The Dialog

Most of the voice in your head isn't on your side. The question is whether you keep listening to it or start talking back.

In my 20s I called my mom to complain about a client who critiqued a website they were paying me to build. She asked if I knew why I was so defensive. Then she answered for me: "Cuz you're insecure." She was right. The most defensive person is always the most insecure person.

In this episode, my co-host Nick Surface and I talk about negative self-talk, insecurity, self-awareness and the dark seasons that show up for no clear reason. We also get into why understanding a problem isn't the same as solving it, and why learning to lead yourself may be one of the most important skills you ever build.

How do you stop negative self-talk?
Erwin McManus says you're in your shadow whenever you're listening to yourself, and you're in the light whenever you're talking to yourself. Your default inner voice tends to run negative, so stop handing it the microphone. Cicero said philosophy teaches you to be a doctor to yourself.

Why are some people so defensive?
Defensiveness is usually protecting something. In my 20s any criticism or feedback cut me to the quick. The problem wasn't the feedback. It was insecurity.

Does finding the cause of a problem fix it?
Not by itself. Knowing the cause can help you avoid the problem in the future, and there's nothing wrong with therapy. But spend too much time fixated on why and you start looking for someone to blame. Nick pushes back on this one, so listen to both sides.

Why doesn't self-help work for everybody?
Saul's armor worked for Saul. It didn't work for David. The battles life hands you are uniquely yours, so you have to be the one who figures out the solutions.

Do you have to have an opinion about everything?
Marcus Aurelius said you always have the option of having no opinion. And having an opinion doesn't prove you know anything. The proof is the fruit of that opinion in your own life.

Scriptures
2 Corinthians 12:7-9 (Paul's thorn in the flesh) · 1 Samuel 17:38-39 (Saul's armor)

Thinkers and books
Marcus Aurelius, Meditations: you always have the option of having no opinion
Cicero: philosophy teaches you to be a doctor to yourself
Erwin McManus, The Seven Frequencies: every frequency has a shadow
Martin Seligman, Learned Optimism: discouragement feels permanent, pervasive and personal
Tony Robbins: "state change," the idea behind Nick's protocol for the mornings you wake up a one out of ten

Chapters
0:00 Cold open and show intro
0:52 Do you need an opinion about everything? (Marcus Aurelius)
2:23 Opinions vs. fruit
3:55 Insecurity in your 20s and cringing at your old self
6:01 "You're defensive because you're insecure"
7:40 Are your best days behind you?
9:54 Depressive seasons with no trigger
12:48 Philosophy as a doctor to yourself (Cicero, 2 Corinthians 12)
14:46 Self-awareness and Learned Optimism
16:51 Is it your responsibility to lead yourself?
18:50 Erwin McManus, the Seven Frequencies and your shadow
19:52 Saul's armor and the problem with self-help
21:23 Does finding the cause of your problem matter?
22:21 Listening to yourself vs. talking to yourself
24:13 What self-talk actually is
26:42 What you understand is not reality
28:00 Fix the problem, stop looking for blame

Previous: 1.36 / Are you saying what people need to hear?
Next: 1.38 / Whatever you blame controls you

New episodes most weeks.
Follow Nick on IG / https://www.instagram.com/nicksurface1/
Follow me on IG / https://www.instagram.com/joshuakcraft/
Go to my website / https://jkc.is

What is The Dialog?

Ancient philosophers used the dialog to find answers to life’s greatest questions. The Dialog is a search for truth in modern life through the lens of ancient philosophy, history, and theology. This podcast will challenge your assumptions, change your thinking and show you how to master modern living.

