Episode 07 · 15:38
Challenge your beliefs
Recording face to face, Dan and Tom examine beliefs inherited through religion, family and personality. They revisit familiar teachings such as ‘turn the other cheek’ and ask whether an early interpretation produced compassion or simply trained someone to tolerate harm.
Challenging a belief does not require abandoning every value around it; it means testing the lens through which the value has been applied.
The useful bits
What to take with you
- Separate a principle from the interpretation you first received.
- A belief that repeatedly removes your agency deserves careful re-examination.
- Compassion can include distance and boundaries rather than endless access.
- Changing your interpretation can preserve a value while producing healthier behaviour.
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.
Right so this is you're coming closer um this we're at we're at NTU so this is um us doing a face-to-face podcast so this is the first time we've done this and uh the reason why we're here yeah it feels weird isn't it well we've still got an audience to kind of entertain so the reason why we're here uh Rylan Consulting um the company that we are we basically have for the last four years given a prize of.
Um a thousand pound per year split between three students uh computer science students that have done the best progressed now what we've done since then is update now to six students so it's two thousand pounds but between six students and it's a 10-year commitment um so over uh I think now we're four years into that 10-year commitment and that means that every year they invite me to do a bit of a talk and uh basically do a bunch of handshake photos.
With everyone as well and I think we're about to get kicked now but hopefully if we stay committed to this recording then hopefully we won't be kicked out so give the talk about basically my entrepreneurial journey and this time I took a bit of a different Edge because um last time I think my last talk was very much like this is the journey and this is the detail in a bit more detail this time I was a bit more vulnerable.
Said like some more vulnerable stuff about you know um I used to want to be a bin man when I was a kid and you know I once spelled Wednesday wrong in a calendar and it was printed 3000 times you know and it's all about character and those kind of things form character and then I was talking about impact and I think that those two things are the main things that I wanted them to take away is is are they.
Dreaming big enough and then think about character and impact an impact is about looking back to get forward so that's why we're here but anyway what we're going to talk about this week uh I think we need to give context of why we might get kicked out of this room at anything so this podcast cuts at any point why is it going to cut at any point so we are on the NTU campus that's based over in Clifton right now and we.
Were finding the most best place to do this podcast so it is a lecture theater so this is projective for a lecturer at any point and we don't know we're quarter to three there could be a lecture three so this could be a very short podcast for us running down the hill what we should do is keep it rolling basically we've already heard our first moment of someone looked into the room and then suddenly like whimpered away basically and probably because I don't.
Know maybe they think that we're doing an actual video call even though you will see that actually it's just me and Tom on the call but maybe they can't see because the door is literally just two meters a week into the chancellor of Nottingham Trend University yeah yes Mr Chancellor I know maybe they can hear us so we just be like yes Mr Chancellor there's actually also a divide on the other side of this so maybe five meters.
Ahead of us as a divide which can be opened and closed which there is a group of another group of people on the other side and so they probably can hear us although can't hear them but yeah it'll be soundproofed do we want to talk about creativity all right okay this is I have a microphone at any point pretend you're here for an interview remember that guy that did the BBC interview and he's like I'm here for a job interview oh yeah so.
Come in here and they're literally should bring someone into the podcast oh yeah let's do that literally James or like Jenny thanks uh thanks for coming in and joining us I would say yes tell us about your political view and this is the edl leader um I I think it's really important to have utter confidence and project confidence and I think I've always come up with this phrase like March up to the moment and what I mean by that is if.
There's a moment in life that you're unsure about a decision and that decision is coming up towards you then you should basically go with all your uncertainty with all your questions and walk up to that moment um and until that basically happens so then you're able to decide when they so basically say yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes until it comes to sign on the dotted line and that that point you can decide whether or not you want to do it.
Or don't want to do it and it takes a lot of guts to do that because I think a lot of the time there's this guilt that when we say yes a yes must be our yes and we shouldn't say yes or something if we're going to pull out and all this stuff and I think we need a change for basically living for other people to live for our own um needs in certain circumstances so for example like a a job.
