Ryan Bush | Navigating the Path to Happiness: Becoming Who You Are

Srini Rao

 Ryan, welcome to the Unmistakable Creative. Thanks so much for taking the time to join us.

Ryan A Bush

Thanks for having me, Srini. I'm happy to be here.

Srini Rao

Yeah, it is my pleasure to have you here. So you have a new bookk out called Become Who You Are, which is really, really deep and rich in terms of really understanding mindset and how we all function. But given the subject matter of the bookk and the nature of it, I thought I would start by asking you, what social group were you a part of in high school? And what impact did that end up having on what you ended up doing with your life and your career? And how did it shape this perspective that you'd built?

Ryan A Bush

Yeah, interesting question. There's a lot, a lot to that because when I first went to high school, technically it was middle school, I had been homeschooled and went to Montessori school before that and so it was kind of my first time in like real school and I was kind of like shocked when I got there. I felt like I was on an alien planet because I, you know, really...

didn't have the social skills needed to operate in that space. And I kind of thought like by seventh grade, people were pretty much adults. And so I, uh, I was like not on the right wavelength there. And so for a while I was very much a loner, uh, kind of person. I, I wasn't the type to really talk to anyone except for like one word answers and, uh, you know, that kind of thing and, uh,

At a certain point, I kind of reflected and said, you know, I'm not really proud of who I am right now. I feel like I'm kind of scared of the world and avoiding, you know, everything in my life and just trying to get by. And I asked myself, what would change that? What would help me grow into the person I wanted to be? And it still amazes me now that in seventh grade, I, you know, had this realization, but I decided to get as far out of my comfort zone as I possibly could.

Um, and so for me, a big part of that was joining the football team, even though I was this a hundred pound kid who didn't talk, I was more of a chess team type of person, uh, but I ended up joining the football team in eighth grade and, uh, you know, went through just this miserable initiation of just having to run until I puked and, you know, getting my lights knocked out by people three times my size. And, uh, and, and I ended up

staying on the football team that year and then the next four years of high school and kind of like hanging out with the football players even though there's something kind of weird about that given just the way my mind worked and everything. But I think it really served to open up my comfort zone and to get me to a point where I couldn't scare myself that easily. Public speaking was not that big of a deal.

Ryan A Bush

when I compared it to going out on a game night and getting prepared to get beaten up out there. So it was a huge kind of project I took on in general of just getting out of my comfort zone and gradually bringing more and more of myself out for my peers to see, more of my creativity and my sense of humor, and gradually going from that kid who couldn't really even communicate with his peers to...

someone who now goes on a podcast every day and You know does a lot of this much more extroverted kind of stuff that I've gotten comfortable with

Srini Rao

Yeah. It's funny because I remember reading that and I had a very similar experience. I don't know if you grew up in Texas because in Texas, there are seventh graders the size of grown men. And much like yourself, I got the shit beat out of me. But unlike you, when the coach called in eighth grade to ask if I was coming out for football, like, why the fuck are you calling me if I'm coming out for football? No, after seventh grade, I was like, no go. But I think one of the things that I'm

Ryan A Bush

Hehehe

Srini Rao

curious about you mentioned this feeling that you thought that, you know, everybody is an adult by seventh grade. So I'm curious what homeschooling was likely, what do we misunderstand? Because I've talked to a handful of people who are homeschooled. And it seems in a lot of ways, it's a very self directed way of educating, which even Dan Pink says that should be foundational to our modern education system, even if it is through public schools, which there it's not self directed at all.

So talk to me one about the experience of homeschooled and of course the challenges in the transition in terms of like having to actually sit down and do what a teacher says.

Ryan A Bush

Yeah, so a few things to that. It was very self-directed overall, but I actually felt like academically I was over-prepared. Like, school was pretty easy after homeschool. So that part wasn't a challenge. It was very much the social component. And at the time, I was kind of critical of homeschooling and of Montessori school. And I said all this stuff about how like, oh, that's stupid. That's not real school. And you should go to real school. And

And I think in hindsight, I don't actually know if the regular school system is all that healthy for us. I feel like maybe it wasn't my social skills that were a problem. But certainly in terms of adapting, yeah, I mean, I think I did grow up in a household that kind of rewarded maturity and, you know, I guess like quiet, calm discussion and that kind of thing that...

you don't see in a lot of seventh graders. And so it was an interesting experience. I think certainly, you know, in the world right now, that's just kind of how people get socialized at an early age as they go to school and they interact with their peers. I don't know that socializing necessarily should be tied around this kind of compulsory, you know, formal education that is really all about

you know, getting people ready for the workforce and that kind of thing. But that's just kind of how it is. There weren't really good equivalent communities for me to hone my social skills before I went to real school. You know, I would do summer camps here and there, but they didn't really, you know, it wasn't like real community. And so I think that's a challenge in homeschool right now.

Srini Rao

Mm-hmm.

Srini Rao

Yeah, the thing I wonder is like if you were to be tasked with redesigning, you know, sort of our K through 12 education based on the homeschool experience, what would you bring into it that you think would actually improve public school education? Because I happen to agree with you. Like I always joke that I'm a failed byproduct of the education system.

