The Long and The Short Of It

Episode 339 - The Nedlog Rule

Transcript:

Jen: Hello, Peter.

Pete: Hello, Jen.

Jen: Today, I'm feeling quite pleased with myself because I've come up with something that I think is kind of cute.

Pete: Oh my gosh, she's invented something else again. And she's looking very chuffed, listeners, I must say. What have you got for me?

Jen: The thing we're going to talk about today, Pete, is what I am now coining "The Nedlog Rule".

Pete: What? Nedlog: N-E-D-L-O-G? Nedlog, one word.

Jen: That's right. The Nedlog Rule.

Pete: I have a few friends called Ned. I have so many questions. I have no idea what this is about. Let's dive in. This is The Long and The Short Of It.

Pete: Nedlog. Oh gosh, I love when you invent stuff, so this is going to be fun.

Jen: Okay, Pete. Can you please read the name of the rule backwards?

Pete: Backwards? Oh, as in like, G-O-L-D-E-N?

Jen: Yes.

Pete: Golden? Oh, golden. Oh my god, I realize it spells golden. Okay, so it's golden spelled backwards. Is that relevant?

Jen: It's relevant because The Golden Rule is essentially, "Treat others the way you wish to be treated."

Pete: Okay.

Jen: And The Nedlog Rule is The Golden Rule in reverse, "Treat yourself the way you would treat others."

Pete: Whoa, whoa. I feel called out already. This is a record. We're ninety seconds in and Pete's been called out, alright.

Jen: I just had this aha moment the other day (and I think it was actually due to an episode we recently released), that I'm really good at treating other people the way I wish I was treated but I'm not good at treating myself that way. Like if someone gets up in a creative setting, like one of my classes or coachings, and makes an error, I don't assume that they have no skill and that they need to pack it up and leave town. I assume that they're a human being who's working through a creative problem, and that they have everything they need to get to the other side of that problem. But if the tables were turned, and I'm working on a creative project and I'm staring at a blank screen, or I've written something I think is terrible, or I just made a mistake, I'm like, "Well, I stink. I should pack it up." And so, I was like, "Why am I doing this to myself? I need The Golden Rule in reverse."

Pete: Wow. My mind is blown. I mean, I need it too. I need it too.

Jen: Right? I think we all need The Nedlog Rule, Pete.

Pete: "Treat yourself the way you treat others." This is good. So I guess this reminds me, first and foremost, of self-compassion, in a way.

Jen: Yes.

Pete: How we usually extend so much compassion to others for various things, whether it's a creative mistake, to your point, whether it's something else. Whatever it is, it's usually some sort of mistake that we are able to demonstrate compassion towards, or a situation that someone finds themselves in that you can like imagine, "Oh, wow, that was totally outside your control. Don't worry about it. Like, I could see how and why you would have responded that way. And it's okay, and you've got this." And then, we just afford ourselves absolutely none of that self-compassion or compassion at all.

Jen: Right?

Pete: Yeah. Gosh, I could think of so many examples. One of the things this reminds me of...this is a bit random, but one of the things this reminds me of, I'm sure I heard Brené Brown first talk about this, is this idea of like comparative suffering.

Jen: Yeah.

Pete: And how unhelpful that is. And so, my memory of this could be incorrect. I'll find some resources and put them in the Box O' Goodies. But my memory of this is how, if someone has something that they would perceive to be a negative experience that they have every right to, you know, feel some disappointment about or feel negative emotions about, they might say something or think to themselves something like, "Oh, I can't feel sorry for myself because so-and-so has it way worse. That this person is suffering far more than me, so I can't afford myself the opportunity to go, 'That's actually a really hard situation.'" And not in all situations. This is why I like feel like I'm probably butchering the exact specifics of this idea. But the thing I really related to when I heard her talk about this was essentially what you're saying, The Nedlog Rule. That I almost don't afford myself the ability to have any negative emotions, or I beat myself up if I experience them, or I get annoyed that I've, you know, made a mistake, like you described, because I know so many other people are in much worse situations, or I know someone else who's going through a difficult relationship, or I know someone who just lost their job, or whatever it is. And so, it's like you can't even afford yourself that negative thought.

Jen: Yes. It's like you have so much empathetic perspective for others that you've lost your own perspective.

Pete: Right. Right, yeah. And the perspective and, I guess, this Nedlog is so contextual to the individual. Which, to your point, using empathy, we're really good at doing that for other people, of going, "Oh, your context...of course you must feel annoyed about that mistake. You can pick yourself up and go again. No big deal." But like, why and when and how do we give that to ourselves?

Jen: Right? So since I had this awakening aha moment about The Nedlog Rule, I have been so much more creative. It is actually baffling.

Pete: Wow.

