Navigating Life's Noise: Mastering the Mixing Board of Your Mind
This podcast episode dives into the concept of cultivating poise, emphasizing its importance in navigating life's challenges. Mack and Stu explore the idea that true poise allows individuals to respond thoughtfully rather than react impulsively when faced with unexpected situations. Through engaging anecdotes and historical examples, they illustrate how figures like Moses and FDR exemplified poise in critical moments. The discussion also highlights the significance of being informed and maintaining a balanced perspective amidst the noise of modern life. With a lighthearted tone, the hosts encourage listeners to embrace a mindset that prioritizes understanding and love, reminding us that what spills out during tough times reflects what we have nurtured inside.
Takeaways:
- Cultivating poise is essential for maintaining calmness and resilience in challenging situations.
- Life inevitably shakes us, and what spills out of us reflects our inner state.
- The mixing board analogy helps us manage the noise and chaos of daily life.
- We must actively choose what influences us to cultivate a more poised perspective.
- Being informed allows us to discern truth from the overwhelming noise in media.
- It's okay to feel overwhelmed sometimes; just remember to exhale and reset.
Transcript
All right, gang, Mack and Stu here.
Mack:And you're listening to the Wise Guys podcast where we go rogue as we apply wisdom to the everyday.
Mack:To help us do it just a little bit better.
Mack: isode during the last week of: Mack:Oh, my goodness.
Mack:How much of us are having an exhale over that?
Mack:Right this week we're going to dig around a little bit in our manifesto.
Mack:And if you haven't heard about our manifesto, you don't where it is.
Mack:You can.
Mack:You can get a look at it.
Mack:You can see it if you click on the links button in the player.
Mack:There are also put a link down in the notes for this podcast if you want to take a look at what Stu and I's musings are all about in the general sense.
Mack:So you can look for that.
Mack:We're also working on a little bit of an ebook that is really going to kind of elaborate on each one of our manifesto points.
Mack:And so you can again, let us just pull the curtain back on how we think think and how we feel even a little bit more.
Mack:So just stay tuned for that.
Mack:And as always, we're gonna share the classic Mystic McNugget.
Stu:Oh, yeah.
Mack:But it's now.
Mack:Strap in time.
Mack:It's four point time, gang.
Mack:Here we go.
Mack:So there we are.
Mack:Hey, Stu.
Mack:It's good to see you, man.
Mack:How are you?
Stu:Hey, Mac.
Stu:Good to see you.
Stu:Namaste.
Stu:And namaste to all of you beautifully exotic cocktails out there.
Stu:Yeah, it's the last week of the year and what a year it's been.
Stu:Wow.
Stu:We do want to give a shout out to our listeners from around the globe.
Stu:Matt.
Stu:Yes.
Mack:Amazing how this thing has just gone crazy.
Stu:Of course, the US has many listeners, but we found you and you have found us, not only in the U.S.
Stu:but in France, Germany, Australia, Singapore, Chile, Ireland, and the most recent, I believe, is in the uk.
Mack:Yeah, man.
Stu:And here's the crazy thing about this, Mac.
Stu:The conversation is only a couple of weeks old.
Mack:I know, I just.
Stu:Truly amazing.
Mack:I am.
Mack:We are, both of us, we are just so encouraged as well as just radically amazed.
Mack:And we really shouldn't be because part of our vocabulary has gotten to be just so.
Mack:Well, of course, of course we're around the world.
Mack:Of course we're across the globe.
Mack:I mean, you know, and at the same time, because we know there's lots of stuff that goes on with all this that's more than you can touch and feel and see.
Mack:And we totally believe that.
Mack:And we think that that's integral to who we are and what we do.
Mack:But here's evidence of it.
Mack:This is what we love to see.
Stu:Well, I just want to say a big hello to all of those people in those countries that are listening in.
Mack:Yeah, absolutely.
Mack:Yes, we do.
Mack:And we were thankful for all you, Rogers.
Mack:Without a doubt, man.
Mack:Thanks.
Mack:Thanks for joining the Rogue Nation.
Mack:Without a doubt.
Mack:So.
