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There's these little pauses that you can build into your life to prevent you from jumping into a reactionary mode and think about responsiveness.
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Welcome to the Happy and Human Podcast.
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I'm your host, Dr.
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Seema Desai.
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And I'm here with my friend and co-host, Dinesh Malani.
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We're a dentist and attorney duo and are both certified coaches who specialize in performance and success coaching.
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In the Happy and Human podcast, we dive into the philosophies, strategies, and tools that help us live happier, healthier, or productive lives that lead to our highest successes, all while creating a deep sense of fulfillment and joy.
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Welcome to our show.
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Dinesh, I want you to play along with me here.
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Let's do it.
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Okay.
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All right.
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So imagine you are away from the office.
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Let's say you're doing something for you.
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You're at your barbecue workshop or you're with your family and ding, you hear the phone ring and you pick it up and you see it's an email and it's from a client and the subject matter is, I need you to call me ASAP.
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What are things that go through your mind and what do you do in situations like this?
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I probably have a little bit of a different view than most people.
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I have to say that what works for me probably wouldn't work for someone else and what works for someone else probably doesn't work for me, but it's so highly fact dependent.
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It is absolutely fact dependent.
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Things that would go into influencing what I did or what I thought would be, what day is it?
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What time of day are we talking about?
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If we're talking about Monday at 10 o'clock of a workday where I am, you know, away from the office about to board a flight or something like that, that's a totally different story than a Sunday night at 9 o'clock or something like that, right?
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And I think I'm not trying to lead what way I would come out.
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Because something at 9 o'clock could be even more urgent than something at Monday at 10 o'clock, right?
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And so I'd need more information to be able to tell you what I would do.
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But assuming it's a regular workday and I'm out at a seminar or a conference and I see my phone, I would tend to call back.
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right away.
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I value and I prioritize responsiveness because responsiveness is one of those tangibles that leads to trust and credibility.
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I don't think a lot of people recognize that responsiveness is a way for people to measure how reliable you are.
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And
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so I tend to prioritize responsiveness over setting a boundary for the sake of boundaries, right?
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Sure.
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And I think if nine times out of 10, I'm responsive, the one time that I'm not, people are more likely to say, okay, well, that's a legitimate boundary, or I can understand why he didn't reply back.
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That's a long way of saying a very legal lawyer oriented answer that it really depends, maybe.
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Of course, there is nuance.
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And I don't think we could really paint a scenario that would accurately represent every variable to consider for the sake of this podcast, right?
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So there is absolutely that to just say right off the bat.
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It's nuanced.
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It depends.
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I love what you said about being responsive.
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That is something that you recognize as a personal value to you, that you want to see in other people, that you recognize as valuable in other people, and also for you to be that person for the people in your life.
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That's a really high sense of awareness that you have.
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I don't know that for me in a past version of myself, I would have been really clear on what my personal values were and whether or not I was acting in accordance with them or whether other people were acting in accordance with them.
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Yeah.
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I think what happens a lot is that we're not clear on what our priorities are.
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Let me give you an example, right?
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Let's say you have coaching clients and your business is to coach people through Zoom and you have set up a meeting with your VA or your accountant or something like that.
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Sure.
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And A client messages you and say, hey, I need to talk right now.
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You're in the middle of this business call that is an internal call.
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A lot of people I've seen would say, no, I've scheduled this time with the accountant.
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This needs to get done.
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This is my priority.
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I'm going to finish this meeting and then get back to the client.
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I actually have a slightly different perspective.
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Your business doesn't exist without that
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coaching client.
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Mm-hmm.
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And there's no need to have an accounting conversation or an internal VA conversation without a business.
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So I dynamically try to prioritize the thing that matters most in that moment.
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Because we can have all these internal meetings all we want.
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There's no money coming in the door.
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There is no business and there's no need to have those meetings, right?
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So I, in that scenario, would say, hang on one second, I need to reschedule this.
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The thing that keeps the light on is the client that needs me right now.
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And so I'm going to get off the phone with you and go to that meeting.
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Now, having said that, after a bit of experience in whatever aspect of life you're in, you can anticipate 90% of urgencies and you can build systems and redundancies in your own life for yourself of where those types of urgencies or things that parachute into your life aren't as disruptive.
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You can manage your mind.
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So you can default less to a reaction and more to a response.
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If anyone thinks that, hey, life is not going to throw you curveballs, I can tell you, I get a curveball three, four times a day.
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And it's all about how do you manage that?
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And how do you see yourself, I think?
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Because as a leader, wherever we all are, we're all leaders.
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This has been articulated on the podcast before.
