The Re-engineered You

We’re all built to tune our social antenna whenever we enter a new tribe, but what makes some people so darn good at it?

Today’s discussion is all about Social Calibration, the secret “sorting hat” of society. Calibration is something we all do subconsciously from birth, so unless someone is incredible at it we’re generally not impressed by it. However, we’ll outline the benefits of social calibration, such as building better relationships, gaining more opportunities, and being able to communicate effectively with people from diverse backgrounds. We’ll also talk about why calibration is such an overlooked skill, and how it invisibly sorts us all into higher or lower earring careers, higher or lower social stratas, or different education systems.

We’ll also talk about the inspiration for the character John Blackthorn from Shogun, whose real name was William Adams. We’ll discuss how Adams lost a brother who wasn’t able to “calibrate” during his dealings with foreigners, and paid with his life. Then we’ll compare Adams/Blackthorn to the Portuguese missionaries who arrived in Japan years before him, and take a closer look at why Adams’ method of calibration won him serious riches and titles. Then we’ll spoil the next two seasons of Shogun (which have not yet been written by the studio) but will ostensibly follow the real-life successes of William Adams as he integrates himself deeper into Japanese culture.

History Links:

https://www.britannica.com/biography/William-Adams

https://www.williamadams.fr/the-life-of-william-adams/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ssyXe9SuZcA&ab_channel=HistoryLeaks

Science Links:

https://www.psychology-lexicon.com/cms/glossary/36-glossary-c/22804-calibration.html

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0191886921008618

Precisely identifying our emotions can save our sanity and lessen heartbreak. So why, as adults, do we limit our emotional vocabulary to ‘fine’ or ‘meh’?

In past episodes The Re-Engineered You has talked about several different studies covering emotional granularity. During our Rejection episode, we covered how emotional granularity (identifying the micro emotions one feels during rejection) can lessen the heartache of rejection. In our Meanness episode we talked about a study wherein the US Military teamed up with researcher at University of Pennsylvania - to utilize emotional granularity to build up the mental toughness of soldiers. And in our Loneliness episode we came across articles about how identifying the exact social needs you are lacking, will allow you to target those needs to get them fulfilled in a healthy way.

So today, we’re bringing all our separate research points home. We’re discussing emotional granularity, everything we’ve learned behind the scenes about using the language of self-awareness. And we’ll be discussing a story about a man who grew up without a language of any kind. Specifically, the moment he realized everything in the world has a name, and that naming a thing gives you power over it. Just like emotions.

History Links:

https://www.wnycstudios.org/podcasts/radiolab/episodes/91725-words

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Man_Without_Words

https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/article/the-science-of-smart-how-to-build-mental-toughness/

Science Links:

https://www.inc.com/mareo-mccracken/the-best-way-to-deal-with-rejection-according-to-science.html

https://www.affective-science.org/pubs/2015/kashdan-et-all-unpacking-emotion-differentiation-2015.pdf?version=meter+at+7&module=meter-Links&pgtype=article&contentId=&mediaId=&referrer=&priority=true&action=click&contentCollection=meter-links-click

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2018/sep/23/seven-ways-overcome-loneliness-mental-health

Is there really a “male epidemic” going on? And why has treating young men as a societal nuisance backfired so spectacularly?

Why are young men so annoying? So volatile? So full of puppy-like energy? And how has the government’s policy of defunding the younger generations, according to Professor Scott Galloway, led to mass suicide and mass toxicity in younger men? Today we explore how and why young men have been stripped of hope for the future, as an age cohort, and what we can do to get it back.

First we introduce the challenges being faced by young men which include a lack of opportunities, an era of economic struggle, and the loss of higher education among middle and lower classes. Then we’ll cover the high rates of suicide and depression among young men, and the disturbing lack of guidance from older males who consider them a nuisance. We’ll also talk about the terrible toxic role models who have offered themselves for teens to model themselves after, and the truly poisonous advice that Youtube and Google algorithms prioritize to curious teenagers online.

Finally, we’ll get to the root causes of long-term male hopelessness, like financial instability, loneliness, and loss of identity. If the cornerstone of building a positive masculine identity is job stability, family, and home ownership, then as voters we couldn’t have designed a better system for depriving young men of hope for the future.