Ryan A Bush

Yeah, well, you're going to get me started on a big, big topic here in terms of education reform and all that. Oh yeah, mine too. Yeah, so I think for one thing, it's just kind of a byproduct of our overall culture that everything in the education system is designed to create good workers, basically. It's not designed to create good, wise humans and citizens and all that.

Srini Rao

What are my favorite topics? This is why I asked it.

Ryan A Bush

Ultimately, if a school did prioritize these things, I think, you know, those students probably wouldn't do great on their SATs and wouldn't get into college at as high a rate. And, you know, as a result, that school would be seen as a failure, just given our current system. But I do think that an ideal society would be first and foremost teaching people how to be good human beings, how to be happy, how to regulate their emotions, their behaviors and think clearly.

So the question is in that ideal society, how would we structure that? Well, I think for one thing, there's really no need for school to be this place where you go and you sit in a room with 30 other kids and a teacher spouts out the same lecture that they've been teaching year after year, semester after semester. We have the technology now to basically decide what is the most effective way to teach Algebra 2, for example.

And we can just broadcast that to everyone. So that would also free up a lot of teachers for more one-on-one tutoring. But overall, a big part of my work is informed by this idea that if the school system is going to be about training workers and producing profits ultimately, we need something else. We need another institution that's centered around teaching wisdom. And that's a big part of what's.

given rise to mind form, which is kind of my online school of, you know, what I call Psychitecture and Wisdom and all that. But you know, in short, there's major efficiency problems with, you know, putting kids through these mills basically. There's major issues and what is treated like the most important stuff kids need to learn earliest. And so I think a lot of that ideally would be...

be changed.

Srini Rao

Yeah. I mean, I can't help but think like when you you're in elementary school, you literally don't learn any of the sort of essential skills you need for adulthood. You basically are like, all right, base you go through, you get damaged and then you spend God knows how long in therapy to fix all the things that are screwed up when you get to adulthood. Well, talk to me about the trajectory that has led you to this sort of perspective of studying the mind the way that you have, because like I said, I think the depth of it and just the.

Ryan A Bush

Yeah.

Srini Rao

terminology was something I had never seen before. It was a really unique way of describing it. But I also noticed there are a lot of influences. Talk to me about sort of the trajectory that got you to hear it, how you've arrived at this perspective that eventually led to this bookk and even the previous one.

Ryan A Bush

Yeah, so around the same time that I was, you know, going through this, you know, comfort zone pushing project, I was also getting really interested in philosophy and psychology and stuff. I mean, at the time, it was YouTube videos and Wikipedia articles, but I was gradually getting more and more into practical philosophy and the principles behind living a good life and being happy. And I was, I was also

uncovering what I thought were sort of original insights. Turns out, you know, the Stoics beat me to most of them 2000 years ago. But I was experimenting with my own mind and I was making these discoveries. I was saying, oh, so something bad can happen to me and I can change the way I think about it in my head and turn that into a positive emotion instead of a negative one. And I was fascinated by this ability and sort of building out.

materials before I even knew I wanted to write a bookk. I was taking all these notes around this self experimentation I was doing. And then I started getting deeper into philosophy and psychology. I discovered stoicism, which was a huge influence. You know, ancient Greek philosophy that has a lot to say about how we regulate our emotions and how we deal with setbacks and focus on what we can control instead of what we can't.

and I discovered Buddhism and Taoism and all these other practical philosophies and also started getting into reading modern psychology and Maslow was a huge influence. So ultimately, this was one part of the trajectory that started in high school. The other part came when I went to college.

Ryan A Bush

philosophy and psychology and all this, I didn't see myself as an academic, didn't really wanna go that route, and so I ended up landing on product design, which is a much more creative path, I think, and I'm very happy with that route. It enabled me to kind of develop these two different ways of thinking in tandem. In my free time, I was studying philosophy and these kind of intellectual works.

And through these school projects and eventually through my work and clients, I was developing my creative capacities, learning how to create useful, beautiful things. And, and that ended up leading to, you know, working with a number of startups to develop physical products and apps and all that kind of thing. And so in many ways, what led to designing the mind was a merging of all these different

uh, passions that were separate originally and you know, some were my work and some were recreational and uh, Eventually, I realized I can put these together and build this one big combination of all my passions and skills

Srini Rao

Yeah. Well, I think the thing that strikes me most about the trajectory is that is an unusual level of self-awareness for somebody so young to do a deep dive into all this kind of stuff. Because I can tell you, if you had told me any of even what I talk about here on this podcast and the people that I interviewed in high school, I would have written it all off as nonsense. And it was like, this sounds new agey and sounds like total bullshit. Why do you think that is? Do you think it's because you weren't socialized through our school system?

Ryan A Bush

I think that's a part of it. I think part of it is just genetics. My parents are both very kind of thoughtful, reflective people. And, you know, my mom in particular is all about all about this stuff. She was not a typical mom. She was interested in lots of new age philosophy out there stuff. And so I think I think it's a mix of all this stuff. And I know, you know, from an early age, I was

realizing the power of going on walks and just asking myself questions and introspecting. And that ended up leading to a deck of introspection cards later, because I realized not everyone is doing this. Not everyone is regularly inquiring into their moods and their beliefs and all this stuff. But I think I'm just very much wired to be obsessed with what's going on inside my mind, instead of what's going on around me. And sometimes to a fault. But

We don't have to get into that.

