Scott Barry Kaufman
Appearances
Modern Wisdom
#947 - Scott Barry Kaufman - How To Not Let Your Past Define You
It should almost have to not be said, but we obviously should make clear that we're too compassionate humans. And of course, there are real victims. But there also are... So a victim mindset is independent of victimization. You can have real victimization and not harness a victim mindset about it. I have a friend...
Modern Wisdom
#947 - Scott Barry Kaufman - How To Not Let Your Past Define You
Well, there are a lot of different orientations out there for psychotherapy. There's an orientation called trauma-informed therapy that I criticize a little bit because a lot of therapy is going and talking about your past. And I think that it's possible that if you're viewed only through the lens of your trauma, you can forget that you have other things that you can provide to the world.
Modern Wisdom
#947 - Scott Barry Kaufman - How To Not Let Your Past Define You
Who's really cool and he has like no arms or legs and he has two hooks um, tom nash and he He's like i'm not a victim He had uh, he had a meningococcal disease that that caused him, uh to lose Uh to become quadriplegic And he's like i'm not a victim. I actually I love these hooks. He like rolls up in style with them, you know um
Modern Wisdom
#947 - Scott Barry Kaufman - How To Not Let Your Past Define You
Vice versa, you can not have been victimized and have a victim mindset as well. And I talk about the dark triad in the book. I have a whole section on dark triad activism.
Modern Wisdom
#947 - Scott Barry Kaufman - How To Not Let Your Past Define You
I'm really glad you said that. A lot of people, and this is well known in the trauma literature, a lot of people who have had a terrible thing happen to them, especially when they were young, they do implicitly, unconsciously believe they deserved it. Um, it's a defense mechanism. It's not a, it's not a healthy one, but, um, a lot of people will say in try big, why, why did this happen?
Modern Wisdom
#947 - Scott Barry Kaufman - How To Not Let Your Past Define You
I must have deserved it. And they start to develop a sense unconsciously often that they're broken inside and a big, you know, a big mission that I'm on. And, and the whole second half of the book, that's the whole second half of the book is find the parts of you that are not broken, right? Find the light within yourself.
Modern Wisdom
#947 - Scott Barry Kaufman - How To Not Let Your Past Define You
And that is the biggest problem when you identify singly with your victimhood. And what boggles my mind is there's a lot of people that are committed to that. They're committed to identifying with their victimhood completely. And it boggles my mind. I guess for some people, it is the only way they know. It's encouraged in their community, in their certain in-group community.
Modern Wisdom
#947 - Scott Barry Kaufman - How To Not Let Your Past Define You
you know, that that's like the way to be. But there are entire communities where it's not. I mean, if you're part of like the athletic sports community, I feel like there's a whole culture around overcoming a victim. You don't lose a game and the coach goes, all right, team.
Modern Wisdom
#947 - Scott Barry Kaufman - How To Not Let Your Past Define You
Let's pack it up. Let's blame the other team for all our problems. Let's give up. There's not going to be a next season.
Modern Wisdom
#947 - Scott Barry Kaufman - How To Not Let Your Past Define You
But I don't think he has a victim mindset over that situation that happened this year. So I think there's certain cultures and communities that really encourage it and some that don't.
Modern Wisdom
#947 - Scott Barry Kaufman - How To Not Let Your Past Define You
You forget that you're allowed to have a future. You're allowed to have a great future. And not all trauma-informed therapy is bad. Of course, there's nuance here. But I think a big part of the message I want to give in this book is that if we only view you through the lens of your victimhood, your potential takes a backseat to your pain.
Modern Wisdom
#947 - Scott Barry Kaufman - How To Not Let Your Past Define You
Yeah, I hinted at that a little bit earlier, but we are such a social species and social value is such an important core part. Reputation and social value is such an important part. And I think if you go all the way back to Savannah Desert, we're a very tribal species. And
Modern Wisdom
#947 - Scott Barry Kaufman - How To Not Let Your Past Define You
And there's a constant, I think there's a constant battle, there's a constant victimhood Olympics going on, going back to the start of humanity, the dawn of humanity. We've been engaging in this victimhood Olympics where you have two sides that are warring against each other. And there's this notion that there can only be one victim and there can only be one oppressor.
Modern Wisdom
#947 - Scott Barry Kaufman - How To Not Let Your Past Define You
That is what gets you the greatest rewards, because if you claim that spot of being seen as the victim of the conflict, you get resources and support. But the second that you're seen as the tribal group that is the oppressor, nothing you can do can be right. Nothing. You're pure evil, no matter what happens. So I think there's something so primal about that war for that coveted seat.
Modern Wisdom
#947 - Scott Barry Kaufman - How To Not Let Your Past Define You
And as you see, in my last chapter, I don't shy away from saying how it's playing out again in the Israeli... Palestine conflict and how it plays out in almost every intractable conflict among humans. There's something so primal about it.
Modern Wisdom
#947 - Scott Barry Kaufman - How To Not Let Your Past Define You
Well, do you think our modern culture does not incentivize victimhood?
Modern Wisdom
#947 - Scott Barry Kaufman - How To Not Let Your Past Define You
I think it's like asking why do humans still like fatty foods? I mean, I think that we're seeing remnants of an evolutionarily primal need that needs to be overcome. I mean, it's something that I think we see generation after generation after generation because it's so deeply seeded into our DNA to incentivize that. It's very hard for people to because it's so deeply ingrained.
Modern Wisdom
#947 - Scott Barry Kaufman - How To Not Let Your Past Define You
It takes cognitive work to be able to perceive that there could be two victims at the same time. Very hard for people to wrap their head around that. And I think that's the only way forward.
Modern Wisdom
#947 - Scott Barry Kaufman - How To Not Let Your Past Define You
Yes, and yes, yes, and yes. I just had a conversation with Jonathan Haidt on my podcast about this. Yes, social media, especially TikTok, really incentivizes a victimhood identity among youth. So there really is a lot of peer pressure. It's no... no surprise that teenagers go through an identity crisis. That's happened since the dawn of teenagerhood.
Modern Wisdom
#947 - Scott Barry Kaufman - How To Not Let Your Past Define You
But now teenagers are hitching their identity as much as possible on some sort of marginalized identity because they know that's the only way they can belong. That's the only way they can feel like they're included.
