53: Boundaries by Henry Cloud

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1. 00:00:00 Welcome back Joe B. Legg.
2. 00:00:01 Thanks Mike.
3. 00:00:03 It's been a little while.
4. 00:00:04 Yeah, we'll talk about this a little bit.
5. 00:00:06 We were talking about this before we hit the record button, but
6. 00:00:08 Joe's had some health adventures lately.
7. 00:00:10 So we'll we'll talk a little bit about it because I think it fits in well with this book, Mike.
8. 00:00:15 Yeah, but that's why the last episode didn't release until super late.
9. 00:00:21 It's Joe's fault on that case.
10. 00:00:22 So no, it's not your fault.
11. 00:00:24 Mike did all his stuff and Joe didn't do all his stuff because, you know, doctor appointments and stuff, but
12. 00:00:29 that's life.
13. 00:00:30 It happens.
14. 00:00:31 I just want to call out at the beginning here that, you know, it's it's been pretty amazing that over the couple of years that we've been doing bookworm, how consistently we've been able to
15. 00:00:41 to do release these episodes, reading these books every two weeks.
16. 00:00:45 In fact, most of the people that I talked to, they're like, you read a book every two weeks?
17. 00:00:47 Like, I'm lucky if I read one every year.
18. 00:00:49 Like, yeah, I know it's kind of the point to cause us to read more.
19. 00:00:53 Yeah, it's kind of amazing.
20. 00:00:55 You know, this this whole episode where we had stuff scheduled and we couldn't do it, whatever.
21. 00:00:59 That kind of made me look back and realize that, you know, we've been pretty consistent with this thing and it made me appreciate all the stuff that we have done.
22. 00:01:05 And it also made me very anxious to get back on the Mike and talk to you about this stuff because I realized, you know, having not done this for a little while that I really miss this.
23. 00:01:12 Yeah.
24. 00:01:13 Yeah.
25. 00:01:14 I'm with you.
26. 00:01:15 I mean, we went through, I mean, we'll get into today's book, but I think today's book fits some of the health stuff I've been fighting with pretty well.
27. 00:01:23 And I'm also about halfway through our next one as well.
28. 00:01:26 And so I'm probably going to continue talking about health stuff on our next episode too, just because our next book plays into it as well.
29. 00:01:34 So it's interesting how you can make some of those connections and like I'll spell out more of what's going on here in a little bit as it plays in.
30. 00:01:41 But before we do that, we have some follow up to go through, Mike.
31. 00:01:44 We do.
32. 00:01:45 So the first item of business here.
33. 00:01:47 Here's his first on the list.
34. 00:01:48 Yeah.
35. 00:01:48 Well, mine and yours, you know, identifying our current routines and habits.
36. 00:01:52 Sure.
37. 00:01:53 Sure. So I, this is an interesting exercise and I'm not going to go into everything with this, but I will call out one routine that I found, which, to be honest, I still haven't fully corrected, but it's something that isn't necessarily a good thing.
38. 00:02:11 So by the time our kids go to bed and sometimes bedtime, you know, is great.
39. 00:02:18 Sometimes they do exactly what they're supposed to do and exactly the order they're supposed to do it and 10 minutes later they're in bed.
40. 00:02:23 That happens about once a month though.
41. 00:02:24 The rest of the time, it can be a little bit of a struggle.
42. 00:02:28 And I find myself getting frustrated with the drawn out bedtimes, but I get it.
43. 00:02:35 I mean, if I was a kid, I would do the same thing, you know, my 10 year olds.
44. 00:02:39 Can I stay up and watch the viewer game?
45. 00:02:40 No, it's time to go back.
46. 00:02:42 And by the time the kids do go to bed because the nighttime bedtime routine can sometimes be stressful, I find myself just vegging out and turning on a movie, which I think in the last episode I mentioned that my wife is into these old movies.
47. 00:03:03 Well, turns out that I'm hooked on them now too, specifically the Thin Man series.
48. 00:03:07 So there's like these six black and white murder mysteries, which are just completely ridiculous.
49. 00:03:12 They have like, again, 1930s.
50. 00:03:14 So like there's these fight scenes, whatever, and it goes silent and they speed up the film.
51. 00:03:19 You know, it just looks completely ridiculous.
52. 00:03:21 But it's entertaining.
53. 00:03:22 For some reason, like I find myself gravitating to those recently.
54. 00:03:26 And I'll throw on a movie and just sit on the couch until like 10, 30.
55. 00:03:31 And then at that point, I'm like, oh, I should have gone to bed a half an hour ago, you know.
56. 00:03:35 And I got to figure out how to hack that.
57. 00:03:39 And I know like you get slightly above and outside the situation and it's real easy.
58. 00:03:43 Like don't turn on the movie or whatever.
59. 00:03:45 Like that's the whole value of that going through that last book, you know, the cue of the routine and the reward, identifying those things so you can make the changes.
60. 00:03:51 But making the changes is really hard, especially at night when you're really tired and frustrated at your kids.
61. 00:03:57 [laughter]
62. 00:04:04 -Yep. -Turns out.
63. 00:04:06 Like I just fought kids for half an hour.
64. 00:04:08 The last thing I want to do is focus on something.
65. 00:04:10 Yeah, I have permission to be mindless, you know, and then an hour and a half later.
66. 00:04:15 Ah, idiot.
67. 00:04:16 All right.
68. 00:04:17 That's your one and only?
69. 00:04:18 Surely you've noticed more than that.
70. 00:04:20 That's the big one.
71. 00:04:21 And again, like this is the one I'm focused on because every time it happens, I'm like, oh, I got sucked into that routine again.
72. 00:04:23 And for whatever reason, like I have trouble correcting this one.
73. 00:04:27 But I did have better success with some of my other action items, which we'll get to in a minute.
74. 00:04:32 Yeah.
75. 00:04:33 I've been trying to just notice things that happen automatically.
76. 00:04:38 And it's interesting how many exist.
77. 00:04:42 Like even little things, like the way that I take the trash cans out to the curb.
78. 00:04:46 Like just the method that I go through whenever I do that, I realize is exactly the same.
79. 00:04:52 The exact hand, the exact path, everything is identical.
80. 00:04:55 Like I just never noticed that before.
81. 00:04:57 And that's not a bad or a good.
82. 00:04:59 Maybe it's good.
83. 00:05:00 I don't know.
84. 00:05:01 But I've just noticed some of those little details.
85. 00:05:03 I think some of the ones that I should maybe alter, probably the one that really stands out to me is like a shutdown routine at the end of my workday.
86. 00:05:14 Like I have this list already, Mike.
87. 00:05:16 Like I should follow this thing.
88. 00:05:18 But it's very common that when 330 rolls around, when I should start that checklist, I'm like halfway through fixing a bug somewhere or I'm just, you know, midway through an email back to somebody.
89. 00:05:32 I'm like, I'll just finish this and then I'll go do that.
90. 00:05:34 And then I realize it's five till four and I'm still almost done.
91. 00:05:39 Yeah.
92. 00:05:41 That's the worst.
93. 00:05:42 I think you took a little bit different approach to the this action item than I did.
94. 00:05:45 So I was looking through this not just to recognize my routines and habits, but really the ones that I should be changing.
95. 00:05:51 Sure.
96. 00:05:52 And again, you know, maybe I should have taken the approach of just recognizing all the different routines and habits because I'm sure that there's other ones out there that I could also change or modify in some way.
97. 00:06:02 But this one, I noticed right away and I'm like, if I could change this, I could get back an hour and a half of my time every single day.
98. 00:06:09 So you would think it would be incentive to make this happen, but for whatever reason, I haven't trouble with it.
99. 00:06:15 Well, I can tell you that at night, when we put the girls down for bed, like my wife and I do the same thing, like we typically will just turn on a movie or TV show of sorts that we're into.
100. 00:06:28 But I'm pretty, like I've noticed that I'm sensitive to sleep, like, especially so and even more so with health issues lately.
101. 00:06:39 So when like 845 rolls around, like we'll just stop wherever we're at on it and pick it up again the next day, which is just bonkers to some people.
102. 00:06:50 Why would you ever stop midstream? Well, you got some suspense involved that's not self-inflicted. But it works for us to just stop at midstream and pick it up the next day or a couple days later whenever it is what we get back to it.
103. 00:07:04 But that's what we do. But yeah, we do. And that's kind of our, you know, just veg and have an evening and silence of sorts. So we do the same thing, Mike.
104. 00:07:13 Still watching the Great British Baking Show? No, we've been. So we actually just watched the Fellowship of the Rings. I've been reading The Lord of the Rings books at night before I go to sleep.
105. 00:07:23 And I think it's kind of cool to watch the movie when you finish the book. So I finished Fellowship of the Ring months ago. And finally, we just recently watched the movie for it.
106. 00:07:33 And now we're going to pick up the two towers and watch that probably tomorrow. So great books slash movies. By the way, I'm not sure I ever mentioned this on the show, but long term follow up to when you mentioned the Great British Baking Show the first time in episode like 15 or whatever that was.
107. 00:07:49 My wife listened to that and then got addicted to that show. Yes. You. Yeah. Go Rachel.
108. 00:07:56 That makes me happy. Yeah. I think she's over it now too though. Speaking of food, that's my next action item here. Oh, you're not going to eat any more food? No more fast food. Specifically, we call the Culvers because I have a thing for the double butter burger with cheese curds.
109. 00:08:14 I am proud to announce that I have not been to Culvers and actually haven't had fast food at all because that's the thing that I would always go to since we recorded last.
110. 00:08:25 And I have never wanted a double butter burger with cheese curds more than about two hours ago. But I knew you were going to ask me about this.
111. 00:08:36 So I was able to overcome the temptation and got a sandwich from Jimmy John's instead. Now, I guess you could say Jimmy John's maybe is fast food.
112. 00:08:46 But, see trade one for another. It's been a busy couple of weeks. And yeah, so the trigger, which is still not having a lunch, that hasn't gone away.
113. 00:08:58 But I have been much more selective about where I get food from. So, the couple of ways that this has played out. Number one, I think last episode I called up specifically Thursdays tend to be crazy busy for me.
114. 00:09:11 So this has actually gotten a lot better. My wife and I, when we do our family planning for the meals and things, we have now built into our Thursdays that I'm going to eat, even though it's super early for me.
115. 00:09:23 I'm going to eat before I go down to Oshkosh. And what time is that? I usually leave by five. Okay, so you are eating pretty early. And then I get back about nine.
116. 00:09:33 So it's generally before she's typically thinking about dinner for the rest of the family because I'm not going to be there anyways. But just knowing that I'm going to eat before I go down there, you know, we plan ahead.
117. 00:09:47 And we're able to make that work. We also subscribe to HelloFresh, which is pretty awesome. Kind of expensive, but really, really good. And so that's one time where I would typically do it that I've eliminated that completely.
118. 00:10:00 But then the other thing is that we've had vacation Bible school, which my wife is was a teacher at. And we've been doing some traveling and stuff like that. So the last couple days, you know, there hasn't been food in the house.
119. 00:10:13 So at that point, like, even if I wanted to make something, there's nothing to make. Yeah. And it's been a crazy couple weeks for me too. I ended up working something like 12 to 14 hours on Monday.
120. 00:10:25 I got done and I looked at the next day, the timing reminder, like it shows you how much time you spent on your computer yesterday. I'm like, that can't be right. That's like double my normal timer. But yeah, so I haven't had time, obviously, to go shopping.
121. 00:10:40 My wife, you know, hasn't had that time either. So we've had to make do. But things are settling down now. Finally, I think we get back into routine. But even with all of that, no culvers. Well done. I'm proud of you, Mike. Thank you.
122. 00:10:52 So I've got a couple more here. One of those is my morning routine, some of the bad habits around picking up my phone and checking email and stuff.
123. 00:11:02 I have broken this, Mike. This has been a successful bad habit redirect on my part. But basically, what I did was I leave my phone in my office. My office also is our family room.
124. 00:11:18 So what I was talking about earlier, whenever my wife and I come downstairs and we watch TV at night, I usually have my phone somewhere near me when we're doing that just in case, because that's when I'm, you know, we text or something in the midst of the show sometimes. But after that's over, we're usually going to bed.
125. 00:11:36 And I just go plug my phone in my office and it stays there until after I've had breakfast the next morning. I just make sure it's not even possible for me to do that quick check. Because if I want to do that quick check, I have to come down the stairs, unplug my phone and then unlock it and stuff. And it just feels weird to have to walk down stairs to just go quick check email. Like, it just feels wrong.
126. 00:11:58 So I don't do that. So I can't say that I've really replaced the routine, like the Q routine reward bit. I haven't really replaced it. I just eliminated the Q altogether.
127. 00:12:11 And then the others don't even play into it. So I'm going to say that was a successful action item from the last round.
128. 00:12:18 Yeah. And that's interesting because I really, I think it kind of follows up with the book Peak that we covered because in there they talk about willpower and motivation.
129. 00:12:28 And if you break down motivation, there's really two things you can do to manage your motivation. You can decrease the reasons to do something or increase the reasons to stop doing something.
130. 00:12:36 And by removing the phone from your physical area, really, you're just increasing the reasons to stop doing something. And that's, I think that's really cool.
131. 00:12:44 In fact, I recorded with, we were talking earlier, I recorded Chris Bailey, the productivity show, author of the Productivity Project and shortly another book called Hyper Focus.
132. 00:12:55 And when I was recording with him, we were talking, you know, before we hop on the microphone, "Hey, what podcast are you listening to now?"
133. 00:13:01 Hold on, I got to get my phone from the other room. So Ted called him, by the way, Ted Talks, the organization called him the most productive man that you'd ever hope to meet.
134. 00:13:11 So you are well on your way, Jobeelig.
135. 00:13:13 Yes.
136. 00:13:14 And then good company. That makes me happy.
137. 00:13:16 So my other action item here is turning stressful times into reading times. So reading a book instead of dealing with the stress.
138. 00:13:25 And that has to do with times where, like, I feel like I should be doing a whole bunch of things, but they're not really applicable.
139. 00:13:33 Or I've got situations where I have a lot of pressure on me to get some things released when I can't really do anything about it.
140. 00:13:42 And I'm just waiting on people. Like those scenarios happen a fair amount.
141. 00:13:46 And they typically happen right before transitions. So right before lunch is when I know one of those will happen.
142. 00:13:53 Another is as part of that transition, like that shutdown thing I was talking about earlier, the last action item on that list is to read until four o'clock.
143. 00:14:04 Like that is the last item on there. So in theory, if I complete that list and say, you know, it's like a 10 or 15 minute list to work through,
144. 00:14:12 in theory, I should give myself 15 minutes to read before I go, you know, reengage with my family.
145. 00:14:19 But that rarely actually happens. And I've been starting to beat that. And especially lately with some of the doctor's appointments and stuff I've been going through.
146. 00:14:27 I've been taking books with me and you know how stressful it is to sit in a doctor's office and wait.
147. 00:14:31 Yeah. I've been just reading during those times. And oddly enough, that has helped calm me quite a bit. So, which is good right now.
148. 00:14:40 So smart. I should have done that when I was going through physical therapy.
149. 00:14:43 It's been helpful. I mean, there's something about it. I mean, it's a way of, you know, kind of separating from the world that's eating at you mentally and stepping into a different world with the book.
150. 00:14:53 So I don't know. It's been a good habit to start to build in. But it's one that I continually find areas to apply that one.
151. 00:15:03 And I don't know. I like the effects of it. So I'm going to keep trying to apply it in more places.
152. 00:15:08 Nice. I like it.
153. 00:15:09 Which brings us to today's book, Mike. It does. Oh, yeah. I picked this one. This is yours.
154. 00:15:15 I got it mixed up in my head just now because I remember you saying that you read this a long time ago and you got a lot of stories that you were going to share in regards to this.
155. 00:15:24 I guess my introduction to this book was just when we read it for Bookworm. Although my wife has read it, she recommended it. A couple other people recommended it in the Bookworm Club.
156. 00:15:33 So you should definitely go over there and recommend books or Bookworm. But this is Boundaries by Henry Cloud.
157. 00:15:39 And other than my wife talking about how great this was and a couple of listeners recommending this, I had never heard of this before.
158. 00:15:46 Very interesting. Very long. Yep. Split up into three different parts. There is no way we're going to touch on all the different things in here.
159. 00:15:53 No. I just picked out a couple of the key ideas here and put them in the outline. But interested to see where this one is going to go.
160. 00:16:01 Yeah. I read this one. I went and calculated it. I read it nine years ago. And I didn't realize I had since given away the original copy that I had.
161. 00:16:15 So I bought a new one for this discussion and they revamped it last year. I didn't know that. Like they revised it and they added there's a section we'll get to later on digital boundaries.
162. 00:16:26 And that piece didn't exist in the first one at all. So that's a new piece that they added here. So this is kind of fun because it's the first time we're going through a book and I get to compare it to a different version.
163. 00:16:39 Well, I suppose we did that with the very first episode getting things done. But yeah, I get to kind of do that again. But I do know, and part of the reason I was interested in going through this again is that when I first went through this book,
164. 00:16:54 my wife and I were newly married and we were dealing with some issues with how much engagement do we have with each of our extended families? Like the families we grew up in?
165. 00:17:08 Okay.
166. 00:17:09 Because we were far enough away from my folks, but we were close enough that you could make a weekend trip. You know how if you're within three or four hours, you could drive on a Friday, spend all day Saturday and most of the day Sunday,
167. 00:17:23 and drive home and be back at work on Monday. Like you could do that. We were just inside that limit of being able to do that, which then it kind of comes with the expectation that you'll do that,
168. 00:17:36 especially if you start having kids. So it becomes like this, you're close enough that you could do this so we expect to see you more often.
