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Disappointments Are Not Obstacles · Emotional Sobriety: The Next Step in Recovery

• 0:00
  Speaker A: Foreign.
• 0:07
  Speaker B: Welcome to emotional Sobriety, the next step in Recovery, with Dr. Alan Berger and Tom Rutledge.
• 0:14
  Speaker A: I love Superdog. I thought he stole the darn show, man. He was so cool.
• 0:19
  Speaker B: I love how Superman is kind of annoyed, and it turns out that Krypto is not even his dog. It's his sister's dog. Oh, just cousins. Cousins, right. Oh, sorry. I stay corrected.
• 0:32
  Speaker A: He's got an alcohol problem.
• 0:34
  Speaker B: I only watched it once, but the audience really liked that twist.
• 0:38
  Speaker A: I thought it was really fun.
• 0:40
  Speaker C: Well, yeah, and in terms of the alcohol, she has to go to certain planets with the certain kind of sun in order for alcohol to affect her. See, I mean, we. We went to great lengths to be affected by alcohol, but we never changed planets. It's like.
• 0:55
  Speaker B: I mean, yeah, if we could have.
• 0:58
  Speaker C: We got to give it to her, man. She's our hero.
• 1:01
  Speaker A: Well, gentlemen, where do we go? Today? We're getting some wonderful feedback from our show, man. I spoke at this meeting called Conscious Contact. It's a very popular speaker meeting across the world. They record the talks and they send them out all over the place. And when I walked up, all these people come up to say, God, I was so glad to see you. I've been listening to your podcast with you and Tom. I turn on. I just want to see what you guys have to say, and you guys give me so much inspiration, and Is that cool?
• 1:32
  Speaker C: That is cool.
• 1:33
  Speaker B: Yeah. Really makes me feel good to know that there's somebody listening.
• 1:37
  Speaker C: I think it's coming across how much fun we're having doing it.
• 1:41
  Speaker B: Tom's nutshell for the week is life is a wonderful blessing with many great disappointments. Can you see disappointment as a gift? And I like the verbiage here. Great disappointments. Yeah, it's, you know, the magnitude of the disappointment.
• 2:00
  Speaker C: Yeah. Big, Big. Not just baby disappointments. Yeah.
• 2:04
  Speaker B: Yeah. And, you know, I was. I was with my sponsor yesterday.
• 2:07
  Speaker A: He.
• 2:08
  Speaker B: He did a pitch in Huntington beach, and he said something that he's. It's a saying that he's returned to a lot over the years, I've noticed, but it's. Nothing in the universe happens by mistake. And that always tweaks my ear a little bit because, you know, I don't like to think of, you know, fate and, you know, the hurtful things that happen as being a part of some kind of design. I think in the context of disappointments, you know, you have to look everything looking backwards. You know what I mean? You have to look at. As a necessary step towards reaching. Now, looking at disappointments as a gift for me. It's really just a way of getting me into harmony with the present, you know, in all of its imperfections and you know, really like, you know, putting me in tune with like what, with what is and what I have to work with.
• 3:08
  Speaker C: And life is a mixture of these things and, and it's like, you know, we talk about acceptance as much as we talk about anything else. And these disappointments are not obstacles in our way. They're part of life. Say again what your, what your sponsors line was.
• 3:24
  Speaker B: Nothing in the universe happens by mistake.
• 3:26
  Speaker C: Right? And see what I thought about with that was because the thing I didn't, I never liked about that because I thought, oh God, then everybody gets caught in the discussions about determinism and all that stuff. But nowadays with the, with the, with the understanding and the content that we have of emotional sobriety. We. What, what occurs to me, what occurred to me when you said that is it's up to each of us living in the present moment to be sure what's happening is not a mistake. It's we. You know, it's that positive opportunism. How do I use this to do something productive? How do I do this to be a better person? It's like it's, we're no longer victims to it. It's just like if it happens, I'm going to make use of it if it happens. Even if it's just, even if it's an act, as if I'm going to act as if that was the plan all along. And it's like it's such a powerful way to live because I mean, speaking for myself, I've spent a lot of time in my life in the ditch of just scratching my head, wondering about things or complaining about things or waiting for things that I can't change to change.
