Sonder: The Same Team Podcast—Episode 00: How can we win? (Intro/Philosophy)
Podcast transcript. Premiered February 2nd, 2022.
2022 / February 02 / 8:00 PM / Ottawa, ON
(Listen on Spotify and everywhere else podcasts are available.)
In August of 2013, I had just moved back to Kamloops, British Columbia after spending the summer a couple hours south, in Kelowna. I was about to go from one of the best moments of my life to one of the worst, and I didn't see it coming.
I had finished school for good in Kamloops that past spring, and it felt like a relief to finally put school behind me and get started with my career. But first, two of my good friends and I signed on with a baseball team in Kelowna for the summer.
We spent that summer bunked up in billet houses at night, living out of my friend's car during the day, working in an orchard with a great view out over the city and Okanagan Lake, hanging out with friends in the area, travelling across British Columbia and down into Washington state, playing baseball, and just enjoying the weather.
If you've ever spent time in Kelowna during the summer, you know the weather there is amazing—part of the reason they call it “Kelownafornia.” That summer was the first time I ever felt high on life—I always thought that phrase was hyperbole until I felt it myself. I was just… at peace. Relaxed. Literal bliss. That was the best summer of my life.
And that's not me glorifying my memories—I remember specifically thinking and feeling those things at the time. I had zero worries, I was just living in the moment and loving every bit of it.
To preface the rest of this story—because I know how it'll sound—I just want to say I understand how lucky I am to have a lot of the things that I have. I'm under no illusions that I'm unfortunate or that I'm lacking in opportunities. This story will probably only emphasize how lucky I am, and rightfully so, it's actually part of the point I'm trying to make.
This whole podcast will come from a place of great privilege. I am a six foot, not incredibly ugly, straight white cis male in a wealthy first world country. I understand that I'm in one of the most privileged classes of people that there is. Probably the only way I could have more privilege is if I was wealthy, but I'm not poor either, so even there I can claim some privilege.
But at the same time, no one is immune to problems in their life. Life is hard for everyone in one way or another, and at no point do I want to take away from anyone else's struggles—in fact, my intention is exactly the opposite. So, just bear with me here.
We're back to August 2013, the baseball season has ended and my two friends took off for school in Nanaimo, and I'm heading back to my apartment in Kamloops. Summer is coming to an end and it's time for me to find another job.
And I got one—washing cars in the body shop of a Toyota dealership. And that's when it all hit me, that's when life became soul crushing.
This is why I prefaced this part of the story, because you might be thinking, “boo-hoo, you have to work a full-time job, well so does everyone else.” And you're absolutely right, but that's also my point.
All I could think about was, “what IS this? This is how everyone lives their life? Wake up, go to work, come home, have very little time for yourself, go to bed, repeat? Seriously? This is draining the life out of me. Something is wrong here.” I had understood the concept, but living it was something else. If someone privileged like me—someone with no other real issues—is struggling with this, I can't imagine going through it with less privilege and worse circumstances. I sympathize with everyone in worse situations, you're all stronger than me, I'll be the first to admit it.
Now, I had had full-time jobs before, this wasn't my first, but without something like a sport to focus on, or the beginning of a school year to give the job an end-date, my life now revolved around work, and that was the issue. To me, that's a broken system, and I knew it right away.
Yes, work is essential to maintaining and progressing civilization, I'm not arguing the abolishment of work. But we're living in the dang future, man. The plan was to use technological advances to make life easier and to work less, and at best we're stagnant on that plan, and in a lot of cases we're actually going backwards, in the opposite direction.
Of course, we'll always have menial labour jobs for which we'll need people to work. And some people are content to work those jobs. If you're one of them, all the power to you, I'm not here to discourage you if that's what you want to do. I will even argue that we should do whatever we can to make the working conditions better for those jobs, but our current system forces everyone into the same box, and we need to create better systems that allow people better mobility in their career choices.
Technology is at a point where our output far exceeds our input, which means we don't have to think of life as a 1:1 exchange anymore. It's not zero-sum; input does not equal output.
One hour of labour is worth exponentially more than it was 100 years ago, 50 years ago, even 10 years ago. Technology is advancing so fast that methods we used just last year can become obsolete.
We cling to outdated systems, beliefs, and ways of thinking only because they're familiar.
With this podcast, I want to open up your mind to new ways of thinking about what is possible.
I'll save some of this for the episode dedicated to employment. Let me finish my story for now.
The previous year, fall of 2012, at the start of the semester, on top of my course load at school, and on top of every day—sometimes twice a day—competitive varsity baseball, and on top of going to the gym, I took a part-time job stocking shelves at the local Superstore overnight.
That only lasted a couple months because it seriously overloaded my schedule and I wasn't getting enough sleep, so I had to quit that job—but my point is, it wasn't the volume of work or the busy-ness of my schedule that was sucking the life out of me in the fall of 2013, because I was busier the year before and I had no problem with it then.
In fact, I actually really enjoyed my life the year before, when I was overwhelmingly busy. The issue, now, was the value the work held in my life. The issue was that my life now depended on work and my life revolved around it. I was living to work, not working to live.
In the fall of 2013, I was still going to the gym 5-6 times a week, and even though I said baseball was over, that's not 100% accurate. I played for the school's alumni team, which meant we played one exhibition game a week against the varsity team. I was meditating on a regular basis, I was eating healthy, I was literally the healthiest and fittest I had ever been. And I lived with two friends—one of which is one of my best friends.
