The Art of Manliness - Want to Be Happy？ Give Yourself Reasons to Admire Yourself

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

00:00:11.100 happiness and depression can feel like slippery and befuddling things we can do the things we've

00:00:16.060 been told to make us happy while still not feeling satisfied or on paper our lives can look great

00:00:20.920 yet we still feel depressed and the advice that's out there about these states doesn't always seem

00:00:25.160 to correspond to our lived experience ryan bush has created a new map he thinks can help us make

00:00:29.960 better sense of life ryan is a systems designer with a long-standing interest in psychology and

00:00:34.500 philosophy the founder of designing the mind a self-development organization and an author his

00:00:40.140 latest book is become who you are a new theory of self-esteem human greatness and the opposite of

00:00:45.160 depression today on the show ryan explains the two dimensions along which we usually plot our

00:00:49.320 happiness and what he thinks is the missing third dimension virtue ryan then impacts his virtue

00:00:54.660 self-signaling theory which he thinks can heighten happiness and reduce depression and which is

00:00:59.280 premised on the idea that if you want to live a flourishing life you have to give yourself reasons

00:01:03.660 to admire yourself i really think this is a valuable idea that everyone can get something from and

00:01:08.740 recommend listening through after the show's over check out our show notes at awim.is become

00:01:13.180 all right ryan bush welcome to the show thanks for having me brad i'm excited to be here so in your

00:01:28.980 new book become who you are you lay out a theory for human happiness and you start off the book talking

00:01:34.520 about that most ideas or theories of happiness focus on two dimensions what are these dimensions and how do

00:01:41.820 they interact with each other yeah it's a sort of spatial visual metaphor that i think could be

00:01:48.140 really useful for navigating our lives and so if you imagine there's a chess board sitting on the table

00:01:54.940 in front of you you can imagine there's an x-axis and a y-axis the sort of left and right on the chess

00:02:00.860 board is pain and pleasure so further to the right means more immediate pleasure further to the left means

00:02:06.440 pain discomfort suffering then on the y-axis sort of moving closer to you or further away on the chess

00:02:12.760 board you've got loss and gain and so this one's all about you know long-term success and striving and

00:02:19.460 achievement or loss and and setbacks and that kind of thing and so when we're children we're all sort of

00:02:25.420 navigating just using this x-axis we want more immediate pleasure and less pain and this is what most

00:02:31.720 you know non-human animals pretty much spend their lives doing and when we get a little older we learn

00:02:37.480 how to bring this y-axis in we learn how to say okay i can put my you know pursuit of pleasure on hold

00:02:44.200 i can delay gratification i can go after this long-term success and gain and so we we essentially go back and

00:02:53.120 forth throughout our lives between chasing immediate pleasure and chasing long-term success at least by default

00:03:00.360 that's our innate wiring that's the map we're using to navigate our lives the problem with this is that

00:03:06.440 sometimes the map doesn't really correspond to the territory sometimes we will achieve something in our

00:03:12.860 lives that should be good according to this map it should result in the ultimate happiness and it doesn't

00:03:18.600 really work that way we end up kind of just shrugging saying oh why why am i not any happier now or we'll go

00:03:23.980 through a loss and end up saying it's the best thing that ever happened to us there's been a lot of studies

00:03:28.600 of this where you know daniel gilbert writes about a lot of them in a book called stumbling on happiness

00:03:33.600 where he points out that lottery winners and paraplegics have the same levels of happiness a

00:03:39.200 year after their incidents and that that's just such a like what what's going on here when we spend our

00:03:44.520 lives pursuing things that seem good on paper and look like positive external circumstances and then

00:03:52.000 we achieve them and they don't actually make us any happier what's actually going on and so i've used

00:03:57.480 this dimensional framework to suggest okay there's there's actually a third dimension which is

00:04:02.700 actually pulling the strings this whole time as we're running around chasing pleasure and success

00:04:08.320 and gain actually something else is determining whether we're happy or not and it may relate to

00:04:14.300 those things but it's not directly pleasure or gain and i've argued in the book it's not meaning

00:04:19.680 it's not love exactly even though it relates to all these things but this is really what's you know

00:04:25.220 driving our well-being under the surface okay so you make the case that there's a third dimension

00:04:30.820 that's going on in our lives that determines our happiness or flourishing that we typically ignore

00:04:37.720 don't even know that's there and that third dimension is virtue what do you mean by virtue

00:04:42.760 yeah i tend to introduce it using the term admirability because that connects a little more

00:04:49.440 immediately to the modern listener i think virtue has this really outdated sort of preachy connotation

00:04:56.020 and that's really unfortunate because it's got this rich philosophical history going back to the

00:05:01.280 ancient greeks and confucius and all these you know brilliant thinkers who have made very similar

00:05:07.220 arguments to the one i'm making now just without this sort of fancy three-dimensional framework right and

00:05:13.240 without a lot of the data backing up and explaining why this is actually the case but the ancient greeks you know

00:05:19.300 the stoics for example they said that virtue and eudaimonia which was sort of the ultimate happiness

00:05:24.960 these are fundamentally tied together the more virtuous you are the more satisfied you ultimately

00:05:31.000 are in your life and virtue didn't just mean the kind of moral purity that we tend to think of

00:05:36.840 the word arete that it was originally used as can be translated as excellence or strength or greatness

00:05:43.320 and so there are a lot of different levels that this can play out on right we we can talk about moral

00:05:49.280 strength and moral virtue but we can also talk about courage and creativity and charisma uh you know

00:05:55.620 humor even all these traits that we basically look at other people in our lives and say like i admire this

00:06:02.360 person for this and we observe this throughout cultures there are certain traits that you know psychologists

00:06:08.280 like martin seligman have observed are pretty much valued in every culture around the world and that

00:06:13.980 tells us something very important about our psychology and and what's deeply embedded in it which is that

00:06:20.360 we have these deep impulses of admiration around these certain traits and so there must be some reason why

