Latest / Learned the Hard Way with Kier Gaines / EP 4: Are You Listening… or Just Waiting to Respond?

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EP 4: Are You Listening… or Just Waiting to Respond? · Learned the Hard Way with Kier Gaines

• 0:06
  Speaker 1: Welcome to Learn the Hard Way. My name is kire Games.
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: We talk about purpose, we talk about pressure, we talk
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: about what it actually tastes. Become a full comprehensive man.
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: Welcome back to another episode of Learn the Hard Way.
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: I am care Gags hosts. I am a licensed therapist.
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: I'm a husband, I'm a father, I'm a community leader.
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: I'm a lot of things, including a man that had
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: to learn way too many things the hard way, just
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: like a lot of y'all. I know you feel me
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: on that. So on today's episode, we're going to talk
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: about growth because from all those lessons learned, man, there's
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: a lot of growth that happened. And when we talk
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: about growth, we tend to look at it through this
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: particular lens that I'm not always so sure it should
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: be seen through. And that reminds me of this quote.
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: The quote says certainty is comfortable, but growth is not.
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: How many times have you heard people say, man, bro,
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: you just got it. You gotta get comfortable with being uncomfortable.
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: What does that mean? Bro? What does that mean? If
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: I'm at the bus stop and I'm cold and I'm shivering, man, a,
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: you just got to be cold while being cold. Yeah,
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: I know, Nah, that don't work. Hold on, if I'm
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: at the bus stop and I'm shivering, man, you just
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: gotta think warm while being cold. In theory, it makes sense,
• 1:24
  Speaker 1: but doesn't make sense and practice for you, because even
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: if it doesn't, it's still necessary. So today we're going
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: to talk about how to deal with that discomfort and
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: what to do with it, and how to navigate it
• 1:37
  Speaker 1: and all of the things. Now, all growth ain't the
• 1:40
  Speaker 1: same kind of growth. When we think about growth, we
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: typically think about it in a positive direction, but you
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: can also grow to a negative direction. You can grow
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: into the person that you never ever imagine that you become.
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: But you can also grow into the type of person
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: that you simply do not care for. And growth isn't
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: this rise and tide that lifts all ships. You can
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: grow very heavily in one direction of your life and
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: not so much in the other. You can grow in
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: a direction where you're very very good at making it
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: earning money, but you cannot grow in the area of
• 2:17
  Speaker 1: keeping and saving money. You can grow in your confidence
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: to go to the bar or be out and talk
• 2:22
  Speaker 1: to that person that you find attractive, but not really
• 2:26
  Speaker 1: growing the area of communication and mutuality that keeps a
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: relationship going. You understand what I'm saying, Growth ain't growth.
• 2:34
  Speaker 1: It goes in all different types of directions, and I
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: think we got to think about that when we think
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: about ourselves and how it applies to us. Now I'm
• 2:42
  Speaker 1: not exempt. I had to learn how to get comfortable
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: with being uncomfortable in my own growth journey. Let me
• 2:49
  Speaker 1: tell you a story about me and my wife. So
• 2:52
  Speaker 1: I set up used to be when she worked full
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: time corporate. My wife's a lawyer, and I work full
• 2:57
  Speaker 1: time corporate and education. We pretty much split our bis
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: don't tell the internet fifty to fifty. We both took
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: a percentage of our paycheck put it to the bills.
• 3:05
  Speaker 1: Everything was cool, But things changed when I started doing
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: this full time. She left her job to work for
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: our company, and she also wanted to spend more time
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: with the kids. So she's at home. She does the
• 3:16
  Speaker 1: logistics of the house and the family and all of
• 3:18
  Speaker 1: the stuff. She's amazing at it. She's a wizard with it.
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: Were early on in this journey, it wasn't but a
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: smooth When I started becoming the breadwinner for the family,
• 3:28
  Speaker 1: the money conversation's changed because money doesn't look the same
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: to both of us anymore. And I remember one time
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: she told me, she said, kid, you're hard to talk
• 3:38
  Speaker 1: to about money. That pissed me off. I ain't even
• 3:42
  Speaker 1: gonna hold you. It made me so angry so fast,
• 3:45
  Speaker 1: and my response it reflects that, what do you mean
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: I'm hard to talk to about money? I ain't hard
• 3:51
  Speaker 1: to talk to about money. I don't question you on spending.
• 3:54
  Speaker 1: I don't question you on where you go. I don't
• 3:55
  Speaker 1: track this Amazon package, the show up at the door.
• 3:57
  Speaker 1: I don't say anything. How am I talking I had
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: to talk to about money? I jumped into an immediate
• 4:03
  Speaker 1: defensive mode for a number of reasons. One because I think,
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: deeply I knew that she was right, and I know
• 4:09
  Speaker 1: that I come from financial scarcity, and financial scarcity, or
• 4:13
  Speaker 1: when you don't have enough creates hyper vigilance, or when
• 4:17
  Speaker 1: you are seeing everything to the point where it's affecting
• 4:20
  Speaker 1: you deeply. You even seeing ghosts, You're seeing things that
• 4:23
  Speaker 1: aren't there. You're worried about money problems that you don't
• 4:26
  Speaker 1: even have yet, because you're so afraid to be poor
• 4:29
  Speaker 1: like you were back then, The struggle like you did
• 4:31
  Speaker 1: back then. Your brain doesn't always realize that you're in
• 4:34
  Speaker 1: a different spot. Bruh. This ain't that, even though it
• 4:37
  Speaker 1: feels similar. So we're in this argument, this conversation. She's
• 4:40
  Speaker 1: saying that I'm hard to talk to about money, and
• 4:44
  Speaker 1: in the moment, I approached it with a defensiveness that
• 4:48
  Speaker 1: was the opposite of the curiosity that I should have
• 4:51
  Speaker 1: approached it with. And this is what I've learned over time. Curiosity.
• 4:57
  Speaker 1: Curiosity is so important for growth. Curiosit is the thing
• 5:01
  Speaker 1: that allows us to wonder and to discover and the
• 5:04
  Speaker 1: change perspectives and the shift trajectories. It makes us limber
• 5:09
  Speaker 1: and flexible and fluid so that we can adapt. There's
• 5:12
  Speaker 1: so many different situations by understanding what's going on in
• 5:15
  Speaker 1: the world, what's going on with us, and how those
• 5:18
  Speaker 1: two things meet curiosity. Here's where I didn't make the
• 5:24
  Speaker 1: best decision. So in the face of uncertainty, I got defensive,
• 5:29
  Speaker 1: and I got defensive because I got exposed for not
• 5:33
  Speaker 1: having all the answers and not having all the solutions.
• 5:36
  Speaker 1: And perhaps that guy presented to me in a moment
• 5:39
  Speaker 1: that I wasn't ready to face at the time. So
• 5:42
  Speaker 1: what I do boom my immediately fire back. What I've
• 5:46
  Speaker 1: changed in my approach from then to now is I
• 5:48
  Speaker 1: stopped trying to be right and I started getting more curious.
• 5:53
  Speaker 1: Care what does that even look like?
• 5:54
  Speaker 2: Bro?
• 5:54
  Speaker 1: What are you talking about? I got you. Here's what
• 5:57
  Speaker 1: curiosity would have sounded like when she approached me with
• 5:59
  Speaker 1: that part. If she would have said, care, you're hard
• 6:02
  Speaker 1: to talk to about money, Curiosity would say, huh, Well,
• 6:06
  Speaker 1: when do you notice I'm the hardest to talk to
• 6:08
  Speaker 1: about money? Is it when we're talking about budget or
• 6:10
  Speaker 1: when we're talking about overspending? What's the biggest pain point?
• 6:14
  Speaker 1: Is it when I disagree with you? Or when I'm
• 6:17
  Speaker 1: holding tight and I'm inflexible on my perspective? What do
• 6:21
  Speaker 1: I How do I come across when I'm hard to
• 6:23
  Speaker 1: talk to? Do I feel angry? Do I feel upset?
• 6:27
  Speaker 1: Do I feel tired? Do I feel frustrated? What vibe
• 6:29
  Speaker 1: am I giving off? These are questions that lead me
• 6:33
  Speaker 1: the clues that are going to help me fix and
• 6:35
  Speaker 1: remedy the problem. It's not gonna make it worse. I'm
• 6:38
  Speaker 1: not really trying to go back and forth. I'm trying
• 6:40
  Speaker 1: to solve an equation. And right now, when I'm defensive.
• 6:44
  Speaker 1: I don't know the numbers to the equation. I don't
• 6:46
  Speaker 1: know if we add it. I don't know if he subtracted.
• 6:48
  Speaker 1: I don't know if we divide it. I just know
• 6:50
  Speaker 1: I gotta do something. But when I'm curious, I get
• 6:53
  Speaker 1: to know what's going where, what are we doing with
• 6:56
  Speaker 1: the number, what our goal is. I get all the
• 6:58
  Speaker 1: ingredients to make the thing that I need to make.
