Hi, I’m Rée.
Growing up, I felt like the education system wasn’t built for people like me to succeed. As a student with undiagnosed neurodivergence, learning disabilities, and anxiety, I struggled to learn in the ways my peers learned.
In the decades following, I became an educator and taught in various classrooms around the world. I taught in public schools, private universities, large government funded programs, and even small academies. I designed curriculum, measured student success, and even assessed teacher efficacy.
Then, while teaching a group of English language learners in South Korea, who like me, hadn’t received adequate attention in school, I realized I was using the same methodologies as the ones that had failed me.
homeroom is my attempt to remedy this on an international scale. To speak with as many people from around the world about their own education systems to rethink what schools can be. What it should be, when we design systems and metrics which are inclusive of more diverse types of learners and thinkers with varying levels of family involvement and access to resources.
In this episode, I speak with Benoit—a US army veteran, former policymaker, and current psychotherapist—about his education journey across multiple countries, and having to adapt to each of its languages and cultures from scratch, every few years. We talk about the influence his mother had on his mental landscape, how he overcame being bullied in school, and what he learned about self-acceptance on his journey towards becoming a psychotherapist. We also discuss his views on education from both a micro and macroscopic view as a former Teach For America teacher and policymaker.
Here is our slightly edited conversation.
Computer-generated Transcript
Accessibility Disclaimer: Below is a computer generated transcript of our conversation. Please note that there are likely very many errors––including the spelling of our names––and may not make sense, especially when taken out of context.
00:00:03:05 – 00:00:29:21
Unknown
Hi, I’m Ray. Growing up, I felt like the education system wasn’t built for people like me to succeed as a student with undiagnosed neurodivergent learning disabilities and anxiety, I struggled to learn in the ways my peers learned. In the decades following. I became an educator and taught in various classrooms around the world. I taught in public schools, private universities, large government funded programs, and even small academies.
00:00:29:23 – 00:01:02:20
Unknown
I designed curriculum, measured student success, and even assessed teacher efficacy. Then, while teaching a group of English language learners in South Korea who, like me, hadn’t received adequate attention in school, I realized I was using the same methodologies as the ones that had failed me. Homeroom is my attempt to remedy this on an international scale to speak with as many people from around the world about their own education systems, to rethink what schools can be, what it should be.
00:01:02:20 – 00:01:28:17
Unknown
When we design systems and metrics which are inclusive of more diverse types of learners and thinkers with varying levels of family involvement and access to resources. In this episode, I speak with Benoit, a U.S. Army veteran, former policy maker and current psychotherapist, about his education journey across multiple countries and having to adapt to each of its languages and cultures from scratch.
00:01:28:17 – 00:02:01:11
Unknown
Every few years. We talk about the influence his mother had on his mental landscape, how he overcame being bullied in school, and what he learned about self-acceptance on his journey towards becoming a psychotherapist. We also discuss his views on education from both a micro and macroscopic view. As a former Teach for America teacher and policymaker. Here is our slightly edited conversation.
00:02:01:13 – 00:02:26:12
Unknown
I think social norms is an interesting one, since I think a lot of us, Don, are utterly unaware about the innate level of conditioning that we’re all by, by. And sure, we’ve heard about society’s comprised of people. But sure, that’s a trope, but it truly is like we are the byproduct of the conditioning that’s bestowed upon us parents, teachers, religious leaders, thought leaders, the people you put on a pedestal.
00:02:26:13 – 00:02:51:19
Unknown
So I think social norms is big, where as a psychotherapist and who’ve gone through a few near-death experiences, quite a handful of experiences right throughout my early thirties, I realized life is a series of learning and learning, but also mourning. We have dreams. We mourn the death of the dreams, but then new dreams we sprout and you go through that process.
00:02:51:21 – 00:03:16:04
Unknown
So I think the highlight for me was how different each system and system, as in social culturally view education so far in Asia. So I went to school in China and Korea, and of course I also went to school in Paris, but I was only seven, so I was mainly preschool and elementary school. So and as you know, when we look back at our experiences, we paint arrows, your pictures.
00:03:16:04 – 00:03:40:13
Unknown
And they actually were. So I don’t want to say too much about friends because it’s very far distance. But for Korea and China, not just America, but there’s skin in the game. This all or nothing mindset with education. They went to a test prep school in China as a first Korean students ever in the Chinese schools history because my mom pulled me out of a Singapore international school.
00:03:40:14 – 00:04:02:22
Unknown
It’s a real school in Shanghai, very famous international school. And she said, Wait, why am I paying you to learn English in China? You can do that in the U.S. So why don’t you go fallen into a Chinese environment, speak the language, behave like Chinese, and actually be part of the culture? So she pulled me out and I didn’t speak a lick of Chinese like.
00:04:03:00 – 00:04:29:20
Unknown
But I think because of the neuroplasticity you pick up fast and you pick up from the bad words from drama, TV, movies. But at least in my test prep school, I remember each teachers will get compensated and paid based on the performance of their students to make it even more humiliating. Given your educational background. They would rank the entire grade, not just classes in third grade based on performance.
00:04:29:20 – 00:04:51:15
Unknown
They’ll they’ll rank them in a hallway for everyone to see. And this is each quarter and based on and so you will see your rank our top 50 top ten. I forgot how many students we had. And then teachers would get bonuses. So imagine if you’re at the cusp, the precipice of doing really well, they will triple down on your performance because you represents bonus.
00:04:51:17 – 00:05:10:19
Unknown
But they fear the precipice of not doing so well. Maybe they don’t care about you as much. It’s never explicit. It’s implicit. And then Korea, I mean, you know how Korean system is, right? It’s the hog one, the endless. I mean, my fiancee, we said we’re doing pretty well in the US, but I don’t think we would have survived in Korea.
00:05:10:20 – 00:05:30:05
Unknown
Just we’re being very honest in Korea is you can speak more about that. And then the US obviously is more balanced. I think it’s sure there is a rigor. Sure, there is the American dream, but it’s not really life or death the way I think Asia treats it, because education is truly the only way of liberation based on that Asian mindset.
00:05:30:07 – 00:06:10:05
Unknown
Yeah, for sure. And I’m kind of curious like, you know, you had to learn languages every few years and, you know, navigate these social norms. And so you are constantly like the new kid or, you know, considered other. Right. And, you know, potentially, possibly humiliate it sometimes with teachers or peers. And I’m kind of curious, do you have any, like specific memories or stories of of feeling different from like the dominant cultures in the places that you were?
00:06:10:06 – 00:06:28:10
Unknown
That’s a good question. So now from the teachers, because I was the first international student and shout out to my mom, she’s a single mom, but she did well in business. So I was like the cool kid, right? Because I was a kid that brought his mom and my mom will buy the entire class, Burger King or McDonald’s.
