Brené Brown — Striving versus Self-Acceptance, Saving Marriages, and More | The Tim Ferriss Show

[Music] hello boys and girls this is Tim Ferriss and welcome to another episode of the Tim Ferriss show where does my job to interview world-class performers and world-class experts of different types from all different fields my guest today is dr. brené Brown dr. Bernie Brown is a research professor at the University of Houston where she holds the Huffington foundation brené Brown and doubt chair at the Graduate College of Social Work she has spent the past two decades studying courage vulnerability shame and empathy and is the author of five count them five number one New York Times bestsellers the gifts of imperfection daring greatly rising strong braving the wilderness and her latest book dare to lead which is the culmination of a seven-year study on courage and leadership her TED talk the power of vulnerability is one of the top five most viewed TED talks in the world with more than 35 million views let that sink in thirty five million views my goodness she is also the first researcher to have a film to talk on Netflix the call to courage special debuted on the streaming service in April of 2019 she lives in Houston Texas with her husband Steve that they have two children Ellen and Charlie she also has a brand-new podcast just in should be launching right about now called unlocking us coming out March 2020 you can find it on Apple podcast Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts brunet welcome back to the show I'm excited to be here so good to see you I love your digs thank you very much beautiful Austin Tejas yeah although you can't see much of it right now with the cloud cover but I wanted to start with two things that happen today okay number one I'm talking to my girlfriend this morning and she says oh who are you interviewing today and I say brené Brown she goes ah I love how casually you say that and then woman downstairs won't mentioned by name who works in the building similar story similar reaction and I have met so many women who are otherwise very tightly composed who start gushing at the mere mention of your name and what I would love to hear you comment on is what chord do you think you have struck or what archetype are you providing that gets that response because it's not a common I know a lot of very successful or very famous women who do not elicit that kind of response from people how do you explain that no idea no idea no idea I don't know yeah do you know I have perhaps a theory I mean the only other person I've heard elicit similar responses is Esther Perel so I have her I have to imagine she's great that has something to do with vulnerability but is it just that I mean what is the feedback that people give you okay so I do have a theory and I don't know I don't know if this I don't know if this is the driver of that reaction because it's still shocking to me like normally like if someone if I walk up and someone goes there I still like look behind me like what's happening like you know or mostly I'm looking for danger because I'm wired but here's what my new theory is my new theory is that it's not that people I mean people I think appreciate the research they appreciate the work but I think what really connects to people a kind of a cross-gender is what they really like is watching me struggle with my own work hmm so rather than being someone that's like here's what we should all be doing and I've got it all figured out I'm like this [ __ ] sucks like and if I didn't think we had to do it I'd be like no way in hell am i doing this and so I think it's a combination of giving people language for experiences that we all have and then being really forthright about how much how hard it is for me and how much I hate it sometimes mmm joana mean I think I do watching the struggle in the description of your new podcast yeah be launching shortly and is already dominating the charts of the preview congratulations I'm excited one of the phrases that stuck out to me and I might butcher this slightly but it was something like the magic and messiness of relationships or the human condition but the magic and the messin so maybe what you're speaking to is not providing the highlight reel which I think yes common totally but also giving people the the lowlights which are part of everyone's experience yes I'm like not a fan it's like the ESPN play of the day yeah like they're like five thousand six hundred ninety four pop flies missed you know it's like and you know and then that means there's like the three hundred out filters they're in a shame shitstorm and you know and like to me that's much more interesting than the play of the day yeah yeah I like to play the day I watch them play of the day I'm a big sports person but I don't often make the play of the day yeah yeah which is which is precisely why when every once in a while I'll talk to some one involved the medium they're like can we shadow you for a day and I'm like absolutely not now it's as it's 99% just like missing missing the pop ball and having hit me square in the face that's 99% of the day and I'm like that's not gonna make for compelling media coverage no and I get asked that sometimes too and I'm just like well first of all no because like like okay I'm making a lunch for school you know for my kid going to school I'm unloading the dishwasher you know like it's and yeah this goes into a whole different topic but I also have like there's a line like this is my life you know like the people I love can't follow me mmm so it's strangers are definitely not following me I don't like anybody enough how did you and I know we we spoke about using a certain format for this conversation we'll get to those okay but I'm curious as someone who as best I can tell was not trying to become famous you gave your TED talk that now has 35 plus million views some of the top talks of all time so it seems from the outside looking in that you're sort of thrust into becoming a public figure how did you navigate determining where to draw lines and boundaries well I don't know I it's still a daily practice I'm still drawing them every day and I'm readjusting them every day but I I'm so grateful that this didn't happen to me when I was younger because I don't know there's like this working theory that a friend of mine Jennifer shared with me that she said I don't know that anyone who is trying primarily to be famous has anything interesting to say and I think part and I think that's true like I I I didn't want to be I don't know that I'm famous but I didn't want to be a public person because I'm too self-conscious for that really to be honest with you like and I'm I'm a tough person but I get my feelings hurt and so when people make fun of what I look like or what I say or if I use the wrong word or mispronounce something like it can it can take me down less than it used to be able to less than it did it I guess but so I didn't really want the public part so when that first start happening after the TED talk I already had a team together because I was I want to get mascara I work I wanted to get to as many people as I could with my work I just wanted to stand like down and push my work into the world mm-hmm and not be there's a lot of people whose workers in the world but they don't we don't know who they are but again going back to your first question I don't think it's my work I think it's me as a vessel for the work that resonates with people because I think I am it's like a terrible paradox it it is a terrible paradox it's just I'm having a moment like that it's my ordinariness that makes me relatable and it's also my ordinariness that makes me where I take all the hits do you know Jim I do and I also think I mean I'm not gonna a would over over drinks maybe debate the ordinariness but I I do understand what you're saying and and I think that in your displaying of your fully imperfect self which we all are in that ordinariness doing what you do and putting your work into the world as you have is extraordinary and so I think that may be a piece of why people connect and find it so inspiring right as opposed to seeing like a LeBron James whoever it is going well that's that guy is a mutant yeah there's that that is a separate planet there's no there's no room for me to aspire to emulate that because it's so out of reach does that make that make sense yeah it totally makes sense whereas when you are very vulnerable and discuss the struggle people go oh [ __ ] that's how I feel I didn't know people who do things like put work into the world in a