Welcome to Ear Biscuits, I’m Rhett. And I’m Link. This week at the Round Table of Dim Lighting, we’re gonna get some wisdom, because we are going to review some sage advice. Yeah, we asked you what the best advice you’ve ever received was, and that was because, we were asked that question by Stanna US, who asked us on Twitter, ” What is the best advice someone has ever given you? With the most impact on your life.” And we were like, you know what? That’s a good question. We’ll answer that. We’re gonna try to answer that, but we sent that question back to you and got all the advice that you thought was the most impactful in your entire life, and we’re gonna go through and evaluate whether or not it’s good advice. We’re just gonna go through and take the advice that you’ve taken to heart to heart and discuss. And discuss, was at the end of your sentence? And discuss. And discuss. We’re going to discuss it. It, it. I think it is unnecessary in that sentence. I think we need to put a disclaimer at the top of this thing, so just bear with me– Are you gonna do a Prop 65 thing? No, what I’m– This podcast has been known by the state of California to potentially cause cancer. I saw that on my frickin fiber supplement. What? Yeah. Was it the bottle or was the pills that you’re swallowing? It was the bag of just… Is it psyllium husk? Yeah. Fiber that I take if I need to regulate myself, which I don’t take much anymore. So if you ate the bag, you might get cancer. No, it had a sticker on it, that I’ve never seen before and I got like the natural stuff that’s supposed to be the purest is just 100% psyllium husk, and then all of a sudden there’s this thing, this sticker and it’s like Prop 65 but it doesn’t say this substance or substance in this bag has been known to cause cancer in the city of California. It says, see Prop 65.gov/food or whatever the address. I’m like what? Why? So it’s not talking about the container? I think it’s just like you should– It’s talking about– You should know about what foods– The supplements. To watch out for. I don’t know. Oh, gosh. No. Sorry I brought it up. I was just gonna say, advice is a certain type of opinion. And as you know, opinions are like buttholes, everybody’s got one and most of them stink. So that tells me that, advice is like a butthole farting in your specific direction. Is an implication that like– I would say unsolicited advice. I’ve got an opinion on something you should do. So you got to be careful that you’re sniffing the fart of somebody that is worthy of sniffing. I think unsolicited advice is like a butthole but solicited advice– No, no opinions are like a butthole. But advice is a type of opinion. Advice is a fart directed at you. But if I ask you for your opinion on something, it’s not like a butthole anymore. If I give you advice. Unsolicited. Then yeah, you need to evaluate the source of the advice, which we’re not gonna do here. We’re gonna take everybody– I think solicited opinions are just like a whole ass, just not ass. It’s like, but the butthole, you know? I’m saying that in it, but I’m also saying that, advice in general is an opinion directed at you. It’s an implication like, this is my opinion on what you should do with yourself, how you should conduct yourself. Yeah. So we’re in dangerous territory here. You got to watch the farts you sniffing. But we’re not giving any advice, we’re just evaluating advice that people have been giving. So we’re not showing our asses at all. And we pick stuff that’s resonated with us. I think this is gonna be an uplifting conversation. And it better be because it needs to last for three more weeks. ‘Cause I hate to break it to you. Oh, yeah. Dear Ear Biscuiteer, but we’re gonna go dark, for the next three weeks. We’re taking our summer break. We’re taking a break. Three weeks with no Ear Biscuits, but there’s a lot of Ear Biscuits that you can go– Go back to. Go back and listen to. There’s also, I hate to say it, I mean there’s also other podcasts. That is a thing you could also listen to. Just over the next three weeks, just go back through our podcasts. I’m sure there’s something that you missed. I hear that people listen to them multiple times, because they’re doing stuff when they’re listening to it and you kind of fall in– You only get– And out of– 50% or less. Yeah. Anyway, meaning you’re listening intently. Yeah, I probably need to listen to them over the next three weeks ’cause– Why don’t you do that? I’m sure I missed some stuff. Have you ever listened to an episode of Ear Biscuits? I listen to myself when I’m speaking. And sometimes I listen to you when you’re speaking. Right. But no, I have not listened back to an Ear Biscuit in a long time, maybe ever. I think when we first started making these– Maybe the interviews, maybe I was listening to a couple of those. I would listen to them in order to figure out what it is we wanted to do. Yeah. It’s quite a time commitment to listen to yourself for over an hour. When you’re already there. Yeah, if you put it on double speed or something, you really can’t. Then it just sounds weird. You really don’t learn that much. You miss all the emotion. I think it’s working well enough for me not to try to make it better. We’re gonna answer that question ourselves before the break. Not before the break that we just talked about the three week break, but before the break where we do our ad. What are you talking about? We’re gonna answer the question. Just talk. Oh we’re gonna answer the question about what our best piece of advice was. When, right now? Yeah. Okay, well then just do it. You talking about a break like we’re about to take one. Well, we’re gonna take one eventually. Eventually. But not the three week break. When you start talking about the break– The ad break. When I listen back to our podcast, here’s the one thing I’ve learned, don’t talk about a break, If you’re not gonna take it. ‘Cause then people think you’re about to take it. Yeah, yeah. Eventually, yeah, we’ll take one. We’re not about to take a break. Eventually. We’re still doing the show. We haven’t even gotten started, you talking about taking a break. I have some advice that I have used. I just feel myself saying it, and we say it all the time. “It’s what you make it.” It’s what you make it. It’s what you make it. And we always say it like that, “It’s what you make it.” Like you’re quoting someone? Right. Yeah, I think that’s.. The thing that’s been driving me nuts is not remembering who gave us the advice, but I’ll tell you what I do know. I don’t know who gave it. It was in the context of a person talking about marriage, ” It’s what you make it.” But I’ve used it in many, many different arenas. You know me and my arena Just life in general. It’s what you make it. It’s what you make it. It’s up to you now, as we will see when we get into some of these other questions. That ain’t true. It’s not completely up to you, but it’s good. When you think about a situation that you’re entering into, and I think the thing the guy was talking about was like, how do you have a good marriage? And it’s just like, “It’s what you make it.” ” Is