TSSL - Episode 14 - Trust and the 3 Treasures

This week we have some more really good tips for you and we even get a little Zenned out.  We talk about if someone says they're 'not....' something, they probably are. We also talk about trust and experience. We also talk about minimalism and for more information on that there's an awesome book called Clear Your Clutter with Feng Shui, be sure to check that out.

Special thanks to Wax Mustang for our into and outtro music - Powerball

......
I always appreciate any support ; D 

https://www.patreon.com/TSSLpodcast

paypal.me/TSSLpodcast

Thank you!! - Nathan.  : D

Transcript

Unknown: 0:54

Baby away from the body I'm thinking much in the big scene for the Powerball we could do it on demand with the winning your newest games off of sheets sing along, man. And just when it couldn't get better, she talked to me and saying you got the chin. Ah, you got the juice. You have the bison. You talk in a walk in the right way sundown on a highway know the feeling baby yo. Welcome back to another episode of this social skills lab. I'm your host, Nathan Ament Episode Number 14. What's today, December 27 2020. We're just about to wrap up the year. It's been an interesting era. So last week, we talked about a little bit about storytelling, went over some tips and stuff. Something I mentioned on there was if you are having trouble coming up with good stories you might need to leave, have a more interesting life. And that's true. But another way you can also jump into conversation is just by being well learned. So like learning about a bunch of different topics and stuff like that. All hear stuff on, like interesting stuff on podcasts, and I'll start telling people about what I heard. Just like another way of telling stories is just, you know, being interested in bunch of different topics and stuff like that. So that's another way. But yeah, you should ask also have an interesting life and also helps with telling stories and stuff like that, or just, you know, a lot of know a lot interesting facts and stuff. And then all these knowing stuff. And then knowing interesting facts and stuff like that, that you can share with people or at least in the context of the conversation, at least try to keep it in the context, for the most part. And then if you are also, you know, have like some life adventures that are also you can talk to people about, they're usually just jumping off points to other conversations. So not everything has to be the main topic, you can just be a jumping off point, just be a good listener. And that'll usually help you keep the conversation going. I thought we were just talking about some discipline, writing down some tips and stuff like that. No, like major themes to really jump off here. Something that I was looking listening to one of the older, older podcasts. I saw, I saw a post someone did on the social skills subreddit. It said something like how do you learn to trust people? Or how do you trust people? And I haven't really thought about that for a long time. But yeah, I mean, early on, it was hard to know who to trust. I think as I've gotten older, and I've really worked on my own character, trying to be be more trustworthy myself. Just living your life with a more positive character. And also, you know, kind of doing if you say you're gonna do something, make sure you do it, you know, follow through, the more you are trustworthy yourself, I think it's easier to spot bullshit from someone else. I'm not sure how it works, but your radar just seems to pick up on that stuff. So I remember when I was like 19 years old, I wanted to move out. So I met this guy at my job. And I didn't even really know him that long. And I knew him for about two weeks. And I was telling him that I was looking for a place to move out. He's like, Oh, hey, I broke out. I just broke up with my girlfriend. And she moved out. So if you want to move in, you can move in there. And I was like, Yeah, that'll work. And I just, you know, I just trusted the guy. So I moved in and within like, one week, he made up with his girlfriend, and his girlfriend and his girlfriend, or his girlfriend and his kid move back in. So it was like four of us in a small apartment. And I mean, I was cool with it at first but then after a while, I'm like, this guy's just kind of a douchebag I don't know he's just being kind of a dick. I think he wanted me to move out at that point. Just because it's Girlfriend moved back in, but I don't know, it just like opened my eyes to like, hmm, gotta be a little more discerning on people's character, you know, and I kind of this guy just kind of put off this vibe. And I didn't really understand it till later that, Oh, this is kind of like shady guy vibe, I shouldn't be more aware of that. He kind of does learn that stuff with experience. But I would say, if you have really good character, and if you're a very trustworthy person, it's easier to pick up on low character traits or red flags from other people. You know, and it just takes time to you'll learn as you get older, you know, just be very clear with your intentions, make sure you communicate what you're willing to accept and what you're willing to and when and what