Redefining Defiance: The Power of Staying True to Your Values | Dr. Sunita Sah

LinkedIn: [00:00:00] Linkedin presents.

Jonathan Fields: [00:00:14] So have you ever felt that. Inner tension, that little voice telling you something just doesn't feel right? That you're being asked to go along with something that maybe conflicts with who you are, your values, who you truly want to be. If so, you're not alone. And my guest today, Doctor Sunita SA, has spent decades studying this very phenomenon the struggle between compliance and defiance. She is an award winning professor at Cornell University and an expert in organizational psychology. And doctor SA leads groundbreaking research on influence, authority, compliance and defiance. Trained as a physician, she has worked in medicine consulting and now teaches executives and leaders. In our conversation, she draws from her multidisciplinary background to redefine defiance not as a negative act, but as a positive force for honoring your values even when pressured to do otherwise. And you'll discover a framework for the stages of defiance, from feeling that initial inner tension to communicating it and ultimately taking action. A doctor SA's trailblazing work, including her latest book, Defy the Power of No in a World that Demands yes, provides a revolutionary roadmap for staying true to yourself in any situation. That's whether at work, in relationships or really among societal expectations. Even you walk away feeling equipped with a powerful new mindset shift and simple practices to start embodying the kind of healthy defiance that allows you to shape a life in alignment with your deepest values. So let's dive in. I'm Jonathan Fields, and this is SPARKED.

Jonathan Fields: [00:02:01] There's this notion that I think, um, I mean, you speak to this specifically, that defiance is a bad thing. That, you know, it's inherently it's not okay. You know, keep your head down and sort of like, follow things and that you make this interesting argument that says, effectively that we are conditioned to believe that compliance is inherently good. And defiance is inherently bad. So take me into this argument more.

Dr. Sunita Sah: [00:02:28] Um, it's so fascinating for me in particular. As a child, I was really known as being an obedient daughter and a student. And I remember asking my dad when I was quite young, what does my name mean? And he said, in Sanskrit, Sunita means good. And mostly I lived up to that. You know, these were the messages that I received. Like to be good was to do as you're told. Go to school when you're told. Do your homework. Don't question. About your teachers and the messages came from family, teachers, community that we started to equate, or at least I certainly did. And a lot of people I know start to equate being compliant with being good and defiance with being bad. And that becomes so ingrained in us that questioning authority or trying to stand up to someone becomes really difficult. And, um, I certainly struggled with it a lot, and I actually became really fascinated by the sort of single, powerful word defy and what it meant, and seeing people that had it an easier time of being defiant really fascinated me, and I wanted to explore that in more depth. And I started to see situations where compliance became a serious problem. When I looked into it that being so compliant could cause so many serious problems in life. And when I looked into surveys, I saw that nine out of ten healthcare workers, most of them nurses, didn't feel comfortable speaking up when they saw somebody making an error. And that could be life and death situations. And the same applies on crew members on commercial airlines.

Dr. Sunita Sah: [00:04:13] Again, another life and death situation where a survey of 1700 crew members found that at least half of them felt uncomfortable when they saw their superiors making an error and did not want to speak up. So I started to think like, what does it mean to be so good all the time? Is it sometimes bad to be so good and so compliant? And what do we lose? What do we do by, you know, going against our values so often? And how can we make it easier for people to become defiant? And that's why I realized after a lot of studying that I came to this revelation that we've misunderstood what it means to defy. And we need a new definition of of defiance, one that honors our agency and reframes it as a positive force. So if you look at the old definition, it to defy is to challenge the power of somebody else boldly and openly. Whereas my new definition is that to defy is simply to act in accordance with your values when there's pressure to do otherwise. And having that positive reframe makes a big difference, because these acts of dissent every day live up to the society that we live in. So that's why I'm so passionate about it, because it affects our work lives, our communities and our personal lives. And it's an important factor that we need to integrate into our lives and make easier and accessible for everyone to be able to defy.

