Who am I?
I became curious about the self
when I read Brian Lowery's new
book, Selfless,
the Social Creation of You.
And the fascinating thing about
the self is it's created by
others and empowered through our
relationships and communication.
I'm Matt Abrahams and I teach
strategic communication at Stanford
Graduate School of Business.
Welcome to a quick thinks episode
of Think Fast, Talk Smart,
The Podcast.
To learn more,
we invited Brian Lowery back.
Brian is a professor at
the Stanford Graduate School of
Business, and he also co-directs
Stanford's Institute of Race.
Brian, it is fantastic to
have you back.
You certainly have been really,
really busy.
I'm excited to listen regularly to
your new podcast, and today I got
my copy of your book, Selfless,
The Social Creation of You.
I want to probe that idea in
a second, but I'm tantalized and
intrigued by what follows the colon
of your title,
The Social Creation of You.
Can you share a little bit about
what's behind that?
>> Of course, so in social science
people will say the self is
a social construction and what they
really mean is who you are is
created by the relationships and
people are around you.
And what's amazing about that
is very few people have that
experience of themselves.
Like most people, I assume you two
have this sense of like, I'm in my
head, looking outta my eyes, making
decisions, talking to people.
Sometimes I make good ones,
sometimes bad ones, but
I'm in there somewhere.
But when you examine it,
you know that can't be true,
there's no little you in there.
And so the question becomes what
are you?
What are you in?
The answer now something like my
brain, but that's not quite right
either, this physical thing because
your physical thing changes all
the time, but you don't have this
sense that that's you that you have
now changed because there's been
some physical change.
That I can make in the book is that
the you, you're talking about is
the relationships you have, the
social interactions you have, and
the cultural context you exist in.
That isn't affecting you,
that is constituting who you are.
That is who you are, and
in that sense the self, and
this is a really important part of
the book, the self is incompatible
with freedom and
the way most people understand it,
because the self is a constraint.
The self is a definition in terms
of the way other people see you,
to be a man, to be Black or White,
to be Asian, or to be a doctor.
All these things are about how
people understand you and interact
with you and limit what you can be,
and in limiting what you can be,
they make you who you are.
>> Wow.
There's so much there to unpack.
So, if I heard you correctly,
we are the sum of the relationships
we have.
And by definition of
those relationships,
how people define us, that limits
what we potentially could be.
Are there things we can do to work
to change how people see us or
perhaps the people we associate
with to give us a little bit more
freedom, is that possible?
>> You know this is that you have
to read the book.
>> I will, I will.
>> [LAUGH] But
I think, fundamentally, a self and
ultimate freedom are incompatible.
And for some people that sounds
bad because freedom has,
at least in our culture,
this kind of virtue associated with
it like everybody wants freedom and
more freedom is just better,
but that's not true people don't
really believe that.
Meaning that it feels good to have
people know you like,
when you engage someone, and
they engage with you in a way that
feels right, and you feel seen.
People love that and need that, but
that requires limitations on what
you are.
That is an acceptance of an absence
of a certain type of freedom.
So I think people don't really want
freedom in the way they imagine
they do, or not as much as they
think they do and
the way you can expand, and
I think the self is fundamentally
a limiting idea, but that
doesn't mean it can't be expanded.
You can expand it by engaging with
more people with diverse
perspectives, because it turns out,
and there's research on this,
that we actually take other
people's selves into our own.
So you think about your closest
relationships, you can think about
how much overlap is there between
you and that person, right?
And the closer the relationship,
the more people will say there's
overlap and who we are, and so you
can expand the self by deepening
the relationships you have.
>> I certainly know in my closest
relationships with my wife,
my kids, my close friends that
there is the taking on of other
characteristics.
I'm curious, so
in graduate school when I
was studying relationships and
communication within relationships,
there was this notion that you and
the person you're in relationship
with are your individual selves,
but together you create
a collective self.
Is that something that resonates
with your point of view, or is
that something that's archaic and
back from the good old days,
[LAUGH] when it was in school?
>> Well, I guess what I would say
is I don't know what that
individual self is in the way
that's described.
So, I think people have this
idea of I exist as an island and
I bump into other islands, and then
we can create something together.
What I would say is you
are in some sense an amalgamation,
a combination, a mixture of all
those relationships and whenever
you interact with someone there's
an exchange of self in some way.
So I can give you an example in
terms of research, so if you meet
someone, you have beliefs about
what they believe, right?
So you see someone, I don't know,
they're driving a truck, and they
have an American flag, you have
a belief about this person that
might be right, might not be right.
>> Right. >> If you want to have
a relationship with that person,
associations you have in your own
head that you might not even be
aware of, that you might not even
know or there will shift in
the direction of your belief about
that other person's attitudes.
So in some sense yourself is
changing to accommodate other
people because you would have
relationship with them.
That to have a relationship with
someone demands in some sense
a shift in who you currently are.
So in that way,
there's an inner meshing of
selves that happens at a level that
you're not even aware of,
and probably aren't controlling.
And that is what's happening
all the time in our lives as
we navigate the world and
then in close relationships,
it's more intense.
>> So Brian, that's absolutely
fascinating to me, because part of
what I heard you say is that we
have this construction of ourselves
that feels permanent,
like I know who I am, but
in fact, it's constantly changing.
And in some cases,
I'm choosing to change it by
choosing to engage with someone.
Are there things I can do in
the moment when I'm in that
situation meeting somebody new or
deepening a relationship that I
have that I could perhaps prepare
myself better to expand that
connection and relationship?
>> Yeah, so
one is put your phone down.
[LAUGH] >> He means in theory,
I don't have my phone right now.