Mack:So, yeah, so we're gonna talk about one of our manifesto points, and here's how it reads right from the manifesto, and it says this wise, the W I Z part of who we are encourages you to cultivate poise.
Mack:Everyone will wonder what planet you are from, because we don't use that word much and it's not part of our vocabulary, just like wisdom isn't much part of vocabulary.
Mack:And we tend to sometimes think of poise as almost snobbish, if you will, but like a butler, you know, or something like that.
Mack:But no, no, no, we want to go way deeper than that.
Mack:We want to go way roguer, way more roguish than that.
Mack:But that's what it says there.
Mack:So, you know, thinking about this as I was.
Mack:As I was pondering this whole topic, and so when we.
Mack:When we think of the word poise and we try to come up with an idea of, well, who do we know?
Mack:Or that we might think of that have been in the past, certainly, or currently exemplify a poise about them, and maybe it was situational in an event, or maybe it was just an example of their life, you know, either one.
Mack:Right.
Mack:But here's some of the things that just came to my mind, you know, as I was thinking about it.
Mack:How about Moses as he went before Pharaoh?
Stu:Oh, yeah, yeah.
Mack:The poise that he had to show, knowing in his heart of hearts where he believed his truth was coming from.
Mack:How about.
Stu:And he.
Stu:I was going to say Mac.
Stu:And he certainly did not feel he was the right person to be.
Mack:Right.
Mack:Yeah.
Mack:He was totally unworthy in his own.
Stu:Opinion, in his own mind, but yet he did it anyway.
Stu:So go ahead.
Stu:I know there's.
Stu:I know you have.
Mack:No, that's right.
Mack:That's exactly right, though.
Mack:He trusted in something that was beyond him.
Mack:He's a great point.
Mack:How about Jesus before Pilate at the end of his life?
Stu:Oh, yeah.
Mack:To be able to stand in that conversation, living a life like he lived and be able to have the poise that we hear at least about in the Bible.
Mack:Right.
Stu:Knowing what was about to come for him.
Mack:Yeah, yeah.
Mack:Just poised, I think, of that.
Mack:And then you might think that you could find it, or you might see it, say, in the lives of some of the Greeks.
Mack:Confucius.
Mack:Well, Confucius wasn't Greek, but, you know, some of the Greeks, Plato, Socrates, maybe, or Confucius or the Buddha from the Eastern traditions.
Mack:You know, I think we typically might think of those individuals in their own right, in their own way, as having a modest sum of poise about them, about their life, you know.
Mack:You know, a picture that came to my mind was, you know, a picture of Washington crossing the Delaware.
Mack:And you sort of see this depiction that somebody painted.
Mack:I get it.
Mack:But, you know, in the midst of that crossing and the war and everything else, and he's leading people into battle, you know, at least in the picture anyway, you see this depiction of a poised attitude and a confidence, and maybe it's courage, maybe whatever, you know, that you see exemplified there.
Mack:And, you know, we have examples, I think, all through history, certainly in the military, of those kinds of leadership types, or even just acts of courageous profiles and courage, you know, without a doubt, you know.
Stu:Right.
Mack: ,: Stu:Wow.
Stu:And what a classic quote, right?
Mack:I mean, in that moment, yeah.
Mack:He was who he was.
Mack:You know, he didn't just make it.
Mack:I mean, it just didn't.
Mack:He couldn't be something other than who he was in that moment in order to have that kind of poise, to be able to say that, you know, and so anyway, we have examples, and there's tons more.
Mack:I get it, believe me.
Mack:All right?
Mack:I just was trying to think off the top of my head, but it's out there.
Mack:But it's not out there for no reason.
Mack:It's out there because there's lots of individuals that have cultivated a countenance and a wisdom, you know, over the course of their life that allowed them to be able to be what they were in that moment.
Mack:And that's what we want to talk about.
Stu:Those are great examples, Mac.
Stu:Those are great examples.
Stu:Yeah.
Stu:And I'm sure.
Stu:I'm sure that.
Stu:I'm sure our roguers out there are thinking of many more.
Mack:Oh, yeah.
Mack:I mean, there's tons, no doubt.
