Learning To Listen [The Zero Dot Podcast #25]

They grab it.

They give it to you.

The clerk might not even say anything and just tap the sign saying, here's the price of
it.

you steam your card or you do your cash or you do whatever and then you say okay cheers
mate and you walk off that was as far as we're concerned probably the most transactional

conversation you could have had you went in you went to get a thing you got the thing you
paid the services for the thing maybe you got the receipt you walked off he said cheers

mate see you later but here's the thing in that very transactional conversation there were
two components there's the tactical part of the component which is

Going to the shop to get the thing to you spend the money to get the things so can now
have the thing But then there's the what I might call the emotional or human element and

whether we recognize it or not There was one right

I'll never forget when I left healthcare, pharmaceutical specifically, I was asking myself
the question, why am I here?

And the only answer was the money and the insurance and the healthcare safety.

Cause I asked everyone else, like, why are you here?

And none of them had an answer beyond the money, the insurance and paying for my kids'
college.

I don't have kids.

that as much as I...

I empathize, I couldn't relate to that.

um There's a certain point when you make enough money that it's like, okay, what does more
money give you?

I don't know what that does.

If you make enough to live a comfortable life in the way that you want to, extra money is
just like...

I've never seen the appeal of uh infinite growth more, more, more, more, Because what does
it get you really?

If you can afford to live, like I said, comfortably and in a happy way, then...

more money you don't need it at that point like donate to charities or help other people
out or do something like that i always said that if i played the if i if i played the

lottery and i won the lottery in some alternate universe i wouldn't go out and buy a
massive mansion or anything like that i don't need it i don't need that many rooms in a

house that'd stress me out if anything

That stressed me right out.

I'd just buy like a cute little cottage or like something, just a little house that had
what I needed.

And then I'd spend the extra money on, like I said, either donating to charity, I'd set up
an animal sanctuary.

Just stuff like that, that I feel matters.

Like I don't want to, seven yachts and a...

than three lambos in the garage or anything like that.

But people who are wired that way, such as myself, aren't the ones who will ever have that
money because we're not wired in a way to pursue it and get it.

So I'm not wired in a way where I in good conscience take advantage or anything like that.

uh

get ahead and be ruthless and get to the point where I had that much money.

So it's all well and good me saying like, if I had all this money, I would do such and
such.

I'm likely never gonna see it because I'm not wired in a way that benefits me on a road to
getting it.

So.

I would have said the same to myself, but what I found happened was when someone likes you
and they have a position of power, they start giving you the money.

And I'm like,

Yeah.

Yeah.

I make no qualms about it.

Like, yeah, did I work hard for it?

Sure.

But I didn't earn it.

I was awarded it.

Someone liked me.

They gave me the money.

That was it.

And then I'm like, what am I doing with this?

Yeah, it's as with a lot of things in life, it's who you know.

It's a lot to do with who you know.

You can never work a day in your life.

As long as you know the right people, you'll be fine.

That is sadly true.

uh I've often said, and I believe this to my core, the richest your brain can be, meaning
the richest your brain can understand wealth is if you go to a restaurant and you're not

looking at the pricing of things anymore.

That's as wealthy as your brain can get.

As in, if you get wealthier than that, your brain can't reconcile it.

I remember exactly going to a restaurant and like,

looking at the menu and going, okay, I gotta really just make sure like it's this much
amount of money.

Okay, whatever.

And then there's a point in time when you get to a certain place, you're not looking at
that anymore.

And like, this is amazing.

And then after that, like, what's the point?

What's the point?

You can walk in and just order what you want and know without a doubt that you can pay for
it.

m Beyond that, can't fathom having a billion of anything, let alone money.

can't fathom having a billion of A billion as a number is...

What is a billion?

Is it a million million?

It is no, okay.

It is a thousand million.

A thousand million.

Yeah.

A thousand...

million and a thousand of those is one billion.

Which is, and on that same note, I'm not sure I can imagine having a million, to be
perfectly honest.

eh

reason I can kind of understand a million today is because a dollar for us, US dollars,
doesn't mean anything anymore.

Five dollars almost doesn't mean anything anymore.

Like inflation just sucks.

it's, it's more, I'm more able to visualize a million nowadays, um, with the price of
housing and all sorts, all sorts of stuff, but a billion, I just, at that point, you you

see old statistics come out of just like, insert extremely wealthy person here.

You're, you know, you're

Bezos, Zuckerberg, um could pay for the energy bills or pay for to end hunger and
homelessness in insert massive area of land here.

um And they would still only be down like 2 % of their wealth or something like that.

it's...

that every single day that I read something like that is just insane.

It's like they could end hunger for an entire state of the US.

Flat out, they could just make it happen with that much money.

And they would still have like 20 something billion dollars left for themselves.

And yet they don't.

Um, no, I'm not going to get into it.

I don't worry, but I'm not going to get into it.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Crazy.

not a big fan of the billionaire's club.

I'm not a big fan of that only because we know what it takes to be a billionaire.

It's a combination of luck as well as being predatory in a lot of cases, almost all cases
actually.

You don't make a billion dollars off of that.

But at the expensive, let me be just a smidge fair, I have spoken to a few that are in
that very close, not quite billionaire, but very close to that.

And they've told me logistically, like, I hear the arguments, like, yes, I'd love to spend
the money.

And here's the thing, Sam, they tell me in private, I want to, but then I asked the
question, how do I do it?

And no one can answer it for me.

I literally go down the path of how do I give this entity this amount of money?

I want them to have it so it can do whatever.

And there's all these blockades and all these systems in the way that actually won't get
to them.

And I'm like, what the hell?

So it's also a system failure.

Yeah.

is that's, and that's what I wasn't going to get into is the system surrounding that money
are built in such a way that doesn't allow for it.

em And a lot of the system, it's A, what you just said where the systems are restricting
people's ability to do good with that money.

And B, a lot of the systems surrounding that much wealth are built,

to

I'm trying to say here, they're built in a way that profits off those people staying that
wealthy.

They're not built in a way that benefits them giving away that money.

em Anyway, nice cheery conversation about billionaires to start us off.

uh We haven't even said hello to everyone.

We're just straight in, straight into it.

Well, we were warming up, warming up, getting the energy back, right?

Getting that sunlight from Daniel's window and my artificial light in my window.

Very artificial.

The sun has graced us here in the United Kingdom.

It's a rare occurrence.

It's beautiful.

Pouring through the window onto my face is just, ah it's so lovely.

It's...

um

off the green behind you and creating this blueish hue on your skin.

Daniel, you probably know this better than me because I'm not an artist like you are.

Maybe 10 years ago we decided that blueish looks cheap and we always go for the
orange-ish, brown-ish, dark-ish look.

That amber glow look for some reason, which is just either a Photoshop filter or you bake
your lighting a certain way.

What happened?

Why did we decide that?

I don't know.

um I feel like the colors that I'm exuding today are very much...

They're very like Y2K coded.

They're very blade.

They're very...

Yeah, they're very matrix-y.

They're very blade.

They're very that kind of error.

Unintentionally.

Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, boys and girls, everyone of all ages, welcome to the
Zero Dot Podcast.

This is where we go when our resources are down, but we realize we are our strongest.

I'm Sam.

This is Daniel.

Hello there.

And John is, well, he's taking a little bit of a vacation, but he'll be back.

I promise you, we're saving his seat nice and warm for him.

uh He's out there.

I hope he's checking out those palm trees, those nice, gorgeous, lovely palm trees.

Why do we associate vacation with palm trees?

I know it's tropical and everything else, but we just always assume that.

Like, if you're on vacation, there's palm trees nearby, a pool, a beach.

I think that's it.

It's just they're synonymous with beaches and sun and tropical regions and stuff.

I think just subconsciously we see a palm tree and we're just like, nice, nice and holiday
coded.

It's because, know, obviously if you live somewhere like where I live in the United
Kingdom, uh we...

don't have very extreme weather in any way.

Like our weather is extremely, it's extremely not extreme.

So we just, we don't have any crazy weather phenomena like tornadoes or tsunamis or
hurricanes.

We don't get crazy snow.

We don't get crazy hot.

summers, anything like that.

Everything's just kind of like weather-wise, we are so mid.

We are so, and not in a derogatory way that mid is used nowadays, but like we are just
kind of sort of a bit of everything in tiny doses.

Like we get snow and it's a little bit of snow.

uh We get rain and it's just kind of like standard rain.

It's not crazy floods or anything like that.

And

we get sun, but it's just a decent temperature apart from like the week or two in the
height of summer that hits us every year now and every infrastructure fails us and because

of the humidity here, the summers are unbearable sometimes for like a week or two at a
time.

But other than that, so if you live, my point being, if you live somewhere like I do, you
very much associate

nice tropical beaches and palm trees and stuff like that with places you would typically
go on holiday.

em So that to me as a UK resident is like, I see a palm tree, think vacation, think
holiday, I think going somewhere tropical, somewhere that is guaranteed nice and sunny and

there's like clear waters and beaches and stuff like that.

em Yeah.

When I was over on your neck in your neck of the woods, one of the things I really
appreciated is that it was raining.

Eight of the 10 days we were there, which was fine.

I'm a pluvio file.

love the rain, but the world didn't stop because it was raining.

People were just still out and about going about doing things where I come from.

You can see a sizable difference between when it's raining and overcast versus maybe a
little sunny.

And then the moment there's any rain, it's like people just avoid going out.

Like, Nope, we're not going out.

We're just, you got.

You go to a restaurant and it's pouring out.

No one's in the restaurant.

No one's there because they've decided we're not going out.

It's too heinous.

That's crazy to me as yeah, cause as you said, eight out of 10 days it was raining.

It's always raining here pretty much.

It's just so, you expect to look outside your window and see it's either raining or it's
about to rain.

It's overcast so often here.

In fact, I am going to look that up right now.

How often it's overcast in here, cause I know the number is insane.

How often is it overcast in the UK?

Let's have a look.

79 % of the time it is overcast in the UK.

Yes.

it gives us, we are all vitamin D deficient here.

I had a vitamin D deficiency and I was like, what have I been doing wrong, doctor?

