484 | Conflict Frequencies

The Minimalists are joined by Erwin Raphael McManus to talk about the most effective ways to handle conflict with friends, family, and loved ones. Discussed in this episode: How can I respectfully convince my father to get rid of the tools he doesn't use? (2:45) What's the hardest thing about being honest? (25:02) Listener tip: Clarifying outer and inner expectations. (47:55) Listen to the full Maximal episode on Patreon: patreon.com/theminimalists http://patreon.com/theminimalists Detailed show notes: minimalists.com/podcast http://minimalists.com/podcast Recorded at Earthing Studios http://earthing.com/simple.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:06Speaker 00

  This podcast has bad words.

• 0:39Speaker 01

  You're listening to the Minimalist Podcast with Joshua Fields Milburn and TK Coleman, recorded live at Earthing Studios in sunny California.

• 0:47Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Yes, or cloudy California today, raining California, Bam. I know you were at your jujitsu class and it was raining on you when you left, I think?

• 0:55Speaker 01

  Yeah, it was right after I got home, I heard rain pour down and I went, what is that? Opened my window and went, I'll be darned, it's raining.

• 1:02Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Ah, yes. Well, thank you. And hello, everybody who's tuning into this. Today on this show, we're talking about the most effective ways to handle conflict. Joining us in the studio to battle this topic is our friend, Erwin Raphael McManus. Erwin is a renowned artist and iconoclast, and he is the founder of a global spiritual movement known as Mosaic. He is also the author of a new book called The Seven Frequencies of Communication, which explores the seven types of communication that the world uses to hear and to be heard. Coming up on this free public minimal episode, a caller has a question about respectfully convincing her father to get rid of the tools he doesn't use but

• 1:45Joshua Fields Millburn?

  are taking up space in her home. And then we've got a question about the difficulties of being honest. That's followed by our Right Here, Right Now segment and a listener tip. You can check out the maximal edition of episode 484. That's the full two-hour episode where we answer three times as many questions over on Patreon. The link is in the description. Now, when you subscribe, you can listen to our private podcast episodes on Apple Podcasts. Or Spotify, or your favorite podcast app. Plus, you'll gain access to all of our archives, all the way back to episode 001. That's a full decade of podcast archives. By the way, big thanks to our patrons. Your support keeps our podcast 100% advertisement free,

• 2:27Joshua Fields Millburn?

  because, sing along at home, y'all. Advertisements suck. Let's start with our callers. If you have a question or a comment for our show, we would love to hear from you. Give us a call. Our phone number is 406-219-7839, or you can email a voice recording right from your phone to podcast@theminimals dot com. Our first question today is from Laura.

• 2:48Speaker 03

  Hi, Minimalists. This is Laura from Sedona. I just started listening to your podcast last week, and I'm hooked. I'm not a Patreon subscriber yet, only because I recently found you, and I'm currently going through my subscription cleanup process, canceling ones I don't use, so I can support yours very soon. I have a complicated garage clutter situation. I recently went through a divorce, and while my ex-husband has mostly moved out, he still has tools and other things left behind. He was more of a tool collector than a user, so a lot are in perfect condition, but they have been sitting there for months now. On top of that, my dad moved in with me while going through cancer treatment. He's retired now, but spent years doing maintenance and

• 3:33Speaker 03

  handiwork, so he brought an overwhelming amount of tools and materials, as well as random parts. He's never been one to keep things tidy and has duplicates of almost everything. The thing is, even though he's retired, he still likes to have them around. He's helped me out so many times with repairs, and I know it gives them a sense of purpose. I really want to completely redo the garage floors, paint, cabinets, etc., but I feel like I need to clear things out first. At the same time, my dad has already had to give up so much, his independence, his retirement plans, and I don't want to take more away from him. How do I approach this in a way that respects

• 4:15Speaker 03

  his feelings, but also allows me to reclaim and organize this space? And it's not just the space, it contributes to my mental clutter, seeing it every day, not just the physical aspect of it. I would love your advice. Thank you so much. Bye bye.

• 4:33Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Now, Erwin, you've been on this show a few times now, and I want to really bring you into our world with this episode, because we get a lot of questions around clutter, but this isn't really a clutter question, it's a conflict question in a way. And so I look at your book, and you talk about the seven frequencies of communication, but a big part of that are the seven different types of people and how they handle conflict. Because communication is probably the most important part of dealing with conflict. And obviously Laura has a conflict here with her father. She, her father may not even know that there is a conflict yet, right? And so when you hear this question, she's talking about, well, maybe I feel like I should clear the things out first, but then

• 5:13Joshua Fields Millburn?

  also I don't want to offend my dad, I want him to feel good. And what, what observations do you have for her situation?

• 5:22Speaker 04

  Well, I did think it was interesting that she began talking about her ex-husband.

• 5:25Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Yes.

• 5:26Speaker 04

  And that he has tools in the garage. So I'm almost wondering if her father's tools being around is more of a psychological connection to her frustration with her ex-husband rather than her father. And that maybe she's actually dealing with some deeper emotional tensions inside of her. And that, you know, her, her ex-husband is now gone, but the tools are still there. So symbolically, she's not completely free of that relationship. Then her dad comes in and he starts basically bringing in the same materials that basically let her know, this isn't your world. This isn't your house. And, and so I think there's a bigger issue here that she never actually made the psychological shift where this is her home, and she's allowed to make the rules.

• 6:12Speaker 04

  And and her dad probably is completely unaware. He doesn't, he doesn't realize he's leaving the tools out that that bothers her. He doesn't realize that this is triggering her to feelings she had with her ex-husband. I think the best thing for you, forget the tools, is sit down with your dad and begin to have a conversation with him about what you're going through, what you're feeling, and how these seemingly irrelevant pieces of tools actually have deeper meaning for her.

• 6:40Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Yeah.

• 6:41Speaker 04

  And and then I think that might open up her relationship with her dad. She's afraid to have a conversation with him, but he may actually long to have conversations with her.

