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Understanding Self, Motivation, & Life Design | A Kitchen Table Talk  image

Understanding Self, Motivation, & Life Design | A Kitchen Table Talk

S1 E7 ยท The Ripple Affect
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108 Plays11 months ago

Pull up a chair and join us at our kitchen table for another episode of The Ripple Affect, where your hosts, sisters Cheech and Nibby (Chiara and Isa), dive into a heartfelt and genuine conversation about the intricacies of self-esteem, the role of intrinsic motivation, and the art of life design. In this episode, we share our own stories and struggles, discussing how the delicate dance between confidence and self-esteem plays out in our lives. We talk about the importance of understanding what drives us from within and how recognizing our intrinsic motivations can shape our decisions and paths to fulfillment. As we explore the principles of life design, we reflect on our experiences with prototyping life choices and the importance of self-assessment in pursuing what truly resonates with us. Join us in this honest dialogue as we ponder over these concepts, offering insights and personal anecdotes. This episode is more than just a discussion; it's about sharing our journey with you, in hopes of inspiring you to embrace your own path of self-discovery and authenticity. So grab your favorite cup of tea, and let's get into it!

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Transcript

Introduction to The Ripple Effect Podcast

00:00:04
Speaker
You're listening to The Ripple Effect with your hosts Cheech and Nippy, a podcast that explores how individual change has the capacity to affect the whole. From neuroscience to donuts, we're two sisters with a deep curiosity for ancient wisdom and modern knowledge, and we're obsessed with learning alongside you because we don't know. Let's dive in.

Kitchen Table Talk: Embracing Authenticity

00:00:29
Speaker
Welcome back to another episode of the Ripple Effect Pod and to our Kitchen Table Talk style episode. These episodes are freeform, unstructured conversations between us sisters, Cheech, this is my voice, and Nibi, that's her voice. We want to try to keep these types of episodes raw and unedited for the

The 'Almost Clan' Philosophy: Embracing Imperfection

00:00:49
Speaker
most part. So full disclosure, what you're about to hear is Isa being a goofball because it was past her bedtime when we recorded.
00:00:59
Speaker
True, true story. You'll also hear a funny moment where I refer to you as our clan. I just want to clarify why we lovingly refer to you as such. For the full origin story of where the idea of the almost clan came from, listen to episode zero, our prequel.
00:01:14
Speaker
But to summarize, it's our family philosophy that nothing is meant to be perfect. And when you're in the pursuit of change and growth, almost is a pretty good pocket to be in because almost is not failure. It's enough. Referring to all of us, our community, as the almost clan, it's a reminder we're in it together and we're not going to get it perfect. But that's not the point. The point is acceptance, permission to be messy and
00:01:40
Speaker
Try to do great things even though it's probably not going to go as planned. Okay, so let's get into the episode clan. Isa?

Internal Self-Exploration: Self-Esteem and Motivation

00:01:49
Speaker
At our table this week, the conversation happens to focus mostly on internal self exploration. We dive into things like self-esteem, life design, and intrinsic motivation.
00:01:59
Speaker
If you were with us for our last Kitchen Table Talk, episode four, this is a continuation. As always, you're about to drop directly into a seat at the table mid-conversation. Enjoy.
00:02:13
Speaker
Self-esteem, that's something I'm working on. I have high confidence and low self-esteem. I realized this actually after performing. I performed at this music festival and I performed burlesque and I
00:02:30
Speaker
Was stopped by tons of people after the performance at the festival for the next for two days I performed two nights and both nights I had people coming up to me that I didn't know being like you were my favorite like you were so good and I realized, you know, I would graciously take the compliments, but I realized I was internal my internal dialogue was like Well, like that's not true. They're just being nice like that but and
00:03:00
Speaker
And then I had to like, again, use data and rational thinking like nobody would just go out of their way at a music festival, go talk to somebody to say like something because they like.
00:03:12
Speaker
We're just wanting to lie to them. No one's that codefended. That doesn't make sense. So I realize this was such a great example because I'm confident enough to get on stage and perform and do well. I definitely know I'm a good dancer. I know I'm a good performer.
00:03:33
Speaker
Then to not be able to internally have the self-esteem To know like when it comes from somebody else that that's truth to receive it to receive it correlated ability to have