Mack:Okay, so.
Mack:So here's a question, you know, here's a question for all of you, for all of us.
Mack:We asked.
Mack:We've asked it of ourselves many times, you know, Am I poised enough that when I'm bumped, I don't spew?
Stu:That is a great question.
Stu:You know, when I saw this question, it reminded me of this analogy that I heard about spilled coffee.
Stu:So you can imagine you're holding a cup of coffee.
Stu:We do this all the time.
Stu:When someone comes along and bumps into you, making you spill your coffee everywhere.
Stu:Very frustrating, right?
Stu:Why did you spill the coffee?
Stu:That's the question.
Stu:You spilled coffee because there was coffee in your cup.
Stu:Had there been tea in your cup, you would have spilled the tea.
Stu:So the point is this.
Stu:Whatever is inside the cup is what we spill out.
Stu:Therefore, when life comes along and shakes you, which is going to happen, Matt, you know, it's inevitable.
Stu:Whatever is it, whatever is inside of you will come out.
Stu:Let me say that again.
Stu: this is happening this year,: Stu:Whatever is inside of you is what comes out.
Stu:You know, and it's easy to fake it, right?
Stu:Until you get rattled.
Stu:So you have to ask yourself, like, what's in my cup when life gets tough?
Stu:Like, what spills out of me?
Mack:Absolutely.
Mack:You know, I think that's such a great analogy.
Mack:You know, again, there's a difference between stuff spilling out of your cup and that little jar, that bump causing you to spew all over the place, right?
Mack:One of them is just a natural happen chance, and that's life.
Mack:The other one is the result of being having a built up, say, angst and anger or anxiety or whatever it might be in your countenance that just, that's the last straw, you know, and what we're going to try to do in this episode is really kind of point out some of the reasons why we go there, why that happens, and then maybe offer some suggestions about how we can, again, just do that.
Mack:Just do a little bit better that, you know, just.
Mack:Just a little better.
Mack:Because that's what this podcast is all about, right?
Mack:So, so, so let's.
Mack:Let's just talk about stuff right now.
Mack:And so strap in, everybody strap in.
Mack:And don't.
Mack:I want to lose you, though.
Mack:Don't tune me out.
Mack:All right?
Mack:Don't tune me out.
Mack:But, but here we go.
Mack:Okay, Go read some headlines.
Mack:I'm just going to read them.
Mack:I'm just going to read them randomly for you.
Mack:The stuff that's just out there right now.
Mack:The first come first serve approach led to long lines forming as people camped out on lawn chairs for hours when it came to the vaccine.
Mack:Right?
Mack:Biden White House to issue memo to halt or delay New last minute federal regulations.
Mack:Trump's $2,000 checks all but dead as GOP Senate refuses aid swarm of teens block traffic attack SUV in broad daylight.
Mack:COVID 19 vaccinations start slow.
Mack:Here's why.
Mack:Right.
Mack:And there's tons of them.
Mack:There's just tons of them.
Mack:Right.
Mack:I'm going to read one.
Mack:So here's the one from the Atlanta Journal Constitution, which is our local newspaper.
Mack:And we're living right now still with the election in a much more wager way than the rest of the country is.
Mack:All right, you know, we get all of this stuff still floating through, you know, our, our news outlets and news medias and runoff meters.
Mack:Trump complicates GOP case by demanding that Kemp resign.
Mack:He demanded that the governor in Georgia today resign.
Mack:Right.
Mack:So, you know, we have all this stuff in our field, even in Atlanta, but here's the last one I'm going to read.
Mack:And this is probably one of the most, you know, disquieting ones for me anyway, when I read it, here's the article.
Mack:Headline Pandemic Year two.
Stu:Oh, my gosh.
Mack:Yeah, that was the headline.
Mack:Yeah.
Mack:Nobody wants to hear that, man.
Mack:Okay, so here's the point, all right?
Mack:This isn't, we're not about to go into all of this.
Mack:And I took that from a broad brushstroke of different bias.
Mack:This, that news outlets, okay, this was from across the board.
Mack:Right.
Mack:But the point is, this is what, this is what's coming at us.
