WeAreNotRobots
[00:00:00] Cameron Watson: And that ability to not pass judgment on what comes out of their mouth is a future invitation for them to share more news with you.
[00:00:11] Kyle Jetsel: Great,
So I’ll start with this question, Cameron.
[00:00:16] Cameron Watson: Okay. The
[00:00:16] Kyle Jetsel: question is, why are people so easily offended?
Maybe that’s not the question. Let’s think of another another way to approach this. I guess
[00:00:29] Cameron Watson: I’ll tell you why people are offended because they’re offending because they’re about her offending because they’re stupid.
I think I covered them all. You just offended everybody. So honestly, though, I think the reason people are easily offended is because they assume that the other person is like themselves and are uncaring. It’s actually those who take offense easily are generally, and there’s a difference, by the way, in my opinion, from being hurt, having your emotions hurt and being offended.
And you can have your feelings hurt and not be offended, and you can be offended without having your feelings hurt. I can, agree with people who are, yeah, so people who are offended the, they think the worst of others because they themselves are not doing great in, in life, in my opinion.
[00:01:29] Kyle Jetsel: So they might, so what you’re saying, I’ll rephrase this in a nutshell.
They’re projecting the way they see the world on other people and the other people, I think that’s right, may have different how did you put it? Motives. And they might think their motives are similar to the, their own, the other people’s motives are similar to their own. I’ll give you an example of
[00:01:55] Cameron Watson: this is interesting
[00:01:56] Kyle Jetsel: because one of the, one of the most interesting things I ever had happened to me was, you know, I used to way back when, before I had kids, I would see.
And I was married and my, maybe my kids were a little bitty, I would see other kids acting up and I would, you know, because I didn’t know any better, I would kind of pass judgment on the parents and say, what kind of parents are those people? Right? And right in my mind, I never said anything. And I, tried not to look at people cross.
I didn’t wanna, you know, but that was what was going on in my mind. Right. And then when my kids. Came along and we’re acting crazy in public and I saw somebody just glance at me. I thought they were judging me and it was because I’m guessing that was how I saw them back in the day. Now what became really interesting was the minute My, my more severe son on the spectrum came along and he was completely out of control.
Crazy. And I realized that I couldn’t care what other people think if I was going to serve him properly. So I pretty much, if somebody stared at us when he was having a meltdown in public, I didn’t care. I just, I didn’t. I had too much, my hands were too full with my own son to care what other people were thinking.
Right. And interestingly enough, that was about the time that I realized when I saw other kids misbehaving, I had no judgment myself. The minute I stopped, the minute I stopped judging other people, I didn’t feel judged. Right.
[00:03:41] Cameron Watson: That is interesting. Yeah. And you know, I think It’s interesting because you changed my mind.
I was going to say, that maybe it’s even a little deeper than that. Those who think they can understand someone else’s motivations can get offended easily. But based on your story I don’t, think that’s true because you probably still think you can understand the other person’s motivation. I have more, I do have
[00:04:11] Kyle Jetsel: more, but yeah, I look at them differently.
And I tell myself, you know, I don’t really know what’s going on over there. I mean, they could be the perfect parent and have a child like my son who was completely out of control. And I’m not saying I was the perfect parent, but they could be. Yeah, I wasn’t, but I was so wrapped up in, in helping him.
I just didn’t care. I didn’t feel judged anymore because I didn’t care if they did. I just didn’t care if they did. I wanted to, put my attention on him and helping him and I didn’t feel judged anymore. Right. And I don’t know what comes first, the chicken or the egg, because I didn’t feel judged, maybe I wasn’t so judgmental or maybe because I decided, you know what, I don’t know what’s going on with them.
I know what’s going on with me and it ain’t easy. And I don’t know what’s going on with them. So I’m not, I don’t, I’m not going to judge them. And maybe that was made me, feel not judged either. Right. And I, just didn’t, and maybe not feel judge is not the right word. I just didn’t care if they did or not.
Right. I didn’t have time to focus on their feelings about me or what I assume their feelings were. I had to focus on my son. And maybe that’s kind of what you’re saying too is, if you’re working at something, Why be offended? You’re working at it. Maybe you know, right, that you don’t care if they’re looking at you weird because you’re working at it.
Are you trying to figure it out? You know, I don’t know. It’s I also have this other thought in my mind, which is if somebody offends me, if I feel like somebody hurt my feelings or offends me, and I don’t really get offended much. But I think, why am I offended? What is it about me that I need to fix so that I don’t, so that I feel like they can’t hurt me, you know what I’m saying?
So I’ll get it from that perspective. Like if somebody upsets me, I go, why did I let them upset me? Why did I let them upset me? Maybe it’s something I need to work on because they’re upsetting me and I really shouldn’t let people I don’t know, upset me. Or what, do I need to figure out about myself that I’m don’t lack confidence in or don’t understand or, and it helps me, you know, like you said to not really, you don’t want to, we don’t want to apply motives to other people’s actions.
And that’s our first, that’s really the first step in the whole process. But stepping away from it and saying, okay, if somebody is able to hurt my feelings, then I have some lack of confidence in some area, or I’m not trying hard enough, or maybe I need to figure out something I can fix or so that next time somebody says it, I’m not offended or hurt by it.
Cause I’m trying.
[00:07:05] Cameron Watson: One of my teachers Craig Impey in high school had this quote and he said, those who take offense when offense was not intended are fools. Those who take offense when offenses intended are bigger fools. And I just love that quote, you know? Yeah. I’ve got another, I got another quote for you.
Okay.
[00:07:28] Kyle Jetsel: And I’m pulling it up on my desktop cause this is one I heard that I thought was fantastic. Those who boast about being brutally honest. Are usually more brutal than honest.
