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A podcast for the quietly overwhelmed and cautiously hopeful.
John (00:00)
There's multiple takes on this. There are people who say, if you're going to make a change, tell people and get excited and build that momentum. Other people say don't tell people because in theory, this school of thought says, if you tell people I'm going to start working out in the new year, what happens is your brain goes, we're already doing it. And then like it loses a form of like processing and structure. So
Sam Kirk (00:17)
will say, John,
I'm leaning on that side. I typically, when I want to make a pretty significant change or I'm doing something, I don't tell people because, again, the brain does the thing where it goes, ⁓ you have started to tell someone this. You have now started to do the thing. And that's simply not true.
Welcome
to the Zero Dot. I'm Sam, this is John, this is Daniel, and we are here to remind you that every single day that while you feel your chips are down, this is where we are, the strongest we've ever been.
It's been a week.
John (00:57)
Yeah.
Daniel (00:58)
It has. It has. As always, as always, it has been a week. I feel like that is becoming, that's quickly becoming the intro to the show. It has been a week. And then there will come a time when it won't have been a week, it'll have been multiple weeks. Perhaps we'll have been on a break at some point. And we will be lying to everyone by saying it's been a week.
John (00:59)
My contribution.
Sam Kirk (01:09)
100%. It has been a week.
John (01:16)
Hmm.
Sam Kirk (01:17)
Thanks
100%. It has been two weeks. What's the noun of bi-week? I feel like there's a word for that.
John (01:33)
There sure is. Let's
say Fortnite.
Sam Kirk (01:36)
Thank you, a fortnight.
John (01:38)
Yes.
That was a term that meant other things recently in past years and it sort of claimed the word, but the OG term is a Fortnite. I don't know why.
Daniel (01:45)
Yes.
Yeah,
that's kind of horrible now that I can't think of the word Fortnite without automatically thinking of a, automatically thinking of the epic game.
John (01:57)
I don't want to just drive the quality of this into the ground immediately, but I also can't think of the word goon without meaning what it means now. It used to be like a guy on your hockey team who would just go like, knock dudes out for you. And now it doesn't mean that at all. It means something different.
Daniel (02:07)
Mm-hmm.
Sam Kirk (02:12)
I will never not think about the Good Mythical Morning episode.
where they have like tiles of different people playing personalities and there's a guy like playing the finance mogul guy does a great job. He's like, yeah, if you want to be successful, it's really easy. Wake up three 30 in the morning, have your first goon sesh, then go ahead and do like a Pilates exercise. Then have a three finger thing of whiskey. Then by five 30 in the morning, have your second goon sesh. Then take your commute over to the office. Your office, by the way, is in your bedroom door and then go ahead and log on to your call with your buddies. And by the way, make all your money.
John (02:33)
Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha
Daniel (02:33)
You
Sam Kirk (02:48)
from your father who gave you a $10 million loan to make all this money. That's how you get rich in business." And I'm like, yep, that's it. And so my wife and I are always making the joke about goon sessions, and it's inappropriate at all times, but...
John (03:01)
It may say something about me, but if somebody tells me that they had a sesh of anything, I'm immediately like, I don't trust you anymore. Like you got it. That's some slang that I immediately file under as for suspicious. SESpicious, you might say if you were the worst. Seshpishish. Seshpishish.
Daniel (03:08)
Mm. Yeah.
Sam Kirk (03:16)
Suspicious. Yeah.
Daniel (03:18)
Yes.
John (03:21)
a niche esoteric rant. But there are certain places within the mental health field where they use the word session or the word program as per follows. Like, well as long as you're working on skills at program or as long as we do that at session and it's like don't, I don't know, grammatically it just feels bad to me. Like, welcome to program at program. I don't know it's not a
It's like a proper down. I don't know. It doesn't feel great to me.
Daniel (03:48)
That sound weird. That sounds off. Yeah.
John (03:49)
Yeah, doesn't that feel bad? Doesn't that feel terrible?
People do that. I don't like it. Thanks for validating that. I thought this for years and never said anything about it. This is important.
Daniel (03:53)
That feels very strange. ⁓ Yeah, no, that definitely
saved it. feels off. That feels strange. Feels scary. Yeah. No,
John (04:02)
Yep. We'll address that in program. Yep. Yep.
Sam Kirk (04:06)
That sounds like ⁓ inflated
language to make ourselves sound really important.
Daniel (04:11)
Yeah, very work speak. Yeah. Well, I mean, that might not make you happy, John. Do you have anything that would make you happy that you would like to share with us?
Sam Kirk (04:13)
which there's a lot of.
John (04:16)
Yeah. Yeah.
Holy cow,
holy cow, I do have something that will make you happy. And after I talk about it, I think you're gonna give me a hand, which is me being real on the nose with this story. As of December 7th, The Good News Network published a story about a British woman, she's an amputee who lost all of her limbs after contracting a terrible infection, Kim Smith, recently completed a 14-hour surgery with a hand transplant. I can link this if you guys would like, but.
Daniel (04:30)
amazing.
John (04:53)
She had effectively like nothing from here on up on her body and now has a different person's hand who after their passing offered to, you know, give them on and she's like, she can like use her hand now. And it's such a cute story. Her partner says that he had to like buy her a new wedding ring because like her hand is bigger than it used to be. And she's, she went eight years without having any hands. Eight years without having any hands. And the operation, this is, I don't know this is a good.
Daniel (05:17)
on.
Sam Kirk (05:19)
Eight years?
John (05:21)
Right? No, that's like a decade of your life where you're just like, instead of with respect, like you're stumpin' it, right? And then there's this level of like...
Sam Kirk (05:25)
How does the phantom pain
thing work? Does the neurological neurons still exist? I'm curious now. What?
Daniel (05:29)
⁓
John (05:32)
I would love to research that. Interesting, not caveat, aspect, feature, someone's saying, of this. She actually was supposed to have two hands transplanted, but one of them was not serviceable. It didn't end up working out. But she, and she's so cute in the interview. She's like, well, I'm very glass half full, and I can hold a glass again. And it's just like, there's just this level of work to the story. We've talked before on this show about optimism and gratitude, and I think this is just like, I don't know.
Daniel (05:52)
You
John (06:01)
Like if you're like, you're only gonna have one hand, like, oh man, that's be tough. But if you have one up from zero, what a game changer. Also, like, I don't know, maybe as I talk about these things over the course of our show, people will be like, John, stop being excited about Happy Science things, but like, they're so cool. Like, a lot of this stuff feels very sci-fi to me. Like to go from being a person who has no ability to use digits to use someone else's digits that you've newly acquired of your own. It's like cyberpunk, but instead of dystopian hellscape, it's like wonderful and really, really nice.
Daniel (06:08)
Mm-hmm.
Sam Kirk (06:20)
Yeah.
Daniel (06:29)
Yeah,
it's the good side of cyberpunk. It's the hopeful, nice side of cyberpunk, which you rarely get to see.
Sam Kirk (06:30)
Yeah.
John (06:30)
People
bounce back. my God.
Cyberpunk, not a genre notorious for its uplifting stories. Whereas in this context, ⁓ and also it's cute too because when she had both of her hands back in the day, prior to the infection, she was right-handed and now she only has a left hand and she's like becoming left-handed and like just learning how to do it. Isn't that cool? I I love that story.
Daniel (06:40)
Mm-mm. No, no, no, no.
Nice.
Sam Kirk (06:57)
is cool.
Daniel (06:57)
Yeah,
I love that. I love that we're at a point where we're able to do that for people. I think that's so nice. And also big ups to the person who passed away and donated their hand. That is so good. ⁓ Amazing because not to be morbid, but they wouldn't be using it anymore.
Sam Kirk (07:04)
percent.
Yes, 100%.
Daniel (07:21)
So it is very, very nice for them to sign the papers to say, yes, someone else can have my hand when I am gone. That's so nice of them.
John (07:29)
If we're gonna just be like turbo weird, like maybe they signed it with that hand and then that hand I don't know. I think that's amazing. Further record, if I'm ever dead, you guys can have my hands. You can do whatever you want with them. Preferably attach them to someone, probably at their wrist. But if they're like doing, I don't know, maybe like one of these little, whatever that thing's called, panslabyrinth. Handslabyrinth, I shouldn't have talked. Yeah!
Daniel (07:35)
with the hand.
⁓
Sam Kirk (07:39)
That's pretty amazing.
Daniel (07:44)
Thank you. Thank you.
