The Art of Manliness - #411： Why Emotions Are Better Than Willpower in Achieving Your Goals

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

00:00:18.840 goals you probably think you need one key ingredient willpower grit self-control discipline

00:00:24.220 to hear a lot of self-improvement gurus tell it if you want to get your life together then just

00:00:27.640 get it together just do it yet while these motivational calls certainly feel good and make

00:00:32.140 us pump our fist up in the air how well does willpowering your way to your goals work in

00:00:35.980 reality for like a lot of people who have a string of half-finished aims heaped in the dustbin of their

00:00:39.940 lives or know the answer is probably not very well my guest today argues that there's a reason for

00:00:43.980 that that while willpower does have a role in our lives there's actually a better source of

00:00:47.680 motivation at our disposal our emotions his name is david destino and he's the author of the book

00:00:51.820 emotional success the power of gratitude compassion and pride today destino makes the case that

00:00:56.540 cultivating certain emotions will actually enhance our self-control and help us become who we want

00:01:00.680 to be more than simply relying on willpower to get the job done after the show's over check out the

00:01:05.040 show notes at aom.is slash emotional success david joins me now via skype

00:01:10.000 david destino welcome to the show hi thanks for having me on so uh you got a new book out it's

00:01:27.060 called emotional success the power of gratitude compassion and pride so the the problem you're

00:01:33.740 you're trying to tackle in this book is that as human beings we have a tendency we we have to

00:01:39.780 resist immediate temptations in favor of long-term goals if we want to you know save money let's get

00:01:45.620 a job etc but that's hard to do what makes resisting temptations in favor of long-term goals so difficult

00:01:53.500 well the brain kind of has this people call it a glitch and i think in our modern world it is a

00:01:59.660 glitch built into it where we tend to discount the value of the future you know and at low levels

00:02:06.400 valuing rewards or gains in the present over gains in the future makes some sense you know a bird in the

00:02:12.860 hand i know i've got something today versus trying to strive for something in the future can can be okay

00:02:17.420 the problem is as the world has gotten a lot more certain over time you know now if i i know that if

00:02:23.460 i enjoy smoking a cigarette i can enjoy it now but it's going to cause me problems later if i enjoy

00:02:27.960 smoking eating something now it's going to cause me problems later that's high fat if i spend all my

00:02:33.380 money on the new iphone now i can enjoy that now but it's going to do me you know wonders if i put it

00:02:37.840 into my 401k in the long term because the world is more sure of what the long term is going to bring

00:02:44.100 investing in the long term sacrificing pleasures in the short term is a really important strategy

00:02:49.960 for success you know you see it in things like the concept grit where we have to persevere to

00:02:55.400 now sacrifice practice hard develop our skills whether it's athletics or abilities at work to

00:03:01.080 to persevere in the long run that surely predicts success but because our mind still has this glitch

00:03:07.340 which wasn't a glitch evolutionarily speaking in the bygone days but is now we're just built it's

00:03:13.340 just built into us to to want what we want in the moment and to enjoy it and to not place as much

00:03:18.260 emphasis on what the future will bring given some sacrifice in the moment right so that's why what makes

00:03:23.680 losing weight hard because that brownie it tastes really good now yeah and you know it made sense

00:03:30.640 right in the old days when you weren't sure there was going to be a nice high fat high sugar thing to

00:03:34.660 eat tomorrow why not eat two or three of them right now if you had them but as you're saying where things

00:03:39.480 are more available to us that's a problem but we still have this bias built in to you know watch tv

00:03:44.440 rather than go to the gym to spend money rather than save it so the typical approach whenever say we have

00:03:51.000 a long-term goal but we have these immediate temptations that can throw us off track is we

00:03:56.640 use willpower like we exert ourselves we use discipline and flagellate ourselves and put on

00:04:02.760 hair shirts and things like that but why you argue that that doesn't really work very well why not

00:04:10.220 despite that being the typical approach most people take yeah it doesn't and it's you know it's not just

00:04:15.700 my opinion if you if you look at the data out there so psychologists would conduct studies where

00:04:21.320 they'd follow people on their daily lives for weeks at a time using mobile technology and what they found

00:04:27.020 is that you know one out of every five times we try to resist a temptation that's getting in the way of

00:04:32.220 a long-term goal we fail and if we're tired or stressed or busy that temp that those stats are even worse

00:04:39.860 and for really meaningful goals things that we really care about it's abysmal so i'll give you an example

00:04:44.720 you know eight percent of new year's resolutions are kept till the end of that year 25 are gone by

00:04:50.260 the first week and so it's i think it's just objectively true that that we have a problem

00:04:55.720 with self-control because of that glitch built in and and why is it that problem it's because this

00:05:00.860 strategy of kind of using willpower trying to convince ourselves that saving money that

00:05:06.080 eating healthy is that studying or working hard to develop a skill that'll get you ahead at work is

00:05:11.600 using willpower to get there is the right way we're using tools that are fragile and that are

00:05:16.660 are potentially really harmful so besides the fact that they fail quite often one thing that we know

