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April 11, 2021 24 mins

This week we talk about why you should stop assigning value to your interpretations of situations that come up. We also talk about the Wheel of Life, a self-assessment tool to help you measure your progress as you improve you life and improve your social skills

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Thank you!! - Nathan.  : D


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Thank you so much to Wax Mustang for the intro and outtro music - Powerball!

Be sure to check out Radical Honesty by Brad mo fo Blanton Ph mo fo D.

Link to Stephen Mitchell's The Tao Te Ching audiobook 

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Episode Transcript

Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Unknown (00:25):
Maybe running away from the body I'm thinking much in
the backseat for the Powerballwe can do it on demand.
But the winning you know asgames off of sheets sing along,
man. And just when it couldn'tget better, she talked in my ear
saying you got the chin. You gotthe juice, you have the bison,
you talking and walking theright way sundown on a highway,

(00:48):
you know, the feel of achainsaw? This is
the social skills lab podcast.
I'm your host, Nathan augment.
That was Powerball by waxMustang.

(01:12):
So it's a lovely Sunday again.
AndI got a message on Reddit from
someone. They were asking me orthey said,
they said they were a fan of theshow. And
they were asking me like, I'm afan of the show. But

(01:32):
I'm still confused as to how doyou What to say? Or how to start
a conversation with someone.
And I was a little confused. I'mlike, I thought that we went
over that. But I totally get itat the same time. I totally get
it. It's like it's a it's a lotof information. And it's like

(01:52):
no, no, just go back to the verybeginning with how do you start
a conversation with someone?
you kind of just start by justdoing it. And I think the reason
why it's confusing is like, whenyou start a conversation, you
want it to go really well Well,I'm here to tell you, it's not
going to go that great.
Maybe about half the time, itwill actually start off, you

(02:15):
really just have to give yourself permission to be really
crappy about really crappy atit.
Because you're, you're just it'sokay to not be amazing at it,
you kind of just want to bereally good at it. But
you get good at it by justputting in the reps. Just do it
a bunch.
And then like even if it's goingbad, just for me, it'd be like,

(02:40):
if it's not going well. I'm justgonna like okay, well, it's nice
talking, you know, the step out.
But I started forcing myself tojust try to stay on longer. And
just to see how far it actuallywould go even if I was doing it
badly. And I was surprised thatit would go like three times
longerthan I really expected it to
remember I was likeI was at this

(03:04):
club in San Francisco, and therewas a big back patio. I was just
standing there and awesome.
People kind of just walked in myarea, my space. And I was just
like, Hey, how's it going? Andthey kind of just like ignored
me, even though they literallyjust walked into my space.
So my first instinct is like,Oh, well, these guys aren't too
friendly. I'm just gonna walkoff. But then I was like, wait a

(03:24):
minute, no, I was standing herefirst.
I was like, let me just see howlong I could stand here.
And just be uncomfortablestanding here because I was here
first.
And, and after about twominutes, he just ended up
walking off. But if I don'tknow, it was just like a little
I was just trying to push myselfto be okay with uncomfortable

(03:48):
situations. Because the moreconversations you have the don't
go well, the more you kind ofrealize that, hey, you know, I
could survive a I could survivethat situation and not die.
And the the awkward momentsactually become less and less
awkward. And actually, that'skind of a skill you need to
learn when improving your socialskills.

(04:11):
The other thing too is whenyou're starting out, there's so
much there's so many little tipsand tricks to like that are
running through your head thatyou're trying to remember, it's
easy to forget some of the mostimportant parts. So I would say
like if you're just starting outto free to starting
conversations, really try tofocus on your body language.

(04:32):
Because like I said, that's themost important thing. It's easy
to likephysically slouch a little bit
like you're like you're makingyourself smaller.
So I'd really focus on Make sureyour posture is really good.
Make sure your eye contact isreally good. Make sure your
vocal tonality is improving.

