The New Science Of Self Actualisation | Scott Barry Kaufman | Modern Wisdom Podcast 156

1. 0:00 – 15:00

   If you find yourself…

   1. SKScott Barry Kaufman0:00

      If you find yourself becoming egoistic, arrogant, conceited, or puffed up, think of mortality. Or think of other arrogant and conceited people and see how they look. Do you want to look like that? Do you want to take yourself that seriously? To be that un-humorous? I really like that.

   2. CWChris Williamson0:22

      Scott, welcome to the show.

   3. SKScott Barry Kaufman0:24

      Oh, thanks, Chris. So great to chat with you today.

   4. CWChris Williamson0:26

      Really excited to speak to you today. So we're talking about transcend. We're gonna be speaking about self-actualization. Kind of, uh, at the moment, I suppose, the way that people view their own lives and what they can do with them is probably a, a pretty timely topic at the moment, right?

   5. SKScott Barry Kaufman0:43

      I would say so. I think people are struggling in a lot of ways, that they are perhaps losing sight of the self-actualization that, that's possible within them. It can be very easy to lose sight of the greater possibilities for yourself and for your fellow humans when you're pitched in a state of insecurity.

   6. CWChris Williamson1:06

      Mm. So I know that you're a, a big fan of Maslow, and you w- base a lot of what you do on top of some of his work. I guess-

   7. SKScott Barry Kaufman1:15

      He's okay.

   8. CWChris Williamson1:16

      He's all right.

   9. SKScott Barry Kaufman1:16

      (laughs)

   10. CWChris Williamson1:16

       He's pretty, he's pretty cool. Um, I'm gonna guess that at a time like this, where people are very concerned about some real basics, the bottom of the pyramid, who are worried about their health, their family's health, you know, there's food and water shortages. You see these images of Costco and everyone's ripping shit off the shelves and stuff like that.

   11. SKScott Barry Kaufman1:34

       Yeah.

   12. CWChris Williamson1:34

       Like, does that sh-

   13. SKScott Barry Kaufman1:35

       I know, and toilet paper, they're ripping the toilet paper, you know?

   14. CWChris Williamson1:38

       Oh, the toilet paper's the maddest thing, because it doesn't, it doesn't affect your digestion, but y- that's, like, we could go on forever about that. Um, how does that relate, do you think, to the way that people are seeing their lives at the moment? The fact that their more, uh, immediate primal needs, uh, are kind of brought to the forefront?

   15. SKScott Barry Kaufman1:54

       So, what is the question exactly? How do I, wha- like, w- how do I perceive the situation?

   16. CWChris Williamson1:58

       So at the moment, we're talk- we're gonna be talking about self-actualization and transcending.

   17. SKScott Barry Kaufman2:02

       Sure.

   18. CWChris Williamson2:03

       Is there a, an upper bound that's being placed on that by the immediacy of people's concerns at the moment?

   19. SKScott Barry Kaufman2:09

       Um ... I see what you're saying. Well, there c- there certainly is. And, and that's the, the great tragedy of, of, of falling prey to insecurity and uncertainty. F- what I mean by falling prey is, there, there, there's always gonna be uncertainty in our lives. We're in this ... It, it's funny, people are, are just, are acting as though this situation is, like, the first time in their life that there's great uncertainty. I mean, there's, there's, there's equally probabilities, actually greater probabilities of things when you cross the street every day in your li- you don't, you don't think about all these things, you know? (laughs) But here, there, there's a, there's a thing we can see on the media, there's a thing we can see on TV where, you know, people are talking about it every day as, "This is the thing." But it turns out, and I hate to break it, uh, break the news, you hear, "Breaking news." (laughs) Scott Barry Kaufman, breaking news. You know how CNN's like, "Breaking news."

   20. CWChris Williamson3:02

       That's why we're here.

   21. SKScott Barry Kaufman3:02

       So Scott, yeah. Breaking news, uh, you have lots and lots of things, shit that can go wrong.

