Something You Should Know - How to Get Important Things Done & Ways to Tell If Someone Is in Denial

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Starting point is 00:00:27 Download June's Journey now on Android or iOS. Today on Something You Should Know, there's a difference between shutting down your PC and restarting it. A big difference. Then, how to get important things done without relying on willpower. The thing that I've realized from the highest performers is that they don't have the best willpower. They just create an environment where their willpower doesn't have to be tested.

Starting point is 00:00:53 It's like some of the healthiest people, it's not that they don't love ice cream. They don't keep those things inside of the house so that therefore their willpower won't be tested. Also, great tips to negotiate for people who hate to negotiate. And dealing with denial. And a lot of us are in denial about something or someone. When you get locked into denial so that you don't see people for who they really are, you don't deal with yourself for who you really are. When that starts to happen, you leave yourself wide open for getting kind of bit from behind.

Starting point is 00:01:25 All this today on Something You Should Know. This winter, take a trip to Tampa on Porter Airlines. Enjoy the warm Tampa Bay temperatures and warm Porter hospitality on your way there. All Porter fares include beer, wine, and snacks, and free fast streaming Wi-Fi on planes with no middle seats. And your Tampa Bay vacation includes good times, relaxation, and great Gulf Coast weather. Visit flyporter.com and actually enjoy economy. Something you should know. Fascinating intel. The world's top experts. And practical advice you can use in your life.

Starting point is 00:02:10 Today, Something You Should Know with Mike Carruthers. Hi. Welcome to Something You Should Know. PC as I do. I bet you've wondered, what's the difference, or is there a difference, between restarting your computer versus shutting down your computer and starting it up again? And it turns out there is a difference, quite a difference, and they should be used, those two functions should be used in different situations. Prior to Windows 8, restart and shutdown did basically the same thing, but they don't anymore. Since then, when you shut your computer down, it enables what is called a fast startup the next time you start your PC. In order to start quicker, it doesn't really disable everything you had going before you shut it down, so it can start quicker the next time.

Starting point is 00:03:08 Restart, on the other hand, shuts down everything momentarily. So if you're rebooting your computer because something is wrong, it's not working right, you should restart it, not shut it down. Remember, reboot, use restart. And that is something you should know. I bet you have a list. It's a list of things, maybe it's in your head or written somewhere, things you want to get done, that you want to achieve, things important to you. But for whatever reason, those things aren't done. Something comes up. Things get

Starting point is 00:03:47 put on the back burner. There isn't enough time. A lot of things get in the way. So why is that? If these things are so important, it seems like they should get done. But procrastination can be a powerful force. Here to help with this problem is Rob Dial. Rob is the host of the podcast The Mindset Mentor. He's a speaker and coach, and he's author of a new best-selling book called Level Up. Hi, Rob. Welcome to Something You Should Know. Hey, thanks for having me. So I just described what I think happens with a lot of people that aren't getting things done that they want to get done. And I guess it starts with just taking action, because no matter what it is you want to do, you got to start somewhere.

Starting point is 00:04:31 So what is it that keeps people from just taking action and getting started? The thing that I found is there's three reasons why people don't take action. Number one is the identity that they have of themselves. And that comes from childhood, from their parents, from traumas, from bullies, from boyfriends, girlfriends, breakups, heartbreaks, all of that. Your identity is built from there. And we think that our identity is who we are. But your identity is just another way of saying your personality. And the root word for personality is persona. And persona was just a mask that people would wear on stage back in the Greek days. And so your personality could change at any point in time, which means your identity could

Starting point is 00:05:07 change at any point in time. Like some people say, well, I would love to lose 30 pounds, but everyone's overweight in my family and it's just in my genes. And if that's your identity, then there's no reason to take the action that you need to to be healthier or to lose weight or to get you to wherever you want to go. So that's identity can be a part of it. Another big part is fears, which people really always want to dive into is the fears that they have. And so when you look at fears, there's usually a lot of fears that people hold people

Starting point is 00:05:32 back. The fear of failure, the fear of success, the fear of rejection, the fear of not being good enough, not being smart enough, not being accepted. And what I have found is that there's really two categories of fears. When you look at it. There are intellectual fears and there's primal fears. Primal fears means that there's physical pain or death attached to it. There's very few of those that come up in our life in 2023. So most of them are intellectual fears, which are the ones that I just named. And then so when you look at it, you realize there's no pain, there's no physical pain, and there's no death attached to an intellectual fear, the fear of success or failure, for instance. And so what you really do is you go, okay,

Starting point is 00:06:08 I've got this fear of failure. How do I overcome this fear of failure? And the secret to this is I say you can overcome something that doesn't exist. And that's the craziest part about it is that we're creating the boogeyman every single day in our lives and fighting the boogeyman. And in reality, he doesn't even actually exist. We're creating this fear of failure and then fighting the fear of failure, but it actually doesn't even exist. It's just intellectually created in our mind and it holds us back from taking action. And so it ends up being something like procrastination. And people, I say, I procrastinate. That's the problem. I would say procrastination is a downstream effect of the problem. It's the, it's the symptom, but it's not the cause.