169. 00:17:44 Whereas the further away that you live, the less often people tend to expect you to make that trip. And without going into all the details, my family is one that we tend to struggle to spend time with.
170. 00:17:57 So a whole bunch of boundaries need put in place there. So long story short there, reading this book at that point in time taught both my wife and I a lot about how to forgive people whenever they make mistakes.
171. 00:18:11 But don't make yourself vulnerable to being inflicted by that mistake again. So you know that taught us a lot about how to set these limits on family members or each other in some cases,
172. 00:18:23 and really helped us get our marriage off the ground being newlyweds at the time. So this book holds a little bit of a special place in my heart, but at the same time, this is a long book.
173. 00:18:35 And I feel like there's a lot of stuff in here that's just extra. So there's that piece as well. Sounds like you picked up on that.
174. 00:18:44 Yeah. Also the authors of this book, they counsel people. And they have a very clinical approach to things. And at one point in particular in this book, I found myself getting a little bit mad because they described a situation which is very similar
175. 00:19:04 to a situation that my wife and I are in, but they framed it, I feel completely unfairly. And we will get to that. It's near the end.
176. 00:19:13 Okay. But that made me kind of recognize that while they are good storytellers and well, it's very approachable, very readable. And they got all these lists and all these different points.
177. 00:19:24 And it's pretty easy to follow that there's a lot of nuance to these things as well. And the scenarios that they describe, you can picture yourself in them, but it's never exactly the same. There's little details that they're missing.
178. 00:19:38 And in this particular case, I think just like one sentence that they phrased, like really changes the whole dynamic of the situation. So we'll get there. Maybe the place to start here though is with part one and talk about what are boundaries.
179. 00:19:52 Yeah, because we could say, well, you need a boundary here and you need a boundary there, but what does that mean?
180. 00:19:57 Yeah, what exactly are they? So obviously there's the distance boundaries like you were talking about.
181. 00:20:02 Right. But they have a whole bunch of other examples of boundaries in here. Some of the examples that they share, skin, words, truth, geographical distance, time, emotional distance, other people, consequences.
182. 00:20:15 And what's interesting about this whole section here, I think, is they have a list of the things that you are responsible for within your boundaries.
183. 00:20:25 So these are the things that you can control for yourself. And this is a really interesting idea that really is at the heart of boundaries.
184. 00:20:33 And I don't know that they really spoke specifically to this point of like control, which you can control.
185. 00:20:40 A lot of this book, I felt, was very prescriptive as to like here's how you change a situation
186. 00:20:44 you don't like, but I feel like this list of the things that you are responsible for
187. 00:20:49 within your boundaries is really like a great place to start your feelings, your attitudes
188. 00:20:53 and your beliefs, your behaviors, your choices, your values, your limits, your resources and
189. 00:20:58 gifts, your thoughts, your desires and your love.
190. 00:21:01 Like you are responsible for how you allocate those things and when people are going to
191. 00:21:06 overstep the boundaries and you have to defend them, which is a whole nother point, you know,
192. 00:21:11 you really can't worry about what the other person is doing.
193. 00:21:14 All you can control is the things that you are responsible for within your own boundaries.
194. 00:21:17 I think this is a really cool idea.
195. 00:21:21 And I feel like we should point out too, this is very much a Christian book too.
196. 00:21:25 Yes, that's true.
197. 00:21:26 Like they reference the Bible and verses and stuff a lot.
198. 00:21:31 In some cases I feel like it's pushed a little, like they reference something like, "Why did
199. 00:21:37 you bring that up?"
200. 00:21:39 Like I'm not against that, but in some cases I felt like they were trying to force the
201. 00:21:44 issue when it was unnecessary and it was implied.
202. 00:21:47 So some of that kind of even got to me, but that is a point that I just wanted to make.
203. 00:21:52 Yeah, that's actually a really good point and maybe is a decent segue into my major beef
204. 00:21:59 with this book.
205. 00:22:00 I'm not sure.
206. 00:22:01 I was going to hold it to later, but it's always fun when you got one of those.
207. 00:22:05 There's a lot of stories in this book.
208. 00:22:06 You know, the very first chapter is called "Day and the Boundaryless Life."
209. 00:22:10 And it walks through this lady who's having a meltdown because she has no boundaries.
210. 00:22:15 Right.
211. 00:22:16 And then the very last chapter is basically, "Here's how things are all different now."
212. 00:22:19 And there's a bunch of other stories, fictional stories that go along with it.
213. 00:22:24 The one that I want to call out is on page 302 under step two to changing how to measure
214. 00:22:30 success with boundaries.
215. 00:22:32 And they talk about Scott and Tammy at this section and they're going to this church and
216. 00:22:39 they say it was a doctrinally correct act of fellowship.
217. 00:22:42 But one problem that didn't go away was a church's members' attitude toward attendance
218. 00:22:46 at church functions.
219. 00:22:47 They placed a great premium on being present at each and every gathering from occasional
220. 00:22:50 worship and praise concerts to midweek services and weekly small group Bible studies.
221. 00:22:54 Okay.
222. 00:22:55 So my wife and I do all those things.
223. 00:22:57 All right.
224. 00:22:58 And then they talk about the conflicts that arose when they started to miss a few meetings
225. 00:23:02 and they use a quote from one of the other church ladies and says, "I think there's a
226. 00:23:07 problem in commitment here, Tammy," Janice had replied, "If we really meant something
227. 00:23:10 to you, you'd be here, but you just go and do what you have to do."
228. 00:23:14 Okay.
229. 00:23:15 So this situation, I feel like the key sentence here, whether this is done correctly or incorrectly,
230. 00:23:23 is the guilt trip in the middle.
231. 00:23:24 If we really meant something to you, you'd be here.
232. 00:23:27 Okay.
233. 00:23:28 So when we started going to our current church, we did not go to every service.
234. 00:23:33 I have been challenged by my pastor over and over again to continually step up in terms
235. 00:23:37 of leadership.
236. 00:23:38 In fact, he's going on a trip to Columbia at the end of September and I'm preaching the
237. 00:23:44 Sunday evening service.
238. 00:23:46 Okay.
239. 00:23:47 Now that's not why I was consistent in going.
240. 00:23:50 I was consistent in going to all these different things because I liked who I became when I
241. 00:23:55 submitted myself to good leadership.
242. 00:23:57 Okay.
243. 00:23:58 Now, this whole framing of this situation here where a church lady is trying to guilt
244. 00:24:04 them into coming to church, I kind of agree with their response in that particular situation.
245. 00:24:10 But I've had that same conversation, that same scenario play out in my own life.
246. 00:24:17 I'm responsible for one of those small groups.
247. 00:24:19 There's a discipleship group with a bunch of guys at my church.
248. 00:24:22 Every once in a while, one of the guys just doesn't show up for a couple of weeks and
249. 00:24:25 it's because you can usually tell, like if they're not showing up, it's because they're
250. 00:24:30 feeling sorry for themselves or they've looked inward and now it's a negative cycle and you
251. 00:24:36 got to break them out of that.
252. 00:24:37 And as a leader, you can see those things and you can challenge people to be like, hey,
253. 00:24:40 I know you got this in you, like you need to get here.
254. 00:24:43 And every time they come, it's like, thank you, man, this is exactly what I needed and
255. 00:24:46 no, and whatever emotional problem they were dealing with gets sorted out and now everything's
256. 00:24:50 a whole lot better.
257. 00:24:51 And I don't want to project that on just like the guys that are in my group.
258. 00:24:54 Like that's, I've seen that over and over and over and over and over and over again.
259. 00:24:59 Okay.
260. 00:25:00 So I think there's a fine line between challenging somebody to be better and challenging somebody
261. 00:25:05 to just show up and that those are not necessarily the same thing.
262. 00:25:10 And in this situation, they're basically saying, well, it's the way I read it is like, well,
263. 00:25:15 it's wrong of them to expect you to be there at every single meeting.
264. 00:25:20 Maybe, but is it wrong for your employer to expect you to show up every day if you got
265. 00:25:24 a job?
266. 00:25:25 I mean, there's a lot of nuance to this situation and the way that they colored it, it's just
267. 00:25:30 like, hey, yeah, any church that requires you to be there for all these different meetings,
268. 00:25:33 like that's a cult.
269. 00:25:34 You know, I've heard those things.
270. 00:25:36 I've dealt with those things, but to tell you the truth, like I am a much better man
271. 00:25:40 today than I was when we started going to our church.
272. 00:25:43 And our church does not send people to our doors and say, Hey, where were you?
273. 00:25:47 No one's going to call me and be like, Hey, you know, where's where's the tie?
274. 00:25:51 You know, it's, it's not like that.
275. 00:25:53 But at the same time, like my pastors really do take seriously the responsibility that they're
276. 00:25:59 responsible for growing us up, you know, and then the discipleship model and trust to other
277. 00:26:04 faithful people, you know, that they can teach others.
278. 00:26:07 And that's, that's what they've allowed us to do.
279. 00:26:10 And it's not, it's not compliance for the sake of like, okay, this person's got to be
280. 00:26:14 here this many times.
281. 00:26:16 It's you want to help these people do life better and you can't do that if they're not
282. 00:26:21 there.
283. 00:26:22 But sometimes people will remove themselves and they'll isolate themselves.
284. 00:26:25 And at that point, it's not a boundary issue.
285. 00:26:27 It's a personal issue.
286. 00:26:29 And if you've got a good leader in your life, they can challenge you and say, Hey, take
287. 00:26:31 a step up, you know, and every time I've done that, it's been for my betterment.
288. 00:26:34 I have two points, one of which I want to contradict you a little bit.
289. 00:26:39 Because with that situation you're talking about with the two churches and how they guilt
290. 00:26:45 trip her versus the difference that you're talking about whenever you reach out to your,
291. 00:26:52 the men that are in your group and trying to encourage them to show up.
292. 00:26:56 The reason they're not there is very important.
293. 00:27:00 Exactly.
294. 00:27:01 Yep.
295. 00:27:02 And the repetitiveness of not showing up is important as well because so in the story
296. 00:27:06 in the book, they had friends from out of town that they don't normally get to see.
297. 00:27:12 Yep.
298. 00:27:13 Showing up.
299. 00:27:14 And that was their reason.
300. 00:27:15 That's why they weren't there.
301. 00:27:16 They also called to let them know they weren't going to be there.
302. 00:27:20 Yep.
303. 00:27:21 And that is how they got guilt tripped was during that phone call.
304. 00:27:25 That is just a lack of respect for boundaries in that case because we have that with our
305. 00:27:29 small group now.
306. 00:27:30 Every once in a while, there's a case where either we can't go or there's someone in our
307. 00:27:34 group that can't be there.
308. 00:27:36 And that's okay.
309. 00:27:38 Because we usually know why they're not there.
310. 00:27:40 If they just randomly didn't show up, well, yeah, one of the leaders would reach out to
311. 00:27:44 them and make sure everything's okay.
312. 00:27:46 But they're not going to guilt trip them in that process.
313. 00:27:49 They just want to make sure everything's like there's not someone in the hospital.
314. 00:27:53 Yep.
315. 00:27:54 And they're not going to be there.
316. 00:27:55 And they're not going to be there.
317. 00:27:56 And they're not going to be there.
318. 00:27:57 And they're not going to be there.
319. 00:27:58 And they're not going to be there.
320. 00:27:59 And they're not going to be there.
321. 00:28:00 And they're not going to be there.
322. 00:28:01 And they're not going to be there.
323. 00:28:02 And they're not going to be there.
324. 00:28:03 And they're not going to be there.
325. 00:28:04 And they're not going to be there.
326. 00:28:05 And they're not going to be there.
327. 00:28:06 And they're not going to be there.
328. 00:28:07 And they're not going to be there.
329. 00:28:08 And they're not going to be there.
330. 00:28:09 And they're not going to be there.
331. 00:28:10 And they're not going to be there.
332. 00:28:11 And they're not going to be there.
333. 00:28:12 And they're not going to be there.
334. 00:28:13 And they're not going to be there.
335. 00:28:14 And they're not going to be there.
336. 00:28:15 And they're not going to be there.
337. 00:28:16 And they're not going to be there.
338. 00:28:17 And they're not going to be there.
339. 00:28:18 And they're not going to be there.
340. 00:28:19 And they're not going to be there.
341. 00:28:20 And they're not going to be there.
342. 00:28:21 And they're not going to be there.
343. 00:28:22 And they're not going to be there.
344. 00:28:23 And they're not going to be there.
345. 00:28:24 And they're not going to be there.
346. 00:28:25 And they're not going to be there.
347. 00:28:26 And they're not going to be there.
348. 00:28:27 And they're not going to be there.
349. 00:28:28 And they're not going to be there.
350. 00:28:29 And they're not going to be there.
351. 00:28:30 And they're not going to be there.
352. 00:28:31 And they're not going to be there.
353. 00:28:32 And they're not going to be there.
354. 00:28:33 And they're not going to be there.
355. 00:28:35 And they're not going to be there.
356. 00:28:36 And they're not going to be there.
357. 00:28:37 And they're not going to be there.
358. 00:28:38 And they're not going to be there.
359. 00:28:39 And they're not going to be there.
360. 00:28:40 And they're not going to be there.
361. 00:28:41 And they're not going to be there.
362. 00:28:42 And they're not going to be there.
363. 00:28:43 And they're not going to be there.
364. 00:28:44 And they're not going to be there.
365. 00:28:45 And they're not going to be there.
366. 00:28:46 And they're not going to be there.
367. 00:28:47 And they're not going to be there.
368. 00:28:48 And they're not going to be there.
369. 00:28:49 And they're not going to be there.
370. 00:28:50 And they're not going to be there.
371. 00:28:51 And they're not going to be there.
372. 00:28:52 And they're not going to be there.
373. 00:28:53 And they're not going to be there.
374. 00:28:54 And they're not going to be there.
375. 00:28:55 And they're not going to be there.
376. 00:28:56 And they're not going to be there.
377. 00:28:57 And they're not going to be there.
378. 00:28:58 And they're not going to be there.
379. 00:28:59 And they're not going to be there.
380. 00:29:00 And they're not going to be there.
381. 00:29:01 And they're not going to be there.
382. 00:29:02 And they're not going to be there.
383. 00:29:03 And they're not going to be there.
384. 00:29:04 And they're not going to be there.
385. 00:29:05 And they're not going to be there.
386. 00:29:06 And they're not going to be there.
387. 00:29:07 And they're not going to be there.
388. 00:29:08 And they're not going to be there.
389. 00:29:09 And they're not going to be there.
390. 00:29:10 And they're not going to be there.
391. 00:29:11 And they're not going to be there.
392. 00:29:12 And they're not going to be there.
393. 00:29:13 And they're not going to be there.
394. 00:29:14 And they're not going to be there.
395. 00:29:15 And they're not going to be there.
396. 00:29:16 And they're not going to be there.
397. 00:29:17 And they're not going to be there.
398. 00:29:18 And they're not going to be there.
399. 00:29:19 And they're not going to be there.
400. 00:29:20 And they're not going to be there.
401. 00:29:21 And they're not going to be there.
402. 00:29:22 And they're not going to be there.
403. 00:29:23 And they're not going to be there.
404. 00:29:24 And they're not going to be there.
405. 00:29:25 And they're not going to be there.
406. 00:29:26 And they're not going to be there.
407. 00:29:27 And they're not going to be there.
408. 00:29:28 And they're not going to be there.
409. 00:29:29 And they're not going to be there.
410. 00:29:30 And they're not going to be there.
411. 00:29:31 And they're not going to be there.
412. 00:29:32 And they're not going to be there.
413. 00:29:33 And they're not going to be there.
414. 00:29:34 And they're not going to be there.
415. 00:29:36 And they're not going to be there.
416. 00:29:37 And they're not going to be there.
417. 00:29:38 And they're not going to be there.
418. 00:29:39 And they're not going to be there.
419. 00:29:40 And they're not going to be there.
420. 00:29:41 And they're not going to be there.
421. 00:29:42 And they're not going to be there.
422. 00:29:43 And they're not going to be there.
423. 00:29:44 And they're not going to be there.
424. 00:29:45 And they're not going to be there.
425. 00:29:46 And they're not going to be there.
426. 00:29:47 And they're not going to be there.
427. 00:29:48 And they're not going to be there.
428. 00:29:49 And they're not going to be there.
429. 00:29:50 And they're not going to be there.
430. 00:29:51 And they're not going to be there.
431. 00:29:52 And they're not going to be there.
432. 00:29:53 And they're not going to be there.
433. 00:29:54 And they're not going to be there.
434. 00:29:55 And they're not going to be there.
435. 00:29:57 And they're not going to be there.
436. 00:29:58 And they're not going to be there.
437. 00:29:59 And they're not going to be there.
438. 00:30:00 And they're not going to be there.
439. 00:30:01 And they're not going to be there.
440. 00:30:02 And they're not going to be there.
441. 00:30:03 And they're not going to be there.
442. 00:30:04 And they're not going to be there.
443. 00:30:05 And they're not going to be there.
444. 00:30:06 And they're not going to be there.
445. 00:30:07 And they're not going to be there.
446. 00:30:08 And they're not going to be there.
447. 00:30:09 And they're not going to be there.
448. 00:30:10 And they're not going to be there.
449. 00:30:11 And they're not going to be there.
450. 00:30:12 And they're not going to be there.
451. 00:30:13 And they're not going to be there.
452. 00:30:14 And they're not going to be there.
453. 00:30:15 And they're not going to be there.
454. 00:30:16 And they're not going to be there.
455. 00:30:17 And they're not going to be there.
456. 00:30:18 And they're not going to be there.
457. 00:30:19 And they're not going to be there.
458. 00:30:20 And they're not going to be there.
459. 00:30:21 And they're not going to be there.
460. 00:30:22 And they're not going to be there.
461. 00:30:23 And they're not going to be there.
