The Art of Manliness - #657： Why You Don't Change (But How You Still Can)

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

00:00:11.020 Anyone who's ever tried to lose weight, curb their temper, quit smoking, or alter any of

00:00:14.520 their habit in their lives knows that personal change is hard, really hard.

00:00:18.320 Most self-help books out there treat people like machines, blitzing past this difficulty

00:00:21.800 and offering mechanical five-step formulas for changing your life.

00:00:25.160 My guest today says such simplified solutions hugely miss the mark.

00:00:28.060 He argues that if you ever want to change, it's more fruitful to understand why you don't

00:00:31.900 than figure out why you do.

00:00:33.480 To understand that, you've got to go deeper, existential even.

00:00:36.460 His name is Dr. Ross Ellenhorn, and he spent his career facilitating the recovery of individuals

00:00:40.180 diagnosed with psychiatric and substance abuse issues.

00:00:42.920 In his latest book, How We Change and 10 Reasons Why We Don't, he's taken what he's learned

00:00:46.460 in his work and applied it to anyone trying to change their lives.

00:00:49.460 Ross and I begin our conversation with some of the reasons we don't change, including

00:00:52.440 the existential pressure of feeling like you're solely in charge of making change happen,

00:00:55.780 a dizzying amount of freedom and number of options for what to do with your life, and

00:00:58.920 day-to-day factors which influence our level of motivation.

00:01:01.620 From there, we turn to the role of hope and faith in psychology, and how these forces can

00:01:05.160 both boost and restrain your ability to change.

00:01:07.480 We discuss the way a fear of hope can constrain your life, why you sometimes need to embrace

00:01:10.980 staying the same in order to ever change, and the difference between good faith and

00:01:14.340 bad faith.

00:01:15.080 We discuss the idea that you don't develop hope, but you can develop faith, and how to build

00:01:18.760 your faith in yourself through embracing humility and taking small steps.

00:01:21.940 Ross then explains why he doesn't really give advice on how to change beyond finding the

00:01:25.380 good and a bad habit, but how patience and your social environment can also help.

00:01:29.060 This show's got some counterintuitive advice that will help you see your struggles differently

00:01:32.160 after it's over.

00:01:33.180 Check out our show notes at aom.is slash change.

00:01:43.440 All right, Ross Ellenhorn, welcome to the show.

00:01:48.480 Thank you.

00:01:48.820 You work with people who've been in and out of the psychiatric system and trying to get

00:01:52.700 help, and they haven't been able to make changes, but this book is also geared just to regular

00:01:56.240 people who have found change to be hard, and I think we've all experienced that to one

00:01:59.980 extent or the other, trying to quit smoking as hard, trying to lose weight as hard, controlling

00:02:05.480 your anger, your temper as hard, and you always have this desire, like, this is the time.

00:02:10.800 This is the thing it's going to be.

00:02:12.500 I'm going to get it this time.

00:02:13.440 But then, you know, a week later, you know, you're off the treadmill.

00:02:18.760 So what's going on there?

00:02:20.460 Like, why is it so hard to make personal changes like losing weight, quitting smoking, being

00:02:26.300 more patient with your kids?

00:02:28.200 Yeah.

00:02:28.420 And so, you know, I learned why it's hard from these individuals who are having such

00:02:33.540 profound problems with motivation and with accepting help.

00:02:37.900 But it really is applicable to all of us, including you and me.

00:02:41.980 No one's free from this.

00:02:44.460 And it's basically that every time you're trying to change something in your life, you're

00:02:49.140 exposing something that's really terrifying, which is that you're kind of driving the bus

00:02:55.160 that's your life.

00:02:56.200 And that's what existentialists would call existential accountability.

00:02:59.620 And that causes anxiety.

00:03:01.520 There's nobody really making things happen for me.

00:03:04.180 I'm in charge.

00:03:05.600 And if this life's going to have any depth or meaning to it, I'm in charge of that.

00:03:11.060 And so every act of changing yourself is really this profound act of kind of shepherding your

00:03:17.440 own life, right?

00:03:18.700 You know, it's very interesting because think about what people did, at least at the beginning

00:03:24.340 of COVID, in response to that.

00:03:27.240 The massive agility that people showed in changing their lives, right?

00:03:33.380 But they did it in a group.

00:03:36.320 And they did it because they had to.

00:03:39.220 That's actually easier, even though it's more massive, than dieting.

00:03:43.960 Because dieting is like, I'm on my own, I'm in charge of my life, and I'm making this happen.

00:03:49.460 And so there's always that pressure of having to look at yourself and your own accountability

00:03:54.600 every time you try to change something.

00:03:57.300 No, yeah, I think that's, yeah, it's definitely existential.

00:03:59.240 Like, freedom is so scary.

00:04:00.280 We'd rather just like, I'd rather have someone tell me exactly what to do, so I don't have to

00:04:03.100 think about this.

00:04:04.040 Right, right.

00:04:04.600 I mean, there's this fascinating work on, you know, why is it that Scandinavian countries,

00:04:09.280 that people are so much happier?

00:04:11.360 And there's all kinds of reasons.

00:04:14.020 But one reason is less choice.

00:04:17.620 In the United States, and you walk in, there's like 20 different cereals.

00:04:20.840 You know, you walk into PGA Fridays, and there's enormous menu.

00:04:24.360 And that level of choice actually can become depressing.

00:04:28.640 Well, yeah, and we also have just choices on how we want to live our lives.

00:04:32.100 You know, 100 years ago, your choice was like, my dad was a farmer, his dad was a farmer,

00:04:37.660 I'll be a farmer.

00:04:38.760 Right.

00:04:38.940 Now it's like, well, I can be a blogger, I can be a lawyer, I can be an accountant,

00:04:43.200 I can be whatever.

00:04:44.900 And that can be really terrifying to have to make that choice.

00:04:47.900 Yeah, yeah, that combined with a culture that says that because you're free, something's

00:04:55.720 wrong with you if you don't achieve those things.

00:04:57.700 So there's also a mythology in that, right, that everybody's sort of seen as this free

00:05:02.220 agent that should be able to make their life become whatever it should be.

00:05:06.060 You know, so there's like this, there's two things going on at the same time in our culture.

00:05:09.420 One is this idea that wherever you are is sort of your, an expression of who you are.

00:05:14.880 And the other is, you know, you're in charge of your life because there is some truth to

00:05:18.580 that.

00:05:19.300 The second part, you know, that you're in charge of your way you respond to the world.

00:05:22.900 You're not always in charge of how, where you end up.

00:05:25.700 All right.

00:05:25.800 So there's this deep existential reason why it's hard to make personal change because it's

00:05:30.400 scary to accept the fact that you're the one who's driving the bus of your life and

00:05:34.420 you have all these options to choose from as to where to go.

00:05:37.560 But there's also more day-to-day things that can either make us more or less motivated to

00:05:41.480 change.

00:05:42.180 Yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:05:43.080 And so, so there's this field around us and let, let me, let me give you an example from

00:05:47.920 the book and then I'll explain why that example is important.

00:05:50.760 So I, I have a goal in my life to give more honest, critical feedback to my employees because

00:05:58.540 it's not something I'm very good at.