00:05:23.980 is we often talk ourselves out of things we often forgive ourselves for our for our failure so you know

00:05:30.560 one thing we study in my lab is cheating and what we'll find is that you know if people are given a task

00:05:36.160 where they can cheat on something they'll cheat 90 of the time on these little things you know so we

00:05:42.700 basically say here's a coin flip the coin if you get heads you're going to do this fun task if you do

00:05:47.380 tails you're going to do this god-awful long task and then we leave them alone and what we find is that

00:05:52.960 you know 90 of them report that they got the short task right which is just statistically impossible

00:05:58.740 but we watch them on hidden video anyway what happens is they don't flip the coin they just tell us they did

00:06:02.760 and if you ask them later how did you behave what people will say is oh yeah i i behaved fairly

00:06:08.840 but if you have them watch somebody else cheat in exactly the same way they'll they'll condemn them

00:06:14.180 for it right that's hypocrisy right there and what we find out is that if we have them make that

00:06:19.360 decision of whether or not what they did was fair when they actually did cheat if we prevent them from

00:06:25.980 engaging in kind of reason or rationalization they actually know what they did was unfair but if we give

00:06:32.380 them a few minutes to think about it they'll create a story for why it was okay they'll say

00:06:36.420 well normally i wouldn't cheat but you know today i had an appointment that i just couldn't be late for

00:06:42.340 or you know that guy who was sitting next to that kid you not they said guy who was sitting next to me

00:06:46.840 i know those long problems had to do with like math and logic and he looked like he was an engineering

00:06:51.660 major and so if i gave myself the easy task i know he was going to get the other one he'd probably be

00:06:57.260 happier getting that long task um and so you know this is a long-winded way of saying what we do is

00:07:03.120 we convince ourselves why it's okay to give in why it's okay to eat the extra brownie why it's okay to

00:07:07.900 not go to the gym why we deserve to spend our money rather than save it and if we do that then we're not

00:07:14.100 even going to bother to invoke willpower in the first place even though it is fragile and so i i think

00:07:19.980 relying on this idea that humans are like computers where we just use logic we can convince

00:07:25.460 ourselves to do the right thing and if we have enough willpower we will is a really misguided

00:07:31.180 premise okay so let's recap there so when we exercise willpower is that like an executive

00:07:36.720 function like we have to think about it and use our reason in order to apply it is that yeah exactly

00:07:41.920 i mean willpower basically comes from exactly what you're saying this part of the mind that

00:07:46.020 we psychologists term executive function you know it's named really well the mental executive is

00:07:50.660 kind of like the boss at work he tells all the subordinates what they should do and so what

00:07:54.640 you're doing is you're like yeah i really don't want to go to the gym i really want to stay home

00:07:59.460 and watch tv or go out to dinner or whatever it might be but i know i should and so i'm going to

00:08:03.680 force myself to do it and the problem there is your body is always in a state of tension you have one

00:08:10.220 thing that you want to do that you are trying to overrule and what that does is it causes stress and

00:08:15.900 we know that over time stress in the body causes a lot of negative health outcomes and so

00:08:19.880 there's this really great study by a guy named greg um greg miller at northwestern in chicago

00:08:26.180 where he looked at kids from disadvantaged backgrounds who were kind of using willpower

00:08:29.820 and executive function to kind of get ahead academically and in life and what he found is

00:08:34.580 that yeah they were able to do it but there was a cost because of the stress that they were under and

00:08:38.720 always trying to suppress desires to do something else they had premature aging of their immune systems

00:08:43.640 which ultimately means yeah you're succeeding but you're not going to be around as long to enjoy it

00:08:48.340 and so i think this idea of relying on willpower means we're always in stress we're always in

00:08:52.960 conflict with our desires and it fails and it takes a toll on us and i don't think it's the most

00:08:59.040 useful and robust way to achieve our goals yeah i thought that was one of the most fascinating

00:09:03.780 insights from the book because you know before the show i was talking to you that as a young man i

00:09:09.800 always like i was all about i was a willpower junkie i thought it was great you know using your

00:09:14.120 executive function being self-disciplined as you said it's in the long run it doesn't work

00:09:19.660 but then also it can work against you because you you start rationalizing oh yeah uh there's a reason

00:09:26.460 why i didn't do the right thing and it's a good good reason because my brain says it's a good reason

00:09:32.520 right exactly we have and that's why you see that hypocrisy result we have no idea you know

00:09:36.800 no motive to rationalize other people's behavior but we'll rationalize our own because we don't want to

00:09:41.520 assume that we're flawed in some way or deficient in some way this is why when i see people like

00:09:45.720 like jordan peterson out there saying stand up pull your shoulders back do the right thing i'm like

00:09:50.220 yeah well do the right thing is is useful but the way you're telling people you know you're setting

00:09:54.420 themselves up to fail right you know for exactly the reasons you're talking about okay well so if

00:10:00.200 rationality or willpower doesn't work in the long run what does i mean you are i guess you argue

00:10:07.680 emotions do but people when people think emotions they think well that's the stuff that gets in the