462. 00:30:24 And they're not going to be there.
463. 00:30:25 And they're not going to be there.
464. 00:30:26 And they're not going to be there.
465. 00:30:27 And they're not going to be there.
466. 00:30:28 And they're not going to be there.
467. 00:30:29 And they're not going to be there.
468. 00:30:30 And they're not going to be there.
469. 00:30:31 And they're not going to be there.
470. 00:30:32 And they're not going to be there.
471. 00:30:33 And they're not going to be there.
472. 00:30:34 And they're not going to be there.
473. 00:30:35 And they're not going to be there.
474. 00:30:36 And they're not going to be there.
475. 00:30:37 And they're not going to be there.
476. 00:30:38 And they're not going to be there.
477. 00:30:39 And they're not going to be there.
478. 00:30:40 And they're not going to be there.
479. 00:30:41 And they're not going to be there.
480. 00:30:42 And they're not going to be there.
481. 00:30:43 And they're not going to be there.
482. 00:30:44 And they're not going to be there.
483. 00:30:45 And they're not going to be there.
484. 00:30:46 And they're not going to be there.
485. 00:30:47 And they're not going to be there.
486. 00:30:48 And they're not going to be there.
487. 00:30:49 And they're not going to be there.
488. 00:30:50 And they're not going to be there.
489. 00:30:51 And they're not going to be there.
490. 00:30:52 And they're not going to be there.
491. 00:30:53 And they're not going to be there.
492. 00:30:54 And they're not going to be there.
493. 00:30:55 And they're not going to be there.
494. 00:30:56 And they're not going to be there.
495. 00:30:57 And they're not going to be there.
496. 00:30:58 And they're not going to be there.
497. 00:30:59 And they're not going to be there.
498. 00:31:00 And they're not going to be there.
499. 00:31:01 And they're not going to be there.
500. 00:31:02 And they're not going to be there.
501. 00:31:03 And they're not going to be there.
502. 00:31:04 And they're not going to be there.
503. 00:31:05 And they're not going to be there.
504. 00:31:06 And they're not going to be there.
505. 00:31:07 And they're not going to be there.
506. 00:31:08 And they're not going to be there.
507. 00:31:09 And they're not going to be there.
508. 00:31:10 And they're not going to be there.
509. 00:31:11 And they're not going to be there.
510. 00:31:12 And they're not going to be there.
511. 00:31:13 And they're not going to be there.
512. 00:31:14 And they're not going to be there.
513. 00:31:15 And they're not going to be there.
514. 00:31:16 And they're not going to be there.
515. 00:31:17 And they're not going to be there.
516. 00:31:18 And they're not going to be there.
517. 00:31:19 And they're not going to be there.
518. 00:31:20 And they're not going to be there.
519. 00:31:21 And they're not going to be there.
520. 00:31:22 And they're not going to be there.
521. 00:31:23 And they're not going to be there.
522. 00:31:24 And they're not going to be there.
523. 00:31:25 And they're not going to be there.
524. 00:31:26 And they're not going to be there.
525. 00:31:27 And they're not going to be there.
526. 00:31:28 And they're not going to be there.
527. 00:31:29 And they're not going to be there.
528. 00:31:30 And they're not going to be there.
529. 00:31:31 And they're not going to be there.
530. 00:31:32 And they're not going to be there.
531. 00:31:33 And they're not going to be there.
532. 00:31:34 And they're not going to be there.
533. 00:31:35 And they're not going to be there.
534. 00:31:36 And they're not going to be there.
535. 00:31:37 And they're not going to be there.
536. 00:31:38 And they're not going to be there.
537. 00:31:39 And they're not going to be there.
538. 00:31:40 And they're not going to be there.
539. 00:31:41 And they're not going to be there.
540. 00:31:42 And they're not going to be there.
541. 00:31:43 And they're not going to be there.
542. 00:31:44 And they're not going to be there.
543. 00:31:45 And they're not going to be there.
544. 00:31:46 And they're not going to be there.
545. 00:31:47 And they're not going to be there.
546. 00:31:48 And they're not going to be there.
547. 00:31:49 And they're not going to be there.
548. 00:31:50 And they're not going to be there.
549. 00:31:51 And they're not going to be there.
550. 00:31:52 And they're not going to be there.
551. 00:31:53 And they're not going to be there.
552. 00:31:54 And they're not going to be there.
553. 00:31:55 And they're not going to be there.
554. 00:31:56 And they're not going to be there.
555. 00:31:57 And they're not going to be there.
556. 00:31:58 And they're not going to be there.
557. 00:31:59 And they're not going to be there.
558. 00:32:00 And they're not going to be there.
559. 00:32:01 And they're not going to be there.
560. 00:32:02 And they're not going to be there.
561. 00:32:03 And they're not going to be there.
562. 00:32:04 And they're not going to be there.
563. 00:32:05 And they're not going to be there.
564. 00:32:06 And they're not going to be there.
565. 00:32:07 And they're not going to be there.
566. 00:32:08 And they're not going to be there.
567. 00:32:09 And they're not going to be there.
568. 00:32:10 And they're not going to be there.
569. 00:32:11 And they're not going to be there.
570. 00:32:12 And they're not going to be there.
571. 00:32:13 And they're not going to be there.
572. 00:32:14 And they're not going to be there.
573. 00:32:15 And they're not going to be there.
574. 00:32:16 And they're not going to be there.
575. 00:32:18 And I think that reaction, you shouldn't be asking me to do this stuff.
576. 00:32:21 Maybe that's right reaction.
577. 00:32:22 Maybe it's not.
578. 00:32:23 Depends on your current situation with your boundaries.
579. 00:32:25 Most of the people at my church do not serve nearly as much as my wife and I do.
580. 00:32:30 And it's not the same issue of them saying yes to too much stuff.
581. 00:32:33 I'll just tell you that right now.
582. 00:32:34 There are a handful of people maybe who could read this book and make some adjustments.
583. 00:32:38 But again, that's not necessarily the church's fault.
584. 00:32:42 There are certain people in the church, I think, that they don't know.
585. 00:32:46 Like they take that approach.
586. 00:32:48 I need to get this thing done.
587. 00:32:49 And I know that I can ask this person and they'll get it done.
588. 00:32:52 And so they always go to the same people.
589. 00:32:54 My wife and I try not to do that.
590. 00:32:56 We try to go to the people who aren't involved with something, get them to step out of their comfort zone a little bit.
591. 00:33:01 You know, and get their feet wet.
592. 00:33:03 We have a big outreach driven church.
593. 00:33:05 So my wife and I lead the outreach team.
594. 00:33:07 And there are definitely certain people who like that's their heart.
595. 00:33:10 They want to be involved in every single one of those outreaches.
596. 00:33:13 But there's other people who won't come unless they're asked.
597. 00:33:15 And some handful of times, you know, we've prayed about it.
598. 00:33:19 Like we should ask this person about doing this thing.
599. 00:33:21 And then they get out there and they do it and they're like, man, that was so much fun.
600. 00:33:24 That was exactly what I needed.
601. 00:33:26 You know, they come alive.
602. 00:33:27 As a leader, like that's your job is to connect people with that.
603. 00:33:32 What brings them life that comes back to my life theme, you know, that I've got written out on my daily plan every day.
604. 00:33:38 I want to help people connect to their calling, discover their destiny and live the life they're created for.
605. 00:33:42 And a lot of people, at least in my own experience, a lot of people are just completely content with the status quo and they won't change unless they're challenged.
606. 00:33:50 And so, you know, you got to have discernment when people are challenging you, you know, is this the right thing?
607. 00:33:56 Is this the wrong thing?
608. 00:33:57 But most often, in my own experience again, if you've got a leader, a spiritual leader, especially who is challenging you to do these things.
609. 00:34:06 Like if they're a good spiritual leader, like it is the right thing for you.
610. 00:34:10 That's what caused me when I read this.
611. 00:34:12 Like they're painting this whole thing, like with a big red X and they're saying stay away.
612. 00:34:18 And I'm like, ah, no, like this isn't the right thing for every situation.
613. 00:34:24 And I guess, you know, I'm passionate about it because I got placed in this situation and I've flourished because of this.
614. 00:34:31 And that being said, you know, I've probably got my own boundary issues in certain areas.
615. 00:34:36 And there's things that my wife and I have adjusted certainly with the way that we interact with church people.
616. 00:34:41 But there's things that we've adjusted with everybody that we interact with.
617. 00:34:44 This is not just a church problem.
618. 00:34:46 And so that's, I guess that's the thing that really got my blood boiling a little bit was that they were painting this as a church problem.
619. 00:34:53 And there is a section in here.
620. 00:34:55 You mentioned it's a very Christian approach.
621. 00:34:57 You know, the boundaries with God is one of the chapters in here.
622. 00:35:00 But I kind of felt like this is sort of sacrilegious to say, hey, don't trust churches because they're going to ask you to do too much.
623. 00:35:09 Like that's kind of the message here.
624. 00:35:11 Yeah, I struggle with that because they call it out too.
625. 00:35:14 Like they will say some people will say this is being selfish.
626. 00:35:19 They say that.
627. 00:35:20 And yet they continue down the path and it sure sounds selfish.
628. 00:35:24 But maybe that's just so ingrained in you and I that that's just always see who knows.
629. 00:35:30 Yeah, I don't know.
630. 00:35:31 So you mentioned boundary issues and running into that.
631. 00:35:35 That's the next section of this is boundary problems.
632. 00:35:38 And this is where I want to share some of my health stuff here because in the reason, and to me, this feels like a good place to put it just because in the process of going through all of this and trying to figure out what's going on.
633. 00:35:52 I have found a fair number of boundary problems in myself.
634. 00:35:57 So it's been kind of this interesting journey because there's four main boundary problems that he kind of groups things into.
635. 00:36:08 I'm not sure like to me, these feel kind of like the extremes.
636. 00:36:12 I don't know.
637. 00:36:13 Maybe you disagree with that, Mike, but to me, these feel like the extreme versions of the boundary problems.
638. 00:36:18 I feel like there's a lot of minor issues that he kind of ignores in this, but these are kind of the big ones.
639. 00:36:24 And the summary of these, there's four different main boundary problems that he talks about.
640. 00:36:30 One is the compliance.
641. 00:36:32 They are someone who can't say no.
642. 00:36:34 They feel guilty and or controlled by others and they can't set boundaries at all.
643. 00:36:39 The next one there is the controller.
644. 00:36:41 There's someone who can't hear no.
645. 00:36:44 So they aggressively manipulate people and violate boundaries of others so they can't hear no.
646. 00:36:52 So the compliant can't say no.
647. 00:36:54 The controller can't hear no.
648. 00:36:56 The non-responsive is someone who can't say yes.
649. 00:37:00 So they set boundaries against the responsibility to love is the description he gives there.
650. 00:37:07 So they can't say yes to somebody who's offering help in some way.
651. 00:37:12 And then the last is the avoidant.
652. 00:37:14 They can't hear yes.
653. 00:37:16 So they set boundaries against receiving the care of others.
654. 00:37:19 So, and maybe that's what I was saying there a second ago.
655. 00:37:21 They can't allow someone to help them out.
656. 00:37:25 So real quickly, I'll state it a different way.
657. 00:37:28 Compliance say yes to the bad.
658. 00:37:30 Avoidance say no to the good.
659. 00:37:33 Controllers, like you said, they don't respect others boundaries.
660. 00:37:36 Non-responsives don't hear the needs of others.
661. 00:37:39 And in the book, they've got this little two by two grid, which reminds me of like the Eisenhower matrix.
662. 00:37:46 Yeah.
663. 00:37:47 Where it can't say can't hear and then no one yes on the X and Y axes.
664. 00:37:52 But if I were to plot these out visually, I think I might use like a left to right in order of degree of badness scale.
665. 00:38:03 You know, or one of those fuel gauges.
666. 00:38:07 So like the compliance where you say yes to the bad, that's obviously a major problem.
667. 00:38:17 If you're in an abusive situation that you should be getting out of, like that's no good.
668. 00:38:23 Avoidance say no to the good things.
669. 00:38:26 That's kind of like the dialing it back a little bit, in my opinion.
670. 00:38:30 And so you might miss out on some things if you're an avoidant, but you're kind of erring on the side of minimalism
671. 00:38:36 or essentialism, whatever, like I'm not going to be too busy because I'm just going to say no to all this stuff.
672. 00:38:41 And that's maybe going to hurt you, but it's not going to hurt anybody else.
673. 00:38:47 And then the other two, these are the ones where you will be hurting other people.
674. 00:38:51 And I think the difference here is the intention.
675. 00:38:55 So a controller not respecting others boundaries, you don't care what other people have to say.
676. 00:39:01 Whereas non-responsives, and this is a nuance difference here, but like you just don't hear the needs of other people.
677. 00:39:08 If you did hear them, maybe you would care, but you just don't even see it that way.
678. 00:39:13 Whereas a controller maybe sees it, but they're going to do whatever they're going to do anyways.
679. 00:39:18 They run over boundaries.
680. 00:39:19 And actually that's a point of nuance too.
681. 00:39:21 There's a couple different types of controllers.
682. 00:39:22 There's an aggressive controller where you just run over people's boundaries in a manipulative controller
683. 00:39:26 where you persuade people out of their boundaries.
684. 00:39:28 Both of those have ill intent, maybe not consciously, but you are hurting the other person.
685. 00:39:35 And so I kind of view that as more severe, at least in my own head, as like the non-responsive.
686. 00:39:42 Does that make sense?
687. 00:39:43 Yeah.
688. 00:39:44 I think it makes a lot of sense.
689. 00:39:45 You spelled it out better than I did.
690. 00:39:47 Okay.
691. 00:39:48 So if you were, like you know, the Dave Ramsey legacy journey thing, he's got like the four squares
692. 00:39:53 of progression that you go, and it's like now later us them.
693. 00:39:59 Okay.
694. 00:40:00 So the first two, I think, kind of apply here where you say, "No to the good, yes to the bad."
695. 00:40:07 And then you've got the ones where you're applying that on a exponentially increased scale because
696. 00:40:12 you're impacting other people, the non-responsives, and then the controllers.
697. 00:40:17 And so maybe that's a wrong way to look at it.
698. 00:40:20 Those different degrees of boundary problems, but that's the way it made sense in my head
699. 00:40:25 anyways.
700. 00:40:26 All right.
701. 00:40:27 So story time.
702. 00:40:28 So you remember we did, so we did the episode on the three big questions for a frantic family.
703. 00:40:35 Yep.
704. 00:40:36 So the Patrick Lincioni book.
705. 00:40:38 And the piece of that that we came away with, at least that my family came through with,
706. 00:40:45 is doing things like going hiking and getting outside and, you know, exploring the outdoors,
707. 00:40:50 which my wife has since morphed into like a mushroom hunting adventure.
708. 00:40:55 Who knew that she would get into hunting these obscure mushrooms because of that?
709. 00:41:01 Which has been a fun journey.
710. 00:41:03 Like it's been a fun thing.
711. 00:41:05 Well, that's fine, but going hiking and getting out in the woods and stuff doesn't come without
712. 00:41:11 potential hazards.
713. 00:41:12 And one of those are things like ticks and certain ticks carry Lyme disease, which is what I'm
714. 00:41:20 pretty sure is what I'm dealing with right now.
715. 00:41:24 Oh, man.
716. 00:41:25 And it's a mess.
717. 00:41:27 And if you want to know details of like symptoms and what all that, what it is, you know, quick
718. 00:41:33 Google search, I'll get you a long ways.
719. 00:41:34 But what I found in the process of learning about Lyme and learning how to deal with it
720. 00:41:40 is that there's a lot of politics in the medical world with that.
721. 00:41:46 And the generally accepted process of fighting it is antibiotics.
722. 00:41:52 Now, I went back and I did some looking, Mike, this is kind of entertaining.
723. 00:41:56 I have not been on antibiotics for almost 20 years.
724. 00:42:00 So, okay, I'm 31.
725. 00:42:04 It's been a long time.
726. 00:42:06 And one of the arguments some of the doctors gave me for giving me antibiotics was that
727. 00:42:11 they were afraid I would build antibiotic resistance.
728. 00:42:13 I was like, I've not had them for 20 years.
729. 00:42:15 I don't think I'm going to be resistant to antibiotics.
730. 00:42:20 Well, in that process, essentially what I've decided is that, you know, the antibiotic
731. 00:42:27 path, and there's some other things I have to do to like some supplements and stuff that
732. 00:42:32 help with the symptoms in the process.
733. 00:42:34 But I basically had to ignore the boundaries that the doctors were putting on me.
734. 00:42:41 And borderline manipulate my way through the medical system in order to get the answers
735. 00:42:47 that I needed.
736. 00:42:48 I've since gone on the antibiotics, which is partly why we're recording today.
737. 00:42:51 You know, I've been dealing with this for almost three weeks, which is why Mike and I
738. 00:42:54 haven't really connected.
739. 00:42:56 It's why there's been a delay in the episodes being released because Joe's been trying to
740. 00:43:02 conserve energy.
741. 00:43:04 But you know, I basically had to become a controller of some sort to fight with the doctors and
742. 00:43:11 just like, no, I'm not going to accept your no here.
743. 00:43:13 Like, let's get past that.
744. 00:43:16 So I learned that I can be a bit aggressive in that sense.
745. 00:43:19 I don't think of myself that way.
746. 00:43:21 But it is possible.
747. 00:43:23 I also noticed that there were a number of times where I don't want to say I got depressed,
748. 00:43:31 but it was disheartening and I became almost in this avoidant category where I didn't want
749. 00:43:38 to accept that this was a thing that I was going to deal with because it is possible,
750. 00:43:43 depending on who you talk to, that this can become chronic and it's just something you
751. 00:43:46 deal with the rest of your life.
