Latest / Raising Daughters / Why Cooperation Trumps Competition Every Time
Transcript
- 0:14Speaker 1: Hello friends, Doctor Tim Jordan back here with you with
- 0:18Speaker 1: a brand new topic of a brand new podcast. I
- 0:23Speaker 1: think you're gonna find interesting today. I've been struck by
- 0:28Speaker 1: how much negativity there is in the news. That is
- 0:31Speaker 1: not a new story, but lately there's been so much
- 0:37Speaker 1: violence and anger, you know, the war in Ukraine with
- 0:40Speaker 1: Russia and Israel and Lebanon and the US and Iran.
- 0:46Speaker 1: It just goes on and on and on. I was
- 0:50Speaker 1: I was remembering a quote from from Harry Potter. This
- 0:55Speaker 1: is a quote from Professor Doubledore. He said in one
- 0:58Speaker 1: of those movies that happiness can be found even in
- 1:01Speaker 1: the darkest of times if one only remembers to turn
- 1:05Speaker 1: on the light. And I would add the light of awareness.
- 1:11Speaker 1: So I would like to add a little bit of
- 1:12Speaker 1: awareness today about our nature, because if you look at
- 1:16Speaker 1: the news and listen to the news and read the news,
- 1:19Speaker 1: you'd think our nature is violence, our nature is competition,
- 1:24Speaker 1: anger fighting. Let me give you an example. Sometimes in
- 1:30Speaker 1: our retreats and in our summer camps, so we'll do
- 1:32Speaker 1: an exercise with kids. I've also done this actually with
- 1:36Speaker 1: a lot of adult groups as well, with teacher staffs,
- 1:38Speaker 1: et cetera. And we'll ask everybody to pick a partner
- 1:42Speaker 1: and we have them get down the floor and then
- 1:46Speaker 1: put their elbows up and then they lock hands with
- 1:50Speaker 1: their partner with their elbows touching, and then we tell
- 1:54Speaker 1: them every time you get your partner's hand to touch
- 1:58Speaker 1: the ground, you get an Every time they touch your
- 2:02Speaker 1: hand to the ground, they win eminem. And we're gonna
- 2:05Speaker 1: give you thirty seconds to see who can win the
- 2:07Speaker 1: most eminems. Ready, set go, and then people lock hands
- 2:13Speaker 1: and then they they struggle, right, it's like an arm
- 2:16Speaker 1: wrestling thing, and they're going, they're grunting and they're laughing
- 2:20Speaker 1: and everything. And then then after thirty seconds, we say
- 2:22Speaker 1: stop and we go around the room. We'll say how
- 2:24Speaker 1: many eminems did you win? And typically if there's scores
- 2:27Speaker 1: like six zero, ten to one, even if it's like
- 2:33Speaker 1: four to four, there's a lot of like kind of
- 2:35Speaker 1: laughing but like whatever. Oftentimes, also too, there's a few
- 2:39Speaker 1: people were it's zero zero and we asked them how
- 2:42Speaker 1: it felt, you know, to do this, and they're like,
- 2:44Speaker 1: it's okay, it's kind of fun. And we'll say let's
- 2:48Speaker 1: do it again, but we're going to shift the intention
- 2:51Speaker 1: this time, because that time it looked like you guys
- 2:55Speaker 1: went right into competition. It has a certain feel to it,
- 3:01Speaker 1: a certain end result. And then I show them, or
- 3:05Speaker 1: I asked them the question, how could each of you
- 3:08Speaker 1: have won ten or fifteen m and ms? And they
- 3:13Speaker 1: always look quizzical, and especially kid groups, like what I said,
- 3:17Speaker 1: how could you each have won ten? And then usually
- 3:20Speaker 1: at least one person says well, and then they show
- 3:23Speaker 1: that they could have just went one, one, two, two, three, three, four, four, five, five,
- 3:27Speaker 1: and they would have cooperated so that both of them
- 3:30Speaker 1: were working together to earn as many m and ms
- 3:32Speaker 1: as they could. Then they all laugh, go oh, and
- 3:36Speaker 1: I'll say, why didn't you think of that? And because
- 3:39Speaker 1: they went right to competition. I don't think competition is
- 3:44Speaker 1: bad or wrong, but there's a different feel to it,
- 3:48Speaker 1: there's a different intention to it. I think it's really
- 3:52Speaker 1: interesting that in our culture today, especially especially in the US.
