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Episode 255: Dragons are still SMART
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Hello, Podwalkers, and welcome back to another episode of the Goblin Lore Podcast! Hobbes and Taya are here to talk about one of Hobbes's favorite things (well many of them and only a tiny bit is about Bolas). We review something Hobbes first enlightened us about back in Episode 38 of the show... S.M.A.R.T. goals as a motivational and achievement too as well as the dreaded concept of planning!
Reminder that at the end of the month there will be a charity event for NAMI that the podcast is greatly committed to helping!
We also finally have a Linktree with all of our discounts/resources
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As promised, we keep Mental Health Links available every episode. But For general Mental Health the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI) has great resources for people struggling with mental health concerns as well as their families. We also want to draw attention to this article on stigma from NAMI's site.
If you’re thinking about suicide or just need someone to talk to right now, you can get support from any of the resources below.
- National Suicide Prevention Lifeline: 988
- Veteran's can Press 1 at anytime to be taken to the Veteran's Line
- Crisis Text Line: Text HOME to 741-741
- International suicide hotlines: A comprehensive resource list for people outside the US.
- IMAlive: Click Chat Now to access a live online network of volunteers through instant messaging.
- TrevorLifeline, TrevorChat, and TrevorText (LGBTQ+ crisis support): 1-866-488-7386, or text “Trevor” to 1-202-304-1200
- Trans Lifeline (US): (877) 565-8860
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Opening and closing music by Wintergatan (@wintergatan). Logo art by Steven Raffael (@SteveRaffle)
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction to the Goblin Lore Podcast
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are help
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are
00:00:28
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Hello, Podwalkers, and welcome back to another episode of the Goblin Lore Podcast with two hosts this week. A different two hosts than last week. um Been a theme lately. It's been tough. ah So it's ah myself, Hobbs, and Taya with you tonight.
00:00:47
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ah We have not really gotten to sit down and chat much since...
Upcoming Events and Recent Happenings
00:00:51
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Vegas. Uh, Vegas. SEGCon Minneapolis. Yeah, Vegas is next month.
00:00:58
Speaker
Vegas is next month. And ah this month is still Mental Health Awareness Month. It is May. um we are We have not gotten out as many episodes as we would like. Alex and Taya did do some of the emotional scenes from Final Fantasy, which ah if you have not gone and listened to, just heads up that it is spoilers for a lot of the games.
00:01:18
Speaker
ah Specifically the ones that were covered by the Commander Decks. ah That was the focus. Yeah, we did cover some other ones. though Okay, I was figuring you probably would. um You know, once you two start talking Final Fantasy, ah it tends to veer in many directions in like a very awesome way.
00:01:37
Speaker
So we did that. We we talked about SEG Con Minneapolis and just kind of our experience with getting together and spending some time in person, actually enjoying the gathering itself.
00:01:48
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And we're back today to kind of continue with our mental health
Charity Events for Mental Health Awareness
00:01:52
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talk. We're going to talk about planning and goals and choice and just kind of go through a little bit about what we've been working on for ourselves in terms of personal goals.
00:02:02
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Reminder that this weekend, so the 31st of May and the 1st of June, we will be ah having the annual charity event for NAMI, the National Alliance of Mental Illness.
00:02:15
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We will be raising money for them ah by just playing games. We have prizes that people can donate. There are going to be some auctions going live for ah at least two artist proofs and maybe and ah maybe a sketch out of Hobbs' collection if he can get his button gear.
00:02:33
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um But we're we're going to be raising money for for mental health and mental health awareness all this weekend, having conversations. Both Tay and I will be in there. and We've already established online.
00:02:44
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Both T and I will likely be um broke by the end of the weekend. Potentially. There's a good chance of that. So if people don't know, and I both ah like to give ourselves mini games around donations and T is amazing. Yeah.
00:03:03
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. If you don't know, taa plays her K and T gay Kings deck, which is deck that likes to help her opponents draw cards. Yeah. Just a few.
00:03:15
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hmm. and And you like to donate money whenever your opponents draw do. It got very expensive last week.
00:03:24
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And I i donate for for talking about artist proofs, as we know. that that is a and I am playing in two games and also on a panel, so there's a lot of opportunity over the weekend.