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As a leader, It is your job to stop the chaos.
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If you think about yourself at a level, at a stratosphere, there's chaos above you.
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It is your job to stop the chaos from permeating below you.
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And if there's chaos below you, it's your job to stop the chaos from permeating above.
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Let me explain what that means.
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Client calls and something happens outside of your control.
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If you let that pass through you, my son gets a concussion.
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And I start freaking out.
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My daughter's going to freak out then, right?
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If there's an urgency in my law firm, in someone who's working, let's say there's a health emergency or financial emergency or something else, they can't do it.
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I let that pass through me to that client.
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That's not a good thing.
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And so that's what I mean as a leader.
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High levels of managing your mind so you're responding as opposed to reacting is what can be...
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beneficial when these types of urgency and curveballs come your way.
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What about you?
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Tell me your perspective.
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What comes to mind for me is that I feel like I'm like a lot of other women who listen to this podcast in that we are coming from the lens of some of us, depending on where we are in our journey, we're people-pleasing and we don't know that we're people-pleasing.
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And we're wondering why we're so exhausted all the time and why it feels so hard.
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And, you know, why we just need a minute to catch a breath.
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And in the moment, it feels like, quote unquote, no one's giving us that moment, right?
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At least those are thoughts that I've had in the past.
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Then you come into the sense of awareness of like, okay, I'm people pleasing.
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I don't really know how to stop.
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I don't know what to do with that piece of information.
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But now I'm aware of this tendency, and that it's not actually serving me.
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And then, you know, you kind of just progress, right?
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So it depends on where you are in your journey.
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But In order to do what you just said, which I completely agree with, as we're all leaders by default or by choice, as people, if we want to create more ease and walk away from many of the stressful situations that can happen without it just jarring us all the time, it's a lot of emotional volatility if we continue to allow the circumstances to dictate what we do.
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If
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we're looking to build some resilience and stability, I do agree with you that you you as the person receiving this information have the opportunity to say, all right, is this actually urgent?
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If you're telling me it's urgent, great.
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How do I want to respond to that?
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And for people pleasers, whether you're a man or a woman or somewhere in between, I don't know how people identify on the show, but that people pleasing, that's another contender with which you're dealing when you're making decisions like this.
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When
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you're unwiring that, oh, I've got to do everything for everybody or you're for fear that I'm going to get reprimanded, lose my job, somebody's going to get hurt, somebody's going to be mad at me.
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Those are all things that kind of come through my mind when things like this happen, whether it's with my kid or
with a client or whoever.
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And I have found that it is immensely helpful when someone's putting urgency on me to stop and just let that sit for a second.
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Because it's very easy to be like, oh my gosh, they said for me to call them ASAP.
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So I'm just going to call.
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And meanwhile, there's other things going on, or you yourself are not mentally in a place where, yeah, you're calling them back.
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But are you calling them back from a mindset that is able to focus and actually be helpful for what they need you for?
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Because if you're calling them back in a frenzy, that's not helpful to anybody.
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Right.
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But isn't a lot of that fictitional story that we make up in our mind about what the consequence is of not calling back.
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Because a lot of urgency, no one puts urgency on anyone.
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The urgency is created.
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I mean, the words ASAP mean, you know, as soon as possible.
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And it doesn't mean right now.
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And so a lot of that is how we interpret it.
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But I want to come back to your people-pleasing topic.
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You know, I'm not sure if people-pleasing registers in my mind as much as not having clear priorities, right?
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for the person, because you can say that it's a people-pleasing tendency, but I think the root of that is not having clear priorities.
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And let me read you a quote from someone.
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I won't tell you who it is, but I want you to tell me what you think of this quote, okay?
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Ready?
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Rivers do not drink their own water.
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Trees do not eat their own fruit.
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The sun does not shine on itself, and flowers do not spread their fragrance for themselves.
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Living for others is a rule of nature.
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We're all born to help each other, no matter how difficult it is.
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Life is good when you're happy, but much better when others are happy because of you.
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Reactions?
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Then I'll tell you who said it.
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I think that there is truth.
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And I think that while that is true, there are also other truths that can be valid at the same time.
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Yeah.
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And I will say I agree with you in that nothing has meaning until you assign it meaning.
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So when somebody says ASAP...
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Yeah.
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You're the one saying, oh my gosh, that means right now.
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Or, oh, okay, well, I'm about to get on a plane.
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It's not really possible for me right now.
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I'm okay with waiting until I'm off the plane and I've got my bags and I'm at my hotel.
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Yeah?
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Yeah.
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But people pleasing, I don't think it's as simple as just priorities.
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There's a lot of trauma that can go into it.
