Visionary or Delusional? What Submersibles, Fake Blood Tests, and Self-help Share

[00:00:00] At Seek Safely, it's our mission to empower seekers to have a safe and meaningful self-improvement journey. Why do we care? Seeking to be your best self is an amazing, beautiful human impulse that has led us to create art, invent technology, tell amazing stories, and reach the moon.

[00:00:19] But we saw the dark side of self-help in 2009, when a recklessly run self-improvement retreat led to the death of three people, including my sister, Kirby Brown. We want people to seek, to dream their big dreams and chase their beautiful goals. But we want to make sure they're safe along the way. This podcast is about education and empowerment, and getting real about the promises and problems of self-help.

[00:00:46] We talk with people who understand and care about the self-help industry, and everyone it touches. I'm Jean Brown. I'm Dr. Glenn Patrick Doyle. And this is the Seek Safely Podcast. Hello, and welcome to the Seek Safely Podcast. My name is Jean Brown. I am here with my co-host, Dr. Glenn Patrick Doyle. Hello, Dr. Glenn Patrick Doyle. How are you?

[00:01:16] Hello, soon-to-be Dr. Jean Brown. How long? Yeah, in like, you know, four years, maybe. What's the lag time on this? Like, how long do we have to wait? For me to get my doctorate? Yeah. Yeah, it says it's a four-year program. So, you know, I think I'll be pretty focused. I think I have a good idea what I'm talking about. Yeah. So within four years, I'll be able to say, hello, Dr. Glenn, I'll say, hello, Dr. Jean, and it's all... Yeah, there you go. I love it.

[00:01:44] Well, just, we just gotta, all of you listeners out there, you have to stay with us for four years so that I do get to the point on the podcast where I can say, I'm Dr. Jean Brown. You betcha. Yeah. Yeah. Well, before we get going, before we should say, this episode of the Seek Safely podcast is brought to you by the Seek Safely Summit. Mm-hmm. Right? Before we get rolling. Yeah.

[00:02:09] The Seek Safely Summit is coming at us. It is coming on May 30th. Joined me, Dr. Glenn Patrick Doyle, and soon-to-be Dr. Jean Brown, and Dr. Christine Whelan, and others. Mm-hmm. Yeah, Chris Shelton, who was a guest earlier this year. Rachel Bernstein's gonna be with us.

[00:02:31] Yes. Anne Peterson will be with us. Yeah, we've got a good lineup. You can get more information right from our website. There's a link right there where you can go and get more information and purchase tickets and... So many cool, interesting people, and it's gonna be a, on May 30th, it's gonna be a virtual event. It's a series of conversations about the self-help industry and personal empowerment, how, you know, what happens when self-help goes wrong, how to recover from that. Mm-hmm.

[00:03:04] Mm-hmm. Yeah, I think we are. Yeah.

[00:03:31] We had so much to talk about in this recovery space. So, if you dig what we talk about on this podcast, if you dig what I talk about on my social media feeds, join us on May 30th at Seek Safely Summit. Head over to SeekSafely.org for more details, huh?

[00:04:17] Yeah. Seek's mission. Yeah. So, you know, we make a lot of folks.

[00:04:24] We make a lot of jokes about the industry. We point out a lot of absurdity, but we're here and we're still talking about it because we believe that there is good to be done through this industry. So, we like to, you know, kind of work with and surround ourselves with other people who also see that, you know, there's value in putting in the effort to make it better. So, yeah.

[00:04:52] Oh, you bet. Yeah. Man. Thank you.

[00:05:05] See, we're improving ourselves even now. So, check this out. I was watching one of the documentaries on, I think it was on Hulu about the Titan. You remember this? The submersible vehicle that was going to, tried, attempted to descend to the depth of the Titanic.

[00:05:30] And I had several passengers who had paid a lot of money to be on it. And I went down there and it collapsed. It imploded. Yeah. By the way, I'm enjoying the fact that we now live in a world where pretty much any major thing is going to have competing documentaries. Like you got the Netflix version of this and then you've got the Hulu version of this. That happened at the Fyre Festival, remember? Like they had. Yeah.

[00:05:59] And Twin Flames, right? Like they have like the Amazon Prime one and the Netflix one. Well, yeah. Even, you know, NXIVM. Like there are multiple docuseries and yeah. You bet. For sure. Anyway. I know. Yeah, it's good. There's a lot of places to gather information. So, so I was watching this and something about it reminded me of, of kind of the things that we talk about in a mission at Seek Safely.

[00:06:28] A lot of what this documentary focused on was the, the founder of this company. It was a guy named Stockton Rush. And so it, you know, the documentary. Which by the way, I just have to say, his name would be Stockton Rush. Stockton Rush. Like is that his, was that his real name? Like that just sounds like something made up for the documentary. It's just too good.

[00:06:54] It sounds like if you were writing like a Fifty Shades of Grey kind of thing, Christian Grey. Yeah. Stockton Rush. Stockton Rush. Who obviously had to be an entrepreneur and CEO of a company. Like it's just, I don't know. Anyway, please, please continue. So a lot of what this documentary focused on was, was his quest to, to perfect this technology and, and, and to get it in, in service.

