Have a difficult conversation with an individual – AUDIO NSFW
Well, welcome to Sunday Sermon motherfuckers. It’s time to get started. Today’s Sunday Sermon is on reviewing your relational network. Let’s go back to high school, middle school, even college, you just gravitated towards certain types of people. In many ways, you naturally gravitated towards different groups of people within the 12-month calendar year, especially in those more formative years of middle school and high school.
I remember the trends back in the days going from certain type of jeans with some sort of elastic thing at the bottom where the ankle is at, towards straight leg jeans, to there’s this real cool thing with flared out, and then there was another one that came that was like a stovetop. Some of y’all motherfuckers don’t know what I’m talking about. But when it came to jeans styles man, I was very much on point.
Stovetop pants, bitches. Man, then you go to the Ralph Lauren period and you’re sagging that shit. Got to have more fuckin’ pant leg at your ankles that actually up—yeah! Those stovetops, guys.
Man, I was very much very much a part of jean culture. Here’s the thing though. I don’t have any style now. I’ve never really had style. I just watched patterns. I just see shit happen. You know I tried to participate a couple times in the jean culture and it just it didn’t work out. Actually, to be quite frank, I had a moment last year where I was wearing some… Trust me, the jeans that I was wearing ain’t nothing to ride home about. These are your basic ass Levi’s jeans. A little too short because I wear it at my waist. It’s an interesting idea for some of you young bloods up in here. But actually wearing your pants at your waist is like it’s a thing.
I was in the airport, I was in that the Atlanta Airport and I lose two things more than anybody else. I lose sunglasses and I lose ear buds, earphones because I’m travelling all the time. There’s a 25% chance when I go to a city, I’m probably gonna be leaving something there. It’s probably gonna be headphones, a cord, charger, sunglasses too. That’s why I have a shit ton of sunglasses that I all got for free.
Anyway, I was in the store because I had recently lost some headphones. I wanted to get some more and I was talking with the guy big motherfucker.
See? I don’t need a fuckin’ store. I’ll let you guys do whatever you want. Take our logos, sell them, take our products. Sell and take our videos. Rip them. Use them.
We got one guy who’s in discord who does that—Corey. Is he here today? Corey took all of our shit and ripped it into podcasts. I said, “Bro, do it. Take the money. You earned it. You understand the goal, guys. The goal is he’s putting in that work and he’s gonna make money re-syndicating all our shit into podcasts. Good! I hope you make a fuck ton.
Apparently, according to the podcast statistics, podcasts are only going up. I hope that he makes a lot of money. But he’s spreading the message. He’s spreading the gospel, guys. He’s spreading the gospel so I don’t care if you make money off of me spreading the gospel. Do it. Because that’s why I’m giving it to you, guys. So that you guys can use what I got, the little that I got to hopefully help you get to the next place you want to go.
Anyway, I was talking with him and something got him talking about my shoes because he liked my shoes. He liked my shoes. That was it. He liked my shoes because of these Adidas air things. And I said they’re really comfortable. They help me you know with workout and all that stuff and they’re really good for on-the-go and I’m walking around all the time. I said something to the effect of well you know it’s nice because it my jeans fall well on it or something like that.
This is something that literally is something I would have said fuckin’ back in middle school. Do my jeans fall well in these kicks, bruh? Do these jeans fall well? Do I got it wrinkled? I literally said something like that. I said like well the jeans fall well on and he looked at me. This is a brother okay? He looks at me straight in the eye. He goes, “Bro, no those jeans… nah…” I was fuckin’ mortified guys! I was fuckin’ mortified! You have no idea!
I looked at this brother and I was like, damn bro, like you could have said, motherfucker, you ugly. And I’d be like aite. But I mean he said, “Those jeans, bruh, nah. Not like this.”
PEOPLE CHANGE
Anyway that’s just the long-winded story telling you about my jean fashion. But let’s get back to the central idea. We went into this from high school to college. You go through multiple phases. You go through multiple stages in middle school, high school, college. You gravitate towards certain people that pick up your fancy.
I had motherfuckers go through Goth periods. Do you remember that? Punk rock periods. I’d go through gangsta rap periods. I motherfuckers go through all sorts of different periods. By the way looking back at the meta-level, we’re all promoted by the mainstream media. Congratulations mockingbirds. But you naturally gravitated towards people and those people influenced who you were for good or for bad.
