Ep 251: Shaping Identity with Values
Andy Earle
Hey, it's Andy from talking to teens, it would mean the world to us. If you could leave us a five star review, reviews on Apple and Spotify help other parents find the show. And that helps us keep the lights on. Thanks for being a listener. And here's the show. You're listening to talking to teens, where we speak with leading experts from a variety of disciplines about the art and science of parenting teenagers. I'm your host, Andy Earle. We're here with Sam LaCrosse, talking about values in how values are actually built and created. Sam is the author of value, economics, the study of identity, we are going to see that values are inherently linked to sacrifice, and that in order to get things that we really deeply value in life, we have to make sacrifices, how do we help our teenagers develop strong values themselves, Sam is going to teach us how to use the Principles of Economics to help our teenagers develop strong values. All that and more is coming up on the show today. Sam, thank you so much for being here.
Sam LaCrosse
Andy, brother, it's great to be here. Thanks for having me, man, really appreciate the opportunity to build
Andy Earle
this is really exciting. I've been reading through your book here value economics, the study of identity, what what? Wow, there's, there's, there's really a lot going on here. There's so much to talk about what what even is value economics. So value
Sam LaCrosse
economics, I can either go into the backstory, or I can go into the concept itself, I think they kind of mesh together and one of the two things. So basically, value economics as a whole is just a way of utilizing our values to best fit ourselves and grab Raider, on identities in a sustainable fashion outside of inside, rather our values. So I think that really the topic of identity in general has become if not the biggest, one of the biggest triggers in our society right now in terms of like, starting a either good conversation, not so good conversation. It's just a conversation piece in general. And I think that, you know, that's a big question that a lot of people, a lot of people my age, I'm 25 and I was 24 when I published the book, so a lot of younger people are asking themselves, you know, who am I? Who do I belong with? Who should I be friends with? Who should I stay away from? What should I grow in to? What should I grow away from? And these are all really important questions for people to ask. And I think that unfortunately, there's a lot of bad information out there. They're kind of getting, you know, getting through the filtration system with some of these people. And I don't think it's very sustainable for a lot of people in the long term to really cling to some of these ideas. So I just wanted to propose a new one. And it originally started as a series of blogs. And I wrote on my blog way back in, gosh, probably, first one was in January of 2020. So it was really, really long while ago. I watched it for a long time. It came out almost a year ago on June 28 2022. And it's I believe, honestly, I'm still getting interviewed about it now, which is so crazy, almost a year later. So yeah, that's kind of what it is.
Andy Earle
You say that there are some things that the self help industry got wrong. That idea that anyone can have it all. You're special, work hard, be positive, you can accomplish your dreams, you say is not not true.
Sam LaCrosse
I say it's mostly not true. And I think it's a lot of more being misguided than anything else. A lot of misguided advice, I think in a lot of
Andy Earle
ways, because though, what do you mean? Yeah,
Sam LaCrosse
I think that just in general, overall, the self help industry is more about there's a famous, I hope that you know, the parents will not get too offended by this. But there's a famous quote from Fight Club where Tyler Durden the main character says self improvement is masturbation and self destruction is actually where you see improvement in yourself. And I think the self help industry is very masturbatory, I can say in a lot of ways it more is involving stimulation rather than improvement and rather than actual helping getting to the root of the issue. I don't think a lot of times looking at the looking at the positives, obviously where we want to end up right, we want to end up in a more positive light and a better place in life. But until then, you know, we won't get there. We really just kind of mask all the problems and avail of why all the mindless positivity and honestly a lot of just overall narcissism or narcissism isn't really qualified for because if there is a problem, and you just say that a problem doesn't exist, and you'd say that you're actually good at something when you're really not that great at something. It's not bad to say that you're not good at that thing, but it is bad. I think you falsely propagate a lie that says that you are really good at something when you're not really good at something because that is actually shutting improvement and self help and it's not helping or improving anyone
Andy Earle
including yourself where Do you think that false positivity comes from?
