SDS 431: One-on-one with Kirill: What I learned in 2020

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Welcome to the SuperDataScience podcast. My name is Kirill Eremenko, Data Science Coach and Lifestyle Entrepreneur. And each week we bring you inspiring people and ideas to help you build your successful career in data science. Thanks for being here today, and now let’s make the complex simple. 

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Welcome back to the SuperDataScience podcast, everybody. Super excited to have you back here on the show. This is the final episode of 2020. Happy festive season, and I wish you an amazing 2021, so that a lot of fantastic things happen for you. And today is also, interestingly enough, the final episode that I am recording for this podcast. Why is that? Well, if you’ve been following along with the podcast, you will know that from 2021, Jon Krohn is taking over as the host of the show. I know this might come as a undesired change to some of our listeners. You might be not very prepared or excited about this. On the other hand, maybe you are very excited and thinking, “Finally, Kirill’s going to stop talking and give somebody else a chance.” 

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In either case, thank you so much for being here, and I can promise you that Jon is an amazing data scientist. He is an experienced, much more experienced than me, data scientist, and he’s going to do a fantastic job. He’s also passionate about helping people, passionate about connecting with people, and bringing new conversations to the SuperDataScience podcast, so give him a chance. I’m sure you will not regret it. And we’ve got some very exciting guests lined up for you at the start of the year already. 

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What is today’s episode about? Well, for the past four years, so this is the fourth time now, I’ve been recording an episode at the very end of the year. Today is, just for your information, 25th December when I am recording this episode. So at the very end of the year, I record an episode with the learnings of the year for me. What is it that I learned? And mostly I record this for myself to kind of recap, “What are the most important things I learned?” Because throughout the year, you’ll see that I share these FiveMinuteFriday episodes which are predominantly about psychology or spirituality, things that I learned about myself, about how to be a better human, how to have more empathy, or better connect with other people, and things like that, how to have less conflict, and lots of things like that. 

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And there’s quite a few of them, you’ll see them throughout the year, but then once a year comes to an end, often when you have so many things, it’s kind of like choice paralysis, but kind of memory paralysis. It’s hard to remember everything, and even more so, apply everything. 

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So I want to pick out the top seven and record them in this episode, so first of all, they’ll be more fresh in my mind going into the next year. Also so that whenever I feel the need can come back and revisit this episode and understand, “Oh, okay. What did I learn in 2020, and what can I now apply in my life?” And also, of course, I want to share these things in case you’re interested. This is all this episode is about. There’s not going to be any data science, so if you’re not interested in this, then this is probably not the episode for you. But in case you are interested, maybe to recap, revisit some of the things that you may have heard previously in a FiveMinuteFriday episode, most of the things will be that we already shared in a FiveMinuteFriday episode. One of them won’t, and that was not intentional. I just was so surprised that that learning will be the sixth learning that I actually hadn’t shared in a FiveMinuteFriday episode. 

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But anyway, so you might want to recap on some of those things, or maybe if you hadn’t, you missed out on some FiveMinuteFriday episode, you’re just starting with the podcast, maybe some of these things will be helpful for you in your life too. So that’s what this episode is about, and without further ado, let’s get started. 

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Okay, so top seven learnings. I’ve put them in an order, unlike when you look at movie reviews, or top 10 things to do in your relationship or something, or that are ordered in reverse order so you have to read through all of them to get to the last one that’s the most important one. I actually put them in the other order, in the opposite order, so the most important ones come first, and for me, how I see them. I sat down and thought, “Which are the most which?” At first, I thought, “What are my top three, what are my top five, and then what are my top seven?” So if at any point you need to leave the podcast, you’ll know that at least you got them in order of importance. Again, that’s the way I perceive them. You might have a different perception. We’ll try to get through this in an hour. Usually these go much longer, but let’s see how we can go. 

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Okay, here we go. So number one top learning for me this year was about back pain. A lot of the other learnings are very important, they’re all important, but they mostly have to do with psychology and with spirituality. Spirituality doesn’t mean, I’ve said this on the podcast many times, but I’ll repeat it again, it doesn’t mean religion. It means understanding yourself better, becoming a better person, becoming more in touch with yourself. So I encompass a lot of things under that, like conflict models, relationship, intelligence, things like that. But so most of them are about that area, so things to do with the mind. But this first learning, super important, one of the rarer type of learnings that have to do with the physical body. 

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Around October, so around the start of October, end of September… Oh, actually, no, this started way earlier. Around June, I started having a bit of back pain. I saw some chiropractors. It was kind of getting better, but not too much. But then in October, at the very beginning of October, I had to lift some heavy suitcases. Just basically I was moving around a little bit, and what happened is, it was not like a specific incident where something happened, and also I was doing some exercises, one of those online exercising, fitness training program. I was like jumping a bit. And what happened is I started having more and more and more severe back pain, to the point where one day I just couldn’t bend down to tie my shoelaces. That’s how bad it was. I couldn’t bend below so that as I was bending over, my hands would not reach. There was a point where I would just stopped. Like I couldn’t go further. 

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And it actually it was so funny, sad, and funny at the same time. I tried for five, maybe seven minutes to tie my shoelaces like this, like that, to bend my legs. I just couldn’t. I had to just tuck my shoelaces in somehow and go walk like that. So that was a huge wake up call. I investigated that more, even before that I had already done an MRI, but then I saw a very cool chiropractor who has also been on the podcast. That episode is number 412. It’s a FiveMinuteFriday episode with that chiropractor. Anyway, he did a full x-ray of the spine and explained the whole situation. 

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So the back pain wasn’t just because of very one-off incident like lifting a suitcase or doing yoga or doing jumping or anything like that. It was actually because over the years, many years I’ve been sitting for work. And what I do is I use my right hand on the mouse and the track pad. And then when I get tired of my left hand, I prop up my head, and your head weighs about three kilos. And so that has been causing me pain in my left scapula, in the top left part of my back of the shoulder, is somehow linked to my neck. But that’s a whole different story. 

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Also, what has it has been doing is giving me slight scoliosis over the years, like over 10 or so years, or maybe more. My back is now a little bit arched, imagine from the bottom of the back, instead of straight up, it goes a bit to the right. There’s a bit arch to the right and it goes back left towards the neck. And so what that does is your lower discs, like the L-4, what is it called? L-4, L-5 and S-1, the discs between those vertebras at the bottom of the back, basically the load that comes on to them is not evenly distributed across the disc. So you have these discs between your spine vertebraes and now because the spine is slightly, ever so slightly crooked, now the left part of the disc has, for me, has more pressure then the right part of the disc. So it’s hard to kind of explain without a visual, but I think it kind of makes sense. 

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So with that, whenever you’re doing an exercise, whenever you’re jumping, whenever you’re lifting something, every single time the left part of the same vertebra, same disc between vertebras is experiencing more pressure than the right part. And eventually, boom, like what happens is like a protrusion or a hernia or something like that. And then that can press on the spinal nerve and lots of problems can come from that. 

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So yeah. Long story short, for me, this is not medical advice. Everybody’s different. So see your doctor about this if you need to, if you something of this resembles. It likely will resemble because according to my chiropractor, 80% of people get this in their lives, lower back pain, and usually starts after 30 years old. I’m right now 31, boom, like clockwork. And so the solution for me was standing desks. I started even before October, but after seeing the chiropractor like in June, July, started trying it out, mixing sitting/standing. But since October, I’ve only being standing. Very rarely do I sit for work, only if I’m super tired, or there’s no other option or something else. But now most of the time, like 95% of the time, or 90 to 95% of the time, I stand for work, like right now I’m recording so I’m standing. 

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I make a makeshift standing desk, or I get one of those standing desks you can get from Amazon, like a standalone standing desk or an extension standing desk that goes on top of your normal desk. Lots of ways to do it. It really helps. For me, anyway, really helps because there’s none of this like sluggishness and so on. And whenever I sit even like for dinner or food, like sitting is reserved for social things, like maybe one day after coronavirus going to a theater, or maybe sitting down for dinner, or like things that are really hard to do standing up like eating, for example. Even when I sit, I focus to sit like a soldier, like really arched back, straight back, not a slouched back, but yeah, the main thing is standing. 

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There’s actually been studies where they insert like a needle into a person’s disc between the vertebrae and measure the pressure on the disc. When you’re lying down it’s the least pressure, when you’re standing, it’s the second least pressure, and when you’re sitting, it’s the highest pressure. So the highest pressure on your discs comes from sitting because you have not just your weight pushing down, but also you have that chair pushing you up from your hips. So you got like double the force and now from both sides. And especially if you’re sitting crooked, that’s going to cause longterm damage. 

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So be careful with that. Standing is much better. Again, not medical advice, but from my experience, from what I’ve heard, standing is much better. People can get used to a standing desk within three months of trying. So you haven’t tried it maybe give it a go. See if this is something that might work for you. And also of course consult with your medical practitioner. There are, of course, individual cases where that might not be the right solution. 

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Yeah. It took me about exactly three months. And at the beginning, it’s really uncomfortable, a bit painful, but then it gets better. Be careful, there’s also, it’s a good idea to get a standing mat for yourself, because if you stand without movement, like a mat encourages you to move more while standing. If you stand without movement, that can cause like thrombosis or problems with veins in the legs. So something not to take lightly, something to research before jumping straight into it. 

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So that was my top learning probably because it caused a lot of physical pain and fear. Right now my back feels much better. Sometimes I get back pain. But again, that’s when I am sitting for like an hour or more, like I started getting a bit of back pain on my left, but that’s something that will take time to cure. I’m really happy that I don’t have that situation where I can’t tie my shoelaces anymore. 

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Okay. So that was learning number one. Let’s move on to learning number two. Learning number two, one of the coolest learnings, really insightful. I was just explaining this to my father yesterday. And yeah, I can say he was quite impressed with this model, and that is I think a testament to the content, because usually it’s quite hard to impress him with this sort of stuff. Anyway, so the model’s called the Internal Conflicts Model. It comes from this book The Ever-Transcending Spirit by Toru Sato. It was recommended to me by my psychologist, the lovely, who’s my psychologist? How could I forget that? Tracy Crossley, that’s right. Lovely Tracy Crossly, who, let me just find what episode she was on. She was on the podcast as well in case you want to hear a bit from her. Let’s see where that was. That was somewhere in the middle of this year, just going through these episodes. Okay. Episode 357, if you want to hear from Tracy Crossley. 

