#144: The Secret to Not Repeating Your Family’s Dysfunction | Dr. Andrew Abela
So many of us from divorced or broken families fear repeating our parents' mistakes.
If you want to avoid that, one of the keys is building virtue.
But what is virtue? How do you build it? And what virtues might you acquire?
My guest today wrote Superhabits, an amazing new book on virtue. He answers those questions, plus:
How to override the unconscious bad habits we inherited in our families
One habit that could save your marriage before it starts and what virtues to look for in a potential spouse
Why virtue, not just therapy, is the key to healing family wounds
If you’re struggling with bad habits or you want to build good habits, this episode is for you.
Buy Book Super Habits by Dr. Andrew Abela
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TRANSCRIPT
Transcript produced by artificial intelligence. Please pardon any errors!
Dr. Andrew: [00:00:00] We're usually talking about diet habits, sleep habits, exercise habits, you know, eating, sleeping, moving, the kinds of things we have in common with the animals. But the virtues are the habits of our mind and our soul, you know, so making your bed or brushing your teeth or wearing a seatbelt. These are all habits.
They're good habits, but they're not virtues. Why? Here's the difference. Virtues we know from research make you happier.
Joey: What virtues have been the most helpful for you in particular, maybe the couples you've seen around you when it comes to building a beautiful marriage, especially for the people listening who didn't see that growing up?
Dr. Andrew: Your eating habits are not going to save your marriage or break your marriage, but your habit of honesty will.
Joey: If someone maybe is feeling overwhelmed, this is maybe new to them. Where should they start? What encouragement would you give to them?
Dr. Andrew: It's kind of the code for having a successful life. But most people seem to have lost that code.
Joey: Welcome to The Restored Podcast. I'm Joey Panarelli. If you come from a divorce or a broken family, this [00:01:00] show is for you. We help you heal your brokenness, navigate the challenges, and build healthy relationships so you can break that cycle and build a better life. My guest today is Dr. Andrew Abella. He's the founding dean of the Bush School of Business and ordinary professor of marketing at the Catholic University of America in Washington, D.
C. He's actually a faculty affiliate at the Harvard University Human Flourishing Program and a contributor at Forbes. com. Dr. Abella also provides consulting and training in internal communications to Fortune 100. Corporations prior to his academic career, he spent several years in the business world as brand manager at Procter and Gamble as management consultant with McKinsey and company and managing director of the marketing leadership council of the corporate executive board.
He and his wife Kathleen have six children, three of whom so far have graduated from Catholic you. So many of us today come from divorced and broken families, and we fear repeating our parents mistakes. We don't want to repeat that in our own lives. And so if you want to avoid that, one of the keys is [00:02:00] building virtue.
But what is virtue? How do you build it? And what virtues might you want to acquire? Dr. Abella actually wrote a book on virtues, on habits, called Super Habits. And so he answers all those questions and more in this interview. We talk about what virtues to look for in a potential spouse, how long it might take to develop a habit.
And he shares the four stages of a habit, which is super helpful to know. And then finally, he talks about why virtue, not just therapy is the key to healing family wounds. And so if you come from a broken family and you're struggling with bad habits, or you just want to build good habits in your life, this episode is for you.
And with that, here's our conversation. Dr. Bella, so good to have you on the show. Thanks for being here.
Dr. Andrew: Great to be with
Joey: you. I've really been looking forward to this since I heard you speak last year. And I think this book is so timely for so many reasons, but especially for this audience. So, as you know, everyone listening here comes from a broken family, a divorced family, and I think one of the chief fears is that we might end up repeating that [00:03:00] cycle of dysfunction, repeating that cycle of divorce in our own lives.
And the studies and the stories that we see around us so often support that. And so one of the things that we believe here at Resort is that if you want to break that cycle, you need to heal the brokenness, heal the emotional wounds, heal the trauma, but also build virtue. So you can go on and build those healthy relationships, a strong marriage and you know, a good functional family.
And so I'm really excited to talk with you about this book and how it might help our audience starting out. I'm curious, why did you write this book and what's your hope for everyone who reads it?
Dr. Andrew: So I had been reading about and studying virtue for many years. And when we started the business school that I have the privilege to run, the Bush School of Business, we talked about wanting to make sure we were helping form our students in virtue.
But the more I learned about it, the more I realized how so many people, if they know anything at all about virtue, they, how would I say, they don't understand it. Even people who have been reading about it, even familiar with the word and so on, they think of virtue as just. Goodness, you know, a [00:04:00] virtuous person, which kind of sounds like a goody two shoes, you know, without having a grasp of the idea that a virtue is a habit of excellence at the heart of a sort of successful flourishing life.
And a habit that anyone can acquire, not something you're born with. So it's a really good news story. It's kind of the code for having a successful life, but most people seem to have lost that code, you know? And so I wanted to find a way to bring it back into the conversation.
Joey: I love that. And one of the things I love about the book is how practical and tactical you made it, I think, and the other books and content I've consumed on virtue.
I think sometimes we get too theoretical. You know, we get kind of stuck in the clouds. Um, that was intentional. Obviously. Can you say more about like, why did you make this so practical and tactical, especially as an academic?
Dr. Andrew: Yeah. And I had to relearn how to write, you know, to not write in an academic style.
