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the-dream-beyond · 1 year ago

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Episode 23: Adlerian Psychology - Embracing Inferiority and the Drive for Greatness with Hallie Williams

Hallie Williams

Encouraged is derived from courage. So we encourage people to get better. And that person has to have the courage to deal with our inadequacies, the mere human experience, yes that we wake up one day and find ourselves on this planet Earth. And we go through life trying to figure out ways to deal with the adversities that come up. Those things take courage.

Nik Tarascio

So many of us have had a desire to have a big impact on the world in some way. I think so many of us feel like that's part of the meaning of why we're here. That's our purpose, right? It's to be an advocate for something to go out and find something, you know, like activism to support a cause that you believe in, whatever that thing is building your own business, raising a family. What if I told you that underneath some of the people that have been the most successful at shaping the world, was a single person's principles that you've probably never even heard of? That's what's so shocking to me. So we're going to talk today about one of the lesser known psychologists who is actually on par with Jung, and Freud, and how you can learn some of these principles and take it to that again, you can make the world more the way you want it to be. I hope you really enjoy.

Welcome to the dream beyond. I'm your host, Nik Tarascio. I'm a CEO musician, an overall seeker of Truth, inspiration, and simply put, how to live the most fulfilling life possible. Growing up surrounded by extremely wealthy and successful people gave me unique and unfiltered perspectives of those who have seemingly made it on the dream beyond we're letting you in on what it really takes to achieve your dreams. What happens when it turns out your destination isn't the promised land you are expecting? How to process the lessons from your past while mapping of course to true fulfillment. Let's get started.

Hey, everybody, I'm here with someone who's a clinical psychotherapist and a graduate of Adler Graduate School in Minnetonka, Minnesota. His main clinical focus and passion surrounds trauma and mental illness with at risk youth and their families as well as the trauma surrounding us veterans, rightfully so he's also a veteran of the US Army. Please welcome Holly Williams with us today. Thank you for being here. Hello.

Hallie Williams

Thank you for having me. All right.

Nik Tarascio

So I wanted to let everyone know how I even got to Adler and again, we're gonna be talking about a guy named. It's Alfred Adler. Is that right? That's right. Excellent. So I was out in a bookstore, actually, I guess was a coffee shop in Santa Monica. And I saw this book cover called the courage to be disliked, which immediately spoke to me. I was like, I wish I had more courage to be disliked. I think I'd probably I think I'd probably do more interesting things. And at the end of the day, I said, What is this all about? And I got into it realize it was really a book, a Japanese book about Alfred Adler, who was Was he Austrian or German?

Hallie Williams

I don't even know what his backers were originally was Austrian, but he was eventually moved to the US.

Nik Tarascio

Okay, so here's this, here's this crazy circuitous path of a random guy in a Santa Monica coffee shop that sees a book that's written by the Japanese, about an Austrian therapist, who made his way to the US. So it was just kind of this very security thing. And I was like, Who is this Alfred Adler guy? And very quickly started to understand that Adler was really on the level of, of Jung and then Freud, but for whatever reason, I'm curious why you think it is that he's not as big of a name as the other two. Why is that?

Hallie Williams

Well, Adler and Freud had a falling out a theoretical form, and now and a number of Freud's followers at the time, ended up subscribing to Atlas theories, when they separated. Freud was from more of a upper class society, if you will. He was more connected from a pretty powerful family, and would Adela did his seat, he left that environment he moved out to living among other people when he was developing his theory. And I think the main reason that we don't know more about Adler was initially as I said, he did not come from a powerful background. So his spirits weren't spread as all and nowadays, we have a number of people that utilize Adler's theories and his teaching without giving him adequate credit. So, you know, the Adler could be called the father of positive discipline, or and the father of positive psychology, but only in positive discipline. As he mentioned positive psychology you almost never hear about it. So it really takes a little bit of digging to find out that most of the theories that we have today are derived from Adlerian teachings but Allah does not get much credit. That's the that's really the main reason it will take a little digging kinda like you did, to find out a little bit more about it.

Nik Tarascio

Interesting. I'm curious to other other, other other expressions are concepts that are in common knowledge, but are not attributed to Adler.

Hallie Williams

Well, you know, the inferiority feeling of inferiority complex is the term created by Adler. I don't think many of you know very many people know that. Adler was also a big proponent of social interests. You know that people don't really talk about much birth order, I'm sure you probably somebody with that, and many people will be with birth order. But these are concepts that will kind of derived and cultivated by Adler. So that's, you know, what I would say those are the ones that's probably most common that people would be familiar with everybody kind of knows of inferiority complex, and that inferiority feelings. So I would say those are those are probably the most common without being an academic, that people would be kind of familiar with.

Nik Tarascio

The interesting. So it sounds like he's a little bit like the Nikola Tesla of psychology. And that way, we're bigger players with bigger players from a successful family took a lot of credit spread his teachings, or or just, I mean, in the case of Tesla was pretty much buried by Edison as far as his work goes. So

Hallie Williams

that sounds very good way of putting it very good way of swinging.

