In which we debate on the usefulness of being disappointed and disappointing other people.
Recorded October 17, 2024.
Show notes and links:
Tier 1: Nuclear family, immediate household
Tier 2: Extended family, close communities
The Business of the 21st Century, Robert T Kiyosaki
Will, Will Smith
1 Timothy 3:1-5
Colonel Harland Sanders, KFC
Ronald Reagan and Walter Mondale, Age question
Russell M Nelson, LDS
Think and Grow Rich, Napoleon Hill
Transcript:
Jump to end
[teaser clip] You’re reinforcing all of the positive things and paying no attention to any of the negative
things and so therefore there’s going to be more of the positive and less space for the
negative
Like if you’re training a dog, you use positive reinforcement and you never punish, you’re
never showing disappointment in their negative behaviors, but you’re just lavishing praise
over everything good that they do, then that’s a way
So you’re only using carrots, you never use a stick
Yeah
[introduction] You are listening to our podcast, Do You Have a Minute, in which a guy and his daughter
dive into deep discussions about life’s most profound and mundane questions
While we know we don’t have all the answers and possibly none of them, we open our minds
to new perspectives and most importantly, we have a good time in conversation
Join us as we explore the unknown together
[main conversation] Hey, what are we talking about today?
All your stuff
We’re talking about disappointing, disappointment
And I have another word we need to talk about, along with that
It’s the dis- words
So let’s start with dis-
Okay
Dis-cover
Yeah, discover, disappointment
We have to start with dis because if you dis somebody, what does that mean you did to them?
So dis has two S’s in it
I think
I think it only has one
If you dis somebody, disrespect
Is that what that means?
Generally?
Yeah
I’m just looking it up
So if you’re using it just by itself, you’ve got to put two S’s in it and then it’s to
treat with disrespect or to find fault with
Okay
Disrespectful
So dis with two S’s
Okay
So just never dis anybody
You have to add another S and that’s just too much effort
You don’t want to do that
Too much
So you may as well never do it
So is it better off just to never do it than to have to worry about adding an S?
Yeah
Better never to do it
So other dis words, what were you thinking that way?
Well, just disappointing
You got the disrespect for dis and disillusion
Disillusion is so, it’s one of those
The first, well, the one we’re talking about is dis
Disappoint
To disappoint, what literally does that mean?
Are we going to get into the etymology of the word?
Yeah, first
Dis, so appointing
If you’re appointing someone, that means you’re choosing them for a task or a position or
a location in your, even in your, it says expectation, to fail in the hopes or expectations
of another
So that’s what disappointment means
Their hopes or expectations
Someone is hoping that you’re going to fulfill a certain thing or have an expectation of
you or some hope is on your side that you’re, and it’s an actual task
You’re actually there
It’s a position
That’s what I’m thinking of appointment
You’re not doing something that you could actually physically do
You’re physically expected to do something you can disappoint in other than physical?
I don’t know
You can appoint someone in other than physical
I don’t know
Let’s see
Okay
So, appoint, this is, this is getting confusing already
Appoint versus dis-appoint
Dis doesn’t mean un, does it?
It’s not the same as un-appoint
Yeah
Well, it means a failure to a, yeah, the opposite of appointed
You either appoint something or you’re disappointed
The person that
You don’t say, I’m very appointed in you
What do you say instead of that?
If you’re not disappointed, how do you, how do you, I’m happy?
What?
You, you’ve met my expectations
You’re, I’m pleased with your performance
I’m pleased with that
I’m disappointed or pleased
Pleased is the other side
The synonym, synonym is let down or sad
Yeah, it doesn’t translate exactly appointed, disappointed
Pleased
Got to be pleased
That makes sense
I mean, that feels, feels like it makes sense that way
Disappoint antonym is opposite
I don’t know what that
Satisfy or gratify
That’s what it’s got
But pleased would work
I’m satisfied
You didn’t disappoint me
You satisfied me
Gratified my expectations
That seems a little weird
Well, not in all it seems weird
It’s direct though
Antonym satisfied
They don’t have fulfilled, gladden, gratified
They didn’t have please
No pleased, huh?
Interesting
Because it’s an appointment
It’s not something necessarily that’s and that that more lends to the fact it’s something
you can do
You’re disappointed in your activities and the physical things
Gladden is pleased
They use the word gladden
They just didn’t put pleased on here, but gladden and pleased are about the same thing
Yeah
Okay
So what would it take for you to be disappointed in something?
So the two parts of disappointment, you have the person who is disappointing another and
the person that is disappointed by another
So those two sides, you’ve talked about that
So we talked about that first
Right
I think since everything is in the eye of the beholder, one person can’t be disappointing
I think maybe someone can’t be disappointing like in their own nature, in their own right
Like I’m today, I’m going to be a disappointing person
I don’t think that you can’t choose to be disappointing
Yeah
You can disappoint yourself, but you can’t say everything I do today is going to disappoint
I’m going to disappoint today
Right
You shouldn’t
Can you though?