00:03:35
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And last year, a swear jar was implemented and for for me specifically so i have been told that my wife has already been alerted to the fact that that that beth plans queen of cardboard plans to bring that back and she sent a letter or she sent a a text to my wife already to let her be aware so so thankfully i have such good friends in my life
00:04:02
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Yeah, it'll be a great weekend. It is. I'm really looking forward to it. So I took Monday off for self-care. um i always am. ah Even if I don't play a ton like the year that I think I played in like half of the pods, um I still am going to be exhausted by the end of the weekend. So I took the the Monday off. That's what I chose to do for self-care for myself for next week.
00:04:25
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Which brings us to our opening question. What is something this week that you are choosing to do
Personal Plans and Self-Care
00:04:32
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for yourself? And Taya, I will let you go first because I proposed this question and then did not think about it.
00:04:39
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Did not think of an answer. Hobbs, it's so unlike you.
00:04:45
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um so Yeah, ah I mean, the big thing I'm looking forward to this weekend is the charity stream. I'm also getting my hair redone on Saturday, oh which is a month overdue because I had to cancel my last appointment because it was the weekend of ah um Minneapolis. So I missed my last appointment and I finally got rebooked for this weekend.
00:05:12
Speaker
Oh, wow. That's good. Because I remember you saying when you were here. um You were telling my daughter how much brighter your hair normally is. Yeah, it is really faded right now. So I'm very much looking forward to it ah getting fixed this weekend. so Well, I am Hobbs Q. My ah pronouns are he, him. and one thing that I am choosing to do this week is my uncle had sent my mom a while ago a Millennium Falcon Lego set.
00:05:50
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I don't remember. i think it's actually the one from Solo, if I remember correctly. I will be finding out more as I get going because they've done a ton of versions of it. But it was only broken down by color, um not by ah bags or anything like that.
00:06:06
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And the instructions that my mom was able to get were only the ones that are on the builder app. And she was kind of annoyed with it. She loves star Wars. We just went and saw return of the Jedi. We actually saw all three movies over the course of the last three weeks.
00:06:19
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And so I started working on that. And my plan is to build it, ah rebuild it and give it to her so that she can display it. Cause know she'll want to have it, but it definitely was not ah set that I think she was excited to build.
00:06:31
Speaker
So. Yeah, so let's talk about choice and
Planning and SMART Goals
00:06:35
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planning. and ah This is a topic that I talked about a long time ago on a solo episode ah called Dragons Are Smart, as in smart goals, one of my favorite acronyms to use for them. And dragons, who do you think that that dragon might be in reference to?
00:06:53
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Any ideas out there, listeners? Kea? yeahin obviously Yeah, Ugin is known for his great plans and machinations. They always work out.
00:07:03
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they They always involve, maybe I should just keep this thing around. I might need it later. Like, Ugin has the the world's worst junk drawer.
00:07:14
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Like, you think all of us are bad with our cords and cables? Ugin just keeps Eldrazi around because there might be something he can learn. Yeah, or boluses.
00:07:25
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um He tried that more than once. Yes. Yeah. It hasn't worked either time. No, no, but, but next time, next time.
00:07:36
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Yeah. Cause he learned a lot from this time so he can fix and, and refigure it. He's like, Ugin is kind of like the, the, the space X of, of, of, of the magic world, you know, keep launching in a rocket that we were able to accomplish back in like this sixties to get people to the moon and, and keep not doing it. But we got further, we got further than we did last time.
00:07:59
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That's Ugin. So, no, I chose the dragon who actually does have plans and actually does have contingencies and actually thinks things through. um a little bit on that episode, I talked about the fact that magic lore is kind of... It's hard to find good hero stories that are around the concept of planning and the concept of...
00:08:24
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um forethought and smart goals. And that's actually the nature, I think, of a lot of fiction and a lot of stuff that we see is is the heroes are are are almost always in our stories reactive.
00:08:38
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um they they they are responding to the big bad or to a villain's plans, which is how a lot of stories go, right? You know, they they have to learn that something bad is going on, so they're not really just making their own plans per se.
00:08:52
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um They're usually responding to. Now, I'm not going to get into the world of, like, Jace. I mean, Jace has plans, um but once again, that's... I'm not calling him a hero. I'm not going to call Urza a hero.
00:09:06
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Um... By and large, especially in the modern era of storytelling for the for the Gatewatch and for a lot of the stories, it's like they have the inkling of a plan, like an outline, maybe. And it it's it's meant to then in some ways fail so that they can.