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There's also a lot of negative repercussions.
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People experience things differently.
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While priorities are really helpful in a way of helping people to stop the people pleasing.
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Yes, all the way.
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But it's not as simple as, oh, you're a people pleaser because your priorities are out of line.
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No.
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Explain.
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Say more.
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I'll just speak from my perspective.
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When you grow up in a culture with societal, familial expectations of you will listen, and when you don't listen, you're going to get yelled at.
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There's always fear of some sort of repercussion.
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And so it's not about my priorities.
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It's about safety.
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In any moment, we're acting out of fear or we're acting out of love.
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Those are the two basic human emotions, right?
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You know that.
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So it's just varying shades of those things.
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If you're succumbing to people-pleasing, it's the fear-based thinking that Of like, oh my gosh, I don't want to lose my job.
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Oh my gosh, I don't want them to think poorly of me.
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Oh my gosh, I don't want to create more of a problem because I didn't call them back.
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Right.
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But those are assumptions at some level, right?
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We go back to the meaning.
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Fear is false
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evidence appearing as real.
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Of course it's assumptions.
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Right.
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Now, there may be truth to that, but it doesn't make it true holistically, unequivocally.
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Mm-hmm.
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And also, as you said earlier, it's very nuanced.
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It depends on the situation.
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If you are a physician on call and you know you've got patients that are in life or death situations and that's why they're calling you, ASAP means ASAP right now, this second.
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But you're mentally also in a space where you're like, I know I'm on call.
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And I know if I receive a call to come in or to respond, you know, your priorities are in line.
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But we're not talking about those pre-protected situations.
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We're talking about you're bopping along, you're about to get on a plane and boom, you get this phone call.
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Somebody's got a health scare or, oh, client says that they need you.
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Or a lot of times, Our kids come in and they're like, why?
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I really need something right now.
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And what they believe is right now, not that it's not important to them.
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There is a level of like, okay, I believe that you think it's right now that you need this.
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There's an element of let's teach you.
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Let's teach you to understand what's really important versus urgent versus I can wait.
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Right.
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Yeah?
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Yeah.
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Yeah, no, no, I agree.
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But what happens when it's two competing interests, not between yourself and someone else's demand, but legitimately between two demands?
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I think that's where that what we're coming back to is that, by the way, I didn't tell you who the quote was.
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You want to guess?
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I don't feel like I want to guess.
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No, I want to just know.
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No, Pope Francis, the late Pope Francis, who just passed away.
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He said that on the morning of the 41st day of quarantine.
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Right?
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Yeah.
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So going back to what happens when it's two competing interests.
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And I'll give you an example.
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We were just on a vacation for spring break.
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We were in Turks and Caicos.
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We were with two other families from school.
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And I think we got there Sunday.
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And on Tuesday, I get a phone call that my mom had a little bit of a fall and she had to go to the hospital.
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And so we started thinking like, okay, somebody's got to be there.
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You know, my dad is blind, right?
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Somebody's got to be there.
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And then on Wednesday, we
found out she got intubated because she has severe airway collapse and pneumonia and went to the ICU.
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So now Anjan and I are thinking like, okay, here are two competing interests.
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My parents need me.
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We're on vacation.
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We're out of the country, right?
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There's actually three competing interests that went through my mind.
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Going to my parents, protecting the kids, because like I mentioned, again, the chaos has to stop.
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Now, if I start moping around or freaking out or start packing my bag and saying that's going to be received by them in a much different way than an adult would receive it so my job is to protect them from that and the third competing interest is if I should leave am I sort of putting the kids and Anjana in harm's way to travel back from out of the country with you know all the suitcases and the strollers and everything else right yeah and so There's a lot of possibilities that went through my mind.
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And luckily, we've been through a lot of health scares.
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My mom's been in the hospital.
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And through those learnings, we've built redundancies.
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We've built systems and things like that.
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My brother was able to drive down.
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Thankfully, he's close by enough to drive down.
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My sister was able to go.
00:17:14.925 --> 00:17:17.549
We have someone there who can help out.
00:17:17.857 --> 00:17:20.099
We were able to manage the urgency.
00:17:20.140 --> 00:17:27.528
And I think that's what we're saying here, is that the world is always going to put various demands on your time, the world, regardless of who they are.
00:17:27.548 --> 00:17:32.232
And it isn't up to us to judge the urgency.
00:17:32.272 --> 00:17:36.698
Because like you said, the kid comes in and says, I need this right now.
00:17:36.718 --> 00:17:47.450
It's up to us to manage where we put our focus and how we can better respond, as opposed to allowing that wave of chaos.
