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Episode 14 - New Year's Intention
15 Plays2 years ago
Ross and Gregg discuss New Year's intentions. Gregg is attempting to learn a new language and Ross is focused on mindfulness. Listen in to hear how they approach New Year's goals and potentially how they plan to hold themselves accountable.
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Transcript
Introduction to Unmotivated and Unprepared
00:00:06
Speaker
You're listening to Unmotivated and Unprepared, a podcast where we take a break from the everyday hustle and bustle to muse about life, liberty, and the pursuit of randomness. Now here's Greg and Ross.
New Year's Reflections and Intentions
00:00:32
Speaker
What's up everybody? Welcome to episode number 14 of Unmotivated and Unprepared. It's Ross. And it's Greg.
00:00:40
Speaker
And Greg, we're back. Happy New Year, Greg. It is the year 2023. And we're about a weekend. And so we're going to talk a little bit about New Year's resolutions today, or lack thereof, I guess, depending on your personality and who you are. But we'll start. Do you have some resolutions? Or as my mindfulness stuff tells me, not resolutions, but intentions for this year?
00:01:09
Speaker
Greg? Yeah, for sure. Definitely have have intentions, I think at point, right. So in 2022, I turned 40.
Turning 40 and Embracing Imperfection
00:01:18
Speaker
And I began to realize at that point that, you know, you really do need, you know, the timing thing, there's never a good time to start something, you just just start it and do it. And then it's about keeping with it. And accountability partners are a big part of that. I learned that three years ago with the gym.
00:01:34
Speaker
but it's one of those things where if you're gonna do something, it really is an intention and it's reminding everyone else that that's my intention so that you can keep it going, right? So what do you got on yours? I mean, we can talk about mine, but what do you got on yours as a list of intentions?
Mindfulness and Work-Life Balance
00:01:52
Speaker
So from a, so we can board people right off the bat, from a work perspective, I'm gonna try, I'm trying to be more like mindful and in the moment at work, but then completely not in the moment when I'm off of work. Cause my brain, I'm a problem solver. So my brain keeps running. So I'll log off of work and you know this, like I'll be thinking about work stuff.
00:02:17
Speaker
you know in the past where this all started and the reason we'd be eating breakfast like Ross we're trying to eat breakfast quit talking about work we're not we're not at work yet so trying to disconnect but a former leader of mine told me you know he said when and i've told this to a lot of my people because i truly believe it when you're at work i want you to give everything you can and your best at work when you're not at work i want you to give me nothing towards work in other words spend time doing the things you enjoy
00:02:46
Speaker
and the hobbies and being in those moments. And then when you're at work, be at work and do those things. So I'm going to really try to focus on that, how I'm going to accomplish that. I don't know, but my intention and what I'm telling people is you can still get a hold of me after work. I'm in a career in a position where you need to get a hold of me. I have my ways, but otherwise I'm not going to be incessantly checking things and responding to emails and everything else when I'm not at work. So that's, that's one thing I'm going to work on from a work perspective.
00:03:13
Speaker
So let's, I mean, let's think about that for a second. Is it anxious thoughts? Is it that it's anxious thoughts or is it just the idea that it clouds some of your mind that you could be offering to being present? It's clouding that ability to be present.
00:03:29
Speaker
It's a little bit of both, but it definitely starts with the anxious thoughts because I want to try to solve it. And we know this, work never ends. There's no solving. You don't have to say I solved work. There's always gonna be something else, right? Work's the rubber ball. It's gonna bounce right back up at you and it'll be there the next day. So for me, it's getting my mindset to...
Managing Work Anxiety and Presence
00:03:51
Speaker
You're not going to solve this right now. Or if ever in some cases. Yeah, that's true. If ever. So to me, it starts with the anxious thoughts and then the side effect of that is I'm sitting there trying to have dinner and I'm thinking, or all of a sudden I bring up a work thing and my wife goes, oh my God, all you talk about is work.
00:04:13
Speaker
And that's where it hits me like, oh, man, I got to. Well, in fairness, in fairness, I think there's let's that's we don't need to get into a gender study here and talk about diversity and blah, blah, blah. But there is some I mean, personalities do play into this. Right. So you so a lot of work is your identity as it is mine. All right. Your job defines a lot. We're raised that way. I think your sons who have you know, my father. Yep.
00:04:38
Speaker
ingrained that in me that your job is your identity, it defines a lot of what you do, which I think is bad, bad study, by the way, I don't think your job does define you. But there's an element of I provide for my family through this way, I do this stuff, I've got to be good at my job, because this is important.
00:04:55
Speaker
And I don't think your wife, being that I'm very close to knowing who she is, work is just a thing that you do. Because if she could, she would probably not work and do something else. But she hasn't figured out what the other thing is.
