How To Build Resilience With Dr. Judith Joseph

Speaker A: Foreign.

Speaker B: Welcome to Coffee with Kim. I'm Kim Kalp and every week you and I sit down with fascinating, smart and talented leaders, CEOs and founders so that we can copy their homework. If someone knows how to do something

Speaker C: really well, I want to know what

Speaker B: it is and exactly how they're doing it. Get ready for aha moments, gems of wisdom and little known tips and tricks that we can steal and use in our own lives. If you want to join these conversations and ask these experts your own questions, no point in just me having all the fun. Join us on Wednesdays at, ah, 1pm Eastern live over on um, LinkedIn.

Speaker A: Hey friend. Happy Wednesday. I hope you are doing well and having a super great start to the week. I know that I am coming in for a landing, uh, as we sit together here on June 24th, because holy moly, we are coming up on July, which means half of the year is already done. I know it's mind blowing to me. I don't know if it's mind blowing to you as well. If you're new here and you're just joining us, say hi. In the chat you'll see Jeff and Richard and me and Giacomo and Shelby. We're already chatting away, but we would love to hear from you as well. But if you are listening to this on your favorite podcast network while you walk the dog, um, or do the dishes or fold the laundry, never fear, you too are part of this conversation, even if you cannot lean in and type along with us. Because if you have any questions or comments or things that you feel like we missed or that we should have asked, uh, then by all means let us know. Either type it, uh, type it when you rewatch this, or send us a message and we are happy to figure out how to answer your questions in real time. I, I don't know about you, but like I said, I've been really sort of grappling with as we come into this halfway mark to the year. I know when we met a couple sessions ago and we were talking about like, what books we're reading, I had mentioned that I was reading Arthur C. Brooks's new book, the Meaning of Life. And you know, it's all about how to find purpose and kind of find your why and reconnect with what, you know, lights you up, you know, in a world that maybe is full of like, empty or vapid goals or motives or interiors by other people. So I'm like this much left in the book. Um, I'm pretty much almost done with it and I read all of his books. So like, that's just, that's just me. It's kind of like Malcolm Gladwellish. Malcolm Gladwell puts out in a book. Like I'm reading it. Um, all of her books are kind of the same. I shouldn't say that, but they're kind of all, uh, the mix. But it just kind of gets my brain going. And so once I kind of start down that path, then, you know, I, my own personal algorithm. And then, you know, the Internet that hear me, they start to feed me a lot of images and things that I'm kind of referencing a lot of. And uh, you know, one of the things that I kept going back to is like a lot of times when we are feeling very stressed or overwhelmed or you know, what am I doing with life? And I'm halfway through the year and what have I done with 2026 and what do I have to show for it? Uh, you tend to get like this meme, this like I'm fine and the house is on fire sort of thing. And I'm sure you've seen this meme as well. And it's one that, you know, I would like to say I don't relate to all the time, but definitely can relate to. And so when I was kind of going down this, this rabbit hole, uh, you know, as luck would have it, I was scrolling on LinkedIn like I normally do and I got fed a course on LinkedIn learning. And uh, wouldn't you know it, the title was stop pretending you're fine. So I was like, the computer, it knows what I'm consuming. And I watched this whole course, um, by Dr. Judith Joseph, all about building resilience, reclaiming joy, really tapping into your eq. And it deeply spoke to me. It deeply spoke to me and kind of what I was going through, what I was really feeling, and I thought it might speak to you as well. So, uh, if you don't already know, Dr. Judith, she's incredible. She's a national bestselling author, she's a psychiatrist, she's leading research on studying happiness and well being. And you know, she has like more than a million people online who are kind of joining her in this discovery of what it really means to be alive. You know, she also teaches at nyu. Uh, she served as the chair of Women in Medicine at Columbia. And just, she's been doing a lot of stuff. So what I really appreciate about her work is she tends to really help people understand how they can find that deeper why, like, why they can look successful on Paper and yet still feel disconnected or exhausted or numb. Uh, so really talking about joy and how to create that joy with technology boundaries, with your emotional health, and really just giving people tools that they can actually use. So, uh, hopefully you will do your Google stalking, uh, Dr. Judith. But without further ado, uh, please raise whatever caffeine you have decided on today and help me welcome, um, Dr. Judith to our coffee chat.

Speaker C: Hello. How are you? I'm raising my water. It's nice to see you.

Speaker A: Oh, I, uh, am so excited to chat with you today because like I said, you've just been living in this space for so long, and I'm just curious, like, what out of all the things that you could have, like, dove headfirst into, what made this the path for you?