00:17:47.874 --> 00:17:48.756
to flow over us.
00:17:49.096 --> 00:17:52.762
And here's why I mentioned the boundary because sometimes you just can't do anything.
00:17:52.983 --> 00:17:59.596
When we found out at nine in the morning or five in the morning when I woke up and she was intubated, the first flight wasn't until 5 p.m.
00:18:00.416 --> 00:18:12.314
So I can spend 12 hours stewing and ruminating and being, you know, afraid of what is going to happen or not happen or we can sort of think about a more thoughtful response.
00:18:12.634 --> 00:18:12.855
Yes.
00:18:13.296 --> 00:18:16.780
As opposed to, and that comes from managing ourselves.
00:18:17.561 --> 00:18:17.701
Correct.
00:18:17.721 --> 00:18:24.532
Less so than determining what is urgent or not urgent or whether the client really needs it or this patient's going to die or not.
00:18:24.553 --> 00:18:35.108
I can tell you, if any physician gets a phone call that says, you're on call, call me ASAP, and they're trapped behind an airbag because they just had a wreck.
00:18:35.750 --> 00:18:35.869
Mm-hmm.
00:18:36.034 --> 00:18:36.694
They're not calling.
00:18:36.855 --> 00:18:40.439
That leads to another important point that I think we might have touched about.
00:18:41.700 --> 00:18:48.407
When we are unable to respond to someone else's demands, whether it's urgent or not, like come to my party, right?
00:18:48.428 --> 00:18:49.009
Or whatever it is.
00:18:49.028 --> 00:18:54.535
A lot of us do a mental gymnastics of the reasoning that we have.
00:18:55.596 --> 00:18:58.618
And we judge whether that reason is acceptable to someone else.
00:18:59.099 --> 00:19:01.722
We have touched on this, but it's a great, it's great to bring up again.
00:19:01.762 --> 00:19:04.286
And before you go further, love to your family.
00:19:04.738 --> 00:19:05.439
Oh, thank you.
00:19:05.638 --> 00:19:05.920
Thank you.
00:19:06.901 --> 00:19:08.904
So someone invites me over to their party or their house.
00:19:09.125 --> 00:19:12.490
And I say, No, I don't want to come because I don't like that part of town.
00:19:12.671 --> 00:19:15.074
I'm thinking that they're going to be like, Well, that's a crappy reason.
00:19:16.016 --> 00:19:18.900
Or if I legitimately tell them like, Hey, I have the flu.
00:19:19.240 --> 00:19:20.782
I don't want to come get people sick at your house.
00:19:21.124 --> 00:19:22.306
Oh, that's a good enough reason.
00:19:22.465 --> 00:19:28.734
And we have to be careful because while the reasons on the edges are clear, like, okay, Dinesh, that's kind of silly.
00:19:28.795 --> 00:19:29.977
You don't want to go to that part of town.
00:19:30.017 --> 00:19:30.897
You live in that part of town.
00:19:31.138 --> 00:19:31.799
Come on, dude.
00:19:32.140 --> 00:19:33.682
Being sick is a legitimate reason.
00:19:34.143 --> 00:19:35.865
But let's say you're like, you know what?
00:19:36.125 --> 00:19:37.567
I'm just not feeling it today.
00:19:37.607 --> 00:19:39.351
I'm a little off.
00:19:39.611 --> 00:19:40.932
Or I've had a long week.
00:19:42.055 --> 00:19:49.025
Or I really need to sit down and get my taxes done or something like that because I'm traveling the next two weeks.
00:19:49.265 --> 00:19:52.349
We are constantly putting stress on ourselves.
00:19:52.738 --> 00:19:56.541
because we're determining whether that reason is acceptable to that person or not.
00:19:57.123 --> 00:20:06.231
There's a really powerful thought that I keep in mind that being late is a problem until you realize someone is sick, right?
00:20:06.593 --> 00:20:10.257
Someone being sick is a problem until you realize someone died.
00:20:11.298 --> 00:20:14.461
Someone dying is a problem until you
realize that your house is on fire.
00:20:14.560 --> 00:20:23.462
Now, I think I butchered it, but the seriousness of the competing interest is what determines the lens we look at, at the thing that's in front of us that's demanding our attention.
00:20:23.863 --> 00:20:24.104
All right.
00:20:24.163 --> 00:20:25.724
So what do I do with that?
00:20:25.885 --> 00:20:26.987
It really is important.
00:20:27.186 --> 00:20:31.010
When we say manage your mind, we mean give yourself pause.
00:20:31.231 --> 00:20:36.237
Don't just react, even though you want to, because you've told yourself a story.
