0:00 - Call to Reflection
13:43 - Vices and Therapy
14:22 - Family Dynamics Explored
41:10 - The Weight of Expectations
51:34 - The Nature of Accountability
54:01 - The Source of Aggression
55:54 - Childhood Dynamics and Helplessness
57:21 - Predictable Outcomes of Relationships
57:39 - Improving Relations with Family
58:18 - The Need for Change
59:53 - Understanding Negotiation
1:02:58 - The Nature of Negotiation
1:08:39 - The Language of Negotiation
1:15:03 - Defining Negotiation in Context
1:21:56 - Overcoming a Slave Mentality
1:33:42 - The Importance of Learning Negotiation
In this episode, Stefan engages in a deep and revealing conversation with a caller who reflects on his tumultuous personal history and the struggles he has faced over the past few years. The caller, now in his late 20s, discusses how his past is influencing his current life choices, specifically regarding his significant reliance on various vices, including spending on escorts. This dependency traces back to a chaotic childhood marked by heroin addiction within his family and experiences that have left him feeling trapped in emotionally and financially challenging situations.
The dialogue begins with the caller providing a snapshot of his current state and an admission of mixed experiences since the last time they spoke. He reveals that he moved out and had a period of stability after their previous discussion, only to return to his family home under a precarious arrangement that quickly spiraled into conflict. Following a chaotic month of living with his family, the caller explains how his relationships deteriorated, resulting in police involvement and the deterioration of his mental health. These episodes of distress and misunderstandings have led to a year fraught with negative experiences, including a temporary stay in a mental health facility.
Throughout the conversation, the caller attempts to articulate his relationship with his family, especially around the tensions that arose during the month he moved back in with his parents. Stefan pushes him to provide insights into his motivations for this move, questioning what he expected given the documented dysfunction in his family dynamic. The caller reflects on feelings of naïveté and recalls that he was motivated by a desire to be close to family, possibly in an attempt to support his sister who remains at home. However, as Stefan delves deeper, the caller begins to recognize that his expectation of a better familial dynamic was misguided.
At one point, the caller acknowledges his unhealthy coping mechanisms, particularly food dependency and neglecting physical health that manifested in significant weight gain. He discusses spending money on fast food and personal vices, which he now sees as self-destructive behaviors rooted in his unresolved childhood trauma. As they explore these dependencies together, Stefan emphasizes the need for the caller to reconnect with his own agency, framing his choices in the context of negotiationa critical skill he has not actively employed in his life.
Stefan uses the metaphor of negotiation throughout the episode to highlight the disparity between the caller's childhood and adult experiences. He points out that the caller has continually found himself in win-lose scenarios, often feeling helpless and trapped under the familial authority rather than cultivating healthy negotiations that respect both his needs and those of others. The question of negotiation becomes a pivotal theme, catalyzing a turning point in the conversation where the caller recognizes that he has lost touch with the concept of mutual benefit in relationships.
As they dissect these interactions, Stefan offers practical suggestions for the caller to rebuild his negotiation skills, emphasizing that entering adulthood necessitates these skills for healthy relationships, whether in professional or personal settings. In what culminates as an empowering discussion, they examine how the caller can constructively interact with family members and the broader world, abstaining from the victim mentality that has plagued his growth.
By the end, the caller expresses optimism spurred by the insights shared during the episode, indicating a readiness to tackle his circumstances with renewed vigor and understanding. The conversation encapsulates a journey of self-awareness, advocating for the importance of healthy communication and negotiation as foundational tools for moving forward and breaking cycles of dysfunction.
[0:00] Thanks for taking the call, and thanks for everything you're doing. I'm listening constantly at the moment. It's very, very useful to me on a daily basis.
[0:08] Oh, good. I'm glad. I'm glad. How can I help you best specifically? I mean, I've read your email, and there's not a lot of detail. We talked before, right?
[0:17] Yeah, we talked before. That was about three years ago, and that was exploring my childhood and my past. I'm in my late 20s now. um so um i would like you to um i'm glad you've accepted uh taking the time to um looking more to my past and to um see what might be holding me back and what is influencing my decisions in the last five years or so because i think that the quality of my choices in the last five years have been i've been bad some of them have been quite bad and.
[0:54] You said did i have this right that you held on to the thousand that i sent.
[0:58] Uh yes that's correct i i have most of the thousand yeah that's correct so.
[1:05] Why do you still have the money because i sent it for therapy i mean it's your money when you i get it but i sort of i thought i had sent it for therapy and maybe you use some other source to pay for therapy but did you go.
[1:15] Uh yeah i have been going to therapy um intermittently and that is what i intend to spend the money on though i've also been spending money on vices in the last three years and uh uh that's something that i would like to change and have been changing and i would like to discuss on the show okay.
[1:34] So you say you have been um spending on vices spending money on vices Just remind me what they are.
[1:43] Originally, I think the biggest vice is I was spending money on escorts. The last.
[1:54] Sorry, you're on money. Sorry, I can't talk. Your audio keeps coming, cutting in and out, so we can't do the show at the moment.
[2:03] Is it more consistent if I'm like this?
[2:06] Well, I don't know. you'll have to just keep talking we'll have to cross our fingers.
[2:09] Okay yeah please let me know sorry about that um okay so um i've been spending money on escorts or for the duration of my adulthood on and off i've had somewhat of a dependency or a addictive relationship to it in the last 12 years or so and.
[2:27] What's the frequency over the last couple of years.
[2:31] Over the last couple of years, it's about half a dozen times over the last couple of years.
[2:39] Okay, so I mean, not rampant, not great, but certainly not rampant, right? Okay.
[2:43] Yeah, not particularly rampant, but still not great.
[2:47] Okay. And so in the last couple of years since we talked, how have things been going? Yeah.
[2:56] There was some positives when I moved out. I moved out straight after around our call. I was living at home. And I would say I had a good quality of life. I was traveling and looking for places to move to simultaneously. And I was working remotely. And my life, for intents and purposes, I was quite happy with my life. And i was in minimal contact with my family um i moved back briefly about two years ago to collect my stuff and to organize moving my house uh moving to the house that i wanted to move to um and it basically fell through and uh i ended up entangled in quite a lot of domestic domestic kind of arguments with my with my with my family of origin and um it all just blew up very uh dramatically and the police were called and um yeah that was about two years ago so it was about a year of hell and uh sorry.
[4:05] From from one.
[4:06] Yeah sorry.
[4:07] Sorry from one visit to pick up your things can you help me understand that a bit better.
[4:11] It was about it was about a month so So I'm responsible for being kind of present. It wasn't a visit. It was more like a planned month stay where I would kind of go between jobs and move my things periodically from one location to another in the UK. So it wasn't a visit.
[4:36] I'm sure I understand this. Your family's a mess. You didn't talk to them or you said minimal contact for a while. And what was it? Sorry, help me understand. If the family is such a mess, why move in for a month? I'm sure there's some practical reason that I'm missing.
[4:54] The practical reason was that I was in between jobs, so it was my responsibility. I didn't secure a second job after the first job that I was in.
[5:05] So how much would it have cost you to be somebody's roommate for a month or stay at a friend's place and chip in for groceries? I'm not sure how much money were you trying to save here to move in with your messed up family again?
[5:21] Yeah i think i was i was very naive i was uh i was very um i was just very naive i suppose i was i didn't intend i didn't i didn't expect for some reason now in hindsight i can see that it was very very um uh naive but in uh at the time i um thought that i thought that it was i didn't expect any problems, basically, because I was expecting them to be there a month or so.
[5:52] Okay, brother, brother. Okay, so you've got to start telling me the truth, because you weren't naive. We talked before about how messed up your family was.
[6:00] Yeah.
[6:00] And you had been minimal contact for some time because of how messed up your family was. So this magic word, naive, doesn't change. It's an insult to both of us. What are you doing?
[6:13] Yeah, that's fair. I appreciate it.
[6:14] No, your voice is cut out again. Hang on. Your audio is cut out again.
[6:19] Can you hear me now?
[6:21] I can't hear you.
[6:24] Hello? Can you hear me?
[6:25] Hello? I don't know. You've got to figure out this audio thing because it's just going to be really annoying. Is there a loose connection? What do you think might be happening?
[6:35] I think it could be hardware related. I'm using headphones and the headphones maybe move about, but I can hold it in place.
[6:43] If you could do your best to just not move around too much. It's just that if we're trying to deal with content and also dealing with technical issues, it gets really tough.
[6:50] Okay so so you were you.
[6:53] Were minimal contact just give me the brief overview of the issues that were going on with your family in the past and your childhood.
[7:00] In the past my parents had heroin addiction when i was in childhood um they both were heroin addicts for different durations of time um there was a lot of domestic kind of there was a lot of shouting and neglect um Um, uh, that, that overviews, I think off the top and that the money was quite tight at various points. It was, we were in not poverty, but it was, we were, we were quite low on money at various points. Um, I think that there was also kind of, uh, there was some, uh, to describe it bluntly, the kind of sexual abuse that was involved in different periods of time. But, um, that's probably a good overview of everything. we think.
[7:44] And for that, of course, you have my eternal sympathy and that's absolutely appalling. Were you sexually abused, just remind me, sorry, by either one of your parents or was it someone else?
[7:56] No, it was someone else. And it was sort of a murky scenario where I think my parents are culpable, basically, without going into detail. Yeah, my parents are culpable. That's all I'll say.