TED talk and this that and five best-selling books and so on could also feel that way and oh yeah the work that they do yeah so yes I definitely I definitely feel that way I mean I think and I think the people who follow my work for a long time we're kind of just growing up together and learning together I mean when I started I didn't understand that I could be brave and afraid at the same time and now I kind of live in that I'm like I'm I feel brave right now cuz I'm with you here doing this but I'm also afraid and I'm like I'm literally thinking how much longer can I hold in my stomach and talk to him and at some point I'm just gonna have to like breathe I shouldn't have worn the clingy like Rolling Stone shirt I should've worn something like puffier so I could breathe like like I'm just a normal person but but yeah I'm just a normal I am a really I think we're all kind of ordinary people I get to do extraordinary things but I think we're all ordinary people but I think sometimes this world is tough because we shame and diminish ordinary mm-hmm ordinary lives or small lives you know ordinary moments are you know we chase extraordinary moments instead of like being grateful for ordinary moments until until hard [ __ ] happens yeah and then in the face of really hard stuff illness loss the only thing we're begging for is a normal moment like oh my god can I please have that ordinary moment back mm-hmm you know can I please hear this him come through the screen porch door can I please get a call from my mom or a crazy town like then we want the ordinary moments but in them with all the noise it's about the extraordinary right now and I'll tell you a true story I'm debating right now whether I should tell it or not because it's so fresh but I just had to do a photo shoot for the podcast like the image for Apple everyone to use and I was the photographer was great Randolph Ford and it was it was fine it was at the hotel st. Cecilia here in Austin which was a really fun place to do it please so you know I'm like uncomfortably like you know doing that like helmet how much how much is to to fee you know that whole thing and they said well come and look at the monitor they're great and then I stepped around to look at the monitor and it was such a shock to me because this was the thing playing in my mind like I am 54 I Know Who I am I really like Who I am but then I'm looking at this monitor and I'm like oh my god because my training for 54 years has been why are you taking pictures and having all these fancy people here when you're not perfect looking like this is this is the realm of perfect people like models do this and you're like but to see on these big screens with all these professional people against a white backdrop like me I'm like oh my god this is this is not what we normally see in a photoshoot behind the scenes right and it was just this moment that I do such a metaphor for life it's like I earned every single one of these F and wrinkles and stretch marks like and this is the body you know that phrase my kids and you know like but that ordinary Ness can almost be for those of us who haven't found a way to love it in ourselves repulsive hmm you know like the realness the realness like this is me so like when they were to when they were doing the photos like get ready and photoshopping the photos so I was like you know make sure that you make that I look my age because I don't like that like shocked you know how when I show up someplace and they're like damn was at an old photo you know like really grappling with and I'm just gonna say these things out loud hmm do you know where like because and maybe that's why people are like oh thank god someone's saying them out loud yeah because they're normally relegated to our secret shame lives yeah you know and we all have them yeah oh for sure right yeah well I'm glad that you are that's how odd to put it this way I was showcasing that right I mean it's I think it's I think it's it provides a sigh of relief to a lot of people who feel like they have to keep all this things relegated or to do it will feel like they have to divorce those parts of themselves in in some yes yeah and I think it's I think it's there is a divorcing there's an orphan event I would say that you know of these parts of ourselves and it's not like you know it's weird too because people always say this is an interesting question I should ask you this question fire away people always say where's the line between embracing imperfection and vulnerability and kind of our humanity and striving for excellence mmm yeah janna mean and absolutely and I'm a striver like I'm a like you know like we're serious about our brand and my work and attributions and I work out all the time and you know you asked me to before we started we were checking like what do you have a breakfast I'm like I'm intermittent fasting just need 10 seconds of audio what do you fantasize ready for lunch alarm key dobar so it's not like you know it's not like embracing your imperfection is giving up yeah but what do you how do you answer that question if I said Tim mm-hmm where's the line between being our best selves or striving for excellence and embracing who we are funny you should ask because we're recording this in January 2020 and I thought a lot about this on years even in the few days after the passing of the new year when I was going through notes and photographs and everything from the past year and I'm actually still doing that review I mean we're well through the midpoint of January and I'm still doing my last year review and one of the conversations with my girlfriend with some of my best friends was this topic exactly and I can tell you where I landed because I wanted to try to get the right phrasing for me of the question so I talked about the line right like that and there are a number of different versions of the question one was how can you be self accepting without becoming complacent like that was one right that's great that was one and then that's good you know how can you conversely like how can you be high achieving without being self-flagellating herself abusing and I thought about another good one I thought about the line as you phrased it I thought about the line and I realized that I had trouble answering that question like where the line is so the question that I started to ask myself which was informed by a book I've been reading for the last month or so called already free which is written by a boulder based psychotherapist who also is a Buddhist contemplative and he would be the first to say these two do not mesh they actually contradict each other in some ways but you can make room for and use both so informed by this book with just reading during the passing of the new year I thought to myself maybe the question is how can I make room for both striving and Celtic self septons and so this might seem really clinical and boring but i just scheduled blocks of time for both and practices for both so for instance there's a journal called the 5 minute journal and part of that is what I'm grateful for three a bullets what made today great three bullets and those are generally small things sometimes they're big things but I try to include at least one small thing so that I don't become myopically fixated on the extraordinary right right and because I think one of the risks of being heavily achievement focused is that you only give yourself a pat on the back when you've done something that is the equivalent of a home run talk or a massive project launch or setting a world record some type in your mind and you can become really miserable that way so in my personal life driving and achievement being in gear six is and has been forever the default right and I think that's a coping mechanism for a lot of things that happened when I was younger but nonetheless that is the default so the self acceptance is putting things in the calendar as practices that will ensure I take time for that because my experience is that if I don't put them in the calendar they just get squeezed out by everything else how do you how do you think about it well I'm changing in real time because I love the make room for both but I think the only place that I have come to around using my question about the line where's the line between complain I love that complacency and what you say complacency and self-acceptance a place in south acceptance and complacency and for me I always think where is the line between I'll just take it to my to our organization and my role is a leader in that organization we believe in excellence and beauty