The Tall Poppy Syndrome: Envy, Misinformation, and Societal Impact

Season 1: Episode 2:  Discerning The Unknown with Ryan Peterson

Why do so many of us fall into the trap of believing conspiracy theories and fake news? Join me, Ryan Peterson, as I sit down with Dr. Douglas Garland, an orthopedic surgeon and insightful author, to dissect this phenomenon on the latest episode of "Discerning the Unknown." Together, we explore the Tall Poppy Syndrome—a curious tendency where people take pleasure in cutting down those who succeed. Discover how envy and Schadenfreude (taking joy in others' misfortune) fuel the spread of misinformation, and learn why it's crucial to verify information through reliable sources instead of falling prey to dubious platforms like YouTube.

Ever wondered why, despite America's celebration of individualism and meritocracy, Tall Poppy Syndrome is so rampant? Dr. Garland and I uncover the surprising ways competitive environments nurture this behavior, affecting everything from family dynamics to workplace culture. We also delve into the emotional triggers behind this syndrome, such as anger, envy, and laziness, and differentiate it from bullying by examining its unique power dynamics and repetition patterns. By shedding light on these psychological drivers, our conversation aims to foster a deeper understanding of human behavior and social interactions.

We then shift our focus to the broader societal impact of these behaviors, touching on the virtues that counteract the seven deadly sins and the historical shift in philanthropy. Reflecting on the transformational journeys of figures like Moses, Steve Jobs, and even today's political leaders, we discuss the potential for growth and redemption after setbacks. Wrapping up, we critique the limitations of the U.S. two-party system, emphasizing emotional intelligence and the true meaning of greatness rooted in servitude. This episode promises to challenge your views and inspire a path to personal and societal improvement.

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:05

The Discerning the Unknown Podcast Debunking myths and revealing truth. Your host is Ryan Peterson.

Speaker 2: 1:16

I know I've got to fix that intro and we're going to. We're going to shorten it up a little bit and shorten up the ending, the whole thing. So it's coming. This is show number two for me, podcast number two, so if you enjoyed the first one, there'll be a little bit more of what we did the first time and a little bit of updating. It's a work in progress.

Speaker 2: 1:37

I am Ryan Peterson. This is Discerning the Unknown, and my main goal is to dispel and debunk a lot of those myths, a lot of those conspiracy theories that we all hear, and, as of Saturday, there's a lot more out there. Now, today, we're not necessarily going to talk about one specific conspiracy theory or myth or story or something like that. What we're going to talk about and this is another thing I'll get into as well throughout the course of the show, we're going to talk about the way people think and things that may contribute to the reasons that people buy into some of the conspiracy theories that we believe or sometimes easily buy into, contributing to the spread of fake news, which is the goal of this show to stop the spread of fake news. It's dangerous, basically, and so we really need to focus on the news. We really need to read the information that we take in and, every once in a while, be discerning about it. We have to say is this really the thing that I should spread to somebody else? Should I believe this? Do I have to look it up, and there's a lot of good sources to look up information. If you are getting your information and then confirming it on YouTube, chances are you're not confirming it the right way, so there are better places to confirm your information than that. I'm going to get into that a little bit later on, to how you can completely confirm your information with good sources. You've got to believe some of what we may be reading, especially since this past weekend, may be put out there in an effort to do exactly what my guest today is going to talk about To do this cutting down of somebody who has achieved a high status, whether they've deserved it or not, they've achieved a high status.

Speaker 2: 3:47

Some of us are envious, some of us are angry, some of us are jealous, and there's a lot of different emotions. We're going to talk about the tall poppy syndrome and it's it's really something that a lot of other countries will will just know what you're talking about. America, not so much. Now, in Germany it's, and I'm going to try and pronounce this right it's schadenfreude is what they call it in Germany. The schaden means damage or to harm, and the Freude is joy. So it's the joy of damaging or harming someone else's reputation or good nature or position or status, to cut them down. And that's something we've got to think about whether or not that's the right thing to do, if we're doing it, if we're justified when we do that. So just keep that in mind, that this show is going to be more about how and why we think the way we do, and so that's what we'll talk about with my guest today.

Speaker 2: 4:57

His name is Dr Douglas Garland. He practiced orthopedic surgery for 37 years in Southern California. He practiced orthopedic surgery for 37 years in Southern California and he was also a clinical professor of orthopedics at the University of Southern California, and he is also the author of the book entitled the Tall Poppy Syndrome the Joy of Cutting Others Down. So very glad to welcome Dr Garland to Discerning the Unknown. Dr Garland, how are you? I'm very good, ryan. How are you Doing well, thank you, thank you. So let's start with the now. You've done a lot of research here. You've done a lot of investigation. How did the tall poppy seed? How did that name come about? Where did it come from? Really, the definition of what exactly it is. I tried to pronounce the German word. I'm not sure if I got it exactly right, but reading it, that's the best I could get.

Speaker 1: 5:51

You got the German word right, which is Schadenfreude. The Germans, you know America, we just make words up as we go, our language. Other languages aren't like that, the Japanese for example. So the German language is relatively fixed, and then if they have a new concept they take old words and add them together. So sometimes there's three words to a new meaning of some cultural phenomenon or something.

Speaker 1: 6:23

So it's actually joy and harm and the schadenfreude is the happiness that we feel when somebody else has been harmed. So the tall poppy syndrome is cutting somebody down and schadenfreude follows that. Because if, for, for example, you don't like donald trump and I don't want to use the assassination but one of his civil suits, if he's convicted of that and you don't, you you in your mind justifiably think that he deserves to be cut down, then you will experience joy. You don't have to do it yourself, but you kind of imply it and actually in America we're segwaying into your definition. But that's not the original German definition of the two words. You're actually combining the tall poppy syndrome and schadenfreude together and in the title of my book it's the tall poppy syndrome is the cutting down, and then the subtitles are the tall poppy syndrome and then the subtitles, the joy of cutting someone down. That's the schadenfreude, that's the experience that you receive. That's the experience that you receive. The definition of envy is coveting what somebody has that you don't and in some instances, also wanting to destroy their happiness. So, for example, if your neighbor has a Porsche and you have low self-esteem, or what I call bad envy, then you'll want to destroy his happiness. So what do you do? You key his car, for example, and then his pride and joy has been destroyed. So you no longer covet that destroyed car, but you've also destroyed his happiness. So that's a way to think about the two emotions differently, because schadenfreude is also driven by bad envy. So before we even we've started down a path that I wanted to get to, before we define what the tall poppy syndrome is.

Speaker 1: 8:50

And the metaphor was described by Herodotus, the great Greek historian, around 300 BC, and it had to do with governing and the. You know they were city states back then. So one gentleman wasn't governing as well as the person in the next city state. He sent a courier over to find out how to govern better, and the governor went out to a field of wheat, because that was the grain growing. Wheat and barley were the grains of those times and he lopped off the heads of the tall wheat and the courier went back and told his boss what had transpired in his draft. Boss figured out that he had cut down all the opposing leaders and that's how to govern and unfortunately that's been governing since the Greek times.

