EP 112: Not My Circus, Not My Drama—Confidence Means Saying Hell No
Welcome fellow confidence crusaders, neuro nerds and success equalizers. This is your podcast, Real Confidence. I'm your host, Alyssa Dver, and I'll be sharing a bit of basic brain science, some surprising social secrets and a touch of tough love. Why? Because I believe confidence is everyone's fundamental right and choice. So let's get to it.
Alyssa Dver:
Oh, my God, do you have a friend, a relative, somebody that you would consider an important part of your world that is always boring the poop out of you? I don't mean that in a very mean way, but you know, wants to tell you all the details about family drama, things that are happening with their sister or brother in law, and mother and this, that and the other, or just stuff that is so not important. You know, I have several in my life, and some of them are family members. So in reality, can't really choose easily to get rid of them without some circumstances, right? But you know, the most benign details about, you know, where they prefer to go for their coffee in the morning, and how they take it, I don't care. And, you know, I'm giggling because, you know, I think in some ways, you might say to yourself, listen, that's very insensitive of you. Yeah, it is. And maybe I'm not being compassionate.
But, you know, with limited time, and, of course, limited attention, sometimes it's really hard to not to tell that person, you know, I mean, they don't care. Just don't care. Can we move on? And yet, you know, there's this little voice in my head that says, be patient. This makes them happy they want to share. You should feel honored to be, you know, someone they want to share with. You know, in some cases, they may not have people to talk to, or other people that are willing to listen anyway, so be the good person. Take the high road, you know, sacrifice your own patients, and just shake your head and smile and just be polite. And most of the time I do, most of the time I do now, I'll admit sometimes when I'm online with that person, I may be doing some stuff in the background, and every now and then, going, oh, really, uh huh, that old multi processing thing that doesn't really exist, I do my best.
But, you know, face to face with somebody, it's a little hard to not look just interested when you are right. So what? What do you do? Like, you know, what do you do? Do you seriously look at that person with great intent and, oh, really, I didn't know that, right? Or, you know, do you ask more questions? Do you encourage them to tell you more? So it's a profound thought, right? Because here you are suffering a little bit like, oh, you know, I can't take anymore. And yet you really want to tell that person, enough, enough. Ceci Dayenu, whatever language you speak, right? Haben stanza is my favorite in Italian, right? Enough. And I will also throw in there that sometimes I worry that I'm giving up too much, and I don't mean giving up like not being vulnerable. That's not what I'm saying. But, you know, sometimes maybe bending somebody else's ear, my husband, for example, I'm sure there's many partners and spouses that will raise their hand saying, oh, you know, they're always having to test their patience hearing the other person pontificate about a particular issue. And I think part of it is that we don't have the same emotional attachment to the issue, right? We're not in the middle of it. We are just a bystander. We are the viewer of the movie, and so, as a result, we really may not care, unless it's really, really interesting, like a good movie, but if it's just a story about so and so tote solo and so and the right?
You know, when I go to get my hair done, I always tease my hairdresser, because that's kind of like her day in a life, right? That's all she does all day long, is listen to people's family drama. And I said to her, boy, not only couldn't I have that patience, but I probably would cut their hair off, literally, in a way that just showed me my distractions. It's a good thing. I don't do that for a living. I better keep my day job, right? Yeah. Uh, in all seriousness, though, why do people need to tell us? It almost doesn't matter, right? There's a need they feel that you would hear them, that you would listen to them, that they need to get it out of their system. 1000 things I could come up with. And of course, having said that, we're not as invested in that issue. We're not as interested usually, even if we are very compassionate people, I'd like to think of myself as that. It can be really hard. You know, got a ton of stuff to do during the day, and you're like, I don't have time for this. I really don't care, and I need to move on. Right?
So the question is, what do we do? What do we do? It's always what do we do? And what do we do so that not only do you leave feeling better, but is there a way to do it so that that other person also feels better? You don't want to take away their confidence by telling them that they're just boring, that they're, you know, chewing your ear off and it's it's not a good use of your time. You don't want to say that, right? So what are we going to do? Well, you know, I'm going to take a sponsor break, and I'm going to come back fully loaded with some solutions. Stay tuned.
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Alyssa:
All right, so you've got a friend, you've got a mother in law, you've got somebody in your life that just keeps spouting irrelevancies. I don't know if that's a real word, but I like the way it sounds, so we're going to go with it. But the question is, what do we do? How do we get out of the situation or resolve a situation? Well, out of a situation is, of course, avoiding the person, and if you need to, but that may not be fair or reasonable. You know, you like them otherwise, or you're related to them, whatever the case may be. So, you know, avoiding them, not a good solution in this scenario. But you know, when, when those conversations come up, you can be very polite and tell them, hey, you know, I love hearing about this. I just, I'm on a really tight deadline today, and I've only got five minutes. Can you either tell me quickly or maybe another time, you know? And I think the key in that is to show that enthusiasm that, yeah, you really do care about them, but it's not a good opportunity right now to talk about something like that. So that's kind of the top of the list solution. But there's other things that you can do as well. You can not so much avoid them, but carve out the time that you can afford to let them spout and so, for example, I hope they're not listening to this, but I have a couple of friends I usually only call when I'm in the car. Why? Because while I'm driving, I have a little bit more time. I don't have to be fully focused, so to speak on the conversation because I am driving and yada yada, and so I will call them because I know what they're going to tell me isn't going to necessarily be the most exciting. But, you know, maybe I want to check in with them, remind them about something, or plan something in the car. They go off on a tangent about something that's not so important. It's not so terrible for me. So that's one thing to think about, is their time, maybe at night, after work, or again, commute time. Maybe it's better to text them and say, you know, I really want to talk, but I don't have time until the weekend, right? So be mindful that this is a person that tends to eat your time up with something that's not going to change your world, and you're going to put them in a place where it's not so painful, right? So reserve boring time right now, yeah, you could not answer their calls.
You could be a little bit more disciplined about when you take their calls, in that regard too. But again, I think especially if it's a friend or somebody that you really do care about you just don't love dealing with this is to let them know that you don't have time now, but you would love to connect with them another time. Now, here's the funny thing, by the time you connect with them, that drama, that issue, may not even exist, they'll find somebody else's ear to chew off. So telling them that you still care is really important, right? Giving that sense of belonging, that they matter, that they're you're, you know, giving them that confidence, not ignoring them, not pushing them away so that they feel lousy, but giving yourself the permission to say I just can't talk right now. Alright, sounds so easy, I know, but I'm as guilty as you are, I'm sure, and sometimes we just don't exercise that compassion and permission for us to process these things that make us feel better in the end, rather than sitting there and going, Oh, I can't believe I let her chew off 10 minutes of my day, right? Alright, I'd love to hear your feedback on this always. Please give me a shout out if you have some other examples or ideas. And for now, just want to thank you for being part of my world.
Before we totally wrap up, I want to let you know that full transcripts and show notes for this and other Real Confidence episodes can be found on www.AmericanConfidenceInstitute.com/podcast. I also want to remind you once again that the best way to get confidence is to give it to others, and you can do it just by liking and sharing this episode on your preferred podcast and social media channels. You can even give me some confidence by noting topics you'd like me to consider for the future. So for now, this is Alyssa Dver. Thank you for helping to bring more confidence to the world.
Master editing done by Ben Weinstein with original music performed and composed by Jeff Mitchell. Real confidence is a production of American Confidence Institute. All rights reserved.