Jonathan Fields: [00:05:49] And that makes sense. It is so interesting the way that we we conflate compliance with goodness. You know, it's like, oh, I and I think so many of us, we aspire to be I want to be a good person. I want to think of myself as a good person. I want others to think of me as a good person. So and then we make this logic app and says, well, okay. So a part of that equation is then I should just kind of comply with like whatever, sort of like the norm around me. And it sounds like what you're describing also is this it's um, these could be the norms and expectations in your family. They could be norms and expectations in a single relationship, maybe a partner or a friend. It could be as large as like culture, society, a company you're working in, you know, like the, you know, the entire country or um, but and it seems like we're constantly scanning the way you're describing it, saying like, what are these norms and expectations? And like, how do I sort of how do I go along with them so that I can keep seeing myself as like that. That good person? That. Yeah. That. Everyone wants to be around. That I feel good about myself.

Dr. Sunita Sah: [00:06:55] Yeah. And it certainly, you know, they're not like how you're socialized as a child certainly makes a difference. But the environment that we're currently in also makes a big difference, as you're saying. Like what does our society expect? What does my relationship with one, one single person expect? And having worked in different, um, institutions, I really do see sort of how workplace culture really takes a toll on this too. Like there's some in some workplaces you're explicitly told this is a place where you don't speak up, you just keep your head down and do your work, and you don't question. And other places have a more psychologically safe environment where you can question, you can speak up. You can talk about things that you think are going in the wrong direction. So it is really fascinating how much there's like an inner aspect, but there's also the interaction with people that you have in your in your environment and working in a business school as well. I, you know, I look into sort of ethics and scandals, and I'm always so intrigued as to when people become what they call like a yes man or a yes person in a company, because you start equating how good you are with how much you follow your boss's orders and what they want, even when they go off track into sort of ambiguous areas or even clearly unethical areas. You forget we call it the psychologists call it ethical fading, that you start narrowing on what is your task and looking at how good you've performed as to how well you do that task, rather than asking the bigger, wider questions as to what is this about? Who's it affecting? Is it even ethical?

Jonathan Fields: [00:08:35] Yeah, I would imagine also that so much of this is patterned in childhood. I'm just thinking like, the typical kid is going to learn really quickly how to be in the good graces of a parent or a caregiver or a teacher, you know. And it's sort of like. And as a kid, you want to be in the good graces, in part because you just it feels awesome because, as you know, you're probably at an age where you want to feel like you're safe and protected. And if you like, you're kind of running these subconscious experiments all the time with that older person, you know, which is kind of testing, like what keeps me in their good graces or gets me in their good graces. And if you keep getting rewarded for complying with, like, whatever the rules and the norms and the expectations are, then you learn at an early age, oh, this is how it works. Yeah. Like this is how like, this is how I stay in their good graces. This is how I feel good about myself, how they feel good about me. And this is just the way that you're supposed to be in the world. Yeah.

Dr. Sunita Sah: [00:09:29] I mean, that reinforcement is so powerful. If you get rewarded for being good and you don't get rewarded for being anything that goes out of the category of following my orders and being good. If you don't get rewarded for that, then of course those neural pathways for being obeying are going to strengthen and become very strong. And then it's you have to really work at rewiring, but it can be done. We can change our default. And I always say that compliance might be our default, but it's not our destiny. We can become different.

Jonathan Fields: [00:10:03] And it is so interesting the way that this shows up as you described, you know, you gave the example of, you know, in the medical profession, which I know you also have personal experience in, um, I'm curious in your in your time in medicine, is this an experience that you personally have seen in yourself.

Dr. Sunita Sah: [00:10:20] In terms of, oh, not speaking up if I see an error?

Jonathan Fields: [00:10:24] Yeah. Um, or that you've grappled with in some meaningful way.