Nik Tarascio

Interesting. So how did you find your way to Adler?

Hallie Williams

That's a that's an interesting question. I was working with. I had developed the program. And I was working with youth that had, I guess we would call them lack of another term juvenile delinquents that had gotten in trouble with the law. And I was writing curriculums and redirect some of these at risk youth. So the court system had agreed that the youth that completed this program that I had, would would not be incarcerated, because they'd already been picked up by the jail by the police, who were in jail and had been released to go to this program, they successfully completed it, they would not be re incarceration. So as I dug into my research, developing the curriculum and the things that I wanted to teach them about, and I was looking for positive things, and went back a long ways, I mean, ever since the abolitionists, and as I read about them, and and things that I could present to the kids that I thought was interesting, it kind of led me to someone named Karen Horney.

And, you know, different people. And they kept referring to this guy, Alfred ad here. And that was like, Who is this Do me because I knew nothing about it. So as I started reading, about Alfred Adler, his theories spoke to me, it gave words to something that I already believed that I just didn't have the credibility to say and didn't really know how to say. And often that happens when a theory is put out in the world, certain people get attracted to it based on your personality. So as I dug into it, and I found out about you those feelings of inferiority, how some people will have this strong feeling of inferiority and they do a variety of things to make them feel better, or to move into a different direction. And I found like a lot of this stuff applied to the kids, the more I dug into it, the more I kind of fell in love with the theory of ads, you know, probably had I'd not been working with at risk youth. I probably would never stumble across you unless I wanted to a coffee shop like you would picked up. Yeah.

Nik Tarascio

Yeah, it's super. It is always shocking for me to understand how much someone could have impact on the world and be a ghost, right? In many ways, just be a ghost that's kind of running under the radar. And so for for people that are hopefully curious about this any here's this guy who's this master of psychology that has really contributed so much to the field of psychology, but also just some of again, our common common knowledge. Like you said, this inferiority complex that I think people know quite a bit about. What what is the, like, how would you describe it? I think people have an understanding of Freud you know, understanding of Freud as he's the next guy, right? Everything Is Everything has some sexual undertone. Jung is, uh, you know, again, when I think of young I think of archetypes, talks a lot about the concept of archetype and the hero's journey and a lot of things like that. How would you describe Adler in summation?

Hallie Williams

Um, you know, often when I talk to people about this, I tried to divide Adela into two will Adlerian theory, which is also called individual psychology. I tried to divide it into kind of two categories. It's not really that way. But well me to describe it and get people to understand it are divided into two categories. One is the pathology approach, dealing with mental illness, a variety of illnesses. But individual psychology is also about a way of life. And this is why You know, many of the social work teachings come from Allah had mentioned earlier positive psychology because basically it takes a person's life, and breaks it down until so tells us how we should live.

And I'm sure you probably pick that up from from a book that you read, it's a way of living. It's how we should interact with our fellow man. It's how we should move toward happiness. So different than young are different than Freud, which focus primarily on just a pathological approach. individual psychology helps you figure out a way of living, gives you a life, purpose, or helps you identify your purpose. And personally, I think it leads us to on the road to happiness, because ultimately, and I may be getting a little bit ahead of myself, but ultimately, up social interest, this thing that will kind of born with working with others to Wingfoot others is the way to go to, you know, to travel down the road to what happens. So if I had to call him when we're let's just call him a positive approach to living one's life, I think is how I will conceptualize everything about it.

Nik Tarascio

It sounds it sounds like we're touching on the I mean, I know Jung had some spiritual context as well. Some people said he was pretty deep into the into spirituality. It sounds like Adler also touches on philosophy, and spirituality slash almost like religious ideology on some level.

Hallie Williams

On some level, or being when he developed his theory, he did study you a variety of things he studied, the Bible was one that he used to kind of develop his approach I wouldn't call individual psychology, you know, by no means a religion or spiritual experience. But he helps us understand our position in this world. You know, we're all humans. So it's a way that humans should interact with other humans. It's a way we should interact with our world. And he clarifies all of it for us so we could see it. I guess some people would refer to it as a spiritual experience, I wouldn't. I think of it more as just a rule and a guide of life. So in some respects, the Bible is considered to be a rule and guide a thief. But I've looked at individual psychology as a guide to our life.

Nik Tarascio

So be curious if you wanted to sell someone on this, like, when I see a movie I love or I hear music, I love I immediately, like, I gotta find the hook so I could get other people interested. What are the hooks? What are the things? Or what are some of like, the core concepts that you would share with someone, if you see someone you love? And you're like, they're not happy? They're not understanding how to relate to the world around them. Hey, here's some ideas you might be interested in, in hopes that maybe they go wow, this other guy does have some stuff to say, and I want to go deeper into his work. And where would you start people in that,

Hallie Williams

I probably would start with, you know, some examples. some real life examples, for instance. Or ask somebody to relate to think about maybe Christmas, at times of Christmas, people give gifts, people received gifts. But imagine for a minute that you have someone that you care about deeply. Let's just see one of your children. And you purchase a gift for them. thoughtful gift you didn't ask, you don't ask them for a list or anything, just knowing your child, you purchased the gift for them. And when they opened the gift, it's exactly what they wanted. The joy you seal in that person's face, the exuberance, the enthusiasm, I mean, when they just gets hyper, it puts a smile on your face, you didn't receive anything, you gave something.