00:10:11.800 way of our long-term goals because when i get angry or i'm hungry or i'm sad then i don't do the thing

00:10:18.660 i know i need to do that's right and and and i'm not saying all emotions do and this is why i think the

00:10:24.140 common view out there is willpower is good emotions are bad when it comes to being gritty or having

00:10:29.040 self-control or pursuing your goals there are certainly some emotions that focus you on pleasures of

00:10:34.380 the moment you know desire lust anger these are things that certainly work that way but there are

00:10:41.180 other emotions that haven't been studied that do exactly the opposite what i like to tell people is

00:10:46.440 think about the time that you have experienced what i call social emotions or moral emotions things like

00:10:52.080 gratitude or compassion these are emotions that make you willing to sacrifice for other people when

00:10:57.760 you feel grateful to someone you'll go way out of your way to pay them back even at cost to

00:11:02.480 yourself when you feel compassion for someone you'll give them time money resources a shoulder

00:11:07.560 to cry and things that all aren't fun for you to give in the moment but you do because you're investing

00:11:12.540 in them and these emotions what we're finding now not only make you willing to sacrifice to help other

00:11:17.700 people but also they make you willing to sacrifice your own future sacrifice to help your own future

00:11:23.460 self okay let's talk about so let's talk about the these emotions to gratitude compassion and pride let's

00:11:28.880 start with gratitude sure how is it that the feeling of gratitude you talked about there whenever people

00:11:34.080 experience gratitude to someone else they're more willing to do things for them and sacrifice

00:11:39.440 themselves sure how does that work towards yourself like do you feel grateful for yourself and then

00:11:44.920 you're more likely to do good things for yourself yeah no no so yeah good question let me let me give you

00:11:49.780 an example so one of the classic studies out there which i'm sure some of your listeners are familiar

00:11:54.040 with on on self-control is is uh what's called the marshmallow test of the study done by a psychologist

00:12:00.180 named walter michelle in the 70s and what he showed is that if you put one marshmallow down in front of

00:12:04.840 a child he would say okay you can have this now if i if i'm going to go away and do something if you can

00:12:09.260 wait till i get back you can have two and this is a common dilemma we all face that's called

00:12:13.940 intertemporal choice right it's something that i can have right now in the moment that feels good or if i can

00:12:18.020 exert some self-control i can have a bigger reward later so for us we wanted to do this study with

00:12:24.300 gratitude except we work with adults and most adults don't like marshmallows but they do like cash

00:12:28.740 and so we could bring them into the lab and we would have them reflect on something that made them feel

00:12:33.480 grateful reflect on something that made them feel happy or just tell us about the events of their

00:12:38.260 normal day and then we would offer them different amounts of cash you could have 35 now or 75 in

00:12:45.120 three weeks and lots of questions like this and we had them answer these questions and we told them

00:12:49.000 we'd pick one at random and honor it so you could have the 35 now if that's what you said or 75 in

00:12:54.700 three weeks and what we found is just like kids most adults are impatient they don't have self-control

00:13:00.860 most adults would say yeah i'll take i'll take 17 now rather than 100 in a year which i don't know

00:13:06.520 about you but if you don't need that 17 to survive an investment that will quintuple in a year is a

00:13:11.800 pretty good investment but if we made them feel grateful they wouldn't take that deal suddenly

00:13:16.780 they became much more future oriented they discount the value of the future less they required over 30

00:13:22.940 dollars before they take that deal and so what gratitude is doing is it's preventing the human

00:13:29.920 mind's normal bias to discount the value of the future that is it makes us value the future more and

00:13:37.520 if we value the future more it becomes easier to persevere to it toward it suddenly we're not kind

00:13:42.940 of trying to overrule a desire for pleasure in the moment we're valuing the future more and so it

00:13:49.680 becomes easier and less stressful to persevere toward it so why does it work this way well for millennia

00:13:55.620 right what made humans a success was that we had good character we had strong relationships if you wanted

00:14:00.940 to partner with someone you had to be fair you had to be honest you had to pay back your debts

00:14:04.840 and emotions like gratitude were what made us do that the way it does that is it makes us value

00:14:10.640 rewards in the future over rewards in the moment and it does the same thing with any type of long-term

00:14:16.120 game even those that don't affect anybody but our own future selves and so since that time we see people

00:14:21.080 who are grateful they show less addictive behaviors they have better savings they exercise more

00:14:26.960 they'll study harder they'll procrastinate less all of these things that focus us on the future

00:14:32.760 well it's kind of weird because that gratitude makes us focus on the future because gratitude

00:14:37.140 often when you think of being grateful you you're looking in the past and saying well i'm grateful for

00:14:41.800 that thing that happened that's exactly right but if you think about the reason the human mind has

00:14:47.360 emotions if they're focused on the past it's not useful that's done the reason we have emotions

00:14:52.560 is because they're designed to shape what we do next they're designed to influence our behavior in

00:14:57.800 adaptive manner so you know if you're feeling frightened and you're in a dangerous environment