Jen: Because I've been sitting down to work, and I'm in the middle of some pretty cool creative projects right now. And I sit down to work, and before I do anything, I just tell myself, "Practice The Nedlog Rule, Jen."

Pete: Mmm, nice.

Jen: And so, I'm like much easier on myself. When I'm like, "Oh, that's a terrible draft," I'm just like, "Oh well, this is the process."

Pete: Right.

Jen: And there are some areas of my life that are not that important, that I want to get better at.

Pete: Tell me more.

Jen: For example, I am determined to become a baker this summer. I just like suddenly have this like real desire to understand different kinds of dough, and all this.

Pete: Oh my gosh, you and Tracey must be like watching or reading the same things, because she's just gone through this sudden desire to become a bread baker. She's like making sourdough on weekends and stuff. I'm like, "I think you missed the boat. This was like a COVID thing." But apparently, it's in her bones now.

Jen: I have less of an interest in bread and more of an interest in pastry, so between the two of us, she and I could open a bakery.

Pete: Oh, yum. Please.

Jen: But I'm like, "I'm going practice The Nedlog Rule with myself." Because baking is very scientific, and one little error and you make something like kind of inedible.

Pete: Right.

Jen: So I'm just going to practice The Nedlog Rule with myself, so that I can become better quicker.

Pete: Mmm.

Jen: Rather than like, "Well, I guess I'm never going to make a pastry." I don't know what this character is that keeps coming up, but she's very intense.

Pete: She is, yeah. Oh, dear. So, the word that comes up for me right now is...I don't know if this is the right word, but I'm just going say it anyway. It's like, "permission". Like I feel like The Nedlog Rule seems to, in particular, focus on giving ourselves permission to make mistakes. Like, I feel like that's what we're talking about in most of these examples, is we afford most people (all people, really) the ability to make a mistake, whether that's a creative mistake, whether that's a mistake when they're baking bread, whether that's a mistake when they're trying to have a difficult conversation and they say something perhaps they shouldn't have and you're like, "In hindsight, I get it. You were overwhelmed and whatever." Like, it's permission to make mistakes.

Jen: Yeah.

Pete: And I feel like it's a handy shorthand to try and give ourselves that permission well.

Jen: And Pete, the meta irony of what you just said is, when I am in class with my clients, I literally call the things that I'm sharing with them, "the tools of permission". So, I am giving them something that I have labeled "the tools of permission".

Pete: Hmm, yeah.

Jen: So I need to practice The Nedlog Rule, and treat myself the way I treat them. I get "the tools of permission" too.

Pete: This is great. It feels also like a way to summarize that notion that we all kind of experience, where it's so much easier to help someone else than it is to help ourselves, or we often give other people the advice that we actually need to hear ourselves.

Jen: We teach what we need to learn.

Pete: Right. Right, right, right. And so, how do we give ourselves those tools of permission? Yeah.

Jen: And then, there was a flip side of this, Pete, that came up for me last night...

Pete: Okay.

Jen: ...when I snapped at my fifteen-year-old daughter.

Pete: Turns out, you're human. Nedlog.

Jen: And then, I went into the bathroom to get ready for bed, and I was like, "Jen, practice The Nedlog rule right now. Treat yourself the way you just treated her." And I was like, "Ouch. That wasn't nice of me."

Pete: Ooh.

Jen: So then, I went back out and I was like, I"'m sorry. That wasn't nice of me. I snapped at you, and I'm really sorry."

Pete: Wow. Wow, this is like the inverse. It's almost like using it to call yourself out.

Jen: Yeah. You know when you exit a moment and you don't feel proud of the moment?

Pete: Oh, I know it. Yeah, I know it.

Jen: Ever had that experience, Pete?

Pete: I mean, maybe last night. Like, I have a twenty-month-old toddler who can't really talk but loves to make a lot of noise. Yes, I'm familiar with the moment.

Jen: Yes. So it was just, I was like, "Oh, that didn't feel good." And then, so I just asked myself to treat myself the way I had just treated Cate, and I did not want to because it was mean.

Pete: Mmm. Okay, this is a slight tangent but related to what you just said. I was listening to this...I don't even know what his official title would be, relationship psychologist, relationship expert, author of a book about relationships. I'll insert some information about this person in the Box O' Goodies. And it was like a chapter of a book shared on, it was actually shared on the Tim Ferriss podcast. And there was this like, for me, mind-blowing moment of realizing how profound it was that he shared around relationships, and he said (and I'm totally going to butcher this, but this is how my brain remembers it), essentially, all relationships go through stages of connection and stages of disconnection, and then, the stages of repair. That, this is a universal phenomenon that you cannot avoid. These are like the three phases of relationships: connection, deep connection, disconnection, sometimes deep disconnection, and then, repair. So, knowing that is the triangle, the most important skill in any relationship becomes repair.