you're not willing to accept. Because people are basically going to walk all over you, if you let him, you just have to be very clear about your position. You don't have to be like angry or defensive about it just be clear. Something that I was thinking about the other day was, you know, since we're all kind of in lockdown, or whatever, I know, it must be pretty difficult to work on your social skills. I've mentioned this before, and other other shows. I mean, I basically started the podcast in a pandemic. So it's been a weird, trying to work on your social skills. And I've kind of been thinking about how, how easy? Well, it wasn't easy, but how much how easier it was to go out and practice. I mean, you could go out anywhere and just start talking to people pretty much. But in a pandemic, it's a lot more challenging. But there's always situations where you're, you're gonna be in a situation where you're talking to someone, and in every situation where you're talking to someone is a situation where you can be working on your social skills, whether it's like learning to talk slower, working on your vocal tonality working on your icontact, working on your listening skills, these are all things that are going to apply in every situation. So I'd say that the main thing is for me, nowadays, as far as talking to new people is talking to people in customer service. Because like, people, cashiers, you know, it's people at work or whatever. It's, I'm still talking to a lot of people every week, just not in necessarily social situations, but still talking to people and people are still people matter what, you know, and especially if they're at work, people at work, especially right now, they're pretty stressed out. So if you can dislike, you know, chat him up and just give him a little quick conversation. Ask them how their day is going or whatever. It's a big thing even. I remember I was and we went to this coffee shop pretty regularly, regularly in Sacramento. And there was this place I went to a lot is called temple, really good coffee. And there was this one time I went there pretty late at night, I think it was like nine or 10 o'clock at night. There was a barista working there. And I don't know, I guess I just chatted her up and was like, pretty friendly or whatever. But then like, a month later, I ended up dating her for a while. And she, one of the first times I went over to her place, she's like, hey, I want to show you something. And she showed me her journal. And it said in there that she showed me the night that I first came in. And it said something like this guy came in, he was really nice and funny. And it really made my it really made my night. So I was having a real terrible day. I was like, holy cow. That's crazy. I mean, I was just being friendly and nice and stuff and chatted her up. More than than, you know, more than the usual. Hi, how's it going? I want to order this. Thank you. Alright, thanks, you know, just being wrong human human conversation. And it obviously made such an impact that she wrote it down in her journal. And it really blew my mind that I could have an effect like that on someone. So I mean, it was just pretty cool. You never know who you're talking to you or you never know how your conversations really gonna affect someone. So one of my main points on this was to make sure you're using the opportunities that are there. I think in a normal situation, you can literally go to a shopping mall. Make it a point to walk into every single shop and just chat up the person that's working there. You know, like I remember I was in this like novelty store and there was song Like, a lot of monogrammed like glasses and pens and stuff. And they had this. They had this paperweight. And I was just joking with the person that work there about about like, who would buy a paperweight? I'm like, I'm like, you know, it's really not that windy in my it's really not that windy in my bedroom. I don't know, do you have any smaller paperweights that are like for less wind, I don't know, I was just joking around about the paperweight, but they were cracking up. And so you could literally go into every single store, store after store just like chat up someone. That's a real fine line, though, of like holding someone hostage in a conversation they don't want to be in. So keep it short. You'll know if they're enjoying the conversation. But just to get the practice, you can literally go into store after store because customer service people for one, they're really paid to be relatively nice to customers. So they're going to, they're not going to be like an asshole to for one. And you can just you know, they might be so bored, they might welcome a little bit of conversation. You never really know. But just be pay attention and body language. If they're trying, if they don't want to be in that conversation. Don't force them. But my point is that you can really get a lot of practice in this by going to a mall. And talking to every single customer service person in the mall. It can be the briefest thing, even if it's like Excuse me, do you know where the Do you know where the restroom is? Just the fact that you walked up, started a conversation with someone you don't