The Daily Stoic - The Art of Asking Questions for Deeper Connection | Topaz Adizes

Episode Date: May 25, 2024

📚Grab a copy of 12 Questions for Love by Topaz Adizes at The Painted Porch: https://www.thepaintedporch.com/🎥 Check out Topaz’s YouTube Series: The Skin Deep https://www.youtube.com/@TheSkinDeepX and IG: @topazadizes📕 Want a signed and numbered page from the original manuscript of Right Thing, Right Now? To learn more and pre-order your own copy, visit dailystoic.com/justice✉️ Want Stoic wisdom delivered to your inbox daily? Sign up for the FREE Daily Stoic email at https://dailystoic.com/dailyemail🏛 Get Stoic inspired books, medallions, and prints to remember these lessons at the Daily Stoic Store: https://store.dailystoic.com/📱 Follow us:  Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, TikTok, and FacebookSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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If that sounds like your cup of tea, you will love our podcast, British Scandal, the show where every week we bring you stories from this green and not always so pleasant land. We've looked at spies, politicians, media magnates, a king, no one is safe. And knowing our country, we won't be out of a job anytime soon. Follow British Scandal wherever you listen to your podcasts. I'm Afua Hirsch. I'm Peter Frankopan. And in our podcast, Legacy, we explore the lives of some of the biggest characters in

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Welcome to the weekend edition of The Daily Stoic. Each weekday we bring you a meditation inspired by the ancient Stoics, something to help you live up to those four Stoic virtues of courage, justice, temperance and wisdom. And then here on the weekend, we take a deeper dive into those same topics. We interview Stoic philosophers. We explore at length how these Stoic ideas can be applied to our actual lives and the challenging issues of our time.

Here on the weekend, when you have a little bit more space, applied to our actual lives and the challenging issues of our time. Here on the weekend, when you have a little bit more space, when things have slowed down, be sure to take some time to think, to go for a walk, to sit with your journal, and most importantly to prepare for what the week ahead may bring. Hey, it's Ryan Holiday. Welcome to another episode of the Daily Stoic Podcast. One of the things I don't think the Stoics talk enough about is relationships. In the afterword of Right Thing Right Now, which you can pre-order, that's the new book on the virtue of justice.

I tried to talk about love and relationships in the book because I think it's something that was obviously important to the Stoics, although they didn't talk about it enough. It's hard to talk about it. There's so many things we need help with. I think it can sometimes be hard to tackle these things. So I talk a lot about it in the afterward of right thing right now,

because it's something I'm working on in my life. I think it's not easy to be successful in life. It's not easy to acquire mastery in one's chosen line, but it can be easier than the difficulty of relationships. I mean, the quote, the obstacle is the way, the Marcus Aurelius line, it comes from him talking about the difficulty and the frustrations of human relationships.

So the Stokes talk about how it's hard, but they also don't talk enough about how it's wonderful. And you can't read the debts and lessons section of meditations though, and not see that Marx Friedrichs did have many loving relationships and that they were deeply important, not just to his happiness, but his development as a human being.

So when I had a chance to have Topaz Andesis on the podcast, I was really excited. He's a Emmy award-winning writer and director. He's done all sorts of awesome exhibitions at Cannes and Sundance and South by Southwest. He's been featured in the New Yorker and Vanity Fair and the New York Times. His documentaries have won numerous awards.

And he wrote this book, it's called 12 Questions for Love, a Guide to Intimate Conversations and Deeper Relationships. But layered on top of that, we have a guy who studied philosophy at Berkeley and at Oxford. And one of the things I really wanted to talk to him about because I'm thinking about it for the book I'm writing now is the art of asking questions,

the art of really downloading and understanding the person sitting across from you as it matters to me obviously doing the podcast, but just like how stoicism doesn't have to mean you're sort of emotionally blocked, that you're sort of inwardly focused, exclusively inwardly focused, and that you can have flourishing

and loving relationships in your life. And Topaz was nice enough at the end, he gave me this cool card game, he has it supposed to prompt families to ask better questions. And I ended up having to jump in the car, we drove as a family to New Orleans, we were meeting my parents and my sister there.

So we passed the eight hour or so drive from Austin to New Orleans, playing the card game in the car together. And my kids didn't quite understand, but it was funny to watch them just sort of be ridiculous and answer these questions, which I think is the idea. Like the idea of being present, the idea of having a starting point, asking a good question.

You never know where it's gonna go. You never know what it's going to reveal or invoke. And it's a good microcosm of the conversation that he and I had. I wasn't sure where it was gonna go. I didn't know if he'd be a great fit, but he was. And then it turned out we have a bunch of mutual friends in common.

And I'm a big fan of his work now. So here is my conversation with Topaz. You can follow him on Instagram and Twitter at T-O-P-A-Z-A-D-I-Z-E-S. And then he has an awesome YouTube channel, which has done like a bazillion views that you should definitely check out. And thanks to him for coming on the podcast.

I'm always looking for people that are going to be different than the people that I've had on before. And I think what I'm interested in lately is people who are curious and people who are sort of getting inside the worlds of other people, which is obviously sort of what you do. Yeah. Like I'm fascinated right now. That's one of the things I wanted to ask you like what do you think makes a good question? Oh, man, I can break that down writing about this in the book that I'm doing now

Like I feel like you know, we tend to think of smart people as people who have answers But smart people are actually really good at asking questions that the powers in the question. Yeah disciplines decimie. Yeah Queen Elizabeth. Yeah, she framed everything through the questions Yeah, because she's not allowed to have an opinion exactly. Yeah, but she brought people and she shaped it by the question She asked yes one thought that's come up to me like about two weeks ago in a conversation on another podcast was the understanding that I say that we're not really taught to have good conversations, right? Mm-hmm, but we're also not taught to ask good questions and I think there's a reason for that. Well, questions are inconvenient. They're inconvenient, but they focus the power.

What are we focusing on? You shape the answer by the question you ask. And so therefore, there's a lot of power in the shaping the question. We're taught critical thinking, but critical thinking focus on a certain question. Who's offering that question? Yeah. It's just a thought that came up that I'm playing with in the last two weeks. So I think there's a lot of power in the questions you asked, both personally,

but also on a wider scale, like in a community. Well, I think about, like, here's how you know questions are powerful. Socrates, right, famous for asking questions as the Socratic method is. They fucking killed Socrates. They were like, stop asking questions, bro. This is problematic, right?

