The Art of Manliness - #380： How to Be Braver

00:00:00.000 brett mckay here and welcome to another edition of the art of manliness podcast for thousands of

00:00:18.660 years philosophers and writers have debated the nature of courage what is it are some people born

00:00:23.000 more courageous than others and can you learn to be courageous my guest day set out to answer

00:00:26.900 those questions by looking at courage through a scientific lens his name is robert bizwas

00:00:30.660 diener he's a psychologist and the author of the courage quotient how science can make you braver

00:00:34.860 today on the show robert explains how he defined courage for the purpose of his research and how

00:00:38.240 he went about studying and quantifying this quality he then explains how courage manifests itself

00:00:42.240 differently in cultures of dignity cultures of honor and cultures of face we then discuss the

00:00:46.300 genetics of courage and how people can learn to be more courageous robert then gives brass tacks

00:00:50.420 advice on what you can do to manage fear and increase your propensity to action including

00:00:54.140 carrying lucky charms thinking about yourself less and avoiding self-handicapping after the show's

00:00:59.000 over check out the show notes at aom.is slash courage quotient

00:01:02.560 robert bizwas diener welcome to the show thank you so much for having me so you wrote a book you're

00:01:18.900 a psychologist you wrote a book about courage it's called the courage quotient where you try to

00:01:23.620 articulate what courage is and how to measure courage and how to increase courage i'm curious what led you

00:01:29.420 down this path to research courage oh that's a interesting question i think it was thrust on me

00:01:36.720 actually uh i come from a tradition of studying happiness that's my primary area of expertise i i am

00:01:43.800 attracted to positive topics but but along the way i kept studying happiness in sort of unusual places

00:01:51.520 in in brothels in india slum areas and sometimes dangerous places like favelas in brazil and people

00:02:01.720 kept telling me how courageous i was which wasn't necessarily how i thought of myself i definitely

00:02:07.140 knew i was prone to take risks but i certainly didn't think of myself as a hero but because it came

00:02:13.800 up as as a conversation piece more and more i decided that i would start looking into what was published

00:02:19.740 out there what what research had been done and the the deeper i went the more fascinating it became

00:02:27.200 and what's interesting about courage is that it's this virtue that you know it's been written about

00:02:33.320 by poets philosophers theologians even and i'm sure psychologists have gotten in on this in the past

00:02:40.360 few hundred years and everyone has like different conceptions of it right like when they when you ask

00:02:46.340 someone like what does what does courage mean i'm sure you get a hundred different answers but you

00:02:50.560 know but they're vaguely trying to hit on the same idea in your research what did you find are the most

00:02:55.720 common ideas of what courage is yeah again good question the i think among lay people just everyday

00:03:04.240 folks one of the most common misconceptions about courage is that courage is a physical act of bravery

00:03:13.680 a stereotype is sort of the the soldier in combat heroically saving his and it's usually a male

00:03:21.260 his comrade in arms in a midst of a firefight something like that and i think that that really

00:03:28.680 is a myopic view of of courage that people attend very narrowly to these these physical and often

00:03:36.980 stereotypically masculine ideas of of bravery i think that that we can expand from there and and think of

00:03:45.800 of bravery as something far more wide-reaching it's somehow a mental state it's an attitude

00:03:54.120 traditionally the philosophers as you said said it's a part of the spirit if you will and i believe

00:04:02.100 the that it's really about acting in the face of fear so it's not the absence of fear but it's as one

00:04:11.140 person i interviewed very articulately put it's the ability to step through fear so psychologists

00:04:18.280 really define courage as going ahead and choosing to act or sometimes just acting automatically

00:04:25.920 despite the presence of fear and doing so when you when you're uncertain of the outcome of your action

00:04:33.580 that is there has to be a a risk involved now philosophers would say that that there should also

00:04:40.660 be a moral dimension because if you think about it someone who is a street criminal and mugs people 1.00

00:04:46.840 is probably afraid probably acting despite their sense of fear and and certainly the outcome is unknown

00:04:53.860 they're taking a risk so we would add to that this this morally inspired dimension so it's acting in a

00:05:01.980 way that is positive that would help people or is for the community good or personal good and

00:05:08.660 despite the fact that you're afraid okay so three so there's three things going on there i guess so