Speaker C: Well, I'm sitting here in my research lab, saw patients all day. And with psychiatry, because I'm a psychiatrist, we often focus on, okay, how do we diagnose mental health issues? How do we, uh, treat mental illness? And it's all about trying to help people to not have an illness versus cultivating joy. And I have to be honest, for the majority of my career, up until recently, that was the focus. And then when I started to go through a period of something called anhedonia, which is a lack of joy, a lack of interest, feeling me m, blah, blah, then I thought, okay, well, you know, I'm doing everything right. I treat and eradicate mental health issues, but yet I'm lacking joy, right? And no one ever taught me how to cultivate joy. That wasn't even a word I learned in medical school. Like, no one talked about joy. Uh, and so, uh, through my own personal interest and also seeing what my patients were struggling with in busy midtown Manhattan, where people are very successful, some people have nothing to complain about, but still lack joy, I thought, okay, okay, well, there's something about this anhedonia, you know, why is it that we lack joy even though on the outside things look perfect? Why is it that we're missing something even though things are put together and there's nothing clearly wrong? And that led me to study high functioning depression. You know, people often think of depression as being sad, crying, not getting out of bed. But people can experience depression in a form of lacking joy, which is anhedonia. And that's completely overlooked. And when I started studying it and talking about my research, I just. I, uh, went viral. I didn't expect to go viral. Anhedonia is a very old research term. I've studied it for years. It's not prioritized Right. People, we always prioritize, like, serious things, you know, like people not getting out of bed, which are very serious. Right. But no, again, in medicine, we don't talk about joy. And so when I started to talk about it and anhedonia, I, like, I went viral. And I never thought that that would happen. And it just speaks to the fact that I think a lot of us walk around joyless and we just say, oh, that's life. Or, I mean, what do I have to complain about? Or there's, ah, a guilt about, like, why are you not happy? But I, you know, in my research, what I've uncovered is that joy is actually not something nice to have. It's not a luxury. It is essential. Joyful people are more physically healthy. Joyful people are, um, better performers at work. They have better relationships, and they're more likely to go out and make the world a better place. People used to think it's the disgruntled, bitter people that go out and change the world. No, it's those who are joyful. Because guess what? Joy is contagious. When you're joyful, you want everyone else to be. And that led me to the lab that I'm in right now, which is the science of your happiness lab.

Speaker A: I am, uh, so glad you brought up this anhedonia, because I, I had to Google it because I had never heard of the term before until I, you know, consumed it from you. And so I feel like that will resonate with a lot of people who are listening or joining us, because a lot of us are high achievers. I mean, we wouldn't be here if we didn't want to kind of get 1% better every day, sort of. And so I'm, um, curious, what. What does that look like specifically in high achievers? Or what are some of the warning signs that you're, You're. You're kind of dancing close to the edge of this.

Speaker C: Well, I often ask my clients, well, when you're not busy, how do you feel? And many of them will say, I feel empty. When you're not working, how do you feel? I feel restless. Right. You're a human doing, not a human being. And there's something to that, because in the study that we did, when we saw these people having high levels of anhedonia, we also correlated it with high levels of past pain. And so the theory is that, you know, some people, when they have pain or past trauma, they shut down. They don't function, they shut away. But others, those of us who are high Functioning. We don't shut down. We don't hide away. We overwork. We overperform. We can't sit still because that is our way of distracting from the trauma. And so on the outside, we look like we have it all done. We're like Superwoman, Superman. But on the inside, we're lacking joy. We're struggling with anhedonia, but we didn't even know there was a word for it. We just said, that's life. We just said, meh, bleh. But what I want everyone to know is that you are built with the DNA for joy. It is literally a birthright as a human. So if you're not experiencing it, don't ignore it. Right. It is a red flag that something else is happening and you are worthy of reclaiming your joy.

Speaker A: Well, and I think it's one of those things that a lot of times, at least for me, it sort of reminds me of like a lobster in a pot, where, you know, if anybody knows that you cook lobster, you sad, but you put them in a pot and, you know, slowly the water heats up and they hypothetically don't realize they're dying. Uh, maybe a little graphic, but. But that's kind of what it is to me, which is a lot of time when I find that I'm very low on joy, of running on empty. Um, I can't necessarily point to one thing. I mean, sometimes it's very, you know, a, ah, death in the family, you know, or there's something very like. Well, after that, it was all different. But a lot of times for me, it's almost like the lobster. Like, just little things have added up over the months. And then I'm sort of like, how did I get here? What has happened?

Speaker C: Yeah, a lot of. A lot of people say that they're like, how did I get here? What happened? And one of the, uh. One of the tools that I talk about in my book that I use with my clients is that many times people don't know what happened. And we look back and we use things like old pictures or old journals or even, like, your. Like your phone's, um, you know, memory, and looking at those catalogs of photos and so forth, and we try to see if there was a time when they were actually full of joy. Right? So then we start to. We become little archaeologists, little detectives of our own past. And we start to see, well, who was I around then? Right. Because many times. Right. Many times throughout our development, we change our surroundings. Right. Sometimes we're around people who have values that actually made us more purposeful. And then now we're not around those type of, types of people. Maybe we're around people whose values are not so purposeful, right? Maybe superficial values, and that's what relaxing joy. Other times it could be, you know, things that we were doing at that time. Maybe at certain points in our lives we were more active, we're more out in nature, we're cultivating skills, we're, you know, uh, exploring our creative sides. But now we're serious and we have these important jobs and these important responsibilities and we don't tap into those things anymore. So, you know, I want people to realize that this is where you can be losing joy. Sometimes you don't know how you got there, but it doesn't mean that you can't find your way back.

