 Good mental health. I'm Matt Kelly. I'm pleased to be joined on today's podcast by my co-host for this show, Dr. Neil Maranello. He is a longtime behavior expert and a solutions-focused life coach in Woodstock, Vermont. Neil, as always, it's a pleasure having you on the show. My pleasure being here with you, Pat. Why don't you take a few minutes and just explain to our listeners a little bit about your backstory and your over 60 years in human behavior? Well, 60 years, I'm 76 years old, so that goes back until I was 15 or 16 years old. That was how old I was when my father died. And I very much have spent my life trying to be the good daddy that he was, and perhaps even supersede him here and there. And in my mind, being a good shrink is being a good daddy. And so I've worked hard to develop my skills at figuring out how to help people be better than they are. And that means basically getting inside their heads, figuring out what's right for them and helping them to do the best they can. Wonderful. In the effort of full disclosure, I've been a longtime client of Dr. Maranello's and can personally speak to his effect on my life. The purpose of our Good Mental Health podcast is to help people achieve good mental health, particularly as we're coming out of this COVID crisis. There has been a mental health crisis that has gone along with this health crisis, I think. And throughout the courses or the episodes of this podcast, we're going to be specifically speaking to the tweets that Dr. Maranello has been putting up on Twitter. And you're welcome to follow Dr. Maranello at coach Dr. Neal, that's at coach Dr. Neal on Twitter. Today's episode is going to speak to I am the most important person in the world to myself. That is one of your tweets and is the subject of today's podcast. So Neal, if you'd take a few minutes to really explain the thought process behind that tweet, I am the most important person in my world. The starting point is to recognize that every time you remember something you change it. That means that today is different from yesterday and the person I am today is different from the person I was yesterday. And I say every time you remember something you change it what I mean is, if I remember something that happened yesterday or last year. I'm bringing it from the part of my brain that remembers things which is usually thought of as the hippo campus to almond shape things on either side of the brain. And you bring it to your forefront and you remember it. And in the process of remembering it. You change it. And the reason you change it is because things have happened since that happened. We are interpreting it now in terms of not just what what you remember happening, but also what you what you've learned since it happened. Then when you file it back in your mind, you file it with that added information. So the thing to be aware of is that who I am today is different from who I was yesterday or who I was last year. And memory and there's been a lot of studies that show that memory is something which is not a videotape. In fact, if you really want to understand what happened in any given situation, you have to do what we call basket. And that's an acronym B is for behavior who was doing what is for affect what feelings were people having there are basically four feelings mad sad glad and scared. S is for sensations. What of your senses were operating and what were you experiencing in terms of seeing seeing hearing smelling touching that kind of thing. And K is the knowledge if you watch a videotape of something over and over and over again, eventually you'll figure out exactly who is feeling sensing and behaving what and why. So, the easiest way to say it is that each of us changes with every moment. We live until we die. And the truth is that no one knows what happens when after we die. The question that we are all asking ourselves is am I better now than I was then. I think I'm doing the best I can. And my idol, Milton Erickson made the statement that he believed that everyone is doing the best they can. I had a lot of trouble with that, but the 60 years or so I've been in this business trying to understand how people think I've realized he was right. So if I'm doing the best I can, or I think I'm doing the best I can then the other question that comes up is, is my thinking right by thinking the right way right now. And if I can change the way I'm thinking so that I can believe I'm doing the best I can, then I actually am doing better than I was doing yesterday or the day before. The reason of, am I the most important person in my life. The answer is, all I know is me. I'm the only person that I know, and even if I devote my life even if I'm other Teresa and I'm devoting my life to helping others. That doesn't change the fact that that's the most important thing in my identification of who I am. You've started here in a way that I thought was quite different than what I thought you would say as a starting point for that statement so to speak. And for me I was intuiting it that I am the most important person in my life. And so that makes me subject to that my needs are first and how I was sort of experiencing that even just in my current everyday life right now. If I have a neighbor who is being extremely loud and what I think is disrespectful to the rental community here, but that is again, me saying that I am the most important person in my life. And yet of course that other person is saying that same exact thing by their not attending to the needs of other people in the community. So it's a it's a rather different way of approaching the the topic and I'm wondering if you sort of can can Well, looking at it from the perspective of the way you're talking about it. My mother used to say, freedom is the right to swing your arm anywhere you want as long as you don't hit anybody. Your neighbor is hitting somebody by their behavior. The bottom line on it is whether your neighbor is aware of what they're doing or not, their behavior is causing harm to others. I personally believe that that the only real sin is hurting other people