We accept questions within a framework, and then too many questions. You know, it's like, you can ask someone why, but if you ask why more than a accept questions within a framework, and then too many questions, you know, it's like you can ask someone why, but if you ask why more than a couple times in a row, it starts to feel aggressive, like what do you, you know what I mean? Well, it depends, if you're, I see, if you're asking them.

Yeah, like if you ask someone a question, they give you an answer, and then you go why, and then they give you a little explanation, and then you go, but why? Unless you have the space that's been created through your, by articulating your attention. Yes. Okay, so in my experience,

there's five things that I've seen really work well in shaping a question in the context of a relationship. Okay. All right? Yeah. One, don't ask a binary question. Yes or no questions? Yeah, so if your question starts with is, do or are,

if those are the first three words of the question, it's already ending binary. Are you happy? Is this successful? Do we love each other? Is our do ends with a binary. So you're artificially constraining where it can go. And is life binary?

No, of course everything's complicated. And then it depends on what kind of conversation we have. Sometimes we need to get to a solution. Maybe binary is good, but I'm talking about in the scope of a relationship that when you explore, why are we going with is, are, or do? It ends with a yes or no. So why, how, what?

Start with those, you can't answer with a yes or no. So that's one. Two is I'm just gonna be interested in how this riffs with you because it's stoicism. Ask a constructive question Okay, what does that mean? That means why do we fight so much? Okay. Well, then you get a linear of answers Why you fight so much? Yeah, what about what's our biggest conflict and what is it teaching us? Hmm, right because our mind is built to protect and our hearts are built to connect So you ask the question why do we fight so much Your brain is gonna serve that answer and find a solution.

Well, why don't we send that brain to fetch a good answer? What's our biggest conflict and why is it teaching us? Why don't we shape, how does conflict make us better? In fact, how does conflict tear us apart? Shape the question that the answer is gonna be more empowering. Yeah, right. I sometimes see this with writing,

if you message someone and you're like, give me feedback, you're asking them to find stuff that's wrong. And sometimes that's what you wanna do, but sometimes the way you're asking the question is giving you bad data. You have to think about how this is gonna land and what it's framing or prompting from that person. And I think constructive is a good word there.

Is it constructive? Because if you're saying in a relationship, you know, why do we fight so much? You're stipulating that you fight a lot and that it's a problem. It's unlikely their answer is going to question any of those assumptions. So you're already starting from a pretty dark place. Now you're touching on the fact that by shaping the question, you have the power. So if I ask you a question, this is separate than the five things. But if I ask you a question and goes, what is our biggest conflict? By shaping that question, what is our biggest conflict?

I've given you to be the arbiter of truth. Sure. This is empowering. Right? Versus, now if I just add these two words, it's going to change the whole thing. What do you feel is our biggest conflict? Now, you're not the arbitrary truth. You're speaking about the truth that you're subjective having. Sure, sure. Right? So how can we fight over that? That's your opinion. And now we create this phase like that's your opinion. Okay, I'm going to take it in versus what's our biggest conflict.

Right. Well, there's this. No, it's not. So because we're asking the objective truth, and I'm saying if I do what do you feel, what do you think, it's subjective. And then it's like, we can't argue about that. And that also creates a space for sharing. So there's a lot of power in the shape of the question, why would I give you the total power? It's like setting you up, right?

For us to have an argument, instead of saying, what do you feel, what do you think? In what ways do you see or do you experience, we have to be aware of that. Yeah. You know? What are the other ones? So three is what's really interesting that a lot of people miss is make sure the question is connective. What I mean by that is that it reflects the people who are in conversation. If I say, Ryan, what scares you the most? And you go home and you ask Sam, she asks you, what scares you the most? And Daw go home and you ask Sam, she asks you what scares you the most? And Dawson goes, hey, Ryan, what scares you the most?

You can give the same answer. I hate snakes. I'm scared of shitless snakes. Yeah. But if I say, hey, Ryan, what do you think scares both of us the most? Okay. You're not going to answer that the same if I ask it and Sam and Dawson. Sure.

The question acknowledges the connection. Yeah. So ask a question that acknowledges the conversation, the relationship. That's really helpful. Right? Because if I say, what does love mean to you? You know, in a relationship, and this could be intimate brothers, parents, children. What does love mean to you? You can talk for three hours. It has nothing to do with me. There's also no acknowledging this moment that we're sharing. What do you think we think about love differently

in the same? I'm more invested in that conversation because it's acknowledging my presence and our relationship. That's really helpful. Asking questions that acknowledge the people in the conversation. That can only happen with these two people. That's beautiful because it's a synergy, right?

And it's unique and it acknowledges our thread that connect us. And that's oftentimes what we're not spending enough time in. Well, and that goes to the second one also, Ray, is like, what do you think our biggest issue is, or whatever, right? Because it's a combination of the two. Well, the second one is make it,

the mention was just making it constructive. So what do you think is our biggest issue and what do you think it's teaching us? So it's constructive, but it's also, it not like what do you dislike most about our relationship and what I teach you That's not constructive and it's individualistic But if you're saying what do you think our biggest issue is what what issue do you think we have? What is it teaching us? It's a combination of the two of us exactly. Okay four is like It's really nice to connect

to disparate thoughts. So in a personal thing, I say, hey Ryan, what does earning money cost you? And like in a relationship, what's our favorite lie we love telling ourselves? What's the truth we hate telling ourselves? In a personal level, this is always a sweet one that we have is like, what's your favorite memory

from your worst relationship? Ah, see, bring into this that you don't know when to connect. How does conflict make us better? Well, I always see conflict is something bad. Well, let me pivot that. How does it make us better? Well, and I would go in, that's funny how these are all very unrelated, or at least they are very related, as it seems to me, when you ask a binary question, this or that, either or what you're embracing is paradox or tension between two disparate seemingly disconnected or oppositional things. We have what's your favorite thing about your least

favorite thing or whatever, right? You're, you're forced to see that there's good inside a bad thing, there's bad inside a good thing. And you're having to sit. I think it was Fitzgerald said that the mark of a genius is the ability to have two contradictory ideas in your head at the same time. A lot of people, it's gotta be 100% this or 100% this, not this or not that, but the idea is like, shit's complicated, you know?