• 7:01
  Speaker 1: And in this moment, the thing that I need to
• 7:02
  Speaker 1: make is a reasonable solution the questions that are frame
• 7:06
  Speaker 1: and curiosity would have given me intel. It allows me
• 7:11
  Speaker 1: to answer her questions and answer her inquiries in a
• 7:13
  Speaker 1: way that not only satisfies whatever she's uncertain about, but
• 7:20
  Speaker 1: also gives me the confidence to know what I'm talking about.
• 7:22
  Speaker 1: It gives me a moment to be reflective and really think.
• 7:26
  Speaker 1: I think sometimes when we get defensive, myself included, I mean,
• 7:29
  Speaker 1: you know what I'm not gonna say. We want to
• 7:31
  Speaker 1: say me and I'm invite you to tag along if
• 7:34
  Speaker 1: you feel like it too. But sometimes when I get defensive,
• 7:37
  Speaker 1: I don't always look at all the possibilities. It's like
• 7:41
  Speaker 1: a shutdown immediately, and I'm more concerned on protecting what
• 7:45
  Speaker 1: I think is right than really trying to figure out
• 7:48
  Speaker 1: what everybody thinks, because all relationships are built on mutuality.
• 7:52
  Speaker 1: Were trying to come to a mutual decision. We're trying
• 7:55
  Speaker 1: to build something that makes sense for the both of us,
• 7:57
  Speaker 1: which means it takes both of our opinions. If I'm
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: closed off, if I'm not asking questions, if I'm not
• 8:03
  Speaker 1: leaning in there, then I'm not really pulling my weight
• 8:06
  Speaker 1: and doing my part to bring solutions to the table.
• 8:09
  Speaker 1: I know, what, what do you bring to the tables?
• 8:11
  Speaker 1: Become a nasty thing to ask somebody when the table
• 8:14
  Speaker 1: is a relationship. Yeah, But when the table is solution finding,
• 8:18
  Speaker 1: I think that's a reasonable question, especially if you ask
• 8:20
  Speaker 1: yourself what am I bringing to this table. I'm bringing
• 8:24
  Speaker 1: the ability to self reflect, the pause, to think for
• 8:27
  Speaker 1: a moment, to readjust and if necessary, I don't need
• 8:31
  Speaker 1: to always have an answer in that moment. Hey, let
• 8:33
  Speaker 1: me think about this for a second, because it's hard
• 8:35
  Speaker 1: to be curious about what's going on when emotions are high,
• 8:39
  Speaker 1: when it's tugging a part to your personality that are
• 8:42
  Speaker 1: a little sensitive or a little tender. It's alrighty to
• 8:44
  Speaker 1: be sensitive, ain't nothing wrong with that. That don't mean
• 8:47
  Speaker 1: you a sucker, just means you human. So those are
• 8:50
  Speaker 1: things to think about when you're walking into that conversation,
• 8:52
  Speaker 1: because remember, you're not always having a conversation you're having
• 8:56
  Speaker 1: You're having every conversation you've ever had since the beginning
• 8:59
  Speaker 1: of time that's around the thing that you may be
• 9:02
  Speaker 1: sensitive about, or you may be uncertain of, or you
• 9:05
  Speaker 1: may be afraid of. All those things matter, All those
• 9:08
  Speaker 1: things count that moment. So question for you, have you
• 9:12
  Speaker 1: ever noticed how fast your mind jumps to prove that
• 9:16
  Speaker 1: you were right? It's easy, you go on social media.
• 9:19
  Speaker 1: Everybody will talk about how other people do that, and
• 9:21
  Speaker 1: I get it, and those people do it. I feel
• 9:23
  Speaker 1: it most deeply. But it doesn't mean that we don't
• 9:26
  Speaker 1: just a real, live, legit self reflective moment. Have you
• 9:30
  Speaker 1: ever noticed how fast you jump to prove that you
• 9:33
  Speaker 1: were right? Jumping to prove that you were right. That's
• 9:37
  Speaker 1: not something that's unique to those people or unique to you.
• 9:41
  Speaker 1: Everybody does it. I do it too, and I want
• 9:44
  Speaker 1: to break down why it is that we do that,
• 9:46
  Speaker 1: especially for men, especially especially for black men. I think
• 9:51
  Speaker 1: that when we talk about masculinity, just go onto the
• 9:54
  Speaker 1: world and look at people talking about dating as they
• 9:58
  Speaker 1: see masculinity. One of the things that comes up most
• 10:02
  Speaker 1: frequent is leader. I want you to be a leader.
• 10:05
  Speaker 1: I want you to be authoritative, I want you to
• 10:07
  Speaker 1: be decisive. These very strong personality types, these characteristics that
• 10:14
  Speaker 1: you're supposed to embody when you are in a place
• 10:18
  Speaker 1: of speaking your mind or opinion, or you're trying to
• 10:21
  Speaker 1: give someone direction, and your masculine constellation, your understanding of
• 10:26
  Speaker 1: how your manhood works is so firmly built on the
• 10:29
  Speaker 1: fact that you have to be decisive, and you have
• 10:31
  Speaker 1: to be forward thinking, and you have to take initiative
• 10:34
  Speaker 1: that somebody telling you that you're wrong questions and threatens
• 10:39
  Speaker 1: that entire identity. When they question and threaten your authority.
• 10:44
  Speaker 1: Because masculinity is so heavily tied to authority, it feels
• 10:49
  Speaker 1: like they're questioning you. It feels like they're questioning how
• 10:53
  Speaker 1: smart you are. They're questioning how much of a man
• 10:55
  Speaker 1: you are, the questioning how much they should trust your
• 10:58
  Speaker 1: decision making, no matter how how much you've proved, no
• 11:01
  Speaker 1: matter how well you've performed, no matter how much your
• 11:04
  Speaker 1: track record shows that you're capable of doing this thing.
• 11:07
  Speaker 1: When people question that, it feels like that thing is
• 11:10
  Speaker 1: under attack. That's why there's such a swift move to
• 11:13
  Speaker 1: make sure that you're right. People crave certainty. People crave absolutes,
• 11:19
  Speaker 1: People crave being right. No matter how smart you are,
• 11:23
  Speaker 1: no matter how forward thinking you are, you can't outpace
• 11:26
  Speaker 1: your own human instincts, and at some point they're going
• 11:28
  Speaker 1: to catch up with you. Just from a human perspective,
• 11:31
  Speaker 1: people crave certainty, They crave absolutes, They crave the satisfaction
• 11:37
  Speaker 1: of being right. And no matter how smart you are,
• 11:40
  Speaker 1: no matter how forward thinking you are, you can't outpace
• 11:43
  Speaker 1: your own humanity. You're still a person, and these things
• 11:46
  Speaker 1: are want to catch up with you at some point.
• 11:48
  Speaker 1: So one of the reasons I broke that down is
• 11:51
  Speaker 1: because I don't want you to continue to be in
• 11:54
  Speaker 1: a cycle where you're doing these things and you don't
• 11:56
  Speaker 1: know why. I want you to understand the way your
• 11:58
  Speaker 1: brain works, what your brain is doing in that moment,
• 12:01
  Speaker 1: so that you can pause it, be reflective, and move
• 12:04
  Speaker 1: about it in a different way. One thing that I
• 12:07
  Speaker 1: want you to pause and think about for a second
• 12:10
  Speaker 1: is why do you behave the way that you do
• 12:14
  Speaker 1: when you're wrong? We know what, we know the wrongness exists,
• 12:18
  Speaker 1: we know defensiveness exists. We know that that's the what,
• 12:23
  Speaker 1: But the larger why why do you do it? And
• 12:26
  Speaker 1: all my years of practice I found out or I
• 12:29
  Speaker 1: kind of arrived at this understanding that people do that
• 12:33
  Speaker 1: for four reasons. Either they're trying to project, they're trying
• 12:37
  Speaker 1: to protect, they're trying to connect, or they're trying to correct.
• 12:41
  Speaker 1: Those are the four reasons that people really jump into
• 12:44
  Speaker 1: the I always got to be right, I gotta be right.
• 12:47
  Speaker 1: It's for those four reasons. Let's let's break them down
• 12:49
  Speaker 1: a little bit more. I believe that some of the
• 12:53
  Speaker 1: most powerful people in the world are not the ones
• 12:57
  Speaker 1: that stand on whatever they say and they be come
• 13:00
  Speaker 1: these boulders of unmovability. Man, I'm ten toes on this joint.
• 13:04
  Speaker 1: I ain't moving. Those aren't the strongest people in the
• 13:07
  Speaker 1: world to me. Sometimes they're the most stubborn people. The
• 13:10
  Speaker 1: strongest people in the world to me are people who
• 13:12
  Speaker 1: can make a public statement and share their mind with
• 13:15
  Speaker 1: the world, realize that they're wrong, and make an ideological
• 13:19
  Speaker 1: u turn. You know how much heart that takes to say, oh, damn,
• 13:23
  Speaker 1: my bad job, I'm tripping I was wrong about that,
• 13:27
  Speaker 1: and bravely walk back what you said and move in
• 13:29
  Speaker 1: another direction that fits where you are in the present moment.