00:06:00.560 And one day I needed to give one of my managers some feedback and I really felt like this is

00:06:05.520 the opportunity to change that behavior.

00:06:07.200 But I didn't sleep well the night before.

00:06:08.900 It was kind of a muggy day.

00:06:10.160 I felt lousy, all the excuses for not doing it started entering my head.

00:06:15.220 You know, maybe I'll just do it next week or I'll kick the can down the road some other

00:06:18.100 way.

00:06:19.380 And I was in New York city and I got on this elevator with a group of people.

00:06:23.140 And while we're going up, this woman spills her coffee and somebody in the elevator says, 0.65

00:06:28.380 you know, I'm going to sprinkle a little sugar on that to make it congeal.

00:06:32.020 So it doesn't spread to the elevator.

00:06:33.840 Another person grabbed some napkins from their pocket and put it on it.

00:06:37.640 And we got to like the fifth floor and this guy got out and said, that was the best elevator

00:06:42.420 ride ever.

00:06:43.320 And everybody started cracking up.

00:06:44.940 And then we got to the 10th floor and this businessman gets out and he yells back to us,

00:06:49.320 same time, same date next year.

00:06:51.580 Let's all meet here on the elevator.

00:06:52.860 And we just lost it.

00:06:53.880 And I got off of that elevator and I was totally prepared to give this manager feedback.

00:07:01.700 Now, what happened in that elevator ride?

00:07:03.480 Well, we all live in these fields and the fields are very complex and you cannot predict when

00:07:09.640 those fields will shift.

00:07:11.380 And the fields are basically, there's a bunch of forces moving you forward.

00:07:15.580 There's self-esteem.

00:07:16.780 There's all kinds of traits, your own self-confidence, your own mental agility.

00:07:22.000 But there's also things like how good your day is going, what happened to you yesterday, what's

00:07:28.180 on your mind at that time, what's your socioeconomic class, what else is going on at that point.

00:07:34.980 And then there's all these restraining forces, all these things holding you back, your self-doubt,

00:07:41.200 socioeconomic reasons, all of those things.

00:07:43.900 And so what happened to me that day was there was enough of an extra little bit of good stuff

00:07:49.960 going on, sort of a sense of faith in humanity that pushed me over to the ability to actually

00:07:55.180 change my behavior.

00:07:57.240 And that's why one day you might be planning to diet and you can't diet.

00:08:01.380 And then the next day you wake up and you're completely able to diet.

00:08:04.000 That's because something has shifted in this field around you.

00:08:07.020 All the forces holding you back, all the forces pushing you forward.

00:08:11.860 And the way to think about it is each of us is sitting between those two forces at all

00:08:15.960 times.

00:08:17.160 Sometimes we're closer to our goal because either the positive forces are stronger and

00:08:21.780 the negative forces are the same, or the negative forces are less for some reason and we're

00:08:24.960 pushing towards it.

00:08:26.200 And then we're always in this field between these two things, moving back and forth.

00:08:31.140 And then as we just discussed earlier about this existential anxiety, that's a restraining force.

00:08:35.060 But what's interesting about that, just the fact of wanting to do something, to achieve

00:08:39.000 a goal, make a personal change, actually can cause a restraint because we start freaking

00:08:43.900 ourselves out.

00:08:45.280 That's right.

00:08:45.700 That's so great you point that out.

00:08:47.120 That's exactly right, that the thing that changing comes with its own built-in restraining

00:08:52.680 force, right?

00:08:54.300 There's other kinds of motivations where it's just basically these two fields, but change

00:08:58.120 always has that existential accountability.

00:09:00.560 And it also always has hope.

00:09:03.320 So hope is always there.

00:09:04.820 Like if you're going to plan on losing weight, you're hoping to lose weight.

00:09:09.220 And so there's always hope as a positive force forward.

00:09:13.160 But the problem is that hope too has its restraining element because hope can lead you

00:09:18.260 to profound experiences of disappointment and helplessness.

00:09:22.780 And so if you've had enough experiences of disappointment, hope is actually scary.

00:09:27.260 And that's part of why hope is both a positive force and a restraining force.

00:09:33.000 Well, let's dig into this idea of hope more because this is the first book of psychology

00:09:37.600 that I actually, where it deals with hope very seriously because you often read about

00:09:42.260 hope in terms of like a religious book or something like that.

00:09:45.680 In this realm of psychology, humanistic psychology, what does it mean to hope for something?

00:09:50.840 Just like want something that you don't have or can't see?

00:09:53.220 What is it?

00:09:53.620 Well, first of all, I want to point out what an insane world we live in that hope is not

00:10:00.600 a central element of what we're talking about in psychology.

00:10:03.280 And that we have all these weird terms that psychology and psychiatry is made up that have very little

00:10:10.600 meaning like depression, anxiety, that they don't really have a meaning attached to them

00:10:15.060 when hope does, right?

00:10:16.900 I'm hoping for this thing.

00:10:18.340 I'm experiencing despair because I didn't get it.

00:10:21.160 Like these words have been removed from therapeutic practices.

00:10:24.280 It's very sad in a lot of ways because it treats people as if they're kind of like these

00:10:28.660 broken things instead of recognizing they're dealing always with the same things everybody's

00:10:33.640 dealing with, which is how do I hope for things and how do I deal with the despair of not getting

00:10:37.980 them?

00:10:38.780 So hope is not quite an emotion.

00:10:41.160 It's sort of an emotion and a position that makes sense.

00:10:44.400 So hope is, in a way, it's similar to other things that are emotions and positions like paranoia.

00:10:50.440 Paranoia is not just a feeling.

00:10:51.800 It's a position towards life.

00:10:53.320 And hope is this attitude in which you place importance on something you want and you start

00:10:59.900 moving towards it.

00:11:01.500 So every time you hope, you're actually attributing to something an importance.

00:11:06.400 So the example is, you know, your parents ask you what you want for Christmas or Hanukkah

00:11:09.760 and you say a bike.

00:11:10.980 The minute you say bike, that thing becomes this important thing to you.

00:11:14.900 You also notice at that point that you lack a bike.

00:11:18.360 So two things are going on at the same time when you hope for something.

00:11:20.920 It becomes important and you recognize you lack it.

00:11:25.300 That means that hope always implies risk because if you don't get it, you recognize something

00:11:30.560 you've now appointed as important you don't have and you recognize you lack it.

00:11:35.700 So every time you're trying to change something about yourself, you're going to be recognizing

00:11:39.560 if you don't get it, you lack that thing that you want to change and it was important.

00:11:44.100 And hope is this thing that moves you through uncertainty.

00:11:47.400 You don't hope for something and know you'll get it.

00:11:49.480 That's what makes it so evolutionarily important because hope is getting you through uncertainty

00:11:54.980 to a goal.

00:11:56.420 It moves you to the goal, to uncertainty.

00:11:59.260 It's kind of very different than a cheaper emotion, which is optimism.

00:12:03.940 Optimism is everything's going to be great.

00:12:06.320 Hope is, I don't know if everything's going to be great, but it's going to drive me, move

00:12:10.540 me towards that thing.

00:12:11.920 And there's two very important qualities to hope.