unnecessarily. Right. Yeah, when I say unnecessarily. Sometimes it's necessary to hurt people in order for them to learn what they need to learn about how they're hurting themselves or others. On the other hand, when someone is doing something that is causing harm to others, I believe intervention of one kind or another is necessary and I believe that the name of the game is getting the message across to that person in the way that is least harmful but still gets the job done. So it's sort of important to note that there's in a sense there's two sides to that statement that there is a very positive side as it relates to, let's say Maslow's hierarchy of needs that I am the most important person and I need to take care of my hierarchy of needs because no one else is going to when you get right down to it. But then the flip side of it is that I may in that course of believing that I am the most important to myself. I may infringe on others at the same time unknowingly. Or knowingly. In fact, if you knowingly infringe on others and are doing it with that awareness and it makes you feel better. That's really the definition of evil. Yes, yes, I love that you use that we've spoken about that many times so. But talking about Maslow's hierarchy. The simple reality is that at the top of that hierarchy is what he calls self actualization. Which has to do with understanding yourself and understanding the extent to which everything that everyone experiences gets processed through themselves. But in the shrink business we have a phrase that everything is projection. In the AA community they say if you spot it you got it. The experiences that I've had with times that I felt something very strongly have required me to take a look in the mirror and say, what it is about me that's putting that on that situation. And it's interesting, in a sense, you know, to kind of just go back to the semantics of it if we can a little bit. I think we might both be familiar with someone who doesn't put themselves as their most important person in the world, perhaps a spouse who's in a, an abusive situation. And to make the spouse to put the spouse ahead of their needs and make the spouse, the most important person in the world which, in a sense, is a tremendous detriment to one's own soul. And then resulting health problems that may in fact be a result of not putting yourself as the most important person in your world. And what that means is that everyone has, let's say 20 needs. I'm just pulling that number out of the hat. But in a relationship, if you can find somebody that meets, say, seven or eight of those needs you're doing pretty well. And in order to get those needs met you're probably going to have to give up seven or eight. And the remaining needs, you basically have to meet yourself. And if you don't have a way of meeting your own needs, or if your whole concept of yourself is I'm not worth anything unless I'm doing something for someone else. Then you're actually ignoring the reality of your situation, which is that if you don't meet your own needs, your ability to meet other people's needs is highly limited. Wow. Wow. And, and, and sort of that's one of the reasons that I wanted us specifically to use this topic as our initial podcast because it sort of sets the framework for us to build on in future podcasts from this very simple basic concept that I am the most important person in the world to me, and that that is a mindset that as we actually go out into the world, we should probably keep in mind that that is what anyone we interact with is also operating under. In fact, I believe that if you could stop the world and get inside the mind of every single person that what you would find is that they are probably thinking about themselves. They're thinking about someone else. They're often wondering, I wonder what that person is thinking about me. So, there's a, the best example I can think of is from the movie beaches, where that middler is playing the role of the narcissistic actress, who puts on a show in front of her family and friends, and then comes out and talks to them about what a great job she did in her show. And then she says but enough about me. Let's talk about you. What did you think about one of my favorite lines. I think that it's almost impossible to to not to think about anything without understanding that you're filtering it through your own perceptions. And once you realize that you have the opportunity to see yourself more objectively. You cannot see reality, what they see is a tangent from reality. If reality is a circle. The tangent starts at the point where it touches the circle, but how they think about that depends an awful lot on what the circumstances are, and, and what their perception is. So I give an example for example in my dissertation, where if someone is talking to me and I'm trying to cover up a burp by smiling. And they think I'm laughing at what they're saying. And the tangent is the point at which I smile. But if they think I'm laughing at what I'm what they're saying they assume I'm not taking them seriously. They assume that that I have a perception of them which is judgmental and negative. And they take off from there. And it's like picking up a fumble and running the wrong way with it and scoring a touchdown for the other team. It's interesting you know as I unpack this, this thought or this idea more there's so many levels to it. And one of the things that I specifically was interested in is that in the event of what you just said where maybe somebody has misinterpreted something that I've said or done or have spoken. But it is incumbent on me to try to reach that person in a non threatening non judgmental non defensive way. So that there is a real communication here and that, and that that is really important to me if I care about how my image is perceived in the world at large. I care about the conduct of myself and of my being whether it be my voice my actions, etc, in a way that is not just affirming to whoever I'm interacting with but affirming to myself as well as well. So probably put a good part of the last 60 years into