The Art of Manliness - #108： The Upside of Your Dark Side With Dr. Todd Kashdan

00:00:00.000 Brett McKay here and welcome to another edition of the Art of Manliness podcast.

00:00:20.220 Anywhere you go today, there seems like there's a book or a magazine article or a blog post

00:00:24.980 on 10 ways to be happy, the benefits of happiness, why you need to be mindful, why you need to

00:00:29.980 shouldn't get angry, yada, yada, yada.

00:00:32.520 It means basically an article of faith in 21st century America that you need to be happy

00:00:36.500 all the time or something's wrong with you.

00:00:38.880 Well, our guest today wrote a book along with a few other guys who say that's not necessarily

00:00:43.540 true, that there could be some downsides to positivity all the time and there's downsides

00:00:48.800 to not getting angry.

00:00:50.120 His name is Todd Cashton.

00:00:51.160 He is the author of the book, The Upside of Your Dark Side, Why Being Your Whole Self and

00:00:55.520 Not Just Your Good Self Drives Success and Fulfillment.

00:00:58.340 In the book, him and his co-authors highlight psychological research that shows the benefits

00:01:02.800 of getting depressed, the benefits of getting angry and the downsides of seeing things with

00:01:07.100 rose-colored glasses all the time and being positive and upbeat all the time.

00:01:11.040 Anyway, it's a fascinating discussion.

00:01:12.700 It dovetails nicely with the series we've been doing on depression on the site these past

00:01:16.320 few weeks.

00:01:17.200 A lot of great insights and research that we highlight.

00:01:20.200 We also talk about Teddy Roosevelt.

00:01:21.360 Teddy Roosevelt comes up and Todd calls something that Teddy had the Teddy Effect.

00:01:25.740 And it's psychological traits that we often associate with bad guys, but Teddy had them

00:01:31.760 in spades, but he's able to use those to do a lot of good.

00:01:34.720 Anyways, fascinating discussion.

00:01:35.760 So let's do this.

00:01:41.780 Todd Cashton, welcome to the show.

00:01:44.120 Thank you.

00:01:44.900 All right.

00:01:45.160 So your book is The Upside of Your Dark Side, Why Being Your Whole Self and Not Just Your Good

00:01:50.800 Self Drives Success and Fulfillment.

00:01:53.260 So the reason I love this book and it stuck out to me is that it's a contrarian book because

00:01:58.700 like right now, it seems like we're having this sort of positivity renaissance or I don't

00:02:03.960 know.

00:02:05.100 There's all these books and magazine articles and blog articles about the happiness project

00:02:10.900 or like being mindful and being calm.

00:02:14.060 Um, so my question is in this sort of this positivity culture we live in, what made you research the

00:02:21.280 downside of happiness and the upside of, you know, anger and depression?

00:02:27.600 Sure.

00:02:28.240 Well, my co-author and I are both researchers in the field of well-being.

00:02:32.660 So we've written books and we've written, we've conducted the research on the benefits

00:02:37.560 of happiness, positive social interactions for a decade.

00:02:41.640 And we've read the books you mentioned and we despise, particularly this is an American 1.00

00:02:47.040 cultural phenomenon, this obsession with happiness.

00:02:49.680 And what we've noticed is it doesn't resonate with how we interacted with the real world when

00:02:56.340 we went to corporations, with parenting our kids, with dealing with our romantic partners,

00:03:02.100 with friends that are annoying and friends that we love.

00:03:04.620 And those often oscillate between, we often dislike and like our friends depending on the

00:03:09.660 day of the week.

00:03:10.240 And there are lots of obnoxious, annoying people at work, on the road with you, on the highway

00:03:16.340 that you see in stores that are in line with you, that yell at the stewardesses or bartenders

00:03:21.760 that you happen to be a fan of.

00:03:23.440 And we realized that these books on positivity, while they're, they're uplifting and they're

00:03:29.580 enjoyable and they're hopeful, they're not realistic in terms of what we face in terms

00:03:35.840 of challenges on a daily basis.

00:03:37.620 So we want to create a book that wasn't about that happiness is bad because nobody should

00:03:41.620 listen to us if you say that.

00:03:43.060 It's not about that being kind is a bad thing.

00:03:46.060 It's just that we need to be more agile, which is there's a time and place to be friendly

00:03:51.240 and kind.

00:03:52.000 And that should be our default when we first meet a stranger.

00:03:55.340 But as you know, this is, this is the show of the art of manliness where there's a time

00:04:00.540 and place after a certain number of attempts to being kind, where you have to switch gears

00:04:05.860 into your psychological toolkit and show some dominance and aggression to, to get the best

00:04:11.200 possible outcome in a situation.

00:04:12.720 Nobody wants an argument.

00:04:14.680 Nobody wants to fight.

00:04:16.060 But if somebody messes with your romantic partner or somebody messes with your kids in a very

00:04:21.320 inappropriate way, you better have more tools in your toolkit or you're going to have

00:04:25.240 difficulty getting into life.

00:04:26.880 Yeah.

00:04:26.980 Being nice.

00:04:27.520 Isn't going to solve the problem.

00:04:30.140 Oftentimes.

00:04:30.720 It's a good first start.

00:04:31.840 It's a good first start.

00:04:33.160 You know, we, we talk about in the book is, and a mantra we live by, which is attempt two

00:04:39.300 shots at kindness, real wholehearted attempts.

00:04:43.020 And after that, you get to be more flexible in how you respond to somebody and you get to,

00:04:47.700 and you get to remind them, listen, I tried two times to be friendly with you right now.

00:04:52.280 Your attitude is absolutely inappropriate.

00:04:54.180 Um, we've got some talking to do and you shift gears.

00:04:58.300 Gotcha.

00:04:58.540 So I love, yeah, I love that idea of emotional and mental agility.

00:05:02.480 And we'll talk a little bit more about that later on.

00:05:04.860 Um, so I know you said you don't want to emphasize that you're, you're saying that happiness is

00:05:09.060 bad, but you did say that this, it, this tendency in our, in our American culture to emphasize

00:05:15.360 happiness and positivity does have some downsides.

00:05:19.540 You know, for example, you know, everyone wants to be happy, right?

00:05:21.840 It's like in the declaration of independence, you know, we want to be, our goal as Americans

00:05:25.200 is to pursue happiness, but you, uh, highlight some research that says that we're not actually

00:05:31.440 very good at attaining happiness, even though we want it so bad.

00:05:35.640 Why are we so bad at being happy?

00:05:38.320 You did a really good job reading this book.

00:05:40.520 Yeah.

00:05:40.960 It's so we all want, I mean, we all want our kids to be happy and we all want to be happy.

00:05:45.280 The, there's a sort of paradox here, which is when you, when you try to emphasize happiness

00:05:51.660 as the fundamental objective of your life, if I ask you, you know, why are you trying

00:05:56.460 to make so much money?

00:05:57.700 Why do you want to, um, to enter into a long-term relationship with this guy or gal?

00:06:03.280 Um, you know, why do you want to move to this place?

00:06:05.820 You'll probably say happiness, but if you're every decision, the determinant is, will it make

00:06:11.620 me happier?

00:06:12.740 That's a very problematic way to live.

00:06:14.680 You will never go to graduate school.

00:06:16.660 You will never work up, work up the effort and, um, the, the sweat equity in a workplace

00:06:23.700 to move up the ladder.

00:06:24.980 You're not going to get an increase in pay unless by some random way that all of a sudden

00:06:30.280 everybody's going to get, um, you know, a 3% or 4% buff in salary.

