Afford Anything - How to Create a Complaint-Free World -- with Will Bowen

Episode Date: December 25, 2017

#109: Happy holidays! I thought it would be nice to wrap up this year with a lighthearted holiday episode about the importance of keeping a positive attitude. Will Bowen, my guest on the final episode of 2017 (wow!), started a campaign to motivate people to complain less. He noticed that many people in his community said they wanted more stuff -- more possessions -- but they complained about what they already had. So he wondered if perhaps people could find happiness not by purchasing more, but rather by complaining less. In this episode, he discusses how we can move towards a complaint-free lifestyle. I thought this would be a cheerful, light interview to round out this year. Enjoy, and happy holidays! - Paula   For more information, visit the show notes at http://affordanything.com/episode109 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

You can afford anything but not everything. Every decision that you make is a trade-off against something else. And that's true, not just of your money, but also your time, focus, energy, attention, and your attitude. I thought it would be nice to wrap up this year with a light-hearted episode about the importance of keeping a positive attitude. So I invited Will Bowen to be my guest on this holiday episode, the final episode of 2017. Will Bowen started a campaign to motivate people to complain less. He noticed that many people in his community said they wanted more stuff, more possessions, but they complained about the things that they already had.

So he wondered if perhaps people could find happiness not by purchasing more, but rather by complaining less. And from that, he kicked off a movement, a complaint-free movement, and he wrote a book about it as well, a book called The Complaint Free World. In today's episode, he discusses how we can move towards a complaint-free lifestyle, a lifestyle of gratitude, or if not gratitude, than at least one of less negativity. I thought this would be a cheerful, light-hearted interview that would just round out this year.

So I hope you enjoy. With no further delay, here is Will Bowen. Hi, Will. Hello, Paula. How are you? I'm excellent. How are you doing? Can't complain.

I hear that you are the expert in not complaining. So let's dive right into that. What is a complaint? Well, the dictionary defines complain as to express grief, pain, or discontent. My definition is a little more defined, and that is it's an energetic statement that focuses on the problem rather than the solution. To express grief, pain, or discontent. We all need to express grief pain or discontent.

The thing is what has launched this little idea that I had into a worldwide movement is this feeling that there is just too much complaining in the world and that the world is not the way we would like it to be. And I think it's that correlation between the two that has caused people to realize that we're immersed in a funk of negativity all around us. So there's a very long answer to a short question. But one thing I know is that it has to do with your energy behind it, you know. I can say it rained last night and the thunder woke up the dog, which woke us up. Now, that's not a complaint because there's no negative, how dare this happen to me energy behind it. Now, if I say, it rained again in Kansas City last night and, of course, woke up the dog. So it really has to do with your energy behind what you're saying as to whether or not it's a complaint.

So you've already answered my next question, which was how could a person distinguish a complaint from an observation or commentary? Yes, and that's a very important thing. I'm not out. When people hear about my book, a complaint-free world, they think it's a book about telling people to shut up and be doormats. It's quite the opposite. I believe most people are doormats. Most people are not speaking to people who can resolve their problems. They're complaining to everybody else. And as a result, their lives don't get any better. It makes sense why they do it. They do it to bond socially. That's really why people complain. But people are doing this as a way of excusing themselves from life, not participating in life. That's interesting.

So if we were to stop complaining, would that have any type of adverse effect in terms of our ability to bond socially? It depends on how you define complain. Let me give you an example of, let's say, my wife and a woman. I, the dog ate something. I keep giving dog my poor dog Jake. He's the greatest dog. Anyway, my dog ate something a couple of weeks ago and he got sick to his stomach and we had to clean it up. That is relating facts. That's not complaining. And I could put a lot of energy and negativity in it and say, this should have never happened. You know, how dare this

happened? This stupid dog. Who left this trash bag for the dog to get into and eat too much? And much of he ate too many carrots, you know, which is crazy. That is complaining. That's, that's what we're seeking to avoid. But I would want to tell my wife that this took place if she didn't know so she wouldn't leave the bag of carrots on the Ottoman where we were sitting and eating. So it's important to convey information. If my phone is broken, I should call Apple. I shouldn't call my if it works, I shouldn't tell my daughter

