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Should you build your image on authenticity or a carefully crafted mask? It turns out the answer isn't quite so simple. In theory, we hear everywhere about the need to "be yourself." In business practice, however, this often means making compromises, adapting to people and roles, and sometimes stepping outside your comfort zone. Andrzej Silczuk talks to Marcin Prokop—TV personality, journalist, and graduate of banking, finance, and economics—about the cost of being authentic and why, despite everything, it’s worth it.
- 00:00:00 Introduction
- 00:02:38 How to maintain credibility
- 00:04:21 Starting your career - what to watch out for
- 00:08:22 Finding your own path
- 00:12:34 The need for authenticity
- 00:14:18 Image pressure at work
- 00:18:05 Choosing the right path
- 00:28:57 How to develop your potential?
- 00:43:16 The art of setting boundaries
- 00:53:41 Authenticity in practice
- 00:59:05 The wrong measure of success
Transcript
Dr. Andrzej Silczuk: Welcome to the Multi.Life space and the program "Well Said." My name is Andrzej Silczuk, and today I have a great honor. My guest is a TV personality, journalist, and graduate of banking, finance, management, and economics. Please welcome Marcin Prokop. Good morning.
Marcin Prokop: No one has ever introduced me like that before.
Dr. Andrzej Silczuk: Like what?
Marcin Prokop: It’s good to know I have some skills beyond just being a TV face, especially since you brought up my very distant, almost historical studies, which I rarely use in my work. It’s nice that someone noticed that even a morning show host has a logical mind.
Dr. hab. Andrzej Silczuk: You know, I wouldn’t want to define you so narrowly as just a morning show host, because, as I know, you are someone who would fit the modern definition of a Renaissance man. You do so many things that listing them—columnist, publicist, presenter, emcee—doesn't even cover it; you’re also a traveler and a motorcycle enthusiast. I think you’re the kind of person who could regale anyone with fantastic stories about the world, culture, and geography.
Marcin Prokop: You are very kind to me, thank you.
Dr. hab. Andrzej Silczuk: Have you returned from any motorcycle trips recently?
Marcin Prokop: Not a motorcycle trip, but I did just get back from a month-and-a-half-long journey across the United States. I was filming the next season of my show, and this time I focused less on myself and more on the places I visited and their history—specifically Hawaii, Puerto Rico, and Alaska.
It’s a triangle of American frontiers, all of which fell victim to American imperialism at some point. And since the current U.S. President expresses neo-imperialist sentiments like "Let's take Greenland, let's attack Canada, let's start a trade war with the whole world," I thought it would be good to show my viewers the lesser-known, less popular face of the "good uncle" we once thought the U.S. was, when in reality, it turns out this "uncle" has his own dark interests too.
Dr. hab. Andrzej Silczuk: I understand. We are talking about a world that is very dynamic. It is changing culturally, socially, and economically. When I invited you to this episode, I thought I’d like to show a side of you that might not be obvious—or at least, it is a bit more nuanced to me, because I’ve been observing you for a long time and I get the impression that you are a person defined by a certain consistency. Is it easy to stay true to yourself in such a rapidly changing world today?
Marcin Prokop: I think there’s no other choice, because our currency—perhaps not the only one, but a very important one—that we trade in regardless of what we do, and which won't devalue no matter where the winds of history or the changes you mentioned blow us, is credibility. It’s the only thing that will truly always be of value.
We live in an era of post-truth, fake news, and a time when trust in institutions, individuals, and authorities has been severely shaken. We live in a time of eroding trust, and I think being credible is what gives us an edge over a world that is slipping away from that definition of "credibility."
So, I think consistency is one of the ways to build your credibility. Besides, I’m not the only one who believed in the success of such a strategy—even the late Professor Bartoszewski used to say, to paraphrase, that it is worth being decent, even if it doesn't always pay off.
Dr. hab. Andrzej Silczuk: You have years of an intense career behind you. I think it’s the kind of career that could really be divided among several people. In your history, have you ever been forced into a role you had to face and potentially stand up to?
Marcin Prokop: Very early in my career, let’s call it that, I realized that meeting others' expectations is a bad strategy—not just for success, but for survival in general. I remember that a real test for me was taking on the role of a judge on the show "Idol" many years ago. It was the third season. Kuba Wojewódzki, who had been a judge before, took a break—I don't know why he stepped down—and I was invited to take his place. It was actually on his recommendation; he saw something in me as a young, relatively unknown person at the time. Well, I made the mistake of trying to imitate the master, trying to step into Mick Jagger’s shoes, so to speak, and play in the Rolling Stones while pretending to be him, which was received terribly by the viewers.
Everyone saw through that charade, and I didn't feel comfortable in that role either, because Kuba plays with a completely different deck than I do. I knew even then that I wasn't that kind of person—that I’m not someone who enjoys hurting others by being blunt. And Kuba built his media persona partly on that.
I was struggling, trying to play someone I’m not, and at the same time, that role was rejected. So, I did a quick soul-searching session to see what went wrong, and it turned out that when you enter a new world—whether it’s media, business, or anywhere else—and you start at a fairly high level, suddenly appearing among players who have their own agendas, you’re going to be molded like clay.
Producers, directors, and various advisors will immediately appear, suggesting how you should best play your hand. Of course, they are pursuing their own interests. They aren't thinking about your growth or your well-being; they’re just looking for a short-term way to replace someone who seemed irreplaceable.
Dr. Andrzej Silczuk: How old were you?
Marcin Prokop: Sorry?
Dr. Andrzej Silczuk: How old were you then?
Marcin Prokop: Oh, 23… 22… 23—something like that.
Dr. Andrzej Silczuk: You were really just a kid in that world.