[8:09] Okay. So we talked about all of this a couple of years ago. You went minimal contact, And then you're saying this word, naïve. And so, so tell me what you mean by naive, because I don't, I mean, naive is like, I'm, I'm young, I'm innocent. I don't have any idea. I didn't know that there were dysfunction. I didn't know that there were problems, but you knew all of that. So help me understand what you mean by naive.
[8:36] Um, by naive, I suppose, I mean, I, I'd had a year of, uh, therapy. I'd, I'd spent money on therapy that year. i'd been um living uh it sounds i was living in hostels but um i was doing that because i was looking for accommodations so it wasn't very um it was more play it was more sort of um there's a good experience is what i'm trying to say um and the good experiences i'd had living in hostels and getting therapy traveling um they sort of they i for some reason the sudden uh improvement in life and quality of life convinced me that um it was going to be a breeze moving home for only a month and i would get work again and i'll be able to organize sorry because.
[9:27] You got better you thought that things would be better with your parents.
[9:32] I thought that i thought that a month i could stand but if you already knew how to.
[9:37] Live in hostels and hostels can be quite cheap why wouldn't you just move back in with in a hustle i mean it's a couple hundred quid maybe 500 quid for the month i.
[9:46] Was out of work and um i was out of work and i'd spent most of my money on therapy and living expenses at that point okay but you still had the money.
[9:56] That i'd sent you right.
[9:56] Well i i'd spent it on therapy but But I can explain kind of what I mean by, so I spent it all on therapy, most of it. I had about 200 pounds left.
[10:08] Oh, okay. So you didn't have enough for a month somewhere else?
[10:11] No, I didn't have enough.
[10:13] And why? So because you'd spent your money on therapy. Now, you don't have to tell anything to me about your private therapy sessions, but if you don't mind, just in general. When you said to your therapist, I'm going to move back in with my parents, what was the feedback?
[10:30] Back the feedback was um if i remember rightly i would have only i probably probably would have only mentioned it once at the end that on the last session i'd had and the feedback would have been very moot very um very um no no no discouragement and no encouragement is how i describe it and.
[10:55] So you would just mention i'm moving back in with my parents you had mentioned You mentioned that at the end of the last therapy session?
[11:01] Yes, I would have mentioned it at the end of the last therapy session.
[11:05] And why do you think you would wait that long?
[11:10] I suppose at the time I didn't see it as... I don't know why, but I didn't see it as significant. I really don't know why in hindsight I didn't see it as significant as of a factor as I like did previously. But I, yeah, I didn't see it as a significant factor, basically. I, yeah, I don't know what, because it was two years ago, I don't know exactly what was going through my thought process.
[11:40] Well, the word exactly is a red herring. nobody knows exactly what was going on in their thought processes at any time because it's all very complex but okay so you move back in with your parents and what happens.
[11:51] So i move in um and we get into domestic uh we get into arguments i use the word domestic disturbances because the police was called and the police were called on my mom's behalf and i i sort of suspected this This would happen within a few weeks of being there because the arguments were getting being escalated by her. And she was basically shouting and kind of gestating. And I was when I was I can't remember raising my voice once, maybe once or twice. And the police were called basically. And I was taken to a jail cell night after night for breach of the peace.
[12:36] So breach of the peace is just what being loud and difficult. I mean, it wasn't anything like assault or anything, right?
[12:41] No, it wasn't assault. No, no, it wasn't assault. It was breach of the peace. So breach of the peace is being loud and difficult, essentially.
[12:47] Okay, so you were taken to jail. Were you charged? Did you have to go to trial or what happened?
[12:53] No, I wasn't charged with anything. But this was a regular occurrence where I would say to the police that my mother was going to be calling them erroneously to waste their time. And they didn't do anything about it they would just come they would arrest me and then they would um bring me home the next day and it actually it escalated to the point that i was taken to a um, to a um what's it called to a to a mental asylum where i had to get lawyers to take me out i was in an asylum for about three days four days maybe maybe five and i i had to get lawyers to prove that this was erroneous and yeah they they took me out Wow.
[13:38] Sorry to hear about that.
[13:40] Yeah it was it was awful it.
[13:43] Did it cross your mind to maybe give me a shot.
[13:50] With you, I was, it didn't, but I was, I was really disorientated by the whole process and the whole experience. And I found it very, yeah, I did. All I can say the short answer is it didn't occur to me for some reason. But in hindsight, it would have been a good idea.
[14:08] And how long after you moved back in with your parents, did these fights escalate and cops were called and so on?
[14:15] On for about just under a year maybe six months something like this wait.
[14:22] Sorry what i thought you were there for a month.
[14:25] No this went on for i was planning on being there for a month but the process was so um chaotic that i i didn't i didn't like i've worked for most of my adult life uh but i I didn't feel like I could work at the time in a way that was kind of stable. I didn't feel like I could have a stable kind of lifestyle or any stability. So this, at least, I don't know if it's an excuse that you would accept, but I found the whole process to be very destabilizing, if that makes sense.
[15:05] No, no, I understand that. And I sympathize with that enormously, but that's not quite what I asked. What I wanted to know was, after you moved back in home with this belief that you could just be there for a month while you switched jobs, how long into that month did problems start manifesting?
[15:21] Oh, very quickly, very quickly, less than a month. They manifested approximately a week, I would say.
[15:32] Right. And I guess you didn't have anyone you could stay with or any place you could go. Is that right?
[15:42] Uh it i felt as if there weren't other places that i could go to at the time in.
[15:48] Hindsight i didn't i didn't ask what you felt i asked the time.
[15:53] I felt like.
[15:54] So you know in hindsight if you could go back in time to you move back in with your parents, and the troubles and the police and the jail all starts in about a week if you could go you back in time and give yourself advice what would you say?
[16:10] My advice would be to go stay somewhere else to to contact other family to yeah to contact other family that would be my advice or maybe associates friends people I've known that's that would be my advice definitely.
[16:27] Okay so tell me a little bit about these six to twelve months.
[16:32] Uh six to twelve months involved uh kind of regular calls to the police, and uh regular um like one night incarceration um well i would say regular it happened about half a dozen times maybe a dozen times but it was still you know it was it had a significant effect on me um um for better yeah i mean i it was only a night each time but it was um fairly random and fairly um it was sparked by fairly random arguments and um that went on for about six to twelve months until um i was i came out of i used lawyers to um to get myself out of the hospital and then after then my mother uh said that the condition for me to stay in the home was to take antidepressants or antipsychotic drugs that um they uh prescribed and for the last um.
[17:37] Well yeah for the last while since the first six to twelve months for the last i don't know a couple of years i've been living at home um and taking antidepressants or anti-psychotic drugs is kind of a similar drug um under her uh behest as a condition of staying at home um so yeah that the first six to twelve months were the uh was the time period where the police were called and then And after that, the police haven't been called. So it was something that stopped two years ago for some reason. And I presume it's because I'm taking the drugs that she wants me to be taking. And we haven't had any arguments. I've been fairly walking on eggshells to try and avoid that. So, yeah, I mean, I can go on with describing what the state of my life is currently, but that's a description of the past three years I could give.
[18:35] Okay so you went back home for a month within a week massive problem started and you've been there for a couple of years uh.
[18:42] Yes that is the accurate.
[18:44] Uh i'm very sorry like a my big big hug brother big big heart going out to you i'm really sorry now what would your mother appreciate that what would your mother say to the police when she called them how would how did she describe your behavior she.
[18:57] Described my behavior is very loud and threatening.
[19:03] Threatening now does threatening mean she felt threatened or would she say he said x y and z and that was threatening um.
[19:12] I think she would say uh she would say both i think i think she would no she would say the behavior was threatening i would say it was more the gist of it was that my behavior was threatening i think that was more it.
[19:26] And what behavior would she cite as evidence for how you were threatening uh.
[19:32] Saying that i was raising my voice um that's basically it right raising my voice was the primary behavior.
[19:41] So really so i'm not an expert of course in in uk law though it seems to be going a little haywire these days but uh you get you get thrown in jail overnight because you raise your voice i.
[19:55] Didn't even raise my voice either It was just how I worked against mine often. It was, it was often her word against mine. So, um, that was the crux of it. She would call the police, she would make allegations. Um, and it would be her word against mine because she called first, the police said, and it was her house. It would be a breach of the peace and I would be, um, taken away basically.
[20:19] Okay. All right. Um, um, it's to me, that's kind of wild, but I, I kind of, yeah, yeah. Okay. All right. So how do things stand? And you didn't mention your dad much in any of this?
[20:33] My father lives, they separated when I was very young. And he lives in another city with his family, with his mother, he lives with his mother. And I, for some reason, it didn't occur to me at various points to go stay with him. He actually, no, sorry, I forgot. He actually, at the same time, he was taken to an asylum legitimately for a period of two years in the last two to three years. So he happened to be away while all this was going on, which seemed pretty, to be honest with you, it seemed pretty, maybe inconspicuous is the right word, or it seemed unbelievable to me because it was such a coincidence that I was being, arrested and all this stuff was going on and i don't really trust either of them i suppose more so after this process uh so i don't know why he was in hospital but he was in hospital for the last two years right.
[21:35] Okay okay so he's not we don't have to get into details about him okay and so you last worked a couple years ago is that right.
[21:44] That's correct yeah okay.
[21:47] And how can I best help you now?
