Ever Little Thing You Think That You Need Ever Little Thing You Think That You Need every little thing that's just feeding your greed.
Oh, I bet that you'll be fine without it.
You're listening to The Minimalist podcast with Joshua Fields Milburn and T .K.
Coleman, recorded live at Irving Studios in sunny California.
Yes. Or cloudy California today.
Raining California bam.
I know you were at your Jiu Jitsu class and it was raining on you when you left I think.
Yeah. It was right after I got home.
I heard rain pour down and I went, what is that opened my window and went, I'll be darned it's raining.
Yes, well, thank you.
And hello everybody who's tuning in to this today on this show.
We're talking about the most effective ways to handle conflict.
Joining us in the studio to battle this topic is our friend, Erwin Raphael -McManus.
Erwin is a renowned artist and iconoclast and he is the founder of a global spiritual movement known as Mosaic.
He is also the author of a new book called The Seven Frequencies of Communication which explores the seven types of communication that the world uses to hear and to be heard. Coming up on this free public minimal episode, a caller has a question about respectfully convincing her father to get rid of the tools he doesn't use but are taking up space in her home.
And then we've got a question about the difficulties of being honest. That's followed by a right here, right now segment and a listener tip.
You could check out the maximal edition of episode 484 That's the full two -hour episode where we answer three times as many questions over on patreon The link is in the description.
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Let's start with our callers.
If you have a question or a comment for our show, we would love to hear from you.
Give us a call, our phone number's 406 -219 -7839 or you can email a voice recording right from your phone to podcast at theminimalists .com.
Our first question today is from Laura.
Hi minimalists, this is Laura from Sedona.
I just started listening to podcasts last week and I'm hooked.
I'm not a Patreon subscriber yet, only because I recently found you and I'm currently going through my subscription cleanup process counseling ones I don't use so I can support yours very soon.
I have a complicated garage clutter situation.
I recently went through a divorce.
And while my ex has been mostly moved out, he still has tools and other things left behind, he was more of a tool collector than a user so a lot are in perfect condition but they have been sitting there for months now.
On top of that my dad moved in with me while going through cancer treatment.
He's retired now but spent years doing maintenance and handiwork so he brought an overwhelming amount of tools and materials as well as random parts.
He's never been one to keep things tidy and duplicative almost about everything.
The thing is, even though he's retired, he likes to have them around, he's helped me out so many times with repairs.
And I know it gives them a sense of purpose.
I really want to completely redo the garage floors, paint, cabinets, etc. But I feel like I need to clear things out first. At the same time, my dad has already had to give up so much he's in defendants, he's retirement plans.
And I don't to take more away from him?
How do I approach this in a way that respects his feelings but also allows me to reclaim and organize the space?
And it's not just the space it contributes to my mental clutter seeing it every day, not just the physical aspect of it.
I would love your advice.
Thank you so much. Bye -bye.
Now, Ehrwin, you've been on the show a few times now, and I want to really bring you into our world with this episode because we get a lot of questions around clutter but this isn't really a clutter question it's a conflict question in a way and so I look at your book and you talk about the seven frequencies of communication but a big part of that are the seven different types of people and how they handle conflict because communication is probably the most important part of dealing with conflict and obviously Laura has a conflict here with her father she her father may not even know that there
is a conflict yet right yeah and so So, when you hear this question, she's talking about, well, maybe I feel like I should clear the things out first, but then also I don't want to offend my dad, I want him to feel good, and what observations do you have for her situation?
Well, I did think it was interesting that she began talking about her ex -husband.
Yes. And that he has tools in the garage.
So I'm almost wondering if her father's tools being around is more of a psychological connection to her frustration with her ex -husband rather than her father.
and that maybe she's actually dealing with some deeper emotional tensions inside of her.
And that, you know, her ex -husband's now gone but the tools are still there, so symbolically she's not completely free of that relationship.
And her dad comes in and he starts basically bringing in the same materials that basically let her know this isn't your world.
This isn't your house.
And so I think there's a bigger issue here that she never actually made the psychological shifts where this is her home, and she's allowed to make the rules.
And her dad probably is completely unaware.
He doesn't realize he's leaving the tools out that bothers her.
He doesn't realize that this is triggering her to a feeling she had with her ex -husband.
I think the best thing for you, forget the tools, is sit down with your dad and begin to have a conversation with him about what you're going through, what you're feeling, and how these seemingly irrelevant pieces of tools actually have deeper meaning for her.
And then, I think that might open up her relationship with her dad.
She's afraid to have a conversation with him, but he may actually long to have conversations with her, but not know how to actually initiate them.
So the problem is huge in her mind, but it's not actually huge relationally yet.
You don't even know it's a problem.
And so you sit down with your dad and go, So, hey, is there any way we can make adjustments here?
It doesn't even have to be black and white.
How can we do this where we can both mutually enjoy the space at each other?
And he might go, I'm so sorry, I didn't even know, right?
You never said anything to me.