[00:07:40] Cameron Watson: Ooh, that’s really cool. I was watching a YouTube clip. There’s a, gal on YouTube and man, I wish I had a better memory.
She she is on the spectrum and she works as a technician or a therapy technician for others on the spectrum. And she describes herself as the one who can bridge the gap because she. Is on the spectrum. She has autism spectrum disorder and she works with those who are more severe, but she totally relates to them.
And she puts out these YouTube clips all the time. One of my favorites was, about being brutal, brutally honest. And she said, listen, if you’re compul, it’s okay to be honest. But it’s not okay to be brutal. So you need to figure out how to be honest without being brutal. And she gave some great examples just really quick.
And it was a minute long clip, just well done. And she also did this other one on how to help remember to take your meds. And it was such a genius little technique that she had. And I’ve been following her for. A few months now and she, every one of her little, videos usually deals with. Hey, if you’re, neurotypical, this is how to translate and interpret what’s going on.
If you’re not neurotypical, this is what’s going on. And she’s able to understand both motivations or innate needs. And that also helps probably her not ever get offended.
[00:09:31] Kyle Jetsel: That’s interesting. There’s two things I’m thinking about now. What is this? Is, you know, there’s this saying in the autism world that if you’ve met one person with autism, you’ve met one person with autism, right?
Yeah. I’m not offended by the idea that somebody could be a bridge, right? I, that’s, I like that. That’s interesting to me. That seems like that could make perfect sense. To me, right now, there are a lot of people that would say, yeah, but she’s one person if she thinks she’s like the hundred thousand other people, there’s no way she’s a bridge because she is one person on the spectrum.
There’s no way she can call herself the bridge between neurotypical and there’s no way, right? And I’m grinning because. When we do that, we close the door to opportunities to learn, right? We say, no, not me, not my situation. That won’t work for me. My situation is different and completely unique. And by the way, they’re right.
It’s completely unique, but you’ve just closed the door that may have. May have opportunity for us to figure stuff out, right? To understand different things, but there’s a whole world of people that would have, would be offended by her calling herself the bridge.
[00:11:09] Cameron Watson: And I don’t, think she called herself the bridge.
She called herself a bridge and that’s a big difference. It is.
[00:11:17] Kyle Jetsel: But the same people that I just described would still have the same, you know, you are right. You are absolutely correct. A bridge. But now there has to be a million bridges and I have to find my bridge exactly for me to listen. Right.
If, I take that approach and the, chances of that are very tricky.
[00:11:41] Cameron Watson: And I would say that they’re, they are correct for themselves. It is not going to work until they find me perfect bridge and poor them and their life is going to stink for a very long time. Because there is no perfect bridge except for Jesus Christ, and he’s the best advocate, and if they’re not willing to allow someone else to be a, substitute, or to stand as the lower light, one of my favorite hymns of all time is let the lower lights be burning, and it, talks about the role of Christ up here, the bright shining light, and we might not be that bright shining light, but we can be the lower light, it’s much brighter.
Amen. dimmer, but it is still useful to help people orient and get closer to Christ. Because the if they can line up the bright light with your little meager dim light, that equals safe passage. And if someone says, Hey, no, I want the brightest light and I want two bright lights, no, sorry, you’re going to, you’re going to be in a world of hurt.
As the wind starts to toss the seas, you’re going to be capsized.
[00:12:52] Kyle Jetsel: So this is a perfect segue into what I really wanted to talk about. Because what we’re going to do, what I’m going to do is, upset some people because I’m going to challenge subconscious thinking. Okay. Okay. And I’ll, and I’ll start by you and I, one of the things I wanted to talk to you about was You had mentioned your wife said something about you one time.
And what was it, Cameron?
[00:13:33] Cameron Watson: She says a lot of things about me all the time. So what is it that I’m talking about, you’re referring
[00:13:38] Kyle Jetsel: to how you, are a robot with your emotions that specific. Oh,
[00:13:45] Cameron Watson: right. Yeah. So she won. She used to, yeah. She said that I’m a robot and I don’t have emotions and I definitely have emotions. I just, sometimes I can’t express them the way that she would recognize them, nor are sometimes it’s not appropriate for me to allow them to dictate any type of reaction because the situation demands emotionless action
[00:14:14] Kyle Jetsel: and this.
it’s going to get interesting. Okay. Cause my wife, I used to be accused of being cold for the exact same reasons that you just described. Okay. My wife said, you’re cold and unfeeling. And I said, no, I have emotions. I just am more conscious of how it’s just what you said. You said it beautifully.
Right? You said, sometimes my emotion that I’m feeling is not going to be productive in this certain situation. And I don’t express the emotion, right? Because I realize that’s a problem. It’s, I have that emotion. Okay. I’m not but my, me not expressing it in that moment, she would say you’re cold.
Right. And I would say, no, I’m not cold. You’re a robot. You don’t have emotions. And I would say, Of course I have emotions. And she would say no, not healthy. You’re sticking them all in a box and you’re suppressing and you’re going to explode and kill something or someone or my, and my wife knew me.
Right. And I would say, no, I’m not, I just am. I don’t want to let every emotion I have come forth freely with. Right. And, this was a battle we had for a long time. Right. And. Here’s where, it got interesting is I think I’ve told you the story at one point my wife was overwhelmed with worry for the future of our kids.
And she got out the cost formula and she realized that was a challenge and it was keeping her up at night and she wasn’t getting good sleep and she was nervous about everything they did. And she was, could she get them into the right therapies? Could she do this? Could she do that? Was she being a good mom?