00:05:15.740 the first thing there's there's a moral component to courage we want it to be for a good cause but it's

00:05:20.860 also the ability to control fear but also act despite that fear that you might still have

00:05:27.920 absolutely absolutely and and i think the best way is just that idea of of stepping through fear the most

00:05:34.000 courageous people they get afraid they aren't people that are immune to fear they're just very very

00:05:40.340 good about acting even though they're afraid and not being paralyzed by that fear so as we mentioned

00:05:48.840 earlier courage is a sort of virtue you know universal virtue is a universal ideal that humans across the

00:05:54.520 world experience but how do how do different cultures shade the meaning of courage or what it

00:06:01.400 means to be courageous oh interesting there there are certainly different ways we can look at cultures

00:06:08.260 and most people when they think of culture they think of the most obvious aspects of culture like

00:06:12.980 language or dress food or religion things like that as a psychologist i tend to think of of cultures

00:06:20.420 and categories in terms of how people identify how they view the individual and the individual's

00:06:27.780 relationship to the group so you can look for example cultures of dignity and these these are

00:06:34.200 westerners by and large folks that are americans canadians for example and we think that every

00:06:42.100 individual is the unit of measurement of our culture that each person has dignity or should have dignity

00:06:48.800 and you can you can contrast that with for example many middle eastern cultures that we would call

00:06:55.720 cultures of honor and certainly it's not only the middle east other places as well but honor cultures are

00:07:02.540 those where people are very concerned about how they come across to others they they feel more on stage

00:07:08.840 and their their personal and family reputation is very very important to them so understanding culture

00:07:15.660 and this type of way really gives us some insight into some of the mechanisms that bring courage about

00:07:22.880 you or i if we're from a dignity culture might be more likely to to speak up on behalf of an underdog

00:07:31.740 because something has violated our culture of dignity we really value everyone being treated with dignity so we can't stand a bully

00:07:41.460 so we're going to be more courageous in that particular instance whereas uh someone from a culture of honor

00:07:48.800 if you say something bad about about a family member you know talk talk about someone's mother or sister in a

00:07:56.520 in a derogatory way they are not going to let that slide because you have just insulted their very sense

00:08:04.500 of honor one of the things that their culture prizes most highly so it's it's sort of what in the culture

00:08:09.740 will activate our willingness to act and you besides uh dignity and honor you also mentioned

00:08:15.660 cultures of face which are you know you see in asian countries what is the difference between like

00:08:20.260 face cultures and honor cultures or is there one they're they're similar a culture of face culture

00:08:27.120 and and listeners may be familiar with the idea of saving face for example and and these are the

00:08:33.800 cultures in the the pacific rim like taiwan japan china and so forth korea and people are interested in

00:08:43.740 avoiding personal embarrassment that they they think they are personally on stage they have a more

00:08:50.040 hierarchical society they want to impress others and so that's a little bit different than culture

00:08:56.600 of honor which is about reputation and family reputation the culture of face can be a little

00:09:02.560 bit more individual if i'm going to stand up in front of my work group and give a presentation

00:09:08.180 i need to do a good job not only so that i don't embarrass my colleagues but also that i don't embarrass

00:09:14.620 myself okay so what you're saying again is culture is what triggers will determine what triggers

00:09:20.500 courageous or brave acts it's one of one of many causes but absolutely and you begin the book which

00:09:27.700 i think was interesting with your sort of a personal experience right in africa can you tell us a little

00:09:32.140 about that and like what sort of culture of courage were you seeing there yeah so i had gone to africa

00:09:39.240 originally to study happiness among tribal tribal people i was interested in working with people who

00:09:45.580 had been traditionally overlooked by research psychologists and i was focusing in particular

00:09:51.200 on the maasai in kenya and many people are familiar with the maasai they're sort of poster children for

00:09:57.380 tribal africa the warriors especially they have those these long braids in their hair that are painted

00:10:03.960 with red ochre paint and are swaddled in these bright red cloths and they're known for jumping

00:10:09.460 high and having spears and so forth and so i went and i stayed there many months and i was conducting

00:10:15.840 interviews with them principally about happiness about the quality of their life what makes them happy

00:10:21.940 how their relationships are what their dreams and hopes are those types of things and one of the things