- 3:57Speaker 1: I think I think our go to now is that
- 4:00Speaker 1: more competitive thing versus cooperation. And I think if you
- 4:07Speaker 1: look around the world, the humanity is taying to single
- 4:10Speaker 1: out things like war and violence as examples of boldness
- 4:16Speaker 1: and courage, things to memorialize. That's what we tend to
- 4:20Speaker 1: focus on this culture. Courage and boldness and strength become
- 4:25Speaker 1: associated with a willingness to fight and die, to put
- 4:29Speaker 1: your life on the line for your country, for your ethnicity.
- 4:33Speaker 1: But what we don't hear very much about in the
- 4:38Speaker 1: news is the names of people who did different kinds
- 4:41Speaker 1: of things, like people who invent the washing machine, Thomas
- 4:46Speaker 1: Edison and electricity, people who are developing new antibiotics, the
- 4:52Speaker 1: women who are responsible for fighting for the women's right
- 4:55Speaker 1: to vote. How many of you realized that I'll miss
- 5:00Speaker 1: Edison when he was working on getting a better filment
- 5:04Speaker 1: for his light bulbs, that he and his team tested
- 5:07Speaker 1: over six thousand different materials for the incandescent light bulb
- 5:12Speaker 1: filment before they settle on carbonized bamboo in eighteen eighty.
- 5:17Speaker 1: That's a lot of persistence, a lot of perseverance, a
- 5:20Speaker 1: lot of courage and dedication. We don't hear those examples
- 5:24Speaker 1: very often. We hear about generals, we hear about soldiers.
- 5:29Speaker 1: There's so many words and metaphors that are derived from
- 5:33Speaker 1: wars that we throw around in our culture. A lot,
- 5:37Speaker 1: things like having a war on drugs and a war
- 5:40Speaker 1: on crime. We tell people who are entering our company,
- 5:44Speaker 1: that they're joining their ranks. We got to take it
- 5:47Speaker 1: to the mat. We describe people as being straight shooters,
- 5:51Speaker 1: or somebody who's caught in the middle of things is
- 5:53Speaker 1: caught in the crossfire. A woman's beauty is described as
- 5:57Speaker 1: being a bombshell or a knockout. We describe powerful people
- 6:02Speaker 1: as being a heavy hitter. If a plan fails as
- 6:05Speaker 1: a dud. People at work are in the trenches. Best
- 6:11Speaker 1: arguments are ones, heavy artillery, Bring your arsenal, take no quarter.
- 6:17Speaker 1: All is fair in love and war. People sometimes get blindsided.
- 6:22Speaker 1: Don't jump the gun, hit the mark. This company looks
- 6:26Speaker 1: like a sinking ship. We call an argument a battle,
- 6:31Speaker 1: and cooperation a truce or a ceasefire. So many words
- 6:37Speaker 1: in our vernacular having to do with violence and competition
- 6:41Speaker 1: and war. Who chose violent conflict as the one human
- 6:46Speaker 1: activity to kind of laud over all the others. It's
- 6:49Speaker 1: interesting I read someplace recently that that the first twenty
- 6:55Speaker 1: nine sculptures that were placed in Central Park in New York,
- 6:59Speaker 1: not one of them was a women, until finally the
- 7:02Speaker 1: New York City Public Design Commission approved a statue of
- 7:06Speaker 1: honoring Susan B. Anthony a woman who was a big
- 7:10Speaker 1: part of the movement for women's right to vote. We
- 7:15Speaker 1: ignore women, women leaders a lot. We don't notice them
- 7:19Speaker 1: as much, we don't talk about them as much. I
- 7:24Speaker 1: know that when men are stressed, a lot of times
- 7:28Speaker 1: we go right to our fight or flight reactions. Women,
- 7:34Speaker 1: on the other hand, when they're stressed, oftentimes go into
- 7:38Speaker 1: something that's called tend and befriend. Women oftentimes come together
- 7:46Speaker 1: to cooperate, to support each other way more so than
- 7:49Speaker 1: men do, seeking solutions to problems through communication instead of
- 7:54Speaker 1: instead of trying to dominate the other person. I read
- 7:58Speaker 1: someplace which is fastin that most of history has been
- 8:02Speaker 1: written by men. I think we would all agree with that.