this something Greg said in college?” No, ’cause Greg said, “You know what you know, you don’t learn anything.” When I was getting ready to study for a test. Yeah, clear ulterior motives in that piece of sage wisdom. Which I gotta say, while I have used that conveniently for my own purposes, I do not think it’s good advice, because I do actually think you learn things. I hope it ain’t true. I think you learn things. I think there was capacity for learning. I think I’ve learned some things, yeah. But I think it was– “It’s what you make it.” At of the fall retreats. Are you sure you’re not getting it confused with, “It’s part of it?” As a Dale Earnhardt quote? That’s part of it. When it’s like that’s racing, that’s what Earnhardt said. I say it out a lot too. When he would do stuff that people didn’t. He would drive in a way that he would clanging and banging up against the other cars and get a little rowdy and be like, “That’s racing. I think that’s a Earnhardt quote. I don’t know. It’d be a Waltraud quote. I’ve never watched an entire NASCAR race. You’re saying ‘That’s racing” is the racing version of “That’s part of it.” Yeah. You’re not saying that Dale Earnhardt came up with “That part of it.” Because I think that a caveman came up with “That part of it.” As soon as language was a thing, someone said, “That’s part of it.” And that’s not really advice, It’s just kind of a saying. Right. Life is what you make it. But, “It’s what you make it” is advice. cause I feel like advice is– It’s implying a state of mind. Well, it’s also advice– Focus on what you can control. Is an opportunity to do something, right? Or to not do something. But there is a response that is intended from advice. Every moment of your life you never get back. But I think that it was at that What about that? Fall retreat. One of those fall retreats that we went to as students, involved a campus crusade, and the guy who was speaking there, and I think he was doing a talk on marriage. He also talked about genital warts. I mean, that’s one of the things that I remember vividly. I wasn’t there for that. Where there photos? No, no. His opening salvo– You getting this confused with health class. Like coach Bunch No, no, no Teaching you about it I specifically remember it. He told a story about a man who did something, like had promiscuous sex or cheated on his wife or something. And it was just like, and that man got genital warts. And I was like, whoa, we’re going here? Alright, okay. What does that mean? And then he was like, “And that man was me.” And then it’s like, whoa. What. Which is you got genital warts. And so — I was not there for this. So okay. I would have remembered that. You would remembered that. You think he was like, “And genital warts are what you make them” What? No, because the way that they did the fall retreats is– If you get the warts that is. It was a guy who– It’s what you make it. There was a guy, it was always a guy. Who spoke the entire weekend. And so his opening talk was genital warts. And he had us by the genital warts at that point. It was like whatever this guy says, don’t miss any of the main talks, right? “Cause he opened with genital warts. Mm-hmm. And then he went to just talking about relationships and marriage or something, and I kind of swear he said, “It’s what you make it.” It didn’t seem revolutionary at the time, and I don’t necessarily think that it is revolutionary, but the question was, that is impacted you the most. And I just find myself in situations all the time, and I’m like, “It’s what you make it.” It has been helpful as a joke, but also as a reality. “Cause it helps you focus on what you can control in any given situation. Yeah. As opposed to the parts that you can’t. I think we’ll come back to that. I think there’s some advice, it’s not just, is the advice good, but who is the advice for? The advice that has always resonated with me is, “Anything worth doing is worth doing right.” But that’s a bit problematic for a guy like me that gets over focused on the rightness of things and going about them in the right way– Cause you might not do something if you don’t think you can do it right. Yeah, there’s some fear and trepidation, If that rings in my ears too much. And then it’s never clear cut. I’d like to believe that it is, and say okay, this is perfected, I can move on. You gotta balance all these things. It’s what you make it. Nana’s version of that was, “Don’t half-ass it.” Right. Which we’ve talked about. I’ve had a hard time. There’s not a lot of mottos that ring in my head that were wants just pieces of advice. I remember when we were going on a trip to shoot some videos, a guy told me a guy me, a guy who I admire he said, “Hey just remember, it’s better to have a good story than a good time.” And I kind of like that because, we’re trying to make a… If you’re in a… and I’ve talked about this before on the show, if you’re in a situation, and it’s sucks, you’re like, “well, at least I can tell a story about it because I have a podcast.” Or you have friends or people who are listening. And yeah, I like telling a good story. So that’s always helped give me perspective when I’m going through something crappy. But it’s a little bit weird to say it before you’re in that situation. Well, especially because, I think that being present is actually– Yeah. A better advice. I understand, if you’re going through a difficult time, it’s just better to have a good story than a good time. If you’re in the middle like, it’s one of those crazy vacations where everything’s going wrong. This sucks but at least, if I live to tell it, I will tell it. And usually what I say in those situations is, “Man this makes a great story.” I’m up shits creek without a paddle but, at least it’s a good story. Like you said, especially when you have a place to tell the story. But I don’t think that, if I’m getting ready to go do something fun, “better to have a good story than a good time” is good advice, because what about the joy Yeah. That is available for me in the present? Yeah. I don’t think it was great advice in that sense. But I still really like it. What about, “Remember who you are.” Parents send their kids out into some something that they’re gonna do and they come to the front door and they’re like, “Hey, hey, hey, remember who you are.” Have you ever said that one of your children? Ah, sometimes I’d be like, ” Remember you’re a Neal.” And what is that supposed to communicate? Don’t embarrass me. I don’t say that often. I don’t find myself every giving these quotable pieces of advice to my kids. Yeah, not quotable, not bite size is more. But what I am guilty of, and I know you’re just as guilty of it as I am, is giving advice in general to our kids. It’s actually something that Jessie and I have talked a lot about is that, sometimes we get into a conversation with our kids, they’re just telling us about their day. They’re telling us about something they did or something they’re going to do. And then there’s like this dad button that gets pressed and the dad button responds will like And you get this response, now, “Well, if you’re gonna