And I’m sure you can conjure up some stories. I’m sure all y’all can conjure up some stories about terrible situations in which you found yourself, regrettable situations in which you found yourself. And the reason you were there is because you weren’t a leader. You were a participant. And you participated with those individuals. They dragged you down. They convinced you—however they did—to be a participant in something that would never end well. But oh the laughs would get if it did.
These relationships you pragmatically, empirically, heuristically understand the power of relationships. I don’t need to talk to you about that. Like what we were talking about before one of the things I love about discord and what I’ve learned about you guys is that I get to grow that relationship with you. This is a wonderful journey and I’m enjoying every moment of it because you guys are engaging with me and actually saying what’s up.
But let’s fast-forward. You’ve changed, haven’t you? You’ve changed. You’ve changed your home. You’ve changed your location. You’ve changed your values, your morals, your principles… You’ve changed.
I don’t believe in that quote that people say ‘people don’t change’ some shit like that. Fuck that shit. You know what people don’t change? You know what that really signals to? When someone says people don’t change, what they are signalling at is themselves. They are projecting their own life.
Here’s the thing, you’d say, well, Peter, why do so many people say that then? Why do so many people say that people don’t change? Do the math. The reason that people say that is because the vast majority of people don’t change.
So you’ve changed. We don’t need to talk about the facts that you’ve changed. Well, you’ve changed your home, your location, your values, your morals, your standard, your principles. You’ve changed your life in many ways and in many ways the reasons why is because you were a participant.
I don’t think I need to spend time talking with you guys about the valuelessness of being merely a participant. All of these sermons that we’ve been talking about is about fucking taking control of your life and looking at the larger game at play and making the informed decisions to change.
We want to surround ourselves—let me just cut to the chase. We want to surround ourselves with people that really want to make you or help you be the best you. This is a sticky topic because it requires candor. It requires assertiveness and it requires initiativeness. It requires your ability to speak plainly and honestly about what has happened and why things might need to change.
Now, please take all of this with a grain of salt because I have no context to the relational dynamic and the complexes that play when it comes to you and some of the individuals that you have relationships with. I do not know of the commitments you’ve made, the promises you’ve made, the assumptions that are there, and maybe even some of the requirements that keep you in the position which you are in notwithstanding even compromises. So please take everything I’m saying with a grain of salt. But I don’t think that qualifier removes any of the value of considering some of these ideas.
You want to surround yourself with people that help you be the best you in that particular stage, in which you’re in right now.
One of the things that I was thinking about as I was considering this idea for today’s sermon is Discord chat .You guys are helping me be the better me I want to be. You guys are engaging with me. You guys are helping me see the market more clearly. You guys are my tap, my life into the community of cryptocurrency. Yes! Can we sometimes seem even in this small group like sometimes an echo chamber? Kinda, but not really.
I think there’s I think we attract a certain type of people. We attract people who are okay with just saying the dirty shit, talking about life the way it is. No pretense here. We out fucking drinking like grilling with guns, showing off his fanny pack, listening to the dogelord talk. I show you guys pictures of head shots of squirrels and chipmunks I’m fucking blowing away like motherfucking Rambo. Bitches, this is my house.
RADICAL TRANSPARENCY
But you guys are helping me be the person I want to be. And you say, well Peter, what is that? What do you want to be? Here’s my answer to you. It’s very specific. I want to be completely honest…all the time. I’ve talked about this before, so for some of you guys, this might be a replay. This Discord, this YouTube, this putting it all out there is—yes, kimchi, some people have been here since day one. Thank you, kimchi. That’s it. I don’t think a lot of people caught that, kimchi. But that’s exactly how I ended my blog post when I took the dive into this world.
My promise to you reader is that I will be radically transparent because I’m a liar, guys. I’m a cheat. I’m a swindler. I’m everything and more. Have I been honest with you guys since we’ve begun? Absolutely! Have I been that way most of my adult life? Absolutely! But I see that as one of the hardest things to do. And it’s not just how you present yourself, it’s not just what you say, it’s what you do. It’s what you do when no one’s looking.
Sometimes, not often, but sometimes I have an opportunity to talk with other young adults having children. I say young adults, these motherfuckers are like me, fucking close to 40 and shit. What am I talking about young adults? We are still young adults. What am I talking about? We’re still young adults.