No matter what anybody tells you, words and ideas can change the world. I'm interested in one thing, the future, and believe me, I know the only way. To get there is together. What we've got here is failure. Milk Cake. You may think you know the tribute, but believe me, you don't what the truth. You can't handle the truth. For centuries, philosophers have used the dialogue to search for truth, because it's through conversation, through the logos, that we find it. This is the dialogue where ancient philosophy, history and theology meet modern life. Together we'll wrestle with big questions and give our answers to the way we live. Let's start the conversation. One of the things I've been really you know, your kids are younger than mine, but I've got thirteen, eleven and six, and one of the things that i've like, you have to parent them differently. I'm sure you're doing the same thing. I've been really interested about temperament and something I haven't. I'm going to study it more because there's for some people things are just harder, right, like they have more emotional swings. You know, I've got a teenager now, right like my daughter's thirteen. So she like, so I kind of go, Okay, what of this is hormones? And then I could I've known her whole life. I go back and I'm like, no, there's some threads that have been in here for a while that like maybe this is not hormonal. But anyways, I say all that to say, like I I some people just have opinions about everything, and like I also there's some things that I just I have no opinion about, I don't think about, I don't like, and I just I wonder about, like where where that comes from? You know? I think culture says right, like you're pretty much required to have an opinion about everything. Do you think it does? Yeah, you have to pick which side you're on. You have to pick who you're going to vote for if you don't vote. I mean, it's just this idea of like if you don't vote, you're a loser, right, right. Well, if you don't vote, you are a loser. That idea, Like the idea of that is like you need to pick aside and everything, like every everything in life you should have an opinion about. But like Marcus Aurelius and meditations, he said, you always have the option of having no opinion. Right, And I like that because I would rather not speak. Sometimes people will ask me and I'll be like, you know, I really don't have anything to add here. I think that's probably the wisest thing you can say sometimes. Yeah, I mean yeah, I think that. The there's a there's a difference between having an opinion and having fruit, right right, Yeah, So like this is what younger younger people don't understand. Like I think in my twenties, I didn't understand this. I had a lot of like thought processes and beliefs, and here's what I think, and here's how I think things should be, and here's how I think things should go. And then people think that because they have an opinion that they they are knowledgeable. Yeah, right, like. And and so the the proof of like your knowledge is the fruit of what that opinion is. Yeah, right, in your own life. But a lot of people, like we live in a world that's like everything like you think about you know, fifty years ago, you weren't people that were idiots weren't gonna get platformed, right right, Like, if you're stupid and you have a lot of stupid stuff to say, or you're like a troll, you know Internet trolls and all that. Like, now you can turn that into a career. It's church where your whole yeah, your whole deal is like I'm going to get in the comments and I'm going to mix it up with everybody and say a bunch of stupid stuff and that'll get a lot of attention. Well, fifty years ago, those people existed, but they just lived in like a town and everyone knew they were annoying and they got beat up a lot, right, Yeah, I mean they just go in a bar, right and say something dumb and get get smoked. So like that's so we live in a different world now where the more outrageous you are, the more people are going to engage with you. So everything's about like engagement versus whether or not something's actually smart. You know what's fun though? Man, for just because you said that thing when you were you talked about when you were younger, I'm finding now because I've been podcasting for a little while, like four and a half years, I've changed a lot. Right in four and a half years, You've got this because you've been preaching. For a while. When you can go back and like listen to yourself from years ago like that. But that's the good thing about what we're doing. I hate it though. I hate it though, because I'm like, man, I was so stupid. Why was I saying? Why was anyone allowing me to talk? I should not have been I should not have been allowed to talk. Yeah. But but fast forward five years, man, you might you might go back and listen episode one. Back, Man, I had know because, like, you know, this is the thing that's so exciting about like living life with God. You have no idea what what God's going to do, and the doors that are going to open. I just think that that's an exciting thing. Like I think, yeah, But I think the way I feel more about that is I'm just always embarrassed about the past. Oh why man, because it just it it reveals your immaturity, right yeah, so I go, oh my gosh, like, thank god, I'm not that person anymore. Right, Like I always feel like I've always felt like my twenty you know, so many people like my twenties are the best time. My twenties are