Can you can you say I’m going to do everything I can to disappoint my spouse today or disappoint
my boss?
It means
But what if they choose not to be disappointed?
That’s what makes this a corollary of love that right
You can love someone, but they don’t have to accept it
So yeah, maybe love is the opposite of disappointment
It could be one of those positive words
They say you can give love, but you can’t make someone receive it
You can’t make someone receive your disappointing attitude, disappointing action
You’re trying to disappoint them and they still like you
That’s a problem
And they still
Yeah
They choose
They choose that
So you can try all that you can to not disappoint someone and they can still
choose to be disappointed in you
So subjective
So it’s subjective
You can’t objectively disappoint
Can you objectively disappoint something?
Can you disappoint?
So it’s a disappointment continuous no matter what what position you’re looking at it from
Is there an objective disappoint a flat tire?
Flat tire is not always disappointing because guess what?
Maybe I didn’t want to go anywhere where I was going to go and now I don’t have to
I don’t have to do it
I don’t have to go and I have a good reason
So it’s a disappointment
I can say, oh, I’m so disappointed
My tires not working, but actually I’m gladdened so pleased
Yeah
But I can’t get where I was going
Right
So that comes back to my question for you is for you specifically, what does it take
to disappoint you?
Could anyone disappoint me?
Could I be disappointed?
Have I ever been disappointed?
That’s the way to look at it
Can I find a time in my life?
You should try this too
See if you can find a time in your life that you’ve ever been disappointed
Have I been disappointed?
I’m trying to think that through
I don’t know
Yeah
Have I ever been disappointed?
Disappointed that I expected something to happen and didn’t happen
Were you trying to get, you know, you used to be in running, right?
And did you expect that you were going to win a race and didn’t and you were disappointed
in yourself?
Was I ever disappointed in my own production?
Yeah
Okay
I, or, or maybe you determined that you were never going to do something, but then one
day you did it
You’re like, Oh man, I can’t believe I did that
Like I’m so disappointed in myself
No, no, no
I don’t think you have to be disappointed
Even though, yeah you do things that you didn’t want to do all the time
That’s standard,- depression
Depression
You don’t have to feel disappointed
Okay
Disappointment
If you get disappointed, that’s the precursor to depression, to being, and what’s the other
words that, that lead to that?
It’s the first step disappointment is the first step on the road to depression
Okay
Disappointment
And is this from something you’ve read or I’m just trying to figure it out
It leads you down the road
If you’re going to be disappointed, let’s say you live in disappointment because other
people just, they’re idiots
They don’t live up to my expectations
There’s no way they can ever do that
So if they can never do that and I’m always going to be disappointed, I’m always going
to be depressed
That’s yeah
And discouragement
I don’t want to do anything because I’m disappointing myself
I can’t do it
I don’t have any confidence
So maybe the opposite of that is confidence
I don’t have any confidence in what I can do
So I’m, I know I’m going to disappoint
My performance isn’t going to work
And so I have no courage to do it
I’m just not going to do anything
I’m going to turn into myself and that leads you to misery
You know, the same concept
Misery
Self-consciousness is miserable
So it, okay
So self-consciousness is, is from what does self-consciousness start and beget disappointment
or, or do you, are you disappointed and then you become self-conscious?
Which came first?
What is causal?
Which one is causal?
And the other one that’s the by-product, right?
Disappointment has to be the by-product
The cause has to be self-consciousness
So if you’re self-conscious, you have the opportunity to be disappointed
If you’re not self-conscious, if you’re others conscious, if you’re, you’re all continually
thinking out there and I’m, I’m going to fail, but it doesn’t matter
It’s not going to disappoint me that I fail
My failure is just another step forward
Just another opportunity to learn, to grow, to learn, do something next
So if you view it that way, not self-conscious, but interested in learning, then you can be
better
There’s a phrase here dealing with people that want to learn all the time
What are you reading out of?
I don’t
It’s about building teams, teamwork, network marketing specifically
This is Robert Kiyosaki, business of the 21st century
And he says building teams is what you need to do a business
And so he says network marketing is the best way to learn
It says, besides he added, I really love working with people who are hungry to learn and grow
If you’re hungry to learn and grow, can you be disappointed?
I think that’s the, that’s what I’m trying to point to
Yeah
I think, I think maybe not
Maybe you don’t have a tendency to be disappointed if you’re hungry to learn and grow because
everything that might cause someone disappointment would be an opportunity instead
Right
It’s an opportunity
To learn and grow
People here are genuinely excited about new ideas
If you could be genuinely excited about new ideas, instead of saying, well, that’s different
than my idea, my idea is right
The person who’s self-conscious saying I’m black or white and I’m the white and everything
I do is right
So since that’s the case, anything else is going to disappoint me
But if you’re learning and growing, you want to have yourself open to being others conscious,
concious of the world around you, of wanting to learn and grow, then you’re, you’re not disappointed
with whatever comes, whatever situation you find yourself, you’re content and you’re growing
through it, with it
Yeah
So altruistically, my perfect self, and I can’t, I don’t know, I’m trying to think of
something
Let me think some more
You tell me about a time you’ve been disappointed
I was trying to come up with something
I feel like I have to go kind of far back for it though
When you were a naive child?