00:06:28:12 – 00:06:47:21
Unknown
So teachers loved me, right? Because like, ask kissing excuse. My French is very common, at least in the Chinese system. This was years ago. I don’t know about now. And I’m sure that the tendons are so relevant in Korea just based on my family’s. And I visited Korea recently as well. So not from the teacher, but from peers.
00:06:47:21 – 00:07:16:22
Unknown
Yes, I think and it’s two sides side, one is it’s all about assimilation, right. As Korean-Americans, culture, assimilation, the Asia diaspora. And there’s very real and we go through this struggle of words to American for our Asian peers, but two Asian for a white peers. And that’s something we are to move through myself. And now I’m at a piece of who I am and my identity formation has been solidified through intentionality, the work and so on.
00:07:17:00 – 00:07:44:00
Unknown
But I think for others, yes, I think I had to constantly reassembly myself and sort of pick and choose my battles. I think certain battles are aren’t worth fighting. But then the ubiquitous need that all humans have is we all want to be liked. And that’s a very potent toxic poison for the youth. Since your neocortex is underdeveloped, you don’t have the awareness yet you don’t really have a sense of self not solidified, at least.
00:07:44:02 – 00:08:12:02
Unknown
So I remember camouflaging or shapeshifting a lot, tried to blend in with different crowds, and until recently in my adulthood, I’m in my thirties. This was in my twenties. I think I’ve learned to hold up because of my frequent exposure and experience and conditioning through other ism truly firsthand experience. First hand POV. I learned to adapt really fast and I learned to make friends at a sound of a heartbeat.
00:08:12:04 – 00:08:35:06
Unknown
I can make any friends. I’m very extroverted, but I like to tell people I make friends fast, but I pay high premium tax for my actual friends to free me to consider me as a friend. It takes years of varying compatibility experiences and Chong. He means history, right? And so I make friends fast, but my friends are very few and still active.
00:08:35:08 – 00:08:53:10
Unknown
But I think going through others and questioning myself, who am I? I think that’s a question that I know a lot of us ask, even if I doubt it. Like why am I? Who am I? Or what is my role in this world? And I think I would have struggled more in my development stage if I didn’t go through that experience.
00:08:53:12 – 00:09:13:01
Unknown
So I look at that experience with fondness, but during the experience it was very traumatic and, you know, I didn’t really plan then. I didn’t speak the language. I looked similar. But I think Koreans look better looking than Chinese. I could say that right, because I’m pretty much an honorary Chinese for my experience. And I still speak the language.
00:09:13:01 – 00:09:40:19
Unknown
I know the history very well. Yeah, but some of those are things that stand out to me. Wow, that’s so interesting. So I have a lot of acquaintances and friends who’ve lived in various countries, like a lot of military brats, like living from country to country following their parents. And I noticed that these people tend to make friends very quickly.
00:09:40:21 – 00:10:17:11
Unknown
They’re like the life of the party. They’re very social. They know how to navigate just about every social interaction and in their favor, I think. And, you know, like you said, it comes at a tremendous cost of having that trauma, of feeling other and and like, you know, it is a coping mechanism to to survive. Because I know, like you were talking about the neocortex and until I think we’re 25 or 26, we depend on social interactions.
00:10:17:11 – 00:11:01:00
Unknown
And and so social disconnection is basically death, right in our nervous systems. And I know, like, I was listening to several things and people have been commenting about how you’re only 30, but you’ve packed in so much life into like those 30 years. And so I find that really, I don’t know, sad in a way, but also really impressed and amazed by your resilience and your ability to, I don’t know, make peace with all of that angst or all of that that, that struggle that you experience at a young age.
00:11:01:01 – 00:11:30:18
Unknown
So, you know, I’m really you talked about language here a little bit. I read that you speak three and a half languages and that you you speak Korean and English and Chinese with proficiency. But I notice you didn’t list French. And so I was curious, what was your first language and what language was spoken at home and what is the language that you speak to yourself in, in your mind?
00:11:30:20 – 00:11:51:03
Unknown
People ask me, what language is my dreams in language I think about? I don’t know. They just blend into one. The half is a French because there is not a lot of French in the US, so they’re a dying breed. So not a lot of opportunity to practice. And as you know, language is the most powerful tool humans ever create a period and then internet is probably the second.
00:11:51:03 – 00:12:13:16
Unknown
But technology wise, language is the most potent technology. So yeah, French is a half. But what dreams or what do I think? And I like right now, I think I’m thinking English because that is my best language or most fluent. But growing up in Paris, my mom, she’s a polyglot. My mom speaks six languages. She would be very cool for YouTube.
00:12:13:18 – 00:12:41:04
Unknown
She’s never done a podcast, but she’d be a cool guest for you. Yeah. she. She speaks six languages, still fluent in French after 20 plus years. And I think she also things in mixed languages. But for her, Korean is the most comfortable. So at home we spoke mixed with French and Korean. But my mom told me I don’t remember this, but allegedly she told me that when I was in preschool, in elementary school, in France, in Paris, she told me that I was a principal, the rebel.
00:12:41:06 – 00:13:00:21
Unknown
I made a mission to do a reverse cultural Revolution, and I wanted to teach every French kid Korean. And I think I did that. I don’t remember. But that’s what my mom said, allegedly. But I don’t really know the language. I think in I think it’s English, but it’s not really it’s not really there. It’s it’s cute externally ask a question.
00:13:00:21 – 00:13:44:00
Unknown
It comes out but some really thought out it’s more of a very fluid dynamic. So speaking of your mom, I heard you talk about your single mom and how accomplished she is and how controlling she was of you and her hopes of your future. And also about a stepfather figure who may have been hard on you. And I was wondering if you could share a bit about some of the expectations that they did have of you and how your interactions with your caregivers really, I guess, shaped your mental emotional landscape.
00:13:44:02 – 00:14:06:01
Unknown
Stepdad, Not so much, because, as you know, this invisible, implicit dynamic with the step parents in the child is very delicate. Yeah. So she so my stepdad never imposed anything and he knew I was a pressure cooker myself. Type A and my mom was enough pressure for both of them. So my stepdad, not so much, but my mom.
00:14:06:03 – 00:14:28:06
Unknown
So my first encounter with depression, I call that now with knowledge. But back then I didn’t know what that was, right. It was just I was perpetually low mood, low energy. I always felt like I didn’t live up to whatever expectations. And it’s not until we sort of take our parents off the pedestal. I’ve talked about on a podcast before, we have to take them off to challenge what they say.
00:14:28:08 – 00:14:50:07
Unknown
Otherwise you can challenge people who look up to you. It’s a cognitive thing. It’s also emotional process. But I remember my first depression was actually after high school to go to college at that time, and I’m still Korean parents and Asian parents. They don’t quite understand the difference between the prestige of a program and a prestige of a school.
