Ryan Niemiec and Robert McGrath || Ignite Your Character Strengths

on the podcast. Ryan is an author or co author of nine books, an award winning psychologist, international keynoteter and education director of the VIA Institute and Character. Robert is Professor of psychology at Farley Dickinson University, Senior Scientist at the VIA Institute, and is published extensively in the topic of character and virtue. Together they are author of the new book The Power of Character Strengths, Appreciate and Ignite

your positive personality. Thanks so much for chatting with me today. Thanks an honor to be here. Thanks gutt of a question, First of all, what is a positive personality? How do I know if I have a positive personality? Judged by who. Well, I guess I would say that the idea of a positive personality has to do with are you someone who has really committed yourself to trying to work as well as you can in the world with the people around you,

developing yourself and even contributing to your community. Are those things that are really important to you? And if so, there are certain strengths that are really helpful in terms of making that happen. Yeah, And in this book we focus on to build off what Bob's saying, We build off these twenty four character strengths that have that studies show are in people across cultures, nations, religions, belief systems. And these twenty four or character strengths are they veer

more toward the positive. We can where they're naturally more positive for us and they bring more positive outcomes for us or for other people, So they veer more toward the good. And you know, these are part of our personality. So you know, the positive personality is is that like synonymous in your view with character? Like do you use those two words synonymously? I think that's a fair thing

to say. You know, so many times we are driven by the things that are going on around us that make us, you know, decide to do the things we do. And positive personality is more about the stable part of who you are, that is someone who contributes, someone who is admirable and working effectively for themselves and for others. So yeah, I think that old word character really fits well with the modern idea of positive personality. You know,

as psychologist, we like to talk about personality. The philosophers tend to talk about character, but I really think that we talk about positive personality and character, we're really talking about the same things. Okay, good, Thanks for that qualification. So you both have been studying scientifically a wide range of character strends. I was wondering if you could just one of you or both of you, but not at

the same time. Please just talk about the development of the measurement the v instrument, Like what is the instrument like and how was it like developed? What are the origins of it? Well, why don't I take that one because I'm probably most focused on the development issues. Great, you know, so, as Ryan said, we have these twenty four character strengths and it was a very long process.

And Ryan can talk a little bit more about the kind of conceptual work that went on behind choosing these twenty four but then it was really recognized that for us to really make this a useful concept, you have to have some way of measuring it. And so Chris Peterson and Marty Seligman, who were the people who originally identified the twenty four character strengths, immediately turned around and

started developing a questionnaire. And that basically was a process of collecting items, you know, various items that reflect each of the twenty four character strengths like creativity, kindness, and giving it to large groups of people and seeing which items held together well, and then you know, on the

basis of that, choosing items for the questionnaire. One of the issues that you saw with that was that they originally chose ten items for each of the twenty four strengths, which meant it was two hundred and forty items long, which is a little long for people. I mean, it can take forty minutes or longer to complete all two hundred and forty. So one of the first things we did was cut it to one hundred and twenty items, and that's the version that you'd see on the via

webs all right right now. But the other thing was that the whole field of measurement has really advanced over the years, and there are all sorts of methods that

you can use to improve the quality of questionnaires. And so we completed a a several year process of rethinking the whole questionnaire, rethinking the meanings of the strengths and how we wanted to represent each of them, and we've just finished up work on that and are in the middle of getting it translated into I believe we're up to fourteen languages where we're getting translations done, and once some of those major translations are done, we're going to

be rolling out this new version on the website. And one of the things that's nice about is it's going to be an even shorter version. It's going to be ninety six items instead of one hundred and twenty. So we're trying to both maximize the quality of the questionnaire and also make it easier for people to finish it. Cool I mean, how many iterations different versions has the scale existed over the years, Like how different is it

now from the very first version? Because I know there's been a lot of studies that have come out doing like very statistical analysis on the different factors, and you know how the things line up maybe differently from what was originally proposed. Like, you know, how different is the scale now? You know, the one that people are doing right now online is really just the same as the

original two hundred forty item version. Every item comes from that original version, but it's just half as long the new version. We have a bunch of new items. We found some problems with some of the scales. So, for example, leadership is one of the twenty four character strengths. The items really didn't hold together that well, so we've revised a bunch of those items. Self regulation another one of

the character strengths. We thought that there was too much of a focus on things like healthy habits and diet, and so we've really changed that scale a lot. So it's not a massive change, but there are new items that are going to be appearing in the next year or so, and like I said, more importantly, it's going to be a shorter, tighter scale than it was before.