Srini Rao

Yeah. Well, so the title of the bookk is Become Who You Are. And, you know, I thought, how do we even open up discussing this bookk because of the depth of it? But how do we even get to a place where we need to become who we are? Because that just, you know, it's sort of like an interesting paradox. Like, wait, I'm not who I think I am. So how do we even get to that place where we are not who we actually are? Where does like, what is the origin of it?

Ryan A Bush

Yeah, so this idea really, at least the phrase goes back to Nietzsche. He said, become who you are. And he said it a few times and it's always pretty cryptic and you kind of have to study his work a lot to sort of start wrapping your head around what it means. But the core idea is that we essentially have these values. We have these impulses of admiration that we feel toward other people. You know, we feel pride when we do certain things.

And these are all a little bit idiosyncratic, right? They vary from one person to another. And what I think Nietzsche believed and what Maslow believed as well is that these natural sort of responses that we have of admiration create a kind of blueprint for who our ideal self would be, right? And in some ways, these impulses are more us than we already are, right? We have to basically...

go through a process of shaping ourselves into the kind of person we would most admire. And that can require a lot of both inquiry and experimentation, but essentially the idea is that those impulses, when you see someone you admire, when you see someone take an action that you appreciate, and when you do something that you feel proud of, these all kind of start pointing toward a direction. And if you pay attention,

they'll tell you how you need to change, right? What will make you feel the best about yourself, the most proud of yourself? And that's essentially what it means to become who you are, is to change your behaviors so that they align with your ideals as much of the time as possible.

Srini Rao

Yeah. Well, speaking of which you say that we're continually surprised to find that the life events we expect to defeat or delight us simply don't deliver. We stumble in the same way one would stumble when navigating a foreign terrain with the wrong map. And, you know, on the flip side of that, you just said, like, we look at the people who we admire. I'll give you an example. We're both authors, right? So we look at somebody like Orion Holiday and we think, okay, I only know this because I got a bookk deal with the same imprint. And to your point.

you know, whatever happiness you get from that or whatever sort of, you know, temporary ego inflation you get from that doesn't last. So how is it that we continually find ourselves surprised and yet we, we can, you and I can talk about it and beat it like a dead horse. And everybody who has not experienced that thing will say, yeah, that's easy for you to say. It's like when somebody who's a billionaire says that money won't make you happy. It's like, yeah, you're a billionaire. Of course you say that.

Ryan A Bush

Mm-hmm.

Ryan A Bush

Right, right. Yeah, and so this is, I think it's actually something that we're wired to think about this incorrectly. Evolution didn't really program us to have a clear understanding of our own happiness, and so it kind of built us, I think, to constantly think that more success, more gains, more pleasure, it's going to result in the kind of deep happiness that we really want, and it continually doesn't deliver. We continue to...

want more as soon as we get what we thought we wanted and we continue not to learn from you know these lessons and I think a part of what could help us overcome that is having a better map for navigating our lives and that's kind of what I introduce in part one of the bookk. It's the idea that you can think about the way we normally navigate our lives as this two dimensional map where we're trying to optimize.

for pleasure and for gain, right? And we're trying to avoid pain and loss. And this is the map we're using and trying to make ourselves happier. But actually, when we observe what makes us happier, we see it doesn't correspond to these two dimensions of pleasure and gain. It responds to something else entirely. And so I sort of describe that by adding a third dimension to this map and basically creating a topographical map where you're always

moving up or down in a third dimension. And this third dimension corresponds to how much we admire our own behaviors, how much they align with our values. And so in this sense, it's not whether you get the million dollar bookk deal or whatever, it's about whether you are bringing out your virtues as a writer every day. So it's much more of a process oriented kind of thing. And it's a question of what will

enable me to bring out my strengths or my virtues most effectively. You know a big part of this is lost my train of thought there but I'm sure it'll come back in a second.

Srini Rao

Yeah. Well, I think that one of the things that struck me most about the bookk was how much you talked about virtues and you made a distinction between values and virtues. You said values are like containers, virtue is what goes inside of them. Values are the evaluative impulses in our minds that look for virtue in human behavior. Virtues are the traits that align with our values. Can you expand on that for people listening and what you mean by that and how it plays into this whole idea of our happiness?

Ryan A Bush

So the first thing to kind of point out anytime you're talking about virtue today It sort of strikes people as this like moral purity. It sounds preachy And that's really not what we're getting at it The term has a much richer history than how we sort of associate it today. And so Really what I mean by virtue is anything that you are good at anything that you pride yourself on it could be courage Creativity your sense of humor, right? Whatever that thing is

or that set of things, those are the virtues we're talking about here. And so values are what we sort of use to evaluate someone else's virtues. So if we value honesty and someone else has the virtue of honesty and they're bringing that out through their behaviors, then we'll admire them and we'll think to ourselves, okay, that's a good thing to do. And when someone doesn't, it sort of violates our values. And so really, a lot of the time, the two terms can be used.

almost interchangeably, but it's good to understand kind of the relationship between the two.

