Why Being 'Nice' Is A Superpower With Alan Questel

Welcome to the Social Chameleon Show, where it's our goal to help you learn, grow, and transform and service you wanna become. Today, we're honored to introduce Alan Quintel, a renowned Feldenkrais Method trainer, known for his clear, creative, and practical teaching style. Trained by doctor Frodecker himself, Allan has developed numerous transformative programs, including pregnant pause for expectant mothers. He's the author of creating creativity, combining the creative process, and practice intentional acts of kindness and like yourself more? In his latest book, practice intentional acts of kindness and like and like yourself more, Allen guides readers to emphasize kindness in our daily lives, breaking old patterns, and expressing more love and kindness. Join us as we delve into Alan's journey and discover how his work enhances physical function, expands self image, and fosters creativity and connection. Alan directs Flinney Christ professional training programs worldwide and continues to inspire and educate from his home in Santa Fe, New Mexico. This is a great, interview. I learned so much.

Alan was great. I hope you guys really enjoy this interview. Without further ado, let's welcome Alan. Alan, welcome to the Social Security Show. I've been looking forward to this. You've got some interesting things, couple interesting books. I'd love the first of you have a chance to dig into all these different things.

Thanks for having me. I'm really looking forward to the conversation.

Perfect. When I was digging into your background, I noticed that it seems like a a back injury changed your entire life. Could we talk about how that

Yeah. It it it actually did, and it led me to something I never could have imagined. I I was an actor. I hurt my back doing sit ups, and I got better. And then I I was wallpapering my acting teacher's bathroom, which is how I made a living as an actor, and I hurt my back. And he said, go see this Feldenkrais practitioner. And I went, no. And I went I've read one of his Feldenkrais's books, and the the thinking was interesting, but the movements made no sense to me at all.

So I went to a chiropractor, and he popped me and actually made me worse.

Oh, no.

Well, but that that I'm not against chiropractors or anything. It's just that's what happened. So I went to this Feldenkrais guy, and this is in New York City. And I was in my New York pace like this, and he was moving like this. And he started touching me, and he was barely touching me. And I thought, oh, this is such a way. It was expensive, but this is such a waste of money. And I got up at the end, and I had no pain.

And I said to him, what did you do? And he said, you did it. And I said, no. Really? What'd you do? And he said, really? I was helping your body do what it's doing. And I thought, oh, it's a secret. About 3 days later, I was driving on a road in New York called the FDR Drive, still no pain. And I noticed I wasn't getting angry when people cut me off, and I thought, what happened to me? And all I could think of was this Feldenkrais lesson, and I went back to him 2 more times. And after the 3rd time, I thought, this is really interesting stuff. I wonder if I could do this part time and pursue acting.

And I Feldenkrais was giving his final training, it turned out, and I managed to get into it. And I spent the next 4 years studying it. And then within a year and a half, I had a waiting list, and I kinda put acting aside. I still work with acting schools and actors and stuff, but it really changed my life. And it's taken me all over the world now and written books and everything. It's all based on came out of that. But here's the kicker. Okay? I don't tell this story very often.

But the college I went to was the college at Purchase, a State University in New York, and I auditioned 3 years in a row to the acting school there before I got in. 1st year, I didn't get in. My best friend did. The next year, I got wait listed. The 3rd year, I got in. And my friend who was at the school, he called me and said that just the first ten letters of acceptance just went out and your name wasn't in it. And I was like, oh, no. And the next day, I got an acceptance letter.

And I called him up and I said Ricky, I said I said I got in, I got the letter. And he went, well, I hope it wasn't a mistake. And that kinda colored everything for me. So, but anyway, I went to that school. It was that acting teacher who turned me on to Feldenkrais. And then maybe, 20 years ago, I at that point, I was friends with my acting teacher, and he said to me, you know that letter that got sent out? I said, what letter? He said, the one that accepted you to purchase. I said, yeah. He said, it was a mistake.

Oh. Yeah. And I said, what? What are you talking about? He said, no one knows how you got that letter. Wow. He said, and, of course, it wasn't a mistake. But then I realized if I hadn't gone to that acting class, I never would have found out about Feldmukhars. I never would have written my books. So but it was like finding out I was adopted.

It was like my whole life was based on this mistake. And, of course, since then, I wonder I wonder what other mistakes happened in my life. You know?

That's interesting. I mean, you could frame it as it's a mistake, or you could frame it as maybe serendipitous. Maybe this was meant to be.

Definitely.

How how did you was acting like your dream?

Yeah. I think so.

Deal with all that rejection from a school that seemed like you really wanted to go to?

Well, I have a lot of perseverance, obviously.

You're a New Yorker?

Yeah. Originally. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And the the rejection I mean, look. If if if you're not kinda thick skinned, acting isn't the profession for you. Mhmm.

Because it's not just the university rejecting you. You get rejected all the time when you're auditioning and things. Mhmm. And you don't have a clue why, really. You know? So so you gotta be tough with that and just keep going. You know? But then again, I as I said, once I started doing Feldenkrais, it became really successful. I kinda went, this is a lot more secure, and I like it.

Right. Right.

And, so yeah.

What was there is it your upbringing? Is it maybe a New York state of mind? Was there self talk? Like, how did you, you know, back whenever this was, maybe in the eighties or seventies, when there wasn't really a lot of this kind of stuff around, how did you have that that that fortitude, that that sense of, you know, rejection's okay? Seems like maybe that some of that's phased out of society now. How did you think about that when you're

a rejection about acting and stuff?

Oh, right. I mean, everything. Yeah.

Yeah. Well, you know, as we were talking before we started, my aunt was an actress.

Right.

And so it was something that was allowable, reasonable thing to do. And she was a successful actress too. So it was like when I wanted to be an actor, my parents didn't say no. I mean, they they still wanted me to be a doctor and all this other stuff. You know?

Right. Right.

But they were able to tolerate it a lot more. And at that point, the acting school I went to was one of the most reputable ones. So that was a a chance to acknowledge something that I got into that. But, you know, it's funny because I just wrote a thing for for a a website, and one of the questions they asked me about, like, social media interaction. And one of the I I I named 3 things, but the first one was perseverance. Because it's not fun doing any of that stuff. It's not fun auditioning and going out, but you need to kinda stay with it. And I would put it in another way that's more important, which is really I I talk about it in one of my books too, which is to be able to differentiate our feelings from our actions.

To be able to say, I I don't feel like auditioning. I don't feel like doing this. And I do it. And it's not the just do it of ignoring myself. It's saying, I can have these feelings. And people who exercise or meditate, practice an instrument, they do it all the time. They have to do it. Because in order to run every day or meditate or or or practice a musical instrument, You have to stay with it consistently regardless of how you feel.

And if you if I'm lying in bed in the morning before I meditate, and if I had the thought, should I meditate? Boom. I'm back to sleep.

Yeah. Right.

It's like, get out of bed, and I do it. And I find once I'm doing whatever it is I'm practicing or doing, it's easy. You know? The all those those kind of injunctions to tell me to stop, they they go away pretty fast.

Yeah. I, I fight that every morning when I'm staring at my ice bath and I'm looking at it. I'm like, oh, what am I doing? Well, you know, my brain's like, listen, buddy. You did it yesterday. You don't really do it today. Right.

Right. Right. And then

I and then I'm like, oh, maybe I'll just get in a little bit. And then I get in in, like, within seconds. I'm like, what was I complaining about? Yeah. Every single day. But like you're saying, right, you gotta I train myself every day. I'm gonna get in this bad boy, and I know I'm gonna feel better. I know so even if the only benefit I get is I did something super hard today, I'm good with that.

Yeah. Yeah. I agree. Yeah.

That's very interesting. Yeah. It's I I wonder where it feels like we've somehow pushed this out of society a little bit, and feelings are the most important thing. And I hear that from so much I hear it from my kids. I hear it from people around me. And I tell I tell my kids a lot too. Like, you know, like, my son's like, I don't wanna get a nice bath, or I don't wanna work out. I said, good.

Go do it.

Right.

What what do you have a idea of maybe where that's gone or how we've kinda got away from that?

You you mean how we get how we kind of align ourselves more with our feelings than our desires or more?

Right. And then and then that leads to not doing the hard things. That leads to not doing the things that Yeah. Yeah. We should be doing. And then, also, maybe tangentially is we lack the discipline.

That's right. Well, the discipline comes from practice. And, you know, I think practice in anything is in my book on kindness, I'm taught it says, practice intentional acts of kindness. Mhmm. Right? It's about practicing something. We only get good at something is to practice something, to do it consistently. And as I said before, the the the idea of not letting our feelings dictate what we wanna do. And this can be really confusing because I let my feelings dictate what I what I need to do and what I wanna do.

But in that last sentence, I just said, what I want to do. Mhmm. And that's where the clarity of what do I want to do, which is not an easy thing to know what we want. We can know it on an immediate sense. I know I wanna go out and get Chinese food.

Uh-huh.

Okay.

Sure.

That's easy to do. But in terms of what do I want my life to look like? How do I wanna mold it? That's too big a question for most of us. You know, years ago in New York, in my private practice, I had a a client who she was kinda mopey and and she came in one day and she was like, listen. I got 3 new jobs. And I looked at her and I said, what happened to you? And she said, I did the fire walk, fear into power, with Tony Robbins. This was a long time ago. Right? And she changed so dramatically, I thought I'm gonna try it. I figured I could even deduct it probably.

You know? Right. Right. And, so I went to this firewalk with Tony Robbins, and it's basically like a 5 hour trans induction. And at the end, you walk through about 15 or 20 feet of hot coals, and people would get through it and go, yahoo. I could do whatever I want. Fear into power. And I walked through it, and I went, I could do whatever I want. And then I thought, what do I wanna do? And I got I got depressed and got into a cab and went home.

So this idea of if you want something bad enough and, you know, one quote I found that is kind of, credited to Thomas Jefferson, but then as I researched it, they said it's not sure, which is if you want something you've never had before, you have to do something you've never done before.

Absolutely.

And that kinda really speaks to the perseverance, the the tolerating, the challenging or difficult feelings, and saying, this is worth it. You know? And so could you so often in our lives, there's more of a sense of obligation to doing things than the real desire of, I really wanna do this. You know? How do I how do I make this happen?

I I do I I do agree with that. I feel like there there is a big sense of obligation. And I I feel like, you know, as a parent, I I I try so hard to not I I don't tell my kids, like, what do you you wanna play football? You wanna be a ballerina? You wanna go to college? You don't? That's cool. I I try not to break any pressure on it because I don't wanna color their things with what I want them to do Right. What I think they should be worth Yeah. Or my unfulfilled dreams or my unfulfilled desires or whatever it is. Oh,

yeah. Yeah.

