12going on than just being a dick and
2:04:16overestimating yourself. A useful
2:04:17example here, arguably one of the
2:04:19greatest chess players to ever live, was
2:04:21uh a prodigy from America named Bobby
2:04:23Fischer. What I hear said a lot is that
2:04:26Kasparov had the best career. Bobby
2:04:28Fischer had the highest peak. In 1972,
2:04:30he became the world champion. He
2:04:31defeated the uh Soviet Union's champion,
2:04:34Boris Spaskey. He was very big because
2:04:36it was height of the cold war and
2:04:37everything. But Bobby Fischer was like a
2:04:39very enigmatic person. As soon as he won
2:04:42the world championship, he completely
2:04:43disappeared like just went off grid. And
2:04:45then he refused to play again.
2:04:48[laughter] Then when people and then
2:04:50when the chess chess federation like
2:04:51really pushed him to defend his title,
2:04:54he kept nitpicking problems with the
2:04:56game formats with uh the way the
2:04:58tournament was going to be hosted, the
2:04:59scoring systems. There was always some
2:05:02technical technicality that he could
2:05:04point to for why it was unfair that he
2:05:07would have to play under those
2:05:08conditions. And so he ended up never
2:05:10playing again. He ended up vacating his
2:05:13world championship and he actually
2:05:14retired from chess completely. And
2:05:16what's interesting is that once he lost
2:05:19that kind of domain expertise of chess,
2:05:23the rest of his life unraveled. Like he
2:05:25had been a child prodigy. He was one of
2:05:26those kids like I mean he was playing
2:05:28chess professionally since he was like
2:05:29[ __ ] 12 years old. So he was not a
2:05:31balanced person. And once chess was
2:05:34removed from his life, he didn't really
2:05:35have anything else to fall back on in
2:05:37terms of self-efficacy or a well-rounded
2:05:40identity. Uh and so he he spiraled. He
2:05:43he became a little bit of a crackpot
2:05:46conspiracy theorist. He would go on
2:05:50radio stations in random countries and
2:05:53uh say crazy things. He got arrested in
2:05:55Japan. He had his passport revoked.
2:05:58Basically, Iceland eventually like
2:06:02allowed him to live there because that's
2:06:03where he won his world championship. And
2:06:06he died there at 64 completely alone. no
2:06:09friends, no family, kind of forgotten by
2:06:13the world. You and I discussed this
2:06:14before the episode. We settled on him as
2:06:16an example here because there's plenty
2:06:18of selfish [ __ ] that we could have
2:06:20picked here, right? But I think Bobby
2:06:23Fischer is an interesting example in
2:06:26that
2:06:27narcissism, it's not about the
2:06:29selfishness and it's not necessarily
2:06:31even about overestimating yourself
2:06:34because Bobby Fischer was legitimately
2:06:36the best in the world at what he did.
2:06:39But he was narcissistic because he could
2:06:41not tolerate ego threats. He could not
2:06:44tolerate criticism. He could not
2:06:46tolerate negative feedback or negative
2:06:48judgment. And so if the Dunning Krueger
2:06:51is just somebody who's very ignorant and
2:06:53assumes they're much better than they
2:06:55actually are, an imposttor syndrome is
2:06:57somebody who is so aware of all the
2:07:00factors that went into their success
2:07:01that they they underestimate themselves
2:07:04or maybe feel a little bit less
2:07:06confident than their competence uh
2:07:08reflects. Narcissism is just a person
2:07:11who is constitutionally incapable of
2:07:14accepting the negative feedback into
2:07:17that calibration system. And so the only
2:07:19evidence they receive is the positive.
2:07:22And so it just it pumps them up
2:07:25endlessly in kind of a delusional
2:07:27self-confidence that is actually
2:07:30incredibly fragile. It can be derailed
2:07:33in a single moment. It must be defended
2:07:36at all times and it's actually makes for
2:07:40a very miserable person in a in a person
2:07:43who's very miserable to be around. I
2:07:44think it's very important to to stay on
2:07:46narcissism for a bit here. Not just
2:07:48because of the miscalibration thing and
2:07:50that's what this chapter is about, but
2:07:52more practically just because so many
2:07:54people mistake confidence for narcissism
2:07:58and vice versa. I've done a many series
2:08:00of videos on Instagram about the
2:08:02difference between confidence and
2:08:04narcissism. And it's interesting because
2:08:07I know when you look at dating research
2:08:09around narcissism, you see a pretty
2:08:11consistent effect where narcissistic
2:08:13people are genuinely mistaken for being
2:08:15confident and they are judged as being
2:08:17much more attractive in the immediate
2:08:20term, but then after the person gets to
2:08:23know them after a couple dates, they
2:08:25become perceived as extremely
2:08:27unattractive because the fragility shows
2:08:31up. Right? So the narcissist has a lot
2:08:33of self-efficacy. They like have a lot
2:08:36of belief in themselves, but that belief
2:08:38is very tenuous. It's very reliant on
2:08:41external validation and people buying
2:08:44into that frame of reality. And so if
2:08:47anything happens in the narcissist's
2:08:49environment that does not support their
2:08:51delusional self-belief, the narcissist
2:08:54lashes out, attacks the person,
2:08:56undermines the person, refuses to hear
2:08:58certain things, refuses to accept
2:09:00feedback, and ultimately finds ways to
2:09:02kind of sabotage the situation. This is
2:09:04also why I tell people that the fastest
2:09:06way to distinguish between a
2:09:07narcissistic person and a confident
2:09:09person is to simply give them critical
2:09:11feedback. Just tell them no. just say,
2:09:14"No, I actually think that's a bad
2:09:15idea." A narcissist will lash out.
2:09:17They'll get very defensive. They'll get
2:09:19very angry. They'll attack you. They'll
2:09:22tell you that you're an idiot, that your
2:09:24idea is stupid. A confident person will
2:09:26actually, you know, even if they're a
2:09:28little bit hurt,
2:09:30they'll want to hear more. They'll say,
2:09:32"Oh, interesting. Tell me more about
2:09:33that. Why why do you think that?" Even
2:09:35if they don't agree with you, they will
2:09:37respect your opinion. But a narcissist,
2:09:39because their self-efficacy is so
2:09:44tenuous, they can't stand for you to
2:09:46have a different opinion. Your opinion
2:09:48must be like either rejected or changed.
2:09:51It's because they've staked all of that
2:09:53on on that external validation, right?
2:09:56Like their whole self-regard is staked
2:09:59on that. So any threat to that is very
2:10:02that's very threatening. It's very
2:10:04dangerous for them because if they
2:10:05accept that then what do they have left?
2:10:07there is nothing left. It's kind of the
2:10:09opposite of the selfmastery that that
2:10:10Banduro talked about, right? It's it's
2:10:13not based in any real world experience.
2:10:15It's just based on that external drip of
2:10:18external validation that they have. I
2:10:20think what is also distinct about
2:10:22narcissism versus a Dunning Krueger or
2:10:24imposter syndrome is it is extremely
2:10:27socially validated, right? like like a
2:10:30Dunning Krueger person, they might
2:10:32overestimate their own abilities, but
2:10:34it's not because they think they they're
2:10:35a special superior person. They're just
2:10:38clueless, right? They're just they think
2:10:40they're good at a thing that they're not
2:10:41good at. Whereas a narcissist, they need
2:10:44to believe that they are extremely good
2:10:46at a thing because there's also this
2:10:50narrative piece of I'm better than these
2:10:53other people. I'm special. I deserve
2:10:56special treatment. And so they need to
2:10:57feel superior to others. And that is
2:11:01also part of the miscalibration, right?
2:11:04Because it's like if every social
2:11:05interaction you go into, you have to
2:11:08feel superior or better than others,
2:11:11then
2:11:13by default, you're never going to get
2:11:14accurate feedback from the world about
2:11:16where you actually stand. And so you're
2:11:18never going to build real confidence.
2:11:20Like an actual confident person would be
2:11:22able to walk into a room be like, "Well,
2:11:24I hope I'm better than these other
2:11:25people. I hope I'm good at this thing. I
2:11:27think I'm good at this thing, but if I
2:11:30lose, that's fine. I'm just going to
2:11:31learn from it. I'm going to improve. A
2:11:33narcissist is going to look at it and
2:11:34they're just they're not going to be
2:11:36able to tolerate the thought of being
2:11:38inferior.
2:11:39>> But that's just one type of narcissism,
2:11:41right?
2:11:41>> Yes.
2:11:42>> And that's the most common one we think
2:11:43of when we when when people use the term
2:11:45narcissist in just the general sense,
2:11:48that's what they usually mean.
2:11:49>> So, there's two types of narcissism.
2:11:52There's the grandiose narcissist, which
2:11:53is the classical narcissist. the
2:11:55narcissist who believes I'm better than
2:11:56everybody else, so give me special
2:11:58treatment. But then there's also the
2:12:00vulnerable narcissist who also has a
2:12:03delusional belief that they are somehow
2:12:05worse off than everybody else, that they
2:12:07are uniquely victimized, that there's
2:12:10something especially unlucky about their
2:12:13existence and therefore they deserve
2:12:15special treatment and attention.
2:12:16>> Right. Right. So the commonality is I
2:12:18deserve something special. I deserve
2:12:20something. I'm entitled to something.
2:12:22>> Exactly. It's the entitlement. Both are
2:12:24based on a completely inaccurate
2:12:27uh measurement of self versus others.
2:12:29>> All of it is externally based. All of
2:12:31it's the validation comes from the the
2:12:33outside.
2:12:34>> Yes. And so the grandiose narcissist has
2:12:36kind of this endless craving for other
2:12:38people to validate how great they are.
2:12:40Whereas a vulnerable narcissist has this
2:12:42inexhaustible craving for other people
2:12:44to validate how [ __ ] they are, how
2:12:48unlucky and unfortunate they are, how
2:12:50victimized they are. So you get this
2:12:52really [ __ ] up situation with
2:12:53vulnerable narcissists where they will
2:12:54like actually put themselves in
2:12:57positions to be taken advantage of and
2:12:59to be victimized because that feeds
2:13:02their own narrative of how special and
2:13:04how much attention they deserve.
2:13:06>> Just goes, you know, it's so [snorts]
2:13:07wild. We just we have to have a
2:13:09consistent story no matter how [ __ ] it
2:13:10is, right?
2:13:11>> Yes.
2:13:11>> That's [laughter] I Yeah, I don't know.
2:13:14>> We would rather be miserable than
2:13:16uncertain.
2:13:17>> Yeah. Do you find yourself around a
2:13:19spending a lot of time around
2:13:20narcissists these days? I know you've
2:13:22talked before that you know you've there
2:13:24definitely were a lot of narcissists in
2:13:25your lives and I'll admit I've had some
2:13:28narcissism at different. We're all a
2:13:30little bit narcissistic.
2:13:31>> I I I went through a phase where I think
2:13:33I was a bit narcissistic. Today I've
2:13:36developed like a pretty strong allergy
2:13:39to narcissistic people. like I I feel
2:13:42like I spot them pretty quickly and I I
2:13:44have zero hesitation of like why but you
2:13:49know coming back to
2:13:52kind of my story my situation you know I
2:13:54mentioned earlier that I never felt like
2:13:56I developed that domain confidence when
2:13:59I was young you know the video game
2:14:01thing obviously didn't really pan out
2:14:04the music thing it gave me a little bit
2:14:06of confidence for a little while but
2:14:07then like as soon as I tried to to take
2:14:10it professionally and went to music
2:14:11school like I actually felt incredibly
2:14:13inadequate and then I ended up quitting
2:14:15which also didn't feel very good. I
2:14:17actually think one of the reasons I got
2:14:20into self-help so much and I think this
2:14:22is probably true about a lot of people
2:14:24is I did feel so just broadly insecure
2:14:28across all of my life. I felt insecure
2:14:30in school. I felt insecure socially. I
2:14:33felt insecure romantically. I mentioned
2:14:35earlier I went through this phase where
2:14:36I did try all the self-help stuff. I did
2:14:38try all the affirmations and I did try
2:14:40like the body, you know, the body
2:14:42language [ __ ] and and all that. And I
2:14:43got into the dating coaching stuff and I
2:14:46look back at that period and I was like
2:14:48pretty narcissistic. Like I was very
2:14:50self-absorbed. It was all positive
2:14:52thinking all the time. I was very kind
2:14:54of like had this grandiosity.
2:14:57Thought irrationally highly of myself
2:14:59and it just made me an [ __ ] to a lot
2:15:01of people. [laughter]
2:15:03And I think two things happened
2:15:04concurrently in my 20s. one is is that I
2:15:07discovered that I actually did have
2:15:09quite a bit of talent and skill for
2:15:13communicating with people, relating to
2:15:15people and then also for writing and I
2:15:18did develop a lot of domain confidence
2:15:20in those two areas and then
2:15:23simultaneously I realized that you know
2:15:25I ended up hurting a lot of people that
2:15:28I cared about just from like being such
2:15:30a selfish prick. And it it's one of
2:15:33those classic cases of like, okay, you
2:15:36know, eventually all all of your failed
2:15:38relationships, the only thing they have
2:15:39in common is you, right? So, it's like,
2:15:41>> you built some evidence.
2:15:42>> Yes. Yes, I definitely built some
2:15:44evidence. [laughter] I'm like, okay,
2:15:46I've like really pissed off half a dozen
2:15:49people I care about in the exact same
2:15:51way. I think I'm the problem. Kind of
2:15:53the the confluence of those two things.
2:15:54One was like actually building some
2:15:56genuine confidence and and competence in
2:15:58some areas of my life. And then
2:16:00secondly, realizing that I was kind of
2:16:03overcompensating through some
2:16:05narcissistic tendencies and I needed to
2:16:07like chill out a little bit on myself.
2:16:09By the time I got to my late 20s, my
2:16:1130s, I was a little bit well adjusted
2:16:14and had kind of a genuine good
2:16:16self-esteem and self-efficacy. But it it
2:16:19was a messy process to get there. It's a
2:16:21very messy process. I don't know, the
2:16:22older I get and the more
2:16:25the more I see narcissists around or I
2:16:27see narcissistic behavior that I I just
2:16:30feel sorry for them now. And that'll
2:16:31ruffle some feathers cuz I get it. Like
2:16:33they do hurt a lot of people. Like I get
2:16:35that. And I I've went through periods
2:16:37too where I have like probably been a
2:16:39little more narcissistic than I needed
2:16:40to be. But I when it's taken too far, I
2:16:42get it. It hurts people. But it's like
2:16:44there is some sort of they weren't
2:16:46taught how how to build that evidence.
2:16:49>> It's a coping mechanism. They're hurt
2:16:51people hurting people, right? There's
2:16:52that old saying, hurt people, hurt
2:16:53people, right? Right.
2:16:54>> I'm not saying to dismiss their
2:16:55behavior. I'm not saying it excuses it.
2:16:57It explains it to some degree.
2:16:59>> And so, I don't know, the older I get,
2:17:00the more I'm just like, man, I feel
2:17:01sorry for these people, you know? It's
2:17:03kind of sad.
2:17:03>> It's a dead end.
2:17:04>> Yeah. Yeah, it is. It is a dead end. I
2:17:06don't know. Maybe it is because I used
2:17:08to kind of be like that, but I I just
2:17:09try to stay away as much as possible.
2:17:11>> Yeah. And I still think that's the right
2:17:12the right move, but you can still feel
2:17:14sorry for somebody for it.
2:17:15>> Why do you think it narcissism is having
2:17:17such a big moment right now? I mean,
2:17:19it's like I I will say this from our
2:17:21content. There's like an insatiable
2:17:23demand at the moment for narcissism
2:17:24content, and I find it interesting
2:17:27because this has not been true up until
2:17:29maybe like 3 or 4 years ago.
2:17:31>> I think this is one reason. I don't know
2:17:32if that's the reason or a big reason.
2:17:35I do think a lot of it is people don't
2:17:38want to take some responsibility for
2:17:39their own behavior, too. And it's a
2:17:41little bit of a maybe not projection,
2:17:43but it's just a way for them to deflect
2:17:45some responsibility around things. I
2:17:47again, I get it. And I know these people
2:17:48can be hurtful and do a lot of harm.
