In this episode, I discuss the importance of communication and how it evolves over time. I talked about the different words and phrases that different generations use to express themselves and how these vocabularies are shaped by societal influences and experiences. I also shared some funny examples of language barriers and misunderstandings, emphasizing the importance of active listening and awareness of our own biases and assumptions. Finally, I shared some personal anecdotes and insights on effective communication, both in personal and professional settings.
Justin Hart: [00:00:00] It's time to help you get grounded and help you make sense of the world. The Justin Hart show on the answer, San Diego. And here's your host, Justin Hart. Good morning, San Diego. Good Sunday to you. I am your host Justin Hart. Today I am set as always to blow your minds. First, let's let's play a little parlor game.
This is something you can do at a party. You can do it to break the ice with a set of colleagues to illustrate a point you could use it to form a new religion where you convince your followers that they're living in a simulation, a simulated reality. I, it's gonna blow your minds a little.
But then we're gonna get into our actual topic. I want you to put up, you pull up your Google machines right now, okay? Just your [00:01:00] browser on your phone, Google, whatever, search tool you use there. And I want you to type in any three numbers between one and 1000. Now you can go to 2000. Just type in a number.
Between one and 2000. So I chose 797. And then I want you to add in the words new cases, 7 97 new cases, and then you hit enter. In my case, it comes up and it says, Iraq reports 797 New cases of Covid 19. That's in China. And then I have another one that tells me about something. 797 new cases of Covid.
September 26th, 2022. That's interesting. Now I want you to go ahead and type in a new number. I'm gonna choose 293 new cases. Again, we're referring to Covid here. Reuters May, 2022. [00:02:00] China reports 293 New cases, oh, down here a little bit. March 20. 2022 Missouri Records 293 New Covid. What is going on?
Any number you type between one and 2000, there will be a news article about that number of Covid cases. Has the government planted, imposed all of these news stories without fail? This works. It's a little freaky, but what I need to tell you is that you're not living in the matrix. . This is just the issue with large numbers.
Take for instance, the United States. We have 3,200 counties across the country. There's what, two to three newspapers per county? Maybe one or two news broadcast stations. Plenty of radio stations like K C B Q, and over the course of the pandemic, which has gone on for a thousand days now, you now [00:03:00] have mathematically what's called a very large name space.
That is the chances of throwing a dart and hitting a news story that has four digits and the word new cases is pretty large. It's pretty it's, you're gonna, you're gonna hit that so you're not freaking out, I promise. Keanu is not coming to rescue you. You don't need him to rescue you. You are not plugged up to the matrix.
This is just the issue when it comes to large numbers. It's not voodoo magic. But it's a fun parlor game and maybe you'll come up with some religious followers out of it anyways, but going on to our real story of the day, big numbers do crazy things. . And when it comes to the mathematics of everything, it can't be pretty wild.
So I want you to think about this new technology. There's this technology, it's related to artificial intelligence. One of our favorite subjects, of course, and it's called Stable Diffusion. It's a type of deep learning, [00:04:00] and what it does is it does a text to image. And this was released in 2022. It's primarily used to generate detailed images.
that are conditioned on text descriptors. So you might say, make me a picture of a teddy bear and it'll produce an image of a teddy bear. You've seen some of this artificial intelligence imagery that you can produce and it's really interesting and in sometimes inspiring, sometimes a little weird and freaky.
But now they've taken this technology and they're applying it into science and it's getting a little. It's actually amazing. At the same time, I think those things go side by side. You'll often hear me say, that's cool and that's creepy. Now if you've had any sort of health issues or your parents, or your kids, what are the, may have ended up in an MRI machine, right?
You wanna get a take a look a little [00:05:00] closer at the leg. Usually they're used for issues with the most complicated instrument in the world. The human brain. So they stick you in this big magnetic tomb. If you've been inside of it, and I have at one point, you'll know, oh my goodness that's a little bit disturbing it.
But it's amazing. It sends resonant magnetic images across the slices of your brain that can come back with an image of it, so they can see for any structures, any tumors, any abnormalities. There's something also. Functional mag magnetic resonant imaging. F mri is not a swear word. Detached mri, even though you wanna feel that wave when you're stuck in that tomb.
It's very scary, by the way, if you've ever been inside one of those. But it will actually look at the flow of information, so they'll be able to see what are the functions of the brain that fire. that fire up when you're thinking of a teddy [00:06:00] bear, . And so all great big numbers and math machines that we just discussed, they've combined the two full diffusion into the magnetic image machine, and they did numerous tests on this, and the results are astounding.
