Valuetainment - Psychopath vs Sociopath - Psychologist Explains Which Does Better In Business

00:00:00.240 If you look at the movie Joker, he's much more of a sociopath.

00:00:04.800 If you look at the movie Iron Man, we can argue he might be more of a psychopath,

00:00:10.640 especially the first few ones. He's a bit more cold towards other people.

00:00:14.320 He can be a bit more data-driven. Psychopath and sociopath. What is the difference?

00:00:19.600 Psychopaths are people who have less empathy towards others, but far more common than they

00:00:25.840 realize. Sociopaths are people who have done things like really horrific breaking the law,

00:00:32.640 people who have committed murders, people who are serial murderers, those kind of things.

00:00:36.800 What are your thoughts about what happened the last 12 months with COVID and the side effects

00:00:39.920 to parents and kids? COVID's been called the great clarifier. This past year with this pandemic,

00:00:45.280 everyone's lost something, whether it's a person or a way of life. Our system is kind of broken and

00:00:52.240 we need to be fixing the system so the stability of our life can come back as soon as possible.

00:00:58.240 That's how we cope with the stress of COVID.

00:01:04.640 My guest today is Dr. Ali Matu, who is a psychologist. He's also got his own show called

00:01:09.760 The Psych Show. He's been the co-host on PBS's Self Evident, an expert on Netflix and Vox,

00:01:17.280 The Mind Explained Anxiety, HBO's Doctor Commentaries, and A&E's The Employables. He's been featured

00:01:24.720 all over the place. His expertise is in treating panic disorder, social anxiety disorder, generalized

00:01:31.600 anxiety disorder, phobias, hair pulling, skin picking. Even if you are scared of bees,

00:01:37.760 he specializes in that. So with that being said, Dr. Ali, thank you so much for being a guest on

00:01:42.960 by entertainment. Patrick, thank you for having me. I'm excited to talk to you today.

00:01:47.920 You know, it's funny, when we were pre- us recording, I said, listen, if this

00:01:51.280 doctor stuff doesn't work out for you, you can go into modeling and acting. You got that

00:01:54.720 unique little look going for yourself, man. You got a good look.

00:01:57.680 Can you go back in time about 30 years and tell my childhood version of that? That saved me a lot of

00:02:04.640 years of- Hey kid, I think instead of being a doctor, you ought to go into Hollywood. I think you're

00:02:09.280 going to be like the Omar Sharif type of a guy if you go into it. I don't know. Anyways,

00:02:13.600 listen, it's good to have you on. You know, I watch your video, the one on YouTube, one of our girls

00:02:19.680 brought it in and she said, I think we need to have him on. And I'm watching, I watch it once,

00:02:23.920 twice. I mean, the way you break it down, all the different personalities of movies,

00:02:28.320 I think that things got over 8 million, maybe 10 million views today. And it is a topic that,

00:02:34.800 you know, we hear a lot about today, but the area I'd want to focus today with all these different

00:02:40.800 issues is how it links up with business and overly successful people in the world, whether it's

00:02:48.880 business, politics, military, I'm talking the obsessive driven people at the highest level.

00:02:56.400 And I'm going to bring them some articles here that talks about how the link between mental illness

00:03:00.800 and success. But prior to getting into this, I want to know, you know, if you don't mind sharing

00:03:05.200 with the audience, how did you wake up one day saying, you know, I don't know what I want to be

00:03:09.760 a psychologist one day. How did that experience take place for you? It didn't happen like that.

00:03:14.800 Um, Patrick, I was, um, um, I didn't know what I wanted to do with my life growing up. I, um, I love

00:03:22.880 riding my bike. I love playing video games. I love playing street fighter with my brother. Um, I was, uh,

00:03:29.520 I was really into, uh, science fiction. I love star Trek. I love star Wars, but, uh, I didn't really

00:03:36.080 have any big dreams about the future. You know, my, um, I grew up in Northern California and, um,

00:03:41.600 my parents were immigrants. And so I, I often got the message, like be a doctor, like be, be a physician.

00:03:49.040 Um, you know, go, go treat some people, heal some people. But, um, I don't know that didn't really,

00:03:56.000 that side of things didn't click for me. And then I thought, okay, like all my, um,

00:04:00.880 everyone around me is an engineer at Silicon Valley. Maybe I'll go into that. I took one

00:04:05.280 computer science class, Patrick, and I flunked that class, man. I was, I couldn't think like

00:04:12.160 logically in terms of like numbers and order. And, um, I wasn't a good high school student either.

00:04:18.880 I, um, I almost flunked out of high school. I just didn't really care about anything. So I went to

00:04:23.600 community college and I was a big slacker. I waited till the last minute to register for classes.

00:04:29.600 One of the only classes left open was introductory psychology. Cause it's this,

00:04:33.920 it's a big class, like 80 plus people. And it satisfied my, my general education requirements.

00:04:40.800 I took it and I never, I'll never forget that first day is professor Gosling. He broke down

00:04:48.240 all these myths we have about the mind and the brain and our behavior. And I was hooked. I was

00:04:57.120 hooked. He gave me a way, a scientific way of understanding all the junk that happened in my

00:05:04.080 life, you know, and in the world around me, 18. Okay. Got 18. And I just started taking more of those

00:05:13.680 classes. And, um, my girlfriend at the time, now my wife, she's like, maybe you should major in this.

00:05:19.760 And I'm like, what are you gonna, what can I do with psychology? That's not, that's not a career.

00:05:24.880 Um, and I, I just took more of those classes. I talked to more of those professors and eventually

00:05:29.760 I realized, Hey, this is, this is the thing for me. I like working with people. I really like the

00:05:35.360 science. I like understanding things this way. Maybe there's something I can do with it.

00:05:39.280 So I became a doctor and not the kind of doctor my parents wanted originally. Um, when I told my

00:05:44.080 dad, I was going to get a PhD and go into psychology, he said, beta, you know what PhD means. Right.

00:05:50.560 And I said, no. And he said, poor hungry doctor. And then he said, you know what MD stands for.

00:05:56.080 Right. And I'm like, no dad, but I'm probably not going to like it. And he said, money doctor.

00:06:00.080 So you sure you want to do this thing? Wow.

00:06:02.720 He's come around now. He's come along now, but yeah, I bet. I mean, obviously you're in a different place today.

00:06:09.600 But yeah, that's a story.

00:06:12.080 Now, let me ask you this now, you know, when, when you hear, uh, I'm just writing this note,

00:06:17.520 poor, hungry doctor, money doctor, when you're, when you're, when I hear stories of people that

00:06:23.200 end up taking a topic and they go a deeper layer and deeper and deeper and deeper, there's typically a

00:06:30.080 personal experience, something that happened to them that makes them want to go to a place like that.

00:06:34.560 I know you personally had an experience in your personal life. How much of what happened there

00:06:39.440 with you and your brother, with the influence he had on you, you guys playing video games to get

00:06:42.960 to watch and star Trek with them when you were a kid, I think it's like nine years older than you,

00:06:47.040 the age difference. So as an older, how much of that had influence of you wanting to go figure this

00:06:52.640 thing out the brain out, it had a lot and a little. Okay. So, um, my, my brother growing

00:07:02.960 up always, always encouraged my, my interests and he always was exposing me to different things.

00:07:11.600 He was exposing me to computers. He's the one who got me interested in science fiction and science

00:07:17.920 fiction is all about these questions of who we are, what we do and all of that sort of stuff.

00:07:22.320 I think it's because of all those questions of science fiction that, that I was interested in

00:07:27.040 psychology. Like my brother and I would stay up late all the time talking about these movies. We

00:07:32.720 saw plenty of the apes. We would talk about the originals. Now I'm not talking about like the new 0.74

00:07:37.680 ones. I'm talking about the old school ones with the makeup that kind of doesn't look all that great

00:07:42.320 nowadays, but we would talk about those. And we're like, why, why are they treating people this way?

00:07:47.600 Like, where does this inhumanity come from? You know, are we that different than animals? What makes

00:07:53.840 us different? My, my brother and I, we'd stay up late talking about these things over and over,

00:07:58.880 trying to figure things out. We talk about Star Trek, like, how can we get to this better future?

00:08:04.560 You know, we, we talk about, um, we, we talk about so many things. We watched the movie Alien and we

00:08:10.080 talk about like, why was it so scary? Why was it so terrifying? So those conversations were,

00:08:16.240 we're, we're, it gave me the foundation for when I got to take psychology that all these questions

00:08:23.120 that we never got answers for, boom, we got, we got now a science that answers these things.

00:08:28.880 So in that way, my brother was incredibly influential. The other thing though, too, is,

00:08:36.960 you know, I grew up as a very anxious kid. Um, when I was, uh, in kindergarten and went to school for

00:08:42.640 the first time I had, I didn't realize at the time, no one did around me and my family,

00:08:47.840 but I had selective mutism, which means in certain situations I didn't talk. It's like someone pressed

00:08:53.520 the mute button on me and, um, they put me in ESL because they thought I couldn't speak English.

