Something You Should Know - Science Behind Love and Friendship & How to Get Better At Saying No

Episode Date: May 9, 2022

Every now and then you see someone being interviewed on television who has reached 100 years old - or older and claims to have smoked cigarettes and drank whiskey their whole life. Yet other people do all the right things and die young. This episode begins with and examination and explanation of this odd phenomenon and tells you what your odds are of living to 100 on the cigarette and whiskey diet. Source: Dr. Robert Butler author of The Longevity Prescription (https://amzn.to/392khSV) I’m sure you’ve heard these sayings:  Love conquers all No man is an island  A friend in need is a friend indeed You can’t judge a book by its cover  All these sayings have to do with our relationship (or lack of) with other people. But are they true? Well, Eric Barker has taken a look at the research on love and friendship and he joins me with some startling findings. Eric is author of the book Plays Well with Others: The Surprising Science Behind Why Everything You Know About Relationships is (Mostly) Wrong (https://amzn.to/3vQdZi9) It can be really hard to say no. Yet, how many times have you said yes to someone and later regretted it? Wouldn’t it be great if you could say no more often and not feel so guilty about it? Here to tell you how is bestselling author Michael Tougias, author of the book No Will Set You Free. (https://amzn.to/3sm5HfF) Bananas are interesting. First of all they don’t come from a tree even though you probably think they do. And technically a bunch of bananas is not called a bunch. There are some other interesting facts about bananas that I explain in this episode that you can use to impress your friends. https://www.britannica.com/plant/banana-plant PLEASE SUPPORT OUR SPONSORS! We really like The Jordan Harbinger Show! Check out https://jordanharbinger.com/start OR search for it on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you listen!  Go to https://Shopify.com/sysk, for a FREE fourteen-day trial and get full access to Shopify’s entire suite of features! With Avast One, https://avast.com you can confidently take control of your online world without worrying about viruses, phishing attacks, ransomware, hacking attempts, & other cybercrimes! Small Businesses are ready to thrive again and looking for resources to rise to the challenge. That’s why Dell Technologies has assembled an all-star lineup of podcasters (and we're one of them!) for the third year in a row to create a virtual conference to share advice and inspiration for Small Businesses. Search Dell Technologies Small Business Podference on Audacy.com, Spotify or Apple podcasts starting May 10th! Today is made for Thrill! Style, Power, Discovery, Adventure, however you do thrill, Nissan has a vehicle to make it happen at https://nissanusa.com  https://www.geico.com Bundle your policies and save! It's Geico easy! Use SheetzGo on the Sheetz app! Just open the app, scan your snacks, tap your payment method and go!  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Today on Something You Should Know, why do some people smoke and drink and live to 100 while some healthy people die young? Then, the surprising science about how well you understand other people. When it comes to meeting strangers, we only predict their thoughts and feelings accurately 20% of the time. With friends, that hits 30%. And with spouses, it only hits 35%. So whatever you think is on your spouse's mind, two-thirds of the time you're wrong.

Also, what you probably never knew about bananas, and how to get good at saying no and stop saying yes to everything. Here's a little litmus test if there's too much yes in your life. Are you stressed from being overscheduled? Are you getting enough sleep? Do you leave tasks unfinished and often need last minute help? Is there one important project you've wanted to do for years but never found the time? All this today on Something You Should Know.

This is an ad for BetterHelp. Welcome to the world. 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. 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 to Something You Should Know. Have you ever noticed, usually it's on the news every once in a while, you'll see someone who's over 100 years old saying that they drank whiskey and smoked a pack of cigarettes every day

for their entire life. And yet they still live to be 100. So what's the deal? Is it really all just a crapshoot? Well, according to Dr. Robert Butler, who's author of a book called The Longevity Prescription, these kind of people are very rare. And if you follow the liquor and cigarette diet,

it's not a good way to ensure that you'll make it to 100. We know that 75% of the factors that determine how long you live are up to you. That includes where you live, how you eat and exercise, how you manage stress, all those lifestyle things. 25% of the factors have more to do with your genes and chance, good and bad. Some people do everything right but die young. Some people smoke and drink and live to 100. But the odds are, if you take care of yourself, you'll live a long and healthy life.