who works for me, you know? I should contact Apple. But what most people do is before they speak directly and only to the person who can resolve an issue, which is what I'm advocating, they tell a half dozen people and they do it

to connect socially. Complaining is ingrained into our innate need to function as a cohesive or collaborative at the very least unit as a society. If we were to stop complaining in order to emotionally bond with people, what would we replace that with? I think it would be a good point to sort of contextualize all of this and to say that the program

that I began, the 21 days where people give up complaining and we've set 11 million complaint-free bracelets around the world, what people find when they do this. And it takes four to eight months to go 21 days in a row without complaining. They put the bracelet on one wrist. And every time they catch themselves complaining, they take it off the wrist and they switch it to the other wrist. A lot of people initially find that they don't have a lot to connect with other people. There was one family that all did it. And they went into this stage.

There's four stages of competency when we try anything. And one of them is the conscious competence. stage, and that means that you're doing it, but it is not easy. You're really trying to have to focus. And they said that they sat down in dinner and had nothing to talk about because they couldn't, what most people find is that if they replace it with what is going well, what's going well in your life? What are you happy about? What are you satisfied about? What are you grateful for? What is going good? Those are the kinds of things that spark positive conversations and keep us out of complaining.

Let's dive in a little bit to the four stages of competency, because that was one of the things that I really enjoyed about your book, and that has applications to many areas of life. So can you explain that four stages of competency? Sure, yes. I wish I knew who came up with them. I didn't. It has been attributed to Abraham Maslow, but it is not one of those things that editors, let's put it that way, found that, but they didn't find.

enough supporting material for us to use it. Does that make sense? Yeah, yeah, that makes sense. Let me see if I can remember them. I haven't been asked this question in a long time. It is unconscious incompetence, then it is conscious incompetence, then it's conscious competence, then it's unconscious competence, right? Yes. With the example of complaining. Most people have no awareness they complain. They don't realize how much they complain. My guesstimation is that people complain somewhere 15 to 30

times a day. I like to say complaining is like bad breath. Notice it when it comes out of somebody else's mouth, but not when it comes out of your own. And so most people are in that unconscious, incompetent stage. They have no idea

how much they complain. When they put on our purple bracelet and take on the 21-day challenge, and they start to move their bracelet, with every complaint, they realize how incompetent they are. They become conscious to their incompetency. They realize, oh my gosh, I complain a lot. And this is actually a very difficult stage. This is like, it's like, and I can say this because I lost 100 pounds, but it would be like step it on the scale and realize, you know, I think I'll lose 30 pounds and I'll be in great shape

and then realizing you really need to lose 150 pounds. When people realize how much, they complain, it can be a bit of a struggle. So that's that conscious incompetent stage. If people stay with it, they move into the conscious competence stage. The conscious competence stage is the one where I like to call the I'm not moving my bracelet stage. People will start chatting about somebody negatively or gossiping and you'll want to start to say something and you'll say, well, you know what I noticed about her? And then you'll go, and I'm not going to move my bracelet. You just stop yourself. So that is also a very difficult stage. And then the last one is the unconscious competence stage. If you stay with it long enough, you literally get to the

point where you don't have to think about it. You simply don't complain. And so for me, the metaphor I like to give, because I like to juggle, and I've taught people to juggle is, most people are unconscious, incompetent jugglers. And that is, they know they can't juggle, but they don't realize how badly they can't juggle until you hand them three bags and say, keep them going. Then they become conscious of their incompetency. And then now, I literally, I don't have any juggling balls with me, but I could be juggling right now and you have no idea I was doing it because I was so unconscious of my competency. And so those are the stages that we move through whenever we become competent of anything, most of all complaining.