• 4:32
  Speaker B: Right, right. Yeah. You don't want to get lost in a design flaw. You know, getting lost in the past, you know, lost in something that already happened.
• 4:40
  Speaker C: Yep, yep.
• 4:40
  Speaker B: I think that that's, that's the way that I choose to look at. Nothing in the, in the universe happens by mistake. Because I'll just point to like you know, a really painful thing in, in semi recent history is that the genocide in Gaza and all those people who died and you know, and they're still dying and just how the immense grief and pain and just, you know, wrongness of that act and that I would say is a major mistake that the universe has handed us. But you know, if we get lost in the past, rather Than focusing on what can we do right now, you know, what's some positivity we can inject, you know, in the situation, controlling what we can, you know, that really is. Ought to be the mission. Right.
• 5:30
  Speaker C: Right. My friend Bendel is the one who taught me this, that you know, that beliefs are choices. And so it's not a matter of is this the truth or not.
• 5:40
  Speaker A: You.
• 5:40
  Speaker C: It's a matter of does this work or not. And the belief that, that we're. We're. Our job is to make the most of what we're given. The cards that we are dealt. We need to become good card players. You know, that's a belief. The belief that I am here to learn from whatever I'm given. And the belief that even whatever's going on rather than say this is a design flaw for the universe. I mean, if we look at history, it's full. If that's a design flaw, there's full design flaw. We. We all grow up in some time in history.
• 6:11
  Speaker A: Our parents.
• 6:11
  Speaker C: Our parents were at least mine and Alice parents were. Were alive and well during the depression and during. And during the Second World War. It's like, I mean there's always.
• 6:24
  Speaker B: And maybe.
• 6:26
  Speaker C: Yeah.
• 6:26
  Speaker B: And I don't need to get so global with it necessarily. Like, you know, I used to obsess a lot over a breakup I had or getting dumped.
• 6:33
  Speaker C: Yeah.
• 6:33
  Speaker B: And. And because I just. In my, in my mind, you know, that was wrong. Yeah. Like, that should not have happened. There was a life that I was supposed to have that I'm. That is denied me now. And who, who am I now that like, I can't, you know, I. I'm not this person that I thought I was. And God, like I, when I was able to like, let that go and kind of forget about this person I thought I should have been or the life I should have had and really just look at, you know, what are the pieces that I have now? What's the life that I have now and how can I do the best I can with that? I've, you know, became so much happier.
• 7:08
  Speaker C: I just want to emphasize one. And I'll shut up for a minute. It's like I just want to emphasize one sentence you said. This just came running, rushing through to me. That should not have happened. Let's see. Yeah.
• 7:23
  Speaker B: Over that.
• 7:24
  Speaker C: Isn't that an interesting. I mean, I never saw it until just this moment. We've all. We can all say it, we can all feel it. And it's. And now I'm looking at and going like oh my God, how that. All that comes straight from the control addict in us, you know, this arrogant thing of like, I'm the one who should know what should happen. It's like, no, I don't. I just know it happened.
• 7:45
  Speaker A: Yeah. Theodore Isaac Rubin calls that we claim special status in the world. Yes, I claim this special status. I get to determine what should and shouldn't happen.
• 7:58
  Speaker C: That's so good.
• 7:59
  Speaker A: What's the next step in my growth? And that's what emotional sobriety is all about. So if we say a self esteem is feeling, you know, self confident, the confidence that you can handle and deal with life well. So every one of these situations and a disappointment gives me an opportunity to meet it in such a way that is. That helps me feel like, you know what I've learned another important principle about how to live this life and to be okay, even if. To be okay even if I get disappointed, to be okay even if things don't turn out the way I think they should or the way I want them to. Boy, that's really at the heart of this matter that we're talking about, isn't it? Well, it really is. I'm with you. See, I think that determinism always didn't sit well with me either. It's just made us too much like we're just supposed to show up in life and find the path that we were supposed to be on. Well, that takes so much out of my hands. Right. It's. It's creates to me, inside me a kind of a fatalism. Well, you know, it's already determined, so I just might as well go along this journey. I don't see that. I see people really having a lot to say with what they. What's the kind of life they create. And the more I take responsibility for my existence, you know, the more empowered I feel.