Starting point is 00:06:45 And so if you can go, I'm procrastinating, and then go, that's not the problem, what's behind all of it, it's usually some sort of fear or identity that's holding people back. And when you talk about focus, I mean, that's a word that gets tossed around a lot. You've got to be more focused. Well, focus, focus on this. What does that mean to focus? Yeah, it means to bring as much of your mental energy to one task as you're doing it. So when you look at focus, the opposite of it is distraction. In the day and age that we're in, there's a million distractions everywhere. There's our phone, there's the emails, there's notifications, there's other people, there's the TV, there's Netflix, there's so many distractions. And so the first thing that I think of when I

Starting point is 00:07:25 think of focus to make it easier, I always want to make it easier to take action and create the life that I want. So the thing that's getting in the way of my focus, I should at least try to remove before I try to get better at focus, which is all of my distractions, all of the notifications, all of the other people, and all that. And so then once you can remove your distractions and find a place and create time, like I always recommend a Pomodoro technique, which is 25 minutes of work on one thing and one thing only in five minutes off. And in those 25 minutes, there's zero distractions. You don't have email up.

Starting point is 00:07:54 Your phone is in another room and you're able to put as much of your brain power as possible into that one task. And so when you ask what is focus, it's the better you can get at focus and focus is just like a muscle. You can become better at focusing. That's a fact. We can all make our focus better, but I don't know about you. If I'm going to sit down and take action towards a task, I want to bring as much of my brain power to it as possible. And that's what I see as focus. And so when you talk with people about going after the life they want. What is step number one? What do you tell people, okay, well, if you want this, here's what you need to do. Step one is what?

Starting point is 00:08:33 Yeah, that's a good question. I think the first thing you need to do is figure out what you want. It's amazing to me how many people don't have the life that they want. And then when I say, okay, what do you want? They're like, well, I don't know. But then I say, what do you don't want? And people are like, oh, well, I don't want this. I don't want, I don't want to be broke anymore. I don't want to be struggling with my, my relationships. I don't want this. I don't want this. And I'm like, well, what do you want though? Well, I'm not really sure what I, what I do want. And we tend to focus on the negative of what we don't want instead of focusing on what we do want. And I remember, uh, there was, there was a few years ago, I was at a friend's birthday party and he had rented out this entire course and we were, we were riding around go-karts. They went like 50 miles an hour.

Starting point is 00:09:13 And the guy who owned the go-kart place said to us, he goes, he's real funny. He used to be an ex-Lamont driver. So he was like a real legitimate driver and real funny. He's French guy. And he was joking with us. And then he got really serious. And he said to us, he goes, if you, he goes, somebody will crash. And if one of your friends crashes, do not look at the crash. I'm like, okay. He goes, no, look at me in my face. Don't look at the crash, look past the crash and where you want to go. And he was, and I realized it was like a really good metaphor for so many people are looking at the crash and saying, this is what I don't want versus actually deciding what it is that you truly want in your life. And if there's, if you look through so many ancient texts, almost all of them say something along the lines of

Starting point is 00:10:02 asking you shall receive. And so few people are even deciding what they want and then asking for it. And so I think the first step of actually taking action to create the life that you want is like building out the perfect picture of what would that perfect life look like? Putting it on a piece of paper and then waking up every single morning saying, I'm working towards this destination. When you look at the people that do this well, what is it that they have in common that seems to add to the soup here that makes them successful when other people fall short? Yeah, I think it's the environment that they create. And when I was studying really successful people, it wasn't that they had the best willpower. It's that they created environments where their willpower would not be tested as much as somebody else. And so, for instance, the example I give of the Pomodoro technique, where if you go ahead and you take your phone, you put it in another room, you put your email and your notifications off, you put

Starting point is 00:10:58 your noise canceling headphones on, you tell your wife and kids, don't bother me for the next hour. I've got to really get something done. That leaves you space to only do one thing, and that's to take the action that you need to. So let's say I'm creating a presentation for work. I could create a presentation for work and be distracted all day long, and it could take me a day, two days to do it. Or if I can bring all of that focus and brainpower to just that task, I could probably crank it up in at least half the time. And so the thing that I've realized from the highest performers is that they don't have the best willpower. They just create an environment where their willpower doesn't have to be tested.

Starting point is 00:11:33 It's like some of the healthiest people, it's not that they don't love ice cream and they don't love sugar. It's that they don't create, they don't keep those things inside of the house so that therefore their willpower won't be tested. And I think that's the important thing people to realize is that build an environment where your home life, but also your social life doesn't test your willpower to make you go in the direction that you don't want to go to. I don't know if it's good or bad, but I think one of the things that motivates people to do things that they want to do or say they want to do is they don't want to end up regretting not doing it. I mean, I know

