223 - How Does Respect Work?

All right, Matt, there are three types of people. What I wanna know is how do you show each of these three types of people respect? Oh, fun. The first person is the person above you, someone that has authority over you.

The second person is the person on the same level as you, like people with equal authority as you. So people you work with or whatever, people in your classes. And the third person is the person that is below you in terms of authority. They have less authority than you.

Here may be over these people. So the question is, how do you show each of these people respect? To be clear, you're talking about an authority structure, not a caste system. You're not talking about, I'm better than that person.

You're talking about they are in a stage of life where I would be their mentor, I would be their teacher, I would be an authority figure in their life. Yeah, I mean, I'm thinking about it in terms of a work environment in the West, that's what I'm thinking. Okay, which one of you wanna start with? Let's start with people who are above you because I think that'll inform everything else, right?

Okay, yeah, I think we can trickle down from there. So how do you, the question is, how do you show respect to someone above you? Well, I think the thing is, it's important to show respect to everyone and to love people. But sometimes we have these relationships as a function of where we are in society related to other people, relative to other people, excuse me.

How do we do that? Because I think you do it wrong, you come off as like, kiss and butt, you know? Or, oh, you're a teacher's pet, you know? I'm sure there's a lot of ways to get it wrong.

Exactly. And so the question is, how do you do it in a way that's done well, but doesn't get it people around? You irritated at you. That's interesting.

Yeah, I like the question. Several years ago, there was an authenticity craze that was just starting. Do you remember the Grant Hill sprite commercial? I think we've talked about it before.

Grant Hill of the basketball guy? Yeah. It's when Sprite figured out that we all hated ads and we started doing the thing like, I'm Grant Hill and I just happened to like Sprite, Ching, and then dollars would pop up. I'm only telling you this because of how much I genuinely and truly like Sprite, Ching.

And I would never say anything. And the whole joke was, I'm a complete sellout. We all know what's going on here. It was anti-advertising.

Okay. And it corresponded with the age of, I don't care what anything, anybody thinks about me. I just am who I am, only God can judge me. And I just live my life, totally authentic.

I don't care what people think about me. I just dress how I want. By the way, people who say that are always dressed in very unusual ways to indicate that they really care how people think about them. It was the beginning of the sort of pre-internet, early internet age of authenticity, which I don't think was very authentic.

One of the things that I felt discomfort with about that was if I just act like myself around everybody, all four of my grandparents were alive at that time. And so I was young, when I was fashionable, I was like, I think I want to do that because I want to do what's fashionable. But where it broke was with my grandparents. I felt like I should not treat them like a peer or give them the, this is just who I am treatment.

I felt like they were worthy of honor and respect. I didn't really know how to articulate that. Instead of a peer, you said you felt like you should treat them as a peer. I felt like society wanted me to treat everybody like a peer.

Oh, I see. Yeah, because that's authentic, right? And we want to be authentic. Oh, okay, and you're saying that they deserve something more than that treatment?

Yeah, and eventually it occurred to me that to authentically be myself would be to treat my grandparents differently than I would treat my friend who I play baseball with. Okay, and by that I kind of mean better or different. What shows them respect is different than what shows my buddy? Play ball with respect.

Okay. In baseball, man, somebody has a home run and it's 2002. What do you do when that guy comes back in the dugout? High fives.

Low five. Low five? Yeah, you're going right. You slide people on the butt.

Oh, oh, I see. Yeah, the butt. All our coaches slapped us on the butt all the time. Like that wasn't weird at all.

That was authentic. It was real. Like if I go and do that to my grandma when she makes a great casserole. Like, good game, grandma.

Wait, Matt here. Retreating Simba into the grass, ears down. So that's kind of where my brain goes, trying to work that through as a kid. I know I should treat people above me in life different, but I don't know why.

So you're saying you do it. Don't butt slap grandma. That's what you're saying. I think we just found the name of this episode.

There's a million reasons why you shouldn't do that. That's the one I figured out. Oh, gosh. Yeah.

I hate that. I mean, how you treat your grandparents. Oh, incredible respect. Yeah.

What did that look like? Oh, my high school graduation night, a lot of my friends had parties to go to and I went and sat with my granddaddy and watched reruns of Alabama football. Games I didn't care about. But I just went and sat with him.

I'm really glad I did that. My grandmother was dead at that time, and so he was alone. But I got to go to sit with him. And that was my way of showing him, like, hey, I could be anywhere right now.

