Transcend as a Human with Scott Barry Kaufman

Foreign. Hey, my friends, it's Brandon Burchard. And welcome to a special episode of the Brendon Show. Hey, I'm Brendon Burchard and I'm honored to be your high performance coach today. With this episode, I've spent the last 20 years studying human behavior change and writing, coaching and training literally at the top levels on the topics of motivation, focus, productivity, confidence, and more. My goal, inspired by my own personal journey, is to help you and my audience live love and matter, which means to feel more vibrant, more connected and and more fulfilled in every area of your life. That's what we're doing today. If you like today's episode, grab a screenshot and share it on Instagram. Just tag me Enonbruchard so I can see you and give you a shout out or a hello. And if you want to go to another level of personal development in your life this month, be sure to join me live every month in my coaching program. Just visit HPXCoaching to get signed up. I teach a brand new personal development session every single month, meaning it's like a personal development seminar for you. Live every single month on the first of the month and then after I teach that for about 75 minutes, then we do live breakouts where you get to meet new people, network with people, set your monthly goals, and establish real accountability for your growth. Listen, you know that expert guidance and real consistency and an inspiring community is critical to your growth. So join me this month on the 1st. Just go to hpxcoaching.com that's hpxcoaching.com it's time to level up, my friend. It's time to take your year back. It's time to find that focus and that confidence and that vibrancy and that vibe again. Go to hpxcoaching.com and and let me be your coach into fuller levels of high performance in every area of your life. Now, without further ado, let's jump in to today's episode.

All right.

Hey, everybody. I've got Scott Berry Kaufman, PhD, here with me. Scott, how you doing, my friend?

I'm doing great, man. So great to talk to you finally.

Oh, I'm so thrilled. And listen, it's an honor. I've shared with him, everybody, separately, how much I love his book, the New Science of Self Actualization. And if you don't know Scott, as I said in the intro, he's the creator of the psychology podcast. But let me brag on him just real fast before I ask him anything. Let me Brag on him. Because you have to understand some of the caliber of people who are as equally fascinated with this book as I am. Many of you know Susan Cain's work. We've talked about her before. Bestselling author of Quiet. She wrote his front blurb for the book. This is the book we've all been waiting for. Listen to this. Nothing less than a breathtaking new psychology of humanity. When you got that, what did you think, my friend of humanity?

Well, obviously I loved it. I love Susan Keane. But you also have this amazing ability to inspire people. You're inspiring. You're getting me excited about my own self and my own book right now. So thank you, Brendan.

Oh, man. I have to say this, hands down, best book in psychology of the year. Hands down. And I shared with him separately. And I want you guys to know I'm buying this book in bulk and sending it to all of our coaches worldwide. It's that important of a book. Angela Duckworth, many of you know, have heard talk about and interview with, who wrote Grit and is there at UPenn, called it a masterpiece. And Robert Greene, who, many of you know, wrote, you know, the Laws of Human Nature, he said one of the best books on human potential I've ever read. And many of you know Robert's work. So this is a really incredible masterpiece. And I genuinely feel that's worthwhile saying it. Everything I believe that I've studied in positive psychology, human behavior change, and what I really believe is to be the modern self development, self improvement, wellness, mindfulness movement is somewhere reflected in this work, which is kind of. I don't want to say miraculous, but as a writer, it stuns me that you pull together this much research. And so I want to give that first a preface to the book a little bit for my audience, and then you and I will jump in. Buddy.

Sounds good.

The preface is, if you have not yet read Transcend, please make sure you go do it. Many of you already know this phrase of. Or this term of self actualization by Abraham Maslow. I identified as a humanist psychologist in my 20s, even though I wasn't in psychology. I just, I had read all that work. Erich Fromm was huge in my life, and Abraham Maslow and Alfred Adler. So all this is kind of coming back to me as I'm reading this book because Scott's telling the journey of Abraham Maslow and telling his story and his history and his findings in his work. And many of you will know Abraham Maslow's work of, you know, unquote, the Pyramid of psychology and self actualization. But Scott did a deep dive into Maslow's life and then took the model and modernized it. And that is the foundation of the book, Transcend the new science of self actualization. So I want to start with this, Scott. It's a bold thing to take a reimagining of Maslow, you know, who's created a model that so many people know worldwide. What. What made you think that a. It needed to be done? And what gave you that passion to follow this through?

Yeah, great questions. I was teaching a course at University of Pennsylvania on positive psychology and I was looking at the history of the class. History of. Sorry, I was looking at the history of the field of positive psychology. Came across the humanistic psychologist, came across the ranks of Abraham Maslow. I was hooked up once I started reading his Characteristics of self actualizing people paper. 50 years ago that paper was written and I thought it was brilliant. And it just took me down a whole rabbit hole. And I realized there were so many misconceptions about self actualization and what it means to fulfill your potential that people had attributed to Maslow. Things he never said. And once I started reading what he actually said, it really inspired me, inspired me to do some new studies to try to test some of these ideas and put them within a modern cyc psychological framework. Also a big thing. I realized he never drew a pyramid. You know, people all over the Internet, you know, you have with the toilet paper at the bottom of the pyramid or the wi fi is the most pressing need. And then these increasing levels of needs of, you know, safety and security and connection, esteem and self actualization. He might as well just never saw life like a video game in that way that you kind of. You reach one level of needs and then some voice from above is like, congrats, you've unlocked belonging. And then you get to go to the next level. You never need to care about the lower level. You know, he was really a developmental psychologist. He really believed that human nature, human growth is always a two step forward, one step back dynamic. Sometimes like right now with COVID we're falling all the way back. But doesn't mean we have regressed, you know, that all of our years of growth are for naught. All of a sudden. That's not what that means. You know, we have to keep choosing growth over and over again.

