Arthur Brooks

Fear... Do you fear shame?

Fear, shame more than failure.

How does your fear of shame... And look, I'm not divulging anything to our friends.

No one's fucking surprised.

Yeah, and it's like the shame-faced boy part of the program.

Yeah, exactly.

So how does it feel to be ashamed?

Which, by the way, is very common for successful people.

Right.

And that actually can be really disconcerting and it can be highly damaging for personal relationships.

This is one of the reasons that you find that when people start to get really famous, that they're much more at ease in front of a thousand people than they are in front of one person.

Because they actually have to use a different set of social skills.

They've got the theater ability in front of a thousand people, but when they're actually talking to mom,

or you know an actual no fooling girlfriend life it gets real dicey real fast right it's what it comes down to but but what you put your finger on is that look you will pay in private for what you're applauded for in public but you will also you know what you're paying for in private is the source of your strength in public and that what that means is that you shouldn't just try to

You shouldn't just be thankful for what they're applauding you for in public.

On the contrary, you should be down on your knees, thankful for the weaknesses that you have as well.

And that's the pro move.

That's what it comes down to.

That's actually how we ultimately learn to manage ourselves, is that we recognize that we have these frailties, that we have these weaknesses, that we have these feet of clay.

And we say, thank you, thank you, thank you for that weakness.