It's supposed to be like the day about all me, but I like you a lot and I want to sit with you. And that was a big deal. I'm also glad you went and sat with him. Yeah.

Let's see. That was May, June, July. Yeah, he was. He didn't make it to the end of the year.

But he was healthy at that point in time. It was a strange thing. Yeah. I guess time is one way that I show people respect.

Yeah. So you just go and show them time. But I guess you kind of took the question in a different direction. You're talking about people, okay, the question was, those above you with more authority.

So the implication there is that your elders have authority. Yes. Why? Because they're older than me and they've done it longer.

And I am doing something they already did and learned from. And how do you want to be treated when you're in that position? How do you want to be treated by people younger than you? It's pretty simple logic, I think.

I mean, this isn't like some new innovation I'm throwing out here as we talk. This has been pretty much what all of humanity until very, very recently, in very early years. I mean, I'm not a little bit of a fan of it. I'm not a fan of it.

I'm not a fan of it. I'm not a fan of it. I'm not a fan of it. I mean, I think that's a very limited part of the West have thought about their elders.

Some people worship their debt ancestors. Yeah, I don't think you should do that. I don't think so either. But I mean, tip of the hat to the degree of reverence that humans would feel that impulse, that people who are older than me know things I don't know, is very healthy and very humbling.

Okay. That's not really what I was thinking when I wrote a question. I know. I was thinking about a boss.

But let me bounce you a question before we, because I think it relates perfectly tightly. Okay. Because authority is intuitive is a point. That's why you ask me the question about your respect.

Authority is intuitive. I'm trying to think about what you're meaning by that. I mean, think about the people you don't respect, but you're supposed to respect. You had to be told that person has authority over you.

Fain respect for them. Okay. You will respect that person, but you don't. I would disagree with your statement authorities.

I think you're just finding the words. I would say authority is earned. There's two types. All right.

There's authority and respect. Okay. So you just drew a line between the two. Maybe continue.

Okay. So authority is on an org chart. But respect is earned. Is that what you're saying?

I don't know. It's a semantic man. Authority. Okay.

Have you ever had a boss? Not respect. Really? Yes.

I took an entirely new trajectory in my entire life because I had a boss. I did not respect. And my life was in a difficult place too. It's not like, you know, looking back, there's plenty of things about myself to point a finger at there.

But a huge part of why I made a big move in my life when I was a much younger man was I did not respect a person in authority over me and made the effort to and couldn't. So I moved. Yes. I've experienced that.

I know what it was like. Wow. Thanks for saying that. I mean, that's a big deal that you said that because that's like, that's a hard thing.

It was a hard thing. Yeah. Yeah. That's fantastic.

But you tried to respect this person and you couldn't, but they were an authority over you. Yeah, it didn't work. I don't understand why it didn't work. Things that I do that normally make it work with people in authority over me that normally communicate deference and even in disagreement.

I'm with you. It didn't work. It's a comedy of errors. I don't know.

I have a better chance of making it work now. I've learned stuff. I have a really good friend that was my boss for a while. And we had a disagreement and it was a pretty big disagreement.

We sat in a room and you know how like when somebody said, so he was my authority. I also respected him and we had a disagreement. So it was a very interesting social dynamic. Yeah.

And so he said the thing and wrote the thing on the piece of paper. It wasn't like money or anything. It was like, I think, you know, it was a performance review thing, a very specific performance review thing. What do you say about you?

I don't want to talk about that. Okay. I did not get a good review. Okay.

It was the only not good review I ever got. If you'd pulled on the thread of my thing, I said, I don't want to talk about that. Yeah. So I'm cool with giving you a pass on it.

Long story short, we had a disagreement. I had dated it back it up. I think the thing was happening because of some larger political machine issues that I just could not understand at that time. Also, I think he's a very wise man.

And I think he knows what buttons he could push on me at that stage in my life to get certain reactions from me. And I'm not saying like he was just messing with me. Like, if I do this, he will think this and he will mature in this way and it will develop him. He was thinking ultimately for my good.

So it's complex. It's very complex, but I disagreed violently, like in my head. And I just told him, I was like, I disagree. I disagree because of this reason.

So we both had very, very valid gripes. It's not even gripes. It was just like very valid perspectives on the situation that made us not. See, maybe quite as awful as our boss thought we were.