00:06:28.000 it is so deeply embedded in our minds and why the ancients were right i argue in thinking that it is really

00:06:34.720 connected to our happiness and when we are depressed we are in some ways not able to see for one reason

00:06:40.940 or another those virtues that we pride ourselves on and when we're deeply satisfied it's because

00:06:46.500 we are achieving a high level of virtue exercise in our lives and we are seeing that fact and observing it

00:06:52.940 and admiring ourselves for it okay so i like that idea that virtue is admire being admirable it's

00:06:58.680 excellence and it could be things like you said courage temperance wisdom humor but even things

00:07:04.600 like your ability in a sport or your ability in designing or your ability in programming you can

00:07:11.220 be virtuous in those those tasks as well potentially i will say some of them i think are not as deeply

00:07:19.160 ingrained because they're not they're not things that our ancestors necessarily had so like my my skill

00:07:25.120 at you know cad design on on the computer doesn't necessarily translate our ancestors would have just been

00:07:30.600 like what is that but from an evolutionary standpoint i think there are reasons why honesty and kindness

00:07:36.560 and courage are things that we really deeply admire and so those hold a special weight in our minds

00:07:42.680 i also think that our values can vary from one person to another and so really it most requires inquiring

00:07:50.380 into our own values what do i most admire in other people who are the people i admire most and what are

00:07:56.680 these traits and how can i incorporate them into my own life and behavior and lifestyle so you have

00:08:02.520 this idea of a virtue portfolio what's a virtue portfolio it's essentially just a collection of

00:08:08.520 your top signature strengths or virtues that you know potentially you've always been good at since

00:08:14.300 you were a kid you really pride yourself on them and if you found yourself in a situation in life where

00:08:19.640 you started to doubt that you had these virtues you started to think you were no longer good at these

00:08:24.100 things it would really crush you you can imagine that despair and if you've been depressed you you

00:08:29.480 may have had a period where you really did feel like you lacked those signature strengths and this is

00:08:35.620 very often the case people who are depressed typically describe themselves as incompetent worthless

00:08:41.920 unlovable if they're severely depressed and vice versa for those who are deeply satisfied and so your

00:08:47.680 your virtue portfolio is this collection of strengths that you're sort of constantly trying to balance and

00:08:53.380 bring out in your life or at least i argue you should be as you look at the different areas of your life

00:08:59.180 you should be saying like how can i exercise my ingenuity more how can i exercise my wisdom more in this

00:09:07.400 situation and and really it's going to vary for each person there's a test that i recommend that

00:09:13.180 martin seligman developed called the signature strengths test or the brief strengths test which is much

00:09:18.920 quicker if you don't have as much time that'll essentially tell you what your top five virtues

00:09:23.560 are that make up your virtue portfolio i think it's really just a starting point because there are a lot

00:09:29.140 of ways you can sort of define what it is that you're best at and value most but i think you need to be

00:09:34.260 paying very careful attention to these traits when you're navigating your life when you're making

00:09:39.280 transitions you don't want to allow these to get neglected for long because your brain will notice and

00:09:44.940 according to this theory that i'm proposing it's going to affect your mood your behavior your your

00:09:49.980 long-term well-being you also have this idea of virtue domains what's a virtue domain yeah this is

00:09:55.700 essentially just an area in your life a vessel that allows you to bring out a certain strength

00:10:00.500 so work for people is often a major virtue domain there are certain positive traits that we don't really

00:10:07.360 get other opportunities to exercise in our lives besides through our work or at least if we've designed

00:10:12.980 our career well and allowed ourselves to bring out those traits your relationships would be other

00:10:18.840 virtue domains you may have a particularly important relationship in your life that allows you to bring

00:10:24.420 out your sense of humor or your creativity or your your loving affection in ways that you don't have

00:10:29.960 another outlet for so these are going to be really important virtue domains for you you might have a hobby

00:10:35.780 or a you know non-profit you volunteer at or something else these can all potentially be

00:10:41.380 virtue domains and this is really crucial to crafting that strategy to exercising your virtues and achieving

00:10:48.920 greater happiness or eudaimonia so how does this virtue dimension interact with the pleasure pain

00:10:56.340 and loss gain dimensions of happiness that's a good question you know there are some thinkers who would argue

00:11:03.340 that basically the pleasure and the gain in your life are completely irrelevant the stoics would have 0.98

00:11:08.500 said don't even worry about those they don't affect you and you know other thinkers like aristotle and i

00:11:13.980 would say myself have argued that well they matter but not in the direct sense your your achievements

00:11:20.140 your career these things are not going to improve your happiness in themselves but they can increase or

00:11:27.100 decrease the amount of virtue that you're able to exercise in your life so for example you know we talked

00:11:33.260 about winning the lottery i sort of do an exploration of this in the early chapters of the book where i

00:11:38.140 say okay so you might win the lottery and you might say okay well now i don't have to work so i'm going to

00:11:44.720 quit this job that a big part of my self-esteem was previously tied up in i'm going to just kind of sit

00:11:51.260 around now and do whatever i feel like and uh you know kind of adopt this passive effortless life and spend

00:11:57.800 the money on immediate pleasures in that case the lottery is actually going to be a bad thing for you

00:12:02.800 and your well-being because it's going to decrease the amount that you're exercising your virtues in

00:12:07.580 your life and your brain is going to notice so to speak you're going to cease to admire yourself as

00:12:14.100 much as you did before on the other hand you might win the lottery and you might say oh this is going to

00:12:18.840 be huge now i can quit this like mindless job that i had and actually create a new opportunity for me to

00:12:25.460 do a lot more creative interesting things i'm going to start this organization i'm going to become an

00:12:30.300 angel investor i'm going to you know invest this money responsibly so it you know it doesn't go to

00:12:34.780 waste and in that case you know it could result in a much better life for you so it's not so much

00:12:40.580 you know it's not so straightforward that money doesn't buy happiness for example it's that all

