138 The Four Agreements: The Power Of Impeccable Words

We unpack the first of The Four Agreements—be impeccable with your word—and show how language can free you from despair, gossip, and self-betrayal. Through stories, studies, and practical steps, we map a path from reactive speech to clear, kind, and effective communication.

• defining agreements as accepted beliefs that shape behavior
• why words are “magic” and how tone carries intent
• garden metaphor for thoughts as seeds and mind as soil
• stories on encouragement, silence, and lasting impact
• experiments on plants and water to illustrate inputs and outcomes
• giving precise feedback and choosing the right medium
• gossip as a virus and curiosity as the antidote
• aligning self-talk with truth and compassion
• adding a pause between emotion and speech
• starting with yourself, then shaping your culture

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Chapters

• 0:00 Setting The Stage: Resilience And Boldness
• 4:07 Why The Four Agreements Matter Now
• 6:53 Defining Agreements And Beliefs
• 7:53 First Agreement: Impeccable With Your Word
• 11:27 Words As Magic: Power For Good Or Harm
• 15:54 Seeds And Soil: Garden Of The Mind
• 21:44 Stories We Carry And Self-Image
• 27:14 Encouragement, Silence, And Lasting Impact
• 31:49 Experiments: Plants, Water, And Frequency
• 38:24 Feedback, Tone, And Professional Care

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 2:26

Welcome to What's on Your Bookshelf, a life and leadership podcast where we live out loud the pages of the books that are on our shelves. With your host, Denise Russo and Sam Powell.

SPEAKER_02: 2:38

Hello, everyone. Welcome back to another episode of What's on Your Bookshelf. This is our Life and Leadership podcast where we live out loud the pages of the books that are on our bookshelves. Well, actually, off of our bookshelves, because we're reading the books and living them out loud. My name is Denise Russo. I'm here with my co-host and good friend Sam Powell. And we are going through the last book of the year. Or well, we think it's maybe the last book of the year. We'll have a couple other. We'll see. This is the last main book of the year for our series. And this has been a year of talking about resilience and being bold. And this book is called The Four Agreements, and it's a practical guide to personal freedom. And Sam, I'm so looking forward to our discussion today on the first of the four agreements.

SPEAKER_01: 3:31

A two right before we hop down here, you and I were talking about how um, I don't know, this book is, I think this book is gonna become one of my absolute favorite books of all time. And I think, and you said you've reread it multiple times already in just the time we've been reading it. And I think I'm gonna end up doing the same. Like it'll be one that I probably pick up often throughout the rest of my life and reread because it is just there's just so it's simple, but there's so much in it, and it's so much of just these little aha, like, yep, this is it. Like this was the thing that I've been circling around and feeling, but can't articulate. And here we are with you know, with it on page here and and really trying to figure out how to live it out loud.

SPEAKER_02: 4:17

I want to encourage everybody listening, go get this book. It is short, it is easy to read, but simple, it's simple to read, hard to apply. Yeah, it's hard to apply because most of the things that we're about to go through sharing with you, a lot of people aren't good at. And that is what causes discord in our lives, in our jobs, in the world. We were just talking about that right before we started, didn't we, Sam? That all the turmoil that people are experiencing in the world on social media, with things in the government, in your own communities, in your own house, could all be soothed by four simple agreements that you start with yourself. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 5:05

Yeah. And I think that that's it. Like this is the kind of book like I feel like when I get into conversation with somebody or with a friend, and they just get into that feeling of a bit of despair, right? Especially, especially if you spend too much time on social media, if you're you know, you're gonna go down a rabbit hole of despair most of the time. And I think this book is it really is a practical guide to personal freedom. Like if you go through this and you read this and then you live this, live these agreements. I I really do think you'll pull yourself out of that valley of despair and into a lot more control of your life, freedom from all the things that happened around us. Like, I this is this is the good one, and you really, really should should read it. But let's let's talk about the first agreement because there's so much to talk about here. Um, and so just to remind everybody, right? When we say the word agreement in the context of this book, how this is described, right? These are the things that are the beliefs that you have agreed to, right? Somebody has told you something at some point in your life, that idea has been reinforced and you've accepted it as true. And so it's this agreement that you've got. And the concept around this book is that you can alter the agreements that you have right now, and he's giving you four agreements that you should go after, right? That you really should go after if you want to get to personal freedom. And so this is that first agreement. And the first agreement is be impeccable with your word.