Right. Well, I don't think my boss thought I was awful, but I think in your case, maybe that was the case. Yeah. But I remember violently disagreeing and I decided to do something I don't normally do.

I matched the energy of the room. Like, this is the way it is. What does that sound like? I'm just very cold.

I contact. I'm going to look at you directly. I'm going to use this tone right here. And I know you think that.

This is why I think the other thing. Destin, I'm disappointed in how you're doing this thing. And I'm telling you, it's got to change. And if we don't see changes, we're going to have an action plan.

That's fine. I respect that. I'm going to be based on what exactly? It's going to be based on my evaluation because I'm the one whose job it is to evaluate.

Because I'm 30 years, you're senior in this position. And I know what I'm looking at. I respect you very much. I think you're a very clear thinker.

And I know you do things for a reason. You're a black and white person. You know why you do what you do. I also know that you need me to be less than this other guy because he needs the promotion.

And he's going to management route and I'm going to technical route and you need the paper to show that. I'm fine with that. Just tell me that because this what's happening right now between us is not true. And I know you to be a man of integrity.

And so you just tell me that right here and we're cool. You actually did that? I did. I decided to stop role playing because you scared me.

Yeah. I went there. And so I did that another time, a man that trained me how to do something was killed doing the thing he trained me how to do. Okay.

So think about that. They decided it was time to take away my hazardous duty pay, which meant if you do the dangerous thing on that day, you get I think it was like somewhere between 12 and 20% more pay for that day because you did a hazardous thing that day. All right. So I was like, I was like, how's duty pay makes a lot of sense to me?

They decided they were going to take away hazardous duty pay for me. The reason they said they were going to do it is because it was no longer hazardous because they had mitigated the risk. So I went to a room with a guy or in a green suit, I was like, here's the deal partner. I didn't say partner.

That was not respectful. I was like, yeah, yeah. I did not say partner. I did not say partner.

Yeah. Bad. I don't say respect. I did say, I appreciate what's happening.

I understand this is a financial decision. Totally get it. What I don't want to happen is I don't want us to create some type of language or words that implies what I'm doing is not dangerous because it is hazardous because name of person is no longer with us. And this is what he did.

And the reason he died was outside of his control. As long as we're talking about the truth, I'm fine with this. However, I don't want to say something that's not true in an effort to make some kind of political cover up decision. We have to have integrity here.

I'm comfortable with not receiving this hazardous duty pay as long as we say the truth. People don't like that, man. No, they don't. No, they don't because they've got pressures above them and everything is bull crap.

And you got to play the game. And if you don't learn how the systems work and where the wiggle room is within it, you can't really control the outcomes of your department or the thing that you're running. And so you got to play the game. We have to do this paperwork.

The paperwork has to say this. It's a bureaucracy. If it doesn't say this, we can't do the obvious thing that needs to be done. And in order for this to happen, this other thing has to happen.

This time around, you're going to have to be this other thing. That's the kind of thinking that happens institutionally. If you're the guy who starts saying stuff like, but that's not true. It's really difficult.

If everyone is agreed that we're going to lie a little bit to make our thing work the best it can possibly work given circumstances beyond our control and you're not willing to lie a little bit, you're going to get canned eventually. And it'll be something like didn't work well with others. Yeah. Yeah.

Created a toxic work environment. A character flaw that they'll fabricate. Yes. The character flaw will be you.

I've seen this in the workplace. I've seen this institutionally. Also, I've felt the call of the void to be on the wrong side of this. Oh, yeah.

I feel that temptation. The obvious thing is just say, like all we have to do is say that. And the thing will work out. I get why people play it that way.

But that kind of way to play your business or your department only works if everybody's in. And so you're telling me you're not down. No, but the question is how do we show people above you respect? Sometimes they have pressures that we don't understand.

Sure. And so the way I felt like I was showing respect is I understand this waves arms broadly. I understand all this is we're part of this. What I'm telling you is just tell me that you understand that blah, blah, blah.

And I'll go along with your thing. So I'm trying to give them an out. Like say, I understand your thing. I understand you have all this stuff.

And I'm grateful for the job. Thank you so much. But at the same time, I can't cross this line. I just need you to look me in the eye and say, I understand, but this is what we're going to do.

And I'm just going to click my hills and get in line and do the thing. Did you get that outcome? No, no, they didn't say the thing, which is fine. I just moved forward.

I just felt better saying a thing from real with you. I just, OK, I got to say my piece. I'm going to go be the little guy again. So the respect and authority thing.

