We're hopefully just days away from moving into our new house, so please excuse the repeated episode! We think it's still good and applicable!

The original description:

"I'd like to think I'm a good listener. In fact, let me tell you a story about me being a great listener...rather than actually listen to you." It's an oft-experienced phenomenon-- we start to think maybe genuine sharing of selves is about to happen, and then out of nowhere, we throw up a roadblock to real intimacy. 

It's good to know about these roadblocks, and why they hinder real, meaningful conversations, so we share three of them. We referenced another pretty heavily in the third part of the vulnerability series, and that one is the giving of advice (when not asked for). 

They're not always bad, and sometimes even good, but when we habitually turn a conversation into a storytime, or start praising someone evaluatively, or start reassuring them, we're thoughtlessly turning conversations into discussions about ourselves, our opinions, and our convictions, rather than giving the other a chance to share their side. 

If you'd like to hear about more of them, let us know, or check out where we got them from: We're pulling from a book called People Skills, by Robert Bolton: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B003BFXAS0/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_hsch_vapi_tkin_p1_i0

It's a good book. It's not perfect, but it's ok.

As always, 

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Ladies and gentlemen, we're 3/4 of the way through our reposting of our series on vulnerability. Then we hope to be back to our contemporary-yet-still-timeless content habit of posting fresh content. But we had a baby two months ago, and bought a house six weeks ago, and are milking both of those excuses this month...

It's vulnerable to share with someone. It's also vulnerable to be the one receiving someone, and to avoid that discomfort, we tend to practice poor listening skills. Actually taking the time and energy to hear someone may take practice, but it's effort that is worth it.

Also, we talk at the end about how a certain Catholic practice tells us what receiving people should look like, ideally.

As always, 

• check out our work, and join our email list, at https://ouroutpost.org/
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• catch our other podcast, Love Your Marriage, by clicking here: https://ouroutpost.org/podcasts/
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About 40 episodes and almost a year ago, we sat down and did a 3-part series on vulnerability. We're re-publishing them over the three weeks that we're in the middle of now!

Joseph recently went back and listened to the first one, and liked it enough that he decided to re-share it and its siblings with the world. As an aside, we're still not quite back to where we can reliably record an episode together with a new baby around...

The episode's original description is below:

What is most vulnerable about you? Probably what is most vulnerable about me, or any other human. We know each others' weak spots, because we know where we are weak.

We name a fair number of them, though we don't pretend to having the exhaustive list. These are the things we talk about amongst people we trust, and the things we hide from people we don't.

As always, 

• check out our work, and join our email list, at https://ouroutpost.org/
• join our free resource library platform here
• catch our other podcast, Love Your Marriage, by clicking here: https://ouroutpost.org/podcasts/
• see what we have upcoming in terms of events here: https://ouroutpost.org/events/
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• and please rate, review, and share!
• If you're a Catholic husband, feel free to sign up for some time to chat with Joseph! https://bookme.name/ouroutpost/45-minutes-with-joseph

About 40 episodes and almost a year ago, we sat down and did a 3-part series on vulnerability. We'll be re-publishing them over the next 3 weeks!

Joseph recently went back and listened to the first one, and liked it enough that he decided to re-share it and its siblings with the world. As an aside, we're still not quite back to where we can reliably record an episode together with a new baby around...

The episode's original description is below:

Wherein we talk about the need for vulnerability in relationships, and talk a bit about what vulnerability is.

Being human means we stand in relationship with others. In so standing, we are capable of being hurt. That capacity to be hurt is the risk we take in being in a relationship. 

This isn't to say that the reason to be in a relationship is to get hurt, but if we were un-hurt-able, we'd also be untouchable, and ultimately un-love-able.