These are things we are told will help us cope through tough times like this—eat healthy, be active, socialize frequently. I was doing all of them and, although life would have been worse without those things, they weren't solving my problem. Coping mechanisms and band-aid solutions do not fix a broken system.
A few months later, in early December 2013, I did something stupid. I was really struggling with all of this, and I had had enough. So, I quit my job without another one lined up. And, again, I'll acknowledge my privilege here, because I didn't have enough money saved to justify that decision. But I did have a support system that I could rely on to help me out financially, and while my parents weren't exactly happy with my decision, I think they understood.
One of the thoughts I had was that part of my unhappiness was because the job wasn't in my career field. I had graduated a program called Digital Art and Design, and I wasn't doing graphic or web design, I was washing cars. It was always meant to be temporary, until I could find a job in design, but I felt so drained all the time that it was hard for me to muster the effort, in what felt like almost non-existent free time, to put together applications for other jobs. So, part of my reasoning for quitting was that it would give me back some time to put effort into finding a better job. Still, it was a stupid decision.
Lo and behold, enter some amazing luck. The first design job to which I applied contacted me later that same day and we scheduled an interview for the next week. I borrowed some money from my grandad to rent a car and drive 3 hours down to Burnaby for the interview—again, privilege that not everyone has—and it went well. I passed a short screening test when they followed up with me the next day, and they said, “you start the first Monday in January.” My stupid decision just paid off with some real dumb luck.
I was scheduled to fly back to Ottawa later that week to spend a couple weeks with my family for the holidays. So, in two weeks, from the other side of the country, I had to find an apartment to rent, the deposit for which I needed to borrow more money from my parents, buy a car that I was required to have for offsite work at my new job, which was made easier by zero dollars down financing so that I didn't need to borrow more money, and finally, I had to borrow more money to rent a cube truck to move all my stuff to a new city 3 hours away.
I had more energy since leaving my car washing job, and I had even more of a jolt of energy from getting this new job—I had always wanted to live in Vancouver and now I'll be a couple blocks away, starting a new relevant-to-my-career job with a salary and a new (used) car. Maybe my problem's been solved! I enjoy doubting myself, so I thought maybe the system wasn't necessarily broken, maybe I just needed the right job?
Nope.
Now we enter the third act of this story—these are all relevant details, I promise. You'll understand why shortly, I know that right now it sounds like I'm reading from my diary. Stay with me here, I'll bring it all home.
I pulled off the move. I flew back to Kamloops after new year's, packed up, picked up the rental truck and stuffed it with my crap, and drove down to Burnaby on the Saturday before the Monday I was supposed to start my new job. I unloaded into my apartment, returned the rental truck, and took the SkyTrain and the bus to the dealership in downtown Vancouver to pick up my car. The dealership even stayed open almost an extra hour because I was running late and they were closed the next day, so I wouldn't have a car in time for my first day if they closed before I got there.
I started the job that Monday, and the job itself was fine. If anything, it was a little stale because it was a corporate atmosphere for an industrial tool sales company, but the job duties were what I was looking for and the people there were great. And I was doing a good job. Three months in I had my end-of-probation-period review, and it went well—the only negative thing they had to say was that, because I was quiet and I own a resting bitch face (my words, not theirs), some of my coworkers thought I was unfriendly. So, I made sure to be a little more social—problem solved.
By the time that review rolled around, the Senior Designer—the only other designer—had quit and they didn't hire anyone else, instead I absorbed most of his responsibilities, which felt good that they trusted me and thought enough of the quality of my work to take that on, especially only 3 months into my professional career. It also came with a nice 15% raise.
I also signed up with one of the best competitive men's league baseball teams in the country and played with them for the two summers I was there—we even won the biggest money tournament in North America that first year, only the second Canadian team to ever win that tournament. Twenty-thousand-dollar prize awarded to our organization.
Things, objectively, were great. But subjectively—personally—I was still struggling. A month after moving to Burnaby, the new city shine had already worn off and I was mentally and emotionally right back where I was a few months earlier, in Kamloops. The job, the raise, the baseball—no lasting effect. I'll say it again, coping mechanisms and band-aid solutions don't fix a broken system.
So, I've now had depression since roughly August or September of 2013—right at the beginning of this story, coinciding with the start of a work-centric lifestyle, and it's no coincidence. As of the time of this recording, that's more than 8 years—the better part of a decade. Diagnosed by 3 different doctors, on meds for a while when I was in Burnaby—but I was too stubborn and thought they weren't helping so I stopped taking them—and then on meds again as of about a year ago. They do help, but again, coping mechanisms and band-aid solutions don't fix a broken system. The root cause of the issue needs to be addressed.
I quit that job in Burnaby after a year and a half, again without another job lined up, which was, again, stupid. But I had reached another breaking point. I took part time jobs to pay bills, and a good friend from Kamloops moved down to Burnaby and we lived together for a few months which helped with both the financial and social aspect of things. But it wasn't enough.
So, I moved back to Ottawa to reset, stayed with my parents for a few months, and reconnected with some of my best friends who I've known since elementary school. We had always been friends but living on opposite sides of the country meant we only saw each other once or twice a year, which is why I say “reconnected.”
I worked at a sign shop for a couple years, then worked in advertising for a local grocery chain for a couple more.
Then, I quit my job without another one lined up for the third time, a little bit more than a year ago—but this time it was permanent and intentional. I was transitioning to working for myself, and building my own business, which is something I've always wanted to do. The stars aligned, despite the pandemic, and I took the leap. It has been a struggle, as any young business is, but it's another step forward. It's still not the solution, but it has helped.