I think it's one of those one is always kind of category. There's a tax on here. Authority can happen outside of an institution and it can happen outside of someone being assigned an authority position. Respect is outside of all of that.

You can demand gestures of respect toward authority in your institution. But true respect, it happens or doesn't. It's absolutely earned. Authority can be earned or demanded institutionally.

To me, I think that's the difference. OK, so here's the question. Do you have to show respect to your authority or do you just show obedience to the authority? And I just respect.

Is it? Yeah, is it? Yeah, you told me a thing to do and I did it neutrally is respect. OK, I respect your position.

I did what I was told to do and I did it neutrally. Yeah, I think a beautiful scene in cinema is Band of Brothers. You remember this? I really, really like that show.

But it's been a while. There's two soldiers. One is in a position of authority of another and he walks by me, doesn't salute. And he looks and he says, whatever the guy's name, soldier.

And the guy turns around and looks at him, he's just mad at him. And he said, you salute the rank, not the man. I do remember that. He turns around and he salutes so hard.

You know? And I was like, that's very well done. Yeah. Very well done.

And so I think about that sometimes. Go ahead. Yeah, that same kind of sequence happens in Master and Commander. Oh, I still haven't seen this movie.

Oh, wow. Is that going on my list? Yeah, I know you like it. If I say it was good.

Shut up, man. You're going to spoil it. You are. I do a hair trigger on spoilers.

May I please talk about a character development moment with no named characters in a 20 plus year old movie? Please do. Thank you. There's a scene on deck during a difficult time at sea in life.

Sometimes we call a moment where kind of nothing's happening, the doldrums. OK. At sea, the doldrums are certain latitudes where seasonally you just don't get wind. And so there's a scene that explores what that was like psychologically for people at sea.

It's interesting. And of course, people are depressed and irritable and it's hot and whatever. There's one petty officer, mid ranking officer on the ship. And this is the Napoleonic Wars era.

And he is weak. And there's one particularly feisty shipment who is starting to show disrespect to him. And with the added pressure, the heat and everything that's going on, everybody's on deck, including Russell Crowe's Aubrey, Captain Aubrey, I think is the character's name. And this feisty guy who kind of represents the gripes of all of the shipment, walks by and does the shoulder check on deck to this weak mid ranking officer.

And I just love the scene. Russell Crowe looks at the guy, looks at the officer. Like, are you going to address that? Realizes he isn't going to address it.

Rather than being disgusted with the officer in front of everyone, he snaps and points and master at arms. You put that man in clamps or whatever. And immediately he has him arrested. He has that guy flogged in front of everybody on the ship.

Good. Good. He's going to keep that order. And then he deals with his officer privately in terms of what it takes to get the respect of the men.

I encourage you to go watch the scene in terms of what we're talking about right here. And then, you know, how it plays out is go watch the movie. I think about that scene and I think about what is the bare minimum that needs to happen institutionally to show respect. I think it's a little different on board of vessel like that.

But I think Russell Crowe used the term contempt. You're allowing the men to show contempt to an officer. And effectively he's saying that will break everything. Neutral respect was enough for Aubrey toward his officers, but contempt would destroy everything.

You make a good point. If I have a feeling in my heart of I don't respect this man, that's above me, it's very, very, very important that I don't show that publicly. It has to be private. Why is that important?

Because you salute the rank. You have to make sure to, I mean, privately with the authority figure, you can have those direct eye contact conversations. But great point, that should never happen publicly. What you do, if you're the underling, you might think you're the hero of the normal man by standing up or saying what you all gripe about, griping about your boss is sort of the right of passage.

People do it. A smart boss even encourages it and allows for it just a little bit, right? Let the men blow a scene. That's fine.

I don't feel like they've got their own little cotteran. They're in it together. You have to be different as an officer. But if you then take that to the next step toward an authority figure and show open contempt, you have forced their hand.

They must do something out of respect for you, out of respect for the men, out of respect for the institution. They have to do something for the thing is going to break and now nobody has anything. I had to look this up. It's like when Douglas Smith MacArthur publicly disagreed with Truman.

Do you remember? No, I don't. Okay. World War II towards the end.

Very, very famous general Douglas MacArthur. He publicly criticized President Truman and he defied orders and wrote a letter to Congress and like did some stuff. And the president was there and president had to be like, hey, I got shut this down, which is very interesting. I've seen that weaponized from the other direction.