Speaker 1: 9:49

So how did the Romans do it? They did the same thing Livy, who lived in just shortly the BC time of Roman history. But the actual occurrence happened in the Roman kingdom, which was 750 BC to 500 BC. Then the Republic was founded and the Civil War was the last hundred years, which was the time of Livy. But Livy was a great historian for Roman history and he actually described the poppies themselves. When the king, the seventh king, tarquin the Proud which is very important because pride is one of the reasons to cut people down Tarquin the Proud's son was governing the next city that they had conquered and his cabbie and his son sent a courier back to his dad on how to govern and his dad went into a poppy field and lopped off the tall poppies and the courier went back and told his son what had transpired and he knew that he had to cut the opposition down. So the two recorded histories were in ancient Rome and in ancient Greece. So my research continued on from there into many societies in various time frames and I was able to find that same governing law of how people managed countries, territories, cities throughout history.

Speaker 1: 11:29

So that's where tall poppy syndrome came from. It segued mostly into Australia of the English speaking languages. Australia was a penal colony of England and you know, in the jail system there's no greater egalitarian society than a prison, theoretically. So the culture of that country evolved from the penal colony and they're very egalitarian and they don't want anybody to be taller than the next. So that's and the tall poppy syndrome really involved in the English speaking language through their culture.

Speaker 1: 12:16

And it hit popularity during World War I when Australia and New Zealand were fighting in Flanders Field in Belgium and France, and after the first year of war, which was terrible, during the German invasion. After the winter and then the springtime came and all these poppies were in the field, flanders field, and that became the root of the description of the tall poppy syndrome in the English language, so to speak. But it's the. The Dutch and Chinese both say the tall tree captures all the wind. The Japanese say the tall nail gets pounded down. So many countries have the metaphor, but it may be a different phrase expressing it, but the concept is the same. Expressing it, but the concept of this is the same. And the metaphor means seeing a poppy field and some poppies are taller than the rest. So there is a tendency in all societies and in all times to cut the tall poppies down so that everybody are equal.

Speaker 2: 13:40

Sure. So I think today, if you were to say that to a lot of people in America you know I've been tall poppied, or he's been tall poppied, tall poppy syndrome a lot of them would look at you kind of funny. What on earth are you saying? So? What put this in your head and why have you done so much research? When did you first hear about tall poppy syndrome?

Speaker 1: 14:03

Well, I was an academic surgeon in LA and I was running a spinal cord injury unit, actually one of the largest in the world 100 beds, which is a lot of spinal cord injury patients. I was president of the American Spinal Injury Association at that time. I had just come back from a meeting and I had the premier desk. I mean, it was the premier job at the hospital. There were 200 beds and I controlled 100 of them. So I had a lot of power within that facility. I'd done a lot of research, a lot of publications, had a lot of power within that facility. I'd done a lot of research, a lot of publications and was a full clinical professor of orthopedics at USC.

Speaker 1: 14:54

And I came back to my office and which was the best one, it was the power office and they'd moved me down to a cubbyhole and I went home and told my wife what had happened and at that time someone moved my cheese. Or who moved my cheese was a popular book which was your cheese has been moved. It's a change in life and you got to figure out what just happened and move on. So my wife said somebody moved your cheese and so she plotted it. Fortunately, this is all. The tall poppy syndrome is all about emotional intelligence, which we'll go through, which is fits very well into your show. She plotted out the plan which was for me. She's she was isn't still actually a practicing nurse and she said you know, you'll take that time off from the hospital there and just stay involved in your private practice. I'll take a day off of work. We'll enjoy LA, which is hard to enjoy on the weekends because everybody enjoys LA on the weekends. So we could enjoy LA's on Friday and then hang out on the weekends. So we could enjoy LA's on Friday and then hang out on the weekends.

Speaker 1: 16:08

And so the next day I went back to the hospital. I put my key on the desk, I tore all my research up, I threw all my talks away, I took down all the banners that we had gathered from our service during my tenure, put them all in two great big plastic crates and walked out the door. I didn't say anything to anyone. I called the people in Australia. I was planning on going there for a six-week sabbatical. You know, on government. All governments run all medicine in other countries and they have six rehabilitation centers in their country with spinal cord injury units. So I was planning on going there and visiting each spinal cord injury unit weekly. I called them and told them what happened and they said well, you've been tall poppied and of course it took about three or four times. That's what. What you say, you get tall poppy. And I said I don't understand it. So they explained what had happened to me and so, fortunately, my wife had set everything up and I enjoyed my private practice the rest 10 years, without all the stresses of academia and running a big unit. But I never got out of the back of my head what the tall poppy syndrome was and why it might have occurred to me and why we didn't know about it in America and this and that, didn't know about it in America and this and that.

Speaker 1: 17:44

So when I then retired, which is now 10 years, I spent the last 10 years studying the tall poppy syndrome. That first year I spent in the library even though libraries now are virtual, but because of my research background I just think better in a library surrounded by books and things. So I spent a year in a library surrounded by books and things. So I spent a year in the library studying, looking at the world and looking at the world's literature to understand the tall poppy syndrome and how I fit into that particular example, and so we can discuss my findings. But the original concept of my book was the tall poppy syndrome isn't prevalent in America because we are the only country that used to worship individualism, and that became the premise of my book.

Speaker 1: 18:42

I set it up like a typical scientific study. It was an observational study. I subscribed to many newspapers and periodicals and looked daily for examples of tall poppy syndrome. Once I understood it, and, lo and behold, every day I found examples of the tall poppy syndrome. Once I understood it, and, lo and behold, every day I found examples of the tall poppy syndrome.

Speaker 1: 19:09

So I had to change and I felt actually our individualism contributed to the tall poppy syndrome, because we were a country of meritocracy and it's that meritocracy that creates competition, and wherever you have competition you can find the tall poppy syndrome. And I could just tell you that, for example, the Scandinavian or the Nordic countries are egalitarian and they actually have 10 commandments called the law of Jante, j-a-n-t-e, and these are 10 ways not to grow tall. So within that system, they encourage people not to stick up, stick out, grow tall so they won't get cut down, and we of course, worship the individual and wanted the individual rights and want them to go call, and our country was a country of abundance. But we now have both factors coming into play, colliding which the tall poppy. I felt when I finished my study that the tall poppy syndrome was more prevalent in our country than in any country.

Speaker 1: 20:25

Just, we just don't recognize what's happening. And the reason is we still have our individual, individualistic society, which is competitive and a meritocracy. But we've now got into this equity collectivism mindset where they're cutting down, fed by our government, cutting down all tall poppies for various reasons, so that everybody's equal. There's no more valedictorians in many high schools, there's nobody gets the apple for being the best student, everybody gets an apple. And in order for that to happen, a lot of tall poppies have to be cut down.