Modern Wisdom
#947 - Scott Barry Kaufman - How To Not Let Your Past Define You
Well, this is the million-dollar question. You'd get the Nobel Prize if you figured out exactly what was happening. But there seems to have been a cultural shift among youth where – and Jean Twenge has done a great analysis of this in her book Generations – Prior generation, high self-esteem and grandiose narcissism was the major form of entitlement, which is we're the best.
Modern Wisdom
#947 - Scott Barry Kaufman - How To Not Let Your Past Define You
We're the best generation and they're proud and happy about being superior. But now the entitlement, you get special privileges for saying you've suffered and So it has become a vulnerable form of entitlement that is being incentivized more than prior generations. It's an interesting question. I think a social media must play some role in that.
Modern Wisdom
#947 - Scott Barry Kaufman - How To Not Let Your Past Define You
There's some sort of feedback mechanism where that seems to be what gets more attention and gets more likes. I mean, when we deal with the attention economy, like we're doing with social media, you start to see certain things start to get magnified and certain things start to compound.
Modern Wisdom
#947 - Scott Barry Kaufman - How To Not Let Your Past Define You
that maybe we didn't even that weren't as prominent in the past but you just don't get as many likes if you're not being polarizing and if you're not talking about some sort of victimhood I remember I think it's in the happiness hypothesis that
Modern Wisdom
#947 - Scott Barry Kaufman - How To Not Let Your Past Define You
And he gets a lot of shit for it. He gets tons of shit from it. He says the only way he ever finds out about it is when I forward them to him.
Modern Wisdom
#947 - Scott Barry Kaufman - How To Not Let Your Past Define You
I want to think this through. Is it contributing to what?
Modern Wisdom
#947 - Scott Barry Kaufman - How To Not Let Your Past Define You
See, Sam is such an oddball in the human species. He's willing to say what he believes to be true regardless of the cause.
Modern Wisdom
#947 - Scott Barry Kaufman - How To Not Let Your Past Define You
I think there's a really great insight there. I do talk about the difference in performance. I call TikTok vulnerability versus authentic vulnerability. I see this kind of TikTok vulnerability on steroids and it does get rewarded. I think that there is genuine sympathy involved there. There are people, you know, it's like there are people who when they see the signal, they
Modern Wisdom
#947 - Scott Barry Kaufman - How To Not Let Your Past Define You
they generally want to help. They generally have the empathy and want to help. And so that kind of TikTok vulnerability, they know that they are going to get some reward. It's like when you're a child, you exaggerate a little bit that you're sick because you want to stay home from school and you get rewarded by your mother showing you a lot of care and concern. It does feel good
Modern Wisdom
#947 - Scott Barry Kaufman - How To Not Let Your Past Define You
to have that attention. It does feel good. You know, like even you, Chris, Mr. No victim mindset, I'm sure if you're not feeling well or whatever, like there might, there, there's a human tendency to want to like broadcast to others that you're not feeling that well, um, to kind of get, um, to get that sympathy.
Modern Wisdom
#947 - Scott Barry Kaufman - How To Not Let Your Past Define You
Did I address your prior point, though? Because I thought it was a really interesting one. Yeah, I thought it was really interesting. Yeah, so genes. Okay, so G is like a dirty word, right? In a lot of circles. I think people think of genes as something that is immutable, that we can't change, but
Modern Wisdom
#947 - Scott Barry Kaufman - How To Not Let Your Past Define You
I would much rather live in a world where nature and nurture contributed than either living in a genetic deterministic world or an environmentally deterministic world. So I'm actually happy with the way that evolution has given us genes that are highly sensitive to the environment but are not completely determined by the environment. So I like that. So do you want to cover attachment theory?
Modern Wisdom
#947 - Scott Barry Kaufman - How To Not Let Your Past Define You
Let's dive into attachment theory.
Modern Wisdom
#947 - Scott Barry Kaufman - How To Not Let Your Past Define You
Because there are so many misconceptions about what attachment theory is and there are so many ideas that it's all the fault. I think a lot of people have a victim mindset about attachment theory. They say, well, I have an insecure attachment because of the way I was raised.
Modern Wisdom
#947 - Scott Barry Kaufman - How To Not Let Your Past Define You
But as I talk about in the book, the behavioral genetics research shows that there is a pretty substantial heritability of your attachment style. And I think that it relates to your personality. Like if you score very high in neuroticism, which is going to be influenced by your genes and your environment, but genes really matter in influencing the development of your neurotic traits.
Modern Wisdom
#947 - Scott Barry Kaufman - How To Not Let Your Past Define You
you're going to be more anxious in your relationships. You're going to be more self-doubting and it's going to show up in your relationships, but it's also going to show up everywhere and everywhere else in your life. So I think attachment theorists sometimes look a little too narrowly at the attachment relationship domain.
Modern Wisdom
#947 - Scott Barry Kaufman - How To Not Let Your Past Define You
And I think they could use a zoom out a little bit and take a bit of a personality neuroscience slash genetics perspective a little bit more.
Modern Wisdom
#947 - Scott Barry Kaufman - How To Not Let Your Past Define You
Yes. But if I gave only that message, then there'd be no point in writing the book Rise Above. Because we also have an agency, as you said, to compensate, to do what we need to not... What's it going to do to help you to say, oh, I have the genes for shortness. I'm just going to never talk to women ever again. What is the use of that? What is the benefit of that?
Modern Wisdom
#947 - Scott Barry Kaufman - How To Not Let Your Past Define You
So no matter what circumstance you're in and no matter what hand God has dealt you, I think it's very much in our control to do what we can with what we have. So I think both are true, and we can hold both in our mind at the same time. But you're right. I mean, it drives me crazy when people ignore the role of genes. And I have a whole section of my book on that in terms of...
Modern Wisdom
#947 - Scott Barry Kaufman - How To Not Let Your Past Define You
not just attachment theory, but also, well, it's a very controversial thing to say that trauma is heritable. That's probably one of the most, if you want to not be a lot of people to like you at a cocktail party, tell them that trauma has a high heritability.
Modern Wisdom
#947 - Scott Barry Kaufman - How To Not Let Your Past Define You
Okay. How do we cover this sensitively? Well, I think that in a lot of ways, trauma is the narrative that we tell ourselves about an experience that happened to us. This notion that trauma is stored in the body, I don't think is scientifically accurate. You know, the body keeps the scores like the number one. It's been on the New York Times bestseller list.