But there's a lot of that. I you know, especially, I personally see it a lot in, immigrants to the countries or whatever they're Oh, yeah. There there's a lot of pressure. You need to be, you know, a tech something. You need to be a doctor, a lawyer, a nurse. Depending on it seems depending on culture, there seems to be one of those types of things you need to be. That's gotta be heavy on children, especially.

And it's different different cultures, but, like, I've worked a bunch in Taiwan and Japan Mhmm. And it's strong there. It's strong. In European culture, it's a little more relaxed because mostly because education is paid for and everything, and people can make their own decisions and stuff. But I haven't been to a culture that isn't like that, You know, that that that we're not and the parents who are are or the culture that's pushing people, it's not like a bad thing. It's that that's the way things were structured. And I wonder, as it as for our conversation, how much of that kind of forcing young people to do things came out of hoping to teach them some sense of perseverance and continuity. You know, I have lots of friends with little kids, young adults, and stuff, and I'm impressed with most of them how there's a sense of direction that the kid is going to follow.

And then it's the parents supporting it that's the most important thing. And but then I could say the same thing about ourselves. What's our sense of direction? How do I support myself in the endeavor that I wanna accomplish?

Yeah. I just think the only thing I fear is when I think when we're we seem to be forcing, especially children or something like, you you need to be a doctor. You need to do this. And I I hear a lot. I grew up in Hawaii, so we have a very we have a very diverse culture there. And a lot of times, I heard from from friends and and acquaintances that, well, I I have to do this. My my family is depending on me. I I I need to send money back home.

I need to I need to I need to do these things. And they're miserable. Yeah. Like, I I don't wanna be a nurse. I don't wanna be a lawyer. I don't wanna do this, and they're absolutely miserable. And I I I I hear what you're saying. There I definitely think if there's good intentions there, and maybe there's some something back of our brain from before where we are like, listen.

We gotta do this. We gotta get the village together. We gotta keep the farm going. But that seems to be gone to the wayside a bit.

But the farm going, I mean, that's something that that was literally true.

Mhmm.

Right? I mean, you had to, you know, water the crops or or plan things yet. You had a very fixed time frame to do something. So you couldn't you couldn't give in to the feeling of I don't wanna do it today. That wasn't even an opportunity at that point, I think.

Right. You know? So Yeah. Yeah. And and then you see that whether it still exists in our culture. Those people are like, listen. I gotta do hard things today. That's the way it's gonna be.

Yeah.

Versus and when you get towards more of, like, the maybe city type culture, it's like, I don't have to do anything today. I don't have to leave my couch. Everything will be brought to me and to me. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I'll tell you a funny story. When, so when I was 17, I was an actor, and I dropped out of college. I I went back again, but I was doing this children's play. And I came home one afternoon after doing a performance, and my mother says, we wanna talk to you. And I said, what? And she said, we've decided you're gonna be a doctor.

And I went, oh, that's very nice, mom. And she kept pushing. She was really pushing. And I said to my dad, I said, tell her to stop. And he went, she's right. And that really blew my mind because he never colluded that kind of stuff. And for about 2 months, she called me doc. It's that was very sweet, though.

You know? But it was always of the best of intentions. But the, you know, the people you talk about who have done it and are miserable in their lives because of it. And that's a that's a tough thing.

Yeah. I I I personally seen it quite a bit. Like I said, there's a a a big culture of of immigrants, 1st generation Americans, and and things like that. So I I did see I did see a lot of that. But circling back around to how kinda we got there, not having a clear idea of what you want to do, do you have ways of clarifying that or maybe thinking about it or starting down, like, identifying what do I want to do so, therefore, you can go pursue?

Yeah. Well, I think there there there's 2 things that pop into my head right away, and I I I'm gonna flip them around because I think the second one is more important. Sure. And that's being patient with ourselves.

Mhmm.

Being patient with ourselves. You know? And then continually asking the question, what do I want to do? Right? I I was in a talk once, and they were talking about, like, a mission in life. Right? And I thought, well, that's an interesting thing. I mean, I've always been successful in my work, and I could say, well, that's kind of my mission. But when I think, like, what's my mission? You know? What what am I here for? You know, which is even beyond what do I wanna do? You know, and it was very funny because whenever I would kinda think about it, this thought would come up into the background, which was help people like themselves more. My response to that every time was, yeah, yeah, I do that already. That's not it. You know, that's not it.

And then one day it dawned on me that that's my mission. My mission's to help people, and I do it through different means and stuff. But and that was a it was kind of such a simple answer, I overlooked it. And so sometimes the answers are really simple because we the wants that we have are so attached to big outcomes, you know, or big successes, right, like a book, like a podcast. Like, don't we want things to go viral because we live in a world where what counts is a 1000000 hits? And I was thinking about this, and and and one day, during COVID, I had some colleagues who were doing a lot of stuff online. And I did some, and honestly, I didn't care for it. I didn't care for teaching online like that. And but they would other people were saying you've got this great mailing list and you can make all this.

My accent doesn't really get me. It's not what I wanna do. You know? And I kept coming back to this. Well, what do I want to do? What do I wanna make happen in my life? And as I went further with it, I realized that like, my teacher, doctor Feldenkrais, he this is back in the early eighties. He talked about being on Tel Star. Now it's a joke. Tel Star was a satellite that could broadcast to millions of people. Oh.

Well, we we can all do that today. Right. You know? And he kind of embedded it in our thinking about how big something needs to be. And then as I reflected on it more, I started thinking, how many people does someone really get to influence in a lifetime? And I actually googled it, and it's any, you know, of 10,020. There's different numbers and stuff. But when I look at the amount of people I've been fortunate enough to influence, it's tens of 1,000. And it's like, can I be satisfied with that? I mean, isn't that enough? So when we look at the want, what do we want to do? I think we also have to be careful that it's not fame. It's not, I'll forward you money, fame, all that's great.

You know? But it's like, how much money do you need? Right? And I know people who are really rich. I mean, really they never have. They've for generations, there's no concern for money, and they're worried about money. And it's kinda like, this is a bad use of your energy. You know? It doesn't doesn't serve you in terms of creating something that's satisfying to you. That's satisfying in a way that you your response is, I like myself more for doing this. You know? So yeah. It's but that want is a really tricky question.

And I have the same question now. Like, when I finished the last book, I really wanted to write that book. I was very clear about that and I made it happen. And now I'm I was just talking to a friend the other day, like, I don't know what I want to do next. I like the things I'm doing, but what do I really wanna do next that's beyond what I'm already successful at of doing? But I don't have an answer. I mean, I have ideas about other books and stuff, but I don't really have the answer yet.

Is it okay just to be happy with just doing what you're doing? And that's that's that.

Yeah. Absolutely. But the the there's a there's a question in that too. So I I read a book. Someone gave me a book a few years ago, and it's called The Big Leap by Gay Hendricks. And he talks about 4 zones. It's a zone of incompetence, the zone of competence, the zone of excellence, and the zone of genius. It's about being a genius.

And I read the book, and I went, oh my god. It it so resonated with me in terms of where I had had been living for decades where that I spent most of my time in the zone of competence, in the zone of excellence. I'm good at what I do. I'm successful at it. Everything works well. I have plenty of work. But that zone of genius is like I have to push myself more. And my book on kindness, that had been in the works for a long time, but that book made me finish it.

Oh, okay.

Yeah. It was like, oh, I we need to push ourselves sometimes. So living a life that's satisfactory is satisfactory. I would never judge that or say anything. Anyone's wrong for that. And certainly, like, I don't have children. But certainly, people I know with families, their family is the source of that satisfaction, which is just brilliant. You know? And and I don't feel a lack because of it, not having kids, but I see how much it affords them to to to not have the same drive to do so.

And I have friends with families who are very driven. You know? So it goes both ways. But, yeah, if we're happy with ourself, we can let that be. But if there's a feeling of, I thought there was more to life, Then there's then then there's a if it can be an inkling of dissatisfaction, maybe that's worth paying attention to. You know?

I think I feel like that circles back to how we kinda started the conversation where, you know, you're you're dealing with your feelings again. Like, I feel fine, and then you're not pushing yourself to the uncomfortable place again.

Right. Yeah.

I wonder somehow that you you maybe every once in a while, we'd have to constantly reexamine that. Like, am I not pushing myself anymore? Have I have I have I am I okay just feeling okay?

Right. And that's a really hard one to answer. You know? Even the idea even, like because if if if people hear you and me say, you need to push yourself to be a little uncomfortable, I don't you know, it's like, why? You know? I mean, what what what's what's to do that? So and the funny thing is, it's like, what do we mean by uncomfortable? Like, I ask people all the time, when do you decide to get comfortable?

Mhmm.

You know what the most dominant answer is? When I'm uncomfortable. Now that's a crazy criteria. That means I don't get comfortable until I'm uncomfortable. Like, you're sitting in a chair for how long before your neck hurts enough for you to change your position in some way. Right? Now we can flip that around. I can I can check-in with myself? And all of this, the want, all of this has to do with reflecting within ourselves more and more to see if we could find our answer, what we want. Right? Like, I overlooked my mission for a long time because it just, yeah, I do. That's fine.

You know, push to the side. And the idea of saying, if I'm comfortable, can I be even more comfortable? And I keep it and now we're talking about being embodied. This is how children function in the world. They regulate themselves entirely by their state of comfort. Their wants are very clear. They wanna play with that thing. No. You can't.

But I want an right? Or you'd see a child drawing and playing on the floor with crayons, and they're sitting this way, and they're sitting that way, and they're moving around. You never hear the kids stand up and go, oh, mommy, my hip hurts. Because they're regulating themselves that way, and we've lost some of that. And so some of it is just getting back in touch with ourselves to find out sensorially, well, how am I? What am I doing? And seeing if that opens the door to tolerating discomfort without it being injurious to ourselves. Because in my work in the Feldenkrais method, the first approximation for everyone is to learn to get more comfortable. Right? To feel more connected with themselves. To feel that that I can more easily fulfill my intention, right, or differentiate my actions and feelings, all of that. But then at some point, the challenge of life means that it's not gonna be so easy.

So would I have do I have the means, the wherewithal to push through it? Right? To and and to push through it without ignoring my feelings, but to go, I'm gonna keep doing it and not pushing through it, like I said, and ending up hurting myself. Right? But saying, I'm gonna be clear about this. I'm gonna keep going no no matter what for the moment. Yeah.

It it feels like that heonic adaptation in a way. We we we slowly get comfortable. You know, my hips are a little tighter. My neck's a little I round a little bit more, and and and day after year after year, you're you're, like, you're walking around or you're sitting thing or something's not quite right, but you don't even notice it anymore.

