Podcast Improv Jam || Dan Lerner

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Is there people sitting out there going, oh, I've listened to that person religiously I follow on Instagram and how dare you?

It might be working for you right, And that's wonderful, But.

I also think that a lot of folks who are suffering as a result of believing it works for one hundred percent of people for the rest of their lives.

Hello, and welcome to the Psychology Podcast. Today we welcome my buddy Dan Lerner to the podcast. Dan is an in demand speaker, author, strengths based performance coach, and instructor of one of the most popular undergraduate courses at New York University. Dan's expertise and positive psychology helps people lead thriving, successful lives. He works with students, artists, athletes, and numerous Fortune five hundred companies and executives around the world, whether

My Man, Scott Barry Kaufman.

How are you, brother, Daniel Lerner. It's great to have you on the Psychology Podcast.

Man, it is an honor and a pleasure.

Let me tell you this is going to be an improv jam today, Dude.

I'm ready.

Let's let's improve it up. Who knows what could happen? Who knows going to be?

It's going to be. It's crazy.

Now, you're like really high objectively on both aspects of extraversion.

Whatever gave you that idea.

Because both one aspect is assertiveness and the other aspect is enthusiasm, and you embody both of those things. But how do you self identify? Like when you think to yourself, You're like, yeah, I'm an extrovert. You know.

Look, I've done lots of work in an extraversion introversion. I've taught it, I've thought a lot about it.

I've observed as many people as I could, and it's been an amazing tool or maybe guide to helping me understand other folks and how to interact with them and try to try to really understand their preferences when.

It comes to communication styles.

And for me, I know that I am an extrovert, There's no question about it, okay, But I am also very aware that I need some serious downtime. It's funny because you know, you and I are you and our friends and you know this. There have been times where I just am not ready to respond. They need a little time. I'm a little drained. I may have been I may have been ex troverting hard that day or that week.

So they're human.

I'm human, that's right.

And as you know, everyone has, it's a preference extraversion introversion, and there are times when we need a little bit of the other.

You know. That's and that's that some of us need one percent.

I had a colleague I used to work with amazing guy, this sort of celebrity chef guy.

And he was the most extroverted person I know. Right.

He would stand on a table to make a point, right, and it was loud, you know, and it was great.

And that was him.

And even with him, I am sure there were times where he's like, I need to breathe, and that might have been for two minutes instead of twenty or two hours or a day. But everyone has it. For me, It's who I've been for a long time. I'm comfortable with it, and a lot of the work that I do plays to it, right. And I would also give a lot of the friends that I have like you. When you and I get together, we are very extroverted together. You need your time, I need my time, right, But

Oh, I have a lot of enthusiasm for things that I have enthusiasm for. I think I have more domain specific enthusiasm than the Big five can capture because I have a lot of non enthusiasms. I don't you have domain general enthusiasm, Dan, But I feel like I'm more to me specific. And for assertiveness, I again, I think

Like go go, go, go go energy that you bring, you bring to every situation, and I think that's super interesting, and well, it's a heck a lot of fun hanging out with you, that's for sure.

Yeah. Right back at you, man, right back at you.

You know, it's funny.

I think that's one of the things that I mean, i'd be curious to know how yours developed over the years, right, Like how you've been able to cultivate, to curate a life and a lifestyle that allows you to to bring whichever is most appropriate to the four.

I would also.

Say what you mentioned before about a general enthusiasm. A lot of people will ask me that and they'll say, you know, you always have you always enthusiastic, you always energetic, And I'm like, hell no, you know, you just don't see me when I'm.

Not enthus don't see me at my worst.

Yeah exactly, I mean, you don't want to see me my worst. But you know, look, you asked me this question because you and I are interacting and people ask me this question when we are interacting, But when I'm maybe by myself or a home alone or something, I'm not like bouncing off the walls.

I'm like you do. I'm kind of laid back now.

But people get me fired up. So people tend to think this is how I am you. However, as I said, you have this context and but people let me just say, and this may well be edited out. Scott Berry Coffin away from them from the psychology podcast wild Man, wild Man, Wow, local and super super engaged and engaging and like super social. It's really cool to see. I highly encourage you to find him. It's appropriate, don't stalk him orny if you get the chance to hang out with him.

There's a lot more.

There's a lot of Scott break off in there, and every little bit of it is awesome.

Thank you so much, Dan, I really appreciate you saying that our friendship goes way back and we have so many mutual interests. One mutual interest of ours is education and helping to mentor young minds. Tell people a little bit about yourself, I should say, and your interests in helping young people thrive.

