Latest / The Uncommons / Why Do Good People Keep Getting Taken Advantage Of? | Ep 29
Transcript
- Why Do Good People Keep Getting Taken Advantage Of?: If you have ever been hurt by somebody that you trusted and you open your heart to them, this episode is for you. We all go through life hoping that our trust will be reciprocated, hoping that people have light in them and they meet our light with their light. But when that doesn't happen, when our trust is being taken advantage of, we tend to go into this reactive mood. And a lot of times we don't know how to deal with it. So naturally what happens is that our guards go up and we become harder and harder to open our hearts to people as we go through life and as we have unpleasant experiences. In this episode, we'll have a conversation about something that happened very recently and many other situations that we've been involved in that have been hurtful and how we navigate through it. And hopefully by the end, we can find a way to set our values right. On where we take our guards up, where we set borders, and how we take our wisdom with us. Hi, welcome to the On Commons podcast, where we discuss what it really takes to build something meaningful. I'm Parisa. Paige. Today we're going to talk about something that has been very recent for both of us on our mind, and we've been struggling with it, to be honest. Everyone we see, everyone we encounter. They have a lot of light in them and they also have a wounded side or a dark side. Us included. I don't have a dark side. Except you. You're a perfect one. But what dark side? The reality of the life is that nobody's perfect. Everybody has things that is their strength, is their light. They're good at it. They're strong in it. And they have sides of them that they're wounded in it. They've had trauma. They have work to do. To grow in those areas. Somebody might be really good at making things happen, achieving things, progressing in life, but might not be so strong in their relationships. Someone would be really good at setting boundaries and being firm, but not so nurturing on the other side. Somebody might be really good at nurturing and loving and giving, but not so strong at. Setting boundaries. Standing up for themselves, right? So all of us we've had parts that are wounded or darker compared to the parts that there's more light in it, there's more evolution in it. Now it comes down to our personal background, our families, our heritage, and all of these wounds we inherit, I believe, generationally. Some of it happens during our lifetime. And Because of some of these, we can grab them and transmit them into light or transform them into light. So darkness doesn't mean that it stays dark forever, but there's work to do to turn it around. So what I want to talk about is that knowing that, how do we deal with the dark side of people around us? Because personally, for me, that's very difficult. I come from a Sufi family and the First thing that we were taught is to see the light in people, to look at them, to see them as a whole, to see them as a extension of the divine and see the light in them. But I also remember my grandpa telling me, and he used to say this a lot, that if somebody has darkness in their soul, they don't have a dark stamp on their forehead. You can tell by watching how they act when no one is watching. I know grandpa was a master Sufi. Yeah. So on the one side I've been taught, see the light in everyone. People come in this world as a whole. It's not like there are some souls that are light and some are dark. Like everybody is a whole, an extension of the creator when they come to this world. And on the other side, as we grow up, I mean I'm not delusional. I've seen people. So how how do we go about How do we navigate knowing that people have light sides and dark sides and nobody is perfect? And how do we avoid rubbing on their dark side? Or should we even avoid that? I see. Well, thank you for preparing me for this. Not at all. I think you especially pick this topic because of Because it hurts right now. The reason I pick this topic is because everybody says Don't get in front of camera, in front of microphone, and talk about something that still hurts, like it's an open wound. But that's easy. It's easy to go figure things out and then come here, sit and say three ways to be emotionally intelligent. You know, like you can ask ChatGPT and you get a full-on script. We don't need to experience that. But I think the value of what we do here, and well, at least what I want to do is that we share things as raw as it comes. And this is very raw at the moment. I mean, I don't think it's just at the moment. I think maybe I'm just gotten I've gotten used to it, so it's not as painful. But personally, that is probably my biggest weakness in life. What? Just seeing good in people and not seeing the dark side in people and not expecting the dark side. And we all have our strengths and weaknesses. And as good as you wanna be, like I have a shit ton of those. Dark sides of mine. And they come up and I work with them all the time. And you I work with my coaches and whatever it is. But I think the question for me at least should be is that how have we evolved as I'm approaching 60? And I feel like I've lived this life twice already. going on third. but I've had a lot of experiences in different things and situations how how things