00:05:12
Speaker
Yeah, she would explore the world and everything else. Yeah, and I think you're right. Same thing with my parents taught me that work wasn't everything, but work is what you did to support your family, as you said, and how you...
00:05:27
Speaker
You know, to respect the money you earned while you worked and everything else because that's that's how you, you know your means, your means of living, and I think that's the, that's the delicate balance between it consuming you, but it's still being important enough you do it and you and I know as well like
00:05:46
Speaker
My wife will do an excellent job at what she does, but she has no worries with when it comes to disconnecting because that's not how she's wired. She's going to get the job done. She's going to do a good job at it and then disconnect. And I'm jealous. I'm totally jealous of it. It's like, how do you do that?
00:06:02
Speaker
Well, she gets her validation from other things. And I think that's the part that when you look at your job, look, men in general, the first thing you'll talk about
Mindfulness Goals and Stress Management
00:06:11
Speaker
when you meet somebody, and I try really hard not to have that conversation, but the first time you meet anybody, they tell you what their job is. And if someone doesn't tell you what their job is in the first like three or four sentences of what they do, then you're confused on who is this person who didn't, like at least you go, hey, I'm retired, or hey, I work in banking. You may not get into detail about what you do,
00:06:32
Speaker
But you'll at least say, hey, I do this or I'm in this field or I'm in this industry or so on and so forth. And we really should get out of that. We should get to the point of, yeah, like I'm a father that I'm not. I'm not a father. I'm not even married. But like those I don't have kids. But those are the things that like at least say, hey, I'm these things, not necessarily my job. But it is such a part of our society that your job is who you are. So it's not a surprise.
00:06:56
Speaker
that you put quite a bit of your thought processes around your job. However, to talk about intention, because the reason why I asked the anxious thought thing is that maybe it's less about being intentional about when you think about work and not think about work, and more around, hey, how do I create tools and strategies for reducing my anxious thought process? Yeah, yeah, when it does come up, and I am thinking about it, how do I
00:07:24
Speaker
How do I manage that and how do I limit getting spun up about it? Which one of my resolutions outside of work even is just doing more mindfulness, more meditation. I told my wife, I think I'm going to get a pillow to sit on. She's like, wait, what? For my meditation. She's like, that's fine. That's fine, honey. Go for it. If that's going to help you.
00:07:50
Speaker
appropriations committee approved, you know, like, yeah, sure. I mean, I laugh because there's a Stephen Wright joke, right, where Stephen Wright was talking about how like he was he worked at a health food store and he's like, yeah, I was really into this girl once and she was really into doing a meditation and it didn't work because I was really into being alive and she wasn't. Right. And I think there's an element there to say, yeah, I think but I think meditation
00:08:19
Speaker
thoughtfulness, as you grow older, when you're younger, you're so quick to make decisions, because you think life is infinite, and you're immortal. And, you know, whatever decision I make isn't going to have a huge long impact on my long term, because I can always get out of things. At the same time, that same decision process leads us to say things like, well, I'll travel when I'm older, I'll do this when I'm older, I'll do this one. So I think there's a balance of decision making, we learn very quickly that whatever decision we make isn't permanent.
00:08:46
Speaker
but at the same time also we need to move forward and make decisions. So that balancing act is what I like about being older from when I was younger and so full of like that, you know, impassioned, ridiculousness. Yeah, the maturity does help you almost prioritize and think through like those situations versus when you're young that's like, yeah, whatever, cool, I'll do this, I'll do that, even though I was really boring in
Adventure in Learning Portuguese
00:09:14
Speaker
my 20s.
00:09:14
Speaker
Um, so I've, I'm probably more, I'm probably more interesting and like kind of spur of the moment now also as a product of my friend group and my spouse than I was in my twenties. But that's, that's, that's almost a, that's, that's another thing that we could dig into, which is an interesting of how you, how your mindset changes. But,
00:09:38
Speaker
So that's one thing. The other thing, because I want to ask you, because I know you've got one, a life skill, I guess it would be that you're working on or a skill. Because I've got a skill question for you when we get into this. I'm trying to think of a skill that I want to learn or something I wanted to do. You know, upgrade the software, if you will, the mental software. But what's yours? You've got a skill you're learning already.