And that is something you should know. We all have relationships in life. And they're all different. We have friends, lovers, relatives. Some of us have more relationships than others. Some of us are happy with our relationships. Some of us are not. Human relationships are complicated.

Necessary, but complicated. Eric Barker has taken a really interesting exploration into how human relationships work. He is the author of a book called Plays Well With Others, the surprising science behind why everything you know about relationships is mostly wrong. Hi, Eric. Welcome. It's great to be here. So as a way of explanation, you looked at some of the things that we've all heard about relationships, like love conquers all, no man is an island, a friend in need is a friend indeed.

And you really put these things through a stress test to see if they're true. So let's start with no man is an island, which refers to loneliness. What did you discover? What was really interesting to me is that before the 19th century, loneliness didn't seem to exist. The word was used, but it didn't have the negative connotation. And this is work by Faye Alberti at the University of York. And I was kind of shocked by that. But what she found was that, you know, back then we were all embedded in communities or parts of religions, nations, you know, tribes, groups. And so we

always felt connected to something. And this ties in with the research where John Cacioppo, who's done a lot of the work on loneliness, found that lonely people actually don't spend any less time with people than non-lonely people do, which again, kind of shocking. But the issue here is that we've all felt lonely in a crowd. It's not just being proximate to people. It's how you feel about your relationships. Loneliness is a subjective experience of how you feel about your relationships. Do you feel connected to people? So I was really shocked because much like I'm sure most people, I felt like loneliness was just an issue of having people around you, but it's really more of a gauge of how you feel about how your relationships, how meaningful they are. And the flip side of that is, is there are people

who spend time alone who don't feel lonely absolutely and vivek murthy the surgeon general of the united states you know in his book he talked about how solitude is actually a positive thing loneliness is correlated with nearly every negative health metric you can imagine but solitude on the other hand when we do feel like those connections are there when we do feel meaningful relationships with other people spending time alone is correlated with creativity you know with insight it's it's really powerful but it's that difference it's not so much are you approximate to people you know it's how are you feeling about your relationships distinguishes loneliness from solitude and while loneliness is terrible solitude is something that's great for us. Well, I find it really interesting, and I hadn't heard it before you just said it,

that until, you know, 100, 200 years ago, loneliness wasn't even a thing. And given what a big thing it is now, it makes you wonder what happened in that period of time that made loneliness such a big problem. Well, it's funny. Basically, the first time, the word lonely was used in plenty of texts, but it just meant isolated. It didn't have that negative spin to it. And it was actually first in Mary Shelley's book, Frankenstein, where we saw loneliness as this bad thing. And that's because in the 19th century, we saw this explosion of individualism. As we all collectively became more successful, we were able to be more individualistic. We weren't as reliant on our groups for survival. And then this even expanded more in the 20th century. Robert Putnam has done work at Harvard showing how it was television

that in many ways kind of replaced a lot of our relationships. And in the late 20th century, that led to the decline of bowling leagues and elk lodges and all of these communal activities. They kind of fell to the wayside as television as what is called a parasocial relationship you know that relationship with those characters on tv in many ways came to replace relationships or at the very least it cannibalized some of the budget that we all have for social time and and what was it about frankenstein that introduced the concept of loneliness was it just the monster was lonely yeah i. I mean, you know, he feels apart. You know, he doesn't feel like a normal human being.

Well, he wasn't. No, exactly. And he's caught in this terrible position where he's not really human. He's not really alive in that way. And he feels cut off, distant. He doesn't have good relationships. And so it's kind of funny that that started us down kind of the big shift towards individualism that happened throughout the 19th, 20th, and now the 21st century. Well, it's hard to get the ladies when you've got these little plugs coming out of your neck.

