Qualities We've Lost and We All Need

Ethan joins again to discuss distractions, cell phones, listening. How to gain wisdom in your life. How to get back on the horse and keep going forward even if you miss a day or two. Why empathy is so important and how much it's missing lately.

Transcript:
[00:00:02] spk_0: Hey everyone and welcome to another episode of the Life Next Level podcast. I am J and I got a boy Ethan here with us today and were soon lee, soon lee, we're soon going to discuss uh underrated or even lost qualities that we feel have been lost somewhere along the way or that more people need. So, but before that I want to ask how you're doing man, how's everything going?

[00:00:31] spk_1: Good man? It's a, yeah, I, I always talk about the weather, but it's really nice to get nicer outside just because of the things that have been coming around. Like, well even the twins home home opener is today, which I honestly, I don't care about baseball at all. But, but it's just nice to like, I know that, you know, taking the trailer out, going to festival season, It's just just around the corner, you know, and so yeah, I'm just loving stuff.

[00:01:00] spk_0: Well, I'll say, I think anyone that lives in Minnesota deserve to talk about the weather when it's nice. I don't care if it's five days in a row and you want to talk about the weather you deserve

[00:01:09] spk_1: to. It's true. I will take that. Like

[00:01:14] spk_0: I felt weird when I was in Hawaii, especially when people would ask me how the weather is it, It's 85 and Sunny every day. I don't know what else to tell you

[00:01:24] spk_1: exactly. Yeah, we've in a very uh yeah, kind of physical paradise here,

[00:01:31] spk_0: so

[00:01:32] spk_1: it's nice. That's fine.

[00:01:35] spk_0: So I have to tell you, I was, I was walking around today and call it weird, but I was listening to some of our podcast episode because we're now out there on like most, if not every major platform, which is really cool to just to see our podcast out there. But I was listening to them and they don't have discussed it a little bit before, but I probably shouldn't bring it up in front of the audience, but it's happening too late, trains going. Um and I just did it. It's I think we have we do pretty well, but we have these filler words, but I notice it especially on myself, but I hear it in you too, and I'm sure if you listen to hear the same

[00:02:15] spk_1: thing

[00:02:16] spk_0: from and like I say, we see like a lot, I think it's this kind of normal conversation. But if if people decided to play a drinking game are filler words, it would be a disaster what I'm saying.

[00:02:30] spk_1: It's so funny. As soon as that recording, like comes on, you know, your brain

[00:02:35] spk_0: is

[00:02:35] spk_1: okay, all right, this is what we've trained for. You know, at any point when there's like a little lack of like knowing what to say, it's like usually uh just keep you get

[00:02:52] spk_0: sometimes we just have these long, long drawn out as like uh

[00:03:00] spk_1: any silences are just us, like forcing our mouth closed before it, it just works its way out. You

[00:03:06] spk_0: know, pretty much we're going to keep working on it folks, we'll get back at that. I just thought that was interesting. I was listening to it today and I was laughing at a lot of our banter is it's pretty good. And I think we talked about a lot of good stuff. But

[00:03:21] spk_1: yeah, Yeah,

[00:03:23] spk_0: I think, I think anyone doing a podcast has filler words. I hear I hear them all the time. Okay, we'll get better at it.

[00:03:30] spk_1: Absolutely, yeah. It is funny to think about how different it feels just, you know, computer, computer chatting already, there's already like more of a propensity of your brain to be like, how do we handle this again? You know, talking to company because I'm talking to the screen. Yeah, but

[00:03:45] spk_0: we'll work on uh it's all good. I don't think it's too bad, but it's just noticeable especially because it's me and then it's me and you and our podcast. So it's you break things out like that for

[00:03:55] spk_1: sure.

[00:03:57] spk_0: So anything else before we get started then?

[00:04:00] spk_1: No man, I'm happy to be here

[00:04:03] spk_0: as always, it's always a good time. So again, we're going to talk about underrated qualities uh for for lack of a better term for of people, you know? So I'm gonna I'm gonna start it out because I think I have a couple, I don't know if you have a couple of teething but I have a couple. So I'll just say one that I I bothers me a lot. I try to keep it in my head all the times are all the time. Like when I'm talking to people, all the times that I'm like out at a restaurant even having a conversation with people or if I'm just having a one on one conversation with someone at work or like right now even it's so easy to get distracted but it's just listening. I just truly think that people don't listen anymore and I mean truly listen. Like listen and learn, listen to understand what someone else is saying, whether you know them or not because we just sit and you and I were talking about it Ethan. But if you walk into a restaurant, look around and you will just see distracted people everywhere on their phones as they are in the middle of a conversation or a whole family out to dinner and everyone is the kids and the parents are both on their phones and it's just so