Cool Now, how many people have taken the test since the beginning, so we're at over seven million right now people And it's interesting if you get the average in terms of how many people might take it in a certain matter of seconds. We have somebody that takes the VIA survey every fifteen seconds of every minute of every day. So just since we've been talking here, there have probably been you know whatever that would mathematically be out to another fifty people that have taken it from you know,

somewhere in the world. That is about the same number of people. How many in the world over seven million at this point. My gosh, it's about the same number of listeners of the Psychology Podcast. I wonder what the overlap is. We have a lot of a lott I tell you, yeah, we have a lot of listeners of the Psychology Podcast that are interested in positive psychology. Well yeah, I mean, what's so exciting about this is that the

numbers we find continued to incline. They continue to increase year by year, So we find about a twenty five percent increase every single year in the last five years. So it's not like, you know, positive psychology or the

especially we're talking about. These character strengths are kind of a passing fad, and you know, all they're kind of useful and I remember way back then when it was interesting, but actually it's just gaining more and more traction in different fields, whether it's business or education, or coaching or counseling or health or whatever. So that's that's particularly exciting to me, is that that incline year by year very interesting.

You know, the people are what is it They're hungry for self knowledge, for maybe framing themselves in a positive way. What do you think it is? It could be multiple factors. Yeah, I mean we could both take a crack at that one. I mean my view a lot of it is there is the self development piece and the self awareness piece. You know. Also, this is since it's a free test and it's a substantive free test, and people get these results about who they are, and there's often this aha moment.

I think that really strikes people, you know, in the A that it's not a charge and then b it's not like it's just kind of a kind of some minimal information that's not very useful. But people get these substantive results of their rank order of these character strengths that are in all human beings and that have been valued by philosophers and theologians and educators and psychologists throughout

the century. So it's a very interesting thing to kind of get feedback on and to learn about oneself, because often people have never thought about themselves through the lens of these character strengths. You know. Oftentimes, you know, people get feedback on what's wrong and what their struggles are and how they could do better at work and their problems, and that's the way that their mind often goes towards

more of a negativity view of things. But to suddenly get feedback on these qualities that are best in them and that they can use those in so many different ways, that's a striking thing. So people could take the task and then they tell other people about it, and I think it just kind of, you know, kind of builds

from there. You know. In fact, if people are listening right now and they haven't done it, and maybe they should take a little pause, go to via character dot org and take the test, and they may get more out of this than they would otherwise. But you know, I really would like to echo something Ryan has said. You know, so often we focus on what's wrong with me, and I think particularly the people who are coming to

the VIA website their searchers about themselves. They're interested about who they are as a person, and so often that can be you know what am I doing wrong? How come it's not coming together for me? You know? Where are my problems? And this really says, but what are your strengths? Because those are the things that you're going to ultimately need to use to actually become a better person. So instead of focusing on those deficits, focus on what's

strong in you and then build from there. And so I think people, sometimes people who have really been thinking of themselves in very negative ways take this and they see a different side of themselves as someone who does have parts of themselves that are really very valuable and that they can use in a way to help themselves and help the people around them. Wow. Well that's a very worthy go, isn't it. Have you found, like do you have like empirical evidence that that knowledge does help people?

You know what I mean? Like other than like all the data we have on all the statistical analysis at the scale, like what stues exist from an applied perspective showing that this self knowledge does impact people positively in their lives? Is that a fair question? Sure? I was differring to Ryan because he actually did the book, So take it away from what do you mean he did the book? He wrote the book, the Character Strength Interventions Book.

Oh god, yeah, okay, yeah, so that's kind of some people say that's like the bible of you know, positive psychology activities or positive psychology interventions. But yeah, I mean there's so many ways that this work is being applied

in across context. I mean, you can go at it from the specific character strength and look at, you know, what activities have been shown to help people boost awareness and use of their gratitude or their teamwork, or their curiosity, their love, their fairness and so on, or that you can also go at it from a more of a general, wider scope perspective and look and see, well, let's turn to people's highest strengths, which are are called in the

field signature strengths. And if people can become more aware of those and use those more, what benefits come. And so there have been a number of randomized trials that have looked at that as an intervention. This intervention around signature strength, it's usually called use your signature strengths in new ways each day. And so the way the intervention goes is people take the via survey, they look at their top results, they choose one of their highest strengths.

It doesn't matter what it is. It could be prudence, it could be creativity, it could be spirituality, it could be kindness, whatever it is, they choose one of their highest strengths and then they use it in a different way each day, you know, kind of consciously, mindfully each day. And what the studies are showing is that it can

have long term benefits. By doing this activity per the instructions for one week, and by benefits, a recent meta analysis showed that this activity boosted happiness, it boosts life satisfaction, it lowers depression, it enhances flourishing, and it even enhances the use of your strengths. So all these kind of benefits are emerging in the science. So it's very very exciting and just just to make it even more practical