[00:07:33] And, and, and, and, and the whole quest to get the Titan up and, and, and operating and stuff. And who had raised questions. And who had doubts. Like so, and this included a wide array of people. Like this included engineers who worked for him and journalists who had been around, who had been along on, on, on other journeys of the submersible.

[00:07:59] So he had no lack of people raising concerns. Right. But as a guy, and it sounds like as a company, the company's name was Ocean Gate, like as a company, Ocean Gate, and as a guy, Stockton Rush, we're very much in that, in that vein that we've seen a lot of, of, of, you know, we are a possibility company.

[00:08:25] Like, like we, we focus on, on, on, on seeing what others don't see and believing in our mission. And sure, there are always going to be may sayers and there will be those raising questions and doubts. But guys like Stockton Rush seem to have a very specific attitude toward people who did raise concerns. And it really, it was not that, okay, they have, you know, potentially legitimate things that they were raising.

[00:08:53] Um, the attitude that was taken was they are, they don't see our vision. They don't see our vision. They don't believe in our vision. And we need to, we need to cut them out. And there's actually, at least one of the engineers, um, you know, discusses how she had raised these concerns and, and, and, and it was, it was cut from the team. Like, like they said, you know, no harm, no foul. You're just not on board with us.

[00:09:22] And, and why don't you leave? Dare I say shunned? And, and what occurs to me about that is how many times in self-help literature and self-help programs, uh, have, we heard it said some version of this. If people are going to harsh your, your, your mellow, if people are going to not believe in you, you need to cut them out. You need to not expose yourself to that negativity. Like it's, it's very explicitly said a lot.

[00:09:51] Yeah. Um, it's, it's interesting you bring this up because I remember when this whole thing happened, cause it was one of those, you know, media stories that like just really took over for a little while. Like all eyes were on this story because it was, I don't know. I mean, the Titanic is always one of those things that draws interest. Um, and then, yeah, like you had this kind of personality and then.

[00:10:21] And yeah, there's just so many elements to it that really grabbed people's attention. But I remember having a feeling like it's like every once in a while I'll encounter something out there and it's like a little ding goes off in my brain.

[00:10:37] And it's like a little bell ringing where there's some synchronicity with some aspect of the self-help world or, you know, all the things that I've kind of learned about since I got kind of pulled into scrutinizing this industry. Um, where I see patterns that are very familiar and I'm like, uh, yep.

[00:11:01] I caught, I, I, I can pretty clearly put together this story and then, you know, I keep reading and I'm like, oh yeah, there's a person that said, you know, this and they were ignored. And yeah, so yeah, I definitely, uh, definitely see that those parallels. We love that story.

[00:11:19] Like, like we love the, the concept that there are some things that are only, uh, that only seem impossible because people didn't believe hard enough.

[00:11:32] And it takes a visionary leader to then lay out the vision and to believe in that vision and to cut out the naysayers and, and, and this, this core dedicated team that just never gives up faith and never doubts and plays full on in the words of our friend, the late James Arthur Ray. Right. We love that idea. Yeah.

[00:11:54] Because what it does is I think from a, I don't know, from a psycho, psychological point of view, we human beings don't like being told we can't do stuff. We really don't like, like we don't love this idea that there is just some stuff that we are not going to figure out. Um, so we love that idea. We love the idea that man, like, like visionary leaders can get us over the hump with the power of their belief and they can inspire us to believe.

[00:12:21] And, and if only everybody believes hard enough, we can speak it into existence. Now, one of the things that's interesting about, um, this documentary was that it devoted a fair amount of time to, uh, discussing the science of what he was trying to do. Mm-hmm. Um, like they, they were trying to, um, create the, the submersible from, uh, a material. I think they call it carbon fiber. I mean, it was way above my head, like so, right?

[00:12:50] So, but, but they're trying to do something that, that couldn't be done before in terms of science and engineering. And, um, what occurs to me about that is those aren't the kinds of problems you solve with belief. Right. That's not the kind of problem that you solve by believing hard enough. Like maybe you believe hard enough that the problem can be solved and therefore you do the things that will work toward solving the problem.

[00:13:17] But, but in and of itself, you don't just think and believe yourself into, you know, suddenly carbon fiber being appropriate to send down to the Titanic. Right. And in so far as that? It's a very, yeah, like it's a very, um, it's interesting because this is like a whole kind of, uh, law of attraction type mentality of like, well, if you just believe it, the belief being powerful enough can impact the material world.

[00:13:47] And it will change reality, right? Right. Right. And, and this is like an example of like, we're literally talking about the material in this case that this thing was made out of and that somehow the belief was more powerful than, than the actual physical reality of the situation. And yeah, it's, it's quite radical. Well, and, and we as humans, again, we love that idea. Are you kidding me?

[00:14:16] Like, like, like we love the idea that we can change science, that we can change the molecules of reality by believing hard enough. Um, it's an idea that has been kind of hardwired into our, into our systems for forever. Right. Well, and I will, I will say maybe, especially for a West of coming from Western perspective, I think other cultures have a different relationship with the physical.