Srini Rao

Well, so let's talk a little bit about money, because you say that money can easily become a pathological addiction, making too much money can distract you from the virtue game that is taking place beneath the surface. It can train you to think of it as your sole aim in life, despite the fact that it may not facilitate or may even impede your virtual your vertical track to virtue. Talk about that because I mean like

You know, you hear phrases like money makes the world go around, like you watch the TV show Narcos is one of the first things they say in the third season. And it's like, you want to take down a drug cartel, follow the money. And this is such a sort of like polarizing subject for people and an emotional one. You know, we've had so many conversations about money that I always joke that if I actually implemented the advice of every single guest, theoretically, I should be able to do that.

Ryan A Bush

Yeah.

Srini Rao

Okay, continue, go ahead.

Ryan A Bush

Yeah, I didn't catch the end of your question, but...

Srini Rao

Well, so the idea here is that this is such a charged subject for so many people, and we've had so many conversations about money on this show, where I've joked that theoretically I should be a billionaire with six-pack abs, given the amount of advice I've got from incredible people, but I'm not.

Ryan A Bush

Right. Yeah. And so the idea that I share in this bookk, you know, you do have people who kind of worship money and we think there's something kind of unhealthy about that. But we've also got people who are saying money doesn't buy happiness and it's irrelevant. And something seems kind of naive about that as well. I mean, if someone's really struggling to pay their bills, can you really say that money isn't helpful for them, isn't going to do anything?

And so I think this framework that I introduced in the bookk will help people navigate these matters, because ultimately the question asked is, will this enable me to bring out more of my unique virtues or will it prevent me from doing that? And in some cases, for some people and in some contexts, more money would actually be huge for getting to where they can bring out more of their virtues.

If they're stuck in a mindless job where they're not doing anything that they're really good at, and they're just doing, you know, monotonous tasks, and they're trapped in that situation, that's actually preventing them from doing the kind of activities that would help them bring out their virtues and achieve, you know, greater happiness in life. But on the other hand, you could also have someone who is doing things that are really bringing out their strengths, that's exercising their virtues every day through their work.

And if they won the lottery and quit their job and started, you know, doing nothing as a result and sitting around and saying, I don't have to work anymore. They might actually see a huge reduction in their overall wellbeing, uh, because they've gotten reliant on, uh, all this money and they they've gotten out of the domains that were previously bringing out their strengths. So it's actually, uh, resulting in lower happiness. And, and when you've, when you've got a lot of money coming in, it can be very hard to walk away.

from it and from a situation that's not really contributing to your thriving and is causing you to stagnate, right? It becomes a temptation and an addiction at a certain point. And so I think the question should always be, will this actually enable me to bring out more of my unique strengths or will it suppress that ability? And that's the question to be asking first and foremost and use the money thing as more of a means to an end.

Srini Rao

Yeah.

So let's talk about status in particular, because I think that ties really nicely to this idea of money, because I think obviously money in some ways can be something that raises your status. But we live in this world where we are being ranked and categorized and quantified endlessly thanks to the uptote like social media. And one of the things that you say is higher social esteem is not necessarily better than lower social esteem. The quest for status and popularity may pressure us into becoming less virtuous, satisfying

away from our values. And we have Will Storr here who wrote, selfie how we become so self obsessed in what it's doing to us. So talk to me about the role of status in overall just happiness and how we don't get caught up in these status games because I think that that's largely, in a lot of ways social media seems to me like one giant status game when everybody's accomplishments are publicly on display.

Ryan A Bush

Yeah, it is a really tricky kind of minefield, I think. I will say that there's, in some ways, status is just like money and that it can be viewed as a means to an end of greater virtue, but I also think there's something kind of unique about status in that I have argued in this bookk that basically this whole happiness mechanism in our brain was put there in order to basically maximize social status.

So we've got this mechanism in our brains that's telling us, oh, that you just did a thing that people don't approve of, you should feel worse about yourself. And it's delivering these negative moods and chemicals bringing us down. And similarly, we get positive emotions when we do something that other people approve of and like. And so in many ways, our self-esteem echoes our social esteem, and they kind of go together in a lot of ways.

But I also think it can be really dangerous to treat the social esteem itself like the end goal. Because ultimately, not everyone in your community or your friend group or whoever it is, is going to have the same values as you, who is going to reward the same types of behaviors that you most admire. And so if you allow that to essentially rule your life and your behavior, you might find yourself becoming a person that you yourself don't even approve of.

And that's ultimately that the one person who is most important to get the approval of is yourself. That's essentially what I'm arguing in this bookk is the highest peak of wellbeing or what, what the ancient Greeks called eudaimonia is really a state of being highly approving of yourself and justifiably so, right? Feeling like your behaviors that you're taking on a regular basis are exactly what you would admire in someone else. And so I think status can be.

both a good kind of source of feedback for whether you're living according to your values or not, but it can also be a big distraction.

Srini Rao

Yeah. Well, so how do you even get to a place where you don't think highly of yourself? You know, I mean, I'm sure people feel that, like where you have low self-esteem. I know you've written a lot about self-esteem and depression. And then, of course, how do you get to a place where you do actually start to approve of yourself? Because I think that is one of those things where we kind of understand it intellectually, but living it is a whole different animal altogether.

