Episode Transcript
Speaker 2 00:00:41 Just after the recent Greek national tragedy with a train accident in Tempe Central Greece, and in the middle of the three day national morning, the community of ACS Athens welcomed Dr. Eric Zilmmer in the campus. A renowned academic and psychologist, accomplished musician and author. Dr. Zillmer is a professor of neuropsychology in the College of Arts and Sciences at Drexel University, an expert in forensic psychology, clinical psychology, clinical neuropsychology, and sports psychology among other fields. He served as Drexel University Director of Athletics until 2021, and has come to know our school through his connection with our athletics director, who regularly visits Drexel. And of course, through the students who have attended Drexel as student athletes through the years. Happiness is the topic he has been exploring for many years through books, TED Talks, presentations, webinars, seminars, and classes. His visit this year to our campus included a talk about happiness with our students and faculty in our theater.
Speaker 2 00:01:50 Today's extraordinary in-content and length. Owclastis co-hosted by President Pelonis, who as a psychologist and psychotherapist herself provides interesting perspectives. In our discussion with Dr. Pelonis and Dr. Zillmer today, we discuss compassion and gratitude, the appropriate and fitting sentiments. Everyone should feel grappling with disasters, studying happiness through the moments of grief and mourning. When global is fashionable, the advantage of disadvantage of being foreign, the value of international diversity, embracing failure and make it a life lesson, is even happiness possible without failure. Do we need more than just laying on the beach with a cocktail? Failure is turning to opportunities for learning and growth. The example of sports and the social slice of life that sports create as failure. Dr. Zilmer, Dr. Pelon, is welcome to the outcast. This is not the typical one-to-one discussion we usually have with our guest as Dr. Pelon will be my co-host today. So pleasure. Dr. Zilmer, this is not your first visit to a c s Athens, correct?
Speaker 3 00:03:16 That's correct, yes,
Speaker 2 00:03:17 Sir. What connects you to our school? How did it become your travel destination
Speaker 3 00:03:23 <laugh>? Well, first of all, it's, it's great to be here and thank you, Dr. Polos, uh, for having me. This is a great campus. When you step on it, it feels warm, inviting, and welcoming. But even more importantly, uh, what I've learned over the years at acs, it has a, an amazing mission of, uh, global citizenship. It's a global classroom. It's international. It really looks at what's important in education and how do we prepare tomorrow's leaders. I wanna be part of that as an educator who teaches at Drexel University. And so I'm also inspired when I come here. It's not only a beautiful welcoming place, but it's also, I think, at the forefront of international high school education globally. So it's fun to be part of that and maybe contribute. And I always learn something, uh, you know, take in taking it away. So I think it might have been my fourth or fifth time. We've integrated with topics like happiness this week, but also, we brought our sports teams here, and I know there's other programs happening, and then I've also met with some of the faculty and, and Dr. Polos, uh, when they've traveled to America. So I appreciate this idea of a global classroom. So I, I am inspired by it and I love to be here.
Speaker 2 00:04:39 Yesterday we attended a very uplifting and inspiring presentation about happiness in the theater. In our days after what the entire world has gone through in the past few years, happiness sounds like the ultimate that sometimes seems unreachable. I feel it is quite fitting to have this discussion today in the middle of the national mourning in Greece from the horrible train accident in Tempe, where dozens of lives were lost, mostly young people. I know it's a whole chapter in psychology, the topic of mourning and recovery, but how do you approach the topic of happiness in the middle of grief and collective sorrow? And this is also a question for both of you. Since Dr. Pelonis, you have also talked and written extensively about the topic.
Speaker 4 00:05:25 I, first of all, I wanna say that, um, it was very apropo that, uh, Dr. Zillmer was here yesterday talking about happiness in the midst of all this, because I think it's a question that we need to be asking, uh, not only for ourselves, but we really should be asking that about our students as well. In addition to, are they academically, you know, well versed and skillful? Are they happy? And what can they, what can they do to be happy? I think right now, in the midst of all of this, uh, the only thing that we can feel is compassion and gratitude is profoundly sad to think about what has happened, particularly that there are kids, uh, who have lost their lives. But these are the kinds of things that bring to the forefront how grateful we really are should be for what we have, um, and for being alive. And what do we do with those lives? It's more a question, not of what we do, but how we live those lives. And, uh, I have a lot to say that Dr. Zillmer about that, but I'm gonna pass the microphone on and I'll come back to that.
Speaker 3 00:06:29 Hmm. Thank you. I couldn't agree more with you than, you know, when the tragedy happens like this, the first thing you really have to do is, um, is mourning and, and recognize the loss that has occurred. It's, it's human. The fact that there are, you know, official state days of mourning for three days and body are still being recovered as we speak, it's very difficult to look much further beyond that. Having said that, you know, these, these kind of tragedies, they do pre present an opportunity to reexamine what's really important in life. And, um, and sort of that's the kind of <laugh> intersection where actually happiness and the study of happiness tries to go to, you know, we start with simple concepts, but, but ultimately it's, it's about what is really important in life, whether the ingredients that make us human. And if you examine those, you, you can then find them and, and maybe actually identify them and quantify them and use them part of your curriculum, which is to really make this world a better place through a citizenship.
