Melody Wilding: How do you become fully confident and in control of your emotions and experience at work? It’s by mastering your own psychology and that of others. On this show, we decode the science of success, exploring how to get out of your own way and advance your career to new levels without becoming someone you’re not.

I’m Melody Wilding, bestselling author, human behavior professor and award winning executive coach. Get ready and let’s put psychology to work for you.

Thank you so much for taking the time, and I have the book in front of me here. Rise Above. Oh

wow. One of the few people. One of the few, yeah. That’s,

Melody Wilding: I know. I was very lucky. I genuinely loved it. I loved it. And there’s so much about your message in here that I wanna dig into, but before we do that, I would love to hear a little bit more about what inspired you to write this book? Because you’ve written other books. You have done research on a lot of different topics. Why this, book?

Scott Barry Kaufman: Well, a lot of my life has been an attempt to understand how do we reach our full potential? How do we self-actualize and, and not get in the way of ourselves? As well. And I started off studying intelligence and, ability IQ, thinking that might be one of the biggest, activators of human potential.

And then I started studying creativity. but this, topic kept, it kept coming up over and over in my research and I kind of ignored it, but until recent and I was like, you know what? I should write a book. I think this is it. I think I, this, I’ve been ignoring something really important.

And that’s the way that we treat our experiences in life. We treat our challenges, our hardships, and the stories we tell ourselves about them and the stories we tell ourselves about our own potential. And, I wanted to really make it front and center. it just was something that has been just staring me in the face for, over 40 years.

And, even going back to my childhood and the experiences I had as a child, realizing that, that, a victim mindset has, it really holds people back from reaching their full potential. And I wanted to paint a way forward. I’m not, I didn’t wanna just stop there and just say, victim mindset’s bad.

You know, people talk about that, books about that. I didn’t wanna do another one of those. I wanted to have a very forward looking book, you know, that really helps everyone reach their full potential.

Melody Wilding: Yeah. Well, and what I loved about it, it’s, let’s acknowledge what the victim mindset is, but more, here’s what you do about it tactically.

Not just get out of, be a victim. Get out of the victim mindset, which I think is where most people stop. And it’s not that easy because often you don’t even realize it’s happening. So to that end, how do you like, define for us what it means to have a victim mindset? How do you know you’re falling into that, especially as it comes up for people at work in their careers as leaders? How do you see, what is it, how does it manifest in those types of environments?

Scott Barry Kaufman: So let me just define a victim mindset. Yeah. So having a victim mindset means you tend to blame all of your problems on external circumstances. Whether it’s life dealt you a bad hand, or maybe at work that it’s your boss is an asshole. Or even entire group of people have it in for you and are holding you back. You know, you believe you don’t need to take responsibility for your actions or reactions because of maybe that one thing that happened to you when you were three.

you can’t stop ruminating about your past victimization, and you may even fixate on how to enact revenge. And rarely thinking about solutions or ways of moving forward with your life with hope and purpose.

So that’s how I define a victim mindset. And, and I think that we, can fall, we all can fall prey to this mindset. At various points in our lives, and especially if things are not going well at work, we can blame everyone but ourselves. We can, people love blaming the boss. They also love blaming their coworkers.

They love blaming, deadlines, love blaming the work schedule. They love blaming the lack, of work life balance, the blame their children. Blaming their husband. That’s always the husband’s fault. Yeah. And economy. and while it may very well be true that there are a lot of challenges, and a lot of, factors contributing to your frustration and your anxiety at work, it doesn’t mean that the victim mindset is the most productive mindset to help you handle it.

And that’s just the point I wanted to make. it’s not saying you aren’t being victimized by life, because let’s face it, we’re all freaking victimized by life. That’s, I hate to say it, that’s the price of entry. but the question is, do you know, is there a better way of forward? and I propose a empowerment mindset as a better way forward.