00:14:50:09 – 00:15:12:02
Unknown
They just go to the favor. Website for College Age Parents is U.S. News ranking dot com right that’s that’s all they care about the number the numeric value aside from what it actually represents what encompasses just the ranking. So my mom told me that I don’t even want you to apply to anything below top 25. That’s a top 25 only.
00:15:12:04 – 00:15:40:20
Unknown
And I think I’ve gotten a lot more curious since. And the way I define intelligence is our ability to process and integrate information. But back then I wasn’t as curious. I think I’ve gotten smarter using the colloquial terms, but back then I did okay, right? I had A’s. High school was pretty easy for me. I didn’t really care for test prepping and I had a girlfriends my senior in high school and now I have a highly addictive personality.
00:15:40:22 – 00:16:03:05
Unknown
I guess for me it’s other workaholism because I love what I do or I have to find my addictions. I tell my patients, if you do not pick your addictions or suffering, sufferings or addictions will find you, period. So back then it was while World of Warcraft, right? I was highly addicted. I skipped my S.A.T. tutor sessions. I paid them off saying that, Hey, take the money.
00:16:03:05 – 00:16:25:15
Unknown
Just don’t tell my mom. They were happy about it. It was a win win lose situation for my mom, but she got to know she probably still doesn’t know. So with the potent combo of girlfriend and while I didn’t really study for S.A.T., so I didn’t do that well, so I got waitlisted by most of them. I got rejected by top 15 and my mom didn’t believe in safety school.
00:16:25:17 – 00:16:52:05
Unknown
Safety school just means a safety net, like a guaranteed admission. My mom’s exact words were, You have me in God. Everything’s possible, right? I said, Mom, I don’t think God cares by admission into college. And then I got rejected and I experience my first depression. I felt worthless. I felt like I was a failure. That’s the first time I experienced this dark cloud, this looming darkness.
00:16:52:07 – 00:17:12:17
Unknown
I feel I couldn’t get out. Like the bottomless pit from Dark Knight Rises. You got out because pot armor and he’s a billionaire. I didn’t have the building or the plot armor, so I got stuck for a while and that’s when my mom really recognized and reconciled with the fact that her dream is not my dream. I cannot be the vessel for her unfulfilled dreams, whatever that means.
00:17:12:19 – 00:17:38:20
Unknown
And a lot of Asian kids go through that where the vessels for their dreams to continue fate that their parents couldn’t have for immigration reasons or different barriers. And I recognize that I’m deeply grief forever. So but that’s the expectation of my mom and that’s just one of many examples. But yeah, you don’t realize how much of your worth because we’re unstable with our sense of identity is basked in our parents words.
00:17:38:22 – 00:18:12:23
Unknown
They can see something in passing or something seemingly innocuous, but it leaves a far deep imprint in us, and that takes ten years of therapy to unwind and decouple. But that’s the story that comes in my mind. my gosh, that’s so relatable. My mother is she’s very hard on herself. And and as a single mom herself, she was very hard on me, but not not in a way, not in an unloving way.
00:18:12:23 – 00:18:59:04
Unknown
She was very sweet and showed me a lot of affection. But you know, those words of criticism always were like knives. So, yeah, they they do stay with you a long time. And I think I’m on year six or seven of therapy, so I got three more to go. But we’ll see. We’ll see how how that goes. You actually mentioned to Taryn on her podcast Better Call Daddy that you have since reconciled with your your differences with your mom and how she has held space for the emotional grief that you felt as a child that she couldn’t give you at the time.
00:18:59:06 – 00:19:35:05
Unknown
And I was curious, you mentioned that she was very open and that she held space for you and allowed you to kind of tell her where she went wrong and that you have an excellent relationship with her now. And I guess I’m kind of asking maybe from a personal standpoint, like like I think it takes a lot of emotional maturity in our parents to accept that kind of criticism from their children.
00:19:35:07 – 00:20:00:03
Unknown
And I was wondering how you approach that topic or how you knew she had the emotional maturity to accept that from you? It’s gradual, right? So few things where I think just like we sometimes are the vessels for our parents on lives or unfulfilled dreams, I think the other side is we are also a mini version or extensions of who they are.
00:20:00:05 – 00:20:23:15
Unknown
So I’m very introspective. I’m a thinker. Since I was young, I’ve been a ferocious reader since I was 13. So because of those traits by proxy, I knew that’s how my mom was was 5052. Either my mom’s like that or my dad’s like that. My biological father, who was not in the picture. So just through that, I had a faith that if I’m like this the proxy, I wonder how my mom is.
00:20:23:17 – 00:20:41:10
Unknown
And she is introspective. She is very thoughtful. As you said, she was a loving mother who happens to have some very sharp things as a tiger mom. Now she’s retired. Tiger mom seems to be a full blown tiger, a mom. So that’s one. The second thing is I think a lot of immigrant and Asian kids are just immigrant kids.
00:20:41:12 – 00:21:05:12
Unknown
We have to accept this fact that we have to earn their respect. I don’t mean the respect as a dignity of a human being. I mean the respect as we are now, this full blossom humans and adults who came from the path of childhood that you raised. So it’s almost like not ask to trust us right away, but asking them to trust their level of parenting.
00:21:05:13 – 00:21:29:21
Unknown
But that’s a caveat because it’s only come with if there are good parents. In terms of good as in they tried, right? If they’re negative, if they’re negligence, hurtful because there’s a lot of horrible, horrible parents out there. A lot of my patients are I care about them as patients. But it’s multidimensional. You can be a bad mom, but a great employee or horrible employee, but a grandmother, they both can be sensitive.
00:21:29:21 – 00:21:54:06
Unknown
This is true. I think people forget how multidimensional humans are by default. So I think just over time, especially with my drinking days since I’ve been sober for a long time, a lot of the incidents I had, my mom were called into office more than she could count. I think she saw my projections, but not just projections that was supported by evidence of the person in the man I was becoming.
00:21:54:07 – 00:22:17:09
Unknown
And I think through that process, she learned to open up more and just trust me because there’s enough evidence. My favorite definition for confidence is when you look back, there is undeniable amount of proof to support what you believe. That’s confidence and I think she had confidence, not necessarily me, but the proof that was established. So that was a huge thing.
00:22:17:11 – 00:22:39:08
Unknown
And then fast forward, I’m just I’m very honest because I know that family’s by blood, but I think family hurt is by choice. I think you have to make a decision to reconcile and reconnect since family gets very complacent. because we’re born, we’re a leader. We should be. We will navigate this and we will always be in each other’s lives.