00:06:34.420 You're not going to have a healthy long-term relationship because you need to argue, but learn

00:06:38.340 how to argue well.

00:06:39.580 You're definitely not going to be able to take care of kids because kids are the ultimate hostage

00:06:44.040 negotiators because they never stopped fighting and coming back at you.

00:06:48.420 You need to deviate from positivity.

00:06:51.080 You need to be able to delay gratification.

00:06:53.040 You're going to, on a typical day, see people that are more physically attractive than your romantic

00:06:59.560 partner and more interesting than your friends.

00:07:02.700 And you have to sometimes resist these temptations.

00:07:05.860 It's really what you're committing to you when you're saying you're in a monogamous relationship.

00:07:10.220 It's not that you're going to have, not have temptations.

00:07:13.040 Can you resist them?

00:07:14.080 Can you delay gratification?

00:07:15.400 Can you, can you do something that's hard in the gym for the next three months because

00:07:21.660 you want your body to be in a particular place so you can do a triathlon or do the Spartan

00:07:27.380 race?

00:07:27.980 You don't enjoy going to the gym at five 30 in the morning.

00:07:30.960 You do it because you're on a mission.

00:07:32.460 And so this is all deviations from positivity.

00:07:36.420 And when we speak about positivity is the be all and end all, we miss maturity, wisdom,

00:07:43.980 personal growth, healthy relationships, and most of the things that people want in life.

00:07:49.120 Gotcha.

00:07:49.400 I loved how you talked about the time traveler problem where we think we, we think we know

00:07:56.720 it's going to make us happy, but then when we get there, it doesn't make us as happy as

00:08:02.660 we think.

00:08:03.000 Cause I, that's this problem with like goals for me, right?

00:08:05.120 Like I'll set a goal for myself.

00:08:06.980 And I think once I obtained that, like I'll be happy, but then when you achieve it, you're

00:08:11.360 just sort of like, meh, I mean, what's going on there?

00:08:13.820 Is it because like, am I, I'm a different person or what's going on there?

00:08:19.220 Yeah.

00:08:19.580 I remember, um, reading about, um, this guy, Roberts, I forgot his first name.

00:08:25.080 I think it was, nah, I forgot his first name.

00:08:27.880 So Roberts had at some point that was the strongest man in the world.

00:08:31.920 And when you combine deadlift, bench press, and squat, he had over 3,800 pounds.

00:08:39.380 So just for everyone listening, just put that into your head in terms of his bench press

00:08:44.060 was, I think, 920 pounds.

00:08:46.580 So this guy, this guy spent 10 years of his life.

00:08:49.580 He, he was in the UK.

00:08:50.820 He was too short to make the, um, the national basketball team.

00:08:55.340 And then he was deciding, well, what do I want to do?

00:08:57.260 I always wanted to be a professional basketball player.

00:08:59.600 And then someone, he was in the gym working out and someone said, you know what?

00:09:03.320 You can really amazing form.

00:09:04.760 You're responding very quickly.

00:09:07.080 He's like, can I take you under his wing?

00:09:08.760 And he said, he said, I'll take you under my wing.

00:09:11.400 This, this athletics coach, this strength trainer.

00:09:14.340 They said, if you can tell me what your goal is.

00:09:16.400 And he said, his goal was to be the strongest man in the world.

00:09:18.800 He spent 10 years with that one objective.

00:09:22.840 And again, this is not a happy journey.

00:09:25.160 There's, there's moments of excitement and joy, but as anyone who's really intensely working

00:09:30.160 on running or strength training or agility training, or even just increasing the amount

00:09:35.580 of books they read, there's a lot of non-joy, but a lot of meaning that comes there.

00:09:39.680 At the end of 10 years, when he broke the record to be the strongest man alive, the next day,

00:09:45.380 he was in a depressive spiral because at that point, what do you exactly, what do you do

00:09:50.120 next when you meet that goal?

00:09:52.180 And he got himself together in one week and said, you know what?

00:09:56.360 I'm going to teach these skills that I use of that discipline and bring it into the educational

00:10:02.100 system in the workplace.

00:10:03.400 And that's what he's been doing.

00:10:04.380 So he had to completely turn his life around.

00:10:06.420 Now, for a lot of people, you know, you think of astronauts that have been on the moon,

00:10:11.020 every one of them had a mental, had a mental breakdown when they came back, because what

00:10:15.660 do you do after you've been on, you've actually physically stood on another planet.

00:10:20.700 And then all of a sudden you're taking out the garbage on Tuesdays and Thursdays.

00:10:25.480 Yeah, that's, that's a big letdown for sure.

00:10:29.340 So I thought that was interesting too, you know, a lot of this, the positive psychology research

00:10:34.320 emphasizes all these benefits of, of being happy, right?

00:10:38.340 Better health.

00:10:39.860 You recognize opportunities more often than maybe people with a depressive outlook on life.

00:10:44.880 But then you highlight research in the book saying there are some downsides to happiness

00:10:50.940 or positivity.

00:10:52.500 What are some of those downsides that can kind of get us get in the way of living a meaningful

00:10:57.100 and productive life?

00:10:58.840 Sure.

00:11:00.700 And, and I really want everyone to kind of really think about this.

00:11:04.680 So when they're in a really happy mood, you are much poorer at detecting cheaters.

00:11:10.660 You're much more susceptible to deception, right?

00:11:14.220 So if you, if you end up going to Las Ramblas in Barcelona and you're in an extremely happy

00:11:19.360 mood and you're partying and you're drinking and you don't notice the tricks of the trade

00:11:25.040 of some of these deceitful characters in the street, where one person distracts you with

00:11:29.220 an attractive guy or woman, and then someone else is picking your wallet out of your back

00:11:33.320 pocket while this conversation is happening.

00:11:35.500 When you have a little bit of anxiety, or a little bit of, I'm not talking about despair

00:11:40.960 or fear.

00:11:42.560 When you're a little bit skeptical at the same time enjoying yourself, well, you have your,

00:11:47.980 you have your self-protective self that's still available there.

00:11:51.340 Um, we tend to be more self-focused and more selfish when we're in a happy mood.

00:11:55.680 And this has been shown in, in tons of research studies in Australia, when you're given an

00:12:00.840 opportunity to split a windfall of money or resources that comes your way with other people

00:12:08.660 and they can't see what you're doing, you're much more likely to take a bigger piece of the

00:12:13.120 pie for yourself than when you're in a sad mood or a guilty mood or a little bit of an irritable

00:12:19.020 mood, um, you're less likely to remember details of emotionally provocative situations.

00:12:25.360 So think about being an offender vendor, thinking about, um, um, having a disagreement with, uh,

00:12:32.460 with someone, with a professor or, um, or with your romantic partner about, you know, whether

00:12:38.540 you're doing, you're holding your share of the chores at home.

00:12:41.840 When you're in a good mood, you're less likely to remember the details, which makes it problematic

00:12:46.100 because often those conversations don't go well.

00:12:49.560 And the second conversation afterwards, the next day, when you're making your mea culpas,

00:12:56.020 um, the more that you remember about the interaction, the more you can build off of it and have a

00:13:00.980 constructive conversation about why you're not contributing to the chores or why you should

00:13:05.280 be contributing more to the chores and apologizing for not doing so, of hearing their side of the

00:13:10.960 story for doing these things.

00:13:12.500 And when you're in a positive mood, you're more distractible.

00:13:16.080 And basically there's a reason for this, which is when we feel good, we love the status quo.

00:13:21.260 We don't want to change things.

