TSSL - Episode 18 - How to not get Jaded

It's been a while, but we are back with a new episode talking about some new tips and how to get better at reading body language.

Big thank you to Tap Daddy who's music is on the show now 'All Falls in Line'

Be sure to check out his YouTube channel for more great tunage:

TapDaddyBeats


I always appreciate any support ; D 

https://www.patreon.com/TSSLpodcast

paypal.me/TSSLpodcast

Thank you!! Thank you! - Nathan.  : D

Transcript

Unknown: 1:00

Yo, yo, what's going on? This is Nate with the social skills lab podcast, a podcast where we talk about social skills. real shocker. That's a new track. New Music from tap daddy. That's called all falls in line. Pretty cool track. send him a message. Send me a message on Reddit asking if I can use his tracks. I really liked it. So yeah, go ahead. Sometimes you just got to ask. Yeah, I love that track is great. Alright, so it has been a while. Last time I did episode was back in April. But I've been really, really busy. had a pretty crazy couple months. I think I've mentioned before that I've done a lot of job hopping. Like a lot of job hopping. Let me see. I had the same one. I don't know. I've had over like five jobs probably in the last two years, but found a new job that I really liked. I always say that. By the end, usually I end up I don't like them after a while. But this one is actually pretty cool. And it's in the Bay Area of California. So it kind of worked out because I had to move anyways. And so I found a I found a new place in Pacifica, California, which is like, right on the ocean. And yeah, so I have a small studio apartment in Pacifica that I can barely afford. But it's totally worth it. Because, like no joke, I'm looking at my window. And I could see the ocean. Like I could see the ocean from my backyard and stuff. Which is insane. Because I never I never really thought that it'd be possible to have a place in California where you could look at the ocean. That wasn't like a millionaire's place. So yeah, I don't know, I just managed to pull it off. super happy about it. So my commute is a lot shorter. My job is pretty laid back. My boss is cool. And I live in a super awesome place. So yeah, that's what that's why I've been really busy. I've been moving, doing much interviews and stuff and and I knew that was gonna get back to doing an episode. So here we are. It took a few months, but we're back. Alright, so we're back. And there's I don't know, it's kind of weird, because like the pandemic is kind of like, we keep going into lockdown. And then it's opened up again. And we're locked down again. But I guess let me just start off by saying, Yeah, get vaccinated, please. Because I am so sick of having to been locked downs. Seems like the only way out of it. If you think the pandemics fake vaccines fake. I don't know what to tell you. I think it's real. I feel fine. 99% of the people dying. 99% of the people dying are people that have not been vaccinated. I don't know if you believe that or not. Hey, that's pretty much all I got to say cuz. But I was I did manage to get out to the city a few times had some friends come in to visit. And we went to a couple music events. And sometimes you go in and it's like all masks. And sometimes you go in, it's like no one's wearing a mask. But everyone's like had put out a vaccination or prove that they got vaccinated or show a recent negative test. So it's very interesting times we're in so but I've been having an awesome time, despite everything. And last week, I think it was last week. Some friends came into town. We went out to San Francisco had a good time. So San Francisco is probably about 25 minutes, 20 minutes from where I live, which is really cool because I could basically just take a Uber there and back and not have to worry about drinking or you know drinking too much or whatever. So that's really cool. I had some people over back to my place, little after party. And I got to say it's been a while since I've had an after party at my place. But it was a lot of fun. met some new people It was pretty small, but very fun people. And this is the part that blew my mind. So the next morning, you know, I got to sleep for a couple hours, everyone kind of crashed Africa bars. When I woke up, they cleaned up my entire place like they did the dishes, clean up all the bottles, and took out the trash like that is next level friendship. I mean, if you're the kind of person that like will clean up after a party, you're, you get a gold star. You're fucking awesome. So yeah, I really appreciate my friends are super cool. very respectful. And yeah, yeah, that's great. That's cool, too. Because when I went out, a bunch of people from segments would come out to that I knew some people, actually, a lot of them I didn't know. But I knew that they were from Sacramento. So it was pretty easy. Basically, you just tap them on the shoulder, like, Hey, what's up man? Like, Hey, are you from Sacramento to like, Oh, yeah, and then we just, you know, we know people, same people. And it's really easy to start conversation that way. And, and I mean, you find any in. And that's an easy one, you find any end, you could pretty much start a conversation, you know, people are in a good mood, they're having they're out out being in a social setting. And they like to socialize, so I do too. So it's always, it's always a good time. So I want to talk about something, there's a bunch of stuff that I kind of wrote down. So I might be kind of all over the place today. Not super organized. But I you know, I just wanted to get an episode out because it's been so long, I had some ideas. One of the things that I was thinking about was, when I was watching, I can't remember what movie it was, but I was watching this movie. And in the scene, someone is telling a lie, I noticed that the person believed, but when I'm watching it, I'm like, it's so obvious that they're lying. And it made