They showed the person a picture of a l. And told the the image processor, stable diffusion. Tell us what he's looking at. They showed the picture of a bicycle. They showed the picture of the Eiffel Tower, and they showed a picture of a teddy bear, and it reproduced the teddy bear down to the color and shape and size.
Now, the applications of this are amazing. It could be a game changer in the field of neuroscience. Could be used to treat mental health conditions, improve our overall understanding of the brain with any technology, [00:07:00] the downsides you need to consider as well. For instance, there are concerns about privacy and the potential misuse of this technology.
If someone reads your thoughts without your consent, it might lead to a violation of personal autonomy and even be used. A tool of surveillance. Now, those of you who are fans of Tom Cruise and science fiction will recognize that one of his best movies out there was Steven Spielberg's Minority Report.
All right, so Tom Cruise in this film, he's a police officer. He's trying to clear his name. But to do he has to go about this future paradigm. Without being noticed because the issue is here is that this futuristic world uses his eyes and a retinal scan to let's just say, to do some advertising.
So when you first see him, [00:08:00] he's going through the halls of some mall and there's an ad for am Amex, there's an ad for Lexus, and it says Tom Anderson. Hold on just a second. It looks like you could use a Lexus. Another ad said, Hey Tom, sit down and have a Guinness. And you can imagine that sort of personalization that might take place as you're going through this.
It's like virtual reality. It focuses the audio just on you. And so to clear his name, he has to get into a secure building. And so what he does is he goes to the black market and gets another set of eyeball. So they don't know it's him coming, but now he goes into the store and it says, welcome back to the Gap, Mr.
Yakamoto. So there definitely are some privacy concerns, but I will tell you, on the other hand, it could be used for incredible benefits. Imagine the ability to treat some of these mental health conditions. You might have a loved one who has suffered [00:09:00] from a stroke, is having trouble communicating. And of course, The most important application.
I tell you, whoever figures this out and is able to enact this incredible technology, they will be billionaires. They will never work a day in their life. It'll be the biggest company on the face of the world. You could use this technology to try to finally understand where is your wife actually wants to go to dinner on your date?
Wouldn't that be amazing? And now I bring you the great Mrs. Hart. Jenny, are you there? I'm here. Can you hear me? Yes. I've got you loud and clear. What do you think about that? I know yeah the idea of technology being used to to read your spouse's thoughts and what they really intend and want from you.
Is that what you were talking about? Because I was over here living the glam [00:10:00] life of trying to get our child enough goldfish crackers and chocolate milk so that I could do the segment with you. So I admit it wasn't quite listening, so maybe you do need some sort of technology like that to read my mind.
That's. True. Let's go onto the subject why I brought you on here, Ms. Jenni. So glad to have you here. This is my wife Jenny and native of San Diego goes back generations in California. And we have I've been down in San Diego now with her for six years, I think. And we have basically, we've got three.
She has two kids from a previous marriage, got three from a previous marriage. Most of those kids are out the door, but we've got at least four of these people trumping about home. And this was quite the last three year, three years, wasn't it? Love. It was insane. I was even having a conversation with my 14 year old this morning.
She's in high school now. She never had a normal middle school experience. This all [00:11:00] started covid hit end of sixth grade, and it hit right when we were going on like this. Two year plus journey with her of having not problems in school, but just basically we're in the process of getting her diagnosed with h adhd.
And it explains every, because she's so smart and so bright, but, and it presents differently in girls. And it took us a long time to figure out what it was that was making her not get, basically why weren't her grades up, where her level of study was. And I saw her every day and we were talking this morning.
About how things would've been so different if we'd been able to get that diagnosis in sixth grade and then she would've had a normal middle school experience because she's still struggling with some executive functioning things and she was feeling bad. And I was just trying to say, hon do not feel bad about this.
This is totally like y. You've been through a lot, but there's, and that's such a small thing compared to what other people and other families have gone through. I feel like our kids are the lucky ones here because they've had supportive [00:12:00] parents. They have the resources, they had a bedroom and a computer to go to, to do the virtual school as silly of an idea as it was.
But there are so many families that, that couldn't do that. They had kids, kids on top of kids and they don't have the resources. Not everyone has the computer. You hear the stories about people in McDonald's parking lots that we're just trying to get their kids in school and it's mind boggling and insane.
And the thing that makes me feel a little crazy right now is there's a lot of people who are like, oh, let's forget that Never happened, . That's the big issue. And to that end, Jenny, you and I have taken it upon ourselves to to, to. Jumpstart that thing.