Links:

Suicide rates in teens.

https://www.upworthy.com/the-suicide-rate-for-kids-ages-10-14-nearly-tripled-in-the-past-decade-why-and-what-can-we-do

Boys and men commit suicide at a rate of 3-to-1 in civilized countries.

https://www.wcpp.org.uk/commentary/male-suicide-a-silent-epidemic/

Colleges losing male applicants and graduates.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/made-by-history/2023/07/26/women-colleges-gender-imbalance/

Opinion: Scott Galloway, Prof. NY Stern: Why young, lonely, broke men are a danger to society.

https://www.cnn.com/2022/04/19/opinions/masculinity-toxic-men-boys-education-galloway/index.html

Opinion: Jimmy Carr (comedian) podcast interview about young men’s lack of opportunities:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uHLAazKUU68

Suicide and Crisis Hotline:

https://988lifeline.org/how-we-can-all-prevent-suicide/

There’s a fine line between bragging and self-promoting. So how do we find that line? And how do we put it on our job resume’?

Evel Knievel literally had one trick. He jumped over stuff with a motorcycle. So how did he enjoy such a storied, successful career, traveling all around the world on his one trick? How did he get so many opportunities, and so much attention? With masterful self-promotion, that’s how! So we’ll take a cue (or several) from the best self-promoter since P.T. Barnum. Which, arguably, Evel might have been better at, since Barnum at least had a revolving cast of attractions, and Evel just had a motorcycle.

On this episode of The Re-Engineered You, we talk about self-promotion. Specifically, what makes someone a good self-promoter rather than an annoying bragger. We’ll talk about the psychology of bragging, whether it works or just annoys people, and how we can do it right. We’ll also discuss Imposter Syndrome - feeling that you haven’t actually earned your good fortune - and how to overcome it so you can start promoting yourself. Finally, we’ll broach the all-important question about Self-Promotion: Is it really okay to lie on your resume? But...what if everyone else is lying on their resume, too?

Science Links:

https://www.livescience.com/50848-bragging-annoys-people.html#:~:text=People%20who%20brag%20may%20think,in%20the%20journal%20Psychological%20Science.

https://time.com/5312483/how-to-deal-with-impostor-syndrome/

https://www.sciencemag.org/careers/2015/04/your-self-promotion-balancing-act

History Links:

http://evelknievel.com/the-man/

https://www.history.com/news/evel-knievel-motorcycle-jump

https://www.history.com/news/most-daring-stunts-after-evel-knievel

https://www.bbc.com/news/av/uk-england-london-32837795

http://evelknievel.com/the-man/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Evel_Knievel_career_jumps

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NAwydEEuWh0

https://billingsgazette.com/news/state-and-regional/montana/how-many-bones-did-evel-knievel-break/article_7329bfac-df64-52f1-b0e9-9fb69b00de4d.html#:~:text=He%20crashed%20more%20than%2020,broken%2040%20to%2050%20bones

Knowing what’s within our power to change is the cornerstone of stoicism. So how much can we change in the face of relentless corporate lobbying?

In his book Thinking, Fast and Slow, Daniel Kahneman explains how “nudging” works in making healthier choices. In short, if you give people options, but make the default option the healthier choice which has to be rejected in order to make a bad one, then almost nobody makes poor choices. This was a revolutionary, utopian way of looking at how we could all improve our lives, and the world. If you want children to eat healthier in schools, make fruits and vegetables the default. If you want people to take responsibility for their healthcare, make healthier choices the default. Same with student loans, housing, and adult food. Simple, right?

Well, not so simple. Especially when lobbyists, advertisers, and politicians read those same studies, then spend vast fortunes to make the addictive, unhealthy, irresponsible choices the default.

How do we, as Americans, reclaim our personal responsibility? How do we reject the terrible defaults addictive food companies have put in front of our kids? How do we say “no” to a medical system designed to over-bill us by default? How do we walk away from a system that puts us all in debt or makes us fat, when the news media blames us for not taking personal responsibility?

History Links:

https://www.facinghistory.org/resource-library/firsthand-accounts-great-depression

https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2024/04/10/lunchables-lead-consumer-reports-school-cafeteria/

https://www.npr.org/2024/04/10/1243939166/lunchables-consumer-reports-school-lunch

https://www.npr.org/transcripts/1198909604

http://www.inquiriesjournal.com/articles/1653/commercialization-and-discontent-on-the-american-farm-the-farmers-movements-of-the-late-19th-and-early-20th-centuries

Science Links:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10017337/

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3695078/

https://educationdata.org/student-loan-debt-by-major

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10017337/

https://www.politico.com/news/2023/09/07/state-lawmakers-america-medical-debt-00114330

https://www.thebalancemoney.com/2008-financial-crisis-3305679

A strong sense of responsibility makes for strong character. But how much is too much? When do we stop taking responsibility for predatory laws and businesses?

