Leaning Toward Wisdom

By the 1990s cell phones had become more commonplace. Never mind that they'd been invented for almost 2 decades by then. I don't remember when caller ID disrupted our phone usage, but it was a phenomenal development for me. "Wait a minute, what? I can know who is calling before I pick it up?" This is great!

Quickly, caller ID became a psychological barometer of sorts. It became my gauge for whether or not a person was helpful or harmful. Whether this incoming call was from somebody I really wanted to hear from or whether it was from somebody I dreaded interacting with.

Some months ago I did an episode entitled, Are You Helping Or Harming? That's not a recent question for me. I was sitting in a classroom in LSU wishing I was anywhere, but here - and longing to see Rhonda, who was about 11 hours up the highways in Ft. Worth - pondering that question as an 18 or 19-year-old. A professor provoked it. An arrogant, show-off psych professor who was entertaining, but quite the opposite of helpful.

His classroom was large and on the opposite side of the campus from any other class I had. No problem. I rode a bike to classes. From the first day of class when he informed the guys that they could bring him alcohol if they wanted to improve their grades to a statement that would surely get a professor fired today - "and you girls, well, you know what you can do." I instantly disliked him, but I loved the subject - psychology. Credit goes to him though for prompting my question, "Are you helping or harming?" He was doing both, simultaneously. In spite of it all, I enjoyed the class because I was then, and still am, very interested in psychology.

I'm also still intrigued by the choices people make that are dramatically opposed to one another. The man who can lavish affection and admiration on a woman he professes to love, then put his hands violently on her. The person who can whisper sweet nothings in one ear and profanely cuss into the ear of another. But aren't we all capable of it? I suspect we are.

As curious as that behavior may be the more puzzling behavior to me is the person filled with such hubris they lack empathy. People who are consistently harmful, but don't know it because they think you - and the rest of the world - can't possibly survive without their advice, criticism, and judgment. I'm unabashedly aware of my stupidity and ignorance. But I'm equally aware of my high degree of curiosity and my even higher degree of empathy. So much so that's it can be a problem for me. Asking stupid questions was never really a challenge for me because learning was more important than appearing smart or knowledgeable. Actually knowing beats appearing like I know. This is why, in part, I'm put off by people who know everything about everything. I've found people who don't seek understanding are the most critical people. I've been "blessed" to have a handful of such people enter my life --- and in most cases, I've frantically set about to get myself out of their sphere. Two such people occupied my life longer than I might have liked, but it couldn't be helped. So it goes.

I still use that caller ID test whenever I gauge whether or not I'm willing to allow somebody into my life - or how deeply I'm willing to let them in. If the caller ID shows a person's name and number, how do I feel? Am I excited to talk with them? Then I likely am willing to devote myself to that relationship. Do I dread talking with them? Then I'm not willing to advance the relationship, and I'm likely looking for ways to distance myself from them if I can. It's a test that so far hasn't failed me.

This is the wall at the entrance to The Yellow Studio. That sign in the middle was a gift from somebody who knows me well. ;) "Everyone brings joy to this office...some when they enter. Others when they leave."

Yes, it's about wisdom because our lives are surrounded by and largely dictated by technology. From cell phones, to live streaming TV, to tablets, to laptops, desktops. Then there's tech in our cars (okay, maybe your car...mine is so old I don't have much tech, and that suits me fine).

It's a different episode today, prompted by an Apple iMac problem that has beleaguered me for the past few months.

Here are a couple of links you may want to check out:

How I podcast Inside The Yellow Studio now

There are some additional resources on my support page, too

Enjoy!



The Bodeans have been around a while. Since the mid-80s. In 1993 they came out with a record whose first track was the song, Closer To Free. Ironically, that song became the group's biggest hit even though it was part of an album the group decided to make for themselves. Tired of chasing hits, they figured they'd focus on the music they loved most. The result was that T Bone Burnett produced the album, Go Down Slow. I'm the guy who has every BoDeans record.

I listen to them regularly and some time back I started thinking about this particular song, Closer To Free.

Yeah

Everybody wants to live how they wanna live and

Everybody wants to love how they wanna love and

Everybody wants to be closer to free

And yeah yeah yeah

Everybody wants respect

Just a little bit

And everybody needs a chance once in a while

Everybody wants to be closer to free

And yeah yeah yeah

Everybody one everybody two everybody free

Everybody needs to touch ya know now and then and

Everybody wants a good good friend

Everybody wants to be closer to free

Alright

I said everybody one everybody two everybody free!