Marcin Prokop: Yes, although I had already seen a bit of the media world, because for a few years prior, I had been the editor-in-chief of "Machina" magazine, a pop-culture publication that was quite significant and influential at the time.
I also had the experience back then of walking into a group of people who were often twice my age and suddenly becoming their boss. I had to build some kind of authority without having much of a foundation to build it on, since I hadn't really done anything in life yet, and suddenly I had to manage people who had twenty or more years of experience behind them.
I wondered then what role to adopt and how to come across as credible. I ended up choosing a strategy of simply not pretending to know everything. I adopted a strategy of asking others for advice as mentors, and then, based on the information I gathered, I made decisions—which, in effect, gave people the feeling that they were co-deciding.
Dr. Andrzej Silczuk: You were simply learning.
Marcin Prokop: Yes.
Dr. Andrzej Silczuk: So, this whole "Idol" story. It was, in fact, a learning process—you experienced a role, an identity that wasn't yours, but one you adopted as an attempt to imitate your predecessor. I take it that’s also one of the elements, since we’re learning our whole lives, right?
Marcin Prokop: I think one of the most important, or perhaps the most important, discoveries we can make on any path to so-called success is realizing what I’m good at, what my actual competencies are, what my innate tools are that I can work with, and what I can learn.
I always use Michael Phelps as an example—one of the greatest, or perhaps the greatest, swimmer in the history of the sport, who was born to swim. Very long arms, huge hands, a broad chest…
Dr. Andrzej Silczuk: Massive mitochondria.
Marcin Prokop: …yes, a long torso, short legs—perfectly designed for swimming. Now, imagine what would have happened if Michael Phelps hadn't found his sport, if he’d tried to become a champion at something else, if he’d tried to be a basketball player, for instance. He would have been mediocre or nothing at all. So, in my opinion, the most important thing we can do to help our careers—I’m going back to the word "career," though it’s a very broad term. Life is a career in a sense. A good title for a Budka Suflera album, by the way, if they were still around—"Life is a Career."
It’s about finding your natural capabilities and making the most of them. I realized early on that my capabilities were, first of all, being as natural as possible, being myself—even if that sounds terribly cliché—and not pretending to be anyone else. Secondly, operating somewhere between lightheartedness and being a bit of a circus clown, but behind every clown in history, there is some intelligence and an ability to analyze reality. It’s about shifting the weight between that role of the jester and the role of a person who can sometimes share a deeper thought or ask a smarter question. It’s about straddling the line between being someone who entertains and someone who occasionally prompts reflection or even causes discomfort.
Dr. Andrzej Silczuk: You’re talking about reaching a point where you start to recognize your own authenticity. At what moment are you able to see that what’s happening around you, that your environment, is starting to push against the boundaries of your authenticity? How do you realize that this is happening? Does it mean that, in a moment, you might have to lose something?
Marcin Prokop: I think it’s a feeling similar to having a stone in your shoe. You feel a certain discomfort. You feel like something is rubbing you the wrong way. You feel that you aren't the one at the helm of your own decisions, and that instead of pursuing your own ideas, you start guessing what the world around you might expect from you, and you try to anticipate those expectations by doing things you think will satisfy others.
It’s a bit like the syndrome of an overzealous employee who tries to please the boss before they’ve even had a chance to utter their magic spell.
Dr. Andrzej Silczuk: "People pleasers."
Marcin Prokop: Yes. And that is the simplest path to being an unhappy and frustrated person. I also think it’s not easy to free yourself from the pressure of being a machine that fulfills other people's expectations, because in most homes, we are conditioned to be just those kinds of machines. Parents implement this in us, consciously or unconsciously, by steering us, conditioning their love, and so on. So, rejecting this strategy of living for others and their expectations is a major step toward becoming self-directed and authentic, as you put it.
Dr. Andrzej Silczuk: Is it possible to be mistaken about this? I feel like I’m being authentic, but de facto, I’m not?
Marcin Prokop: I’m not sure I understood your question correctly... Could you paraphrase it?
Dr. Andrzej Silczuk: Have you ever played yourself, stepped into a role where you were almost certain that it was you, only to realize later that, oh no, that’s absolutely not me?
Marcin Prokop: I see. I do that consciously sometimes. It’s not like every situation requires me to show 100% of who I am in private, or who I try to be in private, because certain media roles require a bit of acting.
Obviously, you’re a bit of a different person when you’re hosting a lively gala for corporate employees who have had a few drinks and just want to have fun, want it to be entertaining, and want you to be their ringmaster. You host an event differently if it’s related to, I don’t know, the Smolensk anniversary—I’ve had those experiences too.
So, I can play with different versions of myself, but the art lies in doing it consciously. I mean, I know who I am, I know my constitution, and if I use my avatar—some chosen one as a costume—I take a version of myself out of the closet, I put on that costume knowing what I’m doing and why I’m doing it, and then I take it off, hang it back in the closet, and step back into my own shoes.
So, I do step into roles regularly. Being a judge on "Poland's Got Talent," which I’ve been doing for a while now, is also a kind of role where no one expects me to be 100% myself—understood as the "private me." Some things require amplification, some chords need to be played louder, but I think the key to being authentic is the awareness that you are doing it and why you are doing it.
Dr. Andrzej Silczuk: And that you step out of that role afterward.
Marcin Prokop: Yes.
Dr. Andrzej Silczuk: I understand, but there is a lot of talk today about a certain kind of image pressure. It affects everyone—from someone doing any kind of job, working in a company, holding a position, or perhaps not yet holding that position but already feeling the pressure of how they should behave, how to function during meetings, how to communicate, how to voice a grievance, because sometimes we have a grievance but we have to phrase it in a specific way so as not to accidentally offend anyone.
