Flow vs. the Victim Mindset: Trade Blame for Breakthroughs

Welcome to Flow Radio. I'm Ryan Wicks, Chief of Staff at the Flow Research Collective. And today, as always, I'm joined by our Executive Director and bestselling author, Steven Kotler. Our guest today, Dr. Scott Barry Kaufman, is a dear friend and returning guest on Flow Radio. He is one of the world's top researchers on intelligence, creativity, and human potential, ranking in the top 1% of most cited scientists. He's a professor at Columbia University, director of the Center for Human Potential, and founder of Self-Actualization Coaching. Dr. Kaufman has authored 11 books, including Rise Above, which we will be discussing today, Choose Growth, and Transcend: The New Science of Self-Actualization. And those are just his most recent works. His work has redefined how we think about intelligence, creativity, and what it truly means to reach our potential. He's also the host of The Psychology Podcast, one of my favorites, with over 30 million downloads, and was named one of 50 groundbreaking scientists changing the way we see the world by Business Insider. Today, we're diving into his latest book, which drops later in April, Rise Above. And exploring how we can break free from the victim mindset, reclaim our agency, and unlock our full potential. Scott, welcome back to Flow Radio.

Thank you so much. It's an honor to be back, and that was one of the best intros I've ever heard. I kind of feel the, the drive to self-abase myself somehow. I was, I was thinking as you're saying all that, but he doesn't have a girlfriend.

Ladies and gentlemen, the Notorious SBK.

Yeah, I have this like, I have this like a drive to humble myself whenever I hear intros like that. I don't know what's in me that wants to do that. Thank you, Ryan. That really was truly a very kind intro.

You're a rock star.

I think we're going to have a conversation later on in this conversation about how to take compliments because I suck at it too. Yeah. And maybe I can ask you about it. All right. So, you and I go way back. I think the first event we ever did together was on creativity, which was one of your early deep passions. And it's funny, in my brain, Scott Barry Kaufman is always one of the world's leading experts on creativity. And by the way, point of fact, I've been reading, because I'm a goof, the Oxford— I think it's the Oxford Handbook on Creativity, Volume 2. And the other day, I saw an SBK footnote in there. So, you've made it into Oxford as well.

Show me the—

Take a picture of it if you get a chance.

I will. What I want to—

Send it to my mom.

We met around creativity. The last time I think we talked together on this podcast, it was about Transcend, which is a marvelous, marvelous book about Maslow and your reinvention, reimagining, let's say, of the hierarchy of needs in a different style. And now we're at Rise Above, which is personality psychology. It's heavy personality psychology and a lot on mindset, personal growth. So, what I want to know, I'm not really asking you an academic question. I'm asking you a personal question. What's the journey that got you from creativity to transcend to here? Like, what's the SBK path that actually led you here? You know, by the way, in 2 minutes or less.

Yeah, yeah, sure. I'll do it in 2 minutes. Yeah, a lot of people have been asking me that on this, this kind of circuit, this talk circuit, because they're like, how do you go from like imagination to like victim mindset? Well, I'll just say, I'll just say this has been a thread really running through my whole life. I mean, when I was in 9th grade and I was in special education and people didn't really believe in me. There was this moment where this special ed teacher took me aside and she had never seen me before and she asked me, you know, "What are you still doing here?" And I just— it surged through my head, this question, "What am I doing here?" "What am I still doing here?" And it really inspired me to take myself out, break out of special ed, see what I was capable of. But I also had this profound realization, which is that no one's coming to save me, you know? That I had waited what I'd waited 9 grades. I was like, "I hope someone someday will just ask me why am I still here?" And I guess in a way this woman did save me, but she didn't say like, you know, she didn't like, she's not like, get out, you know. It was me that realized, wow, if I'm gonna show my potential to the world, I gotta make this happen. There's no one else in the world that's gonna be able to show that potential except for me. So I had that realization. And about 5, 10 years ago, I started doing research on vulnerable narcissism and started to find over and over again that it was the biggest inhibitor of self-actualization, even more so than any of the other things I've ever studied in my career, like creativity and IQ. The way we interpret our experiences and the kind of mindset we have about when we fail that help us persevere. I found it was the biggest inhibitor of self-actualization. And then I saw what was going on in our culture. We live in a victimhood culture. And I was like, okay, I need to do this. Finally, it's time to do this book. That might have been more than 2 minutes.

It was a great answer though. And it totally makes a lot of sense to me. After Lyme disease, after I'd been in bed for like 3 years, I sort of realized my life had been diminished to like, you know, I could get up for 10 minutes a day. I could stay here or I could go do that. It was really small. And I remember thinking, holy crap, no one is coming to save me. My life is going to be nothing more than I make of it. And this is what I've got. And it was horrible and power— I write about it in West of Jesus, but it was the moment everything started to change. It's interesting. Ryan, over to you. Otherwise, I'm just going to keep asking questions. So you go next.

BK, I'm curious. So you started this back when you were in high school and you were in special education. Is that right? Yeah, well, when you say you started this, I didn't start writing Rise Above then, but yeah, the realization of that self-awareness and knowing, yeah, no one's coming to save me. I'm curious, what was the process of like busting through these, you know, very limiting expectations of you?

Yeah, a lot of this does relate to this idea of learned helplessness that Martin Seligman first originated, and then he found out he was completely wrong. And it was the complete— it's actually the complete opposite. It's not helplessness that we learn. They found that it's actually inhuman. That's the case with the rats and dogs, but in humans our default state is helplessness and what has to be learned is hope. So it's actually learned hopefulness. But I realized when I was young, I was like, it just, it just, it, I was like, how come no one else, how come everyone is taking, all my friends here in special ed, how come everyone's taking everything at face value that, you know, the expectations. And I didn't have the language learned helplessness then, but there was something in me really realizing just how much we are, we have our own mental prisons and we just expect that people know what's better for us than we know within our own soul what we're capable of. And, and, and, and I also, you know, just felt this like big drive to like to just help people with all different kinds of minds show their intelligence. And so that's, that's really what I thought I was— my purpose in life was, was to redefine intelligence and expand the way we think about intelligence. That's what I wrote the book Ungifted. That's why I wrote the book Ungifted about that. But yeah, as a kid, I I really, I mean, I didn't think of it or frame it as I did now, but retrospectively you start to realize just how much fate intervenes and you only kind of see where it's heading when you get there, you know, some, you know, and you sit there at the end of your life and you're like, wow, now it all kind of makes sense. What didn't make sense in the moment, you know, but in a way overcoming a victim mindset is something I've continually had to do myself and work on my whole life. And it has empowered me, like that work has really paid off. And I want to show people how much it can pay off because unfortunately I see everywhere I look on every aisle of the political spectrum, on every, everywhere I look, people, I don't see much empowerment these days. And it's really kind of depressing, kind of depressing.