[00:05:16] spk_1: like

[00:05:17] spk_0: obviously that happened, cell phones got crazy big, but I think that we're just missing that quality and I think that quality leads to understanding and I don't know, talking to everybody in wisdom because you never know what someone else is gonna say about anything. So I miss it when I'm out and I know I've been guilty of it too texting when someone else is talking to me or something. But I think that we're missing that hardcore in our society, the just the listening factor because everyone just wants to be heard and to be understood and it's not even all about distractions. We also love to talk and if we have something to say, we almost can't wait until somebody's done talking to say it, we have to jump in and cut them off. I don't know if you've been around a lot of people like that. I've been in meetings like that where people just jump in and cut people off and it's you're always more well respected and considered more wise. If you sit back and think about what somebody has to say until they're done and then bring up a question about something they said, not only will they like you more in respect you more, but you will kind of have the ear of the room because you were the respectful guy that actually listened and actually understood what they were trying to say.

[00:06:28] spk_1: Yeah, Yeah. Yeah. It's so funny because I think the paying attention to why sometimes it seems like stuff can happen because I think the because it would seem so objectively odd if uh you know, make an analogy I was going to, but I don't think it's gonna be. my main point is just that there are so many things to listen to now. Uh there's just so much more access to hearing things now and I just mean through phones or through any laptops, media or whatever, so that I feel like it becomes challenging too uh two um what am I trying to say? It becomes challenging to pick what to listen to, and so then sometimes I think because we get to sensitize uh that then, you know, when you're in a scenario where it's clear, you know, like you're at dinner or something or you're chilling with your person and you find it hard to listen. I think it has so much to do with a lot of times. Yeah, just being like I've been, there's so many things that are calling for my attention, so I know it sounds basically like I'm talking about distraction. I just think it's so interesting to picture that and then picture that there's it's cool to on the one end to want to to to want to uh to use your Dubai. I know I'm focusing on the device because I think that's probably one of the big things for me in terms of, you know, like always looking at my phone and it feels like I want to look at something to contribute to the scenario. But then that plays into what you were just saying about feeling so driven to say stuff too. And and to where I feel like we always feel so compelled to be doing and taking care of stuff and making things happen, that we forget that the conversation is a so the results come from the conversation not what your pre planning to say. And so I think that that is really big.

[00:08:32] spk_0: I think that I think that it's there there's so many distractions around us, even other than the phone and we're so used to being distracted almost now to your point that even if you're say you met someone for a drink and you're sitting at the bar, even your eavesdropping on a conversation over here between maybe somebody that you met before or there's a cute person over here that you're kind of curious about. So the person is talking to you and your kind of looking all over and not kind of paying attention, but not really. And I think that's almost become the social norm between that and cell phones are just being distracted and not not truly listening because I think this is a coaching me talking, right? So like that's why I'm probably got so into this, it's just coaching. But if you want and if you want like to make a good friend, if you just sit there and maybe they won't even know why. But if you sit there and you make eye contact and you don't interrupt them and at the end of them, at the end of what they have to say, you ask them questions about what they're saying or if you don't quite understand, you have some questions to help you understand and you make the conversation more about them than it is about you. You have a friend for life and they might not even know why they will just love you.

[00:09:55] spk_1: Yeah.

[00:09:55] spk_0: You know, and it's because maybe you understood something that they were going through and a lot of times if somebody's going through a hard time, you don't even have to say a word and some people just need to talk. So if you just are there for them and in presence, but making eye contact and not all distracted, you know, they will they will really respect you for that.

[00:10:15] spk_1: Absolutely. I don't know if you said it before or whatnot. Maybe maybe you said it when we were chatting and now I'm taking part of what you were going to say, but just the idea of you know, we want to be understood, people just want to be understood and and and the feeling that one is being misunderstood can always be such a terrible feeling, you know? And so I think it makes a lot of sense. Just picturing the idea of how cool it is to think about the ability of person has to make somebody else feel like really safe or like really good or whatever. It may be, just like you said by sitting and shutting up and not anything which is letting your years be open and hearing stuff because because yeah, I just think it's wild to think about how we can all imagine when we feel like we've told something to somebody and they heard us and and even if they totally understood what we said, like if they were just trying to hear what we were saying, just knowing that somebody is willing to spend the time to validate us by giving us the time to listen to us is like such a powerful tool for like you said, it makes sense why somebody would be like I love that person, I love them, I don't even remember their name but they listen so I want to see them tomorrow. You know like it's really how it feels.