>> [LAUGH] >> Approach
relationships with curiosity,
that's actually really important.
And three, here's a maybe one that
will be a bit surprising to people.
We often are afraid to ask what we
consider personal questions,
because we think it's going to
upset other people.
We imagine if we ask this question,
they're going to be like, well, who
are you to ask me that question?
Whether they say it or not,
they will be thinking that, and
we want to avoid that discomfort.
It turns out that research suggests
that people actually are not put
off by what most people think of
his personal questions and so
you can ask more intimate questions
than you imagine.
So I'm not going to say go out and
ask the most intimate questions you
can imagine, but I would say,
move towards asking more
personal questions than you might
imagine you could.
Just a step further.
And that provides an opportunity to
initiate a more meaningful
interaction, even if it doesn't
become a relationship.
We don't take seriously enough some
of the light interactions we have
day to day, and
those things turn out to affect us.
Our mood is affected by
the fleeting interactions we have
that we don't take that seriously.
So, another thing to do is in one,
curiosity, two, be willing to ask
questions that may be a little
bit more, a step more personal than
you typically would.
And three,
take more seriously those fleeting
interactions that you often
just think of as a toss away.
>> Those are very actionable and
underlying at least two of
the three bits of advice are
communication, and you know that's
something we focus a lot on here.
Brian, I'm really intrigued by this
notion that we can benefit by
probing a little deeper and
getting a little more personal in
conversations.
I think you're right,
many of us feel awkward and
uncomfortable, especially if we're
not really close
to the people we're talking to.
Do you have advice or guidance that
you've seen in your own life,
or you've recommended to
people about types of questions or
ways to do that inquiry?
>> I should just say,
this is not my idea.
There's research on this and
I'll send you the site.
You can put it up on
the website, so
people can read the academic paper.
I want to make sure that
people get credit for their ideas.
One of the things that I think
about is asking people like we
interact with people like that we
don't know very well, we often ask
very, very superficial questions.
How's the weather?
What are you?
Where are you going to go? Have you
been on this to this place?
I think one question that it's easy
to ask people that is not
that personal, but
takes you a little bit deeper is,
what are you most excited about in
life right now, right?
I mean, they're just easy questions
you can ask that no one would
be bothered by.
And then once they answer,
it's like follow-up questions
become much easier.
You know that the way you form
relationships is reciprocal
escalating disclosure, so I don't
know if you've talked about that.
But if people haven't heard it,
it's just like
someone says something to you,
they disclose a little bit and then
when you reciprocate you disclose
a little bit more and it escalates.
That's the way that people
basically form relationships you
think about relationships in your
life, that's often how they happen,
and what you want to do is initiate
that with someone new.
And so finding a way to sometimes
ask for disclosure that people feel
comfortable with and
then reciprocating a step deeper is
a way to kick off a relationship,
a way to expand like what you
know about that person,
what they know about you.
>> So you start by expressing
curiosity at a slightly deeper
level and then reciprocate, or
when you get a response.
The final question, I'm curious,
how has your self changed in doing
the work that you've done in terms
of writing the book, the podcast,
the teaching that you do?
It seems to me that by your
definition of self,
it must have changed.
>> It has to.
>> [LAUGH] >> Right, so I'm taking
your advice for granted, asking
a slightly more personal question.
I'm just curious.
>> That's a good question.
One thing that I in writing a book,
I became something else, and
I still don't know what that
something else is.
I'm like a baby in this new self,
and it generates an appreciation
for what it means for
the self to constantly evolve and
change.
I think we often don't really pay
enough attention to the ways we
change, and maybe we're harder on
ourselves than we should be,
like I'm brand new at this thing,
but it's not just this thing.
It's to some extent who I am and
how people are engaging with me,
and how I'm engaging with them, and
trying to figure all that out is
not easy.
And I think there's a degree of
compassion I've learned in writing
this book.
When people's identities are both
challenged, their sense of self is
challenged, and/or shifts outgrows,
there's a recognition of when we
engage with people,
we are asking something of them.
And I think I have a better
appreciation for that, for
the requests that my
person makes other people, right?
Of the ones that I make other
people and what that demands from
others and also when people do
it to me what it's an offer.
I think of it as an opportunity and
an offer that that person is making
to me, an offer of expansion and
I can accept or reject that for
whatever reasons, but
it is an offer.
>> I really appreciate that you've
come to a realization or explored
something that we talked about
many, many episodes ago in terms of
improvisation that life and
encounters in life can be perceived
as opportunities and offers, and
they allow you to expand, and
I think that's really interesting.
And the other thing that caught my
mind is,
there are certain situations in our
lives where there's a gate that
changes ourselves like you
published a book you are now
an author yourself has changed.
And then there are other things
that happen in our lives that are
much more subtle that change us,
I mean those of us who have become
parents when your child is born,
that's a change in itself.
I recall back when I graduated
college and even graduated school,
it felt like this big
change I was working for,
and nothing really changed.
[LAUGH] And
I have this thing on the wall, so
what you've made me think about,
is how our self changes constantly,
and yet sometimes it's very
significant and publicly noticed.
In other times it's very subtle and
not noticed,
and sometimes things we think
are big changes end up not being.
You've made me think a lot Brian
and that's what I appreciate so
much about you.
Your podcast know what you see, and
your book, Selfless,
The Social Creation of You,
really do make us think, and
I appreciate that, and
I appreciate your time today.
Thank you. >> Thank you so
much for having me.
It was fun to talk to you again.
>> Excellent.
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Thanks for joining us for another
episode of Think Fast, Talk Smart,
The Podcast from Stanford Graduate
School of Business.
This episode was produced by
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Matt Abrahams.
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