PNTV: Transcend by Scott Barry Kaufman

It's tough to go out in the big ocean of the— of our lives and sail successfully if you don't have a strong hull. Then we've got growth needs. All right, we've got a strong base, we've got a strong hull. Where are we going to go? You whine about the problems and challenges. You think something's wrong with yourself. You start shaming yourself. You want to avoid it. But the same exact wind that extinguishes a candle fuels a fire. You use those challenges as a reminder, as a catalyst to double down On the things you do when you're at your best. Then instead of going down, you use it as fuel to go up. Hi, this is Brian. Welcome back to another Philosopher's Notes TV. Today we've got another great book, Transcend, subtitled The New Science of Self-Actualization by Scott Barry Kaufman, PhD. This is a phenomenal book. We got a handful of ideas we'll look at together today. We've got the Philosopher's Note. in which I unpack those ideas, connect them to other brilliant thinkers, etc., and help you most importantly apply the wisdom to your life today. You can get a free copy of this note, check out the link in the show notes. Hope you enjoy. We're approaching 800 Philosopher's Notes. Let's go. And this book is one of my favorites. Scott Barry Kaufman is one of the most respected positive psychologists in the world. His podcast is super popular, 30 million downloads. Um, this is the 3rd book of his we've covered. We've got Rise Above, his most recent book. We've got another one called Wired to Create. But this book is special. Angela Duckworth calls it Maslow 2.0 is what Scott has done in this book, where basically he went through all of Abraham Maslow's old journals and all of his unpublished works, and of course all the stuff that he did during his lifetime. But Maslow died very, very young, and in his 50s, I believe, in '59, I think. Anyway, Scott read these journals, and in those journals Maslow actually said Perhaps one day someone in the next generation of psychologists will take his work to the next level. I got goosebumps saying that. I got tears in my eyes reading Scott's story about it. Scott is that someone. He has taken Maslow's great wisdom— again, this is 1950s-ish in which Maslow is creating these ideas— and brought it into the modern era. We'll talk about some of those ideas today. Again, check out the notes if you're into positive psychology. Check this book out. It's phenomenal. And check out Scott's other work. Actually, I'm going to hold on to the note today because I'm going to read from it a couple of times. So we've got 5 ideas. We've got me bumping up against the chalkboard here. Let's go. Maslow 2.0. I talked about that a little bit, but I'm going to talk about the pyramid versus the sailboat that Scott has used as a new metaphor. We're going to talk about self-actualization, the 10 scientifically validated qualities. Maslow had 19 characteristics that he hypothesized the self-actualizing human being would have? Well, Scott has empirically proven 10 of them. We're going to talk about those. We're going to talk about the importance of exploring and seeing your biggest challenges as your biggest opportunities for growth. We're going to connect that to my work on antifragile confidence. I'm writing a new book called How to Forge Antifragile Confidence, which is basically all about using your biggest challenges as fuel for your growth. It's the essence of all the work that I do with Special Forces, etc. Athletes, coaches, etc. Purpose— what's yours? We'll talk about how to get a deeper sense of clarity on that. We'll bring in some Jim Collins wisdom to support that, and then ultimately we'll define what it means to transcend such that we can apply this wisdom to our lives today. Let's go. But first, big idea is this: a lot of people think that Abraham Maslow came up with the hierarchy of needs. Right? Well, he did come up with a hierarchy of needs, but he did not come up with a pyramid. He never, ever, ever put his hierarchy of needs where we had safety or security needs and growth needs into a pyramid. That was some, like, business consultant that came up with that, and then suddenly it became the metaphorical representation of Maslow's work. But he never, ever framed it as a pyramid. So let's forget that, Scott says, and let's think instead about a sailboat. So a sailboat has a hull and it has a sail. And Scott tells us, all right, so the hull represents our security needs. You got to get that right. It's tough to go out in the big ocean of the— of our lives and sail successfully if you don't have a strong hull. You got to have your security needs taken care of. We'll talk about those in a minute. But that's not the point of having a ship. The point of having a ship, once it's stable, is to go explore the world. For that, you need a sail. That represents our growth needs. We'll talk about what those are. Let's do that now. Security needs, there are 3 of them: safety, connection, and self-esteem. So we got to get our, our safety, our connection, our self-esteem dialed in. Scott, of course, talks about each of those in depth in the book. Check it out. One thing I want to say is that if you want to have a strong hole, Beneath all that, you got to get your physiology right. You got to eat, you got to move, you got to sleep. We got to remember that our physiology is driving a lot more of our psychology than we often think. That's outside the scope of this conversation, but that's our security needs. Then we've got growth needs. All right, we've got a strong base, we've got a strong hole. Where are we going to go? Well, 3 qualities here, Scott tells us. One, a sense of exploration, which we're going to talk about. 2, a sense of love. And 3, that sense of purpose, which we're also going to briefly talk about. That's our new metaphor. Maslow 2.0. Sailboat, no more pyramid. Again, I can talk about that for quite a while, but we'll move on. Self-actualization. You've probably heard that phrase before, the self-actualizing individual. This is one of the many things that Maslow is best known for. His quote, what one can be, one must be. We all have these capacities clamoring to be used, he would say. Right? He also says, if you deliberately plan to be less than you're capable of, then I warn you— goosebumps— then I warn you, you will be unhappy. We need to actualize ourselves. But Scott connects it to the importance of transcending ourselves and living for something bigger than ourselves. But anyway, Maslow identified, hypothesized, that the self-actualizing individual Had 19 qualities. We talk about it in our notes on motivation and personality that you can check out in the Heroic app and all that good stuff. Scott empirically validated 10 qualities that self-actualizing individuals have. I'm going to briefly share those 10 qualities with you now. I rarely read from notes. I'm going to do so today. Number 1, they're truth-seeking. Scott has phrases for each of these, kind of statements. The characteristics of self-actualization. Number 1, truth-seeking. I am always trying to get at the real truth about people and nature. Number 2, acceptance. I accept all of my quirks and desires without shame or apology. 3, purpose. I feel a great responsibility and duty to accomplish a particular mission in life.

