WEBVTT
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The topics and opinions expressed on the following show are
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solely those of the hosts and their guests and not
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This is Beyond Confidence with your host d W. Park.
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Do you want to live a more fulfilling life? Do
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you want to live your legacy and achieve your personal, professional,
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and financial goals? Well? Coming up on ZVO parks Beyond Confidence,
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you will hear real stories of leaders, entrepreneurs, and achievers
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who have steps into discomfort, shattered their status quo, and
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are living the life they want. You will learn how
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relationships are the key to achieving your aspirations and financial goals.
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Moving your career business forward does not have to happen
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at the expense of your personal or family life or
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vice versa. Learn more at www dot Gvpork dot com
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and you can connect with div ants contact Dants givpark
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dot com. This is beyond confidence and now here's your
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host TV.
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Park Good Morning listeners back on Tuesday. So just want
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to share like Amazon DC this past weekend and vent
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and saw cherry blossoms just so beautiful. Yes, on one hand,
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there are allergies from pollen, but at the same time
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that you experienced from nature, it is so wonderful. And
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when we talk about reality and TV and all of that,
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so on one hand, there's nature and then we have
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the reality of ourselves and that and that's where we
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are going to go in today and talk about it.
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So I hope, well, while you are enjoying the outdoors
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that you are also being careful with jeez, let's get started.
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Welcome doctor Stevens. Hi there, nice to be with you,
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Nice to meet you, and good to have you on
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this show. So let us know. How did you get
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into reality TV shows?
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Well, it was a little unusual. I'm a psychologist. I
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started out as a regular psychologist working with adolescents and adults,
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but I also got into the business side of things
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and was involved in psychological testing, and we set up
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a company that was automating psychological testing, and along the way,
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I got a call from a colleague who had an
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unusual request. We had developed something that measured emotional intelligence,
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which was brand new at the time, and he wanted
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to know if our test, our emotional intelligence would work
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in an unusual circumstance and turned out to be was
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that he was screening applicants for a show that I
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never heard of it all the time, but it was
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called Survivor and we all know that show today. So
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I initially got involved helping to do assessments for Survivor
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than the Apprentice through my colleague, and then I got
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more directly involved in shows as they developed, and reality
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shows grew like mushrooms.
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Oh wow. And a lot of people are kind of
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just kind of talking about reality TV shows. It's because
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it's happening in real time to real people. People are
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very much engaged. So can you kind of tell us
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that why reality TV may be more revealing the psychological
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aspects of human beings than what we all think about it.
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Yeah, reality TV to me is like a psychological laboratory.
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You know, I get to do things that I couldn't
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do at a university setting, you know, the ethics committees
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wouldn't allow you to do those things, but lu because
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they're unsafe, but they didn't have the proper protections around it,
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medical care, psychological care. So basically we're conducting sort of
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experiments with people in real time. And that's what makes
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it so exciting that we get to see it's almost
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like a mirror of society, but it's blown up. You're
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under pressure, you have to make decisions quickly, you have
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to form relationships, and we learn a lot about how
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people react in these situations that help us understand things
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that go on in our real lives. And again, I
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see it as kind of a mirror of what goes
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on in the real world.
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So tell us how the whole process works, because I'm
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curious now.
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Well, it starts with casting or screening, and for the
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popular shows, there's often thousands of people who want to
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be on these shows. There's a big draw to being
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part of it for a number of different reasons. So
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I'm involved in that element of a casting making sure
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it's safe for the people who do get selected. I'm
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also involved in preparing them for what they're going to
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experience when they're on the show. When things get out
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of hand, or if they get overstressed. I help them
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during the production, and I debrief them once they finish,
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once they're eliminated from the show, and sometimes do follow
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up down the road if that's required, or I will
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refer them to someone. So there's a number of steps
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that I will help walk them through on the shows.
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But basically, you know, the shows vary. There's dating shows,
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there's competition shows, there's social interaction shows, talent shows, there's
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a variety of different reality type shows. But you know,
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they all share some common things, and one of those
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is that you're performing under pressure one way or another.
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And what I've identified is ten archetypes, ten types of
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almost like personalities that people take on when they're in
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these shows. And again, these archetypes reflect some of the
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things we do in real life. And that's whether we're
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leaders or whether we're just trying to get by day
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to day. We share a lot of these common sort
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of traits with what we see on TV.
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Absolutely, so share with us when you are talking about
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that casting that you know you are making an effort.
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You're looking at how how they will respond under pressure,
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Like you know, that is the main criteria So how
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do you go about selecting people? What are some of
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the criterias?
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Well, casting you know, it's a lot like maybe casting
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a Broadway show. You want different characters. You know, good
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shows very diverse. We get people from different backgrounds, socio
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economic backgrounds, different gender identities, different all kinds of different beliefs, conservative, liberal.
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We sort of mishmash people that wouldn't ordinarily encounter each
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other in real life. And that's the other thing that
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makes it so interesting when you mix all these people
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together who've never met anyone like the other kind of
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person before. How do they interact? How do they deal
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with that? And then you add on to that the
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pressure of a competition. So are they going to cooperate?
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Are they going to compete? Are they going to fight?
