July 19, 2020 • 24 mins
This week we talk about being more funny. If you want to be more social then being more funny is only going to help you, so we talk about ways that you can work on your humorous side. We also talk about the psychological concept of the 'Personal Boundary'. Very important to being a well rounded, mature person. Something that will communicate that you have your life together and can be counted on.
I always appreciate any support ; D
https://www.patreon.com/TSSLpodcast
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Thank you!! - Nathan. : D
Be sure to check out these two links for some funny ideas that we talk about on the podcast:
Good Talk Podcast with Anthony Jeselnik
Asssscat Improv with the Upright Citizens Brigade
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Unknown (00:17):
Hey, what's up everybody? Welcome back to
another episode of the socialskills lab. I'm your host,
Nathan Ament.
And last weekwe talked a little bit about
being non judgmental.
Andwe talked about what it means to
(00:38):
be cool. I was listening to theradio this week. And they were
talking about giving advice topeople like I listen to a lot of
NPR, a lot of podcasts. There'ssome really good ones, though,
(01:04):
for just helping in general andsome really good social skills
ones. There's a podcast I likecalled hidden brain to
psychology, podcast. Anythingrelated to psychology is really
good when it comes to socialskills. And then also, there's
life kit, and PR life kit,there's actually one about
(01:28):
friendship. Haven't seen it onthere, I might have to be on
their website before you canfind it. The one I was listening
to was talking about givingadvice. And it said to be non
judgmental, if you're that justsaid be non judgmental is really
helpful when it comes to peopleopening up to you. And that's
(01:49):
kind of what we talked aboutlast week. So it's cool to hear
it again. The other podcast Ilike his TED Talks, t d, Ted
Talks. There's a lot of goodstuff in there too, about social
skills and anything like that,there's podcasts or just I
guess, are pretty cool to findstuff that good topics for self
(02:12):
improvement. There's also a lotof funny ones in there. All,
I'll tell you about those two,because we're going to talk
about comedy today to talk aboutbeing funny. We also talked
about being cool last week.
That's very subjective. So somepeople let's say, if you're into
(02:34):
Dungeons and Dragons, and you goto like a d&d convention, and
you meet the West Coast,National d&d champion, you might
think he's super cool. But let'ssay someone who serves doesn't
necessarily think it's very coolto play d&d. So it's just very
subjective. It's like, whateveryou think is cool is cool. My
(02:56):
opinion is anything, anybodywho's kick back and just doesn't
take themselves too seriously,which I always recommend not
taking yourself so seriously.
And then also very mature, andjust likes to have fun. And it's
fun to be around. That's myopinion, that's a good
definition. It's good to it'sgood to try to be a better
(03:18):
person in general, because let'ssay, I know, in my past, I've
had friends that were kind ofnegative, and got me into a lot
of trouble. I probably got themin trouble too. But I also was
not very mature. So if you wantto have better friends, friends
that you actually like to hangaround with that are very
(03:41):
positive and fun to be with,then you should strive to also
have those characteristicsbecause like, seems to attract
like, if you are a douchebag,you're going to end up having
either no one around you orfriends that are also
douchebags. So it would be goodto just work on yourself and be
(04:03):
a better person, as you alsowork on your social skills. That
way you can attract people thatare actually fun to hang out
with. And I think that's prettymuch the goal. Having people
that are fun to hang out with soyou can have fun, right? One
thing too, that I, you know, Iwas listing off some things that
were not very cool. Like being awhiner, or being impatient. One
(04:27):
thing I've mentioned too, issomeone who can't handle their
booze. Like I've definitely beenaround people that just drink
too much. I also have been inthose situations. It's pretty
rare, but it does happen. But Iwould say people that make that
make it a habit of just can'treally handle their shit. I
(04:50):
would say that that's not verycool. It's just not fun to have
to be around someone like thatwho is out of control that you
have to like babysit or justmake sure that they're, you
know, not causing too muchdamage, like who wants to be in
that situation? Like if you'rean adult, act like an adult,
and, you know, try to be moremoderate. So this week, we're
(05:12):
going to be talking about beingfunny, and also a concept of the
personal boundary. I know thatwhen I was in junior high, I was
like, painfully shy. I don'tknow why. I just was, I think
it's because I moved a lot.
(05:34):
And I would be in class, and Ihad a friend. And I would like,
tell him jokes in class. Andthen he would repeat them out
loud, and he get all the laughslike, I was basically like his
little joke writer. I don'tknow, I was just too too shy to
say it out loud. I think I maybeI've done it was telling jokes.