me realize that in a lot of movies, and a lot of TV shows people will exaggerate their, their facial expressions, they'll exaggerate their body language, just to make it clear what is going on. And a lot of times, if you're, you know, because you pretty much suspend your belief when you're watching a show or, or movie. So you let a lot of that stuff slide. A lot of times you don't even notice it. But I you know, when I'm paying very close attention, to me, it's obvious that they're lying, or whatever, they're trying to hold something back. And for the sake of the show, it works. But it made me think that like, you know, if you didn't really know, or had a lot of experience, looking into body language, like I read a couple books about it, they're really good. And you know, you start paying attention. I already lost my train of thought, what was I saying? If you're watching the show, and or if you didn't know what to really look for you, you might actually think that that's how people really act in real life. But it really isn't, people are much more subdued in their body language. So that's why you really have to learn a lot about it and study it that way. You can read it very easily and very quickly, if you're trying to like look at TV shows, to get a good gauge on what body language is, is. To understand body language. It can be very tricky, because it's not really how it is in real life. Like Pete, like I said, actors will exaggerate their expressions just to convey just so the show is, you know, it's easily understood by everyone. But like I said, it's not. It doesn't portray real life very well. But I did notice when I was watching The X Files, like Mulder and Scully, they're FBI agents. They're all they're very like milquetoast subdued. FBI agents real rigid. And I was thinking, wow, this is actually how people will portray their facial expressions. Not always, but most of the time, it's very similar to real life. For me, I love the show. I've watched a lot, haven't seen every episode that and definitely like it a lot. So if you want to get a really good idea of what real world facial expressions are, just watch The X Files. I think it's much more realistic than say like some, you know, sitcom or whatever. And, and to be honest, if you do watch like a really good movie, like Oscar winning movie, it is actually not a bad way to get a good idea of a lot of facial expressions and body language because that is their craft. They know it, they know how to do it. And they even know how to exaggerate it a little bit when it calls for it in a certain type of shows. So, but like I said, she wanted to get a really, really good idea of what real world body language is like. I noticed that the X Files was really good for that. Another thing I noticed that, when I go out, is, I really make it a point, to make sure I'm not on my phone a lot, I definitely noticed that a lot of people in social situations will bust out their phone. You know, I've done it to like an ally, but I've really made it a point to do it much less. It's just, to me, it's kind of like a nervous crutch. You know, it's like, oh, I'm on in social situation by talking to anyone, let me pull up my phone, just I have something to do. Awkward. So I don't look like I'm standing here, like a bump on the log or whatever. Try to not use your phone so much. When you're out in public. Like, even if I'm in the grocery store. in line for the checker, a lot of times, I will pull out my phone. But there's a lot of times too, I'm like, you know what, I'm just gonna keep my phone in my pocket, I don't have to pull it out, it's only going to take like five minutes. Give me a good time to like, you know, people watch, or, I don't know, just be curious about the world as opposed to looking at my phone. And like I said, if you do it a lot, your neck pointing down. In a, it's like an awkward position. It's not good for your neck. I mean, seriously, 10 years, 20 years, what's your neck gonna look like, if you've been on your phone for five hours a day. There's also there's also a lesson that I've had to learn. It's like that all the people, you know, let's say, let's say, you know, like 100 people, or, you know, 10 people. And let's say, most of them are acquaintances. Like if you see him out, you run into him, you're like, Oh, hey, what's up, and then I don't know, you might chat for like, five seconds or whatever. Those are like acquaintances, but then you'll have people that are like, friends and very, very close friends, like, really like some of my closest friends, I talk to you pretty regularly. And then there's friends that, you know, you run into them. And you'll just like, you know, you might be talking to him for like a half hour or something like that. But you don't, you don't really talk to him on the phone or hit him up in between just random running into them. So it's kind of like, real easy to put a label on these types of relationships. I think it's better to not like sometimes, I mean, I've had people that were acquaintances for like five years. And then next thing you know, they're like one of my best friends, like, for some reason, we just really click at some point. Like, we're on the same wavelength or whatever. So I think it's good to make sure to try to not put a label on these things. Like, let's say you meet someone and you really click with them. It's really easy to idealize what that relationships gonna be just like, oh, and we were really, we really hit it off, we're probably going to hang out and go camping. I don't know. But I've noticed that. It's really good to not assume anything. I heard this Zen saying that I really like it was something about like, describing the master. And I've, I apologize if I said this before, I've noticed actually, when I go back to listen episodes, I repeat myself a lot. But I might have actually said this too, already. So if if you're this? Yeah, I do repeat myself a lot. Hopefully, it's