the worst time in my life, right, And my twenties are the worst time in my life because of how I thought. I thought so poor in my twenties. Yeah, me too. That if I revisited that. It's not if I revisited that for any other purpose than learning a lesson, it would be just detrimental to my soul. What was so poor about it? Man? But my thinking? Yeah, oh man, I think. In my twenties, I was very insecure, just dealt with a lot of insecurity. Felt like I was never going to be good at anything. So any kind of criticism or feedback or constructive correction conversation was like to cut me to the quick, stab me in the heart. I quit. I want to walk away from everything, you know. So things that were supposed to help me didn't help me because of. How I thought. I walked around and I think a lot of it was rooted in like insecurity. But I walked around and. Would not take advantage of opportunities because I didn't feel like I had what it take. I would have like open doors and different things, and I'd just be like, no, I can't do that. I don't have what it takes. Even though the doors right there, the there's like a wide open opportunity, I just say no. I was a very defensive person, Like I remember one time I was talking to my mom about some feedback that someone had given me and on this creative work I was doing in my twenties. Right, I'm talking to my mom about this, Like I'm calling my mom and complaining about this person. You know, they hurt my feelings when they critiqued my work that they were paying me to do. Right, I have a client, and when you work with clients, you just do. You need to do what they need you to do. In my twenties, treating client work like it's my art, Like, how dare this person besmirch my fingerprints? You were Kanye, but you were hired. Yeah I was Kanye, but I was, you know, making two thousand dollars building the website for somebody, Like take it easy that Picasso slightly exactly. So I'm having this conversation with my mom. She's like asking me how it was going, and I'm just giving her all the stuff, and I'm so defensive about this feedback that this person had given me that again is paying me to do this work, you know, and I just need to shut up and get the work done so I can get the money. Yea. And she says, she says, you know, you know why you're so defensive? And I go, why she goes? Because you're insecure, dude. That's why we call them went straight to the she goes. The most defensive person is always the most insecure person. So anyway, all that was so prevalent in my thinking throughout my twenties that it's not that I didn't grow, it's not that I didn't develop. I just made it really hard because of how I thought. Right, So I've had harder things happen in my life since my twenties, but nothing has been Nothing is harder, right, Nothing is more difficult than really having bad. I think a lot of people can relate to that, though. Man like being insecure. I mean I remember when I was in my late twenties and like you'd be talking to those old wise heads, you know, people in their thirties, and they would be like, man, since I've turned thirty, it's so great. I don't care if people think about me anymore. And I remember, like listening to this, I was like, that actually sounds pretty great. Like I would love to because I've I was not like a super insecure person, like where I'd walk around be like, oh, no one likes me, but I was also like, ye know yourself, you're conscious of what people are thinking about you, and like I walk into a room now, I literally that thought never enters my mind. Yeah. For me, it's been more like being around people. I would always hear people in their thirties when I was in my twenties, I'd always hear people in their thirties talk about how how much the twenties was like the best time in their life, their glory days, and what. Were they doing? Were these like sinful people? Though? I don't know? I mean so I made some of my best friend in college. I hated the college I went to. I didn't really make any friends there. I have one friend right now from college and the only reason why they're still my friend is because they've pursued me because I was like, I just hate this so much. Yeah, right, And. Again all that's back to my thinking. It's not about the place. Shout out to Oral Roberts University. Yeah, shout out to RU. I'm so sorry. I'm a really bad alumni. And it's it's gotten so much better since I went there. When I went there, it was not great. It's different. Oh yeah, man, I mean they thought they were going to shut the school down my sophomore year. Oh wow, yeah, because all the controversy with Richard Roberts and everything, and people can google that, But that was when I was That was like my sophomore year, we just are. My freshman year is like broken stuff in the dorms, all this deferred maintenance. We're in it. We don't know if the school is going to stay open. So it's a totally different school. Now you work for Facebook when it was a startup, yeah, and then left. Yeah. So so I look back at that and now I hear I still hear people our h you talk about their twenties like, oh me, yeah, when I was in college, and they have all these fun stories like all my all my stories from school are all the all the things I hated, all the ways I thought that were poor. Yeah, you know, I just never wanted to be that person that talks about like their best days are behind them. No, because like I think there's. An advantage to every single decade that you're in. You