Modern Wisdom
#947 - Scott Barry Kaufman - How To Not Let Your Past Define You
It's created a whole cold falling and has so much popularity. But I don't believe that's how the brain works. So our trauma story is stored in our brain. It's not stored in our body. What we have in our body, for sure, is survival stress. We have in our body lots of... We can obviously feel the stress involved with assaults, with various things that happen to us.
Modern Wisdom
#947 - Scott Barry Kaufman - How To Not Let Your Past Define You
But the word trauma, that really is the narrative that we've cognitively and consciously put on a series of things. And you can see it change too. You can see situations where a person never thought they had trauma and then they go to therapy and then they get convinced by their therapist that that what happened was trauma, so then they changed their whole narrative.
Modern Wisdom
#947 - Scott Barry Kaufman - How To Not Let Your Past Define You
So you can see how fluid our notion of traumatic experiences are. So when I say that trauma has a high heritability, well, it is interesting because there is research showing that people who have a genetic peculiarity towards the personality trait neuroticism do tend to see the world differently than people who are low in neuroticism. They tend to see threat everywhere.
Modern Wisdom
#947 - Scott Barry Kaufman - How To Not Let Your Past Define You
Whereas people who score low in neuroticism don't tend to see the threat everywhere. You could have twins. Well, you could have siblings who are not twins. You could have siblings who don't share a lot of genes, not identical twins. And they both could have experienced the same exact thing in their childhood from their parenting style.
Modern Wisdom
#947 - Scott Barry Kaufman - How To Not Let Your Past Define You
And one is like, I had a traumatizing childhood, and then you see this case. And then the other child is like, what are you talking about? We had such a great childhood. And it's like, well, what's the truth? In a lot of ways, the truth is in the eye of the beholder. And you also see that with attachment styles.
Modern Wisdom
#947 - Scott Barry Kaufman - How To Not Let Your Past Define You
So I talk about it in the book, but the genes for neuroticism color the extent, what you focus on in your relationship. And so it focuses your attention on various aspects of the relationship. And it makes you ignore maybe some of the better, lovely aspects of relationship that you just can't see because you're so focused on, will they leave me? Will they leave me? Will they leave me?
Modern Wisdom
#947 - Scott Barry Kaufman - How To Not Let Your Past Define You
Does that make sense? And I hope that was somewhat sensitive.
Modern Wisdom
#947 - Scott Barry Kaufman - How To Not Let Your Past Define You
we shouldn't be prisoners of our past as much as we keep ruminating over and over again that we wish something was different that's not going to change the thing no matter how many times we ruminate about it it's not going to change it so what i really want to do is help people practically and hopefully move forward with their lives i mean it's a great point that
Modern Wisdom
#947 - Scott Barry Kaufman - How To Not Let Your Past Define You
Yes, yes. And people do make too much of intergenerational trauma effects because the data does show that beyond two generations, there's... indication in the blood of this. So I think that there is some partial truth to this, but I think the trauma researchers make too much of it. They go way beyond what the evidence actually shows. I mean, I could literally show you papers.
Modern Wisdom
#947 - Scott Barry Kaufman - How To Not Let Your Past Define You
Well, therapy obviously could be very helpful. I'm also a big fan of coaching. And so that's why I've gotten into the coaching space in the past five years, because coaching is very future oriented. And it's not about diagnosing you or trying to find what is the diagnosis. I think sometimes we get hung up too much on what is my diagnosis, you know, or what am I?
Modern Wisdom
#947 - Scott Barry Kaufman - How To Not Let Your Past Define You
Let me minimize my use of the word literally. I want to work on that. I overuse the word literal sometimes, but I would love to show you some papers that really cast doubt on the pervasive effects of intergenerational trauma beyond two generations.
Modern Wisdom
#947 - Scott Barry Kaufman - How To Not Let Your Past Define You
So in terms of the Holocaust, for instance, or in terms of people's slavery, black, you know, people say intergenerational trauma, you know, from, you know, my great, great, great, great grandmother is the reason why I am the way I am today. And evidence is actually slim on that idea.
Modern Wisdom
#947 - Scott Barry Kaufman - How To Not Let Your Past Define You
Yeah, great point. And if you want to discuss epigenetics within the development of an individual's lifespan, there is a lot of evidence for that, for sure. And that's a different topic than the intergenerational trauma issue. Those are separate issues. Within an individual's lifespan... So there seems to be genes that influence general sensitivity versus orchid dandelion, you know, hypothesis.
Modern Wisdom
#947 - Scott Barry Kaufman - How To Not Let Your Past Define You
So there are genes that influence you to be the kind of person who's sensitive to everything for better and worse. And then there are some people who seem to have a combination of genes that cause them to not be so affected by anything necessarily.
Modern Wisdom
#947 - Scott Barry Kaufman - How To Not Let Your Past Define You
And for those who have the genes that make them really sensitive to everything, the environment, the epigenetics really, really matters for those folks because there's some really cool studies with summer camps that takes these kids who are prone to a general sensitivity and may show neurotic-like traits and cause them to really face their fears and in a very supportive, encouraging environment.
Modern Wisdom
#947 - Scott Barry Kaufman - How To Not Let Your Past Define You
Rachel Gracioplany and Colin DeYoung did a great study about this, by the way. And really... support them and activate the curiosity element of this. Because sensitivity, it can go either way. It can cause you to avoid the world, but it can also, sensitivity doesn't necessarily have to be a bad thing or a way of holding you back in life.
Modern Wisdom
#947 - Scott Barry Kaufman - How To Not Let Your Past Define You
And we get so hung up on that, that it's like we're grasping for something to reduce ourselves to, to hang our identity on. And that could get in the way of us seeing our full potential, but seeing the depths of our being as well.
Modern Wisdom
#947 - Scott Barry Kaufman - How To Not Let Your Past Define You
If you're in a supportive environment where you learn early enough that you can take that feeling of fear and anxiety and still act it actually gives you a sense of great resiliency and it gives you a great sense of curiosity. So they found that those kids had the highest, by the end of the summer camp, they had higher curiosity scores and openness to experience than anyone else in the camp.