00:13:22.640 We don't want to exert ourself a hundred percent in the gym or in a joyous mood.

00:13:26.880 We don't want to run, um, an interval training where we're running at full speed for a minute

00:13:31.560 and a half and then slowing down for a minute and a half and then going back to full speed.

00:13:35.480 We want to just go for a job.

00:13:37.320 We want to just have a nice conversation.

00:13:39.120 We're not looking to shake the boat and when it's a little bit of a distress and a little

00:13:44.260 bit of skepticism in our system, we're much more open to listening to other people, thinking

00:13:49.760 of what can I do to tweak myself, other people, and the environment to improve things for myself.

00:13:56.480 And so when you hear this, it's not that positive moods are better than negative moods.

00:14:00.860 It depends what, what's your challenge that you're facing.

00:14:04.280 If the goal is to live in the moment right now, go for a positive mood.

00:14:08.760 If the goal is to pay attention to explicit details and remember things, being a little

00:14:14.100 bit more downtrodden or anxious is actually better for you.

00:14:18.280 All right.

00:14:18.840 Again, it's going back to that, uh, emotional agility kind of.

00:14:22.560 Yeah, exactly.

00:14:23.640 Okay.

00:14:24.200 And so here's another section in your book that really resonated with me.

00:14:27.440 And I think will resonate with art of manliness readers and listeners, um, is this idea that,

00:14:32.340 uh, the pursuit of comfort and luxury, uh, paradoxically makes us, could make us more

00:14:39.140 mentally and emotionally miserable.

00:14:40.940 What's the research on that?

00:14:42.160 We're saying, you know, comfort can make us miserable.

00:14:45.220 It can also make our kids miserable.

00:14:48.020 Yeah.

00:14:48.540 The best research is with parenting.

00:14:50.440 And there's a term that Catherine Warner came up with, which I love, which is called emotional

00:14:55.600 safeguarding, which is about parents that just want their kids to be happy.

00:14:59.560 And I'm no different.

00:15:00.240 I've got three daughters and I want my kids to be happy, but there's a very interesting

00:15:04.040 thing that happens with particularly middle-class parents, which is they want their kids to

00:15:08.880 be intellectually challenged in the classroom.

00:15:11.220 They want them to take in all of the advanced courses.

00:15:14.200 They don't want them to miss out on anything.

00:15:15.720 They want them to be on, um, the Khan Academy, the website.

00:15:19.100 They want to hire tutors and they want the best teachers that will, that will really push

00:15:24.320 them to the limits.

00:15:25.940 And yet when it comes to their social life or their emotional life, we really try to

00:15:30.960 safeguard them.

00:15:31.780 We plan play dates so they're with the right people that we've already pre-selected in

00:15:36.680 advance.

00:15:37.260 They have a good parent, they've got good stock, they're good kids.

00:15:42.180 Um, they think like our family does.

00:15:44.500 They have the same political orientation.

00:15:46.540 They have the same religious views we do.

00:15:48.700 And it's a very weird thing.

00:15:50.220 It's like, there's this blind spot where the typical American parent recognizes they

00:15:55.820 need to be intellectually challenged in the class, but socially, I want to put all, it's

00:16:00.140 like, you know, when you have your, your five-year-old bowling and all of a sudden you have those,

00:16:04.560 those bumpers that appear so that they can't actually have a, um, I forgot the term.

00:16:10.500 Gutter ball.

00:16:10.860 The gutter ball.

00:16:11.920 Yeah.

00:16:12.220 They can't have a gutter ball, right?

00:16:13.600 We set up these guardrails so that they, they will only socialize with really good kids.

00:16:18.740 And here's the problem.

00:16:20.420 Once you leave the nest, when you're 12 years old or 13 years old, even, and you start hanging

00:16:26.220 out with kids from other schools, or you start meeting kids at the mall or, you know, wherever

00:16:31.300 kids hang out on the streets, you don't, they don't, they're not choosing who they're hanging

00:16:35.280 out with.

00:16:35.480 They have lots of different characters.

00:16:37.240 They need to be able to, how can I read people to know whether I can trust them or mistrust

00:16:42.900 them?

00:16:43.460 You know, I always think about, I've been thinking about writing a parenting book and the whole premise

00:16:47.700 of it would be this very simple idea because I'm from New York City, which is if I was

00:16:52.940 to take your kid and drop them off blindfolded in Grand Central Station with $2, could they

00:16:58.720 make their self, could they make their way back to your house?

00:17:01.780 Would they have the practical intelligence skills, the ability to tolerate distress, the

00:17:08.040 ability to read and understand people that can leverage them to get their way home?

00:17:12.680 And that's kind of how I train my kids.

00:17:15.700 And that's kind of how I think about that when we train our kids to be comfortable, they

00:17:19.980 don't develop the practical intelligence because they don't have any hoops or challenges that

00:17:24.620 they go through.

00:17:25.580 And we did it when we were younger.

00:17:27.760 Our parents did it even more than we did.

00:17:30.180 Our grandparents in the Great Depression era were amazing at this.

00:17:34.060 And so we're not, I mean, of course we don't want the creature comforts.

00:17:37.620 I love having a king size bed.

00:17:39.280 I love having a body conforming pillow.

00:17:42.420 I love central air.

00:17:44.080 I'm not saying any of those things are bad.

00:17:46.900 What I'm saying is if you don't challenge yourselves regularly, you become psychologically

00:17:52.560 weaker.

00:17:54.040 Yeah.

00:17:54.700 There's a great quote from King Cyrus, the Persian Kings.

00:17:58.480 It's like soft lands make soft people or something like that.

00:18:02.960 But yeah.

00:18:03.760 Yeah.

00:18:03.920 And I love that idea of helping your kids develop practical intelligence.

00:18:08.360 It's sounds very much that whole grand station thing sounds very much like that

00:18:11.760 free lane, free range parenting lady where, yeah, I think she just recently got in 1.00

00:18:16.940 trouble.

00:18:17.240 Like the family services like investigated her because people reported that she was 0.95

00:18:22.040 abusing her kids, which is weird.

00:18:24.140 Kids are fine.

00:18:25.220 Right.

00:18:25.820 Right near me.

00:18:26.460 30 miles away from my house because her kids were in a playground, seven to nine

00:18:30.440 year old by themselves in a playground and people freaked out and called 911.

00:18:33.880 Yeah.

00:18:34.340 That's crazy.

00:18:35.660 It's crazy.

00:18:35.980 Well, that's kids are supposed to be on a playground.

00:18:38.360 Um, okay.

00:18:39.900 So we've, we've talked about some of the downsides of happiness.

00:18:43.340 Well, here's another thing.

00:18:44.200 And it kind of bugs me a lot because everyone's always talking about mindfulness, right?

00:18:49.440 There's blogs about mindfulness.

00:18:50.960 There's books about mindfulness and don't get me wrong.

00:18:53.300 Like I'm a big, big believer in meditation and mindfulness meditation.

00:18:58.500 Um, but yeah, sometimes it just sort of irritating when you just see it all the time.

00:19:02.600 It's this sort of end all be all.

00:19:04.020 And once you become mindful, then your life will become wonderful.

00:19:06.940 But you make the case that there's actually a benefit to mindlessness.

00:19:11.220 Uh, what are some of those benefits?

00:19:13.860 Yeah.

00:19:14.220 And this is exactly why you, your disdain is why we called our chapter, the tyranny of

00:19:19.480 mindfulness.

00:19:19.940 It is, it's, it's tyrannical.

00:19:22.440 Yeah.

00:19:22.740 And my wife's yoga instructor.