Mack:It's what's coming at all of us all the time.
Stu:It certainly is hard to find positivity when you hear that.
Stu:I mean, I know there's positivity out there, but when you hear these, these headlines that are the, let's call it the loudest and maybe the most frequent it, you know, maybe the positive headlines that are out there get lost in the mix, you know.
Mack:Yeah, well, that's the media, of course, being sensationalism, you know, sells without it, without a doubt.
Mack:Right.
Mack:But we have to learn how to grid that.
Mack:That's, I guess, where we're going to go here with probably the rest of this, this podcast.
Mack:And so with all of that input, how do we control it?
Mack:How do we manage it?
Mack:How do we take all of it that's out there in the field and somehow some way begin to wrap our arms around it?
Mack:Right.
Mack:You know, Stu, you've always had just a really cool analogy, you know, when it comes to this kind of thing, man, I mean, it's always been great when it comes to your experience, you know, when you use the mixed sound.
Stu:Yeah, for sure, Mac.
Stu:And as you know, I'm a musician.
Stu:I played in a few bands in my.
Stu:My lifetime back in the day, as they say, I ran sound for bands.
Stu:I was a roadie for a while and was very involved in music.
Stu:So one of my tools of the trade was a mixing board, right.
Stu:So you have a band.
Stu:Let's say I just take a simple band.
Stu:You have drums, a bass guitar, a guitar, a singer, maybe another singer, a keyboard player, right?
Stu:You have all these different inputs coming into the soundboard, and then whoever's running the board, they decide the mix of the sound, right?
Stu:So let's say you come to a point in the song and there's a guitar solo.
Stu:Well, at that point, I'm going to turn the guitar solo up, right?
Stu:So I can hear that over the other music.
Stu:I don't completely take the other music away.
Stu:It's still there, but I want to hear this more.
Stu:And then when I'm done with the solo, I pull it back down, right.
Stu:Sometimes, inevitably, when I was running sound, the drummer was always way too loud.
Stu:I would have to pull some of the drums back a little bit.
Stu:So basically, the way I kind of look at this as I relate it to what's going on in my life is there's a lot of noise in life, right?
Stu:And if I'm listening for maybe messages or something, I want to have something get heard that I'm not hearing.
Stu:I may decide to pull some of the noise down.
Stu:I may take a lever, pull it back a little bit, whatever that might be.
Stu:I may choose to turn a lever up like I'm a.
Stu:You know, I'm someone who believes in God.
Stu:I may choose to take my God lever, pump that up a little bit so I can maybe get more messages than what I'm getting today.
Stu:But the important thing is it's.
Stu:There's a.
Stu:There's a mixing board where you get to pull.
Stu:You get to adjust what.
Stu:What is coming into you.
Stu:What.
Stu:What noise is.
Stu:Is being pulled out and what information, let's call it, is being pulled into your.
Stu:Into your psyche, Right?
Mack:No, yeah.
Mack:No, I think it's such a beautiful analogy.
Mack:Every time you've used that and you made the comment to me, and I think it's, it's, it's.
Mack:It's really a perfect segue.
Mack:Kind of where we're going to is that, you know, in and of itself, all those noises, if you just let them run random without a mixer, without someone that's controlling, you know, the inputs to give you the output that you want.
Mack:It's all just a bunch of just disconnected noise and it makes no sense at all, you know, and consequently, we're going to talk tonight about some of those levers, some of those slides, some of those dials that kind of help us manage all that to do it a little bit better.
Mack:I love that analogy.
Mack:I always have, you know, but we're also in the midst.
Mack:You've already said it.
Mack:You know, it's been a crazy, wacky year.
Mack:Are you kidding me?
Mack:We're going into year two.
Mack:I mean, this just doesn't end on January 31st, right?
Mack:That's two days from now.
Mack:So, you know, we got to be kind to ourselves in all of this as well.
Mack:You know, we just.
Mack:We can't be too critical of ourself when we kind of don't get it right or as well as we might think we want to or react as well.
Mack:We got to exhale with all of that.
Mack:And you know, that that's an important just thing to keep in the back of your mind that this isn't about a whole bunch of things that we want you to do, you know, the most we want.