in all things and we are not jacking around like like if a fonts wrong I will notice it mm-hmm so where is the line between excellence and beauty and all things and perfectionism that is paralyzing network gets out so there's always you know where's the line between my perfectionism and my being my best self I the only thing I've come to you so far that has been the shift for me between it's a midlife shift I think it's a midlife shift for everyone and it's taken me a good five years in midlife I will determine the line you will not determine the line for me hmm so I know I know that for me it doesn't matter what I'm achieving are accomplishing if I'm not eating in a way that makes sense for me working out and sleeping that it doesn't matter so like for whether you're saying boy you need to you know lose 30 pounds or you're on the side where you're like healthy at every you know whatever it doesn't matter I don't care what you think on either side what I think is I know I need to work out five days a week mm-hmm I know that I need to eat this way I know I need to write down what a meeting I need because otherwise I'm like I can be a stress carb person so for me the day I reclaimed that line as internally set not externally that was a huge changer for me but I do think I need to make room for both I I'm gonna look into that like I it is very Buddhist it is not the competition conflict thing yeah yeah and what this author I'm blanking on his name but we'll put it in the show notes what he uses his labels are on the on the western psychotherapy side he talks about the developmental view so you look back at the the outdated strategies that have become patterns in your life that are no longer applicable or are being overused and then you take steps to sort of improve or change your behaviors and that that would include your thought patterns and then the on the Buddhist side I would just say if Buddhist as a word bothers you just on the awareness side he would call it the fruitional view which is being effectively becoming in cultivating the ability to be okay with whatever is and so another aspect of this that I've been thinking about a lot is there is there is there are different types of self acceptance I think this is really important it's only something I've thought very closely about in the last handful of years because I spent most of my life hating myself at best tolerating myself for moments but there's a lot of self-loathing driving performance and I for a long time viewed any type of self acceptance as complacency this is self acceptance equals complacency period yeah and you need to be your own devil whipping yourself in the back to try harder what I've realized and this is informed by a lot of reading of course is that there's there's there is complacent self acceptance where you say everything I'm doing is just fine I don't need to change anything and I shouldn't change anything I want to just stop there for a second you can edit it but I'm a poser I need I have to think there is such thing as what and I can modify I can modify but I want you say what I said is I do think there are multiple types of self acceptance right and that let term self-acceptance could be used to excuse complacency in the sense that you could say I am practicing self acceptance which means everything is great everything is as it should be lalala I don't need to change anything but then I'll add one more piece there's there is a self-acceptance which says for instance as an example I'm making this up like right this back right now I am nervous and I'm frustrated and I'm angry because a B and C is happening in my life and we're doing this podcast and I'm bald now unlike in 2007 and oh my god I'm like it's my head just a shiny cue ball on camera right now bla bla bla and I could accept all of those things as true because they are those are my experience and then for some of them I could resolve to take steps to improve upon those things right so there's a situation I need to fix great let me go fix it because that's making me or agitating me in some way so I think that there are there's a there's a self acceptance which is a macro I don't need to change anything and then there's a self-acceptance which is really just truthfully accepting whatever you're experiencing at the moment as what is happening as a I don't want to feel angry I don't feel angry and like fighting and fighting and fighting and tugging yourself in multiple directions so that might sound kind of esoteric but for me it's been very profound in that you can be forgiving of whatever you are experiencing in your body in your psyche in the moment while still putting in place steps to improve whatever it is you're hoping to improve right I think it's possible to do both I think it's I think it's possible to do both - I do because I think I live F and I do I go back to like the union belief that the paradox is the only real thing that is has enough tension to to capture human experience so I think you can have self love and self acceptance and want to be better in other in ways I think and in fact I don't think you can change without ok so here here here the pairings I want to unwind mmm I don't think you can truly change for the better in a lasting meaningful way unless it is driven by self-acceptance I agree that so I think being the [ __ ] out of yourself for performance which you know I work with a lot of sports people now like it works and if all you have to do is pay someone for one season or all you do is one game or one whatever you're okay but lasting meaningful change has to be driven by self-acceptance you know the other thing that is just so shocking to me about complacency and self-acceptance is as I think back and I would really have to go into the data but just sitting here I don't think I have ever come across a single person who I the not a single person that I can think of who was complacent driven by self-acceptance like I don't think I don't know I don't know that that is not an act oxymoron I got to tell you that like self-aware complacency doesn't work for me as a constructs self-aware no I don't are yourself accepted complacency yeah I don't know that I believe that yeah you know I'll push all push a little bit you're going to have to look on your face yeah I would say and I think that I'm struggling for the right terminology but I think we all know people who are alcoholics have various issues and they are in denial of having problems yes let me stop you there yeah and say that is neither self-awareness nor self-acceptance definitely not self-aware it's not self-acceptance either well I would I maybe there's a better word but I would just say that there are people who are delusional to the extent that they either believe they don't have a problem that they have or they have a problem and refuse to accept it as a problem I think we're sure right so so and we can go a lot of directions with this but I would I would say that I think we can agree there are complacent people there are complacent people and among those complacent people I think there are those who hate themselves there are those who sort of love themselves and are narcissistic and I know a number of these and then there's a lot in between and I think that you there are complacent in some respects complacent narcissists who almost by definition being a narcissist love themselves so is that self acceptance maybe yes maybe no I would say that it is but it's a disabling self acceptance whereas to your point about lasting behavioral change I think that at least psychologically if you are divorcing parts of yourself if you hate parts of yourself aspects of yourself that have been informed by your history that and I'm borrowing this phrase from somewhere else but like what you resist persists right and that in that you are going to carry that unproductive and in some ways self-defeating tension within you even if someone is forcing you to change your behavior or incentivizing you to change your external behavior right and so even if technically you're changing a behavior if you if you carry self-loathing even partial self-loathing with you hating an aspect of yourself or certain emotion within yourself I view that as a loss agree yeah so you know this is this is getting out there a bit but this this is this is the type of stuff that sometimes I worry that I lose that I've lost my audience can I make a confession yeah because for a long time I was thinking about writing a blog post about this but for a very long time if you look at all the books that I've written it's like book on entrepreneurship