February 25, 2024 • 22 mins
In this episode, we will learn from Sheko. Sheko provides a fascinating perspective on the correlation between pain and discomfort. Together, we explore the differences between pain and suffering, and the benefits that come with leaning into those painful experiences. Listen in and let's be curious together!
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Hey, thanks for joining us andtuning in to my podcast, Curious and
Uncomfortable. I'm Niri. You arecreator, producer, and host. This
podcast is an exploratory conversation where twopeople come together and talk about being uncomfortable.
I have guests come on from allover the country, from various walks
(00:20):
of life and unique professions, andtogether we question all things uncomfortable through many
lenses society, lifestyle, politics,culture, and more. In doing this,
our conversations are real, perceptive,and natural. They aren't scripted,
and most of the time they aren'teven really planned. We're just two curious
(00:43):
people eager to answer some questions.So open your mind, listen, and
learn. Let's be curious together.Our guest today is Sko Kirby. Ko
(01:15):
is an artist who provides a fascinatingperspective on the correlation between pain and discomfort.
She's a mom, she is ajewelry designer. She manages a ski
rental house in Montana. She isa multifaceted woman. But to hear her
offer the depth and insight on thistopic was kind of surprising to me.
(01:38):
Cheko made these really interesting connections betweenour emotions and our understanding of fear while
telling us about the trials and tribulationsof her life that eventually led her to
wear in who she is today.Now let's get curious about sheka. You
(02:05):
can have pain and not make itsuffering. The suffering is what occurs in
your mind. The pain is what'sin your body. What does that mean?
Expand on that that both goes forphysical pain and for emotional pain or
any other kind of pain. Itmay be easier when you're talking about more
emotional or psychological pain because we allknow that what goes on outside the body
(02:27):
and what goes on inside the bodyare these two different things. So what's
going on outside you can't control,but what's going on inside you have complete
control over that. You may notbe able to do it, but you
have complete control. So when Italk about pain, if you're talking physical,
then that becomes a little bit different. But you can feel pain and
(02:50):
you can accept that pain and notsuffer from that pain. A good example
of that would be, say youwork out really hard and you're super super
sore and you can barely move thenext day, but you feel pain,
but you know that that physical painis going to pay off for you in
a positive. So people that tendto work out that way don't really suffer
from that pain. They're almost happyto have that pain because they're going to
(03:14):
grow more muscles and be able tobe better at whatever sport or whatever activity
they're doing. So I think it'salong those lines that you can feel pain,
but you don't have to suffer becauseof the pain. So I've had
a total knee replacement and I loveto ski, so I'm when I have
the replacement and I go through veryextreme pain, I don't I'm not suffering
(03:34):
because I'm thinking to myself, yes, I'm going through pain right now,
but in six months, I'm goingto be better off than I was before.
The more often you feel discomfort orpain or fear, I think those
are all kind of the same thing. I mean, most of the things
we feel are either something that's uncomfortableor painful. The more you feel that,
the more you find yourself in thatsituation. I think the fuller that
(03:57):
you're experiencing life can be, youknow, the greatest and most unexpected gift.
I suppose I would say it kindof makes makes life less less interesting
if there is no pain, rightbecause yes, because you know I mean,
listen, you could. We alllove comfort. I mean, comfort
(04:18):
is something nice. But if youare not living your life because you don't
want pain and you just want comfort, then you're kind of going to be
locked in a little room all byyourself because you're going to get pain by
interacting with other people. You're goingto get pain or discomfort by almost doing
anything. It's going to be possible. So yes, I think that it's
(04:39):
very important to push through that andjust live your life. It's so hard
for us to have that kind ofmentality. Was it not like that for
your generation? I think that's correct, and I think part of that has
to do with my generation parenting yourgeneration. We probably wanted to protect are
(05:00):
offspring from pain, but we didn'trealize how much that contributed to the growth
in our life. So I thinkit was very common to have discomfort when
in the generation I grew up in. I mean, we didn't have a
lot of the creature comforts. Imean I grew up in a house with
a fireplace and no heat, andI always remember being freezing cold. Now
(05:23):
do did that enhance my life?No? But if I find myself in
that situation again, I've already experiencedit, so I don't have as much
discomfort from it. I know whatto do if I feel terribly cold.