for the listeners. So if my highest strength is curiosity, let's say that's my which is true for me, I might choose to use that in a different way each day, so it doesn't have to be anything dramatic. So with whatever strength the person chooses, So day one, I might use my curiosity in a new way by spending five minutes doing an Internet search, exploring different sites and then the next day, I might try one new food, and so I'm kind of exploring something. I'm pursuing novelties, pursuing

something new and different. And then the next day I might ask one coworker one new question that I've never asked them before, so you know, using your curiosity to ask that question. So that's the kind of the spirit of this particular exercise. And you know, do you think you do it with any of these character strengths that are most core to who you are? So it's very promising and exciting sounds it should we go through some of the character strengths and people can take the test

for free on the VNSDW website. What's the website address, www dot via character dot org. So via character dot org you may get another couple million going on to the website after this episode. Who knows, right, But you know, maybe like as a preview, like we should go through some of the virtues and it maybe we won't we'll talk about all twenty four character strengths, but maybe you could just briefly go through the virtues and by the way,

also define what a virtue. The difference between a virtue and a character strength is what's the different in virtue

and character? Sure? Yeah, So you know, the original book that introduced this was this whole model was actually called Character Strengths and Virtues, and the people who wrote that book, Chris Peterson Marty Seligman, talked about both the idea of character strengths and virtues, and they had the way that they talked about those was that character strengths are these twenty four dimensions that make up your positive personality, that

define who you are as a positive person. But then, you know, they were interested in this ancient idea of virtues, and I think it's one of the cool things about the model is that it both is very modern and psychological in that we're using kind of modern psychological research methods to develop this stuff, but it also draws on this twenty five hundred year old literature on the nature

of virtues. And when we're talking about virtues, we're really talking about kind of these broad elements of positivity at the social level, things that have been valued across cultures, across history, and these are kind of broader dimensions. So they talked about six virtues, and the way that they identified these six virtues was that they reviewed kind of

basic moral texts from seven different traditions. So we're talking about the Judeo Christian tradition, Athenian, Greek Philosophy, Islam, Confucianism, Hinduism, seven traditions altogether, and looked at kind of the basic moral texts for those traditions, and what they found was that there were six themes that popped up over and over again, and they called those wisdom and knowledge, courage, humanity, justice, temperance,

and transcendence. And they said, look, you can find kind of resonance of these ideas in every one of these moral traditions to a greater or lesser extent. And so they said, if these are things that all moral traditions have valued, then shouldn't the character strengths these twenty four

dimensions kind of fit into these different virtues. And so they actually built a system where they said, for example, that bravery your ability to sent up yourself as an aspect of courage, gratitude, and appreciation of beauty, they're part of feeling transcendence, which is sort of this sense of

connectedness to the world. So in that way, they develop kind of a two level mind bud of virtues being these kind of broad dimensions of are you someone who contributes culturally socially to other people around you, and then

the more specific twenty four strengths underneath them. I should mention that actually research we've done more recently has reduced that from six to three, and the three that we've been focusing on lately are called caring, which is your connection to people in the world, inquisitiveness, which is your interest in what's happening in the world. And then self control your ability to function effectively and control your emotions. And we found that twenty four also fit pretty well

under these three larger categories. And so with this new version of the VIA that we're talking about coming out in the next year or so, that you'll be able to get the scores both on the six original virtues but also on these three new virtues. Very cool. I guess it depends what level of specificity you're looking for,

that's right. So, you know, this is an interesting question that you raise with those three because you are making the argument that those are the three main dimensions of the good person, right, right, So is it possible to have a perfect character like I've seen graphs like three dimensional like plots of all the character strengths. And you see there's like two dimensions, which where character strengths tend

to in the general population cluster into opposing sides. So there's a self other dimension and then there's am I totally blanking on the other. Do you know what the other dimension is? There's self other and there's another one? Is it intellectual heart and heart in mind? Yes? Yes, I think that feels right. That's the circumplex model. That, yes, exactly the circumplex. You can plot it on circuplit. So yeah, I'm looking at the circumplextion I trade offs among character

strengths Figure six point three. The farther part are two strengths, the less likely it is the same person habitually shows both. So focus on self or focus of others and heart and mind. So doesn't that suggest that in order to for an individual to have score extremely high in all three of those categories is kind of going against the natural trends in society. Like to be that kind of person, you also have to be the kind of person who

can think dialectically, right, I'm not sure I understand the question. Sorry, sure, So I'm looking at this graph of the general population, and there are these very clear trade offs, so you can't like, in the general population, most people do not have all three. And if someone has scores high in bravery, they tend to actually score lower on teamwork for instance, or leader, you know, forgiveness, Like these things are on

different spectrums. So to make the case that the good person is one who scores high on these three categories seems to suggest to me that that's going to be a very very statistical and probability, like that person is going to be very rare in the general populace. I don't think that necessarily is true. I think that, you know, in fact, if one of the things that's interesting about the three dimensions is that they're pretty unrelated to each other.

