Something You Should Know - Best of Something You Should Know 2017 Vol-2

Episode Date: December 28, 2017

Here is the second of our two, year-end episodes that look back at some of the most fascinating people and topics of the year. I know you’ll enjoy these excerpts and below are the links to the original episodes from which these segments are taken so you can listen to the complete interviews if you wish. I’ll be back next week with all new episodes to usher in 2018. Thank you for your support this past year. Happy New Year! Topics and Links in this Episode The Two Ways People Get Rich with Matthew Schiff Podcast Episode 79. http://www.somethingyoushouldknow.net/079-the-2-ways-people-get-rich-how-to-read-people-instantly/ Exactly What to Say to Get What You Want with Phil Jones. Episode 100 http://www.somethingyoushouldknow.net/100-exactly-what-to-say-to-get-what-you-want-how-to-stop-being-distracted-by-technology/ Simple Strategies for a Fabulous Relationship with Arielle Ford. Episode 112 http://www.somethingyoushouldknow.net/112-simple-strategies-for-a-fabulous-relationship-how-to-develop-mental-toughness-to-handle-hard-times/ What Your Dog is Really Thinking with Camilla Gray-Nelson. Podcast Episode 51. http://www.somethingyoushouldknow.net/051-what-your-dog-is-really-thinking-why-superstitions-actually-work/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Today, on Something You Should Know, part two of our look back at the best moments from 2017. Starting with how to become more wealthy. One, ask for more money. Ask your boss, go to your landlord and ask for less rent. There's all sorts of ways to ask. Then, how to make sure you say the right thing at the right time to the right person. What I'd ask your listeners to do right now is,

what are the questions they know they're going to be asked? And wouldn't it make sense to have something that says, when this happens, I'm ready for it? Also, understanding how relationships really work. People live like it's not normal that our spouse will upset, disappoint, anger, and annoy us. And that's just normal. And understanding what your dog is really thinking. What a dog wants to know most of all is who's in charge here.

All this today on Something You Should Know. As a listener to Something You Should Know, I can only assume that you are someone who likes to learn about new and interesting things and bring more knowledge to work for you in your everyday life. I mean, that's kind of what Something You Should Know is all about. And so I want to invite you to listen to another podcast called TED Talks Daily. Now, you know about TED Talks, right? Many of the guests on Something You Should Know have done TED Talks Daily. Now, you know about Ted Talks, right? Many of the guests on Something You Should Know have done Ted Talks.

Well, you see, Ted Talks Daily is a podcast that brings you a new Ted Talk every weekday in less than 15 minutes. Join host Elise Hu. She goes beyond the headlines so you can hear about the big ideas shaping our future. Learn about things like sustainable fashion, embracing your entrepreneurial spirit,

the future of robotics, and so much more. Like I said, if you like this podcast, Something You Should Know, I'm pretty sure you're going to like TED Talks Daily. And you get TED Talks Daily wherever you get your podcasts. Something You should know. Fascinating intel. The world's top experts.

And practical advice you can use in your life. Today, Something You Should Know with Mike Carruthers. Hi, welcome and Happy New Year. This is volume two of two of our Best Moments and Conversations of 2017, and we start with a fascinating discussion on how to become wealthy. Wealthy people do things differently, according to Louis Schiff, who is the executive director of the Business Owners Council and author of a book called business brilliant surprising lessons from the greatest self-made business icons and when you understand what it is that wealthy people do differently you can find ways to become more wealthy yourself now this is from episode 79 of the podcast and i began the discussion with lew Lewis talking about how he uncovered this fascinating difference

between the wealthy and the middle class. I had the chance to work with a gentleman named Russ Prince in fairly modest circumstances, but it turned out that the 10 years that I was working with him, Russ was quietly becoming a coach to billionaires. See, when I met Russ, he was serving wealthy people and he was serving industries that serve the wealthy, like the hospitality industry, these kinds of things. But over time, and this makes all the sense in the world, over time, billionaires, people with hundreds of millions of dollars were reaching out to him and saying, what do you know that I need

to know? And so as I was chatting with him, and we have a personal relationship too, he was saying to me, I'm starting to see the secrets of wealth. I'm starting to see what these very, very wealthy people do, that it's not a mystery. It's just the way they put all these different qualities together. They just see the world differently than we do, and it comes together for them, and it creates wealth. And he said to me, I think I can survey for this. I think I can survey different people with different net worths and find out that in their average daily way, they're actually living two different lives between the wealthy and the, what we call the middle class. And the Business Brilliant survey was basically,