And contradictory. Life is a paradox, life, are we present to it? Yes. That's what I've been witnessing, because everything I'm telling you comes from basically me holding the space for two people to face each other, pose questions, and I watch them. Yeah. I've done that for 1,200 different conversations. Crazy. That's amazing, it's an amazing experiment. So that's everything I'm saying is watching and learning from that. I'm just a student of human experience. So what's fine? Don't ask the question with an agenda.

How many times does someone ask you a question where you know this is not a question, this is a chess match? They're setting me up to have a response and so already your mind is coming out to wait, what's going on here? Come with it without an agenda, which is different than intention. I was on a conversation two weeks ago and someone said, wait, right, which is different than intention. Mm-hmm. I was on a conversation two weeks ago and someone said wait intention You create the space with intention, but isn't that an agenda? No intention is where you begin Yeah agendas that you want to get to a certain end Huh, right if I say hey Ryan, I want to have a conversation about our relationship because we've kind of had it from rough spots Could we just talk about it? That's my intention. Yeah, the agenda would be like, and I want to get to the end where you apologize to me.

Yeah, I want to get to the bottom of this. I want to fix this. And I want to get to my solution. So when you're in a conversation with someone that you feel the agenda, you're not open, you're not leaning forward. You're standing back and the first thing stepping to engage, it's not your heart, it's your mind. You're not actually having a real conversation that pulls at the threads of your connection. So then the question is people say, all right, well, how do I come without, like, I want to talk to my partner about my brother. We had this conversation, like, I want to have a conversation. How do I come at it without an agenda? Yeah. Curiosity. Tap into your curiosity. Is this something

that pissed you off? Why? Okay, then I want them to apologize. Hold on a second. This is my brother. This is my best friend. This is my partner. This is someone I work with. Why? Okay, let me deep into that curiosity and let me come to them with the question with the intention of curiosity. The Stokes have this idea that every situation has more than one handle, right? So, you could pick up the handle like they did this, it was, it was bad, they suck, they're a bad person, they're trying to hurt me, right? Or you can come at it, I think most situations, if you come at them and you pick them up

by the curiosity handle, the why, what were they thinking? What was their motivation? How did they think it would go? What's going on in there? That's a much more open and less accusatory way and ultimately constructive, you know, sort of approach to dealing with situations. Like just going like, you know,

most people are not wrong on purpose. Most people are not hurting other people on purpose. Most people did not want things to blow up in their face. So what did they want to happen? What happened is less interesting in some ways than how they thought it would happen and whatever in some cases convoluted, strange, you know, wishful thinking that was going on in there. But it's still interesting to get to the bottom of it. One thing I did like 20 years of filmmaking, fiction and doc. One thing I learned when I did all these interviews

in documentary setting is that the interviewee is a reflection of the interviewer. So if I want them to calm down, I don't say, hey, relax. I have to relax. If I want them to be informal, I curse. Then they know if I make a grammatically incorrect question, then they know I can make a mistake in answering it. So if you come to someone in curiosity, you're priming them to answer in a more kind of open

way because they can feel your curiosity. If you come with them an agenda, they can feel that and their response is going to be one in like, okay, we're playing chess. Yeah. Yeah, that playing chess is really what you try to disarm as a journalist or an interviewer or anyone, right? Any sense that like, hey, this cannon will be used against me, you gotta get rid of it.

But like, one thing that I've seen from doing this project at the end for so many is that, how often are we creating those kind of spaces in our relationships? All right, we usually kind of keep it comfortable until shit hits the fan, until someone says, we gotta have a talk. And we don't know when we're here, we gotta have a talk?

Oh my God, anxiety, sweating, your mind comes out, you gotta protect yourself. How do we create the spaces for us to actually have these heartfelt conversations that what do they do? They give us a meaning of life. You have a chapter in a relationship, it's like 12 minutes long on the audio book. Yeah, stillness.

Stillness is the key. I almost feel like this book is like that whole chapter. Right? I mean, it's an extension because you talk about it, it's like, what else is there in life? What else is there if it's not in relationship with the reflection of someone else? How do we foster that? How do we grow that?

How do we amplify that? How do we really experience that? That's kind of been my work. That's the questions I ask myself. Yeah. You have this person who lives in your house or you have this person who shares your DNA or whatever, like a spouse or kids or you have these people you see at the office every day or you buy something from every day and it's like how well do you really know them and how much effort have you actually expended to get to know them? And the

thing is the irony is that the people closest to us are the ones we almost put them into a box. Because, oh, I know how my dad's gonna respond. I know how my sister's gonna respond. I know how my wife is gonna respond. Well, maybe you haven't asked them a different question. Ask them a different question. All of a sudden there's a pause, there's a space. There's a space for a new response,

and there's a new discovery for you to have with the people closest to you. And then how much energy do you get about the experience of living life when you amplify the connections with the people closest to you. And then how much energy do you get about the experience of living life when you amplify the connections with the people most intimate with you? Yeah, you discover something about your spouse or whatever and then you realize,

oh, I was interpreting this whole pattern of behavior you have from the completely wrong lens because I was missing this piece. Like I've been finding it, so over the last year or so, my wife, I think the word for it is like time blindness. You know what that is? Like some people don't know, like I have no idea, like are we pointing north right now or south? You give me directions. I can hear like two or three and then I stop listening and then I go, I'll figure it out. If you're like, okay, like tell me how to get, I'd be like, so you go down this way and go this way

and then I'm like, no, actually, wait, no, I have no idea. Okay. But then some people are like that with time. They have no idea of time. They have no idea what time it is. They're not good at like, seven minutes of a lapse to 30 minutes of a lapse. My wife is like, really bad with time. Oh, my wife too.