00:09:01.040 They didn't realize it was anxiety. Um, that, that turned into social anxiety. And when I got to middle

00:09:07.360 school, it turned into depression. And eventually in high school, I had a great teacher that helped

00:09:12.320 me to overcome a lot of my anxiety. Um, but my brother's role was, was huge in that. And, um, but

00:09:19.840 my, my brother, you know, we didn't realize at the time, but he, he had undiagnosed bipolar disorder.

00:09:27.040 And, um, when I was in grad school studying psychology, he ended up taking his own life.

00:09:32.240 Um, we lost him and then he had another impact on me. Um, after he died, um, there's two things

00:09:41.760 that I sort of committed myself to one is I wanted to help other people who, um, might be in similar

00:09:49.360 situations as my brother. Um, but the other thing is I wanted to, all the lessons he shared with me,

00:09:57.040 all the things he helped me to discover. I wanted to celebrate those things. You know, I wanted to,

00:10:02.800 um, I wanted to speak out publicly for all the other kids that were into all these geeky things

00:10:09.040 that, um, at the time weren't that cool. And I wanted to make it cool to love and discover

00:10:14.720 and understand these things. Now we're in a different world now, comic books and all this,

00:10:18.880 it's all like, you know, it's the thing. But, um, when I speak up about this kind of stuff,

00:10:24.320 I'd like to think I'm kind of honoring all those late night discussions we had, uh, together.

00:10:29.600 You know, when I, when I, when you say that to me and I visualize it, I think about it like,

00:10:34.880 here's a guy that's nine years older than you, that doesn't talk to you like you're a kid. It's

00:10:38.800 like the ultimate older brother. He talks to you like you're a, you know, a, uh, grown man,

00:10:45.120 which a boy, you want somebody to talk to you like you're grown. You want that kind of a respect.

00:10:49.200 So it's, it's, it's a great seeing that, but as a person who's a psychologist, who at that time,

00:10:55.760 at 25, you started at 18. Did you already have 25 finished schooling or you're not done yet?

00:11:01.360 Uh, no, no, I, um, 18. Um, I was at community college, um, 20. I transferred to UCLA. I got my

00:11:13.280 bachelor's degree. After that, I went straight to get my PhD. I got my PhD at Catholic university

00:11:19.680 of America in DC. I was there for about, um, six years. Um, it was supposed to be a five-year

00:11:28.320 program. Patrick took me seven. And part of it is I had, I had a lot of growing up to do there,

00:11:34.560 but then part of it is also, that's when my brother died too. Um, so it took me seven years.

00:11:39.520 And my last year, my training was in New York, um, at Bellevue hospital. And then in 2012, um,

00:11:48.880 is when no. Yeah. Yeah. I think, I think 2012 is when I wrapped up everything. And so I was,

00:11:56.800 I was 30 at the time. At 30, you wrap up everything. So while you're going through this

00:12:01.800 and you're, and you're becoming a psychologist and you have a personal, you know, hero of yours,

00:12:07.300 a lot of yours that's going through this, how are you dealing with grief when you're going through

00:12:11.920 it? And now I bet, you know, at this age where you are, you probably dealt with a lot of people

00:12:15.920 who are going through grief. And the reason why I'm asking this question for you, it's so random how

00:12:19.080 your interview popped up as this week, a couple of weeks ago, we're in Hawaii. We took 450 of our

00:12:25.160 guys there. And, you know, we leave Hawaii. A couple of our guys decides to stay. One of our guys,

00:12:31.280 his name is Sebastian, who just had a set of twins with his wife, Layla. And another guy named

00:12:35.600 Angelo, who's one of our studs coming up quality guy. These guys decide to go and look at one of

00:12:40.520 the falls. Well, you know, long story short, flash floods comes, they get stuck. And next thing you

00:12:46.840 know, it leads to a fall of 200. It's a pretty tragic situation. And both of them end up losing

00:12:53.620 their lives. Okay. In Hawaii. What made it very complicated with this is on one, we didn't find that

00:13:01.480 about the loss for a week. The other one, the body's not been found till today. And it's been

00:13:06.680 several weeks, right? As we're going, Maui's constantly reporting it and updating it. I watched,

00:13:12.140 I spoke to the brother, Sebastian's brother, Nico, who have a very good relationship. I've known these

00:13:16.740 kids for 13 years. They're grown men now. Both of them are parents. Obviously, one of them is not with

00:13:21.360 us. And I watched Angelo, who passed away, his brother, Diego, and his family give a speech at

00:13:27.720 one of the, what do you call it, funerals that was being hosted in LA, in Southern California.

00:13:37.360 And I watched the brother talk about it and the parents give a speech. And it's a different when

00:13:42.700 you lose your friend. It's a different when you lose your father. It's a different thing when you lose

00:13:46.760 a child watching the parents going through it. Mother couldn't even talk to me when we're speaking

00:13:51.340 on a Sunday, which I totally understand. And it's a different when it's a sibling. Now that this has

00:13:56.680 gone, you were 25 when this happened. He was 34, 2012, you're 30. So add nine years, you're 39 right

00:14:03.900 now. It's been 14 years since the event. Obviously, 14 years, you've been able to heal. Nothing goes away

00:14:09.440 permanently. That is a scar that stays for a long time because it is a brother. What could you share with

00:14:14.500 others who are going through this, that when you're in it, what phases does a person go through and

00:14:20.320 what is the best methodology to, you know, go through your healing process? Yeah. Well, I'm so

00:14:27.140 sorry for your, your team's loss. I mean, that is, that's a really tragic situation. And the, the thing

00:14:34.740 about grief and look, we got, we all got some kind of grief right now. You know, this, this past year

00:14:42.660 with this pandemic, we've, many of us have lost people, but all of us have lost a way of life.

00:14:49.300 You know, people have lost businesses. People have lost, you know, kids are out of school.

00:14:54.580 Like some are going back in, but like the kids lost their, their summer. They lost a graduation.

00:15:01.000 They lost their prom. They lost all, like everyone's lost something, whether it's a person or a way of life.

00:15:06.340 And grief is what it does is it makes, it makes all your emotions super charged. It makes them

00:15:15.860 incredibly powerful. And the thing about grief is there's no one emotion that pops up. Sometimes

00:15:23.820 there's going to be anger. Sometimes there's going to be sadness. Sometimes there's going to be anxiety.

00:15:28.660 How am I going to get through my life without this person in my, in my life? Sometimes it's,

00:15:33.300 it's jealousy. Sometimes it's guilt. Like, why didn't I do more? You know, it's whatever emotion

00:15:39.200 you're experiencing, it's normal for grief. And it's going to be supercharged. It's going to be

00:15:44.180 far more powerful than, than it ever was before you lost this person. The thing about grief,

00:15:50.160 it's not about forgetting the person. It's not about moving on from the loss. It's about finding

00:15:58.080 some way to be plugged into your life right now without getting overwhelmed by all the emotions.

00:16:05.960 That's what it's about. It's about finding some way to remember without getting overwhelmed. So let

00:16:13.420 me, let me tell you what I went through. Yeah. Yeah. The math is right there. My, I was 25. My brother

00:16:19.040 was 34 when he died and I was in the middle of grad school. And, um, I, I kind of went into,

00:16:26.440 to crisis mode. Like I couldn't, I couldn't talk about him. I, I took all my pictures down of,

00:16:34.180 of us together. Um, when I was around other people, I pretend when I was, when I met new people,

00:16:40.980 I pretended like I was an only child. Um, cause it was too overwhelming for me to think about him,

00:16:49.640 to talk about him. And suicide is one of these forms of death that, um, we often call a complicated

00:16:56.980 grief because it brings up, it's almost much more like a trauma. Like it, it, it incredibly seismically

00:17:04.880 changes your views on yourself and the world and other people. So for me, it was, it was many years

00:17:13.700 of not talking and not thinking about, about him. And slowly I was able to share more of what I was

00:17:22.340 going through with, um, with my very close friends, with my girlfriend, and then slowly and slowly with

00:17:30.080 more people. I was also seeing a therapist at that time with, uh, with that therapist, I was able

00:17:34.800 to share more. And over time talking about him became less overwhelming, but that's the thing

00:17:43.300 about, about grief is, you know, um, not everyone has to go through a traumatic grief process, but,

00:17:50.180 um, some people will need to cope with it by not talking about the loss. Some people will need to

00:17:57.020 cope with it by talking about the loss. Some people will want to give a speech. Some people will want to

00:18:02.580 write a poem. Some people will want to put all the pictures together. Others will want to put them

00:18:06.920 all the way. There's no right way because there's no one emotion that pops up, but they're all