For dealing with setbacks. and, especially, you know, at work, dealing with, the setbacks, being able to hold, a both ness as my friend Susan David puts it, of emotions that yes, I am frustrated, I’m angry, I’m anxious, I’m, wanna rip my, my, my hair out, you know, finishing this deadline. And I freaking love my job and I freaking love that I get to do this.

I freaking, and you know, wow. What an amazing opportunity to, to crush this. You know, let, let’s roll for sleeves and let’s do this. I just feel like our society has lost. the value of overcoming challenges and it’s focused too much on and even rewarding the challenge, the, vulnerability. I think we have vulnerability on steroids, you know, where it’s it’s a, you know, it’s a, and I would even argue that, even in the workplace, we can have vulnerable, you know, it’s, it’s one thing.

To, talk about the pain and hardship you’re experiencing. that’s fine. But I think there’s two different flavors of that. There’s like a deficiency oriented version of that where it’s done to just get attention and, and pity and, social rewards. You can actually get social rewards for that.

Or, is it growth? Is there a growth oriented vulnerability? Which I think is, the better way. That’s the, way, which is in the service of connecting with others who are experiencing what you’re experiencing. And, and finding a, path forward where, you have greater hope.

Melody Wilding: Yeah. And so let me, I was taking notes as you were talking, and I wanna step in with what I questions that people might have as they’re hearing you talk about this. And so one of them, I know you said no question, life has victimized us all come, comes with the territory, but how do you know not necessarily when a victim mindset is justified?

How do you differentiate between an unhelpful victim mindset and true bias discrimination barriers, inequity that you’re up against? How do you reconcile those two things? yeah,

Scott Barry Kaufman: I do wanna repeat that, victimization is separate from a victim mindset.

Yeah.

Scott Barry Kaufman: so they’re separate contracts.

You can have people who weren’t victimized, who have a victim mindset. You can have people who were victimized, who have a victim mindset. You have people who are victimized, who don’t have a victim mindset. and I, think that’s, Some people didn’t get that memo, some people did. You can have, you can acknowledge the reality of, like you were talking about inequities or you can talk about the reality of, systems.

There are plenty of systems that suck that, that really need changing. And that again, an empower mindset for me is the yes and approach to improv. You know, there are systems that suck and, how can you as an individual still make the most of your day living within that system, you know? I’m here to help you as an individual.

Okay. thankfully there are plenty of people out there who have other projects such as trying to address big systems and God bless them. But, you know, my, my purpose in this book is to help you as an individual dealing within systems, you know, be able to find the gratitude, the gratefulness in your life, be able to have the mindset that allows you to feel some vitality and joy in your day.

I think that there’s this, I, don’t believe that you are not allowed to have joy because systems suck.

Melody Wilding: Yeah. Well, and I love that it’s a good reminder that it’s not black and white that, you know. ’cause I think a lot of us get into that thinking and we have to realize that you use the idea of the, and, two things can be true. We have to hold those dualities to both be true.

So I also wanted to ask, how do you like for a lot of us. We don’t even know we’re falling into victim mindset. How can you identify it? How can you catch yourself when you’re going down that, that spiral of blaming your boss or it’s the economy or it’s the reorg or whatever it is, how do you catch yourself and start to turn the shift, shift towards an empowerment mindset?

Scott Barry Kaufman: There are a lot of things you can do. I think, one big one, is of is, really cultivate a mindfulness practice that allows you to, create a distance from your, immediate reactions and emotions. And even the label, the, particularly the labels that you’re putting on your emotions.

So if you’re feeling really anxious and you feel uncomfortable being able to say, oh, I’m uncomfortable. And really getting in touch with that and, changing your experience with that, but also being mindful of your thoughts, that, that really indicate a victim mindset.

So if you start to, if thoughts start cropping up, oh, what you’re, you start cursing everyone else like you have a problem. And you start saying, why, God, why? I would really wanna encourage you, you know, why is that person always creating this? You know? Or let’s say, you’re feeling again down on yourself that you’re, not succeeding what you wanna succeed.