Mack:At least we want it.
Mack:We help you to just to exhale a little bit, you know.
Mack:But we're talking about poise, you know, we're talking about cultivating poise.
Mack:And poise can't be cultivated in ignorance.
Mack:And what I mean by that is this.
Mack:Here's what I hear more often than I wish I would hear from people.
Mack:And that's this.
Mack:I just can't deal with this anymore.
Mack:I'm just not listening to any more of it.
Mack:I'm not political.
Mack:I don't really.
Mack:The virus or this or that, whatever.
Mack:I'm just.
Mack:I'm not listening.
Mack:I'm just turning it off and I'm just going on about my business.
Stu:You know what I.
Stu:You know what I.
Stu:You know what I visualize when you say that, Mac?
Stu:Is somebody putting their fingers in their ears just going, la, la, la, la, la, la, la.
Stu:I'm not gonna listen now.
Mack:Here's the thing.
Mack:What I hear is, well, I need to do that because it's not really perfecting me.
Mack:Number one, that's what I hear.
Mack:Whatever it is, okay?
Mack:Number two, I just can't deal with it now.
Mack:So here's what.
Mack:Here's my challenge to that.
Mack:If you're listening to me, don't turn me off, okay?
Mack:I mean, I'm loving on you.
Mack:I really am.
Mack:Okay.
Mack:That's the easy way out.
Mack:Most of the time it's way easier just to turn it all off and try.
Mack:First of all, how is that going to go for you?
Mack:Because it's still going to leak its way in, and we're going to talk about that in a second.
Mack:But point is, it's real easy to just say, I'm just not going to turn it in and I'm not going to think about it.
Mack:So therefore, I don't need to be intelligent about it.
Mack:I don't need.
Mack:Need to have opinion about it.
Mack:I don't need to, you know, that that's the easy way out.
Mack:But the easy way out is going to have, in my opinion, some pretty detrimental consequences to that.
Mack:And the biggest one being is you're not going to be able to cultivate any poise because.
Mack:And here's why not.
Mack:Let me just ask the why, right?
Mack:This is what we want to do.
Mack:We always want to ask the lies.
Mack:Yeah, here's why.
Mack:The why becomes when it finally does leak into your stream, whether it's to a Facebook post or you hear something from somebody or a billboard or an advertisement or.
Mack:It doesn't matter.
Mack:It's gonna get in there.
Mack:You're not gonna have a grid to run it through.
Mack:You're not gonna have any compare to what.
Mack:You're not gonna have any basis by which to be able to decide whether what you just heard was true.
Mack:Not true.
Mack:Mattered.
Mack:Didn't matter.
Mack:Because, see, we have to get past.
Mack:You know, we just have to go beyond what happens.
Mack:There's lots happening out there.
Mack:We gotta get down to what matters.
Mack:That's one of our manifesto points.
Stu:Right?
Stu:What's gonna.
Stu:Again, we can go back to my.
Stu:My spilled coffee.
Mack:Yeah.
Stu:What's gonna spill out of you, right, When.
Stu:When you get bumped.
Stu:And when I'm.
Stu:And when we say get bumped, it's not necessarily a physical thing.
Stu:It's like something bumps into my way of thinking.
Mack:Yes.
Stu:Into something I believe in.
Stu:And.
Stu:Oh, no, now it's being challenged.
Stu:Now what?
Stu:You know, how do you.
Stu:How do you cultivate poise in that scenario?
Stu:Let me say one more thing, Matt.
Stu:Going to my mixing board analogy, I never said you turn everything off.
Stu:Because if you turn everything off, if.
Mack:You turn everything off.
Mack:Right.
Stu:You turn everything off.
Stu:You have no music.
Stu:There's nothing happening.
Mack:Right.
Mack:It's just not practical.
Stu:Here's the beautiful thing about all of this.
Stu:When you have all of this noise out there that you're trying advantage.
Stu:If you can mix it Properly, it makes beautiful music.
Mack:That's the beautiful point.
Mack:Great, thanks for saying that.
Mack:That's.
Mack:What, what's your objective when you're doing.