00:10:26.920 i noticed very quickly about them is that they really prized courage as a virtue which makes loads

00:10:33.940 of sense if you live among wild animals you know there are lions for example roving wild and in fact one of

00:10:41.440 the people i interviewed in fact was attacked by a lion one time as he was walking by and all he had

00:10:47.240 to defend himself was a knife so you imagine yourself you know that's your morning commute that you might

00:10:53.620 be attacked by a wild animal like a lion and you think well they must do something to instill bravery

00:10:59.580 they must tell their young children that bravery is one of the best possible virtues our society

00:11:05.580 can have um and by and large they consider themselves pretty brave and in fact i think they they are pretty

00:11:13.520 brave and i think that their particular brand of bravery is largely that kind of physical brand of

00:11:20.000 bravery that most people default to and it's not so much some of the other types of bravery that we

00:11:25.940 might think of like an entrepreneur opening a new business which of course is a risky proposition and

00:11:31.720 requires a little bit of courage

00:11:33.320 so let's get into sort of the specifics of courage what allows us to be more what allows us to be courageous

00:11:41.340 and what we can do to be more courageous so we talked about earlier some of the factors of courage

00:11:45.740 is one is the ability to manage fear when you experience fear

00:11:49.800 and then the other one is to act even though you're afraid do these two factors work exclusively

00:11:56.520 from each other or is it are they sort of intertwined with one another

00:12:00.860 this this really i think in some ways is sort of the the heart of courage so if you do think of courage

00:12:07.420 as being two separable processes one is the ability to manage your fear and the other is the willingness

00:12:14.600 to act that is essentially your courage quotient you need your willingness to act to be greater than

00:12:21.160 your fear if your fear is greater you're going to be paralyzed and not do anything if your willingness

00:12:25.580 to grip to act as even incrementally greater then you will as the name suggests be willing to act

00:12:32.440 and most people would assume that this operates like a seesaw when one goes up the other goes down

00:12:38.740 if i can sort of tamp down my fear then my willingness to act will go up and vice versa

00:12:44.520 and in some ways that's true but they don't operate exactly like a seesaw they're a little more

00:12:50.560 independent of each other the two sides so for example someone who's afraid of flying may boost

00:12:58.420 their willingness to act by let's say praying and and trying to fortify their their attitude to say hey

00:13:07.120 you know i i can do this without tamping down their fear whatsoever that is their fear is still

00:13:13.540 going to remain sky high but they are going to be willing to act despite that similarly you could

00:13:20.600 really really tamp down your fear and it might only incrementally increase your willingness to act

00:13:27.880 but you've pushed your fear down so far so it's sort of the the relation of those two things willingness

00:13:33.360 to act and fear um that they give us two separate avenues for trying to boost our own courage

00:13:39.560 and this is where the debate with philosophers at least gets into like what is considered a

00:13:44.880 courageous act because some philosopher would say well if you feel no fear right maybe you have some

00:13:50.600 sort of thing where you just you don't feel fear at all like are you really being courageous

00:13:54.320 right if you don't experience fear that's right and and i actually i think to some degree would

00:14:00.380 would agree with that notion that is really if you don't feel any fear you don't have any sense that

00:14:10.180 there's a real risk you don't have any skin in the game you're really not putting up too much by way of

00:14:17.060 virtuous behavior now i've i've heard many people sort of you know wave their hand at me and say but

00:14:22.640 wait wait what about someone that just out of instinct bolts into the burning building to save the

00:14:28.340 family and they didn't even have time to feel afraid well the truth is they're still experiencing

00:14:34.940 the physiological symptoms of fear they they have the accelerated heart rate the the blood pumping

00:14:42.580 the adrenaline all of that whether or not they're consciously sort of aware of it in the moment

00:14:48.700 that's a i think it's more nuanced and subtle issue but in general we think that that courage

00:14:56.680 has to happen in the presence of fear and this raises an interesting question so in psychology

00:15:01.680 there's this idea of temperaments that you know you're born with and you know it makes up about

00:15:07.000 like 50 to you know i can't remember the percentage but sort of like you know if you're gonna if you're

00:15:10.900 conscientious as a kid you're going to be conscientious as an adult are are some people born more