[21:50] I would love to, I think, discuss some of the reasons why I think I've been... I'm sorry.
[22:07] Your audio is.
[22:07] Cutting out again.
[22:08] Can you repeat.
[22:09] That sorry uh yeah i would like to discuss um some of the things that i think are holding me back and the reasons why i'm not moving as quickly as i could be in terms of uh moving house and being productive and cutting out vices and whatnot okay.
[22:26] Uh go for it.
[22:27] Yeah so after therapy i've had some more therapy in the last uh year or or so um I believe that um one of the reasons why I've stayed for so long into my adulthood in in the family home intermittently at times is because I think I want to try to, in some capacity be supported to my sister um so that that's kind of what I concluded after therapy and I don't I don't think my overall conclusion is I don't think I do a good, I don't think I'm particularly supportive, but I would like to be, and I think that that potentially is a subconscious motivation for not moving out, even though it doesn't really make sense.
[23:17] Sorry, but maybe I'm missing something, but you don't have any money to move out, do you?
[23:24] I have some money and I have some money because a condition of living here that my mother, this was the cause of the original arguments two years ago is when I moved in, my mother insisted that I get on benefits. And I said that I don't want to do that because I want to get a job and there was no need to be on benefits. And she insisted that I did that. And that was the first instance for the call. So for the last year uh it's approximately one year i've been on a type of benefit that provides me with a kind of sustenant amount of money um so i have a small amount of money that i've got from benefits but not much savings okay.
[24:02] And do you know why your mother wanted you did she just want money coming into the.
[24:06] Household or why do you think she i think she i think she wanted money coming into the household i i was quite annoyed at the suggestion um but she just i think she She wanted money coming into the household, yeah.
[24:18] Okay, got it, got it. All right, so you've got some money enough to move out and get a job, is that right?
[24:25] Yeah, approximately, yes, I do, yeah.
[24:28] Okay, and when did you first have the money that you felt you needed to move out?
[24:37] I first had the money that I felt I needed. I would say I mean I would say today and in the last couple of days I've reached a point where I'm not far off that goal though I'm not far off that goal, but in the past I would say I've had the opportunity to, probably save more and if I had done then I would have been in a position to move out maybe a year ago or half a year ago half a year ago I think is fair And.
[25:11] I know you mentioned the escorts. Is there anything else that you've spent money on that has depleted your savings?
[25:19] Uh food fast food it's been a i've always been in shape for in various in good shape and like different kinds of good shape uh for most of my life but um in the last two to three years i've found with the whole instance the the experiences with the police and different things going on i did i ended up eating uh basically a lot and exercising minimally and i've put on quite a lot of weight so i spent just money on takeaways and and stupid stuff basically nothing that was no drugs uh no other vices other than that and.
[25:58] How much weight have you gained.
[25:59] I've gained a lot of weight i i i i usually um around probably 90 or 80k between 80 and 90 kg and now i'm 125 kg so i've gained a lot of weight uh in a short amount of time in about a year or two years 50 or.
[26:19] 60 pounds is that right.
[26:20] Yeah uh something like that it's it's about double the kg so it's about 80 pounds i think oh.
[26:26] You've gained about 80 pounds.
[26:27] Yeah okay.
[26:28] Got it and was that a sort of slow creeping process or or how did you how did that sort of happen overall.
[26:36] Yeah it was it was a slow creeping process i was i was stressed and i would stress eat and i would say to myself that i would burn it off with exercise and um lo and behold i i never did i never um i never exercised enough and i i continue to kind of i've broken out of it recently in the last two months i've um, maybe three months, I've been listening to podcasts regularly and I've been on a diet and, uh, started doing other things towards, towards, uh, moving out and work, which is great. But, uh, it was a gradual process, I would say over two years. Right.
[27:19] Okay. I mean, but you had to buy a whole new clothes and all, right?
[27:24] Uh, sort of. Yeah. I mean, um, they're not really, I mean, I, I've, I've got the same clothes, but they're just quite tight now they used to be baggy.
[27:34] I bet yeah yeah okay yeah all right uh okay so um i appreciate that uh update and i don't know i've read though i'm certainly no expert on this this is no kind of medical advice but i've read that sometimes the psych meds can have a side effect of weight gain yeah.
[27:55] I've read that and i've discussed that with um with doctors there, but they said that that shouldn't be a side effect.
[28:07] Okay, got it. All right, so let's get to what you think is blocking your motivation.
[28:16] I think that one block of motivation has been at times feeling like I'm leaving my sister behind in some capacity.
[28:29] Yeah go on so.
[28:31] She's a couple years younger than me and um she still lives at home and um, i think that when i look at my when i look at when i think about uh important things in my life like i want my own family and the big life goals it occurs to me it becomes very apparent to me a the kind of sadness that I feel over the prospect of not being able to support my sister, not having a kind of relationship where I can have a good effect in any kind of way. So that's kind of where it is. That's what I feel.
[29:16] And your sister's an adult, is that right?
[29:20] That's correct, yeah. Yeah.
[29:21] Okay. And she's in her early mid-twenties? You don't have to give me her exact age, but...
[29:26] Yeah, that's correct. Yeah.
[29:27] Okay. And where does she stand with regards to how your mother is treating you?
[29:32] I think fairly trivializes it. I think she trivializes it quite a bit.
[29:37] So she sides with your mother to some degree? Yeah.
[29:43] To some degree, she must do, to some degree, yeah.
[29:45] Well, no, I mean, I don't want to theorize. I mean, you're in the same house for a couple of years. She must have had some opinions about what's been happening to you.
[29:53] I think the impression that I have is that she's indifferent, relatively indifferent.
[29:59] Okay, so you want to save someone who's indifferent to your suffering?
[30:05] Yes.
[30:07] Can you step me through that reasoning?
[30:13] Um i think that when i look back into my we've already discussed this uh three years ago but um no no no but i'm talking about.
[30:22] Your current reasoning because she's an adult now right and and so she's got.
[30:26] Choices and.
[30:26] Responsibilities and free will.
[30:28] Uh yes yeah you're right um, to someone um it's something that i suspected was subconscious but maybe my subconscious isn't doing that i it wasn't something that i rationally that it was something that i assumed that my subconscious was was feeling and i assumed that that was one reason why i was uh sabotaging myself from moving up i don't know how to reason or that doesn't explain.
[30:58] Anything to me i assumed it was something my subconscious was feeling it doesn't explain much to me if anything in fact i think i'm more confused now than when i asked the question so if that's why i said step me through your reasoning.
[31:09] Okay uh after having therapy i concluded that i had self-destructive habits that were stopping me from moving out and i came to the conclusion that maybe my um my subconscious was um sabotaging me because it wanted me to be some sort of positive influence and support network for my for my siblings.
[31:37] So your subconscious was sabotaging you because it wanted to be a support system?
[31:43] Somehow, yeah. Be close, be physically in the same premises.
[31:48] Oh, sorry, I understand. So your subconscious was sabotaging you so that you wouldn't get free and leave your sister behind, so you stay in the environment with your sister.
[31:58] Yes, that's correct, yeah.
[32:01] That's correct, yeah. Do you feel that, or I suppose over the last couple of years, what have you done to help and enlighten your sister?
[32:12] I think it's irrational because I don't think that empirically speaking I have been particularly supportive in the last two years. I don't think that I've already had my own issues and I don't think that I've been particularly supportive.
[32:33] Okay, so if you haven't been, I don't know what particularly supportive, there are all of these hedge words that I don't know really what that means. So what does it mean? You've been somewhat supportive, but not particularly? I don't know what that translates to into actual things.
[32:47] Yeah, I would say somewhat supportive, but not particularly available is one thing that I've been successfully done is I've been available. But other than being available, I haven't really done anything.
[33:06] Passive, right?
[33:08] Yes, it is passive.
[33:09] Okay, so what have you done over the past couple of years to help your sister reach some sort of enlightenment or epiphany?
[33:18] Nothing.
[33:22] Okay, so then how do you sustain the fantasy that you're there to help your sister if you're not actually helping your sister?
[33:28] I have recently debunked that fantasy myself.
[33:31] Oh, okay. Got it. But it kept you going for a couple of years?
[33:33] Yes, I think that it did. Yeah, I believe so.
[33:36] Okay, so what you're bringing up that you want to stay to help your sister is something that you've already dealt with that is not particularly relevant to the conversation? Do I have that right? Because you debunked it some time ago?
[33:53] I think, I suppose, you know, I suppose you're right that I've debunked the meme.
[33:59] No, no, no, it's not that I'm right. Hang on, I said, why do you think you're staying? You said to help my sister. And I said, how are you helping your sister? You said, well, I'm not. But I've debunked that. I know that I've known that for months. So I know that that's not the main. I'm not saying all the feelings immediately go away. But as far as philosophy goes, if you've already debunked something, then there's not much more that philosophy can do.
[34:23] You're right yeah you're right it's something uh i'm sorry for bringing that up.
[34:26] No that's listen it's listen you you have nothing to apologize to me for i have huge sympathy for your situation so i'm just trying to make sure that we focus on the most relevant and important things so if it's not staying to help your sister which you've debunked some time ago what else do you think it might be?