During the Great Depression, average Americans blamed themselves for the financial struggles, believing they were at fault for their own misfortune. Even while banks were gambling with their money, companies were throwing away food and clothes, and farms were collapsing, pastors and politicians still told the people they were at fault for not taking personal responsibility. Obviously we understand the system itself was flawed, with weak regulation over Wall Street, poor responses by the Federal Reserve, and a lack of support from President Herbert Hoover. There’s no way we’d fall for the old Hoover rallying cry of “The people will fix our system, not the system itself!” …right?

Today we’ll look at how modern marketing and lobbyist campaigns have continued to tout “personal responsibility” as they create more and more unbalanced systems designed to put Americans into debt. We’ll look at the food companies that are shouting “Personal Responsibility!” as they put garbage into elementary schools, and which piece of “nudge psychology” has been hijacked to send us all into consumerism overdrive.

Knowing where to take personal responsibility, and which factors are actually within our control, is both the cornerstone of stoicism and a necessity to maintain strong internal locus of control. In this conversation, we discuss the line between actual personal responsibility, and the false concept of personal responsibility that gets used as a scapegoat for bad mortgages, bad medical debt, and bad policies overall.

History Links:

https://www.facinghistory.org/resource-library/firsthand-accounts-great-depression

https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2024/04/10/lunchables-lead-consumer-reports-school-cafeteria/

https://www.npr.org/2024/04/10/1243939166/lunchables-consumer-reports-school-lunch

https://www.npr.org/transcripts/1198909604

http://www.inquiriesjournal.com/articles/1653/commercialization-and-discontent-on-the-american-farm-the-farmers-movements-of-the-late-19th-and-early-20th-centuries

Science Links:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10017337/

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3695078/

https://educationdata.org/student-loan-debt-by-major

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10017337/

When is a relationship unsalvageable? When is it too toxic to survive? And how do you pull a dysfunctional relationship out of a nosedive?

On the first-ever episode of The Re-Engineered You we covered Toxic Relationships. Then, over the course of six months, we got better recording equipment, a better studio, and better at writing. So we’re taking another shot at this topic with a Redux of Toxic Relationships. We’re covering subjects like; How to spot dysfunction in a relationship early enough to avoid it. Where our attraction to dysfunction comes from. And how to salvage a dysfunctional relationship if pulling the ripcord and bailing isn’t an option.

We’ll also talk about our own experiences applying the lessons from the first Toxic Relationships episode. And we’ll look at one of the all-time, hands-down, bat-shittingest relationships we’ve ever read about. The explosive, nuclear-meltdown of a marriage between legendary crooner Frank Sinatra and femme fatale Ava Gardner. Here’s a bonus fact we didn’t have time to cover: Sinatra once fired a pistol into a hotel mattress and threw himself to the floor, so Gardner would rush in, thining Sinatra had shot himself.

History Links:

https://www.thevintagenews.com/2018/10/06/ava-gardner-frank-sinatra-2/#:~:text=Ava%20Gardner%20and%20Frank%20Sinatra%20were%20one%20of%20Hollywood's%20most%20infamous%20couples.&text=Before%20they%20had%20even%20met,star%20in%20her%20own%20right.

https://www.jazziz.com/im-a-fool-to-want-you-the-love-story-of-frank-sinatra-and-ava-gardner/

Science Links:

https://time.com/5274206/toxic-relationship-signs-help/

https://online.king.edu/news/dysfunctional-families/

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/sense-and-sensitivity/201302/the-familiarity-principle-attraction

https://time.com/5411624/how-to-tell-if-being-manipulated/

https://brainfodder.org/facial-expression-contempt/

https://www.gottman.com/about/research/faq/

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/05/170518104015.htm

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/where-science-meets-the-steps/201602/is-it-true-love-or-low-self-esteem

https://www.gottman.com/blog/the-magic-relationship-ratio-according-science/

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/is-there-a-biological-basis-for-the-7-year-itch/

We read celebrity tweets, watch celebrity interviews, and listen to celebrity podcasts. They’re our entertainment and our royalty. But should we look to them for our morals? Our politics?

Back in 2009, the world discovered through an interview that Eminem had never heard of internet porn. Barbra Streisand has a multi-shop boutique mall in her basement. Nic Cage bought a dinosaur skull. And Mark Zuckerberg bought up the houses in his neighborhood so he could pick his neighbors. For as much as we trust celebrities for their moral and political opinions (see; all the bad celebrity PSAs that have come out during Covid) they sure seem to be disconnected from the issues the rest of us face. It’s easy to tell everyone to stay safe and practice self-care from a mansion in the Hollywood hills.