Interesting. After reading your book, I've definitely found myself in the conscious incompetence stage, which means I am aware of how much I complain. But the thing that I've noticed is I tend to be more aware of how much others complain, more so than myself. Boy, isn't that the truth? Whenever I speak, and it's a joke, but it's not a joke, but it's one of the things that I say that really brings the house down.

is that usually three to five minutes into my presentation, I'll stop like, oh my gosh, you know, like everybody run to the fire exits, but I'll say, I just realized I should have given you my disclaimer. And everybody looks at me and I'll go, just from hearing me speak, you are going to notice complaints like you never have before. They were already there, but now you're going to notice them. And people look at me quizzically and then I go, you're welcome and just keep on talking. it's true. We are immersed in a culture of negativity. We literally are swimming in negativity. And once you begin to become aware of complaining, you notice not only your own, but how much it surrounds us. And over time, it becomes, it's almost like something that you used to enjoy that you taste and you go, man, I can't believe I ever like that. that because it makes me feel bad. One of the things that struck me about your discussion about the nature of complaining and how to overcome complaining is sort of the relationship between complaining and staying

within your locus of control and taking responsibility for situations. Can you talk about that a little bit? Sure. People, and I'll touch on this just real quick and we can get more deeply into it. But this is sort of the thing that I, especially when I'm working with corporations, they want to make sure that everybody gets. People only complain for five reasons. But we've already established that it's not complaining to speak directly and only to the person

who resolves your issue. That's feedback followed by a request. So complaining falls within gripe is the acronym that I use. G-R-I-P-E, get attention, remove responsibility. I stands for Inspire envy, which makes people envy you. P is power. and the E stands for excuse poor performance. So to your question, the two areas, remove responsibility and excuse poor performance,

those are the ones where people are given a task and they are either they don't want to do it and they want to complain about the circumstances so you'll let them off the hook or they have been given the task and they've blown it and they want to complain about the circumstances to remove themselves from blame. So complaining is used as like a sheltering tactic. It's a way of saying, hey, what do you want from me? Because when you stop complaining, your life changes. People who are losers get together and complain.

People who get together and are winners do not complain. They talk about, how can I get better? What am I enjoying? What am I satisfied with? What are you learning? What are you experiencing? What should I try next? These are some key indicators of complainers.

People who say, how dare they? Can you believe this? Here we go again. Just my luck. Of course. And then what they do is they springboard off one person's poor experience by adding theirs onto it. And it's just a soup of negativity.

And then they get up feeling justified, but nothing changes. So let me walk through an example and tell me first of all whether or not in this example what I'm about to describe is actually complaining or if it would be something else. And then number two, tell me how you would deal with it. Sure. Let's say there's a person, you know, let's say that you're a podcaster. I love hypotheticals. I just love hypotheticals. This is so cool. Starting to dial this one in. Okay. What clues, please?

And let's say that a big part of what you do is you encourage people to make the most of their talents. And so you encourage them to like, hey, get out there. And, you know, if you feel like you don't make enough money, get out there and start a side hustle and make some more. Or negotiate with your boss for a raise or do something. Let's say that you're a podcaster and that's a big part of your message. Now let's say that there are some people whose response to that typically falls along the lines of there are no good part-time or work from home or flex hour jobs out there. Remove themselves from responsibility.

That's under the gripe. Go ahead. They're removing themselves from responsibility. Go ahead, yes. Yeah, there are a lack of good opportunities. The opportunities that are out there, we don't get paid enough. And there's absolutely no way that you could expect me, given all my circumstances, given that I have kids, given that I am already doing X and Y and Z.

Excuse poor performance. Yeah. So hypothetically, how would you respond to that? I do speeches. I'm doing a speech next week to 2,000 people, and I'm going to encourage every one of them and give them everything I have to take on my complaint-free movement. Do you know how many people are going to actually do it? Less than probably a tenth of a percent, maybe. But I never know. My feeling is I never know who I'm talking to, but I'm talking to somebody. Today is somebody's life-changing moment, and I'm there to do it. And that's what you're there to do. We had a saying in the South, and you read it in my book, never try and teach a pig to sing. It wastes your time and annoys the pig.

I find the people who criticize my website or my program, these are people who are never going to do it anyway. They're sour people who attack. So there's an old Yiddish saying, I heard Marilyn Williams use one time, Gagazendehe, and I'm probably butchering it. but it's something along the lines of goodbye, God bless you, but move. There's somebody better standing behind you.