00:10:06
Speaker
Well, yeah, so it's really interesting. I'm a big believer that productivity leads to positivity, when I think we spin and we sit and we don't do something. So last year, right, last year, I was getting my doctorate. And for really three years, it consumed my life, this doctorate program, it was everything I thought about back in my mind, at least half my brain was always consumed with the idea that I was doing
00:10:31
Speaker
this program. I was doing this program and at the same time focused on writing a dissertation, getting data and doing the analysis and all these things. And it was a constantly in the back of my mind. I was never free from that thought. So it limited my ability to want to go out and do things because I always had that there. And the nice part about was
00:10:56
Speaker
it reduced my procrastination because if somebody put on my calendar, hey, in two weeks we're gonna do this, I'd be like, oh crap, I better go learn, I better go work on my dissertation so that I'm ready in two weeks when I have the, I won't have that weekend available for me. Yeah, it's setting up other deadlines, artificial deadlines for you. And that was great, but then the back half of the last six months of 23 after I finished my doctorate and I'd gotten over that and just nice to have my life back,
00:11:26
Speaker
It was really interesting because now all of my life was consumed by my job. It was consumed by the people that I work with and the relationships that I deal with. And I went, wow, I'm now all consumed by something that should not consume that much of my life. Obviously, your job is 60 hours a week. You are spending a lot of time there, but it shouldn't be the only thing you're looking forward to.
00:11:50
Speaker
I actually was on this cruise, we talked about on our trip of Palooza and I got to meet people that spoke multiple languages that worked on the cruise. And I remember joking that at one point, because my job is what my job is, there was a moment where I was like, I would love to be a cruise director. I think I'd be way better at that than this data analytics gig I do.
00:12:09
Speaker
But I thought about it. What's one thing that would put me towards the excitement that I'm finding with these people? What am I impressed by? And I was impressed by the ability for them to speak multiple languages. And for some reason, and true to form of my personality, and I was going to learn Indonesian because I'm really into Indonesian music and I really was going to learn Indonesian. Ladies and gentlemen, he is really building up which language, like, get ready for it.
00:12:36
Speaker
I was really wanting to learn Indonesian and I thought that's that's what I'm gonna learn and then all of a sudden something happened and I went yeah Portuguese sounds fun let's do that.
00:12:46
Speaker
And Portuguese. Yeah, I had never had like it and you would think I would learn Spanish because I would learn Spanish. But I think there was something in me that just went really fun to learn a language of Brazil. It's a large country in South America. They have an interesting economy and it would be fun to you know, who knows what that will lead to.
00:13:07
Speaker
And then everybody looked at me and went, wait, Brazil, we thought you were thinking about Portuguese, like as in Portugal, as in going to Europe. I'm like, I've done Europe. Like now I'm interested in learning a language. And then again, still comes back to why not Spanish, Greg?
New Year's Resolutions: Challenges and Changes
00:13:21
Speaker
Why not Spanish? And I don't have an answer for you. I just think it would be fun to learn Portuguese. Well, you mean, you know, you want to go to if you want to go to Brazil and party it up. Portuguese is your language.
00:13:33
Speaker
Yeah, that's what I'm looking at at partying. But the crazy part is, if you learn these things, which is so much fun to learn on these apps, and I've got books now, and I'm looking at classes in Charlotte to actually do it in person. But the other day, I was learning phrases, and the one that you keep doing over and over is Aoteno umamasa, which is I have an apple. Aoteno, it means I have an umamasa, it's an apple. I'm like, when would I ever need to tell someone that I have an apple?
00:14:00
Speaker
But even worse, they teach you this, no schnoes phalamos Italiano, which means we only speak a little Italian. And I went, when will I ever need to say we speak only a little Italian? You actually have to learn a little bit of another language just to use that phrase. Just to use that phrase. Like, when would I need to know that?
00:14:21
Speaker
That's why I never say I speak un poquito español. I don't know. I don't even speak a little bit. That's literally the only thing I could speak in Spanish. It's probably not done correctly. And what's fun about it though is the sounds of Portuguese are a lot more swallowing your words. You kind of like, you hear noosh, like you swallow it, right? In some words, like un poco, right? Un poco, like it sounds like Spanish, but then you'll say things like,
00:14:53
Speaker
I can't think of anything right now, but a lot of the words are, oh, repachir. Repachir is repeat. And it's like, that ch sound is interesting. But either way, my intention is to actually, and I'm focused on it and putting a plan together of how I want to approach this because they say it takes about 600 hours
00:15:14
Speaker
to begin level one fluent in Portuguese, which is enough to do business with the foreign institute, the government, the federal government for translators. Level one is proficient enough to do business language. Level two, obviously, is that you're a fully fluent citizen of the country.
00:15:31
Speaker
Sure, sure. Well, once you learn that, you've got in the, as we enter the Ross Reads Wikipedia portion of the podcast, you've got Brazil, Angola, Portugal, all is where that's the majority is the home language or native language. So take a trip to Angola as well. So we're going to Angola. We're going to Angola. That's what we're going to do.
00:15:53
Speaker
If I'm gonna go to Angola, I know who I'm gonna call upon to be my translator in a year. That's for sure. So trips with Greg, part two, London first, then Angola. And when people ask why, say, well, Greg knew Portuguese. So why not? Yeah, there you go. We're going to Angola. And I learned a little bit of Italian, so he could tell people that I only speak a little Italian. They start speaking to you in Italian all of a sudden.