book on physical performance book on cognitive performance and learning for our chef etc etc it's mostly developmental it's about improving performance in one or more areas and now what I've spent more and more time on like we're spending time on it right now is the inner game for her and the importance of developing a keen level of self-awareness so that you can examine the contents of your this is going to get super woohoo for a second we're just gonna separately the contents of your consciousness right like wherever you go you're carrying your mind with you and so to develop a familiarity with that I think is the the crux skill that underlies everything else and you and I both know plenty of achievers who are miserable who are fresher high-performing well known people who are utterly miserable and to me the question of why is that how can that be the case is the question that I'm extremely interested in these days and but I worried that having built an audience who is largely but not entirely kind of go go go rah rah rah win win win there's nothing wrong with that but people who are trying to develop skills and the competitive advantages and so on that then I may lose a large portion of those people in shifting and talking about more of these things we'll see where it goes but that's something that has occurred to me and I think I'm willing to make that trade I think I'm willing to to take that if that's a cost of doing business I don't know so a couple of things one the Go Go Go audience that you've built you this may scare them but I mean ask someone who works with elite athletes and professional folks and CEOs and those things what I can tell you is this is the hardest challenge you've issued hmm like and it's not about the conceptual complexity of what we're talking about it's about unlocking performance is one thing unlocking people yeah way harder way scarier and unlocking ourselves and creating self-awareness to me it to me you would be remiss not to go here mm-hmm because you know I don't know I think like something you said when you were talking about we all know a lot of narcissists and they love themselves but that's actually not true do you know that narcissism is the most shame-based of all the personality disorders narcissism is not about self-love at all it's about grandiosity driven by high performance and self-hatred it's you know I define it as the shame based fear of being ordinary and so you have to me you have this audience that and I'm one of them I mean like and I'm probably an outlier I guess and it's like me being a rush fan like but there's always outliers like 40 40 to 50 percent female but I wish it yeah yeah it is yeah it's it's shifted a lot in the last handful of years yeah but I think you know when I get invited in by a fortune 50 CEO and you know and he or she says look we need help we need help with the team we need they're not asking me to help with time productivity right they're not helping me to set up a scrum or agile process for software development they're saying you know we're at each other's throats we hate each other it's a shame based finger-pointing like it's all about self-awareness and chain those behaviors and to me you know to me the hard thing about this this area in your work is a lot of what I've learned from you that has changed my life has been not only effectiveness base but efficiency based and so where you can lose people with this conversation is this is not an efficient process yeah all right Jinna mean there's no I don't think there's a four-hour self-awareness it's like no plans to write that yeah but I mean but like but people would love it if you could you could unlock that fast but to me this is the capstone conversation for you yeah Jenna me like I do cuz what's it all in for yeah you know like a bit I'm winning I'm smart I'm successful and I'm on my third marriage and I don't speak to any of my children yeah like would you see a lot or not I see all the time yeah right because I'm going to tell you not to dismiss the importance of that work that's easier yeah yeah it is easier it is easier you know because the thing about these conversations that you know I end up having every time we sit down oh there's a second time that both times we've sat down is what what differentiates us as a social species is the need to be seen and known and loved and the need to see and know and love others and no one rides for free like we all come into this adulthood with hard stuff and what I would say is true about complacency and 95% of what I see that people call pathology is its armor yeah it's not its armor it's how its behaviors and ways of thinking that I've developed to protect myself from being hurt so I have a question I'll tell you about that no it's not reaching so you get your good so my question related to Armour is I'll get to through a segue which is a quote that I want to say Tara brach the well-known meditation teacher also writer radical acceptance is a fantastic book shared with me which I'm gonna paraphrase and it's along the lines of you know a great sage once said there's only one real question that matters and that is what are you unwilling to feel I've thought about that a lot and not to say I have any concise answers to that but I think it's I think it's I think it's an anecdote really worth meditating on I've thought about it what do you say to the people you meet who are on the third marriage their kids don't talk to them and there are certain things that they have convinced themselves subconsciously or otherwise maybe through an abusive upbringing or trauma whatever it might be that it is unsafe to feel certain things and you come in they've asked for help but they do not want to open Pandora's box right they do not want someone to drag them into the deep waters of emotions that they've kept under lock and key for so long how do you help someone like that what do you suggest to them because it does get messy it's gonna get messy before it gets clean least in my experience it's like you oh you're gonna do spring cleaning guess what you gotta take all the things are up on the up on the shelves all the things in the drawers all the things that are hanging on coat hangers and you're gonna put them in the middle of the room and it's gonna be a mess it's gonna be a [ __ ] mess you're gonna be pissed that you did it and that is it and that is but you can't really get past go without that type of step so for someone who's listening to this and says you know what I buy it like I get it and yet what do I do because I've been I've had on this armor for so long so I would say a couple of things and the first thing I always feel like is really important to say is that I'm a researcher and so I'm not a therapist that would be differentiate me Esther like I don't see clients if I go in and I'm working with CEOs and this question comes up all the time what I would say to people is Pandora's box is closed right now but are you under the impression they were living outside of the box or in the box like you know I like that yeah I mean like you don't want to open Pandora's box because that's strange to me because you're living inside Pandora's Box and what I feel like you've asked me to come here to open it up like we're not going to do this process without walking through some deep [ __ ] where there's going to be deep Swift water and if the water is super deep and Swift you need to go through that with a therapist and get that that settle before we work in the organizational way but what I would say to people what I always say is is the same for me and I'm sure the same for you that we all grew up and experienced at very varying degrees trauma disappointment how you know hard stuff we armored up and at some point that armor no longer serves us and so what I think I would say to that person is how is not talking about this serving you hmm like I've been sober for 23 years so someone in a would be like how's that [ __ ] working for you hmm you know like but I probably would put a softer spin on it than that over black coffee to cigarette but you know but I would say that it's not serving anymore mm-hm and now the weight of the armor is too heavy and it's not protecting you it's keeping you from being seen and known by others and so this is I mean just tell you Quinn essentially this is the developmental milestone of midlife from late 30s to you know through probably your 60s this is the question hmm yeah this is when the universe comes down and puts her hands on your shoulders and pulls you close and whispers in your ear I'm not [ __ ] around