Yeah.

I love this topic because we talk about this a lot at the Hillary Speech Collective. If you have a victim mindset, you have an external locus of control. The world happens to me. The foundational rule of flow, peak human performance, is if you have an external locus of control, your brain will not give you the energy to drop into flow. Why bother? Why expend the energy? So an external locus of control, which you get from a victim mindset, like a fixed, or from a victim mindset, it's a fixed mindset in the same way. And it completely the same thing Carol Dweck found with flow is if of a fixed mindset, it completely blocks flow. So, from a peak performance human standpoint, the victim mindset is a deal breaker. And so, when we're training people and I've had to do this, it amazes me. This is another thing that amazes me. I've had to do it more with coaches, people who really should know better, who will— their introduction of themselves these days is their trauma. It's like they lead the conversation with their trauma and their victim mindset. And I think, how can you possibly be coaching people if that's where you're coming from? Because you're literally blocking peak performance in yourself. And it was so great to hear you write about the empowerment mindset and the steps to go from one to another. So as a way to kind of big question, but talk a little about the victim mindset, give me a sense of the neurobiology.

Oh, you love those too.

Talk a little about the empowerment mindset, give you a little sense of the neurobiology, the mechanism, and how do we go from one to the other? Big question. This one, you have 5, 10 minutes. Go crazy.

You love to, everything has to have a neurobiology behind it, or you're like, what's the point?

Well, let me, I was gonna ask you this about your narcissism question. When I look at all the different versions of narcissism, I think, okay, this is really cool. This is really useful. I know all these people. Is there neurobiology underneath it? Does it mean their brains work differently from one another? At what point in the information gathering chain does it show up? Does it work like a bias, a frame, A mindset.

What is it? I, I don't wanna turn the spotlight on you for a second, but I, I would kind of like to. What, what is it within you that is so fascinated with the neurobiology behind things versus the things themselves?

So I think it's my need to control everything.

Right. Interesting.

And neurobiology gives me mechanism. Yeah. I think humans are simple mechanisms, right? Approach, avoid, valence, and arousal. Those 4 knobs control most of our reactions. So to me, I think, okay, if I'm really keenly fascinated by something, it either has to be protecting me against something I'm scared of or leading me someplace I want to go, or probably this both at once because it's a big driver in me. So that's how I think about it.

Yeah, this is actually a really important discussion. I think we don't have enough— me and not just me and you, but just in general in the public because there's such a neuroscience— there's such a seductive allure to neuroscience explanations in the general population right now. There are a lot of people don't even know anything about neuro— you happen to know a lot about neuroscience, but there's a lot of people who don't really know much at these kind of parties in Venice and they're like, oh, it's all dopamine. And it's like, okay, you don't know what you're talking about, but you listen to a podcast and now you're a neuroscientist. And not to put shade on these people, but I feel like people don't understand just how— and you do understand this, Stephen, so I'm not talking about you. But people, I think, that consume all this neuroscience stuff don't realize just how complex this shit is. I mean, look, Stephen, I've seen you reading like the Handbook of Molecular Biology, you know, so you enjoy the little nuances, but I don't think most people realize it's not all about dopamine. It's not all— and that kind of reductionism really does bother me, which is why I'm a humanistic psychologist and I really like to discuss, you know, what it means to be fundamentally human, and behavior matters a lot. And I think behavior can be even more interesting than the neurobiological explanation. But yeah, give me your thoughts, Stephen.

Two quick things. The one practical— well, both practical actually. So one, we don't— we didn't do this, uh, we haven't done this in a while, but in the very beginning of the Flow Research Collective, everybody, uh, we brought on staff, I made them watch— I want to say it's the 12th episode of Robert Sapolsky's basic neurobiology class at Stanford because it's the episode where he does the genetics and epigenetics of receptors. So whatever you think you know about dopamine or whatever, or any dopamine's got these set receptors and here's D2 and D3. And what you don't realize is based on all these myriad of factors, receptors will grow in atrophy over the course of a week. So whatever you think you understand about how this stuff is working, no, because there are receptors which determine everything about how sensitive we are to neurochemicals that go away and move and go elsewhere. And he breaks all that down and it's a great lesson at how we don't know shit. So I used to make everybody watch that because I always like neuro— But I will tell you, in my defense, I believe in flow training. If you want to train flow from the psychology, it set me high. And Susan Jackson, who's a marvelous sports psychologist, tried it and they wrote Flow in Sports about it. And their hit rate was lousy. And they openly admit, they're like, wow, this stuff is not trainable. We tried it with the psychology, it doesn't work. And we then tried it at the Flow Research Collective using neurobiology, using mechanism to steer from, because I thought that was conserved across people and evolution shaped all of us that way based on our data. And we've trained tens of thousands of people at this point and we measure everything and we see a 70 to 80% increase in flow. On average. And I don't think it's because our kung fu is so good. I think that's the leverage you can get from neurobiology if you take the time to understand the subtlety and really, really hammer on it. So I think there is truth to this instinct of, oh, let's get it mechanism. And I also want to say that to be able to steer by behavior, which is what you do, that, you know, I mean, first of all, you know the neurobiology incredibly well because I've had these conversations with you and we go way back. But you also know the psychology as good as almost anybody alive. Live, though you have a tremendous amount to steer from.

I think psychology is important, and I think that for some reason there's not as seductive a war of psychology as there is about neuroscience, and I think that's a shame. But I can— I'll actually answer your question though. Let me describe a victim mindset and tell you it's neurobiology. No one's— no, you're the first one to ask me about the neurobiology of a victim mindset.

Thank you for pushing back though. I appreciate the, uh, I appreciate it.

Yeah, well, it's just like a pet peeve of mine, obviously, that like psychology is— people are like, oh yeah, forget the psychology, let's just go to like changing the levers of the mechanisms. And it's like, that's not human.

It's probably my fault. I helped, I helped spread that myth around.

I don't know. I wouldn't say it's your fault.

One of the conspirators.

I'm one of the conspirators.