Sam LaCrosse
I've been reading a lot about psychology recently. My second book is coming out later in the year, but it's not really focused on this element. I'm actually writing my third book as of right now, research of it about a month ago. Well, you know, I've been reading a lot into the psychology of it, I didn't really understand to be honest, how big of a bump and a boon, the self help, or the self esteem movement rather than was like the invention or inoculation of people like Abraham Maslow into the culture with the hierarchy of needs, I think a lot of it was like a logical people got a lot met from, you know, reading books or doing other things. But I think overall, you know, there's just such a, I think social media has something to do with it a lot to where people just see a highlight reel of everyone in their life. And they think that they should just kind of match that energy all the time. And it creates this really bizarre sort of arms race with who can have the best life out of all of your friends, which is a remarkably self destructive process, in my opinion. But I think, you know, it's, it's, it's a lot of factors. And one, it's a very complicated one to answer. But I think it's just overall it comes down to I think, just a lack of wanting to see what's actually there in the form of seeing something that actually is there. And, you know, you want to see what you want to see. But you don't want to see what might be actually there sometimes. And to do that, I think the best way to say is like, it doesn't matter, you're great anyway, you're special, you're different, you're fine, when if you're not fine, then that's a very destructive thing to tell that person, they think that you owe it to the person tell them the truth. And I, I'm a big fan of Jordan Peterson in his work, and he's my personal hero. And a lot of ways I think that I heard repeaters since they are a quote that someone said about Jordan Peterson saying recently when he was when he was talking to somebody in the conversation with that, you know, if you, if you tell the truth, no matter what the best thing is going to happen. Either if that truth hurts someone or helps that person, because the truth is truth. And it's really its objective, there's no getting around it. So even if that is you saying that you're not that great of a student, and you need to get better and make that person feel bad in the moment, but hopefully, it puts them on the right path to get, you know, better grades and their study habits and really, you know, maybe respect for teachers more or do something in that nature. But I think that overall, it just kind of a general twisting of the truth and not really being rooted in reality, and us not wanting to maybe confront some of the ugly things about themselves. And if I can say this, as well, that's why I think I was, you know, so personal inside of the book with a lot of personal anecdotes and personal stories surrounding myself. And I have a method that I think I stick to pretty religiously inside of all my writings and my blogs and my substack podcast and in my books is that I will never punch someone in the face as much as I punch as hard rather, as and punch myself in the face. And I wanted to make that pretty evidently clear with all of my dirty secrets, all of my screw ups, all of the things that I did wrong in my life, and how much I screwed myself over and a lot of ways because I think it's kind of unfair, where a lot of people just throw stones rather than, you know, throw a stone at themselves once in a while but hold themselves accountable.
Andy Earle
That is you get really wrong, really vulnerable in the book and share a lot about your own experiences. And I think it really adds a lot to the book and as provides a lot that, you know, you can resonate with as a reader.
You talked about something called the factors of value production. What do you mean by that?