00:16:21
Speaker
That's what you need to do. You just have to go anywhere you go now. You have to bring someone who knows a little bit of Italian so you can say they only know a little bit of Italian in Portuguese. So you're not lying to people. Yeah. Well, another language is good. I did the duolingo thing. And I'm always fascinated by when you talk about New Year's resolutions and people just jump into it full force that
00:16:47
Speaker
And I'm sure that's the case. Like you see it with gyms and everything else, the advertising ramps up. You know, you got the kick up on January 1st of all the people in the gym, all the apps giving you, you know, Hey, free trial 30 days, 60 days on Duolingo and everything. So I'm, I'm always fascinated by that, but I always wonder, is it, you know, the, the psychology of people stopping, you know, their new year's resolutions and how long it takes to stop and why
00:17:18
Speaker
you know, why people stop so quickly, why they can't keep going. And I don't, I think it's, I don't know if it's a, I don't think it's a willpower thing. I just think it's people try to go all in and don't try to ease into it just like anything else.
00:17:33
Speaker
I mean, partly, I think you're probably right. I think a lot of it too is they don't build a lifestyle change. I mean, we know this with gyms, right? And this is what happened with me, right? When you guys got me to, you know, you and your wife got me to start working out at the gym, I didn't know it was gonna be a lifetime learning thing. I didn't know it was gonna be a whole change in my lifestyle. Where I actually go to gyms, I was at foundation's class today learning how to stretch out my back and moving muscles and
00:18:02
Speaker
But what I did was I realized that the only way that you were gonna get me to actually change my lifestyle was you're going to have to incentivize me with people. You're gonna have to incentivize me to be around. I won't do it myself. The vanity thing is not important to me. I'm not looking to get cut. You need the accountability buddy, but you need the buddy part more than anything. That's what motivates you. Yeah.
00:18:22
Speaker
And so for me, it's going, and even today at the class, there was people that are at my gym that I go to here in Charlotte, were actually at the class too. And I didn't help that my friend is the teacher of the class, they also go to the gym with me, so it kind of fit it. But it was that joy of seeing people you know, being around people you know, it builds that sense of reward. It's a reward thing. The same thing with looking at why I'm learning Portuguese. There are incentives there,
00:18:52
Speaker
because potentially, hey, what, maybe in the future I want to get a job in Brazil, or maybe it's, hey, it's going to help me if I want to learn Spanish too later, if that's the goal is to learn multiple languages. There are opportunities in which I can find to make that a valuable lesson, but it's also something that's challenging because I don't have a reference point for it.
00:19:13
Speaker
And it's a class that's taught locally. The other thing about Indonesian was I didn't want to do it without tutors. And there aren't classes locally to learn Indonesian. So it was one of those things where, well, it's great.
00:19:25
Speaker
But also I just want to know the lyrics and what they mean. And I got closed captions on YouTube, which helps me out just fine. I'm not really looking at the movie buff. Yes. Yeah. So although I did watch super bad in Portuguese yesterday, which was really interesting to watch an English movie, like that's actually dubbed in Portuguese.
00:19:44
Speaker
with the English subtitles on. And the things you learn in Portuguese are not things like that movie is not words you should learn to have a conversation. Yeah, yeah, there's not. That's not that's not what you're going to use to navigate around Portugal or in a business context. Yeah. Hey, Greg, could you go close this deal? I only know words from Superbad. Is that going to work? Nope. Not going to work. Although the consolation is that Mick Lovin is still Mick Lovin in Portuguese.
00:20:13
Speaker
Oh, well, that's good. So McLovin is universal. That's good to know. National treasure, universal treasure. But yeah, I think it's, to go back to your point, is it that they go all in, they jump in and they get burnt out? I think it's really that they didn't do, they didn't sit down and make the lifestyle changes that are associated to it. You have to actually put in there and say, I want to do these things. This is the reason I want to do them.
00:20:40
Speaker
There's a book called, you know, Change, Changing Everything, which talks about building that daily habit. You have to actually be invested in it. And I think most people approach New Year's resolution is, I would like to be skinnier, or I'd like to be healthier. I'd like to be, yeah, I'd like to be a lot of things. Like Mark Manson says in that book, The Subtle Art of, yeah, I'd like to be a rock star, but not because I want to write music, just because I want to be, get all my adoration from fans.
00:21:04
Speaker
What is the reason that you want this? And then where can you get those things from? And it may not be working out. It may not be learning a language. It may be something else. But that's probably the better exercise for the new year than focusing strictly on some outcome or output you want to have.