Was she all of these things? I’m making a mistake here. Am I giving them what they need? All of these things were creating this world of Fear and concern and it was causing her physical problems as well as a lot of emotional problem, right? And I’ve told you one day I came home and she just had a grin on her face.
And she had taken the cost formula and created a strategy for herself. She called good versus evil. And she basically decided which emotions led her away from God and which emotions led her towards God. And she consciously made an effort. When she felt when she was challenged by the bad emotions or the emotions that were, unproductive, she made a conscious effort to, identify those and then flip the switch and focus on the opposite emotion, right?
And I even, grabbed the sheet of paper. You know obsession versus calmness, right? These are opposites of each. This is what she wrote. Worry versus comforted. These are opposite emotions, right? Doubt versus belief. Discouragement versus encouragement. Confusion versus enlightenment. These are, this is a list of emotions she made.
That she knew when she felt those emotions, when she was tempted by those emotions, they were going to run her away from goodness. And take her in a direction that didn’t lead her to happiness and joy and God. Right? And so she made this conscious decision to, and in doing so, it changed her dramatically.
Right? She became much more calm and, she wasn’t so stressed out. When things went wrong, she wasn’t so stressed out. She would just say, I’ll take care of it. And it’s not the end of the world, right? She really was very good at it. And at one point she came to me and she said, this exercise taught me something about you.
And I said, what did it teach you about me? And she said, well, what it taught me was that I was calling you cold because you were managing emotions. And I couldn’t, and it felt virtuous for me to call you cold instead of me learning how to manage my emotions. Whoa. Now this is, a kick in the face to a lot of people, right?
Emotions are so powerful in a good way.
And in a not good way. Okay. And she realized, she said, I realized you’re not cold. You’re just not just letting your emotions take over. But I thought you were suppressing everything because I couldn’t not let my emotion take over. So I thought I was virtuous because my emotions were real. You are not virtuous because your emotions were being suppressed and you were going to explode.
She said, that’s not what I learned. Yeah. She said, you don’t Fly off the handle, she said, I can tell you’re mad, but you don’t succumb to that emotion, right? And just so we all know let’s, be totally transparent here. Number one, we should all be accountable, 100 percent accountable to ourselves. And what I mean by that is.
We should give ourselves a lot of grace. Okay. Because none of us gets it right. That’s interesting. We want to be our very best at managing ourselves and our emotions and how we handle things. And so we want to be a hundred percent accountable for what we do and how we do it. But at the same time, we have to realize that we won’t be perfect with that.
We will make mistakes over and over and we will need to give ourselves tremendous amounts of grace. Okay. So a hundred percent accountability plus grace, you know, is a good, I think is a good mix, right? Because occasionally we’re going to lose it. And it’s easy for us to say failure or I messed up and I’ll never get this.
What we should be saying is that’s only occasionally, right? I’m focused on trying to be better. That’s, the grace part. I got to give myself grace.
[00:21:13] Cameron Watson: Yeah, and I like that. That falls into one of my definitions of kindness. Kindness is treating somebody with the understanding that where they are today doesn’t mean that they’re going to be there down the road.
And so if you’re kind to them, that means you’re going to give them that grace to change and to become better. And if you’re kind to yourself, you’re going to give yourself that opportunity. I love that, Kyle. If you’re going to be, if you’re going to hold yourself accountable, you also need to give yourself grace.
And I would propose that it’s actually more important to strive to become better than it is to be perfect. And the difference that we all have the natural inclinations to do things and everybody is different in how much of a burden some things are. As opposed to another, and I have relatives who are in 12 step programs for different addictions, and I’ve accompanied them, and I found it extraordinarily beneficial to myself, the 12 steps, and I wouldn’t be able to rattle them off, but a lot of the first stuff, the things that they’re trying to get, and I don’t know if this is the first step, or maybe it’s the first three, but it’s the acknowledgement that I don’t have complete control over myself, and so I need to give myself some grace, and it’s almost that acknowledgement that I can’t be perfect in overcoming this addiction, that I have to rely on an outside power, and then, thus, I You know what?
It’s okay that I’m not perfect yet, but I’m going to strive. I’m going to strive for that abstinence or whatever the 12 step program talks about. So it’s very interesting to hear you talk about it, associate it with addiction, not the emotional out outbreak, but just getting better in something that.
might feel uncontrollable to you, whether that’s a eating disorder or a drug addiction or alcohol or sex or gambling. There are so many things that we all get to deal with that are different for one another. And if we can get better than we were Last month or last year, even if it’s just a small increment, that’s, pretty huge.
That’s awesome success. And when, go ahead, I see you’re about to jump in.
[00:23:56] Kyle Jetsel: Well, I think that the cool part to me about this whole thing was, and it made me start to question, you know, my wife when she, said subconsciously. You were unvirtuous because you were not an emotional being and I was virtuous because I was an emotional being and emotions are power Emotions we are built with emotions guts how God built us for us to suppress our emotions is God what God gave us is not good, right?
That was her original thought But then when she came back and she said, wait a minute, I’ve turned something that I should be working on into a virtue for me and a vice for you. Right? And I didn’t even think about this. It crossed my mind. I’m just trying to do my best. You know I’m not at all, but it made me start to question.
What are the things? And by the way, this is hard for, this is going to be hard to hear. This is going to be hard to hear for some people. And that’s why when you said that, when you said what you said, I thought, wow, that is so familiar to me with my wife. Cause she used to claim that too. Right. Until he came to these conclusions and, what it made me do is say, what in what areas am I picturing a virtue in myself?