I'm very punctual and very like, if I say I'm going to do something at six, like at 530, I'm first of all, I've been thinking about it all all day my whole day is pivoting around the fact that this thing at six And then you know at 530 I'm starting to in my mind transition You know I mean I definitely can get lost in what I'm doing and that's how I feel like I know I love my work is that Yeah, only time I lose that right but so when my wife is like late I'm like, are you gonna like start getting ready like for this thing, you know Oh shit, you know, yeah for I mean moving together a long time. I always took that as as not

Caring about the thing or not caring about me, right? Because it's important to me and then I think guys I've gotten older and you know, whatever you go Wait, there's a bad handle to grab this situation on, right? I'm grabbing it as a situation that makes me feel the worst. When you say handle, you mean like the narrative, like the meaning that I'm giving that moment, or that action. The stoic idea is like, I can take this situation

and interpret it as, Interpret it, how she doesn't care, yeah, whatever. I can carry it around instead by like, oh, this person is just not good at telling time. And by the way, they wanna do the opposite of all those things to me. So if they had better information, or they had someone helping them, they would not do those things. Right.

And so, yeah, you just realize like, oh, wait, so like, we've been fighting about this for 10 years or 15 years. And like, I just had interpreted it wrong. And if I'd been more curious about like, how does this happen for you? Because it doesn't happen for me and it's the opposite of how I go through the world. I would have not only understood her better, but I would have understood like, it helped me understand myself better

because now I realize we often assume that however we think about things is like how other people do it and is the right way to do it. And then you go, oh wait, no, actually maybe I'm doing it wrong. Maybe this actually sucks for me and I would be better to be more time blind.

But is it wrong or just better? There's another just better way to do it. That's what's beautiful about this and project we have 1200 combos. Think about it, you're in an intimate relationship with Samantha. You guys behave a certain way or you're dating. And you say, hey, I go, Ryan, man,

relationships are full of jealousy. Like, Topaz, that's because you're 50% of all relationships, maybe you bring the jealousy. Check out this library of conversations, and you can see the intimate space of all these other relationships, and maybe there isn't always about jealousy, and the intimate space, and you go, oh,

so maybe I can bring more of that into my life, or I can, like, it might respond to my partner that way, maybe it can listen a different way, and it's opened up people's ability to have different kinds of relationships. And I just know that because after doing it for 10 years, people are showing up to our productions and saying, my relationship now is dictated by a video

I saw seven, eight years ago by playing the card games. And that's a huge honor, right? Well, not knowing what's going on behind closed doors, you can be too hard on your relationship. You're like, oh, shit, it's way better. My wife and I were talking about someone the other day. You're so hard on yourself as a parent. We were talking about someone who is struggling with alcoholism, and we were like, it's not too late.

They can still fix it. And they fucked it up really bad. And we're like, it's not too late. Meanwhile, you're like, I yelled at my kid yesterday. I'm the worst. really bad, right? And we're like, it's not too late. Meanwhile, you're like, I yelled at my kid yesterday, I'm the worst, you know? Like with other people, you can be so much more forgiving and you see that it's always salvageable,

there's always change. And then with yourself, you're like, I'm a piece of shit. And so sometimes seeing what's going on with other people, it either inspires you to be better or it relieves you of some of the pressure you've been putting on yourself. Oftentimes we think there's only a certain way to handle it

and then you see another way, oh wait, there's that way and there's this way and then this way. A, I'm not the only one, so that gives me hope and B, look, there's five ways to handle it. Which way do I wanna handle it? Have you ever felt like escaping to your own desert island? Well that's exactly what Jane, Phil and their three kids did when they traded their English home for a tropical island they bought online.

But paradise has its secrets and family life is about to take a terrifying turn. You don't fire at people in that area without some kind of consequence. And he says, yes ma'am, he's dead. There's pure cold-blooded terror running through me. From Wondery, I'm Alice Levine and this is The price of paradise. The real life story of an island dream that ends in kidnap, corruption and murder. Follow the price of paradise wherever you get your podcasts or binge the entire season right now on Wondry Plus.

Hello, I'm Hannah. And I'm Saruti. And we are the hosts of Red Handed, a weekly true crime podcast. Every week on Red Handed, we get stuck into the most talked about cases. From Idaho student killings, the Delphi murders and our recent rundown of the Murdoch saga. Last year, we also started a second weekly show, Shorthand, which is just an excuse for us to talk about anything we find interesting because it's our show and we can do what we like.

We've covered the death of Princess Diana, an unholy Quran written in Saddam Hussein's blood, the gruesome history of European witch hunting, and the very uncomfortable phenomenon of genetic sexual attraction. Whatever the case, we want to know what pushes people to the extremes of human behavior. Like, can someone give consent to be cannibalized? What drives a child to kill? And what's the psychology of a terrorist? Listen to Red Handed wherever you get your podcasts and access our bonus shorthand episodes

exclusively on Amazon Music or by subscribing to Wondry Plus in Apple podcasts or the Wondry app. Well, we were concerned like my son can't ride a bike and we're like, what are we doing wrong? How old is he? How old is he? Seven. Oh my god. Okay. Well, we were concerned like my son can't ride a bike and we're like, what are we doing wrong? How old is he? Seven. Oh my, okay. So like normally kids would tend to ride bikes with that. So we're talking to someone and we're like, you know, he can't ride a bike.

What are we doing? And then the same parents like we saw videos of their kid. He's been like riding a bike since he was like four. It's like crazy. And you know, so good. And we're like, what are we doing wrong? And then they're like, but he can't swim. You know, he just, he cannot swim.

And our kid can swim like a fish. So sometimes you're like, you're comparing like this one to one, and then you get a little more info, you see, you zoom out and you go, oh, it kinda evens out, you know? But what's the race? We're like, isn't it beautiful that we're all different? First, which is interesting,

because now with the onslaught of AI, where all the nodes are connected, and one thing learns and they all learn, which means they're all the same, we're all learning at different paces, which means difference of opinions, which means beautiful opportunities for synergy that don't exist because we don't learn at the same rate. The bike thing is so... I was just like, they didn't even have bikes like 110 years ago. What are the... Who cares?

I just took my kid. My son is four now, but half a year ago, I'm like, I'm gonna go biking, take off the wheels, we go to the park, we're playing on the gym, then he decides to get on the bike. And I don't even notice, and I turn around, and he's already biking away. Like, and I was hoping I'm gonna have

this father-son moment, I'm gonna teach him, and he literally was like, see ya, and he just went. And I was like, oh my God. I was so proud, but I was like, I missed the chance. Like, I. Yeah, sure. No, the thing with kids too is it's like, you're like, I can't, like, why don't they ride a bike?

