The Art of Manliness - #644： How to Develop Greater Self-Awareness

00:00:00.000 brett mckay here and welcome to another edition of the art of manliness podcast 95% of people

00:00:12.020 say that they're self-aware but only 10 to 15% of people actually are as my guest today says

00:00:16.640 that means on a good day 80% of us are lying to ourselves about how much we're lying to ourselves

00:00:21.280 and this blind spot can have big repercussions for our success and happiness her name is Tasha

00:00:25.680 yurk and she's an organizational psychologist and the author of insight why we're not as self-aware

00:00:30.000 as we think and how seeing ourselves clearly helps us succeed at work and in life Tasha kicks off her

00:00:34.860 conversation by arguing that our level of self-awareness sets the upper limit of our

00:00:38.400 individual effectiveness and that self-awareness can be developed and is truly the meta skill of

00:00:42.320 the 21st century she then unpacks what it is you know about yourself when you possess self-awareness

00:00:46.560 how there are two types of this knowledge internal and external and how you can have one without the

00:00:50.560 other Tasha then outlines the seven pillars of self-awareness the barriers to getting insights

00:00:54.700 into them including falling into the cult of self and how these barriers can be overcome including

00:00:58.840 asking yourself a daily check-in question we then discuss how two of the most common methods of

00:01:02.940 gaining self-knowledge introspection and journaling can in fact backfire how to do them more effectively

00:01:07.540 by asking yourself what instead of why and actually journaling less instead of more we also get into why

00:01:12.720 you should be an informer rather than a me former on social media how to become more mindful

00:01:17.080 without meditation and how to solicit and handle feedback from other people including holding something

00:01:21.300 called a dinner of truth after the show's over check out our show notes at aom.is slash self-awareness

00:01:26.580 all right Tasha Urich welcome to the show thanks for having me so you are the author of a book

00:01:39.880 you're a consultant psychologist and author of this book called insight it's all about developing

00:01:43.720 self-awareness let's talk about your background how did you end up focusing your career and consulting

00:01:49.420 on helping leaders and just everyone develop more self-awareness so i've been an organizational

00:01:55.540 psychologist for more than 15 years and but before that i was the daughter of an entrepreneur i'm

00:02:02.020 actually a third generation entrepreneur and so i grew up literally watching my mom run a company and

00:02:08.740 i've i've always been very passionate about business i actually think it's the the greatest personal

00:02:13.660 growth tool there is in some sense um but but i i fell in love with psychology at the same time and

00:02:19.760 i was lucky enough when i was you know kind of ending college to find this field of organizational

00:02:24.720 psychology where essentially the goal is to help create prosperity you know both sort of financially

00:02:30.360 and then just more generally in businesses by helping leaders be better by helping companies create

00:02:35.720 better cultures and so i i went all in i went and got my phd in the field and have really never looked

00:02:42.300 back so for me part of what i focus on in my consulting work is i coach usually the top one or two levels

00:02:48.980 in mid to large size organizations so ceos and their direct reports and what i kept seeing over and over

00:02:55.920 and over for so many years was this very distinct pattern and it was that the leaders and executives i

00:03:01.900 coached who were willing to question the assumptions they had about themselves who were willing to get

00:03:07.500 sometimes brutal feedback about how they were showing up and what kind of leader they were

00:03:12.180 and who were willing to do the work and and make changes and really figure out how they can show up

00:03:18.660 in the best possible way were infinitely more successful but they weren't just more successful

00:03:23.400 they were happier they were more confident they were they had more sustainable success and as i started

00:03:29.320 to think about this you know the buzzword of self-awareness had emerged but what i wanted to know

00:03:33.840 my my background is scientific is is self-awareness actually as important as i thought it was

00:03:40.320 were sort of the common pieces of wisdom out there you know you read a forbes article that says get

00:03:45.380 more feedback were those things actually true and so i convened a research team it's been more than

00:03:50.840 seven years ago now where we wanted to know what is self-awareness where does it come from why do we

00:03:56.940 need it and then probably most importantly how do we get more of it and it's been such a fascinating

00:04:01.920 ride we've learned that a lot of the most commonly accepted truths about self-awareness what it

00:04:07.940 means how to get more of it are wrong so there's a lot there well you open the book saying arguing

00:04:14.000 that self-awareness you call it the meta skill of the 21st century what do you why do you think it's

00:04:18.980 such an important skill to have these days like what is it about modern work and just life in general

00:04:24.500 in the 21st century that requires being more self-aware sure so let me give you a couple of

00:04:29.780 scientifically supported outcomes of self-awareness and then i'll circle back to your question because

00:04:33.880 i think it's really the heart of the matter self-aware people empirically scientifically are

00:04:38.600 more successful at work they get more promotions they're better communicators better influencers

00:04:44.180 better sales people they're more effective and motivating leaders there's even a growing body of

00:04:50.540 evidence that shows that self-awareness isn't just nice to have it's a business imperative leaders who

00:04:56.320 are self-aware lead more profitable companies companies who are comprised of self-aware people are more

00:05:02.860 profitable so all these things together you know it's sort of like it's it's important already but

00:05:07.700 the reason i think self-awareness is is the foundational skill of the 21st century even before

00:05:13.520 covid but more more so now is that we can only be as effective at all of these 21st century skills as

00:05:20.560 we are self-aware so think about this has anyone ever met an exceptional leader who wasn't also

00:05:26.000 self-aware or or a very effective influencer or a relationship builder and so the way i look at this

00:05:32.920 is essentially our self-awareness is going to set the upper limit of our effectiveness and that's why

00:05:39.420 we'll talk about this later but a lot of people have a more room to improve than they think but the good

00:05:45.040 news is self-awareness we've discovered is one of the most developable skills out there so it just

00:05:50.660 presents a huge opportunity for so many people you may let's talk about what self-awareness is because

00:05:55.140 you make the case there's two parts to it there's internal and external self-awareness and we're