[34:41] Um, okay. Um, I think it might be, I think that, um, um, I suppose I don't know why I have, I understand ACE scores and I understand the influence of things like this, but I don't know why I haven't saved more and I don't know why I haven't worked for long, for full periods of time and kind of got my career more, got my career going in the industry that I want to be going in. I don't know why that hasn't happened. I don't know why I'm in my late 20s and that I'm in the situation that I'm in. I regularly am confused as to why I've made the choices that I've made and have the vices that I've had. Even though some things are on a positive upswing in the last few months, I still kind of, I'm exasperated with my choices.
[35:53] Okay so let's list the choices is it like moving back in staying home not looking for alternative lodging not saving money eating too much gaining weight not exercising you mean that kind of stuff that.
[36:04] Kind of stuff yeah not working in industries that would be more profitable um not saving you that that kind of stuff yeah.
[36:11] I'm i mean i don't mean to say this is obvious but maybe from the outside it's more obvious but you recreated, the conditions of your horrible childhood and then you're confused why you're not acting like an independent strong adult.
[36:29] Why did I recreate no.
[36:31] No I didn't say why I just said that that's the causality, when you were a kid you were under the control of your mother who's you know not super functional to put it mildly so sorry there's a lot of background noise here i don't know what's going on like thumb clicks and bumps and burps and like please just let me let me concentrate i'm really trying to help you here sorry.
[36:55] About that i'll sit still.
[36:56] All right thank you i mean you can breathe i mean just not moving and fidgeting and thumping and it's kind of distracting when i'm trying to really focus on how to best help you okay so yeah so you you recreated situations wherein you experienced the maximum trauma of your life i mean i'm not saying you just snapped your fingers and recreated it for no reason but yourself you put yourself back under the control of your mother and so when you recreate the situations of a traumatized childhood it's pretty hard to act as an independent adult, right?
[37:32] Yes, yeah, I have a lot of anxiety about, I think one, sorry to, this is still on the same subject, but I've just remembered that I think one general, demotivator is I have a lot of regular kind of anxiety about simple things at the moment, like working and exercise and being able to kind of live a functional life.
[37:58] Well, yeah, I get that, and the question is why, right? Okay, would you describe... Sorry, there's more background noise and thumping. Did you just move something else? Please, I'm begging you.
[38:06] Sorry, sorry, sorry.
[38:08] Do you need to write it down to just not fidget?
[38:11] No, sorry, I have a tendency to fidget, but I'll try and stay still. I will stay still.
[38:16] Thank you. Sorry, I'm not sure if I can... That was just a big roar and thump in my ear.
[38:24] Is it silent now?
[38:26] Okay, thank you. so would you say that your mother is anxious.
[38:32] Probably yeah probably.
[38:34] Well i can't really go with probably because i mean you've known her for almost three decades right so if she doesn't have any particular tendency towards anxiety or not more than normal you know i guess we all have some anxiety to some degree so if it's not outside of the normal distribution or you know not something that you've noticed i don't want to go with probably uh wanted to sort of try and be precise if.
[38:56] I was going to be precise i would say she has an unnervingly calm attitude to certain things but she clearly must have anxiety that motivates her disorganization and other areas of her life.
[39:08] Well not all disorganization is motivated by anxiety some of it can just be laziness and procrastination right that's.
[39:17] True so i would go with uh she isn't and i'm just personal.
[39:20] Okay good i appreciate that okay and, so does she i i think she is of the general opinion and i don't want to put words in her mouth so correct me if i've gone astray but i think she's of the general opinion that you're dangerous and flawed right this.
[39:39] Was her general opinion uh yes and i believe it it still is yeah.
[39:43] Okay. And if she were to describe, and I'm sorry to do this, but I just sort of understand what your inner mother is saying. If she were to describe you and your flaws to someone, what would she say?
[40:03] I, I don't know what, I, I think she, she's very manipulative and I, I believe that she says things that, that she doesn't even believe are true.
[40:14] I know that's, that's not, you're not answering the question. I'm not saying things that are true. I'm saying what she would say, not things that are true. What would she say? How would she describe you? you if someone were to say why is your son who's pushing 30 still living at home what would she say what would she say is uh the issues that you have or the flaws or problems that you have not what are true but what she would say you.
[40:39] Know i i honestly feel as if i have no idea i think i have no idea that's that's my honest um my honest response.
[40:48] Okay well uh one of the clues is what she says to the police. And I'm sure you were there for some of that. So what kind of things did she say to the police? He's what?
[40:59] Aggressive. Aggressive would be one word.
[41:05] Okay. What are some others?
[41:11] Destructive. And, um, selfish alright keep going um, Maybe a bully, maybe. That would be a phrase, maybe. Abusive, maybe, would be a word that she would have used. And I wouldn't describe myself like this, but this would probably be what she said. This would be what she said.
[41:56] Yeah, I mean, family attitudes sink deep into us. They have to, right? Because we have to survive. We have to survive our family's definitions of us as a whole. So, yeah, family definitions, and particularly mother-to-son definitions, go deep into our psyche. So I want to know what's in there that your mother has said. Now, if someone were to say, your mother describes all these flaws, you know, selfish, bullying, aggressive, and stuff like that. And if someone were to say, why is your son like this? What do you think your mother might say?
[42:33] Um my guess would be she would blame my father more like more than give me the speech that.
[42:41] She would say.
[42:42] Something like well his father is quite uh loud and and in this way he does this and this and this and um he's probably uh learned to behave like this from his father.
[43:03] Okay got it got it so she would say that you learned it from your father his father learned it from his father and there's really no one to blame is that right.
[43:13] Probably yeah she would probably describe it as i i i guess that it would be he learned it from his father that's what she would say about me yes okay.
[43:25] And then if someone were to say to her but you chose his father so by choosing his father you also chose the nature of your son, What would she say?
[43:37] I think she would be shocked. I think if someone said that, I think that level of accountability, I don't think she comes into contact with much. So I think she would be quite shocked. And she would say she didn't know that he was like this initially.
[43:53] Well, no, but let's do the role play, right? So if you can be your mom. So you didn't know like this was initially. Well, I mean, I don't know what that means, but you chose to have kids with him, right? Right. So you must have had some idea of the nature of the man when you chose to have kids with him.
[44:09] I fell pregnant very quickly with him and it was unplanned.
[44:15] Well, then you chose to have unprotected sex with a man you didn't really know. So you're still choosing it, right?
[44:24] She would probably make the discussion political at that point. She would say something like uh you sound like uh you know i don't know um some old-fashioned conservative some tory right some tory exactly a tory right.
[44:41] And then i would say was it a tory who forced you to have unprotected sex.
[44:45] And that and she would make it political she's quite intelligent so she would make it a political okay so what would she say she would say something like Like, I don't think that the motivations or the behaviors of people can be explained by individual choices and socioeconomic things have an effect.
[45:13] So you're saying that it's really hard to pinpoint the motivations of people?
[45:22] Hard to pinpoint. Yes, that's what she would say.
[45:27] Okay, so then I'm a little confused, mother. I'm a little confused because you just talked about your son as selfish and irresponsible and aggressive and so on, which is definitely making judgments about his motivations. And then when asked why he was this way, you said he learned it from his father, which is also making a judgment about motivation. So I'm a little confused as to why you get to make all of these judgments about motivations, but no one can judge you for any of your motivations. If you can help me understand, that's a little confusing. You can judge everyone's motivations, but the moment your motivations are brought into focus, it's wrong to judge anyone's motivations. Can you help me understand that?
[46:11] Feminism. Something about feminism would be brought up, maybe something along the lines of a man has to control his temper more, a man has to be more responsible, something like that.
[46:29] Oh, so I'm sorry. So are you saying that the sex that you had with the dad was not consensual, like you were forced?
[46:40] No, no, not that. Okay, so hang on.
[46:43] So then male aggression doesn't really matter. And I also thought that feminism was about female equality. And all you've done is hold men responsible, but you refuse to hold yourself responsible. I mean, isn't part of feminism saying that women are moral agents who are responsible for their choices? I mean, it doesn't seem very feminist to say that all men get our responsibilities and all women get our excuses, because that would be to diminish female agency and choice, right? So, that doesn't seem very feminist to me to say that men are entirely responsible for everything that women do.
[47:22] Uh yeah she would she would say something like um she probably just insult you and just say something like you sound like um a tory you sound like someone who's a sexist um.
[47:33] Well and but that's so one of the cliches is that women have a tough time i don't believe in this cliche but it is kind of a cliche that if a woman is proven wrong she won't admit fault she'll just resort to verbal attacks and look I mean you don't want to be that cliche that I mean real misogynists would say that women can't reason they just get mad and attack you personally and all of that right and so if you could continue to the debate that would be to you know we I want to respect you as a thinker and as a woman and so just resorting to personal attacks is like a real cliche that misogynists have, and we don't want to do that, right?
[48:16] Uh, yeah, you're right. Um, uh, I think that...
[48:23] Well, hang on, hang on. So are you saying that you were wrong to call me a sexist and all of that?
[48:29] No.
[48:30] Sorry, you weren't wrong to call me that?
[48:33] No, uh, she would double down. No.
[48:37] Okay, so let's go. So you still believe that when I've made an argument against you, that that means I'm sexist. Is that right? Right. So when I'm treating you respectfully as someone who can think and reason and make arguments, when I do that, I hate women.
[48:55] Yes, something like that.
[48:56] OK, so how is it when I'm debating with you and treating you as a rational, competent adult that this is somehow hatred of women? Can you explain that to me?
[49:05] Because you mansplain, because you have a tendency to.