00:09:30
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have this wind like a groundswell of emotion and it carries them on and something happens i'm thinking like they they you know like okay we're gonna kill nickel bolus with the black blade that was it that was the plan yeah it didn't work like it failed utterly and it it you know we needed liliana to be able to you know do what Liliana did for that story to work. But the fact of the matter was the gatewatch had no plan.
00:10:02
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No, none whatsoever. And they didn't listen to a Johnny telling them not to go to begin with. Right. Right. Like, Hey, maybe this is a, a, a, a very bad idea. Like, I mean, like the gatewatch faced him and just got like swatted away on Amonkhet.
00:10:21
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And then yeah they still have no plan. Like, to to go reface him or to deal with him. You know, it wasn't, we weren't seeing planning sessions. We weren't seeing strategy. We weren't seeing that. And that's just because it doesn't make for as interesting of storytelling.
00:10:39
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But in our real life, we need a little bit more, Planning, I think. I think we need to be a little bit smarter about our goals. um Let's get, I don't think we should be rigid, so i'm going to introduce the concept of smart goals here in a minute, and I don't mean it to be like a rigid but dogma that you follow and it's going to help you, you know, solve all of your problems, but you need something.
00:11:02
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I know for me, i I need structure. I need organization. i need to have a ace a plan. And part of that is because then if it doesn't work, I can actually see where it broke down. I can see... Oh, is that why I'm supposed to plan things?
00:11:18
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Yes! ah Nothing works, and I just... I assume it's because I keep screwing up. Well, you may be, but if you don't know where you screwed up along the way, it's kind of hard to fix, right?
00:11:31
Speaker
Yeah. No, i I think that is... i actually think that it that is something that we... run into a lot is we, you know, we we kind of the I feel like this is where the origins of the phrase ah do or do not. There is no try is because for lack of better words, we have the idea of try. Well, going to try to do it.
00:11:52
Speaker
Well, it doesn't necessarily tell us how or You know, I mean, that whole scene I talk about, i get to asked about this a lot, but like that, why this phrase sticks with me is like the whole scene is like Luke really not believing that it's something that he can do, but Yoda's telling him that he can do it or that.
00:12:09
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And so he's just like, well, I'll give it a try. Right. And, and Yoda's like, no, like that's, that's not what I'm telling you. Like there's there's no trying here. You need to to either do it or you're not going to do it. And if you don't do it, that's making a decision. That still is an active decision to not do it.
00:12:24
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Yeah. um Yeah.
00:12:28
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Yeah. Um, it's so easy to just try to wing things and not plan it. And, know, kind of what I always do, uh, which, yeah, it hasn't worked out the greatest for me, honestly. Um, but I am so bad at planning things. Like right now I'm working on doing some voice training,
00:12:55
Speaker
And I'm supposed to sketch out 10 times a day when I can do one minute of practice on a weekly planner. And I have accomplished that exactly zero times since I've started this program.
00:13:11
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um Even writing out the times when I'm supposed to practice is... more than I can usually handle. ah what I have been doing though, is just setting a timer on my phone and doing practice whenever it goes off and then restarting it again, which, um, I guess is some way to it's my backup plan. I'd say it's a backup plan and it really hits nicely. You know, we're going to talk, yeah we're you're kind of bringing up the concept of executive dysfunction.
00:13:43
Speaker
So for a lot of us, um, Getting starting started initiating is the hardest part for anything new. um Like, it's funny because as you're going through that example, i can think of how how this happens in my own life where, as you mentioned, it is something that you were supposed to do, say, 10 times for, did you say like a minute?
00:14:08
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Yeah, a minute a day, 10 times a day is what I'm supposed to practice. So 10 minutes a day, right? Yeah. Which doesn't sound difficult at all. what It's there. The 10 minutes is there.
00:14:20
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yeah And so it can become overwhelming because we think it shouldn't be difficult. It shouldn't be hard. um But the fact of the matter is, it is. right like i I have a goal to stretch five minutes twice a day.
00:14:34
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he I don't do it every day. Right? right I have the five minutes. I can guarantee you I have five minute, two five minute chunks throughout the day that I could easily do my stretches.
00:14:50
Speaker
So with this, you know, it's how do we get ourselves going? How do we get ourselves to start? um You mentioned a compensatory strategy that I like is using my phone or something that cues me in that at least reminds me that I I'm supposed to be doing something.
00:15:08
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he Still might not happen. been It might happen more than zero, though, because as you said, you have been kind of doing it. Reset the clock.