Speaker 3 00:07:34 And how do we, and bring this in, bringing this into the classroom. So, you know, having, uh, said that I agree with, uh, Peggy, that, you know, this is a state now of mourning. And as you know, there's also anger, and these are all natural, um, emotions as a re result of loss. And this terrible tragedy will come to a point in time, I hope, uh, an intersection where we can examine this and say, look, you know, we can do better as a society. And when you bring this into the classroom, whether it's Drexel University or acs, you make this, uh, part of the student's culture and environment and let them talk about it. Not only grieve, but also like, what are the ingredients and trying to make this world better. That's so something like this doesn't happen again. And then if you do that, then you turn something terrible, A national tragedy. Uh, global tragedy, really. I mean, even my friends in in Germany are talking to me about it while I'm here in Athens. You make, that's into something. You know, if it at all is possible, positive, and you have to, because otherwise there are lessons to be learned, and you have to, uh, capitalize on them and leverage them.
Speaker 2 00:08:47 Well, from the little that I know of psychology, reparation includes to go through this kind of grief. And, uh, we, we know that different ages, different people in different countries, they go through it in different ways. And we are dealing here with, uh, a really young population grieving for really young population. So the, the effect is going to be there for a few years from now.
Speaker 4 00:09:10 Absolutely. And the, you know, the closer the people are to these kids, the, the more difficult that becomes in that which, when we go into complicated grief. But I, I wanna say that I completely and totally agree with what, uh, Dr. Zillmer mentioned a minute ago. It has to be a mindset of, you know, a way of thinking about the world and about a way of thinking about my place in the world. And that can only be taught from a very young age. Uh, and school's a perfect place to do that. So all constantly reflecting and asking and teaching kids to reflect and ask, you know, who am I? What is my purpose here? Uh, how can I improve life and living on the planet? And how do my actions have consequences, negative, positive, or not at all? And then it becomes a choice of how I am in the world, rather than, you know, we become victim of circumstances.
Speaker 4 00:10:04 And that to me, first of all, builds psychological resilience, psychological muscle. It really strengthens internal locus of control ideas so that, you know, we're not feeling Vic victim of circumstances, particularly as technology and AI is developing so quickly, and there's so much information out there, and we're not sure what is good information, not, you know, appropriate information on, but developing this kind of mindset is crucial. And I said earlier that Dr. Zillmer, when he was, uh, you know, we've, we've met a number of times at Drexel University, here at acs Athens through our advisory board in Washington dc. And so, and it was really interesting to me, here's a man, very well established in his career, a professional who's written really significant books teach us at one of the best universities, especially this topic on happiness, athletic director, and one of the best universities in the United States.
Speaker 4 00:11:05 And every time I was in touch with him, he would ask me, what would you like me to do for a c s Athens? And I thought, if that's not conscious citizenship, I don't know what is the way that he lives his life. Not only that, but in talking to our students yesterday and our faculty, he brought a friend with him who is a very well known classical guitarist, who's here to do a concert. And she played for our students, what can I say? I didn't have to ask. He came to us. So that says a lot.
Speaker 2 00:11:35 And that's, uh, a way to keep people happy. <laugh> in a sense of these kind of questions. I mean, I'm pretty sure he made you happy.
Speaker 4 00:11:43 Oh, yeah, <laugh>, definitely
Speaker 2 00:11:44 With his question. Um, Dr. Zilmer, you are a professor of neuropsychology in the College of Arts and Sciences at Drexel University. And your expertise includes forensic psychology, clinical psychology, clinical neuropsychology, and sports psychology, among many others. You list current affiliations with more than 15 professional and civic organizations from the Scientific Research Society to the International Laro Sac Society. Your academic studies, appointments and experience is too long for us to list here, but your website is listed on our podcast page for any, anyone to view your profile. If you had to single out one item out of your cv, which one do you think plays the biggest role in what you do today and why?
Speaker 3 00:12:28 It would be the fact that I grew up internationally. You know, I was born in Japan to an American service man, a West Point grad of the United States Military Academy, very elegant, high-functioning man. And my mother's Austrian, she's Vietnamese, she was an Olympic figure skater. She has a first woman who had a PhD in mathematics and physics, and the University of Vienna. I grew up with exceptional parents, you know, um, and I grew up internationally. And at the time I grew up internationally. It wasn't thought as being necessarily an asset when people, they, you know, the word international and American sometimes use the word foreign, and foreign means different, not necessarily positively. Okay. And so when I came to the states, then as an American citizen, I've always been American, even though I grew up internationally in Africa and Asia. And then my formal education was in, in, uh, Germany.
Speaker 3 00:13:21 It became fashionable to be global. And, uh, students, uh, were sent overseas for studying abroad. And I realized, it clicked to me that this what I thought was a disadvantage, trying to always fit in, trying to speak languages that were different for me, was actually a strength. It became, uh, the advantage of disadvantage. And as a result, uh, I was able to position myself, uh, when we created the global classroom at Drexel University, when we invite, uh, you know, people from all over the world to study at Drexel, I was very much comfortable with that. And I felt like leveraging this, you could almost call it neurodiversity. It's a new term mm-hmm. <affirmative>, where you, there's no one right way of thinking. And, uh, that we appreciate the different cultures and diversity of opinions. And by having those, rather than the, of course, the opposite would be having an homogeneous way of thinking, which, uh, can be something that countries can engage in if they are very isolationist.
Speaker 3 00:14:25 That became really, uh, important part of the curriculum, the education. And this is being celebrated here at a acs. It's, uh, it's obvious. And so when I come here, I always feel like this is the kind of school I would've loved to come to, because they recognize from the very beginning that this is an important asset for, uh, the dna n a of the education that, that, that occurs here. So when you list all these things, they don't make much sense to me because they all seem so divergent, but this is who I am. And it's, it's exactly, it comes all naturally. And it comes from the background that I've always embraced, uh, international diversity.