know, it's it, it will all add up after a while. So just be nice to customer service people. They're basically one of the few people that you can practice with right now in a pandemic situation. Something that I was thinking about, I wanted to mention was, I've noticed that it happens less so now. But I remember when I was younger. I was I started making some friends at a new school. And very quickly, I noticed that people would say, like, if someone else was brought up, they're like, Oh, yeah, that person, that douche or that person, an asshole or whatever, they would say something negative about the other person, and you'd eventually meet that person. I learned pretty quickly that anytime someone said something bad about someone else, it wasn't necessarily true. In fact, it probably. In fact, it was pretty good chance that they actually might be pretty cool. So, um, I just learned to whenever someone's let's talk negative about someone that I didn't know, never, I would never let it I would just let it roll off me, you know, you take a note of it. Maybe for heard it, like from 20 different people might be true. But a lot of times it was just because those two person, those two people had a beef. Like I would never really judge a person on something that someone else said. So anytime someone says something about someone else, just be careful not to let it affect how you actually relate to that person, because they actually might be pretty cool. I've actually had a lot of friends that didn't get along with other friends when I was like younger, much less. So now a lot of my friends get along together now. Which is pretty cool. But I definitely remember when I was younger, there was a lot of shit talking, just don't believe any of it. And don't do the shit talking yourself. Like I said it's a waste of time. Another thing I heard, and I really tried to practice it's not necessarily very easy, is it was also afraid to something like talk about the things you want. And don't talk about the things you don't want. And I'll actually hear this come up a lot, usually from other people, they'll start talking about things that are, I don't know, I wish I have a really good example of this. I guess I can't really think of a good example for right now. Maybe in the next episode, I'll think about it more. I think examples are a really good way of relating the context of what I'm talking about. But I'd say like, if you really pay attention to someone who's really negative, they are constantly talking about the things that don't want. And if you listen to someone who's like always in a really good mood, and is very positive. They are talking about the things that they do want. So if you want to be a negative person, that's a good way to talk about the things you don't want like talking about. I don't like if you're worried about your your boss is gonna fire you and you keep talking about why why do you think your boss is gonna fire you or soon or lay you off soon or something like that, that's basically talking about the things you don't want. And just by talking about it will put you in a headspace that will kind of like manifest a lot of times it will, it'll manifest itself just by you constantly focusing your attention on it, because you'll keep on looking for things that prove that it's kind of like a psychological trick. So talk about the things you want, avoid talking about the things you don't want, that was a tough one for me, because I was doing that a lot. But it's really made a big difference by really putting the effort into doing that. Another thing I've noticed, especially lately is don't try to control situations, it's really hard when you have like a group of people or one other person trying to like, it kind of always collaborating with someone on something, and it's easy to try to take too much control, I really try to be more than let things roll, the way they're gonna roll, sometimes guiding it sometimes trying to like, you know, lead a little bit, but for the most part, things are kind of going to go their own way. So you might as well not try to like force, things to go a certain way. Because a lot of times, especially if you're collaborating with people, other people see things different differently than the way you see it. So they might have a better idea, or have more experience in something. So a lot of times, it's good to just let things go their own way. Actually, let me totally tell you about this, I'm not sure if it's projected or not. But I heard this that anytime someone says they're not something they actually probably are, for example, if someone is very upset about is pretty upset with someone, and they're telling you the story, like let's say money was involved. And they say something like it's not it's not even about the money. It's probably about the money. Or someone says, I don't care what they think they probably care what they think, even if they're not even aware of it. Just the fact that they stated it. They stated a negative means that it's on their mind. So I thought that was pretty interesting, because people do this a lot. They'll say they're not something like, Oh, I'm not jealous. It's like, well, you don't even have to say it. Why