So you have some people who are high in all three, some people who are high on one and low onto you know, gotten two. You know, you have all the different possible combinations. But I think, you know, let's move away from the statistics for a minute, because I kind of like your original question better, which is is there such a thing as a good person? And it actually is.

What I think is really neat about that question is that we're looking at it as a research question, but it's a question that philosophers have been asking themselves about, and theologians have been asking themselves for thousands of years now. And I think the right answer is there are people who are better than others. But to the person who thinks they're a good that they are there is not

being inquisitive enough. They're not using those more intellectual strengths enough that there are always ways that we can improve the reality is that the temptation to do things that are selfish or lazy or not really you know, assuming that we know it's right, rather than being questioning, those tendencies are always there for us. And so I don't think you ever become a really like virtuous person. I think you become someone who is constantly struggling to become

a virtuous person. And then that's a lifelong journey, and I think it's a great one, and just to build off of that, you know, it's really up to each person to think about this and wonder, what is it best for me to strive for balance across the three virtues, across the six virtues, across those four quadrants of head heart.

Intrapersonal is the idea to try to find a balance, like, I have some strengths that are more heart based that I'm strong in, some that I'm mind based in, some that are more intro some that are more inter personal, you know, or other people might say, no, I'm really happy that I'm pretty strong in the mind strengths, and I'm just going to continue to just be me and just be authentically me and bring that forth as strong

as I can. I can do good for the world by just being very strong with my mind oriented strengths and not necessarily focus on the interpersonal of the others as much, although they'll probably come along for the ride if I'm really strong with my particular category, and then there might be another person that says, no, I'm going to try to strive to build up most of these strengths.

They all kind of matter to me. You know. There has been some research that shows that higher total raw scores on the VIA survey, so kind of cutting across all the strengths is associated with greater well being. So there's maybe a little bit of an argument to, you know, to try to develop all of them, although you know, at the same time time, you know it's that can be intimidating to somebody that's just come upon these and suddenly we're saying, you know, you got to suddenly use

twenty four strengths. So you start a little bit simpler, and you start with your highest strengths, and you start with a couple that you're curious about, and then you kind of go from there. And I also wondered, Bob, if you would share actually about that you've done one or two studies on exemplars and finding that there really isn't exemplars category of character in the world that we could you share a little bit about that. Are you talking about the Oh yes, I'm sorry, it took me

a second. Yeah, you didn't too many studies. It's like, what are you talking about? I know even I know that study. I love that study. Yeah, yeah, you know. There's actually there's an old, old tradition. It actually starts with Aristotle of talking about the virtuous as you know, as if there's this group of people out there who are really, you know, like have become something different from

everybody else in terms of how virtuous they are. And I really was interested in that idea because it is something that you see in a whole bunch of different cultures. This idea of the you know, to use the term from the Greeks, the virtuous person, and so we've actually one of the things that's neat is that because so many people have completed the questionnaire, we can do these studies with huge numbers of people, and we can really tease out things that are you know, are so small

that usually they would be hard to find. And we've done a couple of studies now where we've actually used there are methods that can identify are there subgroups of people within a larger group, and so far we haven't found anything like that, and we've done two studies now, and it's a very hard area research to do. I'm not going to say that, you know, this is definitely the truth here, that you don't have such a thing

as the virtuous person. But I think it makes more sense to to think in terms of more or less virtuous, that is, you know, more of a person who focuses on the good for themselves and others at the same time versus less so. And I think that idea bothers some people, you know, that they want role models, they want people who are exceptional, and I think that you know, even within that idea of there are people who are more or less there can be people who are role

models in that. But the idea that there are people who reach a point where they're virtuous and they don't have to work anymore, I actually think that's a bad idea, you know, And I think it's something that we have fallen back on because it's something we wish is true. But I sort of like the idea that we're all struggling all the time to be as virtuous as we

can be. And that links great with what we were saying earlier around if somebody thinks that they have reached this pinnacle of virtue or of goodness, then by definition they're not because they're then not bringing forth much humility, which is another one of the characters Stright. So it it's kind of an impossibility in that sense, you know. It's it's kind of like the idea if you you know, there's that that name of that book and popular phrase, if you if you meet the Buddha on the side

of the road, kill him. So it's the kind of the same idea. If somebody is claiming that and that there there isn't that, uh, that that perfect model in that sense. So instead, I think to make this all practical, it all comes down to we can discover moments of virtue, We could discover moments of character strength, and we could create lots and lots of those moments. We could put the moments together and create a you know, a longer experience. But there's no def in my opinion, there's no perfect