You
Yes. Yes. This guy. This guy here.
Sam Kirk (07:52)
Yeah.
Mmm, yeah!
Daniel (07:56)
Yeah.
John (07:57)
that's incredibly convenient. That's amazing.
Daniel (07:58)
I know. I know. Not pre-planned. Would you believe it or was it? Maybe. In four years time, I will start a podcast with my friends and they will ask about the pale men from Mads Labyrinth. Yeah. Just...
John (08:03)
I will.
Sam Kirk (08:03)
Daniel went to the tattoo parlor. Got that all done right before this episode.
John (08:06)
Hahaha!
Sam Kirk (08:12)
It's a business expense.
John (08:16)
That's an
incredibly hard read to be like, I think someone's going to be happy about something that connects back to the Pan's Labyrinth guy. Oh man, that movie's incredible.
Daniel (08:21)
You
Sam Kirk (08:29)
There's so much I love
about that story, John. How many times have you dealt with individuals, and myself included, you know, we're down on our luck, we're upset.
Things aren't going the way we want it to. on one hand, it's like all your feelings are valid, and they are 100%. On the other hand, OK, are we crying over spilled milk, as you said in one of our prior episodes? And you have someone who literally didn't have any limbs. And now they've got one that they didn't have before. And from what you're saying, they were just super joyous and happy and wonderful. And you have to look at that, be happy for them. Be happy that someone, as Daniel said, donated the hand. They didn't have to. They could have been like, no, keep it pristine, whatever.
I'm not using it. Give it up. And then be like, you know what? Do I have my limbs? Do I not have my limbs? know, do I still have health? You know, all that stuff. like, am I crying over spilled milk? And that's just a wonderful, wonderful story all around.
John (09:22)
Yeah, one of my favorite things about my job and career is the power of human resilience. Humans are fxxxxxx amazing, man. Like, A of all, we're hard to kill, both biomechanically and B of all, like in spirit. Humans come back from anything. It's really cool. But I just, think that's like, I don't know, man. I've thought about this before, like, you everybody human thinks about this, actually. This is like a thing I've learned about. So when you're a therapist, you learn that all the like weird neurotic worries you have about like, what if I get sent back in time and don't know how to do technology? Other people have thought that. That's a thing. If you thought that, maybe like put that in the comments. But.
Sam Kirk (09:30)
They are.
We are.
Mm-hmm.
John (09:52)
⁓ like i don't know i think like i thought like what would you do if you didn't have your hand what would do if you didn't do that and i think like a person was like well i guess i'll know firsthand i'm so sorry i can't stop doing those but also i think being able to have that chance to like just get a new lease on life like and it i don't know i don't know it just makes me really happy anyway i'm done ranting
Sam Kirk (10:14)
It goes back to the zero dot element
of just us being connected, right? And just having conversations and talking to people. ⁓ We are hard to really kill, but everyone's got different experiences. We all have similar thoughts. We're not as unique as we might think we are. dang, makes me feel really good. Dang. All right. What's her name again?
Daniel (10:34)
Yes.
John (10:36)
⁓ her name is the incredible Kim Smith. 64 years of age, I believe. Yeah. ⁓
Sam Kirk (10:41)
Kim Smith, shout out to you, Kim Smith.
Daniel (10:42)
Kim Smith. Yes.
Sam Kirk (10:45)
That
is phenomenal. Kim Smith, I hope you do more with that one hand than I've ever done with all my limbs combined. I'm sure you will.
Daniel (10:53)
So moving on from the wonderful news about hand transplants, something not at all related to that, that I would like to hear a bit more of an in-depth discussion on today from the both of you. I'd really like to hear from you two about the stages of change.
Sam Kirk (11:03)
Mmm.
John (11:15)
I know all about the stages of change. Give me it.
Daniel (11:18)
I'm so glad I bought
it to you then, I'm so glad.
Sam Kirk (11:21)
Before we do this, hold on, John, I don't mean to interrupt you. I want you go right into your thing. Daniel has a reason why he's asking this question, which is our listeners, or watchers, I'm being nice to our viewers here who watch our faces versus listen, where their perspective might be, which is they either know nothing about it, or they know a little bit about something, and why would it matter to them that they should know a little bit about the stages of change? John, you want to kind of carry us through on that?
John (11:46)
Yeah, in so far as our viewers and our listeners, I would once again ask that our listeners kindly fuck off. I don't really care what they do or their experience doesn't matter to me at all. Viewers can stay tuned in. Yeah, no, once again, viewer supremacy will be documented and everlasting. But for those of them who are following along with the show, however they choose to do it correctly or incorrectly, there's a reason that humans should wanna know more about the stages of change. And that reason is as follows. It's because change is fxxxxxx hard.
Sam Kirk (11:56)
spoken like a true viewer.
John (12:13)
Maybe you've been out there and you're just making changes and you're very good at it. Congratulations, you mutant. That's not typically the process. If you meet someone who goes, I love when things change, things should change all the time, your immediate reaction as a stock human is to go, whoa, are things bad for you? Change is a little bit intimidating. Humans are very funny because we can't stop change from happening, but we crave stability. And also we fail at things a lot, which makes us feel like change is problematic or difficult or hard to get to. ⁓ One of the big reasons I learned about the stages of change.
And frankly, the first place I used them in a therapeutic context was in rehabilitation facilities at program, some would say. ⁓ And people who tried, I forget the number, but the average number of attempts it takes to quit using a substance you're addicted to is not one as a heads up. Like it takes some time. It's hard to do. And I will talk about them now. First, I'm gonna just like run through the numbers. First, you have pre-contemplation, which on its own is one of my favorite terms in the world.
The idea of like, I'm not even contemplating yet. I'm before the contemplation. haven't, this has not entered my mind, but it is important. It's worth knowing that's one of the stages. Next of course comes contemplation, which is when you're kicking it around and you're like, yeah, I could maybe see some value in that change. Followed by preparation, which is its own step, which is getting ready to actually make and commit to the change. And then action implementing the value, accordant action, followed by maintenance and having the change stay ongoing. ⁓
Let's kind of go through them in order a little bit here. So pre-contemplation is a funny thing. once again, just conceptually, I just think it's hilarious. ⁓ but like if you're a person.
Sam Kirk (13:44)
you're about to think about the
thing, do think about the thing, right?
John (13:48)
Yeah. Yeah. So like, okay. In my time, therapisting, I've known a couple of people who have used methamphetamine. And if you've ever known somebody on methamphetamine, they're pretty like into it. Like, the starting phase of methamphetamine is frankly just great. Like if you want me to do an anti-math PSA, I have to get past the first bit because the first bit is pretty cool, turns out. And then people will say things like,
And I say this with love, there was a specific client of mine who was doing extraordinarily well, last I spoke to him years and years ago. I remember him saying, and we laughed about this later, he was like, I don't think meth's that bad. And I was like, okay. But that's because in that stage of his life, he was literally like, think it's okay, I think I can manage this. ⁓ And this is a valid thing. It sounds like a joke, it's like, you're in pre-contemplation, okay. But at the same time, it's a very valid thing. People don't just automatically boop, boop, boop, through the stages of stuff. We have to kind of like...
let it sit in. Let's talk about contemplation next, as that will be sequential. Contemplation is when you're thinking about the pros and cons of something. For instance, if you are someone who's going to get into going to the gym, there's a whole lot of thinking ahead of that. There's a level of like, what will that look like? Can I actually do it? Will it make a difference? Will people make fun of me? They won't, by the way. ⁓ Will it be a thing that I can afford? Will it be this or that? And that stage is often, this is the thing I want to make a shout out to the anxious homies.
Sometimes we're in this stage for so long because we just kind of keep spinning and cycling and thinking about it and it feels a little bit loopy. If you ever had this thing where you're like trying to make a decision and you just spin through it 45 times in a row and you're like surely this will lead to something and it doesn't and you start to feel really frustrated just because you're in the contemplation stage. ⁓ There isn't a hard exit out of this stage but one thing I would talk about with you guys and anybody else is if you're in the contemplation stage it's worth bringing in a friend ⁓
Human brains are funny. We learned how to talk and then we learned how to talk to ourselves on accident. Talking to yourself out loud, very good. Actually quite therapeutically useful. Talking to yourself internally, aka thinking, is tricky because you can think faster than you can use the data you're thinking. Let me say that again in case that sounds insane. Yeah.
Sam Kirk (15:58)
Say that again, yeah. Because
I thought what you were saying really fast, but what was that?