00:06:00.180 going to dig deep into each of these types but on high level like what's the difference between the

00:06:04.480 two and why why can't you have true or complete self-awareness without both when we started this

00:06:10.340 research program i was pretty naive and i thought oh it should be pretty easy to come up with a

00:06:14.860 definition of what self-awareness is and almost a thousand empirical studies later we surveyed thousands of

00:06:21.920 people all around the world we did in-depth interviews which i'm sure we'll talk about we

00:06:26.380 finally after about a year were able to distill what what do we know when we're self-aware and

00:06:33.600 just like you said it's made up of two types of self-knowledge so the first is something we call

00:06:38.260 internal self-awareness which is knowing who you are at your core what do you value what are you

00:06:44.140 passionate about what what aspirations do you have for for the kind of life you want to live and the type

00:06:49.420 of career you want to lead but at the same time there's something equally important called external

00:06:55.520 self-awareness and what that is is in a nutshell knowing how other people see us and fascinatingly

00:07:02.140 kind of you you alluded to this is we found that these two types of self-knowledge are completely

00:07:08.440 unrelated so if there are any stats nerds listening to this there is a 0.0 correlation between your level

00:07:15.120 of internal self-awareness and external self-awareness but what i think is really important

00:07:20.100 about that is it it provides the roadmap what does it actually take to become self-aware it's an equal

00:07:26.000 focus on internal and external self-awareness even when those answers are different you know you sort of

00:07:31.680 think about the way i see myself is going to be different than the way other people see me but the most

00:07:37.260 self-aware people we've discovered are able to balance both of those types of self-knowledge not putting

00:07:43.380 one over the other in terms of importance but being able to sort of live sometimes with that

00:07:48.140 contradiction well because i think people can think of examples of people who are internally self-aware

00:07:53.300 but are aren't externally self-aware so they know kind of what they want in life but they're clueless

00:07:57.600 about how other people perceive them right what's an example of someone who like has external self-awareness

00:08:03.880 but no internal self-awareness so the the archetype that you talked about i call introspectors

00:08:09.600 the opposite of that somebody who has high external self-awareness and low internal self-awareness

00:08:15.180 i've named a pleaser and and i actually fall into that category i'm i'm far more comfortable

00:08:20.360 asking someone for feedback about myself than i am you know really pondering who i am at my core

00:08:26.000 and what we found with pleasers is first of all there's a slightly higher proportion of women in that 0.99

00:08:31.980 category men are just a little bit more likely to be introspectors but for pleasers their journey

00:08:37.960 is usually figuring out what do they really want you think about you know the the classic trope of

00:08:43.500 like i i am instead of going pre-med and in this fully a full ride scholarship i'm going to quit

00:08:50.300 school and audition for american idol you know and it's like i really want to do that and i'm doing it

00:08:55.760 because it's it's the thing i want at my core that's the thing that pleasers really struggle with

00:09:00.420 is sometimes they can get it wrapped up in what other people want them to do and lose sight of or not

00:09:06.880 even think about what they really want so internal self-awareness is knowing what you want external

00:09:11.860 self-awareness is knowing what how other people perceive you but then what's the opposite of that

00:09:17.440 of being self-aware oh that's a big question so everybody sees this all around us in the world

00:09:24.060 of late particularly but just in general i think the opposite of self-awareness is closer to a self

00:09:30.820 absorption so sometimes people say can you be too self-aware and what i think a lot of people get at

00:09:37.980 with that question is can you be so focused on yourself that you start to lose confidence you

00:09:43.760 know you start to overthink everything you're doing or place too much emphasis on how other people see you

00:09:48.560 but that's actually not self-awareness that's that's almost like self-consciousness so self-awareness

00:09:54.340 is understanding who we are our strengths and our weaknesses everything that we are but also having

00:10:00.100 sort of a sense of self-acceptance and that's why to me self-absorption is the opposite of that it's

00:10:06.680 it's having the sense that no matter what our objective reality is or or where we stand on you

00:10:12.560 know all the things we want to be and do we think we're great anyway and there's a lot of research that

00:10:18.000 shows just how dangerous that can be i get into this in insight but there's a lot of internal barriers

00:10:23.860 to seeing ourselves clearly there's a lot of sort of external cultural barriers to that so the people

00:10:30.660 that are self-aware are successful at fighting those things they they are able to see the barriers

00:10:36.320 they're able to sort of jump over them whereas most people can get wrapped up in i call it the cult of

00:10:41.900 self right this this idea that i am special and unique and wonderful no matter what and nobody really

00:10:46.720 understands me that's the opposite of self-awareness and we'll dig into these biases or these roadblocks here

00:10:52.120 in a bit but through your work and your research you've uncovered so okay we know what self-awareness

00:10:56.780 is kind of knowing what you want and in life but also understanding what how other people perceive you

00:11:02.680 but you've uncovered sort of like what you call seven pillars of self-awareness things about your life

00:11:07.220 that in order to be self-aware you need to kind of have an understanding about and we'll dig into a few

00:11:12.100 of these but you know what are in your research what are these seven pillars of insight that you think

00:11:16.520 people need to have in order to be self-aware so this is just fascinating our research showed

00:11:21.680 this crystal clear distinction between when someone is self-aware what do they know and when someone

00:11:28.700 isn't self-aware what don't they know so i'll go through them and this is kind of in order from

00:11:33.800 most core to us to most external and by the way you can receive internal and external information about

00:11:41.500 all of them and i think that'll make sense when i when i say what they are so the first is our values

00:11:45.980 knowing the principles that we want to live our lives by number two are our passions what are the

00:11:52.000 things that we just love to do make us leap out of bed in the morning and and how can we design our

00:11:57.620 lives so we do them as much as possible another is our aspirations and that's not just what we want

00:12:03.400 to accomplish in our life and our work but also what experience do we want to have when we're here on