- 8:05Speaker 1: But way back in the day caveman cave woman days,
- 8:09Speaker 1: prehistoric women did most of the drawings in caves, and
- 8:13Speaker 1: there's not one depiction, there's not one drawing of war
- 8:18Speaker 1: inside those caves. Isn't that interesting? I wonder what what
- 8:25Speaker 1: would be like if our country was run by a woman,
- 8:27Speaker 1: and not just a woman, but a woman who extolled
- 8:30Speaker 1: more of those virtues of cooperation and thoughtfulness and communication
- 8:37Speaker 1: and win win negotiation. Robin Williams, the Commedian one time
- 8:43Speaker 1: said if women ran the world, we wouldn't have wars,
- 8:47Speaker 1: just intense negotiations every twenty eight days. If women ran
- 8:51Speaker 1: the world, we'd be talking every day, all day long.
- 8:55Speaker 1: That's not my quote, that's Robin Williams. We need to
- 8:59Speaker 1: find better examples, better metaphors. I learned recently that when
- 9:05Speaker 1: there's a huge storm coming up that cows are in
- 9:08Speaker 1: the middle of a pasture, they tend to run away
- 9:11Speaker 1: from the storm, and they end up getting caught in
- 9:14Speaker 1: the storm longer. Buffalo, on the other hand, if they're
- 9:18Speaker 1: in that same pasture, will run right towards a storm
- 9:21Speaker 1: and through it, thus spending less time in the storm.
- 9:24Speaker 1: And buffalo tend to help each other out. They work together.
- 9:30Speaker 1: And I think humans are the same. It's not just
- 9:33Speaker 1: I think that. I know that from reading a lot.
- 9:36Speaker 1: We are wired to connect, We're wired to cooperate. We
- 9:40Speaker 1: just don't We just don't value it as much. In
- 9:44Speaker 1: our culture. We don't talk about as much because we're
- 9:46Speaker 1: overvaluing aggression and competition. We need to give kids opportunities
- 9:51Speaker 1: to experience a difference between competition and cooperation. Let me
- 9:54Speaker 1: give you a couple examples of things by doing my
- 9:57Speaker 1: retreats with kids, we do a exercise sometimes called ToeJam basketball,
- 10:05Speaker 1: which stands for together we win jamboree basketball, and so
- 10:10Speaker 1: we have them do something in two ways. We set
- 10:14Speaker 1: up a little waistcan about about eight feet away from
- 10:19Speaker 1: the shooters, and the kids line up to shoot, and
- 10:22Speaker 1: we tell them we're gonna see who can make the
- 10:24Speaker 1: most free throws in thirty seconds. And it's just and
- 10:27Speaker 1: you seem to know more than about five in a group.
- 10:30Speaker 1: So in a classroom there might be five, maybe four
- 10:33Speaker 1: or five groups of about five kids, and we give
- 10:36Speaker 1: each group three balls, and we tell them, you guys,
- 10:40Speaker 1: you know, time each other, and let's see who can
- 10:42Speaker 1: win the most free throws in thirty seconds. Righty, set go,
- 10:46Speaker 1: That's all we say when we set it up. So
- 10:49Speaker 1: the first kid in each group will line up and
- 10:51Speaker 1: they start throwing these balls, and the balls are bouncing everywhere,
- 10:54Speaker 1: and most groups, most classrooms, the kids kind of watch.
