Eric Oliver

Well, one of my favorite stories about this is I grew up in Texas.

And even though I grew up in Houston, I never felt a strong identity of Texan.

Like I never had a cowboy hat.

I never had, you know, cowboy boots.

I never drove a truck or any of that stuff.

And I got to go to college in New England.

And I thought, oh, wow, I'm going to go to New England.

And I'm going to find all these people who are intellectual and cultural and all of these values that I have.

And I get there.

And the funny thing is, is the one thing that people found most interesting about me was that I was from Texas.

And at the time, this is especially girls.

And so ironically...

I found myself playing up my Texanness.

And, like, when I went home for that first winter break and my sister asked me what I wanted for Christmas, I said, how about some cowboy boots?

This is Hidden Brain.

Its aim is to help my students expand the vocabulary of their own lived experience.

And a lot of us, myself included, especially when we were young, go through living according to stories that we probably didn't write for ourselves.

So in order to get my parents' love and approval, I need to be a good boy.

If I wanna have a happy life, I need to have this high status job.

If I wanna feel fulfilled, I've gotta find this sort of perfect love.