And part of the problem, I think that the real good news about virtue hasn't been so available is people who [00:05:00] write about it tend to be academics and they write in an academic style. And it's almost like you need a degree in medieval philosophy in order to understand the terminology because they use words like passions and essence and things that we recognize those words, but we don't understand the meanings that they originally had, you know?
And so basically the book is in part a work of translation, kind of re translating into contemporary English what was translated a couple of hundred years ago and never updated, you know? So, for example, we all say patience is a virtue. If you ask people, that's one of the first ones they would come up with.
Patience is a Latin transliteration of the Latin word, sorry, an English transliteration of the Latin word, paciencia. But it's not, the meaning of paciencia is not what we think of as patience. Which is like, don't be impatient, you know. What paciencia means is, Endurance through long sorrow, what we now call resilience, you know, now resilience is a virtue.
That's something that can be [00:06:00] cultivated, is useful, is important. Patience as in like not being impatient. It's like, yeah, whatever, but that's not. Fun, not nearly as important as, as resilience. And so there were a lot of these little tweaks where the word we're using is not quite meaning, or doesn't at all mean what, what it should mean, what it used to mean.
And so I had to kind of retranslate to show why this stuff is so important.
Joey: I love that. I remember Father Mike Schmitz, the, you know, famous for everyone listening, he's a really popular priest who has a podcast and puts out videos and he says, uh, about love in particular. He says, we've reduced love to romance and romance to sex.
So in a similar vein, we've kind of taken a word that can mean so many different things. And we made it mean one particular thing. So I think you're certainly onto something there. And speaking of the practicality component, I think part of the reason Atomic Habits, which, you know, a lot of our listeners are familiar with, was so popular was because James Clear made it so accessible, made it so practical.
So I'm really excited for this book. Speaking of that book, I'm sure people listening [00:07:00] are maybe wondering, how is your book different than Atomic Habits?
Dr. Andrew: So my book builds directly on Atomic Habits. And so, in fact, I chose the name, the title Super Habits almost to kind of to point to that. So Atomic Habits, he does a really good job of showing you how to develop habits.
But leaves it up to you to figure out which habits. Super habits tells you which habits are going to have the biggest impact. Because when we're left to ourselves, when we talk about habits, we're usually talking about habits of, you know, diet habits, sleep habits, exercise habits. You know, eating, sleeping, moving.
The kinds of things we have in common with the animals. But the virtues are the habits of our mind and our soul, you know. And so, things like resilience, or courage, or diligence, or, uh, you name it, we can go through a whole bunch, right, honesty, and so on. These are all the habits of the things that make us distinctively human, rather than just like the animals.
Now, of course, [00:08:00] eating, sleeping, moving, these are all important things in our lives. They're foundational to our lives. If we don't eat, we die, you know. But they're not the highest things. They're not the highest. They're not the things that make us truly human. Your eating habits are not going to save your marriage or break your marriage, right?
But your habit of honesty will one way or another. So what I'm trying to do with the book is say, okay Habits are good, great to develop habits Take some thought to which are the most important habits because working on a single one of the super habits right now could literally change Your life, you know
Joey: Wow.
And is there a systematic way to identify which habit should come first for a particular person?
Dr. Andrew: Yes, there's two ways. The simple and more, well, okay, three, three ways, simple and more thorough ways. As you read through the book, I tried to put them in the order, kind of a foundational order. So the first one you hit and you go, gosh, this one's a real struggle for me.
That's probably a good place to start. A second way, more [00:09:00] focused, is to ask yourself, What's my biggest struggle right now? Is it with my emotions? Is it with making decisions? Is it with relationships? And the book has, in the back of it, you've seen it, a big fold out poster, which lays out the whole framework of the virtues.
And using that, you can figure out, based on what you're struggling with, What's the one virtue that would make a really big difference right now? What's the one super habit where if you cultivated it would really make the thing that you struggle with so much easier. And I'll come back to that in a moment.
The third thing, probably the easiest, is we just launched a few weeks ago a new version of the app that comes with the book. And the new version is called Grow Virtue. The app's called Grow Virtue. It's available in the App Store for iPhone. Not yet for Android, hopefully soon, but there's also at the back of the book, there's a QR code.
And so the basic version of the app is free [00:10:00] and there's a diagnostic where you go through and it rates you on all of the virtues, some 40 some of them. And it tells you which ones you're really strong in and which ones you're not so strong in. When people do strengths tests, the conclusion from that is, okay, now you know your strengths, now play to your strengths.
Well, there is benefit once you know which virtues you're strongest in to making sure you're using them as much as possible, certainly. But the real benefit comes from finding the virtue or the super habits that is weakest. Because that is going to be the weakest link in your character. But figure out which that one is and just work on developing that.
Start practicing that until it becomes a habit. And then it just becomes stronger. You know, you're often told, you know, play to your strengths and just kind of cover for your weaknesses. If you're a manager, hire for your weaknesses. You know, hire other. If you're not very detail oriented, hire an assistant who's detail oriented.
You know? Well, that just doesn't work for the virtues because if you're not very [00:11:00] honest, you can't hire someone to like, be honest for you. Get what I'm saying? So if you're not very resilient, you can't hire someone to provide you with resilience. So, so you have to find the weakest link. And so the app is the quickest way to do that.
But the point I wanted to come back to is the really good news. So if particularly thinking about your audience. Those of us who struggle to not repeat patterns that we inherited, right? The tendency to repeat comes from, because that's what we know. And that's what we have been habituated to, right? Those are the habits that we have inherited.