Speaker 2: 21:08

Sure sure, I think, of the connections with the tall poppy syndrome being cut down and bullying. What?

Speaker 1: 21:20

Yeah so there's, a big difference between the two. So thanks for segwaying into that, which is part of my canned talk. So bullying is almost always driven by people with low self-esteem. It starts early in their life and they become very successful at it. So it becomes part of who they are and the bullying is never going to change because it's a winning formula unless somebody calls them out. So that's behavior modification, but unless you can help that person. If they read the book if they read my book and had any self-awareness, they would figure out that they're a bullier, because I've had that actually happen to me. Somebody wrote me and told me how they read the book and they self-reflected which the book is actually a self-help book.

Speaker 1: 22:14

If you understand the tall poppy syndrome, you should understand your own behavior. But anyway, bullying basically is more about power and it's more about repetition and differences in power. So it's almost always somebody bigger, a bigger guy picking on a smaller guy. It's almost always in a workplace where it's the supervisor over the employer or employee over the employer or employee. So that's two main differences, but there are huge differences. It's a power difference and it's repetition. So the tall poppy syndrome usually only happens once and so it's a great difference. The bullying they have their own reasons for doing it.

Speaker 1: 23:08

And the tall poppy syndrome. The reasons are very different, which we can segue into how the tall poppy syndrome differs and why it is what it is, but it's about emotions, and so two things happen here. Uh, just what you're talking about, the. In the bullying there's probably no tall poppy syndrome involved. So if you're a kid on the playground, there's no tall poppy.

Speaker 1: 23:40

But bullying occurs greatly. I mean, it happens in your family. My father was a bully. He was a World War II vet. The military is rife with bullying. That's how the military trains people. It's the power and difference. And I tell you to do this. And the government has absolute control over you. So you have to do what your supervisor says over you. So you have to do what your supervisor says. So bullying occurs within the family. My dad liked to. There were seven kids and his easiest way for him to manage us was to bully us. Fortunately, most of us knew his madness, so it was water over the dam when he tried to bully me, for example, I just went along and fine, you're the, I'll do it, but it never bothered me. I had one brother rebel, unfortunately, which is not the way to handle the guy.

Speaker 1: 24:32

But bullying happens in families, it happens in school, it happens in the workplace and so does tall poppy syndrome. So the first thing I had to reconcile with the tall poppy syndrome was how is this emotional mechanism happening to the non-tall poppy population? And to get around that then I created a group called Peer to Peer. So the tall poppy syndrome occurs most commonly. So the tall poppy syndrome occurs most commonly within your family, within your school, within the high school, your college education or your educational system, whether it's grade school, high school, college, professional, especially professionals, where you're competing to be the best and get the business and stuff. So the professional people are rife with tall poppy syndrome because of their professionalism and because of the competition that they experience, competing subconsciously with each other. And then, of course, in our political system, it's completely driven by the tall poppy syndrome, cutting down the opposition or the other party and cutting down half the population, since we're basically divided now. So I get thrown into a category, for example, as a white male, that I don't appreciate being categorized as such. But that's a peer-to-peer tall poppy syndrome.

Speaker 1: 26:15

Peer-to-peer tall poppy syndrome is driven by three emotions Laziness, anger and envy. And I always use envy because envy is the most common emotion in our society. Basically, when you and I look at each other, we're subconsciously comparing ourselves to each other. We're looking at what we look like, what we wear, our mannerisms and stuff. So it's really a comparison emotion and that's why it's always on, because that's what we're, our mannerisms and stuff. So it's really a comparison emotion and that's why it's always on, because that's what we're always doing.

Speaker 1: 26:49

Love may be more powerful, angry may be more powerful, but you're not angry all the time, but you're always comparing. And of course, the Internet, which the currency of the Internet is envy is all about envy. That's all we're doing on the Internet and that's what all those selfies are about. So the emotions are a functional state and they're not either good or bad. It's how we use that emotion. So I break that down for discussion purposes into good and bad. So for the good, envy would be I see you and I like your habits, I like your home, I like many things about you, I covet them, and the best way to have improved myself is to understand you and what your habits are and how. You are better than I perceive you to be, than myself, and that makes me improve myself.

Speaker 2: 27:54

So that's good Learn from others.

Speaker 1: 27:59

If you want to play tennis, play with Serena Williams. She may not want to play with you because you're not any good and she's not going to learn anything. She may not want to play with you because you're not any good and she's not going to learn anything. But if you want to learn, learn from the best. That's why we used to have statues and things, because of people who had admirable traits. But now we're such a judgmental society and there's nobody perfect, so there's nobody worthy of our good envy. And so bad envy is the cutter perceives that they can't be as good as you are, whatever attribute they're they're wanting to aspire to. So they cut, cut you down and by destroying you then it improves their own sense of self-worth.

Speaker 1: 28:51

So that's the peer-to-peer tall poppy syndrome. And once again that's driven by three main emotions bad envy, emotions, bad envy, bad anger. Anger is real easy, just like Will Smith. Think Chris Rock was just trying to be in the present and, as you know, the emcee has a script but they like to go off script to make a present for who's ever in the crowd and to bring a current and to bring it current. So he made a comment about the wife, and you know, when you're doing live, things don't always work. So that wasn't taken correctly by some people to include.

Speaker 2: 29:54

Not every joke works.

Speaker 1: 29:55

Right, and so Will then overreacted. First he laughed and thought it was a probably acceptable joke, and then he saw her expression and then he he turned to anger, and so that that's an example of bad anger running up the stage and slapping chris rock, and chris rock, with great emotional intelligence, didn't do anything. Then it became public tall poppy syndrome. So then the public got involved and because of Will Smith's bad behavior, which was driven mostly by pride only a prideful fool could think they can get up in front of a television audience of a billion, or however many people watch that show, and think they could hit somebody in front of a million. A billion people is got too much hubris, too much pride, even though he was angry, which drove him to it. Emotions drive you to action, that's the function of an emotion and it drove him to do that. But it was his pride that got him into trouble and of course the public, the academy, all cut him down for his what was justified bad behavior. But anyway, the peer-to-peer driven by those three negative emotions. And then the other half of the tall poppy syndrome is the true tall poppy the people that are tall poppies that we think are better or they're more handsome, they're more rich, they're more powerful. Whatever they have, they are true tall poppies. And another thing I had to reconcile was your tall poppy is not my tall poppy, so the whole metaphor is very subjective and that's the first thing. You have to get over that what I tell you may not be true, but the framework is true of how I'm setting it up for you.