• 13:34
  Speaker 1: That's strength to me. And when I look at leaders,
• 13:36
  Speaker 1: not just leaders of countries or something large like that,
• 13:40
  Speaker 1: I mean even nonprofit organizations like leaders on very small
• 13:44
  Speaker 1: but impactful, large in their own way levels, they're able
• 13:49
  Speaker 1: to do that. They're able to say, hey, whoa, this
• 13:52
  Speaker 1: ain't this ain't going the way I thought it would.
• 13:54
  Speaker 1: Or you know what, I got some new information and
• 13:56
  Speaker 1: I think I'm changing my mind about things. Man, set
• 13:59
  Speaker 1: yourself free, doob. You are allowed to get new information
• 14:03
  Speaker 1: and completely change your mind. You are allowed to get
• 14:06
  Speaker 1: curious about what else is out there? What else is
• 14:10
  Speaker 1: included in the things that you may think that have
• 14:13
  Speaker 1: never occurred to you before, And how are you going
• 14:15
  Speaker 1: to go about getting that insight? You're allowed to do that.
• 14:18
  Speaker 1: Matter of fact, I recommend you do that as often
• 14:21
  Speaker 1: as possible. That's what makes you a steadfast leader for
• 14:25
  Speaker 1: the show. I believe in my heart of hearts that
• 14:29
  Speaker 1: being right feels powerful, and power is important. I'm never
• 14:33
  Speaker 1: going to take anything away from that, But being curious
• 14:37
  Speaker 1: feels vulnerable. If vulnerability is equally as important. Power is
• 14:44
  Speaker 1: going to dictate how you move about the structures of life,
• 14:48
  Speaker 1: how you climb systems and meet people and gain material success.
• 14:53
  Speaker 1: A vulnerability is going to be about the closeness of
• 14:55
  Speaker 1: the relationships. It's going to be your quiet moments, the
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: people that you decide to share and do life with,
• 15:03
  Speaker 1: how those people look at you, how they think about you,
• 15:06
  Speaker 1: how they love you. All of that's going to be
• 15:08
  Speaker 1: tied up in vulnerability. And there's no way you can
• 15:11
  Speaker 1: hear that and decide that that's not important too. Something
• 15:16
  Speaker 1: to think about. Now, Please allow me to take this
• 15:19
  Speaker 1: moment to dig a little deeper into why this is
• 15:22
  Speaker 1: especially difficult for black men to hear something about yourself
• 15:28
  Speaker 1: that's uncomfortable. I get asked this question all the time.
• 15:31
  Speaker 1: How do I tell my husband? How do I tell
• 15:33
  Speaker 1: my father? How do I tell my uncle? How do
• 15:35
  Speaker 1: I tell my friend? How do I tell my boyfriend
• 15:38
  Speaker 1: something that's uncomfortable? It seems like he doesn't take it well.
• 15:41
  Speaker 1: Before we go there, let's talk about the why. Talk
• 15:45
  Speaker 1: about the why that's uncomfortable. The black male identity is
• 15:50
  Speaker 1: one that catches strays from every single point of society.
• 15:56
  Speaker 1: And that's not to eliminate anyone else's experience, because that's
• 16:01
  Speaker 1: not unique to black men. But the way that black
• 16:04
  Speaker 1: men deal with it, the vitriol, the violence, that is
• 16:10
  Speaker 1: unique to black men. And I think when you live
• 16:13
  Speaker 1: in a world where you can cut on social media
• 16:16
  Speaker 1: and you can scroll, and you can just hear a
• 16:19
  Speaker 1: myriad of detegrating things about black men, and you're out
• 16:22
  Speaker 1: in society, and all black men are measured by the actions, thoughts,
• 16:27
  Speaker 1: and behaviors of the worst examples of us, they get
• 16:31
  Speaker 1: they get to speak for all of us. They get
• 16:33
  Speaker 1: to speak for all of us, whether we know him
• 16:35
  Speaker 1: or not. When you live in a world where your
• 16:38
  Speaker 1: body and your voice and your intellectualism is a threat.
• 16:43
  Speaker 1: I said it on threads, I said, being a confident
• 16:47
  Speaker 1: black man is a full contact sport, and so many
• 16:51
  Speaker 1: people reposted it because that confidence can get misinterpreted. But
• 16:56
  Speaker 1: when you're in the world and all these things are
• 17:00
  Speaker 1: at you at a million miles per hour, it becomes
• 17:03
  Speaker 1: more difficult to hear another wrong or bad or unsavory
• 17:09
  Speaker 1: thing about you from the people you love that come
• 17:12
  Speaker 1: in the spaces that you feel are supposed to keep
• 17:14
  Speaker 1: you safe, supposed to safeguard you from that thing in
• 17:17
  Speaker 1: the world. And it sometimes it feels like they're just
• 17:19
  Speaker 1: adding fuel to the fire. Men, ain't shit has become
• 17:23
  Speaker 1: a drum beat, and gentlemen, we gotta be we gotta
• 17:27
  Speaker 1: be honest about it. It's not for no reason. It
• 17:30
  Speaker 1: is not for no reason at all. But inside of that,
• 17:34
  Speaker 1: it's also a lack of counterbalance to tell the human
• 17:37
  Speaker 1: stories of men, where our perspectives in our lives exist
• 17:43
  Speaker 1: beyond the dating world and what people who date us
• 17:45
  Speaker 1: think about us. It doesn't tell the story of the
• 17:49
  Speaker 1: friend or the brother. It doesn't tell the story of
• 17:51
  Speaker 1: the man that doesn't assume a massive amount of wealth
• 17:55
  Speaker 1: or success, just the average everyday God just kind of
• 17:58
  Speaker 1: gets lost. And when you that guy, I think it's
• 18:01
  Speaker 1: hard to hear another wrong thing about you. And I
• 18:05
  Speaker 1: hold that and I honor that real talk because I've
• 18:07
  Speaker 1: been there. But also you gotta make it to a
• 18:12
  Speaker 1: point where you can hear things about yourself that do
• 18:16
  Speaker 1: not jive with your perspective, and you could take that
• 18:19
  Speaker 1: information and you can feel You can allow yourself to
• 18:21
  Speaker 1: feel bad, You can allow yourself to feel sad or
• 18:24
  Speaker 1: hurt or angry or frustrated, or confused. You deserve to
• 18:28
  Speaker 1: be able to feel those things. But also you have
• 18:31
  Speaker 1: to do something with that information. How can you improve
• 18:35
  Speaker 1: with that information? How can you shift? How can you change?
• 18:38
  Speaker 1: What can you better? What can you differ. I'm not
• 18:42
  Speaker 1: saying that negative things that or criticisms about you ever
• 18:45
  Speaker 1: going to feel good. If you're waiting for it to
• 18:47
  Speaker 1: feel good, man, you're finn to be waiting forever. However,
• 18:51
  Speaker 1: there's something valuable in that feedback. And if you can
• 18:55
  Speaker 1: get past the discomfort of the negative feelings, which means
• 18:59
  Speaker 1: you ain't ignoring or you're not ignoring that what you said, shorty,
• 19:02
  Speaker 1: you heard my feelings when you said that. You know,
• 19:04
  Speaker 1: results may vary hot because you know, being a black
• 19:07
  Speaker 1: man talking about your feelings, I don't know. Wow, there
• 19:08
  Speaker 1: is a dangerous proposition. But when you're open enough to
• 19:12
  Speaker 1: admit that your feelings actually exist, then you can start
• 19:16
  Speaker 1: to move past them. The conversation doesn't just stop there.
• 19:20
  Speaker 1: You move into that and all right, it's that, and
• 19:24
  Speaker 1: I'm gonna listen to what you're saying because perhaps there
• 19:27
  Speaker 1: is there's something in there that make me a better human,
• 19:30
  Speaker 1: not just a better man. Bro elevate past that there's
• 19:32
  Speaker 1: something in there and make me a better person. Our
• 19:35
  Speaker 1: feelings don't disappear when we ignore them. What the quotes say,
• 19:40
  Speaker 1: unaware doesn't mean unaffected. Just because you don't you choose
• 19:47
  Speaker 1: not to feel your feelings, or you've been conditioned not
• 19:49
  Speaker 1: to feel them, doesn't mean that they don't exist. When
• 19:59
  Speaker 1: you hear these suggest that you interpret his negative feedback continually,
• 20:03
  Speaker 1: there's a reframe there. There's a resounding voice that plays
• 20:07
  Speaker 1: over and over, and do you know what that voice says?