learning to see myself as others see me. And I come across in a certain way, and I think I know the role I'm playing, which is basically the role of good daddy. But the way other people perceive me has a lot to do with what their experiences were of themselves and of their daddies. The fact is that I am perceived as a smart guy I'm perceived as a powerful guy. The truth is I don't have any power except the power other people give me. But if I say something and someone assumes that I'm saying it in some attempt to criticize them or hurt them. They're wrong. What I say is meant to help them, even if they see me as the enemy. And as they think about it later on, they have to deal with the fact that they can't find a way to interpret what I said that has me being in some way evil or trying to harm them. And so in that, again, it feels to me that it really goes back to the crux of the statement I am the most important person to myself in the world to myself. And that's why again it's important even on that person who may have misinterpreted you to actually strive very deeply to understand or to to not misinterpret that because my misinterpreting you is actually a great disservice to myself. And in a sense puts a little bit more import on you. Then it does again with that statement I am the most important person in the world to me. And if that were the case, then I would strive very, very deeply to deeply understand a point of view that may be contrary to what I think I know. Exactly that. That's exactly right. Because when someone tries to understand what I say, they're trying to get inside my head, trying to understand my motivation. And if they can come up with any way that they can interpret my motivation as anything other than trying to help them. And I want to know it because I'm not doing my job right. Over the years, many people have seen me as the enemy have tried to cause me trouble. And my perception is that that's, they're giving me a lot of power. And, and the more they give me power the more they try to understand why did I do what I did, why did I say what I said, good luck to them finding a negative motivation there. Because if I'm doing my job right. They can't explain my behavior. And they're empowering me in a way which forces them to understand where I'm coming from. If I'm coming from any place other than trying to help them something wrong with me. And to sort of actually kind of put this into context with our current paradigm in a sense we're coming out of, you know, the COVID-19 pandemic. And, you know, there's been a mental health crisis, why is this statement so important in our current paradigm today. And I think that everybody on some level or other has had to deal with being isolated and being isolated basically means you're stuck with yourself, your family. And it's very hard to communicate with other people in physical ways other than the direct family. COVID has forced all of us to look in the mirror in a way that most of us would rather not. The reality of it though is that there's no part of anybody that's not a part of me. And I really believe, as my science fiction idol Theodore Sturgeon said that that if everybody could be inside everybody else's mind at this moment, none of us would have any secrets and there would be no wars. Everybody's walking around saying Oh, I wish so and so didn't find out I just didn't know what I'm thinking and I wish they didn't realize it, and everybody has their secrets. And I believe the, the Billy Joel song that refers to the masks that everybody wears is a good example of that the reality we're all trying to hide stuff from other people. And if there was nothing to hide, we all realize that we're just human beings doing the best we can. And if we get in the right state of mind, we learn from our mistakes and we grow. And you, you made a statement here which I love because it's going to be the topic of one of our next podcasts here that there's no part of you that's not a part of me but we'll say that for one of our future podcasts here because again it's a very deep subject that I think is very important as we again build this foundation here of our of our talks here. And again with the statement, I am the most important is something that you can interpret in a way that allows you to either grow or shrivel. If it's the same, then you haven't really interpreted it in a way that that facilitates your soul's growth. So my belief is that the job that all of us have is to take advantage of the fact that we're still alive and find a way to grow from the experiences we have learn and grow. If we don't learn or decide that what it means is something that proves to us that the world is shriveling and that we're no good. Then we wind up spinning things in a way that does not work for us. Well, and again to bring it back into the current paradigm here with COVID-19. The vaccine is is an example here that I kind of want to just touch on in that, if I am the most important person in the world to me. But then my health is the one of the most paramount things to me to, you know, for my longevity. And so that would stand to reason that the vaccine is something that if you believe you're the most important person in the world to you that you would act on, or on the converse because if you, you know, don't personally believe in vaccines if you're what is, you know, commonly referred to as an anti-vaxxer that you may be taking the opposite viewpoint that you're not taking it until it's been proven so that you don't suffer any unwarranted side effects that may negatively impact your health and this in a sense is what I what I think is really interesting is about the dichotomy of that statement. I am the most important person in the world to myself it can be either anti-vaxxer or it can be someone who's pro-vax vaccination and going out at the first opportunity to get vaccinated. Well, I am most important person in the world to myself. I think it's important to take into account what many people believe which is that the way that you need to define yourself is in terms of your relationships. So you