Ep102_Others
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[00:00:00] I know what it's like to feel all alone, and to feel like no one wants to get to know me, and to feel terrified of people because they can hurt me. I know what it's like to have a social event and not want to go because people will see me and in my mind they'll judge [00:01:00] me. I mean, why do I know this stuff?

Because I've been there, you know, I'm not there right now, but I've been there. And so welcome to the Decide Your Legacy podcast. This is episode number 102. And today I'm going to talk to you about how to get to know people. Three attitudes you want to have. And when you get to know people better that are around you, you make new friendships.

You rekindle old. Friendships. You see opportunities, business opportunities, ideas, professional advice. You learn about yourself. You can see that you can face your fears when you get to know people because there will be some anxiety involved. Although you may not see it as anxiety at the time, you will improve your health because laughing with people and having fun is a great thing for your health.

Most of all, when you get to know people, you have a chance to encourage other people to be a light in dark places, to give back to other people. So if you found the Decide Your Legacy podcast helpful, do me a favor and subscribe. Give it a rating and review on Apple [00:02:00] or Spotify, wherever you get your podcast content.

This helps it to grow organically to help more people. I'm your host, Adam Gragg. I am a coach, a writer, a speaker, and I've been a licensed mental health professional now for over 24 years. And my passion is to help others grow. in their self confidence and to find clarity so they can face their biggest fears and live their legacy.

I talk about stuff I struggle with myself. I am a fellow traveler. I don't have it all figured out. So I like to share something every episode that is uncomfortable that I did recently. Okay. So there's nothing is more important. To your mental health and wellness and facing your fears and nothing that I found could be more damaging than playing it safe and isolating, although you may not even be aware that you're actually doing that.

My clients, they Make, they want to make a significant life transformation in some way, a new career, a new relationship, maybe transform a relationship with their wife [00:03:00] or their husband or their kids. They want to maybe start a new business, but to work with me, they agree that they're going to do scary things.

Something I did that was scary is two days after Thanksgiving, it was Saturday. I was hanging out with some cousins that I hadn't seen actually in probably over 10 years. And. It came to my mind that this frat brother from the Phi Delta Theta Organ Alpha fraternity was living in my hometown area, which is Sacramento. There's a lot of people live in Sacramento. So I texted another fraternity brother, Nate, who lives in Portland, Oregon.

And I said, Hey, does, do you have a contact for Tommy? And the, does he live in this area? And you know, would he like to talk to me? I think that's what I said. And he. He texted Tommy because I knew he was in touch with him and said, yeah, here's his address. I'm sure he'd love to hear from you. So later that day, it was like six o'clock at night or so, I decided to go by that address because I realized that he lived less than a mile from my parents, you know, and so I decided to drive by the house.

I wasn't really thinking I was going to stop by, but then I. Pulled up to the house and I said, why, why not? I'm going to [00:04:00] knock at the knock on the door and hang out or just for 10 minutes, just say hello. So I go up to the door and I knock and no one answers. And then eventually somebody gets on their balcony and he looks at me and he says, Greg, you know, and I'm like, I think he said, Greg, cause no one calls me my last name, except high school and college buddies.

And I said, Tommy, you know, looked at him and then he came around and let me in. And we talked and ended up hanging out with him for like over four hours. It was crazy. Didn't know what was going to happen. I let go ended up being a great evening. You know, I think I kept him up a little bit too late, but hung out with him and his wife for a long time.

Had a great time. It was scary, but I'm really glad I did it. This is the podcast that you do not just listen to. So you get uncomfortable too as you listen to this podcast. So right now I want you to speak into your phone or to journal. Things are clear when you journal. How much time have you spent getting to know people over the last week on a personal level?

Could be someone you work with, but you're trying to get to know them on a personal level. Maybe asking them about their Life experiences, ask them about their [00:05:00] family, just digging a little bit deeper. And then how much time, how many times over the last week did you feel rejected by somebody? It may not have been their intention, but you felt that way.

One, two, three, four times. I, you know, you just decide and then write that down. Just determine that as you go through this podcast, you're going to learn some attitudes to have to get to know new people and why you want to do that. So I've met new people on traveling, you know, and it's really interesting because when you travel a lot of times, a lot of times people don't know anybody else.