Our sponsor for the radio show is Posterity Pack, who have been kind enough to sponsor this event that we're kicking off on March 29th. Can you tell us about that? Yes, and they are sponsoring it in part, so there is a ticket price, but it is greatly, it's about 50% of what the cost actually is, which is really [00:13:00] cool.
So what, this is on March 29th, we are going to Washington, dc We've partnered with this amazing company called DC Fly Ins, and what they do is they organize meetings for you with your people in Congress and your senators. And so when you sign up for our event, We are gonna give you the training to go talk to our elected officials at the highest level, at the federal level, and we're gonna get you into at least three to four.
We're hoping for five meetings. We're hoping to get you with your representative or wherever you live in the United States, your senator. And hopefully we'll have some other, you will be grouped with three to five other people depending on how things go and every, it's all. Sorry, I have a cold. Can you tell , but you have a cold?
Yes. We'll get you better. I'll come home and make you some soup. I'm on day call right now. So let me , [00:14:00] we're going to get you in. You have the Ron and I don't know about it. . It is not Covid. Oh my gosh. Okay. . Okay. Not Covid. Not Covid. We are going to get you into your representative's offices.
We're hopefully gonna get you with the actual sitting congressman or congresswoman and senators. If not, they're high level staff and we're gonna have an opportunity to make our voices heard and to say Hi. This is not something that was a little thing. This is something that affected our family and our communities in big ways.
And we are here to make sure. , we get stuff on the books that this won't happen again. So we have some ideas for legislation that we would really like to see. Things like maybe we don't have. Vax and mask mandates. , just a little thing, but it's so big and so huge, right? Because we're already seeing it happening.
More I saw a headline the other day that said something about maybe wearing masks can help combat climate change. I hope. What the heck? No, [00:15:00] this has to go away. We have to have things in place so that this doesn't happen. , wait, we are exhaling co2 so that, that'll make that tracks right, doesn't it?
That I'm human. ? Yes. Jimmy, really cool. So we're gonna have opportunity to get in these offices and then at the end of the evening we have contracted a restaurant. We've run it out the entire upstairs, like very cool bar area. And we're gonna have a reception with some VIPs. Dr. Jay Aria is gonna be there.
Clifton Duncan's gonna be there. Of Congress fair as well so that we can have content conversations with them. And it's just gonna be a really great way for us to cap off day and spend time with like-minded people and feel like we've actually made a dent. Like we, we've gotta do something. We can't just sit here and complain about everything.
We've gotta actually go to where it matters. our Congress and say, hi, let's make sure we don't do this again. And it's [00:16:00] just a great way to meet up with people, make your voice heard, feel like you're doing something because it is doing something. You don't just feel like you're doing it. You're actually doing something.
And that feels good. We're at that point now I think you're right. I think we need to move that. Can I pause and just ask for a quick minute? I hear a little beeping in the background. Is that our child's monitor? As I told you Jenny has, we have eight kids. And so at one point or another, some of them has taken a nap.
Either it's one of the kids or it's me. And anyways, I just thought that was a funny side. . No, it's gone now. It's gone now. Okay. But just. Just this volume down. Yes. The one year old. The one year old. And I, absolute proof. . Yeah. So Jenny has been juggling all of this and setting up this incredible meeting.
Now, just to be clear, this isn't a January 6th thing, right? Oh my gosh. [00:17:00] No. . I'm not in any way to perform. And so tell me what is the impact of actually, this is something they welcome, right? They like this or what's what's the response going? . Yeah. Th this is something
I think people have forgotten that our politicians are not celebrities. They literally are our representatives. They are supposed to represent us, and we really need to get back to that line of thinking because we need how can they know what kind of laws we need if we, the citizens don't stand up and say, this is what I'm looking for.
And what we're looking for right now is to end all mandate. and to put stuff on the books where we, they can't do that again. Let's not allow, governors to have three year long emergency. stuff like Gavin Newsome. And I know that there's a lot of stuff that happened at the state and local level, but there's a lot that can be done at the federal, and that's where [00:18:00] it all starts.
It's the top down because we saw this happen, throughout our blue state in a lot of areas, which was like they're doing this at the federal level, so now we have to do it even more at the local level. And it's frustrating. And they're, for example, all public schools get federal.
They get some level of federal funding. And so how about we have a law that maybe those schools don't get that federal money unless children are actually inside the building. Let's not count virtual school as school because money talks. And I think that's really what it's gonna come down to. But there are things that we can do and we're gonna put together a package where we're gonna talk to everybody who signs up and we're gonna say, here's.