- 10:59Speaker 1: Maybe someone will we'll go and chase some balls down,
- 11:01Speaker 1: but there isn't a lot of cooperation because we set
- 11:05Speaker 1: up as a competition, so everybody gets their turn. Then
- 11:09Speaker 1: we go around and say, let's see who won the
- 11:11Speaker 1: most and how made you get how many who got
- 11:13Speaker 1: the most in this group ends up being someone who
- 11:15Speaker 1: got like maybe three or four or five wins. And
- 11:18Speaker 1: then we're like, okay, how was that? Okay? How did
- 11:20Speaker 1: it feel to do it that way? It was okay.
- 11:23Speaker 1: Then we say, let's do it again, but with something changed.
- 11:27Speaker 1: We're going to shift the intention from who can make
- 11:30Speaker 1: the most who's the best? To how can we best
- 11:33Speaker 1: support each other? And we said, if the goal was
- 11:38Speaker 1: a group goal, how can our team, how can the
- 11:41Speaker 1: class get the most free throws? How can we work
- 11:44Speaker 1: together to create that? How might you do it different?
- 11:48Speaker 1: And then they brainstorm and they come up with all
- 11:51Speaker 1: kinds of ideas like, well, we probably have people you know,
- 11:53Speaker 1: standing or sitting by the waistcan rebounding, and then we
- 11:59Speaker 1: would roll them back to the shooter, so the shooters
- 12:00Speaker 1: just had to stand there and shoot. Some groups even
- 12:03Speaker 1: if have some people standing by the shooter to get
- 12:05Speaker 1: the balls coming back, and they hand it to them
- 12:07Speaker 1: so it's not so chaotic. They also spend a little
- 12:10Speaker 1: bit of time being able to tell the group before
- 12:13Speaker 1: they shoot, this is how I like to be supported.
- 12:16Speaker 1: Some kids want people yelling and cheering and screaming some
- 12:19Speaker 1: kids want to quiet. Some kids just want some affirmations,
- 12:22Speaker 1: like good shot, you can do it. So once they
- 12:26Speaker 1: create all those intentions, we say, okay, same rules. You
- 12:29Speaker 1: get three balls thirty seconds each. Go let's see you
- 12:32Speaker 1: know what are how you can do as a group.
- 12:34Speaker 1: And then what I notice immediately and they notice immediately,
- 12:37Speaker 1: is the spirit is totally different. It's more fun. The
- 12:42Speaker 1: kids are laughing, they're cheering, and you know, they're still
- 12:46Speaker 1: doing the same activity. And when they're all done, we
- 12:50Speaker 1: gin altogether, and they always want to know the score,
- 12:52Speaker 1: and we'll say, wait a minute, first, tell us how
- 12:54Speaker 1: it felt that time to do it different. And what
- 12:56Speaker 1: they'll say is it was a lot more fun. I
- 12:59Speaker 1: felt support people were helping me out. Last time I
- 13:04Speaker 1: got zero. This time I got three. And the first
- 13:07Speaker 1: time in the class of maybe let's just say there's
- 13:09Speaker 1: twenty or twenty five kids, the first time they have
- 13:12Speaker 1: been a total score in the group of maybe thirty
- 13:15Speaker 1: or thirty five. And before they start the second time,
- 13:18Speaker 1: I forgot to add. We asked them to have a goal,
- 13:21Speaker 1: how many think you can make this time? If you
- 13:23Speaker 1: work together and your intention is cooperation, they may set
- 13:27Speaker 1: a goal of maybe forty or something like that. And
- 13:30Speaker 1: then when we add up the scores, not use it.
- 13:33Speaker 1: They always blow it away. They'll get like sixty or
- 13:37Speaker 1: seventy they get. It's amazing how many more they get.