Because I can’t think of anything recently
When I was a naive child?
Yeah
You said?
Is that how far you have to go back?
Before, before I became hungry to learn and grow
Right
Yes
What was, I was disappointed
I’m feeling like there’s something around, something around [redacted] cancer
There’s gotta be some disappointment in there somewhere
Were you disappointed?
I wasn’t disappointed when she was diagnosed
I was very sad, but there wasn’t any, it feels like I had to, to be disappointed in something,
you have to have someone to blame for not following through with what you expect
Yeah, because there’s two parties, right?
It’s two parties involved
You have to be disappointed in someone or something
Yeah
The other party is self, like me, myself, and I
I’m disappointed in myself
But there was nothing to be disappointed in there
So let me speak scripturally for a minute
What?
Timothy, where it talks about if you, if you aspire to be a bishop, you aspire a good thing,
but no one can be a bishop or be a, be a leader in a church if he doesn’t have the correct
rule over his own house
So you’ve got to work here if your family life isn’t appropriate
And that’s why we started with the community discussions
So if I use that as disappointed, that’s probably where I could come the closest
I’m disappointed that my family life isn’t strong the way I would envision it to be what
I expect
What you expect now or what past you expected
What I expect a life is supposed to be
And if I use that scripture as a base, you expect that if you do enough work, if you
do good enough work that your family can be helpful with you, your tier one can support
your efforts into tier two
And that’s an expectation that can be disappointed, not necessarily in them for not supporting
me, but disappointed in myself for not being the right person that can be supported by
going to tier two because tier one is still in a dangerous, well, we’ve had a couple of
hurricanes that happened in hurricane mode
It’s in chaos
If tier one still in chaos, you can’t step out and do tier two stuff
So there’s a disappointment in that
I am generally disappointed in that
And you get disappointed
I mean, I’ve had goals
I’ve had expectations that your business is going to be to a certain level or that you’re
going to, you know, rich and famous
You have expectation to be rich and famous
And you’re disappointed in that
You’re not
But I’m not done
I guess there’s got to be levels of disappointment
So I could say I am disappointed that my position in life at this age isn’t stronger and others
are disappointed in me that it’s not stronger at this point
You would expect that someone who’s an empty nester has things figured out
But I was still working on it
You’re much further ahead because you’re right in the middle of teenager-hood in your
house and you’re figuring it out
So you’ll have it figured out by the time that you’re an empty nester, right?
Yeah
Are we speaking specifically about finances?
Is that what we’re?
Finances and living and operating in the world being of service, serving communities like
we’re talking about second tier work and possibly being invited to the third tier that we talked
about
So being of value, changing the world, the change of the world
You have a better chance of it than me because I’m already…
Though that’s not necessarily true
You’re already in your 60s and what do you do now?
We could call it a disappointment that it’s not even close to being a disappointment for
me
So I have to try to figure that out
I could say, yeah, that’s a disappointment and I could try to be disappointed in it,
but I’m not at all disappointed in that
And why?
Why am I not?
Because you don’t want to be
Because of faith?
Are you because you’re hungry for what?
Learning and hungry to learn and grow and genuinely excited about new ideas
I might
There’s new ideas everywhere and I continue to discuss them and write them down and I’ve
got my little book
I don’t have the commonplace book, but I should
But you sure do have a folder of papers
Every page
I mean, there’s four of them right here
There’s one
It’s a commonplace book
It’s just on a piece of paper
And that’s what’s jumbling my office
That’s why I’m so filled with all these stacks of papers
There’s important stuff on them
And if they were in a commonplace book, if they were in a book, it would be just as hidden
as it is in these files
I would never look
So that’s why I’m not because Harland Sanders didn’t start his first restaurant until he
was 65
Yeah, you’ve still got time
So that’s why there’s plenty of time
And Russell M Nelson was not given the prophetic mantle until he was 92
And now he’s 100
He’s had eight years
No one expected him to have eight years in his position leading the church he’s leading
So right
You know, 92 isn’t too old
And 65 certainly isn’t too old
And I’m not even close to 65
Yeah, there’s a lot of people that think that there is a too old to be the president
There’s been that thought, right?
I loved Ronald Reagan’s statement about that, though
You know what he said?
He and Mondale
It’s an interesting thing
We should link it, as a matter of fact
Okay
We’ll put it in the show notes
Because if we can link that video, they asked him, well, President Reagan, there’s discussion
about age and whether you
You know, they gave an example of someone that was too old before
What do you think about age?