Self-Assessment and Societal Roles

00:03:49
Speaker
enough openness in yourself to receive a truth back and that that is that is a Self-esteem I feel this is my own personal opinion
00:04:02
Speaker
cuz that's what we're doing in these kitchen table talks is in my opinion what is that you just made up a French accent of opinion sometimes when I say opinion I like to say it like that in my opinion I can even do that can I do it with when you're out with your friends and no one expects it my opinion
00:04:29
Speaker
No, I think it's I think it's a good idea, but you know what in my opinion Bad French accent different that's a French accent pretty sure that's French accent. Oh now. What are you doing?
00:04:50
Speaker
I have the best French character bad French accent character that I run with our niece Annabelle that she absolutely loves and it's really insulting and I'm not gonna do it
00:05:01
Speaker
It's not good. So she's an actor who should be able to who can do a lot of accents. I could not do a French one Where was I going with that? Before my opinion that you derailed me on yeah Your opinion of being able to take no self-esteem
00:05:21
Speaker
My opinion of self-esteem is that level to which you can self-assess and be open to others' assessment of you. And my point was that self-esteem affects that self-assessment.
00:05:40
Speaker
Because if you don't have that ability to go above a six, you know, you're always a five, you're always a four status. Where are you in the world? I learned this from acting class, like, where are you in the world? What's your status? Everyone's doing it all the time. I compare myself to you, compare myself to the world.
00:05:59
Speaker
And it's an internal thing that happens, like, I'm this level of smart. I'm a six in money. I'm a four in education. We do this, not exactly like this, but it happens kind of almost as a background, running in the background. And in acting, you do this so that you can learn how to raise your status and lower your status based on the different characters you're playing, because you can't bring your status of life
00:06:23
Speaker
into if you're if I'm not a CEO and I want to play a CEO like a CEO has a different level of status in their life based on a lot of factors that that person and it's interesting to play have a it's funny in comedy you'll have a low status person like a person who has low status in life
00:06:41
Speaker
like they don't make a lot of money, or they're a secretary, or they're like the busboy, but have very high status as a character. And that's funny, because the busboy will talk down to somebody, and you're like, why is that funny? Because he's not supposed to have the status and the self-esteem that he has to be in this position. We in life, in

Parenting Styles and Building Resilience

00:07:01
Speaker
our society, put everybody in their place, right? And so when I started to self-assess in this way,
00:07:07
Speaker
Life design was something that I that definitely touches on self esteem and how to grow it, but it's like that How do I how do I measure up and if I cap myself? out of five in any in any area
00:07:23
Speaker
Now once anything that comes in over that, I'm not going to be able to register. I'm not going to be able to take. I'm not going to be able to receive. I'm not going to be able to know what to do with that data because it's outside of my registry of what I've already claimed as an identity. This is where I am in the world. And that being able to dial it up doesn't mean ego as much as it means compassion.
00:07:47
Speaker
I think. Because if you have that compassion for yourself, there's an ability to have the dial, the possibility of it being able to be moved.
00:07:59
Speaker
And I think that, I think self-esteem, I think there's a lot to be said for the way self-esteem is originally built. Like we know how through parenting, like parenting styles, it affects children's self-esteem within, which then affects adults in their self-esteem. So there, it's like your ability to have the,
00:08:24
Speaker
self-awareness enough that you can solve a task or take on a problem or be independent enough to critically think and and work in the world and interact with others and have positive interactions like it's that whole gambit.
00:08:41
Speaker
And that's why they say like, you don't want to tell, correct me if I'm wrong, but it's like you don't want to tell a child. What is it you did this so well, or reward based, but you want to say good job for trying? No, there's a yeah, it's actually really interesting. There's a really good psych study on that, where it's like a base at certain ages, when like encouragement when they're young, encouraging based off of their effort.
00:09:08
Speaker
Effort is really effective, but once you get to middle age what what age is that like middle school middle school middle school age it starts to change because Kids associate effort if you compliment them on their effort They they automatically think it's because their skill set is low. Whoa. Yeah, there's like studies that show like they they're like Oh, they're only coming me on my effort because my actual intellect wasn't there whoa
00:09:37
Speaker
So yeah, so you have there's like different approaches then you switch your approach and you but that's the thing like parenting there's so much to parenting taking a developmental psychology class and it's like that is To all my parents listening you have one of the most intricate balances of a job to do of anybody and
00:10:03
Speaker
you're not going to do it perfect and there's just no possible way. There's too many factors. Yeah. There's too many variety of factors to hit them all. Yeah, but we do know there are basic ones that do help,