• 20:10
  Speaker 1: I am not enough, which is almost all of our
• 20:14
  Speaker 1: deepest fear, is that I'm not enough. I see that
• 20:18
  Speaker 1: sometimes in young boys' relationships with their father. When I
• 20:22
  Speaker 1: be out in a wild you see a man with
• 20:24
  Speaker 1: a young son, and he'll introduce you to his young son,
• 20:27
  Speaker 1: and he'll just get all of these directors. Hey, hey,
• 20:29
  Speaker 1: make sure, straighten up your posture, man, lift your chin up,
• 20:32
  Speaker 1: look him in the eye, shake his hand, firmer, shake
• 20:34
  Speaker 1: his hand. And it's like the little boy don't even
• 20:37
  Speaker 1: have a chance to figure it out for himself before
• 20:39
  Speaker 1: orders of be embarked at him. And whatever his mind
• 20:43
  Speaker 1: tells him to do. Keep in mind, there's value in
• 20:46
  Speaker 1: that and being around circles of men and knowing how
• 20:48
  Speaker 1: to operate within the power systems of men. It's important.
• 20:51
  Speaker 1: It'll get you, it'll take you far. I'm not gonna
• 20:53
  Speaker 1: hold you. But also it robs you with something because
• 20:56
  Speaker 1: the thing that you're trying to do it can sometimes
• 21:00
  Speaker 1: be communicated as not enough. And it's hard to hear
• 21:04
  Speaker 1: as a kid that there's another thing that you're not
• 21:06
  Speaker 1: doing well, just like it's hard to hear that as
• 21:07
  Speaker 1: an adult. Now, how we interpret criticism, it depends on
• 21:12
  Speaker 1: what the criticism is around. I teach just think called
• 21:15
  Speaker 1: it Joe Harry window. Can I nerd out on y'all
• 21:17
  Speaker 1: little bit? It's gonna be quick. So that Joe Hairy
• 21:19
  Speaker 1: window is comprised of four parts. It's the open self,
• 21:22
  Speaker 1: which are things you know about yourself and other people
• 21:24
  Speaker 1: know about you. It's the hidden self, which are things
• 21:27
  Speaker 1: that you know about yourself but other people don't know
• 21:31
  Speaker 1: about you. And then there's this third window that's man.
• 21:34
  Speaker 1: Sometimes it's the trickiest window to work on. It's called
• 21:38
  Speaker 1: the blind self, and these are things that other people
• 21:41
  Speaker 1: know about you, but you may not know about yourself.
• 21:45
  Speaker 1: And when you're getting criticism, either your handshake is not
• 21:49
  Speaker 1: tight enough, or you're hard to talk to about money,
• 21:52
  Speaker 1: or you're not looking at someone in the eye. Sometimes
• 21:55
  Speaker 1: it lives in your blind self. You don't see these
• 21:58
  Speaker 1: things in yourself like the people see it in you,
• 22:02
  Speaker 1: and when they present it to you, it kind of
• 22:04
  Speaker 1: you feel like you just you got hit with a
• 22:08
  Speaker 1: right hook in the jaw. It blindsides you. It comes
• 22:11
  Speaker 1: from nowhere, and that's what sometimes arouses that defensive mechanism.
• 22:15
  Speaker 1: Wait a minute, hold where you feel like you need
• 22:17
  Speaker 1: to protect yourself from what's being said because it feels
• 22:20
  Speaker 1: like an attack, and it feels like an attack because
• 22:23
  Speaker 1: it's exposing something in your blind self, the things that
• 22:28
  Speaker 1: other people can see but you cannot. And one important
• 22:31
  Speaker 1: thing that I tell people all the time is don't
• 22:34
  Speaker 1: underestimate how many things live in your blind self. It
• 22:39
  Speaker 1: is a massive part of your identity, and you only
• 22:42
  Speaker 1: get to know what things live in your blind self
• 22:45
  Speaker 1: by doing what by taking feedback, accepting criticism, and doing
• 22:50
  Speaker 1: something useful with it. Takes practice, though I ain't gonna
• 22:53
  Speaker 1: it ain't something that you're gonna get overnight, So don't
• 22:55
  Speaker 1: beat yourself up if you're not able to do that
• 22:57
  Speaker 1: right now. You ain't about to go in the gym
• 22:59
  Speaker 1: right now and start squatting four hundred and fifty pounds. Bro,
• 23:03
  Speaker 1: You gotta work yourself from the bar up to four fifty,
• 23:06
  Speaker 1: all right, So this is working on the bar, being
• 23:08
  Speaker 1: aware of it. You gotta start light before you start
• 23:11
  Speaker 1: doing your heavier sets. You know, criticism is dope because
• 23:15
  Speaker 1: it shines a light on deficits that you have or
• 23:20
  Speaker 1: areas that you need to improve. And you hear athletes
• 23:24
  Speaker 1: talk about it a lot. Man, Yeah, I got I
• 23:26
  Speaker 1: got a coach. In the off season. We were we
• 23:28
  Speaker 1: were working on my weaknesses. Oh, I'm working on my weaknesses.
• 23:32
  Speaker 1: I'm trying to get better at that. Athletes are really
• 23:34
  Speaker 1: good at focusing on the things they're not good at
• 23:37
  Speaker 1: in order to build their overall game. And I would
• 23:40
  Speaker 1: love if some of us out in the world adopted
• 23:43
  Speaker 1: the same mentality because I think it's possible one percent.
• 23:47
  Speaker 1: Just like we talked about comfort at the top of
• 23:49
  Speaker 1: the episode, only focusing on changing things that you're comfortable
• 23:54
  Speaker 1: with changing. Only focusing on the things that you're comfortable
• 23:57
  Speaker 1: with changing. Man, that's like going to the gym every
• 24:02
  Speaker 1: day and only doing upper body Monday. You do buys
• 24:06
  Speaker 1: and tries to day. You do chesting back Wednesday, you
• 24:09
  Speaker 1: do ads, Thursday, you do shoulders, and then you take
• 24:13
  Speaker 1: a few days break and then you right back at it.
• 24:15
  Speaker 1: You're only working a particular muscle system. And then you
• 24:20
  Speaker 1: look down the road eight months later and you got
• 24:22
  Speaker 1: twigs for legs because you avoided the uncomfortable part. You
• 24:26
  Speaker 1: hate doing squats. A lot of us hate doing squats.
• 24:30
  Speaker 1: You hate doing the lower leg, you hate doing calf raises.
• 24:33
  Speaker 1: But those muscles will not grow if you don't exercise them.
• 24:37
  Speaker 1: And just because you're comfortable with the upper body, it
• 24:40
  Speaker 1: goes back to the improving on things that you're not
• 24:42
  Speaker 1: good at. You avoid the lower body so much and
• 24:46
  Speaker 1: you focus on the things that feel good. It gives
• 24:48
  Speaker 1: you good feedback when you can feel your arms getting bigger,
• 24:50
  Speaker 1: and you're already pretty good at that, so you just
• 24:52
  Speaker 1: keep going on on what you get. You get better
• 24:54
  Speaker 1: at where you're already good at. That's amazing. But when
• 24:58
  Speaker 1: you do that, when youocus on the things that feel good,
• 25:01
  Speaker 1: to focus on the things that are comfortable, there's always
• 25:04
  Speaker 1: something you neglect on the other side. What's being neglected?
• 25:08
  Speaker 1: What are we not looking at here? What are we
• 25:10
  Speaker 1: not getting the opportunity to work on the way I
• 25:14
  Speaker 1: see curiosity is it allows you to train the weaker
• 25:18
  Speaker 1: spot to your life. It allows you to focus on
• 25:22
  Speaker 1: that a little bit more. It allows you to since
• 25:25
  Speaker 1: we talking about working out, it allows you to work
• 25:27
  Speaker 1: the small muscle groups that contribute to the big movements.
• 25:31
  Speaker 1: Anybody who's ever bench pressed before, nos, Yeah, your chest,
• 25:34
  Speaker 1: Your tries are going to move that weight. But if
• 25:37
  Speaker 1: you don't take care of that rotator cuff, if you
• 25:39
  Speaker 1: don't strengthen that infra spinatus super spinatas back there, I'm
• 25:43
  Speaker 1: digging this to my personal trainer bad for real. Now
• 25:46
  Speaker 1: that was another lifetime ago. But if you don't work
• 25:48
  Speaker 1: on those smaller muscle groups, you won't be able to
• 25:51
  Speaker 1: make the big movements in the big push. Breaking out
• 25:54
  Speaker 1: of a sense of comfort does not feel good in
• 25:58
  Speaker 1: the short term, but it's a long term investment. It
• 26:02
  Speaker 1: pays them dividends on the back end. Something crazy. So
• 26:06
  Speaker 1: I want you to give at some thought because sometimes
• 26:08
  Speaker 1: the thing that we're avoiding the most is the thing
• 26:10
  Speaker 1: that we need to crash through in order to get
• 26:13
  Speaker 1: to where we need to be. All right, I want
• 26:15
  Speaker 1: to jump to this clip of this guy named Derek
• 26:18
  Speaker 1: Grant on Instagram and he talks about uncertainty. He has
• 26:22
  Speaker 1: this quote. He says, the only thing for certain is
• 26:24
  Speaker 1: the uncertainty of life. The key to growth is to
• 26:27
  Speaker 1: embrace the uncertainty of life to grow into something new.