Speaker 4 00:15:05 That is true. Kids that come abroad don't necessarily always see that right away, but I know eventually in their lives when looking back, you know, they, they appreciate that international flavor. But I'm curious about something, because we had, the other day, we had a theme, we had some guest speakers talking to our students about, and the theme was embracing failure. And I'm wondering about if you would share with us a failure in your life that maybe resonates with you and, um, has become a life lesson.
Speaker 3 00:15:37 Yeah, of course. I mean, we, it's so interesting how we think alike. You know, we're, um, we just did a workshop on failure in Drexel University. We're a co-op school, uh, which means that our students take at least one, two, sometimes three, six month rotations in the business sector. It's learning by doing, it's experiential. And, um, it provides them with an amazing opportunities. But they have to go through a real, uh, application process. They have classes and how to put a resume together. And, uh, not everybody gets their first choice. And you have to be learned to become flexible. You have to learn to accept failure, and it's hard at that age. Um, and so we, we tell them that it's an opportunity to strength and, and of course, they inevitably like, would like to learn from you, that you also are an expert in failure, you know?
Speaker 3 00:16:25 And, um, failure has defined my life. You know, I, I always thought it was that I was lucky to get through it. I, I flunked a grade in German school, the seventh grade, you know, I had to repeat it. It was embarrassing. Um, then I learned Albert Einstein also flunked the grade <laugh>. Yeah. And then, um, I was, I was a great skier, you know, I come from a very sports oriented family, and I broke my leg, uh, two times skiing, I was a racer. And that, you know, if, if sports is taken away from you when you're young, uh, injuries are really hard to, to deal with. It's a loss. And throughout all those things, I just came back to, you know, really my family who really supported me. And I didn't know it by then, but I became an enabler of other people's failures.
Speaker 3 00:17:16 And once I got into, you know, into having overcome all those things, and then, uh, be in a position where I can also share things with other people, it, it became obvious to me that in my backpack, I have a lot of psychological skills and psychological tools that other people do not have. I was not aware of it. And there's one book that brought this to the forefront. It's called Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell. Right. He's a writer for the New Yorker. And in it, he describes exactly what I've gone through, which is all these trials and tribulations, these triumphant struggles, you can say, have meant something in my life. And it brings up this amazing opportunity to talk to our students that is even happiness, possible without failure. You know, the, the pictures show you on an advertisement. You, you lay on a beach with a, with a little cocktail in your hand, and you just don't do anything.
Speaker 3 00:18:15 It looks like something we would want to do. But, you know, after a week you go like, I need more in life than that. That's right. Yeah. So I think actually failure is what leads to happiness. Overcoming it and overcoming it stronger, coming out of it, stronger than before. And one thing I've learned, and is, that's what I wanted to share with this, this community here, is that you can, you can capture and identify some of these ingredients and you can teach them, and you can then make a mirrors. So it's accessible. So happiness and the ability to overcome failure is accessible. So when, to answer your question in a, in a nutshell, when I hear failure, I hear opportunity. And that's what, what we need to do. And exactly like President Pelonis has talked about, you don't want to become a victim of a circumstance when you're an adolescent.
Speaker 3 00:19:04 You're trying to figure out, you know, your identity versus role confusion. It's, it's a stage that Erickson, a famous psychologist who, you know, outlined, I think is still true. And, and the, the role confusion is when things just happen to you and you don't understand that you can actually be the architect of your own life rather than being a spectator. And so that's a critical, uh, intersection where where we interface, whether it's college or high school, uh, is, is to make them feel like, yeah, you, you can do this. You mentioned locus of control. I actually have a scale and I give it to my students. And so maybe it's easier in college, of course, to do this, but they can, they can see where they mm-hmm. <affirmative> and there's no wrong, you know, and no wrong score. Cuz if you're really internal, you're also gonna kind of hard on yourself.
Speaker 3 00:19:48 Yeah. But it brings this idea that you can really make a difference in the world, and you can put that together. And that's what I've learned. Um, and if you, and it's a great question because in the past, people didn't want to talk about failures. They didn't wanna talk about, um, what went wrong in their lives. I was ashamed that I flunked school, but I now, you know, I was in good company. I just waited a couple years, and my other friends flunk too, and they came back to me <laugh>. So, um, so it's normal, right? And it is the educational system. It's, it's a normal thing.
Speaker 4 00:20:20 And you also, I loved what you said yesterday that, you know, happiness is not a place, it's not a destination, it's a journey. It's a continuous, and you can't have one without the other.
Speaker 3 00:20:30 You know, the moment you make a decision that you wanna pursue a goal, yeah. You are happy. And that's, that's so interesting. You know, you could, like, new Year's resolutions are interesting. Like Roman God, yanos, uh, looks forward and backwards. And the idea of, uh, of, of making a goal, and the moment you make it, whether it's to lose weight or to stop cigarette smoking, or to save the world, you are now moving towards something. And you can do this just just to with yourself. And, and all of a sudden you've changed your life in that instant, if you believe it. Of course. And it's true. I don't think you, you can, if you could live there, people would just go there and stay there. It's something you visit, it's something you aspire to. And so that's, that journey is, I think it's really an adventure. And when you accomplish the goal, then it's time for the next adventure. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. So that's, that's the beautiful thing about, about happiness. It doesn't, it keeps on giving.