Speaker A: Um, I love this question. I want to bring it forward from Jeff, who's kind of referencing. Does a lot of this kind of come from being stuck in the past or rudimentary, uh, times where you're just going over something that's happened before over and over again?

Speaker C: Sometimes it depends on the individual. I talk about case studies in my book where some people did have significant enough traumas. Maybe they do remember it. Some of us don't even remember our traumas. We don't even know how we became the way we, we are. Um, and then some people, you know, some people do have that. You know, I use something called the biopsychosocial. And I say that the biopsychosocial is like a fingerprint. You know how I said we're all built with the DNA for joy? Well, imagine that you're looking at your hand and everyone has their own unique fingerprint. Everyone has their own unique biopsychosocial. So the biologically we're all made up differently. Some of us have medical issues, others have family history of medical issues. Psychologically, some of us have, are, ah, neurodivergent with adhd. We have learning disabilities, we have past traumas. Socially, we're in different parts of the world, right? We are around different surroundings, we have different social habits. So the psychology part of it is where, you know, people tend to get stuck if there's something bad that happens and they, they don't ever process that trauma. And one of the symptoms of trauma is actually internalizing shame and blame. And so if you're someone who, you know, has a narrative around yourself not being worthy, you're ending up in these situations where you're constantly being asked to give and do so that's what's the root of your overworking, your busyness, then that could be an example of being stuck in the past, being stuck in a narrative that is robbing you of joy. But other people have different reasons based on their biopsychosocial, for feeling stuck or for not being able to experience moving forward the way that they'd like.

Speaker A: Totally. I'm glad you brought up busyness, and I'm also glad that Richard brought up social media because that is, uh, you know, very a hot, hot topic right now. And it's something that you really talk about technology and boundaries and how, you know, our nervous systems rarely get a chance to rest because, you know, we're constantly connected. And so I wanted to dive in with you a little bit about what technology is really doing to our emotional health and kind of pick your brain a little. I mean, you don't have to get too personal. But I was kind of like, what are you personally doing? Or what little tips and tricks are you using that we might be able to steal as well?

Speaker C: Yeah, social media is definitely an area where people lose a lot of points of joy. Um, you know, it's interesting because in the research, when we're measuring happiness and we're measuring joy, um, we're asking things like when you ate your food, was it yummy? When you took a rest, did you feel rested? Do you feel refreshed? When you, um, were lonely and you reached out to a loved one, did you feel seen, heard and connected? When you were stressed, were you able to self soothe? Believe it or not, we measure stress in the happiness research. Why? Because a stressed out brain can not experience joy the way that a relaxed, um, peaceful brain can. Right. So all these are the points of joy that we measure in the research. Right. Um, which is interesting because when people come to the private practice, like regular talk therapy practice, that when we ask them, okay, well, what does happiness mean to you? Because they often say, I just want to be happy. Right. They'll say things like, well, happiness is when I finally get the partner, I finally get the job, I get their promotion, I pay off the debt, I finish grad school. It's always these things externally, right? That's how most people think about happiness. Something has to happen, then I'll be happy. In the science and the research, we're adding up the points like when you ate your food, you know, did you enjoy all those points? Right. But I bring that up because, uh, you know, a recent very large study out of, uh, one of the University of Texas schools, they Took the smartphone capacity away from adults for about four weeks. So basically, you know, you couldn't be on socials, you can be on Internet. All you could do is call and text. And what they found in that research was that after four weeks, the happiness scores went up as if these people had been treated with an antidepressant. And so what they did was they were like, this is very interesting. So they talked to the, um, participants, and what they found out was that those participants were getting more points of joy. So they were actually eating their food and tasting it. Not like planted to a phone. Right. They were talking to each other and connecting. They were out in nature, they were getting movement, they were getting good sleep. Right. A rested brain can access more joy. So that's why I bring that up. Because the way that we're measuring joy in the research is very different than how most people think about happiness. And we're losing all of these basic simple points of joy by just being on screens, by just being on, um, not accessing, not really indulging in the natural ways that our body is designed to access joy. And so that's something each and every one of us can do to combat that anhedonia. I do think that that is contributing to the rates of depression and anhedonia.

Speaker A: Is there, is there one thing that you think that we could implement today that would start being effective tomorrow? So, for instance, maybe it's, you know, set a 15 minute timer limit on your mobile devices for like Facebook or Instagram or TikTok. Like, is there any little tactic that you yourself use to kind of combat that?