I love that it's not a quote unquote achievement. And he, and a lot of people, Carl Rogers at the time as well, wrote about some of the complexities of the realities of our life when we seek achievement just for achievement's sake. And a lot of people do that with their personal development. I'm going to achieve some level of mindfulness, self awareness, enlightenment, happiness, joy, fulfillment, and I'm good, baby. From there, that's when I'm going to be a giving person. And from there that's when I'm going to care and that's when I'm going to donate and that's when I'm going to serve and lead at my top levels is one day when I get to the top, I'll have purpose and transcendence in your language. But those are often daily choices and daily things we're tapping into, which I think is something that often is forgotten. Because when I read your book, I read it from a different angle. I read it as a coach. I work with people every day on human behavior change and if I don't get the result, I don't get paid. And so I see this book as a profoundly useful self improvement tool, let alone just a great analysis of contemporary psychology. You started it in an interesting space that has, I think, a lot of controversy really, which is this idea of how much security and safety we need. And this I say controversial because a lot of people, we live in a time where there's a big conversation of is American culture too coddling? Are we giving kids too many prizes? Are we letting them participate and be rewarded for not really doing hard things versus, you know, the largest workforce study in the history world by Google work that said, oh no, like if there's not psychological safety, people aren't creative, aren't engaged, and aren't fulfilled at work.

Yeah, right. The right balance needs to be struck. It's funny, I just, right before I talk to you today, I just recorded a chat for my own podcast with Greg Ulkianoff, who's co author of the Coddling of the American Mind, which is what you're referencing to a certain degree. And so I just had an hour and a half chat with him about this. So all these ideas are kind of like percolating in my head right now. And it really is important that we instill in our young people a sense of resiliency, a sense of the right mindsets for growth, the right way of not the right way, but the most adaptive and healthy way. There's no right and wrong, really. It's really all comes down to what's, what works for you. But we know through the psychological literature that too much focus on am I safe, Am I Safe? Am I safe really limits us from being able to see possibilities and opportunities that may be available, but we are blind to them because we have such a narrow worldview.

Yeah, I think that's true. Let's walk through the model, I'll briefly describe it and then let's hit each of these points of giving persons both a perspective and where we get in trouble in each area and what we can do to really grow in that space. So I want everyone listening to. Imagine you're looking at a boat and that boat has, you know, the whole of the ship is really. There's safety, connection and self esteem. And then the mast or the sails is about exploration, love and purpose. And. Yeah, how were you thinking about that as you. Did you begin with this metaphor of we're setting sail or how did you come together with the framework itself? And then we'll walk through each of the components.

Cool. So I definitely knew I wanted something that wasn't so static, like a pyramid. I wanted something that really also to show the integration aspect. You know, life is not this trek up a mountain where we just step over people on the way to some top of something. It really is an experience and we have lots of setbacks that could happen. And the sailboat metaphor seemed to really nail it. And I was working with my designer, Andy Ogden on this. How do we represent the spirit of what Maslow was really getting at, which was this dialectical between security and growth. And the sailboat really fits this metaphor in lots of ways about what life really is all about good life. You have security, you need to have the boat. You can't have too many holes or else you're not going anywhere. You need your, you definitely need your basic needs met to a certain degree where you can move, where you can stand on a stable foundation of safety, security, connection. You feel like you're, you know, if you're feeling too lonely, that can lead to depression, self esteem. I think a healthy self esteem is really important. There's a difference between healthy self esteem and narcissism, which I talk about a lot in the book. But healthy self esteem, really important. These things comprise the boat. But even if you have all this stability, you're still not going anywhere unless you open up that sail and you open up to the winds and the vulnerabilities and you never know when the sea and the waves are going to come crashing down on all the boats. You never know when it's going to happen. But you still need to move in your most valued, purposeful direction. Even Knowing that there is so much uncertainty in the sea. So there's many different levels of this metaphor that I think works quite well, much better than, than the pyramid that Maslow never even drew for sure.

Let's talk about the, the hole, if you will. I'm not you, I'm not sure if I'm using the right language here, but safety, connection and self esteem, these are like the base. These are the things you don't want holes in so that you can feel like you can set sail in the world. Safety, connection and self esteem.

Just the boat itself.

Yeah, yeah. How have you seen. You know, let's bring this into the reality right now. I'm still in quarantine after all these months with coronavirus. And the world has come to a halt in many ways, but progressed in others. And there's been great divide in how people perceive the pandemic, but also the social changing of norms, social injustice, the political consequences of a year of election. And I mean how do you see safety, connection, self esteem affecting all of us culturally right now?