Joey: We mimic.
Dr. Andrew: Exactly. Um, but if we want to try something different, we have to be aware of something different, aware of a new set of habits. And so what, what is attractive about the book is that it lays out not just some habits, but a comprehensive set of all of the habits that you need to be a successful human being.
There's a total of 50, five, zero. Uh, which I got from St. Thomas Aquinas. We can talk [00:12:00] about Aquinas later if you like. So you have a, in a sense, a roadmap, the terrain map for all of the habits you would need to be a flourishing human being. And the exciting thing is any human being can acquire any one of them.
Through simple daily practice. So you're not labored. You're not cursed with what you inherited. It's different from something like IQ or height, you know, or even preferences like introversion, extroversion, like your height, you can't change your IQ. It's unclear that one could change, you know, um.
Introversion, extroversion, we tend to have stuck with those over decades, but the, the virtues, the super habits are eminently changeable just through regular practice. So when somebody says, well, I'm just a very disorganized person. No, you're not. You just haven't yet cultivated the habit of orderliness, the virtue of orderliness.
You can do that with a little bit of practice every day. After a while. It will become part of you, and you will no [00:13:00] longer be a disorganized person, you will be an organized person. And the best thing of all is, it will be easy for you to be organized. Once you have the habit, it becomes easier. You know, which is I think just really encouraging, really good news.
If somebody came from a household where people lied a lot, And you were raised always kind of fudging the truth and just telling people what you think they want to hear and so on. And you think, well, that's just who I am, right? There's not, there's no hope for me there. Not true. Not true. Through daily, like just practicing, for example, a really good place to start if somebody struggles with telling the honest truth is oftentimes the place where many people go is when you're asked something that you think you should know.
So what time is this? Or what about that? And you'll make up something rather than say, I don't know. That's a good place to practice. Start practicing saying, I don't know, but I'll find out. It's an easy one. It's an easy one because you're not saying, I lied. You're just saying, I don't know, but I'll find out, you know, and you start to do that.
That becomes a habit [00:14:00] that gets easier and then you can carve off another little piece and another little piece as each one of them comes habit, they become part of you. They become easier and slowly. Slowly, you're changing your character
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Joey: if you come from a divorce or broken family, or maybe you know someone who does.
We offer more resources than just this podcast. Those resources include things like a book, free video courses, speaking engagements, a free assessment online community, and much more. All of our resources are designed. To help you heal from the trauma that you've endured and build virtue so you can break that cycle and build a better life.
And so if you want to view those resources for yourself or someone that you know, just go to restoredministry. com slash resources or click on the link in the show notes. I love that. I love the reframe, too, of kind of looking at habits as virtue as almost as a skill. I know it's distinctive from a skill, but what you were saying before is that, you know, it's not that you're a disorganized person, like that's inherent in your character that you could never change, but it's just that you don't know how to be Organize.
I remember listening to Alex Hormozy, a big, uh, business [00:15:00] influencer on Instagram, YouTube. And one of the things he said is like, when it comes to a business, especially don't say that you don't know how to run Facebook ads, don't say that you don't know how to hire well, or don't, don't say you can't hire anyone.
Don't say that you, Facebook ads don't work for your business. He said, say that you don't know how to make them work for your business. You don't know how to do this thing because then it just becomes a deficiency of skill and you could solve a deficiency of skill by practicing. So I know virtues maybe aren't exactly synonymous with skills, but there's a lot of overlap there, so I like that frame, but please, yeah,
Dr. Andrew: there is, there is, um, and here's the way they are different.
The way they are the same is, as you said, that through practice, you can develop any of the virtues. The way they are different, and this is really encouraging, the big difference between virtues as habits and skills as habits is we already have the virtues within us. They just have to be Activate it.
Okay. They're like mental muscles. So I was, um, [00:16:00] I posted something on this recently. I was talking to a teacher at the height school where it's a school for boys in Potomac, Maryland, where my boys went. And this teacher also runs the climbing team for that school. And he was saying to me. We were talking about this and he said, you know, every time I take out a new crop of boys climbing the next day, invariably they come up to me and go, sir, muscles I didn't even know I had are aching me, you know, and I'm sure everyone's had that experience.
Well, the virtues are mental muscles you didn't even know you had. And just like any other, like physical muscles, you have to start to move them and use them and then they get stronger. But it's not a matter of saying, well, I don't know, like, yes, you can learn how, but the moment you start practicing, it comes to you naturally because they are already in you naturally.
So you just have to exercise them. Do you see the difference? They're not foreign to you in any way, they are part of what it means to be human, you just have to exercise them.
Joey: As if they're dormant in your system. Yeah, that makes so [00:17:00] much sense. Exactly. I appreciate that, and I was thinking too about kind of identifying where you're weak.
There's some people have more self awareness than others, I've realized, and so the people who have a higher degree of self awareness probably know, yeah, you know, pride and lust and whatever other virtue or advice is. The struggle for me, I need to work on that. But one of the things that was helpful for me thinking back is, uh, one listening to the feedback that my mentors in my life have given me on like, Hey, you're kind of weak here.
You're not very good at this thing, or you don't have that virtue. That's one. The other thing is just often reflecting back on my life, like the things that I've struggled with gives a good signal, a good clue of, okay, this is where you should focus. But I love the assessment. I love the, the app, especially.