John (16:03)
No, perfect. ⁓ When we listen to a recording, a lot of the time, you can like play it at 1.75 times speed because human brains are very good at digesting information. We can think very quickly. ⁓ And occasionally the human brain internally, say it's like, I don't know, two in the morning and you're by yourself in your bed and you're thinking, and you're like, shit, I'm on this thought train and I can't stop. That's actually very normal. There's a reason that every therapist by therapist law says, hey there, you should get a journal and you should journal in that journal. And here's why, because it like,
It slows your thinking to a pace you could actually use. Even if you're like me and you type really fast, I type about 110 words a minute when I'm not trying. ⁓ That's still way slower than when you're thinking. So contemplation is a thing that like, it benefits from being, I don't know, I don't want to say formalized, but like taking the time to like write things out. If you ever want, I can teach you a five-step decision-making process that is painfully boring, but it's incredibly helpful insofar as like making all of these steps very concrete and cohesive.
but the kind of pushing state.
Sam Kirk (17:03)
What's that zero dot people?
Would you like that? I think they want that. I think I just asked them. I heard someone say that. Thank you so much, John. You're the best.
John (17:11)
I'll do it later. I'm gonna make a note of it though, so I do it.
Thank you. The kind of push I just want to talk about is a stage, I brought this up before and I'll talk about this in every fxxxxxx episode for the rest of my life. It's a stage that gets hit by shame a lot. Anxiety and shame both come in individually, a little song and dance here.
Sam Kirk (17:16)
Very.
John (17:29)
And shame will be like, well, if you tried this and you fail, boy, wouldn't that be stupid and embarrassing. And then it restarts it all over again. In fact, sometimes it kicks all the way back to pre-contemplation because your brain's like, nah, fuck this, I can't do it. And that is okay. Once again, brains are hard to drive. Nobody teaches you how to do it. And when we go to like first, second grade, we're like, here's how to spell, which is great. And here's how to tie your shoes, which is great. But insofar as like how to actually make changes in your life, or just sort of like do it, do it by now, or you're behind, which is actually a little bit, you know, mean and unfair.
so preparation is It's okay, let me give you an example so Same work with somebody who's like wow drinking sure is making my life hard I should maybe stop drinking so much the way that I'm drinking
Which is really common actually, because drinking is very like, societally accepted. Uh, and that's not like a knock on drinking. I enjoy a nice drink here, or there. But if you're somebody who's like, yeah, no, I go out to the bar after work and I get tanked and I come home and then I don't do my dishes because I'm too drunk and like things are shit. At some point your data accumulates and you go, oh man, this is having a net negative on my life. Contemplation, go through it a little bit. And then you have to think about all the things that change. So for instance, um, if you're going to quit drinking or even, even make an attempt at quitting drinking.
You have to think about, okay, I'm gonna stop going to the bar after work on Fridays, which means I won't see my friends, which means I also will have alcohol at home. And what should I do with that? Should I take that out? Should I give it to somebody else? Sidebar, quick rant for my people who trying to become sober. If you have your substance of choice at home or the apparatus with which to use the substance of choice at home, you are sabotaging yourself. Not said in a cruel way, said in a way that I understand and empathize with. ⁓ I talked about Bertha before on this show. Yeah, so I...
Sam Kirk (19:09)
Bertha? No.
John (19:12)
Bertha is the name of a person I knew once ago, once long ago, from the top. Bertha is the name of a bong from a person I knew once in my life. And they were like, damn, I gotta stop using weed because of this drug court that I'm on, because of this probation, et cetera. And this is back when weed was illegal in the state that I lived in at the time, which was Illinois. And they were like, I'm not gonna get rid my bong though. And I was like, well, okay, why not? And they showed me a picture of their bong. I was like, oh, I understand. That's gorgeous. It was this huge, beautiful thing.
And then later they relapsed. And this is not like a knock on that person. It's just like, there's a common phrase in recovery of you don't go to a barber shop and not get a haircut. And there's just kind of a level of if it's there, okay, we're gonna talk about relapses, I guess, for five seconds. I'm sorry, this is tangential. I just want people to know this stuff. Relapses isn't a thing where you're like, ⁓ and you do it. Relapse starts as a thought and then it kind of grows from there.
And if you have those things available, what you're doing is likely triggering that thought more frequently. So it's more common that it ends up happening anyway, back to preparation. So.
Sam Kirk (20:17)
⁓ Before
you get to preparation and I know I'm cutting you off because you brought up a really good topic about the environment and this relates to my work in terms of People doing this thing where they think they just have to grit through things. They have to power through things It's up to them to power through it and John I know you and I are aligned on this which is Willpower is a finite resource willpower will always fail against nature and nature is just another fancy way of saying your environment
So if you ever want to be successful in anything, if you want to make a specific change in your behavior, you literally have to change your environment. Now, John has more details about this, but I'm just saying to anyone, hey, if you have ever felt like you dropped the ball because you quote unquote relapsed or you went back on an old habit, well, the first question would be, is it in your environment still? Is it in your home? it in your goings to going? Is it in your routine? If it is, then it's not actually your fault. I would say it's not your fault. I would say the fault is
how we didn't recognize that and take it out of the environment first so that couldn't ever happen again, because it's not up to you to have infinite amount of willpower. The version of you that has whatever problem that you're trying to solve, substance abuse or otherwise, versus the version of you that's off this path, it's not suddenly because of willpower. It's because of a plan of attack and making sure that your environment acquiesces to your desires and needs and having a clear focus of attack on that front. So I just want to piggyback off of that relating to what you were saying. I don't want anyone on this
on Zero Dot thinking that willpower is the way. I'm almost 99 % of time I'm gonna say probably not, and there's always another path to do that. But anyway, John, keep going about preparation you were saying.
John (21:50)
No, very well said.
Very well said. I agree with everything you said, with the exception that for the viewers, willpower is finite and you should be mindful of the listeners. It's real and if you don't have enough of it, you're weak. So, know, step it up. But, there's that.
Sam Kirk (22:02)
Yeah, listeners
though, ⁓ yeah, I'm right all the time. John's wrong.
John (22:07)
That's convenient. That's a convenient
lie by Big Sam promoting their agenda again. ⁓ couple of things within preparation I still want to cover. There's a common catchphrase in recovery circles, which is people, places, and things, because all that shit has to change if you're making a change. And this actually applies, of course, outside of recovery circles as well. ⁓ I'm a person who likes to eat food. And when I'm trying to like,
Sam Kirk (22:12)
Robo Sam, I think Daniel called me. I'm Robo Sam.
John (22:36)
put on muscle or lose some weight. I have to like consider that, right? Cause if I'm going out with my friends and we're just like slamming down some sweet nachos and Taco Bell at one in the morning, which I do recommend wholeheartedly, there's a level of just preparation with your social circle that needs to be accounted for if you're a person who is gonna, so I moved to Minnesota a couple of years ago and when I was doing the preparation of that change, because I was in pre-contemplation of that for years and years. And then during the preparation, I was like, oh, I'm move away from like all my friends. I'm gonna move away from like all of my
basis of financial security. I'm gonna move away into a land full of terrible snow. I love it up here for the record, but the snow here is just the work of the devil. ⁓ It's so many little factors. And once again, this is where I want to, as per always go to John's ADHD corner. Hi there ADHD having person. ⁓ This is a special shout out to those of us who have the ADHD. The preparation part's really hard. And it's a part when I really want you to, and I know it sucks to do this and I'm sorry, pop open like a Google doc or a notepad or some shit.
and put these things in front of you because in your head you can maintain a handful of things at a time. And if you try, because heaven knows if you go over it, like, I don't know, maybe like you're like a dungeon master and you're planning a dungeon and you have all these cool ideas and they just keep like, you've got like three and then one falls away. And then this one falls away. It's not due to that willpower or your inability to focus hard enough. It's because preparation is a multi-step thing and there's too much to account for. So you owe it to yourself to give a nice little breakdown. The structure is actually not very important.
It's just having whatever you need to be able to process it at a speed and a level of, I don't know. I'm gonna do a seg within a seg, sorry. So this is another kind of a bold claim, but I'm right. True. ⁓ You can't multitask. And I'm sorry to the people who are thinking that you can. You're actually not. What you're doing is you're alternating tasks very quickly, which you can do. And that's fine and good.
Sam Kirk (24:15)
Our sponsor is Segway, by the way. I'm just kidding.