Well, big time. Where put the situation didn't ask for, you know, with these waves come crashing down all of us. I wish we saw it more as an opportunity to rally together against a common enemy which is not even human. And I, you know, this virus, it's not, not a whole organism like we are. And I really wish that we would have seen it that way, but we're not. We're sowing lots of divisions. We are focusing on our identity differences. We're leading first with a lot of differences. And it's to be expected though, because when you're under such chaotic times and you're under such situations where people do feel unsafe, this is when you are most likely to see a return to the need for belonging, the need for finding your people, the need for forming coalitions. This is human nature. This stems back, you see this amongst the cavemen, you know. And so this is deeply ingrained in us that you would see this. But it's unfortunate because there are so many opportunities here for actual real coming together as a species. Real opportunity here for post traumatic growth to shift our priorities, to find new meanings in what we're going through and use it to inspire others and to maybe even reprioritize our lives to what truly matters in our life and seeing things in different ways. So you might be seeing some of this post traumatic growth happening, which is great, but it seems to be dwarfed out by what we constantly see in the news, which is a lot of this Division.

Yeah. Yeah. Speaking about things we see, you know, I've noticed a little bit of a pattern in some of your social media that I wanted to ask you about. That I think affects a lot of people. You have a great and I think really beautiful vulnerability of, you know, it's clear sometimes in what you share that you're down or that you feel discouraged equally, hopefully, and desiring a better world. And I think a lot of people right now we have extraordinary sensitivities to the vitriol or the anger or the unknown or the fear. And it's easy to be really down and discouraged. And I really thought about this in reading the self esteem part of your book and how people are feeling about themselves amid all of this. And self esteem kind of has a funny connotation, I think, in the popular public still to this day from the 70s movement. But I wonder, how do you think this is affecting people's perception of self and how they feel about themselves? And what would you recommend in this area?

Big time. I'm trying to reclaim self esteem. Some developmental psychologists have told me. They're like, why do you still use the word self esteem? We don't like this word in the field of psychology. It's. It has bad connotations. I'm like, well, I want to reclaim it, yo. I think that there's nothing wrong with a healthy self esteem. In fact, we need more people today who feel a basic sense of self worth, a sense of self competency. Those are the two main components of a healthy self esteem. Not that you feel like you're greater than others, but you just feel like you're worthy. And also that. Not that you're the best, but that you're competent, that you are the author of your own life in some way. And this is what we're seeing real threat to healthy self esteem during COVID people not having as many opportunities, opportunities to. For mastery, to have healthy, real pride in what they're doing. I think it's a great thing to have real pride. I'm not a fan of diminishing yourself. I think me and you are on the same page on this one. You know, Brendan, you inspire so many people to be their whole self, right? To just, you know, have high performance on a. On, you know, without shame. You know, a lot of people, you know, reach high performance and almost feel shameful of it, right? Like, oh, but how, but how could I be flourishing when so many people in the world are suffering? And it's not an either or thing. You're, you're allowed. You're, you're, you're, you're, you're allowed to shine. You have a right to shine and you're shining. It'll probably make it more likely that it'll lift the tide for everyone. If you're a good person, that is. But so, so look, I, I think that there's a lot of threats to healthy self esteem and I think that there's nothing wrong with wanting to feel like you're worthy and competent in this world. The problem is with the narcissism. That's a different thing.

Yeah, I teach about narcissism sometime and I just share that everybody thinks that everyone else is narcissistic. There's something not right in that, but it's something ironic and beautiful.

I think about this all the time, Brendan, because I often get emails from different perspectives from the same couple. So the wife will be like, please help me. I have the most narcissistic husband who never listens to all my needs. The husband say, help me. I have the most narcissistic wife who wants me to always listen to all her needs all the time, doesn't care about my needs. And you get two completely different perspectives. And they're both convinced that they're perfectly not narcissistic and the other person is perfectly narcissistic. The truth of the matter, matter, Brendan, is that we're all at least a little bit narcissistic. It's to be human, to see things from our own frame of reference, you know, and, and, and we could all use, all of us, me, you, everyone. And no one's above this really used to, to just get outside our frame of reference as much as we can. Zoom out of ourselves.

Yeah. I love for me the single for me. My favorite part of your framework is that from the base of the boat, self esteem or the top of the boat, if you will. And the very first part of the sail is exploration because it says you gotta get outside of yourself. There is this move outside of self. There's learning, there's curiosity, there's adventure. And without that peace, you can have a lot of safety, you can have a lot of connection and love. You can really care about yourself, feel worthy, feel like you have a sense of self efficacy and mastery. Cool. And. But if you're just at home alone doing that and you don't explore the world or explore other people's worlds, there's like this lack of humanity now. There's a lack of a deeper oneness or connection or fulfillment which you talk about so eloquently in the book. And as you've seen exploration be physically limited in some ways this year, how do you think that's affected people?

Hugely. It's hard to have the spirit of exploration when you don't feel safe. There's a reason why it's a hierarchy. Now. It's not a rigid, strict hierarchy like a pyramid, but there still is a hierarchy of pre potency. You know, we evolved to focus and narrow our attention on threats to our survival or reproduction. And that's just, that's how we evolved. So it's, it is very hard for a lot of people to just get that exploitive spirit going on when there could be a lot of danger. But you know, there are these two mini hierarchies here where the base of security, the base of safety. Let me try that again. The base of security is safety, and that's your primary concern. But the base of growth has to be exploration. It has to be. You have to be open to getting outside your comfort zone. If you never get outside your comfort zone, you never test the waters of who you could be. You'll never know who you could be.