Speaker 1: 32:07

As to peer-to-peer in public and the emotional involvement. So we've named the three emotions on the cutter and peer-to-peer, but in the tall poppy the emotions are different. Poppy, the emotions are different. The most common and by far the most prevalent is pride. The second is lust and third, especially in America, is greed. So you can look at lustful people, like all those newscasters that have been tall-poppied recently on national news, like Matt Lauer, for example. He's prideful too, but he was lustful. Then there's the greedy people, like Bernie Madoff and the gentleman that was just underwent trial for cryptocurrency.

Speaker 2: 33:16

Oh, I'm sure.

Speaker 1: 33:17

Sam Bankman. So that's an example of the tall poppy syndrome and greed drove it. Example of the tall poppy syndrome. And greed drove it and the public feels the modifier here is justified. They're tall and the public doesn't feel they deserve to be tall, so they feel justified in cutting that person down. There's three emotions involved in each.

Speaker 1: 33:47

So the teaching point here is there's a thing in Christianity, mostly Catholicism, called the seven deadly sins, and those seven deadly sins are what we found in the cutter laziness, anger and envy, and in the tall poppy the pride, lust and greed. The only one not in it is gluttony, and the only reason this is important is this gives you listeners, because they're not going to remember peer-to-peer in public, they're not going to remember the six emotions I mentioned. But if they remember the deadly sins then they can look it up and they'll have something to hold on to so that they can do their own research. The other value of the seven deadly sins is they were described by Gregory the first in the sixth century and it was a codification of how the monks needed to behave, which originally I felt very strange.

Speaker 1: 35:01

That why would he codify something for monks that should be either in a locked cloister, no women around, no money around. How could they have all these bad emotions? But bad emotions are in everybody, in every situation, and it needed to be codified, just like Moses. God codified the Ten Commandments with Moses. So you have to have rules, wherever you are, on how to function in any society. We're losing that too, unfortunately, but we have to have a code of behavior. You know why they have locks on a car door, don't you?

Speaker 2: 35:42

Why they have locks on a car door.

Speaker 1: 35:44

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 35:45

Why.

Speaker 1: 35:46

Because to provide good behavior, because locks keep good people good, they don't prevent robberies. Crooks can get into a locked car door, but you and I can't. So that's what codification of many of these laws are and my code of these deadly sins are, so that you understand the common makeup of your family, of your school, of your workplace, of our government and understand what's going on around you. We're all being gaslit that's the new catch word these days, and just you alluded to it. You didn't name it but, like the tall poppy syndrome, at the start of your show you were talking about gaslighting. And we're all being gaslit now.

Speaker 1: 36:43

The government, for example, all this inflation. They take out the real inflation, like your rent, your interest rates, the price of gasoline, and they give us a stable rate of units that doesn't change that much by the situation, and so they make inflation not look as bad as it really is. So we're being gaslit by our own government on how they report inflation. And we know inflation's gone up on all things the last three and a half years 20%, and it's not that nominal amount we see which is given to us by the government. If people really understood they would be voted out, I would hope immediately. But anyway, the point I'm trying to make is, if you understand, then the bad behavior within the Christianity complex, the bad behavior, there's an equal good reaction, which is the virtues. So, of course, if you're going to be greedy, then you want to be gracious with your money and lavish it on the world.

Speaker 1: 38:01

So you can just look, if I'm envious, what should I really be doing, which is kindness? So I think the whole value of understanding that seven deadly sins is to codify the bad behavior, to understand the main emotions and to understand how to modify anybody's behavior or what should happen.

Speaker 2: 38:27

I think of some of these Facebook memes that I see sometimes have very good sayings. You know you got to take them all with a grain of salt. But one I saw recently just popped into my head when you kind of discussed that, about things like philanthropy and you know, back in the early 1900s and so forth, the philanthropists, the rich men, would build libraries and so forth and they make large donations to their communities. Now you know they build rockets to go to space and take actors and actresses and famous people with them up to space and it's just really all for that ego, it seems.

Speaker 1: 39:10

No, I agree with that really all for that eagle, it seems. No, I agree with that. Actually, it's strange that you mentioned that, because I did a podcast last week and a radio interview probably a month ago, but strangely enough, both people, both interviews ended up with Carnegie and what you're talking about, the 1880s with the robber barons.

Speaker 1: 39:31

And of course, all the robber barons are cut down now, because Carnegie got his money by cheating his workers, so to speak. Workers, so to speak. But in the end, all the robber barons helped make America great and create a middle class, which is what really made America great was the back of what the robber barons and the industrialization happened to America and made us with a class of people that no other society has had, and so that's what, in some ways, we should be able to justify. What they did is, overall, being good. We're just judging. There's no good people. We're all bad. We don't well, we're hypocrites. We like to take everybody, cut everybody down and we don't look at ourselves. But there's nobody perfect.

Speaker 1: 40:51

I actually I happen to be a Christian, but I love the Bible. I was really troubled with the Bible for the very thing we're talking about, because the only person well, that's not true, but the only person that I encountered in the Bible that wasn't defective by, I would say, christian standards was Daniel, but all the other superheroes in the Bible were defective. Moses, king David, was a terrible person. He cheated on his wife. He then to hide that the lady was pregnant. Then he had her husband killed so that he couldn't find out, I mean, and he was the apple of God's eye and I'm sure, how can we, how can I reconcile this when the Bible is full of bad people? And then I saw it happening in America how we're tearing all our statues down. And then I reconciled it.

Speaker 1: 41:55

I finally did my own self-reflection and figured out hey, wait a minute, there is no perfect person here. So we got to cut people a break. Einstein himself was very sensitive to this issue and I think it's because he has some questionable behavior himself. But he liked to say that and I don't have his quote, but he has a quote saying people like me are free to explore my mind and why I do think and do and think certain things. So he's talking about his mind, but his personal behavior and misgivings were not part of the public domain, which of course we can't cut everything out, because you can't understand how a person thinks unless you understand the person to a certain degree. So we should be able to be all in on people, but we should have a little forgiveness and circumspection about the whole situation in context, I think.

Speaker 2: 43:05

I think. Well, when you mentioned that, I think Americans are pretty forgiving people. You know somebody's famous. At once they have a downfall and we see a lot of comebacks. Can you think of an example where somebody you know was on top of their game, did go through and was tall-poppied and then emerged from it?

Speaker 1: 43:31

Almost every one. So I have a good question. You're really good and actually in my book I have the Tall Poppy Hall of Fame and I have about 10 people that I consider to be tall poppies. Every one of those people in that chapter were tall poppy and, just like myself, I may or may not have been. I actually just think I had been at that institution for 30 years.

Speaker 2: 44:08

Well, you absolutely made the best of it. I mean, that's a way we could look at it. You could write a whole other book about that. I think how you made the best of it. I mean that's a way we could look at it. You could write a whole other book about that. I think how you made the best of that situation. You went a different direction.