00:12:09.820 this earth another one is is basically the fit we have the the types of environments and people

00:12:16.300 who give us energy versus taking our energy away another is our patterns and this is basically you

00:12:23.760 know knowing your personality knowing in in this type of situation i tend to respond this way or in

00:12:30.240 general i tend to be more of an extrovert or an introvert and so on the next one is our reactions and

00:12:36.780 this gets a lot of play with self-awareness you know you think about my in the moment awareness of

00:12:41.220 my thoughts my feelings my behaviors and what's also part of this reactions component is our underlying

00:12:47.880 strengths and weaknesses you know if i have anger management problems a weakness i am going to in

00:12:53.700 the moment you know lose my cool more often than not and so that's why those two things are linked

00:12:58.200 and the last pillar of insight the seventh pillar is knowing our impact on others and the beauty of these

00:13:05.160 seven pillars is you can do your own unique exploration from an internal standpoint and it's

00:13:11.800 valuable to get feedback from other people and so that's where i sort of think about internal and

00:13:16.140 external self-awareness as the two camera angles for how we can see ourselves and then those seven

00:13:21.440 pillars are you know is the what is the work that we need to do yeah that was interesting that

00:13:26.280 you can it's possible to have internal or not have internal self-awareness about some of these things

00:13:30.820 but external self-awareness can help you get more insight into that i was thinking like you know

00:13:35.260 your triggers right you might not even be aware the things that cause you to to flip for whatever

00:13:41.260 but other people can see that and if you get their feedback you can finally figure out like okay well

00:13:46.460 this sort of thing triggers me for whatever reason exactly yeah we are notoriously poor judges

00:13:53.000 of particularly how we come across to other people but like you said our reactions even our values

00:13:58.900 one thing i do with the the ceos i work with is is you know we work on clarifying their values but

00:14:05.560 it's also really helpful to ask other people based on my behavior and what you know of me you know what

00:14:11.760 do you think is most important to me what are the what are my key values i've done that exercise so

00:14:17.320 many times that sometimes something unique will come from that conversation something that maybe that

00:14:22.600 person didn't even know they were doing or or even was so core to them that they didn't think

00:14:27.600 about it because it's just how they see the world so that's why i think those two perspectives are so

00:14:31.760 important yeah i thought that was interesting with the values thing because a lot of people i have a

00:14:35.180 mission statement where i value this this this this but then you look at like how they spend their time

00:14:39.820 their money how they treat and it's like that's really going to show you what they really value

00:14:44.240 it's keeping you honest right i've had i told a story about this in an article i wrote recently about how

00:14:51.600 i had lunch with a client and i was really really worked up about this person who had sent a nasty

00:14:57.840 response to my newsletter that day and it was like consuming all of my thoughts and he and i was

00:15:03.960 telling him you know i'm gonna i'm gonna respond to this guy and i'm gonna say this and this and this

00:15:08.420 and he just looked at me and he said tasha this is not the tasha i know right now the tasha i know

00:15:14.260 wants to make the world better for as many people as possible and i'm hearing you talk about how you're

00:15:18.620 going to take this poor guy down and it was it was just such an instructive moment and i think

00:15:24.260 as much as we can have people around us who trust us and love us enough to tell us the truth that can

00:15:30.660 keep us honest you know like you said am i really following my mission statement on a bad day having

00:15:35.780 someone call me out is really helpful well let's talk about how do you get these insights into these

00:15:40.820 different pillars of self-awareness i mean you just mentioned one you had a colleague say just tell you

00:15:45.200 hey this isn't really you you're better than this and any other ways that you can find insights about

00:15:50.940 this stuff sure so there's a lot to this answer and i might not be able to give you anything

00:15:55.580 satisfying but i think you know part of it are the types of questions we ask ourselves and then the

00:16:01.600 process we use to get feedback from other people so values is another example it's it's not uncommon

00:16:07.520 when i talk to you know organizational leaders for me to say hey have you have you actually sat down

00:16:13.920 and thought about your top three values and how you're going to use those to be more effective

00:16:18.680 sometimes people just look at me blankly you know and i think that's the kind of thing that it's going

00:16:23.520 to morph and evolve as we go about our lives but even just to sit down and ask what are my values

00:16:29.420 another is to put up processes that help other people give you feedback especially if you are trying

00:16:36.080 to work on something or get better at something let's say that you know someone aspires to be a better

00:16:41.920 public speaker a good way to continue that journey is to put a few people in place who are going to

00:16:47.600 watch you speak publicly and figure out a way to regularly get feedback from them so i think it's

00:16:53.640 really and this is where our research is is kind of nuanced because there isn't one way to get there

00:16:59.160 but what we've discovered is to build self-awareness in all these ways if you're strategic and smart about

00:17:05.920 it it actually doesn't become like another part-time job it can be done very efficiently

00:17:10.700 and effectively with not a ton of time and then you also mentioned the book i mean some ways they're

00:17:16.320 just sort of like big like you call like earthquake moments maybe you get turned down from a job or you

00:17:19.940 get fired from a job or you know you have a big failure in your life and you have to sort of have

00:17:25.020 this reckoning maybe this isn't for me maybe i'm doing something wrong because the the situation

00:17:30.540 forces you to actually introspect and try to get some self-awareness of the situation right one would

00:17:35.680 hope that's that's the difference between people who grow their self-awareness in their lives and

00:17:40.240 people who you know just want to sort of remain blissfully ignorant i understand the urge you know

00:17:45.920 we think like if i get fired i might think well nobody understands me they you know they wouldn't

00:17:50.680 know a good salesperson if they smack them in the face but i think especially when when life hands us

00:17:56.580 an outcome that is dramatically different than what we expect professionally personally anything

00:18:02.980 that is a data point and if we're not really doing the work to make sure that there wasn't something we

00:18:09.840 were missing or there wasn't something we did to contribute to that i i think we're we're we're

00:18:15.660 losing that opportunity for greater self-awareness and greater empowerment and just being able to to build