So for today’s episode we’re going to try to put aside our own biases, to take a look at celebrities and how the process of wealth insulation and isolation from the public can drive the wedge between the artist and reality. We’ll dive back into our studies on wealth, inequality, and millionaire callusing. We’ll discuss exactly how much free stuff celebrities get each year (spoiler: It’s a lot!) and we’ll watch and laugh as Bill Gates fails, hard, at guessing the prices of common household products in Ellen’s celebrity “Price is Right”.

History:

https://www.insider.com/bill-gates-grocery-prices-ellen-degeneres-video-2018-2#:~:text=The%20billionaire%20admitted%20to%20Ellen,it%20costs%20closer%20to%20%241.

https://www.businessinsider.com/mark-zuckerberg-real-estate-lake-tahoe-palo-alto-hawaii-2019-5#mark-zuckerberg-lives-in-a-5000-square-foot-estate-in-palo-alto-california-1

https://www.forbes.com/sites/dorothypomerantz/2015/01/23/johnny-depp-is-on-his-way-to-becoming-the-most-overpaid-actor-in-hollywood/?sh=a8e6e34521ac

https://www.rollingstone.com/feature/the-trouble-with-johnny-depp-666010/

https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/music/features/eminem-kamikaze-new-album-tyler-creator-track-gay-slurs-retirement-a8516806.html

https://www.thethings.com/eminem-album-sales/

Not everything has to be a competition...but maybe it should be. When creative people compete, everyone can win, and we’re going to explore how.

Motown didn’t just blossom naturally from the cracks of the Detroit sidewalk, like a dandelion. It took serious creative cultivating and gardening to make it bloom into the hit-making juggernaut Motown became. The man to lead that cultivation was none other than Berry Gordy; the legendary musician producer who fostered an atmosphere of creative competition, which in turn attracted the greatest performers in America to the tiny Detroit studio known as Hitsville. Today we’re looking at how Gordy’s process of creative competition worked. How it transformed the culture. And how sometimes the best way to get incredible results from your people, both in music and in the business world, is to turn everything into a competition. We’ll also be looking at the psychology of competition, and ask ourselves; is it human nature to compete with each other? And if so, is it healthy or productive for us to get competitive about everything? Finally, we’ll share a few stories of our own about competitive natures, and how Todd and Joe first started working together. Spoiler: it involved a friendly competition.

History Links:

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt6733446/

https://www.businessinsider.com/where-do-nasa-astronauts-come-from-ohio-and-new-york-2019-7

https://www.fastcompany.com/90240826/this-is-how-competition-affects-your-brain-motivation-and-productivity

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motown https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motown_discography

Science Links:

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2015/10/why-we-compete/403201/

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/15791143-top-dog

https://www.fastcompany.com/90240826/this-is-how-competition-affects-your-brain-motivation-and-productivity

What’s the most important ingredient for making a good first impression? Is it body language? Is it the value you project? And will someone please tell us what to do with our hands?!

On today’s episode we talk about the science, and the most common misbelief, about making a good first impression. Whether you’re trying to impress your new boss, the in-laws, or an interviewer, we’ve got your back on. First we’ll use psychology to design the worst first-impression possible, so we know what not to do. Then we’ll talk about the most important element of making a good impression. And no; it’s no driving an expensive sportscar. It’s much simpler, and much cheaper, and it involves coming off as a trustworthy member of the tribe.

We’ll also talk about the now-infamous blowout fight between Ernest Hemingway and Orson Welles, and why the two men took to fisticuffs in a smokey little projection room. We’ll discuss how these two should have been best buds, on-paper (both writers, both prodigious drinkers, both in love with Spain and bullfighting) but ended up discrediting each other’s careers. In part because of their initial sour meeting.

History Links:

https://www.wellesnet.com/clash-of-the-titans-when-orson-welles-met-ernest-hemingway-to-narrate-the-spanish-earth-may-1937/

https://www.thelocal.fr/20140822/when-hemingway-took-back-the-ritz-bar

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nvxwf1jxdaM

https://www.theguardian.com/film/2016/jan/16/what-orson-welles-really-thought-about-ernest-hemingway#:~:text=Orson%20Welles%20once%20described%20his,rivals%20and%20sometimes%20prickly%20antagonists.&text=%E2%80%9CBy%20late%201973%20he%20was,who%20were%20inspired%20by%20Hemingway.

https://www.wellesnet.com/clash-of-the-titans-when-orson-welles-met-ernest-hemingway-to-narrate-the-spanish-earth-may-1937/