Sam LaCrosse
Yeah, so basically, the whole concept of value economics is that it takes your values, or it takes rather economic principles, because we need I think, you know, a big concept that I leaned on when sketching out the idea for this book was that we all depend on models to some degree, no matter what that degree is, to chart a path for our lives. We need maps, we need models, we need courses to navigate in order to properly navigate the world, especially something as complex as the day to day life of an average person, which is really, really complicated and variable by iteration on some people. And I think that we all draw models for things whether that is what I have your relationship looks like, whether that's what a family looks like, whether it's what are the career looks like, I think in terms of our values, we needed something in a structure in order to really confine our value system inside of the economic model that I chose as a really good ethical Act, or application to values at the genesis of values and I go very, very bare bones start off the book like literally what is a value it is a raw material that you need to forge into something else I went back to my economic principles and that I you know, that I leaned on a lot during college I was a finance major in college and I took AP econ in high school and sucked at it. So I guess that counts to I went to into I went back to those and the I think the biggest application because out what are the factors of production, so land, labor, capital and entrepreneurship, which basically are the four main factors that are pretty commonly agreed upon upon most economists as the foundational elements of an economy you need something to draw resources from you need a work for you to be a workforce to shape those resources into something you need capital to expedite the process and you entrepreneur to tie everything together and organize it and that was what I did to kind of draw the book and basically say, these are the four things you need to do. Do you craft a value individually. And then before you can go and sort it into a system and talk about access, and all those things that I talked about later inside of the book, that is what you need to do in order to really start crafting values in the first place. I love
Andy Earle
that. So how do you do that? Or what do you mean by crafting about your craft about you is it just the value just is a thing it is your
Sam LaCrosse
right, it is a thing. But I think all things are made out of a desk is a thing, a cable is a thing, but I think you need to go back. And there were a lot of things to get that desk to where the desk is able to get where the table is, the translation, or the factors of production and factors of value production is really, really critical. And I wanted to make that very, very clear, and have really, you know, capable and understandable and relatable differences and similarities between all four of the things. So land, labor, capital, entrepreneurship did the right color factors of production translated to your experiences, your actions, your discipline, and your self awareness in terms of the way you craft your values. So that is how a lot of things really come together in terms of crafting a value, those are the four factors of value production that I thought were the most consequential to really craft individual value. So let's go through all of them. I guess from here as well, we might as well just go through all them. So your experiences are the most fun, the foundational way you understand the world, it's what you see it what you hear, it's what you experienced, when you talk, it's what you feel, it's your emotions, everything surrounding it, that is the biggest in my estimation, the biggest raw material to your cycle and your psychological makeup that you have is what you perceive about the world, then your actions is how you take those experiences. And you act upon those in some way you can either drawn to a shell outward, you can go left, you can go right so that is the work that is done upon those experiences, your discipline on behalf of those, it's how well you curate your actions based on those experiences, that is the capital that expedites the process. So if you experience someone being in good shape, you take an action by being in good shape yourself by going to go work out three times a week. And you repeat that process three times a week, every week of the year for the next five years to get in really good shape. And then your self awareness on top of that is the entrepreneurship the entrepreneur is like we all see it the iron Sal Ron, right, it's kind of like the all seeing eye at the top of the pyramid gazes down on everything in C is kind of how the process is going. So if you are, for example, like 130 pounds soaking wet, but you go into the gym, and you're trying to do a workout routine, and you put 600 pounds leg press, and let's just say let's do this thing, that's probably not a very good long term strategy, if your overall health, you're probably going to end up doing some very not great biggest your body by doing that. And really, by seeing how everything works together, you can analyze and really take yourself apart and say that, okay, this isn't working, I need to readjust here, I need to put this in place of this thing, I need to wrap this thing around and see how it's working, and how it can adjust to make it go better for myself. And when you see that with a bunch of values, you can bet a lot of values and create a lot of values out of raw material and your experiences later that would be sorted and allocated in your value pie chart. So you can eventually make decisions that correct your identity based on values.