Ryan A Bush

Yeah, so I think one thing that comes to mind certainly is that we can take actions that we personally find repugnant. We can take what are often called vices and do things that we're really notably not proud of, but I think it's much more common that we just find ourselves in a lifestyle where we're not bringing out the strengths that we most pride ourselves on. And so this is kind of

my experience when I was working as a product designer several years ago, is I found myself in a place where most of the creativity and the vision and the strengths that I had prided myself on had slowly sort of crept their way out of my regular behaviors. And so at work, my role had sort of shifted to where I was doing drafting and engineering instead of conceptual design, which I was good at. And so

Gradually, I got to where I wasn't seeing evidence of my own greatest strengths and put a pandemic on top of it and I wasn't seeing a lot of evidence for my interpersonal strengths either because I wasn't having that much personal interaction and so what all this adds up to is a life where your brain that's looking for evidence of The things you're best at isn't able to find that evidence I think for a lot of people this can happen through the really addictive things like

social media and video games and junk food and drugs, basically all these delightful things that we don't even have to leave our house for. What that does is it traps us in this lifestyle where we're consuming and we're staying hooked on these things that provide short-term pleasure, but they don't bring out a lot of virtue. It doesn't take a lot of personal strength to watch a show or to scroll through social media. And as a result, it doesn't...

deliver the right messages to our brains, and we'd start not seeing the evidence for that, you know, that we are approvable, that we do have those strengths that we pride ourselves on. And so one of the best ways to get out of a cycle like this is to adopt a daily activity schedule. If you are finding yourself feeling depressed, you've got low self-esteem, you're struggling to leave the house or even get out of bed on any given day, it's really important to slowly and gradually

Ryan A Bush

Add the add activities to your life and schedule activities that are going to bring more and more of that virtue out into your life And so initially that may be a very low level thing like every day I'm gonna get out of bed and take a shower and clean up my room and as you move up on that Well-being scale you get to where you can say, okay now every day I'm gonna go on a walk and read a chapter of a bookk and as you Sort of reach to higher and higher points on the scale

Uh, it starts looking much different. It starts looking unique and idiosyncratic. And the question becomes, uh, what's some unique vessel that I can build in my life that will allow unusual degrees of my unique strengths to come out in my life. And so for me, so I kind of the high level of that was, you know, founding, designing the mind and creating this opportunity essentially for me to bring out all my greatest strengths in one place. And so there's this whole.

spectrum of well-being that you work your way up. And I've argued that you do it by building more and more of those unique virtues into your life.

Srini Rao

Well, speaking of the pandemic, I know you alluded to autism in the bookk, and you said that autistic people are often intriguing and impressive in unique ways. They can be unusually creative, honest and thoughtful. They have been behind countless breakthroughs in collective understanding of art and technology. This means they can attain a certain kind of social or romantic appeal, even if they are often eccentric or socially awkward.

And it's funny because I've had, I think, a total of three guests who were on the spectrum. One who had been a former guest and later diagnosed who I'd never known. Terrence McMullen had talked about this. I remember her writing a blog post about it. Another was Kelly Gordon, who was a communications coach. And then there was another who was an absolutely brilliant guy who got so mad when we aired the interview that he emailed me and told me he would file a lawsuit if we didn't take it down.

Ryan A Bush

Oh my God.

Srini Rao

even though the interview was fantastic. And so, talking about how we misunderstand this and also like, you know, for somebody who gets a diagnosis later in life, like what that does to the sense of identity.

Ryan A Bush

Yeah, so this was kind of a part of that same struggle where I was, you know, struggling to bring out my strengths in my work. And I had a coworker who sort of unsolicitedly diagnosed me with autism. And you know, as kind of frustrating as that was at the time, I went and did my own research and said, yeah, actually, this is this is probably right. And so I diagnosed myself with autism pretty late in life.

You know, that term diagnosis kind of implies a disease or a disorder. But the more I have kind of studied it, the more I think actually these neuro types are probably actually adaptive. They probably evolved for a good reason. And that has to do with how people on these spectrums, whether it's, you know, it's autism or ADHD, have these unique strengths that they're able to bring to the social landscape and achieve a different kind of...

social approval. I think for me, you know, I have struggled with like normal, you know, social interactions since I was very young. And I think that in addition to the homeschool thing is part of why I struggled early on. But I also know that I really thrive in creative and intellectual domains. You know, I've always been pretty musically talented. So I've got these gifts that I think have gotten me.

other kinds of social approval and have gotten people to kind of be impressed with me. And you often hear similar stories about others. I mean, you know, you've got people like Elon Musk, who have said they're on the spectrum and you know, very often these people have unique talents. And I see this as a kind of frequency dependent selection, which is something we see in certain animals, you know, certain birds and guppies, right? Where basically certain traits.

Uh, in their case, often like colorations and that kind of thing, uh, become really coveted in the evolutionary space specifically because they are rare, because you don't see them that often. And so even though they can come at a cost in some cases, uh, the benefits can outweigh the costs. And so I've, you know, been studying people who are autistic and who have ADHD and they often do have these strengths that in some ways outweigh their, their social difficulties or their.

Srini Rao

No.

Ryan A Bush

difficulties in executive function and that kind of thing. And so I've come to the conclusion that these are evolutionary adaptations and not best viewed as diseases or disorders.