Everybody wants to live like they wanna live

And everybody wants to love like they wanna love

And everybody wants to be closer to free

Yeah closer to free

Yeah closer to free

Closer to free

And yeah and yeah yeah

For years I've listened to this song, but a few years ago when project Craving Encouragement bubbled to the surface, I made note of the one line in particular - everybody wants a good good friend. Begging the question, "What is a good good friend?"

What do you think?

 

Selfishness.

It's in all of us.

Some of us surrender to it.

Some of us battle against it.

Still, selfishness wins more than it should.

Young. Old. Guys. Gals. Doesn't matter. Selfishness isn't the sole domain of kids. Or old folks. We're all smitten with it.

It's why the Lord told people who would follow Him and become disciples that unless they surrendered their own self-will, they couldn't be his disciples. Matthew 16:24 "Then Jesus said to His disciples, “If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me." That proverbial cross we must take up, if we're going to be Christians, is the cross of self-denial. It's not some special, unique-only-to-me sacrifice. It's the universal sacrifice required of anybody who would love God and obey Him. And it's not easy. Worth it? Of course. But not easy.

I'm a big fan of young people. And kids. Children.

Even though I'm now old I can remember being a kid. I'm empathetic with the challenges and struggles. Life goes from playing with Matchbox cars as a little kid to being a teenager struggling to figure out, "Now what?" The smallest things can seem enormous. A test. Homework. That girl I'm interested in. Youth - like age - is filled with drama. And largely because of our focus. On ourselves. It happens when we become the center of the Universe.

So many pains stem from our self-centeredness you'd think we'd more easily (and quickly) learn. But the curse of selfishness - in part - is that it perpetuates itself and grows the more we attempt to feed it. Trust me, your selfishness isn't any different from mine. It knows no bounds! There are always new heights - or depths - to our selfishness.

It's deadly because it doesn't feel dangerous. It doesn't seem like selfishness. To be self-focused and concerned mostly with ourselves doesn't feel the same as being selfish. We don't think of it like that either. Until we step back and start to closely examine it.

Why am I attracted to this?

Why am I attracted to this friend?

Why am I attracted to this behavior or activity?

The scripture is filled with the admonition to guard one's heart - that is, to protect your mind. We do that partly by concerning ourselves with the people in our life. The people we associate with matter.

In Proverbs 13:20, Solomon wrote: “He that walketh with wise men shall be wise: but a companion of fools shall be destroyed.”

Those are divinely inspired (God-breathed) words, but mortal men have picked up on the truth of it.

"Show me your friends and I'll show you your future."

"Your life is determined by whom surrounds you."

"You are the average of the five people you spend the most time with.”

Our companions matter. But so do the activities we engage in most. So do the decisions we consistently make.

That's why I jotted down the question...

Why am I attracted to this?

I'm not using attraction in the sense of somebody who may catch our romantic eye, although I'm not excluding that either. I'm using it in the broader sense of things we prefer. It includes people, friends, acquaintances, choices, decisions, actions, activities, and viewpoints. Honestly, it includes EVERYTHING we like or prefer.

Some people - and things - are destructive.

Other things - and people - aren't.

Still other people and things might be destructive under the right conditions.

Food, for instance, isn't destructive. It's vital. Without it, we die. But it can become destructive when we select the wrong kinds of food - and in the wrong quantities. Gluttony is sinful and destructive to our health. Fasting,

Imagine.

In 2018 I started imagining something I'd never imaged before. I imagined having a second home, someplace I could retreat to. I had lived my entire life never thinking such a thing. I remember a time in my youth having a tough time imagining living on my own. ;)

I didn't have difficulty imagining...I just had never imagined having two residences, but for the past few years, I've mostly imagined that!

Before music, there were Matchbox cars. As a little boy, I collected Matchbox cars - back when they were realistic metal die-cast vehicles. Those were the days before Hot Wheels came out, those cartoonish brightly colored, but fast-moving plastic cars. I didn't like them nearly as well. They weren't realistic enough to suit me. Ironically, being realistic helped me imagine the small cities and streets I created on the sofa cushions as I maneuvered the Matchbox cars around. Matchbox got all my money as a little kid because with them I could create all kinds of things in my head.

Let's talk about starting an ideal outcome in your head and ending it in your performance!

Why do people climb a mountain?

Because it's there.

I don't climb mountains. I barely climb ladders. Heights are not my friends. Never have been.