00:12:14.360 And if you take a survey on hope, you'll be taking Charles Snyder's survey typically.

00:12:19.620 And there's two things he's looking for that hopeful people do.

00:12:22.440 One is they have a belief in themselves.

00:12:25.120 There's a sense of, I can do this.

00:12:27.500 And the other is they find alternative pathways.

00:12:31.480 So hopeful people, when you see a barrier, you try to figure out your way around it.

00:12:36.800 And when you think about hopeful politicians, they're often talking about how we're going

00:12:40.880 to work our way around something, they're not promising we'll get there.

00:12:44.400 You know, Churchill's famous speech about we'll fight here, we'll fight there, we'll

00:12:47.120 fight there.

00:12:47.860 He never says we'll beat the Germans.

00:12:50.740 He's just talking about we're going to try every way possible to fight them.

00:12:54.660 And that's hope.

00:12:55.600 That's where hope rests.

00:12:56.820 It's this emotion we experience through uncertainty.

00:13:01.300 Well, okay.

00:13:01.480 So you mentioned one element of hope is this belief in yourself that you're capable of doing

00:13:05.840 something.

00:13:06.220 That belief, like faith comes up.

00:13:09.080 So like hope and faith are also connected.

00:13:11.680 And again, faith is one of those words we typically associate with faith and with religion

00:13:15.720 and spirituality.

00:13:16.800 But in this model of how people change, like what is faith?

00:13:21.980 So again, this is a real problem that we would think of these things as important in church

00:13:28.900 and in synagogue and in mosque, but not important in therapy, right?

00:13:34.420 So faith is very similar to what Bandura, a social psychologist, calls self-efficacy.

00:13:41.580 So self-efficacy is the belief that you can make things happen, that you're competent enough

00:13:47.780 to control your life and to fix things and make things and be able to kind of take on

00:13:53.400 something and make it work.

00:13:55.660 That's different than self-esteem.

00:13:56.780 And that's really what faith is in yourself, which is that I can get through this.

00:14:01.420 I can figure out how to get through this.

00:14:04.380 And so hope has that kernel of faith in it because that element, what Snyder's pointing

00:14:08.640 out is this sort of belief in yourself.

00:14:10.120 That's kind of faith.

00:14:11.100 That's faith, right?

00:14:12.240 And when you've been met with lots of disappointments, you lose that faith in yourself.

00:14:17.920 And if you lose that faith in yourself, you become afraid of hope because you're saying,

00:14:21.960 hope's going to bring me to that point again where things are going to fall apart because

00:14:25.940 I'm going to get disappointed.

00:14:27.100 I'm going to fail.

00:14:28.340 And I don't know if I have enough faith in myself to handle that.

00:14:31.840 No.

00:14:31.980 So yeah, that's, I mean, that's a good point.

00:14:33.420 So like these things, the faith and hope, they drive us, they help us move forward in uncertainty.

00:14:38.840 But as you said, it's a double-edged sword.

00:14:40.700 Because once you experience that defeat, you don't get what you wanted or you had faith

00:14:46.160 in yourself and your ability and like it didn't work out, like you just, you go, you can fall

00:14:50.600 into despair.

00:14:51.800 Mm-hmm.

00:14:52.340 Right, right.

00:14:53.900 And also despair, the other term I would use for that is helplessness.

00:14:59.700 The experience, I can't get my needs met.

00:15:02.080 I can't make my life work.

00:15:03.980 That's a profound experience, right?

00:15:07.380 I'm driving this bus and I'm no good at making things work.

00:15:11.080 That really beat you up, right?

00:15:14.220 And so that's why the next time you're ready to hope, you're like, I don't want to have

00:15:18.820 that experience again, that I'm not able to make my life work.

00:15:22.320 That's a very profound terror.

00:15:24.840 No.

00:15:25.100 So yeah, I mean, that's a good point.

00:15:26.160 So you mentioned like when you were talking about hope and giving an example of hope and

00:15:29.320 a kid hoping for a bike at the holidays, if you don't get the bike, it's a bummer, but

00:15:36.100 you move on.

00:15:36.860 But like when you say you hope to lose weight for the 20th time, like that can be even more

00:15:44.360 devastating because just like, it's about you.

00:15:46.760 It's about, it's not a thing.

00:15:48.240 It's about you as a person.

00:15:50.320 Absolutely.

00:15:51.120 That's right.

00:15:51.900 Right.

00:15:52.520 I mean, think about, think about COVID again, right?

00:15:55.380 Like what were we hoping for when we massively adjusted our lives?

00:15:59.540 We were hoping for the status quo.

00:16:01.960 We weren't, we weren't hoping for some great thing to happen.

00:16:05.020 Right.

00:16:05.560 So the challenge of hoping wasn't that great.

00:16:08.080 It was just like, let's get through this thing.

00:16:10.640 Right.

00:16:11.160 But to say to yourself, I'm going to lose weight.

00:16:13.320 That's like all the responsibilities on my shoulders.

00:16:16.740 And I'm hoping for a thing that I'm going to, that, that, that makes me better than I

00:16:20.620 am right now.

00:16:21.980 And that makes that really kind of serious.

00:16:25.220 Right.

00:16:25.720 Because the pitfall is I'm not able to diet.

00:16:28.420 If I'm not able to diet, simply do that.

00:16:32.600 Am I capable of doing other things?

00:16:34.880 Who is this person driving the bus that's, that is my life?

00:16:38.360 Right.

00:16:39.000 Can I have faith in that person?

00:16:40.740 Yeah.

00:16:40.820 There's existential stakes whenever you make a goal like that.

00:16:44.320 Yep.

00:16:44.880 Yep.

00:16:45.520 Exactly.

00:16:46.360 Yeah.

00:16:46.660 And I thought it was interesting, your research on hope and this fear of hope.

00:16:50.060 So like hope can cause a fear of hope because there's always a chance you're not going

00:16:53.040 to, it's not going to happen for you, what you wanted.

00:16:55.000 What you found is that people who are the most hopeful are actually the most afraid

00:17:00.820 of hope.

00:17:03.440 Or did I get that right?

00:17:04.520 Did I read it wrong?

00:17:05.520 Almost right.

00:17:06.280 Okay.

00:17:06.680 People who are very hopeful and have fear of hope are very agitated.

00:17:13.280 Okay.

00:17:13.680 They, they get engaged in these things called counterfactuals where they're constantly thinking

00:17:18.280 I should have done this.

00:17:19.020 I should have done that.

00:17:20.380 Right.

00:17:20.760 Or this should have happened differently.

00:17:23.040 They, they don't, they're less likely to see a positive event coming up than a person

00:17:28.860 who doesn't have hope.

00:17:30.300 And that kind of makes sense.

00:17:31.320 Like a person who doesn't have hope, they're like, oh yeah, my graduation is coming up.

00:17:34.520 Big deal.

00:17:35.180 Person who has hope, they're going, oh my God, I'm going to get excited about this.

00:17:38.740 And then I'm going to be let down.

00:17:40.140 And they get scared of it.

00:17:41.220 They don't want to look at it.

00:17:42.060 So what we're finding is that the relationship between hope and fear of hope is this sort

00:17:47.320 of difficult, difficult situation.