have the difficulty of even if that's true, and you choose not to take the vaccine. You have relationships with people and those those relationships and whether those people that you have relationships with are communicating the disease has to be taken into account also. The, the other thing to understand here is that we are coming against the conflict of science and beliefs. Those people don't really understand science, science is a matter of disproof, not a not a means of proving anything. So, when you scientifically test something, you're basically testing it against the hypothesis that that it doesn't work. And if it works better than chance, or better than you would expect, then you have scientifically eliminated the possibility that it happened by chance. And that explains the fact that that concept of defining you set yourself in terms of relationships does should also include the relationships you have with the different parts of you. I have parts of myself that are different ages. Each age we have developmental ways of understanding things. So the part of me that's three years old believes that when I walk out of the room the furniture disappears. Unfortunately, there are other parts of me that understand that that's not the case. The part of me that is two years old believes that that pat a cake works and pat a cake is based on the idea that you can't see me. The reason you can't see me is because I can't see you. I can't see you with the way in which other people perceive you, and I have worked my entire life to try and understand how other people see me. And to the extent that I project a an image of a powerful good daddy, I'm doing my job. I was back to again our earlier point that again if you are the most important person in the world to you, how you are perceived by others would be rather important to that part of your personality that is taking care of this. It's creating a loop. And from my point of view the kind of loop that makes the most sense is one which does not go after power. The concept of power corrupts absolute power corrupts absolutely is in fact true, unless the power that you are seeking is the power to help others. And in order to do that you have to see yourself as others see you. So the correct loop from my point of view is understanding that my effect on somebody has helped them to grow rather than shrivel. And as all of us are on an individual journey from exiting the womb to being six feet under, we're all on an individual journey that is different for all three or seven billion people on this planet. That's exactly right. Everybody in the world thinks differently from everybody else. And it's a result of our combination of heredity and experience, but the reality is that when somebody sees me and doesn't want to tell me something because it's embarrassing. What I usually say to them is, if you tell me something I've never heard before, I'll scream. I don't scream very much. But the truth is that that there are categories of thinking and I'm pretty aware of those. And so ways of thinking. There are only just so many and I understand most of those. And if someone does say something that's a different way of thinking than I've experienced before. I won't scream but I'll be excited. That means I'm going to learn something I didn't know before. On the other hand, it's extremely important for me to recognize that every time someone says something, it's something I've never heard before. Their way of thinking about it is different from the way that anyone else thinks about it. My common phrase to people. When they consult me is your soul is my boss. And as long as I keep that in mind and my job is to understand their soul, then I'm in a position to help them become better people. This is especially important for me because in our current paradigm, there are what are called social justice warriors who are trying to make the world a better place for others. And it's important, I think, for us to realize that in that attempt. They're still keeping that paradigm very front and focus that they are the most important person in the in the world to them, and they believe that what they are doing is right. And it is important for their soul to feel like they're contributing to the betterment of mankind. And of course, the flip side of that is to what extent are they laying their trip on other people. And again, the issue becomes who's getting hurt. And are you having an opportunity to learn from your mistakes. None of us are perfect. And we all make mistakes. The thing that concerns me about the even the phrase cancel culture is that it doesn't seem to take that into account. Any other ways that we can interpret that that saying that tweet of yours I am the most important person in the world to me things that we haven't spoken about here today that you'd like to kind of delve a little bit deeper into. Well, I think that that the primary thing to understand is that we all have at least two minds, a conscious mind and a subconscious mind. The subconscious mind is basically a brilliant slave. It does what it's told the conscious mind is the boss. Unfortunately, the conscious mind is somewhat limited, even though it can give the orders, the conscious mind can keep track of it the most seven variables at a time. When I was running groups, as soon as I had more than seven people in the group. I was clumping them. They say, Oh, those are the alcoholics over there or something like that. Whereas the subconscious mind is capable of turning the solution to your problems into a motion picture with sound and a story. That's what a dream is. And think of how many thousands of variables have to be manipulated in order to turn the solution to your problems into a movie. And the subconscious mind is trying its best to get a message across to the conscious mind, usually about a stupid order the conscious mind is given. So if you've experienced something that was traumatic, often the conscious mind says, Make sure that never happens again. And of course the subconscious can't do that. And the conscious mind says, I don't want to hear about