Srini Rao

Yeah, well, I mean, I can tell you, like, I got diagnosed with ADHD when I was 28, and it was a relief because it just suddenly clarified why I had been so bad at my jobs. But the thing I found was when I started working for myself, like, I found that I could do things at a speed like what normal people will take to do in a week, I would be done with in a day. That was like the blessing and curse of ADHD is like when you're interested in something, you have laser light focus when you're not. Good luck getting you to pay attention for even a second.

Ryan A Bush

Right.

Yeah, and people with ADHD are also often the most charming, funny people that you'll ever meet. And I have many friends that fall into this category. So there's lots of strengths that come along with it. There are difficulties too. And I also think some of those difficulties arise because of the difference between our modern world and the evolutionary world that we evolved in. I mean, we didn't have to sit at a computer and focus on things we didn't want to in, you know, 100,000 years ago.

We also didn't have to meet a bunch of strangers in my case, because you would have had basically 150 people that you knew since you were born. And so there are a lot of things about the modern world in particular that exacerbate these difficulties and make these conditions look like disorders when really they might be better viewed as gifts.

Srini Rao

Yeah, well, so the thing that I think is so striking, right when we got on camera, because I remember reading that bookk thinking, I was like, I wonder if this is gonna be a difficult interview or a difficult conversation, but none of the way that you and I have interacted would make me think that you were on the spectrum on any level.

Ryan A Bush

Yeah, well, it's funny you say that because I've often thought to myself like, I really wish social interactions were like podcasts. Like if that's what a party was, if I just walked into a party and everyone was like quietly seated and asking me like one question at a time about things I'm interested in and knowledgeable about, oh, I would be the life of the party. So that's, it's funny that I think I don't come across that way to someone on a podcast

whatever, but yeah, in real life socializing is a much messier, more emotional dance, I think, and then information exchange. And so I think that's a big part of that. But also I do think I've done a lot of work to overcome some of those difficulties. And that's why I do have people in my life that I love and a partner and that I'm very happy with. So yeah, I think it's a combination of those things.

Srini Rao

Let's talk about seeking external approval, because we kind of alluded to this earlier. We live in a world where you have access to validation on demand.

which is kind of a double edged sword, right? Because it's not really true validation anyway at all. But one thing you say is that if you optimize for social approval, your wellbeing will be completely reliant on other people reacting to you the way that you want. Now, of course, we live in a social world. We also don't want people to constantly react in negative ways to us. Like, then you kind of have to look in the mirror and say, well, maybe I'm the asshole here. You know? So where's the line here? Like, you know, obviously,

I think I agree with you that social approval is not something you should optimize for, but I think it matters. Like, to a degree, I think it's just that we push that to the point of admission returns.

Ryan A Bush

Yeah, I think similar to the, you know, the status thing. It's like, well, what really matters is your own values. And ultimately, if you're finding that you're living according to your own values, but you're not getting social approval, you're probably in the wrong social groups. You probably need to find people who have values similar to yours that will approve of you for the right reasons. Because yeah, if you, you know, allow the people around you to dictate how you act and how you live,

Eventually you're going to get shaped into someone that you yourself aren't happy with, you aren't proud of. And this is one of the ways I think that you could decline into a depression is you basically allow a social group's validation to shape your behaviors to the point where you don't even like you. I've had times where I shaped my behaviors according to social groups and just felt kind of gross about it. Didn't feel good about who I was.

And that's kind of an indication you need to find different people. And maybe that means you need to get off social media or you need to, you know, change jobs or whatever it is. Uh, you, you gotta find a group that approves of you for the right reasons, right? Not the wrong one.

Srini Rao

Yeah, I mean, I think that of all places where that idea becomes really challenging is adolescence. Like, I think seventh grade in particular, you know, you weren't socialized in high school, but like if you go from elementary school to seventh grade, everybody's had this experience where teenagers are assholes. Let's just put it bluntly. And you know, I think you turn into an asshole without even realizing when you're a teenager, your parents become the most god-awful people in the world and you start to care about really superficial things. Like I very distinctly remember.

just caring so much about what shoes I was wearing, whether I had the latest nice brand polo shirts or whatever it is, because that was kind of the thing. Everybody in school who was in a popular kids group, they all came from families that had money and they dressed well. I'm sorry, so what I was saying is that...

Ryan A Bush

You cut out there.

Srini Rao

In junior high, you just start to almost have this level of obsession with social approval that is really unhealthy. And I think there's no place in life, no time in life when dealing with this desire for external approval is more challenging. I think you kind of go out of it, but talk to me about that.

Ryan A Bush

Yeah, I mean, you know, it's easy with adolescents to just blame the hormones. But I think a big part of it is that it takes people too long to start figuring out who they are and what they value and how they want to act. I think it kind of goes back to what we're saying about education. It's like if we were teaching people how to introspect, how to figure out who they are, how to identify their values and what kind of things they like and don't like and approve of and admire.

If we were teaching this at a really early age, right, maybe adolescents wouldn't be known as this shitty time where everyone's being a jerk and turning into a jerk unknowingly. You know, I think it takes us a long time until adulthood often to figure out who we really are. And that's why I've said we have an introspection deficiency in our culture, right? And I've tried to create tools to help people, you know, ask these questions about themselves earlier on so that we could.

be quicker to get to a point where we know, this is who I want to be, this is what I'm proud of, this is what I'm not proud of. And not have to waste all those years, trying things that just don't work in ourselves.

