[D] Hey, it's me, Destin. Welcome back to Smarter Every Day. Today we're at the local community college where my friend is a teacher. We're going to learn about a concept that will help you learn more about yourself. If you watch this video, it's going to make you think deep things because years ago my buddy Daylan taught me this concept. It's called the Johari window, and I cannot quit thinking about it. Let's go meet Daylan. He does not know what we're going to talk about.

He does know I'm filming, but he doesn't know why. So let's go get Smarter Every Day. Oh, you wore the vest today. [Destin laughing] You wore the vest today. [Y] How are you, brother? [D] Doing well. How are you, man? Is this how you dress? [Y] This is how I'm dressed. [D] When you do the professor thing? [Y] Absolutely. [D] That's cool, man. This is Daylan Woodall. We're buddies. And can I shut the door here? [Y] Yeah, yeah.

[D] OK. Do you have any idea what we're going to talk about? [Y] I have no idea what we're going to talk about. [D] What are you teaching today? [Y] So this is a New Testament survey class. And so we're talking now about the Book of Acts and the development of the Christian faith as a distinct faith tradition that comes out of the Jewish world, but ultimately becomes something distinct and different. [D] I can tell you're different. You're in professor mode. [Daylan laughs hard] You're totally in professor mode. I have never met Professor Daylan. I know my buddy Daylan.

I don't know the professor. This is amazing. Okay, great. This is my buddy. Reverend Daylan Woodall. You're a professor basically right now. That's my title for you. I don't know what- lecturer. I don't know what it is. Daylan's brilliant. Years ago, Daylan, you told me something that I can't get out of my head, and I want to talk to you about it today. I don't even know if you remember this, so I'm shooting cold here. You told me about this thing called the Johari window.

[Y] Yeah, right. [D] Do you remember this conversation? [Y] Yeah, I do. Okay, are the gears turning right now? [Y] Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. [Y] I remember where we were when we had that conversation. [D] Where were we? [Y] We're not having lunch. [D] Maybe. [Y] Yeah, I think we were having lunch. [D] What were we talking about? [Y] I think we were talking about parenthood. and our children. [D] So you gave me this mental tool to understand self-awareness, right? And it has changed the way I think about myself and other people.

[Y] Yeah. [D] And I want to talk to you about it. [Y] Yeah, I think it does that. [D] I have read up on it a little bit. [D] But I think that people would benefit from having this framework in their minds. [Y] Yeah, absolutely. [D] And I just want to show it to you and I'll get you started with it. [Y] Okay. [D] So this is the Johari window right here. [D] Come on over. [Y] It's like pop quiz on the Johari window. [D] Well, I mean, you're not- you're not a psychologist, right? But you're a reverend. You're my friend.

[Y] Yeah. [D] And you're incredibly emotionally intelligent. [Y] You're very kind. [D] And you told me this and it changed me. We have one of those markers over there. [Y] Does it matter what color? [D] Let's go blue. so we're gonna go Johari window. [Y] All right. [D] So the Johari window, as I understand it, as you taught me, is a framework for how to think about yourself in the world and so we'll start here. The first column here, known to self okay, I'll let you go from here.

[Y] Okay, so one of these is known to others. [D] So that'd be here. Yeah. [Y] Known to others, right? [D] Uh-huh. So this is not known to self this, you can say not self. [Y] Yeah, not self. [D] and this is not known to others, right? [Y] Right. Yeah, I think that's right. Yeah, not others, just for consistency, right? [D] Yeah, right. You told me that each quadrant here means something. [Y] Right. [D] Can you explain it to me? [Y] Yeah. So this quadrant here are things that you know about yourself and that others know about you. in this upper left.

[D] Okay. [Y] Right. And so, you know, you're an engineer. and other people know that you're an engineer. [D] Yeah. [Y] That will go in this quadrant. You know that you are a content creator and other people know that you're a content creator. You know that you're a dad and other people know that you're a dad. Right. [D] Okay. [Y] You know that you're a believer. And other people know that you're a believer. Yeah. Right. Those are, those are some examples.

[D] So take me to another quadrant. [Y] So another quadrant are things that you know, but other people don't know. Okay. Right. And so this, this could be like your back injury. [Daylan laughs] You know that you're- [D] you're out-in me here, right here in front of everybody. Yeah. [Y] Hypothetically, if you had a back injury. Okay. Right. But it could also be emotional things. Yeah, right. Like, you know that you have-So secrets? [Y] Yeah, sure.