[49:10] No, that's not. Hang on. Hang on. Let's be fair, though. i did i just asked questions how is it that you get to judge everyone else's motivations but no one gets to judge your motivations that's really asking a question i'm not explaining anything i'm asking questions so i mean let's just try that again i'm happy to hear a rebuttal but it should be to something i said um, Um.
[49:35] You know, I don't know what she would say at this point. Um, I don't know.
[49:42] Well, she would probably try to exit the car. I, I, I have no interest in talking about this. You're rude. And like, she would just find a way to storm out. Right. One way or another.
[49:50] Yeah. I would think so. Yeah. I think she would, I think she would just either that, or she would talk about a philosophy on life and say something like people make choices that are you know the best they can do and some sort of philosophical trope.
[50:08] Okay so she would say everyone does the best they can with the circumstances that they have right?
[50:12] Something like that yes.
[50:14] Okay so then I would say well then why would you call your son selfish and aggressive and a bully because those are moral judgments Surely your son is also doing the best he can with the knowledge he has. So why is it that you get to judge other people negatively, but whenever you're judged, you say, well, people, everyone does the best they could, but the knowledge they have. So where's this sympathy for your son? You didn't say, well, my son, yeah, he makes some decisions that aren't great, but he's absolutely doing the best he can with the knowledge he has. But instead, you say he's a bully and aggressive and selfish. And these are all, you know, pretty harsh moral judgments. So that's why I'm a little confused.
[50:52] Because it's my house, she would say, because it's my home.
[50:57] I'm sorry, that's not how does our geographical location change the properties of reason and logic?
[51:04] In my home I can say do what I want.
[51:10] Sorry, in your home, you can say and do what you want.
[51:16] Correct.
[51:17] But we're making a rational argument. We're having a debate, right? About, you know, important stuff, right? The responsibilities and morals and self-ownership and so on. So are you saying that you don't have to be at all rational? You can just state whatever you want.
[51:34] So if you were in my house and I said something that you found offensive or wrong, then you would not have an issue because it would just my house right.
[51:44] Uh yes yeah i don't obviously don't believe that for a second i don't believe that for a second okay so what you're saying is that you think your son is a bully but you can just do whatever you want with not with nobody can criticize you for it you can be nasty call your son names and so on because it's your house and in your house you can do whatever you want say whatever mean things you want because you're standing on your property is that right that's correct okay so then let's not pretend that your son is the bully that so now we know where your son got his bullying from if your son is a bully and you know now where your son it's not his father it's you because you're aggressive and you're a bully saying i can be perfectly mean to other people and then i wave this magic wand called property rights, and somehow that becomes justified. So yeah, you're the bully, and that's where your son would get these aggressive tendencies from. Because you've modeled this behavior for him, that I'm right no matter what, my house, my rules. That's very aggressive, and it's bullying, and yet you pretended to have some philosophical reasons behind what you're saying, but you're just wielding a deed and being a bully. So, I mean, we don't have to continue the conversation, but let's not pretend we don't know where your son's supposed aggression comes from you're the bully.
[53:03] She would say something like if you believe that if you if you're me in this conversation she would say something like well if you think that then you know to leave.
[53:12] No no hang on hang on dear lady it's not what i think or believe it's what you it's what you literally just said right if i say my name is bob and then you say hi bob and i say well if you want to believe that my name is bob i suppose that's up to you, It's like, no, you just told me. I just told you my name is Bob. So you just said that in your house, you can say and do whatever the hell you want, no matter how aggressive or mean. So I'm not believing something. I'm simply accepting the literal facts that you told me about 30 seconds ago.
[53:46] And she'd just end the conversation there and say something like, well, you know, if that's what you're saying, then, you know, there's nothing else to add.
[53:55] Right. So she can't admit fault and she pretends to have rational arguments when they're disproven.
[54:02] She turns to aggression when it's pointed out that this might be the source of any aggression she's complaining about. And you, she ends the conversation.
[54:09] That's correct. Okay.
[54:11] Okay. And that's who you move back in with. That's correct okay all right so um why do you think you're having, such trouble moving out um your theory about the sister was i think you said you've disproved it some time ago my theory is that you put yourself back in a situation of helpless and dependent childhood with somebody who will never let you win right you know there's an old movie with No, not Ferris Bueller, with Matthew Broderick. And it's war games, right? And it's about a computer simulation that tries to figure out how to win a nuclear war. And it says, funny game, the only way to win is not to play, right? And I remember this burning itself in my brain when I watched the movie, for reasons I think that are fairly obvious given my family, and maybe somewhat obvious given your family. You can't win with your mother, right?
[55:10] Yeah.
[55:10] She won't. She'll never concede anything. anything, she'll just make up nonsense after nonsense, lie after lie, and then if she's finally cornered, she'll either explode with rage or leave or both, right?
[55:22] Yes, that is an accurate description.
[55:24] So you can't play chess with someone who's not playing chess. It's an insult to the game to pretend to play chess with someone who says, I have a wand that can turn my pawns into queens and my bishops can go straight and my rooks can go diagonal and it just makes up whatever rules. There's no game, right? You're not playing anything. You're just being humiliated.
[55:50] Yeah, that's correct. Correct. Yeah, I would agree with that.
[55:54] Okay. So you are back in, I assume, a kind of sick familiarity of helplessness and dependence. And do you or have you had sort of interactions with your mother where, I assume not if she keeps calling the cops, but maybe have you had these sort of interactions with your mother where you're trying to reason with her or trying to fix something or trying to make the situation better?
[56:17] Her uh yeah in the last since i've been taking medication it's been steadily improved and she does this sort of um she kind of invites me out to their second property and and kind of you know just like wants to spend time with me and it's uh how did your mom as a.
[56:38] Sort of ex-heroin addict how did she acquire all these properties.
[56:43] She met a guy who earns enough money to buy these places oh no the feminist got.
[56:53] Property through the patriarchy I mean it.
[56:56] Feels almost predictable.
[56:57] When it's my property it's like no it's a man bought it for you because you had sex with him I'm sorry I don't.
[57:05] Mean to laugh but it's like it's.
[57:06] So blindingly predictable Predictable.
[57:09] Yes.
[57:09] I have authority because I had sex with a man who gave me property, and that gives me the authority to fight the patriarchy. I'm sorry. Oh, my gosh. I don't know how people get out of bed in the morning.
[57:21] It just amazes to me the amount of logical opposites that can be simultaneously held in people's heads. It's really just amazing.
[57:32] Yeah, I agree.
[57:33] Beminis sleeps with man for land. Beminis claims land gives her authority to fight patriarchy.
[57:39] Oh no oh my gosh all right all right okay so uh things are better with your mom.
[57:48] Yeah they're a lot better there are hardly any disagreements um and that's.
[57:53] One of the caveat that you are drugged.
[57:55] Yes i am drugged yeah the.
[57:57] Caveat i.
[57:58] Am drugged yeah.
[57:58] All right and so help me understand this and this is going to sound like a troll question i i don't mean it that way at all i'm genuinely curious so what's wrong with the life you have i mean you're You're pretty comfortable. You're taken care of. I'm sure you can exercise and lose weight. You're getting along with your mom. Your bills are paid. What's wrong with this life?
[58:19] One thing that's wrong is that I'm planning on... What's wrong with my life is I listen to your show regularly and I come to the conclusion that, you know, for political reasons and for personal reasons and for significant personal reasons, I'm going to have to cut contact at some point, or at least bring up conversations that are going to be controversial or significant.
[58:50] Sorry, you get to try and debate with your mom some more?
[58:54] Uh hopefully not debate but uh i would.
[58:58] Say not debate conversations where you're vulnerable exposed need and express preferences is that right yes yes okay uh that's fine we can we can look at that so in your i mean quarter century of trying to negotiate with your mother uh how many times have you been successful i.
[59:18] Think a hundred percent of the time i don't enjoy the I find the interaction, regardless of the outcome, I find the interaction to be dissatisfying in terms of...
[59:34] Okay, so, bro, I keep asking you about facts and you keep talking to me about feelings. I mean, I know you grew up without a dad around too much, but this is kind of a habit. I ask you, how many times have you won? Now, winning doesn't mean she loses. It's just where you get what you want because you're negotiating it.
[59:53] It could be win-win. Maybe it's something that you didn't think of or whatever, right? But how many times in your quarter century, since about the age of four or five, in your quarter century of negotiating with your mother, how many times have you got what you wanted?
[1:00:09] Probably less than 25% of the time.
[1:00:12] Oh, okay. That's a little surprising to me, but I'm certainly happy to hear it. So can you give me an example, you know, prior to being drugged, of a significant, I mean, I'm sure you've got, I mean, parents and children negotiate thousands and thousands and thousands of times. So you must have a thousand examples of when you negotiated with your mother and got what you wanted. So can you give me some examples from, say, your teenage years?
[1:00:36] Where I got what I wanted. So you're asking where I got what I wanted.
[1:00:43] Sorry, did you not understand the question? Should we go over it again?
[1:00:46] Yeah, sorry. Did you ask where I got what I wanted?
[1:00:48] Yeah, you negotiated with your mother and you got what you wanted. Or you came out with an outcome that was satisfying to you, whatever, right?
[1:00:57] While I was studying, I would have received some sort of aid and some sort of books or support of some kind that would have been present.
[1:01:09] That would have been, I'm sorry, I'm not sure what you're talking about.