And Reagan says, you know, I’m not going to make age a part of this campaign in identifying
that my opponent is too young or naive to accomplish the task at hand, or something
like that
Because Mondale was in his forties
And Mondale laughed
I mean, it’s in the clip
He laughed at it
It was funny
It was a really funny quip
I’m not going to engage in the issue
They were saying, you’re too old, Ronald Reagan
You’re too old to be president
And they’re saying you’re too old to be president
He says, I’m not going to make age a factor in that my opponent’s too young and doesn’t
have enough world experience to operate as president
Right
Okay
So he turned it around the other way and made it
He did an excellent job with that answer
Everyone laughed
It was
He’s always used humor
And humor hasn’t been part of the current debate in regard to 80s, 82 and whatever,
78, 84
80s isn’t too old though
Yeah
Assuming you’re in good mental health
Yeah
Unless you start declining and you can’t operate
Yeah
But nobody would tell anyone if that’s what was happening
Right?
And I don’t want to come right out and say it because you can’t lose confidence
Hello
So we took a little break there by way of disappointment because it’s our role not to
disappoint others
So that happened to be someone very close to me who I care about a lot and I need to
let her know that
And if she thought that I didn’t care and I didn’t call her back or I didn’t try to
talk to her right now, she might be disappointed and she would most likely be disappointed
Yeah
And you were concerned about that
Yes
You would be disappointed in yourself if you didn’t do it
Well, I don’t know because I’ve lived my whole life not doing it so far and I’m not disappointed
in it
But I have determined
You’re trying to build a habit?
I have determined that it’s useful
Maybe I can do something to help the disappointment in others not be so rampant
So I’m saying in order to dissuade that disappointment, possible disappointment there
Now there are still things disappointing in that
I’ve been on the phone all morning still
I had a client call that lasted a long time and then I talked to another daughter of mine
for a bit
And that took some time
See, and now on my phone there’s someone else that’s ringing in, which I’m okay disappointing
him
It’s not going to be a disappointment so much on his side that I call him back in an hour
Because he’s expecting that maybe you might be busy
Right, correct
These other people are like
And he’s not going to be disappointed in that
He can leave a message and he won’t be disappointed
If you choose, so expectation, if I choose to allow a greater expectation than someone
else
Can you choose to allow, say that in different words
If I choose to promote, to promote that I have more care for a certain area, then I’d
better be able to break away from other things I’m working on to put that care towards that
area, right?
We’re talking about tier one and tier two stuff
If I’m operating in tier two and tier one calls me and I say I care about tier one this
much that whatever I’m doing in tier two doesn’t matter as much so I’m going to break tier
two and jump into tier one for a minute
And so I did that
That’s what that description was
So as not to disappoint tier one
Yeah
If you understand what their, what the expectations are, then you’re able to avoid disappointment
So if, if I had a tier two event going on and tier one tried to contact me, but I know
that they’re not expecting that I’m going to answer right away or even call back in
the next two hours, like I know that expectation
So I know that even a phone call back in a couple of hours will still not disappoint
Right
Yeah
So knowing what the expectations are at that requires communication and definitely a lot
of mind reading, but you get it wrong a lot of times
Well, and, and if it’s wrong, you know that you’re disappointed, if you have disappointed,
then you can make an adjustment
So that’s that growth in learning
You’re interested in growing learning
That’s why I’m not necessarily disappointed with it
All of the disappointment that I’ve caused someone else, but I can stop causing that
disappointment by learning and growing and advancing becoming something different
Yeah
So that’s that’s useful
And maybe I had, I had another thought from another book that may work out coming in here
because we’re talking about disappointing other people and changing that disappointment,
being able to appoint that other person, please, gratify, satisfy whatever their expectations
are
Right
And that’s got to be our role in regard to disappointment
So we’re talking about disappointment
The only reason we’d even care about that word is in order to eradicate it from our
relationships
And you eradicate it by, by first growing yourself and by second becoming who you need
to become with the expectations of your relationships
Becoming well-rounded in your, in your relationship
Well-rounded
Touching them, you know, and what they need
That’s right
That’s what well-rounded means
That’s good
We had that discussion because it has to pay attention to what their expectations are
That group that you’re trying to be a part of
Right
Yeah
Yeah
That group
So if you’re well-rounded in your relationship with your spouse, then you’re meeting their
expectations
You’re not disappointing them
They’re not going to want to kick you out
Yeah
You’re not, you’re not too much of one thing or too little of one thing
You’re exactly, you fit
You fit in
You’re the, the baby’s porridge and the three bears
You know
Not too hot or too cold
You’re just right
So the other idea, well, what, what we could do that
I did get another quote, another book
I’m reading Will Smith, his book
Oh yeah
Will
Okay
I just, you know, I knew we had talked about something about this in his chapter destruction,
chapter nine
He talks about this disappointment kind of that way
One quote here, Daddy-O used to say, you can stop a homicide, but you can’t stop no suicide
So meaning if you’re of the mode to be disappointed, you can’t be stopped
You can’t train someone away from disappointment or feeling that
Okay
They’re kind of the same status
You have to internally feel that need to want to grow and learn and grow, be hungry and
excited for new ideas
Yeah
You have to change your philosophy on life
Which is cool
Because you’re not going to, you’re not going to change, which is cool because we just talked
about that last week
Right
And that’s why the conversation continues
What about last week?