   22. CWChris Williamson3:11

       (clears throat)

   23. SKScott Barry Kaufman3:11

       In your, your, your day. (laughs)

   24. CWChris Williamson3:14

       Tell it like it is, Scott.

   25. SKScott Barry Kaufman3:16

       In my terms of, like ... In my terms and my priorities of things that can go wrong, the COVID-19 is, is, is, is, is pre- prevalent, but, uh, I wouldn't say that's my number one thing I'm concerned about in my day. I'm just trying to, uh, be mentally good (laughs) through the day. So, look, there are lots of things. And, and I think the, the, managing uncertainty is a lifelong skill, and if there's any silver lining to the moment we're in right now is that maybe we can, maybe now's the, now's the time to practice, you know, hopefully ev- all, all the listeners and, and people around the world will, um, will make it through this healthy, uh, and safe. I, I certainly have that wish for everyone. But if there's any silver lining once we a- get through to the other side, it's that maybe this is a, a great opportunity to learn some of those important uncertainty management skills that we probably should've been learning throughout the rest of our lives, not, not just in this moment.

   26. CWChris Williamson4:13

       I couldn't agree more. There's this great e- example about uncertainty that Rory Sutherland, my friend from Ogilvy Advertising told me. We was talking about London Heathrow, and he was saying that the wait times at London Heathrow to get through the security scan section were just causing abhorrent amounts of complaints. It was taking too long.

   27. SKScott Barry Kaufman4:32

       Yeah. (coughs)

   28. CWChris Williamson4:32

       People were getting irritated. Um, so originally they went to London Heathrow and they said, um, "What have you tried? What have you been looking at doing?" And because of the sort of people that run an airport, logistics, operations, optimization stuff, so they'd looked at, can we rotate the staff in a different way to make sure that they can move quicker? Where can we, can we condense the lanes down so we can fit more lanes of people in? Can we do ... They looked at it as a, a logistical optimization problem. And they brought, I can't remember if it was Rory or one of his friends in, and they said, "Right, before you do that, before you spend several million pounds on new staff and new equipment, let's just try one thing." And along the queue where you waited to get into the security, uh, scanning area, they just placed little posters that said, "45 minute wait from here, 30 minute wait from here, 15 minute wait from here."

   29. SKScott Barry Kaufman5:27

       Wow.

   30. CWChris Williamson5:28

       All the way around.
2. 15:00 – 30:00

   Time warp. …

   1. SKScott Barry Kaufman15:00

      I've been holed up in this, i- in this place for so long, you know, with, you know, scared to, you know, uh, to, to, to, to leave that I don't even know what, what the day is or year, but ...

   2. CWChris Williamson15:09

      Time warp.

   3. SKScott Barry Kaufman15:09

      Um, yeah, yeah. But people start ... You have to really have an honest, real honest assessment of where you are. And I, I do ... Uh, my website, I try to, I have free personality, self-actualization personality tests to help you figure, t- kind of assess, um, what you're ... Uh, I have a self-actualization test of 10 different dimensions, so you can see which of the dimensions are you most efficient in at the moment, and what you wanna work on. 'Cause, uh, th- this path of self-actualization is so unique to each individual. So, I, I stay away from, uh, from advice of, like, "You need to start here." Because I, I wanna know where, where really do you need to start from? So that would ... I'd say assess which of your needs? Is it, is it the safety one? Is it your connection that's holding you back from self-actualizing it? Um, maybe you're feeling lonely these days. You should listen to that, you know? I, I think a lot of people pseudo-grow, or, uh, become pseudo-great. Pseudo-great sounds even funnier, doesn't it? (laughs)

   4. CWChris Williamson16:05

      I like it when... Yeah, pseudo-everything. I want some pseudo-cake and, uh, pseudo-toothpaste.