- 13:40Speaker 1: And then you start screaming and they're cheering, and they
- 13:43Speaker 1: had a chance to experience the difference between doing something
- 13:47Speaker 1: where your goal and your intention is to be the
- 13:49Speaker 1: best and to beat other people, and to compete with
- 13:54Speaker 1: a different intention of working together making sure everybody in
- 13:58Speaker 1: your team is successful, not just you. We tell them
- 14:02Speaker 1: when it's your turn, try your best. But what's more
- 14:05Speaker 1: important the second time was working together and making sure
- 14:08Speaker 1: their teammates were successful. Whole different feeling that they experience,
- 14:12Speaker 1: and they don't get a chance to experience that enough quickly.
- 14:17Speaker 1: Another exercise we do sometimes in groups is we'll have
- 14:20Speaker 1: them in small groups and we have them we call
- 14:26Speaker 1: it the mole in the porcupine, and it's an old
- 14:29Speaker 1: ASoP stable I believe, but we tell them, actually we
- 14:32Speaker 1: have two lines facing each other. One side of the
- 14:36Speaker 1: line is the moles, the other side of the porcupines,
- 14:38Speaker 1: and they're facing off. We tell them the story that
- 14:42Speaker 1: it's winter's coming and they need to prepare for the winter.
- 14:45Speaker 1: And so the moles are working hard. They're digging up
- 14:49Speaker 1: nuts and they're storing them. They're digging up holes and
- 14:51Speaker 1: underground cave if you will, they can live in in
- 14:55Speaker 1: the winter when it's cold. They're all working together, working hard,
- 14:58Speaker 1: and the porky jumping around like ooh, you know, laughing
- 15:03Speaker 1: and saying, you guys are crazy, what are you doing.
- 15:05Speaker 1: And then the first snow hits and the first freeze,
- 15:08Speaker 1: and the moles go underground and they are warm and
- 15:10Speaker 1: they got plenty to eat, and the porcupine is freezing.
- 15:14Speaker 1: So he knocks on the door of the porcupine's little
- 15:17Speaker 1: underground cap. He says, hey, help me, I'm freezing to death.
- 15:20Speaker 1: I need to come in. And then the moles are,
- 15:24Speaker 1: you know, faced with should we help them or not,
- 15:28Speaker 1: And so eventually they let let the porcupine come in.
- 15:33Speaker 1: And what happens is is the porcupine is moving around
- 15:36Speaker 1: these little you know, these little tunnels and things, and
- 15:39Speaker 1: he keeps bumping into the moles and puncturing their skin.
- 15:44Speaker 1: And so they have to decide what they're going to do.
- 15:47Speaker 1: And so we have them face off, and then the
- 15:50Speaker 1: moles will tell the porcupines one on one, this is
- 15:53Speaker 1: how I feel about what's going on, And then the
- 15:56Speaker 1: porcupines share how they feel about what's going on. And
- 16:00Speaker 1: then we have them brainstorm how could you make a
- 16:03Speaker 1: win win so that both of you were happy, And
- 16:07Speaker 1: they come up with these really ingenious ideas, like they'll
- 16:11Speaker 1: put little wood chips on the end of each of
- 16:13Speaker 1: the porcupine quills so they can't stick somebody. One group
- 16:16Speaker 1: one time or one pair one time, said we put
- 16:18Speaker 1: marshmallows on the tips of all the porcupines quills so
- 16:22Speaker 1: that he wouldn't hurt each other. Sometimes they'll say, we'll
- 16:24Speaker 1: dig up a separate room for the porcupine so that
- 16:27Speaker 1: he doesn't have to go into these little hallways. But
- 16:30Speaker 1: they create some nice win win solutions that they wouldn't
- 16:35Speaker 1: have thought of earlier if they were in the competitive mode.