Modern Wisdom
#947 - Scott Barry Kaufman - How To Not Let Your Past Define You
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Trying to be hopeful.
Modern Wisdom
#947 - Scott Barry Kaufman - How To Not Let Your Past Define You
Yeah. And both, both, both. Yeah. It is true. The other way around is true as well. And it's, it's a real, it's a real shame. I mean, it, it matters a lot. What kind of partners you choose? Do you have sensitive, do you have partners who are sensitive to your triggers? Do you have partners who are going to gaslight you, abuse you, you know? Especially, you know, if you have a genome that
Modern Wisdom
#947 - Scott Barry Kaufman - How To Not Let Your Past Define You
makes you super sensitive to that sort of thing it is interesting though there are some people these genes that don't that make them just rock solid like stoic regardless of like whatever's thrown at them um that that's interesting you know there's like a genetic peculiarity towards that as well you know i don't know maybe david got those genes or maybe he developed it maybe he's maybe he was the other way and he developed it who knows but um but it is interesting um
Modern Wisdom
#947 - Scott Barry Kaufman - How To Not Let Your Past Define You
So yes, so of course we should have compassion as well for all the different ways epigenetics happen, but I don't think it means that there's no hope. I mean, like you said, it makes it harder, especially in childhood.
Modern Wisdom
#947 - Scott Barry Kaufman - How To Not Let Your Past Define You
I bring up childhood because in adulthood, if these things happen, you're really influenced a lot by these sensitive periods in your life when your brain is still developing, when your prefrontal cortex is developing, and you're coming up with cognitive strategies to overcome things and learn things. But I do think you can learn these strategies at any point in your life to a certain extent.
Modern Wisdom
#947 - Scott Barry Kaufman - How To Not Let Your Past Define You
Yeah, thanks for the opportunity. And we should also talk about the link between masculinity and being an HSP because I think a lot of men score high in this trait and feel shamed of it because they feel like societal expectations say that they're a sissy boy or something just because they score high in these traits.
Modern Wisdom
#947 - Scott Barry Kaufman - How To Not Let Your Past Define You
But being a highly sensitive person is the combination of two traits, neuroticism that we talked a little bit about, which is being fearful, having a lot of anxiety, but also people who are highly sensitive also score very high in openness to experience. appreciation of beauty and excellence.
Modern Wisdom
#947 - Scott Barry Kaufman - How To Not Let Your Past Define You
And what you often find is that they're so open to so much input in the world that they get overwhelmed quickly and then they need to retreat. So there's a constant push and pull between a full engagement in the world and all of its splendor and an avoidance Because one becomes overwhelmed with all the input that's coming in. That's really all it means. Some people make more of it than it is.
Modern Wisdom
#947 - Scott Barry Kaufman - How To Not Let Your Past Define You
I saw an interview with Kanye West where he said he's very misunderstood. He's really just a highly sensitive introvert. And then I made the argument, it's actually possible to be a highly sensitive asshole. There's no contradiction in that.
Modern Wisdom
#947 - Scott Barry Kaufman - How To Not Let Your Past Define You
Oh, absolutely. So having a victim mindset means you tend to blame all your problems on external circumstances, whether it's that life dealt you a bad hand or that a person or even an entire group of people have it in for you and are holding you back. You believe you don't need to take responsibility for your actions or reactions because of your past trauma.
Modern Wisdom
#947 - Scott Barry Kaufman - How To Not Let Your Past Define You
Yeah, I'm really glad you asked that question because I think a lot of people can view these things as negatives. But contextually speaking, it is very conducive to creativity to be able to see the nuances in things, to be able to have such an open mind where you're able to make connections between things that most people aren't seeing.
Modern Wisdom
#947 - Scott Barry Kaufman - How To Not Let Your Past Define You
A big part of my PhD dissertation was investigating the trait reduced latent inhibition and its correlation with creative thinking. People who have a reduced latent inhibition, I actually did this research with Jordan Peterson, believe it or not, back before he was famous. We published papers on this.
Modern Wisdom
#947 - Scott Barry Kaufman - How To Not Let Your Past Define You
But a reduced latent inhibition means that your filter is down where you don't see things as necessarily irrelevant to the current goal that you have. So there are people who, when they have a goal, they're so narrow-minded and single-focused about it that they ignore everything else around them that doesn't seem obviously relevant to their goal.
Modern Wisdom
#947 - Scott Barry Kaufman - How To Not Let Your Past Define You
But we found that really creative people, especially in the arts, and actually the paper I published, Jordan, looks at the difference between scientific creativity and artistic creativity. We found that people, particularly in the arts, have this reduced latent inhibition where they actually at an unconscious level let in a lot more information than
Modern Wisdom
#947 - Scott Barry Kaufman - How To Not Let Your Past Define You
Um, then that, that, uh, they're for some reason they're, they're, they're, they're a salience brain network is not tagging this incoming input as irrelevant. So they, they're, they're able to entertain it. And they also have the working memory capacity to entertain it.
Modern Wisdom
#947 - Scott Barry Kaufman - How To Not Let Your Past Define You
Shelly Carson also did some really great research showing that having a reduced lane inhibition plus an enhanced working memory capacity is kind of like the ideal. state of being for creativity. You can handle this influx of information and sort out what's relevant and what isn't at the conscious level, whereas most people filter out at the subconscious level.
Modern Wisdom
#947 - Scott Barry Kaufman - How To Not Let Your Past Define You
And schizophrenia. In the most extreme versions, this is what you see in mental illness. We put people in mental institutions for having two extreme versions of this, but for people who can have a moderate version of it seems to be the most conducive towards creative thinking.
Modern Wisdom
#947 - Scott Barry Kaufman - How To Not Let Your Past Define You
So it's perfectly okay to go around being an asshole to people because you can blame that on your own past trauma. You can't stop ruminating about your past victimization. And this probably isn't the most important part of the definition. You may fixate on how to enact revenge and you rarely think about solutions or ways of moving forward with your life with hope and purpose.
Modern Wisdom
#947 - Scott Barry Kaufman - How To Not Let Your Past Define You
I also think that social sensitivity, I think being able to be in a conversation and feel what another person is feeling or take in a lot of information, even nonverbal cues, not be blind to them, can be very valuable. It can help you make you a more caring human in a lot of ways. So we have the creativity, we have the sort of social aspects. I think also just appreciating life.