00:15:20
Speaker
It'll go off. So you've been doing it throughout the day, but you're not sketching out a time. You're not setting aside the time specifically. No, I don't. You know, I don't think I ever hit 10 practices because there's times when my alarm goes off and I'm doing um I'm in a meeting or working and just can't take a minute to do it at the time.
00:15:39
Speaker
Yeah. However, since doing this, are you doing it more than when you were thinking of it as I'm going sketch this out and then do it those 10 times per day? Yeah.
00:15:51
Speaker
It's finding ways to get us going. I i benefit from a planner. um I benefit from the planner specifically that Alex turned to me on to that we've mentioned on the show with the Rote Runner here, which is an intentional mindfulness-based planner.
00:16:05
Speaker
um The hardest thing for me to overcome with a planner is... My brain tends to be rigid. It tends to sometimes want to be black or white.
00:16:15
Speaker
It has a lot of unhealthy should statements about what i how it should be completed, how I should fill it out, what I should be doing on a daily basis.
00:16:26
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ah It gives you nice little categories to fill in for all of these things. e And I had to really change my mindset of looking at it as something that I have to fill out correctly.
00:16:42
Speaker
my brain still has this old school literally being in school mentality of something i have to do it correctly I have to do it right yeah like right for who it's it's it's supposed to be a tool right it's supposed to be helping me accomplish something that's important to me I ain't showing it to anybody to begin with even if I was it would be for my benefit um This comes up a lot when I work with people in therapy that want to add something like this into their you know routine.
00:17:17
Speaker
And then they apologize to me because they didn't do it. I'm like, but you know what? like i
00:17:25
Speaker
i'm It doesn't affect me. like it's not like you know i'm It's not going to affect me as your therapist if you did your planner or not. Mm-hmm. I'm suggesting it because part of my goal as a therapist is to be a, you know, I am a problem solver. I'm going to make recommendations of places for us to start to give some tools.
00:17:46
Speaker
But at the end of the day, i don't know which ones are going to work. I don't know which which ones are not going to work. Yeah. And so it's trying stuff and, know, seeing what works or what doesn't and kind of reiterating on that is,
00:18:03
Speaker
You know, one reason, and that's kind of, almost say that like, oh, I avoid planning because of this is because plans never work out. So it's like, I guess I just won't plan sort of thing.
00:18:18
Speaker
Yeah. If you expect that it's going to fail, why would you do it? Yeah. Right. Like plans don't work anyway. So I'm just going to wing it and whatever happens, happens.
00:18:29
Speaker
Mm hmm. um And I would love to for myself if I could just have that and just say whatever happens happens. But as much as I can say that I care what happens.
00:18:40
Speaker
Right. And when i don't get the results, i I am that person that feels guilty and starts internally beating up on myself. Mm hmm. Yeah. Yeah.
00:18:53
Speaker
So what what what prompted this was um i i'm I'm a runner. I am an out-of-shape runner who took most of last year off, um started doing some biking towards the end of last fall before the winter got bad here in Minnesota.
00:19:10
Speaker
um i But I ran collegiately. It messed with my brain. um That competitive side of things really messed with my mindset, body image, ah just...
00:19:23
Speaker
Being able to shut off that competitive thing. I think I talked about this a little bit when we did the episode on competition and how do you approach events. Like I'm not good with it because I have a hard time shutting that off and I have a hard time.
00:19:38
Speaker
Well, doing things in a in a smart way that it did actually make sense. I just would do it and then try to run all out and I'd get hurt. And so I found out that the Twin Cities Marathon was is in October.
00:19:54
Speaker
And once I started doing some research, I found out that the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention is going to have a team.
Long-term Goals and Personal Commitment
00:20:04
Speaker
Basically, you could sign up to raise money, which, ha, there's something that I enjoy doing and do tend to be at least somewhat follow through on.
00:20:12
Speaker
ah with it when it comes to like magic charity events that I, you know, that's one of the things that really is my passion. So it gives me a sense of purpose and meaning and, and it gives me a reason and it gives me something on the horizon, a long term goal that I can attempt to to be aiming for.
00:20:29
Speaker
This works for me. i I am somebody that benefits by having something on the horizon that I am working towards. Yeah. ah Yeah. So I kind of came up with with, like, I started thinking about this episode in that, in that, in that vein of like, well, okay, I'm going to commit to this. I'm committing to running this marathon in October.