Anyway, so my friend, who’s in his mid thirties just had their first kid. We got talking about how do you raise kids? I said it’s very simple. There’s three ways to raise kids. The first is ‘do as I say, not as I do’. That’s your first option. Do as I say, not as I do. I think it’s pretty obvious that that’s not a good answer.
The second way of raising children is ‘do as I say, not as I do in private’. Your kids are smarter than that. They will find out what you do in private because they’re gonna be in your home, if you’re unlucky, till 18. They’re gonna find out who you really are, Dad; who you really are, Mom. That’s what family’s for.
Family is for abject experimentation on life with some powerful way that a family unit creates is some social, familial, genetic bond. Where they saw you when you was naked, brother. They saw your little peen, aite? They brought you into this world. They saw you go through your Goth phase. They saw you go through your rap stage. They saw you going through the heavy metal then the punk rock then the Elektra, Goa, house trance, progressive house shit. And then they saw you somehow fuckin’ not kill yourself, but somehow you graduated high school. They saw you do the stupidest shit and you know what, in many cases, if you’re lucky, your parents were there to get you out of that shit when you done fucked up. That’s what family is.
Family is the idea is the object example of radical transparency and experimentation all in the same boat. They got to see you experiment your ass to the moon and back. They also saw you experiment your ass to the depths of hell and back because you were a child. You were a kid. You were a young adult. And they still love you, if you’re lucky, if you blessed.
That’s what family is. Family is radical transparency. Family is experimentation and what I hope is that some of you guys especially for those who haven’t just popped in today for the first time, welcome if you here. But if you’ve been with me for a while now, you know, that’s what I want to create.
I want to be a part of a family of radical transparency. I don’t care if you curse. I don’t care if you say racial shit. I don’t care if you say un-peacey shit. I’m just glad you’re here, sister. I’m just glad you’re here, brother. Because the only commonality that we have to have is that we believe that independent sovereignty over your own life, an independent sovereignty over your own value is one of the highest and greatest achievements that we can succeed in having in this life.
If you agree with me there, then brother, sister, I’m with you. I want to hear it all. I want us to change each other. I want us to improve each other. This is Sunday Sermon, guys! I want us to iron, sharpen, iron. I want us to in fact affect, effect each other positively and do it without censorship and do it with radical transparency. I don’t care how you talk. I’m just glad you’re talking.
Let’s just get to the end of this because I have some other ideas I want to talk about. Let’s just go straight to the meat. Here we go. My desire is to be radically transparent. I promised that to my readers in March when I told the world that I would do this. I love that I can be absolutely honest all the time. I love it. It’s wonderful I do not have to censor myself.
When I get into corporate America, I do, I still drop F-bombs. I still say fuck and I don’t wear a suit and I only wear a collared shirt. That’s as far as I’ll compromise. I wear my terrible ass jeans and my shitty ass shoes. But they comfortable guys. When you’re on your feet all day, don’t give me shit.
Surround yourself with people that improve that transparency. Surround yourself with people that you can be radically transparent with. Because when you can be radically transparent with them, they can forgive all things. Just like your parents forgave all things raising your stank-ass, your janky-ass, your golden-spoon-in-the-mouth-ass, they can forgive all things. Not like this.
You must find people to surround yourself that help you become the better you and the only way that you can become a better you is to find people that you can be radically transparent with. I get it guys. I get it. I get the value of having old friends. It’s legit. It’s great to talk about the old good old days. the Bruce Springsteen days. It’s good. I get it. I love Bruce motherfuckin’ Springsteen. Old friends are legit.
But that’s an old wineskin guys, it’s an old wineskin. You update your software. You update your phone. You update your computer. You update your dress styles. You update your car. You update things. We need to update our friends. We need to update those who are around us. We need to find people that we can be radically transparent with. We need to find people where we can be completely naked so that you can be the best you.
The only way to be the best you is allow yourself to be honest with other people thereby, helping you get over your own ego and be honest with yourself. I don’t mind sob stories. I’ve heard my fair share, behind closed doors, in multiple different mediums. I get it. I love to understand where you’re coming from. I get the sob story. You don’t need to be sob storying all the time. Now, you’re just utilizing people. But speak frankly. Be intentional and have those difficult conversations.
Do you want to know one of the best ways to be honest with yourself? Is to have this tough conversation with a friend or someone within your network or someone that you are in invariably influenced by that you know is not allowing you to be your best self. You might find that merely talking to them about how you’re not able to speak plainly in front of them might be the best thing for your relationship.