Dr. Sunita Sah: [00:10:29] I've grappled with, uh, calling something out and, um, being asked to to step back, you know, to step back and do something different. And I remember one occasion really well where I felt very upset about that particular order, but it seemed I was lacking power in that situation to make a difference. I was a junior doctor at the time, and I remember I was concerned about a particular elderly patient, so I ordered some tests and they were refused. Yeah. So another healthcare worker came along and refused to do it and said, asked me to delete something on the records that I had actually written. And I was incredibly upset about it. And a more senior doctor came and they said, yeah, I agree with you, but there was nothing we could do about that situation. And in that kind of environment, you feel really frustrated and just not knowing what to do. When you actually had noticed something, you'd followed what you thought was the right protocol in that place. So to some extent, I thought I was being compliant. And then I was told to go in a different direction. That wasn't for the best interests of the patient, and that can make somebody quite disillusioned with with how to change the environment.

Jonathan Fields: [00:11:54] Yeah, I would imagine, um, you know, as you're describing that, also, I'm remembering the sort of like the famed Milgram shock experiments that I think so many of us probably learned about in college, you know, like in different examples. But as it kind of boggles my mind sometimes, how far will go knowing, like there's a voice inside of us that says, this isn't right. And yet, if we're being told by, you know, person in authority and the culture around us seems to support the fact, like, but this is just what we do, this is appropriate and like keep doing the thing that, you know, deep down is wrong, that we we keep complying even when, you know, in this particular case, you know, you probably remember the facts better than me. I think it was students in a lab where they were told that there was another student. And in response to answers, they would give them varying levels of shock. Yeah, walk me through this a little bit more because it's fascinating.

Dr. Sunita Sah: [00:12:47] The studies were conducted, um, that people can call them infamous studies now in the 1960s.

Jonathan Fields: [00:12:54] They'd never be allowed now. So. Yeah.

Dr. Sunita Sah: [00:12:57] And it was really Milgram. Stanley Milgram wanted to investigate the sort of claim that from the Nazis after World War two, that I was just following orders. So that particular statement, that's all that they was doing. Was this really a psychological reality? Is that what people do? And he didn't expect that people would do that. And suddenly there was a group of psychiatrists as well that predicted that. I think it was less than 1% would go all the way up to the most dangerous shock, 450V, which could harm, um, a human being or even cause cause death. So they weren't the students that were members of the community that were invited to come into the lab, and it was framed as a learning and memory experiment, and it was set up in such a way that there was, um, one person who was part of the experiment. So an actor that would always be the learner and be put in a separate room, and the real participant would see that that learner would be strapped to something that looks like an electric chair. And they were looking at the effects of electric shocks on memory and learning to see if that would, uh, improve people's learning abilities. And the participant was then designated as a teacher, and they put in a different room, and they have to read out these word pairs to the learner. And if they get something incorrect, they have to start very low voltage around harmless 15V and then work themselves, work up this scale that was shown quite prominently to the participants up to x x x.

Dr. Sunita Sah: [00:14:40] Dangerous fatal shocks. And most psychiatrists predicted nobody, hardly anyone would go to the top level. And yet what they found was that everybody shocked at around 150 and everybody shocked at 300V even. And then it was about 65% of people went all the way to the deadly shock of 450V, which was really astounding. And he called those participants the obedient ones. The ones that refused were defiant. And that is why we have our definition wrong. Because the defiant, the defiant participants were actually doing the right thing and refusing to harm another person, but the obedient ones. And his category of just dividing into obedient and defiant is what we normally do. We have this binary of obedient or You're defiant when really I've noticed that there is a scale of defiance, and some of those that were classified as obedient were trying to defy. They just hadn't learned exactly how to be able to get to the final stage of defiance. So they would object. They would they would have had some nervous laughter, or they would smile or they would ask questions. But when they were told to continue, they continued. So it was actually quite shocking experiment and shocking results. And it's been replicated quite a few times. He also looked at different conditions that would allow for more defiance, which is also really fascinating to look in, what allows us to be more defiant in those types of situations.