00:18:12.860 overwhelming. So you got to do what you need to do to, to live today. And that's, that's the thing about

00:18:23.360 grief is finding a way to live with today without getting overwhelmed by these emotions. And with time,

00:18:30.320 the emotions will become less intense. And then with time, that person can, can be more a part of

00:18:36.840 your memories and more a part of your life right now. You know, it's interesting. You say that I,

00:18:41.720 I, uh, I look at how people, how we go to funerals at 20, how much of a more impact that has on us

00:18:49.100 emotionally. And you go to a funeral with somebody who was in their seventies and eighties. And to them,

00:18:53.680 it's just a funeral. And then I ask why, why are you like, why is it not a big deal to you? And my

00:19:00.420 dad will say, buddy, I've been to hundreds of funerals. What are you talking about? Like, you

00:19:03.780 know, you know how many times these I've gone through. It's a part of life. I'm just letting

00:19:07.540 you know, my time is coming here. So, and hopefully you getting ready with it. So it's, it's, it's funny

00:19:11.860 how life works. Not funny. It's interesting how life works that in our twenties, we attend college

00:19:18.700 graduations, weddings in our thirties, we go to kids, you know, birthday party, all this other

00:19:24.340 stuff. And we hear about divorces. Your best friend got a divorce. I never thought he would

00:19:27.360 get a divorce. I never thought she would get a divorce. And then once that number turns 40, you

00:19:30.940 start attending a lot of funerals, but it's different when you start doing that early on in

00:19:34.280 your twenties. And it's somebody that's that close. I appreciate you sharing that with us. Hopefully

00:19:38.240 for the people that, uh, experienced that directly, you took a lot away from that. That was very,

00:19:42.860 very helpful. So let's, let's kind of transition out to COVID. And you brought that up before I go

00:19:48.580 into this topic. I think this is another important issue to talk about in the last 12 months, you

00:19:53.360 know, as a financial expert, you look at the economy based on what we're going through right

00:19:57.780 now. And you go back and try to find trends and research on how the market reacted when it

00:20:02.220 happened before we have a COVID pandemic. How do we react on the last 10 pandemics before we got a

00:20:07.020 mortgage, you know, crash on bubble. We go back and study it, right? For you as a psychologist,

00:20:12.380 the number one topic to study, I would guess maybe a top three topic to study is the side effects

00:20:18.360 of pandemic to parents emotionally who are accustomed to not having the kids eight to

00:20:24.940 five, eight to three, they go to school, we pick them up as well as kids who were accustomed to

00:20:30.180 having that break from parents and they're around their peers. Now they have to stay home. Conflict's

00:20:35.200 a little higher between parents, conflict's a little higher between kids with parents, parents with

00:20:40.100 kids. What do you see the residual effects of this? And what feedback could you give to parents

00:20:45.520 to be able to come back to being normal? You know, the whole thing, we're going back to normal.

00:20:49.680 What are your thoughts about what happened last 12 months with COVID and the side effects to parents

00:20:53.220 and kids? Yeah, I got a lot of thoughts about that. And just like you do as a financial expert,

00:20:58.880 you look at past trends. The very first thing I did about a year ago, when the pandemic was really

00:21:05.380 starting, when things were really starting to shut down, is looking to see at past pandemics. Now,

00:21:11.180 we don't have much data on the 1918 flu pandemic in terms of mental health. That's not something

00:21:18.820 people were really dragging back then. But we do have some data on SARS, on the SARS outbreak

00:21:24.280 in Asia that happened in the early 2000s. And a few things that stood out from that research

00:21:34.120 is the psychological impact of SARS and the disruption of that lasted for years. Particularly

00:21:42.360 a lot of people who developed SARS experienced a lot of stigma, a lot of guilt. They had a hard time

00:21:49.980 talking about it. The guilt was about, did I get other people sick? Did I cause other people to get

00:21:56.200 ill and die? And it was a very hard thing for people to talk about. And we're still sort of kind

00:22:03.280 of in the thick of it. There's some hope with the vaccines, you know, there's some hope that we're

00:22:07.980 going to get this thing under control. But who knows that we got these variants. So it's still

00:22:12.120 kind of up in the air. So we're still kind of in the middle of this. But one of the things I want

00:22:16.820 people to know is there's no vaccine for the psychological impact of COVID. And we're, we're

00:22:24.680 going to, we're learning the long term psychological effects too. A lot of folks who have had COVID

00:22:29.540 have difficulty focusing. They have a hard time with their attention and memory. We don't know

00:22:35.880 the long term psychological impact of it just in terms of the illness. But we also don't know the

00:22:41.260 long term psychological impact of having COVID of, of what it's going to be like on the other end of

00:22:47.560 it. But you talked about parents, you talked about kids, you know, and, and even people who are single

00:22:55.160 and don't have kids. One of the biggest things that happened here with the pandemic is we lost the most

00:23:02.760 stabilizing part of our lives. We lost our work. We lost school. We lost seeing friends and family.

00:23:13.900 We lost looking forward to holidays, whatever holiday you celebrate. One of the things that,

00:23:20.540 that it does is man, I can't wait for Memorial day. My family, we get this big barbecue. It's awesome.

00:23:27.680 I can't wait for July 4th. I can't wait for the summer thing. I can't wait for the holidays,

00:23:32.420 Thanksgiving. It's when you're dealing with a ton of stuff, a lot of times having something to look

00:23:39.440 forward to can get you through some of the grind. And we lost all of that. We lost the stability

00:23:46.520 of our day-to-day lives. And we lost the hope of something to look forward to. There's no one,

00:23:53.940 you know, Patrick, I did one of the most depressing things I think you can do right now.

00:23:58.440 It's something I did a few weeks ago. I went back and I looked at my emails from March and April,

00:24:03.960 man. I don't know if your emails were like mine, but a lot of them were like, yeah,

00:24:07.220 let's cancel it for now. Let's check back in a couple of weeks when things get back to normal.

00:24:11.960 Couple of weeks.

00:24:13.360 Right. It never happened. It never happened. But that was, that was a lot of the mentality. And

00:24:19.940 then we kind of got into the summer and we're like, yeah, we're going to be in this for the,

00:24:23.800 for, for a while. So with students, what we're now getting some pretty good research on what,

00:24:32.360 what happened to them in 2020. And, um, what we know, um, COVID has been called the great clarifier

00:24:40.560 and it's clarified a lot of things. Um, a lot of the students that have less resources,

00:24:45.800 they've been impacted by this way more. So, um, my, uh, one of my cousins is a elementary school

00:24:52.960 teacher. She teaches kindergarten and she's telling me, Ali, I got, I got some, some of my students,

00:25:00.140 um, their family, they got three kids, they got one laptop. How, how are they all, all those kids

00:25:06.660 supposed to go to school, you know, or another, um, another one of my families, they don't have

00:25:11.060 good access to wifi. So they're, they're hanging out at McDonald's trying to get on classes. So not

00:25:16.960 every student has had equal access to online instruction. So that's problem. Number one, um,

00:25:24.660 problem number two is, um, even those who have good access, um, they, um, they might not be dealing

00:25:34.840 with, um, you know, they might be able to attend classes and all this stuff, but attention and focus

00:25:41.800 is something we're seeing. This is some research looking at college students. They've had a real

00:25:47.300 hard time maintaining focus, um, being on zoom classes all day long. So I'm on meetings all day.

00:25:55.420 I get it, but I can turn, I can turn my, my camera off. I can take breaks. I'm an adult. I got a little

00:26:02.060 bit more flexibility. A lot of these kids don't. Um, there's been a lot of research now coming out

00:26:07.340 about why, why is being online and zoom or Google meet FaceTime, whatever you're using, why is it so

00:26:14.500 overwhelming? And some folks are talking about it's intimacy overload. You're seeing another

00:26:19.540 person's face like blown up all day long. You know, they're looking at you all day long. We're

00:26:24.720 not designed for that. Usually when we hang out in person or in class at work, we look at each other.

00:26:30.800 We take breaks. We think about it. We kind of come back, but this, this is not really how humans

00:26:37.180 interact. So we know that attention is really challenging for a lot of kids on online instruction.

00:26:44.500 And, um, that's, that's the, that's the second big problem is, is attention has been really

00:26:50.300 difficult for, for a lot of kids. And the third thing I want to say is, so we got access problems.