Speaker 1: 44:17

Well, the book is. In the end the book is a self-help, because I'm working in writing the book. I'm working through all this in my head, but you're right. But my wife said you know, you've been there 30 years. You said you know, you've been there 30 years, you've moved on. All your friends have moved on. They're young people. They're pushing you out. It's kind of like just what happened to Djokovic yesterday. He got cut down unbelievably in this tennis game and for me he was in some way. He was tall poppied and they're pushing him out, just like I got pushed out. So my wife said you know it's your time to go. You're 30 years, you've had a great run. What have you got to prove? So you're out of here? And I have to tell you I underwent great personal growth in that 10 years. But in back to your very question, I have a ton of people that have been tall poppied and usually this ends up also on podcasts.

Speaker 1: 45:12

So Steve Jobs was not a very nice person and he got canned right the first time around. First he tried to cheat his co-founder out of shares. Well, he didn't get any shares actually, but he cheated him out of a lot of money and he was very hard on interviews and people that worked for him on one thing and another. He kind of had a bit of a sociopathic personality and many tall poppies in their early years Bill Gates could be in that group of people, zuckerberg could be in that group of people. When they're in that very aggressive alpha male phase of their life, they're very sociopathic traits, not personalities, and they are bad people. And of course, steve Jobs got cut down. The board fired him right. He grew tremendously. He founded two new companies, I think at Square and Pixar, and then he came back as the CEO again of Apple because he owned Pixar and they wanted that and him coming back to be CEO was part of that stuff. Him coming back to be CEO was part of that stuff. So he had a lot of, I'm sure, growing happened after he was cut down. He had his cut down a rung or two and kind of had to start over and had a lot of personal growth during that period.

Speaker 1: 46:46

Come back, a much better guy, sure. So there are a lot of tall poppies that do get cut down. They self-reflect, they maybe figure out they were greedy, they come back and everything they touch is better off for it. I mean there's a lot of businessmen get cut down and come back and they become very where they were, very aggressive in making a buck. They come back and are very alt altruistic just like carnegie was with his libraries, are very altruistic, can do a lot of good.

Speaker 1: 47:28

So being cut down in and of itself may not be a bad thing. That's what understanding the syndrome is and, as you're able to, I mean you're able to look more critically at your family and understand your family and understand your workplace. The book is really as you're reading it and if you read the reviews on my book, probably half the people figure out that in the end it's a self-help book because you're understanding your own personality and how you behave. It's actually really a book about emotional intelligence and the self-reflection that comes from that and how you. It's like calling the bowling out. It's how you subtly begin to change who you are.

Speaker 2: 48:22

Well, I wanted to talk about that. When you brought that up earlier. I wrote down emotional intelligence, so I wouldn't forget to bring it up, because I'm just going through my times in high school and up to present day with emotional intelligence and how I think I've matured and grown myself. But with the last couple of minutes of what you were talking about, I've got to turn things over and we got to bring up Donald Trump. Donald Trump, Whatever you think of him or I think of him. I think people maybe on the show before and in the future may realize I'm not a big fan of Donald Trump, but I got to hand it to him. I think he may be immune to tall poppy ink.

Speaker 1: 49:06

Ryan, you're really good, you're one of my best hosts. I called I, so when you, if you look at my book, I start out with all these terms I make up so that you understand my thinking and talking. I don't put it in the end, so you keep trying to figure it out. It's right up where you open it up, where you open it up. So. So there's a rump poppy, who's usually a hollywood type, who, who is just famous for being famous. I'll say the paris hilton could have been somebody like that when she was young, and so I call those actually rump poppies. They, they really don't even deserve the infamy that they have. And Donald Trump I call a rock rock, r-o-c-k rock or stone poppy. You know what stone fruit is? It has a stone in the middle, so it could have been stone poppy. I call it a rock poppy and actually have a blog on my blog site devoted to the stone poppies. So Elon Musk is a stone poppy. He can't be cut down. I'll just tell you.

Speaker 1: 50:20

I'm a registered independent. I don't like politics. I don't like the two-party system, that's. You know, most other semi-democracies don't have just two parties, they have more parties than two. And this two-party system creates just a competition. I was talking about the meritocracy. That's why we have all these, and I wish we broke it down into fiscal parties, civil rights parties. We had all these various parties who you knew what they stood for and voted for that. Now we don't know what we think. It's all about the party and voting for the party, not the candidate, and that's why we have all these candidates in there that have been in there for a hundred years, because we think they're going to be get back in and they're going to be against the opposing team, and that's just so painful to watch all that unfold.

Speaker 2: 51:31

Sure, sure. Well, I've thought about that a lot because I've settled on being a Democrat, I'll admit that. But I've tried to look up you know what am I, and I've found traits. I even go back to some prohibitionist traits, and just about every political party that there has ever been, I see traits of me in it. But we get to the point where there's only two to choose from or else you're going to be going for some guy who's never going to get in the White House. We get those two and that's what we're stuck with. And that's what we're stuck with. I don't know if, if you know, I feel that Trump and Biden it's not necessarily, you know, the lesser of two evils.

Speaker 1: 52:26

You got to pick one. In my mind, one is better than the other, but it's we should have more of a choice, I guess is what I'm trying to say. Well, I agree, I agree. No, I just did a blog on my take on Biden and Trump and it's very disappointing. It's actually my last blog and I got a lot of positive reviews on it, but I go through that process of just what you're talking about. But you know we're making a big deal and the internet is a big part of it.

Speaker 1: 52:52

But you know our political system has been problematic since its founding. You know Adams and Jefferson, two real tall poppies and two heroes, hated each other and it was only, you know, on their deathbed that they, as I told you, most tall poppies that get tall poppies come around, that they actually came around. But we have been a very divided country forever. My own personal take on this is that you know everybody, it was a male-dominated society and within that male dominated society, most men served in the country, served in the military, and that all started changed about Bill Clinton's time. Not Bill Clinton was the guy that changed it, it's just that was the period where our congressional makeup is the riots, the racial riots, the, the women's movement, the various movements we're starting and unfortunately those are pride driven, those I have. You don't have change without movements. Nobody gives up anything free and it takes a movement to make change. It takes a lot of people, just like it takes a lot of people to cut down a tall poppy. So I like movements. Movements are causes of change. But within a movement it's frequently driven by pride and most of these movements are very prideful and they get into power and it becomes who they're about and that's what's driven our country. We don't have a central guy that thinks, a person that thinks for the country. They come in and they think for their ideology and that's what's different in our country.

Speaker 1: 54:53

When you look at the, they talk about the squad and things, and that, I think, is what's become so divisive is. You don't fit into any box. It's which one do you fit in? That's most important to you. But we're divisive in a different way than we were 200 years ago. Let me put it that way we have more divisiveness, divided among 100 people rather than two people. There was Jefferson. You know, I talk about Madison Burr.