00:20:50
Speaker
Um, Hopefully I'm going to do it. Hopefully I'm not going to get hurt along the way. i could. I could end up getting hurt and not be able to to train. um As of right now, my plan is to start training for this and to follow a training plan because I don't want to get hurt and I want to listen to people that know a little bit better than me.
00:21:10
Speaker
Making it as a committed action where I'm actually choosing it. that's something that does work for me because when it comes to things like smart goals, uh, those, those shorter term measurable ones that we're talking about or going to talk about, um, there's a lot about there behind this concept of committing to action.
00:21:35
Speaker
You're, you're actually saying I'm going to do it. Uh, there's a, there's a whole therapy called acceptance and commitment therapy. It's, what's quote unquote called the third wave following some of the more just cognitive therapies that are around changing your thinking, challenging your thinking. You know, you and I have already talked about those should statements, those why bother, ah you know, like things are going to fail, plans are going to fail. Why do them anyway? I'm just going to wing it.
00:22:01
Speaker
There's a lot of that in cognitive therapy. Acceptance and commitment therapy really is accepting that things are as they are or they're going to be as they're going to be. And we may not have control over them or there's things that may be out of our control and we're just seeing them for what they are in the world and not how we want them to be or with these judgmental approaches.
00:22:23
Speaker
But that's not enough. A lot of people are like, oh, acceptance just means I have to be okay with or I'm just going to say it is what it is. The other half of that is committing to action. I am willing to do something even if I'm afraid it's not going turn out.
00:22:37
Speaker
I'm willing to do this even if I know I can fail from it.
00:22:43
Speaker
And to me, that is where having something on the horizon lets me commit to it. And it lets me to to then remind myself. It gives me that value, I guess. Like, ah I mean, so for instance, ta you mentioned the voice training bit, like I'm assuming there's a why behind wanting to do voice training.
00:23:03
Speaker
Yeah, it's, you know, my biggest source of dysphoria right now. And I really, you know, want it to sound more feminine so I don't get misgendered all the time because of my voice.
00:23:15
Speaker
Yeah. So like it's it is it is something that's important to you because of how you know you're you are perceived by others because of things like misgendering, which is a horrible feeling and just reemphasize or re-aggravates dysphoria.
00:23:34
Speaker
And it's an area that you can make change in, right? Mm-hmm. So right there. Sorry, go ahead. Oh, I was just going to say, you know, it's something that you need to work to change that too. It doesn't happen on its own like a lot of other things do once you start taking HRT.
00:23:54
Speaker
Yes. So right. Like this is one that that that you're retraining like vocal cords and you're learning how to enunciate differently to.
00:24:06
Speaker
sound like away from what your voice has been for your life. And as you said, meds don't just change that in the same way. um There's not surgery that's going to change how you speak necessarily.
00:24:22
Speaker
Yeah. As far as I know. who And so you're kind of saying like, this is important enough to me that I am willing to go through what is not, I'm guessing, like, I, I'm just thinking like, I don't like doing stretches.
00:24:41
Speaker
I don't really enjoy doing that. That's not a part of working out or running or staying in shape that I enjoy. It's the thing that probably does the most to keep me from getting injured. I'm also guessing that for the exercises that you're being asked to do, like practicing it over and over again is the best way to get better at doing it.
00:25:02
Speaker
That is exactly it. You just need to, you need to practice and you need to practice on a you know regular basis and you need to make it a commitment.
00:25:14
Speaker
And I, so but for the way that the treatment or the, for the, the training plan for this, When you're doing these, like for right now, when you're doing like these little bursts, is it is it just practicing are you supposed to be like recording it too?
00:25:28
Speaker
um Right now it's just practicing. And, ah you know, i've I've done training with therapists before and that didn't really work out for me. And now I'm working on a guided online program that um has different activities each day that you walk through.
00:25:49
Speaker
Um, so that's where, um, uh, that's where I've been putting most of my work right now is just trying to follow those daily tasks.
00:26:03
Speaker
And, you know, even if I don't see a lot of progress, then at least, you know, I know that I'm doing, you know, each thing and hope that things improve as I go through the program.
00:26:15
Speaker
So, the yeah yeah, it it is having to do something with the knowledge that you may not see results right away. Mm-hmm. Which for me is hard because i was one of those gifted kids who grew up where everything came easy. So if I don't see results right away, i tend to get discouraged.
00:26:35
Speaker
Mm-hmm. there's two of those on this call right now. Yeah. Yeah. yeah um one of the worst things that kids can ever be told. Right.
