Episode 42 · 31:45
2024: Cut negative people out
Returning for 2024, Dan and Tom take stock of new ventures, Welsh products and the people who influence the energy around them. The central question is not how to eliminate anyone difficult, but how to stop giving persistent negativity a governing role in your life.
They distinguish honest challenge from reflexive discouragement and consider what each new level of growth makes possible.
The useful bits
What to take with you
- Not every critical voice deserves the same access to your decisions.
- Useful challenge is specific and wants the work to improve; negativity mainly wants it to stop.
- Boundaries can reduce someone’s influence without turning the situation into a dramatic confrontation.
- Growth feels more sustainable when you notice what the present level already allows.
Watch the conversation
The original episode.
Full conversation
Transcript
Transcript generated from YouTube captions. Dan/Tom speaker attribution is AI-assisted and may occasionally be incorrect.
I own the Welsh version of Google and um I redesigned it where Welsh version of Google I am I am Welsh Google I um I am Iron [Music] R stop don't be a stop don't be a welcome to 2024 I hope you've missed cuz we've missed you yeah so we've entered a New Year we're into January uh we've taken a bit of a break um probably off the end of back last year and into this year that's where we're a little.
Bit late in arriving but we are here nonetheless we have been busy um Tom what have you been up to coming into 2024 and maybe some thoughts on your exit of 2023 what have I been up to I feel like nothing and everything all at once basically so I think you also forget everything as soon as somebody asks you as well right as soon as you get asked you're like what happened when and how I think for me it's starting off creating.
A um Ryland Studio as a brand um so sort of branching out out of Ryland consulting which you run to run my own so trying to push social media videography ux design and coaching a lot more so being more in line with what's on my heart and building up a vision and Habit in regarding to do that um yeah so that's what I've been doing messing about with trying to find what apps so to do up making the most of that.
Um to get my test done but then also found a really good habit tracker that I'm having a go of the free version at the moment um just to get into good habits from a fitness and health and and journaling and something else I've already forgotten it um habits which is good for those of you that um have never heard us mentioned the to-do app alth although I think a working title should be one task because it's one task at a.
Time so Tom designed an app um I built the app and it's a to-do list which only focuses on showing you one task at a time even though you might have many tasks you can add them all in but it will only show you one at a time then once you complete that task if you complete that task um it gives you like a a reward system where you select one of your designated rewards as then you've defined those rewards so whether.
Or not it's going make a cup of tea or go for a walk or go and get yourself a snack or something um because that reward-based kind of like system flow or system it is the most um effective process rewarding and yeah the most rewarding route and also I think what helps is it means that you don't need to worry about what's next because the screen like it is like an overtake of the screen so you only see the reward.
And then once you click done it then shows you the next task so you can actually feel like like you''ve um kind of like done something good reward yourself you don't need to worry about the next task then you ready when you're ready for the next task you can click into it um so I'm still waiting for our first five star review but we've definitely had some good um good feedback because I use it a lot and Kem.
Uses a lot and really enjoys it so and you use it a lot as well so which is good to show see for me I've been upgrading my setup I finally bought an actual decent chair which has um a decent like head rest it actually has a foot rest as well which is bizarre but I'd have to like lean back a little bit to be able to use it um and I've obviously got uh some new lighting so I'm now green on green on.
Green um to all make my eyes puff and um I I think I've been thinking a lot about um you know like different strategies and different things you want to take into the new year so I've not bothered with New Year's resolutions this time I just want like a Vibe of a feeling like a flow um which is much more like kind of like a healthy flow of of work and creativity and motivation because a lot of the time you'll do something and the.
Motivation is quite hard to create you'll run on it and then when it drops because you hit a hard kind of like bug or something difficult it's very hard to come back to it so go off and do something else that's motivating and inspiring and then come back to it so like some of those things that I've done so obviously Insider uh Spotify meets patreon music app is mainly my thing um that I'm working on the most uh and I.
Was a bit like demotivated to carry on working on it because it's just a lot of detail because I'm redesigning it um so I went off and redesigned my google.com so for those of you that don't know um I own the Welsh version of Google and um I redesigned it the wsh version of Google I am I am Welsh Google I am Iron Man um I am Iron Man I basically uh redesigned it where I now can search um using my.
Own search and it is in Welsh it's partial because not all search results come back in Welsh so that's been great um and that's spelled gwg l.com Cy um m r u it's always difficult to spell when you like trying to speak at the same time so um so that's been good for and I created a mabinogion thing which is essentially like medieval tales and stories that are like the I think they're probably some of the oldest medieval tales in the UK or something.