00:15:01.760 when you feel that fear it makes you much more careful it makes you much more ready to respond

00:15:06.620 on the threats so what about gratitude well if you think about it this way so if you gave me ten dollars

00:15:13.260 today and i borrowed it from you and i didn't pay you back i'd be ahead ten bucks but over time if i

00:15:18.960 didn't pay you back you would never want to interact with me again and so i would lose all the aggregated

00:15:24.020 gains and benefits i would have from having you as a partner throughout the rest of my life and those

00:15:29.640 certainly outweigh the ten dollars that i've got in the moment and so what gratitude does is yes i'm

00:15:34.700 grateful to you for something in the past but the reason i feel that emotion is because it makes me

00:15:39.200 more willing to then pay you back which ensures my future success by keeping that relationship strong

00:15:45.480 that's crazy so is it just as simple as you just start keeping a gratitude journal and eventually you start

00:15:51.160 seeing yourself have more self-control yeah in fact we we followed people we didn't do gratitude

00:15:56.320 journals but we follow people through three weeks of their daily life and we charted every day the

00:16:01.280 intensity of gratitude they felt and the intensity of happiness they felt and other emotions and then

00:16:06.840 at the end of that time we gave them another financial task like this where they could have small

00:16:11.320 financial rewards right then we'd hand them cash or they could have larger financial rewards if they

00:16:16.300 were willing to wait and we found in a very kind of dose dependent way you know the more

00:16:20.620 gratitude people felt in their daily lives the more self-control the more patience they had the

00:16:26.000 more willing they were to you know what i'll wait for the longer reward for the larger reward rather

00:16:30.880 than taking it in the moment now and what that suggests then is if daily gratitude predicts your

00:16:36.260 self-control then if we can amp up your daily gratitude you're going to have more self-control

00:16:40.500 and so we're doing those studies now where we can actually look up people if we have them daily

00:16:45.400 reflect on things for which they're grateful for make it a normal part of their daily life

00:16:49.860 should that increase self-control it should there's data out there already suggesting it

00:16:53.740 it lowers addictive behaviors it increases exercise all the things that we associate with self-control

00:16:58.480 and the nice thing about feeling grateful is like unlike willpower where you can kind of deplete it

00:17:03.200 you know quote-unquote run out it's fra it's not fragile like you can have more and more and more

00:17:07.180 right you're right it doesn't it doesn't run out it's not it's not a contest between opposing you know

00:17:12.380 values in them and values in the mind when you feel grateful it just makes you value the long term

00:17:17.340 more and the other thing is i like to say a habit of gratefulness is way better than any other habit

00:17:23.200 you can have so we all know that developing habits is one way to foster success if i develop a habit

00:17:28.200 to study it's going to make me more willing to study rather than not study if i develop a habit to

00:17:33.200 put money away every week it's going to make me save money but the problem with that is a habit that

00:17:38.020 you devise to help you study or to save money or to go to the gym is only useful for that one thing

00:17:44.220 so a habit i have that makes me go to the gym isn't going to help me with saving money but if

00:17:49.300 you make it a habit to cultivate gratitude in your daily life it benefits all of those long-term

00:17:54.820 decisions any decision you face where there's a long-term reward it makes you value it more and

00:17:59.120 it makes you persevere toward it so i like to think of it as kind of a booster shot for self-control

00:18:04.220 all types of self-control dilemmas that you're going to face that's awesome well let's move on to the

00:18:08.460 next one compassion i think that's a maybe a virtue or emotion that a lot of people might

00:18:14.400 understand like how is compassion different from say empathy is there a difference yeah people you

00:18:19.900 know in the in the common vernacular people often use them interchangeably but scientifically what we

00:18:24.880 mean now by empathy and compassion are different things so empathy is my ability to understand and

00:18:31.740 feel what you're feeling so if i have a lot of empathy and i'm next to someone who's sad i'm going

00:18:35.880 to feel their sadness if i'm next to someone who's happy i'm going to feel their half their

00:18:39.580 happiness compassion is different compassion is an emotion that's focused on helping someone who is

00:18:45.080 in distress and the important thing there is to help them i don't have to feel their distress so you

00:18:51.000 know the the buddhists make a big distinction between empathy and compassion because if you are always

00:18:56.300 feeling people's pain overall over time what that's going to do is burn you out and you see this among

00:19:02.500 health care workers a lot of the time people will have what they call compassion fatigue if you're

00:19:06.860 working with people who are always in distress you burn out because you're feeling their pain and

00:19:11.760 suddenly you start trying to protect yourself from that because it's overwhelming but compassion you

00:19:15.800 don't have to feel someone else's pain all you have to do is care about them and want to help them

00:19:20.620 and what again what we're showing that does is the same way if i feel compassion for someone i will

00:19:25.480 devote time money and effort at some cost to myself to help them if you have compassion and self-compassion

00:19:31.160 for yourself what that makes you do is more willing to help your own future self so hal hirschfeld who's

00:19:37.660 a psychologist at ucla has got this great data where he shows that he takes people's faces and he'll so