• 9:30
  Speaker C: Well, Alan, what you just said, I just, I just put that together. That, that's, that's what people, I think too often think or I think sometimes I can think. May I just talk about myself or having the past thought that acceptance was. Acceptance was giving in, just kind of shrugging my shoulders and saying, well, I just got to do that. That, you know, resignation. It's like acceptance is just. It's just a present tense thing that, you know, that, that Roger brought to us through Nathaniel Brandon, which is. Acceptance is the first step to, to change and, and, and taking the action. And it, and it just occurred to me that, that when you, when you were saying that dissatisfaction is necessary for motivation, it's like, so the idea that these disappointments are really an ingredient in motivation. If we're. If we're just walking around, if we think the goal is just to walk around and be satisfied all the time, I think we're missing the point of what we're here to do on Earth. Whatever. I'm not suggesting. I know how the universe works, but I'm pretty sure we're supposed to be working on stuff.
• 10:33
  Speaker B: You know, recently I watched that Kevin Costner movie, Waterworld. Did you ever see that?
• 10:38
  Speaker C: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 10:38
  Speaker A: Long time ago. That was a great movie.
• 10:40
  Speaker B: Yeah. Remember when he's. The first scene in the movie, I think he's peeing into a bottle, and then he puts it through that recycling system so that he can drink it like awkwafina. And that's the process of taking disappointment and turning it into a gift. Right. Synthesizing it into a good metaphor.
• 11:01
  Speaker A: I'm not going to. Later on. I'm not going to pee in a bottle and see if I could drink it, though, Patrick.
• 11:06
  Speaker B: Exactly.
• 11:07
  Speaker C: That's a great. That's a great metaphor, though. Wow.
• 11:11
  Speaker B: Because if you can learn to, you know, drink on that, then, you know,
• 11:14
  Speaker A: well, it's dealing with what is, and taking what is and turning into something that's going to benefit us. See, that's. That's the whole thing. You know, it's very interesting. I've. There's this wonderful little book called. The Way of Daoism through Winnie the Pooh. It's about Pooh and Taoism, and it's. I don't know if you've read that, Tom, but it's a fun little book. And. But, you know, one of the themes that they, you know, so many of these things can relate to emotional sobriety, like your stoicism that you've been reading as for Marcus Aurelius's Meditations. And in this book, one of the big themes in Daoism is to accept the true nature of things. That's how they call it, the true nature, which means accepting something as it is without us putting our expectations on it, wanting it to be something other than it is. And the more we deal with the true nature of things, the more aligned we are with reality. We've discovered that as we've been talking about these things. And so it's so interesting to see how these things intersect with so many of these quests for wisdom. Right. Like stoicism, Daoism, Buddhism. You know, the Buddhists also talk about many things that we could relate to. Emotional sobriety as well as many of the psychotherapists that we talk about. So it's exciting that we're discovering this. I wanted to say one thing about acceptance because I just recently did this workshop, Tom, and I think you're going to appreciate this definition. But I defined acceptance as standing in the face of truth and experiencing what that means to us. Standing in the face of the truth and experiencing what it means to us. And you're right, it's not a passive thing at all. It's a very powerful, active engagement with reality when we get to that point.
• 13:13
  Speaker C: Yeah. And it's not a turn the dial. And there I got acceptance. It's like, not only is it. Is it not passive, but it's like, you know. You know, basically, what are you working on these days? Well, I'm working on accepting a few things. You know, it's like, because, you know, if we're really being honest with ourselves, you know, what. What's the committee doing inside? It's like, well, there's a. There's a couple of guys that aren't happy with this. They're offended once. One more time. They're offended by reality, you know, and it's like, it's a. It's a hard sell, you know, it's like, no, that's already reality. We can't change that, boys. You know, we have to. We're talking about what we can do with it.