Or I've been dying to get rid of some of these tools.
I just have way too many, maybe you could help me out.
And part of that is opening up for communication.
One of the things that's interesting here is we often want to convince someone to get rid of something or to do something they may or may not want to do, but especially when they don't want to do it, and we try to find ways to persuade them or convince them, but sometimes convincing someone is a great way to unlove them, because it's showing only your perspective.
The irony of this is I think about TK as he's sitting here across from me and he's convinced me of more things in my life than just about anyone I can think of.
And he has never once tried to convince me of anything.
He's hyper convincing.
So, TK, I'm interested in your perspective on this as someone who is rather convincing, but never tries to like drag me to his perspective.
What insights do you have for Laura?
Yeah, I just think about the power of vulnerability.
And as Erwin was talking, I just couldn't help but imagine a conversation between her and her dad about the first question and how powerful that would be, right?
So she's got a problem with her ex -husband and just sort of moving on and getting rid of his stuff.
What if we just sat the dad's problem on the shelf for a second, and we went to our father as that mentor that he is, as that guide and protector that he is, as that lover of children that he is.
And we say, dad, can you help me out?
Let me bounce something off you.
I'm really struggling with this thing right now.
My ex -husband left. I still got his things over, la di da di da.
What does he say? How does he connect with you over that?
And how does that allow him to see some ways in which he might be affecting you without having to deal with it so directly.
I would just love it while you were talking about that.
I was just imagining that I would love to see or hear how that conversation unfolds, and sometimes we don't even know how much space we have for things, and we tend to just get frustrated because we don't, we're not experiencing anything that reflects an orderly life that we want, so it may be the case that that stuff is not that big of a problem.
We don't know yet, because right now you're not living in the space as you want it to be because your husband's still there.
So you might have enough space for two people, just not enough space for three, we don't know.
I think that's fair and ultimately what she's talking about here is I want to clear these things out but communicating is also communicating where you're going.
It's not just about having an empty garage or maybe it is and that's okay too.
I'd really like to have an empty garage.
Okay, well, why, right?
Because as she said, and maybe it helps my mental clutter.
when we are surrounded by all these physical objects, our material possessions become this manifestation of a bunch of internal clutter.
Whether it's emotional clutter, or spiritual clutter, or mental clutter, we have a lot of clutter in our lives.
And it's often manifest there in our garage, or cabinets, or whatever.
Now, Erwin, I'm interested in the insights you might have with respect to different ways that we communicate.
In your book, you talk about these seven different communication types.
And you know, it's hard for me to determine what I am because I see myself in it, especially you have a chapter here about the shadow side of each of the different frequencies.
And I see my shadow, like maybe I'm just, I've gotten really good at being self -deprecating.
And so I'm like, oh yeah, I can see that in me or I can see that in me.
But I look at Ryan Iquodimos, who's not here today.
He's in Montana. He's says hi, by the way, but he's frequency, number one.
And he's the motivator.
And then I look at someone like TK and he's probably the challenger, frequency number two.
And then I'm maybe the seer or the maven.
And so we have these different communication styles but you don't think about someone else's communication style.
What stood out to me about the book is we understand our communication style.
So we can also understand how to better communicate or have conflicts with the people around us who might communicate differently.
That's interesting.
I loved your expression when he said you were a challenger, because instantly your face challenged it.
Which is a very natural challenging response, by the way.
Almost every single person who has come to us and said I don't agree with this assessment, I said is your number one frequency challenger?
I said okay you've just reinforced the entire process for us.
Outside of the frequencies, I think it's important to realize that communication is easy when someone agrees with you.
And so when you're in an evident flow and you're like, oh man, we just get each other and it's so easy to communicate, it's because they agree with you.
Communication becomes far more difficult when someone disagrees with you.
That's really where miscommunication happens and a huge part of that, and I've been on on both sides of this is when someone inherently disagrees with me, they will reinterpret what I said to match what they think I should have said.
And later they will say, but you said this, and actually I said the opposite.
And I've done this too, where I've listened to someone and I've reinterpreted what they said to match what I was sure they should have said.
So the first thing I try to figure out it is, are we actually in alignment on this perspective?
Because if we are, I'm just talking to myself.
It's really easy. But the moment I realize, oh no, we're actually not in alignment with each other.
And then I go, okay, misunderstanding is gonna happen here.
And so I think it's really important for me to say, what did you hear me say?
That's like one of my safety valves, questions.
Because I don't want that person walking away with what they thought I should have said rather than what I actually said.
And I've been married 41 years.
And believe me, I get reinterpreted every day.
And in that process, but also different communication frequencies are easier to misunderstand.
It's harder to misunderstand what the commander frequency is saying to you.
It's easier to misunderstand why a commander frequency is saying it to you.
And so the motivation behind the statement can be more misunderstood.
Now, if you happen to be, let's say a Maven frequency, it's much easier to be misunderstood.
Someone may walk away having no idea what you actually meant.