00:22:39:10 – 00:22:58:13
Unknown
I can tell you, for people, the top of my head, that’s not the case. So I had the courage and the understanding that I have to make a first step. I have to approach my mom and I have to share her share with her how I feel through the lens of not to criticize you and make you feel bad or guilt trip you.
00:22:58:15 – 00:23:26:01
Unknown
Because without her there is no me and my younger sister. Rather, I’m approaching you because I care about her family hood Not just family, but family hood. And I want us to continue to and kindle and rekindle through our adulthood. Like I’m a Christian and a lot of Christians, they did convert. They were Christians. Eric Well, they owns a church, maybe Christian school, Catholic schools, and then they go to college.
00:23:26:03 – 00:23:53:03
Unknown
This disconnect because that supervision and oversight is gone. And I tell them this because their childhood faith didn’t withstand the test of time and stress tested by life. I think it’s the same case for family. I don’t want our childhood family plans get real ended or derailed by just life. The sequences of life, my own suffering, her suffering, everyone’s broken in some way.
00:23:53:05 – 00:24:30:08
Unknown
So I made a lot of effort. And I attribute once again to her DNA, since that’s the person I am. Yeah, I think there’s a lot of intention there, right? Like that distinction you make between being family and actually family. Hood Right. There’s a lot of deliberate, intentional work towards making sure that the family unit stays together versus, you know, just letting the concept of, yes, we’re blood or we have this shared history and feeling like it’s okay.
00:24:30:10 – 00:24:58:18
Unknown
So, yeah, that’s a really good distinction. I’m curious, did did your mother have I think you mentioned that she had really high expectations of you and you also felt that internal internal pressure because you were the older brother or the older sibling. And I’m wondering, did she have different expectations for your sister than she did for you? She did.
00:24:58:20 – 00:25:17:05
Unknown
So, I mean, it’s a double edged sword, right? I think the perks of being the older sibling is we get more privileges. And my mom admitted this is one of the deepest traumatic wounds for my sister. I was a favorite child. I was and she admitted it. And they’ve gone through a lot of family therapy as a result, and they’ve reconciled since.
00:25:17:05 – 00:25:39:01
Unknown
So everything is gray now. So there are some privileges. The downsides are I am the guinea pig. I get all the beatings. I got physically beat, emotionally abuse, verbal abuse. I got the belt to the back hands, the slippers to the hangers, the baseball toy. I’ve I’ve endured it all. My skin withstood the test of a lot of that.
00:25:39:03 – 00:25:58:23
Unknown
And of course, there’s there’s a difference between discipline and child abuse. I was not abused. I was properly disciplined and I needed it. I was a wild kid. I needed it. I needed certain conditioning. So but to my sister, I think she was a second child. And as you know, parents get little bit more comfortable and they do receive less attention.
00:25:59:00 – 00:26:21:20
Unknown
But I think the biggest, I guess, differentiator was my sister didn’t really have behavior problems growing up. She was a good kid. She never talked back like me. She never got beat because she didn’t need to get beat. And like I did, she really deserves a lot of that discipline. But then it’s action or reaction because she didn’t get disciplines.
00:26:21:22 – 00:26:42:23
Unknown
She blew up in college and almost like a late onset explosion between my parents and my sister, whereas I got all of mine up until high school and then after college, not a lot of conflicts because I already went through it and I’ve made it and adjusted to the, I guess, healthier way of living. So yeah, there are definitely some differences.
00:26:42:23 – 00:27:10:01
Unknown
And with achievements I was often number one in my class. My sister was often last in her class, so I think I was a basket of achievement for my parents growing up. For now, she’s an engineer. She’s killing it, Master’s all that. So I think because I was doing my kids, whatever that meant for them at the time, they were able to put all their eggs in my basket and sort of just encourage my sister to try our best.
00:27:10:01 – 00:27:34:07
Unknown
Right. And to my mom’s credit, am I extend my daughter was supportive regardless, but to my mom she did always emphasize effort above outcome. But she was a tiger mom because it’s the way she comes off in that authoritarian regime type of approach. But she always emphasized making the effort and she knows when I gave my effort or when I didn’t.
00:27:34:09 – 00:27:59:04
Unknown
So and whereas my sister she was yeah she tried to she she gave her effort and like I say, she was quote, the goody kid. Yeah, I do hear about that occasionally or not occasionally, but that’s, I think the norm is that the second child gets a lot less attention or affection and they have their rebellious period a lot later in their lives.
00:27:59:06 – 00:28:29:01
Unknown
And so, you know, in a conversation you had with Veronica on Sober Full, you talked about how guilt over time leads to shame. And then that becomes part of your identity, which is so much more difficult to unpack and resolve. And so I also heard you mention that you are bullied in high school and used football to channel your anger.
00:28:29:03 – 00:28:54:17
Unknown
And I was wondering if you could share a little bit about where that anger came from and what your internalized self-talk looked like and sounded like. So I like to tell people that football saved my life because I was suicidal in high school because I was bullied severely. So I went to boarding high school and in Baltimore, it’s like a small hick town outside of San Diego.
00:28:54:23 – 00:29:17:11
Unknown
So I just tell people San Diego because they don’t know what it’s a riverside. So I was the first Asian kid. I was a first international student. It was all white, all from Wisconsin. And there is a difference between racism, by ignorance and racism, by choice. Most of my friends are racism because of lack of exposure. So it’s not really their fault.
00:29:17:15 – 00:29:40:21
Unknown
And I guess we’re the by product of our circumstances, period. And some of the biggest bullies became my best friends in high school when I in touch anymore because I’m in such different stages of life. But yeah, we we have the power to reclaim our victimhood and turn that into something productive. So as I talked about the assimilation, the other ism and so on, so some of my biggest bullies became my best friends in high school and sports helps.
00:29:40:23 – 00:30:00:21
Unknown
But I see football. I see my life without football. I don’t know what I’ve done right. And I was like, This is amazing legal way and all you do is hit people. This is amazing. Sign me up. And that was truly transformative. But in terms of the bullying, it was severe because it’s like other ism going back to how this competition started.
00:30:00:23 – 00:30:30:07
Unknown
You’re instinctively and evolutionarily wired to view someone that’s different. You perceive them as other. You think about tribalism is tribalism by definition requires a tribe. And what’s a tribe? A opponents. There’s opposing tribe, opposing village. So humans are tribal creatures. So that means in our DNA, we’re wired to view other people as others. But we have a neocortex.
00:30:30:07 – 00:30:56:09
Unknown
We’re not just animals, so we can resist and rewire that conditioning. It is possible. But yeah, high school is an interesting experience because when I look back to high school, which seems like two lifetimes ago, it has a lot of purity because you’re so pure, there’s nothing transactional. My entire school was four grades in 80. I think 86 students for entire high school was extremely tiny.