It is fascinating when I, as a consultant and as a coach on site with these clients, I will speak plainly and it’s like I have a disease and the disease is ‘brother, you bring it up shit’. It’s like yeah! Isn’t that why y’all pay me so much? Yeah, but you know… It’s like you know what? My job is to help you improve the way that you build software. That’s my job! And part of that job I have to say it’s a nasty shit.
Sometimes, I have to say literally, to manager’s face, the following words: My friend, you have a very aggressive, very aggressive engagement pattern. And unfortunately, it’s clearly seen that the way that you behave within these meetings fundamentally changes the behavior patterns of everyone else in which they no longer feel safe to share plainly about how we can improve our software development. It is important that you recognize this so that we can have conversations around how we can improve this engagement pattern.
The response is always the same. It’s always. Peter, man, Wow, I’ve never thought the way that I engage is aggressive. I don’t want to be aggressive. I look him and say, you’re right. I know you don’t. Neither do I. But we’re in Agile. Part of Agile is we retrospect. I talked with the team and I understand where their constraints are. Not merely from a technical infrastructural or architectural standpoint when we understand the relational constraints, the relational issues, why we can’t get shit done. And part of that is the way that you engage with the team. You’re a highly aggressive individual and let’s talk about it.
You say, well, what was that all about? Here you go. One of the best ways to practice the truth that you desire, one of the best ways to practice the transparency that you desire so that you can improve your life is you have to have the first difficult conversation with an individual or entity in your life about why it’s hard to work with them, why it’s hard to communicate with them, why it no longer is working, my man, why it is no longer working, my friend, why this is a burden for me now, why this needs to change?
You might find that it might improve your relationship with that individual merely because you’re finally not a hack and you woke the fuck up and you finally brought the elephant in the room and actually talked about it.
The first conversation you need to have is with yourself. Grillinwithgun says, “The first conversation you need to have is with yourself.” I agree with that. I can also see that your mind is very powerful and will talk you out of doing it. Sometimes you just need to fuckin’ do it.
You might say, well, Peter, I’m highly independent! Who are these chingoos? Who are these friends that you speak of? I don’t have any. Well, welcome to the show. Neither did my brother or I. We don’t have a lot of friends. We’re highly independent. But here’s the thing though there’s one thing that John and I have to concede. Is that the only reason that John and I are doing our best work because we’re working with our best friend, womb brother. I was trying to get that out, guys.
John and I are like oil and water. We are allowed to do our best work because John and I know each other. We can be radically transparent with each other and offend each other weekly. We have tough conversations with each other weekly. This is something that it will never end guys. This is something that will never end. I’ll tell you, it’s not fun going through it. I fuckin’ hate arguing with this motherfucker.
It’s time to update. It’s time to level up. It might be time to have that conversation with someone to talk about why shit needs to change. If you’re highly independent, you have one option. Are you still doing your best work? Let’s be honest. Are you still doing your best work? I think you know what the answer is especially if you’re highly independent.
Sometimes you need someone else to help you get to the next level. Sometimes you might need to reach out to that individual that you know that can help you upgrade, level up. So enjoy it motherfuckers.
If you want to if you’re highly independent, consider it simply ask yourself the question: Am I still doing my best work? If the answer is no, then you need to find someone that you can trust, that you can talk to you can be radically transparent to so that you can level the fuck up.
It’s about culling relationships. It’s about reviewing relationships it’s about considering who you’re surrounding yourself with. Because those people invariably influence who you are. I’m getting enough feedback from you guys independently to help me know that I am being good to those who have chosen me. I appreciate you guys so much for choosing me and so I desire to do my best, to be good to those who’ve chosen me.
You might have to have a conversation with someone that’s relatively rough, but I promise you, it’ll change your relationship always for the better even if that includes them leaving. If you’re highly independent ask yourself simply the question: Am I still doing my best work? If not, it’s time to level up motherfucker. It’s time to go big time. It’s time to find someone to help you go if you care about that, of course. The last, but not least, man, be good to those who just you’ve chosen to be your friend. I hope that I’m being the best friend that I can be in this relationship of sorts. You guys are helping me level up and I appreciate it bottom of my heart. But relationships are intentional. Relationships take time and I’m glad you guys are here.