Andy Earle
What kind of things would be helpful as a parent of a teenager to help them craft stronger values? Or yeah, I
Sam LaCrosse
think it's having values yourselves, I think, you know, parents who by having a strong set of convictions now this is this does not mean that one parent dominates the other parent, what their value system, one parent kind of says, like, you know, stay in the kitchen, like whatever. Like all that kind of thing. I highly disagree with that behavior. But I think a shared value systems where people can do the rest reciprocal with one another. So a mom and a dad, for example, who share a lot of the responsibilities in the household, or they say that you know, this person, you know, this person goes to get the kids from practice while this person makes dinner. So when everyone gets home, we can all sit down and enjoy the meal together without having us run around screaming each other. There's friction in the house, whatever that might be. And you know, I'm far from a parent, I admire parents greatly. I'm not a parent, I don't have children, I don't have a white girl. So likely, I don't think Well, that's remains to be seen. But we'll hopefully get to a point where that happens. But But I think that overall, just the modeling of it is really crucial. And also I think you have to with children, especially you have to raise them to be, I would say courageous, and where a lot of people I think falter in terms of their value systems initially, is that they're afraid to polarize people? Well, I think that you know, even though you can be the most tolerant person in the world, and still polarize people, and that, you know, when I say that analogy, it's kind of, you know, a lot of people are like, Oh, well, what do you mean by that? They're tolerant of everything. It's like, well, no, they're not like you think a tolerant person is tolerant of intolerant people? Like, no, of course not, it's completely opposite to what they think you can raise someone to be as effective as you want. This person can be as altruistic, as nice, I mean, as strong, as weak as whatever. But they're going to polarize someone by their actions on the left. So what I would tell parents on behalf of their children is to say, you know, we have thoroughly vetted our values. Hopefully, at this point, this is a good thing and a good model for you to follow. And now you need to really I encourage you to be courageous and stick by those values even when it gets hard, because you're going to end up polarizing something no matter what, and the worst possible polarization Students when you don't have values, and someone just goes down and gets to tell you that these are, what your values are your old values with yourself don't matter anymore. That's not you know, and there are some cases where that's warranted, if you work for a company, for example, you have to adhere to a certain set of, you know, corporate Code of Conduct a set of standards, if you are in a relationship, you obviously cannot do the things that are acceptable to the other person in that relationship, or unacceptable to that person in that relationship, excuse me, but you need to stand firm and you have, you need to have your non negotiables. And I argue that your value should be your non negotiables. And if you because if you compromise those, you compromise your identity, and therefore your identity gets taken, captured. And you know, I would say, held up by a lot of other people when it might not be in your best interest to do that.
Andy Earle
You're talking about access in the book a decent amount, a say there are different types of access. How is that possible?
Sam LaCrosse
So this is one of my favorite chapters I created this is this is really fun posted I did basically, I view access in a lot of ways, like a lot of values, it's a tool to be used as a measuring stick in a lot of ways. So excess, in my opinion, is just kind of what to what degree do you take a certain aspect of your life? So what in this case, what degree do you take your values, there are people on the extreme ends of access, there are people or that are on the non extreme ends of access. And I titled the chapter living at your means of value is because you know, if you're you again using an economic print for financial principle more so in this concept you want to be you know, I was taught to do things by my father and my my grandfather in terms of finances, you want to save enough money for a rainy day you want to live it Live slightly below or at your meet, that's really good advice, especially when it comes to values. Because if you are too rigid to your values, and you and you say that you can do no wrong with your values, which is not the case, I don't think for anything, including something like honesty or strength or courage or something, then you're going to end up harming somebody in a lot of ways. But if you don't use them at all, you might as well not have values and your purpose bliss ball of Blair, like I just say, in the first part of the book, you're just kind of nothing, you're just kind of floating along at the wind. So I think that the most dangerous level of access is the excessive portion because that's when we get people who are so aggressive with their value system that they can see no way to coexist with another person inside of their own value hierarchy. And I use the example in the chapter of TJ Lane, the sharp school shooter, who I'm from Cleveland, he grew up about 45 minutes from my house that happened, I think, when I was in seventh grade, and you know, TJ Lane was so convicted, and the way that he thought about his students and the way that he saw his worldview, and this is unfortunate what happens with all radicalized people, whether it's, you know, school shooters, or whether it's our religious extremists, or whether it's political extremists, they just get to a certain point where they say that their way is the only way possible. And any way that deviates from this way is something that cannot exist, and then they go and they start to erase everything else. And even if you go to like a lower level, I think this is how I think a lot of abuse happens, physically met are all three physically, mentally and emotionally what let's just say like, a husband gets so dominant over his wife that the only way that he feels that he can, you know, remain in control of his identity is by striking her for example, or a woman who is so you know, in dominant over her husband that the only that she's threatened by him, and the only way that she can say that, you know, she or convinced herself rather, that you can stay in control of the household is by putting him down and by disrespecting him in front of the children or in front of his friends or something and just bludgeoning him over the head with that kind of a with that kind of a hammer. Well, I think that you know, excessive access, the total, you know, buy in your value system is, is something that I don't incur at all, because I think you should always be you should be written and you should be firm. This is not a call to not be strong inside of your value system. But it is a call to be checking of yourself in terms of your value system, you need to make sure that you're not going too far in some areas, because you are going to end up doing harm to other people and to yourself and to those who love you. And those are not good things, as far as I'm concerned.