00:17:49.600 And what that means on some level is we might be, we might be actually diagnosing people

00:17:54.040 as depressed or even in despair when actually they're people with a lot of hope, but they're

00:17:58.960 afraid of it.

00:17:59.980 It scares them.

00:18:01.780 They're like a, they're like a high diver who's afraid of heights.

00:18:05.380 And you make this case is really, I mean, it's counterintuitive that, okay, when you

00:18:09.840 decide to hope for somebody, you also have this fear of hope and you decide,

00:18:12.060 to let the fear drive your decision, we often think, well, that's not good.

00:18:17.320 But you kind of make this counterintuitive that sometimes that's what needs to be done.

00:18:21.540 Sometimes you have to just kind of stay the same because you've still got some work you

00:18:25.800 have to do before you can make that big change you're hoping for.

00:18:29.640 Yeah.

00:18:30.380 So this, this gets, this gets a little con, not convoluted, but complex.

00:18:36.360 Maybe.

00:18:37.360 Let's think about this for a second.

00:18:39.020 So I'm afraid of trying something that will change my life because I'm afraid of that feeling

00:18:44.980 of helplessness that's going to happen and despair if it doesn't happen again.

00:18:49.300 And I'm afraid my hope's going to coax me into doing it.

00:18:53.000 And then I'm going to be let down.

00:18:55.020 What am I protecting when I do that?

00:18:57.080 I don't change.

00:18:58.720 I'm protecting my hope in a strange way.

00:19:03.040 I'm protecting my capacity to keep hoping.

00:19:05.480 I don't want it injured anymore.

00:19:07.220 So I'm actually doing something that's, that's nurturing of myself.

00:19:10.400 I'm trying to kind of make sure that what hope I have is safe.

00:19:15.340 So I'm playing possum.

00:19:16.640 I'm not moving forward because I don't want that injured again.

00:19:20.300 I'm staying still so that I don't get whatever motivates me more hurt.

00:19:26.040 And so in the book, that's really what I'm talking about is, can you find a way to have

00:19:29.600 some affection for staying the same?

00:19:32.360 That's sure a better attitude towards staying the same than hating it, right?

00:19:36.360 And being shameful about it.

00:19:37.620 And that's such a disrespectful way to look at the fact that you didn't diet or you didn't

00:19:42.820 work out or anything like that.

00:19:44.320 It's not respecting that there's parts of you that are trying to take care of yourself

00:19:47.680 that aren't working.

00:19:49.820 And they come from self-love and all love is messy and inaccurate and screwed up and sometimes

00:19:58.740 goes overboard.

00:20:00.100 Love is not some pure state.

00:20:01.660 And so sometimes you go overboard and you protect yourself too much, but it's coming from the

00:20:05.960 right place.

00:20:06.540 Well, yeah, something you say about people who have a fear of hope, the thing they do

00:20:10.840 to protect the hope that they have is they severely constrain their lives, right?

00:20:16.100 And like time kind of gets compressed.

00:20:17.800 Like the only things you're worried about are things that happened a few months ago.

00:20:20.760 And the only things you're kind of maybe excited about are the things that will happen in

00:20:24.040 a few months.

00:20:24.540 But you're not really hoping, what's my life going to be like in a year, two years, three

00:20:29.140 years?

00:20:29.940 What are my kids going to be like, grandkids?

00:20:31.940 Because you don't want to hope that far in the future because there's a good chance it

00:20:36.940 might not work out the way you hoped for.

00:20:39.600 Right, right.

00:20:40.640 Exactly right.

00:20:41.680 You know, and so then what are you doing there?

00:20:43.920 You're trying to protect what hope you have from another injury.

00:20:49.020 And that kind of makes sense.

00:20:51.000 You know, it's not great.

00:20:53.080 You know, you end up staying the same.

00:20:54.460 But on the other hand, you're doing something that has some sense to it.

00:20:59.360 And the more you can respect that, maybe even find it kind of beautiful that you're

00:21:04.000 doing it, the more likely you are to change.

00:21:06.860 It just doesn't work to like hate yourself for not change.

00:21:09.600 That just doesn't work.

00:21:11.040 Shame.

00:21:12.020 If you want to really be stuck, be shameful.

00:21:15.800 That'll keep you stuck.

00:21:17.940 You know, this idea of like hope and being afraid of hope reminds me of like that saying,

00:21:22.960 I don't know if it's connected, but it sounds kind of the same.

00:21:25.140 Like cynics are just idealists who have been disappointed over and over again.

00:21:30.720 Yeah.

00:21:31.380 Right.

00:21:31.780 And it's like, I think people like hopeful people, they're just like people who are afraid

00:21:35.120 of hope.

00:21:35.560 They're just, they're hopeful people, but they just been, they feel like they've been

00:21:38.140 burned so many times that they, they get kind of like, I'm not going to put my, I'm not

00:21:42.100 going to hope this time because it'll feel bad.

00:21:44.900 Yeah.

00:21:45.420 I would just adjust that just a little bit from people who are, you and I are afraid of hope.

00:21:50.760 I mean, some people are just more afraid of it than us.

00:21:54.020 I mean, you know, there's not a single theologian out there that says, go hope.

00:21:57.660 It's easy.

00:21:58.840 Right.

00:21:59.460 They're always talking about it.

00:22:01.060 Hope and courage go together.

00:22:03.680 That it takes some strength to face hope.

00:22:05.820 And if it takes some strength to face hope, there must be something scary about it.

00:22:09.020 And there's what's scary about is hope is always about risk.

00:22:11.900 And I'm, that's not my, that's not something I made up.

00:22:15.000 Every theologian's talked about hope is a risky attitude.

00:22:17.860 You're climbing a mountain and every step you take towards hope means a bigger fall if the

00:22:27.580 thing doesn't work out.

00:22:29.500 And that's why religion has always been about hope and faith.

00:22:32.700 It's trying to kind of get people to act on hope.

00:22:37.220 It's a really evolutionary thing.

00:22:39.680 We're going to take a quick break for your words from our sponsors.

00:22:41.360 And now back to the show.

00:22:45.620 So, okay.

00:22:46.380 Staying the same.

00:22:47.220 So like, say someone makes a goal to lose weight or maybe they want to change their job, but

00:22:50.940 like they haven't made the move because there's a whole bunch of reasons.

00:22:54.560 You give like a whole bunch of reasons that in the years you've been working with people,

00:22:58.160 you found different reasons, like different things that people are protecting when they

00:23:01.860 just, when you say, when they decide, they might not know they're making a decision,

00:23:05.480 but you know, when they decide, I'm not going to, I'm not going to move forward on that change

00:23:10.180 that I hope for.

00:23:11.280 And one of them is just pain.

00:23:13.340 Like, yeah, we've been kind of talking about this, but this pain of one pain is just the

00:23:18.160 fear of existential freedom.

00:23:20.960 And we'd rather just, like we talked about earlier, just escape from that.

00:23:24.400 I mean, any examples of people you worked with where the reason why they stayed the

00:23:28.580 same is because they were afraid of that existential freedom.

00:23:32.260 Yeah.