2:17:51That's that's true. But I I also think
2:17:54it's just a way for people to excuse
2:17:57their own they didn't take
2:17:59responsibility in that relationship
2:18:00necessarily. People just have different
2:18:02wants and needs sometimes and and some
2:18:04people interpret that as selfishness and
2:18:06then that gets taken to like you said
2:18:07that gets taken to narcissism. So
2:18:09instead of saying this person wanted
2:18:11something different than I wanted and
2:18:12they held a boundary. Sometimes that's
2:18:14the thing too. It was like when people
2:18:15hold boundaries,
2:18:17other people see that as selfishness and
2:18:19they can't handle that. Oh, this person
2:18:21is a narcissist because they told me
2:18:23what they wanted and they didn't want
2:18:24the same thing I wanted. I think there's
2:18:26some of that. I don't know if that's the
2:18:27full story. I think there's a lot of
2:18:28that going on. It's just easier to call
2:18:30somebody a narcissist rather than saying
2:18:31this, I was hurt by this and it's
2:18:34nobody's fault
2:18:34>> than to have to deal with like the icky
2:18:36messy
2:18:38feelings of, you know, dealing with
2:18:40other people.
2:18:40>> It's a complication and dealing with
2:18:41other people who have different wants
2:18:42than I do. I don't know what how does
2:18:44that land for you?
2:18:45>> I have a very cynical theory around
2:18:47this. Extremely cynical theory. I don't
2:18:49know if I believe this, but it is
2:18:51something that has occurred to me,
2:18:52especially given like how popular this
2:18:54content is specifically around
2:18:57social media, like short form content.
2:18:59So, when you look at research around
2:19:01social media, social media power users
2:19:05tend to be pretty high in narcissistic
2:19:07traits. So, narcissists by and large are
2:19:11on social media the most. They tend to
2:19:13engage the most on social media. They
2:19:15tend to post the most on social media.
2:19:17And narcissists
2:19:20don't think they're narcissists.
2:19:22>> Yeah.
2:19:22>> They think everybody else is a
2:19:24narcissist.
2:19:24>> Oh, okay. And so what I think is that
2:19:27you have these social platforms where
2:19:30their power users are pretty high in
2:19:32narcissistic traits. And because they're
2:19:35high in narcissistic traits, they
2:19:36probably struggle in a lot of their
2:19:37relationships in their lives. And
2:19:39because they they're high in
2:19:40narcissistic traits, they don't take
2:19:41responsibility for those struggles and
2:19:43they blame everybody else. And so when
2:19:45they see content about narcissism,
2:19:47they're like, "That's why. That's why
2:19:49I'm surrounded by narcissists." And so
2:19:52they like and they share and then I just
2:19:53make another video.
2:19:56>> That is pretty cynical, [laughter]
2:19:59>> but but it makes a lot of sense.
2:20:00>> And we make money, Drew.
2:20:01>> That's true. Yeah. I use that term very
2:20:04carefully anymore. I don't go around
2:20:06people narcissist.
2:20:06>> It's so overused. It's so overused right
2:20:09now.
2:20:09>> Especially like if you're talking about
2:20:10narcissistic personality disorder,
2:20:12that's a whole different ball game.
2:20:13>> Whole different ball game. If you're
2:20:13just calling somebody a run-of-the-mill
2:20:14narcissist, even though too, I don't
2:20:16even use that. I'll call people an
2:20:17[ __ ] you know? Yes. A lot. I like I
2:20:19like that word way more than being a
2:20:21narcissist because sometimes people are
2:20:22just an [ __ ] you know?
2:20:23>> And it comes back to that subtlety,
2:20:25right? Like selfishness is not
2:20:27necessarily narcissism. Like plenty of
2:20:29non-narcissists behave selfishly at
2:20:31times, having a big ego, being
2:20:33overconfident, right? Like lots of
2:20:35people who are not narcissists are
2:20:38overconfident at times or have a big ego
2:20:40at times. Narcissism very specifically,
2:20:43it is that combination of the
2:20:45entitlement plus inability to accept
2:20:49feedback. It's like those two things
2:20:52wrapped together.
2:20:53>> If you're not good at establishing your
2:20:55own boundaries, then other people who
2:20:57establish boundaries are threatening to
2:20:58you and that can look like narcissism to
2:21:01some people. So again, it's just like, I
2:21:03wanted this person to do something, they
2:21:04said no. They're they're a selfish
2:21:06narcissistic [ __ ] I think that comes
2:21:08up more than people realize. So just to
2:21:11to summarize, you know, leading into
2:21:14this chapter, we talked about how
2:21:15confidence is built by accumulating
2:21:16evidence. That evidence is dependent on
2:21:20it being realistic. It's based in
2:21:22reality. This chapter we talked about
2:21:24how if you can't calibrate what is
2:21:26realistic or what is reality, right?
2:21:29Like if you have some sort of delusional
2:21:31perception around yourself or the world
2:21:34or if you're surrounded by people who
2:21:36enable a delusional perception like
2:21:38Florence Jenkins, then you will not get
2:21:40an accurate level of confidence to your
2:21:43competence. I do think it is worth
2:21:45stating plainly that the goal in life in
2:21:48general is not necessarily to be
2:21:50confident all the time, right? Like you
2:21:52shouldn't be confident about things
2:21:54you're bad at. That would harm you. That
2:21:56would be bad. whereas you should be
2:21:58confident about things you're very good
2:22:00at. So the the goal with confidence
2:22:02isn't to accumulate as much confidence
2:22:04as possible. The goal with confidence is
2:22:06to have an accurate perception of your
2:22:08own competence in your own abilities in
2:22:10each situation. And so if you want to
2:22:12feel confident in more situations, then
2:22:14you should aim to be more competent in
2:22:16more situations. So in this chapter, we
2:22:19covered a few different ways that we get
2:22:21miscalibrated. There's Dunning Krueger,
2:22:23which is we're just so clueless that we
2:22:25assume we know way more than we do.
2:22:27which ironically then prevents us from
2:22:29learning because we feel like we don't
2:22:30need to learn anything. We talked about
2:22:32imposter syndrome which is somebody who
2:22:34is put into a new situation. Maybe the
2:22:36the results of their efforts have
2:22:39outstripped their perception of their
2:22:41own confidence and so they they feel
2:22:43like they don't deserve it or they're
2:22:44not ready for it. But I think you and I
2:22:46both agree that this is generally it's
2:22:48either a a high quality problem or b
2:22:51it's just you know part of the payment
2:22:53of growth. you know, it just it's a
2:22:55natural side effect of putting yourself
2:22:57in new situations and expanding your
2:22:59your own abilities. And then, of course,
2:23:00we talked about narcissism, which is
2:23:02less about the confidence in general.
2:23:04It's more about the inability to accept
2:23:07feedback, and the social narrative
2:23:10around entitlement, special treatment.
2:23:13You have grandiose narcissists who have
2:23:15just delusional levels of self-belief,
2:23:17self-efficacy coming out of their ears.
2:23:19They probably believe they're amazing at
2:23:20things that they're actually terrible
2:23:22at, much like Florence Jenkins. Whereas
2:23:25you have vulnerable narcissists who
2:23:26chronically underestimate themselves
2:23:28because that gets them special treatment
2:23:30and that gets them validation from
2:23:32others and so they refuse to accept
2:23:35feedback from the world to maintain that
2:23:37self-perception. It's funny cuz at the
2:23:39at the top of the episode you kind of
2:23:41joked. You're like, I've never really
2:23:42worried about confidence. I just do
2:23:44things. [laughter]
2:23:46And sure enough, here we are like 3
2:23:48hours in and it turns out, yeah, you
2:23:50probably shouldn't be worrying so much
2:23:52about how much confidence you have
2:23:54because confidence is downstream of
2:23:57competence. So the goal of confidence
2:23:59isn't to accumulate massive amounts of
2:24:01it. The goal of confidence is to
2:24:04accurately reflect the competence you
2:24:07feel in the world. And when that
2:24:09confidence does not accurately reflect
2:24:11your competence, you suffer. You either
2:24:14overestimate yourself and set yourself
2:24:16up for massive failures and
2:24:19embarrassment or you chronically
2:24:20underestimate yourself and put yourself
2:24:23in a situation where you never realize
2:24:25your potential. You never achieve the
2:24:27things that you could achieve uh and you
2:24:29never live up to maybe some of the goals
2:24:31and dreams you have. This raises a
2:24:33really interesting question because if
2:24:35confidence is domain specific, if it's
2:24:37really just about building evidence
2:24:39about one skill or one situation, how is
2:24:42it that some people seem confident no
2:24:43matter what situation they walk into?
2:24:46Some people just seem to be pretty okay
2:24:49trying a new thing and understanding
2:24:51that like, hey, I I guess I'll just get
2:24:53good at this. whereas some people like
2:24:56really freak out and become very
2:24:57neurotic and and anxious around any sort
2:25:00of newness or uncertainty. And so up
2:25:02until this point we've talked about how
2:25:05generalized confidence is the way like
2:25:08Norman Vincent Peele espoused isn't
2:25:10really a thing that the route to general
2:25:13confidence is selecting specific domains
2:25:16and accumulating evidence of competence
2:25:18in that domain. It turns out you can
2:25:20build generalized confidence, but that
2:25:22approach to building generalized
2:25:23confidence is a bit counterintuitive.
2:25:25And as we'll see in the next chapter,
2:25:27experts for a long time thought they
2:25:29knew how to build generalized
2:25:30confidence. They kind of bought into the
2:25:32peel fallacy for a while. And if you
2:25:35were born in the last 50 years,
2:25:38it probably [ __ ] you up a little bit
2:25:40as a kid.
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2:26:56All right, we're back. Let's jump back
2:26:58into it.
2:27:04So, a quick [music] recap up to this
2:27:06point. In chapter 1, we talked about how
2:27:09most self-help advice gets confidence
2:27:11completely backwards. This is the PEL
2:27:13fallacy. This idea that you need to feel
2:27:16confident or believe that you're
2:27:17confident before you can actually
2:27:19perform well. Turns out that's not true.
2:27:22In chapter 2, we learned it's actually
2:27:24the reverse. You have to perform well,
2:27:26and that's what builds confidence.
2:27:27Confidence is the output, not the input
2:27:30of high performance. But there are a
2:27:32couple caveats to that building of
2:27:34confidence. For one, confidence is
2:27:37domain specific. Two, you have to build
2:27:40that evidence, but that evidence has to
2:27:41be rooted in reality. Uh, and then in
2:27:45chapter 3, we learned about all of the
2:27:47ways that we misinterpret reality. Let's
2:27:50say we are miscalibrated towards
2:27:53reality. We overestimate ourselves in
2:27:55some situations because of our
2:27:57ignorance. We underestimate ourselves in
2:27:58other situations cuz uh we just assume
2:28:01that we got lucky or that we were in the
2:28:03right place at the right time. And then
2:28:05of course there's all sorts of social
2:28:07comparison aspects, different
2:28:10narcissistic tendencies that can warp
2:28:12our perception of how good we are at at
2:28:15something. And that can give the
2:28:16illusion of confidence. Now, that last
2:28:18point is really important because in
2:28:20this chapter, we're going to take a
2:28:23little bit of a detour to talk about
2:28:25self-esteem because self-esteem
2:28:28is very relevant to this discussion of
2:28:31confidence. And up until this point,
2:28:33we've really been [ __ ] on the
2:28:35self-help industry and traditional
2:28:37self-help advice and the Peel fallacy
2:28:39and how it's gotten it backwards. But it
2:28:42turns out that conventional psychology
2:28:44also got this backwards for a good 60 or
2:28:4870 years as well. And their version of
2:28:50getting this backwards was the
2:28:52self-esteem movement. So, I want to take
2:28:54a few minutes and just kind of briefly
2:28:56catch our listeners up on what
2:28:58self-esteem is, where the idea came
2:29:00from, uh, how prevalent it became for a
2:29:04number of decades, how it infiltrated
2:29:06public policy quite a bit, and what the
2:29:09repercussions of those mistakes ended up
2:29:12being because it it's going to relate
2:29:14back to a lot of this discussion of
2:29:16confidence that we've had. So, the
2:29:17concept of self-esteem, it goes all the
2:29:19way back to the early days of
2:29:20psychology. I I I think from the
2:29:22beginning everybody kind of had this
2:29:24intuitive sense that people seem to have
2:29:27a relationship with themsel and if you
2:29:29have a good relationship with yourself
2:29:30where if you tend to have positive
2:29:32feelings and thoughts about yourself you
2:29:35probably are doing better in life versus
2:29:37if you have bad thoughts and feelings
2:29:39about yourself. William James was one of
2:29:42the first people that really tried to
2:29:43pin down this concept and put a
2:29:45framework around it. And he simply
2:29:48defined self-esteem as your successes
2:29:51divided by your pretentions.
2:29:54Essentially, what you achieved divided
2:29:56by what you expect of yourself. And so,
2:29:59if you have insanely irrationally high
2:30:02expectations of yourself, you're
2:30:04probably going to feel bad about
2:30:05yourself quite often. Whereas, if you
2:30:07have very low expectations for yourself
2:30:09and you actually achieve quite a bit,
2:30:10you're going to feel very good about
2:30:12yourself. Now, this little equation,
2:30:14it's fun, but I think it's more
2:30:15descriptive than prescriptive. Like, it
2:30:18doesn't really tell us what to do,
2:30:20right? Like, it does it mean we should
2:30:23have low expectations for ourselves? I
2:30:25don't know if that's necessarily the
2:30:26case. Does it tell us that we should go
2:30:28out and achieve as much as possible? I
2:30:31don't know if that's necessarily great
2:30:32advice either. The thing that William
2:30:34James intuitively got correct was that
2:30:36he saw self-esteem as an output of your
2:30:39actions and behaviors, not an input of
2:30:42your actions and behaviors. As we're
2:30:43going to see, this is going to change
2:30:45pretty soon because the next generation
2:30:47of psychologists came along um starting
2:30:50with Carl Rogers in the 40s and 50s. Uh
2:30:52and Carl Rogers, you know, Rogerian
2:30:54therapy, we've talked about on some
2:30:56previous episodes, you know, his big
2:30:57thing was was this concept of of
2:31:00unconditional positive regard. So what
2:31:02he noticed in his clinical practices is
2:31:05that generally people who came in with a
2:31:07lot of problems there was an intense
2:31:09amount of self-judgment and and an an
2:31:11intense amount of shame and they they
2:31:14seemed extremely critical about
2:31:15themselves and often in in very
2:31:17irrational and unfair ways towards
2:31:19themselves. And so Carl Rogers was just
2:31:21very focused on getting people to accept
2:31:24themselves, right? Like just tolerate
2:31:26their own flaws and faults. And sure
2:31:28enough he discovered that if you were
2:31:30able to do this uh it it then seemed to
2:31:33free people up to uh actually improve
2:31:36their lives in some meaningful way. Now
2:31:39around the same time Abraham Maslo was
2:31:41doing his early work uh around
2:31:43humanistic psychology and he was playing
2:31:46around with uh different hierarchies of
2:31:49psychological needs. You know most
2:31:50people at this point are pretty familiar
2:31:52with Maslo's uh pyramid. Turns out the
2:31:55pyramid is not very empirical. It was
2:31:58just kind of a throwaway framework that
2:32:01he jotted down in a notebook, but that's
2:32:03a podcast for another day. But Maslo was
2:32:06the first person who really put
2:32:09self-esteem as a need. Uh, and not only
2:32:12that, but he he put it like pretty high
2:32:14in the hierarchy. And so he saw it as a
2:32:17preerequisite
2:32:19to high human functioning. And I think
2:32:21this is uh him and Rogers are kind of
2:32:23the first point where you see this
2:32:25argument of like no self-esteem is not
2:32:28the result of living a good life. It is
2:32:31necessary to live a good life. And so
2:32:34this is where the Peele fallacy creeps
2:32:36in. And I have not seen any direct
2:32:39evidence that Norman Vincent Peele
2:32:40pulled from Maslo and Rogers, but Maslo
2:32:43and Rogers were prominent and doing a
2:32:45lot of their work in the 1940s when
2:32:47Peele was going through all of his
2:32:49insecurities and anxieties. So, it would
2:32:51not surprise me if Peele kind of pulled
2:32:54his framework off of Maslo and Rogers
2:32:58and then
2:33:00uh popularized it to the mainstream.
2:33:02>> Yeah. Either way, it was kind of in the
2:33:03zeitgeist, right? That was just kind of
2:33:05the the thought that was coming up in
2:33:08the culture for sure.