• 6:51Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Yeah.

• 6:51Speaker 04

  But not know how to actually initiate them. So the problem is huge in her mind, but it's not actually huge relationally yet. You don't even know it's a problem until you sit down with your dad to go, hey, is there any way we can make adjustments here?

• 7:05Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Yeah.

• 7:06Speaker 04

  It doesn't even have to be black and white. You know, how can we do this where we can both mutually enjoy the space in each other? And he might go, I'm so sorry, I didn't even know.

• 7:16Speaker 04

  You never said anything to me.

• 7:17Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Or I've been dying to get rid of some of these tools. I just have way too many. Maybe you could help me out.

• 7:22Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 7:23Joshua Fields Millburn?

  And part of that is is opening up for communication. Well, you're one of the things that's interesting here is we often want to convince someone to get rid of something or to do something they may or may not want to do, but especially when they don't want to do it. And we try to find ways to persuade them or convince them, but sometimes convincing someone is a great way to unlove them because it's showing only your perspective. The irony of this is I think about TK as he's sitting here across from me and he's convinced me of more things in my life than just about anyone I can think of. And he has never once tried to convince me of anything. He's hyper convincing. So so TK, I'm interested in your perspective on this as someone who is rather convincing,

• 8:05Joshua Fields Millburn?

  but never tries to like drag me to his perspective. What insights do you have for Laura?

• 8:11Speaker 05

  Yeah, I just think about the power of vulnerability. And I, as Erwin was talking, I just couldn't help but imagine a conversation between her and her dad about the first question and how powerful that would be, right? So she's got a problem with her ex-husband and just sort of moving on and getting rid of his stuff. What if we just sat the dad's problem on the shelf for a second? And we went to our father as that mentor that he is, as that guide and protector of that he is, as that lover of children that he is. And we say, Dad, can you help me out? Let me bounce something off you. I'm really struggling with this thing right now. My ex-husband left. I've still got his things over, la di da di da. What does he say? How does he connect with you over that?

• 8:54Speaker 05

  And how does that allow him to see some ways in which he might be affecting you without having to deal with it so directly? I would just love it. While you were talking about that, I was just imagining that. I would love to see or hear how that conversation unfolds. And sometimes we don't even know how much space we have for things. And we tend to just get frustrated because we don't, we're not experiencing anything that reflects the life, an orderly life that we want. So it may be the case that dad's stuff is not that big of a problem. We don't know yet because right now you're not living in the space as you want it to be because your husband's still there. So you might have enough space for two people, just not enough space for three. We don't know.

• 9:34Joshua Fields Millburn?

  I think that's fair. And ultimately, what she's talking about here is I want to clear these things out, but communicating is also communicating where you're going. It's not just about having an empty garage, or maybe it is, and that's okay, too. I'd really like to have an empty garage. Okay, well, why, right? Because, as she said, it maybe helps my mental clutter. When we are surrounded by all these physical objects, our material possessions become this manifestation of a bunch of internal clutter, whether it's emotional clutter, or spiritual clutter, or mental clutter. We have a lot of clutter in our lives and it's often manifest there in our garage or cabinets or whatever. Now, Erwin, I'm interested in the insights you might have with respect to different ways that we communicate. In your book, you talk about these seven different communication types.

• 10:19Joshua Fields Millburn?

  And, you know, it's hard for me To determine what I am, because I see myself in it, especially if you have a chapter here about the shadow side of each of the different frequencies. And I see my shadow like, maybe I'm just, I've gotten really good at being self deprecating. And so I'm like, oh yeah, I can see that in me, or I can see that in me. But I look at, at Ryan Akademas, who's not here today. He's in Montana. He says, hi, by the way, but he's, he's the frequency number one. He's the motivator. And then I look at someone like TK and he's probably the challenger. Frequency number two. And then I'm maybe the seer or the maven. And so we have these different communication styles, but you don't think about

• 11:04Joshua Fields Millburn?

  someone else's communication style. What stood out to me about the book is we understand our communication style. So we can also understand how to better communicate or have conflicts with the people around us who might communicate differently.

• 11:17Speaker 04

  Yeah, it's interesting. I loved your expression when he said you were a challenger. Cause you instantly, your face challenged it.

• 11:28Speaker 04

  Which is a very natural challenger response, by the way. Almost every single person who's come to us and said, I don't agree with this assessment. And I said, is your number one frequency challenger? And they go, yeah.

• 11:41Speaker 04

  I said, okay, you've just reinforced the entire process for us.

• 11:48Speaker 04

  Outside of the frequencies, I think it's important to realize that communication is easy when someone agrees with you. And, and so when you're like in an ebb and flow and you're like, oh man, we just get each other. And it's so easy to communicate. It's because they agree with you. Communication becomes far more difficult when someone disagrees with you. That's really where miscommunication happens. And a huge part of that, and, and I've been on both sides of this, is when someone. Inherently disagrees with me, they will reinterpret what I said to match what they think I should have said. Hmm. And later they will say, but you said this and actually I said the opposite. And, and I've done this too, where I've listened to someone and I've reinterpreted what they

• 12:33Speaker 04

  said to match what I was sure they should have said. Yeah. So when, so the first thing I tried to figure out is, are we actually in alignment on this perspective? Because if we are, I'm just talking to myself. It's really easy. But the moment I realized, oh no, we're actually not in alignment with each other. And then I go, okay, misunderstanding is going to happen here. And so I, I think it's really important for me to say, what did you hear me say? That's like one of my safety valve questions. Because I don't want that person walking away with, with what they thought I should have said, rather than what I actually said. Yeah. And I've been married 41 years and believe me, I get reinterpreted every day. Yeah.