in a real quick nutshell, what was that survey doing and asking? So he was having his anecdotal experience. What we did is we turned that into a telephone survey. We spoke to 800 households. 400 of those households were people with a net worth of less than a million dollars, and 400 of them had a net worth of greater than a million in different groupings, 1 to 10 million, 10 to 30 million, and 30 million plus. And we asked them the same questions around things like career development

and risk-taking and how they develop their social contacts. And we asked them exactly the same questions. We also asked them both, was it important to have more money? And the answer universally across both groups was yes. Then the second question was, what are you doing to go about to achieve this? And as we started to roll through the survey, it just became very apparent that our self-made wealthy group, those who had high net worth, all started out in middle class households. Our self-made wealthy group were just doing it differently than the rest of the middle class. And then it just begged a million dollar, literally a million dollar question,

which is, if you want to be successful, why don't you just do what successful people are doing? The people who are millionaires and billionaires who started out in middle class homes, where did they get this ability to act and see the world differently that got them out of the middle class that left the others back? And that's a tough question, because basically the answer is they see things differently, and they put things together differently, and you could stop there. You could say, well, they're just different than we are. They see it differently. They behave differently. I've had a chance to go under the onion, if you will, and discover that the truth is they feel everything the same way that we all feel

things. In other words, when they experience a profound failure or a setback along the way, it hurts them. It's just that they just have a different response to the pain. I think if you look throughout the research, there's lots of different moments when we're asking people to do something that would take them out of their comfort zone. And that's hard for people. Whereas with our self-made millionaires, they are being pulled outside of their comfort zone, but they don't know any other way to behave. Well, it's interesting that middle-class people often somehow don't really want to hear this. And I guess it's because it would pull them out of their comfort zone if they were to actually do it,

and they don't want to get pulled. You know, we've had a chance to, I've had a chance to speak to thousands of people about this, and I've got some pretty simple advice. There's a whole book's worth of information and insight, but there's two really simple things you can do to become more successful. One, ask for more money. Ask your boss, you know, go to your landlord and ask for less rent. There's that they're going to ask.

And so if you're expected to be asked for more, then you prepare for it. If the other party doesn't ask, the money is literally left on the table. That's pretty simple advice that anyone can do, but it's going to take some effort. Wait, man, before you go on to the second one, give the statistic, the two statistics of middle-class people who are willing to ask for more money versus employers who are expecting it. So in one survey that we addressed in the book by a professor named Linda Babcock, she discovered, and think about this, this survey was of Carnegie Mellon graduate students. These are educated people on their way to being part of the professional world. And only 25% of the people surveyed asked their first potential employer for more money when they were offered a job. Again, a long litany of reasons why they were afraid to ask, but only 25%, only one out of four asked. And if you look at on the other side

of the table, the hiring managers, the decision makers, nine out of ten of them tell us that they're prepared to offer more money than the first offer. So that's nine out of ten willing to offer and three out of four unwilling to ask. But they're not going to offer it unless you ask. They can't offer it unless you ask. I mean, that would be to give money away that they weren't asked to give away. So, Lewis, talk about this idea of win-win negotiation, and that successful people, wealthy people, good negotiators, don't really concern themselves with win-win and the other guy.

They look out for themselves, and the people they're negotiating with need to look out for themselves. And this idea that we're all going to make this deal work for everybody perfectly, it just doesn't work. Well, we see, you know, the best example of this is you see in business school, they'll teach you win-win negotiations. They'll teach you a negotiation method that has to do with finding middle ground between yourself and the counterparty. But they'll also teach you in another classroom in another department something called supply chain optimization, which is a fancy way of saying ground down the person you're negotiating with until you know that there's nothing left to give. Now, they never reconcile this stuff in a business school. They just send you out with these two

completely conflicting messages. The one that gets picked up a lot and is popular is the one called win-win, the idea that you can find this middle ground with every other counterparty. Almost everyone who has a real background in negotiation says win-win is a possibility, but only if you're willing to cut it off if your minimum needs are not being met. And what we see when we survey these two groups, the middle class and the self-made wealthy, are that the middle class are much less willing to walk away from a deal if it doesn't sound good. They feel like they've put the time in, they feel like they'll be embarrassed, maybe they've wasted the other guy's time, and they stay with bad deals, whereas the self-made wealthy are prepared to walk away, even if they want it, even if they need it,