What's yours?

4, authenticity. I can maintain my dignity and integrity even in environments and situations that are undignified. Number 5, Continued freshness of appreciation. I can appreciate again and again, freshly and naively, the basic goods of life with awe, pleasure, wonder, and even ecstasy, however stale these experiences may have become to others. Peak experiences. Another phrase from Maslow. I often have experiences in which I feel new horizons and possibilities opening up for myself and others. Number 8, humanitarianism. That's number 7, sorry, I'm getting the order wrong. I have bullet points, not numbers, folks. I believe we're on number 7. Humanitarianism. I have a genuine desire to help the human race. Number 8, good moral intention. I can tell deep down when I've done something wrong. Number 9, creative spirit. I have a generally creative spirit that touches everything I do. And number 10, equanimity. I take life's inevitable ups and downs with grace Acceptance and equanimity. Those 10 qualities Scott has again empirically proven to be those that self-actualizing human beings who are flourishing experience a deep sense of eudaimonic joy, as we reference the ancient Greek word and Stoic word for it. There you go. How you doing on those? I went through them quickly, but how you doing on those? Know this, you can cultivate them via that. And again, Scott's got a lot of practical tips on how to do it, and this is what we do together all day, every day with the Heroic Operating System, etc. So we've got the whole strong through safety, connection, self-esteem. Now what? Now it's time to explore. Well, Scott tells us that the essence of exploration and having a deep sense of wise, disciplined, loving, courageous curiosity in life is to see your greatest challenges as your greatest opportunities for growth. Now, I frame this up, and I tattooed my body with this— these 2 words: antifragile. Antifragile. Will this fit on the chalkboard is the question. Antifragile, barely, confidence. Antifragile confidence is my phrase for exactly that. When you have antifragile confidence, you know that whatever life brings you, you can use as fuel to get stronger. If you're fragile, you break. If you're resilient, you can withstand more pressure, you bounce back faster. But what if What if when life hits you, you got stronger? That's what it means to be antifragile. Nassim Taleb is the one who coined that word. Didn't exist before he came up with it. What's the opposite of being fragile? What would happen if you get stronger when life hits you? You'd be antifragile. He says it's like the wind. The wind will extinguish a little candle— fragile— but the same exact wind that extinguishes a candle fuels a fire. Then he says, you want to be the fire and wish for the wind. Now, this is what I've been blessed to do with all my work with the elite individuals I've been able to work with and everybody from all domains of life. And this is the subject of my next book, How to Forge Antifragile Confidence, which I am fired up about. More on that soon. Briefly, first you want to know that you can use life's challenges As fuel to get stronger. It's almost like going to the spiritual soul gym. You lift heavy weights when you go to the gym if you want to get strong. You don't lift Styrofoam weights, right? Yet when life hits you with a problem, what do you do? If you're like most people when they're not at their best, and any of us when we're not at our best, you whine about the heavy weights. You whine about the problems and challenges. You think something's wrong with yourself. You start shaming yourself. You want to avoid it, all that stuff. But what if When life hits you, when the wind blows, you're able to say, perfect, bring it on. I'm going to use this as fuel. I'm in life gym right now lifting heavy weights. How can I use them to get stronger? The way I operationalize that, the way I take it off the bumper sticker, which is how one of my heroes, General Fenton, described my work when I was speaking to his top commanding officers at the Special Operations Command. How do we take that off the bumper sticker? Here's the short story. And the essence of my book and, and all that side of the work. You need to know who you are when you're at your best. I call it a protocol. You got to know that you do this, this, this, and this, and you don't do this, this, this, and this when you're at your absolute best, when you're out sailing the open seas and you're feeling good, you're practicing your philosophy. Then when life hits you, rather than go off the rails and do all the things you do, the vicious behavior you do when you're not feeling good and you're feeling overwhelmed and anxious, and make yourself spiral out into worse and worse situations psychologically. In other Otherwise, you use those challenges as a reminder, as a catalyst to double down on the things you do when you're at your best. Then instead of going down, you use it as fuel to go up. It sounds easy. It sounds— it is simple, but not easy to do. Again, longer chat we'll have in different