Well, you know, I'll give you the real short version of how I got here. As Scott said, one of our interests that we share is education. For the last ten years, I've taught, of course called I've co taught of course called the Science of Happiness along with my very good friend doctor Alan schlector at NYU, and we teach about thousand students a year about well being, not

What stress?

What's anxiety? What's depression? What is mental illness? What does therapy look like? So we don't want to ignore the hurdles. But I got into this because I was really interested.

In performance and peak performance.

My parents who both professional musicians, classical musicians. I spent ten years in the music business as an agent, and I got really interested in two main things. One is why when you take two people seemingly equal potential, one could really shoot to the moon and the other one could either have a rocky road and or potentially really never realize their potential. But the other one was that everyone we represented was at ICM, was successful. Everyone's making money,

So it's your extraversion interacting with your openness to experience.

A thank you for Thank you for the diagnosis, doctor Coffin.

I appreciate that this makes for an interesting combination. That's wonderful. Your social curiosity is such a great character strength of yours. You spend ten years in the talent industry from the musical talent. That's classical music, right.

That is, it's classical music. My parents both classical musicians.

We may even get this later because it's one of the reasons Scott and I are such close friends.

My father was in the Pittsburgh Symphony. My mom was an opera singer.

I represented opera singers, conductors, directors, those kind of folks here in New York, well, based in New York, but around the world.

Yeah, what was that like?

Did you enjoy that? Oh?

Man, I loved it. It was amazing.

I mean, look, I love music more than maybe anything any other pursuit or field or art form. And I think most things are art forms. I see sport as an art form. I see business as an art form, but music is something that is It is my path to transcendence more frequently than anything else. So to be able to work with young talent, which is what I specialized in. When I say young in classical music and opera terms, we're talking like mid twenties or so.

It was amazing, like hit on everything.

I love helping other people in a field that I loved looking at audience and audience isn't thinking. Man, just wait until you hear this person in a couple of years as they're building up, like this entire audience is going to be like right, So being able to bring that to the world and individuals was really very very special, very special. Yeah, it was a wonderful decade.

How long have you been really interested in talent then? Like, even like going back before that, have you been long fascinated with why some people are great, why some people aren't? Has that been an interest of yours for a long time?

Yeah? I think so.

I mean I think even in high school and college, I was fascinated by other people around me what it was that made them special, and not saying.

That anyone was better than another. There was no hierarchy.

It was simply that guy's you know, fresh and lacrosse player, and she's playing the violin, and he's a mathematics major and she's studying anthropology, and what is it that makes them so unique as human beings?

And how are they going to realize it? Right?

So having these conversations was always just a source of great pleasure for me to be able to listen, but also to help if I could. I found early on that a lot of people come just to come to me just have these conversations and come run something by I've been thinking about something and or conversations that I know that and still today I know they're not sharing things that they share with me with a lot of other people. So if I can do that resource fantastic.

I yes, sing us something, What's hey, what's your favorite opera? Aria?

I want to know that if you could stand on the stage of the net and sing any.

Aria, what would it be? And why.

Love?

Don't stop there, baby, don't stop there? The words.

God has just sung an aria from an Arita, I guess from Don Giovanni.

He is seducing a woman at a window and it is.

The cout the roll across a little little bit, you go different, differ, different characters.

The legle lech me oh sam, the words.

Yeah, man, we should just sing this whole podcast.

I would have to remember the words. But that's a that was that's a laparello.

Yeah exactly, that's right. And you know what, you'd make a marvelous laprello. Think about you. You know what, Lepre is there basically to help.

Yeah, I mean he does some pretty unsavory things which you don't, but he is a tremendous when it comes to I am here to help this guy, and he pretty much stops it nothing until the end.

I love that character.

Hell raises up and he runs away.

He runs right, So he's so funny in that scene. It's so funny. He's like, yeah, I'm out of here, but Don's on his own now. Well, but you know, I also would love to play the role of Don Giovanni. That would be fun too. I'd love to play that role as well.

Yeah, well you would not be the first person to do both roles.

They're interesting.

Well, you play a lot of roles, Scott, I mean, how did you end up in all these different roles? You coach people, you write, you do podcasts, you teach, you do research, and I only hit about thirteen percent of your overall of what it is you do.

What percentage are appropriate to discuss?

Well, you know, I might ask you some questions later as we get increasingly comfortable here that your listeners might.

Go oh, I had no idea.