Andy Earle
Yeah. It's always like the balance to have being open to other possibilities and that there might be a better way to
Sam LaCrosse
Yeah, I agree. I agree totally.
Andy Earle
You talk about your own values in the book as well. Your number one is self awareness. You say self awareness, you believe is the single most important trait a person can just why is that?
Sam LaCrosse
Well, I think it's kind of what you just said, Andy, it's kind of like you have to be open to change and you have to be open to something and you have to adapt. Like I said, you know, if you're, if you're driving yourself into the ground in some You know, variation or another net is not a bad thing at all. And I talked about that later in the book in chapter six, when we get to diminishing returns value, I talked about that a lot. But I think that overall self awareness is so critical, because you need to be just kind of cognizant of what your identity is at all times. And you need to be able to protect that and adapt. Because if you're in a world, like you don't want to be blockbuster in the time of Netflix, I'll just put it that way. Like you don't want to be something where it's like, there is such a seismic shift going around in your worldview, that you are so rigid in your own personal ideology that you cannot adapt to it. And I think, you know, we're seeing that now, I think, you know, in my day job, for example, I do technology sales, and it's something we're seeing that's really big in the tech space right now with the adoption of AI. And I think, you know, a lot of people have talked about this, I think I caught Andrew Yang earlier in the book, so I'll use him as an example. But, you know, Andrew Yang, I think it said something to the effect of, you know, and you know, this is not an endorsement or an endorsement, Andrew Yang, I think it was just a good point, in general, he just said inside of something he's like, you know, we're operating on the hardware of the Nike 60 space program, but we're trying to run the software on the 2023 space program right now, and a lot of ways. So I think that the rigidity of something in the in the face of change, there's no one a service at all, to be quite honest to you, I think it does them a disservice. And because self awareness is the ability to change your change internally, and change your value compass internally when it's warranted. And when you feel that it's right to, I think it that is the one value that I recommend everyone have, you need to be in tune with who you are, or else you're going to probably run into a buzzsaw in some way in some form or fashion sooner rather than later.
Andy Earle
But if you think that we can do to promote more self awareness, in our teenagers,
Sam LaCrosse
I think that a lot of people don't know how to be in silence. Now, especially teenagers, unfortunately, I think that you know, they have a lot of ways around them in terms of social media, their phones, and I think that I've been thinking a lot about this, because I'm Gen Z. And I think Gen Z is a pretty last pause, if I'm being honest with you. And you know, it's not telling the parents of Gen Z to give up on their kid by any means. But the flip side of that is that I am really optimistic about generation alpha, I'm really optimistic about them, because I think that my generation, they got hit by social media, and they are now getting hit by AI, and they got hit by COVID. And generation alpha, afterwards, they will have dealt with the repercussions of the pandemic, they will have been completely born in a world full of native social media, and they will know how to use AI better than we will. So I think that I'm very optimistic that generation alpha, and I hope you got that I'm right about this is the generation that's going to save the world. At the end of the day, truly, I think I'm very, very optimistic about them. But I think that if they get too bogged down into their technology, if they get too invested inside of their own inside of their own selves, they can get captured by a lot of things, which is very something that's very scary, we're seeing a lot with social media, especially with tick tock was short form video content with everything you're seeing on the internet. But I think that to provoke more self awareness, I think, you know, get into a space where it's less noisy. And, and also that means yourself as well, I would say, you know, talk less, what I have learned about myself is that, you know, I'm my job is all of my jobs, really, I am a salesman, I'm a podcaster, I'm a writer. So my jobs are all output. Like I constantly just like forcing stuff out of my head and out of my mouth, what I have found very valuable is when I'm in social situations, I try to listen as much as possible. And I try to take in as much as possible, because I'm very fortunate now it can be surrounded by a lot of very, very intelligent, smart people. And if I, if