To the macro scale, where you, as a person with high public exposure, might have certain image pressures imposed on you. I’m thinking about expectations here. How do you deal with such pressures? Where do you find that "pebble in your shoe," and how do you accept its presence, because sometimes, I suspect, even though it chafes, it has to stay there for a while.
Marcin Prokop: I don’t know if this is a strategy that works for everyone, but it seems to me that in my case, the ability to be alone has worked. That is, a lack of attachment to how the group perceives me and a lack of building myself in relation to how the group perceives me. And that is something that has been with me throughout my life, actually, from a very early age.
I learned quite quickly that even if a group rejects me or does not accept me, it is not a reason for me to judge myself less well. So, speaking today's language, I don't feel as good as the number of likes I get, I feel as good as how I rate myself, how I recognize myself at a given moment.
I think that many of our decisions are motivated by the fear of rejection by the group. Or the lack of decision is also motivated by the fear of being judged by the group, i.e. I won't do something because if I break out with something, if I have some initiative in the company, I will submit an idea, or I will want to do something differently than the "magic book" that instructs us on how to proceed says, well, I may make a fool of myself, I may embarrass myself, I may look like an idiot, it may not work.
So I make a decision not to do something because I'm afraid of the consequences, because maybe I won't be accepted, or maybe I'll be ridiculed. Meanwhile, as a specialist also in the human psyche, in the human brain, you'll probably share this, or maybe not, maybe science has a different opinion on this subject? We spend much more time on our thoughts than others spend on us.
So I, motivating my actions or lack thereof with the fear of rejection, de facto sabotage myself in the name of something that is only a demon in my head, while the rest of the world devotes to it 10%, 5% of the attention that I attribute to them...
Andrzej Silczuk, MD, PhD, DSc: …or even less.
Marcin Prokop: Or even less. I sometimes use the analogy of a man who is driving along a road and passes the trees that stand on the road and thinks to himself: "Jesus Mary, what do these trees think of me, what do they think about me, this is how I drive along this road, they keep looking at me like this, how they judge me, am I driving well?" And the trees we pass actually see us for a moment.
Andrzej Silczuk, MD, PhD, DSc: As in Mela Koteluk's song - "Why don't the trees say anything?"
Marcin Prokop: That's how it turned out.
Andrzej Silczuk, MD, PhD, DSc: That's how it turned out, OK. I realized that what we were talking about was self-esteem. And if it is controllable from the outside, then we are doomed under these circumstances.
Marcin Prokop: I think it's good to be successful in any field to have a base to build this sense of self-esteem, so even if, I don't know, I'm shooting now, I work in a company that deals with IT, let's say, and I'm assessed there according to a benchmark of whether I'm a good programmer, whether I'm a good software seller - whatever - in order to be able to have a sense of my value in this company, independent of the assessment of others, I must have some other documented sense that I am valuable. So, for example, if I am outside this company, I practice some sport, I don't know, I run marathons - or whatever - and there I have proven to myself, and also to the rest of the world, that I can achieve results, that I am good, that I can be successful, that I am efficient, then this feeling can be extrapolated to other areas.
I also learned this quite early at school, where I was publishing a newspaper, first a school newspaper, then a student newspaper, when it turned out that I could write, that I could reach people, that even though it was completely amateur journalism copied on a photocopier, given away for free in order to provide some distribution for these ideas, and people then referred to it, passed the newspaper among themselves, discussed it, I was on mouth, my opinions become important, it confirms your belief that what you do can have an impact.
And then, even on such a simple thing, on such a simple little success, you can build your feeling that I can also, if I could run a school newspaper, I can also run a newspaper like "Machina", which has some years of tradition, employs 50 people, and I am a guy who became its director because of various situations that took place.
Andrzej Silczuk, MD, PhD, DSc: But I thought that the measure of success could be something very individual. The question is, in what area? Because not every person's success will result from achievements, e.g. developmental and professional. There may be other achievements. For some people, such a life goal may be, for example, starting a family, for others it will be owning their own property or the balance of their account and possessions. For someone, it may be getting feedback that people like what I write and what I do and that people want more of it. How do you think this can be found? Because I hear about a big derivative of time - that some time must pass before you find the area within yourself that will nourish you and give you a sense of satisfaction, which will later affect your self-esteem.
Marcin Prokop: I would first look at what makes me not look at the clock when doing it. This is also a fairly easy indicator that shows me where my zone of confusion is in a given activity, where is the flow that I achieve by doing something. That is, I am doing some activity, I don't know, I play tennis, I play on the computer, I do some work, I water the garden, I take care of the children and I don't think about how much time I will have to spend to do this.
Sometimes, when I host live programs, even the morning ones, there are editions when I regularly look at my watch to see how much time is left and the time drags on forever, and there are times when suddenly the editor says "Thank you very much" and I say "What, it's already 11.30?" Just like that. And if you have something in your life that makes you stop looking at your watch, it means that it's probably something that gives you pleasure, that you do well, that takes you somewhere - like the airplane in the RedHot Chili Peppers song - and try to make it a significant part of your life.
In my case – profession. Because when I made the above-mentioned magazines, or when I was preparing some programs for the radio station, or when I was running around with an amateur camera and shooting something in the yard, when I was thinking up some etudes, some short para-film forms, I had the feeling that I was doing something significant for myself, that it was cool, that I was fulfilled in it, that I knew what I was doing, that I was doing it well, that it had a positive reception.
And at the same time, for many years I forced myself to be someone who I defined somewhat artificially, that is, I am an economist, I am a financier, and since I have already invested in 5-year studies, since I have already completed them, since I have already obtained an academic degree, I am what I have chosen, even if I feel that it is not mine.