And they were so bad people justlike gave me weird looks. And I
(05:56):
just made the decision to nevertell a joke in class again, I
really don't remember. Butthat's kind of that's ringing a
bell for me. So I just wouldnever, never really developed
being very funny. I think, youknow, with my close friends, I
(06:17):
always had like one or twofriends. But I would be funny
around them. But just in public,I wouldn't be funny around other
people. As I got older, I had acouple of roommates that were
super funny, and we becamefriends. If there's any way you
can hang out with someone a lot,who's really funny, that could
(06:38):
be definitely very helpful. Iknow that having some pretty
funny roommates was was reallyhelpful. To me being more funny.
Like I definitely tried to pushmy funniness more when I was
around them. I think thathappens anytime. When you're
around someone, a friend. That'sfunny. You're constantly telling
each other jokes and playingpranks or whatever. One thing I
(07:00):
noticed, though, after a whilewas I had this roommate who
would tell jokes, like all daylong, he was joking around, like
all the time, and I noticed thatmost of his jokes just were not
funny at all. Like, I'd say, outof like 10 jokes. One would be
like, really funny. And like twowere like, that's kind of funny.
(07:21):
And then most of them just likeweren't funny at all. And that
made me think I'm like, wow, Iactually, if I was describe them
to somebody, I would say thathe's a funny guy. Like, I would
say, like, Oh, yeah, he's reallyfunny. But in reality, most of
his jokes weren't funny. And Iwas thinking like, hmm, you
(07:42):
know, I kind of do the samething, I would tell him jokes,
and maybe half of them weren'tfunny at all. But it's like, if
you can at least tell one or twojokes at a 10 that are funny,
you will actually be consideredfunny. So you kind of have to
just throw a bunch of crapagainst the wall to see what
sticks.
So I think that's just importantto remember, you're not going to
(08:02):
be funny 100% of the time. Butyou, you're definitely gonna
have to throw a lot of stuff outthere. I think that sometimes
people think that you can'tlearn to be funny. Like, I
remember asking someone, someonethere. So I asked him, do you
think somebody can learn to befunny? And they actually said,
(08:23):
No, I think you're just funny oryou're not. I don't think that's
true, though, I think you candefinitely learn to be more
funny. It's really, I think it'sreally important to be more
funny, because that's just oneof the best parts of having a
conversation with someone, someconversations you'll have with
people or like seriousconversations or interesting
(08:43):
conversations. Most of the time,you can pepper it with some
funny stuff. But sometimes someconversations are just strictly
funny. just telling jokes andstuff like that. And those are
really fun, interestingconversations to be in. So if
you can develop your comicability, you know, I'm not
saying you have to be thefunniest person in the world.
(09:05):
But if you could just, you know,be 10% 20% more funny. It really
makes a huge difference when youcommunicate with people. So
something I would recommend is,if you don't know where to
start, maybe just start watchingmore stand up comedy. You can
see a bunch of them on Netflixor even on YouTube. There's some
really good ones on there. Ijust wrote down a list of some
(09:27):
of my favorite stand up comics.
Dave Chappelle, obviously. LuisLouie ck, Daniel Tosh, David
Spade, Jim gaffigan. Anthonyjeselnik Sarah Silverman,
Hannibal buress Maria Bamford,and Dimitri Martin, et CIE, just
look at those guys on YouTubeand watch, watch, you know, one
(09:50):
a day for six months. There's noway you could not be more funny
or understand what is actually asuit. Funny, after watching so
much stand up comedy. I'vedefinitely watched a lot. I'll
even listen to some stand upcomedy. podcasts. Anthony
jeselnik does a really good one.
(10:12):
I can't remember the name of it,though. I'll put it. I'll find
it. I'll put in the descriptionfor you. Something else I did
was I started taking some improvclasses, because I heard that
could be really good forimproving your social skills. So
I did it. And yeah, it wasreally good. There's a comedy
club in Sacramento, there'sactually a couple now that do
(10:35):
it. They'll teach classes onimprov. And I thought it was a
really good experience. It was,there was some really good
teachers there and and you wouldjust do these like exercises to
get warmed up. And these likefun games. And then you would
try to do scenes. And I'll put alink in the description as well
(10:57):
for the one of the improv, likeone of the best improv sets I've
ever seen. It's from ask catfrom the stand up. Oh, Upright
Citizens Brigade. It'shilarious. definitely wasn't
that good. But I know, I couldtell right away that it was a
(11:18):
lot funnier with around myfriends after doing it. So I
took a class. And then like ayear later, I was living with my
roommate. And I told him aboutit. And he's like, oh, let's do
it. So I took another class withhim. And then he was like, yeah,
this isn't really what I thoughtit was gonna be. And I asked
him, I was like, Well, whatwould what would you want to do?