you're halfway to dead hmm the armor is keeping you from growing into the gifts I've given you that is not without penalty time is up hmm so this is what you see happen to people in midlife and it's not a crisis it's a slow brutal unraveling and this is where everything that we thought protected us keeps us from being the partners the parents the professionals the people that we want to be and there are only I've only seen this is a fork in the road I've only seen two responses to this visit from the universe well there's I guess there's there was my response which I was like screw you bring it like you think you can do you think you can best me and then it was just one nightmare situation after another until yeah you're not gonna win that fight right I think if you say you know what I'm not I'm not gonna do it then you've got to double down these are the people that walk through the world double down on their own [ __ ] in denial you know cheek squeezed as they walk and cause so much pain in the world yeah to themselves as well I mean yes because it is so much easier to offload pain than to feel pain yeah and so you really have a choice in midlife whether you're going to be you're gonna you know identify into the first step of it the whole process is what Armour and I'm not saying like I'm not saying just pull off all the armor and streaked through Austin because I think you can't replace the armor with something hmm I think it's curiosity is what you replace that you just become very curious about yourself about the world why did I react that way when Tim asked me that question I wanted to like hit him over the head with a topo cheaper model you know what was going on there Jenna mean like what is my obsession about this you just become very curious is curiosity is really the superpower for the second half of our lives because it keeps us learning it keeps us asking questions and it increases our self-awareness but when you see and I think it's really hard because you know I'll walk into a situation and they'll be the person who invited me is usually the CEO and then you'll have like the cross-armed pissed off clenched cheek like if you look in person usually in operations or technology you know and then they're like what's the business case for you being here you know like because you know here's our stock price here's what's going on here's our evaluation like why what it what do you need and then you know the CEO usually say [ __ ] hate each other and this can only last for so long like you know it's the end of every great band right like this is gonna come to an end and it's gonna be terrible and so I don't know I think you can't pull it all off at once you have to there's for a lot of people for all of us there's trauma yeah and people are like no there's not trauma for all of us there's trauma for you know people who had been abused physically sexually emotionally there's trauma for people of color and people who have been on the margins there's trauma for all of us it's just different levels of trauma yeah you know I mean to escape childhood with nothing is I haven't met that person yet no I haven't either right so the trauma staff literally the trauma message in our body is you take this armor off we die so you protect us at all costs and leave this on a lot of that work has to be done with a therapist yeah yeah there's some really good books mean there are a lot of terrible books on this type of topic but the thing it's the body knows the score or the body keeps the score but so the endow card yeah yeah bestival vendor brilliant is is very interesting in terms of tying the the the physiology and somatic experience into these past emotional experiences and you know what you were saying about Pandora's box and the question which I liked of do you think you're living outside of Pandora's box or used locked inside Pandora's box is is a really insightful question and also reminds me of conversation I had with a friend of mine news editor who had a very very tough time multiple divorces fortunately on good terms with his kids but a lot of interpersonal strife and he said what no doubt you've heard a lot which is like I'm not sure I want to go there I'm not sure I'm ready to sort of open that not sure I'm ready to deal with it and what what occurred to me as I was listening because I experienced this for a long time is oh you're dealing with it your choices do you want to deal with it head-on in the sunlight or do you want to have have it come oozing out of the corners in the darkness where you can't contend with it in a direct or systematic way so you're dealing with it no matter what the question is how are you dealing with it and great Jungian saying keep your shadows in front of you they can only take you down from behind oh I like that I like that yeah you're dealing with it like like here's the thing emotion and cognition undefined and unexplored drive every decision you make I mean you either develop self-awareness are these things control you I mean it's but it's really I have to say that it can as someone who chooses affect or affect words carefully it can be terrifying for people yeah but rarely does anyone around them who knows them like you with your friend say oh my god I'm shocked to hear this when the reveal comes out yeah you're like your whole life has been defined by this yeah and I would I would also like to say and this is this has just been my experience and my experience observing a pretty decent-sized group of close friends who had this realization in the last say 10 years that the process of becoming curious about your subconscious programming and the old scripts and the armor can feel messy and it probably will be messy and it'll feel terrifying but not all changes need to take 20 or 30 years like some changes can in my personal experience at least I had some terrible things happen to me as a kid and in the last say five years with the right tools and the right prompts and the right books and the right accountability partners like my girlfriend who is a very well developed empath and a very clean fighter which is really important huge huge and one thing that she does really well that has been instrumental for me she's been the clearest mirror maybe I've ever had in the sense that I have my stuff she has her stuff I have my scripts and my sensitivities many of which are out of date and we set time to do what we call batching so rather than having lots of interspersed criticisms or constructive pieces of feedback that may not be taken the best way by by me especially at 3 p.m. on a weekday will set time aside to sit down and we will take turns and this is a format it may not be the best format but it's something we came up with it works for us where we'll tell the other person what they're doing well like what they're really doing well what we think we are doing well and then we'll ask for what we would like more of and in that format you can start to spot patterns right so if you do that once a week or every two weeks sort of things come up I'm like oh well the first time you said that I thought it was just an exception but now I realize that is a pattern that I have right when X Y & Z happens I go like let's talk about it later don't deal with it now and I sort of shove off certain types of topics or questions and then you can be you can begin to experiment with working on alternatives and the reason I'm saying all this is just because I don't I don't want people to feel like the curiosity if you're willing to take that first step about your patterns your programming these added eight strategies is an armor does not necessarily lead to you trying to run an ultra marathon with a blindfold on like there are there are actually tools and resources and books and methods that can be really really really helpful in short order and and you'll be surprised I mean it's really like it's like putting off the mammogram or you know the prostate check or whatever it is that you have to do putting it off putting it off all the [ __ ] you make up about it all the scary stories you collect as many horrible things as you can and then you go and you're like wow the fear leading up to this was so much greater so much more I mean I'm not saying it's not gonna hurt it's gonna hurt but I do think I mean the two hacks that we have Steve and I have been together for 32 years date off and on for seven years and married for whatever the Delta is there 25 or whatever married now hardest thing I've ever done hands down hardest thing I've ever done y'all hear me out there hardest thing he and I both come