So they're more open to meeting somebody new. I mean, I remember on a cruise once I met this couple and they had, they were from my hometown of Fair Oaks, California. And it's not where my parents live now. They live in Folsom. But I. was like fascinated, like my best friends, you know, because on this big cruise ship that was leaving from Galveston, Texas, I knew these people were from my hometown.

And it was like, we, we were drawn to each other because we had this thing in common. But if I was in Fair Oaks, where there's probably 120, 000 people and I [00:06:00] saw them somewhere and we said, where are you from? You know, from Fair Oaks. Well, we wouldn't really have any interest in maybe engaging each other because we didn't have that kind of commonality while we were traveling.

So I've met people traveling, you know, Amazing people. I've met people at social events that I never thought those, and I never thought I'd make friendships in these events. And like one of my best friends in the world, Alan, I met at a social event, you know, just kind of hung out, talked to him, realized we had some things in common and then we stayed in touch.

You know, that was probably four or five years ago. Really good friend. People are lonely and people around you. You may not have gotten to know, even though they're actually around you frequently, you know, you may not have gotten to know your siblings, your parents, cousins, co workers at a deeper level.

Why? Because you have the wrong attitude about your approach to the situation. So the three attitudes that you need to have, you want to develop, you want to work on. One is that people are interesting. You may not like them or think you're gonna like them and you get to know them and you realize you do like them.

We have this natural negativity [00:07:00] bias. What can go wrong in this interaction? And it can come out even as if I don't need friends. I don't need these people in my life. I have already have a lot of friends or they're going to hurt me or, you know, what do I have to offer them? That's all negativity bias.

What can go wrong? We have. This fear cycle we can enter into that focuses, its job is to focus on what can go wrong and it keeps us close. And the hope cycle, more powerful than fear, its job is to see what can go right. The opportunity, it opens us up to all kinds of amazing opportunities. And we have these mindsets that boil down to, I'll be embarrassed, maybe I'll be seen as awkward, they'll look down on me, nothing good can come out of this.

So before church, A week ago, week and a half ago, I was having a conversation with my daughter. It was actually a difficult conversation at first, and then it got a lot better. She's almost 17, and we were talking about how confidence, self confidence, and that was a topic that I was thinking, nothing makes someone more attractive than being a self confident person, because When you [00:08:00] are confident in yourself, you don't have to prove yourself.

You're going to see people as not threatening, but interesting and be curious about their life. So you'll ask questions. How are they doing? You know, what are they excited about? What happened in their life that was going well? It's not going to be about you and proving your value. And it's going to totally change the dynamic.

And that was part of our conversation together is like, how do we become more confident people? And we do that intentionally. And as we go through this podcast, I'm going to share three tips I gave to Emerson about building self confidence. That's going to be later on in the podcast. So one action you can take to get to know other people is, first of all, you say to yourself, you know, it's not about me.

What can come out of this situation that is positive? So over the holidays, great time where you're going to see people that you don't see frequently, friends, family, people you don't see frequently. Maybe it's the only time of the year you see them. Maybe you haven't even seen them in three, three years.

So my challenge to you and the action is be curious of others over the holidays at these interactions. So Only share about your life when asked, [00:09:00] and go in prepared with some things you really want to know about people. And I would challenge you to not make it about their performance. So how have you done in your career, or how have you done in your job, or what kind of money have you made on these deals, and that kind of stuff.

That's not necessarily a bad thing to discuss, but as you go into these interactions, think about how and what questions you can ask. To know more about their lives. So what's a highlight from your past, from the past year, 2023, or what's something you want to forget? I mean, that kind of negative, but it could be something interesting or what's something you're excited about over the next year.

What are your goals over the next year? What has gone right? And what have you learned over the last year? What has gone right in your life? What's going on with your kids? What's going on with your parents? Those are great questions to ask. So that's the challenge for you. If you want this to stick and go deeper, see people, view people as interesting.