Why don't they ride a bike? Then they ride a bike and now you worry that they can ride away. You know, it's like every, I've come to think about it, it's like everything you're wishing they'll start doing not only is stressful and then you realize you rushed through Enjoying the intermediate phase of whatever it is, you know, I can't wait till they're crawling

Then you're like I miss when I could just lay him down. They couldn't go anywhere and that you know, it's like I'm in that right now. I'm in that in a big way and I got good advice from my godfather Uzo's I was telling him I'm gonna check my son. I'm not sure if he's got an OCD or something You know, he's really demanding this and he says topaz. He doesn't have OCD Everyone around him has this the world around him. You're rushing to get him to do things. Yeah, he's got his pace He's not living in that world. Don't rush him into the world of your world of things have to happen Yes, right and that's a big lesson of just Wow, what teachers the kids are I had that experience of I'm a horrible dad last Wednesday.

What happened? Oh, bottom line, my wife who's just really incredible, she said, Topaz, she's like, how can we teach him emotional regulation if we ourselves are not emotionally regulated? So by the way, I think that's probably, we think they gotta teach you to read, to do math, they gotta learn all these skills,

if you could only teach your kid emotional regulation, that would be probably the most important and most universal of all skills, which by the way, makes learning things easier. If you have it, like there's no more important and to me, that's the essence of what soicism is. Do you have the ability to regulate your emotions? And yes, it's very hard to teach it if you yourself do not have it. And that's the practice. And that's why my wife and I And yes, it's very hard to teach it if you yourself do not have it. And that's the practice. And that's why my wife and I were like,

that's why the kids are great teachers, right? They're reflecting it. And it's also in a vulnerable way because this is your responsibility. And that mirror is coming up is like, well, I have to do the work. I can't tell him to be, I have to do the work myself.

And that'll be as an example for him and he'll grow into it because he has an example for me. So the focus is not on him, it's the focus on me and my presence in being with him. So on Wednesday, was there a problem with you regulating your emotions? Oh my gosh. Is that what kicked it off?

Yeah, that was like... And he's a... I'm not into astrology much, but when I tell people who are, say my son's a triple Aries, which means everything is Aries, their reaction is like, who, good luck. So that kind of makes me believe in astrology because they're, I don't know why. But yeah. The other day we were rushing, I was rushing them out of the house.

I was like, we're gonna be late, we're gonna be late. And my son goes, it's okay to be late. And of course he's totally right. I don't enjoy my punctuality perfectionism, right? And so here he is with a healthier, more reasonable, natural approach. And so am I going to swap that out for mine or am I going to try to adapt a little bit?

And the reality is we weren't going to be late. What we were gonna be is early. When I find myself rushing, which is a lot, this voice comes up and goes Topaz where are you rushing to? Yeah. Because I'm always rushing and really the answer is I'm rushing to my death. Of course. So why are you rushing there? Yeah, why are you rushing there? At some moment you're gonna go like I wish my kids were little again, right? Just slow down and enjoy it. You're rushing through, right? Yeah, it's like this program. But the one space where I do have,

I haven't reconciled in my mind is, if you're in a leadership position, and you kind of set the tone for your team, your organization, part of that is being on time. Of course. You can't be two minutes late. So then you set the tone. And so that's almost, I feel, I keep telling my son,

son, I have to be on time, I gotta set the tone. And I'm sorry I'm rushing you, but I have a responsibility. So I don't know how to reconcile that with. It's a difference between being punctual and then being a wreck in order to be punctual. You know what I'm saying? Like we have some signs in the office that I put up recently, the guy who ran the restaurant per se,

he put him up in the kitchen, it just says a sense of urgency. And I think there's a difference between being a frantic, anxious mess. He doesn't want people running around the kitchen with their head cut off, but he also doesn't want them taking their sweet ass time. Again, there's always a balance,

but it's a sense of urgency, which is let's do this at the but it's a sense of urgency, which is, let's do this at the right pace in the right way, but let's also not have it take needlessly longer than it should. I put the word when I talk to myself, it's like, son, we have intention. We're going there, our intention is, let's not wobble about. I mean, sometimes if we're on the beach, you're wobbling. But if we're doing, we have an intention.

Sometimes you're driving and you have Sunday drivers and they're not driving with intention. It's like- They actually are driving with intention, which is they are driving slow and they don't care about other people, which is I would say a negative intention, right? In Texas, you can get pulled over

for not going with the flow of traffic, right? So like if you're driving in the left lane below what the speed limit is supposed to, or what the other cars are traveling, you're being intentional in a self-absorbed, potentially dangerous way, right? So I think about that. But like, for instance, with me with punctuality,

the way I've been thinking about it is like, okay, so this morning they were working on the road on the way into town and school. So it took longer. So like, instead of getting there when we normally do, we're 10, 12 minutes later than we wanted to be. So I said to my son, hey, look, we're gonna have to do this drop off

a little bit quicker than we normally did. I didn't toss it all out the window and go get out of the car. I said, look, we'll do our normal things, but we're just, as you said, we're going to be a little intentional about it. But I also tried to remind myself that, okay, let's say I get to my desk at nine and start writing, which is when I like to do it, versus nine, 10. Okay, it's better to be there on time.

But this is a project I've been working on since 2019 and will not come out until 2025 at the earliest. 10 minutes, one way or another, is a lot of work. been working on since 2019 and will not come out until 2025 at the earliest 10 minutes, one way or another is not the unit of time that this is to be measured in. You know what I mean? Like hope man got a zoom out. And so so I'm gonna have a miserable morning with my four year old who I will only get so many mornings with so I can save inconsequential immeasurable amount of time inside a five

or six year project. That's not how to do it. So I had to zoom out and go, I got the 10 minutes is fine, whatever, I'm just going to be present for this. And then I'm going to go and I'm going to work with a sense of urgency instead of rushing to get there with urgency. As in your stillness is the key, there's bits where we're always working in the head.