from our parents marriages on both sides divorce remarried several times [ __ ] shows we had no idea what it was supposed to look like right we just we're willing to keep showing up and the conversations like you and your girlfriend have we do that too it's uncanny how similar it is yeah yeah especially what we want more of what's really working I really appreciated this this week we try not to if it unless it needs to be done in real time we'll usually wait until we're in a good place to do it you know and and and I I don't know I don't think that he saw dirty fighting but all I saw was dirty fighting I'm like you know you know shame humiliation put-downs you know stuff that leaves marks stuff that you can't and I and I can default there when I'm in a powerless corner I can come out like mean it's hard to believe but no it's really not I throwing elbows and head bucks yeah it for sure I can kind of and verbal ones that really are way more serious than a physical headbutt yeah the other two hacks that I think have saved our marriage besides just showing up and kind of using some of these things like what's working what was hard is the 80/20 so everyone says marriage should be 50/50 it's a biggest crock of [ __ ] I've ever heard it's never 50/50 yeah ever and so what we do is we quantify where we are so if Steve comes home and he'll be like I got 20 just in terms of energy it's just energy investment kindness patience I'm not a guy 20 and I'll be like I'll cover you I got your brother like like I'll pull the 80 sometimes we come home which we have done a lot my mom has been sick and I'll say I've got ten and Steve oh yes you like two days ago said I'm riding a solid 25 so we know that we have to sit down at the table anytime we have less than 100 combined and figure out a plan of kindness toward each other I love though yeah because the thing is marriage is not something that's 50/50 a partnership works when you can carry there 20 are they can carry you're 20 and that when you both just have 20 you have a plan where you don't hurt each other yeah it's the your threadbare right yeah and so so what we'll say is I'm like I've got 10 and he'll be like I got maybe 25 we're like put all the groceries that are supposed to be great and healthy in the freezer we're ordering out get the housekeeper here an extra day and we're canceling anything with people that we really actually don't like so how can we create some buffer and we do that so like and then you know then we'll like a day or two later and like he'll be like I'm riding a 60 I'm like oh my god work is kicking my ass I'm still at a 20 he's like I got you but we're a spare 20 so yeah was that Charlie if he wants to skip water polo practice today and let's all turn in at 8 o'clock hmm like huge the other thing I would say to that now I'm thinking about that is we made a determination very early there's kid focused families parent focused families and family focus families we're a family focused family so that means that if you want to do water polo Eagle Scouts tennis and skeet shooting and then that comes to the family and the family agrees what will keep the family healthy like we can we you know I've got a book launch I've got this Steve's got patients he's taking on others you know he's a pediatrician and he's doing this so what works for our family right now is you can do two extracurriculars and I'm going to have a two-week tour not a four-week tour but we put the family as the system that we serve it's not the kids at the parents cost or the parents of the kids cost it's the family and it is it is remarkable how do you weigh if you do it all the the voting system so to speak Rance if you all come to the table does everyone have equal vote in the decision-making process aspect like we don't even [ __ ] around that it's like when my kids like if I say like oh [ __ ] my kids are like ooh you can't say that I'm like I say anything I want you can't say that and when you're old enough you can do whatever you want when you get your cursing line yeah yeah you but right now I can totally do that watch me but it's so we have very we talk to our kids about everything we're super open Steve and I both have veto power and we rarely use it I bet I bet I pulled out my veto card once in the last five years veto meaning kid says I want to do X and you say Cathy or Steve or Steve yeah I'm like I have to veto that I cannot do that and then we really respect the veto because we don't overuse it so our our thing with our kids this is my theory on parenting my my theory on parenting is the best we can do is a loving course from compliance to commitment that your kids need to do what you're asking them to do out of compliance so don't run into the street don't do this that's that's you know you're not allowed to watch that kind of TV you're not allowed to play that kind of video game you need to comply otherwise there's some natural consequences at some point I've got a 14 year old now he's at other people's house doing video right and so if all I teach him is compliance and don't give him the why about why you can't do that if I don't say yes every time I can and explain the knows then when he's there and I can tell you that like we got a call from a parent maybe a month ago and said the boys were having a sleepover they wanted to watch on though some r-rated violent thing and Charlie said can we watch something else you know my parents are not cool with us hmm and he could he didn't have to do that yeah but he's moved to a commitment to our family values because we say yes every time we can we don't do any that stuff that my parents did because I said no we explained so in the voting process we'll sit down and say here's the fall semester or Charlie's like I've got guitar I've got you know this I've got this and I've got this I'd really love to do this and this he's got here's what my fault looks like you know we still keep time in semesters here's what my time looks like we're going to be able to do two curriculars you can choose hmm why not a lot of my friends are doing those five totally understand different families have different ways of operating and it was like my daughter when she went to high school she's a junior now in college but we sat down with her and said the number of AP courses that you'll take will be limited by your time you won't go to bed past ten you will not miss a single dance you will do something every weekend with friends we will not participate in the race to nowhere like you don't need to graduate with 40 and she's a super academic kid and she's like what you know and like she's like but I need to take this and then you take this I'm like it's not gonna work that way and then when she got to college we're like we're not paying forward if you already know what you want to be you're 18 so what does that say more I'd like to hear more on that so does that mean that you wanted her to well actually not even gonna speculate so could you elaborate on that take every class that's interesting to you learn who you are because if I had a dollar for every interview I did with a late twenty or thirty year old that got on the engineer lawyer a doctor path because that was the moving escalator for smart people who was depressed hated what they did never even knew that you could be a shoe designer or casting director or a microphone builder if I had a dollar for every one of those like set for life set for life yeah and I said you need to explore but you know she's like this so cringy mom is so so cringy like everyone the freshman orientation knows exactly what they're gonna be where they're gonna go to grad school I'm like that's great that's not the way we work yeah so you know I'll call it like what are you taking she's like taking a class on black power movements Germany in the 20th century statistics in multivariate analysis and like wait I mean granted that spells graduate school but you know she's like as it turns out I don't think I want to do this I don't want to do that and I'm like super valuable and she's like no are you sure it's as valuable as knowing what you do want to do and like oh yeah yeah knowing what you don't want to do you get to save all the part in your 30s and 40s where you hate work you're drinking heavily you know like you get to save a lot of that like figure it out nothing's wasted yeah yeah I graduate from college when I was 29 hmm it's like go see the world get a job wait tables everyone I know is better at who's waited tables a human being yeah yeah I think everybody everyone should have to work at least one porifera bleah to