[00:14:46] And are maybe a little bit more respectful, um, more willing to live in a more harmonious relationship rather than this. We talk about this in like English literature classes, man versus nature is like one of the recurring themes, right? So yeah, it's definitely a perspective, but certainly from the Western perspective, it's a, it's a big, a big theme.

[00:15:10] Um, it, it, it reminded me of, of, of three other things that are, that are related. So I'm a psychologist and I work mostly with people with, with complicated, um, uh, post-traumatic and dissociative disorders, um, and also addictions.

[00:15:33] And self-help is really great slash terrible, uh, at, at, at telling folks that, man, the things that trouble you, that they're, they're all, you're making them up. They're all in your mind that, that, that you can, we can do a mind over matter kind of thing here.

[00:15:51] And, and, and if you only believe hard enough, if you only adjust your mindset enough, um, you can do things like overcome post-traumatic depression and, and trauma responses like flashbacks and, and, and, and these kinds of things. And I'm here to tell you as arguably an expert in trauma, that that's not how that works.

[00:16:12] It is the case that what we do and, and, and things like mindset, how we think, how we breathe, like, like, like, yeah, there are all sorts of things that we can do to impact how trauma shows up in our body and, and, and, and, and how we experience trauma. However, it's not the case. Like, gosh, if you tell a trauma survivor that their problem with flashbacks is because they're not believing hard enough that it's possible to be flashback free.

[00:16:41] That person is, first of all, going to experience a lot of shame, usually for, gosh, it's all in my head and still I'm struggling. Right. Um, you know, trauma, and I'm just using trauma as, as one example, but there are lots of examples of this, um, you know, depression. Just straightforward depression is, is another great example, but there are biological markers of depression. And then you've got guys like Andrew Tate out there saying depression isn't real. It's, it's, it's, it's, it's a made up thing.

[00:17:09] It's that you're the only reason you're depressed because you're buying the idea that you, that depression is real. No, depression actually is real. It has, again, it has biological markers, but the point is that it's, it's all part of the same ball of wax of, you know, man, like, we're not going to think our way out. We're not going to think our way out of the biological reality of, of, of, of either PTSD, depression, things like OCD. That's another great example.

[00:17:36] Like, like we know that, uh, things like OCD and bipolar disorder, like, like we know, like there are, are really well-established biological markers of these. It's not, you're not going to think our way out of it. Mm-hmm. But that idea that we can is really tempting. Mm-hmm. And it's particularly tempting when there is a, uh, a figure, a guru who is, you know, tends to be charismatic and tends to be confident.

[00:18:04] And, and, you know, say about Stockton Rush and see, he was definitely confident. He had a certain kind of charisma. He was definitely a leader. He's one of these guys. He had great hair. Of course, of course he did. His name was Stockton Rush. He was Stockton Rush. So that's the first thing it reminded me of was that, yeah, you know, like, like we're not going to outthink science. We're really not. Yeah. Um, and by the way, that's not to say that science is perfect. It's, it's really not. I'm not trying to say that. I'm not one of these, you know, trust the science. Now there's a lot of stuff science doesn't know.

[00:18:34] And, and, and, and I'm respectful of that as well. Yeah. Um, we're also not going to outthink COVID by the by, just faith over fear. It's, it's not, that's straightforward. But I was also reminded of, I went through a phase a few years ago. You might remember this gene where I was watching a bunch of documentaries about climbing Mount Everest. Mm. Yeah. And, um, I'd gotten it in my head.

[00:19:00] You know, I, I just turned 49 a couple months ago and, and a few years ago, I'm like, I'm in my mid forties. I want to do something really extraordinary. I want to conquer the, the, the Mount Everest. I want to do it. Right. Like I, like I watched the movie with, with, uh, with, uh, God, who was that? Right. My gosh thing. I forget it. But, um, Everest, I watched the movie and I'm like, I could do that. Come on. What's the problem? What's the problem? You're cold.

[00:19:30] Come on. You can do it. And of course, you know, like, like I being a white male from the West, no one has confidence like a mediocre white guy, um, with too many letters after his name, such as myself. But then I started researching it just out of curiosity. First of all, it's very expensive to even try to climb Mount Everest. Um, so please make those, those donations to seek safely. You can do it through the website.

[00:19:58] You can fund, uh, fund, uh, Dr. Doyle's vanity trip. Vanity trip to conquer Mount Everest. Don't do that. I'm not going to do it because guess what? There's no universe in which I'm going to do that. Um, did you, did you, was it the idea of climbing over all the other dead bodies that are up there? That is rough. There are so many dead bodies on Everest. There's another documentary, not to get on a tangent. There's another documentary.

[00:20:24] Um, I think it's on Hulu about a guy who, uh, so his brother went and tried to climb Mount Everest and didn't come back. And so he went and he like, he took a team like now they've got technology. They didn't have whatever, 20 years ago, like these, that they're using drones and imaging and stuff. And they were like looking for his body fascinating, but my point is no matter how strongly you believe

[00:20:53] that you can climb Mount Everest, um, you're not going to think your way around the, the, the, the, the actual task of, okay, you, you need a certain level of conditioning just for starters. Like you need a certain level of physical ability. Um, you also need a certain amount of, of, of economic support to do that. But beyond that, there is science to climbing Mount Everest. And if you ignore that science, or if you think that your willpower is going to get you past

[00:21:22] it, you're going to have a bad time. You will probably stay on Mount Everest. You'll stay on Everest forever. Yeah. So remind me of that because again, like, like, you know, very often self-help uses kind of that metaphor of conquer the mountain, conquer the mountain. Like, like it's, it's all in your head. Like, like he was talking about it's not actually it's, it's, you know, like, like the Kumbu icefall doesn't care about your self-esteem. It actually doesn't actually.