And then something might happen that sparks that thought. So like go and walks, you have to go and walk. You have to check chapter. In that 10 minutes that you're delayed, you might see something that might be a golden nugget. So having the faith to say, okay, I'm running late, but wait, what's the flip side of that that is sometimes when I have to meet people I don't want to meet yeah or do something I don't want to do and I really don't

want to do it I know that I'm actually going to do that because I know the flip side of that is growth and learning like there is a reason why I don't want to see that guy yeah something in them something in you there's something on it but I'm intentionally gonna go and have that experience, because maybe on the flip side of that is gonna be something incredibly beautiful. So I'm always, or if you're late, then I try to see it positively,

but I'm not a pro at that. I'm usually like. You know what question I hate? I'd be curious. It's always felt very cheap and lazy to me, but I hate the question, what's a question you've never been asked before? Do you ever have a good answer to that question?

It feels like a phony icebreaker to me. I feel like I ask tons of questions people have never been asked before. Questions you've never been asked are great. I hate the question, what is a question you have never been asked? Right. You know what I mean? It's like, it seems profound, it's fucking nonsense.

Like who's just, I'm not just going around. I get that sometimes when I pose a question, what is your blind spot? And the answer usually is like, well, if I knew what my blind spot was, I wouldn't be my blind spot. So I got to feel that's the similar thing. I don't know the question I haven't asked, but I think what's great when you listen to books and you have tons in yours, when you talk about the Stoics and what they're asking themselves is, what are the questions we're asking ourselves and how do we tweak that? And that is great practice.

And it says there's a line, it's like the amateurs look for answers and the masters look for questions. I think that's a good one. Of course. I was interviewing Charles Duhigg, who wrote this book, Super Communicators, and he was saying like, he knows when he asks a question and the person has a quick answer or an answer that is prepared, that he's not asked a new question. He knows he's on to something like as a journalist, when he asks a question and they go, hmm, or ah, when they

have to think about it, because it's they're not able to immediately go like, well, I have my list of answers in my head, and then which does this line up with? You know, something's been scrambled, and they're having to think of a new thing, because they've never touched this before. That's why I almost see it, that's why I said in the second thing,

like connecting or disparate things. Yeah. It's really powerful because they take a pause, because they have to connect two different ideas, two different neural nodes. Yeah, they're not normal. There's actually one thing I forgot in that, a flip side of that was ask a question

that puts you in the other shoe or them in your shoe. An example of that would be like, hey Ryan, what do you think is the hardest thing being your friend? And in order for you to answer that, you're gonna have to put yourself in the shoes of your friends. Yeah, you have to see yourself from their perspective.

And how much more powerful are conversations if when was the last time I disappointed you and why do you think I did? So you can tell me about the time I disappointed you, but then you have to put yourself in my shoes and say, why did you do it? And that is also a nice bungy core kind of effect because A, you can really attack me,

but then you can reel it back by, well, but that's because you're trauma or you felt distrust. So you actually give your own permission to go deeper, but then put yourself, so this is a real. Because if it's just the first one, like how did I hurt you or whatever, then it's just the negative part

as opposed to what were you thinking about why you're doing it and how you're letting them off the hook? And it creates empathy because you have to see it from my POV. And then that creates a space of connection and bridging. And I just think there's so much power in the questions. Of course.

Which is interesting because you don't ask a lot of questions. What do you mean? You stir the pot, you cook it, and you create a space that's not on a question mark, but it's an ellipsis. And then people come in. You mean on this podcast I do? In general, yeah. When I'm doing podcasts, sorry, I mean obviously in the books and your-

No, no, I just- Sorry, I'm doing podcasts. I guess that's right. I haven't thought about that. Which is amazing, which I think is like another art, right? It's another art. Yeah. Which I don't really know that art Which is amazing, which I think is like another art, right? It's another art. Yeah. Which I don't really know that art,

but that's an interesting art. Well, it's weird. I think it depends on someone's background, right? So some people are very much in the sort of interview model and then sometimes it's more of a conversation. I guess I haven't thought about whether I ask questions or not. Yeah, I don't usually have, like when I prep, I

usually don't have like a list of questions. I have a list of like topics I'm interested in or things I want to get them riffing about that thing and then you see where it goes. Yeah. I hate when you do an interview and then it's clear sometimes like if they're really bad at it they'll go okay next question or the interviewer says okay next question. Or the interviewer says, okay, next question. Because it's clear, like, they're not having a conversation. They have bullet points they're trying to, so they're not present with you.

They are running you through a checklist. And it's not, well, guess what I'm saying is, what I hear with that is, the analogy is like, when you're simmering a dish, it's a concoction of a number of things and you see what smells come out when and at what point you put it in different dishes and it's a nice way to have a convo.

Have you seen Marina Abramovich's, the artist is present? Yes, I was there, I saw it. Oh, you did, you saw it in person? In New York, absolutely. What was it like? Powerful, I mean, just you can feel it in the space. What's also powerful is not just her presence

with the person, but everyone else watching it on its face It shouldn't be that powerful. It's just I mean, why have you seen that a table like this? Have you seen the ends the video series in the end? Yeah, it's the same. It's very similar but I'm saying why like in the documentary about right like people are like having like emotional spiritual breakdowns from the experience of sitting across from someone for like 30 seconds not saying anything. So stipulating that that is their experience, it's kind of that like why why do you think it's so powerful to just sit across from someone? Because how often do we do it? Yeah. And especially now with quick dopamine hits. How often do we actually

have conversations instead of monologue via voice notes? Yeah. And actually do this. That's why one of the reasons that podcast is popping, at least in person, because we're here, we're present, we're not thinking about anything else. How often do we do that in our normal life? Yeah. If you're doing it over Zoom, you could be doing two things at the same time.

Right. Or in your family life, but there's a certain energy that is, I think, primal for us that we are getting away from, and we're moving more into this digital thing, which is more siloed connection but disconnection, and there's a beauty in just being present and actually looking in the eyeballs, and it what trips me out all the time,

is if you look at the center of the eye of any animal, okay, a shark, a cricket, a snake, a bull, a human, a dog. The center, same color. Black? Black onyx, what's that about? Yeah, I don't know what that is. Me neither, but I think it's a window of the soul. It's a suggestion. What about a goat?