00:19:44.040 you know if you take the average 23 year old and he'll age more of their face to show them what they

00:19:49.020 might look like at 70 and when he shows people what they might look like at 70 suddenly they're more

00:19:54.920 willing to divert money to their retirement accounts than they are to spend it on you know a new pair of

00:19:59.880 jeans or a new smartphone and even more if he then alters that image of that future you looks kind

00:20:05.800 of sad they'll give even more and because what it's doing is it's making you feel compassion for

00:20:10.740 future you suddenly it's making that real and so what we find is that people feel more compassionate

00:20:15.620 in their daily lives they're more again willing to value the long term to save money to behave in

00:20:20.880 ways to procrastinate less to work harder because subconsciously after they're consciously thinking

00:20:26.280 about this but subconsciously it makes them more willing to accept sacrifices now that will benefit

00:20:31.580 them in the future it basically gives them grit from the bottom up so just to clarify compassion

00:20:37.140 doesn't mean like you're letting people off the hook or yourself off the hook necessarily you can

00:20:42.080 acknowledge like you did something wrong because i think a lot of that's like i think a lot of men

00:20:46.260 particularly like compassion is kind of wussy because you're just like letting people not be

00:20:50.160 responsible for their mistakes or whatever no no true so so it's funny that again the the buddhists 1.00

00:20:57.080 have this term what they call idiot compassion versus true compassion and idiot compassion is just 0.98

00:21:03.120 giving in to make somebody feel good just because they're upset and you're right sometimes people have 0.99

00:21:07.560 to be upset or face difficulties to get to develop the skills face hardships to to do what they're going

00:21:13.480 to do in the long term so if you don't even try to eat right if you don't even try to exercise then

00:21:18.580 you shouldn't have compassion for yourself because what you're doing is kind of being a whistle you're

00:21:22.600 just giving in no true compassion means compassion in the face of a good faith effort where somebody

00:21:29.700 has tried something and they failed and you can yes like you said in the beginning we can wear

00:21:34.120 hairy hairy shirts and flagellate ourselves but that's not going to solve the problem if we have

00:21:38.380 compassion for a good faith effort it actually has been scientifically shown to increase efforts down

00:21:44.600 the line so athletes who actually show self-compassion where they don't reach their goal

00:21:48.460 in a day but don't criticize themselves actually show better performance in the long run students

00:21:53.840 who are studying for exams if they show compassion because they didn't quite reach their goal but they

00:21:57.940 tried really hard show better academic performance and less procrastination over time and so you're

00:22:03.900 exactly right you're not just saying oh it's okay it doesn't matter no but when you do fail rather

00:22:08.780 than flagellate yourself have some compassion as long as it's a good faith effort and try again tomorrow

00:22:13.900 yeah i think that's an important that's something i've learned too just through experience because

00:22:18.380 when i was a younger man whenever i failed i just do the flagellation thing i'm a bit like the thing

00:22:24.160 was you went through sort of the spiral where you're just like well i'm not even gonna try anymore

00:22:28.060 and you don't do it and then you're you're worse off and over time you know people say well you know

00:22:33.920 dave what about guilt and shame can't guilt and shame make you do the same thing in which you get

00:22:37.860 from self-flagellation in very small doses guilt and shame can give you the kick in the pants you need

00:22:42.900 to work harder and do the right thing but over time they make you give up because they are very

00:22:48.760 aversive states and they're very bad physically too guilt and shame over time cause all types of

00:22:54.920 negative health effects inflammatory responses you name it whereas things like gratitude compassion

00:23:00.200 and pride we'll talk about actually lower heart rate lower blood pressure increase immune response

00:23:05.760 give you better sleep and so there are a lot more resilient path toward doing the right thing than

00:23:10.620 kind of self-flagellating so how do you experience self-compassion how do you develop that both types

00:23:18.080 of compassion so there are there are two ways um for compassion in general believe it or not one of

00:23:23.900 the ways that we found that works the best is to actually do practices of meditation you know if you

00:23:29.340 listen to lots of podcasts to read the times or the atlantic what you'll see is yeah if you meditate

00:23:34.220 it'll it'll lower your blood pressure it'll increase your memory it does all of those things but

00:23:38.980 the reason it was created is to increase compassion and ethical behavior and so we've actually shown

00:23:44.960 using um mobile apps where they do you know people can do 10 minutes of meditation a day over time it

00:23:50.860 makes them control their anger better it increases their compassion for everyone including themselves

00:23:55.260 but an important way to do self-compassion actually is to stop and to think about what i say what i'm

00:24:03.360 saying to myself right now would i say that to a friend or an employee who failed and most times 0.96

00:24:10.120 unless you're a real jerk the answer is no we are much harsher on ourselves and one reason we are is 0.97

00:24:16.040 because when i'm saying this to somebody else i can see the kind of pain that i'm causing them i can 0.99

00:24:21.280 see the distress in their eyes and that puts a brake on it when i'm criticizing myself i don't see that

00:24:26.740 because i can't see my own face and so one one tactic i encourage people to use is to actually stop