And, you know, I think that's like a real turnoff. So does love conquer all, I don't know where that comes from, but it, it sounds, it doesn't sound right. It goes all the way back. It was actually all the way back to ancient Rome that that's been around a while. And we all know it's like the United States roughly has a 40% divorce rate now. So obviously, you know, love doesn't conquer all. And there's been a lot of negative shifts in, you know, in marriage where it's become, you know, less stable. Like I said, 40% divorce rate, but that is leveled off, but it's leveled off largely because fewer people are getting married. But while that may be a negative, the interesting flip to this is that,

you know, before we had, we had culture, we had groups, we had everything that kind of held marriage together that acted as constraints and boundaries, but that also limited people. So now there's a lot more variability in marriage. Now, of course, that leads to divorce. But on the flip side, the positive is if people put in the time, if they put in the effort, if they're proactive about sustaining and vitalizing their marriage, they can have the best marriages ever. This was worked by Eli Finkel at Northwestern University, that the people at the high end, the happiest marriages are now happier than any marriage in history. It's just that now it's love has gone from conquering all to to win or take all where the people at the at the at the far end of the

happiness are super happy but you know a lot more people are falling at the tail end as well so we need to work a little harder but if we do we can have the best marriages ever so you looked at the phrase can you judge a book by its cover as it relates to people. So explain what you mean by that and what you discovered. We have this image of Sherlock Holmes, you know, being able to, you know, immediately look at people and dissect them, you know, be able maybe to be able to detect lies, to be able to read their thoughts and feelings. And I just wanted to see, it's like, can we judge a book by its cover? Should we judge a book by its cover? And basically, when you look at the preponderance of the research, we're really bad at this. When it comes to meeting strangers, we only predict their thoughts and feelings accurately

20% of the time. With friends, that hits 30%. And with spouses, it only hits 35%. So whatever you think is on your spouse's mind, two-thirds the time you're wrong. We can improve that a little bit with, uh, by being more motivated when, when we feel like there's a loss or gain, our brains will ramp up a little bit. So people on first dates are actually better people readers than we are in general. That said, there's kind of a low ceiling on how good we can get at this. And what I found in the research is that rather than trying to make ourselves better at reading people, because we're only so good at that, the better strategy is actually to try to make others more readable, to get them to send stronger signals that we can use

to better understand them. Yeah. Well, that, that sounds like that would be very helpful, but how do you, how do you do that? Well, that's something that's really interesting because we have to step outside of just kind of our individual focus. What we need to do is first think about context. If you're just meeting somebody for coffee, they're not going to be sending very strong signals about who they are. But for instance, what if you were to play basketball with someone? You'd see them quickly making decisions. You'd see, are they a team player? You'd see, do they cheat?

You'd learn a lot more from seeing people interacting with their environment, interacting with others. That gives us a lot more information than when we're just sitting there, they're not doing anything, and we can only work from what they're telling us. A second powerful thing is to involve other people in the process. I think we can all agree that if you only dealt with someone in the presence of their boss, you're probably not going to see the full them. So interacting other people can show us different facets, different sides of someone. Beyond that, we need to get past talking

about the weather. There's research that has shown that when people actually talk about controversial topics, you get a more accurate read. People enjoy the conversation more, surprisingly. But we get to see how reactive they are. How do they react to more emotional topics? We get past kind of the pat lines and the politeness. We get a better read on who they are. So by looking at context involving other people and talking about more controversial topics, we can get people to send stronger signals by which we can better read them. I find that number that you gave, that we only are right about 35% of the time of what our partner

is thinking or what kind of mood they're in? And is that, am I correct? That's what you said? 35%. Yeah. It's startling. I mean, that's ridiculous. It's, it's really funny, but how many times have, you many times have you or I been misread by somebody else we're talking to? What's interesting on the flip side of that is while we're very poor at empathically reading others, one thing that we're actually surprisingly good at is first impressions, is when seeing someone, meeting someone for the first time, our ability to kind of pick up on who they are, you know, in general, it's probably about 70% accurate. There's a lot of research on what's

called thin slicing, where if you show someone a short video, a few minutes long of a teacher in a classroom, just watching a few minutes with the sound off, just a few minutes of watching them, people can judge with a fairly high accuracy, how competent this person is and a number of other like personality traits, about 70% accuracy when we're first meeting someone. But the double-edged sword of first impressions is that while, you know, 70% is, is good, it's much better than 35%. However, that's also a D in school. So 70% is good. But the problem with first impressions is that while they're pretty accurate, we tend to lock onto them. First impressions do stick. So what we need to do to read people better is to be ready to revise those first impressions,

because otherwise they stick with us. And if they're inaccurate, it can be really hard for someone to get out of that trap of how we have judged them. We're discussing the science of relationships and why so much of what we believe about relationships turns out to be wrong. My guest is Eric Barker. He's author of a book called Plays Well With Others. Bumble knows it's hard to start conversations. Hey.