SPEAKER_02: 6:49

He says it's the most important one, it's the first one, it's the most important one, but it's the most difficult one to honor. And when you think about any discord in your life or what you see playing out on television or in the news, typically it's because there is a missed communication with words. Somebody believes one thing, another side believes another thing, there's a gap in the middle, the bridge is broken, there seems to be no way to cross over, arguments ensue, uh, disruption ensues, wars happen, people die because of disagreements, because of people not being impeccable to their word. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 7:41

And my dad, my dad always, that's one of the things he always told me growing up was that like the truth is always somewhere in the middle, right? There's your perspective, my perspective, and what actually happened is somewhere sitting in between us. And so, you know, that's that's sort of the thought, you know, kind of underlying this. But you know, I love that he says the word is the most powerful tool you have as a human, it is the tool of magic. And he talks about your words, right? What you say being like your magical power, kind of essentially through the beginning of this. And I just love that concept. As somebody who likes loves fantasy books and you know, things like that. Like I just love that idea. It and it's probably one of these things that's gonna stick with me forever. Um, it reminds me of I was reading some study years and years and years ago that um, you know, people will have the question of like, well, animals have mating calls. Do humans have mating calls? And somebody said that laughter is the human mating call. It's the thing that drives connection with us, right? And so, like, right, it's why we find funny people attractive, even if, like, you know, for all the other senses, maybe we don't necessarily find them attractive. Um, and I think this is gonna stick with me in the same way, right? Like, if laughter is our mating call, words are our magic, right? It's the ability for us to create and to, you know, like alter reality essentially with the things that we say, which is, he says, is a double-edged sword, right? It's on one hand really, really powerful, uh, like for good or bad, right? Like it's you know, it's a the most powerful tool that we wield, and we can use it to create heaven or create hell.

SPEAKER_02: 9:31

I love how you're describing it because there's a difference between magical that seems like you know, unicorn rainbow magical, and then dark magic. And words absolutely have the power to do both. He talks about how uh words are like a sword that have two edges. So uh there's this great song by this uh band called Hawk Nelson, and in the lyrics of the song, it basically says words can build you up or they can break you down, they can start a fire or put it out. It depends on the words you use, the intent you have, how you use the words, why you're using the words. And you don't realize that the power of the things that you say can impact someone's life for a really long time. They stick with you when you hear somebody. Isn't it the same reason that we talk about in business the importance of gratitude and recognition and uh sharing? Like if people like to be recognized in public, it's usually because you're saying some kind of words about some great work they've done. And nobody likes to receive feedback that is negative, especially in front of other people. But it's also hard to receive difficult conversations one-on-one with a closed door. Words matter. The way we choose the things we say, but how we say them, it matters. But this book is really in this chapter talking about how words are also like a seed. And so what I took away from this chapter, Sam, the most for me were the analogies of a garden, because I don't have a green thumb in my garden. I plant a lot of things with the intent that they're gonna grow into wonderful fruits and vegetables and flowers. But one, you know, but one thing happens, like well, a couple of things happen. One, weeds also grow in the dirt. And if you don't take care of the weeds in your garden, all the good things you're growing will be suffocated and they will die. Or if you don't water the seeds you've planted, those seeds don't have the ability to thrive and to come out of the ground and to be what their purpose was when you planted them to begin with. And for me, that's the part that struck me the most here is that if you plant a seed thought, the word, it will grow. And you were mentioning about beliefs and thoughts. We talk about this so much that we're gonna we're just gonna have to create like a visual process on this because it starts at the subconscious emotional level. And that's where emotion uh agile brain comes in. And just a reminder if you've missed any episodes or this is your first episode joining us, we are gifting free agile brain assessments till the end of the year. If you just message us with no strings attached, it starts at your emotional level. And if you can control that first and get a handle on your self-awareness there, everything else changes because then your thoughts and beliefs they come from what you were saying, Sam, your upbringing, um, your culture, the people that you invest your time with andor around, the things you've learned. And then all of that culminates into the actions or inactions you have in life. And at the end, that's your results. And so if you're planting seeds with the intent to grow something good, but you don't farm them correctly, then you shouldn't expect to have a big harvest.