• 13:14Speaker 04

  And in that process and, and, but also different communication frequencies are easier to misunderstand. It's, it's harder to misunderstand what the commander frequency is saying to you. It's easier to misunderstand why a commander frequency is saying it to you. Hmm. And, and so the motivation behind the statement can be more misunderstood. Now, if you happen to be, let's say a Maven frequency, it's much easier to be misunderstood. Someone may walk away having no idea what you actually meant. And with, with, uh, it's funny with our kids, Aaron and Mariah, and our son is 36, he's a commander. And our daughter, Mariah is 33 and she's a challenger.

• 13:58Speaker 04

  And they're both very clear. And, and, but my number one is a Maven and they grew up saying, just tell us what to do. And they, they were just so frustrated. They'd come to me and ask me a question and I'd ask them a question. And they would say, Dad, you know, you never answer any questions. I said, no, I'm answering the question. Sometimes the answer to a question is a question, almost always. Yeah. And so their frustration is you need to be more clear. You need to be more clear. And, and as I, because we can actually access all seven frequencies when you take the indicator. My number seven frequency is commander. So I almost never go there.

• 14:39Speaker 04

  You, you have to get me into an extreme state of being for me to command. But what I've realized is even though I, I'm not attracted to the commander frequency for me, I'm very much attracted to the clarity they bring. And so I, I, I look at it and go, okay, you cannot afford to see that frequency only as a negative. Because there are so many positive elements to that frequency that I need to bring. And the reason it's going to be harder to read you is you spend your life communicating. Your, your life work is communicating to the world. You listen to people every single day and you're processing their frequencies, whether you realize it or not. And you're marrying their frequencies. You're trying to figure out what frequency can I communicate with that person with?

• 15:23Speaker 04

  And, and so you, you're going to be much broader because the seven frequencies are not static. They're not, this is who you are and that's where you're stuck with. No, they're dynamic. The more you actually take on the communication processes, art and science, the more frequencies you're going to be able to access.

• 15:41Joshua Fields Millburn?

  I want to step back and talk a bit more about conflict here because I think that's the, the heart of this episode. And it's understanding, uh, well, I think Nicodemus does a great job with this of de-escalating conflict by listening and trying to better understand the other person in a way that allows people to be more charitable toward him and maybe not intentionally misunderstand him. And one of the things that happens if, if someone tries to belittle me or is becoming, and they may not even realize it, there's just a pattern that they have. And then I'll just ask them to repeat themselves. Like if they're like, you know, I really don't like what your hair looks like today. I'm like, can you, what, what'd you say? And all of a sudden there's like a retreat. There's like, oh, wait, I realize I sound like a real jerk right now, right?

• 16:26Joshua Fields Millburn?

  I sound like a total dick being like, oh, and, and it breaks our pattern, right? And one of the things that's really helped me, and I think this would help Laura with respect to her question, five words I often talk about, would you be willing to? Now I add two words to that when there is a, a type of conflict. Would you be willing to help me blank? What is the blank here? And for Laura, I might be going to her dad, would you be willing to help me with my ex-husband's tools? And eventually, it may be, hey, would you be willing to help me with clearing out some of your tools? Because here's why I want the extra space freed up. Here's what I want to do with that space.

• 17:06Joshua Fields Millburn?

  So getting back to this idea of conflict, we're going to experience it every day. I had a mentor tell me, he was my favorite mentor. He, um, he always asked questions. He never gave me an answer ever. I felt like he was like a Buddha from Kentucky. Cause he was from Kentucky and his name is Jim. And he would, I'd call him up with a question about a customer or something when I was working back in the corporate world. And he would say, well, what do you recommend or what would you do? And every time he would make me answer the question for myself. And sometimes I'd get the answer blatantly wrong, like so, so wrong. He'd go, I think that's an interesting answer. Why don't you give it a shot? He would allow me the dignity of failing instead of doing it for me.

• 17:51Joshua Fields Millburn?

  And I think that's something I struggle with now, even as, as a leader is like, I don't want the people around me to fail. But that's how they learn. They learn from these mistakes and these embarrassments. And, and, and so when I was talking to him about conflict, he goes, oh, you're, Josh, you're really great at conflict. I said, that's, that can't be true because I hate conflict. He said, well, the only people who like conflict are bullies. And if you really enjoy getting into conflict with someone, there, there's probably some sort of bully trait there. I don't think that's always true, but I think a lot of the time you can be good at something. And even though it's uncomfortable, you dislike it. So what is so uncomfortable about our conflict with others? Why do we hate conflict?

• 18:36Speaker 04

  Well, I think there's another aspect here. I think sometimes people are drawn to conflict, not because they're bullies, but because they're wounded. And they see conflict as an attempt to be made powerless. And so instead of learning how to diffuse that conflict, they try to overpower that conflict. And so it isn't about them trying to bully you. It's them trying not to be bullied again.

• 19:03Speaker 04

  Does that make sense?

• 19:03Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Almost like rewriting their history.

• 19:05Speaker 04

  Yeah. And because we just did, Aaron and I have a podcast called Mind Shift, and we just did a whole thing on diffusing bombs and hostage negotiations.

• 19:16Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Oh, wow.

• 19:17Speaker 04

  And as I said, one of the huge issues in being able to diffuse a bomb or in dealing with hostage negotiations is humility. You cannot have a need to be seen as winning. And most of the time, the reason people are bad at dealing with conflict is that they have a need to win or to be perceived as winning. And the reason I'm really good, if I have an art form, I'm really good in crisis. I'm really good in conflict, and I know how to diffuse them. And it's because I don't have a need to win. I'm okay with you walking away thinking you won.

• 19:50Joshua Fields Millburn?

  And you're also okay with me walking away thinking you lost?

• 19:54Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 19:54Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Ooh, because those are two different dynamics, right? It's like, because TK never, I never feel like TK is like, I need to win, or I need, another way to say it is I need to be right. Right? There's old saying, you can be right or you can be in love, choose one.

• 20:09Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 20:09Joshua Fields Millburn?