In other words - try to see if there is a disconnect in your life between what you actually do and what gives you the greatest joy, pleasure and what fulfills you. And often, paradoxically, many people are afraid to choose the path that can bring them satisfaction, relief and joy. They won't have to feel like a duck swimming on the surface of a pond and waving its legs very quickly under the water, but swimming very slowly because it is a signal that you are doing something counterproductive, that you are rowing against the flow.
Suddenly, when I started doing things professionally that I had never imagined could be my reality - that is, writing newspapers, running a newspaper, then working on television - I suddenly felt that it was much easier for me, that I was succeeding much faster, and that I felt much better about it than working in a bank.
Despite 5 years of studies, which, as I have already said, I have completed, I am sitting in this bank and I feel that, first of all, I do not understand why I am here. Secondly, I feel average at it, I don't feel great at it, nor do I feel like I can be great at it. Thirdly, I do not understand most of the processes that surround me, I am a puzzle of a larger whole that I do not understand or recognize. Fourthly, I look at the clock when it will be Friday, when I will be able to leave here and spend my beloved weekend away from this institution.
Andrzej Silczuk, MD, PhD, DSc: I understand that you were looking for this path. Have you ever worked in a bank? Did you sit in such a place? Was it a metaphor?
Marcin Prokop: It was a book of reality. I worked in a bank located relatively nearby - on Senatorska Street.
Andrzej Silczuk, MD, PhD, DSc: This is the full experience of Marcin Prokop.
Marcin Prokop: Yes.
Andrzej Silczuk, MD, PhD, DSc: Boja, listening to you, I started to imagine how difficult this imaginary adulthood must be. That it is entering into this ascribed identity, that is, not necessarily ours, which we embrace, which young people, most of us, made decisions about our educational fate and chose a field of study, having no idea what it would look like during the test and after graduation. And we found ourselves in the place of fulfilling our professional path.
And I hear about this adulthood, which can be misinterpreted - as doing things that do not give you that childhood pleasure, that is, in which you can lose yourself. I have a question that comes to my mind whenever I enter these registers and these topics. I wanted to ask you how you understand it when we lose this childlike ability to play with perdition - not only in time, but also in reality.
What I mean is this real children's play in which fantastic experiences actually happen. Do you remember this when you were a little boy? You certainly had it, because each of us had a moment when we could fight huge battles with small sticks, stones or soldiers, and they were extremely constructed in a way that, if we filmed them today, would be a fantastic story. And suddenly it seemed to disappear. What happened?
Marcin Prokop: I think that the child dies inside us when we start, despite ourselves, to realize expectations that are not our expectations for life, which is the first example of not paying lip service and just not theorizing - in my case it was the choice of studies, which was not my choice.
I mean, a person who is 18 or 19 years old and they tell him "Now you have to choose your life path", actually sh... knows in most cases. And forcing him to define himself for many years, or almost for his entire life - because this is the young person's perspective then - "Now I have to choose something that will have consequences for the rest of my life", well, is some kind of torture, it is something, in my opinion, inhuman and ineffective too, because most of these people choose wrongly - because they don't know who they are yet, they don't know what they want, they don't know what they are aiming at. It hasn't tasted, so to speak, different ice creams yet, metaphorically speaking, from different confectioneries, so it doesn't know what it tastes like yet. I went to finance studies not because I loved finance, but because there was pressure called "Get a so-called good profession".
Andrzej Silczuk, MD, PhD, DSc: "Good profession".
Marcin Prokop: Yes, and what is a "good profession?" Doctor - a doctor yes, but a doctor has to study a lot - you know best - and it seems that only a few people achieve success in this profession, so I dropped out. Lawyer? Oh my gosh, memorizing all these rules is not an option. Well, maybe economics in general. They will also need people who will count other people's money.
And so I ended up at a university that didn't absorb or fascinate me, and it wasn't a life adventure, it was a choice that I simply struggled with, because I have this trait that once I start something, I finish it. I don't know, reading is the most useful feature at certain moments, but I thought, "Well, now that I've said A, I'll get to the end."
Maybe it's not a good idea either, because today my daughter, who is also at a similar moment, has already chosen her studies, but is wondering if she chose the right one, I say: "Child, remember that you can always change your decision, that nothing is irreversible, except maybe taxes and death, basically all things can be undone. So if you decide that this is not your path, don't wait, pack your bags, go another way, look for it, because life is too short to get tired of something that is not yours.
Andrzej Silczuk, MD, PhD, DSc: What helps you find your way?
Marcin Prokop: What helps?
Andrzej Silczuk, MD, PhD, DSc: What can help? What is a tool we can use when we don't know? Well, let's face it, you are 18-19 years old. And more. Sometimes there are people who have much more - they are over 30, over 40 and still don't know what they want in life.
Marcin Prokop: There is something that each of us can do that seems idiotic on the surface, but I have repeatedly had real life proof that it works. Let's ask our close and distant friends what, according to them, is our strongest feature. What are we good at? Well, of course, like Baron Munchhausen, we have some beliefs about ourselves, but we cannot pull ourselves out of the mud by our own hair, so we are not able to be reviewers and the subject of this review at the same time in many things about ourselves. So let's ask the people around us how they see us and create a map of our personality, our capabilities, and our weak points - through eyes that see us from the outside, because it will also help us define ourselves a little more objectively.
And the second thing is don't be afraid to try - regardless of your age, no matter if you're 20, 40, or 50 - try different new things, because it may turn out that you haven't found what really captivates you yet. Thirdly, in my life the springs that pushed me towards finding myself were often new relationships with new people.
