Be Curious

Is there something communication-related in your own life that you're struggling with or would like advice on? If so, message us that concern either on Facebook (@EffectiveCommunicationwithPhil) or on Twitter (@Effective_Comm) and Phil will dedicate an episode to solving that problem

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
And now effective communication with Phil Zeller, CEO Dale Carnegie,
Southwest Michigan. Does something in the world bother you, it's
something creating stress, anxiety, fear in your life going on
in the world. Well, would you like to reduce that?
Would you like to reduce that negative feeling going on

(00:23):
in your head? Those thoughts running through your head that
is so stressful, and would you like to feel healthier? Well,
if you answered yes, and you come to the right place,
Phil Zeller effected communication, honor and a privilege to be
with you. I tell you what. Right now, people are
getting bothered by a lot of stuff and it's consuming
them and it's eating them up. You've seen this. People

(00:45):
are losing in a lot of ways, and that's not healthy.
That's not healthy for them, it's not healthy for their family,
it's not healthy for the community, and it's certainly not
healthy for the rest of the world when people start
to lose it. So the question is, though you're going
through this stuff and this stuff is eating you up,
what do you do? Because we know it's not healthy,

(01:06):
we know we don't want to be an angry, bitter
person who's this mad and screaming and yelling and complain
about everything. Nobody wants to be that person. I know
they're out there. I know there are famil people. Fill
they're out there. Yeah, I know they're out there. They're
unhappy people out there. Let us not be you and
I that are unhappy people. And eventually, if we get
ourselves in the state well we're happy and we are

(01:28):
controlling it, then we can influence them and help them
to become the same way. Wouldn't that be a beautiful world?
Imagine know the people, It's an amazing thing if we
get rid in the same page and being positive about
their life. But what has to happen. I know, when
I was a young man, some of you know my backstory.
I had time in my life where I was homeless

(01:49):
and things weren't going right and I was not happy.
I tell you what. There was a lot of things
that going on in my life at that phase of
my life that I was angry about and I didn't understand,
and I was very frustrated by what was going on
in my life. Not being able to find food, not
having a place to stay, and this stuff was eat
me up. And what I realized after a little while

(02:12):
is at first, you know, you go through the different
phases of grief, right, So first of all, it's shocked
and denial and anger, and I could go through all
the phases, depend on which model you're using to handle grief.
But I found myself in that anger stage and I
didn't like myself because I was getting so angry. I
was quick to get fired up, and there was not

(02:33):
value in it for me. Actually, I ended up getting
sick because of it. It just is after my health
and so wasn't a good thing. And when your back's
up the up against a wall like that, you got
to ask yourself. Eventually, you got to look in the
mirror and say, ah, there's only one person that could
change the situation. And it's that person in the mirror.
As much as anybody out there may want to help

(02:54):
or could help if they even knew about this situation,
they're not here. And right now, the only person here
is me. And when you look in that mirror, you say,
I've got to get healthier, I've got to get better
thoughts in my head. So what do you do? What
do you do to get rid of the negativity. Well,

(03:15):
there's a lot of things you can do to manage
your worry and stress, and today I want to focus
on one thing that I did that really helped me,
and it's helped a lot of other people as well,
and it could help you. What I found is, rather
than focusing on the things I didn't like, what if
I became curious about them? What if I started to

(03:35):
understand them? What if I started to think about them
and go get an education on them and learn about
them and read about them, so I could be better
educated on understanding What is the situations that people are
faced with, or the situation I'm faced within the moment
that's creating this anger the stress. What could I do

(03:57):
to really educate myself on it that I could understand
it and eventually maybe I could do something to make
the situation better. I remember one thing big in my
and growing up as a young man, A lot of
people talked about the environment and the climate and the
world and what you could do, and I could remember
I didn't know enough about it. So I took a

(04:19):
course in environmental physics. And I was not a physics major,
I was not an engineering major. But I thought, wow,
I could go learn how all of energy works. I
could be curious about it and I could actually be
educated understand about the needs of energy and what humanity
needs as far as energy and how to all functions
and how that affects the world we live in. So

(04:42):
I took a course in it. When I showed up,
the professor the first day asked me what my major
was and I told him it was common arts, communication
and arts right, And he said, what are you doing here?
And I said, I want to learn about this stuff
and he said, good luck to you. That's all I needed.
It was good luck to you because as I was curious,

(05:02):
I learned, I grew, the hostility went away, and I
liked myself better because I wasn't angry anymore, and I
became healthier and I live a better life because of it.
So my challenge is to you, my friend, rather than
getting angry getting upset, go be curious, educate yourself, ask questions,

(05:24):
how so then what and how does that affect us?
And as you learn this stuff, you'll feel better about
your life and the difference by being curious and learning more,

(06:10):
you'll reduce your stress and your anxiety because you become
proactive in your life, and you'll lead a healthier life.
Not go make it happen