Because I’m shaping it a certain
[00:25:31] Cameron Watson: way. Can I share one of those that I had? Yeah. So my I have two older brothers, Brian and Eric. And I looked up to them, you know, literally in for a long time and then I passed one of them as far as height goes, but in life I was able to watch the way that they were choosing to live life and I admired different parts of it.
My oldest brother, Eric, he took such great care of things. I remember he had a pair of gloves and he kept them nice for years and I would lose them. I’d be like, where’d my gloves go? Right. Anyway. So I looked up to him for a long time. My, second oldest brother, Brian looked up to his ability to be a leader.
He was extraordinarily fun loving. But also driven by moral virtue and that combination of moral fun is something I’ve just never gotten down. It’s one of the things I admire about you. You have moral fun, you know you, enjoy and embrace things that are fun. As long as no one’s going to get hurt too bad, it’s legal.
Ethical, right? Whatever the
[00:26:46] Kyle Jetsel: moral ethical and nobody gets hurt too bad.
[00:26:49] Cameron Watson: Yeah, there you go. Right. Even if too bad means stitches or butterfly bandages across the forehead. Right. By the way, if you haven’t listened to that story, go to one of our previous podcasts, Kyle talks about hilarious. Anyway, I, when I got married, I was the first one to get married and there was a little bit of me that was satisfied that.
This was pretty much the first thing I had done before my brothers had, my brothers went to college before I did. They both served missions before I did. And so I was the first one married. And then I was the first one to have kids. And there was a little bit of that satisfaction. I wouldn’t say pride because it didn’t, you know, it wasn’t like, it was like, ah, you know, I guess I’m on my, I’m now doing something that my brothers haven’t done.
And then as I started having more kids, I was satisfied with one. My wife wanted a large family, so we had another seven. And as I raised them, I would watch how much effort my brothers would put into trying to get their kids to do things. They would, they, they expended a ton of energy trying to. Get them to behave a specific way or to do certain things and I was this was years ago before I learned Okay, I looked at it and I was like, wow, you know I am so glad that I’m able to chill out about things that just aren’t that important and Not force my kids to do things that are that hard that aren’t that important.
Okay, then My life became a living hell by definition and That I looked at how I had not prepared my kids to do hard things Because I didn’t force them to do Anything that was hard that I didn’t feel that was that important Yeah, so then when things that hit that were important that were extraordinarily hard, they didn’t have any muscles for it And I actually remember sending my brother and my sister in law a text.
This was in the middle, I think we had two broken backs by that point, three heart surgeries, no, two heart surgeries. Cancer diagnosis, lung abscess, six surgeries for my wife. My nephew had committed suicide. My son had been in the hospital at least three times by this point. And I really, this is where I started learning that you can’t remove stimuli from life to help, someone get better.
I remember sending my brother, Brian and his wife, Tara, a text. Just thanking them for their example of helping their kids learn to do hard things simply because it was hard and by, in reality, I think everybody would admit that what they were trying to get their kids to do wasn’t that important for their lives.
Being able to do hard things and this is what they chose to do that if they ultimately failed at it wasn’t going to destroy their lives, but they wanted them to get used to doing hard things. I had never done that. So my oldest four kids are all affected by the early years of where I was virtue signaling in internally, like what you described in my heart, I was satisfied or a little.
Prideful that I wasn’t forcing my kids to do these hard things that I didn’t think were that important and I would look at them and go, wow, all that effort all that time. Well, you know what their kids are were far more prepared for difficult and hard things in life, knowing that they could overcome them because they had a pattern of doing hard things.
I, on the other hand, had to learn to start to. Help my kids do hard things in the middle of crisis. And that is not when you want to learn how to do. So for me what a, great opportunity to reflect back and see that was one for me. And it was, it’s only a couple of years old now, right? I want to go look at my texts and see when I sent it to them because it wasn’t that long ago when I had that aha moment that I thought I was doing it the right way and they were really spending a lot of extra energy that wasn’t needed.
And yet, you look at their kids know how to do and overcome hard things. And I wish I had done that for my oldest three. Or oldest four. That’s awesome. The oldest three. Anyway, I wish I had done that for the oldest four. What’s funny is my youngest four, they know the difference. I’m making them do hard things.
And I still talk about it. I’m still kind. But I’m not going to continue to let the grass grow under their feet. And make them think that life is a bed of roses and they don’t ever have to do hard things because they will have to overcome hard things and adversity. Anyway, that’s one example from my life where I, had it wrong in my head and I was taking pride in something that was actually Advice.
It wasn’t a good thing to my kids.
[00:32:32] Kyle Jetsel: Here’s, the interesting question we have to ask ourselves after these conversations, right? Where are we delusional? What? Right. I mean, you know, where, because we’re all going to be still figuring this out till forever, you know? Sure. And I’d rather, listen to a podcast and have somebody tell me about their experience and how they suffered and then apply it, you know, right.
And say, You know what? There’s some truth in there. I think I’m going to go to work or I need to pay attention to this and watch carefully or right. And I’ll share one of the areas. I think I had a, an, a moment that was very much like that for me to Cameron is I had a good friend of mine who had some older sons that were doing some really terrible things.
They were getting a lot of trouble. And this friend of mine, I really liked him. He was a good man. I could see him struggling. And I came across a book and in that book, it said, it, it kind of explored the idea that if you make too much money, it can, hurt your kids. Because you start buying your way out of problems and solving problems with money.
And as I read this, I started thinking of my friend and I’m like, wow, you know what? He could really use this information. Right. And so I thought, how do I get this information in his hands without being, without saying, Hey, yo, bro. The kids are jacked up. You make too much money. You’re buying your way out of the crowd.