And he said, you live here because everybody has a vitamin D deficiency unless you are
like...

construction worker and you are out there every single day even in the minimal sunshine
that we get.

em But yeah, if the country stopped every time it rained, air country would not exist.

wouldn't have anything.

We just got to kind of get on with it.

However, that is the case when it snows.

I see other countries who are built for snow.

em

You know, I see people uh in Canada and stuff and they'll like chain their tires and they
shovel their driveways and all this kind of stuff and they're prepped, they're ready and

all of their country's infrastructure is built around, you know, it snows, it snows quite
a lot so we need to be able to deal with it.

Same way, like it rains a ton here so it's what we're to, it's what we're built for.

So as soon as it snows, we are done.

Like there's a tiny little bit of snow.

Canadian would look out and just be like, you kidding me?

Are you kidding me?

Whereas we see like an inch or two of snow outside and we're just like, call it off.

I'm not going into work.

The schools are closed.

Everything's done.

Like if I try and drive in this, it's a, that's it.

I may as well, I as well put myself in the ground now.

It's just, it's done.

And same goes for like those heat waves that I mentioned.

Where the, cause it,

We don't have AC in so many of our buildings.

Like we don't have AC at home.

We don't have AC in offices really, unless it's a really, really lovely office and stuff
like that.

em And it can get genuinely unbearable.

Like I said, because of the humidity, it's not a dry heat.

It's a very, very heavy, dense, wet heat.

oh And without...

AC and without the infrastructure to deal with it.

It's why you hear so many people in the UK.

I know that we're famous for complaining about the weather, no matter what it is.

We're either complaining that it's still raining all the time and then we finally get a
bit of sun and we're just like, it's too hot.

I can't deal with this.

This is ridiculous.

we're famous for never being pleased with the weather.

No matter what the weather is, we've got an issue with it.

But if...

if you've been here in the UK during that brief little one to two week window where it
gets up into the, you know, 30, 40 degrees Celsius for anyone listening and watching, em

which I don't know how to convert off the top of my head.

That's 104 Fahrenheit, if it's 40 degrees Celsius.

Yes.

So when we have the heat waves and it hits that, a lot of places would be like, that's
kind of, it's hot, but it's manageable.

Not here.

Not here.

You will be sweating your body weight out every hour.

eh It's yeah.

In the desert where we are, like I'm thinking Phoenix, Arizona, places like that, they
boomed in the seventies because air conditioning became a thing.

And so then it's like a known thing.

Like when it's hot, they have like, let me try to do the conversion for you.

So you said 40 degrees Fahrenheit.

It's 104 hour time.

So 47, 48 degrees Celsius for you.

That's a regular thing in the summer for three months out of the time all day.

And it's a dry heat, which is a dangerous kind of heat, because it's the kind of heat that
your body doesn't understand is heat and you can actually like die of heatstroke.

So like it's a known thing.

You don't go outside.

You just go from your car to the store, from your car to the place.

You stay at home.

Like you don't go places.

It's very much you are in your vehicle 99 % of the time.

dangerous in a different way.

Like that dry heat can be dangerous and the very wet heat that we have here can be
dangerous as well.

It's, you know.

we don't regularly get to the 40 degrees Celsius.

It's like maybe just a little bit under that, but it can get, we call it three t-shirt
days.

You got to get your, you to cycle, you sweat through it.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Well, thank you as a Brit, giving me the opportunity to talk about the Cause as it's built
into me to be one of my favorite topics.

Yeah.

I appreciate it.

that I mean if we don't talk about the weather especially across our lovely pond then I
mean What else is there to talk about as you know all conversations start with hey, how

are you doing?

How's the weather in your side of town?

Talk about the weather for a bit.

yeah, the weather here is this way and then Yeah, and any kind of sports and then talk
about sports for a little bit and then we're done with the conversation that's 99 % of

just nothing conversations

small talk.

I always just have the scene and it's always Sonny replaying in my head.

it's, boy sure is a hot one huh?

And he's just...

When they move to the suburbs.

That's all that he ever says.

Yeah, that's it's funny because it's

Yeah.

But hey, in regards to that and weather and the world, I think it's probably a good time
for us to talk about a little bit of good news that's been happening.

We've hinted at this before, but I kind of want to cement the fact that we've had some
good news coming our way.

And Daniel, I know you'll be really excited about this.

We've talked briefly about it, but I want to say just one more time, as we've been
recording here on positive.news.com, positive.news slash society.

Why society?

I don't know.

Gavin Haynes writes,

that there's been some good news here in the global pact for migratory birds.

We've talked about this before, but I want to reiterate again, manta rays, jaguars, not
just birds, and migratory birds are among the species set to gain from greater protections

under a new global agreement aimed at halting biodiversity loss.

Gavin writes, a pivotal moment for nature, nations agreed this week on new measures to
reduce bycatch, expanded...

protections for some threatened species and crucially strengthen cross-border wildlife
connectivity on land and sea.

The agreement was struck at the COP15 migratory species conference in Brazil where more
than 130 governments signed off on the stronger protections.

That's awesome!

Birdlife International described the pact as a major breakthrough for migratory birds
while the World Wildlife Fund WWF, not the WWF, but this WWF, said it was a vital step for

both people and nature.

Quote, agreements on blue corridors for turtles and flyways for birds will aid species
recovery while conserving the ecosystems essential to sustaining local communities said

WWFs.

I'm going to mispronounce this very horribly and I apologize.

um

Just say every possible permutation of that name and one of them will be correct.

of them, Coloman, Colomane, Coloma, Colomane.

I'm literally gonna put this into the chat and Daniel, you tell me how you would pronounce
this name.

God, okay.

Let's have a little go.

That is a lot of accents over a lot of letters.

eh No, just that man.

His name, I'm sure, will be in the description of this podcast.

And that can be a challenge for people to try and pronounce that.

em

You know what?

Let me see if I can find a way, because I want to do this person right.

He looks like a nice man.

How do you pronounce this name?

I want to do it right.

How to pronounce at least the first name.

Oh, this man, has a diploma in classical music, loves reading and creative writing, and is
working towards mounting his first exhibition of paintings next year.

Oh, he's a real guy.

okay.

He's a real, real life guy.

An actual guy.

This name does not have any accents on it and I'm going to pronounce it the way that it
would look like to me as a silly American.

want you to know, uh policy manager of wildlife at WWF, if I mispronounce your name and
you happen to be listening to my podcast, I am so sorry.

Please let me know how I should pronounce it.

I want to get it right.

But it says here, Coleman Creodane.

So I will pronounce it that way.

Coleman Creodane.

If that is not how you pronounce your name, let me know.

I'd love to get it right.

Wonderful.

just, I love anything to do with anything that's a win for nature.

It's just a win for everyone.

I love it.

I helping animals and anything that helps them.

Anything that helps either reverse damage that humans have done or prevent damage that
humans could do to the natural world.

FAN-tastic.

There is a theory out there, and I'm just going to call it a theory, and I'm being very
gentle when I use the word theory because I would call it something else, but there is a

theory out there that, based on certain literature, that men, and by men I mean all man,
although maybe arguably only men of the male gender, have dominion over all creatures on

the planet, and that as a result, men are allowed to do whatever they want.

I do not prescribe by that theory.

In fact, I might even argue.

You can tell how well we are doing as a species, that's homeo sapiens, based on how well
we treat all the other creatures that are on this planet.

Yeah.

So, we, I really do, we have dominion over all of the natural world.

Said who?

Us?

That's some real we investigated ourselves and found nothing shit.

Like that's some weird self-appointed role that we've given ourselves.

I feel like we have a, an obligation to protect and preserve and help bolster the natural
world around us.

uh In terms of having dominion over it.

uh We as a species are inventors.

We are creating, we have the ability to create, we have the ability to manage incredibly
complex things.

And if we can use that to help the natural world, yes, in terms of doing whatever we want
with it, that will shoot us in the foot very, very quickly and has done many times in the

past.

Strangely enough, and just, but also,

juxtaposed to that very, very serious note.

When you were talking about migratory animals and all that kind of things and crossing
borders and all that kind of stuff, I I saw a news story the other day that was about, and

I can't remember all the details about it, but I think it was a cat, like just a domestic
cat that was regularly having to be...

like checked up on because he was illegally crossing the border between two places.

Like his little patrol route that cats go on, like they've got their territory that they
claim.

And this domestic cat was like crossing this human-made border into, and so he was
technically like breaking the law, but it's a cat.

Like you can't arrest the cat.

and they were racking their brains trying to think of like, technically this is illegal
and like, does it fall on the owner of the cat or does it or you know, what if it was a

stray cat?

I can't remember the details, but it just, it reminded me of that and it made me laugh.

This ungovernable domestic cats just willy-nilly crossing the borders with their care and
everyone freaking out about it.

Just like, what do we do?

What do we do?

I'll tell you what you do.

nothing.

You let the cat wander around because it's not doing anything.

It's not doing any harm.

It's just it doesn't know about a border.

It doesn't care about a border.

Yeah.

I feel like Daniel, you, we've already talked about this, but you're the type of person
that when you see a spider in the home, you gently take it outside, you put it maybe in a

cup or something, and you do that, right?

Okay, I do that 99 times out of 100.

I can't remember the last time I had to kill a spider, I didn't want to, but like, it does
make me, it makes me wince a little bit when someone says, oh yeah, if you're in my home,

I'll kill you.

If you're an ant, I'll kill you.

Come on, man, just bring it outside.

Spiders are good.

They're good for us.

They help everybody out.

The more spiders there are, they catch all the bugs that we don't want.

They're our buddies.

Just let them have the time.

case, I say to those people, if you walk into a forest and a bear kills you.

then the bear could be thinking, get out of my house, this is my house.

If you're in my house, I'm gonna kill you.

If you go for a swim and a shark kills you, you're in its house, it can kill you.

It's exactly the same thing.

em They don't have the capacity for introspection and all that kind of thing, so like we
do.

Yeah.

Well again, just to bring the facts into order, you said about, know, I brought up the
theory again, theory about dominion over all life on earth.

It actually comes from the King James Bible, and I'm not religious, but I mean, this is
literally what the text says from Genesis 1.26, and God said, let us make man in our image

after our likeness and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the fowl of
the air, and over the cattle.

over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.

So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him, male, female
created he him, them, whatever.