And by giving vaccine, you get a great deal of joy back, it made you happy. You gave a gift to make somebody else happy. But instead it made you happy is something about giving and doing for others. That complete us because that's who we are. We are a race of people that surface one another. So I would use that example to explain social interests. What are the fundamental parts of individual psychology, it's about doing for others, because that's where happiness comes for a weekend, take and take and take what sometimes you can keep taking in and you still find yourself unfulfilled. You're not happy. You've you've got all the money in the world. You've got all the local friends in the world, but you still find out that you're not happy.

The road to happiness is us doing for others. So I will use that example to spark the interest and depending on the interest and I would go into some of the other some of the other feelings describe inferiority feelings. I mean, because this feeling about inferiority Avila will tell us that we're all moving. From a feeling of inferiority to a feeling of superiority, or more than if I could elaborate a little bit on that, I would say it's kind of like the, what a baby is born, the child sees us standing. So eventually that child in the career starts pulling on the edges of the crib, until they can stand up. And they feel fulfilled about that, because now they have that feeling of inferiority that they bought with feeling less than the other humans around them, they're standing in talking to them, once they stand up, you get that feeling of fulfill you moving from a feeling of inferiority to a feeling of superiority, if you will, or not above anyone else, but better than you were.

And this, this drive goes throughout life, everyone has this feeling some of us more than others, the key is cultivating this feeling within you so that as you move to a place of more there are more superiority, you're doing it in a functional way, not at the expense of others,

Nik Tarascio

is that is that where the complex comes in is that when someone says it's an inferiority complex, you're saying I want to feel more than but at the expense of others.

Hallie Williams

Exactly, exactly. Because in these things are held together. So we believe that you were born with a social feel it Okay, a little bit different social interest, that social feeling is the innate thing that we were born with. The social feeling must be cultivated by people like you and I, when we have children, we have the social feeling of zap, but we cultivate that to the point that they understand how they should interact. You have you have a small child, you teach them to share their toys, when someone comes by, you don't want the kid to be taken all the toys, so they've got friends, but they can't play with anything. These are all mine. Yes, they are yours. But you start teaching them to share in the joy that comes from another person using a toy, both people are happy enough, you know, so we start working on cultivating that. And if it's not cultivated, overs, cultivated in a dysfunctional way, you're right, that leads to this inferiority complex.

Nik Tarascio

What's the other side of social interest. So in the same way, like it makes sense to me that we all start less than, and we have a long way to go to become enough, or feeling, I guess the other side would be the superiority, right on some level using that word. But on that path, that makes sense. I've inferiority, I want to get better. And if I do it at the expense of others, that becomes the shadow version of that the complex of that, what's the complex of social interest?

Hallie Williams

Well, but the best where it becomes dysfunctional. Let me let me give you an example. And this is anecdotally I haven't done research studies on this. But you know, throughout America, we have a rash of mass shootings, you have, we can't seem to get our arms around, when you will connect it in a family. But you feel like you, you, you feel that human connection of humanity with others. We don't do adverse actions to other people. But we feel disconnected, it's easier to do something terrible to someone that you are not connected to. So when we talk about the adverse part of that social feeling, is that disconnection and isolation that leads to some type of dysfunction. And that dysfunction could come up many ways. Sometimes it's a fight. It's an argument. You know, I could see it in a husband and wife situation, but on the screen is we see it when people want to do these mass acts of terror. They don't feel that connection to others. They don't feel it's the adverse of the social interest in the commission that we bear that makes it

Nik Tarascio

it does. And I think the place I get hung up is when you talk about social feeling. I'm wondering, is it actually like a somatic experience in the body that Adler's talking about, or is it something else that he's saying when he refers to it as a feeling?

Hallie Williams

Well, again, we have two things. We have that social feeling, which is like the innate thing that we're born with, that we have our birth right. We have that social feeling because we are all part of the same family of humanity. SOCIAL, the social interests is the part that we as parents must cultivate in our children. We cultivate that to make sure they realize that they're a part of something, we start that if you have children at home, generally speaking, you would want them to understand that they're part of let's call it the team, you're part of a family, you have things to do as a father, the wife has things to do as a mother, that children should have things to do to be part of that team, that could be making your bed, taking out the trash, you know, a variety of things to feel like they're actually a part of that feeling, a part of that team. So the best the beginning of cultivating the thing that's already in there, that's that innate thing that we have that we recognize we're part of humanity, you're cultivating that into social interests, we're now on their own, that people understand that they stumbled the children were misled, that they should be connected to one another.