  And that often happens with conflict. So you're able to say, you know what? You won, and that's totally fine with me.

• 20:17Speaker 04

  Yeah, and I think it's in the art of war. They talks about giving your enemy a golden bridge. You have to give them an honorable way to move forward. And a lot of times in conflict, we destroy, we dismantle every honorable way for the other person to win or to move forward. And when you do that, you're just cornering a rabid wolf. Because if you remove every honorable way forward, that person's going to act in a way that isn't honorable. They're going to be aggressive and volatile and destructive. And so I always look for a way to create a win for that person, even if they feel that they've stepped on my head and it's a loss for me.

• 20:57Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Wow.

• 20:58Speaker 04

  And I remember once I read about this philosopher theologian that was writing, looking out his window in the Swiss Alps, and he saw two goats, and one goat was, or ram, one ram was coming down, one ram was going up, and they were on this very, very thin ledge. And he wondered how they would resolve this. And the ram that was going down got on all fours and lowered its head, and the ram that was going up walked over him and then kept going. And, and in that moment, he was writing about this is what humility looks like. The person that was higher, the one that was higher actually lowered himself. The one that was lower could go higher.

• 21:38Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Yeah.

• 21:39Speaker 04

  I think that's one of the psychological frameworks you have to have with conflict resolution. I'm not trying to win. I'm trying to help you win. It just shifts everything. It's the same way when you're dealing with, in a sense, like hostage negotiation. Because what you're looking at is you're looking at someone who wants their outcome at the cost of everyone else. And sometimes in life you do have that. It's very hard because you have a person who doesn't want to win-win. They need that win-lose. And you have to help them realize, so you can't say, look what you'll do. Look at all the people you're gonna harm. Look at the outcome or consequences because all they're thinking about right now is themselves.

• 22:22Speaker 04

  So you have to help them see that hurting other people will actually be their worst choice for them. And, and, and a lot of times it happens is you don't want to help that person have a win. You don't want them to walk forward feeling like, okay, I got what I wanted. But if you don't find a way to help that person get what they want without harming anyone else, you're actually gonna have a worst-case scenario.

• 22:45Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Yeah, no, no one likes a sore loser, but we especially dislike sore winners. People who gloat, right? People who, who, yeah, look, you lost, look, and we like it in a sports context, maybe we're all, three of us are basketball fans, and so it's great to see Steph Curry put someone to sleep in the fourth quarter, like, that's, that's fun to watch. But if you see him doing it and they're down by 40 points, you're like, what the heck? And he wouldn't do that, right? And yet, we don't want to feel like the other person has won and we have lost. But if you're willing to let that go, if you're willing to set that down and realizing

• 23:26Joshua Fields Millburn?

  that if you win, but they lose, then maybe you also lost, or you lost as a couple. I, I think about this story, I was in a sauna with a Native American in Montana from the Blackfoot tribe, and we were near a swimming pool, and he's looking out a swimming pool, he goes, I don't understand you Americans and your competition. I'm like, what? He goes, you always need to win. What do you mean? He goes, well, in my tribe, that if someone else in the tribe loses, then I lose. And if they win, then I win. I just love that framing of it, especially in the context of conflict. The question is, how do we win? Not how do I win while you lose?

• 24:10Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Laura, I'd love to send you a copy of The Seven Frequencies of Communication by Erwin Raphael McManus. We'll send you the physical book, or if you want the ebook, we'll be happy to send that to you as well. Before we get back to our questions, Malibu, our callers, what time is it?

• 24:25Speaker 01

  You know what time it is. It's time for the lightning round, where we answer the Patreon community chat's question of the week.

• 24:30Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Yes, indeed. Now, Erwin, you might remember, during the lightning round, we attempt to answer questions with a short, shareable, minimal maxim. You can find this episode's maxims in the show notes at theminimalists.com/podcast and every minimal maxim ever at minimalmaxims.com. We'll also deliver our weekly show notes directly to your inbox, including seven new maxims every Monday for free if you sign up for our email newsletter at theminimalists.e-mail. We'll never send you spam, or junk, or ads, but we will start your week off with a dose of simplicity. What is the question of the week this week?

• 25:05Speaker 01

  What's the hardest thing about being honest?

• 25:07Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Oh, what is the hardest thing about being honest? TK, before we get to our pithy answers, I do want to hear from Erwin, but first I want to hear from some of our simpletons here. Malibu, what did our listeners have to say?

• 25:19Speaker 01

  Stephanie said, "For me, the hardest thing about being honest is being misunderstood. I pride myself on communicating clearly, but I often struggle when what I'm communicating isn't being understood, especially when it's by a loved one."

• 25:33Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Now, Erwin, this feels universal. Why do we humans hate being misunderstood?

• 25:42Speaker 04

  Oh, we shifted the question.

• 25:45Speaker 04

  Why, why are you afraid of being honest?

• 25:47Joshua Fields Millburn?

  We'll get back to the honesty. But, but Stephanie is like, hey, the hardest thing for me about being honest is I don't want to be misunderstood. There's something there, and you even mentioned being misunderstood earlier. That there's this, you know, I just want to be understood and I'm willing to, to drag you through hell and back just so that you understand me.

• 26:07Speaker 04

  Well, I think the, the primary fear when we say we want to be, we don't want to be misunderstood is we do not want people to impose negative intention behind our thoughts or actions. It's not that we're worried about the information being misunderstood. It's that we're, we're worried about our motivation being misunderstood. And I think that's really where, for us, the, the, the trauma comes in. You know, I've been so misunderstood. No one that says, oh, my favorite color is red, not blue. I'm so misunderstood. And what we're afraid of is you did that because.

• 26:47Joshua Fields Millburn?

  And it's always because of a negative reason. If a TK, if I'm like TK, he, he's drinking tea because he really cares about me. Like, he's not going to care about that type of being misunderstood. But I'm like, he's drinking tea because he's not a good person. Good people drink coffee. You're like, well, wait a minute. Now you misunderstand me. That makes a lot of sense.