do that, think about this. Or when did that happen? What did you learn then, blah blah blah.” It’s like– Unsolicited. If you’ve got a friend who talks like that, like every single time they tell you something, you tell them something, they give you advice about it. That’s not– What do you think I am, a screw up? I’m telling you this so that we can connect, because I thought you might find it interesting because you might be able to add something to it, or you might be able to respond to it with a perspective. Yeah. But not to then tell me what I should have done differently, or what I should have kept in mind, and I do that with my kids too often. I find when my kids talk about their friends, things that are happening with their friends, I am apparently filtering the conversation through an analysis of, “Do I approve of their friends?” ‘Cause– Oh, yeah. Your friends is so powerful. There’s probably a piece of advice in there. “You are who you hang out with.” It’s probably a catchier version of that? But I think that I filter things through that platitude, so then, when they’re just talking about their day or something that happened I’m like, “Well you know if you’re that type of person, if they do that then that’s not really a true friend. A true friend is someone who blah blah blah blah blah.” I end up analyzing and trying to protect. But I guess you wanna get to a point where they’re actually, it’s solicited advice. My kids are asking, “Hey I’m in this situation or this person said this to me, I don’t know how to respond or you know.” Well, and if they don’t do that, I think that there and I don’t have this perfected. I don’t even have it immediately understood, but the thing that I’m trying to do now is ask questions, in a way that’s not like a detective, not like a leading question. So I seem like I’m manipulating, but okay, I’m having this conversation. There is something that I feel like I need to communicate about this. Because I still do have advice, I have been around longer, I have a perspective on this, And I think I got a little wisdom about this. And our kids left to their own devices, don’t ask for advices. Right. And so then I’ll ask a question. My kids are smart enough to know what I’m getting at, but at least it doesn’t come across like, “Well, did you know, here is the thing that I’m going to tell you.” But it’s more like, “Have you thought about this? Or how you feeling about it?” At least it gets them talking. And maybe you get someplace where they come to a conclusion. I don’t know, It’s tough being a dad. But, we don’t have to come up with all the advice, we’ve got some great advice from people. We’re gonna start going through it. But first, we’re just going to gently advise you to check out mythical.com. We say it every week, but every week there’s a little something new. There’s sales going on. There’s stuff going on. You think we got hoodies, you think we got T-shirts? Yeah, we got that. But we got lots of other stuff like pins and stickers and– Well, and we’ve got the whole Feel Good Mythical Morning ensemble, that we came up with. We had the Feel Good Mythical Morning Hoodie, but now they got the Feel Good Mythical Morning T-shirt. We got the Feel Good Mythical Morning sticker and enamel pin. So if you wanna feel good. That’s our advice. “Feel good.” If it feels good, do it. And if you need some help with that, just go to Mythical.com. Okay, let’s get started. Sometimes I tell my kids, “Don’t think just do.” It’s probably. And ironic– In what context? Usually when they’re standing on the edge of a pool, and they’re afraid to jump in because it’s cold. I was gonna say in like an athletic context? Yeah. That’s great advice. Because the thinking and the doing is supposed to be happening in sync. If you’re thinking, the guy’s already gone around you. Somebody else has jumped in the pool. It’s also ironic because Before you. It’s not what I want them to do in their non athletic lives. Which is the vast majority of their life. I’m not cutting on my kids. Yeah, it did. Your kids are non athletic? My kids are not sports minded. Yeah, but I wouldn’t say they’re non athletic, they just might not be like super into sports. But if you threw like a hot dog at them, they probably catch it. Don’t you think? I’ll test that. Try that I’ll test that today. That’s the ultimate test of athleticism. Throw a hot dog straight from the fridge right at your child’s face. And if it hits him in the face, hopefully they’re smart. Because they’re not athletic. They’re not athletic. Okay. Give me some advice. Ariana bearscivilles on Twitter. My grandmother– It’s bearskvlls but the U is a V. Yeah, I was just trying to be phonetic. My grandmother always used to tell me, “look towards the sunshine, and the shadows will fall behind you.” That’s true from like a physics standpoint. Every time the sun is out, it makes me feel like she’s watching over me and making sure I’m taking care of myself. Isn’t it so sweet if you have these memories of grandparents or someone that means something to you, that even if they passed, that they passed along something that can echo like them? For her to be so positive. Look towards the sunshine. Actually, be positive and the shadows will fall behind you. I consider myself a generally positive person, but i think is more of a coping mechanism with me. It’s like, oh gosh. If I can convince myself that when things are not going well, ’cause that does happen, I’ll feel better if I can minimize. But I’ve met some people that seem more like genuinely positive people. They have a gift for it. They can turn from the shadow and see the sunshine in a moment. Maybe they’re just so good at applying this kind of advice that they’re secretly catastrophizing but. The advice is for people who don’t have a natural gift at it, because they don’t need the advice. So it does involve you. You can make a choice in any situation what you’re going to focus on. Mm-hmm. And how you’re gonna see it, how you’re gonna process it. I mean, this advice has been given in a lot of different contexts. You’ve got keep on the sunny side of life, that great song. But then Locke and I actually had this conversation the other day, and talking about… And I’m sure that you’ve been having similar conversations with your teenage kids and all your kids. But I think that COVID has been especially frustrating for teenagers because, you just think about what your life was like when you were 16, and to have all these restrictions put on– You have so much life to live. Where you can go, yeah. You haven’t lived most of it. Right, and you’re like oh– It’s frustrating. The summer of my 16th year is, what? I gotta wear masks if I wanna be around my friends and they thought and probably be outside with them and I to ask them questions about, where they’ve been and where their families have been. This is incredibly frustrating, especially considering the fact that, if a teenager gets the Coronavirus, that mean the chances of even them even knowing they’ve got it, is pretty small, right? Is this not going to affect them personally, so it’s almost completely, selfless