I'm really excited to try that. I tried the previous version, so I'm really excited to try this new version. We'll make sure to. link to all that in the show notes for you guys as well, but so much good stuff here. I think feel free to comment on anything there, but I wanted to ask maybe a basic question I should have asked at the beginning, which is for anyone who isn't aware, what are we talking about when we say virtue?
What is virtue?
Dr. Andrew: So it's a, it's a habit of excellence. We say a habit of excellence that makes, or are there a good habits that makes [00:18:00] you good? So, and the word habit is critical as we've just said, you know, it's not a human characteristic that you were born with. It's something that anyone can develop, but it's something that we already have the tendency for.
This is it. The muscle is already there. It just needs to be. Just needs to be exercised. But the word virtue is really problematic. Because most people when they hear the word virtue, they think maybe virtue signaling. Like just pretending to be good, you know. Or as I said before, goody two shoes, you know.
But that's why I, in the book I use the phrase super habit. A virtue is a super habit. How is a super habit different from any other habits, any regular habits? So, so making your bed or brushing your teeth or wearing a seat belt, these are all habits. They're good habits, but they're not virtues. They're not super habits.
Why? Here's the difference. Super habits, virtues, we know from research, make you happier as you grow in them. And in many cases make you healthier as well, which is really quite stunning. For example, there's research on gratitude as you grow in gratitude. So for example, [00:19:00] using a gratitude journal, write down every day, things you're grateful for that happened that day.
For example, that's how you can grow in gratitude. One way of doing it as you grow in gratitude. We know this from research, not only do you become happier, but there are reductions in mental and physical pain. So if you were, if you struggle with depression or anxiety. Growing gratitude. It goes down. If you struggle with chronic pain, back pain, pain tends to go down as you grow in gratitude.
Wow. Wow. Why does the researchers can't tell us why we can guess we're made to be that way. And so when we grow the way we're meant to be. Everything works better for us, you know, so, so that's one way in which super habits are different or two ways making your bed doesn't make you happier. I mean, yes, maybe momentarily, you know, but growing in any, any virtue and in super habit gives you a more of a lasting happiness makes you healthier.
The other big difference between regular habits and super habits is regular habits. So the habit of [00:20:00] brushing your teeth makes you good at brushing your teeth, but the habit of courage, which is the habit of moving forward even though you're feeling fear, right? Courage is not having no fear. Courage is the habit of moving forward even when fear is present.
If you develop courage on the football field, you can then use it in an interview or when giving a speech. or in having a difficult conversation with a loved one, you know, because the super habits tend to have a much wider scope than regular habits. So those are three big differences. And the fourth one would be they are natural to us.
As I said before. Brushing your teeth is something you have to learn. It's foreign to us as human beings. You know, there was a time when people didn't brush their teeth, but the habits, the super habits of virtues have always been inherent in us.
Joey: I love that. And you mentioned there's 50, the book goes through them, especially the handout.
Is there anywhere online that people can maybe look at a list or see the extensive list? Cause I'm sure people are curious about that. We can link to it as well.
Dr. Andrew: Yep. Um, I have a, I maintain a sub stack and it's. Superhabits. [00:21:00] substack. com. It's Superhabit singular, unlike the book, which is Superhabits plural, because someone else grabbed the plural one and is not using it.
So, we should get off it. But anyway, it's there. Um, and so, yeah, if they go there. There's a number of, of posts about individual super habits. There's one, I can send you the link afterwards, which is called Super Habits 101, which shows you the circle diagram and gives you a kind of just overview of the super habits.
Joey: Beautiful. Thank you. We'll definitely link to that. And I know a few Navy SEALs. So if we need to send them over to that guy's house, have him give up that subset, maybe we can make that happen. But no, I was curious, are there any rough guidelines, I know there's not an exact number on how long. Or how many repetitions a habit takes to acquire
Dr. Andrew: the research is all over the map.
And I think it really depends on the person and the habits, you know, um, so I've heard as little as 11 days, as many as 90, but it could take you a year, you know, so, but you can see progress [00:22:00] after a few days, including starting to feel happier, which is, that's what's so encouraging. I use the phrase in the book, beginning is winning.
So merely starting to work on a single virtue, a single super habit, already is improving your life.
Joey: I love that. And I'm curious too, what's, you already mentioned a few, but I'm curious if you have any hacks or tips for someone who maybe has a tendency to get stuck. Maybe they appreciate the knowledge.
They like listening to books, they like reading books, they like listening to podcasts, but then putting it into action can be hard. And I've heard you say elsewhere to start in the simplest form possible. You basically just mentioned that too, like instead of, you know, lying to say, I don't know. Um, I think I've heard you also say to just pick one.
Don't pick many things because that will prevent action as well. Any other tips that you would offer for someone who maybe, again, they're fine with the knowledge. Learning is not the problem. It's putting into action.
Dr. Andrew: Yeah. So those are, those are really important. The very simplest thing, anything that you is going to allow you to have a win is the place to begin because.
That simplest [00:23:00] thing will then become natural for you and is a foundation, a rung for the next thing, the next simple thing that you could add on. But the other thing might be to, to actually choose a virtue that is going to help you with getting stuff done, such as I already mentioned the virtue of orderliness.
