Nothing's Missing

There's, nature has a balance of opposites, a unity of opposites, as Heraclitus used to say.

TK, what do you think it is about the big life changes that we make? Someone embraces minimalism, or they're on a new spiritual path.

They found a religion that resonates with them, or they even change their diet.

Or sometimes it's just, "I wanna walk away from the career that I dislike to pursue something that I'm passionate about." The people around us, especially the people we love and the people we think care about us the most, they're often the most skeptical, and, uh, they make it some of the most challenging moments or, or are these decisions we make, and then we have to justify it to the people closest to us.

Uh, I think it's because the people that are closest to us feel most invested in the outcomes of our lives, so they feel the risk.

I mean, look, if I'm talking to some kid that's not mine, "Yeah, fall in love with whoever you want, man.

Follow your heart.

If you love the girl, be with the girl." But if it's my son, who he brings home affects me on a day-to-day basis in a way that's not so detached and easy to be casual about.

And so I think we underestimate how much we are characters in other people's story, and when we make changes in our lives, it challenges them in ways they didn't particularly ask for or expect.

If you and I get together every night after a hard day's work and we eat, we eat snacks and watch TV to decompress, and then one day you decide you wanna be healthy and not eat snacks anymore and read books instead, well, that means I now have to make a conscious decision to be a snack eater and a TV watcher in a way that I didn't have to before.

You just put a really big spotlight on me that makes me see myself in a different way, and now I've got all sorts of questions, right? Are you judging me? Do you think I'm bad for still eating snacks? Like, like, what's...

You know, is this what I still want?

want?A- a- and I didn't ask for this, and now I'm forced to do all of this self-examination.

And so I think many times when we make changes, especially for the better, it makes the people that are close to us feel challenged, and they may react in that way.

A second reason why you may get some resistance is because strangers don't really know you.

They don't have a past to compare your present actions to.

So if you go through your whole life being a yes-man, and one day you wake up and say, "I'm gonna start saying no," and some stranger says, "Hey, man, you wanna do this thing that you don't like doing?" You say, "No." They say, "Oh, [laughs] that TK, man, he doesn't play."

[laughs]

"He's firm." But when I go back to my family and I pull that no act, they look at me up and down like, "Please, you're not serious.

I don't believe you at all.

You just spent the last 20 years of your life being a total yes-man with no spine and no backbone.

I don't trust you.

Earn my trust.

Earn my respect.

Show up and do what you say you're going to do every single day for a long time in spite of the fact that I have zero faith in you and I predict that you're going to fail." You do that, people start to respect you.

There's, nature has a balance of opposites, a unity of opposites, as Heraclitus used to say.

TK, what do you think it is about the big life changes that we make? Someone embraces minimalism, or they're on a new spiritual path.

They found a religion that resonates with them, or they even change their diet.

Or sometimes it's just, "I wanna walk away from the career that I dislike to pursue something that I'm passionate about." The people around us, especially the people we love and the people we think care about us the most, they're often the most skeptical, and, uh, they make it some of the most challenging moments or, or are these decisions we make, and then we have to justify it to the people closest to us.

Uh, I think it's because the people that are closest to us feel most invested in the outcomes of our lives, so they feel the risk.

I mean, look, if I'm talking to some kid that's not mine, "Yeah, fall in love with whoever you want, man.

Follow your heart.

If you love the girl, be with the girl." But if it's my son, who he brings home affects me on a day-to-day basis in a way that's not so detached and easy to be casual about.

And so I think we underestimate how much we are characters in other people's story, and when we make changes in our lives, it challenges them in ways they didn't particularly ask for or expect.

If you and I get together every night after a hard day's work and we eat, we eat snacks and watch TV to decompress, and then one day you decide you wanna be healthy and not eat snacks anymore and read books instead, well, that means I now have to make a conscious decision to be a snack eater and a TV watcher in a way that I didn't have to before.

You just put a really big spotlight on me that makes me see myself in a different way, and now I've got all sorts of questions, right? Are you judging me? Do you think I'm bad for still eating snacks? Like, like, what's...

You know, is this what I still want?

want?A- a- and I didn't ask for this, and now I'm forced to do all of this self-examination.

And so I think many times when we make changes, especially for the better, it makes the people that are close to us feel challenged, and they may react in that way.

A second reason why you may get some resistance is because strangers don't really know you.

They don't have a past to compare your present actions to.

So if you go through your whole life being a yes-man, and one day you wake up and say, "I'm gonna start saying no," and some stranger says, "Hey, man, you wanna do this thing that you don't like doing?" You say, "No." They say, "Oh, [laughs] that TK, man, he doesn't play."

[laughs]

"He's firm." But when I go back to my family and I pull that no act, they look at me up and down like, "Please, you're not serious.

I don't believe you at all.

You just spent the last 20 years of your life being a total yes-man with no spine and no backbone.

I don't trust you.

Earn my trust.

Earn my respect.

Show up and do what you say you're going to do every single day for a long time in spite of the fact that I have zero faith in you and I predict that you're going to fail." You do that, people start to respect you.