00:26:55.540 We have attention problems. The third thing I want to say is any kid that was, uh, struggling

00:27:02.840 before with school, um, they've, they've really been challenged here, whether it's because of a

00:27:09.020 learning, um, uh, a learning disorder, or maybe it's because their anxiety, their depression,

00:27:14.500 whatever it's, whatever's going on. We've seen rates of, um, there's data now that shows that

00:27:20.940 over 2020, there was a big spike in self-injury among teenagers. So cutting themselves, burning

00:27:28.320 themselves, these kinds of things, these really spiked. We saw substance use really spiking, uh,

00:27:33.920 among teenagers. So, um, it's, it's all of these things. And I think it kind of, when we look at

00:27:39.760 it kind of makes sense that like for, uh, when it comes to access the kids who have the least

00:27:45.840 for school was kind of the biggest stabilizing force for them. Um, and for, um, in terms of

00:27:53.460 attention, we're not built for these kinds of things. We do much better in an in-person classroom

00:27:58.620 environment. And when it comes to learning differences, anxiety, depression, all of these

00:28:03.960 kinds of things, um, we took away all the peer support, you know, being able to see your friends,

00:28:09.260 your friends, being able to check in on you. Hey man, you doing okay. You don't look that great.

00:28:13.420 Um, teachers being able to, to check in on you. Um, one of the biggest, there's this idea of resiliency,

00:28:19.700 which is your ability to bounce back when you deal with a setback, your ability to, to recover from it.

00:28:27.040 That's resiliency. And, um, one of the biggest things about resiliency for kids is having

00:28:33.420 a trusted relationship with an adult who is not in your family, who's not your mom and dad. Um,

00:28:40.300 and for a lot of kids, it's teachers, it's coaches, it's those kinds of folks. And I've talked to a lot

00:28:46.380 of teachers and coaches. I've done workshops for them this past year. And a lot of them have told me,

00:28:50.940 Ali, I just don't know how they're doing. I can't tell all these kids on their screen. They all

00:28:56.960 look the same and none of them look good. You know, I don't know how they're doing. How am I

00:29:01.520 supposed to tell, you know? So it's, it's all of that. And don't even get me started on being a

00:29:07.060 parent right now. And, you know, some parents are lucky enough to work from home. How are you going

00:29:12.620 to work from home full time and make sure your kid is in school online? How are you going to do that?

00:29:18.860 And then, and then the parents who've lost work, um, you know, people ask me like, Ali, how, how do,

00:29:25.500 how should we cope with, um, with the stress of COVID? And I say, make sure everyone's, um, who,

00:29:32.900 who needs it's getting unemployment benefits. Make sure we can open up as responsibly and as quickly

00:29:38.740 as possible. Make sure we get these vaccines out to everyone. Let's get these schools open in a safe

00:29:43.820 way. That's how you deal with the stress. You know, I'm not going to teach you a deep breathing

00:29:48.600 technique to cope with this. Our system is kind of broken and we need to be fixing the system.

00:29:55.760 So people, so the stability of our life can come back as soon as possible. You know, that's,

00:30:01.620 that's how we cope with the stress of COVID. Yeah. And, and let me, let me ask you when you

00:30:06.000 go to school and you went to school for this for a long time, how often do you guys study the event

00:30:10.860 of a 1929 market crash to kids 10, 20 years later, the event of a world war two to kids,

00:30:18.600 10, 20 years later, the event of, you know, kids growing up in a very poor family, sharing

00:30:24.720 a bread with three other siblings, the side effects of it, five, 10 years later, no wonder,

00:30:29.560 you know, the generation that came from the great depression are so scared constantly of spending

00:30:34.620 money. So they're savers and they're so worried because everything's going to be taken away

00:30:38.600 from them. How much do you guys study that? And if that is the case, what, what is the effects

00:30:43.060 of this 10 years from now? I'm not really interested in right now, but is there a way

00:30:47.540 of measuring on what's going to happen 10 years from now, 20 years from now to kids as well

00:30:52.400 as parents? Yeah, that's a great question. So that's, that's a real wonderful question.

00:30:58.740 So that speaks to research on trauma. And when we look at trauma, there's a lot that's been

00:31:06.000 studied from World War Two. There's a lot that's been studied, a lot of research that's been

00:31:12.720 studied on veterans, and the Vietnam War and, and refugees and global crises. So there's a lot

00:31:21.380 of research we can bring in from, from trauma. And what we know about trauma is it affects adults

00:31:27.560 differently than it affects kids. One of the ways in which it affects adults, the stereotype

00:31:34.700 of trauma is, is something like post traumatic stress disorder. Someone goes to war, they

00:31:40.980 experience something horrific, they come back, they're having flashbacks of it, they're always

00:31:45.600 on guard, always on edge, things like that. The traditional idea is something happens to

00:31:52.020 you. And now you're experiencing this trauma. And it's, it's very much what we think of as

00:31:56.620 episodic that this one thing happened. And now you're experiencing this. For kids, it's

00:32:01.180 different. And for for kids, how trauma impacts them is like I was saying before about grief,

00:32:12.020 and grief kind of supercharges your emotions. What happens for trauma and kids is it does. It does

00:32:20.120 make their emotions more intense. It makes it easier for the emotions to skyrocket. And it takes

00:32:28.500 them longer to calm down. So think of it like this. It's like having a car where you got a real powerful

00:32:35.460 accelerator, and pretty bad brakes. That's kind of what trauma does to kids. And if if that trauma happens

00:32:43.640 for a real long period of time, it can really change how they view themselves. So kids who go

00:32:52.840 through trauma, they might grow up and think that they're dumb, they might think they're stupid, they

00:32:58.920 might think they're unworthy. And people might label it anxiety, depression, these kind of things. But

00:33:04.980 at the heart of it might be a long term trauma they experience. So when we look at kids right now,

00:33:11.200 first off, it's not equal, not everyone is is experiencing this in a traumatic way. And I

00:33:17.700 should probably kind of define what what a trauma is. You know, a trauma completely changes your view

00:33:25.580 of yourself of the world or of other people. The younger the kid is, they might not be able to

00:33:30.980 experience the all the thoughts that come with it. But what they do experience is the the very

00:33:37.480 powerful emotions that do come with it. And for kids, we call we think about adverse childhood

00:33:45.980 experiences, which COVID is one of them getting disrupted from so COVID first off, just the

00:33:53.920 pandemic is adverse childhood experience. Because now it introduces this, this fear of getting this

00:34:01.300 virus. And especially kids that are 678. They're already afraid of germs. And they're already afraid

00:34:08.800 of getting sick. So I'm hearing from a lot of teachers about the 678 year olds going back to the

00:34:14.860 classroom, they're washing their hands all the time. They're really afraid they're going way above and

00:34:20.300 beyond what they need to be doing. So that's kind of one effect we're seeing of this is just COVID in

00:34:26.200 itself is can be a traumatic adverse childhood experience, getting disruption from school,

00:34:32.260 not being in school for a year is a part of this. I got a nephew who is really scared. He's he's in high

00:34:41.500 school. He's really scared about going back to school. He's he has not been in a large social

00:34:49.540 environment for over a year now. He's terrified of going back. So that is an adverse childhood

00:34:57.960 experience. Like how are you? How are you even going to get 17? Okay, 17. So how much of that if we

00:35:07.380 stay on that, let's stay on that because people being scared to going back to normal. Doc, how much

00:35:11.880 of that is parents? Okay, if you're wrong, Oh, my gosh, my parents are so scared. So maybe I also got

00:35:17.820 to be scared. How much of that is watching the news? Oh, my goodness, this next variant is going

00:35:22.720 to Oh, this is going to kill even more than how many? How much of that is social media? Did you

00:35:27.440 see what happened? This thing is so scary. How much of it is external? How much of it is real? How much

00:35:32.540 of it is immediately your family to the way they're reacting? Because I think a lot of the things is also

00:35:37.860 some of this can be prevented. So from your experience, how much of it is the news, social and family

00:35:43.660 worried around you? I'm going to say it's all of the above. And I'm going to add one more,

00:35:47.240 which is age too. So Patrick, you were saying something earlier, like, you know, you when

00:35:52.740 you have a funeral in your 20s is different than in your 30s, it's different in your 40s,

00:35:57.000 and, and then on and on. So one of the things that COVID has done is, it's impacted different ages

00:36:05.220 in different ways. So you and I, we've lived some life, you know, we haven't lived through this kind

00:36:13.860 of pandemic, and all the, all everything that's happened as a result of it. But we've dealt with

00:36:20.640 some losses, we've dealt with uncertainty, we've lived through some strange times, you know, like,

00:36:27.660 I remember, I can tell you exactly everything about 911 and the way it changed, changed my world,

00:36:37.300 you know, I can tell you about these different events, I can tell you about living through

00:36:41.680 the 1989 earthquake, and the terror I had, how much I thought I was going to die in that moment,

00:36:47.420 like, I can tell you about some stuff that I've lived through. And what I learned as a result of

00:36:53.060 it, how I learned about coping, how I learned about getting through that stuff. Kids, teenagers are

00:36:58.800 different. They've lived through less life, they've had less exposure to uncertainty, to dealing with

00:37:05.920 these big periods of unknown, they've had less grief to deal with. That, number one, can make it

00:37:16.080 harder for kids and teenagers to adjust to life back than, than it might be for you and I. And then