00:18:21.760 the life that we want to live right and you hear people who've had like near-death experiences or had to go to

00:18:26.080 the hospital for you know a health situation like that was a moment where they had to be like i got

00:18:30.900 to take care of my health i got to figure out what it's really important to me and ideally it wouldn't

00:18:35.240 take like a heart attack for you to do that i mean ideally you would start you'd be able to be attuned

00:18:40.620 like throughout your daily life of you to gain insights about yourself so that doesn't have to happen

00:18:46.000 exactly and that was one thing we found pretty clearly in what highly self-aware people did

00:18:52.240 differently you know they did come across those earthquake events for sure i think that's what

00:18:56.700 life is about sometimes but what they did differently is they looked for kind of almost

00:19:01.620 like this incremental daily insight and it wasn't spending hours and hours in therapy you know it

00:19:08.060 wasn't writing journals you know every single day it was really just having that curiosity on a daily

00:19:15.100 basis pretty much all of our subjects that were highly self-aware had some form of what i named

00:19:21.020 the daily check-in and basically what you do is you take at the end of your day if you're getting

00:19:25.640 ready for bed or brushing your teeth you ask yourself what went well today what didn't go so well today

00:19:32.060 and then what can i do to be smarter tomorrow and if you think about that it's so targeted and focused it

00:19:39.300 doesn't take a ton of time but if it increases your self-awareness by even say one percent a week

00:19:45.020 if you do that most days that's when you're going to start to get these really astonishing

00:19:49.440 sort of compounding improvements and your self-awareness and for me that's what i would

00:19:55.560 recommend to someone you don't want to just wait until you know like you said you don't want to wait

00:20:00.440 until you land yourself in the hospital because you didn't see the pattern coming if you take a little

00:20:04.820 bit more time and be proactive you can prevent some of those things from happening we're going to

00:20:10.200 take a quick break for your words from our sponsors

00:20:11.760 and now back to the show so you mentioned earlier that gaining self-insight or self-awareness can be

00:20:20.080 hard because we have all these psychological biases working against us what are some of these biases

00:20:25.560 that are working against this and then after that like how do you overcome some of these blind spots

00:20:29.760 let's start with the biggest one in our research we have found that if you ask people are you

00:20:35.400 self-aware about 95 percent of people believe that they are and the reality is that only about 10 to 15

00:20:45.700 percent of people actually fit that um profile only 10 to 15 percent of us actually are self-aware

00:20:52.960 and so the delta on that is pretty stunning you know the joke i always make is on a good day

00:20:57.980 80 percent of us are lying to ourselves about whether we're lying to ourselves and there's a lot of

00:21:04.720 sort of issues about the way humans are wired that we prefer to see ourselves with rose-colored glasses

00:21:11.580 we aren't as likely to question our assumptions about ourselves and so in my opinion the biggest

00:21:17.360 barrier there is to be self-aware is believing that we already are and our research subjects that i that

00:21:24.800 i told you about earlier who you know made these really dramatic improvements in their self-awareness

00:21:29.700 had this it was almost like a paradox in their mindset on one hand they were building their self-knowledge you know

00:21:37.960 incrementally and strategically but on the other hand they had this philosophy that no matter what i know about

00:21:44.040 myself there's always more to learn there was one gentleman in our study who was a middle school science teacher

00:21:50.460 and he said i kind of think about self-awareness like exploring space and no matter what i learn

00:21:57.220 there's always more to discover and that's what makes it so exciting and i really love that because

00:22:02.460 it it turns it turns the problem on its head instead of saying oh gosh you know we all need to be more

00:22:07.920 self-aware and we're not as self-aware as we think i think it's just a matter of having the right mindset

00:22:12.620 of curiosity so that's something that anybody who's listening to this today can do right now in this

00:22:18.840 moment now there's obviously action that has to back us up and and that's what we have gotten into

00:22:24.120 a little bit i think the other thing i'd say is there really is a cult of self-movement happening

00:22:31.520 and and it's not just for us millennials it's not just for americans it's been shown kind of all over

00:22:38.240 the world that people are getting more low-level narcissism or kind of gaining levels of narcissism

00:22:45.380 and so part of it is i'd never want people to overcorrect and go like oh well i guess the

00:22:50.540 answer is to say that i suck but i think we have to be really careful about you know think about your

00:22:55.420 last social media post was it to show people how great you are subconsciously or consciously those

00:23:02.500 are the types of things that i think really pull us away from self-awareness if we get into that cult

00:23:07.080 of self so i think those are two big barriers there's a lot more i'm not sure if you want to go into

00:23:12.340 them but that would be my initial response yeah i'd say that psychologically we don't want to feel bad

00:23:18.120 about ourselves and so we we we basically engage in cognitive dissonance to make us feel better about

00:23:24.380 ourselves even though so we all if say something bad happens well well it wasn't my fault it was

00:23:28.780 that guy's fault maybe but if you never even consider the fact that you might have some sort of

00:23:33.620 responsibility in the outcome then you can never become more self-aware but i want to dig into this

00:23:39.040 cult of self you've talked about so it's sort of a culture and you're saying we're becoming more

00:23:42.500 narcissistic and narcissism i think you made this clear it's like low level we're not people are

00:23:47.120 becoming clinical narcissists where that's like a psychological disorder but you're just talking

00:23:52.120 about people are just so focused on the self that they can't even take it's harder and harder for

00:23:56.520 people to take a third-party perspective on things that's exactly right and you know if you look at

00:24:03.640 some of the studies there's one that i think really sums it up they looked at the percentage of

00:24:08.440 people who agreed with the statement i am a very important person it's increased you know i think

00:24:14.960 it's like 30 percent in the last couple of decades and and if you look around that's something that we

00:24:20.580 see everywhere you know millennials are often blamed for it and i think you know some of that has

00:24:26.880 to do with life stage and just growing up and maturing but at the end of the day those increases