And this last part, and God blessed them and God said unto them, be fruitful and multiply.

And he says, replenish the earth, so replenish it, but then he also says, and subdue it
and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the fowl of the air and over every

living thing that moveth upon the earth.

That's the quote.

And I think there's a lot of different ways you can interpret it, but many people choose
to interpret that men can rule over all and we can do whatever we want.

challenge anyone to go and try and explain that to a tiger.

Yeah, right.

sit down in front of a tiger and try and just flex your muscles with your book and just be
like, this book says that I have dominion over you.

And I just want you to see what happens.

Just want you to see how that works out for you.

Yeah, that reminds me one of our patreon members will Kirk uh He taught me a valuable
lesson a long time ago called the BFB rule the big fucking boat rule If you're on a boat

and there's a boat bigger than you you make way for the big fucking boat It doesn't matter
what the rules of the sea tell you you make way for the big fucking boat It's the same way

when driving if there's a big truck nearby.

You're not gonna go.

Hey in my little

You know, nothing against hybrid cars.

My little tiny hybrid two-seater, hey, either right or the way, I'm gonna smack into you.

No, you would die.

Like, size and space and predators and all that stuff, like, as Daniel points out, yeah,
go ahead and just bring that Bible to the tiger and see if the tiger agrees.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I like that.

BFB.

Big fucking boat.

big fucking boat.

Okay, yeah, you might have the right of way, but that's the bigger boat.

So, get away.

Anywho, so that's good news.

One more piece of good news that we haven't talked about before that I think is worth
mentioning that went right this week, again coming from Positive.News, ah is that joint

custody has finally been permitted in Japan.

That's right.

Divorced couples in Japan can now seek joint custody of their children following a
long-awaited revision to the country's civil code.

Until this week, Japan had been an outlier among G7 nations because it only allowed one
parent to have custody of their kids.

That person, usually the mother,

had the power to cut off the other parent's access to their own children.

Under the new law, parents will be able to negotiate for joint custody in family courts,
while those who divorced before the revision will be able to apply and have their

arrangement reviewed.

Critics of the old system have long argued that it further eroded relations between
divorced parents, often causing children psychological harm.

A reported one in three Japanese children with divorced parents eventually lose contact.

with the non-custodial parent.

So not everyone welcomes this change, this writer says.

However, according to local media, survivors of domestic abuse fear it will be exploited
by abusers, even though the courts are not permitted to grant joint custody when abuse is

cited as a factor in a divorce.

So it's a little bit of a tricky situation, but still, I mean, overall, if you are in an
unfortunate situation where you have divorce and both of you can have joint custody and

it's amicable, that's great that that's an option now.

I think that's generally good news.

Overall a positive in my mind.

overall, right?

it gives a lot of benefits to the people who simply just had a relationship end and, you
know, still want to see their child.

on man, that's not only is a massive thing for the parent that might not be able to,
whoever didn't have custody before this rule came in, but also the children as well.

It's hard enough, hard enough being the child of divorced parents, let alone having to
lose contact with one of them.

When really that

person might not have done anything wrong.

And you still want them in your life and they still should be part of your life.

Brilliant.

Well done, Japan.

And as I always say, like better late than never.

That kind of took me back a little bit.

was just like, that's not already a thing.

And like you said, a bit of an outlier.

But it's happening now.

Yeah, absolutely.

And we can sit around and just be like, well, why wasn't it done sooner?

I'm sure there's plenty to talk about with that, but I'm just glad that it's happening
now.

Absolutely.

Absolutely.

And you know, let's call out, mean, I, hopefully this isn't a controversial take, but ah
nothing is worse than when you're in a relationship and you feel the pressure of staying

together for the kids.

And if there's an option where you can, you know what, where this is not, this is not
working out on on a, on a us basis, but let's still take care of the child.

Let's have shared custody.

Let's make sure we're both responsible for that, for that child.

I think that's a win.

That's a win.

absolutely a win.

Huge win.

Big win.

Well done, Japan.

Good stuff.

Yes.

Good stuff.

Lovely.

Well, with that, it brings me no joy to talk about some of the things that we should
probably be mindful of, just to kind of keep ourselves apprised of the things that are

going on.

uh We won't talk about this too much, but if you're listening to this during the times
that are now, and unless something drastically changes from the time we record this to the

time Daniel edits this episode, I don't think this is going to change, but the United
States is in war with Iran right

However, I'm not interested in belaboring that point, but I'd rather talk about is how
this might affect you on the ground level.

And what's happening, what we're seeing right now as Business Insider reports, reported by
Lauren Edmonds, Taylor Rains, and Chubanji Joel, and this headline is, airlines are

canceling flights as they face jet fuel shortages and rising prices brought on by the Iran
War.

Now, reminder to you folks, a couple of weeks ago, I talked about my foibles with travel.

And if you remember one of the details of my foibles,

I was on the tarmac for a long time and then turns out the airplane had too much fuel and
they had to defuel themselves and I didn't understand why but now maybe perhaps I'm

understanding a little bit and that is that fuel is so pricey, so costly that literally
the airplanes on top of taking care of their equilibrium when they're in the air I'm

assuming that's a factor I don't know if you are an airplane pilot please let us know in
the comments I'd love to hear about it uh I'm assuming also just literally walking away

with a little bit extra fuel than

that's supposed to go to another plane is that costly, that pricey, and it's affecting all
kinds of things.

The Business Insider reports that jet fuel costs and supplies across the globe are under
pressure from the US and the Israeli war on Iran.

Some major airlines are canceling flights in response.

So they're canceling flights not because of weather, not because of staff shortages, but
literally they just can't afford it.

The fuel is too expensive.

uh And that is a crazy thing for any person that's traveling in the seas of the sky, as we
might call them.

the sky ocean um to be reconciling with.

So I say this to you all as a warning to say hey if you've got travel plans coming up,
I've got travel plans coming up.

Be prepared.

See if you can have a backup plan or a plan B of some kind.

Check into your airport early.

Check in to see recent cancellations.

I hope your flight doesn't get cancelled.

But again apparently as it says jet fuel prices as a result of this war that's going on
have reached 195 dollars per barrel by the end of March when

used to be around $100 a barrel or less.

So it's over a 200 % increase for the airlines and they are having to make the very
difficult, we'll call it economic decision of canceling certain flights if the fuel is

that expensive in that regard.

So be mindful, be kind.

They're saying they're seeing a lot of it happen in travel that's from let's say the
Western world to Asia.

So be mindful of that.

I hope your flight doesn't get canceled, but again, be prepared and try to give yourself a
plan B wherever possible.

Daniel's like, yep, that sucks.

Yeah, it's not much else to say but apart from just that sucks.

Yeah, I am not a frequent traveller.

So personally it's and again, I've said this, it's not because it's not for lack of
wanting to be.

I'd love to travel everywhere if I could.

But for me personally, travel has always been the

especially travel to other countries and stuff.

It's always been a luxury thing.

And so even before any of this was happening, it was too expensive for me.

It was prohibitive due to the price.

Now, it's like out of the question.

Like I am not going to be traveling for a long time until this figures itself out.

And even then I will most likely go back to only traveling once a blue moon.

Sure.

I can.

So yeah, it's not.

It's not necessarily impacted me individually, but I know how big of a deal this is for
the world outside of myself, who travel on a regular basis, whether that's for work or for

pleasure.

Yeah, not good.

You bring up a good point.

You travel is prohibitively expensive.

I'm able to travel because my work pays for it.

Um, but yeah, it is pretty expensive.

And like certain airports where I'm at that used to be major hubs are now dying.

Like Cleveland airport used to be a major hub.

And to give you context, Daniel, let's say it's a nine hour drive from where I live to
Cleveland airport.

So if the nine hour drive, I'd rather just fly there.

That flight's going to cost me a thousand dollars.

Meanwhile, if I go to Chicago airport, which is like a 20 hour drive, obviously I'm flying
there.

That flight's 200 bucks.

I can't make sense of it.

can't, I mean, it's a hub situation.

a, it's a, it's just, it sucks all around.

So for those that are traveling, be mindful, be kind, be prepared, have a backup plan of
any kind.

Um, and I'm with you, Daniel.

hope someday, I hope someday travel becomes cheaper because there was a time when, you
know what, for a

50 bucks I can go down the coast and go to Miami or for 300 bucks I can cross the pond and
come see you.

And now it's 2,000 some odd dollars depending on the season that I'm going in.

And that's just expensive, it's crazy.

And then that's before you even factor in the things over here with leaving the EU.

And that really hit us hard in terms of the ease of travel between European countries for
UK residents.

It doubled or tripled, it?

Like just like train rides and such, right?

It's...

I...

Yeah, I'm not going to delve into that today, but suffice to say, it was not a good choice
turns out.

em If only we could have known beforehand.

If only.

if we're stronger together when we don't fight each other.

crazy, right?

That perhaps working together and being part of a union would be positive and would
benefit all of those involved rather than striking it on your own and trying to be all

proud and independent.

Yeah, I'm sure you can see my views starting to surface on this situation.

Yeah.

yeah.

know, even taking away out of that particular context, I've been seeing the past five or
six years everywhere I go, there's less receptivity to the idea of partnering with people

when they don't 100 % agree with you.

There is now this element that I'm seeing come through.

It's as well, if you and I are not aligned on every single issue, I'm cutting you off.

And that is dangerous.

It is...

We're seeing it happen in real time, how it's on a geopolitical and elsewhere level, like
how that's cementing in all different kinds of ways.

It used to be like, hey, you know, I'm partnering with my carpenter because I need a car,
I need a plumber for the day.

My plumber has totally crazy views that I don't believe in, but he's a nice guy and he's
me a good rate.

And like, I'm going to work with him and get my plumbing fixed up.

And that wasn't a problem.

And now there's this element of like, no, if you, if you, if I know what your views are,
if, if you don't a hundred percent.

Aligned with my bubble that I have for myself, I'm cutting you all out.

And that is dangerous.

It really, really is.

I think.

I mean, differing views and diversity of views is incredibly important.

If, don't get me wrong, if someone's views are so heinous and terrible that, you know,
that you feel the need to cut them out completely, I get it.