(04:54):
One of the tips thatI've heard recently that was
really good was make sure youtake up a lot of space.
So like, the opposite ofslouching is to like open your
body, move your arms around whenyou're talking and stuff. So,
like I'm doing right now, butyou can't see it.
Andso, take up a lot of space, make
sure your heads up high. Just,when you're just starting a

(05:18):
conversation to your kind of,like I said, you're taking the
lead, and people will followyour lead, in many instances, so
if you're starting aconversation, and you're kind of
just doing it like super, supercasually, people will kind of
follow you. And because ifyou're not really taking it too

(05:39):
seriously, or if you're justlike not putting a lot of
momentum, momentouspressure on the situation, if
you're just kind of like,throwing off
throwing off a couplestatements, people just kind of
like, realize, or they'll justkind of follow into it. They're

(06:00):
just like, if you're not makinga big deal about it, they're not
going to make a big deal aboutit. And that's a real big thing.
You can if you really just don'ttake it too seriously.
It really helps. Also, like Imentioned before, to just make
sure you really expand yourknowledge about every everything
you can art, culture, music,politics,

(06:24):
history, science, economics.
You'd be surprised how oftenthings come up that you just
read about. I was working atthis guy's house. And he had
a couple art prints.
And I recognized him asthis artist Basquiat. It's like

(06:44):
a artists back with art withAndy Warhol and stuff like that
back in the 80s. And I was like,Oh, I like your your Basquiat
prints are really cool. He'slike, Oh, yeah, thanks. And we
were talking about it for alittle bit. I'm really into art.
Sothat was an easy one. And then I
noticed too, he had a hat thatsaid, I think it said fella,

(07:08):
and like I would have neverknown what that was. But like
just recently, I startedchecking out some world music.
And I'm kept hearing this nameFela Kuti. I think he's like a
Nigerian musician. And I waslike, is that a fella? Because
it said his hats at failla? Iwas like, is that a fella?
cootie hat? He's like, yeah,yeah. So we started talking
about Fela Kuti.

(07:32):
Like, I would have never, Iwould have never known about
that. Unless I was just, like,curious about it. And just was
like,you know, I heard about this
artist filicudi. Next, you know,I'm like, let me hear from some
of his music. So I just went onYouTube, listen to like, his top
five tracks or whatever. And,yeah, just like, that's how you
start conversations, you justnotice something, you make a

(07:54):
comment about it. And then theother person like, is really
interested, they'll starttalking about it. And then half
the time, all you do is listen,at that point, half the time,
you really don't have to saymuch, you just show that you're
a good listener. And then theconversation will just run on
its own.
this other thing, too, I waslike, working at this other

(08:16):
guy's house this week. And hehad, he had all these like weird
tools. And I was like, Oh, areyou like an electrician? And
he's like, no, I work on willkinda I work on elevators. And I
was like, Oh, you mean likeOtis, because I always see that
brand Otis on elevators. He'slike, no, I work on some camera
with another brand was. And Iwas like, Oh, that's cool. And I

(08:40):
was like, Oh, yeah, I got stuckin an elevator once. He's like,
Oh, yeah. Really? I'm like,Yeah, no, it wasn't a big deal.
But the lady that was in therewith me, she was like panicking.
She started like, breathinghella hard. She's like,
it's really hot in here.
And I was like, to Super calm. Ijust figured by being there
about 20 minutes, but it wasonly like five minutes. But he

(09:01):
was like, yeah, people actuallyget hurt quite a bit, because
they'll start panicking. Andthen they'll climb out the
escape hatch into the darkelevator shaft.
And we're out. And we were justtalking about it for a minute.
And then afterwards, I was like,Fuck, I should have asked him
about the closed button. Becauseyou know, there's like an open

(09:21):
button and a closed buttonbutton on an elevator. And I
wanted to ask him if the closebutton even works. Because every
time you push, it doesn't reallyseem to do anything. Because I
heard it doesn't. Butyeah, so give you a little idea
of just like random stuff totalk about.
If you'd like, want to start aconversation where there's like,

(09:45):
nothing to observe, I mean,there's instances where I've
gone up and just like, said,Hey, how's it going? Sorry, over
here started.
Just say Hi, I'm Nathan. Youknow, you could literally just
go up and introduce yourself.
Like, IIf you don't make it a big deal,
a lot of times it's not a bigdeal. So if you're struggling to

(10:06):
find something in the moment toobserve and mention, then you
could just literally just go upand like, introduce yourself.
Okay, solet's move on to something else
I wanted to talk about, I wantedto talk about some Zen stuff I
have been into this last monthor so I was listening to the,

(10:33):
the, I might have been thesecond book of the Tao by Steven
Mitchell. It's that audio book,I tell it, I've been mentioning.
And like I said, I've listenedto it probably about 40 times.
It's just really interestingstuff to me, just talks about
some Zen stuff that people cameup with, like 500 years ago,
1000 years ago, 1500 years ago,just really old stuff that they

