Compulsive Under earning – An Ambivalence about Success | Paul Sunderland | TEDxSurreyUniversity

hi good afternoon good afternoon and I feel slightly sort of anxious and I'm gonna try and do this I brought my notes on and I hope that's okay and I like the idea of trying to do a bit of a stand out routine if I'm doing the talk not that I can actually really see any of you very well and but I've got my notes because I might possibly have that sort of brain reduced the size of pea syndrome and if I don't have it then I suddenly completely forget what I'm talking about and the other issue for me around my anxiety other than that I'm going to move around a bit because that's how I manage it is I don't know if you know that but if you're under stress or trauma the part of the brain that mediates time completely closes down so it's quite possible for me to be talking for about an hour in thinking hey I've only just started and you guys typically if someone would be trying to get me off stage and and all that sort of thing so I wonder if you have any idea what I'm gonna be talking about I'm an addiction specialist the addictions field is really quite exciting at the moment it used to be all about just sort of alcohol and drugs and it's now about a whole lot of other things and I'm going to talk to you about something an addictive process which is part of what we call the financial disorders I'm going to talk about under earning and under achieving now actually not everybody who under earns or under achieves is an addict but I want to suggest to you that there are some people for whom actually this becomes an addictive process and it'd be interesting to see you know to what extent you agree with me but you know under under earning is about the inability to really earn what we deserve it's despite the desire the effort the opportunity and the qualification it's about somehow it's about turning our backs on money and opportunities for money it's not about I'm not talking about people who suffered from recession people who've had bad luck people who live in the wrong place at the wrong time I'm talking about something that has nothing to do with circumstance but actually everything to do with what happens inside of our brains now the field of addiction one of the things that's really exciting is that we know an awful lot now about sort of neuro psychology so we have quite a lot of information about the interaction between chemicals and brain we've also had opportunities to study people in recovery from addiction we have these longitudinal studies and to start seeing what happens historically when we've talked about addiction we've been thinking about alcohol and drugs haven't we we've been talking about people who are using mood altering chemicals by way of ingestion and they're using them intravenously they're inhaling them they're using them transdermally to change the way that they feel what we know about addiction is that it's genetically proposed it's environmentally disposed we know addiction is an obviously self-centered we know that addiction begins with the search for pleasure and ends up with an escape from reality but we know about addiction is it's self-centered and it's willful and it's inconsiderate we know particularly about addiction in terms of willpower we know that willpower is about it's effective with addiction as it would be with the measles you know so we're talking about a concept of powerlessness and we've been treating since the 50s people have been getting into recovery from alcohol and then other drug addictions but what started to happen in the last sort of 10 years or so is that we've been seeing people coming into clinics who either have once been addicted to drugs and alcohol um and I've started to produce all starting to present with problems that actually also look a bit like addiction but they're not taking any drugs or alcohol and we're also seeing people coming in who've never had drug and alcohol problems particularly but actually presenting with other difficulties and what we call these other addictions process addictions these are behavior that interact and behaviors interact with brain chemicals to produce a mood altering feeling so these are behaviors which in a sense people become their own drug dealers and the sort of things that I'm talking about might be and particularly think about the eating disorders compulsive overeating which you very much actually is about that white powder called sugar people forget so white powder like heroin or cocaine compulsive overeating and bulimia anorexia nervosa the compulsive avoidance of through the preoccupation and all the adrenaline that goes with avoiding the most exciting eating disorder that you may know about its author X here I don't know if you've heard about that all tharixer is the unhealthy obsession with healthy eating it's a pathological control over what I eat and when you know it's a sort of it's the counting of the almonds on my porridge it's the sort of I've got to sort of eat in this certain way so we start to see people presenting with these things they've actually of course an eating disorders have been around for a long time when we think yeah if they have some sort of addictive quality we then think about what we're calling the sex and love addiction Zoar the relationship addictions if there are some people who just forever being attracted to people then actually somehow are unavailable to them and we really get off on the feeling of the chase and the feeling of falling in love thanks to neuropsychology we actually know that the feeling of falling in love it's the same part of the brain it's called the VTA that lights up when you take cocaine you know and that's just how it is for everybody that's why there's a sort of a high and it's where some people really like it but what we tend to see with some people is actually become quite addicted to that but particularly addicted to finding people that are just not going to be available for them the sex addictions a lot of people think sex addiction is something rather exciting and actually it's really not when you're sitting in clinic it's not about having a lot of sex and having a big smile on your face you know actually you know it tends to be right it's often about having sex with yourself you know we're talking about pornography prostitution some of the paraphilias but a whole bunch of things that again become actually addictive disorders and then we start to talk about the financial addictions of which gambling