Like that um so yeah I've just been like scratching my own itch um which has been good and then some other things I've been thinking about is um dealing with negativity now I'll front load it so I think dealing with negativity there's three things you've got to realize the energy that it takes the fear of those negative people being disowned keeps you in that group and also the guilt of oh you weren't you couldn't hack it or you you couldn't put.
Up with it of being in that negative group those three pillars are the things that either keep you in that group or like um other people will tell you why you should stay in that group so that's the that's basically the front loading but I'll I'll break it down so if you're in a group of negative people or there's people sharing um have either a negative mindset or they share negative stories a lot I'm not talking about that I'm not.
Saying that you shouldn't be empathetic but typically what will happen is is that's quite that's quite draining because you'll use a lot of energy to either encourage them or kind of like be able to listen and engage with them and if you are in a negative space yourself you might find it difficult because it might be a sense of being dragged down with those individuals or individual um but if you're trying to stay in a positive space we all know that like.
Motivation takes a lot of energy to to keep going and that kind of like drive and if you're trying to Aspire to something bigger than yourself it requires a lot of energy so your energy spend spent kind of like around negative people and managing and and coping yourself with detaching from negative stories or negative things um is quite sapping and it's better sometimes to utilize that energy in yourself right to keep being positive for your own benefit so that's like one thing the second.
Thing is like typically when you get advice around negative people and negative groups a friend might be like oh like but just learn how to detach from the negative stories or the negative um mindsets and stuff right and typically yeah typically that friend is advising that because they can visualize themsel as the negative person and doesn't want to be disowned AKA if you if I happen to be negative or have a negative mindset or have a period of.
Negativity I wouldn't want you to disown me because I'm I'm high energy therefore I will project that no Tom you should stick out with the negativity that is down kind of thing because I'm projecting the fear of being disowned in that situation rather than thinking how could I Elevate myself to also be kind of of a positive mindset of positivity right the P the tongue has power of life and death speaking good things and positive things again this doesn't mean.
That you're not empathetic and it doesn't mean that um it's kind of like for Seasons it's more so like prolonged negativity right and and groups that kind of like tear you down as it were and then the third thing I think there's sometimes when are advised oh I'm with these like this negative group or or there's a proportion of the group is negative or a particular relationship is negative you'll be advised to kind of like stick at it and stay either because.
That's Christian doctrine or because like oh it's the good thing to do um like like morale wise um and like oh well you you shouldn't disown them it's a good thing to do and and stick out and it's good to to do that what I would say is sometimes there's guilt of being perceived as like oh you couldn't hack it or you couldn't um kind of like you couldn't cope and that could be an external opinion that you fear if you do.
Leave that group or leave that relationship or leave that individual that happens to be negative somebody might say oh you couldn't hack it or you weren't good enough and and that like basically guilt keeps you trapped so I've basically been thinking yeah generally coaches or mentors will advise you to change your mindset in the group right they'll be like oh I can control is Tom therefore if I tell Tom hey just detach from the negativity and and recognize that they're telling a story.
And and it's okay you don't need to like embody that negativity for yourself but I would say what's almost like braver to say is like hey maybe you should not be around that person and use your energy because it's a finite amount of energy just somewhere else in a better group in a better situation that's better so I'm like typically coaches will say hey change your change your like thoughts and your mindset and your perspect perspective but I'm like in this case.
You should probably just change your environment and and that's like a risky thing because that's perceived as like Oh that's oh you're disowning them oh you're like letting them you're you're failing them or whatever and I'm like we're talking to not like a horrific situation of like oh um somebody in need and you're Discerning we're not talking about the extremes right we're talking about generally day-to-day friendships and things and when somebody's like broadly has a negative like tilt or a.
Pessimistic tilt it's in those circumstance an es so I'm like it's funny how I've become comfortable and not projecting myself as the person that could be negative that one time and then you're going to disum me so I can be like yeah maybe you should find another group of individuals that do build you up and do encourage you because if you want to Aspire to be this big thing or do this thing it takes a lot of energy.
So to focus on that so I thought if you had any thoughts or any ads any perspective on that yeah I think a bit of a mix so I think I'd probably start with the mindset thing but then put boundaries in place that if it's a reoccurring event because I guess you're doing the the Assumption in this story that that it has been a reoccurring event for x amount of months days years or whatever but I think if I.
Was stepping into someone and I didn't know them I do the assumption that it might not be reoccurring it could be a one-off thing so how do you build boundaries to yeah build your mindset but then being like okay now it's going into the territory of that is they're like stuck in a rut to some extent and they would need the counseling or coaching or maybe they just like the the drama attached to it from a um attachment Styles or something else that.