So yeah, I agree that mygeneration definitely didn't have the same situation that
yours does. Oftentimes a choice willbe made to do the more comfortable thing
(05:49):
rather than that, rather than takingon the challenge. But I'm going to
say with time, I think thatthat goes away as well. I think
once you do something, I meanif everyone can remember something that they did
that was terribly uncomfortable or painful,and then they just kept doing it over
(06:09):
and over and suddenly it didn't seemso horrible as it was the first time.
And I think even with your generation, I see that happens as well
over time. You did mention thatyou traveled to Europe when you were younger.
How old were you and what wasthat like? And that's interesting.
So I think, first, youknow, if you're putting yourself in a
(06:30):
situation that's painful, you're probably hopingthat something interesting would happen along the way.
You know you're not doing it becauseyou like pain and unless you have
that tendency or something, but youknow you're doing it because of the curiosity.
And exactly so. I traveled toEurope when I was about twenty,
and I was very, very shy. When I left for that trip.
(06:54):
I really had a hard time talkingto people or asking for things I wanted,
or being assertive in anyway, andI dropped into cultures where I couldn't
speak the language. I didn't knowwhat was going on, and so as
small a thing as needing to getan overnight train ticket or a sleeper car
or something, I had to signlanguage or you know, mine my way
(07:16):
into it, which was terribly embarrassingand uncomfortable for me. But after doing
it over and over and over again, when I got back from the trip,
I realized that it had completely changedthe type of person I was,
and I was interested in applying forjobs that I may not have been interested
in before because it seemed like myshyness was holding me back from a lot
(07:39):
of things. So I believe that'syou know, I believe that happens a
lot with pushing through that pain.You know, the more the more often
you feel discomfort or go through uncomfortablesituations, the fuller you're experiencing your life.
And I would say that's pretty muchacross the board, you know.
(08:00):
I mean, of course you don'twant to do anything that injures you or
harms you. But yeah, butregular type of discomfort and pain I think
is always possitible m ends positively anyway. Another thing I remember you saying is
our discomfort is like not caused bythe way things are in life, but
(08:20):
it's by like predeciding how we wantour life to be. Well, I
think our brain, I think ourbrain is there to make those decisions for
us. Are we doing the rightthing? You know, you always have
choices, and so a lot oftimes we say, oh, if I
if I apply to all these universities, this is the one I want to
get into. I really, I'mapplying for these other ones, but I'm
(08:43):
not interested in them. Really,I'm just doing it to go through the
motions. And then if we don'tget the one that we thought we wanted,
there's a lot of discomfort or anxietyor fear or all sorts of other
things wrapped around that. But itmay turn out that the one we got
was better than the other one.We really don't know. So I think
(09:03):
it's giving up that life that we'veplanned for to let things just come in
as they come in and make choices, but not be so intent on it
going exactly the way we have predeterminedin our minds, because life doesn't really
go that way. And you can'tcontrol the outside world, but you can
control the inside world, so youcan control how you're feeling about it,
(09:24):
and you don't have to necessarily feelsad or fear or discomfort if you are
okay, I'm just going to gowith the flow, and this is what
happened, And this could be positivetoo, This could be as much a
gift as if the thing I wantedhappened. So I think that's important to
look at life that way. Myfirst time setting it brought was terrifying,
(09:48):
and I did again, and Iplan to now go to school in Europe
and it just happens like that.But it takes the first step. I
think it starts with a acknowledging howyou feel about it, how you react
to the things around you, howyou react to things you don't understand,
then going into kind of accepting itand realizing you know, this is okay,
(10:13):
this is how life is. Wecan have the pain along with enjoy
and then taking it to like thenext level. And so what I mean
example, it's a perfect example too, because I think the more you do
that, you can you start tosee, Oh, if I didn't do
that, if I didn't take thatinitial step, then I would have lost
that entire experience and I would havemaybe not known how amazing or exhilarating it
(10:37):
was. And then now that youdid that, then you can go and
do something even further than that ifyou want. You could go bungee jump,
or you could you know, travel, you you traveled, you could
go live overseas. You could,you know, take take a job overseas.