Speaker 1: 55:30

The duel, that was politics. The duel represented the two parties and they shot it out and that was the way back then. As you say, you've emotionally evolved and we're emotionally involved. So we're sort of after this weekend not completely, but we're sort of better than that. But that's how it was back then. But the two parties were fairly well defined in where they were headed. We're headed Now our party within our own parties. We have a lot of divisiveness, with the only cohesion being against the other party, and that allows a lot of, I think, unworthy people to legislate because they don't look for the best of everybody but their own agenda. That's just my opinion. That has nothing to do with the tall poppy syndrome, although it creates a lot of people being cut down.

Speaker 2: 56:29

Sure, sure, well said. So yeah, like I said, I wrote down emotional intelligence here and I think back to myself. In high school we had a group of friends and one guy was incredibly clumsy and he would fall down or he would do something uncoordinated and it was usually pretty funny, not in a slapstick sort of way, but he was a friend of ours. We saw him do that. It was funny. Oh, my Kevin got hurt again and we would laugh Over the years and in fact in 1985, 86, 87, there the funniest thing in the world was I've fallen and I can't get up. I think about that now. I've fallen and I can't get up. I think about that now and I feel guilty for laughing at that in 1987. Everybody laughed at it back then and it's different today. Is that a sign, I hope, of emotional intelligence?

Speaker 1: 57:34

Yeah, that's very good, you're really good, that's really good. That's schadenfreude. So you were experiencing schadenfreude back then. You were laughing at somebody else's pain, his clumsiness, and so the emotionally mature guy, just as you, evolved and think I shouldn't be doing that. I actually Paul Newman and Robert Redford, you know became really good friends after the movie they did together and they were both like practical jokes.

Speaker 1: 58:07

But hidden behind the practical jokes that they were doing was also some pain. For example, one of them put maybe a Porsche motor in somebody else's house which caused a lot of. It was a lot of work to get it in there and it's going to be a lot of work to get it back out. So although it was a practical joke, there was a certain amount of pain involved in that. So Paul Newman actually talked about that, saying you know, I used to think that was very funny. But he said you know, in the end that was very funny. But he said, you know, in the end that was very mean-spirited and I quit doing that. So that's exactly what you're talking about and that's emotional intelligence, emotional um, and that was actually schadenfreude. That's what you were laughing at their pain, at their falling down and clumsiness. You didn't cause that which is how, if you listen to the first of your tape, that's how you slightly misinterpreted Schadenfreude. Oh, okay, because it's not you being part of that, it's just happening, usually self-induced. But I think there is a good schadenfreude which I like to talk about and I mean it's just not mean-spirited.

Speaker 1: 59:28

For example, in LA we have the 405 freeway which is quite famous even throughout much of America, because that so-called freeway, which is an oxymoron, is such a disaster. I mean it's all stop and go for hours and then there's always some jerk going in and weaving in and out of traffic and you know you can just tell what's happening. You see the brake lights going on in front of you and you go, there goes that jerk again, and so you're driving to work and that jerk pulls in front of you, hit the brakes and you see him weave all the way up. But a couple of three miles down the line you see him pull the over at the side of the road by a highway patrol or he's had a little fender bender.

Speaker 1: 1:00:16

Now that I call good chat and Freud is justified. He got what was coming from him. He was cut down. And it's always you got to get to work and get your coffee and then you can start your day. But a guy like that makes your day and you walk into work smiling. So schadenfreude is not all necessarily bad in my book.

Speaker 2: 1:00:42

That kind of brings up a personal story too. We talked earlier about my days in radio, kind of in the 90s there, when the local radio station basically went away, I went into law enforcement. And people always ask well, that's interesting, you went from radio to law enforcement. And so the reason? And people always ask well, that's interesting, you went from radio to law enforcement, how the connection there? And I've said I think it was sometime around the time I got my driver's license and I saw people getting away with that stuff, going through red lights. It was the first time I really noticed it, because now I'm driving too and I thought someday I'm going to be the guy to tell those people they did it wrong. You can't do that. And maybe that was Shedden Freud. You know that. I became a cop, I was able to give those tickets, I got trained in the rules of the road and now I'm the guy who says here you go.

Speaker 1: 1:01:45

See you in court, well, but that's the codifying also that I talked about with Moses and God's Ten Commandments and with the Pope codifying for the monks. So that's all part of that process and that codifying helps you become aware and hopefully you have good emotional intelligence with that awareness. So we had that spirit because I felt that that was the most important part of the tall poppy syndrome because it was through emotions and so if you understand emotions, things change and we had that. Dan Goldman was the author that wrote Emotional Intelligence in 1990s and did a series of books and it became a nice movement but unfortunately the movement died out. We moved away from it and of course at that time you know, the big question was which is more important, emotional intelligence or IQ intelligence? And I think the answer is emotional intelligence and we learned that lesson. But the younger people or the rest? The message has been forgotten. So I'm very big on emotional intelligence, which brings up another point.

Speaker 1: 1:03:12

The book was originally I had about a third of it was devoted to self-improvement. I'd done a lot of emotional intelligence and studying and reading how to be a tall poppy and then I felt that there were actually 10,000 self-help books a year and I thought that it was just a small part of my book. How could I possibly compete with 10,000 books? And then I had another thought was that self-help books are frequently very inspirational, but the problem is they're not transformational. They're really not transforming many people, or there wouldn't be 10 more thousand books the next year. So I thought I would best be served by forgetting to write, codify and just talk about all these things in general. And it turned out, I think, to be good. But what I did learn in trying to tell people how to be a tall poppy is to be a tall poppy, how to be a tall poppy is to be a tall poppy.

Speaker 1: 1:04:29

And Martin Luther King said that greatness comes from servitude. Fame, you know you have to earn, and fame, well, you can be born into it. But the concept is that you can acquire fame. Shakespeare says some people achieve greatness, some people are born great, some people work and become great. But King was right in that greatness is really servitude. And if you serve, it doesn't matter what serve means Serve fellow man, serve the environment If you practice servitude, you will be a tall poppy, whether it's peer-to-peer or public tall poppy. That servitude is greatness and greatness is the tall poppy, not achievement necessarily. That's the best way to be a tall poppy, and in my tall poppy chapter on tall poppies, every one of them was. Each one of those people were served and each one had been cut down many, numerous times, but they all had fortitude and courage and knew they were right.

Speaker 1: 1:05:43

And so for your listeners and myself and you, the best way to be good is to serve. I used my postal clerk lady who delivered our mail. She's now been transferred, but she's the sweetest lady on earth. If she had a package, she would deliver the. She wouldn't put it in the mailbox, she would ring the doorbell, not even leave it at the doorstep so that somebody could steal it either from the mailbox or the front door. I'm on the central coast of California. We have a lot of citrus trees around here. If I gave her some lemons, she would just turn around and make lemon tarts or lemon pie. If I gave her lime, she would make a key lime pie, for example. So just the greatest person on earth, just a kind lady, nice postal worker, which doesn't have a reputation for having great people, but she I hate to say that term best they could be. But she was just a polite, sweet, kind, serving person. That's all you have to be in life and that's how you can become a tall poppy.