go now. So I really love the concept of the evolution of the optics of that. Yeah. But no matter who you meet, no one's gonna come up and say, hey, by the way, I'm gonna fuck you over. You know, they're gonna say, no, I'm so and so and that this is what I did and this is my background. This is, you know, you can go ask so and so and look at my resume. When we hire people, there's a there's this book called The Who. Right. And it's like, of course someone's gonna give you their resume. They're not gonna say I really fucked up this project and I cost the company a couple of million dollars. Yeah. You know, it's never gonna come up. And that's happens in social interactions too. Everybody sells themselves based on their how pretty they are. Yeah. But then whatever is not pretty comes up at some point. I've been fucked over emotionally, financially, any shape or form possible s so many times. Right. And I've come to the point now that a I won't get hurt over it as much as I used to. It used to just devastate me. I had a partner who I brought up to my business. I gave him shares in the company. I paid him money to come in. And a year later he tried to take the company away from me. Mm-hmm. And I was just in disbelief. Yeah. And and I remember a very interesting single point in my life in this kind of a situation where I felt something off, like the dark side that you're talking about. And you always want to give the benefit of the doubt because this guy came in and he's very politically correct and you know, well trained, you know, his people knew him, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. So on the outside, this guy looks so great. And I was looking at a document that he was working on, and I looked at and had all of the percentages of the company's ownership, and he forgot to take that off. And for a second, I'm like, is he trying to see what the percentage of voting rights are to take the company away? No. That's not possible. And I just kind of like I knew there was something wrong. But subconsciously I try to erase it. I try to not even think that's a possibility because I always want to see the light in people. And then I went back again the next day. I'm like, let me look at this again. And I realized that's the case. And I confronted the guy the next day. And he told me, Yeah, I just wanted to know what my options are. After I gave him a significant portion of my company that was worth a lot of money and hard cash to buy into the company, I just couldn't believe it. You know, it was a very, very daunting moment to realize that transition from light side to dark side, as you call it. Yeah. And we're currently going through a situation as well. Like that's similar to that. And I've been through it A few other times and more times and so forth. So the question is, do you think, having been through that many times, financially, company wise, lawsuits, emotionally? Time. Time energy, when you look back, when do you think we should see the light in people and open our heart? And to what extent do you think we should trust and our intuition that there is some darkness in this situation too? Or by darkness I mean somebody's intention might not be as pure as ours. That's a hard question. And you know why I'm asking it? Because I had a conversation with a friend a couple of days ago and she said, you know, I used to always trust people. I used to always welcome them. They seem to be nice on the outside with an open arm, an open heart. And now I'm at a point in my life that I've seen too much of people's darkness that I don't trust them anymore. I don't trust anybody anymore. Anybody anymore. Yes. And it takes me a really long time to let anyone in, if I ever do. And I was listening to her, and of course we're in a situation right now that I feel very hurt and disappointed. And I was listening to her, and I'm like, I hope that's not me one day. Like, I I don't want to close my heart to people, even though right now it's hurting a lot. Because I feel like I opened my heart to someone that was very difficult for me. Like I didn't want to, but I did. And I had an intuition that said this person has a big amount of darkness in them. And I ignored it because it was easier to ignore it. And now we're hurt by it. So it will pass. This situation will pass. It's not the first time. It's not gonna be the last time. But I feel like when it happens and repeats enough times, that's when we become more rigid and we c we become more closed off. And I don't want that to be me. Okay, I know it might hurt again. But I don't know if I want to close my heart or to what to what extent close my heart so I won't be hurt by people. Yeah, I've had the same exact topic on conversation for years and years with a lot of my coaches. And I honestly believe that one of the things that I'm proud of of who I am is I do see the light in people. And I just I just believe everybody and You know, I'm just like, my God, great, you know, and I'm just open about it. and as these situations came up and I had these discussions, I kept saying, I do not want to give that up. I do not want to go to the other side and say, Fuck everybody, I'm not gonna ever do this again. Even though the thought goes through my mind every single time. I'll never have another partner, I'll never do this, I'll never go out of my way, I'll never loan money to anybody. This list goes