that. I never want to think about to get that again. And the subconscious now has the problem that the boss is given an order, which makes it very difficult to go on living in the right way because the order is contradictory to survival. The subconscious has to come up with a dream that that gets the attention of the conscious mind. And the biggest mistake most people think is to assume that that dreams are basically nightmares and they're bad and that they're trying to to scare you. When in fact, it's just a subconscious trying to get your attention. And if you become the different parts of the dream, as Fritz Perls did in most of his work, you wind up understanding parts of yourself and making a relationship with parts of yourself that previously you were trying to avoid. So the deeper level of I am the most important person in my, my life is that there are all kinds of parts of me that I need to understand better in order for me to actually take proper care of myself mentioned the relationships I have with others. And, you know, this is one of the reasons that I've been a client of yours for a number of years is that I would say I'm trying to learn or even have a better relationship with aspects of myself that I didn't know or aspects of myself that I don't particularly particularly like. Well, the truth is that that you're one of a very few people who is alive because of some sort of circumstance that should have you dead. And I don't know are you comfortable with my sharing. You know, there are no shared secrets here. I'm, you know, for those who who don't know. Again, I've been a client of Dr. Niels for a number of years. And there have been some pretty serious suicide attempts as you would say Dr. Neil, a 10 on the scale of 10 or even an 11 on the scale of 10 in terms of the seriousness of a suicide attempt on my behalf. I'm fortunate enough that I certainly did survive. The hero story continues. And I'm fortunate to have learned people such as yourself who I like to consider on my team, because I don't believe we can go it alone in today's society and we need people such as yourself who don't have a vested interest, or a bias point such as maybe a family member or a friend may have your completely unbiased and as again you had said the job of your soul is to make sure that my soul is going to be doing the best that I can. Well, the truth is that suicide, as is commonly said in my business is a permanent solution to a temporary problem. I love that I have to say I've incorporated that into my own viewpoint now. But the reality is that you shouldn't be alive. The reality is that you took a loaded gun and pointed it at your heart and pulled the trigger. That is an 11 on a scale of 10 of trying to end your life. The fact that you survived is more the result of you're not knowing where your heart was. I missed everything. But since then, we've been working on your understanding why it is that you're still alive and what raison d'etre what reason to be, you can come up with that will work for you and allow you to take full advantage of the fact that you shouldn't be alive but still are. And, and, you know, to again pull that back into our topic here today, would you, would it be a safe statement to say that I lost sight of that statement that I am the most important person in the world to me at that time and that led to to that to that action. And again, as we say it's it's an 11 on a scale of 10 and I, I know for myself I was in what I would term the tunnel of darkness. And for those who have maybe walked in that tunnel or written in that tunnel that they may very much understand what I'm speaking about that it's very much tunnel vision and the peripheral is is gone it's it's very, very tunnel like. So, as we bring it back to our topic. You know, I would say that, you know, perhaps I lost sight of that in that tunnel of darkness. Yes, yes, I believe that can correct me if I'm wrong but I believe that you were in a rage. One part of you was trying to kill another part of you. And those two parts were not talking to each other. And I think those two parts are communicating with each other now. Although they wouldn't be, and shouldn't be if it hadn't been for the pure chance of your missing your shot. Yeah. And, you know, to that end. I was not under your care at that time. I was very much in an isolation in my own bubble or again in my own tunnel of darkness. And I remember, you know, I remember what was going through my, my head at the time that I didn't want to be a burden to anybody. So, you know, not being under your care and not have or under the care of a professional such as such as yourself. I think that you have that ability for circumspection, if you will. Yeah, yeah, I think that tunnel vision is not a bad concept there. But to understand that there are parts of me that feel like they deserve to be shot. There are parts of me that feel like shooting those parts of me, and until I can totally empathize with both parts until I can, for one of another word, love the part of me that that is both in a rage, and both feels like I deserve to die until I can get that. Sometimes it's referred to as radical acceptance. But loving someone means wanting what's best for them, even if it's not what's best for you. And if you really love somebody. You accept the fact that they deserve to live. And the issue is what's best for them. And the reality is that what was best for the part of you that wanted to kill the part of you that wanted to that was provoking it. What was actually best was for for there to be pure empathy for one part to be inside the mind of the other part, and for them to join. And the person who did the most work on this was a guy named Carl Rogers, whose concept was what's currently thought of as active listening. And I think we're getting totally infuriated myself at watching a video of Carl Rogers talking to someone who was suicidal. And the person who was suicidal was saying, there's no reason for me to live. Nobody understands me nobody listens to me nobody pays any attention to me. I might as well be dead. But Rogers was saying