00:15:16.100 courageous than others out of temperament yeah it's a it's a really interesting question to dig into and

00:15:22.360 and we know look there's individual differences between people some folks are artistic some are

00:15:27.340 smart some are detail oriented and and some of that isn't just genetic but it's also comes through

00:15:33.700 practice and through their upbringing and and some combination of all of those things and exactly the

00:15:39.440 same thing is true of courage and that happens in part because of people's emotionality so some form

00:15:47.020 some folks are are born just with their their emotion dial set really intensely they feel emotion

00:15:54.800 strongly when fear hits it hits intensely they love intensely they get really angry when they get angry

00:16:01.680 for some of those people fear might be overwhelming to them they might be more likely to to be paralyzed

00:16:10.180 by fear on the other hand some of those people more likely might be motivated by anger when they

00:16:15.940 when they feel the outrage at an injustice or seeing someone being bullied they might be the one to to

00:16:22.520 step forward so people who have a better sort of natural ability to control their emotional states

00:16:31.100 or have more even keeled emotional states may in some ways be better able to to control fear and

00:16:38.860 therefore be more courageous and there are also people who are sort of just dialed a little bit more towards

00:16:45.200 optimism a little bit more towards risk taking and that's that other element though the willingness

00:16:52.260 to act element of bravery and for those people they they are more likely to take risks you you find this

00:16:59.040 sometimes in serial entrepreneurs who open business after business despite the prospect of failure you find it

00:17:06.200 with some types of people that that enjoy things like rock climbing or or other dangerous hobbies

00:17:13.900 but with that said you know you might have a temperament that allows you know gives you propensity to be

00:17:18.780 more courageous you argue in the book that courage can be learned like you agree with aristotle for

00:17:23.280 example that courage is a virtue that can be learned yeah absolutely and courage can be learned i think

00:17:28.360 in a variety of ways one of the things that a number of scholars do is that they distinguish between

00:17:36.260 what's known as personal courage and general courage general courage is exactly what you would think it

00:17:41.980 would be courageous if if that act were performed by anyone it would be courageous if anyone ran out

00:17:48.940 into a hail of gunfire saved someone and pulled them back that's we just get that anyone would be

00:17:54.640 afraid in that situation we would think anyone was a hero in that situation but personal courage is only

00:18:01.500 courageous if you do it so again returning to the example of of the person who's afraid to fly

00:18:08.220 if they get on a plane that is an act of personal courage because they've overcome a personal fear

00:18:14.700 but we wouldn't necessarily consider that a generally courageous thing to do because people do it without

00:18:20.780 a second thought all the time and i think that it's in personal courage that people are more likely to make

00:18:27.220 gains that if you're afraid of dogs afraid of flying afraid of public speaking afraid of failure afraid

00:18:34.980 of intimacy those are where you can make some incremental gains and you don't need to worry

00:18:40.420 necessarily about having to rush into fires or rush into gunfights to to save strangers although that's

00:18:47.640 certainly a nice thing to do so let's talk about these two processes of courage so first one is your

00:18:52.580 ability to control fear i think it's an interesting one because you probably you know as a psychologist

00:18:56.940 you're probably there's some people who are just anxious like they're just fearful about everything

00:19:01.460 but there's some people who just they're they're not anxious but they do have that they experience that

00:19:06.740 fear of public speaking and they can't get over that so what are some ways that people can do what

00:19:12.920 are some things that people can do to increase their ability to control their fear so the good news is

00:19:18.080 people already have a pretty good intuitive grasp of some of the things they can do so people engage

00:19:26.300 in a whole range of mental techniques naturally and these range from praying right you you whether

00:19:35.300 you're religious or or very religious or not at all religious the the process of trying to tap into

00:19:42.360 to to some force whatever you think that is that will help fortify you and give you strength is very

00:19:49.880 common strategy um people and to use the example you just raised of public speaking a lot of that is

00:19:57.080 fear of the unknown fear of being evaluated what what will it be like tomorrow when i have to give this

00:20:02.880 huge presentation and if you can remove some of that unknown for example go to the auditorium see what

00:20:10.480 it's like to stand on stage you can picture now a little bit of what the audience will look like

00:20:16.380 what the seats in front of you look like how they're laid out and and as some of that unknown