I really I've always wanted to ask Scott what's one thing he's never shared on air that he that he's ready to share. And we may or may not get to that.

We'll see what happens. He happens.

But you know, but it's fascinating, Scott, because I think we're an age of like of specialization, and you have managed to get involved in so many different parts of work and life and the world and your field and things beyond your field and stretching you know, our field.

Have you done that?

Oh, boy, sacrifices, sacrifices. I don't have.

Children, say more like, what have you sacrifice? Boy?

I mean, I think there's a certain kind of a single pointed mindedness to a lot of this that I've had for many, many years of my just relentless desire to redefine intelligence. And when I have a book project, I go so so deep into it, you know, and that flow state is just really so intense that I can I could spend days and days and uh forget to respond to people's emails or oh, I know, forget to return them.

Call for forgive you to give you for that too.

We understand. Yeah, no, I think that, like, like I said earlier, very domain specific enthusiasm. So if I if I go into something a project, I just really want to put my my all into it, and well that takes a lot of sacrifice. I mean, it takes a lot of real single minded focus. I'm on something over and over and over and could be related to just as well OCD symptoms as well. But let's be more charitable.

Put to good use though, put to good use.

Yeah, yeah, what's the common thread? If you were say, you know what, what's the common thread here?

For what?

It is that you're doing everything you do and that's and that's and we're not going to go there yet. But even the things that you might not have shared with your listening audience, right, you don't have to imagine anything there. There's nothing untoward people. What's what's the thread that runs throughout?

Well, we're doing this live, not live, but we're doing this recorded.

Thank goodness, because I was like this is live, I would have warm pants.

Okay, go ahead now.

No, I mean I think there's this major thread is is human potential and and wanting to inspire people to be better and to make the choice in their life that lead them to growth, and also just for society to broaden their notion of what human potential looks like, not limit it so narrowly to IQ tests or not limit so much to one slice of a person, even like physical attractiveness. I think is we can reduce people to that and not really appreciate their finer qualities, you know,

Adding that baby to the end. Well you're doing You're doing a bang up job, man.

Yeah, it's all about multidimensionality.

I was going to ask you what you've sacrificed, but hey, your show.

Oh you know, I was I need to think about that. I mean, maybe I've sacrificed relationships. That's possible, really spending as much time and relationship on romantic relationships as I perhaps could have. Maybe I've sacrificed tenure at a university because I really value that independence so fiercely, the independence to have flow. So I probably have not taken jobs that I could have taken these sorts of things. Sure,

Ruthless is an interesting work, yes, because at least I tend to connect with the things that are that are not as savory, you know that things that we might not admire, cut throat so and so, so and so forth. But being ruthless for your principles, for your values, for what's meaningful is a very different way of putting it.

I love that you phrased it that way.

It can be ruthless. Sometimes you can have a million people asking things from you and being ruthless in terms of like if it's really not a line, just be like nope, no no no no no no no no no no no no no no see of nopes.

Madeline Cohn History of the world.

Right, No, no, no, no, no, no, yes no no no no no.

No, yes, that's so funny.

What is your thread? My thread for everything I'm doing? Yeah, oh man, it's really just like I said, I.

Love helping people.

Yeah, you're a ball of love.

Well, you know I have that on my business card. Yeah, Dan Lerner since nineteen seventy one, one big ball of love. That's you know, that's how I describe myself.

Ha ha, that's what I see.

Any well, you know I appreciate that, man.

It's it brings me great joy to see other people living great lives. And if I can help, like.

I said, it's exactly what I'll do. You know.

I think that the struggle of the sacrifice, one of the struggles for me is managing time that way. Because you have a bunch of folks and you really want to be helpful for everyone.

How do you do it? You know?

I saw a bunch of students yesterday, and I was talking to a colleague the other day and they said, yeah, I have office hour, keep it to an hour, do it once a week. Many students get in there, They get in there. I think I met with six students yesterday,

Because it's a lot.

It's a lot to be able to try to give and you don't regret it, but you do sort of find yourself wondering what do I do now? You know, my family's out of town right now. They have been for a number of months. My son, as you know, is a performer, so they travel a lot. And so for me, I don't have to worry about not coming home to family right now, but what happens when they are And I'm like, how much time am I going to spend with this? How much more time am I

Meanwhile, I know.

I have other things I should probably be doing, writing, prepping for so it's really about a balance. But yeah, ultimately it's about giving up ourselves.

Yeah, well, that's that's very kind of you. That's very kind of you. Do you ever feel like students feel entitled to your time?