I don't know. I think you do a really good job with public, public science communication, for what it's worth. Okay, let me, let me give my definition here. Having a victim mindset means you tend to blame all your problems on external circumstances, whether it's that life dealt you a bad hand, or that a person or even an entire group of people the Jews, always the Jews, have it in for you and are holding you back. You believe you don't need to take responsibility for your actions or reactions because of past, quote, trauma. And I put that in quote because I think that word is overused these days. You can't stop ruminating about your past victimization. You may even fixate on how to enact revenge, and you rarely think about solutions or ways of moving forward with your life with hope and purpose. I think from a neurobiological perspective, it must be tied to two traits, two personality traits. And then, and then the, there is a whole personality neuroscience emerging, a whole field in which, uh, my colleague Colin DeYoung is really, uh, quite a leader, a leader of. Um, so I would say neuroticism and antagonism. It's kind of the intersection of those two things. Yeah. Or neuroticism and entitlement. Let's say neuroticism and entitlement. Yeah. It's the intersection of those two things. It's this, you're constantly already ruminating and anxious. but you also have this extra element of entitlement where you feel like, well, I deserve special privileges because I'm suffering more than everyone else. So you're kind of competing in this victimhood Olympics. So certainly amygdala activation, but, but not just that, also things relating to like high cortisol, you know, things relating to being on constant alert, being on constant alert and seeing malevolent intentions everywhere you look, even in neutral stimuli. That's a big, big fundamental part of the bias in the brain of brains of those, uh, who have a, who score high in a victim mindset. Does that make sense?

You know what, that makes— yeah, good.

I was—

what you were talking, I was thinking a little bit about what you're saying and how it might relate to, uh, Don Quainos and Mark Beeman's research on the anterior cingulate cortex and how it decides, do we want to make a logical linear safe decision, which is what happens when we're scared, or can we be creative? Can we be open? Which is, you know, more choice in the matter, which is what happens when we're in a good mood kind of thing. Oh, a visit from Kiko. Hi, Kiko.

Hi, Kiko.

So huge ramifications everywhere. Very crippling.

Yeah, very crippling. And I want to also make clear this is a continuum. It's, I think we all, it's actually a dynamic mindset. So we all go in and out of it at various times in our life. And I want us to be mindful and catch us when we're in this sort of when we're in this frame of mind, you know, we're in this state of consciousness, we could say. Because I think all of us, you know, you can think you're cured of your victim mindset and then go on Instagram and see someone more successful than you, and then it triggers something deep primal within you that like, wow, I'm not doing enough in my life. And then, oh, why? Your brain can start automatic again. It's our default state. I believe this is our default state. We have to actively learn to have hope. We have to actively learn to transcend and rise above, however else you want to phrase it. If I write one more book with a synonym of transcendence, please slap me with a wet noodle.

I've got a question for the both of you. Yeah, so we kind of opened the conversation with talking about how like the default is helplessness. From an evolutionary standpoint, does a victim mindset, helplessness, does serve a useful function, or is it just that— oh yeah, psychological trap for us no matter what?

Well, I think there are a lot of things that served evolutionary adaptive functions that we don't really want in our lives. You know, eating fat was evolutionary adaptive at one point when we had to store lots of fat because we didn't know when our next meal was going to come. Now there's no— for most people, there's no shortage of meals, although I do have to acknowledge people who have great food and live with great food uncertainty. But nevertheless, yes, I think that the victim mindset in particular, I think that sort of not just feeling helpless, but signaling that you're helpless does bring rewards. I mean, it brings attention to the problem. And it gets you really important resources. To be able to be the greatest victim. That should be a reality TV show. No, no, actually shouldn't. Never mind. The biggest victim, the biggest victim. That could be actually, you could actually, actually, I think that would be a good idea. The more I think about it, the more I think that's actually a really interesting pitch. Wouldn't that be the very end, you know, to have everyone who think— every group in America right now that thinks they're the greatest victim, you know, compete against each other in the Victimhood Olympics? I don't know what that would look like. But anyway, just to focus a second, getting the full state, Scott, getting the full state.

I know where we could host this. I've got a city in mind.

Yeah, yeah. Um, yeah, I mean, to be— you get a lot of resources from being seen as the victim. Um, and I should make clear that you can have a trauma without being traumatized, and you can be a real victim of horrible life circumstances without having a victim mindset. And you can also have not been a victim and have a victim mindset. That's possible too. And that tends to be correlated with the dark triad personality traits. So this stuff is complex, and there's different ways that this can different configurations. Of course we should have empathy, sympathy, listen to people's experiences who've gone through horrible things, people who are suffering. I really am not writing a book to say get over it already, snowflake. That's not, that's not the vibe of my book. It's not the vibe. I call it honest.

Not at all.

Yeah, thanks, Ryan. I, I hope— I, I appreciate you recognizing that. I'm not saying get over it, buttercup, you know. This really is a— I call it honest love, you know. The love part is acknowledging Where people are at and what they've been through in their life and acknowledging and agreeing. Yeah, that really sucks. And playing yes and with this, and the honest part is saying, and you got this, you know, you can move forward. You got the resiliency, you know, you can, you can, you can, you're not in a mental prison. It's a yes and game versus just staying stuck.

I want you to talk about the empowerment mindset, which is how you think about the opposite side of it. But I want to walk into that question. Sort of one of the things that I have found very useful as a tool for myself, for other people, sort of when that comes up, I trust my own history. I often feel like people don't trust their own history. Their own history often says you're not a victim. In fact, for most of us, the joke I always make is that our worst tragedies actually function like teleportation chambers. It's like you go into them as one person and you come out the person you actually wanted to be, and that the shortest distance between two points— but you had to go through that horrible experience to get there. I always find, you know, I joke about it as if, like, I always say that the universe, I think, will give you everything you want. It's just merciless about how you get there. That's what I've— so I— and all the, you know, I spent a very long time trying to be in the room when the quote-unquote impossible became possible and getting to know the people who pulled that off. And there's always a rise above story, right? There's always woven through that. Even when there's great triumph, it usually starts someplace pretty dark. So besides trusting your own history, my question is, how do you think about the empowered mindset? Give us a definition, indulge me with a little bit of the neurobiology perhaps, but really talk to me about the cultivation of it and the transformation.

The cultivation and the what? What was the other word you said?

And the transformation. Do I rise above, man? Teach me what's the 401.