752. 00:43:48 That does not sound like a fun experience.
753. 00:43:50 But I did struggle a little bit for a while with just dealing with a yes that this could
754. 00:43:57 be what's going on.
755. 00:44:00 You know, in the process, it's taught me a lot about, I think I texted you about this.
756. 00:44:06 It's like, it's taught me a lot about energy management because that's one of the keystone
757. 00:44:09 symptoms of Lyme is just pure muscle fatigue and exhaustion.
758. 00:44:15 So I've had to be very careful about where do I burn energy?
759. 00:44:19 Should I give myself a burst of two hours and get this thing done and then go lay down
760. 00:44:24 for an hour just to recover from that so I can build up energy again for later.
761. 00:44:29 So I've had to do a lot of that because my tank of how much I have to spend in a day
762. 00:44:33 is about a third of what I had before.
763. 00:44:36 That's about how it feels.
764. 00:44:38 So I'm used to just go, go going all day and if I were to have that same pace, I would
765. 00:44:42 be done by about 10 o'clock in the morning.
766. 00:44:44 I just wouldn't be able to go be any more than that.
767. 00:44:47 So it's been interesting.
768. 00:44:49 It's taught me a lot about the whole, you know, how much can you conserve and playing
769. 00:44:54 that game of refilling and spending and yeah, it's been an interesting battle.
770. 00:45:01 But I feel like this area of the book is one that it did resonate with me a little bit
771. 00:45:07 more than I feel like it did the first time I went through it.
772. 00:45:09 Now again, that's been like nine years ago.
773. 00:45:11 So it's kind of hard for me to really remember the details of that time.
774. 00:45:15 It's been long enough.
775. 00:45:16 But just seeing some of these boundary problems and seeing how each of those play into these
776. 00:45:22 different aspects of basically a fight with the medical community of sorts showed me where
777. 00:45:29 I'm willing to try to bend someone else's boundaries and how that's actually helpful
778. 00:45:34 to my own in the same time.
779. 00:45:36 So it can be interesting whenever my boundary conflicts with someone else's, which I know
780. 00:45:41 as part two here, which we'll get to in a minute.
781. 00:45:43 But it is interesting how I started to see some of those overlap, especially with the
782. 00:45:49 medical community.
783. 00:45:50 But yes, it's been a journey.
784. 00:45:54 I'm totally cool talking about it.
785. 00:45:55 I mean, Mike, you were asking me about this beforehand, but like I'm not trying to keep
786. 00:45:59 this a secret of any kind.
787. 00:46:00 So if you're listening to this and you have questions or something, shoot me an email
788. 00:46:03 or something, I'm cool with that.
789. 00:46:04 But it's been a process I've learned a lot about Lyme that I didn't really care to know
790. 00:46:09 beforehand, but the adventure continues.
791. 00:46:15 I think it's interesting that you're describing your situation of like not wanting to go
792. 00:46:19 deal with this, the way that the medical community would want you to.
793. 00:46:25 I think I agree with you.
794. 00:46:27 That's a symptom of an avoidant, but it's interesting to think of it as like refusing
795. 00:46:36 to accept something.
796. 00:46:39 The difference here, I think, is like the definition of the avoidant saying no to the
797. 00:46:43 good.
798. 00:46:44 You think about that and maybe it's just the way I described it initially.
799. 00:46:48 It's conflicting in my own head where you just say no to too much.
800. 00:46:53 But this is a little bit different because it's kind of like you wanted to maintain the
801. 00:46:57 status quo and not recognize that this thing was having an impact and at some point you're
802. 00:47:03 changing your perspective and you're saying no, I really do have this thing that needs
803. 00:47:08 to be dealt with.
804. 00:47:09 I think both of those are very valid applications of the avoidant.
805. 00:47:13 And when you phrase it that way, I totally fall into that camp too.
806. 00:47:18 Did not want to go to physical therapy for my knee after I heard it running the half marathon.
807. 00:47:24 My wife, I remember the day I told her, hey, I made an appointment with a physical therapist.
808. 00:47:29 She's like, finally.
809. 00:47:31 She's always like, hey, you should go get to check that.
810. 00:47:35 I'm not fine.
811. 00:47:36 No, this is like the little meme with the dog and everything's burning around him.
812. 00:47:42 This is fine.
813. 00:47:43 That's typically me.
814. 00:47:46 The other thing that I've had trouble with though, I think is along those same lines.
815. 00:47:52 So because I tend to be an avoidant and not recognize the impact that things have in my
816. 00:47:58 day-to-day life, the other thing that happens is eventually stuff hits the fan and then
817. 00:48:04 I turn into one of these controllers, an aggressive controller.
818. 00:48:09 So Mike is on the low end of the scale as an avoidant until it's all I can take and I
819. 00:48:13 can't take no more.
820. 00:48:15 Then I blow up and all of a sudden I don't care about anybody else.
821. 00:48:19 I'm going to get this thing done because this is my area responsibility.
822. 00:48:22 Again, that's something that my pastor has taught me and something that I've dealt with
823. 00:48:26 and grown through is like sometimes you get so focused on the task of the project that
824. 00:48:31 you're just a bulldozer and you're burning bridges with people when you're doing this
825. 00:48:35 stuff because of the way that you relate to them.
826. 00:48:38 Yeah, you're right.
827. 00:48:39 So I've grown a lot in that area but the interesting pattern for me is avoid, avoid, avoid, avoid
828. 00:48:45 then I was like, "Ah, control."
829. 00:48:47 You want to talk about some myths?
830. 00:48:49 Yeah, so there's lots of myths when it comes to boundaries and I think that these are worth
831. 00:48:54 calling out because I think these are at the root of everybody who has a resistance to
832. 00:48:59 forming these boundaries.
833. 00:49:01 Number one, if I set boundaries on being selfish, number two, boundaries are a sign of
834. 00:49:06 disobedience.
835. 00:49:07 Number three, if I begin setting boundaries, I will be hurt by others.
836. 00:49:11 Number four, if I set boundaries, I will hurt others.
837. 00:49:14 Number five, boundaries mean that I am angry.
838. 00:49:17 Number six, when others set boundaries, it injures me.
839. 00:49:20 Number seven, boundaries cause feelings of guilt and number eight, boundaries are permanent
840. 00:49:24 and I'm afraid of burning my bridges.
841. 00:49:26 So specifically, the one that I've dealt with in the past and again, I recognize now
842. 00:49:33 it's because I avoid, avoid, avoid, avoid, avoid, avoid until I turn into a controller
843. 00:49:38 is that number five, boundaries mean that I am angry.
844. 00:49:43 And again, this is not the fact that the boundary exists but my natural state where eventually
845. 00:49:49 I get to the point where I would cross the line and then turn into angry, Mike.
846. 00:49:56 I actually was angry when I was creating boundaries a lot of the time and that's not the boundaries
847. 00:50:01 fault, that's my own fault but I had that stigma where every time I create a boundary,
848. 00:50:05 it's because I'm angry so whenever I create a boundary, that must mean that I'm angry.
849. 00:50:08 Of course.
850. 00:50:09 I've since figured out a way to do that without getting all emotional but that's the one in
851. 00:50:18 particular that I've struggled with.
852. 00:50:20 Which one of these stood out to you?
853. 00:50:22 Number one, and we talked about this a little bit, if I'm set boundaries, I'm being selfish
854. 00:50:27 and I think, yes, and maybe that's true.
855. 00:50:36 I know that with, especially with this whole health thing lately, one of the things that
856. 00:50:42 I've had to do is break a boundary in that I can be sometimes prideful with things like
857. 00:50:50 getting my own lawn mode.
858. 00:50:52 That is a thing that I take pride in.
859. 00:50:54 I'm very careful, I do it a very specific way, I want it to look a certain way.
860. 00:50:59 I'm picky with it but I don't have the energy to mow my own lawn right now, Mike.
861. 00:51:05 I just can't do it.
862. 00:51:07 I've had to give up some of that boundary and say, "Okay, we'll stop being selfish in
863. 00:51:14 the sense that I'm doing this the way that I want and it's for me and let someone else
864. 00:51:18 do that."
865. 00:51:19 Break some of that lately and let others in so trying not to leave a boundary in place
866. 00:51:26 that shouldn't be there.
867. 00:51:28 That kind of plays into the myth of if I set boundaries, I can't change them like that,
868. 00:51:34 whole side of things.
869. 00:51:35 That's not true.
870. 00:51:36 I've definitely had to break some and move some around lately.
871. 00:51:41 I know with number one, the being selfish side, we talked about this.
872. 00:51:45 It feels like all of these boundaries and all the stories and everything can come back
873. 00:51:52 to me being selfish and me just doing things for myself and taking care of myself first,
874. 00:51:56 looking out for number one.
875. 00:51:58 Although that's true, you also have to think about how if you set boundaries and you put
876. 00:52:06 limits on how much time someone can take or you limit how many times a client is able
877. 00:52:13 to make iterations and different pieces like that, if you do set those boundaries, it's
878. 00:52:18 not me being selfish, it's me putting a limit on how much you can take from me.
879. 00:52:25 To me, that's a pretty big difference between those two.
880. 00:52:27 Yeah, exactly.
881. 00:52:28 I mean, we skipped over this section because there's so much in here, but at the beginning,
882. 00:52:31 they talk about how boundaries separate me and not me, two and four, and good in and
883. 00:52:37 bad out.
884. 00:52:38 And there's also a very important distinction here between burden and load in chapter two,
885. 00:52:43 whereas burden is the word that they use is like an excess burden.
886. 00:52:48 It's so heavy that it weighs you down, but that's different from a load, which is cargo
887. 00:52:52 or the burden of daily toil.
888. 00:52:54 And these are the everyday things that we are responsible for.
889. 00:52:57 So really what we're responsible for recognizing when it comes to these boundaries is what
890. 00:53:02 is the cargo, you know, the load and then what is the excess?
891. 00:53:06 What is the burden?
892. 00:53:08 And I think it's completely fine.
893. 00:53:10 And I understand why you have trouble saying like this thing used to be just an everyday
894. 00:53:14 load, but now it is an excess burden.
895. 00:53:17 And I think that's a really cool example because that shows how these boundaries are
896. 00:53:20 flexible.
897. 00:53:21 Another point they make is that boundaries are not walls.
898. 00:53:23 So it's not like the prison wall with the chain link fence and the barbed wire on the
899. 00:53:27 top.
900. 00:53:29 Like these things do allow things to pass in and out of your area, you know, and setting
901. 00:53:39 up the boundaries in a way so that the burden doesn't become excessive is really, really
902. 00:53:44 important.
903. 00:53:45 And it's kind of sad, you know, that as I read this book, I think of the times where
904. 00:53:50 I've struggled with stuff and it kind of takes a crisis to recognize the need for this sort
905. 00:53:54 of thing.
906. 00:53:55 It's kind of like, man, what can I get this before things got serious?
907. 00:53:59 What kind of do it was easy?
908. 00:54:02 Yeah, exactly.
909. 00:54:03 All right.
910. 00:54:04 So part two, boundary conflicts.
911. 00:54:06 He spends a lot of time here.
912. 00:54:08 There's what 130 pages on this.
913. 00:54:12 This is a, what is it?
914. 00:54:14 325 page book.
915. 00:54:17 So it's, it's not a short one, but boundary conflicts.
916. 00:54:21 There are one, two, three, four, eight chapters here about boundaries and well, I'll just read
917. 00:54:28 them off boundaries in your family, boundaries in your friends, boundaries in your spouse,
918. 00:54:33 your children work the digital age, which is one of the new ones that they added from
919. 00:54:38 the original version.
920. 00:54:39 I think the original was 1992, boundaries in yourself and then boundaries in God.
921. 00:54:46 Those are the different ones.
922. 00:54:47 And then he goes through and just kind of compares and shows, tells a lot of stories about
923. 00:54:51 how boundaries can be helpful in that scenario and, and spells out what those boundaries may
924. 00:54:57 look like, which I thought was kind of interesting.
925. 00:55:00 But again, it can come back to the selfish thing.
926. 00:55:03 And there's a lot that we could go through here, but you have some points that you want
927. 00:55:06 to go through that you called out here.
928. 00:55:08 Yeah.
929. 00:55:09 How did you come up with these?
930. 00:55:10 Do I even want to know?
931. 00:55:11 I don't even know.
932. 00:55:12 Things have stood out to me.
933. 00:55:13 Basically when I really liked the section, I put in my, my note outline talking point and
934. 00:55:18 then the, the thing.
935. 00:55:19 There you go.
936. 00:55:20 By the way, hearing you read out these different chapters again, it occurs to me that maybe
937. 00:55:25 the issue I have with the story about the church thing is that because he uses the church
938. 00:55:32 example that I think a lot of people will put that under the chapter 14 boundaries in
939. 00:55:38 God, when really I think that this is not as high on the totem pole of importance.
940. 00:55:44 This is really like an issue of boundaries and, and friends or maybe you could say boundaries
941. 00:55:49 and work, you know, if you were to starting with chapter eight, create like a hierarchy
942. 00:55:53 of importance that went, you know, upwards, I kind of feel like the church distinction
943. 00:55:58 makes it artificially escalated if that makes sense.
944. 00:56:02 Is that fair?
945. 00:56:03 Yeah.
946. 00:56:04 I think it's fair.
947. 00:56:05 I really wanted him to reorder these chapters.
948. 00:56:06 I'm not really sure what like I feel like he did it in the wrong order.
949. 00:56:10 He should have done boundaries in God, boundaries in yourself, maybe boundaries in your family
950. 00:56:15 next or maybe spouse than family.
951. 00:56:18 I don't know.
952. 00:56:19 You get what I'm saying?
953. 00:56:20 Like he should have started maybe at the pinnacle of the whole thing and then worked
954. 00:56:22 your way down or you could reverse it.
955. 00:56:25 I could go with that.
956. 00:56:26 But to me, it feels like they're kind of scrambled as far as the order that they should be in
957. 00:56:30 because then I get the feeling that, you know, boundaries with my phone is more important
958. 00:56:35 than boundaries with my spouse.
959. 00:56:38 Yes.
960. 00:56:39 Like I kind of got that impression.
961. 00:56:40 Like, okay, I think he should have reordered them.
962. 00:56:43 I think that's completely fair because I've done that in my own life.
963. 00:56:48 Like created the hierarchy.
964. 00:56:49 Like what are the things that are most important to me?
965. 00:56:52 And it's God, family, everything else.
966. 00:56:55 You know, and church is going to fall into that everything else category.
967. 00:56:58 Like you could create further hierarchy, but I do think that, you know, having them all
968. 00:57:02 over the place and then not calling out specific situations like that until later in the book
969. 00:57:06 and then you've got to fill in the blanks as to, well, where does this actually belong?
970. 00:57:09 Right.
971. 00:57:10 You know, right.
972. 00:57:11 I also had a bit of an issue because he was spelling out.
973. 00:57:15 So in chapter 14 boundaries in God, he talks a lot about boundaries with the church and
974. 00:57:21 it kind of bugged me that he called it boundaries in God and then talked about the church quite
975. 00:57:25 a bit.
976. 00:57:26 It's like, okay, well, I get the correlation you're making there, but don't associate
977. 00:57:30 the boundaries that I'm creating with the church as boundaries I'm creating with God.
978. 00:57:35 Those are two different things.
979. 00:57:36 Exactly.
980. 00:57:37 If I have a beef with that scenario, that was it.
981. 00:57:40 I completely agree now that being said, like I really do believe that we are in the right
982. 00:57:46 church for us.
983. 00:57:47 And so I'm not even looking for other churches that check more boxes or things like that.
984. 00:57:50 Like, I know that this is the place we are supposed to be right now.
985. 00:57:55 And so I kind of view those as kind of the same, but again, there's an important difference
986. 00:58:02 there because I mentioned in my hierarchy just because somebody at the church is asking
987. 00:58:06 me to do something.
988. 00:58:07 It's not the same as saying like, God has asked me to do this.
989. 00:58:09 It doesn't have that level of importance.
990. 00:58:13 And maybe that's part of that is my pastor's teaching because they always say like, go back
991. 00:58:17 and read it for yourself.
992. 00:58:19 Regardless of your religious belief system, I think that's a really important point is
993. 00:58:23 like whatever you're going to believe, don't believe one person who says something, like
994. 00:58:27 go back and look at your sacred texts, go back and look in your Bible and see if what
995. 00:58:31 I'm telling you is actually the truth, you know, and decide for yourself where you land
996. 00:58:36 on these things.
997. 00:58:37 Don't just take my word for it.
998. 00:58:38 Again, you know, another, another distinction.
999. 00:58:41 But some of the talking points that I had on here, going back to the original question,
1000. 00:58:45 like how did I pick these?
1001. 00:58:46 I just thought they were interesting.
1002. 00:58:47 The safe suffering one that I called out here, this is from the section on boundaries
1003. 00:58:53 with your children.
1004. 00:58:55 There's a subsection here on the boundary needs of children and it's broken down into
1005. 00:58:59 self protection, having a sense of control and choice to lane gratification of goals
1006. 00:59:03 and respecting the limits of others.
1007. 00:59:04 So I really like this section because obviously got five kids at home and trying to figure
1008. 00:59:09 out how can we allow them the flexibility to set their own boundaries, but at the same
1009. 00:59:15 time, like we tend to fall into the camp that like our two year old doesn't know better
1010. 00:59:20 than we do.
1011. 00:59:21 And it kind of frustrates me sometimes when I see people who are like trying to reason
1012. 00:59:25 with a two year old and it's like they just don't get it yet.
1013. 00:59:29 Like they haven't developed the capacity to think outside themselves.
1014. 00:59:32 All they're thinking about is the thing that they want right now.
1015. 00:59:35 So they are not going to be able.