00:30:56:11 – 00:31:21:11
Unknown
The teachers knew our first names. Our spend my Thanksgiving at the principal’s house. I was really good friends with his sons, so it was like a microcosm of a family. So it was amazing. It was such an innocent and pure time. But the flip side is, like you said, bullying in the beginning, which subsided after sophomore year, by the way, because you learned to stand up for yourself because even bullies the only bully people who don’t speak up and self advocate.
00:31:21:13 – 00:31:40:20
Unknown
And I think football taught me the art of fighting back, you know, strategic, diplomatic way. So you stand up to your bullies, which I did, and they learn to respect you a little bit. And I think the hard earned respect tying this to our family conversation with our mom, how do we earn respect from our parents and how do you reconcile with that?
00:31:40:22 – 00:32:09:21
Unknown
You have to earn their respect. And the level of effort that’s required, I think, creates a level of respect. So because my respect was hard earned by speaking up and fighting back, not physically on the football field or verbally, they learned to say, Wow, Ben, war is not something I just step on and just bully our will. He has a voice and he is someone who is willing to speak up for himself, whether it’s on the football field or otherwise.
00:32:09:23 – 00:32:38:17
Unknown
And that’s where I think Achievement Mindset, which I talk a lot about on Arenas podcast and also Veronica’s, is I think it’s a double edged sword I attribute to the opportunities and who I am in life because of the way I was brought up. And it’s my DNA. I am type-A by heart and I appreciate achievements not for the prestige or the sake, but the process, the journey, the behind the scenes, the effort, the invisible sweat, blood and tears.
00:32:38:18 – 00:32:59:18
Unknown
But then I think the the downside is you put your worth in the basket of achievement. But in the case of high school and bullying, I knew physically I was I think I was five for freshman year and the sophomore I became 511. So I grew a lot over one summer. But then obviously my white peers are taller and bigger.
00:32:59:20 – 00:33:19:20
Unknown
So I knew physically in terms of physical prowess, I was not going to compete with them on or off the football field. But intellectually it’s a fair game. And I knew my mom was smarter than their parents. In a lot of cases, every metrics of smartness. So I knew that I could destroy them on academic front, and I did.
00:33:19:22 – 00:33:41:08
Unknown
So I think that’s how I was able to sort of like pick my battles. But whether academically or not, people learned to respect you. If you learn to advocate and speak up for yourself. Wow, that’s so interesting that you talk about how like you are type A from I guess, your Constitution. And I think this might not be the same.
00:33:41:08 – 00:34:10:18
Unknown
But the other day I had this thought that I am not sharp by Constitution. I’m I’m it’s hard to explain. I’m a very visual thinker. And I think of like, if I just look at a pencil, right. There’s there are people who are really sharp at the top. And then there are people who are more dull and make up the base or the foundation of that triangle at the top.
00:34:10:19 – 00:34:42:22
Unknown
And I’m very much in that like bottom of the base. And so I’m like a very, like wide lateral thinker and very divergent. And then there are people like you who are convergent thinkers and are very sharp. And, you know, I didn’t have that ability to sharpen myself when I was younger. And so I was always kind of considered inferior or have inferior to my peers.
00:34:43:00 – 00:35:25:19
Unknown
And, you know, like art and creativity isn’t as valued, I think, in our education system. So I was always like, okay, not part of the good batch of students. And so I know that you defined intellect or or smartness as your ability to process information. And I kind of think of myself as like, like Photoshop. Whenever I run Photoshop on my computer, it takes up so much space and so much memory and it takes a lot of time to process and pasteurize images and process them.
00:35:25:21 – 00:36:03:14
Unknown
And so like, you know, like that, saying that a work, a photograph is 10,000, 4000 words. Yeah. And so I’m always very, very slow and I’m always transcribe being what I see. And so I it’s always very interesting to me when people say that they started sharp from the outset, because for me, from my Constitution, I cannot imagine that, you know, I mean, I take it at face value, but it’s so hard for me and so I had to really learn how to sharpen myself.
00:36:03:16 – 00:36:31:04
Unknown
But I’m in therapy for OCD because I, I’m too hard on myself. And that I, I have to take so much from. I really have to sharpen who I am. And so I’m like cutting down on who I am to sharpen so convergence is very difficult. So that’s a long comment. But I just wanted to say that it’s so fascinating to hear the other side of being a true convergent thinker.
00:36:31:04 – 00:36:57:01
Unknown
I think you talked about that with one of your guests, I think. Rich Kirkpatrick. Yes. Yeah. You either can make a quick comment. Yeah. Aside from your exceptional research skills is what the opportunity is. So lateral thinking, convergent thinking, and divergent thinking, it can be trained. So if you look at the latest research with epigenetics, which is nurturing, genetics is of course genetics is nature.
00:36:57:03 – 00:37:29:12
Unknown
It’s about 60% is epigenetics, all materials. What that means is humans are comprised of 60% nurturing and 40% nature. So, for example, to your point, I am a natural convergent thinker. Shout out to my mom, both through my podcasting and my creative journey, I’ve become a better divergent and lateral thinker. That’s what podcasting is. Call back. You make lateral connections, you illustrate a point, and you tell a story.
00:37:29:13 – 00:37:54:23
Unknown
When you’re interviewing someone, you have to continuously make 14 different decisions. You have to be fully immersive. You have to dissect what the guest is saying. You have to pick a most likely perceivable interesting point from the guests perspective, while simultaneously considering what the audience want to hear about. Yeah, also thinking about are we on the point and can I make any word salad or creative connections?
00:37:55:03 – 00:38:17:05
Unknown
Right. And that’s all. And then you ask a question. But this is millisecond, just like all my interviews are life. There is no pauses in between. You hear what the actual experiences and similar to yours most likely as well. So lateral thinking and divergent thinking can be trained. And I think that’s what makes humans amazing because we’re not just animals.
00:38:17:05 – 00:39:03:03
Unknown
We don’t have to take or are given to us and just say, that’s a folder cards. We have to rewrite our destiny in a lot of senses. Yeah, definitely the growth mindset, right? And I think when I look back at I think we’re we’ll go into this, but I think about how from my education system or the way that I was raised, it almost feels like the education system is geared in a way where, you know, they divide you into valuable and not valuable, not realizing that we have incredible neuroplasticity and that we have an incredible ability to grow from where we are.
00:39:03:05 – 00:39:42:16
Unknown
And so, yeah, I’m excited to ask you that question, but that’s one question before that. So we talked a little bit about the you struggling with the well, I heard you talk about the struggle with addiction, with alcohol and how you gave that up. And I wanted to know, like what you thought about either the nature of the trauma that you experienced in your own life or about your mental or emotional resilience that transformed your anger.