One more time, coping mechanisms and band-aid solutions don't fix a broken system—but they help. Every little bit helps when you're struggling. Staying active and eating healthy, socializing on a regular basis, taking the appropriate medication, making positive career changes—they add up. They don't solve the problem, but please don't underestimate the cascading effects of stacking up small wins.
I am still competing against depression, but bit by bit it gets easier. And if you're in the same boat, I promise it will for you too, all you need to do is stay in the game. Some days are harder than others, some days you have little to no energy, but do whatever you have the capacity for—if that isn't much, that's ok too—just stay in the game. That's all that's expected of you, regardless of what anyone else says. So, find whatever joy you can knowing you're doing what you can, and take it easy on yourself because you always have to be your own biggest supporter.
Still, we have to fix the system. Here's the part where I come to the point of both my story and of this podcast.
I'm not the only one to notice that we have broken systems, and it's not limited to the work-centric lifestyle I've been addressing, it's not limited to work-life balance or working conditions. We have broken systems everywhere. It's politics, economics, education, law enforcement, systemic racism, the environment.
I know I'm not the only one to notice, because—I'm sure this won't come as a shock to you—we are seeing the fight for solutions to these problems start to ramp up. From the rising political tensions between left and right, to the George Floyd protests, to the GameStop stock battle, to the Great Resignation.
The Great Resignation is why I finally decided to start this podcast. I've had it roughly planned out for probably 4 or 5 years now, at least. But the Great Resignation is what brought it home for me.
As you now know, the start of my career had a big effect on my life—it's when I first started to notice exactly how broken some of these systems are. Now, here we are, more than 8 years later, and the movement to fight the work-centric lifestyle, depressed wages, and unacceptable working conditions is starting to gain mass popularity, in the form of the Great Resignation.
Something has become a pattern in my life: I'm noticing this problem or that issue, I'm doing this project or that hobby, and then it starts to gain mass traction or popularity. So, as a result, I realize I'm not the only one who cares about this thing or likes that thing, and that I'm not the only one who this happens to—I'm not the only one who has these feelings—I mean, logically, this has to be happening to others in order for these things to gain steam.
But, in my case, I've rarely done anything about it.
A couple examples, to give you some more background on me—and because I'm a literal hipster with some of this stuff. As a teenager, I was designing graphics and logos and coding websites from scratch, and I was starting side projects and trying to start businesses—now tech and entrepreneurialism is hip and cool. Everyone and their dog want a side hustle, they want to make their own logo with Canva and build their own website with Wix, and they want to build their own business. I'm a tech-entrepreneur hipster, dude! I liked that stuff before it was cool!
One of our final and largest projects in my design program at university was to create a fictional company and design a very thorough branding package. I basically came up with Spotify. Spotify had actually already been founded a few years earlier, but I had never heard of it and it hadn't gained popularity yet. The only two real differences were that my idea included a recording-label side of things where the company would provide artists the means, facilities, and distribution for new recordings, and that you could order physical albums, either CD or vinyl, in the same kind of way that you used to be able to rent physical DVDs from Netflix. So, you're welcome for Spotify too!
I fell in love with chess more than a decade ago, and it was hard to find people to play against—I didn't know there was an online community for it—but guess what made a resurgence at the start of the pandemic, when everyone was locked inside the first time? Well, I'll be darned if it wasn't chess. Then The Queen's Gambit dropped on Netflix and chess just kept gaining in popularity. I'm a dang chess hipster, man!
I had been subscribed to the WallStreetBets subreddit for a couple years before the GameStop ordeal. I thought, there's something here, I need to spend some time getting into this a bit more. I would read posts here and there but I never took the time to really dig in, and then boom, guess who's behind the fight against stock market manipulation? It's dang ol' WallStreetBets, and I'm left kicking myself for not listening to my instinct to get on that train before it left the station. But my point remains, I had that gut feeling before it happened.
You know in the early-mid aughts, when the t-shirt over long sleeve shirt style became a thing? That was me, I started that. White shoes made a comeback about a decade ago—that was me too!
Of course, this is all tongue-in-cheek. I don't actually think I, with my “100 social media followers” level of influence, started any sort of fashion trend, and it's not like I invented tech or websites or side hustles or being an entrepreneur. Like I said, I'm obviously not the only one who this happens to, you probably have some examples from your life, too.
When I started to hear about the Great Resignation, I thought, “hmmm… I quit working for other people about a year ago when I had finally had it with all the stressful and unrewarding working conditions they imposed on me—and now this is becoming a thing, another issue is gaining steam. I noticed the issue almost a decade ago, and I made the biggest leap in that regard just before this movement starts to take off? Hmmm! Curious!
I even noticed some hints before I had heard of the Great Resignation. Right after I left my job last year, others started leaving that company too—the copywriter quit to do her own thing, then a graphic designer left for a better job, the senior designer left to do her own thing, and then the marketing coordinator left for a better job, too. That was 5 people who left, if you include me, in about 3 months. That was almost half the department. And then a few months later I heard that one of my bosses—someone who loved the company and loved his job, someone I thought would be there for a long time—he left for another job, too.