Might be sort of kicking off in the meantime yeah um which is interesting but yeah it's very tough with those types of topics because there's so much knocking around in our brains from our personality to our passions to to uh energy levels to finances to families to friends and and you sort of I guess the more you dive into it the more you don't really know which one's kicking about unless that individual knows specifically and can reflect on it it's quite hard to.
Pinpoint it or they might not even know what's going on and it's just the chaos of everything that is kicking off that they only know how to verbalize it but not then process it and move through it or out of it um yeah's of an evangelist of their own drama to some extent or chaos which is yeah which is tough on some people because some people just want that extra bit of help or listening ear and then they'll Thrive and then others that.
Listen and ear they Thrive off the attention so are more likely to build up the drama because I've been in an old um job role that someone was threatening to commit suicide and it was just because everyone would basically drop what they're doing and give full attention to that individual so then it was reinforcing well if I do this I'll I'll get what I want basically so it's that it's a difficult one adding boundaries because then you're also are you playing.
With life in your brain when someone threatens that and to some extent you have to go well I'm not in control of if they commit the suicide or not I've created boundaries I've given them structure I've given them pH numbers or whatever um and you can't they can't sort of bleed you dry to some extent which is yeah easy to do if you don't spot who they are I guess yeah I think there's a bunch of nuance there but if.
We take it like like the the key thing is kind of recognizing that yeah what are they crying for but I I would say if we move away from the most extreme versions which is your example I would say sometimes there are cases when somebody is kind of like being enabled by the attention that you give them and therefore if you step away they will build their own coping mechanism rather than always having to rely on an external coping mechanism and be inter.
Being able to internalize that kind of uh support mechanism for themselves and again somebody would label it as enabling and again not in the most extreme versions that you kind of like were referring to but in the kind of more lighter um versions where somebody is kind of like acting out for attention or whatever then you're able to step away from that in the end things do work out and I guess it's the optimism and and optimism that you are not God.
Therefore you know you you and you can't control people and have this optimism of their in their situation that their situation will work out and it comes back to what you said I think last year which is like you'll change when the pain of staying the same is greater than the pain of changing yeah and it's at that moment that and if you're enabling that the pain never gets bad enough for somebody then maybe they'll never change and is.
It a case of actually stepping away from individuals in a like a real kind of like respectful way can then enable them to like go forward but I guess we're talking about two sides two types of individuals I'm more so referring to somebody that wants to go out there and and get it right and being dragged back by negative opinions or negative individuals rather than people that have particular issues or are going through tough times and you're there as a.
Support mechanism to them kind of thing yeah it is it is very interesting I think something else that um I've been thinking about do you remember the Gladiators coming in hot today yeah I do remember Gladiator start this New Year with the off of the bang I mean it's all about the Green Power Ranger over here I feel like um you know when the power rang is like it's morph time and it just goes into their like singular views I.
Feel like you need to have your like yellow color scheme as you're like It's morphin time so but yeah my um Gladiators have you seen it or do you remember watching it as a kid yes remember watching it as a kid not seeing the latest version that came up recently so I watched the latest version then I was like oh this is really cool that they brought it back I didn't realize it was an American thing to be begin with I.
Always thought it was in the UK and and and UK by Design um but there's a documentary on Netflix about it and some things that have like jumped out to me is like again I'll frontload it move before you're ready and messy progress is the best type of progress so they're starting off this like TV show and they're putting together they're stitching up this like um TV show about like Fitness of of like strong people and you compete against.
These strong people so we need to find these strong people and they're formulating Gladiators right and it's called the American Gladiator so they're formulating this stuff they go to this park and they get these people to try out and people aren't very good or some people are good and they're like right they pick out their Gladiators then they put on the show now the show them the show itself was like just a pilot to get financing to do a full like 12 episodes.
16 episodes or whatever and what they found was they were doing it so so ropey that the outfits were just like um you know like NFL undergarments like NFL padding underneath your actual like uh I don't know what you would call it but underneath your actual pads you have these like sponge pads so they they were these American like Gladiators were wearing those like the underpads and stuff like this like collecting anything you can find to put it together to have.
It this thing and then the games that they put together the guy was just like sketching games and coming up with games they didn't really understand how they were going to play out and how they would work and one of them was like somebody's on this rope swing and they swing towards you and you're on a platform with like a rugby pad and you basically have to just not get knocked off so the gladiator's on the rug on the.
With the rugby pad on the platform the singular platform and it's the the contestant that's swinging towards them and they would get absolutely booted off one guy like got smacked like he had a concussion cuz he like kneed himself in the face and like cut himself and it's like this like health and safety stuff kind of like was didn't really exist they they learned while they were doing it it was so so ropey that um that people were getting injured and all.