Love it. I love it. So let's— let me read some items on my empowerment scale, see how this resonates with the audience and if this is something people want more of in their life, which I hopefully— hopefully they do. Yes, something happened and it has affected me, and it doesn't define me. I have deep reservoirs of resilience within me and can handle difficult situations. I don't want to be reduced to the worst thing that has happened to me. Instead, I'd like to be seen as a whole person that includes strengths as well as what happened to me. My reactions are within my control, and I can develop strengths because of my adversity. So those— that's— it's a very yes and, you know, improv way of thinking about life that doesn't ignore— it doesn't ignore real suffering. That's not what I'm about. But it also acknowledges the empowerment we still have within us. The first part of my book are all the ways that we can become a victim internally. It's a bit of a twist. It's a bit of a twist because so many books are about victim, you know, don't be a victim of your external circumstances. But actually, the first 5 chapters of my book are about all the ways in which we become a victim unnecessarily within ourselves. We become a victim to our emotions when we take our emotions at face value. You know, we become a victim to our people-pleasing tendencies when we feel like we have to say yes to everything and please everyone, and then we forget our own self and our own needs. We become a victim to our past, you know, uh, so often. Uh, Irving Yalom, the great existential humanistic psychotherapist, said, sooner or later you're going to have to give up all hope for a better past.

I think that's—

that, that's a— it's a brilliant quote, and it encapsulates a lot of my book, you know, and that idea which is like, it happened, you can't change it barring a time machine. What are you going to do about it? Are you going to, you know, just— I don't know. I want to be compassionate, but sometimes I see things on Instagram, some influencers and their trauma-informed approach is to just coddle, say, oh, it's okay, you've had trauma, you can stay in your room for the rest of your life and do nothing. You can be an asshole to others. You've had trauma. It's okay. You get an excuse. And to me, that's not extremely empowering. Way forward. So I wanted to present a different perspective for people who are ready for it. I understand not everyone is going to be resonating with this, this way of empowerment healing in the book.

But I think there is, there are a lot of people, a lot of people, by the way, if you ever want to sell tickets to like a public debate between like you and those influencers, I'm in, like I'm buying a lot of them. I'm in. Me both. Well, you, I mean, both of us, we're both like, we got a chance to talk to your colleague George Bonanno on who's kind of one of the world's leading experts. I think he is the world's leading expert at this point on resilience and adaptive flexibility and sort of the magic of adaptive flexibility.

I love him.

It was the whole— I call it the cult of trauma, and I think of it as a cult of trauma because his work says, look, 85% of the time you're going to bounce back in a year and a half. The normal human reaction. And we know a huge portion of the people who bounce back are going to bounce back through the ladder of post-traumatic growth. That's the most hopeful ladder of all, and it's one that leads directly to more flow. Well, I look at all that stuff and I think, okay, so by his stats, only 15% of the people who are running around claiming a trauma narrative can be right. Everything else has to be theater based on his numbers. That's a horribly judgmental way to say all that. And I apologize to everybody who I just offended a little.

I think that you're funny. You are so funny. I'm trying, I'm really trying to have sensitivity when I go on this book tour and keep emphasizing that it's not a book about just get over it already. But no matter all my good intentions, I think it still can be misconstrued. And I'm already having people emailing me and saying, Well, what about queer people? What about Black people? They can't just rise above. And I disagree with that. I disagree with that. I think that I believe in the higher potential of all people, including Black people. And as I say jokingly, I say, I say, if it's racist to say I believe in the higher potential of Black people, then I guess I'm racist because, because that's exactly what I believe. I believe that we all, no matter our circumstances, I don't patronize people. I don't view people, you know, some people, some races, some groups as less than capable than other groups. I just don't view the world that way. So there is a tension between a particular ideology and I guess my worldview informed by science, you know, and what we know about how everyone is capable of maybe not changing your circumstances. I think that's very true and very important to acknowledge. But everyone is capable of changing their mindset and their way of coping and showing up in the world. There's a great quote that opens up my entire book by Joan Rivers.

Joan Rivers.

Are you guys a Joan Rivers fan?

Yeah, hard not to be.

That's true. Hold on, I, I'm trying to find it. My, my whole computer just crashed. Maybe my computer's woke and didn't like what I just said. It's, it's, it's protesting me. Hold on. Please edit all that out. Okay. Everything I just said there. Okay. Found it. Found the quote. Here's the quote by Joan Rivers. Listen, I wish I could tell you it gets better, but it doesn't get better. You get better.

She nailed that one.

Did nail that one. There's two things that you brought up in there that I wonder. So one thing I wonder, I always think about the victim mindset. You were talking about having compassion and empathy. I don't, I just think about it very, very practically. You're free to make this decision, but you've literally just shut yourself off from all hope, all light. You've literally walled yourself off from life. It's a permanent early grave as far as I can tell. So, okay, I can't get to the compassion because I'm just sort of blown away by the, wow, this is a deep choice you're making and it's super crippling.

It's super crippling, and it's really unfortunate because it doesn't have to be that way. There are lots of things you can do to shine the light within yourself and find the parts of you that aren't broken. And people— some people seem committed to reducing their entire selves to a victim identity, and I think that's really limiting. I really do. You know, I feel like with this book, it's like, I said what I said. I feel like—

I feel that kind of adds to the question: is there a relationship between narcissism and victimhood? You spend a lot of time on, in the book, on narcissism, and it strikes me that those, those traits often seem to coexist.

I don't know. Okay, that's that. Let's unpack that statement. I don't know if victimhood— I would say a victim mindset and narcissism coexist.

Yeah, yeah, exactly. I'm sorry, I misspoke.

Fair to say. Yeah, people who've experienced—

yeah, no, you're right.

Yeah. Um, but the vic— that's why we have to be really sensitive with this kind of conversation, because we want to have compassion for those who've just gone through things we wouldn't even comprehend, you know, having gone through, you know, sexual abuse, physical violence, things like that. And, um, yeah, so I think that the victim mindset is one that's generalized across situations. So it does tend to be correlated with vulnerable narcissism because you tend to— we're not talking about just one situation that happens that you're a victim of and then you have a victim mindset. We're talking about a certain mindset that is pervasive across everything from waiting in the Starbucks line and thinking to yourself, ah, I've suffered more than everyone else in this line. Why can't I go to the front of the line? You know, not acknowledging that everyone else in that line has had some suffering too, you know, or, you know, because that's part of being human. You know, to everything, to smiling at someone on the street and they don't respond favorably, or let's say they just have a neutral expression and then taking it personally and being like, oh, I smiled at that person and they didn't smile back. You know, what an asshole. You know, like just expecting the world to bend to your needs as well and to walk on eggshells around you. Yeah, it's a general pervasive mindset that is correlated with vulnerable narcissism. That is true. But I think it is important to distinguish between a victim mindset and victimization. My book's not about victimization. My book is about a particular form of consciousness that we can all fall prey to every now and then. Some people live in it more than others, that mindset. That, you know, everywhere they go. You know, I think we can all probably think of the person who is a victim of, quote, a victim of every situation. You know, they take everything personally, you know, there, and, and it really does hold them back. Does that make sense, Stephen?

