After Thoughts
After Thoughts
After Thoughts: Incompentance
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[A.I. Generated] Ever had one of those days where even spellcheck can't save you from the embarrassment of a typo in a chapter title? Yeah, we've been there too. This episode is all about embracing our imperfections with a chuckle, as we revisit a theme that's both comical and cringe-worthy: incompetence. Tag along for a heart-to-heart as we delve into the nuances of friendship, teasing, and the absolute necessity of clear communication. It's a candid confessional of past blunders and the learnings that have toughened the fibers of our long-standing kinship.
Have you ever found yourself side-eyeing a friend's seemingly perfect life and feeling like you're lagging behind? We get it, and we're unpacking those emotions of insecurity and inferiority with no holds barred. This heart-to-heart dissects the twisted tapestry of professional and personal growth, ponders the distorted reflections of success, and commiserates over the inevitable task of picking up the slack left by others at work. Remember, we're all works in progress, and this chat is our virtual group hug, a reminder that everyone's journey is unique and equally worth celebrating.
Now, for a stroll down memory lane that's as comforting as your favorite childhood blanket. We share how past passions, like setting up systems in a wine shop or geeking out over Pokémon, have left an indelible mark on our sense of competence and shaped who we are today. We also give you a peek behind the curtain of our creative process, from juggling the demands of an alcohol distribution gig to hitting the right notes for our podcast's music. It's a blend of nostalgia, creativity, and a toast to the continuous growth that keeps us all on our toes. Join us for this intimate journey, and let's raise a glass to the evolution of our interests and the personal milestones we've conquered along the way.
Incompetence Episode Reflection and Conversation
Speaker 1And we're off and we're recording . I think we say that every time , do I ?
Speaker 2Oh , so I was listening back through the incompetence episode today and I gotta say this was one of my favorite conversations , really . Yeah , I think it was because we were like the three of us were working things out kind of in real time . And so you got to kind of listen along with that and we were I feel like we were kind of working through some pretty significant insights about ourselves , yeah , and also it was really . It's just so funny to hear how triggered we get by incompetence .
Speaker 1Yeah , I mean yeah , I should have probably listened to it today . I edited it recently , but I don't remember any of like the very specific things . I think when I was editing it too , I was focusing on like trying to fix weird technical issues with it and stuff . That's true . But yeah , I mean , I know I'm triggered by incompetence . I can confirm that information .
Speaker 2Do you want to know what's really funny ?
Speaker 1What .
Speaker 2Is that we're recording into this app called Descript , and so you put a title for this conversation right now . Yeah , you misspelled incompetence .
Speaker 1Oh shit , when I typed it out I was like I don't know if this is right . Actually it's an E , not an A right . Yeah , that's what I thought . I never said I was a spelling nerd .
Speaker 2I just thought it was very apropos yeah .
Speaker 1I'm not changing it now . It's staying that way in our system forever . Yeah , I know I mean it was fun . Too bad we don't have Sam here . It'd be cool to have her in person just like hanging out with us . If we can ever get her in person , we'll have to just have an episode on deck .
Speaker 2We need to record as many as we can , or we plan to do a few episodes in a season with her and then just go fly out to where she is and do them all day Sure .
Speaker 1yeah , that'd be great . I don't have money but yeah , that'd be great .
Speaker 2I have Bitcoin . Yeah , I have Bitcoin .
Speaker 1Yeah , that would be super fun , because she lives in a place that I haven't been to yet in the country . Yeah , it'd be fun . Well , you listened to the episode today . Where should we go in this conversation ?
Speaker 2I actually was really curious about something . Okay , Because in the beginning of the episode you said that I make you feel incompetent all the time . Oh , did I ? And I would like to dig into that . Were you being serious or were you just joking ? I ?
Speaker 1don't remember . I think maybe I was referring to . I need to listen to it again and see if I can remember what I was trying to say . If I was meaning anything , it was probably a joke about your history of teasing me .