It's funny with our kids, Erin and Mariah, and our son is 36, he's a commander and our daughter Mariah is 33 and she's a challenger.
And they're both very clear.
But my number one is a maven and they grow up saying, just tell us what to do.
And they were just so frustrated.
They'd come to me and asked me a question and I'd asked them a question.
And they would say, dad, you know you never answer any questions.
So, no, I'm answering the question.
Sometimes the answer to a question is a question, almost always.
And so their frustration is you need to be more clear.
You need to be more clear.
because we can actually access all seven frequencies when you take the indicator.
My number seven frequency is commander, so I almost never go there.
You have to get me into an extreme state of being for me to command.
But what I've realized is even though I'm not attracted to the commander frequency for me, I'm very much attracted to the clarity they bring.
And so I look at it and go, okay, you cannot afford to see that frequency only as a negative because there are so many positive elements to that frequency that I need to bring.
And the reason it's going to be harder to read you is you spend your life communicating.
Your life work is communicating to the world.
You listen to people every single day and you're processing their frequencies, whether you realize it or not, and you're mirroring their frequencies, you're trying to figure out what frequency can I communicate with that person with.
And so you're going to be much broader because the seven frequencies are not static.
they're not, this is who you are, and that's where you're stuck with.
No, they're dynamic.
The more you actually take on the communication processes, art and science, the more frequencies you're gonna be able to access.
I wanna step back and talk a bit more about conflict here because I think that's the heart of this episode and it's understanding.
Well, I think Nicodemus does a great job with this, of de -escalating conflict, by listening and trying to better understand the other person in a way that allows people to be more charitable toward him and maybe not intentionally misunderstand him.
And one of the things that happens if someone tries to belittle me or is becoming, and they may not even realize it.
It's just a pattern that they have. And then I'll just ask them to repeat themselves.
Like, if they're like, you know, I really don't like what your hair looks like today, I'm like, can you, what'd you say?
And all of a sudden there's like a retreat.
there's like, oh, I realize, I sound like a real jerk right now, right?
I sound like a total dick being like, oh, and it breaks our pattern, right?
And one of the things that's really helped me, and I think this would help Laura with respect to her question, five words I often talk about, would you be willing to?
Now, I add two words to that when there is a type of conflict.
Would you be willing to help me blank?
What is the blank here?
And for Laura, might be going to her dad, would you be willing to help me with my ex -husband's tools?
And eventually, it may be, hey, would you be willing to help me with clearing out some of your tools, because here's why I want the extra space freed up, here's what I want to do with that space.
So getting back to this idea of conflict, we're gonna experience it every day.
I had a mentor tell me, he was my favorite mentor.
He always asked questions.
He never gave me an answer I felt like he was like a Buddha from Kentucky.
Cause he was from Kentucky.
And his name is Jim.
And he would... I'd call him up with a question about a customer or something when I was working back into corporate world.
And he would say, well, what do you recommend?
Or what would you do?
And every time he would make me answer the question for myself.
And sometimes I'd get the answer blatantly wrong.
Like so, so wrong. He'd go, I think that's an interesting answer.
Why don't you give it a shot?
he would allow me the dignity of failing instead of doing it for me.
That's something I struggle with now even as a leader is like, I don't want the people around me to fail, but that's how they learn.
They learn from these mistakes and these embarrassments.
And so when I was talking to him about conflict, he goes, Josh, you're really great at conflict.
That can't be true because I hate conflict.
So the only people who like conflict are bullies.
If you really enjoy getting into conflict with someone, there's probably some sort of bully trait there.
I don't think that's always true.
But I think a lot of the time you can be good at something and even though it's uncomfortable, you dislike it.
So what is so uncomfortable about our conflict with others?
Why do we hate conflict?
Well, I think there's another aspect here.
where I think sometimes people are drawn to conflict not because they're bullies, but because they're wounded.
And they see conflict as an attempt to be made powerless.
And so instead of learning how to defuse that conflict, they try to overpower that conflict.
And so it isn't about them trying to bully you, it's them trying not to be bullied again.
Does that make sense?
Almost like rewriting their history.
Yeah. And because we just did, Aaron and I have a podcast called MindPerfect and we just did a whole thing on diffusing bombs and hostage negotiations.
Oh, wow. And as one of the huge issues in being able to diffuse a bomb or in dealing with hostage negotiations is humility.
You cannot have a need to be seen as winning.
And most of the time, the reason people are bad at dealing with conflict is that they have a need to win.
Or to be perceived as winning and the reason I'm I'm really good if I have an art form I'm really good in crisis I'm really good in conflict and I know how to diffuse them and it's because I don't have a need to win I'm okay with you walking away thinking you won, and you're also okay with me walking away thinking you lost yes Ooh, those are two different dynamics.
It's like because TK never I never feel like TK is like I need to win or I need another way to say it is I need to be right Right his old old saying you can be right or you can be in love choose one Yeah, and that often happens with with conflict So you're able to say you know what you won and that's totally fine with me Yeah, and I think it's in the art of war.