• 26:32
  Speaker 1: Check it out.
• 26:32
  Speaker 3: We have to understand how our mind actually works. Your
• 26:35
  Speaker 3: mind is looking for patterns and your mind is looking
• 26:37
  Speaker 3: for familiarity. Okay, so this is why most of us
• 26:41
  Speaker 3: struggle with uncertainty.
• 26:43
  Speaker 2: It's not uncertainy because here's the reality of it. Ain't
• 26:46
  Speaker 2: nothing certain. The only thing that's for certain is uncertainty.
• 26:49
  Speaker 2: You can't tell me what you're gonna eat here in
• 26:51
  Speaker 2: three days for dinner.
• 26:52
  Speaker 1: Do you know?
• 26:54
  Speaker 4: You don't?
• 26:55
  Speaker 2: And you're not stressed out about that uncertainty. But you
• 26:58
  Speaker 2: see what the ego does. The mind puts itself and
• 27:02
  Speaker 2: attaches it self worth to control into knowing why because
• 27:07
  Speaker 2: that's familiarity.
• 27:08
  Speaker 4: And if that's familiarity, we're still alive.
• 27:11
  Speaker 2: It doesn't want the new thing because the new thing
• 27:15
  Speaker 2: means an old version has to die.
• 27:17
  Speaker 4: And the eagle's whole premise is rooted in survival.
• 27:22
  Speaker 2: So this is why when you start to embrace uncertainty
• 27:26
  Speaker 2: and not look at it as a negative. But this
• 27:29
  Speaker 2: is an opportunity for me to shed an old skin
• 27:32
  Speaker 2: so I can take in the new skin, so I
• 27:35
  Speaker 2: can become a new version of me, so I can
• 27:38
  Speaker 2: grow and evolve.
• 27:40
  Speaker 4: Uncertainty is really a hotbed for growth. Uncertainty is really
• 27:47
  Speaker 4: a hot bed for growth. That's bars shut out to
• 27:50
  Speaker 4: this guy. Make sure y'all follow him on Instagram. His
• 27:53
  Speaker 4: name is DG Mindset.
• 27:56
  Speaker 1: And a few things that I take away from that
• 27:58
  Speaker 1: short clip one And he was talking about safety. When
• 28:02
  Speaker 1: he talks about familiarity, that's safety. That's safety in the nutshell.
• 28:08
  Speaker 1: And I know with men, and perhaps we'll get to
• 28:11
  Speaker 1: this on the episode. The word safety can be triggering
• 28:13
  Speaker 1: because it assumes that you can't protect or take care
• 28:17
  Speaker 1: of yourself. But all humans need safety, and emotional safety
• 28:21
  Speaker 1: is really important in our society. Another thing that he
• 28:24
  Speaker 1: said that was really important. He reminds me of this
• 28:27
  Speaker 1: book I read called Unwinding Anxiety by this guy named
• 28:30
  Speaker 1: doctor Judson Brewer. When the speaker just now was talking
• 28:34
  Speaker 1: about how your mind tries to predict. That's how the
• 28:37
  Speaker 1: brain works. The brain is really a prediction machine. And
• 28:40
  Speaker 1: when the brain can't predict what's about to happen next.
• 28:43
  Speaker 1: That's a lot of times where anxiety comes from, and
• 28:46
  Speaker 1: the brain doesn't always have enough evidence to predict what happens.
• 28:50
  Speaker 1: So uncertainty sometimes when you're trying to figure it out.
• 28:53
  Speaker 1: The way doctor Brewer explains it, he said, the brain
• 28:56
  Speaker 1: is like a slot machine. You press the lever, but
• 29:00
  Speaker 1: it just keeps spinning. And sometimes it will spinning. You
• 29:03
  Speaker 1: think that you're working towards a solution, and you're not.
• 29:07
  Speaker 1: You're just spinning. You're wasting brain space and brain power
• 29:11
  Speaker 1: or something that isn't going to bring you any relief.
• 29:14
  Speaker 1: And sometimes we think that if we keep thinking or
• 29:17
  Speaker 1: we keep plotting, that somehow, some way, we'll outpaced uncertainty.
• 29:22
  Speaker 1: And that's not true. So I think that there is
• 29:26
  Speaker 1: tremendous power. And embracing uncertain don't mean you gotta like it.
• 29:34
  Speaker 1: You got a cousin at a cookout, you don't like
• 29:36
  Speaker 1: that much, but you still hug them, Right, you're still
• 29:38
  Speaker 1: embrace them. I don't like you as an individual, Come on,
• 29:41
  Speaker 1: come get a hug. Damn. That's embracing uncertainty. Take it
• 29:46
  Speaker 1: away from being favorable, from being comfortable any shame or
• 29:50
  Speaker 1: guilt that you may feel around it. It could be complex,
• 29:54
  Speaker 1: but uncertainty is the only thing in your life that's
• 29:56
  Speaker 1: going to be consistent. And if you're going to have
• 29:58
  Speaker 1: something in your life that that long, that powerful, I
• 30:02
  Speaker 1: think you got it. You gotta get a little bit
• 30:04
  Speaker 1: more comfortable with it, you know what. Let's talk about.
• 30:07
  Speaker 1: Can we talk about safety a little bit more? Because
• 30:09
  Speaker 1: I feel like I kind of brush past that, But
• 30:12
  Speaker 1: that's important because there's different types of safety. Now, there
• 30:15
  Speaker 1: is the emotional safety where you surround yourself with people
• 30:18
  Speaker 1: who pour into you, who love you, who feed your soul.
• 30:23
  Speaker 1: And then there's another emotional safety where you don't really
• 30:27
  Speaker 1: engage with things that threaten your comfort. If it threatens
• 30:30
  Speaker 1: your comfort, you avoid it at all costs. Surrounding yourself
• 30:34
  Speaker 1: with people who love you. That's a great kind of
• 30:37
  Speaker 1: emotional safety. Staying in your comfort zone can potentially be
• 30:42
  Speaker 1: a dangerous type of emotional safety. And let me tell
• 30:46
  Speaker 1: you why. My freshman year of college, my first macroeconomics class,
• 30:53
  Speaker 1: my professor said, there's no such thing as a free lunch.
• 30:56
  Speaker 1: Nothing is free. And when it comes to emotional safety
• 31:00
  Speaker 1: and staying safe in a way that could be dangerous.
• 31:03
  Speaker 1: Nothing that's not free. It's gonna cost you something. And
• 31:07
  Speaker 1: I want to talk about the emotional costs of doing that.
• 31:11
  Speaker 1: Making sure you don't impede on anything dangerous, you're gonna
• 31:15
  Speaker 1: have to run in pocket. Son one thousand percent. Here's
• 31:18
  Speaker 1: how it looks. By staying in a place where you
• 31:21
  Speaker 1: don't really challenge yourself, or you don't allow yourself to
• 31:23
  Speaker 1: be challenged deeply, you stunt your growth. It puts the
• 31:28
  Speaker 1: lid on the jar of how much you can grow,
• 31:31
  Speaker 1: who you can be, and who you can become. Think
• 31:34
  Speaker 1: about it. If you only keep the things that you
• 31:37
  Speaker 1: know and you're familiar with, you don't try anything different.
• 31:42
  Speaker 1: You don't step out on a limb to do something
• 31:44
  Speaker 1: that frightens you just a little bit. You don't take
• 31:46
  Speaker 1: as many chances, and when you don't take the chances,
• 31:49
  Speaker 1: you don't get the different rewards. It can leave you
• 31:53
  Speaker 1: in a place of just sticking with the part of
• 31:55
  Speaker 1: yourself that feels most familiar. Just like the speaker was saying,
• 31:59
  Speaker 1: you know, you're scared shared old skin because you're terrified
• 32:03
  Speaker 1: to let go of what is. And that's because you
• 32:07
  Speaker 1: can't really conceptualize the bigness of what may be on
• 32:10
  Speaker 1: the other side. That's the dangerous part of it. Man,
• 32:14
  Speaker 1: staying on a porch like that, the only thing you'll
• 32:17
  Speaker 1: ever know is the porch. You never know the outside world.
• 32:21
  Speaker 1: You never know it's another playground right down the street.
• 32:23
  Speaker 1: But kids you never met before then become your best friends.
• 32:27
  Speaker 1: That type of emotional safety cost you. Man, You never
• 32:29
  Speaker 1: stretch with that type of emotional safety. It makes you
• 32:32
  Speaker 1: fear the possibility of being wrong. I just had my
• 32:36
  Speaker 1: oldest daughter. We just had a parent teacher conference, and
• 32:39
  Speaker 1: her teachers are so proud of her because she's doing
• 32:42
  Speaker 1: better in math, but she's taking risks. She raises her
• 32:46
  Speaker 1: hand and she gets the answer wrong sometimes, and I'm
• 32:50
  Speaker 1: so proud of her for raising her hand and getting
• 32:52
  Speaker 1: an answer wrong. That might sound crazy to some of
• 32:56
  Speaker 1: y'all out there, but that speaks to the emotional safety part.
