Dr. Phil's Theory About Heroes (Overcoming Adversity) | Joe Rogan

Yeah, I'm one of the, I have this theory, you know, and he's, we see it in sports and I saw it when I talked to Emmett, he's been a friend of mine for a long time and I was talking to him about his psychology as he goes into a football game and he says he plays a movie in his mind of the entire game before he plays it. Because you know, in a football game, you're going to have 11 or 12 possessions during the game. And just throughout the football game, you're going to get that ball 11 or 12 times and he would say, and I'm going to carry that ball three or four times per possession and he knows which plays he's going to run. He would run them through his head. He would see it. He would know who was going to be there to tackle him. He would, you know, he'd run everything through his head and he's one of those guys that wants the ball when the clock's running out. I have this theory that situations do not make heroes. Situations expose heroes. And I saw that in Katrina, the hurricane that so devastated that one neighborhood. What ward was it? Was it the 9th ward? I forget which ward it was. It got so wiped out when Katrina hit New Orleans. There was a guy down there that had been really quiet. Nobody had ever heard anything out of him. He was an older guy, lived in a house, stayed to himself. And that night when the water was at rooftop level, I mean, he swam rooftop to rooftop and save six, seven, eight people, got him out of there and he didn't make it out. But he got seven or eight people out of there. And you go back and you check his history and he was a military hero. He just sat quietly in his home. And when the situation came about, it revealed who he was. And I think that's what happens. I think if you've got a hero, they just sit there, sit there, sit there until the situation reveals who they are. I don't think it makes them a hero. I think it reveals that they're heroes. I think that's what happens to people. They are who they are until they get – and then the opportunity comes along and they're going to show you who that is. They may show you they're a coward or they may show you that they've got the focus to hang or they may show you that they're a hero, but life circumstances are going to come along and they're going to show you who somebody is. Darrell Bock Yeah. I completely agree. And I think what's also interesting is when someone does get revealed to be a coward, they can become a hero. But it's very hard. It's very hard to get past the memory of you being a coward. Darrell Bock Well, and I'll tell you why I think that's true if you want to know. Darrell Bock Please. Darrell Bock I mean, maybe you don't. Darrell Bock Go on and know everything. Darrell Bock Go on and off on a tangent. Darrell Bock Come on. Darrell Bock No, I think we learn about ourselves and, you know, everybody talks about self-esteem and self-worth, but nobody ever talks about what it really is or how we get it. And I think about it in terms of self-attribution because you know how you form opinions of other people. Like, if you look at this guy and you – maybe you work with this guy and so you watch him across a couple of years and maybe this guy shows up to work every day and he's there 15 minutes early and he unlocks the place, gets everything ready, puts the coffee on, has his desk ready. He's all buttoned up and man, when the bell rings, he's ready to go. And you just learn that this guy's buttoned up, ready to go, dependable, never misses. He's always there. So you attribute certain traits and characteristics to him based on your observations of him and your experience of him. Based on that, you assign certain traits and characteristics to him. But I say that's exactly the same way we form our own self-image and our own level of self-worth. We watch ourselves go through life and we watch how we handle certain circumstances and situations. And that's why I say overindulgence is one of the most insidious forms of child abuse known to parenting. It's not the worst, it's just insidious. Because if you overindulge your children and do everything for them, you never let them observe themselves, master their environment. You never let them step back and say, wow, I did that. I built this. I overcame that. I handled this. I did that. And so that's the same way we make our own self-image and level of self-worth. We watch ourselves overcome the third grade. We watch ourselves stand up to a bully. We watch ourselves handle a test with information that intimidated us. Or we watch ourselves make it onto the Little League baseball team and actually get a hit when we needed to. Or we watch ourselves get onto the debate team and actually argue something successfully, whether it's academic or athletic or musical. We watch ourselves do it. And so we go back and say, hey, I did that. I attribute to myself the ability, I can hang. I can do this. I can rise to the occasion. Or we watch ourselves fold like a pup tent in a windstorm and say, I can't hang. I don't have it. And we make those attributions to ourselves. And so we shrink from the challenge for the rest of our lives until, like you said, it's hard to overcome that. And something pushes you up until you finally observe yourself overcome something. And I think that's how we form our level of self-esteem and our identity about who we are. And I don't think most people think about that. Look back and say, okay, how did I get to be Joe Rogan as I sit in that chair? You have a self-image. You have a level of confidence and ego strength, a level of