00:23:32.380 I would say that most of the people I deal with, you know, and now this is me applying

00:23:38.040 my ideas on them and I'm pretty much against people deciding what other people's experiences

00:23:42.400 are, but my way of looking at things is that most of the people I'm dealing with, this is

00:23:48.060 what they're struggling over.

00:23:48.980 They're having a major existential crisis, partly caused by the fact that they've had a

00:23:56.560 massive disappointment because of having been diagnosed with a psychiatric issue.

00:24:00.740 And so they're dealing with, you know, if I'm free, I'm accountable.

00:24:06.220 And if I'm accountable, can I actually get my hopes up again?

00:24:09.700 You know, can I have another experience of kind of loss regarding this?

00:24:14.540 And so for most of them, I think this is going on for them.

00:24:17.820 Well, and you also talk, you bring this other essential idea of bad faith and good faith.

00:24:22.700 You know, good faith, I think this is from Sartre.

00:24:25.500 Yeah.

00:24:25.800 Yeah.

00:24:26.160 He said that like, you know, good faith is when you recognize that you are accountable,

00:24:29.940 right?

00:24:30.400 You're not, you know, you might not be responsible for the hands you're dealt in life, but you

00:24:33.920 are responsible for how you respond.

00:24:36.020 And that's the scary thing.

00:24:38.000 Bad faith is whenever you pretend you don't have that like ability or accountability or responsibility.

00:24:44.920 And, you know, I remember you talked about one person you worked with who did something

00:24:48.720 that looked like good faith was actually bad faith.

00:24:50.940 I guess what it was is he, he set up this like system of accountability where people

00:24:56.140 checked in with him.

00:24:57.120 So he had people check in with him, right?

00:24:59.940 So like, it's, it looked like good faith in that he was setting up this system, but it

00:25:03.600 was actually kind of a bad faith move because he wanted other people just to take care of

00:25:08.060 it.

00:25:08.120 He wanted to set up the system and then he didn't have to think about it after that.

00:25:11.280 Right, right.

00:25:11.900 That was a, that was a fascinating thing.

00:25:13.660 That's right.

00:25:14.160 That's right.

00:25:14.480 So he, he wanted these, these, you know, we kept telling him, you know, because I run

00:25:20.120 this program that, you know, it's 24 hours.

00:25:21.980 So he just kept telling me, you could call any time if there's a crisis.

00:25:25.400 Right.

00:25:26.340 But he wanted check-ins to make sure he wasn't in crisis.

00:25:31.300 And, and that's bad faith because what he wanted was this sense that people were kind

00:25:36.320 of there automatically responding to him and that he was the sort of passive person that

00:25:42.540 they were taking care of because passivity is kind of the art of bad faith.

00:25:45.900 Right.

00:25:47.120 And to call us would mean that he was an agent.

00:25:50.920 He was making this happen.

00:25:52.280 So that, that's a really significantly injured person, right?

00:25:55.480 That they, they, they knew that they had this service where they could call any time, but

00:26:00.100 they didn't want to use the service because they were so terrified of actually being an

00:26:03.860 agent, making things happen.

00:26:05.980 Right.

00:26:06.680 And that's kind of classic for a lot of the people I work with, you know, but, but right

00:26:11.280 now, you know, you and I are talking, this is a good faith interaction.

00:26:15.340 I'm feeling completely like I'm my own agent of my life right now.

00:26:19.220 You know, I feel like I'm spewing out words and ideas that are my own and I'm accountable

00:26:24.980 for those things.

00:26:26.320 And when I leave and I walk home, I'm going to be thinking about how I have to be home

00:26:30.480 at a certain time.

00:26:31.420 And that have to is bad faith because I'm acting as if that time I have to be home is

00:26:38.680 something I have to do instead of I want to do because I don't want to piss people off

00:26:43.240 that I'm late and I'm making that decision.

00:26:45.720 So our days are filled with these back and forth between good and bad faith.

00:26:49.680 Right.

00:26:49.900 And some of that's, some of that's just functional.

00:26:52.980 You can't just go through life seeing everything as a choice, but some of it's because we just

00:26:57.420 are sort of terrified of this idea that there's a lot of choices in front of us.

00:27:02.420 Well, I mean, so going back to this idea where that, that can actually be useful because I

00:27:07.900 think people are hearing that like, well, that's not good.

00:27:09.600 Bad faith sounds not good where you pretend like you don't have accountability for your

00:27:13.880 life.

00:27:14.140 But like, say they talked about this guy who set up this system, like, it sounded like

00:27:19.580 it was useful for him.

00:27:20.440 Can it like, can that be a way where he sort of works his way up to building good faith?

00:27:25.820 Mm-hmm.

00:27:26.260 Yeah.

00:27:26.940 Yeah.

00:27:27.260 I tell this other story about, I mean, you know, and these are extreme stories because

00:27:31.060 these are people that have been under extreme experiences of disappointment.

00:27:34.000 Right.

00:27:34.460 But, but this is another example.

00:27:36.680 I had a guy in a group and I hated this, but I was a junior therapist at the time. 0.73

00:27:41.240 So we were asked, we had to ask them to give a number to their mood, which is sort of dumb,

00:27:46.140 but, and he would always say every week he was a two, which is really low in depression.

00:27:52.120 Like he was a two with 10 being, you know, doing really well.

00:27:56.380 And he'd say a two every week, but there were these women in the group who went to church 0.97

00:28:00.900 with him and they'd come into my office and they'd tell me things like he was starting

00:28:04.520 to date.

00:28:05.920 Like he spoke at the church the other day, like he got his own apartment, like he got a job.

00:28:11.240 And then one day he didn't show up.

00:28:13.080 He never showed up again.

00:28:14.540 And so he needed us to kind of stay in this place of seeing him as a two, not scare him

00:28:19.440 with our expectations going up about his own agency, right?

00:28:22.740 That he can make his life work in order for him to escape bad faith.

00:28:26.820 He couldn't have us be part of it and get excited for him.

00:28:30.540 And so that was sort of his method to get out of it.

00:28:33.300 No, that's another one of the 10 reasons why we don't change the fear of just expectations

00:28:37.340 from ourselves and others, right?

00:28:38.780 Once you tell people, your wife, like, oh, I'm going to, this is, I'm going to lose

00:28:42.700 in weight.

00:28:43.120 This is the time I'm going to do it.

00:28:44.300 And she's like, yes.

00:28:45.640 And then, you know, a week later, you're, you know, got the burrito taco enchilada meal.

00:28:52.940 Yeah.

00:28:53.260 And, you know, she's disappointed and you feel it and you're like, I just don't want

00:28:56.920 to experience.

00:28:57.340 I'm not even going to say, I'm trying to make a change.

00:29:00.480 Right.

00:29:00.960 Right.

00:29:01.280 Exactly.

00:29:01.780 That raising other people's expectations means raising them seeing your, your, that you're

00:29:07.920 the master of your life and having other people witness that is scary, right?

00:29:14.300 Because then you can let them down.

00:29:16.200 You witness yourself letting them down and you feel bad about yourself.

00:29:19.820 So you try to avoid that.

00:29:20.820 And one way to avoid that is to not change, right?

00:29:24.040 You stay miserable so that you don't have to face the misery of a disappointment in front

00:29:28.980 of them.