- 16:40Speaker 1: They need to be able to learn to get in
- 16:43Speaker 1: each other's shoes, to see problems from the other person's side,
- 16:47Speaker 1: from their point of view. There's no way to create
- 16:49Speaker 1: a win win until you do that. They need to
- 16:52Speaker 1: learn to solve their problems in their conflicts peacefully, and
- 16:55Speaker 1: that's something we don't give them enough practice with we
- 16:57Speaker 1: don't give them the skills. So they got a chance
- 17:02Speaker 1: to be a mole and then to switch side and
- 17:04Speaker 1: then to be a porcupine. They could see it from
- 17:06Speaker 1: both sides, from both points of view invaluable as opposed
- 17:11Speaker 1: to just ramming your point of view down the other
- 17:13Speaker 1: person's throat. So they need some examples, They need some
- 17:18Speaker 1: times to practice these skills. Also, I think we need
- 17:23Speaker 1: to be much more aware that the words that we
- 17:26Speaker 1: use are really important. It tells us a lot about
- 17:30Speaker 1: who we are and what we value. Instead of using
- 17:34Speaker 1: all those words like working on their front lines and
- 17:37Speaker 1: all that stuff I mentioned before, Well instead of someone
- 17:41Speaker 1: who works who works in a laboratory, instead of saying
- 17:43Speaker 1: they're working on the front lines of medicine, to say
- 17:46Speaker 1: instead that they're working in a laboratory cooking up new
- 17:50Speaker 1: medicine secure cancer. And it may sound dumb you maybe
- 17:55Speaker 1: who cares? I care because those little things are important.
- 17:59Speaker 1: What we focus on, the words we use are important.
- 18:05Speaker 1: We need to change what we pay attention to, what
- 18:08Speaker 1: deeds we're honoring, what deeds that we talk about the most,
- 18:11Speaker 1: What names that we know of people because of the
- 18:15Speaker 1: things that they've done. When you turn the news today,
- 18:20Speaker 1: all you hear is the war in Iran, the war
- 18:23Speaker 1: in Israel. You hear about Russia and Ukraine. All you
- 18:27Speaker 1: hear about is a fighting between the two political parties
- 18:29Speaker 1: in our country. Anger, conflict, no conflict resolution, just shouting
- 18:36Speaker 1: and making fun of and disparaging the other side. That's
- 18:41Speaker 1: where our kids are seeing and hearing, and we need
- 18:45Speaker 1: to show kids and live out different ways of handling
- 18:48Speaker 1: conflicts and disagreements than what they're seeing on the news.
- 18:53Speaker 1: The adults on the news are failing our children and
- 18:56Speaker 1: providing examples of conflict resolution, co operation, et cetera. It's
- 19:03Speaker 1: always been important in our in our societies to be seen.
- 19:07Speaker 1: It's a basic human need to be seen, to be known.
- 19:13Speaker 1: It's got an evolutionary basis. Our early ancestors lived in tribes.
- 19:18Speaker 1: People who who focus on cooperation tended to survive more.
- 19:24Speaker 1: People who were together in groups and work together in
- 19:27Speaker 1: groups survived more, and they passed those genes on to
- 19:31Speaker 1: the next generation. The genes that were passed on were
- 19:34Speaker 1: those that cared deeply about being a member of a tribe,
- 19:38Speaker 1: being part of a group. We became a species that
- 19:42Speaker 1: is hardwired to be unhappy if we aren't deeply connected
- 19:45Speaker 1: with at least a few other people that's been wired in.
- 19:51Speaker 1: Our ancestors knew that being seen equated to being safe,
- 19:57Speaker 1: and not being seen meant you were kicked out of
- 19:59Speaker 1: the You weren't part of a group, and you died.
- 20:01Speaker 1: You didn't survive. If they didn't see you, then you
- 20:05Speaker 1: were left alone. You weren't going to survive. So our
- 20:09Speaker 1: brains have registered loneliness and being alone as a threat,
- 20:12Speaker 1: and it sends off alarms. But longing is the innate
- 20:16Speaker 1: human desire to be a part of something larger than us.
