Prof. Eleanor Hart: Here’s a question for you, alecm. How often do we tell ourselves, "I'll start that project," or "I'll have that difficult conversation," or "I'll get back on my diet... as soon as I feel motivated"? We wait for the right feeling to strike.

alecm: All the time. It’s the classic trap, isn't it? We treat motivation like it's this magical lightning bolt we have to wait for, and in the meantime, nothing gets done. We're just... waiting.

Prof. Eleanor Hart: Exactly. We're waiting. And our guest authors today would say we’re waiting for a train that’s never coming. We’re diving into a book with a very direct title, "F*ck Feelings: One Shrink's Practical Advice for Managing Life's Impossible Problems," by Dr. Michael Bennett and his daughter, Sarah Bennett. It’s a refreshingly blunt, and often hilarious, rejection of that entire mindset.

alecm: I love that. It feels like an antidote to the toxic positivity that’s everywhere.

Prof. Eleanor Hart: It absolutely is. And it’s perfect for our conversation today because it offers such a practical, analytical framework for growth, which I know you appreciate. So, today we'll dive deep into this from two powerful perspectives. First, we'll explore the liberating idea that action, not emotion, is the true engine of progress. Then, we'll discuss how this mindset builds the kind of resilience we see in history's most formidable figures.

Prof. Eleanor Hart: So, let's start with that first idea, which is the core of the whole book. It’s this concept of, for lack of a better term, "Fuck Self-Improvement." What on earth do they mean by that?

alecm: It sounds so counterintuitive, especially for someone focused on growth. It’s like saying, "Stop trying to get better."

Prof. Eleanor Hart: Right? But what they're really attacking is the feeling of self-improvement. They draw this brilliant distinction between a "bad wish" and a "good goal." A bad wish is something like, "I want to be my best me!" or "I want to learn to love myself!" or the big one, "I want to feel motivated!" These are wishes because they depend on feelings, which are totally outside of our control.

alecm: They’re vague and immeasurable. You can’t tick a box that says "loved myself today."

Prof. Eleanor Hart: Precisely. A good goal, in their view, is concrete, behavioral, and completely independent of your feelings. So instead of "I want to be a better person," a good goal is "I will not yell at my partner today, even if I feel angry." Instead of "I want to feel motivated," it's "I will work on this report for 20 minutes, even though I'd rather do anything else." The book is filled with stories of people trapped by these bad wishes. There's one that really sticks with me, about a salesman.

alecm: Tell me.

Prof. Eleanor Hart: He was a hardworking guy, life was good. Then, in quick succession, his company gets sold and he's laid off. He finds a new, lower-paying job with a boss who clearly dislikes him. And just as he's reeling from that, his wife, who he thought he had a great marriage with, announces she's leaving him. His entire world just... stampeded.

alecm: Wow. That’s a total loss of control.

Prof. Eleanor Hart: A total loss. And his "bad wish" was, "I just want to regain control of my life. I want to stop feeling like a loser." He was so overwhelmed he couldn't stop crying. The book's advice isn't to try and stop the feeling of being a loser. That's impossible. The advice is to accept that life is chaos, the feelings are real, but to focus on one, tiny, controllable action. Maybe the goal for that day is just getting out of bed. Maybe it's making one phone call. The action comes first. The feeling of control, if it comes at all, is a byproduct, not a prerequisite.

alecm: That's fascinating. It reminds me so much of the principles in nutrition and physical wellness. No one ever feels like prepping vegetables for the week on a Sunday night, or going for a run when it's cold and dark. You don't wait for the feeling.

Prof. Eleanor Hart: Yes! That's a perfect analogy.

alecm: You do it because you've made a commitment to a system, to an action. The "good feeling" doesn't come from the act of chopping broccoli. It comes hours or days later, when you're tired and you open the fridge and there's healthy food ready to go. The prior action created the desired state. It’s about building a procedure for your life that functions even when your emotions are going haywire.

Prof. Eleanor Hart: A procedure for your life. That's exactly it. You're building a system that is stronger than your feelings. You're not trying to defeat your feelings; you're just making them irrelevant to your next action.

alecm: So, in a professional context, if your goal is career growth, the "bad wish" is "I want to be a better leader." It’s meaningless. The "good goal" is "This week, in every meeting, I will make a point to actively listen and summarize the key takeaway at the end." You can do that whether you feel confident or terrified.