So it all comes to a positive focus on our part, not trying to teach a pig to sing. And I don't mean that in any way. A pig can wake up and start bellowing and singing in any moment. But we're talking to a small minority of people. I think that's how we do it. And the other thing is the more we change other people's by changing the individual lives we can, they'll tell other people about how we helped them. That's excellent. What about for the sake of anybody who is listening, who just heard that and is

thinking to themselves, you know what, I am that person. I am somebody who, you know, when I hear this advice, I immediately start thinking about all of the reasons that I can't, but I want to change my mindset. And yet, any time that I hear this type of advice, I still need jerk reaction instantly start thinking of all the reasons I can. What would you say to that person who wants to change their mindset but is struggling to do so? I would tell them to get a big bar of soap and go into their bathroom and on their bathroom mirror write these three words. I am normal. I just had lunch today with somebody I'm doing a possible expansion venture with.

and it's extremely a big deal and at the same time not a big deal and yet my ego which we all have is telling me this is stupid this isn't going to work blah blah blah blah blah blah blah we all we all have that rude roommate I call it it never goes away and it is there to tempt you torment you and if I may say piss you off so that you stand up and prove it wrong what people do is spend their life proving it right. And I say that as a person who did that most of his life. I was the fat kid in school who complained all the time, failed the 10th grade. My parents either yelled at me or criticized me and were divorced when I was 14. And yet I have turned my life into something truly spectacular, I feel, in so many ways. It was when I finally

stopped listening to anyone else. Excuse my, well, you know, everybody in our family's fat. That was one I heard up until I lost 100 pounds and then everybody said, I was too skinny, which was crazy. Never underestimate the people who want to hold you down because by holding you down, they justify their own lack of action. What is the difference between making an excuse and giving context? I had to let go of my first reaction. Oh, I'd love to hear your first reaction. We'll come back to this episode in just a moment.

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All you have to do is go to freshbooks.com slash Paula. That's freshbooks.com slash P-A-U-L-A. and enter Afford Anything in the How Did You Hear About Us section. What is the difference between making an excuse and giving context? Oh, man. I had to let go of my first reaction. Oh, I'd love to hear your first reaction. Oh, you know, nothing slices thinner than nonsense.

I think that in some ways you're asking for an escape door for a lot of people. I think that there is need to know information. If I'm running late for something because I got a phone call and somebody wanted to buy 70 copies of my book and wondered if I'd autograph them or something like that. And I have a meeting with my daughter, who is also my vice president of marketing, and that makes me late to the meeting, you know,

to tell her that is important not to go through every irritation and situation that led to me justifying and rationalizing. I love the word rationalize. It's rational lies. We tell ourselves and others rational lies. If I tell you a rational lie, will you believe me and let me off the hook? So that I think is the distinction. It's a need to know kind of a basis. Okay, yeah, that makes sense. And it sounds also a low. bit like the energy behind it or the intent behind it, perhaps. Yeah, Eckhart Tolley put it so well. He said there is no, it is not complaining to tell a waiter your soup is cold and needs to be heated up if you stick to the facts which are always neutral.

How dare you serve me cold soup? That's complaining. For most people, it's, oh, I had this and I had that and I had that. Don't notice the fact that everybody else made it here on time and has a life. but I see what I mean? Yeah. And I'm told you this as most people who know me if I'm giving examples about being late, we go, well,'s giving examples about being late.

Well, it's one of the latest. I've really gotten much better at it. But what I've learned is not to defend my lateness, you know, not to come in with, oh, and this happened. We saw a great example. My daughter, Leah, like I said, is my business partner, one of my partners. We went to Disney World. We walked up to the area to get on the tram to go to the Magic Kingdom because we were staying at one of the resorts. And a woman and two girls walked up following us.

And within five minutes, we were on the tram headed there. We pulled up to a stoplight. The stoplight turned green. We turned left. The woman's phone began to ring as we were getting off. So it took us in total seven minutes to get from the tram stop to the Magic Kingdom. I hear the woman on the phone with her husband. Where am I?

What do you mean? Where am I? It took us an hour to get here. We waited for 40 minutes for the tram to show up. And then we turned around and we got stuck in up traffic light for 15 minutes. And Lee and I both looked at each other like, what reality is this woman living in? None of that just happened. But what she did was she got herself out of the fact that she was running late for whatever reason.

And the bottom line is we're lying. We should just say, you know what? I got hung up playing Sudoku or whatever it was. And I'm sorry. And as my husband, you love me and accept me for that, I'm sure. We want honest relationships. Absolutely. That example, I'm glad you said it because it brings up a point that I hadn't considered until I heard you tell that story, which is you've emphasized with the Eckhart.