Um a job application or whatever it's it's fine to submit two applications it's fine to do interviews for both and like go right up into the moment and say yes to both and then go incident you have two offers on the table and then you can be like yes or no it reminds me of when I applied for longer so back when I was in my digital agency I needed to um basically earn more money and I decided to look for another job.
And the recruiter was like what you're only being paid that much which I think was a ploy but anyway I went to interview for Wonga and I was like yeah I'm gonna join one I'm going to join one I'm gonna join manga all the way until they literally offered me a role I then used that to basically say hey I've been offered this role so I'm thinking of doing it and they were like we can offer you this we can offer you this and I was.
Like um and basically I was backwards and forwards Wonga then came back and offered 5K more which I thought was awesome um and I decided to still stay mainly because there were some projects that kind of like assisted and I would have been out of my depth in one go really but I was literally saying yes yes yes yes yes which I used as a negotiation technique but I didn't know I was going to use it as a negotiation pivot in that.
Agency and the recruiter was so annoyed so annoyed at me but ultimately is she paying my rent no she's not like is she the one doing the job no she's not so regardless of the frustration regardless of how that looks um for her and her client it doesn't matter I would say like cool you're annoyed but what was your plan be as a recruiter like you should have a plan B Because if it falls out you should have.
Like a someone in the pocket to be like don't worry client I've got this plan B that you really liked as well you know so that's not my fault I need to do what I need to do for me so yeah that was I didn't know I was going to do that because I in my mind had convinced myself I need to convince myself that I'm Gonna Leave to build the confidence to leave and I basically marched right.
Up until the moment until they gave me a paper what do they say like a paper contract or like um like an agreement to say like we're gonna pay you this much and never sign up yeah so see I would say much up to the moment with all the insecurities with all the concerns with all the how is this going to work and do things for you and try to remove the like the bad Doctrine aka the bad.
Things you've been taught or the things you've been taught that you've kind of taken a different view on for example biblically there's the whole turn the other cheek now turn the other cheek in my opinion used to be oh you should allow someone to hit you kind of thing right like oh I've got this cheek well you can hit me on this cheek so like it's it's okay to be hurt again you know multiple times like if not like I can.
Allow that but I recognize as I've got older that was actually just bad um interpretation which is kind of a little bit my fault maybe it was the way that it was delivered I I don't know but let's say that I've just taken it and I've run with it which then is instilled this lower self-confidence and then as I've got older and kind of ingested moral resources I realized that actually turn the other cheek was more so um kind of like give someone an.
Opportunity right like give them a chance as in like you only have one cheeks so give them the benefit the doubt if it happens again cool them off and that is a different deportation and a more true interpretation in my opinion than the first interpretation which was actually incorrect but I lived my life with the idea of turning the other cheeks so it's okay to be screwed over and I think there's lots of and I guess in this particular context we're talking.
About Christianity and Christian lessons um kind of like not quite outworking them probably because broadly speaking as a British culture we're a little bit woe is me and you know little and kind of like um less confident in ourselves and so forth maybe I'll speak for myself like I would say that's the out working for me someone walks past I am super triggered as if I'm back in school about to be told off that I'm in the wrong class but.
We're living with it you know what we should do if someone says I'm going to be in this room and we'd be like no where so the number is one two one no women have been one two one aren't you men being one two two and let's see how long we can go in if we capture this on camera this would be so funny we've we've booked this in no no we like for three o'clock no no we we bought the.
Till three so we still got nine minutes kind of thing but yeah what what's your take on that let me let me give me your take on that well it seems like you're still coming in hot from your coming in you're um giving out the prizes yeah and I feel I'm hitting the afternoon oh no okay everybody Tom's laughter Tom's but Tom has left the building instead of what your take is on that holistically is there anything more specific because my.
Brain is better okay specific so I would say you you know yesterday when we were talking about um so we've come up to Nottingham just on the like last night we came up and we were just chatting and stuff and I was like oh we so should have recorded the podcast last night because we were talking about some really interesting stuff but you're saying about how you want to basically create lessons outside of these this like bad Doctrine and.