Speaker 2And just giving you shit all the time . Just giving me shit , yeah .
Speaker 1Because I don't know . There's a certain level of that . That . I think that I enjoyed the camaraderie level of it , but then if it's about certain things that I really care about , then it's like okay , well , fuck off . Which I've definitely thought in my head after you say things . So that must have been what I was referring to . But yeah , it was things that's like only you could say it . Like if somebody else said it , especially somebody that I haven't known as long or is not nearly as good a friend as me , I would have probably said out loud okay , well , that's not funny . But to recall an instance in which that was the case , I could not tell you , so it must not have hurt that bad .
Speaker 2Well , I just want to set the record straight that I don't view as incompetent .
Speaker 1Yeah , I know that . Now I don't know if I always knew that , though I mean , that's always been the case . Well , that's great , I love that , you know , maybe sometimes it's like if you had said anything that actually hurt my feelings . It was probably because you accidentally Poked at something that I was feeling insecure about now .
Speaker 1So like you , know , it's like not nothing that you could have possibly known , but like , had I been better at communicating my feelings back then , like now , if you did that , now I've been like , yeah , actually that kind of that kind of things , like that's something I'm insecure about and I would just tell you about it , but like before I wouldn't have opened up about it quite as much . So that's probably , I'm sure that's what I was referring to . What did we record this episode ? It was a long time ago , right ?
Speaker 2Yeah , it was in , I think , like August ish . Oh it's not that long ago July , august , maybe , yeah , summer on them .
Speaker 1Yeah , I mean , I say , it's not that long ago , but it's already getting warm . Yeah , it's March , right Approaching the next July , so I guess it's been a while . But yeah , so I would assume that's probably what I was thinking about , though that's what comes to mind now .
Speaker 1Okay , well , good because I don't want you to feel like I think you're confident . Yeah , no , nothing too serious . And well , a lot of time I you know what . It's funny , I think . Actually something that would probably be in my mind when I said that too would be like the kite there's .
Navigating Insecurities and Professional Growth
Speaker 1You've always been kind of like Ahead of me in the adult game . You know , a little bit ahead of me . I think that we've in some ways narrowed some of those gaps , but , like , there was always things for you like you know , just even like normal things , like getting married and having like a solid job and like being good at what you do and like being Appreciated and respected , which I didn't get for most of my adult life in like the , the professional sense right , and so things that as a five especially , I would value very highly and want in my life and Didn't have , and then saw that you did have them , and so , like I would say the more accurate phrase would not be that you made me Feel incompetent , but you made me feel insecure , but not by anything that you did , just being you and being successful .
Speaker 1I think it's just because , like you know , we we have been so close , so much you know , and it's it's . It's like . It's like if you're in a room full of people , especially as a five , I think being in a room full of people that are really successful and maybe even successful the thing you want to be successful at can make you feel a little insecure . It can make you feel or inferior maybe , but not like in a way that's Like disrespectful or like intentional or anything like that . It's just like you know your , your own internal insecurities will creep up and make you doubt like yourself or like that you have the right to be there , maybe , or something like that , which I don't feel as much anymore , like . It's not like something that I'm actively feeling , but I have in the past for sure , especially when I . My life was so Inconsistent and all over the place and not as secure Generally . I think I would probably have felt that way a lot more kind of in my 20s . So I'm sure somebody listening this can relate to that . Yeah .
Speaker 2You know , what's funny about that is I I don't ever I'm like in any significant way Consciously Recognize that gap . Yeah , that's good . I think a big part of it is . For a long time , even though outwardly you could look at me and say that I was successful , I never really felt that way .
Speaker 1Sure , yeah Well , and you were always kind of on that grind too . Yeah you know , everything was just a step to the next thing , yeah and then you know , and I always you know I Would .