thing that they have to do. And so, we’ve had a lot of conversations about how difficult this has been. In the in the way that I gave him some advice the other day ’cause I was like– Look towards the sunshine and the shadows will fall behind you. Well, that’s what I should have said. But what I said is like, and this is not as good of advice as this, ’cause it’s not as simple. But I was like, “You’re going through something right now. And I can write a story about it, and I can write two different scripts, right? And one script is that this is really difficult and really restrictive, and your parents are taking this too seriously, and all the negative things that you can see.” Mm-hmm. But then there’s the positive side of the script, which is when you look back on this, you’d be like, I lived through this really weird time and it made me reevaluate my friendships. And we kind of went through like all the positive way that the things that you could focus on. It’s like your parents are healthy, you’re healthy, nobody that we know has gotten this. There’s not other health conditions that we’re already… No one in our family is immunocompromised. You start sort of counting all your blessings and the things that you have been privileged to, the position that you’re in. And you’re like, oh, okay, that helps. You turn towards the positive. And then I was like, because your circumstances are not gonna change, right? We’re gonna be in this for a while, and if you’re expecting me to do something to make it okay for you, or you’re expecting your friends to do something. No, the only thing that you can do is you can write your own script, you can turn towards the sunshine, turn away from the darkness. And I’m kind of giving myself that advice as I give it to him because, this has been difficult for everybody, right? But to say like, all right, where can I be grateful? What can I focus on? Because I have a whole lot to be thankful for. And when I do that, all of a sudden it’s like, okay, yeah, it’s truly helpful. The Black Sheep responded to our prompt and said, “Life changing advice was to always remember Sonder S-O-N-D-E-R, before getting upset at somebody else over petty things.” And then she put the definition of sonder, which I had never heard that definition. Oh, I actually had this pulled up. Not. Sonder, it is a company. No. That is like Airbnb, but people never live in the homes, but it’s like a curated hotel in a home experience that no one ever lived in. That ain’t what we’re talking. Right, ’cause it was as a term coined in 2012 by John Koring or Koenig, whose project “The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows” aims to come up with new words for emotions that currently lack words. Mm-hmm. And this one is inspired by German sonder, which means special and French sonder which means to probe. And his definition is, the profound feeling of realizing that everyone, including strangers passed in the street, has a life as complex as one’s own, which they are constantly living, despite one’s personal lack of awareness of it. Go back to the definition she posted. It’s a little more succinct. Sonder noun. The realization that each random passerby is living a life as vivid and complex as your own. I love this. I wanna remember this word. Imma say it three times. Sonder, sonder, sonder. I’ve got it. I’m doubtful but. Behind every face, there’s a story. Look over sonder. And that is something that we’ve talked about. When you interact with people, you never know what’s going on in their life. I tend to immediately think about seeing strangers get angry like a road– On the internet. Like a road rage situation. Okay, well, we can talk about the internet too. But when you see somebody or you read their comment or whatever, it’s tough not to just react to how it impacts you or how it strikes you. Even if it’s just a passerby that it is not impacting you at all. But it’s a good exercise to say, and there’s a story being lived out there. That person is going through something. And when somebody does something that’s like a head scratcher, or worse, that person is lashing out in anger. Just stop and sonderise it, say you know what, I’ve been really angry before and sometimes it’s not justified but there were other things going on in my life that I knew about or couldn’t put my finger on, just to have a little pause for compassion And also when you are about to get angry at someone for something. Mm-hmm. Right, when they say or do something meant unintentionally, intentionally or otherwise. When you think oh, it’s just empathy, right? It’s putting yourself in somebody else’s shoes and just understanding that yeah. And they also are worried about the way that they look and they sound to the same degree that you are right? Everyone’s a bit obsessed with themselves. I know that I’m gonna make mistakes in life, I’m gonna wrong people. I’m gonna place my needs above other people. I’m gonna do things that I regret and then I’m sorry for. And I’m gonna do things that are also misinterpreted and can be misinterpreted a lot worse than they actually were. Mm-hmm. And I want people to give me the benefit of the doubt when entering into a situation and a dialogue with me about whatever mistake I made or potentially made. It goes a long way for people to believe the bests. I don’t know if you meant this when you said it, but it struck me in this way. Mm-hmm. Or it seems like you said this, I don’t know if that’s what you intended. Is an example of opening a conversation. It’s not like, that is the worst thing. That’s stupid or that’s ignorant, or it could just be a mistake or a misunderstanding. Now believing the best in some situations, I think the best that you can believe is still pretty bad in a certain situation. Of course. There are people who do bad things Like I said, people should be held accountably. And they do it on purpose. This is not about excusing anyone No. For their behavior. In general believing the best in people and applying that filter, whenever I find myself getting up in arms. That saying implies that you want to attack, right? And I think we get to that with another piece of advice, so maybe I’ll leave it at that. But I do wanna just remember sonder and I think it’s a good… For some reason, because I don’t live in New York and we visit New York City. I always think of that environment ’cause you’re walking around and you’re seeing so many faces. That’s what I picture with sonder. Is that like I’m on a street corner, I’m always overwhelmed when I go back in a good way. “Well look at all these people just moving with the traffic lights.” Behind every set of eyes there’s a story. There’s something in that that kinda makes me swell up with, like pride for be a human. There’s a vivid experience there that I know nothing about. Yeah, I think about that when I’m on elevators with people sometimes. It’s a fun practice. I think it’s a good habit to cultivate. And then I don’t talk to them, I don’t say anything. Yeah, it could be problematic being the elevator talker, but it is a good habit. I think it puts you in your place. When you