service jobs yes yeah yeah you really learn a lot yes yes I mean like that and like that's what I always tell Ellen you get one job where you're serving the public and you have to ever do that ever date a guy who's a dick to a waiter yeah yeah so I'm going to suggest we could talk for hours and hours and hours because I know we have a finite amount of time today that we do we switch to the the format that what was anticipated yeah and did this previously with my friend dr. Peter Tia and it was it was fun so I want to try it again and it is talking about things you're excited about yeah we're thinking about things you've changed your mind on and then silly absurd stupid anything that you love okay doing and I got my homework I'm so glad we're gonna do this because I did I prepped I know you know I like my gold star person I got my gold stars in my wallet and so why don't we start and we'll go one from each okay Oh bucket really is that okay or we could do the other way how would you like to do it oh no I want to do it batched you want to batch it yeah okay let's batch it is that me like being like I starting my self into your process I'm all for it okay would you like to start oh okay okay Tim let's take five things I've changed my mind about okay in the last few years wonderful let's do it okay and this is like a rapid fire you can you can take as much or as little time on it as you'd like I will probably ask some follow-up questions but if I ruin five things have changed my mind about in the last few years further faster okay it wasn't always my motto how can we go further faster how we can go further faster and then investors started coming about five years ago and saying can we invest in your business I'm like you know we were thought leader like what does that look like I'm like no I don't want to do that so we kind of self-funded learning platforms and ways to scale the business further faster I've learned through painstaking wierdly have you ever heard this painstaking success hmm I haven't I'm the only person that like shut down businesses that we're doing really well mmm because I hated it yeah so what I've done thing I've changed my mind about is I'm a slower closer kind of a person hmm I'm not a further faster person so we've changed our Jim Collins Hedgehog to scaling our own work to creating world-class research and content and partnering with people who scale as opposed to scaling like I just like we were hiring all these people and getting new desks I was like what's happening yeah it's like scale the magic word yeah I'm not a further faster person the further faster I go the crazier I get and the slower closer I am to my real life and grocery shopping and unloading the dishwasher and loving on people the better I am so I'm a slower closer person dang it number two sobriety is a superpower hmm yes I thought it was like a I never thought I was a pain in the ass to be honest with you I have never miss drinking no I'm miss drinking five or six times in the 23 years I've been sober mhm and I can't explain it to you except it's when when my anxiety which I can struggle with is so high that I feel like the only thing that will put it out is something that I shouldn't be using mm-hmm so and I've never wanted a drink when I'm in my food zone when you're in your food zone yeah so my food zone is pretty like my normal and I text you about this all the time so what's your advice but my food zone is my food zone not because it's a thing but because it's my food zone it's kind of Quito II you know yeah so like I'm probably insulin resistant from a lot of yo-yo dieting my whole life and so just that kind of macro of kind of high fat moderate protein low carb is my jam and I just feel good so you know I think of my keto prick and it's binary which I learned from you it's like when I texted you like should I go slow carb or what are you're thinking about this and you're like the thing about keto that you need to be careful about is the binary nature of it you're on it or often you're either in ketosis or you're not right and so for me that helps me with my with kind of the food addiction stuff mm-hmm cuz I'm not a I'm not an abstainer I'm not a moderator yeah yeah I mean I totally understand yessum I'm very binary yeah and so for me it's great I just don't eat that stuff it's not like I negotiate the bread basket I just don't eat the bread basket and in the big book they talk about when you work a program you describe for people with a big book is because I had never even heard this term till yesterday really yeah Alcoholics Anonymous big book and I'm not a big I work to a for the first year and in the last 22 years I work my own program it's like God components of a but it's also got some Buddhist stuff in it and some kind of daily examine Catholic stuff and my own thing I won my own program with some like serious accountability partners like but in the a big book they write one of the promises of sobriety if you stay in fit spiritual condition and do your work is the prop is the gift of neutrality where you're neither running as fast as you can away from the booze or the food nor are you running a weight you know you're not running for it or away from it it's much neutral and so for me like the bread basket now is neutral the wine but my sobriety is really a superpower I would attribute including my marriage and the fact that I'm proud of how to raise my kids and my career to the fact that I'm sober mmm-hmm that when [ __ ] gets hard I stay in it mm-hmm yeah I mean as opposed to trying to nominate dollar num yeah work it out work it out work out it out drink it out eat it out so I'd really changed my mind of looking at from an albatross to it's kind of a superpower no yeah look though bangs I just got bangs I like it you got a really big curtain bang yeah just bangs you're gonna get I'm getting it implants just bang just forehead curtains I changed my mind about bangs usually I only got bangs in my 20s after I broke up some [ __ ] so I would be like cigarettes wine coolers and bangs he always the answers to that could be uh could be an ex memoir would you like oh my god cigarettes bangs in a wine cooler I'm in some [ __ ] just broke up with her like yeah buy ten copies yes if you was in my last one I've got six but I'm gonna just share four or five okay I've one thing I've changed my mind about this is what our goes back to our earlier conversation if you can't do it how two percent don't bother mm-hmm yeah I was like I'm not going to like cook every meal at night until I can do this class I really wanted with the CIA the Culinary Institute of America you know and now I'm like you know what my kind of pretty good fish tacos is still a family meal where we're sitting down saying grace together and yeah like it's good enough yeah yeah okay I see so used to be the mantra used to be a hundred percent or not at all yeah I'm not gonna work out until my schedule opens up for me to work out every day at five o'clock right my schedule will never do that I don't ever do that yeah so like I'm doing like my little bands and my stuff on my phone at my house or whatever like like yeah the how do perfectionism is not only a defense mechanism it's the worst across the nation to land there was a great avoidance avoidance just real quickly I will say sleep I've changed my mind about sleep like why exercise eat well any of that stuff if you're not sleeping yeah sleep is like the best isn't it yeah but no one and no one in your 30s or 20s will believe you in functional medicine I've changed my mind about that okay five of serd stupid things let's do it you do that last I'd say no let's let's do the let's do the absurd stupid stuff and then we'll go to exciting okay so this was so interesting for me because I as a qualitative researcher really found a thematic analysis here I've got some kind of unprocessed problem with the British the British yeah okay but okay so five of sort of stupid fun things I do Iwan movie night I get myself a movie night because I love maybe me too I only watch movie trailers huh yeah well I watched like 20 movie trailer dopes do you do that with judgy over there how you do it on YouTube or how do you find the travel trailers oh wow yeah yeah and it's like the happiest place and like ever it's not it's my it's like I probably imminent light okay so I watch movie trailers a movie night it's so it's you get the whole emotional rush yeah a narrative 90-minute yeah I this is a stupid thing I do I really am a bad trash talker and super competitive so whether it's like ping pong or we play a lot of family