00:24:33.280 have been documented for for pretty much all age groups and by the way they started in the 1960s so

00:24:39.820 this isn't just something that's happened in the last 10 years it's it's really been going on for a

00:24:44.120 while and doesn't seem to be losing that much steam and also you highlight in this cult of self

00:24:49.640 section in your book that there's like research that shows that focusing more on yourself doing

00:24:54.240 more introspection because that's what people think i need to become more self-aware so they think

00:24:58.440 i gotta go off to a retreat or out into the woods and just be by myself and with my thoughts and

00:25:03.880 journal they think that's the key to becoming more self-aware just doing some really heavy

00:25:09.120 introspection but you highlight all this research that shows actually if you introspect the wrong way

00:25:15.240 or too much it can actually make you less self-aware this was one of the biggest surprises in our

00:25:21.300 research it was actually so surprising that i almost abandoned this project i thought well maybe

00:25:26.380 self-awareness and introspection are bad but essentially what we did is we surveyed about 300

00:25:31.500 people this was really early on in our in our project and i i was assuming that you know if i

00:25:37.220 asked them to say how much do you think about yourself how much do you kind of reflect on your

00:25:42.000 thoughts and feelings and motives then i wanted to measure their self-awareness and i also wanted to

00:25:46.880 measure how you know how are they feeling about life did they feel in control did they have you know

00:25:52.120 depression or anxiety were they happy with their relationships at work and at home and i actually

00:25:58.680 found the exact opposite pattern that i expected so the more people introspected the less self-aware

00:26:06.400 they tended to be and the the worse off in their lives they were more stressed more depressed more

00:26:12.540 anxious they were less satisfied just with life in general they felt less in control and as i started

00:26:19.280 to explore this what i what i ended up learning was it's not that introspection in and of itself

00:26:24.720 doesn't work it's that most of us are making some pretty fundamental mistakes again common wisdom

00:26:31.720 common wisdom says you know go sit on a mountaintop or go be in the lotus position on a beach and if you

00:26:37.900 ask yourself these questions the answers will come but as it turns out there are so many things about

00:26:44.800 ourselves that are basically unknowable this is very stressful for introspectors to say wait a

00:26:50.380 minute if i if i don't ask myself the question i can't find the answer so i think that's a piece of

00:26:55.640 it is is we have to understand that a lot of our unconscious thoughts and feelings and motives are not

00:27:01.680 going to be available to us and the challenge then is if you know if we don't know that and we ask

00:27:06.720 ourselves a question we find an answer that feels true but maybe isn't true you know like let's say

00:27:13.260 i i i i running a startup and i get in a in a blowout fight with one of my partners and i ask myself why

00:27:21.740 did that happen what i might decide is you know maybe this person and i just don't know how to work

00:27:26.320 together but maybe the actual reason was i didn't eat breakfast that morning and my blood sugar was low

00:27:32.420 and i wasn't in control of my emotions in the same way i would be otherwise so i think that's just a

00:27:37.700 good example of where you know if we pounce on the first answer that feels true sometimes it can lead

00:27:42.960 us away from the truth about ourselves that's just one example of of the mistakes we can make when

00:27:48.440 we're introspecting and and how do you what can you do to overcome those introspection mistakes so you

00:27:53.340 can introspect more effectively thankfully there's a small change we can make that will make

00:27:59.700 introspection actually work for us so if i go back to the example i gave what we found of you know i get

00:28:05.760 in a fight with my business partner and i ask why like why did that happen why do i feel this way

00:28:12.600 why is this other person always starting fights with me when we looked at what do highly self-aware

00:28:18.420 people do differently we found that they almost never ask themselves why questions so they didn't ask

00:28:26.180 those questions that i just rattled off they they had a very small kind of change that completely

00:28:32.460 altered the effectiveness of their introspection and what we found is they tended to ask um about 10

00:28:39.340 times as many what questions so the example in this situation would be um you know what was going on

00:28:46.160 in that conversation or what part of that issue do i own or what can i do differently in the future

00:28:54.220 to prevent this and and at first to me the difference was really subtle but as i started

00:28:59.960 getting into it what i discovered was essentially why questions make us more emotional what questions

00:29:07.240 keep us more level-headed why questions tend to focus us on the problem and just kind of reliving it

00:29:14.600 over and over what questions help us be more solution focused why questions tend to trap us in the past

00:29:21.460 you know we get stuck and just reliving it over and over and what questions help us move forward

00:29:26.860 and so the tool that that i teach all around the world is called what not why and it's been

00:29:33.500 transformational i think for so many people myself included that if we just make that small change

00:29:39.200 a lot of amazing things can happen no i agree that insight was really powerful because i've i've noticed

00:29:45.080 that in my own life whenever something bad happens you typically you tend to go to why

00:29:49.120 why did this happen and you said you get emotional and usually the emotion that's you go to a dark

00:29:54.240 place like well you know because of this happened a long time ago and i've got this problem blah blah

00:29:59.400 blah but like if you just shift the questions to what it yeah you're right it keeps you analytical

00:30:04.060 and allows you to find a solution and move forward that's it and there's almost these introspective

00:30:11.000 red herrings that we can um get into if we ask why like a very common one usually ends up with

00:30:17.680 it was because my mother didn't love me or you know what it goes back into this childhood place

00:30:23.660 almost that this might be controversial but i'm actually not sure how helpful that is if you are

00:30:30.020 in focus therapy with a trained professional who's helping you work through those issues i think that's

00:30:35.840 different but when it comes to just these everyday insights and understanding ourselves as much as we

00:30:41.780 can focus on looking at the present figuring out what we're going to do in the future and then you

00:30:47.740 know sometimes we might look at the past to look at patterns but i think that helps us stay away you

00:30:53.340 know i call it the rabbit hole of rumination that you just described yeah and this kind of leads to

00:30:58.780 my next question because you had this section about journaling because people often think of