00:12:45.160 of these circumstantial gains or losses in our lives have an indirect relationship and really this

00:12:51.360 is best viewed in this sort of three-dimensional model because you can be moving you know up in the z

00:12:57.360 axis that sort of three-dimensional axis which you know i didn't fully flesh out earlier but

00:13:03.260 essentially you you can imagine that chessboard we mentioned turning into a topographical chessboard

00:13:08.500 where you've now got mountains and valleys on top of the chessboard and and it's really the mountains

00:13:13.220 and valleys that determine what's good for you and what's going to make you happy so you want to

00:13:18.540 navigate your two-dimensional existence so as to increase that third dimension first and foremost

00:13:24.640 so maybe maybe taking that job with the higher salary or the greater status really will allow

00:13:31.220 you to climb up that mountain that corresponds to that but it also might mean creating a new kind of

00:13:37.040 passive comfort that might actually hurt you it might actually move you down into those valleys of

00:13:42.120 depression and make you less happy even though something seemingly good happened to you yeah i have an

00:13:47.500 example from that i have a friend who sold his business for lots of money allowed him to retire

00:13:52.240 so that's a that's gain pleasure it was awesome didn't have to work and for the first couple of

00:13:59.160 months all he did was like sleep in because he hadn't done that in a long time but then after a

00:14:03.300 while he got depressed he's like i gotta do something so he started another business so he could exercise

00:14:08.800 his virtue like he's good at certain things and he he needed he needed an outlet for that

00:14:13.220 yeah that's a very common story and and i talk about my time in high school and how like summer

00:14:21.680 breaks were kind of like mini retirements in a way you know i would get to the end of the school year

00:14:26.900 and be like oh i'm so excited i'm gonna do nothing i'm gonna sleep in play video games all day and uh

00:14:32.720 you know inevitably i would end up feeling kind of terrible after like three weeks and and almost be

00:14:38.060 ready to go back to school by the end of the summer and at one point i kind of realized okay i can

00:14:44.200 prevent this from happening next summer you know i'm going to set big goals and ambitions i'm going

00:14:49.960 to structure my days so i'm actually doing things that i'm proud of and i i ended up turning those

00:14:56.040 later summers into like some of the best periods of growth in my life and you know really satisfying

00:15:02.180 but ultimately that idea that you know when we finally are able to just stop doing the things that

00:15:07.860 our self-esteem really is built on uh that we're going to somehow be thrilled it often has the

00:15:13.640 opposite effect so we need to give ourselves reason to admire ourselves and we don't ever really get to

00:15:19.820 stop we don't ever get to ride off into the sunset and stop doing this it's a lifelong process of

00:15:25.700 earning your own admiration i want to dig deeper into this idea of how do we know when we're being

00:15:31.700 virtuous and you developed a theory called virtue self-signaling theory he walk us through that

00:15:38.780 theory because i think it's like the linchpin of your idea of happiness and even depression

00:15:42.780 yeah so the big question that that led me to sort of develop this theory was why about all this stuff

00:15:49.480 that i was observing uh about the connection between virtue and and well-being and depression i was

00:15:55.400 saying why from an evolutionary and like neurological standpoint would this be the case you know it

00:16:02.080 doesn't naturally make sense that we would you know one that we would get depressed at all because

00:16:07.120 that seems like a genetically kind of crippling state two that that our self-esteem and self-evaluations

00:16:13.080 would play such an important role and would be so central to the functioning of our minds and uh you

00:16:19.900 know three that that happiness would work this way and that we would experience these highs of

00:16:23.980 well-being when we're being virtuous specifically and so i draw from a lot of different areas this is

00:16:29.880 like four chapters of dense research so i'll do my best to summarize it here but i think potentially

00:16:35.980 the best place to start with virtue self-signaling theory is to look at self-esteem and this sort of

00:16:42.160 central role that it plays in our minds we are constantly sort of evaluating ourselves we are

00:16:47.680 constantly thinking about our own worth and our you know we're criticizing ourselves in many cases

00:16:52.800 uh it's kind of a constant stream and if we look at you know the neuroscience behind this there's a

00:16:59.120 network in the brain called the default mode network that is really lighting up like any time we're not

00:17:04.800 engaged in another activity like by that's why it's called the default mode network by default this is

00:17:10.420 what our brain is doing and it's been found to be really closely linked to self-referential thoughts

00:17:15.700 and self-ruminations and social comparison essentially the evaluation of our own virtues

00:17:22.360 and our social strengths it's been proposed by some evolutionary psychologists that self-esteem

00:17:28.740 is essentially a fuel gauge for the fuel tank that is social esteem so it's there as this internal

00:17:36.020 indicator to help us optimize our social standing if you think about our ancestors the tribe was

00:17:43.340 everything to you if you lived you know 10 000 years ago or more you really needed to be on your

00:17:50.740 tribe's good side you could be ostracized or killed or worse they could talk about you behind your back

00:17:56.900 if you didn't uh do well and that would affect your social status your mate prospects your alliances

00:18:02.620 ultimately it has major genetic outcomes so what i've argued in this book is that this system in the

00:18:09.640 brain the default mode network the sociometer whatever you want to call it is essentially

00:18:15.420 there to regulate our mood up or down right towards eudaimonia or toward depression based on what it

00:18:22.420 sees based on the virtue that it notices when when it's observing our actions so our own brains are kind

00:18:29.520 of constantly evaluating us to say well are you highly approvable are you someone that your tribe is going to

00:18:36.340 like that your friends and mate prospects are going to you know approve of if so let's get out there

00:18:42.440 let's be active right let's display those strengths and and put them out there and capitalize on this

00:18:47.440 opportunity or your brain is saying no i'm not seeing those traits that i approve of i'm not seeing

00:18:53.560 evidence that i'm the kind of person i would admire and hence that people in my tribe are likely to

00:18:58.360 admire right and that means i need to be in a state where i'm going to withdraw socially i'm going to be