John (24:30)
⁓ You can have multiple tasks on the burners at the same time You just only kind of focus on one thing at a time attention is a spotlight wherever you put it So during preparation you have to be like spotlight this area work or work this area. This would work. Okay moving on ⁓ Action is maybe the simplest step. It's putting your plan into action I would talk about it from a health standpoint and that it's also usually the scariest step You know, what's not scary thinking about a thing compared to doing a thing doing a thing is pretty scary and this is also a thing that I'm
conflicted about.
There's multiple takes on this. There are people who say, if you're going to make a change, tell people and get excited and build that momentum. Other people say don't tell people because in theory, this school of thought says, if you tell people I'm going to start working out in the new year, what happens is your brain goes, we're already doing it. And then like it loses a form of like processing and structure. So
Sam Kirk (25:18)
will say, John,
I'm leaning on that side. I typically, when I want to make a pretty significant change or I'm doing something, I don't tell people because, again, the brain does the thing where it goes, ⁓ you have started to tell someone this. You have now started to do the thing. And that's simply not true.
I've seen this on all different kinds of vertices. I respect the other side, which is use your support network, be vocal, communicate to them, tell them. But in my experience,
on every single facet that I can think of, don't tell someone until you've started to do the thing. Let the action speak for themselves. This also has a creative element. If you're a creative person, like I'm a writer, don't do the thing a lot of writers do. They start telling you what the book's about and you haven't read the book yet. The moment you start telling people about what the book's about, your brain thinks, I've written the book now, so don't want to write anymore. No, I don't get to tell you, John, what the book's about until I've already written it down, until I've literally done the work.
⁓ I'm a big believer in doing work that's kind of somewhat boring. ⁓ But you do the boring work because the exciting part is I get to tell my friends about it later once I've done the boring work. I'm a big believer on that side of front, but I've seen many people say the opposite's true as well, that use your support network, be vocal, communicate, communicate, have them be your accountability buddy and hold you accountable. And I think that can work for some people. I say more times than not, though, I lean on the other side.
John (26:44)
So for the record, I tend to agree with you, like pretty much entirely except I as per always have an ADHD caveat. ADHD brains, as we've said before, focused on stimulation, focused on interest as opposed to importance. So if I kindle the fire of interest by lighting this thing be like, dude, I'm gonna do this thing, it's fxxxxxx sweet. And a person's like, cool. And I'm now more motivated. Also in general, if you're ever being a therapist someday, dear listener, well, okay listener, dear viewer.
Sam Kirk (27:05)
Yeah.
John (27:13)
you will learn that you'll tell you to someone, ha ha, ha ha ha, you will say something that you know is scientifically true and the person will go, that's not true for me. And you'll go, but science said that it is. And you'll be like, pretty confident in it. And then that person will just kind of like do it their way and it will work for them. You'll be like, well, that's fxxxxxx annoying of you. But also it's like valid. There's a client of mine and if she ever heard this, I hope she would know who she is and that I would love and miss her. She's a phenomenal human being.
Sam Kirk (27:14)
We got him guys, we got him, the war is winning.
John (27:43)
but she started a relationship with a few red flags at the start of it. And I didn't say shit about this, but she said to me, I know you're singing those red flags and it's going to work. And I just you to know that. And I was like, okay. And it did. And they're like doing awesome, last I heard. So sometimes people find their own way. So if you ever hear anything on this show or otherwise and you're like, but that's not been my experience. Like you don't have to lay down your way and just roll over. Like it's totally fine. Anyway, talk about maintenance. Maintenance is the last of the five stages. ⁓
It is five, had to count. ⁓ Maintenance is kind of helping your brain.
Sam Kirk (28:15)
And just be
clear, it's pre-contemplation, contemplation, preparation, action, maintenance. OK. Just making sure, keeping track for our listeners.
John (28:21)
Aye, Indeed. ⁓
Well, and I have, I have a whole thing about maintenance and then how it's like secretly a loop sometimes. ⁓ if you want to make a change and like, don't care if it lasts, this whole thing is actually kind of garbage. You don't need to do any of that. You can just like crash hard and do a thing. If you want to just like become a monster and work out like a demon for like 60 days, you will absolutely lose weight, put on muscle, whatever you want to do. It's just that if you've done an unsustainable lifestyle, you will revert because that's how brains work. ⁓ so.
Sam Kirk (28:51)
It's also homeostasis,
just how it works. The body, the brain wants to reach some kind of place of normalcy. So yeah.
John (28:58)
Absolutely, that's a really important point. There's, I have like two ways I wanna say this. I'm gonna say the last piece about maintenance and then I'll go back to that. Maintenance is planning for keeping things in order. Back in the day when I was more insane than I am now, I tracked my calories for like four years. And I'll tell you, that shit works. Like it really does. Now, do you have a person at home who's immediately feeling defensive and is like, I'm not fxxxxxx doing that. You're right, don't do that, that's insane.
⁓ And that was part of why I stopped doing it. People would be like, hey man, you want a cookie? I made them. It's my grandma's birthday and it would mean a lot. And I'm like, how much calories is it? And like it just, became really like cumbersome and not fun and just things don't stay sustainable. Insofar as certain changes, like, I don't know. Like if you're an exercising person, ⁓ an exerciser, we call ourselves, you can like skip a workout and then do one the next day. Once you know your flow and your schedule and you're maintaining it.
Sam Kirk (29:39)
Right.
John (29:54)
If you're a person who's like, gotta stop doing heroin, you can't have like a cheat day and do some heroin the same way because psychologically addictive principles apply, blah, blah, blah, blah, we can do that later. But the point being like, thinking about ahead of time what I'll need to keep this in play is really important. There's a thing that I see in really every hobby. was thinking about like the fighting games that I play, but any activity that somebody cares about where they will be like, all right, I'm gonna train super hard. I'm gonna get into this. I'm gonna practice every single day.
Sam Kirk (29:58)
That's true, yeah.
John (30:22)
And that works so great for about seven days. And then the brain's like, okay, I kind of like wash my laundry and go see my friend and sleep. And like, it just falls off. In general, one of my favorite things, this is like a genuinely really positive thing for me. No such thing as too small of a goals, truly. Building momentum and progress is important. And when your brain feels like it's making a change, it's much happier.
So I would so much rather have a person say we're doing like exercise goals, make it change that way. I'd rather have a person do like little easy tiny, tiny workouts that they feel are like, barely contributing to their overall change in their life. As long as they're like, I'm doing this. I take ownership of this. I'm building a thing. It feels good. Humans, sorry to keep doing so many ADHD shout outs. It just turns out it's a huge portion of people and I'm one of them.
ADHDers are terrible at this because when we're like, I'm going to make a home gym. I'm going to buy this rack that costs $5,000 and this barbell that costs $700. And it's the shiniest. I've researched all of them fxxxxxx countless hours. And it's like, that's really fun. But at the same time, we're not building a sustainable thing and we're going to flare out. So little goals are super important. Micro-progress isn't the cute therapist word. Well, it is, but it's also a very valid construct to help your brain feel those little pieces of gains. So.
Sam Kirk (31:42)
Yeah,
if I can tap into that, sorry John, I know. So you talk about making the goals small, I'm a big believer in that too. Make them behavioral goals, right? So someone comes to me and says, hey, I have a goal of I want to accomplish this thing. Okay, cool, great. You want to accomplish that thing. What are the behaviors that someone does to do that thing? And they don't know. Okay, let's research, let's find out. So for instance, ⁓
John (31:45)
Please always.
Yeah!
Sam Kirk (32:08)
If you are, ⁓ if you're trying to exercise more, right? You, let's say your goal is weight management or adipose tissue shrinkage or building muscle, et cetera. Okay, so let's look at people who have physiques that you seem to like and usually it's from an aesthetic perspective. What are the behaviors those people do? And they don't know. So let's look at the research. Counting calories absolutely works. Is it sustainable?
Probably not, but what does the counting of the calories give us? Okay, it gives you knowledges to know that this sandwich that you think is only 150 calories is actually 895 calories, and maybe that information will help you make better, smarter choices, right? And you keep going down and down and down, it's okay, okay, now what are those very small microscopic behaviors we're gonna do this week that's so easy that all I have to do is just remind you to do them, that you'll be able to do them, you'll already be on a forward trajectory moving forward.
You'll already be going up. Let's focus on the microbehavioral goals that we can do. And let's not focus on the big number we're trying to do. Either it's the number on the scale, or it's how big our biceps are, or whatever that is, which is totally valid. And then once we start linking those goals together, something kind of magical happens. And John, I'm wondering if you kind of know where that leads us to.