Speaker 2: 1:07:06

There you go Again. Very well said so, dr Doug Garland. The book is Tall Poppy Syndrome and why don't you mention you know where we can find the book, where we can find out more about you and what to do? There's another one. What should we do if we feel because I think a lot of people now are saying, yeah, I've been tall poppied, what do we do?

Speaker 1: 1:07:29

Well, first you have to. So that's another outstanding question. So you and? Well, three things. So the book is if you go to Doug Garland two G's D-O-U-G-G-A-R-L-A-N-Dcom, that'll take you more than you ever want to know about me, but take you to the book site where you can order the book or look at it and look at the reviews.

Speaker 1: 1:07:55

The most important thing I think you should do is just do tallpoppysyndromeorg, which is my blog site, which I think is fantastic, because you know my thinking is always changing. This is a very subjective. I try to be objective but it's still my bias and my thinking is always changing. But it's more current events. I like history, so there's a lot of history in it as well. But my blogs are very good. You can learn about that.

Speaker 1: 1:08:28

But the third point was what happens? I have a in the blog. I have the anatomy of the tall poppy syndrome. You have to figure out which part of the anatomy you are. Are you a cutter or were you tall poppied, as me? So first you have, and this all comes from medicine, and that's why I think my book is.

Speaker 1: 1:08:59

There's not many books out there, but my book is better than most things you read about and most things you see on the Internet, because I have a very scientific mind and a very analytic mind, and so the first thing you when you see and that's why it's a self-help book, because when you see the tall poppy syndrome, when you see Trump being cut down, you have to ask yourself who's at fault here? Is it the Democratic Party that's at fault? Is it the Republican Party at fault? Is it Donald Trump at fault? And you have to throw away your bias and understand. So are the cutters envious? Are they angry? Are they just lazy? They don't want to get out and do all the political things it takes or have the money to do what it takes, so they cut each other down.

Speaker 1: 1:09:50

So the first thing you have to go through analysis of the cutter. Then you have to do well, is the tall poppy, is Trump the problem, which is easy to put blame on him, because he's a very prideful man, which is number one on why you fall. He's a bully, which is not part of the syndrome, but he's part of what I label egregious actions. He's egregiously bullied, he's potentially lustful and he's potentially greedy. So he has all three of the things that I think are the worst parts of egregious actions in a tall poppy. So you have to analyze the cutter, you have to analyze the tall poppy and during that self-reflection that's why I'm an independent you have to get rid of your own biases. It's the cell should be a mirror and you should look at yourself. I can guarantee you it's not Trump's the problem, it's your head is the problem. You got something screwed up between your ears because he's not all bad like everybody says he is, and if you think he is, you got issues, my friend. No, I'm just telling you.

Speaker 2: 1:11:12

No, I understand.

Speaker 1: 1:11:15

You need to do that self-reflection, just like you're saying why am I a Democrat? That's a very good question. Because I couldn't find where I was, enough qualities that I saw within the Democratic Party that I could say I was a Democrat. And when I looked at the Republican Party I couldn't identify enough of the characteristics that I felt that was in that tent and so I just said I'm going to be independent. And that's how I became an independent Because I was self-reflected and I just didn't like either party.

Speaker 2: 1:11:57

Frankly, I guess maybe that's something I've got in my head. I still have that desire to conform in some way or another. But I laughed earlier because I wrote this down that sometimes it seems and you're popping more questions into my head Well, we should have more questions than answers, so I'm doing my job.

Speaker 2: 1:12:20

Yeah, absolutely. It seems like there's got to be some point where a person says you know if they are the cutter, exactly that Maybe I need to get checked here, maybe I need to go to therapy. Maybe it's something with me that I'm doing to cut this person down, whether they deserved it or not. But maybe I'm not the one to decide that, whether they deserved it or not.

Speaker 1: 1:12:41

But maybe I'm not the one to decide that, but that's why it is subjective. But you already figured it out with your schadenfreude and with the friend of yours that was falling down, so somebody probably was cutting him down as well. But that's the emotional maturity and the self-awareness. The emotional maturity and the self-awareness which I wrote an article on my blog on self-righteousness, which naturally, if I write it I think it's good. But usually I do a lot of research. Usually it's my thinking, but it involves I mean, I only blog every seven to 10 days.

Speaker 1: 1:13:19

It takes a lot of work for me to do a blog and to do what I call good research on what I'm going to say. But that's what you have to do. You have to soul search and that's the problem with, as far as I'm concerned, with this two party system and the people and the movements. The movements are all about emotion and no self-reflection. When I listen to many people in those, when they get interviewed from an interview and just the Palestinian stuff that came out with the colleges in New York when I listen to those people, they're idiots and they're emotional midgets and that's why they're doing what they're doing. They have no self-reflection, they have no self-esteem and they're self-righteous and hypocrites, my worst enemies and hypocrites my worst enemies.

Speaker 2: 1:14:21

Yeah, that's something I've heard.

Speaker 1: 1:14:22

Well, but that's what I mean. I don't think that's who you are, so I don't know that you need help. You're good at self-assessing yourself, but there's a large group and it's all over the Internet and it's all over both parties. I'm sorry to say Sure, sure.

Speaker 1: 1:14:43

I think that's something we see a lot of now. You know the third party Kennedy is very good at looking at both parties. Now you know he's kind of like I'm mentioning he can't be a Democrat now because there are too many boxes he can't check. And so here he is. Whoever thought you would see a Kennedy not be a Democrat?

Speaker 2: 1:15:05

Yeah.

Speaker 1: 1:15:06

So you have to look. Unfortunately he can't be. You know, the third candidate doesn't work in America, but I wish he may not be president, but even if he were running for Senate or something, even if he were running for Senate or something, so we would get you know an independent senator. That would be important to be able to sway the two sides and cast the votes that was best for the country, not best for the party.

Speaker 2: 1:15:36

Is it keeping with the political thing? This is where I'm going with this. Is it possible for a I'm thinking of a certain politician to tall poppy themselves?

Speaker 1: 1:15:49

Oh, yeah, well, Biden, tall pop. So my second to the last blog came after Biden's debate. Biden's debate, yeah. So Biden did so it was.

Speaker 1: 1:16:05

And the tall poppy syndrome is he tall poppied himself because of his pride and no self-awareness. That guy's an idiot. He has no self-awareness. He thinks he's a Catholic, he's pro-abortion. He can't be a Catholic if he's pro-abortion. I mean, that's just an oxymoron. And you know he's.

Speaker 1: 1:16:27

I call the hunker bunker. He hunker bunker down four years ago. He never campaigned. He let the Democratic Party campaign, he let the media campaign for him. He didn't do a thing. And so I originally had that. You're from the Midwest, you'll get it, and the South, they have a fish in this hook. And he said if I kept my big mouth shut I wouldn't be in this mess.