They often opened "transfer windows" for me, which I could enter. So let's have relationships with people who can become our mentors - although it is such a strong word, there is such gravitas in this word "mentor" - but it is about someone who is good at something, is better than us in some way, does something that fascinates us, something that we like, something that we see that can attract us. And let's enter into relationships with these people, trying to learn as much as possible from them, get as much as possible from them, and become part of their world. And I think that only after some time of jumping on the board will we understand which figure we are.
Andrzej Silczuk, MD, PhD, DSc: Can a psychologist be such a person, a relationship that can be used, for example, in a situation where you need this point of reference?
Marcin Prokop: Yes, assuming that the psychologist sees you from the outside, that he is as objective a person as possible, and that you are also honest with him, because this is also a necessary condition for the success of this operation. I have the impression that many people try to pretend to be someone during therapy, which is a complete denial of the essence of therapy. Are you here to impress the psychologist? It's as if we didn't understand what we were aiming at from the very beginning. So the ability to stand "naked" in front of someone, in the metaphorical sense, is an important starting point for receiving this feedback about yourself. Be it from reminisced friends or from a psychologist. I just think that it is also good to choose the right psychologist, but it is your competence to tell people how to do it, because if you get it wrong, it may turn out that the effect will be counterproductive.
Andrzej Silczuk, MD, PhD, DSc: Definitely yes. There are a lot of psychologists in Poland or people labeling themselves…
Marcin Prokop: Too much.
Andrzej Silczuk, MD, PhD, DSc: ...with this sign, because they do not have the competence to do so. Indeed, there are people, such as therapy supervisors, who can, in a short conversation, guide a person looking for a psychologist who will suit their needs, and that is great. This is indeed an additional tool that you can use. I wanted to ask you if you have any developed anchor that you can drop when you feel that this current of history is starting to push you in a direction that is throwing stones into your shoes, let's call them sandals for now, that you can supposedly shake them off and clean them, but you know, from time to time new ones come back. What anchor can you cast so that you can come back to yourself? Because we know that we are not able to maintain this integrated identity all the time, but we will be knocked out of it periodically. How to get back there?
Marcin Prokop: Maybe I'll tell you something that doesn't seem to be related to your question, but will, in a sense, answer it. I once remember a story about the king of France, I don't remember which Charles he was, but he once went with his army to battle against Britain. They stood in the middle of nowhere, looked at each other for long hours, just like on the battlefield, before they went into battle, they assessed each other with their eyes and stood in their metal helmets and armor, flexing their arms.
And at that moment, the king heard the clash of weapons behind him in his own troops, so he decided that there was a betrayal, that some sabotage was taking place, that someone had drawn a weapon behind his back and would pose a threat, so without waiting long, he took his sword from its sheath and started slashing his own soldiers left and right, thinking that there was a traitor hiding among them.
He killed a dozen or so people until he finally became so weak that he was unable to continue attacking. While he was swinging his sword, no one stopped him. No one said: "King, it's ours!" In the meantime, it turned out that the clang of the weapon was simply a spear that fell from the hand of one of the knights and fell and hit the helmet of one of the knights with its metal part. The king considered it a clash of weapons.
And the second story related to the same ruler is that for many years he convinced his courtiers that he was made of glass, so they had to cover him with pillows every morning to prevent him from hurting himself. The king is made of glass, so we need to protect it properly. Then, many years later, it turned out that she probably suffered from schizophrenia and at that time the disease had not been diagnosed yet, so the courtiers obligingly and politely covered him with pillows, because the king wanted it that way.
Why am I telling this story? Because what happened then has a lot in common with what is often happening to us now, in short - we are victims of our own courts, we are kings in our own bubbles whose interest is in patting us on the back, reassuring us that we are cool, that we have the right opinions, that what we do, we do well.
We create these bubbles ourselves, for example by removing from our social media friends those who do not agree with us, who think differently, who vote for someone else, and suddenly we find ourselves surrounded by people just like this king, just like Neymar, who also has his courtiers, his colleagues whom he pays to go with them to parties and matches, who pretend to be his friends, even though they are paid employees.
If we do not get rid of this bubble of courtliness, if we surround ourselves only with people who agree with us, because they are sometimes interdependent on us, just as the courtiers were dependent on the king so they agreed with him, in the same way we cultivate a bunch of people interdependent on ours for various reasons - emotional, financial, business, etc. - then we will break this anchor very easily.
So, going back to the beginning - in order to anchor ourselves in this port of credibility and being true to ourselves, we need to surround ourselves with people who are able to challenge us, who are able to tell us: "It's not like that." "I'm wrong", "I don't agree with you", "It could have been done differently", "You did the wrong thing", etc. In short, do they bring you down to earth without taking into account the fact that they may expose themselves to, I don't know, the possibility that you will be offended, angry, angry, etc.
And the second thing is openness to receiving this information. Of course, our ego often swings us in such a direction that any criticism, at some level, becomes an attack on our own identity, and it is also very easy to overlook those important voices that can build us up in the name of "I know better what he will tell me here." So, in short, do not surround yourself with a court of flatterers, a court that will never build you up, but surround yourself with people who are a challenge for you, enter into discussions with people who also disagree with you.
An example of a person who created his life around the discussion was the recently shot Charlie Kirk, a right-wing American activist who traveled around campuses with his own beliefs and views, sometimes very radical ones. He entered into discussions with people who came and stood behind the microphone and challenged them, and they challenged him, and sometimes it turned out that one side understood something better after such a discussion, or left it with some grain of uncertainty about himself.
In my opinion, this is what builds us the most, that is, in the gym, if you want your muscles to grow, you have to tear them, you have to cause them to catch fire, you have to overload them. It's the same with your personality - for it to grow, you have to irritate it all the time in some way.