2:33:08>> So once we get into the 1950s, uh you
2:33:12start getting into uh some of the work
2:33:15by Nathaniel Brandon and he wrote a very
2:33:18popular book called the six pillars of
2:33:19self-esteem. Um and this is where you
2:33:22really see the concept just like take
2:33:24hold. And Brandon and a number of uh
2:33:27researchers and psychologists around him
2:33:29like really strongly believe that if you
2:33:31could just make people feel good about
2:33:34themselves uh then you would see all
2:33:37sorts of good positive outcomes happen
2:33:40as a downstream effect of that. It it
2:33:42was really just the Rogerian idea of
2:33:44unconditional positive self-regard on
2:33:46steroids. uh to the point where it's
2:33:49it's there there was a strong uh moral
2:33:52inclination of like we should be
2:33:54implementing this into schools, we
2:33:56should be implementing this into
2:33:58prisons, we should be this should be
2:34:00part of our public policy like giving
2:34:02people high self-esteem, making sure
2:34:05that everybody in society feels good
2:34:07about themselves. So then that will
2:34:10enable them to go out uh and achieve
2:34:12great things. And so by the time you get
2:34:14to the 1970s and 80s, this is just the
2:34:17water that everybody's swimming in.
2:34:19Self-esteem and the Peele fallacy, not
2:34:21only is it dominating the personal
2:34:23growth and and self-help spaces, uh it
2:34:27is now just kind of uh accepted
2:34:30orthodoxy of psychologists and is being
2:34:33aggressively pushed uh into public
2:34:36policy. So one simple example of this is
2:34:38that in the 1980s there was a California
2:34:40assemblyman by the name of John
2:34:42Vascanelos and uh he was the chairman of
2:34:45the ways and means committee uh and
2:34:47controlled the entire
2:34:49uh California educational state budget.
2:34:53Now Vascanelis became a bit of a
2:34:55self-help junkie. He attended Eselin
2:34:57Institute. He got really into the human
2:34:58potential movement. Uh I believe he went
2:35:00to like a Wayne Dyer seminar or
2:35:02something and and he just got completely
2:35:04converted. He was like, "This changed my
2:35:06life. Everybody needs to do this." And
2:35:09he actually had quite a bit of power in
2:35:11the state of California to implement a
2:35:13lot of these changes. So in 1986, he
2:35:16managed to create the California Task
2:35:17Force to promote self-esteem and
2:35:19personal and social responsibility.
2:35:22>> God, you got to love bureaucrats.
2:35:24>> These names so good. So this task force
2:35:27commissioned UC professors to research
2:35:30the link between self-esteem and six
2:35:32social problems. crime, drug abuse, teen
2:35:35pregnancy, child abuse, welfare
2:35:37dependency, and academic failure. And so
2:35:39the California state system started
2:35:42implementing this research. They started
2:35:43really digging into everything and
2:35:45really trying to see like where these
2:35:48interventions helped and and and what
2:35:50sort of difference they were making. So
2:35:52the researchers studied uh for over 3
2:35:55years and they found nothing. There was
2:35:58no link, there was no connection, there
2:36:00was no causation. They couldn't find
2:36:02anything. The problem was was that the
2:36:04guy who controlled their budget wanted
2:36:07there to be a link. He had basically
2:36:08staked his career on there being a
2:36:11connection between self-esteem and all
2:36:13these pro-social outcomes. So in 1989,
2:36:16the the task force published its public
2:36:18report and the press release declared a
2:36:21strong relationship between self-esteem
2:36:22and social problems had been quote
2:36:24unquote definitely confirmed. The
2:36:26statement itself was false. It did not
2:36:29reflect the data accurately. The
2:36:30researchers who allowed it to go through
2:36:33knew it was false, but they also knew
2:36:36Vasin Cells controlled the University of
2:36:39California state budget.
2:36:41>> This was crazy. I didn't know that. I I
2:36:42knew that, you know, the self-esteem
2:36:44movement started in California. Like all
2:36:46I've heard that story. I did not know
2:36:48there was like a systematic kind of
2:36:50papering over of the actual results at
2:36:52the time. They knew it was false and
2:36:54they kept pushing it.
2:36:55>> I think this is wild. This is one of the
2:36:57few times that that political corruption
2:37:00has has intersected with psychology
2:37:03[laughter]
2:37:04and actually had very real a very real
2:37:07impact and effect um on the world. This
2:37:11task force report from California, it
2:37:13went on to become the bestselling state
2:37:16document in history. It sold over 60,000
2:37:19copies. Vaskinelos became a national
2:37:23celebrity. uh he went on countless talk
2:37:26shows. More than 40 California counties
2:37:29formed their own self-esteem task
2:37:30forces. The the ripple effects lasted
2:37:33for decades. What it did is it validated
2:37:36the hypothesis which had been around you
2:37:39know since since the '60s that if you
2:37:43could just make people feel good about
2:37:44themselves then they would perform
2:37:47highly as a result. It's the the Peele
2:37:50fallacy all over again. Well, it's one
2:37:52thing to be like peel and write a book
2:37:54about it, right?
2:37:55>> And then it's another to be a government
2:37:56official and like this is our policy,
2:37:58institute it and scale it to that degree
2:38:01and institutionalize it. So that's what
2:38:03I just found wild. And they did it
2:38:04knowing that it wasn't actually true.
2:38:07That didn't actually work.
2:38:09>> I mean, I don't know about you, we
2:38:10talked a little bit earlier in the
2:38:11episode, you know, you you said that you
2:38:13didn't feel like this stuff was pushed
2:38:15on you.
2:38:15>> I didn't feel like it was like shoved
2:38:16down my throat in that way. Yeah. I do
2:38:18remember like the grade inflation stuff
2:38:20that I do remember being a thing like
2:38:22when I was in middle school like oh
2:38:23everybody's getting A's and B's like
2:38:25this is weird. So I do remember that.
2:38:27>> Yeah, we had great inflation. We had
2:38:29participation trophies. I remember I was
2:38:31horrible at sports and I got a trophy
2:38:33for everything I did which I remember at
2:38:34the time just thinking was ridicul. I'm
2:38:36like why are they giving me a trophy?
2:38:37Like I don't even want to be here.
2:38:39>> Yeah. [laughter] This also could have
2:38:40just been the water I swam in though too
2:38:42and it could have just been like there
2:38:43was a lot of positive regard around
2:38:44because I do remember there were
2:38:46definitely adults around me saying oh
2:38:47you kids are so coddled these days. I do
2:38:49remember that but I just don't remember
2:38:50it being like shoved down my throat like
2:38:52everybody's special and everything like
2:38:53that. Great inflation was definitely
2:38:55there. Um there was a lot of that. So I
2:38:58very specifically cuz I was an
2:38:59underachiever in school and I very
2:39:01specifically remember my teachers
2:39:04telling me
2:39:05>> that I could do anything I wanted that I
2:39:08was brilliant. Anything I dreamed I
2:39:11could accomplish. I just had to believe
2:39:12in myself that like I remember going to
2:39:14school counselors and they were telling
2:39:16you know like
2:39:17>> did you have like assembly speakers come
2:39:18and stuff? I remember that. Okay. Okay.
2:39:20Maybe I'm misremembering just a little
2:39:21bit cuz I remember this now. There was
2:39:23like motivational speakers who would
2:39:24come to our schools. Yeah, we had
2:39:25motivational speakers come. We had uh I
2:39:28remember we Yeah, I mean there was tons
2:39:30of stuff.
2:39:30>> Okay. Yeah. Okay. I might be
2:39:31misremembering this just a little bit.
2:39:32[laughter] Like I think it was a little
2:39:34bit since I was a kid. I didn't know
2:39:35what came before that. So yeah.
2:39:37>> And and to tie this back into some of
2:39:40the research we talked about earlier,
2:39:41right, about the the link between
2:39:43performance and confidence. Remember
2:39:46adults, if you make them feel better
2:39:48about themselves, they will perform a
2:39:50little bit better. Uh kids, they will
2:39:52not.
2:39:53>> Yeah. And in fact, what you find with
2:39:54children and and this is actually a very
2:39:56important point for the for the parents
2:39:58out there when you are uh trying to
2:40:00motivate and validate your kids, it's
2:40:03very important that you validate them
2:40:04for things that they've done, not for
2:40:07things that they are. Because if you
2:40:09tell a kid, you're so smart, you're so
2:40:11great, you can do anything, and they
2:40:14haven't done anything, what you're
2:40:15actually subtly doing is you're creating
2:40:17an incentive for them to not do anything
2:40:19because they're already being rewarded
2:40:21for just existing. And so if they
2:40:23actually try and fail, then they risk
2:40:26losing what they already have. Whereas
2:40:28if you only validate them for the things
2:40:30that they try, then you create an
2:40:32incentive for them to keep trying new
2:40:34things.
2:40:35>> And this is really important. This is
2:40:36something that I I mean it you see it
2:40:38come up a lot with um gifted children.
2:40:41You actually there there's some I I did
2:40:43a YouTube video on this last year, but
2:40:45there's some really interesting research
2:40:46around kids who are who are particularly
2:40:48talented or or uh gifted. It's very
2:40:52common that they get validated way too
2:40:53much when they're young. Uh and so what
2:40:56what happens is that they they actually
2:40:58become demotivated because obviously
2:41:00when when you're young, anything you you
2:41:02try to learn, you're going to fail at.
2:41:04You're going to be bad at it first. And
2:41:06so if you're one of these kids that is
2:41:07just always being told how great you are
2:41:09without doing anything, then you you
2:41:12actually develop some neurosis around
2:41:14trying and failing. You just kind of
2:41:17become a sloth,
2:41:18>> right? Yeah. or perfectionism takes over
2:41:20to the point where you don't act and
2:41:21don't take those risks and Yeah. Yeah.
2:41:23You see that a lot.
2:41:24>> So yeah, we we kind of forget now, but
2:41:27it is it is hard to overstate
2:41:30how big the self-esteem movement got.
2:41:34Like not only did it comprise the entire
2:41:37self-help industry and personal growth
2:41:39industry by the mid '90s, it's a
2:41:41multi-billion dollar industry, but we're
2:41:43talking about education systems across
2:41:46the Western world. We're talking about
2:41:48public policy. We're talking about uh
2:41:50like government bureaucracies are being
2:41:53created. NOS are being created. You're
2:41:56talking about like prison systems,
2:41:58correctional systems,
2:42:00>> corporate programs.
2:42:01>> Corporate programs, seminars, billions
2:42:04and billions of dollars, tens of
2:42:06thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands
2:42:07of jobs are hinging on this idea that if
2:42:10you can make people feel good, they will
2:42:12perform better. The problem was is that
2:42:14the academics
2:42:16quietly knew the math was not mathing.
2:42:19The data was not lining up. It was there
2:42:22was not much strong evidence going on.
2:42:24So around the year 2000, the Association
2:42:27for Psychological Science decided that
2:42:30somebody needed to get to the bottom of
2:42:32this. Somebody needed to like really
2:42:34figure this out. And so they tapped a
2:42:36researcher by the name of Roy
2:42:37Bombmeister at the University of Florida
2:42:39State. And Bombmeister is a superstar.
2:42:42You and I are both fanboys of him. Like
2:42:43anybody who's like if you're a
2:42:45psychologist listening to this, you
2:42:46probably know who BMER is. Uh and if
2:42:49you're not, you're probably you probably
2:42:50don't. But BMER is a a bit of a badass.
2:42:54And he was tapped by the Association of
2:42:57Psychological Science and basically told
2:43:00like, look, you have all the resources
2:43:01you need. We'll give you all the
2:43:03researchers you need to help you get to
2:43:06the bottom of this. Figure this out.
2:43:08like get the data right and and come
2:43:11back to us with with what the reality
2:43:14is, what the effect sizes are. And it's
2:43:16worth noting that that Bombmeister
2:43:18himself fully subscribed to self-esteem.
2:43:21He he was completely bought into the
2:43:23movement, totally bought into the idea
2:43:26uh that that you needed to make people
2:43:27feel better about themselves. And so he
2:43:30took the project on with a lot of pride
2:43:33and gusto. And over the next few years,
2:43:35what he found was basically a nuclear
2:43:40bomb to the self-esteem movement. He
2:43:42published a paper in 2003 and the
2:43:44results pretty much just murdered the
2:43:46self-esteem movement. Like shot it in
2:43:49the [ __ ] face.
2:43:50>> Dead in its tracks. Yeah. Yeah.
2:43:51[laughter] Yeah.
2:43:52>> And it has been dead ever since.
2:43:54>> Yeah. Shot it dead in its tracks more or
2:43:56less. And then um it basically said what
2:43:59we already knew about it though too,
2:44:01right? that that self-esteem really is
2:44:03largely an outcome of success, not the
2:44:06input, not the cause of it. Artificially
2:44:09inflating it, like you said, especially
2:44:10in children, doesn't produce better
2:44:12outcomes, doesn't produce achievement.
2:44:14It actually a lot of times does the
2:44:16opposite, like we've talked about. Um
2:44:18there were two tiny effects that did
2:44:20survive kind of the scrutiny of it,
2:44:21though. One of them was just kind of
2:44:23people with higher self-esteem were a
2:44:24little bit happier. Um and they did they
2:44:27were a bit more um likely to just take
2:44:29action on things like this behavioral
2:44:31activation type things, right? Um but
2:44:34the quote from Bowmeister was it fell
2:44:36short of of what many psychologists had
2:44:39hoped for including himself like you
2:44:40said. So he took a very honest look at
2:44:42this and you know up to that point they
2:44:45he kind of thought that for the past 30
2:44:4740 50 60 years this has been the holy
2:44:49grail of psychology is finding a way to
2:44:51get people to feel better about himself
2:44:52and he just flat out admitted like no
2:44:54that's that's actually wrong. He also
2:44:56found though too interestingly which
2:44:58we've kind of already talked about a
2:45:00connection to narcissism. High
2:45:02self-esteem they found was actually
2:45:04positively associated with a lot of
2:45:06narcissistic traits. And not only that,
2:45:08but when ego is threatened under these
2:45:11circumstances, aggression became
2:45:14actually a lot more common. So somebody
2:45:16who was very high self-esteem staked a
2:45:18lot of their identity on something and
2:45:20you threatened them, they were much more
2:45:22likely to become aggressive out of this.
2:45:24Um I believe they they even did some of
2:45:26these studies in in prison populations.
2:45:28You think about this a little bit. It
2:45:30>> just think about it. If you go into a
2:45:32prison, you're probably actually going
2:45:33to find a lot of people who are very
2:45:34high in self-esteem. They think a lot
2:45:36about themselves, right? And they're
2:45:38also very very aggressive. If you
2:45:40threaten their self-esteem in any way,
2:45:42threaten their identity in any way.
2:45:44Balmeister was one of the first ones to
2:45:45really find that connection there. Uh
2:45:47the conclusion that they really came to
2:45:49though out of this was that it wasn't
2:45:51the level of self-regard that you have,
2:45:52the level of self-esteem that you had
2:45:54that predicted the problems, but like
2:45:56whether or not it was anchored to
2:45:58anything real, which is exactly what
2:45:59we've been talking about this whole
2:46:00time. That evidence building, that
2:46:02mastery experience that you have. If you
2:46:04can link your your self-regard and your
2:46:06self-worth to something that's actually
2:46:08real in the real world that you've done,
2:46:10that's a more durable form of
2:46:11self-esteem and that you don't get all
2:46:13all the aggression and everything with
2:46:14it. If you just pump up self-esteem and
2:46:16don't anchor it to anything real, it
2:46:18becomes very fragile at that point and
2:46:20turns into narcissism. So, this is kind
2:46:22of what they found through the in the
2:46:23early 2000s when they started doing all
2:46:25that. Uh there was another set of
2:46:27researchers too, another couple of them,
2:46:28Crocker and Knight, they basically found
2:46:30that same thing and they said it it
2:46:32self-esteem, it wasn't about the level
2:46:33that you had. It wasn't how much you
2:46:35had, but what you staked it on, what you
2:46:37stake your self-esteem on. So if you tie
2:46:39your self-esteem, if you tie your
2:46:41self-worth
2:46:42um to a specific domain, then any threat
2:46:45to that domain is also a threat on you.
