The Art of Manliness - Stop Being a Complainer

00:00:00.000 Brett McKay here and welcome to another edition of the Art of Manliness podcast.

00:00:11.420 My flight was awful. The restaurant service was terrible. The traffic was horrible. My boss is

00:00:16.900 the worst. Our culture is the stupidest. Whenever we get together with other people, we hear lots 1.00

00:00:22.020 of complaints and plenty come out of our own mouths. All this complaining may be ubiquitous,

00:00:26.660 but it's not entirely innocuous. Complaining puts us in a negative mood, hurts our health,

00:00:32.100 and damages our relationships. If you've ever wanted to complain less, my guest today has some

00:00:36.780 advice on how to break the complaining habit and embrace a more positive and proactive life.

00:00:41.540 His name is Will Bowen, and he's the founder of the Complaint-Free Movement and the author of

00:00:45.280 A Complaint-Free World. Today on the show, Will first defines what constitutes a complaint. He

00:00:50.020 then shares the five main reasons people offer complaints, so you can learn to recognize what

00:00:54.340 triggers yours. Will also explains how to deal with being on the receiving end of each type of

00:00:59.020 complaint, so you don't have to listen to the complaining of others. After the show's over,

00:01:03.400 check out our show notes at awim.is slash stop complaining.

00:01:06.240 All right, William Bowen, welcome to the show.

00:01:25.600 Thank you. Please call me Will.

00:01:27.540 All right. Well, Will, you wrote a book and you're the founder of the Complaint-Free Movement.

00:01:33.300 What's the story behind that and how did it originate?

00:01:36.240 I was actually teaching a class in Kansas City, Missouri on prosperity in 2006, and it was based

00:01:44.920 on Edwin Gaines' book, The Four Spiritual Laws of Prosperity. So she recommends that people go 21

00:01:52.380 days in a row without complaining because if you want to attract things to you, you can't be positive

00:01:58.420 and grateful at the same time you're complaining. So she threw out this idea that people should go 21

00:02:04.680 days in a row without complaining. What I added to it was a mindfulness tool to keep you on track.

00:02:13.900 I handed out 250 of these little purple bracelets, like the Livestrong bracelets, and I encourage

00:02:21.800 people to put them on their wrist and every time they caught themselves complaining, switch the

00:02:27.180 bracelet to the other wrist. Because your goal is to go 21 days in a row, you're on day one.

00:02:33.100 If you complain, you switch the bracelet to the other wrist, you're back on day one. If you're on

00:02:37.420 day six, you're back on day one. Anyway, I handed out 250 of these, and this was pre-smartphones,

00:02:46.280 pre-social media. I mean, you had to pick up the phone to call somebody pretty much or send them an

00:02:50.820 email. And just people telling people, this exploded underneath me. I had no idea this was going to take

00:02:58.760 off. And within 30 days, we had requests for 9,000 bracelets. And now we're at 15 million, over 15

00:03:09.400 million around the world, encouraging people to take this challenge. Put a bracelet on your wrist, and every

00:03:15.820 time you catch yourself complaining, switch it to the other wrist and start over. And it's one thing to do

00:03:23.240 something like that, but it's another for people to actually complete it. And we have had thousands of

00:03:29.920 people in every country on every continent go 21 days in a row without complaining with some pretty 0.97

00:03:36.520 amazing results. Well, you talk about all the benefits people experience when they stop complaining

00:03:42.020 that you've seen both in people you've observed firsthand when they took the no complaint challenge,

00:03:47.620 and then also from the research you've looked at. And what you found is that when you stop

00:03:53.160 complaining, it has all these benefits. You start seeing the world in a more positive light,

00:03:57.400 your mood improves, your health can improve, and it can also help your relationships, improve your

00:04:02.860 relationships. And I hope we can talk about that more here in a bit. So if you want to get these

00:04:07.280 benefits from stopping your complaining, I think it'll be helpful to know what a complaint is so you

00:04:13.100 can recognize it. So how do you define a complaint? The dictionary defines complain as to express

00:04:21.300 grief, grief, pain, or discontent, to express it. So by its definition, it must be expressed. A lot of

00:04:29.280 people, because I do 40 speaking events a year, I invariably get somebody who says they're going to

00:04:36.360 change their bracelet with every negative thought. Well, that's a great idea, but we think on average

00:04:42.720 45,000 thoughts a day, most of them are negative because of humans' negativity bias.

00:04:48.600 So the better thing to do is to catch the thoughts as they come out of your mouth to

00:04:55.700 try and replace them with something positive. So the dictionary defines complain is to express

00:05:02.880 grief, pain, or discontent. My definition of complain is an energetic statement that focuses on

00:05:11.480 what is missing and what you're lacking, rather than what is present and what you're grateful for.