Andrzej Silczuk, MD, PhD, DSc: You talk about dynamics and such authentic relationships too...
Marcin Prokop: Yes.
Andrzej Silczuk, MD, PhD, DSc: ...the ability to build such a culture in relationships, not only in life but also in professional ones, which is the provision of feedback, the so-called feedback.
Marcin Prokop: Yes. And being open to it.
Andrzej Silczuk, MD, PhD, DSc: Certainly, because nowadays we talk more about feedforward than about feedback, so I am not giving you information in which we will think about what went wrong, but what we expect for the future. That is, we try to feed ourselves in such a way that what surrounds us becomes of better quality. I think it is very interesting, very valuable. Can you think of any other relationships that could be developmental, pushing you to become better versions of yourself?
Marcin Prokop: A very simple thing that you can do for yourself is to look for information in sources that seem to be contrary to your worldview. So, to put it briefly, if I am, oh, I don't know, a liberal by conviction and I would normally only read "Newsweek", because that is part of my bubble that confirms my belief that I think rightly, then sometimes buy "Do Rzeczy" or something else that is outside your bubble, and see how the same information is processed by someone who thinks completely differently than you, or who has completely different goals. So we're back to challenging quote status, what I feel, what I know.
The second thing is what I call "vaccine change". Well, because change is quite painful for each of us, probably no one particularly likes changes, but they will come whether we want it or not. One such macro-change that turned us upside down was the COVID pandemic, which put us on guard and suddenly it turned out that we have to find new strategies for survival, learning, communicating, traveling, etc.
We probably wouldn't have built many things, such as the ability to work remotely, if this circumstance hadn't forced us to do so, and circumstances that will force us to change will appear. And in order not to be afraid of this change, so that it doesn't paralyze us, or even on a micro scale, I don't know, a new president will come to the company and want to shuffle the cards for the old people, it is worth doing such "micro-vaccinations for change" in the form of deliberately changing your current habits, in order to consciously get out of these habits, these ruts.
In other words, if I usually shop at Żabka, because it is close to my house, make an effort and go to Biedronka, which is a bit further, the ketchups are on different shelves there, the mayonnaise is somewhere else, so you have to turn on your thinking to find these products, because in Żabka you already do it automatically.
Andrzej Silczuk, MD, PhD, DSc: OK, so life is not Chat GPT.
Marcin Prokop: Yes.Exactly.
Andrzej Silczuk, MD, PhD, DSc: We don't take shortcuts, let it not happen for us, we just make small, small efforts.
Marcin Prokop: Yes.
Andrzej Silczuk, MD, PhD, DSc: Therefore, it is a good prevention of cognitive disorders in the future, training the head.
Marcin Prokop: Or, I don't know, driving the same route to kindergarten with your child every day, change the route. Of course, the baby may cry for five minutes longer, or you may be late for work once or twice, but at least you won't be driving on automatic pilot, because you will have to turn off the navigation and think about how I will drive around through another housing estate and how I will get to this destination.
So, in my opinion, there is of course no scientific basis in my case - again, you would probably have more to say here - but, in my opinion, a kind of civilization disease that has begun to afflict us, and which will soon become a big problem, is the ceding of responsibility for our decisions to AI agents, who are increasingly used for trivial matters such as, I don't know what pants I should wear today.
So the agent asks you: "What mountain do you have?" – “Well, I have a blue shirt” – “Oh, well, wear this and that.” Since we are now handing over responsibility for various decisions, or for searching for information, or whatever, to electronics, which is not protein intelligence but is the sum of algorithms processing what we already know, we will not create anything new if we rely on what already exists, which is only a new reshuffling of existing knowledge.
Andrzej Silczuk, MD, PhD, DSc: You are saying that we give this decision-making function to very simple things, simple choices. But I think that if we delve deeper into this, we will lose the competence to make decisions in much more difficult matters. For example, being yourself today, remaining yourself, is probably a consequence of repeatedly setting boundaries and saying "no". Now my question to you - do you remember any circumstance or situation in which, in order to remain yourself, you had to say "hard no" and what were the consequences? I mean, how do you deal with it? Because being assertive in the past, and today we are talking about being aware of one's limits, does not happen for free.
Marcin Prokop: The first example, perhaps not very high-class, is that when companies spend money on me coming to their event and becoming the host of their evening, which happens once a year, I don't know, Rybnik Days, or the 20th anniversary of the screw factory, or something else, it happened relatively often that by paying some amount, your occasional employer expected that he would acquire rights to you.
And these are moments when, without setting clear boundaries, such as "I know you are paying me, I appreciate it very much, but you are paying me for a very specific service." When I go to a doctor, I pay him for a very specific service. When I go to a psychiatrist, I don't go for him to dance for me, I go for him to tell me what's wrong with my head and what medications to take.
So you pay me for what I came here for, and the rest is "No, no" - beyond negotiation. And you have to face the fact that there will be groans of disappointment, that there will be some comment titled "Oh, the soda water made you sick", or that there will be some pressure like "Well, maybe once - but maybe just for a moment - but maybe for 15 minutes." So in moments like these, being true to yourself is also about being politely assertive and saying…
Andrzej Silczuk, MD, PhD, DSc: “Politely assertive.”
Marcin Prokop: ... saying "No, no, thank you." However, it is easier to say no when you already have some basis of success behind you, also success measured in a sense of security, or in other words, when you have enough money that you can simply do the things you want, because you know that not doing them will not generate any consequences such as "I won't survive - if I don't do it, I won't take this job, I won't accept this order, I won't do it the way they expect, then something will happen that will be painful for me, my family, for my sense of security in the future. So unless you have such a cushion, I'm talking about my world, my belief, everyone can redefine it in their own way, that you can afford not to do things you don't want, it's hard to be assertive. It's hard to imagine that a young kid who comes to a corporation is at the very bottom of the "pecking ladder" and is to some extent mobbed by his superior, and would like to make a career in this company, that he will say a firm "no", that he will not give in, but from my perspective it is worth setting these boundaries.