2:46:48Okay? Okay. And this is where you get
2:46:49the like you get a lot of people coming
2:46:51back at you and it can turn into
2:46:52aggression at some point like physical
2:46:54actual physical aggression at some
2:46:55point. What they found is just even
2:46:57ordinary feedback. If you've placed all
2:47:00your self-esteem in this one area and
2:47:01you get ordinary feedback from it, you
2:47:03you'll get very defensive with it too. I
2:47:05don't know about you, but I like that
2:47:07definitely been times in the past where
2:47:08I staked a lot of my self-esteem on
2:47:09being the smart kid or whatever. like I
2:47:11was good in school and like went to grad
2:47:12school and like had this whole identity
2:47:14around being smart and any perceived
2:47:17slight of my intelligence, I would get
2:47:18incredibly defensive about it and even
2:47:20lash out at people sometimes too or just
2:47:22be like, "Oh, [ __ ] you. You don't know.
2:47:23You're dumb. You know, whatever. You
2:47:25don't know what you're talking about."
2:47:26And I had to kind of really sit and
2:47:28wrestle with that for a long time.
2:47:29>> It's interesting because by my
2:47:31definition,
2:47:33>> that's not self-esteem, right? Like if
2:47:35if you're having if you're having to
2:47:37defend yourself
2:47:39>> all the time,
2:47:40>> you don't have a whole lot of
2:47:40self-esteem or
2:47:41>> you don't you clearly don't feel great
2:47:42about yourself. So it is I mean maybe at
2:47:44some point we'll do an episode on
2:47:46self-esteem, but I I've always felt like
2:47:48one of the core issues of self-esteem is
2:47:50has just been a definition problem and a
2:47:52measurement problem. And and it is
2:47:54interesting because if you do go back to
2:47:56some of those original researchers and
2:47:58writers in the the 50s and 60s um they
2:48:02did define it in a much more holistic
2:48:04way or they tried to at least right and
2:48:06and like if you go back and read
2:48:08Nathaniel Brandon like he talked about
2:48:09that self-esteem is it really is a
2:48:12comfort with yourself even when things
2:48:14are not going well um it is it is a a
2:48:18willingness to be different or be
2:48:20rejected or to have your ideas not
2:48:23accepted. did because you feel
2:48:25comfortable enough with yourself, right?
2:48:26And this is often the difficulty with
2:48:28psychology is that when it comes time to
2:48:30measure things,
2:48:32it's very difficult to measure
2:48:34psychological processes and
2:48:36psychological experiences. And so to get
2:48:40some form of measurement, you have to
2:48:41boil things down into like a simple
2:48:43survey. And once you kind of water it
2:48:46down into a survey question, you dilute
2:48:49the concept and you kind of make it a
2:48:52little bit of a a caricature like a
2:48:54cartoon version of what the original
2:48:58kind of philosophical claim was,
2:49:00>> right? I mean, just like with Carl
2:49:02Rogers uh or or Maslo or Young, like
2:49:04they were not they were not advocating
2:49:06>> empirical at all. Yeah.
2:49:08>> But but they were also not advocating
2:49:10for like a a an unrealistic form of
2:49:12self-esteem. They were trying to get at
2:49:14like, hey, you there's needs to be
2:49:16something here that you can that you can
2:49:18rely on that you can lean on.
2:49:19>> Yeah.
2:49:20>> Right.
2:49:21>> Can I go on a tangent really quick?
2:49:22>> I'll allow it. [laughter]
2:49:25>> I mean, we're already on a tangent.
2:49:28>> This comes up a lot. You know, there's a
2:49:29lot of discourse these days around like
2:49:31therapy culture, right? And um one one
2:49:33of the more intelligent things I've seen
2:49:36written about it um came from a writer
2:49:39named Freddy Dbor. And he he he
2:49:41basically made the argument he said that
2:49:43uh therapy concepts you know there's a
2:49:47certain class of ideas and concepts that
2:49:50are very good and healthy on an
2:49:52individual level but they become
2:49:54unhealthy on a social level
2:49:56>> and I could see self-esteem being one of
2:49:58those things cuz when you think about
2:49:59Carl Rogers right like
2:50:01>> I have I have a lot of sympathy and
2:50:04understanding for like where he was
2:50:05coming from you know if he was a
2:50:08clinical psychologist right He's working
2:50:10with individual people. People are
2:50:11coming to him with like massive life
2:50:13issues, huge crises going on in their
2:50:15lives and they're probably coming in
2:50:16being unbelievably harsh on themselves.
2:50:19And so of course he rightly observed
2:50:21which I think all of us have observed
2:50:23the same thing like all of us know
2:50:25somebody in our lives that is
2:50:27irrationally hard on themselves and
2:50:30makes themselves miserable quite
2:50:32frequently because of the amount of
2:50:34self- judgment that they have. And so I
2:50:36think Carl Rogers was just making a very
2:50:38obvious observation of like, "Hey dude,
2:50:40you shouldn't do that so much. You
2:50:42should give yourself a break. Have some
2:50:44love, you know, like if your when your
2:50:46partner [ __ ] up, you don't like scream
2:50:48at them for every little error that they
2:50:50make. Like you you have some compassion,
2:50:53you forgive them, you know, you tell
2:50:54them it's going to be all right. Uh you
2:50:56you you look at the better sides of
2:50:58their their personality. Like why don't
2:50:59you do that for yourself?" That was it.
2:51:02I think with the self-esteem movement is
2:51:03they they tried to take that concept
2:51:05that was true in the micro and then make
2:51:07a macro version of it and it's like well
2:51:09let's just make everybody feel great
2:51:10about themselves and because then
2:51:12clearly it will map you know well onto
2:51:15society and I just think it's one of
2:51:17those uh concepts that it it just
2:51:19doesn't work that way. It was same with
2:51:21peel where he's like this worked for me
2:51:23so it should work for everybody right
2:51:24same yeah whatever it is a a technique a
2:51:28therapeut a therapeutic modality
2:51:29whatever it is
2:51:30>> working on the individual level once you
2:51:32scale it then it just gets perverted
2:51:34that's a definitional problem I think
2:51:35too because everybody has a different
2:51:36definition of it like you said so yeah
2:51:39that's that's an interesting little
2:51:40tangent we went on I'm glad I allowed it
2:51:43[laughter]
2:51:44>> you should feel good about yourself for
2:51:45allowing that
2:51:47>> where this like gets into problems
2:51:50though too. So the Crocker and Knight,
2:51:52the whole thing around um staking your
2:51:54your self-esteem on a single domain
2:51:56somewhere, right? You've also talked
2:51:57about this before too about like
2:51:58diversifying your identity, right? If
2:52:01you do stake your identity on too many
2:52:02things, this is something I definitely
2:52:03realized where like a long time it was
2:52:04just like
2:52:05>> I got to I got to be a smart person or
2:52:07whatever it is, right? And uh that's a
2:52:10very fragile way to live. So you need,
2:52:12you know, maybe there's some
2:52:13relationships you need to stake your
2:52:14identity on as well. Maybe there's other
2:52:16areas, maybe there's hobbies, maybe
2:52:17there's whatever. Um, so yeah, but the
2:52:21the problems you run into though,
2:52:23Crocker and Knight, they identified
2:52:24several areas. The two big ones though
2:52:26really were learning and relationships.
2:52:28So like when you learn when you're
2:52:31learning something, you're staking a lot
2:52:32of your identity on that. Any setbacks
2:52:34on that are like considered huge
2:52:35catastrophic failures at that point. And
2:52:37then you're stupid or you can't learn or
2:52:38you can't do this, you're incompetent.
2:52:40And again, it's just like a catastrophic
2:52:42failure on your part. The other one is
2:52:44relationships though too because at that
2:52:46point what you're doing is you're
2:52:48staking your self-esteem on all of that
2:52:50external validation which we've already
2:52:51talked about too. You're looking for an
2:52:53external source of of a little drip of
2:52:55validation. And when you don't get that
2:52:57boom that's also a catastrophic failure
2:53:00of your identity. Yeah.
2:53:01>> Around that. So there's kind of a a
2:53:03metabolic tax to it too that they've
2:53:05they've come across. You know, like when
2:53:07if your self-image needs this constant
2:53:09defending, there's kind of a low-grade
2:53:11vigilance that's going on and you're
2:53:12always on guard and you're always uh
2:53:14like looking for some external way to to
2:53:17get that validation and it's just it's
2:53:19exhausting. Self-esteem is definitely
2:53:21not what a scratch to be, but that's
2:53:22what we found. Yeah.
2:53:23>> Yeah. Again, it's it's the side effect
2:53:26of getting things right. It's it's not
2:53:29the cause. So, we were raised to believe
2:53:31that self-esteem was something that we
2:53:33could be given, you know, and we could
2:53:35be given it through trophies,
2:53:37compliments, encouragement,
2:53:39uh, great inflation. But what nobody
2:53:42actually told us is that self-esteem
2:53:44that isn't earned doesn't stick. People
2:53:47can tell us all the best things in the
2:53:50world about ourselves, but if we didn't
2:53:51do anything to be told that, it's not
2:53:54actually going to help us. It's not
2:53:56actually going to make us feel better
2:53:57about ourselves. And it turns out in
2:53:59many ways this can backfire. And that
2:54:02backfiring explains I think a lot of the
2:54:06problems that the last few generations
2:54:08have grown up with. So we've taken the
2:54:09self-esteem detour. And I think that's
2:54:12useful as context for what we're going
2:54:14to explain in the rest of this chapter,
2:54:16which is how you actually do build that
2:54:19generalized confidence. Because if you
2:54:22can't delude yourself into feeling
2:54:23confident, as we saw with the Peele
2:54:25fallacy and the self-esteem movement,
2:54:27how the [ __ ] is it that some people just
2:54:29seem to be so self- assured in so many
2:54:32situations? Like, there are generally
2:54:35confident people in the world. We've all
2:54:36met them. We've all been around them.
2:54:38Maybe there have been times in our lives
2:54:40that we've felt that way ourselves. So,
2:54:41where does that come from? How do we get
2:54:44it? If self-esteem is not the way we get
2:54:46it, if if the peel fallacy is not the
2:54:49way we get it, like how do we actually
2:54:50get it? So Bura came back to save the
2:54:53day. In the late 2000s, I think around
2:54:552007208, Bura returned to the concept of
2:54:58self-efficacy, but he added to it. He
2:55:00found a broader, more widely applicable
2:55:03version of self-efficacy. Now, we talked
2:55:07earlier, Drew, about me not patting
2:55:09myself on the back too much, but
2:55:11>> Go ahead. Go ahead. Can I can I just can
2:55:14I just give myself can I just take a
2:55:16victory lap on this one? [laughter]
2:55:20[gasps]
2:55:20>> So I wrote something probably about 12
2:55:2313 years ago. I think it started as a
2:55:25viral article since then. I I post it on
2:55:27social media all the time. One of the
2:55:28drums that I bang on frequently is I say
2:55:32confidence is not an expectation of
2:55:34success. Confidence is a comfort with
2:55:36failure. And that is exactly what
2:55:38Bandura found that generalized
2:55:41confidence it is not feeling like you're
2:55:44going to succeed in every domain you go
2:55:46into. Generalized confidence is a
2:55:49comfort with failure and setback no
2:55:52matter what you do. So one way to think
2:55:54about this right is Bur's original
2:55:56finding was that self-efficacy or
2:55:59confidence can be built only within a
2:56:02domain
2:56:03>> right
2:56:03>> but that domain can be a lot of
2:56:05different things. that domain. It could
2:56:07be woodworking. It could be music. It
2:56:09could be relationship skills. It could
2:56:12be your career path. It could also be
2:56:15managing failure. You could treat
2:56:18managing failure as a skill that you can
2:56:21develop confidence in. And almost
2:56:24magically, if you choose that skill to
2:56:27build confidence around, a tolerance of
2:56:29failure, that makes you confident across
2:56:33the board. That is what allows you to
2:56:35walk into any room and feel self assured
2:56:37and not worry what's going to happen to
2:56:39you cuz you know you can handle the
2:56:41worst case situation. Now Bandura called
2:56:43this coping self-efficacy.
2:56:46I like to think of it as like meta
2:56:48self-efficacy.
2:56:49>> Yeah. Yeah. It's a very meta skill.
2:56:50Yeah.
2:56:51>> Uh because it's almost like if you and I
2:56:53have been drilling towards the core of
2:56:56what confidence is. I think this is we
2:56:59have now just entered the core. Yeah.
2:57:02like this is the base level that if you
2:57:05want to feel confidence across a wide
2:57:07span of areas and experiences in your
2:57:10life. The way to do that is to become
2:57:13comfortable and develop self-efficacy
2:57:15around the tolerance of failure around
2:57:18the tolerance of challenge and setback.
2:57:20And of course there is just I mean this
2:57:23is not new like once you get into
2:57:27accepting and embracing failure like now
2:57:29now you're now you're calling back to to
2:57:31the ancient Greeks and Romans like this
2:57:33is stuff that's been around for
2:57:34thousands of years. Obviously any
2:57:37process of learning requires a certain
2:57:39degree of failure. Any process of growth
2:57:42requires a certain degree of failure and
2:57:44acceptance and tolerance of failure is
2:57:46what drives humility. It's what drives
2:57:48compassion. It's what drives
2:57:50forgiveness. Like so many of the classic
2:57:53virtues of the western world are rooted
2:57:58in a tolerance for failure in an ability
2:58:00to manage and overcome failure. you know
2:58:04when we were doing research the best
2:58:06example I came across of
2:58:09uh like a process to build this meta
2:58:12self-efficacy is um is there's there's a
2:58:15great story about Sarah Blakeley who's
2:58:17the the founder of Spanx billion dollar
2:58:19company um Blakeley had
2:58:22zero entrepreneurial experience before
2:58:25she started the business she had sold
2:58:27fax machines doortodoor for seven years
2:58:30she had faced constant rejection she had
2:58:32no experience in fashion. She had no
2:58:34experience in clothing or textiles. She
2:58:38had no business degree, no connections,
2:58:40no venture capital. She had never
2:58:42started a business before. All she did
2:58:45is one day she cut off the feet of her
2:58:47panty hose, wore them under white pants
2:58:49to a party and realized that she had
2:58:51found a gap in the market, that a bunch
2:58:54of women were really interested and
2:58:56excited about this super simple thing.
2:58:59She called dozens of hosery mills. she
2:59:02was turned down by every single one. Uh
2:59:04and then finally she convinced one to
2:59:06make a prototype and it's, you know,
2:59:09from there the rest is history. But the
2:59:12interesting thing about Blakeley,
2:59:13there's this anecdote that she tells
2:59:16from her childhood that's super
2:59:18fascinating, which is that every day
2:59:20that she came home from school, you
2:59:22know, most parents, I don't know if your
2:59:23parents did this, but mine certainly did
2:59:26not. Uh most parents though when kids
2:59:28come home from school the question they
2:59:30ask is what did you do at school today?
2:59:32Right? Her father asked a different
2:59:34question. He said what did you fail at
2:59:37today every single day? And so she had
2:59:39to come home and tell him something that
2:59:41she tried and failed at. And what this
2:59:43did was it conditioned into her brain
2:59:45that failure is completely normal and
2:59:47okay and actually that that is what you
2:59:50get rewarded for in life. First of all,
2:59:52I'm trying to imagine my parents asking
2:59:54me this question and I'm like I can't I
2:59:55like can't even visualize it. [laughter]
3:00:00>> Yeah. Yeah.
3:00:01>> Second of all, I'm trying to imagine
3:00:03what the hell I would say to them. Uh,
3:00:06you know,
3:00:06>> like my parents would say, you know,
3:00:08tell me one good thing that happened
3:00:09today that was, you know, it's more of a
3:00:11>> it was back to it's all the positive
3:00:12thinking, right?
3:00:13>> Positive thinking, avoidance around it.
3:00:15Yeah. Yeah. I do like to say when I go
3:00:16skiing with my friends, I I I joke a
3:00:19little bit and I say, "If if you don't
3:00:20eat [ __ ] at least once, you're not going
3:00:22hard enough." Yeah.
3:00:23>> Terrible advice. Don't take that. You're
3:00:24going to hurt yourself with it. But
3:00:25[laughter] the the spirit behind the the
3:00:29that idea is definitely there. It's it's
3:00:31a weird upbringing she had for that.
3:00:33It's not a normal thing.
3:00:35>> Very weird,
3:00:35>> right? Yeah.
