Hey all,
Three things this week exploring themselves as me—and now, as you 🧐.
Beyond Transactional Relating with a Name 📛
I was 15 years old, riding in a school bus with a bunch of other teenages en route to an outdoor leadership training program. When we got off of the bus, our beloved instructor was fuming. We could tell we were in for a talking-to, but we had no idea what we had done. “Do any of you know the bus driver’s name?” He asked, barely concealing his anger. None of us did. I felt shame. (His name was Sam).
Since then, I've noticed and avoided the urge to treat the people transactionally, whether in business interactions or otherwise. This tendency towards seeing others as objects goes hand in hand with fixating on an extremely limited and self-important self-definition. On the other hand, treating each other as real human beings with unique subjectivities is wonderfully rewarding. Simple interactions—like a quick chat with a barista at a coffeeshop—move from transactional to transformational. Often all this takes is earnestly asking someone’s name!
I don’t judge those who don’t do this. It’s more vulnerable than it seems. By opening to someone else’s subjective experience, no matter how superficial, you allow yourself to be impacted and risk impacting them. In some small way, you will be changed. You might have to feel something you’ve been avoiding. You might have to realize you’re not able to hide as well as you think. You might have to confront how little control you have. You might also fall in love, or feel seen, or brighten someone’s day. Moving beyond transactional relating promises all the truth and aliveness of interdependence, but it risks losing independence. Relatefulness helps us open to welcome and include both.
How much money is your peace worth? 💱
Let’s say you lost $10,000 in a seemingly unfair way. If you lose your peace, you know how much your peace is worth—less than $10,000. There’s no judgment here, nor spiritual bypass. There’s an invitation into awareness. If you don’t like that you lose your peace over a some amount of money lost or overcharged, then you know exactly where you’ve got work to do. Of course you might still act to remedy whatever went awry, but you do it from a peaceful place.
This frame was tested last November when FTX took a good chunk of the centralized crypto institutions with it into bankruptcy. A bunch of people lost money, yours truly included. I don’t know what my peace is worth these days, but I know it’s worth more than all I lost.
You can generalize this frame to any way you fall short of your ideals. Wherever you lose your cool shows you where your espoused values are out of sync with your lived values. It can be confronting, humbling, but without this awareness you have no hope of change. So let us face our failures! Let us all embrace our shortcomings as the first step to learning how to do something different!
What we get from giving - "Unsung Hero" heartwarming video 👩🎓
This heartwarming commercial brought me you to tears, even though I'd seen it before, even though it's been 9 years since it first came out. Highly recommend this 3 minute journey, and if you feel shame about crying in public, here's a chance to face that :) https://youtu.be/uaWA2GbcnJU
Thanks to Philip Jones for reminding about this.
May your days be filled with love and wonder,
Jordan (and the Relateful Company, formerly CircleAnywhere)
Events to Connect and Evolve:
GiveFest in Austin TX this Saturday, April 15th, 1p-6p. Open to the public.
Los Angeles, USA Immersion April 21-23 (Led by Valerie Daniel, Kedar Shashidhar, Lisa Lapan and Evan Shyer) $495
Level Up ⬆️ — Next Austin cohort w/ Michael Blas starts May 18-21 (or start online today)
Cascais, Portugal Relateful Immersion May 19 - 21 (Led by Lisa Rombach and Fabiola Romero) — €460, book here.
Apply to Join the Team:
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