1016. 00:59:37 They physically, their brain is not developed enough to the point where they can say, oh,
1017. 00:59:41 you're right.
1018. 00:59:42 You know, I see it this way now.
1019. 00:59:43 Like even if you do get your way, they're going to hold a grudge against you because
1020. 00:59:47 like they just want what they want.
1021. 00:59:50 But that being said, like I don't want my kids to just, you know, do it because I said
1022. 00:59:55 so.
1023. 00:59:56 Like I don't like that either.
1024. 00:59:57 I want them to know the reasons why we do things.
1025. 01:00:00 I want to lead by example.
1026. 01:00:03 So when they say, you know, why are you asking us to do this?
1027. 01:00:05 I can say it's because of the X, Y and Z.
1028. 01:00:07 And look, I'm doing it too.
1029. 01:00:09 You know, it's not just like, hey, you should do this, but I'm exempt.
1030. 01:00:13 I'm an adult, you know, I've already eaten my life's a lot of peas.
1031. 01:00:18 So I don't want to, I don't want to be like that.
1032. 01:00:20 But this whole idea of safe suffering, like they do have to learn.
1033. 01:00:25 I think and when they're in our house, like that should be the safest place for them to
1034. 01:00:30 learn this where like that should be the place where they can experience somebody encroaching
1035. 01:00:38 on their boundaries and then giving them the power to say, no, this isn't the way that
1036. 01:00:42 things should be.
1037. 01:00:43 But again, like we were talking about, we didn't learn this stuff until we went through
1038. 01:00:48 the crisis.
1039. 01:00:49 So give them a mini crisis that they can solve even at eight, 10 years old and they
1040. 01:00:54 start to identify when people are encroaching on their boundaries and they've learned these
1041. 01:00:59 skills for self protection and they have the control so that when they get out into the
1042. 01:01:05 world, like they don't find themselves in a situation and I'll just use a, I guess, a
1043. 01:01:09 job situation, you know, where your, the boss is always overstepping the boundaries that
1044. 01:01:13 they know kind of what their rights are and they've had enough practice protecting their
1045. 01:01:18 own boundaries that that's a lot easier situation to deal with.
1046. 01:01:22 Does that make sense?
1047. 01:01:23 Maybe a good story to throw in here is, you know, we have a three year old girl, Rose
1048. 01:01:30 and Rose is one who likes to climb a lot and I had her over at a park a while back and
1049. 01:01:42 they had one of those, it was like a rope tower of sorts.
1050. 01:01:45 So it kind of looked like a pyramid but it was just this rope structure that you could
1051. 01:01:49 climb.
1052. 01:01:50 And the top of it is, I don't know, it's probably about 12 feet up off the ground and I looked
1053. 01:01:57 over at one point and she was at the top of it and couldn't get down, you know, classic.
1054. 01:02:05 And to me, this was a perfect scenario to do what you're talking about with safe suffering
1055. 01:02:11 because she's crying, she's 12 feet in the air, she's three years old.
1056. 01:02:19 And the question that I posed to her was, well, how did you get up there?
1057. 01:02:23 Well, I climbed.
1058. 01:02:24 Well, how would you get down?
1059. 01:02:26 Well, I can't get down.
1060. 01:02:27 I was like, well, you got up there.
1061. 01:02:30 Can you reverse what you just did to get down?
1062. 01:02:33 Well, of course she freaks out and can't handle it.
1063. 01:02:36 So I let her stay there for a little bit.
1064. 01:02:38 And I told her, you know, I will give you five minutes.
1065. 01:02:43 You're okay.
1066. 01:02:44 Like I'm right here.
1067. 01:02:45 I'm going to give you five minutes and if you can't find a way down in five minutes,
1068. 01:02:49 I will help you get down.
1069. 01:02:51 But I'm not going to help you until then.
1070. 01:02:53 Well, she didn't like that.
1071. 01:02:55 But after about 30 seconds, because, you know, the attention span of a three year old, she
1072. 01:03:01 started trying to come down and she made it.
1073. 01:03:04 I never touched her.
1074. 01:03:06 She did the entire thing on her own.
1075. 01:03:08 But boy, she had a lot of tears on her face.
1076. 01:03:11 And sometimes she got down, but she was thrilled to death that she got it figured out once
1077. 01:03:15 she got to the bottom.
1078. 01:03:16 Yep.
1079. 01:03:17 And three minutes later, she was at the top again and it wasn't a big deal because then
1080. 01:03:21 she could come down on her own and she knew that.
1081. 01:03:23 And I didn't have to watch her after that.
1082. 01:03:25 She was fine.
1083. 01:03:26 But it was, it was perfect.
1084. 01:03:28 I mean, she could go play.
1085. 01:03:31 She could explore.
1086. 01:03:33 She got herself in a bind and she didn't like it.
1087. 01:03:37 But she, there wasn't, like it wasn't life threatening.
1088. 01:03:40 It wasn't like she was going to get seriously hurt in any way.
1089. 01:03:42 She might have some bumps or scrapes if she fell.
1090. 01:03:44 The way the thing was built, it wasn't like it was going to give her a hard landing in
1091. 01:03:47 any way.
1092. 01:03:48 So she would have been fine even if she did fall, but it wouldn't have broken a bone.
1093. 01:03:53 It wouldn't have, you know, she was fine.
1094. 01:03:55 She was safe, but she was in a place where she was stretched further than she wanted to
1095. 01:03:59 be.
1096. 01:04:00 So I feel like that's what you're talking about here where, you know, when kids are
1097. 01:04:04 at home, we can let them, you know, get outside their comfort zone and, and deal with difficult
1098. 01:04:12 situations.
1099. 01:04:13 But we can do that in a way that I guess protects them from long term problems, I guess.
1100. 01:04:19 Maybe is the way to put it.
1101. 01:04:20 But it's, you know, safe suffering.
1102. 01:04:22 Yeah, exactly.
1103. 01:04:23 I love that example.
1104. 01:04:25 I'll give you another example with my 10 year old.
1105. 01:04:28 So my 10 year old and my wife and I were actually talking about this at dinner the other, the
1106. 01:04:31 other night, he tends to be a peacemaker.
1107. 01:04:36 So whenever there is any conflict, he is going to try and resolve the conflict, usually by
1108. 01:04:42 doing the thing that he knows we would like him to do.
1109. 01:04:47 One of the things we recognized because we've got our start doing, stop doing, keep doing
1110. 01:04:51 questions that we ask one of our every one of our family meetings, we recognized that
1111. 01:04:58 he, it affects his mood, but he never says anything.
1112. 01:05:03 But that what we recognized was that, and after we saw, you know, that this was happening,
1113. 01:05:08 we had a conversation with him and we got to the bottom of it, you know, like, okay,
1114. 01:05:12 this, this actually does make me upset when you ask me to do all this stuff because I
1115. 01:05:15 don't think it's fair, you know, but he never verbalizes that until we, we ask him what
1116. 01:05:21 is wrong.
1117. 01:05:23 And we basically told him, like, you know, if you think that what we're asking you to
1118. 01:05:27 do isn't fair, like, we want you to tell us that we want to know how you feel.
1119. 01:05:32 And I think that's another example of pushing back a little bit and protecting your own
1120. 01:05:37 self interests.
1121. 01:05:38 I mean, in the moment, my wife doesn't realize that asking him to help out with this additional
1122. 01:05:44 thing because she knows he's going to follow through and do it, do it.
1123. 01:05:47 And she's trying to take five kids, grocery store, whatever, because I'm working, you
1124. 01:05:52 know, she's just trying to like end the, end the trip without taking anybody to the hospital.
1125. 01:05:57 That's really the goal.
1126. 01:05:59 Yeah.
1127. 01:06:00 So how do I do that?
1128. 01:06:01 Well, I know Toby will help with this, you know, so I was going to do that.
1129. 01:06:04 And we recognize that, like, you know, we want to give you the ability to say no to
1130. 01:06:09 some of these things, you know, obviously there are going to be points where, like,
1131. 01:06:13 in the parking lot at Costco, when we're trying to get everybody in the car, like,
1132. 01:06:16 that's not the time to say, you know, I want to do this anymore.
1133. 01:06:19 But we do want to hear you, how you feel about these things.
1134. 01:06:23 And I guess that's like a very different example because it's not the emotional reaction that
1135. 01:06:29 indicates that there's a problem.
1136. 01:06:31 It's having to unearth those things.
1137. 01:06:33 But I feel like myself, you know, my own problems with being an avoidant and then eventually
1138. 01:06:38 becoming a controller like he's basically the miniature version of me.
1139. 01:06:42 So I see, I see a lot of that same stuff in him and a lot of times, you know, my wife,
1140. 01:06:48 I'll, I'll say something.
1141. 01:06:49 My wife will be like, well, why are you reacting that way?
1142. 01:06:51 Because he's thinking this.
1143. 01:06:52 Oh.
1144. 01:06:53 So it is kind of cool to be able to recognize those things and then address them because
1145. 01:07:00 it, if you, if you just wait till there's a crisis, sometimes you won't know that there's
1146. 01:07:03 a crisis, you know, he may get to college and then this becomes a big deal because he
1147. 01:07:08 never dealt with this and never learned these skills.
1148. 01:07:10 So I think that both sides of this, you know, you need to be able to, to temper things and
1149. 01:07:14 not freak out and figure out how to, how to solve stuff.
1150. 01:07:17 But also on the other side of that, you know, don't just be the, the person who's always
1151. 01:07:21 keeping the peace and compliant, like learn to stand up for yourself.
1152. 01:07:24 So you have another point here, transference feelings.
1153. 01:07:29 I think I know what you're talking about here.
1154. 01:07:30 Yeah.
1155. 01:07:31 But you're going to explain this.
1156. 01:07:33 Okay.
1157. 01:07:34 So this is from the section chapter 11 boundaries and work.
1158. 01:07:39 And again, I just kind of picked out the things that stood out to me, but the, there's
1159. 01:07:44 nine different problems that he identifies.
1160. 01:07:46 Problem one, getting settled with another person's responsibilities.
1161. 01:07:50 Problem two, working too much overtime.
1162. 01:07:52 Problem three, misplaced priorities.
1163. 01:07:54 Problem four, difficult coworkers.
1164. 01:07:56 Problem five, critical attitudes.
1165. 01:07:57 Problem six, conflicts with authority.
1166. 01:08:00 Problem seven, expecting too much of work.
1167. 01:08:03 Problem eight, taking work related stress home and problem nine, disliking your job.
1168. 01:08:06 And I think that there's probably a lot of combinations of these, but problem six conflicts
1169. 01:08:13 with authority.
1170. 01:08:14 This is where he talks about the idea of transference feelings, which are strong reactions.
1171. 01:08:20 To authority figures.
1172. 01:08:24 I have dealt with this myself.
1173. 01:08:26 In fact, I was on a missions trip.
1174. 01:08:28 My junior year of, of college, I went to North Myrtle Beach in South Carolina for 10 weeks
1175. 01:08:35 on a missions trip with campus crusade.
1176. 01:08:39 And with campus crusade, you basically get there.
1177. 01:08:41 The first five weeks, the staff is all there.
1178. 01:08:43 They're sewing into you.
1179. 01:08:45 They're doing discipleship.
1180. 01:08:46 And one of the staff guy that I was placed under, he told me right before they left.
1181. 01:08:52 So at the halfway mark, basically the staff all leaves and then the college kids run the
1182. 01:08:57 rest of the outreach.
1183. 01:08:59 But right before he left, he had a meeting with me.
1184. 01:09:02 And I remember he told me one of the things that I needed to improve, and I forget exactly
1185. 01:09:07 how he phrased it, but basically like, this is something you got to deal with.
1186. 01:09:10 He's like, you really have a problem with authority.
1187. 01:09:13 Anytime anybody asks you to do anything.
1188. 01:09:16 Your initial reaction is no.
1189. 01:09:20 And he was right.
1190. 01:09:21 It took me a long time to overcome that.
1191. 01:09:23 And I think I still deal with that to some degree.
1192. 01:09:26 Of course not.
1193. 01:09:27 Surely you don't.
1194. 01:09:28 But this is interesting because there's a root for all of this stuff.
1195. 01:09:35 So why do I react strongly to authority figures that asked me to do these things?
1196. 01:09:43 And I think that part of it was a mistrust of, because I was home schooled for most of
1197. 01:09:52 my childhood.
1198. 01:09:54 I went to high school and then I went to college.
1199. 01:09:58 And I actually really liked home schooling.
1200. 01:10:00 My wife and I home school.
1201. 01:10:01 I think there's a lot of benefits to home schooling.
1202. 01:10:03 But I did not have a whole lot of experience with a teacher authority figure by the time
1203. 01:10:10 I got to college.
1204. 01:10:11 I'm living on my own and I got to figure all this stuff out.
1205. 01:10:15 And again, I think that's completely, you can completely overcome that as a home school
1206. 01:10:20 family.
1207. 01:10:22 But this is just one thing I recognize in reading this book that I didn't get this.
1208. 01:10:27 So my freshman year of college, I was in an intro to theology class.
1209. 01:10:35 And I disagreed with something that my teacher said.
1210. 01:10:38 It was a Catholic school that I was going to.
1211. 01:10:41 And I actually quoted a Bible verse in the middle of the class, contradicting a point
1212. 01:10:48 that the teacher was making.
1213. 01:10:49 She didn't like that.
1214. 01:10:51 She got me back though, because at the end of the year, we had a book report that we
1215. 01:10:54 were doing, literally a book report.
1216. 01:10:56 So read a book and then write what you think about two page book report.
1217. 01:11:01 It was worth, though, I think it was a sixth of our entire grade.
1218. 01:11:06 And she called me into her office after I wrote the book report.
1219. 01:11:09 I was a straight-A student up until that point.
1220. 01:11:12 And she accused me of plagiarism.
1221. 01:11:14 And she's like, I'm going to take you before the academic review board and you might get
1222. 01:11:18 kicked out of school.
1223. 01:11:19 And I'm like, are you kidding me?
1224. 01:11:21 Like, it's a book report.
1225. 01:11:24 And she was right.
1226. 01:11:25 I hadn't technically cited this one section correctly, you know, because who cares?
1227. 01:11:30 The MLA standards or whatever.
1228. 01:11:32 And I get it.
1229. 01:11:33 I wrote a book and I understand the importance of citing things.
1230. 01:11:37 But she obviously knew there's no malicious intent here.
1231. 01:11:40 She knew that I did good work other times.
1232. 01:11:43 I firmly believe she kept this in her back pocket until the end of the year so she could
1233. 01:11:48 get me back.
1234. 01:11:49 So she's like, all right, fine.
1235. 01:11:50 I know you didn't intend to do this.
1236. 01:11:53 You distilled it wrong.
1237. 01:11:54 I'm going to give you zero on the paper.
1238. 01:11:55 So my grade went in that class from an A to a C.
1239. 01:11:59 And I recognize even now I have problems articulating my own ideas.
1240. 01:12:06 I've had two different people tell me this and you were there with one of them at Max
1241. 01:12:10 Stock where people say, you know, you've got enough credibility to phrase these ideas
1242. 01:12:18 as your own.
1243. 01:12:19 You don't have to cite every single idea from every single book that you ever read.
1244. 01:12:24 I have a tendency to do that.
1245. 01:12:26 And I think it comes back to this where it's like, well, she got me once, you know, and
1246. 01:12:31 somebody's going to get me again if I pawn this idea off as my own.
1247. 01:12:35 So I want to make sure I give credit where credit is too.
1248. 01:12:38 This is really hard for me.
1249. 01:12:40 And yeah, so that's one way that this is played out.
1250. 01:12:43 Yeah.
1251. 01:12:44 I'm with you on having issues with authority.
1252. 01:12:48 I run my own business.
1253. 01:12:51 Just going to say that because I can't handle working for somebody else.
1254. 01:12:54 It doesn't work well.
1255. 01:12:56 Because I just don't like taking orders from other people.
1256. 01:13:00 So I took it the other way.
1257. 01:13:02 I just decided, you know, if I can't handle, you know, working for someone, I might as
1258. 01:13:06 well run my own.
1259. 01:13:08 So here we are.
1260. 01:13:10 That's what I, the way I ended up doing it.
1261. 01:13:11 But I hear you though on, you know, the citing bit, I'm, you know, because of the work that
1262. 01:13:18 I do, I'm very particular to make sure that whenever someone has an idea, I'm giving credit
1263. 01:13:23 as to whose idea that was.
1264. 01:13:24 But I think that's a little bit different than, you know, we read books all the time.
1265. 01:13:29 We learn a lot about them.
1266. 01:13:31 You know, if we're calling out a significant piece about a book, I think it's helpful to
1267. 01:13:35 cite where we can't, where we got that.
1268. 01:13:37 But frankly, we've read enough books at this point that you can start to create like themes.
1269. 01:13:44 Like you see themes across a bunch of books, you know, the concept of getting everything
1270. 01:13:49 out of your head.
1271. 01:13:50 You know, a lot of times that's attributed to David Allen with getting things done.
1272. 01:13:54 But how many books have we read about doing like mission statements?
1273. 01:13:58 So if you and I are were to sit down and talk to somebody about doing mission statements,
1274. 01:14:02 we probably wouldn't attribute that to a book because it's brought up in how many of
1275. 01:14:08 the books have we read now?
1276. 01:14:09 Like it seems like it's coming up all the time.
1277. 01:14:13 And that is a thing that I feel like, you know, as you start to, you know, accrue enough,
1278. 01:14:20 you know, knowledge in your head.
1279. 01:14:21 Like at some point, you're, you're starting to share ideas that you have formulated across
1280. 01:14:27 all of it.
1281. 01:14:29 So there's no point in citing it, which I think is where you're at, Mike, and what
1282. 01:14:33 you're coming to.
1283. 01:14:34 And yet you feel the urge to continue to cite things.