3:00:36>> I imagine this mindset's pretty common
3:00:38in athletics, right? like I I could see
3:00:40coaches, right, like trying to like
3:00:42really foster this in in athletes, but
3:00:44other than athletics, I really think
3:00:46business is the only area that you see
3:00:47this like widely encouraged. I remember
3:00:50I remember very early on in my career uh
3:00:53where I was like very much struggling to
3:00:55get by like was not making much money
3:00:59trying to like launch products, sell
3:01:00products, like nobody was buying
3:01:02anything. I remember going to a seminar
3:01:04and and this guy got up on stage and he
3:01:06said that if 5% of your customers are
3:01:09not asking for a refund, you're not
3:01:11selling hard enough. And that blew my
3:01:14[ __ ] mind. Blew my [ __ ] mind. I
3:01:17was like, [ __ ] yeah, I'm not doing
3:01:20anything, you know? And it's I don't
3:01:22know like I have personally found and I
3:01:24do think in many ways like business is
3:01:26often a a very great proxy for personal
3:01:30growth and development because it has
3:01:31the financial stakes obviously. So it's
3:01:33like you [ __ ] care and it at the end
3:01:36of the day you [ __ ] your ego like if
3:01:38it's if you're losing money like you
3:01:39just have to leave your ego at the door.
3:01:41It is ruthless in making you re-evaluate
3:01:43like a lot of your own emotional
3:01:45assumptions and dispositions. learning
3:01:47how to accept that what you thought was
3:01:51true is just like not true at all.
3:01:53>> I agree with definitely with that. I
3:01:54think it's it's more accepted in that
3:01:56community and and it's not um it it does
3:01:59hasn't gotten really as distributed
3:02:01throughout other parts of society and
3:02:04culture. You know, we talked about the
3:02:05loop uh back in chapter 2. Um the the
3:02:09competence loop, like getting that
3:02:10started, like you know, there's that
3:02:11chicken and the egg thing. the obstacle
3:02:14to getting that started is rarely like a
3:02:17the belief in the skill. Like a lot of
3:02:19times you're like, "Yeah, I could
3:02:20probably do that." But really what it is
3:02:21is like, "But what if I fail, right?" So
3:02:24I could probably figure that out over
3:02:25time, but a lot of people and including
3:02:27myself with a lot of things, it's like,
3:02:29"Uh, I don't I'm not sure I could handle
3:02:31the failure around this." You're right.
3:02:33There's a high tolerance for that in the
3:02:34business community, in the
3:02:35entrepreneurial community. It for
3:02:37whatever reason, and athletics, too. for
3:02:39whatever reason it just hasn't spread to
3:02:40the other parts of
3:02:41>> you know there there's a like for
3:02:42instance if you grow up in a really
3:02:44difficult background like there's no
3:02:45margin for error
3:02:46>> that's true that's a good point that's a
3:02:47very good point
3:02:48>> like I think about how my wife grew up
3:02:49like she had zero margin for error like
3:02:51she couldn't afford to fail a test or
3:02:55miss a week of school you know like it
3:02:57it is
3:02:58>> it could be catastrophic
3:03:00>> yeah not only that but actually too um
3:03:03if we think about it the default kind of
3:03:05is to just not go there right? Inaction
3:03:09is kind of the default for a good
3:03:12reason. Like it's it's it's less risky.
3:03:14Not taking the risk is actually the
3:03:16better option. Um just from a survival
3:03:18standpoint, inaction really it's not a
3:03:20character flaw. It's kind of what we do.
3:03:22We have to learn to be okay with
3:03:24failure. It's not the other way around.
3:03:25So remember all the like the research on
3:03:27learned helplessness. Y
3:03:29>> um so back in the what was this like the
3:03:3150s and 60s?
3:03:32Yeah, they did they did the research on
3:03:34that and that was Martin Seligman
3:03:35actually too another famous psychologist
3:03:37>> and what they found I don't know how far
3:03:39you want to get into it was the the dog
3:03:42study though where they
3:03:42>> yeah where they shock dogs randomly and
3:03:44they found that if you if there was if
3:03:46it was unpredictable when the dogs would
3:03:47be punished that they just gave up.
3:03:49>> Yeah. Yeah. Um, so that's what the
3:03:51conclusion they made was like, oh, if if
3:03:53the dogs uh didn't know this, just
3:03:55uncertain, unpredictable. They couldn't
3:03:57they couldn't figure out what was going
3:03:58to they couldn't predict what was going
3:04:00to happen. They would just give up,
3:04:01right? In the mid2010s, they actually
3:04:03came back and they said, "Actually, we
3:04:04we got that backwards. The default is to
3:04:07to just not do anything. We actually
3:04:09have to learn that
3:04:11>> to do something
3:04:12>> to do something in the face of failure
3:04:14and uncertainty."
3:04:14>> Yeah.
3:04:15>> So, they had that backwards for like 50
3:04:16years. If I can bring Maslo back for a
3:04:19second, this just occurred to me, like
3:04:22listening to you talk. Let's just accept
3:04:24at face value Maso's hierarchy, which I
3:04:27don't think either of us totally buys
3:04:28into Maso's hierarchy. I don't think
3:04:30even Maslo bought into Maso's hierarchy.
3:04:33>> Just the pyramid actually wasn't his
3:04:34invention. That was that was a marketing
3:04:36thing in the 60s and 70s that came out
3:04:38of that.
3:04:38>> Anyway,
3:04:39>> and and it's it's it was also it was a
3:04:41concept that was revived after he died
3:04:43that he never published himself and he
3:04:46probably never published it because he
3:04:47didn't put a whole lot of
3:04:49>> uh weight on it.
3:04:50>> It was an idea.
3:04:50>> It was just an idea. It was like a
3:04:52throwaway idea that he had to bring back
3:04:54Maso's pyramid because I I do think it
3:04:56is use there's enough truth in it that
3:04:59it can be useful to think about if you
3:05:01think about the lower levels of his
3:05:03pyramid, right? like physiological
3:05:04needs, safety needs, uh, and then
3:05:07community or connection needs, right?
3:05:10Those you can't really risk losing,
3:05:12>> right? Right.
3:05:13>> Those are very high stakes things and
3:05:15those also kind of become the safety net
3:05:18for you to take risks in other areas of
3:05:21your life. So if you do have a stable
3:05:22environment with a loving family and a
3:05:24strong network of friends who are can
3:05:27support you and take care of you that
3:05:29liberates you to take more risk and
3:05:31become more tolerant of fa failure which
3:05:33then builds confidence and self-efficacy
3:05:36and and self-esteem right all the great
3:05:38things. But if you don't have those
3:05:40things in the first place like it's it's
3:05:42actually irrational to risk your
3:05:45financial stability to like become
3:05:48comfortable with failure. We talked
3:05:50about this in the purpose debate we did
3:05:51do a little bit.
3:05:52>> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And you know uh my
3:05:54friend Scott Barry Kaufman has like
3:05:56revised Masow's hierarchy to he revised
3:05:59it into a sailboat but he ba he
3:06:00basically made this differentiation. He
3:06:02said the there is a fundamental
3:06:04difference between the lower levels of
3:06:06the pyramid and the upper levels of the
3:06:07pyramid which is that the lower levels
3:06:08of the pyramid are uh they're protective
3:06:13right you have to have them. If you
3:06:14don't have them you will just suffer and
3:06:18be miserable. Whereas the upper levels
3:06:19of the pyramid are like optional, but
3:06:21they are optimal. They help you
3:06:23flourish. You don't need them, but by
3:06:25pursuing them, they help you flourish.
3:06:26And so that would be your esteem and
3:06:28your uh self-actualization and your
3:06:30sense of purpose and all that stuff. So
3:06:32anyway, that's just something that
3:06:34occurred to me. I mean, I don't want to
3:06:35say self-esteem is a privilege because
3:06:37that feels like it's probably going too
3:06:39far, but it's if you have the
3:06:41opportunity in the safety net in your
3:06:44life where that you can tolerate a lot
3:06:46of failures. Um, to a certain extent
3:06:49that is a privilege position.
3:06:52>> Mhm. [clears throat] Yeah. Yeah. And
3:06:54there's probably some people who can do
3:06:55it without that, but most people are not
3:06:56like that. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That makes
3:06:58sense to me.
3:06:59>> Okay. So we we kind of just established
3:07:01that meta self-efficacy is actually a
3:07:04domain specific competence around
3:07:08failure, right? I actually think it's
3:07:10broader than that though. I think it
3:07:12actually has to do more with
3:07:13uncertainty.
3:07:14>> Like you're you're good at sitting with
3:07:16uncertainty, which failure has a lot of
3:07:18uncertainty around it, right?
3:07:20>> That's very Buddhist [clears throat] of
3:07:21you, Drew Bernie.
3:07:21>> Well, hear me out.
3:07:22>> Okay.
3:07:23>> There's a really rich literature around
3:07:25what they call the intolerance of
3:07:27uncertainty with this, too. Okay. you
3:07:29know, an intolerance of uncertainty.
3:07:31There's kind of like there's cognitive,
3:07:32there's emotional, there's behavioral
3:07:34aspects to it. You think uncertainty is
3:07:36a bad thing. It's a stressful bad thing,
3:07:39right? It's unfair, it's dangerous,
3:07:41whatever.
3:07:41>> Yeah.
3:07:42>> Um, so right there, you you've already
3:07:43kind of pigeon holed yourself into a
3:07:45certain way of dealing with this, right?
3:07:47You have an emotional response to that,
3:07:48too. An aversive emotional response.
3:07:50You're anxious about uncertain things.
3:07:53>> What might happen?
3:07:54>> What might happen? And oh my god,
3:07:56there's a million horrible things that
3:07:57could go wrong in this situation, right?
3:07:59>> Yeah.
3:07:59>> But then you also have all these
3:08:00behavioral responses to that. So what
3:08:03that does, you know, you have those
3:08:04cognitive uh distortions, you have those
3:08:06emotional reactions to it, and that
3:08:07motivates you to engage in a bunch of
3:08:09coping mechanisms around uncertainty
3:08:12that actually just end up making it
3:08:13worse.
3:08:14>> Okay?
3:08:14>> Right. Okay. So for instance, there's
3:08:17like excessive information seeking. you
3:08:19know, the somebody who goes out and
3:08:20researches for
3:08:23whatever months before they can buy a
3:08:25carpet or a rug or something like that,
3:08:26right?
3:08:27>> Um then you have like reassurance
3:08:29seeking. That's a big one. If you're not
3:08:31confident in a relationship, you go to
3:08:32the person, you keep um reass like
3:08:35seeking reassurance from them. Um you
3:08:37avoid the decision altogether. Maybe you
3:08:40keep checking on things. You premature
3:08:41commitment to the safest option. You
3:08:43just see, okay, that's the highest
3:08:45certainty option. I'm gonna go to that
3:08:46with that even if that's not the best
3:08:48situation or the best decision in that
3:08:50situation. Right. Each one of those,
3:08:52okay? Each one of those behaviors that
3:08:54you do, they give you short-term relief
3:08:57from that anxiety of the uncertainty.
3:08:59Right.
3:08:59>> Right.
3:09:00>> But it actually prevents you from
3:09:02discovering that you would have just
3:09:03been fine without having that certainty.
3:09:06>> Wait. So, okay, that that's actually
3:09:07really interesting. So, back in chapter
3:09:092, we talked about the mechanism of
3:09:12building self-efficacy. There were a few
3:09:14factors that were involved and one of
3:09:16which was you needed to be at the edge
3:09:18of your capability and then the other
3:09:20was that you needed to have accurate
3:09:22feedback that was based in reality of
3:09:25like how you performed. And if we're
3:09:27constantly looking for reassurance and
3:09:28for other people to tell us that you're
3:09:30okay, you're doing fine. No, it's going
3:09:32to be fine. Everything's okay. Like
3:09:34here, look, everything's arranged
3:09:35perfectly. What you're doing very subtly
3:09:38is you're robbing yourself of the
3:09:40ability of developing that self-efficacy
3:09:43around uncertainty because you are
3:09:44removing a a you're no longer at the
3:09:47edge of your capability. And then b the
3:09:50the the feedback that's coming back to
3:09:52you is that you need somebody else to
3:09:54reassure you to handle uncertainty. If
3:09:56you look at uncertainty as a skill,
3:09:58you're never developing the skill. It's
3:10:00like you're never taking the training
3:10:01wheels off and so you just you continue
3:10:03to flounder in in a fear of uncertainty.
3:10:07>> Right. Right. You're learning but you're
3:10:08learning in the wrong direction here.
3:10:10>> Yes.
3:10:10>> Because what you're what you're learning
3:10:11is not how to deal with uncertainty.
3:10:14You're learning how to avoid the
3:10:15discomfort of uncertainty.
3:10:18>> Okay.
3:10:18>> Okay.
3:10:19>> That's that's really what you're doing
3:10:20here. And so every time you do that,
3:10:22you're just reinforcing like, "Oh no, I
3:10:24need to avoid this uncertainty by
3:10:26engaging in all these behaviors and all
3:10:29these reassurance seeking behaviors."
3:10:31And so every time that comes back up
3:10:32again, you're just going to engage in
3:10:33that loop over and over again. You're
3:10:35not actually going to get good at
3:10:36sitting with uncertainty.
3:10:38>> You're just avoiding the discomfort of
3:10:39the uncertainty. That's what you're
3:10:40teaching yourself.
3:10:41>> Interesting. That makes sense to me.
3:10:43>> Yeah. So and you know people people who
3:10:45are high in uh the intolerance for
3:10:47uncertainty they actually they and they
3:10:50see this they become less confident over
3:10:52repeated decisions like it's the exact
3:10:54opposite of what they're trying to do
3:10:56right each decision uh rather than
3:10:59generating like that mastery evidence
3:11:00that we talked about is actually
3:11:02draining your confidence further because
3:11:03again you're just avoiding the the
3:11:04discomfort rather than engaging with the
3:11:06uncertainty there.
3:11:07>> Yeah it is interesting. I mean, I'm just
3:11:09doing like a common sense check and and
3:11:11when I think about the most confident
3:11:14people I know or the most confident
3:11:16people I've been around, there is
3:11:19>> kind of just this like it like they
3:11:22don't even think about the result.
3:11:23>> No. Yeah. Right. People may care, right?
3:11:26>> They just do things. They just do things
3:11:28and and it's
3:11:29>> and they take what comes
3:11:30>> and and they understand. They're like,
3:11:32"Hey, it might not go well, but
3:11:33whatever. We'll deal with it when it
3:11:34happens." And uh
3:11:38to me it's it's like a piece of this too
3:11:41is really coming back to that like
3:11:44knowing understanding what you control
3:11:45and understanding what you don't
3:11:46control, right? Because it's the things
3:11:48you don't control, you're never going to
3:11:50be certain about them. There's nothing
3:11:51you can do to be certain about them. And
3:11:53and and what you just pointed the
3:11:54mechanism you just described shows that
3:11:57the more you try to be certain about
3:11:59them, the more you just foster greater
3:12:01>> sense of uncertainty.
3:12:03>> Exactly. Uh, and so yeah, I I I do think
3:12:05it it does kind of come back to the the
3:12:08stoic thing of just focus on what you
3:12:10can control and then just let go of
3:12:12everything else. If you think about it
3:12:14too, taken to this extreme, this is like
3:12:16OCD, right?
3:12:17>> Yes.
3:12:18>> So people who have an obsessivempulsive
3:12:20disorder around something like
3:12:22cleanliness or whatever, the more they
3:12:23check, the more anxious they get about
3:12:25it. Yeah.
3:12:26>> Because again, they're just reinforcing
3:12:28that like I can't sit with this
3:12:29discomfort, so I have to engage in these
3:12:31repetitive behaviors around it. So it's
3:12:33taken to extreme. That's what it is.
3:12:35>> Yeah, that makes sense. One of the the
3:12:38biggest takeaways here is that
3:12:39uncertainty is not the enemy. It's
3:12:41actually the price of admission to kind
3:12:44of anything worth having or or having a
3:12:46broad generalized sense of confidence.
3:12:49And the people who try to eliminate
3:12:51uncertainty, they just unintentionally
3:12:55promote greater intolerance of
3:12:57uncertainty, greater anxiety, greater
3:12:59fear of the unknown. So ultimately, if
3:13:02we're trying to build a skill, the skill
3:13:04of confidence, it is the ability to act
3:13:07without needing to know what the outcome
3:13:09is. Like that seems to be like the the
3:13:13seed at the core of of all of this. So
3:13:16it's interesting. I mean, this episode
3:13:18is taking us on quite a journey.