[D] Okay. Secrets and feelings. Yeah. Okay. [Y] And these can be things that you're intentionally sort of keeping from others, right, that you don't want them to know. Or things that maybe you recently learned. Right. That you would be willing to share, but perhaps that time or that space hasn't come yet, right? So this top quadrant is the scary one. [D] What do you mean? [Y] Well, I say that because these are things that you are unaware of and that others know. [D] So the blind spot.

[Y] That's the blind spot, right? And the central implication of the Johari window, right, is that there are parts and pieces of our personality and identity that are mysteries to us, that we don't have perfect self-knowledge. And I think that was kind of how we, we brought this up in the context of the initial conversation we were having. And we have this incredible inclination and we live in a culture, right, that says to us, because our wants and needs and desires are so present and so loud, we know ourselves well. But the reality is we are coming to know ourselves as others are coming to know us and that we have blind spots.

Yeah. Okay. [D] What's the next- the next quadrant here? So this quadrant here is what? Stuff that other people know that you don't. [D] It's just the unknown. [Y] Yeah, it's the unknown known. That's Rumsfeld. [D] Unknown unknowns. [Y] Is this going to be a Smarter Every Day? [D] Yeah. [Y] Wow. [D] Yeah. What do you mean, wow? [Y] I just thought you were doing this for fun. [D] No, man. So I found out where the name Johari comes from.

[Y] Wow. [D] It's the two people that came up with it, Joseph Luft and Harrington Ingram. [Y] That's incredible. [D] They just put their two names together. [Y] Wow. [D] Yeah. [Y] Now that, that makes me so happy. Luft and Ingram first talked about the Johari Window in 1955. This is a reprint from 1961, but I want to briefly make sure we understand the panes of the window. We've got 4 areas, right? The first one, arena. That's the public stuff. We understand that. Teddy Roosevelt, man in the arena, right?

Down here we have this area called the facade. I didn't explain this very well, but what the facade is, is it's not so much the lie that you're telling people, but it's the truth you're withholding. Daylan mentioned my back injury. I chose not to tell people about that till Daylan outed me. And I'm outing myself here because I get to control the edit here. But the facade is something you might withhold because You're not ready for people to know, or you don't necessarily want people to know how you feel about a certain thing, or you have inner feelings and secrets. So the facade is a very interesting area. So it's that stuff that you're withholding.

So Luft and Ingram called that the avoided or the hidden area. That makes sense. They call this area the blind area, which I'm calling the blind spot. That terrifies me because the idea of someone knowing something about me that I don't know, I don't know why that just scares me for probably all kinds of self-esteem issues reasons. But that's That's a scary part there. And then, of course, we have the mystery down here. So those are the four panes of the Johari window. Why do you think the Johari window is valuable? [Y] I think the Johari window is valuable because it forces us to confront, you know, the reality that our knowledge of ourselves isn't perfect.

Right. And it forces us to confront the reality that people will notice things and see things in us that are true that we're not aware of. Yeah, right. And those are essentially important to our growth and development and our movement throughout life and throughout the world, right? We have to be open and available to the reality that we're still learning who we are, and that others might have insight into who we are that we haven't noticed.

We have to be open and available to the reality that we have blind spots. That's critically and crucially important. That changes the dynamic of human relationships. [D] So do you think ultimately that Jahari Window is about relationships, or is it about self-awareness? [Y] I think it is about self-awareness, but self-awareness directly impacts relationships. So I think it's really hard to disentangle self-awareness from relationships because having self-awareness directly impacts the health of our relationships.

Like, if a person is unaware, right, of what their issues and their flaws are, that's going to manifest itself and negatively impact their relationships. But if they are aware right? If they're honest about their flaws and their issues, if they're aware, right, and they're progressively working to resolve them, well, they're going to have healthier relationships. No man is an island. We are in community. We are in relationships with people. And the question isn't whether or not we're in relationships with people or society.

The question is whether we are in good relationships or bad relationships with people in society. [D] I see. Yeah. Yeah, I feel things talking about this. Like, like when you talk, when you gave me this tool to think about myself [Y] I remember seeing your eyes light up. I was speeding past this like, you know, the Johari window. You're like, wait, what? Yeah, what's that? And then I told you, and I think most of our conversation became about that. And then I thought that was just going to go in the giant pile of other random things I've told you.