Speaker 2 00:21:24 I think you covered so much ground. I think we're done. <laugh>. No, <laugh>. But that was a perfect cue for my next question, because you're talking about how failure can turn into an opportunity and I would add learning opportunity. And since we are in a school without failures, you don't learn. And, uh, maybe that's the next philosophy in how to encourage failure in, uh, in a classroom environment so that you can learn from it. Sports is another example of failure turned into opportunities, especially for your outlook in how you see life. Um, it's a very strong element in the life of our school sports. And I'm sure you have realized this by now, through your contact and discussions with our athletic director, Anand. Um, many students find relief from day-to-day academic agonists through athletics, through their participation in competitive tournaments in individual or team sports. What can we say to these students related to their career choice? How happy can they expect to be by choosing what they like to do versus what they are advised to do? As these two sometimes are quite different? What would you advise them and their parents to do and consider?
Speaker 4 00:22:37 First of all, I wanna go back to the idea of failure and providing opportunities for kids in schools to, you know, to fail. Which means that we're encouraging kids to take risks and to try different things. And that can only develop their, their creativity and problem solving and critical thinking skills. Um, it's the hardest thing for many of us as parents to accept that our children, you know, would fail or even for ourselves sometimes, uh, because it's associated with such a negative thing. So I think that yes, as schools we need to, um, cultivate this even more. And, um, yes, of course there comes a time when they have to, they have to do certain things to get to the next level and get certain grades. Do you know, all of those things. But there are times in the school when they can, and it's okay to, to fail.
Speaker 3 00:23:23 There is tremendous pressure on college students, and I'm sure it's on high school, students do to become something. It, it's like, it's like a western civilization, I think, burden to figure out like, what is it you want to do with in your life? And
Speaker 2 00:23:41 At a, at an individual
Speaker 3 00:23:42 Level. At an individual level. And, and because of that, I, I never force my students into telling me, when I tell them, I ask him what their dreams are. There's this famous Dustin Huffman's in this movie, the Graduate, and they ask him, what are you gonna do? And he says, I have no idea. And they go like, plastics, you know, like, he should go into a plastic. It's a big deal back then, but, but it seems like so defined. And so they have already so much pressure, I don't want to pour it on. And this idea of, you know, you have to follow your passion, everybody knows that. And, but it's hard to articulate it. And for some people they're late bloomers. You know, I'm a late bloomer. I didn't know what I wanted to do. And, uh, the school system I went through in Germany, they put a, a value on, on early decision making.
Speaker 3 00:24:26 And so when you go into university, you study one subject and, uh, you don't get to play around. I think the American system has done that really well. They, they still encourage growth even at the age of 20, 21, 22 in the college system. So, and then sports creates emotional intelligence. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, I mean, so does music and art, and just the ability to parallel process, to not connect the numbers, to not paint by numbers, to, to be free. And, and the built-in social slice of life that sports also creates is failure. Cuz you have two teams playing, one's gonna lose. And, um, and bringing the two together in your interesting, yet complicated question. I would phrase it this way, you know, when I, uh, had these injuries as a skier, as a downhill skier, I, uh, raced against some famous skiers, uh, Christian, no Reuter, Franz clammer.
Speaker 3 00:25:22 They were much better than me. Try two, three seconds. I had to go faster. That's a lot of time, by the way. And, and I just tried harder and I, I went faster what I thought was faster, but actually it was that I, I fell and crashed. And, uh, I wish I'd had a sports psychologist back then because they wobbly would've told me, relax, try to go slower. You, your bodies to too tense. It's gonna spit you out. And this is such a great idea, which as a sports psychologist, I tell my athletes, because don't try. I mean, when you're in school and everybody's forcing you to decide like, what, what's your passion? What's your passion? Go slower. It'll come out. You know, if you relax, you'll figure it out. And, and so I try to create this loving, caring, supportive environment in my classrooms where you take the pressure away from that.
Speaker 3 00:26:14 That's a, you know, I really, one bringing it back to happiness. It's to live into here and now to deal with what's coming now and what's coming next. And if you think in music, it's denote and the next note. And in sports, it's the pass and then the shot, you know, so you don't go too far into the future. And by doing so, it, it allows you to really be in the present. And that's when most creativity happens. You know, creativity gets throttled if you have pressures in the future and regrets from the past. So those are the kind of environments that we're trying to create in our educational systems. And when I come here, I feel that they're very similar to what I'm trying to do. That's why it's so, it's so much fun to see, you know, something that's done all the way over in Greece and Athens, and I'm in Philadelphia, and, and we're, we're doing the same thing. We're trying to, we're trying to reach the, the same intersection of life,
Speaker 4 00:27:10 As you said, you know, careers are no longer linear. I mean, it's not going to be one career that our, um, young people are going to go into for the rest of their lives. And so it's, it's a question of what kind of skills do I have? What kind of abilities do I have to be able to pivot and change and, you know, be resilient. And it's interesting because whenever people ask me about some of our success stories in terms of alumni, the kids that come to mind are the ones most are the one, not the ones that, you know, where it was predictable, you know, they were gonna be the doctor or the lawyer or the, you know, teacher or whatnot. But the ones that struggled, the ones that struggled, that needed that support, that learned these, that got these different tools, that learned these different way of being, and they're out in the world and they are happy and successful. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, and I can tell you, you know, from anywhere from psychologists to pilots, to teachers, to, you know, lawyers, whatnot. And really these artists, the ones artists, that's right. These are the ones that stand out in my mind as people, as kids who overcame those odds mm-hmm. <affirmative>. And with the support that they had really got out there and, and did what they love to do.