00:19:04.720 socially risk averse i'm going to lie low essentially and not damage my social status and so this mechanism

00:19:12.180 that i'm proposing essentially evolved as a social protection tool but it has much greater implications

00:19:19.080 for us and it's almost kind of cruel to think that this awful crippling state that we know as depression

00:19:25.460 would just have come about to sort of optimize our social standing but i think that's where its origins

00:19:32.040 lie and so the question for us is not how can we you know do what our genes wanted us to do which was

00:19:38.120 to maximize social outcomes the question is how can we earn our own respect how can we appeal to this

00:19:44.500 social simulator in our heads for maximum well-being and so i think that ultimately comes down to

00:19:51.560 trying to signal the most virtue to ourselves and that's that's why the name is virtue self-signaling

00:19:58.060 theory we are as happy as the virtue that we signal to our own brains and that we give ourselves

00:20:03.920 evidence to believe that we are exhibiting and what's interesting about this sociometer in our head

00:20:09.620 it's only turned on to things that are important to our identity so for example if you don't think of

00:20:17.300 yourself as a soccer player if you're really bad at soccer and someone makes fun of you you're not

00:20:24.440 going to care right but like in your example you're a designer that's a big part of your identity if

00:20:29.980 someone says yeah i don't think you're that great of a designer or you get bad feedback on that that's

00:20:35.580 probably going to hurt you more than if someone says you're a bad soccer player exactly yeah it doesn't

00:20:41.320 affect our self-esteem all that much when someone doubts us on something that isn't in our portfolio

00:20:46.860 in our virtue portfolio right if we haven't built those serotonin pathways associated with those

00:20:53.140 particular traits you know it's not that big of a deal i already didn't think i was good at that

00:20:57.820 but when it attacks our identity directly that's when it can really affect our self-esteem and our

00:21:03.480 happiness when we look at people who are depressed very often they've got a broken identity in fact i

00:21:10.000 would argue this is the kind of the essence of what depression is it's not a you know chemical imbalance

00:21:15.400 like is often argued fundamentally it's a identity failure issue you have a broken identity in some way

00:21:22.340 your virtue portfolio has had a market crash and so you are now in this sort of state of disrepair in

00:21:29.560 your identity and that sort of calls for a reshaping or re-strategizing of the state and of our general

00:21:37.120 virtue strategies but yes it does fundamentally center around our identity or our virtue portfolio

00:21:43.220 i want to talk more about depression because you went in deep on this section we've had a lot of

00:21:48.860 people on the podcast psychologists come on talk about depression there's lots of different theories

00:21:53.500 out there for what causes depression and a lot of research is being spent on it because it's one of

00:21:58.520 the you know big mental health issues in america and in the west and for a long time there's this idea

00:22:05.020 you just mentioned it that well depressions it's a brain chemistry problem if you have low serotonin

00:22:11.140 low dopamine you are going to have depression but what the research shows is that even if you give

00:22:17.940 someone a antidepressant where it increases you know serotonin for example it might alleviate

00:22:23.120 depression a bit particularly in people with really severe depression but for people with mild depression

00:22:27.820 it doesn't do much what's going on there yeah there are a couple of problems with this sort of view

00:22:34.520 on depression one is just kind of explaining you know why it's there and and why it operates the way

00:22:40.860 it does if we look at normal pathologies and diseases and disorders there are certain traits that they tend

00:22:46.860 to share and a big one is getting more common with age right heart disease gets more common with age

00:22:52.860 most of these awful diseases that we experience as our organs get older and start sort of deteriorating

00:22:59.340 we get more likely to get these conditions well depression most people experience their first

00:23:05.100 bout of depression who who have depression at some point in their like early adulthood so it doesn't

00:23:10.940 operate like a normal pathology it also you know while there are genes that are associated with

00:23:16.980 depression um you know a greater likelihood of it ultimately we all have depression genes in the sense

00:23:23.260 that all minds seem to be capable of getting depressed under certain conditions and so this is not just

00:23:28.880 something that made it through the sort of filter of natural selection in some people this is kind of a

00:23:35.060 staple of human existence you put people in certain conditions certain beliefs about themselves and they're

00:23:41.500 going to get depressed and vice versa you know the other issue is that this view of depression as a

00:23:48.260 chemical disorder fundamentally really isn't that well supported it's really bleak when you look at the data

00:23:55.240 on things like antidepressants people sort of assume and have really been marketed this idea that there

00:24:02.140 are pills you can just take that fix the problem that is depression and really there's no reason to think

00:24:08.300 that's the case i just uh you know sometimes i say to myself well i'm not technically a like a medical

00:24:14.560 professional i'm not a psychiatrist should i be sharing this with people but the fact is like i have the

00:24:20.420 same data in front of me and this is really what the experts are saying too like there is no evidence

00:24:27.000 that antidepressants at least the ones we have now actually fix depression in most cases they rarely

00:24:34.200 outperform placebos and in fact a cognitive behavioral therapy works both at least as well in the short term

00:24:42.040 and much better in the long term and has none of the really awful side effects right so really it's kind of

00:24:48.000 this misleading belief that we ever had these tools and that fundamentally depression was caused by this

00:24:54.580 weird imbalance in the first place i think serotonin and many other neurochemicals do play a role in this

00:25:01.300 state but i think ultimately the start of this cycle is the low self-esteem that when your belief about

00:25:08.880 yourself when your identity starts to decline that's like the fuel gauge in your car when it's running low

00:25:15.000 and that little light that turns on at the end is depression you get depressed as a way of saying

00:25:20.360 okay things are not working your identity is broken you don't need to be going out and bring a lot of

00:25:26.920 attention to yourself so stay home stop socializing it's the red light essentially and it's a natural

00:25:33.320 mechanism i think for doing that and so it is an adaptation from a genetic standpoint i believe that

00:25:41.080 doesn't mean that we want to experience it and in fact if we can avoid it i think by all means we