• 13:53
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 13:54
  Speaker C: Well, say that definition again, though, Alan. The acceptance, because I loved it.
• 13:57
  Speaker A: Acceptance is standing in the face of truth. Right. And holding still in the face of truth and experiencing what it means to us.
• 14:08
  Speaker C: I love the fact that it's already a wonderful thing when you say standing in the face of truth. And then you added that other piece, which is. Which is just. It just brings it home. That's beautiful.
• 14:19
  Speaker A: You know, like with loss, you know, My God, that's where you really feel it when you stand in the face of that. It can be so powerful, depending on how important the person was or the issue was that. That you lost. I have a friend over in Tel Aviv right now. She's with the US Embassy, and we've started to develop a relationship. I really like her a lot. She's pretty cool. They're starting Catherine Preston. Oh, I'm not supposed to say that. Take her name out because she doesn't want.
• 14:50
  Speaker B: No worries.
• 14:51
  Speaker A: I'll take it any The. If there are terrorists to come and get me, that she's afraid. But. But she. I sent her a package, a care package, because when I was in Vietnam. I used to get these care packages from my mom. And when I get one, man, all the guys would circle around me because my mom would send out cookies and, you know, other goodies, and we would just sit there and chop down for an hour. It's like the best food you get. All in Vietnam, right? Because all the other stuff was mess hall child. And so I put together a little care package with her with a couple books for her to read and some M M's. Reese's Peanut Butter Cups, one of my favorites. You know, things like that. Peanut M and M's. I forgot what else I put in there, and. And so I sent it off to her. Well, it's really interesting. It goes through a special distribution center, and that's. That's contracted with the US army to send stuff over there because they're still getting mail, right? But US Mail is shut down going into Tel Aviv right now for obvious reasons. So. So they deliver the package to her, and there's a list of items in there and that I had to expense them because, you know, it's a customs deal. So then she gets it and she has to pay this big customs fee. I mean, it's unbelievable. Like, the customs fee for a bag of M and Ms. Is like a buck. It's almost what the M and Ms. Cost. It was really crazy. So she finally, you know, we. We get the money together for her and stuff like that. She shows up and she goes to pay her fees. Think she's going to get the package in her hand. And they say, sorry, now that you paid the fees, they will clear your package and you'll get it within the next week. So she's so disappointed because she had the expectation work I was going to pay my fees. I call it the vending machine mentality. I put the quarter in and I pull the car. I want to get the candy bar, right? I want the. I know, that's what I do. I shake the bar machine when it doesn't work. But you know, what we talked about when she wrote me? She was really, really disappointed. And I said, God, I understand it. I was hoping you'd get it, too. I wanted to see the smile on your face when you got it. But I said, look, the important thing here is really what happened today is you got in touch with how important that package is to you. It means a lot to you, or else you wouldn't be disappointed. And so that disappointment is actually a great thing. It means that you are really looking forward to something and you Took a step closer to that today. That's what you can focus on. He so appreciated the shift in thinking about it. Right. Instead of what I lost, what I got, what I got, I love it.
• 17:40
  Speaker C: The reef, the reframe and comes right back down to the value system that we are always talking about. And, and in the same way that that same method can also point out to us that we're, that we're. We're feeling, we're. We're taking something more serious than we really want to. So if I'm really disappointed about something that, you know, I can't. I'm thinking of an example right now, but that really doesn't matter. When I, When I, When I pay attention to the communication, what's this point? I go. That's when I go like, oh, wait a minute. That's. You know, this is not that important. It's like, you know, let's, Let's. I tell couples this all the time, you know, when you, you know, you know, and both in our personal lives, Dallin and, and Patrick, you too, is like the, you know, and talking to people we're trying to help. It's like, it's. In our personal relationships, it's so easy to get distracted into that. Just doesn't matter, you know, and. And it's like, you know, and sometimes, I mean, this is kind of an extreme way of saying it, but I think it's a helpful way. I'll say, you know, on the day one of you dies, you know, is this one of the things you're going to think back on and be still pissed off about or frustrated about? It's like, if it's not, then let it go, you know, if it's not going to matter when you're dead, you know, do what you got to do, but you don't need to waste time feeling bad about yourself or about each other or about your relationship, you know, And I don't know, do you find that, Alan, the older I get, the more I just keep telling people to love each other?