- 20:20Speaker 1: We're wired to connect, we're wired to cooperate. We want
- 20:25Speaker 1: to have close relationships and friendships. People oftentimes point to
- 20:30Speaker 1: Charles Darwin and they say, well, yeah, it's about survival
- 20:34Speaker 1: of the fittest. That's what he wrote about. And he
- 20:36Speaker 1: did write about survival of the fittest. But in his
- 20:40Speaker 1: books on evolution he mentioned survival of the fittest two times.
- 20:45Speaker 1: He mentions love ninety two times. Let me say that again.
- 20:52Speaker 1: We oftentimes pointed Charles Darwin as proof that it's about competition,
- 20:56Speaker 1: but in his books on evolution he mentioned survival of
- 21:00Speaker 1: the fittest only two times he mentions love ninety two times.
- 21:05Speaker 1: Darwin believed through his research that man'sy's central nature was
- 21:09Speaker 1: cooperation and not competition. There's been hundreds of studies over
- 21:15Speaker 1: the past century that have shown that collaboration and cooperative
- 21:19Speaker 1: learning bring out the best in individuals and groups. Cooperation
- 21:24Speaker 1: is more critical to our survival than competition and struggle.
- 21:27Speaker 1: Humans crave connection, we crave interaction, we crave togetherness. There's
- 21:34Speaker 1: another exercise I do sometimes. I saw this. I saw
- 21:37Speaker 1: Stephen Covey give a talk one time in Saint Louis
- 21:40Speaker 1: in person, and I loved his books, The Seven Habits
- 21:43Speaker 1: of How the Affected People of the Eighth Habit. And
- 21:47Speaker 1: I think he talks about this exercise in the Eighth
- 21:49Speaker 1: Habit book as well. But anyway, so he would call it,
- 21:53Speaker 1: and I've done this in groups myself as well. Call
- 21:55Speaker 1: somebody up and then you and you say, let's put
- 21:59Speaker 1: our arms together here, lockhands, and every time you know,
- 22:05Speaker 1: you get the other person's hand to touch the table,
- 22:08Speaker 1: and then I also give them a dollar. If they
- 22:11Speaker 1: get my hand to touch, they get a dollar. Let's
- 22:13Speaker 1: see you can win the most dollars. And thirty seconds, ready,
- 22:16Speaker 1: set go and of course, the other person goes into
- 22:22Speaker 1: arm wrestling mode and tries to slam my hand to
- 22:25Speaker 1: the table like they would try and slam Stephen Covey's
- 22:27Speaker 1: hand to the table, and the first time, Covey would
- 22:31Speaker 1: would resist for a second and then he would just
- 22:34Speaker 1: let go and the other person would look kind of quizzical,
- 22:37Speaker 1: I've done this too, and was say, okay, do again, ready,
- 22:40Speaker 1: set go, and the other person would like, try really hard,
- 22:43Speaker 1: and then you would just let go. Let them touch
- 22:45Speaker 1: your hand to tap your hand to the top of
- 22:47Speaker 1: the table, and they would do that two or three times,
- 22:49Speaker 1: and then they would stop because it wasn't fun when
- 22:53Speaker 1: the other person wasn't fighting back. So it wasn't that
- 22:57Speaker 1: I gave up. It wasn't that Stephen he gave up.
- 23:01Speaker 1: We were winning people over with cooperation and not fighting
- 23:08Speaker 1: and wanting to see their side, and that is courage
- 23:11Speaker 1: and strength. We don't let our kids see that. We
- 23:15Speaker 1: don't talk about that as being strength. So we need
- 23:20Speaker 1: to highlight that in news stories. If we ever see
- 23:23Speaker 1: a news story a character in a book who uses
- 23:26Speaker 1: cooperation as opposed to competition or overpowering people or struggling
- 23:31Speaker 1: or fighting or whatever, We need to highlight those people,
- 23:34Speaker 1: those situations. There's a great quote by John Steinbeck, the
- 23:39Speaker 1: great author, and he said, the things we admire in
- 23:42Speaker 1: men kindness, generosity, openness, honesty, understanding, and feelings, those are
- 23:49Speaker 1: the concomitants of failure in our system. Those deeds we detest.