I think it's a good answer.

Thank you.

Yeah, it totally makes sense, Scott. You know, when my box came with this book, I was just so excited.

Is that the, is that the published, the published version, or the page proofs?

Page proofs.

Yeah, I don't even have a copy.

Yeah, thank you for sending me an early copy.

Thank you.

And I expect, you know, I knew I was going to get into a deep dive into the science of victim mindset. I was most anticipating of learning about other people. I quickly realized this book is speaking directly to me. I absolutely fall on this spectrum and recognize that it exists within all of us. But I'm curious, one thing I didn't find immediately that was there is, you know, when we recognize victim mindset in people we work with, family members, our friends, people we love, it's a useful response. You know, when we're recognizing that, how, like, how can we use that awareness?

Hand them a copy of my book.

No, no, Dad, I'm already like, hand them a copy. I've already pre-ordered a few.

I know where to go. Read Rise Above. If we're dealing with family, friends, I mean, the answer is always love, you know. I mean, that's the answer. The answer is always validating their experience. A lot of people don't realize just how far unconditional positive regard can go when dealing with a person in pain or a person who seems, seems angry. Carl Rogers— there was this really cool debate between Carl Rogers and Rollo May, uh, I believe was Rollo May. Yeah, yeah, I think it was Rollo May. I may be wrong about that, but, but what Carl Rogers said in this exchange— I remember what Carl Rogers said. He said, I don't believe He said, I don't believe in evil. He said, I've never encountered a case in all of my psychotherapy, I've never encountered a case of someone who appeared evil or everyone else told me they were evil, who if I treated them with unconditional positive regard and allowed them to feel seen and heard, their symptoms decreased substantially and they became more socialized. Maybe not perfectly socialized, but in the direction of growth, in the direction— he really believed we all have this kind of growth-oriented compass. He called it the organismic valuing process, but I call it just the self-actualizing compass. So I think that when dealing with people who are going through a lot of pain and they're lashing out and they're blaming the world, that's the first step. That's the love part. And then the honesty part— questioning, questioning some of their assumptions, you know, like a good coach. That's why I created self-actualization coaching, you know, like a good coach. What would a What would a good coach say to someone? Like a powerful coaching question, like, okay, yes, that happened. Okay, so what are you going to do about it? You know, okay, yeah, you're mad at the world. Well, people aren't going to change. What can you do to change? I mean, if you just start just asking curious questions to get them thinking on their own without chastising them, without lecturing them. God knows there's enough lecturing going around. You know, that's why the Democrats lost the election. Let's be honest, because they did a lot of lecturing and no one wanted to hear it. You know, I really believe that is true, by the way. I believe that's why Democrats lost. And so lecturing doesn't work, okay? If you believe in something, conversations work. And unconditional positive regard and listening— listening works much, much better.

Root, yeah, I appreciate that answer.

Talk to me about the empowerment mindset.

Yes. Well, I read, I read some of the items on the Empowerment Mindset Scale to you, right? And a lot, a lot of it has to do with really actively focusing your attention on what the light that's within yourself and the parts of you that are the most growth-oriented, alive centers of your being and creative. Of centers of being, you know, what creative luminescent tumors in a sense. Is that a joke? What do you say?

Yes, of course it was a joke. Bioluminescent tumors.

Okay, yeah, yeah, not that kind of—

the light inside yourself that grows bioluminescent tumors.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, terrible joke.

Cut that out, Ryan.

I'm talking, uh, humanistically, not biologically. And no, no, no, no, no, I got you. Um, and I mean, we have, we have, uh, character strengths, you know, we have talents, we have for things that light us up, goals that we want to move forward to, and constantly reorienting ourselves towards that. Also talk about the importance of having a gratefulness practice. Kristi Nelson wrote a really great book called Wake Up Grateful, which is in large part about how we can have this orientation towards life, the good and the bad. Where we see the, we see the, uh, the lessons that, that can be taught us. We don't only have, we don't only have gratitude for the good things in our life and curse the gods for all the bad, but we cultivate this really deep gratefulness practice towards everything in life. And we, you know, we dial down the ego. I think that relates to something in the very beginning we talked about. We said we're going to talk about later, and I said I have some thoughts on that. What was, what was it that you had said?

Difficulty in taking a compliment.

Yeah, that's what it is. That's what it is. Yes. Yes. Well, I think that if I had to err on the side of the kind of people in the world who have difficulty taking compliments versus those who like compliments a little too much, I would err on the side of the people who have difficulty with taking compliments. I think that there's a humbleness there and there's a, and you don't want, you know, but you also want to be careful that it's not dipping into low self-esteem, which I think it can in a lot of cases. But I think there, it's like, it's like there are a lot of beautiful sensitive, caring souls who get wrapped up too much in their principles that they unfortunately start to, you know, anything could be extreme, right? They can start to not realize the suffering of someone who differs from their cause, you know. I don't know how that— yeah, I think that relates. I'm just throwing stuff out there, but I think that anything to, to excess or extreme can be problematic. But I think it's good. I think it's good to be humble. It's good to— but taking compliments, you know, a healthy self-esteem is one that doesn't think you're better than others, but thinks you're worthy. And maybe taking compliments is a matter of taking it in as, wow, that's true. That's commensurate with what is the truth. And, you know, not bad, Scott, not bad. But it doesn't make you better than others. Tricky balance, balancing act. Balancing act of narcissism on one side and losing yourself on the other side.

Yeah, I see it a lot. I see, really, when you sort of like— I see it a lot with really top thought leaders, top psychologists and other people who are really helping people for a living. And I've had this conversation a lot where people will say, oh my God, thank you so much. You've really helped me. You've changed my life, blah, blah, blah. It's really hard to believe that. Other people seem to take it in and it feels like they're dopamine-addled extroverts a little bit with how much it feeds them versus people who don't hear it at all. And I'm sure, like in most things, there's a middle path that is probably the best way forward. But I definitely see both extremes fairly often.