good information that's worth repeating. So, but I heard the thing, it was describing the master as like, he said, the master never expects anything from anyone. And because he never expects anything, he is never disappointed. And because he is never disappointed. His heart never grows old. And I thought that was awesome. Like, wow, that's tough, because I expect a lot of expect a lot of shit from a lot of people. But it made me realize like, Well, many, you know, that's not a good thing necessarily. I don't, if I if I don't expect anything from anyone, I'll never be disappointed. And that's kind of hard in modern society to, you know, wrap your head around, like let's say you have a coworker, and you expect them to do this. And this. Yeah, I could see why it'd be a real pain in the ass if they didn't live up to that. But you know, I'm just talking about that general sense of just people. Maybe more in terms of like friends or acquaintances. Don't expect anything from them. Like it. Let's say you do this for them. I've seen this so many times people post stuff online, like, you know, I did this for them this and that. And they never do anything for me. Well, you know what, now that person's disappointed. They get jaded. And they their heart is growing old. Hey, well, there's a way around that just don't expect anything from anyone. And I've noticed this too, like, the less I expect things from people the it seems like the more they are willing to do for you like, like, I didn't expect anyone to clean my apartment after after an after party. You know, and it's just like, I think if you just have this attitude of, you know, you just like hey, except you accept people for who they are and you love them for who they are. They really they surprise you quite a bit. So I thought that was a very cool expression I wanted to share with you something else too. I mentioned, I've mentioned a few tips and tricks, like one of them was the, the eye flash. Like when I say hi to someone, I'll kind of like opened my eyes up. It's kind of like, the way I read it was, it is similar to a baby having large eyes, like I don't know, it's just like kind of endearing. I actually saw this one guy too, like when, if I talk to him, he would like do this, like slow blink. Or I was really weird, but it was very unusual and very stood out. And it stood out to me because it wasn't during. So it's like he would say hi. And as you said, Hi, he would smile and like do like this blink. I don't know if it's similar. But basically. So it's I've noticed, I've been doing this a lot with the opening the eyes, especially because you know you're wearing a mask, there's not much way to express yourself. So I do an eyebrow flash quite a bit. And I never, I didn't actually do this a lot that I remember. But I remember when I read it, I'm like, Oh, that's cool. I'll try this out. So you do try out a lot of new things when you're learning social skills when you're learning new tips and tricks or whatnot. And I noticed, I think that I've noticed that people feel uncomfortable doing new things because they feel like it's phony or it's fake. And, you know, I guess you could put that label on it if, if it feels that way. But I've noticed that if you do something that's a good tip or trick, and you notice that it works, you're like, oh, that worked really well. And you do it more and more. After a while. It isn't fake or phony or whatever. It actually becomes who you are. So a lot of these stuff that I've recommend, like I don't know, the eyebrow flash or Oh, giving compliments I give a lot of compliments to people. Like at first that wasn't very natural to me. But I've like the way I actually specifically stated it was hardy with your approbation and praise, or whatever it was from the Dale Carnegie thing. But I definitely give a lot more compliments. Like, let me think I did one recently, what was it, it was, oh, I was at a restaurant and I had some food. And I made it a point to tell them like, Oh, this is like the best I've ever had of whatever it was. I'll do that a lot. And at first, it wasn't natural, but now it's actually become part of my personality. I just like doing it. And I mean, if it feels like it's deserved to if it's something, something dead or something somebody has made, that's exceptional, definitely pointed out. So if you ever feel like, Oh, it's fake, or it's kind of like fake it till you make it that was kind of faking it. But it actually becomes part of who I actually was on something else. I saw someone posted online, something like something to the effect, like, how are you supposed to love yourself, like in the context of you know, you can't love anyone else until you actually love yourself. And I was thinking about this for a minute. And I was like, Well, you know, like, let's say you're to have, let's say you're to adopt a baby? And how would you love that baby? Well, you would, you know, you'd feed it, hold it, you know, clothe it, to shelter it. So you basically spend time and resources on that baby. So basically, it was like, you know, in the context of how do you love yourself, you love yourself by doing everything that you you know, probably should do, like you know, do some exercise, eat healthy brush your teeth floss, that's actually a good way to describe how you love yourself. And that way, once you have all that stuff, you know, taken care of and you're ready to regularly loving yourself. It's much easier to genuinely care and love other people. So if you're curious about that. Another thing too, that I thought would be important to bring up is something I read in a book called people skills by Robert Bolton. He was given a lot of tips. I think I'll read all the tips because he was like on one page. I'll do it next time maybe if I remember. But he said to one of the things he said would Well, he said it in the context of you know, a lot of people talk to each other their main point in talking