Starting point is 00:12:06 for myself that I often do things because I don't want to get towards the end of my life and look back and say, geez, I wonder what would have happened if I had done that. And I think that fear of regret pushes a lot of people. You know, I had a father who was an alcoholic and he passed away when I was 15. And I remember looking at him when he was in the casket and thinking to myself, this guy had so many dreams and he had so much potential and he didn't bring it to the world. And I bet that if he knew early on that this would be how it would end, there would be regret there because he wasn't able to create the life that he wanted to. And I'm positive of that. And I think that's what's really important is that a lot of people have goals, but they have no idea why they want to hit those goals. And so it's about going deeper and saying like,

Starting point is 00:12:52 why do I want that? If I want to make a hundred thousand dollars this year, why do I want to make that? Is it just because I want to make money? You know, you might be motivated just to make money, but eventually you're going to run out of your motivation. A client that I had years ago, then he wanted to make a hundred thousand dollars a year. And I was like, why do you want to make it? I want to make it because of this. And we went deeper and deeper and deeper. We did something called the seven levels of why, where I asked him why seven times in a row. And by the time we got done with the seventh one, the thing that he said to me was, the reason why I want to make $100,000 this year is because I got a divorce from my ex-wife. She has custody of my children. She lives in a really bad part

Starting point is 00:13:24 of town. And I'm really concerned about the custody of my children. She lives in a really bad part of town. And I'm really concerned about the safety of my children because there have been drive-bys in their neighborhood. And I need to make this money to put a down payment on a house to get my children out of that neighborhood and hopefully have a better chance of them having more safety in their life, but also have a better education. And you realize it's the exact same goal. It's still $100,000 a year, but the why behind it is the most important part. And so it's not necessarily the goal needs to change. It's the perspective of why they want to hit that goal is what needs to change. And if the why is strong enough, the how of how to get it done will always reveal itself.

Starting point is 00:13:58 My guest is Rob Dial. He is the host of the podcast, The Mindset Mentor, and author of the book Level Up. Metrolinks and Crosslinks are reminding everyone to be careful as Eglinton Crosstown LRT train testing is in progress. Please be alert as trains can pass at any time on the tracks. Remember to follow all traffic signals, be careful along our tracks, and only make left turns where it's safe to do so. Be alert, be aware, and stay safe. This is an ad for BetterHelp. Welcome to the world.

Starting point is 00:14:37 Please, read your personal owner's manual thoroughly. In it, you'll find simple instructions for how to interact with your fellow human beings and how to find happiness and peace of mind. Thank you, and have a nice life. Unfortunately, life doesn't come with an owner's manual. That's why there's BetterHelp Online Therapy. Connect with a credentialed therapist by phone, video, or online chat. Visit BetterHelp.com to learn more. That's Betterhelp.com. So Rob, you know, I think oftentimes people don't grab

Starting point is 00:15:09 onto goals or try to plan out their life because if you look back at your life, or maybe not your life, but if you look back at a lot of our lives, a lot of what happened was never planned. It's chance. It's encounters with people that just happened to change the trajectory of your life. And that planning your life and having a real concrete plan for your life is maybe it's a good idea, but it's going to change. It's never going to go the way you plan. And I think that's okay. It's like we can, one of the things I've realized as I've gotten older is, is I remember when I was younger and I was running offices and all of this, I wanted to be in control of

Starting point is 00:15:49 everything. And the more that I try to control stuff, the more stress and anxiety brought into my life. And the older that I get, the more I realize I can almost control nothing. Like I can, I can, most people I always say on my podcast, cause I just say, throw things out and say it the way I want to say it is, is most people can, can barely control their bowels after taco Tuesday. And you think that you're going to be able to control the entire universe and every single person's perception of you and how they relate to you. Like we want to control all of it. And really what it comes down to is you've just got to understand there's a few things in this world that you can control. One of those things is what you think. One of those things is how you feel. And another one of those things are the actions that you take. And outside

Starting point is 00:16:28 of that, we can almost control nothing, whether other people, other people's perception of us, how they react around us. And I think what's most important that a lot of people don't talk about is, is being in alignment with what you feel you're supposed to be doing in your life. And I always tell people, cause there's a part of the book where I talk about how to find your purpose. And I always say, it's okay if you're listening to us right now and you don't know what your purpose is, but it is not okay. Now that you're aware that you don't know what your purpose is, it is not okay to not wake up every single day and be in constant pursuit to discover what that purpose is. And your purpose doesn't always have to be your paycheck.

Starting point is 00:17:06 Your purpose can just be the thing that gives you energy and makes you feel more alive. And so I think a lot of people need to start asking themselves, like, what is my purpose here? What gives me the most energy? Because when you feel like you're in alignment, you can kind of trust that what's going to happen is what's going to happen,

Starting point is 00:17:21 and you don't have to control everything. And I think that a lot of people want fulfillment in their life. And I think that fulfillment is a natural byproduct of taking the actions that you need to when you're in alignment with what your true purpose is. When you're in alignment with your true purpose, you put in a good day of work and you do things that you're proud of. The natural byproduct is fulfillment. I will 100% have more energy after me and you talking than I did before

Starting point is 00:17:46 me and you talking, because this is one of the things that I absolutely love to do. And it's like, it's almost like the universe just provides me the energy to be able to do it. And so I think for most people, it's just discovering what is my purpose? What is it that makes me feel aligned? And then what would make me feel fulfilled as a byproduct of taking action and not alignment. But I bet if you were to ask random 10 people on the street, what is your purpose? What is it that gives you energy? They would look at you like, what? What? I don't know. What's your purpose? So if you don't have a purpose, if you don't know your purpose, how do you set out on the journey to find one? There's a part that there's a thing that's a Japanese technique that's called Ikigai.