Stuff like this. Here are things that we can ask for. We can say, can there be a law about no more VAX mandates, no more mask mandates, and just let's get the ball rolling. Let's talk to them. Let's say, this is how this affected me. This is how it impacted my family, my community, my business, all of this.
And let them know that we're not [00:19:00] forgetting this. We're not gonna pretend to do, I think you're, and we're not gonna go. . Look, and I think I think what we're, what we need to do is move beyond the speeches and try to impact these things. You and I have talked about the story of Franco Pantone.
We, we talked about this at length on a couple shows, but this this poor, right? This poor woman, 49 year old Down syndrome, largely non-verbal her entire life. Her sister was her lifeline. She contracts covid early on in the pandemic. They take her into the er, her sister's with. When they take her to the back and get her a bed in a room, her sister is barred from seeing her and she would never see her again.
Her family had to say goodbye to her in this lifetime from the parking lot on FaceTime. And the poor woman, we later learn out didn't, they didn't even get to, they were supposed to call on the iPad and that's even more devastating that the hospital staff was basically we'll call you on the iPad to say goodbye.
And then they never did even. . It's [00:20:00] disgusting and upsetting and heartbreaking. And these are the kind of stories that our city members of Congress need to hear because they represent us. And they can't say, oh, no one cares about this and we don't need to do anything. Yeah, we need to get going. And what else?
So how come people sign up and how can they get in touch with us? And what do they have to do? Where do they. . Okay. So if you go to rational ground.com/dc it will take you right to our signup page. You can also check on Justin's Twitter, he's Justin under, and it's probably all it's at priority pack.com and it's probably all up on your stack too.
Yes, we got it all there on the sub stack on Rational Ground anywhere you find us. And yeah, and you can find me online. It's on my stuff. I'm actually Jenny Erickson on Twitter cause I have two last names cuz Damn. That's part of it. . But yeah, pretty much if you [00:21:00] find Dustin or me online, you can find out where to sign up for this.
But again, rational ground.com/dc is probably the easiest way to get directly to our signup page. Awesome. Love we Love you lot. Thanks for setting this all up and thanks. Holding down the fort there and hope you get some relief. And it's all good. Sorry it's a little crazy at this moment in time, we're making it work.
We're making it work. , you made it work these last three years with the chaos and all at home. I'm sure we can handle. It's fine. Oh, I hope so. Fingers crossed. All right, Jenny, Eric, this is Jenny Hart. Thank you so much, Jenny, for coming on. Love you . Love you too, hun. That's fun. That's my other, that's my other.
I I swear that's the beeping that our monitor makes at home, when the monitor is running outta batteries. And the one-year-old obviously was perfect timing cuz the one the one yearold is taking a nap right now. But [00:22:00] again, during this whole pandemic, we had at one point at the height of dependent, when the pandemic first started out, we had a daughter who was a.
A daughter who was in seventh grade, and we had two preschoolers, and the impact on their lives was so dramatic that it's hard to even comprehend it. I think I've talked about this before, but our two daughters were in a private classical Christian school. The two older ones that Jenny had these kids in for their entire lives.
She was a founding member of this classical Christian school here in San Diego. I'm not gonna mention their name, but at first we thought, okay, everyone's going through this. Obviously the rest of the spring 2020 year was shot. Everyone went home and we thought, okay, they're gonna start back up in 20, in the fall of 2020 going into 2021.
They did, but it was touch and go and it was a lot of masking and a lot of mandates. Then that [00:23:00] next year was when things went haywire because Omicron, everyone got it, and it was so light you didn't even know if you got it. But if you were exposed to something, the mandate was from the state, from the county and the county.
Oh, our county supervisor, Nathan, he sent in a very threatening letter to all sorts of schools saying, you're private, you're public, no matter what. You have to obey these. and the rules were that if someone in your classroom had contracted covid, came down with a positive case and was there that day, everyone had to stay home for 10 days from Halloween on in 2021 to the end of the year, we had a kid home every day, whether it was preschool or freshman class or junior class.
It was awful. It was such a terrible, and the thing was you had no idea when the other shoe was gonna. It was, that was the most most disheartening part about it. You [00:24:00] had no idea if your kids were gonna be home that day or if you were gonna get that dreaded phone call saying, oh yeah, someone got it there.
And we had some crazy experiences. So we actually pulled our kids outta that school. Now our kids that are in public school, the older one is off to college. What a crazy scene. But those are years they can't get back. And I'll never forget talking to a colleague of mine and his son, I think was there at the table.