3:13:21You know, we started with a very
3:13:23conventional
3:13:24understanding of confidence from Norman
3:13:27Benson Peele. At this point, we've now
3:13:30we've dug into all the research. We've
3:13:32debunked it in a bunch of different
3:13:33ways. We went through the self-esteem
3:13:35movement. And really, what we're we're
3:13:38drilling down and we're fi finding is
3:13:40that at the end of the day, the trick
3:13:42isn't to feel more certain of your
3:13:44success. It's to become more tolerant of
3:13:46your failures. Which means that pursuing
3:13:49confidence isn't really about pursuing
3:13:52anything, per se. It's almost about
3:13:55allowing things to happen. It's it's
3:13:58developing this kind of paradoxical
3:14:01ability to
3:14:02do things without expecting a certain
3:14:05result, which is a a bit of a mind [ __ ]
3:14:09in in like we're now leaving psychology
3:14:11land and entering into philosophy land.
3:14:13And I think that's where we're going to
3:14:15end up in chapter five because the
3:14:18conclusion that that I've come to that
3:14:21that we've come to in our research is
3:14:23that confidence isn't even really the
3:14:26right question that people should be
3:14:28asking. Right? Like we've been hammering
3:14:30on this point throughout the episode
3:14:32that confidence is a byproduct of doing
3:14:36the right things, not the cause of doing
3:14:39the right things. It is the output, not
3:14:41the input. So the question remains what
3:14:44is that input? What allows you to act
3:14:48without expectation? What allows you to
3:14:51uh tolerate failure and uncertainty but
3:14:54still do things that seem worth doing?
3:14:57And what we'll find is actually an
3:15:00ancient virtue that has been around for
3:15:03as long as human civilization has been
3:15:05around. And it turns out modern
3:15:08psychology backs up that this is what we
3:15:10should have been focusing on all along.
3:15:14We'll be right back. Stick around. This
3:15:16episode is brought to you by Waking Up.
3:15:19There's a voice in your head that shows
3:15:20up right before anything that matters.
3:15:22[music] The interview, the hard
3:15:24conversation, the big pitch meeting, it
3:15:26always says the same thing. You're going
3:15:28to blow this. Now, we think confidence
3:15:31is [music] making that voice shut up.
3:15:34But it actually doesn't work that way.
3:15:36See, you can't argue with that voice.
3:15:37[music] And the harder you try to fight
3:15:39it, the louder it becomes. What actually
3:15:42helps is changing your relationship to
3:15:44the [music] voice. Now, I've meditated
3:15:45for over 20 years, and the app that I
3:15:47keep coming back to is called Waking
3:15:49[music] Up. It isn't about emptying your
3:15:51mind or feeling blissed out. It's
3:15:53actually about seeing your thoughts for
3:15:55what they are. Thoughts, not facts, not
3:15:58orders. It turns out that's what
3:16:00confidence really is. Not silencing the
3:16:02doubts, but knowing that you don't have
3:16:04to believe a word it says. [music] So,
3:16:05if you want to start changing how you
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3:16:15wakingup.com/solved.
3:16:18That's wakingup.com/solved.
3:16:20So, go find out what your mind does when
3:16:22you stop fighting it. All right, let's
3:16:24get back into it. [music]
3:16:29So we have spent multiple hours now
3:16:32breaking down confidence into its most
3:16:35fundamental constituent parts, analyzing
3:16:37it, understanding the nuances of it. I
3:16:40want to return to the question that we
3:16:43raised at the top of the show, which is
3:16:46is confidence even the point? Is this
3:16:48even something that you should be
3:16:49worrying about, thinking about? And in
3:16:52this chapter, I want to argue that it's
3:16:55not. I didn't realize this until we
3:16:57started researching this episode, but
3:16:58for most of human history, confidence
3:17:01was not a compliment. It was not a good
3:17:03thing. It was not something that people
3:17:05aspired to have. And I think once people
3:17:08understand why that is, they'll actually
3:17:11agree. So if you look at the etmological
3:17:13roots of of the word confidence, it
3:17:15comes from Latin, comes from confidier,
3:17:17which is the the combination of con,
3:17:20which means with, and then feder, which
3:17:22uh roughly translates to faith. So it's
3:17:25like with faith or with trust. And for
3:17:28most of western history, uh confidence
3:17:32meant it was a relational status. It was
3:17:35essentially that you trusted somebody or
3:17:37that you uh had faith that somebody was
3:17:41going to come through for you. It had
3:17:44nothing to do with how you felt as an
3:17:46individual in the moment. It had nothing
3:17:48to do with your ability to perform
3:17:49anything. It was simply I have
3:17:52confidence in this person. It means I
3:17:54trust that this person's going to do
3:17:55what they say they're going to do. It
3:17:56wasn't until the 15th century that this
3:17:59idea of confidence in yourself began to
3:18:02take shape. This idea of like you could
3:18:04rely on your own powers and your own
3:18:07ability uh within your own life. But
3:18:10what's interesting is that at the time
3:18:13this was seen as a bad thing because
3:18:15ultimately you should only have
3:18:17confidence in God. That was the argument
3:18:19at the time. The church saw
3:18:21self-confidence as transgressional. It
3:18:24saw it as a sin because you were
3:18:25essentially saying that I don't need to
3:18:27believe in God. I don't need to trust
3:18:29God because I trust myself. It's with
3:18:32this background that you get to the
3:18:34United States in the 18th and 19th
3:18:36centuries where you have a phenomenon
3:18:38that's cropping up which is essentially
3:18:41just these snake oil salesmen. People
3:18:43start popping up on the western frontier
3:18:45and in different American cities
3:18:47claiming to have cures for everything.
3:18:49and claiming that they can solve all
3:18:51your problems, running all sorts of
3:18:53scams and frauds and misdirection and
3:18:57basically cheating people out of their
3:18:59money. And you know what these scam
3:19:01artists became known as? They became
3:19:03known as confidence men. Again, alluding
3:19:06to this idea that they had more trust in
3:19:08themselves than in God or society. So,
3:19:11you really don't see the transformation
3:19:14of the word confidence happen until the
3:19:1620th century. And as with self-esteem,
3:19:19it it it began with William James. You
3:19:21know, everybody's heard the term fake it
3:19:23till you make it. Well, it turns out
3:19:25that this idea originated with William
3:19:28James. He he had a principle that he
3:19:30called act as if. Act as if you're
3:19:32already good at it. Act as if you
3:19:34already know what you're doing and then
3:19:36the behaviors will generate the reality.
3:19:39This idea wasn't taken that seriously at
3:19:41the time. It wasn't until World War I
3:19:43broke out and 15% of the soldiers who
3:19:47were fighting on the front came home
3:19:49with what today we would call PTSD, but
3:19:53at the time they called shell shock.
3:19:54They were completely debilitated
3:19:56mentally, like falling into constant
3:19:58panic attacks, just completely
3:20:00immobilized. And the western militaries
3:20:02looked at this and they're like, well,
3:20:04we would actually like to be able to
3:20:05kind of predict who's going to be able
3:20:08to maintain their poise and their effort
3:20:12on in battle and who's going to crumble
3:20:14and and fall victim to shell shock. It
3:20:17was during the war that they went out
3:20:19and contracted a bunch of psychologists
3:20:21for the first time to start studying
3:20:23soldiers and really trying to deduce who
3:20:25was going to be useful and reliable in
3:20:27battle and who was going to crumble
3:20:30under pressure, who was going to uh fall
3:20:32victim to to shell shock or PTSD. And so
3:20:36it was here for the first time that the
3:20:39idea of a soldier who was confident in
3:20:41himself and confident in his ability to
3:20:44handle adversity finally became
3:20:47legitimated. Is that a word, Drew? I'm
3:20:50the author here. I don't know. And from
3:20:52there we get Maslo and Rogers and Norman
3:20:55Vincent Peele and and by the late 20th
3:20:57century, confidence was not only seen as
3:21:00a good thing, it it was seen as a virtue
3:21:02itself. As we discussed in chapter 4
3:21:04with the self-esteem movement, a
3:21:06multi-billion dollar seminar industry
3:21:08arose teaching confidence to the masses.
3:21:11Uh dozens if not hundreds of self-help
3:21:14books were coming out promising the
3:21:16benefits of confidence. Uh psychologists
3:21:19and institutions were trying to
3:21:21implement uh self-esteem practices into
3:21:24education, into society at large.
3:21:26Everybody wanted confidence. It was seen
3:21:29as a virtue. And by virtue I mean it was
3:21:32seen as a inherently good thing,
3:21:35something that was worth having in and
3:21:37of itself. But as we covered earlier in
3:21:40the episode, confidence is not always a
3:21:42good thing. You don't necessarily always
3:21:44want to maximize as much confidence as
3:21:47possible. There is such a thing as
3:21:48overconfidence. There is such a thing as
3:21:51being confident in something that you
3:21:53have no business being confident in.
3:21:55There there's a lot of situations in
3:21:57which confidence can backfire on you.
3:21:59And this seems to have been lost in all
3:22:01of the modern discourse. Even today in a
3:22:03more skeptical, critical self-help
3:22:06industry, confidence is by and large
3:22:09seen as a universally positive thing. I
3:22:11I guarantee you everybody who has tuned
3:22:13into this episode and listened this far,
3:22:15they have done so because they want to
3:22:17be more confident. So I think it is
3:22:19important to point out the fact that
3:22:22confidence has not always been seen as a
3:22:24positive thing. For most of human
3:22:26history, philosophers, religious
3:22:29leaders, people at large have looked at
3:22:31confidence with skepticism, with lots of
3:22:34criticism. And everything that we've
3:22:36learned up until this point has shown us
3:22:38that confidence is not the input for
3:22:42high performance. It is the side effect
3:22:44or the byproduct of high performance.
3:22:46And that if you try to give people
3:22:48confidence without them earning it, what
3:22:51you essentially create is just a little
3:22:53narcissist. Now what's interesting and
3:22:56we have not talked about this in at
3:22:58least four or five episodes which must
3:23:01be a record for solved. Aristotle got
3:23:04this right.
3:23:05[laughter]
3:23:06He returns for Aristotle. One of his
3:23:10cardinal virtues was courage. We talked
3:23:13about Aristotle and his virtues way back
3:23:15on the values episode over a year ago.
3:23:18And Aristotle defined virtues as a
3:23:21golden mean between two extremes. He
3:23:23Aristotle saw balance as being the
3:23:27fundamentally righteous and virtuous way
3:23:29to live and everything that is good in
3:23:31life is a balance between two extremes
3:23:34that when overinvested in like lead to
3:23:37to bad effects. And so for Aristotle the
3:23:41virtue of courage exists on a continuum
3:23:44between cowardice on one end
3:23:47and confidence on the other end. If you
3:23:50are unwilling to face challenges and
3:23:53deal with uncertainty, then you will
3:23:55just behave cowardly. Whereas if you run
3:23:59into every situation without any concern
3:24:02or fear for what is going to happen to
3:24:04you, you become reckless. You become
3:24:07overconfident. And what Aristotle argued
3:24:09is that a courageous person, a virtuous
3:24:11person, it's not that they don't feel
3:24:13fear. It's that they feel an appropriate
3:24:16amount of fear and they are properly
3:24:18able to calibrate their own abilities in
3:24:21relation to the threats that they face.
3:24:23And this sounds familiar because we
3:24:25spent pretty much all of chapter 2 and
3:24:28three talking about how it's not about
3:24:30being more confident, it's about having
3:24:32an appropriate level of confidence given
3:24:35your ability and competence in that
3:24:36situation. So everything that has led us
3:24:39up to this point has led us to the fact
3:24:41that confidence is the output of being
3:24:44able to act despite uncertainty. And
3:24:48that acting despite uncertainty that is
3:24:50courage. Courage is the input. I'm going
3:24:53to do this thing not knowing if it's
3:24:56going to go well or not. And then
3:24:59confidence becomes the output. It's like
3:25:01oh either that went well which builds
3:25:03confidence or it didn't go well but I
3:25:06survived it and I learned from it which
3:25:08also builds confidence. So when we say
3:25:10that confidence needs to be earned
3:25:13courage is the mechanism by which it is
3:25:15earned. When you are able to act despite
3:25:18your fears, when you are able to act
3:25:20despite uncertainty, when you are able
3:25:22to do something despite the chance of
3:25:25failure,
3:25:27that is what eventually builds that
3:25:30coping self-efficacy, that generalized
3:25:32confidence across many many domains. And
3:25:35it grants you the ability to walk into a
3:25:38room with a some semblance of self
3:25:40assurance that you know what, whatever
3:25:43happens, I'm going to be okay.
3:25:45>> What's funny? [clears throat] Yes.
3:25:46Aristotle got it right. Right. What I'm
3:25:48realizing more and more too is that
3:25:49whenever we say that Aristotle got it
3:25:51right because he just noticed something
3:25:52that's already kind of within us, right?
3:25:55Um and this has kind of been borne out
3:25:57in the research as well. And this is
3:25:59what we see over and over again as well
3:26:01is like we kind of just discover, yeah,
3:26:02Aristotle was right, but that's because
3:26:04there's like a fundamental human nature
3:26:05that he discovered underneath of it.
3:26:07Right. For example, Christopher Ra back
3:26:09in the late 2000s, he ran some studies
3:26:11on Air Force cadets around courage. So
3:26:14he wanted to know what like how do
3:26:15people see courage? What what do people
3:26:17think courage actually is? So he got all
3:26:19these all these air force cadets
3:26:20together and he starts uh running these
3:26:23different experiments. Came to the
3:26:25conclusion everybody kind of converged
3:26:27on the same things around this. And this
3:26:28is what I mean is like it was already
3:26:30there. Everybody kind of knows this.
3:26:31They weren't fed Aristotle or anything
3:26:33like that.
3:26:34>> What he found was people defined courage
3:26:36as one you deliberately choose to act.
3:26:39Okay you it's a deliberate choice that
3:26:41you go out and make. You do it knowing
3:26:43there's real risk as well
3:26:45>> and you do it for something that is
3:26:47worth the cost. It's it's a worthwhile
3:26:50activity that you're engaging in, right?
3:26:52To you personally, right? If you strip
3:26:54out that last part, the worthy goal
3:26:55part, that's what Aristotle was talking
3:26:58about when it's just recklessness. If
3:27:00it's just something you choose to do and
3:27:01it's risky, that's just reckless. If you
3:27:03choose to do it, it's risky and it's
3:27:05worthwhile. That's what defines courage.
3:27:08These people, these cadets, and they've
3:27:09done it in other just general
3:27:11populations, too. Everybody kind of
3:27:12converges on those things. Okay, notice
3:27:14what's missing from that though. There
3:27:16is actually nothing about fear there.
3:27:18You might feel fear in that or you might
3:27:20not. You can make a courageous decision
3:27:21without fear. This is the problem with
3:27:23with people when they try to really
3:27:25focus on the confidence part. What
3:27:27they're really trying to do is I don't
3:27:28want to feel fear in this, right? Fear
3:27:30has nothing to do with it.
3:27:32>> And this and this is why the peel
3:27:33fallacy has proliferated so much because
3:27:36really it's just people buy into it
3:27:38because they just want to stop being
3:27:40scared. They don't want to be scared.
3:27:41>> Whereas really it's you feel the fear
3:27:45and you do it anyway.
3:27:46>> Yeah. Yeah. Um or or fear might not even
3:27:48be there too. It might not even be the
3:27:50case. But most people when they think
3:27:51about it, it's a fearful situation,
3:27:53right? What mattered really though was
3:27:55it was the choice, the risk, and the
3:27:56worthy goal again. Okay.
3:27:58>> Um there was another set of studies they
3:28:00did um around people who had uh phobias
3:28:04of spiders. So what they did is they uh
3:28:06kind of they have a courage scale that
3:28:08they gave them and a fear scale and then
3:28:10a phobia scale all this and then they
3:28:12expose them to spiders see what happens
3:28:14right what they found is those courage
3:28:16scores they took beforehand actually
3:28:18predicted how close they would get to
3:28:20these spiders in the lab regardless of
3:28:21how scared they were though too some of
3:28:24them had very very high fear with very
3:28:25very high courage some of them had high
3:28:27courage with low fear all all the
3:28:29combinations you can think of didn't
3:28:30matter courage predicted it
3:28:32independently of all of that whether
3:28:34they would approach these spiders or
3:28:35not. You can have the fear there and
3:28:37still have a lot of courage and still
3:28:40act and and do it in a in a positive
3:28:43way. Yeah. Right.
3:28:44>> There was kind of a strange wrinkle with
3:28:45this though too that uh they found which
3:28:48was they they measured these women's uh
3:28:51courage scales twice. Once during the
3:28:53lab and then once a couple weeks later.