00:37:24.340 the other thing, Patrick, is, I've, throughout this whole pandemic, I've been the one going to get

00:37:30.100 groceries. Sometimes my wife gets groceries, too. Sometimes we get them delivered. But the first

00:37:35.760 few times I did that, man, I was scared. I was, and I was doing a lot of stuff that now we might find

00:37:40.980 like really silly, like, trying to make sure I don't touch anything, you know, trying to like,

00:37:46.280 be like all on guard. And that was, none of us were wearing masks back then. It was, we didn't know what

00:37:51.720 was causing this, how it was being transmitted. We didn't know any of that kind of stuff. But those

00:37:55.940 first few times I went to the grocery store, you know, I was terrified. But then as time got on,

00:38:01.260 I was getting less, my emotions were less intense. I was learning how to navigate it,

00:38:06.620 things like that. Some kids have just done less during this time. They've been just more at home,

00:38:14.720 right? And so that gets to the family part you're talking about, is what are the expectations been on

00:38:20.300 for kids? And there's no right answer here. You know, some kids might be more vulnerable

00:38:25.340 to health related problems and the families have kept them at home more. Some kids might be less

00:38:31.220 vulnerable and kids have done more stuff. Some kids might have been living in an area where they've

00:38:36.980 had less exposure to COVID. So, you know, their lives haven't been as disrupted. So there's a family

00:38:43.340 component too. There's a environment component. There's an age component. But the other thing you

00:38:48.720 mentioned is the role of media as well. You know, when, when we go through periods of big uncertainty,

00:38:54.580 it's kind of like an allergic reaction to anxiety. So when we get allergies, our immune system is

00:39:03.420 responding too much. You know, you get exposure to pollen. Pollen is a totally normal thing. It

00:39:10.700 shouldn't be doing anything to us. But when you get exposed to pollen, if you have an allergy, your eyes

00:39:16.920 might get watery. You might get a runny nose. You might be sneezing. Your immune system is reacting to

00:39:23.040 something that's normal. And it's thinking this is something I need to fight. When we get a lot of

00:39:29.780 uncertainty, your mind kind of reacts the same way. Your mind's like, I need to think about this a lot.

00:39:36.520 I need to find a lot of information about this. I need to take all my attention and focus it and

00:39:42.880 try to solve this thing, trying to figure it out, right? That's what happens when we're really anxious

00:39:48.980 and we're dealing with a lot of uncertainty. Now let's play this out. If this is happening to you

00:39:54.060 and your mind's like, get more information, learn more about it, worry more about it, try to solve

00:39:59.340 this problem. And you're going to a lot of new sites or you're looking up really horrible things.

00:40:07.300 Like, you know, you go to Google and you, and you look up, you know, worst side effects of COVID,

00:40:12.720 unknown side effects of COVID, like how to know if you secretly have COVID, but don't have symptoms.

00:40:19.700 You know, you look up that stuff, you're going to find really scary, wild, wacky corners of the

00:40:25.460 internet. That's just like the movie. If you remember the movie that was trending, it was

00:40:28.340 Contagion. You remember the movie Contagion? Oh yeah. Go watch it. It's identical.

00:40:34.080 Yeah. Everybody was like, oh my gosh, look what's going on. I mean, the,

00:40:37.800 the effects of it had to, to, you know, make it even exaggerate the crisis that we had not

00:40:44.440 downplaying the crisis, but it exact. So, so let me ask you this question. So, so panic disorder,

00:40:49.900 social anxiety disorder, hair pulling disorder, phobias, you know, skin picking, you know, Tourette's

00:40:56.500 take bipolar, all of these things that you deal with, how much of this, all these things that,

00:41:02.440 you know, folks go through, I've gone through panic anxiety myself, uh, haven't lived in a war

00:41:08.440 in Iran 10 years. I can do a number on you. Refugee camp parents, divorce army, you come into a new 0.99

00:41:13.540 place. You don't speak English. All you take is ESL. A lot of those things can have an impact on your

00:41:17.340 life, but, uh, how much of us having, or somebody being diagnosed with bipolar or schizo or a ton of

00:41:27.820 panic, a ton of anxiety, a certain phobia that you have, how much of that doc is your DNA? Okay.

00:41:35.660 Like I have three kids. They're all different. So not saying DNA as in genes, I just call it DNA.

00:41:41.760 And I don't know if this, that's the right word or not, or let's say wiring your individual wiring

00:41:46.400 that has nothing to do with your parents. You have your own wiring. How much of it is that? How much of

00:41:51.780 it is genes? How much of it is your experiences that you're personally going to experience and how much

00:41:57.040 of it is your environment that leads to you having bipolar anxiety, panics, schizo, any of this stuff.

00:42:04.040 What would you say to that? Yeah. I wish I had a, um, a universal answer that would fit all the things

00:42:11.260 you just mentioned. Um, but it really depends on the type of problem we're talking about. So let me break

00:42:18.000 out some of the things that you mentioned. We mentioned bipolar disorder. So, um, bipolar disorder

00:42:23.660 is something that is much more genetic. What that means is it tends to run in families. And I've seen

00:42:32.660 that I can trace it back. Once we knew that this is what my brother was dealing with. It was like,

00:42:38.580 Oh my gosh, this is what so-and-so struggles with. This is what another relative experiences.

00:42:45.200 We see the connection in our family, how it's been sort of passed along. There's other things too,

00:42:51.880 that, that can run in families like, um, ADHD attention deficit hyperactivity disorder can run

00:42:57.560 in families. Ticks and Tourette's can run in families. I once had a patient, Patrick, um, uh, this is a young

00:43:05.680 teen who, um, we just diagnosed him as having, um, Tourette's. And the dad said, I don't know where he gets

00:43:14.580 this. Cause I said, you know, this runs in families. It can be genetic. I have no idea how it, how he

00:43:19.200 gets this. And the mom of the child turned to the dad and said, are you kidding me? You have a

00:43:25.320 blinking tick. And he's like, I've got a blinking tick. He's like, yeah, you've had it the whole life.

00:43:30.120 You know? So like some of these things run in families. You don't even know you have it.

00:43:34.360 You might not know you have it. You might, you know, you look, I mean, Patrick, you and I,

00:43:38.420 like when we were kids, how much were people talking about mental health?

00:43:41.820 Nobody was. Nobody was. Nobody was talking about these things. You know, that child is a problem

00:43:49.840 child. They don't listen, you know, but now we might be like, oh man, that kid, that kid's really

00:43:56.220 depressed or that kid has got ADHD. You know, we see things in a different way. Now my brother, when he

00:44:02.600 was growing up in the seventies, eighties, bipolar disorder, wasn't on anyone's radar. No one's radar,

00:44:10.520 you know? So you go back a few generations and people just didn't see things this way,

00:44:18.240 especially not in schools. Like I'll give you an example, autism. Autism is a, it's a, a, a really

00:44:25.300 complicated problem that has, it has, there's a lot of biology involved and we're not 100% sure what

00:44:32.840 the cause is, but we do know that a lot of biology is involved here. Nowadays, every pediatrician

00:44:39.880 at certain ages does screenings in the United States. I can't speak to globally, but in the

00:44:47.080 United States, every pediatrician does screening for autism to make sure that we're catching these

00:44:52.460 kids early. That's because of a lot of advocacy from parents. It's because of a lot of research from

00:44:59.520 scientists. Um, that's in place now, you know, we try to catch these things earlier, but you just go

00:45:06.600 back a few decades. No one was looking at this stuff. So part of it is that we're, we're seeing

00:45:13.880 things a little bit differently now. And you go back a few generations and, um, maybe someone was,

00:45:21.600 oh yeah, you know, grandpa, grandpa drank a lot. Um, maybe grandpa was drinking a lot because he was,

00:45:29.160 he was really anxious. You know, we, we don't know, or maybe grandpa's drinking a lot because

00:45:34.120 he's a refugee. He went through major trauma, you know, he escaped a war. Um, but no one thought of

00:45:40.720 it as trauma. We used to think a long time ago of shell shock that soldiers would go through the shell

00:45:46.740 shell shock. And, um, you know, like our, our understandings evolved. So some of these things

00:45:52.560 run through families, but we didn't, we don't see them as, as, as mental health problems. We don't

00:45:57.480 see them as mental illness. So things like bipolar, things like schizophrenia, you mentioned

00:46:01.760 schizophrenia. We know there's a biological component, but we also think there might be an

00:46:06.160 environmental component, autism. We know that's a big biological component, but some of the other

00:46:11.460 things you mentioned about anxiety and, and depression, the way I think about that is some

00:46:20.300 people are born with a temperament. And what do I mean by temper? I don't mean like yelling and

00:46:25.260 screaming temperament temperament. I mean, how intensely you feel different emotions. Most of that

00:46:33.960 is biological doesn't mean you can blame mom or dad, but it does mean the unique DNA you got

00:46:45.220 that's led to your temperament. And so what do I mean by that? You know, um, some people are born

00:46:51.020 with a volume turned up on anxiety. Some people are turned with the volume, um, down. Some people

00:46:56.920 are born with the volume turned down on anxiety. And I think we've all seen those kinds of people,

00:47:00.460 you know, I'm kind of, uh, I'm a, I'm a like medium high is my level. And so I'm less likely

00:47:07.920 to do my, when my friends are like, Hey, let's go snowboarding. I'm like, I don't know if I want

00:47:12.420 to do that. Cause where my head goes is I'm going to fall and break my leg. Like that's just where my

00:47:16.940 head is. But we all know people with the anxiety turned way down. They're the first one to get on that

00:47:22.660 board. They're the first one to hit that like extreme level mountain, you know, like some people,

00:47:29.600 the daredevils in our life, they're probably have a very low levels of, of anxiety and the people who

00:47:37.780 are really risk averse. Maybe you worked with some of these financial investors and they're,

00:47:43.580 they're highly averse to risk. You know, they think through things a lot. Um, maybe they're bored.