virtue virtuous person at work. There's no perfect virtuous person as a parent. You know, anybody that's a parent knows that's exactly true. There's no perfectly virtuous person as a teacher, or as a psychologist or whoever. But but all those people can, and even people that are veer more toward the negative and do a lot of bad things, all of those people can move toward finding more moments of virtue, more moments of character strength where they're trying to do

more good for other people or for the world. So that feels to me like a reachable piece that we can all move toward. So thank you for saying that. I've just thought, how I want to write an article now for my column at Science American with the title there are no perfectly virtuous people. That's a really cool. I've been thinking about this for a while because I've really been conducting some of my own research on the light verse dark triad of personality, and we have a

paper coming out on that soon. But you know, just thinking about personality traits in particular, we're not as these fixed, you know, completely stable traits, but I really like thinking

of it, like well William Fleeson and his colleagues. I've been thinking about personality as there's a lot of converging evidence now, including like William Fleeson's research suggesting that we should just think of personality as density distributions throughout the course of our day or throughout like the virtuous personality isn't always virtually you know, they show all levels from

one to five throughout the course of the day. Their frequency distribution is much much more fives and fours than ones and twos, whereas the person who's low. So we should think about this as more continuous density distributions between individuals, not as discrete categories. Yes, and you could apply that thinking to Gandhi or to Mother Teresa. I mean Mother

Teresa's recent writings. Most people would see Mother Teresa's this great virtuous person in which she is a role model for many virtues, a role model for kindness, and a role model for humility, and a role model for leadership, and we can learn a lot by seeing her as a role model. But to see her as the perfect virtuous person would be a mistake, and she would actually, if she was alive, would say that's a mistake and

would agree more with what you're saying. What Lisa talks about with density distributions around these traits where she has many different moments of kindness and virtue and compassion and so on, but has her own struggles which she documents in her journals and so on. So you could apply that same thinking to Gandhi or a world leader that we really admire, that kind of thing, you know, To piggyback on something Brian was saying, he mentioned that old book about you know, if you see the Buddha by

the side of the road, kill him. And maybe we're getting to the point where the real title should be there is no Buddha. Now that's a very interesting idea. What would you mean by that because there was a Buddha, well, there was a guy who actually we don't even know if it's true to be honest. But there was a guy that we think existed who got called the Buddha.

But in terms of did he actually achieve buddhahood? You know, I think that there's a way in which believing that it is possible to achieve that level is not necessarily what we want to do, that maybe we want to think about it is a constant struggle for buddhahood, that it's a constant movement towards being good person. Because the day that you become kind of complacent that you're there, is that that you lose it. That's very interesting. Like

it's never like a state that you permanently achieve. That's right. It is always a movement towards something that you will never achieve. I like that. I like that a lot. And I mean that's what the point of growth is growth. You know, if it's not you stop growing psychologically, you mean it made physically. I think that's all. It's all right, Yeah, it's all rightly aligned with what I think we're all saying.

And you know, another sort of a corollary to all of that is is a kind of another adage in the Buddhist literature, where after the enlightenment, you do the dishes or you do the laundry. So after you have this great virtuous experience, you know, you did a great wonderful acts of kindness for somebody that was really suffering, or you did some great volunteer work, or you're you know, whatever character strength you were expressing very strongly, you know,

or maybe you had a wonderful spiritual experience. We are offer a profound meaning, sense of meaning with the universe, sense of one or something. But then still you have to go back and do the dishes. You have to go back and do the laundry, You have to go back and do the hum drama of daily life. It's not like you've you've reached this enlightenment and that that

just carries through the rest of life. It's still we get back to our routines and then maybe we'll get back to that moment of that oneness or that compassion seven days from now or twenty days from now. So there is that kind of vacillation that happens good. So

I like that you made that point. Another aspect that I teach my students is how some strengths may develop over time or others may weaken if you look at development trajectories of older adults and youth, there seem to be some character strengths that younger populations tend to show more of than adults. And I'm looking at a graph of that right now. I guess what does it. Youth

show more curiosity, creativity, love, humor, gratitude, kindness, fairness. Where's older individuals tend to show more forgiveness, religiousness, prudence, self regulation. I guess they're more boring now joking. Yeah, Basically, as an older adult, ie to accept that. So I thought that it was an interest in there intend to be

some developmental trends. So I'm just really thinking about just whether what I think about this notion of is there of us as scientists saying that a certain combination of

strengths is a good person. And I'd like to push back on that because I'm just not one hundred percent convinced yet about that, and I think it it feels like it's at odds with the spirit of the whole Via Institute, which is like find out which is authent More about authenticity, It's like find out what your top three are and how can you harness those in the best ways without putting any pressure that like your top three like deviates from what the profile of the best

or goodness is. So, you know, in the spirit of friendship scholarly debate, I just want to put forward that I'm just not I don't know if I'm one hundredent comfortable with this notion of We're going to take a certain combination of these strengths and refer to that, you know, because that seems more subjective than the objective science. What do you make of that? Just to understand the question, are you saying that when you say combination of characters thinks?