John (33:21)
have thoughts within thoughts on that.
Sam Kirk (33:24)
Thoughts
within thoughts. That's a new t-shirt idea for us. Thoughts within thoughts, within thoughts.
John (33:27)
very nice, very good. You could,
it's like one of those games where like they make the little, like, know, like, thank you for having, I'm really glad you knew what I meant. I was gonna say like, and then give an example and then have no ability to convey that at all. So I'm glad. Dear person observing and or listening to this, if that didn't land, that's fine. Ignore this part, move on. Don't think about it again. It's not actually a big deal, I promise. And if it is, like, you know, sorry.
Sam Kirk (33:32)
Yep. It's not just a Venn diagram, it's like several different circles together.
Ha
John (33:55)
So, so, so insofar as behavioral goals, I'm a behaviorist, which is sort of like it was kind of a spicy sentence for a hot minute there. And I can talk about that another time. It's fxxxxxx psychotherapy bullshit, but, ⁓ in general behaviors are nice because brains like to learn about behaviors and use them. there's this other thing with dialectics that I'm to get into and Batman. stay tuned. ⁓ dialectics is this idea that like, there's often a whole spectrum.
of progress and growth and failure and success and, you know, from black to white, there's a whole bunch of grays in there, right? And when we try to implement a behavioral change, human brains, once again, are capable of amazing things, are also real, real stupid, and they only think of things as it worked or it didn't. So if you're a person who's going to the gym and you just kind of stop going after a while, and you're like, oh man, I stopped going, that's not fair. And to Sam's point, this idea of like, yeah, but you did start going, you've made some microbehavioral changes, your brain is starting to go,
we have a concept for this, that's actually like a really big deal. It's actually like a really good thing. Failure is a growth, and this is such a cheesy sentence. I feel like a poster. I kind of hate that about myself right now, but I do mean what I'm about to say. It's like failure is an opportunity to learn. That's all that it is. All of the emotional negativity associated with failure is prescriptive by ourselves and our society and frankly, marketing teams. So finding ways to help yourself view like from failure, like what did I learn? It's like a big deal. ⁓ I run the risk of talking about
Bibiobames too much, so I'll try to be brief in doing so. But if you lose to anything in a video game and you go, fuck, this game sucks and shitty and it's hard, that's an option, I suppose if you want. But a far healthier option that will make you better at the thing that you're doing is to go, well, what did I do wrong? And how did I, or what is the evidence that I can learn from this? Like, where is the thing I can change? If you're playing basketball and you keep getting stuffed, then like, maybe you could look at where you're positioning yourself from. Maybe you could look at like, is the play breaking down?
If you're somebody who's trying to like go on a diet and you're like, boy, I sure do not lose any weight. And then you're like, well, am I eating, you know, cupcakes when I'm watching my Netflix at night or whatever else have you? Like that's it's just data. It's just learning. And secretly this is a shame thing, but surprise, surprise. It always is. Uh, there's a thing that I say, I Googled this while we were talking today and I realized I'd been misquoting it for years. Um, but it's from, I think it's Batman Begins. And one of the characters says to their character, like it's Alfred.
Alfred says to young Batman, ⁓ why do we fall master Bruce? And the gist of it is like, so you can get back up and try again. And like, that's a really motivating thing. ⁓ If you, if you hear it in the right context, because it's not you fell because you fucked up. It's you fell. So now you know, like what to do next time. So you have another chance to get better. And I hope dear absorber absorber absorber of this material.
that this doesn't sound like bro speak, you just gotta fxxxxxx keep going. Like that's not the vibe. Not at all. ⁓ What I want you to take away from it is like, when a piece of your brain tells you the change isn't happening, you can talk with that part of your brain and be like, well, why do we think that is? What's going on? If you can make it like an internal dialogue, if you can make it a warm thing, it just marinates really differently. This is...
Sam Kirk (36:49)
Yeah, we don't want to go down now.
John (37:13)
do this every episode a million times. But like, there's this thing that happens when you have ADHD and you're in school, and it's called the semester sprint of dxxxx I made that term up, but feel free to use it, whoever you are. Start the semester and your heart's full of light, and you go, this time I'm gonna put my paper in folders, I'm gonna stay on top of things, I'm not falling behind, I'm gonna get everything done on time. And then.
You do for like a couple of weeks and then like that one thing you stuff that in your backpack and you gotta get going. But it's fine, we'll catch it. Now there's like six of them. That's okay. my God, when does that project do? Holy sxxx we got three more weeks in this thing. Okay, last minute slide into home base. Jesus fxxx okay, next semester will be different.
Sam Kirk (37:52)
You
John (37:53)
but it's not. And then you feel bad, but that's not fair. Once again, I mean, I'm being humorous about it. There's still this dialectic of like, you're doomed, you can't make it, nothing will change. You're getting a little better every time. So being mindful, and this is like one of my main takeaways for the whole stages of change thing. Anytime you don't make a change, it's information. It's data about what's stopping you from making a change.
If you're into the substance side of things, it's about, here's some stuff we didn't realize substances were accounting for. For instance, when I'm lonely, I need to smoke weed because if I don't, I'm gonna feel real bad. If it's a friend group change, well, it turns out if I cut off, you know, Bethany and Tim, my toxic friends, I don't have any other fxxxxxx friends who I can drive to in five minutes. I don't know what I'm gonna do. Or also, now that nobody's here to provide care for my dog, I'm gonna go on vacation. Like, it's just all these little things. As I've said before, and I will say again, humans are
ridiculously resilient. We come back from anything. Don't let the internal monologue tell you that you're not doing enough to change. It's just data. You're just learning.
Sam Kirk (38:55)
John, you said something you and correct me if I'm wrong, we're always getting better, we're always getting a little bit better, right? Those are your words? What were your exact words? Repeat them again.
John (39:02)
Mm-hmm. Close.
Oh, I couldn't, that's so long ago, I have no idea. But that sounds like a thing I'd say.
Sam Kirk (39:09)
Okay,
okay. We're always getting better and I wonder how this relates to what I often call the bicycle problem. So for those listening in, those that are watching, I'll acquiesce to both sides. If you're aware, if you've ever had the opportunity to learn how to ride a bicycle, you might have had your parents giving you a loving relationship with the bicycle and you had trainer wheels. You might have learned the hard way by just, you know,
Running every single time and hopping on the bike and hope you can learn some kind of stability some kind of way Or maybe you don't know how to ride a bicycle, which is totally fine You can always learn how to ride a bicycle to later date part of Yet there's this weird thing that happens that scientists can't they can kind of figure out but they can't We as human beings cannot intellectualize the processes required to ride a bicycle I cannot describe to you John or Daniel or anyone
All the micro millions of decisions my brain is making to find homeostasis, find equilibrium, to find balance, to be on the bicycle, yet my body has figured it out. And we know this. ⁓
Forgetting the name, I think Veritasium, a YouTuber, did a video on this as well, where he had someone, a welder, make a bicycle that's backwards, meaning your way of thinking if you turn this way is right is actually left. Everything was backwards, right? And if you spend enough time doing this as an adult, and obviously if you're younger, it's a lot shorter.
We spend more time as an adult. Eventually the brain rewires itself to know, okay, this way that used to be right is now left and vice versa. And it corrects it like a switch. It just happens instantly. But here's the funny thing. Our brains...
unless at a young age you're able to do it at a very young age in acquiesce, we haven't developed the mechanism to go between the two systems. So you put that same person who spent months working on that backwards bicycle, put them on a regular bicycle again, they have to relearn it again. Or they have to flip the switch again.
So there's a biomechanic limbic brain ⁓ reaction that we have to a bicycle that if you just give it enough time, give it enough exposure, you just try and try and try, the brain is constantly learning all the different micro decisions it has to make. And eventually, develops some kind of equilibrium and eventually learn how to ride a bike. But imagine if you're trying to learn how to ride a bike. Maybe this is you, listener or viewer. I'll acquiesce to both sides.
Imagine stopping yourself from learning how to ride a bike because you haven't gotten there yet. But you know, because you've seen everyone else do it, that you can get there. You just have to give it enough exposure, enough time.