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that you believed that you found to be not true if if there is one you know i much like many people i really love the idea of reading body language and subconsciously they're all cues that we pick up on that help us size people up but conscious reading of body language is actually not supported at all by the research. It's, we're really bad at it. The truth is that if you want to try and look for cues to try and read people better, forget body language. What we need to think about actually more is their voice. Because when we can hear someone, but we can't see them,

our empathic accuracy only drops off about 4%. But when we can see someone, but we can't hear them, empathic accuracy drops off 54%. So the voice has a lot more tells in it than what we see in somebody's movements because the issue with body language is we can't be sure if they're shivering because they're cold or they're shivering because they're nervous. We can't be sure if they're drumming their fingers because that's a habit they have or if they're bored. We don't know what those things mean, especially with new people. We don't have a baseline. So we can never really know. So we should really focus on the voice over looking at body language. And when we're listening to voice for those clues,

is it just instinct? We just sort of know it or do you have to be trained in how to do it? No, our instincts are generally pretty good when it comes to voice. They didn't in that study with the 4% versus 54% drop off, they didn't give anybody training. Uh, so our voice, you know, we are pretty good at picking up on voice versus the subtleties and nuances of body language are very idiosyncratic. They're not as consistent. So we can kind of trust our judgment a little bit better when it comes to voice. Anything else that really shocked you when you looked at this? Anything that turned the tables for you?

One thing that was really interesting that I found was in terms of detecting lies, we're absolutely terrible at it. We normally, we only detect lies, I think, at about a 52% accuracy. So basically, it's a coin flip. And while college students lie in about a third of conversations, adults lie in about 20% of conversations. We lie most to mom, but we tell the biggest lies to our spouses. But lie detection is always proven really hard. And most of the stuff we hear in terms of the polygraph, for instance, doesn't work. Because measuring stress and anxiety, that's not a proven lie detection method. What does work is that telling lies is actually pretty cognitively intensive. You know, we have to think a lot. You have to think about the true story. You have to think

about the fake story. You have to make sure you're not, nobody's catching on to you. You have to update those models in real time. So what actually works in terms of lie detection is upping the cognitive load, making the person think harder, is actually what has been shown to make a big difference. And how we can do that is by asking unanticipated questions. When we ask questions that the liar hasn't prepared for, they'll slow down, they'll have to think, they'll stumble on their words, and we're much, much more likely to pick up on someone who's not telling us the truth. Again, it's one of those things you like to think you're good at. Like, I like to think I'm able to tell like when my kids are lying and, and I'm probably not anywhere near as good as I think I

am. Well, the tricky part there is that exactly what you're saying, where we don't get good feedback about whether we're lie detectors usually is because we don't, if somebody lied to us and it was successful, we never find out. Right. While the flip side is very different. Liars if they get caught, they realize, oh, that didn't work. You know, they're starting, they're getting feedback on whether their lies worked. Should they give more details?

Should I say it like this? So liars are generally improving while we're generally not improving. And that puts us at a great disadvantage. So let's talk about friendship. You looked at the idea of a friend in need is a friend indeed. So what about friendship? The friendship research was interesting, frankly, because there just wasn't as much of it. I really had to dig because with the love chat, there's plenty of research on marriage and relationships and kids and families. But on friends, not nearly as much. And that shows through because that's an aspect of, frankly, for many parts of friendship.

Friendship doesn't get the respect it deserves. And it should because research by Nobel Prize winner Daniel Kahneman shows that friendships make us happier than any other relationship. And even within a marriage, it's the friendship aspect of marriage that is the most rewarding in terms of happiness. And the reason for this is because with most of our other relationships, there's some sort of an institution, a contract of sorts that keeps us in there. Friendship doesn't have anything like that. Your kids don't stop being your kids if you were to stop liking them. Your spouse doesn't stop becoming your spouse. If you don't like your

boss, it doesn't cease to be your boss. But if you stop liking your friends, they're not your friends anymore. Friendship is completely voluntary. And so because of that, that fragility of friendship keeps its purity. So we really enjoy friends because if we didn't, we wouldn't see them anymore. So friendship is incredibly rewarding, but it kind of doesn't get the support and attention that it needs. And we really should think more about it because like I said, it brings us more happiness than any other relationship. My observation is that women do