SPEAKER_01: 12:48

Yeah. And I I see this all the time in the work that I do with people. So I I focus my work around people at this mid-career inflection point where they get to the point where they have all this experience, but then they look around and they're like, How did I get here? Do I really want to be here? But I don't like, how do I piece together who I am and what I offer? You know, like they're just it's that feeling of being so tangled up in years of experience and years of your life. And so I always have them start with just telling me their stories, right? And I ask them specific questions around like types of stories, like, tell me about something you're really proud of. Tell me about something that like you overcame, right? Like, give me certain stories of whatever comes to your mind, doesn't matter what it is, and walk me through all the details and ask questions and get, you know, dig down into it. And by the end of it, every single time I have never had it not happen. Like I am blown away by what these people, like by what people do, who they are, the value they bring, the things that they're capable of, the things that they've done in the past. Because when you sit and you listen to somebody's story, it's really amazing, but they don't see it, right? Like we're so close to our own life, we're so close to our own beliefs and agreements that we've had that have been put on us that we forget who we are. And like he talks in here, like this story about um, you know, uh, you know, during our domestication, right? Like people give us opinions about ourselves, right? Like we we base feedback, right? And you can think like the easiest grab is like how attractive are you, how pretty are you, how beautiful, how handsome, how whatever you are. And it's all based on like feedback. And it doesn't matter how beautiful you maybe truly are, how beautiful you think you are comes down to all these thoughts and beliefs that have been planted, these agreements that you've made, because somebody one time when they were 12 told you when you were 12, something that stuck with you forever and ever and ever. And it's those little seeds, like you're saying, that we plant, but we pull them into our soil and we agree to let them grow even if they're not real, even if they don't serve us. And that's the magic and the power behind your, you know, your words that you have. Like I remember uh this is 20 years ago now, right? Like two decades ago. I I was I grew up in choirs, like singing in school and that kind of stuff. I did competitive things. And um my one of my last years of school, we were at like the I don't know, it's like championship of choirs, like a way to describe it essentially, but like a, you know, kind of like a all like an all-star choir kind of vibe. Um, but we were at this, and the person who was directing it had said, like, hey, if you want to try out for a solo, blah, blah, blah. I did a million solos like at my own school and like growing up and that sort of thing. And so I was like, Oh yeah, I like I think I'll probably try out for one. But my choir director was there and he encouraged the person next to me, like one of my friends, to try out and didn't encourage me. And I took that to mean in that moment that he didn't believe I could do it. And so I didn't try out, right? Like, probably could have got who knows if I would have gotten it. Doesn't matter, it doesn't really matter. But it's the story that sticks with me of like the lesson in how important it is to be impeccable with what you say and what you don't say, right? To encourage people, because even in just the lack of what you say, in the lack of encouragement, you can discourage somebody else, right? And it's something that like will hold someone back, right? Make them think that they can't do something. And so, in that building up of somebody, you know, and I think about this all the time with like my kids, with other kids, right? Uh, you know, I've coached my son's basketball team in the past, you know, things like that of like encouraging kids to try, encouraging them to, you know, believe in themselves to create that space because it makes a huge difference. What we say to people, what seeds we plant, really can alter the trajectory of somebody's life.