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Are going to work together? All of these are elements
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that go into making us want to watch what happens
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next to these shows. It's all the human element help people,
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and the emotions are real. You know, people talk about
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reality TV being fake, but it's not. The emotions are
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not fake. Emotions are real. What's set up? Are the
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situations right? We'll put them in a situation where we
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set up a competition, that is set up, but what
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happens next is real. They cry, they get anxious, they
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yell at each other. Those emotions have to be real.
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They're not actors. They're behaving the way that the situation
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almost demands them to behave.
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Ah. That is because so many times when these are
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set up shows, it's had to know what's reality and
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what has been staged. So what you're sharing is that
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these emotions are real and now there's definitely competition, and
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that competition could be whatever the amount of price there
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is or whatever the reward there is at the end
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of it. Yeah, something very key point that you know
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whether they will collaborate, whether they'll do so during these
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high pressure and high stake competitions. What have you observed
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in terms of trust and loyalty in building relationships.
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Well, you know, the people who are able to build
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trust and loyalty are the words who tend to go
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further in the game and maybe even win it at
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the end, because if they don't trust you, they're going
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to get rid of you. They're going to throw you out.
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If they think that you're backstabbing or that you know
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that you're not loyal to the group, then they're going
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to dispense get rid of you. And you know, it's
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almost like what happens again in real life when someone
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at work is not loyal or not trustworthy, we tend
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to exclude that person. We maybe we can't get rid
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of them, but they're not close to what's happening. They
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don't know what's going on in the organization. The same
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thing here. You have to build trust, and that's why
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some of the basic elements are important, like empathy, flexibility,
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some of the elements of emotional intelligence that we've been
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studying for years are really significant in these situations, just
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like they are in real life.
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So are you at liberty to share any stories where
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you have seen this in action.
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Well, we see the action all the time and all
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the shows basically, yeah, we see people who lose it,
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who get emotionally frustrated. You know, in a cooking show,
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for example, one person who wanted to assert himself as
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the leader. It's not always good to tell everybody you're
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the leader, but this person wanted to make everyone know
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that they thought they were the leader, and he would.
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They had a competition to make a five star breakfast,
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top top of the line breakfast and they put them
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in teams. So as a leader of the team, he
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was the first out to pick ingredients for this breakfast.
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And what he went and did was he grabbed the
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whole bowl of eggs, right, and eggs are the main
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thing for breakfast, so none of the other teams were
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able to get eggs, so they were all furious and
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going crazy. Even his team went to what are you doing,
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Like why are you doing this? And he acted like, well,
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I'm just trying to make my best breakfast and this
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is what I need. So we call that the chaos agent.
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That's someone who just you know, by doing what they do,
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caused chaos with everybody else. And again in the office,
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you know, you might get somebody who does something, plays
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the radio too loud, or does something that creates chaos
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for everybody else, and that person usually gets themselves in
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trouble and often doesn't last very long in the game.
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M hm. And you also mentioned about Survivor, which is
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such a very different show. I mean, I haven't watched
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a whole lot of it, but you know occasionally I
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have watched that. So those are pretty drastic conditions and
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extreme conditions. How do things play out over there, and
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how does emotional intelligence work well.
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Again, those conditions add to the stress, right and the
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fact that you're competing with others that you might get eliminated.
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This might be your last week or day on the show.
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Emotional intelligence plays out because those people who are strong
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in things like empathy and assertiveness, they know how to
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work with the people to understand what the other person's
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needs are. If I know what's important to you, I
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can let you know that I believe in that, and
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I can help you, and that will help me stay
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on longer. If I don't care about you, I only
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care about myself, then you're not going to care about me,
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and if you have the opportunity, you're going to get
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rid of me. So the conditions, it just amplifies everything
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in organizations. You know what we've done training, and some
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of the best training are simulations, and those simulations add
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an element of stress. For example, in one type of
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simulation it's called paper planes, where you have people set
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up a factory where they're buying, they're building and selling
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airplanes and you set up different departments. But then you
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put pressure on where the quality control isn't working or
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they can't produce enough airplanes. You add pressure to the game,
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and you find that changes the whole dynamic of what's
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going on. And what you want to see is how
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do people deal with each other under that kind of pressure.
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Do leaders emerge or do people just go with each
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other's throats and fight and everything falls apart? And that's
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where you see real leadership buildings. As psychologists, we call
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it emergent leadership. You throw everybody together and they're all equal.
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Right at work, somebody's called the boss, so we expect
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them to be a leader, even though they may not
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be a good leader. But in this situation, everybody starts
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out equal. But what we always find is somebody emerges
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as a leader according to everybody. Everyone sort of agrees,
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Oh yeah, Johnny, I'll follow Johnny. I'm not going to
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follow Bill, but I will follow Johnny. And it's emotional
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intelligence is found to be really important in distinguishing those
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emergent leaders. Like what causes someone to be seen as
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a leader by everyone else versus somebody else who's just
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arrogant or who just self centered and narcissistic, and nobody
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wants to follow that person. Again, just like in our
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office at work, we have people at work that we
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can't stand, we would never want to do or follow them.
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Sometimes we have to because they're designated as a boss.
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But there may be other people we work with that