Of course, I'm not saying my resignation had anything to do with their resignations—well, it did for one of them, and I know because they told me that it gave them the push they needed to make it happen for them, too—but they all would have left anyway even if not right away. A lot of us were unhappy about a number of things and we were noticing far too many issues, and it's not like I was the first person to quit from even our own department in the last year leading up to that. But it had been almost a year since someone had quit, and things started to snowball after I left, and now the Great Resignation is gaining steam—I'm just saying, it's happening again, right now, and it's not just me.
So, I thought this would be a good way to kick off this podcast—and it's an example of one of the broken systems I am most familiar with.
The Great Resignation is a sign that I needed to get going if I want to ride this wave and contribute something this time. Because I do believe I have something to contribute, to that issue and to some others, too.
And I want to share it with you in the hopes that you'll realize, for a lot of these issues, it's not just you, and together we can do something about it. You can improve your life and the lives of those around you, and it's easier than you think.
The final straw came about a month ago now. I haven't been listening to a whole lot of podcasts lately, but one that I came across in my Spotify recommendations caught my attention. It's called Make Art Not Content, and it really scratched an itch for me. It really got me motivated in a way that nothing else has in a very, very long time. It helped restore the mindset that I needed in order to do a lot of stuff I've wanted to do but haven't had the drive or energy to do. This podcast is one of those things.
Specifically, though, in one of the episodes of Make Art Not Content the host relays a quote I had never heard before, and it lit a fire under me: in a famous work of his titled “Self-Reliance and Other Essays,” Ralph Waldo Emerson says, “speak your latent conviction… Else tomorrow a stranger will say with masterly good sense precisely what we have thought and felt all the time, and we shall be forced to take with shame our own opinion from another.”
Dang! That's exactly what I've just been saying, I can relate to that! I think you can, too. And to bring it home, a “latent” conviction is not fully developed—he's saying act on your instinct, even if you don't have everything figured out yet. So, I am. And here we are.
If you've heard the trailer for this podcast, or if you've read the description, you know I don't claim to have any answers to any issues we have in society, I don't claim to be able to fix our broken systems. Sure, I do have ideas about solutions—some of which may be good, and some of which may be complete garbage—and I'll share some of them with you, but that's not what this podcast is really about.
I'm making this podcast because I think I have some insight and perspectives that can change the way you think about these issues and systems that can maybe spark the idea for the solution in you.
At the very least, in the worst-case scenario, I'm confident I can bring more awareness to these issues, and help strengthen numbers in the fight for a better world. Spreading ideas and information is one of the most powerful tools we have, and I'll take spreading ideas and information as a consolation prize any day of the week.
So, let's get started.
Welcome to Sonder: The Same Team Podcast. I'm your host, James Martensen.
[Intro music]
Let me tell you about the word Sonder. It's a word coined by a guy named John Koenig, the author of The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows, a project in which he creates and defines words for emotions which don't already have one. It started as a website and he's created YouTube videos about some of the words. He also recently released the official book this past November 16th. Which is coincidentally the day after my birthday—thank you John, very cool.
As far as I can tell, Sonder is the most popular or well-known word he's created. It's been used as the name of a bike brand, an Airbnb-esque company based out of Montreal, a video game, and a studio album by the band TesseracT. One mental health therapy marketplace calls themselves Sondermind.
A little more than a month ago I started to really get into my Spotify Discover Weekly playlists—I had never actually listened to them before, but when I listened to one, I was like, “dang, what have I been missing out on all this time?! There are some serious jams in here”—and on the third week, the third playlist, the last of 2021, one of the songs that made my big toe shoot up in my boot was called Honeybody by an artist named Kishi Bashi. The album that song was on? It's called “Sonderlust.”
I had never heard of Kishi Bashi, and that album name obviously caught my attention, so I clicked through to his artist page and listened to the first song listed there—I recognized it right away, I had heard this song already! I was like, “what the heck is going on here?!” And it kind of broke my mind because I couldn't figure out where I had heard it. I looked it up, turns out it was used in an episode of the latest season of a popular cartoon show that rhymes with Schmick and Schmorty.
Sonder is also the name of probably a dozen other podcasts—which I actually think is a great thing, and I'll tell you why in a minute.
But without further ado, the definition of Sonder is: the realization that each random passerby is living a life as vivid and complex as your own—populated with their own ambitions, friends, routines, worries and inherited craziness—an epic story that continues invisibly around you like an anthill sprawling deep underground, with elaborate passageways to thousands of other lives that you'll never know existed, in which you might appear only once, as an extra sipping coffee in the background, as a blur of traffic passing on the highway, as a lighted window at dusk.
I had decided a few years ago that I was going to use Sonder as the name of this podcast, and that's kind of a perfect definition considering the story about Kishi Bashi that I just told you. Also, when you consider the fact that I don't listen to TesseracT but I had heard of them through friends that do, and I didn't know they named an album of theirs after the word until I just Googled Sonder again right now, so that I could list off the ways other people have used it, and so that I could get the definition right.
Now, let me tell you about the same team part of the podcast title. I mentioned earlier that I played varsity baseball at university in Kamloops—the program was coached by a former Major League player, and we had some really talented players. The year before I joined the school, the team won the league championship, and one of the school's players was drafted by the Milwaukee Brewers. We had a couple players on the team in my tenure who had previously been drafted, too. That's just to say this wasn't casual beer league baseball.
The practice regimen was intense, and as part of our practice schedule we regularly played intrasquad games—games against ourselves. We would be split into two teams and we would play exhibition games against each other.
The teams changed day to day based on who needed work on the mound, at the plate, or in the field, and it was a regular occurrence for players to switch teams in the middle of a game to make sure everyone got their work in.