00:05:16.740 Well, some people might hear this idea of no complaint challenge and they think, well,

00:05:20.640 if you don't complain, how do you tell someone that they did something wrong or you're missing

00:05:25.920 something on your plate that you ordered at a restaurant? How do you bring that up so you can

00:05:30.880 correct the mistake if you can't complain? It is not complaining to speak directly and only to the

00:05:36.560 person who can resolve your issue. If I have a problem with anything and I speak directly to the

00:05:44.300 person who can resolve it, that's not complaining. Let me give you a quote from Eckhart Tolle that

00:05:50.740 explains it really well. This is from A New Earth. He says, complaining is not to be confused

00:05:57.120 with informing someone of a mistake or a deficiency so that it can be put right. And he goes on to say,

00:06:06.360 and to refrain from complaining doesn't necessarily mean putting up with bad quality or behavior. He

00:06:14.460 says, there's no ego in telling the waiter your soup is cold and needs to be heated up. If you stick to

00:06:21.880 the facts, which are always neutral, how dare you serve me cold soup? That's complaining. So complaining

00:06:31.740 always has this, how dare you do this to me, the center of the universe. There is a sense of

00:06:39.380 entitlement. It's an interesting thing that in all of my research, and I've literally read everything I

00:06:45.900 find on the subject, the more people have, the more money they make, the more privilege they have,

00:06:55.240 the more they complain, not the less. Because their expectations become so high, they become very

00:07:03.920 entitled. Okay. So you distinguish a complaint from just passing along information to correct the defect

00:07:08.820 by a complaint has like a negative emotion or energy tied with it. Yeah. Like recently, I ordered a

00:07:16.980 $200 ninja coffee maker from Amazon. But what showed up, what I realized was somebody had bought

00:07:25.520 a nice ninja coffee machine from Amazon, then packaged up their old Mr. Coffee machine, sent it

00:07:32.320 back to Amazon. Amazon didn't check. This was a few years ago, so it wasn't actually recently. But anyway,

00:07:38.260 and they sent it to me. So when I reached out to Amazon and said, hey, you sent me the wrong

00:07:44.980 coffee maker. This is probably what happened. That's not a complaint. I call that a request for

00:07:52.220 accountability. In any interaction, there is an expectation of some reciprocity, this money for

00:08:00.400 getting this, this behavior for achieving this, whatever. And so as long as you are reaching out

00:08:07.220 directly and only to the person who can resolve your issue, it's not complaining. It's a request for

00:08:13.960 accountability. So you mentioned that you've done a lot of research on complaining, and particularly

00:08:19.620 why we complain. And you found that there are basically five reasons why we complain. And they

00:08:26.440 all have to do with status, trying to get our social needs met. And basically, we complain to feel good

00:08:33.100 by increasing social status. And you've got an acronym for these five reasons we complain. And that

00:08:39.280 acronym is GRIPE. So let's start with the G. What does the G stand for in GRIPE?

00:08:44.660 Well, before I answer that, let me acknowledge that the five reasons is the result of my good friend,

00:08:50.080 Dr. Robin Kowalski at Clemson University. I bill myself as the world authority on complaining,

00:08:56.720 but this simply because of all the studying I do. But she does the research. And she came up with

00:09:04.400 five reasons that people complain, but I found them to be a bit academic. So with her kind permission,

00:09:12.140 I relabeled each one. And so the G stands for get attention. We have a human need to connect with other

00:09:21.400 people. When I speak at conferences, one of the things I'll throw out is, as you walked from your

00:09:30.600 hotel room, came in here and had a seat, did someone acknowledge you? Did they look you in the

00:09:37.720 eyes and give you a half smile as you passed them? Did they say hello in the elevator? And the answer

00:09:44.400 is always yes, because human beings live in a social culture. And so we have this need to be acknowledged

00:09:54.060 by others. We don't have a need to acknowledge others. We have a need to be acknowledged. The only

00:09:59.520 reason we acknowledge others is to get acknowledgement in return. So complaining is simply a way of trying

00:10:07.280 to make a connection. It's simply a way of, I want to talk to you, but I don't know how. So the easiest

00:10:15.220 thing to do is to bitch about how the Miami Heat did on Tuesday and see if you're a sports fan, then we 0.88

00:10:22.720 have a connection. Or this time of year, I live in South Florida, the weather is the favorite target

00:10:29.700 because it rains almost every day. And last night we had such a thunderstorm that literally woke me up.