SPEAKER_02: 17:20

A couple of years ago, my cousin found this study on YouTube. And I can't remember if we've talked about this on another episode or not, but it was so profound when he shared it with me because he didn't believe that this particular experiment was going to work. So he set out to disprove that this experiment would work. And the experiment was that you take three equal-sized, exactly the same plants and you put them in the same sort of area in your house. And the experiment was that you have a control group plant that you do nothing with. You just water it, you take care of it the way you're supposed to take care of it. With another plant, you every day still water it, same amount of water and everything, but you say, I love you, you're so beautiful, thank you for giving oxygen to me. And you're thinking, Well, how does a plant know English? And how does it know emotion, right? But you say these positive things to the plant. Then the third plant, you still don't starve it from water or nutrients, but you say things like, you're so ugly, you're gonna die, I can't believe I even bought you, this kind of thing to the plant. Well, sure enough, he recorded this over the period of time that he did the experiment. And no lie, Sam. The plant that you did nothing with that just was like the regular plant was just had a regular size. The one that he spoke loving, care, and kindness to, even though it didn't have more or less sunlight or more or less water or more or less food, doubled in size. And the one that he spoke ill towards actually shriveled up and ultimately died. And if that can happen with a plant, what is it that words do to a human being's soul? We've been talking a lot about things like mental and verbal abuse off the microphone. And when I think about what this book said, the definition of impeccable comes from roots that means without sin, meaning that your words need to be impeccable, meaning without sin or meaning with life, with love, the antithesis of what you would think sin is, that you're building people up, not breaking them down, like I was telling you about in that in that song. And um, I think that you can uh really, in your example, you can really stick with the things that people say to you that hurt you more than the things that people say that lift you up. You can have nine people tell you how amazing you are. It's almost like you ever hear these ads on TV that will say, like, nine out of ten dentists agree that you should use such and such toothpaste. I'm always thinking, like, well, what about what that one dentist? Why didn't he like the toothpaste? But why don't we care that nine out of 10? You know, it's sort of like even when we measure at work things like employee trust and or leadership trust, employee uh productivity and engagement and stuff. And businesses spin it, right? Like you can say that you have uh more than 50 leadership trust in your company, and let's say it's 51 or even 60. I always look at that.

SPEAKER_01: 20:34

40% of the people don't trust you, like not good, right?

SPEAKER_02: 20:37

Four out of 10 don't trust you, and six do. And how many people didn't answer the survey because they don't trust the survey? Exactly so being impeccable with your word. I the book says though that when you aren't impeccable with your word, you put a spell on another person. And I think the most important thing in that part of the chapter I took away, Sam, is it isn't even if somebody else is being cruel to you with words, it's how cruel are we to ourselves with our words to ourselves.

SPEAKER_01: 21:09

Yeah, and I thought that was really interesting, right? Because he defines, like you said, impeccable to mean without sin. But he then goes on to define sin in the like outside of the terms of any religion or you know, like belief system like that, right? Because I think, especially living in like uh, you know, Christian-centric nation, like you and I are both in the US, like we tend to think of sin in a certain way, but this isn't that. So this is without sin. But he said, a sin is anything that you do which goes against yourself. Being impeccable is not going against yourself. When you are impeccable, you take responsibility for your action, but you do not judge and blame yourself. And so what we're really talking about, right, was when you're being impeccable with your word, you are being without sin in your word, which means you are not going against yourself in anything that you say. And he, and so, like for me, like I started to question that. I was like, well then, but what if I think one thing, right? Because I think that's what happens a lot in the world, right? Like we have some belief, right? We have some agreement that we've got inside of us, but what if it's different than the agreement somebody else has? And so I'm not going against myself in that, right? So I started to kind of spin in like, well, what does that mean? Of like, what if my belief is different than your belief? And I'm not going against myself, but I'm going against you. And so he then goes on, and like this is where I was like, okay, like I'm on board with this. Like, I really get it. But he goes on to say, like, if I love myself, I express that love in my interactions with you. And I am being impeccable with my word because that action will produce a like reaction. And he's saying that, you know, if I'm you, I'm when I use my words against you, right, to pull you down, to drag you into a negative direction, right? I'm actually using my words against myself because when I'm doing that, you're going to hate me and you hating me is bad for me, right? If I get angry and my word sends all that emotional poison to you, I'm using the words against yourself. And so he really talks to us about, you know, being impeccable with your word is the correct use of your energy. It means that your energy in the direction of truth and love for yourself. And I like to me, I had to stop for a minute and really think about this because I have this firm belief that a lot of the things we say, like when we give advice, when we uh condemn someone else, we are always actually condemning the version of ourselves that we see in the person, or we see ourselves lacking because of what the person is showing us, right? Like I see this a lot when somebody tries something really new with their career, right? Like they're like, Oh, I'm gonna go try to start a business, I'm gonna go pivot entirely. And the people closest to them will be like, Are you sure about that? That's a terrible idea. I could never do that. That's awful, right? We drag this person, try to drag them back. But what we're really saying, if you strip it all away, and if you were really truly honest with yourself, it's that I could never do that. I feel like I'm not enough. I feel like I couldn't pull that off, right? It's not that I don't think you could pull it off, it's think that I couldn't pull it off, right? Or I see this thing in you that I don't like in me, and so I'm going to, you know, bring you back down into this reality where like I don't have to face that truth. Because if you're successful, what does that mean for me? Right. And these are all things we're like doing unconsciously, and so to be impeccable with your word is to really work against all that. You have to work on yourself so much to be able to do that. And I think that's why he says this is the hardest thing to do, because you've got to insert so much pause between those feelings you've got and what you say.