it seems like nobody ever hears you it seems like whatever you say is never anybody to pay attention to you. And after watching, you know, half an hour of this. I wanted to get up and grab the guy and say Rogers is listening to you can't you see that. But by the end of the video, the guy had decided not to kill himself. And the only thing Rogers did was reflect back what he was saying. Rogers became the part of him that needed to listen to him. And I think that you hit on, you know, a word there that I think is really key to this subject. And that is the radical acceptance of self. If you are the most important person in the world to you. That that is only true if you radically accept every part of your personality, especially those that you're not happy with or you don't like. And whatnot. That's exactly right. In fact, most of the parts of ourselves that we don't like come from other people. You're being held and you're getting yelled at or being brought up by somebody. The issue of it's no fun being yourself and you don't have any power. You're basically traumatized you're trapped helpless powerless, perhaps petrified with fear. No fun being yourself might as well become the person who's yelling at you. That's why during the Second World War, there were some Jews walking around goose stepping and acting like Germans. There was no power and being a Jew at Auschwitz. At the same time, the concept of identification with the aggressor, which was later interpreted as the Stockholm syndrome Stockholm syndrome. Thank you. I was searching for that word. Yeah, it's that basic idea that you incorporate the, the enemy state of mind into yourself. And the result is that you hate yourself. Most people don't understand that the opposite of love is not hate. It's indifference. And it's so interesting as you know we, we dive deeper and deeper in here I certainly can identify where this separation for me occurred and it was about eight years old. I was terrorized by my sadistic sister who took great glee in in traumatizing me and at one point identifying with her aggression, which has led to years of self loathing. Yes. And eight years old is a very interesting age, you know, because developmentally Piaget showed that, that that's the age at which you can get inside the perception of another person. It's a very limited perception, but a seven year old is placed in front of a paper machine mountain range. A doll placed at the other side of the mountain range at the 70 year old is asked, what does the doll see the 70 year old will choose what he or she sees an eight year old can choose what the doll would see. So there's an actual change of perception that takes place between seven and eight. When I was eight years old. I was so furious with my mother that I locked myself in the bathroom and had figured out how I was going to kill myself. And I had razor blades there and all the rest of that and my mother was so terrified that she called my father, who was my model for what a good daddy should be. He started asking me questions and I said, you know, I can't wait to see her face after I'm dead. And he said, well, how are you going to do that. That's why I didn't kill myself when I was eight years old. So, you know, as we wrap up here, would you say that you're trying to, you know, for the last let's say 60 years carry on the work of your father, perhaps do a great degree. And maybe if I've done it right. In some areas I can do a little better than he did. In his life, my father ate himself to death. He gained 100 pounds. I've had to work very hard on keeping from being substantially overweight and trying to not make the mistake my father made. And by the way, my best friend did the same thing. Some 40 years after that has been very difficult because understanding I come from a background that's half Jewish and half Italian. If you want screwed up attitudes towards food, just check those cultures out. Because I as I speak with you what really helps in in my interaction with you is to recognize that, whilst I may put you on a pedestal as the good daddy quote unquote, to use your words, that you also are not infallible that you struggle with weight issues I struggle with weight issues so to know that you struggle with it as well. 30 years, or 50 years, or, excuse me 20 years older than myself, and I've also had, you know, thoughts of self harm. It shows your humanity to me, and puts it in a more real context, so that it becomes so good mental health becomes more attainable for me does that make sense. Of course, you know we're both just guys doing the best we can to, to improve ourselves. I've done quite a bit, quite a lot of progress and hopefully I have to, but if there's ever somebody that I can't get inside their minds. That's a challenge to me, and I'll keep working on it, because I love the puzzle of understanding how someone else thinks. So our topic again is I am the most important person in the world to myself. Do you have final thoughts on that topic now. The most important person I can be to myself as someone who understands other people and helps them to be more important to themselves. If I'm doing that I'm doing my job right, and it gives me a rush. Anything else, I'm probably being selfish and selfish to me means being able to help other people. There's nothing wrong with being selfish if you're helping other people. If you're out for yourself at the expense of other people, you're playing around with with either crazy or evil. Crazy is doing something that that hurts others or yourself, and you're not aware of it. Evil is doing something that makes yourself feel better at someone else's expense and knowing it. I guess today, and my co host is Dr Neil Maranello he's a behavior expert with, I would say over 60 years in the behavior field. We're speaking about tweets on his Twitter page you can follow him at coach Dr Neil, you're welcome to also subscribe to this podcast and to like it and to ask a question and in our next podcast will do our best to answer it. Dr Neil Maranello. On behalf of the doctor I'm Matt Kelly wishing you good mental health.