I didn’t want to say that. And I didn’t know the details of his life, but it was mirroring this. Right. And I thought about it different ways. How can I get it in his hands? And I thought, well, he’s just going to say, that’s not that. No, that’s not my issue. Right. That’s not me. Yeah. And so I, didn’t ever present the idea to him.
Right. And, and so I didn’t, I kind of let it sit for a little while, but it was on my mind and it kept going on my mind and I went back and read it again. Right. And the second time I read it, I tried to read it with an open mind. And read it a different way. I don’t know why I just went back and said, I need to read this again, but I need to read it.
Not thinking about my friend. Right. And then I read it again and I thought, man, this is hard. I’m glad it’s not me. I don’t have this problem. Right. Yeah. And in that moment I had this aha, wait a minute. I just said he wouldn’t accept the information because he would say I don’t have this problem and I just reread it and I told myself I don’t have this problem.
I’m him. You know what I’m saying? I just identified myself as the guy that I was saying is a knucklehead for not reading this because he’s going to say he doesn’t have the problem. I’m a freaking know it all. Right. And it made me change it. I said, you know what, I’m going to apply some of the principles they talk about in this.
I don’t make as much money as that guy, but I make more money than some guys. Right. And, why not apply some of this stuff to myself right now? And what it did for me was really interesting. It helped me to start. Whenever I saw something that I thought could help someone else, I thought before I share it with them, I’m going to do it myself.
Because, the idea that this would help them, but I don’t have that problem is really kind of a an awkward way to try to be improving yourself. Right. Yeah. And so anytime I would, read about a subject and it would remind me of a friend or I would always go, okay, now that it’s reminded me of a friend, I need to turn all my fingers and pointed right back at me and say, if it’ll help my friend, it’ll help me no matter my situation, I need to dive in, dig in a little deeper and, focus on me.
And how I could write and it kind of opened up a new world to me of, you know we all, listened to a lot of stuff and we read a lot and we were always trying to get better. But we go through these times. I think when we hit plateaus, right? And I don’t know. I’m sure this has happened to you. You read book after book after book And then you start feeling like you’re reading the same crap over and over again. And you’re like, is there nothing new? Right. Is there, I mean, it’s a different slant on the same stuff and you kind of plateau and it feels like you’re not really advancing sometimes, you know, and I think that is when I think it’s time for us to say, okay, and I, liken it to, you know, playing, let’s say you’re playing tennis, right.
And you learn how to do a forehead, you’ll learn how to put your feet and you’ll learn how to swing and you learn how to. You know, make contact. And at what point, what part of the racket you should hit on the ball? And should you hit it in front of your body or behind your body, right? All these little things you learn and you practice over and over and then you get to a point where that practice becomes monotonous. And in that moment is the time when you should say, okay, now I’ve got to apply it into my life, into my game. Right, right. To practice this, I need to play a game and let this be a part of my. It should be, you know, like we talked about basketball, it should be my core, right?
It’s time for me to take this information and make it part of my core. And so when I’m going to plateau, it’s time for me to take all that information I got and apply it to my life and make it part of me. And apply it in my life specifically. And then maybe I’m going to find something new or different.
But, now when I get to a plateau, I’m like, okay, I’m going to plateau. What is it I need to apply that I’ve learned that I haven’t quite applied? You know, what exercises do I need to do to strengthen this these, new learning muscles? But always be on the lookout for those extra things. Right. And challenging ourselves to say, you know, like you said, it’s a virtue for me.
It’s a vice for someone else. You know, because it’s, easy to do that. Right. I got this part figured out. And that’s, the, nail in the coffin. Right. Well, I got this part figured out. That’s the nail in the coffin. That’s when you’re in trouble.
[00:39:42] Cameron Watson: So I don’t, think I’ve, Ever felt like I’ve plateaued and maybe it’s because you and I approach things differently.
Generally speaking, my, my list is infinite. It grows longer before I can correct stuff. So I have things that I’m working on and I have had times where I’ve had a, where I’ve paused in one area of my life because something else had to become a bigger focus. And it’s not that I plateaued.
It’s that something, there was something more important or something I chose to focus on. And so I, usually. I’m very limited in what my focuses are. In other words, I don’t try and eat an elephant in one bite. I, don’t even try and, you know, I don’t even cook up an elephant. I’m like, can someone else prepare that thing for me and serve me a plate, please?
I don’t, I’m not going to try and tackle it. And but a few times in my life, I’ve realized that what I was focused on wasn’t what was most important for my growth and the. One, one time it was, let’s see, Mary was two. So this had to be close to 20 years ago. I had gotten out of the, I had gotten out of the habit of engaging at church and, I simply would avoid engagement.
It’s not that I felt like God didn’t exist or anything like that. I still believed in God. I, you know, if people would pray, I would participate. If they asked me to pray, I participate, but I wasn’t, growing spiritually, but I was focused in on these other areas. I was trying to focus in on finances and stability, for my family and all of these things that I thought were important.
And I realized that. I had, because I don’t multitask, I untask, but I switch as I need to. I had stopped engaging with gospel or spiritual things. I decided, you know what? I’m gonna make spiritual things, my focus. And so anytime an opportunity came up, I said yes, spiritually. And so the question was, will this help me spiritually?
Automatic, yes. If it didn’t help me spiritually, then I would weigh it. and choose whether or not I was going to participate. And I experienced a huge upswing in growth. And what was interesting, Kyle, is with that focus and that huge upswing, the rest of my life followed. So I was focused in on one area, but the rest of my life really did improve.
And then I got to a point where I was Things were turning, things were going well. I was saying I was engaging in all aspects. You could call me at two o’clock in the morning to come in and minister to the sick and the afflicted. I would be there. No hesitation. And people knew they could count on me. So I got into a nice rhythm.