• 27:08Speaker 05

  It makes a lot of sense. Even if I had coffee in this cup, you're like, he's drinking tea because he loves me. I'd be like, ah, yep. Keep on misunderstanding.

• 27:16Joshua Fields Millburn?

  That's a good point. So, so being misunderstood has a lot to do with what you're misunderstanding someone about. And, and that gets back to the initial question here about the most difficult thing about being honest. Sometimes when we're not honest, it's because we're afraid of being misunderstood. What about, what else we have?

• 27:34Speaker 01

  Ariana said, I've spent most of my life learning how to read the nuances of the people around me and figure out the best response at all times. While I've overcome most of my social awkwardness and can even mask myself as an outgoing extrovert, the result is that I cannot stay connected to the moment, to myself, or to my surroundings when anyone is in the room, even if we are not interacting.

• 27:57Joshua Fields Millburn?

  So, Ern, what do we do when people tell you that they find it really difficult to be present around other people?

• 28:05Speaker 04

  Yeah, the way he began his question was he's, he's developed reading people. And I'm, my immediate thought was you need to develop listening to people.

• 28:16Speaker 05

  Oh.

• 28:17Speaker 04

  Not reading them. Because if you're trying to just quote, "read people," you're trying to gain a social advantage. But if you're listening to people, you're trying to make a human connection.

• 28:29Speaker 04

  And so I think the key of being present is, uh, don't focus on the outcomes. Like a lot of times in, in like mixers, you know, people are trying to find business partners or they're trying to find a new contractor, trying to find someone who can help them scale. And all they're doing is looking for what someone can do for them. Rather, and, and really the best connectors are the people who aren't trying to find anything except human connection. And then in those human connections, you, you get the serendipitous effect of, "Oh, and we can help each other like this." And so I, I'd say, focus on the value of people. Don't read people, listen to them. And, and, and then if you have a great ability to read people, because the only people you

• 29:11Speaker 04

  really need to read are the people who are trying to mislead you.

• 29:15Speaker 05

  Okay.

• 29:17Speaker 04

  And, and so if you are almost hypervigilant, you think everyone's trying to mislead you, then you're trying to read the whole room. I don't, I don't even try to read Josh.

• 29:28Speaker 04

  I just, I just listen, I just absorb in a sense, your essence, your presence. Like, there's no sense, I, I need to read him, gotta figure out what's going on here, right?

• 29:36Speaker 05

  Size him up.

• 29:37Speaker 04

  Yeah, I'm not, I don't need to size you up because you just are who you are. And so it's very easy. And I think the connection is more important.

• 29:44Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Yeah, well, you also show up with a real spirit of service as opposed to what can I get from you? It's how can I contribute beyond myself in a meaningful way? And I think that shows it also, the, the paradox of that is people then want to contribute to you, right? Because they feel like they're seen, they feel like they're heard, they're feel, they feel like they're helped. And they're like, well, I want to help those who also help me, right?

• 30:07Speaker 05

  Yeah, uh, example of his humility, when I first met him, you were filming the documentary, and I was so pumped up. I was like, "I read your book, Seizing Your Divine Moment, years ago, and it changed my life." Like, this is the first time I've actually, uh, met an author who wrote a book that changed my life. And he goes, "Oh, this is my first time actually reading somebody who read one of my books."

• 30:28Speaker 05

  And it just sort of like de-dramatized the moment. It's like, this is a human being, man. This is a guy that's not threatened by anybody, that's not, not putting on a show. And that, that, that probably has a lot to do with your ability to be free of the need to size people up, right?

• 30:42Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Mm-hmm.

• 30:42Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 30:43Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Yeah, I, I think there, there's something special about someone like Erwin showing up and not being filled with the self. We call it the ego, which is like the false self, right? But he has a, a healthy dose of he knows who he is. But he's not trying to be someone for you. He's not trying to put on a mask to impress you. Now, ironically, that's one of the most impressive things about someone like Erwin. It's like, he's not trying to impress me, and so therefore I'm impressed by him. How fascinating is that? What else you got, Bama?

• 31:14Speaker 01

  Suzie said, I remember reading a tweet once that said, I spend a lot of time trying to be as nice as you think I am.

• 31:21Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Ooh.

• 31:21Speaker 01

  As a minister's wife, I often have a shame hangover when I've been honest about who I am or how I feel about things. It can feel quite sad to see the disappointment in people's eyes when they realize you're not who they had hoped you were, and that you don't agree with everything as simply as they imagine you should.

• 31:38Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Yeah. You know what's fascinating about others' expectations? When we heap them onto ourselves, they become a sort of a prison cell. Our prison cells are built by the expectations of others.

• 31:48Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 31:48Joshua Fields Millburn?

  But only when we accept them. Now, Erwin, I'm interested, what do you do when you disappoint someone?

• 31:54Speaker 04

  You mean, I just call that like Tuesday.

• 32:03Speaker 04

  It, it's funny, when I was much younger, I thought I could get to a level of wisdom, maturity, emotional stability, where I would never disappoint another human being again. And I've, I still have not achieved.

• 32:20Joshua Fields Millburn?

  One year away.

• 32:21Speaker 04

  That, that status shot. I've accepted, I accepted a long time ago, I will disappoint someone every day of my life. And that if I live my life based on whether I live up to other people's expectations, I, I won't even find any joy or meaning in life. And so even this week has been a challenge. I mean, there are people I disappointed this week, people I disappointed last month. And I kind of work from my inner circle. If I disappoint Kim, it really matters to me. If I disappoint Erin, Mariah, Jake, Juno, it matters to me. But if I disappoint a stranger that I've never met because I don't satisfy their perception of who I should be,

• 33:06Speaker 04

  I just cannot let that matter to me. And I wish I had super thick skin, but I'm not reptilian. I actually have like, I feel it. I have high, high empathy. And so I just told myself I need to have, you know, thick skin, tender heart, not the other way around. Right? You know, you don't want to have a hard heart and thin skin. And so I just accept the fact that when you're trying to do good, you will always let people down. When you disappoint people, it actually means you've elevated your expectation of the kind of person you are. So you should take it as a compliment. They thought so highly of you that they thought higher than you could achieve your. Which is kind of awesome.