Jonathan Fields: [00:16:19] And just for context here, for for those tuning in, the shocks were fake.

Dr. Sunita Sah: [00:16:24] The shocks were.Fake. And yes.The actor was.

Jonathan Fields: [00:16:27] The person that thought that they were pushing a button and giving the shocks. But the actor, the person receiving them was just an actor who was sort of like pretending to do this, so there was no actual harm. Well, can you even say there was no harm done? Because I often wonder, what about the psyche of the person who then left that room going in thinking I'm a good person and then leaving thinking I've. I've just done something horrible that I don't believe is okay. Like, who am I?

Dr. Sunita Sah: [00:16:52] Yeah.So that was the that's that's why we wouldn't be able to repeat the experiment now. Because just because there was no physical shocks being given to anyone. People had to live with the fact that they had indeed given someone, perhaps a deadly shock. And what did that mean about them? And that could affect people in numerous different ways. So that psychological effect could have been there, even though they were debriefed and is really given us a lot of insight into human behaviour. Those experiments, I think, would be, um, we'd be able to conduct them again today.

Jonathan Fields: [00:17:33] Day. Yeah. It's interesting. I remember, um, you know, there's this mentalist, Derren Brown, who does all these TV specials. He's, like, incredible. And I remember seeing one, and he does these, these, these experiments that really push the envelope of human behaviour. I remember seeing him effectively doing his version of this, where he was inviting people at an event. Basically, he would he would create a scenario where he would literally get people to come up to a rooftop and eventually, um, have to choose between pushing somebody off the roof or not. And these, these were people who were unsuspecting. They had no involvement beforehand. And a very substantial of people did believe that they ended up pushing somebody to their death, even though it was all contrived and it was mind blowing to just see, like, these are these are not people where you're like, oh, they just have this secret dark side, or like they're secretly evil or violent, like, this is you and me. Yeah, exactly. It shows us how manipulable we are when the right circumstances and expectations are wrapped around us. It's like these are, these are, these are us in our family and our friends. And it's it's so hard to wrap your head around that.

Dr. Sunita Sah: [00:18:42] Like when I read the descriptions of the participants that Milgram had written about and them sweating and even laughing nervously, I recognized aspects of myself and I was like, well, they're just like me. They're trying to defy, but they don't know how to. And we really need to learn how to defy in those situations because we get so much training. Well, I got so much training in being compliance. I say a masterclass of being compliant, but I wasn't taught how to be defiant. And a lot of people don't get taught how to be compliant. And so we need to we need to sort of nourish that will, to defy when we really want to. And I believe people were and they were showing so much tension in in those Months, but they weren't able to act through to the end and actually defy the experimenter.

Jonathan Fields: [00:19:37] Yeah, and we've just shared some pretty extreme examples. But this is also this happens to everybody every day in all the tiniest ways. Whether you're just like a people pleaser or somebody asks a favor and you're like, you know, like it's not quite aligned with you and you don't have time and you're like, just yes, yes, yes. You know, and and as you describe, you write about, you know, this, it's almost like the, the request for defiance and the act of defiance creates this, this, this tension like a conflict between your values and your expectations. So take me into this a bit more.

Dr. Sunita Sah: [00:20:07] So I call this this tension or resistance to resistance, that we often feel uncomfortable when we're asked to do something that goes against one of our values, which is, you know, probably for many people, not harming another human being. And when we are asked to do that, we feel tension. And in lots of situations where we want to Want to defy. We feel that aspect of tension and it can manifest in different ways for different people. So, um, you know, for some people it could be like their throat closing up, or it could be a quickened heartbeat or feeling some sweat or, um, I have what I call my crocodile smile, which is like a spontaneous smile that comes up as soon as I'm uncomfortable. Because in some ways, perhaps I want to appease the other person. But I also feel very uncomfortable, and I'm trying to mask that in some way that I'm really uncomfortable with what you're asking me to do. And we need to recognize that, because that could actually be a warning sign to us. It's a way of your body telling you that you want to defy, perhaps before you even know it. And a lot of the time we just disregard it. We sort of sweep it under the rug, or we just think it's not worth the doubt that we feel. And yet if we did really listen to it, we could think, right now I'm feeling uncomfortable. Acknowledge that to ourselves. And then the next step is, is communicating that to the other person. And that's a big step. But once you can do that, you're you're much more likely to get to the act of defying and saying, no, I'm not going to do that.