Starting point is 00:18:30 And Ikigai translated roughly over to English means reason for being. And the four questions you want to ask yourself to try to figure out what your Ikigai is, which is your reason for being is number one, what do I love? And you just write down everything that you love. It could be ice cream. It could be public speaking. It could be puppies, put everything down. I could be racing cars. So what do I love? What am I good at? What can I be paid for? And what does the world need? And so like it, for instance, if I were to guess with you, if you were to years ago, before ever starting this podcast, say like, what, what is it that I love? What am I good at? What does the world need? What can I be paid for? You would probably, if you took enough time, eventually come to something like what you're doing now or public speaking in some sort of way,

Starting point is 00:19:14 because you probably love doing this. You probably love learning about people. You probably love sitting down with people and interviewing them. What are you good at? I've listened to your interviews before. You're really good at asking great questions, interviewing, doing the research. What can you be paid for? Hey, you can be paid for podcasting nowadays. So that is something you could be paid for. And what does the world need? The world needs more knowledge and more people they can listen to that are a few steps ahead of them in the world. And so if people ask themselves those four questions, it allows you to find a space where all of them overlap. And that's could be your, the easiest way that I found for, to find your, your reason for being. And then the last question

Starting point is 00:19:50 that I add to Ikigai, which is just one that's not in there. It's like, what am I really interested in learning about? There's a lot of things that people are really interested in learning about, and they don't have any skillset at it, but they're like, this thing really intrigues me. If you could find the overlap of those four or five things, usually you're going to find something that you're really passionate about doing with your life. I sense from talking to people that there's a lot of people who do have or have an inkling of their purpose, but they don't feel like they deserve it. They don't have the confidence to go get like, it'll never work out. I don't really, you know, I've got to do something else. And there's that, I don't know, I guess it's confidence or lack of

Starting point is 00:20:31 confidence that that keeps people from giving it a try. Yeah, it's it's also like another phrase for it is the imposter syndrome. And I think that it's a natural part of being a human because, like, for instance, for me, when i almost didn't start the mindset mentor podcast because tony robbins exists because i thought like i was 29 at the time back in 2015 when i started it and i was like who would listen to a 29 year old that's still trying to figure out life when they could listen to tony robbins who's like in my mind amazing i was like who would want to listen to me like nobody would want to listen to me and i had the idea for the podcast in January of 2015. I didn't launch it until August of 2015.

Starting point is 00:21:08 So eight months later, because the imposter syndrome of not being good enough, not being smart enough, who the hell would listen to me? I'm not good enough for this. I'm too young. Someone that's in their 40s doesn't want to listen to some 29-year-old stupid kid. And so those kind of things were going through my head all the time. And so I was like, I'm not going to launch. I'm not going to launch.

Starting point is 00:21:25 And then one day I was like, I feel like I have value that I want to give the world. I'm going to at least give it a shot. And I saw that the average podcaster starts seven podcasts, has seven episodes, and then they quit. So I was like, I'll record 14 and then I'll just see how it goes. I'll see if I like it. I'll see if, you know, and it's just like dipping your toes in the water. Like, I'll see if people like it.

Starting point is 00:21:43 I'll see if they respond. I'll see if I like know, and it's just like dipping your toes in the water. Like, I'll see if people like it. I'll see if they respond. I'll see if I like doing it and doing podcasting. And fast forward eight years later, I'm 1,400 podcast episodes in. And the craziest part about it is that, you know, almost 300 million downloads is Tony Robbins. His team reached out to me to ask him to be on my podcast. So I was like, this is a crazy thing of the, I almost didn't do it because of the fact he exists.

Starting point is 00:22:03 And now, you know, he's, his team had, you know, Aston had him on the podcast, but it really comes down to from our current perspective, like where we are, we might not be good enough yet. And that's fine. I wasn't a good enough podcaster. I'm way better eight years later in 1400 episodes than I was then. And it's not about, it's, it's about realizing where we are right now, but realizing that we can grow ourselves into the person who can do whatever it is we want to do. The journey of becoming, of being a human is about constantly evolving.