Rewiring the Brain for Self-Awareness

00:10:21
Speaker
especially in self-esteem and regulation, emotional regulation.
00:10:25
Speaker
And I feel like knowing those, you've kind of, as you're taking this class, excitingly shared information with me. And what I gain is actually looking, being able to look at my childhood and be like, Oh, what did I not get? And then figure out how can I give that to myself now? Because it's possible. It's like, yeah, yes, I probably am handicapped that I didn't get it at the age that I needed for development.
00:10:49
Speaker
But if I know that I didn't get that, at least I can have compassion for why I not am the way that I am. It's not about blaming my parents in any way at all. But it is this like, oh, okay, I didn't get that. So I'm gonna have a harder time. Develop mentally. I am. I'm just gonna have a harder time. It's gonna take more time or effort or something, more therapy, more tools to do this thing than if someone who did have that when they were growing up.
00:11:17
Speaker
Yeah, but like Dr. Thayer said, you can rewire your brain. Yes. Like there's no reason you can't if you're if you give yourself that and you create that feedback loop that like, oh, when I do this, this happens. OK, cool. I can keep doing that. And you can change anything. That's so encouraging. Yeah, it really is like. I feel complete.
00:11:44
Speaker
We cut off from a lot of different places actually in this conversation. It feels like a little bit all over. I feel like I didn't like come back. I feel like there was thought processes that are just like threads in the wind. I'm like, wait, I feel like I was gonna come back to that point and I didn't. Which honestly, these kitchen table talks are gonna probably have those. So if listening, listeners, our fellow clan members of the almost- Don't say the clan members. Oh, I can't say that. We can't.
00:12:14
Speaker
I met our almost clan members. Oh my god, we have to call them a crew. We can't call them a clan. We gotta call them a crew. The almost clan. You keep trying to call them a crew and I like clan. Okay, let's take a vote. All the listeners. No, we get to decide. You're right, actually, which we should take a poll if they're going to be a part of the community. So this is what I was saying.
00:12:32
Speaker
clan or crew, if you can help us out with these kitchen table talks and we lose a thread that you're actually interested in and following up, can you DM us and tell us, hey, yo, you fucked up. You didn't finish that goddamn conversation. Oh, OK, wait, I will say you remember what I remember. Yeah, I was going to say you were asking how I learned how to dialogue with that was one of the things I wanted and
00:13:00
Speaker
I think it's I can't remember like the very beginnings of it, but neither could I on mine. All of a sudden I just was like, I know how to do this. But yeah, I mean, I think I would I think it was after doing like inner child work. And where did you learn with Uncle Bruce?
00:13:20
Speaker
Oh, so more recently. Yeah. Yeah. Well, it was probably like five or six years ago.

Inner Child Work and Personal Growth

00:13:25
Speaker
Oh, yeah. Because you started working with him before we took that class in 2020. Yeah. I worked with them for quite a while before that, maybe even seven years ago. They don't know who Uncle Bruce is. He is in an episode. Oh, no. They would have just listened to the episode of Uncle Bruce when this is going to come out. OK, perfect. Yeah.
00:13:41
Speaker
So it was it was with Uncle Bruce and we did an inner child rescue session where it was such a beautiful experience. So I was a combination of some somatic healing, polarity therapy and an inner child rescue. I don't know what I was working with him quite a bit at the time. So it was like I can't recall exactly what that specific session was, but
00:14:05
Speaker
in the inner child rescue is when I really got in touch with the the inner child in me and then I naturally after connecting with that part of myself realized oh there was a lot that she didn't get that she needed when she was a kid.
00:14:30
Speaker
I will reference like ACA, which is, and can you say what ACA is? Adult Children of Alcoholics and Dysfunctional Families. It's a 12-step program support group. Nice. Which is another place and tool that I've used to help one come to grips with the fact that that was that and break denial around it, which was really challenging, but really, really
00:14:57
Speaker
really helpful. But I started dialoguing with myself then and then through ACA is, you know, you learn how to become your own loving parent and start to dialogue and even distinguish it within yourself when it's like your inner child.
00:15:16
Speaker
or your inner teen, because my inner teen comes out too and gets really angsty and is very, a lot of attitude, a lot of like, fuck you, I don't wanna do this. I've met that person. Yeah. I'm just kidding, I'm kidding. You lived through that person. I lived through it, no, I was teasing. She still lives in me. I was teasing, you come out, that comes out every once in a while and I'm like, oh, yep. Yeah, yeah, my inner teen comes out and is just like, yeah, annoyed and angsty. That's the best way I can say it. Annoyed by everybody in the world, you know?
00:15:44
Speaker
thinks she's like got it all figured and everyone's idiots and it's like no come on like come back down but um yeah so those two places have really helped me to do that and then honestly it's just like a personal
00:16:00
Speaker
I think anytime you're talking to yourself, it's a personal thing. So, um, like I talked to my body. I talked to my, I've always talked to my body. I talked to my, I talked to my guides. I talked to my angels. I talked to like, I like have a working dialogue going.
00:16:18
Speaker
Yeah, so it's kind of all very similar. It's like a similar thread of communication that isn't with another person, which I think takes a little bit of a muscle to do. And I think listening, you talked about feeling all your feelings, which is like a practice and a muscle. And also, I want to put in the show notes the feelings wheel. Have you ever worked with one of those?
00:16:42
Speaker
I think through, to be honest, acting, but not necessarily through therapeutics. Yeah, the feelings wheel is really good if you're just starting to get like in touch with feelings because one way for you to up your EQ and they teach us in psychology, which is your emotional intelligence.
00:16:58
Speaker
is to up up your emotional vocabulary. So when you know more words that are associated to feelings, then you can better describe what you're feeling and you can start to get into the nuance of what you're actually feeling like shame versus grief and pity versus anger versus angst versus pissed off versus
00:17:18
Speaker
You know, there's just there's a very wide range as humans of what we feel and the language thing too, like different languages have different words for different feelings. So we're limited by our language even. But I think that's a really good resource to start to just like tune into. Oh, what is that and where it is in your body? That's a big thing. Can I add one thing before you move on from that?
00:17:39
Speaker
Atlas of the Heart from Brene Brown is her newest book and it goes in depth into a certain amount of categorical
00:17:50
Speaker
a certain amount of emotions that have been categorized through her research and what they look like and what people talk about. And it was and is so helpful for me. I actually bought it for a friend and realized like I want to buy that by the hard copy for myself to as a reference kind of guide of learning about these emotions and the names, the naming of them just because of exactly everything you just said. So I wanted to throw that out there as a resource as well for people.
00:18:19
Speaker
It's brilliant. It really is. If you don't know Bernie Brown's work, I would encourage everyone to familiarize yourself.