00:25:46.820 should but i think that means attending to our virtues and our identity and making sure that we

00:25:53.000 maintain a positive view of ourselves through our genuine actions not just through manipulating our

00:25:59.020 views but actually taking the actions that we would be proud of whenever we can yeah so the decreased

00:26:04.920 serotonin the decreased dopamine that's a result of depression you you feel bad about yours yeah it's a

00:26:10.600 symptom and the problem of just treating the symptom like increasing it artificially with

00:26:15.500 antidepressants you might feel good a little bit but then if you're not doing things that make you

00:26:20.160 admire yourself create a strong identity you're just going to feel bad again right away exactly and

00:26:26.200 that's why you know another tactic known as behavioral activation by some studies works even better than

00:26:31.820 cbt and it certainly outperforms antidepressants it seems so simple and so easy that it wouldn't work

00:26:38.720 but it actually really does it essentially is just getting you to go out and do things even if you

00:26:44.220 don't feel like it and specifically doing things that that gradually work towards embodying your values

00:26:50.720 starting small and climbing your way up gradually until you are doing things every day that you're

00:26:56.160 actually proud of yourself for this is a really huge underrated practice i think and there's a lot of

00:27:02.260 data suggesting it works as well as just about anything there's reason to think it might even

00:27:07.420 be a big part of why exercise seems to work so well it's not just that you're you know doing something

00:27:13.300 that's good for your body it's that you're doing something that's good for your own self-perception

00:27:17.740 you are giving yourself a reason to admire your own discipline if you're going out and working out

00:27:23.120 or it could be reading a book or going on a walk you know all these things that give you reason

00:27:28.220 to see oh i am an admirable person i do have these traits that i you know that i admire in others

00:27:34.280 and so really wherever you're at you need to start from there and then take baby steps and ask how can

00:27:40.880 i bring out more of my virtues how can i give myself more evidence of the kind of person that i am

00:27:46.220 we're going to take a quick break for your words from our sponsors

00:27:49.560 and now back to the show so i want to dig more into how we can use this virtue self-signaling theory to

00:28:00.420 create a flourishing life for ourself and you've mentioned some things already behavior activation

00:28:05.700 uh cognitive behavioral therapy but i think someone could see this thing as okay well look if

00:28:10.100 depression or our eudaimonia or flourishing is determined by this you know sociometer in our head

00:28:16.840 why can't we just hack it and just say why can't i just tell myself i'm awesome just tell your brain

00:28:21.900 like i'm awesome i'm great i'm you know like the stewart smallie i'm good enough i'm smart enough

00:28:27.320 gosh darn it people like me why doesn't that work yeah it seems like the perfect solution doesn't it but

00:28:34.620 um you know ultimately your brain's a little smarter than that i think um that's why it's really 0.91

00:28:40.940 primarily oriented around your behaviors i think you know there's a great goath quote that says like

00:28:47.100 if you want to know what kind of person you are never by thinking but always by doing do your duty

00:28:52.360 and and then you'll know what you're worth and so i think our brains really are wired to pay a lot of

00:28:58.580 attention to our actions and and there's a good reason for it because everyone else in our tribe is

00:29:03.440 going to judge us based on our actions if we just evaluate ourselves based on private thoughts that

00:29:09.140 we're having then it's not going to be a good representation of what our tribe thinks about us

00:29:13.640 and so really our brains are centered primarily around action now there are times when you definitely

00:29:19.040 have to go in and and correct distorted beliefs but i think primarily it does need to be about action

00:29:25.320 right you can tell yourself all day that you accept yourself exactly as you are that you approve of

00:29:31.040 yourself unconditionally you're perfect you don't need to do anything different and you may be able to

00:29:36.340 sort of influence a certain part of your self-esteem or explicit self-esteem but the data suggests we

00:29:42.180 can't really influence our implicit self-esteem we continue to feel the same way about ourselves

00:29:47.400 even after we add all these super superficial affirmations and tell ourselves we're the best

00:29:52.900 so our brains you know they're a little better than that they're saying okay maybe you are that kind

00:29:58.060 of person go out and prove it let me see evidence of it and so i think that's a big part of why

00:30:03.620 there's not that much evidence for the effectiveness of affirmations and mantras and and just really

00:30:09.740 you know inflating your self-esteem if anything that's a recipe for narcissism rather than eudaimonia

00:30:15.920 okay so you can't hack the sociometer in your brain through mantras and affirmations another solution

00:30:23.260 to hack this would be like okay well it's there how about i just say it doesn't matter i'll just

00:30:27.400 transcend it i'll you know just meditate and use philosophy to rise above that where it's no longer

00:30:33.020 an issue does that work yeah i mean this is one that's been echoed throughout many ancient philosophies

00:30:40.180 and now you hear it in pretty much every spiritual and self-help book it's all over the place transcend

00:30:45.820 your ego keep your identity small basically get rid of your sense of self if you can and i think there's

00:30:52.140 a lot to like about this approach i think it actually probably is a viable option i think it

00:30:57.360 is possible to essentially disable through gradual practice this part of your brain until you just

00:31:04.100 don't have a sense of self anymore the problem is that the sense of self is essentially the engine

00:31:09.700 behind both depression and eudaimonia it creates this really negative state of suffering when you don't

00:31:16.540 approve of yourself but it also creates this incredible mood state of self-satisfaction when

00:31:22.140 you do approve of yourself this is what we observe in really the happiest people according to positive

00:31:27.580 and humanistic psychology is that they are giving themselves reason to approve of themselves and then

00:31:34.000 they're you know enjoying the benefits of that and this can often be you know very altruistic endeavors

00:31:39.500 but ultimately they're they're self-serving at the same time they give us reason to admire ourselves

00:31:44.600 and that makes us happier so if we just try to disable our egos and escape our sense of self

00:31:50.540 but we're ultimately taking the batteries out of the happiness unhappiness engine in our brains we're

00:31:56.600 not going to be able to experience either of those states and while this essentially middle ground would