Starting point is 00:22:35 Yeah, well, there is that instant gratification thing, I think. People think that they have to be perfect out of the box, and if not, then why bother? Right. We always hear it. Someone's like, oh, yeah, well, you'll never be perfect. You'll never be perfect. Perfect the box. And if not, then why bother? Right. We always hear it. Someone's like, oh yeah, well, you'll never be perfect. You never be perfect. Perfect is so boring. If you really think about it and what it really comes down to, I think the perfectionism that we have is that we're really just afraid of being judged by other people. You know, if I'm not perfect, I'll be judged by other people. If I mess up with my words, I'll be judged by other people. And I think it

Starting point is 00:23:03 really comes down to understanding that you just won't be every single person's cup of tea. And that's completely okay. And you shouldn't want to be everyone's cup of tea, because that means that you have to mold and make yourself a chameleon for this person, a different person, this person, and you just have to change yourself. And really what it comes down to is discovering who is your true authentic self? What is it that you want to create in this world? And can you create it authentically from a place of actually loving what you do? And if people love it, amazing. If they don't love it, no problem. But what really matters is that I'm creating what I feel like I'm supposed to be creating in this world. You know, I always remember hearing this,

Starting point is 00:23:41 I don't know who it was, saying that when they interview people towards the end of their life about the things they regret, it's almost never do people regret the things they did. It's the regret is the things that they didn't do that they wish they had. Yeah, when you bring that up, there's the book, The Five Regrets of the Dying. And the number one regret is that I wish I lived a life that was true to myself and not the life that other people expected of me. And this is a lady who worked in hospice for years and was talking with people that were at the end of their lives. And over and over and over again, the most extreme one that she heard more than anything else was that I wish I lived a life that was true to myself and not the life that other people expected of me. And it's like, man, how often do people, I'm the type

Starting point is 00:24:25 of person, like Tony Robbins always says, success leaves clues. Well, also happiness leaves clues, unhappiness leaves clues, regret leaves clues. I want to look to people who went through their entire life and had regrets and go, what can I learn from them? And if that's the number one regret that people have, I'm going to go, okay, well, that means that I need to find what is true to myself. And I need to live that path and understand that some people won't understand it. People, if I decide that I want to switch my career and do this thing, someone might be 30 years old and might be like, well, I want to go and start a coaching company.

Starting point is 00:24:58 And their mom might be like, well, you went to school to be an electrical engineer. That's the dumbest thing I've ever heard. You might get those responses. But if it feels true to your heart that it is what you're supposed to do, like to start a podcast in 2015, I left a job where I was making over 200 grand a year. It made no sense logically to do that. But something in my heart felt like this is the thing that you were born to do. If you continue down this path and don't follow it, you're going to hate yourself when you get older.

Starting point is 00:25:25 And I've heard a quote one time that said, once you discover what your purpose and your passion is, if you don't follow it, it will end up destroying you. And that was for me, one of the things that really drove me was I feel like this is the reason why I was put on this earth. And if I don't follow it, I think that it will destroy me. Yeah, well, that's a powerful motivator. And it could work for anybody if you stop and think about it. I've been talking to Rob Dial. He is host of the podcast, The Mindset Mentor. And his book, a new best-selling book called Level Up.

Starting point is 00:25:57 And there's a link to that book in the show notes. And there's a link to his podcast as well. Thanks, Rob. Thanks for being here. Thanks, man. I appreciate it. 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,

Starting point is 00:26:27 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,

Starting point is 00:27:03 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. 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.

Starting point is 00:27:33 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.

Starting point is 00:28:08 Being curious, you're probably just the type of person Intelligence Squared is meant for. Check out Intelligence Squared wherever you get your podcasts. I'm sure you're familiar with the phrase, that person's in denial. In fact, it's easy to see denial in other people. It's a little more difficult to see it in ourselves. But we are all in denial to some extent, sometime. It can help you cope with life.

Starting point is 00:28:39 It can also be a problem, because if you're in denial, you can't really see the truth. So here to help you're in denial, you can't really see the truth. So here to help you understand what denial is, how it works, and how to deal with it so it isn't such a problem is Jane Greer. Jane is a nationally known marriage and family therapist and there's a good chance you've seen her on TV shows like The Today Show, Oprah, CBS News, Dateline NBC, 2020, and others. She's the author of six books about navigating relationships. Her latest is called Am I Lying to Myself?

Starting point is 00:29:11 How to Overcome Denial and See the Truth. Hi, Jane. Welcome to Something You Should Know. Thank you for having me. It's a pleasure to be here. So what is denial? How do you define denial? Oh, I love that question. Denial is the inability to see reality. Denial is blocking out what is unpleasant, painful, or hurtful, or upsetting to you, and just not seeing it. It's like going emotionally blind. It's emotional blindness. Well, it seems like a little denial is probably

Starting point is 00:29:45 a good thing, right? You don't want to see too much stark truth. Well said. You know, not only is a little denial a good thing, a little denial is a necessary thing. Denial is one of our defenses that help us cope with all the rough edges in life and manage and get through some of the events that are traumatic and shocking and kind of level us and really make it more than we can handle. With that being said, when it takes over center stage in your life, when you get locked into denial so that you don't see people for who they really are, you don't deal with yourself for who you really are and what's actually going on in your life. When you start to lie to yourself,

Starting point is 00:30:32 when that starts to happen, you change the landscape of your life, but you leave yourself wide open for getting kind of bit from behind once denial is no longer serving its purpose, because you can only block out reality up to a certain point, and then it will inevitably catch up with you. So give me some examples of someone in denial that you're referencing there. A lot of times I see it with people dealing with their significant others in a relationship, in a family,