00:20:21.800 shrinks you gain a little bit of of confidence and because fear is also physiological we can do a number of

00:20:30.420 things to relax our muscle tension so deep breathing exercises tensing and loosening our muscles to feel

00:20:38.980 relaxed various mindfulness activities sometimes people for example have a glass of wine or beer you know

00:20:46.140 the mild consumption of alcohol can relax you a bubble bath can relax you turns out there's just a whole

00:20:52.280 host of things that can help cut fear won't necessarily get rid of it but but it can cut it down quite a bit

00:20:59.700 the one section i thought was really interesting is this idea of egocentrism that you know increases when you

00:21:06.620 think about yourself a lot your fear goes up so how does like not thinking about yourself reduce

00:21:10.980 your fear yeah so ego this idea of ego kind of popularized by freud is the idea that we're our own

00:21:19.660 top fans we just like ourselves we're heavily invested in our own success our own outcomes and this doesn't

00:21:26.640 necessarily mean that we're arrogant or conceited it just means we really really care about us because

00:21:32.680 we have to live here inside our own bodies and with these identities but because of that the downside

00:21:39.840 risk is that we're very protective of ourselves of our reputations of how others evaluate us and

00:21:47.520 sometimes this means that people are only willing to take baby steps because they don't want to make a

00:21:52.780 mistake they don't want to be unfavorably evaluated they don't want to be ostracized from

00:21:58.100 a group and the more self-conscious a person is oftentimes the more paralyzed they are they just

00:22:06.860 simply don't want to act at all let alone take a risky action so if you can shift some of that focus

00:22:15.200 shift some of that focus um the to the idea that you are just a cog in a machine um and many people

00:22:22.700 might not like that idea but at work for example you're just one member of a team and really you're

00:22:27.760 focusing on the team outfit uh output not your own output or focus on others that that really this risky

00:22:35.200 action isn't about you it's in the service of other people so really just shifting away from that

00:22:41.020 kind of like i'm staring in a mirror and there i am to i'm really looking out and focusing on the impact

00:22:47.400 and the obligation and responsibility to others that can get people to to sort of tamp down the

00:22:53.900 the brakes that ego put on yeah i know when we we did a series of articles a couple years ago about

00:22:59.580 shyness or social anxiety and you know one of the things that kept on popping up over and over again is

00:23:04.520 that the sort of the thing that drives that shyness or social anxiety is that you're just thinking about 0.95

00:23:09.960 constantly how am i looking am i looking like an idiot am i looking and then like that just 0.82

00:23:13.780 creates this vicious cycle and the way you get out of that you just try to think about the other

00:23:19.200 person and make them feel comfortable and put the focus on them and that can help out a lot absolutely

00:23:24.300 and one thing i would like to to add to follow up on that sometimes you'll probably notice from your

00:23:31.020 own life the more heavily you invest in a goal kind of the bigger the deal it is you know like wow i

00:23:37.400 really care about this sometimes that can lead to more and more anxiety it can be more and more

00:23:43.180 more paralyzing and what some of my colleagues have discovered is when people are heavily invested in

00:23:50.940 pursuing a piece of success some people end up being really happy and some people end up being

00:23:57.220 really anxious and the difference between those two groups is what they're focusing on and the anxious

00:24:03.360 group is focusing on oh no if i fail all this terrible stuff is going to happen but the happy group is

00:24:11.240 focusing on progress hey i've made a little tiny piece of progress even though you know there might

00:24:17.040 be loads more to do i'm still making progress i'm still putting one foot in front of another

00:24:22.600 and if you can start focusing on that and making sure that your attention's locked there you're more

00:24:28.560 likely to continue on and and taking risks and not be paralyzed so continuing on on that idea of

00:24:34.720 reducing fear by eliminating the unknown right so if you're public speaking you gave the example of go to the

00:24:40.380 place before your your speech walk around get familiar but like the other idea of just eliminating

00:24:45.520 the unknown is just facing the fear and then experiencing you know what you fear because then

00:24:51.360 you you realize it's not as bad as you thought it was going to be absolutely one of the people i

00:24:56.520 interviewed for the book said that they give themselves a a weekly challenge to be uncomfortable