They talked about Giving your enemy a golden bridge.
You have to give them an honorable way to move forward And a lot of times in conflict we destroy we dismantle every honorable way for the other person to win or to move forward And when you do that, you're just cornering a rabid wolf, because if you remove every honorable way forward, that person is gonna act in a way that isn't honorable.
They're gonna be aggressive and volatile and destructive.
And so I always look for a way to create a win for that person, even if they feel that they've stepped on my head and it's the loss for me.
And I remember once I read about this philosopher, for a theologian that was writing, looking out his window in the Swiss Alps, and he saw two goats, and one goat was, or ram.
One ram was coming down, one ram was going up, and they were on this very, very thin ledge, and he wondered how were they to resolve this.
And the ram that was going down got on all fours and lowered its head, and the ram that was going up walked over him and then kept going.
And in that moment he was writing about this is what humility looks like.
Who the person that was higher, the one that was higher actually lowered himself to the one that was lower could go higher?
Yeah, I think that's one of the psychological frameworks.
You have to have with conflict resolution.
I'm not trying to win I'm trying to help you win It just shifts everything it's the same way when you're dealing with in a sense like hostage Negotiation because what you're looking at is you're looking at someone Who wants their outcome at the cost of everyone else?
And sometimes in life you do have that.
It's very hard because you have a person who doesn't wanna win -win.
They need that win -lose.
And you have to help them realize, so you can't say, look what you'll do, look at all the people you're gonna harm.
Look at the outcome or consequences because all they're thinking about right now is themselves.
So you have to help them see that hurting other people will actually be their worst choice for them.
And a lot of times what happens is is you don't want to help that person have a win.
You don't want them to walk forward feeling like, okay, I got what I wanted.
But if you don't find a way to help that person get what they want without harming anyone else, you're actually going to have a worst case scenario.
Yeah, no one likes a sore loser, but we especially dislike sore winners.
People who gloat, right?
People who, yeah, look, you lost, and we like it in a sports context, maybe, where all three of us are basketball fans.
So it's great to see Steph Curry, put someone to sleep in the fourth quarter.
Like that's, that's fun to watch, but if you see him doing it and they're down by 40 points, you're like, what the heck?
And you wouldn't do that, right?
And yet we don't want to feel like the other person has won and we have lost, but if you're willing to let that go, if you're willing to set that down and realizing that that if you win but they lose, then maybe you also lost, or you lost as a couple.
I think about the story, I was in a sauna with a Native American in Montana from the Blackfoot Tribe and we're near a swimming pool and he's looking at a swimming pool, he goes, I don't understand you Americans and your competition.
I'm like, what? He goes, you always need to win.
What do you mean? He goes, well, in my tribe, that if someone else in the tribe loses, then I lose.
And if they win, then I win.
And I just love that framing of it.
And especially in the context of conflict, the question is how do we win?
Not how do I win while you lose.
Laura, I'd love to send you a copy of the seven frequencies of communication by Erwin Raphael McManus we'll send you the physical book, or if you want the ebook, we'll be happy to send that to you, as well.
Before we get back to our questions, in San Juan's Malabam are our callers.
What time is it? You know what time it is.
It's time for The Lightning Round where we answer the Patreon community chats question of the week.
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What is the question of the week this week?
What's the hardest thing about being honest?
What is the hardest thing about being honest?
TK, before we get to our pithy answers, I do want to hear from Erwin, but first I want to hear from some of our simpletins here.
Malabama, what did our listeners have to say?
Stephanie said, for me, the hardest thing about being honest is being misunderstood.
I pride myself on communicating clearly, but I often struggle when what I'm communicating isn't being understood, especially when it's by a loved one.
Now, Erwin, this feels universal.
Why do we humans hate being misunderstood?
Oh, we shifted the question from why, why you're afraid of being honest. We'll get back Back to the honesty.
But Stephanie is like, hey, the hardest thing for me about being honest is I don't want to be misunderstood.
There's something there, and you've mentioned being misunderstood earlier, that there is this, you know, I just want to be understood, and I'm willing to drag you through hell and back just so that you understand me.
Well, I think the primary fear when we say we don't want to be misunderstood is we do not want people to impose negative intention behind our thoughts or actions.
It's not that we're worried about the information being misunderstood.
Is that we're, we're worried about our motivation being misunderstood.
And I think that's really where for us, the, the, the trauma comes in.
You know, I've been so misunderstood.
No one has says, Oh, my favorite color is red not blue.
I'm so misunderstood.
And what we're afraid of is you did that because.
And it's always because of a negative reason.
If a TK, if I'm like, TK he's drinking tea because he really cares about me.
Like he's not going to care about that type of being misunderstood, if I'm like he's drinking tea because he's not a good person.
Good people drink coffee.
You're like, well, wait a minute now.
You misunderstand me.
It makes a lot of sense.
It makes a lot sense, even if I had coffee in this cup, you're like, he's drinking tea cause he loves me.