If it's at that point where they are so...

demonstrably dangerous and terrible of a view set, then okay.

But if you agree on a handful of things, but disagree on a handful of other things, don't
throw out the goods.

What's the saying?

Don't throw out the baby with the bathwater or something like that.

Those things that you don't agree on have a conversation about it.

Try your best to understand the other person and their point of views and how they came to
have these views.

And not only will you then learn something more about them, you'll learn a lot about
yourself as well.

It's not just, you can't go through life cherry picking just the only things that matter
are the things that are 100 % perfectly aligned with me because that's how you get trapped

in an echo chamber.

And that's not productive.

in any way, no matter where you fall on any kind of political or otherwise spectrum, it is
not productive and it's not healthy.

And that's what I've got to say about that.

Talk to people.

yeah, talk to people.

It reminds me of our episode on photography a couple weeks ago.

The phrase that one person said, delete the bad, keep the good.

And how that could be incredibly problematic.

Yeah, very, very relevant to that episode.

If you haven't heard it, go back and give it a listen or a watch.

Your choice, your choice.

We come at you in many forms.

Absolutely.

Come check us out.

Because we're all human beings, we're all evolving all the time.

Last I checked.

In fact, if we stayed stagnant all our lives, that'd be really boring for all of us.

Yeah, it's super, super boring.

We're all figuring it out as we go.

No one has a plan.

No one has like the plan to life.

Like we're all just tackling it a day at a time.

You never know what's gonna happen.

you know, give people the space to learn and to grow.

You're doing it too.

are.

Last I checked.

Even if you don't think you are, your brain is doing it.

Just it's always doing it.

It's always cooking.

Always.

Well with that said Daniel, I think there's just one more piece of news I gotta give and
it is certainly bad news, but it's bad news for a specific type of person and I and we at

Zero Dot, we are team human and we want to give all our heart to everyone, even these
types of people that are going through a real hard time.

uh

The uh WCCF Tech reported, Muhammad Zahir reported this headline, Chinese memory vendors
are claiming to be doomed, tossing aside stockpiled DDR modules as dropping prices cause

panic.

That is right, is a blip.

RAM prices might be dropping a little bit, making it more economical for people, but our
poor, poor memory hoarders who have thousands of stockpiled RAM chips, they might be

losing money on their investment.

Hmm.

Hmm

take is they took a bet that something would make them money.

And it didn't.

That is, if you are investing in something, that's kind of, that's kind of the whole deal,
right?

It might not go well.

Like you are essentially just betting on it going a certain way.

And if you see the signs.

well enough that it's going to go badly, then you pull out.

Or if you predict that it's going to get better, then you put more money in.

It's just...

Regardless of the ways that people have found to game the system, that's what they were
getting themselves into.

And so I'm not sure personally, I feel like super, super sorry for them because they
knew...

I mean, I don't...

I know like, yes, I'm Team Human and I want everyone to succeed, like that's, it's kind of
on them.

Daniel's caught on to my facetiousness.

Oh no.

The quote, apparently this is an automated translation, is, brothers, memory prices have
taken a massive dive.

We're stuck with it, stuck with it.

We're doomed, we're screwed.

Is there any chance for the price to go back up?

End quote.

For one person's recording of them looking at all their RAM chips and going, what do I do
with this?

Yeah, it's...

But you're right, Daniel, know, every business, ours included, every business has inherent
risk to it, and that's part of it.

And when you are taking on inherent risk, you just have to suffer the consequences, good
and bad.

And as you said, it's a bet.

Okay, someone made a bet on RAM pricing, keep going up and up and up and up.

And I don't know where it's gonna go.

You don't know, I don't know, none of us know.

As of this reporting, as of April 2nd, a couple days ago, pricing is going down just a
smidge.

And as a result of that, that's making all these hoarders and stockpilers and resellers
very sad, very scared.

Yep, that is just the nature of what they got themselves into, quite frankly.

em It's like I said, I want everyone to succeed as long as it is not in a way that is
harming others.

I want everyone else to succeed, but...

That's on you, Ram hoarders.

eh Sorry, I've got nothing else to say on that.

So if you're one of those people, um we are sorry, not sorry.

If you're not one of those people and you've been waiting for ram pricing to go down, hey,
that's a little bit of extra good news.

It might be going down.

Do I know how much?

I have no idea, but it might be.

So stay tuned.

You never know.

What I can say as someone who's been on this planet for about 40 odd years, um everything
that goes up must come down.

Everything that goes down must come up.

Every equilibrium reaches its equilibrium at some point.

So if you wait long enough, if you have the time to wait long enough, you might be
surprised by the results.

I can say that for certain.

and there is no such thing as infinite growth.

Doesn't exist.

Crazy.

know.

Despite how much people may want it to exist and dedicate their entire lives on trying to
make it exist, it doesn't.

It's not a thing.

So.

that's everywhere.

I think I Daniel you said infinite growth.

There's no such thing I'm thinking about something I read and someone hopefully someone
can call me out on this in the comments Please do because even if you even if it's bad

engagement, it's all good engagement, baby ah There was an article I read that was citing
Olympic swimmers and how they are breaking records almost every year now But it's not

because they're getting any faster

It's because now regulations allow them to wear certain swimsuits that allow them to go
faster.

Right?

Like the human body and physics and water has an actual limit.

have, reach a certain kind of limit.

You can't go any faster than that.

And so now we're using technology that's allowed in these races to let them break those
records and make it sound exciting and fun.

Um, because infinite growth doesn't exist.

Last I checked.

Yeah.

Well.

Hello, it is me.

I'm interrupting your listening slash viewing experience to say thank you to our Patreon
members because they help us to do what we like to do here.

So in no particular order, we have Robert Restant, David Rivera, William Kirk, JP, Aid,
and God of Grunts.

As always, folks, thank you so much for paying us a little bit of money every single month
to help us keep going.

helps us to do what we do.

We really, really appreciate it.

Back to the episode.

So with that, I think it's about time we dive into our main topic for the day.

And Daniel, one of the things I like to do is check myself and say, you know what, what
are the things that if I was a younger person going into my life after uni, after college,

after school, what are the things I wish I had known that I know now that I could spread
along to other people?

And in fact, I even asked the same question to one of our lovely listeners, my own lovely
wife.

who is right now a director of HR operations for a small mid-sized company.

I asked her, hey, when you were starting off your career, your job, what is it that you
wish you knew?

And Daniel, you've literally ripped the words from her mouth.

She phrased it differently.

You said, nobody has a plan.

She says, what I wish I knew when I started off is nobody knows what the hell they're
doing.

And when you start, you think, everyone knows what they're doing.

I don't know what I'm doing because I'm starting off.

I'm brand new in the role, into the job, into the world, et cetera.

But everyone else has this confidence, has this air of certainty.

They must know what they're doing.

And she realizes over and over again, no, no one, not a single person knows exactly what
they're doing.

And you said the words, Daniel, nobody has a plan.

Now, Daniel, I love this sentiment, but I'm going to tweak it a little bit because I think
there's something else here I want to talk about, which is, yes, it's true.

About 99.9 % of us have no idea what the hell is going on.

And we're all making it up as we go.

That's life.

That's beautiful.

Okay.

But there's that like .01 % of people that actually know what's going on.

And the reason we know they have a stronger grasp of the world around us than everyone
else does is that they're the ones that listen.

There's the ones that pay attention to what people have to say.

They listen to every person.

And so I would argue, while my wife says nobody knows what the hell they're doing and I
agree to that to an extent, and you say nobody has a plan and I agree with that 100%, I

would say nobody's listening anymore.

Nobody is listening and I want to talk today about how we as a species, as human beings,
team human, can listen just a little bit better than we did yesterday.

And it's a very simple idea.

But let me pause there because Daniel, you had like five thoughts on your head.

I could tell they were like percolating as I was saying all.

Sorry, I wasn't listening.

What was happening?

Do get it?

Do you get the hilarious joke that I have sprung upon you?

No.

I...

He's the smart one.

Smart one.

No, definitely not.

But eh an opportunist when it comes to stupid jokes.

Yes.

So that's, I just wanted to get my silly joke in.

That's it sounds like a fascinating subject and I am genuinely going to pay attention.

I'm very interested.

However, I couldn't resist.

So.

the way to do it.

In fact, that's the litmus test if Daniel can't subsist through this piece of topic
That'll mean we have failed the podcast is over.

We are done We've just completely failed on a particular on this particular facet But
today I want to talk about what we as human beings can do to recognize the components of

what I call communication slash conversation And to try to make this as tactical as I
possibly can let's go through a scenario Daniel in your neck of the woods.

Do you have 7-elevens where you are?

No, we don't have 7-elevens.

So a 7-eleven as far as I'm aware from consuming a lot of social content from America and
from Japan and all that kind of place, they're like a convenience store, They're a little

open, all hours kind of convenience shop.

A 7-eleven, I suppose,

We've got multiple, like for the most part in the UK, not a lot of them are under a big
brand like 7-Eleven.

A lot of them are like, yeah, a lot of them are like what you'd call, I don't know, am I
writing thinking like a bodega that's kind of like independently owned and just kind of

like a little place that, yeah, like we have a lot of places like that that is owned by
like.

local family and it's just like their convenience store that they own.

And other than that, like branded big chain ones, we have little like tiny versions of the
bigger supermarkets like Sainsbury's, Morrison's, m Tesco, stuff like that.

You'll often find like little small versions of that.

There's a store here called Nysa.

spelled N-I-S-A, there are a lot of people here called the Nisa.

It's technically nicer, but my entire life I've called it a Nisa.

m Cause I was never, I never heard the word.

I just read the sign and said, says Nisa.

m But they, Nisa are one that do a lot of like little convenience stores and there's a lot
of little co-ops as well.

The cooperative.

They've got a lot of little stores.

Anyway, after my fantastic, fascinating talk and history on small shops in the UK.

Yes, that's kind of what we have here.

We don't have 7-elevens as far as I'm aware.

They might.

international branch that you have like a few trace ones, right?

Maybe something.

Sure.

in London somewhere or because London has everything.

kind of bodega, sometime convenience store, and is it reasonable to assume, Daniel, if
people were to buy a nicotine product or cigarettes, they have to do it, they have to ask

for them, or can they just grab it off the shelf?