Srini Rao

No. Well, let's talk about this idea of self acceptance in more depth because you say artificial ego inflation is not actually self acceptance. Self acceptance doesn't mean letting go of your values. It doesn't mean you're perfect. It means that you accept who you are, who you are not, accept that you have flaws, accept that you're not perfect and that you never will be, accept that there's lots of room to improve yourself and most importantly, accept your real genuine strengths.

And it's funny because I think the part that a lot of people struggle with is accepting their flaws, like admitting the things that they are deficient at, you know? Like I remember once I wrote an article about, you know, like how to succeed as a writer on the internet and it went out with typos like in the newsletter.

And somebody called me out and I'm thinking to myself, Jesus, this is really embarrassing. But I also know I'm like, you know, ADHD. I had one of my own copywriters was like, how the hell did you get a bookk deal? He said, you have such atrocious spelling and you make so many errors. And I'm like, I had an editor. But it was just one of those moments that kind of just, I thought of that moment as I read that quote.

Ryan A Bush

Right.

Ryan A Bush

Yeah, well, so there's a few things there. I mean, there is this sort of self-compassion movement right now that I think is overall a really healthy thing, right, and the message is accept yourself exactly as you are. Don't feel like you have to deny or suppress who you are because of these flaws that you have. On the other hand, I think it leans a little too far towards not feeling the need to change or modify yourself. I think...

I think it's very important that we approve of ourselves because of the things that we thrive at, right? That we approve of ourselves because of our values and not just throwing our values out the window and saying, you know, I'm as good as I can ever be because I'm a human being, right? I mean, yes, you should accept, you know, your strengths and your flaws, right? There's no real conflict between accepting where you're at now and choosing to become better.

Right? But that's, that's something that gets lost a lot of the time in the self-compassion message is that, yeah, you should accept yourself, but then you should ask, how can I improve these things? I talk about the virtue portfolio or the collection of strengths that you have. Uh, and I basically recommend that for most people, you focus on those things that you've always really thrived at and you double down on those strengths instead of dwelling too much on your weaknesses. So you may have to just say.

You know, I'm not great at this and that's okay. You know, it's better for me to focus on the things I am great at and try to take them further than dwelling on this flaw that I have. But I also think it's best to say, yes, I accept myself as I am now. And two, I'm gonna see if I can become better and if I can align with my values to a higher degree. Right, and so there's two parts to it and they're not in conflict.

Srini Rao

Yeah, I think that I appreciate the idea of you saying like in one way we've taken it too far because Dan Pink even said this to me in an interview, he said, you know, we particularly as Americans are over indexed on positive emotions. And I think that we take this whole positive thinking idea too far to the point where it creates delusional optimism and really just like amplifies every cognitive bias when you have this sort of delusional level of optimism without being truthful with yourself to say like there are things that I know I will never be able to do.

And that's just reality. And I think that, you know, people, I think there are certain aspects of self-improvement, like genetic determinism, I think, is one of those things that is really just frowned upon in the whole world of self-improvement. And I'm like, that's ludicrous. Genetics determine lots of things. Like, that's something that you cannot change. Like, I'm never gonna be seven feet tall, you know?

Ryan A Bush

Right Yeah, yeah, that's one that you're definitely not going to change and there are some that you Easily can change and there's a lot of middle ground between those two Where you kind of have to try things out and experiment in order to figure out how malleable that thing is I mean there are some things that if you spent ten thousand hours You really could make huge progress in changing that thing that you assumed was genetic So there's a case to be made for not

too quickly jumping to the genetic determinism conclusion. But there are also times when you can put in tons of hours, you can see very little growth and improvement and you would be best off saying, you know what, this isn't worth my time to try to improve a little bit when I could focus on something else. And so I think, yeah, it's about getting out there and actually learning and trying things and seeing.

how quickly you're able to grow, how easily you're able to improve in that area, and deciding which hills you wanna die on and which ones you can be at peace with, right?

Srini Rao

Yeah. Well, you just alluded to virtue convergence, and you go on towards the end of the bookk to say, your job in life is to maximize your virtue. This is the most healthy, energizing life of farming and truly altruistic thing you could do. Don't ever let anyone convince you they should feel guilty for working towards excellence. And then you go on to talk about psychotecture, which you say is the process of designing your own mind.

optimizing the internal patterns of your own beliefs, emotions and behaviors. And within that framework of yoga, you can fit into this practice into a broader perspective. And to take part in it, you must cultivate metacognitive awareness, use reason to strategically coordinate your virtues and change the habitual patterns of your character. So talking about like, what does that actually look like in practice? Because like I said, the depth of this bookk was really what got me. And I thought, I mean, this is gonna be really hard to do in an hour, but I...

same time, like I thought this is in my mind I left with this, you know, and maybe this was very much by design. I was like this bookk left me with a lot more questions than answers, which I think is actually not a bad thing.

