785 - You're wiser than you think (use this one word)

Hello and welcome to the new mindset who this podcast, my name is Kase Kenney

Ath, Kase.Kennyi Instagram and this is my weekly podcast where I create short

no BS episodes dedicated to helping you become the person you're meant to be

leave your conflict zone and live a purposeful and fulfilling life.

Let's go.

All right, welcome to episode 785. Hello, my friend. Welcome to a fresh new

episode of new mindset who this as always, thank you so much for listening.

Thank you for supporting me and today I want to talk about another specific

word structure that we can use in life to be more optimistic.

This is my passion and the research is so fascinating on this topic.

There's so many ways for us to hack our brains and our emotions using simple

simple words. And it's particularly interesting, right?

Because again, when we think about emotions, we usually assume like it's

the big idea that matters most, it's the belief you have, it's the narrative you

have, it's the identity you've adopted and those of course are very important.

But we have to remember, those are built on the back of smaller words and some

of the most fascinating insights from psychology and behavioral science come

from the usage of single words that then shape our beliefs and our narratives

and our identities. And one of the really coolest examples that I've come across

recently is from two psychologists, Ethan Cross, Ariana or Vell, who explored

something so simple, so simple of what happens when you shift from using the

word I to using the word you when you describe a painful, difficult experience

that you went through. And you'll notice this, you'll see other people doing this.

And I think it'll really make you want to try it, right? You'll notice this

pattern pop up. Maybe someone is talking about a breakup and they might say

something like, well, you know, when you go through something like that, it really

forces you to rethink what you want or someone's reflecting on a failure in their

life. They say, well, you know, you realize that sometimes you have to lose

something before you understand what really matters or even someone reflecting

on grief or loss. They might say, you never think it'll happen to you until it

happens. And listen to those sentences that the speaker is reflecting on

their own experience, yet they're not using the word I, they're saying you.

And at glance, at a glance, this might seem strange or even like a, you know, a

weird quirk, but Cross and Orville, the psychologist discovered that this serves

a very important psychological function. It's a linguistic function.

It's called the generic you. When you use the generic you, you're no

longer just describing your own experience. You're not caught in the depths and

the despair and the darkness of your own experience. You're transforming it.

You're turning it into a human story instead of a personal story.

And that could really, really help you make sense of and escape the weight

of those difficult moments. It's called the generic you.

And basically in the research Cross and Orville analyzed how people talk about

what they termed emotionally significant experiences, right? So this is heartbreak,

this is loss, this is frustration, all these different things. And across

many different emotional context, they found that people do this spontaneously,

spontaneously, we switch to you when reflecting on difficult situations.

And it's not because you were like addressing someone, it's because these people

and we do this organically, we are processing something that is universal,

right? So instead of saying, I felt so lost after losing my job,

instead people naturally say, you know, well, when you lose your job,

you start questioning a lot of things, right? The first one, I felt completely lost

at my after losing my job. That is an autobiographical reflection on life.

The second is more philosophical. It's not about me, it's about us.

And the researchers found that this shift helps create,

what we've talked about here before, psychological distance, self-distancing,

and it helps extract meaning from these emotions when you're able to step

back from them and say, this is a universal experience, you could do that.

Right? So doing this, switching from I to you, it does two things. First,

it creates that distance. When you say I, inherently with I,

and with the way that you speak and reflect, the experience feels incredibly

personal, incredibly immediate. But when we say you, you're stepping outside of

it, we're not necessarily reliving the moment, we're analyzing it for once,

we're observing it. That's the first thing it creates distance. And second,

it creates that sense of humanity, that sense of universality.

When you use the generic you, you are implicitly framing your experience

as something that many other people have gone through as well. And so now,

instead of it being this personal, isolated attack, failure, heartbreak,

that only you could understand, it becomes part of a shared emotional experience.

And with that being the sense of your reflection, it's no longer about reminding

yourself of the pain, it can be if you can choose this direction.

It could be inspiring you to unearth insight from it, turning that experience

into meaning. And I think this is very important because psychologists talk

about all the time, how do we, how do we differentiate between

aruminating on something and just reflecting on something in an important and

healthy way? Well, rumination by its very nature is what keeps us trapped

in the intensity of an emotion. Reflection is what allows for us to unearth

insight from it. And language to me is the difference between which path we

decide to take. Like imagine two people describing the same experience.

One person might say, I can't believe I messed that up, I feel so embarrassed.

Another might say, well, you know, when you make a mistake like that,

it really reminds you how important it is to be prepared, for instance.

Both people had the same experience, the same failure, they both flop, they both

messed up, but the second person, you know, they're owning their mistakes.

Certainly, this isn't about casting the blame away from them, but they've

already moved on psychologically to the next step, which is they're no longer

just describing and ruminating what happened, they're making sense of it.

They're turning that emotional reaction into a philosophy. And that's what

the research here suggests, which is that, you know, using generic

you language, it helps you convert personal experience into wisdom,

into insight, into philosophy. So instead of staying stuck in the

the classic, why did this happen to me? And oh my gosh, it's always me.

We move on to what does this remind me about being human?

What does this teach me about being human? And this is so important.

