From “Why Me?” to “What Now?”: A New Approach to Pain and Growth with Scott Barry Kaufman

The One You Feed

Eric Zimmer

Education, Self-improvement, Religion & Spirituality, Health & Fitness, Buddhism, Mental Health

4.6 • 2.5K Ratings

🗓️ 8 July 2025

⏱️ 57 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

In this episode, Scott Barry Kaufman challenges us to go from asking ourselves “Why Me?” to “What Now?” as he unpacks a new approach to pain and growth. Scott explains how the real work happens in the messy middle as we unpack the dangers of black and white thinking, and why genuine change isn’t about a single epiphany, but a thousand small choices. If you’ve ever wondered how to hold your suffering without letting it define you, or how to spot the agency that you still have, this episode is for you.

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Key Takeaways:

The concept of a victim mindset and its impact on personal growth.
The importance of personal agency and empowerment in overcoming challenges.
The balance between acknowledging suffering and recognizing potential for growth.
The role of emotions and cognitive distortions in shaping our mindset.
Techniques for emotional regulation and reframing negative thoughts.
The significance of self-compassion and its role in personal development.
The dangers of black-and-white thinking and the need for nuanced perspectives.
The relationship between trauma, identity, and self-worth.
The process of post-traumatic growth and healing from past experiences.
Listener questions addressing limiting beliefs and the fear of the unknown.

If you enjoyed this conversation with Scott Barry Kaufman, check out these other episodes:

Tasha Eurich on Growing Self-Awareness

How to Choose Growth with Scott Barry Kaufman & Jordyn Feingold

For full show notes, click here!

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Transcript

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0:00.0	just like you're challenging your emotions, challenge your cognitive distortions. You know,
0:04.0	what's the worst thing that could happen? What's the best thing that could happen? What's the
0:08.0	most realistic thing that's probably going to happen from this situation? And work with the
0:12.5	reality, the most probabilistic.
0:24.2	Welcome to the one you feed.
0:28.9	Throughout time, great thinkers have recognized the importance of the thoughts we have.
0:34.4	Quotes like, garbage in, garbage out, or you are what you think, ring true.
0:39.2	And yet, for many of us, our thoughts don't strengthen or empower us. We tend toward negativity, self-pity, jealousy, or fear.
0:44.0	We see what we don't have instead of what we do.
0:46.8	We think things that hold us back and dampen our spirit.
0:50.4	But it's not just about thinking.
0:52.3	Our actions matter.
0:53.8	It takes conscious, consistent, and creative effort to make a life worth living.
0:58.5	This podcast is about how other people keep themselves moving in the right direction, how they feed their good wolf.
1:07.3	These days, it's easy to feel pulled to extremes.
1:10.5	We're told to bear our wounds or to just move
1:13.4	on, to blame the world or blame ourselves. But the real work happens in the messy middle,
1:19.8	in the nuance, as Scott Barry Kaufman says, that doesn't trend. In this episode, Scott and I
1:27.1	talk about his new book, Rise Above, and the power and the cost
1:32.2	of identifying with our pain.
1:34.2	I'll share what I learned in recovery how facing the truth of my addiction and my gloomy
1:39.9	temperament was the start, not the end of growth.
	...

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