[1:01:13] So I would have asked for studying materials that would have been bought from me.
[1:01:19] But that's not really a negotiation. I mean, they want you to go to school and they have to pay for your books, right?
[1:01:27] Okay uh i would.
[1:01:28] Say i mean that's like saying it's a negotiation because my parents fed me when i was a kid it's like well that's not really a negotiation somewhere something where you and your mom have significant differences of opinion you have a negotiation and you end up satisfied and pleased with the outcome oh.
[1:01:42] Yeah less than five percent and less than five percent.
[1:01:45] Okay so then you've got to have at least a couple of hundred to get to that that five percent so uh Just give me an example of a negotiation, say in your teenage years, or maybe, but not something too recent, where you had a significant disagreement with your mother and you went through a negotiation and you were satisfied with the process and the outcome.
[1:02:08] It must be less than 5% then. It must be.
[1:02:11] Just give me one.
[1:02:13] I can't think of one. I'm trying to think of one.
[1:02:17] Then what are you spitting out all these numbers for? i'm trying to have a real conversation with you just making stuff up how can we have a conversation if you could just make stuff up i.
[1:02:25] I sorry i i didn't think accurately about the meaning of the word negotiation it's something that i'm um unfamiliar with i suppose it's very i'm very unfamiliar.
[1:02:35] Okay so a time yeah uh where you negotiate with someone and so let's say an An example would be your parents want you home by 10, you want to be home by midnight, you compromise on 11 p.m., and you're satisfied with the outcome. It's not like you don't feel ripped off and they didn't listen to you, but you've had some negotiation.
[1:02:57] That would be an example.
[1:02:58] Yeah. It's not a negotiation if you get everything you want, and it's not a negotiation if the other person gets everything that she wants. It's a negotiation when you find some compromise that you're both satisfied with.
[1:03:07] That would be an example where I would be out at a late time and be allowed to stay later in my teenage years.
[1:03:14] Okay, so how did that negotiation go?
[1:03:18] Uh it would have been um it would have been over text and it would have been something like um, very brief uh can i stay later uh maybe ask again please and you know she would say yes i can stay okay so but.
[1:03:36] You're just asking for permission and she's making the decision that's not a negotiation can i get a raise no that's not a negotiation.
[1:03:45] Negotiation? Yeah, it would be just asking him for permission, yeah.
[1:03:48] Okay, so I'm talking about a negotiation where she recognizes that you have some legitimate needs, she has some legitimate needs, you know, like in a job, right? If you're negotiating for salary, you want to make a lot of money, they want to pay you less money, but they also know if they pay you too little money, then they're going to train you and you're going to go someplace else, or if they pay you too little little money you're going to be unmotivated and look for other work and so on and so they want to pay you enough to keep you happy but not so much that they go bankrupt and so on right so that's a negotiation where they have a legitimate need to have a business that works and makes money and you have a legitimate need to have a reasonable salary that's competitive so you just negotiate right and you they probably end up paying you a little more than they want and you end up being paid a little less than you want but you're satisfied with the outcome.
[1:04:39] That description doesn't sound familiar to me i can't think of one time where i can't there may have been one time but i can't think i can't recall any time in my teenage years.
[1:04:50] Okay so negotiation is kind of like a language yeah and in my view if people don't negotiate they don't speak that language and it It doesn't sound like your mother speaks that language. So if you said 25% of the time, I speak to my mother in Japanese. Sorry, I've got some cristling and crinkling and someone going on.
[1:05:14] Sorry, I'm making, I think my mic is very sensitive, but I'll try to do, I'll try to stay still. Sorry about that. Thank you for telling me.
[1:05:23] Sure. So you're, if you say, well, I speak to my mother in Japanese 25% of the time, I'd be be like okay so tell me a conversation you had in japanese well maybe it was only five percent of the time right so somebody who doesn't speak japanese can never have a conversation in japanese does that make sense i can never have a conversation in japanese the only japanese i learned was from the band sticks so that's it oh no maybe queen's teotoriate right so i don't speak japanese so i can't have it so negotiation is kind of like a language now once you learn that language that's all you want to speak.
[1:06:00] Because in order for a relationship to work, both parties have to be relatively satisfied with what goes on, right? In order for a business relationship to work, it has to be win-win. And the best relationships are those where both people are winning and not obviously at the expense of the other person. But that requires that you foundationally have empathy for the needs of the other person and empathy for the needs of yourself. self. So people who are ground down and bullied only have empathy for the bully's needs. They're not allowed to have empathy for themselves. The bully only has empathy for the bully's needs and has no empathy for other people. Other people are just objects to be used to satisfy the needs of the bully. So in my view, there's no such thing as 25% of negotiations. Because once you get into negotiations and you realize how positive and wonderful and happy and great they are, You don't say, oh, I'm going to bully 75% of the time, but I'm going to really negotiate well for 25% of the time. Because once you know how to negotiate, then that's what you speak. That's what you do. Because that's what makes people the happiest and makes the relationships last the longest and be the best. Right i mean a business relationship can't sustain itself if one person continually feels ripped off.
[1:07:29] And so and and even if even if it could somehow sustain itself from a contractual standpoint it won't sustain itself from a productivity standpoint because if you're resentful at being under whoa, if you're resentful at being underpaid then you won't be very productive you'll just be seething right, So that's why I was a little surprised when you said it's 25% of the time. So is it fair to say that you can't remember a time where your mother took your needs into consideration and tried to find a win-win solution for you both?
[1:08:08] I would say that it was less than 25% of the time, yes.
[1:08:13] Sorry, now I'm confused again. I thought you said you couldn't think of a time. We went down to 5%, and then I thought you said, and I obviously don't want to get this wrong, but I thought you said I can't think of a time, and now are we back to 25%?
[1:08:26] No, sorry. I'm saying to track back to the original point I made, I would say that it's less than 25, it's less than 5. I can't think of one time.
[1:08:35] Okay, got it. So zero.
[1:08:37] Yeah, that's what I recollect.
[1:08:39] Right? If people don't speak negotiation, then it never happens. I don't occasionally have fluent conversations in Japanese because I don't speak Japanese. Okay. All right, so one of the challenges that you have is that you don't negotiate with slaves, right? So if you are raised and trained to be a slave, which is to serve the narcissistic needs of others, then the problem is that you are going to try and go out into a world which is going to require negotiation, right? And you understand that the, I'm sure you do, the escort thing is a way of avoiding negotiation because you just pay the women, right?
[1:09:23] Yep.
[1:09:24] So because you just pay the women, you don't have to negotiate. You don't have to provide value other than money, which is really coming from the taxpayer and the government anyway. So where in your life does negotiation show up?
[1:09:43] It doesn't show up much at the moment. It doesn't show up much at the moment.
[1:09:46] Okay, so much is another one of these ambiguous words that I don't know what it means. So where does you negotiating to mutual benefit show up at the moment in your life?
[1:09:56] It doesn't show up at the moment. It doesn't show up.
[1:09:59] Okay. So then you are ill-prepared, and I say this without any negativity and in fact with great, you are unprepared for a life of negotiation, which is an adult life. And I'm not saying you're not an adult, obviously, right? And I say this with great sympathy. If somebody airdropped me into a remote village in Japan where they only spoke Japanese, I would have a pretty tough time doing anything. I couldn't negotiate for anything. I couldn't really get a job. I couldn't buy groceries. I would just be unable, assuming no technology and nobody there speaks English, i i would be unprepared so if somebody said well you could leave a bad situation let's say that i was you know living and then you could go to some remote rural village in china or japan i say china right where they don't speak any english i'd be like no i'm gonna stay here this is bad but i can survive here i can't survive out there in in the backwaters of china because i don't speak mandarin it.
[1:11:01] Right yeah i understand what you're saying yeah.
[1:11:04] So i would say that what is probably quite important is to try and learn how to negotiate.
[1:11:15] Now, there's lots of books on this and lots of videos. I actually happened to read a book. I think its name was Herb Cohen. You can negotiate anything. I read this when I was like 12 or whatever, and I found it very interesting. Interesting uh it's a bit amoral to put it mildly but it does teach you something about, negotiations about how to try and find win-win situations right uh so here's a completely silly example uh my daughter is running a dungeons and dragons campaign and in the dungeons and dragons campaign we as the party were trying to um get paid from a shop and the shop said uh we're We're not going to pay you. And I said, well, can you instead give us some goods at cost, like without taking your profit? Because we'd done them a big service, right? And they didn't have any particular money with which to pay us, but they had goods, right? So they then said, yes, we will be happy. Like, we wouldn't have been happy if we didn't get paid at all. And they wouldn't be happy if they had to give us gold. So we negotiated that they would give us goods at cost for a certain period of time or to a certain amount of value. And that was win-win, right? Because they didn't have the gold and we would have just taken the gold and used it to buy goods anyway. So getting us, I know this sounds like a ridiculous example, but it's just the one that sort of popped into my mind. And so in that situation.
[1:12:42] We ended up getting the goods, they ended up paying us for our services, and everybody walked away satisfied with the negotiation. Does that make sense?
[1:12:54] That does make sense, yeah. I appreciate you sharing the example.