even if they love it, they'll walk away. You know, what's also great about your book is that it kind of like reinforces kind of what we suspected, but we just didn't want to ever admit to. But when you go to a negotiation, like you're going to buy a car, whatever you're going to do, wouldn't it be nice if we could just all agree to just put our cards on the table? But that's not kind of how the human mind works, as you explain in the book. We kind of expect this negotiation, and to try to do that, to try to short-circuit the negotiation, will fail you all the time. Right. And on the other side of that, when you do negotiate well, and you actually do get more than you thought you'd get, you actually feel bad. There's a pretty common psychological reaction to

beating the other side, if you will, that leaves you feeling guilty. And so once an experienced negotiator knows that you actually have more psychological reward from being beaten in a negotiation than you do in doing the beating, that's clearly a way for them to manipulate you and take advantage of you. Now, talk a bit about this idea of networking and people's networks and the difference between how middle class and wealthy people view that whole process and who's in their network. Right, so this is the second piece of information

that I think anybody can do, and I love it when young people in particular ask me what they can do to get one step closer to success. And this is a simple idea, but profound, which is spend more time with people who are more successful than you are. So what does that mean? It just means that it's – I always kind of liken it to any sport you might play, like something where it's one-on-one like tennis or something. You're going to want to play with someone who's a little better than you so that your game is raised. The problem is, again, this has to do with taking you out of your comfort

zone. People don't like to be the least successful person in the room. Over and over again, when we survey, would you rather be the highest paid person in your company or would you rather be paid even more money but be the lowest paid person in your company? People always choose to be at the top of the pecking order. And this is what we need to address. If you want to be around people who will help you raise your game, you're going to have to accept your subordinate position in the food chain and realize that that's actually a big advantage. So go out there, get rid of your old friends. I don't mean get rid of them, but spend more time with people who are more successful. Find somebody in your office who can be a more successful. Find somebody in your office

who can be a potential mentor. Find people in your industry that have ideas and advice that they want to share with you and accept that they have something to teach you and that's why you're lucky to be spending time with them. If you do that, you will start to emulate their success. It's a very natural quality. If success and wealth are important to you, you'll want to hear the whole interview that I did with Louis Schiff. It's in episode 79. You can find that on our website, somethingyoushouldknow.net or wherever you listen to podcasts. But it's easily searchable on the website. You just go to the little search icon and just type in his name, Schiff, S-C-H-I-F-F, and that episode will pop up.

Since I host a podcast, it's pretty common for me to be asked to recommend a podcast. And I tell people, if you like something you should know, you're going to like The Jordan Harbinger Show. Every episode is a conversation with a fascinating guest. Of course, a lot of podcasts are conversations with guests, but Jordan does it better than most. Recently, he had a fascinating conversation with a British woman who was recruited and radicalized by ISIS and went to prison for three years. She now works to raise awareness on this issue. It's a great conversation. And he spoke with Dr. Sarah Hill about how taking birth control

not only prevents pregnancy, it can influence a woman's partner preferences, career choices, and overall behavior due to the hormonal changes it causes. Apple named The Jordan Harbinger Show one of the best podcasts a few years back. And in a nutshell, the show is aimed at making you

a better, more informed critical thinker. Check out The Jordan Harbinger Show. There's so much for you in this podcast. The Jordan Harbinger Show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hi, this is Rob Benedict. And I am Richard Spate. We were both on a little show you might know called Supernatural. It had a pretty good run, 15 seasons, 327 episodes. And though we have seen, of course, every episode many times, we figured, hey, now that we're wrapped, let's watch it all again. And we can't do that alone.

So we're inviting the cast and crew that made the show along for the ride. We've got writers, producers, composers, directors, and we'll of course have some actors on as well, including some certain guys that played some certain pretty iconic brothers. It was kind of a little bit of a left field choice in the best way possible. The note from Kripke was, he's great, we love him, but we're looking for like a really intelligent Duchovny type. With 15 seasons to explore, it's going to be the road trip of several lifetimes. So please join us and subscribe to Supernatural then and now. Another of the most listened to episodes of 2017 was from August.