on and on. However, I've made a decision. That I am not going to change who I am and the part of me that I'm really proud of because of the situations that happen in my life. I will still do what I need to do as a person, as a human being. And if bad comes along with it, I just know how to handle it. I'm prepared better. I'm not gonna. lose my balance over it like I used to and I'll be able to be focused and still be in a really bad situation with someone and yet be able to help or do whatever it is and see the light in other people. It's not a black or white. It's just like learning how to balance and the more you balance, the better you get. The more you balance when you do the Pikrim yoga. You know, at the at the first time you do bikram yoga in a hot hot bikrium yoga, for example, you know, you just feel like you just somebody's just handed your ass to you, you know. And then as as time goes by, you you learn and you get your balances and you know, you get better and better and better and better. And everybody has dark sides. I have done things that I'm not very proud of. There was a exercise that had to do with one of the courses that we were taking with the group that you and I met through. That we have to go confront everybody in our in our lives that we fucked over some shape form or another and and tell them I'm sorry and tell them this is what I did. And the fucking over wasn't like a huge thing, even if it's a tiny bit of thing. Like you didn't say the entire truth. So I honestly think that as time goes by, I I I've chosen not to change myself. I'm a little bit more guarded. That's the thing. Like I feel like every time something happens that you trust someone and open your heart. And they in one way or shape or form do something that's unexpected. I don't want to call it betrayal, but something that's unexpected and doesn't sit well. I feel like the guard goes a little higher and a little higher and a little higher. And then is that wisdom or is that just being closed off? No, I think the wisdom in it is to have absolute belief that this was meant to happen. The outcome was best for you and the situation. The universe wants the best for you. Things happen for you, not to you. Even though at the time they seem like they're happening to you. Mm-hmm. And having that absolute faith and would at least for me, would keep going and knowing that if it doesn't kill you, I don't think there's a lot of situation that I can't deal with. Yeah. It hurts though. The situation we're dealing with right now, to be honest with you, I think it's hurting you a lot more than it's hurting me. It 'cause I'm maybe I'm more emotional than you are by nature. But I feel that when somebody that I open my heart to, I get hurt by it. I try to tell myself, if there was a gift in this, what would it be? Like if this person was really here to help me grow in one. way or shape or form, what would be the gift of this for me? And that question automatically comes up after usually a few months of like grief process, because first I'm hurt and I'm upset and I just go through all these emotions. And then down deep underneath, the question comes up that what's the gift in this? And it helps me manage the emotions a little better because now I'm looking like my lens shifts. Then I'm not trying to avoid situations like this again, because if it comes up again, then it can be a gift again. And also it's not that I'm not a victim here anymore, that look what they did to me and how horrible could this person be. Because that's I think that's a very default. We're all human and that's a very default. emotion that comes up like she or he did that to me, you know? Like I trusted that person and look how they did. But I think that question, like where's the gift? that kind of takes me out of the victimhood of, they did that to me is like there is a co-creation involved here. Like I'm becoming somebody that can maneuver this a lot better. Like I'm becoming wiser, I'm becoming more resilient, I'm learning, I'm growing. So this person is involved as a co-creator in this scenario. They're helping me be that. Brings me up to this this one interesting comment that I haven't said in a while, but I don't know who I was training with, but they told me, look, if somebody takes the gun and shoots you in the head at the time that they pulled the trigger, they must have had a really, really good reason to do that. Obviously, we're not So you don't think that way when you're receiving it, but it is at that time they have a reason. Which is also kind of somewhat similar to the story of Le Miserables, the Jean Valjean where the guy goes and steals from the priest's house and they catch the guy and then the cops bring him over to the priest's house and they say, we found these. The priest goes, Yeah, yeah, these are mine. But I gave it to them. I gave it to him. And then the they all go away and the wife goes to the priest. Why did you say that? And he said, if he took them, you probably needed it more than I needed it, or more than we needed it. I also think that looking at this analytically, people have their own perception of situations. They might feel like they are entitled to that. They're fulfilling one of their six human needs. Right? Which could be significance or could be certainty. Yeah, Tony Robbins always says if something fulfills more than two or three needs, basic