Then I started dealing with other things in life, made that a focus and it didn’t harm or take away from the spiritual aspect. It just. I didn’t have to expel as much energy towards the spiritual side. So some people might call that plateauing in spirituality, and I would absolutely disagree with them. I was continuing to draw closer to Christ.
I was still improving. There were things I was trying to overcome. I was repenting. I was still progressing, but my focus and where my energy was spent was in a different spot. Does How does that fit into what you’re talking about and, plateauing and possibly, you know,
[00:43:44] Kyle Jetsel: Well I think, what you just described and maybe plateau isn’t the great word for it.
I think what you just described is, an internalization maybe of, something. Right. And I’m a, big fan of. I’ve always been the guy that pours all kinds of stuff in and then filters out what I’m focused. It filters everything out except for what I’m focused on, right? I’m a glutton for information to a point where it’s too much, right?
It’s just too much. But I feel like, you know, and we’ve talked about this before. If I go to, if I go to church on Sunday, I want to walk away with an aha moment. And so I’m listening very carefully cause I want to catch it. I know it’s there. So I want to catch it. Right. So I’m pouring in everything looking for the aha, that one moment, right.
That I can walk away with and say, okay, I’m gonna write that down in my little book and that’s something I’m going to work on. But I think what you’re talking about is you’re talking about, you’re talking about leveling up, right? You level up spiritually. And when you level up and it becomes, Internalize that is your new baseline, right?
You’re that’s
[00:45:05] Cameron Watson: what you’re talking about. I like that. Yeah That is what i’m talking about. And I guess what it is perhaps I don’t read as many books as you and so I don’t ever get satiated By the self improvement stuff I listen to a ton of podcasts and I listen to a ton or I watch a ton of videos And I read a ton of books with my ears, right?
but I usually it’s almost an instant thing is it comes in. I go important now and it’s gone. It doesn’t even, it doesn’t distract me for a moment because I live such a, you know, I have some very specific priorities and my flow chart, the way that my brain works, you know, my little bit of tism is It just flows down and moves and it goes quickly and you can throw almost anything at me and it’s all principle based.
So even if it’s brand new and I’ve never touched it before, it goes both filters out and either gets kicked out or I start to work
[00:46:13] Kyle Jetsel: on it. Right. And I think mine works a little different in that. That, makes perfect sense. And I can see how that works for you. Right. Yeah. For me,
[00:46:26] Cameron Watson: it’s the robot,
[00:46:27] Kyle Jetsel: right?
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. We have no emotions. I think we’re cold. I think for me, it’s, and this is a. This might be an area where I have what I believe is a virtue that might be a vice, right? Because I’m pouring it all in and I want the aha, right? And after you hear a bunch of stuff, aha is just I want inspiration, right?
I want a smidgen of inspiration that makes me go, right? That’s the next thing. And sometimes I don’t want that. I go to church and I don’t get that aha moment. Even though I’m pouring all kinds of stuff in and I’m not filtering, I’m listening for that one nugget and if the nugget doesn’t come or the nugget isn’t present, I’m like, where’s my nugget?
I’m in, I’m, I need a nugget. I’m looking to be inspired. I’m there listening to be inspired. I want my nugget. And for me, I think that’s what it is. You know, you it’s, maybe it’s a difference in your gold comes in flakes. And you filter all the flakes out and it turns into a nugget, right? When you weigh it all, it’s, you know, an ounce.
and I’m letting all the flakes go by focused where is the dang nugget? I’m right. And oh, interesting. Yeah. I go through these, I go through these spells where I’m like, I haven’t had a nugget in a long time. God, where’s my nugget ? You know what I’m saying? And, so I think sometimes, yeah, when I go through that, what I don’t wanna do is, say, I don’t want to say I have to be inspired by a nugget, I wanna say.
What’s going on in my life that I can focus on that gives me the juice until the next nugget comes along. Right. And so I want to go back to the basics of what I’m working on or whatever it is and try to internalize those things that I want to be part of my core. Right. It’s, going back to the throw line and the around the world over and over, you know, waiting for, you know, the jumper from 30 feet that, right.
This beautiful, I don’t know if I’ve said that well, but I think, it’s interesting that we have these different. Ways of absorbing things, right? Or finding those things that affect us. Here’s the cool part about it. What is it? Okay. I’m, watching time because we want to stay within an hour here.
Don’t we? The cool part about it is it all comes back to emotions, right? It all comes back to, I want to be, I want to be juiced, right? Seeing a hundred little tiny little flakes doesn’t throw me. I want to be thrilled. I’m the guy that I give an example. I saw a good friend of mine. At Walmart a couple of nights ago and he had his youngest daughter with him who is now 17.
He and his wife were there with his youngest daughter, 17. I said, are you a senior? And she said, yeah. And I put my hand on my friend’s shoulder. And I said, dude, you’re only like a year away from, being an empty mister. Right. And I grabbed him and shook him and I’m like, it’s so good. It’s so awesome, man.
It’s so awesome. And he was standing there like, what the crap. You know, and I was just, thrilled cause you know, he’s, his wife is standing there. He’s a good man. His wife, is a great lady. And they’re just about at a point where they’re not going to have kids around anymore. And
[00:50:11] Cameron Watson: then the focus becomes a hundred percent to them, to themselves, to each other.
Yeah. Yeah.
[00:50:17] Kyle Jetsel: Focus totally and completely on each other. And I just got all excited and thrilled and I started shaking him. Like I grabbed his shoulders and was shaking him. And in that moment I realized, I’m, an idiot. He, was wondering what the, why would you be so thrilled for that for me but that, that knowing that he gets to do that, it gives me joy like it’s a nugget.