00:47:49.880 Maybe their temperament is a little bit higher, um, for anxiety. So, and that's true of anger. It's true

00:47:56.180 of sadness. It's true of happiness too. We're all born with a range. And for some of us as high for

00:48:01.860 some of us as low, you know? So part of that is just the DNA wiring that we've got, but then

00:48:08.880 we've got the environment. You know, some of us go through really horrible experiences.

00:48:15.780 Some of us have an easier time. And that's not to say that that leads to the problems,

00:48:21.860 but it's also leads to how we learn to cope with them. You know, some of us might go through

00:48:29.000 tough stuff and we, we learn really quickly how to deal with those really horrible emotions.

00:48:34.920 We learn really quickly how to cope with this kind of stress. Um, and some of us aren't able to. So

00:48:41.560 it, it's a complex connection between our DNA, our wiring, our environment, what we learn from our

00:48:50.080 family, our culture, culture is a big part of it. Um, what emotions are allowed in the culture,

00:48:57.120 what aren't, how people cope with these things. And then what happens when you learn how to deal

00:49:02.800 well with the culture, but then now you're put into a different place where like the things you,

00:49:07.300 you learn, you, you can't easily do, you know? Um, so it's, it's all of these things. It's biology,

00:49:13.060 it's culture, it's what you learn. It's the difficult things you go through. It's, it's,

00:49:18.120 it's all of that. And when we talk about anxiety, all the folks I've treated,

00:49:23.260 you know, um, some people got more of the biology and they had less of the environment stuff.

00:49:28.260 Some people had like no biology environment stuff, but they went through some really tough things,

00:49:32.760 you know? Um, it's a little bit different for each person.

00:49:35.920 I got very helpful, right? Then we're going to come back to it based on the conversation

00:49:40.420 questions. I'm going to ask you here, two books that I read that changed the way I looked at

00:49:46.380 hypomanic. So think about manic, hypomanic. So one of them was a book written by, uh, uh,

00:49:53.840 Nassir Rahemi. One of them was written by Nassir Rahemi, which is first rate madness. The other one

00:50:01.100 was hypomanic edge. And on this one, it says, uh, the sub, uh, subtitle is uncovering the link

00:50:08.260 between leadership and mental illness. Okay. That's this one, New York times bestseller.

00:50:13.820 The other one is hypomanic edge to link between a little craziness and a lot of success in America.

00:50:19.960 Okay. So let's talk about the hypomanic one in the hypomanic book, like page 15 or something.

00:50:26.880 It says, given how radically different mania and hypomanic is, it is perhaps surprising that

00:50:31.120 that sort of goes all the way down to saying there's certain criterias that people have one

00:50:36.120 of these things that they're manic or hyper, uh, hypomanic inflated self-esteem or grandiosity,

00:50:42.660 you know, like you're thinking so highly of yourself decreased need for sleep. They feel

00:50:47.460 like they don't need to get a lot of sleep, three, four, five hours of sleep. Everybody's like,

00:50:51.160 how the hell do you do that? More talkative than usual or pressure to keep talking flight of ideas

00:50:58.200 or subjective experience that thoughts are racing distractibility attention too easily drawn to

00:51:04.580 unimportant or irrelevant external stimuli. Like, why are you paying attention to that butterfly?

00:51:10.080 It's got nothing to do with your life. Increasing goal directed activity, either socially at work,

00:51:15.580 sexually, uh, uh, it's just higher than usual. Excessive involvement and pleasurable activities

00:51:21.660 that have high potential for painful consequences, engaging in unrestrained buying sprees, sexual

00:51:28.020 discretions or foolish business, business investments. So, and then Nasir talks about in a

00:51:34.160 complete different, in a similar way where he says, we have to understand that, uh, there's benefits

00:51:39.700 of illness like bipolar disorder and depression that can be good to have in a leader. And he says,

00:51:45.560 nations have made it through difficult times throughout history because they're mentally ill 1.00

00:51:49.400 leaders. And last one, he says, recognizing that mental illness has its good ideas as a step 0.97

00:51:54.340 toward breaking the stigma toward it. Okay. So you have this hard, put, put a Churchill. They talk

00:52:02.940 about Churchill. They talk about Alexander Hamilton, Bill Clinton, a Trump, a JFK. These, you know,

00:52:10.400 there's a lot of different issues that these folks have experienced. I mean, John F. Kennedy has one of

00:52:14.580 the most difficult fathers to have as a father who was hard charging, right? What benefits are there in

00:52:20.720 business to some folks that do have mental disorders that maybe if we read the book, we're like, they

00:52:28.880 have issues, but when it comes down to business, leadership, military, they tend to excel. Yeah. Um,

00:52:34.680 you, you speak about, um, hypomania there, which is a part of, um, of bipolar disorder. And, um,

00:52:42.800 there's a, another book by, um, a psychologist who actually has bipolar disorder herself. Her name's

00:52:48.800 Kay Redford Jameson. I think the book is called Exuberance. But, um, one of the things that she

00:52:53.780 talks about is how mental illness gives you a different perspective. You know, and this is one 0.95

00:53:00.960 of the things I've learned in my career is, um, um, I'm, I'm taking this from, from another psychologist.

00:53:08.900 So this is not some amazing words I came up with, but they've always stuck with me. Um,

00:53:14.080 the world needs all types of brains, you know, teams need different types of brains. Organizations

00:53:22.380 need different types of brain countries need different types of brains. What I mean by that

00:53:26.700 is the most dangerous thing in a team is when everyone's thinking the same way. You mentioned

00:53:34.800 Kennedy, the Bay of pigs invasion was a complete disaster. And it was a complete disaster because

00:53:42.160 of something called groupthink where, um, it wasn't allowed for people to express different

00:53:50.960 points of views that might challenge the leader. We saw this with the space shuttle, um, um,

00:53:58.000 challenger disaster as well. It was the same thing. There was people saying this ship, we, we,

00:54:04.240 there's a flaw here. We need to look at it. We should not be flying this thing. And there was other

00:54:10.080 people saying, shut up, we're going to move forward with this. So the most, the most important thing

00:54:17.380 for any business is to have a team where it we've made it safe for people to share different points

00:54:27.340 of view. And when you have a mental illness, you are seeing the world in a different way for good 0.88

00:54:35.680 and for bad. And what I mean by for bad is you're going to, you're experiencing things that might

00:54:41.980 cause you distress in your life. They might make it hard for you to live your life. So when you have,

00:54:48.260 um, let's, let's talk about a hypomania, for example. Um, yeah, you might be talking, um, excessively.

00:54:55.580 You might have that distractibility. You're bouncing around from, from different ideas. Um, you might be,

00:55:02.720 um, uh, ordering too much, uh, too much shopping. You might be doing a lot of that excessive pleasure

00:55:10.040 seeking. You're also seeing things very differently. And we need to, to celebrate those different

00:55:17.620 perspectives and make it okay for people to, to be openly, um, have anxiety, have depression,

00:55:27.460 have hypomania, have, um, schizophrenia. Um, we need to, we need to make it okay to, and not just

00:55:37.200 okay, but celebrate these different ways of seeing things. We always want to make sure that people are

00:55:42.220 getting the help that they need. I mean, schizophrenia is, um, one of the, the biggest common symptoms of

00:55:48.640 it is just real confusion about what's happening around you. And at the same time, it gives you a

00:55:56.720 drastically different view of the world. And there is massive value in that. You know, um, um, I had a

00:56:05.300 professor once who said that they believe that ADHD has survived in our gene pool for so long,

00:56:14.600 because these are exactly the kind of people that you want to have on guard for your tribe when you

00:56:21.920 were, um, when you were threatened by enemies, because they're the first ones to turn and look

00:56:28.260 at different sounds and distractions in the environment. They would be the first ones to spot

00:56:34.120 potential threats. You know, they're always so quick to react to different things happening

00:56:39.040 to you. And that always stuck with me because I thought, huh, what if we focus less on the problems

00:56:47.440 that these things cause and a little bit more on the benefits you mentioned up top, um, the show I did

00:56:54.120 A&E, uh, the employables and that show, we worked with a lot of people who have autism and who have, um,

00:57:02.480 Tourette's to help them understand. Yeah, you got these things. You need, and it's your

00:57:08.440 responsibility to learn how to cope with them. At the same time, you got a lot of gifts as well,

00:57:15.680 and you have a different way of seeing things. And how can we help you to really own those

00:57:22.160 differences so that you can really make a big difference in the organizations you serve? You

00:57:28.240 know, I'm, I'm a big, I'm a huge believer in that. Um, you know, you, when you, when you got, um,

00:57:36.640 you're hiring someone to be an air traffic controller, you want someone who's going to

00:57:40.800 be a little bit more conservative and someone who's going to be a little bit more anxious.