Modern Wisdom
#947 - Scott Barry Kaufman - How To Not Let Your Past Define You
Being able to see beauty where other people don't see beauty could be a big part of it as well. You do tend to find, they actually have separated, I talk about this study in some of my articles, but they separate the appreciation of beauty and excellence part from the anxiety part.
Modern Wisdom
#947 - Scott Barry Kaufman - How To Not Let Your Past Define You
And I find that if you separate that part of the high sensitivity, it's actually correlated with much higher levels of happiness and well-being. whereas the anxiety part is correlated with lower levels of anxiety and well-being. So I think there are good things we can take from being a highly sensitive person and we can try to manage the other parts.
Modern Wisdom
#947 - Scott Barry Kaufman - How To Not Let Your Past Define You
That tends to be a real big part of it.
Modern Wisdom
#947 - Scott Barry Kaufman - How To Not Let Your Past Define You
Yeah. I think this is really important for people like you to admit that. I was in a movie recently called Sensitive Men Rising starring me and Alanis Morissette and Luke Goss. Do you know who Luke Goss is, the actor? No. Google him. Luke G-O-S-S. He reminds me of you a little bit. Okay. He's, you know, he's very buff. Very good looking. He's bald.
Modern Wisdom
#947 - Scott Barry Kaufman - How To Not Let Your Past Define You
Yeah, well, testosterone is correlated with baldness.
Modern Wisdom
#947 - Scott Barry Kaufman - How To Not Let Your Past Define You
But look, you know, he's a great actor. But he... really talks in this movie about how he thinks he's a highly sensitive person and how he feels like there should be, there shouldn't be this stigma about manly looking men saying that they're highly sensitive people. And I really agree with that. I agree with that completely.
Modern Wisdom
#947 - Scott Barry Kaufman - How To Not Let Your Past Define You
And I think, you know, we need more people like you and Luke and, and me, I've been hitting the gym, um, making, no, uh, I'm being cheeky, but we really, we really need to, to give more men the memo that it's not, it's not a negative. It doesn't make you a sissy, you know?
Modern Wisdom
#947 - Scott Barry Kaufman - How To Not Let Your Past Define You
Were you in gifted education?
Modern Wisdom
#947 - Scott Barry Kaufman - How To Not Let Your Past Define You
Well, you nailed it. And this is what was tricky about the framing of this book and trying to come up with how are we framing this book? Because most of the self-help books that sell really well will tell you it's not you, right? It's either usually the two go-tos we blame are your ex-boyfriend and your mom. Those are the two big ones.
Modern Wisdom
#947 - Scott Barry Kaufman - How To Not Let Your Past Define You
God, I hate that bias. Um, you know, we really need to tell everyone that suffering is not a competition and you really see it. Um, all these hierarchies being created that like these groups are, you know, inherently suffering. These groups are not inherently suffering. Um, I'm not woke. Maybe this might be a surprise to you. Oh no, I'm not, I'm not woke.
Modern Wisdom
#947 - Scott Barry Kaufman - How To Not Let Your Past Define You
I mean, I, I really, uh, I'm not anti woke either, but I, I really believe in humanism. Um, and treating all people with dignity, respect, and listening to everyone's story, regardless of how they present themselves.
Modern Wisdom
#947 - Scott Barry Kaufman - How To Not Let Your Past Define You
I do think that in a big way, we need more people like you really saying that you're a highly sensitive person, so we don't stigmatize the trait high sensitivity, because it really can be a beautiful, beautiful thing, and I'm sure it motivates you and is a big reason why you're good at what you do. You ask thoughtful questions,
Modern Wisdom
#947 - Scott Barry Kaufman - How To Not Let Your Past Define You
You're good at integrating lots of things that other people are not integrating. I've noticed that in this interview. So, you know, you're a good integrator.
Modern Wisdom
#947 - Scott Barry Kaufman - How To Not Let Your Past Define You
Well, in my book, the biggest thing I say is don't be a victim of your HSP. Don't create a victim mindset around being a highly sensitive person. You see a lot of people who are HSPs, they literally see it as the core of their victim identity. So they expect people to tiptoe around them.
Modern Wisdom
#947 - Scott Barry Kaufman - How To Not Let Your Past Define You
And you see it. I mean, you see it.
Modern Wisdom
#947 - Scott Barry Kaufman - How To Not Let Your Past Define You
There's always one person who's like, I'm triggered, triggered.
Modern Wisdom
#947 - Scott Barry Kaufman - How To Not Let Your Past Define You
And it's like, okay, really take responsibility for your HS penis and don't expect... everyone to cater to that one aspect of your being, because I find that very disempowering. You empower your HS penis when you lead with it.
Modern Wisdom
#947 - Scott Barry Kaufman - How To Not Let Your Past Define You
I just literally said HS penis.
Modern Wisdom
#947 - Scott Barry Kaufman - How To Not Let Your Past Define You
Is this an outtake? No, no, no.
Modern Wisdom
#947 - Scott Barry Kaufman - How To Not Let Your Past Define You
Yeah. Being a highly sensitive person, you know, it's like anything else, any other aspect of your identity. Are you going to make it the core of your victim identity or are you going to harness it in the service of growth and becoming a better person? And I think you can ask that about any aspect of your personality.
Modern Wisdom
#947 - Scott Barry Kaufman - How To Not Let Your Past Define You
And most of the corner of the market and self-help world either blame the mom, the narcissistic borderline mother, or the ex-boyfriend. And so in discussing this with, and then also the Jews, we like blaming the Jews and everything. Well, that's another story. So I was working with my publisher.
Modern Wisdom
#947 - Scott Barry Kaufman - How To Not Let Your Past Define You
No matter what it is, your extroversion, your introversion, your conscientiousness, you know, all these things can have trade-offs. People who are too conscientious, like too gritty, there's a dark side to grit, right?
Modern Wisdom
#947 - Scott Barry Kaufman - How To Not Let Your Past Define You
You know, if like, if you're a workaholic, if you're, you know, that could be part of your victim identity is that you're too, you work too hard, you know, you could make anything work.
Modern Wisdom
#947 - Scott Barry Kaufman - How To Not Let Your Past Define You
you know the core of your victim identity and i don't want people to make anything the core of their victim identity i want them to not see themselves as that's that's the thing that's holding them back from the rest of their personality structure but as the thing that enables the rest of their personality structure okay how do people become victims of their emotions Yeah. Yeah.