Jonathan Fields: [00:21:45] So so I guess the big question in my head then is like, just on a practical level, you know, you described like, you know, that you have this crocodile smile. So like you've you've discovered your tell, like you're like, okay, so now my brain translates this as like, this is happening. There's something that must be going on inside of me where there's there's a conflict happening here between values and expectations. What how might the typical person start to recognize, like, what is the signal inside of me? That should raise the question here.

Dr. Sunita Sah: [00:22:15] Well, it might be something that you are accustomed to doing. So I know about my crocodile smile. I think one of my colleagues pointed it out to me. I was like, you're right. And also laughed at. I have the same nervous laughter I think that the Milgram participants would have in that situation. If you've been in a situation where you wish you had done something different and you're recalling it, you probably know how you felt. And so I talk about a time that I went for a CT scan as a doctor knowing, knowing this, how could I not be able to say no in this situation? And, um, the doctor had told me to go for a CT scan. I thought it was completely unnecessary. I felt uncomfortable about it. I even though I talk about these stages of defiance and stage one is that tension, you know, feeling that tension which which could be different for many. You know, you have your own unique sign that you might be able to recognize from having been in these situations. But I certainly felt uncomfortable straight away, and I felt some anxiety and I just swept it away.

Dr. Sunita Sah: [00:23:23] I didn't even try to Try to acknowledge it to myself rather than communicate to the other person. I think I said the most I said was, oh, is is it's only a small amount of radiation. And I knew full well how much radiation was in there, but I thought that was enough for the other person to realize that I was uncomfortable and it wasn't. What I realized then is that even if I get to the point of saying I'm uncomfortable, you need to repeat it several times to be able to then say you're not going to go along with it. So I think learning thinking about situations where you wanted to be defiant or you wanted to refuse something but weren't able to, you can start thinking, why didn't you? What was it that you felt in that situation? Because what I feel when I end up going along is that that tension doesn't go away. It actually increases. And then it makes me think and ruminate about, why did I do that when I didn't want to? So I start thinking about it afterwards. Why do I why did I just go along with that?

Jonathan Fields: [00:24:24] That lands so, so strongly with me. I think similarly to you, like because I'm thinking about like, what are my towels? What are my internal signals? And I'm pretty sure for me, it's actually my gut is the place where that where that lands, where like when I sense a conflict like this, that tension like, you know, like I know what's right here and I'm not doing it in some way, shape or form. It often lands him. It's embodied for me before it's it's cognitive, you know, like it starts in my body and then like, my body is kind of twisting or spinning and often in my gut. And I feel like my brain then sort of like, even subconsciously, is like, ooh, what's happening here? It's almost like it goes from the gut up into my brain and my brain starts to ask the question, like, what's what's this signal about what's actually happening? Does does that I mean, that happens.

Dr. Sunita Sah: [00:25:08] To me too. Like I feel like, oh, something feels wrong, but I don't know what it is. And I have to try and then figure out, like, what is it exactly that feels wrong about this situation?

Jonathan Fields: [00:25:18] So you describe this sort of like the stages of defiance like this and starting with this early tension, this signal, walk me through like sort of the progression here.