00:25:03.580 and that could be any number of things going to a new restaurant trying a new type of food going to

00:25:11.180 a a church service for a religion that might be related to your religion but it's not exactly your

00:25:17.800 religion or or caters to a different um i don't know a different demographic than than yours um and and then all

00:25:27.740 sorts of little things too just like strike up a conversation with a stranger or be willing to fail

00:25:33.560 today and they would just do about 50 of these small experiments uh a year kind of by way of

00:25:40.320 inoculating themselves and i when i asked like oh now do you not feel fear uh i remember her saying oh no

00:25:48.540 i feel tons of fear it's just not so toxic that's great i love that idea so let's move on to that second

00:25:54.180 process which is increasing your willingness to act so let's say you've got you may be able to tamp

00:25:59.660 down your fear using some sort of tactic what do you do to increase your willingness to actually

00:26:05.520 you know take action on that risk that you you're confronting so there are a number of of things you can

00:26:12.920 do here the one that tickles me i believe the most is the idea of magical thinking magical thinking

00:26:20.780 is something that all humans have a capacity for you can see this most clearly in the persistence

00:26:26.140 of superstition you know don't step on a crack or you'll break your mother's back don't spill salt

00:26:31.820 don't walk under a ladder no black cats should walk in front of you those types of things and even though

00:26:38.020 in our our modern heads we know that when we knock over some salt nothing's going to happen

00:26:44.460 there is something very primal in our heart that gives us a little bit of an uh-oh

00:26:50.120 uh and that's because of this capacity for magical thinking we just we just are are willing to tap into

00:26:58.120 to to some unknown pool of of stuff that we can't explain we'll call it magic that can cause events

00:27:08.240 that seem miraculous uh and i don't want to offend anyone who who's religious um but sort of religion

00:27:16.560 would fall under under this category as well which is we're not using the lots of physics to to explain

00:27:22.360 real world events we're using something that that is a different type of phenomenon well how this relates

00:27:29.360 to courage is the idea that many people have a lucky charm and i know when i present this idea to people

00:27:39.960 especially when i go into a corporate organizational environment people just sort of laugh at me and they say

00:27:45.760 yeah well i don't have a lucky charm but it turns out that just about everyone has a lucky charm of some

00:27:52.240 sort uh for men it's often a piece of attire such as a power tie or a special pair of cufflinks given to

00:28:00.520 them on a particular occasion maybe a pair of socks um for women who i interviewed they often said it was a

00:28:08.060 piece of jewelry or a pair of underwear and even though no one thinks that that these items truly

00:28:15.700 are magically infusing anyone with courage they do seem to make people feel more confident sort of on

00:28:23.220 game day as it were people choose these special items because it puts a little bit more spring in

00:28:28.820 their step and that somehow translates to i've got this i'm willing to take a risk and it often can

00:28:36.860 translate even to to better performance that's awesome so yeah find a lucky charm that might might

00:28:41.440 work out for you absolutely and i i would say you might already have a lucky charm um that is if you

00:28:47.480 have a piece of attire that gives you particular confidence if you have a photograph of a loved one a

00:28:53.540 piece of jewelry and the thing about these is that that we create them right if someone gives you a

00:29:00.160 gift from from a trip abroad suddenly that gift has special significance you've already imbued it with

00:29:07.300 a special quality if you found that same thing on the ground it wouldn't be nearly as special but

00:29:12.820 because someone who's connected to you gave it to you as a gift because it represents something larger

00:29:18.780 perhaps their trip abroad you're already making that item special and because you have the this ability

00:29:26.580 to to create magical items you can kind of go out and do that with something that that will be a

00:29:33.680 little bit of a lucky charm maybe something you could keep in your pocket during those those uh

00:29:38.920 really really terrifying public presentations in your research do you find that is courage domain

00:29:45.260 exclusive like say if you're you increase your courage in one aspect of your life like you

00:29:50.220 overcome your fear of public speaking does that carry over to other domains say to your family life or to

00:29:56.240 some other part the truth is we don't know exactly uh it's in theory that's the case but we don't have

00:30:04.880 the numbers for it i will tell you this this is i think somewhat related and it has to do with the way

00:30:11.140 that people view courage and that is people are more likely to view a successful act as a courageous act