[00:11:43] spk_0: No, I think I think you're absolutely right and the last part I put two that is understanding is a key factor. That plays part into my next, my next one. But we're going to go with yours first. But understanding plays a huge part whatever they're saying, just understanding what they're trying to say or where they're coming from and then from that I just wanted, I just thought about the fact that um I forgot what, so I'm going to get it just oh

[00:12:16] spk_1: it's so good

[00:12:20] spk_0: things I was going to say, I'll just leave it in that will be

[00:12:22] spk_1: fun

[00:12:25] spk_0: doing. I'll think about it right when you start talking. Oh, I got it, sorry, the way you never know where you're going to learn wisdom from and I think that when you don't sit down and actually listen to people or even multiple people, if you're in a group and seek to understand, I think you're gonna miss out on some wisdom in your life. You just never know where wisdom will come from. And I think you can get it from a lot of people, even if you've never met them before, and that just comes from me traveling around and being open to talking to people everywhere. I've learned so much from strangers. I don't even know. And I think people miss out on that a lot.

[00:13:02] spk_1: Yeah, yeah.

[00:13:04] spk_0: That's the last thing I talk

[00:13:06] spk_1: about. You know, that was

[00:13:08] spk_0: good. Everyone, I don't think I'm going to edit out the other part. So you're gonna have to listen to me babble you. Uh

[00:13:18] spk_1: All

[00:13:20] spk_0: right. You know what years?

[00:13:21] spk_1: Uh man, I think mine is so in referring to again, right, Equality that we feel like at least maybe people haven't lost, but that's like there's the likes, right? That's uh that's swimming swimming below the surface, you know? Uh and I think it's uh, trusting in ourselves. And I think that first of all, I think the reason why that is a big one is because of the numerous places where that works its way into what we do and what we're down to do. And, and so I think first of all, just the pandemic alone, I've heard a lot of people talk about the idea of, um, just because of things shutting down. That removed a lot of for a while, at least the places where people can go or do go often to feel that community, which or whatever they their passion is, but then, which bolsters their confidence, right? Because it reflects back who you feel like you are. And like, for example, me and my wife, we are all about music and live shows especially, and DJs is mostly, you know, thing, but so uh when we went music drive show dry for a long time, um it's just interesting how that alone can play into me, experiencing just a little less trust in myself acutely because acutely, but then not really because it tips over a broader period of time, but just uh feeling a little less, a little more and more removed from interacting with people who I specifically appreciate because of our shared interests. And so then the further are you are away from that sometimes um you know, the harder it is to remember what that feels like and that's just like one way of losing a little that trust. Uh and I think in general also that there is, there are a lot of times, so we just did a did an episode about distraction, right? And I think a lot of times I jump into my favorite distraction pits usually because something has triggered me to feel inadequate and or not trust in my ability to do whatever. So for example, you know anything but but usually the process goes, step one, here's this thing that I want to do Step two or I'm feeling antsy about it, feeling I don't think I can, you know, do it whatever Step three, him and half for a bit, step for put it away and open instagram almost, you know, like just like that. And uh and so so I'm just saying that I have totally noticed times where I've been able to like uh feel better about doing something or more into doing something when I identified where I I was doubting that I was doubting myself and my ability to do it. That took a kind of a circular path at the end of that makes sense. You know what I'm saying? It

[00:16:36] spk_0: does make sense. So, uh so it actually reminds me of coaching and personal training because you start to lose confidence in yourself and how many people have we seen go the route of personal training and they go hard for a month and then they start to fall off. They missed one day and then they start spiraling, they missed another day, they miss another day, and then they just don't show up anymore. It's like they lose confidence in themselves and it's like, what was I thinking? And they lose complete confidence in themselves because they didn't make it for a day or two days. And honestly everyone asks me, or a lot of people ask me like, how, like how do I just stay in shape? And it's quite simply that I have days, like that weakens like that all the time. I just jump back on the horse the next time. And that is literally my secret. That's what I've learned. I just have to hop on it no matter how bad I'm feeling about myself and I'm thinking this past weekend, for example, I mean, I haven't worked out for almost a week now, got a wedding and then, you know, we were hanging out with family after the wedding and it was, it was, it was a big, it was a big fun time and but I felt terrible with myself when I got back because, you know, I didn't work as much as I wanted to order at all. I didn't work out uh the whole time. And then, and then it's just like, well, maybe I won't work out tomorrow either or it's just easy to let that spiral. I think that's kind of where you're going with it. You lose confidence in yourself to to be able to do the things that you are able to do. And more than anything that is because of you not being able to do them anymore. It's all you just losing confidence in yourself. You just went and did it.

