1031 | Your Old Car

In this episode of Behavior Gap radio, Carl shares a story about the complexities of social status and self-perception. He prompts listeners to explore their honest emotions in moments of perceived judgment and comparison.

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What is Behavior Gap Radio?

Greetings, Carl here.

This podcast is super simple, it's me wandering through the world noticing things about how to align my use of capital (time and money) with what is actually important to me.

-Carl

Carl: 00:00

Hi. It's Carl. I'd like to tell you a story. Imagine that you had an old car. Start it was starting to even be a little unreliable, but it was clearly old.

Carl: 00:21

A little rundown. And you were the one in charge of dropping your kids off at school and picking them up at school. And so you're in the line. You know the line. You know, you're parked in that line, and the line's 2 two two lanes wide.

Carl: 00:40

So there's cars next to you. There's cars in front of you, cars behind you, and they're all filled with other parents, and they're all in cars better than yours. Right? Like, you start to look around and you realize, like, man, we this car this car is really showing its age and, you know, you day after day. And let's make the story even better.

Carl: 01:04

I actually this is a story I heard from somebody recently. Imagine you've got a child in junior high. And so when your junior high child gets in the car, they they they're even aware of it. In fact, I've heard a version I've heard multiple people tell this kind of story over the last couple of years. It was about cars in junior high, and, you know, all the pressure of junior high, the status, and the feeling.

Carl: 01:30

And one one of the people that told me this story, their car would would not infrequently backfire when they went to start it again. So not only like, it caused attention. That's a that's a little bit dramatic, and it was a very dramatic story, and it had been dramatic for this child. So imagine that you you're the parent of that car. Right?

Carl: 01:54

Just sitting up for a second. Like, what do you feel? And don't worry, it's just you and me. Like nobody's judging you for the thoughts right now. You can actually be completely honest with yourself, even if, if it, if it makes you not like the answer that you're giving.

Carl: 02:14

Like, you could say, oh, man. I'm a little embarrassed. And as soon as you say that out loud, you're like, I oh, I'm not embarrassed. I'm not I've been who cares? Nobody cares about cars.

Carl: 02:25

And some of you, that will actually be true. Like, you literally don't care, and that's amazing. But there's also a huge population of us that, like, when we're honest about it, that's an uncomfortable feeling, and it's even more uncomfortable because we're uncomfortable about it. So there's, like, layers to this. Like, oh my gosh.

Carl: 02:43

I actually care about my status a little bit. K. So just just be on it's just you and me. Nobody else listens to this. It's just you and me.

Carl: 02:53

So what do you feel? Right? Sit there for just a second. You're dropping the kid off. It's junior high.

Carl: 03:02

Your kid gets in and they're like, god, dad, how can we drive this whole car? K. Now I wanna change the story. Now that you're clear about that, I wanna change the story. You pull up to the exact same school, the junior high.

Carl: 03:21

You're in the line. You're in the exact same car. Everything's the same except now, and this is a true story that was just shared with me. You're feeling bad about yourself. You're even feeling worse that you feel bad.

Carl: 03:35

Right? In fact, the person who shared it with me said, I'm gonna pull up the quote right now. If I'm honest, I kinda I kinda hate the fact that I feel bad about it as I'm sitting in this line. You look to your left, the lane to your left, there is a really beat up old car, Old truck. It's an old truck beat up.

Carl: 04:01

In fact, the door doesn't even open. The kid has to climb out through the back window into the truck bed and then jump out, And you're like, oh, man. That that truck's in way worse shape than my car, And then you see the door open, and it's Christian Bale driving the truck. This is a true story. Now what do you feel?

Carl: 04:33

How did it change? One thought, one experience. How did it change? Did it change for you? If so, how, how do you feel now?

Carl: 04:50

How do you feel now? That's it. That's all I wanted to talk about. Cheers.