00:24:32.360 and think about would you say to somebody else and if not what would you say to them and say that to

00:24:36.400 yourself because we tend to just be harsher on ourselves more often than not because we don't

00:24:42.400 see the emotional damage that we're causing we don't see the pain we're causing i love that so

00:24:46.940 meditate and it's not hard you know you can use one of those apps no 10 minutes a day yeah exactly

00:24:51.800 or treat yourself how you treat someone else exactly going through a hard time well okay let's talk

00:24:57.520 about pride because that's an interesting one because when people think of pride they don't think

00:25:01.520 that usually in a positive way they think of sort of you know hubristic a-holes yeah so so how is pride

00:25:08.620 a pro-social emotion yeah so pride it always seems as you're saying the odd one out of the three for

00:25:15.420 the very reason you're saying but if you think about it any emotion that's experienced in the wrong

00:25:21.240 intensity or the wrong context is a problem it's just that in pride we have a name for it we call it

00:25:25.840 arrogance we call it hubris or a-holeness as you might say you know even happiness if you experience it

00:25:31.200 when you shouldn't or in too intense a degree we call that mania right it's a disorder and so that's

00:25:36.900 no different with pride the trick about pride is if it's authentic if it's if it's calibrated to the

00:25:43.900 sense that i've worked hard to develop a skill or an ability that other people's value that's useful

00:25:50.520 and feeling proud of that is an important marker right it makes us willing to keep going to keep

00:25:56.160 developing that skill because others around us value it you know when if you're if you're a dad

00:26:01.460 or a mom when you're and you have a young child that young child is going to be looking to you when

00:26:06.060 he or she does something they're going to be looking for praise if you give them praise it marks that

00:26:10.500 behavior as something that this family unit or this culture values and they become proud of it the

00:26:15.640 negative side of that we call peer pressure but the positive side of that is a way that we can

00:26:19.640 encourage people to build skills and so in our experiments what we'll do is we'll bring people into the lab and

00:26:25.400 we'll have them work on tasks that we call visual spatial ability something that nobody knows anything

00:26:30.240 about or cares a lot about and we'll give them feedback that they're doing really well on the

00:26:34.860 test in a way that makes them feel pride and when they feel pride for this ability because those people

00:26:39.440 around them are admiring it suddenly they'll devote more time and energy 40 percent more on average to

00:26:45.840 work toward and hone these skills why because other people around them care about it and that must mean

00:26:51.580 it's important hearkening back to what i was saying with gratitude what leads to success is that other people

00:26:56.820 value an ability they want you on their team they think you're a good partner and what pride does is it marks an

00:27:03.240 ability that others around you value and it pushes you to develop that skill and to internalize that this is

00:27:09.720 something important and in that sense it's a hugely motivating emotion so i think one of the the key

00:27:17.100 differences of your approach you're advocating here and say typical approaches i think the typical

00:27:21.580 approach is self-improvement self-control is a very individual task something you do in the the closets of

00:27:29.480 your soul or whatever yeah but you're arguing that if you really want to have lasting success and

00:27:34.820 with your self-control it has to be a social experience so what what role do social connections play in all of

00:27:42.640 this yeah and that's a very important part of this perspective um and if you think about it right

00:27:47.840 where why did self-control originally evolve it didn't evolve so that you could save money so that

00:27:53.360 you could you know study for exams that you could complete the whole 30 the reason it originally evolved

00:27:59.500 is so that you would develop good moral character the things we talked about you would be fair you would

00:28:05.040 be honest you would keep your promises you would work hard to develop a skill that others admired

00:28:09.820 that's why self-control came about and it was these emotions that undergirded that the important

00:28:16.240 part about it then is because it really comes from this social milieu is when we practice these emotions

00:28:22.740 they not only give us grit right they also give us what i like to say they also give us grace that is

00:28:27.400 they they give us a character that others admire that others want to connect with and that in and of

00:28:33.560 itself reinforces our success you know david brooks likes to talk about a division between

00:28:38.700 career sorry between resume virtues those are the things that we need to get ahead at work like nose

00:28:44.160 to the grindstone be aggressive work hard and eulogy virtues those things that we want to be remembered

00:28:49.840 for things like being fair being kind being generous and he he laments the fact that we've structured our

00:28:56.100 careers in our lives such that these two are separate and i think that's true they're separate not

00:29:00.880 because they're inherently separate but because it's the way we tend to think about the world

00:29:04.860 if you practice cultivating compassion and gratitude in your life and a true pride in your abilities

00:29:10.840 those aren't separate virtues those emotions are going to make you behave in ways that give you

00:29:16.900 more self-control and more perseverance and more grip but at the same time they're going to make you

00:29:21.420 behave in ways that draw other people to you and that reinforce those social relationships and give you a much

00:29:27.680 more balanced success in a higher sense of well-being one of the biggest problems people are facing right

00:29:33.160 now in the world especially the workplace is people are lonely you know more than 53 percent of people

00:29:38.300 report being lonely in their public lives especially and in their careers and it's because of of the way