see somebody say, “I wonder what their story is.” And then it might be fun just to make something up, just in your own mind, but as long as you don’t convince yourself that’s them and then say, “I can’t believe that you left the gate open on the tiger cage at the zoo.” That’s one of my favorite things about that Duplass brothers book. Oh, yeah. Is how they will sit in an airport next to each other and they’ll see somebody or a couple and they begin basically saying who they are. Writing a screenplay. Writing a screenplay. Let’s get to another one, sonder. Miranda Lemke, mythicalemke. “Always check air and fluid in your vehicle before going on a long trip. My dad, when I was learning how to drive told me that.” Oh yeah. I love this, yeah. My father-in-law… When Christy and I were dating when we were first married, and we would visit, I would after him be like, “Hey nice to see you,” in greeting. One of the first things he would do, I would look back over my shoulder, if we were bringing in our luggage, and he’d have the hood popped on the car. That just arrived? You couldn’t do that ’cause it’d be hot, It’d be too hot. You can’t check the oil when it’s hot. But I do remember finding him very early on, and he would have popped the hood and he’s checking the oil. And a lot of times he’d be like, “Christy, you haven’t been checking the oil in the car. The oil is low.” And I started learning before we would go there that I would check the oil at the house, ’cause I knew that he would do it. He would look 14 point Jiffy Lube inspection at Bobby’s house. Well, and especially when you got a car, because my dad was very committed to the Dodge brand for like throughout my entire childhood. Dodge Chrysler. We had to Dodge Dynastys, we had the Dodge Intrepid, there was a New Yorker. You were excited about that Intrepid. But every single one of these cars without fail, first of all, if you got a Dodge the transmission is going out at 100,000 miles or earlier, but it’s not it’s not making it past that. And then the second thing is, it starts burning oil at some point. It burns oil to the point that you have to keep oil in your car. A court. And so I remember in college driving that Intrepid and just checking the oil and filling it up. Like gas. Yeah, it was like you got your gas and then you got your oil. You gotta take care of both of them. But it isn’t as big of an issue anymore, I don’t think Well, I mean you get a more modern car and this got more lights that tell you stuff and they blink and like… I gotta put washer fluid in my car. It’s bugging me about that. Oh, that’s good. I mean better to be bugged than to be on the side of the road without washer fluid. And wipe off the bugs. But I have developed a habit of whenever I go to get in my car, I always look at the tires. Mm-hmm. I think one time, I realized I’ve been driving and one of my tires was really flat, many many years ago and it kinda burned me. Well, the cars to tell you that now too. They do, yeah, if you get a fancy one. But it’s always nice to just before you get in your vehicle, just walk around it once. Give it the auto. Like it’s a rental. The rental car walk around, look at those tires, make sure there’s nothing dragging. You know, I found a screw in my tire, the other day doing this. Yeah, that’s a pre preemptive catch. You can drive to the place and have them plug it. They plugged it up. Good old shell, thevelvethook. Here’s this piece of advice. “You can’t control how people act but you can can control…” Did I just say can can? Yeah, you kinda did. We all knew what you meant. “You can’t control how people act, but you can control how you react. This has helped me so many times in life when deciding how to respond in situations. And it’s made me more aware of when I’m letting my reactions overtake me. Oh, this is good. This is good. Control is such a big part of my psychy, that– I’m aware of this. This type of advice is just great for me. I find when I’m really anxious it’s because, I want something to be a certain way but I feel powerless. And if I can just parse between what I can actually impact, and what I have no control over, it really does help me. Oh Link you’re talking about the prayer for Serenity that many of you already know. Yeah, give it to me. God grant me the serenity to accept– Can you sing it? Or chant it a monkish kind of way, I don’t know whatever you think is– ♪God grant me the serenity ♪ ♪To accept the things I cannot change ♪ ♪The courage to change the things I can ♪ ♪And the wisdom to know the difference♪ I didn’t know that that thing went on. That’s only a third of it. That’s the only part that you need to know in this context. Grant me the serenity to change, I got to read it again ’cause I was so distracted. I just sang it though. See if I can remember it. Okay, I’ll see if I can remember it. I was just thinking about that horrible melody. I think that that was pretty good for like pulling monk melody, God grant me the Straight out of the air. Grant me the serenity to accept these things that cannot change but change the things I can accept. Accept the things I cannot change the courage to change the things I can and the wisdom to know the difference. So that’s the parsing that you’re talking about. Mm-hmm. And, boy, man, what if everybody.. I mean, first of all, it’s one thing to even to know that you should be doing this. I just remembered something, I gotta get my laptop. ‘Cause I wrote something. I was reflecting on this, and I thought I came up with something, and I wrote it down and then I went back to look at it. You rederive this the Serenity Prayer? This is how I wrote it in my digital journal. Some things you just can’t change. Other things you can. Some things you think you can change, but can’t. And some things you don’t think you could have changed, but you could have. Those are the sad ones. I mean, you know I’m not– I mean, would you like me to sing that? Yeah, yeah, yeah, here it is. Okay, I can sing this, I can do that. Okay, here we go. And don’t read any of that other stuff. Yeah yeah. ‘Cause this my freakin journal. I see it just as thoughts, okay. ♪Some things you just can’t change♪ ♪ Other things you can♪ Good. ♪Some things you think you can change ♪ ♪But you can’t ♪ ♪And some things you don’t think you could have changed ♪ ♪But you could have ♪ ♪Those are those sad♪ I’m being a vulnerable man, I’m sharing my journal– ♪ Those are the sad ones♪ I think maybe just a just a perfectionist like thinking. There’s a lot of thinking going on in that. A lot too much to say. But the worst thing is not thinking you could change something and then you can’t, but thinking you couldn’t change something, and you could. I think that may be torture for me. No, because once it’s happened, you can’t go back and change it. I know, I’m not talking about things in the past. It says you could have. You could have, you could have in the past. Yes, and that’s sad. That’s bad. Those are the sad ones. Sitting around and thinking about what you could have done differently? ♪Those are the sad ones♪ But I’m thinking about the next thing. It’s like, man, I