Episode 29 · 24:52
We are back
Dan and Tom return after a break and use the reset to ask what the podcast is for now. They reflect on changed routines, unfinished ideas and the awkwardness of starting again when momentum has disappeared.
The episode is less a grand relaunch than a useful demonstration: return with what you have, notice what has changed and rebuild consistency one conversation at a time.
The useful bits
What to take with you
- A return does not need to compensate for the entire period you were away.
- Restart with the smallest version that restores the rhythm.
- Use a break to question what still belongs in the format.
- Momentum comes back through completed repetitions, not a perfect relaunch plan.
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.
[Music] don't believe [Music] it's been a while hasn't it and failure you're only a failure if you completely stop so we may have failed to repeat uh weekly Cadence but ultimately we are not a failure because we have returned um and that's super reassuring isn't it Tom so we're not failures because we have carried on for the last couple of weeks we have still been here still be busy still been doing stuff um but we've taken a bit of a break and to recharge.
As the classic phrases recharge and all that stuff and get better kind of like um just things that we want to share and how we want to adapt and modify and iterate and all the rest of it as you know from the start we've always wanted to iterate on this um podcasting go over time to to kind of improve things and and so forth and um yeah I think for for me the Break was good because uh we also readjusted some of.
The positioning um so we're going to be doing things a little bit more kind of like again more us um more more time and more me and that'll probably reveal itself as things go along um but how's your break been Tom what have you been thinking about well we've been on break not too bad so we had Easter off to give ourselves a break and then I lovely had a really bad flu so I've only just recovered if not still.
A bit sometimes it um having a bit more phlemy in the morning but we're here I thought we would kick it off just to get us going up and going after all the thoughts that we've been had over Easter I think the main area that I'm I'd like to develop I basically create a goals list of different areas but a focus of sharing with a pod um is feelings and regulation so it is an area of the unknown for me as I'm a.
More analytical logical naturally so actually tapping into feelings and what is your body and emotions telling you so I've just started an audio book today that was yeah I'm looking forward to and it is called I literally it always goes it is yeah insert here hopefully I can put find it later I think it's like that's gonna really annoy me a lot basically allowing yourself to have feelings but way more better title giving us that permission of some.
Sort permission to feel permission to feel I think that's what it's called by it now in a store near you yeah so I've only listened to chapter one but it's got the cogs turning of how can it help me but also I'm in this journey with myself and my wife of knowing how can we um be practical and be useful with all uh skills our giftings what we've learned and how do we help people in the season that we're in so we're looking at local.
Community of joining a local church and local Hobbies so we're Church searching as you call it and looking at different Hobbies so I've just joined the local hockey team and started to do some coaching and actually it's been really interesting I've forgotten how much knowledge and thoughts that I've got when it comes to hockey so it's been quite encouraging as for me even though from a productive point of view I always want everything to be perfect actually from a confidence.
Point of view it's probably been the I probably had the lowest confidence um I've had in my life so it's interesting trying to learn how do you start from scratch again um rebuilding that confidence and it's going back to things that you already know and it's recognizing when you teach people that don't know anything it actually that is a small step in getting that confidence back of recognizing um value and worth in what you have to share my sports journey is um you guys.
Might remember that I joined the squash league and um I've not been demoted I've also not been promoted so I'm still in division seven so we return back in Division Seven um but we've intimidated people some some people off the board because there was three other players in the league it was a league of Five played with one of them and I think we only had two games the other two disappeared and now the three of them have disappeared so we.
Basically haven't been promoted haven't been demoted but we've intimidated three people off the board so now there's three people less to compete against so that's a positive thing going to the um emotion stuff I think what is really interesting with Myers-Briggs the personality tests um where it gives you the four letters I think what's super interesting is having conversations about Instinct and how Instinct for a more emotional uh person sorry like a feelings person an F person versus a t.
Person and how that kind of like comes into play especially when it talks about giving people when you're talking about giving yourself permission um so do you follow your instinct or do you not follow your instinct like what is Instinct I think the conversations that we've had around that super interesting um especially when we reverse back to the word steamrolling right instincts are not followed you steamroll yourself you then get into a bit of a trouble um emotionally so.