00:29:44.360 we're pursuing success with this nose to the grindstone it's all about me i'm going to focus on my

00:29:49.580 executive function and we're suppressing these emotions that have undergirded success in the social realm

00:29:54.940 and the individual realm for decades and that's probably why things like alcoholics anonymous

00:30:00.340 weight watchers like those things work because you're embedded with a community of people who

00:30:06.180 are supportive you can experience those social emotions yeah i mean if you look at them none of

00:30:10.500 those groups tell you use more willpower to not drink or not shop or whatever it may be

00:30:15.080 because they know that doesn't work they have things like gratitude journals they have things like

00:30:20.700 showing compassion to each other and supporting each other pride and sobriety coins those emotions

00:30:25.960 are stronger more reliable source and the reason they build self-control is not only do they make

00:30:31.380 the mind value the future more but they build those social relationships that reinforce success so you know

00:30:36.800 people talk about grit being important for success and it is in terms of the executive function

00:30:42.220 root but one thing we know about grit is those people fail less because they're working really hard

00:30:47.360 but when they do fail it hits their well-being 120 percent more than the rest of us and it's because

00:30:54.880 they don't have those social connections to support them when they fall and it's because of this kind

00:31:01.560 of you know atomistic i'm going to do it myself i don't care i'm just going to work all these hours

00:31:06.040 and suppress my you know social emotional side it becomes a very tenuous root when you do fail when

00:31:13.220 those hard times come you're not going to have the tools to help you be resilient

00:31:16.740 so that could mean you know what's what you're saying is you need to get embedded in a social

00:31:21.240 group if you really want to have the that success with yourself long-term success your self-control so

00:31:25.780 that could be like joining a crossfit gym if you're trying to exercise regularly um it can be but it

00:31:32.200 doesn't even need to be so it it can be the people who are doing the same thing with you but it doesn't

00:31:37.340 have to be it can be any strong social relationships in your life so even if you're the only person in your

00:31:44.040 group of friends who's going to the gym if you have other group of friends around you

00:31:48.660 what those will do is is just give you the support they'll enhance your your these moral emotions in

00:31:55.120 you daily which will help you go to the gym so think about it this way within a social network

00:32:00.740 emotions spread and so if i'm feeling grateful today that's going to make me want to invest in

00:32:08.400 other people and so i'm going to help you if you come to ask me for something and then you're going

00:32:12.940 to feel grateful to me so suddenly you're going to feel grateful because i felt grateful and that

00:32:17.400 gratitude you're going to feel is going to help you with all of your self-control problems as a whole

00:32:22.280 and because these emotions spread in social networks what you find is that groups offices that have

00:32:28.780 higher levels of compassion and gratitude daily within their corporate culture

00:32:33.480 have greater levels of success lower levels of absenteeism less stress you know google did this

00:32:41.660 great study where they were trying to predict which teams had them had the best success they

00:32:46.160 thought it was going to be technical prowess that wasn't it the number one predictor of which teams

00:32:51.800 had the best success was which managers fostered a culture of empathy and compassion on their teams

00:32:56.700 what that meant is which teams felt like the others around them cared about them we're going to have

00:33:00.860 their backs cared about their social lives we cared about their goals and support each other

00:33:05.140 those teams did way better than did teams where it was you know every person on it for themselves

00:33:10.700 trying to you know outshine his or her partners and so what i'm saying is these emotions by simply

00:33:15.980 cultivating cultivating them not only help you with your self-control individually but flow through

00:33:21.360 those groups they build friendships and bonds that not only help you then feel those emotions in the

00:33:27.100 future but also combat your loneliness and we know that loneliness is actually you know being lonely

00:33:32.320 is about as bad as smoking for you in terms of the years it takes off your life and so it makes you

00:33:37.680 happier while it also makes you more successful and i think that's a win-win yeah and does this mean

00:33:43.320 what would you say to someone who would say well i've got social connections but they're not that

00:33:47.780 great they're kind of yeah bringing me down should people be proactive about the people they

00:33:51.820 hang out with regularly or what what can they do about that yeah what matters i mean this is the

00:33:56.740 problem people are saying well why are people reporting more loneliness in an age of increased

00:34:00.340 social connection you know i have hundreds of friends on facebook or lots of acquaintances

00:34:04.140 what matters isn't really the number of people what matters is the subjective sense of closeness i have

00:34:11.400 with them so a person who has two really good friends can feel a lot less lonely or isolated than a person

00:34:17.040 who has 20 acquaintances is that they see and the nice thing about these emotions is when you practice

00:34:22.940 gratitude when you pat when you practice compassion and even pride it they reinforce they've been shown

00:34:28.320 to reinforce the quality of relationships we want to be around others who show compassion because they'll

00:34:33.260 help us we want to be around others who who have authentic pride and have good abilities in fact we've shown

00:34:39.320 that in our in our lab we bring people into teams and the people who are showing authentic pride 0.91

00:34:44.680 quickly rise to a leadership role others don't think they're jerks or a-holes they actually value 0.79