Tolay example of it's fine to tell a waiter that your soup is cold if you stick to the facts. Aren't there times when a person's interpretation, sometimes a person's like honest or deeply internalized interpretation of a situation is based more on their emotional truth than the facts of the matter? For example, if a delay is seven minutes but a person hasn't taken out a stopwatch or looked at a watch in order to time it, so they don't actually know how long the delay was, could they not experience a reality in which their emotions cause them to perceive a different set of facts such that they perceive that the delay was longer? Does that make sense? I don't know if I'm asking that very well. Of course it did. And what I kept saying is perception reality

and the answer is yes in all ways. Just like she may have seen it. Yeah, she may have absolutely seen it that way, although I experienced something very, very different. I see that when I, because I fly a lot. And I remember one night I was speaking in Memphis, Tennessee, and I ended up in a bar having dinner at the bar talking to some guy at some famous Memphis blues joint because I wanted to hear the blues. So I'm sitting there talking this guy and come to find out he's a salesman, he travels all the time, I travel all the time, come to find out we were on the same plane. and we were at baggage claim at the same time. We didn't realize it never met.

It was just one of those serendipitous things. And there was a couple that was just complaining about everything about the flight. We'll come to find out they didn't fly all the time. They didn't expect this kind of a delay or that kind of a thing. So their perspective is that all flights are delayed. All flights are problem. All baggage delays happen, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. Whereas for us, we know that it's a minuscule part of our

lives. To them, it's everything. So sure, it's your perspective. How do you distinguish between fact-fact-fact versus emotional fact? Well, I would say everybody's entitled to their perspective in their opinion. However, in a professional situation, the boss wins. You know, the boss is the vision carrier, et cetera. But in most other situations, relationships, you just agree to disagree. Let's say that a person were to adopt a complaint-free lifestyle. What What benefits would this have in terms of that person's work life? Also, if that person were a small business owner or an entrepreneur, you know, how would this impact those arenas of life? Well, the number one thing that it does, whether you complete the 21 days in a row without complaining or not, is that it makes you a happier person. And that is not something we sought out. That's the number one comment people give us. I feel happier. I'm happier. I'm happier. I believe there is nothing. We want in the world except happiness.

Nothing will take the place of it. I thought I lost 100 pounds thinking it would make me happier. I married Marty thinking it would make me happier, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. And the bottom line is we're all ultimately responsible for our own happiness. So that is the number one primary thing. As a small business owner, oh my gosh, like attracts like. it's so funny because I know of two massage therapy studios. When you go in to one, the massage therapist is very upbeat, very fit.

All of her massage therapists are upbeat and fit. I know of another one where everybody just kind of moves at a slow pace and everybody is overweight at a different massage therapy studio. What I'm trying to say is that like attracts like. Like attracts like. you are already attracting people that, they don't like their employees. We actually had a restaurant here, one of our favorite restaurants in Kansas City,

shut down because they said that the owner was having problems with all of the employees. She shut down and hired all new employees. I said, she might as well plan to shut down again because the employer always gets the employees they deserve. So when you become a non-complaining person yourself, then you're going to attract people to you who are more upbeat,

happier, healthier? What are the benefits that living a complaint-free lifestyle would have in terms of a person's internal relationship with their own financial life and their own current life? In other words, how would it, would it, or, and if so, how, would it impact the way that you feel about your money and your life? I was thinking of the Bible quote, the Lord loves a cheerful giver. there are several places in the Bible there's several places and they talk about if you have an acrimonious

opinion of money money is not going to seek you if you're a here's a good example there's a guy I live on a small lake and we had to a lot of rain and a lot of dock issues

and there's a guy who came by to try and fix people's docs and this guy just used one of these guys you know I'm tough and I tell you what I like this and complains all the time like this and it's like, I'm not hiring you. The thing that has blown my mind is that the people, you know, in the top echelons of business, don't get there and all of a sudden get good at