I'd be like, uh, yep.
Keep on misunderstanding.
Well that's a good point.
So, so being misunderstood has a lot to do with what your misunderstanding someone about.
And, and that gets back to the initial question here about the most difficult thing about being honest. Sometimes when we're not honest, it's because we're afraid of being misunderstood.
What about, what else we have?
Ariana said, I've spent most of my life learning how to read the nuances of the people around me and figure out the best response at all times.
While I've overcome most of my social awkwardness and can even mask myself as an outgoing extrovert, the result is that I cannot stay connected to the moment, to myself, or to my surroundings when anyone is in the room, even if we are not interacting.
So, Erwin, what do we do when people tell you that they find it really difficult to be present around other people?
the way he began his question was he's developed reading people and my media thought was you need to develop listening to people, not reading them because if you're trying to just, quote, read people, you're trying to gain a social advantage.
But if you're listening to people, you're trying to make a human connection.
And so I think the key of being present is, don't focus on the outcomes.
Like a lot of times in like mixers, people are trying to find business partners or they're trying to find a new contractor, they're trying to find someone who can help them scale.
And all they're doing is looking for what someone can do for them.
And really the best connectors are the people who aren't trying to find anything except human connection.
And then in those human connections, you get this serendipitous effect of Oh, and we can help each other like this.
And so I'd say focus on the value of people.
Don't read people, listen to them.
And then if you have a great ability to read people, because the only people you really need to read are the people who are trying to mislead you.
And so if you are almost hypervigilant, you think everyone's trying to mislead you, then you're trying to read the whole room.
I don't even try to read Josh.
I just listened, I just absorbed, in a sense your essence, there's no sense I need to read him.
Got to figure out what's going on here, right?
Yeah, I don't need to size you up cause you just are who you are.
And so it's very easy.
And I think the connection is more important.
Yeah, well you also show up with a real spirit of service as opposed to what can I get from you?
It's how can I contribute beyond myself in a meaningful way?
And I think that shows it also, So the paradox of that is people then want to contribute to you, right, because they feel like they're seen, they feel like they're heard, they feel like they're helped and they're like, well, I wanna help those who also help me, right?
Yeah, example of this humility, when I first met him, you're filming the documentary and I was so pumped up, I was like, I read your books, Caesar and Divine Moment years ago and it changed my life.
Like, this is the first time I've actually met an author who wrote a book that changed my life.
And he goes, oh, this is my first time actually reading somebody who read one of my books.
And it just sort of like de -dramatized the moment.
It's like this is a human being man.
This is a guy that's not threatened by anybody, that's not putting on a show.
And that probably has a lot to do with your ability to be free of the need to size people up, right?
Yeah, I think there's something special about someone like Erwin showing up and not being filled with the self.
We call it the ego, which is like the false self, right?
but he has a healthy dose of he knows who he is, but he's not trying to be someone for you.
He's not trying to put on a mask to impress you.
Now, ironically, that's one of the most impressive things about someone like Erwin is like, he's not trying to impress me, and so therefore I'm impressed by him.
How fascinating is that?
What else you got, Bama?
Susie said, I remember reading a tweet once that said, I spent a lot of time trying to be as nice as you think I am, as a minister's wife, I often have a shame hangover when I've been honest about who I am or how I feel about things.
It can feel quite sad to see the disappointment in people's eyes when they realize you're not who they had hoped you were, and that you don't agree with everything as simply as they imagine you should.
Yeah, you know, what's fascinating about others expectations when we heap them onto ourselves, they become a sort of a prison cell, our prison cells are built by the expectations of others, but only when we accept them.
Now, Erwin, I'm interested, what do you do when you disappoint someone?
You mean, I just call that like Tuesday.
It's funny when I was much younger, I thought I could get to the level of wisdom, maturity, emotional stability where I would never disappoint another human being again.
And I still have not achieved.
even one your way. That that's data shock I've accepted.
I accepted a long time ago.
I will disappoint someone every day of my life.
And that if I live my life based on whether I live up to other people's expectations.
I won't even find any joy or meaning in life.
And so even this week has been a challenge.
I mean, there are people, I disappointed this week.
People I disappointed last month And I kind of work from my inner circle.
If I disappoint Kim, it really matters to me.
If I disappoint Aaron Moriah, Jake Juno, it matters to me.
But if I disappoint a stranger that I've never met because I don't satisfy their perception of who I should be.
I just cannot let that matter to me.
And I wish I had super thick skin, but I'm not reptilian.
I actually have like, I feel it.
I have high, high empathy and so I just told myself I need to have thick skin, tender heart, not the other way around.
You don't wanna have a hard heart and thin skin.
And so I just accept the fact that when you're trying to do good, you will always let people down.
When you disappoint people, it actually means you've elevated your expectation of the kind of person you are, so you should take it as a compliment.
They thought so highly of you that they thought higher than you could achieve.
your feet. It was just kind of awesome.