Mack:Running the mixing board?
Mack:What's the objective?
Stu:Yes.
Stu:Beautiful music.
Mack:Okay.
Mack:And so what we want to do is have you manage the mixing board of your life to produce a more beautiful life.
Mack:What a great.
Mack:It's, it's, it's just a great analogy.
Mack:I've always loved it.
Mack:Right.
Mack:You know, and we're not talking about, we're talking about being informed but not being overwhelmed.
Stu:Right.
Mack:It's not about quantity, it's about quality.
Stu:Right.
Mack:Yeah, but if you, you know, but reactionary.
Mack:It's so easy to become reactionary when you don't have the proper poised, wise perspective to be able to run the stuff through.
Stu:Yes.
Stu:So, you know, one of the things that you say to me a lot, Mac, and I really appreciate this is when we're, I'm having conversation with you and I may be asking a question or, hey, I want to talk about this topic and I make a point.
Stu:You say, okay, so therefore.
Stu:What.
Stu:What's the.
Mack:What's the therefore?
Stu:What's the there for?
Stu:Right.
Stu:So I'm bringing it back on you.
Stu:So therefore, in our conversation today, if we're going to do it better, what does that look like?
Mack:Yeah, and there it is.
Mack:I mean, that's what we hope we can try to take away from this conversation, let alone the whole podcast.
Mack:So what does it look like?
Mack:See, it's going to look like things where.
Mack:Let's go back to our coffee analogy, right?
Mack:That what's being bumped out is more love, more understanding, more kindness.
Mack:Those could be great products of what we're talking about.
Mack:It could be a confidence level that all of a sudden you start to provide wise counsel and wisdom and help others, whether it's your family, whether it's your friends at work, it doesn't matter.
Mack:But now, all of a sudden, things aren't, again, so reactionary.
Mack:They're not so all over the map.
Mack:They're just not so knee jerk.
Mack:Right.
Mack:You're able to, with poise, let stuff run through a grid and then make better decisions.
Mack:You know, that's the name of the game right there, you know, and, you know, we love to sprinkle the stardust in anything that we do.
Mack:So how about this?
Mack:You know, so when it comes to all of this decision making, so we're on the cusp of New Year's resolutions and all that kind of stuff, and setting goals and all of that, which we're going to talk about in a little bit, but as we end this thing.
Mack:But how much of your spirit.
Mack:How much of your spirit gets a vote in all of it?
Stu:Yeah.
Stu:Interesting.
Mack:So now we're talking about cultivating that spirituality.
Mack:We talked about that in our previous episode that said a life spiritualized is a life simplified.
Stu:Right.
Mack:And we've already talked about that.
Mack:But that's why Stu and I totally believe that a spiritual life.
Mack:You know, we just can't imagine our own lives being anything different because now we have that vote that becomes part of our discernment that takes us beyond what we might be able to figure out or to understand or think is true from whatever news outlet, whether it's a person or whether it's a.
Mack:An outlet or whatever it might be, wherever it is we're getting our information from.
Mack:So, you know, we want you to season your decisions with the stardust.
Mack:And, you know, that's a journey.
Mack:That's a whole other journey.
Mack:And we're, you know, that's something else we can talk about.
Mack:And if you want to send us a little note and send us.
Mack:We'd be happy to kind of run, you know, a sidebar with any of you about that kind of thing.
Mack:But it's a beautiful part of the equation, we think.
Mack:Right.
Mack:But, you know, but.
Mack:But if you're doing it better still, if you're doing it better, man, it's better for me.
Stu:Yes.
Mack:Right.
Mack:Because we're in this together.
Mack:It's better for everyone if you're less angry and anxious and, you know, and just fretful and, you know, unstable.
Mack:Then in general, we all are, to a certain extent, right now, you're in my.
Stu:And think.
Stu:Think about this.
Stu:Think about this.
Stu:What if what spills out of you is love and kindness?
Stu:What are you gonna feel?
Stu:Or what am I gonna feel when that spills out of you versus if what spills out of you is anger or frustration or.
Stu:I don't have time for this.
Stu:You know, that's what the other person feels.