He's like, well, let's, theysaid, there's a stand up comedy
(11:39):
class. So you want to do that?
And I was like, Oh, yeah, forsure. Let's do that, too. So we
ended up doing a stand up comedyclass. And yeah, so I got up on
stage a couple times and didthat. And then a couple years
later, another friend wastelling him about it. And he's
like, Oh, I want to do that,too. So we took another stand up
comedy class. And been doingthat with him for a little bit.
(12:00):
I've probably been on up onstage about, I don't know, 810
times or something like that. Atdifferent comedy clubs, open mic
nights, open mic nights. Andhard to say that open mic
nights. And it was a lot of fun.
I got to be on ever since thepandemic, though. So pretty much
(12:24):
all the standup clubs areclosed. So I haven't had a
chance to do it. I thought ofanother good idea that might
help you too, is if you goonline, you can just look up
jokes. There's like probably abillion jokes online, but I go
on Reddit, under jokes. And Ifound a funny joke. I'm just
gonna say it just so you can?
Oh, here it is. Because it wouldbe good. I used to do this, I
(12:48):
would like go on there. And I'dfind a funny joke, and I'd
memorize it. And then, you know,I'd most the time, I would
forget it. But every once awhile when I remember it, I
would just tell it to a friend.
Andit's good. Just good practice.
If you don't know. If you don'tknow how to write your own
jokes, just use some online.
They're really good. Like, okay,so this one says, What's the
(13:10):
difference between an oralthermometer and a rectal
thermometer? The taste? Yeah,that's kind of funny. So yeah,
you can just find short ones. Toget to the point, that kind of
funny. And then, oh, here'sanother one, a doctor sees, oh,
(13:30):
a nurse sees that a doctor has arectal thermometer behind his
ear, and she asks him about it.
He takes it out of his ear, andhe looks at it and goes, You
know what this means? Whatdoctor says a nurse, some
asshole has my pencil. That'snot bad. So you can just find
these online, and then save acouple, put them in your phone
(13:51):
or something like that. And thentell them to people just
randomly, just be careful. Ifit's a little racy to who you
tell it to. Don't want to getyou in trouble at work or
anything like that. Okay, sowhat else did I do here? Oh,
another thing about the sceneI'm class is you'll definitely
get more confidence. I mean, thelast thing I ever wanted as a
(14:16):
naturally introverted person,the last thing I want to do is
get up on a stage. You know, forone, it was good to help me be
more funny, but also it reallyhelped me with my confidence
because as soon as you're donedoing it, you're like, wow, that
went really bad, or that wasactually pretty good. Either
way, you're gonna get moreconfidence just by doing it.
(14:38):
There's also some books on thereand how to write jokes and
stuff. You can Google andthere's a lot of really good
ones. There's like stand upcomedy, books and stuff like
that. I don't know if any ofthem really good. I started
reading one of them but anythingthat can help you in that in
that area will help you withyours. social skills. Okay, so
(14:59):
let's move on to the next topic,the personal boundary. I heard
about this first from this guynamed Dr. Paul dobransky. He's
like a writer, and apsychologist. So when I first
heard this, I thought it wasreally interesting. So the
concept of the personalboundaries, it's very similar.
Your personal boundary is like apsychological concept in your
(15:22):
head, and strong, healthy,personal boundary. That's like a
mature thing to develop, ifyou're immature, you're going to
have a weak personal boundary.
So a personal boundaryencompasses, like all your
positive emotional resources.