Yeah, I, me too. And you, you also see like self-deprecation as a strategy, you know, self-presentation strategy. Um, and well, sometimes, um, uh, sometimes, uh, imposter syndrome presentation can be a self-presentation strategy. The person doesn't actually feel imposter syndrome, but they— I talk about this in the book, um, but they use it as a way to manage the expectations of others so that if they do fail, that it's, it's more— people are more kind to you. People are more kind to you if you fail and you show you're like, I'm nervous, I have— I don't feel like I really belong here. And then if you fail, people will be more sympathetic to you. Some people use that as a strategy for that.

Let me ask you a question about imposter syndrome, because you do talk about it in the book, and this came up while I was reading it, and I've always wondered about this. I've always thought humans have very acute inner bullshit detectors. We know when we're lying to ourselves.

Yeah.

So with imposter syndrome, I always wonder, people talk about imposter syndrome as if it was all a self-esteem thing. Oh, you feel fake. I don't know. My feeling is imposter syndrome is a real signal. Like the people who talk about it are thought leaders or entrepreneurs and people who are actually talking about it are always trying to punch above their weight class. And that's fine. I, that's admirable. I like that. But I think when you're trying to punch above your weight class, you're going to feel imposter syndrome cuz you actually don't belong where, where you're trying to go. You'd already be there.

Well, you're a great example of that, Stephen. You, you, how do I phrase this? And I mean this, you've, you've come such a long way since I've known you in terms of the amount of science that you've put out in, in the world. Like now you are publishing papers, you are, but, but like in the beginning you were talking as though you had published the papers. You know, you had talked, you were talking like, you know, that all that work was done. You're like, I'm the world expert on the neurobiology. It's like, no, you're not. But, but you are now. But now you really have done the work. And I actually think it's a healthy thing. I really do believe it's a healthy thing to have imposter syndrome. And see, this is the—

I do too. Yeah, that's what I'm trying to get at.

I think we're— I don't know.

I don't know. Yeah, I totally— that was my point is like, I always say—

We agree.

We agree.

We agree. We agree.

I didn't feel like people would ask, when did that go away for you? It literally went away when I started publishing science papers.

Exactly.

With topsitis. That's when it went away. And I was, by the way, I was almost, I was in my 50s. Right.

Yeah.

I think it's healthy as a motivator for sure. I think it's great. But I also, I get worried because I see the correlation between imposter syndrome and the victim mindset. I see a lot I don't know how to put this politely— coddling where people are like, oh no, don't feel bad. It's a self-esteem thing. And I'm not saying we all need confidence, we all need self-esteem, and those are incredibly useful things. But if you're suffering from acute imposter syndrome, it's probably real. You're probably trying to punch above your weight class and that's what it feels like.

Well, your point is so good and it really is a big point I was trying to make in my book, which is a different spin on it. Both, both what you're saying and what I'm saying, it puts a different spin on this than you often— you won't hear this perspective a lot in books on how to overcome imposter syndrome. In a way, most of the books on imposter syndrome, it's all about— it's like a victim mindset version of imposter. It's like, blame the world for you. Don't worry, you've been— you've imposter syndrome, it's okay. You know, it's the world, you know, who makes you feel that way, blah, blah. And in a way, I think it's more empowering to actually be like, You know what, like I feeling imposter syndrome right now. Like, like it's my first year in med school and I'm feeling like an imposter as a doctor. Yeah. You know why? Cuz you are an imposter as a doctor. You're not an, a doc, you're not a doctor yet, you know? And, and, and it's okay to, to acknowledge that and to use that as fuel to become a great doctor, you know? And I, I just think there's a, you know, to me that's more empowering to me that, to me it's empowering.

Maybe, maybe the question is then, Because if you're suffering imposter syndrome and you have a fixed mindset, victim mindset, fixed mindset, I can't learn, then that imposter syndrome is actually a prison. Then you've locked yourself in.

Great point. Great point.

Right? So maybe the whole— right. What we're saying is earn and learn your way out of that imposter syndrome, which is probably the same thing you have to do out of the victim mindset in a sense. Even if the things you're doing to earn your way out of the victim mindset is a gratitude practice. Oftentimes that's part, right? It's not just, oh, I have to do the work. And in my case, I had to read the neuroscience and learn and that stuff. It's also, I had to be—

You read a lot.

Well, I mean, look, as far as I can tell, the only thing becoming an expert in something means is I just now know how fucking stupid I am. I just know so much of what I thought I know.

Isn't that interesting how that works? It's so mad. That's true. That's true.

I was so much smarter when I was 25. I got to say, I really was. I was much smarter.

It's so funny how that works.

Yeah.

Yeah. The more we learn, the more we know, the more we're like, wow, like we're humbled by that knowledge. Yeah.

Yeah. On that, on that thread, Scott, how did this book expand or challenge your previous thinking on self-actualization?

Yeah.

GOAT question. I wanted to ask that too.

That is a good— that is a dope question, and I like the word dope. Um, when I started, I thought that IQ was going to be the key unlocking my understanding of human potential. I thought that, wow, intelligence— wow, intelligence is the thing that matters in life. Uh, maybe not IQ-type intelligence, but some type of intelligence, ability, ability. But I was challenged by realizing that this mindset is this pervasive mindset in life is by far the most important thing that separates people who succeed from those who don't succeed. And, you know, I never realized that it could matter so much more than our sort of innate information processing capacity.

What was the data that convinced you? What was the thing you saw where you were like, crap?

There's a paper, if you could put the paper in the show notes.

Yeah, I'd love to.

Where we took a personality perspective on narcissism, we took it out of the DSM and we just looked to see, well, how does individual variation in the general population relate to a whole host of well-being related variables and sense of self as well as authenticity and depression, things. And the correlations were so strikingly high between not grandiose narcissism, in fact grandiose, and we're starting to rethink grandiose narcissism. As maybe it's not such a bad thing. But, uh, that's maybe a different topic. But vulnerable narcissism across the board was just so— I've never seen correlations like that before across the board. It's so pervasive in almost every aspect of one's life. It has an effect. And I don't think your IQ score necessarily has such a strong effect in every aspect of your life, including your happiness, your connections with others, your job satisfaction, your job ratings, your creative achievements, your of self, I mean, so pervasive to all the things that make us want to be alive in a way, or make us feel alive.

I ask a weird historical question. You mentioned earlier Rollo May and Carl Rogers, both brilliant, brilliant humanist psychologists and sort of the same era. Maslow, a lot of those people. And what I often think, and this is— I'll get there in half a second. So many of those, so much of that that era of psychology was a reaction against the Holocaust, trying to explain the Holocaust, trying to understand it, trying to deal with the pain of the Holocaust. And what's interesting is, as a humanistic psychologist, all those people, and it's very clear in their writing, and my question is, how did this happen? None of them adopted a victim mindset. Even Hannah Arendt and some of the really hardcore people at the edge, none of them really did. How did they manage to escape that? That's kind of amazing, and it shapes so much psychology.