Tell me how that matched
What we were talking, huh?
What do you mean?
It was, it was at last week or was it the week, the couple of weeks before that when
we were talking about mooching
Yeah, we were, yeah
Talking about how do you train someone out of being a moucher?
You’ve got to change their whole perspective
Right
They need to have a different philosophy of finances and responsibility and, and living,
you know, that’s how you train someone out of suicide
Maybe you have to change their outlook on life from the seed within them instead of
being like, slap, you’re not suicidal
Yeah
You can’t tell them what to do
You can’t change them
You have to encourage them and persuade them and open them up to the possibility of changing
their own psyche
They have to change their own psyche
And it’s what Dave Ramsey says, I love his quote
He says, this is not a money thing
Budgeting and becoming wealthy is not a money thing
Has nothing to do with money
Has to do with psychology and how you think about it
And that’s Robert Kiyosaki stated too
He says, it’s, it’s not about how hard you work and how hard you work for the money
It’s a, it’s what you, what you do
It’s what you, how you think about it is who you want to be
You become who you want to be
Think and grow rich
Is that Kiyosaki’s book?
Yeah
Napoleon Hill
It’s kind of the same
Well, it’s all the same thing
Of course, everything is connected
Think and grow rich just talks about, can you set your mind on something?
What’s your definite purpose?
Develop a definite purpose in life, that’s think and grow rich, and then work towards it continuously
That’s the mindset
If you’re just trying to make money, it’s never going to work
That’s not a definite purpose
Making money
And that’s what Kiyosaki pointed out
Making money is not a definite purpose and working hard is not a definite purpose
Neither of those make any difference
You’ll still be poor
Right
Will Smith talks about another example here that ties in to the fact that you can’t stop
a suicide
If you’re determined to beat yourself down, there’s nothing that anyone else can do to
get you out of that depressive mode or that disappointing mode
It said, if you’re going to fight Mike Tyson and you have two ways to do that, you can
go and get the best trainer and you can do the best work and you can work the best way
you can and do everything
But if you go into the fight and kind of halfway did it, Mike knocks you out in 15 and says,
okay, but if you lollygag during the training, didn’t really eat right and let your boy Pookie
train you and then Mike knocks you out in 15 seconds, now you have to face an unbearable
loss and the loss isn’t that you got beat by Mike Tyson
It said, you will know that you didn’t only lose to Mike Tyson, you lost to yourself
The fight wasn’t you versus Mike
It was you and Mike versus you
Yeah
Okay
So if you prepare the right way, if you don’t have the definite purpose in mind and you’re
working towards it and you’re building yourself to the challenge that you’re going to take
on, he says, it isn’t two against one
It’s you and the universe versus you
It’s respectable to lose to the universe
It’s a tragedy to lose to yourself
And that would be a great disappointment
Yeah
And in order to lose to yourself, you have to be that mentality that you’re going to
disappoint
A tragedy
Is a tragedy a disappointment then?
He used that word
It’s a tragedy
Maybe not necessarily because, Does tragedy imply that it was caused by someone that you
can blame?
I mean, maybe, maybe sometimes it can, but unexplainable acts of God can be tragedies
too
Is there another word for that?
Natural disaster
A disaster is something you don’t have any connection to
A tragedy is something you can probably blame someone for
Isn’t that a literary thing?
A tragedy, a comedy, a tragedy, a drama
I think tragedy is a literary story line
So it’s something that you can blame on someone
Yeah, you can blame a tragedy on someone and you blame it in this case on yourself for
lack of preparation
Yeah
I wonder if I read something or heard someone talk about tragedy when I was younger that
made me think that a tragedy was unavoidable
It’s something that was going to happen no matter what
Maybe middle schoolers and the way they talk about everything being a tragedy
They speak in absolutes
So let’s relate those both together
I’m literally dying right now
I’m literally dying
I’m literally in love
It was just a tragedy
Tragedy and disappointment are the equivalent or do they even match?
Assuming tragedies are going to occur, I believe that’s probably true
They’ll happen all the time
Yeah, tragedy is the event and disappointment is the feeling that you feel about it
It’s how you feel about it
How you either want to learn and grow through it or you want to blame in it
Yeah
So to be disappointed
Tragedy doesn’t always have to be a disappointment
Right
You have to blame someone for disappointment to even exist
Does disappointment require blame?
Is that causal?
Yeah, I think so
If you can’t blame anyone, then you can’t be disappointed
That’s what we started with
It’s disappointed in some other or some other is disappointed in you
If you don’t blame that other, there’s no disappointment
It’s just a tragedy
It’s a tragedy that this occurred
Now let’s learn from it
Let’s move on
So disappointment’s a choice
Yeah
Is it useful?
Do you think being disappointed or receiving disappointment can be useful?
You know my answer to that
Good
Your answer is seven
Seven meaning perfection
Good, get away
Good, get out of here
You heard that way too often in your childhood
So now make some meaning out of that
Those two are probably very accurate
So what was the question in the first place?