And when you view people as interesting with a curiosity mindset, some will open up. Others won't. And then you'll have an opportunity to actually help them. [00:10:00] And that's the second attitude to work on is how can I help you? How can I help you attitude? What? is the opportunity to help somebody else. So, but before I jump into that attitude, hit the link to Shatterproof yourself.

If you want to grow in your confidence, you're not going to want to miss this mini course and worksheet. These are seven small steps to a giant leap in your mental health. And it's going to help you relationally. It's going to help you with your perspective. It's going to help you with your dealing with your past and how that creeps into your present.

It's going to help you tremendously. You want to engage it and you got to get, get it by hitting the link. in this podcast. So number two, how can I help? Attitude. So why do people that are in sales, get a bad rap? Why do some people joke about people in sales? They're sleazy. They're trying to sell me something, you know, whatever, you know, it's because for one, I think they're manufacturing a problem in some situations, you know, you need a new car.

This is the best car. It has all these new features. You don't have those on your car. You're going to love it. Kind of thing. Or you need a financial planner. You don't have a [00:11:00] good financial planner. I can tell because, you know, I. And you suddenly say, they say negative things about another company. That's why salespeople get a bad rap.

When sales is ego driven, meaning it's about you and what you're going to get, it's going to turn people away because they're going to pick up on that. That's not confidence. You know, nothing is more repulsive than a desperate salesman, right? That's the kind of attitude I'm talking about here. But sales is actually one of the most generous things you can ever do.

to give back to other people and help other people. If somebody has a tremendous amount of anxiety and you have resources that can help them, it's a disservice if you don't offer them some kind of help. It's like if you read a book and it's transformational to you and it's on starting a business and you have a friend that's starting a business and you don't share that with them and say, look, I read this book, it was really helpful.

You don't have to read it, but I just wanted to tell you the name and you send a link to Amazon with that book. I mean, that's a generous act or a podcast that you listen to and you say, hey, this was helpful for me. Maybe it can be. Be helpful to you. I don't know. And you just send it [00:12:00] to them. That's a generous kind of act right there.

So sales is about helping other people and you have something to offer them. And that's going to give you the self confidence that it doesn't matter if they reject you. I'm trying to help somebody else and it's their loss. That's unfortunate. I mean, I was trying to help somebody just this last week, and I could tell they didn't want help.

I felt like I was approaching them with the right attitude, and it didn't really bother me too much, when it would have bothered me a few years ago. It didn't really bother me too much, because I knew I was coming from the right motive, from the right place. A business recently in the same office space, because I moved into a new office space recently, because I'm growing Decide Your Legacy.

I had two new employees start last week, actually. Well, I knew they were struggling because I was walking around meeting some people, just a few other businesses in the building, and they were having trouble with their printer. And the guy said that he had fixed his problem, but one of the other people in the building at another business was having trouble with the wifi making and printing, basically.

And I knew that one of my new employees was really, is really tech savvy. And so I asked him, like, you think you can help these people out? And he went and he fixed the [00:13:00] problem for two people. I felt like it was the coolest thing. That was actually his first day of work. So congratulations, Adam. You impressed some people, not just me.

He. Kick some butt in that situation. He was helping them out and I could tell he was wanting to do it. And it was really cool. And it was something where we had to intentionally decide that we're going to go and fix this problem. Now you are going to have opportunities around you to help other people.

And you probably do this with your friends. If you like golf and you find a really good deal on 18 holes of golf and you, you know, you text your buddies, Hey, let's play. Well, that's going to be a generous act. You presenting a solution to a problem that they have. Someone in your office has a new puppy and you've.

Train a new puppy and you want to help them out. You can just say, Hey, I got a new puppy. It was really tough. If you want any tips or pointers, who can you help? So an action you can actually take here is who is somebody in your life, a coworker, a friend, a family member that you can help and find a way to actually.

Intentionally, which is one of my core values, it won't happen unless you intentionally commit. You can decide, which is more than [00:14:00] actually just saying I'm going to do something. It's deciding, it's like you're making a commitment. Unless something significantly changes in the situation and it's not my attitude, I'm going to go through and follow through with this.

So there's something you can share with somebody else. Maybe they do have a new puppy. Maybe they're new to their job and you can help them. Maybe they're brand new in their career as a dentist and you're A seasoned dentist and you can reach out and say, Hey, if you ever want to get coffee, I'd love to just talk to you about, or be a resource for you.