That's right. Yeah. Yeah. But then then it's a it comes back to the question, like, look. I know that my posture has changed over the years. Right? And and I'm not that tall to begin with. I'm sure I lost a little height too. Okay.

I can live with that. But I don't I only really notice it when I'm when I see a video or picture of myself and I go, oh, that guy looks older than I feel. Right? But then it comes back to one other thing too, which is regardless of that, can I do what I wanna do? Like, I can fall to the floor and stand up with no problem at all. As a matter of fact, I was talking to a friend of mine once, and I was saying, look, for me falling, I can fall really easily. He said, falling is not the problem. It's getting up. And and and and that's true. I mean, that's been studied, that kind of thing.

The ability of someone to go down to the floor and get up is significant in terms of maintaining health and well-being. But, you know, it became so what we're talking about here to me is a little bit like, what's the question that I wanna ask myself that can lead me forward? Right? Am I comfortable enough? Yeah. Okay. So what might make my life better? Right? What would the things be to improve on the quality of my life? And the first response to that usually is something external. I buy a new TV or a car. I get a new relationship, a haircut, whatever. And all of that, that's worthwhile and worth considering. And and and it has its it's a resource for us in a lot of ways.

But my question is, how can I generate this feeling internally within myself and not have it dependent on some external object? Which means, God forbid, I lost my house. I lost my car. I lost my job. Who am I? Right? What do I wanna be in this world? And, you know, you see, some people who don't recover from their traumas, not to not to minimize anyone's trauma or anything. You know, as a great example of this, do you remember Christopher Reeves? He played the

Oh, yes. Superman.

Superman. Yeah. And he was in a, I think, a horseback riding accident. Broke his neck. Became a severe quadriplegic. And then he was interviewed on Barbara Walters, the TV show back then. And I remember watching him. This guy was like a shining light.

He wasn't bitching and complaining about anything. He was, like, going forward with his life. And I wrote I actually wrote to him, and I sent him all doctor Feldenkrais' book saying, you're a testament to what it means to be healthy. And in healthy, Feldenkrais had an interesting definition of health is he can determine how healthy someone is by how quickly they recover from an accident or a trauma. So that means our life finds meaning and moves forward again. You know, like when I teach in hospitals and stuff and they bring me people who need help and, you know, there's always 2 people. Often, one of them is some old guy that had a stroke. And I said, what do you wanna do? And he goes, I don't care.

Oh, wow. Yeah.

And I said, because they give up. Because their identity is so tied with their job or things like that.

With certain things.

You know, outside things as opposed to saying, how do I learn to, like, like myself with what I'm doing and push myself too? You know? I can tell you in terms of pushing ourselves. So in the book on kindness and liking ourselves more, I can say with some certainty that all the things that I write about, I can do. You know? I mean, I feel like I've accomplished at those things. Right? But then can I read you a quote from the book? Yeah. So this is actually I love this quote. It's from Ram Dass. And he says, when you go out into the woods and you look at trees, you see all these different trees, and some of them are bent. And you sort of understand that it didn't just didn't get enough light, so it just turned that way.

And you don't get all emotional about it. You just allow it. The minute you get near humans, you lose all that. And you're constantly saying you are to this and I'm to this. A judgment mind comes in. And so I practice turning people into trees, which means appreciating them just the way they are. And the reason I'm reading that to you is because when I think of like the next step right now for me to be kinder is to be less and less judgmental. And I I don't know anyone who's not judgmental.

It's a question of degree, of course. But then, you know, I travel a lot. And, you know, so often at airports, I find myself seeing somebody and I'm making up a story.

Uh-huh.

Positive or negative, it doesn't matter. And now, if I can catch that moment, I just look at them and I go tree and But the reason I'm bringing it up because there was a challenge is because for me, I don't know if I'll get to that place where I'm I'm gonna say not judgmental, but almost not judgmental in my lifetime. So each accomplishment we we arrive at, whether it's playing an instrument or liking ourselves or anything, the next step gets further away. You know, and that's a challenge too. Right? And again, it comes back to the idea, do I have the means to sustain myself, to persevere regardless of that? You know, so it's, yeah. One one thing I can say about this that's kinda, well, quieted my mind a little bit is that if I'm able to spend less time in judgment, I'm starting to succeed. You know? And it's not that I don't judge anymore, but I don't keep talking to myself about that in the same way. I think that's an improvement.

Yeah. I I like to do something similar. I guess a good example is, like, when you're in traffic or something or Yeah. Somebody cut cuts you off and it's like, I don't know what's going on with this guy. Just go, buddy. Like, if Yeah. You wanna get in front of me? Go right ahead.

Yeah.

You know? And and you're in traffic. I'm like, I just get to listen to the rest of this podcast. I just get to finish my book. And it it it is a it is a lot better state to live in. It's not it's not constantly, you know, trying to, you know, be, oh, I'm gonna get you. I'm not letting you in. It's like, I hear you. What are you doing to yourself? And then it then I think back, you know, If I do have that thought, I'm like, you know, I mean, something's gone gone in your life that's made you so stressed, so whatever.

I was like, I'm not even gonna entertain whatever I think you're thinking.

Right. Right. And then but that that's the attitude we need. And driving's like a perfect example because that can just set I know it can set me off. And it's kinda like, oh, if I could just, you know, and then I laugh. Mhmm. And I just go, here I go. Okay.

Stop it. You know, see what goes on. So it's it's it's but these are all the challenges we all face. You know? It's not unique to anyone that I know of.

Right. Speaking of your book and so in your book, you talk about intentional kindness is framed as a deliberate and thoughtful action rather than random or spontaneous. Yeah. Can can we unpack that a little bit? Like, I I personally I love random acts of kindness.

Oh, yeah. Me too.

You know? Even even I I prefer to be spontaneous. One thing I absolutely despise is when the calendar tells me it's a certain holiday, I'm, like, not participating.

Well, that's a whole another conversation.

But Sure. Sure. Sure.

But the idea and I too. I love random acts of kindness. I remember that bump bumper sticker, practice random acts of kindness. I had that in my car for years. You know? And and and that's something that that we we we embrace, I think, is a good way of looking at it. But then intentional acts of kindness, this goes back to that idea that we were talking about before about practicing something. How do I practice a random act? A random act happens randomly. You don't know when it's gonna happen or when it's gonna happen again.

Whereas an intentional act of kindness, of whatever it is, that's something that we need the tools to sustain it so that more random acts of kindness show up.

Okay.

So it's not that I have to be consciously intentional in everything I do, but I wanna practice it enough to be able to go, oh, yeah. Oh, I can do that. You know? And and they come up in the moment. It's not like I'm planning to give a bigger tip to somebody or something. Like, I was just taking a taxi in France, and we got to the end. And in France, you don't tip the taxi driver.

Sure.

But I gave him some. You know, it was like, oh, and you know what I've learned to do is if I have the thought that I'm gonna, like, tip that amount, I pause and I probably get 50% more.

Oh, nice.

Yeah. Just to go that pushes myself. It's not like pushing myself, like, sit meditating every day or something, but it's like, I'm gonna go outside of my comfort zone in terms of doing that. You know, in in in the in the book, I talk about generosity. And in one of the and one of the each chapter has exercises for people to do. And in the one on generosity, I talk about tipping. And so I suggest, you know, if you give whatever amount you give, give a for every $5 you give, give a dollar more, if you can afford it. It's always within your means.

Right? So if you give a $5 tip, give 6. If you give 10, give 12. If you give 20, give 24. Right? And I'm literally writing this chapter of the book, and I go out to dinner with some friends. And I pick up a check, and it's a little local place, and it's about $70. And I thought, well, I'd normally give 20%. That's 85. And I had a $100 bill, and I thought, I'm gonna give the whole $100.

And in the next moment, I just clutched. Ah. My stomach grabbed, and I was like, what are you doing? You can't do that. That's crazy. Blah blah blah. And I was shocked at my response, you know, because here I'm writing about this, and it's like, where are you? You gotta show up, man. And you know what I did? I left the $100. But the coolest thing is the waitress stopped me as I was going out and said, you just made my night.

Oh, amazing.

And I thought but that was random. I mean, it was connected to something intentional that I was writing about, but I was also shocked at how hard it was. So the challenge exists in unexpected places, I would say.

Did you think about or come to a conclusion on why you felt that way?

Yeah. Because of my habits, the way I was brought up, and what I was told that's too much. And you're not allowed to do that, and you're wasting your money, and they're gonna think they're gonna take advantage of you. And next time you come in, they're gonna expect it again. There's a million conversations that can happen that tell me why not to do something. I think we all probably have dozens and dozens of conversations why not to do something. And the question is, are they true? Right? Do I need to do I need to live by them? Right? You know, it's like, well, can I step out of that habitual way of being me, which defines me too? Right? Will my friends think I'm foolish for tipping so much? And, actually, I think the friends I was with, they did think I was foolish because they would never give 20%. Right? They were 16 percenters.

You know? So it's like, that's just crazy. But it's like, I look at that as an example that I can set for other people. You know? I I have in my in my training program, so they're, like, often a month long segment. And I began this years ago. I I bring, like, at the end of each week, it can be a bunch of cakes, you know, pastries or bagels and smears and stuff like that. And when I would work in other people's programs and do that, the educational director would sometimes get annoyed with me.

Mhmm. Interesting.

Most of the students and other teachers, they're like, wow. This is so cool. It's so nice that you do this. And and I said, why are you annoyed? And and they said, because now I have to do it. Because they felt, well, if that teacher does it, I'm supposed to do it too. And that they didn't add they didn't buy into that. And I said, you don't have to do anything. Right.

But your discomfort around it shows me that some part of you thinks maybe you should know. Why don't you find out? You know? But I said well, I said, don't do it in your own program. Do it when you're visiting another training so you're not obligated for 4 years now to do that with someone. You know?

Yeah. Interesting. Yeah. Is it maybe a guilt thing?

It can be. Yeah. Sure. Can be. You know? I think I think it can show up as as guilt or just the the strong values that we don't even know that we have.

The subconscious programming that we've had?

And for generations.

Right.

Right. There's a story there's a story about a woman who every time she makes a a big roast of meat, she cuts it in half and puts it in 2 pans. And one day

Oh, yeah. I know this story. Continue. Continue. Yeah. So Continue for those who don't know me. Yeah.

Yeah. So so one day, her husband says to her, well, why do you always cut it in 2 pans? And she's, yeah. I don't know. That's how my mother did it. That's how I learned to do it. So she calls up her mother and says, mom, you know when we kinda make a roast, we cut it in half, put it in 2 pans? Why do we do that? And she said, you remember that? Oh, that's so sweet. She said, when you were little, we didn't have enough money to buy a big pan, so we cut the roast in half. But now you listen to that story and you think, how many generations did that go back when we do something like that? And that's, you know, that's one way of describing what a culture is.