Speaker 1 00:28:31 You are listening to the Owl Cast, the official podcast of acs Athens.
Speaker 2 00:28:55 You are listening to the Owcast . Today we talk with Dr. Eric Zillmer from Drexel University and Dr. Peggy Pelonis, a c s Athens president, and it's all about happiness. In the second part of today's outcast, we discuss diversity as a good business decision, as well as a good humanitarian one, tackling the subject of mental health in the military, translating the extreme conditions of stress in the military into the business and educational sectors. The role of music in our lives, the happiness of listening to the dark side of music giving is getting, building the resilience, the role of the conscientious leader, how personal happiness plays a role in leading an organization and plan B's, understanding the why's, the Roman God, Janus, and other New Year's resolutions. We are dedicating many resources, human and material here at the school to understand what and why and how students learn the way they learn. So we try to teach to the student and not to the material. Uh, terminology is changing rapidly from talking about learning disabilities to, we are now discussing neurodiversity, as you just said, or neuroplasticity. Um, what is the best way in both your opinions for a community to address such issues, especially in the age of inclusion?
Speaker 4 00:30:37 For me, it starts with the, uh, awareness and acceptance that everybody has a right to equal education. I don't care how they learn, you know, how they think everybody has is different. And so it's up to us to, to develop and create that platform that will support every single student and their way of learning. So that's the first step. And if a community of educators accept that, understand that, and go from that, everything else can be learned.
Speaker 3 00:31:12 Yeah, absolutely. There's different ways of getting to where you need to go in life, uh, with a different skill set. You just look at, just look at gender. I mean, in America, in the military, which is our largest employer, 1.2 million people, there's only 15% women. Their military's working really hard to make that equal, but they also realize they're gonna have a better military, uh, having a more diversity, you know, so, so even when, when you see that it's, it's inspiring because it's a large employer, and when you allow this diversity to take place, you're gonna be a better, um, a better educational system. Because you, you mentioned sports, you know, if you're in a basketball team, you have five players, you have a shooting guard, a point guard, uh, forward, somebody who plays, it's clear. Everybody has different skills, therefore you have a better team.
Speaker 3 00:32:03 Why isn't this true in a boardroom? You know, why does everybody have to be the same? And so it's a good business decision besides being a humanitarian decision, it's actually a good business decision to have diversity in the boardroom. You're gonna be more successful. The research is, it's evidence-based boards in America to have women on them do, do more successful. So what other diversity can we bring in that makes you more resilient, more psychologically fit, more cognitively fit to make the right decisions as we go forward trying to make this a better world? The other thing you mentioned just about material assets, I wanna say something about that. You know, all know all the things we're talking about today don't happen in a vacuum. They have to be supported by people. And you know, in part, what I do is I, I try to bring recognition to the fact what we need to do, just to have a beautiful studio like this, like we have here at acs.
Speaker 3 00:32:52 It's really impressive. You need people to believe in your mission. Peggy and I have to be able to communicate this mission, and we need a village, a city to, to run this. And, and so I also feel like that this is much bigger than than us. Uh, everybody can play a role. People who have resources and are willing to, to help us support that mission, we need them. And so part of what I do, uh, for a living, really is to communicate these aspirations and try to recruit material resources so we can do a better job. So this is an important message, by the way, because this, this only happens when you have the right people in place and the right resources in place. Otherwise it doesn't. And and so this is a, this where we are sitting today is evidence of all this stuff coming to, of all of these factors coming together. And it takes a lot of work, and it takes amazing leadership as you have here with President PAs. But you, you need everybody on the team, the parents, the graduates, the alumni, this, the community, the neighbors, the government. You need all those people coming together to celebrate what it is that we possibly can do as humans.
Speaker 2 00:34:07 Dr. Zilmer, in your latest book, you probe deep into the topic of military psychology, clinical and operational applications. What prompted you to engage in this topic?
Speaker 3 00:34:18 You know, it's maybe the most important work I've ever done because it affects, it's a rule book for how to take care of mental health issues in the military and in veterans, but also in the police force and first responders. And just by the nature of it, it can touch 17 million veterans, 1.2 million active duty. It's been translated into Chinese, into Korean, into Portuguese. It's in his third edition. It's just something I felt comfortable with, even though really I'm a pacifist. I always been interested in the military because of my father being a, basically a Cold War agent, and growing up internationally and a divided Germanys, Germany, west Germany, and, and geopolitically, you know, since the first edition came out, we've been through three wars in America. We still have geopolitical conflict. So part of the book is really to help people in these extreme environments of stress, because we can also learn from how the military deals with stress, sleep deprivation, uh, all these things.