You can just keep building on thatdiscomfort until it becomes your life and
it makes your whole life grow intoa much larger experience. If you hadn't
(11:01):
gone to Europe when you were twenty, how do you think life would be
different for you now? I don'tknow. I imagine if I hadn't ever
felt that discomfort of being shy andgotten over it, I suppose I would
have chosen a whole different line ofwork because I wouldn't have wanted to deal
with people, or I wouldn't havewanted to have to do things that I
(11:22):
felt were uncomfortable. So it Imean, one little choice like that could
change everything you do. So Ithink the more experiences you can have,
the more options you have in yourlife. I mean, look at I
may have done that and still nothave liked it ten times, and then
I would have chose to do somethingelse, but it wouldn't have hurt me.
It would have just made me know, listen, that's not for me,
(11:43):
or I don't like traveling, butyou know, and everyone's different that
way. But if you hadn't triedit, you wouldn't even know if you
if you enjoyed it or didn't enjoyit, you just wouldn't have done it.
What was your first line of workafter after Europe? After that,
I went into well, I workedin human resources. That's when I was
(12:05):
still in college. And after college, my first my first professional position wasn't
banking, and you know, Iwas kind of a back office type operations
person, so I didn't I wasn'treally interacting with a lot of people.
But after I did that for awhile, I took a head hunting job,
(12:26):
which is sales job and a jobwhere I had to pick up the
phone and cold call people. Iwas so uncomfortable that whole first year I
would practically be in tears just goingto work because I was so uncomfortable doing
that job. But after three years, it just I just had no problem
(12:48):
picking up the phone and talking toa stranger. So it's a matter of
just pushing through it and keeping keepingit up and saying, listen, I'm
not physically getting hurt. I'm noteven emotionally getting hurt. It's just an
uncomfortable situation to have to push through. You know. It doesn't mean you're
always rushing into discomfort like you know, it doesn't mean that. I mean,
(13:11):
many times there's something that's uncomfortable andwe decide not to do it,
and that's okay too. I don'tthink that. You It's more of a
dance. You know, I'm goingto pick these things and do these uncomfortable
things, but I'm not going todo everything all day uncomfortable, you know,
right, So there's there's a giveand take. I think with that
as well. Yeah, like,you know, I'm not asking people to
(13:35):
always jump into something new and alwaysbe fearless and confident and determined, and
you know, of course, butthere has to be some level of some
sort of balance between the two.You can't live or at least I can't
live in a world where I'm notpushed and challenged and questioned. And if
(14:01):
I had all the answers, itwould just be boring. Like that's how
I see it. I need theuncertainty as much as it makes me uncomfortable.
And that's something I've always kind ofstruggled with, is, you know,
I have to know what everyone's thinkingall the time. I need to
know what's going to happen in ayear. I need to know what college
I'm going to get into. Whatif I don't get into any, then
(14:22):
what am I going to do?Oh? Then just take a gap year
and figure it out. But that'snot how it's supposed to go. I'm
supposed to go to a school nowI'm a senior, go for four years.
You know, it's supposed to bepart of it, just just the
way it is. You know,so you never know, and you know
that uncertainty. Uncertainty is definitely uncomfortablefor most people. I mean, we
(14:45):
all like and because you're making yourplans. So if you don't know where
you're going to college, you can'tmake your plans. So you're kind of
waiting to find out what's going tohappen, so you can make plans and
that's a little bit uncomfortable, butthere's really nothing else you can do about.
So in that case, you don'teven have a choice. You just
have to you have to try toclear your clear it of your mind.
(15:07):
Maybe so you don't make yourself moreuncomfortable by losing sleep and you know,
you know, being unhealthy because you'reworried about it. So I think maybe
that's something that that is would bean interesting thing to think about, the
idea of being uncomfortable but not worryingor having anxiety or being stressed out about
(15:28):
the being uncomfortable, because then you'rejust adding more discomfort on top of right
what you already started with. Otherthan Europe, is there maybe one specific
you can highlight, one experience thatyou've been able to looking back now say
kind of thank you for the forthe learning experience, thank you for oh
(15:52):
my gosh, there's so many I'mgoing to say, I mean almost anything,
you know, I'm I was sayinglike about that that that cold calling
job. I mean, I learneda lot from doing that. I don't
think i'd want to do it again, but it did make me more more
comfortable with doing things that I initiallythought that I would dislike. I'm trying
(16:18):
to think, there's so so manyit's hard to pick one thing because I
mean, I'm I mean, I'muncomfortable almost every day with something. Oh
yeah, the little things every day. It could be it could be you
know, I I don't know.I'm uncomfortable to the minute I get out
of bed and I just don't wantto get up today and do something.