needs that humans have, they will be addicted. Addicted to it. Three. Three. If it meets three of your of most human needs. And then human needs are certainty, uncertainty, significance, love and connection, contribution. And growth. And growth. And people have all of them, but they oscillate betwe between those and if you trust someone and they come to your house And they take something from you. Uh-huh. Let's say financially. Uh-huh. And it makes them feel significant at that moment because then they're very important to you. It makes them feel certain because they have control over you. Because you now you're angry, now you're mad, they're controlling your emotions. And it makes them feel uncertain because God knows what's gonna come out of that situation. That's like, of course they would do that. Yeah. If they have it in them. Yeah. Okay, if that action rubs against some of their dark side than they would. For somebody their dark side might be relationships. So they would come and like try to take your partner away. Right. For somebody it could be their financials. So they come and take money from you. For someone it could be their work. So they come and try to take your company away from you. You know, it's like if we are wise enough but still not closing our heart to people, right? Stay open. But take our wisdom with us, which these experiences teach us. When you look at someone new and you analyze them for friendships, for adding them to your company, and you are an emotionally intelligent person, how do you analyze them? Because I think you are. I don't know if I'm very good at it, but not enough experience to be able to see a lot of warning signs in people. But most of the time, like the person that we're talking about right now is that, you know, used to always tell me, like, yeah, she's just like smiles and she's just so happy. But I've seen this so many times when no one's looking, kind of like what you said. She's like in this like frowned, depressed, angry, unhappy person. Right. Or something is incongruent, then I feel it. If they say something, it just something doesn't jive. What does the incongruency mean? Like within energetically, feeling wise, what they say, what they do, how they look or how they feel, like what what is the incongruency? I was an ER doctor, right? So I I just look at people. There's a time that I could probably guess what drug these people are on. But just looking at my dad You still do that. Yeah, I do. My dad used to tell me is like, I could tell what's wrong with it with these people when they walk in the door half the time. I'm like, this old man's lost his shit. But you could tell, like like the way they move their lips or the just you know, just the color of their teeth, or just so many different things, right? And so when you interact with somebody, somebody comes up and says certain things that is love and connection and you realize they have no friends. How people live their life tells a lot about them. I know so many people. That are on the outside look wealthy and down the inside they're not. I know so many people that seem happy on the outside and underneath they're not. And especially now with the age of social media. But it doesn't mean that I'm not gonna be friends with them. It doesn't mean that I'm not gonna get close to them. If someone's a great skier and we go skiing and the guy is a womanizer, for example, like I really don't give a shit. Uh-huh. I do. Now, if The person is cheating on his wife, I really wouldn't want to be around that situation. I just wouldn't. Yeah. Because cheating is cheating. Yeah. Right. And that person could cheat me any day. I just wouldn't want to be around that person. There's a saying that goes, How you do one thing is how you do everything. Yes, I always say that. So that's like looking at one aspect of a person's life, you can expand it to many other things. Now Again, it doesn't mean that everybody has darkness in some aspect of their life. So it doesn't mean that if they're weak in one area that applies to everything else. But if somebody is at a point of their life that they're stuck in something or they can't get over a hurdle or their s situation when you look at it from outside, it's just doesn't sit well. It's a consequence of a series of things that they have done or they live by. Right. I mean, this people get to unfortunate situations by chance, you know? They and and I say that with a lot of compassion. I have somebody very close to me that in a unfortunate situation, you know, and I look at him and I know it's a result of his own doing. I mean it's very clear when you zoom out and look from the outside. Yep. That there are things that they do. That's why they're where they are. I used to feel bad. I used to look at them and be like, poor thing, like if they were unlucky or something happened to them, but then I've seen enough of it, especially directed towards me, that I look at people right now, I'm like, Well, it's not by chance if somebody in a bad situation and probably the way they're doing that one thing expands a lot to many other areas of their life. Right. But that still didn't prevent us from the situation we're in right now, because we looked at somebody and said, This is unfortunate about them, but let's see the light in them. We still did that. We stayed who we are. Even though we knew this person has a dark