SPEAKER_02: 25:03

You have to do that and untether yourself from the belief you put in another person. So what I think that you're describing is if you love yourself enough, you're going to self-own being impeccable with your word. But you have to remember that the other person didn't read this book, maybe doesn't know these principles, isn't built the same way you're learning to be by learning these agreements and how to change the agreement. I have a client who recently was up for this job, like the lifetime job of the person. Like it was the job. And in fact, the job description was written for the person. It was, it was the best. And the person waited and they waited and they waited, and they contacted the recruiter, and the recruiter came back and said, uh, we don't have an answer yet. I promised to get back with you. And then they didn't, and then they didn't, and then they didn't. And so then eventually the person contacted back again. And the recruiter did respond back, saying, We still don't have a response back yet. So all the while the candidate, the person, my client, was thinking all these second-guessing questions like why am I not hearing back? This is the perfect job for me. So eventually the person finds out they don't get the job and they ask for feedback. And this is where the way that you express words are so important because also if you express words in a text message and in an email, it's different than talking to somebody physically. And so the person received the message back when they didn't get the job and asked for feedback. And the feedback wasn't, here's what you were missing, here's what you could have done differently or better than other candidates, or here's how I would recommend you do whatever. The feedback was, well, we had to pick the best of the best. And we thank you so much for going through the process, and you should be proud of yourself for getting this far along in the process. Well, the person contacted me back just like broken because they only heard I'm not the best. They didn't hear you went through the process when probably hundreds, if not thousands, of applications didn't even get looked at. Right. And so being impeccable with your word is about how you the book says how you use the correct use of your energy. Now I'm a music major, my first degree is in music, so I study a lot about frequencies and the way you put notes together and create sound that is either dissonant or resonant. And my Olivia, she had studied psychology for her bachelor's degree, and so she was studying the way the brain receives these things. So I had seen another study that was different than the plant study but similar. And it was with a um with a PhD doctor that was studying the effects of frequencies on water.

SPEAKER_01: 27:57

Yeah, Japanese study. Yeah, I think it's uh the book is the hidden meaning of water. Because I was thinking of that as you were telling the plant story.

SPEAKER_02: 28:05

It's an awesome book, and there's some really cool YouTube videos about it. But basically, what he does is he takes drops of water and then plays different frequencies, and you can see that if there's dissonance, the water doesn't make formations. And if there's certain resonant sounds, like even certain sounds that were put together by Mozart and Beethoven and masters in classical music, it creates these snowflake, beautiful images. And so when the book talks about if you're impeccable with your word, it is the correct use of your energy. We know that everything in the world is energy and it's a positive or a negative charge, and it's a flow of energy. Energy doesn't dissipate. So if you're using the best use of your energy in the direction of what the author says is truth and love for yourself, and if you make that agreement with yourself, then you can't help but to give that to the other person who's receiving the energy.