00:19:24.460 So I've been experiencing this for 15 years now, the tyranny of mindfulness in my house.

00:19:29.120 I mean, just, just think, let me just give the example of, of, uh, of an outfielder on

00:19:34.260 a baseball team and think about them trying to catch a fly ball.

00:19:38.500 Think about how far they are from the batter's box and think of all of the variables if they

00:19:44.780 were to be mindful, to pay attention to in terms of where do I need to be, how fast do

00:19:50.580 I have to move?

00:19:51.280 I have to pay attention to wind pressure, barometric pressure, the stance of the batter,

00:19:57.040 the speed of the ball, um, their torque motion, how quickly they turn their hips when they

00:20:02.380 actually hit the ball, the angle that the ball hits the, hits the bat, um, where the

00:20:07.420 sun is.

00:20:08.160 We can't mindfully attend to all of this information.

00:20:12.660 One of the things that separates human beings from other, from other creatures and other

00:20:17.380 animals is not that we can become mindful and reach this higher state of consciousness.

00:20:21.780 It's that so many things that we do is amazingly happens at an unconscious gut level.

00:20:29.260 And so how does it, how does an outfielder on a baseball or softball team catch a ball?

00:20:34.280 Extremely simple.

00:20:35.680 One simple shortcut, which is I keep, when I run my eye contact with the ball, the angle

00:20:42.840 stays the same the entire time that I run.

00:20:45.680 And if I keep the angle the same, I will get to that ball.

00:20:49.460 Sometimes I have to run faster.

00:20:51.380 Sometimes I have to actually back up and back up for a little bit.

00:20:54.740 And we don't even constantly think about that, that gaze shortcut, gaze to the ball is all

00:21:01.300 you pay attention to.

00:21:02.580 And if we, if you had a baseball player listen to this and pay attention to all of those variables

00:21:09.500 to calculate where they should be, they will be completely paralyzed and will never catch

00:21:14.900 a fly ball again.

00:21:15.680 And it's when people choke, when people choke, I don't know if you remember like Mackie Sasser

00:21:20.800 from the Nets in the late eighties, where, where, you know, here was a guy who was, you

00:21:26.980 know, hitting a nice two 80, two 90 batting average, and he couldn't throw the ball back

00:21:31.480 to the pitcher after a strike or a ball.

00:21:35.620 Right.

00:21:36.100 I mean, you're talking 90 feet.

00:21:37.820 He just developed stage fright.

00:21:39.420 And all of these psychologists were working with him, which was, listen, be mindful about,

00:21:44.720 you know, the ball in your hands and the, and what it feels like to be in a crouching

00:21:49.360 situation, a crouching stance as a catcher and standing back up again, when you throw the

00:21:53.880 ball.

00:21:54.220 And all that did was screw him up further.

00:21:56.260 And finally, someone trains him is you have to get back into the robotic automatic movements

00:22:02.560 that you've been doing since you were nine years old.

00:22:04.980 And only by getting, becoming mindless about it, was he able to throw the ball back to

00:22:09.640 the pitcher, not by being mindful.

00:22:12.200 Yeah.

00:22:12.660 Didn't the, in the movie major league two, they kind of spoofed that.

00:22:16.320 I don't know if you remember that.

00:22:18.000 They're like, yeah, like the catcher, like he, he all of a sudden couldn't throw the ball

00:22:23.380 back to the pitcher, you know, instead of throwing it back, he'd run to the pitcher and

00:22:27.700 put in his glove.

00:22:28.360 But the way he overcame it was the, uh, the coach had him recite, um, cause he, he read

00:22:35.340 playboy and he read like the descriptions of the models, like what, what Sheila likes

00:22:39.880 and she a Capricorn.

00:22:41.420 And he would just recite that when he's throwing the ball back to the pitcher.

00:22:44.460 And that's how he got over his, uh, his choking, throwing back to the pitcher.

00:22:48.980 Yeah.

00:22:49.380 You should check that out.

00:22:50.520 It's hilarious.

00:22:51.560 No, that's, that's so awesome because that's exactly what I'm talking about.

00:22:54.860 So by distracting himself, he's going into, so we have two modes of thinking, right?

00:23:00.100 There's an automatic reflexive mode.

00:23:01.960 So if he's thinking about playboy centerfolds and all of their interests, he's not thinking

00:23:06.820 about the ball, the sweat that's dripping down his face or the, or a stand of 30,000

00:23:11.940 people.

00:23:12.580 He's doing it mindfully, reflexively and automatically.

00:23:16.340 Mindful is become, become very reflective and become very thoughtful about what we're

00:23:21.600 doing.

00:23:21.980 And there's a time to, you know, there's, uh, you hear people talk all the time about

00:23:27.220 their gut instincts about, you know, I don't want to do, I don't want to do a sign to sign

00:23:32.100 with this guy in terms of buying a house.

00:23:34.600 I don't want to buy a car from this guy.

00:23:36.020 I have this gut instinct that this guy does not have my best interest at heart.

00:23:39.880 Those gut instincts underneath them is all of the years you've been collecting information

00:23:45.440 about people.

00:23:46.500 Millions of years of evolution have developed such that we have these quick signals of whether

00:23:51.780 to trust someone or mistrust someone, you know, we get to chill sometimes or with somebody

00:23:56.040 in the elevator or we have the goosebumps when we just are walking next to somebody and we

00:24:00.840 look and we realize there's some sort of chemistry there.

00:24:03.420 There's some fear known that's happening between the two of us.

00:24:06.020 Now I'm not saying always believe your gut instincts, but what I would say is what we're

00:24:11.040 doing now is we're discounting that your gut instincts is really your intelligence on speed

00:24:18.100 and that we should first pay attention to that before we think about, I want to try to be

00:24:23.300 mindful every moment of our lives.

00:24:25.660 Gotcha.

00:24:26.080 And I thought it was interesting.

00:24:26.700 You talked about how, uh, presidents doodle, like most of the presidents doodle during meetings.

00:24:31.400 And that's sort of a mindless activity that actually helped them pay attention more.

00:24:36.220 Yeah.

00:24:36.780 There's, there's a big thing that we know about creativity, which is, and almost every

00:24:41.440 business organization gets this wrong.

00:24:43.320 You know, what normally happens is you grab 15 people, you bring them into the large oval

00:24:48.220 table and you have this brainstorming session.

00:24:50.860 So extemporaneously you're sharing all these ideas together.

00:24:55.100 Well, that's actually not how creativity works effectively.

00:24:58.600 People need to hear what the problem is, give them a couple of constraints about what they

00:25:04.160 can or can't do based on whoever the consumer is or whoever's pulling the purse strings, right?

00:25:09.940 So we need to have a two pages.

00:25:11.620 It has to have a story.

00:25:13.440 Um, it's got to involve, um, it's gotta be for, we're looking for 20 to 35 year old women 1.00

00:25:19.920 who will stay at home.

00:25:21.460 That's our, that's our target audience.

00:25:22.920 But those constraints have them think about some ideas, but then have, give them some

00:25:28.180 time to do something totally distracting that has nothing to do with the project, whether

00:25:33.200 it's going for a bike ride, going for a nap, going in the shower, having sex, whatever it

00:25:37.440 is. 0.82

00:25:38.160 Um, and then come back to it.

00:25:40.020 And when you're in that incubation period of doing something else, your brain is actively

00:25:45.780 mixing ideas together.

00:25:47.180 So it's like a smoothie, it's blending ideas that are no longer being edited by you.