I guess I tend to frame it differently, and I can it's a great question, and I can totally see how and why you're asking. I mean, you've been teaching for longer than I have, right and in university, so you had a huge array of experience with students.

You know. It's interesting.

I met with a student yesterday for I think the fifth time this semester, and every time we've met, he's had some really good questions, and they've usually been about himself and other relationships, and particularly a relationship with his parents. And I was probably spent five hours with him this semester. And one could look at that as entitled, well, you know, I need my time with you, and they if I'm going to take my time with you, he might think.

Going on there?

Yeah, there are some, But I figured they wouldn't ask me if they didn't need a near and uh so there you go. Could I ask for anything better than this kid to have a better relationship with his parents after nineteen years?

Not much so not in that regard.

There's certainly students who are like, I deserve an A plus and i'd beat the paper. I'm like, you actually deserve like, you know, like a TA would grade it and be like, I don't want this be and I look at it and I'm.

Like, you actually deserve like a seme minus.

So I think there's an entitlement in terms of grading and expectation of what they deserve in certain other ways. But I kindly set them straight in a way where it's let's help you get better at this.

Have you read Coddling of the American Mind by Jonathan Hyde?

Yeah?

And Greg it's been in a number of years. Yeah.

Does that resonate with your experience in the class or do you see the issue differently?

Well, I'll tell you what, because we're jamming here, I'd love to know what your thoughts are on that jamming away you tap, I don't know about you, like you're you're you're teaching too and you're teaching a mighty big class right now, and you always have for you know, top big classes.

You have a lot of experience with students. How does that resonate for you?

What's your experience with students and what are your thoughts in relation to that material? Are you dodging the bullet No, I'm I'm I'm tossing you back the bullet pillow.

Here's the speaking pillow. Now it's yours.

He's dogs in the bullet Okay, yeah you are. But you know, I love the point that they make about students increasingly suffering mental illness on campus, more so in the past ten years, and a certain fragility there among the students that we have never seen before. Do I agree one hundred percent with the framing of you know, we need to just teach more anti fragility classes, you know, like tough love. You know, I don't know if that fits my style of the way in which I like

You know.

Then a sort of spirit upon which a lot of people who read that book really the reason why they love the book is a lot of them, are, you know, like to make fun of the kids, you know, in a way of like, look those liberal snowflakes, right, I mean, that's not a compassionate lens to ring to the table

How are you doing?

I know, when a student is asking for so many accommodations that they don't need.

I know that, right, Yeah, now I'm with you.

Look, the challenge too, is every student's different in terms of their needs. And I always I always look at these students who might fall into the category of being coddled as here's students who have the opportunity to grow up? How is this student? Where is their opportunity?

Yeah?

And how do you how do you provide that for them? How do you speak to them? How do you share feedback?

Even? What are the questions you need to ask to better understand that student? Right? Why might they be a little fragile? The ability to help.

One student mature a little bit, or improve a little bit, or become less fragile, or develop more resilience, I'd rather sort of put it that way.

Resilience is going to be very different from another.

Yes, I mean, what do you do with a student who has zero resilience? The every single slightest thing they fall apart? You know, what do you do with that kind of student? You know, it's like, you know, let's say you give me the easiest homework assignment and they're like, oh, it caused me so much stress. I couldn't do it.

It's I was.

Like, okay, well, what do you want me to do about that?

You know?

Yeah, I mean that's that that kind of Honestly, that kind of responds from a student. If I heard that from a student, and I certainly have. My tendency is go directly to tell me about your experience here in college, what's working for you? You know, like coming more about why you ended up here, and I want to know.

As opposed to how are you here?

Yeah?

Well, hey, I mean students, Like, that's the thing a college students, man, you know, they knew where every meal was coming from in high school, not all of them, but many of them.

You knew where you were eating.

You knew in your class with the bell literally wrung. Do you remember those days when you'd be sitting in class and the bell would ring.

You're like, oh, time to go next class.

And by the way, if I'm not there, the hall monitor is gonna catch me and I'm gonna get in trouble. Right, Like, there's everything is so structured, and you go to college and it's like, yeah, you can go to class and I go to class.

I don't know, you know, you can eat whatever you want whenever you want wherever you.

Want, you know you can. You don't know who you're gonna be sleeping with. I mean roommates, of course, roommates, But like now, the point is, like everything is, everything is wide open, and that is a stress and do itself right.

So it's always been that way. So I'm not using that as an excuse.