Starting point is 00:31:06 with a mother, a father, a sister, a brother. They stay locked in who they want that person to be, who they wish that person was, the mother they wish they had, the sister they wanted to have. The husband who they wish was not drinking or wish was 50 pounds lighter. And when they're dealing with that person, they consistently over and over deny who that person really is. Hence, they don't expect or see how that person's going to behave. And just a hallmark to denial, one of the most important things is when you're dealing with denial, you know you're in it because you always forget that this is exactly what happened the last time, that this is what the person said or did the last time. And each and every time they behave in a way that is upsetting or negative or hurtful to you. It's as if it's the first time. It's like it never happened before and you're completely surprised and shocked,

Starting point is 00:32:13 especially when they will tell you, I'll stop, I'll stop drinking, I won't spend so much money, I'll do what you're asking me to do. Anything that you ask of them and they say that they will do it and they don't. So that's one way that you know somebody that you're in denial, that you're not seeing the people that you love clearly and you continue to get disappointed and hurt by their behavior and angry. Because you're pretending a different truth, like you're pretending he doesn't drink or you're pretending he's 50 pounds lighter. So it's not pretending, Mike, it's denying. And when you deny it, you do not see the reality.

Starting point is 00:32:59 So what do you see? What do you see instead? You see instead somebody who said they're going to stop drinking. And when you see them drinking, you say, well, they're going to try this. They told me they go to AA. They're not drinking so much. It's only one drink a night. You start to minimize. And one of the components of denial that I talk about is you take a lot and you turn it into a little. So you take a whole lot of negative behavior

Starting point is 00:33:30 and you make it one little thing. People that are dealing with somebody in denial, I had somebody one time, their boyfriend left them stranded at a wedding and didn't show up and had them fly across the country to join them at going to this wedding, left them at the hotel, didn't come and get them. And when they were reporting it, they said, oh, it was kind of kooky behavior. No, no, no, no, that's not kooky behavior. That's hurtful, hostile, thoughtless, selfish behavior that that person

Starting point is 00:34:08 rearranged their work, took off from work, spent a lot of money. There's a lot of bad behavior that went into that. And when you turn it into, well, that's just kooky to make it okay and tolerate, that's denial. And so the goal is to what? Because you can't make other people change, so what do you do instead? Exactly. The goal is to confront your own denial and see people for who they are. There's what I call demanders denial. Seeing that if you're dealing with a significant other who may make demands of you to prove that you love them, to take care of them, to go out of your way and do things for them, to call them if it's a mom, to call her every day or call her three times a day. If it's a sister to come and

Starting point is 00:34:57 take care of her if she doesn't feel well or to help her out with her kids or whatever, that no matter how much you do, it's never going to be enough. It's never going to be good enough. And you're always going to fall short and not measure up in their eyes. So the goal of denial is to really see that and one, start to limit how much you extend yourself and two, to change your expectations of what you are looking for from the other person. To know that you're not going to get the acknowledgement and the appreciation, hey, honey, thank you. That really was helpful. Or what a great sister you are. You really bailed me out. Or, you know, I'd be without you you're you're always here for me

Starting point is 00:35:45 you're going to get why didn't you or you could have or you should have or you're never there for me no matter how much you are no matter what you've done and when you realize that it doesn't matter how high you jump the bar will always be raised and you will always fall short you start to see the person for who they are the bottom line is if you see somebody for who they really are then you need to make some choices and changes in the way that you interact and deal with them because if you know that your friend is going to disappoint you repeatedly or that your mother is going to always be angry with you no matter what you do or that if you tell your

Starting point is 00:36:28 father that you just got this great job and a great pay raise and he's going to say something to the effect of that's all and you're going to be diminished and feel badly about yourself when you when you really know that you stop wishing and hoping you use what you know to stop sharing so much to start to put boundaries in place to change and protect the way that you're involved with somebody so that you don't get so hurt or if it's a friend you say you know what I'm gonna back up in this relationship I'm not gonna give so much I'm not going to overextend. What happens or what would, or what typically happens when using your example of, you know,

Starting point is 00:37:11 you, you tell your father, you got a raise or a promotion and he says, oh, is that all? What if you go to him and say, you know, every time I tell you one of these things, you always diminish it. You always make it sound, and I really wish you'd stop doing that. That's a waste of time. Why? Because you're dealing with somebody who demanders denial, cannot see their own behavior, and will only come back at you self-righteous and justifying their behavior. And you can try. I mean, I've had many people try talking to this significant other, telling them how hurt they are or disappointed they are in their behavior. And they're met with, how could you ask that of me? Don't you know how busy I am?

Starting point is 00:37:59 You don't appreciate how hard my life is. Typically, you're dealing with narcissistic behavior in the other person. And what happens with narcissists very often was when you confront them with your needs, they feel burdened. They don't feel understood. They don't feel supported by you. And then they get angry at you. So they'll only lash out more. I mean, you know, it's worth a try, but honestly, Mike, I've never seen anybody successfully get through to the demander who expects somebody to just, you know, give unconditional love and be unconditionally available. It's interesting that, because it's on the surface, it seems like, well, that's the logical fix. You just tell someone stop doing that and then they stop doing it and everything's fine.