00:31:02.140 journaling as a really great tool to self-reflect and get new insights about themselves and i read this

00:31:07.360 chapter and i felt vindicated because you know early on in my life you know when i was a teenager

00:31:12.200 and like my early adulthood i was like a religious journalist like i just journaled all the time

00:31:17.280 but then i think a couple years ago i just it like it wasn't doing anything for me and i just realized

00:31:22.340 it's like i just ruminate over the same things like i read through my journals from like years and

00:31:27.020 like the same issues come up over and over again and i was like nothing's getting better and it just

00:31:32.660 made me feel bad and so i just stopped and i felt kind of bad because according to the internet

00:31:38.300 self-improvement internet you're supposed to journal it's the best thing ever and i just stopped i didn't

00:31:42.920 really it felt bad but it made me feel better but you highlight research that journaling can actually

00:31:48.700 not be that useful in gaining new insights about yourself it's the same kind of example as with

00:31:55.920 introspection if we do it the right way it can be really effective but if we make mistakes again

00:32:02.460 you know if we trust what we read on the internet sometimes it can lead us astray so what we and

00:32:06.940 others have found is journaling can be very helpful if like you said we don't religiously write in it

00:32:14.340 i know that's kind of mind-blowing it was mind-blowing for me actually i i have spent my life in perpetual

00:32:19.900 guilt so that i didn't journal more but what our self-awareness kind of research subject taught us was

00:32:26.420 they turned to journaling when they were facing something important in their lives maybe it was

00:32:32.340 they were at a turning point or they were facing a big decision or something you know really

00:32:38.260 surprising had happened that they wanted to better understand but they they sort of had an event-based

00:32:43.400 model to journaling versus this daily habit i think there's a lot of power in that there are other

00:32:49.760 pieces to this research that have shown that if we focus too much on emotion or too much on kind of

00:32:57.120 the logic of what happened that can derail us and so as much as we can have a balanced view of

00:33:03.040 journaling where we talk about how we feel and kind of what was happening that can be another way to

00:33:09.180 make sure that we get insight from it and you know because if you focus too much on emotions it what you

00:33:14.720 said is going to happen you know you kind of get sucked in in this negative way if you focus too much on

00:33:19.540 on the rational part of what happened you know here's what i ate for lunch today you're probably not going to get

00:33:24.660 that same level of insight so it's like anything you know there's a middle ground there's a middle

00:33:30.420 ground between what you write about and how often you write that's going to give i think the most value

00:33:36.160 yeah that's what i think i found whenever i have a problem i'll go to my journal just to write start

00:33:40.920 writing things and i i try to avoid the emotion stuff and just focus on here's the issue here the

00:33:45.580 problems what are potential solutions and i find that helpful but i yeah the daily thing i just i don't care

00:33:51.240 anymore good for you no i think that's the perfect approach so going back to this idea of the the cult

00:33:56.560 of self you talk about how how we share things on the internet the internet that's so it it exacerbates

00:34:02.840 it it promotes the cult of cult of self and i like this idea we had this well you're told on you know

00:34:09.140 you gotta you gotta develop your personal brand share about yourself that's the only way you move

00:34:12.520 forward in life but you highlight research that that makes you feel terrible or it can make you feel

00:34:16.940 terrible and it also just doesn't help you gain any more insight about yourself so you offer an

00:34:21.800 alternative to social media sharing that can be more useful talk us walk us through that research

00:34:26.920 this was another big surprise in our research we found that the the most self-aware people

00:34:32.740 counter to everything i just said about the cult of self actually spent about 30 percent more time

00:34:39.580 on social media than the average person and that was another moment where i was like wait a minute

00:34:44.520 that makes no sense but then when we started looking at what they were posting it was dramatically

00:34:50.480 different from most people so whereas you know like you said social media almost teaches us to

00:34:57.040 other researchers have called it to be a me former here's what i ate for breakfast here's this amazing

00:35:03.620 award that i won it's my child's you know two and a half year birthday all these things that are just

00:35:10.040 about me me me but our highly self-aware people that we studied they use social media not as a me

00:35:17.520 megaphone but as an opportunity to enrich other people's lives so they gave us examples of you know

00:35:23.880 i i love to do nature photography and i if i find something really beautiful i post it because i i want

00:35:29.860 other people to feel calm and grounded or i read this hilarious article and i wanted to share it with

00:35:35.600 others because it would make them laugh so it's this idea that instead of thinking about what we're

00:35:41.240 trying to accomplish for ourselves if we can flip the question and say you know first of all why

00:35:46.680 what's the reason i'm posting this what am i hoping to gain and is it making other people's lives better

00:35:53.140 and i think you know if you're trying to build a brand it's not about getting a hundred percent there

00:35:58.740 like for me i try to do about 10 posts talking about myself and 90 posts trying to make other

00:36:05.720 people you know feel better do better be better because we can't just completely neglect the

00:36:11.220 self-focus piece but i think most of our we just have to change the percentages a little bit

00:36:16.120 actually be an informer and not yeah be an informer sorry yes exactly thank you no it's be an

00:36:21.440 informer not a me not a me former um so any other tools i mean so introspection if you ask

00:36:27.700 what instead of why that can help you gain some internal self-awareness any other tools you found

00:36:32.900 effective that you know really self-aware people use to gain internal self-awareness so we talked

00:36:39.260 about um what not why the daily question another thing to think about there's this obviously big

00:36:46.160 social force on meditation and meditation is primarily about kind of understanding and noticing

00:36:55.360 what we're thinking feeling what's happening around us without judgment but the beauty of this for any

00:37:02.160 fellow type a people who are listening to this is that we don't have to meditate to be mindful to get

00:37:09.580 those same effects and you know there's sort of a lot to this but i'm just going to give one example

00:37:14.720 one way to practice mindfulness that isn't about mantras and meditation is something that i call