Sorts of stuff the costumes were a bit Patchy the games that they were playing were a bit patchy and and they ended up doing like Fitness people versus the Gladiators so it was kind of equal so some people were like willing to like rugby tackle people so one guy when he's swinging he actually like leads with his shoulder into the into the Gladiator so it's like this messy progress and obviously the Gladiators are taking the hits but the producers are kind of like.
Don't know what they're doing they're throwing it together but just imagine that like and I think at some point it was probably that like oh this isn't very good just imagine if it stopped it wouldn't have become the kind of the the massive franchise that it is today so much so that they can reignite it later on yeah so I thought the messiness of it gives me inspiration to you know basically like move before you're ready don't be don't wait for.
That Perfection thing which is something that we've said before and messy progress is a good thing they then like halfway I I think they did manage to get funding for an actual full like season or series and then as they were doing it it was better but it wasn't great so like um they were refining things but still the safety aspect wasn't good so people were getting injured and so forth and then uh halfway through it they changed the I think they changed the.
Producer or changed it up and they like Americanized it and they had like proper costumes and all the rest of it that were like much more like red white and blue and they changed the games to be more creative and more like kind of like safe so one of them was you know that jousting thing they used to have it on a full platform and what happened is in the middle it's safe but if you push the player back it had a trap door so each.
Side had a trap door now as you're pushing it back the Gladiator might also fall on the trapo that he's pushed you towards and stuff so like it was super unsafe and it was this like game show guy um was like oh we should do it on one single platform and it became load safer now it's not every day that you're basically playing with the safety of people and today we would be much better like for the first iteration would be.
Much better but it just gives you encouragement that you can kind of like put something together that's quite ropey halfway through season one they decide to Pivot essentially like clean it up and make it a bit more like special and they introduced like head cameras cuz they had this guy that was very good I'm not sure if he came from the sporting world or something but he he wanted to kind of make it more exciting so he had all of these people.
With like all the contestants with head cameras so you could feel what it would be like to fight against these um Gladiators and also they they kind of brought Average Joe's like lawyer secretary kind of like housewife cleaner you know like binman policeman and brought those people that typically were smaller to contest against these Gladiators so I thought the whole journey of it was or like the origin of it is so fascinating and it just takes somebody to be okay with the messy.
Progress obviously you've got to be careful when it comes to like you know health and safety and stuff but like yeah taking that and applying it to our situations like typically we're not in a health and safety situation so you can be like more adventurous and more experimental with what you do you know that's cool yeah is that the muscles and Mayhem yes yeah yeah I was just searching up just for anyone that wants to watch Muses and Mayhem five.
Epes roughly 40 to 45 minutes each yeah it's it's really cool I I think this whole like documentary information stuff so insightful like I'm not sure if we've mentioned the blackbery film um about the black bre with the phones that is incredibly good to watch I think that's in my top 10 Again of these like business orientated things where people pivot or people like knuckle down or whatever they do is yeah very insightful and you just got to remember that films.
Are great because they kind of like condense years worth of hardships or Innovations or whatever right even documentaries it condenses years worth of stuff so it of course when it comes to applying to your own situation you've still got to just take every day but you can just take every day with a a sense of lightness or a better perspective and a sense of joy and a sense of ease rather than the holding it tight like trying to grasp sand right just the.
Tighter you grasp the more it goes through your fingers in some ways so yeah blackberry's on Prime but you still have to rent or buy it it's also come out on Apple TV uh as well so very nice so any other things that you've been working through um or thinking about um just mainly building out the business and creating um not only a um a client basis but also just a product basis of things through coaching videography and um sort of app design.
Mainly in websites so looking at how can I with all my experiences just be able to build stuff and just getting a bit more of a a good routine of documenting things through the videography side but also I could do a lot more trial and error um because I know it's not hurting anyone else's it's brand it's just building mine up um and just the the fun and games with it all from doing Tik toks of either me explaining ux stuff or.
Doing stock motion things and seeing which LS is it the music is it the timing is it the the posting um I've noticed with as it's the stock motion that seems to bang quite a lot so on Tik Tok and on YouTube I think those are the best views that we've had on shorts which is cool so it's really interesting just being able to play with different ideas and see what I guess a what you enjoy and then B what what I guess other.
People enjoy of what you're posting up from an algorithmic point of view but yeah so it's it's planning out the the future of how can you build something and make it last stamp on it yeah aligned with what you were saying there of like the trial and error of like the experimental prototyping aspect I think it's really important to like enjoy whatever level you're at enjoy the level that you're at so in your case you're like there's no ramifications if one.