Understanding Emotions with Brene Brown

00:18:28
Speaker
She's a shame and vulnerability researcher when she does qualitative research, which is the collecting of stories is how she talks about it. Yeah, qualitative versus quantitative would be your statistics here. How many people, what's the statistics behind it? And qualitative is the emotions.
00:18:46
Speaker
in the emotions and what people say and how and she did interviews and she did a whole study of the whole hearted and read those books and then it just kind of continually deepens her research. She's a researcher. And so I think her books and the latest is a real deep dive into emotions and it's useful for all the reasons you just said. So I just want to read that. Yeah.
00:19:11
Speaker
Yeah, because I think yeah just learning that that's the game is to figure out what's going in you going on in you in me I can only speak for myself like that's the game is someone asked me like what do you like what do you want to do because I get like I get so what am I doing with my life and such a deep ambivalence like I want this but no I want that and so many different things going on that like
00:19:34
Speaker
It can be challenging for me to have like the groundedness at times and the self-confidence and to like make clear decisions for myself and someone asked me like, well, what do you really want? And I was like, I just want to.
00:19:49
Speaker
I just want to keep exploring myself and keep figuring myself out on deeper and deeper levels. I just want to keep going to classes and courses and just keep deepening my relationship with myself. That's what I really want. I just want to keep going there. I just want to keep going in and deeper.
00:20:11
Speaker
see what I find, you know, more than anything, like more than any career, more than any like trip or, you know, anything. And so I think that's the game is to learn as much as we can about ourselves.
00:20:28
Speaker
Yeah. And as you were talking, I kind of had this thought of how it can sound selfish or it can be deemed selfish or self-indulgent or different things in kind of an
00:20:43
Speaker
And another time I might have looked at that and like, oh, that's not like worthy of self of exploration self but now I just really it's opposite because for me like I can also only speak for myself, but the the journey within reflects anyway on the outside, you know to the degree that I don't know myself is And I've been there, you know, like I didn't
00:21:11
Speaker
know what I know now about me. And it was a lot harder in my experience to be the person that didn't know about me. And I think that's like a normal coming of age. Yes. You know, process is like, I was like, oh, I was like completely aloof to myself my entire 20s.
00:21:28
Speaker
You know, maybe not entire, but this is a big good chunk of it. And then to just start that journey of knowing yourself. And I think it really is just like a natural progression of being human. And we've talked about that before of like the when you look back and you're like, oh, like that's what I.
00:21:45
Speaker
Believed or when you when you recognize like oh, that's a that's a coping mechanism trauma and then or you know That's a program or you just see the version of yourself from before and you're like, oh that that wasn't me like all of that was like this happened to me in coda and codependence anonymous where they read the
00:22:05
Speaker
they read like the laundry list like if you're codependent you may have these attributes and they say like this isn't a sentence this is just like a way to help you get to know yourself better something along those lines you know and when they read it i was like oh my god like i have all like i have all of those characters like all of those things are true for me and then i realized like
00:22:29
Speaker
If that's just the characteristics of this thing, then who am I underneath this thing? And what's the thing in CODA? It's like a laundry list. No, but if I'm the characteristics of this thing, which is being an adult. Codependent. Being codependent. Yeah, so CODA is codependence anonymous.
00:22:49
Speaker
the way you interact. Even you were talking a little bit earlier about measuring yourself against people in the world and that's a very codependent action because then you're looking to something outside of yourself to have it be a marker to compare yourself to and adjust yourself. Whereas you know when I stopped doing that I was like oh my god I have so much extra energy like
00:23:10
Speaker
I'm not constantly scanning and reading, are you better than me or am I better than you? How do I adjust myself to match this situation? Fuck, dude, that is exhausting. Yeah, it is. It's so exhausting. And I still fall back into it. I'm not healed from my co-dependence. But it's helpful to know I don't have to do that, and that's not just me. That's not who I am. That's a characteristic of this coping mechanism.
00:23:38
Speaker
but it's not part of my character, I guess, or like, it's not Isa. It's just like, oh, that's just the codependence, that's okay, you know, the separation between it makes it something I can interact with as opposed to like, be my identity. Yes, so well said because identity shifts are change, synonymous change, and a huge way to change is to shift
00:24:06
Speaker
cut your hair, change your life. And I am also a beautician, so I'm like, that's legitimately true. Oh, yeah. And people change their image and it changes them. And that's so crazy you say that because in life design, one of the things after the self self self-esteem module, there's image like in the self-esteem module, there's image like, how do I see myself? How do others see me? What? There's so much to that.
00:24:35
Speaker
Can you say a little bit about Life Design? Because you've mentioned it a few different times, but you haven't, we haven't, if someone was listening and they didn't know what that was. Right, right. I thought I mentioned it in maybe like the prequel, but. But not everybody's gonna listen to it. Yeah, not everyone's gonna listen. Life Design was designed, Life Design was a class taught by two Stanford professors that they would teach the incoming freshmen.