00:26:49
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. Um,
00:26:54
Speaker
I mean, I joke when I, when I bring up Bolas, but the guy did have plans. He, he like had, steps to his plans it wasn't yeah i mean you know if we want to bring this going up to uh war of the spark or at least going up to the point of his you know his but his his his his ah ideas of learning the elder spell the dude was working the long game you know yeah like you know that this is the guy who ended up with liliana vess under his control um
00:27:32
Speaker
based on just like figuring out how to get up all of her contracts, right. Get her to do the dirty work and then him have beholding the contract at the end of this. <unk> He, you know, like we what what we saw, and this is because of how they built stories for storytelling. It's why Thanos is Thanos in in the Marvel cinematic universe is we kept seeing him at different stages. We didn't know what the end game was, but we see Tezzeret, you know,
00:28:00
Speaker
We see Tezzeret stealing the bridge. we ah What was ah The Immortal Sun? I mean, the whole Amonkhet thing took 60 years to set up to get his and get his ah Eternals factory going.
00:28:13
Speaker
Right. you know So like each step of the plan, it took him a lot. And it is funny that you know it's like it's realizing that good guys win.
00:28:24
Speaker
um Because like the the heroes were always ba behind. They didn't know what the ultimate plan was. um they didn't have a clue. All of a sudden they're on Ravnica and they're trapped there.
00:28:36
Speaker
um
00:28:38
Speaker
They're seeing, I guess, planeswalker sparks going up in the air since who knows how many planeswalkers were there. We saw like two of them actually die. But I mean, but like the fact of the matter is they did not know what was going on. They did not have a real clear plan here.
00:28:56
Speaker
No. Bullis did. He really did. Yeah, it was not the best plan and completely relied on Liliana to have some self-preservation instincts.
00:29:09
Speaker
ah I would argue that based on everything he knew about Liliana, he he was making that calculated risk that she would self-preserve. It was a good risk. It was it was. But.
00:29:23
Speaker
know. you know maybe Maybe she just doesn't want anyone to be a god. Right. I mean, there were flaws in his plan, but at least there was a plan. Like, theoretically, he could look back at that if he had his memories and say, crap, I miscalculated.
Heroes vs. Villains: Planning and Reactivity
00:29:43
Speaker
I made a mistake.
00:29:44
Speaker
Um... Yeah, I shouldn't trust one necromancer with my entire army. Right, right. I need a backup necromancer. If I ever do this again, i'm bringing in three necromancers this time.
00:29:59
Speaker
Like, yes, the story wouldn't work if he had won. um Well, I mean, it might have for some of us. But anyway, ah but the fact of the matter is. The good guys don't really, they like, they have, they have the morals. They have the philosophy that we like, that we're supposed to identify with.
00:30:20
Speaker
They are not good examples. No. And even, even in the current story, I mean, Jace has a plan. We don't know what it is. Um, Verasca doesn't know what it is, but Jace has a plan.
00:30:35
Speaker
Yes. Um, And so far, we have people like Elspeth that are just kind of fumbling around dealing with some of the side effects from the plan.
00:30:47
Speaker
they're like putting They're putting out fires. Yeah, they're putting out fires. Exactly. that's That was the term I was looking for. And nobody is actually doing anything about Jace's plan, though.
00:31:01
Speaker
No. No, they're not. Like, yeah i mean, cause they don't know what it is, yeah but they're not doing enough to like, you know, it's like, that's always the, they're not doing enough really to like, yeah. Like it's just, I don't know. I always struggle with this in storytelling because obviously you're not trying to give away too much.
00:31:21
Speaker
um That was the whole reason we had to figure out, well, okay. Is, is, is Jace actually, is this being done for us as readers so that we don't know the story? But why is he not sharing things with Frasca when they're alone? But like, we're trying to figure this out. But at the end of the day nobody's really like they've discovered that he stole a baby.
00:31:41
Speaker
yeah no, that which, you know, Chandra knows is kind of a map to everywhere. Uh, yep ah And yeah, he stole a baby. He did that like a year ago and nobody was like, oh, maybe we should go look for the baby that Jace kidnapped.
00:32:04
Speaker
Yes. Like he's just had all this time to carry out his plan and there isn't like an organized response to it.
00:32:14
Speaker
Right. So. Which I'm, I'm really interested to see where edge fraternity goes because. we're We're going to figure out, obviously something went wrong with his plan at the end of Dragon Storm.