Speaker 2I would look at people who were much farther ahead than I am , and or I would look alright , I'd be in a company and I'd look at like leadership and like . I Make the assumption that if they're , if they've made it up to that level of leadership , it means because they're , like , the best at what they do and they got their shit together , they know what they're doing and they're really smart . And and then , as I have progressed over the years as well , the more and more I have Realized that no one really knows what the fuck they're doing . Oh yeah , no , I think that's part of it too .
Speaker 1Yeah , it's like the older you get , the more you realize like and I , you know , you see memes about this all the time it's like people realizing they're like oh , I thought when I was 30 , like when I was a kid , people in their 30s had their shit together , uh-huh , they were like impressive and you wanted to be them and that's what made you want to grow up , you know . And it's like you actually get there and you're like I'm still a baby .
Speaker 2I'm just a baby , I can't do anything or even , like you look at , you know Companies that make certain decisions and like , yeah , man , they , they must have like really Put so much research and thought into that decision . And then I get behind the scenes of how decisions are made at different companies and I'm like there there was like it's just not what I thought at all and a lot of times it's very much just like how much money will this save us ? Or it's just like , hey , we need to make this decision right now . What does everybody think ? And okay , that sounds , that sounds good , so let's do that .
Speaker 2It's it's so it's just so not what I , what I thought , and so I think that I , right now I'm feeling a little bit jaded on .
Speaker 1Everything sure , yeah , I can . I mean . Huh , I'm always there , so this will be a fine yeah .
Speaker 2This is a very timely conversation for me , because work has been hell especially the last couple weeks and it is because Someone else's incompetence Hmm , right , and I have to deal with it . And and now they're no longer on the team and I have to pick up their you know , clean up their mess , essentially . And the more that I do it , the more I realize the level of incompetence or negligence . Yeah , I don't , I don't know which was which , and and it's just like now , like my workload is triple what it was and I'm so stressed out and it's like , oh , just drives me crazy .
Speaker 1Yeah , I mean it's it's , it's so . It's so hard to To to . It's hard enough to work with somebody that is like openly and outwardly incompetent or negligent , I don't know . Those kind of those two ideas , those two concepts kind of Mesh together . Like that's a very blurry line for me because it kind of to me it affects me the same if you're negligent or you're incompetent , it's the same outcome in my mind , which is that you suck as a person and you're you're not good at this job because of me .
Speaker 1If you're gonna be negligent , I mean like we're all adults like if you're gonna be in this job , do the job . Yeah , you know , it's like that just shows immaturity to me when people just like don't do their job . But and that's almost equally as frustrating because I am so driven by efficiency and For better or worse , like I'm not remotely efficient and a lot of things in my life . But I want to be and I see , you know , like nothing gets me more excited than like Organization and systems to make things more efficient and trying to figure out those systems
Nostalgic Reflections on Pokemon Go
Speaker 1. And I Think on this episode didn't I talk about like creating that system at the wine ?
Speaker 2shop .
Speaker 1So , like because that's still in my brain , like it just floats around in there and it's literally because I'm just so proud of it and it's not that big of a deal , like it's , like , you know , didn't really matter . It mattered in the moment because everything was like falling apart . But like I still think back to that time and I'm like man , that was the most fun I had at that job , because and it was also fun trying to manage people who hated the idea . I don't know why , but it was like it was such an interesting , like mental challenge to try to overcome and like Not let my emotions get the best of me and still try to be as good of a manager as I could be while implementing this entire system and just being like , just trust me , like once we get there , it'll be great , and that was something that up until that point in my life I didn't know I had in me . So like that was a super fun challenge and the at the end at the time , and so I think that's why it's kind of sticks in my brain when we have , when we had this conversation before and that's what popped in my in my head , because that was something that at the time I it's actually a lot more around that idea of efficiency and competence , like cuz , to be efficient at something you also have to be pretty competent at it and like .
Speaker 1So if you're incompetent is something , it's really hard to be efficient because you're just like Bumbling all over the place . I guess and I don't really know what that phrase means Bumbling all over the place . Oh , I just heard myself say that I don't know what that means . Um , bumble , bumble .