And then you brought it up again and you told me that you had talked about it with one of your, one of your kids. And I was like, oh, you're still thinking about that. [D] I am, dude. I mean, like, I think that's one of the most beautiful things about our friendship is that you help me with the blind spots. I think- I feel like you do. Yeah. And so this is what I would like to do. So I'm going to- I'm just going to- [Y] that really means a lot to me that you say that.

[D] Oh, I mean it. So, dude, this is a little scary. No, it's not. So for me and my own relationships, this is the known to others, known to self, right? And so if I have the ability to somehow expand this area, right, so that I know more about myself, right? If I can make that area bigger, ah, then I think I can- [Y] like Johari window theory. [D] Now, if we have the ability to expand what we know and what others know about us, right, I think we can grow as a person, right? And so I thought about this, right? And I've read about it. So in order to move from the known to self and the not known to self, the stuff that other people know, right? In order to move over here into this area, into the blind spot, you have to have trust with a person.

[Y] Yeah, you have to have people. [D] They have to know you. [Y] That's right. [D] And they have to- there has to be enough of a relationship there where you can ask, like, what is my blind spot? [Y]Yeah, sure. [D] So being vulnerable here. Yeah. I would like to ask you. [Y] Ohhh hoho [Both LOL hard] Oh, so, so what? [Y] You've got to stroke my beard. Oh, you've come to the right place. [D] What is a blind spot that Destin Sandlin has that you think it would be valuable for me to know?

[Y] So you're in a generation that even, even though you're a STEM person, a science person, an engineer, like you come from a generation where, like, human relationships were much more important. You kind of grew up outside of the internet, even though you're very much on the internet now, right? Yeah. And so I would say a blind spot would be that you're like highly relational, but you're in a context where relationships work differently. So you're thinking about how relationships work. Yeah. And I think how the contemporary culture thinks about how relationships work, I think that's maybe a blind spot. Does that make sense?

[D] Meaning they're different? [Y] Yeah. I think like what relationships are like in contemporary culture is like much more transactional. Yeah, but this is what happens when you have like the internet and parasocial relationships and people like are not connecting with people in the same way. That explains the loneliness epidemic and this kind of thing. So I think the way you go about building relationships or like your inclination to build relationships in a certain way is different than kind of how that works in contemporary culture. Does that make sense?

[D] So you're saying maybe I don't build relationships effectively? [Y] No, I'm saying that your assumptions for what other people might be looking for in relationships are different than maybe what they're actually looking for in relationships. [D] Oh, okay. [Y] Does that make sense? [D] So sometimes I miss. Yeah. Okay. So sometimes I miss relational. So I miss relationally. Okay. That's- I'm going to have to think about that for- [Y] For a while. [D] The rest of my life. [Laughing] So, so give me, give me some more here, Daylan. [Y] I would say that- [D] and do just like- I might not be ready to publish this on the video.

Yeah, sure. I mean, like, use the, use the relationship capital we have and just, and just tell me, what are my blind spots? [Y] You're a white guy. and what that means is your view of the world isn't necessarily going to naturally relate and connect with people that come from a context different than yours so like, you don't know what it feels like to be pulled over by the cops as a black guy because you're a white guy. Yeah. And so when I tell you a story about me getting pulled over by the police or

whatever, you're going to perceive that differently because you're a white guy. So not that there's anything wrong with that, [D] but you're saying I may see the injustice and be irritated by it, but I still don't actually understand what it's like. [Y] Yeah, for sure. And so you're I think maybe your ability to perceive needs to be aided by relationships because it has been shaped by the kind of life that you have had. So that's like a cultural, you know, kind of blind spot. [D] I'm going to stop short of saying I understand. Sure. Because that's the point of the exercise. Well, that's the point of what you just told me.

Sure. Yeah. So I'm going to say I will take that. And I'm going to chew on that. Yeah. Okay. I think, I think this relationship helps in that area. [Y] Well, and I think when we are wanting to develop or when we need to develop the ability to perceive, we need help. We need scaffolding. You see what I'm saying? We have to be, again, just for the purpose of the exercise, available to the reality that we have blind spots, have relationships with people that we trust, right?

Yeah. That can help us bring those kinds of things to our attention. [D] Yes. You know what else you got? [Y] Let's see. I think you're- I think a blind spot that you have is this is- you're like a famous person on the internet, you know? And so like that impacts the way people like approach you, you know what I mean?

Like, we laugh and joke about this all the time, like when we're out eating and stuff and people come up to you and they go like, are you Destin Sandlin? You know what I mean? Um, you, you do a really good job of like stewarding, you know, those relationships, um, and those interactions with people. But I think that like- [D] I'm holding my breath. Go ahead. [Y] No, I think that I think you're blind to how much influence you have over people. [D] Okay. [Y] You know what I mean? Like, just think about this for a second.