I, you know, and I know that's a very, that's a very big privilege. And I think that there I would be a shame to waste it. And if I have all the smart people around me with different worldviews, especially recently, I would say in the last year, I know people that have lived all over the world, people that are from different ethnic backgrounds, from different parts of the country, like, you know, all these all these wonderful, wonderful people that have come into my life recently. And I think it would be a shame to waste all that experience and that knowledge and that talent, they all have inside of themselves by me just talking and succumbing to my own narcissism all the time. So I would say to kind of get into a space where you can be quiet with yourself and be in a space where you can be quiet with others. And that really causes your brain to turn on a very different way in the not so really stimulatory way, but a way that's more absorbing and a lot of ways you'd be like a sponge more than a I don't know what it word is. I don't want to say the thing that was going to say it because it's probably inappropriate in the parents and teens podcast, but I think that just kind of your I would also like just you want to be a sponge. That's basically the end of the day, you want to be a sponge. You don't want to be something that's constantly like bouncing off the walls running around the room all the time. That's not good for anybody.
Andy Earle
I love that I think so much about the need to just create space in our lives. How we have to be so cautious about doing that and how can we especially as parents of teenagers To create space and their lives as well, it's best for us to be together. Yeah,
Sam LaCrosse
I agree 100%.
Andy Earle
We're here with Sam lacrosse, talking about how to actually build values in teenagers. And we're not done yet. Here's a look at what's coming up in the second half of the show.
Sam LaCrosse
There is a diminishing return to almost anything. This is kind of the wanting yourself round argument that I made earlier. The example that I use with me was that I had basically a ravenous strive to, I would say, you know, in college because I was dealing with a lot of insecurities. To be quite frank, I was the most insecure person I've ever met in my life. I was very angry. At that point in my life. Also, in a lot of things, I was very angry, I didn't really realize so like until now, honestly, until probably the last year how angry I was as a child. And as a young adult, I was I was mad at everything. I was mad at the world, I was mad at my siblings, I was mad at my classmates, I was mad at my friends like I was mad, am I mad at myself, obviously, more than anything else, oh, but that anger really drove me to succeed in many, many ways. So your choice to pursue a career, you might want to pursue the choice to pursue a romantic partner, you might want choice to do something else like that. Those are situations when you live by a principle value oriented life that are going to not sit well with everyone. And I think that, you know, a man that pleases everyone pleases nobody. Because you know, you need to have a thing that you stick out for. So you can't be one foot in every single camp, it's impossible, you'll destroy your brain in the process, first of all, on trying to fit that many hats on yourself. And that being the identities inside of one identity in and of itself is is not good for the site yet prior to before it's not worth it. And second of all, you know, you won't get any meaning on it. Because like I said before, you know, value comes by sacrificing things. You need to be cognizant of that. And I think that people are cognizant of that. They know that they're okay with pain and causing pain to others, but they know that it's for the best for themselves and their value system and probably for the other person that they're having good values in their system also, and this is hard for teens, right? Because you're kinda you know, really figuring a lot of things out. And I think, you know, making choices that do sacrifice either relationships with people or their general self acceptance or anything is very, very hard. And so hopefully, I want this to be a source of encouragement for them as well, because I think that you know, just knowing that on the other side, it's it's painful in the short term, but in the long term, you know, the right choice is guided by the right values will get you to all the right places, at least in my opinion, in my experience they have
Andy Earle
want to hear the full episode, head over to talking to teens.com/register. For a free trial of our premium podcast, you get exclusive access to loads of great content with no obligation and your membership supports the work we do here at talking to teens get started today with a free trial over at talking to teens.com/registered Thanks for listening. We'll see you next week.