• 19:14
  Speaker A: Well, you know, but what, you know, what you're saying is, is let's try to have an appropriate relationship to reality. Some things are going to be a bigger deal than other things, and we don't want to have the same. If I'm devastated over something that's not a big deal, what am I doing? Right?
• 19:33
  Speaker C: We get to choose. That's the point. You're right. We get to choose. And we don't know that. We think this just shows up disappointing. So the Situation is doing this to me. I'm making some kind of choice at an unconscious level.
• 19:46
  Speaker A: Yeah, exactly. I had a client that he had, he real busy guy and. But he was also kind of one of those neat freaks, right? Wanted everything in its place and stuff. He's got three kids under the age of five, right? He's got like a four year old, a two year. No, four year old, a three year old and a two year old. And you know, you know, kids love to take toys out of the box, spread them out and play with everything, right?
• 20:18
  Speaker B: So, yeah, for a knee freak, that's a, that's a tough one.
• 20:20
  Speaker A: So he came home and then in his big complaint to his wife was all, we. And he would really pressure her. How come these toys aren't picked up when I come home? You know how I feel. It's that variation on. It's about the dishes, right? How come you're not cleaning the dishes? How come you're not picking up these toys when I come home? You know, that's a pet peeve of mine. And so he's getting off into this thing and putting pressure on her. And look, I, I'm, you know, I've got, I've had young kids, you know, they take up a lot of your time and sometimes you just don't have the time to go pick up. You won't take the time because other things are more important. Picking up the toys is not that big of a deal, right? So they were struggling with this and she would just feel bad. She'd feel like, my God, I'm doing the best I can and he's demanding these things and how can I ever please him? And they were really going into a rabbit hole with this thing, right? And I looked to him and I said, I want you to imagine something, Don. Imagine that, God forbid, something happened and you lost your kid for whatever reason. And then you're going to remember back to those times when you walked in the backyard and saw all those toys as being evident that your kids are having a lot of fun. They're thriving, they're playing, they are enjoying their life because of what you've created for them. And I said, and think about this. You're missing that. You're missing what it really says to you when you walk in the door. By looking into whether they're picked up or not, you miss the most important part of what's going on. These kids are having a great time in your house. Isn't that what a house is for? For kids to enjoy for Them to be laughing and playing. And isn't that what you wanted when you were a kid too? And he got it, man. He got it. He stood back and he said, oh, my God, I do that with almost everything in my life. Don't. I said, yes, you do. Yes, you do. And, and he shifted completely his perspective.
• 22:28
  Speaker C: You're in a unique position to have lots of credibility with that because you've, you've raised kids to adults and you're still, and you're still raising two young kids. And, and so you're not, you're not just talk, you're not just talking from, from theory. You're saying no. When I stub my toe on, you know, a toy in the midd room or, you know, or cut my foot because I step on it, it's like, you know, you go, oh my God, I love my children.
• 22:58
  Speaker A: Isn't that what Daoism was saying, is that if you appreciate the true nature of things, there's no expectation about it being more than it needs to be. It's beautiful the way it is. You know, I'm thinking of my little dachshund. I mean, the true nature of her is she loves to play fetch. I mean, I think she thinks she's a golden retriever in a toxin body, right? And she will come to me if I'm sitting out there. If I was sitting out there right now, she would have brought up this little squeaky toy about 100 times for me to throw it. Now, based on this. But I overall think this way. I love it because that's who she is. And that's what I love about her. That's her true nature. And isn't that something? Is that a lot of times we lose sight of, you know, really what we can appreciate and we can value, we have much more than we think we have in life a lot of times.
• 23:57
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 23:57
  Speaker A: Really?