(16:41):
Or I cooked this omelet the wrongway today and now I don't want to
eat it. Or I don't wantto talk to this person but they're in
my house. What do I do? Like it's the littlest things, you
know, and then it's the bigbig things, like a big life decision
or like you know, I don'tknow, and like they I think.
There's a quote that says life withouthazards, and golf without hazards and bunkers
(17:07):
would be boring, and so wouldlife. So I mean, everything was
comfortable all day, all the time. We probably get pretty bored with it.
I would admit. Yeah, lifeis supposed to throw these random fireballs
at you, and you decide howyou react to it and what you do
with it, And I think avoidingit is the worst possible thing someone can
(17:30):
do. I think deciding how you'regoing to respond is probably probably the most
important thing. To have a challengeor something uncomfortable and deciding Okay, now
I'm faced with this, What amI going to do? Am I going
to turn around and run? AmI going to face it? Am I
going to go in a different approach? And you may make the wrong decision
and make it worse, but thenyou've learned for your future, so next
(17:52):
time it happens, you can makea different decision or do something else.
And I think that's how you knowlife, That's how life grows. Yeah,
the things that are within your control, what has been have you seen
like a change in your reaction tothose things? I think that. I
(18:17):
think the thing is to remind Andhow I do it is remind myself.
Okay, so my car broke down. I'm on the middle of the highway.
It's a very uncomfortable situation. Butby throwing a fit or getting upset
or crying or whatever other reaction,it's not going to fix the situation.
(18:37):
So I think acceptance of the situationand then moving to the next level,
What am I going to do aboutit? Is a very helpful way to
do that. And I think sometimeswe think that we're just reacting to a
situation, but really we have fullcontrol over our motions. You're not always
(18:59):
able to have full control, butwe have control if we want it to
or if we were a too soin that case, I think just just
putting those things aside and saying,Okay, this already happened. I can't
do anything about it. It's anexternal cause. So now in a matter
of keeping your mind clear and decidingwhat is what is within your control.
You know, so you don't knowwhat college you're going to get into,
(19:22):
you don't know where you're going togo, but there's other things that things
that are in your control that youcan do to make that waiting time more
pleasant while you're waiting to find outwhat's going to occur. Yeah, are
there things in your life now you'rea jewelry designer, you're an artist,
(19:42):
but you've experienced a lot of life, or there's still little things every day
that you now see like, Okay, I've gotten the acknowledgment, I've gotten
the acceptance, I've gotten the action, I've taken those steps, and I've
pushed away the stress, the anxietyor whatever because I've embraced it. You
(20:07):
know, It's kind of interesting becauseI would even say, you know,
in the creative world, a lotof times I'm working on something and it
just doesn't come out, and atfirst I might get upset or angry or
be like, oh, well,man, I worked on this for a
week and it's just a piece ofgarbage now. But then if you really
look at that and say, Okay, well, what did I learn from
(20:30):
this situation? You know, sure, I might have wasted time, I
might have wasted energy, but theremay be something really important that comes out
of that. I mean, Idon't really. I think failure is probably
one of our biggest teachers. Soto avoid failing at something, you're really
avoiding learning is what you're doing.So yeah, I think in my business,
(20:51):
I mean, I'm failing all thetime, but I'm just changing it
around and deciding how to go forwardwith the ideas that come out of that
failure. Yeah, and that's important. I mean, listen, I mean
I throw fits about it sometimes too. Don't get me wrong, I'm not
all calm, but you know,I think about it and think what good
can come out of that. Thanksfor listening to episode nine of Curious and
(21:19):
Uncomfortable. I hope you enjoyed thisepisode and all of the other ones before
that. Thank you so much forlistening and downloading and following up with Curious
and Uncomfortable. As for the future, I'm going to be taking a break
for a couple of weeks before anew episode, Episode ten comes out,
(21:41):
So if you haven't listened to anyof the previous episodes, catch up on
those for the next couple of weeksuntil episode ten and eleven come out in
about a month. Thanks for tuningin. I will see you all soon. They
Hey, thanks for joining us andtuning in to my podcast, Curious and
Uncomfortable. I'm Niri. You arecreator, producer, and host. This
podcast is an exploratory conversation where twopeople come together and talk about being uncomfortable.