I love that. When we did the work for high performance habits, we found that one of the things that really united high performers worldwide was sense of curiosity. And that gave them the ability to want to learn, which gives you the ability to develop skill, which gives you the ability to pursue mastery deeper. So curiosity was so huge to it, but I loved the phrasing and frankly, the writing that you did under exploration felt so true and so important. And I'll share a funny thing with you here because we have been relegated in a different way to exploring the world differently in 2020 than normal worldwide. And we did a large scale personal development seminar and we had zoom accounts and groups running simultaneously. And we, we, you know, preface that we were going to facilitate networking like you'd have at a live event, and facilitate communication and conversation and sharing and accountability. And so we would break people out into groups and we'd break them out in groups of, you know, six, you know, five or six people in zoom rooms. And I'm talking like thousands of people, right? And well, it was unbelievable how many people in the safety of their home would still be nervous to share or talk to a computer, an image of somebody else being transported through little bits through the air. That safety isn't just a physical thing. It literally does have to do with connection and self esteem. These things talk to each other because we had people who Wouldn't explore conversations or networking over zoom because they didn't feel comfortable with themselves or talking and sharing with others. Even though you know, they would say that they want those things because they do, they tell us that. What do you think that's about? I was curious to get a psychologist perspective into that.

Well, this is a great point and why I wanted to make the security needs, not just the kind of things we usually talk about, which is physical safety, you know, like hunger and lack of food and violence and abuse, all that stuff and discrimination. All that stuff matters, of course, but there's more to psychological safety than just those things or psychological security and connection and self esteem are so integrably intertwined according to the psychological model. The sociometry theory is that we all have this sociometer, this built in sociometer that our self esteem really goes up or down on the meter depending on how much we feel like we're validated by others, how much we're liked by others. And that can plummet if we're not getting any likes on this post. Or it could go way up if we do get likes. Now ultimately you don't want to live your life where ultimately you want to just not rely on the sociometer at all. You want to have an inner sense and a stable sense of self esteem, but you'll never get rid of it completely. We're such a social species that we do draw so much on. We know the social animal as some people have called it, so social psychologists have put it, such as Elliot Aronson, the social animal. And by being social animals it's really hard to disentangle that feeling of self esteem. I feel good about myself, I don't feel good about myself. So in those kinds of situations we're avoiding at all costs the, the pain we think will be unbearable if we don't feel good about ourselves. When in fact we need to grow. Ultimately to grow we need to be okay with the possibility that we might not feel good about ourselves sometimes. And that's actually feeling uncomfortable is not always a bad thing. And it's often the fodder for growth.

Yeah. And specifically often it's that fear of judgment or fear, fear of being judged in such a way you feel isolated or lonely or rejected or outcast. That often that fear of judgment prevents a lot of people from exploring, prevents a lot of people from love or purpose or that greater next destiny move for them is because it's like, ah, people might not like it, but it's almost like until you know what people Might like or might not like. You don't know yourself either. Because we are social animals. I feel like I know myself so deeply and have such. For me. I developed way more self awareness once I started having to be among people and on stages and talking to people and coaching people than I did as a young man in my 20s. And even though young man in my 20s, I was confident because I could summon it, if you will. I didn't know squat about myself. There was no genuine worth or efficacy or valuation there because I hadn't interacted with people. And I would say, you want to know yourself better. It has to come from exploration. It has to come from talking with more people. You want to be a great musician. The more audiences you play in front of, the more you get it. I remember I interviewed Larry King and I asked him what the secret to his longevity was and not just in his career, but just his vitality. I think I interviewed him at. He was 82 at the time and he was like, oh, curiosity. Number one secret to life, curiosity. You have to be willing to get out there and learn and be fascinated by people. And I asked if he was ever uncomfortable with any of his guests and he was like, oh, no. I was just so curious about what they were going to say and I just thought that was so neat.

And that's. Yeah. And so that really inspired you to have that spirit of exploration as well. And that's the way to go. That's the only way to go if you want to grow.

Hey, it's Brendan and I want to jump in the middle of this episode here real quick and tell you about something I'm really excited about and something that answers a question that many of you have for me all the time, which is, Brendan, where do you get this crazy focus and energy in your life? And the truth is, I've developed a supplement line that really helps me do that. And frankly, I needed to. I don't know about you, but sometimes when you're trying to achieve big things, a lot of stress comes along. And as you're trying to achieve bigger things, you need to be on your A game more often. You need to be mentally sharp, you need to be mentally prepared, you need to be mentally energized and productive. And not once in a while, but like every day, you have to be on. And sometimes guzzling more coffee isn't going to do it. You have to use what we call nootropics, which are basically supplements that, that help optimize your brain. And yes, we have a product for exactly that. It's called HPEX Optimized and it is our most popular product. And you can get it, it's back in stock@HPX wellness.com that's HPX wellness.com you'll find HPX optimized for your mental focus and energy there. You'll also find my favorite powdered energy drink drink that we created that's 100% organic and vegan. And you'll find my essentials, which is my daily multi that I take that covers my energy, that covers my longevity, that covers my immunity, that covers my brain and body health that I absolutely love. And you will feel the difference. Go to HPX Wellness.com right now. HPX Wellness.com the people that we look up to and admire, sometimes we think their self confidence is so huge and then you get to meet them and they just want to ask you tons of questions. You meet Bill Gates or Oprah or whoever you look up to, Michelle Obama or anyone from any Elon Musk or Richard Branson, they're all going to ask you a ton of questions. You're going to be like, oh, wow. We walk away with the realization that those who are asking questions, they're doing it for their own sense of learning, but to explore and learn about others. And that's why they keep growing and they grew into levels that just seem astronomically successful. But they just kept asking the questions.