can’t do anything about this. But if you could have done something about it, but you convinced yourself you couldn’t, that’s sad. That’s the saddest. Yeah. That’s sadder than trying and not being able to change but that’s just futile. Well, I read a book that was… I was gonna make it a wreck at some point, maybe I will in the future, but it’s your wrecked today. I think it was called The Courage to be Disliked. And it was all about adlerian psychology, I think that guy’s name was Joseph Adler, but he was basically a guy back in the time of Freud and Young. What ended up happening is Freudian psychology, ended up kinda winning out, in terms of the way people think about things, but there was this guy, Mm-hmm. I guess, Joseph Adler, who thought differently about things and he had this mentality, it’s pretty fascinating, I don’t even know what I think about it. But anyway, one of the principles in this book, is this idea of, in every situation, you basically sort of revisit this parsing that you’re talking about. This idea that, “I can only control myself. I can only control my actions, my reactions.” And I wish I could remember the term that he used. Again, I was gonna go back and look at this before I ever talked about it and recommended it. I hate doing this but, there was just this idea of what we have such a tendency to do is we just get confused with what our work is, right? And this especially relates to other people, and you get into these very codependent situations where you’re just like, “If this person would just do this thing right.” Mm-hmm. If this person would just react or react or behave in this way, then I would be okay. And then when you can kinda just release yourself from that trying to get people to do what you want them to do, what you expect them to do, and realize that the only sovereignty I have is over my own actions and it’s just very freeing. And it’s so difficult because there is this, we do believe that we can change people, and it’s tough because there are people who specialize in helping people change, right? So if you think about my therapist talking to me– Well, you might can change people, but you can’t control people. Well the classic analogy, you can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make them drink. So I do think that we get all the way sometimes and we just want to force someone’s action. But as… It makes me think of as what? As shall demonstrates, if you focus on the way that you react, you’ll be a lot happier. As George Strait saying, “You can lead a heart to love but you can’t make it fall.” And I always thought that was a very clunky song. I mean, yeah, I get it, you’re kind of– But can’t make it fall. You can’t make someone fall in love with you. Again, it’s very clunky, I’m not a fan. I think Bonnie Raitt said it much better. Oh, yeah, that’s a good song. I can’t make you love me if you don’t. Yeah. Boy, that’s a good song. That’s her best. Well, I’m not gonna say it’s her best. That’s Bonnie Raitt’s best song. Oh, gosh. Name a second Bonnie Raitt’s song. Exactly. Let’s give him something to talk about. Actually, you know what? That’s not as good. No as good man. You know what? I have a sense that there’s some Bonnie Raitt that we don’t know about that’s really good. Some second rate Bonnie Raitt? There’s some first rate Bonnie Raitt. So don’t you be talking about, if you can’t even name two songs what her best song is. ♪Turn down the lights♪ I mean, it’s so good man. It’s a great song. Everything about it it’s just perfect. Mark Cohen’s best song is not walking in Memphis, and that’s I don’t want you– Clearly. I don’t want you to make that mistake with Bonnie Raitt. Hold on Mark Cohen’s walking in Memphis is not even in Mark Cohen’s top 15 songs. Exactly. But I think you’re making a walking Memphis, you’re walking in Memphis right now. I’m walking in Bonnie Raitt. I’m walking down Bonnie Raitt way, and I’ve missed a turn. Kaesha Johnson. Maybe it’s Kaesha Johnson. “I watched a TED talk by Celeste Headlee on how to have a good conversation.” Oh, okay, I like this. “My favorite piece of advice she gives was, enter every conversation, assuming you have something to learn. I highly recommend this TED Talk. It’s on YouTube. #EarBiscuits.” Enter every conversation, assuming you have something to learn, humility, In light of what’s going on, and I’ve really tried to with the Black Lives Matter movement, right now just really say, ” I’m gonna listen, I’m gonna learn, and I’m gonna make applications. It’s really top of mind for me in that way, but it’s so important in general. I think it’s not instinctive, it’s instinctive to just react and okay. If someone’s saying something that could impact me or reflect on me or is someone making an assertion about me, and then you instinctively take that in and then can react defensively. It’s hard to walk a mile in someone else’s shoes, it takes practice to have that kind of mindset. To step out of yourself and whatever it is, whatever issue impacts me and saying, “Okay, what is this person really saying? What can I learn in this conversation?” I think we’ve talked about how we go in the party settings, and we’re interacting with people and you’re having these little conversations, and the ones that are the most stimulating to us are the ones that’s like, when we have a mindset of, when somebody tells me what they do, if you pump a septic tank, or you’re writing blockbuster films, we should be able to have an engaging conversation with each person. And I think it’s because, it’s a little bit of this mentality of, there’s always a question to ask, there’s always something to be learned. Mm-hmm. It’s like anybody can say, “I’m so and so, or I do this on Reddit, ask me anything.” And underneath you will find rewarding conversations when people have that mindset. It’s rewarding for everybody. People feel valued, they’ll feel they feel heard, and you you can learn something. You can learn something from a total asshole. Mm-hmm, well I do think that this is so applicable. we’re just in the latest sort of polarizing national issue, right? Mm-hmm. This has been going on for a long time now. The dream of the internet connecting people resulted in the internet dividing people because now there’s this democratization of information, and people have separated into these information bubbles. And you only talk with people who agree with you, and then when you do get into these occasions where you have a conversation with someone that you disagree with, the goal is not to find the truth between your two perspectives, the goal is to entrench yourself and defend your position at all costs, and I’m guilty of it. Like you said, it’s just kind of human nature. I’m thinking about, I don’t know exactly how this relates, but this made me think of this quote from Fight Club. Because I just watched Fight Club recently with Locke. Rule number one. Don’t talk about Fight Club. Rule number two. Don’t talk about Fight Club. Rule number three. Something about if you’re new here, you have to fight. If you’re first… I think rule number four is if your first time you have to