I have guests come on from allover the country, from various walks
(00:20):
of life and unique professions, andtogether we question all things uncomfortable through many
lenses society, lifestyle, politics,culture, and more. In doing this,
our conversations are real, perceptive,and natural. They aren't scripted,
and most of the time they aren'teven really planned. We're just two curious
(00:43):
people eager to answer some questions.So open your mind, listen, and
learn. Let's be curious together.Our guest today is Sko Kirby. Ko
(01:15):
is an artist who provides a fascinatingperspective on the correlation between pain and discomfort.
She's a mom, she is ajewelry designer. She manages a ski
rental house in Montana. She isa multifaceted woman. But to hear her
offer the depth and insight on thistopic was kind of surprising to me.
(01:38):
Cheko made these really interesting connections betweenour emotions and our understanding of fear while
telling us about the trials and tribulationsof her life that eventually led her to
wear in who she is today.Now let's get curious about sheka. You
(02:05):
can have pain and not make itsuffering. The suffering is what occurs in
your mind. The pain is what'sin your body. What does that mean?
Expand on that that both goes forphysical pain and for emotional pain or
any other kind of pain. Itmay be easier when you're talking about more
emotional or psychological pain because we allknow that what goes on outside the body
(02:27):
and what goes on inside the bodyare these two different things. So what's
going on outside you can't control,but what's going on inside you have complete
control over that. You may notbe able to do it, but you
have complete control. So when Italk about pain, if you're talking physical,
then that becomes a little bit different. But you can feel pain and
(02:50):
you can accept that pain and notsuffer from that pain. A good example
of that would be, say youwork out really hard and you're super super
sore and you can barely move thenext day, but you feel pain,
but you know that that physical painis going to pay off for you in
a positive. So people that tendto work out that way don't really suffer
from that pain. They're almost happyto have that pain because they're going to
(03:14):
grow more muscles and be able tobe better at whatever sport or whatever activity
they're doing. So I think it'salong those lines that you can feel pain,
but you don't have to suffer becauseof the pain. So I've had
a total knee replacement and I loveto ski, so I'm when I have
the replacement and I go through veryextreme pain, I don't I'm not suffering
(03:34):
because I'm thinking to myself, yes, I'm going through pain right now,
but in six months, I'm goingto be better off than I was before.
The more often you feel discomfort orpain or fear, I think those
are all kind of the same thing. I mean, most of the things
we feel are either something that's uncomfortableor painful. The more you feel that,
the more you find yourself in thatsituation. I think the fuller that
(03:57):
you're experiencing life can be, youknow, the greatest and most unexpected gift.
I suppose I would say it kindof makes makes life less less interesting
if there is no pain, rightbecause yes, because you know I mean,
listen, you could. We alllove comfort. I mean, comfort
(04:18):
is something nice. But if youare not living your life because you don't
want pain and you just want comfort, then you're kind of going to be
locked in a little room all byyourself because you're going to get pain by
interacting with other people. You're goingto get pain or discomfort by almost doing
anything. It's going to be possible. So yes, I think that it's
(04:39):
very important to push through that andjust live your life. It's so hard
for us to have that kind ofmentality. Was it not like that for
your generation? I think that's correct, and I think part of that has
to do with my generation parenting yourgeneration. We probably wanted to protect are
(05:00):
offspring from pain, but we didn'trealize how much that contributed to the growth
in our life. So I thinkit was very common to have discomfort when
in the generation I grew up in. I mean, we didn't have a
lot of the creature comforts. Imean I grew up in a house with
a fireplace and no heat, andI always remember being freezing cold. Now
(05:23):
do did that enhance my life?No? But if I find myself in
that situation again, I've already experiencedit, so I don't have as much
discomfort from it. I know whatto do if I feel terribly cold.