Modern Wisdom
#947 - Scott Barry Kaufman - How To Not Let Your Past Define You
So when a lot of people think about becoming a victim, in general, they think about all the ways they're a victim to the external world. And the twist in my book is that part one are five ways that we're actually a victim to ourselves. It has nothing to do with the outside world. We can become a victim to our emotions when we take our emotions as facts.
Modern Wisdom
#947 - Scott Barry Kaufman - How To Not Let Your Past Define You
We don't just treat them as signposts, but we take them seriously, so seriously that we act immediately on whatever we're feeling. And we are quick to label, to find a label for whatever it is that we're feeling, as opposed to just checking in on the experience itself. So that's a big way that we become victim to our emotions.
Modern Wisdom
#947 - Scott Barry Kaufman - How To Not Let Your Past Define You
Anxiety is a big one. Um, fear, fear is a huge one. Fear holds us back from so many things in our life. And that's why in that chapter, I talked about the act approach, which I'm a big fan of. Um, Steven, have you had Steven Hayes on your podcast ever?
Modern Wisdom
#947 - Scott Barry Kaufman - How To Not Let Your Past Define You
He's the founder of the ACT approach to psychotherapy, which is a really brilliant form of psychotherapy that allows you to act in line with your values, no matter how you're feeling about the situation in the moment. Maybe you don't feel like it. Maybe you wake up like, I want to lose weight, but I don't feel like going to the gym today.
Modern Wisdom
#947 - Scott Barry Kaufman - How To Not Let Your Past Define You
And you really are able to regulate your emotions in a way where you still...
Modern Wisdom
#947 - Scott Barry Kaufman - How To Not Let Your Past Define You
Yes. Isn't that a great quote? It's probably my favorite quote out of all quotes in the history of the world. The psychotherapist Irving Yalom talked a lot about that and the importance of taking that existential perspective with his patients. I think for all of us, it's really important to recognize that
Modern Wisdom
#947 - Scott Barry Kaufman - How To Not Let Your Past Define You
end up in the gym you know really thinking more about what you want to get out in the long term as opposed to what may be holding you back in the short term so i think the act approach is a really uh a really great way forward right okay i just started the act journal it's the guys from uh is it psychologists off the clock Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Modern Wisdom
#947 - Scott Barry Kaufman - How To Not Let Your Past Define You
You do follow the main psychology podcast. I wrote this one.
Modern Wisdom
#947 - Scott Barry Kaufman - How To Not Let Your Past Define You
It's pretty cool that you do that. You care about that and that you admit that you do that, but you also do, you are interested in synthesizing. So maybe you're not giving yourself enough credit.
Modern Wisdom
#947 - Scott Barry Kaufman - How To Not Let Your Past Define You
First, I wanted to pitch a book on vulnerable narcissism, which is what is the topic I've been scientifically studying for the last 10 years. And they're like, well, people aren't going to admit that they're vulnerable narcissists. So I was like, okay, but this is something that we all, it's a dynamic mindset that we all can go in and out of.
Modern Wisdom
#947 - Scott Barry Kaufman - How To Not Let Your Past Define You
Well, first of all, I wanted to say, you asked me where can people find out if they're in HSP, and I just wanted to say hsperson.com. Lane Aaron has a scale that you can take some self-tests, so I wanted to say that. Cool. This question you asked, I was wondering if you could ask it one more time so I can really fully process it. Safety, feeling a sense of internal safety, is that it?
Modern Wisdom
#947 - Scott Barry Kaufman - How To Not Let Your Past Define You
Yeah. Well, I think that in general, we have much deeper reservoirs of resiliency than we realize. And we don't give ourselves the chance to test our resiliency muscles because we're too quick to constantly avoid things that we fear. So first of all, I do think that's very important. I also think that a lot of young people didn't get the memo that you don't have to feel happy all the time.
Modern Wisdom
#947 - Scott Barry Kaufman - How To Not Let Your Past Define You
A lot of young people, the second they feel unsafe, they avoid at all costs what could happen. And of course, we want to be safe, but don't always avoid the feeling of feeling unsafe. A lot of people feel unsafe around ideas. around words. That's become a thing in the younger generation, as Jonathan Haidt and Greg Lukianoff talk a lot about in Coddling of the American Mind.
Modern Wisdom
#947 - Scott Barry Kaufman - How To Not Let Your Past Define You
A lot of people feel unsafe with ideas with people that don't agree with them. They feel unsafe. And I don't think that's the way forward in life. That's not the way you challenge yourself. That's not the way you word and grow and encounter other perspectives. Also, experiences that get you out of your comfort zone are sometimes the most profound, wonderful experiences in humanity.
Modern Wisdom
#947 - Scott Barry Kaufman - How To Not Let Your Past Define You
Imagine if every time you start a new relationship, you have one fight with the person, and then you just give up. You're going to have a long stream of...
Modern Wisdom
#947 - Scott Barry Kaufman - How To Not Let Your Past Define You
And I do think that you lose your agency and you lose your empowerment when you do outsource all your problems to others. When you blame all your problems on someone else, you are stripping yourself of your agency. And so I really wanted people to see that. And I also wanted to come from a clear place of caring and not diagnosis. And I go through great pains. You'll see in the book, right?
Modern Wisdom
#947 - Scott Barry Kaufman - How To Not Let Your Past Define You
That is the term. That is the psychological term that's used in the ACT approach.
Modern Wisdom
#947 - Scott Barry Kaufman - How To Not Let Your Past Define You
That's because I'm... That's so cool. Well, I'm impressed. I thought it was because you read chapter four of my book.
Modern Wisdom
#947 - Scott Barry Kaufman - How To Not Let Your Past Define You
Um, that's so cool. Um, I'm impressed. Um, yeah, I mean, there is no protocol for this, you know, there's no, like you have to, first of all, check in with your own experience and try your best to not label it, try your best to, um, create a distance from what you're feeling. and your higher values and where you want to move to.
Modern Wisdom
#947 - Scott Barry Kaufman - How To Not Let Your Past Define You
Let's say you know you're starving and you know that there's something really sweet and fatty waiting for you in the fridge. All you have to do is open up the fridge and get it and move toward it. What you do is you check in with, well, what actually, you don't check in with what are my feelings right now. You check in with, well, what are my higher values?