This often is misprescribed as like the grit thing, like let's grit through it, just keep powering, powering. I am not at all saying that. John and I are not saying that. But I do want to invite us all in some way to have trust in your future self, because your brain is pretty darn capable. But it does require some reps. It does require some exposure. You can make some more informed reps, some more informed exposure. You can do things better. If you have an ADHD style brain, I won't speak for that mindset. But John and Daniel have more of exposure in that capacity.
more exposure to that. ⁓
There's tricks you can do to make that more enveloping. But I mean, the idea is that you're able to see how you're getting better every single time. That's the important thing. You're noticing you're getting better. And John is saying, look, as an observer, I can see you get better every single time. It might feel like failure. John, you made a comment that action can sometimes be the easiest step of these five stages of change. But I imagine for a lot of people, it's really devastating. When they do the action, they execute the plan, and it didn't work. And now they feel like total failure. But you are the one in your position who gets to say, actually, dude, you learned a lot in that experience anyway.
I would call that a resounding success. Would that be right, John?
John (42:55)
⁓
my God, yeah. No, I'm really glad you brought that up. There's a thing, this is like a recurring phenomenon. I'm so excited to talk about this. Where I'll have people who are doing the therapy or they're doing any other thing where I'm offering them some sort of input. And they will say, like, dude, I'm not fxxxxxx getting this. Like this isn't happening. I'm stuck. I'm just spinning around. And it's weird because from an outside third party perspective with a significant database of what change in this area looks like, I'm like, you're actually not. Like you're at, this is, you're in the middle of
very demonstrable growth. I have a thing that I say to my clients often, which is like, well, actually though, look at my notes. Like, you're pretty reflective that you're changing. And there's this moment when you can retroflect and see your change. And it is not, it's not for a while. Like you'll be in the middle of making some pretty meaningful change before your brain goes like, detected. There's like, ⁓ shit, forget the number. Like if you start lifting weights, like there's a certain amount of time that passes when like your first visible growth is supposed to be like, people will notice it. And it's like long.
Sam Kirk (43:55)
It takes a long time,
John (43:55)
but you will feel stuff way before then. ⁓ And
there's this thing with like mental health stuff, which I really want to touch on. yeah, this is maybe too much. I don't fxxxxxx care, here we go. Depression is one of the only illnesses in the world that your body does not try to recover from. Depression is a sinking ship that keeps itself sinking. And when you fight it and you're making progress against it, it wants you to be safe. So it goes like, no dude, give up, you're not gonna make it.
which is like really shitty and awful, but it will tell you you're not doing enough. It will tell you it's not gonna work, which is one of the reasons it's so fxxxxxx scary to have it and deal with it. But I really want you to know, well, of course your feelings are valid and your perceptions are like yours and I don't wanna challenge that. Sometimes they will miss it and they won't see the fact that the change is already happening. And it's, I don't know, it's very rewarding to me, like professionally, not in like, I did it, but just like to see the.
the success and joy for people, when they get to that stage, they're like, yeah, shit, I am changing. But I also, and this is like, I don't know, if I was like really TLDR, this is I want to say to people is like, if you don't think you're changing, what you're doing is you're looking too big of picture. You got to really zoom it in a little bit. And that's okay. If you're just a person who's engaging with your mental health shit for a while, if you're just like sitting around thinking about how your friend group probably doesn't really serve you super well, guess what? You're in the contemplation stage. That's part of change. You're doing the thing. That's okay.
Sam Kirk (45:21)
Mm-hmm.
John (45:22)
And I've known a bajillion people who've made a bajillion changes, like the general prognosis of people who go to therapy, pretty good. There's a reason insurance companies pay us money. It's cause it works. ⁓ nobody's like day two, like, shit, I'm good now. That's not a thing. ⁓ so I don't know. I don't know. I feel, I feel like this is a little bit too vague of a prompt, dearest viewer and shitty listener that I don't care about. If you have a thing that you feel like you're trying to change and it's not happening.
I would love to know what it is. Because I also want to talk about a good old operational definition, operational definition science term from high school, which is coming up with how you're measuring a thing. If I say, want to be better, that's a stupid metric, you can't use that. But if you want to say, I want to increase my response time by this much, I want to more consistently implement this thing when this other thing happens, those things are, A, they're measurable, but B, they're things you can actually.
see growth on as opposed to like the good old feelings checkable notes but you know what mean so humans are capable of great change they're not capable of seeing not for a while ⁓ so effort plus time will get you there and not in a willpower way but in a way of math like math is your friend on this one if you continue to apply things and
Sam Kirk (46:27)
Yes.
John (46:38)
openness to data, right? If I keep working out and I'm just like, I'm not getting any stronger, something's wrong. And we can learn that. It can be like, well, you haven't eaten enough food. You're just sitting there chomping on fxxxxxx mini muffins all day and there's no protein content in those. If you're a person who's trying to write and you sit down to write and you just, never get anywhere, well, what's going on? And it could be like, yeah, man, I haven't got over my dog dying. I actively am grieving. Human brains are complex. have a jillion parts moving at once, but that's the thing. Everything's data.
It's not binary. In general, binary is an oversimplification of basically every process.
Sam Kirk (47:10)
Give yourself permission to
track trending behavior. And it's the oldest expression in the book, which is you can't improve it, which you're not measuring. ⁓
Eyes are unreliable, our feelings are unreliable, our brain is, even if it's, hey, if I'm working out every day and I just wanna feel better, I wanna feel more mobile, I wanna have more energy, log every single day. How do you feel today? How do you feel the next day? And I swear, if you log over 30 days, you look out, zoom out, day 30 versus day one, there's an improvement, almost guaranteed. It's just the way the body works as long as you're being consistent with it. If we use the exercise analogies, yeah.
John (47:44)
Absolutely.
Absolutely. I would give a... So I would give a rant followed by a thing, perhaps ⁓ a... A ⁓ thant. Nope, yours was better. ⁓ R-thing has like an R apostrophe Cthulhu vibe though, so now I'm kind of into that. But the rant is as follows.
Sam Kirk (47:54)
A rant and a thing. A re-thing?
A fant.
Yeah.
John (48:08)
There's this thing where we like come up with really good ideas for children and we're like, do this and it'll be great and we'll do all this good stuff. And then you're an adult like no more of that shit, have it by now and just shut up. And that will be a recurring theme that we'll talk about for the rest of the time that I'm a person. But ⁓ one of those things is gold star charts. If you're a little kid, you go to kindergarten and every day you tie your shoes by yourself, gold star. The brain loves that. I may have said this before, ⁓ but like psychological rewards and like monetary rewards are the same.
your brain responds the same way. So if you're a human and you see things being like, look, I did the thing, it starts to feel really good. And that requires doing a thing outside of your head. You can't make a gold star chart inside of your head. I've brought this up before and I will try to not beat this point to death, but it's achievements in video games. Like they're the same thing. It's when your brain goes, shiny, look at my log of these things that I've done, wow. And it feels really good. Don't deprive yourself of that for far more important things than a video game. Letting yourself see like, have been like,
A lot of apps that are good will track your workouts for you in a calendar format and you'll have a little dot on all the days you do it. That feels really good. If you're trying to make a change that doesn't have that inherently with some app, make it yourself. Find some way to kind of track those things. If you're like,
I randomly know a lot of drummers. I don't know what that means about my relationship with drummers, but we got a drummer on the show. Drummers are phenomenal. Really, two for three? Wow-dee-dow, that's amazing.
The drummers that I know are often inconvenienced by the nature.
of their art because if you've ever met a person playing drums, you were probably like, Hey, like you can't, they're loud. So it's hard to practice it. And I think that like, Consequently, there's a level of like, you know, obstacles and like, you to do whatever else. I've had people do this for just drumming. It's like, I went to the studio and I drummed for like fxxxxxx 10 minutes or something. And it really makes a difference in one subjective perception of how engaged you are with the hobby. Just helping yourself demonstrate progress in ways that the brain can't automatically calibrate because it's electric meat and it's doing its very best.
It's such a handy tool. Something, something structure. I won't do the whole rant about that right now, but like the other part of changes. I think this kind of goes with Sam was saying earlier, if you're relying on willpower to make a change, you're going have these really cool bursts of change followed by nothing. So love willpower when it's there, ride that wave, you know, lean into it, but it's not, it's a catalyzing factor based on RNG. If you're not a big nerd, RNG means random chance effectively.