I get to celebrate his nugget in that moment. And I’m doing it because I need nuggets. I need, right. I want to feel
[00:50:53] Cameron Watson: even if they’re not yours.
[00:50:55] Kyle Jetsel: Yeah. And that’s emotion. That was, you know, his wife looked at me like I was cuckoo. Yeah. Because, you know, I’m cold and a robot and I’m shaking him. I’m so excited.
And I’m bouncing around that to me is, was, she probably didn’t appreciate it. I don’t know if they appreciate it or not. Right. But it wasn’t about them. It was about me. It was about me. expressing excitement for what I thought would be excitement for them. Now it may not be excitement for them. Maybe they don’t want their daughter to move out.
I don’t know.
[00:51:29] Cameron Watson: Right. Well, funny story. I had a very similar experience.
I was I went to the wedding of my good friend. It was actually Will Martin, you know, Will his daughter got married. And so we were invited to the ceiling and I was so excited for him. I’m like, well, this is so awesome. And he’s like, this is so hard. I was like, what? Yeah. How is this hard?
And it just, I was celebrating his nugget. Yeah. You know, he was like, this is not a nugget. This is a dirt clod. And in reality, isn’t that good? Doesn’t that just come full circle where we think we can interpret the way other people are feeling about a situation? And that ability to miss, to miss label what someone else’s, the motivation and what they’re feeling allows us to feel, to feel not contempt, hurt.
What’s the term, what am I looking for? Offended. Sorry. Wow. Yeah. What happened there is I was watching my daughter getting the van in the, camera. I was just like, that’s interesting. She’s going to the backseat. But anyway so they can get offended. We can get offended because we give someone something that is not true.
On the bad side. And in our two cases right here, we were excited. It was good from our perspective. So we weren’t offended by it, but they might’ve been like, no, this is horrible. I’m losing one of my daughters. I love her. I’m not going to be able to, she’s going to cleave unto her husband. And I’m out because it’s Cleveland to him and none else, you know, so it’s hard to
[00:53:22] Kyle Jetsel: recognize that because, you know, I have emotions and my I have big emotions, right?
And sometimes my big emotions are nuts, right? I mean, the question becomes that. That experience with them got me closer to goodness and God in my mind. Right? Yeah. Maybe not for them. I don’t know. I thought about this all day and I’m thinking I probably should call him and say, Hey, I don’t know if I should apologize or, and he’s obviously gonna say, no, don’t apologize.
It was honest emotion. You’re excited. And you know, one of the things for me is I think, I feel. I’ll never experience that, right? I’ll never experience that. And that’s an exciting idea, and I don’t get to experience it. So I’ll be, I’m going to try to experience it somehow. And if that’s through you, I don’t, I’m not trying to offend.
I’m just excited for you. I want to feel excitement, you know, and maybe that’s the emotion that I should learn to manage better. Maybe that’s right. And that’s, the point of this whole thing is, there are emotions that I, that some, may say I’m cold and I may say, no, I managed that well. There are some emotions where they say he’s nuts.
And I would say, no, I’m expressing that emotion to its fullest, right? It’s a mix for a lot of different people, right? The question, I guess, back to the original statement, Is how do we, you know, I guess it’s up to us to figure out. Which emotions we need to, to temper and to manage which emotions should we let freely flow?
How do we do those in the spirit of love? You know, emotions are from God, right? What all of them, they all
[00:55:31] Cameron Watson: come. So here you go. Anything taken to an extreme can become a vice, except I haven’t figured out how compassion can yet, but I’m still working on that. Everything else I can get to be a vice. One of my I, Sarah and I took parenting classes when we were first married and then we took the same parenting classes after we had a few kids.
One of the things that has stuck resonated was how to respond to your children. During times of heightened emotion and that is notice I didn’t say at times of awful emotion and I didn’t say during times of great emotion during times of heightened emotion and This was by Gaylor. His name’s Galen anyway gay Lord.
No, I don’t know ball. His last name is ball. Great kid And I say kid because he’s way older than me, but he, he said, if your kid comes home and says, dad, I’m pregnant, your response should be, oh, and if they come home and they say, dad, I’ve wrecked the car, your response should be, oh, and that, that ability to not pass judgment on what comes out of their mouth is a future invitation for them to share more news with you.
Great. Great. Grand Slow. everybody out there until I know how they feel about it. I try and I fail all the time. I just failed at the ceiling of my good friend’s daughter. I try and wait for their, them to acknowledge, Hey, is this a dirt plot or is this a piece of gold? And if you can just give it time and say, Oh, and get more, then you can then say, Oh, well.
I’m excited for you, or I commiserate with you. I have compassion for you. And that invitation for future sharing is something that parents, we shut it down way too much when they come in and they say, Hey, I’m pregnant. Oh my goodness. That’s horrible. Well, what if your daughter has been trying to get pregnant for the last five years?
Right and just hadn’t told you and it hurt so bad that she had just said, oh, yeah, we don’t want kids We don’t want kids. It’s fine, but internally she’s dying every month because she Cycles and she doesn’t have that opportunity to have a baby You know and then she comes in and you from her past experience.
She said she doesn’t want kids And she says, dad, I’m pregnant and you were all, Oh, I’m so sorry, but she’s excited. You don’t know. Right. You don’t know. So allow, invite her to share more in the future by responding, Oh yeah. And then once she tells you how she feels about it, have compassion either way to try and figure out how to support her and deal with the consequences of what she just
[00:58:36] Kyle Jetsel: shared.
And that, does take. Emotional management.