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And so she recommended me a book. It wasn’t on the podcast. This was after, like months after. Really cool book. Loved it. Especially if you just read the first three chapters, you already get a lot of really useful things from it. I got a lot of useful things from it anyway. So the main thing here, the cause of all unhappiness, or most of unhappiness, stress, sadness, anger, frustration, irritation, all these bad things. The cause in most cases is internal conflict. Is not like somebody coming and pushing a button on the back of your skull that says, ” Make Kirill unhappy. Make Kirill sad.” Or something like that. It’s not anything like that. It’s something going inside, and it can be explained with this internal conflict model. And what the model is all about is that expectations versus reality. 

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So imagine reality is like a rectangle. So let’s imagine just a rectangle, that on the left it has a component called your expectations, or your wishes, desires, maybe we’ll just call them expectations. That’s what you expect reality to be, to have been, to be, or to be in the future. That it has been, it is, or it will be in the future. On the right of the rectangle you have what reality actually is. Well, what reality actually was, is, or will be in the future. So that’s our kind of like perception of reality. We have, not just reality, but we need to be fair and say that we always have an expectation, and then also there is reality. 

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So this internal conflict model says that whenever your expectation matches reality, matches what is, let’s talk about the current, the present. When you’re expecting from the present matches what is in the present, then you have no conflict. There is no internal conflict. That’s how it’s defined, and effectively what happens is that you’re kind of content. You’re not thinking about it. It’s not really bothering you. This is just things that are happening, like you kind of forget about that part of your life, there’s other areas where you have expectations. And then there’s reality. 

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Now, when does the conflict happen? Well, the conflict, and hence, the negative emotions, they happen when your expectation of reality is greater, is better, than what reality actually is. So when the left part of the rectangle does not equal to the right part of the rectangle, where they’re different. I’m not talking about the difference in size, but the content. So in the left you expect one thing, but then on the right reality is delivering you something else that’s worse, in your opinion. Like for instance, we’ll look at an example just now, but let’s say, for example, you want the weather to be sunny because you want to go for a walk outside and then you wake up and the weather is rainy, or it’s windy, or it’s cold, or something like that. And you can’t go for your walk. 

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So what you were expecting was one thing. Reality is different. So now you’re upset or sad or angry, frustrated, whatever else. So that’s how this internal conflict model works. And there’s only two ways, there’s only two ways to stop experiencing stress, all those negative emotions. And the first way is to bend reality to your will, to change reality so that the left part, the expectations, will match reality. So basically, you keep your expectations. You change reality to match your expectations. You get out a magic wand, and you change the weather. Now it’s sunny and you can go for your walk. Boom. Reality’s changed. No internal conflict model. No internal conflict, internal expectations match reality. 

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On the other hand, the second option, because that’s not always possible. Sometimes we can change reality. We can, for instance, let’s say you want to get a good grade. You expect you will get a good grade at university or at this thing that you’re studying, or you get a promotion or something. There are certain things in your control. You can study harder. You can work harder. You can really prepare, really dedicate time. You can change the reality. Like you can’t change reality in the past, you can change reality somewhat, you can influence reality in the present and the future. 

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But often there are things that are still out of our control. Like for instance, with the weather, you can’t just go and change the weather. Or even with the exam. You might have studied super hard, you might have prepared all you needed, or even more. But then on the day you just feel sick, or on the day, you have a headache, or there’s an emergency and you just can’t even attend the exam, you have to go somewhere else, and be with somebody because of that emergency. So there are things that we’re not able to control anyway. 

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So then there’s this second way of avoiding this internal, so resolving or getting rid of this internal conflict. And that is by simply accepting reality. So the first way is to keep your expectations, modify reality. The second way is to accept reality, modify your expectations. So whatever reality is, “Okay, it’s raining outside.” If you now change your expectations, you let go of your expectations of it being sunny and you being able to walk outside, and you accept reality for what it is, now your expectation will change. The expectation now becomes the reality. It becomes like, “Oh, well, it’s raining, and there’s nothing I can do about it. That’s my new acceptance. That’s my new expectation of reality. It’s raining today.” And then, boom, you don’t have these negative emotions anymore because there is no more internal conflict. You’ve let go of your expectations, and you’ve accepted reality, meaning that your new expectations match reality. 

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The interesting thing about this theory, another interesting thing about this internal conflict model is that it works both ways. It works for negative things. It also actually works for positive things. Like whenever you feel emotional arousal, whether it’s negative like what we talked about, frustration, anger, fear, and all these negative emotions, anger and so on, already said anger. Or it also works for positive emotional arousal, when you are feeling happy, excited, super pumped about something, things like that. The reason for that emotional arousal is that reality, according to this model, is that reality is delivering, is better than what you were expecting. So you were expecting a certain thing from reality. For instance, let’s say you woke up and you were expecting it to be, you were like, “I expect it not to be raining so I can go for my walk.” 

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Great. But then you wake up and it’s not only not raining, but also it’s not even cloudy, and it’s not windy and the weather is warm and it’s like the perfect setup for a walk. So it’s not just a good setup. It’s a perfect setup. You’re going to be like super excited, like, “Wow, this is even better than I imagined. How cool is that? I’m going to go for my walk, and everything’s going to be amazing.” So what happened there is that reality delivered a reality that is better than your expectation. Again, you have an internal conflict, it just leads to a positive outcome, or like a positive emotion. And we often don’t think about that a lot. 

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Let’s look at an example. This is an interesting example. I used this in the FiveMinuteFriday episode. I will use it here again because I really like how it puts things into perspective. Let’s imagine just wherever you are, take a breath of air. It doesn’t have to be a deep breath of air, this is not yoga or meditation. Just a normal breath of air, as you normally would. Okay. So, now let’s see how you feel. Did you feel super sad about that breath of air? Or angry, frustrated, irritated, unhappy? Probably not. Did you feel, on the other hand, super happy, excited, pumped, positive, super grateful for that breath of air? Probably not as well. Why? Well, because you have an expectation, we all have an expectation, it’s a default expectation that we are entitled to have a breath of air. Moreover, the breath of air of of the quality that you just breathed in. Because you’re used to it. You’ve probably been breathing this air for past few months, years, maybe decades, depends on how long you’ve been living in that city or house that you’re in. 

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Now imagine that you are… So basically what happens is your expectation of reality, having the right to breathe this quality air or the air of this exact quality, approximately this quality, is matching what is actually happening when you took that breath of air in. And so day to day, we take these breaths, we don’t even think about it. It causes no internal conflict. There’s no emotional arousal. It’s just happening in the background. Now, imagine you are right now taken and transported with a teleportation device to some city where there’s a lot of pollution, a lot of factories working, churning out all the time, air is super polluted, and people still live there. And these cities exist. Imagine like you’re transported there, all of a sudden, and you take a breath of air again there. What happens? 

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Now you are forced to breathe this polluted air. You are offended, unhappy, upset. You are confused. You are sad. And all these negative emotions come. Why is that? Well, because you have an expectation that you can breathe that air of the quality of where you were, let’s say air of quality A, but now you are a new place where the reality is that you’re breathing air of quality B, and it’s much worse. It’s much worse than your expectation. So you have this internal conflict, reality doesn’t match your expectation, and it’s worse than your expectation, negative, emotional arousal, all these negative feelings. 

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So, next step. Imagine you live there for six months. Eventually you’ll get used to it, like people do who live there. You might be unhappy for a few days, a week, a month or so, but then reality will take over. Reality always does takeover. It’s going to completely erase your previous expectations and you’re going to be forced to accept the new reality, and thereby your new expectation is that I am breathing this quality of air, poor quality, quality B. That is your new expectation. It’s not great air. You understand it when you think about it, but there’s nothing you can do about it. So your expectation is that. And reality delivers that. You’re breathing air quality B. And there is no more internal conflict. What you expect, air quality B, having been entitled to a breath of air of quality B is matching reality. So no internal conflict. You don’t even think about it anymore. You just walk around breathing this air. You’ve got other things to do. It’s not causing any emotional arousal because there’s no internal conflict. 

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Now let’s say after those six months, boom, all of a sudden with teleportation, you’re transported back to where you are right now. And you take your first breath of air, and you’re so inspired, so grateful, so excited, so pumped, so like alive, you feel so much positivity because, wow, how good is this air that you’re breathing? Why is that? Well, what just happened is your expectation is to breathe air of quality B, the poor quality. But because you were teleported now the reality is you’re breathing air of quality A again. And so all of a sudden reality is delivering something that is greater than your expectation. It doesn’t equate your expectation, therefore, there’s again an internal conflict model, but because it’s greater than what your expectation is, it’s leading to positive emotional arousal and all these positive, amazing feelings. 

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Very interesting, because in that scenario, you just took a breath of air that I asked you to take like five minutes ago at the start of this example. It’s the same breath of air, but in the first case, it didn’t mean anything to you, didn’t give you any emotions at all. In the second case, it gave you all these positive emotions, all this amazing feeling. Guess what? Over time you’ll get used to it. Six months later, you won’t, that new reality will again take over, like displace your expectation, override your expectation and your new expectation will be of breathing quality air A, you move back to this beginning of the scenario. 

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And that’s just also an illustration of like how humans adapt. We adapt over time. We might have expectations, but then reality kicks in. And over time we adapt. You can see it as a good thing, as a bad thing, but that’s what it is. 