Dr. Sunita Sah: [00:25:26] So stage one is that tension. And then it's an important step is that next thing about acknowledging that tension to yourself. So stage two is acknowledge it. You know tell yourself you feel tension. Something feels wrong. You feel uncomfortable rather than just disregarding it, which so many of us do. Then stage three is articulating that tension to someone else, like perhaps the person who is asking you to do something that you think is wrong. So telling them that, um, you're not comfortable with that and that stage three is actually a critical stage, because if you can get to stage three, you're more likely to get to the end stage, stage five and defy. Stage four is to continue saying that you feel uncomfortable and sort of threatened to, you know, you basically threatened and to defy that. I can't go along with that, you know. So it's remaining. Sometimes I get to stage three and I go back, but that's if you can get to stage three, you can just repeat it. So stage four is saying that you don't think you can comply with this or you're not going to comply with this. And then stage five is the actual defiant act. And the most interesting aspect about that is that once you do get to stage five, a lot of that tension that you're feeling just evaporates and you actually feel great about being able to to go along with, with your values and what you thought was the right thing to do in this situation. Yeah.

Jonathan Fields: [00:26:59] I mean, even knowing that there may be repercussions, you know, because if you have just, you know, like stated your defiance and then and then made an act that is perceived as being a defiant act within a system or a culture where it's like they like, you know, that's not okay. It's not accepted. That's so interesting. Right? Because on the one hand, you may be feeling this internal alignment where like the, you know, the warning signals internally are kind of calming down and your mind is like like, yeah, like that was the right thing. But then externally, like, you may have to pay a price for that. And this is some of some of the things you write about, you know, like it's and it goes to, you know, it starts to speak also to power differentials and and who really who gets to define and when.

Dr. Sunita Sah: [00:27:44] Yeah. So a couple of things there. One are the costs of of defiance which a lot of people think about. It's it's one of the things that keep keeps us so compliant is that we fear the costs. And they might be consequences and they usually are consequences of being defiant. So you might not get promoted, you might lose your job, you might damage a relationship. And these are the things that are often on our minds when we think about defying and but we don't think about the costs of continually complying with other people. And because there are large costs of that. If you are not living in alignment with your values, and you're constantly bowing your head to other people and disregarding your values, it can be soul crushing and that can affect you both psychologically, spiritually, physically. It takes its toll as well. So we do need to take that into consideration. And then there is a defined hierarchy where it's easier for some people to defy and live in alignment with their values, and for others that are not of the dominant class. So, um, there's more of a backlash. There's more consequences for defying, um, especially in certain situations. Um, I mean, we know that, uh, black people are more likely to experience severe consequences if they refuse to give over their cards or if they refuse to comply with the police, even if the police are wrong in conducting a search of any kind. That the students that I've spoken to, my African American students, my black students, they will say, you know, they comply because they want to go home. They want to go home. That is not the time to defy. The time to defy is later, but not when you could be physically unsafe. So we need to make assessments as to how safe this environment is. And also, another good one is to think about what impact is it going to have. What positive impact is this going to have? And we can think about time not just so we remain compliant continuously, but that we find the right time to defy when it's going to be both safe and effective.

Jonathan Fields: [00:29:54] That lands us so true. You know what I'm also wondering is, you know, there are certain systems or cultures, whether it's work or whether it's society where if you say like, I can't just go along anymore, like it's it's, you know, like it's time for me to actually do some act of act of defiance. And you think about the cost benefit analysis there and you're like, okay, because like, I get to be true to myself. I know what's right, and I need to stand in my values. All right. That will make me feel so much better. And on the cost side, you know, there may be times where you're you're thinking to yourself, well, this may effectively get me cast out from the culture, from the family, from the company, from, like, whatever it is. Like, I literally may not be able to that door may be closed to me, you know, and I may have to find a new culture or place or family. But then there are moments where, um, you've got to still live in that world no matter what. It just is what it is, you know, and it's awful. Um, but, like, you know, the on the cause side is like, I'm then going to have to sort of like, stay in this community, this society, this culture, because effectively, there's no real easy way out and pay that price in various different ways, maybe indefinitely. And that's got to be such a brutal thing to grapple with.