Video doesn't land or doesn't go too well there's no ramifications if you accidentally say the wrong thing you're not going to kind of like you know upset a bunch of people because they like mean you know it's kind of like playing at the level so you can be more experimental more adventurous more courageous whereas in other situations it might be oh well you can't say this because there's a sub like there's a sponsorship involved or there's a client.
Involved or or whatever so for every level of course we're always progressing to new levels but enjoying for this level what does it mean you can do and I think especially when it comes to public speaking or like uh public charact like the person that you are like as a public influencer or whatever like get away with kind of like and I don't mean like basically you're rude or um upset people on purpose it's like recognize there's way more capacity to fails in the in the.
In public and it's much more it's a more forgiving environment you can be a bit rougher um whereas as you get more senior or more professional those things still exist but you will perceive them to not exist you'll feel like you can't fail but you can you can still fail and that is actually the like if anything it shows the best type of maturity and the best type of confidence being a senior level or a lead level or a owner level and also.
Being able to fail and be okay with failing because it's a part of the journey right failure is essential to the Journey aka if Gladiators didn't allow those failures to kind of like happen and and and were okay with those failes happening to some degree then it wouldn't be the thing that we know it today it's like The Simpsons when you see the first ever drawing of Bart Simpson versus the drawing of him now or even Homer or whoever like the first.
Rough version had to exist so it's like yeah that's like the encouragement I guess because I think I think the thing that's helped me the most is the fact that I can't fail and it doesn't affect anyone else's I guess reputation other than my own um because I sort of don't mind it because I think the one thing that being in the marketing world and dealing with social media whilst being dyslexic means that you're not very confident at posting things just in case.
You've spelled something wrong or done an error and I think it's freed me to be like actually I'm just going to give me permission to get things wrong say things wrong spell things wrong just to get into the hobit of um publishing stuff to hit the now you've published 100 items on a on a social website site or you've edited a 100 videos or you've communicated about ux because I'm not expecting this to be perfect but actually I sort of want to get things.
Out there because there's so much in my sort of brain that I want to do that it takes 10 times longer if I have to spell check everything and do everything perfect and actually it sort of to some extent Waters me down because the skill set that I have might not be looking at everything word for word that someone else does have but then you'll lose out on the whole creative video because I won't have the confidence of put posting.
It up because of some sort of minor errors um so it sort of free me up just to be like actually I'm just going to post and if I get it wrong I'll just remember to change it for next time rather than deleting a post reposting it and creating more work for potentially two people to view it and actually one of them to only spot the error anyway I I particularly my P personal gripe is about people spotting like spelling.
Mistakes and stuff if they're just there to kind of pull you down it's kind of like but just think of the positivity of the engagement of somebody coming to say Hey you spelled this thing wrong isn't it like like privately it's fine to be told but like public he's like oh great but yeah again it's like the it's the decision making time right of wanting to post something or wanting to say something versus like the longer you leave it the more.
Friction is like the bigger the wall gets to kind of get over it because if you overthink it so it's trying to post something and not worry that there's mistakes not worry that there's SP mistakes not worrying that there's a bit of like misunderstanding because actually in the engagement following off that yeah you can explain it and correct and stuff you know yeah it's it's trying to get social media to plac with your comp or with my company of it's as if.
You're having a bunch of banter with a bunch of guys that you probably will say the wrong thing and then they'll make fun of you but when you do land that good comment or that good that funny um quote or whatever and everyone wets themselves it's all worth it but it's all sometimes about the pace of it but you will trip up in the meantime and say something wrong or mis reference or mishar someone along the way I I think.
Um along the lines of like being correct Ed I um I was chatting with Kimmer about this and um my my my kind of like personal value is like everybody deserves to be like understood right regardless of you know whether or not they communicate it well or or not to some degree um and you'll have people that for example us we might say something wrong um or like grammatically incorrect in English and somebody typically an English person will correct.
Us and then we'll be like well you only know one language we know two languages two languages badly but at least we can speak two languages so uh it's one of those things that sometimes you can be you can go in on somebody to correct them um whereas like they know multiple languages it's it's one of those things right it's like they they more languages than you anyway so it's like it's fine you know can you speak two languages no.
You can't so don't bother correcting this English good note to end on speak both languages yeah so come into the comments correct a grammar and then I come back yeah our come back will be well can you speak two languages or three if you can speak a little bit of French from your French gcsc still no not me I dropped this this quickly as I picked it up great well there you go so basically don't deal with negativity anymore enjoy the level.
That you're at enjoy messy progress and move before you're ready um and enjoy your start to your 2024 until next time keep hammering those Nails St don't be a St don't be a St.