Speaker C: Well, I, I developed something called the reset method. Um, yeah, I was using it with a lot of my pediatric patients because I, I do treat children and adults, but with the children, children are very vulnerable, uh, when it comes to social media and devices. Their brains seek pleasure and connection. And so I had to come up with a system to help the parents. But inadvertently, this actually ended up helping a lot of the adult patients as well. Because guess what? When you see a child who has a problem with devices, m, it's highly likely that their parent does. Right? The child's on the phone, the parent's on the laptop, so they're learning it from somewhere. Uh, but the, the reset method, uh, the R and reset is re. Like realize how being on screens is impacting you, right? Is it causing you to be, uh, less connected? Is it taking away from your sleep? Is it causing you to feel bad about yourself? Is it creating anxiety? So really make a list. Is it doing positive things. Is it helping you stay connected? Right. Is it, um, helping you, uh, to thrive? Are you learning? Right, there's. Make a list of the positive and the negatives. That's the R. Um, the E is educate yourself. Uh, you know, learn what's out there. In terms of the most recent data, I mentioned one study, but there are tons in children. Um, there's more emerging data in adults. There's a research done by Stanford where they look at zoom fatigue and how people feel very, um, strained when they're on screens all day talking to people and not really engaging in the real world. So educate yourself about the research. Um, the S is strategy. What are you going to put in place? So is it going to be that, like you said, Kim, you know, limiting it to 15 minutes a day? Is it going to be only, you know, before 9pm So I get rich sleep? Is it going to be no screens when I have dinner or meet up with friends? Am I only going to follow certain accounts and unfollow other accounts? You know, am I only going to do, do this midday and then, you know, have a clear strategy? Uh, the second reset is expectation. So what are you hoping to get out of this? Are you hoping to have better, a better mood? Are you hoping to feel more connected, more productive? Whatever it is, have clear expectations and then the T and reset is, is thoughtfulness. So reflect on it. Did this work? Was it too relaxed? Was it too rigid? You know, did you accomplish what you set out to do? And reset has been very helpful. Uh, you know, it started off with helping children and parents, and now I've taught it at major universities, um, you know, even for platforms where they have to help their content creators to maintain their mental health. I've taught the reset method. So I think it's, uh, people need tools, they need a routine, and Reset provides that framework for them.

Speaker A: I'm curious with this reset framework. I mean, like you said, you've used it on m, children, adults, you know, creators, people that are not, you know, content creators, all that, you know, a very wide breadth of people. Is there a certain, you know, column or certain one that people tend to struggle with the most?

Speaker C: Yeah, you know, it's the strategy one, because they have to sometimes change that and like, you know, for every season in your life, you may have to modify it. I think we all kind of get stuck in our patterns, you know, myself included. Like, if I go to the gym and I have my set of like three things I'm going to do at the gym, and then my trainer introduces something new.

Speaker A: Right.

Speaker C: It feels funny at first. Um, or like if your muscle, you know, tenses up differently, your body takes time to adjust and coordinate. So I think for different seasons in your life, you're going to have to adjust it. Right. A younger person who's in college who, you know, maybe has exams, probably can't spend that much time on socials. Right. Um, but then when you, when you go on vacation, right, like, you, you're probably not going to be as rigid, but sometimes it's hard to fall back into that routine. Or, or let's say you're a young, you're a young, uh, parent and you have toddlers at home. You're going to have to adjust things because, you know, again, toddlers, they look at what you do. So you're going to have to kind of implement. Okay. I want my kid to not necessarily see me on screens because they're going to emulate me. So I think knowing that, you know, it's going to change at times, and that's okay because I think once we get into one strategy, we. That works and then it stops working, we give up on things. But it's. It may, it may need a modification depending on what you're going through in life.

Speaker A: Um, I'm glad you brought up kind of vacation and what that looks like, because one of the things that I really wanted to ask you about, because I see it throughout your work, but also I relate to it, is a lot of times people that are high achievers or strivers, that becomes their identity. And so I wanted to ask you is what happens when accomplishment becomes our primary source of self worth? You touched on it a little bit before where, you know, you were asking, like, how does it feel when you're not busy or when you're not doing anything? And in my head I was thinking, I feel terrible. Like, I sit on the couch for like 15 minutes and I'm like, well, I could reorganize the pantry or I could, you know, alphabetically put together these books that are sitting on the coffee table. Like, uh, in my head, like, a good day is a day where I was very productive, which is, you know, its own, uh, problem set. And so I was just curious what you thought about or what your research has shown about, like, accomplishment and self worth. Basically.

Speaker C: Yeah. Many of us do tie our worth to our identity. Um, um, are worth to our identity in terms of our role right at work. Um, so without that role, we feel as if we don't bring anything to the Table. Um, and there's a lot of research looking at, you know, identity shifts and things like imposter syndrome. Uh, but the reality is that we were all people before we took a position at work.

Speaker A: Right? Yeah.