It's a compliment, that's so good.
That's good. Anything to add to that?
Well, one of the reasons why you want to have an inner circle, especially one that isn't afraid to be honest with you, is when you have a disappointment that nags you from someone that's in the outer circle.
You can take that to your inner circle and say hey look, this is really bothering me.
What do you think? And they'll be honest to say, I think you should learn from that.
I actually think they're right and you should make this kind of adjustment.
Or they might say, I think you should ignore that and move on and that can be a great help to you.
or they might say to you, like, you know what?
That person communicated some truth to you.
I don't like the way they communicated.
It was unkind. And maybe they didn't even realize they were unkind.
Especially if it was communicated to you online because comment sections, you remove all of the context, you remove all of the tonality, you remove the timber and the pace of communication.
And so it becomes more difficult to communicate in the written word and the written word is beautiful when you're intentional about it, but also it can be really easy to misunderstand what someone was trying to communicate.
So also, what's the most charitable thing that I can do?
Okay, this person, I didn't like the way they said this, but what is the most charitable way to frame the feedback that they are giving me during this conflict?
Let's do one more. We had so many people respond to this question.
What's the hardest thing about being honest?
What did, how about Rebecca?
The hardest thing about being honest is not hurting someone's feelings.
I speak very plainly to help minimize misunderstandings, but people take offense to it.
Now TK, before we start a recording you said to me that the price of truth makes silence tempting.
And sometimes it feels that way.
And although we often feel as though I must say something, I must contribute to this.
But also, it is costly to be truthful.
And so why did you frame it that way?
I mean, because sometimes it's not how you say it.
Sometimes it's what you say.
I believe in communication techniques.
I believe very strongly that you are more likely to have an impact if you consider timing, tone, context, manner and so on.
But sometimes the truth is just the truth.
And even if you tell it in the best way, you know how that person still may not be ready to receive.
They still may not like it.
and you can't control other people's reaction and ask them to always like the truth.
Sometimes we hear a truth that we need to hear and we're still upset in the moment and it's not until later we come back and say, Hey, thank you for that.
I want her to be able to say that the truth will set you free but first it's gonna piss you off.
It's not true all the time, but it's true sometimes.
And we have to take that into account.
And it does make silence tempting when we go into a situation where we do have a really good ability to predict that the other person may not like this.
Or when we did a politics episode the day before the presidential election last year wow It was the episode that was gonna bring everyone together and I thought so good about it one to be brought together That's another that's worth talking about as well.
And it was called letting go of politics It was about setting down the partisanship and all of this and and I couldn't have been further from the truth I was so wrong and it just frustrated everyone I feel like and During the conversation, I asked T .K., he said, I hate having these political discussions, but I was like you're so good at it!
Why do you hate having them?
And he said, because I'm not a coward. And so I'm willing to tell the truth, even if it disappoints someone, even if it offends someone, it is not my intention to reach out and disappoint or offend these people, but also I'm willing to do it.
I'm willing to sacrifice that for the truth.
Like I just wanna add something that might be slightly unpopular, being honest doesn't mean you're telling the truth.
It means you're giving your opinion.
And I know that when you were sharing, you equated that because I think for you, being honest is telling the truth, but I'd say for most human behavior, when we're saying I just need to be honest with you, what you're actually saying is I need to give you my opinion?
And it's rarely rooted in truth.
It's usually rooted in emotion, which is why we get a negative reaction because we think people are accepting the truth.
What they're not accepting is the emotional volatility that's coming from us to them.
If you're honest by telling the truth and you actually have that truth fueled by love, so like one of our lifelong savances, Truth should never travel faster than love, because if the truth gets there before your love gets there, it will not be accepted well.
But you need to distinguish between honesty being your own permission just to say whatever you feel and think and whatever your opinion is, as if it is truth, because there's a distinction between those two.
Yeah, we often conflate the fact that something is subjective.
Like blue is the best car color.
Like that's an opinion and that's an honest opinion if that is your opinion, but there's no objective truth behind that And of course that is almost a parodic example But the the truth behind this is that we feel that way about all of our opinions Right and and when this train things even politically Sorry, let me drink some water here As we go to politics i'm choking up It's like the moment we talk about politics and people become incensed, I mean they really become like violent is because they attribute a position to a quality of virtue. And say go, oh, I thought you were a good man.
Yeah, but you hold that position so you cannot be a good man.
rather than reversing the logic and saying, I've known you to be a good man, and now I know you hold this position.
So I now I know a good man can hold that position.
Because if they do that, now they have to deal with that position with integrity, intellectual integrity.
So they have to reverse it and say, I thought you were a good man, but now that I know you hold this position, I know you're not a good man.
So I don't have to have an intellectual engagement with your idea, your position, your opinion.
The other way around compels me to be curious.
I know you're a good man.
I've associated that position with evil man, so now I've gotta understand, what is it about the way you're looking at this that shows some merit in it?
I gotta make one further distinction.
There is a subjective and an objective dimension to truth.
