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The New Science of Self-Actualization | Scott Barry Kaufman artwork

The New Science of Self-Actualization | Scott Barry Kaufman

Finding Mastery with Dr. Michael Gervais

April 1, 2020

This week’s conversation is with Scott Barry Kaufman, a humanistic psychologist exploring the depths of human potential. He has taught courses on intelligence, creativity, and well-being at Columbia University, NYU, the University of Pennsylvania, and elsewhere.

Speakers Scott Barry Kaufman, Michael Gervais

TopicsSelf-ImprovementEducationHealth & FitnessMental Health

Scott Barry Kaufman (0:00)

When you peer into the heart of darkness, what do you see? You see exploitation, the drive for exploitation, the drive for greed, the drive for power over others, control over others. You see excessive, excessive self-interest.

Now, so what is a light triad? So light triad incorporates treating people as an end in themselves. You can admire the sacredness of a person, even if they're very different from you, or even if they don't serve any usefulness for you.

You can have a general faith in humanity that humans are at the end of the day basically good, even if they often don't act that way. And then you can also, the third component is humanism, treating each individual as valuable.

Michael Gervais (1:00)

Okay, welcome back, or welcome to the Finding Mastery podcast. I'm Michael Gervais, and by trade in training, I'm a sport and performance psychologist, as well as the co-founder of Compete to Create. And the whole idea behind these conversations, behind this podcast, is to learn from people who have committed their life efforts towards mastery, to understanding the depth of what they are most curious about. And there's two parts to it. There's the mastery of craft and the mastery of self, and we're indexing a bit more on the mastery of self-side, which is how do they organize their inner life?

How do they train and condition their minds?

And how they take steps to build the community around them to support each other towards the collective aim.

And on that note, we're in extraordinary times of uncertainty right now. And I just wanna say thank you for being part of this community for the years that many of you have been. And if you're new, I wanna say with the warmest heart, welcome. And we are in this together, this uncertain times that we're in, we need each other. And this is a great way for us to share ideas, to punch back and forth on, we've got a Finding Mastery tribe. And so if you're not part of that, punch over to findingmastery.net forward slash tribe. And if you are loving what we're doing, tell somebody, now is a really great time to be connected around ideas and concepts that support purpose. And as well as growth.

I want to take a minute here to announce a really exciting event that we have coming up. As you continue to navigate the challenges and opportunities of 2024, I want to pose a question. What are you doing right now to be great with stress? How are you working with stress on your pursuit towards your most important ambitions and goals? And I just want to get right to the heart of the key elements, one in particular, for what it takes to excel in today's high heat, high stakes world. Because stress is not the problem that we think it is. Stress is a synonym for change. And our ability to be agile with change, that is the real opportunity at hand. So if you're wanting to unlock extraordinary results and sustainable performance in your life, it's not about avoiding or reducing stress. And as simple as that sounds, it's very tricky to do, but it is about fundamentally changing your relationship with it.

And that's why I'm so thrilled to invite you to a special event. It's a free virtual event that we're offering, and it's called The Power of Embracing Stress. It's on Wednesday, March 6th at 2 p.m. Pacific. So to sign up, just head over to findingmastery.com/training. Whether it's advancing in your career or improving your health or cultivating stronger relationships, I think a new approach to stress can be one of the most powerful unlocks for you in your life. So join us for this free virtual training, The Power of Embracing Stress, on Wednesday, March 6th at 2 p.m. Pacific. Go to findingmastery.com/training to sign up. Once again, that's findingmastery.com/training, and I'm really excited to see you there.

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