Yeah, it is amazing. It is amazing. Um, I try to be careful in the way I talk about this because not everyone is there yet, uh, in their journey to rip off the defense mechanisms, to, to, to rise above, you know. I think there's a period— there's a— there's certainly a period we need to give people if for to just stew in the crap, you know, and to complain and to be there for them in, in all that. So I don't think that those— this is such tricky territory because I think we're not saying— I don't think you're saying or I'm saying that the ones who have overcome, uh, their traumas and, and don't have a victim mindset are somehow better humans, or are, um, you know, they're they, they somehow, you know, get the gold star, whereas those who, who haven't overcome yet, you know, get, get a demerit, you know. So that's why I think this is such a sensitive topic, you know. But, but there are so many examples of people— you're right, there are so many great examples of people who have gone under the worst circumstance that I think showing those examples, I hope, gives people who aren't there yet the hope and the, and the inspiration that they could get there someday. And I see nothing wrong with that. You know, some, some, some people, you know, some trauma-informed therapists, they, they really don't like that message for some reason. But, but I really believe that.

I also wonder, so two things. One, yeah, you said, I came out of a concentration camp during the war.

Hmm.

Flow in his work dates back to the people he saw thriving under the, you know, horrific circumstances versus the people who completely fell apart. That was, if you talk to Mike, that was one of the big seed kernels of his work. So I see that there too. One of the questions, you said something earlier that I think is really important, and this is, I think backs up what you just said, like why it's not a gold star for people who overcome versus those who are still in it. Like you said it earlier, and self-actualization, it's a ladder or a staircase or a process or whatever you want to say. And it sounds like at each level, some version of that victim mindset, that fixed mindset, like those demons come back. And I certainly see it in myself. You know what I mean? There are things, even in the sciences that I've learned, like I can learn so much, but I'm like statistics. I'll give you a perfect example. Statistics still mostly baffles me. I'm good at it. I can sort of work the numbers. I can, but like, you know, Chick Settmeier was a master statistician and I've read, you know, Yeah. And I know you do too, by the way, this is when he said earlier, when Scott said earlier, the correlation between vulnerable narcissism and poor outcomes was higher than anything he's ever seen. That's the most I've, that's the strongest statement I've ever heard you make in, I don't know, 15 years, 20 years at this point. Maybe the strongest statement I've ever heard you make. It's, I was sort of shocked when you said, I was like, whoa, from SBK, that's heavy. Especially cuz you really speak Statistics. Like if I say something like that, like I may not know what I'm talking about, but would you say it?

There's that self-deprecation. Let me see if I can find this paper. So you'll, you'll literally put my nerdy scientific paper in your episode notes? Absolutely.

Oh, absolutely.

Absolutely.

That's so cool.

That's typically—

we're fellow nerds.

Definitely. What, and what do you say, Ryan?

I say typically that's the only thing we'll include.

That's so cool. Okay.

Thank you, Scott.

Thank you, Stephen.

That was very interesting.

All right, let me, uh, let me ask, let me ask you one more. I know I want to get you out of here on time, so I, let me ask one more question. I'll kick it over to Ryan. Let's let him ask a question. My question, we were talking about this right before we got on the air. We were talking about how self-awareness and sensitivity is, it's often viewed as a vulnerability. A peak performance standpoint, human development standpoint, transcendent standpoint, that inner awareness and a sensitivity to your emotion is such a strength. And the other thing I want to add to this, because I've seen this in my own life and I've seen this with people I love dearly, where any sign of vulnerability, they pounce on. And so, even the act of making yourself vulnerable in certain situations, it really brings out, sometimes it brings out really bad stuff in other people too. Like it's a strength, it's fundamental to peak performance. I want to talk about A, how to cultivate it. And once you have cultivated it, the fuck do you do when you like display it and it's pounced on like a weakness? Because people do treat it as a weakness. It's not a weakness. It's fundamental to peak performance, but people do treat it like a weakness. And it certainly happened to me with like people I love. And I'm sure I've probably done it to people as well. I've probably pounced on— like, I think there's something that we do around vulnerability that where we don't like it in people we're close to because it makes us feel vulnerable too. I don't know. That was a lot to throw at you at once.

There's something really, really, really quite true there, especially— I'll say especially if it's something that we've overcome within ourselves and we still see someone who's at an earlier journey that reminds us of a part of us we don't want to be any longer. Um, we— that, that really happens. You see this a lot in the fitness world. You'll see people who've gone from morbidly obese to, um, in really good shape, and they go through that journey and they, they really, you know, are so proud of you. They're so proud of themselves. Okay, good, we're all so proud of you. But they'll fat shame, you know, they'll, they'll— they have an overreaction. They have an overreaction to people who are overweight, you know, like, oh, they just need to just go to the gym.

Yeah, people who quit smoking who pick on smokers, that happens too.

You also see that in alcoholics, you know, you see, you know, like, like condemning to hell anyone who just does any alcohol whatsoever. It's kind of an overreaction. I think this relates to what you're saying, you know, maybe it's not completely what you're saying, but I think there's a part of us that when we see a part of us that we don't like in someone else You know, it really, at a really deep primal level, we, it's, it's a, it's a, it's a defense mechanism. We outsource that heat outside of ourselves and we have a victim and we create a victim mindset, you know, or create a, like, you know, a projection, a projection, you know, we'll say Freud was wrong about a lot of stuff, but God, was he right about our defense mechanisms. Yeah. What a great point. We should also give credit to Anna Freud for really taking that work and really, really the, the modern day research on defense mechanisms, which is solid. I studied— I created a whole— I signed psychometrically.

Part of my ignorance, I didn't know she— it was Anna Freud who advanced it. Oh, that's— tell me more, a little more about that.

People don't give her enough credit for that. But yeah, no, she took— she was a psychoanalyst in her own right, and she was the sixth and youngest child of Sigmund Freud. But she took a lot of that work and she really put a name to and categorized and classified more clearly the different, different defense mechanisms. And I've been obsessed with that work, and I, and I psychometrically in this paper that you're going to put in the show notes. Thank you, guys. You can actually see the table. I have the table of the correlation between vulnerable narcissism and the Anna Freud defense mechanisms.

Um, wow.