00:10:37.080 And so people get together and they go, oh gosh, the weather is so terrible. And that is a complaint.

00:10:44.360 Now to say we had quite a thunderstorm last night, that's not a complaint. That's a statement of fact.

00:10:50.180 But they get in with this energy, which is actually an invitation to the other person to respond in

00:10:57.900 kind, which develops that connection, gets people talking. Yeah. It's a socially acceptable way to

00:11:04.200 get attention. Like one way you could get attention would be like, hey, I had the best vacation in the

00:11:09.440 world. My kids are awesome. And I just got a raise. If you told that to people, they'd be like, oh,

00:11:14.580 how to kind of encourage resentment and envy. But you can complain about, well, this bad thing

00:11:20.280 happened to me and you're going to get attention, but you won't get the resentment possibly.

00:11:26.660 Yeah. And we'll get into that. People complaining to brag or inspire envy. It is socially acceptable,

00:11:34.380 as you say, to complain. It is common. It is expected. The analogy is when I was a boy,

00:11:42.160 I'm 63. When I was a boy, I would go to my pediatrician and he would always have a cigarette

00:11:48.480 hanging out of his mouth. So would my mother. And I had asthma and they couldn't understand why I had

00:11:54.760 asthma. It's because everybody had asthma, but it was activated by all the people smoking and blowing

00:12:02.360 smoke in my face. We are surrounded by complaints in the same way that we were surrounded in the 60s

00:12:11.340 by cigarette smoke. It was just common. You didn't even notice it. Nowadays, if you're a non-smoker

00:12:17.620 like me, if I get on an elevator with somebody who smokes, I'm like, oh, God, that is repellent,

00:12:23.660 that smell. So complaining is the same way. We're not truly aware of how much we do it and it gets

00:12:32.440 a social benefit. Ergo, it's a go-to move. So how should people deal with someone who complains

00:12:39.140 to get attention? Verbal jujitsu. What you want to do is when you walk up to that person,

00:12:45.140 you want to realize all they want to do is connect with you. And they don't know how,

00:12:49.400 so their default method is complaining. So you say some version of, you know, what is going well with

00:12:56.200 anything? I know that sounds a little stilted. So, you know, what are you grateful for? What are you

00:13:03.660 happy about? Et cetera. As you said, it's not okay for me to tell you what I'm grateful for and what

00:13:11.360 I'm happy about, then I'm bragging. Not cool. But if I ask you what's going well, what are you grateful

00:13:17.280 for? What are you happy with? Or as the clerk in my grandfather's store used to always say,

00:13:23.120 what's the good word? If you proactively let people like that know that they can share good

00:13:31.380 things with you, you know, oh, I saw a double rainbow this morning. Oh, I've discovered a

00:13:36.760 great new restaurant. Or have you seen the last episode of Succession? I think they nailed the

00:13:42.200 landing. They get to know that they can have that interaction with you by simply asking them for

00:13:49.120 something positive rather than something negative. And I want to draw a quick distinction.

00:13:55.380 We tend to use positive meaning Pollyannish. It's not what it means. Positive means what is present.

00:14:04.360 Negative means what is missing. Complaining is always about what's missing. So we want to ask

00:14:10.280 them about something that is present that they're happy for. I like that idea. Okay. So the G in gripe 1.00

00:14:17.080 is for get attention. Now we got R and R is for remove responsibility. How does that work? 0.56

00:14:24.220 Complaining removes responsibility. First of all, I'm going to send you kudos. I've done,

00:14:31.540 I was telling my girlfriend this morning, I've done probably two or 3,000 of these interviews.

00:14:37.620 And the way you prepared for this was accepted. I mean, I'm talking on a microphone you sent me.

00:14:44.200 Who does that? That's really cool. So...

00:14:47.200 Well, thank you so much.

00:14:47.840 Yes. However, if let's say I didn't want to do this, I wanted to go out for breakfast,

00:14:55.880 I could say, well, now he sent me a microphone that he wants me to use and I got to plug that in

00:15:02.600 and I got to do this. And I would start building a case around the real issue is, let's say I didn't

00:15:09.880 want to do this podcast, which I definitely did. But if I didn't, I could complain about the

00:15:16.320 circumstances and we'll always find them, no matter how silly they are. I could say, 0.90

00:15:21.340 I don't want to plug in that stupid microphone. What if it doesn't work with my system? Blah, 1.00

00:15:25.100 blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. It doesn't matter. Your mind takes the circumstances

00:15:30.500 surrounding something you've been asked to do. And kids are great at this. And then we complain