00:32:03.420 certainly be better than the sort of self-critical depressive state that a lot of people unfortunately find

00:32:09.380 themselves in i think there's a better state waiting and i've personally experienced it

00:32:14.040 at many points in my life where you really do approve of yourself and you most of those

00:32:19.280 self-referential thoughts in your head really are expressing pride and admiration i don't think we

00:32:25.260 should treat this like it's a dirty word and it's narcissism and we shouldn't like and approve of

00:32:31.240 ourselves because i think fundamentally our view of ourselves is tied to our happiness and we shouldn't

00:32:37.480 uh we shouldn't try to eliminate it i don't think no we've had a podcast about the psychology of

00:32:42.540 healthy pride there's a bad pride there's also a healthy pride that spurs us to do more and more

00:32:48.920 great good pro-social things yeah and pride really it's really two different things that we just use the

00:32:57.100 same word for you can have a kind of pride that's like hubris that's always the fatal flaw of people

00:33:03.220 where they just don't acknowledge their own limitations they essentially blind themselves to

00:33:08.260 their weaknesses and that's not a good thing we want to have a very accurate view of our strengths

00:33:13.020 and weaknesses we want to be able to say yeah i'm good at this and i'm proud of that but also

00:33:17.560 i'm bad at this and i'm not perfect and i should get better at this so ultimately yes when you are

00:33:23.400 living in a way that you would admire in someone else you should feel that pride you shouldn't be

00:33:27.900 ashamed of it but also you shouldn't let it blind you to your genuine weaknesses which we all have

00:33:33.500 so you argue if you want a flourishing life you need to become who you are what do you mean by that

00:33:41.020 yeah so that's a phrase attributed to friedrich nietzsche he talked about becoming who you are

00:33:47.580 in this very vague way that's hard to interpret and and it seems paradoxical at first like i already am

00:33:53.840 who i am you know mission accomplished but i think really what this comes down to is that there's a

00:33:59.620 certain way of thinking about yourself as the sort of conglomerate of your highest values and ideals

00:34:05.680 when you look at the people you most admire when you look at the impulses of admiration you feel

00:34:11.600 and the values that that you hold the most deeply you could say this template of your ideals is more you

00:34:17.920 than you are like you haven't fully become this template yet and ultimately if you're if you're living

00:34:23.760 your life well you you should be sort of saying how can i come to resemble this template in my actions

00:34:30.640 more and more throughout my life how can i bring together my strengths so that i gradually become

00:34:36.420 this person and in some ways that is becoming who you are this process of self-becoming is a process

00:34:42.660 of gradually decreasing the distance between your ideal self and your actual self so you mentioned

00:34:48.640 earlier how we can figure out what our strengths are what our virtues are in our virtue portfolio

00:34:52.980 there's quizzes you can take tests you can take anything that you've seen in your own life

00:34:57.760 that's been helpful in helping you figure out what your ideal self is yeah taking that test is great

00:35:05.700 that's a good way to figure out sort of what your innate strengths already are and generally doubling

00:35:11.400 down on your strengths is going to be better than trying to mitigate your weaknesses in a lot of cases

00:35:16.600 but i also think we need to look at the people around us we need to examine people in our lives

00:35:22.840 examine people you know historical figures even fictional characters anywhere that we can go

00:35:28.480 and find someone that we admire something about we don't have to admire everything about someone

00:35:33.560 we can write down you know specific traits like i admire the way this person handles conflict

00:35:39.260 even though i don't like this that they do and you know i admire how this person deals with

00:35:43.820 this situation and if we write these things down we we sort of gradually can group them

00:35:49.560 together we can create a kind of a blueprint for who we need to become and so we can strategize our

00:35:56.000 life according to this we can say like would this change in my life bring me closer to you know putting

00:36:02.440 myself on this piece of paper or would it move me further away i personally i developed a tool called

00:36:08.920 mindsight introspection cards which are essentially a deck of cards where you take one every day

00:36:15.880 you go on a walk and you write in this little pocket journal and gradually this is meant to sort

00:36:21.280 of answer a lot of these questions i think we have an introspective deficiency in the modern world

00:36:26.720 and most of us don't spend enough time alone with our thoughts and so this is kind of a way of getting

00:36:32.600 a collection of prompts that will gradually reveal more about who you are and who you need to become

00:36:38.540 to you particularly if you yeah if you don't spend a lot of time alone with your thoughts and if you do

00:36:43.620 tend to distract yourself with all the you know endless supply of entertainment that we have today

00:36:48.980 another just great thing to do in general is to ask people in your life ask your partner your parents

00:36:54.860 whoever people who have known you for a long time what do you think i'm best at what do you

00:37:00.160 see as my greatest strengths and very often they'll surprise you they'll tell you things you never thought

00:37:05.260 about and that'll give you some new insights into what you really need to be focusing on and sort of

00:37:12.000 designing your behavior toward yeah another thing that i've done in my life that's been useful for me

00:37:16.600 is looking back childhood high school years college years and thinking of those moments where i felt the

00:37:23.760 most me like the most alive the most invigorated and then analyzing those like what was it about that

00:37:29.600 thing that made me feel so great and usually you can figure out what it is you know for me

00:37:34.440 whenever i'm teaching or explaining things to people i feel really good and so i like leaning

00:37:39.940 into that so i think that's another useful exercise to figure out like reflect on what makes you feel

00:37:45.020 the most alive and the most the most flourishing absolutely yeah you know when we're talking about the

00:37:51.000 virtue portfolio i think going back through those historical charts and saying yeah when when was i at

00:37:57.100 a high when was i at the best sort of most alive most me like you said period and very often you'll

00:38:03.520 find it's when you did having an outlet for those top few strengths and similarly the lowest periods in

00:38:10.120 your life you very likely will find are the times that you really didn't have that outlet for one reason

00:38:14.680 or another those traits were suppressed or you thought you didn't have those strengths for one reason or