friendship better than men. And you are 100% true. This is totally true is that most men, especially as they age, especially after they get married, men tend to, their spouse tends to be kind of the center of their social world, whereas women are much better at keeping up their friendships. And this has a lot of negative effects on men, including health, because there's a lot of research that basically shows if you look at women recovering from breast cancer, a spouse has no effect versus the number of friends, close friends they have predicts recovery. Men recovering from a heart attack, spouse has zero effect, but their friends, the friends tell you how many friends they have

says how likely they are to recover. Um, Robin Dunbar, a professor at Oxford, he looked at all the research on happiness. I'm sorry, on, on health. And he basically said, uh, what will predict whether you are alive one year after having a heart attack? It says, basically it comes down to, do you smoke and do you have close friendships? Sure. Nutrition, exercise, all that other stuff is nice, but heads and tails above everything else, don't smoke and have good friendships. That was able to predict who would be alive a year after a heart attack. What's one other thing, because we're almost out of time. What's one other thing that you found in this research that I find so fascinating that maybe surprised you? John Gottman, who's the leading researcher

on love and marriage, basically found that 69% of ongoing issues that couples have never get resolved. And what's interesting about that is that it's true of unhappy couples, and it's true of happy couples. We're often much too focused on trying to resolve conflict as opposed to regulate it. There's a lot of things that will just never get ironed out, and that's okay. It's true with couples that are happy. If we focus on, we have to resolve. Typically we don't. What, what, what drives marriages into the ground, you know, isn't fighting, you know, fighting, yelling and screaming only ends marriages about 40% of the time. The other, the rest of the time, it's usually due to the fact that people aren't communicating. They're not talking.

Gottman found that complaining is actually a positive thing in relationships because it raises issues and they're allowed to be addressed. You can discuss them. But when we don't raise issues, they can't be solved. And in our head, things often turn very negative. We start to assume that our partner has bad intentions. They're doing it deliberately. They meant to do that. And when we start to personalize it, that's when things, he calls it negative sentiment override, where basically instead of that positive idealizing, positive bias of love, it turns to a very negative thing. That's bad. So we need to be talking. In any relationship, you need to be talking, but especially in love, ongoing communication is

essential. Gottman was pretty funny about it. He said, you know, if you've been in a long-term relationship and you've never had a big fight, please do that immediately. Well, this is really fun to pull the covers back on relationships and look at the science behind it as compared to what we believe about relationships and how those things reconcile or don't. My guest has been Eric Barker. The name of his book is Plays Well With Others, the surprising science behind why everything you know about relationships is mostly wrong.

And there's a link to that book in the show notes. Thanks, Eric. 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. 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. 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. There's a word a lot of us have trouble with, and the word is no. We can't say it, or we don't say it often enough. I'll bet you've said yes to someone in the last week or so and wish you hadn't. But you don't want to let people down. You want to be the

kind of person who helps out. You're a team player. You hate to disappoint. Well, Warren Buffett had a great quote. He said, the difference between successful people and really successful people is that really successful people say no to almost everything. So how can you say no to people and not feel guilty about it? Well, here with some great advice is Michael Tougias. He's a best-selling author, and he has a book out called No Will Set You Free. Hi, Michael. Thank you for having me. So, no will set you free. What does that mean? Free from what? Set you free from other people's agendas. We're constantly being pulled in different directions,

and research has shown just how uncomfortable people are saying no or no thank you to a friend asking a favor or even a stranger asking a favor. In fact, one study of strangers were asked to do all sorts of crazy things, and the people, you know, who were recruited to ask them thought, oh, they'll never say yes to this. But they did, not because they wanted to do it, but they later said it was because they're so uncomfortable saying no. They agreed to do things they didn't even want to do. And I think there's a little bit of that in all of us. Yeah. Well, I think there's this sense that if you say no,

if you adopt a philosophy of saying no, that you're being pretty selfish and you're letting other people down, and gee, I don't want to do that. Exactly, and I do think that's where the origin comes from of why we say yes. But if you take a step back and think, okay, if I say no, I'm leaving more time for the things that are really important in my life. And they may not just be your own goals and your own family. It could be helping someone in need. And sometimes it could be as simple as someone who talks and talks and talks on the phone. But you're not being selfish at all because you're leaving that time for what's important to you or someone who's really in need. And the people that you say no to,