know, like like I look at it because like where do you think your insecurity came from? Do you think it was just part of your age or life? It was just a battle that I fight. I think, like you're saying about your kids. I mean I think I was talking to Courtney about this this week. I have these really, you know, I don't mind sharing this. It's like I have in my life, my whole life, right, I'll have and there's not a cause. There's not like something that's oh, this is like a trigger. Yeah, And I'm sure someone could diagnose me and say, oh, no, I know what your trigger is, but I don't. I don't feel like I have a trigger here. Like my whole life, since I was a little kid, I would have I'll have random depressive episodes in my life, huh, not like uh not like depression depression. I mean maybe it is, but I'll have I'll have times where I have like a week or a couple of days where I'm just like everything sucks and life is awful and it doesn't matter how good life is, and it's not really caused by anything. So it's not like I can sit here and say, oh, this happened and that led me here, right, I just have this internal Like my biggest battle in my life has always been internal. Do you have like a playbook to get you out of that? Now? I'm kind of like we're talking about self awareness, which is a really underrated skill. No, I was telling Courtney that this is this week because she thought that we had this whole conversation. She thought I was mad at her. She thought I was upset at her, and I'm just like, I'm just I reached this point. It's not good. It's just like the darkest kind of moments in my life where I'm just like done with everything. Right, I know what to do. I know what to do. Did I get dig dig out of this hole? But I think I'll just dig the whole deeper. He just I mean it's really yeah, I mean it's really like you know, I know, I know, and as a as an adult with responsibilities with kids, yeah, and with a spouse and all that, Like you really shouldn't be this way. Well it's your response. Yeah, you got a responsibility. I have a lot of responsibilities. So me being that way when I was a teenager, or meybe in that way in my twenties, or me being that way even in my early thirties is one thing. Me having to deal with that now. Creates significant friction in all my relationships. Right, So so I get to this place where I just go, you know, nothing's going to work out, nothing's working, Like my life is useless and the stuff that I'm doing is meaningless and none of it matters, and everybody not everybody's mad at me, but I don't. I just don't add value to anybody. And then no matter what people say to me, when I'm in that state, I'm like, it doesn't it doesn't work. It doesn't. So I have this So there's like this need. So the way I'll say it, because it's like a little bit hard to explain, honestly, we all have a need for affirmation. I have a need for affirmation. I get to this place where I'm really down on myself, really negative about myself. People around me affirm me. I'm in a season like that, I reject all the affirmation to the point where they don't want to talk to me anymore because I'm such an idiot, right right, I'm not being mean, but I'm being completely disconnected. From reality, right. And there's no way anyone can help me until I pull myself out of that. So what snaps you out of it? Man? I just have to sit there and have a bunch of conversations with myself, like that's that's to me personally. It's one of the reasons why philosophy has really become so important to me. Is like Cicero said, philosop if he teaches you to be a doctor to yourself, because I've had good Like Paul talked about stuff like his thorn in the flesh, right, he has God to remove it, and God said, my powers made perfect in your weakness. I don't sit here and say, oh, yeah, that's my thorn in the flesh. But I can look back at my life and it's like, independent of season. It's not like, oh I was in a I was just in a really bad situation, or this this horrible thing happened to me that sent me back to like PTSD, or I had some kind of medical issue, or I have some kind of like you know, you get older and people start talking about your hormones, Like, it's not like I have these deficiencies somewhere. Yeah, I mean, it's not like I have a deficiency somewhere that says, oh, yeah, this makes sense, why you have that that dynamic? Right, So I just have this this It's really just a dynamic that happens in my life that is may you know, maybe it's part of my personality. Maybe maybe they're like, I don't know, man, like maybe there is some kind of trauma that's in my past that I just don't remember. I have no idea, right, regardless of that, there's a battle after fight. Yeah, you know what I'm saying. Yeah. So so for me, going and learning a lot about philosophy has given me tools to be able to really have a conversation with myself because I'm just saying, when I'm in that state, no one can say anything to me, right, no one can talk to me, no one can uh, there's nothing anyone can do to help me not be that way. Like when I was a kid, sometimes we'd go on vacation. I'd be on vacation with my family as a teenager, and I would just like enter this state and I would stay in I would turn all the lights off, I would stay in whatever room I was in the whole week and I just wouldn't leave. And my no one, my parents couldn't help me. My you know, just sitting there, sitting there honestly just being pitiful about life and pitiful about