He's got laid out kind of one of those target coupon magazines, right? And it shows all the toys and it shows all the kid models who are playing with the toys. And he took a marker and he was drawing masks on every kid in that catalog. . Why every kid's a vector of disease? Of course. And that's the way he saw it.
So whether it's for your kids or for franca or for your own sanity, there needs to be some federal [00:25:00] legislation to make sure this never happens again. Because I think you and I both recognize folks, these are tactics and tools that they may pull out. Again, fear based strategies never work with health mandates across the board.
And so yeah, again, go to rational ground.com/dc Thank you posterity pack for sponsoring this radio hour. And thank you for putting this incredible program together. We hope to see you in. We would love to see you there. Get your tickets, come and join us. Do in touch with your representative. It's amazing moment and I think I think you'll enjoy it.
This is Justin Hart. We'll be right back.
Look, something is crazy wrong about the world sometimes. You see it every day around you from crazy covid policies to government censorship, a rollercoaster economy in the growing wave of powerful technologies [00:26:00] that's probably gonna impact your life, definitely impact your kids' life, and for sure it's gonna impact your grandkids.
And that's why I'm here. I'm Justin. I'm the host of the new show on K C B Q, the answer, 10:00 AM Sundays, let's help you get grounded, helping you make sense of the world
All sorts of languages. I happen to. three or four languages. And I know people who speak many more than that. I, I spent two years over in Poland. I came back, I learned Russian, I know English, and I took Spanish in high school. And I think I know them. I know English, the best course polish.
I'm really good. Russian and then Spanish in that order. Although some people would [00:27:00] probably accuse me of not knowing the English language. I I make up a lot of words sometimes, or my wife will look at me as scans and Jenny will say I do not think you're using that word right, to quote the Princess Bride.
But I wanted to talk a little bit about. and generations. Cause it always fascinated me. And I was doing some research on this. We all know that languages change over time. Words that were cool or trendy a few decades ago might sound hopelessly outdated to younger generations.
They're true yourself. And so I wanna dive in. I wanna explore some interesting insights, some funny example. Because I think this is part of what you recognize is that there are things that you pass to the next generation, and I think it's important and understand. What are you passing to them.
First, we'll take the boomers. Okay. These are my parents. Typically, these [00:28:00] are folks born between 1946 and 1964. They have some classic phrases. It'll make you roll your eyes some of the younger generations, but, they created the words groovy, far out cool beans. I still use cool beans actually myself.
And let's not forget about the famous phrase. Can you dig it? Maybe those were seventies, I don't know. But that's generally in the boomer category there. I'm from generation X, gen X. These are people born between 1965 and 1980, thereabouts. Some iconic phrases from my clan, right? Rad, gnarly. Awesome.
Tubular. And if you ever hear a Gen Xer say whatever, they're not happy with this situation. And then, you have, I think there's another group in there called Zens, right? Between Gen X and millennials. [00:29:00] That's like 1977 to 1983. . That's I think where Jenny kind of fits in Microgeneration, and this kind of has a unique blend of Boomer and millennial vocabulary.
They go , they invented YOLO or fomo. Fear of missing Out. I got a lot of FOMO sometimes, and if you hear someone refer to it, you as basic, you know that you've been dealt, a snub from Zenu, millennial. I actually have a millennial daughter, believe it or not. This generation has been accused of a lot of cringe worthy vocabulary, including things like, and I, if I pronouncing this right, bay, b a e lit, and I don't know this one on fleek.
On fleek. I still don't know what that means. And let's not forget about their more practical uses, which we've all adopted adulting, or you're hangry. Jenny kind of fits in that [00:30:00] category two technically, but, and then we have generation Z. Gen Z is there No the cohort from the mid nineties to 2010 generation, they have their own standout phrases.
So I wanna make sure we understand these. So they put down the marker for lit. This means something exciting or awesome or cool. That party was so lit slay . This phrase, this means you're doing something really well. Greatest of all time. Apparently you invented that acronym. I don't know if that's right, but maybe Serena Williams is the goat of tennis.
Yeah. Okay. Suss, I hear this all the time now that, that means suspicious. I don't know that guy. He seems suss would be the example. Why do these generational vocabularies, why? Why do [00:31:00] these differences exist? Now some linguists I was reading up on this say it's just simply a matter of cultural or societal influences and each generation grows up at a different time.
Different experiences, different media and words that are popular at the time reflect those and it's constantly evolving. Something that's popular now may not be 10, 20, 50 years for No, but let's delve a little deeper into this topic here, because the generational vocabulary differences aren't just about culture.