Are you referring to the twenty four as a combination as a unit, or are you saying subsets within there? So the three factors that emerge, Like, I just keep thinking about it, and I've talked to Robert about this before. He you know, he thinks that the caring part might be the most fundamental one when it comes to goodness, like I tend to think of, you know, self actualization.

People self actualize in their own ways. Like it seems to me like the spirit of the whole v Institute was not saying that there is if you are to be an a toward a good person, you need to be higher in these three categories. I mean, what if you're just a very like you're a physicist, like, and you care and love deeply the work you do the science. You're not an uncaring person, but you just not terribly

interested in social justice issues. It's just not something you're interested in, like you're really in you know, like the science, or do you like inquiry, you know, exploration, Like you're deviating from being a good person. And I just I'm just wondering about this. Yeah, so my Yeah, I don't

think we're saying that at all in my opinion. So the way I would frame it is that we say this phrase a lot, that all twenty four of the character strengths matter, and it might just be that our own unique signature strengths, whether those are the carrying dimension or humanity dimension or whatever dimension they're in, that those

unique highest signature strengths might matter the most. So whenever I'm working with somebody or teaching this, I always have both those principles simultaneously operating in my mind, that all twenty four strengths matter because we all have all of them, they all we have developed them to some degree. We

have potential or capacity to develop them more. But then that there's this the parts that may are most uniquely you again, whether they're carrying based or self regulation based or whatever, that might be what's most important for you in order to forge better relationships, or to achieve more in life, or to be more engaged. So it's kind of a matter of having both of those together in

that sense. Let me respond to that as well, because you know, I think you're, in part, you're reacting to some things that I have done in kind of casual presentation situations, which is to refer to the good person, and you know, and I get pushback on it, which is fine that you know, kind of the opposite of

good is bad. And so maybe a better way to say it is that for a person to really be maximally virtuous to and you know, there we're talking about not necessarily the perfect person, but someone who really is contributing in remarkable ways that it does have to have

elements of all three. That being said, there's if you go through life not hurting people and really focus on those strengths that are important to you, you're going to be a good person, you know, and you're going to be someone who contributes and someone who really is valuable to those around them. So the message here it depends

what you're going for. You know, if I think it's really valuable to as part of who you are as a person, to be striving all the time to be better than who you are, I mean, that's just valuable to me. And so I like to push myself in ways that I haven't considered before. But there are different ways of being someone who really is important to other people, who works well, who you know does well in those two areas of love and work that are kind of

the essence of what makes us someone of value. And you can achieve that through any combination of the strengths that you see as important to you. Yeah, I think that's well said. And let me just kind of throw another twist on it. If I can ask you, Scott, a very very quick question in name one like positive outcome that you really care about, like you know, something like you know, better health, achievement, engagement, just something really quick. Authenticity, integrity, authenticity,

and incurry. So, so, if so there's kind of two pathways, then if so somebody is saying, hey, two general pathways, in my mind, is someone saying, I want this outcome of greater authenticity in my life, or I'm wanting to build, you know, whatever it is, build more achievement in my life, health, and so on. So one pathway might be to look, what does the science say in terms of which character strengths are most connected with authenticity or that cause authenticity

and so on. And my guess I don't know of really studies that have looked at that, but my guess is there would be you know, a handful of strengths that would really show up strong. So, you know, using your honesty strength a little bit more, maybe using your bravery strength a little bit more, maybe your perseverance strength a little bit more. Let's let's just say it's those three. So then one pathway to build more authenticity could be to look at those three or those three causative elements

for boosting those three up to build greater authenticity. So

that would be one pathway. And then another pathway would be to say, okay, well, Scott, let's look to your highest strengths already, those strengths that are most uniquely you, whatever those top five or six or seven are, and let's work on just expanding those making sure that you're really bringing those forth in all the different areas of your life in a good way, a strong way, a balanced way, you know, and that's the signature strength approachin

So both of those pathways I think are equally valid and could help you for that ultimate goal of building greater authenticity. But yet it's involving very different, likely very different combinations of strengths, and it would be then unique to each person. So because each person's signature strength combination is going to be different or if that makes sense, Oh, you've given me so much food for thought. I just I love when my brain lights up like it is

right now. So okay, carrying inquisitiveness and self control. Yeah, so I hear, I do hear, but both your and it just it makes me think that what I'm reacting to is this maybe more of the methodology, Like you know, we look at these things as correlations, like the higher you are on these three categories, the more likely you are. But maybe it's just I feel like it's just more nuanced in that, like maybe there it's better to think in terms of thresholds than linear effects. Like let's say