When we were in college, you know, lo those many years ago, when you know, when my parents took me to college and the horse and buggy, it was no different. But there are factors right now that are clearly really challenging. And I think and I don't think every instructor thinks about it this way.

I mean, I guess how fam this way.

I don't think every university instructor thinks about it this way, but I certainly think and nor should they.

I'm not saying they should.

Part of my job is to help a student as a human being, not just as a vessel for information. But look, if you look at the data, it's emerging over the last decade on empathy period in the workplace, even right empathetic leaders. There's a huge benefit to having empathetic leaders when it comes to retaining employees overall, well being and happiness. Productivity create creativity. Empathetic leaders matter in a huge way. And so from from me as a as an instructor, I guess I think I'm a leader

You don't take this class.

I had a student who failed twice, right, I was like, dude, you just failed happiness twice. You know, Look a lot of still happiness in life. So I don't mean to make light, but it's I'm still here for you. You know you want to come back take it again. I'm going to give you those papers with tons and tons of feedback. You want to rewrite them, rewrite them. That's the opportunity. Might be a pain in the ask to you, but tough. You know I'm still here. Let's do it. If you're down.

So, wow, that's your class hard.

I don't think it's hard.

I mean students are supposed to have something like forty five hours of total work. I believe in a four course load. That's before you spend time with friends, before you might have your job or your second job. To pay college before you're playing your sport or a part of your club. I don't think it's hard. I think that it's not easy, but it can be challenging provided you take on the opportunities that we try to present.

Right.

You can look, anyone can write a reflection paper on a gratitude journal, or on use of character strengths.

Or food, mood or sleep.

But if you really want to dig in, spend time thinking about what you're grateful for and why. If you really want to spend dig in and spend time thinking about about how you're putting a character strength to use throughout the week, it's gonna take a bit more time. It's also gonna be more meaningful and hopefully more enduring, have more of an impact on that student. So I don't think we don't see our job out on myself

I wish I could take your class, Dan, you can, you're invited, Thank you. I don't know if i'd pass. It sounds hard.

Man, Come on, bet hey, you know but this is one of the things, Scott, is that you are one of the people I know who knows the change takes time and takes hard work. So I see you doing these things, you know, setting a course for meditation for yourself, getting off of social media for a certain amount of time, getting involved in practices, working out or other exercises that

Thanks. You're like the ideal student.

Oh man, you'd be amazing, you know, or or alternatively you could come and teach it.

Let's talk about friendship. Yeah, what do you think is the secret sauce of a good friendship?

Well, you know, it's funny.

One of the things I thought of before we started today is how you and I met. If you're cool with that, it's worth it's worth sharing. I mean on grinder there we were naked and the Ganges and I looked over at him and I thought, who is that?

Very very now?

We met over at a dinner where we were both invited guests.

Yep, correct, correct.

And we had been sort of shunned to the end of the table.

Yes, yeah, and yeah, yeah, I'll just I'll leave it at that for right now. And I was like, oh, everyone else is so far away, but there's this guy sitting across from me.

How you doing? What's going on? Man? How are you here?

And long story short, Scott at that point was running the imagination in institude pen and told me a bit of a story, which I'm sure ninety eight percent of your listeners know because it's an amazing story and who could forget that story? And so when Scott wanted to study intelligence, he wanted to go to Carnegie Mellon his way in was to audition for the voice department.

Would you like to take it from there?

No? No, No, I want to get to how we are, how we met and everything.

He said, Yeah, I auditioned for the voice department. I got in as an opera singer. And I was like, wait a second, A, that's amazing. B who's your teacher, Scott said, Mimi Lerner. I said that's my mom, And that's it, that's my mom.

I was like, all right, man, the world's too small.

And I think Scott might have loved my mom as much as I did, and actually, for what I can gather, she loved.

Him, maybe even more than she loved me. But that was it.

And you know, it's interesting because I was thinking about this, like, what was it?

There are a few people.

In life I can literally count them on one hand in my entire life where you knew you were going to be friends when the first five minutes, and I mean friends like, oh, maybe'll hang out. I'm like, oh, that like brothers, We're gonna be good friends for a really long time.

Brothers exactly. Scott always says, you know, we both say my brother from another mother. And so there are goarly.

Some essential elements that well, elements of French characteristics of friendship set that we can put down the list proximity, shared interests, so.

On and so forth. But the secret sauce.

Is an interesting one, you know, And I think if we could really know exactly if that secret sauce is, that would be on the front page of The York Times for the next three hundred and seventy five years.