   5. SKScott Barry Kaufman16:12

      It sounds funny actually, pseudo ... To be ... You're only pseudo-great. (laughs)

   6. CWChris Williamson16:16

      Yeah. Yeah, yeah. It's like a, it's like a, uh, put-down, yeah? Like a rap ...

   7. SKScott Barry Kaufman16:19

      Yeah, it's like a put-

   8. CWChris Williamson16:19

      ... a rap battle put-down.

   9. SKScott Barry Kaufman16:20

      (laughs) It's like a rap bat- ... Yeah, exactly. (laughs) Um, th- uh, the first time I've ever used that phrase. But I, but I'm saying, like, y- you might think you've achieved greatness, uh, and people might tell you, you, you're great, but maybe you're suffering with, with profound loneliness. And, and that's important. That's an important signal. I would say you need to start there. (laughs) Don't start with how great you, you think you are.

   10. CWChris Williamson16:48

       Mm.

   11. SKScott Barry Kaufman16:49

       Start with, start with the loneliness part. Um, or maybe, maybe you actually struggle with the, with esteem issues, self-esteem issues, and maybe that's, that's where you need to start. Maybe you're, you're, you're getting your validation from others too much, and you're not ... You feel, you feel like, "Who am I anymore? Other, uh, apart from my likes on Twitter," you know? Maybe, maybe that's confusing you, and so you should start there. So I, I think that there are lots of places, (laughs) a lot of entryways is what I'm saying.

   12. CWChris Williamson17:18

       Mm-hmm. Yeah.

   13. SKScott Barry Kaufman17:18

       Depending, depending on where you're at right now.

   14. CWChris Williamson17:20

       I wonder how many people that are listening are feeling, uh, a little bit of a pang there as we go through some of the common, the common issues that you've got. The safety, perhaps, talking about financial worries, you know, money worries, future worries, basic stuff, or connection. I did a, an episode with Lydia Denworth, who's just written a book called Friendship, talking about this loneliness epidemic which is apparently sweeping America. You know, this lack of connection that we've got, and how, uh, online friendships don't supplement for real world ones. Or then on top of that, layer on, on again about this, uh, potential lack of self-esteem. We're using likes and, uh, likability online as a proxy for the way that we feel, you know, for our, uh, our actual self-esteem. So yeah, I think, um, there's probably a few people now that are, are feeling that pang inside. So I want to, um-

   15. SKScott Barry Kaufman18:10

       Yeah.

   16. CWChris Williamson18:11

       I want-

   17. SKScott Barry Kaufman18:11

       A lot of people, more than a few.

   18. CWChris Williamson18:13

       Yeah, for sure. Um, I wanna talk about peak experiences. Can you tell us about what you looked at to do with that in the book?

   19. SKScott Barry Kaufman18:22

       That's a ph- that's a phrase Maslow used to talk about what are the most wondrous moments of our lives that make life worth living. No big deal. (laughs) NBD.

   20. CWChris Williamson18:36

       Sounds- sounds like I want more of them.

   21. SKScott Barry Kaufman18:38

       Yeah. Yeah. And- and- and he really set all- uh, set out to discover what are all the different ways people can satisfy, h- uh, can have peak experiences, and they can take a lot of different forms, um, i- interestingly enough. He found that a lot of women reported childbirth as being their greatest peak experience. And, um, how do you have one eyebrow go up and the other one stay put?

   22. CWChris Williamson19:03

       That was from when I was in school, and I really, really wanted to be Dwayne The Rock Johnson, and-

   23. SKScott Barry Kaufman19:09

       Oh.

   24. CWChris Williamson19:09

       ... I practiced and practiced and practiced, but I can only do it on one side.

   25. SKScott Barry Kaufman19:13

       That's amazing.

   26. CWChris Williamson19:14

       Thank you.

   27. SKScott Barry Kaufman19:14

       Now, d- does testosterone predict whether you can do that? Because I can't do that. (laughs)

   28. CWChris Williamson19:19

       I don't think... It's got nothing to do with testosterone.