you're a physicist and you. I guess I don't want to stereotype physicists. I know a lot of physicists who are very caring people. And but I'm just saying, like your inquisitiveness is like two standard aviations above the mean. Let's say you're caring, is you know, like about average? You know your self control is about average. I feel like with these thresholds, like you can still be a very very good person. Like I guess I'm reacting to

this like linear effect idea. Sure, And like I said, you know, when I've used the term good, which but which I actually don't use in any of my writings. I just use that kind of casually. I don't want to certainly mean that if you're not like an exceptional person,

then you're a bad person. Just that I think the to achieve kind of accept Let's say maybe that that would be what we might refer to as the person who's exceptional, who does all of those things really well and considers them all the time in all areas of their lives. It's an interesting conceptualization of exceptional. Like other researchers in the high performance field think of exceptional. So you mean exceptional character? Yes, so yeah, gotcha. It's it's cool.

I'm trying to like sort all this stuff out on the spot. We're kind of working our way through this as we too, So yeah, I know, it's fun. It's really fun to think this through because you know, like some people may think of exceptionality as like high performance or like those who are dominating the competition or producing like brilliant exceptional artists. A musician who's selling the metric

there is albums sold. It's not like how much does that person care about others, although you know, nowadays in the stage of calling out lots of abuses, do you see what I'm saying? Yeah, you know, if you look back, originally the Greek word for virtue, because virtue is actually a Latin word, and the Greek word arrata was really about being exceptional and it was not about being just a typical person. It was about really striving for something exceptional.

But as it became part of philosophy, it kind of shifted. Like, you know, there were people who had arrata as you know, fighters or you know, as soldiers, as you know, you know, people with a bow and arrow had arrata, But as it became part of philosophy, it became about being exceptional in character, being broad and so you know, maybe that's a good way to think about this kind of this kind of tension that we're talking about here, is that

in terms of the twenty four character strengths, what's really important is developing you as a person, you know, because character is about you as a person, and so you know, it's really about looking at what your particular strengths are, identifying them, using them more effectively, thinking of how you can use your strengths in ways that are helpful to you and to those around you. But then when you get into the area of virtue, it's really about an issue of how do you become a better person, a

more exceptional person. So there's I think there's sort of a tension between the two different levels that I find kind of interesting. I find it totally fascinating as well. Let's end this program by just briefly talking about the strength spilled or program you both developed, and not spill all the beans that we just want to wet the appetites that people will buy the book, right, I know

you won't disagree with that spirit. So you have four different aspects of this program, a four step program, could you just go through the four steps and yeah, maybe just give an example for one of the steps how people can have more of that in their life their

daily life. Sure if I could start that when just to set it up, just you know, prior to the Strength Builder Program, the book The Power of Character Strengths goes through each of the twenty four character strengths that Bob and I and Scott are all talking about here and really is trying to lay out the what, the why,

and the how of each of these character strengths. And in the how is where we spend the most attention, So where we look at the overuse and under use of the strength, the optimal use of the strength, what case example for each strength? You know, questions that you would ask to build that strength, How you can take action at work, in your community and your relationships and so on. So that that's kind of the centerpiece of the book. And then that all culminates to what you're

asking about, Scott. The Strength Builder program, This four step program, which in a nutshell, the four steps are Step one is around building up our initial skill with this common language of strengths, So by doing strength spotting. So we practice spotting strengths in ourselves and in others. Step two gets into the individual noticing and naming and exploring their highest strengths, so their signature strengths, which we talked about here.

The next step involves bringing our strengths to a problem, to a stressor to a difficulty, to a life challenge, and kind of exploring how we can use our strengths to really see the problem in a different way and to really use the strengths in ways that we maybe never have thought of to be able to overcome that problem. And then the last step, you know, it's last step or week four if people are doing like one step

a week. The last step is around making strengths a habit, which is where we center this work around goal setting and taking action for ourselves that really is going to

be meaningful for us. Anything you'd add there, Bob, Yeah, you know, Ryan, I think that's a really great outline of the Strengths Builder, And what I think is really important about it to add to that is that can sound kind of global and you know, abstract, and we want this to be a practical tool people can use once they've completed the VIA questionnaire that they can go through these steps and actually build their strengths and build how they And when I say build your strengths, I

mean actually think about and develop new ways of using your strengths or using them more effectively. And so as we go through Strengths Builder, in the book, we offer a lot of practical examples and kind of concrete thoughts about how you can go through each of these steps. So we really want this to be something that people feel like they can actually do this for themselves and make something personal out of each of these four steps. I love that. Do you know what my favorite one is?