And it kind of works like theborders of a country. So like
(15:44):
North Korea, very sheltered,doesn't let a lot of things in,
doesn't let a lot of things out,it's like probably to secure too
much. And then like a weakpersonal boundary is basically
someone that gets trampled allover, like people take advantage
of them all the time. So what'sthe difference? The difference
(16:06):
is, you know, your personalboundary, a mature personal
boundary should have doors, thatyou open, that you let the good
in, you keep the bad out. So youdo let things in. But you
basically have to make a lot ofdecisions. And the kind of
decisions that are, help youdevelop this, or there's like
Win, win decisions and win losedecisions, a win win decision as
(16:29):
I win, and you win. A win loses,like someone, someone else wins,
and you lose. And this really,there's a lot of different
facets to this. But let's saylike spending money, like how
are you with saving money? Doyou just like let all your money
go, you just spend all yourcheck on like frivolous things,
(16:50):
you're not saving, you know, youdon't have a 401k stuff like
that, your decisions are gonnakeep your resources, your
positive emotional energy. Theother thing that he was that he
talked about this is hedescribed, this is like, what is
in your personal boundary is100% under your control, the
(17:11):
things that are 0% in yourcontrol are things that are
outside, like the weather or thejob, other people or like the
economy, stuff like that. Thingsthat you do not control. And if
you are constantly worried aboutthose things, that is about
(17:31):
things that are not in yourcontrol, then you're suffering.
So keep that in mind. I had thisfriend who this was a while
back, like he when I first methim, we were just like at his
house, having some people overthere. A lot of people were
drinking, we're just partyingall night. And then I went over
there a couple more times.
(17:53):
And I noticed that every time Iwent over there, it was just
like a big party. Like it wasbasically a party house. And one
time we were talking outside, Iasked him, I was like, I told
him I'm like, yeah, you know, nomatter when I come over here,
you always have a bunch ofpeople over here. Are you
actually cool with that? Hesaid, and he told me he's like,
(18:13):
he's like, yeah, you know, a lotof fun when at first, but then
now it's just kind of like, Idon't know, I have a hard time
telling people that, you know, Ijust want to kick it or
whatever. And I told them,because I just learned about
this concept of the personalboundary. I said, you know, you
have to, you have to? Well,before I say that, let me say
that there's this other thingabout the personal boundary that
(18:35):
helps you cultivate a strong,mature personal boundary. And
that's, and that is the theability to say no, and the
ability to hear now. so in thissituation, he wasn't able to say
no. So is, you know, people weremaking win lose deals like they
won because they had a place toparty. And he lost because he
(18:57):
didn't have his, you know, hisown personal quiet time that he
probably wanted to have after awhile. And if you notice there,
there's people who don't reallyhave that the ability to say no,
and the ability to hear no, likewhen someone asked me something
and I had to say no. And theystart whining about it and
complaining or asking over andover again. That's a pretty good
(19:19):
indicator that you don't have astrong personal boundary. So
having a really mature welldeveloped personal boundary,
where you you know, you can sayno, and you're totally okay with
hearing No, making Win Win dealsonly or decisions only, as
opposed to win lose deals. Imean, you're definitely going to
(19:41):
make mistakes and make some winlose deals where, you know, I
win and you lose. But you know,that combination of how many
times you make these types ofdeals Will you know basically
affect your personal boundariesso and that and having this
mature personal boundary isgoing to help you with your
community. skills because peopleare gonna know that when they
(20:03):
talk to you that you have,you're like a stand up guy. And
that you, you say, when you saysomething, you actually mean it,
you just have a lot morecredibility. It's weird how your
body language will communicatethat for you, and how you talk
to people will communicate thatfor you. But a lot of this ties
into a well developed personalboundary. So keep that in mind.
(20:27):
And you know, just really focuson developing that skill,
especially the ability to hearno, and say, No, I think that's
one of the most important thingsabout it. Like if I'm supposed
to, like, let's say, I'm goingto go to a movie, and I get a
flat tire, and I'm going to missthe movie. Basically, the world
(20:48):
has told me no, you're not goingto see the movie. And I have to
be able to hear that, like, Oh,that's fine. You know, fix my
tire, maybe catch a later movie,or just go home, maybe watch a
movie another time. Like, if Idon't make a big deal about it,
if I don't let it affect me, youknow, things outside of my
control. If I don't let thosethings affect me, then that then
(21:10):
that means I have a matureboundary. And I'm keeping my
positive emotional energy wellcontained. And using it when I
when I want to use that. I'm notwasting it, burning it on things
that I cannot control. So Ithink that's some good stuff to
learn. So yeah, let's just keepthose things in mind when we
moving forward. And then nextweek we're going to be talking
(21:32):
about, we're going to be talkingabout like what is a friend,
actually, it might be a coupleideas in there that we can
really talk about. So that a youcan find a good friend and be
you can actually be a betterfriend. And then we'll also talk
about growing your socialcircle. Some definitely some
good things to talk about. Andthen we'll give you we'll talk
(21:55):
about some other things too.