• 32:59
  Speaker 1: Because she was a little baby. She's the person who
• 33:02
  Speaker 1: rather be quiet than be wrong. She does not want
• 33:05
  Speaker 1: to get the answer wrong. But when she doesn't get
• 33:07
  Speaker 1: the answer wrong, she doesn't get her perspective challenge, or
• 33:11
  Speaker 1: she doesn't get the satisfaction of understanding that the thing
• 33:15
  Speaker 1: she originally thought was the right answer. You had it
• 33:18
  Speaker 1: all along, and it affects the confidence when you don't
• 33:21
  Speaker 1: get to try and fail, Try and fail, try and fail,
• 33:25
  Speaker 1: try and succeed a little bit. Up, we got some momentum, y'all.
• 33:29
  Speaker 1: We're working with something. Hold up, try and fail. That's okay.
• 33:33
  Speaker 1: I succeeded a little bit. I know I could do
• 33:35
  Speaker 1: it again. Try and succeed, Try and succeed more, Try
• 33:38
  Speaker 1: and succeed more. That does not come without his regressions.
• 33:42
  Speaker 1: But I say all that to say, if you never
• 33:45
  Speaker 1: step your foot off the square that feels so good, right,
• 33:49
  Speaker 1: warm and cozy, you never jump into a world of
• 33:53
  Speaker 1: endless possibilities for you. You know how hard the bed
• 33:56
  Speaker 1: is to leave on my alarm clock goes off at
• 33:58
  Speaker 1: five point thirty. I be up under the duvet cover.
• 34:01
  Speaker 1: I don't want to move. I be warm, dreaming, snoring, slobbing,
• 34:06
  Speaker 1: being good, feeling great. All type of crush trails down
• 34:10
  Speaker 1: the side of my lips. However, it's stuff in the
• 34:15
  Speaker 1: world that I need to get to. And if I
• 34:18
  Speaker 1: don't leave the comfort of my mattress and that warm
• 34:21
  Speaker 1: duvet that my wife spend God knows how much on,
• 34:26
  Speaker 1: don't kill me if you hit this, babe. But if
• 34:28
  Speaker 1: I never step out of that comfort, I never get
• 34:31
  Speaker 1: to do anything like this. I never get to interact,
• 34:33
  Speaker 1: I never get to grow, I never get to be
• 34:36
  Speaker 1: anything to what I've always been. So one type of
• 34:40
  Speaker 1: emotional safety I would love for you to walk toward,
• 34:42
  Speaker 1: Walk toward the communities that love you and embrace you.
• 34:45
  Speaker 1: The other type of emotional safety where you don't really
• 34:48
  Speaker 1: you know, you're not trying new foods in a metaphorical sense,
• 34:52
  Speaker 1: want you to challenge that, challenge that man, challenge that
• 34:56
  Speaker 1: what is something different off the menu? Give it a
• 34:58
  Speaker 1: chance to surprise you. Gentlemen, let's also talk about the
• 35:08
  Speaker 1: professional costs. Let's let's talk about what it costs you professionally,
• 35:13
  Speaker 1: because we talk about men and money and how men
• 35:17
  Speaker 1: are obsessed with the idea of money, which I don't
• 35:20
  Speaker 1: necessarily disagree with. I think all Western civilization is obsessed
• 35:24
  Speaker 1: with money. But with men, the value of who you
• 35:27
  Speaker 1: are and your identity is closely tied to your access
• 35:31
  Speaker 1: to money, and staying safe calls you professionally. Man. Let
• 35:36
  Speaker 1: me let me go back to my corporate America days.
• 35:41
  Speaker 1: I can remember it like it's yesterday. Stupid questions about weather.
• 35:46
  Speaker 1: See the weather another day, people talking about their kids.
• 35:48
  Speaker 1: You don't care. It's not because you're a bad person.
• 35:51
  Speaker 1: You just you genuinely have other things to think about.
• 35:54
  Speaker 1: But it cost you professionally. What about when you are
• 35:57
  Speaker 1: in an end of the year review. You think you've
• 36:00
  Speaker 1: been doing a bang up job, I mean an absolute
• 36:04
  Speaker 1: bang up job. You think you crushing it, and the
• 36:07
  Speaker 1: end of the year review your marxis needs improvement, needs
• 36:13
  Speaker 1: improvement on what? And then you get to talk into
• 36:16
  Speaker 1: your immediate supervisor about what you need improvement on, and
• 36:19
  Speaker 1: you're not open to the feedback. Now, granted, sometimes it
• 36:23
  Speaker 1: could be some bullshit. It could be a tactic where
• 36:26
  Speaker 1: they're just saying you need improvement so they don't have
• 36:28
  Speaker 1: to give you a raise. But there are opportunities to
• 36:31
  Speaker 1: learn when you're sitting down and you're hearing things about
• 36:34
  Speaker 1: your performance that you may not see remember the blind self,
• 36:37
  Speaker 1: things that other people may see about you that you
• 36:40
  Speaker 1: may not be privy to just yet. How you react,
• 36:44
  Speaker 1: how you respond in those moments are really key to
• 36:47
  Speaker 1: the trajectory that you have and how you can move
• 36:51
  Speaker 1: up the ladder in those spaces. I want you to
• 36:54
  Speaker 1: think about an athlete real quick. Let's take it from
• 36:56
  Speaker 1: the ballroom back to the field or back to the court.
• 36:59
  Speaker 1: And an athlete, I mean completely messes up a play
• 37:03
  Speaker 1: and the coach calls him over, come over his son,
• 37:05
  Speaker 1: and the coach talks to him. There's different types of athletes,
• 37:09
  Speaker 1: but there's two that we be seeing on the sideline.
• 37:11
  Speaker 1: One when a coach is jawn. He's just getting at you,
• 37:14
  Speaker 1: digging into your skin and telling you very things, son,
• 37:17
  Speaker 1: you know better than this. Not got the program I
• 37:19
  Speaker 1: running yet, DA D D D D. And the athlete
• 37:21
  Speaker 1: looks right at him. He just nodded, yes, sir, yes, coach,
• 37:25
  Speaker 1: do it different next time, all right. He takes that
• 37:29
  Speaker 1: moment and he becomes a culturable young man. Or he
• 37:33
  Speaker 1: could take the moment he'd be like, man, you don't
• 37:34
  Speaker 1: know nothing. He go to position coaches and he in
• 37:37
  Speaker 1: the face of the position coaches too, and there's just
• 37:39
  Speaker 1: a lot of testosterone flowing about, and this this close
• 37:42
  Speaker 1: to fist of cuffs, and he takes his helmet and
• 37:44
  Speaker 1: he throws it and it looks like he's throwing away
• 37:46
  Speaker 1: his entire future. Now that's extreme. You're not gonna do
• 37:49
  Speaker 1: that in the meeting with your boss. I hate the
• 37:52
  Speaker 1: word boss. You're not gonna do that in the meeting
• 37:54
  Speaker 1: with your supervisor. But how you respond to someone telling
• 37:58
  Speaker 1: you that you need improvement may say a lot about
• 38:01
  Speaker 1: how they look at you for a leadership role. If
• 38:04
  Speaker 1: you look at it as some type of admonishment of
• 38:06
  Speaker 1: your character, if you look at it as them trying
• 38:09
  Speaker 1: to degrade you or just beat you up unnecessarily. Sometimes
• 38:13
  Speaker 1: that is the case, but an instance is where it's not.
• 38:17
  Speaker 1: If you look at it that way and you respond
• 38:19
  Speaker 1: that way, I want you to think about what signals
• 38:22
  Speaker 1: it sends to the person who's giving you that information,
• 38:24
  Speaker 1: who's telling you where you could be better, as opposed
• 38:27
  Speaker 1: to you being curious about what they say, Oh the
• 38:31
  Speaker 1: midiear review, Oh yeah, let's look at that together. If
• 38:35
  Speaker 1: you even become proactive, where do you think I can improve?
• 38:37
  Speaker 1: Because I'm really trying to be the best that I
• 38:39
  Speaker 1: can be in this position. When now you're cuachable, Now
• 38:43
  Speaker 1: you're an athlete that's not and understanding what the cult
• 38:45
  Speaker 1: is saying. Who's taking that information? That does not feel good.
• 38:49
  Speaker 1: It is not comfortable to hear you're taking that information,
• 38:53
  Speaker 1: you're processing it and you're going to apply it to
• 38:55
  Speaker 1: your practice so that you can apply it to your gain,
• 38:59
  Speaker 1: so that you can do something meaningful with it. Doesn't
• 39:03
  Speaker 1: have to feel good, just has to be useful. Again,
• 39:07
  Speaker 1: I'm not telling you they know your feelings, dog, That's
• 39:09
  Speaker 1: not what I'm saying here. Not saying ignore them. I'm
• 39:13
  Speaker 1: saying that, acknowledge them, but also recognize what else is there.