00:29:29.140 And the same goes with our own selves.

00:29:31.280 We don't want to raise our own expectations.

00:29:32.760 And we sort of stay in this state, this possum like state, because we don't want to have that

00:29:37.240 experience of being, you know, raising our hopes and then having them dashed.

00:29:41.540 And I mean, so this one guy you talked about who was, you went to your, your group therapy

00:29:45.500 session said he's a two, like, yeah, that was kind of his way out of it.

00:29:48.960 Right.

00:29:49.640 Yeah.

00:29:50.160 Yeah.

00:29:50.440 Smart.

00:29:50.880 Yeah.

00:29:51.160 It was smart.

00:29:51.880 But I mean, how else have you seen people overcome this fear of just expectations?

00:29:56.920 Is it just, does it come naturally?

00:30:00.200 Does it come when you're ready?

00:30:01.120 What happens there?

00:30:02.280 I think that it's a couple of things.

00:30:04.020 One is that I really don't think that you can develop hope.

00:30:07.560 You have to develop faith.

00:30:08.900 So the more people kind of get better at things, get better at life, the more willing they are

00:30:14.260 to kind of risk hoping again.

00:30:16.380 Right.

00:30:16.820 And so the more willing they are to kind of face the fact that things might not work out,

00:30:21.020 but they'll survive.

00:30:22.180 So I've seen that in my own life.

00:30:23.500 You know, the more I've gotten good at things, anything, the more I kind of feel like I can

00:30:27.580 kind of survive other disappointments.

00:30:30.540 And I've seen that in my, in my clients, you know, the more that they can kind of take

00:30:33.420 care of themselves and be in charge of their lives, uh, the more willing they are to take

00:30:36.940 greater risks.

00:30:38.640 I guess, you know, the one story I tell in the book is this guy used to kind of know back

00:30:43.000 in the, the, the punk scene in LA who wanted to quit smoking.

00:30:45.960 And he did actually the opposite of the, the, the guy that gave the, the two, he took pictures 0.99

00:30:51.840 of himself looking like an idiot smoking and he called these idiot cards and he plastered 0.99

00:30:57.820 them and he was really well-known in LA and people loved them. 1.00

00:31:00.540 So he plastered these all over the clubs and the bathrooms and the clubs all over the place.

00:31:06.180 And it was his way of kind of reminding himself in a way that, you know, continuing on with

00:31:11.740 this behavior wasn't actually working for him.

00:31:14.160 It was this kind of reflection of this thing, but he also made it into kind of a performance

00:31:18.440 because he got all these other people involved in it in a way where they were reflecting to

00:31:22.160 him and it held him accountable in this other kind of way that helped him finally quit.

00:31:27.340 It was kind of a beautiful little piece of performance art in some ways.

00:31:30.540 Well, you mentioned one thing that people kind of get out of, overcome these fears of

00:31:34.280 expectations or freedom is, you know, they, they start taking small steps in different

00:31:39.760 areas of life.

00:31:40.240 It might even, not even, might not even be related to the, like that, the big issue in

00:31:43.520 their life, right?

00:31:44.140 Whether they think they're depressed or they've got, you know, something else, but they, they

00:31:48.360 decide, you know what, I'm going to, in this one area of my life where the stakes aren't

00:31:51.920 that big, I'm going to make these small steps.

00:31:55.140 But then another reason like people don't change is because like small steps, like that's

00:31:59.040 kind of undignified, right?

00:32:00.180 It's like, that's, that's for babies.

00:32:01.700 Like I'm, I'm a grown man.

00:32:03.660 I'm going to make big changes now.

00:32:06.000 And so a lot of people think, well, it's not even worth it.

00:32:08.040 If I had to do like these little minuscule steps and I'll make much progress, then I'll

00:32:11.180 just stay the same.

00:32:12.460 Yeah.

00:32:12.720 Yeah.

00:32:12.920 So here's, here's another word that you don't hear in therapy enough, which is humility.

00:32:17.260 That, um, when you head out towards a goal, if you find every small step to be insulting,

00:32:23.740 because every small step reminds you where you are, right?

00:32:27.020 It reminds you how far you are from the goal.

00:32:29.700 Matter of fact, if you don't take those small steps, you can dream all you want that you're

00:32:33.000 really close to the goal and never, never change, right?

00:32:35.800 It's really easy to kind of think, oh yeah, I could do that tomorrow.

00:32:39.080 But to take the small steps is this kind of painful event of having to look at where you

00:32:44.180 are in relationship to your goal.

00:32:45.520 If you're afraid of hope, you'll never take those small steps.

00:32:49.600 Or if you have this kind of overblown version of yourself where you think you can achieve

00:32:54.260 it right away, you'll never take the small steps.

00:32:56.540 And the danger in that is that every small step, once it's completed, actually adds to

00:33:01.560 your faith in yourself.

00:33:02.900 If you can do it, it adds to your faith.

00:33:05.500 And the next day you're going to take the next step, but you've got to get on those steps

00:33:09.440 along the way in order to keep going.

00:33:12.180 You have to fuel each other if you can get on the track.

00:33:16.460 But the problem is you're terrified and it's painful because each one is an insult.

00:33:20.880 Right.

00:33:21.100 I mean, so like, I'm trying to think of a problem.

00:33:22.920 Like, you know, if you have to, if you need, if you're trying to get a promotion at your

00:33:25.920 job, a career that means a lot to you, it might mean you have to take some sort of remedial

00:33:30.560 course or go to some like continuing education class that you think is really easy and you're 0.99

00:33:35.440 going to look like an idiot and you're just like, I'm not even going to do that because 0.99

00:33:37.820 it's, but like, if you had hope and you wanted to act on that hope, like you would do it. 1.00

00:33:42.640 You would, and you had the humility, you would do it.

00:33:45.620 Right.

00:33:46.060 Right.

00:33:46.800 Yeah, that's right.

00:33:47.880 It's exactly right.

00:33:49.000 And then, so the humility is kind of needed at that point of the small steps, right?

00:33:52.840 You know, the story of Icarus is really fascinating because Icarus's dad, who was the god of

00:33:59.940 craft, which is amazing, right?

00:34:02.360 Because craft is all about small steps.

00:34:05.040 You have to really get skilled at craft.

00:34:08.220 And he built Icarus, these wings, and the wings had two problems with it.

00:34:12.300 One was, you know, we know about the sun, right?

00:34:14.420 They'd melt if he got to, if he got, if he had hubris, if he got too close to the sun.

00:34:18.140 But if he got too close to the ocean, they'd get wet and get destroyed.

00:34:22.520 And that's humility.

00:34:23.580 And that's humiliation, right?

00:34:25.640 And so you have to kind of float between those two things.

00:34:28.040 You can't be kind of like worried all the time that I'll feel bad about myself and humiliated

00:34:31.700 if I take this small step.

00:34:34.280 And you also can't be living in this world where, oh, I'm above those small steps.

00:34:39.640 So we say we hope for a change, but sometimes we just stay the same because like we're afraid

00:34:43.060 we're trying to protect ourselves from all these things we've been talking about.

00:34:45.460 The fear of freedom, the expectations, the indignity of small steps.