• 33:44Joshua Fields Millburn?

  It's a compliment. That's so good.

• 33:46Speaker 05

  That's good.

• 33:47Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Anything to add to that?

• 33:48Speaker 05

  Well, one of the reasons why you want to have an inner circle, especially one that isn't afraid to be honest with you, is when you have a disappointment that nags you from someone that's in the outer circle, you can take that to your inner circle and say, hey, look, this has really bothered me. What do you think? And they'll be honest and say, I think you should learn from that. I actually think they're right and you should make this kind of adjustment. Or they might say, I think you should ignore that and move on. And that can be a great help to you.

• 34:11Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Or they might say to you like, you know what? That person communicated some truth to you. I don't like the way they communicated. It was, it was unkind and maybe they didn't even realize they were unkind, especially if it was communicated to you online. Because comment sections, you, you remove all of the context, you remove all of the tonality, you remove the timber and the pace of, of communication. And so it becomes more difficult to communicate in the written word. And the written word is beautiful when you're intentional about it. But also it can be really easy to misunderstand what someone was trying to communicate. So also, what's the most charitable thing that I can do? That I can, okay, this person, I didn't like the way they said this.

• 34:52Joshua Fields Millburn?

  But what is the most charitable way to frame the, the feedback that they are giving me during this conflict? Let's do one more. We had so many people respond to this question. What's the hardest thing about being honest? What did, uh, how about Rebecca?

• 35:08Speaker 01

  The hardest thing about being honest is not hurting someone's feelings. I speak very plainly to help minimize misunderstandings, but people take offense to it.

• 35:17Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Now TK, before we started recording, you said to me that the price of truth makes silence tempting. And sometimes it feels that way, and although we often feel as though I must say something, I must contribute to this. But also, it is costly to be truthful. And so, why did you frame it that way?

• 35:38Speaker 05

  I mean, because sometimes it's not how you say it. Sometimes it's what you say. I believe in communication techniques. I believe very strongly that you are more likely to have an impact if you consider timing, tone, context, manner, and so on. But sometimes, the truth is just the truth, and even if you tell it in the best way you know how, that person still may not be ready to receive it. They still may not like it. And you can't control other people's reaction and ask them to always like the truth. Sometimes we hear a truth that we need to hear, and we're still upset in the moment. And it's not until later we come back and say, hey, thank you for that. I want to hear Bill Eagle say that the truth will set you free, but first it's gonna piss you off.

• 36:19Speaker 05

  It's not true all the time, but it's true sometimes, and we have to take that into account. And it does make silence tempting when we go into a situation where we do have a really good ability to predict that the other person may not like this.

• 36:32Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Erwin, we did a politics episode the day before the presidential election last year. Oh, wow. And it was the episode that was gonna bring everyone together, and I felt so good about it.

• 36:42Speaker 05

  People didn't want to be brought together.

• 36:44Joshua Fields Millburn?

  That's another, that's worth talking about as well. And it was called "Letting Go of Politics." It was about setting down the partisanship and all of this. And I couldn't have been further from the truth. I was so wrong, and it just frustrated everyone, I feel like. And during the conversation, I asked TK, he's like, "I hate having these political discussions." But I was like, "You're so good at it. Why do you hate having them?" And he said, "Because I'm not a coward." And so, I'm willing to tell the truth, even if it disappoints someone, even if it offends someone. It is not my intention to reach out and disappoint or offend these people. But also, I'm willing to do it. I'm willing to sacrifice that for the truth.

• 37:26Speaker 04

  I just want to add something that might be slightly unpopular. Being honest doesn't mean you're telling the truth.

• 37:33Speaker 05

  Ooh.

• 37:33Speaker 04

  Yeah. It means you're giving your opinion.

• 37:37Speaker 04

  And, and, and I know that when you were sharing, you equated that because I think for you, being honest is telling the truth. But I'd say for most human behavior, when we're saying, I just need to be honest with you, what you're actually saying is I need to give you my opinion.

• 37:53Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Yes.

• 37:54Speaker 04

  And it's rarely rooted in truth. It's usually rooted in emotion, which is why we get a negative reaction. Because we think people are accepting the truth, but they're not accepting is the emotional volatility that's coming from us to them. If you're honest by telling the truth, and you actually have that truth fueled by love. So like one of our lifelong statements is, truth should never travel faster than love. Because if the truth gets there before your love gets there, it will not be accepted well. But you need to distinguish between honesty being your own permission, just to say whatever you feel and think, and whatever your opinion is,

• 38:38Speaker 04

  as if it is truth. Because there's a distinction between those two.

• 38:44Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Yeah, we often conflate the fact that something is subjective, like, blue is the best car color. Like, that's an opinion, and that's an honest opinion, if that is your opinion. But there's no objective truth behind that. And of course, that is almost a parodic example. But the, the truth behind this is that we feel that way about all of our opinions.

• 39:05Speaker 04

  Right. And, and when this thing, things even politically, sorry, let me drink some water here.

• 39:12Speaker 04

  As we go to politics, I'm choking up.

• 39:16Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Time to get honest.

• 39:18Speaker 04

  It's like, the moment we talk about politics, and people become incensed, I mean, they really become like violent, is because they attribute a position to a quality of virtue.

• 39:36Speaker 04

  And it's go, oh, I thought you were a good man.

• 39:39Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 39:39Speaker 04

  But you hold that position, so you cannot be a good man.

• 39:41Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 39:42Speaker 04

  Rather than reversing the logic and saying, I've known you to be a good man. And now I know you hold this position, so I now I know a good man can hold that position.