Here is the link to the Brene Brown TED talk: https://youtu.be/iCvmsMzlF7o

As always, 

• check out our work, and join our email list, at https://ouroutpost.org/
• join our free resource library platform here
• catch our other podcast, Love Your Marriage, by clicking here: https://ouroutpost.org/podcasts/
• see what we have upcoming in terms of events here: https://ouroutpost.org/events/
• send us an email at [email protected]
• and please rate, review, and share!
• If you're a Catholic husband, feel free to sign up for some time to chat with Joseph! https://bookme.name/ouroutpost/45-minutes-with-joseph

We're speaking animals. It's a defining attribute. Yet when I look at how I speak, I realize that I could be better. This episode proposes  a way to become a better speaker (and yes, it has to do with God. Everything to do with God, actually. It also was an excuse to do some Marvel voices. Not MCU-Marvel, just comics-book-Marvel...)

(and yes, this is another episode that is doubling as practice for my Toastmasters speech.)

The one quote is from paragraph 22 of Gaudium et Spes: https://www.vatican.va/archive/hist_councils/ii_vatican_council/documents/vat-ii_const_19651207_gaudium-et-spes_en.html

As always, 

• check out our work, and join our email list, at https://ouroutpost.org/
• join our free resource library platform here
• catch our other podcast, Love Your Marriage, by clicking here: https://ouroutpost.org/podcasts/
• see what we have upcoming in terms of events here: https://ouroutpost.org/events/
• send us an email at [email protected]
• and please rate, review, and share!
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Recording an episode with a newborn is slightly trickier than we remembered from last time, so fortunately Joseph's brother Jacob was coming through town, and stopped to record an episode with Joseph!

We use as a launching point two paragraphs from Plato's Phaedrus, reproduced here, including the bit that the title of this episode alludes to at the end of the quote:

"At the Egyptian city of Naucratis, there was a famous old god, whose name was Theuth; the bird which is called the Ibis is sacred to him, and he was the inventor of many arts, such as arithmetic and calculation and geometry and astronomy and draughts and dice, but his great discovery was the use of letters. Now in those days the god Thamus was the king of the whole country of Egypt; and he dwelt in that great city of Upper Egypt which the Hellenes call Egyptian Thebes, and the god himself is called by them Ammon. To him came Theuth and showed his inventions, desiring that the other Egyptians might be allowed to have the benefit of them; he enumerated them, and Thamus enquired about their several uses, and praised some of them and censured others, as he approved or disapproved of them. It would take a long time to repeat all that Thamus said to Theuth in praise or blame of the various arts. But when they came to letters, This, said Theuth, will make the Egyptians wiser and give them better memories; it is a specific both for the memory and for the wit. Thamus replied: O most ingenious Theuth, the parent or inventor of an art is not always the best judge of the utility or inutility of his own inventions to the users of them. And in this instance, you who are the father of letters, from a paternal love of your own children have been led to attribute to them a quality which they cannot have; for this discovery of yours will create forgetfulness in the learners' souls, because they will not use their memories; they will trust to the external written characters and not remember of themselves. The specific which you have discovered is an aid not to memory, but to reminiscence, and you give your disciples not truth, but only the semblance of truth; they will be hearers of many things and will have learned nothing; they will appear to be omniscient and will generally know nothing; they will be tiresome company, having the show of wisdom without the reality."

With that as the launching point, you can imagine that our discussion was quite lively. I imagine that were you to use this passage as a launching point, your discussions would be lively as well!

Feel free to rate, review, share, and subscribe to this podcast. In so doing, you may be aiding in the reclamation of wonder and conversation in our world.

As always, 

• check out our work, and join our email list, at https://ouroutpost.org/
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• catch our other podcast, Love Your Marriage, by clicking here: https://ouroutpost.org/podcasts/
• see what we have upcoming in terms of events here: https://ouroutpost.org/events/
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• and please rate, review, and share!
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Failure is a funny thing-- very few people like it, but it can teach us so much if we let it.

I suppose this is inspired in part by Carol Dweck's book Mindset, but it's also inspired by the Christian life and the virtue of hope and the virtue of humility. And it's short-- I'm still wondering if shorter episodes are the way to go, or episodes like last week that went over an hour are more the way we ought to go. Shorter episodes are much easier to record and edit and upload, but I enjoy our longer conversations. 