00:21:24
Speaker
Yeah, and I think there's also a debit and credit to it as well. In other words, if you take on some sort of new activity, feel like something else has to stop or pause. Whether it's the negative thing that you were doing, I don't know. I feel like everybody's lives are so full. I committed that I was going to
00:21:45
Speaker
One of the other things, I'm going to start reading a little more fiction because I'm a bit of a self-help and nonfiction dork.
Balancing New Activities and Prioritization
00:21:52
Speaker
And I'm like, hey, I want to take some time to read some fiction books. Well, if I'm going to sit down and read fiction, what's going to give? What am I going to stop doing? You've got to balance out the 24 hours in the day. And I think some people also want to get healthier or want to get adoration from fans and news flash. Just start a podcast. Am I right, Greg?
00:22:14
Speaker
Come on. Our 20 people who sign up one day of the week to listen to us, right? Love us. Anyway, you know, okay, I want to be healthier. Okay. Something has to be taken out of the mix in order for you to do that. Not saying eat less bad food, but maybe you want to make more salads or you want a meal prep. Like you have to balance your time because I think most, and maybe I'm wrong, I figure most resolutions take some level of time commitment.
00:22:43
Speaker
Um, and so, you know, I don't know, maybe, maybe I'm just crazy thinking that, but I also think that's why some people give up is because they're not willing to give up the rest of their lifestyle or anything else in order to do this new thing. So they just kind of jam it in.
00:22:58
Speaker
Well, that's why it's motivation-based, right? You have to actually ask yourself what it's gonna look like and spend that time. One of the things that I've been trying to do more of is journaling and trying to think about my thoughts overall. Why am I doing this? Yes, it would be really cool to be able to speak every language in the world. Yes, it would be really cool to make a movie. Yes, it'd be really cool to go back to writing music like I did when I was younger.
00:23:24
Speaker
But the motivation for why I was doing music when I was younger, I didn't realize I was going to make money doing that. The only reason I was making music was to hang out with my buddy. That's the only reason I was doing it. So for me, this Portuguese learning on an app thing and like getting the books is only going to take me so far. Then going to a classroom is going to get me people to do it with. And that's my motivation is that I'm going to have people to do this with and find places in which to use this language. And who knows where the future will be.
00:23:52
Speaker
Yes. Yes. So it's the motivation thing. And I think that's important. I think that's what a lot of people miss is the motivation. So accountability, the motivation, to your point, sitting down and understanding what is it I'm really going to get out of this?
00:24:09
Speaker
Like what's what's the quality of life improvement or what's the opportunity that I'm going to get by doing this resolution. So and I think and I just want to add one of the things it's also boundaries. I think you know in my life now being single it's a little easier to because it's just me really. I mean and it's just easier when you don't have someone living in your house or don't have any whatever you're kind of in a position where
00:24:36
Speaker
you can set boundaries. But as adults, it gets harder to set boundaries if you've got kids, it's harder to set boundaries if you have a spouse, a partner, it becomes more difficult. And that's where I think people fall in their New Year's resolutions as well, is they didn't have that conversation with the other people that are accountable in their life that says, hey, these are things I want to do, and I need you to help me with those and make those part of my journey.
00:25:01
Speaker
And I know we talked about accountability, but it's but it's that other part. People just go. They wake up on New Year's and be like, yeah, I'm going to get healthy. And then the hard part is there's a joke. There's a game called man rules or man laws, women rules. And one of the questions is a game where you try to guess whether the speaker, you know, which one are they going to do? It's kind of like
00:25:22
Speaker
What's that card game, cards against humanity, where you have to guess what the other person is gonna pick. But this one is, the question was, your spouse says they wanna lose weight. And you come home and you find them in the closet eating a Snickers bar. Do you A, close the door and walk away? Do you B, rip the candy bar from their hand and hand them a carrot? Or do C, do you have a conversation and chastise them about their choices and decision-making skills?
00:25:49
Speaker
And the answer that most men will make is I close the door and walk away and just ignore that that just happened. But I think what's interesting about that is that yes, while that's a completely safety mechanism, when you look at partnership,
00:26:04
Speaker
Hopefully the person calls you and says, hey, I really want to eat the stickers bar right now. And you talk them off the ledge, not you come home and find them in the closet and eat the stickers bar. So those are the things that I look at when you look at spousal relationships or partnerships or kids, different things. You have to make that time. And it's not that you don't have it. There's plenty based on Netflix stats and Hulu stats and all those stats about what people are actually watching four hours a day. Watch TV.
00:26:27
Speaker
We have plenty of time to do other things. It's just whether or not you want to do them. Like I said, I watched Superbad and Portuguese. It's not exactly the easiest thing to sit down and be like, you know what? I'm going to put this movie on in Portuguese because I had to go through my Blu-ray collection of movies that have Portuguese. And see what had Portuguese. Greg's large Blu-ray collection just came in handy.