00:57:44.700 You know, there's, there's certain jobs that you definitely want people who have a way of seeing

00:57:50.960 things. If you're doing some quality assurance stuff, you want someone who, who might think a

00:57:57.820 little bit more the way like someone who has autism does, you know, people who don't have autism,

00:58:03.440 they're very biased towards verbal and social behavior. People who have autism are much more

00:58:11.780 biased towards logic and visual information. People who have autism can do so much better at

00:58:22.880 problems related to logic. So quality assurance, coding, these kinds of things. Um, they might be

00:58:29.320 able to see things that someone who's more, the term is neurotypical, someone who's neurotypical,

00:58:35.020 they wouldn't see those things or they'd have a lot of problems with them. So absolutely. I agree

00:58:40.560 with, uh, with that, that idea that, um, organizations need a diversity of brains to, to be able to,

00:58:49.120 to perform their best. That's, that's where you get the real creativity, Patrick. It's, it's,

00:58:55.200 yeah. I mean, I read this book. I'm like, wait, what, you know, uh, inflated self-esteem,

00:59:01.420 decreased need for sleep, more talkative than usual flight of ideas or subjective experience

00:59:06.720 that thoughts are racing, distractibility, increasing goal, uh, directed activities,

00:59:11.380 excessive involvement, pleasurable activities that have a high potential painful consequences. Like

00:59:15.220 the, the idea of willing to kind of play on the, you know, edge and Hey, I'm going to take a little

00:59:23.020 bit more risk and who cares? I know there's some risk involved in it, but what if we go out there

00:59:26.860 and pull this thing off? Um, I was talking to one of my guys one time I said, you know what? I don't

00:59:33.480 worry about you when everything is good. Uh, everything is bad when everything is bad. I don't

00:59:39.240 worry about you because you're very good when it's chaos and havoc. I worry about you when everything

00:59:46.160 is good because when everything is good, you somehow, some way have a tendency of creating havoc

00:59:51.500 and chaos because that's your comfort zone. You like to have chaos. So you don't know when

00:59:58.120 everything is like, Oh my gosh, things are going too good. I mean, something's probably about to

01:00:01.540 fall apart and something's going to break apart. I need some more crisis in my life. And you, you

01:00:05.000 tend to create it, but I've seen a lot of trends with this on folks who win in business that they're

01:00:10.460 wired slightly different. And the world may look at them and say, this person's a psychopath,

01:00:15.680 sociopath, this person's got problems, but in reality, they use those same abilities to win in

01:00:21.440 business. So having said that, going into psychopath and sociopath one, what is the difference? And

01:00:26.680 two, why do so many of them make it to the top of politics, business, everything? Yeah. Um,

01:00:33.720 psychopaths or psychopathy, it's, it's people who have, um, less empathy towards others. And that,

01:00:41.940 that might sound scary at first, but, um, it's what research has shown is it's, um, far more common

01:00:50.120 than we realize. And so, um, it's, it's when other people might experience, um, a lot of intense

01:00:58.940 emotions, they, they might experience a lot less emotions. Um, they're less, um, uh, they're less

01:01:07.760 reactive to things. And, um, someone who has more, um, psychopathy, um, psychopathic term,

01:01:15.900 they're the kind of people who make great scientists. They're the kind of people who make

01:01:22.920 great business leaders. Um, and the reason for that, these are all, you know, these are a lot of

01:01:29.920 people who are in, um, in financial industry. The reason for that is, um, they're making decisions

01:01:37.620 that are a lot less personal. They're making decisions that are a lot less emotional. They're

01:01:42.820 looking at the data, they're looking at the trends and they're letting, they're letting that sort of

01:01:49.260 guide their decision-making. There's, um, there's well-known story about, um, in, in this whole world

01:01:54.760 about, um, a neuroscientist who was studying, um, psychopaths and in the process of studying them

01:02:01.480 realized that he himself, um, fit the category of this. And that kind of sparked a lot of the

01:02:10.500 conversation around, well, you know, this is something you want in a scientist. You want

01:02:15.220 someone who is very objective, not taking things personally, but looking at the data and letting

01:02:22.040 the data guide things. Sociopaths are, are people who, um, have, have done things like, um, really

01:02:29.680 horrific breaking the law. It's more of a legal term and it's, um, uh, people who have committed

01:02:36.060 murders, um, people who are serial murderers, those kinds of things. That's, that's more of a

01:02:41.100 sociopath. So, um, if you look at the movie, um, if you look at the movie Joker, uh, he's, he's much

01:02:50.080 more of a sociopath. Um, if you look at the movie, um, Iron Man, we can argue he might be more of a

01:02:59.700 psychopath. He's, he's, especially the first few ones. He's, uh, he's a bit more cold towards other

01:03:05.120 people. Um, he's, he can be a bit more, um, uh, a bit more data driven and I'll get in trouble with

01:03:13.240 this with all the Marvel fans. Cause they're like, what are you talking about? He's a guy who kind of

01:03:16.880 pulls us out of all this infinity war and all that stuff. I know, I know I'm, I'm making big

01:03:21.660 generalizations here. How about the Ben Affleck in, uh, in, uh, uh, in the accountant?

01:03:26.760 I don't think I've seen that. I haven't seen the accountant. No, you listen, you got to watch that

01:03:34.300 this week. It's a ridiculous movie read, especially for somebody who's in the space.

01:03:40.800 Interesting. So the Joker sociopath, uh, uh, Iron Man psychopath, because he didn't really care much

01:03:49.180 about not this. Does the idea of psychopath help when a person is in business? Cause they don't

01:03:53.320 really feel and understand the idea of rejecting an idea. I don't understand rejection. You don't

01:03:58.420 think I can do it. It doesn't bother me. Is that, is that the benefit in the world of business?

01:04:02.320 So it's, it's a bit more that you can make, you can make decisions less based on your emotions

01:04:10.820 related to other people. So look like if you, if you're at a startup, um, you are, your idea is not

01:04:19.400 taking off and, um, you got, you got only so much funding, right? You got a million dollars left.

01:04:27.340 Um, and your idea is not working. Maybe you decide that, Hey, you know what? I'm going to lay off half

01:04:33.900 the team because for the larger business, we need to cut down our expenses. If we got a shot at making

01:04:43.300 this work, right? So people who are, who have more psychopathy are able to make that decision

01:04:49.680 easier than someone who's going to be really struggling with that. Like I can't do it. I

01:04:55.540 can't, I can't let these people go. And then the whole business might, might completely die out

01:05:02.000 because you couldn't make that tough call that might actually hurt some people, but be better for

01:05:07.980 the larger team. You know, that's the idea right there. What we were talking about a little bit

01:05:13.460 before. And I think presidents are a good example of this is, um, it is a bit more ego and a bit more

01:05:22.260 of, uh, what I'd call like a healthy narcissism and self-confidence in yourself. Um, that is what,

01:05:30.380 what allows a lot of presidents to, to get to that place. You know, I just finished, um,

01:05:36.000 reading Obama's memoir, man, that is a long book. Um, my gosh, um, it was really long. I didn't,

01:05:43.920 I did an audio book, um, but it's like 38 hours. I think it's 38 hours or 36 hours. Yeah. I had to

01:05:51.460 wash a lot of dishes to finish that book. Um, but you know, the thing that stuck out to me is how much

01:05:57.160 his story is so similar to every other president memoir I've read. You know, they all have this sense

01:06:04.880 of like, when other people are telling them, you can't do this, they're saying, no, I can. Yeah,

01:06:11.080 I can. I can totally do this. Like this time is going to be different. You watch, right? That sense

01:06:16.240 of self-confidence in yourself, of thinking highly of yourself, that you can do things that other

01:06:23.020 people might not be able to do. Uh, whether you want to call that ego, you want to call that