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So bottom line here is that there will always be an emotional arousal, whether positive or negative when expectation doesn’t match reality. If expectation is less than reality, then there’ll be positive emotional arousal, if expectation is greater than reality, there’ll be negative emotional arousal. Some people… And that’s also the difference between pessimists and optimists. Optimists tend to have a lesser expectation of reality, so they’re usually very excited about reality. Whereas pessimists usually have higher expectations of reality than reality is, so they’re usually unhappy about reality. The answer here is not to just always reduce your expectations to always be happy. That’s not the point. It will work probably, but the answer here is, what do we do in terms of… Which approach do we take? Do we take approach of bending reality to our expectations so that there’s no difference between the two, or do we take the approach of accepting reality and letting go of our expectations? 

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The first one where you bend reality, you keep your expectations. You bend reality, you make it happen, you make it so the way you want it to be. Those are really like go-getters, ambitious people, controlling people, people control a lot. A great example is Monica from the TV show Friends. One of her quotes is, “Rules are great. Rules allow us to have fun.” Something our rules allow us to have more fun. She has some interesting quotes like that. So she tries to control everything so that the reality matches her expectation. On the right side… So that’s on the left of the spectrum, for example, if you take a spectrum, so somebody very controlling on the left. 

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On the right you have a Buddhist monk who just sits somewhere in the mountains in Tibet, or somewhere else, and they just accept everything. If it’s raining, I get wet. If there’s no food, I’ll just eat one grain of rice, even if I have that, if I get hurt, I get hurt, if I have something to do, I have, I don’t, I don’t. They just basically accept everything that comes their way, and it’s they’re the epitome of accepting reality. We are mortals and we are morals as the book puts it. We can’t afford to just be Buddhist monks all the time in our lives as long as we still have desires. That’s why Buddhists say, abandon hope or the desire. I think Buddhists say this part, the desire is like a source of all suffering, something along those lines. 

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As long as we have desires, as long as we have ambitions and goals and things that we want to accomplish in life, which are not bad things, depends on how you want to live your life. It’s totally fair to do that. But as long as you have those, you cannot let go of everything except reality in all cases, sometimes you will need to make things happen. You will need to go and do stuff so that reality… You influence reality to the point, you can, trying or aiming to get an outcome that you want. As long as we live that kind of life, we can’t just let go of everything. 

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But the question becomes to what extent do you let go of things? And in what situations do you control things? When is it important to put an effort and go through stress and make it happen? And which cases it’s okay, it’s acceptable to you personally, to let go of your expectations and just accept reality. That has been a very interesting exploration for me. Whenever I feel it’s much easier to work with this when you have negative emotions, because then you remember. When you have positive emotions you can get carried away. You are feeling good after all, why would you apply this internal conflict model and to try to get rid of your positive emotions as well. 

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But that’s ultimately what a Buddhist monk would do. They wouldn’t just get rid of negative emotions, they would also get rid of positive emotions as I understand it. Because they want to have no internal conflict whatsoever, and if by no emotional arousal at all. They just want to be completely at peace. That’s what they’re aiming for, not always happy. But anyway, whenever you’re having a negative emotional arousal like some negative feelings, or positive emotional arousal, again at the start, I think at least for me, even if I focus those on the negative times, that’s already a good start. 

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Just looking at those moments and saying like, “Why am I feeling like this? Why am I unhappy right now? Why am I sad, frustrated, irritated, upset, or whatever else, why am I experiencing what I’m experiencing?” Or like stress or irritation or whatever else, asking myself. It’s always, and according to this model, it’s always, or I don’t know, maybe there are some like one or 5% of the cases where it doesn’t fit this model. I don’t know. I haven’t encountered them. But let’s say in 95% of the cases is going to be an internal conflict that’s happening right now because I expect one thing and what is reality is something else. Or, actually, it can be something in the past. It can be like, I expected, I should have said this. I forgot to say this to this bit, or I said it wrong, now we’re not friends or now there’s a problem. What, I should’ve done it differently. I’m expecting, or my wish, my desire is that reality would have been different to what it was. 

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That’s never possible to change. We don’t have time machines. You can’t just go in and change that. So that that’s a lost course right away. Or it can be about the future. You can be thinking, “Oh, I really hope that this person likes me.” Or, “I really hope that my mom cooks curry for dinner.” Or, “I really hope that…” That whole weather example, “I really hope that…” I can’t even think of it like that, “My arm heal.” Like if you have a hurt arm, like, “My arm heals better and I’ll be able to use it as much as I was able to before.” Like I’ll be able to still play baseball or basketball, whatever else. 

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Again, we’re stressing about something in the future, we want reality in a certain way, but a reality might deliver something else. And we know that and thereby we have this internal conflict model. So for me, the answer is, I want to look at why am I feeling this negative feeling? Or positive feeling… Let’s focus on negative for now. Why am I feeling this negative feeling? Where’s the internal conflict? Finding it and pinpointing it, it’s really interesting. You can be like a detective in your own mind. Like, where’s this internal conflict? I expect this, this is what is happening now, or this is what have had or what happened in the past. This is what will likely happen in the future and if it doesn’t match what I expect. 

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Then deciding for yourself, is this important enough for me to continue feeling stressed until I go and resolve it and influence reality so that it becomes what I want it to be. Is it important? And there are some questions like that. Is it to do with your goals, your responsibilities at work, or as a parent or as a significant other or as a child? It might be to do with just basically important things in your life that you value that are important to you. Then you decide for yourself, “Okay, I’m going to continue going through stress until I get it done. Until I bend reality because it has to happen.” Or if it’s something not as important, like going for a walk today, or, I don’t know, like what you’re going to eat for dinner, or something that is not important, or you realize that is out of your control. Your arm is going to heal the way it’s going to heal. Unless there’s something you can actually do about it, you might realize, “Well, there’s nothing I can do about it.” 

(00:37:47):
I can take these precautions but beyond that, there’s nothing else I can do about it. Realizing that it’s not important or it’s nothing that can be done and not something that something can be done about, and then just letting go of those expectations and accepting reality for what it is or what was or for what it might be in the future. That’s the internal conflict model. And that’s how also to address it and get rid of that internal conflict. I hope this part was helpful. I really like this learning and it’s been one of the recent learnings a few months from me and I love applying it. Hopefully you can get something out of it too. 

(00:38:29):
That was number two. Number three, what acceptance really means. So what acceptance really means often we hear that in a relationship, you need to accept the other person for who they are, and that’s that. That’s like the pre emphasis of a happy relationship. I heard that, I kind of got it, but never until this learning I understood. And this was thank you to Tracy for explaining it to me what it actually means. 

(00:39:06):
The way to look at it is if something irritates you in the other person. For example, they may be burp, they tell stupid jokes, they might be greedy, they might be forgetful. They might be easily triggered, they might not be good with kids. They might not be attentive enough, they might not be emotionally connected. They might be distant, they might be a pathological liar, they might be an occasional liar. They might be, I don’t know, not a good swimmer. They might not like dessert. They might really love watching Netflix and TV shows, or they might not love watching Netflix and TV shows. They might read books too much, too often. Maybe they don’t read enough books in your perspective. Maybe they chew too loud. Whatever something. 

(00:40:03):
There’s going to be things you’re going to like about a person and there’re going to be the things that you don’t like, and more of that might irritate or trigger you about a person. The reason for that is that we’re all different. Even twins are different to a certain extent. You’re never going to find an identical copy of us. How boring would that be? Even if you were like, and we’re talking about, in this case, let’s talk about a relationship. In a relationship, if you’re dating somebody who’s almost an identical copy of yourself, there’s no variety in that. You can predict everything that’s going to happen. You’re going to get bored. 

(00:40:42):
There’s a whole different story. This whole getting bored thing and stuff like that because according to spirituality, boredom is actually not a bad thing and there’s nothing wrong with getting bored and things like that. But let’s just face reality as it is. You’re never going to find an identical copy of yourself. There’s always going to be differences between people. Whether it’s cultural differences, differences in nature, differences in a nurture, how you were brought up and things like that. There’s always going to be certain differences. There going to be things you like, and there going to be things you’re going to dislike. 

(00:41:21):
When there’s something that you come across that you dislike, what we often try to do, is we often try to change the other person. We often try to influence them to change that behavior, to become different, to become better in our view. We want to make them a better person. And you might tell them like, outright “Hey, this is annoying me. Can you please stop doing that. Can you please change who you are”… “Change this behavior or change your… These words that you say”, or whatever else. Or you can manipulate them into changing. You might like when, for example, when they’re doing that behavior, you will give them a glare or you’ll get upset, and then they have to go on guessing what that was all about. Or you might, when they’re doing the opposite of that behavior, you might reward them with a smile or a kiss or be very attentive to them. There’s ways of doing it directly or indirectly and also subconsciously manipulating people into changing. Both are terrible. Both are terrible, equally terrible ways. Probably the second one is even worse because it’s not direct. But they’re terrible ways because none of that should happen. There’s only two things. There’s only two possibilities. When you are in a relationship with somebody and they’re doing something that you don’t like, there’s only two possibilities and both rest within you. It’s not to do with the other person, it’s totally to do with you. One of the possibilities is to accept it and learn to live with it. For instance, if your significant other is a loud chewer. There are people like that who chew very loud whether if their mouth open or closed. But even with their mouth closed, they chew. Just their jaw structure is such that they chew very loud and you can hear everything. 

(00:43:32):
You can learn to accept that and learn to live with it. Or the second option is this behavior or this thing that you observe is a deal breaker. In that case, you do not accept it and you break up with the other person. For instance, if there are a loud chewer and there’s just no way you can accept it, it’s going to frustrate you for the rest of your life. That’s it. You don’t accept it and you break up, that’s it. You cannot ask, you cannot expect the other person to change. 

(00:44:10):
Loud chewing is a difficult example because in most cases I guess you physically can’t change that at all. But there are behaviors that potentially a person could change. So for instance, they tell a lot of stupid jokes. You can either accept it, or it’s a deal breaker and you break up with them. You cannot say to the other person, it’s not right to tell the other person you should stop saying these stupid jokes, they’re annoying me, they’re frustrating, I get triggered when you say them. 