The subjective dimension is when I am honest, I am telling you the truth about what I think or how I feel.
Did you like the cake?
I didn't like it. That's the subject of a dimension, right?
I'm being honest and truthful because to be honest, this is to say the truth about what I feel.
But the object of dimension is I am making a statement that corresponds to reality, right?
So if I say, I didn't like the cake, that's honest and true.
But if I didn't say that cake is crap, uh oh.
Now I'm taking my filling and I'm projecting it onto reality and treating it being bad as if it's an attribute of the cake itself.
And it's like, no, that's just how I feel about it.
And I like that you're holding space between those two components, being honest doesn't mean I'm telling you how it is.
It's me telling you how I am.
So as being honest, do you like the cake?
I love that you made that cake for me.
Yeah, but do you like it?
When that person's asking, do you like the cake?
What they're actually asking is, do you love me?
Yeah, do you appreciate what I've done?
You appreciate what I've done.
Yeah, and so there are ways to handle it, where you can still be honest. That's a hostage negotiator.
Yeah. I feel bad that I feel like I'm dealing with a hostage situation just because you baked me a cake.
OK. I got to push back though.
I got to be the challenger here.
Because I am naturally inclined to be that guy when you say do you like the cake?
I love that you made it for me.
I was like that when I was five.
And it's as if God was sending me people to be like, nah brother, tell me if you like the cake.
Don't BS me with that.
So I'm curious, speaking the truth in love, when someone pushes back and they're like, no, did you think the cake tastes good?
What do you say? You move from objective to subjective.
You don't say that cake is terrible.
That's objective. Subjective is, I don't know why, but the flavor didn't work for me.
And I learned this the hard way because I did not like a lot of food growing up and my mom did not enjoy me.
And one day, we had this guy come over, he was a semi -professional tennis player.
She put some food on the table.
He ate and said, I'm so sorry, my taste buds haven't developed to this level yet.
I don't know if that's an insult or a compliment.
I'm gonna start using that on TK for everything.
She was perfectly okay, and I'm like, wait a minute.
What just happened here?
This is a slight hand.
I can tell you this is terrible for a long time.
Hey, you just set me free.
Now I'm gonna get something off my chest with Josh, right?
Hey, it's not LeBron, it's me.
No, no, no, it's LeBron.
Come on. You're okay, my mommy.
He's a Clippers fan.
We can't do this right now.
I love a lotta teams, but you know, if you are looking for the greatest flopper of all time, LeBron would be your man, right?
I'm a black and black person.
I just don't appreciate flopping enough to love him as I should.
Hey, he's being honest even if he's not telling the truth.
You know what's fascinating about this though is because you also don't wanna do the opposite where you're like, mmm, I loved it.
And you're like spinning it in the trash can, right?
Because it's better to hurt someone's feelings with the truth than it is to pacify them with a lie.
Yeah, I've been married 41 years so I can use, I liked your last cake better.
I'm always pointing to an achievement.
There you go. That's impressive.
Well, how about you listeners?
We'd love to hear from you.
What's the hardest thing about being honest?
Let us know your thoughts in the Patreon community chat, which by the way you can join for free.
If you don't subscribe to our private podcast, obviously we'd love for you to subscribe to the private podcast as well.
Okay. Give me something pithy TK, what's the hardest thing about being honest?
So truth is priceless, but sometimes dishonesty feels more affordable.
I think one of the challenging aspects of being honest is being willing to act courageously and creatively in the face of the consequences of being honest. I remember the Gordon Ramsey cooking show.
You remember that? There was this ABC baking company and the woman who owned the business, along with her husband, she had a temper man.
And when you told her something she didn't wanna hear, she got so mad.
And so the husband spent the whole episode trying to protect her.
He says don't don't don't tell my wife that she can't handle the truth don't tell my wife that she can't handle the truth and finally at the end there was a confrontation that says no The problem isn't that your wife can't handle the truth The problem is you keep insulating from her from the truth because you're afraid you can't handle her when she's mad That's what you need to deal with and he had to come to grips with that and realize you know What the truth is good for my wife and I got to deal with the fact that we're gonna go home together And she's gonna be upset for a while, and I've gotta trust
that I can be man enough To stand in the midst of that fire and be okay and love her anyway I dove tails perfectly into my pithy answer, which is honesty as this your curators route toward pleasure But the shortest path to peace now at first it's like oh yeah, I'm going to To you know what I'm not gonna get what I want right away if I'm honest with this person right?
We need to insulate this my way from any of this critical feedback, right because I want to feel good in the moment It doesn't always feel good to be honest, but ultimately that is the path toward peace and the insights on that are one I would just say Honesty is a commitment to love someone more than you love how they feel about you.
Oh Oh, wow He's been doing this for a while.
We're coming up to the end of page one So again, we still have an entire switchboard of callers to talk to.
But first, real quick for right here right now, here's one thing that's going on in the life of the minimalist, we got some live events coming up, once a month, so we call Sunday symposium.