00:32:30
Speaker
Yes. yeah ah We should find out more of what his plan is. But was like, also, are we going to see anybody actually come up with a plan other than let's chase Jace and see if we can foil his plan.
00:32:44
Speaker
Right. No, it's the same thing they did with bullets. They're just like, let's chase bullets around and see if we can get in the way. Yes.
00:32:53
Speaker
So don't be like the heroes of our story plan. It's not going to go well. It's going to be messy. um You don't need to be perfect, right? like We're not saying anything that you're working on doing that's important to you. I think the key is if you're working on something for a goal,
00:33:10
Speaker
That is the biggest piece. So I mentioned SMART. I'll go through it real quick. ah SMART is just an acronym. ah I work with military people, so acronyms are like the gold standard.
00:33:21
Speaker
ah It stands for Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, and Timely. And you can Google this if you want. I will also have like a a link to what those break down to be.
00:33:35
Speaker
It is also used in, it is used in a lot of fields and it is basically just a way i see it as like a guideline when you're, when you're thinking of your goals to just beef them up a little bit. It's not enough for me to say that I want,
00:33:49
Speaker
to run more. actually need to quantify what more is. i need to understand why I'm doing it. Uh, I think of this when it comes to me too, with like weight loss, if I just say I want to lose weight, it's very nebulous.
00:34:02
Speaker
And I don't really understand, Does that mean five pounds? Does it mean 15? Because those are going to lead to very different plans on my part.
00:34:13
Speaker
So we need to even understand what our goal is. what a what What even are are we doing? Yeah. you know, I want to be able to run a marathon by October, at least gives me a deadline for when I need to do it, I can start working backwards.
00:34:28
Speaker
But in the short term, I might really just need to be saying, you know what, I need to be doing some form of cardiovascular exercise 30 minutes a day, I can't start on a plan yet for a marathon, like I've looked at them there, you know, they're three, four months, still not time for me to really start. I need to have a base underneath me.
00:34:50
Speaker
Well, if I can walk like every day for 20 minutes, okay, that's going to get me at least on the pathway. Um,
00:35:02
Speaker
I'm going to set it as a goal. I might set it. I'm going to do it every single day for seven days. And then I get to the end of the week and I look and I only did it five. Okay. Five is a lot more than what I was doing it before. And I think that that's also how we look at success is it's not an all or none. It is not just a, you know, I have to hit exactly what I said I was going to do.
00:35:23
Speaker
It's to me, it's, is there continued growth? Are you still on the pathway that you want to be? um Can you recognize i might not see results as quick as I was hoping to, or I would like to, especially if you're one of us that was labeled with that nice gifted label.
00:35:40
Speaker
Yeah. Like half the magic community, at least. um Just feel like it's such a common theme. Yeah, that definitely seems but seems accurate.
00:35:52
Speaker
It's asking, can you set a goal that has those elements? Is it a specific goal? Yeah. Is it something that you can measure so you're not just saying, i need more money? like Are we using words like more? are we actually giving it some sort of a quantity?
00:36:07
Speaker
um Is it attainable? So this is like the one of, is this actually a realistic goal or am I setting myself up to fail? um You know, if I say I want to be a millionaire by the end of the month,
00:36:18
Speaker
It's probably not the greatest goal. I can be as specific as I want about it. But the things that I would need to do to have a million extra in my bank account by the end of this month is probably leading me into fairly illegal or fairly fairly illegal um activity um that is not in line with my value system of being a father and a husband.
00:36:40
Speaker
um Is it relevant? And that's the one that I think I've been focusing a lot on today. e The relevant is, yeah, the why.
00:36:51
Speaker
Why are you doing it? um
00:36:56
Speaker
I can get caught in that trap of the shoulds. This is where New Year's resolutions could come in for people. I should lose weight. I should exercise more.
00:37:07
Speaker
i should be on my phone less. Yeah. if you just have something that you actually have some motivating factor or a reason why you want to do those things or why you think you, you, you, you need to, or that you, you, you know, that you really want to, it's going to be a lot harder to be successful.
00:37:30
Speaker
Yeah. yeah That's why I was curious for, for, for voice training. There's tons of reasons that somebody may want to do voice training. Yeah. it has to be a personal reason that is, that is going to motivate you to say, this is worth my time and energy, even if I'm not doing well with it.
00:37:49
Speaker
And keeping that motivation is the part I struggle with most. ah Getting it is not too hard. Okay. So keeping like trying to make the, like, how do I maintain it? Which is like a whole other discussion I find. Yeah.