1284. 01:14:37 So stop it.
1285. 01:14:38 Yeah.
1286. 01:14:39 So like the getting things done idea specifically, that's, that's a great example because I think
1287. 01:14:43 it was David Allen who said specifically on the paper off the mind.
1288. 01:14:49 Okay.
1289. 01:14:50 So that's not solely David Allen GTD canon.
1290. 01:14:54 But in my mind, every time I talk about capturing things that I'm thinking about using drafts
1291. 01:14:59 or whatever, like that's not entirely original either.
1292. 01:15:03 But I mean, like that's, that's me taking the David Allen idea and applying it to fit
1293. 01:15:07 my personal situation, but still the tendency is always to, Hey, David Allen says, you know,
1294. 01:15:12 where it's just like, no, this is something that I do and I can own that and I can own
1295. 01:15:17 that and I can talk about that without giving credit to David Allen for living my life.
1296. 01:15:22 All right.
1297. 01:15:23 So there are some areas here that I feel like, you know, some of these are easy, like so
1298. 01:15:31 boundaries in your family, boundary in your friends, you know, boundaries and work is
1299. 01:15:36 maybe an easier one to set boundaries.
1300. 01:15:39 But there's a lot here, Mike.
1301. 01:15:40 So which of these areas do you feel like you have the most trouble setting boundaries?
1302. 01:15:45 You have the most trouble setting boundaries within?
1303. 01:15:47 Oh, it's a tough one.
1304. 01:15:49 I think that boundaries and the digital age, which is the next chapter that we're going
1305. 01:15:54 to get into, that's probably one of the areas where I have trouble setting boundaries.
1306. 01:16:00 You mentioned specifically the shutdown routine.
1307. 01:16:04 That's something that I struggle with.
1308. 01:16:05 And I mentioned, you know, the other day I found that I had been working for 12 hours
1309. 01:16:09 on a Monday because I just couldn't disconnect.
1310. 01:16:13 I think also boundaries with my children do a pretty good job of this.
1311. 01:16:17 But like I said, there's there's five kids and every one of them is so different that
1312. 01:16:22 I really need to be on my toes in order to help each individual kid set their own boundaries
1313. 01:16:29 and develop these boundaries.
1314. 01:16:31 And again, there's a whole lot in here.
1315. 01:16:33 They talk about the season boundaries, the age appropriate limits training from birth
1316. 01:16:37 to 18 years, you know, and the process of discipline and consequences and things like
1317. 01:16:43 that.
1318. 01:16:44 So there's a lot of formulas and stuff that you can apply here, but the way that they,
1319. 01:16:48 the way that it gets applied, I think with each kid is very different.
1320. 01:16:53 So reading through that just made me realize that like even even if I've done great up until
1321. 01:16:58 now, which there's definitely stuff like I shared, you know, that we've missed, I really
1322. 01:17:03 need to constantly be putting a priority on this boundaries in my family.
1323. 01:17:08 Like I've done a, I've had to learn how to do this because I worked with a family business
1324. 01:17:14 and I had to have a difficult conversation with my dad at one point and be like, you
1325. 01:17:17 know what, I want to try this other thing, which at the time, you know, it didn't go
1326. 01:17:22 real well.
1327. 01:17:23 Now it's worked out great.
1328. 01:17:25 But yeah, so I think specifically the ones that I'm concerned about are the boundaries
1329. 01:17:30 with the digital age.
1330. 01:17:31 That's one that has significant room for improvement probably.
1331. 01:17:36 And then the boundaries with children, which is just something that I want to keep an eye
1332. 01:17:40 on.
1333. 01:17:41 Yeah, I think I would say it's boundaries in myself because I feel like it's a sense
1334. 01:17:47 of like, I'll make commitments with myself, take the shut down ritual that we keep, you
1335. 01:17:52 know, belaboring here.
1336. 01:17:53 You know, that, that thing is a commitment with myself to do tasks before I finish up
1337. 01:17:59 my day.
1338. 01:18:00 And yet I don't follow through on it.
1339. 01:18:02 So, and it's pretty common, it seems like for me is I will make commitments to do something
1340. 01:18:08 like this is the thing I need to do at this time.
1341. 01:18:11 And I fail to do it.
1342. 01:18:12 So I feel like I'm pretty good with things like diet and such, but even more so lately
1343. 01:18:19 with health issues, but you know, when it comes to committing to a task at a certain
1344. 01:18:26 time, like that's the area that I feel like I continually struggle with.
1345. 01:18:29 Yeah, it makes sense.
1346. 01:18:31 So let's talk about digital stuff because this is fun.
1347. 01:18:34 Yeah, so it's interesting to know that this wasn't in the original version, although I
1348. 01:18:38 kind of anticipated that because my cover of mine says, you know, updated and I figured
1349. 01:18:42 the digital stuff was the section that they added.
1350. 01:18:45 So this was the exact opposite of the getting things done, updated and revised.
1351. 01:18:52 I thought this was the best section of the book, honestly.
1352. 01:18:55 Why?
1353. 01:18:56 Well, there's a bunch of really cool ideas in here, which instead of like avoiding the
1354. 01:19:01 issue, which is kind of what David Allen did, he's just making stuff evergreen.
1355. 01:19:04 So I don't have to update it anymore.
1356. 01:19:05 I talk about the apps.
1357. 01:19:07 They took this head on and they established, I thought, some really cool mental models
1358. 01:19:11 for how to think of these things.
1359. 01:19:13 And then also a lot of different things challenging me regarding action items.
1360. 01:19:18 So I actually wrote down a bunch of stuff in the, the mine node file.
1361. 01:19:22 Later on, I went back and I revised some of this and I didn't write it all down, but
1362. 01:19:25 there's a ton of things that I had just in this section.
1363. 01:19:27 I'm like, Hey, I should think about this as an action item.
1364. 01:19:30 The first thing that they call out is the on call life.
1365. 01:19:33 I, I, this isn't an original idea, but I really like the progression that they outlined here,
1366. 01:19:40 where it was initially doctors and surgeons who had pagers.
1367. 01:19:45 And then from there, it was cell phones and a lot of people had them, but they weren't
1368. 01:19:50 smartphones.
1369. 01:19:51 So people could call you, but they couldn't, you know, grab your attention at any given
1370. 01:19:54 point with the, the dings and stuff.
1371. 01:19:56 And then it was internet and email where you're at your computer still, but email was the
1372. 01:20:02 beginning of opening the floodgates and now you've got smartphones.
1373. 01:20:06 So you can get all this stuff all the time.
1374. 01:20:08 And then social media where you can get notified every time somebody likes a post that you
1375. 01:20:12 have, like you can see when you describe it that way, how this is snowballing into our
1376. 01:20:18 current situation.
1377. 01:20:19 I think it's interesting because I've been very particular about my digital boundaries,
1378. 01:20:24 probably a lot more than you, I would guess.
1379. 01:20:28 Mike, over the last, at least a year or so, some that's probably to do with the fact that
1380. 01:20:32 I build the stuff, not the hardware, but of course I'm building for the software and
1381. 01:20:37 stuff.
1382. 01:20:38 But here's a fun story because I went and I was running sound here recently and my wife
1383. 01:20:45 and girls came along with and I had, you know, I was running sound for the band and this was,
1384. 01:20:53 it wasn't a church thing, it was an outdoor family friend sort of thing.
1385. 01:20:58 And I was playing some background music on my phone in between.
1386. 01:21:01 So my phone was out, but it was airplane mode and stuff because I don't want, you know,
1387. 01:21:05 dings and stuff going through the whole sound system, you know, that's playing to the entire
1388. 01:21:08 neighborhood.
1389. 01:21:09 You know, that wouldn't be so great.
1390. 01:21:11 But I had my phone there.
1391. 01:21:13 Well, one of my girls was eating like a brownie or something like that and had it all over
1392. 01:21:20 her.
1393. 01:21:21 She was just covered in chocolate and she had just taken another one and jammed it in her
1394. 01:21:26 mouth.
1395. 01:21:27 So her mouth was like packed full like a chipmunk and just covered.
1396. 01:21:30 It was just classic.
1397. 01:21:31 It was, it was classic.
1398. 01:21:33 It didn't even occur to me to take a picture of this.
1399. 01:21:36 Like it didn't even register because that's just not a thing that I feel like we do as
1400. 01:21:41 a family.
1401. 01:21:42 Like we take pictures of our kids, but it's not everything.
1402. 01:21:45 Like it's, it's one off cases where we'll do that.
1403. 01:21:49 Well, one of the guys that was sitting next to me was like, "Joe, where's your phone?"
1404. 01:21:51 It's like, "Oh, it's right there."
1405. 01:21:52 It's like, "You're not going to take a picture?"
1406. 01:21:54 So he takes my phone, he's like, "Quick."
1407. 01:21:56 He like sticks it in front of my face because it's an iPhone 10.
1408. 01:21:59 So he's like getting it to unlock by looking at my face.
1409. 01:22:02 So he points it at me, unlocks it and then pulls up the camera and starts taking pictures
1410. 01:22:07 over.
1411. 01:22:08 Like, "Okay, great."
1412. 01:22:09 But I'm not going to do that because I don't feel like I have to document absolutely
1413. 01:22:14 everything my kids do.
1414. 01:22:17 So I'm not going to share those online.
1415. 01:22:19 I'm not going to constantly take pictures of them.
1416. 01:22:23 It's just not a thing we do.
1417. 01:22:25 I don't want the digital to become more important than the in real life, the IRL scenario.
1418. 01:22:31 So I don't want those priorities to get out of line.
1419. 01:22:34 I agree with you.
1420. 01:22:35 I think I've noticed my wife is a professional photographer.
1421. 01:22:39 So for her job, she is a wedding photographer.
1422. 01:22:42 And she, in work mode, is trained to recognize those moments and take pictures.
1423. 01:22:48 So it's kind of weird for me when stuff like that happens at home and she doesn't think
1424. 01:22:52 to grab her phone and do it.
1425. 01:22:54 But I get it.
1426. 01:22:55 It's a different mode.
1427. 01:22:56 And I am completely okay with that.
1428. 01:22:58 I think I tend to think more like, "Well, I should use technology in this particular
1429. 01:23:03 way."
1430. 01:23:04 But really, this is a little bit different than the on-call life because you can have
1431. 01:23:09 your phone.
1432. 01:23:10 You can use your phone a lot.
1433. 01:23:11 You can use your technology a lot.
1434. 01:23:13 But if you're not using it to respond to notifications and email, I think that's really
1435. 01:23:17 the fine line with the on-call life in really FOMO, which is the next point here in the outline.
1436. 01:23:22 Really the progression that they outline here, it just illustrates the fact that if you don't
1437. 01:23:26 ever wrangle your notifications, if you don't take your phone and put it on airplane mode,
1438. 01:23:31 that the time and space boundaries no longer apply to people.
1439. 01:23:35 And that's the thing that is relevant, I think, to this particular book that we're covering
1440. 01:23:39 in this episode is it's all about boundaries.
1441. 01:23:41 And so if you're not careful, yeah, any sort of technology, internet connected technologies,
1442. 01:23:47 especially, it has the potential to just completely shatter those boundaries.
1443. 01:23:52 And so you have to take control of that situation and you have to enforce those boundaries.
1444. 01:23:57 One of the points I wrote down was use boundaries to choose freedom and avoid destruction.
1445. 01:24:02 So you're putting the boundaries in and I'm glad you shared that story because that's
1446. 01:24:06 a perfect example.
1447. 01:24:07 I put this on airplane mode, so I'm going to have the freedom to be in this moment and
1448. 01:24:12 enjoy it.
1449. 01:24:13 And I'm not going to have to worry about an email from a client who, like their server
1450. 01:24:18 isn't working at this particular time.
1451. 01:24:19 Well, maybe you've got things set up that'll notify you that anyways.
1452. 01:24:23 But you get my point, like you can choose where the boundaries are going to be and then you
1453. 01:24:27 can avoid whatever time that you want to spend in a particular mode or in a particular way
1454. 01:24:33 that completely being derailed by whatever ding you happen to get.
1455. 01:24:37 So FOMO.
1456. 01:24:38 Yeah.
1457. 01:24:39 Do you deal with this?
1458. 01:24:40 Well, I'd like the discussion that they had on this.
1459. 01:24:43 I don't think I do deal with this.
1460. 01:24:44 There are times when I don't look at, like I like Twitter and Twitter is probably my
1461. 01:24:48 guilty pleasure.
1462. 01:24:49 Although, no, they broke all the third party Twitter apps.
1463. 01:24:52 Maybe not so much.
1464. 01:24:56 But like there are days when I'm just working on stuff and I don't check in with Twitter
1465. 01:25:02 and then I look at it at the end of the day and I see the 350 or whatever and he's like,
1466. 01:25:06 "Oh, okay, well, I'm not going to read through all this."
1467. 01:25:10 So I don't think that I deal with this a whole lot.
1468. 01:25:15 Although, when they describe it here, I think this is really true that this really wasn't
1469. 01:25:20 much of an issue before the digital age and they say there's a couple of reasons for this.
1470. 01:25:26 Number one, we weren't aware of what we were missing.
1471. 01:25:29 And number two, we were less likely to do anything about it.
1472. 01:25:31 I think that's really true.
1473. 01:25:33 Technology has eliminated a lot of the borders between you being somewhere, if your friends
1474. 01:25:41 at a concert, whatever and they're posting something on an Instagram story, you can be
1475. 01:25:45 at home and you can see that, you feel like you're there.
1476. 01:25:48 I don't know.
1477. 01:25:49 That's not me.
1478. 01:25:50 But I think that that probably does apply to people.
1479. 01:25:54 But in the past, if you're not physically, there's nothing you can do about it.
1480. 01:25:57 You're not going to worry about it.
1481. 01:25:58 You're going to be engaged with whoever and whatever you're doing in the moment.
1482. 01:26:03 But because we have the potential, we're recording this podcast in different states.
1483. 01:26:09 We couldn't have done this in the past.
1484. 01:26:12 But we can now.
1485. 01:26:13 And so those opportunities, especially with video, I think, that's the force multiplier
1486. 01:26:19 for this.
1487. 01:26:20 Or, yeah, it allows you to do a lot of different stuff that you couldn't do before.
1488. 01:26:24 But because there's all those opportunities now, there is the constant feeling that, like,
1489. 01:26:30 well, I could be doing this other thing.
1490. 01:26:33 And I do think that that's something that everybody has to recognize and they have to
1491. 01:26:37 make the decision that it's okay for me to miss out on some things so that I don't miss
1492. 01:26:42 out on the best things.
1493. 01:26:43 Yeah.
1494. 01:26:44 I don't think foremost the thing I deal with at all.
1495. 01:26:47 Maybe it's just because I'm so picky about how much I use my phone and how much I engage
1496. 01:26:52 with social media.
1497. 01:26:54 But I think it's definitely a problem that people deal with.
1498. 01:26:59 I see a lot of folks who struggle to break away from Facebook because they feel like
1499. 01:27:05 they're going to be left out.
1500. 01:27:08 So I get it.
1501. 01:27:09 I mean, I understand it.
1502. 01:27:10 I'm not going to say it's something light that you should not deal with at all.
1503. 01:27:16 But it's not a thing that I find myself fighting.
1504. 01:27:20 Every once in a while I go through about where I feel like I should be doing more on social
1505. 01:27:23 media because other people expect me to.
1506. 01:27:25 But you know what?
1507. 01:27:26 Digital boundaries.
1508. 01:27:27 That's what I got.
1509. 01:27:29 Yeah.
1510. 01:27:30 It's interesting because I think maybe you dealt with this at some point and I know that
1511. 01:27:35 I've dealt with this at some point.
1512. 01:27:36 But where we are now, you're right.
1513. 01:27:38 There's not a whole lot that we maybe deal with in this particular area.
1514. 01:27:42 And I really like the way that they describe it here.
1515. 01:27:44 It kind of puts into words like the way that I feel about this whole topic.
1516. 01:27:48 Like page 229, they say at the end of the day, we all have to miss out on something in life
1517. 01:27:52 to get somewhere.
1518. 01:27:54 We recognize that, which has allowed us to get to the point that we're at right now.
1519. 01:27:57 You had to say no at some point before you left your job and you started freelancing
1520. 01:28:03 and then you started pro course and you started working with all these other people.
1521. 01:28:05 And if you're not careful, yeah, FOMO could come back in.
1522. 01:28:08 I forget how many slacks you said you were a part of in the MPU episode you were on.
1523. 01:28:12 But 41 as of today, I just joined it now.
1524. 01:28:15 Yeah.
1525. 01:28:16 So that could contribute to digital FOMO if you're not, if you're not careful.
1526. 01:28:19 But I feel like people like in the same situation that we are, like we've come through this
1527. 01:28:24 stuff, we recognize that my life was miserable when I was there, there's no way I'm going
1528. 01:28:28 back.
1529. 01:28:29 That's because we've developed healthy boundaries.
1530. 01:28:30 Oh, nice segue.
1531. 01:28:32 Which is part three.
1532. 01:28:34 So part three developing healthy boundaries.
1533. 01:28:38 And there's some pieces of this part that I just don't get.
1534. 01:28:45 But there's a fair amount of that in this book, it seems like.
1535. 01:28:49 But he calls out specifically, at least the point that you pointed out here is some battles
1536. 01:28:54 that you can have with dealing with boundaries that are internal versus external.
1537. 01:29:00 So boundaries that you have within yourself that you're working with internally versus
1538. 01:29:05 the boundaries you may have externally with other people.
1539. 01:29:07 Is that the right part of that?
1540. 01:29:10 Yeah.
1541. 01:29:11 So there's in this chapter, like you said, the breaks down the two different types of
1542. 01:29:14 boundary battles, outside resistance and inside resistance.