• 39:54Speaker 04

  Because if they do that, now they have to deal with that position with integrity, intellectual integrity.

• 40:00Speaker 05

  So good.

• 40:00Speaker 04

  So they have to reverse it and say, I thought you were a good man, but now that I know you hold this position, I know you're not a good man. So I don't have to have an intellectual engagement with your idea, your position, your opinion.

• 40:12Speaker 05

  The other way around compels me to be curious. I know you're a good man. I've associated that position with evil men. So now I've got to understand what is it about the way you're looking at this that shows some merit in it? I gotta make one further distinction. There, there is a subjective and an objective dimension to truth. The subjective dimension is when I am honest, I'm telling you the truth about what I think or how I feel. Did you like the cake? I didn't like it. That's the subjective dimension, right? I'm being honest and truthful, because to be honest is to say the truth about what I feel. But the objective dimension is I am making a statement that corresponds to reality, right? So if I say I didn't like the cake, that's honest and true.

• 40:53Speaker 05

  But if I didn't say that cake is crap, uh oh, now I'm taking my feeling and I'm projecting it on to reality and treating it being bad as if it's an attribute of the cake itself. And it's like, no, that's just how I feel about it. And I, and I like that you're holding space between those two components. Being honest doesn't mean I'm telling you how it is. It's me telling you how I am.

• 41:13Speaker 04

  So it's being honest, do you like the cake? I love that you made that cake for me.

• 41:21Speaker 05

  Yeah, but do you like it?

• 41:23Speaker 04

  When that person's asking, do you like the cake? What they're actually asking is, do you love me?

• 41:29Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Yeah. Do you appreciate?

• 41:30Speaker 04

  You appreciate what I've done.

• 41:31Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Yeah. And, and so there are ways to handle it where you can still be honest. That's a hostage negotiator.

• 41:38Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 41:41Speaker 04

  I feel bad that I have to, I feel like I'm dealing with a hostage situation just because you baked me a cake.

• 41:46Speaker 05

  Okay, I gotta push back though, I gotta be the challenger here. Because I, I am naturally inclined to be that guy when you say, do you like the cake? I love that you made it for me. I was like that when I was five. And it's as if God was sending me people to be like, nah, brother, tell me if you like the cake. Don't BS me with that. So I'm curious, speaking the truth in love, when someone pushes back and they're like, no, did you think the cake tastes good? What do you say?

• 42:13Speaker 04

  You move from objective to subjective.

• 42:15Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 42:16Speaker 04

  You don't say that cake is terrible. That's objective.

• 42:18Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 42:19Speaker 04

  Subjective is, I don't know why, but the flavor didn't work for me.

• 42:23Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 42:24Speaker 04

  And I, I learned this the hard way because I did not like a lot of food growing up and my mom did not enjoy me. And one day she, we had this guy come over, he was a semi-professional tennis player. She put some food on the table, he ate and he said, I'm so sorry, my, my taste buds haven't developed to this level yet.

• 42:48Speaker 01

  I don't know if that's an insult or a compliment.

• 42:52Joshua Fields Millburn?

  I'm gonna start using that on TK for everything.

• 42:55Speaker 04

  She goes, that's perfectly okay? And I'm like, wait a minute. What just happened here? This is a sleight of hand. I've been telling you this is terrible for a long time.

• 43:05Speaker 05

  You just set me free. Now I'm gonna get something off my chest with Josh right here. Hey, it's not LeBron, it's me.

• 43:11Speaker 04

  No, no, no, it's LeBron, bro. Come on. All right, don't gang up on me, he's a Clippers fan. We can't do this right now. I, I, I love a lot of teams, but you know, if you were looking for the greatest flopper of all time, LeBron would be your man.

• 43:29Speaker 01

  I'm so glad I'm not a basketball person.

• 43:31Speaker 05

  I just don't appreciate flopping enough to love him as I should.

• 43:34Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Hey, he's being honest, even if he's not telling the truth. You know what's fascinating about this though is because you also don't want to do the opposite where you're like, mm, I loved it. And you're like spitting it in the trash can, right? Because it's better to hurt someone's feelings with the truth than it is to pacify them with a lie.

• 43:53Speaker 04

  Yeah, I've been married 41 years, so I can use, I liked your last cake better.

• 43:59Speaker 04

  I'm always pointing to an achievement.

• 44:01Joshua Fields Millburn?

  There you go.

• 44:02Speaker 04

  That's impressive.

• 44:03Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Yeah. Well, how about you listeners? We'd love to hear from you. What's the hardest thing about being honest? Let us know your thoughts in the Patreon community chat, which by the way, you can join for free if you don't subscribe to our private podcast. Obviously, we'd love for you to subscribe to the private podcast as well. Okay, give me something pithy TK. What's the hardest thing about being honest?

• 44:23Speaker 05

  So, truth is priceless, but sometimes dishonesty feels more affordable. I think one of the challenges, aspects of being, challenging aspects of being honest is being willing to act courageously and creatively in the face of the consequences of being honest. I remember the Gordon Ramsay cooking show. You remember that?

• 44:41Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Yeah.

• 44:42Speaker 05

  Where there was this ABC Baking Company and the woman who owned the business, along with her husband, she had a temper, man. And when you told her something she didn't want to hear, she got so mad. And so the husband spent the whole episode trying to protect her. He says, don't, don't, don't tell my wife that she can't handle the truth. Don't tell my wife that she can't handle the truth. And finally, at the end, there was a confrontation that says, no, the problem isn't that your wife can't handle the truth. The problem is you keep insulating from her from the truth because you're afraid you can't handle her when she's mad. That's what you need to deal with. And he had to come to grips with that and realize, you know what? The truth is good for my wife. And I got to deal with the fact that we're going to go home together and she's going to be upset for a while. And

• 45:23Speaker 05

  I've got to trust that I can be man enough to stand in the midst of that fire and be okay and love her anyway.