Stu:And let me tell you something.
Stu:I don't know if you've ever been in a room where somebody walks in and the whole room changes, but that's a real thing.
Mack:Absolutely.
Mack:Absolutely.
Mack:And every one of you exotic cocktails has that ability.
Mack:Yes, without a doubt.
Mack:No doubt about it.
Mack:Good and bad.
Mack:I mean, you can just as much enter a negative vibe into a room as you can, a positive vibe.
Mack:Obviously, we want you to choose the latter, not the former.
Mack:Yeah, but.
Mack:Yeah, it's a collective thing.
Mack:Without a doubt.
Mack:But here's the other thing.
Mack:You know, without poise, without a certain, you know, amount, I mean, however you measure it.
Mack:But I'm just saying, however you have it, it's hard to take a stand for things, for something or things, because you pretty much fall for anything.
Mack:And, you know, that's a common statement that's out there in the field.
Mack:Nobody really even knows where it came from.
Mack:But.
Mack:And what I mean by that, again, is if you don't have that solid grid to stand on, to stand by, whether it comes to spirituality, whether it comes to just being better informed, you know, whatever.
Mack:You know, whatever the people that you have around you that you can trust, what they say, all the above, you know, you're going to fall prey to just the latest, latest, because at that moment, it happens to just catch your fancy or sound like what you need to.
Mack:And I'm not saying it's bad necessarily.
Mack:I'm just saying is you haven't run it through a discerning grid so that you have confidence that that's the case and it's important.
Mack:Okay.
Mack:Poise just means so much, you know?
Stu:Yeah.
Stu:And it's.
Stu:When I think of that word, I wonder how many people are listening in and wondering or.
Stu:I've already looked in the dictionary for boys.
Stu:I mean, I know when I first started using it, I had a.
Stu:Okay, what does this really mean?
Stu:And to me, it's just a way of being like, I just.
Stu:I don't.
Stu:I don't wake up in the morning and think, today, Mac, you know what?
Stu:I'm going to be more patient with people.
Stu:I'm going to be more compassionate today.
Stu:I just wake up one day and I am that.
Mack:That's the mission, man.
Mack:There it is.
Stu:That's the poise.
Stu:That when we talked about those examples earlier, you know, those people that we talked about, they just were being that because they've done the work to get them on a journey to a place where now here's who they are and this.
Stu:This is what other people see from them, because they are that.
Mack:Yeah, Total.
Mack:Yes, that.
Mack:There it is in a nutshell game.
Mack:We can just drop the mic right now.
Mack:Okay, there it is.
Mack:So we got a couple minutes left.
Mack:And so I'm just going to kind of wrap this up with a couple final points.
Mack:Let me just give you some action points.
Mack:Not that we haven't already, but here's a couple final action points.
Mack:So when it comes to what do you listen to?
Mack:Certainly there's people that you listen to that you can trust.
Mack:And those are valuable.
Mack:Those folks are valuable.
Mack:Right.
Mack:They've already got skin in the game with you.
Mack:You've already.
Mack:You already trust them.
Mack:You already know them without a doubt.
Mack:But as you know, they can only know so much, and they're getting their information from somewhere.
Mack:Right?
Mack:So for you, maybe here's a couple of just possibilities if the major news outlets, whatever, just are too biased.
Mack:Either way, I'm not picking up one side or another.
Mack:I'm just saying they just don't get it for you.
Mack:Okay, I just can't listen to that stuff anymore.
Mack:I get it.
Mack:How about this?
Mack:Consider listening to your local news outlet, because chances are that at least your local hometown or city or whatever region you live in, for the most part, that paper is going to reflect the culture of that city.
Mack:You know, it's still going to be biased and it's still going to have a slant and all of that.
Mack:Yeah, of course it is.
Mack:It can't help it, but at least it may be a little more in line with the surroundings that you live in.
Mack:And if that really even just doesn't resonate with you, at least you're going to be informed about what's going on in your community.
Mack:And again, that in itself will build some poise.
Mack:That's.
Mack:You just need to be informed.
Mack:Okay.
Mack:There's also another little news source out there that I've watched a couple times.