Like, we live in a moment that's being called the loneliness epidemic. where people feel less connected to people in their real life than ever before. But when me and you are out eating lunch, people are willing to cross this enormous social barrier to just come and say hello. That's huge. And that it never like registers to you how big of a sacrifice someone's making walking across a restaurant to talk to a stranger because it happens to you all the time. [D] Shoot, dude, I've never thought about the chasm they have to cross. [Y] Yeah, I mean, it's, it's a huge chasm. [D] Holy crap.

[Y] And it's a growing chasm. Right. It's never been harder in human history than it is right now for a person to walk up to a stranger. That's what all of the sociologists and psychologists are saying. That's what all the data is pointing in that direction. And it happens to you all the time. [D] And I don't understand that. [Y] And you don't understand how big of a deal that is for people. And like, that's why we go right back to our conversation and I'm just like, I'm like, you don't quite realize what just happened here. That's a, that's a person who maybe doesn't have any deep or meaningful relationships with you, but they were willing to walk across a restaurant.

I think, I think that's maybe something you're, you're blind to is how much influence you have [D] This is making me want to vomit. What do I write here? [Y] Um, ability to influence. [D] Influence. So in order to go here, you have to have the relationship. but in order to go here into the things that other people don't know, you have to be vulnerable. [Y] That's right. [D] So you have to like, you have to be able to open up in order to go into this quadrant. Yeah. And the last thing I would say is I found personally that in order to go into the unknown, right, not known to self, not known to others,

like you ask questions to get here, right? [Y] You're just totally thinking about this as an engineer. This is so funny. You're like, all right, we've got a system. [D] Yeah, I am. I think here, for me personally, the only way to get to expand [Y] To the undiscovered country. [D] Yes. Oh, the consciousness. The only way to do that for me is, is prayer. [Y] Yeah. And I think that- [D] for me, like, God knows these things.

[Y] And so again, the root system of this, right, is the acknowledgment that there are things about ourselves that we don't know. But faith says God knows all things. Faith says that God knows and understands the things about me, right, that I don't know or understand. And so the only way to make progress in my life, in my growth, in my relationships, in my understanding of the world, in my ability and capacity to be a positive and productive person, is by getting in touch through prayer, through spiritual formation, with God. Who has the answers that no one else has. And that's what faith is.

Okay, Daylan and I were talking about expanding this arena, this known area about yourself, and we talked about two ways you can do that. You can expand down into the facade area by disclosing things to other people. You can expand over into the blind spot area by asking for feedback from people that know things about you. I mentioned that one way I explore this unknown down here is through prayer because that's the area where God knows things that I don't know about myself. But maybe you're not a person of faith. And maybe even if you are a person of faith,

another way you could expand down into this unknown area is just by being in situations that you weren't expecting or you see how you react. Whenever I explore, And I'm a curious person. I like to be in places and areas that I don't know a lot of things about and ask questions. I end up learning about myself. Oh, this is how I react to that situation. Oh, that's very interesting. So I think there are ways to get down into the unknown that we didn't mention here, but I just want to make sure that this doesn't sound like a hitting you

over the head with a faith type video. I think it's fascinating. And there are many ways to get down into the area of the unknown or the mystery about yourself. This episode of Smarter Every Day is sponsored by KiwiCo, which is awesome. Basically, it's a kit that gets sent to your house. It's a subscription. And these boxes come in and you get to open them up with your kids. And there's all kinds of fun stuff that you get to build together.

Let's build a bottle rocket blaster together. After this, we will slow-mo a rocket and we'll get to see the laminar flow coming out of the nozzle. I'm assuming it's laminar, but we're going to slow-mo it. So let me just show you how fun it is to assemble these kits, even as an adult. You can either follow along on these instructions here or you can watch the video. In this case, Becky's telling us what to do. So I think I'm going to do both. If you want to check this out, you can go to kiwico.com/smarter.

That gets you half off your first crate in your subscription. Okay. Looks like we get to go outside. Let's see if I can shoot. Oh, I didn't seal it a lot, but I wonder if I can shoot the camera. Okay, cool. Yeah, I think we're ready. Goggle up. Science is about to happen. I've got a computer set up here in the garage controlling two high-speed cameras, and I want to shoot this rocket three times.