- 23:55Speaker 1: Things like sharpness, greed, acquisitiveness, meanness, and self interest. Those
- 24:02Speaker 1: are the traits of success in our culture. And while
- 24:05Speaker 1: men admire the qualities the first way, they love the
- 24:08Speaker 1: produce of the second. We admire too much the traits
- 24:17Speaker 1: that we don't want, things like greed, things like success, egotism,
- 24:25Speaker 1: self interest. A lot of our leaders are showing those
- 24:28Speaker 1: qualities today. We need to point out leaders who show
- 24:31Speaker 1: something different. It can be anybody in our kids' lives.
- 24:36Speaker 1: It can be a coach, It can be a teacher,
- 24:39Speaker 1: It can be a principal, It can be people in
- 24:41Speaker 1: the community. We need to change what we see. We
- 24:45Speaker 1: need to change what we value. We need to change
- 24:48Speaker 1: what we focus on, because what you focus on, you
- 24:51Speaker 1: get more of. Nelson Mandel has said one time, may
- 24:55Speaker 1: your choices reflect your hopes, not your fears. Let me
- 25:01Speaker 1: remind you of a quote that I started this podcast
- 25:04Speaker 1: with from Professor Dumbledore and Harry Potter. He said, happiness
- 25:08Speaker 1: can be found even in the darkest of times if
- 25:11Speaker 1: one only remembers to turn on the light, and I
- 25:14Speaker 1: always add the light of awareness. Turn on that light
- 25:17Speaker 1: for your children. Guide them to see the goodness and people,
- 25:23Speaker 1: guide them to see the examples of cooperation and peaceful
- 25:27Speaker 1: conflict resolution, things of that sort. Because if we want
- 25:30Speaker 1: more of that in our culture, if we want more
- 25:32Speaker 1: of that in our homes, if we want more of
- 25:34Speaker 1: that in our children, we need to model it and
- 25:37Speaker 1: we need to notice it. Cooperation versus competition. Remember about
- 25:47Speaker 1: that Survival of the Fittest Thing. Charles Darwin and his
- 25:51Speaker 1: writings mentioned it Survival of the Fittest two times. He
- 25:57Speaker 1: mentions love ninety two times because he believed that mancy
- 26:01Speaker 1: essential nature nature was cooperation and that competition. I believe
- 26:06Speaker 1: that too. Let's make sure we teach our children that
- 26:09Speaker 1: and live it out. I'll put a couple of podcasts
- 26:16Speaker 1: links in my show notes. You get those on my
- 26:19Speaker 1: website at www dot Dr tim Jordan dot com. Just
- 26:24Speaker 1: some links to some previous podcasts. I did a podcasts
- 26:28Speaker 1: about sportsmanship not that long ago. I didn't want about
- 26:31Speaker 1: teaching girls pro social skills and that can start early.
- 26:35Speaker 1: So there'll be links to a couple of those old
- 26:37Speaker 1: podcasts that are related topics. I'll be back here as
- 26:42Speaker 1: always with a brand new podcast in a week. Look
- 26:45Speaker 1: at my website to see all the information about all
- 26:47Speaker 1: the things that I do, all the products I have,
- 26:49Speaker 1: all those things, books and tapes and old podcasts. I
- 26:52Speaker 1: have three hundred and seventy seven podcasts. Now that's not
- 26:56Speaker 1: my little library of podcasts. You can go back and
- 26:58Speaker 1: look for topics that that you're interested in, and I'll
- 27:03Speaker 1: be back here in a week with a brand new topic.
- 27:07Speaker 1: Be careful what you focus on, Be mindful of what
- 27:10Speaker 1: you focus on, and I'll see you back here in
- 27:12Speaker 1: a week. Thanks so much for stopping by.