has been around and has been seen as an addiction for some time but also we're talking about compulsive spending and the title of this talk under earning and compulsive spending as you probably know is it's actually compulsive spending is compulsive wanting it's the inability to turn turn down a good deal it's the going into boots for a tooth brushing coming out with a whole store it's the sort of inability to delay gratification you know that's what it you know that's what it's about of compulsive spenders have a motto of like button I'll buy now are working out later you know and so we're seeing people who've maxed out their credit cards they've got other credit cards they can e loans that comes the whole secret you know a whole secret thing of compulsive spending and what I'm going to suggest to you when you talk about the under earning is the under earning is the anorexia if you like of compulsive spending it's the determination the compulsion to keep ourselves small to stay under the radar to not be visible despite having a desire to be successful despite having the ability to perhaps having opportunities and having the training it's a compulsion to keep ourselves small and it's it is quite a problem for people now just quickly a few things about a bad addiction when we're diagnosing addiction we're looking for certain criteria we look for things like preoccupation so if you think about alcohol and drug addiction preoccupation would be yeah I can't stop thinking about it I wake up in the morning thinking about having a drink I go to bed thinking I've got to be stoned before I go to bed and I don't get the weekends off there's no bank holidays it's a full-time job but just keep thinking about it we think about tolerance where somehow I need to take more of the same thing in order to feel better you know what was maybe 10 milligrams of diazepam last week actually needs to be 20 what was you know what was half a bottle of wine a day seems to be a bottle a day you know the increase in tolerance we talk about loss of trol once I start I can't when am I going to stop you know I went out for a few drinks but I didn't come back for three days you know there's and we talked about failed attempts to control I really want to stop I'm going to do I'm going to switch from spirits to alcohol I'm gonna get rid of all my dealer's names from my you know from my phone you know then I can't do it I'm gonna throw my needles away you know you get the idea it's like I'm determined to stop but somehow after a short period of time there's a center withdrawal and these are unsuccessful attempts to control and we also look when we're diagnosing addiction and for an impact on on functioning so we start to think about the health problems which is really quite obvious again with the alcohol and drugs you know there's all sorts of risks hepatitis C HIV talking about cirrhosis of the liver we're talking about what with your wet brain you know there's all sorts of things we talked about the legal problems the relational problems that people get into because the thing about addiction is that it is anti intimacy you know the people who suffer from addiction aren't we're not doing that bad people or weak people but we're talking about people for whom the values that they have the things that they hold important come second are always trumped by the desire to change the way that they feel so let's just talk about under earning and for a bit and I'm gonna I'm just gonna quickly refer to my note if I can possibly manage that and I'm going to tell you about some of the symptoms of under earning so again it's about compulsively not generating enough money in order to keep ourselves despite having the ability having the desire have any effort and having the opportunity so some of these symptoms and these are symptoms of turning is is turning your back on money so I'm suggesting that this is like an anorexia if you'd like and of the financial disorders the anorexia that goes and with compulsive spending so it might be not asking for a raise you know or advertising for a job that's desired even though that you're applying rather for a job that's been out even though that's desired so putting up with a job but actually just not asking for what one was working below ones and capacity or education rejecting ideas most people have ideas most days about you know something that they could do to improve their lives but those people don't do anything about it many people have people that say why don't you do this so I've got you could talk to so-and-so I know somebody who could help you with this but many people don't do anything about that now just because you don't do anything about it it doesn't mean that you have an addict but for some people actually this continues over and over their compulsively not following up these things working below one's training avoiding earning we've had people coming to clinic maybe this is relevant for you guys we've had people come in who are considering doing their third PhD rather than getting a job because somehow it's a way to just sort of avoid being out there in the world and earning some money people who invest more time than they need to in task to say look we're gonna pay you to do this for half a day and they spend the whole day doing it not following a please you're self-employed a classic sign of under owning would be not following up leads the phone goes somebody says laughs actually I quite like the product or service that you have and it's somehow I think I'll get back to them tomorrow you know yes let's sort of do it later rather than actually just following those things up not charging appropriately so under charging undervaluing again we're seeing people who do work and then don't send an invoice out UPS or having sent an invoice don't chase up the money you know so actually a year later it becomes almost embarrassing to say can you please pay me for what we did in July 2010 particularly over doing volunteering activities that is something as a classic sign really a B under earning rather than earning money I'm going to volunteer I'm going to over do that people often choosing to work alone rather than working with others when it might actually make sense to have associates and colleagues you know for many people the whole is greater than the sum of its parts but people working alone doing all the jobs again stopping these opportunities for money coming in and Plata is a very classic symptom again of people who suffer from under earning we