Maybe review a couple thingsthat we missed before that, you
know, I tend to do when I speakreal fast. And then I guess
that'll be it for this week. Ihope you have a great week. And
make sure you try to talk to afew more people or push some
conversations a little further.
And always, as always, try notto take yourself so seriously
(22:17):
and just have some fun later
Hey, what's up everybody? Welcome back to
another episode of the socialskills lab. I'm your host,
Nathan Ament.
And last weekwe talked a little bit about
being non judgmental.
Andwe talked about what it means to
(00:38):
be cool. I was listening to theradio this week. And they were
talking about giving advice topeople like I listen to a lot of
NPR, a lot of podcasts. There'ssome really good ones, though,
(01:04):
for just helping in general andsome really good social skills
ones. There's a podcast I likecalled hidden brain to
psychology, podcast. Anythingrelated to psychology is really
good when it comes to socialskills. And then also, there's
life kit, and PR life kit,there's actually one about
(01:28):
friendship. Haven't seen it onthere, I might have to be on
their website before you canfind it. The one I was listening
to was talking about givingadvice. And it said to be non
judgmental, if you're that justsaid be non judgmental is really
helpful when it comes to peopleopening up to you. And that's
(01:49):
kind of what we talked aboutlast week. So it's cool to hear
it again. The other podcast Ilike his TED Talks, t d, Ted
Talks. There's a lot of goodstuff in there too, about social
skills and anything like that,there's podcasts or just I
guess, are pretty cool to findstuff that good topics for self
(02:12):
improvement. There's also a lotof funny ones in there. All,
I'll tell you about those two,because we're going to talk
about comedy today to talk aboutbeing funny. We also talked
about being cool last week.
That's very subjective. So somepeople let's say, if you're into
(02:34):
Dungeons and Dragons, and you goto like a d&d convention, and
you meet the West Coast,National d&d champion, you might
think he's super cool. But let'ssay someone who serves doesn't
necessarily think it's very coolto play d&d. So it's just very
subjective. It's like, whateveryou think is cool is cool. My
(02:56):
opinion is anything, anybodywho's kick back and just doesn't
take themselves too seriously,which I always recommend not
taking yourself so seriously.
And then also very mature, andjust likes to have fun. And it's
fun to be around. That's myopinion, that's a good
definition. It's good to it'sgood to try to be a better
(03:18):
person in general, because let'ssay, I know, in my past, I've
had friends that were kind ofnegative, and got me into a lot
of trouble. I probably got themin trouble too. But I also was
not very mature. So if you wantto have better friends, friends
that you actually like to hangaround with that are very
(03:41):
positive and fun to be with,then you should strive to also
have those characteristicsbecause like, seems to attract
like, if you are a douchebag,you're going to end up having
either no one around you orfriends that are also
douchebags. So it would be goodto just work on yourself and be
(04:03):
a better person, as you alsowork on your social skills. That
way you can attract people thatare actually fun to hang out
with. And I think that's prettymuch the goal. Having people
that are fun to hang out with soyou can have fun, right? One
thing too, that I, you know, Iwas listing off some things that
were not very cool. Like being awhiner, or being impatient. One
(04:27):
thing I've mentioned too, issomeone who can't handle their
booze. Like I've definitely beenaround people that just drink
too much. I also have been inthose situations. It's pretty
rare, but it does happen. But Iwould say people that make that
make it a habit of just can'treally handle their shit. I
(04:50):
would say that that's not verycool. It's just not fun to have
to be around someone like thatwho is out of control that you
have to like babysit or justmake sure that they're, you
know, not causing too muchdamage, like who wants to be in
that situation? Like if you'rean adult, act like an adult,
and, you know, try to be moremoderate. So this week, we're
(05:12):
going to be talking about beingfunny, and also a concept of the
personal boundary. I know thatwhen I was in junior high, I was
like, painfully shy. I don'tknow why. I just was, I think
it's because I moved a lot.
(05:34):
And I would be in class, and Ihad a friend. And I would like,
tell him jokes in class. Andthen he would repeat them out
loud, and he get all the laughslike, I was basically like his
little joke writer. I don'tknow, I was just too too shy to
say it out loud. I think I maybeI've done it was telling jokes.