We never won the league championship while I was there, but we were close every year, including a couple second-place finishes. The league was small, but that doesn't take away from the fact that we were always a great team, always competitive.
But the coach noticed something, one year he pointed out to us: we regularly played better in those intrasquad games than we did in league games. As I just mentioned, we played well in league games, but there was something about intrasquad games that really brought out the best performances in our players.
Which is weird, it goes against conventional thinking, that intense competition with high stakes fuels us to dig deep and perform at our full potential, to beat the opposing team or player—the enemy. Why would a casual environment with no real stakes bring out a better performance? There's no enemy, there's no trophy, there's no reward. The games didn't matter, and the scores weren't even recorded.
I actually figured out the answer pretty quickly—it's pretty intuitive—and it began to influence the way I lived my life. It brought me a perspective that applies to a whole range of matters in life, and it made me a better person.
The answer is that it allowed us to compete in a situation where we still wanted to succeed—no, there was no final score, but you're playing to improve as a player, you're playing to improve your standing on the team and maybe earn a better position, and you're playing for bragging rights over a teammate—but, it also allowed us to compete in a situation where we could loosen up and have fun at the same time.
Not that competing in real games isn't fun, but you never worried about tensing up because if you lost it would mean a loss in the standings, at the benefit of a rival team. You should never be afraid of losing, you should never be afraid of failing, and this environment fostered that attitude.
The stakes were real enough that you still want to succeed and you'll give 100%, but at the same time you can take that extra weight off your shoulders. It simulated real game scenarios but allowed us to play more relaxed.
You never gripped your bat or the ball too tight, and at the end of the day progress was the only goal and everyone there was on your team. No matter what, putting in 100% effort made both you and the team better, and because we were all on the same team, we could all share in that common goal.
Knowing that the guy on the other side is actually on your team, but that you still wanted to beat him, gave you the drive to succeed but eliminated the need to overcompensate.
Of course, there are exceptions to this—Michael Jordan is notorious for using hatred of the opponent to fuel his performance, but he was also not well known for being a good person off the court. Most people are not Michael Jordan, most people are good natured and would be better served avoiding that approach. Because most people are not exceptions to the rule, and if you try to use anger to fuel your performance, in sports or at work, you risk letting it affect your attitude towards others outside those lines.
And even most athletes that use hatred to fuel their performance between the lines would tell you not to carry that attitude off the field. That's why you see them socialize with their friends on other teams. They know it's a game, and outside the lines we're all human beings, and we're all on the same team.
Using hatred to fuel your performance is not an attitude that serves you well in real life, it's best reserved for the game, and only if you can even make it work for you in that context to begin with. But right now, we see political tensions between right and left reflect that attitude of hating the enemy in real life, and it's destroying discourse, personal relationships, and societal progress. It's distracting us from the real issues.
Society is only possible to begin with because of cooperation. But we need to distinguish between conflict and anger. We do need conflict, not anger, in order to fuel motivation and avoid complacency, and to give us something to improve on or something to work towards—like how in the intrasquad games we still wanted to succeed and improve—but we need cooperation to avoid destroying each other and devolving into a dystopian world. We need cooperation to avoid war and to avoid destroying the integrity of our society.
We need both—we need to be able to cooperate during times of conflict, and we need to be able to address conflict without compromising cooperation.
This brings me to the third component of the podcast—the yin-yang symbol. I'm sure most are aware, but for those who are not—I'll pull from both Wikipedia and Britannica here—the yin-yang is a Chinese philosophical concept that describes how obviously opposite or contrary forces may actually be complementary, interconnected, and interdependent in the natural world, and how they may give rise to each other as they interrelate to one another. The two complementary forces that make up all aspects and phenomena of life.
The term “dualistic-monism” or dialectical monism has been coined in an attempt to express this fruitful paradox of simultaneous unity and duality. Yin and yang can be thought of as complementary (rather than opposing) forces that interact to form a dynamic system in which the whole is greater than the assembled parts.
According to this philosophy, everything has both yin and yang aspects (for instance, shadow cannot exist without light). Either of the two major aspects may manifest more strongly in a particular object, depending on the criterion of the observation. The yin yang shows a balance between two opposites with a portion of the opposite element in each section.
Two halves of a whole—each containing a part of the other. Men and women, left wing and right wing, liberals and conservatives, good and evil. Conflict and cooperation. We are all human, and we all have both within us.
We need to have both. But we need to remember that each side is only one of two parts of a whole. A whole that is greater than the sum of its parts. And we need balance for the best results, we need to avoid extremism, because we risk losing the benefit of the part we aim to diminish.
You can be strong in your convictions and you can stand up for what you believe in without being an extremist, and it seems that is something we have forgotten. Too much conflict, not enough cooperation. We have forgotten the common good, we have forgotten our common goals. We have forgotten that we are all on the same team.
We are all just trying to do what is best for us and our loved ones. Our friends and our family. But all that means is that we all have the same goal at the end of the day—and achieving that goal does not need to come at the expense of others outside our circle. In fact, if both groups thrive, the sum is greater than its parts, and we all benefit more that way. A thriving and prosperous world benefits everyone.
There's this controversial figure making rounds online, and he's been doing so for years now. He's loud and outspoken, he's stern because he's strong in his convictions, and it rubs some people the wrong way. In fact, I generally tend to be wary of people like that, I prefer calm confidence, but I give people a chance and I judge them based on their words and their actions more so than their style, even when it's a style I tend to not prefer. And this guy has some real golden nuggets of wisdom if you can get past the method of delivery.