Regardless, we'll see how I manage the next few weeks while Crystal continues to recuperate from having grown and birthed a person. 

As always, 

• check out our work, and join our email list, at https://ouroutpost.org/
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This time, the shownotes are going to be much more like a works cited page and less a description. This is in part because we've got a newborn to tend to, and in part because Jacob and I referenced a lot of things. But as a general overview, Joseph read the book Rich Dad Poor Dad recently, and started talking to Jacob over the phone about some ideas related to both that book and Catholic social teaching, and then asked Jacob if he'd hold his thoughts for a few days so we could record them. And here we are!

Rich Dad Poor Dad by Robert Kiyosaki

The Science of Getting Rich by Wallace Wattles

Rerum Novarum by Pope Leo XIII-- this is the one Jacob recommended everyone read and Joseph seconds that idea

Caritas in Veritate by Pope Benedict XVI

Nov. 18 2018 General Audience with Pope Francis

Laborem Exercens by Pope John Paul II

Getting Naked by Patrick Lencioni

Linchpin: Are You Indispensable? by Seth Godin

And then another good intro to the idea of subsidiarity: https://www.usccb.org/beliefs-and-teachings/what-we-believe/catholic-social-teaching/solidarity

As always, 

• check out our work, and join our email list, at https://ouroutpost.org/
• join our free resource library platform here
• catch our other podcast, Love Your Marriage, by clicking here: https://ouroutpost.org/podcasts/
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Before you get too far, know that this episode is predicated upon you listening to episode 106, "The Catholic Church and Conversion". So if you haven't listened to that one, please do so! It's taken from Chesterton's book by that name, and is quite good.

We're back for a longer-length episode this time, with an unpremeditated discussion of some of Chesterton's best work. I say 'unpremeditated' because Crystal and I often touch base about major points we'd like to discuss, and I pressed the 'record' button before we had a chance to do so, because recording with a full-term-plus-four-days woman is a chancy thing, not to be delayed. And I say 'best work' because I think he hit upon something about conversion that so many atheists and agnostics see, and so many cultural Christians/cradle Catholics miss, which is that it's a terrifying thing to say yes to something as bold as the claims of the Catholic Church. And I say 'discussion' because there were times neither of us were quite sure where we were going, but we were glad to keep going until we got there.

Anywho, we hope you enjoy!

As always, 

• check out our work, and join our email list, at https://ouroutpost.org/
• join our free resource library platform here
• catch our other podcast, Love Your Marriage, by clicking here: https://ouroutpost.org/podcasts/
• see what we have upcoming in terms of events here: https://ouroutpost.org/events/
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• If you're a Catholic husband, feel free to sign up for some time to chat with Joseph! https://bookme.name/ouroutpost/45-minutes-with-joseph

Holy leisure-- what is it and why do it?

We did a short little video for something else, and as noted on other episodes, we are very close to holding the baby that's been residing in Crystal's womb. So we thought you wouldn't mind hearing something short and to the point and includes both of us!

I'm reading through Dietrich von Hildebrand's Ethics with some people, and it's just plain good. Von Hildebrand definitely  influenced this episode. Probably my life as well. http://www.hildebrandproject.org/literature/ethics

As does Josef Pieper continue to influence me (Leisure: The Basis of Culture -- https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01AYEYFQG/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_bibl_vppi_i0 )

As always, 

• check out our work, and join our email list, at https://ouroutpost.org/
• join our free resource library platform here
• catch our other podcast, Love Your Marriage, by clicking here: https://ouroutpost.org/podcasts/
• see what we have upcoming in terms of events here: https://ouroutpost.org/events/
• send us an email at [email protected]
• and please rate, review, and share!
• If you're a Catholic husband, feel free to sign up for some time to chat with Joseph! https://bookme.name/ouroutpost/45-minutes-with-joseph