Speaker 2It's like a Pokemon .
Speaker 1Gotta capture the bumble , the Bumbling Bumble . Oh God , that's really funny . Meg pot Pokemon's on your brain lately right ?
Speaker 2Oh yeah , definitely your kids are getting the .
Speaker 1Pokemon . What a full circle moment . I was never in a Pokemon , so I Never really got the got it I was . I was too old . My brother was really in the Pokemon .
Speaker 2Yeah , I didn't . I didn't really get into it . When I was a kid , I think I kind of just missed it . I had some Pokemon cards in like eighth grade , but yeah , I didn't like that . I didn't do anything with them and I don't know where they are now . My little brother probably has them . See , actually has a pretty decent collection .
Speaker 1He probably has them like in , like in plastic protecting them .
Speaker 2He got super into like the video games and stuff and See , you know , he always nerded out on he's a five , so he he nerds out on building . Well , in the back in the day it was Xbox's and so the original Xbox . He would take it apart and mod it and turn it into Xbox Media Center .
Speaker 2So before we had like Netflix and all that stuff you could you could load all these downloaded shows onto the hard drive and then use the Xbox to play it like it's a , you know , like it's a Roku or something that's cool , and so this , I mean this was , like you know , 2005 , 2006 .
Speaker 1Yeah , yeah , like we're seniors in high school . Oh my god , that's almost 20 years ago . I know isn't that wild .
Speaker 2That's hurting my brain , okay .
Speaker 1Yeah , I graduated 20 years ago this year , so if I went to public school , this would be my 20 year reunion .
Speaker 2Yes , that's right , I graduated in 2004 .
Speaker 1Yeah , fuck , isn't that wild , oh , okay . Do you have a 20 year reunion you could go to . I would you ?
Speaker 2if you could . So here's the thing . We're off topic , but we'll just go with it .
Speaker 1We'll come back around .
Speaker 2It always does so so Amy , I Would go to it , mainly because I Missed the tenure reunion . And Amy , I don't know if she's ever forgiven me for that , because because she was homeschooled so she has no reunion to go and she wanted to go .
Speaker 1Can I be on your other arm if you go , cuz I didn't get one either .
Speaker 2So I don't know if , like , I don't keep . I only like stay in touch with a couple people from high school .
Speaker 1Yeah , how would you know ? Like every time I ever saw movies .
Speaker 2There's a Facebook group but I'm not on Facebook , right , but that's but like when you watched movies before social media would have existed .
Speaker 1How did they all know about the reunion ?
Speaker 2It was . It's up to the either , I think student class president To to do it and organize it yeah maybe you have a shitty class president .
Speaker 1They just like nope , oh , I definitely have a shitty class president . Okay , yeah , fair enough . So yeah , you may not have one , then I mean , they did a 10 year .
Speaker 2I Actually don't even . I'm actually not sure how my class president was . I didn't really pay any attention to that shit .
Speaker 1Yeah .
Speaker 2So they did do the tenure and I I'm trying to remember , like from what I remember , my friends who did go to it . They're like , yeah , that was lame . So I don't know if they're actually doing a yeah but anyway my brother was super into . One of the things he does is he buys like Kind of beat up old game boys and restores them and like and the upgrades , like the LCD screen inside of them and like yeah all this stuff and and he plays Pokemon on those and it's just like it's really cool .
Speaker 2So yeah , we're into Pokemon . I thought I was . That was the point of that story .
Speaker 1Yeah , I thought that . I thought that I'd get into Pokemon when Pokemon go first came out , because of how many people were running around doing it . I was like , oh , maybe I could get into it . And then I tried for like a day and was like this is way too much activity .
Speaker 2You didn't have to walk over there , oh my god , I got a lot .