00:30:20.060 so if you think about someone who who sees a car fall into a pond and they're worried that the

00:30:27.200 occupants are drowning if a person jumps into the pond and saves the occupants of the car everyone around

00:30:35.080 and says wow that was so courageous but if the person jumps into the pond and they themselves drown

00:30:41.860 and don't save any of the occupants the witnesses are far less likely to say that was courageous

00:30:48.620 so we have this idea that courage is somehow tagged to success a courageous action as one that works in the

00:30:57.360 end but i don't think that's always true and i think we sometimes overlook acts of courage that

00:31:05.240 just happened to go awry so one of the one of your sections in the you know how to increase your

00:31:10.720 willingness to act i thought was really interesting was this idea of self-handicapping and it's something

00:31:15.380 that people do without even thinking about it and when we self-handicap it reduces our willingness

00:31:20.640 to act so what is self-handicapping for people who are familiar with the concept self-handicapping

00:31:25.960 is the idea that we don't like to be evaluated so a classic example is you get a smart college student

00:31:34.420 and they've got a huge final exam coming up now they're they're smart they're bright they've attended

00:31:40.900 class they in all likelihood can pass that final exam and yet they don't want to have to go through

00:31:48.140 the burden of being evaluated and they're afraid that they might fail so what they would do if they were

00:31:54.040 to self-handicap is they would create some type of circumstance that might actually lead to their

00:32:02.180 failure so let's say they stay up all night the night before studying and then they go in dead tired

00:32:11.060 to the exam first thing in the morning they end up doing terribly on it the upside for them psychologically

00:32:17.960 speaking is that they now get to say oh well it wasn't because i'm not smart you know i failed

00:32:25.100 because i stayed up all night because of something more circumstantial something more external to me

00:32:31.240 if i would have gotten good sleep i would have aced the test but because of this this really terrible

00:32:37.680 sleep i ended up doing poorly and many of us do this in a variety of ways and we tend to even kind

00:32:44.720 of do it a bit subconsciously it sounds like passive aggression but directed at the self

00:32:49.120 that's a decent way to look at it right so so how do you how do you reduce that you know tendency to

00:32:55.940 self-handicap or how do you you know you said we do without even thinking about it or not even

00:32:59.500 like how do you check yourself to make sure you're not doing that well it's it's difficult because it can

00:33:05.660 come so naturally to us one of the things i think is interesting though about self-handicapping

00:33:11.940 is that people are still willing to do whatever the action is so think about the the example i just

00:33:17.720 gave you that person is in essence afraid of the final exam but you'll notice in this case

00:33:24.140 they were acting if if we can make the case bravely that is they still took the final exam

00:33:30.200 um that that is they didn't stay home and and just you know shrink in the corner terrified of the

00:33:36.940 final exam they were still willing to do it um but what we want is for them to to do it in a way that

00:33:44.740 doesn't involve them sort of cutting their own legs off i think it has to do with a minor but powerful

00:33:52.160 shift in mindset um wherein you are not being evaluated on success or failure but rather on your

00:34:01.740 own sense of growth and even if you underperform the student in this case getting a c rather than an a

00:34:08.500 they use that as as important feedback to identify areas that they're weaker in or that they're stronger

00:34:15.920 in it will help them redouble their efforts and it's just part of an overall personal narrative of

00:34:22.300 i'm getting better i'm learning more even if there's a few stumbling blocks along the way

00:34:27.160 so you have to be less focused on the individual momentary failure and have a grander sense of

00:34:34.740 in general i'm still developing and growing all the time so another thing that prevents us or keeps us

00:34:41.640 from taking action is social cues right we might not be afraid the fear might not be there but when we

00:34:47.540 look around at other people and we see them not taking action it tends to cause us not to take action this

00:34:53.860 is called the bystander effect so what can we do to overcome those biases that we have we have towards

00:34:59.880 inaction when no one else is taking action yeah absolutely so to to remind listeners what the

00:35:07.340 bystander effect is it's the idea that if five people witness someone fall down and have a seizure for

00:35:14.440 for example that in in some cases they're less likely to render aid to that person and and this

00:35:21.960 goes a little bit against how we would think because you'd be like wow there's five people there should

00:35:27.100 be five times the amount of help given one of the problems is that each individual sees the others as