01:06:27.320 self-confidence, you want to call that narcissism. Everyone who's reached the top of, um, of their

01:06:35.600 different industries has a good dose of that, a healthy dose of that. And what I mean by a healthy

01:06:41.160 dose of that is they also have to know their weaknesses too. Like people who might have too

01:06:46.740 much self-confidence might not realize where they need to delegate to other people, where they need

01:06:52.380 to get input from other people, um, all of that kind of stuff. Um, but anyone who's reached the top

01:06:59.720 here has a, has a very high sense of confidence in themselves. You know, a complete different, uh,

01:07:06.320 uh, topic is on insecurity. Uh, uh, you know, I was having a conversation with a friend of mine 12 years

01:07:12.380 ago and we were at Pebble beach and we were looking at everybody that was winning at this one event that we

01:07:18.160 were at, everybody was extremely confident and insecure at the same time. Very weird how those two

01:07:26.160 go together here. Here you got a guy or gal standing on stage and let me tell you that, but they have

01:07:32.440 this deep rooted two or three insecurities that we, because we were friends, we knew these deep

01:07:38.900 insecurities drove the hell out of them to go win at the highest level. We were like, wait a minute, how do

01:07:44.500 your insecurities drive you? So what would you say about people's insecurities as a

01:07:48.020 driver? Yeah, it's, it's a, it's a great question. And, um, you know, the, the term imposter syndrome

01:07:55.300 gets tossed around a lot now, nowadays, um, this idea that, um, people are going to figure out, I don't

01:08:02.100 really belong here. Um, I don't, they're going to figure out, I don't really fit. They're going to figure

01:08:06.780 out I'm a fraud, that kind of stuff. I think that drives a lot of people, uh, as well, um, as, as some of

01:08:12.860 these insecurities, these chips on their shoulder, you know, like that, that kid, that, that, that

01:08:19.220 depressed, anxious kid who I was in middle school, um, part of that is still there, you know, like when you

01:08:26.700 said, uh, if this doesn't work out, maybe you should go Hollywood or be a model. Like that kid in me was

01:08:32.140 like, what are you talking about? You know, like, have you looked in the mirror? Right. Um, so like

01:08:39.920 other way, FYI, I figured out who you look like. It's this guy named Riz Ahmed. I don't know if you

01:08:44.300 know who he is. Oh yeah, I know. Oh, he's amazing. I, I love, um, I get that. Um, I get Riz and I go,

01:08:51.280 I also get Taika Waititi, uh, um, this guy who directed, um, he's directed a bunch of movies. Um,

01:08:57.860 so I'm, I'm cool with that. I, I like Riz. Um, I'm a big, uh, big fan of his work rooting for him

01:09:04.080 at the Oscars this year. Um, so when we're talking about insecurities and we talk about, um, um, we

01:09:12.200 talk about imposter syndrome stuff too. Um, there's a fine line between when it's helping you and when

01:09:19.360 it's hurting you. And sometimes it might be doing both at once. You know, your, your insecurities

01:09:25.140 about, um, your finances, about, um, about your weight, about your, your health, about your

01:09:34.080 achievements. Um, they can be the things that both are motivating you to do more, to put in that extra

01:09:41.800 work, to, to try harder, to read more of those books, to talk to more of those people. And they

01:09:47.960 can also be those things that keep you up at night, that make you second guess yourself, that make you

01:09:52.480 think you're, you're not good enough. You're not, um, you haven't done enough. And so we have to sort

01:09:58.520 of, um, well, anyone who's going to be good in, in the business space, you gotta understand yourself.

01:10:06.700 You gotta understand, um, you know, what am I really good at? Like, what am I honestly good at?

01:10:12.840 Like Patrick, I knew, um, when your team reached out for this interview, I'm not, I'm not the kind of

01:10:19.240 guy who's like going to be sweating about this because I know this is something I do well,

01:10:24.900 like talking to other people, having a conversation, explaining things, using analogies. I know this

01:10:32.140 is something that I do well, but if you ask me to design an experiment with the best scientific

01:10:39.440 methods, come up with the best statistics to make sure that all this stuff is like 100%, like up to code.

01:10:48.000 That's not my strength. That's not, that's not what I'm good at, you know? So we got to know our

01:10:53.200 strengths and weaknesses, and then we got to get good. I would say my biggest advice to anyone

01:11:00.320 who wants to succeed in business, you got to get good at getting feedback from other people,

01:11:07.720 at getting critical feedback, at learning from your mentors, at talking to people who are much better

01:11:17.040 than you at the thing you want to get good at and getting that critical feedback. One of the things

01:11:23.540 that I think as, as a parent now, and as, as someone who, you know, I was trained as a child

01:11:29.820 clinical psychologist. So my first part of my career, I mostly work with kids, teenagers, young

01:11:35.240 adults. Um, the, the 16 to kind of 25 year old, like they're my, they're my favorite group to work

01:11:41.900 with. And the thing I saw that really, that, that these people really struggled with is failure,

01:11:49.020 learning from failure and getting feedback. Like we got to make it okay as a society to get critical

01:11:58.120 feedback. The thing we shouldn't be worshiping is success. We shouldn't be worshiping all these like,

01:12:04.360 like elite athletes and, um, like what they've achieved. We shouldn't be worshiping all the

01:12:11.400 business leaders and everything that they've, they've accomplished here. What we should look

01:12:15.740 at is all these leaders, all these people that we look up to, where did they fail? How did they learn

01:12:21.200 from that? How did they improve the Obama book? I was just mentioning, man, this guy lost so many

01:12:26.840 elections before, before like things took off. Like, but what he did is he learned from them.

01:12:32.920 He got feedback. What am I doing? Right. What am I doing wrong? And this is where it connects to

01:12:38.860 insecurities. Um, your insecurities can be a great driver. If you know what your real strengths are,

01:12:45.740 you know, your real weaknesses and you got the guts to get feedback from other people, you know,

01:12:52.880 and that's where I would say insecurities can be a big problem is if they keep you from asking those

01:12:58.600 tough questions. If I said like, Patrick, you've seen a lot of my videos, man, tell me, what do you

01:13:03.560 like? But what I want to know more is like, what did you not like? You know, is my production quality?

01:13:08.920 Are they too long? Am I going on and on about this? Like, what can I do to get better? You've got

01:13:14.940 this super successful YouTube channel, you know, like, like tell me how I can improve, right? I need to be

01:13:21.440 able to have the guts to go into that vulnerable place where I'm getting your feedback.

01:13:27.240 But by the way, I've enjoyed this a lot. And, and whether you're a executive salesperson,

01:13:32.900 an entrepreneur, just anybody that's just watching this apparent, a 17 year old kid that's gone

01:13:37.380 through COVID and you're trying to figure yourself out. Uh, we touched so many different angles in this

01:13:43.720 interview together, extremely helpful. I learned a lot from you, brother. I appreciate your time.

01:13:49.260 Uh, what I, what people, if you don't know guys, he's got a show called the psych show

01:13:53.600 and it's a YouTube channel. If you haven't subscribed to it yet, we're going to put the

01:13:57.380 link below. It's going to be all over the place. So you can see what it looks like. And if you're

01:14:00.840 wondering when I said, he looks like, you know, uh, uh, uh, he looks like, uh, Riz, I want you

01:14:07.660 got editor, please put the picture right next to us, make the comparison to Riz, because I think if you

01:14:12.620 didn't do what you did here, you would absolutely be a Hollywood star. You got to look for it.

01:14:16.100 But once again, brother, thank you for your time. Appreciate you coming and being a guest

01:14:20.460 on value team. And I really enjoyed it. Yeah. I want to thank you for making this space

01:14:24.560 for us to talk about all of these things. Um, that's why I wanted to come on here. I know you

01:14:30.600 do a thorough job with, with your interviews and I'm never going to turn down an opportunity to

01:14:36.660 really talk about mental health, to celebrate these things. So I appreciate you making the space.

01:14:41.680 God knows we need to talk about this more today. We need to talk about this issue

01:14:46.040 more today. Once again, thank you. Interesting interview, lots of topics, COVID, reaction,

01:14:51.040 anxiety, bipolar, hypomanic, the link between insecurity and success. So many different topics.

01:14:56.800 I want to know what you took away from it. Comment below. And if you enjoyed this interview,

01:15:00.260 I think you will enjoy the interview I did with Dr. Jordan Peterson in front of 7,000 people.

01:15:05.360 If you've never seen this before, it's the same exact event that I interviewed Jordan Peterson,

01:15:09.680 the late Kobe Bryant, as well as President Bush. Click over here to watch that interview. Take care,

01:15:14.040 bye-bye.

Valuetainment - April 15, 2021

Psychopath vs Sociopath - Psychologist Explains Which Does Better In Business

Episode Stats

Summary

Transcript