His name is Gary Vaynerchuk, or Gary Vee, and here, the relevant piece of wisdom he's provided us is, “I want to build the biggest building in town by building the biggest building in town, not by tearing down other buildings.”
I love that sentiment. It really embodies what I'm getting at here. That attitude encourages both competition and cooperation. We both have the same goal, to build a better building, and by approaching it with this attitude, we end up with a better result at the end.
Regardless of whose building is bigger, we now have two really tall buildings, and each will be as tall as we can make it, rather than destroying the other building and finishing our own building after only five storeys because there's now no incentive to keep building, because we've already won. We end up with two massive Burj Khalifas instead of one dinky five storey building that doesn't do justice to what we can really achieve.
Like I said, there are probably at least a dozen other podcasts named Sonder, and now you can see why I said that's a great thing. I had already decided to use Sonder in the title before I even searched for others with the same name, because to me, that doesn't matter. I haven't listened to any of them, but if they use Sonder in their name, they're probably based on well-meaning messages, and we need as much of that positivity as we can get. I hope they all do well.
If I do a good job of creating this podcast, if I create valuable, quality content, all I need to do is market it appropriately and I can be the biggest Sonder podcast if that's my goal. I can still be the first result that shows up when you search for Sonder, even if there's a dozen others on that list. I don't need to have theirs taken down, and actually it benefits me that they're there because anyone searching for another Sonder podcast will see mine too, and that's another potential listener.
Which leads me to another point: you need to be able to accept a loss—or “take an L,” as the kids says. Part of what I was just talking about—building the biggest building—is that we can't all have the biggest building when it's all said and done.
Sure, maybe sometimes both buildings end up exactly 1,000 storeys tall—but that's not likely and not common. Most of the time, there IS a winner, and if that's not you, you need to take the loss with some grace. Never be a sore loser, or a sore winner for that matter. Be a gracious winner and be a gracious loser.
And this keeps getting weirder—because I've always loved this next quote, but never knew it was another of Ralph Waldo Emerson's until just now when I looked it up: “win as if you were used to it, lose as if you enjoyed it for a change.” Beautiful.
Learning to take a loss, being willing to change your mind when presented with new evidence, taking the high road and doing the right thing even when it's tough… these are some of the values and principles I will touch on in the first episode.
This episode is about getting acquainted with me and the Same Team philosophy. I told you a fairly long story about myself, and I gave you more details about my life than was necessary, so that you can humanize me, in the spirit of the word Sonder. You have your own vivid and complex life, and I have one too. We can often forget that the artists, performers, and entertainers behind the media and the content that we consume are just regular people.
Even people who have known me since elementary school don't know some of the things that I've told you about myself in this episode. Now you all have more information about me and where I'm coming from when you listen to this podcast.
I have my ups and downs, like you do. I'm good at some things and bad at others, like you are. I've accomplished some things and I've failed at others, like you have. We need to keep that kind of stuff in mind because it makes it easier to empathize and sympathize with others, which we need to do to be the best people we can be and to be the best society we can be.
I'm not perfect, I've made mistakes. With regards to a lot of things I will advocate for in this podcast, someone who knows me would probably be able to point out a situation where I've done the opposite at one time or another. There's almost always a “gotcha” if you dig deep enough, and no one is immune to that.
As the saying goes, do as I say, not as I do. Because who among us can claim to be perfectly virtuous, who can claim to have never made a mistake? No one, because none of us are perfect, and being perfect isn't the point. As Voltaire said, “perfect is the enemy of good”—we just need to make an honest effort to be good, because at the end of the day that's all we can really do. Effort and attitude are really the only two things within our control.
There's a great headline from one of those satirical news sites, Clickhole, that reads, “Heartbreaking: the worst person you know just made a great point.” If you look it up, the short article they wrote for it is pretty good too. The underlying idea that's relevant here is: we need to be able to put aside our feelings and emotions when evaluating the validity and worth of an argument someone has made or evidence they've presented. Whether it's emotions and feelings about the person or the subject.
Of course, there are actions and messages that cross a line and should not be tolerated, but we need to reserve criminal justice for serious criminal offences like violence, harassment, and hate speech—not for things like a difference in opinion. And those actions and messages that do cross the line should be handled in the proper manner.
We will get into this in more depth in a later episode, but whatever you think about law enforcement, the legal system and its administrators are the correct way to deal with criminal issues. There are issues with law enforcement, but the solution is to reform that system, it's not to form a lynch mob and take to the streets.
There are very few situations where a regular citizen needs to take justice into their own hands—and even fewer where that would require violence. Violence is an absolute last resort to be avoided at all costs, and even then, ideally only when in self-defence.
Outside of serious criminal offences, we need to use our words, and everyone deserves a second chance (and even sometimes in the case of real criminal offences I believe in rehabilitation, when possible, but again, that's for another episode). We need to try to resolve our differences and we need to do that with a calm, intelligent, and empathetic conversation. Not a shouting match and impromptu public shaming.
Even the people we may dislike the most, the people with polar opposite views and opinions, have more in common with us than we think. I said it before, we're all just trying to do what's best for us and our friends and family. There are extremely few people in the world who are intentionally trying to harm others and cannot be convinced that that isn't good. Most “evil” people are more “good” than we like to think.