I think we think, when we say no, that they're devastated, that they're going to hate us forever. And I suspect that's often not the case. Exactly. There's even a phrase psychologists use for that very feeling that we have, and it's the harshness bias is what they use, that we think they're going to be devastated, and they're really not. They rebound pretty quickly. You know, sometimes a simple no thank you will do. Other times where you think this person's going to come back to you at a later date, I use an example of how a friend wanted me to go to a Patriots game in the middle of the winter, and that's just not my thing to sit in the cold stance and wait in line. So

I had to explain the reasons why I was turning down this really nice offer and trust that his feelings would not be hurt. And I said, sometime we'll watch the game at my house indoors when you don't have tickets. And he wasn't hurt. He understood. He goes, I get it. So I think we tend to judge the reaction of other people a little too harshly when they usually are respectful of your no. And it's up to you whether you want to give a reason or not. And, you know, Mike, some people are so uncomfortable saying no. I say in their early stages, don't even use the word no. Say something like, let me sleep on it. Let me check my schedule. Anything to buy you more time. And for the person who's really uncomfortable saying no, then you can get back to them by email or in a text saying,

oh, I can't make it, but thank you for asking. But if you're going to say no, isn't it a little dishonest to say, let me think about it? You already know you're going to say no, so why don't you just say no? I say no now that I'm competent in saying no, but I think for someone who's really new to it, and there's a ton of people that they just can't bring themselves to do it. So I'm like, take baby steps. Use a fallback approach. Let me get back to you. Let me sleep on it. Let me check my calendar. Let me check with my spouse. All these kind of things that buy you a little more time until you're comfortable enough to say, no, that just doesn't fit, or no, I prefer not to do that.

But, you know, that's a few steps down the road for somebody who's been a people pleaser their whole lives. It does seem, though, that there are some people that are easier to say no to than others. It's certainly hard to say no to your kids. It's certainly hard to say no to your kids. It's really hard to say no to your boss. It's very situational. I mean, I can say no to some people real easy. Other people, it's very difficult. Yes.

And another gauge would be the need basis. Is this someone in real need? You know, say that person who asked me to the outdoor football game came to me and said, I'm going through a divorce, I could use some company. Well, then it's going to be a yes from me. There's real need there. He's reaching out. So I think it depends largely on the situation. And kids are hard. It's hard to say no to kids. I'm thinking of one example with my kids. I wanted them to learn a little bit about the value of money. Both my kids were young at the time, say, I don't know, six and eight. They wanted this fan that squirted water, and they had already bought something at the store,

and I said, no. And they said, oh, this would be fantastic. And I said, if you really want it, use your own money. And they said, really? And so I said, yeah, when you get home, you're going to pay me for this. So they said, we really want it. So when they got home, I made them pay me for it. And to this day, they bring that up going, remember the time Dad made us pay for the fans?

But when I talk to them, they go, yeah, it was a good lesson. We used that band one day and then we stuck it in a drawer. So you have to learn no to your children or you're going to find you've got a 30-year-old living in your basement. So what's the advice? Oftentimes I'll say yes to somebody thinking I want to say yes And I'll think about, am I excited by this request? If it's, you know, to do an activity or to go somewhere. And if I'm not excited and not thinking this is going to bring me joy and it's a big time sucker and I have some other ideas for the use of my time, I will say no because, you know, the bottom line is

you don't want to be living somebody else's agenda. You want to be living your own path. And our time is the one thing we can control. And most of us, that boils down to weekends and nights after work. And that's where you really need to be firm on how you're going to spend it. Well, there are also those requests that the implication is that if you say no, you're not a good person, that you're supposed to volunteer here, you're supposed to do this at the school, or you're supposed to do that. And if you say no, even though you may have to, even though you may want to, you're made to feel like, you're kind of, you're a bit of a disappointment. And I'm not advocating turning down every

opportunity to do volunteer work, but it's truly picking your spots and how it fits with your schedule rather than the requester's schedule. Because usually the requester is doing it because they need the help now, and it fits with their schedule to have you do it on this time, on this date. And you need to push back at times and say, no, I cannot do it next week. My plate's full. I might be able to take a look at this a month from now. Why don't you get back to me? So there's different ways to go about it and not feel like you're not doing your share when it comes to things.