It was episode 100 in which I discussed what to say to get what you want. Phil Jones was my guest and he's the author of a book called Exactly What to Say. And the idea here is that you've been in conversations where later you've looked back at that conversation and you've said, geez, I wish I had said this. I wish I'd said that. So the idea is why not get all those things that you wished you'd said in a conversation and get them ready in advance so you have them to say. And Phil explained to me how he came up with the idea of doing this. And when I studied it and looked at all the conversations that I've been a part of, plus the 2 million plus people that I've trained, the one commonality between those that would get great results and those that would do so-so is the people who really got it were the ones who knew exactly what to say, when to say, and how to make it count. They made every single one of their words deliver them the right kind of results. And it was more than just a great attitude and great product knowledge and great skill sets. And then I

study it further and you see it appear in all other areas of life. You know, the guy that gets the girl, the girl that gets the job, wherever it might be, it's having the ability to articulate through words to get more of the things that we want. And it started to make me look for what were the absolute triggers? What were the precise exact words that people were saying that were getting them these outcomes? And how could I do more of it? And then the more I put it into practice, the more I'd see success for myself, the more I'd share it with others, the more I'd see success through them and figured there must be something to this. So was it just trial and error? Well, I'll try this this time and see if that works better than the thing I tried last time. It's more reverse engineering.

So having trained lots of teams around the world for a variety of different ways, you'd start to look at successful people. I've listened to your podcast for some time, Mike, and one of the things that is a recurring theme is that success leaves clues. And the exact same thing is true here. You'd start to look at why is that person achieving better results when they have the same products, the same service, the same skill set, the same demographic, and one is getting demonstrably different results. It would come down to the words. I guess people think, or some people think that, you know, they like to believe they can think on their feet, that in a situation they'll know what to say at the right time. And that in fact, that's really the test of a great salesperson is to be able to think on their

feet in the moment. And that's a fascinating point, because the worst time to think about the thing you're going to say is in the moment when you're saying it. Yet still, we leave it very much to that point. In our daily lives, anybody who's in any kind of job will be doing repetitive exercises. You may even have repetitive documents. I'm pretty sure that even setting up interview guests towards what you do with your show bike is that you are asking people similar sets of questions or that the process to be able to get them to a point of being able to confirm a time is somewhere like the same. Yet our conversations we have in daily basis could be somewhere like the same if we could only distill them as such. And I think many people could think about, say, the questions they're asked. Common question that everybody's asked is, so what do

you do? You know you're going to be asked it, wouldn't it make sense to have an answer? I do business with a giant number of hearing care practices. A common question that comes into every practice around the world is how much are hearing aids? Yet still very few clinics have a pre-programmed answer. What I'd ask your listeners to do right now is what are the things they know they're going to need to talk about? What are the questions they know they're going to be asked? And wouldn't it make sense to have something that says, when this happens, I'm ready for it? Okay, let's dive in with some specific examples, and I'll let you take the lead on this as to some of the ones that resonate with people the best to

give people a taste of what you're talking about here. Well, let's lift a couple of fun ones from the book. And I think one of my favorite sets of words is probably the one that's had the biggest impact on my life in social circumstances and business circumstances of getting people who are stuck in indecision. So when somebody's stuck in indecision, they don't like to be told what to do. People don't like to be told what to do, but they kind of really do. Coupled with that same thought, though, is people are a little bit like sheep. We take safety and confidence in the fact that people like us have enjoyed certain experiences in the past. This is why reviews and ratings are

so paramount in decision making today, is that we get confidence from the fact that other people have experienced good things in the past. Take those two pieces of psychology together, and what you can then do is influence all of that power by just utilizing two magic words. See, if I wanted to tell somebody what to do, particularly somebody who I didn't know so well, then what I would do is I'd just talk in terms of most people. I'd say, look, what most people would do in your circumstances is this, this, and this. The little subconscious voice hears at that moment in time, well, I'm most people. So if that's what most people should do, then chances are, then that might be a good safe path for me to travel on to. It brings collective

responsibility towards it. Perfect. So another one. Question I'm going to ask of you is if, say, you were in a seminar hall with a thousand people in it and I was to ask the question to a thousand people who in this room would be open-minded, how many hands do you think would shoot up? Everybody. Somewhere like everybody. So let's use that other base level assumption in conversation to get collective agreement ahead of time. So if I was to say to somebody, how open minded would you be to and then insert my idea behind that?