A culture is the repetition of values that goes on and on and on and just gets repeated without being questioned at any point. You know? Like, when I was growing up, everyone was worried about TV was gonna destroy our minds. Well, we're way past that now. TV seems benign compared to some of the concerns that people have between phones and AI and stuff like that. So it's, but it's something that still perpetuates. And what's perpetuated now is the concern that novelty and change will be bad for us.

Oh, interesting.

You know? I I like AI. It freaks me out a little bit.

I love it.

Yeah. A lot of people do. Look. I I was in in in Belgium working with a friend, and and, he's really into AI. And he said, let's try it out. So he he goes, AI, can you tell me something about Alan Questell? And he gives this really nice bio back of all the work on the things I've done. And he says, and I understand that he's written a book. And he says, yeah.

He wrote a book called Creating Creativity, Embodying the Creative Process, that talks about that. And then he says, I understand he wrote another book, and AI comes back with yes. He did. It's called Expect the Unexpected with a whole description of it, but I never wrote that.

Right.

And that was, like, freaked me out. That was like, oh my god. And then he wrote he said again, wasn't it another book? And he's, oh, I'm so sorry. Yes. It was a book on kindness. You know? But that I mean, that's the world we live in. It's not it's not we can't close it down. It's kinda like, okay.

How do we get smarter because of it?

Right. Right.

Yeah.

It it very it's a lot of interesting things there. I I like to maybe it's just the rebel in me or something. I don't like to do other things people do without knowing why. And I don't know if it was inherited through my son or because he sees me, do it. You I see a stop sign in the middle of nowhere. I'm not stopping. I was like, this is pointless. I don't do it.

Red light, there's nobody around us. I'm in the middle of nowhere. I I don't care. What is the point of this? I don't do it. Just because somebody told me to do it or just because everybody else does it, I don't do those things. I'm sure there's things somewhere where I haven't examined, but I try to examine those things a lot. And my son does it too.

Well, I don't know if from you. Yeah.

Probably. But Yeah. When he was littler, he's like, dad, what why aren't you following the rules? I said, the rules don't make sense. I I don't care what it tells me. So but you can't park there. It says, who? Why? This makes no sense. There's nothing around. I don't care what that sign tells me.

Right.

And I see I think he got older. I think maybe he started to understand. Any anyhow, we're at we're at dinner with my my mother and my grandmother, and he's wearing a hat. He goes inside, and he's wearing his hat sitting at the table. My mom and my grandma's like, take the hat off. And he's like he's like, why? He's like, because you take hats off inside. He's like, explain to me what is the reason I take my hat off for. And they're like, that's what you do.

And then my mom and my grandma's gonna be like, what what is wrong with you? Why does he have his hat on, and why are you allowing him to speak to us this way? Yeah. I said, can you articulate to him why I said, why do we have to take a hat off? I don't know. I personally don't care.

So I

was like, you know what? Let's figure out why do you take your hat off indoors.

Right.

It goes back to, like, 1300

Oh, yeah. Yeah.

When you wore suit of armor, you would pull up your lid on your thing just so that people could see who you were.

Right. Right.

Why are we still taking off our hats?

Right. Right.

Nobody has a clue.

That's right. That's true. That's true. And that that's a great story. And it's like the thing like, when you say stop sign or a red light, my internal sensory response was kinda like, I held my breath for a moment.

I've seen you. Yeah. Yeah.

I was like, You do that? Wow. Oh, okay. You know? Every I

run a stop sign every day.

Okay. And how many tickets have you gotten?

0.

Okay. So you will keep doing it until you get a ticket? Nope.

I've been pulled over one time.

Yeah?

And it was interesting. It was a weird situation. It it was in Hawaii. The military base was just shut down, and it was a great, like, shortcut to someplace else.

Uh-huh.

And it's just desolate roads. You can see all directions, all the all all around, and it's dark, completely pitch black. So you can absolutely see anything and everything that's going on. And I just go up, I just take a left, and I just keep on going. The military officer pulled me over.

Yeah.

Said, what is wrong with you running stop signs? Said, what is wrong with you? You have no jurisdiction here. But that was the only time I got in trouble. Never I've never been in trouble. Now if I see a police officer, I will stop I will stop for a second there.

But Yeah. The problem is when we don't see it. You know? Sight pitch in Taiwan. In Taiwan and Taipei, the street lights are organized to keep traffic going. Mhmm. You could be standing in a corner for 98 seconds.

Yeah.

You watch it counting down, and it's like this consensual agreement. Everyone does it. No one and and and if I dare to cross the street, I get the dirty looks like your grandma you know, the grandmother with a kid. And it's like, I agree with you a 100%. But then the different cultures have different rules. Like, years many years ago when I was in Poland, I was when I was an actor and I was working there, and I was warned, don't cross in the middle of the street. Go to the corner where the light is. You will get arrested.

Wow.

And people will report you.

Wow.

So there, you follow those rules. We're like driving in Italy. I found out driving in Italy, there are 2 rules. The first rule is if there's an empty space, you fill it in. And the second rule, there's no rules. One way, you can go 2 ways. Who care? You know, they just do whatever they want. You know?

Oh, wow.

And it's kind of a funny thing to come from a more restricted culture to go into one that's more casual like that or the reverse. If you go from a casual structure into a restricted one, wow, that's really hard. But you know what? The thing I like about what you're talking about the most is it's it's it's a deeper investigation of what do I think? What do I believe? What do I wanna do? Right? So I create my own values about something, and and and and then I live a life that's mine, not not someone else's idea. Right?

There's a phrase I really like. It's the world is only the way it is because somebody changed the way it was. Mhmm. And I like to think, well, I don't like the way it is. So You're changing. I'm gonna change I'm gonna change the way it is.

Yeah. Yeah.

But a lot of people don't like that.

Sure.

I I I gotten in so much trouble in my life. Mhmm. I think my son has picked up some of that. He gets in trouble at school. Right. The dean called me the other day, and he was talking about some things. And I told the dean, I said, if you can't explain to him why you want him to do something and you don't like that he asked you why he needs to do it, I said, you should examine why you're telling him that.

That's right.

And he was just quiet. And I said, exactly. You don't even understand what you're saying to him.

That's right. Yeah.

You know? And that's what I think about things. Some people think I'm wrong. Hey. That's fine. You you can I

don't think you're wrong at all? I think I think and, again, it's a question of attitude too. It's not like the word is wrong. It's like, I I wanna think about these things. What makes me do what I do? You know? Why do I make a choice? Then maybe it's more about that than anything else. You know, my work in the Feldenkrais method, one of the basic tenets, because it's all done through movement. So we're not teaching the right way to move. We're creating more choice in how you move. So depending on the context, you're in who you're with, how you feel that day, where you're going, what happened before, what's gonna happen afterwards.

You might choose to act one way or act another way. And that's something that, again, if we come back to our culture, cultures tell us how to behave so that and we can get I don't wanna get the whole political thing here, but so that the culture controls us then. You know? I think the strongest examples of that in recent times that I've been to is Japan. Japan is a beautiful culture, but, man, it is, like, held in. You know? It's like, if you go outside the box there, it's a big struggle. You know? It's really hard.

I I I have, like I said, grandpa, Hawaii. I have a lot of Japanese, friends, parents. Yeah. That is that is tough to stray outside of or bring shame, upon. And and shame is it's a subjective term.

Oh, it's a terrible term.

I I have a friend. He's just spent so much of his life, like, thinking. He shamed his parents, and his mom was like, what are you talking about? They're like

Oh, interesting. Right.

And not that all of it wasn't true, but he really built it up to be quite a large

Right.

Story and feeling. It's very interesting. I'd like to ask what you know, we're talking about this kindness and all these different things. What makes people not accept kindness?

Oh, they don't feel worthy.

Ah.

That's that's that's I I I felt that in times in my life. I I think it's people who you can see this in in many people who are very generous have a very hard time receiving.

Oh, I oh, I I do. I don't want anything back.

Yeah. And and it's kinda like it's a gift to someone to receive something from them, but that's hard to move around. You know? I mean, you know, I've always been I I think I because of my own self study about it. But when I was younger, my gifts that I gave people were too big. Mhmm. You know? And and I would I remember giving and they become so overwhelmed, and it's like, I like that. Now why am I doing it? Yeah. I wanna give them a nice gift, or am I doing it as if I'm saying something about myself, how good a person I am or something like that? And once many years ago, 3 of my friends got together, And, as a birthday gift, they bought me a this no one will know what I'm talking about, but I'm gonna say it.

A hi fi stereo VCR.

Oh, I I know what you're talking about. I'm I'm still old enough. I do remember those HiFi VCRs. Yes. Alright.

So this

was got, like, a 152 dollars $100.

Like $3.

Oh, wow.

Expensive. Yeah. I I just I was dumbfounded. I I wanted to not accept it because why? Because I didn't feel worthy of it. And I'd learned here's another thing about practice. So to practice liking myself in a context like that, I have to stay with the uncomfortable feelings and accept it graciously, happily even, you know, to be able to say, oh, yeah. K. They thought that much of me to do something like that.

But don't we do the reverse all the time? Someone gives you a crummy little gift, you think that's all you're giving me? Right? We don't have a problem Yeah. You know, with that. But when it's too big, it's it's representative in some way of who we are. And I think that that lack of self worth that I'm not good I don't deserve this. I'm not good enough. I think that's so prevalent in every culture. You know? And it's a sad thing, but it's like so how do we get beyond that? So I can't go around saying I'm worthy. What does that mean? You know? I I mean, that is where's the humility in that too? But I can discover other ways that I can like myself more.

And if I can find ways to like myself, then my self worth moves up. You know? I just had a conversation with someone about the difference between self worth and entitlement. Well, entitlement to me is something that I feel I'm owed it by others.

Right.

Right? And and and self worth is just the feeling I live within myself. Right?

Yeah. I have a I have a problem with the word, like, deserve too.

Yeah. Of course. I mean I mean, be because it implies something that we're owed something in some way. You know? And now but look. Again, it's it's the tone of voice. I can say to someone. I can give someone something and look them in the eye and say, you really deserve this.

Right.

But that's me telling them they deserve it. That's not them saying, I deserve more. I deserve to be paid more. I deserve blah blah blah.

I deserve Ferraris. I deserve Vansions. I deserve Rolexes. Yeah. Yeah. I was born. Oh, that drives me nuts.

Yeah. Sure. And then you get those things, and then you just want more things because they don't satisfy it after a while. You know, it's a real thing like this. So So maybe you've had this happen. If you ever owned a new car

Mhmm.