So yeah, I agree that mygeneration definitely didn't have the same situation that
yours does. Oftentimes a choice willbe made to do the more comfortable thing
(05:49):
rather than that, rather than takingon the challenge. But I'm going to
say with time, I think thatthat goes away as well. I think
once you do something, I meanif everyone can remember something that they did
that was terribly uncomfortable or painful,and then they just kept doing it over
(06:09):
and over and suddenly it didn't seemso horrible as it was the first time.
And I think even with your generation, I see that happens as well
over time. You did mention thatyou traveled to Europe when you were younger.
How old were you and what wasthat like? And that's interesting.
So I think, first, youknow, if you're putting yourself in a
(06:30):
situation that's painful, you're probably hopingthat something interesting would happen along the way.
You know you're not doing it becauseyou like pain and unless you have
that tendency or something, but youknow you're doing it because of the curiosity.
And exactly so. I traveled toEurope when I was about twenty,
and I was very, very shy. When I left for that trip.
(06:54):
I really had a hard time talkingto people or asking for things I wanted,
or being assertive in anyway, andI dropped into cultures where I couldn't
speak the language. I didn't knowwhat was going on, and so as
small a thing as needing to getan overnight train ticket or a sleeper car
or something, I had to signlanguage or you know, mine my way
(07:16):
into it, which was terribly embarrassingand uncomfortable for me. But after doing
it over and over and over again, when I got back from the trip,
I realized that it had completely changedthe type of person I was,
and I was interested in applying forjobs that I may not have been interested
in before because it seemed like myshyness was holding me back from a lot
(07:39):
of things. So I believe that'syou know, I believe that happens a
lot with pushing through that pain.You know, the more the more often
you feel discomfort or go through uncomfortablesituations, the fuller you're experiencing your life.
And I would say that's pretty muchacross the board, you know.
(08:00):
I mean, of course you don'twant to do anything that injures you or
harms you. But yeah, butregular type of discomfort and pain I think
is always possitible m ends positively anyway. Another thing I remember you saying is
our discomfort is like not caused bythe way things are in life, but
(08:20):
it's by like predeciding how we wantour life to be. Well, I
think our brain, I think ourbrain is there to make those decisions for
us. Are we doing the rightthing? You know, you always have
choices, and so a lot oftimes we say, oh, if I
if I apply to all these universities, this is the one I want to
get into. I really, I'mapplying for these other ones, but I'm
(08:43):
not interested in them. Really,I'm just doing it to go through the
motions. And then if we don'tget the one that we thought we wanted,
there's a lot of discomfort or anxietyor fear or all sorts of other
things wrapped around that. But itmay turn out that the one we got
was better than the other one.We really don't know. So I think
(09:03):
it's giving up that life that we'veplanned for to let things just come in
as they come in and make choices, but not be so intent on it
going exactly the way we have predeterminedin our minds, because life doesn't really
go that way. And you can'tcontrol the outside world, but you can
control the inside world, so youcan control how you're feeling about it,
(09:24):
and you don't have to necessarily feelsad or fear or discomfort if you are
okay, I'm just going to gowith the flow, and this is what
happened, And this could be positivetoo, This could be as much a
gift as if the thing I wantedhappened. So I think that's important to
look at life that way. Myfirst time setting it brought was terrifying,
(09:48):
and I did again, and Iplan to now go to school in Europe
and it just happens like that.But it takes the first step. I
think it starts with a acknowledging howyou feel about it, how you react
to the things around you, howyou react to things you don't understand,
then going into kind of accepting itand realizing you know, this is okay,
(10:13):
this is how life is. Wecan have the pain along with enjoy
and then taking it to like thenext level. And so what I mean
example, it's a perfect example too, because I think the more you do
that, you can you start tosee, Oh, if I didn't do
that, if I didn't take thatinitial step, then I would have lost
that entire experience and I would havemaybe not known how amazing or exhilarating it
(10:37):
was. And then now that youdid that, then you can go and
do something even further than that ifyou want. You could go bungee jump,
or you could you know, travel, you you traveled, you could
go live overseas. You could,you know, take take a job overseas.