Nik Tarascio

So I guess the place I go to, and again, I may sound thick on this one, because if anything, I've been very disconnected from the head to the body most of my life. So a lot of it when I hear the concept of feeling and you talk about there is almost if someone truly felt connected to people, the world, whatever that is, generally they're not going to do harmful acts, right? Because it's, I mean, this goes back to like non duality, sorry, non dualism, non duality of like, inside outside all the same thing. There's no, me and other, it's just all we're all wanting the same. Right? It's, it's so so there's something to that. I'm curious, though, is when? How would you describe it? If I said to you, I want to feel that social feeling? Is it actually a sense in the body? Is it actually an emotion? Is it what it when I feel connected to someone, there is sometimes a sensation that I feel in my body, but is there actually a physical component of the concept of social feeling in your mind?

Hallie Williams

It is a social feeling is a descriptive word that we use to describe an intangible, like, like love you who are we can't touch it, we can't see it. When we observe it in in your actions, would you care for someone do certain things, you may do something for a wife or a girlfriend, and they may conclude from that you love her. Or she will say he loves me, based on the things that you are doing? So social feeling or social interests is an intangible thing. It's not. It's just like those emotions of, of love. And you can you know, it's based on how a person acts. So it's not like you get a particular feeling that reverberates throughout your entire body. It's,

Nik Tarascio

I'm relieved to hear that. I'm relieved to hear that because I'm like, Man, I think I didn't want to say it until you answer that. Because I'm like, I think I was born without the social feeling. I can feel it in my body.

Hallie Williams

Let me let me interject something. And I'll tell you how I would kind of evaluate it. To people, I would ask them, Are you happy? Are you happy with your life? You know, when people tell me that they are, then you know, hey, everything's Gucci? That's fine, we got no problem. If you're not happy, then we probably should talk about it. And the first thing I would look for is, is how are you interacting with others? What are you doing for others, because this puts you on the road to happiness. Generally speaking, when a person doesn't have that, that feeling of social uterus, I would say that they're generally lacking in the things that they're doing for other people. Because we have become self centered in the whole world is about doing things for me. Doing things for me, is not going to take you to happen. It will get you through life.

But you're always going to feel a vacancy there. Because that's not how we are created nowhere in society. Do we find man isolated, we've always been a part of a community, that community of humanity, and that community of humanity is what fulfills us doing for others. I mean, it's a word that we could use this pretty universal, that whether people hate to because of your ethnicity, your complexion, your financial status, or whatever. It's a word that we use the same as the UNIVAC, new five people and that skill. When we say help other humans come, whether they like you or not, it's like a something in us. It fulfills us to go help people. We have organizations we call charity that people just give to, you know, I have I have a humorous expression. I have given the people some time and I say that, you know, poverty is God's extra key that he gets Have wealthy people so they can get to heaven. So you could do something for other people. And it's just a humorous, you know, no anecdote that I use. But the fact of the matter is, it's something to bear is something to the fact that we get such great pleasure for doing for others. So when when, when people are unhappy, and I have met a number of them in my life, generally speaking, I start evaluating them, and I look what they do their lives, and most certainly my fan, that they are self centered, without really even realizing that they are. Sometimes we strive so hard to achieve and accomplish things. But those things are all about us. You know, a successful business is when a CEO can find a way to put everybody in positions, so that they can feel successful. So you do something for them to make them feel successful. You know, when these people see that you're doing, you're giving to them, that makes you happy.

But it also makes them happy, who isn't happy. Versus if you have a mentor or a mentee. And you train this person that you teach this person, it all of a sudden, this person achieves a great level of success. Wouldn't that make you happy? It's all about what you'd have done for someone else. So instead of us looking inward, about about it being all about us, the success is going to come when we start doing for others. This is why we will find in an athletic endeavor, sports teams, and we'll see on paper, this particular team should win. But they don't win. Why? Because they're not. They're not together. They're not working together as a team. Sometimes I'd give up points. So I can make you successful. Instead of me taking that shot, I might pass it to you for you to take the shot. But if I'm selfish, I'm trying to get all the points out here. And maybe I will get those points, but the team will lose. It's about sharing, giving to others. That's that's where our success in life comes from. And I believe that's where all happiness.

Nik Tarascio

So I guess I'd be curious to now build on that knowing that you work with at rescue, I imagine that social interest may come into the dialogue with them. And I, I would love to hear from you. How do you apply this right? So someone says great, I'm sold. This is super interesting. This Adler guy's clearly got some ideas that are really beautiful. And bring again, to me it is the application of timeless spiritual principles into practical knowledge for living. That's really the way I would describe it, given what you just said. So given that, I'm wondering, can you give some real examples of people you've worked with, or kids you've worked with the kind of results you got and how you steered them using some of these tools?

Hallie Williams

Well, of course, athletically, you know, it's easy to do if coach, basketball football track. No, for a number of years, I don't right now, but I've did that for a number of years. And it's easier in those kinds of environments, because I can show them how, by Friday to make someone else successful, it makes us successful. By inspiring them to pass the ball not at of course, initially, you have to enforce that. But if one person doesn't make the shot, is one second left in the game, and you pass it to someone else and they make the shot, the whole team is happy. It doesn't matter whether you did it or not. So I would emphasize those facts when I'm dealing, you know, athletically, when I'm dealing with youth, and it has nothing to do with athletics. So if I'm not coaching them, it's a little bit different approach. And I don't normally isolate social interest just by itself. social interest is kind of tied. It's like the glue that holds together the tasks that she must accomplish in life. We haven't talked about that, at least at this point, but it's three particular tasks that you have to occur. So if you want I can elaborate on those right now.