00:20:36.298 --> 00:20:45.400
If I don't do it right now, something's going to happen that I'm not going to be able to handle, or it's going to be more of a problem, or I might lose my job, I might, whatever.
00:20:45.460 --> 00:20:58.838
Just give yourself a moment because when you make a decision out of reactivity or fear, you're literally only operating from the less evolved, less capable parts of your nervous system.
00:20:59.058 --> 00:21:04.866
And so your critical thinking and your solution seeking abilities are greatly hampered.
00:21:05.607 --> 00:21:12.718
So just because a client says, call me ASAP, I'll give you an example of this is just the power of slowing down.
00:21:13.250 --> 00:21:21.180
I was actually in a client meeting two weeks ago, and I get a text from my son who tells me, I've got a splitting headache.
00:21:21.400 --> 00:21:22.300
Please come get me.
00:21:22.320 --> 00:21:24.042
I can't even focus.
00:21:24.423 --> 00:21:25.424
My head really hurts.
00:21:26.826 --> 00:21:29.990
And now I'm like, okay, well, we have those systems built in place, right?
00:21:30.050 --> 00:21:35.017
My phone's on do not disturb, except for the kids and Manish, right?
00:21:35.057 --> 00:21:38.980
Those are the three people that can get to me despite having my phone
00:21:39.000 --> 00:21:39.061
on.
00:21:39.102 --> 00:21:40.462
I can't break through the do not disturb?
00:21:41.044 --> 00:21:41.183
Sorry.
00:21:41.203 --> 00:21:41.785
What is up with that?
00:21:42.164 --> 00:21:42.506
Sorry.
00:21:42.817 --> 00:21:45.221
But no.
00:21:45.342 --> 00:21:49.650
And so I'm sitting here and I told the client, excuse me, there's a text from my son.
00:21:49.690 --> 00:21:50.570
There's a problem.
00:21:50.730 --> 00:21:51.772
Let me just give me a minute.
00:21:52.193 --> 00:21:52.374
Right.
00:21:52.433 --> 00:21:52.835
To read it.
00:21:53.836 --> 00:22:01.809
And I'm sitting here and I'm thinking like, okay, your kids in pain, mama bear instincts want to immediately say, oh my gosh, I'm going to go get you.
00:22:01.849 --> 00:22:08.622
I'm going to, you know, do anything I can, but wait, but wait, like you've got a headache.
00:22:08.801 --> 00:22:09.182
Yes.
00:22:09.403 --> 00:22:09.722
Okay.
00:22:09.863 --> 00:22:11.045
I acknowledge that you're in pain.
00:22:11.085 --> 00:22:16.030
At the same time, I have 20 more minutes of this session that
I am in the middle of.
00:22:16.070 --> 00:22:21.037
And what have you done?
00:22:21.076 --> 00:22:25.481
As someone who's telling me you need help, tell me what you have done.
00:22:25.521 --> 00:22:26.542
Did you go to the nurse?
00:22:26.682 --> 00:22:27.364
The answer was no.
00:22:27.545 --> 00:22:30.027
Have you had some water?
00:22:30.067 --> 00:22:30.949
No.
00:22:31.169 --> 00:22:31.469
Okay.
00:22:31.628 --> 00:22:32.570
Well, all right then.
00:22:32.611 --> 00:22:35.374
I'll circle back with you in a little bit.
00:22:35.554 --> 00:22:39.559
So I finished the client call understanding that there is an interest.
00:22:39.640 --> 00:22:43.786
I chose the client in the moment, which in a previous life, it would have been way harder for me to do.
00:22:44.026 --> 00:22:49.913
But I'm glad I did because later, after I got off with the client, he says, don't come get me.
00:22:49.933 --> 00:22:51.536
I think I was dehydrated.
00:22:51.556 --> 00:22:52.718
I'm feeling much better.
00:22:53.038 --> 00:23:07.615
But so often, especially as parents, when it's our kids, or when it's like a client that's particularly difficult or a case that's high stakes, We want to be so reactive out of fear.
00:23:08.154 --> 00:23:12.080
And so just taking that moment to say, all right, what can I do?
00:23:12.121 --> 00:23:14.263
What do I want to do?
00:23:14.284 --> 00:23:21.594
Oftentimes when people, when they bring urgency to you, they have not paused themselves.
00:23:22.836 --> 00:23:23.135
Yeah.
00:23:23.175 --> 00:23:33.190
And a lot of times what we're saying is not gospel or doctrine or a way of showing that there's a better way to live.
00:23:33.634 --> 00:23:40.540
What we're just hoping to explore on this podcast is some suggestions for what's possible.