contexts. I've got a training program coming out soon too I'm fired up about. So exploration, essence of it is greatest challenges equal your greatest opportunity for growth. But what for? We got to live for something bigger than ourselves. We have that exploration, we have love in our lives, and we have a sense of purpose. Now, in this context, in the note, when I read— well, I read this book years ago, but when I created the note, I had recently read Jim Collins's great book, What a Life Is For. Jim Collins, one of the best business strategists in the modern era, Peter— or kind of modern Peter Drucker, right? He wrote Good to Great, Built to Last, etc., all about businesses and some stuff on leadership. But this book, What a Life Is For, is all about individuals who created extraordinary lives of deep meaning, purpose, their flourishing, etc. He spent 10 years researching it, 2 years writing it, and it's wonderful. Tied for first is my all-time favorite book. I'm going to do a PNTV on it soon. But he says basically, and you might have seen this before, I'm running out of space, but let's go. He has what he calls a hedgehog concept where you have 3 circles: what you love to do, what you're great at, and what the world needs. And he calls it— he says we need to discover our encodings, our natural encodings of us at our best. And when we're doing stuff that isn't quite what we're here to do, we don't feel the same joy, the same sense of purpose and alignment that we do when we're in frame, when we're doing the things that we're encoded to do. So we need to pay attention to those moments. And again, longer chat, we'll save for another time. Then you need to figure out how to get paid to do that. Then You got to do it for something bigger than yourself and focus your energy over the long haul, which— I'm going to leave it at that for now. And then we'll move on to the final idea: transcend. What does it mean to transcend? Scott's wisdom on this is just wonderful. On the last page of the notes, I pull out some of the last words of the book, and I'm going to read them to you again. So that we can move beyond just self-actualization. Maslow never intended that. He never had the pyramid, but he never intended the top, if he did have a pyramid, to be self-actualization. He always— well, he didn't always, but he moved toward speaking more and more about self-transcendence. You get to a point where it isn't about check me out, I self-actualize. It's no, no, no, I've become the best version of myself in service to something bigger than myself. Scott says this: Healthy transcendence is an emergent phenomenon resulting from the harmonious integration of one's whole self in the service of cultivating the good society. I'll repeat: healthy transcendence is an emergent phenomenon resulting from the harmonious integration of one's whole self in the service of cultivating the good society. That is as close to a definition of as I see it, what it means to be heroic that I can imagine. For me, the ultimate game, the ultimate quest, is what the ancient Greeks and Stoics said: to experience eudaimonia, to experience that self-actualization of connecting to our guiding spirit, our inner daimon. Why? So that we can use our gifts in service to something bigger than ourselves. Joseph Campbell echoes this wisdom when he says the ultimate aim, the ultimate aim of the hero's quest, Must neither be release nor ecstasy for oneself, but the wisdom and the power to serve others. The whole hero's journey. The arc is you answer the call to adventure, you battle your dragons, you get your buddies, you get your guides, and you return transformed. It's not about you. It's about you dealing with your fear and your laziness and all the challenges you face, getting the secure hole, Getting the sails open such that you can give your gifts in greatest service to the world. That's the ultimate purpose of life from my vantage point, from— I'll paraphrase Scott's vantage point, all the great teachers that I and we admire. Transcend, become your best self in service to something bigger than yourself. That's our ultimate purpose. Understand what your gifts are, how you can serve the world. We have a ton of notes on great books on purpose, including William Damon, who I just adore. We have Purpose 101, other courses in the Heroic app you can check out. Of course, exploration we talked about in depth. Antifragile confidence— use your greatest challenges as fuel to be your best self such that we can self-actualize. Experience those 10 qualities of the self-actualizing individual and embrace Maslow 2.0. Get your hull strong, set the sails up, and let's go. Most important time for us today is this: what idea— I hope there was at least one— jumped out and landed for you And how— pause for a moment. Anything come up for you? How can you take that from theory to practice to mastery? Let's do it together. Let's do it today. Again, appreciate you, Scott. Great work. Check out his podcast, check out the notes, check out the book, etc. Have a great day.

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