00:37:21.780 comparing and contrasting so comparing and contrasting is basically if you find yourself

00:37:26.860 in a situation that feels familiar so the example i give in the book is actually i spent about five

00:37:33.320 years working in the corporate world before i went out on my own about 10 years ago and i found that

00:37:38.520 almost every time i had a new job i would enjoy it for two years and then after two years i would

00:37:44.440 start to get bored and restless and one day my husband actually pointed it out he said have you

00:37:49.620 noticed this pattern so what i started to do was compare and contrast you know what is similar

00:37:56.760 about each of those moments where i started to not you know not like my job as much anymore

00:38:02.220 and what i did is i looked back in my life and i thought and i realized that every every time i had

00:38:07.240 worked for someone else there was a two-year ticking time bomb but whenever i was working for myself

00:38:13.280 like when i was doing my own research or when i was teaching at a university when i was in grad school

00:38:17.980 i didn't feel that way so by comparing and contrasting i was able to notice you know again

00:38:23.780 without judgment it just was what it was that i might have been that i know that i'm better off

00:38:29.340 working for myself and people don't think about mindfulness in that more general form and i think

00:38:36.280 it's just really helpful for people that you know if you're meditating more power to you

00:38:41.940 and there are more options if there's anybody who wants to increase their insight and be mindful but

00:38:47.920 they don't want to meditate all right so we talked about gaining internal self-awareness let's move to

00:38:52.980 external self-awareness this is how people an understanding of how people perceive us and this

00:38:57.880 is where insight or self-awareness can get scary because it's always scary to think about what other

00:39:02.980 people think of us and also people don't like to give that people don't people don't like to tell

00:39:09.180 you what they really think about you it's the idea of the white lie right so what can we do what are

00:39:14.700 some tools that you found to help people get constructive useful external self-awareness

00:39:22.080 without being destroyed emotionally in the process that's right you have to keep your mojo in the

00:39:28.820 process um what we found was again some surprising findings people who are highly self-aware did not

00:39:36.760 in fact go to everybody they knew and ask for feedback they kept their circle very very small

00:39:44.440 most of most people told us it was between three and five people that they regularly asked for feedback

00:39:50.880 from and these weren't just randomly selected people either there seemed to be two main criteria

00:39:57.500 that they used to select this handful of people so the first criteria was do i believe this person

00:40:05.360 is on my side in other words are they rooting for me are they supporting me or are they like a secret

00:40:11.960 frenemy that is gunning against me and i think most of us know that intuitively if we feel in our gut that

00:40:17.980 that person supports us even if we're not incredibly close that usually checks that box the second thing is

00:40:25.780 do i feel like that person is going to tell me the truth i think if if everybody thinks about

00:40:30.420 your life and your work there's a lot of people that fit one of those criteria you know for me like

00:40:35.940 my mom is the most supportive wonderful person who's always on my side but is she going to be critical

00:40:41.560 about an article i'm writing maybe not or there are people who just love to be critical who who don't

00:40:47.780 actually want you to be successful so so the the magic of picking the right people to give us feedback

00:40:53.020 is to choose these i call them loving critics and i think the beauty of this is again you don't have

00:40:58.880 to spend all of your time finding 20 people that you rotate through it's a matter of saying okay who

00:41:04.680 are even to start with two or three people that i can go to and say and sort of formalize this

00:41:09.940 relationship and say you know here's why i'm doing this here's what i'm working on would you be willing

00:41:15.000 to let me talk to you for five minutes once a month to just get your feedback so let's say you know

00:41:20.680 going back to the example i gave earlier somebody who wants to be a better public speaker if i had

00:41:25.280 my two or three loving critics i would want them to be people who saw me speak publicly and i would

00:41:31.040 ask them once a month very quickly hey as you know i'm trying to be a better public speaker first

00:41:36.040 question what feedback do you have for me from the last 30 days second question is what ideas do you

00:41:42.400 have for me in the next 30 days and the reason the conversation is five minutes is what i would say

00:41:48.900 is very simply thank you i don't justify i don't tell them why they're wrong i don't give excuses i

00:41:56.660 just say thank you so i think that's really powerful is again being focused and strategic about how we're

00:42:02.640 getting that feedback the second tool i would offer is um this one's a little scarier i'd actually

00:42:08.540 be curious what you think about it this is from a communications professor named josh meisner and

00:42:13.360 i've named it the dinner of truth so basically what it entails is you find someone in your life

00:42:19.840 or your work who you have a good relationship with who you want to have an even better relationship with

00:42:25.040 you take them out to dinner virtually or in person depending on your comfort level you ask them the

00:42:32.400 very simple question what do i do that is most annoying to you and then once again just like the

00:42:40.640 loving critics you listen to the answer and you say thank you and what i've discovered you know i would

00:42:46.500 never share a tool like this with with any listeners readers clients if i haven't done it multiple times

00:42:53.140 myself and i have been shocked at actually what a positive experience every dinner of truth i've had

00:43:00.020 has been no so that i read that it reminded me i have some we have some my wife and i have some uh friends

00:43:05.240 and in their family they have this tradition similar to this it's on your birthday some of the people in

00:43:10.940 your family have to tell something they they admire about you in that that year of your life and then

00:43:15.860 also something you got to work on and i love that and uh some of the stories out of it are really

00:43:23.640 hilarious because people learn things that they finally sort of the truth is uncovered but it's i think

00:43:30.900 it's similar to that that dinner idea that's i love that idea actually because then it becomes a ritual

00:43:36.220 yeah it is your birthday it's time to do that it doesn't let you off the hook so okay this is great

00:43:41.020 stuff so this is way you can get controlled very fine-tuned feedback about a specific thing in your

00:43:46.460 life but a lot of the feedback we get in life external or they can give us external self-awareness

00:43:51.400 it's like it's unsolicited right it's just some random guy on the internet or it could be

00:43:55.940 a family member or a friend just saying hey you you need to do this and oftentimes it's very jarring