(00:44:40):
That’s not on the other person. That’s on you. You, it’s your choice. It’s not your choice, it’s your feelings that you need to take control of and understand and dig deeper on and where they’re coming from. What thing in your childhood made you have this reaction to stupid jokes or have this lack of patience, or why exactly is it? What is it that is triggering you? And then you dig deeper into your own psychology and understand, what is it that is so triggering to you and why is it that way? And can you change yourself to be with this other person? If you can, you will learn to accept and live with it or if you can’t, then you it’ll be a deal breaker. 

(00:45:29):
Some things are conventionally accepted to be deal breakers around the world. Some things are conventionally accepted to be that you can get used to. I don’t know, like for example, if somebody is a… Like if somebody doesn’t put down the toilet seat after themselves. That is something you can get used to. In most cases for people into relationships, it’s not a deal breaker. But still they try to change it. They try to convince the other person that they need to put down the toilet seat. We’ll get back to that in a second. But overall, it’s something you can live with. You can just put it down yourself. 

(00:46:09):
On the other hand, there’s things that are conventionally accepted to be deal breakers, and that is, for instance, if a person is unfaithful. If they have a habit of going and sleeping with other people and cheating. In most cases that is considered to be a deal breaker. Not in all cases. In some relationships, people learn to live and deal with that, and that’s up to them. But in most cases, from what I’ve heard, from what I know, that’s considered to be a deal breaker. So in that case, you don’t tolerate it. You don’t learn to live with. You just realize, well, that’s who they are. Whether they change or will not, I don’t know. That’s a deal breaker for me and I can’t be with a person like that and you leave. Going back to this toilet seat example or any one of these examples, the thing is that someone will only change, and this is the key here, someone will only change what they do, who they are, how they behave, what they say, the mannerisms and things like that. Someone will only change if it’s in their best interest. If they want it for themselves, for their future, if they see that this will help them be a better person. 

(00:47:35):
If your spouse or your significant other understands that putting down the toilet seat is something they want to do, they want to learn, they want to… It will be better for them. Not because of you. This is the key thing. Not because it’ll satisfy you or it will make you happier, or it will make their relationship better with you because you will be happier. No, it’ll make them better in their view even without you. Even if you didn’t exist in their life tomorrow, starting to where you don’t exist in their life anymore, they still want to learn the habit of putting down the toilet seat. 

(00:48:15):
If that’s the conviction they have, then they will work on it and they will change. If they do it, on the other hand, if they do it just for you because you are asking them to change, you are either manipulating them into changing or just directly asking or telling them that this is what you want. If they’re going to do it just for you, they might get it done. They might change a habit, but what will happen is they will resent you and then they will resent themselves for giving up or for changing, for becoming someone else for someone else. 

(00:48:50):
We’re all individual humans, we’re all equal, we all have a life to live. And it’s not right for anybody to live that life a certain way because that pleases somebody else. It should only be our decision based on what we want for ourselves. So be careful of this. When you ask someone else to change, when you ask or influence someone else to change, you’re playing with fire because they eventually will realize that they’re not living their life. They’re living a life that you want them to live, that you expect or that pleases you. And the more this happens, the more resentful they will get towards you or towards themselves. And that’s how a lot of relationships, as I understand, actually fall apart. 

(00:49:50):
On the other hand, the more freedom you give to someone, the less you expect of them. The more you can deal with these issues in yourself. It’s okay to go up to your significant other and say that, “Hey, I love you. And just so you know, when you leave the toilet seat up, this is how I feel. But it’s not on you, it’s completely on me. I just wanted to let you know that this is a me thing, and I’m dealing with it and I will understand. It’s a learning for me.” It’s okay to share once this… Well, once in a while to share just what you’re going through. 

(00:50:38):
There’s nobody, no restriction on expressing and being open and communicate. You don’t have to keep those feelings in and work on them all in solitude, isolation and not communicate. It’s okay to say that. But it’s also important to say that, “I don’t expect you to change and to put the toilet seat down. I just thought I would be open with you about what I’m going through.” And then the other person… The key here is not to make the other person, or not to aim for the other person to start feeling guilty that they are causing you to feel this way. 

(00:51:10):
No, you feel this way because you feel this way, because your background, the way you were brought up, maybe your parents were very strict about putting this toilet seat down in your family and there was repercussions for not keeping it down and maybe your sibling managed to get away with it and you couldn’t get away with it and then they blamed it all on you. And because of that you have this emotional trauma from when you were five years old and now every time you see the toilet seat up, you get a jolt of electricity go through your body. 

(00:51:42):
That’s on you. That’s your background. That’s your story. Everybody has their own story. So that’s something you need to explore and deal with and understand that they might have a completely different background. In their family maybe nobody cared about how the toilet seat was, or maybe on the reverse, everybody was like, “No, we have to keep the toilet seat up because we have trained our dog and this dog can now go to the toilet, but can to do it when the toilet seat is up.” And so on, and so everybody was super excited. There was a lot of emotion about keeping this toilet seat up, and they remember that from their childhood. So why is your story more important than their story? Was your background more important than their background? 

(00:52:18):
You are okay to share your feelings, how you feel and what you’re doing and going through. But the goal is not to make the other person… You can’t make the other person… That expectation that the other person will feel guilty or start to change, it’s just a part of the open communication in a relationship. Then the other person is entitled to decide for themselves freely. Oh, wow. Okay. So this toilet seat thing. It’s not a big deal for me. I think actually, you know what? I think it will be better for me, not because of my relationship. Not because of my partner, but for me, it will be better if I start putting it down. Because indeed I actually it looks more pleasant when it’s down. It matches the bathroom tiles or something like that, or we have this drain problem and there’s less smell. This is extreme, they probably wouldn’t think this. 

(00:53:20):
But ideally, the thought process should be along the lines of, as I understand it, along the, even if I wasn’t with my partner, even if we were to break up tomorrow, that’s a really cool idea. I think I will want this in my life to keep putting this toilet seat down. No matter who I’m with, if I’m single, if I’m with someone else, if we’re together or not, just for myself. That’s a good idea. Or they might decide, “No, actually, you know what? This is not a good idea to put the toilet seat down. It’s not something that’s useful to me, it’s not something I want to change in my life.” Then you need to accept whatever they decide. You shouldn’t even expect that they will decide and change something, but you need to accept however they want to live their life. They might keep keeping it up, putting it down, but it doesn’t mean just because you told them what you go through and how you feel when you see this toilet seat up, it doesn’t mean that now you’re entitled for them to make this conclusion that they need to change. No, there should be no such expectation. That’s the hard part. Giving this feedback in such a way and being very careful in communicating. Not feedback, feedback is not the right word. Give it, telling the other person how you feel just to share your feelings, but without it becoming feedback for them to change. 

(00:54:42):
That’s a very tricky part, but that’s what intimate, good, healthy relation is about, where you can communicate these things and the other person doesn’t jump to feeling, “Oh, I have to change and I’m feeling guilty about this.” Or you were saying in an accusatory way or whatever else. Well, you’re just communicating your feelings and the other person, “Oh, okay. I see.” They see how you feel and they talk to you about your feelings, but then they might not even take any action from there. So yeah, that’s a very fine line there and can impact a lot of people. And a lot of people in a lot of way. I think in most relationships, people have these certain expectations. There’s things they like, the’re things they dislike, and they want these things that they dislike that they go away. 

(00:55:28):
The final thought here is that you should, you can, not you should, but you can also apply this rule to yourself. I think it’s a good idea to apply this rule to yourself. Never change for someone else. You think you might be doing them a favor, and you might be strengthening your relationship, but you’re actually hurting the relationship. If you start changing for someone else just because they want you to, then you are going to eventually resent them and resent yourself. 

(00:56:01):
Only change your habits, behaviors, opinions, or perspectives, what are they called? Mannerisms and things like that, only if you truly want it for yourself. And the key question, like the litmus test here is ask yourself the question, if you end up not being with the other person. If tomorrow this person disappears from your life, do you still want to change that thing? Or is it just easier for you not to change? Is it not so important in your life that you wouldn’t want to change it if you were by yourself? Or is it indeed a way for spiritual or some other type of growth? That’s the question that should be asked. 

(00:56:47):
I feel I need to pre-phase or post-phase this by saying I’m not a psychologist, this felt like quite heavy. This whole third learning. I’m not a psychologist or psychiatrist or any professional in that space. These are my opinions, I might be wrong so please take this with a grain of salt and also maybe consult somebody who’s a professional in this space and can give you an opinion if this is correct and useful for you or not correct and useful for you. But this is how I see things. 

(00:57:22):
Okay, that was learnings one, two and three. Are you getting a little bit tired yet? That was just a heavy one I think. That’s a heavy one because it impacts lot of people, a lot of relationships, and it’s a hard one as well. We’re so used to expecting other people to change and really hard to catch. We all do it. I think we all do it, I definitely do it a lot and that’s something I need to get rid of for sure, because that’s not the way to a healthy, fulfilled, happy relationship. Let’s move on to some other stuff. 

(00:58:08):
That was topic three so far, moving on to number four. Number four was in a recent FiveMinuteFriday episode, intellect versus intelligence. Well, it is called intellect and intelligence, or you can also call it the intellectualizing versus the knowing. The idea here is that… So this was from MZ, who is our team coach, and he has a lot of interesting thoughts and can share cool ideas about spirituality. One time we were talking and he shared this with me, that there is intellect and there’s intelligence. And the way we use them interchangeably in the society is one way of looking at it, but according to a lot of like spiritual teachers, intellect and intelligence are distinctly different things. 

(00:59:08):
Intellect is when you come up with reasons and you have logic, reasoning, pros and cons, all that kind of stuff. Stuff that we’re used to and I dare to say that we’re pretty good at as humans and more importantly like in data science, it’s something that’s we’re hardwired to do. Like follow logic and mathematics and calculations and things like that. Intelligence on the other hand is just a knowing, an inner knowing. You can call it your intuition, you can call it guidance from the universe. You can call it like, I don’t know, your… What else can it be called? Intuition, guidance from the universe, some inner voice, something like when you just know the answer. 