00:34:51.080 So like, I mean, I think we kind of hit on it, but it's like how the first step is looking

00:34:55.500 at these things as maybe not as a negative because that will just, I don't know, kind

00:34:59.720 of taint things and make you feel worse about yourself, which just sort of creates this vicious

00:35:03.740 cycle.

00:35:04.260 It's not good.

00:35:05.480 So like, what is the solution?

00:35:06.880 So to this, these tensions of that, that's created of, of hoping and then you hope causes

00:35:11.480 fear of hope and all.

00:35:12.700 I mean, it's like, yeah, what, what do you do?

00:35:14.760 You just, I don't know, like what do you, when you work with a, when you work with a,

00:35:18.040 with a client, like what does that process look like of, of change when they finally

00:35:23.160 happens for them?

00:35:24.500 Yeah.

00:35:25.100 Yeah.

00:35:25.960 So, you know, I'm, I'm in this awkward position of writing a kind of self-help book that gives

00:35:30.160 no advice, right?

00:35:31.600 Because I really don't believe that like advice on what you need to do to change works.

00:35:38.740 What I think works in what science shows is contemplation from a nonjudgmental space.

00:35:47.440 Right.

00:35:47.960 In other words, I'm doing this for this reason.

00:35:51.140 That's why I have 10 reasons not to change, right?

00:35:53.600 I'm doing it for this reason.

00:35:55.520 I could do it for this reason.

00:35:58.400 And I'm looking at both and I'm weighing them, right?

00:36:02.560 You're not going to do that.

00:36:03.740 If you look at sameness is bad, you're never going to look at the reasons for it.

00:36:07.200 Right.

00:36:07.860 And so real change happens, real sustainable change happens when you're able to say there's

00:36:13.560 some good in this behavior.

00:36:14.880 I want to change.

00:36:15.840 And I have to say goodbye to that good in order to move forward.

00:36:19.820 If all you say is that, is that lie to yourself that everything about this thing is bad, it's

00:36:26.300 very hard to move forward.

00:36:27.940 That's really what is happening now in some ways with people with problematic habits or

00:36:32.520 what's people call addiction is that we're discovering that if a person can discuss and

00:36:37.140 think about why they like using, why it's important in their lives, what it does for them,

00:36:41.960 they're actually more likely to give it up than somebody where it's just about, you know, 0.99

00:36:46.640 you're screwed up because you're an addict.

00:36:48.940 And that's what I'm trying to do in the book. 1.00

00:36:50.500 I'm trying to say, you know, spend some time looking at this thing and appreciating it.

00:36:56.000 Because if you do that, you can probably leave it behind.

00:36:58.160 You can retire it.

00:36:59.100 You're never going to retire it if all you think is it's bad and that you're bad because

00:37:02.780 you're doing it.

00:37:03.700 Well, it sounds like it's a good analogy, be like a protective, overprotective parent,

00:37:06.920 right?

00:37:07.060 Overprotective parent isn't, they're not doing it out of like, they had this urge to be a totalitarian.

00:37:11.960 They're usually doing it out of like a sense of love and they want to protect you.

00:37:15.180 But at a certain point, they have to realize that's actually not going to help my kid.

00:37:18.900 I need to back off if I really do love him.

00:37:21.500 Right.

00:37:22.060 Exactly.

00:37:22.680 Yeah.

00:37:23.020 Yeah.

00:37:23.640 Yeah.

00:37:24.120 I have a 22-year-old son who's planning a big road trip right now.

00:37:29.680 My wife and I are discussing whether it's a good idea for him to do it.

00:37:33.260 And it's like, what are we doing?

00:37:34.700 This kid's 22, you know, but we love him and we're worried about him.

00:37:39.480 And if we were to intervene on that in some way, we would be doing something not good,

00:37:43.940 but it would be coming out of our love.

00:37:47.180 It wouldn't be coming out of anything bad.

00:37:49.360 It would sure piss him off and it wouldn't feel good, but it's not bad.

00:37:54.180 It's just love that's not being controlled right.

00:37:57.700 So let's kind of recap big picture overview of what we've talked about so far.

00:38:02.060 So there's this, whenever you want something, you hope for something, automatically there's

00:38:07.020 a tension that's created, right?

00:38:09.020 Between where you are, you don't have the thing and where you're at, the thing you'd like.

00:38:13.300 And by thing, I asked me already, we're talking about personal change here.

00:38:16.340 So I'm not talking about a bike or an iPad or whatever.

00:38:19.360 And then whenever you start hoping, that's a driving force towards the thing you want.

00:38:24.720 But then also there's a countervailing restraining force, which is the fear of hope.

00:38:29.460 And then there's also faith is driving us towards that.

00:38:32.040 We have this capacity, we have faith in ourselves and the ability to do what we want or what we

00:38:37.440 need to do to achieve that thing we'd like.

00:38:39.300 But there's also a countervailing restraint to there.

00:38:42.440 That's like, you know, you mess up and your actions don't give you the results you wanted.

00:38:47.000 And embedded in that, there's all these other driving and restraining forces like you were

00:38:52.180 talking about earlier.

00:38:53.160 You're in a good mood, your family's supportive, the weather's nice, but also restraining things

00:38:59.140 like you just, people are annoying, you know, customer service experience that went bad.

00:39:04.580 That can all affect things as well.

00:39:07.660 Did I get that right?

00:39:08.580 That's great, man.

00:39:09.280 That's awesome.

00:39:10.400 Okay.

00:39:10.760 Thank you.

00:39:11.460 That's great.

00:39:12.040 And then, yeah.

00:39:13.060 And then the other thing, you know, sometimes we decide in all the mix of this,

00:39:16.280 these tensions and driving forces just to stay the same because that's easier sometimes

00:39:22.180 and it protects where we are now.

00:39:25.180 Mm-hmm.

00:39:25.800 Okay.

00:39:26.220 That's right.

00:39:26.820 That's right.

00:39:27.260 And I think the only thing I want to add to that, you know, is that sometimes those restraining

00:39:31.580 forces are out of our control, right?

00:39:34.500 And so I give this example or story in the book about a woman who works in the cafeteria

00:39:42.400 who wants to go back to college and has to drive to her college through rush hour to get 0.97

00:39:49.940 to class and then has to drive all the way home, has to find parking on campus, is dealing

00:39:55.760 with having to take care of her kids too.

00:39:57.400 And she may be filled with hope and have low fear of hope and still not do as well as a 0.99

00:40:03.540 person with high fear of hope and lots of hope who's the executive in her company where

00:40:08.420 the cafeteria is and someone drives them to the class and, you know, someone helps them

00:40:13.280 with his homework and all those sorts of things.

00:40:15.020 So there's all kinds of other restraints than simply our existential choice.

00:40:19.340 There's all kinds of other socioeconomic restraints, gender restraints, all kinds of restraints 1.00

00:40:24.740 on us as we move through life.

00:40:27.100 I definitely don't want this book to be something like Tony Robbins.

00:40:30.640 I just don't believe that we can think things and beautiful things will happen.

00:40:34.480 I don't believe it.

00:40:35.520 There's plenty of political and economic forces against us as we move forward in life.