How does that work in your world?

Yes.

know you need to go to the counter and request that product.

They are often locked behind cases.

And now the law has been in place for a handful of years where em they all need generic
packaging and they all need to be covered by like a door or something like that that you

can't see into so that kids don't walk in, see it and whatever.

You have to ask for what you want for.

It comes in a generic packet with the health warnings on and stuff like that.

And someone has to like slide a cabinet door and access it from there.

Which in my opinion should be the same rule for vapes, but isn't as we speak, the same
rule.

Vapes, they are.

m

Alcohol, uh depending on the shop.

like what you see a lot of is in small shops, that'll have alcohol out on the shelves or
in the fridges and stuff like that for anyone to go and pick up.

But then they're more expensive bottles of stuff, like bottles of whiskey and all that
kind of stuff.

They'll be behind the counter so that it's not as easy for people to just pick one up and
run off with it.

Right.

Okay.

Yeah.

but supermarkets, stuff like that, they're security tagged and stuff like that, but their
shelves are just stocked up.

You don't have to go to a special counter or anything like that to pick any alcohol up.

Yeah, okay.

All right.

Good.

So let me try to adapt this analogy then and make sure it quack we asked this to both
parties.

So whether you're going to a 7-Eleven or whether you're going to a bodega or a smallest
shop and you're looking to pack up a pack of smokes.

Now I'm not a smoker.

I don't think Daniel's a smoker, but let's just assume you're trying to pick up a pack of
smokes.

So you walk into the shop, you go in real quick and let's say the shop is empty.

The clerk is behind the desk.

It's a quiet part of the hour, quiet part of the day.

You walk up, you make eye contact to the person.

person at the clerk might be on their phone, they might be looking at something else, they
might be drifting off into space, who knows, but you finally get their attention and say,

yeah, pack smokes.

And in the United States, someone might say Marlboro lights or Benson and hedges
unfiltered, you know, just they give their brand.

And the guy's like, okay, and maybe if you looked young, they'd ID you, but let's just
assume you don't look young.

And they're like, okay, cool.

You're probably of age.

That's fine.

um

They grab it.

They give it to you.

The clerk might not even say anything and just tap the sign saying, here's the price of
it.

you steam your card or you do your cash or you do whatever and then you say okay cheers
mate and you walk off that was as far as we're concerned probably the most transactional

conversation you could have had you went in you went to get a thing you got the thing you
paid the services for the thing maybe you got the receipt you walked off he said cheers

mate see you later but here's the thing in that very transactional conversation there were
two components there's the tactical part of the component which is

Going to the shop to get the thing to you spend the money to get the things so can now
have the thing But then there's the what I might call the emotional or human element and

whether we recognize it or not There was one right

so first of all you step into the shop, and I don't care if you're a proud smoker or not
There's a little bit of shame probably that you have to go to the shop and get get a

cigarette You know they're expensive.

You know you're thinking us.

There's kind of like an element of like I'm kind of embarrassed that I have to do it you
make eye contact with the person and That eye contact signifies that I'm not a threat, and

you're not a threat.

Don't worry.

I'm not gonna

By the way, Daniel, this is a US story, but like, it's common for these places to get
robbed and have be pointed at gunpoint.

em I don't know how it is in the UK, whether they use knives or not, but like there's a,
there's an element of fear.

Like I'm a human and you're a human and I'm just here to get my smokes and I'm, and I'm
out of here.

Right.

we tend to hold people at crumpet point.

So just a stale hardened crumpet that has been sharpened into a stabbing implement and we
hold that to them.

No, I got you.

I got you.

Yeah, no, we do.

There's the same with anywhere.

gun laws are obviously massively restrictive compared to the US, but people still own guns
here.

Like there's still, there's still people with guns.

People still have avenues of obtaining them.

Um, but anyway, I don't, I don't get to the methodology of robbing stores.

like hearing it,

Hey, did you know that we have longer extended versions of our podcast available for our
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Um, but yeah.

there's a, you make eye contact and there's that first element of like, I'm not a threat.

You're not a threat.

I just want what I want and I'll get out of your hair.

The person, the clerk might say something, might not say something.

They might do a head nod.

They're just making sure you you're topped it down.

You you're not really a threat.

You're trying to give off the air that look, I just want to be on my business and get on
my way.

You might even be looking off in the distance.

You're kind of embarrassed that you're getting cigarettes.

You grab the cigarettes, you flash the card, you come out, and then the last gesture you
make is, cheers mate.

You don't have to do that.

You could just walk off and say literally nothing, but that last element of like, I
appreciate you, I see you, thanks for making this transaction as smooth as it possibly

could be, you've walked off.

That is still a balance of human and tactical elements in the conversation.

And what I want to talk to all of our listeners today and viewers, and Daniel, he's
listening too.

is that balance of tactical and emotional.

You might, if you want to use a different word, practical and personal.

Every conversation we've ever had in our entire lives has a balance of those two things.

And what often happens at a certain point in our lives is we make this decision as adults
to say, okay, I recognize that every conversation has a balance of these things, but I'm

just going to ignore the human side and go right for the tactical every single time.

Cause that's easier, that's faster, that keeps things quote unquote objective, and
emotions and humanness is too sticky.

It's too...

I don't want to get too complicated in the thing.

And what I'm here to say is you can't remove yourself of the human side of these
conversations.

Even the example I just gave has an element of that humanness to it.

All you're doing by ignoring it is removing one piece of your toolkit, which is how to
navigate these conversations.

So when my wife was saying, when I started my job, no one knew what the hell they were
doing, even when they said they did.

And when Daniel says nobody has a plan, I agree with that.

But what I would also say is the reason why that comes across so strongly is we're not
listening anymore.

We're focusing on the tactical.

How do I get what I want?

How do I achieve that?

And how do I give off the air that I know what I'm doing so I can cut you off from having
any kind of emotional capacity whatsoever?

Because when we do that, well, A, I might have power over you, but secondly, um I'm making
sure that your emotions stay with you and I don't have to interface with them anymore.

That's the big problem here.

I know many, many smart people who made a decision in their life that, know what, I know I
typically am kind of a tactical driven person, but honestly, emotions are really hard for

me to navigate.

So I just try to keep things in the facts and I keep things objective and then that's safe
for everyone.

And I'm here to say that that's not exactly safe for everyone.

What you're doing is you're basically saying the person has to hold onto their feelings,
you hold onto yours, and it makes people have to jump through hoops to communicate with

you and for you.

And so when I say there's that one person,

that kind of knows what they're doing.

Well, they don't know any more than you and I do, Daniel, but they have the...

there's an element of like they're willing to listen to you, they're willing to have a
conversation with you, and they navigate that personal and that practical element of their

conversations.

And every single person on this planet interfaces in this way, whether you know it or not.

And every single person on this planet has human needs throughout our conversations, you
know?

when Daniel comes up to the shop and he wants a pack of cigarettes.

First of all, I'm like, Daniel, what the hell are doing?

Don't smoke.

But let's pretend I won't shame him for that.

He wants a pack of cigarettes.

Daniel wants, there's a feeling of maybe there's shame, maybe there's I need it, I'm
addicted, I need this thing.

And there's just an element of I want to see humanity in someone else.

Give me some slightly little bit of affirmation so I can walk out with this exchange and
not feel as bad as I would have otherwise.

Because we're seeing this before Daniel, you know, I live in a world where

Grocery shops a lot of them they're replacing all their tellers with kiosks and you just
scan the code and you put the thing and whatever Yeah, I get my stuff done, but I can tell

you that when I have an exchange with the clerk or the grocer I always feel a little bit
better after that con after that conversation even if it was incredibly transactional and

what I want people to do when they walk away from the zero dot podcast is realize that you
have so much power that you don't know and one of the basic Fundamental pillars is when

you speak to people understanding that balance of tactical and human

is massive and I want to give people the tools to navigate the human element without being
so afraid because it is scary like, oh, Daniel's having an emotional reaction.

What do I do?

Let me just pet him on the head.

There there buddy.

I'm just gonna, does that feel better?

And Daniel's like, no, of course not.

I'm not a fucking dog.

And he's, oh geez, I don't know what I could have done.

I know what I could have done.

And then we scramble and then we get shamed and we just cower into our corners because

something that Daniel knows about and I know about is we live in the age of the internet
and the internet is really good at a lot of things.

It is really bad at facilitating human emotions.

You have to work twice, maybe three times as hard to facilitate those human emotions than
you would otherwise.

So with that said, I wanna give us a couple of tools and Daniel can listen in on it.

It's okay, he's allowed, that's fine.

I wanna give us some tools.

He is listening, he intently.

Give us a couple of tools to facilitate human emotions while having your conversations.

And I promise you, it does not take extra time.

I promise you it doesn't.

It doesn't make every conversation, you know, longer than it has to be.

It's just being sensitive to the fact that every conversation, whether it's a conversation
with your clerk, conversation with your mom, conversation with a friend who lost a loved

one, any of them gives you the ability to navigate the space in a way that takes up less
time, but is more effective because

What we like to say, what I like to say, Daniel, is if you neglect the human emotions out
of our conversations, here in Philadelphia, where I'm living, it's very common for us to

just not mow our lawns for a long time and the lawn gets really big and massive and grows
and we tell people, go around the back, just go around the back, never come through the

front door and come around the back.

That's effectively what you're doing when you are telling someone to hold on their
emotions.

keeping the grass keeps growing, you're not addressing it and you're telling them to go
around the back and come your way versus meeting them in the middle where they might be.

And the first element I want to talk about, there's about five or so, the first element I
want to talk about is something we've already talked about before with our lovely friend

John, is empathy.

Good old empathy.

You got to give people empathy.

But Daniel, I know what you're thinking.

Empathy is that thing you do when things are hard, when someone's going through a hard
time.

I'm here to tell you empathy is actually something that's pretty unconscious.

Empathy is just seeing the human in the other person.

But if you really want to, if you want to make sure you kill empathy and like you knock it
out of the park, it's simply as it's as easy as this.

It's recognizing what someone is feeling, pausing and listening.

And that's it.

It's nothing else.

It's not me understanding what Daniel is might be listening or hearing or feeling.