Modern Wisdom
#947 - Scott Barry Kaufman - How To Not Let Your Past Define You
That's what you check in with, your higher values. I want to lose weight. I want to not be the kind of person that immediately opens up that fridge every time I'm hungry and picks out the most unhealthiest thing I have in the fridge. Check in with all of that first and let the emotions and the desires and those quick feelings subside, but be with them. Don't label them.
Modern Wisdom
#947 - Scott Barry Kaufman - How To Not Let Your Past Define You
Big one. A big one with low self-esteem. Well, actually, there's no such thing as low self-esteem. This is interesting. On psychological surveys, you very rarely will ever meet a human that says they have zero self-esteem. When you ask them to rate on a scale one to seven, how much self-esteem do they have? It's usually a bimodal distribution. So you usually see a lot of six and sevens.
Modern Wisdom
#947 - Scott Barry Kaufman - How To Not Let Your Past Define You
The people with the high self-esteem are clear. But then the second type of person is usually it's in the middle somewhere. So that's unclear. So it's an uncertain self-esteem. Usually what we call a low self-esteem is really an uncertain self-esteem. The person is constantly looking outward, They don't have a good inner compass of what they think they should be.
Modern Wisdom
#947 - Scott Barry Kaufman - How To Not Let Your Past Define You
And also from an evolutionary point of view, it's important to recognize there are different domains of self-esteem that evolved that are very separate from each other. You can have very high self-esteem for your work and have very low self-esteem for your mate value.
Modern Wisdom
#947 - Scott Barry Kaufman - How To Not Let Your Past Define You
they can be very different things so I think there's domain specifically evolved self-esteem as well and there's some really great evolutionary psychology papers around that that I cite in my book right so
Modern Wisdom
#947 - Scott Barry Kaufman - How To Not Let Your Past Define You
Yeah, absolutely. Vulnerable narcissism, which I talked about earlier, is very strongly correlated with this uncertain sense of self. The more that you can have an internal sense of who you are and what you want and be clear on your values, the less your self-esteem is gonna make a difference at all. You don't wanna be obsessed with your self-esteem.
Modern Wisdom
#947 - Scott Barry Kaufman - How To Not Let Your Past Define You
Like every sentence, there's a caveat. You know, I'm not here. I'm not in the game of shaming anyone. Not in the game. Usually when you talk about narcissism, when you talk about a victim mindset, it's always like it's the liberals, you know, the libtards or it's always about something else that then people bond together to like. to have the out group be the narcissist.
Modern Wisdom
#947 - Scott Barry Kaufman - How To Not Let Your Past Define You
You don't wanna be constantly in pursuit of high self-esteem. You don't want that to be your primary goal either. So that's why it's really important to get right with your own inner compass of what you want out of this life and what your actual real felt interests are and listen to them. I think a lot in life, we get values from our society. We get values from others and we want to belong.
Modern Wisdom
#947 - Scott Barry Kaufman - How To Not Let Your Past Define You
So we care so much about belonging to a certain group that we adopt all their values, even if it doesn't really suit us individually.
Modern Wisdom
#947 - Scott Barry Kaufman - How To Not Let Your Past Define You
I think that's why we need to harness an empowerment mindset. We've talked so much on this podcast about the victim mindset, but my call is for everyone to adopt an empowerment mindset where you play yes. And, you know, I really love improv like yes. And the game where you say, yes, I've had something terrible happen to me and I got this. And it is a shame.
Modern Wisdom
#947 - Scott Barry Kaufman - How To Not Let Your Past Define You
I see so much in our society of us just stopping with the, so much has happened to me and I don't see the end part of that, which is, and I have the deep reservoirs of resiliency to move forward with my life, with meaning and purpose. Both things can be true at the same time. We don't need to neglect the,
Modern Wisdom
#947 - Scott Barry Kaufman - How To Not Let Your Past Define You
Or downplay terrible things that have happened to someone else or that have happened to ourselves. That's love, is being able to acknowledge and validate. People just want to be validated. Well, no, they don't just want to be validated. People want to be validated, but they don't just want to be validated.
Modern Wisdom
#947 - Scott Barry Kaufman - How To Not Let Your Past Define You
They want to be validated for what they've been through, but they also want people to believe in them that they can rise above it.
Modern Wisdom
#947 - Scott Barry Kaufman - How To Not Let Your Past Define You
Thank you. And likewise, by the way, I really respect the hell out of you, man. Yeah, my website is scottbarrettkoffman.com. I have lots of stuff on there. You can buy Rise Above and hopefully any bookstore or online bookstore. And I have the Psychology Podcast.
Modern Wisdom
#947 - Scott Barry Kaufman - How To Not Let Your Past Define You
And that's not the vibe of my book. I really wanted, I call it honest love. You really validate someone's real felt experience of suffering and you're honest with them that you believe in their higher potential. What I think is missing is that latter part in our society today.
Modern Wisdom
#947 - Scott Barry Kaufman - How To Not Let Your Past Define You
Yeah, it's a terrific question. All throughout the course of our day, there's an opportunity to choose a victim mindset or to choose an empowering mindset. If we're waiting at Starbucks, there's a long ass line. It's very easy for us to forget that there are other people in that line as well that are probably also not having a great day.
Modern Wisdom
#947 - Scott Barry Kaufman - How To Not Let Your Past Define You
But it's very easy to fall prey to the notion, gosh, don't they know how bad my day is? I deserve to be at the front of this line. It's like this certain mentality. that I think we all can kind of fall prey to and we forget that we're not the only ones that are suffering. It happens everywhere.
Modern Wisdom
#947 - Scott Barry Kaufman - How To Not Let Your Past Define You
A big cognitive distortion associated with a victim mindset is seeing malevolent intent in ambiguous stimuli. Very nerdy. I know you'll be able to parse that, but it's a very nerdy way of saying Let's say you're going down the street. You smile at someone. They don't smile back. And you take it personally. You get mad. You're like, what the fuck? Why did that motherfucker not smile back at me?