And you go on Instagram and you see this big influencer who’s getting seems to get all the accolades, and you’re like, why don’t I have what they, why can’t I I deserve, you know, all that way of thinking is a victim mindset way of thinking. That’s not productive. I’m not saying none of that is not true.

I’m just saying it’s not productive. To me, I would wanna reframe that. and my, my, my, good friend Tasha York, says go from why to what. Okay. So instead of all those kind of the why questions I was saying reframe it to, okay, what can I do? What am I feeling? What am I feeling? Getting curious about that.

What, can I do to get out of this funk that I’m in? You know, just get, change your mindset to something way more productive. You know, you know, you, can, we all get in our moods, you know? And it is so easy to fall into that victim mindset. And I think it’s also. It can be easy to get out of it too.

You know, like to be really mindful and aware and reframe the questions you’re asking in your own head. I think the psychology of self-talk is a really undervalued field.

Yeah.

Melody Wilding: You went where my head was going with what you were saying about switching the quality of the questions you ask yourself then affects the quality of the answers you get back.

And also, one question I love and that my clients are always like, oh, my mind blown moment is, how is this situation for me instead of against me? What, how can I grow through this challenge? How. That’s, yeah, that’s good. How is building my character or what is this teaching me, right? How is this for me instead of against me instantly gets you out of that, perspective.

Scott Barry Kaufman: I think. That’s right. I think it’s, it, black, white thinking, you know, cognitive, behavioral, mindful cognitive behavioral therapy I talk a lot about in my book. Yeah. Because it is very easy to spiral downward and to overgeneralize. So because this person’s out to get me, everyone’s out to get me.

Or if we get in social anxiety situations, let’s say someone doesn’t, You know, for instance, I’ve taken up magic lately, and I go around and I go to restaurants and I do mad, I do mentalism. I read people’s minds and, you know, like the manager last night at one of the restaurants, he clearly did not like magic.

And he was like really being dismissive and, you know, and, that it’d be very simple to just overgeneralize be like, ah, no one wants me here.

Melody Wilding: You know,

Scott Barry Kaufman: Th this restaurant’s against me. But like the kitchen, the, bartender I did a trick on, he’s wow, that’s amazing, do more.

And the other bartender came over, he’s do more. You know, like it was like one person, you know, the manager who just wasn’t into it, but overgeneralized, it’s so important to, to not spiral downward and create this kind of narrative that because one person’s against you, oh, the world’s against you.

You know, it’s no, calm the fuck down. Yeah.

Melody Wilding: Yeah. And because then you, I mean, you know this, then you create more of that and not in some woo manifestation way, but you’re looking for evidence that confirms no one wants you to do magic. and it’s funny you say it. Yeah. I was talking to a client earlier today and she’s been trying to do something new in her career and she was saying, well, it feels like opportunity A fell through, opportunity B fell through. I should just take that as a sign that everything’s falling through. This is not meant to be, right. It’s well, what else in your life have things fallen through?

And that was actually, you were knocking things off to get to the right fit. And again, just the framing of it really matters. yeah,

Scott Barry Kaufman: It so does to think that everyone is conspiring against you. Yeah. Which is a victim mindset. is very rarely is that the case. The truth of the matter usually is that people just don’t care about you. I mean, they’re not actively conspiring against you. They just don’t, they’re in their own worlds. And, and a lot of that I think comes down to potential as well. You, have to show people your potential. You can’t, because people haven’t witnessed your brilliance yet, then say, oh, the world’s against me.

I’m just gonna just ball up in a, in my room and cry all day. That’s not as productive as saying, oh, you know what? I have not done a really good job of showing people my potential.

Take, if you, to me, I find that responsibility much more empowering.