   29. SKScott Barry Kaufman19:20

       Oh. Oh.

   30. CWChris Williamson19:21

       I think it's got everything to do with me being a- a closet WWE nerd throughout most-
3. 30:00 – 45:00

   Hit us, hit us…

   1. SKScott Barry Kaufman30:00

      part of this highest state of consciousness, uh, that Maslow was talking about in, in The Plateau Experience, is your ability to simultaneously be present in the moment but also be aware of the impermanence of the moment. It's actually this juxtaposition that allows us to have that sense of transcendence. He would have exercises where he would say, you know-... talk to someone and imagine while you're talking to them that this is the last time that you'll ever talk to that person forevermore. How does that change, (laughs) your, your, your, your presence with this person? You know? And I think that... He actually, he came, he came up with a whole list of these activities of pure being, which I have in the book.

   2. CWChris Williamson30:47

      Hit us, hit us with some. I wanna know some of them, Scott.

   3. SKScott Barry Kaufman30:51

      Yeah. This is how living in the realm of pure being. Um, "Perceive the eternal intrinsic laws of the cosmos." No big deal. (laughs)

   4. CWChris Williamson31:03

      Easy one. Easy one. I do that-

   5. SKScott Barry Kaufman31:05

      Sure.

   6. CWChris Williamson31:05

      Sometimes I do that before breakfast.

   7. SKScott Barry Kaufman31:07

      Yeah, me too. "To accept or even love these laws is Taoistic in the essence of a good citizen of the universe. Embrace your past and p- embrace your guilt rather than running from it. Be compassionate with yourself. Be understanding, accepting, forgiving, and perhaps even loving about your, your f-" I don't even know how to pronounce the word faibles, foiblas, F-A-I-B-L-E-S, "as expressions of human nature."

   8. CWChris Williamson31:30

      Foibles.

   9. SKScott Barry Kaufman31:31

      Foibles, foibles, there we go. Foibles, "as expressions of human nature. Enjoy and smile at yourself. Ask yourself, 'How would this situation look to a child, to the innocent, to a very old person who is beyond personal ambition and competition?' Try to recover the sense of the miraculous about life. For example, a baby is a miracle. Think for that baby now, anything could happen and the sky is the limit. Cultivate the sense of infinite possibility, the sense of admiration, awe, respect, and wonder." Maybe I'll just give you one more, one of m- one of my favorites.

   10. CWChris Williamson32:03

       Hit it.

   11. SKScott Barry Kaufman32:04

       Uh, I, I really like this one. "If you find yourself..." And I, I actually practice this one. I try. "If you find yourself becoming egoistic, arrogant, conceited, or puffed up, think of mortality, or think of other arrogant and conceited people and see how they look. Do you want to look like that? Do you want to take yourself that seriously to be that un-humorous?" I really like that. (laughs)

   12. CWChris Williamson32:28

       That third-party perspective is, it's so powerful. The, um-

   13. SKScott Barry Kaufman32:33

       Do you do... Oh, sorry. Go on. Yeah.

   14. CWChris Williamson32:35

       Just the ability to look at, to look at yourself as if you were a friend, you know, as if you were a friend looking at you, watching your actions, um, because you just strip away all the biases, all of the attachments and you go, "Yeah, that... If I saw my friend do that, that would be..."

   15. SKScott Barry Kaufman32:50

       Yeah.

   16. CWChris Williamson32:50

       "... that'd be kinda, that'd be kinda weird."

   17. SKScott Barry Kaufman32:54

       Absolutely. And I think that I, I often know who I wanna be by seeing great examples of people I don't wanna be. Do you ev- do you ever, you know, do you ever just like see someone and you're like, "Uh, uh, that's not what... (laughs) That's not my... That wouldn't be my best self"? (laughs)

   18. CWChris Williamson33:13

       Man, I, I learn from other people's failures more than other people's successes, I think.