There's a good Bill Burr bit about Arnold Schwarzenegger, after it came out that Arnold had an affair with his maid. This is a long one, I've edited it for length and I've removed the swear words, but he said, “I'm not saying he's not a piece of [expletive] for doing what he did, it was a piece of [expletive] move… There's no sort of examination of it, they just go, ‘ah, he's an idiot,’ ‘ah, he's stupid’… Does it even make sense, why would you do that? Why would you accomplish all that and then [expletive] it up? … [He moved] to America, [and] became famous for lifting weights… Did he rest on his laurels, no, next challenge, ‘I'm gonna become an actor despite the fact no one can really understand me,’ against all odds he starts making movies… becomes one of the biggest blockbuster stars of all time. What are you gonna do next Arny? ‘I think I'll marry a Kennedy’… Bam! He does it! Cherry on top, ‘I'm running for governor of a state I can't even pronounce,’ and he wins the election. Why wouldn't this guy think he could [sleep with] his maid in his own bed and get away with it? This dude has been in the zone for over four decades! Four decades, nothing but net!… Anybody here think they could move to Austria, learn the language, become famous for working out, then be a movie star, then marry into their royalty, and hold public office? How many lifetimes would you need? … How can I judge these guys?”
So, as he acknowledges at the start of the bit, having an affair with his maid is not acceptable, but the point is that his circumstances and his environment are so far removed from what any of us can comprehend that only when you actually start to put yourself in his shoes can you understand why he would do something like that. As he said, this dude's been in the zone for over four decades. That's a completely different mindset than the one I'm in, that's for sure.
We are a product of our environment—that's partially where privilege comes from—and lots of people readily acknowledge the role our uncontrollable circumstances play in our lives, but as soon as we hear about something foreign to us, like a hardline conservative viewpoint to a liberal or vice versa, we go straight to disbelief and even insults, sometimes we cut them out of our lives completely instead of at least trying to understand how that viewpoint comes to be and whether if we were in their shoes we might hold that viewpoint, too.
Take other extreme examples, Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk. They absolutely do terrible things, and we look at them like, “how could not just pay your taxes, or give up a tiny portion of your wealth to help solve a global crisis, or treat your workers better?” But these guys have been brought up in circumstances we can't even begin to imagine being able to relate to, so who is to say we wouldn't do the exact same thing if we had lived their lives? Lots of people can't even say with confidence that if that kind of money dropped into their lap right now, having lived the exact same life, that they would do things that they think they would do.
We have to hold people accountable for the actions, and we need people like Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk to do better things with their money, but we need to at least try to understand how their circumstances are different from ours before jumping into blind rage. Not only because it's better for our blood pressure, but also because we will be prepared to deal with the issues with a better understanding. Like how a detective has a better chance at catching a criminal if he can learn to think like a criminal and understand his motives.
We need to be smarter than jumping into disbelief and rage. Think on a higher level. Rage and violence is what happens when your brain fails you. Take the high road, and do the right thing. It's the smart thing. Another Gary Vaynerchuk quote, “doing the right thing is always the right thing.” Or in the words of David Cottrell, “doing the right thing isn't always easy—in fact, sometimes it's real hard—but just remember that doing the right thing is always right.”
So, try your best to understand before judging, and realize that no matter how different someone may seem, most of our goals and best interests are closely, if not exactly aligned.
You remember that movie Road Trip? With Tom Green and Amy Smart and DJ Qualls? There's a scene at the end of the movie, once the plot has been resolved and they're driving back home. They're in the car, and the main character, Josh, says he's only got 46 hours left to study for his Ancient Philosophy exam, and his friend Rubin says he can teach him. “Really?” says Josh. And Rubin says, “Yeah, I can teach Japanese to a monkey in 46 hours. The key is just finding a way to relate to the material.”
So, no matter the differences between us, we have enough in common that we just need to find the way to relate to each so we can be on the same team, and pull in the same direction. Because the real fight isn't with each other, that's a distraction, it's with the systems and the politicians keeping those systems in place. If we can pull in the same direction, we can make the progress we need to solve these larger issues. We might never agree on 100% of things, but we can get to 90% or more instead of stalling at 0%.
At this point, I should probably clarify something, because it will inevitably come up. If you're one of those detectives that can think like a criminal, you've probably sussed it out already, but I lean very progressive in my beliefs. I say progressive, and not liberal, because I don't identify as a capital L liberal, I'm not tied to the Liberal party here in Canada. In fact, I've never voted for the Liberal party, and I'm not tied to any party.
I would absolutely vote for the Conservative party if they had the best platform. Instead, their policies are holding them back. They're too busy trying to decide whether climate change even exists in the first place, and whether they should try to take rights away from women and gay people.
I voted for the Green Party in my first election, a municipal election in Kamloops, and since then I have voted NDP and, most importantly, independent. Not only do I not associate with any one party, I think in doing so we do ourselves a great disservice.
Our governments and parties don't have any incentive to get better or to make any fundamental changes, because we keep electing them anyway. Most of the systems we have don't change because we don't have the right incentives in place. So, let's give our politicians and our parties some real incentive, make them earn your vote, don't just give it to them unconditionally.
More on that in the episode about politics.
For now, let's wrap this up. I'll quickly give you an overview of what you can expect going forward.
First, I'll continue to use baseball analogies—baseball has played a large part in my life, so it's what I know. And it's a team sport, which I think is a very valuable thing to participate in. Playing a role on a team and learning how to win as a team can teach you a lot about life. And we will redefine win, and remove all the negative connotations of making life a competition. With the Same Team philosophy, winning is simply making progress together.