Life Design: Experiments in Career and Choices

00:24:59
Speaker
to allow them to see their career paths and their time at Stanford not as something to go like the one path of like this is how it has to be to open themselves up of how to go about looking at life from a design perspective
00:25:23
Speaker
So you're prototyping and running experiments to see what the best thing for you is. And it was all there's also a huge module in it of how to get jobs from the perspective of having curiosity conversations instead of applying for things. I read that book long before I had heard of like probably
00:25:45
Speaker
I don't know, 10 years ago. Yeah, it's been around for a while. Yeah. And I think I gifted it to Connor at the time. And Connor's our nephew, our nephew Connor. And then I read it and I started doing there's like an online coursework you can do with them now.
00:26:02
Speaker
or then I started doing that. And then years later, Kiara started teaching life design with her friend, and they were doing what they were teaching, which was doing a prototype and doing a beta of what this would be like to run people through this course.
00:26:21
Speaker
and I volunteered to be one of the people in the course and it was a wonderful experience. It was so helpful to get into the designer's mind about life things because I think for me I can strict around
00:26:37
Speaker
the binaries of things of like, okay, it's either gonna be like this, or it's gonna be like this, and I have to figure it out, and I gotta get it right, and I gotta figure out where am I going, what am I doing, I need to get a job, I need to do this, I need to do this. It just spins out, you know? And to be in a creative space, but looking at different options that you have for yourself was so much more playful and freeing and exploratory and fun.
00:27:04
Speaker
Yeah. And that's kind of the aim is to let yourself think like a designer. And I really took to that work because I am a designer. Like I went to school at least to be a designer and I interior design and I practiced interior design, building, designing homes when I first was out of college. And I still do it as like a hobby, helping friends, you know, with their, their not decorating. I'm not a great decorator, but I am a good designer.
00:27:30
Speaker
because you learn the skills of how to look at the world through problem solving. And not, and I think I said this in the second trailer too, it's like there's, that we had, we put out a second trailer kind of talking a little bit about who we are.
00:27:47
Speaker
Broccoli. She's really stoked because she has this Dana Carvey impressionation that she does with chopping broccoli and people laugh. No, it was not people. It was Amber. My cousin Amber. She said she laughed out loud at a red light and I just mic dropped. I'm like, I can go on with my life.
00:28:06
Speaker
I did it. I made Hambone laugh at a red light. It's a good feeling if you could make Amber laugh. I agree. And so broccoli, yeah, that's what that whole second trailer is about, people. Get your greens. But yeah, I talked about it there, but just to say briefly, I think that
00:28:25
Speaker
It affected the way that I look at the world through like, oh, problem solving is what you do when you're faced with challenges. And there is a collaborative effort in it in terms of like, I can't solve all the problems by myself. One, I get to work with others to solve these problems because it works better when you do.
00:28:46
Speaker
And the idea of a design isn't finished, it needs to be prototyped. Like you put a design together and then you run it through a bunch of mines or you let people test it or you, that's like product design and interior design. It's like you literally create models so you can walk yourself through the space, little mini models to see like, does this work? Is there enough space that a wheelchair could come in and move this around and you're very hands on with things.
00:29:13
Speaker
to look at life like that was I just took to that way of doing things because it made sense to me and it freed me up as well to think like, oh, there's not one life I have in here. There's a lot of lives that I have in here. What's the one that's going to make me the most satisfied? And then it's going to change. And I get to do this again when I'm not as satisfied in that thing that I choose to go and do. And the way to start that process is to self-assess because before doing life design, I didn't
00:29:43
Speaker
have a metric of what brought me satisfaction. I didn't know that eating chocolate and staying in bed late and playing with my puppy or exercising through sport instead of through
00:29:58
Speaker
Discipline was something that I didn't know that those were what naturally brought me energy. I didn't know that convenience was something that I highly valued. So I will spend money on convenience because it will bring me so much more energy and joy. I didn't know that about myself. And when I started to build or design a life,
00:30:22
Speaker
I had to know who I was designing it for. So I had to know myself. So it circles back to like that journey within so that you can go and play without like on the outside and externally. And I think those are, yeah, that's my gain from that. I think this is a good time for,
00:30:44
Speaker
Oh wait. What? At the beginning of this episode. At the beginning of this episode. You talked about. You talked about. Choice. Choice. Choice. Choice.
00:30:59
Speaker
Stop! What are you doing? Dude, this is the most pointless. Sometimes I'm like, are we really doing this? Do you think Taylor Swift's hand gets tired? Jesus Christ. Holding a mic like this? I don't know, dude. Like, my hand is tired. I'm holding this mic. You need to shape up. She's gotta have, like, do you think she has one of those, like, exercise squeezy hand things?
00:31:16
Speaker
I don't know. She probably does. I'm sure her fans know. She has Lulu and Sophie. Yeah, we do need to ask them that, but I don't think they'll know that. Lulu and Sophie are our nieces. We have several nieces and one nephew. They're identical to a nieces. Yes. And then we have our other niece. We're not going to go to the full family tree, are we? Okay, choice. But after the break, we're going to take a little mini break. But first, I got to call my husband. A break. He called me twice.
00:31:45
Speaker
Give me a break. Give me a break. Break me off a piece of that. Sing it. Sing it along in your car. Do it. Do it! Good job.
00:32:12
Speaker
you're gonna freak people out coming off a break no cut that chaotic up no please cut it I feel embarrassed I feel embarrassed you know you shouldn't say it that's recorded
00:32:25
Speaker
No, you need to cut it. Oh God, okay. Thanks for listening to that space or where our sponsors are going to go and we're back. We were just talking about choice in terms of prototyping and I just wanted to like say a little bit more about that life design thing in that the basis of it is that you can look at your life and you can have some line up some things that you
00:32:53
Speaker
feel you're trying to make a decision about or you think might work for you.

