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Freaks And Geeks – Coaching Lesson

Hi, this is AJ. Welcome to this month’s coaching lesson, Freaks and Geeks. I was mostly a geek when I was in school, in high school. So what are we talking about this month and how can we take this topic of freaks and geeks and apply it to our own life? The main theme I got from this conversation was the idea of cliques. That, in fact, humans are very cliquish.

A clique is a small group of people with their own little identity. It has a bit of a negative feeling to it, sometimes, that word. And when we say that certain people are cliquish it means that they like to get into their own small group and they’re not so friendly with outside people. Now we can look at human history, we can look at human culture and human societies around the world and we can see that obviously humans are indeed quite cliquish.

People love to form into little groups of people based on something. It might be based on race, certain races might bond together, just based on skin color. Or level of education, that’s another kind of clique or sub-group. People that are the same level of education tend to group together and avoid people of a different level.

Nationality is a famous one and horrible, terrible things have happened because of nationality, because people form little national groups and then they don’t trust or they don’t like some other national group.

It’s also true between people who live in cities and people who live in the countryside. That’s another kind of clique or division that we can see. Sometimes the city people and the country people don’t trust each other, don’t like each other. Two little cliques.

We could go on and on. It seems like people are always finding new ways to separate themselves from other people. It’s a rather unfortunate, I think, aspect of human nature, at least the negative parts of it.

There can be positive aspects to this, too. Y’know, building a strong community, strong connections, all that’s great. But when we talk about cliques it also has the negative idea of not trusting outsiders, not being so friendly to outsiders. It happens.

Now I had an experience of my own that reminds me of this, really, actually, many years ago, my very first trip to India. I was a young grad student and it was summertime and during my summer vacation I went to India. My first time abroad. And, y’know, I arrived in Bangkok, I mean not Bangkok, Mumbai.

They changed the name on me. It used to be called Bombay, now it’s called Mumbai.

So I arrived in Mumbai and went to sleep the first night. The next day I had to get a commuter train. I was staying in a hotel outside of the city, needed a commuter train to go into the center of the city. So I walked to the subway station, got into the train, got into a little train car, sat down. And then the car started moving.

Now as I was sitting there, I looked up and started looking around the car at the other people. And I realized that everybody in the car was staring at me. It turns out I was in an area of Mumbai that almost never got foreign people, certainly not blue-eyed Americans. At that time my head was shaved. I was almost bald. So my head was shaved, these bright blue eyes. I looked very strange to them.

But they weren’t smiling. They looked like this. We call this a blank stare. It means their face is blank.

There’s no emotion on it. And their eyes were just big and it felt like they weren’t even blinking.

Everybody was staring at me. So I looked and I felt very uncomfortable. And all these thoughts started going through my head.

First of all, I thought they were being hostile, right? I thought, okay, these are…they’re different, these are Indians from Mumbai and I’m an American…they must, maybe they hate Americans. Then I thought, maybe there’s some other reason they don’t like me. And I felt really, really uncomfortable. And I felt different, like I was the alien in the train car. I got more and more nervous.

I looked down, tried to avoid their stares, but when I looked back up they’re all still staring at me again.

There’s the thing, in the United States this is very, very rude. You don’t stare at people. In America, to stare at someone, especially with no smile, it’s…it’s hostile. It is hostile. It’s certainly a very unfriendly thing to do but most people would see it as aggressive. So to have a whole group of people staring like that at me, I’m feeling that they’re all being aggressive. It was very unnerving. It made me very, very nervous.

Well, finally, as I got more and more nervous, I just finally looked up and I kind of did a little nod and I just smiled to one of them. Y’know, kind of…”Hi.” Y’know, just because I was nervous I didn’t know what else to do. And what’s funny is that as soon as I did that, just a little nod and a little smile to one person, suddenly everybody’s face in the car changed. All these smiles, everyone in the car at one time…instead of this…they went…

And everyone became super friendly and they all came towards me. And everyone started chatting with me at the same time. Asking me questions, “Who are you? Where are you from? Why are you in Mumbai? Why did you shave your head? Oh, you look like Gandhi with your head shaved.” On and on and on…and the rest of the time traveling into the center of the city I had this huge enthusiastic group of curious Indian people asking me tons of questions, all smiling, all very, very curious.

And what that taught me was the difference between the surface and the deeper reality. See, on the surface I thought, “They’re unfriendly. They look unfriendly. They’re hostile.” But that was just a cultural difference. In India, people stare more. I learned that throughout the rest of my trip. People were always staring at me. But they were not being hostile.

And then what I found is as I actually chatted with them and started talking with them, that below the surface they were quite similar to me and to all the other people in the world I’ve met. You see, in the world, yes, there are countless groups, as I mentioned in the beginning. First of all, countless countries, well, actually we can count them, but there are many, many, many countries in the world.

And then within those countries there are regions and they have regional differences within every country.

And then within different countries there are different races and religions and education and social, economic class…like on and on and on, we can divide humanity into so many little, tiny groups, on the surface. But you know what? What psychology tells us, what human need psychology tells us, is that underneath all of that, all humans have essentially the same six psychological needs. What are they?