Speaker C: Yes, your role is important. Yes, it shapes who you're around. Yes, it shapes parts of you in terms of your personality. But there was still someone there before you took that role. And I think many of us who are high achievers, who are high functioning, we often feel so guilty when we rest because we have tied this self worth to this role. And you know, for many of us, it's rooted in that past pain and trauma. If you, if you never took the time to process, okay, well, why is it that I cannot feel this worth or I feel so guilty without this role, without doing this work? If you never really reflected on it, then you just keep doing it. But for some of us, it's, it's rooted in childhood neglect. Um, you know, we didn't feel as if we, um, got the attention that we deserved. And, you know, this is our way of reclaiming that, of showing, look, I, I'm worthy of the attention, the love others. It could be something that happened in adulthood, maybe a bad relationship, um, that maybe a partner or friend just treated you poorly, and this is your way of trying to show the world that I am worthy. Uh, for others of us who have something called scarcity, trauma, like, which is something I write about personally, if you came from very limited resources, you never want to run out again. You may have a deep seated fear of running out of money even though there's enough in the bank. And it's highly improbable, right? Like highly improbable that you'll lose that money. You can't slow down. Um, so I think we have to do a lot of reflection and understand, you know, why is it we can't sit still. What is this fight or flight? Where is it coming from? And I say fight or flight because, you know, trauma. When people think of fight or flight, they think of trauma. But this is our way of being traumatized, right? This is how we express our fight or flight is by busying ourselves, by not slowing down. Right? We are humans doing, not human beings. So, but we think we're chasing happiness, but what we're really trying to do is outrun something in the past that we just never processed. So that takes a lot of work in terms of like being mindful, slowing down, processing what happened so that you are aware of why it is you, you just can't Some like, let go of that work. Why you have to, um, you know, constantly feel like you have to show up in this role because you're so enmeshed in this role.

Speaker A: Well, and I love this idea of really kind of recognizing where. Where that's coming from or where it's showing up from you. I also really like this question from Giacomo, which is, you know, when you recognize that you're in those sort of survival, you know, feelings, the high alert, the busy, the doing, uh, you know, because maybe you inherited that from past experiences. Once you recognize that in yourself, that you're like, okay, you know, I can pinpoint either this specific thing or this spec. Time period in my life. What. How can you. How can you address that and say, okay, this no longer serves me? You know, kind of like control, alt, delete, you know, like, I want to move past it now?

Speaker C: Well, it starts with, you know, very small steps. With my clients, I usually do something called the, um, five, four, three, two, one method. So if everyone has a cup, I'll demonstrate it. But it's. It shows my clients that you can slow down, you can calm that fight or flight, you can sit still. Nothing bad is going to happen. And we start off doing these very small practices, and then we build up, and then that allows people to, in real time, be like, wait, why am I busy? And then sit back. And then you just get to it quicker, you know, without messing with the therapist. But, um, but, you know, like with the 5, 4, 3 to 1, you want to list. You want to hold a beverage or whatever it is, something sensory, um, that you're going to drink, and it's. You're going to list five things you can see. So I'm listing five things I can see. I can see the white porcelain. I see the reflection of the light off the water. I see the, uh, water moving the waves. Um, I see, uh, my fingertips here. I see the brown, uh, stone. Uh, and then you want to list four things that you can feel. So I feel the hot water. I feel the porcelain glass. I feel the grit on the handle. I feed the low. I feel the logo. Um, and then you. You want to, uh, list, uh, three things that you can hear. So I hear my fingertips. I hear the water swishing around in there, right? I hear a little bit of the, um, the gravel scraping against my hand. Then you want to list two things you can smell. So if this were tea, I usually have like a honey lemon tea or lavender chamomile. Um, and then one thing you can taste and you taste it, right? So when you're doing that and you're, uh, in this process of 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, you're not really thinking about the meeting that you have in an hour. You're not thinking about what happened this morning before you left your home. You're really showing yourself that you slowed down and you stayed connected to this one process. And so by slowly building up, maybe doing one minute of that a day, two minutes of that a day, three, then you build up. You start to learn how to calm yourself down physiologically and ground yourself so that you can realize, well, what is it that's happening? Because I think many of us, we do things without really knowing why, or we feel things without really understanding it. But if we can show ourselves that we have the capacity to self regulate, to slow down, to be mindful, um, to ground, then that will allow us to then tap into ways to resolve this issue.

Speaker A: Okay. I'm so glad you brought this up because I feel like one of the things that happens with me is I love this practice. I'm going to definitely start doing it. I have some other ones where I press on my fingers or press on my toes and the ground to kind of ground myself. And sometimes. And again, I don't know if it's my people pleasing tendencies or I'm just an empathetic person. I don't know. Um, but I feel like I will be in this very kind of grounded, good place and then I will go to meet up with friends or family or colleagues and sort of become like the unofficial therapist. And then I absorb their stress or absorb their worries. And it's not even that, I mean to. It's just then I'm leaving thinking about like, oh, gosh, well, how is she going to deal with that? Or, you know, oh, gosh, how is he going to handle that? And so one of the things I want to talk to you or ask you about was this sort of like emotional boundary of how can we support people? Because I want to support my friends, I want to support my family, I want to support colleagues and people around me. But at the same time, if I've kind of created this Zen, uh, how do I make sure that they're not popping my bubble, so to speak?