00:23:40.840 --> 00:23:43.303
And everything is so factually dependent.
00:23:43.703 --> 00:23:44.723
It really changes.
00:23:44.785 --> 00:23:49.989
I remember I was working with a coach once and talking about this topic about being reactive.
00:23:50.049 --> 00:23:55.233
And he was telling me that one day he saw his son fall out of a tree and broke his leg and the bone popped out.
00:23:55.694 --> 00:24:03.142
And, you know, he sort of took a pause and interjected a pause, sort of like a hmm.
00:24:04.034 --> 00:24:05.357
Let's see what's going on here.
00:24:05.397 --> 00:24:14.804
And there's little tricks where you can slow your mind down, where before you do something, you sort of just count to, you know, three or five or whatever, right?
00:24:15.084 --> 00:24:18.453
I used to watch, I think it's Family Matters, Carl Winslow
00:24:18.473 --> 00:24:19.256
used
00:24:19.276 --> 00:24:22.119
to say, Three, two, one, one, two, three.
00:24:22.160 --> 00:24:23.882
What the heck is bothering me?
00:24:24.321 --> 00:24:25.943
When Steve Urkel would come in, right?
00:24:25.963 --> 00:24:34.032
So there's these little pauses that you can build into your life to prevent you from jumping into a reactionary mode and think about responsiveness.
00:24:34.073 --> 00:24:41.842
And I think a lot of times, urgent things don't progress as quickly as we think they might.
00:24:42.923 --> 00:24:49.269
So in the example of my coach telling me his son broke his leg and the bone was sticking out, well, it's not going to get much worse than that.
00:24:49.634 --> 00:24:50.635
in the moment, right?
00:24:51.276 --> 00:24:58.708
Over six months, his leg might not look so good, but in the one to four hours, it's not going to get much worse, right?
00:24:58.807 --> 00:25:05.577
And if you don't believe me, look at people going to ERs and they're just sitting in the waiting room, right?
00:25:05.597 --> 00:25:10.705
You're in the emergency room and the emergency room has to triage, right?
00:25:11.185 --> 00:25:29.525
And while some people might listen to this podcast and feel that we're maybe pontificating, like, look how good we were able to manage our mind When you go to the ER, there is an intake person there who takes your credit card, your driver's license, your ID, asks you what's wrong.
00:25:30.125 --> 00:25:37.457
And if that person is responsive to everyone who walks in in the ER, it would be total chaos.
00:25:37.637 --> 00:25:48.473
So you have to adopt the mindset that this is something that in the long run will be beneficial if you're able to just triage the things that come your way.
00:25:48.801 --> 00:25:49.102
Right.
00:25:49.403 --> 00:25:49.563
Right.
00:25:49.643 --> 00:25:53.628
And I think that, so here's, here's the thing in the moment, this is great, right?
00:25:53.969 --> 00:26:01.159
If we can start to practice, take a, take a beat, take a, take a moment, take a breath, slow it down.
00:26:01.199 --> 00:26:04.583
It's really, really helpful because you're shifting your nervous system.
00:26:04.763 --> 00:26:09.150
Now you've, you've got access to different parts of your brain that you don't have access to if you don't.
00:26:09.990 --> 00:26:18.182
And then there's the work that you, you mentioned that can only happen when there's not an active quote unquote fire, when there's not an urgency.
00:26:18.594 --> 00:26:27.586
Training your nervous system to be stronger at rest is actually going to prevent it from going offline.
00:26:27.906 --> 00:26:36.960
What I mean by that is, I'm going to say meditation, but that does not mean going in a cave and sitting in whatever people think that to mean.
00:26:37.000 --> 00:26:41.905
It just simply means spending time focusing on your breath when there's no urgency.
00:26:42.067 --> 00:26:44.069
I love what you said about priorities.
00:26:44.309 --> 00:26:48.556
Understanding what it is that I value most.
00:26:48.736 --> 00:27:00.230
For me, making sure that I'm being present for people when I speak to them, then that's something that I'm aware of now when there's not a fire.
00:27:00.270 --> 00:27:01.451
I know that.
00:27:01.712 --> 00:27:04.997
And I have thought about, okay, what
does that actually mean in practice?
00:27:06.077 --> 00:27:11.905
So that when there is a fire, I get an email saying, I need to talk to you ASAP or my kid or something.
00:27:12.417 --> 00:27:13.058
I
00:27:13.138 --> 00:27:16.303
understand that the most important thing for me is to be present.
00:27:16.363 --> 00:27:21.588
So what do I need to do to be able to be that person that is super present?