[00:58:43] Cameron Watson: Yeah, I would call it emotional
[00:58:45] Kyle Jetsel: discipline. Discipline is a better word. And that’s not cold, that’s not robotic, that’s not cold, that is discipline. Because you are, you want a certain outcome. You want them to be able to talk to you about anything. Yeah, and I think that’s really where the difference is.
And maybe that’s the point of this whole thing is to. Let’s all caution ourselves on saying somebody is too emotional or not emotional enough. Right. And what I never
[00:59:16] Cameron Watson: did was I never bothered you.
[00:59:18] Kyle Jetsel: Oh, I never told. Yeah. Yeah. I never told my wife being too emotional. I knew, that wasn’t a good idea ever.
So I never said that. Right. I think there are probably people that, but, she did say you’re cold to me on occasion. Right. And that’s okay. I wasn’t offended by it. I just didn’t really know, I didn’t understand the details of it. Right. Again, thank goodness I wasn’t too offended by it. Cause I could have said that might be the other thing.
If she had said, you’re, you don’t have emotions, you’re cold. And I would say, well, you’re way too emotional. Let’s meet in the middle. I don’t think that would have gone very well for us.
[01:00:00] Cameron Watson: No, it wouldn’t have. I’ll tell you one thing. Something I did do one time when Sarah was like, you know, you just don’t feel, you don’t feel the same way I do about things.
You don’t have that emotion. It’s easier for you. Right. Yeah. She said those words. So I just I took all the boxes off the shelves and I scattered them on the floor. And I let her see the mess. I let her just see the turmoil internal. And then I immediately started boxing them back up. And I said, now, listen, I can let this stuff destroy me and not act, or I can manage to use your words or keep discipline and only have construction, constructive responses to the emotions occur.
And that might seem cold because I can’t let just a little bit of the emotion out. Because it comes out in a flood for me anyway, right? Until time has passed. And then I can show you the appropriate response based on a level that is constructive instead of it all gushing out at once. Yeah. You tell me what one do you prefer and she goes.
I prefer the robot that like, okay,
[01:01:13] Kyle Jetsel: Somehow, to work together that way. Right. It’s yeah, you’re right. It’s, and you said it best in heightened moments. That is when it requires discipline. And I think that’s really what we’re attempting to do. The, cold and robotic men out there, we’re attempting really to have some sort of emotional discipline because.
Our, a lot of our emotions are, you know, I’ll tell you,
[01:01:48] Cameron Watson: we are dangerous. We are dangerous and if we allow our emotions to control our actions, we will hurt people and do harm that cannot easily be repaired. Yes. And so I don’t care if someone perceives me as cold or robotic or emotionless. I do care. I do care.
If they avoid me, because if I lash out, I can destroy people, whether that’s verbally, physically, or emotionally, it is not a pretty sight. And so I work really hard at disciplining myself and only allowing the emotion to come out after. And
[01:02:33] Kyle Jetsel: I think you just reminded me of something my dad taught me when I was a kid and I think it’s part of this emotional discipline, right?
It’s, I remember one time I was in an argument with my brother and I said something not nice and he pulled me aside and said, you know, we’re not having that. And I said, but it’s true. It’s the truth. And it was the truth. And I said, you want me to speak the truth? Or you want me to lie and my dad in his infinite wisdom looked up a scripture and I can’t remember the scripture But you’ll recognize it and he said that which doth not edify is not of God He said your goal is not to tell the truth It’s to edify your brothers and sisters if you can tell the truth if you can edify with it So I don’t want to hear this truth crap anymore If I don’t care if it’s the truth or not, if it doesn’t edify don’t say it keep it in your mouth and don’t spit it out.
Right. And it really was a powerful thing for me that, and it’s really that, you know you, talked it, we may seem cold or robotic. But sometimes we don’t need to say what we think, right? It’s a bad idea, especially in those high teens. It’s a better idea for us to keep our mouth shut, steam a little, maybe whatever it is we do, try to be as thoughtful as we can.
You know, Shelly would accuse me. Sometimes she would say. You want to say something, don’t you? And I’d say, yeah, say it. And I’d say, I’m not saying it. And she would say, it. You’re just suppressing, you’re suppressing your emotions. I said, you know what? It’s not, I don’t, I’m not saying it. It’s not that I’m suppressing my emotions.
God, I’m ticked. And you know, I’m ticked. It’s not, I’m not saying it. I don’t need to say some things I shouldn’t even think. I sure ain’t going to say it. It’s a bad idea, right? And you’re right. Those things can do so much damage, right? Especially coming from when, somebody who’s supposed to love you says something harsh it’s, horrible.
It’s, really difficult. So let’s loop back around the two points from this whole thing are, I would suggest figure out why you were offended by something and fix you. Maybe if you’re offended by something, figure out why you’re offended. What is it about you that you’re uncomfortable with or not happy with?
It’s making you feel offended. Number one, and you don’t know what people’s motives, it may be some guy that walks up and shakes you because he’s excited for you and you don’t, you’re offended. I was excited for my friend. And number two, we’re not, we have emotions. We’re just doing our very best to be good men and have discipline.
Forgive us for our
[01:05:22] Cameron Watson: mistake. Excellent way to send us that right there. Please forgive us. We’re still working on the right amount. Give us some grace, be kind, allow us to be better next time. Because we’re trying. And if you want, ask us a week after the fact how we felt, and we’ll tell you. Because once the emotion, once the upheaval has passed, at least for me, I’m very good at expressing my words.
Sure. I just, boy, in a moment, if I let a little bit out, It’s, it can be scary and I’ve scared a lot of people in my day. So I don’t want, I don’t want to be that guy. I want to be the guy that people feel comfortable around. Yeah. All right, Kyle. Awesome.
[01:06:10] Kyle Jetsel: Cameron.