3:28:55Um, and what they found was that it was
3:28:57only the in the- moment courage that
3:29:00they had, kind of the state courage that
3:29:01they had that that predicted whether or
3:29:03not because maybe two weeks later they
3:29:04didn't have a lot of courage and that
3:29:06didn't predict whether or not they
3:29:07approach those spiders in the lab or
3:29:09anything like that, right? The
3:29:10conclusion they came to I think was a
3:29:12really interesting one. It's it's not
3:29:14that you can read your courage like if
3:29:16you're just sitting there and there's
3:29:18you're in a safe environment, nothing's
3:29:19going on, there's no opportunity for you
3:29:20to be courageous, you actually don't
3:29:22know how you're going to be how you're
3:29:23going to act. It's only in the moment
3:29:25that you're going to act that that you
3:29:27can actually leverage courage to act in
3:29:30a way that you need to overcome
3:29:31something. Like you can't predict it
3:29:33unless you do it. Uh which I I find is
3:29:35kind of interesting. You can't just say
3:29:36I'm a courageous person. It's like well
3:29:38what situation are you courageous in?
3:29:39Right. Which is really interesting as
3:29:41well.
3:29:42>> Can I just point something out really
3:29:43quick? Which is really interesting. So
3:29:45you listed those three factors of
3:29:47courage, right? Like you deliberately
3:29:48choose to act. you know, there's a real
3:29:51risk and you do it for something that
3:29:53you perceive as being worth the cost.
3:29:55Yeah.
3:29:55>> If we go all the way back to chapter two
3:29:57of like what builds self-efficacy, like
3:29:59what what that feedback loop actually
3:30:02needs to look like, those map perfectly
3:30:05onto those same requirements, right? You
3:30:07deliberately choose to act. It's that
3:30:09internal locus of control. You have to
3:30:10believe that you have control of your
3:30:14actions or behaviors in the situation
3:30:15that you're in. Otherwise, you don't get
3:30:17that perception of building a skill.
3:30:19There needs to be a real risk. You need
3:30:21to be at the edge of your ability. You
3:30:22need to be pushing yourself in some way.
3:30:24You need to be like stepping outside of
3:30:26your comfort zone. Otherwise, if you're
3:30:28just playing on easy mode, you're not
3:30:29improving anything, which means you're
3:30:30not building any confidence. And then
3:30:32you you're doing something worth the
3:30:34cost. You're doing something that
3:30:35actually has stakes involved that
3:30:37actually matters to you, which again,
3:30:39it's putting yourself on the line. It's
3:30:41giving yourself it's it's opening
3:30:43yourself up to that negative feedback in
3:30:45a real way that is necessary to ground
3:30:48the evidence that you're accumulating in
3:30:51truth. Otherwise, if you're just if it's
3:30:54stuff that doesn't matter, if it's stuff
3:30:55you don't care about, it's not
3:30:57meaningful evidence in any way. So, it's
3:30:59the same mechanisms that are present and
3:31:01building that self-efficacy and building
3:31:03that evidence of competence in your
3:31:05life. They're essentially rooted in the
3:31:08process of courage itself. And
3:31:10confidence has nothing to do with it.
3:31:12Again,
3:31:12>> confidence is the side effect.
3:31:13>> It might be the output of it, right?
3:31:14>> It's the side effect.
3:31:15>> Really, the the conclusions all these
3:31:17courage researchers come to courage
3:31:19means it's acting when confidence and
3:31:21when certainty and when clarity isn't
3:31:22there.
3:31:23>> Yeah. This by definition, yes,
3:31:25>> that is the definition of courage.
3:31:26[laughter] Like it's not that the fear
3:31:28isn't there or anything like that. It's
3:31:29it's acting despite all of those things,
3:31:31right?
3:31:32>> Again, it's just another variation of
3:31:35the peel fallacy, right? People think
3:31:36they need to be confident to be
3:31:38courageous and it's like no, you have to
3:31:40be courageous to become confident. It's
3:31:43the the causation arrow is pointed in
3:31:45the wrong direction in most people's
3:31:47heads. Okay. Yeah. So, just to drive
3:31:49this point home to beat the dead horse
3:31:52here that that courage is not like
3:31:55acting without fear or anything like
3:31:57that, they found with like paramedics,
3:31:59firefighters, emergency responders,
3:32:01first responders, right? Really what
3:32:02they found with this is that it's not
3:32:04that they carry more tolerance for like
3:32:06the chaos or uncertainty or anything
3:32:08like that. It's that they've simply been
3:32:10through those things enough times that
3:32:12they notice the pattern that even if
3:32:14everything goes to hell like it's that
3:32:17like they know what to do. They've
3:32:19responded to that enough times that they
3:32:21can do that that they're they they have
3:32:22this calm banked experience that they
3:32:24have. It's not that like courage is kind
3:32:26of this accumulated deposit of prior
3:32:31prior encounters with that uncertainty
3:32:33is what that is. And they find this
3:32:34again like in the first responders and
3:32:36people who are in very uncertain chaotic
3:32:37environments.
3:32:38>> It's the it's the meta self-efficacy.
3:32:40>> It is right. Exactly.
3:32:41>> It's it's the skill of tolerating
3:32:43discomfort.
3:32:44>> Right. And the way you build this which
3:32:46we've already mentioned in some ways,
3:32:48right, is through exposure. So exposure
3:32:51therapy is actually one of the most uh
3:32:54effective therapies for all sorts of
3:32:55different anxiety disorders which again
3:32:57people who are looking for kind of
3:32:59confidence are trying to mitigate
3:33:00anxiety and fear around things right but
3:33:02exposure therapy uh you know it's a
3:33:04frontline therapy for phobias for panic
3:33:06disorders for social anxiety OCD even
3:33:08PTSD right high highly highly effective
3:33:11at treating that um it's difficult it
3:33:14can be difficult for some people
3:33:15>> it's definitely not fun
3:33:16>> not fun but you can you can actually
3:33:19mitigate a lot of these these uh uh
3:33:21these maladies with just a few hours of
3:33:23work even too, right? Just exposing
3:33:25people to that fear, that uncertainty
3:33:28and showing them that even though that
3:33:30that ramps up that it's going to be
3:33:32okay. Right now, for decades and decades
3:33:35that we've known that this has worked
3:33:36for a long time, the the mechanism is
3:33:38really interesting though because for a
3:33:40long time a lot of these researchers and
3:33:42and clinicians thought, well, oh, we're
3:33:44we're reducing that fear. And actually,
3:33:46that's not the case. You're just
3:33:48teaching people how to sit with that
3:33:49fear and how to deal with that fear. And
3:33:52actually, what they want you to do, they
3:33:53want you to be keyed up in these in
3:33:55these situations. They want you to be
3:33:57more fearful in these situations so you
3:33:59can face higher and higher levels of
3:34:01fear and see that you're going to be
3:34:03okay.
3:34:04>> Okay. So, that's kind of one one of the
3:34:05lessons you need to take from this is
3:34:06like yeah, when you fear something, turn
3:34:09towards it like engage with it. It ramp
3:34:12it up even too. So the real goal of
3:34:15exposure therapy is like this expectancy
3:34:17violation, right? So if you're somebody
3:34:20who is seeking a lot of like reassurance
3:34:22in some way or if you're even have one
3:34:24of these disorders that we're talking
3:34:26about, you have this expectation that if
3:34:28I don't do this or or if something wrong
3:34:30happens, then something terrible even
3:34:32more terrible is going to happen too,
3:34:33right? So the point is to violate that
3:34:36expectation repeatedly. So, you get into
3:34:38a situation, maybe it's snakes, maybe
3:34:39it's spiders, maybe it's cleanliness,
3:34:41maybe it's just um failure in general,
3:34:43right? I don't want to fail. If I fail,
3:34:45then everyone's going to hate me. I'm
3:34:47going to die alone. You know, you go to
3:34:48that. Uh the goal of an exposure therapy
3:34:51though is to violate that expectation
3:34:53enough times so you see that it's not no
3:34:55longer true. And again, Aristotle had
3:34:58this right. [laughter]
3:34:59Aristotle knew must have known about um
3:35:01expectancy theory you know 2500 years
3:35:03ago because what he said he he said
3:35:06courage is it's building a courageous
3:35:08character through repeated brave acts
3:35:11right you only become courageous by
3:35:13being courageous by facing whatever fear
3:35:16it is and realizing that nothing what
3:35:19your worst fears almost never come true
3:35:21and even if they do you can probably
3:35:23handle them. Yeah,
3:35:24>> it took modern psychology, you know, all
3:35:25these years to figure that out that
3:35:27again Aristotle was right.
3:35:28>> There's a related like stoic practice
3:35:30here too, you know, called negative
3:35:33visualization, which is imagine the
3:35:36worst case scenario and then like
3:35:37mentally plan for it ahead of time and
3:35:40realize that it is not nearly as
3:35:42catastrophic as you think it is or that
3:35:44it feels like it's going to be, right?
3:35:46So, it's, you know, you have this idea
3:35:48of of like, okay, well, I've got this
3:35:50presentation I have to give tomorrow and
3:35:52what if I bomb and I embarrass myself
3:35:54and I just like completely make a fool
3:35:56of myself. If you actually in that
3:35:58moment, it feels terrifying. But if you
3:36:00actually sit down and start kind of
3:36:02writing out like, okay, what is bombing
3:36:04look like? What actually happens? Like,
3:36:06what is everybody in the room actually
3:36:08thinking? Who's paying attention? What
3:36:11repercussions does this actually have on
3:36:13my career? and you realize you're like,
3:36:16"Oh, it's actually not nearly as big of
3:36:18a deal as I thought it was going to be."
3:36:19>> Even the worst case scenario sometimes,
3:36:21right?
3:36:21>> Even the worst case scenario, you're
3:36:22just like, "Oh, that's not that bad.
3:36:24>> Yeah, I could handle that.
3:36:25>> Yeah, I'd be fine. It but it it doesn't
3:36:27feel that way in the abstract." It was
3:36:30really cool. Uh, a few years ago, we did
3:36:32a YouTube video. Um, honestly, it was
3:36:34like one of the most satisfying things
3:36:36I've ever done in my career. So, we took
3:36:39uh two women. They had never met each
3:36:40other. They were both terrified of
3:36:43driving and we flew them to Vegas and
3:36:47within two days, so one of them uh their
3:36:50their names were Angelica and Nora.
3:36:52Shout out to them if they're if they're
3:36:54watching or listening. Um I believe one
3:36:57of them uh she was she couldn't drive
3:37:00further than her neighborhood. So even
3:37:02like the furthest she would drive was to
3:37:04her gym, which was like just a few
3:37:05minutes away. The other one, Nora, I
3:37:08think she had only been on a freeway
3:37:09once in her entire life. Um, both like
3:37:12very intensely afraid of of driving and
3:37:16flew them to Vegas, rented a car, put
3:37:18them in the car, and within 2 days I had
3:37:21them drive us back to Los Angeles from
3:37:24Vegas, which is a 7 and 1 half hour
3:37:25drive. Um,
3:37:28and it's it is incredible because I mean
3:37:30essentially what I put him through it it
3:37:32was entertaining at points, but what I
3:37:35put him through was just very intense
3:37:37exposure therapy, right? We started him
3:37:39in a neighborhood and then I got him
3:37:41onto a freeway and then I got him into
3:37:44we went to a racetrack, had them race
3:37:47Ferraris and Lamborghinis
3:37:49uh, and just kept like blowing up that
3:37:53expectancy over and over again.
3:37:55everything we did, they would kind of
3:37:57freak out at first and be like, "This is
3:37:59going to be a disaster. You know, I'm in
3:38:02danger." And next thing you know, like
3:38:06they're they're driving through LA
3:38:08traffic uh during rush hour and they're
3:38:10fine
3:38:10>> in just a couple days. Yeah.
3:38:12>> And the coolest thing about it is um you
3:38:14know, I I've kept in touch with them a
3:38:16little bit since. Um they became friends
3:38:18over the course of the video and um they
3:38:21still meet up every couple years to do
3:38:23road trips together.
3:38:24>> Cool. Yeah,
3:38:24>> that's really cool.
3:38:25>> Which is like very very awesome, very
3:38:27satisfying.
3:38:28>> Just a side note, my favorite part of
3:38:29that video, you had them do challenges,
3:38:31right? Yeah. And one of them lost and
3:38:32they had to go through a drive-thru in
3:38:34like a Barbie car or whatever.
3:38:35>> Yes. In a toy a toy Barbie car.
3:38:38>> That was That was good.
3:38:39>> She did it. She did it.
3:38:40>> She did. Yeah.
3:38:41>> Horribly afraid of driving, not afraid
3:38:43of uh of being embarrassed.
3:38:46>> Right. Right. [laughter]
3:38:47>> Comes back to domain confidence. Right.
3:38:50I want to draw a connection back here
3:38:52that is just like so massive and
3:38:55obvious. Exposure the therapy is a
3:38:58process of building courage around
3:38:59something. If we go back to Bura and his
3:39:03siminal study with the room full of
3:39:05snakes and people with phobias, you
3:39:07could look at that study again as what
3:39:10was actually happening was simply
3:39:12exposure therapy. Right? Bandura had
3:39:13this whole idea about guided mastery and
3:39:15how to build self-efficacy through like
3:39:18developing competence and skill. But in
3:39:20a sense, what was actually happening was
3:39:23these people were confronting a fear.
3:39:25They were being courageous and they were
3:39:29building courage through exposure
3:39:31therapy. And yes, while they quote
3:39:33unquote developed a skill or a
3:39:35competence of I guess handling snakes,
3:39:38what they were really building, the
3:39:39skill that was actually being built in
3:39:42that room back in the 60s
3:39:44was meta self-efficacy was the
3:39:47realization of like I can do hard
3:39:49things. There are things that I am
3:39:52deathly afraid of that I can go do them
3:39:55and they're not that bad. And sure
3:39:57enough, Bendur's own own results showed
3:40:00that those people went into other areas
3:40:02of their lives and suddenly had more
3:40:04courage. They had more confidence. They
3:40:06were able to act more independently and
3:40:08accomplish more things. So I think in a
3:40:10sense meta self-efficacy is simply
3:40:14courage. It is building the skill or the
3:40:17virtue of courage over a long period of
3:40:19time. And confidence is the output of
3:40:22that courage. And so anybody listening
3:40:25to this who wants to feel confident, who
3:40:28wants to feel more comfortable in
3:40:31difficult situations, pursuing
3:40:33confidence is not the point. Pursuing
3:40:36confidence, especially if that
3:40:37confidence is not earned, feeling more
3:40:39confident in situations, if you've not
3:40:41built the appropriate evidence of that
3:40:43confidence, it's going to backfire. It's
3:40:45going to lead to narcissism or Dunning
3:40:47Krueger or imposter syndrome. You're
3:40:49going to be miscalibrated based on your
3:40:51actual experiences. What you should be
3:40:54pursuing is courage. Courage is
3:40:56ultimately what matters. And what's
3:40:58crazy too is that there are actually
3:41:03many examples in the world of people who
3:41:05are incredibly high performers and they
3:41:08are not confident. We talked about him
3:41:10in the imposter syndrome section, but I
3:41:13I'm going to go one further and tell an
3:41:16an even more incredible story of
3:41:17somebody who was [ __ ] terrified and
3:41:20became definitely the best in the world
3:41:22during his era at his craft. Maybe one
3:41:25of the maybe the best person ever. So,
3:41:27we are recording this is during the NBA
3:41:30finals. I'm a big basketball fan. I
3:41:31don't even know if you watch basketball.
3:41:33>> Hag not since the 90s, man.
3:41:35>> Yeah, he's so boring, Drew. I'm a big
3:41:37basketball fan and uh you know these
3:41:40days there's a big goat debate of like
3:41:42Michael Jordan and LeBron James.
3:41:44Everybody forgets Bill Russell. Bill
3:41:46Russell was the original OG goat. His
3:41:49winning track record is like comical.
3:41:52I'm going to read off his resume and
3:41:54you're going to be like that's [ __ ]
3:41:57fiction. That doesn't exist.
3:41:58>> Okay.