Speaker 1I got a . There's some great Pokemon's a mile and a half away , but I ain't driving over there . I know grown ass 40 and 50 year old men that play Pokemon go . It's so crazy they still play in that game and they'll like have multiple phones open , catching all of the Pokemon . Oh my god , yeah , I knew this one , I know this one guy he , I know this one guy he , he got , he got a restraining order again against him because the best .
Speaker 1Pokemon was on this random street and this woman thought that he was like a creep stalking her . And he's out there with like five phones to catching Pokemon and he's like 50 . He just sit in his truck catching Pokemon . And he's a wedding DJ , like he owns a massive wedding DJ business , so like like he don't do shit , like he's just managing things , so like it's pretty much just like on autopilot , probably most of the time for his company . So that's all he did and he just drive around catching Pokemon .
Speaker 1And he got really like he's really competitive , so like he , you know , got really intense about it and he went within on principle alone . He took this woman to court and like Made her drop all of the charges and restraining orders and now he's allowed to go on that street . So he likes and she can't do anything about it and he loves that and secretly I mean I was keeping up with the story on Facebook just in his post and I was like I was secretly being like , oh man , I hope this works out where you can just sit there and she can't do anything . It'd be so great . Ultimate justice . Yeah , that's kind of cool
Creativity, Efficiency, and Growth
Speaker 1, though . I always with your , with your brother , in that , just going back to go like being able to mod things , like I've always wanted to be , like that tech dude , you know , like I think I always thought that would be really cool . I think it's only because , like , I always identified with , like in the movie the Matrix mm-hmm the guy , the , the guy who was actually a bad guy , the bald guy with the .
Speaker 2You know he eats the steak and talks about how he wants to . Yeah , re-injured . In the matrix I was identified with , I got a little bit cipher , yes .
Speaker 1Was it cipher ?
Speaker 2Yeah .
Speaker 1Yeah , and I just liked it . He was the one , like always , managing the computer part while they all did the crazy stuff . Like in my wildest dreams , I'm not the lead character , you're the guy in the chair . I'm the guy in the chair . Yeah , exactly yes , except I'm not , because I would be incompetent at that . I don't really know . I'm more of like I guess I'm more of the what's it was it called the ?
Speaker 2like the guy on the couch .
Speaker 1Those , I'm the , I'm the , the guy who , like , does the thing , like somebody comes up , the idea . What's the like you ?
Speaker 2implement , implement our God .
Speaker 1Yeah , yeah , that that's . Implementer was the word I was looking for . I'm more of the person like implementing the things , rather than like and trying to figure out the most efficient way to do those things . So like ideas , you're like an ideas guy . I am .
Speaker 1Yeah , and I think if I was like , if it was my job you know like I love Trying to figure out new systems for like . Right now I'm in the middle of re , kind of reworking , keeping track of my job and everything that's going on in my job , because I just have so many . You know , there's always so many moving parts when it comes to like . For those who may not remember what I do , I'm an alcohol distribution sales and so I'm mostly just an account manager and I'm finally at that place where I do feel confident in my job and I feel like , for the most part , all my accounts are happy with my work , like they enjoy working with me , they like having me as their rep . Like that was my first level .
Speaker 1I wanted to get to that point where it's like at least I'm efficient enough that I'm getting you your basic needs of stuff and then try to grow that book . And so now I'm in that growth stage where I'm like how do I keep track of the things that my company wants me to push while and have that system , while also keeping track of the things that are incentivized , because we have like 6,000 products , so like I'm only going to care about the ones that are going to give me extra money , and so I know that our reps that like to that basically just sell to off-premise , which is stores and wine shops , things like that , not restaurants and bars . They have some type of a spreadsheet where they keep track and constantly update all of the incentives that are going on and how long they're going on and how much they get per placement .