[00:18:14] spk_1: Yeah. Yeah, 100%. Because even even for, you know, 22 angles that touch on the personal training aspect or just the fitness aspect is the one is one of my favorite things because I've been trying to pay attention to it and you got to speak it with a grain of salt because it's important and there's some nuance to it. But you know, if you treat yourself as fragile, you're gonna be fragile. Uh and so, you know, the grain of salt is that you can't just be out here and be like, oh my knee is fine and then cranking on it, whatever. But that being said, it does take uh that, you know, stimulus and it does take remembering that you can withstand, you know, some stuff to be able to to crank on it. And the other thing is 100 amen to fitness jesus for what you were just saying with the consistency piece because that is the the thing, the failure of any three month program, two month program is the fact that it's a three month or a two month program, you know, like done and done the The so like that's one arena where I do feel these days where I have a lot of trust in myself is I trust in my fitness process or my exercise process. Uh and that's because I've been doing it for 15 years and it's all, it's been different all across the board, but I for sure have been. And so, you know, I just think that, yeah, if you're picturing something as this is going to take me two months, if you miss a day, then damn it. You know, if you miss, you know, 10 days, then, you know, you're kind of like off track, but if you're picturing this as something that will last the duration of your life and then hopefully, you know, you live for a good long time then if you miss a day. So what? But if you like beat yourself up about it, you know, there? Yeah, it's just it's just remembering that this is a, you know, you can do this forever, so find a way to make it fun and just embark on it and don't beat yourself up when you're not, you know?

[00:20:14] spk_0: Yeah, well, and everyone, people with everything in life and I feel like this is getting a little off track, but it's still kind of there, is it sustainable? And people that do crash diets, people that do 30 days, I'm gonna hit the gym for 30 days straight. I don't know if that stuff is sustainable and then they missed a couple of days and they beat themselves up so much. They just give up, what do you see after New Year's at gyms for

[00:20:37] spk_1: example? Everyone

[00:20:39] spk_0: Goes by February one, it's like half cleared up because everyone has this grand idea and, and, and then they just lose confidence in themselves because they don't, they miss a day. You just have to realize it's okay. Like just because you missed a day, just go back the following day and your confidence will grow back. It'll get back up right? You don't trust trusting that you can do it, trusting that you can go there just because you missed today. We all make mistakes or we all have reasons that we can do something so

[00:21:06] spk_1: right. And it basically it feels like it boils down to trusting uh in your ability to to fail and continue, you know? And yeah, trust trusting in your ability to not have to define yourself by that failure, but that you're more than that and that's you know, but not in some huge med away just in like no, of course you're more than the one day, you didn't go to the gym, you know? Does that? Uh Yeah, it's about paying attention to your not your past experiences, you're whatever you choose and right now, so yeah,

[00:21:36] spk_0: which reminds me we should probably link our episode. That's quite a bit about failure into this because that's really what that is, is just a failure that you should take his mother.

[00:21:46] spk_1: Exactly.

[00:21:47] spk_0: Yeah.

[00:21:48] spk_1: Yeah, yeah.

[00:21:50] spk_0: Yeah. It was a good one, man.

[00:21:52] spk_1: Well, thank you.

[00:21:53] spk_0: You are welcome sir. Uh Well just well, I'm just gonna hit this last one real quick because it has to do kind of with my first one in understanding and that's just empathy. I feel that I will say and you know, kind of my rule, I rule about this podcast. We don't get into politics. We don't really get into religion. It's just not, I don't want to get into something polarizing. That's not the goal of this. But even four plus years ago, empathy was that like an all time low? I feel, I feel like and now the last four years has just taken a nosedive. Just nobody listens to anyone. Nobody wants to understand them anymore. It's it's my opinion or we don't understand you or we don't want to, it's like my way or the highway and that just bothers me because I go into every conversation I have and again, speaking about wisdom and listening to people, I've talked to people on not every religion across the planet, but many religions and they've talked to me about their religion and I totally understand it and I have no problem with it, you know, and in the, that goes for anything and everything. I just wanna understand where they're coming from and you know, I don't want to, I'm not going to judge people based on how they were raised or the things that they feel. I'm just not going to do it and understanding and empathizing with people for anything. I feel that is one of the lost biggest losses that we have especially and I hate to say this, but especially in America it's just everything. Empathy is gone man. I go to other countries and they are the nicest and kindest people. They want to know where I came from. They want to show me their country, they come to America and people like get out of here, we're not gonna help you get on this bus, you're not from here, you know and that's not everywhere. But people don't care. People just don't seem to care very much. And so it just has been really bothering me here, especially after I traveled around. I noticed that a lot here but that's not to say people don't have it and I almost guarantee anybody that's like listening to this and into personal growth or in the development or anything has that you know has a sense of obligation to be empathetic to people.