00:34:50.420 them as long as the pride they're showing is related to their skills and success and so what really 0.75

00:34:55.960 matters and the advice i'd give your listeners is by using these emotions you're going to find who are

00:35:00.920 your true friends and even the friends that are on the boundary that are acquaintances if you start

00:35:05.640 showing them compassion and empathy and pride as long as they're good people it's going to reinforce

00:35:10.560 those relationships and make those bonds closer and it's really the closeness of the bonds not the

00:35:15.440 number of bonds that matters so i know we've been kind of dogging on willpower yeah but like what what

00:35:21.240 purpose does it serve if it's not that great and it's fragile in the long term like why does it does

00:35:26.420 it serve a purpose yeah it serves a purpose and so please don't leave this podcast episode thinking

00:35:32.360 that i'm saying you should never use willpower in the battle to kind of reach our goals and to be

00:35:37.520 future oriented we need every weapon in our arsenal the reason we have it is for the reason exactly

00:35:43.520 that you said a while ago some emotions focus us on immediate desires and so what's happening in any

00:35:50.060 instance where we're trying to decide should i save money for the long term or spend it now should i go

00:35:55.400 to the gym or should i just blow it off and eat the extra ben and jerry's now is on a very rational

00:36:00.760 executive function kind of prefrontal cortex level we're trying to make that decision and we're also

00:36:05.940 making it at an intuitive level and so because we have two different roots we have two different

00:36:11.360 ways of thinking about it we have emotions that focus us on immediate pleasures we have emotions

00:36:15.860 that focus us on long-term goals willpower does the same and so the reason we have willpower is so we

00:36:21.000 can overrule some emotions if we're showing the wrong ones the problem is that willpower root just

00:36:28.140 tends to be weaker than the emotional root for the reasons i've said and so the reason we have it is

00:36:33.340 because it can be useful it can be a corrected corrective device if we're giving into desire

00:36:38.440 my argument is if you cultivate the right emotions you're not going to give into desire but the reason

00:36:43.480 we have it willpower is we don't always have the right emotion and so it can definitely serve a

00:36:48.980 purpose it's just that it's weaker and it and it causes more stress to use that root than the social

00:36:55.280 emotion one okay so what you're saying here then is you can use your willpower if say you're

00:37:00.280 you're feeling angry right use your willpower in that instance because you know anger is going to

00:37:05.260 help is going to cause you make the bad decision use your willpower to direct your emotions to one

00:37:09.860 of those more pro-social ones so when you say you're you're angry at your kid right because they're doing

00:37:14.300 something dumb you can say okay i'm feeling angry now use my willpower and i'm going to think of

00:37:19.400 something grateful or have some compassion for my kid and then let that so you're so exactly so well 0.98

00:37:24.760 two ways either in that moment i'm going to stop and i'm going to just reflect on something that

00:37:29.520 i'm grateful for that maybe my child did for me in the past or anybody did for me in the past and

00:37:33.900 that gratitude as it comes online or the compassion as it comes online will actually rapidly decrease

00:37:39.500 that that angry urge to lash out but another thing that you can do is just to the extent that you

00:37:44.220 cultivate emotions like gratitude and compassion daily regularly they'll short circuit that desire

00:37:50.000 for anger before it even happens so we have studies where we have people you know do meditation for

00:37:54.540 three weeks 10 minutes a day we put them in a situation where you know using actors where an actor

00:37:59.040 insults them on their performance on a job and they have the chance to then seek vengeance on

00:38:04.260 this person and lash out at him what we find is those who practice meditation daily and report more

00:38:09.220 daily higher levels of compassion they don't show the same desire to lash out and so you can even

00:38:14.960 short circuit that problem from occurring in the first place if you cultivate these emotions

00:38:19.300 more regularly i love that well david this has been a great conversation where can people go to learn

00:38:23.940 more about the book in your work yeah the easiest way is to go to my website which is www.davedisteno

00:38:30.660 d-e-s-t-e-n-o dot com or my twitter which is uh at david disteno all one word awesome well dave

00:38:37.700 disteno thank you so much for your time it's been a pleasure thank you take care my guest name is david

00:38:41.980 disteno he's the author of the book emotional success it's available on amazon.com and bookstores

00:38:46.540 everywhere you can find more information about his work at daviddisteno.com also check out our show

00:38:51.760 notes at aom.is slash emotional success where you can find links to resources where you can delve

00:38:56.380 deeper into this topic well that wraps up another edition of the art of manliness podcast for more

00:39:09.520 manly tips and advice make sure to check out the art of manliness website at artofmanliness.com and

00:39:13.580 if you enjoy the podcast i'd appreciate if you give us a review on itunes or stitcher helps that a lot

00:39:17.740 if you've done that already thank you please consider sharing the show with a friend or family member

00:39:21.400 who you think would get something out of it as always thank you for your continued support and

00:39:24.600 until next time this is brett mckay telling you to stay manly

00:39:27.280 you

The Art of Manliness - June 05, 2018

#411： Why Emotions Are Better Than Willpower in Achieving Your Goals

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