Modern Wisdom
#947 - Scott Barry Kaufman - How To Not Let Your Past Define You
I went out of my way to smile at them. It's like, okay, chances are they probably didn't even see your smile. They're not thinking about you. They don't care about you. Why should they care? Why should they care about you? They don't, they don't know anything about you. You know, most likely it was just, it was just ambiguous. It wasn't that aggressive. So personalizing everything,
Modern Wisdom
#947 - Scott Barry Kaufman - How To Not Let Your Past Define You
um seeing malevolent intent in really just neutral stimuli um a really good example of that is is it really that really bothers comedians you know because that's their job but if they're like they see aggression in ambiguous facial expressions when they're performing on stage and that makes them really angry like why are you not laughing loudly at my jokes um
Modern Wisdom
#947 - Scott Barry Kaufman - How To Not Let Your Past Define You
And they interpret that as, well, the person hates them and hates their jokes. So that's an extreme example. But if we go across our everyday life like that, over-personalizing things, if someone doesn't text you back right away, you fall apart and think, oh, gosh, they hate me. All that stuff is really holding you back.
Modern Wisdom
#947 - Scott Barry Kaufman - How To Not Let Your Past Define You
Well, I think everything honestly comes from a mix of nature and nurture, all of our personality dispositions. It's definitely a personality disposition in the sense that some people we find in our studies over and over, some people score higher than others regularly on it. But I also think it's a dynamic mindset.
Modern Wisdom
#947 - Scott Barry Kaufman - How To Not Let Your Past Define You
Yeah, that's exactly right. And I think for a lot of us, we get stuck on a certain frequency. And I think sometimes therapy is not helpful with that. And that shouldn't be a controversial thing to say at all. If I had to choose, I would choose Irv Yalom as my psychotherapist. Who?
Modern Wisdom
#947 - Scott Barry Kaufman - How To Not Let Your Past Define You
So they found that a very, a very statistically significant effect that those who were wronged in the study, like they got the short end of the stick in one way, were more likely to give a puff of white noise to annoy a completely innocent. They suddenly became a sadistic society. They suddenly, normal everyday people became a sadistic psychopath.
Modern Wisdom
#947 - Scott Barry Kaufman - How To Not Let Your Past Define You
So I think it is a mindset that we all can be, it can trigger all of us. I really can't stand this constant, you're a psychopath, I'm not. You know, we're living in a society right now where everyone is so quick to call everyone else the narcissist and see themselves as the perfect angels. And I just don't think that's the accurate reality of the matter.
Modern Wisdom
#947 - Scott Barry Kaufman - How To Not Let Your Past Define You
No, I think we feel justified because the universe to balance things out a little bit to, um, to, uh, it's like a, you know, it's interesting. A lot of people say they're really into justice, but what they're really into is self justice.
Modern Wisdom
#947 - Scott Barry Kaufman - How To Not Let Your Past Define You
Just not justice for all, but when there's injustice, they see against their self and then suddenly they hashtag myself matters. Oh, right.
Modern Wisdom
#947 - Scott Barry Kaufman - How To Not Let Your Past Define You
No, I think they really care. I think they really care, but they care because it's a threat to something they see themselves as a part of.
Modern Wisdom
#947 - Scott Barry Kaufman - How To Not Let Your Past Define You
Yeah. Yeah. Um, and it's interesting that you linked that to the luxury beliefs idea. Um, I mean, the idea of signaling is, is everywhere. Once you start to look, Jeffrey Miller told me that once he said, he said that it copies it. Once you start to study signaling, you, you can't see anything in this world that in any conversation that isn't some form of signaling signaling.
Modern Wisdom
#947 - Scott Barry Kaufman - How To Not Let Your Past Define You
So I always thought that was interesting. Um, but I think that, um, What is really lacking is a real care for universal principles, universalism. If you say you care about justice against racial discrimination, you should care when a white person is discriminated against, right? And that's just, I mean, that's just an example, but it should work all the way around.
Modern Wisdom
#947 - Scott Barry Kaufman - How To Not Let Your Past Define You
If you're a white person, if you're a white supremacist and you're like, I care about justice against white people, you should also care about...
Modern Wisdom
#947 - Scott Barry Kaufman - How To Not Let Your Past Define You
black people too you know like like we should care about universal principles not just the extent to which an injustice has occurred against something that correlates with yourself why is victimhood so seductive like what's the so it is our default state here's something interesting um have you heard of word helplessness the theory of word helplessness
Modern Wisdom
#947 - Scott Barry Kaufman - How To Not Let Your Past Define You
Because Irv Yalom is the psychotherapist who has that quote, sooner or later, you have to give up all hope for a better past. Yeah.
Modern Wisdom
#947 - Scott Barry Kaufman - How To Not Let Your Past Define You
You were halfway there. Martin Seligman in the 70s and 80s did a whole series of studies starting with dogs and rats, and then they eventually went to humans. And I'll get to humans in a second. But they found that in dogs, you continually shock a dog, and then you open up the cage. So you keep them locked in a cage, and this is delightful, right?
Modern Wisdom
#947 - Scott Barry Kaufman - How To Not Let Your Past Define You
This sounds like psychopathic behavior, doesn't it? Yeah. Um, on the part of the experimenter, but you continually shock a dog while they're locked inside a cage. And then you look to see at what point, um, when you open up the cage, do they walk out? Because you, you, you, you give them the option to be free at some point.
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#947 - Scott Barry Kaufman - How To Not Let Your Past Define You
And you look to see how many times do you shock them before they no longer walk out of that cage, even though they can be free. And so they found that dogs pretty quickly were in helplessness. It doesn't take that many shocks for a dog to give up. and not walk out when the doors open. But what was interesting is when they got to humans, they found, and they had to completely redo the theory.
Modern Wisdom
#947 - Scott Barry Kaufman - How To Not Let Your Past Define You
So they have a paper 50 years later where they say they got it completely wrong, completely opposite. In humans, it seems like learned helplessness is the default state in humans. There's something very primal about that where we default to learned helplessness. And what we have to learn is hope. Hope is an intentional process that has to be learned. So you ask, why is it so seductive?
Modern Wisdom
#947 - Scott Barry Kaufman - How To Not Let Your Past Define You
Well, there's something so primal about the rewards we know we're going to get if we signal victimhood. It is something that just through the, we're such a social species and we know that the person who's perceived as the victim throughout the course of human evolution got a lot of support. And of course, there are real victims. And of course, we need to say that.