It's a square, it's weird. But it's black. Yeah. Like in the center is black, it's always the same. And what does that mean? What's that suggestion. What about a goat? It's a square. It's weird. But it's black. Yeah. Like in the center is black. It's always the same. And what does that mean?

What's that onyx about? I think that onyx is the universe looking through these eyes out of us. And when we connect onyx to onyx, there's something that happens in our bodies. I wonder if she did it again. Cause like, if I'm remembering, I didn't see it in person, but I saw the documentary.

Like people are kind of on there like flip phones and stuff. Like, I wondered if she did it now. I forget what year't see it in person but I saw the documentary, like people are kind of on their like flip phones and stuff like I wondered if she did it now. I forget what year she did it in but it was 15 years ago. Yeah so like not quite pre smartphones but close to right and I wonder if it would actually be even more powerful now because we are even more disconnected than we were then. Man, I just saw something on Instagram of these young men, 22 year old, analyzing text messages from women. Yeah. And talking about how they should be interacting

over text messages. Yeah, the whole game of like how to get good at dating apps or whatever. Emoji or not, or what? Yeah. And I'm thinking, wow, you're not hearing the tone of voice. Yeah. You're not seeing the facial reaction.

You're not smelling the femurones. We are removing so many pieces of connection. So what happens when we bring that back? It's gonna be like an incredible drug. Yeah. stories and fables that would capture your imagination and you couldn't wait to see how they would unfold and now when you read them as an adult you think some of these old tales could use a fresh spin. We have a perfect podcast to bring you the stories you remember, remix and reimagine for the kids in your life today. Join me DJ Fuse and my trusty turntable, Baby Scratch, as we spin up new tales in the new

kids and family podcast, Once Upon a Beat. Wondry and Tinkercast are bringing you a jam-packed, music-filled weekly party where hip-hop and fables meet. It's Once Upon a Beat. Follow Once Upon a Beat on the Wondry app or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen to Once Upon a Beat early and ad free right now by joining Wondry Plus in the Wondry app or Wondry Kids Plus in Apple Podcast.

Once Upon a Beat. Once Upon a Beat. Remember those stories and fables that would capture your imagination and you couldn't wait to see how they would unfold. And now, when you read them as an adult, you think some of these old tales could use a fresh spin. We have a perfect podcast to bring you

the stories you remember, remix, and reimagine for the kids in your life today. Join me, DJ Fu, and my trusty turntable, Baby Scratch, as we spin up new tales in the new kids and family podcast Once Upon a Beat. Wondry and Tinkercast are bringing you a jam-packed, music-filled weekly party where hip-hop and fables meet. It's Once Upon a Beat! Follow Once Upon a Beat on the Wondry app or wherever you get your podcast.

You can listen to Once Upon a Beat early and ad free right now by joining Wondry Plus in the Wondry app or Wondry Kids Plus in Apple Podcast. Once Upon a Beat. When we go back to indigenous cultures and their social technologies of connection, there's some really powerful, incredible things that can elevate conversations and spaces because they're so ancient and they work. Sure. Just being in the same room together is the exception, not the rule these days.

Oh, I mean, there's a power there too. In the Zoom room, there's a, you know, like asking is it good or bad is not such a good question. The question is what are we doing about it? How are we taking responsibility for it and how are we shaping the future through our actions now? It's a better question. You know, because in the Zoom room, if we had 30 people here,

you, me and these people are seeing each other close, everyone else would be further progressively. But in the Zoom room, I can see 30 people like here. And we can have a communal experience, all of us close up, which is a physical impossibility. That's pretty cool. It's weird if you've ever been like on a talk show with a live audience, that's a weird vibe

because you're having the conversation, it's face to face, but then there's this other thing over here which is distracting, but there's also the energy of a hundred people, right? Like paying attention, so it's kind of the stakes are high and then almost invariably there's cameras, so there's also the, this is live fucking television people, you know Who do you play to when you're in that situation? Ah

I think you're not playing to the camera the host or the You're trying you're kind of trying to do a little bit of all of them You want to be locked in but when you walk out on stage you first acknowledge the audience So that's there and then you know, there's another audience on the other side. And then, and then you have to do this conversation. And then the weird part too is like, I mean this one, so right, like you didn't quite know when we started or not. And we could adjust that. We can settle into it. We have an hour or however long. There's something about like walking on and going,

you've got four minutes to have a real conversation and that's like, there's a high wire act to it. Oh, it's like saying you got a tweet. Yeah. Put it in a tweet. 280 characters. What's lost from that? I remember sitting with my grandfather in the park and spending all this time together.

And I remember him harassing me saying, Topaz, I'm 47. Yeah. So this is like 1995, four. Like Topaz, what are you doing talking on the phone? Yeah. Well, I'm talking to my friend. No, Topaz, I'm 47. So this is like 1995, four. Like, Topaz, what are you doing talking on the phone? Well, I'm talking to my friend. No, Topaz. You use the phone to set a time to meet your friend in the park. Right? That's what you use the phone for. And this is back in the day when the phone was da-da-da-da-da. You know, you had to hit the thing and wait, and then you're rushing too, because you want, you know, if you go

to any 20-year-old, they have no idea what this means right but you remember that my grandfather was like you don't talk on the phone you talk in the park you make arrangements on the phone yeah and now we don't even talk on the phone they're just a lost art and there's a lost and the thing is that is that we we're losing an emotional experience well i was reading about someone they were talking about this the other day and it made me think of my childhood. They were talking about like how rare it is to just go be bored with someone. Because now you would only, you don't schedule like, hey, I'm just gonna come over to your house

and we're gonna figure it out, right? You're like, you and I are setting a Google calendar alert. We're gonna meet at this place and we're gonna do this pre-selected exciting activity, right? It's not, I'm gonna go over to your house and we're going to do this pre-selected exciting activity, right? It's not, I'm going to go over to your house and we'll just wing it. And by that, I mean, we'll be bored together, you know, like I haven't been bored with a person maybe outside of a plane or like in the back, you know, in

the green room before I'm about to go on stage in a while, right? Because you have a phone. Ten years ago, I had one of the most informed experience of my life, which was on the western slope of Colorado, spent a lot of time with cowboys and ranchers, pushing cattle, super happy time. Did that for a period of three years on and off. It was incredible. And I was working on making a film.