(01:00:03):
So how many times have you had a situation where you know that you need to go down this road, but you have road A and road B? You need to go down road A, but then intellectually, you convince yourself that, hey, no, road B’s going to be shorter, or road B is actually the correct one. You go down road B, even when you’re driving, walking, or metaphorically speaking, when you need to make a decision in your career path or life, and you go down road B, just to find out that there’s road work, or there’s a construction site, or there’s a big traffic jam. And eventually, you end up turning around anyway and going down road A, or you have a massive delay, and then you realize that road A was the correct one to go down in the first place, even though you had all this intellectualizing. 

(01:00:54):
Well, that’s actually a great example because when we intellectualize, we use our intellect. We base it off of the facts that we have in our brain. And no matter how big your brain is, no matter how many facts you’ve read, you are just, you’re limited to those facts. There’s way more facts out there in the universe, out there in the world, world around you. And even if you have all the facts available on the internet, all the facts that are digitalized, there are still a lot of other facts that are not digitalized because the world has infinite information flowing around all the time, not on the internet, just in the world, like trees and the way the wind is blowing, the way the sun is shining. I know the way the ants are crawling across the road, and things like that. There’s a lot of information that we’re not taking account. We cannot possibly take into account with intellect. And as much as we want to intellectualize it, there’s a probability, there’s uncertainty, there’s a probability of going wrong. Whereas with intelligence, sometimes you just know. And when you follow that feeling, then you end up doing what’s, according to this view, you end up doing what is right, what is the correct thing to do. And even though it might lead to the wrong results at the beginning, what looks wrong to you. Right? Maybe you go down road A, and that’s where the traffic jam is. And then you’re like, “Damn. I should’ve listened to my intellect and gone down road B. And then I would’ve been on time.” But maybe you’re not meant to be there on time. Maybe by being there on time and attending this interview, you would’ve taken up a job where that company is disbanded three months, five months from now, and you end up jobless. Whereas, by going down road A, the one that your intelligence told you to go down, you end up in this traffic jam, you miss the interview. But then two days later, you get an invitation to a different interview with a better job, that that’s the one that’s meant for you. 

(01:03:03):
So in order to accept this intellect versus intelligence, of course, it’s necessary to also have this view that there’s things that, there’s some guidance that we are guided often in our lives to certain events, to certain outcomes, to certain circumstances that we’re not here all on our own. It’s a hard one to debate, of course, I believe in that. You might not, and that’s fair enough. So we won’t spend too much time on this. There’s just one thing I guess I want to mention here, is that MZ had recommended to me a documentary, and I haven’t watched it yet. I really want to watch it, so I believe it’s on that topic of intellect versus intelligence and the role of spirituality in our lives, the role of knowing this inner knowing. I’m not sure. It might be completely different. 

(01:04:04):
I haven’t watched it yet, but it’s about a quantum physicist called David Bohm, B-O-H-M. The film is called Infinite Potential. So yeah, maybe if you’re up for an interesting documentary, you might find that useful. And if you’re open to this whole idea of intellect versus intelligence, again, I’m not 100% sure that’s what it’s about, but I suspect that was what it’s about. I just forgot our conversation. Yeah, so that’s pretty much it. That’s all I wanted to say on this topic. There is one more thing I wanted to say. If you believe in this intelligence, that there is this inner guidance, this inner knowing … Oh, another book, by the way, where this is talked a lot about is Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill. I think I read, I listened to about half or just less than half of the book. I haven’t gotten to many interesting parts yet, but he talks about that as well. A lot of people actually talk about that. 

(01:05:11):
I believe Einstein, don’t quote me on this, but I believe Einstein also talked about this later on. Yeah, that ideas come not when you’re thinking a lot about it, but when your mind is at peace, they just come from somewhere. Anyway, so what I was going to say is if you believe in these things, if you believe in this, then for me, the more I follow intelligence, the less I follow intellect, the less problems I have in life, the less kind of stress, the less stress I have in life because it’s stressful to try and intellectualize everything all the time. Sometimes when I have an inner feeling that I should do it a certain way, I just go and follow that. Not always, and I’m getting better at it, but I just go and do that, and things work out. 

(01:06:04):
One example, an example that you’ll probably find close maybe to you, maybe to your heart, is the decision I made about stepping down as the podcast host for the show. I don’t have an intellectual reason for it. I don’t have … I could come up with … I could intellectualize it as much as I could intellectualize staying the host of this podcast, but I don’t need to because at some point, I just had this feeling and this inner knowing that it’s time. It’s time to step down from the podcast as the host, and that’s the right thing to do. And that’s all, I tried maybe a little bit to intellectualize it and understand why and so on. But again, I could come up with as many reasons for stepping down, I could come up with as many reasons for staying the host of the podcast. And that’s just not going to lead to anything good. 

(01:07:11):
While I felt this is the right thing for me to host the podcast and be the host of the podcast, great. But then at some point, I felt it’s time. And I don’t know why. It’s really hard, as Steve Jobs said once, it’s really hard to connect the dots looking forward, but it’s much easier to connect them looking backwards. I don’t know why it’s the right thing to do right now, but I guess maybe 10 years from now, I’ll be able to look back and see why it was the right thing to do right now and what it led to. So we can just live and find out. Yeah, so that’s I guess an example of intellect versus intelligence. 

(01:07:57):
Yeah. And let’s move onto the next one. So that was number four, intellect versus intelligence. Number five is needs versus wants, desires and wishes. Often in life, we come across a question, with the caveat, if we choose to be in an intimate relationship with somebody, often in life we come across a question. Who do we prioritize? Do we prioritize the other person, our intimate partner, or significant other? Or do we prioritize ourselves? And how do you choose what to do in which scenario? And that’s why having kind of a system for that, like a system of values around that, can be helpful because these decisions can be hard. And often, we can end up doing something that in the end, we’re not comfortable with, or we feel we’re neglecting our partner, or we’re neglecting ourselves, and it can be tough. It can be tough to make this choice. But if you in advance sit down and think about it and structure it, okay, so in this case, I do this, in this case, I do that. It becomes easier because you’ve already put the thinking into it behind when you’re fresh of mind, you have this sober thinking, rather than in the moment when it’s a stressful time, or there’s emotions involved, it’s hard to make that call. So what I wanted to explore here is a one way, one system of making these decisions. It might be a system that resonates with you, might not. But let’s have a look. Let’s look into, and then you can decide for yourself if it’s a good system, or what you want to take out of it, or if it’s not a good system. And then you can come up with your own system if you like. 

(01:09:56):
So this system has two distinct categories. One category is needs, another category is wants, desires and wishes. Needs are inward things that you need physically, your body needs, like I don’t know, sleep, or food, or physical rest, or it might be spiritual things, spiritual needs, needs like you need to undergo a certain learning, or undergo a certain experience. You feel you need that for your spiritual growth. Could be needs of the mind. You might need mental rest. You just need to have some calm, quiet time. Those are needs. On the other hand, wants, wishes and desires, those are external priorities. For instance, if you want to go and do a hobby, or you want to go and ride a bicycle, or you want to go and workout at the gym, or you want to go and do a crossword puzzle, or you want to go and I don’t know, you want to eat Thai food for dinner and not Indian, or you want to watch Netflix instead of playing a board game, or something like that. Those are wants, wishes, those external things that you could live without, that are not critical, that are not … 

(01:11:43):
I think it’s clear. It’s hard to explain, but I think it’s clear. It’s kind of clear what a difference between a need is and the want, wish, and desire. So when it comes to prioritizing your partner or yourself, the way to look at is different to the two different categories. If you’re looking at the external priorities, the wants, wishes and desires, then here you need to prioritize your partner first, and then yourself. On the other hand, if you’re looking at the inward priorities, if you’re looking at the needs, then here you need to prioritize yourself first, and then your partner. Why is that? Well, let’s look at a few examples. If you are talking about: Where are we going to go? Which movie are we going to watch at the cinema, or on the TV, or on a computer, or Netflix, or whatever? That’s a want, wish, desire, unless you feel it’s a need, that you need to watch a certain specific movie because of your spiritual growth, or you just feel this inner knowing that you need to do that, unless it’s that. And it’s like an entertainment thing and so on, and you have a disagreement. 

(01:13:03):
Your partner wants to watch a cartoon and you want to watch an action film, and that’s a want, desire, wish. In that case, there is no actual reason why you have to watch an action film. It’s just what you would like to do, what you want to do. And when you start arguing with your partner about, no, we should watch a … If you communicate that to them, and they’re like, “No, actually, I would really prefer to watch a cartoon,” well, there’s only two ways about it, or three ways, so you watch the cartoon, you watch an action film, or you don’t watch anything. And it would be incorrect. Right? 

(01:13:53):
So here, what would happen first, if you continue arguing, like, “No, we should watch an action film because of this, this, this,” and these reasons, and then they do the same thing, that doesn’t come from a place of love. That doesn’t come from a place of connectedness and understanding and caring for each other. That comes from a place of being right, or winning, or convincing the other person. And that doesn’t, to me, doesn’t feel or sound like, okay, we’re trying to build a loving, caring, intimate relationship here because if both people have that kind of compass that they need to prioritize their wishes, desires, and wants, then it’s always going to be like a pull, like a game of who can pull the rope over. And then at some point, ego will get involved, and you’ll be like, “Well, why do I have to succumb to their wishes? Why can’t my wishes be prioritized? I also have a right to have my wants and desires.” That’s your ego talking. Right? That’s not your inner self talking. That’s your identity. You’re attaching your identity to things, and that’s a whole new can of worms. 

(01:15:06):
Much easier to set your value compass, in this case, if there is a difference, just let the other person’s desires, wishes, wants come true. And how beautiful is it if both people have that attitude? If both people have that attitude, then it’s always going be rather than, no, my wishes should take priority, you’ll be like, “Let’s do your wishes.” “No, let’s do your wishes.” In that case, there’s much more room for creating a loving, caring, beautiful relationship than the first case. And guess what, if you do that, if you prioritize the other person’s wishes, wants and desires, then if this is the right relationship, if this is a relationship that is growing, that the people are both committed to, the other person will notice, and they will start to reciprocate. 