They're constantly evolving and sometimes it's about what you want. Leave and push forward, right? There's a book by the social linguist named Ronald Wock, and he calls it the Social Life of language, and he says it's intimately tied to our sense of self and our place in society.
Here's a quote from the [00:32:00] book. He says that language use is a way of constructing your identity and yourself. One's identity is always construc. In relation to others. Now, identity politics has really made a mess of that notion, but I think that's generally true, right? So when you use words like groovy or lit, you're not just conveying a message, you're also signaling your membership to a particular social group.
Like those of you who are Gen X, you can't see me, but I'm taking my hand and I'm putting my hand. Over my face. It's a face palm as you know it, the emoji face palm. But if I then go, oh face. That was popular when I was a kid and it meant that you just did something embarrassing and that's bad on you or that's embarrassing.
So you'd say face and you put your hand over your. [00:33:00] Maybe that was just a microculture thing in the Bay Area, I don't know. But lots of people have delved into this, the Tipping Point, a great book by Malcolm Gladwell, and talks about how the spread of ideas, words, and trends is often catered to by a small group of high influential people called mavens.
All right? And these mavens, this. Gladwell argues. He says that they're the ones who are always on the lookout for new and interesting things, right? And when they discover a new word or a phrase that they find appealing, they start using it themselves or encouraging others to do the same. And over time, this can lead to a word or a phrase becoming more widely adopted and eventually entering the mainstream.
I think that's interesting, right? In fact, think about in your own. When you use stories or analogies or [00:34:00] phrases or swear words, how those will quickly catch on to your kids later on. Not all these are the same. Of course, some are quickly forgotten. Others become iconic parts of our lexicon. There's a linguist.
Her name is Gresham McCullough. She wrote a book called, because Internet , and I love that. But to talk about the rise of the. And social media, how it fundamentally changed the way that new words and phrases enter our vocabulary. According to McCullough, the internet has made it easier for new words and phrases to just spread.
She says, quote the internet is like a giant communication system that allows people from all over the world. To share language with each other in real time. You may have noticed this too, if you've ever, traveled abroad or to Hawaii or somewhere where there's a vacationing lot of foreigners, and you'll hear them say, something like I'll speak Polish.
[00:35:00] Oh, Doha. Tom Jay. Yes. Movie theater , or Oh, Chu Tom Cruise Minority Report. Words for some of these things in their language or that adopted those words in their own minds in the language cuz they originated either in America or somewhere else. And that's just the best way to convey it. And the, this means that new words and phrases can now spread across globe almost instantly.
And they lead. May 1st, but certainly a rapidly evolving vocabulary. I remember one time my daughter, who was I think 16 at the time, my second oldest, and we went into a bookstore and she was so excited. She looks, says, look, they have an entire section on, on, on manga. And I said, what? Yeah, they have an entire section on manga.
I'm gonna go over there. I'm sorry. Wait, what? What's the section called? Manga [00:36:00] Dad Man. Manga even, I don't know if I'm pronouncing it it's basically a far eastern usually Japanese, Korean or Chinese animated or it's a car. It's basically a cartoon book, right? Or it's some type of illustrated book with characters.
And this goes into usual anime and it's just this whole genre that I didn't know. But she knew exactly what it was. And those are always very decisive moments. So these fascinating sort of reflections on language and culture, they evolve over time. Whether it's groovy phrases about boomers. Or the lit slang of millennials.
Each generation passes on its own unique way of expressing themselves. Now, there's also a lot of funny moments where language barriers can lead to embarrassing moments. One of them I recall there was a missionary in [00:37:00] the in the parish that we were in, and she got up and she was trying to say in Spanish, Just how how impressed she was by the Bishop of the ward.
And she got up there, she was moving to a new ward, so she wasn't gonna say her last goodbyes in front of the congregation. And she was crying and she was trying to compose him herself. And so she, she said,
OHK.
And she was trying to say, the bishop embarrassed me the other day, but I was so impressed by him. But what she really said was, the bishop the other day, he impregnated me so badly. He immediately, the bishop's wife storms out, other people got really upset. There was quite the uproar in the audience, and they all took.[00:38:00]
And it was difficult. I remember when I was over in Poland and I was with a lot of young missionaries, 18 and 19 year olds, and there was this one guy, he was the perfect surfer dude from California and he was very loud and boisterous. . And one time in the middle of the congregation he laed out, out a big sneeze, and he was
It was a very loud sneeze. And afterwards he said, wow. But it turns out, huh, is a really bad swear word in Polish. The congregation was not impressed, . And these things go on. There's a book. Things fall apart by Chinua Cheba, and the story is set in Nigeria. During the colonial era, and it follows a life of a man named , who is a member of the Igbo tribe.