So giving yourself a plan and once again making that plan so small. sincerely dear person observing this show, if you wanna make a change, if you write in and you tell us what you want it to be and there aren't like a million of you, I would love to like talk about a specific plan for that thing. Like we'll follow up on that shit. Especially if you were like, say, I don't know, like on sort of like a Patreon or something if we happen to have one of those, which if we did, I'm sure it'll be flashing and links would go off and just a whole bunch of shit about that. But that's like a very easy,
Think we can like cook up and just like make it happen. And I want you to, I don't know, as people make changes every day, my job wouldn't exist if it didn't actually work, right? So there's this level of like, have extraordinary confidence in this. And if you're a person who hasn't had that yet, I want you to, I want you to know it can happen. So I'm looking at you meaningfully. And if you're a listener, you don't know that I'm doing that. If you're a listener, you know there's that, but.
Sam Kirk (51:20)
If I, as my listeners,
I'm hearing you, hearing at you, that's a weird expression. Looking at you as if to exude something, but I'm listening at you. Watch out, John, I'm listening at you. Whoa. Right? Yeah, for real.
John (51:32)
god, whoa.
Daniel (51:36)
I have no part in this war. I would just like to drop in and say, if you would like to write into us, the zero dot podcast.com, you will find a form on that website where you can contact us and we will respond to you on the show if we can.
John (51:53)
If you choose to do so, please put after your name, like parentheses viewer, so I can know to respond to you with compassion or listener so I can like mock your pain.
Sam Kirk (52:02)
Yeah, that's really gonna help us. We're trying to create a tribe war here. So yeah, definitely put in the field, if you're a listener or a viewer, that's really gonna help. And you'll get better information if you actually give us that information. We will lie to you otherwise. If you don't give us that information, we will lie.
John (52:06)
That's the idea.
And if you're a listener, don't.
That's true. That's true. Yeah.
It's like a, I don't know, I feel like here's what we do is we give, there's like 10 feedbacks, right? And then for like nine, just fxxxxxx gold, just whatever you can to help be super authentic and just one like disastrously terrible poisoned one. And maybe you could be the one with the terrible one and ruin your life. It's like a lottery, but in reverse. Or it's like a lottery in that short story with the stones. Spoiler for that high school student, that's gonna happen in that story called the lottery.
Sam Kirk (52:43)
Daniel, I apologize. I said that you have ADHD, but then I said the line again with only John has ADHD. I didn't mean to dox you, Daniel. So if you want to cut that out, you can. So that's my fault. I don't think you've publicly
that.
Daniel (52:53)
⁓
no, I do not mind people knowing at all. ⁓
Sam Kirk (52:56)
Okay,
I just want to apologize about that. I wasn't fully aware if that was something you were broadcasting or not.
Daniel (53:02)
It's more
just something that it's awkward with me because it's I have been told by medical professionals that I have this thing. But because the NHS is free, which is wonderful, it means that the waiting period and the weight of the line that you are in, that you are placed in when someone when a medical professional says, I am convinced you have this thing.
but It can't be me that says 100 % and you need medication for it, blah, blah, blah, blah,
Sam Kirk (53:31)
Sure, 100%. Yeah.
Daniel (53:34)
the one time that they did contact me, I was elated because I was like, things are happening. Yes, they're contacting me about the things. I must be at the front of the line. And they were like, you're not at the front of the line. In fact, we're calling you to tell you the line got longer. And I was like, ⁓ cool. So you actually want me to go further back in the line? They're like, yeah, yeah, if you could. So it's odd going back to the first thing I said because.
Sam Kirk (53:48)
Ugh.
Haha
Daniel (54:03)
I am diagnosed with it, but I'm not diagnosed with it because I've sat there with doctors, medical professionals who've like, yes, you've got this thing, but it can't be me to tell the medical world that you have this thing. It needs to be this specific medical professional. So I do have it, but in the eyes of my country's medical practices, I
Sam Kirk (54:06)
Right. The stamp isn't there. You've gotten the verbal, you've gotten the behavioral, you've had someone who knows more than I do. Yeah.
Daniel (54:32)
do not yet have it.
which is something so and it sucks because I always feel as though I need to have that like it's always got that caveat of like it's like you're you're diagnosed as yet she and it's like yeah kinda like and it's it's it's yes I am I am I definitely do have this thing but I can't prove it a lot of the time which sucks because then
Sam Kirk (54:35)
I'm sorry. Yeah.
John (54:37)
something all right
Sam Kirk (54:45)
Yeah.
Daniel (55:01)
There are so many people that are just like, he's just self-diagnosing. He's just doing this because you don't have the paperwork for it and all that. So I'm sure there are many, thoughts on that. yeah, just as something that I don't mind people saying that I have it. I don't mind telling people I have it. It's more just, it's always weird for me because my brain just, there's a little bit in the back of my brain that always says, not officially though.
Sam Kirk (55:14)
Yeah.
Okay.
Daniel (55:30)
Okay, but I do. I do. You can tell because of the way that it is.
Sam Kirk (55:33)
All good, all good. All right, yeah. Okay, got it.
Nah, nah. You're all beautiful. ⁓ I feel alone in this particular ⁓ schism, we'll call it, but it's lovely. I get to hang out and learn more and all that good stuff. ⁓
Daniel (55:50)
I love your
neurotypical self, I think you are a good ally to us fizzy brain people a lot of time.
Sam Kirk (55:54)
Aww.
Daniel (56:03)
Moving on from our main topic.
We have a dear, dear Patreon member who has written in to us. And I would like to, if it is okay with the two of you, to spend, ooh, five, 10 minutes, however long you feel like you have to give, to respond to a quick question from this wonderful supporting member of our Patreon.
Sam Kirk (56:28)
Absolutely.
Daniel (56:34)
So.
Robert has written into us and he says, hi Robert. He doesn't say hi Robert, I say hi Robert. He says, hi Daniel. Hello, hi Robert. John and Sam. The authenticity, humor and knowledge really make this podcast stand out from the crowd and I'm very thankful for this wonderful listen,
Sam Kirk (56:38)
Hi Robert.
Daniel (56:57)
He does also go on to say, the fact that the three of you also have lovely voices helps to make it a soothing listen. I will get to the gist of his writing, which is, I love to help people and do what I can for others, but I have a tendency to diminish my own needs and put other people first. I think this ties into a lot of concepts introduced in the first few episodes, but part of me feels guilty about having my needs.
met. How can I ask for the things that I want without feeling like I'm burdening other people?
Sam Kirk (57:35)
This is a phenomenal question, Robert. Thank you so much for writing it. Thank you for supporting us, of course.
⁓ Those of you that are interested in joining our patreon you may and it is right now if you're listening to this episode the moment it airs at its lowest price it will ever be for three dollars and 99 cents us and if you get to that price point right now you will always be at that price point so if ever we have to Raise prices it we will never raise it for you. So this is your time to grab that price if you would like ⁓ so thank you Robert for that question. I love this question because
There's a lot of bravery to this, John, because I think a lot of people have the struggle and fear. But they just don't have the bravery to ask it. And here we have an opportunity to just have that human look. These are human emotions. We all have very similar ones. And how do we navigate this tricky space? I have thoughts on this particular question from a philosophical perspective. But I'm curious, John, if you have more clinical, ⁓ better tactical thoughts on this one.
John (58:34)
I have a whole fxxxxxx ton of shit. First off, I would apologize for swearing so heavily ⁓ and just give a big shout out and a warm hug to Robert. Absolute legend. I happen to know Robert personally and he is one of my very favorite people. So thank you so much. Thank you for your vulnerability too. I echo what Sam said. ⁓ That is awesome. And that's like, I would validate too in that very same context. Like this is maybe one of the most common things I talk about people in therapy. it's, so I'm pretty prepared with my answer. ⁓
Sam Kirk (58:36)
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
John (59:03)
But also like it's a really common thing. A lot of Western society and frankly Eastern society has sort of pathologized having your own needs met, which is problematic for a variety of reasons. So here's a couple of quick thoughts for you. First thing, the guilt for having your needs met is a glitch. As we know from previous conversations, like guilt is a behavioral facilitator, at least to changing actions. Shame is not, shame is a paralytic. It stops you from doing things. If we explore the benefit of not having your needs met.
what might that be? One of the things that comes up is, well, others can have their needs met and they'll be happy. If I don't burden people, I won't get kicked out of the tribe. ⁓ If I don't let my needs get met, then I'll be viewed as stoic and strong and things. And if you're hearing these things, I'm hoping you're hearing them with the slight edge of toxicity and unhealthiness that I believe is inherent to those answers. These all come from a place of anxiety. And I say that as a person who has these thoughts and has been diagnosed with anxiety.