Jen: Mmm.

Pete: Because it's the only way to get from disconnection back to connection, is this idea of like, how do you repair that? How do you walk out of the bathroom and apologize? How do you treat yourself the way you've treated others? And call yourself out when you need to? But then, give yourself permission to make mistakes when you need to? It's like both sides of the same coin. I don't know if that's helpful, but this idea of repair feels like exactly what you did with your daughter, but also an example of Nedlog in action. It's like, in order to repair, I need to acknowledge when I've done something that I'm not super proud of, as well as give myself the grace of knowing that it's okay to make mistakes as long as I go into repair.

Jen: Yeah. Oh, I love that. You know, it's occurring to me, Pete, that there's a bit of Rule #6, just even in the title of the rule, The Nedlog Rule.

Pete: I mean, it makes no sense. What is that?

Jen: It makes no sense.

Pete: It's so good.

Jen: And for people who are like, "What's Rule #6?" Rule #6 is: Don't take yourself so goddamn seriously.

Pete: Come on, people, don't take yourself seriously. Just Google it: Rule #6.

Jen: And I just, I like the idea that there's something with a bit of whimsy.

Pete: Yeah, I literally was writing the word "whimsy", as you said that. That's great.

Jen: Right? It's like whimsy that leads to depth.

Pete: Yeah. I feel like whimsy that leads to depth, in my mind, is a recipe for really great learning.

Jen: Yeah.

Pete: I think about this idea so much of not taking ourselves too seriously. The other way I've thought about this is like, take your work seriously. You know, show up, be a pro, try stuff. You know, make stuff that matters, and make mistakes, and be creative, and like take the work seriously. Show up and give a shit. But in that process, don't take yourself so seriously.

Jen: Right.

Pete: It's not that important. It's not that unique. You're not that amazing. It's all okay. We're all just here trying to exist and make stuff on the planet. And so, what if you threw some whimsy into that? I just feel like there's too much seriousness in the world. Let's add some whimsy, for god's sake.

Jen: Right? Whew, ain't that the truth? Pete, I'm realizing that, you know, over the six-plus years we've been recording this podcast...is that true?

Pete: I think so.

Jen: Yeah, I think it's true. That's so crazy. We have certain things that have become such a shorthand, that we can say it to our clients and they like immediately know what we're talking about. First Pancake comes to mind. Rule #6 comes to mind. This, to me, feels like something, if I can get it into the studio vernacular, could become such a quick adjustment for people. Because, you know, I'm dealing with people every single day who are putting themselves in these very stressful status-driven situations, a.k.a. auditions, where they're giving so much power to other people and very often at the expense of their own creative voice. So I love the idea, when someone's like, "What do I do when I start freaking out before I walk into this room," I just go, "Nedlog."

Pete: Yeah. I wonder if we can make it a verb? Nedlog it.

Jen: Right? You've got to nedlog it.

Pete: Just nedlog it.

Jen: You've got to nedlog that, and treat yourself the way you're about to treat them, which is with respect, like their work matters, like they're important, like they're a person with a creative voice that deserves to be heard. Yeah.

Pete: Yeah. Nedlog it.

Jen: Nedlog it.

Pete: The same is true in, you know, in the corporate world, in a job interview. It's like, show up and nedlog the job interview. Treat yourself the way that you're going to treat the people that are interviewing you.

Jen: And Pete, before we started recording, you were telling me you've been doing a bunch of work with coaching people who are going to be presenting. What a great thing to tell yourself before you walk onto a stage, "I'm going to nedlog this. I'm going to treat myself the way I'm going to treat this audience, with generosity and care."

Pete: Right? And a little bit of a bit of Rule #6 again, like this was one of the things we talked about. Like, the last thing I often share in these workshops (and we did an episode on this) is, you know, "Take the presentation seriously and take the fact that you're here to deliver a message seriously, but don't take yourself so seriously that you think this is the most important thing in their entire existence, and that you are the most important person in the entire world. And then, if you make one little mistake or if your slide deck, you know, trips up one time and you have to click the clicker twice, that the whole thing is ruined. That's not true."

Jen: Right.

Pete: It's imperfect. That's a presentation. Presentations are human and imperfect. You've got to nedlog it. Nedlog your presentations.

Jen: You've got to nedlog it.

Pete: This is happening. It's happening. I'm getting it in my vernacular. We're going to make a viral thing. There'll be tik-toks about it. It's a whole thing. Nedlog.

Jen: That's right. Time for us all to practice The Nedlog Rule: Treat yourself the way you treat others.

Pete: And that is The Long and The Short Of It.