I'm among the many people who view mountain climbers with a degree of admiration and bewilderment. Mostly, I think they're crazy. It would seem I have an aversion to death-defying feats. Yes, I'm weak. And afraid. #FradyCat

Even so, I can approach an escalator or long stairway and envision pulling some movie stunt of sliding down rather than taking the more pedestrian way down. Why? Because it's there. Like a curb or ramp, we'd always take while riding our bikes. I mean, it's there. I'm there. So why not, right? Meant to be.

Life is filled with such things.

Mud puddles that need to be stomped.

Snow that needs to be thrown in balls.

Ramps that must be jumped.

Basketballs that must be shot at a hoop. Or trash that must be wadded up and thrown from across the room for a proverbial 3-point shot buzzer-beater.

Why?

Because it's there. And somebody must do it.

Okay, I get that there's a huge difference in the north face of the Eiger and throwing a balled-up piece of trash into a trash can 20 feet away.

Let's see if we can figure it out. Or not.

He is Frank Watkinson, YouTube star. Frank and I first recorded for episode 4 of this year (2021). That was back on February 7, 2021. Today's conversation happened on Monday, December 20, 2021 - the same day Frank released this song, an original (see the video below).



You're sure to enjoy today's conversation. Happy Holidays to you and yours. Lord willing, I'll be back in 2022.

P.S. Frank, I don't think you look anything like Tony Robinson.

DO YOU WANT TO BE EXHAUSTING OR WOULD YOU RATHER PEOPLE GAIN ENERGY BY BEING AROUND YOU?

Coaching people to engage in proper behavior depending on the situation - reading the room - is growing. Likely because it's difficult for many people. Theories abound that it has to do with when a person was born and the world they grew up in. I'll subscribe to that notion. After all, you must realize that people entering the workforce today never lived in a world without the Internet and some form of social media. And they never lived in a world without texting and smartphones. It's bound to have an impact.

However, my work sometimes involves people in their 40s and 50s. So what do you say to that?

I'm still trying to figure it out and help my clients do the same. This much I know. People who handle most conversations by trying to inject humor with a joking demeanor are self-focused. 100% of the time I've found these folks are poor listeners and either clamoring for more spotlight OR they're uncomfortable and masking that discomfort by trying to be funny.

Sadly, they fail to understand how exhausting that is for the rest of the room. And how damaging it is to how they're perceived as unable to take anything seriously. It's not about being grave and not having a good time. It's being able to harness our ability to know when it's helpful to be one and avoid being the other. Time and place matter.

There's a time for levity. There's a time for a sober demeanor. It's why my "progression of leadership" was born many years ago. Humility is the foundation of the progression. Without that, there's no progression. Following humility is curiosity - which fosters more listening than talking (enter the person who is always intent on trumping your story). Curiosity is followed by knowledge. Those who ask questions learn things they didn't know before. Then comes understanding. That knowledge helps us now understand more (better). Then, the entire progress culminates in compassion, which is simply defined as "a focus on others."

And there you have it. The heart of the problem. Those who only engage in levity - or those intending to insert levity at every opportunity (including those inopportune moments) are focused on themselves. They're not thinking about you or the conversation or the situation.

Leaning toward wisdom is mostly our effort to lean further away from our own foolishness. And to know when we've behaving foolishly.

It's a very big question. And I may have misworded it. The last part at least. Maybe it's not about fixing everything. Maybe it's about making a big change - the one you most want to make. But I decided to go as big as I could with it. Mission accomplished I think.

What if you were just one decision away from fixing everything?

I'm somewhat obsessed with growth, improvement, and transformation. Mostly my own because I figure I've got so much room for it. It's not a humblebrag. It's reality. But I'm not alone. We've all got room for plenty of growth, improvement, and transformation.

It's not easy stuff. Highly uncomfortable. But worth it. The pressure to improve is more attractive to some than others.

I live in Dallas/Ft. Worth, but I'm an avid OU Sooner fan. I was traveling back home from a Thanksgiving trip when social media began reporting that OU football coach Lincoln Riley might be leaving Norman, Oklahoma heading to the University of Southern California. Riley had been a fixture in Norman for about 7 years, 5 of them as the head coach.

A few days later Brian Kelly left South Bend and Notre Dame to become the head honcho in Baton Rouge at LSU.



A week passed as Sooner fans anxiously waited to see who the next football coach would be. In the meanwhile, we were all pleased that Bob Stoops agreed to be the interim coach, willing to take the team to play Oregon in the Alamo Bowl.

