About the Episode
Are you going into a conversation with a person for advice, and instead of venting, are you complaining? Venting is and always will be healthy, but complaining without taking in any advice is doing injustice to yourself.
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Episode Topics:
- Venting to the people around you
- Are you identifying what others can’t?
- Stop dragging down your circle
- Venting Versus Complaining
What’s shakin’! Welcome back. Today’s an awesome day because we’re going all in. We’re gonna talk today about complaining, right. Or maybe venting something along those lines because they’re kind of different things, but they’re kind of the same thing. And I’m just gonna straight up say this. Nobody likes a complainer, right? Venting is a different story because when you’re sitting in front of a friend, someone close to you by all means, it just feels good to unload sometimes, right? From a, from a third party’s perspective, because if something’s going on with you, it feels good to just let that out. You know, it’s like a release and that’s okay. And it’s awesome because I’ve got a couple people in my life that I can vent to when something happens. I don’t do it a lot. Right. But, that’s what they’re there for. And there’s this thing that can kind of hold you back sometimes too, because like, oh, I don’t wanna dump my problems on someone else, you know, get over that because there’s people that I’m sure that are in your life too.
I know there are, because everybody has these, I know they’re in my life and they’re there for it. They’re like, it’s okay. It’s okay to vent to me. And they might be really good listeners too. If you just give ’em a chance to do that, it’s okay. You’re not dumping on them. That’s all good. Now I will say this because when somebody comes to an event, I typically try to be like, Hey, what do you want to do about it? You know, I’ll ask ’em a question and, and push ’em a little bit too, to move past that situation. But other times, you know, depending on the circumstance, I try to judge this on my own, just as an assertion of what’s going on. Sometimes I don’t even say crap back for real, because sometimes it’s just good on the receiving end of this event. For those of you that are these really good friends to these people, these really close relationships with these individuals.
It’s good to just sit there and listen and just let ’em all out. And I, I talked about this in a previous episode, like when something happens, it’s a, a good response is to just say, man, that sucks. I’m sorry. You know, and just let, ’em go, let ’em vent it. It’s cool that way. And they appreciate that. So if you’re on the venting side and don’t think that you’re, you’re burdening somebody by just releasing your emotions, that’s way better than holding it inside. Way, way, way better. Let let’s flip over to the complaining side now, because that’s what most of this talk today is gonna be about.
Complaining is typically about a person that you’re talking to. Okay. Because venting to me is like, it’s a third party situation. The situation does not involve the person that you’re venting to or releasing that frustration to right then. And there, they’re just there to support you because it’s not about them. They’re not involved directly in the situation, maybe indirectly, but not directly in the situation. Complaining is typically about that person. They are directly involved in that situation. Now, if you wanna go and bring something to them, I, if there’s something that you feel they’re doing wrong, maybe it’s against you or with a situation that you’re involved with or something like that. Or maybe you’re just somebody who is good and this could be a talent of yours, right? A gift actually, to where you can identify some things that a lot of other people can’t, that’s cool too.
But when you go to a woman, you just say, Hey, you know what? I think you should do this some other way else. Or, you know what? You really sucked at this. Or, you know what, you’re really pissed me off today because blah, blah, blah. And then that’s it. That is so unfair to that person, right? So you can catch yourself doing this. And that’s why I started this out on the differentiation between venting and complaining, how venting by all means, right, is just to release that to somebody who’s not involved in the scenario, not involved in what’s going on with this. You know, they can have an objective point of view because they are removed from the situation complaining with that person. Right. I would rather see anybody move to where it’s like a feedback scenario and feedback is always double edged in a very good way.
Complaining is single alleged. It sucks to be on the receiving end of that because there’s no way to improve from there. All you’re doing is taking in the negative. This is why complaining is single edge complaining is single edged because it’s just one sided about what you did wrong, where you screwed up without a suggestion on how to fix the situation, right. Or maybe it’s something that’s going on. And you, the two people that are involved with the situation, actually is something external, right? But it’s your responsibility like in a job or something like that. It could be a coworker to where something is happening externally. And it’s like, Hey, what are you gonna do about it? Because as somebody’s going to you and just complaining about it and you both are there that just drags you down. It’s so unfair to that other person to just complain when it involves a situation that they’re involved in without giving some sort of suggestion for a solution, right?
You need to become part of the moving past that by all means, bring it up, come on. You have to bring it up. Because again, just like venting, you keep it inside. It’s gonna start to cause a rift between you and that person. If it’s a coworker, if it’s a, a partner, if it’s a romantic partner, if it’s a friend, if you don’t bring up something, that’s frustrating you about that individual, it’s gonna eat you up and cause the vision to the points where it could kill that relationship. You have to bring it up. You absolutely have to bring it up. Don’t hold it in yet. When you do bring it up, you need to present some kind of a solution. So before you bring it up, maybe think about it a little bit. Maybe identify your anger and your frustration and just be like, whoa, time out, time out, Rick.
If I, if I’m talking to myself, let’s just take two seconds. Let’s step back. Let’s take a look at what’s going on here because I’m frustrated at what just happened or what is happening. But at the same time, here’s the question to ask yourself, how would I want to change it? And it’s important to use the word I not on how would I like them to change it? No. How would I want to change it? Focus internally first, throwing out all the other people, even the person that might have pissed you off all the external circumstances and focus inward and say, how can I change this? What can I do to make this different on occasion? You might not be able to come up with an answer, but that answer just might be okay. I’m going to suggest to this other person, something that they might wanna try differently.
Even just making that suggestion to something else could be the way that you focusing internally can actually change the scenario because you are now bringing a possible change, a possible solution, a possible way through that scenario, to the other person that has now offended you. It is so important to do this. When you bring this up, don’t just vent and dump on somebody, right? Because when they’re involved in the situation, it’s not venting, it’s complaining and complaining is one sided where you don’t allow for a two-way conversation that produces no results. Complaining produces no fruit complaining, divides relationships, complaining ends and destroys relationships.
But when you bring a solution or a suggestion, or just express a need that you have, that’s when you’ll see a change because you focus internally that way and say, what can I do about it? When you bring up a grievance to somebody else, make sure you’re not complaining because complaining is one sided. That’s how you will be able to tell if you go to them and just blast them without anything else. That’s how you identify that you are complaining, throw this outta your life and watch your life.
Continue to elevate and your relationships get better and better when you actually express your needs and bring a suggestion for change with whatever, just pissed you off to who just pissed you off. And then in all your relationships, you can go ALL IN.