1543. 01:29:17 And this I thought was interesting because it gives you, it gives you something to hang
1544. 01:29:21 your head on as like, oh, yeah, that's why I feel that way.
1545. 01:29:24 The other thing that's really worth calling out here though.
1546. 01:29:27 And again, like I've recognized this.
1547. 01:29:29 This was a great reminder though, is that boundaries require a battle.
1548. 01:29:34 So if you're reading this book and you're like, Hey, yeah, boundaries, that sounds awesome.
1549. 01:29:39 Like it's not going to be easy.
1550. 01:29:41 No, not.
1551. 01:29:42 You have to fight for these boundaries.
1552. 01:29:43 It doesn't mean you have to be a jerk, but you do have to shift people's expectations.
1553. 01:29:47 I encounter this all the time at Asian efficiency because one of the things that we teach about
1554. 01:29:52 email is like, check your email once a day, turn off all your notifications.
1555. 01:29:56 Don't even worry about it.
1556. 01:29:57 You know, suck at email.
1557. 01:29:58 Who cares?
1558. 01:29:59 And people are always like, well, I can't do that.
1559. 01:30:02 Like everybody expects me to check my email every five minutes.
1560. 01:30:06 I'm like, yeah, you got, you got to change that.
1561. 01:30:09 And I get it.
1562. 01:30:10 You know, like it's not as simple as just flipping a switch.
1563. 01:30:12 But that's the initial resistance that people always have is they don't want to have that
1564. 01:30:16 battle.
1565. 01:30:17 It's like, well, I don't want to talk to my boss about that because that's going to make
1566. 01:30:20 me feel uncomfortable.
1567. 01:30:21 I'm like, yeah, but you just told me like this is driving you crazy.
1568. 01:30:26 So it's worth having that conversation so you can shift the expectations.
1569. 01:30:30 So yeah, the boundaries do require a battle.
1570. 01:30:32 And then the two different types outside versus inside.
1571. 01:30:35 Should we run through some of these just to give people an example?
1572. 01:30:38 Sure.
1573. 01:30:39 Okay.
1574. 01:30:40 So if it's to a boundary battle, you talk to your boss about you don't want to check
1575. 01:30:45 your email first thing in the morning.
1576. 01:30:46 You want to have some time for Deep Work and do the things that are important to the company,
1577. 01:30:50 you know, and a lot of times the people picture in their head is an angry reaction.
1578. 01:30:54 Okay.
1579. 01:30:55 So angry reaction is one of the outside resistance.
1580. 01:30:57 Another one would be a guilt message.
1581. 01:30:59 And this is actually where one of my action items comes in.
1582. 01:31:02 I'm a sucker for this one.
1583. 01:31:05 So my action item is don't explain or justify when you say no.
1584. 01:31:10 Like if you say no, that should be good enough.
1585. 01:31:13 If people ask me, well, why not?
1586. 01:31:16 Like that's right there.
1587. 01:31:17 That's an indication that this is the guilt tactic going to be applied.
1588. 01:31:24 So that's what I, that's the way I frame this in my own head.
1589. 01:31:27 I wanted to do it this way just so I could identify this because a lot of times I feel
1590. 01:31:31 that compulsion like, well, I have to explain why I'm saying no, no, I don't have to explain
1591. 01:31:35 anything.
1592. 01:31:36 If this is really a healthy boundary scenario, I should be able to say no, I don't want to
1593. 01:31:41 do that and people should be okay with that.
1594. 01:31:43 And not saying that like, if someone does ask me, well, why are you saying no, that I'm
1595. 01:31:47 not going to give them an answer, but recognizing when they do that the conversation has already
1596. 01:31:52 shifted into this mode.
1597. 01:31:54 And so at that point, like my shield's got to be up.
1598. 01:31:57 I can say that, you know, the, the lack of a justification on saying no, like that is
1599. 01:32:02 one of the points that struck me the first time I read it.
1600. 01:32:07 So I've been practicing that quite a bit for the last nine years.
1601. 01:32:11 It's amazing how many times people don't ask why.
1602. 01:32:14 Like, you would think that if you just said, no, I can't do that and just stop.
1603. 01:32:21 Yeah.
1604. 01:32:23 People don't usually push.
1605. 01:32:24 Like that's, it's not normal for people to want to say, oh, okay.
1606. 01:32:28 Well, why is that?
1607. 01:32:30 Because the moment you give a reason, it's like opening the door to the debate as to whether
1608. 01:32:36 or not you're going to say yes or no.
1609. 01:32:38 Exactly.
1610. 01:32:39 And if I just say no, it doesn't even open that door.
1611. 01:32:42 It challenges the validity of your reason for saying no.
1612. 01:32:47 And you shouldn't have to have that argument.
1613. 01:32:49 Like boundaries are things that you maintain internally.
1614. 01:32:52 You can't project your boundaries on somebody else, but you have every right to protect your
1615. 01:32:57 own territory.
1616. 01:32:59 And so that's my big, big takeaway.
1617. 01:33:01 And that's cool to hear you say that, you know, it happens a lot less than you think
1618. 01:33:05 because that's the scenario that happens in my head is like, well, people are going to
1619. 01:33:08 be ticked off at me or offended at me because I'm not explaining myself.
1620. 01:33:12 And I want to try this.
1621. 01:33:15 Also relating to this point, by the way, is another thing that they said earlier that
1622. 01:33:20 stood out to me.
1623. 01:33:21 And I forget exactly which section it was, but that boundaries are a defensive tool,
1624. 01:33:25 not an offensive weapon.
1625. 01:33:28 So the guilt message outside resistance scenario specifically, like if I say no and somebody
1626. 01:33:34 says, well, why?
1627. 01:33:35 Like, I know at that point that I can hold firm to this boundary because it's a defensive
1628. 01:33:42 tool to protect the things that are important to me.
1629. 01:33:44 And it's not, regardless of their reaction, it's not something that is threatening to
1630. 01:33:50 them.
1631. 01:33:51 I forget where it was.
1632. 01:33:52 I think it was in this book.
1633. 01:33:54 They talk about how like your lack of planning is not my emergency.
1634. 01:34:00 Like that's one of the scenarios that I see this playing out in.
1635. 01:34:03 Yep.
1636. 01:34:04 Uh, some of the other outside resistance methods here, consequences and counter moves, physical
1637. 01:34:10 resistance, pain of others, blamers, real needs and forgiveness and reconciliation.
1638. 01:34:15 So the real needs thing, I think maybe that's the section where it's like your emergency
1639. 01:34:18 is not, or your, your lack of planning is not my emergency because a lot of times this
1640. 01:34:24 stuff is, you know, we're our own worst enemies when it comes to this stuff.
1641. 01:34:28 And yeah, I want to help people out, but I can't help people out to the, to the maximum
1642. 01:34:33 degree that I could if I'm constantly accepting and enabling them to not plan these things.
1643. 01:34:40 And I have to deal with their emergencies.
1644. 01:34:42 That's going to wear me out and we're all going to have less impact than we should.
1645. 01:34:46 Yeah.
1646. 01:34:47 One of the responses I've learned, it's interesting to hear you talk about this because this is
1647. 01:34:51 like an area where I feel like I've been practicing this for a while, but it's not uncommon for
1648. 01:34:57 folks to ask for something last minute.
1649. 01:35:01 And you know, with my business, it's a little bit different because they're paying for some
1650. 01:35:06 of that.
1651. 01:35:07 Like that's part of what we do is some last minute changes here and there.
1652. 01:35:11 But when it's outside of that, especially in them, like volunteer roles, like if someone
1653. 01:35:15 calls and says, Hey, I have this problem.
1654. 01:35:18 It needs solved tonight.
1655. 01:35:21 And you help.
1656. 01:35:23 But you know, I've got a lot of other stuff going on.
1657. 01:35:27 Most of the time what my response is, like on that type of timeframe, no, I can't do
1658. 01:35:32 that.
1659. 01:35:33 And that's it.
1660. 01:35:34 Like I'm not explaining.
1661. 01:35:35 I'm not giving anything more, but because of that timeframe, no, I can't get involved.
1662. 01:35:41 And that's usually a pretty good indicator to them that maybe I should have planned ahead
1663. 01:35:47 on this a little better because that's most of it.
1664. 01:35:50 It seems like someone just forgot to follow up on something or get something in place.
1665. 01:35:54 And then they're trying to get a hold of the tech guy to come help, you know, solve
1666. 01:35:59 all the problems.
1667. 01:36:00 But I can't do that.
1668. 01:36:02 If I did that, I would be gone every night and always solving some last minute problem
1669. 01:36:06 for everybody.
1670. 01:36:07 It just doesn't work that way.
1671. 01:36:08 Now you could, and I would argue you could potentially do some of those things and still
1672. 01:36:13 maintain your boundaries, but you'd have to not be moved in the moment by the person's
1673. 01:36:17 need.
1674. 01:36:18 Really, that's the difference.
1675. 01:36:19 You have a philosophy of like, yeah, I can help you out after hours, but it's going to
1676. 01:36:22 be double my normal rate.
1677. 01:36:24 And if they say yes to that, you've shifted the boundaries and you put them where they
1678. 01:36:30 need to be.
1679. 01:36:31 They're not encroaching on your time boundary, or at least there's a trade-off there where
1680. 01:36:36 they are encroaching on your time boundary, you're encroaching on the monetary boundary,
1681. 01:36:40 which would offset that in essence.
1682. 01:36:44 But you have to be the one who sets those terms.
1683. 01:36:46 Yeah, and a good example, this has been a couple months ago now, but I, so I'm the IT
1684. 01:36:53 director at our church.
1685. 01:36:54 So any major tech thing that goes on, it's in my domain.
1686. 01:36:58 And we had a scenario where there was a funeral going on at the church.
1687. 01:37:02 I knew what was going on.
1688. 01:37:04 It was covered.
1689. 01:37:05 Somebody was running sound.
1690. 01:37:06 Someone was handling like computer slides, video and stuff.
1691. 01:37:09 So there's a couple of people there.
1692. 01:37:11 But the family had some last minute requests.
1693. 01:37:16 It's probably not my place to say what those are.
1694. 01:37:18 But they had some requests that meant that they needed a third person, but they also
1695. 01:37:25 needed my expertise to solve it because it wasn't just a run of the mill issue that I
1696. 01:37:32 could just explain to somebody over the phone.
1697. 01:37:34 It was pretty complex, but it needed to happen in one hour from the time I got the phone
1698. 01:37:40 call.
1699. 01:37:41 So because of that, because of the family, I knew the family and I knew some people involved,
1700. 01:37:47 like I dropped everything and went straight to the church, like just immediately, like
1701. 01:37:51 that is a scenario where there's some things going on.
1702. 01:37:54 I could say no, it was an option.
1703. 01:37:56 I could have said no to that and just upheld my typical boundary in that sense.
1704. 01:38:01 But because of every, all the scenarios and everything that was going on, I opted to drop
1705. 01:38:07 my stuff to go help them.
1706. 01:38:09 So those things do happen.
1707. 01:38:12 That's where the boundaries can move.
1708. 01:38:13 Yeah, that's the part that makes us hard is like you can have general guidelines, but
1709. 01:38:18 every situation is going to be unique.
1710. 01:38:21 And so you've just got to figure out how to move around these pieces to create the boundaries
1711. 01:38:25 around the things that are important to you.
1712. 01:38:28 And yeah, you may make a concession in one particular area and then move the boundary
1713. 01:38:32 back in a different area.
1714. 01:38:35 But that's something that is a constant struggle.
1715. 01:38:39 So I don't think it's ever something that you just like are completely rigid and this
1716. 01:38:42 is the way things are and things never, never change because there's this outside resistance.
1717. 01:38:48 There's also this inside resistance, which is the other area of this run through these
1718. 01:38:52 quick.
1719. 01:38:53 So the inside resistance regarding the boundary battles that you will encounter are human
1720. 01:38:57 need, unresolved grief and loss, internal fears of anger, fears of the unknown, unforgiveness,
1721. 01:39:05 external focus, which is interesting.
1722. 01:39:07 He kind of describes this as powerless blame or it's somebody else's fault, guilt and then
1723. 01:39:13 abandonment fears.
1724. 01:39:14 So lots of different levers that you can pull here, but finding the balance between which
1725. 01:39:19 ones to pull at the right times is really the key to establishing these boundaries, I
1726. 01:39:22 would say.
1727. 01:39:23 What else we got here?
1728. 01:39:24 You got a question here.
1729. 01:39:25 How to measure success with boundaries?
1730. 01:39:27 How do you do that?
1731. 01:39:28 Yeah, this was the 11 step section, which is where I strongly disagreed with step number
1732. 01:39:34 two, but we can run through this real quick.
1733. 01:39:38 Step one, resentment.
1734. 01:39:39 So this is like an early warning signal that boundaries need to be created.
1735. 01:39:43 Step two is a change of tastes are becoming drawn to boundary lovers.
1736. 01:39:47 Step three, joining the family.
1737. 01:39:48 Step four, treasuring our treasures.
1738. 01:39:50 Step five, practicing baby nose.
1739. 01:39:52 Step six, rejoicing in the guilty feelings.
1740. 01:39:55 So that one in particular is interesting because it calls out the fact that when you create
1741. 01:39:59 a boundary, you will probably feel guilty about creating it, but recognizing that when
1742. 01:40:03 you feel that guilt, like that's actually a good thing and rejoicing and celebrating.
1743. 01:40:07 That sounds so weird.
1744. 01:40:08 Yeah, I know.
1745. 01:40:10 Step seven, practice, grown up nose.
1746. 01:40:12 Step eight, rejoicing in the absence of those guilty feelings.
1747. 01:40:14 So eventually those go away.
1748. 01:40:16 Step nine, loving the boundaries of others.
1749. 01:40:18 Step 10, freeing our know and our yes.
1750. 01:40:21 Step seven, mature boundaries, which is the value driven goal setting.
1751. 01:40:25 And obviously a lot of nuance here.
1752. 01:40:27 He's got a story with each one of these, it's a different story with each one of these,
1753. 01:40:30 which makes it kind of hard to follow sometimes.
1754. 01:40:33 I didn't really care for the section of the book.
1755. 01:40:35 Obviously, I had a big issue with step number two in the scenario that they described there.
1756. 01:40:39 I do think there's a lot of truth to these steps though.
1757. 01:40:43 And I do think that if you were to follow these, it would have positive impact in a lot
1758. 01:40:48 of areas in your life.
1759. 01:40:49 I think it's weird to try to measure success with boundaries, just the concept itself.
1760. 01:40:53 True.
1761. 01:40:54 Just feels odd.
1762. 01:40:56 Well, maybe this is just my view of it.
1763. 01:41:00 Okay, well, if I'm putting boundaries in place and I'm using these boundaries and these limits
1764. 01:41:05 on myself and on others on how much of an impact they have on me.
1765. 01:41:13 If I can put those limits in place, it's not so much a matter of trying to measure whether
1766. 01:41:17 or not I'm being good with this.
1767. 01:41:19 It's more about is that allowing you to live a more fulfilling life?
1768. 01:41:23 Like that to me is the better, maybe that's how you're measuring success, but that's not
1769. 01:41:27 how you approached it.
1770. 01:41:29 It seemed like these are these indicators that would tell you if your boundaries are good
1771. 01:41:32 ones.
1772. 01:41:33 Like that's not the point.
1773. 01:41:35 That's not what I'm trying to do.
1774. 01:41:39 One of the things that, and I've said this for years now, because I took it away from
1775. 01:41:43 this book the first time, it's like I can't change what someone else does.
1776. 01:41:46 I can only change my response to it.
1777. 01:41:49 Exactly.
1778. 01:41:50 And to me, that's one of the key aspects of this book is other people are going to do
1779. 01:41:55 things that are going to require something of me, whether it's my kid needing their cup
1780. 01:42:01 refilled at dinner, or it's a family member needing help planning in a state.
1781. 01:42:08 All of that can be boundary driven.
1782. 01:42:12 People are going to be requesting things of me in one way or another.
1783. 01:42:15 The scale of that is going to change.
1784. 01:42:17 The only thing I can do is adjust how I respond to that.
1785. 01:42:21 In some cases, that could be a big response.
1786. 01:42:23 In some cases, it could be small, and in some cases, I may choose not to respond at all,
1787. 01:42:28 or rejecting what they're requesting.
1788. 01:42:30 So, to me, the entire book can be put in that sense where it's like, okay, all I can do
1789. 01:42:37 is adjust how I respond to things and put limits on what I'm allowing other people to
1790. 01:42:41 do in regards to impacting me, and what I'll allow.
1791. 01:42:47 That's what it's about.
1792. 01:42:49 I know that having read this nine years ago and then rereading it this time, it has had
1793. 01:42:54 a big impact on me.
1794. 01:42:56 I definitely have some qualms with it.
1795. 01:42:58 I still do.
1796. 01:42:59 My wife will tell you it's very list driven, and she really doesn't like that.
1797. 01:43:04 So, she is very much against the format of it, for sure.
1798. 01:43:07 But it's a good book.
1799. 01:43:08 I like it.
1800. 01:43:09 Yeah.
1801. 01:43:10 Basically, you can control what you can control.
1802. 01:43:13 And at any point in your boundary journey, what you can control is going to be limited,
1803. 01:43:18 but that's okay.
1804. 01:43:19 Really just take the step from where you are right now and start creating the boundaries.
1805. 01:43:24 So if you're in a work situation where your boss expects you to reply to those emails
1806. 01:43:28 every within five minutes, that's not the place to work on the boundary.
1807. 01:43:35 Maybe it's something else.
1808. 01:43:37 But I do think that that constant focus on how can I manipulate the boundaries and create
1809. 01:43:41 the space for the things that are really important to me, that's a really important attitude.
1810. 01:43:46 That's the big takeaway for me from this book.