everything, and they just leave me in the room. Huh, what do you So let me ask you a question, man, because like I think this is where we're talking about self awareness, and like I said, I think self awareness is super underrated skill because I remember, you know, our first I remember the first time you and I had a longer conversation. Man. I still remember we were at like a. It was the Financial Leader's breakfast and I was at the back doing something I can't even remember, and I ended up You ended up stood by me, and so we had this whole conversation while everything was going on in front, when they still set the tables up in the actual Like the. First time y'all and us went to dinner, we were at dinner for like three hours. Oh dude. Yeah, we've always we've always gotten along. But I just remember, I remember I resonated with you because obviously I was depressed for a while. And not a great way to say, I remember. I mean you've talked about that before. Yeah, no, I'm saying, but it's usually you don't go like we resonated because I was. We were both really sad. Yeah, we're just being miserable together viserally love Josh, oh yeah, company, But no, I just because I recognized the thoughts. And I think it's really interesting because like we both share a very close friend and Garrett, right, and Garrett's like, you know, he's had one depressive thing that was linked to COVID ever, and I remember he called me, and I mean it was like it was like it was like, what is this? Like it was so foreign to because it was just he's never felt that. I think a lot of people they battled discouragement. Right, It's like it's a common thing. And when you when you've been depressed, you know what it is to wake up and have like no motivation for anything, right, And that that really is what it is. Like every day is the same, Like its permanent, pervasive and personal. That's what doctor Martin P. Seelig says in his book Learned Optimism, and he's it's a very good book. And you know, and that's really it's like this, you know, this is what always happens to me. This is how life is. And like you feel powerless and that's a. Really I mean I would say I don't feel like for me, I don't feel powerless. I don't want to have any power, right, Like I'm just like I'm I'm genuinely like in my in this in the state that I'm in, I'm like, f this nothing matters. I'm not freaking, I'm not doing one productive thing and screw everything. So it just took all the energy out of here. I could not care less about anything. How this affects anybody, Like you know, I prefer that people feel like I hate them right now, like just it's not it's not great. Right, So so okay, so this is the question I want to get to because for me, like I'll just say how I found it, because I think this is useful for people, because I think I think the real thing, everybody's going to have something different in their temperament, and I believe that it's a good and godly thing that you learn how to lead yourself, right, Like that's your responsibility. Self discipline is your responsibility, right and so as you so as you get more skill at this. For me, what I found was I found the root of it was my thinking, right, and it was it was some very poor beliefs. So like I've worked very intentionally to get out of those things. And I had like a proto call that I would use to what Tony Robbins would call a state change of like man, I feel like because I would wake up some days and it was like I felt like a zero, like I would I exactly what she said, no motivation to do anything. And so I started looking at things, Okay, what am I doing biologically? And then also it's like, well, it's not an option. I've still got to provide for a family, my family of five. I got to do it. So like I had to find ways, and I got very practical at like what I called my highway to happiness. So I found different things that would switch my state, Like I would look at pictures, things that I could control, not like, hey, wouldn't be great if I could get a Starbucks because what if I'm on a plane and I can't get a Starbucks or something stupid like that. So it's like certain songs replaying certain memories in my life, looking at old photos, like things that just like stirred up that joy within me. And I got really good at doing that. Now I will tell you I can't even remember the last time I've had to do that. But I got to a stage where I was like I'd do that regularly. And then it was like I didn't have to do it as much, and then it got to a point where it would happen maybe once or twice a year where I would wake up and be like, oh, I'm like a one out of ten today. But I had this protocol and I felt like that was a really good skill to develop because I got really good at leading myself. What do you think is like from a biblical standpoint and from a philosophical standpoint, is kind of like the responsibility of a person as far as that aspect of self leadership, because maybe not everybody deals with the like I don't know if i'd call that depressive episodes or what how you referred to it, but like everyone's gonna have something right, like you don't. Most people don't wake up go ten out of ten every day, right, So what do you think the responsibility is? Well, I think, man, I think it's you know, learning how to think right, you know, for me at least, you know, the best way I can describe it as Irwin son mannis has the seven frequencies test, And you know, people should take that test because one