[1:12:57] Yeah, so, I mean, we could have just said, you know, if you don't give us gold, we're going to torch your shop because you owe us, or we're going to, you know, whatever, take you to court. You know, I mean, in sort of the D&D universe, you could do basically anything. Thing but that would have been really terrible and time consuming and expensive and kind of a waste so or they could have just said you know we don't have any gold and uh too bad come back in six months we might have some gold which we would have been dissatisfied with because then we would have gone off into the wilderness without the supplies we needed so that's sort of an example of a win-win negotiation and and that just takes a certain it takes empathy it takes testing the waters it takes a lot of proposals and and failure and so on right in in the business world in the business world you need money now and people want to pay later right so you have this in the business world all the time that the business wants money now but you want to pay later so what they'll do is they will say if you buy now we'll give you a 10 discount you know for For the next 24 hours, right? And that way, they get money now, which they need for their payroll, and you get a 10% discount. So you end up both, you're happy you get the 10% discount, and they're happy that they get the money now.
[1:14:16] I mean, I remember when I was an entrepreneur in the software field, you know, we would have to meet payroll every two weeks, but sometimes businesses could take two to three months to pay. Okay.
[1:14:27] So, and this is another reason why, you know, there are these things that say, oh, if you want this laptop, you know, for easy payments of, you know, whatever, over a couple of months, or they might give it to you on credit, or, you know, people want more expensive cars than they can afford to buy. So this is where leasing comes in, right, that you can lease the car, and that way you get the super-duper car that you want, and the company gets some money, and then they get the car back and can sell it. So that's sort of a win. I mean, I'm sorry, we could go on about this sort of stuff all day, but you try to find some win-win thing.
[1:15:04] Now, in your family, how is, quote, negotiation achieved?
[1:15:13] Achieved um i don't even know how to answer that question in this context i understand.
[1:15:18] No no not in this context that's why i said quote negotiation so negotiation is when two people have a disagreement but they both have a desire if you have a disagreement but no desire then you know it doesn't matter because you don't really interact right so uh when you have a disagreement and a desire so i don't want to buy a lamborghini so i don't negotiate with the lamborghini dealership right i mean we don't even interact right but if i do want so i have if i have a desire for a lamborghini in some i don't know other brain other universe if i have a desire for a lamborghini then i'm going to go to the lamborghini dealership and we're going to try and negotiate something right yeah so when you have a desire and a disagreement right i want to buy a lamborghini You want to sell me a Lamborghini. That's our desire. That's our agreement, so to speak. But the disagreement is the price.
[1:16:12] Right and and so they might say you know we'll knock the price off five percent and we'll extend your warranty by a year yeah because the warranty is cheaper for them right a lot of people don't even use the warranty that much and of course it's cheaper for them because they're doing the labor right so it's sort of like getting things at cost so there might be a bunch of things like this like you want to buy a house and you can't agree on price and they say okay well we'll throw in the furniture, or something like that, right? You can keep all of the art, if you like it. So that's negotiation, because then they don't have to move it. It's cheaper and whatever, right? So these are just things where you have an agreement that you both have a shared desire, but you have a disagreement as to the terms, and that's life. Life as a whole. That's life as a whole.
[1:17:06] Sure, sure. You know, in a relationship, right, when do you go to marriage? Well, it very rarely happens that it occurs to both people at exactly the same time, right? So, one person's a little further ahead, and maybe they have to convince the other person, and so on, right? So, that is, or maybe the woman's been tapping her feet for six months, I don't know, right? So, she's been waiting. So, that's sort of my question. So, you and your family, you have disagreements, and I mean, to not make too fine a point of it, you have these disagreements and all that you do is bully and escalate and be aggressive and yell and call names and call the police and right so there is no negotiation yeah it's sort of like the mafia saying uh if you don't pay us protection money to keep someone from burning down your store we can pretty much guarantee your store is going to get burnt down right that's not a negotiation because Because, right, so you guys have win-lose. And win-lose is always achieved through aggression. Otherwise, right, if I steal the car, right, then that's win-lose.
[1:18:18] So you were raised with, and it's not like they teach you any of this in school. They don't really teach you this in church and so on, right? Because you can't really negotiate with God, and you certainly can't negotiate with your teachers, right? So... In the world, we are kept as slaves because people are put in charge of us who have no capacity to negotiate and don't even really know what the concept is. All they have is power. Power is the opposite of negotiation because power is the capacity to inflict win-lose. Like a guy who wants your wallet and puts a gun in your ribs, well, that's win-lose.
[1:18:56] Yeah.
[1:18:56] Right? So teachers and daycare teachers and a lot of priests and the media, it's just win-lose. Like, do what we want or we'll dox you, you know, or something like that. I shouldn't laugh because it's very scary stuff. So you were raised in a slave manner, which is not to say you're a slave. I'm just saying that there's this mindset that I have too, by the way. I couldn't negotiate with my boarding school headmasters. I couldn't negotiate with my aunts or my father or my mother, or I couldn't negotiate with the teachers. I couldn't negotiate with the daycare workers. I couldn't negotiate. I started being able to negotiate a little bit with my professors, but they still had the final determination. True negotiation is when you don't have the final determination. So when you say to your mom, can I stay out later? She has the final choice. That's not a negotiation. If you say to your professor, can I get an extension on my essay deadline? And he's like, yeah, okay. That's not It's not a negotiation, it's just begging, it's asking, and letting the other person make the decision. That's not a negotiation. Negotiation is when you have some power, some influence, right? If I want to buy the Lamborghini, I don't know how much they cost, but, you know, someone's going to have to sell me the Lamborghini and they want my money, so I have some authority in the...
[1:20:14] In the uh and in the interaction of the negotiation and that's why competition reduces bullying because competition means that if one person just has a monopoly then it's not a negotiation anymore right you don't have a negotiation about paying for public schools because it's just taken out of your property taxes and so on right so so i think that the challenge is that you were out there in the world negotiating uh working and so on you went back home and your negotiation mind got crushed by police and incarceration, jail, right, and institutionalization and so on. And so your adulthood, your independence, your authority, your weight, your heft, your.
[1:21:00] Influence, your capacity to negotiate got crushed because your mother doesn't negotiate, and she only escalates in bullies. Or maybe if she's scared of you, she might submit briefly, but then it just gets blowback. Back and so i would say that the reason is that you you were raised to be a slave you were out there developing some more independence you went back home slavery got re-inflicted on you, negotiation is not necessary because you're getting money from the government through through benefits and so how can you go back out there into the world of negotiation it'd be like Like if I started learning Japanese, I went back home, I lost all of my knowledge of Japanese, really. And then a couple of years later, somebody said, you want to go back to that remote Japanese village? I'd be like, no, because I don't really remember my Japanese anymore.
[1:21:50] Yeah, definitely. That's a fantastic way of putting it. Yeah, that really stands.
[1:21:57] That resonates with the experience that I think I've had in the last four years. Is it's kind of losing, feeling like I've lost something that I can't put my finger on.
[1:22:10] Good, good. Well, I'm certainly glad to hear that. And so, yeah, I would suggest really look at, read books, how to negotiate, good strategies for negotiation, all this kind of stuff. And if you get your negotiation muscles back up, which is, by the way, incredibly painful emotionally.
[1:22:34] Yeah.
[1:22:35] Because you're realizing all the times you weren't negotiated with. So it's incredibly painful emotionally. To learn negotiation skills which is why so many people kind of avoid it and just stick with the bullying paradigm right so yeah that's great advice yeah so i i would say um you know before sort of heading back out because you don't want to head out and then have some mess or some failure going on so before heading out um into the world i would say really work on upping your negotiation skills and through that process then when somebody disagrees with you right now when somebody disagrees with you you feel a combination of fear and aggression right so you have a disagreement with your mother and it's like oh god how bad is this going to get how terrible is this going to go right yeah and that's because with your mother and i assume with you know a lot of other people in your life it's uh it's win-lose either you get your way at their expense and they're seething or or they get their way at your expense, and you're seething.
[1:23:38] But there is not a win-win. And so out there in the world, if your boss says, do X, Y, or Z, you're like, oh, God, right? And then you're frightened, and then you're resentful, and you feel stressed and hostile because he scared you, right? But if you have some confidence in your ability to aim for these win-win situations, you so your boss says i want you to do x right and it's like okay listen i'm happy to i've got these five things to do which one do you want me to deprioritize right because reasonable bosses i mean this is very common in the workplace right you've got five things to do for the rest of the week and then your boss gives you the sixth thing to do and people are just like oh god okay uh well well, I can't say no, so I'll just work late. I'll just... I'll find some way to deprioritize something, and then...
[1:24:34] Nobody ends up particularly satisfied. I guess if you just work late, I guess your boss feels satisfied because he looks like he's a great boss. But then the problem is, if you can do five things a week and your boss gives you six or seven, and you do six or seven, well, guess what? Now you just have to do six and seven forever and your boss looks at you like, what the hell were you doing before? You were only doing five things before, now you can do six or seven, so you were kind of ripping me off before. So your boss ends up dissatisfied you end up dissatisfied because you're working an extra day or two a week so to speak and nobody's happy even the customers aren't happy in the long run, because business relationships the more complex they are the better it is if they're sustainable and so if the customer has a complicated set of things that you're providing and you get mad and quit then they've got to find someone new and train someone new and nobody's happy right so nobody's happy in the long run if negotiation isn't achieved so when your boss says i need you to do these one or two more things this week and you're like hey listen i'm super happy to help out which one should i do next week instead well just do them all i'm like you know uh that's going to be a lot of extra work i can do that but i'm not going to do that on a super regular basis because you know i'm not here to just work i have to have a life too too.