Starting point is 00:38:46 But as you say, it doesn't work. No, that's called wish. That's the wishing and hoping. You know, if I talk to them and I tell them what I want from them, they'll change. They don't think they have a problem. You're the one who has the problem because you're not giving enough to them or doing enough for them. And you can't ask, you can, you can tell people what upsets you about their behavior, but you can't ask them to stop. You can say, you know, when you do this, it's very hurtful to me. It would be great if you didn't, but if you

Starting point is 00:39:19 continue to do it, here's what I'm going to do. You know, if you're talking to a person who doesn't hang up the phone on when you say, I've got to go, you can't say to them, hey, please, you know, when we're talking, you go on and on. And I have, when I say I have to go, I got to go. Could you please just hang up the phone? Not going to happen. But what you can say is, look, a lot of times when we're ending a conversation you keep talking so i need you to know that when i say i'm hanging up i'm going to hang up and then you go ahead and you hang up that's that's the boundary telling them what you're going to do in the limit and then you need to enforce it and if they get angry you you say well look i told you this is what i

Starting point is 00:40:02 needed to do you start to take care of yourself so you don told you this is what I needed to do. You start to take care of yourself. So you don't tell other people what they need to do. You tell them what you're going to do in the face of their continuing to behave in a way that is hurtful or painful or upsetting to you. But when, like your example of the father who says about the promotion, oh, that's all, that's all you got? What's the point of that? Why say that? What's the payoff for them to, I mean, they have to know that when you say that, that's not the nicest thing in the world to say. So why do they do it? Well, that is a fabulous question. I think there are lots of reasons why people are angry and hostile and hurtful to the people that they love. Why do people say critical, nasty, mean things? Why are they mean? Why wouldn't they just be positive and supportive and loving? You know, a lot of people are disgruntled. A lot of people have resentment. A lot of people are empty. A lot of people become envious. They, instead of supporting

Starting point is 00:41:12 their children, they feel rivalrous or get competitive or jealous. And so they cut them down. They don't want them to surpass. They don't want them to do so well. They want them to feel more dependent and vulnerable and needy and helpless and stay close to home. I mean, there's a potpourri of reasons why people are critical, negative, blaming, and just mean. So what do you do, though, when you've got someone in your life and they're a family member? Because, you know, as you say, you know, friends you can back away from but you know your mom's your mom your dad's your dad and and so so when you back away if you try to you know not share so much pull back a little bit then they're going to criticize you for that so it's like you can never win that's the whole point

Starting point is 00:42:02 you can never win it doesn't matter I've had people I had at one gal she used to call her mother twice a day and then she cut it down to once a day and no matter how many times she called her mother it was never enough and when she started to call in the morning the mother would say why are you calling me in the morning? You know, I'm busy then. So she'd call in the evening. Why are you calling me at night? You know, I'm tired then. It didn't matter when she called. It was never the right time and it was never enough. It's impossible to please this person. And that's the reality. So when you start to accept that, you do put limits in place for yourself. And you accept that they're going to be angry with you no matter what. You can call your mother two times a day. You can call her

Starting point is 00:42:54 in the morning, in the evening, and then she'll get angry and upset that you're not calling her at lunch. It doesn't matter how much you do, they will be angry with you. And when you accept that, you learn to tolerate and say, you know what, I'm not responsible for their emotions. And if she's going to be angry with me, she'll have to deal with it. But you start to take care of yourself. It does seem though that like, I don't know, maybe it's just my personality, but like, how do you not call them on it? Look, I call you every day. Now I don't call twice a day, but I'm still calling. Lighten up, get over it. Or, hey, there's a dial on your phone. If you need to call me, call me. They'll give you a whole line of malarkey. You know on this, you know on that. How could you expect this? They'll just get angry with you. Give it a whirl.

Starting point is 00:43:45 I say to people, give it a whirl. If you want to try and bang your head against the wall, go ahead. But you're just going to get back resistance, resentment, anger that you're asking of them to do this. They are not going to see themselves. They're in their own denial. They're going to tell you, I'm 78 years old. They're going to say to you, I live alone. They're going to say to you, you know I have to deal with your sister all the time.

Starting point is 00:44:16 They're going to give you their laundry list of problems and what they're dealing with and how dare you ask them anything? I don't know. It just seems like, as you say, people are going to be mad no matter what you do. So why not call them on it? And yeah, they might be mad, but they were going to be mad anyway. So I remember when my father was alive that when we talked, it was always because I called him.

Starting point is 00:44:44 He almost never called me. And that bothered me. And the same thing held true for my siblings, that he did not typically call them. And so I took him out to dinner and I called him on it. And I said, why is it that you don't call me ever? And he said in so many words, I have a belief that children should call

Starting point is 00:45:06 their father. And it wasn't up to him to call us. And so I said, well, be fine with me if you wanted to call. And you know what? Things got better. They didn't get a whole lot better, but he did start to call more often. And I'm glad we had that conversation. Well, I think that's wonderful. But it sounds like that was one area where there was a lopsidedness to the relationship. And it turns out it was based on a value system and a belief on his part, not a personality element that was across the board in the nature of how he behaved with everything. In other words, if somebody is, oh, you always come to my house, for example, you drive and see me, I'm not driving to you. There may be a value system or a belief that I expect you to come to me. And if you talk about it and you say, look, in this one instance, could we ever balance it a little more?