Speaker 3 00:35:20 And we can translate this into, into the business sector, into the educational sector. So that's part of the interest in, in this book. And it's become really bigger than, than I would've imagined or bigger than me. It's just came out last August and it, and its third edition. And I feel like as a clinical psychologist, it's something that I'm proud of because it helps the military and their, and their constituents. And I have to say that the military takes this very serious, you know, there might be like a stereotype that they don't care about how people feel. They certainly do. They, um, it, first of all, it's a, they can save money, you know, in terms of having people feel stronger about they have deployment, they have family issues, but they also care about being more just employer. Now, you know, globally, I can see how people look at this. And, you know, the American military has, you know, criticism in terms of how they, you know, participated in past events. But really that's more, that's really more political. You know, people have to understand that politicians set these things in things in motion. But as a result, we've always learned so much in psychology in the United States from the military, it's, it's been synonymous. World War I, world War ii, Vietnam, all these things have advanced psychology. And
Speaker 2 00:36:36 So it's maybe one of the most stressful situations someone can get into
Speaker 3 00:36:40 It's life or death. Yes, it's, we would call it an extreme situation, but it's also true for the German, uh, bundes, which my father, he taught at the films academy in Hamburg, which is the leading military academy. My dad was fluent in German. And, and so I've learned from that, you know, and I, so I sort of take that perspective, and then I translate it, and I offer a class called military psychology. And it, it's very popular. People come in with active duty or veterans, people don't, don't know this, but the, the military's, the largest employer of psychologists in the United States
Speaker 2 00:37:12 Makes sense.
Speaker 3 00:37:12 They have exactly, they have 800 full-time psychologists. Wow. And so this could also be an employer for you. So you have to kind of like, you know, work your way through maybe the international perception of this. But at the core, um, you're trying to find out how you can help people in extreme, uh, stressful situations, and then what you can learn and bring it back into the classroom, and then apply it into sports, the business sector. And that's, by the way, failure dealing with stress. Um, social connectivity, you know, there's a, there's a program by the way, that the Army used that, um, educated 40, 40,000 sergeants who are like unit leaders on happiness and how to communicate appropriately with their constituents and how to like, be more optimistic, you know? So, you know, they have resources and they, they're trying to do the right thing, in my opinion. And so it's been a vehicle for us, uh, to, to publish this. So it's been, it's been a really interesting journey. So thank you for mentioning it.
Speaker 2 00:38:16 Uh, yesterday during your dialogue with, uh, the students in our theater, you were accompanied by a talented guitar, which also see has a concert coming up, I think, um, online. There are many images of you with the guitar or guitars. Drexel News have called you the Renaissance man. What is the connection? How important is music in your life?
Speaker 3 00:38:39 Music is one of the great mysteries of life. We could live with music, but potentially we could live without it. But on the other hand, there's research that suggests if you listen to music, you spend more money, you're happier. Mozart called it, you know, music is the silence between the notes. I love that because it sort of creates this kind of idea about rhythm in life. There's no music center in the brain. It's everywhere. If the brain was a hotel, let's say 200 rooms, music would be in every room. But language is only in 20 rooms. Music preceded language. Uh, all scholars agree. There's something about rhythm, about the, you know, like when you're listening to music, the best way I can like deconstruct it is you're searching for something like some, you're going somewhere with this. So I've always been fascinated by music. Of course, being at home with my mom, she was a choreographer, and my sister being an Olympic skater and a Western German champion three times.
Speaker 3 00:39:38 And we, we, we grew up with music, and I played in a band, and I played guitar all my life. But I always come back to music, just like I come back to sports or to poetry, something that involves rhythm, the rhythm of life. And, um, I'm the president-elect of the Philadelphia Classical Guitar Society. So I've been using my organizational skills that I've learned in the university and in athletics to stage concerts. I have a great passion for it. And so I, I got to know Anna Vidovich, a, uh, a global, a superstar, and has played all over the world and is just, uh, unbelievable in terms of her ability to interpret music and be authentic about it, and make a connection to the people. So she's playing Saturday to what seems to be a sold out concert here. And so we're looking forward to observing that, you know, and, uh, having be part of that. So I feel it's great to bring music into the classroom, to bring sports into the classroom. Do
Speaker 2 00:40:35 You play to your students?
Speaker 3 00:40:36 I do play, you know, I'm an accomplished guitar player,
Speaker 2 00:40:40 But,
Speaker 3 00:40:40 But, but not like Anna. Not like I, you know, so I'm not a virtuoso
Speaker 2 00:40:44 Who, who's your go-to artist when you want to feel happy?
Speaker 3 00:40:48 I would go, you know, right now is the 50th anniversary of the Dark side of the moon yesterday, pink Floyd. And you look at Pink Floyd, this
Speaker 2 00:40:57 Is, and you go there to, to feel happy.
Speaker 3 00:40:58 No, because <laugh> Yes, yes and no. You have to, the brain is a mysterious organ. You, you listen to with sad music, and you become happy
Speaker 2 00:41:07 <laugh>. But I totally agree on this one.
Speaker 3 00:41:09 Yeah. Yeah. But, uh, but you know, if you look at the Pink Floyd, it's an interesting dilemma that they had. They had this unhappiness through Roger Waters, their bassist, but then all their other guitar, the guitar player, the, the keyboard player, they were happy. They were playing major chords, you know what I'm saying? So I think they became so successful, now that I look at it over 50 years. Well, one of the best selling albums began. They had the, they had conflict within their music. Music, huh? Sad and happy. Yeah. You know, the sad lyrics,
Speaker 2 00:41:37 There's this contrast.
Speaker 3 00:41:38 There's a contrast, which if you think about it, it's the only way to make a good pizza, right? You need good tomato sauce, and you need good cheese. It's the same with music. So, uh, so right now I would go with Pink Floyd, just to, to celebrate my youth.