[1:25:50] So, finding ways to negotiate. Now, and this is another thing, too, it's really tough to get a good boss if you don't know how to negotiate, because bosses are looking for, can my employee negotiate?
[1:26:05] Or is my employee just desperate and wants, like the potential employee, someone who's interviewing, are they just desperate and they just need a job and they have to have a job and they can't eat otherwise? And so a boss who's a good boss won't want a desperate employee who can't negotiate. Because negotiation is feedback from the employee. And without feedback, you can't produce really anything of quality. So a good boss is looking for someone who listens to proposals compares it to their own self-interest and tries to find a win-win solution so if the boss says uh so here's an example right so this would happen when i was negotiating i remember negotiating for a job once and i think the salary was i don't know let's just make up a number the salary was a hundred thousand dollars right And I said, no, I want $120,000. Now, I would have been satisfied with $110,000, but I didn't want $100,000. And they said, we can't pay you more.
[1:27:04] And I said, okay, so what else can we do? They said, well, we don't know. And I said, okay, well, when I travel, can I travel not economy? Because I had to do a lot of traveling. Can I travel nicer? Can I stay in slightly nicer hotels? Those, I don't want to stay in a motel. I want to stay in a decent hotel, so I get a good mattress and a good night's sleep. And that's a business write-off for them. That's an expense. So it could be cheaper from an accounting standpoint. And they said, okay. And then I said, okay, well, you want to give me two weeks vacation. You don't want to pay me more. That's fine. Then give me four weeks vacation.
[1:27:45] Because then effectively my hourly rate has increased because I'm taking two more weeks of vacation a year. And then we settled on three weeks and upgraded hotels and flights and so on right and you know i said listen we both we both want to be happy with this right i mean you don't want me working for you if i'm not happy and i sure don't want you paying me if you feel i i'm overcharging you right so we'll we'll find some some consideration you know my my workspace is quite important to me right so i said okay so if you don't want to you know we go back can you give me a bigger office can you give me you know access to half a secretary can you whatever right any any number of things that they could do that you know if they're hard on the salary we just and there were reasons why the reasons why you you can't sometimes get more in salary is they're paying everyone else at your level the same amount and it almost always gets out how much someone's getting paid so if they everyone they hired at your level gets paid at a hundred thou and then you get 120, that's going to get out, and then they have a big problem, because then everyone else gets mad. Well, how come he gets 120? I'm doing the same job, right? And so, sometimes it's quite complicated for businesses in terms of pay.
[1:28:56] So, just in terms of, I'm just going to give you one example as well. When I worked very hard to get sort of 30 or 35 of my employees significant raises, I had to make that case and say, look, 25% of them are actively looking for other work at the moment. And if they leave, this is how much it's going to cost us. Because we've got, you know, 2 billion lines of code, which a new empire is going to have to learn how to work with, which is going to take 6 to 12 months. And so on. So, I had to say, this is win-win. Like, you're paying more, but I'm saving you money, right? So instead of giving my employees a million dollars more a year, I'm saving you $2 million over the next couple of years per year. So that's a win-win. As opposed to just pay my employees more, well, that's just a net loss for people. And sorry, I'm sorry to give you these big abstract examples because these happen all the time. One of the reasons I learned all of this stuff was no particular virtue of mine. It just came from being broke. It's funny because being broke is fantastic for teaching you negotiation skills. Deals, because if everyone's got money, you're like, oh, we're going to go to the mall, we're going to go to the movie, we're going to go to the arcade, right? And everyone can pay for that, so everything's structured, and you don't really have to negotiate. But when you're broke...
[1:30:05] You've got to figure out what to do that's out of nothing and has to cost nothing. You know, are we going to go to the mall? Are we going to go to the woods? Are we going to go play tag? Are we going to do X, Y, and Z? And you've got to find something. And not everyone wants to do the same thing. But, you know, if you're with a bunch of kids and everyone's got a bunch of money, and you're like, let's go to the, I don't know, Universal Studios theme park or something, and everyone's like, yeah, that sounds great, right? You don't have to negotiate really much. So negotiation comes out of poverty, which is why there's this cycle of rich and poor, quite a lot. The rich kids don't have to negotiate as much because everything's structured for them. This is another big problem by the by with video games, is that video games, that's really not negotiation, because negotiation for kids is, hey man, I did touch you. No, you just touched my shirt, you know, and in war, right, in the war games I played as a kid, you had to figure out who was actually shot, who was actually wounded, and, you know, all of this kind of stuff so there was a lot of negotiation about the rules the structure of the and the enforcement of the rules was something you had to negotiate about right uh you know hey playing soccer hey that touched your hand no it didn't it touched my i don't know elbow or whatever right and so you had to sort of negotiate these kinds of things to find a way that if there aren't any rules nobody wants to play but if the rules are used against people like if you lose and you say you cheated uh then that nobody wants to play so you've got to find that sweet balance, so that the rules are helpful without being used as a weapon.
[1:31:32] So you don't have to negotiate rules in a video game, right? I mean, there's no, you touched my, I touched you, no, you just touched my shirt, shirts don't count, or whatever it is, right? There's none of that because, you know, the computers, the servers all decide who shoots who and it's all enforced and nobody has to negotiate, really. So I'm sorry for sort of a long ranty rant, but I think that once you're more comfortable with negotiation first of all when you get more comfortable with negotiation you won't want to go back to bullying win-lose stuff yeah right so you and so you felt that you could go back into your mother's household and you only looked at the material benefit it's going to save me you know a couple hundred pounds and and maybe a couple of awkward phone calls to get some other the place to live, but you didn't look at the, this reactivates my win-lose slave mindset.
[1:32:27] Yeah, exactly. I didn't.
[1:32:29] And how could you? I mean, it's not like this is all explained to us when we're growing up. I mean, the people who are good at negotiating don't spend a lot of time with people who are bullies because it's no fun. So I think that that would explain how you ended up with some of this lost time, right? And because, like, so food is a constant negotiation. I mean, for me, anyway, I think this is the case for most people. But food is a constant negotiation, as is exercise, right? So the constant negotiation is, I mean, I would love to live on sweet danishes and cookies and banana bread and like, and all of this. I'd love to live on that stuff. I love the taste and it makes me happy. But it's just not good for me, right? So it's a constant negotiation, and the reason I'm mentioning this is that you couldn't negotiate with your mother, you gave up on negotiating with your mother, and you also gave up on negotiating with food, with yourself.
[1:33:25] Right, yes. Yeah, definitely. Yes, definitely, there was a clear correlation with all of it, and a clear correlation.
[1:33:34] So yeah, that would be my, and you'd really be surprised at how quickly you can learn negotiation.
[1:33:42] Yeah.
[1:33:43] And I think that would be the thing. If I were in your shoes, and again, I say this with all massive due sympathy for your childhood and most of your adulthood, and so I think if you really want to help your sister, which I respect and I think that's a wonderful thing, then if you learn negotiation and you either implicitly or explicitly show her the benefits of negotiation, then she'll learn how to negotiate and then she can have a healthy relationship, because a healthy relationship is founded on negotiation. because we all have disagreements and agreements, and when we learn how to serve our needs and others, so that the best negotiation is when both people are happier with the final solution than their initial suggestion. Right? So if you learn how to do that, which, I mean, I'm not saying you don't know how to do that, but we all need those sort of refreshers and expansions of these sorts of things. But when you learn how to do that and you model that in the world, you go out into the world and you can negotiate, and there will be people, you go out and try and get a job, and they'll just snarl at you. How dare you? And that's good. I mean, it can be a little unpleasant in the moment, but it means that that is a boss who has no interest in negotiating, and you don't want to work with someone like that.
[1:35:06] Sure, sure.
[1:35:08] So it's really, really good. And learning how to negotiate keeps the bullies out of your life because they don't want to be around you. And it can take a little longer to find a job, but, man, you're going to end up with a job that's way better and it's going to be not a recreation of sort of that slave mentality, top-down, power-based bullying stuff that goes on when we're growing up. And so, yeah, adulthood is negotiation. Love is negotiation. Business success is negotiation. negotiation, and focusing on that will really help your sister, because then with your sister, you can negotiate as well, and then she will learn that from you, and that will make her life much better than anything else, any other single thing that I think you can do.
[1:35:54] Thank you very much. That is fantastic advice. Yeah, I definitely have not considered negotiation Negotiation as an emphasize as something to emphasize in my life Well.
[1:36:06] And then you can learn how to negotiate with girls or women and you won't have to pay them.
[1:36:10] Right?
[1:36:11] So much the better.
[1:36:12] Yeah, I don't know. I don't know why I mean, yeah I mean, I I think that all the vices correlate with one another I have had relationships in the past But I think negotiation is clearly something you can always strengthen.
[1:36:24] Oh very true. Very true. Yeah. All right, brother Is that good enough for today?
[1:36:29] That's fantastic i really really appreciate these it's good one final crash.
[1:36:34] Of the microphone and i hope you keep me.
[1:36:37] Posted and.
[1:36:37] I really do uh appreciate the call today and you know massive sympathies but you know better better futures await for sure.
[1:36:43] Definitely yeah i've in the last few months thanks to your show i've i've been on an upward curve of optimism so i really appreciate you taking the call beautiful.
[1:36:53] All right man take care talk to you soon.
[1:36:55] Thank you you too bye thanks very much bye.
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