I mean, fundamentally, it helps you feel less alone.

I mean, that's important. That's important. It's comforting.

Implicitly moving from I to you is comforting. This isn't just my struggle.

This is something that many people go through. If someone says I was

devastated when my relationship ended, you hear their pain, right?

But if they say, when a relationship ends, you start realizing, you know,

how much you were holding onto the future that you wanted instead of the present reality.

The statement there suddenly feels relatable. You're like, yeah, now I feel that.

I feel that they're like inviting you into the experience.

And that's what is powerful psychologically about the generic you.

It activates that shared mental experiential model.

It signals to you that they're not talking about their experience.

They're inviting you. And likely because you're human, you're like, yeah, I feel it.

You build that connection. It tells everyone involved from the speaker to the listener

that no one is alone in this experience. And I think psychologically that matters a lot.

Like we are wired to make sense of life, to make meaning out of life.

When something painful happens instinctively, we try to understand it.

And we try to append it to what we know about life.

What is fair? What is unfair? What is right? What is wrong?

But if we feel alone in our suffering, our ability to make meaning is much more difficult.

Because the experience feels personal and targeted and random and unfair.

But when we could say it's part of the human experience, something certainly shifts.

It's a broader narrative that we could then say, okay, how can I make sense of it here?

So this is the idea of using a singular word you to turn pain into wisdom, the best we can.

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And I think this is very hopeful, right? I talk about optimism here.

The language we use to describe our experiences dictates how we understand them and the word you hear creates that bridge.

It creates that bridge. I mean, think about some of the most common life lessons that we all share.

You don't realize how strong you are until you have to be. You learn who your real friends are when things fall apart.

You don't realize you don't appreciate time until you lose it.

None of those big agreeable life lessons start with I they start with you because those are insights.

They're not just personal stories. They're insights and that transformation from story to insight is everything.

And you could see this in every day life. Think about how people talk about their career.

I got rejected from the job I wanted. It crushed me. It was horrible.

But maybe you say when you get rejected from something you wanted really makes you rethink what matters to you.

Boom, big change. Well, maybe people talk about burnout.

So instead of saying, man, I am completely overwhelmed, completely exhausted. Well, that's good, right?

We always need to honor our motion. But maybe then you say, and you know, when you push yourself too hard for too long, your body eventually forces you to take a good hard look at your life.

And then of course we know this with heartbreak as well. You might say, man, I feel like my world has ended because I lost my person.

Append that with. And you know, when your heart breaks, you realize how much love you're capable of giving yourself just an idea here, right?

I could say this all poetically because I think a lot about it. But can we use you? Yes, we can.

Yes, we can. And this is a central idea, certainly in psychology about regulating our emotions.

When we're immersed in difficult experiences, we spiral, we replay, we ruminate, we hit ourselves with the why me, the why me.

But this distance, even a small amount is so incredibly helpful. And it helps us identify the pattern and the insight and to move on.

And lastly, I would say that I mean, this is inherently tied to optimism as I was teasing there. Optimism, as we talk about on the podcast all the time, optimism is not blind positivity.

Optimism for me is the belief that circumstances can improve that our actions can influence outcomes in life.

It's about possibility. And certainly possibility becomes way easier to see when we step outside our immediate emotional reaction, which is the opposite of what happens when we're stuck in I.

I failed I messed up I I can't believe this happened shifting to you changes things will you learn and you grow when you figure things out the language of that structure forces you to focus on insight instead of story process instead of identity.

Instead of defining ourselves by what happened we describe how other people have gone through these experiences.

And if other people have maybe we can grow from it maybe we could learn from it. So yeah, that's the idea of this episode interesting stuff right apply it to your everyday life.

I think the the best simplest way is to notice how you talk about your experiences. Notice how often you you lead with I I can't handle this I always mess up I'm terrible at this I'm so embarrassing right those inherently are fusing the experience with your identity.

But what happens if you shift the language just slightly instead of I failed you say yeah when you try something new you might fail sometimes.

Powerful instead of saying I'm terrible relationships you say well you know when a relationship ends you learn a lot about what you actually need what you actually deserve.

I feel so lost right now maybe say when you're in a transition in life it's normal to feel unsure for a while notice what happens there.

Language is a tool language is a tool words are not just labels their lenses and the word you is the ultimate lens and we could use it to help us zoom out and can help us create insight that's the power of such a small word.

And I think you know one of the things I love about the research like this around linguistics and language is it reveals the power of small words and small choices.

We think so often the big changes in life require big interventions but a single word can totally change your life.

I keep the spotlight on you you on you literally you wide ends the frame of your point of view and it allows for you to get to that point where you could find the lesson you could find the insight and you can move on.

So that's it on it right here I hope this was helpful if you're interested in this topic be sure to visit case Kenny dot com slash speaking I'm traveling all over the US this year for the past several years leading what I call the language of optimism it's my featured keynote that I've done all over the US for.

Fortune 500 companies the NFL everything in between I love teaching the art of using your words to help you be more optimistic and I'd love to bring it to your company or your community that's case Kenny dot com slash speaking.

But that's it as always thank you so much for listening thank you for supporting me and until next episode I'm out.

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