And maybe they don't even say yes, but you offered. Maybe one way you can help is by inviting somebody who maybe they don't have as many social outlets, but you invite them to go do something with your friend, you and your friends, to go bowling or to go to a bookstore to get coffee or to go to lunch.

Hey, I want to meet, I want you to meet my other friend. This is cool. You're making connections. Love that right there. Or it's a professional way you can help somebody by introducing somebody to one of your contacts. They have a business or they're in a professional role and you have a contact who's also in a similar role and you can introduce them.

[00:15:00] So I want you to think about who you can actually help over the year, every week, but specifically today. All right. In the next week, in the next 24 hours, who can you help? And as you get to know people, as you get to help people, You'll get to know them in a deeper way and then you're going to run into differences.

That's what actually happens over time. The big C word comes into play and that's conflict, which people often have a mindset that conflict is damaging. Conflict hurts relationships. I'm going to challenge you to have this third attitude and it's to view conflict actually as positive. As a pathway to connection, as a pathway to intimacy, to building trust, you build trust through successfully managing and resolving conflict.

That takes having a new mindset. Some of my closest friends in the world I've had the most significant conflict with. I love my buddy Donovan. We've had some conflict and I love him dearly. We don't agree on everything. My friend, Nate, my friend, Ben, my friend, Alan. [00:16:00] I've had times where Alan has told me that He really felt invalidated by me and discouraged by me and probably was, and I had to own that.

And at other times we've had conflict where I didn't have to own it. It was something where he felt uncomfortable, but we worked through it because we're committed in our relationships. I mean, it's a big deal to me. Friendships are like family. In fact, in most cases, I find as people get older, their friends become even closer than their family because they have more life experiences over significant History over the past 30 years or 40 years, and sometimes their best friends are their siblings, which I think is most is a really cool thing.

So you grow through conflict. Recently, I was hanging out with my buddy Ben from high school. I was at his house with his wife and his son. And in the conversation, somehow the last election came up. And then I said that I had voted for Donald Trump in the last two elections and his wife. Nicole, she said, Adam, don't tell me that.

Don't, I wish you wouldn't have told me that. And she was joking, but she was kind of [00:17:00] serious as well. And she also told me that she knew that about me, but she didn't want to hear me actually say it. And I'm not a Trumper. I'm not a extreme when it comes to politics, but I do find it important to vote. And I make decisions.

They're my reasons for voting. And you can certainly ask me what those are, but I also feel like. We have to be able to have conversations. I know we have to have conversations about things we disagree on in a civil way, in a respectful way, in a loving way. This situation was difficult for Nicole because she heard me say it, and then I know why it was difficult because she's fond of me.

I mean, as her husband's good friend, and I love Ben, and I love Nicole, through Ben got to know Nicole, and I'm really close to them. And We were laughing about it and talking about it and I knew it was uncomfortable and everything, but of course it didn't hurt our relationship. I mean, it can make us and help us grow stronger because as we get to understand people and why they have their points of view, rather than just demonizing them, because somebody may have a different view than you.

And [00:18:00] it's easy to objectify somebody and say, all people are like this, who do this, you know, all people who love Joe Biden are like ultra liberal or all people who like. And vote for Donald Trump, our ultra conservative. And the reality is, is that most people are in the middle. And we have more in common than we realize on whatever issue it may be.

And I find it very dangerous when people come to me and say, I only want my kids to hang around Christian people. Or I only want my kids to be around people that are really open minded. about the, in whatever issue it is and they're liberal or whatever. And, or I only want them to be around conservative people or people that are very business oriented and focused on academia.

And that is a problem because people are so diverse in so many different ways and not the ways you're probably thinking of. They're diverse in personality. They're diverse in opinion. They're diverse. And their values, their core values. Like some people just have a real core value when it comes to teaching kids.

And some people have a real core value when it comes to, you know, being [00:19:00] volunteering and working with homeless people. But those are unique passions to them. And we want to get to know people. So I would challenge you that don't judge. You just get to know people. And whether they think medical marijuana should be legalized, which, you know, 15 years ago, I would have said never, you know, that's horrible.