(10:58):
discovered, and seems to stillhold pretty true.
So there was a quote, he, he wasdescribing the master. And he
said that the masteris always pained, paying
attention to his innermostthoughts. And I think what he
was saying was, so when you're,when you're like, in a Zen

(11:21):
state, you're at the center. Soyou don't have like anxiety, or
regret, or fear, or sadness,you're right at the center, and
right at the center has been,has been content. So you're just
happy being content.
So at any time, when you feellike stress, or frustration or

(11:46):
sadness, you're basically not atyour center. So at that moment,
when you feel like you're not atyour center, just pause and
think about your innermostthoughts like, why am I feeling
this way? Like, even if you feelphysically off balance?
Sometimes it's just because somethoughts running through your
head.

(12:08):
So I thought that was prettyinteresting when he said that
the master is always payingattention to his innermost
thoughts. I mean, because otherthan that, he's probably just
meditating and experiencingSophie's ever office center.
It's probably because some, somethoughts are popping up.
And that brings me to this bookthat I've been kind of just

(12:28):
jumping into. It's calledradical honesty by Brad Blanton.
Yeah, I'll put a link to this.
It was, it's pretty interesting.
So it's actually the more I readit, it's actually very related
to some of the Zen stuff. Andthis is written by like a PhD or
something like that. Maybe apsychologist or psychiatrist.

(12:53):
And it's weird how it took untillike, let's see when this was
written.
Okay, so this is copyright.
1994. So like, he's like,basically reinterpreting stuff
that was discovered 2000 yearsago by Zen,
which is pretty cool. I mean, itdefinitely has many ways you can

(13:15):
say it, you're gonna have to sayit to people to
till so modern, society canrealize it. It's important
stuff. So let me just read somea couple things from here. So it
says, people choke the life outof themselves by trying,
oh, people choke the life out ofthemselves by tying themselves

(13:38):
to a chosen self image or anyself image whatsoever. Many
adults remain in perpetualadolescence locked into the
protective confinement of alimited set of rules, roles and
rules.
And this protection kills.

(13:58):
Freedom from such a life is apsychological achievement. The
freedom achieved by people whogrow beyond the limitations of
their childhood conditioning isfreedom from their own minds.
Freedom from one's own mind isfreedom to create. But in order
to have some say, in creatinglife, you must be willing to
tell the truth telling the truthfrees us from the entrapment of

(14:21):
the mind.
I want people at least toconsider the possibility that
their most valuable values maynot be so valuable. I want
people to question their owncertainty. So for simplicity's
sake, I will use bullshit as ageneric root word for all value

(14:44):
assigned abstractions orsummations of remembered
experiences.
Bullshit is any abstraction fromexperience your mind makes and
assigns value to so freedom ismean,
freedom is not being dominatedby your own bullshit. All

(15:05):
interpretations of reality arebullshit. We believe our
interpretations of realityintensely, and we want other
people to join us in ourinterpretations to make us feel
secure. We believe ourinterpretations are reality. And
if we can get enough votes, wewill prove it.
So this was,this was pretty interesting. All

(15:27):
interpretations of reality arebullshit. And that's basically
what Zen is saying. So it'slike, if you're saying, This is
good, this is bad. That'sbullshit. And
I think it's really, it's areally good lesson. Because
anytime you start this, it's, Imean, when I read that a couple

(15:49):
weeks ago, and I instantlyrealize how often I still assign
value to my interpretations.
Like if,like, if a friend is like
annoying me, I'm interpreted,I'm interpreting something they
said as some meaning. And I'massigning a value to it as bad.
So it's really, it's an egothing. So anytime you're

(16:12):
assigning value to somethingthat's, I think it's directly
related to your ego. And if youcan shrink your ego, more and
more,your social skills will really
improve.
Yeah, it's hard to say exactlyhow but it just happens in so
many ways that your, your egoreally gets in the way of

(16:34):
connecting with people.
Becausesituations, social situations
will occur quite a bit. And it'sreally,
something will happen. And thenyou'll react to that. And how
you react to it is always moreimportant than the situation
itself. So if you react to itfrom a place of your ego,

(17:00):
it's usually going tomuddy the situation. But if you
react from a place of like,I don't know one love.
Like the Bob Marley phrase, onelove. It's like, if you can
really shrink your egocompletely, you'll see like no
separation between you and otherpeople. So there'll be like, a