1811. 01:43:50 Regarding the length of the book and the outline of the book, again, we've got the three different
1812. 01:43:55 sections.
1813. 01:43:56 I forget, was it great at work we were talking about, like, why are there three sections?
1814. 01:43:59 Or no, power of habit, maybe.
1815. 01:44:01 Yeah.
1816. 01:44:02 That's kind of the way I viewed this.
1817. 01:44:05 The part three developing healthy boundaries.
1818. 01:44:06 Chapter 15, I really liked.
1819. 01:44:09 Chapter 16, how to measure the boundaries, the success with boundaries.
1820. 01:44:12 I feel like this was just a listicle that they had to put in there.
1821. 01:44:15 Yeah.
1822. 01:44:16 I think there's a whole lot there.
1823. 01:44:17 And then, Chapter 17, that's where they have the success story of the person with the boundaries.
1824. 01:44:21 At that point, I was like, okay, quit painting these ridiculous scenarios.
1825. 01:44:26 People don't live that way.
1826. 01:44:28 Yeah, exactly.
1827. 01:44:29 And a lot of the other stories that they shared in the book, they're small isolated stories.
1828. 01:44:33 But this only made a point to like, hey, remember Sandra from the beginning of the book?
1829. 01:44:36 This is what her life looks like now.
1830. 01:44:38 It's so much better.
1831. 01:44:39 And I feel like no one is going to be able to get that significant a change, even if
1832. 01:44:46 you applied everything that they talk about to the letter.
1833. 01:44:49 And that's okay.
1834. 01:44:50 That's not the point.
1835. 01:44:51 You're not trying to get to a specific state.
1836. 01:44:53 Really, the attitude you should take as you approach this book is, how can I improve on
1837. 01:44:58 today?
1838. 01:44:59 What are the small changes I can make right now that are going to improve my situation
1839. 01:45:04 and then taking that attitude consistently?
1840. 01:45:08 Your situation, three months from now, six months from now, a year from now, is going
1841. 01:45:11 to be a little bit different.
1842. 01:45:12 And so maybe you were in a job and you hated the fact that you had to respond to these
1843. 01:45:16 emails every five minutes.
1844. 01:45:18 But you recognize that you don't really want to work in this job or a job for the rest of
1845. 01:45:23 your life.
1846. 01:45:24 And so you start doing the things that allow you to eventually leave that job and become
1847. 01:45:28 a freelancer like Joe Buleg was.
1848. 01:45:30 And then from there, you recognize that, well, this is cool, but there's still some things
1849. 01:45:34 I don't like about this.
1850. 01:45:35 So I'm going to shift the boundaries a little bit more and I'm going to start a company
1851. 01:45:37 called ProCourse.
1852. 01:45:39 Like this, everybody's journey is nuanced like that and you never know what the next
1853. 01:45:44 step exactly is going to look like.
1854. 01:45:46 So don't even worry about like, I want to get to right there way out there.
1855. 01:45:50 You know, 10 years from now, this is what I want my life to look like.
1856. 01:45:54 There is some value in that because, you know, it gives you a picture of your ideal future,
1857. 01:45:57 what you want to drive, drive towards.
1858. 01:46:00 But the real value I think is in like, how can I make my current situation just a little
1859. 01:46:05 bit better, that 1% improvement.
1860. 01:46:07 So if we do that a bunch of times, that's going to add up to some pretty big results.
1861. 01:46:10 And I think boundaries are definitely a way that you can do that.
1862. 01:46:13 Ready for action items?
1863. 01:46:15 Do it.
1864. 01:46:16 So I've got three of them.
1865. 01:46:17 You don't have any.
1866. 01:46:18 I don't have any.
1867. 01:46:19 I don't.
1868. 01:46:20 Wow.
1869. 01:46:21 I'll explain it in a minute.
1870. 01:46:22 Okay.
1871. 01:46:24 Just one minute though.
1872. 01:46:25 So my action items, I talked about most of these, I think.
1873. 01:46:30 The first one, do not explain or justify when saying no because I want to use that follow-up
1874. 01:46:35 question as the trigger to recognize that, ah, this is the guilt battle that's happening
1875. 01:46:39 right now.
1876. 01:46:40 The second one, this was, I think, the section on boundaries with your spouse.
1877. 01:46:48 Do not say, I feel you.
1878. 01:46:50 So this is a important distinction here, but this is projecting what you think the other
1879. 01:46:55 person is doing as opposed to like what you can control.
1880. 01:46:58 And I think we've talked about this in other books.
1881. 01:47:01 Like we tend to judge others on their actions and ourselves by our intentions.
1882. 01:47:07 But when you say, when you're talking about your feelings, basically, the thing I want
1883. 01:47:11 to change here is saying, I feel this way about this situation, not saying I feel that
1884. 01:47:18 you did this this way and it upsets me.
1885. 01:47:21 Like that's not, that's not the right way to do it.
1886. 01:47:24 And I feel like they, when they described that in the book, actually they did a lot
1887. 01:47:26 better job of describing it than I did.
1888. 01:47:29 But does that make sense to you?
1889. 01:47:30 It does make sense to me.
1890. 01:47:32 Okay.
1891. 01:47:33 It keeps you from projecting.
1892. 01:47:34 Yeah, yeah, exactly.
1893. 01:47:35 And then the last one, evaluate my digital boundaries.
1894. 01:47:38 Again, this is not something that I think is a huge need, but I do think that it's probably
1895. 01:47:46 worth reconsidering on a fairly regular basis, maybe every six months every year.
1896. 01:47:50 I don't know.
1897. 01:47:51 But I do think it's been a while since I've done this and it's time to rethink these things.
1898. 01:47:56 All right.
1899. 01:47:57 Well, the reason I don't have an action item here is because this is one of those books
1900. 01:48:02 that I've been practicing a lot of this for a long time now.
1901. 01:48:07 And I don't want to say I've got a lot of it figured out because I definitely have areas
1902. 01:48:11 I could improve.
1903. 01:48:12 I just didn't have any specific areas that jumped out to me that I felt like that is
1904. 01:48:18 an area I want to work on.
1905. 01:48:19 Like that is a boundary that I want to be focusing on.
1906. 01:48:22 I didn't really have that.
1907. 01:48:24 I don't know if that's just because I've read it before or I'm just in a weird state with
1908. 01:48:31 health stuff.
1909. 01:48:32 So I'm not thinking as broadly as I normally would have.
1910. 01:48:36 Maybe that's a play.
1911. 01:48:37 I don't know.
1912. 01:48:38 Maybe you're setting a boundary because of your current health state where I don't need
1913. 01:48:41 the stress of the action items.
1914. 01:48:43 It could be.
1915. 01:48:44 Yeah, it could be.
1916. 01:48:45 Yeah, maybe I put a limit on the number of actions I'll take right now.
1917. 01:48:47 I know I've cut a lot back and delegated a lot in the last three weeks.
1918. 01:48:51 So that might be a play.
1919. 01:48:53 I can't really delegate this type of an action.
1920. 01:48:55 Hey, could you set up a boundary between me and name a person?
1921. 01:49:02 Like that?
1922. 01:49:04 No, not going to do that.
1923. 01:49:06 So I don't have any action items because of that.
1924. 01:49:09 I'm okay with that.
1925. 01:49:10 That's good.
1926. 01:49:12 So I know how I feel about this book.
1927. 01:49:15 How did you feel about it?
1928. 01:49:16 Were you happy you chose it?
1929. 01:49:17 I liked it.
1930. 01:49:18 I'm glad that I read it.
1931. 01:49:19 It's really long.
1932. 01:49:20 I feel like it's too long.
1933. 01:49:22 It's something like 320 pages, I think, before you get to the notes at the end.
1934. 01:49:27 And a lot of the stuff that they talk about, I feel like it could be shorter.
1935. 01:49:31 I really liked the digital boundaries section.
1936. 01:49:33 I felt like that was really, really well done and the best articulation of that and the
1937. 01:49:39 whole like on-call life and FOMO that I've read anywhere.
1938. 01:49:43 So that part alone was definitely worth it.
1939. 01:49:45 I like a lot of the lists.
1940. 01:49:47 I like the definitions of the boundary problems.
1941. 01:49:50 There's a lot of value there.
1942. 01:49:52 The one thing I have against this book is just kind of the way that it ended.
1943. 01:49:57 The 11 steps on how to measure successive boundaries, I feel like it was pretty weak.
1944. 01:50:02 I already went through my big rant on Step 2 and how that caused me to rethink and to
1945. 01:50:07 challenge all the things that I had just accepted previously with this book.
1946. 01:50:11 That kind of ended it on a sour note for me.
1947. 01:50:15 And again, the last chapter about the ridiculous success life now that boundaries have been
1948. 01:50:22 established, there's no way.
1949. 01:50:25 Sorry.
1950. 01:50:26 And that's not to say that the dimensions, the value of what they are saying in this
1951. 01:50:31 book, it feels weird to end with that much cheese moe at the end.
1952. 01:50:35 Right.
1953. 01:50:36 So, I think that this is definitely a good book that I would recommend to people and
1954. 01:50:41 I'm going to rate it four stars.
1955. 01:50:42 Thanks.
1956. 01:50:43 Well, having gone through it a second time, even the front of it says updated and expanded,
1957. 01:50:52 I really wish they had said updated and condensed.
1958. 01:50:55 So, it's just too long.
1959. 01:51:00 Maybe this is a plug for Blinkist or something on this one.
1960. 01:51:04 But finding a summary of this, I feel like, is the better way.
1961. 01:51:09 It's a good book.
1962. 01:51:10 I'd go on a meandering journey with boundaries, like this would be a good one for you.
1963. 01:51:14 And if that's the case, I would recommend it.
1964. 01:51:16 I feel like there are some small pieces in here that can have some big impact, which
1965. 01:51:22 is why it's had such an impact on me, at least the concepts that are in it.
1966. 01:51:27 But the book itself is a challenge for me to read anyway.
1967. 01:51:31 There were a couple of times that I struggled to keep going on this, even though I knew this
1968. 01:51:35 was going to, like, I knew it had some areas towards the end that would be helpful.
1969. 01:51:40 So I kept reading, but there's a lot of this I just wish they would quit.
1970. 01:51:44 I'm like, okay, I've had enough with the lists.
1971. 01:51:48 Let's just be done with that.
1972. 01:51:50 I feel like you're contradicting yourself in some places.
1973. 01:51:53 I'll put it at three and a half.
1974. 01:51:57 It's kind of weird for me to say that because it has had a pretty big impact on me.
1975. 01:52:01 The book itself is a challenge.
1976. 01:52:04 I'm a little bit torn because of that.
1977. 01:52:06 It's like, okay, your concept is great.
1978. 01:52:08 But the way you present it is a real challenge.
1979. 01:52:12 So that's where I land.
1980. 01:52:14 Not sure how I feel about it, but that's what I'm going to put it at.
1981. 01:52:16 I think that's completely fair.
1982. 01:52:17 And it's interesting because that's probably the same reaction I had with getting things
1983. 01:52:21 done.
1984. 01:52:22 That was the first book we covered.
1985. 01:52:24 I forget exactly what I rated it, but I think it was somewhere on three, three and a half
1986. 01:52:28 stars.
1987. 01:52:29 And if you were to ask me, when I first read it, that's kind of my entry into the productivity
1988. 01:52:34 world.
1989. 01:52:35 Like, oh, definitely five stars.
1990. 01:52:36 Life changing.
1991. 01:52:37 I recommended it to a ton of people.
1992. 01:52:39 And now I go back and I read it and I'm like, it's not that great.
1993. 01:52:44 All right.
1994. 01:52:46 So upcoming books, the next one, which I'm about halfway through, and I'm really liking
1995. 01:52:51 Work Clean by Dan Charnis.
1996. 01:52:55 It's a sneak peek into the world of chefs and how do chefs keep kitchens clean and explores
1997. 01:53:02 the concept of Miesen Plas.
1998. 01:53:04 I'm glad you said that because I had no idea how to.
1999. 01:53:06 Yeah, I so my wife works with a chef.
2000. 01:53:09 So yeah.
2001. 01:53:10 So yes, Miesen Plas, the concept of everything in its place and everything has a place.
2002. 01:53:18 Lots of details there.
2003. 01:53:19 Lots of fun stuff to go through on that one.
2004. 01:53:21 I like it.
2005. 01:53:22 The next book that I picked is not a listener recommendation.
2006. 01:53:26 I forget where I heard this, but this was basically something that somebody who I really
2007. 01:53:32 respect was like, you got to read this book.
2008. 01:53:35 And it's the happiness advantage by Sean Acor.
2009. 01:53:38 Have you read this one?
2010. 01:53:39 I have heard of it.
2011. 01:53:40 I've not.
2012. 01:53:41 Yeah, I think I feel like I've heard about it probably a dozen times, but not read it.
2013. 01:53:44 So when it was recommended to me again, I'm like, we got to do this.
2014. 01:53:48 It's also, I know nothing about the book other than the title, but it sounds like a topic
2015. 01:53:53 that we really haven't covered a whole lot on bookworm.
2016. 01:53:58 We tend to focus a lot on like the personal development, which ends up being like self-discipline,
2017. 01:54:03 real power, attitude, stuff like this, but just the whole idea of joy and happiness.
2018. 01:54:09 I think this might be interesting because this is something that I wouldn't say I struggle
2019. 01:54:14 with this, but the whole idea of like discontentment with the current situation and wishing that
2020. 01:54:20 you were in a different place.
2021. 01:54:21 That's definitely something that I think about all the time.
2022. 01:54:25 Yeah, interesting.
2023. 01:54:26 Well, that'll be a fun one.
2024. 01:54:28 For gap books, I have none because although I've been reading more in stressful situations
2025. 01:54:33 for whatever reason, I've been reading much slower than I normally do.
2026. 01:54:39 I don't know why.
2027. 01:54:40 I spend more time reading, but I don't get as much read, so it's kind of odd.
2028. 01:54:43 The Symptoms of Lyme Disease by Dr. Joe Bielig.
2029. 01:54:46 I guess.
2030. 01:54:47 Things they don't tell you.
2031. 01:54:49 I haven't found that on the symptom list anywhere.
2032. 01:54:51 Yeah.
2033. 01:54:52 I got one that I saw a screenshot of posted by Eric Fisher, and that is the, it's called
2034. 01:55:00 An Audience of One, Reclaiming Creativity for Its Own Sake by, I'm going to mispronounce
2035. 01:55:05 this name, Srinavus Rao.
2036. 01:55:07 Oh, good job.
2037. 01:55:08 That's how I would have done it.
2038. 01:55:09 Cool.
2039. 01:55:10 All right.
2040. 01:55:11 So I don't know exactly what this is about other than the title, but I feel like this
2041. 01:55:17 is going to be very applicable to a lot of the stuff that I do.
2042. 01:55:21 It's kind of interesting because I got into the productivity space because I wrote a book
2043. 01:55:27 and when I wrote the book, it wasn't to become a New York Times bestseller or anything like
2044. 01:55:30 that.
2045. 01:55:31 The book has not been a commercial success.
2046. 01:55:32 I just put it that way, but I wrote it anyways.
2047. 01:55:35 I just wrote to write.
2048. 01:55:36 And I feel like I've kind of gotten away from that because I create show notes for the
2049. 01:55:39 different podcasts that I do, I write these blog posts, whatever.
2050. 01:55:42 And there's some value to that, you know, that the creativity because you're sticking
2051. 01:55:46 to a editorial schedule.
2052. 01:55:48 And I like the fact that I can sit down and create content kind of on demand, but it's
2053. 01:55:54 been a while since I just wrote something for the sake of writing something, I feel.
2054. 01:55:58 Yeah.
2055. 01:55:59 Well, we're clean by Dan Charnes, which is our book for next time is actually a listener
2056. 01:56:04 recommendation.
2057. 01:56:05 I don't think I said that, but that recommendation came to us through the Bookworm Club, which
2058. 01:56:13 you can find at club.bookworm.fm.
2059. 01:56:17 And from there, there's a whole category of recommendations.
2060. 01:56:20 So you can see a bunch of what other people have recommended, get your votes in.
2061. 01:56:25 There is a voting mechanism as part of that.
2062. 01:56:26 So if you create an account on the club, you can get your vote on to a book that you want
2063. 01:56:30 to hear us cover.
2064. 01:56:32 It seems to be coming, you know, kind of a common thing for us to select one of the
2065. 01:56:37 top three most voted book recommendations.
2066. 01:56:40 So that's kind of an important thing.
2067. 01:56:42 You know, that helps us figure out which books you guys are interested in.
2068. 01:56:45 So join the club, recommend a book and it'll show up on our list of books to pick from.
2069. 01:56:50 But not too many books, so you might get flagged.
2070. 01:56:53 That's true.
2071. 01:56:54 That is true.
2072. 01:56:55 Yeah.
2073. 01:56:56 And if you want to help other people find out about the show and take down a KCRW, those
2074. 01:57:00 dirty dogs, you can go over to iTunes and leave us a rating and review.
2075. 01:57:06 Also if you are following along with the podcast and you are creating your own action items
2076. 01:57:14 for the different episodes, post those on the club.
2077. 01:57:17 We love to see those.
2078. 01:57:19 And it's always fun to hear how people are applying this stuff to their own life and the
2079. 01:57:23 gains that they're getting.
2080. 01:57:24 Because I know that Bookworm has meant a lot to me and it's helped me grow a ton.
2081. 01:57:28 So it's great to hear that from other people as well.
2082. 01:57:30 Yeah.
2083. 01:57:31 That's kind of a cool way to do it.
2084. 01:57:32 All right.
2085. 01:57:33 So if you are following along, our book for the next round is Work Clean by Dan Charnis.
2086. 01:57:39 And we'll go over that one next time.