00:35:37.640 being equally responsible and so no one's willing to step forward because they assume that others will step

00:35:43.360 forward and so you can you can sidestep this by nominating yourself and you can even do this ahead

00:35:51.960 of time just right now in your head say when i see someone in trouble a car on the side of the road

00:35:59.000 that's disabled someone that's fallen down fainted had a seizure uh someone that's obviously injured

00:36:05.240 anything like that i'm the person i am the person that is going to rush to their aid and so you you

00:36:13.120 sidestep that bystander effect in part one of the things that will help empower you to do that

00:36:19.140 is sort of knowing what to do if you're an emt or a first responder and you have loads of medical

00:36:25.380 training you're far more likely to rush to to the aid of someone having a seizure because it's not

00:36:31.660 weird to you it's not uh frightening to you you know exactly what's happening exactly what to do

00:36:37.080 so if you um can in some ways review in your head the types of skills you have you can better nominate

00:36:46.580 yourself to act in the types of scenarios that can use those skills so it sounds like you're using

00:36:52.020 implementation intentions like if i see someone in need of help then i will help right i mean that's

00:36:58.400 what you're kind of doing absolutely if i see a car go off the road on the freeway

00:37:04.260 i am absolutely going to stop my car even if i have an appointment even if i have a long drive

00:37:12.180 ahead of me and render aid however i can that is me robert there's a lot of tips that we haven't

00:37:19.620 covered in this conversation but if you were to you know go back and you know the people who are

00:37:23.700 listening to this show and if there's one thing that they can do today to start increasing their

00:37:29.300 courage quotient what would that one thing be you think i i'm actually going to cheat a little bit

00:37:35.680 on this one and bring sort of the finish line of the race a little closer to people rather than try

00:37:42.320 and get people to run faster to the finish line and that is uh there's a a concept i describe in the

00:37:48.920 book called courage blindness which is you you're just often unaware of how much courage you yourself

00:37:54.920 have under your belt and i think that once you start appreciating all the courageous things you

00:38:00.620 you've done you know maybe chosen to get married or chosen to get divorced chosen to have a kid

00:38:07.660 moved jobs moved to another state gone away to college switched your majors dropped out of college

00:38:16.000 all of those things are frightening to say the least they're all uncertain they all require you

00:38:22.280 overcoming a sense of apprehension and taking a risk and and the list goes on and on opening businesses

00:38:29.760 all sorts of things and i would say that once you start considering that those are brands of courage

00:38:37.900 that the resilience is a type of courage perseverance is a type of courage physical bravery is a type of

00:38:44.640 courage uh risk taking like being an entrepreneur is a type of courage when you start thinking of

00:38:51.060 of all of these every time you've stuck up for an underdog or every time you've been party to a

00:38:56.540 politically incorrect conversation and said you know what i'm just going to bow out i'm not comfortable

00:39:00.720 with this every single one of those instances is a brand of courage and i would i would have people

00:39:06.680 review that in their head so that they can see that they're not a zero out of 100 on courage but

00:39:13.460 that they have a huge history of personal courage and that that's what they should be building on going

00:39:17.720 forward so robert this has been a great conversation where can people go to learn more about your book

00:39:22.840 and your work well certainly they can get a copy of the the courage quotient or or any of my books at

00:39:29.940 online retailers and they can find out more about me by going to intentional happiness dot com

00:39:39.480 fantastic well robert thank you so much for your time it's been a pleasure thank you brett my guest

00:39:43.640 here's robert bizwasdiener he's the author of the book the courage quotient it's available on amazon.com

00:39:47.860 you can also find out more information about his work at robertdiener.com that's d-i-e-n-e-r.com

00:39:53.440 also check out our show notes at aom.is slash courage quotient where you can find links to

00:39:57.460 resources we can delve deeper into this topic

00:39:59.320 well that wraps up another edition of the art of manliness podcast for more manly tips and advice

00:40:15.340 make sure to check out the art of manliness website at artofmanliness.com also check out

00:40:19.000 our podcast archives you get over 300 episodes there at artofmanliness.com slash podcast and if

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00:40:37.180 telling you to stay manly

The Art of Manliness - February 15, 2018

#380： How to Be Braver

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