Dr. Sunita Sah: [00:31:16] Yeah, it really is. And I heard some fascinating stories about how people manage this in different ways. So one was sort of a police officer that I spoke to, that he trained during the time of the George Floyd incident, and he saw how sort of the rookie officers were so compliant to their training officer in restraining George Floyd, and he didn't want to be like that. So it was really fascinating about this story, is that talk about you don't have to be brave to be defiant. You can actually be motivated by fear, purely by fear. And there was a situation where they were late at night investigating some bicycle thefts, and he was a rookie police officer himself, and he was with some veteran police officers that wanted to search the garage Of someone because they suspected, I think that there might be some bicycles in there. And he he knew his law that this could not be, that they didn't have any standing to go in there. Right. Nobody was screaming. There was no blood on the floor. And they needed the home owner's permission. And the veteran police officers were kind of annoyed that this rookie police officer had called this out and said, okay, get permission. And he knocked on the door for a really long time. The homeowner's car was there, but he was probably fast asleep and he didn't answer the door. And the senior police officers were like, F it, I'm going in, I'm going to go in. And he refused to go in because he was just imagining a situation where they're searching this garage, and the homeowner would come out and think, somebody was in there and perhaps, you know, take action and something terrible could happen.

Dr. Sunita Sah: [00:33:05] So he was motivated by the worst case scenario and he just didn't want to be involved. So he decided not to comply with his senior officers. And the only reason he could actually do that, which is a very difficult situation to be in, and to do that is because he had thought about it before he joined the police force. You know, he had seen the George Floyd scenario. He his father was a police officer. And he said, I knew this job was going to be difficult. He told me I knew this job was going to be difficult, and I was going to see some unethical things, and I just didn't want to be the person that just followed orders and did the wrong thing. So he had already thought and contemplated those situations where he imagined this, but the consequences for him were pretty high. Like as soon as the journey back to to the police station, everybody was really quiet. And then within an hour he was in the office of his superiors, and they were telling him that he was wrong, and he was. His voice was stuttering, but he was glad that he did it. But word went all around and he was basically ostracized. In the end, he ended up getting referred to another unit, which was much better. But there were consequences for him. And he said that he was fine to take them on because that's what what was important to him. But it takes a lot of thinking through and knowing that this is the time to act.

Jonathan Fields: [00:34:33] And also real clarity and self-awareness, you know, to sort of like say, you know, like I'm going into a situation where I who knows what may happen. And in sort of like pre thinking, you know, like, what are some of the most likely situations that will come up, you know, against maybe just a daily basis even. And how might I handle them. And like what are the values that I would bring to it. Is this kind of you describe this phrase that you call sort of like your true. No. Yes, true. And also your true yes is sort of like, you know, like are we kind of talking about like this in a roundabout way to a certain extent, yes.

Dr. Sunita Sah: [00:35:08] So there is a true no and a true yes that I refer to, which is often when we comply, we just go along with what somebody else has asked us to do. And it's really dependent on the external circumstances. And somebody else asking us is it's not in alliance with our true values. Whereas what I call consent, I take in informed consent from medicine and the definition of informed consent there, which has five elements, which is that you have the capacity. So you have the mental capacity not impaired by disease, sickness, drugs or alcohol. So you have the capacity to make the decision. You have the information, the knowledge and the understanding of that knowledge. You know, the risks and the benefits and the consequences. And also you have the freedom to say no, because often if you don't have the freedom to say no, then you can't consent. It's simply compliance. If you have those four elements capacity, knowledge, understanding, freedom to say no. Then you can authorize your either true yes or you're true. No. But often we just end up complying with things or we comply, even though we all those factors are present because we're being very conscious. It's not a knee jerk compliance, but it's what I call conscious compliance that we comply with it because the costs of defiance are too great in the moment. So we're just putting our defiance on hold. We're not planning never to defy, we're just putting on hold in the moment. But when you mention Pre-thinking, that's something else in terms of preparing for how to defy, because a lot of the situations that we face could be predictable. So we might know that this particular friend or this particular work colleague, they're always going to make some kind of sexist remark.