   19. SKScott Barry Kaufman33:18

       Boom. We'll drop the mic on that one.

   20. CWChris Williamson33:20

       Uh, I love e- I love a mic drop, man. That's what I'm here for. Um, but yeah, I, I, I, honestly, I do. Um, what's that quote? I can't remember the guy. It might be Peter Thiel, 'cause he say, um, "Any idiot can learn from their own experience. I prefer to learn from the experiences of others."

   21. SKScott Barry Kaufman33:35

       Yeah, yeah. I mean, there, and there's so much, that's why great literature stands the test of time. Some of the greatest literature are great stories that transcend the ages, of people failing in all sorts of ways. And yeah, there's not, there's not, not a lot of examples of great literature there about, "Do-do-do, a story of a person who had it all great, (laughs) lived their life great."

   22. CWChris Williamson33:58

       And it was fine.

   23. SKScott Barry Kaufman33:59

       Yeah, it was all good. You know, we, we, we were in a, you know, we passed down from generations to generations archetypes of failures that we can all resonate with and learn from.

   24. CWChris Williamson34:10

       I wanna talk about familiarization and, and fresh experiences and how this relates to transcendence. Can you talk to-

   25. SKScott Barry Kaufman34:19

       Okay.

   26. CWChris Williamson34:19

       Can you talk to us about that?

   27. SKScott Barry Kaufman34:21

       Yes. So it's like I, I can, I can talk about different levels of nerdiness. What, pick a level from one to five.

   28. CWChris Williamson34:28

       I want five.

   29. SKScott Barry Kaufman34:28

       Five being super nerdy.

   30. CWChris Williamson34:30

       I want five, please. Thank you.
4. 45:00 – 57:52

   Well, that, that, that's…

   1. CWChris Williamson45:00

      cool.

   2. SKScott Barry Kaufman45:00

      Well, that, that, that's one of the, uh, exercises, the, the, the, the exercises of pure being I was, I was running down the list of things. Yeah, if you view yourself from a historian's perspective, you know, what, what is w- this time period and putting it in context of prior context. You know, in a lot of ways, the world is the best it's ever been in, in terms of poverty, in terms of almost any metric you look at.

   3. CWChris Williamson45:32

      Mm-hmm.

   4. SKScott Barry Kaufman45:32

      Steven Pinker has writ- has written about that, you know?

   5. CWChris Williamson45:35

      Yeah.

   6. SKScott Barry Kaufman45:35

      And know that our day-to-day, that's called comfort for our day-to-day living. And what may seem like a catastrophe, but it's certainly better, you know, from a historian's perspective, certainly better to live in 2020 with a virus than 1918, you know, with the in- influenza, uh, pandemic, or I think it was called Spanish flu or something like that.

   7. CWChris Williamson45:58

      Yeah, yeah, yeah.

   8. SKScott Barry Kaufman45:58

      Um, you know, uh, the, the kind of technologies we have and, uh, and progress we've made, this is probably the best time in human history to have such a pandemic, right? So, yeah, I think the historian's perspective one is putting things in a certain perspective of the rest of humanity and the rest of human history and also thinking about 100, 200 years from now, how will people view the actions we made as well as, is, is, is important to, to think about when we take certain actions.

   9. CWChris Williamson46:32

      Should we be scared or frightful or worried about the fact that realistically in 75 years' time no one will remember our name or what we did?