Speaker C: Well, I mean, it's not to say that the people who tend to, you know, depend on you as their emotional support are necessarily bad people.

Speaker A: Right, right.

Speaker C: Um, I think, I think what ends up happening is that over time, you know, if you're given. I'm taking.

Speaker B: Right.

Speaker C: It's just human nature. Um, and that's all of us, right? If some imagine, like, we've all been there, we're at work, and we know that one person that if we ask them to do something, they'll say yes. Well, it's not that we just, we want to treat them poorly. But if you're saying, yes, I'm going to give you my work, you know, um, and that's how it is, you know. And so we always see these. And I see this all the time when I take my daughter to school. And you see the parent groups, there's always that one parent, usually a mom, who's like, I got it. I'll do it. And like, you, you know, in your gut, you're like, I wish you didn't do that. But if she's going to do it, less work for me, right? So I do think, I do think, um, that it is our responsibility to set that boundary. And again, that's where that mindfulness comes in, that grounded technique comes in. Because then before you go to say, oh, yeah, you, you, you, you, just over, uh, time, you start to learn, oh, why do I feel like this need in here to be like, oh, let me, Let me do this. What is that about? And. And my clients have experiences where they're just about. They're about to do the whole, like, I'm going to support you. And then they realize, wait, where is this coming from? Where is this really coming from? And they realize that, oh, maybe this person won't love me, or they won't think it's highly of me or they won't call me. But what ends up happening is the opposite of their fear, right? When they learn how to challenge that fear, the person ends up valuing them more. The more scarce they become, the more valued, right? It's like, oh, you're not there for me every single time, or you're not just gonna drop everything for me all the time. They start to respect you more. And, you know, of course there are different. There are certain situations where there are exceptions to the rule. But overall, people learn. They learn behavior, they learn patterns. And that's why I wrote a whole chapter about people pleasing in this book. Because there was this, um, this term in psychiatry that is now, like, taboo. You can't really use it. Um, and it used to be called masochistic personality disorder. Essentially, you know, people who bend over backwards for others, people who are uncomfortable with praise, they feel uncomfortable being the center of attention. Um, you know, people will treat them poorly, and they still show up. Right. Um, and it was. It was a problematic term because it was often, uh, used, uh, you know, in domestic violence cases, particularly with women. Right. So it's kind of victim blaming, like, oh, these women keep going back to these men, right? But, um, but instead what, what has happened is that there's, um, a term called, like, masochistic traits. Right. Not necessarily woman or man, but just saying. Pete, Some people end up in these positions where they're giving. Where they're not being necessarily treated well, but they still show up where they don't feel worthy of. Of. Of good, you know, treatment or praise and so forth. And they're always sacrifice, self sacrificing. Some would call it being a martyr, you know, But. But, uh, you know, the difference is that martyrs kind of wear it as a badge, like, I did this, you know, um, whereas, you know, the people pleasers are just doing it.

Speaker B: They don't just.

Speaker C: They don't know how else to be.

Speaker A: Right?

Speaker C: This is how they feel as if they're worthy of love and, um, acceptance. So, um, you know, really challenging. That is really important because what I found in my practice is that the more scarce you become, the more you say, actually, I'd love to help you, but at this point I really can't. Um, the more people respect you. So the opposite of what you fear happens.

Speaker A: I love hearing that. It feels very reassuring to me and Janelle, some other recovering people pleasers that are listening to this or vigorously nodding along going, yes, I can relate to these things that Dr. Judith is talking about. Um, I know we have to let you go in five minutes. I wanted to ask. One of the things that we love to do around here is copy people's homework. Because you have been doing this and you've been absorbed in this world for many, many years. So if you could give us a homework assignment to do for the rest of this week or into the weekend, it could be to download something, it could be to read something, it could be to try something. What would be your homework assignment for us?