I don't understand. I've seen presidents fire people that disagree with them just like, hey, you disagree with me? I'm going to fire you. But it seems like those disagreements are private.

And I don't think you want to do that as an authority figure because it's very important to have people in your life that disagree with you and give you negative feedback and like, hey, let's get to the right solution here. What you don't want is to be surrounded by a bunch of people that just tell you yes all the time and sick of fans. You want constructive thinking in the organization. But you would want to fire who someone who is disagreeing with you disingenuously.

If I'm commanding a war and I have somebody who isn't really trying to accomplish the same objectives that we've all agreed to and that are our orders and they're differing opinion, isn't a differing way to skin the cat a victory. But rather the differing opinion is almost like trying to make sure we don't win or we accomplish some completely other, maybe equally good objective but completely other than what we're here to do. I do think you fire that guy and I do think that's good leadership. It's like when Lincoln fired.

I just don't know. Eight generals, Mead, Burnside. That guy just ripped through generals. I think Lincoln was, he was playing a win.

He was playing a win. And then he was the commander of the Army for a period of time. He's one of the commanding generals of the North. Really?

Yeah, Lincoln commanded the Army for a period of time, not in the field. But for a period of time there was no lead in general managing the union effort. I did not know that. Man, the Civil War is fascinating dude.

Dude. What is the book I listened to it? Shelby Foot's History of Angels and it's about Gettysburg. Yeah.

Angels and Generals or something. I forget the name of it. It's good. Okay, anyway, firing people.

One more thing I want to say about the authority thing, the man who I disagreed with about the performance review thing, I had incredible respect for him. I disagreed with him. Incredible respect. We went straight eye contact direct, you know, knife hand kind of conversation.

Yeah. And immediately after that, it's like you want to go get some D for lunch. Okay. I mean, that's awesome.

That was awesome. And I felt like by having that conversation is showing respect. It's like I take you seriously. Yeah.

And that's usually been the result for me when I've spoken directly clearly and respectfully to people in authority or me. What if you have just briefly because we need to move on to the next point, but what if you have a leader that's just great? Like everything's going wonderful for you and everybody else around you and the leader is responsible. How do you show that person respect?

Protect him at all costs in ways he does not see or that she does not see. And if you ever get credit for it, cool. And if not, fine. Okay.

Yeah. So if something happens and you are slapped on the back for doing good, say, oh, yeah, it's because of our valiant leader or boss. Yes. Be an extension of that boss, that commander, that field general, whatever.

Just like it. It's the opposite of showing open contempt. You're showing not performative respect. This guy knows what he's doing.

This episode of No Dumb Questions is brought to you by the patrons who support this program. You don't have to do that, but you do. And it's super appreciated. Thanks.

If you want to know more about it, patreon.com slash No Dumb Questions. All right. Next, next question here. What about the people that are on the same level as you people with equal authority?

How do you show them respect? So it's interesting the way you're framing this up. I tend to think of it more relationally than institutionally than the way you have it framed up. I break this down into people who can hurt me, people I can't hurt, people I can hurt.

Interesting. Because I feel like I can hurt people everywhere. Maybe I'm a liability in an organization. I feel like, well, okay, how do you hurt somebody who's above you?

You weasel. Okay. You weasel, right? You just weasel.

He's undercut them with social creativity. Interesting. Like a guy on the ship and the master and commander. Okay.

You weasel. Well, I don't want to pursue this line of questioning. I want to respect people. Of course.

That's the point. What's the opposite of what you should do? Well, weasel, I guess that's how you hurt somebody who's in authority over you, but just don't do it. If you think of it this way, one of the things I like about peers and one of the things I like about you is I feel like if I work through an idea that isn't cooked yet, I'm just thinking.

We can just think. It's not like, oh, dude, I'm really struggling with what to do with this part of the Bible that is very important to both of our faith. Why does it say that? Why did that story go that way?

Oh, so you asked them questions about your thing. Sure. We can think about that. We can talk about anything.

And it's not like, ah, but that might kind of wreck Destin. You know, one of the great things about peers is you can just unwrap life together. You can encounter the hard things together. Bear each other's burdens, not just in the world, but in the life of the mind, which is a dynamic life that is ongoing.

It has ebbs and flows, ups and downs. Seasons of life can be dominated by single, intellectual or emotional questions with peers, with whom you have trust. You can do that. And generally speaking, there's not a high risk that you're going to hurt somebody because you are a peer.