00:38:09
Speaker
Mm-hmm. I feel like that's a whole episode, another one, maintaining once you get going. um But I know for me, mine is the initiating. i To do anything with any sort of consistency, even for like a week or two, is where I i have to start.
00:38:25
Speaker
Yeah. so So thank you all for coming along and talking about planning. Think about next... We didn't even mention Final Fantasy this week, Hobbs. Well, that's true. I mean, you mentioned it at the beginning that we talked about it last week, but we did. And did suggest... We didn't about anything else.
00:38:42
Speaker
I did suggest an initial question of how will our audience still know that you're alive, because... Yeah, and I said because I can't shut up about Final Fantasy.
00:38:53
Speaker
you Well, you even said something that you did this week that I didn't even fully understand. Oh. Like, you rewatched... Oh, yeah, so...
00:39:04
Speaker
There is a YouTube series called Final Fantasy in a Nutshell ah from about six years ago through like last year, which is a satirical recap of each of the Final Fantasy stories.
00:39:19
Speaker
Okay. ah And it goes through, it they cover the first 15 games and Final Fantasy 14, which Final Fantasy 14 has so much story, it's broken in up into like nine episodes.
00:39:30
Speaker
And they only cover, they only cover through the, uh, ah second expansion right now. so ah Yeah.
00:39:40
Speaker
So the, yeah but ah some of the jokes are kind of cringe in it. ah Definitely made for ah younger male audience, but if you can get through some of the cringy jokes, it's a really, it's an amusing series and it it really did refresh me on all the lore for the games that I haven't played in forever. Okay.
00:40:08
Speaker
Yeah. So even if it's, um very much I mean they cover the story but it it is in a very satirical rewriting so it kind of like Lord Goyfe's used to do with our story summaries where we cover the story but maybe you know just not exactly accurately
00:40:31
Speaker
well you know highlighted for comedic effect okay I was like accuracy is overrated yeah it's it's just go with vibes Yeah.
00:40:42
Speaker
Yeah. So that's, that's what I've been doing while enjoying it. They dumped a whole lot of previews today. I don't know if it's the last day of previews. They jumped to a lot of commons and uncommons, which they usually do at the end of preview season.
00:40:57
Speaker
ah I thought we had like another week. I honestly did, but they listed all the ambassadors today. So I think that might be the end because I think now ambassadors can start showing off.
00:41:09
Speaker
decks and things accents, things like that. Yeah. Yeah. And doing like, if they're doing video content um with product and stuff like that. So I think that yeah we must be, cause I saw that full list of ambassadors. paul Isn't still, it is still, isn't showing it as the full spoiler, but yeah, I mean, once, once you dump all the commons and uncommons, that's usually the end of spoiler season. Yeah.
00:41:32
Speaker
And then we can have a full episode Because that'll but get us through to to the end of... We're getting through the end of May. We can start June with you and Alex. No, we need to start... just June is Pride Month. We have to start June with the episode... With Tarqueer. Tarqueer. We've been kicking around for months.
00:41:50
Speaker
That is fine. We will yeah we will start with Tarqueer, and then that'll lead us very nicely into you and Alex... subjecting me to another round of like, is this real or not real? so Like you'll all just start making up lore and then tell me that's what's going on on the card art. And I'm going to be like, Whoa, that's so cool. And you're like, no, that one was made up. ho Well, now you're giving me ideas.
00:42:15
Speaker
yeah ah So come out this weekend, please check out the show. we would love to have you by show. I mean the two day charity event. If you go follow,
00:42:26
Speaker
the um community of cardboard. We now do have an actual community of cardboard ah blue sky account. Everything will be handled there. There will be link tree that I will post in our um show notes for this episode that does have ah the The link trees that we've done for the last couple of events just has all the links you'll need to be able to get to any of the panels, ah the donation site, any of it.
00:42:54
Speaker
So, yeah, we look forward to seeing you all out this weekend and hope that everybody is doing well to round out Mental Health Awareness Month. Goblin Lore Podcast.
00:43:06
Speaker
Thank you for listening. We can be found both on Twitter and Blue Sky at GoblinLorePod. Check out our link tree for our Discord and our discounts. We appreciate you listening and welcome feedback via social media or Discord.
00:43:19
Speaker
Until next time, Podwalkers, remember that goblins, like snowflakes, are only dangerous in numbers.