What are the psychological needs that all human beings share? Number one, certainty, we could also call this security. People need a certain amount of security. We need to know that when the sun’s going to come up and when it’s going to go down. We need some predictability in our lives. We need a feeling of security and safety. All human beings need that to some degree.

Now on the other side we also need uncertainty. All human beings need some amount of surprise in their lives. If life is completely 100% predictable then humans become super bored and unhappy. So we need some amount of both. We need some certainty, security, and we also need some surprise, some spontaneity, some fun. Those are two basic human needs shared by people everywhere, all human beings.

We also need significance. All people need to feel significant. To feel significant means to feel special, that you are important. We all need that. At some level we all need to feel that we are important to somebody in some way in life. Another human need we all share is the need for connection. We are social creatures. We evolved as social creatures. We need to feel a connection with other human beings and with nature and with other animals and plants, to the world itself. We need to feel connected. That’s another human need, we’re a part of something.

And the last two human needs, growth, we could also call this learning. We need to learn. We need to grow. We can’t just stay the same. Y’know, when we’re 12 years old we’re not the same as when we’re 30. We need to grow, keep learning, growing wiser. That’s a human need shared by all.

And finally, contribution, this is a human need, too. We all need to feel that in some way we are contributing to the world, that what we do affects the world in some way, in a positive way. Even people who are terrible, even people we see as villains who are evil, in their minds they think they’re making the world better for, maybe just for themselves and their family members, but in some way in their mind, they think they’re contributing.

Those are the six human needs and they’re shared by all people everywhere. And I’ve found that everywhere I’ve gone this is true.

So how do we think then of these two different things. On one hand we can see, oh people, there’s so many differences and so many little cliques and groups. But on the other hand, all people essentially the same. I think of it this way. I think of all the differences, the cultures and nationalities and religions and languages and cliques, I think them of just masks and costumes. It’s just what we put on the outside.

There are cool little masks that people wear and costumes, and that all the different cultures and traditions and beliefs that we have that are kind of the surface, costumes and masks.

But then underneath we have what is essentially human and true for all people. Number one, our DNA, our genetics, which have evolved over millions of years, we all share. We all come from common ancestors. We all share essentially the same DNA. We also share, y’know, certain cultural traditions. If we go back far enough, our cultures all go back to Africa. So there are certain just essential human things.

And as I mentioned, our psychology, our basic human needs, shared by all. And of course, we have basic physical needs, too. Things like, of course, sleep, food, water, we share that as well. So on the surface, lots of masks, lots of costumes, but underneath…essentially the same.

And so here’s all I’m going to ask you to do this month. Number one is that as you encounter people, even within your own town, there are always people even within our own towns, we think “They’re different.” Y’know, maybe it’s the homeless person or maybe it’s the rich person. It doesn’t matter. But as you do, kind of imagine in your mind, when you see that person that you think is different, just imagine…play a little game in your mind that those differences, it’s just like they’re just wearing a little mask. And imagine that underneath they’re the same as you.

Number two, this month, I want you to cross over into a new clique, a new group. Again, you can just do this within your own town or you could even go to a whole different country if you wanted to. But in some way, I want you to connect with a group different than your own, different than you usually would. So if you’re usually hang out with people who went to college, connect with someone who didn’t even finish high school.

Or an easy way to do this, and this is the third suggestion, is travel. This is why I love travel is because travel tends to take away the masks for me. Y’know, when I first go to a new place, a new country, I see the mask. I think “Oh my god, this place is so different.” But then as I spend longer amounts of time there, the masks sort of get taken off and I see through them and I start realizing these people are still the same. They have the same basic needs. They’re the same human beings just like all of us.

So I encourage you if you can to travel. But however you do it, connect with some person or group that you normally would not. And try to see past the masks and the costumes.

And finally, tell us about it on our social site. Share your insights with us. The benefits of doing this, number one, less of a fear of others. Y’know, governments and propaganda try to make us scared of other people for their purpose because they have some reason. This is how wars happen. But when we see through these costumes, people become much less scary.

We’re not scared of those other people anymore. We realize, y’know, actually though they look different and they kind of act different, essentially they’re the same. Just like those Indian guys that I saw in the train.

Another benefit is that as you do this and especially if you do it through travel, you begin to think like a citizen of the world. I certainly feel this way. I don’t really think of myself so much as an American anymore. I don’t feel exclusively connected to America and American culture. I feel like I’m part of the whole world, that all humanity is my fellow citizens.

But it’s not just something I believe because it sounds good, but it’s something I actually feel because I’ve traveled so much and connected with people from so many cultures and countries. It’s a big difference to just think it as a good idea or to actually feel it deep down because of experience.

You’ll also get richer amount of input. As you connect with different kinds of people you get different ideas, different beliefs. That helps creativity. So lots of great benefits. So get out there and connect with people that are different than the ones you usually connect with.

Tell us about it and I’ll see you next time. Bye for now.