(01:15:57):
They will eventually just … It’s not something you should hope or expect, but normally, I think that’s how it happens. If you are constantly just prioritizing the other person’s wishes, they’re either going to take advantage of it, and you’re going to probably realize for yourself it’s not the right relationship for me, or they’re going to see that, feel it, feel the love that’s coming from you, and do that back in return to you. So you can of course, discuss like, “Oh, yeah. I’m happy to watch cartoons, just don’t want to watch this one specifically because I’ve seen it just recently. Can we watch a different one?” You can agree on things like that. There’s room for discussion. But always coming from a place of giving rather than taking is going to lead to better results in the long-term and a better relationship. That’s the way I see it. 

(01:16:46):
So that’s about external priorities, or external things, wants, wishes, desires. But now when it comes to needs, the story is different. If it’s a need, you should prioritize yourself first, then your partner. So your need comes above their wish, wants and desire, or your need comes even above their need. Why is that? And this is where it’s important to really decide for yourself or understand for yourself what a need for you is, versus a wish, want, desire, because if it’s a need, it is so strong that if you do not fulfill it, then you are not being true to yourself. For example, let’s say, well, a simple one, where your partner wants to go out to the movies, or let’s look at something else. Your partner wants to play a board game together, and you feel you need to sleep. Right? You’re tired, you’re physically, mentally exhausted. You had a big day. Maybe you didn’t sleep well the previous night. Maybe you had a tough day at work. Maybe you’ve been undergoing certain stress, whatever ever the case may be. 

(01:18:16):
But you just feel that this is not … Sleeping might also be a wish, want, desire. You just want to go to bed early, or maybe you just want sleep because you like sleeping, or you’re just feeling in a lazy mood. That’s a different story. But in this case, you’re feeling the physical and mental need to go and sleep, but your partner wants to play a board game. What happens if you prioritize their, in this case, a want, wish, or desire? If you prioritize their want, wish, or desire over your need, what happens is that you go and you play that board game, but you are so tired, you’re not in the mood for a board game. You’re extremely drained, and you’re going to force yourself to pretend to be enjoying it, to be happy. You’re going to effectively be lying to them by just for the sake of them having this entertainment, and they don’t need that either. They don’t want that either. They don’t want a grumpy person playing with them. And they will see or sense through that. Or even if they don’t, in the end, you’re going to resent them for it. You’re going to resent yourself for not taking care of yourself first. 

(01:19:33):
So in that case, it’s very clear that in a loving way, you can say, “Hey, I would love to play a board game. I know how much you love them. But maybe can we do that another time? Because right now, I’m feeling very tired, exhausted. I feel I need to go and sleep.” And then you have your rest, and then we can play the board game another time. It’s a whole different story. So that case is quite straightforward. But not let’s look at an example where it’s two needs. That’s tougher. Right? So for instance, again, you need to sleep. You feel you need to sleep, but your partner’s going through some emotional turmoil. It’s a tough, they’re going through a tough decision or a tough time in their life, something’s happening. And they feel they need some support. They need someone to talk to, someone to listen to them. 

(01:20:25):
So if your desire, if it was a desire, or a want, or a wish to sleep, if you were in that state where you can stay up a bit longer, you can, but you just wish to go, you don’t want to bother with anything, you wish to get to bed on time. You usually go to bed at this time or whatever else, you wish to get up early in the morning to go for a bicycle ride with your mate, and things like that, and so you wish, and thereby you don’t need to go to sleep. You wish, it’s your desire to go to sleep early so you get enough sleep and so on. It’s important to recognize that as a wish, desire, or a want, and to deprioritize that and prioritize your partner’s need. 

(01:21:18):
But on the other hand, if you really feel you need to sleep, like in the previous example, where you are so tired, so exhausted, mentally drained for whatever reason, you know those times, for me, for instance, when I’m so tired I have pain in the front of my forehead, or above over my eyes, I feel pain, I feel like they’re very irritated, my eyes are irritated. So I feel this need, it’s no questions about it. Then again, what happens if you prioritize your partner’s needs? Then you go and you try to support them, listen to them, be there for them emotionally. But in the end, turns out that you’re not there emotionally. You’re not present. You’re just thinking about sleep. Or you’re not listening attentively enough. You’re not paying attention to the things they’re saying. You’re not able to provide emotional support. You’re not able to be there for them. They feel that. They sense it. And they lash out like, “Why are you not listening to me? You don’t care about me,” and all these things. 

(01:22:20):
And you get defensive, you have a conflict on top of the emotional turmoil that they’re already going through. And so in that case, again, it’s important to prioritize your need because that’s just a need that you have. And that’s pretty much it. It’s tough, so it’s tough. And why has this been a big learning for me? Because I used to often, very often, in my views, I’m biased of course because I’m myself, but in my view, I used to neglect my needs and feel resentful. If my partner would ask me, “Hey, can we play a board game?” Or I want to sleep, or I don’t know, watch a movie when you want to sleep. Or I don’t know, some other things. Can we spend time together when I actually feel the need to rest? When I need not necessarily sleep, but rest can be just lying down and listening to an audio book, or lying down and staring at the ceiling, or going for a walk by myself, or something. I feel I need that right now. 

(01:23:28):
I used to always think that, hey, no, let’s prioritize the other person, especially if it comes to a need. Turns out that can backfire and be counterproductive. So there we go, that’s about needs and wants, wishes, and desires, and how you can choose to prioritize, and how I am now choosing to prioritize them. The important thing here is to understand in the moment if that’s a need, or wish, want, desire. I’m nowhere near good enough at that. I have to say, I have to admit, from this learning, the thing that I’m applying the most is prioritizing my needs. So I’m still not there yet with prioritizing the other person’s wishes, wants, and desires. I still have my ego get in the way and I want my wishes, wants and desires. That’s still a big learning I need to undertake. But for now, one thing I have learned and that’s helped me is that if there are needs involved, then however important the other person’s need is, if I have a need, I need to take care of that first, so then I can be there for the other person. 

 (01:24:33):
And one final comment on all this, needs versus wants, wishes, and desires, is communicate your needs. Nobody is a mind reader. Communicate your wishes, wants, and desires. Also communicate your needs. People are better at communicating, from the way I see it, people are better at communicating their wishes, wants and desires than their needs. Nobody’s a mind reader. Nobody can tell that right now you maybe need to sleep, or you need to … You’re really hungry, you need to eat. Or you need rest, or whatever else. And then if you just go and do it, like you go away, be by yourself for a walk or something when the other person thought that you were going to be together, then it becomes like they don’t understand why you’re doing that. So it’s important to communicate your needs to the other person, and that’s part of this open communication. Just keep in mind that nobody is a mind reader. 

(01:25:20):
And that’s something I am terrible at. I’m really bad at communicating my needs, or even often wants, wishes and desires. If it’s a need, I just go and do it and focus on that. But then as mentioned, the other person is, my partner is thinking, “What is going on? Why are they ignoring me, or neglecting me, or whatever?” When I just feel like I need to rest. So the final point there is to communicate your needs. 

(01:25:53):
All right. So we’re at number six, intention versus effect. So this is the one where I was actually very surprised looking through the FiveMinuteFriday episodes just now earlier, a few hours ago, that I hadn’t recorded this one as a FiveMinuteFriday episode. It was a very cool learning. And yeah, so let’s look into it now. This is about interpersonal relationships. Doesn’t have to be intimate relationships, can be with anybody. And it’s about how to remove, how to have less conflict. So imagine a scenario. By the way, this comes from a video by a person called Anastacia Kay. It’s in Russian, so it’ll be hard to follow along if you don’t know Russian. On YouTube it’s called How to Stop Holding Grudges and Resolve Conflicts Productively. But these insights are from a book called Difficult Conversations by Bruce Patton, Douglas Stone, and Sheila Heen. I haven’t read the book. I have the book. I’ve ordered the book. I have it with me. It’s just that I haven’t got a chance to read, but this was so impactful to me that I went and got the book. I started reading the book. Actually, I didn’t quite like how it’s written, but that’s just me. You might like it. Anyway, so this one insight is from that book, and it’s to do with having less conflict. 

(01:27:23):
So we’ll start with an example. I’ll use the same examples that Anastacia used in her YouTube video. So imagine there’s an ambulance behind you in traffic, not in traffic, you’re on the road driving, but then there’s an ambulance behind you, beeping at you, flashing at you to let it go through. You’re going to pull over or change lanes and let the ambulance drive through because clearly something important is happening. Imagine same scenario, but instead of an ambulance, there’s a Bentley behind you who’s flashing its lights to let it through. You’re going to have a completely different reaction. Right? The feeling that is going to be triggered, similar, similar situation. The car needs to get through. But you’re going to have different reaction. You’re going to think that person probably feels they’re entitled. They have an expensive car, so they get to go first, or they get to own the road, and things like that, whereas they might actually also be going through an emergency. There might be somebody that is in danger, or giving birth, or something like that. It’s just our perception is different in most situations. 

(01:28:35):
So let’s have a look at a second example. Second example is electricity shock. There was basically a study done where two groups of people were being observed by scientists. And one of them, well, both of them got an electric shock, like I guess a mild electric shock. In one case, the experiment was set up in such a way to lead the participants to believe that shock was done by accident. In the second scenario, the second group, the experiment was set up in such a way to lead the second group of people to believe that shock was done on purpose. And so then the scientists measured the perception of pain in both groups. In the first group, where it was done by accident, or they thought it was done by accident, the perception of pain was less than in the second group. So when people thought, believed, that they were shocked by electricity on purpose, their perception, they felt that it was more painful, even though it’s exactly the same shock of electricity. For them, it felt more painful because they thought there was an intention to hurt them behind this shock. 

 (01:30:03):
Another example is where two groups of people were given the news of a story where in some company, there were massive pay cuts to the employees. The first group of people were told that this pay cut was necessary because the CEO had done a mistake, and in order for the company to survive, they had to be pay cuts. The second group of people were told that the CEO is greedy. They want more money for themselves, and thereby the employees got pay cuts. Then they were asked about how their perception of the damage that was done to these employees. In the first group, people perceived that less damage was done to the employees, in the second group then people in the second group who perceived that a lot of damageable, more damage was done to the employees by these actions. Interestingly enough, the pay cuts were the same. So in both stories, the employees got exactly the same pay cut. So objectively speaking, the damage to their lifestyles, into their livelihoods was identical. 