self-worth. That's attributable to things you've watched yourself do or not do, achieve, not achieve, overcome or whatever throughout your life. And I think to know yourself, you have to know what those things are. Darrell Bock I think you're 100 percent right. And I think for children participating in things that are going to test you is so critical. Having them this opportunity to realize that there's a line between success and failure and that you could push through that line. You could become successful at something. And watching kids. That's why I think sports are so important for children. I think – and that's one of the more insidious things about having these participation trophies for kids where nobody wins the game. Yay, everybody plays, but nobody wins. We don't keep score. Why the fuck are you playing? Darrell Bock Yeah. I mean, that just goes down as an environmental non-event. I mean, that contributes nothing to your definition. It's just something to do. John Deeben It's also psychologically coddling. It's very damaging for your potential education that you would get from that situation. The bad feeling that you get when someone scores on you is motivation for you to be better at defense. Darrell Bock Yeah. And I think we cheat kids when we do that. And of course, you've got to play everybody. I get that. Not everybody is meant to be an athlete. So okay, look, go do something else. Be good at what you're good at. You don't have to be – John Deeben And if you really want to do it, well, you've got a long road. It's a greased hill. Start running. Darrell Bock Yeah. Everything's not for everybody. So find what you're good at and watch yourself achieve in that lane. You know, that's like – I can't carry a tune in a bucket. I can play no instrument. I can't sing. I can play a radio that's got a big on-off knob. That's it. And so I don't try. I'm just not good at that. So I go in the lanes that I can do stuff and observe myself in that. But I think you cheat kids if you don't let them observe themselves, face adversity and overcome it. John Deeben Absolutely. It's also an interesting lesson to learn that life isn't fair. I mean, if you're a kid and you're playing basketball with a 15-year-old LeBron James and you're my height, you go, huh. This ain't going to work out at all. Darrell Bock Yeah. You're looking at a cowboy here. John Deeben This is not fucking happening. And you have to be able to understand that and appreciate that. And then conversely, if you're very physically frail, you know, maybe wrestling's not for you either. Maybe we need to do something about your body before you engage in any sort of a combat sport. Darrell Bock You know, they did an experiment back in – I think it was the 60s. They did something called teaching machines. Have you ever seen that? John Deeben No. Darrell Bock It was a short period of time, but they took students into class where they put the steps of learning the information so close together that there was never a failure experience. It would say like, the war of 1812 happened in 1812. Then the next thing would say, the war of 1812 happened in blank. You fill in 1812. I mean, come on, potted plant could get that. So they would put it together and they would teach the information and they would teach it to criteria where you mastered the information, you had it 100 percent. And they said, wow, this is great. Everybody learned it. Everybody made 100. Everybody got the information. They truly did learn it. There was no question about it. They learned the information. And so they did great. And then they took them out of that program and put them back in the regular classroom. And the first time they came to questions they didn't know the answer to, the first time they didn't get 100, they came apart like a cheap suit. They panicked. They didn't know how to handle adversity. They didn't know how to handle it when they didn't have the right answers. They didn't learn how to not be perfect. And so they scrapped the whole program because they said you can't do this because that's not the way life is. And if, I mean, you're not teaching them how the real world works. You might as well teach them to go on red and stop on green and then give them the keys and put them out in life because that's not the way it works. And those kids were absolutely screwed up when they got into a truly competitive environment. You can't be success only. Yeah, it doesn't make any sense. It's not healthy. It's not good for you. You don't learn from it. I mean, the whole idea about school is you're supposed to be setting kids up for the future. You're supposed to be teaching them not just information, but teaching them how to learn and how to improve. Yeah. And that worries me. I, you know, I read that story not long ago when these students, I think it was at UCLA in law school, complained and got a professor either disciplined or fired because he required them to take a counter argument over something controversial like Ferguson. He said, I want you to, you know, I know you that you're all on this point of view. Now I want you to prepare an argument for the other side. And they all said, oh, that's upsetting to us. We just can't do it. And they went to the administration and complained. Well, that's crazy because you may have to as a lawyer, you may have to represent someone who's done something you don't agree with. If that's what you want to do for a living, right? I mean, are you kidding me? They were like needed therapy. I'm like, what the hell has happened here? Oh my God. That is so crazy. Yeah, that's nuts. That's nuts.