Yeah, they kept asking the questions over and over and over. Just having this ravenous curiosity for people. It never ends. That's why it's growth. The best kinds of goals in life are those that keep growing. And you, you, if you're just driven by status, goals or, or money or power, what you're, what you're trying to seek is oh, I, I want to reach this one end point. And then, and then I'm done. You know, I reach ultimate power. But you know, think there are things like love and, and, and purpose and curiosity. They, they pay their own rewards.

I love that. I love that. And I think the most important habits are these. I was joking with a friend the other day. I said, what is so unique and what's so masterful of what Scott did, referencing you was with the book. I said he wrote the best summary of modern positive psychology and he threw a self help book in the back. I was like, Scott's a self help guy. I know he's a psychologist, but he's a total self improvement guy. If you read his stuff and you connect with, you're like, this is self help 101. But he's basing it in such great research. And you're a phenomenal writer. I love that leap you did from exploration into love and purpose and then ultimately transcendence. That's hard to achieve as a writer to keep a framework going for hundreds of pages. I want to interrupt the framework a little bit to actually ask about that. How do you manage a book like this? Because we have so many influencers listen who like myself. We're always trying to create mental models and frameworks to explain things to people because that's just Adult Learning 101. Create a framework how people walk through it. But you obviously incorporated hundreds of studies into this and perspective from your life at the same time. A historical biography of a towering figure of Abraham Maslow. How did you do it as a writer?

I did make a lot of sacrifices in the sense that I long stretch. I went to San Diego and I just shut out everything. I had an executive assistant respond to all my emails during the week, so I didn't have to read any emails the whole week. I try to get myself in that flow state as much as possible and I like doing that. When I really dive deep into a new book project or something, I usually go through a six to eight month period or where I just. I'm devoted and committed to spending eight months in flow nonstop. You know, I love my mom, but I was like, mom, I'll only talk to you on Sundays, you know, and these just, you know, my friends, you know, there's a specific time. But really just I'm keeping my head in this space. I want to fully immerse myself in this world in these ideas and just constantly think about it. Morning, noon, night, wake up in the morning, oh, I have a new idea for what I want to write the next day. Didn't want to get distracted, so I had that one could say privilege to do that.

I love that. When you're writing, are you also. Are you working out? Are you drinking coffee? Like tell us some of the mindset and wellness. The wellness part of writing a book.

Yeah, definitely. Exercise is super important. I got into bodybuilding, actually. I find lifting weights works for me. It helps keep me in that flow state and also helps get out my frustration when I'm having a mental block, which is daily.

If you're writing a good book.

Yes, yes. I needed it sometimes more than once a day. So I find that weightlifting works for me as, as well as a light jog. But here's something I also, I experimented a little bit with nootropics. Maybe a little bit of a controversial area and might not be right for everyone. But anyway, I, I just find that I found some of these nootropics worked for me and it helped me really help. Help me to increase my focus. These are over the counter one call them just brain vitamins, you know, certain things that's. That, that helped a little bit as well. But yeah, just as much as you can, you can to get into that flow state. I'm. I'm now actually working with Steven Kotler's group of the Flow Research Collective, is a flow coach. So I'm like a flow coach now and I have see clients and I try to help them with the very same thing that I was able to do in my life.

So I love that. I love that. And you and I are on the same page. I mean I've been for, I don't know, 15 years telling people about nootropics because most people don't know they're actually consuming nootropic something. Caffeine is one. That chocolate you had is one, you know, so there is, there's a lot that people do that they don't realize. Whatever you ingest in your body is typically affecting your mental state, well being your biology and your brain. So I think that's really. I love to hear that you experimented with that because it does. Maybe it shows up. I think to me this is your best book and I loved your book on creativity.

Do you ever read Ungifted? My first book, Ungifted Intelligence Redefined. Because I kind of see this book as a sequel to Ungifted.

I think so. I think. You know what I like about this is it to me, this is. Takes on a more holistic perspective to life. Speaking of, I want to move to that next level of love, you know, because I think this is a big leap from ungifted, this section. And I think so many people struggle. I mean, I'm sure you're noticing even as a flow coach, you recognize that one of the number one things people bring up all the time in all of coaching is the relationships. I mean it is central to our human experience. I think there's only four aspirations in life, so I'm always teaching primary aspiration theory, I call it, which is we have being aspirations, relational aspirations, creation aspirations and growth aspirations. And the one where most people find both, you know, both hardship and exuberance is usually in the relational piece because that's the one they most cannot control. Right. I can control my contributions and My output I can control, hopefully have a sense of self control I can deem how much I develop a skill or mastery in many ways. But our social realm, that, that's, that's other people. And so love is a tough game. Relationships are a tough game. What did you, what did you enjoy writing the most about love?