You can just keep building on thatdiscomfort until it becomes your life and
it makes your whole life grow intoa much larger experience. If you hadn't
(11:01):
gone to Europe when you were twenty, how do you think life would be
different for you now? I don'tknow. I imagine if I hadn't ever
felt that discomfort of being shy andgotten over it, I suppose I would
have chosen a whole different line ofwork because I wouldn't have wanted to deal
with people, or I wouldn't havewanted to have to do things that I
(11:22):
felt were uncomfortable. So it Imean, one little choice like that could
change everything you do. So Ithink the more experiences you can have,
the more options you have in yourlife. I mean, look at I
may have done that and still nothave liked it ten times, and then
I would have chose to do somethingelse, but it wouldn't have hurt me.
It would have just made me know, listen, that's not for me,
(11:43):
or I don't like traveling, butyou know, and everyone's different that
way. But if you hadn't triedit, you wouldn't even know if you
if you enjoyed it or didn't enjoyit, you just wouldn't have done it.
What was your first line of workafter after Europe? After that,
I went into well, I workedin human resources. That's when I was
(12:05):
still in college. And after college, my first my first professional position wasn't
banking, and you know, Iwas kind of a back office type operations
person, so I didn't I wasn'treally interacting with a lot of people.
But after I did that for awhile, I took a head hunting job,
(12:26):
which is sales job and a jobwhere I had to pick up the
phone and cold call people. Iwas so uncomfortable that whole first year I
would practically be in tears just goingto work because I was so uncomfortable doing
that job. But after three years, it just I just had no problem
(12:48):
picking up the phone and talking toa stranger. So it's a matter of
just pushing through it and keeping keepingit up and saying, listen, I'm
not physically getting hurt. I'm noteven emotionally getting hurt. It's just an
uncomfortable situation to have to push through. You know. It doesn't mean you're
always rushing into discomfort like you know, it doesn't mean that. I mean,
(13:11):
many times there's something that's uncomfortable andwe decide not to do it,
and that's okay too. I don'tthink that. You It's more of a
dance. You know, I'm goingto pick these things and do these uncomfortable
things, but I'm not going todo everything all day uncomfortable, you know,
right, So there's there's a giveand take. I think with that
as well. Yeah, like,you know, I'm not asking people to
(13:35):
always jump into something new and alwaysbe fearless and confident and determined, and
you know, of course, butthere has to be some level of some
sort of balance between the two.You can't live or at least I can't
live in a world where I'm notpushed and challenged and questioned. And if
(14:01):
I had all the answers, itwould just be boring. Like that's how
I see it. I need theuncertainty as much as it makes me uncomfortable.
And that's something I've always kind ofstruggled with, is, you know,
I have to know what everyone's thinkingall the time. I need to
know what's going to happen in ayear. I need to know what college
I'm going to get into. Whatif I don't get into any, then
(14:22):
what am I going to do?Oh? Then just take a gap year
and figure it out. But that'snot how it's supposed to go. I'm
supposed to go to a school nowI'm a senior, go for four years.
You know, it's supposed to bepart of it, just just the
way it is. You know,so you never know, and you know
that uncertainty. Uncertainty is definitely uncomfortablefor most people. I mean, we
(14:45):
all like and because you're making yourplans. So if you don't know where
you're going to college, you can'tmake your plans. So you're kind of
waiting to find out what's going tohappen, so you can make plans and
that's a little bit uncomfortable, butthere's really nothing else you can do about.
So in that case, you don'teven have a choice. You just
have to you have to try toclear your clear it of your mind.
(15:07):
Maybe so you don't make yourself moreuncomfortable by losing sleep and you know,
you know, being unhealthy because you'reworried about it. So I think maybe
that's something that that is would bean interesting thing to think about, the
idea of being uncomfortable but not worryingor having anxiety or being stressed out about
(15:28):
the being uncomfortable, because then you'rejust adding more discomfort on top of right
what you already started with. Otherthan Europe, is there maybe one specific
you can highlight, one experience thatyou've been able to looking back now say
kind of thank you for the forthe learning experience, thank you for oh
(15:52):
my gosh, there's so many I'mgoing to say, I mean almost anything,
you know, I'm I was sayinglike about that that that cold calling
job. I mean, I learneda lot from doing that. I don't
think i'd want to do it again, but it did make me more more
comfortable with doing things that I initiallythought that I would dislike. I'm trying
(16:18):
to think, there's so so manyit's hard to pick one thing because I
mean, I'm I mean, I'muncomfortable almost every day with something. Oh
yeah, the little things every day. It could be it could be you
know, I I don't know.I'm uncomfortable to the minute I get out
of bed and I just don't wantto get up today and do something.