Our next one is this Sunday, March 30th Sunday symposium here in Los Angeles in West Hollywood.
I don't know if there any tickets left, but if there are, you can find them at sundatesymphosium .com or you can get added to the wait list to that as well.
Tickets are free for that event.
Also, we'll be in Santa Barbara in April and Orange County in May with our Sunday symposiums, tickets at sundaysymposium .com.
And speaking of events, our next FAMS call, our Friday afternoon and minimalist Zoom is Friday, April 4th at 3 p .m. Eastern.
We hop on there with our patrons.
We have a nice little remote event where you can hop on there.
You can turn your camera on.
You can talk to us.
You can turn your camera off and just be a fly on the wall and listen.
I really enjoyed those.
It was the first Friday of every month there on Patreon.
You can find the details at TheMinimalists .com slash Zoom.
Also, there are still a few seats left to Simple Haven.
We're doing a three day minimalist retreat up in Ohai, California.
And I live up in Ohai now and it's been this really great community for us.
And we're meeting with 30 people.
There's just a few tickets left as of this recording.
You can find the details on our events page at TheMinimalists .com.
If you want to join us for three days in Ohai, Nickedemus will be there, TK will be there.
We'll have a few special guests.
I'll be there as well.
Join us for Simple Haven, a three day minimalist retreat.
Theminimalists .com.
Click on events at the top if you want to grab your seat.
Once we have 30 people there, that's it.
Malabam, what else you got for us?
Here's a minimalist insight from one of our listeners.
Hi Josh and TK, this is Beth from Lancaster, Pennsylvania.
I have been a Patreon member since 2017.
In the Holiday Anxiety podcast, I enjoyed listening to TK's questions to Josh, whereby he wondered if Josh had an experience of being overwhelmed by other people's expectations.
As our conversation progressed, it caused me to think about Gretchen Rubin's work on the Four Tendencies Framework.
This framework looks at a very narrow aspect of human nature, but something that is very important, which is how we respond to expectations.
She states that we all face two kinds of expectations, outer expectations like work deadlines for an employer, and inter -expectations like maintaining one's fitness routine.
So, depending on whether we meet or resist outer and inter -expectations, that's what makes us either an upholder, a questioner, an oblige, or a rebel.
Knowing your tendency can help you set up situations in ways that make it more likely that you will achieve your aims. You can make better decisions, meet your promises to yourself, suffer less stress and engage more deeply with others.
This is some of what I heard Joss say that he has learned that he does not have to suffer unnecessarily and that his relationships benefit.
Because when he shows up, he is there, he is engaged deeply.
It appears to me that Josh achieves his aims by meeting his inner expectations.
And if an outer expectation makes sense to him, then he will make it an inner expectation.
This is an example of a questioner within the four tendencies framework.
As for TK, it appears that he might be in the oblige or up older tendency, whereby he meets outer expectations.
He stated he is not as comfortable to saying no to the degree that Josh says it.
And he is aware that saying yes might lead to long term resentment and relationship deterioration.
Thank you for inviting me to share these observations.
Bob, thank you so much for that thoughtful observation and.
We'll put a link to Gretchen Rubens' book in the show notes as well.
If people want to check it out, for anyone else who has a listener tip or insight about this episode, send a voice memo to podcast at theminimalists .com so we can feature your voice on the show.
Up next, we got a whole lot coming up on page two and page three, but first, let's take a quick pandiculation break.
We'll be right back.
All right, that's the first 39 % of episode 484.
We'll see you on Patreon for the full Maximal Edition with Erwin Raphael -McMannis, which includes answers to a bunch more questions, questions like as I change my life, Why do I find it more difficult to communicate with the people around me and how can I help my child heal the wounds caused by her narcissistic father?
And how do her emotions get in the way of communicating with others?
Plus we have a million more questions and simple living segments over on The Minimalist's private podcast on Patreon.
Big thanks to our friend, Erwin Raphael McManus, his new book is called, The 7 Frequencies of Communication.
He also has a frequencies assessment that he has on his website, erwinnickmanis .com.
We'll put a link to both of those in the show notes.
You can check out his podcast as well.
It's called MindShift. You can find a link to that in the show notes.
And that is our minimal episode for today.
Big thanks to Earthing Studios for the recording space.
On behalf of Ryan Nicodemus, T .K.
Coleman, Malabama, post -production Peter, Spire Jeff, and Spire Dave, Savvy D.
who's on vacation this week, so Malabama is on the board. We also had a beautiful studio audience here.
Beula was here, and Joe Smith was here as well, and the rest of our team, big thanks to you.
I'm Joshua Fields Millburn.
If you leave here with just one message, let it be this.
Love people, and use things.
Because the opposite never works.
Thanks for listening, y 'all.
We'll see you next time.
Peace. Ever a little thing you think that you need?
Every little thing, you think that you need.
Every little thing that's just feeding your greed, Oh, I bet that you'll be fine without it.