00:25:52.020 And that's where, that's part of the magical process of creativity, that incubation period

00:25:57.140 of doing something else other than the activity you're trying to be creative in.

00:26:02.420 Gotcha.

00:26:03.260 So, uh, I think you've, you've touched on it a little bit, uh, in your discussion about

00:26:07.140 the downsides of positivity and happiness.

00:26:09.920 Um, but explicitly, what are some of the upsides of like depression, right?

00:26:15.060 Like right now, you know, we're doing a series about depression on our, our site and feel

00:26:20.060 like in America, particularly, cause we have this emphasis on happiness that if you're sad

00:26:24.720 or you're feeling down, um, you're broken, right?

00:26:28.160 You're, you need to get that fixed.

00:26:29.840 Um, but you highlight research that there's actually some possible benefits to being in a

00:26:35.260 low, low mood for an, for a period of time.

00:26:37.960 Yes, no question.

00:26:40.300 So one is, it's very difficult because the norm, the appropriate norms for men of expressing

00:26:46.300 sadness, the stigma is massive.

00:26:48.340 It's like, you're weak, you're broken, exactly how you describe it.

00:26:51.660 So it's particularly hard for men to acknowledge that sadness has a benefit.

00:26:57.060 I'm going to separate this.

00:26:58.360 Depression has its own term, which is really a psychological problem.

00:27:01.620 So we're really talking about sadness, just the feeling of being sad.

00:27:04.480 You're just kind of downcast.

00:27:05.540 Um, there is no quicker way to solicit help and cooperation and support from other people

00:27:12.900 than having a sad facial expression.

00:27:15.140 And we often don't know what it feels like of whether we actually look sad to other people.

00:27:19.880 Um, if you look in the mirror, you can do this.

00:27:21.920 I mean, method actors do this like De Niro all the time.

00:27:25.320 Um, but we often don't know this.

00:27:26.480 People will just say like, oh, you look kind of sad today.

00:27:28.540 Now, the typical male response, including myself over my entire lifetime is, no, I'm fine.

00:27:34.640 And you try to snap yourself out of it.

00:27:36.900 Now, why did someone ask you?

00:27:39.400 It looks like you're a little bit sad today because they're right now in that moment.

00:27:43.180 They saw that expression and they want to do something for you.

00:27:46.700 And so what I would say is your body, that emotion, that's something to get rid of.

00:27:51.580 And that's an emotion to, we have to allow ourselves to recognize that part of being

00:27:57.700 really psychologically strong, mentally strong is allowing ourselves to be vulnerable.

00:28:03.820 Um, you can't, we can't do everything ourselves.

00:28:06.260 And the reason that baseball teams and basketball teams and football teams are great metaphors

00:28:10.740 is because you're leveraging the strengths of a number of different people together.

00:28:14.860 And that's the only way that these teams make it through the rankings and end up in

00:28:18.980 whatever the final championship games tend to be.

00:28:21.720 It's not because of just Kobe Bryant.

00:28:23.760 It's because of the supporting cast that does all these small little details that work with

00:28:28.880 them.

00:28:29.420 One person can't get the game and it goes with that way in everything in life and parenting.

00:28:34.180 I mean, if you, if you're unwilling to accept support because you're not feeling yourself,

00:28:39.640 you're a little bit out of your body for some reason.

00:28:41.720 Well, it's good.

00:28:42.680 You're going to be, you're going to yell more at your kids.

00:28:45.480 You're going to be less patient.

00:28:47.060 You're going to be less compassionate.

00:28:48.580 You're not going to have as much fun with them.

00:28:50.240 And these will lead to the memories of what childhood was like for them.

00:28:53.360 A lot of us, you know, will be a tough dad as you go back a generation.

00:28:57.600 Um, they weren't soft with us.

00:28:59.280 And so we have this, we have these ideas that part of being a man is never showing that

00:29:04.000 you're fearful, never showing that you're sad and never showing that you feel guilty.

00:29:07.940 And that's a problematic idea because we can't, we left it up because all of these emotions

00:29:13.680 have a use, you know, guilt, guilt is this really beautiful emotion.

00:29:18.920 It feels bad, but it's a reminder that I need to, it's a motivate, it's a motivator.

00:29:25.120 It's telling us we should do something else to something to repair our relationship because

00:29:29.900 we did something that pissed somebody off or upset somebody.

00:29:33.060 And that's a good emotion and prisoners that feel guilty when they're in prison are less

00:29:38.920 likely to go through the revolving door and engage in another crime and end up back in

00:29:43.300 the system again.

00:29:44.860 What about anger?

00:29:45.960 I mean, that's something else that's often directed towards men that like you, you got

00:29:49.680 to get a control of your anger and you can't be angry.

00:29:52.720 Um, but there are some benefits to anger.

00:29:55.300 What, what are those?

00:29:56.120 Oh, anger is so doing, it's been two years of interviewing people for this book, writing

00:30:03.980 this book.

00:30:04.460 And now I've been running around talking about no emotion.

00:30:07.920 Do people have more problems with that anger?

00:30:10.420 And this has been a real big surprise to me.

00:30:12.640 I thought it was going to be sadness or fear.

00:30:15.020 And part of the, for anger is what you just described, which is this idea that we have to

00:30:20.400 keep these neanderthal attitudes, these frat, like 20 something angry impulses to ourselves.

00:30:28.520 You know, we're not allowed to be angry now that we're adults.

00:30:30.580 We're supposed to be mature enough that we can handle all difficult situations.

00:30:35.220 Well, anger is the emotion that appears when we feel as if the goals that we care about

00:30:42.000 are being obstructed by somebody else or something else.

00:30:46.120 It's the idea that our, our moral code has been demolished by somebody.

00:30:51.940 And so we feel angry, you know, ends up being, if you're with your family and you're having

00:30:55.820 dinner at a restaurant and someone smokes a cigarette and blows it right over your table,

00:31:00.420 you experience anger.

00:31:01.840 If someone, if you're waiting patiently in a parking lot for a parking spot and someone

00:31:05.540 grabs it right before you, even though you've been sitting there for two minutes, you get

00:31:09.280 angry.

00:31:09.940 Now, this is a, this is not an emotion to hide.

00:31:12.080 This is an emotion of, of it's, it's telling you something important.

00:31:16.640 And then the question you asked, which is so important, which is how do you effectively

00:31:19.840 display this in a healthy way to get the best possible outcome?

00:31:24.080 So just a couple of things.

00:31:25.660 One is, and we talked about this in the book, which is the idea of having a caveat before

00:31:32.460 you express your anger.

00:31:33.860 So think about it at work.

00:31:35.580 Think about if your boss pissed you off, there's a power imbalance.

00:31:38.900 So it's, so a lot of people say is it's easy to be, for you to say anger is good because

00:31:44.360 you have tenure and you can't get fired from the university unless you, you know, have sex 1.00

00:31:48.320 with 17 students.

00:31:50.260 But for, in any workplace, if you feel that your boss is being disrespectful to you, if

00:31:56.980 you feel as if someone's harassing you, there's a way to communicate this.

00:32:01.320 When you, when you, when you schedule an appointment to meet with your boss, you don't start off by

00:32:05.640 right away screaming and saying that you feel disrespected and respectfully, particularly

00:32:10.720 because they did in front of other people.

00:32:12.600 You tell them, listen, I'm really uncomfortable about something I want to tell you, but it's

00:32:17.780 important to me because, um, I can't give you the best possible work I can unless we have

00:32:23.380 this conversation.

00:32:24.860 Now, what that does is when said softly is it brings his, his or her defenses down a little

00:32:30.240 bit so that he or she is ready to listen to you with that.