• 39:18
  Speaker 1: Get your hands dirty and utilize them. There's nothing wrong
• 39:21
  Speaker 1: with that because if you can't become a good leader
• 39:25
  Speaker 1: at work, you know what that's going to affect your money, y'all.
• 39:29
  Speaker 1: You're checking your pockets and I don't know how any
• 39:34
  Speaker 1: of y'all lie. I'm very open on this podcast. Man,
• 39:36
  Speaker 1: I got scarce to be Trump. I grew up poor.
• 39:39
  Speaker 1: That's why I got forty five thousand pairs of Jordan's.
• 39:41
  Speaker 1: I'm over compensating absolutely, and I love every minute of it.
• 39:45
  Speaker 1: I apologize for none of it. But there is a
• 39:48
  Speaker 1: direct correlation to the way that you feel about yourself
• 39:51
  Speaker 1: and the amount of money in your bank account. And
• 39:54
  Speaker 1: it's okay if economically you're just not where you want
• 39:56
  Speaker 1: to be because the situation is just not the best
• 39:59
  Speaker 1: for you. Man, been there been there, hopefully won't be
• 40:04
  Speaker 1: there again, but been there. But if your economic situation
• 40:07
  Speaker 1: is jacked up because you are not seeing your area
• 40:11
  Speaker 1: for improvement and doing something about it, I think that's
• 40:14
  Speaker 1: a deeper, worse feeling because then it becomes a cycle
• 40:18
  Speaker 1: that you might not necessarily be able to get out of.
• 40:22
  Speaker 1: You feel me without stepping back and looking at this
• 40:24
  Speaker 1: thing with a thousand yard view. So that emotional safety,
• 40:28
  Speaker 1: that discomfort, that pushing through the discomfort, that curiosity is
• 40:32
  Speaker 1: not just about your relationships out in the world with
• 40:36
  Speaker 1: people who you dig. It's about people who you may
• 40:39
  Speaker 1: need in order to secure some economic self sustainability. My
• 40:43
  Speaker 1: boy very important, and even in my own life, the
• 40:48
  Speaker 1: cost on your innerpersonal relationships, the people who you love,
• 40:53
  Speaker 1: the people who you romantically involved with. If I stayed
• 40:57
  Speaker 1: in a place where I was reluctant to hear criticism
• 41:01
  Speaker 1: about myself, if I stayed in the safety of I
• 41:04
  Speaker 1: know what I'm talking about with money, you tripping. This
• 41:07
  Speaker 1: is a youth thing, not a me thing. If I
• 41:08
  Speaker 1: stayed in that place, I wouldn't have the marriage I
• 41:11
  Speaker 1: have now. Let me tell y'all something, work is crazy,
• 41:16
  Speaker 1: My kids are crazy. I'm almost forty when you get there.
• 41:21
  Speaker 1: Your health, the things you gotta eat to stay healthy
• 41:25
  Speaker 1: is crazy. The amount of doctors you see is crazy.
• 41:29
  Speaker 1: My life is crazy. You want to know the most
• 41:32
  Speaker 1: stable thing in my world, it's my marriage. Why Because
• 41:38
  Speaker 1: I can take the information that she gives me and
• 41:41
  Speaker 1: I can think about it, not just attach it to
• 41:44
  Speaker 1: my body as bulletshot wounds, gunshot wounds, but actually hear
• 41:48
  Speaker 1: it as a perspective that lives somewhere in my blind self.
• 41:51
  Speaker 1: I don't know if you can enjoy your healthy relationship
• 41:54
  Speaker 1: if you are enjoying the sweet, sweet, beautiful warmth of
• 42:01
  Speaker 1: emotional safety. And I think it's important to say that
• 42:06
  Speaker 1: I can't emphasize this enough. Not the type of emotional
• 42:09
  Speaker 1: safety where you're with someone who is not good to
• 42:12
  Speaker 1: or for you. That's not what I mean here, talking
• 42:15
  Speaker 1: about the emotional safety that stops you from stepping forward,
• 42:18
  Speaker 1: that stops you from hearing things about yourself that you
• 42:20
  Speaker 1: don't like. My ability to hear something that I'm not
• 42:25
  Speaker 1: fond of and think about it with a like a
• 42:29
  Speaker 1: big picture, big brain perspective is one of the reasons
• 42:32
  Speaker 1: that we have the type of trust we do. We
• 42:34
  Speaker 1: have the connection and the chemistry that we do. And
• 42:36
  Speaker 1: when you do that in your relationship, when you're able
• 42:39
  Speaker 1: to hear those things, guess what it emboldenes the other
• 42:42
  Speaker 1: person to do the same thing. So now you have
• 42:44
  Speaker 1: a partner that's matching your energy. And when they do
• 42:46
  Speaker 1: that to you, guess what it emboldens you to keep
• 42:49
  Speaker 1: doing it more. And y'all just keep taking chances to
• 42:51
  Speaker 1: be more vulnerable with each other. And what it does
• 42:54
  Speaker 1: is it brings you closer together. You don't go outside
• 42:57
  Speaker 1: there relationship to find safety, solace or warmth for softness.
• 43:02
  Speaker 1: It's there already. It doesn't just happen, man, These are
• 43:07
  Speaker 1: things that you got to work towards. And this is
• 43:08
  Speaker 1: the way that you work towards by recognizing this and
• 43:11
  Speaker 1: actually doing it, practicing it, get not being scared to
• 43:14
  Speaker 1: get it wrong, Practicing practice, and practicing now the a
• 43:17
  Speaker 1: while just becomes a part of the way y'all approach
• 43:20
  Speaker 1: each other. Don't need to pay the cost, man, You
• 43:23
  Speaker 1: pay enough taxes. Don't pay the emotional, the relational, or
• 43:28
  Speaker 1: the economic costs of not being able to do something
• 43:33
  Speaker 1: with the feedback that you get that doesn't feel great
• 43:38
  Speaker 1: to hear. Man, I don't care what y'all say. Curiosity
• 43:43
  Speaker 1: is strength. Curiosity is strength. I'm actually oh, I'm reading
• 43:47
  Speaker 1: this book called A Long Walk to Freedom by Nelson Mandella.
• 43:51
  Speaker 1: I don't know if you ever read it. Incredible book,
• 43:55
  Speaker 1: just the first three chapters. It's a banger already. But
• 43:58
  Speaker 1: I got this quote for y'all and it was about curiosity,
• 44:03
  Speaker 1: all right. So early in the book, he's talking about
• 44:05
  Speaker 1: his childhood and I kind of paraphrased it, but he
• 44:07
  Speaker 1: said this, you know, know some Mandela, South Africa. He says,
• 44:11
  Speaker 1: like most children from my tribe, I acquire knowledge through observation.
• 44:16
  Speaker 1: He said that he believed that we are meant to
• 44:18
  Speaker 1: learn through emulation and imitation, not through questions. When he
• 44:23
  Speaker 1: visited the houses of white people, he was often dumbfounded
• 44:26
  Speaker 1: by the number of questions that children asked their parents,
• 44:30
  Speaker 1: and he was dumbfounded by their parents' unfailing willingness to
• 44:34
  Speaker 1: answer those questions. He said that in his household, questions
• 44:38
  Speaker 1: were considered a nuisance. Adults and parted information as they
• 44:42
  Speaker 1: considered necessary. His life, like most people at the time,
• 44:46
  Speaker 1: were shaped by customs, rituals, and taboo. That's notes and MANDELLASLM.
• 44:53
  Speaker 1: One of the most powerful leaders of our time talking
• 44:57
  Speaker 1: about how curiosity affected his life and how he saw
• 45:02
  Speaker 1: curiosity different in more Western style culches than in his home.