00:39:42:18 – 00:40:10:12
Unknown
And like or in other words, like how did you take back control over your emotions and make that deliberate intention to channel it in a more productive kind of way? I think that question is similar, not similar, but extensions of the question as earlier. The anger from high school, of course, I said, was based on the bullying. I think the underlying, you know, answer both of those questions together.
00:40:10:14 – 00:40:37:23
Unknown
I think the roots and the origin or the genesis of my anger is this feeling of lack of control. So fear is a primary is the primary emotion that humans are born with. Of course, with our fear will be dead. Simple anger is often a secondary emotion. So when people are angry, like in L.A., as you know, the city of palm trees in traffic, when people cut you off or cuss you off or whatever, they’re not.
00:40:37:23 – 00:41:01:09
Unknown
Yes, they’re mad at the fact that you cut them off. But something underlying that prompted that anger. I told my friends that, hey, when you when this road rage also, it’s very dangerous. People get very reckless since any behaviors and actions, they’re right out of emotion is reckless. Some people are like, what can they be more logical?
00:41:01:09 – 00:41:34:06
Unknown
If you know anything about brain science when you’re being emotional and angry? The first thing that goes off line is neocortex. You literally cannot think logic when you’re angry. It’s not possible because amygdala fear center comes alive because now you’re surviving mode, you’re not being logical. So that’s what I want to highlight. It’s always something deeper. In my case, in a lot of people’s cases, anger is a compensatory, it’s a compensation of the fact that we feel powerless.
00:41:34:08 – 00:41:55:13
Unknown
So in high school, I felt powerless because I was getting bullied. There’s nothing I could do. I was getting bullied for my skin pigmentation. I can’t change my race like Michael Jackson, Right? I love him. Right. Quick joke, but I can’t do that. So how do I do it? I channel it through the fall in my case. So in high school was because I don’t know what I what else I could have done to stop bullying.
00:41:55:15 – 00:42:16:07
Unknown
That’s when I forced me to confront my fear and stand up for myself. So shout out to my anger and high school. Without the anger, I will not become who I am for real. I mean that. So. But then go back to your question. It’s the same thing. Rage. It’s always about the fear of loss of control. Humans love patterns.
00:42:16:09 – 00:42:40:02
Unknown
We love pattern recognition. Why? It gives us an illusion that we have predict. We can predict how life works. If we can recognize pattern, that means, there must be established pathway, there must be a way to peer into the future to see how this in what order to play out even the word arts or should should it?
00:42:40:02 – 00:43:05:14
Unknown
Based on what? We don’t get to bend to life to our will. So I think for me, anger, it’s a lot of loss of control. But to answer your question, how can we channel that productivity? I think it’s finding what’s meaningful to you. I talk a lot about meaning on my podcast, right? I use I talk about meaning a lot and loneliness a lot, since those things are very dear to my heart and suicide as a veteran and as a psychotherapist.
00:43:05:16 – 00:43:35:14
Unknown
But I think it’s about meaning. So in high school, the most meaningful basket for me was not getting bullied. Those number one survival be make friends. As I said earlier, ubiquitous imprints as we want to be light. Period. I think now I’m in a stage where I’m understanding the difference between being respected and being liked because people can respect you and not like you because they could put you on a pedestal without liking you since you seem very intimidating.
00:43:35:16 – 00:43:59:05
Unknown
So I think that’s an interesting dynamic as well. But I think you can channel your anger or your fear or your feeling of loss of control by doing something you can control. Just like humans were continuously an infinite flowing stardust, I posted hours and threads recently. I had a I knew this, I’ve known this. I had a profound random thought.
00:43:59:07 – 00:44:23:22
Unknown
It was a full moon. I think last week or a few days ago. And I realize we’re literally spending our entire existence on the spinning rock that we call Earth in this infinitely complex webs of galaxies and universes that we know very little about. And then we have a flame war we experience based on what’s meaningful to us, and then we die and then people forget about it.
00:44:24:00 – 00:44:51:03
Unknown
In 2020 or 21, Robert Williams killed himself. Kate Spade killed himself. Mike Posner killed himself. Just a few of the many. Mac Miller did a lot of people write R.I.P. to all of them? But the how many times people talk about that maybe never thought about Robin Williams ever knew until I just talked about it. Right? So I realize it’s such a fickle existence and everything.
00:44:51:03 – 00:45:14:00
Unknown
We do matter because we exist. So we’re both we need to hold space for. We don’t really matter. We don’t, but we matter in everything we do because we exist. So I think recognizing that we can’t really control life and we can’t control something, I think that’s the best way to channel our anger or feeling of loss of control in a productive way.
00:45:14:02 – 00:45:53:11
Unknown
Yeah, And you know, that’s I did see that thread, actually. And kind of a side tangent. I don’t know what kind of music you enjoy, but I when I was younger, I really, really loved progressive trance and, and, and I still am going back into that. I just love the way that it makes me feel. And I was listening to there’s an album by Fairy Kirsten called Gorilla, and that whole album, it’s such a great, I don’t know, background track to this idea of like, who are we?
00:45:53:14 – 00:46:38:02
Unknown
We’re here for just such a short period of time and where are we going? We better make the best of this life. So that was a tangent, but I really think that it’s important that we know how precious our life is and also to raise a generation of young people who actually enjoy their own company or who actually like themselves or who can actually feel empowered enough to feel like that their life is theirs.
00:46:38:04 – 00:47:09:14
Unknown
And so I kind of want to ask you about your experience with Teach for America and then going into, you know, becoming a policymaker and then also getting your masters in psychotherapy and social work. So, you know, you have in my head, you have both like a systems view, like a balcony view of sort of like the issues with society that kind of exacerbate a lot of the issues that our young people deal with.
00:47:09:16 – 00:47:42:12
Unknown
But you also have like in in the maze view, right, with your work one on one as a psychotherapist. And so you also kind of hear about all the failures of bad parenting. You also see, like all of the problems that the your clients deal with and and all the departure points of why they dislike themselves so much that they have to, you know, cope using external methods.
00:47:42:14 – 00:48:21:18
Unknown
And so when I look at what is happening with our economy and where we’re going, I wanted to know if you could speak from your perspective about how our education systems either in the U.S. or globally, contribute to or exacerbate or perpetuate social inequities and self-loathing and how we sort of move on from there. What’s the that’s a big question.
00:48:21:20 – 00:48:41:10
Unknown
That’s a very, very fast question. So I speak only what I know. And at the end I’m only 31, so what do I know? Right? So please disregard anything I said in this interview. I truly hope to look back to my past conversation and hope that I’ve evolved and updated my operational system. And that’s that’s the philosophy I live by.
00:48:41:12 – 00:49:00:03
Unknown
So Teach for America was interesting. And I do want to be honest, I didn’t complete my two year commitment because of my near death deployment I talk a lot about, and that’s when I also withdrew from University of Pennsylvania. I never got my master’s with one semester left. I just let go of this own course and I pivoted hard.