So you drive around in your new car and you look at all the same car all the year, and you just kinda, oh, I got the newest one. And they're looking at you, you know. And then the year goes vinyls, and the next model comes out. And now you're looking at the guy in the new model going, oh, I wish I had that. That's crazy. It's a 1 year old car. It's perfect. You know? Right.

It's, so, yeah, it it it's worth.

The current car I have now was the 1st new car I ever bought, and I told my wife, I was like, man, wait. I've never bought a new car. Yeah. And it was great. But I I don't have that other part of the feeling, but when they what they call a a mid model refresh. So usually about 3 to 5 years as a car has been out, it's called a mid model refresh, and they they just kind of refresh a couple things. And I was like, I kinda want that new version.

Right. Yeah.

And it lasted for a little bit, and I was like, whatever.

Yeah.

But, yes, we all have that. You know, something some some whatever. A part of our brain that wants a newer thing that we don't need.

It's the comparing part of our brain. And what what you know what's a great example of that? Did you ever see the movie The Gods Must Be Crazy?

I don't think so.

So it's an old film, and it's it's it's about this this it takes place in sub Sahara Africa in a completely barren region where this tribe, I don't know, has 30, 50 people in it or something. And this little plane flies over, and the pilot throws out a Coke bottle. Of course, someone finds it in the tribe and they've never seen a Coke bottle. And this becomes like a whistle. It becomes a kind of tool that they use for things. They can roll out some flour things with it, but there's only one. And all of a sudden, there's contention within this harmonious community, and they all all are fighting for it. They want it.

And it's kinda like, if you don't have anything, you don't want for anything. You know? Right. And these days with the Internet, we see everything that you don't have, and and it's pushed in our faces continually that we compare ourselves to others. And, again, this is back to that external sense of satisfaction, which is valuable but momentary. You know? So it's not to I wouldn't exclude it or say it's bad or wrong, but it's like, why do I need a new car? Like, I just got a new car last year. My other car was 13 years old, and I only got a new car because it started burning a lot of oil. Ah. It was fine.

But I'll tell you, now that I have a new car, I'm really happy.

Yeah. I, my car is a 2014, and my transmission went out crazy. Never happened in my life. And and I fixed it. And and everybody was like, that's stupid. I was like, but why? Yeah. There's my car is in perfect condition. There's nothing wrong with it.

I bought this thing brand new. And then I thought about it, and I would talk to my I talked to my wife about it. I was like, you know, I said, what's a new car payment now? I looked it up. I think the average is, like, 77 something. So so $800 a month. I was like, in a couple of months, this is paid off,

and

the car is still paid off. I was like and I was like, I don't I don't we don't need another expense.

Sure.

there was something maybe wrong or the it was beat up, I I might have considered it. If I said, my car is in perfect condition. Yeah. Didn't need it.

Yeah.

But so many people are like, you're stupid. And I was like, I'm not in debt. So I don't know who's, you know

I don't need a I don't

need a card. Yeah. Such interesting things. It reminds this conversation reminds me of something I I saw on your website, and you posed a question. Would you like to like yourself more? Yeah. Can we unpack that?

Oh, yeah. So I asked this question in every context I teach. So I start talking about a workshop I created around self image, and I started to think self image is a reflection of how much we like ourselves or don't like ourselves. That good self image, I like myself. If not, I don't like myself. And then after a while, I started to think it's my job. And and I'll talk about it a little bit more. And I'll say, oh, you know, I need to stop here.

Is anyone is is there anyone here doesn't wanna like themselves more? And almost always, I get this kinda sheepish kind of smile, like that. Because, of course, one woman once said, I already like myself. I said, that's great, but that's not the question. The question is, would you like to like yourself more? And she went like, okay. You know? And and I I asked that question that do do you wanna like yourself more? Because I I haven't met someone yet who doesn't wanna like themselves more.

Yeah. I'm really pondering that right now. Like, do I wanna like myself more?

Well, what what what value would you have? Do you have the higher degree of satisfaction? It it relates to what you want. Right? And, look, there are many times, I hope, in all of our lives where there's a quiet plateau that we're sitting on, where we go, life has been pretty good to me. I feel fortunate. I'm I've I've had these successes. Yeah. We all have failures and stuff, but I'm in a place where not bad. You know, I could stay here for a while. But does that get it's like the book I was talking about.

I'm in the zone of competence and excellence, which is good, but it's it's kinda it was lacking something. You know? And, I knew that if I wrote my book, I'd like myself more.

Mhmm. Okay.

And I felt that if if if doing that, hopefully, was an act of kindness to others, if it was worthwhile in any way, The hang on. I lost my thread for a minute. The the idea of of of liking ourselves more, we can look at it in different ways. We can say, can I be a better person? What does that mean? Right? What gives me satisfaction in life? And again, not to not to minimize money, but if it's only about money, it's like at some point, you're gonna look and go, woah, what am I doing with all this? You know, how much is enough? Or what do I do? And and, the the the feeling that that accompanies the process of liking ourselves more. And as I said before, the general way that we approach it is external. Right? Which again, it has its value and it has a lifespan to it, I would say, different lengths of lifespan for different things. My interest is in is in helping people generate it internally so they're not dependent on the outside world to like themselves more.

Absolutely.

know? And and and one way I talk about this in the book, but it came out of my work teaching the Feldenkrais method. So there's 2 modalities to it. One of them is group classes that I guide people through very gentle movement sequences. And that effect changes in breathing, posture, range of motion, self image. I work with all kinds of people, and the movements are done very small and very slow so that your attention can wander through the rest of yourself. And I came up with this question and I asked people the question. So notice what your responses to my question. As you're doing these gentle movements, are you moving in a way that you like the way it feels? And if the answer is yes, that's great.

But if the answer is no, that's significant. That means you're probably trying to achieve something or do it right or correctly or you're comparing yourself to others. But if your focus is on, do I like the way it feels? And, of course, this is a context that's outside of our everyday context. Who cares if you do it or not? Right? No one's gonna know. It's not gonna make any difference to the people around you other than how you feel about yourself. And, you know, when I train people, it's a 4 year training program. And one of my programs in Australia, at the end, when I hand out the certificate and give them a hug, so many people whisper to my ear, I like myself more now. But then we go back to what I said before.

For me to like myself more, it's a bigger hurdle each time. Right? It doesn't get easier, but it it's easier to keep going because of the previous successes. You know? So I think this this the question of would you like to like yourself more is an important one to consider. Because if someone says no you know you know what? Or else I can speak to it, and I have to be careful saying something like this because everything that we're talking about, I think, is evidence of someone who's somewhat reflective in nature. But I know lots of people who are not reflective.

I think it's hard. It's uncomfortable.

Yeah. It can be for sure. Yeah. Right? And and they say, I'm fine. I don't need that. Okay. That's not that's not someone I'm gonna pursue it with. At what point might you pursue it? Right? Like, I have one friend, and he's probably one of the most impatient people I've ever known.

And, I mean, like, in the middle of conversation, he just walks away. It's like, oh, would you? You know? And one day, he said to me, do you think I'm impatient? Because his daughter had said something. And I said, I actually think you're very impatient. You're not impatient. You're, like, really, really impatient. And that was the end of the conversation. He didn't ask me more. He didn't get more patient.

He didn't so there's an example. He's a good friend of mine, but it's someone who just doesn't. It's not a value that he cares about. His values are all externally generated. Right? And so if someone doesn't want that, let's go back to the want idea again. It's like, well, you know, can you put the question in another way? Like, if I ask someone, would you like to like yourself more? And they go, well, I like myself now. So let me ask you a question. What would happen in your life to make you feel even better about yourself? And if you say a Ferrari, I'm gonna stop and say, no, no, no, no.

That's an outside thing. What would change in your way of being in the world that you would imagine that you feel better about yourself. And that that people ponder. You know? They'll they'll consider that for a while. They may not have an answer. You know? It it's like when I work with someone who comes with different issues or something, their movement, let's say, they've had a stroke or back pain or something. 1 and, of course, I know why they're there. Right? But one question I always ask is what would you like to be better at? And sometimes they're dumbfounded by that.

Everything. That's okay. What else? You know? Yeah. But the thing the difference is if I have back pain, that's something I'm trying to get away from, which makes sense. No one wants back pain. Right? But in order to get away from something, I actually attach myself to it because then I'm always checking in. Where is it? Is it there?

You're constantly focusing on you're just ruminating on

That's right.

My back hurts my back hurts my back hurts.

Well, even when it's better, you're ruminating on it because Oh,

is it gonna hurt? Am I gonna hurt it? Yeah.

Exactly. All of that.

Ah. Okay.

Whereas, if if you think of what do you want to be better at, that's going towards something. Mhmm.

putting yourself in in the future you.

That's right. That's right. And that's a really different focus for attaining anything. If it's if if if someone says to me, well, I'd like myself more if I lived in a bigger house. Well, that's just describing the satisfaction of their house. Right? And I said, but that's the house you wanna get away from. What do you wanna go towards? You know? So it's a different perspective that moves us in a here's a good example of that. So when I had started my private practice years ago in New York, I was successful very early on.

I had a waiting list, and my uncle, who was a dentist, used to come to me for sessions. And I didn't charge him anything. It was my uncle, you know. And he was a dentist. He had back pain. He thought he was doing me a favor. You know? It's like, yeah. Okay.

So after every session, his back pain was gone. Next week, he'll be back again. And this went on 4 or 5 sessions. And then one session, I said to him, you like to play golf, don't you? And he went, oh, yeah. Yeah. He loves golf. What would you like to improve in your golf? So we talked about that, and I worked with that, which was through movement that affected his lower back, and his back pain never came back. So you can see him with a different perspective Right.

Changing. He was focusing on the wrong thing.

Well, then no. Wrong is even too strong a word, but it wasn't it wasn't a useful thing.

A proper thing. He wasn't focused on a proper thing.

Yeah. Yeah. So he or he wasn't focusing on something that could take him out of his difficulties.

was stuck stuck in over where he was.

But that's what all that's what we were talking about before about self image, you know, that the culture tells me to stop at a stop sign. But why? Right? How do I do that? Right? And so and how many people live in pain as if this is gonna sound weird. As if they deserve it.

Oh, wow. That's a powerful thought.

People perform. Right? So some on some level, people feel, yeah. And and there's blaming they're blaming themselves. So deserving can go both ways. Right? I deserve a bigger card. I deserve back pain. That's dark. You know? I had a client.