It's acknowledging his reaction that he's having about something pausing and then
listening.

So Daniel gave me some really good news a couple weeks ago and I'm just really excited for
him.

And Daniel was really excited.

I said, my gosh.

You look really excited about this.

That must be really exciting.

It must be a weight off your plate or a weight off your chest Pause listen.

I don't say anything else and I let Daniel say what he wants to say I'm not going to take
over the conversation.

I'm not going to tell him what Daniel should be feeling in this capacity I'm saying and
that sounds really exciting for you pause and listen The most important part is that pause

and listen because if we don't pause and listen like I'm not doing right now to give
Daniel an opportunity to speak when we do that We are undercutting the entire emotion

We've all been in that situation where, oh man, you know, I'm going through a lot and
things are tough.

You know, my wife just left me and there's a custody battle happening right now and my
dad's in the hospital and my job's at risk.

What Daniel could say is, oh Sam, that really sucks.

But anyway, we got to keep going on with this podcast and just undercuts the entire
conversation.

Having that permission to pause and listen is huge.

In fact, I would even say one of the most powerful empathy statements is a phrase we see a
lot.

but it's missing that pause and listen component, which is Daniel says, hey, I'm going
through this really hard time, And he explains what he's going through and I say, Daniel,

that fucking sucks.

and I say nothing, and I just let that sit for a bit.

I'm acknowledging that what he's going through is hard.

I'm acknowledging that he's in a tough spot, and we just let it sit.

And I don't try to squash it, and I don't try to solve it, and I don't try to say, well,
here are the 10 ways you can solve this issue.

I don't try to do the uh toxic positivity thing.

I just shut up, listen, and let Daniel speak.

Now, if you're a smart person listening to this podcast or watching us, you might be
thinking to yourself, okay, that sounds good, Sam, but what if I get it wrong?

because I'm really bad at reading emotions.

Like, they're describing something, I don't quite understand it.

It sounds like they're anxious, but it all sounds like they're excited, but it also sounds
like they're frustrated, but it also sounds like I can't quite name the emotion.

What if I were to tell you that 99 times out of 100, and that's not a made up statistic,
99 times out of 100, it doesn't matter if you get it right or not.

So when we are so when we are giving someone empathy statement and I'm so concerned like
man You're going through something, but I don't know what your emotion is.

So how do I give you empathy and we get it wrong?

99 times out of 100 That's true We are not upset.

You got it wrong.

We're happy you're trying because we're so desperate for that human connection We're
actually that no, I'm not I'm not frustrated Sam.

I'm actually really excited or you know, not anxious I'm kind of nervous or you know what?

It's not excitement that I'm feeling.

It's kind of like, it's kind of like, it's kind of fear of like the unknown.

I don't know what I'm going to be facing, right?

And then the conversation starts and then the person can start articulating things they
had not known how to articulate before.

I can tell you before we often confuse sympathy versus empathy quite a bit.

Sympathy is when Daniel's going through a hard time and I say, Daniel,

I sympathize with you because I've lived your life experience.

I have also dealt with a similar loss in my life and here's what happened to me, right?

And that can be incredibly effective.

But in a lot of cases, with just giving empathy, just giving that piece of empathy and
saying, it sounds like you're feeling frustrated by this or sounds like this is really

hard for you right now.

And pausing and listening allows for the conversation to breathe because I don't know if
you know this, Daniel, but every single person on Team Human

wants to feel recognized by another human being.

We crave that shit.

It's like dopamine for ourselves.

We can't live without it.

So giving people that empathy piece is huge and it does not cost you a single thing.

If anything, it just costs you some space and some time.

That's it.

And that's one way of doing it now in that example with the clerk you walk in and get your
cigarettes The person wanting the cigarettes gives eye contact to the person.

I'm a human being.

Hey, man, you see me I'm a human being I'm looking for my thing and The clerk sees the
person eyes him and then in the eye connection both people are making there's a sense of

safety brought the sense of space a sense of non-threateningness And hey, I see that
you're a clerk.

You've been working here for eight hours straight.

You got two more hours left in your shift Don't worry.

I'll get out of your hair

Just give me the cigarettes and I'll be done.

I'm trying to make this transaction as easy for you as possible.

The person doesn't say any of those things, but in the eye movements, in the body
language, the speed of trying to get the cigarettes and get out the door, that's what

they're communicating.

I see you, I hear you.

I'm sorry you're going through this.

Let me get out of your hair and move on with my life.

So empathy is all throughout us.

We're always giving empathy all the time.

But if you want to be an extra superstar, it's simply verbally acknowledging the feelings
as a result of circumstance, pausing.

and then listening, and then being open and ready for whatever might come through after
that conversation.

And right there I'm gonna pause and listen.

Awkwardly, unless my editor Daniel cuts this part out, he might do that.

Let's see.

I don't know, because editor Daniel's in the future, we'll find out.

But pausing and listening is incredibly powerful.

The next piece to recognizing the emotional side of the conversation is esteem.

Daniel, did you know that people don't like it when their esteem gets put down?

Meaning, you know, we get tarnished?

We don't like that.

We don't like people putting us down.

No, not a big fan.

Not a big fan of that.

I like being lifted up.

I don't like being put down.

Give me uppies.

That's...

that.

Give me uppies, right?

We like being acknowledged for the hardship we've gone through.

We like being acknowledged for the effort we're putting into things.

And we like being lifted up.

We don't like being told, hey man, you suck.

Hey man, you dropped the ball.

Hey man, you really screwed up.

We don't like hearing that.

And that's a human thing.

That is not a weak thing.

I know some people feel like, I...

I like to be praised and I feel weak for it.

No, that's a perfectly valid human wonderful thing.

And so whatever way you can, when you can give someone esteem, we call it esteem, I either
maintain the esteem or I boost the esteem, I simply acknowledge the behaviors you've done

and the impact it's had.

So I say, hey Daniel, you have edited 24 episodes of our podcast.

You've met every single deadline, even when times were tough.

I'm seeing you and I hear you.

Thank you so much for your contribution.

That has made a significant impact.

I'm calling out the behaviors of Daniel, the impact, and what it's done.

Or I acknowledge, hey Daniel, you've been doing 24 to 25 episodes of our podcast.

This is our 24th episode right now.

We're doing that together today, and I know it's been really tough, and let's say we don't
make this week's deadline for whatever reason.

I know you worked incredibly hard.

You've been making this magic happen.

This just was a hard time to kind of go through, and I saw the effort you put in to make
this work.

I see you and I hear you.

We do not respond well to saying,

Daniel, you suck.

Do better next time.

That just does not go well.

Yeah, you messed up, buddy.

You're messed up.

It's, yeah, not fun.

I think I've told this story, but I'll say it again.

One of my first real jobs I had was in call center.

I was in travel and This is a toxic version of esteem when I was in training They they
literally singled me out of the ten people that was in this training class saying Sam,

you're the all-star I can tell you're smart.

You're with it.

You're gonna you're gonna run laps around everyone.

You're gonna kick butt I'm like, boy.

Now suddenly there's expectations on me.

I finally get through training

and I get through one of my, I get through a complicated booking.

was travel with someone that had future credit with multiple airlines and I had to make it
all work from an inventory, perspective.

I did the best I could per what my training said.

um Come back the next day and I found out I made a little bit of a goof.

That goof got caught by accounting, so they fixed it.

But I was told, because we used to do this, this is how toxic corporate America can be.

Even if it got fixed and there was no harm, they would mark it in brackets red.

the potential negative you might have put the company in.

It didn't actually happen because the company saved it, but the potential negative was
like, I almost cost the company $10,000 on this one booking that I screwed up.

They fixed it.

It wasn't an issue.

It was called a booking error, but it had a potential error of $10,000.

And I come into my office and I'm feeling awful.

I'm feeling whatever.

I can tell people are giving me funny looks in the office.

I get my email from my boss and it's a giant novel, Daniel, of like every single mistake
that I made and how I did it and it's whatever.

And I'm feeling awful.

So I send him a reply back like, I'm so sorry.

I see what I did.

I won't do it again.

But like, he's not talking to me.

He's not, I see him pass the hallway.

He won't talk to me.

Finally, at the end of the day, of his day, he's wrapping up at like four o'clock his
time.

I still have a couple more hours.

He comes by my desk, Daniel.

And he can tell, like I'm looking at him like really weary.

I'm really sorry I didn't mean to make this mistake.

And with no facial expression whatsoever, turns to me and looks well.

He says this, he says, well, you're not fired.

And then just walks off.

That's all he said.

Which told me he was thinking about it.

Which told me there was an element that maybe I could have been fired based on this one
little mistake that I

Now that's not where the story ends, unfortunately.

This is where things get real bad.

So for an entire year, Daniel, and to my listeners and my viewers, I'm working, I'm
slaving away at this job.

At this point in time, I was working another job part-time to help make ends meet.

I decide, you know what, this is such a crucial issue, I quit that part-time job and focus
completely on this, I have to get this job right.

I'm working, I'm working.

I don't make any big mistakes like that, but I do make occasional mistakes here and there,
get some booking errors, some whatever.

Finally comes time for yearly evaluation time.

I've got a new boss, this new guy.

Him and I get along pretty well.

And I'm like, I'm coming to the meeting like with my head down like, okay.

I'm like okay, I'm probably like a C employee, like barely making it, I'm probably okay,
and my new boss is like, Sam, what's up?

We're just having a quick chat about your early performance, and here, take a look at what
you got.

And I'm looking at it, and I'm confused, and I don't understand, and he says, Sam, you're
like the best employee that we have, like you're incredible, like you're kicking butt,

like literally, it's amazing.

And my scores were through the roof, and I'm like, I have not received a single piece of
positive feedback in the past year.

I've not been given any kind of direction that what I was doing was right.

All I was ever told was all the things I'm doing wrong.

And for an entire year, I've struggled with sleep.

I've been struggling with eating habits.

I've been struggling with my social life because I feel like I can't relax on my weekends
because I'm thinking too much about Monday when I come back and have to do the work.

All that stuff compounded itself.

And he says, I don't know you're talking about, man.

You're doing great.

Just don't fuck up.

That's all he said.

I'm like, well, I'm trying not to fuck up.

Okay, well then keep not doing that.