Um so then you're not like regulated but what are some of the like interesting things that have jumped out in of our conversations around like instinct and what that means to you and what that means to me I think it's an Associated um word that we tend to lean towards is a gut instinct so a lot of the time we've been speaking about what's the difference between a gut and a feeling so you might feel sad but it doesn't necessarily mean your gut.
Is telling you watch out for the future it might be a in the moment you're just feeling sad for uh from a compassion point of view because someone is hurting or whatever so I think it's been a definitely I feel like people that amazed Briggs lean on F for feeling have understand their gut more so I would say than the people I've been doing with with a t logical because I think the logical will analyze everything to death to the point of.
Your gut might be saying something's up here but because there's no tangible evidence and no one else is agreeing with that gut feeling the evidence dictate what you should be doing is a decision which actually ends up meaning your confidence can be shattered by trusting in the evidence when actually your gut feeling might be stronger or trying to communicate something that isn't logical or isn't tangible I was listening to a really interesting YouTube clip of an ax I think it's like m i six like.
Head of MI6 or something and one of the things that they said is if your gut tells you to basically get out the mission just trust it even if you don't have any analytics to back it up to say this is the reason why my gut was saying this isn't safe or we shouldn't do this or we should pull out they're sort of like a a written rule that as long as you're trust in your gut if your gut is saying.
Something's up you pull out and you can redirect they can re-assign that task or job um in the future because yeah it's giving you that confidence that if something's up that you Just Go With It basically which is quite hard because sometimes it's hard to justify a gut feeling um I find it's easier if you're on your own because the collateral damage is smaller obviously you within a in a marriage or in a family or in a team.
Sometimes can be quite hard because you might hurt everyone around you and then you have to justify you doing a gut feeling that you can't always explain but you just have to trust in the moment and deal with the aftermath afterwards which is much harder I find yeah I think any time you look at things relationally um you recognize the impact the impact is much much clearer if you um do or don't do something you can see the.
Impact when you're in a marriage or a partnership or whatever but um as an individual it's harder to like notify the stuff because you don't have that like bouncing wall to be like hey what do I think about gut what do I think about Instinct like I know we were chatting earlier about um like compromise and what does compromise mean even the definition of a word can play out differently because I think for me I think compromise is something that is.
Not because I think that compromise is like hey we want to do two things I will um not do my thing I'll let you do your thing full stop and that's not really compromised so with all these things like instinct and gut instinct and following that or not following that or steamrolling it or not steamrolling it versus like just the English language of words and what the certain words mean to you um versus me or even like what does.
Loyalty mean to you versus me and how those all play out I think um when when you think that you've understood it you probably haven't or you've got to like another layer because there's another layer of depth and understanding with all these questions that you have to ask and I think um so Tom and I have done like marriage prep stuff marriage of course stuff through churches and um I feel like there's not enough in there um to speak about because.
Um like I think yeah you about like what is what is compromise what is loyalty you know it does ask you about family Dynamics and and so forth um but there's so much granular detail that you kind of want to figure out um along the way to avoid conflict right and the bad kind of conflict um later down the line which I find is always a yeah there's always new insights because ultimately we're both organic individuals right um so in any relationship it has to.
Shift and change as you become more mature and as you change you your partner has to kind of like for themselves figure out what their journey is as well and you and you both changing together hopefully and getting closer and more kind of a from a place of teamwork and understanding which is yeah the the main focus I think um yeah that's really interesting I don't have much to add to that I'm really hoping that you aren't hearing.
The washing machine go on because I've changed Studio setting to downstairs no I'm not at all but you might hear the washing machine and I've also gone into a room where there's more acoustic dampening because the other room is just a bit too echoey for me something that's been on my mind a lot is um the power of um like the mind and the Power of Choice and the recognition of choice when we talk about circumstances so remember.
Ages ago when I was talking about that I think his name's Myron golden I think it is uh where he was talking about you have a problem or you have a situation of fact and you have a positive angle or a negative angle on a fact now if you take the negative angle that basically will go into your brain and that that creates your belief system and that basically makes you feel anxiety um because that's how it starts to then.