Saturday evening, following the conference championship games, news began to spread fast that Brent Venables, D coordinator for Clemson for the past decade, and previous member of Bob Stoops' coaching staff, would be named the next OU football coach. Just about every fan suspected as much almost as soon as Lincoln Riley fled Norman.



You're not alright as you are!

You can be better. So can I.

That doesn't mean we berate ourselves. Or discount our value and worth. It just means we've still got work to do today. Then tomorrow, we'll have yet more work to do. And the day after that, and after that. Until we die. Until we run out of days.

Until we run out of days why should we run out of hope?

The potential future is the hope or the despair that afflicts us all.

Reflexive empathy is when you see someone experiencing emotional or physical trauma and you ‘feel their pain’ and will have a desire to relieve their suffering. But you can't help everybody. And you can't help just anybody. Sometimes you're just not the right person for the task. It takes experience and wisdom to figure that out.

I've gone on record that in my dozen years of professional coaching, I've had ONE person who I wasn't able to help because he just wouldn't let me. Closed off. Non-responsive. Non-communicative. Guarded. And over time I realized he was that way with everybody. Does that mean nobody can help him? I don't know, but I know I couldn't. Then again, life isn't over so I may never know if I helped him or not. But I can now live with it because it's not my life - it's his.

I know this much...there is only one person I can help, guaranteed. Me! The man in the mirror must be the number one candidate I try to help improve.

What if we're just one decision away from fixing everything?

What if we're just one decision away from wrecking everything?

What if?

“Writing is a form of therapy; sometimes I wonder how all those who do not write, compose, or paint can manage to escape the madness, melancholia, the panic and fear which is inherent in a human situation.”

― Graham Greene, Ways of Escape

The troubled writer is more than a stereotype. Many writers, and other creatives, are vexed souls looking for solace in the art like King Saul longing for the music of David.

Cause and effect can be tough to figure out. We shouldn't assume a correlation between the degree of vexation and creativity. I rather think we're all vexed and we're all creative. Some of us lean more toward one than the other. The human situation is both universal and uniquely individual.

The Graham Greene quote is from a book entitled, Ways of Escape. It's a terrible book, but the quote seems worthwhile. Maybe Mr. Greene wonders how people who aren't creative can manage to escape the human condition, but I view it a bit differently - in spite of how I titled today's show. For me, it's more about managing (dealing with; coping) the human situation with whatever tools we have. For me, it's writing and podcasting. In that order. But let's go ahead and acknowledge the elephant in the room as a Christian. Firstly, it's about managing the human situation through faith, which includes reading scripture, prayer, worship and the other blessings found only in Jesus Christ. Those actions have eternal consequences so they matter most. Beyond that are other endeavors including leaning on a spouse, as I lean on Rhonda.

Then...there's writing and podcasting. But there's also listening to music and reading. This means, at least for me, there's the consumption of information (learning something worthwhile) and there's creativity (creating something worthwhile). I suppose I'm always doing both at the same time, but there are some seasons or moments where I'm more focused on one over the other. It's hard for me to do one without the other though.

Escaping versus managing.

Avoiding versus dealing with it.

Running and hiding versus standing and facing it.

While I understand escaping - in whatever form it takes (running, hiding, avoiding, procrastinating, etc.) - I know it's foolish to lean into it. Better to face it, sort it out as best we can, and put in the work to figure out what our best options may be.

I'm helping a person who is faced with some realities that he'd rather not face. I get it, but I also know it's not helpful to run. He's scheduled this time with me to talk. Hoping to give him more sense of control - after all, it is HIS life, I say, "You're in charge of the conversation. Take this wherever you'd like. I'm here for you." Silence. He shifts nervously in his chair for what seems like minutes. I say nothing, letting the silence just sit on top of us for a bit. It's clear he's struggling with this flight response - I'm hoping he'll resist it and do the work to face it. "You're in control of this. Do whatever you want," I say. More silence. More shifting in his chair. He works up the words, "I want to end this call." He decides to run and I let him. I simply say, "Okay" and then end the call. It happens. People frequently decide to run. The problem is, the thing we're running from almost always catches us and overtakes us. I've yet to encounter a situation in my life where standing and fighting wasn't the better alternative. Sometimes the fight is nothing at all. It's simply staring down the problem. Other times it's a vicious knife-like fight where you're left bloody and exhausted. But even those fights are worthwhile compared to the alternative of running. None of us enjoy agony, but I suppose all of us prefer an abbreviated version a prolonged version. Running prolongs everything bad!

Besides, I've lived long enough to know that the man I'm attempting to help may ...