00:38:20.200 another so i think yeah thinking about that but also thinking about the times that you

00:38:24.260 really didn't feel like you that you you look back and you're like oh yeah i was i trying to be

00:38:29.360 someone else during that period what traits were you exhibiting what evokes disgust potentially in

00:38:34.980 people that you don't like and and how can you make sure you avoid those traits i think is an equally

00:38:40.720 effective exercise okay so instead of hacking the virtue self-signaling theory with mantras or just

00:38:48.280 trying to transcend it you argue we got to embrace it and figure out how we can make it work for us

00:38:53.240 so that we can put ourselves in situations where we admire ourselves more so we feel like we're

00:38:57.700 flourishing and we can avoid that depressive state and you introduce a tool i think is really useful

00:39:03.040 it's the abc triangle how can the abc triangle help us virtue self-signal to us more effectively

00:39:10.180 yeah so the this is a straight out of cognitive behavioral therapy essentially we've got our affect

00:39:17.480 which is our mood we've got behavior our actions and then cognition our thoughts and these have a

00:39:23.680 sort of a perpetual cycle relationship with one another so if we look at depression for example

00:39:29.940 we see a combination of low mood low activity and motivation and low self-regard or low self-esteem

00:39:38.220 and we can see how these feed into one another because if you're in a bad mood you're not going to feel

00:39:43.240 like doing anything which means you're not going to go out and and take a lot of actions that you're

00:39:47.540 proud of which means you're not going to have reason to admire yourself and you're going to develop these

00:39:52.160 negative beliefs and that's going to make you feel bad and so it's a vicious cycle essentially of negative

00:39:57.260 mood and action and beliefs about yourself so what can you do to reverse this cycle and create a fitting

00:40:04.840 you know virtuous cycle essentially and a lot of it is what we've been talking about here i mean

00:40:10.280 if you go into your beliefs and you identify oh i i thought i wasn't you know a creative person

00:40:17.480 but actually i was exhibiting this cognitive distortion that was all or nothing thinking

00:40:22.280 and actually it's much more accurate to say you know i'm creative in these ways but not this way

00:40:27.700 right if you go through a cognitive restructuring process that can be a really valuable way of sort of

00:40:34.340 a leverage point for changing that cycle but i would advise first and foremost to take the behavioral

00:40:39.700 activation approach and really this goes all the way up it starts at clinical depression and really

00:40:45.180 no matter where you're at even if you're generally satisfied in your life you can still apply this

00:40:50.360 principle of behavioral activation but essentially you want to break that cycle so that no matter how

00:40:56.300 you feel you make yourself go out and actually do things that at least to some degree show you what

00:41:03.580 kind of person you are and and how that aligns with your values so if you are you know severely

00:41:09.180 depressed and you're struggling to get out of bed each day you know you probably feel like there is a

00:41:14.380 million things you need to be doing that you just can't well replace those million things with one

00:41:19.840 thing or maybe two each day you're going to get out of bed you're going to take a shower right you

00:41:25.600 know if you're a little improved from there you can say okay each day i'm going to get out of bed take

00:41:29.800 shower clean up my room and do some dishes and then you can start introducing things that bring

00:41:35.160 out more of these admirable behaviors you can start introducing okay i'm going to call a friend for 30

00:41:40.480 minutes every day even though i don't feel like it i'm going to go on a hike even though i'd rather

00:41:45.040 stay in bed i'm going to make myself stick to this schedule every day and gradually you sort of claw

00:41:50.580 your way out of this vicious cycle and you can create a virtuous cycle in its place you can get to a

00:41:56.680 place where your positive mood is making you want to go out and do things which is making you feel

00:42:02.380 great about yourself and so on the cycle continues and so really we want to extend this all the way

00:42:08.400 up to the point of asking okay i'm already in a great place i'm in a great mood but i want to go

00:42:14.020 even higher how can i bring even more of my virtues together and and you know bring them to a higher

00:42:20.400 level than they've ever been before is that where the idea of virtue convergence comes in

00:42:25.040 yeah that's that's exactly it so essentially building a vessel for yourself where you can not

00:42:31.600 only bring out one or two of your strengths but concentrate a very high degree of them and the

00:42:36.540 best example of this that i know is my own you know designing the mind before i had started this

00:42:42.200 organization you know i i had a few you know good virtue domains i had a creative job i had a healthy

00:42:49.760 relationship but a lot of my greatest strengths didn't really have an outlet my wisdom my rationality

00:42:56.340 a big part of my ingenuity these are things that are really important to me and a lot of them were

00:43:01.280 sort of relegated to like occasional hobbies that i made time for once i built designing the mind i

00:43:08.760 gradually found ways to bring more and more of these things that i was good at together in one place

00:43:13.700 and that you know our virtues really become synergistic when we can do this and really

00:43:18.900 amplifies that virtuous cycle so now you know every day i am doing things that are giving me

00:43:25.000 evidence of the kind of person i was and it's a total 180 from you know the period i went through

00:43:30.300 several years ago where i was doubting a lot of these things and living through a lot of the stuff

00:43:35.080 that i'm talking about here with low self-esteem and depression okay so to activate our virtue

00:43:41.200 self-signaling theory in a flourishing way first thing you start off with just do more things that

00:43:47.380 are virtuous do more things that will make yourself admire yourself and that's going to vary from person

00:43:51.780 to person like you said if you're in that really depressed state it's going to be really small just

00:43:55.840 getting out of bed but as you progress it can be exercise every day i'm going to journal every day

00:44:01.120 i'm going to socialize once a week you mentioned it briefly but i want to dig into it a little bit

00:44:06.520 there's situations where you could be doing these admirable things these virtuous things

00:44:10.520 but it's not registering because your meter in your head is off yeah talk about that how can you

00:44:15.900 restructure that cognitive restructure and you've talked about what does that look like

00:44:19.880 yeah i think a big part of this is that we live in a very different world than the one our brains