Now that you brought in those flippant answers
Is disappointment useful?
Is it useful?
Is it useful?
Good, get out of here
Seven, is it useful?
And how do you make those?
I’m good at twisting things
I can twist those answers into the right answer for what you’re asking
I know
I know you are so good at twisting things
My answer is emphatically no
It has no value
It should never be used
So why is that?
Even in a conversation I had this morning with my most significant other, she said,
you don’t know everything
Don’t even act like it
What do you act like you know everything?
This conversation, and I want to point that out, even though I say emphatically, it should
never be used, I have no idea
It’s only just what I’m saying to say something
I’m just filling space
And I do want to say if I find out some other reason, that’s why we have show notes
Look in the show notes and see the refutation of what I said that I thought was true
I’m searching that out as we’re putting it in show notes and if you identify something
that’s not true, add it to the show notes and say we’re idiots, and I am
So even though I think emphatically, it has no value, do you feel it has any value?
Yeah, a little bit
I think because if someone expresses to you that they’re disappointed, then that’s an
illumination of something that you could improve on
You don’t have to be disappointed in yourself, but if no one else is disappointed in you
for any other reason, then there’s no spaces to grow
I mean, you’re perfect
Ta-da!
Nobody is disappointed in me, so I don’t have to work hard on anything else
So if you are in a black and white world, everyone’s white and there is no black, everyone’s
perfect, there is no disappointment
In a world that isn’t black and white, that has gray areas, that has faith that we live
by, there is always disappointment
You’re never meeting the full objective of what even you decided to do
You can’t meet the full objective because you don’t really understand what the objective
is
In a world of faith and not absolutes, in a world
What is that?
It’s a world of faith if it’s just not absolutes
How does the world talk about it?
Gray areas
Yeah, that’s how they talk about it
Yeah, psychologically it’s a gray area
There’s a whole gamut of gray areas
It’s not just black and white
There’s not just true and false
That’s the scientific method where all we’re doing is trying a hypothesis and then seeing
what the examples come out of that, trying to make sense of what we see
Right
So in a world that way, there’s always a disappointment
Even if you think you have a good hypothesis, you might be disappointed that the hypothesis
in your scientific exploration was the wrong direction
And the results showed something else affected this that wasn’t what I thought was going
to affect it
So let’s adjust our hypothesis and you can’t be
Yeah
Yeah, so disappointment
Well, disappointment is present, but is it useful?
And now I’m wondering something else
Let me think
Hold on
Positive reinforcement
Is it the opposite of positive reinforcement?
And where you’re reinforcing all of the positive things and paying no attention to any of the
negative things
And so therefore there’s going to be more of the positive and less space for the negative
Like if you’re training a dog, you use positive reinforcement and you never punish, you’re
never showing disappointment in their negative behaviors, but you’re just lavishing praise
over everything good that they do
Then
The carrot and the stick
You know, that’s a way
So you’re only using carrots, you never use a stick
Yeah
And so maybe I’m wrong
Do you think that that works with dogs?
Disappointment
I think people get really mad when they find out that you hit your dog with a stick because
they did something bad, you know?
Because your dog isn’t
They don’t know better
See, that’s the argument
They’re trained
That’s the argument of capital punishment
Should you swat your children?
Uh-huh
You know, and does it work if you don’t swat your children?
Does the carrot work by itself?
It’s saying positive reinforcement
I’m just going to train with carrots my whole life
I’m never going to use a stick
If you never use a stick, you never use fear
I’m only going to use love
Never going to use fear
Fear is not part of my life
So that’s saying like disappointment
Never going to use disappointment
I’m only going to use encouragement
Never going to tell them I’m disappointed in you because you didn’t accomplish this
the way I wanted
I encourage you because you accomplished 20% of what I wanted you to do
Boy, I’m happy about that
But I’m not disappointed at all in the 80% you didn’t get done
But I think that what you said, disappointment has to be a fleeting thing
It’s something that you watch floating down the river like a leaf on the river
It floats away
You identify it
It’s there
But the river’s moving it away
As quick as you’re growing and learning, that disappointment is past you
It is a tragedy
A tragedy is a tragedy
It actually affects you, but it doesn’t have to ruin the rest of your day or minute or
life just because it was a tragedy
And they’re still learning in growth based on that tragedy that occurred
Okay
So maybe the feeling that the tragedy is important
The tragedy is useful, but the feeling of disappointment after the tragedy because of
the tragedy is not useful
Even though or if or whatever you’re doing something that would merit disappointment
in someone else, that you can still learn and grow from your actions without their disappointment
Right?