So Christian missionaries [00:39:00] arrive at the village. I have all these missionary stories for some reason, but he begins to spread their message and there are well many misunderstandings between the Igbo people and the Europeans due to. Large part of the language barrier. So one particularly amusing episode in the book is where the missionaries are trying to tell the people the Igbo people about Jesus Christ.
And the Igbo translator has a really limited understanding of English, and sometimes they don't even quite have words for it. So they're trying to say that Jesus is the son of. , but he mistakenly translated as the son of God, as the egg of God. And so the Igbo people are understandably, very confused about this, and they start wondering aloud, how is it possible for God to lay an egg?
And the misunderstanding becomes a source of ridicule intention among the villagers. And they start hoarding eggs and all sorts of crazy things happen. It just highlights that whole communication example there. [00:40:00] One of the more famous examples and it's unclear whether this was widely smiled at or widely misunderstood, but you recall John F.
Kennedy in front. Berlin Wall. And in trying to impress upon him impress upon the people that were gathered that day in western Germany in Berlin, that he was one of them and that he supported them, he said , which I am a a basically a citizen of Berlin, but Berlin in some eyes is a donut.
And so he was basically saying, I am a. Not quite clear that was exactly the case, but the is also a jelly donut. And then you can go back in literature and find some interesting sort of moments where language became a barrier that one of the most famous ones from Odysseus, from the Odyssey Odysseus and his men [00:41:00] arrive on the island of Cyclo.
Many Cyclops and they're trapped in one Cyclops cave, and they must devise a plan to escape the cyclops without alerting the other cyclops to come and help him. So the Cyclops only speaks a language they don't understand, and they're unable to communicate with him directly. So Ssus tricks the Cyclops by telling that, oh, my name is nobody.
My name isn't . It's nobody. And then he uses his strength and binds him with a steak, which immediately the Cyclops starts crying out. And when the other Cyclops has come to investigate the commotion in the middle of the night, they start calling aloud Who is harming you? Comrade who is harming you? And the blinded Cyclops can only shout that nobody is hurting him.
And so they leave him to his. There's a Chinese proverb about communication that I think is really [00:42:00] instructive. I'm not even gonna try to pronounce this, but it can be translated as the speaker is not guilty, but the listener must be where and the proverb basically emphasizes the responsibility of both the speaker and the listener In communication, the speaker is not held responsible for how their words are interpret.
but the lister has a duty to be attentive and cautious in their interpretation. It reminds us that communication is really that two-way street, and in a broader sense, the proverb highlights the importance of active listening and the need to be aware of our own biases and assumptions. and we've had that now in these last three years.
And perhaps in your own lives where you've had these sort of moments of craziness where you're trying to interpret exactly what happened. It's something that, I think of, I remember reading the account of a translator in [00:43:00] Poland who was for the first time translating the great works of art into his native.
Some that were basically forbidden for years. And he thought of it as trying to pour a bucket of blood that had been spilled in great sacrifice from one bucket to another. And he was so careful not to, mess that up and not to spill another drop there. That's powerful. And I think that image can really convey some of the things that, that we look at.
There's a old TV program, maybe you remember, as sitcom in the nineties called news Radio. And they had some actors that you might remember. There was David Foley, Andy Dick even Joe Rogan was in it. Steven Root, who you remember, you've seen him in a lot of films. He played the owner of the [00:44:00] radio station, but he was also a business.
And he had a book that he had written that well it didn't do so well. So he had a tactic because apparently it did really well in Japan. Let's play that clip. Thanks a lot everybody. The original title of this book was Jimmy James, capitalist Lion Tamer, but I see now that it's Jimmy James Macho.
Donkey wrestler know what it is. I had the book translated into Japanese and back again into English. So Macho Business Donkey. Wrestler. There you go. It's got a ring to it, don't it? . Yeah. I love that. And wouldn't you know it I've had those moments too, where I give a little bit.
Maybe it's a joke. Maybe it's a context. And for some audiences it, it works in some audiences [00:45:00] it falls flat. And I think that's something we just need to be very apprised of in our own lives. It's what are the languages that you use with your kids, with yourself, and what can you do to improve that language or make sure that you're communicating the right way and bringing it back to the brain?
One of the most interesting books I've read is by Jeff Hawkins, who was the inventor of the Palm Pilot. That was the pre. First personal digital device, that you could use. And he actually was really interested in how the brain functioned and what he said. One of the things that's so interesting about the brain is it has layers.