[00:24:11] spk_1: Yeah,

[00:24:11] spk_0: I feel like it's just very lost recently and it's just very hard.

[00:24:16] spk_1: Yeah. Well I think to paying attention to you know if anything just what the definition is and I'm not saying I have the definition in front of me but remembering what empathy means like you said and listening and also to me, I think empathy, you know, refers to the idea of having empathy is about remembering that something is going to look different to every single person based off of the experiences they've had. And so knowing that just because I'm in my body driving Ethan right now, I just can't know exactly what jay's experiences were, even if you sat down, even if we sat down for a long time, you just try to tell me every experience, there's no way that we could do it, you know, there's no possible way. And so I think being able to be prepared to as a human being remember that there is no way that we can know exactly what somebody is feeling based off of all the experiences that they may have had. And then applying that to how you interact, one interacts with another just feels like it really can help when it feels like it's like my way or the highway right? Because it's like how can it be, how how could it just, how could one only think this why? And and uh and yeah that's where it's cool how empathy is really. Same deal. Empathy is really helpful to when it's given to somebody. But it's crazy how empathy can be insanely helpful like to the person giving it as well, does that make sense? Like if I share empathy with you that's going to benefit you and it's going to benefit me uh like equally and that's really yeah, Really cool.

[00:26:02] spk_0: Plus usually you will learn something if you know, if you're actually listening and understanding someone, especially if it's a different viewpoint from you. I think the beautiful thing on here is that we all have different opinions and different viewpoints and different things. So like being able to understand that and understand their viewpoints and talk to them about it even though you guys don't share the same view point. That's that's what we should be doing.

[00:26:27] spk_1: Yeah.

[00:26:28] spk_0: Yeah. You know, I did that and I miss that a little bit. There's subjects I won't even bring up anymore. Like, nope,

[00:26:36] spk_1: not

[00:26:36] spk_0: even going to bring them up. It's just too too polarizing. We we have to, the weird part is in a lot of people don't understand this or maybe you won't admit it. Put our thoughts mostly aren't even our own. They're mostly how we were raised the society we grew up in the schools we went to as we were learning. They're mostly like how our parents raised us and our siblings and the people we hung around with. And so a lot of our opinions in our thoughts that are not even necessarily our own we think they are, but it's it's just all of that stuff coming through. I am who I am today because of things that happened starting at two years old and my parents that I have so much self doubt because, you know, they were afraid of me failing some, you know, things like that. A lot of us are who we are because of how we were raised. It's not really our own thoughts, so having and that's and that's kind of to your point, everyone was raised different, a lot of people in different societies, different countries, different everything. And so to not be able to understand them just because they were raised in a different, completely different area than you just to me is. Yeah.

[00:27:47] spk_1: Yeah, I recognize, you know why as much as we see somebody else harboring or holding like a wild belief, it feels like a wild belief to us or something like that. Uh like being able to understand. There's probably something like that going on in our head to, you know, that is then making it hard to because like you said, that's that's the biggest thing is that um there uh there's a tilt on everything based on what you've experienced and so, you know, we aren't just ourselves where all of our experiences and we may not even notice that. And uh and so yeah, so it's almost like having empathy opens the door to being able to listen long enough, you know, to because otherwise, you know, the no empathy or like I'm not gonna listen to this fool. But then if you have some empathy it's like, oh maybe I was a fool at one point, or maybe I'm being a low key fool and I'm not understanding that so I might as well put the fool ascribing aside and listen and and you know, that feels good. It's a cool way to do it. You

[00:29:02] spk_0: just shifted accents for

[00:29:04] spk_1: that. Sometimes you gotta, that's that's my alternative to saying, man, you can't expose all of my tactics in what?

[00:29:16] spk_0: Oh man. Well, I think, I think that's all we have for this one. I think we ran over on this one too, man, we've we've been doing a lot of that lately.

[00:29:24] spk_1: But yeah,

[00:29:25] spk_0: all good. All good. Any final thoughts, man,

[00:29:28] spk_1: Living it. Keep on living with,

[00:29:32] spk_0: keep on enjoying. Uh yeah, so I appreciate y'all listening to another episode of Life next level. We'll see you next time. Mhm.