Dr. Sunita Sah: [00:36:55] And if you let it go in every encounter or meeting, you feel bad about it and you want to do something different. So you can predict some of the things that would happen. So like Kevin, the police officer could predict something was going to come up. And how would you like to respond? For me, it was the CT scan that I went along with that. And I regretted it. And so I was like, next time this happens, I want to do something different. And so the first thing we want to do is think about those situations and visualize, anticipate it, visualize it, and then pre-script or pre-think. What is it that you would like to say? What would be your aspirational self? That who would you like to be in this situation? And then practice it. Because if you do all of those things, your neural pathways change. So even if your default was compliance, you can now become to a new default of becoming defiant. So that practicing that skill is really important, because we can get our mouths used to saying the words and our ears used to hearing it because we're not used to being defined or we might not have been trained to be defiant. And there's this wonderful quote that's often attributed to Bruce Lee, but it was actually a Greek poet that said, under duress, we don't rise to our level of expectations. We fall to our level of training. And that's why it's so important to train for defiance. You know, it's not it's a practice, not a personality.

Jonathan Fields: [00:38:29] And I would imagine part of that training also is the reframing of what defines really is and what isn't, as you offered, like earlier in our conversation. Like it's to sort of like offer yourself and remind yourself of that alternate definition of what defiance is, which is really can you share that again once more just so it drops into my mind again?

Dr. Sunita Sah: [00:38:48] So the old definition of defiance is to challenge the power of another person to resist boldly and openly. Whereas my new definition is two phi is to act in accordance with your true values when there is pressure to do otherwise. So it becomes this proactive, positive force in society, right?

Jonathan Fields: [00:39:09] So to remind yourself that that's what defiance really is. As we start to wrap up our conversation a bit, if we zoom the lens out a little bit and we start to think, okay, so like what are sort of like some of the core meta skills of this new approach to defiance. What would you offer up? What should we be thinking about here?

Dr. Sunita Sah: [00:39:28] I think one of the the largest sort of shifts that you can make is not thinking of defiance as being loud and bold and maybe angry or aggressive, and that you have to have like a strong personality or be larger than life. You don't have to be sort of this big hero to incorporate defiance in your life. You can you can be defiant in your own way that's unique to you with with less angst. Right? So we could all have our own unique way of being defiant. And it isn't just for the extraordinary, the brave people, the Rosa Parks. It's actually available and necessary for all of us. So I think that would be a key takeaway that I would love people to know, and then that we have to make defiance a practice, though we can't just wish ourselves to be defiant in a situation. We have to train for it, and we have to practice so we can be who we aspire to be in that situation. And so that training is really important. But at the end of the day, yes, there are costs for being defiant, but there are also costs for being compliant. And being defiant leaves you to have a more honest life. In a way, it can bring joy because it can be more authentic and live a life aligned with your values.

Jonathan Fields: [00:40:48] That makes so much sense. Thank you. And remember, if you're at a moment of exploration, looking to find and do or even create work that makes you come more fully alive, that brings more meaning and purpose and joy into your life. Take the time to discover your own personal Sparketype for free at sparketype.com. It will open your eyes to a deeper understanding of yourself and open the door to possibility like never before. And hey, if you're finding value in these conversations, please just take an extra second right now to follow and rate SPARKED in your favorite podcast app. This is so helpful in helping others find the show and growing our community so that we can all come alive and work in life together. This episode of SPARKED was produced by executive producers Lindsey Fox and Me, Jonathan Fields. Production and editing by Sarah Harney. Special thanks to Shelley Adelle for her research on this episode. Until next time. I'm Jonathan Fields and this is SPARKED.