You're ready for that question. There are people in my life who I don't want to hit with that stuff. And when my, when my kids are 10 years old, I got to burden them. I think about how awful it would be if I went to my 10 year old kid and I was like, I'm really mad at your mom today.

Have you seen that your mom does this? That would be horrible for a marriage. Horrible. I say marriage at least two marriages because when that kid grows up and gets married, that's normal to them.

Yeah. So am I being authentic? If I go to my 10 year old daughter and complain about my wife, well, that might be authentic. Everything I say might be true, but it's awful.

It's disrespectful to my peer, my wife. It's disrespectful to my kid. It's disrespectful to whoever my kid will grow up to marry one day. It's disrespectful to my hypothetical future grandkids because it's just out of process.

Who's the right person to talk with about my gripes with my wife if I have them and I don't? Jesus. And my wife. Yeah.

That's it. So you see the kind of schema that I'm laying over the top of yours is it sounds like you're saying, who can I hurt? It sounds like don't be a bad apple is what you're saying. Like if you're trying to yuck it up with the peers and you think you're showing them respect because you're doing things that get laughs and chuckles, if you're doing it at the expense of the authority above you, you could end up poisoning the well that you're all drinking from you.

It's interesting. You say or what you're making me think is that if I show my authority figure above me disrespect, it could end up undermining the people at my level because they start to have contempt for their job. Yeah. That's one point.

That's a lightly riving an authority figure and knowing the difference can be good. I work as you get rapport. Yeah. There was a higher ranking guy than me in an institution I worked in and he had just real smooth wavy hair and he had this tick, this habit by which he would reach into his back pocket with his hand while you were talking, never break eye contact, pull out a comb that he held like disguise like a ninja might hide a knife like pinch between his thumb and fork finger and going down his wrist and he would just take it across his head and make sure that wave in his hair was good.

Did you work with the fawns? And go right. It was a fawns move. I'm not kidding.

You're wearing quick hair? And just keep looking right at me. Okay. Dude.

That's why I started bringing a comb and he would do it and the time he did it. I would just get my comb out and just mirror him perfect. Oh, that's good. And he had such a good sense of humor.

And people got a kick out of it. And it was fine. And I think I knew when to stop, to me that is an example of a time when I showed respect to someone above me in a way that was playful and harmless and stopped before it would have become something other than that. Yeah, that's good.

That's really good. I can think of other examples where I did not. There was a former Marine officer who was the director of a camp I worked at. I was trying to impress a girl.

It worked. and bore my children. But I went and I ran up to this guy while he was goofing around. He was rough housing with us.

So I'm like, oh, it's on. Like we're all playing. So he started wrestling people and goofing around. And I came up and he was hitting people with pies.

I came up with a pie and got on his back and got him. No. Really? Yeah.

Like he turned around and was like, no. And pulled me aside and gave me this whole talk about like, this is how things work at camp. That does not work. Here's why.

You came up behind me. Like we were doing a thing. It had a certain order to it. You have to understand the order to it.

Here's exactly why you violated it for these three reasons. And here's what that does to our authority structure and what's going to happen at this camp. Really? There's a controlled chaos that works here and you violated the principles of that.

Wow. How did you feel about that? I loathed him. It made me so angry as an 18, 19 year old.

Was he right? I've come all the way around to maybe. That still looks pretty hypocritical to me. But in his mind, you know, camp is a place where we're silly.

Not that kind of silly. How is that different than the commander putting the dude in the shackles, man? You checked him on the shoulder. I didn't check him on the meringue pie.

It wasn't contempt. He was he had pies. No. That's interesting.

Did you just feel bad because you were reprimanded in front of other people? Yeah, I felt embarrassed and I felt dumb. To me, I felt like I seen from the office, you know, retrospectively. It's like one of those moments where like everybody's having a good time and then see if you're like, no, that's too much.

No. Okay. This brings us to a great transition to the third one. Good job.

I have suspicions to do that on purpose. So the third question is how do you show respect to those below you? The people with less authority, the people that serve you, so to speak. How do you show those people respect?

What is the number one way that comes to your mind? Just take care of them. And if they screw up, then you own their screw up. Unless, you know, it's a repeated thing.

But if they, the bosses I've had that have really earned my respect and I'm just like, Hey, man, whatever, if we're running off a cliff now, just tell me I'm following you. I'm in your camp. People that have taken the L for me when I clearly messed up. Oh, dude, you talk about loyalty.