Nik Tarascio

Yes, yeah. I'd be curious to know what the three tasks are.

Hallie Williams

So that these three tasks are according to individual psychology, everyone has a we will call it the work X. And that means that we all must provide must work so we all can provide to society. For instance, you sitting in a beautiful studio there with your guitars on the wall. But you probably are the expert musician, but I would venture to say you didn't make any other guitars. Someone else made those and they provided it to you. And then you could do your favorite source of work tasks. Well, we all contribute to one another, and we all benefit from one another. Secondly, is the task of us being able to get along with other humans were part of humanity. I mean, we have to learn to get along. You know, you'd have animals, you have insects, you have a lot of the things of the world. But in the animal kingdom, nobody is accepted humans to be a part of that lions don't want us joining the crew, were the weakest thing on this planet. We can't, I mean, we can't survive outside, by ourselves, we can't just fight our food, we were just weak we survive, that we thrive, because we work together.

So it's imperative that we learn to work together with other humans, because our very existence depends on it. And lastly, is speaks more to procreation. Many animals go extinct. That's not something we're going to ever have to worry about with humanity for a variety of reasons. But because of it, and to pre procreate, we have an opposite sixth, we must learn how to get along with the opposite sex, or the effect of procreation. Now, granted, everybody does not have children, and it's a choice that they've made. But anybody could make that choice, we have to procreate, because this is how humanity continues. So those three tasks, ama believes everybody must reverse those tasks, those tasks are held together by social interests. So I give the same kind of explanation to use that I deal with, but I specifically focus on getting along with one another. And, and getting along with one another is kind of held together by doing for one another, because it's a task that we must accomplish. So how do you get that task done, you do that by working together. So you're not would have different tasks in a classroom or in the streets, if we happen to be out there, where two or more people are working together on the same task. And as they accomplish these things, they get the feeling of working together, you can get more done, when when you're working together, you know, all ships should rise when the tide comes in.

So I emphasize that part, to do a variety of little tasks that we we we utilize in classes. And that's primarily how I would do that. But I usually don't separate it without kind of tying everything together. You know, realizing also, that, you know, if I could a little bit I just feel like at this point, I'd like to talk a little bit about a sorority, if you if you don't, man and how that ties together. And I'll tell you this, this kind of brings up an example about my not have a brother and my brother, as youth. He was not a very good athlete. I was I was a much better athlete, but I didn't have to work it and I was just, you know, I was just good at some things. So we were on a football team. And my brother didn't make the tea. So my mother made me quit. Because, you know, my mom was on about academics, and it's just a game. If kids can't make the tea. Nobody is going to play. You know, even little coaches came by like we need Halid No, no, if kids can't make it, nobody, please. So my brother had Disentis this out, he felt terrible about that. He felt, you know, he was less than I could do everything better than him long story short.

Years later, my brother ends up making a tea, getting a scholarship to go to Syracuse University. Because of by his senior year, he had become very dominant. So he gets to Syracuse. And at Syracuse, initially same kind of thing. In the beginning, he was not that much of an athlete. He felt inferior, which was driving him by his senior year. He was one of the top linemen at Syracuse. Bow comes the draft. But he didn't get drafted. He did get an offer to walk it on at with the Eagles. Again, same situation when he gets there. Everything he owns is in the trunk of his car. He has nothing. It didn't draft it. At the beginning of camp. He's just getting beat down until this almost this feeling of inferiority just develops in him so much until it breaks down to he's about crying. But the feeling of inferiority was so strong in him. That it that it inspired him it pushed him so much more. Long story short, he ends up making the tea playing in the NFL for 14 years, stopping for 11 and he was always driven, but he was always driven by being less vain, every one of feeling less than even when he was successful. He felt desperate, because it's not about reality. It's about what a person feels.

So realizing those experiences of what could happen with that, with that feeling of inferiority, I've used those examples. When I, when I deal with us to channel it in a more positive, in a more positive manner, we go through life with this feeling of inferiority, we go to, if you're taking a Spanish class, for instance, you don't know Spanish initially. But so you feel inferior. But the functional way, the more pro social way of dealing with that is let that inspire you to work harder, let that inspire you to focus versus being dysfunctional, it inspires you to find a way to cheat, to do it in a dysfunctional way. So it's all about, it's not about eliminating these feelings, because the human experience is about these feelings of if you're already every day you go to work, Nick, is something different that happens that you might not have planned for, you have to figure that out. So it's two choices, you can approach it in a pro social functional way. Or you can find something ethical to do to accomplish that, that becomes the development of a pathology, it's about taking this feeling, first understanding it, and taking it and focusing it. And if enough, a person is a leader, you recognize this, and you look at the people that work for you, you identified those feelings, and you help them focus it in a functional way.