(17:20):
one love situation. It's kind ofhard to describe, but I don't
know, I think I'm getting betterat it. And I definitely
thought that was a good read. Sothe radical honesty, pretty good
book. I'm not, I'm not even thatfar into it. And I'm just kind
of blown my mind.
I'll put a link to it. Like Isaid,

(17:43):
in the description. Yeah. So Iremember this. This image I saw
is called like the wheel oflife. I don't remember where I
came across it, but it was like,I feel really pulled up here.
It's like this way to assessyour progress. If you just like

(18:04):
Google Wheel of Life assessment,there's a whole bunch of
different ones that come up.
They're all pretty similar. Soit'll be like a wheel. And it'll
let yourate yourself on a scale of one
to 10. And then you could getgive yourself a good visual of
your, where you're at, and maybewhere you want to be in the

(18:24):
future.
It'll give you a pretty goodguide of a way to measure your
progress. So that it's reallygood too. I think I've heard it
and there's a lot of studiesthat if you want to get better,
faster, make sure youcontinually measure your
progress. It'll show you whereyou want to really focus on and

(18:46):
I mentioned if to help yoursocial skills, you also want to
be improving every single areaof your life like cleaning your
room, working on your vocationor career work make sure you're
start getting your finances inorder when you have everything
together you're so your, yourattitude just gets a lot better,

(19:09):
too. So obviously that's gonnahelp your social skills. So just
reading one of these wheel oflife.
Let's see. So like differentparts of it says health, career
finances, significant otherpartner, family, friends, fun
recreation, communityspirituality. So they're all

(19:34):
different areas of your life toto just pay attention, pay
attention to and improve butlike I thought it was
interesting that like, let mesee one of these other ones.
Happening happiness, career,relationships, social skills,
communication, wealth, financialsecurity, health and fitness. I

(19:57):
mean, they're allPretty similar stuff to work on.
But I thought it was interestingthat if you really work on your
social skills, it can literallyimprove at least half of these.
So like,mental health, you'll, it'll
improve happiness andsatisfaction will improve career

(20:18):
and work will improve.
Relationships will improvefamily will improve. So, you
know, if you work on your socialskills, it'll definitely help in
a lot of these areas thatcould improve your wheel of
life. So I thought that wasinteresting. Check it out on

(20:39):
Google, maybe print one out,maybe give yourself a little
assessment on a scale of one to10 in these areas, pin it up,
you know, what I used to do, Iused to actually get like a
three by five card. And I wouldjust write on it. January,
February, March, or let's say,now it's April. So I would write
April, May, June. And I wouldjust tack it up, just as a

(21:01):
reminder that, hey, I'm in thesecond quarter of the year. And
I would kind of measure my, Iwould just do like a little self
evaluation on what I need towork on this quarter. And if I
made any progress last quarter,because I think trying to
measure yourself in terms ofdays, weeks, months is a little,

(21:22):
it's really hard to giveyourself a decent assessment. So
I kind of broke it down intofour quarters in a year.
So I don't know maybe you wantto use that tip too. But
I guess it's probably gonna beabout it this week.
Like I talked about, oh, there'sone other thing I want to talk
about.

(21:43):
When the guy messaged me on theReddit, I thought, you know,
maybe I will put a email out foryou guys. If you have any
questions.
Maybe I can answer them on thepodcast. If I know the answer if
I think I know the answer, Imight give you the wrong answer.
I don't know.
But if you want to, if you wantto shoot me an email, I got an
email for t s s lpodcast@gmail.com. So the social

(22:08):
skills lab podcast TSLt s SL podcast at gmail so feel
free to shoot me a message I'lltry to respond either on the air
maybe I'll respond to youdirectly.
And I might just pointshoot you a link to an episode

(22:29):
where I talked about it just incase. So you guys have a cool
week. Don't take yourself tooseriously. Try to enjoy yourself
try to talk to some more peoplepush those conversations
further. And I'll talk to youguys soon.

(22:56):
Killing effects of a past lifehave to haul from a past life
took the right path on the wrongnight. Japan's on shaky dance
right? What a bizarre life apull up a car ride it's a
Mustang with the beats Wherehave you seen him? Would it look
like oh women and take forgranted upper Milan and again in
issue for the moon in the starsnumerous bronze beautiful being

(23:19):
the people with the lucky younglinen and the nice to see the
breast out so now I'm thinkingthat life is better with buddy
you bet on the brother You win.
In a tank tops with the eightball jackpot. Oh man. If it
wasn't for you, we could beif it wasn't for you. We could

(23:44):
be
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