And that's the broken system that we live in, right?

All it would have taken was, hey, you did this booking, it went really well, here's all
the things you did right, let me send it off to you, here's the impact you had.

Every once in a while, just give me like, give me a log of things that I've done well.

Even though I could keep up my own log, you recognizing that within me is huge and it
wouldn't have taken that long.

But instead, we live in a world where let's criticize everything that we do and put you
down and even make you feel like you could lose your job at any second.

year.

I'm really glad that you brought that up and that that was part of the story.

Not for your sake because that sucks, but the whole time when you were leading up to that
point, I was just thinking, I've been part of so many workplaces.

People could be doing the most amazing things and they could be killing it at their job
and they could be making massive improvements for the companies and everything's going

well.

They've got innovative ideas and they're implementing them well.

Everything's going good.

And not once do they get recognized or say like, Hey, we noticed over the last two weeks
that you've been doing this thing.

Super good.

That's super awesome.

Well done.

Thank you.

We appreciate it.

you know, you don't, it doesn't need a big hubbub fanfare made about it or anything on
that.

Just a quick, like, Hey, just wanted to say, appreciate what you're doing, doing a good
job.

Well done.

There was never that.

And someone could have done.

like an entire year's worth of perfect, amazing, brilliant work.

And they made one mistake.

And that one mistake is the only time that they hear from the people up top to say, you
messed up.

You balls this up.

What the hell's going on?

Meanwhile, the entire rest of the year, they have been wonderful and they've worked
wonders for the company.

Yeah.

I see it so, so often.

in so many walks of life.

Even I'm going to extend this to personal relationships, to friends and stuff like that.

When was the last time that you or anyone came to you and said, like, you know what, I
really appreciate you for this, this, this, and this.

You are a good friend.

I just wanted to let you know you're there for me and you

provide for me in these ways and I really appreciate it, thank you.

When was the last time that happened?

I'd like people to write in and let me know, because, you know, but as soon as something
goes wrong in the friendship or the relationship or something like that, it blows up and

it's a massive deal and it's just like, I hate this, you've messed it up, you've fucked it
up.

Come on, like, remind your friends that you love them and remind them of the fact that
they're doing a good job and that you appreciate them for what they're doing.

And then maybe when things occasionally do blow up and things go wrong, it won't seem like
such a massive thing and you'll be able to work through it better because you know there's

a good balance of just, you're going to lift them up for the good things and yeah, you're
unfortunately going to have to pick them up on the bad things.

but it balances out and it doesn't feel quite so world ending.

And it doesn't feel like that moment of, ah my God, you can't make a single mistake
because it's the only thing that they'll focus on.

It just becomes a mistake in a sea of good things.

I just want people to remind each other that they're valued more, please, in everyday
life.

Daniel, I love what you said there, which is the element of, me give you kudos by itself,
let me give you critical feedback by itself.

The compliment sandwich should die.

The whole, you're doing this great thing, but, and by the way, you're doing a great thing.

No.

also that comes with the feeling for me personally, if someone gives like a compliment
sandwich is they didn't feel like they wanted to give those compliments or they weren't

genuine compliments.

They, they, they were obligated to use those compliments to cushion the bad thing, to
sandwich the bad thing.

Um, because they feel like it will make it have a softer impact on you or something like
that.

Like I

And then it makes those compliments feel mechanical.

feel, you know, they don't feel genuine.

They feel as though they are a tool that that person is using to lessen the blow of the
bad thing.

And in all honesty, I'd rather not have them in that case.

Daniel, this might interest you.

We know from a social sciences perspective, it's about 50-50 in terms of how our brains
wired.

50 % of us are wired that when you give me a compliment sandwich, all I hear is the good
stuff.

You give me a compliment sandwich, I go, oh, I'm a great employee.

I'm doing great.

You said something about this big critical failure, but I'm sure that's not a big deal.

And then 50 % of us, and it sounds like this might be on your side of the fence, I don't
hear the positive thing.

All I hear is the negative.

And you just wasted a bunch of time talking about...

this positive thing that I'm not gonna hear, right?

We as human beings, we're wired, it seems like it's genetic maybe, like we're all wired a
little bit kind of which way we wanna skew that.

So in the effort of saving you, the person who might give someone feedback, a compliment
sandwich, save yourself time.

Give someone positive feedback at one point, then later on give them some developmental
feedback.

And in fact, we know there's a good ratio.

It's not one to one.

Human brains like it when it's about six to eight.

compliments per one piece of critical feedback.

That six to one, eight to one, that's the magic ratio.

And when that happens, as Daniel was alluding to, if you gotta talk to me, if my boss has
to talk to me, I'm generally, I'm not worried, I'm not threatened.

I know that 99 times out of 100, it's gonna be good stuff, but if it's a bad thing, we'll
work on it together, we'll fix it, and I don't feel like I have to defend my life every

time I make a mistake.

And so that's a stat that I share with people that are in their corporate jobs, but I'm
sharing that just in life.

Like any person you know, Daniel asked a great question.

When was the last time you told someone how much they mean to you and like, what's one
cool thing they do and the impact they do?

When was the last time someone did that for you?

It's very rare.

So give yourself the opportunity to do that.

Do it.

Like I've always appreciated that Daniel has an eye for things.

He has an eye and ear for things.

When something isn't quite right, you know, we make the joke internally that he's the vibe
director, but when something's not quite right, he makes it known and he calls us out on

it and he is like, this isn't correct.

And if we did not have that, we'd have a worser product for that.

So I appreciate Daniel for that in every way.

You are more than welcome.

And I'm sure Daniel, you'll tell me this is right.

I'm sure in some places that same tenacity that you have, some people might not appreciate
that, but I'm telling you that I appreciate it.

And I think that's wonderful.

I know there are things that I do that people don't appreciate.

Like I'm the kind of person that when I ask, hey, how are you doing?

And you say, I'm fine.

I go, no, I want a better answer than that.

I didn't ask for fine.

I'm that guy.

But some people appreciate it, right?

Everyone has a superpower.

Every superpower is not for everyone, but it is for someone, and that's the most important
thing.

And you want to have people that recognize that.

And another great way to give people esteem, it's compounded, but ask people for their
insights and ideas.

People, another piece of the emotional side of things.

No human on this planet likes being told exactly what to do and have no autonomy over it.

No, none of us do, not a single person.

Some of us deal with it because it's the paycheck.

It's what we have to do, but we all love it when I have a little bit of control of how I
do this.

So for instance, if I say,

Daniel, you have such a creative eye for things.

I'm curious, the last couple of episodes, what do think we could do to enhance the future
coming episodes?

What small thing can we do on our side to make it better?

That's better than me going, all right, Daniel, I've listened to the past three episodes
and here's what I want us to do and I've listened to it and here's what I'm gonna do.

Or, and this is, people think this is cool, but it's not.

When we do the thing where we say, you know, Daniel, I'd love to get your thoughts on what
we can do in future episodes.

I have my own ideas, but I wanna hear yours first.

That's awful.

That is the worst.

We think it's cool, but it's not.

see, I've got my own ideas, but I'd like to hear from you all first.

All that says to me, you may as well have just said, I've already made my mind up on
what's happening.

But to appear as though I value your opinions, I'm going to let you say a few things first
before we eventually just circle back to what I know is going to happen, which is what

I've already decided on.

So we've got empathy, we've got esteem, we've got involvement.

There's two more things we can add to the pot.

Two more quick little things you can do on the human side of things.

We do this thing where we make it...

sometimes we make a decision as adults, we decide, you know what, I'm not going to trust
you until I have enough evidence to know that I can trust you, right?

Or we do this thing where we say, you know what, with enough time, over a course of
however long I've decided preemptively, that's when I'll finally trust you.

Okay, if you really want to wait that long, can.

One time I taught a workshop, Daniel, and I said, hey, what's your metric for trusting
people?

And one guy in the back, literally very proudly with his arms like this, said, four years.

I don't trust anyone for four years.

Then after four years, okay.

bizarre arbitrary number that he's decided upon regardless of any context of any
situation.

Four years.

Four years.

No matter the person, no matter the context, just it is four years.

And he had a rationale for it.

He said, you know what?

It takes four years for me to see you screw up enough times and see you get better at it
and then see you rise above it and then try to prove to me that you're worth trusting for

four years that I can officially then trust you.

had a whole system for why four years was like the magic number for him.

I'm so honoured after these four years that you think I'm worthy of your trust.

yeah.

And so then I asked the question, like, well, how do you think that person feels during
that entire four year period of time?

Because we as human beings are really good at knowing when someone doesn't trust us.

Like we can sense it.

We can smell it off of them, right?

And a central need that human beings have is we want to develop trusting relationships
with others and we want others to trust us.

So when you rob that from us for, let's say in this case, four years, that makes me feel
bad, makes me feel like I'm not enough.

And in many cases, Daniel, I don't know about you, but I'm the kind of person that if...

I don't think this person says it out loud, but if I got the sense it takes four years to
develop a trusting relationship with them, I would go bugger off and just walk away and do

something else, because I don't got time for that.

That's stupid, right?

So we can use time as the great equalizer of all things, but I would recommend trying to
push that along as fast as possible and remind us all that trust is actually a choice we

make.

We choose to trust someone, right?

I won't tell you what your metric should be, but my metric is, generally speaking, I try
to give people trust as fast as I possibly can.

Why not?

If they hurt me, then that's on me, and I can make recalibrations from there, but people
do magical and incredible things when you give them trust.

When they feel safe with you, when they feel like they're not trying to compete with
anything, they can do incredible, wonderful things.

And to give trust, one of the fastest ways to do it is to share with them.

Share with them vulnerabilities, rationale, or, you know, insecurities.

Now, Daniel talks about this a bit in some of our earlier episodes.

There is a dangerous water here that if you overshare, you've now made the conversation
about yourself, and we don't want that.

But like, in certain elements, when the time is right, I can say to them, hey, you know,
I'm scared too about these upcoming changes.

When I was a younger professional and I tell maybe the story of what I had before about
the worker that said, you're not fired.

If that can help let you know that I'm a human being going through similar struggles that
you went through, then we build a connection together and realize, hey, we're all on Team

Human.