And they were so bad people justlike gave me weird looks. And I
(05:56):
just made the decision to nevertell a joke in class again, I
really don't remember. Butthat's kind of that's ringing a
bell for me. So I just wouldnever, never really developed
being very funny. I think, youknow, with my close friends, I
(06:17):
always had like one or twofriends. But I would be funny
around them. But just in public,I wouldn't be funny around other
people. As I got older, I had acouple of roommates that were
super funny, and we becamefriends. If there's any way you
can hang out with someone a lot,who's really funny, that could
(06:38):
be definitely very helpful. Iknow that having some pretty
funny roommates was was reallyhelpful. To me being more funny.
Like I definitely tried to pushmy funniness more when I was
around them. I think thathappens anytime. When you're
around someone, a friend. That'sfunny. You're constantly telling
each other jokes and playingpranks or whatever. One thing I
(07:00):
noticed, though, after a whilewas I had this roommate who
would tell jokes, like all daylong, he was joking around, like
all the time, and I noticed thatmost of his jokes just were not
funny at all. Like, I'd say, outof like 10 jokes. One would be
like, really funny. And like twowere like, that's kind of funny.
(07:21):
And then most of them just likeweren't funny at all. And that
made me think I'm like, wow, Iactually, if I was describe them
to somebody, I would say thathe's a funny guy. Like, I would
say, like, Oh, yeah, he's reallyfunny. But in reality, most of
his jokes weren't funny. And Iwas thinking like, hmm, you
(07:42):
know, I kind of do the samething, I would tell him jokes,
and maybe half of them weren'tfunny at all. But it's like, if
you can at least tell one or twojokes at a 10 that are funny,
you will actually be consideredfunny. So you kind of have to
just throw a bunch of crapagainst the wall to see what
sticks.
So I think that's just importantto remember, you're not going to
(08:02):
be funny 100% of the time. Butyou, you're definitely gonna
have to throw a lot of stuff outthere. I think that sometimes
people think that you can'tlearn to be funny. Like, I
remember asking someone, someonethere. So I asked him, do you
think somebody can learn to befunny? And they actually said,
(08:23):
No, I think you're just funny oryou're not. I don't think that's
true, though, I think you candefinitely learn to be more
funny. It's really, I think it'sreally important to be more
funny, because that's just oneof the best parts of having a
conversation with someone, someconversations you'll have with
people or like seriousconversations or interesting
(08:43):
conversations. Most of the time,you can pepper it with some
funny stuff. But sometimes someconversations are just strictly
funny. just telling jokes andstuff like that. And those are
really fun, interestingconversations to be in. So if
you can develop your comicability, you know, I'm not
saying you have to be thefunniest person in the world.
(09:05):
But if you could just, you know,be 10% 20% more funny. It really
makes a huge difference when youcommunicate with people. So
something I would recommend is,if you don't know where to
start, maybe just start watchingmore stand up comedy. You can
see a bunch of them on Netflixor even on YouTube. There's some
really good ones on there. Ijust wrote down a list of some
(09:27):
of my favorite stand up comics.
Dave Chappelle, obviously. LuisLouie ck, Daniel Tosh, David
Spade, Jim gaffigan. Anthonyjeselnik Sarah Silverman,
Hannibal buress Maria Bamford,and Dimitri Martin, et CIE, just
look at those guys on YouTubeand watch, watch, you know, one
(09:50):
a day for six months. There's noway you could not be more funny
or understand what is actually asuit. Funny, after watching so
much stand up comedy. I'vedefinitely watched a lot. I'll
even listen to some stand upcomedy. podcasts. Anthony
jeselnik does a really good one.
(10:12):
I can't remember the name of it,though. I'll put it. I'll find
it. I'll put in the descriptionfor you. Something else I did
was I started taking some improvclasses, because I heard that
could be really good forimproving your social skills. So
I did it. And yeah, it wasreally good. There's a comedy
club in Sacramento, there'sactually a couple now that do
(10:35):
it. They'll teach classes onimprov. And I thought it was a
really good experience. It was,there was some really good
teachers there and and you wouldjust do these like exercises to
get warmed up. And these likefun games. And then you would
try to do scenes. And I'll put alink in the description as well
(10:57):
for the one of the improv, likeone of the best improv sets I've
ever seen. It's from ask catfrom the stand up. Oh, Upright
Citizens Brigade. It'shilarious. definitely wasn't
that good. But I know, I couldtell right away that it was a
(11:18):
lot funnier with around myfriends after doing it. So I
took a class. And then like ayear later, I was living with my
roommate. And I told him aboutit. And he's like, oh, let's do
it. So I took another class withhim. And then he was like, yeah,
this isn't really what I thoughtit was gonna be. And I asked
him, I was like, Well, whatwould what would you want to do?