You have to have the courage to be imperfect, it's not going to always work just right, which you have to be strong, you'd have to have the courage today, if it don't work, right, this time, it will the next time and if not, then this, it will make you so do keep that in a pro social way of functional where we don't go outside of those barriers, because when we do, of course, that's when it starts leading to a variety of dysfunctions, you know, we we may steal, or we may lie, we may reach, you know, all these other things. So these are the things that I tried to do with the, with the kids with a youth that I that I worked with, and I worked with adults also. But particularly with the youth because it's easier. They're at a stage when they're developing these things already. So it's easier for me to focus them than it is with an adult, although the same thing happens with an adult.

Nik Tarascio

I mean, I can very much hear as you're talking I mean, there's so much curiosity that comes up around the idea that one, inferiority, I've only known inferiority complex. I've never known just inferiority, right. And that's important in my mind of, it's almost like we shame the feeling of inferiority, Oh, I feel that that's bad. And so if I can be with my own feeling of inferiority, then I can't, I won't want to put myself in a situation that will challenge me to become my better self, my better version. And I immediately go to like this idea of these, like, everyone gets a trophy in school, right? It's this idea. We don't want anyone to feel uncomfortable on anyone to feel less than. And I'm curious in that perspective is, you know, with the, with the teachings of others say we're actually taking away the opportunity for people to feel the adversity of inferiority so that they can have a motivation to move forward.

Hallie Williams

If he would, I think ever will speak a bit more about courage. Encourage is the raft from courage. So you we encourage people to get better. And that person has to have the courage to deal with our inadequacies. The mere human experience is that we wake up one day we find ourselves on this planet Earth. And we go through life trying to figure out ways to deal with the adversities that come up. Those things take courage. So when you talk about the trophies and everybody getting a trophy to school, I don't subscribe to that, when I do subscribe to is the people that did not when you learn to deal with those adversities. You have the courage to deal with your adversities. That feeling that you have you will hear sometimes great athletes say hold on to that feeling. Let that feeling drives you to become better. The great, the super great athletes, all will see they might have lost the game, but I sit there and I watch the celebration on the court. I wanted to hold on to that field.

And I use that feeling throughout the offseason. It drove me to do something to make myself better to make the team better. It's not about me, just getting all the praise. It's about making everybody better. So when if we try to shape the world with a child to think that everything goes your way, best giving them the role, worldview, because now you end up with an adult that has expectations But everything goes away, we know that that's, that's just not reality. So what ends up happening, we could be cultivating this development of a complex within this person, and they start solving their problems through dysfunctional ways. Because you believe the whole everything, you believe you supposed to have all the money, then maybe you will rob somebody, well, you will steal the you will do some other things, because you think it always should be that way. Our job as these young people not developing their view of the world, is to help them with that development. You know, we encourage them, you know, we want them to develop the courage of a you and I have to have courage to deal with many things to the stuff that we haven't done before. Even if it's learning how to play golf, I mean, the first day you go out and play golf, you're not going to be very good at it. What you have to have the courage to go out there, even though people may be looking at you saying, Look at Nick, he can't even hit the ball.

And maybe people let you have to have the courage to deal with it. This is This is life. This is the way we have to go through life. But we must remember, stay within boundaries, the acceptable boundaries of society. Because all problems have really social problems, their problems, because society deemed them to be problems. So up, no, I don't subscribe to the everybody gets a trophy philosophy. And for those that decide to do that, that's fine. But from my vantage point, I think we want to do is use all of those as life's teaching, moments and explanation, because that's going to be other things that come up also. So you have to learn how to deal with adversity, and how to accept certain things. And if you want to be better, then you move on to become better.

Nik Tarascio

Again, very, it's very interesting. I'm curious how How did Adler set the stage for positive psychology and you said something was positive motivation, which I didn't know exactly what that was.

Hallie Williams

Well, that's that's exemplified in the word that I just use, Adela talks a lot about courage. But what we should do is encourage people because sometimes, when these adversities come up, it can increase that feeling of inferiority so much, that this person can't deal with it. Because what we're trying to do is keep everybody to handle their life's task in a functional way, in an acceptable way. So it's about encouragement. You know, you you continue to encourage people, that's part of reason, actually a therapeutic approach. with clients, you want to encourage them to continue to do something and not give up because because you're gonna have life's adversities. So this is why Adela is looked upon as Oh, Adlerian psychology is looked upon as positive psychology because of the encouragement that we believe that you give to people to keep them motivated to keep them headed in the right direction. In a family situation, you could have a son, who was running track races, maybe he ran across country, and he came in fourth place, and he says he wants to quit. I think most fathers and mothers would say, No, you shouldn't quit, you can be better, it's about being the best that you can be. As long as you are the best that you can be, it doesn't have to be number one, or number two, or number three, is about being the best version of yourself. And again, this is all about life, going through life, trying to be the best version of yourself.