Would you want to change-
Like if there was an absence of disappointment
If you didn’t know it disappointed them, and that’s what you first brought out is it’s
an indication that you have some growth to do
It’s a signal
If you don’t use that, if they don’t display disappointment, then I’ll say, well, yeah,
I’m disappointed that you were 20% off on that
You got 80% right and that’s great
I like you being 80% good, that I’d like you to be perfect
I’m disappointed in the 20%
That’s enough of a signal that the person can work towards that next 20%
I don’t have to make the two mistakes I made in that piece
I just played
I can get it 100% right
I can work towards it and keep working, keep growing and keep living
That’s a stick
You just beat them on the head with a disappointment, but it’s a fleeting disappointment
You talked about a tragedy as though a tragedy is always going to be part of your life, part
of your story
It is
I guess there are big tragedies that are always part of your story
They’ll always be there, but they’re not disappointing
The disappointment of it is that it only lasts-
Is what you think of it
Were you missing because of it?
Is the disappointment still there?
Do you remember the 20% that they didn’t play that right?
I’m disappointed in 20%
As soon as they play it perfect, as soon as they perfect it, say it’s just a piano piece
or a musical piece they’re doing, well, that was perfect
I think I’m going to give you 100% on that
Even 100% plus because you put feeling in it that wasn’t written in the score
But I’m disappointed because you didn’t play it exactly as the author, the composer put
it on the score
You did that extra to it and that’s not right
Mozart would hate you for that
So you can still be disappointed
You find things to be disappointed in
Your fingers weren’t curled enough
Even in a perfect performance
Yeah
You know, you didn’t smile
If you would just smile, it would be much better
Right
So
I’m thinking about my challenges in leadership, my struggles, my struggles to be a leader
and how I didn’t, I didn’t use enough positive reinforcement
I didn’t, I didn’t use as much as someone else wanted me to use
And I used too much expressions of disappointment and that disappointed them
They were disappointed in me
I was disappointed in them for their performance and yeah
And your strategy and it didn’t fix anything
My expressing my disappointment did not fix it
It just caused other problems
More disappointment
So whose problem is that?
They talk about these methods, the sandwich method, say something good, then give them
the disappointment and then give us some encouragement at the end again
I think that’s, I think those are just placating
They’re trying to play with the system
That’s what it feels like to me too
Maybe you and I are psychopaths for thinking that, but because it works for everyone else,
right?
You and me can spot it and we don’t want to use it
We are going to have that discussion at some point on how to be a psychopath and why we
are all psychopaths and whether it’s good or bad, whether that’s good or bad
But these methods, placating, if you’re just trying to, it has to be genuine
If you’re going to do use a sandwich method and it’s genuine, it’s different
It’s different
You know, if you really did love the fact that they got a hundred percent perfect on
the piece, I’m just going to use example I just used
Hundred percent perfect, technically your fingers moved the right way, a piano piece
that Mozart wrote
Yeah
I’m a hundred percent disappointed that you put your own expression in that
He wrote this forte and that piano and you did it backwards and it didn’t sound the way
he wrote it
And I’m upset by that
But it’s nice that you smiled
I love that you smiled when you were doing it because you thought you were pulling one
over on me
And I know that you know that I’m a purist and I want you to play exactly the way Mozart
wrote it
The composer’s rule is the rule
And you pulled one over on me so you’re smiling
So I love that you smiled
So there’s two positive things on the end
But the middle thing, you completely disappointed me in my expectation that the composer is
the composer
You can’t enhance the composer
So if that’s genuine and you’re actually, I guess you can do that
If you’re trying to manipulate someone, it’s manipulation
The guy’s not really manipulating his students
If you’re trying to manipulate by saying, did I say enough positive things now?
Now can I tell you what you need to help here to fix it?
And will you receive it as a constructive criticism instead of a slap in the face?
If you say all those words, then they take it as a slap in the face anyway
Manipulation
And that’s what it feels like when you’re using that sandwich method
I think that’s part of what you said with your community
You’ve got to identify your community as what their expectations are
Yeah
Fitting in
Being well-rounded in a community
You have to fit in
You have to understand what their expectations are, what your expectations are
Make sure they understand what yours are so that you can make corrections and indicate
disappointments and disappointments that are like a leaf floating on a river that are just
floating by, say, you know, this doesn’t mean a whole lot, but I do want to point it out
It’s a leaf I’ve seen floating by
And if you can make sure that leaf doesn’t fall again, it would be great
Yeah
Yeah
And that’s now I’m remembering that something else that I had realized was that I expressed
my disappointment and unmet expectations, but I forgot that I had to lay out those expectations
in the first place
Yeah
They were silent
They were your expectations, but not necessarily voiced to the group beforehand
Right
Right
So they were things that I thought were like common knowledge, but they weren’t
So leadership-wise, maybe instead of trying to correct that thing, you say, well, did
I clearly identify it?
And so then that’s when you come to the group in front of the group and say, maybe I didn’t
make this clear before
We don’t want to play wrong notes
If you play wrong notes, I’m going to probably mention it
If that’s okay with you guys, is that all right?
Do you guys all agree?
Wrong notes aren’t going to be allowed?
And then they’ll say, did anyone play wrong notes?