Don't do it. And it was legal in my home state at. Back where I grew up in California, even back then, it was medical marijuana was, and now I would say, you know, after getting to know people, I would say that I have a differing opinions on it, because I've seen how it's helped people that have serious medical issues and are on hospice or cancer patients or people that have sleep issues, and I'm not saying that it doesn't cause problems.

I'm not saying that alcohol doesn't cause problems. I mean, those things obviously can. I mean, so many things can, but if we learn anything The back story behind why other people support something like medical marijuana or why somebody is an atheist or why somebody considers themselves an atheist when you're a Christian, you learn and you're curious, not in a judgmental way because questions can come out as a judgment, you know, why do you believe this way when really You're [00:20:00] not actually curious about why they believe what their thoughts are.

You're just wanting to share your opinion that you don't agree with what they believe. But if you approach it and say, well, I'm just really curious. What is kind of your backstory on why you make those decisions on who you vote for? I just really want to know, or what, tell me more about why you're pro life or pro choice and what is really going on there.

Because I'm really curious, you know, it's not necessarily my point of view, but I really think other people have really good perspectives that they've developed that also disagree with me. And I really want to know. I want to learn more. And that will endear people to you because you're so curious about their life.

It's not something that you're judging them on. Um, so Emerson, as I shared, she, we were talking about confidence and talking about building confidence. And we were disagreeing about some things, sitting in the car before church. Okay. And then later in that day, cause confidence, self confidence was, was an issue that we had talked about.

And she really agreed with me that, yeah, people who have self confidence, they don't go into relationships [00:21:00] as worrying about the other person's perspective of them. So they have these thoughts, yeah, maybe I'm awkward or they'll judge me or they won't like me, but they're confident in themselves. That that's not going to stick when other people judge them or if someone calls them, you know, a fat slob, maybe if they haven't worked out in five years and they aren't taking care of their body, they'll be offended by that.

But if they're confident in themselves and somebody insults them, they're still going to have their sense of value based on who they are, not anything external. They're still going to say. You know, I'm a person of value and what they think is what they think. That's fine. You know, or if they call you, you know, if someone called me a fat slob, I'd be able to say, you know, in my mind, you know, that's not true.

I mean, cause it's not, I mean, I would just, I'm 185 pounds, you know, and try to take care of my health. I think it's important, but people, if you let it stick, that's a sign of a lack of lacking self confidence. You want to build your security. That's going to draw people to you. So the three tips I gave her, cause later in the day I said, Hey, what if you, I could give you three steps to building self confidence that are guaranteed to help.[00:22:00]

Would you want to know? And at first she just looked at me kind of strange and she said, yeah, I'd like to know. And I said, well, I'll tell you later, you know, cause I hadn't really come up with the steps yet. I kind of had them in my mind, but anyway, and I told her later and I said, well, notice your body when you're anxious and uncomfortable around other people, notice like what's going on and then notice what your thoughts are when you're uncomfortable because your anxiety and your fear is going to.

It's going to come out in some physical way. It could come out with like a stomachache or a backache or a headache or it could come out with your breathing being shallow. So notice that and then notice what the thoughts are going through your head. If you can identify and then journal what those things are, that's really going to make it clear.

So that's why it's so important to keep some kind of a journal or writing instrument in your phone so you can clearly see, well, in my mind, I'm going to I'm sensing they're going to reject me. They're not going to want to buy from me when I really know I can help them. Or they're going to have other friends that they're going to want to hang out with and not me.

And you write that down. And then you identify what the truth is. So what is really more accurate? Because it's not the whole picture. And then you write that down. So in that situation, you know, I don't think they're going to want to [00:23:00] hang out with me. Like the truth is, is I don't know. And if they don't, well, maybe they know these people better and it's okay.

I can still. Insert myself into the conversation, not like in an awkward way, I can just kind of try to join the conversation and share what I would like to share, ask questions and try to get to know people and be friendly. And then the third thing is, more often than not, if somebody is wired like myself, Or like my daughter at times, we can be emotional reasoners.