Nik Tarascio

I really liked that as I've never thought about the concept of encouragement, as lending someone your courage until they have enough of their own. That's a really, really beautiful idea. I've never thought about the etymology at all. So it's kind of a, it's a total reframe, for me of like, that's really beautiful. It's us having the courage to face the challenges of our life, our life's work or life's task. And in those moments that we don't have it, having people around us that hopefully have that social feeling and social addressed, to lend it to us and I start to see how the framework of Adlerian like starts to come together. I can I can start to understand it's very interesting to me. And I hope it's interesting to people that are listening. I'd be curious to know what at this point as we're starting to land the plane here. If someone's got their, you know, their their ears tweaked. Bellegarde, I'm curious, I want to know more about this. How would you recommend someone go down the road of of learning more about Adler or finding ways to bring some of the some understanding these principles to their own life?

Hallie Williams

Of as you mentioned earlier? Adler wasn't a Releford writer. He did write many books, but most people wrote about him. And you and I got together because of a book that you read, the courage to be disliked. And the book that you read which was written, you almost wouldn't know it had anything to do with Adlerian psychology or individual psychology, the way it was written, it was like a story that it was, you know, went through a whole life experience. But it talked about many different Adlerian theories there, it didn't go deep into whether it was just enough to spark your interests. That's a, that's a good book, that I would recommend courage to be disliked. It's also an expression that I use with people, I do a lot of recruiting and organization, I'm also the president elect of the North American Society of Adlerian. Psychology. So I do a great deal of time I'm traveling. And I teach a lot internationally, in addition to states, and I always see to be one who ask what, you know, you sit down, and you talk to Ed Leary.

And where you can get a deeper understanding is pretty difficult, difficult to conceptualize the entire philosophy in an hour's time, but by talking with somebody, there's so many other parts of Adlerian, psychology, lifestyle. And it's interesting, if I don't know if you have any siblings, but if you do, three of them, I would wager you, that your siblings that you knew when you were a little kid, as you look at them now, he would say, You know what, they have not changed much since they were a kid, yes, they do another thing, but it's still, they're still the same. Why? Because at an early age, we develop this worldview, we develop what we call a lifestyle, the way we see the world, it's like I am a certain way, people are a certain way the world is you start developing these things. And you maintain that, because it's comfortable for you not to change. And this is how sometimes people develop biases that they have, that they don't even realize, because many things are developed early. And they just don't change unless someone changes you. Also, this leads down the rule of pathologies, because many times anxiety, for instance, is maybe a safeguard a way that you have learned to protect yourself against certain situations.

So if a person, every time a person is going to do something new, they may get this HS feeling, because something they learned early in life, going into new situations could be bad for them. So they have developed this thing that becomes part of their being this is not a conscious thing. And they start having anxiety when they are doing new things. So when you know. So what a mad lyric does is I never tell anybody what to do. I sit with you a week, and I help you uncover those things. And what's uncovered, you will find a solution yourself. Because these things that we're doing, we don't even realize it until you talk to somebody, the best way to understand Adlerian psychology would be to talk to an Adlerian. But you could also go to some of the other Adlerian sites like www dot, Alfred adler.org is one way this leads you to the North American Society of Adlerian psychology, well, you could just type in basic North American Society of Adlerian psychology, and open up a web page and in a variety of resources there.

I could also leave you at the end of the presentation with a my email, you know, people could certainly reach out to me, and I certainly don't mind answering questions or for as long as it takes. And occasionally I do presentations on individual psychology beginning Adler, a variety of things which was, which is kind of like a teaspoon worth of Adler to keep sparkling beverages. Excellent. Well,

Nik Tarascio

what we'll do is I'll put all that stuff in the show notes, so people have all the links. We'll put your email and everything. We appreciate you offering that out to our listeners. And I'm curious what the last question What is your dream beyond?

Hallie Williams

That's a very good question, Nick. I was in Ireland. A couple of months ago, as I said, I teach in a variety of notaries and I did a glittery there. And the plenary was about a saving the world. And prior to be doing the plenary, many people came to me and said, Oh, so you got to save the world as you said, well, let's let's I can't wait to hear your presentation. But that's really deep in my heart. I think that if we have problems with society, we are society. You know, as we look at children, our method of solving problems with children Is to incarcerate them. We've been doing that for 100 pages of use, that's not solving the problem. incarceration. It's not so we can't keep blaming the kids, we are in charge of society. So things are going wrong is up to us. We can change society, we can make it better. We may be familiar with the butterfly effect. You know, you know, something that happens? Yeah, I guess a good example was Canada had some fires a while back.