SPEAKER_01: 29:00

Yeah, yeah, that's exactly it. And I think like that um study on water always makes me think of the fact that like the way in which you say things, right? Like your word is magic, but like your word is also carried along, like tones and sounds and you know, things like that. And um I think that you know, it's that if you listen to somebody speak in a different language, right? Something you completely don't understand, but you're listening to them to communicate to someone, you can tell their affect, you can tell the intent, right? Like if they're angry, they're angry and it transcends the words themselves. It like it's you know, it's all of that, right? And so I think it's having that understanding of how those things carry over because it does really like there's a lot of really weird studies out there, scientific studies out there that show, you know, that it matters. And, you know, he goes on to talk, and you were saying, um, you know, it creates kind of all this like dissonance, right? It creates this, you know, these issues and things like that. And he goes on to talk about how gossiping is one of the worst pieces of like not being impeccable with your word, right? Because it's this like, and it's one of the things we're taught from the earliest ages that like people gossip. That's what we do, and it's an acceptable thing to do because we all hear people do it. But he talks about and he compares it to like a computer virus, right? That like one little piece of information and um you know can really spread. And the example he talked about was like being in a class and a person coming up to you and being like, oh my gosh, this professor's ridiculous. I blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, like, you know, all this stuff. And like you weren't thinking any of this, but this person like just kind of unloads this gossip. And they're like, oh, they're terrible. And you know, I hear everybody hates them and blah, blah, blah, blah. And so then as you sit there, you start to have these thoughts in your head, right? And that like eventually leads you to hate the class, you know, not listen to everything, not learn everything, drop the class, whatever, right? But like you had said earlier, you don't know what the other person's going through. You don't know why they said what they said, right? And like again, like what's going on in their life? What agreements do they have? What beliefs do they have that's causing them to say the things that we do? And I think that that's where like the power of curiosity comes in as well of coaching so much, right? It's stepping out of judgment, stepping out of trying to solve a problem and getting into asking the question so that we can unlock. Well, why are you saying, like, why do you think that, right? Like instead of accepting it and having this, uh he calls it like, you know, if you're if your soil is fertile and allows things to grow, then they grow. So, like, if you don't have sort of this self, you know, this like these self-beliefs in things, then you allow for things like when people gossip, when people say things, when you hear an opinion on the internet, when you read something, you believe it rather than questioning it, rather than having a, you know, a little bit of a conversation around it to really understand where it is coming from, what is it doing? And when we don't do that, it spreads like a virus, right? Like all of a sudden the entire university thinks this professor's terrible because we've spun it and we've spun it and we've gossiped and we've gossiped and we've spread and we've done all this stuff instead of somebody breaking the cycle. And questioning.

SPEAKER_02: 32:20

And I think you can spread sunshine as well, right? Like there's a quote, and I'm going to totally mess it up. But it's like it when you say something, is it true? Is it kind? Is it helpful? You know what I'm talking about? It's like, yeah, it's like three, a three thing, and it's and it's always in the positive spin. And it doesn't mean that you puff somebody up with things that aren't true.

unknown: 32:41

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 32:41

But it's about telling the truth because this book says that one little piece of misinformation can break down communication. But what if one little piece of information could improve communication? Right. That's the other side of it. Is that if you want to be contagious, be contagious with something good, be on the side of good. And he goes on to say that we must begin to understand what the word is and what the word does. And if you can understand this first agreement and being impeccable in your word, you will see changes in your life because your opinion is nothing but your point of view. It's not necessarily true. Your opinion comes from beliefs, your own ego, and your own dream. But you made a comment at the very front end of our time together today, Sam, which was you can change the agreement that you have with yourself if there's something incongruent with the way it should be.

SPEAKER_01: 33:40

Absolutely. Absolutely. And this agreement that he's encouraging you to change is to make the agreement to be impeccable with your word, right? To be without sin against yourself, right? The things that you say that you say need to not go against yourself. And when you are bringing someone else down, you are going against yourself at your very core. And so having, you know, and to me, it's the same thing with emotions. Put a little space between the thought and the word, right? Like put a little bit of space so that you have that moment to question, right? Like don't let your and the exact quote that he had used, right? Like you only receive a negative idea if your mind is fertile ground for that idea. So don't allow every seed to plant. You know, take a moment, do have a thought, have a little bit like the the internet exists to look up stuff. Like this is where I hate, like when people just share something, and then it's like that thing you shared is completely incorrect, right? It's all that spread of misinformation because you didn't take one second to Google it, right? You didn't take one second to research it. And now you've dangerously spread an idea. And it's the same thing when we talk about people, it's the same thing in what we do. So, you know, having that re you know, re-realigning, reagreeing in a different way to be impeccable with what you say, how you say it, is I like there is so much freedom in that. And he really encourages us to you start with yourself. And then, you know, and then it goes from there, be impeccable with how you speak to yourself about yourself and then extend it to other, you know, extend it out to other people.