Faster your negative perspective or your negative like framing um breeds the anxiety which then makes you feel powerless and then the opposite which is a positive choice or a positive frame um generates anticipation which makes you feel hopeful um and I found it really interesting with that Dynamic that if that um is the case which it is I think we don't realize how much um choice we have in feeling um and it's very difficult I'm not saying that it's easy but I've tried to.
Um over the last few weeks try to forcefully choose the positive perspective so much more with situations and I think that's where like faith comes in so like Faith to me is like you know if there was a chair behind me and I was stood up how do I know there's a chair behind me well you would be able to tell me because you can see the chair behind me so it's based on like your story or your.
Experience can tell me and then the second thing is like well how do I know that how do I trust that that you're telling me that there's a behind me is that I try and sit down on it so there's two angles of one the knowledge or the information of it and if you were with a hundred other people I'd be like oh the knowledge of these people here can tell me there's a chair behind me um so I I then have to figure out how to.
Sit down and it's the two the action and the and the knowledge of stuff so when you try and take on the positive framework of it sometimes it's like it's not the obvious one it's not the easy one because it might not be the scene one for example the facts are that we've tied up you know you taught up your monthly budget and because obviously inch um because of interest rates going up our mortgage is doubled right so the.
Fact is mortgage is doubled so then the positive angle on that is X and the negative angle of that is why now the positive one is a challenging perspective to get but the positive angle could be like oh well it's a privilege to be in this position where we have this house and yes even though it's gone up for this period of time it won't be up forever and it's going to change because we're going to um basically remortgage and switch the.
Way that we're doing it or you can be like oh this is um basically taking away extra money that I don't have and it's really difficult to um basically have a positive anticipation or positive hope for something when the numbers don't look like that right you've touched it up in your spreadsheet so with the whole Faith stuff as well like thinking positively about a situation so it could be that your bank balance looks different because you've tied it up and it doesn't.
Look right and then based on what you know you can be applying like a positive angle to it and then that builds in a sense of anticipation and hope which then makes you feel powerful rather than something kind of dragging you down because there's this anxiety associated with it I'm always going to perform better when I think positively about something rather negatively purely because the outworking of negative is anxiety and the outworking of positive is a sense of like anticipation and and.
A sense of power in the situation which I think is key so recognizing that we have so much more Choice than we actually understand and choice to feel anxiety or choice to feel anticipation based on a framing of the problem of the fact so my I'm trying to get real deep into my own like mentality around yes the the faith thing of doing something um based on information and action um and also trying to frame it with the.
Positive so that doesn't generate anxiety it generates anticipation yeah that's really good I think I tend to struggle with that I think being a um a logical analytical person it it bursts out overthinking quite a lot of the time and I think I anticipated as a kid the older that you get the more confident you'd have because you'd have learned from your right or wrong answers and then you'd have a better answer sheet towards life but I think as.
I've learned it's actually unless you understand and deal with your emotions slash or pain management of dealing with the pains that you've gone through with life actually it can make you anticipate future Pain any decisions that you do um so I've recently restarted um counseling just because I felt like there is an invisible glass stopping me from doing good decisions and I've only had two sessions and I already feel like there's a Clarity because basically I had this discussion with you on I'm with.
My wife and it's basically you do a decision then it would either be good or bad you don't always know if it's good or bad in the moment you'd know it in hindsight so good would then bring joy into the situation and let's say it's with you so it'd build our relationship with joy let's say it's a bad decision well a bad decision might then breathe out pain and hurt so you're like okay then so that might pull away from our relationship this is.
In my mind um pull away from my relationship but then it you need to add in two other two extra steps on that route which is then asking for forgiveness or forgiving that person depending on what that looks like dealing with the Forgiveness side and then dealing with the um I'm going to say redemption but that's not the right word with the I've literally forgotten what the word is reconciliation I was trying to find it in my brain as well I was like I.
Couldn't work out what it was I literally tapped on my notes and I already Jarred my memory enough so then what my brain was processing is I don't want to bring pain to myself or others because I don't know how to deal with the mess afterwards or I thought I did know how to deal with it but now it's getting to the point that I don't feel like I'm dealing with it as well as I think um or hope.
So actually to stop pain what you do is you work back through the trail and you're like the main area that you have control over is your decisions so I think subconsciously I've gone okay if I don't make decisions I can't make a bad one which is clever from a strategic point of view but actually by don't doing decisions that can still hurt people that is a decision in and of itself and you're missing out on doing good decisions and.