[00:21:46] You gotta, anyway, but the far more relevant to kind of what we talk about, we return to the, the case of Elizabeth Holmes and Theranos. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Because she, because the Stockton Rush really reminded me of, of Elizabeth Holmes. They were both CEOs that were very strongly mission driven, vision driven. Right.

[00:22:13] And their shtick, respect, respectively, both of them, like, like their shtick was all about, we are envisioning something that has never been done. So in the case of Stockton Rush is we're sending a submersible down to the Titanic and in a way that's using a material that's never been done before. Elizabeth Holmes is saying, we're going to do blood testing in a way that's never been done before. We've got to develop the technology to do it.

[00:22:34] Now, when Elizabeth Holmes, and, and gosh, I can't strongly recommend enough the, the podcast, The Dropout. It was out a few years ago. Um, it was a podcast by ABC News that, that really discussed these things in depth. Um, the HBO documentary, um, I think it's, what was it called? It was called The Inventor? No. You remember? Yeah.

[00:23:02] There's an HBO, there's an HBO documentary about it as well. I want to say it's The Inventor, but I'm probably wrong about that. Tell us in the comments below how wrong I am. Anyway. Um, I'm sorry. These, these, uh, the podcast, the documentaries about Elizabeth Holmes, they go into how, so she had this vision. She had this vision that, you know, what if we could do these, these blood tests that

[00:23:28] we think require like a full tube of, of, of blood, but what if we could do just around a drop of blood? Mm-hmm. And she took this idea to scientists and engineers and investors, and most of them came back with like, okay, there are reasons. There are actual scientific, physiological reasons we can't do it, actually. Mm-hmm. There's a reason why this doesn't exist yet and has nothing to do with like, people just don't believe hard enough. Like there's actual physics to this. There's actual chemistry to this.

[00:23:54] Which didn't stop her from building a, a company on, on that promise that we're going to figure this out. Mm-hmm. Now, as a therapist, I, and as a self-help guy, like, like I put a lot of stock in, yeah, let's figure this out. I like that. I like the idea that everything is figureoutable. Mm-hmm. I think a lot more things are figureoutable than we even kind of realize, right? Yeah.

[00:24:19] However, it becomes a problem when we accept the idea that the only thing stopping us from figuring things out is our lack of faith, our lack of belief, our lack of willingness to go all in and play full on. And that's kind of what Elizabeth Holmes sold. That's kind of what Stockton Rush sold. Mm-hmm. In both the cases of, of Stockton Rush and Elizabeth Holmes, when they had people try to tell them,

[00:24:45] hey, there are scientific reasons why, why this isn't going to work, at least not in this form. Mm-hmm. And it's actually dangerous to pretend otherwise. Because in the case of Theranos and Elizabeth Holmes, they were really, they were talking about medical tests, man. Like, like, they were talking about, man, if people get the wrong result on their blood test, like, like, people could be at risk. It affects really important decisions. Mm-hmm.

[00:25:14] They responded, again, they, they would, they would respond to, to naysayers. That's what they would consider, you know, and not people who have legitimate concerns. They would consider them, oh, they're, they're naysayers. And they just, they don't believe hard enough. And we need to cut out that rot. Mm-hmm. So we can stay focused on possibility. And we're going to believe ourselves. They're like suppressives. That's right. They're, they're SPs. As friend of the show, Chris Shelton would say, right? Yes.

[00:26:09] Mm-hmm. It didn't, it didn't work. What she was promising didn't exist at that time. But it's also my understanding that she probably thought they were going to get there. Mm-hmm. She probably thought that, again, it seems to be the consensus of people who knew her is that, you know, man, this is just how Silicon Valley works. You over promise.

[00:26:40] Mm-hmm. Well, because it's also like this, especially with Silicon Valley, it seems like this idea is just anything can be done with the right amount of money. So as long as you can sell the idea and build the capital, then you can build the product later. Whether, you know, completely ignoring whether or not it's possible. Physically, scientifically. Yeah.

[00:27:08] Well, there's very much a sense, I think, of if you throw enough time and enough money at a problem, it's solvable. Like, that's the solution. Yeah. Throw enough brilliant minds and, you know, doing enough manpower, enough man hours and enough capital and the money. Gosh, I remember. And by the way, gosh, I remember my dad saying something similar.

[00:27:37] My dad was an entrepreneur and a successful entrepreneur. And one of his favorite turns of phrase is how much money solves this problem? Like, I would bring a problem to him, right? Like, you know, dad, I got a ticket. I got in trouble. Like, and he would ask the question, like, how much money solves that problem? I'm so glad. And sometimes the money does solve the problem, but it doesn't always. You're right. Right. Yeah.