Trying Ideas: Gathering Information for Choices

00:32:58
Speaker
And instead of just trying to think your way into those or understand from a place of cognitive only, it encourages you to be in action by prototyping some of those things out. You want to write a book? Like talk to someone who's written a book and ask them about what that could be like.
00:33:16
Speaker
Take a course on it or these little mini experiments that are within your means within your money budget things that you can do that are free or you know experiential or conversations with your conversations are usually free that let you know more and
00:33:32
Speaker
about that thing you're going to do. And it can give you data points on whether or not you wanna keep knowing more or that no, that actually isn't the reality of that thing that I thought is just romanticized and really I'm trying to fulfill a need otherwise. And that provides why choice, why I felt like it leaned into choice was like a lot of times you do feel like you have to make a choice, you have to go down one path, you have to follow one passion.
00:34:00
Speaker
And the reality of it is you haven't collected enough data to know whether or not you are at the place of making a choice yet.
00:34:09
Speaker
That's why I think it's so hard for the pressure we put on the youth to decide on their careers through college is just, I don't think it's healthy or fair. And that's what this course was designed for. This is why they did it, and I find it to be very helpful. So I don't know if you are going to remember what you wanted to say about Choice, but that was what I wanted to wrap up.
00:34:31
Speaker
No, but I definitely encourage I encourage everybody to do that because I've done that in my life and then incrementally, you know, first figuring out, yeah, OK, is this something I really like or is this something I like the idea of? I did that with like flying lessons and I've done I did it with modeling and and then.
00:34:49
Speaker
After you get to the point and you discern for yourself. Yeah, I do really enjoy this This does give me I do have intrinsic motivation to do this. It does give me something I am I do want to keep going then to incrementally
00:35:04
Speaker
figure out what your steps are yeah to break it down to break it down into really small steps so i do want to encourage anybody listening like if there is something that you've thought of multiple times like that you like you maybe don't talk about it but you want to do it or like maybe you do talk about it and you have tried before and you haven't been able to do it but to keep exploring it to call people to reach out to find out more information and then
00:35:33
Speaker
figure out if if it's true if it's really true that you do want that thing and why and why that's such a big part of it is why and it's hard there's so many things where vocabulary like
00:35:44
Speaker
modern vocabulary has dulled things for me like like the whole like know your purpose like know your why know your why it's so thrown around but there is like a lot of value in the raw version of that your heart access
00:36:04
Speaker
Yeah, and just like really knowing your why because sometimes your why is based in fear. Sometimes your why is based in like some childhood need that wasn't met. Sometimes your why is based in like a need for love that you can give yourself in other ways. You know, so it's like knowing what is underneath that desire.
00:36:25
Speaker
And you said a word intrinsic motivation a second ago. I learned this from you and you were taking, I don't remember what class, but you shared about this. And it blew me away. So I don't know, it's late. I just want to recognize this. It is Isabel's witching hour, if you haven't already noticed. So I don't want to like put you on the spot and we can come back to it in a tactical, but just briefly, like you threw that out there and I think it was a fascinating kind of topic.
00:36:50
Speaker
Yeah, so intrinsic versus extrinsic motivation.