would you even say it? You know? So just be aware of when people say that catch it. It's really interesting. I catch it all the time when people say that, and it gives me like a little insight to their psychology. Oh, they're actually are kind of being affected by this? Because they just said they're not. And especially be aware of you said, because if you say it, really think about it, catch yourself when you say it, catch yourself when you say it and think about it, like okay, maybe this actually is affecting me in this way. It's, it's a really cool tip. I learned a while back. And for the most part, it seems like it's pretty true. There's this tip I heard in one of the books, Dale Carnegie, How to Win Friends and it's in kind of that title so long, How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie. Really good book. It's like the first book I read on social skills. It's good, I read it twice, I read it three times. It's one of those books where you read it. And then you should read it again in like six months and then again in like a year. And probably again in like two years, you're really gonna get a lot out of it. There's just so much so much information about having better communication skills, and interpersonal skills. But one of the things that I remember he had this tip called don't play topper. I think that's what I think that's why he said it. Don't play topper like you're trying to top someone. And what he's saying is like, if someone is telling you a story, don't try to Don't try to respond to it by saying a story where you are saying basically what they said but even better. Okay, let me so let me tell you a story, that I kinda remember this kind of happens a lot. And you'll catch it quite a bit. Especially once you learn about it, you'll start seeing it happen a lot. And it's basically the main point is that someone is trying to relate to someone by telling them their their own story. So but it actually breaks breaks a connection, because they don't realize they're actually trying to tell them like let's just say for example, someone says, Oh, I went fishing last weekend and I caught I caught up I got a 12 inch rainbow trout. And they're like, oh, where'd you go? Oh, I went over to Crystal Lake. Oh yeah, I was there two weeks ago, I caught a 16 inch, blah, blah, blah. So they're basically tell them they cut a bigger fish that's basically playing topper. So like I remember one time I was with my friends. And they were talking about, I think some hotel they had stayed at, or some place that they they lived at. I was like in Colombia. And they're telling them about like, the hotel they were at. And like my friend said, Oh, I was at the hotel, I said in the, in the suite or something like that. But he's basically inadvertently just trying to talk to guys story. And it didn't add to the story at all, it kind of just broke the story up, it did kind of like kill the energy of the story. And he obviously he didn't know what he was doing. He's probably never heard of topper, but I could see it clearly. And I could tell you, it happens a lot people do it a lot. A lot of times I am about to do it. I realize I'm about to do it. And so I just I catch myself and I don't do it. And I noticed that the what I was about to say, really didn't add to the story. It was me trying to keep the conversation going. But it was really not necessary. It wasn't gonna endear me in any way to this person, even though subtly that was kind of like the goal of trying to say a toddler story. But it doesn't it does the exact opposite. So avoid doing that at all costs. I remember hearing the story of Maximus, he was you know, from Gladiator, I guess there was like, either a real person a Maximus, or it's kind of based on someone. But in this book, when they were describing him, they were describing him as he was a serious guy, but he could definitely be in a good mood and tell jokes and stuff like that he can also be, you know, not so serious kick back. He never saw anyone as being above him or being below him. And I think that's a, an awesome way to see someone who's very mature, they don't see other people as above them, and they don't see other people as being below them. And I tried to I tried to relate to people that way people I don't know, because it's easy to be judgmental, it's easy to think that someone is lower class than you, you know, like a homeless person. Or someone is like, I don't know, like, like, if you go to a fancy club, like people in the VIP, they might be wearing suits, and, you know, bottles of crystal or whatever. Easy to see that, Oh, those guys are doing better than me or whatever. So don't, don't ever try not to anyways, see other people as being above you or below you. Because it's just on a huge, deep psychological, you know, we all have human brains, we all have the capacity to be great in our own way. You can just relate to people better if you if you see people as you know, on the same level as you. However, however that is heard the other thing that I thought was pretty good. It said, if you want to know what someone's going to do, just look at what they have been doing. Me personally, I kind of use this in the context of people that are