00:27:21.628 --> 00:27:27.576
Cause I can be responsive all day long, but if I'm just responding and my brain is elsewhere, not helpful.
00:27:27.976 --> 00:27:28.136
Yeah.
00:27:28.497 --> 00:27:28.696
Right.
00:27:29.258 --> 00:27:35.305
So just aligning and under thinking for yourself, what are things that are my priorities?
00:27:35.325 --> 00:27:42.644
What are things that I value and how can I actually embody those values so that I am to honor the late Pope Francis, right?
00:27:42.765 --> 00:27:49.354
So that I am of service to others and in so doing a service to myself.
00:27:50.035 --> 00:27:50.355
Yeah.
00:27:50.375 --> 00:27:53.319
Two other points that I think are worth mentioning briefly.
00:27:53.359 --> 00:28:05.496
Once you have a sense of the obligations in your life or the demands on your time, it's worthwhile to install some systems, some redundancies to help buffer the urgencies that come up.
00:28:05.516 --> 00:28:14.162
You know that your kid is in school and you know sometime in the 18 years that they're going to be in school, there's going to be a reason to pick them up.
00:28:15.163 --> 00:28:16.625
You just know that's going to happen, right?
00:28:16.984 --> 00:28:19.146
And you can plan or you can fail to plan.
00:28:19.827 --> 00:28:24.972
And you can be somewhat prepared for some of these things to not be complete surprises.
00:28:25.512 --> 00:28:46.884
The other thing, and I think this is a hard truth, and I think for a lot of what we said is applicable to a lot of people, you know, depending on our history and our, you know, sort of our biography, We're unaware that sometimes we might be addicted or gravitate to chaos
00:28:47.183 --> 00:28:48.685
or
00:28:48.726 --> 00:28:51.529
the significance that comes from the chaos.
00:28:52.730 --> 00:28:57.717
I don't want to spend a lot of time on this because it's a very sort of heavy topic to get into.
00:28:57.777 --> 00:29:05.807
But I would say that it's worthwhile for everyone to just stop and think about what is your baseline?
00:29:06.086 --> 00:29:07.729
What is your normal today?
00:29:08.321 --> 00:29:10.105
What was it 10 years ago?
00:29:10.144 --> 00:29:11.586
What was it 20 years ago?
00:29:11.626 --> 00:29:18.698
And start to see if there is a pattern of maybe your upbringing was filled with a lot of urgency.
00:29:18.718 --> 00:29:20.721
And what is your baseline?
00:29:21.121 --> 00:29:30.174
If your baseline is urgency and reactions and jumping to conclusions and things like that, it might just be that that's what's familiar.
00:29:31.016 --> 00:29:32.459
And that's what's familiar.
00:29:32.479 --> 00:29:38.270
It might just be that's what you're naturally drawing towards yourself because that feels familiar.
00:29:38.310 --> 00:29:49.346
The quickest way and the least inflammatory way to describe this is, you know, as a lawyer, when I do depositions, it is a good thing to sit without saying anything.
00:29:49.826 --> 00:29:50.587
Sit in silence.
00:29:51.048 --> 00:29:56.096
And a lot of us know that when there's silence, we feel this pull to fill the silence.
00:29:56.717 --> 00:29:57.417
You want to talk.
00:29:58.038 --> 00:30:05.990
And that's exactly what lawyers do is when we sit in silence, we want the witness to just start vomiting and start talking and keep going like, keep going, keep going, right?
00:30:06.465 --> 00:30:14.717
And that's a really sort of non-inflammatory way of highlighting this point of what is your familiar.
00:30:14.757 --> 00:30:25.090
If your familiar is urgency and chaos and things like that, that may be an area where it's specific to you.
00:30:25.131 --> 00:30:34.144
And perhaps that's an area that if you're not happy with or that's something you'd like to change, that's the place to start as opposed to the tools that we talked about.
00:30:34.263 --> 00:30:44.750
Because most of what we talked about, are not going to be impactful if the urgencies are created because that's your home base.
00:30:44.890 --> 00:30:47.032
That's where you go back to all the time.
00:30:48.374 --> 00:30:52.901
It goes back to, again, aligning your priorities because it really is, we don't attract what we want.
00:30:53.381 --> 00:30:55.984
We attract things based on who we're being.
00:30:56.025 --> 00:30:58.208
So if we're this chaotic person, take a look around.
00:30:58.307 --> 00:31:11.569
And I love how you said, if you're feeling like there's a lot of chaos and you're getting tired of it or you're wanting to put that down, just take a look and see who you're a product of the people you spend the most time with.