In this book, I want to first off make clear that I distinguish the need for love from the need for connection. So I view them as different things. So many people today are focused on finding that connection. Like what, who, who is my same political thing. Who, who's my same. Who do I feel connected to? Do I feel like as a brother or sister to me? And then let's, let's connect together and then make fun of everyone else. Well, the need for, you know, let's, let's, let's create our who's in my in group so that we can all make fun of the out group and talk about them incessantly on Twitter all day long about how much they suck so that we can feel more connection to each other. But the need for love for me is a higher need. It's the need to care about your fellow humans as a human being, not as just their identity first or other, maybe even just their skin color first or gender first. It looks at deeper aspects of a human and really has love for humanity. It's really love for humanity. You can love humanity, but really not like people, individuals or love someone, an individual and not even like that individual. You know, it's like someone can rub you the wrong way. No one you would want to connect with, but still you can have love for that person, have care, wish them well, know that if they're well, probably the whole world will be better off if that person was well.

So yeah, I love that. I think one of the, one of the saddest parts of the development of maturity is that for so many of us that it, it comes very late when we are able and understanding in our life to be able to separate love from intimacy and to realize that those are two different things and to desire equally to love other humans philosophically in terms of meaning and humanity as much as we seek intimacy or a sense of connection that's more related to monogamy or one to one relationships or couple them, that when we are in a place that we strive for both of those. I want to have great fun, vulnerable, intimate, incredible relationships with my wife or with, with friends and that depth and that knowing and we seek that closeness and that type of connection. But we forget More of what I in my industry would call more of that spiritual plane, that transcendent plane, that metaphysical plane of love that makes it all worthwhile.

That's exactly right. You know, we can have this manic, romantic attachment to a person that usually fades, and then we start to see the reality of the person. The question is, do you still love a person when you see the reality of the person? That's the million dollar question.

I love that the top of your sale is purpose, which I just love. And I know my audience gets this concept pretty well. But I also think a lot of people are really struggling with purpose in 2020. What, as you're coaching people and you're a psychologist, how do you think? Through a reconnection or maybe a recalibration, or maybe just finding or sensing purpose right now in this year. Because a lot of people are really struggling here.

A lot of people are struggling. And I think that this is the time to reprioritize your goal hierarchy. That's the fancy term that psychologists use. What is your top level goal, the one that all the other goals in your life can feed into and can support each other so that they're all working harmoniously with each other to realize a top level goal? I think a lot of people are going to, during this time, going to revisit their goal hierarchy. Now, maybe they're not going to say to themselves, oh, it's time for me to revisit my goal hierarchy. But I'm basically saying there is. It's reprioritize. Well, what are the things that I'm doing in my life or have been doing that I've focused on that are really taking me away from what really matters to me, what really, really trul. Matters to me? I've realized personally that I've taken things for granted in my life and I just try not to beat myself up over that and have regrets. But I'm having this awareness that, oh my gosh, maybe I've taken my parents for granted, maybe I've taken the freedoms we've had to. I say that because I'm stuck here on the west coast and I haven't seen my parents in eight months, physically in person. Now you see them on Alexa. But a lot of things, a lot of my friends are still back in New York. And then there's just so many things we took for granted. You know, the freedom, the simple freedom. Just going out to a coffee shop and working at a coffee shop and talking, smiling at strangers. I miss smiling at strangers and not having Them like, you know, because everyone has their masks on now. You can't, you don't know how they feel in return when you smile at them. But, you know, I just, I miss so many simple things. I just. My advice, in terms of your excellent question about purpose, we don't have to view purpose. Purpose is such a lofty. Or calling. What is your calling? There's not just one single calling. The whole point about the word calling is that we are constantly getting calls from outside of ourselves of people in need of things, of ways we can be of service. And that's all calling is. It's not this one grandiose thing. And then you're like, this is it. And then I will ignore everything else. It's, it's. There are so many, there's, there's micro callings all throughout our day. If we are attuned to, to, to them and open and curious to them.

I love that. And I think one way of, of adding something here of just distinction when we talk about purpose in my world a little bit is also helping people realize it's not necessarily a goal or not necessarily hierarchy either, that, to use your phrases here, sometimes purpose is really connection. And what I mean by that is I can feel like I'm living purposefully when I'm connected, fully engaged to the moment, to myself, to other people, that there's a sense of purposeful living in, even if I don't have the object of a goal or have the end game of a desired state or a complete vision of an aspiration. It's that mindful awareness piece of having an intention in the moment and purposefully or faithfully living the day in a way in which we're connected and fully engaged can bring a sense of purpose and meaning that doesn't have, you know, the end game in mind.

Oh, it's, it's brilliant. It's brilliant. It's. No, I don't think anyone's ever operationalized purpose as a trait before. I'm a purposeful person, you know, and that, I think that's, that could open up a whole new research topic. I think that's, that's really, it's brilliant. What does it mean to be a. I'm the kind of person who works towards, who works towards life in a purposeful way, who's listening to the callings outside myself, who's not. So I think this idea of purpose does have this beyond the self aspect to it. Various researchers like Bronk at Claremont Graduate University has studied that with William Deem and They've done terrific work on that. And, yeah, it really does have this outside the self aspect to it. And so what does that mean to be purposeful because you are a purposeful person? It's a terrific question.