Speaker C: Well, you know the motto of my lab is understand the science of your happiness, right? Because there's only one you, Kim. And there will only ever be one you, right? There's only one me. There will only ever be one me. But what I find is that a lot of my clients, they come to me after they've tried. Oh, I tried what my sister tried and it didn't work. And I still don't feel happy. Or I tried with my friend work or, you know, my. My Co worker worked on it, it didn't work out for me. And then the question I often ask is, well, do you understand the science of your happiness? And then they look at me like, what, what is that? And I said, well, you know, there's only one you. So, you know, if you don't understand where you're losing your joy, then how can you reclaim it? How can you find your way back to happiness? You don't even know where you're losing your joy. And that's where that, um, the biopsychosocial is so important. It is like the fingerprint of your joy. It is the fingerprint because there's only one you. So there's only one fingerprint for your joy. So I ask people to draw out those three circles. Biologically, you know, what are the medical problems in your life? You know, are, do you have an autoimmune condition? Are, uh, you constantly in a state of inflammation? Do you have chronic pain? You know, um, is your blood sugar dysregulated? Like, are you going through hormonal fluctuations in menopause and perimenopause? Do you have low testosterone? Right? Men struggle with hormones too, right? What are the hormones? What are the biological factors, right? Then psychologically, where are you losing your joy? Do you have a history of trauma? Do you, are you constantly in fight or flight so it's hard for your brain to access joy because it's so stressed? Or do you have, are you neurodivergent and you are trying so hard to focus all day that by the time you get home you haven't, you're burnt out, you have no time for joy, right? Um, uh, or your attachment styles, you know, causing you to have stress in your relationships. And then socially, you know, what's happening in your day to day life? What are you eating? Are you eating foods that are nutritious, that really, ah, support your brain health? Are you getting movement? Are you, uh, maybe smoking too much or drinking too much? Um, who are you around? Because people who are negative, they'll drag you down. Are you getting movement? Do you have access to nature? Those are all the things in your social life. So draw that out, right? And then my clients will write out, right, their little biopsychosocial and then I'll ask them, well, where do you think you're losing the most points of joy? Right? For some people it is biologically. Some people are just in chronic pain. It's like everything else is great, but I just can't enjoy life, right? Others, it's Psychologically, Right. Like they're so traumatized that they are fearful and anxious all the time. And then others, it's social, right? They're paired with a toxic partner or in a toxic work environment. So no matter what happens, I mean, you can eat all the kale you want. It's not going to get rid of that person. Right? So like for. And uh, that's very, very helpful. And that's why it's so important that it's not like you can give a pill, a happy pill and everyone's happy, right? Because we're so unique. There's only one us. So there are all these avenues for joy. There's biologically, psychologically, socially, all these areas where we're all uniquely losing our joy. So understanding the signs of your happiness allows you to see where you're losing your joy, where you need to prioritize the most of your efforts to reclaim your joy.

Speaker A: Uh, I love that. Thank you so, so much. That's such a good homework assignment for us to like noodle on and work on for the next couple days. Where can people keep following you and gaining your wisdom?

Speaker C: Thank you. It's so lovely to speak with you and um, I'm very happy to share this with your community. You can follow me at Dr. Judith Joseph, I'm on all the social and Dr. Judith Joseph.com and you can buy my book wherever books are sold. High functioning.

Speaker A: I love it. Um, well, we're going to let Dr. Judith go, but hopefully you'll take the time to stick around with me for a second. But thank you, Dr. Judith.

Speaker C: We appreciate.

Speaker A: Thank you. Uh, I don't know about you, but that session just. I needed to hear it. It's one of those things where again, we can be so busy in life and you know, we talked about it a little bit last week, kind of of hitting that halfway point in the year. You know, we're coming into the end of June, just kind of reflecting back on where we started in 2026 and kind of where we're going into 2027. And so, you know, I had talked about the Arthur C. Brooks, you know, book that I was reading. And now once I had discovered that Dr. Um, Judith course all about, uh, you know, basically stop telling people that you're fine and start to figure out why you're people pleasing and not finding joy and over committing to things, then, you know, having a problem just being and not doing all the time. And so I thought if I'm struggling with this, uh, and I feel like you are also one of those high achievers or kind of 1% better type person, then you also might be, you know, struggling with this a little bit or if you're not struggling with it actively right now, maybe it's something that, that you have thought about or something that has come up with you in the past. And so what I would love to welcome is that if you have tactics that have worked for you or if you have things that you've done that you felt like really provided clarity in your life, I selfishly would love to hear it because I know that I am definitely going to be doing those three circles, that three circle tasks from Dr. Judith because I just think it's one of those things that you can also go back to over and over again. I definitely don't, I mean, I didn't ask her this, but I've consumed enough of her content that I feel safe in saying that it's not a one and done type thing. Like I read the book and check, check, check. And now I'm problem free. You know, it's something unfortunately for us that we have to kind of keep circling back around to and kind of keep evaluating. And so, yeah, I just, I found that to be really helpful. Um, and I'm glad that uh, Jeff and Kelly and, and Brendan and Jacob agree because it's one of those things that I'm like, if I'm struggling with this, I feel like all of us might be struggling with this a little bit because, you know, we're high achievers. It's, it's a, it's a blessing and a curse, these high achieving tendencies. And so I just want to thank you so much for being, you know, digging in deep on this subject with me and kind of sticking with it as I continue to, to go through and explore it. And hopefully you are also gaining some exciting ways to explore it for yourself as well. So I always love seeing you here every single Wednesday. Um, if you are new here, like we said before, we meet here every Single Wednesday at 1pm Eastern. You can join, live selfishly. I think that's the best because then we get to talk with each other and share tips and tricks and tactics. But uh, I know life gets busy, kids are puking, dogs puking, work meetings come up, client calls, fire drills, you know, so if you ever have to listen in podcast form, we're on all the podcasts, networks, Spotify, Apple, Overcast, et cetera. So you can always catch up that way as well. Uh, next week I'm really excited. We are digging in and talking with Dr. Uh, Emily. I feel like today we had Dr. Judith. I'm. I'm in a doctor. I'm in a doctor strain right now because, um. Well, that's another tangent. Well, I'll tell you about the tangent just for a second, which is. I am very cognizant right now that online there is a lot of AI and there is a lot of people that are 23 years old and had never done it, that have, like, put in prompts to chatgpt and now are saying, here are the best five ways to prevent burnout. And I'm like, you're 23. Come back to me when you're 43 and talk to me about burnout, uh, respectively. So, you know, one thing that I'm sort of looking at more and more closely now as I curate gas for us to chat with, as I curate my own social content feeds, whether that's on LinkedIn, whether that's on Instagram, whether that's on TikTok, is just really going to kind of one of two pillars that I've deemed is the right fit for me, which is one, someone is certified to be talking about this. So in this case, you know, Dr. Judith is a clinical psychologist. Like, she went to school, she has the degree, you know, like, she is. She's really been there and done that and studied it. Uh, you know, Dr. Emily, who's joining us next week, you know, is a doctor, you know, is certified to talk about, you know, emotionally charged conversations and, you know, avoidance and anger and all that sort of thing. Uh, so really looking at the people whose content I'm consuming that are in my head, quote, unquote, certified, like, yes, you have gone to school for that. That's not a chat GPT special. It's not a Claude special, it's not a Grok special. Uh, Brendan saying we need to cut back on too many activities by Dr. Doolittle.