00:26:48
Speaker
Yeah. So I had to find one that had the Portuguese language. And so it's not the easiest thing to sit down. It's not easy to sit down. You've got to put your phone away. Now you've got to watch this movie you're very familiar with. Listen to it in Portuguese. And it's homework, but it's something that's moving the needle forward. And that has to be the joy of the exercise. Yes. Again, I wouldn't pick super bad as your number one.
00:27:13
Speaker
No, I'll have to look at my Lord of the Rings Extended Edition Blu-rays and see if you want to hear about Frodo and his travels in Portuguese. I'm sure Peter Jackson picks Portuguese as one. I mean, it's a classic set of films. So I'll look and see. I'll ship them to you. They've got Portuguese. Now that's all I'm going to be looking for is I'm going to look at deals on Blu-rays and be like, oh, doesn't have Portuguese. Because of Portuguese.
00:27:39
Speaker
So, so we're getting closer to our 30 minute mark and I think we've got some good ones here. I wanted to ask you a question. It's been on my mind. It's been on my notes that I've written down random, you know, jotting down of notes of I got to talk to Greg about this and this applies here. I was, when we were, I mentioned this, when we were in
00:27:59
Speaker
Salzburg, we went to a concert, the Mozart concert and everything else. And I see these people playing violin and everything else very well. And I turned to my wife and I said, do you think that's a 2% skill?
Exploring Unique Talents and Skills
00:28:14
Speaker
And she's like, what are you talking about? And I was like, well, okay, let me qualify. I just made that up.
00:28:18
Speaker
It's a skill that if you're in a large room and somebody's doing it, that 2% or less of the people in that room have that level of skill at that thing, right? And so I started thinking about, I was like, I got to ask Greg, is there a 2% skill that he wishes he had? Like a skill where if you're in a room with a thousand people, maybe
00:28:40
Speaker
you know, 20 people can do that and do it very well. Maybe even a 1%. Maybe it should be called a 1% skill where only 1% of the population can do that really well. Is there a skill that you would like to be able to do very well? That's like a 2% skill? So I'm very well aware. I was thinking about this actually this weekend. I am very well aware that and I've done stand up. I've done stand up comedy three times in my life.
00:29:09
Speaker
And it is the scariest thing in the world. But making people laugh is a very unique skill set and to make them laugh hard. Now I can do it with accents and I can tell funny stories and those things, but they're like actually be consistently able to make people laugh is a very unique ability. And it's and not. And here's the thing. What's amazing about it is that
00:29:31
Speaker
and I've watched this with comedians, people that are funny in one setting aren't funny in another setting. And you have to really be able to move your audience. So to be universally funny, I don't think there's any real comedian that's universally funny. Like people love Seinfeld, but I don't think he's universally funny. There's lots of people who don't think he's funny.
00:29:48
Speaker
Yeah, no, no, not at all. And I think it's it's it's to your point, it's the situation you're in. But even even that, like the ability to hold an audience like not saying musicians aren't talented. One of my skills would be I would love to be able to be so good in an instrument that people
00:30:08
Speaker
almost forget you're there and it's just like they just hear like just the instrument because it's like how well you play but a comedian all they got is their voice and you have to paint a picture for people that makes them laugh is seems just mind blowing to me. It's timing and it's also here's the thing once it's out there you can't say it again so here's just one last funny thing about making people laugh that you
00:30:33
Speaker
It's surprising every time it happens. It is really, really good. I heard Michael Chase. It's a very good magic trick. The I was working out on Friday.
00:30:44
Speaker
with a guy, you know, a trainer that you're very well aware of who they they like. He likes kind of the bust in your chops type comedy. And we were talking about things. And at some point I said, yeah, I mean, I know Daniel's we were talking about that's his name, Daniel. It was saying that he's you know, he's working on his his future being the sex symbol for hobbits because, you know, he's short and whatever. But like and it was really cruel in my mind. And I wasn't normally going to say it.
00:31:11
Speaker
But in the context of working out, and it's like, you know, bust and chop, because you're working out lifting weights, and he's just sitting there, the idea that you could see him actually being a poster on like, and you brought up Lord of the Rings, seeing him as a sex symbol poster is hilarious. But that joke doesn't work with any, I mean, anybody listening to this podcast has no idea what we're talking about. No, they're not gonna get it. They're not gonna get it off. And I know, and I'm like, that's funny.
00:31:35
Speaker
But that joke when it hit and it landed was hilarious. And you want to, I think the balance of that 2% skill or 1% skill is one, you have to be that funny all the time, which I'm definitely not. And two, you have to recognize that you're not going to get that laugh.