But the bottom line is only you know your own stress level of how much your time is being pulled in different directions. Since the title of your book is, you know, No Will Set You Free, the implication there is that, you know, when you get good at this, that you'll feel better. But I would imagine that in the process, if you're used to saying yes, if you're a people pleaser and you start telling people no, you're going to feel lousy. I think you're going to feel lousy. I think you're going to feel liberated. I know I do. When I say no to requests, I go, wow, good thing you did that. You would have been miserable doing that request.

No, I mean, though, in the beginning, if you've been people-pleasing all your life and now you're going to try to take a stand here and stop, that in the beginning it's going to feel kind of bad, because you're the person everybody can rely on. But when will you ever stop being that person? You know what I mean? You have to start somewhere. And again, it might be with the baby steps of let me get back to you rather than a no. But I think to take back control of your own life, you're going to have to set these boundaries. You know, I'll use an example

of, say, a homemaker where nobody else is pitching in and she's raising, if it's a female, she's raising the issue of, hey, I'm doing all the work. Nobody's helping with the dishes, the cleaning. A way to get their attention, because none of your talk is working, is to go on strike. That'll get their attention in a hurry. And, yeah, it may be uncomfortable for a while when the dishes are piling up, but people are going to notice, and then you're going to have a sit-down meeting and saying, I need help here. We need to split this equitably. It can't always be me stepping up and doing the work. I also hear this a lot in family situations,

say it's older parents and the siblings are chipping in. It almost always seems like there's one sibling doing way more than everybody else, and the resentment are chipping in, it almost always seems like there's one sibling doing way more than everybody else, and the resentment starts forming. And you really don't want it to get to that point, because then you're going to have issues with your brothers and sisters that might form a chasm between you that never gets resolved. But if you step up in the beginning and say, okay, somebody else needs to pitch in at this point, I've done the last three weeks straight. Well, there are those people, I guess, in everyone's life where you don't even want to ask them, because they have set the

boundary so clearly that you don't even ask, because you know the answer is going to be no. And in some ways, I kind of admire those people, that they've made it very clear and consistent that, you know, this is where the line is, and other people are just not as good at that as he or she is. Yeah, there's no doubt about that some people are better than others. I mean, I've come a full 180 to being the ultimate yes man to now carving out time for myself. And I still have the slip ups when I kick myself later,

go, why did I agree to that? But usually when the stress levels building in my life, it's my own fault. I can't blame it on somebody else. So, yeah, there's some people that do a better job than me, and, you know, that's an issue for all of us. But I do think that the beginning is with those baby steps and see what happens of saying, let me get back to you, rather than giving the rote yes, because you've been trained to say yes. Those people have been doing it for years. They've probably never said a no or never said, I'll get back to you. I may not be able to fit this in.

And yet we do say no when we have to. I mean, if somebody asks you to do something and you're going to be out of town, you have to say no, and that's a good enough reason. But why can't the fact that you don't want to do it also be a good enough reason? Yeah, no, it should be. It should be. But again, I think it's that training when we were kids to be polite.

You know, it just goes down the line in terms of society is telling us all the time, go for it. You know, seize the moment. And that's true as long as the moment's going to bring you joy. But there's a flip side, too, and that's having time for yourself. Here's a little litmus test if there's too much yes in your life. Are you stressed from being overscheduled? Are your closest friends and family members expressing feelings of neglect? Are you getting enough sleep and me time? Are you able to enjoy your favorite pastimes without watching the clock? And that one fit me pretty good. Do you leave tasks unfinished and often need last-minute help?

And then lastly, is there one important project you've wanted to do for years but never found the time? And wouldn't it be awful to be towards the end of our years and go, wow, I always wanted to do this one thing and just never found the time because I was pulled in a million different directions. To me, that would be the ultimate regret that you didn't have the wherewithal to say no so that you could focus on the one thing you always wanted to do. Well, and there is that image, too, that saying no is very selfish,

that it's all about you and you're not willing to help other people and he's always saying no and you need to be more help. And it's true. And if you're always saying no when it's your turn to step up, you know, if it's a family member

or someone in need, that is being selfish. But if you're saying no to all the little things that are pulling at your time, then you're actually creating some space to help the person or the cause in need that's important to you. I mean, it could be as little as saying no to some things, not to another person, but to some things that are chewing up your time, like social media or long-winded phone calls. And, you know, the list goes on and on that you're habit of Zooming once a week with this friend, but these Zooms went on forever. And I said, well, you know, that's because you agreed to the schedule. It was going to be every Wednesday at 7 p.m.