So we feel some certain way, and then we believe that it's factual. So I feel like it's going to go bad in that social interaction, so I believe that it's not really safe for me to be in that social interaction. So we practice doing the opposite of actually how we feel. So instead of not trying to engage, or not trying to do that new thing, or not trying to engage in something uncomfortable, we do it instead, and we face that fear.

We do it scared, basically. We do it scared, trusting that, As we do it scared, we're gonna grow and that it's worth it. And often what I find is when I do something scared is that the fear dissipates after I've started doing it. It's like skydiving. I [00:24:00] think that most people are afraid. I don't know for sure.

I don't think people that skydive frequently, but most people on their very first jump have some level of fear about jumping. You know, and what I have found is talking to people who have done it, and I've, I've done a tandem skydive as well, is that once you jump out of the plane, The fear goes away. I mean, you're either going to land and enjoy the ride or you're going to die.

And most likely you're not going to die because the drive to the airport to go skydiving is really statistically more dangerous than actually skydiving. So you're afraid on the way up, then you let go, you do it scared, and then the fear goes away. That's why it's so addictive. And for some people, it really is.

And they want to go again after they do that first skydive. That's me, definitely. So I'm kind of excited about future skydives, let's just say. So an action you can take To have the attitude that conflict is actually a growth opportunity and positive is you can ask somebody intentionally with an attitude of curiosity and being genuine [00:25:00] about their thoughts on a topic that you don't agree with.

So it's sort of the Abraham Lincoln. mentality, team arrivals, you know, he was known to put people around him who disagreed with him, political opponents, you know, so you're going and talking to somebody who, you know, is of a different political opinion than you. And you're getting their insight with curiosity, genuinely trying to understand so much so that you're paraphrasing to them what their point of view is.

And you're asking them clarifying questions when they share their point of view to get more in depth. Detail, not in a judgmental way. So you're using a what or how question, stay away from why questions, unless you can do it with real precision and gentleness and preface it with, I'm really curious, why do you feel that way?

Why do you believe that? Not judgment. You got to be careful with those why questions. So. Somebody's pro life, pro choice, atheist, Christian, for the death penalty, against the death penalty, whatever it is, but you find somebody that differs from you and your opinion. If you [00:26:00] want it to be something even less deep, it could be, tell me about your passion for that sports team that they're so passionate about.

When did that start? And they may tell you that, well, their dad was a fan. of the Oakland A's or that your dad or dad was a fan of the Chiefs and that's how it started and it can open up this great dialogue because you're trying even though you're a Cowboys fan or you're a Denver Broncos fan, you're really digging deeper, not just clashing with them.

So let's go ahead and recap these three attitudes to work on to get to know people. So number one, view people as interesting. People are interesting. Be curious. Number two, second attitude is how can I help people and look for opportunities to do so. Third attitude is how can I grow through this conflict?

How can I grow through conflict? I want to get to know people because a lot of times people don't get to know other people because they know as they do conflict is more apt to occur. So see it as a growth opportunity. Remember My 80 20 rule. 20 percent of life transformation is gaining insight. You're gaining insight today through this podcast.

80 percent [00:27:00] is taking action. How are you going to act on something that you learned today in the next, by the end of the day today, what are you going to do? It's probably going to be an emotional risk based on some insight you gained today. If you want it to stick, Teach it to somebody else. Teach it to your kids.

I talk about stuff you can teach your six year old and they can understand it. At least that's my aim. An action that you, a plan that you take action on is a hundred times better than one that is a great plan or a perfect plan that you never act on. So an okay plan is better than a perfect plan.

Perfection is your enemy. Do me a favor. Though, if you found this episode helpful, share it with somebody today. Just forward it to somebody on your phone from Apple Podcasts. Say, I heard this whack job Adam talking and this dude's, you know, an Oregon Duck fan. He's a freak. Check him out. Send it to somebody.

Do me a favor. I want to sign off the way I always do. Make it your mission to live the life now that you want to be remembered for 10 years after you're gone. At Christmas, 10 years after you're gone, this is what they're going to be saying about you. [00:28:00] You can live that life now. You decide your legacy, no one else.

I appreciate you greatly, and I'll see you next time.