00:40:41.820 But the other, I mean, that's true, but you also make this point, like Sartre would say,

00:40:45.360 it's like, yes, there are restraints, but we have the ability.

00:40:48.580 We can navigate that.

00:40:49.900 It's going to be hard, but we can take a posture towards these restraints that's hopeful,

00:40:56.060 faithful, and I'm not going to say positive because I don't want to get with it.

00:40:59.580 But like, yeah, you have efficacy in the world.

00:41:04.020 Yeah, in your response to the world.

00:41:05.220 That's right.

00:41:05.780 That's right.

00:41:06.060 Right.

00:41:06.860 And also, I mean, it just sounds like too, you know, I think it's interesting.

00:41:09.960 We've been talking about faith, hope, humility.

00:41:12.920 I mean, I think another thing that's required for change is like patience.

00:41:15.660 And that's something that's not really talked about.

00:41:18.680 Oftentimes when you go to a therapist, it's like, well, here's our plan.

00:41:21.880 We'll meet for three weeks and then, you know, a month, once a month after that.

00:41:26.280 And then you're done.

00:41:27.140 It's like, it sounds like your idea is like, no, it could take a year or two to, I don't

00:41:32.520 say, I don't even know if you solve things completely.

00:41:34.680 It doesn't sound like you solve things completely, but get for things to get better.

00:41:37.700 Yeah, yeah, there's this, you know, this book, Zorba the Greek, it was also a movie.

00:41:44.240 Oh, yeah.

00:41:44.980 Yeah.

00:41:45.680 And there's this scene in Zorba the Greek that's just so beautiful where he finds a chrysalis

00:41:51.240 with a caterpillar that's slowly becoming, it's just about to the point where it's becoming

00:41:56.800 a butterfly and he decides to help it.

00:41:59.900 So he starts opening up the chrysalis and of course the thing dies in his hands.

00:42:03.740 And he's like, that's just about the most sinful thing you can do.

00:42:08.200 He says this in the book, you know, like not letting something just sort of emerge in its

00:42:13.780 own time, right?

00:42:15.760 It's just an awful thing to do to it.

00:42:17.960 And we're doing that too much to ourselves.

00:42:21.200 We're not respecting the fact that, you know, it might take getting in an elevator with some

00:42:27.800 coffee spillers for us to feel like I can move forward today.

00:42:31.140 You know, you have to wait for your field to be in the right place sometimes and you

00:42:35.900 have to be patient with that.

00:42:37.780 Well, another thing you talk about, you were talking about all these different restraining

00:42:39.840 forces that we don't have control over, but another like driving force that can help

00:42:43.280 us is our social environment.

00:42:45.740 And so surrounding yourself with people who are supportive and understanding, et cetera,

00:42:52.340 that can help a lot.

00:42:53.040 I mean, that's maybe like, you know, a lot of, that's why people go to group therapy or

00:42:56.660 join AA because it's just being around people who got their back or they feel like they got

00:43:02.060 their back.

00:43:03.740 Yeah.

00:43:04.000 I mean, I have to tell you, you know, it's amazing how little sort of the psychotherapeutic

00:43:10.080 professions understand motivation and how well social psychology understands motivation.

00:43:17.320 Social psychology has it down and they've done research after research on that.

00:43:20.860 And this is about things like a sense of your value and your community, your purpose, your

00:43:26.320 social support.

00:43:27.840 These are all the things in a person's field that actually move them forward.

00:43:32.380 I mean, you know, social psychology is basically kind of the study of motivation on some level,

00:43:35.820 on some level.

00:43:36.940 And it's all about this thing about what are the things going on around you that gets you

00:43:41.000 to move forward.

00:43:42.000 And one of the main ones is social support.

00:43:44.060 Social support is just this medicine, right?

00:43:47.400 That kind of moves you forward.

00:43:48.700 I got this cousin of mine that does this research where he has people sit in a chair and he's

00:43:55.400 a social psychologist and he has them sit in a chair and he has this tarantula in this

00:43:59.600 plexiglass box move closer to them down this ramp.

00:44:03.140 And they actually can control how close it gets.

00:44:05.240 And people that only think about negative support, only think about it, they don't have less social

00:44:11.780 support than the other people, think that that tarantula is closer to their face than the

00:44:16.740 people that think about positive social support.

00:44:19.060 Not that they have more social support.

00:44:21.800 Two people walking towards a hill will see, will be more accurately measure the height of

00:44:29.060 that hill and how hard it will be to travel that hill than one person.

00:44:33.240 So social support has all kinds of things to do with how we look at threats and how we

00:44:38.420 look at challenges.

00:44:39.920 And so surrounding yourself with people, feeling connected to people is just vital to us moving

00:44:44.760 forward.

00:44:45.960 We know that isolation ties with cholesterol and smoking for heart disease.

00:44:51.180 And that's because of all the cortisol that's in your system when you're isolated, right?

00:44:55.400 It affects all, it makes you paranoid.

00:44:57.560 It causes all kinds of problems for people.

00:45:00.340 So these are all social things.

00:45:01.860 They're not necessarily psychological.

00:45:04.040 Yeah, social support can help you be more of an individual, like with good faith, right?

00:45:09.280 That sees that they are accountable and responsible for their life.

00:45:14.140 That's kind of, it's kind of counterintuitive.

00:45:15.480 Like you need the group to become an individual.

00:45:17.780 Yeah.

00:45:18.380 Yeah, that's really great though.

00:45:20.700 It's a really great kind of paradox that you can't be too lonely.

00:45:24.860 To be alone, you know, with yourself.

00:45:28.500 That these things really feed our ability to be original and creative with our lives

00:45:32.940 is this sense that we're connected to others.

00:45:35.900 Well, Ross, this has been a great conversation.

00:45:37.640 Where can people go to learn more about the book and your work?

00:45:40.960 My work is at ellenhorn.com.

00:45:43.400 That's our, that's my company.

00:45:45.100 And then the book is, you know, it's an Amazon, it's everywhere.

00:45:48.040 It's, it's HarperCollins and they can just look it up how we change and the 10 reasons

00:45:51.800 why we don't.

00:45:52.860 Well, fantastic.

00:45:53.320 Well, Ross, Ellenhorn, thanks for your time.

00:45:54.620 It's been a pleasure.

00:45:55.720 Yeah.

00:45:56.060 Yeah, it was great.

00:45:56.680 Thank you.

00:45:58.460 My guest today was Ross Ellenhorn.

00:46:00.000 He's the author of the book, How We Change and 10 Reasons Why We Don't.

00:46:03.060 It's available on amazon.com and bookstores everywhere.

00:46:05.440 You can find out more information about his work at his website, ellenhorn.com.

00:46:08.860 Also check out our show notes at aom.is slash change.

00:46:11.640 Refin links to resources.

00:46:12.860 We delve deeper into this topic.

00:46:14.060 Well, that wraps up another edition of the AOM podcast.

00:46:23.900 Check out our website at artofmanliness.com where you find our podcast archives, as well

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00:46:53.740 Until next time, this is Brett McKay.

00:46:55.060 Remind you not only listen to the AOM podcast, but put what you've heard into action.

The Art of Manliness - November 02, 2020

#657： Why You Don't Change (But How You Still Can)

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