What is the only thing you can say back in the other idea, other direction? OK, right. No is not a choice anymore. And people are so fearful of. No, if you present your ideas when no is no longer a choice, at least you get the chance to explore it. We get time to spend in maybe, which then allows us to be able to influence maybes to yeses. So by asking people how open-minded they would be gives you almost a rejection-free way of being able to introduce your idea to somebody without them saying no. Because the only way they can say no is by admitting to be closed-minded, which is like admitting to be an idiot. Another one. How about a rejection-free way of introducing just about anything to just about anybody?

And this is a fun thing, because again, what we are fearful of when we introduce an idea is the other person saying no. I hear this from salespeople all the time. We're so scared of a no. So I wonder what we could do if we could make it rejection free. And we do this by introducing an idea to the left or the right of somebody. See, if I said to you right now, look, I'm not sure if it's for you. Well, a few things go through your mind. Firstly, the thought that goes through your mind is, well, let me be the judge of that. The second thing that goes through your mind is I wonder what it is. It fires up curiosity within your human emotion. It makes you lean in. Now, if I build on that set of words and add another three-letter word, I can change what the subconscious hears. If I add the word but, let's consider what the word but does to just about every other set of circumstances.

If you were, say, receiving some feedback from your employer at some point who said, look, I love what you do. You're really energetic and charismatic and most of the customers like you. But the only thing you then listen to is the thing that follows the but. Let's bring that towards this conversation, knowing that but pretty much negates what was said prior to it, I can introduce just about anything to just about anybody completely rejection-free by saying, I'm not sure if it's for you, but. What we've now got is the ability for them to hear in their mind's eye, you might want to look at this. That is Phil Jones from episode 70. Phil is the author of the book, Exactly What to Say. And if you'd like to hear the complete interview, you'll find it on our website, somethingyoushouldknow.net.

Just search for Phil Jones. People who listen to Something You Should Know are curious about the world, looking to hear new ideas and perspectives. So I want to tell you about a podcast that is full of new ideas and perspectives, and one I've started listening to called Intelligence Squared. So I want to tell you about a podcast that is full of new ideas and perspectives, and one I've started listening to called Intelligence Squared. It's the podcast where great minds meet. Listen in for some great talks on science, tech, politics, creativity, wellness, and a lot more. A couple of recent examples, Mustafa Suleiman, the CEO of Microsoft AI, discussing the future of technology.

That's pretty cool. And writer, podcaster, and filmmaker John Ronson discussing the rise of conspiracies and culture wars. Intelligence Squared is the kind of podcast that gets you thinking a little more openly about the important conversations going on today. Being curious, you're probably just the type of person Intelligence Squared is meant for. Check out Intelligence Squared wherever you get your podcasts. Hey everyone, join me, Megan Rinks. And me, Melissa Demonts, for Don't Blame Me, But Am I Wrong? Each week, we deliver four fun-filled shows. In Don't Blame Me, we tackle our our listeners dilemmas with hilariously honest advice then we have but am i wrong which is for

the listeners that didn't take our advice plus we share our hot takes on current events then tune in to see you next tuesday for our lister poll results from but am i wrong and finally wrap up your week with fisting friday where we catch up and talk all things pop culture. Listen to Don't Blame Me, But Am I Wrong on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. New episodes every Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday. As you know, there are a lot of relationship experts and a lot of seminars and books that supposedly help you improve your relationship. Now, I don't know about you, but I like keeping things simple. And this past year, some of the best, simplest relationship advice came from Arielle Ford in episode 112.

Arielle has been working with couples for a long time, and she's author of a book called The Soulmate Secret. And she starts by talking about why so many relationships go bad in the first place. You know, I think the biggest thing that goes wrong is two things. One, people don't really understand what love is, and they just don't have the skills. You know, we weren't taught in school how to be loving and kind and generous and communicate our needs clearly and

to forgive and forget and understand what's normal in a relationship, because people live like it's not normal that our spouse will upset, disappoint, anger, and annoy us. And that's just normal. What isn't normal is when we're always responding from a place of negativity or threatening to leave. So that's the short answer. But I think most people think, at least in their fantasy dreams, that, you know, with the right person, there will be no irritation, that love trumps all that, that if we really love each other, we'll get along all the time. Right. But what usually happens is we marry somebody who has a lot of opposite traits that we make wrong. For instance, most couples, there's a spender and a saver.