• 45:30Joshua Fields Millburn?

  That dovetails perfectly into my pithy answer, which is honesty is the circuitous route toward pleasure, but the shortest path to peace. Now, at first, it's like, oh yeah, I'm going to, to, you know what? I'm not going to get what I want right away if I'm honest with this person, right? We need to insulate this, my wife, from any of this critical feedback, right? Because I want to feel good in the moment. It doesn't always feel good to be honest, but ultimately that is the path toward peace. Any insights on that, Erwin?

• 46:03Speaker 04

  Honesty is a commitment to love someone more than you love how they feel about you.

• 46:08Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Oh, wow. He's been doing this for a while. We're coming up to the end of page one. We still have an entire switchboard of callers to talk to, but first, real quick for right here, right now, here's one thing that's going on in the life of the minimalist. We've got some live events coming up. Once a month, we call it Sunday Symposium. Our next one is this Sunday, March 30th, Sunday Symposium here in Los Angeles, in West Hollywood. I don't know if there are any tickets left, but if there are, you can find them at sundaysymposium.com, or you can get added to the waitlist to that as well. Tickets are free for that event. Also, we'll be in Santa Barbara in April and Orange County in May with our Sunday Symposiums. Tickets at sundaysymposium.com.

• 46:52Joshua Fields Millburn?

  And speaking of events, our next fam's call, our Friday afternoon Minimalist Zoom is Friday, April 4th at 3:00 PM Eastern. We hop on there with our patrons. We have a nice little remote event where you can hop on there. You can turn your camera on. You can talk to us. You can turn your camera off and just be a fly on the wall and listen. I really enjoy those. The first Friday of every month there on Patreon. You can find the details at theminimalists.com/zoom. Also, there are still a few seats left to Simple Haven. We're doing a three-day minimalist retreat up in Ojai, California. I live up in Ojai now, and it's been this really great community for us, and we're meeting with 30 people. There's just a few tickets left as of this recording. You can

• 47:35Joshua Fields Millburn?

  find the details on our events page at theminimalists.com. If you want to join us for three days in Ojai, Nicodemus will be there, TK will be there. We'll have a few special guests. I'll be there as well. Join us for Simple Haven, a three-day minimalist retreat. Theminimalists.com. Click on Events at the top if you want to grab your seat. Once we have 30 people there, that's it. Malabam, what else you got for us?

• 47:57Speaker 01

  Here's a minimalist insight from one of our listeners.

• 48:00Speaker 06

  Hi, Josh and TK. This is Bev from Lancaster, Pennsylvania. I have been a Patreon member since 2017. In the Holiday Anxiety Podcast, I enjoyed listening to TK's questions to Josh, whereby he wondered if Josh had an experience of being overwhelmed by other people's expectations. As our conversation progressed, it calls me to think about Gretchen Rubin's work on the Four Tendencies framework. This framework looks at a very narrow aspect of human nature, but something that is very important, which is how we respond to expectations. She states that we all face two kinds of expectations, outer expectations like work deadlines for an employer,

• 48:44Speaker 06

  and inner expectations like maintaining one's fitness routine. So depending on whether we meet or resist outer and inner expectations, that's what makes us either an upholder, a questioner, an obliger, or a rebel. Knowing your tendency can help you set up situations in ways that make it more likely that you achieve your aims. You can make better decisions, meet your promises to yourself, suffer less stress, and engage more deeply with others. This is some of what I heard Josh say, that he has learned that he does not have to suffer unnecessarily, and that his relationships benefit. Because when he shows up, he is there, he's engaged deeply.

• 49:29Speaker 06

  It appears to me that Josh achieves his aims by meeting his inner expectations. And if an outer expectation makes sense to him, then he will make it an inner expectation. This is an example of a questioner within the Four Tendencies framework. As for TK, it appears that he might be in the obliger or upholder tendency, whereby he meets outer expectations. He stated he is not as comfortable to saying no to the degree that Josh says it. And he is aware that saying yes might lead to long-term resentment and relationship deterioration. Thank you for inviting me to share these observations.

• 50:11Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Bev, thank you so much for that thoughtful observation. And yeah, we'll put a link to Gretchen Rubin's book in the show notes as well, if people want to check it out. For anyone else who has a listener tip or insight about this episode, send a voice memo to [email protected] so we can feature your voice on the show. Up next, we got a whole lot coming up on page two and page three. But first, let's take a quick pandiculation break. We'll be right back.

• 50:37Joshua Fields Millburn?

  All right, that's the first 39% of episode 484. We'll see you on Patreon for the full maximal edition with Erwin Raphael McManus, which includes answers to a bunch more questions. Questions like, "As I change my life, why do I find it more difficult to communicate with the people around me?" And, "How can I help my child heal the wounds caused by her narcissistic father?" And, "How do our emotions get in the way of communicating with others?" Plus, we have a million more questions and simple living segments over on The Minimalist's private podcast on Patreon. Big thanks to our friend Erwin Raphael McManus. His new book is called The Seven Frequencies of Communication. He also has a frequencies

• 51:20Joshua Fields Millburn?

  assessment that he has on his website at erwinmcmanus.com. We'll put a link to both of those in the show notes. You can check out his podcast as well. It's called Mind Shift. You can find a link to that in the show notes. And that is our minimal episode for today. Big thanks to Earthing Studios for the recording space. On behalf of Ryan Nicodemus, TK Coleman, Malabama, post-production Peter, Spire Jeff, and Spire Dave, Savvy D, who's on vacation this week, so Malabama's on the board. We also had a beautiful studio audience here. Buella was here, and Joe Smith was here as well, and the rest of our team. Big thanks to you. I'm Joshua Fields Milburn. If you leave here with just one message, let it be this: Love people and use things, because the opposite never works. Thanks for listening,

• 52:05Joshua Fields Millburn?

  y'all. We'll see you next time. Peace.