And this was someone who, she'd been in a car accident, and and she was seeing someone in the work the the the insurance was paying for her sessions and it ran out. And she didn't have a lot of money, and I said, I'll see you. And this person also had arthritis, and they came in that day with a lot of pain. And at the end, they were at the end, it was like, I had no pain. And I said, quite casually, well, maybe you don't need to have arthritis. And the next week, he came back and she was pissed at me. She said, you tried to make light of my condition. I have a serious condition.

And I just said, okay. Deeply arthritis. So you can see the kind of attachments we have to our self image that grows in a certain way, and we're unconscious about it. We don't know that. Right? And and it's it's like, you know, years ago when I started my Feldenkrais practice, I was teaching classes in my acting teacher studio. And I came in one day, and I'd hang out with them for a little bit before. And I was, how's it going? I don't know. I was kind of bummed out.

And and he said, what's happening? I said, hello. I got 3 new clients this week. I had a new class starting, another one starting, and he went, oh, you're being successful. I got really angry. I got like, Yoshitama, and I thought, why am I getting so angry? She's right. But it was uncomfortable to be successful because somewhere in my self image, I was someone told me I was telling myself, don't. You you can't succeed. You know? And, like, how many injunctions do we all live with like that? That's tricky.

It reminds me of this, phrase. We we've we keep the limitations we fight for, something along those lines. That makes sense. And I was like and I when I started I learned that, I was like, I started listening and looking around. So many things we fight for. It's like, you're fighting to continue down this path you don't like. Right. I'm like, stop it.

Right. You know? And and, you know, in in my book, I of unkindness, I I start out with with, like, a worksheet that I ask people to fill out. Right? And I I know from talking with many people that they assume they're gonna start writing down all the places where they need to be kinder. The question I ask is, let's write down all the places where you already are kind. Let's start from the foundation to build on that, rather than making yourself wrong or lacking in some way, which you need to get. Right? And say, I'm actually doing some of this already. So you kind of acknowledge that, oh, so it's possible. It may not be at the scale you want, but it's possible like that.

You know? And that that's again, it's a question of perspective of doing something. And we learn about, like you're saying, the attachments to ways of being that we didn't you know what? I got really blocked. So writing this book, it's over a number of years, and I get to the section about being kind to ourselves, and I got blocked for about 5 years. Oh. Yeah. I was like, I thought I was kind to myself, but I'm not so sure. I think I have to understand this more.

And you said no. Yeah.

Yeah. My motivations for being kind to myself were not so clear. You know? I think that they were more how others would see me. It wasn't really my my own values. Didn't have their own values, say I'm not gonna stop at a stop sign. Right? I mean, that's like a clear value. It's like, no. I have a reason for it, and, that's but then, you know what that also does? I would imagine that when you're driving like that, you know that you're not gonna stop, that you're paying more attention.

Oh, yes. I'm I'm yes. I you must analyze everything because you have to make a split decision. Do I actually need to stop today?

Right.

Is there a dog? Is there a car? Is there somebody else? Is there police officer? You gotta know.

That's right.

So I'm not I'm not doing the speed limit through. Right. I mean, sure, there could be a scenario where I know I can just do the speed limit through. But, typically, the stop sign I run every day, I have to slow and I look, okay. We're good.

And just But that's a demonstration of a better use of your attention. Because how many people stop at stop signs and don't pay any attention, whether they stop or maybe start slow down? Bam. They you know?

There's a there's a stop sign in along my same drive out of my neighborhood. It's you come off the street, and, typically, you make a right. And a lot of times, cars are parked along the curb. People don't stop at that stop sign, and they come around. Several times, I've almost gotten into accidents. But because I know what these I can see them coming, and I know what I know what majority of people do. They run that stop sign around the corner.

Right.

I stop and wait there. There's one time a a big SUV came, and he just stopped right in front of me. And he was mad at me.

Yeah. I was like, you

you ran the stop sign, and he threw a drink out of his car and smashed into my I was like, you're mad at me? Like, and and it's tough because it's it's it's not quite a one lane road, but a big car, a a big SUV or truck, and a a normal sized vehicle, we can't pass next to each other.

Uh-huh.

So if there's you know, I one of us had to move. It's like if you waited at a stop sign, I could've gone. You could've gone. They were very upset with me.

Sure. Yeah. Yeah.

So many so many things so many things. In in your book, you say kindness is a skill that can be developed. The book emphasizes that this is an inherent quality with everyone. Maybe a 2 part question, may maybe maybe not. Where where does this go wrong, and then and and what are the common ways that it does?

In the practice of kindness?

Right. Well, like, so you say it's it's it's an inherent quality. Yeah. It feels like it feels like somewhere along the line, it goes wrong for people. Somehow, you get jaded. Somehow, you lose that ability. And Well Or am I missing something?

Would you say. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I think that the people well, here's a tricky thing. That sometimes am I doing an act of kindness simply for the sake of the act of kindness? Am I doing it because I expect something in return? And if there's an expectation of something in return that's not acknowledged in some way, then why would I keep doing it? It doesn't work. Waste of time. You know? So I think that then there's a misplaced like, generosity is a good example of this.

Right? So generosity is often equated with kindness.

Okay.

Right? You said that people say, oh, he's so kind, he's so generous, so generous, so kind. Right? But they're not the same thing. Like, kindness is not giving something to someone.

Right. It's the opposite.

That's right. With withholding. Yeah. If there's an if if if you have a dinner and your your your alcoholic friend comes over, and you don't give you withhold. You don't give that's kind. Don't give them the drink. It's not like giving is generous, so you always give something like that. You know?

Telling somebody an uncomfortable truth or something.

That's right. That's right. You know? And and and so I think there's a then it's a question of looking at our motivations for something. Right? So why do we stop doing something? Because either we don't get the result of the actual action or the acknowledgment of the action. Right? But if I'm doing it for either of those you know, if I'm doing it for the acknowledgment of someone else, I think that's a misplaced motivation. Right? And so it can go wrong there. Right? And these are the things I talk about in the book, you know? And and and that's where the again, we have to evaluate what's generating my desire to do these things. Right? Like the gifts I was talking about before.

What generated my desire to give big gifts? I don't think it was about the other people, if I'm honest. I think it was about how I was gonna be seen.

The expectation of external validation.

That's right. Exactly that. You know? And even now, if I if I, every week at a training, give out, you know, all this food and everything, people like it. And people genuinely thank me. But if they didn't thank me, I'd be fine. Yeah. You know? Now that's not to say that I don't have those thoughts or feelings. So an example of that is a restaurant here in Santa Fe that I go to pretty frequently.

And, you know, I said before I used to tip 20%. And now, even if the service is bad, I tip more. Oh, okay. But but what I've done is I've called the server over and I say, I just want you to know I'm giving you a big tip tonight, and the service is way below par. Right? Everything came out in the wrong order. Things were cold. So I'm not gonna punish you by not giving you a tip. I know you guys make that's how you live.

Right? But I'm also telling you, you need to pay more attention to something like that. And I felt like I could do that because of that. Right? But this is one restaurant I go to all the time, and there are often different service there. And I I've never had any of them acknowledge, thanks for that tip. And at first, it kinda like I went, what? Why do they say and then I went, Alan, why are you doing this? You know, this is your value of doing something, and it's not to get something back. But that's where the work is for all of us in doing something like that. It's like, oh, I need to get more clear. Either I gotta stop doing that and go, that's not what I wanna do, or, oh, this is why I wanna do that.

Right? To to know in me that I did that for me, not for someone else. You know? So I think when things go wrong, you know, it's like that's the next moment to go. Oh, time to look at my values again. See what I'm think what do I think I'm doing? What am I getting from it?

Yeah. It's an opportunity to use a kindness as a as a lesson.

Yeah. Sure. Sure. And look. Like I told you about the first tipping story. Right? When I gave more, I was like, I clutched inside, and it was like, well, this is kinda weird. I didn't know I felt that way. You know? I thought I had this great idea.

Quite magnanimous, generous. Oh, yeah. But then when I push came to shove, I was like, what am I doing? You know? It's kinda crazy. Yeah. And then and and that's those are great moments for me, you know, where something like that happens where I can go, I thought I knew what I was doing, but I didn't.

It's another level.

Yeah. It's another level.

Yeah. Speaking of barriers to kindness, like you talk about, you know, various obstacles, fear, judgment, negative past experiences, you know, and and the different types of things you speak about in the book, what is I mean, for lack of a better better question is, what's the simplest, maybe one of the faster, easier ways to start doing that now?

To be kinder?

Right. To to overcome those barriers so you can become kinder.

Well, I think you can only overcome the barriers by acting in a kind way and then finding out what they are. You can't put I mean, you might know some of the barriers to begin with. Like, you might have the you were told as a kid, don't tip. Don't do this. Don't do that. You know? And you start to take that on as a valley. What happens if I do that? Right? So but most of the time, it's gonna happen when you act. And then it's only after the act that you discover, like what I was just talking about.

I discover all the buried feelings and responses that I didn't expect, and it shakes me up inside. You know, it's not a pleasant thing, but that's the means to if I can get past those things, then I like myself better. You know? And and, again, the first approximation is considering it even. Like, do I wanna make these changes? Is this something that that that seems worthwhile? You know? It's like if I said to you, okay. I understand completely why and when you don't stop at a stop sign.

Mhmm.

Right? But then if your son's in the car, what value is he learning? Well, on one hand, he's learning to think for himself, and you give a really good explanation. But that can go off too. Sure. You know? That's where it's like, oh, I created the circumstances whereby he can think for himself, but is he able to weigh all the components necessary to make that decision? But that's any child growing up is facing that

because they

all get ideas and do cuckoo things. You know? So that's you you know, it's one of the things that, I don't know if it fits in exactly with what you're asking, but it came to my mind, which is many people who if you tell them they're generous, they go, no. I'm not generous.

Mhmm.

Right? But then there are people who think they're generous, and I don't think they're generous at all.

Oh, interesting.

So, you know, it can flip to both sides of what's generosity? Is it something that someone else thinks about us, or do we think about ourselves? How do we measure it? What's the reason why someone does that? You know, when I had when I was an an actor in New York, I had a contracting business. Right? That's how I started out telling that story. And I did pretty well with it. But you know who are the worst ones to work for? I apologize to anyone out there who falls into this category. You may be the exception. Really, really rich people.

Mhmm. I've heard that.

They would fight me for every nickel and dime and argue with things and try to get money taken off. And I'm thinking, my god. I mean, like, what's what's that about? I don't know what that's about, you know? But it was like it was a real shock for me to see the values that and, you know, then people say, well, that's why they're rich. And I go, you know what? That's not why people are rich. That's just stingy. Don't confuse the 2 things.

Yeah. Because there's very generous rich people and there's very

Ex course.

Stingy poor people.

That's right. Yeah. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Is there a quick win that we could do if we are fighting these barriers? Is there some, like, baby step or something? Somebody's like,

you know Yeah.