There's the on-time person and the always late person. There's the slob and the perfectionist neat-nick. Any of this sound familiar? There's tons of these things, and we want the other person to be like us, but that's really unfair because we're all very different, unique people, and none of us is perfect. So we have to learn how to have fun with our spouses and how to make up fun stories about their behavior so that they don't drive us crazy. So give me some examples of how you make this fun when, you know, you've got the toothpaste problem and all the other things. Let's talk about toothpaste. That was one of the big issues when I first got married. Every time I'd walk into the

bathroom, I'd see my tube of toothpaste, which previously had been perfect because I had squeezed it from the bottom and I slowly rolled it up. And now suddenly it was mangled from the middle because my husband had been in there. And no matter how many times I tried to tell him, hey, listen, that is not the right way to get toothpaste out of a tube. Let me show you how to do it. He would look at me like I was totally insane and walk away. And after months and months of this, I thought to myself,

there's just got to be a solution here because I don't want to have all these negative thoughts every time I see the mangled tube of toothpaste. So I had a conversation with my tube of toothpaste. I put it in the palm of my hand and I had a conversation with my tube of toothpaste. I put it in the palm of my hand and I said to it, what's good about you? And I kept asking over and over. And finally, it sort of whispered in my ear and it said to me, be grateful you married a man who brushes his teeth. And I saw that that was right. And so now every time I see the mangled tube of toothpaste,

I smile and I laugh, and I thank God that I'm going to grow old with somebody who may still have some teeth left in his mouth. And just to be fair, it's not just that the toothpaste, the way he does the toothpaste, bothers you. I suspect there are things you do that bother him. Absolutely. So one of the big issues he had with me is I'm the messy, sloppy one in the family, and he's the neat neck. You know, he'd go into the kitchen and my coffee cup would be in the sink. And he'd say to me, why don't you just put it in the dishwasher? It's right here. And I'd say,

what does it matter? Eventually it will get to the dishwasher. And then he'd say to me, why don't you just put it in the dishwasher? It's right here. And I'd say, what does it matter? Eventually it will get to the dishwasher. And then he'd say to me, why do you always leave crumbs around the toaster? And I'd look at him like, what crumbs? You know, I don't see crumbs. And so this was going on and on over and over. And then finally one day he walked into the kitchen and he said to me, he said, you know, I got up in the middle of the night to get a glass of water. And I saw your coffee cup in the sink. And I saw those crumbs around the toaster. And I decided that since I'm the one who has a problem with it, I'm going to dedicate the rest of my life to cleaning up after you. And that was like the perfect ultimate solution to what was quickly becoming a problem.

He's going to dedicate his life to cleaning up after you? Yes. Yes. And then there are other things, of course, that he does that I'm always like going crazy over that I've decided I would do. For instance, he never seems to close the refrigerator door all the way. It's always slightly ajar. And no matter how many times I would point this out, nothing ever changed. So I've just decided never to mention it again, just that every time I walk in the kitchen, I know to close the refrigerator door. Because mentioning it again and again and again would result in what?

Nothing. Just frustration. You know, having negative thoughts. Did you know, Mike, that every time we have an angry, toxic, or negative, or judgmental thought, we suppress our immune system for up to eight hours. So no matter how much you love other people, if you're judging them or having negative thoughts, you're actually damaging your own health.

But what is someone to do, though, when you feel irritated when the cup is in the sink or the toothpaste tube is mangled? What are you supposed to, are you just supposed to just suck it up? No, for me, what I like to do is get myself to neutral. You know, so I don't want to start a whole, I mean, it's not worth starting a fight over. There's some things that are worth fighting over. These little things aren't. So you just go, go for a walk, take a bath, do some deep breathing, get yourself to a neutral place, and then ask yourself, what new story could I make up about this behavior that would be fun? And let me give you an example.