He's like, well, let's, theysaid, there's a stand up comedy
(11:39):
class. So you want to do that?
And I was like, Oh, yeah, forsure. Let's do that, too. So we
ended up doing a stand up comedyclass. And yeah, so I got up on
stage a couple times and didthat. And then a couple years
later, another friend wastelling him about it. And he's
like, Oh, I want to do that,too. So we took another stand up
comedy class. And been doingthat with him for a little bit.
(12:00):
I've probably been on up onstage about, I don't know, 810
times or something like that. Atdifferent comedy clubs, open mic
nights, open mic nights. Andhard to say that open mic
nights. And it was a lot of fun.
I got to be on ever since thepandemic, though. So pretty much
(12:24):
all the standup clubs areclosed. So I haven't had a
chance to do it. I thought ofanother good idea that might
help you too, is if you goonline, you can just look up
jokes. There's like probably abillion jokes online, but I go
on Reddit, under jokes. And Ifound a funny joke. I'm just
gonna say it just so you can?
Oh, here it is. Because it wouldbe good. I used to do this, I
(12:48):
would like go on there. And I'dfind a funny joke, and I'd
memorize it. And then, you know,I'd most the time, I would
forget it. But every once awhile when I remember it, I
would just tell it to a friend.
Andit's good. Just good practice.
If you don't know. If you don'tknow how to write your own
jokes, just use some online.
They're really good. Like, okay,so this one says, What's the
(13:10):
difference between an oralthermometer and a rectal
thermometer? The taste? Yeah,that's kind of funny. So yeah,
you can just find short ones. Toget to the point, that kind of
funny. And then, oh, here'sanother one, a doctor sees, oh,
(13:30):
a nurse sees that a doctor has arectal thermometer behind his
ear, and she asks him about it.
He takes it out of his ear, andhe looks at it and goes, You
know what this means? Whatdoctor says a nurse, some
asshole has my pencil. That'snot bad. So you can just find
these online, and then save acouple, put them in your phone
(13:51):
or something like that. And thentell them to people just
randomly, just be careful. Ifit's a little racy to who you
tell it to. Don't want to getyou in trouble at work or
anything like that. Okay, sowhat else did I do here? Oh,
another thing about the sceneI'm class is you'll definitely
get more confidence. I mean, thelast thing I ever wanted as a
(14:16):
naturally introverted person,the last thing I want to do is
get up on a stage. You know, forone, it was good to help me be
more funny, but also it reallyhelped me with my confidence
because as soon as you're donedoing it, you're like, wow, that
went really bad, or that wasactually pretty good. Either
way, you're gonna get moreconfidence just by doing it.
(14:38):
There's also some books on thereand how to write jokes and
stuff. You can Google andthere's a lot of really good
ones. There's like stand upcomedy, books and stuff like
that. I don't know if any ofthem really good. I started
reading one of them but anythingthat can help you in that in
that area will help you withyours. social skills. Okay, so
(14:59):
let's move on to the next topic,the personal boundary. I heard
about this first from this guynamed Dr. Paul dobransky. He's
like a writer, and apsychologist. So when I first
heard this, I thought it wasreally interesting. So the
concept of the personalboundaries, it's very similar.
Your personal boundary is like apsychological concept in your
(15:22):
head, and strong, healthy,personal boundary. That's like a
mature thing to develop, ifyou're immature, you're going to
have a weak personal boundary.
So a personal boundaryencompasses, like all your
positive emotional resources.
And it kind of works like theborders of a country. So like
(15:44):
North Korea, very sheltered,doesn't let a lot of things in,
doesn't let a lot of things out,it's like probably to secure too
much. And then like a weakpersonal boundary is basically
someone that gets trampled allover, like people take advantage
of them all the time. So what'sthe difference? The difference
(16:06):
is, you know, your personalboundary, a mature personal
boundary should have doors, thatyou open, that you let the good
in, you keep the bad out. So youdo let things in. But you
basically have to make a lot ofdecisions. And the kind of
decisions that are, help youdevelop this, or there's like
Win, win decisions and win losedecisions, a win win decision as
(16:29):
I win, and you win. A win loses,like someone, someone else wins,
and you lose. And this really,there's a lot of different
facets to this. But let's saylike spending money, like how
are you with saving money? Doyou just like let all your money
go, you just spend all yourcheck on like frivolous things,
(16:50):
you're not saving, you know, youdon't have a 401k stuff like
that, your decisions are gonnakeep your resources, your
positive emotional energy. Theother thing that he was that he
talked about this is hedescribed, this is like, what is
in your personal boundary is100% under your control, the
(17:11):
things that are 0% in yourcontrol are things that are
outside, like the weather or thejob, other people or like the
economy, stuff like that. Thingsthat you do not control. And if
you are constantly worried aboutthose things, that is about
(17:31):
things that are not in yourcontrol, then you're suffering.