00:31:54
Speaker
Again, it's in the bottle. It's stuck. You put it out in the world. It's done. You can't make that joke again. And that feeling of getting that, I mean, because the other guy that worked out with Charlie just busted up laughing. It was just like he couldn't do his workout because he's just rolling on the floor. Yeah, that's an endorphin hit. That's a good feeling. Did you make people laugh like that? Yeah.
00:32:16
Speaker
But you're not going to get it again. And I don't have that in me. It's not part of my nature that I have to get that that adrenaline junkie hit again. But it's just one of those things where you recognize that that skill also comes with some liabilities. But it was hilarious. It was that moment if I could be that funny.
00:32:35
Speaker
Then I, yeah, I mean, but again, it's also perception, right? I say that in my mind and go, yeah, but I've seen, I've seen guys who do comedy. I've been in rooms with guys who do standup comedy professionally and they're not that funny until you go on stage. All of a sudden the nerves hit and all the jokes go and you're like, whoa, like that guy's hilarious all the way through. And it's just, there's people that are naturally funny, but if you were to put them on a stage, they would lose all of their mojo. And there's those who are really funny on stage that if you sell them off stage, they're not funny at all.
00:33:04
Speaker
Yeah. And you can usually spot, like you can spot that style of person when you're in a group and like that, that person who just all, they'll say, they'll, they'll, they'll have a quick response to something like, Oh man, I wish I was that quick. Like there's like, how did you come up with that? Like that's another skill in and of itself is the ability to process something really quickly. And then like turn it, it's like funny. And you're like,
00:33:28
Speaker
Man, that was hilarious. And some people have different styles. Like my buddy Brian's real quick, but he's got like dad joke quick. So like he's got he's very he's very punny. Right. So his jokes are really quick on the puns because he just plays in the pun world. Whereas over Thanksgiving, I was I was over at somebody's house and there was kids running around and one of the kids want to run upstairs.
00:33:49
Speaker
And the dad's like, hey, what are you doing? Why are you going? Why are you going upstairs? And she's like, I need to get a coin for a magic trick. He goes, hey, I got a magic trick. Why don't you go back in that room and disappear? And I went, genius, like absolutely genius. And I was like, whoa. I mean, anybody listening is going to think that's cruel, but that's just that culture of that family. It's just, yeah. But like, but like, to be able to do that, like to do that with your kids and everything else and just have those conversations and just be always on like that. Yeah.
00:34:19
Speaker
He looks at me in a straight face and he goes, you know, I made a mistake with this house. I said, what's that? He goes, I put I put doors on that room and I went, what? He goes, yeah, I should just put sod walls and they wouldn't come out. I went, whoa, like just just the idea like, oh, but it was all the way through the grandfather. The grandfather has a little bit of a misogynistic sense of humor. And so like one of the ladies, one of the sisters of the dad or whatever, like she said something like there's a lot of really amazing women around this table.
00:34:46
Speaker
and the grandfather not missing a beat goes I don't see so well so you know and I went I went whoa like just like but he was so quick and so fast and so like out the gate like that's all it was for for a whole straight day that's all I heard was those kind of that kind of humor like that's not my style like
00:35:06
Speaker
Yeah, but that level of wittiness and just like being able to come back with those things is just, it's a skill. I don't, I could tell a story. I don't have the skill to be able to be that fast, that witty, that quick. And it would be something I think a lot of, most people don't. I mean, if you watch people who dads are famous for this, messing with a waitress or waiter and telling jokes and you're like,
00:35:29
Speaker
But my dad's quick. I mean, last joke of my dad, we were at the Mint Museum, which is the name of the art museum here in Charlotte. And my dad gets the sticker. You got to put a sticker on your shirt. My dad immediately turned to the lady and went, can I have a different flavor?
00:35:43
Speaker
cause he said mint. And he's like, and I went, what? Like what? But that's a dad joke, right? That's my dad's joke. Like my dad, my dad is just that way. So you think about those things. Whittiness to be consistently witty and not having too many duds would be an amazing skill set.
00:36:01
Speaker
That's good. I, you know, I thought about it. Mine landed somewhere on instruments, like playing a really complicated instrument. But then I was like, but I wouldn't get, but this is where it got back to me. It's like, the skill is for you. So then I was like, what would be something interesting? You know, like, what would I want to do?
00:36:18
Speaker
And i don't know mine's lame i would really like to be able i would like to be able to sing very well like really well saying it cuz i'm tone deaf like is it very tone deaf and i think for me what would be fun about that is.
00:36:35
Speaker
one it's just it'd just be fun to be able to sing but also like if you could sing really really well from from that standpoint is like that could be really cool like entertaining as well you know so that was that was my lane like you know but raw here's the here's the part that i have one
00:36:51
Speaker
You, the music you listen to, the majority of music you listen to, you don't actually have to be a great singer for. It's a lot more yelling and stuff. I mean, I don't know. I mean, we could. Well, I mean, all of these bands are disturbed where the guy can really sing. But then then on the record, it doesn't necessarily sound that way. But the other part is you could get in your car, turn the music up loud and do carpool karaoke with yourself and have a great time. You don't strike me as the guy who wants to get up in front of a bunch of people and do karaoke all the time.