   10. SKScott Barry Kaufman46:48

       The only, the only part of you that's scared of that is your ego. And if you can transcend the ego, then that just won't be a concern for you anymore. That, that, that question won't, won't matter. Uh, and it's not easy transcending the ego because it's so powerful. It's such a, it seems like such a, a driving force for s- for so many of us. But you look at those who've managed to transcend their fear of death as well and, and some, some, some of, some of that comes from just taking one good LSD trip (laughs) , quite frankly, and, and, and seeing what it, what it means to, to be egoless. And you can enj- then if you can find, it's sort of like a relief for these people who can reach those moments and s- and, and, and people reach it not just through LSD route, I should say, you know, mindfulness meditation, through lot of inner, inner work on integration and, and, and getting outside yourself and helping others. And you realize that it, it doesn't really matter, uh, what really, you know, it, it, it matters what you, what you do in, in your day-to-day life to, to help other human existence, but it doesn't always have to be this grandiose, you know, he str- I started a non-profit and a humanitarian non-profit. You, you know, the stereotypical I have a humanitarian non-profit person, you know, and they're always talking about how (laughs) they have a humanitarian non-profit.

   11. CWChris Williamson48:23

       Yeah.

   12. SKScott Barry Kaufman48:23

       They won't shut up about it. But (laughs) like, but there, I say this in a cheeky way because I don't think we appreciate the person who just by their being in the world every day, they're uplifting others. They're not going on Twitter immediately and announcing it, but they're giving a smile to a stranger on the street. Well, that counts. I mean, there, you know, they, there are so many things throughout the course of the day that count in terms of your existence. You just maximize your existence on a day-to-day basis, I think that's good enough.

   13. CWChris Williamson48:54

       It's like the stereotypical great mum, isn't it? Shout out-

   14. SKScott Barry Kaufman48:59

       Yeah.

   15. CWChris Williamson48:59

       ... shout out my mum, Kathy, who'll be listening. Thank you for, uh, for smiling at strangers in the street and doing stuff like that.

   16. SKScott Barry Kaufman49:07

       Yeah. No, uh, that's exactly right. In fact, Abraham Maslow thought that his wife's, his wife Bertha's mom was more self-actualized than he was.

   17. CWChris Williamson49:17

       (laughs)

   18. SKScott Barry Kaufman49:18

       (laughs) So she wasn't-

   19. CWChris Williamson49:19

       That's so funny that some woman who probably can't even, didn't even know, wasn't really that bothered, "Abraham, stop talking about work at the dinner table." Like, all that stuff.

   20. SKScott Barry Kaufman49:28

       Yeah, yeah. Yeah.

   21. CWChris Williamson49:28

       And then she somehow managed to achieve what he, like, more than he did.

   22. SKScott Barry Kaufman49:33

       Yeah, I mean, Abraham Maslow hated his mom, but he really was quite fond of his wife's mom. (laughs)

   23. CWChris Williamson49:38

       Mm-hmm.

   24. SKScott Barry Kaufman49:38

       Which is interesting. And, and, and he really did resent his own mom, that was... That's a whole other story. (laughs)

   25. CWChris Williamson49:43

       Oh, yeah.

   26. SKScott Barry Kaufman49:43

       'Cause she was superstitious and stuff, but... Yeah. But he really thought that his wife Bertha's mom was, was really self-actualized, and, and she was not, um, high achieving. So it was very clear he didn't equate self-actualization with achievement. He really equated it with, with this, what he called being love. Literally being love, you know? And that's not doing what... There's so many, a lot of people that, that do love I- in, in this kind of grandiose virtue signaling sort of way, you know?

   27. CWChris Williamson50:14

       Mm-hmm.

   28. SKScott Barry Kaufman50:14

       But are just assholes to everyone in their daily life. And that's not being love, you know?

   29. CWChris Williamson50:22

       It's the same. It goes back to what we were talking about before to do with the, the, the ascetic who's recounted all worldly possessions, but it's just a signal. You know, I had Robin Hanson on a, a year and a bit ago, and, you know, he's, he's the man for signals, the elephant, the elephant in the brain, right? And, um, Paul Bloom had this great quote as well when I spoke to him, where he said, uh, "There is no such thing as not giving a shit. There is only seeming like you're not giving a shit." It's like everybody's signaling all the time. It's the people for whom... Like, I-

   30. SKScott Barry Kaufman50:55

       Yeah.

Episode duration: 57:52