attitudes. It's the attitudes that get them there. So adopting a complaint-free lifestyle just shifts everything around you. It also shifts everything inside of you. Because if you're not looking for things to complain about, you're still going to get your social needs met. You're still going to find things to talk about. For example, my wife might walk out onto our deck and say, oh, that's a beautiful bird. Is that a Purple Martin? As opposed to, I just got off the phone with my daughter and da-da-da-da-da. Some people are just absolutely driven by drama. Eckartoult talks about that as our pain bodies. We get caught in our pain bodies and stay activated and our life is like this. You can go through life like that and you can experience money that way. Or you can

go through and just expect, experience, trust, and more importantly, enjoy. Because if you're not enjoying the money that comes your way, why would the universe send you any more? That makes no sense. Awesome. Well, thank you so much, Will. Is there anything that I haven't asked about that you'd like to emphasize? I would like to just mention that we have free programs for schools, businesses, and churches. All of that is at my website, which is will-bowen.org. Excuse me.

I gave my wrong website. People will remember it. You should leave that in. Willboan.com. W-I-L-B-O-W-E-N.com is my website, and you just click on Complaint Free Schools, businesses, and churches. There are programs there that you can download

for free to implement this program. We want to see 60 million people. We're at 11 million now. A goal is 60 million people. So please help us spread the word. There are also programs there for individuals. Again, all of that is free. You can get bracelets, et cetera.

Excellent. And we will link to that in the show notes as well. Sounds great. Well, thank you so much. I really appreciate it. Enjoyed our time, Paul. Have a great day. Will, thank you so much for joining us on today's show.

What are some of the key takeaways that we got from this interview? Well, number one, the difference between a complaint versus a non-complaint is the energy behind it. It's totally fine to voice feedback or to request a change, to do something proactive that could result in positive change, whether that's telling your waiter that your soup is cold and requesting another bowl or something bigger, more substantial that could really move the world. Whatever it is, it's totally fine to find fault with the world and try to change it. But that is not the same thing as complaining. Complaining is having negative energy that you're stewing in.

And so that distinction is one of the key takeaways that I got from reading his book and as well as from this interview. If you're going to say something negative, do it in a way that it could lead to something positive. It could lead to change. Give feedback only to the person who needs that feedback. Don't spread it to 10 different people. And keep your energy upbeat.

So that was key takeaway number one. Key takeaway number two is that like a trend. tracks like. So by being a more positive person, you will attract more positive people and positive experiences into your life. And I know that sounds like woo-woo attraction stuff. But the fact of the matter is, people prefer to be around people who make them feel good. And people like to be around people who they know are not going to talk behind their back. So if you prove that you can do those two things, you'll probably end up with some high-quality friendships and in the world of money and business, as well as in just enjoyment of life,

high quality friendships stand for a lot. Finally, key takeaway number three, most of us, those of us who are listening to this podcast episode, those of us who have homes and clothes and food and water and internet connectivity and smartphones from which we can listen to a podcast or cars from which we can listen to a podcast, you know, most of us. us have everything that we need. Instead of being unhappy with what we have, instead of thinking about the fact that our car is so old, or our house doesn't have Florida ceiling windows, or our appliances are white instead of stainless, instead of thinking about that stuff, which only leads

to a cycle of unhappiness and keeps us on the hedonistic treadmill, it can be both cheaper and better to focus our energy on being grateful for what we already have, or at a minimum, not complain about what we currently have. And so particularly right now, it's the holiday season, which is a little bit of a contradictory time, right? The holidays are a time of giving and gratitude, but also a time of consumerism and advertising and materialism. Which of those two sides are you going to choose. Which one will you focus on? I mean, you can focus on anything, but not everything. So during the holidays, do you want to focus on buying and consuming? Or do you want to focus on smiling and practicing gratitude? I mean, it's a habit. It's a practice. Gratitude may not necessarily

be something that comes naturally, but it's a skill that you can develop. And so that is, I think, the final and most important takeaway message that I'd like to leave you with. Thank you so much for tuning in and happy holidays. A huge thanks to everyone who has been part of this podcast journey in the year 2017. We have crossed the threshold of more than two million downloads. So, wow, I'm so flattered and humbled and proud of how this community has grown in 2017. And I will see all of you in 2018 for more fantastic episodes about financial. independence and about living the life that you want to live. My name's Paula Pant. This is the Afford Anything podcast. Thank you so much for joining us. I will catch you next year.