How to approach the daunting question: who am I? (w/ Brian Lowery)

How to Be a Better Human

TED

Self-improvement, Education

4.2 • 1.3K Ratings

🗓️ 16 September 2024

⏱️ 35 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

If you take away how others see you, how do you see yourself? Psychologist, author and Stanford Graduate School of Business professor Brian Lowery argues that this question is so difficult to wrap our heads around because what we think of as our individual identity is actually a social construction. In this episode, he and Chris take us on a journey exploring the objective vs the subjective self, the performance of identity and how your view of others has a stronger sway than you realize.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Ted Audio Collective.
0:02.0	Audio Collective.
0:04.0	You're listening to How to Bea Better Human.
0:10.0	I'm your host Chris Duffy.
0:12.0	If you were to ask me as a joke to come up with two
0:15.0	questions that we just could not possibly answer in the course of a single podcast
0:20.0	episode, I'd probably say something like, what is the meaning of life? Or what defines a person's true self and identity? Those are pretty big questions. Those are philosophical questions. They're huge.
0:32.8	And I would say they're almost comically impossible to answer in under an hour.
0:37.2	And yet, today's guest, the psychologist Brian Lowry,
0:40.9	he is going to do his best to dig into exactly those questions.
0:45.0	I'm not going to say that we come up with a definitive answer by the end of this episode,
0:49.8	but I will say that Brian has got me thinking about these really profound questions in new ways.
0:56.0	And Brian is such a smart thoughtful guy. I can't think of anyone who is better at getting deep, but still keeping it accessible and fun.
1:04.8	I mean this is a guy Brian who gave a TED Talk about how to have a meaningful life, right?
1:09.4	That's what he's an expert in.
1:10.8	Meaningful lives.
1:12.1	It's incredible stuff. Here's a clip. Life is amazing. Life is incredible.
1:18.4	The experiences we have, the possibilities of personal achievement,
1:23.0	you could summit Everest,
1:25.0	you could create a huge successful business,
1:28.0	you could give a TED Talk,
1:30.0	and when you're successful, it feels incredible.
	...

Transcript will be available on the free plan in -113 days. Upgrade to see the full transcript now.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from TED, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of TED and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.