Say, let's get off the schedule and we'll do it as our time allows. So you haven't said no to that friend, but you've definitely said no to every Wednesday, you're going to listen to this person ramble on for two hours. What else, anything else in the research that the people would be interested in hearing about no and why it's better to, you know, become more of a no person and maybe a little less of a yes person? You know, I looked up some historic no's where people are under pressure to say yes and go with the group. And I'll give one example. John F. Kennedy and the Cuban Missile Crisis, you know, when we discovered the missiles in Cuba, the consensus at his executive meetings, you know, this is his closest advisors in the military, was to immediately strike Cuba right away with a massive airstrike,

take out all the Soviet installations. And, you know, the pressure was enormous on this 45-year-old president, but he delayed. He didn't say no right away. It was very interesting. All this is on audio tape, too. He secretly recorded the meetings. But thank God he didn't get pressured into the yes, which is where everybody else at these meetings was heading. And then by the second and third day, he's starting to push back. Well, if we do that, don't you think this and this will happen? And pretty soon it became a firm, no, we're not going to do that right away. We're going to take another step first, and that would be the maritime blockade.

So I always admire the people that are able to withstand the pressure, the peer pressure, and say, no, let me think about this, which is in essence what Kennedy did, and then came to the conclusion of, no, I disagree with all of you, and we're going to take this in steps, because there's no turning back if we go full at it. Yeah, well, but the thing I have trouble with about that, let me think about it, is if you know you're going to say no, you're really kind of giving them false hope and sucking up the time that they could be looking for somebody else to do it while they're waiting for you to answer, and you know all along your answer's going to be no, so you're really making it harder on them.

That's a good point, and I think that's true. So I think when you're comfortable saying no, you're going to want to say it right off the bat. But for the people who are very uncomfortable and have really never said no before, just getting the word out of their mouth, no thank you, was almost impossible for them. I've talked to some of these people, and I said, well, then go to plan B, which is buy yourself more time, and then you can deliver the news. Right. Well, and it depends on what they're asking, and it depends on a lot of things. Exactly. But you could also telegraph, I guess.

You could say, well, I probably can't, but let me think about it. So you're at least letting them know that this is most likely going to be a no. I think that's a great early stage step if you can't come right out and do the no. And maybe you're unsure yourself. Maybe you're not even 100% sure. Maybe it's a maybe. And so I agree that that's not a bad approach of saying it doesn't look good, but let me check a few things and I will get back to you.

You know, as I think about it, many of the times that I've said yes and later wished I'd said no, I had a sense at the time. At the time I was asked, I probably knew that I didn't really want to do it. And I ignored that and said yes anyway. And maybe I and everybody else needs to pay attention to that. Michael Tougias has been my guest. And the name of his book is No Will Set You Free. And you'll find a link to his book in the show notes.

Thanks, Michael. Okay. Bye-bye now. What do you call a bunch of bananas? Well, I call them a bunch of bananas, but technically that's wrong. A group of bananas, the way you see them in the supermarket, is called a hand, and the individual bananas are called fingers. Bananas grow in clusters with tiers. Each tier, or hand, can have up to 20 bananas on it. A bunch of bananas refers to the entire cluster, with all the tiers. Commercially, that's referred to as a banana stem. And since we're getting so technical, why are we getting so technical? The banana tree is not really a tree at all. It's actually a giant herb, and the banana is the fruit

of that herb. Bananas are believed to be the first fruit ever cultivated by human beings. They didn't come to this country until 1876 and were first seen at the Philadelphia Centennial Exhibition. And that is something you should know. If you will tell your friends about this podcast, then they too can impress their friends with their knowledge of bananas. So please share something you should know with someone you know. I'm Micah Ruthers. Thanks for listening today to Something You Should Know.

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