(16:41):
Or I cooked this omelet the wrongway today and now I don't want to
eat it. Or I don't wantto talk to this person but they're in
my house. What do I do? Like it's the littlest things, you
know, and then it's the bigbig things, like a big life decision
or like you know, I don'tknow, and like they I think.
There's a quote that says life withouthazards, and golf without hazards and bunkers
(17:07):
would be boring, and so wouldlife. So I mean, everything was
comfortable all day, all the time. We probably get pretty bored with it.
I would admit. Yeah, lifeis supposed to throw these random fireballs
at you, and you decide howyou react to it and what you do
with it, And I think avoidingit is the worst possible thing someone can
(17:30):
do. I think deciding how you'regoing to respond is probably probably the most
important thing. To have a challengeor something uncomfortable and deciding Okay, now
I'm faced with this, What amI going to do? Am I going
to turn around and run? AmI going to face it? Am I
going to go in a different approach? And you may make the wrong decision
and make it worse, but thenyou've learned for your future, so next
(17:52):
time it happens, you can makea different decision or do something else.
And I think that's how you knowlife, That's how life grows. Yeah,
the things that are within your control, what has been have you seen
like a change in your reaction tothose things? I think that. I
(18:17):
think the thing is to remind Andhow I do it is remind myself.
Okay, so my car broke down. I'm on the middle of the highway.
It's a very uncomfortable situation. Butby throwing a fit or getting upset
or crying or whatever other reaction,it's not going to fix the situation.
(18:37):
So I think acceptance of the situationand then moving to the next level,
What am I going to do aboutit? Is a very helpful way to
do that. And I think sometimeswe think that we're just reacting to a
situation, but really we have fullcontrol over our motions. You're not always
(18:59):
able to have full control, butwe have control if we want it to
or if we were a too soin that case, I think just just
putting those things aside and saying,Okay, this already happened. I can't
do anything about it. It's anexternal cause. So now in a matter
of keeping your mind clear and decidingwhat is what is within your control.
You know, so you don't knowwhat college you're going to get into,
(19:22):
you don't know where you're going togo, but there's other things that things
that are in your control that youcan do to make that waiting time more
pleasant while you're waiting to find outwhat's going to occur. Yeah, are
there things in your life now you'rea jewelry designer, you're an artist,
(19:42):
but you've experienced a lot of life, or there's still little things every day
that you now see like, Okay, I've gotten the acknowledgment, I've gotten
the acceptance, I've gotten the action, I've taken those steps, and I've
pushed away the stress, the anxietyor whatever because I've embraced it. You
(20:07):
know, It's kind of interesting becauseI would even say, you know,
in the creative world, a lotof times I'm working on something and it
just doesn't come out, and atfirst I might get upset or angry or
be like, oh, well,man, I worked on this for a
week and it's just a piece ofgarbage now. But then if you really
look at that and say, Okay, well, what did I learn from
(20:30):
this situation? You know, sure, I might have wasted time, I
might have wasted energy, but theremay be something really important that comes out
of that. I mean, Idon't really. I think failure is probably
one of our biggest teachers. Soto avoid failing at something, you're really
avoiding learning is what you're doing.So yeah, I think in my business,
(20:51):
I mean, I'm failing all thetime, but I'm just changing it
around and deciding how to go forwardwith the ideas that come out of that
failure. Yeah, and that's important. I mean, listen, I mean
I throw fits about it sometimes too. Don't get me wrong, I'm not
all calm, but you know,I think about it and think what good
can come out of that. Thanksfor listening to episode nine of Curious and
(21:19):
Uncomfortable. I hope you enjoyed thisepisode and all of the other ones before
that. Thank you so much forlistening and downloading and following up with Curious
and Uncomfortable. As for the future, I'm going to be taking a break
for a couple of weeks before anew episode, Episode ten comes out,
(21:41):
So if you haven't listened to anyof the previous episodes, catch up on
those for the next couple of weeksuntil episode ten and eleven come out in
about a month. Thanks for tuningin. I will see you all soon. They
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
The Bobby Bones Show
Listen to 'The Bobby Bones Show' by downloading the daily full replay.