Maybe yeh, But I'd be curious, what do you think the secret sauce is?

Because you are so tight and you have a couple of friends who you're really tight with, and I have a couple friends I'm super tight with.

What is it?

Well, I think we underestimate the value of similarity. As much as I talk about universal love and how we need to overcome tribalism, I think when it comes to friendship, I think the ones I'm closest with are those that are dialed into a similar frequency as me, similar set of values. Some people would look down upon the fact that I don't really have that many close close friends

People think Bob Saget. Yeah, yeah, yeah, not full house Bob Saget. Yeah, like you know the Aristocrats, it's Bob Saget. I'll leave it at that. You've seen that movie, right, I did?

I saw that movie?

Okay, good, all right, yes, all right, people, you should all go see that unless you have sensitive ears, in which case you should stay as far away as possible.

I'm sorry. Yes, we have filthy, dirty sensites of humor. Go on, yes, right.

I think that's underestimated in a friendship.

I was going to say, I want to hear what you want to say next.

I want to hear what you say.

What I was going to say, I want to hear what you want to say.

Oh I see, oh us, well, I mean, but building up from friendship to community, what does it mean to find a healthy community? What's an unhealthy community?

Dan?

What are the characteristics of an unhealthy community?

Oh? That's that's such an interesting one.

I'd like to think that there was a time we were having conversations, and maybe that's part of friendship too, when you have a back and forth, just to take a step back to the previous topic, you know, I was so interested to hear about your life, and you were seemingly equally or at least doing a really good job of pretending to be interested in you know what my love was like too.

Yeah I was not pretending, but yeah.

Oh I know, Oh you're break it to me now. Actually again, I don't give a peep about you. I just you know, yeah, I just think you're very handsome. So I think, community wise, and to your point also about how we get super tight with people who might have shared values. I think there was a time when community you could have lots of different people with lots of different values, and you could have conversations and they'd be civil, and there would be there would be back

Some folks you don't see as much, but certainly a professional.

Live the risk is huge taking a misstep, and so whether we are consciously doing it or not, I think a lot of the way we call it today community but professionally but also personally is am I able to say things without fear of repercussion. So I think that that has led to unhealthiness in the way that we

Unfortunately, that takes away from our ability to grow.

It really does, it really does. I'd like to, you know, mix and match different communities, not necessarily bring them all together, but be a part of communities that perhaps wouldn't be a part of each other.

Right right, But it's funny.

You and I were having us the other day and I said, certain, I asked if you'd ever seen Woody Allen Zelig. Not that I should be talking about Woody Allen for this conversation, right, but like the ability to sort of meld into different places is I think it's such an amazing skill and you have that in spades.

Thanks man. How do you do that?

I mean, for the folks listening out there who are interested in I'd love to expand my suite of communities to be able to be involved in other things and learn from other folks and be a part of that.

How do you do it? You know? You just do it.

You just do it, You be, you be among people. You do it, you do it. You're a very high in social exploration. I feel like someone could say anything to you and you would turn it into a question. So I'd be like, oh, Dan, your face looks like a I don't know whatever a pancake that got And you'd be like, oh, oh, tell me, why do you think that? You know? I feel like someone could say something crazy to you, right, and you'd be like, oh,

No, you're right, but I think I've honed it over the years, over the past really five years, more than ever. I mean, there were times before I was like, you know, I wasn't I want to ask a questions, but it.

Was hard to ask a question when it was so where was.

Borderline offensive what someone was saying, You're not I'm not learning anything from this, you know, tell me more about that, Tell me why you think the way you think, so on and so forth, because that's the.

Only way you're going to have that dialogue.

Plus, when people talk about things they feel they feel like they're more understood right as frankfully they are, And we're not going to change our mind. We're just shooting to understand them, if I understand it correctly.

So, yeah, humans are humans to that again, humans are humans.

Yes, humans are humans. Humans are humans.

But I would say, if there are folks out there who are looking to expand their communities, that's it.

That's to get curious. What do you stand to.

Learn from this person or this community, Like that's all you know, I'll say that for another time, but tart getting used to asking those questions where you want to know more as opposed to trying to tell them what you think.

Yes, I love it. Well, what do you think about the self help industry?

Well, you're just gonna drop that one on me, like out of nowhere. You couldn't have been like have the Yankees these days?

I know you have some strong opinions. I do. I do self out community.

Man, this is one where I really want to turn it back to you, not dodge a bull, because I'm fascinated, also because and frankly because I'm a little afraid about what I'm going to say.