Starting point is 00:46:06 That was great that he was receptive and was more responsive. When it's not a belief system, when it's more innate in the person's personality and the way they behave, you're less likely to be successful. If your father was always making demands of you and expecting, well, I'm the father and you should call me and you should visit me and you should do this for me and you should do that for me. And if it was always a one-way street, the likelihood that he would have heard you around that and then change his behavior would have been smaller. Yeah, that's right. You made an important distinction there because it wasn't like he was demanding I call. It was just if I wanted to talk to him, I needed to call him. He wasn't going to be checking in on me.

Starting point is 00:46:57 But you're really talking about people who make demands and are always disappointed. Exactly. That's what I work with people on, is developing their emotional muscles, helping them see through their wishing and hoping the person was different and accepting the person for who they really are so that they can start to make limits and put limits in place in terms of how they are going to behave, what they're going to tolerate, how they start to see over and over repeatedly the same behavior so that they're not surprised. Oh my, I can't believe it. It's like, you know, ignore that man behind the curtain. Denial is the Houdini of the mind and the heart.

Starting point is 00:47:37 It makes everything disappear. And you can't ignore that man behind the curtain. He's there and he's working the controls. And if you don't pull the curtain back, you're going to be out of control in your life. And certainly when it comes to infidelity, a lot of times people are locked in denial because they believe what they're told. And this is true in other aspects of denial, but you may broach the behavior in question and somebody will give you some explanation or excuse and you go, yeah, I could live with that. And that's denial. You just believe what you're told and go along with their denial of what they're doing. It seems so much easier to see it in other situations, in other person's relationships,

Starting point is 00:48:23 like what's going on that he told you what and you believe that? What? Exactly. You said it, Mike. Exactly right. We can all see the wool being pulled over the eyes of the people we love. And we are confounded that how can they not see it?

Starting point is 00:48:39 But that's the power of denial. I am Oz, the great and mighty, you know. And so I work with people to help them build their emotional muscles, to use what they know, to see people for who they are so that they can recognize, you know what, it doesn't matter if I do this or I don't do this. Because if I do it, they're going to be angry that it wasn't good enough or didn't do it when they wanted me to. And if I don't do it, they're going to be angry. So I might as well take care of myself. Yeah, right. I might as well take care of myself. That's some good advice. I've been speaking with Jane Greer. She is a nationally known marriage and family therapist. And the name of her book is Am I Lying to Myself? How to Overcome Denial and See the Truth. There's a link to that book in the show notes.

Starting point is 00:49:28 Thanks for coming on, Jane. Terrific. Thank you so much for having me. Herb Cohen is one of the all-time legendary great sales trainers and negotiators. And he has some advice. In fact, he was a guest on this podcast way back in the beginning when we first started. And he has some advice that will help you negotiate anything better.

Starting point is 00:49:55 First of all, dumb is better. Make the other person feel superior and smarter than you. When you say things like, ah, you lost me, I don't really understand, it throws the other side off balance and makes them slow down, which will work in your favor. Care, but don't care too much. The more disinterested you seem, the better the deal will likely get. Walk away. If you don't like the deal, walk away and see if the deal doesn't get better

Starting point is 00:50:27 instantly. You can always accept the deal later if you want to. And that is something you should know. I'd love it if you would leave a review on Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen. Usually there's a place where you can leave a rating and review and we read them all. We appreciate them. They're very helpful and it only takes a minute. I'm we read them all. We appreciate them. They're very helpful and it only takes a minute. I'm Micah Ruthers. Thanks for listening today to Something You Should Know. Do you love Disney? Do you love top 10 lists? Then you are going to love our hit podcast, Disney Countdown. I'm Megan, the Magical Millennial. And I'm the Dapper Danielle. On every episode of our fun and family-friendly show,

Starting point is 00:51:07 we count down our top 10 lists of all things Disney. The parks, the movies, the music, the food, the lore. There is nothing we don't cover on our show. We are famous for rabbit holes, Disney-themed games, and fun facts you didn't know you needed. I had Danielle and Megan record some answers to seemingly meaningless questions. I asked Danielle, what insect song is typically higher pitched in hotter temperatures and lower pitched in cooler temperatures? You got this.

Starting point is 00:51:33 No, I didn't. Don't believe that. About a witch coming true? Well, I didn't either. Of course, I'm just a cicada. I'm crying. I'm so sorry. You win that one. So if you're looking for a healthy dose of Disney magic,

Starting point is 00:51:50 check out Disney Countdown 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.

Starting point is 00:52:17 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.

Something You Should Know - How to Get Important Things Done & Ways to Tell If Someone Is in Denial

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