Yeah. Goes back to a lot of spiritual texts who talk about how you carry the pail of water to the house, that you can be mindful and fully connected and engaged and even appreciative or fulfilled by these simple acts just because you decided to. That may or may not be tied to, you know, the end game of that thing. And I think that's a real.

That's.

That's probably what I've noticed is hardest for people in. In the bigger picture of growth or the bigger picture of purpose itself, of finding that secret sauce of life. When you don't need the end game and you can feel the day. We can really. When you can be here and feel the day. Yes. Have ambitions. I always tell people the secret is how can you be happy and engaged and filled and satisfied and finding meaning now, knowing there's so much more out there, knowing there's still mountains to climb, knowing there's things you want, but if you could do both, then there's something beautiful there. You know, I don't know what that would be called. And in some senses, I want to say flow, but I also know flow has a different connotation from in your space than in mine. And so I think that. That it's a. There's. There's something magical there when we bring more purposeful living in, no matter how you define it.

Hey, now I know why Oprah loves you.

You know, I really want to learn from you on this piece here of this. This is a bit of a. I have no idea how you're going to take this question. I think it's a hard one. Transcendence is. Hopefully you kind of put transcendence in the sky of your. Of your framework, if I remember right.

It's kind of like the seabird.

Yeah. Okay. Okay. Yeah. In my mind, I'm remembering it being, you know, in the sky, which I really loved, but it's not a pie in the sky idea yet. Can someone achieve or feel or Sense Transcendence in 2020 in an election cycle? I mean, can we get there and if we can tell us how.

Look, I would like to think that some of your listeners are feeling a sense of transcendence listening to this conversation. Now, maybe that's narcissistic of me to say, but I think that you've said some Beautiful. You just said some things that gave me this feeling of transcending myself for even a moment. And just what you were just saying just now when I made the Oprah comment, you inspired me with what you were just saying. And it just makes me think that you know the way, well, the way I think of transcendence as this thing that can come and go. It's an emergent phenomenon. But we can have these moments we can't have. No one would want them 24 7. But we can have these moments where we suddenly just in the moment forget our concerns, we forget all of our self related things and we have this future oriented idea about what's possible in humanity. And you feel inspired to help contribute to the good society in some way. And when you change your focus of attention to those sorts of things, I think that we do experience these chills, these all like states. You know, we can try to encounter beauty as much as possible. The beauty of nature, the beauty of a loved one, that maybe treating them, seeing them for the first time like you've never seen them before. We can get into these moments. It does not matter what is going on around you. Look, if Viktor Frankl in the concentration camps was able to find moments of joy and meaning, you can.

Yeah. Oh, I love that. I love that. And you had a continuum in sort of peak experiences and transcendence that I wasn't familiar with, especially towards the end. And again, I'm operating off notes. I don't have that picture in front of me but I remember there was the. You kind of had awe and awe inspiration and mystical experiences kind of coming together when self and world come together. And I thought that was pretty, a pretty neat way to say that because I think a lot of people haven't sensed awe recently or you know, lockdown might have had as much, you know, inspiration. Because a lot of inspiration I think comes from exploration. I think it does. So it can feel, you know, it's like when you're not seeing new things. You know, you go to the Grand Canyon, you're like, wow. But then you know you haven't left your house in some time or you haven't gone out and about. And it's easy to get in a norm or a rhythm that is separate from the majestic or the mystical.

The mystical, the D realm versus the B realm. Yeah. We're so often motivated by deficiency. We're motivated by deficiency that it really does narrow our worldview. It really does cloud us. Putting on a clear lens gets us into the being realm of Human existence. And of course we have to acknowledge a lot of people are different paths on that journey. A lot of people face a lot more hardships than others that make them motivated by deficiency. But I would say for anyone taking active steps to do certain things throughout your day, to get in the B realm as much as possible is. Is so essential to human well being.

I love that. And you know, I want to. Something about you just said of people experiencing different things, I want to reference to, to everybody here who, you know, might not have read a lot of books in psychology or might not have been really attracted to this work or even if it's self improvement or high performance or however we want to talk about this growth, the journey we're all on. If you've ever felt like, well, that's not real or it's not. They're all optimistic positive thinkers or positive psychologists. I really hope you will pick up Transcend because Scott did a beautiful job of talking about the parts of our life that aren't easy, about traumas. He took it on straight out of the gate with safety and connection to talk about, you know, there's things that happen to us as children or in life that are really hard, that are hard to bounce back from. And I think that, you know, what I appreciate about your work is it's willing to look at the shadows. It's willing to be empathetic enough, say, damn, this is hard. I'm bummed. You know, I hate that it's like this or I'm struggling here. And it's, it's not just. It's always hopeful, but it's simultaneously realistic. And I think that that's why a lot of your contemporaries are calling this book really magical. Because there's weight to it. It's not just 100 summaries. There's human heart and soul. And I have to imagine obviously that some of that comes from the inspiration point of Maslow here. So I have to kind of end with a just what did you learn about Maslow as a person revisiting his work in such intimate ways? Because for those who read the book, you're going to see, you know, Scott found diary entries and unpublished work related to, you know, what's an iconic figure. So what did you learn about him and how did that affect you?