of the things that shows you it's like your frequencies of communication. But one of the things that shows you is what your shadows are. So what like the negative aspects of your of your of your frequency is and the way you communicate. And so my my number one frequency is maven and the shadow of a maven is a nihilist man, right, So a nihilist nihilism is nothing's ever going to be good, nothing's ever gonna work, nothing matters. So I that's my shadow. So where where where that comes from is from me, right I. The way I feel about that is that, like we're talking about, there's these unique battles everybody has to fight. There their battles to fight, and you can Darius Daniels just came and spoke at our men's conference, and I think he did a great job of talking about David's armor. And one of the things he said about David's armor was it worked for Saulve, but it didn't work for David. So you know, you can get tools and re sources from other people, but their resources and tools work for them, they don't work for you. I mean fundamentally, that to me is the problem with self help. The problem with self help is you can read a book and it says do all this and you'll be happy. Well, that's that one person's prescription that worked for them, right. And I feel like the problems that we have in life, the personal problems that we have a lot of times, are more like cancer. And what I mean by more like cancer is that one of the things that's really hard to treat about cancer biologically is everybody's body. Is completely different. So if you get cancer, it's your unique form of cancer, even if it's a common cancer, right, it's like your body chemistry and everything. They have to tailor cancer treatment directly to your body because of your own individual cancer selves. So yeah, so what works for one person's cancer is not going to work for another person's cancer. It's not like a disease you can. Just cure because everybody, everybody's body expresses cancer completely differently based on who they are. So to me, that's a little bit of a of a of a correlation, so to speak, of the battles that we fight in life that I've got to be the one who figures out the solutions to whatever the problems are that life uniquely presents to me. So one of those problems for me is I have this shadow of becoming a nihilist, and for whatever reason, I think a lot of people spend too much time. And I think there's nothing wrong with therapy, and there's it's important. There's nothing wrong with having conversations with people and trying to figure out why you have the problems that you have. But really that doesn't matter. Like I think, I think the cause of the problem does not matter, because if you find the cause, you still don't You still don't have the solution. Oh. Sometimes finding the cause helps, though, don't you. Think it can help you understand how to avoid the problem in the future. But like if a building falls over and everybody dies, finding out why the building fell over doesn't make everybody come back to life. Yeah, death is rep but like your depressive states is reparable. Yeah, but a lot of that is not for me in my own life. A lot of like I'm saying, I can't trace it back to a certain trigger, and most people probably can't trace their problems back because some things are just problems that you have, right, It's just your unique human dynamic, and so you have to learn how to get out of that. Right. So one of the things Irwin says in the Seven Frequency Stuff, which I think is such a great thought. Is you're in your shadow whenever you're talking to yourself, or you're in your shadow whenever you're listening to yourself. You're in the light whenever you're talking to yourself. So what a lot of people will do with the worst parts of themselves is they'll give that worst part of. Themselves a voice. Yeah, and that's not just about being depressed or being sad. It's also about being prideful and being arrogant because you can give the worst part of yourself a voice and think that and have this super inflated sense of self importance and think that you're never going to do a thing wrong. Like people who live life and have no accountability. The way that they live is they're like, no, I'm above accountability, Like I'm above my life is above reproach. This is what I have to say to myself. Well, the problem is you're that's not true for any human being, Like you're always gonna. Have Yeah, but don't don't you think that. I just think it's so wild, Like that statement you're that you're in the dark when you're listening to yourself, and you're in the light when you're speaking to yourself, man, Like what a what a crazy thing to make sense of that we have these different like voices, you know what I mean? Like I think that that's I think it's so fascinating that we have because everybody knows that, you know, it's so interesting. Man. So my six year old will say things to me like, man, I just had this this like this thing, this voice just came and told me that I should like and it's like it'll be bad things. Sometimes it's like I can't I have to do it. I'm like, no, you don't. And it's so weird to It's so interesting me that at six he feels the pull of like I can't remember how he taught he describes it, but like it's clearly like you know, angel on one shoulder, devil on the other, and the way that he describes it at six, I'm actually really fascinating because my girls didn't do that. Yeah, but he's very. In tune with like, oh