This is The Reason Interview with Nick Gillespie.

My guest today is psychologist, podcaster, and best-selling author Scott Barry Kaufman,

whose new book is Rise Above, Overcome a Victim Mindset, Empower Yourself, and Realize Your Full Potential.

It's part self-help, part social commentary, and all about

reclaiming your life from limiting beliefs. I talked with him in front of a live audience at

the Village Underground Comedy Club in New York City, and Scott discusses his unlikely journey

from special ed student to Ivy League academic, how we've built a society that

rewards neuroticism and victimhood, and why he thinks vulnerable narcissism is running wild

on college campuses and in national politics. Scott mixes the empathy of Carl Rogers with

the blunt logic of Albert Ellis.

They were two of the 20th century's most influential therapist, and he counts them as

influences.

And he has some wild stories involving opera school, Facebook stalking his childhood bullies,

and awkward camp crushes.

This is a conversation about tapping into your full potential and taking control of your

life while making the world a better place.

Here is the reason interview with Scott Barry Kaufman.

Let's have a big hand for Scott Barry Kaufman.

I want to start with Rise Above.

You have an epigraph at the beginning, which is from Carl Jung, and it says, I'm not what happened to me.

I am what I choose to become.

Could you?

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