Other than examples from my own life, I will try not to be too specific. I don't want to get into this issue from last year, or that election from the year before. I don't want to get bogged down in details. As we've touched on, life is nuanced and most issues aren't black and white, there's a lot of grey. So, by defining a general philosophy and sticking to general principles, we can take those into our own specific situations, rather than squabbling over one specific issue in the news. We will make more progress this way.
Most of what I say won't actually be my own ideas. I am an information and knowledge gatherer, and my strengths lay in listening and then translating and organizing thoughts and ideas. Sure, I have ideas of my own, like I said earlier, and I will share some of them, but I'm no genius. Even stuff I may have thought to be an original idea to me has probably already been thought of before. Like that Spotify example.
The goal of this podcast is to organize all these thoughts and ideas and translate them to you in the form of one neat little series, like a guidebook. As of now, I have about 10 episodes planned, in a limited series type of deal. But if there is interest in making episodes after that, whether it's to start getting into those specific issues in the news or whether it's something else entirely that's suggested by you the audience, I am absolutely open to that. But for now, we'll start with the guidebook.
I'll relate the issues to you in ways that will hopefully make you think about life and others around you a little bit differently. I'll ask questions that hopefully make you think about these topics in a different way, because thinking differently and spreading those ideas is what fuels progress.
Now that you're acquainted with me and the philosophy I'm trying to spread, we've successfully framed the perspective with which to approach this podcast.
Like I said, the first episode will be about virtues and principles—basically, how we can take advantage of this philosophy for ourselves. How to internally arrange ourselves so we can set ourselves up to be the best we can be and do the best we can do when we address the larger issues that we will talk about later.
The second episode will be about how we can take advantage of the philosophy when addressing each other. We take it external, to our friends and families and neighbourhoods and communities, so we can all get on the same page and so we can all start to pull in the same direction, because that will give us the best chance of affecting real change when we address those larger issues.
The third episode is about how we can aim our collective efforts now that we're pulling the same direction. How to throw our weight around and actually affect that change now that we're ready.
Remember the yin-yang? Now you see how everything I've talked about ties together. The first episode is about ourselves, internal is the first part of the whole. The second episode is about others, external is the second part of the whole. And then the third episode is about the sum of those two parts, the whole. Which, as we know, is greater than the sum of those two parts. So, we'll figure out how to get the most out of that whole, we'll figure out how to get the largest sum.
And at that point we can start thinking about and addressing the larger issues. There will be episodes dedicated to each of these issues, like politics, economics, careers and employment, wealth and inequality, discrimination, physical and mental health, the environment.
As I've said, I know lots of us have started to notice these issues. I have privilege, I'm in one of the most privileged class of people there is, and it's still unreasonably difficult just to survive, just to pay the bills. Is that what we want society to be? That wasn't the plan, we wanted to work hard and develop new technology in order to “build a better life for our children.” But we're the children in that quote, this was supposed to already have happened. That promise was not delivered on, but not for lack of means. We have the technology, and we have the resources, but up until now we've refused to make real change. It's time.
It needs to be easier for me, it needs to be easier for you. It needs to be easier for everyone. It's hard to change, I know, and there's a significant flow of money influencing and hindering our decision making that could otherwise make a difference to affect change, but we need to come together for the betterment of everyone now, before we let this go any further. Because it's only going to get harder and harder if we don't.
We need to come together and pull in the same direction. Change is hard, but it's easier than you think, and I'll prove it.
And when we are all finally pulling in the same direction, you'll be amazed how much easier it is, and even more amazed at how much we can pull, and what we can achieve.
[Outro music]
Thank you for listening. This podcast will always be free from ads, and if you'd like to provide support, you can go to Patreon.com/SameTeamPodcast and become a patron for only five dollars.
The next best thing you can do is actually free: join my monthly newsletter mailing list via Martensen.ca/newsletter.
I send out the newsletter once a month, on the first Wednesday of every month, and a second time on the fifth Wednesday of the months which have five Wednesdays. You'll get updates on the podcast and other stuff I'm working on, and you'll get exclusive access and discounts to some cool stuff I have in, and will be adding to, my shop. Again, that's Martensen.ca/newsletter.
Otherwise, you can visit my shop directly at Martensen.ca/shop and support me by buying something. I have stuff like clothing with satirical messages about capitalism and consumerism, such as t-shirts that say “I wanted my first house but all I could afford was the lousy t-shirt.” Take 10% off every order with discount code “SONDER” which will never expire. Seriously, use it for every order, forever. Again, that's Martensen.ca/shop.
You can find the pod on Instagram and Twitter, @SameTeamPodcast, and at the website SameTeamPod.com.
You can email me at James@SameTeamPod.com, I would love to hear from you.
I also publish the transcripts for these episodes on my website Martensen.ca, and at Medium.com/@JamesMartensen.
Music for this podcast is courtesy of me, James Himself.
This podcast was written, edited, and produced by me, as a project of my information agency, Freestyle Press. Visit FreestylePress.com.
You can find the podcast on Spotify, iTunes and Apple Podcasts, and everywhere else podcasts are found.
If you enjoyed this podcast and/or if you learned something, please rate, review, subscribe, and share. Not only would it mean a lot to me, it would appease the Almighty Algorithm. Praise be to its humbling omnipotence.
See you next time, and thanks again for listening.
—James