The loads I looked at, I read his two volume set of his personal diaries, like a thousand pages, I think over a thousand pages. And I read you think about the sacrifices I made to get through that. Let's see, thinking about the special Rare archives at University of Akron. Sitting there in that library, I wasn't allowed to bring any food or water and just spending like the whole day there just studying and reading all these amazing personal correspondences and things. Visiting his daughter who unfortunately died recently due to a complication from COVID but granddaughter who's still alive and wonderful. Just immersing myself in the world of this man I never met. Yet I felt as though I formed a friendship with him. It was maybe a very one sided friendship, but he had said in one lecture, he said, I feel like I can be friends with people that I've never met, people who I just have such a great affection for. And, and I felt the same way about him and learned that he did reconcile. He did face a lot of the same dualities and inner demons. Well, I would call them inner, not inner demons. I strike that terminology, inner conflicts. He faced a lot of inner conflicts that we all face. He had the spiritual side, but then he had this ultra rational side that hated the spiritual side. And then he had this grandiosity. He wanted to be liked, but he also deeply wanted to, to be connect. If you want to. I mean these, these are, these are things we all face, you know, you know, people, people like you, Brendan, probably face these, these inner conflicts where on the one hand, you know, you, you want to be, you know, top dog, you know, you want to, you want, you want to be respected and have all these people like you. But then you also, you could feel too lonely if, if that's all there is to your life. You know, you also want to be like the common person and connect with anyone. So I think we all face these, these dualities. Anyone who says, oh, I don't, I never face any inner conflicts is totally BSing you. You know, they're not human. They're not human. And Maslow I saw, even my, my boy, you know, my homeboy Maslow, I saw face deeply these same conflicts made me feel a lot better as well about myself that you know, you know, even Maslow who's who, who was the self actualizing, you know, not guru, but you know, the psychologist who put self actualization on the map in terms of the scient and he was facing these conflicts. So that was, that was kind of comforting.

I love it. I find it comforting too. And I just, I find your voice and your work comforting. My brother. I wish I could give you a big hug for likewise taking your time for this today. And it's impossible because Scott and I can't see each other as we're doing this right now. But I just have so much appreciation for this man and this work. If you don't listen to the psychology podcast, Scott Barry Kaufman, make sure you listen to that podcast. It's so good. If you've really wanted to understand. I really believe contemporary psychology in a way that doesn't kind of pick camps and does a good job of addressing modern psychology in a more, I would say, holistic and humanistic way, then transcend the new science of self actualization. It's my top recommended book in psychology for the entire year. I'm just. I'm stunned by it, man. I'm stunned by it as an achievement and how helpful it is and how many ideas it gives you as a reader, let alone not just like someone, a guy like me who does my career. Anyone reading this, you get so many different frameworks and tools and ideas and concepts, so many different illustrations or experiments or frameworks. It just makes you think about your life in greater vivid detail. And that accomplishment on its own is amazing. So, Scott, thanks for being with us here today, brother.

Thank you so much.

All right. Hey, my friend. I hope you enjoyed today's episode. If you're ready to go to another level, don't forget, go. Go to hpxcoaching.com Let me be your coach. Let me spend the first of each month with you, giving you a personal development seminar. Let me help you get unstuck, break through your emotional blocks, find your real clarity, your real passion, your real purpose, and implement the habits that you know you need to implement. Change your life by getting a coach, getting some expert guidance. Listen, you got as far as you could get. You're here. You've achieved so much in your life. But to go to another level requires another level of mindset, another level of discipline, another level of direction and community and consistency. And that is what my coaching program is all about. So go to hpxcoaching.com and listen, if you're ready to go to a whole other level, I'm hiring. Please go to brendon.com hiring for our open roles. I got a big secret project that we are rolling out and you'll only find information that@Brendan.com hiring we've got, I don't know, 10 or 12 open positions there. If you ever wanted to work with me, if you wanted me to be your leader, you wanted me to literally employ you and help you grow in your career and do what we do, serving this mission of helping people around the world achieve their dreams faster, helping them improve their lives. We live every day as a team to do that and we are currently hiring. We're building out a new product and we need some people to help us do that. Brendan.com hiring if you don't know how to spell my name, don't even think about it. We're looking for people who are pros. If you're interested in internship with me, don't go there. We're not hiring interns. If you're interested in starting your career with me, don't go there. We are an A team here. We've got people who are really experienced. So if you're new to personal development or you're new to marketing, you're probably not going to be the person we're looking for. We're looking for people with at least three years of professional experience in a lot of different roles because we take this role very seriously. We get to change lives and millions of them every single day. That's the work. So we're looking for real pros. Top of your game, ready to come on to an organization that reaches just as many people in the world as any other personal development influencer or trainer on the planet. And we'd be excited to have you join us in a big new initiative we're rolling out for the beginning of the year. I can't even tell you any more about that. Go to brendon.com hiring if you'd like to work with us. And if you just want to go to another level and have me as your coach, not your Boss. Go to hpxcoaching.com so I can give you a brand new personal development session this month to help you set your goals, get on track, get unstuck and achieve your ultimate difference. Go to hboxcoaching.com for that. Thanks again for listening to the Brendan Show. You all mean so much to me. I have so much coming out in the next couple months for you here that's going to be unique and special and I know you're going to love it. So keep your head up. I know it's been a hard year. Please remember, as always, you are stronger than you think and the future holds good things for you. Sam.