• 23:57
  Speaker B: Dr. Well, you know, a recent disappointment I had is just that my brain hasn't been working as well. I got sick last week, so we weren't able to record. And so I've been coming back from an illness. And then, you know, the way my schedule is, is that in between my day job and then, you know, whatever other concrete kind of like meeting or, you know, like fixed professional or fellowship commitments I have, then I have to do my freelance work, you know, so I'm editing other projects and then trying to fit that in to the empty hours that I have. Not to mention, you know, just normal stuff like sleeping and, you know, gotta allocate some Time just to chill or, you know, whatever. But I always want my mind to be like a ninja, where like, when I've got those out, like those two hours or those, like, 90 minutes where I can get some work in, I want to just, like, hit the switch and I'm just, like, able to execute just perfectly. And this particular freelance project I'm on is so boring, and it's so challenging, and it's so hard to get my brain to turn on, to, like, focus on it. Like, I'm basically. I have to. Have to take Japanese language and then I have to transcribe and then translate the. The Japanese language into English subtitles at, like, these intervals throughout the video that I'm working on. And I'm just, like, fighting every step of the way. It reminds me of, like, when I was a kid and having to, like, study my, like, trigonometry book and just like, how.
• 25:33
  Speaker C: Damn. You were just. You were just describing that job and I was getting sleepy. It's like.
• 25:39
  Speaker B: Oh, yeah, yeah, exactly. The audience. The audience is completely turned out, turned off the episode by now, I'm sure with my mind in particular, it's like I'm at a river fishing. You know, I just got to be at the river and, you know, sometimes there's going to be fish coming up, you know, and I'll have a good day, and other times there's nothing. But I guess the. The gratitude I have is that, like, I don't hate myself as much as I used to for not being able to catch those fish. Hey, that's just me. I mean, I'm just not. I'm not a thought ninja. It's just not.
• 26:09
  Speaker C: Let me ask you a question, Patrick. Is it possible and answer honestly. It's like, is it possible that there are times in what you're describing that you don't. There are times that you don't hate yourself at all.
• 26:20
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 26:21
  Speaker C: Because you just. Because you're very careful about that. And I identify my history. You said I hate myself less. It's like I'm thinking. I think it's bigger than that. I think sometimes you forget to hate yourself.
• 26:35
  Speaker B: Sometimes I do.
• 26:36
  Speaker C: It's a good thing. That's a good memory loss.
• 26:38
  Speaker B: Hey. Well, before we wrap. Not that I'm trying to hurry us or anything, but, Tom, do you have any disappointments recently you can offer us that you dealt with in a way that's different than you may have in the past?
• 26:51
  Speaker C: If the younger people won't identify with this? But. But I've been dealing with with glitches in my Social Security and medic. So I've been, I've been talking to the government bureaucracy on a daily basis, and what I've discovered is the bureaucracy still pisses me off, but my new, my new attitude, the emotional sobriety has put me in touch with. And I didn't know I was going to say this, and I just started that sentence, but is, but absolutely. Almost everybody I talk to is kind of. And wants to help. You know, they're still, there's. They're still in a bureaucracy. And I can, I can go on and on about bureaucracies, about what I think makes them not so, so effective, but it's like I actually have. This is very different than it would have been in my life before in dealing with these, these issues, the disappointments, these problems I have to solve. It's like I actually find myself enjoying these conversations with people. And, you know, and, and, and when you're, when you're in those kind of positions, I think, I think it's really, I think it's really positive to, for us when I do that or when anybody does that, I think it really means something to them most of the time, because people are very impatient, whether it's their fault or not. And it's, it's, you know, and I love opportunities just to say, look, man, I know you're doing what you can do. I'm not blaming you for this. You know, it's, it's. And they, you know, I feel like I make new friends. It's like, so, yeah, in the, in the old days, what I would do with all that disappointment is I'd be taking it out on everybody. And now it's, it's really quite the opposite. Not that I couldn't have a bad day, so, you know, always relapse is always a possibility, but it's like, it's like, it's. I look forward to making some more phone calls to a bureaucracy later today.
• 28:47
  Speaker B: Well, you know what? Like, that is the, to me, that's, that's the only way to survive that kind of responsibility that you, you're saddled with, to kind of have, not have to navigate those well.