00:32:34.880 And it's probably true. 0.62

00:32:35.700 You're probably going to be uncomfortable having the conversation.

00:32:37.800 So why not just admit it?

00:32:39.680 Once you have that caveat out of the way, there's a couple of things.

00:32:43.140 One is your anger, your expression has to be proportional to the problem that you're

00:32:48.440 dealing with.

00:32:49.040 So if your boss was just trying to be funny and ended up talking about making, talking

00:32:54.820 some smack about you in front of a bunch of people, well, you can't grab a red pipe and

00:32:59.780 smash everything off his table.

00:33:01.540 That's, that's not proportional to the problem.

00:33:04.340 You can raise your voice, but it's not worth, profanity probably is even too extreme for that

00:33:09.380 situation.

00:33:10.600 Um, they'll see it in your face.

00:33:12.780 Um, and by you sitting up in your chair and you looking them right in the eye and saying

00:33:17.060 that, listen, the way that you spoke about me in front of that room full of people was

00:33:21.960 completely disrespectful to me.

00:33:24.080 And I saw you laughing, which made me even more upset.

00:33:26.900 And what made me particularly, particularly perturbed about this, which is why I felt so

00:33:31.660 compelled to talk to you is you didn't do it one-on-one with me.

00:33:36.060 You expressed some of the problems you had in front of a room full of people.

00:33:40.340 Now, what you're inducing is you're being very clear that they're not, that the anger

00:33:45.900 is about what they did, not who they are.

00:33:48.720 And that's really important for expressing anger effectively. 1.00

00:33:51.600 I'm not going to say, listen, you're an asshole. 1.00

00:33:55.160 You're a bad manager. 1.00

00:33:57.180 Um, you are a hypocrite with the values that you say you have anything in that nature. 1.00

00:34:04.060 Everything that you say is not going to be heard. 0.99

00:34:06.060 But when I talk about the exact behavior and the specifics of you chose to say that in

00:34:11.300 front of a room full of people, they can listen to that.

00:34:14.400 And that's something they can actually acknowledge and apologize.

00:34:17.560 Um, the other part of anger to make it effective is you need to be clear and be able to look

00:34:24.720 at somebody and stand your ground throughout the expression of what was bothering you.

00:34:29.500 A lot of people, they express their anger, what bothered them in the beginning, and then

00:34:33.420 they kind of shy off and their voice gets a little bit softer in pitch and a little bit

00:34:38.240 more quiet and timid.

00:34:39.880 So it's as if you're not really fully standing up for yourself.

00:34:43.040 Um, and then the final piece of expressing anger effectively is you have to allow the

00:34:51.100 person to have an out, which is, I don't expect you to respond right now to what I just told

00:34:57.640 you.

00:34:58.220 Um, but when you're ready, if it's a day from now or two days from now, um, you can come

00:35:02.460 back to me and, um, you know, just how to tell you how I'm feeling because they might

00:35:06.520 be defensive and they might not give the response you want to.

00:35:10.060 But I know for me, for, you know, I've got 40 people that work for me.

00:35:12.780 A lot of times people tell me that they're pissed off about something I've done.

00:35:16.200 Immediately, you know, I respond and kind of in a witty way, which is saying of somehow

00:35:21.160 downplaying what they're saying.

00:35:22.900 And then 24 hours later, I ended up apologizing to them saying they were absolutely right.

00:35:26.340 I thought about it overnight.

00:35:27.400 I couldn't sleep as well as I wanted to.

00:35:29.420 I'm glad you were sort of, I'm glad we have a good enough relationship where you could

00:35:32.980 speak your mind.

00:35:33.780 I want to get the best from you.

00:35:35.240 I want you to feel good working here.

00:35:36.980 Um, so we need to have these conversations.

00:35:39.240 It won't always go that way, but it's important.

00:35:42.200 And to develop the pattern of standing up for yourself.

00:35:44.820 That's some great advice there.

00:35:46.640 Now, uh, we're at the art of manliness.

00:35:48.640 We're big fans of Teddy Roosevelt.

00:35:49.800 He's like the patron saint of the art of manliness.

00:35:51.960 Um, so I was really tickled that you had a whole chapter called the Teddy effect, uh,

00:35:58.000 dedicated about Teddy Roosevelt and his sort of the dark side of his personality that made

00:36:03.680 him successful.

00:36:04.280 Uh, can you talk about what the Teddy effect is?

00:36:08.340 First of all, this, this is why I'm here.

00:36:10.400 Anyone that has Teddy Roosevelt, I've got a bobblehead of Teddy Roosevelt that's on both

00:36:14.020 of my desks at home and at work.

00:36:15.480 That's awesome.

00:36:16.080 He is my man.

00:36:17.100 So I'm with you guys.

00:36:18.020 I'm not going to be a huge fan of your show now.

00:36:19.940 Um, Teddy Roosevelt is whatever president should be and should aspire to become.

00:36:26.000 Unfortunately, in today's world, there's no way you can have that with Teddy Roosevelt

00:36:29.480 with the blogosphere and people having smartphones everywhere.

00:36:32.820 I mean, here's a guy who would swim naked in the Potomac river, right behind the white 1.00

00:36:37.560 house in the middle of the night.

00:36:39.320 Here's a guy who would leave in the middle of all Senate and the Senate is in session

00:36:43.520 and just go hunting for bears in North Dakota because he didn't want to listen to what they

00:36:48.800 had to say until they actually could solve something on their own.

00:36:52.220 Um, you know, here's the guy who was in the middle of giving a speech.

00:36:56.120 Uh, he had notes in his pocket and was shot and the bullet, the bullet did not pass

00:37:02.480 to the notes in his pocket.

00:37:03.920 He took the notes out, looked at the bullet, put it down and kept on giving his speech.

00:37:08.980 Um, Teddy Roosevelt had a lot of the characteristics that are similar to what we would call psychopaths,

00:37:15.060 which is, you know, Dexter, the HBO show is a great example of a psychopath.

00:37:20.540 Um, where this is, this, if he was in, fell into the wrong peer group, this is a guy who

00:37:28.140 would have been an amazing serial killer.

00:37:30.380 Um, the leader of the leader of a gang in inner city, Chicago, and an amazing drug dealer.

00:37:35.260 And he happened to just have his leadership skills.

00:37:37.440 He found a place in politics before, before he was in government.

00:37:41.400 He was actually, uh, you know, took the police in, in, in New York city.

00:37:45.280 Um, and he actually, and this is a guy who has, he's a selfish guy.

00:37:51.180 Um, he recognized that he wanted his legacy, he wanted his legacy to be as amazing.

00:37:56.960 And he was willing to put himself ahead of a lot of people over the course of his career.

00:38:01.740 He had a strong inner circle all the time that was considered part of, it's part of him.

00:38:07.440 So he protected them as much as he did it.

00:38:09.880 So his loyalty was huge.

00:38:11.820 This was a guy who was narcissistic.

00:38:13.620 Now, when we talk about narcissism, um, most people don't realize that there's, there's

00:38:19.280 a healthy side of narcissism and an unhealthy side.

00:38:22.040 And Teddy had a real good batch of the healthy side of narcissism.

00:38:25.580 And so if you, if you, if you don't mind, I'll explain these two sides to your viewers.

00:38:30.300 Sure.

00:38:30.340 That'd be great.