SPEAKER_02: 35:25

I think if you could really get this, if you could really, really get this and focus on yourself, and then what will happen is that if you are interacting with somebody else and and maybe you feel angry with that other person, or maybe you feel like disconnected to the other person, you might start to feel empathy and love for the person because the book says that how much you love yourself and how you feel about yourself are directly proportionate to the quality and the integrity of your word. So if someone has hurt you by their words and you can look at it like outside of yourself for what it is and look at that person, I think that your um your misalignment, disagreement, dislike for that person softens to where you get to almost like the sixth stage of cultural mastery that Ricardo Gonzalez writes about, which is endearment. Can you become endeared to someone who is not like you, doesn't look like you, doesn't think like you, doesn't act like you, doesn't believe the things you believe, doesn't say the things that you say. It doesn't mean that you have to digest that because sometimes the best way to love yourself is to untether yourself from people that hurt you or words that that hurt you. But at the same time, I think if you can love yourself more through the way you speak and the beliefs that you have in this first agreement, you're gonna look at people in a whole different way as well. And it's not to make you be more defensive, it's to make you do what he says is use more white magic, is sharing more love. Using white magic first has to start with yourself, but you're going, you are not in this world, no man is an island, you're around a lot of other people all the time.

SPEAKER_01: 37:09

Yeah, yeah, that's exactly it. And I think like if I think about the world we could create if we were impeccable with it, right? If we really were without sin, right? If we didn't go against ourselves in what we said, I think that world could be really amazing, right? And you could create that in your own family, in your own community, right? In the spaces that are around you. And like you said, you can spread it, right? You can spread that sunshine, you know, as things go. And I think that that's what's important. Like start with you, start with the people around you, and you know, then see what happens and see what grows. Because a world where, like, right, think of a world free of gossip, right? Where we have real connection with each other, where we really understand why somebody does what they do, right? We see the parts in them, right? Like I'm saying that I love with my clients, like I see the parts in you that you can't see for yourself. And if we could spend our time shining light on those pieces rather than gossiping around the things that we truly just don't like about ourselves, truly, like that would be incredible. I'd like to live in that kind of a world.

SPEAKER_02: 38:25

I too. So maybe as we close out for today, there's a couple things to take away, which is when you're about to say something today to somebody else or to yourself, think about the words first. Are those words gonna uplift and inspire and provide hope? Or are they gonna tear down, break down, destroy something about a relationship, whether it's at work or in your house? When you think about the things that you tell yourself that you think you can't do, are they true? Is it not true? Is there, you know, it's like the little thing that we talked about on a couple episodes of the devil and the angel on your shoulder kind of thing? Like they're arguing with each other all the time. It's um it's something that's being studied heavily in positive intelligence, is that you have to raise the side of the the power that's white, not the power that is this dark. If you could do that this week, next week, we're gonna be talking about how the second agreement is that you don't take anything personal for yourself or with other people, but you gotta first be impeccable with your own word.

SPEAKER_01: 39:33

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_02: 39:35

Okay, Sam, anything else for today?

SPEAKER_01: 39:39

No, just go out and be impeccable with your word. Try it out, see how it goes. It's super hard. You're gonna mess it up. Be kind to yourself and just get back in the game.

SPEAKER_02: 39:48

I like that. Be kind to yourself. Well, friends, thank you for joining us. We will have some show notes. Thank you to Zach for providing the show notes for our shows and being such a great producer. My name is Denise Russo, and on behalf of Zach and my friend Sam Powell, this has been another episode of What's on Your Bookshelf, and I'm gonna do it.