to people is to have a connection, or, you know, build a rapport with someone. And he said he mentioned a bunch of things that were actually the exact opposite. They build a they put barriers between each other and one of the things he said was to stop giving advice. And irony is right now I'm giving you advice, but you're looking for So that's why that's why it actually makes sense in this context. But what he was saying was that people, a lot of times, like, let's say you haven't seen your mom in a while you go visit her. And next, you know, she's giving you all these lectures, is that really building a bond between you two, it actually builds a barrier. So he was saying, a lot of times people are giving unsolicited advice. And it's doing the exact opposite of what they are hoping to achieve, which is to build a connection or build a bond. It really just puts up barriers. And I've noticed this a lot. with certain people that I talked to, they just automatically start giving advice. And it's extremely annoying, because I don't really want advice. If I want advice. I might specifically say hey, can you help me out with this? Or, Hey, I got a situation. I need a little soundboard. Can you help me out with this, but I noticed some people will just automatically they, that's their whole personality, their whole personality is given advice. And that's like, that's a shitty personality. Like, nobody really wants that much advice. They might want a little here and there. And I've had to learn this hard way, the hard way. With my, one of my relatives, I noticed that I kept giving unsolicited advice. And then when I read this in the book, I'm like, oh, okay, I need to stop doing that right now. So I did, I basically was like, you know, I'm not giving this person advice anymore. And I've noticed a significant change in a relationship. So either No, I really, really want to give advice. And, and I'm not gonna lie, I still do maybe like once every couple months, as opposed to once every day does make a difference. And I think actually, when I give that advice, it actually makes more of an impact because I rarely do it. Right. I try not to do it so much. So I thought that was an awesome discovery that this guy made about how giving advice is not really good for building or establishing really good communication. Another thing I've noticed, too, is people will often repeat themselves a lot. And I find it super annoying. I think I actually was doing this a long time ago to, especially when I was training this one guy, he basically just told me, he's like, Look, you really don't need to tell me all this stuff already. Not. And I think I was like, I kind of appreciated him telling me that I'm like, Okay, my bad and didn't want to talk to you're off about that. But I've noticed, you know, and you might notice this too, when you have a conversation with someone and they start, they loop back on to the topic back and forth. And you're like CISA ease, I've actually made it a point to tell people like, Oh, yeah, you mentioned that before, or Yeah, he told me that already. I don't even play around anymore. If someone keeps repeating themselves, I just stopped them. And I just tell them, they're repeating themselves. It's kind of a dick move. But I mean, I don't got time for that. I mean, if it's like a funny story that I really like, and I wanted to hear it again, yeah, sure. But usually not. It's usually something boring and lame. This is a random thing. But I saw this guy post on Reddit, he said something, he was like trying to give a tip. And I've never run into this situation ever. And I might not ever run into it. But I thought it was a good general tip. So here's, he was talking about, he said something like, if someone gives you a nice bottle of whiskey for a gift, it is the polite thing to do to open the bottle of whiskey and poor to glasses. That way they can have a sip of the nice whiskey too. And I was thinking I'm like, he said, it was like the classy thing to do. And I'm like, actually, that's kind of baller. I like that. That's a good one. I mean, cuz like, I've given someone a real nice bottle of wine. But I didn't expect them to open it or anything. Because, you know, it's kind of like for special occasions where it's like you once you open it, you only have a couple days to drink it a bottle of whiskey, though, if you open it, it's good. You know, it's good for a while. So I thought that was kind of cool. So I thought I'd share that one. I also want to talk again, about assigning value, because there was that thing I mentioned that I ran into a while back, it said something like, it knows it was the I don't remember I can't remember the name of it right now. But it was like, oh, radical honesty. It was radical honesty, it says something about anytime you assign value, it's bullshit. So just want to repeat that because I have been better at catching myself assigning value to things like oh, this is good, this is bad. Oh, they're an asshole or, you know, the situation fucked up or whatever. That's assigning value. And anytime you assign value, it's bullshit. So I've been trying to do it a lot less and I think it actually is improved my mood because usually when I assign value, it's something negative. So Oh, I don't know, I thought I mentioned that again. I think we're pretty much gonna wrap it up for today. One last thing I want to mention is I came across this number A while back it said, the average lifespan for a human being is about 28,000 days. So I'm about halfway through there. Hopefully not. Hopefully, yes, I don't know hope I don't die next week. But you got about 28,000 days to enjoy your life. So I really encourage you to get out there and enjoy your life. work on yourself and work on your social skills and make a real big difference. And I hope you guys have an awesome week. Awesome, awesome year. But I will try to talk to you a lot sooner than that. I'll talk to you soon.