Speaker 2 00:41:52 Dr. Willis, what's your go-to
Speaker 4 00:41:54 Music? I, I'm gonna have to say Black Sabbath,
Speaker 3 00:41:56 <laugh> <laugh>. I
Speaker 2 00:41:57 Love it. That's the total extreme happiness. Okay. All right. Um, and this, the next question goes to both of you, uh, but starting with Drexel, I mean, during your tenure at the university, uh, Dr. Zilmer, I'm sure you got to meet Constantine. No relation, by the way, <laugh>, who was the president until he passed away in 2009, I had the privilege to interview him for a radio program in Chicago when he took the office of the president in 1995. Admittedly by many, his leadership style was unique and turned the school around, especially in educational institutions, especially when changes happen, the leader brings their own trademark to the transition. So how can a leader introduce their brand of happiness to the community?
Speaker 3 00:42:43 I was a close friend of Dr. Papadakis. He hired me to be the athletic director at Drexel. I was already there for 10 years. We were, uh, great colleagues, great friends. I admired him. And what he brought to the table was this amazing energy of positivism. We can do this, you know, and after you sat through his lecture of, we can do this, you actually believed it, that we can do these insurmountable things. So he had this great energy. I felt very comfortable with him. Having grown up in Europe, I, I love people who are, you know, international and I love Greek Americans and Greek people. They're, they're great. We got along really, really well. It's a great loss to not only Drexel University, but, uh, institutional higher learning across, across the world. He was a great leader in that space. And, um, and he understood that you had to, you know, position yourself correctly as an engineer. He was an engineer, but he was not only the, not only the nuts and the bolts, he looked at it in a really big, big way.
Speaker 4 00:43:45 Systemically.
Speaker 3 00:43:46 Yeah. Systemically.
Speaker 2 00:43:50 Drs. What, what is your take?
Speaker 4 00:43:52 First of all, I think in terms of leadership, you know, it's important that we acknowledge and build on, on John's shoulders as we, uh, build on what has already been established and not start all over again. And, but I think that everybody brings their own perspective. My per personal perspective is the psychological piece, the part that, where I think it's really important to pay attention to that and, um, make sure that, that, that kids are asking the right questions about themselves and moving in a direction that's healthier than, than not. Um, so I would say, if you extend that in, for me, if you extend that in the community and talk about, here's how I wanna be in the world, and by doing, by being this way, I can improve my life, somebody else's life and life on the planet. It, it's an interesting thing in psychology, I think you might agree with this, that giving, it's about getting, so the more you give, the more you do for others, the more it really creates happiness, satisfaction. It really does build on that resilience. So it's not necessarily about doing for someone else. You're really doing for yourself in the end. And when people understand that, then you make those kinds of choices and can ha be happier. So giving is infectious. Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 3 00:45:13 It's a, it's, uh, addictive to yourself, actually. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, you know, uh, I've done a lot of fundraising in, in, uh, material giving, in athletics, and I always thank people for their contribution. And, and one person's stopped me in the tracks, don't No, no, no, thank you. That's right. For allowing me to be in a position to do this. And this was eye-opening to me. I also wanna say something about leadership. Uh, let's be serious. You know, you can't overcome bad leadership if you have a, a leader who doesn't allow your faculty to be enabled and empowered. It's devastating. You know, and we've all, in the past, we might have been involved in kind of situations like that. It's hard to be a leader. So the leader also becomes really important because you can't overcome that. And so, in, in Dr. Papadakis and President PEIs, you have two, you know, inspirational leaders who understand that.
Speaker 3 00:46:07 And, and so not only, you don't, don't, you have all of this negative fallout you have, you're building on a lot of things that are really positive. So it's a, it's a win-win situation. The leader still is the most important person in any system because of that. And so conscientious leaders know that. And so they try to work very hard and trying to find out what the, the, the sweet spot is to not only run a, an organization, which requires a lot of tough choices sometimes, but also to enable their constituents to feel like they're actually the ones that are most important. You know, uh, I, we have this organizational chart in athletics. I used to have like 400 employees or something, and I was at the top and I hated it. But they said, well, we want that because we can see where everybody fits in.
Speaker 3 00:46:56 And I, one night I snuck into the, into the coffee room, and I turned it upside down, <laugh>. And now I was at the bottom. But, but it was much more appropriate. I'm not that important, but I do feel the weight of everybody. Yeah. Well, the roots are below the, the tree. That's, that's true too. You have to be well rooted. So these organizational structures are, I mean, I'm still, I still don't like 'em, but I can see how people like 'em. But, but if you look at it that way, there's a lot on our shoulders. And it takes an obse an exceptional person, and they, that person also has to take care of themselves. You know, that's, it's a difficult job. So that happiness also plays a personal role for, for them to have a happy leader.
Speaker 2 00:47:34 Finally, this past January, you shared eight tips for staying on track with our goals. I guess it's about New Year's resolutions. Um, you wrote not to forget our plan B, to keep our goals simple, to understand the why and others, your number eight tip is to remember Janus, the two-headed Roman, God. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. Why Janus? Why the duality, why the ambivalence isn't the future ambivalent enough?