Another virtue, the virtue of foresight, which is the virtue of having and pursuing goals. If you have the right set of goals, then that's going to help you as well. Another thought is this, um, some people, especially if you came from an abusive household where emotional outbursts weren't tolerated, you know, and you had to, you had to repress your anger, your sadness, you know.
You can be emotionally almost dead, you know, and when you have that emotional or dry, should we say, when you have that emotional dryness, that's often a cause of lack of motivation because emotions provide motion, right? They motivate, um, and what Aquinas, this is fascinating [00:24:00] considering he wrote this 750 years ago, the point he makes, and this is all under the heading of self discipline.
So self discipline or temperance is the cardinal virtue for dealing with our desires. And it has many other smaller virtues associated with it, which we could talk about. But the general message is you don't grow in self discipline by willpowering your desires into submission, like pounding them into submission.
You know, so if you have, pick a really simple one for food, you know, with desire for food, you don't grow in abstemiousness, the habit of having a right relationship with food. By just repressing the desire to eat. What you do is you redirect it so that when it's time for feasting, you feast. And when it's time for fasting, you fast.
And at all other times you just eat reasonable amounts of food that you like, you know, an even better example is the virtue of diligence. So when people think of, I need to become more diligent, I need to get my homework done on time. I need to study harder. I [00:25:00] need to just pay attention, you know, and just sort of willpower myself into being more diligent.
Aquinas does not say that's how you grow in diligence. He points out that the way to grow in diligence is to grow in love for your subject. So diligence is a form of self discipline. That's focused on the desire to know things. And so what you do is you're redirecting your desire to know things towards the things that you need to know.
So redirect it towards your homework instead of social media. You know, because if you're wasting the desire to know things on social media, you won't have enough left for your homework. You see what I'm saying? And so if your desires have been repressed, that's often a cause for why you're not motivated to do anything because you just don't feel any desire.
So that, I mean, probably would involve therapy, but what you want to do is rediscover your desires and help tutor them, coax them, guide them into the right directions.
Joey: I love that. We'll have to do an entire show on that one itself, because I can [00:26:00] imagine people listening who may be thinking, Well, my desires aren't my desires.
I don't know if I can necessarily change them. But what you're saying is you can direct them. You can shift them in different directions. Do you have an example, maybe in your own life or the life of one of your students who saw that come about, who was able to bring that about where they desired maybe things that weren't great for them and then through whatever actions they were able to desire something better.
Dr. Andrew: Well, one really famous one is in the book where I tell the story, um, early on in the book, um, about a teenager who was a big strong guy, uh, came from a very difficult home. Parents always fighting father, cheating on mom. And so he's always very angry and never had good things. And so whenever he saw clothes that he wanted, he would steal them.
Whenever somebody annoyed him, he would get into a fight and he would usually win because he's a very big, strong guy, but he's always getting in trouble. His mom frequently had to go to the police station to get him out, you know, because he got trouble again. And one time mom came to pick him up and just burst into tears and said, could you [00:27:00] like.
Stop doing this to me. This is like, could you get your act together? And so, and he sort of realized, okay, I'm, my mom is having a horrible life because my dad is so bad to her and I'm just making it worse. But my stupid stuff I'm doing, but he had these desires to kind of get even, you know, and just to be violent.
And what he did was he, fortunately, he had a couple of really good coaches in his high school. So he started to play football and joined the wrestling team as well. And so the violence in him, the desire to pound someone, he just redirected into football and wrestling and it totally worked. It totally worked.
Um, he ended up one season in the NFL, just one season as far as he got, but then he, he had a really successful wrestling career. And then a really successful Hollywood career and audience will know him as Dwayne The Rock Johnson. Right. So, uh, went from, you know, a path to complete disaster totally turned his life because he refocused those [00:28:00] desires, you know?
So I he's in the chapter on the restraints, the super habit of restraint, which is. Which is restraining petty desires that you might have and kind of redirecting them in more productive ways. I have another chapter on another virtue that I call gentle firmness. Uh, which is a word that I made up, so no one's ever heard of it before.
Um, but I made it up because the, again, the English words fail us. The Latin word is Mansuetudo. There is an English word called Mansuetude, which no one has ever heard of, so that's useless. Um, The common translation is meekness, but meekness, who wants to be meek? It just sounds like weakness, you know, to be a doormat, right?
That's not what Mansoor Tudor is. It's that virtue is the ability to use your anger in productive ways. So every, almost all virtues are the mean between two excesses or two extremes, too much or too little, right? And so, so courage is for dealing with fear, and [00:29:00] too much attention to fear is cowardice.
That's the one, one vice, opposing courage. Too little concern with fear is, is rashness, right? That's the opposite. So, and courage is in between those. Meekness, the correct understanding, or gentle firmness as I call it, is for dealing with anger. Too little control of your anger and you explode, right? And that's, doesn't help anybody.
But too much pressure on your anger and you repress it and that's also very harmful, right? Also leads to all kinds of problems. Whereas gentle firmness is you feel your anger as Energy and you use it to so it's basically gentle firmness is the habit for dealing with when things aren't going the way they should And so you use your anger to try to fix that and in the book I tell the story of Hugh Thompson who was a helicopter pilot in the Vietnam War And was flying as a spotter while the melee massacre was going on.