know a tidy desk is a tidy mind but you know clutter and not valuing your workspace you know holding on to possessions having things that in a way get in the way of actually getting on and being and getting jobs done time deflection is a classic as well by time deflection I mean putting off what must be done and not spending enough time focused on visions and goals so suddenly I have a report to write and it seems like a good idea to tidy my kitchen do you know all that's particularly clean out this cupboard that my wife's never seen me clean out before but somehow rather than actually getting on this time deflection is not spending time actually focusing on visions and goals chronic lateness is another thing that we see chronic lateness and chronic lateness actually is it's slightly like sort of workaholism because it if you're chronically late you're forever producing adrenaline and cortisol thing you guys gotta get here on time but will I make it will I make it shall I bring them what will happen all the time that's happening it gets in the way of creativity and actually workaholism wealth autism is a really interesting addition because actually again it sounds like one of those things would be quite cool to have you know particularly for someone else trouble getting out of bed you think god wouldn't it be great to be working on it but actually workaholic is an addiction to busyness you know it's about the management of anxiety by just by being busy having a product saying as soon as I've done this everything will be okay but as soon as that project ends it's not it's an addiction to the busyness so again you become your own dealer producing anxiety well adrenaline and and courtesan behind all of this are some negative cognitions that's what sort of underpins this whole thing because actually you know people behave like this in this way and for a reason now everybody has a bit of it it's a bit like if you're an addict if you think about addictions on a spectrum at one end you might have somebody who's completely teetotal you might on the other end have somebody who's just drinking every day in the mornings any quite clear that there'd be an alcoholic most people are somewhere in the middle there's a bit of problematic drinking that sort of thing so I'm certainly in talking to you about some of these things it's some of you probably nodding anything you've got on a bit like that this is not necessarily diagnosing addiction but for some people this becomes really quite compulsive but what's behind this and we think about under earning being this turning our back on money and opportunities to be the person that we want to be most of us want to be we'd like to be fairly rich and famous we'd like to be prosperous certainly unsuccessful so despite the desire there's this internal conflict that says I really want this but I can't possibly have it and what's behind it are some core beliefs one of these one of these core beliefs is that many people have is that I can't really manage on my own anyway I won't really manage you know the only way I'm really going to be successful is if I have a sort of a windfall somebody pays for me you know there's a miracle but the other really big prog nishan that people have that stops them achieving despite the fact that they want to that they might be qualified they might have the opportunity okay they might have the desire what stops them it concerns about what we call visibility issues our feeling that if I'm visible I'm vulnerable if I stand out I won't be safe I'll be challenged I'll be criticized and for many people criticism is perceived as a threat so these visibility issues very often these are a consequence of some form of abuse or bullying some experience early in life there actually has people feeling like actually I can't really stand out now the thing about the human brain is you probably know unlike the computer it starts working before it's built so then actually experience is the architect of the brain if you have an early experience if you're abused in one way or another if you're bullied if something happens and actually you're made a fool of these things these early experiences become part of the sort of the factory setting of the brain and they get believed and they're held here in the limbic brain not in the frontal cortex it says wait a minute that was then this is now I can get on and do things they're held in the limbic brain it's the same part of the brain that if the man-eating tiger enters the room it says get out whereas you know the frontal cortex might say nice stripes yeah it's the bit that kicks in first and that is the problem here so for some people they have these issues around visibility that have them compulsively avoiding opportunities for prosperity and success despite the fact that they would really like to be prosperous and successful we can treat this in the same way that we treat any other addiction now this isn't somebody if you're not an addict you might do something you might not follow up a lead and then think oh that was a bit stupid because nothing happened I won't do that again if you suffer from addiction it's compulsive it's like you continue to do something despite knowledge that it's not in your best interest to do so we can treat this in the same way be aim the goal of recovery from compulsive under earning is not actually to be rich or famous oh it's necessarily prosperous or successful that does happen but actually the real goal is to be able to do something that people a lot of these people haven't been able to do before which is to take care of themselves to be able to act in our best interest to be free to do what we want to do so then actually if you've got a PhD in you're doing a manual job and you know if you if you're in recovery that's cool because that's what you've chosen to do if you're compulsive under earner you might have a PhD but actually you can't possibly really take your place in the world and do that you need to do something that keeps you invisible and recovery you know this I believe that this this is an illness we can treat it in the same way as any other addiction it is the anorexia of the financial disorders of financial addictions recovery is possible I hope that's made sense thank you very much

Channel: TEDx Talks

Views: 23,399

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Keywords: TEDxTalks, English, United Kingdom, Life, Failure, Psychology, Success

Id: liCfwTFUYNw

Length: 19min 28sec (1168 seconds)

Published: Mon Jul 04 2016