Speaker 1: 1:16:53

So, biden, trump duped Biden into doing a debate and Biden's pride made him and the party. His advisors set that up and they thought they were winning because they picked the stations and they picked the host, they picked all these rules. So they think we're going to put Trump where we got him and Trump is too smart for them. He's going. You know, I got you right where I want you. I'm accepting. Before they had the chance. They thought he was going to not accept, and they would have a reason. Well, he's afraid to debate, or they would put more restrictions on it. And Biden comes out. After this happens he said make my day and I'll even do two. And I call those his words of infamy. Those are going to go down in history as one of the stupidest political mistakes of any politician's career, because it could cost him the debate, it could cost him the presidency.

Speaker 2: 1:18:03

So he cut himself down yeah, yeah, very well, uh. So, uh, whoops, I want to put dr garland back up there. Uh, the websites are uh, it's douggarlandcom. Correct with the two g, d-o-u-g, g-a-r-l-a-n-d yes, that's for the book. Okay, com. And then Tall Poppy Syndrome, as you see on the screen there, tallpoppysyndromeorg. As we kept going here, we disagree a bit, we agree on a lot, but you definitely got me thinking, dr Garland. I'm writing down questions. I didn't get the half of what I wanted to discuss. I think we need to do this again sometime.

Speaker 1: 1:18:43

Well, I don't want you to agree with me. That's the worst possible thing. No, I mean you don't learn by agreeing. It was just by me being cut down that I learned a lot about myself and soul search and stuff. So you know, that's that echo chamber. You should never agree with everybody, with what your friends say. You know neither one of you are going to grow if you agree. You know that's how you get into, that's how politicians, that's how people in Washington are so screwed up. And Detroit, for example.

Speaker 1: 1:19:18

I'm from Iowa, as we discussed, but I eventually lived in Southern California for 37 years and you know, out here we're so far from the East Coast and Detroit and stuff and we're close to Japan and stuff. And we had the wave of the Japanese cars came through California and Toyota. We made Toyota and the Prius. That's how they took over the car industry. And Detroit was too blind. Dc is too blind because they're in an echo chamber. They still thought they were.

Speaker 1: 1:19:53

And Germany's always like this because they're a prideful nation and they have this echo chamber that they live in and everybody thinks the same. Nobody in Washington thinks out of the box. They all think the same. They surround themselves by people that agree with them. And how can that work? You can't grow when everybody agrees as we talk about movements and musts. You're only changed by people that you disagree with or there's been a problem and they're forcing change on you by a movement, and frequently those movements are good, just like the civil rights movement in the 60s. Some of the things that came from it weren't so good, but overall, conceptually, new laws were made and things improved greatly. So disagreement is good, my friend, not malignant benign agreement, not malignant disagreement like we saw last weekend.

Speaker 2: 1:20:52

There you go. There you go. Sure, you brought up the term out of the box. I first heard that term, I think, 40 years ago, and a general manager of mine said we want to think out of the box. Everything that should be the way it is, or always has been, is in this box and we want to think outside of that. And wow, that was really thought-provoking at the time. Now it's been 40 years and just within the last couple of days I saw somebody looking for a creative person who thinks outside the box and I thought, if you're looking for somebody creative, then to say you want somebody outside of the box is the most uncreative thing I think you can possibly say in today's society.

Speaker 2: 1:21:37

I agree with that In some other term than outside the box. I think we can move on from that now.

Speaker 1: 1:21:43

Yeah, we've moved on from that.

Speaker 2: 1:21:46

Okay, dr Garland, this has been fun. We've got a lot more than just your book I think we could talk about too.

Speaker 1: 1:21:52

No, I agree with that.

Speaker 2: 1:21:55

Okay, this has been fun. Thank you very much. You have a great day.

Speaker 1: 1:21:58

My pleasure, nice meeting you.

Speaker 2: 1:22:01

You too. Thank you. There you have it, folks. Dr Doug Garland, and take a look at his website. It's douggarlandcom or tallpoppysyndromeorg, as you saw right there on the screen. And this was just fun. Remember, if we said at the beginning of this that maybe you'll see by the end of this as we talk about and define and give examples of tall poppy syndrome and people who have been tall poppied, people who have been the cutters, maybe you'll recognize yourself in some of this. Get the book, and it's not just a recipe. You know, this is what you do, this is how you identify it. It's a book to get you to think and to get you to understand that emotional intelligence and to maybe even have more questions at the end than you had in the beginning. But maybe there'll be more mature questions and if you have those, I'd like you to email me or go to Dr Garland's website and send a message to him. But my information there and you can see it at the bottom. You can go to discerningtheunknowncom or you can email me, ryan, at discerningtheunknowncom.

Speaker 2: 1:23:21

For show number two I think this was a lot of fun. It's going to be available everywhere YouTube, of course, spreaker and all those you'll be able to see it and hear it and the audio podcast recording. So it will be everywhere and I hope to hear from you Again. Send an email, look on the Facebook page. You know, the more I look, the more places I have been lately, even though only after a couple of shows. So I thank you for helping me along here, growing slowly, but I want to have fun with this. So I hope to talk to you soon.

Speaker 2: 1:23:58

We'll do it again next week and, as I said before, oh, I wanted to get to this. As I said before, all these other talk show hosts have their thing. You know, ryan Seacrest has the thing at the end of his show Seacrest Out and so I thought, you know, maybe to conform a little bit, maybe I should do that too, and what would be the thing for me to pass along to you at the end of the show? And I thought last week about what's something that I think that we should do or I think is right or wrong, something you know Bob Barker had on the game show there had spay and neuter your pets and so I thought, well, uh, it kind of solidified what I thought about this. I uh, I found a picture the other day, and I want to. I want to show you this um, because I thought I would.

Speaker 2: 1:24:56

I would say something about flip-flops. I don't like flip-flops, especially men in flip-flops. Men just have ugly feet. That's all there is to it. So I'm going to end my shows with men should never wear flip-flops.

Speaker 2: 1:25:11

And then the other day, I saw this picture. Look at that Now, if you're listening. If you're listening, then I urge you to take a look at YouTube and look at this picture. I don't know if it's been manipulated somehow, I don't know if it's Photoshop, I don't know if it's AI, but I saw this picture where somebody was saying why would somebody sell this? These were strange things that people were selling. And so there's a roll of toilet paper on the floor, a package of toilet paper on the floor, and this guy is taking a picture on the floor, and he caught his feet in there as well. His bare feet and his toes have got to be about eight inches long each, and if this guy ever puts on flip-flops, I think he's going to have some problems. Maybe I'm tall-popping right now, in fact, but you got to see this, and so that's part of my reason why this solidified what I'm going to end each show with, and that is, men should not wear flip-flops. Thank you everybody. See you next time.