Motivation: Intrinsic vs Extrinsic

00:36:55
Speaker
Extrinsic motivation is like getting a good grade on a test. There's something outside yourself that motivates you to go towards that thing. The most classic are either positive or negative reinforcement.
00:37:08
Speaker
But intrinsic motivation is an internal desire to do something and it has nothing to do with an external source or achievement base. You know, intrinsically motivated to
00:37:24
Speaker
I don't know and get everybody so different engage with your houseplants or do your hobby or you know whatever whatever it is this podcast was an intrinsic motivation for us we didn't have I mean we obviously have a mission and a broader sense hope
00:37:45
Speaker
Y of a Y. Yeah, but we want to do it because we want to do it. Yeah, for ourselves, you know, it wasn't like we want to do this because it'll get us this thing. And is intrinsic or extrinsic extrinsic, I think.
00:38:01
Speaker
Is one better than the other? Have they proven that like there's like a, do you need both in your life or is one more powerful? No, I don't know that one is better than the other. I think they both serve different purposes. And I don't know that you necessarily need both in your life, but most likely you already have both, whether you're registering them or not.
00:38:28
Speaker
And I think both can be healthy in balance. I think if you have too much extrinsic motivation, it can create pressure, pressurized and create stress, can create anxiety. But if you have the right amount, that just, you know, if you're being challenged, the right amount, it's just like learning. Like if you, when you're learning something that's above, there's, what is it? Oh, God. It's a threshold, right?
00:38:55
Speaker
yeah there's a threshold there's a certain there's a specific word for it um phrase for it that this one psychologist coined and i can't think of it right now but um there's like a window in which you learn things when they're just above your current base of knowledge and that's how you really grow and learn so if if i were to
00:39:16
Speaker
you know if you're learning a new language and I tell you okay now here's your base of your knowledge and I tell you a few more words to add on to it to make a sentence that makes sense and you already know three of the words that are in the sentence and I'm just adding two more one more you grab it and you learn it and you can associate it
00:39:34
Speaker
But if I give you 20 words that you don't know right off the bat, it's overwhelming and you can't assimilate that information. So I think it's the same with like any, any form of learning, any, anything you want to be able to be in that window where it's challenging you, but it's not overwhelming you. You have the, you build that skillset up until you can keep growing in it and it doesn't just overpower you.
00:40:02
Speaker
And do you think there's a negative of having too much or too little intrinsic motivation? I guess too little, sure, if you're not motivated just for your own sake of things, but too much? Do you have a reflection on whether that is too imbalanced? What would that look like? Well, we have societal stuff. We have societal stuff we have to take into account.
00:40:25
Speaker
If someone's just completely intrinsically motivated, you know, yeah, that could that depending on the person and the situation that could go very wrong, you know, because you could be intrinsically motivated to eat Pringles on your couch all day. Like there's not, you know, I think that we all we have a.
00:40:46
Speaker
Motivation is such a cool topic. I know a little class on human motivation. Let's do and I think that would be really fascinating for everybody to hear about and learn about because that's a big part of change and a big why is it you know Why don't we have the motivation to do the things we want to do? Yeah, we asked ourselves that you and me
00:41:02
Speaker
And we can hack that to a certain extent. When you know more information about how the human is motivated and ways to kind of hack the brain patterning of motivation is really helpful.
00:41:18
Speaker
Yeah, I hear a tactical of this, a tactical episode that we can bring you that are more concise, concrete, researched, deep dives into one topic that we can provide. Yeah, there's a lot. Self-determination theory. There's a lot. Yeah, let's go into it. That's exciting. I want to learn more about that. So I want to go back just for one brief second when you were talking about choice. What are you doing now? Remember that Nellie Fajardo song?
00:41:48
Speaker
No. No one else does. Nobody catches it. Damn it. You're tired. I gotta work on my singing. Okay. Not on the podcast. Once again, not a karaoke line. This was a bad idea to give her the type of money. Okay. Here we go. I want to go back really briefly and then we'll wrap this up is when you're looking, when you were talking about, um, I'm sweating someone trying to, this is, I'm going to do it. This is what I'm going to deal with with kitchen table talks. Okay.
00:42:17
Speaker
take off your sweatshirt bro I'm just gonna give her a pause just make a bunch of noise on her now she's purposely making noise you are making a lot of noise all right so yeah you shush yourself
00:42:36
Speaker
OK, going back just briefly to help someone and it's pulling from life design again. But when you were talking about, you know, wanting to help way try to make a decision, try to help yourself in certain things, making lists of those things. I don't think you said that, but I'm saying it and having someone help you ideate. So ideation is such a powerful tool because if you don't if you only think there are three
00:43:07
Speaker
steps you can take when you're talking about breaking down something into a small step, right? Having someone else reflect back to you other ideas outside of your own that could work to explore a topic or a change you're thinking about making is so powerful because you are limited.
00:43:28
Speaker