That's a horrible incident in American history where American soldiers end up killing a bunch of [00:30:00] innocent civilians. And he landed and he basically put a stop to it. Wow. And you can imagine, and he was provoked, right? He landed in front of a bunch of troops were heading towards some civilians who were hiding in a bunker.
He landed in between them and said, Hey guys, stop. I want to help these civilians out of here. And one of the soldiers said, Oh yeah, we can help them out with a grenade, you know? And he's like, no, no, it's okay. Look, I got this. So he remained, he was furious. We know from writings of his colleagues on the plane with him, he was absolutely furious.
But he kept calm, so the gentleness and the firmness can visualize, I like to say, a velvet glove over a steel fist, so your anger makes you firm, you know, with determination, but you also have this calmness over it all. So that's, again, it's a desire, in this case, it's a desire for things to be right. They aren't right, so you are angry, but you channel that anger to do good instead of to blow things up, you know?
Joey: I love that. You make me think of, uh, Jocko Willink, the [00:31:00] retired Navy SEAL who writes leadership books. And a couple things he talks about is just one, you know, being cool in the face of like chaos in the face of, you know, combat. And it was amazing to me reading his books, how I don't, maybe I'm a little bit off here, but it sounds like they were exhibiting this virtue where literally there's bullets flying over those explosions and they're on the radio.
As calm as can be saying, you know, you know, we have these enemy fighters moving towards this building. We need an airstrike here. And they just had that ability. That's one thought. The other thought was I've often seen this in like special operators. I haven't gotten to know many of them, but there's a few high F I had the blessing to like, no, and these men like are incredibly dangerous.
Powerful men, but the way in which they use their strength for good and not to hurt people for the wrong reason is, is incredible. So I love your example of like the middle between the two extremes, too much or too little. I think that's so true. And I think sometimes people think like when they hear the word gentleness, they think it means just Weakness, but I like that balance with [00:32:00] that new word that you made up.
So I am excited to see your name next to that on Google whenever I search that. No, so good. There's so much more I want to talk to you about. I, um, I want to veer towards relationships because this is like the biggest area of struggle. The research is very clear that if you come from a divorce family, this is the area of your life that's most impacted your future relationships, especially your future marriage.
So I'm curious, let's talk a little bit about marriage. How long have
Dr. Andrew: you been married? 27 years.
Joey: Beautiful. Okay. I'm 20 years behind you, only about seven years here. So I'm still, so I consider myself a baby husband, but learning a lot every day. Um, one of the things I remember learning, you would know, uh, John Maxwell, he, I think popularized the idea that like the leader is like the lid on the organization.
I like to think of. You know, each spouse at the lid on their marriage, your marriage will only be as healthy and happy as each of you are. And so what I've seen, especially in the beautiful marriages I've been blessed to know is like the more virtuous the spouses, the happier the marriage always, always.
And so I'm curious here, what virtues have been the most helpful for you in particular, maybe [00:33:00] the couples you've seen around you when it comes to building a beautiful marriage, especially for the people listening who didn't see that growing up.
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Joey: For countless teens and young adults, their parents divorce is actually the most traumatic thing that they've experienced.
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and build healthy relationships and so much more. One Amazon review said this, this book is packed full of really practical help. If you come from a broken family, or even if you don't, but you love someone that does, this book is so helpful. I can't recommend this enough. By the way, it's a quick read and it doesn't need to be read cover to cover since it's in question and answer format.
You can just read one of the questions and one of the answers. And so if you want to join the thousands of people who've gotten a copy, just go to [00:34:00] restored ministry. com slash. Books, uh, to get the book or download the free chapters again, that's restored ministry. com slash books, or just click the link in the show notes.
Dr. Andrew: Gosh, yeah, there's a lot. Um, but I would bucket them, many of them under the virtue of justice. There's a whole bunch of virtues. And so honesty is one of them. So they're all, all these verses are related to what do I owe to somebody else? You know, and I think, um, I think honesty is just so key. Like the fact that I know that I can always trust my wife and she can always trust me.
I travel a lot for speaking for business and so on, fundraising, et cetera, that she never has to worry that where is he tonight? What is he doing? You know, just like, yeah, we're completely honest with each other. And I, I say completely one time in the first year of our marriage, She came home and said, how do I look in this dress?
That's the one time when you shouldn't be honest. Or rather you could be a little more creative. [00:35:00] I learned that lesson very early on. It wasn't a good fit for her and uh, anyway, there might have been a nicer way of saying it. So anyway, um, so that's one. But also I think virtues related to courage are important as well.
Because sometimes you need to say something to your spouse and, you know, especially if they inherited habits of anger, you know, so sometimes we can be a little bit hesitant. So I don't bring that up. That's going to cause an explosion, you know, it's like, well, let the explosion happen, you know, and try to again, try to bring some gentle firmness to the, to the occasion, I think would be another.
My wife would say we do a class for our graduating students together at the Bush school, our seniors, and we do it on relationships and marriage. And she would say. And this isn't one of the 50 virtues, but it's a, it's an aspect of the [00:36:00] virtue of charity or love, right, which is just kindness, just kindness goes such a long way to, to making relationships work, you know, because it just brings, in fact, um, I go back to justice, friendliness or friendship is also related to the virtue of justice in the sense that we owe others that we come into contact with.
Some level of friendliness, you know, doesn't mean that every morning when I get on the subway car, I have to go and introduce myself to everybody there. They would think I was weird, you know, but if you're hanging out with somebody or working with somebody, then trying to act in a friendly manner. Just makes life more manageable.