(01:30:59):
But because of the backstory, because the backstory is different and because the way people were seeing this, whether it’s CEO had done a mistake and it just there’s no other way, or the way the CEO was greedy, that was influencing how they perceive the damage that was done, even though objectively the damage was the same. So what’s going on here? The thing that’s going on is that our brain is subject to many cognitive biases. And one of them, one of these cognitive biases is to extrapolate the effect someone’s actions have on us onto their intentions i.e. effect equals intentions. So for instance, example, if the way a person thinks or the way we are used to thinking is like, if you did something and it caused me pain, then you wanted to cause me pain. So that’s the key here that if someone does something to us and it causes us pain, our cognitive bias leads us to believe, to assume right away that their intention was to cause us pain. 

(01:32:07):
So that’s the key. And whereas it’s not always the case. In many situations, in most probably situations in interpersonal relationships, people don’t want to cause pain. People have other intentions, people have pure or good intentions, but their actions can cause detriment, can cause pain or suffer. Not suffering, can cause pain, damage or something like that because maybe they made an earnest mistake or maybe there’s differences in perceptions. They see this as not a problematic thing. You see it as a problematic thing. There’s differences in cultures, differences… Lots of reasons why the pain, the effect could be painful without the intention being there to cause pain. 

(01:32:56):
And then what happens? So somebody, this is like the typical story. Somebody who says or does something that causes you pain or causes us pain or let’s say me that causes me pain, I because of my cognitive bias, very important here to remember that this is a cognitive bias. This is just how our brains are hardwired through all the millions of years of evolution. This is just what happens in my brain. I automatically assume they wanted to cause me pain. And then what I do let’s say I maybe I just hold a grudge and I’m upset with them, and I don’t want to talk with them and maybe I’m just going to see them as… 

(01:33:38):
I’ll never talk to them about it and I’ll just see them as a person that wants to hurt me in the future or if I do man up or muster up the courage and get together the will to go and discuss this with them, then what happens next is when I go to resolve it with the other person, usually I would approach them in a way, I would be like, “Why did you do this? That caused me this problem. That caused me pain, or that made me look embarrassed or whatever else.” I usually or would we or humans normally would do is approach it in a way that triggers that person to be defensive. Right? So we carry that forward like if they did something that causes pain, the effect is painful. So we assume through our cognitive bias that the intention was to cause us pain. And when we go talk to them, we carry that assumption forward. We carry it like, “You did this so you caused me pain.” 

(01:34:38):
And you can… Even if you phrase it, you try to phrase it differently, they can sense that you are attacking them, that you are insinuating that they wanted to cause you pain, that they’re a bad person or that was their objective to cause you pain. What happens is because of that, they get defensive, they get triggered, they get defensive and they start protecting themselves. And so it escalates from there. So effectively it has the opposite effect, your going and speaking with them to resolve it has the opposite effect. It actually escalates the conflict instead of resolving it. The correct thing to do here, the advice that I get… Well, that I go from the video and I guess it’s given in the book, the correct thing to do here is to have a learning conversation. A learning conversation is structured very differently to a conversation of just come up to the person and tell them how their actions made you feel. 

(01:35:41):
It still has that purpose to resolve the conflict that’s occurred but it needs to be done very carefully and thought through. Right? So first step is recognizing that… Understanding, okay, what was the action that the other person did. Second, recognizing the effect that it had on you. Third step is understanding what assumption you came up with from that effect. What did your cognitive bias lead you to believe? And now, also appreciating that, so step four is to appreciate that this assumption might be correct, might be partially correct, might be fully incorrect. And now, step five is to think of how you will actually communicate this to that person without triggering them, just trying to resolve this genuinely. Earnestly, trying to resolve the situation, trying to understand where they were coming from rather than attacking them and telling them that they’re a bad person. 

(01:36:44):
So basically here instead, step five is super important. The whole process is super important because the more we liberate the other person from the desire to become defensive, the easier it will be for everybody, the easier this relationship will be, the more smooth it will be, the easier it’ll be to progress. This is a very hard thing to take all of this onus to do all of this on yourself, especially as you were to go and just blurt it out back at the person, tell them about your frustration. Well, you will get what we normally get, an escalation of conflict, defensiveness and no resolution. You really want to resolve it if you really want to grow this relationship. Might be an intimate relationship, might be a professional relationship, might be inter like a family relationship, might be a friendship, might be whatever it could be. 

(01:37:30):
This can happen anywhere. Then it is important to go through these steps, take some time, calm down, go through your steps and craft a way that you will approach them so to minimize the chance of that they’ll get defensive. Example, let’s say you are married, you have kids and your spouse said something in front of the kids, for example, you told the kids that they can have ice cream and they were already getting their stuff together as in preparing to go have ice cream. And then later on you find out that your spouse told them that they can’t have ice cream and that, that’s a bad idea that they’ll get sick or that they don’t haven’t deserved it or whatever else. So the action is that your spouse told the kids that they can’t have ice cream. 

(01:38:24):
The effect it had on you is you feel your reputation or your influence, or kind of the way the kids see you has now been affected. That they see you as less important, or they see you as a liar, or they see you as somebody who promises and can’t deliver on their promise. Now, they trust you less maybe. You feel they trust you less, or you feel embarrassed in front of them or you feel you’ve lost some… Basically I forgot the exact word, but you’ve lost some reputation or their parenting strength in front of them. So you feel bad about that. You feel like, “How dare my spouse do that to me? And I feel like I am less important in the kids’ eyes than her or him. Right, and then my intimate partner how’s that? That’s not fair. They wanted to do that.” Right? 

(01:39:20):
So then that’s then we come to your assumption that your spouse intentionally was scheming or knew that this effect would happen and they wanted you to lose that reputation or authority. That’s the word I was looking for. You lost authority. You feel you lost authority in front of the kids and now your assumption is that when your spouse took that action about telling them they can’t have ice cream, they wanted or they understood that you would lose authority and they wanted you to feel that way, and they wanted you to actually lose that authority. So, that’s step three. Step four is to understand, so that’s the whole conflict, right? We can go through the steps. Basically step one is that the action was to tell them that they can’t have ice cream. It’s effect had that you felt you lost authority in front of the kids. Step three, and you felt embarrassed and step three is okay, assumptions. So what’s the assumption I have? My assumption is that my spouse intended for me to lose authority and feel embarrassed in front of the kids. 

(01:40:18):
Step four will be now, let’s accept, let’s appreciate for a second that this assumption that the spouse wanted or desired, intended for me to feel embarrassed in front of the kids or lose authority in their eyes that, that assumption that they had that intention is maybe correct, maybe partially correct, but also could be incorrect. Right? And as long as I appreciate that makes me stop and think, huh? There’s a possibility, there’s a slight chance. It might it’s just an assumption. It’s not the truth, not the ground truth. Maybe it’s a cognitive bias leading me to believe that. This is possibility it could be incorrect. Let me investigate that further. 

(01:41:01):
And step five is to craft that, how are you going to communicate? So really think through how am I going to communicate with my spouse to tell him or her that… Tell them that this is how I feel and to resolve and understand why they did that. So a way I would do it. It’s that let me try. I’m not an expert on this. I’m just learning. This is a hypothetical example. 

(01:41:20):
But the way I would go about it, I guess is I would go and say, “Hey dear, I would like to talk to you about something. You may have not noticed this, but earlier today you told the kids that they can’t have ice cream. Well, a few hours prior to that, I had told them that they can have ice cream and they were very excited, pumped up to go and have their ice cream. And when you told… After I found out that you told them they can’t have ice cream, I felt like my authority in front of them has been shaken and also I felt a bit embarrassed in front of them because I promised them something that they couldn’t have in the end. And I just wanted to let you know that’s how I felt and could you please help for me to understand where were you coming from when you told them that they can’t have the ice cream so that I just want to understand what you were going through and what went into that action, what was behind that action? It would really help me process this situation and understand my feelings better.” 

(01:42:29):
So if you approach it that way, it’s much less… Compare it to this, for example, “Honey, earlier today I told the kids they’re going to have ice cream. Well actually, I told them that they could have ice cream. So why are you undermining my authority? Why are you making me embarrassed in front of the kids? I feel embarrassed in front of them now. And why are you undermining my authority in front of the kids? We’re supposed to have equal authority. We’re supposed to discuss these decisions. It doesn’t work. It’s not going to work if you’re going to be constantly telling them the opposite of what I say. That’s bad parenting and I don’t understand why this has happened. Can you please clarify for me.” Then compare the first and the second. In the second, what are the chances big props to your spouse if they managed to take that, process it calmly, patiently, and actually communicate with you well. 

(01:43:20):
You’re really reducing the chances speaking of statistics and math and things like that, you’re really minimizing the chances that there’ll be a productive conversation. Most likely you’re going to blow up and like, “I’m undermining your authority? How come you told them that he could have authority before we discussed it? Or I didn’t even know you told them they could have ice cream,” blah and so on and that just going to escalate. So that’s the second one and the first one, much calmer or much more humble, much more focusing on me, say, talking about my feelings, talking about no you, minimal you statements, talking about my feelings, about what I’m going through, how this information will help me process this and whatever else help us better communicate. Things like that. 

(01:44:07):
In the first case, still there’s a chance that the spouse might blow up to that. But the chance is less. There’s a higher chance now that they will really appreciate the way you’re coming to them and the openness that you’re trying to create, an open communication channel that you’re trying to resolve some inner conflict, some inner disbalance, disarming that you’re going through. And as a result, they’re much more likely to communicate with you well. So the whole idea of this approach is to see that effect doesn’t equal intention, that we have a cognitive bias to extrapolate the effect on the intention, but it doesn’t necessarily equal intention, that we have assumptions in our head and also finally, to have good loving, productive… Doesn’t mean if it’s not an intimate relationship, it doesn’t have to be loving but useful communication between people to resolve this conflict. 