You know, I would be limited in the way that I would think because I only have my experiences and I I'm living the life. So I think that there are limitations. I'll bring my own limitations and we're going to say something. Yeah, but I would just be I would advise to be really careful who you bring those things to is because in business.
00:43:48
Speaker
That's like something you really want to go to people who have done the thing that you're doing before, who are, you know, your version of successful at that. And that can be very look very different for whatever, you know, from a master gardener to like a CEO, whatever it is that you're trying to learn more about. And you want to have a conversation with them.
00:44:10
Speaker
to help them inspire more, more to help them inspire broader thoughts for you on that, whatever subject it is. Right. So that was what I was going to go to next. Thank you, because it's like it's not just anyone. First of all, it's someone who and in life design, you know, it's obviously your life design like partner or someone you've chosen who you've opened up with. And I'm like, I'm doing this thing that is, you know, trying to ideate. And I need not a certain way to do these things, which is like reflection work.
00:44:40
Speaker
You're not really looking for advice, you're also not looking for someone to negate the idea, tell you why it's not a good idea or that you should do something else, but you are looking to ideate on other ways that you could explore that idea. And if you could get someone to tell you when you're trying to partner with someone, tell me more about why this thing's interesting to you.
00:45:03
Speaker
When I heard you talk about that, when you were talking about gardening, you really lit up just then, reflecting back their own interests. Like when you talked about this, you sounded really like not so interested. You sounded just being able to have someone reflect back to you what it is that you're lighting up is. So when you said that, sorry, I took that wrong, I think there might need to be a little clarification. So to have somebody else
00:45:28
Speaker
Observe you talking about the thing you're wanting you're designing your prototyping out and just we pay attention and look for what what you see in me where I actually get genuinely excited about that and help me help me like Decipher which ones, you know, I really have more energy around
00:45:46
Speaker
And and to talk more about those things. So it's like, oh, yeah, you really lit up. And the partner can tell you, ask you, like, what more what more is interest to you about gardening? What more interest you about bringing this into your life? And you can start to go. You'll open up more.
00:46:05
Speaker
which goes back to knowing yourself better. Because sometimes it does take prompting from, and that's therapy too, it takes prompting from somebody outside of yourself, good friends, good conversations, to open yourself up to go, oh yeah, no, that is why.
00:46:19
Speaker
Yeah, have you ever been in a conversation where you hear, you're like, you're articulating something and you realize like, at the same time, you're like, I've never thought of it that way before, but that is how I feel about it. That happens to me a lot. And I realized it's verbal processing. I verbally process. So conversations are really key to me and having them with people who can have long in depth conversations. I definitely get to verbally process and that's where I come to my own recognitions.
00:46:49
Speaker
Is it 9.30? It is. On the dot? I don't think so. It's 9.37. Oh, we gotta go. All right. That's it. We're wrapping up. I have to call my husband. Yeah, she said she would call at 9.30. She's late. She's late for a very important date. Okay, till next week. Love you, crew. Take care. Okay, I think we did it. Listen.
00:47:12
Speaker
I don't know what we did, but we did it. Look, unattainable ideals are overrated. We're way more connected and deserving than society's false sense of separation dictates us to be. You're not just one person. You're enough. Your effort is enough, and change is possible. Question the standard that says otherwise, because what if almost is good enough?
00:47:38
Speaker
Just by tuning in, you're a part of our clan. Not in a cult way, though. We don't know how far this ripple can go, but we're going to keep showing up. And we'll never get to perfection, but we're all going to be OK if we let the process be the solution and we see the value in the attempt. Thanks for listening to another episode of the ripple affect. We're looking forward to exploring a different facet of change with you next Tuesday. Same time, same place next week.
00:48:07
Speaker
For show notes and additional resources, check out our website at rippleeffectpod.com. That's affect with an A. Kia ora has worked diligently to make our website interactive.
00:48:17
Speaker
Please visit it so it wasn't all for nothing. In all seriousness though, there's a ton of resources there. DM us directly at rippleeffectpod on Instagram and let us know what you liked about our show or any of your own ideas. We're really excited to hear from you. We value your feedback because it helps us make the pod better and it's our way of including you in our process.
00:48:41
Speaker
Okay, so ratings aren't the point of why we do this. We really want to make a change in the world. But in the matrix, there are algorithms. So yeah, every single review we get helps the ripple go farther. To help us out, please take two seconds, find the ratings and review section on whatever platform you're listening from, click five stars, wink, wink.
00:49:04
Speaker
and leave a review. We know you're busy, so just saying hello or literally hi as the review helps us hack the matrix. We sincerely appreciate it. If you want to become officially initiated into our clan, again, not in a cult-y way, hit the subscribe button wherever you get your podcasts. And as always, we're in it with you. Keep questioning. Stay curious. You got this, clan.
00:49:32
Speaker
A special thank you, love and credit to the magnificent Mia Casasanta for this beautiful music you're listening to right now.