How do we Where do we go from here?

I mean, I'll say it, But do you want to you want to like lay down the groundwork on this one?

Oh?

I want to hear your thoughts on it?

Okay? Can I use found language on this podcast? Yes? Of course, of course. There's no reason to resort the foul language. No reason.

No reason people swear because they don't they don't know the words to use to express what they're trying to really say. I think I just think words matter. I do you think words are some my favorite things in life? Yes, So I'm going to avoid as much as I love and I won't say it dropping a good f bomb.

Fuck it just feels good. Uh. You know, I don't have to go there.

I am not a huge fan of self help industry, but I think, WHOA.

That's controversial, so controversial?

Look at me getting all controversial. I'm not a big fan, I know. Look at this. How many people just turned off your show forever? Oh, that's got very coffin.

I loved him for all seven hundred and seventy three episodes until he asked Dan Learner about self help.

I will never listen to him again. Ever, how can he have that man on the What's self Hope?

Dan?

You know, here's the thing I say when I say that, Scott.

You know who's gonna call me after this podcast drops, Tucker Carlson. Tucker Carlson's be like, hey, I heard you, Scott Very coffann episode on self help.

I'd love to have you on the show. That's that's how controversial it is.

No, Tucker, I'm just gonna say you right now, not going into show so self. I look at self help from a historical and efficacious way.

I guess right, But I.

Think it's really important in the spirit of understanding it, to get a sense of what it is, right, because if you just use the word self help, there is nothing wrong with helping yourself, right, There's nothing wrong someone pursuing materials or individuals that they think will be helpful in their quest to.

Have greater well being.

The challenge I have is that nobody has one self help book on their shelf, right, they have forty, and then as soon as they're done with that one, maybe thirty days after because they've tried to do whatever that self help or told them to do for thirty days and realized it didn't work, and now it's time to go on to the next one.

They'll buy another one.

I am challenged by self help because ninety five percent of it is built to be sold rather than to be I think, and marketed to sell as many as possible, right, rather than to be genuinely helpful and employing science in a way that would be beneficial for folks. You know, when you start a book with this book will help every individual who reads it, or a session with everyone

What's wrong with me?

You know? Everyone else supposed to be helped by this. Why am I not being helped? Why is it not working for me?

I felt great when I went to that week long workshop, you know, and I felt quack for another week or two afterwards, And now here I am again. I need to go to another workshop.

Right.

I think it's praying on people's on people's unappiness. It's preying on people's lack of fulfillment and rather than being effective too often not always, depending on how we're defining it. It's an industry that basically built to have you buy more and more and more.

What are your thought? I can go on, man, but I want to know what you think?

Well, so what's a better approach? So how do you help without the self help?

I guess I would take the word easy out. I take the word everyone out. I take the word or term seven days or seven things or thirty days you know out. I think that getting help more often than not, not every time, there are people sitting out there going. But I bought so and So's book, Right, I went to this world shop.

I feel great. There are folks out there who benefit.

Don't get me wrong, but real work is hard.

Most of the time. Real change is hard. So being able to sit if one has the means or of one has the resource one on one or even in a group setting where they are going on a regular basis with a professional who's been trained in a mental health professional.

I think that that's it.

And it's not easy, and it's not thirty days, and it's not standing in a room and jumping up and down that might be helpful and you know it might be part of your one's path, And it's not reading a book and deciding that's the one thing.

I think.

It's about a process in which you are working with individual or a group has been trained specifically to help people with well being. Right that that is where I would go. He's got hard discussions. It's it's about realizing that it's.

Not all good.

You can't necessarily manifest everything in the next thirty days. Right that there is no course of miracles which by the end of which you will be bulletproof. If you drink that coffee, and because your atomic habits will awaken the.

Giant within right, let's strike and string them together all day.

Now.

Yeah, okay, right, this.

Is you know, yeah, they are, they are.

But look, we have to take into consideration with the science, says, and if someone is spouting and saying there is no downside, you better believe that there is.

And so I think it goes back to those therapies like are we doing the work?

Are we really asking the questions? So I won't go deeper into certain individuals. But if you look at the science supporting a lot.

Of it got a bullshit, but it is eye catching.

It is definitely eye catching, right for like the anti vax campaigns, right, Like the science is bullshit, but hey, it's been made into something that's super is glitterally, so I'll stick with it, right, rather than look deeper the science.

Okay, Well that's you know, that's what makes you different. It seems like you care about evidence based Yeah, and that's not everyone really cares about that.