[00:28:03] In my case, the money often solved whatever, like maybe the legal problem or whatever. It did not solve the problem of me learning how not to do stupid shit. Right. Right. There was an underlying problem that was left on the dress. Thank goodness I solved that one. Wait. I'm working on it. I'm working on it. Anyway. So why does any of this matter?

[00:28:27] It matters because we still see this attitude, which again has pervaded the self-help world forever. Again, like we did an episode a couple of years ago now about manifesting. Kind of the broad subject of manifesting, the speak it into existence kind of thing.

[00:28:50] And on that episode, we even talked about how, look, there is value to the idea of, man, what we say to ourselves matters. Right? Like how we talk to ourselves and the questions we ask ourselves about a problem. Like it matters if we ask ourselves questions in possibility terms versus pessimism terms. Like, yeah. When we think, and there's actually research behind this. There's a branch of psychology called positive psychology.

[00:29:18] I know how that sounds, but it's a real thing with good research. Martin Seligman is the researcher. He's actually the researcher who came up with the concept of the research on the concept of learned helplessness. Learned helplessness is this idea that when we try and we try and we try and we fail and we fail and we fail, we stop trying. Seligman then went on to actually research optimism.

[00:29:48] Like what happens when we take an optimistic mindset and the research is really clear that an optimistic mindset, people tend to be more successful. Now, there's no magic to that. I don't believe that that's about the manifest. And I believe that when we believe things work out, we keep trying, right? Yeah. Or sometimes, you know, yeah, you see an opportunity because you're kind of looking for it. Absolutely. Right. Or you see a solution because you believe that it can be there. So, yeah, for sure there's something to that idea.

[00:30:17] So, attitude matters. It's just all about degrees. Well, it's about degrees and it's about how you think about it, right? Like it's attitude matters, vibe matters. Which is a different thing of saying, like that is a different thing than, okay, you can, by virtue of your thoughts, you can cause your cells to vibrate, your atoms to vibrate in a different way. And that will make the impossible possible.

[00:30:46] And suddenly carbon fiber will survive a trip down to the depths of the Titanic. Yeah. Unfortunately, we still see this over and over again. We see this in, not to get political, but we see this in our national political leadership. We have a particular national political leader who is famous for, I would say, kind of gaslighting.

[00:31:14] Like he famously says, you know, like he'll get asked to go ask about the stock market. Yeah, the stock market is a little struggling. The stock market is great. What are you talking about? It's the best stock market ever. And he's like that about all sorts of things. Yeah, there's, yeah, yeah. Unwilling to, yeah, to concede any negative ideas. Yeah. And I think a piece of that is spin, right? Like a piece of that is, that's what the just stand on message.

[00:31:43] But I also think a piece of that is, again, like this seductive idea that we can speak something into existence. Like that's how far it pervades. Like we saw a lot of- Yeah, there's like, there's always been this fake it till you make it idea. Absolutely. And I do think that it's become more pervasive. Like it just seems like we're in a moment where that's even more and more the case.

[00:32:12] And Silicon Valley is a really interesting example to look at this because I think there's so much of that, like that whole business model is just like, we're just going to come up with like the skeleton of a kernel of an idea. And as long as we can just sell that idea, then we can build it after the fact. I mean, I think we're doing that with AI right now.

[00:32:37] Like how many, you know, articles do you see where it's like, we don't actually know how it works. We kind of have an idea how it works. And now we're just, we're like, we'll see what happens as we insert it into all of these different facets of our society. Yeah, it's a little playing fast and loose. But yeah, that does seem to be kind of the business model is just like, it's fine.

[00:33:06] We're just gonna, you know, we're just gonna go with this idea. As long as we can get enough momentum behind it, it'll work. It'll work. It'll be fine. And so I don't find it, it's not, it's not a surprise to me then that so many of these Silicon Valley types are into some of the self-healthy concepts. Of course. Like longevity, quote unquote, longevity science and the wellness bros.

[00:33:36] Oh, we need to do an episode on Brian Johnson. Speaking of Netflix, have you seen that one? No. No. There, there's a documentary. So Brian Johnson is a tech bro entrepreneur. He's the guy who's decided he's gonna try and live forever. Right. And it's super into like, I'm really interested in health and wellness and stuff.

[00:34:01] And you watch this documentary and you're like, eh, maybe, maybe I'll get like tiger blood injected into my whatever, like whatever it is. Yeah. Yeah. That's a facet that, that we really need to talk about because the question often is asked when we talk about these self-help figures.

[00:34:26] Um, from Tony Robbins to James Arthur Ray to whomever, like, like one of the big questions that is frequently asked is like, man, why, why is it so seductive? Why is their shtick so, um, so attractive? Because it's probably not just the, the actual ideas they're selling. Um, the actual ideas that most self-help guys sell are pretty repetitive and kind of warmed over.

[00:34:54] I can tell you this as, as a avid connoisseur over decades of, of self-help stuff. There's really nothing new under the sun. And I can also tell you specifically as a tortured Tony Robbins fan boy, he's got nothing really original. He really does. Um, so it's not just the ideas. So what is it? Like, why is he so successful? Why was James so successful? And, and why is Oprah so successful?