So keep that in mind. I had thisfriend who this was a while
back, like he when I first methim, we were just like at his
house, having some people overthere. A lot of people were
drinking, we're just partyingall night. And then I went over
there a couple more times.
(17:53):
And I noticed that every time Iwent over there, it was just
like a big party. Like it wasbasically a party house. And one
time we were talking outside, Iasked him, I was like, I told
him I'm like, yeah, you know, nomatter when I come over here,
you always have a bunch ofpeople over here. Are you
actually cool with that? Hesaid, and he told me he's like,
(18:13):
he's like, yeah, you know, a lotof fun when at first, but then
now it's just kind of like, Idon't know, I have a hard time
telling people that, you know, Ijust want to kick it or
whatever. And I told them,because I just learned about
this concept of the personalboundary. I said, you know, you
have to, you have to? Well,before I say that, let me say
that there's this other thingabout the personal boundary that
(18:35):
helps you cultivate a strong,mature personal boundary. And
that's, and that is the theability to say no, and the
ability to hear now. so in thissituation, he wasn't able to say
no. So is, you know, people weremaking win lose deals like they
won because they had a place toparty. And he lost because he
(18:57):
didn't have his, you know, hisown personal quiet time that he
probably wanted to have after awhile. And if you notice there,
there's people who don't reallyhave that the ability to say no,
and the ability to hear no, likewhen someone asked me something
and I had to say no. And theystart whining about it and
complaining or asking over andover again. That's a pretty good
(19:19):
indicator that you don't have astrong personal boundary. So
having a really mature welldeveloped personal boundary,
where you you know, you can sayno, and you're totally okay with
hearing No, making Win Win dealsonly or decisions only, as
opposed to win lose deals. Imean, you're definitely going to
(19:41):
make mistakes and make some winlose deals where, you know, I
win and you lose. But you know,that combination of how many
times you make these types ofdeals Will you know basically
affect your personal boundariesso and that and having this
mature personal boundary isgoing to help you with your
community. skills because peopleare gonna know that when they
(20:03):
talk to you that you have,you're like a stand up guy. And
that you, you say, when you saysomething, you actually mean it,
you just have a lot morecredibility. It's weird how your
body language will communicatethat for you, and how you talk
to people will communicate thatfor you. But a lot of this ties
into a well developed personalboundary. So keep that in mind.
(20:27):
And you know, just really focuson developing that skill,
especially the ability to hearno, and say, No, I think that's
one of the most important thingsabout it. Like if I'm supposed
to, like, let's say, I'm goingto go to a movie, and I get a
flat tire, and I'm going to missthe movie. Basically, the world
(20:48):
has told me no, you're not goingto see the movie. And I have to
be able to hear that, like, Oh,that's fine. You know, fix my
tire, maybe catch a later movie,or just go home, maybe watch a
movie another time. Like, if Idon't make a big deal about it,
if I don't let it affect me, youknow, things outside of my
control. If I don't let thosethings affect me, then that then
(21:10):
that means I have a matureboundary. And I'm keeping my
positive emotional energy wellcontained. And using it when I
when I want to use that. I'm notwasting it, burning it on things
that I cannot control. So Ithink that's some good stuff to
learn. So yeah, let's just keepthose things in mind when we
moving forward. And then nextweek we're going to be talking
(21:32):
about, we're going to be talkingabout like what is a friend,
actually, it might be a coupleideas in there that we can
really talk about. So that a youcan find a good friend and be
you can actually be a betterfriend. And then we'll also talk
about growing your socialcircle. Some definitely some
good things to talk about. Andthen we'll give you we'll talk
(21:55):
about some other things too.
Maybe review a couple thingsthat we missed before that, you
know, I tend to do when I speakreal fast. And then I guess
that'll be it for this week. Ihope you have a great week. And
make sure you try to talk to afew more people or push some
conversations a little further.
And always, as always, try notto take yourself so seriously
(22:17):
and just have some fun later
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