I've been thinking about this. I you guys this conversation has got me thinking. I am not kind. I'm not kind enough. I'm not kind. Whatever the their thought is.

Yeah.

You know?

Yeah. Is there

a entry level?

Yeah. There's well, there's always an entry level, and it's gonna be different for different people. Okay? So I can't predict ahead of time. But I would say that the entry level has to be something that you can easily do on a daily basis, something small. Because when we think of I'm gonna learn to be kind, that's too broad. That's I mean, I don't know how you succeed at that. I'm gonna learn to like myself more. Wow.

Good luck. I mean, that that that's just like that's setting ourselves up for failure when we do something like that. You know, sometimes I work with people with very strong habits about, let's say, in the I'm supervising someone in their private practice, or I'm pointing something out to someone about how they do something, and I say so. And they're they're very interested in it. And I say, so how long do you think it'll take to change that? And sometimes they say 2 to 3 weeks, and I laugh. I said, I just I just laugh at you when you say that because I don't think it's realistic. You've been practicing yourself this way for a lifetime. Now you think in 2 weeks, you're gonna change it? I said, I think a year and a half to 2 years is a reasonable amount of time.

And then they go, what? So much time? I will blah blah. And I go, well, think about it. In 3 weeks, if it hasn't changed, you feel like a failure and you forget about it. You're not even gonna bother. Right? But if in 6 months, you haven't achieved it yet, you go, I got a year and a half to go. And in a year, it's a little better, but it's I got another year to go. And so it needs to be an approximations, and the approximations need to be where there's an appreciation for little successes. So here here's an example of that, and I write about this.

So when I was 19, I moved out of my family's house. And I decided at 19 that I wasn't good at anything. I was 19. I wasn't old enough to be good at anything, you know, and I decided I was gonna learn to be good at one thing and this is all intuitive. I was very fortunate. I decided I knew I didn't brush my teeth well. I said I'm gonna teach myself to brush my teeth well. Now the good thing about that is it's something I did twice a day if I did it.

Right? And then who would know about it? Nobody would know. The dentist, but he knew already. Right? So it's no big deal. So I picked something that I had to do every day that I could use as a kind of barometer for how I'm doing. Now the funny thing about that was what came up, which I did not expect, were all the sabotaging strategies that I had around myself.

Oh, yes.

You know, I didn't know. I just didn't know that I was living like that. But this one innocuous little thing was enough for me to go, wow, I'm learning a lot about myself here. You know? And so it it can be it can be turning the lights out in the house, pick folding your laundry, washing the dishes, something on a daily basis that takes care of yourself or for someone else. Make someone coffee in the morning. Right? I mean, do something that can happen in a regular small way. That's the doorway, and I think that's the only doorway. And anything bigger than that is just a recipe for failure when we do something like that.

Sounds similar to, like, New Year's resolutions and and different things like that, where you just take on so many things, you can't do anything.

Right. Right. That's a great example. A New Year's resolution of these promises we're gonna make, and they don't work. You know what I mean? I know someone who's who they call themselves an alcoholic. Right? And they made a decision based on an external event to stop drinking, which is already a little dangerous. But if it starts them, it's good. Sure.

And they just wrote me that they haven't drank for 30 days.

Oh, amazing.

And you know what they wrote? And it's really hard. And I wrote, 30 days? What'd you expect? 30 days? You're you're not even at the beginning yet. You haven't even got to the the line where you start yet. You know? It's gotta it's gonna be really hard and continue to be. And that's why they say something like one day at a time. Right? Because if you think past that, you feel overwhelmed. You know? And so New Year's resolutions, they're they're they were always a strange thing to me because you'd say this thing, and then within a month, you have another thing to feel better about yourself. What's happening with your resolution? Screw you.

I don't wanna talk about it. You know?

Yes. Definitely something I don't participate in because Yeah. I I I used to get in trouble in school. Like, well, you need to write this down. I was like, this is the dumbest. Why don't I start today? Why do I have to wait for the first?

Yeah.

It makes zero it makes zero sense to me at all. This this this this this topic reminds me of, a book I recently read, by Cal Newport, Slow Productivity.

I'm not sure

if if you're familiar with it. But he talks about this concept. He's like, if you you know, when you look at somebody's work or you look at something, you're like, oh my god. Look how much you've done. But what you don't see is how how long of a horizon that is. If we look at ourselves, we're like, oh, I didn't do anything this week. But if you're thinking only in that short term versus, like, I'm gonna spend the next year on this project, one week is is nothing. So you didn't get not much done this week.

That's okay. But are you on track to accomplish that over a longer period of time?

Yeah. It's exactly the same thing. And then it goes back to the idea of practice, like something that's consistent that I keep returning to. And how big a task have I set for myself? Do I need to chunk it down? Am I asking too much of myself? Can I reevaluate it? And and just, you know, see. Is there is there some moment where I have a little sense of, oh, yeah. My productivity is actually improving. My success is better. You know? Not where I want it to be.

And where I've seen this happen many times, excuse me, with musicians is that they wanna get to a certain place, and they get there, but now they're not satisfied because they wanna see the next place. Which the the carrot, you know, that stick on the carrot the carrot on the stick is still moving further and further away, which can be a good incentive. But if it prevents you from acting like, I've worked with 1 concert pianist to stop playing because he wasn't where he wanted to be, and we worked for some months together. And we were past where he wanted to be, But now he wanted to be this way before he'd go back to the concert circuit.

And I

went, you're deluding yourself. Right? That's not what you agreed to with yourself. Make a promise to yourself and keep it. You've gone way past where you first thought you would get to, and now it's still not enough. So this is we're dealing with a whole different thing. We're not dealing with this ability to play the piano. We're dealing with someone who just makes themselves suffer. You know?

It reminds me of, a concept that I kind of I I think about from your book is using kindness as a performance enhancer.

Say say because I didn't write it quite like that. Tell me what you

You're using using kindness as as a performance enhancer. So, like, implementing kindness in in a professional setting, you know, that could lead you to, you know, better performance, better productivity, and things with you, your colleagues. Could you impact that a little bit more? I mean Yeah. Sure. Sure. If we can continue on that.

So so I think that kindness generates more kindness. And if we're looking in an environment of performance, whether it's a business, right, or a family situation or something, or that anything that perpetuates a a a value that helps us feel better in some way is both useful and important. You know? And I I was just talking to another group about leadership and stuff like that. And it's like, the leaders are the people who have to like themselves. Right? But I think the leader is the person who has to help others like themselves.

Oh, yeah.

That's that's what perpetuates it. That's where kindness I I I kinda hesitated when you use the word performance because I don't think of kindness as a performance. I think of it as an action that leads to other actions. Right? So so there's no reward inherent reward from it. But here's here's the reward. Okay? So so maybe this will speak to a little bit. I'm not sure. The the idea of liking ourselves more.

So that's an intrapersonal process as I look at it. That would like, we're moving in a way that we like the way it feels. It builds up. It generates a wealth of that. Until one day, I go, you know, I like myself a little bit more. It came through these actions that I've been doing. And then one day, I was I did something. I can never remember what it was.

It was some small act of kindness. And in the next moment, I thought, I like myself more for doing that. And then I thought, oh, that finished the loop from interpersonal to interpersonal, that an act of kindness is is something that can help me like myself more. And I'm certainly not suggesting I just do acts of kindness to pat myself on the back about that. But to be able to go, that that's a perpetuating loop of positivity that keeps feeding back in on itself and around itself. And again, it doesn't mean that there aren't gaps or places where I don't wanna do this. You know, we're gonna run into that over and over again. But that the more I do it, the better I feel.

The more the kinder I am, the more I like myself. The more I like myself, the kinder I can be to others. And again, when I say being kind to others, I'm including tough love. Right. You know? It's not like, oh, I'm just mister nice guy all the time. It's like being able to say no to someone and to to do that. So so I think kindness is, I think it's a good drug. If we're gonna be addicted to something

Sure.

That's a good one. You know?

Can we, go deeper on on tough love?

Yeah. So so tough love is tricky because what what happens is I'm making a determination about what's good or right for someone. Like, the the the friend that goes over who wants a drink and you say, no. I'm not gonna give you a drink. You know? I may join you and not drink. Right? So that, I mean, that would be a good accompaniment for something like that. Cup love is is is the ability to clearly say no in a kind way. Right? And they they know it's in whether I'm right or wrong, it's it's it's in your best interest that I'm saying no.

Right? And, you know, I had a student come up to me once with this idea in one of my trainings, and she has great idea. What do you think? And I said, no. What do you mean no? I thought you were all flexible allowing change and choice, and I went, I am, but I know when to say no to. But then I explained to her why I said no and all the possible repercussions of what could happen if we did this. And she went, oh, I didn't think of any of that. That's my job. You know? And, the tough love is I'm let me see if I can find this. I'm gonna read you something else.

Where is it? I I I don't think I can find it, but I can paraphrase it. So my mother died when I was young and she was a painter. And she had we were shocked to find out that she had destroyed almost all of her artworks. There wasn't much left. But in her art bag was a letter she wrote. I think I was 10. My brother was 8, something like that. And in it, she talked about art and beauty and she talked about truth and honesty.

And she said, I don't know if it's good to tell someone the truth. But if it's if especially if it's gonna hurt them. But if it's gonna hurt you more not to tell the truth, then you need to say something. So that that that's kind of a a real tough love kind of thing. Like, when do I decide to say something? And the thing about even the word truth makes me a little like, oh, I don't like using that word. You know, it's a little too absolute and who knows and different truth and all that. But tough love can be akin to some kind of feedback to someone, but most many people take feedback as criticism. Mhmm.

So how do we provide tough love, let's say, in terms of feedback in a way that supports the person in the direction they're going in? Not tearing them down. Right? But giving them more of the means of what to do. So another story in the book is in one of my programs, there was a woman making up time from another training. She was there for a month, then she came back for another month. Then she came back a third time. I said, how much time are you making up here? As you should have just transferred. But this last month was the final month she had to do to graduate. And from my point of view, she was not ready.

Mhmm.

And the educational director of the other program had never contacted me, and I, that's not my job. I just stay out of it. And so I I wasn't gonna say anything, and then I just thought, no. I'm gonna talk with her. So we announced her qualifications now and everything. I said, can we have a coffee later? And she said, you're gonna drop a bomb on me? I said, no. I said, but I think we're gonna have an awkward conversation. And we sat down, and I said, look.

I'm really glad you fulfilled all the requirements that I had to do, but I thought it's better that someone is honest with you. And so from my point of view, you're not ready to graduate. Now I'm not saying you can't graduate. I'm not gonna stop it. It's not my job. She said, it is your job. I said, no. That's that's his job.