[00:35:19] And the, the answer frequently comes back to, well, um, kind of two things. One, they've got a certain amount of charisma, great hair, great hair, always good hair. I tell you what, you go back to the nineties, Tony Robbins hair was, it was, it was on fleek. I can't even, anyway, but confidence is, is, is the big one. They, they spoke with calm. They speak with confidence.

[00:35:48] Um, and there's something that, that flips a switch in us. It really does like, like to, to, to hear somebody that could be saying that the most nonsense in the history of the universe, I've seen Instagram reels that are plugging pure nonsense, but the speaker is so confident that I'm like, I don't know. I never really thought of it that way. And then I word salad. Yeah. Yes, exactly. And what it reminds me of, I've sent Jean several hilarious memes this week.

[00:36:17] Um, what it reminds me of is, is how AI talks to us, man. Um, I've, I've been flirting with Grok a little bit. Did I, did I tell you that one? Sure. No. Grok is the, it's, it's, it's the Twitter AI. The worst, the worst of them. Yeah. Oh, the worst of them. Absolutely. And, and, and how I've been thinking of it is like, okay, so what's, what's the shtick here?

[00:36:45] The shtick here is it's, is what it's a search engine. It's a search engine that speaks in complete sentences. Like that's as far as I've gotten, but it is a supremely confident search engine. That's the other thing. Like you search with Google and Google's like, okay, here's some sites that are relevant to your search and popular. Like that's kind of how Google works. But if you ask an AI, an AI will confidently tell you now, now it might insert some caveats because we've made it insert some caveats, right? Like, well, I'm not a doctor, so don't.

[00:37:15] Yeah. However, and then it'll go on to confidently assert things. It reminds me of my soon to be stepdaughter, Indy, who is eight years old. And this kid will confidently relate whole stories of, like the other night she told me and Megan that she had married Spider-Man. She did. She had a whole spiel, but it didn't work out because Spider-Man fell off a wall because he was texting. Like it was tragedy.

[00:37:45] But here's the thing. If you did not know that this was nonsense, this kid was telling us with complete confidence. And it was amazing. It reminded me of an AI. Indy should be an AI. I mean, that's developmentally appropriate for an eight-year-old. Yes, exactly. It reminded me of how AI will just confidently tell you just wrong things. And I know. And by the way, I know because I've asked her questions about Dr. Glenn Patrick Doyle.

[00:38:15] Well, and part of it is that, you know, it has been programmed to speak that way. Yes. Because we know that the confident salesman, the confident pitch, it resonates with people. 100%. Hence our Tony Robbins and such. So, yeah. The AI has been taught to, or it has been taught or it has learned to speak with confidence in order to. Absolutely.

[00:38:44] Absolutely. Yeah. Make us feel good about it. So, it's no real shock, actually, either that Stockton Rush or Elizabeth Holmes were able to build, for a minute, highly successful businesses until they weren't. Right up until they weren't. Given how they talked in public about their mission. And again, remember, we love that story. We love the story of, you know, man, visionary leader and they're going to speak it into existence

[00:39:14] and we want a part of that. So, it's relevant to our listeners because part of what we as an organization Seek Safety does is we want to educate and empower consumers of self-help products and services. And this is actually a tool that I would encourage you to use. Man, when I see a guru or a product, a program, et cetera, that is kind of appealing to me, again, nothing wrong with that.

[00:39:43] You're going to have things that appeal to you. But maybe push the pause button and say, like, okay, but what part of that is the confidence? Like, what part of that is they're kind of selling me on this and I want to be sold? Let's be realistic about that, right? Like, what I find an interesting exercise is take, for example, like Tony Robbins is a good example of this.

[00:40:11] Like, take a Tony Robbins video on YouTube and watch it. And it's great. Like, he's got confidence and charisma and he pumps you up and you get all excited and stuff. But then take, get the transcript of it. Have an AI do a transcript for you of that same video and just read it. And chances are you won't be as moved. Right. And a piece of that is because, like, what they're doing. And half of it will not make any sense. Absolutely.

[00:40:42] No kidding, right? Something that we know in therapy is, like, part of how therapy works. And by the way, one of the reasons why the functionality of human therapists will probably never quite be taken over by AI, at least not as it exists now, is because when you're in a room with a human being, your nervous system kind of hooks into their nervous system. It's called co-regulation. Mm-hmm.

[00:41:10] There are these things called mirror neurons, actually. That only happens, like, when you're across from another human being. That makes co-regulation possible. Right. And a version of that is happening when you see, like, a really charismatic speaker. Right. Like, they're hooking you into it. Like, I was thinking about this. Oh, there's a mess happening in the influencer space right now. Did you hear about the therapy Jeff stuff?

[00:41:40] No. There is a... I've been just keeping myself under a rock. No, it's... I pay too much attention to this stuff. There's a therapy influencer named Therapy Jeff, and he's a therapist from Portland. And he, without getting too deep into what happened, he made some rough posts.