fight. I think rule number three is, the fighting goes until one person stops or something like that. I think there’s only four. I don’t have any rules are. That wasn’t where I was gonna go, but the thing that I realized, and this is true, David Fincher movies in general, I actually kind of regretted not putting Fight Club on my top 10 list after watching it. I don’t know if it would have made the top 10 but you just forget how many good lines are in his movies. I mean, just disclaimer, It’s very visceral and violent movie. Could be very disturbing for certain people. Yeah. But– It’s not for everyone. One of the things that Brad Pitt’s character says in the movie is, “You know when you’re dying, people really really listen to you, instead of just waiting for their turn to talk.” Mm-hmm. And I’m not really talking about the dying part, but talking about just the default of humans, which is, and I’m super guilty of this. Just waiting for my turn to talk, right? You just like, Oh, I got some. And it’s one thing for it that just happened in the context of a friendship or like people hanging out, where it’s just like, “Oh, now we’re telling poop yourself stories, all right, I got mine.’ Yeah. And those are fun. Those stories are fun, but also that that kinda conversation can be fun, but I think especially when you’re talking about something that you have a disagreement about. There’s a concept that I heard somebody described one time, what typically happens online, which is the straw man, which is, you mischaracterize someone’s argument and you distill it down to something that you can easily Burn down. Take out, yeah. But the opposite of that, I think is called iron manning? I don’t know, something like that. Okay. But it’s like, I’m going to understand and be able to state your position, in the most defensible way I can think of, right? I’m gonna give you the benefit of the doubt, I’m gonna try to capture the essence of what you’re saying in a way that you can agree with. So that then when I disagree with it, you can hear my disagreement, because you know you’ve been heard. Yeah, but also, there’s just something about just making yourself willing to go through the process of being like, okay, before I just go into my talking points and break out my ideology, I am going to understand and be able to say things like, “So you’re saying, if I’m hearing you correctly, you’re saying this, this and this and they say no, that’s not what I’m saying.” Keep listening. Mm-hmm. And then if you can finally get to your saying this and this, yes. Even if you disagree, there’s progress that’s been made. There’s some kind of common ground ’cause you’ve at least agreed to have a rational conversation about something. Yeah. And that’s just such a difficult thing to do. Yeah, I mean, I quoted George Strait, now I’ll quote Clint Black. ♪Put yourself in my shoes♪ Right. ♪Walk a mile for me♪ Yeah. ♪I’ll put myself in your shoes ♪ ♪And maybe then we’d see♪ That if you put yourself in my shoes, you’d have some sympathy. And if I put myself in your shoes, I’d walk right back to me. ‘Cause it’s a love story. It’s a relationship. That’s a good song, that is a good song. Yeah. I don’t know. He’s got a new album, I’m not gonna listen to it. Clint Black does? Yeah. Yeah, yeah. I don’t know, Ever since he was on the apprentice. Yeah, I have a different. It’s like, once I saw Clint Black unplugged completely. Right. Yeah, okay all right. Ah, yeah. And it has nothing to do with Trump or the apprentice. Right. It’s just seeing who Clint Black is. It’s not like I don’t like him necessarily, It’s just he isn’t the person that his songs made him out to be. Do you get what I’m saying? Those first two albums, Killin’ Time and I think it’s Put Yourself in My Shoes. And was he writing the songs? Yeah, yeah. Yeah, he wrote some good songs on those two albums. Beth Ann Smith says, “After my grandfather died, my mom found a piece of paper tucked in the phonebook.” Well that’s classic. Having a note tucked in a phone book. Yeah. Man, remember phone books? You can still get them. Sometimes I’ll drop them off in your driveway. “He had written and then tucked into the notebook. Today invest in someone else’s happiness” And then Beth Ann said, “I think about those words almost every single day.” I love the fact that Beth Ann that you can carry this meaningful part of your grandfather with you at all times. And I picture him writing that and it was kind of a note to self. He probably went to the phone book a lot. We forget how often you went to the phone book. Every time you had to get in contact with somebody, I mean, I had certain numbers memorized, and then you had, with the advent of the speed dial, but a lot of times you would, even as kids, we would go to the phonebook a lot. Not just for people, but for places. Oh, yeah. The Yellow Pages man. The yellow part in the back. You talk about Yelp. The Yellow Pages was the Yelp. You had to judge a plumber by his ad. Yeah and there were no reviews. It was just the number part. It was like does this plumber look smart? So whenever he was interacting, let’s think about this. He was about to make a phone call, he was about to have an interaction with somebody, it could be a business, it could be a loved one, It could be a complete stranger. Someone where he needed to accomplish something. In some way, he was gonna make a phone call to do that. Right. And then right there in front of him was his reminder to himself. “Invest in someone else’s happiness.” And here’s an opportunity right now. It can be something as simple as, “I’m calling you for this reason A, but by the way B, I can say a little something to make you happy.” I can crack a joke, I can be smiling on the phone and now you can feel it. It might just change the tone of the way that you communicate. Yeah. The thing that it makes me think about is, I feel like I know nothing about Beth Ann’s grandfather, right? I’ve never met the man. All I know is that he put this note into a phonebook. Yeah. But I know a lot about him because of that, right? Yeah. I know that whether he was like this his entire life, or he came to the conclusion later in life, that this is actually where his happiness, his true happiness lied, right? Is in investing in somebody else’s happiness. And man, it’s such good advice because everybody needs it, and we’re all very naturally resistant to understanding that because your natural impulse is to invest in your own happiness, right? It’s to look out for yourself. It’s to think about your circumstances. But we talked about the whole the idea of the first mountain and the second mountain. The first mountain in life being about you getting to the top of whatever your goals are. Mm-hmm. And then either you fall off that mountain, or you get to the top. This is that David Brooks book, and then you’re like, “Oh, there’s another mountain I should have been on.” And that’s the mountain of investing in other people. And if you can get there at some point, and make your life where it shifts from your interest. That can be very Sounds like it happened with her grandfather. Rewarding. And