kind of like, not living up to my expectations. Like, let's say I have a co worker who's constantly just not really doing that great of a job. If I have to work with him in like on a big job. I'm like, Well, I told him to get this and this. I could assume he's gonna bring it or maybe I should just send him a text to remind him because like, no, now he's probably gonna get it even though he's been constantly screwing up. I'm like, Oh, no, he'll probably do it. Get to the job. And he like forgot to grab that. So are like if you're working on a group project with people, someone's just not pulling their weight and you're like, man, well, maybe in the last couple days, they'll get it together. I found it to be a useful a useful guide is to your basically you're going to expect what they've been doing, hoping that they're going to turn it around at the last minute. usually doesn't pan out. I really do think people can change in vast ways, but it's not very common. Unfortunately. I kind of use that as a guide when I'm like, should I loan this guy money. I mean, he never pays back his debts. They can be very convincing. Some people can be very convincing that they're going to be. They're going to be coming through Johnny this time. But unfortunately, like I said, you can just look what they've been doing and get a pretty good guide of what's going to happen. I think I'm just going to end on this. Something I heard from some kind of Zen teaching was to talk about the three treasures talks about the three treasures, the three treasures which everyone possesses. And those are patients simplicity and compassion, patience, simplicity and compassion. Patients I mean, that's pretty obvious. If you want to work on your patients, you can really work on your patients like I told you before, I drove in the slow lane for a month and I drew I had to drive a lot for work. So driving the slow lane for a month was very challenging, especially the first day but after that actually wasn't too bad. You don't even really notice it after a while but it really helped me with my patients. It really helped me with my road rage. Other ways you can practice patience is just by meditating and stuff like that. simplicity, simplicity. I think being simple in your communication, being a minimalist, I've tried to adopt a minimalist way of life I tried to not buy a lot of stuff. I don't like a lot of clutter. There was a book called clear your clutter with Fung Shui I really got into like Fung Shui especially in my in my in my living space. It's just a good aesthetic for design. But it's also it helps you clear your mind. Like it went down to the basics like look at your wallet. How much stuff do you have in your wallet? Do you have like a George Costanza wallet which is nothing but like receipts and old like business cards cleared out clear all this stuff out that you don't need. It's a it's a long process but be a minimalist. I'll put a link to that clear your clutter with Fung Shui. At first it was the first book that opened my eyes to what minimalism was and Fung Shui was and I really got into it. And I think it just helps me having a clear space helps clear your head. Like your, your space around you is a reflection of what's going on in your head. So if you're if your room is a mess, you probably have a much in jumbling thoughts come in through your head. So you know working on both the your, your living space a lot trying to like pare down get rid of stuff you don't need. It's really going to help you a lot I'll put a link to that book in the description of the podcast. And then also I read a couple other books on Fung Shui but that was definitely one of the best ones. It's real small book. I saw it at Jamba Juice one day and I started flipping through it and then I ended up buying it I actually bought two copies I got one from my mom. She really liked it too. And she ended up cleaning up our place to I was actually surprised it really really made a big difference and then compassion the last of the three treasures so we got patients simplicity and compassion, compassion. Like I said, just you know treat people like the way you'd want to be treated yourself. I'm just gonna let that one sit with you I don't want to get into like you know obvious be nice to people I mean it's kind of obvious right? Maybe just be nicer to people. Right? Let's I guess I'll just leave you that with that those three treasures patience simplicity and compassion and hope you guys have an awesome new year's and I'll be talking to you guys soon. Have a good one Don't be feeling the effects of a past life from a past life took the right path from the wrong night to Japan sauce taking this right what a bizarre like a pull up a car ride it's a Mustang with the beats Where have you seen him what it look like? Oh women and take for granted Milan and again in issue for the moon in the stars numerous broth beautiful being the Godfather key to be two people with the lucky young linen and the nice to see the breast out. So now I'm thinking that life is better with buddy you bet on the brother You win in a tank tops with the eight ball and if it wasn't for you, we could be If it wasn't the EU, we could be shame. It's a damn shame.