Stuff to be able to like mold it into lessons because a lot of people take things and it doesn't and apply them incorrectly which is not like their fault necessarily they're not trying to do that but they imply it incorrectly and really what it needs to be is like you know that thing where it says turn the other cheek and you basically outlive that lesson in Acts actually you should outlive it in why and The Liberation that that brings so what what.
Other um kind of Doctrine stuff have you believed or heard that people are applying incorrectly or you're replying incorrectly it's not detailed enough that is very detailed um too detailed back it up that's two tea cells can we go with the medium yeah that was too cold I want medium I feel like what's that um the bed's too big too small and then just body locks everything yeah Goldilocks over here so what's the what's the Yeah medium hair so I think.
For me it's I'm looking at potentially creating content on I'm trying to think of a slogan of what would work and it's basically um Bible with baggage and I think it's recognizing how you read the Bible with your own um culture if it's family culture I'm just going to cut across Bible with baggage is such a great line so that's that's so marketing of you marketeer I think that's a really good Line bible package yeah continue and basically it's.
Looking at recognizing will always have a certain I don't know what would you call it wrestle or limp towards a certain way so for example I like to help people so if there's a Bible verse that's like instead of go the extra mile you should go two miles instead of just being compassionate and that's a good thing that I'm helping people I end up going five miles so then I'm actually over extenuating myself yeah but with that it's like.
This is two for two I think we've got to keep going keep going and we had to commit to it because there might be people kicking us out in the next five minutes um and I think it's recognizing I'm compassionate so helping people I just need to recognize I'm partnering with that um story in the Bible rather than letting that story being a whip for me to overextend myself to them I'm not compassionate because I'm zoned out because I'm walking five extra miles.
Rather than helping someone walk that extra mile because really they might be a difficult person and walking an extra mile is being compassionate to you and to them so I think it is recognizing you will have certain personality traits or backgrounds that would trigger you but it's going okay how do you read through those lenses because it's so easy as a Christian of you've brought Jesus into your life now you set free like everything should be fine again but.
Actually there is a wave of freeness that you feel that you've never felt before but then you come back sort of down to reality and realize well I'm dyslexic so when people say at the front of church like you should be reading your Bibles more that's a trigger for me because I feel like I'm back in school I can't keep up with reading but I know separately I go on to the Bible app that is audio and I tend to listen to it or I.
Tend to listen to podcasts because maybe the content of the Bible trying to cram it into my brain and not um understanding it or listening it or interpreting it incorrectly it's better to hear other people talking about one topic for me to take in my life to then transform my life I think it's reckon recognizing how do you look through the lens of me with dyslexia maybe I'm a performer because it's performance because of my hockey background or culture we're both well.
Short we've both been to University or not University and it's recognizing you'll have those different hats on how do you read it and take it in to transform your life in that situation I that was great I would say it is about again I think we've probably mentioned this before but the like the self analyzing um being like empathetic to yourself and trying just to like challenge like am I what like why am I thinking what I'm thinking why do I feel the way that.
I feel what's the root of some of the oh sorry yeah what's the root of some of the fruit that you see the fruit might be bad the fruit might be good but what's the root of that and it might be that you know something isn't quite as good as it could be because you've over stretched and actually it's a reassessment of why am I overstretching oh okay the root of that is like it's because I've read here that it says that.
I should do it I should do because I'm a good person blah blah blah and actually dissecting that challenging yourself to to look at why you do what you do in the way that you do it recognizes that the most effective um uh what I was going to say the word environmentally friendly it's not that word what's the word where it's like you use low energy but you can keep it going sustainable yeah it's like the most sustainable method of whatever you're.
Doing so I I would say yeah with with what we're kind of hitting up to is like keep on finding resources to challenge the way that you currently think because it might be that you've got a piece of Doctrine or or like somebody at school told you a certain thing or like someone said oh you're not going to mount too much or whatever and that basically the root of that is providing X fruit or X bad fruit and kind of like dissecting.
And self-analyzing that stuff yeah I think it's a short and sweet session yeah we're doing because I can tell that there's someone outside and on that point security about to kick us out and until next time keep powering those nails.