the phrase, “pay it forward” comes to mind. The thing that I don’t love about that is it implies that you’ve received something good, and now it’s a reminder to give it. I shouldn’t pick it apart. I’m sure it’s a great phrase, and is a good mantra, but the thing I like about this is, It’s not contingent on your experience to invest in someone else’s happiness. But when you do benefit from someone enriching your life, I do think it’s a good trigger to say, “How can I take this experience that was given to me and regift it? Or also gift it?” ‘Cause I don’t even have to give up my experience to give another one. But it’s interesting here, it doesn’t say, “today make someone happy.” He says, “today, invest in someone else’s happiness.” Mm-hmm. I think a lot of times there are people who, it would be a magical ability to just make everybody happy. I mean, that’s just the work of clowns. Some good clowns. I would say the small percentage of clowns. Right. I’m sorry clowns. This is just the way it is. But an investment in to me, it makes me think that, even if you can’t make someone happy in the moment, you can do something that at least sow the seed of happiness down the road for them so. Well and also in the context of, I mean, he’s got it in the phonebook, and we’re talking about it in the context with like, people that you interact with, acquaintances or whatever. But I also think about it in terms of your closest relationships that you have, right so. Mm-hmm I think about the days that I get home. It’s funny, I was thinking about getting home too, because we haven’t been getting home. Right. ‘Cause we’ve been at home so much but we’re starting to do that. Yeah, and so yeah. So I think about it more. I get home and I walk into the house, I see Jessie. And I think that a lot of times, my disposition is how is her presence or something that she says. Can she say or do something that makes me okay with something that happened to me today, right? Like I’m coming into the house, thinking about what I can get from her. Part of it is the fact that Barbara greets me at the door, and Barbara is all about what she can give to me. You’re too invest… Yeah, you’re willing to receive an investment in your happiness. But if I went in and my mentality was regardless of how bad my day was, I’m going in with the mindset of like, invest in her happiness. And again, you can actually do it for selfish reasons, just to be completely transparent. Because ultimately the weird thing about this is, you kind of go full circle, and it’s just like, this will make you happier. I think that’s the beauty of it. Yeah. I don’t think that’s the– That’s not the motivation, I’m just saying. But the net result is, if you go in with that, surprise surprise, you will end up being happier ultimately. Yeah, and I think because we are getting out more than our families are, we’re in here connecting, having this conversation, this is an investment in our happiness, right? Mm-hmm. We’re getting built up in a way. They’re not leaving the house as much as we are. So when we when we go back to our families, I’m bringing an energy that is hard to just create when you’re at home all the time. Yeah. So starting to have more of that mentality I think itself. Boy, all of this… I thank you for sharing all this advice. Yeah, there’s more that we can talk about, maybe we’ll talk about another time. Man these farts are really smelling good. Yeah, see I just don’t like the analogy. I’m gonna make a recommendation because wreck baby wreck baby 123 is that time, is the end of the episode. I wanna recommend that you listen to Strange Fruit by Billie Holiday. I didn’t know about this song. Time call… In 1999 Time called this song, Time magazine said Strange Fruit was the best song of the century. They named it that at the turn of the century. Was recorded by Billie Holiday in 1939. It was written by Abel Meeropol, two years earlier. It protests the lynching of black Americans with lyrics that compare the victims to the fruit of trees. And if you want to read about all this, just go to the Wikipedia, that’s where I’m getting this information, but it’s a powerful song. In this time, it puts yourself in the shoes of someone looking at a photograph of a lynching that happened in Indiana Mm-hmm. On August 7 1930. Upwards of 5000 black Americans died as a result of lynching. And there are photographs of people… There are postcards Yeah. Of people celebrating and having picnics in the presence of black people being hung from trees. Mm-hmm. As if it’s like, look at the great thing that we did, It’s absolutely horrifying. But through this song, It turned out to be Billy Holiday’s, most popular song and it was sold over a million records. And, it was it was a huge, it was a huge risk in her career. Of course, she was advised not to do it. She was very relegated, regulated in the way she could do it, she had to be let out of her recording contract to record this song as an exception. Mm-hmm. And then it became her most popular song, it’s extremely moving. It’s another way to stare into the face of the horror of racism and deal with it. Oh, it’s kind of a small example of what I see so often online when anybody who’s an artist of any kind, entertainer says anything with conviction that might be interpreted as political. There’s this shut up and sing. Shut up and dance. Shut up and we’ll do whatever it is that you do. Mm-hmm. And I love it when an artist takes that and actually turns it back on the people who say that and through their art does something that is.. that paints the picture in a stark and sort of heart wrenching way. Yeah, this is on the playlist that Brit and I created, If you don’t know, give or take, every week on Saturday night we do a listening party for each other with this different themes and we did a theme of songs for change. This is on that playlist. So you can go to my Instagram, and click on the igtvtab and see all of those episodes but specifically this one. Go to my Spotify. I got all the songs up. This is your laptop, I didn’t mean to close it. No, I’ll be okay. Go to my spot… You don’t need it? There you go, It’s gone. I got all types of playlists. Now you’re shouting out your Spotify. You can’t get on me about shouting out, I haven’t shouted out my stuff in a long. I only did it so that you would say that. Strange Fruit but Billie Holiday, that’s really what you need to listen to. Thank you for listening. Thank you for the advice that was given to you that then you shared with us and hopefully the conversation about it spread all the love and the advice around in all the right places. Invest in someone’s happiness today. Is what you make it. We’ll talk at you in a few weeks. Enjoy the break from us, but don’t forget about us. #EarBiscuits. To watch more Ear Biscuits, click on the playlist on the right. To watch the previous episode of Ear Biscuits click on the playlist to the left. And don’t forget to click on the circular icon to subscribe. If you prefer to listen to this podcast, it’s available on all your favorite podcast platforms. Thanks for being your mythical best.