00:49:00:05 – 00:49:24:05
Unknown
That’s when I came into psychotherapy. I went to square U.S. and so on. That’s when I moved to your hometown, L.A. Teach for America taught me a lot of things. I think the biggest thing I want to talk about is it really highlighted the deeper found privilege that education is to us. Since I agree with my mom’s sentiment, I’m sure your mom and a lot of Asian parents, it’s not just because that’s the only pathway that we know.
00:49:24:07 – 00:49:49:14
Unknown
We know a lot of different divergent pathways. YouTube Creative Director Podcasting. Even though it’s hard to monetize podcasts, you have to be really exceptional and it’s very oversaturated. It’s just that’s the state we’re in. So it’s not a lack of pathways reason. But I think education for me is beyond just the prestige. It’s the process. Everything for me is a process you talks about.
00:49:49:14 – 00:50:21:13
Unknown
I have this double lens ability to see the macro without neglecting them. Micro A lot of policymakers get caught up in the utilitarian impact. That was me until I graduated policy and politics is soul crushing and it’s unfortunate. I just talking to a different guest right before our conversation where it’s hard crushing that people who abide by integrity and mission and nor star of Impact are the very people that leave policy in politics.
00:50:21:15 – 00:50:50:11
Unknown
The tradeoff is not worth to be utilitarian. That means quantifiable impacts above all else. What I learned in my six years of policy making for is nothing is worth the price of my soul. I don’t want to trade even an ounce of my soul. If I ask you if you can sign this bill, work with policymakers, contractors, agencies and sign this bill, you’re not going to kill anyone.
00:50:50:11 – 00:51:11:00
Unknown
You’re not hurting anyone. We’re going to cross your moral boundaries and you might lose a couple of hours of sleep a night, but you get to help 2000 people. Would you sign it? Of course you would. To thousands, a lot of people. But you iterate. What about next month? What about next year? What about ten years? We don’t start smoking once a pack of cigarets a day.
00:51:11:00 – 00:51:31:03
Unknown
You start with a first, you don’t finish a bottle in the morning. You start with the first shot. I saw this process happening and that’s my ability. I can zoom out from my current state of whatever I’m caught up in and sort of see where it unfolds. And I saw my past, the naivete in my early twenties on difference.
00:51:31:05 – 00:52:07:02
Unknown
I can resist the culture of policy. Obama currents. I read it. It’s blocked. The promise lands. A lot of great policymakers convince a lot of great presidents currents. Even Ronald Reagan talks about the difficulty of policy and the politics. So who am I to say that I be different? That’s arrogance and naivete at its purest. So but I’m bringing that in because that’s what Teach for America really helped me see that while education is like a lottery, we don’t get to pick it, but it can either boost or exacerbate using your word.
00:52:07:04 – 00:52:28:19
Unknown
Right? So what I learned from Teach for America is how many black and brown kids or in their circumstances, since I taught at inner city Philadelphia, That’s what Teach for America is. Michelle Obama is a big advocate of it with the caveat that it’s very corrupt, it’s a very corrupted organization. It’s the biggest student teaching, but it is one of the most corrupt.
00:52:28:21 – 00:52:54:18
Unknown
When I left, the endowment was over $500 million. Doesn’t make sense. And one of the best professors at Penn taught me this. I take this to heart. Every nonprofit’s mission statement is self dissolve. What’s a nonprofit born out of, out of necessity, out of an issue? So what should the nonprofit’s mission be? So it’s no, it’s it’s obsolete.
00:52:54:20 – 00:53:18:00
Unknown
It’s no longer relevance because a mission you’re born out of is solved. But look at nonprofit, lack of accountability, lack of supervisions. There is no board of advisors. And I promise you nonprofit is way more crops than for profit. In many senses. That is especially true in Philadelphia and L.A., especially in L.A. because of the level of homelessness funding.
00:53:18:02 – 00:53:40:01
Unknown
It’s it’s this this could be another podcast. So so Teach for America is both it’s very impactful. Taught me a lot about the reality of nature, why black and brown kids aren’t just there because their parents are lazy. I promise you, their parents care a lot about their grades and education. But how do you focus on grades and academic performance.
00:53:40:03 – 00:53:58:15
Unknown
When you survived a rape by uncle, when they’re drive by shooting every night you pass up to sleep. You have no one to go to because mental health is limited. You have to take two and a half hours of charter bus to go to school. You wake up at 4 a.m., you get home, you take care of your little kids.
00:53:58:17 – 00:54:20:04
Unknown
You talked about me packing five life time. The clinical term is parents are fired. We are forced to parents of being a parents out of necessity, not a choice. When you meet a mature kid, that’s not a good thing. you’re so mature beyond your age. That’s trauma. That’s going to take ten years to unlearn, Right? But it’s out of necessity.
00:54:20:06 – 00:54:42:02
Unknown
So I learned, Wow, I’m not here teaching them because I’m better. I was born into a good family. Sure. With our own brokenness and we’re all broken. But at least our education, at least my mom was a business owner. At least X, Y, and Z. But 121 students I taught, I call them kids, seventh and eighth graders, they didn’t have that.
00:54:42:04 – 00:55:03:16
Unknown
So it was very it was very humbling. You taught me humility and I realized, I initiate. I only I’m only here because my mom, in a lot of sure I worked hard, but who doesn’t work hard? But going back to the system as a whole, I don’t know how it’s going to help with the economy because it’s like the more, you know, the more reverence you feel.
00:55:03:18 – 00:55:28:21
Unknown
It’s so convoluted. Like what I just talked about. Nonprofit is highly corrupt. How many how many people know that? nonprofit. Amazing. You know, most of the donations you give even to like Ukraine or whatever donation of choice if you don’t know what to look for. And unless you know the methods of vetting a promise you 98% of those money are going to the operators pockets.
00:55:29:02 – 00:56:00:10
Unknown
Like BLM, Black Lives Matter. Philadelphia is one of the epicenters for BLM movements. I’m one of the organizers at the protest. What happens to the leaders in prisons for buying $5 million houses? $7 million houses? The very people that created BLM are in prison for being corrupt was for being a horrible human beings. The all the protesters, organizers, the vanguards of the movement didn’t see a dime, but they poured their heart out.
00:56:00:12 – 00:56:26:04
Unknown
So I don’t know what the answer is, but I know it’s not just the formal education, but just education information, carefully vetted information. Since this and misinformation is very real, I think it’s the only way for liberation because we have to at least know a baseline of information and knowledge to make or decision making because uninformed decision does not help anyone.