I want to tell you a really quick story. This is what I call wabi-sabi love. It's about finding beauty and perfection and imperfection. And I have these friends, Jerry and Diane, and they've been married about 35 years, and Jerry is 20 years older than Diane. And when they got married, Diane didn't know that Jerry had an addiction. Jerry is addicted to poppy seed bagels. And every single morning, he gets up before her, he goes into the kitchen, he slices a bagel, which sends dozens, if not hundreds, of little black seeds all over her white tile floor. And then an hour later, when she gets up, it's the same routine every morning. She wets a paper towel, she gets on her hands and knees,

and she wipes up the little black seeds. Now, one morning while she was doing this, she was in a really grouchy mood. And while she was wiping up the little black seeds, she had this thought, oh, I wonder what would have to happen so I never have to do this again. And that was followed by the thought, oh, oh, that would mean Jerry's no longer with me. And she began to cry. And from that day on, every morning as she wipes up those little seeds, her heart fills with love because these seeds now mean she has another day to spend with Jerry.

Now, this is a true story. Jerry is now 91 years old and totally blind and still eating poppy seed bagels. But what happened here was, did Jerry change? No, Jerry didn't change. What changed was her story about what he was doing. And we can do that with most of the things that annoy us. Now, you can't do it if there's bad behavior, abuse, or a real addiction. Okay, in that case, you need professional help. But for many of life's other annoyances, you can make up a new empowering story that will make you smile.

So we've talked about not letting the little irritants bother you in a relationship, but a good relationship has to be more than just not letting the bad things bother you. There has to be some good things as well, yes? Yeah, because a long-term, successful, happy, satisfying marriage is based on a lot of things. It's about connection, communication, chemistry, a shared vision for the future. I want kids. You want kids. I want to live near the ocean. You want to live near the ocean. You know, I like to travel. You're not agoraphobic. You like to travel. So some of the big things have to be there and be in place.

But the other secret to a long marriage is to learn to put on your rose-colored glasses because a university study that was done found that couples who consciously choose to wear rose-colored glasses have longer, happier, more satisfying marriages. And the reason is, they're always looking for what's right instead of looking for what's wrong. That's Ariel Ford. She's author of The Soulmate Secret. And it really, the whole interview is really good if you'd like to hear it. It's episode 112, and you'll find it on our website, somethingyoushouldknow.net. And finally today, what is your dog thinking? In episode 51, back in March, I spoke with dog behavior expert Camilla Gray Nelson. She's author of a book called Lipstick and the Leash. And this

interview is one of my business partner Ken Williams' favorite interviews because he's a dog owner. And if you're a dog owner, you've probably wondered, what does your dog think? If you fell down the well like in the old Lassie TV show, what would your dog do? Would it go run for help like Lassie did, or would it just sit there, or would it just walk away, or what? What does your dog think? Well, here's what Camilla Gray Nelson says. It's a lovely thought to think that our dog has feelings like humans, that they would save us from the well if we fall in.

But the fact is, as with so many myths, it just isn't so. The problem with the Lassie syndrome myth is that not only does it give us false expectations of what our dog should be and should do for us that a dog can never live up to, but it actually puts us in an unsafe predicament with our dogs sometimes, meaning we are not careful around dogs as the animals that they are, thinking that they are gentle, benign creatures that would never harm us. So if my dog is not thinking, how can I please you? How can I save you if you fall down the well? What is the dog, what is its motivation? What is it thinking? What a dog wants to know most of all

is who's in charge here. And instead of thinking, how can I please you? What a dog is really doing is trying to figure out how can I avoid displeasing my boss and my leader? Slightly different, but profoundly different in its application. Which is a very different mindset than what we think of that the dog is there to make us happy and to do what we, you know, get our slippers and that kind of thing. If a dog were truly motivated by making us happy, I, as a dog trainer, would be out of business. Because the dog would be pleasing us. If that's what they want to do, they would be doing it. But clearly, that's not the dog's motivation.

The dog is built with an internal testing mechanism, testing behavior, trying certain things. What they're really doing with this behavior is they're testing, are you in charge of me? Who's going to stop me? Stop me. Because the status of a dog in a social group is totally dependent on how he can control and limit the behaviors of others. So what does that mean to me as the dog owner in terms of do I need to tell the dog in some sort of dog language that I'm in charge here? The way to tell your dog you're in charge, and hence to get your dog to actually want to obey you because he sees you as the leader, is nothing more complicated than setting boundaries, rules, reining in your dog's freedom.

The moment you start reining in your dog's freedom. The moment you start reining in your dog's freedom, instead of letting the dog go where he wants, do what he wants, and have whatever he wants, the minute you start dialing back those freedoms, you have actually put yourself in a leadership position. And it's miraculous the change in your dog's behavior once you do that in a way that he understands from his cultural background. In the canine world, they are seeking a leader.