So ⁓ here's some strats, some moves to approaching that. First thing, I want to do a little bit of psycho-ed. Psycho-ed is a very pretentious term that I think is hilarious. But talking about asking people for things. There's a study, and I may have mentioned this before, but I'll talk about it anytime, it's really fun. You are, if you're running the study, you have a guy, he's got like a pen or a bag or something, and then you go to the person, you go, hey, could you hold this pen? I gotta go run in there, and they go, okay. And then you really run in, they come back, they get their pen back.
and they ask the person who held the pen, how'd you feel about that person? And reliably, they have a positive impression of that person. Because when somebody does a favor for you, their brain goes, ⁓ me and that person must be close, they trusted me, and it feels really good.
As a therapist, I think this is funny all the fxxxxxx time. People will be like, man, it must be really hard to do your job. It's actually not. I feel really fulfilled and restored during my job because my brain goes, man, I am connected with another amazing person. What a genuinely lovely experience I'm having. Admittedly, there are hard days and sessions and stuff like that. But like, to ask people this is so not burdensome. There are some people who will perceive it as burdensome and that is because they are either at capacity, if you know, like I work 10 jobs and I'm just trying to keep my shit afloat, that's thing one. Thing number two.
is that person has their own anxiety and they're afraid they're gonna let you down. So the actual moves for approaching this is you do it via consent facing questions. So here's a couple of them can try. And you can do it with a teeny, I advise caution on this insofar as the disclaimer piece, but you can do a little disclaimer and say, hey, don't wanna bug you, but is it okay if I ask for a little of your time? Or, hey, feel free to say no, I was curious if I could do, if I could ask you for a little help with this or,
absolute favorite one is, is it okay if I share some stuff with you? And if not, we can circle back around Twitter. You can come talk to a lot of later or you don't have to answer. But what you're doing is you're getting explicit consent from the person because at this point the brain goes, well, I'm burdening them. And you go, yeah, but they told me I could. If I say, hey, man, can you help me move? And then it's moving day. And I'm like, are you coming over? And you're like, no, I'm like, what the fuck? Like we agreed. And the other thing is that person, and this is the really nice part psychologically, is they will shift.
into helping mode. So if you come to me and you're like, John, my neighbor's an asshole, I hate him, he's a piece of shit, blah, blah, blah, I'll be like, should I fight him? Like, I don't know what to do. But if you're like, dude, can I just vent about some stuff for you real quick? Like this is, I have been feeling the way to the world. I'm like, yeah, man, sure, what's going on? And I'll sit back into listening pose at a 45 degree angle to show you that I care. But like, in general, people who aren't trained to do that specific angle are actually still very good at this. But the knowing that it will make the relationship stronger,
knowing that it's coming from a place of a glitch and knowing that the other person will feel closer to you. Also the consent piece like it, A it works and B I want to quickly mention there's a practice element to this. Um, I went through a really hard time this summer and I was talking with a good friend of mine, uh, who you might know his name's Aaron and he and I were talking and I said, I don't want to burden you. And he said, you're not. And I remember my brain being like, yes, you are. And the thing is like, your brain will give you bad data on this.
Our job isn't to not have the bad data. It's to take a nice little sticky note and go, bad data, and just label it for what it is. Sometimes when I do this show with my two friends here, my brain will go like, I'm the bad one. I'm bothersome. I'm too late to the episode. They don't like me. Da da. And then I go, you're anxiety, you're shame. And if that sounds easy, will I do it? I'll be honest with you, it's become easy. Cause I've been practicing it for decades. Like it's a, it's a skill, right? And you'll hone it. So if you go to do this and your brain goes like, my God.
No, it still feels burdening. That's okay. It's kind of like the topic of our show today, right? Like, it's a skill you're learning over time. Those are most of my tips. If I have any other ones, I'll say them in the next one. Otherwise, once again, thank you for your question. I appreciate it. And I hand it back to Sam in case he has philosophical contributions.
Sam Kirk (1:03:49)
Yeah, absolutely. Thanks, John. I think it's all really good stuff. ⁓ I appreciate all of that framing of that and some of the tactical stuff of what you can do. know, human beings love helping others. Like, we just can't help it. So literally, using the involvement principle of like, hey, can I use your help on something? ⁓ Yes, we can often think it's a burden. And I'm here to tell you that that's a natural feeling. But there's also how our brains work. We love being asked for help, and we love serving. We love jumping to it. So just know that just from an intellectual fact, just how brains work.
But I offer a philosophical difference here. If you can frame your want to be empathetic and care for people as something you do selfishly because it creates for you joy, you have a better framework of which to say when you're doing that is taxing on you versus energizing you.
You can absolutely intellectually understand that what you are doing helps people. And you love that about being empathetic. I love being empathetic to people. But if I frame it that I'm only going to be empathetic because I love it, I get energized from it, I enjoy it, I'm getting just as much from this interaction as you might be getting from it. And the moment it's becoming a drain on me, the moment I'm not getting that same sense, that's when I'm more capable of recognizing.
putting a filter on that, putting a stop on that, whether it's pausing on your empathy, whether it's focusing on your own endeavors and so forth, and then literally not feeling bad and not feeling like you're burdening other people and saying,
look, I love being empathetic for folks, but right now I'm having a tough time. Do you have a minute? And because you're doing this all from this selfish place, even though you're doing something good, you selfishly also want to keep renewing that store. And so you're a little less shameful of asking for permission, asking for help, and getting people's benefit from it. So my philosophical place from this, which is hard to do, because a lot of people, when they consider themselves empathetic people, or empaths we might call them in some capacities, they try to do it
from a place of like white knighting or like I want to do the right thing, I would encourage you no, be selfish. You enjoy the act of doing it. You love doing the thing and when it's not as enjoyable as much, give yourself permission to say hey, I'm not enjoying this so much, what can I do to make a change about it?
John (1:05:55)
That's really well said. I do want to validate and add to that that like when the brain decides it likes something, it's just very different. I may have said this story before, it's very quick, ⁓ but there's a guy that I worked with once when I was working in a rehab and he did not like me at all. And I remember I went down to go see him for like a group thing. And one of my colleagues was like, are you going to go see so and so? And I was like, yeah. And they were like,
⁓ are you good with that? I was like, yeah, no, he's my absolute favorite. And that person did not pick up on the sarcasm at all. And they were like, ⁓ he's normally like a dick, but like, okay. And then I like laughed and I went down and I was just like, I was like happy from that. And we got along famously and like, it just kind of changed things because my brain was like, no, I like this. It's one of the things I think that's cool about the culture of like hard video game being popular in the last several years is teaching your brain to like adversity shows you that you like doing hard things and not another stoic bad-ass worry, but in a way of like, no, I like to overcome a thing. I like to sit with some challenge.
So, Sam is exactly right, turns out, on this one.
Sam Kirk (1:06:57)
Sometimes I am. But it's a great question, Robert. Thank you so much for your question. Appreciate you. If you want to ask more questions, Robert, you're always free to do so. We'll be happy to address them however you like. And that goes to all of our Patreon members, our paid Patreon members. You have the ability to submit questions to us on our Patreon. And you will always get priority. And we'll feature them on our episodes. So I can't wait to hear the rest of what we have going on for our future Patreon members. Thank you so much.
John (1:07:22)
One quick four second plug on that. That's kind of our vision, right? Is we have a lot of shit we wanna tell people, but this all works better if we are telling you things you wanna know. So this can be as yours as you want it to. And if you're a Patreon person, you deserve that, right? We wanna really make you feel heard. We wanna make you be the basis of what this is. So help us, help us do it. Thanks.
Sam Kirk (1:07:43)
Help us help you. ⁓ And we want to do that selfishly, right? We selfishly want to do it. So help us do it. Please, I'm asking for your help, genuinely.
Daniel (1:07:45)
Help us help you.
John (1:07:51)
Genuinely.
Thanks for watching the Zero Dot Podcast. We hope you learned something, had a good time, had fun, or I don't know, tolerated it sufficiently to give us a viewer count for the show that you're watching. In any case, we'll see you again next week. We make shows on Wednesday unless you're a really neat Patreon member, in which case they might come out on Monday.
Sam Kirk (1:08:10)
As you know, we are literally everywhere. We're on Apple, we're on Amazon, we're on Spotify, we're in your RSS feeds, we're on thezero.podcast.com, we're on YouTube. So you know where to find us, and we'll see you next week.