And, uh, yeah, there's a particular table I have. Let me find it right now. It's in the appendix because I wanted to know how vulnerable narcissism, um, related to every single one, you know. And so I used these scales and I found that there's a whole class of defense mechanisms we call maladaptive action patterns that was so strongly correlated with low narcissism, um, from autistic— she called out fantasies— to devaluation, to passive aggressiveness was a big one, to disassociation, to undoing. So undoing is like after I fight for my rights, I tend to apologize for my assertiveness. You know, you kind of— you, you show boldness and then you—

I do that. Yeah, I do that when I get angry. If I get angry and someone had yelled at them, I feel immediately bad. And yeah, I do that.

You are— you, you know, Stephen, you are I don't know if you want to be seen this way, but you are a tender, sensitive soul inside. And I've seen that since the first moment I've ever known you. So, but anyway, there's hope you're okay. You're okay with me saying that, man.

There are people.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I hope you're okay with me saying that, man.

I'll edit that out too.

Fuck both of you. Okay.

Get this shit out of this program.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah. Too touchy feely. It's too touchy feely. Yeah. But I saw myself in a lot of these defense mechanisms as well, and this book has been a journey for me as well to overcome a victim mindset and become a better person. There's no part of this book where I claim I'm better than anyone else, because I'm writing the book on it. I'm on my own journey, and I realized that a lot of who I am today was fueled by my vulnerable narcissism in a way that I don't think I would have been who I am today without that underdog motivation that I had. Had, especially in my, in my youth when I fought out of special ed. And with that kind of attitude of, I'm gonna show them, you know, and being motivated and fueled by that, I don't think I'd be who I am today. So it's all part of the board material.

Spite is a great motivator. I love spite as a motivator.

That's funny. Awesome.

Just being a small s spite. Small. I wrote a thing on it. Capital S spite will fucking kill you, right? Then you just end up bitter.

Good.

Maybe the smallest spite, the bulletin board material. My wife has a fortune cookie. I've told this story I've told this story before. It was bulletproof, taped to our refrigerator forever. It says, she says, it totally describes me, which is I get great pleasure from proving other people wrong. Oh, just again and again and again and again in my life. Stash motivation from spite. Does that make me a vulnerable narcissist? Am I a vulnerable narcissist?

No, no, no. It doesn't make you a vulnerable narcissist necessarily. What'd you say, Ryan?

If I remember correctly, I think that you cite some research on specifically that, right? Proving other people wrong.

Yes. Emerging research line by Professor Noural Mohamed at University of Pennsylvania, and, uh, really great research he's doing. He's showing that experimentally, you know, failure is not always bad. You know, he shows there are certain contextual conditions where when people who— by people they don't know— if they say, you know, that we have low expectations for you, you're probably not going to succeed, that actually is a motivator for them. They actually succeed better.

I remember that part.

Yeah. It's part of being human in a lot of ways. Michael Jordan did it to great effect. He would invent enemies constantly, even when they didn't even really exist, so that he could be the underdog. I mean, Michael Jordan didn't need to be the underdog. I mean, you look at his acceptance speech for the Hall of Fame, it's like a victim. It's like he has a victim mindset. But Michael Jordan, you're the GOAT. You're the GOAT. Almost everyone agrees you're the GOAT. You're still creating—

By the way, that's what I mean. He's my example for capital S spite. But if you watch The Last Dance, it's very clear this is why you don't take it to that level. I mean, yes, it got you that level of greatness. I agree. That's kind of amazing. But wow, at what a cost is all I could think. Whereas Tom Brady, who also like— or Baker Mayfield, I watch a lot. I like football. Both of those are guys, are quarterbacks who had— you know, chips on their shoulders and have to find their career by it, but they seem to have a sense of humor about it. Jordan's shit wasn't funny.

Everything was personal, right? It's personal. But, you know, there's only— there's only— it's interesting, there's only one— Michael Jordan might not be the best example, you know, there's only one Michael Jordan, you know, in, in any generation or any multiple generations. And, you know, he did create, um, you know, a big part of life is creating yourself, right? And he created Michael Jordan, and he did a damn good job of that, whatever that is, you know, and whatever comes along.

He created the modern NBA alongside of it. I mean, like, he created a whole universe. I mean, like, that's, you know, I'm a big Jordan fan.

I don't want Jordan coming after me.

No, I was born in Chicago. I like, you know, the Bulls brought my father and I together. I owe him a great deal.

Yeah, yeah. But it is an extreme. It is an extreme character. And it's not for everyone. You know, it's somehow— it somehow worked for him though, I would say. Whatever his way of being and his fate and how it all aligned, it worked for him. But it— yeah, yeah. But, but, but for most of us mere mortals, I think that living in that, that space too much in your life and creating enemies and constantly, you know, outside of a basketball court context— there's some things within a, within a sports context that if you take it and strip it out and you put it like in like zero flying a plane or like nursing or, you know, I don't know, it just doesn't translate as well, that mentality. You know what I mean? Yes, but it works in basketball. It works in basketball.

My last question for you is just practical. Number one, thank you for writing this book. Like I said, when I opened it, I was ready to learn about other people and I learned a lot about myself.

Beautiful. That's, that's what I want. That's, that's why I wrote it. Yeah.

Yeah, truly. Where can people find it? Where can people continue to follow you in all your brilliant work so we can, uh, keep learning alongside you.

Well, thank you. I mean, it's, uh, the book is available wherever you get your books, you know, Amazon, Barnes Noble. I don't even know Barnes Noble still— is that still there? Yeah, Barnes Noble. And hopefully it's in the bookstores. And, um, so you can get it wherever you get your books. And it's out April 22nd. I don't know when this episode is going to be released, but, um, you can also follow a lot more of my stuff at scottbarrykaufman.com. I have lots of stuff there, and my podcast, The Psychology Podcast, Yeah, Jim.

All right, Steven, Scott, thank you so much. It's, it's like a dream to be able to host a podcast with you two. I respect you both so much. Until next time, folks. Thank you. Yeah, thank you. Until next time, folks, uh, pick yourself up a copy of Rise Above. Overcome the victim mindset, empower yourself, and realize your full potential. It is It's really a gem.

Final thought, folks.

Yeah.

Nothing. I think literally nothing says happy Easter like Rise Above. So, you know.

That's true. That's actually true.

That's what I'm saying.

I didn't think about that.

SBK, much love. Thank you for joining us.

Much love.

As always, the notorious SBK.

Yeah, we have great conversations, don't we?

Yeah.

Yeah, it's so much fun.