Take that, you know, and saying you know what, let me figure out my communication style here. Maybe there’s something in the way I’m doing this where people aren’t seeing my brilliance. But I know I’m brilliant, so I need to figure out a different way. You know, having that self-belief and taking responsibility for how you’re showing up and how you’re demonstrating it to others, to me that’s way more empowering.

Do you agree than

Melody Wilding: 100%? 100% basically having victim mindset?

Scott Barry Kaufman: Yeah.

Melody Wilding: Yeah. Basically, the entire thesis of my new book is you teach people how to treat you. And you have more power to shape your workplace relationships than you think. Because I think a lot of us, we, yeah, we feel very helpless to your end. Like my, the new book is called Managing Up, and so I just saw client after client a, my boss is toxic, my boss is difficult, my boss is blocking me what, whatever it was, and or I, just work in an environment where it’s 24 7, it’s always on. I can’t ever rest.

If you are responding to messages at 11:00 PM at night, as soon as they come in, then you are teaching people you are going to be responsive at all hours. And so that, that’s a completely in sync with you on that.

Scott Barry Kaufman: I love it.

Melody Wilding: What are some other, actually, speaking of bad bosses, toxic workplace environments, you have a phrase in the book, you know, there’s learned helplessness, there’s also learned hopefulness.

How can someone who’s had a bad boss or been in a toxic work environment, how can they move toward learned hopefulness?

Scott Barry Kaufman: Yeah. I think that, first we had to define some terms. You know, we’re in helplessness, is you really think that, there’s nothing you can do that will cause any agency will cause any outcomes or goals that you wanna do. So what you do is you give up. And you, think the door is blocked. When, it’s not really blocked. You’ve, learned and taught yourself that it’s blocked.

And I think learned hopefulness is, you know, our default state is learned helplessness our defaults state. We have to learn that there’s hope and we, it’s an active process where we think of multiple pathways to get to where we want to go, and we don’t give up, you know, on getting to where we want to go, but recognize that there might not be only one. Way out, you know, of this.

Also, sometimes the only way out is through. That’s also another thing. You know, we, often are victims to our own emotions, as I have old chapter on that. We think, well, if we’re feeling anxious at work, you know, we, can’t do X, Y, Z until we’re happy.

There’s this whole Happiness at work movement that drive me crazy sometimes.

It’s like you don’t have to be happy at work to do good work. To do meaningful work. Okay. that’s not a re prerequisite. We can have fleeting moments of happiness that are, it’s beautiful when it happens, but the whole be happy at work. It’s calm down. Like you can be anxious, you can be under so much pressure to juggle so many balls at once.

And on the other side of that get, you know, getting through it, you experience, such a deep sense of satisfaction and meaning. That is far more satisfying at a deeper level than happiness.

So there’s, there are a couple things I’m saying here. You know, sometimes the only way you to forward through, but also you not being a victim to your own emotions.

And, and having the right sort of, hopefulness, skills that allow you to think of multiple pathways to get to where you want to go. Yeah. Even if one is blocked, you don’t give up.

Melody Wilding: Yeah. Yeah. There’s a lot of value in building your distress. Distress tolerance, right, of difficult things at work.

And as you were saying, also, the contrast of going through really hectic, difficult periods makes the, easier or more satisfying periods that much more enjoyable and pleasurable. So sometimes you need the contrast in order to be able to experience the depth of the positive as well. yeah.

And so speaking of that, you were talking about emotions, feeling a bit out of our control. You had a moment ago you were talking about a, mindful approach at work. Are there any other tools you recommend to stay more flexible when we’re having intense reactions or feelings? Are there any specific tools you recommend for that?

Scott Barry Kaufman: Uhhuh will. Do you want some strategies?

Melody Wilding: Yes. Love a good strategy.