00:38:31.880 So I think of, there's one, so the unhealthy side, another, an example of the unhealthy side

00:38:37.200 would be, um, meta world peace for the Lakers, which we can call narcissistic

00:38:43.200 rivalry and narcissistic rivalry is when it's almost as if you're holding a sign that says,

00:38:48.740 I will never let any of my rivals get what they deserve.

00:38:54.860 I want everything to come to me.

00:38:56.540 So your, your focus, your obsession is I have these amazing strengths.

00:39:00.340 I am an amazing person.

00:39:02.300 Um, and I'm going to make sure that nobody holds me down.

00:39:05.940 And you're, you're obsessed about where your rivals are, where your ranking is.

00:39:09.960 And so all of your time and effort is not focused on achievement.

00:39:13.960 It's not focused on doing great things.

00:39:16.440 It's focused on being better than the other people that you're competing with and taken

00:39:21.620 to its extreme of a sense of entitlement, a feeling that you're better than everybody

00:39:25.740 else, and then focusing on, um, passively, aggressively blocking your rivals from getting

00:39:33.940 the ball, um, preventing your, preventing your colleagues from getting, from being acknowledged

00:39:39.340 that they were part of the reason that this, that this transaction was successful.

00:39:44.140 It's just a bad thing for organizations.

00:39:46.100 It's a bad thing for athletic teams.

00:39:48.140 It's a bad thing to find in a relationship.

00:39:50.380 And meta world peace is a really good example.

00:39:52.380 This guy had a ton of domestic abuse problems, didn't get along with the other LA Lakers

00:39:57.400 on his basketball team, um, changed his name because he wanted the spotlight on him and

00:40:02.980 he would not pass the ball to certain people on the team.

00:40:05.600 If he, if they thought that they spoke badly about him in the media, which you just gotta,

00:40:10.180 you just don't do as a colleague, you can dislike someone when it comes to tournament

00:40:14.580 time or game time.

00:40:16.280 Um, you got to put that aside now on the flip side, on the healthy side, narcissism,

00:40:22.040 we can call it narcissistic admiration.

00:40:24.860 Colby Bryant is the perfect example of this.

00:40:27.560 It's as if you're holding a sign that says, I have amazing strength that people still don't

00:40:32.520 appreciate.

00:40:33.920 Colby Bryant.

00:40:35.540 If you talk to any player in the NBA, they will say he's the most, one of the most annoying

00:40:41.000 people in the league.

00:40:42.120 And yet he's incredible.

00:40:43.940 So he deserves it. 0.96

00:40:45.660 So yes, he's narcissistic. 0.95

00:40:47.680 Yes.

00:40:47.920 He thinks he's amazing.

00:40:49.500 Yes.

00:40:50.320 Before games actually start with the LA Lakers, same team is better world peace.

00:40:55.380 All the players practice on one side of the court when they're just shooting around.

00:40:59.780 And Colby feels he needs to be by himself to get in the Zen zone.

00:41:04.640 And he's on the other side shooting by himself.

00:41:06.560 The team understands this.

00:41:07.800 They've accepted this.

00:41:08.900 There's a sense of entitlement there.

00:41:10.240 There's narcissism there.

00:41:11.640 Um, the guy speaks five languages.

00:41:14.140 The guy's one of the best players in the NBA in terms of his ball handling skills.

00:41:18.040 Um, he screams at other players, but he does it because he, he believes he's capable of

00:41:26.240 doing amazing things and he's pushing everyone, including himself to be the best possible person.

00:41:32.080 Michael Jordan was the same way.

00:41:33.880 Um, you know, he's famous for punching Steve care in the face during practice because, um,

00:41:41.000 he's dribbling was not up to par in practice.

00:41:44.240 No cameras.

00:41:45.380 Nobody was there.

00:41:46.120 He punched deep care right in the face.

00:41:48.040 And in that moment, um, he gained the most respect for Michael Jordan and they became

00:41:55.320 best friends on their team.

00:41:57.000 More even, even him and, and Scotty Pippitt, Steve current and Michael Jordan were closer

00:42:02.140 than him and Pippitt, um, because he recognized this guy wanted to be the best possible.

00:42:07.380 And a punch was not about to enter that relationship.

00:42:10.180 And that punch was not going to interfere with him wanting to be the best.

00:42:14.140 And so it was the recognition.

00:42:16.280 I'm amazing.

00:42:17.120 I have gifts and they tend to be charismatic.

00:42:20.840 They tend to attract other people.

00:42:22.920 People want to emulate them.

00:42:24.360 They love this and it just makes them work harder.

00:42:27.860 And Teddy Roosevelt emulated narcissistic admiration.

00:42:30.960 This was a guy who thought he was the best president that was ever put into power.

00:42:34.700 And he did it.

00:42:36.340 He felt that way.

00:42:37.720 But because of that, he felt the necessity to live up that expectation that he had for

00:42:44.240 himself and for his legacy.

00:42:45.580 And he worked hard as hard or harder than any other president that is out there.

00:42:49.380 Yeah.

00:42:49.860 He, he's the only person who, uh, he petitioned for the medal of honor.

00:42:54.180 Like he thought he deserved the medal of honor after, um, the, the chart with the rough

00:43:00.420 riders, right?

00:43:01.900 Yeah.

00:43:02.180 And he got back and he was hoping for a medal of honor nomination and no one got it.

00:43:08.040 And he actually petitioned for it, which is sort of like a faux pas.

00:43:10.220 You're not supposed to like ask for the medal of honor.

00:43:13.180 So I guess there's an example of his narcissism.

00:43:15.040 He finally got it, but it was like after he was dead.

00:43:17.220 Um, but yeah, I guess that's another example of his narcissism.

00:43:21.940 No.

00:43:22.400 And to keep with that in terms of medals, I mean, this is the only guy ever who had the

00:43:26.900 medal of honor and the Nobel peace prize.

00:43:28.700 So one medal is for war and one medal is for diplomatic negotiations.

00:43:33.040 You talked about social agility.

00:43:35.860 You want to fight, you want to go to war. 0.83

00:43:37.640 Boom.

00:43:38.060 Teddy Roosevelt, I'm your guy.

00:43:39.800 Um, it ends up being that we need to figure out how to, how to figure out our differences

00:43:43.560 and come to tolerate each other.

00:43:45.200 Boom.

00:43:45.500 You want peace.

00:43:46.140 Teddy Roosevelt's your guy.

00:43:47.420 And that's, as opposed to you, you look at how people are spoken about now in politics,

00:43:52.400 you're either a hawk or you're not.

00:43:54.880 And really what you want is agility.

00:43:56.860 And I think that's what all of us want.

00:43:58.980 I know that I want that for friends, for my friendships.

00:44:01.780 I want that for my colleagues and what the, and that also entails that they're going to

00:44:06.360 piss me off sometimes, but I want the best of the best and the best people is can bring

00:44:11.560 every dimension of their personality to the plate when it's beneficial.

00:44:16.140 And not prematurely discard it because it's not appropriate to be narcissistic.

00:44:21.780 It's not appropriate to be Machiavellian and selfish.

00:44:24.360 The best people appreciate every single side of their personality and bring it to bear.

00:44:29.520 Would you have any advice for folks who maybe aren't naturally Machiavellian or narcissistic

00:44:36.980 or psychopathic?

00:44:38.340 Because yeah, this research shows that these types of people with these sort of like the 0.99

00:44:42.160 dark triad often do well in leadership position.

00:44:46.120 They often advance faster.

00:44:47.240 Um, so I mean, what do you tell for the guy who's just like, his temperament is just to

00:44:52.420 be sort of humble and not, uh, not rock the boat.