Actually in the grand scheme of things if you've bought into a company or into a marriage even by doing a bad decision asking for forgiveness um like joining back up together in that process can actually build on your relationship and your understanding for each other just as much as a good decision um which I think I knew from a logical point of view but then journeying it out um with someone else that isn't in my day-to-day life I'm a council point of.
View it was interesting because like oh I don't know that emotionally that if I've hurt Megan or hurt you that actually that hurt would um never go and now it will actually slowly deteriorate our relationship so actually I'm my emphasis in my brain is hurt pulls away and good choices and joy doesn't really add much to the building it's like adding a pebble to grow a a house but if you've hurt someone you've pulled away like 10 breeze blocks or.
Blocks or whatever so it is a very interesting thing the sort of the the power of your mind and the sort of positive and negative stint on it and then how that can affect your emotions or your emotions affecting your mind yeah I I think also there's like an expectation that certain people have it all sorted and and um based on where they are in the situation whereas sometimes that doesn't always plan out panel um I was reading about David Goliath.
Recently um and what I found was super interesting is David's confidence and identity um understanding them which is a story from the Bible for those that yeah which is basically um a kid like a young person basically gets told by his dad hey go and check on your brothers they're basically in the Army and they're lining up to fight against this other Army and um he then goes and checks and sees how his brothers are and basically there's like.
A this Goliath guy which is a massive dude out of the other Army kind of being like hey come on bring it on I'm gonna basically defeat all of you um and this Army over here are a bit worried about that and have a sense of anxiety about it um but they're the ones dressed as soldiers right so when David comes and hears about this stuff he ultimately hears that the king is like anybody that can defeat Goliath will be rewarded and.
Basically I'll pay like your family doesn't have to pay taxes so then Dave's like oh I want to hear what like what's the detail of this like reward as it were and while he's doing that one of his brothers is like angry at him and be like oh get lost like stop trying to hang around with us you just come in here to like watch War happen or a fight happen and stuff stuff and I think what's funny is because David's.
Asking stuff he then gets called up by the king the king's like cool let's put you in there um because you're gonna be able to fight so they start putting the armor on him and he's like yeah this doesn't work for me um so the two things that make it different is like one he understands like why are you guys scared like I understand who's with me which is God in this situation um so therefore like of course I'm gonna.
Be able to win because God's with me and secondly his experience of like well I've killed bears and bears and wolves so I'm gonna be fine it's fine anyway he then goes into the army with basically uh Slingers and Pebbles which is more his like comfort thing and all the army guys are all scared and they're the ones dressed as soldiers so what I find is funny is like um again the people that have it all together look correct might not have it.
All together and look correct so it's it is down to the whole like don't be don't be fooled by um yeah an outward kind of um kind of like an outward opinion or an outward kind of image um that you see because it's not always the case and then you also have to stick to what you know by bringing in like well you have the confidence because it's from a different place rather than the confidence that comes from wearing a particular.
Um uh Persona of some sort and then David goes like hey I'm actually gonna like take you out and you guys are gonna serve us which he then does so I think the confidence of that all the way through is really interesting so I think the two bits that stand out it's like identity and also the experience and the importance of that experience not like clouding it to be like no no you now have to wear this armor because that's.
What what needs to be done for this well no his experience has told him different you know so it's really interesting how that then pans into you know emotional states of trying to make the choice of choosing the positive framing um and trying to um you know go with these things and not let them um throw stuff back at you it's the end you always do it in such a summery way that I'm like I have nothing to add to this discussion it's.
Um it's always challenging because I think because we're digital it's like you scored the try and then passed me the ball but I'm like you already scored the try so you didn't need to pass through that ball and I do the conversion which is just a different type of approach to things well let's let's end it here basically we are we are back well we've never left we just paused so um and we'll be doing these more often we on pause and took a.
Break uh an extended break and hopefully we'll see um more of these things and trying to what what I want to do is probably more share what we're going through and what we're learning um rather than um what we've done before so again coming back to the documenting of our experiences and what we're thinking through and discuss that together but until next time keep hammering those nails bye for now [Music].