And it was sort of smoke everywhere. I live in St. Paul, Minnesota, quite a ways away from Canada. Yet, some days we will get warnings not to go outside if you didn't need to sporting events will count. Why? Because something that happened in Canada was affecting me in St. Paul, Minnesota. We can make a difference. We can make a difference. One guy, Martin Luther King, use Adlerian psychology. You know, he spoke about this in a great speech, he gave the drum major effect. And he talked about his teachings that he got from Adler taught him how we should get along with each other. And one person Martin Luther King created a giant civil rights movement that change the country. Another Adlerian, Dr. Kenneth Clark, and his famous doll experiments, he petitioned the Supreme Court with the teachings that he said he learned from Adler, and this created legislation, that during the Brown versus Board of Education that outlawed segregation in schools, not the Kenneth Clark says, if it's anything that I know, and I'm paraphrasing him, all of the things that I know that I was able to present to him, I learned from Alfred Adler. The teachings of Adler, when Miss with the skills of particular individuals, like yourself, can make a difference. So my dream is that we all do our part, to make this world a better place for everybody might sound you know, magnanimous. But that's that's Marjorie.

Nik Tarascio

And it's beautiful. It's a beautiful share. And I though I wanted to wrap it up, I do want to touch on something that you told me once before, and I think it's worth noting is if we could just close it on the fact you know, you talked about MLK, and you talked about the other individual. I forgot his name was at Clark, you'll kill us Clark, Kenneth Clark, right. These are people that have had extraordinary impact on the world and our country specifically. And what I find interesting is that Adler you use the term about he was one of the early it was a term you use around how like he just cared for community cared for society cared for social causes. I think that that's also something I find so interesting is if you could just touch on that real quick when you mentioned it one time before I missed it.

Hallie Williams

I'm not sure which term I use, but I will say that what Adela did as he developed his theory is he went and lived among circus Pete. He wouldn't do poor areas of town. Because Adela was an was the advocate, and an activist. And he developed this because he looked at the disparities and inequities in society, realizing that these inequities, the antithesis of humanity, were supposed to work together. Because this is how we survive. And we're not we're destroying society. We're making it bad for everybody so Adela lived among he. So I'm not sure exactly which term I used at the time. As you as you could probably tell, I can, I could go on and on for hours, just talking, but it was about you know, him just understanding how we work together as a team. So he and he developed this from living, not in the in the exclusive big mansion White House someplace, but it was living, almost. Listen, I certainly don't want to compare Adela to Jesus. But it's almost like he lived among oral everyday people to develop this is theories. And you know, I think that's what makes him able to relate to everyone. Because on a base level. I mean, we're all really the same.

Nik Tarascio

Yeah, so you totally hit the point of the head. I don't remember the word but I think even just touching on the fact that really he was he was an advocate and he was into activism. There's something really important in that because again, there's a lot of concepts of I just recently heard about Freud that he had a lot of ideas, but when you really looked at Freud's record, I think someone told me recently, he had only worked with under 100 people that he actually were a very, very small set and it was mostly Austrian wives, or housewives.

Hallie Williams

there tended to be people from the wealthier.

Nik Tarascio

That's right. So like, we have this very, very, very tiny, tiny data set that was used to be applied to everyone where here you have a guy like Adler, who's going to every aspect of life and interact with people from all walks of life. And there's just something to that a guy saying, like, look, yeah, I'm not going to isolate this just to my little bubble in my little circle, I'm really going to look at the fundamental principles of society, humanity, who we are as people. And to that, I think, you know, just some of the biggest takeaways for me today is just the power of embracing that feeling of inferiority, right. Like that is such a such an unlock for me, because again, I always thought if I feel inferior, inferior, I thought it was a complex just because I feel inferior, I didn't know that it was only a complex if I knock people down because of it. That is huge unlock for me, that second piece of understanding the power of encouragement, right, using using that desire to be part of that, you know, the social contract, the social feeling.

There's something really beautiful again, about this idea of lending your courage to others so that they can cultivate their own so that they can become who they're supposed to be. It gets to your point of like, most parents, I've talked about their kids, they said, I knew who my kid was going to be when they were three, it was just a matter of just watching them figure it out as they went. And I just think that's a beautiful idea. If we could all just lend that encouragement, lend that courage to other people. And the last thing I'd say is, if you are someone who wants to make a difference in the world, I would highly set about you know, Adlerian psychology, the alerian principles, becoming an alerian yourself. May be the tools may give you the tools, you need to really have an impact in the world. So you're not just sitting on the sidelines, you're on the court playing in a big way. And, man, I love this. I love this conversation. I love these topics. And I hope everyone is just as inspired by all the stuff you just heard. In the meantime, again, you could check out the websites, Alfred adler.org. We'll put a bunch of other stuff in the show notes, check out the book, the courage to be disliked. If you're interested in either working with Holly or just reaching out to him for questions. We'll put his email in the show notes. And again, Holly, thank you so much for sharing your heart and doing so much meaningful stuff in the world.

Hallie Williams

Oh, the pleasure has been entirely mine, I appreciate you. And one last comment that I'll make is that after listening to your closing statements effect, you're almost ready to start teaching individual psychology to yourself. Alright.

Nik Tarascio

Beautiful. I'm ready to graduate. Let's get it done. All right. Well, thank you again, Holly. I hope you all enjoyed the show. Thank you for listening to the dream beyond. I hope that you received whatever message or inspiration you were meant to get from today's episode. I had a great time recording it for you. If you love the show, please take 30 seconds to subscribe rate and review it. That really helps get the word out. And if you want to connect with me, you can find me at

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