Andrzej Silczuk, MD, PhD, DSc: Is this a derivative of age, experience?
Marcin Prokop: It seems that today's young generation has it more easily. This is probably the educational success of our generation that we have created "monsters", in quotation marks, that can defend themselves.
Andrzej Silczuk, MD, PhD, DSc: Saying no.
Marcin Prokop: Are you listening?
Andrzej Silczuk, MD, PhD, DSc: Say "No, I don't agree, I don't want it."
Marcin Prokop: Yes, they can articulate something that is unthinkable for 40-50-year-olds, is interpreted as a lack of ambition, as a lack of commitment, while for these people it is a survival strategy. They simply know that in this way, firstly, they do not give up on... someone, and secondly, referring to the topic of the conversation, they remain true to themselves, which is an important value for them in life. Third, they know what their priorities are, that the corporate rat race is not the most important achievement in their lives. If not here, then somewhere else.
Andrzej Silczuk, MD, PhD, DSc: It may not be a race. If the organization works well to create not such a competitive environment, but "All together to the goal", it can be a completely different kind of adventure. I would like to quote this story because I understand that behind assertiveness there is fear. You are younger, less experienced, or less nourished by your own success, or you have a lower sense of self-worth. When setting boundaries, it can be satisfying that we remain true to ourselves, our ideals, and the sense of integrated being ourselves in this whole story. But there are probably circumstances in which not being yourself was positive and could be an advantage.
Can you think of any circumstances in which we still hide ourselves behind a stage mask, regardless of whether we are a stage personality, like you, or we are just Andrzej who works in an office or in some company or organization?
Marcin Prokop: I'm trying to remember such events in the recent past that would answer your question about whether I ever really betrayed myself in order to achieve something, but I don't think I've had such an episode for a long time. I felt a sense of satisfaction in saying no to things that could bring me some financial success, but at some point you value your integrity more than your bank balance. So if someone offers you, I don't know, a few million zlotys for you to dress up as a kabanos sausage because of your striking physical resemblance to a dried sausage, and for you to advertise a company that produces such kabanos sausages, you think that maybe I will survive without these few million, maybe I won't buy another car or something, but in fact, I don't dream about this car at all, but I dream about not having to live with it for the rest of my life. the feeling that people associate me with the fact that I was a dry sausage.
Andrzej Silczuk, MD, PhD, DSc: For me, you are one of the heroes of setting boundaries, because I have never seen you in an advertisement for products containing ethanol. This is a dwindling population of people who have high recognition but have not been drawn into this game.
Marcin Prokop: This is a very common suggestion that appears for some reason, which surprises me personally, because I am actually a non-drinker. Not because I have Esperal in my body and I have numerous addictive experiences - on the contrary, I have never had any problem with alcohol because I didn't like it either. So apart from an occasional, legendary beer or a glass of wine, I don't associate myself with this alcohol in any way. And yet, I don't know, maybe because of my morning swelling, which I sometimes represent in the "DzieńDobry TVN" program, people think "Oh, this guy likes getting punched in the neck, so we'll give him an advertisement for whiskey or something."
So I received quite a lot of such offers, but I can cope without this salary. And I think that if I were to contribute to the promotion of drugs, I would prefer not to be co-responsible for any number of human misfortunes, because normalizing something that is a destructive drug, and what's more, attributing to it some features of "coolness", features of a "desirable personality", features of a "desirable way of spending time", is a complete aberration.
Just like the normalization of marijuana use by, for example, various artists, that "it's cool". If you want, have fun - I have nothing to do with it. You are an adult, you can choose this or that path, this or that stimulant, but adding some lifestyle ideology to it, that this is the "aspirational way of life" to which you should gravitate, is something that raises my objection.
Andrzej Silczuk, MD, PhD, DSc: Boto, it's a bit like you gave part of your identity to this product.
Marcin Prokop: Yes.
Marcin Prokop: Because the features you have built, your image, how you are perceived, regardless of your interpretation of how your face is looked at in the breakfast program. However, your attitude would be transferred to products that would automatically receive this boost, I understand that also in their attractiveness, taking advantage of Prokop's attractiveness.
Marcin Prokop: There are a number of studies that indicate that the characteristics of the person who advertises a given product are partially transferred to this product. So maybe now people associate anti-dandruff shampoo with a nice, pleasant element of the morning.
Andrzej Silczuk, MD, PhD, DSc: There's something cathartic about it.
Marcin Prokop: Yes, something like that that allows you to get rid of the problem. So of course some people may not like my decisions about various commercial collaborations, but at least within my inner sense of integrity I can say to myself that I have never advertised a product that I would never use myself. I have never once persuaded people to do something that I have not tasted, or that I have not used, or that I personally consider extremely harmful. And I consider alcohol to be such a thing, so I won't advertise it.
Andrzej Silczuk, MD, PhD, DSc: We are constantly talking about your authenticity, which is reflected in every sentence throughout this conversation. A psychiatric question - a question about voices, but not such voices as voices, voices, but an "inner guard" that says: "Hey, Marcin, don't exaggerate, stop." Do you have something like that? Something that's holding you back? Because I have the impression that you are a temperamental person. We also remember you from hosting a program in which you later became a juror. There was a lot of energy, such daring and dynamics. And I'm also looking at you right now, very balanced and so vigilant in what you want to say to our viewers. And I'm wondering if there's a button you use to suddenly slow down. Just like on a motorcycle - this additional, step-by-step foot brake that slows you down a bit.