Mack:It's called Newsy N E W S Y.
Mack:They proclaim that they, you know, want to inform, not influence.
Mack:They still have to choose what to put on there.
Mack:So there's a bias there.
Mack:You can't get away from it.
Mack:But I've kind of watched them a few times, and I think they do a pretty good job of just, you know, the Joe Friday thing.
Mack:Just the facts, man.
Mack:Just the facts.
Mack:So again, if you want to tip your toe into the waters just to kind of get an idea of what's going on out there without just getting so frustrated and inundated, those might be a couple of ways for you to do it.
Mack:There's some action points.
Mack:Okay, Right.
Stu:I was just gonna.
Stu:I was just gonna make a point that it do.
Stu:Do something, you know, get some information somewhere.
Stu:Just as long as it's more than zero, then.
Stu:Then you're.
Stu:You're making a good intentional decision in your life to kind of cultivate this poise.
Stu:We've been absolutely right.
Stu:It doesn't have to be overwhelming, doesn't have to be, you know, a lot of time.
Stu:It just got to be More than zero.
Stu:That's all.
Mack:Yeah, well, that's your soundboard analogy that says never is everything off.
Mack:And now, lastly, this is one of our manifesto points.
Mack:Maybe, again, if you've seen it, maybe you were drawn to it, but I'm going to give you a little alert on this one.
Mack:If the kitties are listening with you, you might want to put your hands over their ears or send them out to pet the dog or whatever you want, people, because I can't find any other way to say this better.
Mack:I just.
Mack:This is just the way it has to come out.
Mack:All right?
Mack:And that's this.
Mack:We want you to know.
Mack:We want you to know that in all of this, all of it, everything we've been talking about, everything that you're trying to run through your grid right now, trying to make sense of it all and trying to just.
Mack:Just try to navigate getting up in the morning.
Mack:It's okay if you can't do much of anything right now and you just flat out don't give a shit, okay?
Mack:Sometimes you just get to that point.
Mack:Sometimes you just get to that point of exasperation, and it's okay.
Mack:Our encouragement is going to be that.
Mack:Don't sit there with sucking your thumb in a corner for long if that's how far it's taken you.
Mack:But it's okay that.
Mack:If that's just where you are, just rest with it, you know?
Mack:Just rest with it and be okay with it.
Mack:We love you anyway, the people around you anyway, I guarantee you.
Mack:So you have our permission, both student mine.
Mack:Right?
Mack:Just go there if you need to.
Mack:So there it is, folks.
Mack:That's our.
Mack:That.
Mack:That's our deal tonight.
Mack:That's our poised, you know, that's.
Mack:That's our encouragement to cultivate that, because that's how we can just do it a little bit better.
Mack:We really believe that.
Mack:And we're going to leave you with the mystic McNugget.
Stu:Okay, here we go.
Mack:Ready for this?
Mack:Yeah.
Mack:Yep.
Stu:Let's hear it.
Mack:So here it is, folks.
Mack:Poise is that mystical quality that enables you to love no matter what.
Stu:That's.
Stu:I love it.
Stu:That's fantastic.
Mack:And so we're just.
Mack:With that, we are.
Mack:We're going to drop the mic.
Mack:We're going to tell you to have a happy New Year's celebration.
Mack:We're going to be around next week again for sure, and we appreciate all of you and we love you being part of the Rogue Nation.
Mack:Thanks again.
Stu:Yes.
Stu:Happy New Year.
Mack:All right, take care.
Mack:Bye.
Mack:Okay, all of you.
Mack:Hey, Roguers smack here and you may now unbuckle your four point harness.
Mack:If you enjoyed this episode of the Wise Guys, we encourage you to subscribe to the podcast.
Mack:Please share it with your friends and drop Stu and I a note.
Mack:Subscribing is the fuel that makes it possible to deliver fresh, eclectic wisdom every week.
Mack:Let us know how you are going rogue and we'll share some of our favorite off the reservation stories on an upcoming episode.
Mack:And don't forget, spread the wisdom by liking us on all social media platforms.
Mack:And keep asking the whys.
Mack:We love having you part of the conversation.