side. We did the right thing. And the other person came back and you know, screwed us over, whatever it is, right? I still think that it's all for the best. Yeah. Right. We lose a few bucks. It's all for the best. no doubt. Now also another change in me is that I believe that people have their own journey. When you have a company and people work in your company and want to do the best for people. And you know, now my belief is that I'm sorry, like you gotta go through this on your own. Even our son. Even I mean that that does our kids, that's what we do with our kids. Yep. One of the biggest questions I had with Tony Robbins on my one on one with him, I'm like, Tony, how do you how do you raise children that are not entitled? How do you raise children that are resilient or understand how things work? And he told me, Do you know my daughter does not know airplanes don't have bedrooms? I'm like, shit, I thought I was bad. It's experience is letting him have responsibility. Letting have work, ethics. They have to do certain things, just don't hand them stuff. Mm-hmm. And we and we don't. We don't. But with other people, we you know, that's one of my biggest weaknesses. And I have been told many times by people that I train with and work with that when you take care of people more than you should, the energetic signal you're sending out is that you're not capable Exactly. Of taking care of your life. Exact So I'm going to do it for you because I'm better than you. Exactly. Which is not my intention at all. Like I'm just like looking at let's say my mom's struggle, right? I love her. I want to do stuff for her. I don't want to see her struggle. Or d not just my mom, like people people around us. And it's really eye opening for me to even hear that from somebody that the signal you're singing sending out is Telling him you're not capable and I know better. I don't want to do that to another person, to another human being. Maybe this is for another whole podcast, but what is our internal dark side that wants this much light? Part of the reason that I used to give the way I used to give was because I wanted people to like me. Right? It was something at the end of it. It wasn't completely free. So that's the gift, right? If somebody comes to your life that shows you that. But look in the mirror. Like why did that happen? And I think people have the ability to do that, to To show us the mirror that okay, I look bad here, but hey, look at yourself. There's a huge amount of learning that goes with I don't want to go into politics, but the idea of entitlement, creating entitlement. I had a mission in Haiti. The Episcopal Church and myself and the and the priest that we work with used put together, and you've been to one of those missions. I used to sneak in drugs into the country, duffels of medications, 'cause they didn't have And they w we all stolen. So we b basically snuck that stuff in. We used to go to the school, set up clinics in schools, and and one particular people would come from the the all surrounding areas. We used to do all kinds of shit. Surgeries, all kinds of crazy stuff. And yeah, I witnessed you do surgery in in like basically a building that was falling off, half of it was falling off on a table with no equipment whatsoever. I was just in total disbelief that and you're like, well if you don't do it he's gonna die. So it was after the earthquake. And we see this kid, six year old kid had no antibiotics with a cut off arm. I knew I'm gonna leave this place, come back in in in in a month if the kid's dead. Not just one, hundreds of them. And then we used to take him soccer balls and all kinds of stuff, you know, just I mean Cheerem. You wanted to give make these people happy. They were so underprivileged. But after a while, if they didn't get a gift from us, they would be pissed off. And I made a rule we will not see anybody else for free anymore. Ever again. I don't care what you gotta bring, you gotta bring something if you gotta be seen. Bring a piece of rock. Well. Bring something, anything, because what it would do, it would devalue those people. I have nothing of my own and I gotta be helped by others. Yeah. We're building not only entitlement but significant weakness in these kids. And I'm like, I refuse. So the the conclusion is not to not give to people. I think the conclusion is to give Responsibly. Responsibly with borders, borders, with expectations. It's okay to give and have expectations. When we're dealing with people, it's a very strong part of human nature to take appreciation and change it with expectation. It happens so fast. And then once you keep doing that and then you stop, then you didn't take away something that you were just giving. You basically take away something that was very much expected and now it's the end of the world. The other conclusion is that I don't think we should change who we are because of these negative experiences that we had, because we've had some very positive experiences as well. If you are in a similar similar situation, if you've been hurt by somebody that you trusted, that you opened your heart to, and I know it hurts. We're in the same situation. I know it's painful, but hopefully we can have the courage to keep our hearts open and not close ourselves up to people just because we might get hurt down the road. And if we do, then there's a gift in it. Yes, I agree. Ciao.