Marcin Prokop: I think it's the other way around. I mean, there's a button that drives me.
Dr hab. Andrzej Silczuk: That's interesting.
Marcin Prokop: What you are observing now, and what you are sitting on the other side, is more of a state of my entropy, you know, the state I am in most often, from which I am reluctant to leave. But when I leave it, I go out for a purpose - that is, when the red light on the camera turns on, it's a bit like letting the Greyhound off the leash and telling him to chase the hare. He's that docile couch dog - I have a greyhound, so I know what they can be like...
Dr hab. Andrzej Silczuk: A large or Italian greyhound?
Marcin Prokop: Whippet, something between an Italian and a regular greyhound. English Greyhound is another name for this dog. Well, every day he is just an immobile couch potato who lies cuddled on the bed with his master or mistress. However, when a trigger is fired, I don't know, called a hare in the field or a marten walking on the roof, he turns into a beast that will run with blinders on to get this poor animal. He probably wouldn't know what to do with it if he caught it, because this instinct is somehow dulled by civilization.
And it's the same for me - when I feel that I've taken a few steps too far in this race, I'll slow down somewhere. Some people say that I have the ability to brake right in front of the barrier and that this is something valuable. Besides, I watched a drifting competition up close some time ago and there is a discipline called "Kiss the wall", which is about driving a car at high speed to get as close to a concrete barrier as possible. Even brushing against it - this is the desired moment of "Kiss the wall", i.e. touch it, but don't crash your car into it. I think that sometimes I am a driver of such a "drift car" that sometimes I check where the limit is for "fun", because I like to ride. Because I like to observe people's reactions when I make them confused, when I do unexpected things, when I disturb some balance of self-satisfaction, or when I turn upside down the emotions I find in a given place. It's a serious gala, everyone is in tuxedos, and I turn the emotional side of the situation, trying to make these people laugh out loud, not excitedly waiting for the poem that will come out of my mouth.
So, in short - I play with this role, but sometimes even a dog playing with another dog can snap its teeth too hard and bite off the Yorkie's head. So I try to have this brake built into the system somewhere. I think that - as if to finish, answering your question directly - I think that the moment when I slow down is the moment when I feel that I could unintentionally hurt someone.
So it's easy, while doing what I do, to go beyond the limits of the joke, the irony, the sarcasm, the word play, beyond which someone who is supposed to be treated innocently has to play with me, play together, suddenly I see that he can't keep up anymore, in the sense that he's no longer having fun, that he's already in pain. And then I see a "safe word" in his eyes called "Stop it already", right? And then there is that "stop moment".
Andrzej Silczuk, MD, PhD, DSc: So it really meets the modern definition of freedom, that freedom ends where the other person's boundaries begin.
Marcin Prokop: Yes.
Andrzej Silczuk, MD, PhD, DSc: Thinking about young people today, about people who are at the beginning of this path, like 20-year-old Marcin - is there anything that you - as a middle-aged man at the moment, I won't lie, we are practically the same age - is there anything that you would like to convey to such a person? Taking into account that these are people who have slightly better skills than we had in setting boundaries or monitoring them, there is a whole road ahead of them of discovering themselves in the future, crystallising their identity and the ability to search for this "flow".
Marcin Prokop: I think I would really like them not to succumb to propaganda, which, unfortunately, is quite common, which states that the measure of your success is the scale of your possessions.
There are many heroes of today's mass imagination, such as, I don't know, Andrew Tate, for example, who in this, let's call it "manosphere", is an icon for many young and very young people, boys, especially because he is a man-meme, that he is a character who, if you treat him too seriously, becomes harmful, because his only determinant of success in life is the measure of how many cars you bought, how many women you fucked, How many parties have you been to? And if this is to be the measure of your success for you, young man, you will quickly be disappointed, because this material success, first of all, you don't realize that it never comes. There is always someone who has more, there is always someone you can compete with, you always don't have enough. In economics, they taught me that human needs are unlimited, that this is one of the first principles of capitalism in general - and this is the truth.
Maybe you will hit your dopamine with another car for two weeks, and then it will be empty unless you find another way to fulfill the definition of "success" in your life. So don't listen to fools who will tell you that your success is your money - first of all. And secondly, don't be afraid, don't be afraid. I think that if I had heard it when I was 20, if I had heard it from someone...
Andrzej Silczuk, MD, PhD, DSc: Who do you trust?
Marcin Prokop: ...who would be an authority for me and who I would trust, I think I would understand many things faster, because fear is sometimes very paralyzing, and very often, as we have already talked about, this fear is related to how we will be perceived by the world, how we will be assessed. So, in short - I don't know if I can swear in this great podcast, but I will do it anyway, just for... other people's opinions.
However, try to be the strictest reviewer for yourself, without thinking about whether I am accepted, liked, whether I belong, whether I am part of some larger whole, whether I am a white sheep enough to not stand out from the herd or a black sheep - just learn to live alone, learn to live without the applause of others, and it will be easier for you.
Andrzej Silczuk, MD, PhD, DSc: Marcin, thank you very much for these words and for this conversation.
Marcin Prokop: Thank you very much for the invitation and for the questions that did not concern the usual questions, i.e. "How did you and Dorota Wellman meet?"
Andrzej Silczuk, MD, PhD, DSc: I was just about to ask this question, but if you want, we'll come back to it on another occasion. Thank you very much, it was a great pleasure for me, I hope it was yours too. Our guest was a man who is unprecedentedly authentic, consistent, a person who is not afraid to set boundaries and was certainly able to share his life wisdom in a beautiful way. Thank you very much again.
Marcin Prokop: Thank you also for your many kind words and my best regards.