Speaker C: It's true.

Speaker A: There's too much of that going on. Uh, you know, so really looking at people that are certified to be talking about what they're doing, or, uh, if they're not certified, which again, is totally fine, then they've kind of been through the wringer. So, you know, I want to learn from a founder or a coach who has said, I've coached CEOs for the last 15 years, that to me feels like, okay, you have seen 15 years worth of, um, crapola. So I could probably learn, you know, 15 years worth of hard truths from you in one or two little nuggets. Again, as opposed to somebody who, you know, decided to quit their corporate job, you know, three years ago and is now trying to coach people. Like, I'm, um, kind of like, not that it's a bad thing, but just in my mind, you haven't been through the trenches. And again, this is just me. Everybody. Follow who you want online. You're, you're welcome to follow whoever you want, but those are sort of the two pillars that I'm really leaning into now. Either you are certified, you have gone to school, you are a doctor, this is something that you scientifically study, or you can show me that you've been through the trenches. So, you know, gone for me are the randos from instagram or the 23 year old life coaches. Uh, or like Giacomo is saying that the trust me bros that say, oh, you know, you got xyz. I just, I'm not into it. It's not, it's not resonating with me. So all that to say, that's why I'm so excited. Next week we're going to be talking to Dr. Emily on HALT. I am constantly learning from you, but really learning from her, but really digging into emotionally charged conversations. So those are hard conversations, hard negotiations, things that, not even hard, just that make you uncomfortable. It's something that I'm constantly having to go back to and revisit time and time again because, um, it's just not my strong suit. My husband, no problem. He'll have a hard conversation at 9am on a Wednesday without blinking twice. I'm the one who, if I know I have to have a hard conversations at 9am M. On Wednesday, 9am on Monday. I'm preparing my sticky notes of how am I going to say this? And I don't want to hurt their feelings, but let's work it out. Just not built that way. So constantly looking at how I can get better at, ah, those hard conversations. So, uh, I'm really excited about next week. If you're not already signed up, you can go to get coffee with kim.com and we can send you a calendar invite. Uh, but again, just remember, Every single Wednesday, 1pm Eastern, we're here. We're live on LinkedIn on YouTube, whichever platform you prefer. But thank you so much for your time and attention. I know that you are so busy and you have a ton going on. So the fact that you took time to be here with me and with us today really means the world. I love that you are sharing so much of your tips and tricks and dialogue that has worked for you because like I said, I truly feel like some of the best learning that we do is learning that we do together. And you are a big part of that. So thank you so, so much. Uh, until next week. I hope you have a beautiful rest of the week. Rest of the weekend. I encourage you to do those three circles that Dr. Judith talked about. I know I'm going to do it. And if you do it, decide to do it, let me know how it goes for you. I'm curious to hear. But uh, until then, have a really great weekend and I'll see you next week. By.

Speaker B: That was some good stuff. Thanks for being a part of this week's Coffee with Kim. If podcasts are your thing, subscribe to the show and you'll see a new episode appear next week in your favorite listening app. If you want to be a part of the conversation, join us live on Wednesdays at 1pm Eastern over on LinkedIn. You can RSVP at Get Coffee with Kim Dr. Com. I want you to have your questions answered because why should I get to have all the fun? And let's be honest, you know how to ask some hard hitting questions. My guests and I cannot wait to meet you. See you, um, soon.