And that's absolutely true. I think with spouses.
Joey: So good. Remember, I think it was jump hold a second when he was a priest, when he wrote love and responsibility where he said the number one thing missing in marriages today is tenderness, which seems to fit under if I'm Understanding, right? Maybe kindness.
Would you put it anywhere else?
Dr. Andrew: Yeah. No, I think so. I think so. Yeah.
Joey: Yeah. And how true is that? My goodness. Like even in my own marriage, [00:37:00] but even the marriages around me, the marriages, especially that fall apart, like there's such a lack of tenderness.
Dr. Andrew: Yeah. And it's just the little things accumulated over time.
Yeah.
Joey: No, no, I couldn't agree more. Anything in particular you would add for someone listening right now who says, you know, I want a virtuous spouse. I want a spouse who has good habits. Obviously they could take the list that you just said and say, that's what I'm going to look for. Anything you would add to give that person advice to find a good spouse?
Dr. Andrew: Well, the first bit of advice at the risk of being obvious is be that person yourself, right? So be the kind of person you want to marry and then like attracts like in that sense. And then second, gosh, it's, it's almost hard for me to say because 27 years ago, I wasn't thinking this way when I met my wife, so it was more instinctive assessment, you know, but even just having that measure, so I have two sons and four daughters, daughters love to watch Pride and prejudice.
I don't know how many times we've seen. I love it too. I've read the book three times, I think myself, [00:38:00] but what is so attractive about the heroines in Jane Austen is their virtue, you know, they are honest, they are courageous, they are, you know, just, you kind of go down the list and as you know, we live in a very superficial society.
So we tend to look at looks, you know, but I think The right measure is virtue. You know, you marry someone who is virtuous or at least striving to be so because we're all of us. No one's there. We're all of us striving, you know, but at least are you sharing the same vision of what a virtuous person is?
You know, do we agree on what our virtues and what aren't? So, for example, if somebody thought that tolerance was a virtue, I wouldn't agree with them. It's not among the list of 50 and it's not something. That is, yeah, it's going to easily be abused, you know, so, so it doesn't count as a virtue. Virtue can't be abused, you know.
Joey: So good. I love that. And one final thing when it comes to relationships and marriage, I'm curious about conflicts because that's such a sticky, dangerous, fearful topic [00:39:00] for our audience because Again, so many of us growing up, we saw such a poor example of resolving conflict. Often there was no resolution and probably got really loud and then mom or dad walked away.
And that's the example that was set. Um, anything in particular you would say here on how to kind of relearn how to navigate conflict, especially if it's scary for a young person.
Dr. Andrew: Yeah. Yeah. And I should, maybe I should have said this at the beginning of the podcast. I'm a professor of marketing. Not a therapist, not a psychiatrist, right?
Just, just be very, I run a business school just to be very clear. This is all kind of, yeah. Okay. Just to be clear, the
Joey: wisdom is there. You have the wisdom
Dr. Andrew: I mentioned before about temperance or self discipline focusing on our desires, um, courage and its related virtues focuses on our fears in the same way we can redirect our desires into more healthy areas.
We can use the energy from our fear by reframing it as a challenge. [00:40:00] So if I'm afraid of the blow up, that's going to come, if I broach a difficult conversation, I can think about that as a challenge. Okay. I know the blow up's coming. It's going to be painful, but I'm going to observe it, experience it. So in the same way that your special forces friends are able to sit there and talk quietly while bullets are flying, they weren't born that way.
They learned that they practiced it right then through it became a habit. In the same way, anybody can learn to receive a blast of anger, right? Or to experience a bunch of fear in anticipation of a blast of anger and start to get used to it calmly. And then what happens to the other person is when their anger is received with calm and patience and listening.
That anger starts to subside and eventually we get to kind of what is the, what is the root cause, you know, and then we can start to have a constructive dialogue around that. It takes a lot of practice, but that's, I think is necessary. I think the religious [00:41:00] benefit here for us going into marriage was when we got married, we knew it was forever that there was no, there was no exit strategy for either of us.
And that really helps because it's like when things are really bad, you know, There's no alternative. We just have to fix this, you know, and there were times in 27 years when it was hard, but issues that had to be worked out. And if there was an exit door, maybe one of us might've said, I'm out of here, you know, but because there wasn't, you try and you figure out how to solve it.
And now I would say, I would say I am sure of, and my wife says the same thing. We are both happier than we've ever been. Our marriage is stronger than it's ever been. And so glad to have gone through those difficult patches because they just eventually brought us closer together.
Joey: Yeah, I love that.
There's a study I saw recently, I can't recall the name, where they looked at people who were struggling within marriage, and then some got divorced, some stayed married, continued to struggle and work on it, and then they went ahead so many years, maybe five or ten years, to look at their happiness level in life, and they found that the ones [00:42:00] who didn't get divorced, who stayed married, you know, assuming there wasn't extreme cases of like abuse, things like that, ended up being happier than the ones who chose to get divorced.
So I think there's something really instructive, even if we take the religious component of it out of it and just say, no, there's actually something really good about sticking it out, you know, again, assuming you're safe and there's not abuse. But I, yeah, I've seen that even in my own marriage with just.