Scott Barry Kaufman: That’s great. So I talk about a various, techniques for handling difficult emotions in my book. I, think the big one is creating a distance. So like isolating a thought you’re having, let’s say it’s, I’m uncomfortable, you know, that’s the lowest bar, but let’s say it’s, I’m uncomfortable and just like saying it out loud, I’m uncomfortable, and then experiment, how you say, try to diffuse your thoughts so you can tone down your reactivity. I’m uncomfortable, I’m uncomfortable.

I’m, you look don’t have let these thoughts have so much power over your whole system. You know, you really wanna get to a state where you even can simply observe them, observe, the story you’re telling yourself about your emotion, whatever you wanna do to create a spaciousness, as, as my friend Sharon Salzburg calls it, to, To allow yourself to, figure out what you wanna do with it. You know, you want to create that space. I also really love, the practice, Rinpoche, talks about making friends with your beautiful monsters, and kind of welcoming them in.

He says every feeling is priceless. and so you welcome in your beautiful monsters and, you know, we, our beautiful monsters rear their. Beautiful heads, at work all the time, you know, and, and, but I think that when we relax with them, something magical and unexpected happens. So try stop trying to fix ourselves all the time or make them go away.

We don’t always have to fix ourselves. I think perfectionism is a big, the one at work as well. but whatever raw emotions, stuck feelings of stuckness, numbness, these things are not as scary as they seem. Once we make friends with them, and we’re no longer afraid of ourselves. I think, a kind of constant practice where you do that also helps with what Dan Siegel calls, your window of tolerance.

We wanna broaden our zone of tolerance and we are not gonna broaden it if we coddle ourselves. Hate to say it, hate to sound like a far right person. There was said cold door stop cold. But, but, You know, I think it’s important that we don’t coddle ourselves so much, and, in the service of broadening our, you know, everything that we handle, we then know we can handle it.

You know, every time, you know, I’m scared of, I was used to be scared of flying. I used to be scared of speaking. I used to be scared of everything I. You know, it’s that I went a book tour. I refused to, I’ve refused to be a victim of my emotions. you know, I, was not gonna let it stop me from reaching the goals I wanted outta my life.

So I started to slowly broaden my zone of tolerance and now I am not so scared of these things. And, then lastly, I think we need to experience what my friend Susan David calls bothness we need at work. We can say, well, I am, frustrated, angry, and I’m also, excited and, and, and looking forward to completing this project.

We need to hold a space within ourselves for a whole palette of humanists.

Melody Wilding: Incredible. Incredible. Okay, let’s dive right into highly sensitive people because it was actually a topic I was surprised to see in the book. I wasn’t expecting it to, to pop up there, but you talk about high sensitivity. Like I said, near and dear to my heart, my specialty for the last 10 years has been working with highly sensitive professionals and leaders.

Scott Barry Kaufman: I love that about yourself.

Melody Wilding: Yeah. And so

Scott Barry Kaufman: you literally wrote the book, Trust Yourself.

Melody Wilding: I, did. I did. Well, you teach what you most need to learn. That’s usually how it goes.

But you had a very, refreshing take on being highly sensitive. So tell me about this because you talk about some different traps, highly sensitive people can fall into in the workplace and yeah, I’m just gonna let you go with that. ’cause there, there’s a lot in the book that I think is a little controversial, you know, in the HSP world. So I, yeah, I’ll let you roll with that.

Scott Barry Kaufman: Well, the definition of HSPs is that they’re that they are highly sensitive, but a lot of them don’t, A lot of them can’t handle the slightest criticism, you know? Yes. And, And that’s not, to me, that’s a victim mindset.

You know, if you, think you’ve told yourself the narrative that you’re so HSP, that you have to protect yourself from any feedback that might be negative about you at any, all at any times, well, that really veers into vulnerable, narcissistic territory, you know? And, you can be highly sensitive and be a vulnerable narcissist.

These things can coexist. We have this idea as well that if you’re HSP, that you’re just an angel. You know, like, if you’re a lot of HSPs in the community, they’re like, oh, HSPs, we’re empaths. You know, not all HSPs are empaths. So I, I, You know, there are a lot of, misconceptions I talk about in that chapter that I do understand may be controversial to HSPs, but everything’s controversial to HSPs, you know, and I say that as an HSP.