You have purchased my loyalty and I will fight for you at that point as you're subordinate. It's just a thing, man. I don't know. Yeah.

I'm with you. I think the number one way that you take care of people below you on the authority scale is do a good job. Be consistent, communicate clearly. I mean, the old phrase set people up for success and maybe fall on some sorts here and there.

I like, I didn't think of that, but I like the way you said that. All of these have exceptions. Like I, the last example, I still don't know if that guy was right. He's a good dude.

He's a smart dude. Camp went well. So maybe he was right about wrong in the moment. I felt like I was in the spirit.

How old is he and how old were you? He was in his 40s. I was 19. Okay.

But remember, it's camp. I think this is the common thread I'm detecting on all these. We don't like to be corrected in front of other people. I don't like to be corrected.

I don't like it. People that have really earned my respect or the people that pull me aside afterwards and tell me how big of an idiot I was in the moment. Or they figure out a way to creatively communicate with me in the moment that I'm screwing up in a way that other people can't detect. I think that's my pride in my arrogance and my ego that doesn't want to be hurt in front of other people.

I think you got to be in tune to that to other people. You don't want to be the guy that does that to other people. I don't know. You're making a face.

Because it just hurts. No, I think that's a great take. I don't like to be corrected in front of other people that feels bad. Bye.

Nothing else to say. I like it's embarrassing. All right. So let's do a review.

What I'm finding from all the three topics that you took us through is we did not come up with some set of hard and fast rules on this because it involves social dynamic. Not all authority figures are the same or authority figure the same. Are you trying to show respect to an authoritarian who's made herself completely separate from the office she oversees? Are you trying to show respect to an authority figure who is a weak gentleman?

And it's pretty good at his job. Maybe got promoted one spot above where he should have been and he really needs your help. I've seen that happen a lot. Over promoted.

We had a saying where I used to work. I was promoted to your level of incompetence. Yeah. Well, let's think about that as well.

So because you're promoted until you can't do it anymore and then you don't get promoted anymore. You don't get demoted one usually. Yeah. So a lot of times people will go up to a place where they're not that great.

Sometimes people figure out like, ah, I was better down there and some people will, I never went for a position of management because I really like the technical stuff. Yeah. I was like, I want to be here in the weeds, Western wires doing the things. That's just what I loved.

And I knew that respect looks different depending on what type of leader you're talking about. Respect looks different depending on what kind of peer you're talking about. And there are things that pretty much universally would be disrespectful. But there's a lot of wiggle room here.

It's rapport. It's dynamic. It's unspoken. I mean, my relationship with some of my other friends is just nothing like my relationship with you.

And there are things that you would find disrespectful that build equity with other friends that I have. And that doesn't make them wrong or you wrong. That's why all my friends aren't the same exact human being. That's kind of fun.

Part of the fun of friendship is figuring out, well, how do I learn you? I talk about this in premarital counseling. Sir, ma'am, you have to figure out how to show specifically catered gestures of love to this person because it doesn't all just universally mean the same thing. You have to crack the code.

You've got to figure out what it means. Okay, well, there's certain things that I know you just hate that are uniquely grating to you. They don't bother anyone else. You know there are things I hate that don't bother anyone else.

What is one of those things when we drive that I hate things on the dash? I hate things on the dash. And generally speaking, you will one, tease me about it to see if I do anything. I saw your hat when you picked me up from the airport.

Too wasn't intentional. I would not have done that. I remember it's burned in my memory. And then two, not put things on the dash after you've given me a hard time.

I feel respected by both. It's interesting. It's interesting. One of the little things in our marriage, there are many.

I have my own things, but one thing that took me way too long to learn, I like putting things on flat surfaces. I just do. I have seen that. It's a thing I do.

Look behind you. Look at that. That's a flat surface. It's a box, but it's flat.

Things could go there. It's got, but here's the thing. If you put a box on a box, do you know what you created? An additional flat surface.

On top of that flat surface, right? So I just really like putting things on flat surfaces. And my wife hates it. She wants someone's landed surface?

No, she just doesn't. I don't want to be a counter. This counter is going to be clean. Maybe I'll allow some flowers on it if you buy them for me.

And so I've learned that. So I guess what I'm saying is there's a lot of wisdom in what you just said. People have their things. And so learning their individual things is a really good way to show people respect.