Understanding that it's going to be messy, and I think this applies to any sort of virtue building. I mean, any skill you're learning, too, on a simpler level, it's like, my daughter's three and a half right now, you know, I'm teaching her many things. Like, one of the phrases we like to throw around around here is like, you're not competent at that yet.
Like, you're learning, and that's okay. Like, everything's, you're, you're in training. You know, if she's wondering, like, why can't I have the scissors, or why can't I do this or that, it's like, well, you're not competent yet, you will be, why can't I, you know, climb the edge of the stairs by myself, you're not competent yet, but then as she gets more competent, she can see herself growing, but it's messy with kids, it's messy in our own lives, it's messy within marriage, and I think that It is an important reminder because as I sometimes tell the young [00:43:00] people that we mentor to is, you're probably going to screw it up in some way, right?
You maybe are going to go a little too far this way, a little too far that way in terms of access or deficit. And that's okay. That's part of the process. But if you kind of are directionally moving toward where you need to be, that's a more important thing. Would you say anything about the kind of the messy nature of acquiring the virtues?
Dr. Andrew: Well, the challenge idea is every time you, you face a challenge and you work through it. You're actually developing one or more virtues. And so, so the, the idea of facing challenges, facing fears and treating the fears as challenges, it's how we grow, you know, nobody grows by sitting down and avoiding all risks, you know, or all challenges we grow by engaging with them, sometimes losing, sometimes winning, if we have time, there's a helpful four part, four step sequence for when thinking about how we grow in virtue.
Which I have labeled again, because the original words, the meanings aren't very clear to people, but when you start out [00:44:00] at the level of a vice where you have a bad habit, not a good habit, say lying, we can label that as unconsciously incompetent. So you don't have the competence as you say, but you don't even know you don't have the competence.
You just think that lying is a good strategy. So why wouldn't I do that? At some point you realize this is hurting my relationships is hurting my success or whatever So then you start struggling to try to not to you try to tell truth more often and you become consciously incompetent So you know that you're not good at it, but at least you know, and you're trying and you try, but you tend to fail more often than not.
You slip into the old ways of doing things, but you keep trying, keep trying. Eventually you cross the line and you become consciously competent where you're now doing it right. You know you're doing it right, but it's still an effort. It's still a struggle. You're tempted to tell the lie whenever it's more convenient, but you more often than not, you tell the truth.
That's still not at the level of virtue. Virtue is the next step, which is unconsciously competent. You now have absorbed that habit, and you [00:45:00] don't even have to think about it. You're no longer saying, should I tell the truth? I must remember to tell the truth. It's just not even a question in your mind.
You're just, you're honest now, because it's become part of you. That's what it means to be truly virtuous. And this is the shocking good news. It's that it's easier to be virtuous than to not. Like the more, I had this discussion with a bunch of my freshman students last night. In class, who is more moral, the person who has to struggle to tell the truth or who tells it easily?
They're like, Oh, the struggle is more moral. Uh uh. The more moral one is the one who has so perfected it that it's easy. So the end result of all this striving is life gets easier. It gets easier to do the good thing, to do the right thing, to have a happy life. What good news, I think.
Joey: Amen. No, so good. I love it.
There's so much more I want to talk to you about. Let's close it down there. Thank you so much for being here. If people want to buy the book and learn more from you, how could they do that?
Dr. Andrew: So the, the Substack, superhabit. substack. com is a good place to go. They can [00:46:00] follow me on LinkedIn and I respond to whatever questions or comments people put there.
And Sophia Press is the publisher of the book Superhabits. It's also available on Amazon, Barnes Noble, or wherever else.
Joey: Great. And we'll link to all that in the, in the show notes. I, again, thank you, Dr. Bala. I've learned a lot from you from afar. It's great to speak with you in person. I'm excited to continue working through the book and just to practice this stuff in my own life.
So thank you. I really appreciate it. I want to give you the final word. If someone maybe is feeling overwhelmed, this is maybe new to them, where should they start? What encouragement, what advice would you give to them there?
Dr. Andrew: I would, so the very first chapter in the book is the virtue of restraint. It's a really good beginner virtue because if, if we tend to give into impulses very easily, then it's hard to ever get control of our lives and we can be tempted to surrender.
It's like I, I give into like temptation to eat, to impulse shop, to say rude things to people, just, I'm just driven by my impulses. But it's one way you can make really good progress really quickly. [00:47:00] Just by picking one aspect of your life. You know, let's say every time I go on Amazon I'm tempted to buy something that's on sale.
What if I start to practice the habit of just putting it into a wish list instead and then I'll go back and look at it tomorrow. Tiny little change like that builds the muscle of restraint which you can then use throughout of your life. So beginning is winning. Just pick one really tiny thing like that and just start doing it every day.
Joey: I'm super impressed with Dr. Abel, and I'm really excited for anyone who decides to read or listen to his book, Super Habits. You could find the link to that book in the show notes. That wraps up this episode. If this podcast has helped you, feel free to subscribe or follow us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or YouTube.
You'll avoid missing future episodes by doing that, and you'll help us reach more people. And if you've already done that, feel free to rate or review the show. We appreciate that feedback, and that also helps us reach more people. In closing, always remember you are not doomed to repeat your family's dysfunction.
You can break that cycle and build a better life, and we're here to help. And keep in mind the words of C. S. Lewis who said, You can't go [00:48:00] back and change the beginning, but you can start where you are and change the ending.