00:44:01.940 it can be really uncomfortable how do you any tips on how to handle that unsolicited often hard

00:44:07.920 feedback that we get throughout our daily lives i think we have to be very careful to be honest with

00:44:13.560 unsolicited feedback you never know someone's motives when they're doing that unless you're 100%

00:44:20.620 sure you know it's your best friend and you know they love you but but usually it's not it's it's like

00:44:25.640 you said that random person on the internet or that random co-worker so that would be my first

00:44:30.460 piece of advice is is just be really careful that you don't accept what they're saying as face value

00:44:35.760 immediately the second piece of advice i'd give is actually probably counterintuitive which is don't

00:44:42.040 do anything about it for a while just put it in the back of your mind and let it be the urge we have

00:44:48.460 to you know oh my gosh i'm gonna figure this out a lot of times we're still we're reeling from

00:44:55.300 this feedback especially if it was difficult to hear and even if we try to do that it's it's not

00:45:01.460 often going to result in what we think it will we might just get more upset or we might feel you know

00:45:08.020 depressed so take a week or two just put it in the back of your mind and say okay that person gave me

00:45:14.280 that data point i'm gonna look into it but only when i'm ready and there's no magical timeline for

00:45:19.560 this i think it's whenever you feel like okay it stings a little bit less and now i'm gonna

00:45:24.340 learn more about it the third piece of advice i'd give is again to go back to your loving critics

00:45:30.380 you want to vet this feedback if if this is a one-off person obviously you've got to decide how

00:45:36.660 important that person is like if it's your boss maybe you might want to take it you know a little

00:45:41.580 more seriously but if you ask your loving critics hey i got this feedback you know somebody says that

00:45:47.300 i'm constantly interrupting people have you experienced that or is that something that

00:45:52.900 you've seen as well and if you ask a couple of your loving critics the beauty of this is you're

00:45:58.140 getting a wider sample of people so it may be that that they see it too and then you can talk to them

00:46:04.880 in a supportive safe way about like okay let's figure this out what's this about what can i do

00:46:09.780 differently can you help me and then you're more empowered so at the end of the day it's kind of a

00:46:16.020 stupid analogy but we are the captain of our feedback ship and we can't let other people

00:46:21.260 climb on board and start steering it so i think as much as we can do that and remember that we're

00:46:27.220 in charge we get to decide what we do with us we might you know say thank you very much for that

00:46:31.340 feedback and never think about it again or that might lead to a transformational growth experience

00:46:37.140 but the but the point is we're in charge well here's the question we've talked about internal

00:46:41.480 and external self-awareness separately are there practices that you found that are useful to sort

00:46:47.600 of synthesize the two so you can actually sort of develop a holistic picture of self-awareness or is

00:46:52.540 it something that just happens naturally as you're doing these using these different tools for internal

00:46:56.560 and external self-awareness that's a great question i think it's more the second statement that if if we

00:47:03.540 build in daily practices that keep us curious that give us more information some days we're gonna have

00:47:11.180 a conflict between the way we see ourselves the way other people see us some days they're gonna be

00:47:16.080 additive right you know i think one classic example is when other people see a strength that we didn't

00:47:22.740 know we had you know and that's like oh my god and then all of a sudden i'm more in charge and i can be

00:47:27.880 more intentional about it and i know that they're seeing me in that way and that gives me confidence

00:47:33.060 so so i do think it is a little bit more of a of a give and take but the important thing is what are

00:47:39.080 those habits you're going to put in place and my suggestion would be don't try to go big right out

00:47:44.600 the door when i'm working with ceos as an example we work on one behavioral goal at a time no more no

00:47:50.720 less and the reason for that is if we if we sort of over promise to ourselves we're not going to be

00:47:57.520 able to sustain it so so if somebody's listening to this and you say i want to improve my my external

00:48:03.940 self-awareness maybe the the number one thing you do for the next month or two is put those two to

00:48:09.680 three loving critics in place and once you've done that maybe it's time to think about okay do i want

00:48:14.780 an internal self-awareness habit that i'm going to build but if you don't build them as habits

00:48:19.080 that's when we start to sort of get these fits and starts of oh this is helpful but you know i

00:48:24.900 haven't done it like my journal i haven't written in my journal for a year that's probably not going

00:48:29.040 to be as helpful well tasha this has been a great conversation where can people go to learn more about

00:48:32.640 the book and the work that you're doing now so the first thing is i found that it's not about me

00:48:36.980 it's about everyone else and so we put together a it's a great resource if anybody's wondering how

00:48:42.880 self-aware they are and they want more than just their gut reaction we put together something

00:48:47.640 called the insight quiz which is a 14 item subset of our longer validated assessment and what you do

00:48:53.760 is it takes about five minutes you fill it out and then you put in the email address of someone else

00:48:58.240 who knows you well they fill it out and once the system has both of those types of information you

00:49:03.540 get a report with your high level self-awareness internally and externally and then a couple of

00:49:08.160 things you can do starting now to improve if you choose to so if anybody wants to take that you can

00:49:14.100 find it at insight-quiz.com i'm also at tashayurik.com we actually just launched a really

00:49:20.560 exciting new virtual course called the future ready leader so there's a lot of information there but i am

00:49:25.980 fortunately or unfortunately very findable on the internet fantastic well tasha yurik thanks for your

00:49:30.780 time it's been a pleasure thank you so much me too my guest today was tasha yurik she's the author of

00:49:35.100 the book insight it's available on amazon.com and bookstores everywhere you can find out more

00:49:38.640 information about our work at our website tashayurik.com also check out our show notes at

00:49:42.780 aom.is slash self-awareness where you can find links to resources where you delve deeper into this topic

00:49:47.460 well that wraps up another edition of the aom podcast check out our website at

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00:50:31.920 into action

The Art of Manliness - September 16, 2020

#644： How to Develop Greater Self-Awareness

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