00:56:26:06 – 00:56:59:17
Unknown
But unfortunately, so many policymakers and contractors and politicians and nonprofits, they’re making uninformed decisions based on what they think is right. But your brain likes you just like a lot of people’s gut feeling is wrong. God feeling and intuition has to be coupled with comprehensive information assessment. It’s not one or the other. You need the vetting and intuition and experience, but there’s too many uninformed indecision and so like to close this out.
00:56:59:19 – 00:57:32:21
Unknown
Going to college just because is uninformed decision. But if you thought about it, the pros and cons the economy, the prospect your preference compatibility. If you thought about and you say yes, college, that’s an informed decision, great. But you can just make any decision. And education has ripple effects and a lot of people are paying off their student debt so their fifties and you cannot default and student loan that if you die you go to your next kin of your family.
00:57:32:23 – 00:58:08:20
Unknown
And Social Security can take your Social Security check based on your student debt. So it’s a very, very heavy decision and multilayered. But I think it requires information, and that’s what education is. Gosh, there are a lot of layers to this. And yeah, it is a huge question. And you know, what you said kind of reminds me of I think it was hearing that like your S.A.T. score now we realize that it actually has no bearing on any kind of academic or lifelong success.
00:58:08:22 – 00:58:47:17
Unknown
Right. All it does is reveal how rich your parents are. And it kind of ties in to what you’re saying about that humbling experience of being in Teach for America and realizing that they were educating you in many ways and and you seeing that we can’t teach children or we can’t help children or we can’t expect them to learn what we have prepared for them when, they are dealing with the trauma of just being alive.
00:58:47:19 – 00:59:32:16
Unknown
And I feel like, you know, as as, you know, the only child of a single immigrant mom who really who was working multiple jobs to make ends meet, I had multiple father figures and stepfathers in and out of my life. I had learning disabilities that were undiagnosed, you know, just all the trauma that I went through and still like I’m still considered on the privileged side because of my education and the resources that I did have in comparison to people who, you know, like you mentioned from the the inner city Philadelphia kids.
00:59:32:18 – 01:00:17:06
Unknown
And so I’m just thinking like, how do we start giving our young people what they need before we expect them to? Because I think of education or school systems as a way to train our children, to go off into the economy and keep it running as it was designed by our authorities and our authorities. I feel like without getting to conspiracy theory, like, you know, want to keep that power dynamic that we have in the world, they don’t want that to change.
01:00:17:08 – 01:00:54:06
Unknown
And that comes at the cost of people who are at the bottom never being able to make it to the top. There are just so many barriers and so I want to know where do we start? What do you think is the next best, most fruitful, impactful thing that society can do from either like a grassroots or even just from like at the classroom level or whatever level this comes to mind or comes to mind for you.
01:00:54:07 – 01:01:41:16
Unknown
What do you think is the next most impactful thing we can do to do the education? Give them the education that people need to rise above? I think the answer is actually non educational. And so I think emotional intelligence, I think the best we can do is instill the importance of meditation or mindfulness in so this powerful idea, that ability to create space between stimuli in response or a situation in response, I think is to teach our kids the importance of emotions and emotional capacity.
01:01:41:18 – 01:02:06:02
Unknown
Emotions is the ocean, our cognitive or clinicians or thoughts or brain or behaviors Is the boat or the ship. You have the biggest ship, Titanic, in the world, but it is a no match for the power and the tidal waves of the ocean. In this case, iceberg short, right? But it’s the ocean, right? Because without the ocean they would have seen the iceberg, but they didn’t.
01:02:06:04 – 01:02:35:19
Unknown
So it’s the ocean. So people get so caught up and build a bigger ship, more robust ship, stronger ship played a ship. But they forget the ocean overall, which is the emotions. You can be the most intellectually rigorous, brilliant scientist, professor, thinker, answer the blank. But if you do not have command over emotions, it’s pointless. You will burn your friendships down, relationships down.
01:02:35:21 – 01:03:10:02
Unknown
You will self-sabotage your intellectual capacity or processing power will be utilized foolishly to deepen your dissonance or double down on your biases. And this is a fact error quote Collectively, smarter people are better as self rationalizing What that means is smarter you are and the greater intellect or processing power you have. You will find ways to rationalize even the most irrational beliefs because it’s the ecosystem, it’s a loop, it’s an endless loop.
01:03:10:04 – 01:03:32:17
Unknown
So because you can self justified by seeking selective evidence, you will deepen your dissonance. And that’s why America is getting more divisive, because we have plenty of smart people on the left and the right. So it’s not an it’s not intellect issue. It’s not a smartness issue, it’s not a qualification issues, it’s not a credentials issue. It’s an emotional issue.
01:03:32:18 – 01:04:05:12
Unknown
I talk a lot about with my academic guest that people think about cognitive resistance cognitively I resist what you’re saying that’s movable based on enough logic, rhetorical skills, debates, the art of communication. You can move through cognitive resistance. That’s what therapy is. That’s what the art of podcasting is. The harder part, the implicit is emotional resistance. That’s a choice, but not really, because it’s not fear.
01:04:05:13 – 01:04:30:11
Unknown
If I cave in, if I agree with you, if I’m convinced by your arguments, what does that say about who I am? What does it say about me? Covert. Covert? Sure. There is a conspiracies and turns out Alex Jones was right. It was a virus out of the Wuhan lab, which is funny. COVID was more about a sense of belief and sense of identity.
01:04:30:13 – 01:04:56:04
Unknown
If I let the government impose their mandates the first time in American history for it to safeguard public health, if I let them dictate what I do, even this trivial minutiae matter of just wearing a fricking mask doctor who’s been doing it for years, who am I? Loss of control, the fear it goes back to fear and goes back to emotions.
01:04:56:06 – 01:05:23:06
Unknown
So COVID was a microcosm or macrocosm of lack of emotional capacity and lack of emotional attunement and emotional regulation. So I think the first step is emotions emphasize emotions or mental health, not as an aftereffect, not as an afterthought, but as an operational point. If we can combine emotions like stoic philosophers, stoicism is not about hardening your skin.
01:05:23:08 – 01:05:49:00
Unknown
That’s superficial. People say that they never wrestle with literature. Emotions is a first thing the Stoics are taught to master, and I don’t mean by it. That’s not a thing. There’s no metrics for mastering, so you’re not enslaved. It’s your emotions because humans are not logical creatures. That’s a fallacy. Humans are emotional animals. Why? Because we’re social animals.
01:05:49:02 – 01:06:15:10
Unknown
Think of all social issues. Think about what relationships are. It’s emotions are We had a tough day. Meet human vulnerability. You open up, you connect. Sociality requires emotions. So I think first up is the emotions. Thank you so much for listening. If any part of this episode resonated with you, please connect with us on social media at the links in the show notes.
01:06:15:12 – 01:06:16:09
Unknown
Until next time.