And I found that there were these moments where you're standing there and you're in conversation talking about whatever, and then it would just stop. And there would be a pause for maybe a minute, two minutes. And at first the New Yorker, because I spent a lot of time in New York, I was just uncomfortable like, oh shit, does this mean I got to leave now? Like are they telling me to leave? Like what's happening? And I realized, no, just there's a law.

Be here. And I remember when I brought the actor in to spend some time, he was so uncomfortable with the pause. I said, no, no, no, we're being. And we're seeing what emerges. We don't have to force. And that was a reminder of something that I forgot about. I heard someone say that to someone once. They were like, you know you don't have to fill the silence.

You know, like this isn't like an unpleasant, awkward thing that you have to alleviate us of it's actually more enjoyable than you talking to be perfectly honest, but like you know like but just the idea that like hey like Let it have its peaks and valleys and its lulls You know you don't have to carry this bring comes back to the marina of bronze where we're just Being not doing yeah where we're just being, not doing. We're not speaking, we're being. And there is a vulnerability in that

because we so quickly are doing to avoid being. Yes, that's right. And so there's a richness there, but what's the flip side of the richness is it's vulnerable. It's a little scary, it's a little uncomfortable. But what you put in, you get out. So that's why if you feel that like, oh great, let me sit in that.

Well, I think that's what happens, right? There's a couple of scenes in that thing where people like a woman sits there and then she just like bursts into tears. There's obviously some, it's not like some new emotion. It's that that emotion was there and she, the busyness of life and the noise of life and the lack of human connection was keeping that

just at bay enough that 20 seconds, but just barely, 20 seconds of silence was all it needed to break through the surface and go, this is what you're actually feeling, this is what's actually going on with you. Here, deal with it. Like what's better gift than your presence and your attention yeah right there to drop in and that's something that we're not bathing ourselves in as much as we could

yeah and it's like I'm not a big believer you're talking about horoscopes I'm not a big believer in most that stuff but like I do feel like energy is real you know like people have energy I carry these magnets with me everyone okay so one TSA takes them I'll be getting another. I carry these two magnets with me and I bring them with me all the time, remind me. It's because if I bring them together and it's pulling, I can feel it, right? Sure, it repulse them. It repulse, I can feel it. But do you see anything? No. You see nothing. Right. But you feel it. Yeah. That energy you're talking about, it's around all of us, it's around us and nature. How do we illuminate it?

How do we bask in it? How do we sit in it? Yeah, you see it with dogs and animals. Clearly, you're like, why are they doing this? And there's nothing in the actual environment or world that's doing it. It's you. I'm in a shitty mood and they're picking it up.

Or whatever, right? They're misbehaving because you're anxious or you're feeling like your presence is destabilizing, right? And then you sometimes feel that when you're around someone who has good energy, you're like, Whoa, yeah, you know, you're a whoa, I'm feeling something like that. Or and then when you meet someone, every part of you is like, Nope, gotta get away from that person. That's a that's the repulsive side of it Sometimes I listen more to the voice than I hit the words

Hmm the tone and sometimes if I'm sitting next to a spiritual master I was an Indian 2001 for the hala kumbh Mela and Allahabad or Varanasi Can't remember I was get confused because it rotates between okay, and I was sitting You know in the presence of a Swami, a guru, and he was speaking in Punjab or some foreign language. I had no idea. And I was trying to understand. So it was just right here.

And then I realized, Topaz, you don't need to understand from here. Just meditate on the tone. Taking the tone, the tone is the mantra. Can't be, you know, that vibration. And that can later season me, of which then can later sprout. Well, it's like, unfortunately,

because America is a very English focused country, and then the world is sort of reflexive of our popular culture, but this is how songs get popular in other countries, even though they can't understand it, or even if they can understand the language, the cultural references to like say country music, why is this landing in India or Norway,

which is like totally different, like the cultural background there shouldn't translate, but somehow the energy, the vibe, I think it's great that the word vibe has become, because vibe and like vibe's almost a better way to say energy, the vibe. I think it's great that the word vibe has become, because vibe, like vibe's almost a better way to say energy, you know? But like art communicates obviously at the literal level, but then there's this deeper sort of vibe level

that it's communicating at. And you can see how it can cross all these, why should gangster rap music land in any other country? But it does, you know, even if they're not understanding it the same way that someone who is also from this city or that city where it originates would understand, they're understanding it some vibe, emotional level. And the presence and the energy of the thing

is the main thing. I heard Trump watches cable news with the sound off. He's just watching for vibes. And you can see how that's persuasive to some people. They're just watching the dentist, you know what I mean? Like, so, so there is that there's the level that it's happening at, then this deeper level, absolutely. It's either repulsing you or connecting you and you got to figure out how you're connecting. That's yeah, probably back to Marina. It's like she's not saying anything. So that levels

off the table. But there's some deeper level not saying anything. So that level's off the table, but there's some deeper level that's communicating. And that happens a lot. So in the end, you're always seeing both faces at the same time. So what I'm sharing is that the listener, it's about the connection. And you get more from watching the faces

respond to each other than about what they say. In the end, you can always pass on any question, but that's really valuable. Because you're seeing both faces and they say, ooh, all right, let's talk about that at home. But they're responding and there is an incident you can see the conversation happen about what could be, but the exchange is still happening,

even without the articulation. And there's one in your conversations, you can watch one with the sound off and know what's being said and how it's going. Or it's not even said, it's what's being exchanged. You tell yourself, I love you, I trust you, but the tone and the facial is actually the opposite. Right?

And actually, when I started doing the end, whoever's editing myself, because I watch so many, I mean, I became so good at the micro gestures. Just picking up everything, right? Become hyper-attuned to the interactions. And unfortunately, I can't control my own, but I can pick up on everyone else's. Or I can watch a couple of them go, ooh.

That's fascinating. Yeah, it's fascinating. Yeah, you get your hours in. Yeah. You wanna go check out some books? Sure. Hey, it's Ryan. Thank you for listening to the Daily Stoic podcast.

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