Yeah, exactly. And look, I guess there's some things that work.

I've always said, and I when people ask me what I think about some of my Tony Robbins, I'm like, I think the man is them with charismatic human beings I've ever seen in my life. And if people come to him and he can help them, that is amazing. There's no research supporting what he does. Why because you're not going to get a hundred percent because no research will give you a hundred percent. And once you drop at one hundred percent, your marketing power goes. Now, look

That's a really impressive number. Right, Maybe you are.

Feeling better for the next three to six months, that's really impressive. But I want to know which groups, and I want to know who it's right for, and I want to know how long, and I want to know how to follow.

Up, you know.

So I don't mean to take anything away because there are people sitting out there going, oh, I've listened to that person religiously.

I follow them on Instagram, and how dare you?

It might be working for you, right, and that's wonderful, But.

I also think there are lot of folks who.

Are suffering as a result of believing it works for one hundred percent of people for the rest of their lives.

Yeah, it's a great point.

It's a really great point. How do you how you add that nuance while still making while still inspiring people and giving them hope to at least try things is tricky, but yeah, I know it's wonderful too.

Uh.

I really like I really like a lot of your points.

The world needs a book from you, Dan, Okay, tell me.

Uh any any book in particular?

I can it? Can I do it in crayon?

We need to write a book. You sounded a little bit. You started sounding a little bit like John Stewart, and I don't know how to why. I think that your tonality eth started and he's he's very he's a very smart guy. He's a very smart guy.

Yes, yes, yes, I'm not as smart John Stewart, but but I'm good with with with imitations.

So yeah, who can you do? I think I can do some John Stewart. I can do some Uh, I can do some Bill Clinton, A people.

I can do a Barack Obama. So no, no, no, I mean I can't put me on the spot like that. I'm good with accents.

But it was almost like coy podcast earlier.

So that's true. Yeah, that's true. No, I think I froze on that one. I can do better impressions. Cut that cut that, but I do I do very very good ros in the accents you said, I do very very well.

So, but a book, I write a.

Book, like you know, the question is on what something I've struggled with for some time.

But this may be one of the topics. I'm passionate about that.

Because you know, just like you and I are passionate, bate helping people, passionate about things that are hurting people.

You should write a book on taking on the self help industry. That that should be the book. You should just go all in thought about it. We'll talk, we'll talk well written, talk more about that.

I have a title.

Yeah, so maybe good good?

But you had, I mean you had what is his name from the Quick Fix on who was terrific?

Right?

I mean I think he did a nice job of addressing a certain part of that one.

In that industry too, Jesse singall or exactly exactly exactly yeah, yeah, yeah, I'd like to see. It's from the side of and what do we do right? Yes, this is a problem.

What do we do? Yes, some of it's good.

How do we understand what's good and what can how can people understand what works for them? And what are the questions they might want to ask and what are some things they can do. Knowing this is not the end all be all, let me take a little bit of Dave, ask me a little bit of someone else, and let me do some therapy on the side, Like you know, how do we do it?

What's right for me?

That's right for me. That's that's the million dollar question. Self actualization is where it's at my man, that that's my that's my it's my jam.

I've heard of that about you. I've heard of that.

Hey, Hey, thank Scott.

You should write a book on self actualization.

Thanks Dan, that's a good idea. Yeah, see, good ideas.

Man.

I knew you had it in you can't wait, can't wait. If you know what that book is going to be, it's going to be transcendent. I'm very excited for it to come out.

Thanks, Thanks, Thanks buddy. Well, our time has come to an end here today, but we have fifty six more topics that we were hoping to discuss, so I'll have to bring you back on and we should do some We should periodically have an ongoing series with me and you on this podcast. What do you think?

I think it's an amazing idea. I'd love to do that. Man.

You know, the more time I hang out with you better at conversations are always amazing. And any opportunity to do that and share that and hear from you and have this conversation, I would beyond welcome.

Yeah, there's a lot more topics to cover. Thanks for coming on today and doing the podcast improv jam with me.

Ah, thank you for having me my brother. Thank you to everyone who's listened as well.

Have a great one.

Thanks for listening to this episode of The Psychology Podcast. If you'd like to react in some way to something you heard, I encourage you to join in the discussion at the Psychology podcast dot com. We're on our YouTube page the Psychology Podcast. We also put up some videos of some episodes on our YouTube page as well, so you'll want to check that out. Thanks for being such a great supporter of the show, and tune in next time for more on the mind, brain, behavior, and creativity.