I don’t think we
Well, if I notice them, I’m not saying I noticed them right now, but if I notice them,
I may mention them
So I just wanted to make that clear
Just make that clear
So then you go back to the general-
Now you know what to expect
Yeah
Just in general expectation as a leader, as a leader in a group, maybe you do voice the
general expectation first and then specifically go to the person and say, you know, I’ve tried
to make it general and you’re still not hearing it
Can you play that for me privately for a minute?
Let me show you what I’m hearing
Yeah
And yet is disappointment useful?
It’s useful in as identifying issues, identifying growth possibilities
Yes
It’s not useful to dwell on it to highlight the disappointment
It’s the disappointment is meant to highlight the event, but that’s all
It highlights your change
It highlights your next work project
The next thing you have to grow and advance and then learn about
It’s like an acute pain
If it’s an acute pain all the time, it’s not good if you chronically disappoint or if you’re
chronically disappointed
Like from the leadership standpoint, if you’re chronically disappointed, you’re always disappointed
in this group
It means you didn’t lead them the right direction
You’ve got to change the leadership
You’ve got to change how you talk about it and how they fully understand the group and
what we’re supposed to be accomplishing so that you can eliminate your disappointment
If you live in continual disappointment, it means you’re not extending enough effort towards
training or leading or helping them grow
Okay
What’s the other, there’s another statement here that I marked
I’m really excited about new ideas
When you can help as many others, this is how he described network marketing, back to
Robert Kiyosaki
He says, I came to realize that while personal success is fulfilling, so your own self is
fulfilling, it’s much more fulfilling when you can help many others create their own
success as well
So when you’re leading in a group or whatever you’re trying to lead and setting up a team
that you want success, it’s more gratifying, less disappointing if you help everyone grow
as well
Yeah
So receiving disappointment is useful in that way that we had just laid out
Is it useful to dole out disappointment, to express it?
To express disappointment
What, no, what my real question is, is did this change your mind in whether you’re going
to let yourself feel disappointment over anything or not?
Yes
Do you think that you are going to from now on?
View disappointment in a different light
Disappointed about something
I’m going to view disappointment in a different light
If you think, well, my emphatic statement earlier that disappointment is never valuable,
Satan is never valuable
So if disappointment is black and you’re white, you’re trying to be white and it’s black,
it’s never valuable, but we live in gray, we don’t live in black and white
Even if it’s black, even if it is definitely black and you’re definitely white, disappointment
still has to be identified
so as long as it’s fleeting, as long as you don’t live in it
Yeah, my view of disappointment isn’t that you need to eradicate it, but you need to
treat it as acute, treat it immediately
You need to use it as a tool instead of a reaction
Or as a characteristic
You use it as a response, maybe
Instead of a reaction?
Yeah
A knee jerk reaction of disappointment
If you’re disappointed, if that’s just your reaction to everything
It’s like someone who says no to everything, sometimes no is a good thing to say
Yes, if you’re just always saying yes
If you’re always saying, disappointed, I’m always pleased with your effort
There’s no value in that
You’ve got to be disappointed at some point, even if the disappointment is just for a percentage
of what’s going on
Right
Okay
So yeah, you’ve got to use it and it’s an indicator of growth, an indicator toward growth
You’re wrong
Isn’t disappointment a statement that you’re wrong?
I believe you’re wrong
About something
Yeah
You’ve disappointed my understanding and truth by saying that, and I believe you’re wrong
And here’s why
Yeah
So you were disappointed in my emphatic statement that disappointment is useless
You got disappointed in that, so we talked about it a little bit
And my idea changed a little bit
Yeah
You still hold that idea in a black and white world, but you know, since there’s gray
I can see the gray
I’m not going to participate in it, but I see it
Yeah
Right
So what about you and your question on leadership?
Did that change?
It reminded me is that I forget, it seems like I forget a lot of the lessons that I
learned
Yeah
And so it reminded me of what I had learned before
And maybe by remembering it, it will be a stronger part of it
By discussing, and that’s the whole purpose of conversation too, is if you try to teach
something, try to talk about it, you’re going to internalize it much more
It’ll become part of you
Yeah
What is it I heard just in general, the statement the other day, any learning we do has to take
the place of something else
You have to lose something in order to gain something new
Okay
There’s only so much conscious space you have
It was Jordan Peterson talking about consciousness
There’s only so much conscious space you have
If you decide to bring something to the forefront of your consciousness, something else has
to step back
We don’t have unlimited conscious activity
What you choose to focus on has to just be limited
So if we’re choosing to focus on this idea, disappointment for a while, there’s going
to be a time disappointment’s going to take a back seat and we’ll forget that we ever
talked about it, which is going to be fine
There’ll be other things that you’re moving toward, you’re moving into
That’s the eternal progression, the receding horizon
You’re always moving towards it into something else
Yeah
Very good
So, well, is there anything else?
I’m not at all disappointed about where we got to here
Okay, good
Not that it’s all encouraging
Yeah, I think we’re good
Let’s end this discussion and know that disappointment is a fleeting thing
You need to identify it, but don’t wallow in disappointment
Very good
Yeah, I like that
Don’t wallow in it
Okay
Cool
Okay
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