[00:42:06] And, like, he makes these cutesy little videos, but I guess he's big on TikTok and Instagram Reels, and he makes these videos where he uses his rapport-building skills to really connect with the camera. And, you know, you feel like you're in a conversation with Therapy Jeff, which is all great, until he says really gross things that a lot of people... And, look, if you're listening to my voice, you probably already know what I'm talking about, but I won't go into it. Google Therapy Jeff.

[00:42:35] It's good to see it. But the point is that we need to be aware of the degree of... How the degree of confidence is shaping how we respond to what we believe about what somebody is saying. And it's rough, because I will often say, you know, look, my web presence, such as it is, is about... I've said it over and over again. It's about giving people things that I think are worth thinking about.

[00:43:06] That's it. Like, I'm not telling you how to recover from trauma. I'm telling you, like, things that I have found it useful to think about. For me and my patients, that's it. Right? I don't want to sell you on anything. There's nothing to sell, actually. I just want you to kind of think about things. But pay attention to influencers who are like, you know, man, like, this is the thing. And I'm telling you this. I'm connecting really strongly and charismatically and confidently with you. Like, whoa, whoa, whoa. Yeah.

[00:43:32] Pay attention to how that it's thrown your Dale Carnegie switches. As Christine Wheeler and I would probably talk about it. We love that. How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie. Anyway. Okay. So I've got an interesting proposition for you then. Or I guess like a hopeful thought experiment. So this idea of, you know, you're talking about in therapy, the mirroring that we do when we're face-to-face with a human.

[00:44:05] And so I was listening to the New York Times Daily podcast recently. And they were talking to, like, programmers. Like, computer programmers who write code all the time. And they were talking. The whole idea was like, how is AI changing this industry? And what are programmers doing? Because now they can give so much of the programming work over to AI to actually do the, like, the actual coding.

[00:44:36] And so they were talking about how their jobs are changing. And a lot of the people were saying they actually are really enjoying it. Because what they're finding is that their job now is to basically tell the AI what they want. So they're explaining to the AI what they want out of the program that it's writing for them. And they were describing how they've become almost, like, more empathetic.

[00:45:02] And more, it's kind of helped them sort of develop a more critical perspective on their work. Because they're having to think through all of these different implications in order to be able to articulate what they need to the AI. Which is very interesting. Well, that's kind of cool. Like, the idea of these interactions somehow teaching these people more empathy. Or how to relate to people. Giving them better emotional intelligence.

[00:45:31] I was like, that is not an outcome I would have expected. But there is this feedback loop as we use these tools. So then, now in this conversation, it's kind of occurring to me that I've had some interaction using, like, ChatGPT or different AIs where I realized that something... I realized, for one, that it was being very complimentary to me in order to make me feel good about the interaction.

[00:45:59] It was saying, wow, that was a really interesting thought. Like, you've really... You've clearly really thought this through. And, like, this is very insightful. This is coming from a really interesting place. Blah, blah, blah. It's trying to, like, build you up and make you feel good. It's part of how it works, right? Along with this confidence notion. I think because I know it's not a human being, I feel more comfortable pushing back against that. Or I feel more comfortable questioning it.

[00:46:27] So my thought is, because we are interacting with these types of tools, and as we become more... Like, I think a lot of people are aware of the way that ChatGPT especially does that a lot. That whole, like, really hyping you up as you're asking of things.

[00:46:49] Maybe we will learn from this how to be more critical of that type of attitude and behavior and that confidence piece. Maybe we'll actually be learning from the AI. Yeah. Right? This could actually be a positive outcome. Kind of teaching us, like, as we...

[00:47:07] Maybe it's like this manufactured version of humans is going to give us a lens on aspects of actual humans that sort of teach us how to interact in a healthier way with actual people. Ah, you bet. Something... So there's my hopeful note. I'm actually... Oh, man. Normally I'm very critical of AI, but I'm like, hey, maybe this will actually be a positive outcome.

[00:47:32] See, we're improving ourselves as we talk on the podcast, as we work our own issues through. Honestly, Gene, what occurred to me as you were describing that was I had an interaction with Grok. This is a fun thing to say, Grok. Where I asked Grok about...

[00:47:59] So this marathon I ran, like, two or four weeks ago, and I was asking about... Just questions about, like, my training and my tapering and these kinds of things. I figured that was kind of low stakes to ask. Like, the things I would Google anyway, right? Mm-hmm. And what I noticed was, after every response, Grok would throw in...

[00:48:29] Keep hitting those trails, right? Like, would throw in a... And I asked Grok, I said, hey, reel that in. I don't need that. And to the AI's credit, then it did, right? Like, it did, and it gave me kind of much straighter answers and stuff. But what occurred to me about that, I was thinking about that later, and I was like, hmm.

[00:48:54] One of my triggers, and this is often true for survivors of trauma, like, one of my triggers is when I feel I'm kind of being bullshitted, right? Like, when I feel I'm kind of being condescended to. Mm-hmm. And I knew that about myself. Mm-hmm. However, like, this just kind of highlighted it for me. And so what that makes me wonder is, like, man, perhaps in interactions with AIs, like,

[00:49:23] we will become aware of triggers or have them highlighted for us and stuff. So, I mean, that gives us things to work on in our own recovery and our own therapy. Yeah. You know, et cetera. So, no, I think it's entirely possible that we could improve our self-awareness, emotional intelligence, et cetera. And also, it gives you a place to practice saying that. Yes. Because it's harder to say that to people, right? Are you kidding? Of course. Like, please don't do that. Like, I'm very kind of conflict-averse.