3:41:59>> So, Bill Russell, he won 11
3:42:01championships in 13 years. He won an
3:42:03Olympic gold medal. He won five league
3:42:06MVPs. He was the first black head coach
3:42:08of any major US sport. Uh he coached his
3:42:12own team to two more championships while
3:42:14he was still playing on that team. In
3:42:17elimination games in tournaments, he was
3:42:2022 and0. He played high school
3:42:22basketball for three years and won champ
3:42:24national championships two of them. He
3:42:26played college basketball for three
3:42:28years and won national championships for
3:42:29two of them. Basically, of every year of
3:42:32Bill Russell's life that he played
3:42:34basketball, he won a national
3:42:37championship or an international
3:42:39championship in 85% of those years.
3:42:41>> That's how have I Yeah. How is he not in
3:42:43the conversation?
3:42:44>> Yeah, he is.
3:42:44>> That's insane.
3:42:46>> The most winning athlete I have ever
3:42:49heard of anywhere.
3:42:51>> So, people who know sports have probably
3:42:52heard of him and they probably know a
3:42:54lot of the things that I just said. The
3:42:56thing that it most people don't know is
3:42:59that he vomited before every single
3:43:02game.
3:43:02>> The locker room barfing just
3:43:04>> that is not [clears throat] an
3:43:05exaggeration. Every not the big games,
3:43:07not the champion.
3:43:08>> Every single game.
3:43:09>> Every single game he puked before every
3:43:11single game. It was so routine
3:43:14>> that his teammates described it uh they
3:43:17they said that it became part of their
3:43:19pregame routine. There was there's one
3:43:22story that they were uh they were in the
3:43:24NBA playoffs. I think they were in like
3:43:25the semi-finals and it was time to take
3:43:29the court and Bill Russell had not
3:43:30vomited yet. And so the coach called all
3:43:33of the players back into the locker room
3:43:34and told him that they weren't leaving
3:43:35until Bill puked.
3:43:37>> This time too they're they're still
3:43:38playing 80 games or whatever a year, 60
3:43:40games a year. So he's he's puking like
3:43:43every three nights he's puking before a
3:43:44game cuz he's he's just like so
3:43:46overwhelmed with anxiety. I mean it's
3:43:48interesting because interviews with him
3:43:50and interviews with some of his
3:43:51teammates like they all say the same
3:43:53thing. They say it mattered so much to
3:43:55him like he wanted to win so badly that
3:43:59he like drove himself to to becoming
3:44:02sick before each game. And it comes back
3:44:05to that point about courage, right? It
3:44:07needs to matter to you. Like there has
3:44:09to be stakes involved. It has to feel
3:44:11something that is worthwhile to you.
3:44:14Like the point I'm making with this is
3:44:16that I don't think there's any world
3:44:19that you would look at that like if if
3:44:21if I told you I said there's a
3:44:22basketball player and he becomes so
3:44:25overwhelmed with anxiety before every
3:44:27time he plays he vomits in the locker
3:44:29room. Would you call that a confident
3:44:32person?
3:44:32>> No. I would say he's probably a terrible
3:44:33basketball player.
3:44:34>> Right. [laughter] But he's he's the most
3:44:36winning American athlete in the history
3:44:38of US sports.
3:44:40>> Confidence is not the point. It's not
3:44:42the point. Courage is the point. Bill
3:44:44Russell had courage. It was something
3:44:47that mattered so much to him that he
3:44:48didn't care about the anxiety. Like you
3:44:50said, he developed he habituated himself
3:44:52to the fear and the anxiety. He took
3:44:55something that that mattered so much to
3:44:57him that he was willing to buke before
3:45:00every single game. And so I guess after
3:45:04four plus hours of you and I
3:45:07pontificating and sharing research, I
3:45:10think this might be the the first solved
3:45:12episode where
3:45:14the final conclusion is you should not
3:45:18really be thinking about the topic of
3:45:20this solved episode. [laughter]
3:45:23>> I mean you you kind of joked at at the
3:45:26top of the show of like I've never
3:45:27really thought much about confidence. I
3:45:29just did things. And I kind of joked of
3:45:31like that might be the point like that
3:45:34that we might just end the episode right
3:45:36there because that is kind of the point.
3:45:40You should kind of just do things.
3:45:42Obviously, don't do things without any
3:45:44thought put into them. Don't do things
3:45:46for no reason, right? Like don't be
3:45:48reckless. Don't be cowardly. Don't don't
3:45:51be stupid. Like pay attention to the
3:45:53things you care about. Push up against
3:45:55the edge of your own abilities. Find
3:45:58things that matter. or find things that
3:45:59have stakes and do things in a way that
3:46:02you get realistic feedback from them.
3:46:05And yes, having confidence in various
3:46:08domains, it is nice. Once you've done
3:46:11something a thousand times and you've
3:46:13done it well, yeah, you will start
3:46:15feeling confident around that thing and
3:46:17it will be nice and that confidence will
3:46:21modestly help you perform better in the
3:46:23future. But that is such a side effect.
3:46:27That is such a footnote to like the
3:46:30larger story here, which is that the
3:46:32skill you should be getting good at is
3:46:35courage. Because that courage will allow
3:46:38you to tolerate failure, to tolerate
3:46:40uncertainty, to act in the face of
3:46:43obstacles and challenges. And that skill
3:46:46will bleed out into every area of your
3:46:48life and will just make it more likely
3:46:51that confidence results as part of the
3:46:55process. So, if I could summarize
3:46:57everything we've talked about in just a
3:46:59sentence or two, it's that confidence is
3:47:01not the input that results in high
3:47:04performance. That is the peel fallacy.
3:47:06You don't need to feel confident about
3:47:08yourself. You don't need to believe that
3:47:09you're good at something to perform
3:47:11highly. Confidence is the output or the
3:47:14side effect of the courage to do
3:47:18something and do it well.
3:47:21And so if you are trying to improve your
3:47:23life and if you want more confidence in
3:47:25your life, you should not focus on
3:47:27confidence. You should focus on courage.
3:47:30It is in many ways analogous to the
3:47:33episode we did on happiness where we
3:47:36pointed out that if you pursue
3:47:39happiness, you are likely going to
3:47:40remove yourself from it. Happiness is
3:47:42the output or the side effect of doing
3:47:46things that are purposeful or
3:47:47meaningful. It is the same thing with
3:47:49confidence. Confidence is not the thing
3:47:51you should pursue. It is the output or
3:47:53the byproduct of practicing courage.
3:47:56Well said. So to wrap up, you know, we
3:48:00always do an 8020. I feel like this is
3:48:02going to be a very short 8020. What
3:48:04would you say is the 8020 of confidence?
3:48:07>> Stop chasing it. Yeah. It's one of those
3:48:09you you made the parallels with
3:48:10happiness. I would argue though that
3:48:11happiness you you do want happiness,
3:48:13right? It's just you got to go about it
3:48:15kind of the backwards way, right? with
3:48:16confidence. I don't just don't even
3:48:18think you need it almost like you just,
3:48:20you know, it's not like happiness where
3:48:21it's like it is a it's a it's a good
3:48:23good thing to have. I know for me
3:48:25anyway, okay, the whole uncertainty
3:48:28thing was really kind of eye opening for
3:48:31me. I think I I knew it. But what I've
3:48:34seen I I think in my life when it when I
3:48:39don't feel confident about something,
3:48:41there's a huge
3:48:43problem I have with uncertainty around
3:48:45whatever it is. Whether that's in, you
3:48:47know, anything I'm trying to do
3:48:49professionally, in relationships,
3:48:51whatever, I notice that as soon as I am
3:48:53uncertain about something, I and I get
3:48:55anxious about that uncertainty, I start
3:48:57grasping.
3:48:58>> I do a lot of grasping. It's that
3:49:00external. I'm looking for external
3:49:01things to grasp onto for some security.
3:49:04Right? If it's in a relationship, it's
3:49:06like I need I need reassurance from you
3:49:08or I need some sort of commitment from
3:49:09you, external commitment from you. Um or
3:49:12some sort of just reassurance that I'm
3:49:15okay in this and that you can provide
3:49:16that for me and that ends up backfiring
3:49:19a lot, right? I just finished up like a
3:49:21public speaking course I was doing to to
3:49:23for this. This was part of a mastery
3:49:24experience that I'm trying to do too.
3:49:25This is what I realized, you know, is
3:49:27that I wasn't super confident u when we
3:49:29started doing this and um instead of
3:49:31just trying to be confident and get in
3:49:33here and puff my chest up and whatever.
3:49:35No, go find the skills.
3:49:37>> Yeah.
3:49:37>> That I need to do
3:49:38>> be competent
3:49:39>> to be competent first. [laughter]
3:49:40>> But what's interesting there was another
3:49:42little little layer in that a little
3:49:44inception in that too is that in this
3:49:45course they a lot of it was just like
3:49:48just start speaking you will find your
3:49:51way.
3:49:52>> Yeah.
3:49:52>> Right. Like there it's not about
3:49:54confidence. is just that it's already
3:49:55there.
3:49:56>> Yes,
3:49:56>> it's already there for you. It's just a
3:49:58matter of accessing that and you don't
3:50:00need to overprepare a whole bunch of
3:50:02things. You don't need these external
3:50:05structures to grasp onto that. I'm
3:50:07always grasping on to like there's a
3:50:09framework here or there's a there's a
3:50:11method that I need to be using. No, it's
3:50:14just it's there. We all kind of have it.
3:50:17You know, it it is it's really just
3:50:19courage and courage in trusting in
3:50:20yourself that you're going to be okay
3:50:22and not some external source. Yeah. So
3:50:24that whole uncertainty thing for me
3:50:25anyway was really like I said it was
3:50:27really eye opening and kind just a new
3:50:30way for me to that that's something I
3:50:31really have to work on I think because I
3:50:34don't think about confidence confidence
3:50:36a lot no but I also don't sit very well
3:50:39with uncertainty in a lot of situations.
3:50:41So I'm really learning how to sit with
3:50:42the uncertainty of things and just be
3:50:44okay with it and be more accepting like
3:50:46you were saying like whatever happens
3:50:48happens come what may.
3:50:49>> Yeah.
3:50:50>> Yeah. I'm trying to think what my
3:50:52takeaway. I mean, I I I definitely think
3:50:53the 8020 of this episode is very simp.
3:50:56It's basically [ __ ] maxing. It's like
3:50:58just do the thing. Stop thinking about
3:51:01it. [laughter] Just do the [ __ ]
3:51:02thing.
3:51:03>> Better name for that, but yeah. Okay.
3:51:05[gasps]
3:51:06>> Just doing the thing. You're right
3:51:07though. It's like
3:51:08>> it really is. I mean, it it is
3:51:11it's one of those concepts in
3:51:12psychology. It's like it's so brain dead
3:51:15simple but it is not pleasant. So people
3:51:18make it complicated so they can avoid it
3:51:21and this happens with so many things but
3:51:23I I think particularly with around
3:51:25courage, anxiety, confidence like that
3:51:27pe people really do this a lot like it
3:51:30feels difficult so they assume it must
3:51:33be difficult therefore it must be
3:51:34complicated therefore I must understand
3:51:36all these like frameworks and flowcharts
3:51:39and all this stuff to just get off my
3:51:41ass and try a thing. Um whereas it it is
3:51:45in many cases brain dead simple. You
3:51:48know, Alex Herozi talks about this thing
3:51:49that that I like a lot, which you know,
3:51:53I've seen him when he gets asked about
3:51:54confidence. He his answer is just do so
3:51:58much volume that it would be irrational
3:52:00for you to not be confident, right? Like
3:52:02uh and he uses the example of public
3:52:04speaking. Um he says like if you
3:52:08practice a talk a thousand times,
3:52:11>> right? Yeah.
3:52:11>> If you're afraid of something, practice
3:52:13it so many times that it would be
3:52:15irrational to be afraid of it. If you're
3:52:17still afraid of it, that means you
3:52:18haven't practiced enough, which is in a
3:52:21nutshell like self-efficacy. It's like
3:52:24it's like, okay, don't pursue
3:52:25confidence, pursue competence. Because
3:52:27the competence will spit off confidence
3:52:29as a side effect. I think the fear thing
3:52:32is important. The fear and uncertainty
3:52:35thing is ultimately like kind of the
3:52:37philosophical bedrock of this topic. Um,
3:52:41it's interesting. You know, we we talked
3:52:44in the last episode about personality
3:52:47and like I'm generally off the charts
3:52:50and openness to new experiences. I think
3:52:52because I am so open to new experiences
3:52:56and novelty, I'm generally very
3:52:58comfortable with uncertainty, which is
3:53:00generally like I think made it easier
3:53:02for me to just try things and not really
3:53:05worry about if they go well or not. I
3:53:08what I have noticed throughout my life
3:53:09is that um the people around me have a
3:53:12perception that I am extremely confident
3:53:14about most things and my internal
3:53:17experience is that I am like [ __ ]
3:53:19white knuckling it and like screaming
3:53:21half the time
3:53:23>> but [laughter] you have a tolerance for
3:53:24that white knuckling
3:53:25>> but exactly but it's like that is normal
3:53:27like that is that is home base for me so
3:53:30>> that's that's very interesting
3:53:32>> yeah uh that it comes up a lot you know
3:53:35>> I won't say I g analyze it too much but
3:53:37>> [laughter]
3:53:39[gasps]
3:53:40>> Um, so it has been interesting and I and
3:53:42I do think a side effect of that is that
3:53:44I've kind of bled into some narcissistic
3:53:47overconfidence
3:53:48at times in my life. But it is at the
3:53:52end of the day it is it is just it is
3:53:55simple. It is just doing hard things
3:53:58showing like repeatedly building
3:54:00evidence that you are capable of doing
3:54:02hard things.
3:54:03>> Mhm.
3:54:03>> That mastery experience. Yeah. And and
3:54:05what I do like that came up in this
3:54:07episode, and I I think it was in in the
3:54:10section you talked about around uh
3:54:12uncertainty intolerance, is how there
3:54:14does seem to be a couple like
3:54:16fundamental core categories that have
3:54:19just massive exponential or outside of
3:54:22outsized effects on other areas of your
3:54:25life. Um
3:54:28the ability to deal with fear and
3:54:30discomfort or uncertainty and discomfort
3:54:32is one of them. Clearly, relationships
3:54:35is another one of them.
3:54:37Um, and then learning, the ability to
3:54:40learn and grow, like learn from
3:54:43mistakes, accept negative feedback is is
3:54:45another one of them. And to me, those
3:54:47just feel like very core foundational
3:54:52skills that if you build confidence
3:54:54around those skills, if you build
3:54:56confidence in your relationships, build
3:54:58confidence in your ability to learn from
3:55:00mistakes, and build confidence in your
3:55:02ability to face fear, you're probably
3:55:04doing really, really well.
3:55:05>> Yeah. Yeah. Those meta skills like that.
3:55:07Yeah.
3:55:07>> Just bleed over into everything.
3:55:09>> Yeah.
3:55:09>> Yeah.
3:55:10>> Um, any final takeaways for you?
3:55:13>> I think that's all I got, Mark. I got
3:55:15Yeah, man.
3:55:16>> You just want to get the [ __ ] out of
3:55:17here.
3:55:17>> No.
3:55:18>> Go eat some sushi.
3:55:20>> Mark Street.
3:55:21>> Yeah. Yeah. Easy for you to say.
3:55:24[laughter]
3:55:27>> All right, everybody. That is it for
3:55:29today's Solved episode. Thank you for
3:55:31tuning in and sticking with us. Again,
3:55:34if you love the show, please leave us a
3:55:36comment, subscribe, follow us on
3:55:38whatever platform. As you probably
3:55:41noticed by now, this is a massive
3:55:43[ __ ] show. And because it is massive
3:55:46and we don't put it out very often, we
3:55:48don't get aggregated into all of the
3:55:50feeds and the platforms as much as other
3:55:52podcasts do. So, the best thing you can
3:55:54do to support us is to like us,
3:55:57subscribe, leave a comment, recommend us
3:55:59to somebody you know and care about.
3:56:01recommend us to somebody who needs a
3:56:02little bit of confidence in their life
3:56:04so that they can uh sit down with us for
3:56:06four and a half hours and realize that
3:56:08they actually don't need confidence in
3:56:10their life. [laughter]
3:56:15[gasps] And of course, we have PDF
3:56:17guides with all of our sources,
3:56:19citations, full summary of everything
3:56:21that we discussed in this episode. You
3:56:23can go to solpodcast.com/confidence
3:56:25to get that PDF guide and to get
3:56:27notified when new episodes come out. So,
3:56:30we look forward to seeing you again next
3:56:31month uh with another exciting topic and
3:56:34more Drew Bernie.
3:56:36>> We'll see you next time.
3:56:37>> See you next time.

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