He didn't contact me. And even if it was my job, this was the agreement. I'm not gonna fight it. You know? But I think it's important that you get an honest opinion so that you don't then go out and try to practice and feel like you don't know enough. So and she was quite annoyed with me. And I just patiently sat there and said, I understand your feelings, and I would probably feel the same way myself. And I I said to her, look, wouldn't it be better if you if you if you if you were given honest feedback about where you are right now in terms of where you wanna be? And I said, here's what I recommend. I recommend for another year or 2, you attend other trainings and see what you learn.

And she ended up coming to one of my other trainings in another city, and she said that was some of the best advice I'd ever gotten, you know, to be able to have a someone from a clear perspective of knowledgeable who understood the whole process and stuff to tell something. But that was not easy to do. Certainly wasn't easy for her, but I'll tell you, it was not easy for me because it would be much easier to just go, I don't know if I'm gonna see her again. Right?

Right.

But, you know, it's kinda like, where do we take the responsibility to help someone? And now here's the really tricky part, is those kind of conversations, they are really awkward and we're all unskilled at it. And the only way we get skilled is by doing them again and again and again and making lots of mistakes and going, oh, I did it again. Okay. Okay. Okay. You know, but maybe next time I'll be a little better. Maybe if it was just press it prefacing it by saying, you know, it's an awkward conversation, and I'm I'm doing my best. You know? And if it doesn't work, I'm gonna apologize at the beginning.

Right? Then I'm I'm kind of settling them, leaving it. I'm kinda warning them too in a little bit. But at the same time, I'm leaving some doors and windows open for us both to escape so we don't end up going head to head with something like that. So tough love is is important, and it's tough love. We can simplify it just the ability to say no. So many people I know can't say no. Right. You don't know at their own expense.

So that was my mother's thing. If it's gonna hurt you not to do it, you have to do it. But how many people at their own expense don't say something? And then it's like another story that they carry with themselves about what they should have done and I didn't do and blah blah blah, stuff like that. So tough love is tough. Yeah.

Yeah. You can't can't start carrying those expectations of of those things too. Right? You know? Why I should be doing these things or or whatever. You know? How with with tough love, with honest feedback you know? So I I when I try to give when I give honest feedback, what I what I try to do is I try not to use the word why because that feels accusatory to somebody. Right. When you're from your experience, you know, with honest feedback, how do you make it not feel like criticism? Has there something you've learned

Yeah.

That helps?

Something I'm still learning, I would say. Sure. Okay. So so so so the first thing might be for someone to say, I I you know, I'd like to talk to you about something. Are you open to feedback? And some people say no, and that's the conversation right there. You know? It's like, I'm not gonna keep pushing that. They don't wanna hear it. I I I had one colleague I went to give feedback to, and I said, can I give you some feedback? And I with the expectation that they would go, yeah.

And they've just, like, snapped at me and said, I don't wanna be evaluated, and I went, okay. Like, 3 days later, they told me exactly how I could've said it. I said, okay. That helps a little bit. But it's so so first, you know, we don't just dump it on someone. We ask them, is this something that's important to you? Is this worthwhile? And if it is, let's say, okay. But then as I talk, if it's if it's getting hard for you, stop me.

Mhmm. Okay. Yeah.

You know? An out. There's an out. There's always an out. You know? And that out is something that that it's again, it's setting some ground rules for something. You know? I gave feedback to someone who got very upset and thought I was I was talking to this person just to them in that way, and I didn't do it with anyone else. There was nothing positive in what I said, which which I I I I afterwards checked other people who were listening and said, is it is that is that true? No. Okay. So this is this person's experience.

That's fine. And then I tried to, like, bring about a resolution, but the person was, like, very upset with me still. And, you know, I'm in this hierarchical position and stuff. And it was tricky. I said, I said, all I could do is is give them the opening and say, well, if you do feel like having a conversation, I'm here. Okay? And some days later, they did. And they asked me if I was open to feedback. I said, I am.

I said, okay. So we scheduled another meeting, and there was this person had a list of, like, 15 things. And which that was I mean, it was a little shocking to begin with, but I went, okay. Let's see what I'm doing that I don't know that I'm doing. Right? So that's how I can learn. And the the conversation started by the time we got to the third thing, a feedback, I stopped them. And I said, stop. I said, I'm having a hard time hearing this.

I said, because to my mind, this isn't feedback. This is all correction about how I should teach. And all of these things, if you started it by saying, for me, when you do this and that that that that that that, I okay. Then I can hear this. This is your experience. But you're telling me black and white, you need to change this. And I'm like, I I don't know what to expect, but I've been doing this for a long time. And if I have, doing it your way, the way that you're saying, then, yeah, I should I should be a big failure by now, but I'm not.

So it's kinda like, let's rework this. And we had a few conversations after that, but it took it took time and patience to find a way that served both of us. Because, you know, feedback is a mutual thing. Right? It's not just me telling someone something about themselves or pointing them in a direction. It's me checking in and going, is this useful? Did I say this in a way that you were able to hear it? Right? Could I have changed anything? So they feel that I'm learning something too, and I'm not just the authority telling them how something should be. You know? So feedback, tough love. It's all tough love stuff. Yeah.

What about using kindness in, conflict? How can how Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah.

How can work work? We can

So there there's a body of work that I became interested in. It's called nonviolent communication. It's developed by a man named Marshall Rosenberg. He's no longer with us. And I had a friend who was always sending me articles and stuff about it. She was a colleague too. And I was like, I'm not interested in this. Leave me alone.

And then I had a student give me a video tape of this guy. So now I felt like I had to watch it. And I just sat there mortified going, oh my god, I do that. Oh my god, I do that I do that too. And this guy would go around the world doing conflict resolution with warring tribes and different countries and stuff. I mean, he was like a serious mediator for stuff like that. And one of the he has a very it's a very simple process, and the first thing is to be able to make an accurate observation. Something concrete of what's going on, not interpretation of an event or something like that, the actual event.

And then from there, looking at what's the feeling underneath it. Because if it's if I look at just the event, we get stuck in the content. You know? And which which is the and that that's the place we usually respond to. But if I can kind of wonder about or observe what someone might be feeling and meet them there, it settles the whole thing. And I have to say that since I've studied that work and practice it, there's only been maybe three times where there was a conflict that I couldn't resolve. And that conflict I couldn't resolve were people who shouldn't have been in the programs. Right? They were not ready to do this, and they they either left on their own or were asked to leave or something like that. But I can give you an example.

Like like like, one woman in one of my programs in the 4th year, she was like and she was a physical therapist, and and she was like, why are we doing this anyway? And I'm like, you've been here 4 years. What are you thinking? You know? And then I could have easily done that, right, and gone, you know the answer. No. You've been here 4 years and just smacked you down again or something. Right? And I said, well, are you so I went to the feeling. I didn't go to, like, what are we doing here? I said, are you are you scared that you won't be able to do this or worried or afraid? No. I'm not those things. Okay.

Well, the I'm saying I'm asking the question mostly because I I think I hear that in your tone of voice. No. I'm not scared. I just wanna understand what we're doing here. And I said, okay. So that already is is, what's the word?

Deflecting?

No. No. Not deflecting. No. No. No. The opposite. It's kind of diffusing the power of the kind of way she came at me.

It's like saying, I'm here to listen to you. I wanna know what you're feeling. And we talked for a little bit, and and by the end, she she quiet quieted down. She felt she she since she couldn't really articulate what her need was that needed to be fulfilled, I couldn't answer her question. Right? But I did respond to her feelings. And I'll tell you, every conflict I get into when I if I move away from the content of what we're talking about to, like and I don't have to ask those questions. I can just respond to the person as if I've asked those questions. That's enough that that kinda flattens out the conflict.

It sets a new ground for a conversation that wasn't possible 5 minutes ago. So I would say that. Yeah.

Excellent. So if if we wanna go deeper on these topics, we have your book, Practicing Intentional Acts of Kindness and Like Yourself More. I'll link to the website and the book for you guys. There's also a worksheet there as well. You can just download. We have the, uncommon sensing, the

Spellman. Spellman Christ. Spellman Christ.

Spellman Christ. Oh, I keep practicing it again. I just

That's good. Yeah.

We have that. I'll link to that. I'll link to all your social medias and everything. Is there anything else we wanna point people to if they wanna dig deeper down into this, getting get it get a hold of you, get in contact with you, or teaching?

Those places are fine, and you can always reach me through the websites if you have any questions about anything. And if you don't hear back from me in 3 days, I didn't get it because I'm fast and responding. Yeah.

Perfect. On the social community show, I I like to, have a do a weekly challenge, and it could be anything we talked about or something we didn't know. And I would like you to issue the challenge to the listeners for this week.

Okay. So I would say your challenge this week let's see. I'm I'm up 3, 4 things are running through my head. So I'm gonna say that this week, your challenge is to find, not all the time, but a number of moments throughout the day that you move in a way that you like the way it feels. It could be just getting up from your desk and going to the bathroom, or just, walking from one room. Just to connect with yourself like that and looking at the quality of how you feel sincerely. And seeing if you practice that number of times a day for a week, does it shift something in terms of how you listen to yourself, how you feel about yourself, and maybe even notice if that quality starts to reflect back to those around you as well.

That's beautiful. I love, getting into the body and listening to ourselves. I think, we definitely stray away from that from time to time.

Yeah. Yeah.

Alan, man, so many notes, so many great ideas.

Great. Thanks.

Thank you so much. Deserving Pain. Oh, that's still wow. Matt, I gotta I gotta I gotta put more into that. This was this was absolutely wonderful. I really appreciate sharing all of your knowledge. Thank you so much for being on the show, and I hope everybody can, you know, take away some great nuggets from this interview.

And thanks so much for having me. I really enjoyed our conversation.

Perfect. You're absolutely welcome. Alright, guys. I hope you guys enjoyed that one as much as I did. That was amazing. I got a ton of notes here. I hope you guys did too. I'm still deserving pain.

Oh, I'm still that one still kinda got me there. Being patient and all and all these things talked about. Grace up. If you wanna do something kind for somebody you know, share this episode. Connect with us all week long on all the different platforms if you'd like. All the socials, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, you know guys. You guys know where they all are. YouTube, you can watch this episode or your favorite podcast app.

For past episodes and links to everything we talk about, I have a socialcommillion.show. Let's practice kindness, guys. That's amazing. But till next time, keep learning, growing, and transforming to the person you wanna become. Connect On Social This podcast is available on… You can listen to all our episodes on Apple Podcasts , Spotify , Overcast , Pocket Casts , Castbox , YouTube Music , Amazon Music , Audible , Substack, or your favorite podcast platform .