00:31:11.750 --> 00:31:18.480
And our lives are created as a mirror of our own inner mental thoughts and where we are spiritually.
00:31:18.520 --> 00:31:34.786
When you can get clear on what those priorities are and whether those are actually the ones that align with you, that can really be helpful so that you can start to be that person that you want to be rather than just by default operating on what's familiar.
00:31:35.266 --> 00:31:42.757
My final thought too is before we go to put the urgency on someone else, that's the other thing.
00:31:42.817 --> 00:31:44.960
As a leader, you mentioned it's our job.
00:31:45.801 --> 00:31:49.928
I don't think we can stop the chaos, but I do believe that we can hold space.
00:31:49.968 --> 00:31:50.749
We can soften it.
00:31:50.808 --> 00:31:52.151
We can mitigate it.
00:31:52.191 --> 00:31:53.712
Use any word you want.
00:31:54.433 --> 00:31:57.739
We can make it to where we're not consistently just being ruled by it.
00:31:58.861 --> 00:32:00.462
In many cases, it can be avoided.
00:32:00.502 --> 00:32:05.130
One of the keys to doing that is to make sure we're just not the conduit.
00:32:05.730 --> 00:32:20.567
And when you as a person have a situation that comes up, they're also taking a pause and just asking yourself, even from the context of time, is this going to matter in the next five minutes, the next five months, the next five years?
00:32:21.067 --> 00:32:26.554
It can oftentimes sort of give you perspective as to actually how urgent it is.
00:32:26.574 --> 00:32:35.726
I know, you know, even when you have like littles running around and they knock over a glass of water because you've told them like, Don't run, you know, walk, be careful.
00:32:35.766 --> 00:32:38.089
There's stuff there and something gets knocked over.
00:32:38.130 --> 00:32:40.955
Immediately we want to jump and be like, oh my gosh, let's grab the towels.
00:32:41.016 --> 00:32:41.656
Let's this, let's that.
00:32:42.357 --> 00:32:47.367
Well, you're not, you're not going to affect the outcome there significantly enough.
00:32:47.688 --> 00:32:57.086
And instead you wind up yelling at the kid and maybe you like run on your way to clean up the mess and you trip and you break your toe because you hit it on the table leg, you know.
00:32:57.473 --> 00:32:57.773
There's
00:32:57.814 --> 00:33:00.357
a lot that can be avoided simply by just taking that beat.
00:33:00.617 --> 00:33:06.404
And so I love that you talk about you actually being the gatekeeper there to decide what happens.
00:33:07.066 --> 00:33:07.787
Yeah, absolutely.
00:33:07.846 --> 00:33:08.247
Both ways.
00:33:08.287 --> 00:33:23.465
From what's coming outside or what's coming from inside, I think that that's one of the traits of leadership that isn't talked about enough of where it's your job to intercept, to make sense of the chaos, and then figure out the best ways to respond.
00:33:23.946 --> 00:33:24.166
Yeah.
00:33:24.346 --> 00:33:26.430
So in short, make some time to...
00:33:26.945 --> 00:33:27.826
Pause daily.
00:33:27.867 --> 00:33:32.694
Just take a quick stalk of what kind of energy you're around and whether that's suiting you.
00:33:32.935 --> 00:33:34.077
Maybe do a values assessment.
00:33:34.097 --> 00:33:37.182
There's all sorts of free ones online or reach out to Dinesh or myself.
00:33:37.262 --> 00:33:38.765
We can send you one.
00:33:38.805 --> 00:33:44.273
All sorts of things that you can do when there's not an urgent active thing.
00:33:44.314 --> 00:33:47.199
And then when there is an active thing, take a breath.
00:33:47.740 --> 00:33:50.484
Remember that nothing is ever as it seems.
00:33:51.286 --> 00:33:58.278
And we absolutely have the power, maybe not to whether or not we experience something, but we do control how we experience it.
00:33:58.417 --> 00:34:00.380
And we're always cheering you guys on listeners.
00:34:00.400 --> 00:34:01.521
Thank you so much for tuning in.
00:34:02.182 --> 00:34:03.443
Hey everyone, this is Dinesh.
00:34:03.663 --> 00:34:08.989
I wanted to give a huge shout out to everyone that has supported the Happy Human Podcast.
00:34:09.510 --> 00:34:20.302
I know there are a number of you that listen to the show every week, but we only have about 40% of you that listen to the show every week that are actually subscribed.
00:34:20.702 --> 00:34:24.186
So we really want to ask you to help us out with a big favor.
00:34:24.449 --> 00:34:25.150
That's right, guys.
00:34:25.791 --> 00:34:39.257
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