So the best way to think about how the brain is structured is take a. A towel and kind of crumple it up, or maybe a paper towel or a set of paper towels and now stuff that into a large wine glass. And that's [00:46:00] how your brain or brandy glass up something that's wider. And that's how your brain is structured.
It's folded in on itself, but some layers are on top and some layers feed to other parts of the brain. But he said the one unique thing about the brain compared to other structures is that there are synapses going one. so it, you prick your finger, it, the amygdala tells the cerebral cortex and everything else to react in a certain way, that sort of flight mechanism.
But there are three times as many feedback, little links going back there, and I think that's something that we need to be apprised of. You always need great feedback from people. I remember one example in my own professional. . I was a very small junior executive at a marketing firm, and I had this idea, and I wasn't quite sure about it, but I pitched it to my boss.
I said, I have this thought. [00:47:00] I'm not sure what it is. Can you tell me, do you think this should work pretty well? And I had it all fleshed out. He says, oh my gosh, this is brilliant. , this is brilliant. I'm bringing you up to the executive offices. Let's plan a meeting. You prep it. I'm so confident they're gonna love this.
You give, you own it. This is yours. Go to it. And I was strutting. I was so excited. I got up to that presentation and I was throwing myself around. I was saying, this is gonna change the company. This is gonna be a product that will take off and it will be extraordinary. You won't know what hit you.
It'll be. and all of a sudden it was just silence and there was lots of questions. People didn't think it was so good, they weren't quite sure how to put their heads around it. And it ultimately got rejected. And I checked with a mentor outside the company. I said, what did I do wrong there? I can't see the flaw in what I was presenting.
And it says, the flaw is that when you presented it to your [00:48:00] boss became part. The part that your boss was a part of, it was the validation he confirmed in you and that was his reward. When you got in front of the executive team, this was all you owned and they had no point in the creation of it or anything else.
And that's an extraordinary moment when you know that you have to basically make people part of that creative experience. Because if you own it, you might not get the buy-in that you. I I spent some time in LA and I got to talk to really interesting people in all sorts of fields. But there was one guy that I knew who did the most incredible movie trailers you've ever seen.
All of them too. I can't, I don't wanna divulge who he is, but in movie trailers the people making interact in the movie, they don't do the trailers. They actually take the footage and they outsource it to a trailer studio who [00:49:00] do nothing but trailer. I'll give you an example.
He did that first. The force Awakening trailer. The one where it pulls back and Ray in the goggles. That was his trailer, and it's an ex astounding trailer. He did all these great trailers of last 10 years, and he would do all the trailers for Christopher Nolan and his films. But Christopher was the same way.
He wanted to be part of that creation process. So one thing that they would do because they knew they would always get. They would purposely make a mistake in the trailer. Maybe it was a note that wasn't quite right. Maybe the ending didn't quite pop. Maybe the timing was off on one of the clips. And then he would catch that Christopher Nolan and say, this is great, but why don't you correct that?
And then they avoided any other further corrections that he wanted to make because he had been a part of that creation. So as you work with yourself, your colleagues, your. [00:50:00] your kids. Just know that talking at them is probably not the best way you're going to improve your communication skills with them.
If you could take a little bit of humble pie and just step back and say, what can I say and what can I make them a part of there? There was a great line from Ra Reagan, of course, when Gorbachov came to town, was speaking in. Never been done before. The president of Russia speaking in front of a joint congregation of senators and congressmen, he was basically taking credit for the wall coming down and for parisa.
Everything that Reagan had forced his hand with, he got out of the car as limo on the way to the capitol, started shaking hands with the American people. It was an amazing moment and he was getting praised left and. A reporter is sitting next to President Reagan [00:51:00] as President Reagan is watching Gorbachov make his way up Pennsylvania Avenue.
And he said, aren't you aren't you just a little bit upset that he's getting all the credit for this? And President Reagan, without losing a beat, said . I co-starred with Errol Flynn. What do I care? You never know what you can get done when you don't have to take credit for everything. So in your life, in communication, It's vital, and again, communicating this to your elected officials is vital, and that's why I encourage you to go to rational ground.com and sign up for our event here coming at the end of the month.
Thank you so much for being with me today. Love you guys lot. I'll see you next Sunday and hopefully in dc. This is Justin Hart. You've been listening to the Justin Hart Show. Tune in again next Sunday morning at 10. Right here on the answer, San Diego.
The Justin Hart Radio Show - Episode 8 - Language and Communication