Because I don't know if you know this, but in 2026, we're in this era where certain people
that, I don't know if they have a billion dollars, Daniel, but they're certainly trying to

get a billion dollars.

They're trying to tell us that robots are the future and that AI should do everything for
us.

AI has some purposes, for sure, but I don't want AI replacing my human connection.

I don't think you would either.

Hell no.

In fact, I want it as far away from my human connection as possible.

Like, because it's not human.

How can it replicate a human connection when it is not human?

silly silly

post that says, it's not the blank, it's the blank, and then it's a giant novel, I'm gonna
scream.

my, my.

But yeah, just having the opportunity to share a very quick story or share your
vulnerabilities or your insight or your intentions, because last I checked, human beings

can't see each other's intentions.

In fact, we're really good at noticing that when I say, hey, I believe in this thing, but
then our actions do something else, we go, hold on, why is that person doing that?

There might be a good reason.

It's just we don't.

Articulate it speak about it.

So give yourself permission to share and we see it time and time again The leaders that
have the willingness to share the uncomfortable stuff are the ones that are seen as

stronger They're the ones that are revered more They're the ones that their team is
willing to go to the breaches with them further than the one who's tight-lipped tightened

up and doesn't share anything and so then the last piece we've got empathy Esteem
involvement share the last one.

This one's probably the hardest whenever you can

providing support to someone without removing their responsibility.

Now, a lot of us, when we think of support, when we think of giving someone support, we
think of, you need help with something?

Okay, I'll roll up my sleeves.

I'll do it for you.

Or, I'll roll up my sleeves and I'll tell you, here's all the steps you got to do, right?

And in some cases, that can help when there's an education or when the person's really
struggling.

Here in Philadelphia, we're Philadelphia kind.

If someone gets stuck in a ditch, we'll scream at the guy and go, you goddamn idiot, don't
you know you can't do that on that road?

Okay, all right, I'll help you out.

We'll get you on the road and then you're on your way, right?

We're not Minnesota nice, we're Philadelphia kind.

We'll scream at you, we'll cuss at you, but we'll help you get on your way.

But support really means allowing you to still have autonomy over your success.

Because the worst thing I can do is take over entirely and then two things happen.

One, you feel emasculated.

And two, if I do that enough times, you feel like that's the way things go.

Whenever things are too hard, someone else comes in, does the work for me, and then that's
just it is.

And then you feel like there's no growth trajectory for you.

Right, Daniel?

absolutely.

if that, well, every time something bad has happened, someone else has swooped in and
fixed it for me.

So not only then do you not learn how to deal with the problems, but it's just, it
absolves you of any responsibility and it's, yeah, it's a, it's a whole thing.

It's, it's a whole thing.

So with support, again, the question to ask ourselves is, or ask the person, what would
you need from me in order for you to be successful?

That's the question we pose to them, because that forces the person to go, I need this one
little obstacle taken care of, or I don't know how to do this one thing, or whatever.

And then you can go down that path, but then you're not taking over the project, you're
not completely dismantling it for them, you're not doing their job for them.

You're just allowing them to be successful.

You're supporting them because no human on this planet likes to...

No one likes the sink or swim mentality.

We've been told to succeed in sink or swim, but we don't like it.

We like having a little bit of a safety net.

We like being given permission to fail.

And we like knowing that when we fail, there's someone there for us to help guide us the
right way.

But we climb ourselves back up through the net, whatever way we can.

So to wrap this up, we've got tactical and emotional.

Tactical needs are what I need out of you.

I need the cigarettes from you.

I need the podcast.

I need this.

need that.

The emotional are all the five things I just listed.

I need esteem.

I need empathy.

I need involvement.

I need share.

I need support.

I need all five of those and they can be done incredibly quickly.

So going back to that example, the most transactional conversation, the person that needs
cigarettes.

I'm going to go in the cigarette store when it's not too busy.

So that way I'm not in a big line.

I'm going to know exactly what I want so I don't waste this person's time and I make it
easy for them.

I give them eye contact to know that they're safe and let them know that I value their
time.

I'm a little ashamed of myself and I feel a certain kind of way that I might be getting
cigarettes because I have an addiction, so I might be looking off to the side.

And the person, knowing that I might be ashamed of myself, doesn't verbalize what the
price is, just taps the screen real quick, looks the other way, gives me the out so I can

get out whenever I want.

And then when I finally leave, I say, cheers mate, which is just me saying thank you for
all that you do.

I appreciate it.

I'll see you next time.

in that most transactional conversation, there were still those human emotional needs.

And I think it's within everyone's best interest, listeners, viewers, and Daniel, and John
too, although John probably knows this stuff, to be cognizant of that, to recognize that.

Because once you start recognizing that every conversation has tactical and emotional
elements to it, you get to dive into the waters of being emotionally intelligent, and you

get to start realizing that when things are awry, you go, what's the lever I need to pull
right now?

Does Daniel need more esteem?

Does he need more empathy, more share, more support, more whatever?

You start figuring out what you have to move to make the needle move forward and then
everyone feels good at the end and everyone gets what they want and we're all on team.

So that's, hopefully, this helps my young wife who said, when I was starting off in my
career, I wish I knew that nobody knew anything.

And I said, yes, I agree.

But I think that comes from a place of no one's listening and no one's having a real
conversation.

And when we understand these five fundamental components, hopefully that helps answer that
question.

So to anyone that is starting off in your career, by the way,

Daniel, I'm not sure if you can relate.

You call it uni, we call it college, which is funny because we have certain colleges
called university.

So we have university and college.

So we have, this is how I see it.

There's people in the UK who use secondary school as a thing, but like to me, it was like
nursery kind of like very, very first thing.

Then you've got primary school, high school, and then you either go to college or you go
to sixth form.

Sixth form is usually hosted by the same high school that you went to.

Or you can go off to college and then after college comes university.

University is higher than college.

Yep.

So if I'm drawing a parallel, your high school is our what we call middle school, your
college is our high school, and then your university is our college, which is sometimes

called university.

I'm going to assume yes.

I'm just going to say, yeah, that sounds like it's as one to one as we're going to get.

Yeah.

different, right?

ah But you go through that experience, and let's say you get your first degree from
university, your university, our college.

You think, okay, I might know things now, and now I can go to a job where I know some
things and I'll learn some more things, and here's all these people around me that know

way more than I do.

They might not know as much as they're letting on, because everyone's scared.

Everyone's afraid of showing off that they don't know, and I'm here to tell you the
strongest people in any place.

personal, professional, otherwise, are the people that ask the questions and are always
listening and are paying attention to the tactical and the emotional.

We know from a leadership perspective, leadership, the higher up you go, once you have
anyone reporting underneath you, it's about your emotional intelligence more than anything

else.

It's not your skills, it's not how proficient you are.

You can be a subject matter expert if you feel like it, if the business demands it, but
that's not what's gonna set you apart.

It's how you relate and talk to people.

And hopefully after today,

You get a little bit of knowledge.

But if you have questions about any of these things, esteem, empathy, involvement, share,
support, tactical versus emotional, drop them into the comments, drop them into the chat.

We would love to hear and talk with you a bit more about this topic.

It's literally something that I'm incredibly passionate about and I can talk to until I'm
blue in the face.

Although Daniel would not like that because that would affect the green screen behind me.

But seriously, I could do it if I needed to.

Blue in the face, I say.

Blue in the face.

Maybe then you'd match me today with my very blue tinted camera that we were discussing at
the start.

Yeah, maybe then.

So maybe do it just for aesthetic purposes for an aesthetic through line and maybe go blue
in the face, but don't.

I think smurf is a term of endearment depending on how you roll with it.

I don't know.

Smurf to me is someone of high skill in a video game who has created a brand new account
in order to play with people of lesser skill and to feel good and to feel big and

powerful.

That's a smurf.

If you're smurfing, then you are playing on an account that uh would be placed with people
of lesser skill in that game in order to win more often.

That's if you're smurfing.

em to me.

That's like the...

podcast?

Am I smurfing?

Do I have like a separate other podcast that I'm doing and this is all a smurf account?

No, I'm just.

Yeah, yeah, this is your Smurf podcast.

This is your Smurfing on podcast.

Yeah, you have an incredibly successful podcast elsewhere that deals with even like
incredibly lofty things.

And this is your Smurf account.

Yeah.

for sure, for sure.

I don't know where this is going, but you just brought it up.

I had not heard of the term smurf until about five years ago.

And I heard about it about five years ago because I was playing this little video game
called Street Fighter V and I never played ranked.

Not because I thought anything bad about ranked, I played most of my games offline.

And when I finally played people online, they were like, you're smurfing.

Because I think it defaults to like rookie, whatever rookie is.

And they're like, you're playing way better than a rookie.

I'm like, okay, I must be a smurf.

I'm not trying to be.

And then they told me I had to rank more so that way I'd be more quote unquote honest with
my rank so people knew what to expect.

I'm like, why?

Why?

And then I did it for about two weeks, Daniel, and I hated my life.

I'm like, this sucks.

This isn't.

This sucks, I hate this, and I stopped doing it.

Anyway.

Yeah.

Often oftentimes used as an insult when someone sees a disconnect between what they
perceive as your skill and what the game says your skill level is.

Yeah.

you're a smurf.

he's smurfing.

It's yeah.

I'm more empathetic now than I was five years ago.

Five years ago, I was incredibly dismissive.

I'm like, it's just a goddamn video game.

Who cares what the rank says?

You just have what's in front of you.

If they're beating you with X, Y, Z, then to use the toxic term, get good.

ah But I'm empathetic now because I know a lot of people, that's literally how they
interface with video games now is that.

I'm not 100 % on it, but I least I can see it, right?

I acknowledge the struggle per empathy, what we just talked.

per exactly the conversation we just had.

Yes.

Alright ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, boys and girls, that has been the Zero Dot
podcast for this week.

We hope you enjoyed it.

My name's Sam.

This is Daniel.

John is somewhere out in the ether.

But we can't wait for you to tune in next week.

You can find us wherever podcasts are streamed.

You can also find us at thezerodotpodcast.com.

You can also drop us a line there or at questions at thezerodotpodcast.com.

Let us know what you want us to talk about.

We'll be happy to feature it here.

Until next time, stay fresh.

See ya.