Prof. Eleanor Hart: Exactly. You measure the action, not the emotion. And that is a game-changer.

Prof. Eleanor Hart: That's a perfect bridge, alecm. Because once you accept that your actions, not your feelings, are in the driver's seat, it fundamentally changes how you deal with the world's biggest problems. And that brings us to our second idea: "F*ck Fairness" and building real resilience.

alecm: This is the part that really got me thinking. The idea that demanding fairness is actually a weakness.

Prof. Eleanor Hart: It's a radical thought. The book argues that the world is inherently, fundamentally unfair. Things will not always go your way. People will betray you. You will get screwed over. And if your sense of self-worth—your self-esteem—is tied to getting a fair outcome, you will be perpetually miserable and fragile.

alecm: Because you've outsourced your well-being to the universe, and the universe doesn't care.

Prof. Eleanor Hart: The universe does not care! They argue that real confidence, real resilience, doesn't come from success or from people treating you well. It comes from knowing that you faced an unfair, difficult, or even abusive situation and you conducted yourself according to your own values. It's the pride in your conduct, not the outcome. The book has a story about a kid named Alex being relentlessly bullied at school. His initial wish was for the bullies to just stop, for things to be fair. But that was out of his control.

alecm: Right, he couldn't control them.

Prof. Eleanor Hart: He couldn't. The shift happened when he stopped focusing on the unfairness and started focusing on his own actions. He confided in a teacher. He reported the behavior. He took steps. The pride came not when the bullies were punished, but when he decided to act, to stand up for his own dignity, regardless of the risk. His actions were his own. You know, alecm, when we talked about this, you brought up Ruth Bader Ginsburg, which I think is a brilliant, high-level example of this principle. How do you see her career as an embodiment of this?

alecm: Oh, completely. RBG is the ultimate case study in "F*ck Fairness." She entered a legal world that was structurally, profoundly, and unapologetically unfair to women. A "bad wish" would have been to stand on a podium and scream, "This is unfair! Change it!" And she certainly felt that outrage, I'm sure.

Prof. Eleanor Hart: Of course. But that wasn't her strategy.

alecm: Not at all. Her strategy was pure, procedural action. She didn't demand the system change overnight. She accepted the unfair reality of the system as it was, and then she used its own logic against it. She took cases, one by one, that seemed small and insignificant. She built a chain of precedent, brick by brick. Her focus wasn't on the grand, emotional victory, but on the meticulous, often tedious, work of writing the brief, of crafting the argument.

Prof. Eleanor Hart: The controllable action.

alecm: Exactly. Her confidence and her legacy weren't built on the world suddenly becoming fair to her. They were built on the quality of her work and her unwavering commitment to her procedure in the face of that unfairness. She didn't need the world to feel fair to do her job. She just did the job, and in doing so, she bent the arc of the world toward fairness. It’s the ultimate proof that action, not emotion or wishful thinking, is what creates change.

Prof. Eleanor Hart: That is such a powerful way to put it. She built her own architecture of resilience through her actions, making the system's unfairness the raw material for her work, rather than an obstacle that stopped her.

Prof. Eleanor Hart: So we have these two powerful, linked ideas from "F*ck Feelings." First, to escape the motivation trap by prioritizing concrete actions over fleeting feelings.

alecm: It's about building a system for yourself that works even on your worst days.

Prof. Eleanor Hart: And second, to build true resilience by focusing on your own conduct and values, which you can control, rather than on the fairness of the world, which you absolutely cannot.

alecm: It's about building your own internal structure of self-worth when the external world doesn't provide one for you. It’s incredibly empowering, actually. It takes the power back from circumstances and places it in your own hands, in your own actions.

Prof. Eleanor Hart: It really does. It’s a tough philosophy, but a deeply practical and strengthening one. Which brings us to a final thought for our listeners. The book is all about turning vague wishes into concrete actions.

alecm: The most important step.

Prof. Eleanor Hart: So for our listeners, and for us, the question to ponder this week is this: What's one "bad wish" in your professional or personal life—something like, "I wish I were more confident," or "I wish I were more motivated"—that you can reframe this week into one small, concrete, manageable action?

alecm: Not a feeling to chase, but a thing to do.

Prof. Eleanor Hart: A thing to do. And then just... do it. And see what happens next. alecm, thank you for this incredibly insightful conversation.

alecm: This was fantastic. Thank you, Eleanor.