for square I play a lot of cards I'm like a [ __ ] Tom yeah a terrible [ __ ] talker you know I can see it I can see oh my god yes you can see it I can see okay so I'm obsessed with Rick Beato videos on YouTube where who's Rick Beato I don't know who that is he's a music producer and so he does like the best countdowns he does he's great countdown so the 20 best acoustical intros to rock songs and he's my age and so like yeah the 20 best vocal like I really took a problem with it like it took like he's a Beatles fan so there's a lot of [ __ ] ton of Beatles in there but so like let's just do this three best vocal I'm a big music person and a big rock'n'roll person and Texas music present about to get very much you gotta get stroked I'm the magnet schools here okay so I thought there would be only one song that could be the number one vocal introduction to a song what would your guess would be you're thinking about harmony harmony I'm already out of my depth here Kansas Kansas okay yeah yeah I was thinking Whitney Houston from the bodyguard soundtrack but we're gonna I love you Whitney I love you Whitney too but this is Austin Texas I know and I'm gonna take you out one night and we're gonna watch number could be out of it I'm ready okay yeah so it was he did queen vehement Rhapsody which I think good Kansas was three paperback writer from the Beatles was too I just take exception so I watch all those a best acoustical guitar intro all that's all like the 70s you know like Jim Croce and staff bass electric guitar I still have some issues with some of his but I walked a lot of rock piata Brickley out of videos okay oh wow people goes down I'm me right change your life yeah I'm ready okay I watch a lot of British crime procedurals hmm okay like oh yeah crime procedural look you know like a you know like Law & Order but you're - uh-huh yes I watch like a ton a ton yes goggle box goggle have you watched this no I never heard of it okay it's I think it's all over like a different countries now but I watch the UK goggle ball box it's where you watch people watching television oh it's like response videos so you get to see how they respond and they and you you fall in love with these families some it's obsessed with British time crime procedurals and goggle box goggle box yes also sounds like a near future dystopian technological like Terminator kind of thriller yes but it's battle box there's no action at all it's just like these like kind of normal normal ordinary British families going boy I mean and you're like I just thought really hard and then tick tock I've spent a lot of time watching tick tock really oh yeah I do get sent I tick tock for me I it's kind of like I feel like someone's peeking around a corner huh late at night going yeah heroin $10 okay I'm just like I can't I I'm afraid to go on tech talk because I I can understand why I would get hooked you have to on my Instagram I just put my favorite tick-tock all right all right let me do it with you okay let me ask this question would you rather eat okay a baby goat mm-hmm or a matter baby or a matter baby what's the matter baby nothing's the matter what's wrong with you oh my god is that from tektite my kids say that I'm you got me that was easy please promise me like pinky swear right now with your pinky that you will put a link to this specific matter baby from tick tock minor my on my episode confirmed matter baby this is like this Irish guy and his dad oh it's like not to baby baby for [ __ ] sake not a baby they say that more than I do Oh they're good that I'm good undervalued for is okay that was excellent thanks so excited about okay excited about two big things 2020 one is that I am taking a visiting professorship at Texas McCombs at UT five so I'm gonna do be there for a year and I'm bringing dear to lead to UT Texas McCombs and so we're gonna do our trainings out of the University of Texas more research develop some cloud-based tools for organizations to use it's really exciting yeah go TX great yeah cutie I know amazing podcast the new podcast the story I'm really excited mmm-hmm what is the name of your podcast unlocking us great very much thank you very much what we were talking about right um super excited about less travel because I feel like the podcast may be a way for me to do that that will eat you up travel yeah yeah I'm so excited to be parking here in Austin for a few months straight I'm thrilled about it it's an I look back it say my 20s when all I wanted to do was travel meet you and after a while you're like oh I feel like George Clooney in that movie up in the air yes I'm beginning yes to feel like I'm never quite unpacking and I don't like this feeling yeah and there's a lot to be said for seeing new places and so on but man do I love the sort of energetic conservation of just having a nice routine but don't you think routine will set you free I do absolutely I date you like yeah so I'm excited about a new work thing that we're doing where 30% is leading my team and my organization 70% is white space creative time mmm well I'll see if we can make it happen but Bert that's great it's a big that's a big percentage yeah what are you hoping to do with that seventy percent or do you have any idea what types of research big research and so it's hard research on human experience and so I I love that like my happy place is like alone with my data like that's I rolled up watching curled up with your data I do one more talk to you oh I'm ready I'm ready for it okay I am going to work on a new book I'm gonna write more I'm going to think about maybe the podcast is gonna take a lot of creative white space for me because I want to be really thoughtful yeah I feel like you're really thoughtful like you think through what you want to talk to people about and I wanted like we have our discernment lens for the podcast for success for us is contribution mmm and so if at any point I feel like a book will not make a contribution I pull it back yeah if at any point I feel like this is just contributing to all the [ __ ] in the noise I'm gonna pull it back so I think in order to meet that discernment goal of contribution I have to be really thoughtful and I say think that's gonna take creative space yeah yeah I think you'll do great I also think you have a you have an attunement to other people's emotional states that elicits a lot of very vulnerable truth and I think if you have that you're set as far as contribution I think that checks the box there's some of that certainly there are a million plus podcasts there there's some of that out there but to get it consistently I think is still quite difficult it's not as an audio listener if you're looking for those raw moments of truth and messiness within which you can find and learn so much I think you are very gifted at doing that so if you if you do that consistently I think you're in good shape thanks I'll come to you from entering I will make no claims to have good answers but I can I can certainly make up some answers and do my best okay one last project huh let's do it okay I have to put this down you can hold that okay all this oh wow it's a graphic tick-tock okay what is this what does that looks like to me looks like a butterfly okay what are these wings okay and what is one called a wing okay put your microphone down and then give me two thumbs up you have to get closer to me okay now I want you to say the word that you just said to me ten times fast hello Wow all right tick-tock first one's on us wing please tell me there's an ED and like an Elmer Fudd somewhere in that tick tock remix we might be to like but this is my hash tag wholesome tic toc I like it I love it well I'm so happy that you're gonna be spending more time here in Austin yes how exciting yeah and where can people learn all about your latest interests including tick tock your latest projects where can people best find you Brene brown comm is all of the things all the things yeah so nice to see you again you too so fun yeah so to be continued yeah oh yes to be continued and for everybody who's watching or listening you can find show notes links to everything we've talked about including the promised tic toc videos in the show notes at tim de blog for slash podcast you

Channel: Tim Ferriss

Views: 536,851

Rating: 4.8664184 out of 5

Keywords: tim ferriss, 4 hour workweek, 4 hour body, 4 hour chef, timothy ferriss, entrepreneur, author, writer, angel investor, ferriss, tim ferriss blog, timothy ferriss speaker, Tim Ferriss Podcast, brene brown

Id: Wh5SUF0gPWQ

Length: 79min 38sec (4778 seconds)

Published: Thu Feb 06 2020