They're hungry for a leader. But what most people mistake for leadership is raising your voice, being intimidating, wagging your finger and scolding your dog. You know, in his culture, that's the mark of a pretender, not a leader. Real leaders in the animal world, and this is true for all social mammals, not just dogs, but people as well. In the animal world, true leaders are marked by cool and calm control of their emotions. They are unflappable in the face of conflict. They're unflappable.

That's a mark of their confidence, which makes them rise to the top. When we give in to our emotions and we start to get angry, frustrated, and let that show, the dog is actually seeing weakness, not strength. And yet I see it so often in dog owners trying to take control, but doing it through anger and frustration and punishment, which actually doesn't work. Well, but if you want to correct a behavior that the dog is doing, which is a negative behavior, pooping in the house or eating the furniture, how do you correct a negative behavior without pointing out that,

hey, that's bad? You can correct a behavior by stopping it and limiting it. But if you do it without anger, that's the secret. You see, what I'll do, let's say jumping, for example. What a dog does to stop another dog from jumping on him is to whip around and bark right in that dog's face. That bark is not angry. It's more pragmatic. Basically, it says, excuse me, but I don't allow you to jump on me. They're not screaming when they do it. They're just pragmatically saying, I don't allow that.

That's what I mean by boundaries. I can't bark like a dog, but what I do have is a little device, pennies in a can. I'm going to let you listen to it right now. Hear that? That had no emotion in it, but it was like a bark. It was a startling, sudden noise that I can meet my dog's jump with. Pardon the grammar. And the dog will understand, oh, I didn't like how that turned out for me. I'm not a bad dog. I just didn't like how that turned out for me. Dogs are results-driven. And you give a result that's slightly less pleasant than the behavior you want them to achieve, and they will avoid that behavior. Indeed, correction is absolutely necessary, but if it's infused with anger or made as punishment, then you go over into the dark side and it actually won't work.

Well, what about when the dog does things when you're not around? Well, what a good question is that? Dogs as pack animals are not designed to live alone. They do not have an off switch or a conscience because they were designed to live under the supervision of other dogs in a group situation 24-7. So what you have to do when you leave, if your dog is of an age where you're still experimenting with behaviors and waiting for someone to stop him, if you're not there to stop him, you must confine the dog to a space where he's not able to live out his experimentations. He's not tempted by things.

He can't pee on your carpet, destroy your shoes, steal food off the counter. Like I say, you lock the liquor cabinet when you leave. And that's sometimes crating the dog, sometimes putting them in a small room, sometimes an outdoor dog run, depending on your environment and your dog. That's dog behavior expert Camilla Gray Nelson. She's author of the book Lipstick and the Leash, and that is from episode 51. All of the previous episodes are available, well, they're available wherever you listen to podcasts, and you can always find and search for them at our website, somethingyoushouldknow.net.

That concludes the second of these year-end best-of shows. Search for them at our website, somethingyoushouldknow.net. That concludes the second of these year-end best of shows. We'll be back next week with all new shows, all new guests, and all new Something You Should Know. I'm Micah Ruthers. Thanks for listening. Welcome to the small town of Chinook, where faith runs deep and secrets run deeper. In this new thriller, religion and crime collide when a gruesome murder rocks the isolated Montana community. Everyone is quick to point their fingers at a drug-addicted teenager, but local deputy Ruth Vogel isn't convinced. She suspects connections to a powerful religious group. Enter federal agent V.B. Loro, who has been investigating a local church for possible

criminal activity. The pair form an unlikely partnership to catch the killer, unearthing secrets that leave Ruth torn between her duty to the law, her religious convictions, and her very own family. But something more sinister than murder is afoot, and someone is watching Ruth. Chinook, starring Kelly Marie Tran and Sanaa Lathan. Listen to Chinook wherever you get your podcasts. Hi, I'm Jennifer, a founder of the Go Kid Go Network. At Go Kid Go, putting kids first is at the heart of every show that we produce. That's why we're so excited to introduce a brand new show to our network called The Search for the Silver Lining, a fantasy adventure series about a spirited young girl named Isla who time travels to the mythical land of Camelot.

Look for The Search for the Silver Lining on Spotify, Apple, or wherever you get your podcasts.