00:37:19
Speaker
I don't know. If I knew I could confidently sing really well and I could sing better than 99% of the people in the room, I'd probably do it. But that's part of the anxiousness, right? That's part of the anxiousness of people judging you and either misrepresenting you for doing something or for you messing something up. If I knew that I could do that better than 99% of the people there, then it kind of flips it into
00:37:48
Speaker
I'm bringing joy to those people, right? Like, they're enjoying hearing that. But then use the Mark Manson argument. Is it the bringing joy to other people, not necessarily the singing part? Maybe. I don't know. I mean, like I said, when they ask you, what would your superpower be? My superpower would absolutely be, I could make anyone laugh. Like, actual make them laugh, right? Like, that would be- Well, you make me laugh all the time.
00:38:16
Speaker
That's true. But we've got people that look at me all the time. That's not it. You are genuinely funny. Like you are genuinely funny and you're quick. I mean, the so I think you are genuinely funny.
The Joy of Podcast Storytelling
00:38:35
Speaker
It's just interesting that perspective of having those skills. I think I think the challenge that both of you have is that there isn't a whole lot of arrogance.
00:38:44
Speaker
to our personality. There isn't a whole lot of narcissistic tendencies to want to be loved and adored by everybody. I think we want to be loved and adored by two people. Yeah, I would never want to be famous.
00:38:54
Speaker
Yeah, I would never want to be famous. I think it would be absolutely miserable to be like super famous. Because privacy and then just having to be like always on and everything else, I think it would be absolutely miserable. But yeah, so I think as we go on, if we think of any other like, if you're observing things and you're going, ooh, that'd be an interesting 2% skill. I'm going to coin at that and then I'm going to write a book.
00:39:24
Speaker
You know, I'll write a book called The Two Percent Skills and all the psychology behind it. You know most, they call that the Guinness Book of World Records, dude. Yeah, that's the, okay, no, no, no, no. Because there are some things that people are willing to do like run a marathon backwards, which takes skill, but it also takes more creativity like, hmm, but now let's do it holding an egg on a spoon.
00:39:52
Speaker
And I'm like, pretty soon it's no longer the Guinness Book of World Records. We should go through and just go through and find the most absurd Guinness Book things and just be like, okay, so all I have to do is while holding a rubber band, and then I have a new record. So yeah. See, I think we're doing one of the few skills. I think we have a pretty organic podcast. There's a lot of podcasts out there, but I think we have a very organic podcast. I think
00:40:18
Speaker
funny, funny enough, I do everything for a story. We've talked about this in previous ones. I think we're the type of people that if we really thought about it, it's not necessarily becoming an expert at the violin or the ukulele or the guitar. It's about the adventure of how bad we would be at the ukulele or guitar. Like that's more the fun joy. Like I was learning this song and like, same with Portuguese. I laugh every time I learn a new phrase that like, when am I going to use this ever?
00:40:44
Speaker
right? But you're trying to learn the functions. And that's the fun of doing whatever adventure. And I don't think either of us are perfectionist enough, or looking for adoration enough that we would approach a skill from being how do I become the one or 2% I just think we like similar things and the making people laugh thing is a big part of kind of our personality. It's what we like doing. Yeah, we like to make people laugh. So
00:41:09
Speaker
in different types of crowds, right? Yours is gone. I'm going to go meet a bunch of people on a cruise ship that I've never met. And I'm like, that sounds horrible. I'll go talk to five people I know really well. So, but both of, both of which could end in the same result of, of having a good time and laughing. So, all right, Greg. Well, we're going to have to keep tabs on our new year's intentions and see how they go. Um, and then when you talk about your trip to carnival,
00:41:36
Speaker
Oh, I'm going to carnival now? That's what I'm doing now. Well, I know you've made it. There's a picture of me taking hostages and some favelas. Yep, that's what happens to Greg when he learns Portuguese. He gets lost in the favelas. All I kept telling him was, I only know a little bit of Italian. I only know a little bit of Italian. I don't know.
00:42:03
Speaker
That's his way of saying, please don't murder me. Exactly. Oh, you don't want to want to know. Keep track. Oh, you don't even want to know the words I learned yesterday. Watch the super bad dude. I know some words now that I'm just, I'm just like, whoa, that's what that is. That's, that's crazy. I don't know. Make it better or worse if you get kidnapped at carnival during carnival. All right, Greg. Well, Hey, it was great catching up. Happy new year once again. And until next time,
00:42:52
Speaker
See ya. Bye.