[00:49:52] So, I tend to just sort of, I'll smile through something. But with the AI, I'm like, ah, that doesn't sound right. Where did you get that information from? You know, I'll be a lot more direct because it's not a person I'm not afraid of hurting its feelings. Yeah. So, it's like almost good practice to actually gain a little more confidence yourself saying that kind of thing. To have certain needs and set boundaries. Mm-hmm. Yeah. You heard it here first, folks. Seek safely all in on AI.

[00:50:21] All in. Big fans. Big fans. No. Let me, let's end with this thought. Just going back to the documentary about Ocean Gate that I was watching. What occurred to me, too, was that had the implosion not happened, and had, like, let's say, I mean, you could say the same thing about Elizabeth Holmes, right?

[00:50:48] Like, had it not come crashing down when it did. And had Stockton Rush figured out how to make the carbon fiber thing happen, et cetera, et cetera, we would be telling a very different story about him, culturally. We would kind of be telling the Steve Jobs story. Mm-hmm. And, look, I love a good mythologizing of a mediocre white guy. I'm not saying Steve Jobs is a mediocre white guy.

[00:51:18] I didn't know him. That's me projecting. I love a good mythologizing thing. And I love, again, I, too, love that story of, ah, I just kept believing, you know, Steve Jobs' reality distortion field. And they, you know, he built Apple from his garage, et cetera, et cetera. Mm-hmm. But had Stockton Rush figured out the carbon fiber thing, we would have been telling that story of, man, he stuck to his vision. Nobody believed, but he saw it through.

[00:51:46] Like, had Elizabeth Holmes figured out the blood testing thing? Like, man, she, visionary, visionary, and everyone told her it couldn't be done, and then she changed the world, et cetera. Yeah. Um, your mom, um, our founder, Jenny Brown, says something really interesting about James Arthur Ray and, and Sedona. Like, like, she said this in a lot of places where she says, you know, look, something that

[00:52:12] James didn't realize was the way he was doing business made what happened inevitable. Like, there was no other outcome. Mm-hmm. Like, like, he wasn't gonna figure out how to do larger and larger sweat lodges and, and like, like, like the, the only outcome was, was what happened. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. And I don't know that we as a culture really realized that situations like Oceansgate and situations like Theranos, the way they do business, like, it's, it's, it's really not a, well, they just ran out of time.

[00:52:42] They just ran out of runway. And, and, and the bad thing happened before, you know, they, before the miracle happened. Mm-hmm. The way they do business, like, if you keep doing business that way, that is gonna happen, just like Sedona was gonna happen at some point. Mm-hmm. Like, the implosion was gonna happen. Mm-hmm. The, you know, crash of Theranos was gonna happen. Um, there, there's no visualizing our way out of that. And look, I say this as somebody who loves optimism and who loves hope and who loves,

[00:53:11] you know, make it happen. Um, so we really need to, on our own individual leverages, on our, on our own individual levels as seekers out there in the world trying to figure out how to make our lives work and what tools are appropriate, et cetera. But like, we have to be aware that we are vulnerable to this narrative of just believe hard enough. And we have to be aware that that's ultimately a destructive narrative. It makes it inevitable that we're gonna run into one of these situations.

[00:53:40] Like, you're, you're not gonna get to that point where you really can believe your way around the molecules of carbon fiber. Like, you're not gonna believe your way around, uh, the COVID vaccine. Your, your faith over fear is actually not gonna make ivermectin work. Um, so now that we have inflamed, uh, you know, enough of the internet, I think that's not for one episode. That's, that's good. Don't you?

[00:54:08] We haven't touched on any controversial topics. I didn't name names. No, no, we never name names. Anyway, sign up for the summit, guys. Yeah, sign up for the summit. Go, uh, learn how to spot some bullshit by playing with some AI and, um, we'll see you all on May 30th. See you all on May 30th. Thank you for listening to the Seek Safety Podcast. If you liked our podcast, uh, leave us a glowing five-star review on your podcast, Catcher a Choice.

[00:54:38] If you did not like our podcast, um, just, just forget I said anything. Yeah. That's it. All right. Cool. Thanks, everybody. Thanks for listening. Thanks, Dr. Doyle. Good conversation as always. Thanks. Thanks. Soon to be Dr. Jean. The clock is ticking. That's right. Later, taters. Thanks for listening to this episode.

[00:55:04] We hope that you have found it enlightening, and we'd be so, so grateful if you'd share it with the seekers in your life. We all know at least one, right? Until our next episode, you can find us on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook at Seek Safely. Connect with Dr. Glenn Patrick Doyle at Dr. Doyle Says, and me, Jean, at Jean C. Brown on Twitter. Feel free to send us an email, info at seeksafely.org.

[00:55:31] To support Seek Safely, you can make a secure donation on our website, seeksafely.org. The Seek Safely podcast is produced by Citizens of Sound.