but this this voice just tells me to do this stuff. And I'm like, dude, like you can control where you focus on, like and at six, man. Well, like self talk, you know, they say all this stuff about self talk, like self talk happens at eight hundred to fourteen hundred words per minute, right, And the reason why that is because self talk is not language. It's not it's like spoken words we talk. We talk at one hundred, two hundred and fifty words a minute. Yeah. The reason why self talk this happens so fast is because it's not language. It's it's uh, it's this internal form of communication. That's an interesting one, isn't it. Do you do you not ever like have thoughts in your head about like I guess I need to pay more attention to my own thoughts. I was talking to somebody that I was one of my clients and she was she's younger, and I was kind of tasks with mentoring her a bit. So I was trying to talk. You know, I don't ever just go like, Okay, here's the job. I'm always going to the person, right. So I was talking to her about this. I was like, don't you ever like aren't you thinking things of drunations? Like I literally never think words internally, And I like, I was kind of fascinated by that. Do you not have that? Well, like a lot of people say, like I've heard I've heard people talk about how they don't they don't have not not that they don't have an inner voice, but they don't have like an inner narrative. They don't have like the they don't have the ability to I've heard people say things like, well, I don't have the ability to have like like an imagination, Like if you tell them to imagine a pink elephant, they can't geez. And I don't understand. I don't understand the brain on that level. But the way the way you talk to yourself is not really talk right right, And the problem with that is a psychologists say that seventy five percent of self talk is negative. So your self talk, your your normal default state, your normal default conversation with yourself is negative. That's not good, and you're so. So the language of self is like meaning so like you'll experience something and then you'll say to yourself, not through words, but you'll say to yourself, here's what this means, or like when you get offended. When a person gets offended about something, it's a it's a form of self talk that you've you've told yourself you've experienced this, there's a story that's happening, there's something, there's a there's events that are taking place, and you now have all of this, all of these feelings and all this stuff that's connected to this one event that no one maybe even said anything. Doing right but people, but people aren't aware of what that is going on. When they think that it's it's just. So you know, we and we I think we've talked about this on like other podcasts, But what you understand is not the same as reality, right, Like like you you're life and what you say. I said this on a recent podcast, but like what you say is always at the mercy of a person's level of understanding. Your life is always at the mercy of your level of understanding. That's why thinking is so important. And even like even for me with my kids, exposing them to a lot of different environments and putting them in situations that expand their mindset and expand their view of the world help them have better self talk because it gives you language and the ability to understand things at like a higher level, at a broader level. You know, they say that about kids with like reading. You know that when you get your kids. So what's hard for a lot of people is they don't have the vocabulary to describe their inner narrative. So there's all these feelings and there's all this depth, they don't have the vocabulary the ability to describe it, so then they feel stuck, you know. So the the way you change that is you increase your vocabulary. And I'm not just saying that in a in a sense of like hey, go read a bunch of books, or have your kids read a bunch of books. It's being you know, yeah, it's like you're saying, it's being self aware, but it's also being able to describe it to yourself. And then for me, I go, okay, well why is this happening? And if I can't find a why, I don't really hang out on why a lot anyway, because my goal is to fix the problem, not just identify. So like it's one thing to identify the root cause of the issue, it's some of the things solve the problem. So sometimes the cause is that you can you know, if you have relationships with people who are negative about you, and you think negatively about yourself and you surround yourself with people who you know are not uplifting and encouraging, Okay, we'll solve the problem, right right, But what people tend to do that. Focus too much on why this is happening is they're trying to find something to blame and figuring out blame doesn't really fix, like my dad did this or this person did this to me, and this is why I am the way that I am. No, you're the way that you are because you've decided to be that way, right. I don't think blame is ever the answer. And if you spend too much time fixated on why you blame, thank you for listening to the dialogue. Make sure to like, share and subscribe, and also if you think someone else would enjoy this, please send it to them. If you want to get in touch or learn more about me what I think, speak and write, you can go to Joshuacraft dot com or you can also follow Nick and I on Instagram. Our handles are in the show notes. We'll see you next time.