You know, like I, I’m coming from a, place of being HSP who refused to be a victim to my HSP-ness. And, and I think that’s the way, that’s the way, I mean, if this is, if these are truths that don’t, some people don’t want to hear and then, and they’re not ready to hear it, that’s totally fine. Don’t read my book.

But for the HSPs who are like me, who say, enough is enough, you know, I, I’m not gonna be held back in my life by my own narratives that I’m telling about myself, about what I can handle. Then this book is for you, you know?

There, well, I think there’s, and that’s, I think that’s, there’s a large swath of HSPs who are ready for it. Who don’t want to eradicate their HSP-ness, but they also don’t want it to hold them back. They want to channel and integrate it into their creativity in beautiful ways, and not integrate it in unbeautiful ways.

Melody Wilding: Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for saying that. Yeah. Yeah. Because even I, you know, I am someone who had for years said, sensitivity is a superpower.

Being highly sensitive is your greatest gift. And I’ve stopped saying that because I don’t believe, yeah, I don’t believe it’s your greatest superpower. Like you, you couldn’t have said it better. That it’s neutral and, yeah, that’s right. And like you said, I, have definitely observed that as well, that you know, being, having the trait of high sensitivity, being perceptive processing more deeply does not mean, does not give you a license for being emotionally fragile. And, so yeah, I’m just very glad to have someone saying that and putting that out there publicly. Yeah. Good.

Scott Barry Kaufman: I’m so glad you said that. And, it’ll be really cool. I’ll be really interested to see what the reaction is, you know, yeah. And, but I, think there’s a lot of people I can help. You know, you can’t reach everyone because not everyone’s ready to be reached. And also, it’s might not be the right approach for everyone. I also have the humility to say that my, you know, it’s not like, there’s one way that everyone needs to live their life, but I think there are a lot of people who will really resonate, with an empowerment mindset and realize just how powerful it is. How much can change your whole life in a split second when you switch from a victim mindset to an empowerment mindset.

Melody Wilding: Scott, thank you so much. for people who are listening on the podcast, where can people find the book? Connect with you.

Scott Barry Kaufman: ScottBarryKaufman.com. the Psychology podcast. I have a regular podcast where I hope we can bring value to help changing you and your life. And, please do check out this book if the things I said today resonated with you.

Melody Wilding: yeah. I was telling you before I started recording that I really, I loved. Loved this book. Oh yeah. and, you know, I get a lot of books sent to me and this was one that I actually read, so

Scott Barry Kaufman: That’s amazing. Melody, I just got shivers. I just got shiver. You’re one of maybe five people in the world who’ve read it.

Melody Wilding: Wow. Oh, well,

Wow. Yeah. Well, it’s, again, I like I was saying to you just for the recording, that what I loved about it is it’s not just a motivational book, that there’s a lot of books that tell you, don’t be a victim, stop having a victim mindset.

But how do you do that? And the book is really, you know, it’s 99% the actual, how do you do that? And so that’s what I found, that’s right, and it was so nuanced too, like the discussion about HSP and vulnerable narcissism and it, was, yeah, fantastic. Really well done. So congratulations.

Scott Barry Kaufman: Hey,

you made my day, so

Melody Wilding: Oh,

Scott Barry Kaufman: thank you.

Melody Wilding: Oh, I’m glad to hear that.

take care of yourself. Be safe. We’ll talk soon.

Thanks for tuning in to today’s episode of psychology at work. If you enjoyed the show, I’d be so grateful if you could take just a minute to rate and review wherever you are listening. It’s how we reach more professionals just like you. And if you’d like to see even more content on how to feel more self assured, grounded, and in control of your emotions and reactions at work, follow me on LinkedIn or head to the links in the show notes.