I'm going to fire it first with just air. I saw a vapor cloud in here earlier. I want to see if we can see it. I want to fire it second with water that provides momentum going in the opposite direction, which ultimately makes rockets go. And then I'm going to use the citric acid and baking soda that they give us in the kit. So let's see what we can see. All right. Air first should be pressurizing. And it's- there was a cloud. I saw it. Let's go look at the slow-mo.

Time to load up some water here. Okay. This time we should have water in the rocket for momentum. Oh, this thing's going to go, man. Oh my goodness, whoa, that's way more fun than it should be. Oh, that was great. Oh man, that's awesome. It's like kind of laminar flow, but not. But you can see that it's doing the thing. The momentum of the water is going down, pushing the rocket up.

It's a momentum balance. That's how rockets work. And it's beautiful. Okay, now the instructions say we're supposed to add citric acid and baking soda to this. I think it'll make it more bubbly. Let's see what happens. Baking soda, citric acid. All right, here we go. Oh yeah, so a lot of the gas is coming from that chemical reaction now. Oh man, okay.

This is a blast. So, pun intended. So the thing about this is actual science. The one on the left is going slow because there's too much water in it, but the chemicals on the right filled the bottle up with air faster and the cork popped. So we have a better propellant mass fraction and it's accelerating faster. This is actual science. And that's what I love about KiwiCo. And if you want to gift this to a kid you love, then go to kiwico.com. Here's a website, kiwico.com/smarter. You can see they have all different types of options for crates that you can select. If you go to kiwico.com/smarter you get 50% off the first crate in your subscription and it's a blast.

So gift this to a kid in your life that you want to give curiosity and joy to. My kids have loved these for years. I just wanted to play this one because rockets, right? So that was really fun. They're very durable too. Like I can keep using this, so it's really fun anyway. Kiwico.com/smarter. Thank you for considering supporting the sponsor. Big fan of KiwiCo. [Y] You know, you've really helped me refine my relationship with this concept because when it was introduced to me, my initial inclination was to think that it was just about self-awareness, right? But again, no man is an island, you know?

Our self-awareness, ironically, isn't just about ourselves. Very little that we do in life is just about ourselves. [D] Oh, students are here. Come on in. [Y] Come on, come on, come on. I want you to meet somebody. Please, please, please, please, please. [D] Okay, so students are here, so I should let you go. Last thing. This is my, my, my brother, Reverend Daylan Woodall, working on his PhD. Are you going to be Reverend Dr. Daylan Woodall?

Yeah. Dr. Reverend. [Y] Reverend goes first. Yeah. [D] Oh, does it really? Okay. So if people want to learn more about or just read stuff you've written or whatever, just learn more about you. Do you have a website? [Y] Yes. DaylanWoodall.com. [D] Oh, that's easy. All right. More students here. DaylanWoodall.com. You have a Substack and all that kind of stuff. [Y] And I have a Substack and the book is there. And yeah. [D] Hey, thank you, man. [Y] Yeah, absolutely. [D] Enjoy class. For sure. Bye.

Okay. Daylan is in there teaching now, but I want to briefly talk about the Johari window. It's been valuable. To me because I want to get better at relationships. I think they are valuable. I think they are more valuable than material possessions. They're very important. It's really interesting when they're authentic and real. And I'm scared of my blind spots. I don't know why. Is it ego? Is it that I am scared of looking dumb or I'm scared of like, why am I scared of my blind spots? I am.

I very much am scared of my blind spots. I don't know why, but I think sometimes if people love me enough to tell me what those blind spots are, and often those are hard conversations, I can grow. And often when I have real conversations with people that I'm close to and I confess things to them and I reveal things and disclose close things, I think I can also grow. So I think these conversations are important because they're going to make us better. There's different ways that can happen in the context of a safe relationship, but also, yeah, therapy is a thing. Yeah, counseling.

I think it's important. I think there's a lot here to unpack. I don't know where this lands for you, but I do want to explore this because I think the sense of who we are and the self-awareness is valuable. So anyway, I love people. I love you. Thank you for watching Smarter Every Day. Daylan's right about the parasocial thing. Don't know what to do with that. But yeah, thanks for taking the time to watch. I'm a guy, like in real life. I'm not just a content creator. So I don't know what to do with that. That Daylan told me about, but I think it is a thing that we, I need to think about. So anyway, that's it.

Even now, there's people walking around and I feel weird because of how I'm making them feel. I'm not self-aware. All right, anyway, that's it. I'm Destin. Yeah.