Speaker 3 00:48:06 Yeah. Well, I'd love to hear what Peggy has to think about that. Yeah. Go for plan. But plan B is sometimes thought of as a weakness. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. But when you're an athletics, and I'm a sports psychologist of some world class athletes, you know, plan B is in play all the time. And plan B doesn't mean you give up on plan A, you're just having a pep talk with yourself, you know, and, and soccer teams, they have a halftime and they go to plan B or they modify their actions. And, uh, after I wrote that column and I was, you know, very, uh, grateful to be allowed to write it, um, one person read it who I would think is extremely successful from a business perspective. And they wrote me, he says, I always have a plan B. You know, and you wouldn't think of that person as a plan B person. You would think of them, they may have plan A and they're successful
Speaker 2 00:48:57 With plan A, and
Speaker 3 00:48:57 That's it. That's it. Yeah. Do you agree with
Speaker 4 00:49:00 That? I completely agree with that. And I think it's all, it's, a lot of it is about Plan B's and developing Plan B's all the time because you are also, you know, plan a's and, and in place and it's moving, moving in its act. But you've gotta have that other option and not be locked in because you can really be thrown off your tracks Totally. When something comes
Speaker 3 00:49:19 Your way. And we call it flipping the script. And, and, uh, in sports, you just have to like, okay, regroup. And it, and also comes back to what we talked about embracing failure. I mean, these small failures, plan A failed. The other, um, the why people in America say, I wanna lose 20 pounds. Okay then, and then half of them fail half. Okay. So now I feel bad cuz they feel guilty. So the next year they won't even make another goal because they're like, oh, I'm gonna, I'm just gonna fail again. They're
Speaker 2 00:49:46 Gonna go half.
Speaker 3 00:49:46 That's right. <laugh>. So there's some interesting things in just that statement, you know, why 20 pounds? Why not 17.5? You know, so people pull things out of the air, some goals, and that's probably what you're gonna get when you're asking a student like, what do you wanna do in life? They're not gonna say, I'm gonna lose 20 pounds, but they're gonna like, I wanna be a doctor or something. Yeah. It's not specific enough. And so why even bother? What's more important than the 20 pounds is I want to be, have a healthy lifestyle. Yeah. The, the why is more important than the how. So people focus on the how, which is result oriented. But if you work with professional athletes, they don't worry about the result. They can't, they can't affect the result. They worry about the process, what happens in the here and now. And if you want to create a healthier lifestyle, you want to take care of yourself, you want to be healthier in terms of what you eat and how you live your life, so you can help other people help themselves, then you have to understand the why. And if you understand the why, the how will follow.
Speaker 4 00:50:45 And in terms of the why, I think that's so important, especially in education, because we all know what we're doing here. Obviously kids are being educated, they're getting, you know, the knowledge and the skills and so on and so forth. But when an institution really understands the why and it, it's a higher purpose. Why, meaning what kind of people do we really wanna send out into the world from this institution? Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. That's our why once we define that, because I think the result of education oftentimes, at least, you know, K-12, uh, shows a lot later in life in terms of how people live their lives. So what kind of people do we wanna send out into the world? The kind of people that are gonna improve life in living on the planet. Once we know that why everything then starts to make sense.
Speaker 3 00:51:31 Yeah, absolutely. And then Ganos, I don't know if we're, we're, we're in Athens, if we're talked, we're allowed to talk about Roman gods, you know, <laugh> so,
Speaker 2 00:51:39 Well, it's not a hundred percent Roman, but that's
Speaker 3 00:51:41 Okay. There you go. Exactly. We're
Speaker 2 00:51:43 Not gonna go there now,
Speaker 3 00:51:43 We're gonna argue that well just say they're Greek God, ro Yeah, no, Greek or Roman. Here we go there. The reason I picked him out is, of course, the, the month, January, yeah. Is named after him. And you know, we all look back and we all look forward during that time of the year. So it's almost intuitive to set goals at that time. But there's one thing that especially Americans miss when they make these goals. And Yanos sort of talks about it, but it's always forgotten. And that is, if you make a goal, then you also have a time when you finish the goal, there's an end point, just like to this interview. And symbolically you brought this up at the end, right? So my point is, we have a way in Western civilization to start something but not finish it. So let's say you wanna lose 20 pounds.
Speaker 3 00:52:33 Okay, let's do it in the next eight months, and then if you don't accomplish, you go to plan B or finish it. And so what happens is you have these goals and it's open-ended. And I know as a psychologist that if you do that, it, it creates unfinished business, uh, creates guilt, which hangs around much longer than it should. It becomes unhealthy. And so, so I'm reminding everybody that there should be an end point to really everything in life. And that's, I think why sports are so popular too, because they deal with this ambiguity of a beginning and an end. You know, it's now over, but now we're an extra time. You know, there's like, there's always a struggle to how do you actually define the end? Even in sports, you know, it's 90 minutes in a soccer game plus extra time, you know, how much extra time.
Speaker 3 00:53:20 And, and it's, so we struggle in life. We want to live indefinitely. And so we do the same thing when we, uh, present goals. And so it's important to say like, okay, look, uh, it's over. You tried your best. You, you just lost five pounds. Congratulations. And now you go on to your next adventure. Why? Why prolong this forever? And, and when you do that, there's actually a word of, it's a German word called the NIC effect in psychology, which is unfinished business hangs around forever. Mm-hmm. <affirmative> in your psyche. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. And it, it's cumulative and you put it into your little backpack. And if you do a love of that, it'll weigh you down that you can't move anymore. So that's the message is to say, okay, over. Let's move on.
Speaker 2 00:54:13 Well, Dr. Zilmer, Dr. Pelonius, thank you so much for your time. I think that, uh, you know, this 53 minutes of conversation, I think it gave us a lot of things to think about. Looking forward to seeing you again in the studio. Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you Mr. Papa.
Speaker 1 00:54:31 You are listening to the Acast, the official podcast of ACS Athens. Make sure you subscribe to the acast on Google Podcast, Spotify and Apple Podcasts. This has been a production of the acs, Athens Media Studio.