Speaker 1And so I'm trying to get to that level for on-premise , because I don't know if anybody really does that on the on-premise team . So I'm like maybe we can do that and I can do that and maybe help the team out too . So I'm kind of in that place right now trying to figure that out . But it's also like I'm also constantly moving forward and selling things . So it's like I want the time to dedicate to actually be able to like create a system in which everything works the way I want it to . But I'm also trying to do that in music things , also trying to do that with podcast things . You only get so much time off .
Speaker 2I will say our podcast organization has gotten so much better . It really has , yeah .
Speaker 1So you guys don't really know yet as listeners . The listeners don't really know yet , because we haven't come out with more than one season in a year in a while . But we can revisit this conversation at the end of this year , yeah .
Speaker 2Well , I mean , we already have season five planned out .
Speaker 1Yeah .
Speaker 2But we know what the episodes are , and so we'll be able to sit down and record them pretty easily , I think .
Speaker 1Yeah , well , and on my end , I think we've talked about this before on the show and I was always flying by the seat of my pants trying to edit the episode the night before we were releasing stuff and I finally got to a place where I've edited . All the episodes are edited for the most part . I just have to , you know , get the responses in and drop the music and make the music which I mean .
Speaker 1I just did that February writers thing and my brain has been on like hyper , like I can flip a switch and just like turn creativity on , that's so cool .
Speaker 1Oh man , it's like it really is a muscle , you do it enough and you could just like produce things .
Speaker 1I was , I sat down the other day , on Monday , and I um , I , uh , sat down and was like , all right , I want to make a song for this episode , but it would be really nice if I could do like a couple episodes at least . I sat down and within 15 minutes had three ideas and then within an hour had fully built them out so that I can . Basically , I set them up where I could make them however long I want to , based on how long the response like block is for the for listeners responses . So like I literally just time it out and like , oh , I need two minutes and 36 seconds and I will just make it as close as possible and then just adjust things around , and so I've gotten really efficient at that and so that's been really fun , because I used to take forever to do that and I just like , how am I going to do this ? But , um , building it around one minute , all I do is one bar Dude .
Speaker 2I was thinking about this actually this week because I also used to stress about the episodes and I would stress about recording them . I'm like coming over here and think , like you know , trying to get everything set up and think about what to say and and all this stuff , like in which topics we're going to do , I would stress out about like having to review them and trying to figure out like what you know , putting a description in and then like thanks AI .
Speaker 2Well , actually I'm not using AI for anymore , but , like , I have a formula now , but it's because , like we , we have a system and I just meant for the descriptions , but yeah .
Speaker 1And that's only on our community .
Speaker 2Um , uh , but the but yeah , I have . I have it down to where I don't have any anxiety about doing the episodes anymore at all . No , I look forward to them . Yeah , me too , and so that's really awesome , because then that means that we can keep going Like we can keep doing it , and it's not gonna burn out .
Speaker 1Exactly , yeah , we're not constantly inching towards burnout as much and , if anything , it energizes me . These conversations are actually my favorite because sitting down and being able to , we have lights down , mood lighting , just sitting in chairs , talking and not having to worry about what we look like for all those videos we've never done anything with .
Speaker 1And so it's so much more energizing for me , because this is the literal thing I love to do the most is just talk one-on-one about the things that we like to talk about , and so I think that this has been a lot more fun , and I actually look forward to it . And in some ways it sucks , because then I get so energized and then you leave and I'm up for like four more hours and I can't go to sleep , because then I'm thinking about all these other things that I wanna do and so . But in that way , though , it's a good thing . It shows me that it's no longer draining me . It's something that I really like to do , so that's been really nice change for sure .
Speaker 2Yeah , well , I think I have said everything that I would like to say . Yeah , all right . Well , that's a wrap . That's a wrap remember .
Speaker 1How long was this thing ? I don't know . Oh , it doesn't actually tell it . Oh , 26 minutes , that's a short episode .
Speaker 2You know what We've given ? A lot , it's okay .
Speaker 1It's okay . There's a good conversation , all right , we'll see you next time , next time , bye , bye .