• 45:07
  Speaker 1: And I'm half Nigerian, and anybody who's West African can
• 45:10
  Speaker 1: tell you. Man, you know, sometimes you ask questions, there's
• 45:16
  Speaker 1: no need to ask questions. Even my family from South Carolina,
• 45:19
  Speaker 1: a Black American family, African American family stay in a
• 45:23
  Speaker 1: child's place, the kid ain't supposed to ask her to
• 45:26
  Speaker 1: ask them questions. My mom used to always say they
• 45:29
  Speaker 1: told her kids to be seen and not heard. And
• 45:31
  Speaker 1: I know that we have a different philosophy now in
• 45:33
  Speaker 1: this year in time, but we weren't born this year
• 45:37
  Speaker 1: in time. We were born when those sayings were still
• 45:40
  Speaker 1: very prominent. So I don't care what nobody said. Curiosity
• 45:43
  Speaker 1: is a superpower because when you live under that adult understanding,
• 45:49
  Speaker 1: it stops you from being curious. You stop asking questions
• 45:53
  Speaker 1: because you feel like you are annoying the people around you,
• 45:55
  Speaker 1: or you feel like it's not your place to ask questions,
• 45:58
  Speaker 1: so you might just take whatever comes your way, or
• 46:00
  Speaker 1: you don't question it or investigate things. And it starts
• 46:03
  Speaker 1: by you not questioning and investigating your surroundings, and it
• 46:07
  Speaker 1: moves to you not questioning and investigating your own thoughts
• 46:10
  Speaker 1: and beliefs. Curiosity is not some feeble surrender. It's to me,
• 46:19
  Speaker 1: curiosity is regaining control of your life. To me, curiosity
• 46:23
  Speaker 1: is trying to understand the grand narrative that's playing out
• 46:26
  Speaker 1: in front of you constantly. Curiosity is an unquenchable thirst
• 46:32
  Speaker 1: for understanding, for knowledge. If the smartest people I know
• 46:37
  Speaker 1: are forever students, and a forever student is a person
• 46:40
  Speaker 1: who has a mind that's infinitely curious. So if you
• 46:44
  Speaker 1: think that curiosity is weakness, I disagree, and I'll debate
• 46:48
  Speaker 1: you anytime, any day, anywhere. I completely disagree. And I
• 46:53
  Speaker 1: had to disrob myself of that thinking that understanding man,
• 46:59
  Speaker 1: and long ago, y'all, I'd say, maybe, like in the
• 47:02
  Speaker 1: last decade or so, I became more comfortable with it.
• 47:07
  Speaker 1: So you know, if it's not a part of your upbringing,
• 47:10
  Speaker 1: it might not be something you can immediately employ. But
• 47:12
  Speaker 1: you don't just jump into a hot bath all that once.
• 47:16
  Speaker 1: You don't cannonball into that joint. You dip your toe in,
• 47:19
  Speaker 1: and you know, you get up the mid foot, then
• 47:20
  Speaker 1: you get up the ankle, then you get up the
• 47:22
  Speaker 1: shin and you get up the neat next thing. You know,
• 47:24
  Speaker 1: you sliding your whole body into it, one piece at
• 47:27
  Speaker 1: a time. So, with all of this being said, with
• 47:31
  Speaker 1: all the stuff that we talked about, this is the
• 47:34
  Speaker 1: shift that I want you to make right here. I
• 47:36
  Speaker 1: want you to make a shift from let me prove
• 47:39
  Speaker 1: my point to help me understand Those are two different responses.
• 47:46
  Speaker 1: I want you to go from hold on, I got
• 47:47
  Speaker 1: to prove my point, Let me prove my point real quick,
• 47:50
  Speaker 1: to hold on, help me understand this even in the
• 47:54
  Speaker 1: posture of it. Those are two completely different ways of
• 47:56
  Speaker 1: going about it. I want you to start practicing making
• 48:00
  Speaker 1: that shift even in your everyday interactions and conversations, just
• 48:04
  Speaker 1: little opportunities that you get to put that to use.
• 48:07
  Speaker 1: I want you to try. Here's some other things that
• 48:09
  Speaker 1: you can try to I call these micro practices. When
• 48:12
  Speaker 1: you're triggered by something, or when something brings up a
• 48:16
  Speaker 1: memory or a thought or a response for you, I
• 48:19
  Speaker 1: want you to ask yourself, what am I protecting right now?
• 48:23
  Speaker 1: What is the thing that I'm protecting in this moment?
• 48:26
  Speaker 1: And I want you to really think hard about it.
• 48:28
  Speaker 1: Give yourself a couple of seconds. What am I protecting?
• 48:31
  Speaker 1: You can also try to replace one defensive response every
• 48:36
  Speaker 1: week with a question. So instead of shooting back at
• 48:40
  Speaker 1: the person in defensiveness, just replace it with a clarifying question,
• 48:44
  Speaker 1: not a nasty one, you know, not a not a
• 48:46
  Speaker 1: subtle jab, but one that is rooted in sheer curiosity
• 48:51
  Speaker 1: and genuine curiosity. Also, when you're in disagreements with people,
• 48:55
  Speaker 1: when you don't see eye to eye, I want you
• 48:58
  Speaker 1: to kick back to them, your son of what they said,
• 49:02
  Speaker 1: what your understanding is. So to start like, hold on,
• 49:05
  Speaker 1: let me make sure I got this right. You're singing that,
• 49:08
  Speaker 1: and to summarize what they said. That's useful. It can
• 49:12
  Speaker 1: get you some incredible feedback and make sure that you
• 49:15
  Speaker 1: heard it right. And also gives the person a chance
• 49:17
  Speaker 1: to think about the thing that they said. They may
• 49:19
  Speaker 1: actually change it once they hear it come out of
• 49:22
  Speaker 1: your mouth and they brain can process in a different way. Now,
• 49:25
  Speaker 1: if you're feeling really brave, if you want to make
• 49:27
  Speaker 1: a bigger commitment to this change, let's do a seven
• 49:31
  Speaker 1: day challenge, a seven day challenge around curiosity. Hit me
• 49:36
  Speaker 1: out for seven days. I want you to get curious.
• 49:41
  Speaker 1: I want you to ask more questions than you make statements.
• 49:45
  Speaker 1: For seven days, I want you to delay your rebuttal
• 49:49
  Speaker 1: delay your response for sixty seconds. We're gonna have to
• 49:53
  Speaker 1: be okay with silence for sixty seconds. I want you
• 49:58
  Speaker 1: to pause before you respond. I want you to resist
• 50:03
  Speaker 1: the urge to disagree right away. I want you to
• 50:06
  Speaker 1: consider what's being said just a little bit longer than
• 50:10
  Speaker 1: you normally would, just a little bit. Here's how it's
• 50:13
  Speaker 1: going to go. I want you to choose a space.
• 50:15
  Speaker 1: It could be your house, it could be your office,
• 50:16
  Speaker 1: it could be the gym, it could be the court,
• 50:18
  Speaker 1: it could be any space that you frequent and for
• 50:21
  Speaker 1: seven days, I want you to just get curious. I'm
• 50:24
  Speaker 1: saying the word curious a lot so you can get
• 50:26
  Speaker 1: used to it, because that's not a word that's accepted
• 50:28
  Speaker 1: in groups of men. Nah. I want you to do that.
• 50:31
  Speaker 1: Lean into it, bro. If you want to change, this
• 50:34
  Speaker 1: is how change happens. We just spent the whole episode
• 50:37
  Speaker 1: talking about moving through what's uncomfortable. This is how we
• 50:40
  Speaker 1: do it. This is how the sausage is made. Because
• 50:43
  Speaker 1: anybody can be right. Being right just wins you the moment,
• 50:50
  Speaker 1: but being curious can change the landscape of your entire life.
• 50:56
  Speaker 1: Don't just keep all this good stuff to yourself. I
• 50:59
  Speaker 1: want to hear it. I want to hear about this challenge.
• 51:01
  Speaker 1: I want to hear about the winds. I want to
• 51:03
  Speaker 1: hear about what you stumbled upon, what worked for you,
• 51:06
  Speaker 1: what didn't, what surprised you, what stayed the same like
• 51:09
  Speaker 1: you knew it would. Share. Man, this is a community,
• 51:12
  Speaker 1: and the only way we get better is if everybody starts.
• 51:16
  Speaker 1: It can't be gatekeeping the secrets, bro, everybody starts sharing
• 51:19
  Speaker 1: out what it is that's working for I got faith
• 51:22
  Speaker 1: in you, dog. I feel like you're going to complete
• 51:24
  Speaker 1: the seven day challenge no problem. But if something hung
• 51:27
  Speaker 1: you up and you couldn't finish, tell me about it.
• 51:30
  Speaker 1: It's not just about the winds, It's about the journey.
• 51:33
  Speaker 1: That's how we learn things. I appreciate y'all for rocking
• 51:37
  Speaker 1: with me. This was a dope episode and we got
• 51:39
  Speaker 1: plenty more in the future. And then the episode is ahead,
• 51:42
  Speaker 1: we're going to really be unpacking what real strength looks like.
• 51:45
  Speaker 1: Because the goal here isn't for you to just be
• 51:48
  Speaker 1: performing masculinity or you to be performing manhood. It's for
• 51:52
  Speaker 1: you to actually become the man that you want to be.
• 51:56
  Speaker 1: So until next time, take care of yourself, take care
• 51:59
  Speaker 1: of the spaces around you, take care of your loved ones.
• 52:01
  Speaker 1: Make sure you see love, make sure you be love,
• 52:04
  Speaker 1: Make sure you be love. Job well done, See y'all
• 52:07
  Speaker 1: next time. Learn the Hard Way is a production of
• 52:10
  Speaker 1: iHeart Podcasts. I'm your host kre Gaines. We're produced by
• 52:14
  Speaker 1: Courtney Deans and Cason Alexander. Ashley. J. Hobbs is our
• 52:17
  Speaker 1: senior producer. Our executive producers are Will Packer, Doctor Joey
• 52:21
  Speaker 1: Harden Bradford, Alex Balden, and Carla will Maris