Ryan A Bush

Yeah, no, that's a good thing. And it's good when you have those questions that we can kind of explore and dig into together. I think, so two different things in that. One is virtue convergence. This idea of kind of bringing together multiple things that you thrive at, right? To me, this is kind of the holy grail of this process of personal growth and striving toward eudaimonia or wellbeing. It's this idea that

If you can create one area where you can bring multiple strengths in, if you can find some area where lots of different things that you thrive at are able to come out together in a synergistic way, that's one of the best ways to cultivate greater well-being. So I talk about designing your virtue domains, designing these spaces. And to me, what I've done with designing the mind here is kind of a...

an ideal example because you know, I spent a long time asking myself, how am I going to bring my writing and my interest in philosophy and psychology and all this stuff into what I'm doing in my work? And I've been asking, where do I go next with my design career? And you know, it kind of occurred to me at one point, well, what if I bring all these things together? What if I, you know, start designing, you know, beautiful products that also teach these psychological principles? What if I...

you know start hosting events with members on mind form and You know use that to bring out more of my strengths and so to me the thing that we should all be asking Is how can I create some kind of vessel like this where all the things that I thrive at are together in one place If I imagine the anti mind form Right the thing that would be like a combination of all my weaknesses

it's scary to think about. It would be terrible. But finding that space where all your strengths kind of come together, that's the core idea of virtue convergence. Now, Psychitecture, you referenced too, that's kind of the topic of my first bookk. And I think they do go together in many ways, but it's kind of the act of designing all the micro habits in your mind, the...

Srini Rao

No.

Ryan A Bush

cognitive biases, the emotional reactions, and the behaviors and habits, asking yourself how you can change this interconnected chain of thoughts and feelings to work better with you. And I think in many ways these principles of psychotecture are foundational to the process of becoming that I talk about in this bookk. How can I cultivate these strengths like self-mastery and wisdom so that I'll be

better able to use that self-control to cultivate these strengths, to use that wisdom to know which direction to be headed in. And so it's very much synergistic endeavors.

Srini Rao

Now.

Well, let's finish this up by talking about authenticity, because I think authenticity in my mind is one of those very misunderstood things. And I have asked the question, which I'll ask you at the end of the interview, what does it mean to be unmistakable? And so many people say authenticity, and that means so many different things to so many people. And I think often people consider sort of just being like shooting from the hip with authenticity, like just saying whatever the hell is on their mind. And you and I both know this. As a public figure,

Ryan A Bush

Hehehe

Srini Rao

viable. There's plenty of things you and I probably say with our friends that we would never say in a public forum. So talk to me about what authenticity means. What is the definition of authenticity? How do you define it?

Ryan A Bush

Yeah, I think it is the kind of authenticity we should be aiming for, I think is largely synonymous with like self-actualization. It's how can I bring out, you know, the best of me and in many ways the parts of me that I admire that I'm proud of. You know, it's not bringing out everything I think for everyone to see because ultimately this does get really ambiguous. You know, what exactly does that mean to bring out?

every part of me. And so I think it is most important that you are trying to self-actualize, that you're trying to realize through your life, through your lifestyle and your behaviors, all the things that you admire most in others. And I think that's the best way to think about authenticity in the sense that we should be striving for it, I think.

Srini Rao

Yeah. Well, like I said, this bookk was just deep and rich with very thought-provoking insights. So we could spend hours talking about each section. But in the interest of time, I want to finish with my final question, which is how we finish all of our interviews. What do you think it is that makes them do something unmistakable?

Ryan A Bush

Yeah, so I really like this concept and I know, you know, it's also the title of one of your bookks and the subtitle of that bookk I think was why it's better to be the only than the best. And this is an idea that, you know, I've heard in a few different forms and I even cited in my first bookk Kevin Kelly saying, you know, don't be the best be the only very similar concept. And I think this is such a

Ryan A Bush

anyone is because I think we have a tendency to rank ourselves in a linear fashion and to ask who's doing better or something when really we should be very much thinking about in terms of how can I get to a place where my work and my actions are most aligned with who I am and basically become more and more unique and idiosyncratic. That's I think a lot of the theme that's coming up here is, you know, through my

work, I've tried to make Designing the Mind more Ryan Bush than anything else. I've tried to make it so that you couldn't mistake it for someone else's work. And I even say in the bookk, a rewarding activity is one that requires more of your unique strengths to do. And hence, the most rewarding activity will be one that only you could do. And if you can get to a place where you're able to bring those unique strengths and skills together to a point where

only you could do what you're doing. There's no one else in the world with the same combination of perspectives and passions and strengths, then I think that is both what it means to be unmistakable and it's really what it means to become who you are. So I think it's very much how we should all be approaching our lives.

Srini Rao

Beautiful. Well, I can't thank you enough for taking the time to join us and share your story, your wisdom, and your insights with our listeners. Where can people find out more about you, the bookk, and everything else they're up to?

Ryan A Bush

Yeah, I really enjoyed it as well. You can, soon you'll be able to pre-order Become Who You Are, but in the meantime, you can always go to designingthemind.org slash Psychitecture, and if you go there, you will get a couple of free bookks, the Psychitects Toolkit, which is kind of an introduction to the main ideas of Psychitecture and the Book of Self-Mastery, which is a quote compilation bookk that I put together.

So you'll get those right away and you'll get on the email list and know when the bookk's available.

Srini Rao

Amazing. And for everybody listening, we will wrap the show with that.