00:44:26.380 evolved in you know we're getting evaluated sometimes based purely on how much we increase

00:44:32.460 profits at the company we work for or we're getting evaluated socially on social media networks

00:44:37.720 that are totally different from our actual in-person tribes that we had you know really close-knit like

00:44:43.720 lifelong tribes many years ago and so i think what this results in is our brains aren't always getting

00:44:51.220 the correct signals they're not always able to come to the right conclusions and we see this in cbt

00:44:57.240 we see it in the most common distortions that we see in depression pretty much everything that i've put

00:45:03.080 out there i've included this list from david burns is feeling good which is an excellent book mind over

00:45:09.580 mood is another great one for anyone who wants to dive into this process but essentially starting to

00:45:16.120 log your own thoughts starting to write down when you're in a bad mood and say what was i thinking just

00:45:23.180 before this what is the thought that popped into my head that made me go into this really awful mood

00:45:28.920 spiral and once you start doing this once once you've done it for a few weeks and you've written

00:45:33.460 down all of your moods and the thoughts associated with them you start noticing patterns you start

00:45:39.680 saying wow every time i've been in a bad mood this last couple of weeks it's been because i had a

00:45:44.580 thought like this where i was you know feeling like everyone was ignoring me or you know it'll vary

00:45:50.520 from one person to another but essentially finding those patterns in the thoughts that are triggering your

00:45:55.960 negative moods can be absolutely huge because if you find those major thought patterns and beliefs

00:46:02.840 that are causing most of your bad moods and you identify a flaw an error a distortion in those thoughts

00:46:10.020 which are almost always present you can just eliminate a huge chunk of your suffering instantly and so

00:46:17.340 really it comes down to examining those thoughts the way a scientist might and going in and saying

00:46:23.160 okay what's the evidence that this belief about myself is true what's the evidence that it's not

00:46:28.320 true and when you really take a a healthy approach to this you compile the evidence you know very often

00:46:34.440 you'll say actually there's a lot of conflicting evidence with this belief i have about myself i thought

00:46:39.960 i was you know totally incompetent but look at all these examples i have that i am really competent

00:46:45.000 actually i'm only like really occasionally incompetent and so by doing this process and particularly by

00:46:51.960 identifying the top cognitive distortions there's a list of 10 that i think everyone should you know

00:46:58.020 look into you can gradually start catching your brain making these self-critical mistakes now like

00:47:04.980 i've said it's not always a mistake i think there are times when our beliefs about ourselves are true

00:47:09.700 and that's when we have to make sure to change our behavior but there are also times when yeah we have

00:47:15.500 a totally distorted belief and everyone can see it except for us and cognitive restructuring is the

00:47:20.400 process of getting to where you can see it the way everyone else can yeah and that's what a therapist

00:47:25.040 does they're there to act as that scientist that disinterested person like let's look at the evidence 1.00

00:47:30.780 here like you say you're a piece of crap but let's look at are you really a piece of crap and then 0.99

00:47:34.860 they're going to help you figure out no actually i'm not a piece of crap i mean i'm i do some things 1.00

00:47:39.300 that aren't great sometimes but most time i'm a solid guy but you can also do this on your own

00:47:44.480 there's a lot of great books like you mentioned them that can guide you through these exercises where you

00:47:47.920 can do this with yourself and you know journaling can play a role in that so what do you hope people

00:47:52.160 walk away with after they finish your book what's the big takeaway you think there's a lot but i think

00:47:58.460 the biggest is that ultimately there are a lot of people sort of trying to tell you how you should

00:48:03.920 live your life how someone of your group should be living and ultimately i think it's it's safe to

00:48:10.040 pretty much tune those things out and and start trusting your own compass you've got a compass

00:48:15.120 inside your head that points directly toward the things that you admire most that you value in

00:48:21.360 other people and that's telling you how to live and direct and navigate your life you just need to get

00:48:27.600 better at listening to it and doing those things that will actually take you further in that direction

00:48:32.460 so i think you know getting better at listening to and and actually trusting that voice of admiration

00:48:39.100 you know ultimately well-being can be a lot simpler than i think we make it out to be there's a million

00:48:45.580 little habits people tell you to do to to be optimally happy but ultimately i think the big one

00:48:51.820 comes down to doing the things that earn your own admiration and following those ideals that are

00:48:57.980 inscribed in your own brain wherever they lead so we're taking control of that sociometer in our heads

00:49:04.240 that motivates us to do what the tribe values and really thinking about what we ourselves

00:49:10.720 value and admire and in living in accordance with those values sounds like what ralph waldo emerson

00:49:16.800 yeah yeah there's a lot of a lot of parallels there well ryan this has been a great conversation where

00:49:23.400 can people go to learn more about the book and your work yeah i really enjoyed it too um the best place

00:49:28.600 to go is designingthemind.org becoming if you can put that in the show notes that that will give you

00:49:34.560 the link to get the new book for one but you can also get a couple of my previous books for free sent

00:49:40.740 right to your inbox if you go there and you can also get the psychotech sent to your inbox every

00:49:46.100 saturday so uh yeah fantastic well ryan bush thanks for time it's been a pleasure thanks so much

00:49:52.320 my guest today was ryan bush he's the author of the book become who you are it's available on amazon.com

00:49:57.640 you can find more information about his work at his website designingthemind.org

00:50:01.740 also check out our show notes at aom.is become where you find links to resources and we delve

00:50:06.460 deeper into this topic well that wraps up another edition of the aom podcast make sure to check out

00:50:18.220 our website at artofmanliness.com where you find our podcast archives as well as thousands of articles

00:50:22.260 that we've written over the years about pretty much anything you think of and if you haven't done

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00:50:36.640 continued support until next time's brett mckay reminding you to listen to the aom podcast but put

00:50:40.980 what you've heard into action

00:50:42.420 you

The Art of Manliness - April 01, 2024

Want to Be Happy？ Give Yourself Reasons to Admire Yourself

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