00:44:56.700 I mean, what can they do to embrace the Teddy effect?

00:45:01.120 No, it's a great question.

00:45:02.280 I mean, actually as a mentor at working in a university, I give this kind of feedback all

00:45:07.380 the time that for people that are kind, that say, this is your virtue, you're kind, you're

00:45:11.960 generous, you're compassionate, but there's a tipping point where it can actually interfere

00:45:17.700 with everything that we do in our work.

00:45:21.340 And a perfect example of this is if you're in my group to work on a project, I need you

00:45:26.660 to disagree with me.

00:45:27.660 Sometimes I need you to take the devil's advocate position, even if you don't believe

00:45:32.280 it, because I need to think of, we need to think of what regulations, what, what are

00:45:37.600 our competitors doing?

00:45:39.200 What about the market?

00:45:40.260 Have we not thought about as we get super excited about this product that we're interested

00:45:44.560 in or this project that we're interested in?

00:45:46.560 I need, I, I, so I train people in our culture that I seek dissidence.

00:45:52.940 When you disagree with me, you'll gain more, more equity in my mind than if you agree with

00:45:58.460 you.

00:45:58.500 I'm not looking for people to agree with me.

00:46:00.320 Um, the advice that I give to people is essentially is don't think the goal is not to be a narcissist

00:46:07.040 and the goal is not to be a psychopath.

00:46:08.580 The goal is to think about, we can learn from these people like Teddy Roosevelt and Kobe Bryant

00:46:14.640 and Michael, Michael Jordan, uh, who have these qualities and say, there are behaviors that

00:46:20.680 they engage in that we just want to add every once in a while.

00:46:24.160 And so if you're in a group setting and everybody's agreeing about an issue, you can actually gain

00:46:31.800 great amount of leverage by trying to really intentionally, what are people not thinking

00:46:36.780 about or even raising the question of, um, I realize everybody's excited and I don't want

00:46:41.980 to be a buzz kill, but I'm wondering if we should, I think we need to have a conversation

00:46:46.300 about what have we not considered because we're falling in love with their ideas too much.

00:46:50.960 If that kind of statement gets static or a negative response, that's even, that's even a

00:46:59.920 greater kind of, you know, a smoke alarm alert that there's a problem with the group, right?

00:47:04.740 This has happened to Cuban Missile Crisis, which is nobody would disagree with JFK. 0.89

00:47:08.380 Nobody could, everybody was so in love with him and so in love with their ideas that nobody

00:47:13.140 said, listen, let's take 15 minutes and talk about what are we getting wrong?

00:47:18.460 Because there's always something you're not considering there.

00:47:21.020 So that's one thing that it's, it's been a group setting.

00:47:23.980 That's something that I suggest.

00:47:25.500 The other one, and I strongly suggest this for, you know, the dads, moms, parents, um, who

00:47:31.400 are listening is you need to start being selfish.

00:47:34.880 If you worry about whether or not you're, you're parenting your kids, right, your kids

00:47:39.960 are going to be fine because you're thinking about it.

00:47:43.320 You, you reflect on this.

00:47:44.920 You're good to go.

00:47:46.140 What I suggest is if you don't recharge your own batteries, if you don't spend time with

00:47:50.980 your friends, if you don't work on your body, if you don't spend time reading books that

00:47:55.600 you like to read and take some time away from parenting, you're going to be a worse parent.

00:48:01.200 You're going to be more impatient.

00:48:02.760 You're going to be resentful.

00:48:04.940 You're going to get upset at them more easily.

00:48:07.500 Um, you're going to actually be less engaged in checking your smartphone more often.

00:48:11.700 And so take time, build in time just for yourself and be selfish.

00:48:17.260 And it's the diametrical opposite of what people speak of.

00:48:20.880 It doesn't mean you're a bad parent.

00:48:22.180 It means you're going to be a better parent.

00:48:23.800 The parent that doesn't take care of themselves is by definition an inferior parent because

00:48:28.540 you're a bad role model for your kids of how they should live their lives when they're

00:48:32.980 no longer under your wing.

00:48:34.560 So that's the parenting piece of it.

00:48:37.000 Um, and for the relationship part of it is you need to know what your values are.

00:48:42.460 You should, if you don't know the answer to what are the values that you're not willing

00:48:48.600 to move on that are fundamental to your decisions, you just sit, you need to spend some time and

00:48:53.620 reflect on this.

00:48:54.440 Like I know for myself, the idea of first putting my own personal signature on my work

00:48:59.040 and not being, um, replicating what other people do is a fundamental value that I have.

00:49:05.000 And one of my fundamental values is, um, making sure that kind of ancient Greek style, take

00:49:10.060 care of mind and body.

00:49:11.180 And that's the way I'm going to every single day of my life.

00:49:13.720 I'm going to spend at least one hour on my mind by reading books that aren't related to

00:49:17.880 my career and one hour on my body.

00:49:20.000 And I make that almost like, like a, like a monk in a Tibetan monastery.

00:49:24.360 That is, I don't, the day is not finished until I spend time.

00:49:28.320 That's a value system that I abide by.

00:49:30.920 You need to know what you value or else you're running around aimlessly.

00:49:34.720 And the reason you need to know this is because when your values are compromised, that's when

00:49:40.340 it's time to deviate from kindness.

00:49:43.060 It's time to, um, be willing to be angry, be willing to disagree with people.

00:49:47.960 And so part of it, you know, I suggest people clarify their values and be willing to step

00:49:53.700 into a discomfort zone when someone does something that goes against what you value.

00:49:59.500 Gotcha.

00:49:59.700 Well, this has been a fascinating conversation before we, uh, end it, where can people find

00:50:04.080 out more about your work?

00:50:05.540 I'm using, I have a weird last name.

00:50:07.260 So if you just put Todd Cashton in Google, K-A-S-H-D-A-N, you'll find my website.

00:50:14.500 And I give away a ton of articles are available for free off of my website at ToddCashton.com.

00:50:21.440 Fantastic.

00:50:21.900 Well, this has been a fascinating conversation.

00:50:23.840 Thank you so much for your time.

00:50:24.560 It's been a pleasure.

00:50:25.640 Oh, it's been great being here.

00:50:26.640 And anyone that loves Teddy, he's automatically sent him off.

00:50:29.680 Awesome.

00:50:30.620 Our guest today was Todd Cashton.

00:50:31.960 He's one of the co-writers and authors on the book, The Upside of Your Dark Side.

00:50:36.080 And you can find it on Amazon.com.

00:50:37.880 Go get out and get a really interesting read.

00:50:39.740 You can also find out more information about his work at ToddCashton.com.

00:50:43.140 That's T-O-D-D-K-A-S-H-D-A-N.com. 1.00

00:50:48.540 Well, that wraps up another edition of the Art of Manliness podcast.

00:50:51.920 For more manly tips and advice, make sure to check out the Art of Manliness website at theartofmanliness.com.

00:50:57.160 And if you enjoy this podcast, I'd really appreciate it if you give us a review on Stitcher or iTunes,

00:51:00.860 whatever it is you use to listen.

00:51:02.180 I don't care what it is.

00:51:03.080 Just provide some feedback.

00:51:04.380 I'd really appreciate it.

00:51:05.700 And, you know, tell your friends about it.

00:51:07.080 That'd be the best compliment you can give me is recommending the podcast to a friend.

00:51:11.700 Until next time, this is Brett McKay telling you to stay manly.

00:51:21.920 Thank you.

The Art of Manliness - April 03, 2015

#108： The Upside of Your Dark Side With Dr. Todd Kashdan

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