What my favorite step is? What's that I'm going to be personal here? Second, I love spotting strengths and others like to me, I think I get more enjoyment out of that than this obsessive like self knowledge all the time. I find it exhausting sometimes to be so introspective. Sometimes it's nice to get outside of myself and try to see the best in others. Do you resonate with that

at all? Some character education programs that are done in schools that are almost nothing but strength spotting, like just you know what is this other? You know? What are the strengths of the other people in the class. And you know, sometimes I've worked a little bit with schools around this, and I mean sometimes like you'll see these kids who are just like, really everybody thinks of me

that way, that's so amazing. I've really And what's nice is that none of these are deficit issues, So you're always saying something that is about that person as a positive and to have other people in a class say, you know, I think you're a really humble person, or I think you're amazing at using humor in situations that are where everybody's really having a tough time, or that you have incredible leadership ability, like people get a new sense of who they are. That I think is can

be really exciting. Yeah, and you're not alone, Scott. When we ask people do they find it easier to spot strengths in themselves or spot strengths and others, I would say between ninety and ninety five percent of people will will say it's easier to spot strengths and other people. And so that's actually why one of the reasons why it's the first step, because it's a step that people naturally gravitate to. They enjoy it, they feel like they're

making a positive impact on other people. And it's just it's kind of fun to be able to do, to be able to look at the world through that lens and if I can spot strengths and you, Scott, so during this interview here what I certainly we could go through probably over twenty or so, but you know, I certainly see hearing you know, a lot of you know, the obvious here with an interview of curiosity but also

a lot of love of learning. We are really wanting to delve deep into the knowledge and explore this work more closely. So those are two that really really stood out to me most here. Well, and let me piggyback on that. I really enjoyed the that you gave us pushback on some of our ideas. That was that was excellent. What what would that character strength be? I think that's level of learning and a little bit of bravery or honesty, honest judgment, critical thinking, to be able to kind of

look at things from differ different details. I love it. I love it. Well, you know, I can tell you my top three character strengths were creativity, curiosity, and humor. So I think creativity was number one, Curiosity it was number two. So yeah, curiosity, love learning. I think they're similar. Hey, thank you so much. I do want to ask kind of this final question because I want to make sure for our listeners this idea of character strengths and warning

your characters is it for everyone? Sometimes your Christians of posychology, that it really is, you know, kind of the upper classes, Like there's kind of like have the opportunities. It's a luxury to even look at your character strengths. Can you address that at all? Like? Is this for everyone? This program?

Oh my goodness, I mean, I think we both probably want to respond to this one if I start bo know, well, first let me let me just address the kind of the class you know, the class kind of statement you know around I mean, we've done a lot of work with people maybe of lower social economic status, been more disadvantaged status, is at risk youth gone into like boys and girls clubs, like in this in the region where I'm in here in Cincinnati, and in its schools that

don't have as much money, public schools and so on, And this work is an absolute home run in these situations because, if anything, it's needed almost more in these situations because in a lot of those those situations. People are just not giving that kind of feedback about, you know, in terms of strength spotting or helping an individual, a young child or even an adult to uncover their best qualities and to bring them forward in life. But clearly

they have been. Clearly they've been living a life and overcoming lots of adversity and using their character strengths. It's just that nobody has pointed it out to them to where they can then more mindfully bring them forth more in their life. So absolutely this is for So my answer is yes, it's for everybody in that sense, and partly because you know who doesn't have these character strengths. I mean, these character strengths are part of all of us and we can bring them forward to improve our

life in so many different ways. So yeah, I would say yes to that. Yeah, And if I can piggyback on what Ryan is saying, I think when I've read those criticisms, it's along the lines of, you know, well, the reason that you're not succeeding in life is because you don't have enough self regulation, and that's the opposite of what we're looking at. I mean this the whole point is to not be focusing on people's deficits, but to focus on their strengths. Programs based on the twenty

four character strengths. They're being used in Africa. I'm involved with a program in Zambia where they're using this in over fifty middle schools in the US that are almost exclusively in low socioeconomic status areas with a lot of kids from disadvantaged populations. What is really neat about it is that many times this is the first time if there's been a real formal effort to focus on kids'

strengths rather than their deficits. So I know of guidance counselors who have said this has changed the way I deal with kids because now when a kid, for example, is having problems, instead of it being you've got to do better, or you know, what's your problem here, it's you know, maybe you need to balance this strength with this other strength, or how can you use your strength

here to help you with this problem? And it really is so much more looking at people as positive beings than people who are messed up, you know, or have failed in some way. And I've seen kids just come to light thinking about their strengths for the first time ever. These are kids who are coming from backgrounds where there has been an awful lot of focus on you can be a strong person, and so I think that's a

complete error if this is done the right way. Thank you so much for dressing that and for all the really important work you're doing to help people spot the best in themselves and others. I really enjoyed the chat today. Thanks so much. Yeah, this was great. Thanks so much, Scott. Thanks for listening to the Psychology Podcast. I hope you enjoyed this episode. If you'd like to react in some way to something you heard, I encourage you to join

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