(01:45:14):
So that’s I think a very cool thought and as a call to action here, you can pause the audio or after you listen to this whole podcast, so think about… A call to action is to think about an example of when you were triggered, recently when you were triggered by something, whether you did address it with the person, or you didn’t address it with the other person to go through these five steps, understand what the action was, what the effect was in you, the stand that you had, what was the assumption that you made? Appreciate that the assumption might be correct, incorrect, correct partially or incorrect. And finally, to come up with a text like a phrase, and actually say it out loud just for practice sake. A text or a way of addressing the other person that would minimize the desire of them to respond in defensive way. 

(01:46:03):
So you want to liberate them of that desire, that temptation to respond. It’s not a temptation. It’s like a, minimize the chances of them responding in defensive way. Okay. So, that was number six. And finally, to number seven to finish it off, I think this one’s going to be a quick one. Do not take things personally. So it’s kind of actually linked to that previous one, that when somebody tells you something like how they’re feeling, it’s kind of it’s linked to the previous one in the sense that you are on the receiving end of some comment like, “I’m feeling upset because you did this,” or, “I’m feeling frustrated with you because of this,” or, “When you do this, it makes me feel like that,” right? The learning I had this year was that when something like that happens, it’s very easy to get defensive. Right? 

(01:46:59):
So again, it’s very… It’s exactly, it’s the same as number six, but on the… It’s not, well, it’s the same scenario six, but you’re on the receiving end. So what happens when somebody comes and talks to us like that we get triggered. We get defensive like, “Oh, but I didn’t want to…” Let’s continue with the same example, “I didn’t want to undermine your authority with the kids. That wasn’t my intention. I just want them to be healthy. I just… Because they had ice cream yesterday, I really believe it’s too much ice cream or that ice cream place I read on the news that they had an outbreak of…” I was going to say cholera. I don’t know. Salmonella or something like that. Or, “They had guitar practice that they need to go and do and you forgot about that guitar practice,” or whatever else. 

(01:47:44):
So it triggers when somebody comes up to me and says that you doing this caused me to feel this way, or because of you or even worse if they come up and say, “Because of you, I feel this way,” or, “You made me feel this way,” I get triggered to get defensive and to protect my position and tell them how, “No, my intentions were this,” and clarify and so on and in most cases in a defensive way or maybe sometimes in a more loving way, but still it triggers me to be defensive. The thing here is that… I asked my psychologist this question. When is it worthwhile? When should you take something personally? This is exactly what she said. 

(01:48:27):
She said, “The only time you should take something personally if somebody is physically harming you. If it’s just words, if they’re saying words to you, you never should take things personally.” You should get to a point in your personal growth that you don’t… You just… It’s hard of course, we’re all human. But the goal is to not take anything they say personally, anything anybody says personally. That’s anything anybody says, that’s their opinion. That’s their perspective on life. 

(01:49:00):
That’s how they’re interpreting things that are happening, whether it’s my actions or my words, or it’s something else that’s going on. There’s a framework by Tony Robbins that events lead to meaning, meaning leads to emotion, emotion leads to decision, decision needs to action, action leads to life. And this meaning, how do people give meaning to things? Well, it comes from how they were brought up through their cultural unique, things that are unique to their culture, through their nature like what kind of person they are through a lot of things that were put into their heads by their parents, by their people around them when they were between zero and nine years old and maybe a bit older than that. 

(01:49:45):
But a lot of it comes from early childhood. So the way people interpret things is different. So I might say something that to me sounds nice like, “You look beautiful in that dress,” and that other person might interpret that as a critique or an attack or they might interpret it as, “Well, what is he saying? He’s saying I look beautiful in that dress, but I don’t look beautiful in other dresses. I don’t look beautiful just as I am as a human being. I have to have that dress to be beautiful.” Anything you say can be interpreted in so many different ways and you put something good into something you’re saying or doing not letting the kids have ice cream. The other person is interpreting it as an attack on their authority in front of the kids, or that you wanted to make them feel embarrassed in front of the kids, or that you wanted to put them down. 

(01:50:41):
You wanted to be the better parent or that you wanted the kids to understand who’s the boss in the house or something like that. So many things can be interpreted. That the important thing to remember that I’ve realized for myself is that I guess in most things, if not all things I do, I have pure intentions. I have good intentions, pure intentions. I’m not here to harm anybody. I’m not here to put anybody down. I’m not here to harm anybody’s authority or tell people that they’re not beautiful or whatever else. Of course, we all have times when we say nasty things in a fleet or a moment, or and those times are worth, are important to apologize for and recognize it and eradicate from your life. But overall in 95% of the cases I’m just trying to be a good person. 

(01:51:29):
And if somebody is coming to me and saying that you made me feel bad, or you did this, or you did… And because of that I feel like this that’s on them. That’s not me who’s causing. It’s not my intention to cause him the effect things have on them. I’m happy to hear out what effect it had on them. And I’m happy to clarify like in the previous example, if they come in a very calm manner and they explain how they feel, I’m more than happy. I want to have this open communication, but more importantly, this seventh learning for me is that even if they come with an attack at me, I need to be able to calm myself down and see beyond that attack. Right? The attack is because of the cognitive bias that the effect they received, they think that, that was the intention I put behind it. 

(01:52:26):
If I see beyond that, if I let myself be calm and not get triggered and not get defensive, then I can help resolve this conflict. I can help clarify without having to apologize. I don’t believe in apologizing for something that you didn’t… It wasn’t a mistake. It’s just the other person is interpreting it differently. I’m happy to talk about it. I’m happy to clarify it. But I think excessively apologizing for everything leads people to feel entitled that they are always being hurt, that they’re always being wronged and that everybody owes them an apology. I don’t believe in that. I believe that I don’t think that, that’s a good thing. I don’t think… I think that’s enabling people to be more victims all the time. 

(01:53:16):
I think if you do something wrong, definitely apologize for it. But if your intentions are pure or if your intentions are pure and you through pure intentions, you did something but it was a mistake in the end it turned out there was an error somewhere, a mistake or an on the side, like oversight or something then again, you’re going to apologize. But if it’s just the other person’s interpretation of something, then the right thing to do is to clarify it for them to be like, “Oh, I see. Thank you for sharing that with me.” 

(01:53:48):
Even if they come in an attacking accusatory way, the key here is to not take it personally and to be like, “Thank you for sharing that with me. I see you going through emotional stress or that it’s really affected you. Would you like me to clarify what I actually meant? What my intentions were behind this, the meaning I put into it? Would that be helpful?” And then if the person says yes, then you clarify it for them and then I tell them, “Well, actually this is what I meant. I meant that this dress looks fantastic on you and it has nothing to do with how you look in other dress. I think you’re beautiful and you look amazing in ages, but specifically this dress, I just wanted to point out how great you look today.” 

(01:54:28):
Or in the kids example, it might be like, “Honey, I’m not trying to undermine your authority. The intention I had behind this is that they actually had piano lessons and I think that, that was an important thing for them to go and I wanted to remind them that, hey, they need to go to the piano lesson.” Or, “I read in the news that there was an outbreak of salmonella at this ice cream parlor or I didn’t know. I honestly didn’t know you had told them they can have ice cream. Sorry I did it.” So in this case, it’s kind of a mistake, right? So in this case, ” Sorry, I didn’t check with you first or ask them why they thought they could have ice cream. Definitely should have checked and thanks for bringing that to my attention. Please don’t take it as I was trying to undermine your authority, just didn’t know. 

(01:55:12):
Boom, everything really like a conflict resolved. The more we can do this, whether with number six, doing those five steps and addressing replaces, separating effect from intention and addressing somebody appropriately to minimize the chance to get defensive or this number seven, where we ourselves don’t take things personally and we ourselves minimize our chances of getting defensive when somebody comes to us, the more we can do this, the less conflict we’ll have in our lives and the more harmonious our relationships will be. So there we go. We are done with number seven which was do not take things personally. Very interesting how these two, six and seven come hand in hand. I just realized that as when I was writing them down a few days ago, I write them down throughout the year. 

(01:56:01):
I’ve been writing them down throughout the year. But as I was compiling them into the top seven, I realized that they kind of go hand in hand, but I only realize how much they go hand in hand. That it’s the same example. It’s symmetrical just now while I was speaking through it. So, hopefully it will be helpful and you maybe will find some value in this too also. I can’t say also because that would imply that I am having less conflict. I feel I’m having less conflict or I’m learning to have less conflict in my life, but I hope you will find some value in this to have less conflict in your life. So there we go. That’s my top seven learnings of 2020. Thank you very much for being here with me throughout this podcast. I know it’s been over an hour and they always go longer than that. 

(01:56:48):
I don’t know what I was thinking when I was starting to record this and I said I’ll try and make it an hour or less or about an hour. I know kind of what I was thinking. I wanted to be somewhere, but then I realized that it’s just not going to happen. Thank you so much for today and also thank you so much for being here for the past four plus years. So over four years, it’s been a great, amazing, insightful, just fantastic journey for me. I wish to anybody if you ever looking for a great way to grow and challenge yourself and learn, and meet great people to start a podcast, I’ve had a fantastic time here and whether you listen to 100 episodes or listen to one episode, thank you from the bottom of my heart for being here, really pushes me forward and has pushed me forward and it’s just, it’s really nice. 

(01:57:47):
I feel like I am, even though I’ve met a few people listening to this podcast, but nowhere near to everybody, but I still feel a connection. I don’t know how, but I feel a connection. So, thank you so much, and best of luck. I’ll be around and there’s of course ways you can stay in touch, get in touch, maybe on LinkedIn, maybe some other ways. Maybe we’ll meet one day in life, in person and best of luck to you for everything, amazing growth, amazing learnings in the future, and lots of love, joy and peace is what I wish you in this life. And I can’t wait for you to meet Jon and to see what kind of podcast host Jon is going to be for you in the future. Once again, thank you so much and I’ll see you next time. Until then, happy analyzing.