• 28:57
  Speaker C: It's the only way to live. It's like we, we know we can survive, you know, and people do that. We've. We know people. I've done it for years and years because I can survive. I can do this. But it's like, it's not any fun. There's no joy in it. And it's like, and we're missing. It's like Alan was talking to the. To the client with the kids. You're missing all these opportunities for joy. We just walk right past them because we just. We decide to focus on our disappointment or our dissatisfaction. It's like we need to acknowledge those. We need to understand them, we need to accept them, but we don't have to sit there and focus on them.
• 29:36
  Speaker A: It's a great example. Great example.
• 29:39
  Speaker B: It's just a guy. That's the thing. The systems that infuriate me, you know, I have to. I have to remind myself that they just put people in there. And I like people, you know, I. One on one, you know, most people I could find some point of, you know, connection with, and, you know, I see myself in them and, you know, it's.
• 30:00
  Speaker C: Yeah, well, you get to. You get to have. I guess this. I think this actually falls in the category of manipulation. So maybe everybody needs to ignore what I'm getting ready to say. But one of the things I've learned through the years, and most everybody I've talked to in Social Security or Medicare over this time have been very kind to me and have often been very helpful to me. I was talking to a woman the other day who was. She wasn't mean, but she was cold, you know, and she, you know, she wasn't. I didn't think she was very happy. And so I. So I lied to her. I said. I said, you know what? I've talked to lots and lots of people through this, trying to figure this out, and said, you're one of the first people that I really feel like hears me now. That was the opposite of what I was experiencing with her. Okay. But it. I learned this a long time ago. Sometimes it's not to just. It's not to, you know, I like to enjoy with people's minds, but this is not it. She rose to the. She rose to the occasion. I mean, she. She softened. She became helpful, you know, and. And friendlier to me because people don't. When I. Somebody told me this a long time ago, people won't turn down a compliment. And so if you compliment them on something they're not doing, they'll probably start doing it. And that's been my experience. And it is not like I. I don't. In the old days, I would have come away thinking how clever was I. But. But what I do now is I feel like that that's helpful to me because she's more helpful to me now, you know, But I. But I also think is is probably helpful to her. She probably feels better, right?
• 31:41
  Speaker B: Yeah. Do I have an opportunity to rise?
• 31:43
  Speaker C: Can I help somebody else out?
• 31:46
  Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah. Right on. I was just. For whatever reason, Tom, I was just thinking about you as Willy Wonka. Come with me and you'll be in a world of pure imagination.
• 32:02
  Speaker A: Good show today, guys. Nicely done.
• 32:08
  Speaker B: I got a lot of this. I've got a lot of disappointment. So that whatever can help me to medicate that and whatsoever.
• 32:18
  Speaker C: Before we go, I just want. I know we, we put this stuff on the tag and in the, the, on the print part of all this stuff, but I just, I wanna, I want to specifically thank Jefferson Ross for the music he allows us to. Gives us permission to use for our show. You know, I've known. I've known Jefferson for a long, long time. He's an extremely talented song singer, songwriter and painter. Go to his website. He does these amazing paintings. It's Jefferson Ross dot com. But it's like, I especially like that. I think the tag song we have here is Clues. Is that right, Patrick? I love that song. I sing that song to myself all the time.
• 32:59
  Speaker B: Yeah. No, Jefferson Ross. This show has international reach. I got a message from Irish Patrick the other day because one of his members of the Berlin group was asking about Jefferson's music and, you know, and he wanted to know the names of particular, you know, songs and stuff. And Jefferson's album, it's called. Is it Southern Comfort?
• 33:21
  Speaker C: There's, there's several albums. I'm not sure. I'm not sure which one's the newest. It's like he has one like, called. Yeah, Southern Comfort.
• 33:27
  Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, yeah, it was an. It was a track from Southern Comfort. But. But yeah, you know, like people really vibe with it whenever they listen to it. So, yeah, if you want, if you want more, we have his website in the show notes.
• 33:53
  Speaker A: Sam.