00:15:37.860 about the circumstances as a way of wanting to be let off the hook. In other words, I could say,

00:15:46.080 send you an email and say, hey, Brett, I'm sorry. I just don't think I can do this because I don't

00:15:51.400 have time to plug in the mic. Whatever. And so we complain about the circumstances because you never

00:15:58.940 want to go to a person and say, hey, Brett, you know that interview you asked me to do two months

00:16:04.840 ago. And I said, yes, I don't want to do it. We don't want to do that. So we complain to remove

00:16:11.460 ourselves from responsibility, which allows us to save face. Again, remember, complaining is always

00:16:18.340 about increasing or at least maintaining our social status. So it's my attempt to get out of it

00:16:27.200 without making myself to blame, but the circumstances. I like to say that in this case,

00:16:34.700 people rationalize. And by that, I mean, they tell you rational lies until you let them off the

00:16:44.700 hook. So that's complaining to be removed from responsibility. And how should you approach

00:16:50.580 someone who's complaining to remove responsibility? If someone is complaining to be removed from

00:16:56.320 responsibility, what you want to do is keep them on the hook, but you don't do that by trying to solve

00:17:03.160 their problems. You do it by putting it back in their lap. So let's say I said,

00:17:10.120 Brett, I don't have time to hook up this new microphone. So I can't do the interview.

00:17:16.080 The response is, well, if it were possible, how might you do it? Stole this from Tony Robbins.

00:17:24.540 It's brilliant. It works. I use it all the time. Because the thing is, if you would have told me how to

00:17:31.240 set up the microphone, I would have probably come up with something else if I didn't want to do the

00:17:35.580 interview. The complaining to remove responsibility is endless. People have got tons of things to

00:17:41.120 complain about. So we don't want to deal with the issue. We want to say, if it were possible,

00:17:47.540 how might you do it? The implication being, who does it? You, not me. So there you go. People complain

00:17:56.300 to remove from responsibility. You keep them on the hook by saying, if it were possible,

00:18:00.960 how might you do it? Well, so we mentioned earlier that we complain to get attention because it's a

00:18:05.840 socially acceptable way to get attention that doesn't inspire envy. But you also say that

00:18:11.040 sometimes we can complain to inspire envy in others. So how can complaining help us inspire envy in

00:18:17.700 others? This to me is one of the most complex and interesting aspects of it. And this is one of the

00:18:25.320 things that I just continue to marvel at and anything I can find on the subject I read.

00:18:31.400 We complain as a socially acceptable way to brag. As we've talked earlier, if I told you,

00:18:40.600 you know, how gorgeous my car is, how wonderful my boat is, how beautiful my home is, how beautiful my

00:18:48.400 girlfriend is, how perfect my children are, it draws into, it's an invidious comparison in your mind.

00:18:56.020 You begin to make a negative comparison in your own mind as a result of that to yourself. And so

00:19:03.880 what I can do instead is say things like, if somebody wanted to brag they owned a Tesla, they would say,

00:19:12.320 you know, the worst part about a Tesla is finding a place to plug it in.

00:19:17.860 The worst thing about having a beautiful girlfriend is that it takes her an extra 20 0.94

00:19:23.060 minutes to get ready anytime you want to go anywhere. The worst part about having lots of

00:19:28.040 money is figuring out where to invest it. What have I done? I have just bragged to you,

00:19:34.320 but I've made it a negative. My favorite story is about my buddy, Brian, who is, yeah, I would say

00:19:43.300 of all my friends, he's by far, he has the most money. And he bought a million dollar boat for his

00:19:50.740 home in Lake of the Ozarks. And the interesting thing is that we were at a coffee shop and he noticed

00:19:58.880 some friends walking in and as the friends were passing our table, he said very loudly to me,

00:20:05.860 you know, well, if you spend a million dollars on a boat, you think it would come with a better

00:20:10.760 trailer. So he said it loudly enough in the presence of our other friends to inform them that he had

00:20:19.000 spent a million dollars on a boat, but they literally walked over to ask about it. So he had just bragged

00:20:25.700 and, and the way we tend to do this, I mean, what I'm giving you is some sort of a, as you know,

00:20:31.240 from reading the book is a overly simplified version of this, but people complain to make

00:20:37.360 themselves look better than other people. They complain about the boss at work. My boss is an

00:20:44.700 idiot. The implication being that if I ran this place, things would go smoothly. We complain about 1.00

00:20:52.240 other people. The most interesting aspect of this, and this I realized sitting in a tiny little airport

00:20:58.760 somewhere out in the Midwest, some woman was complaining to another woman whom she just met

00:21:04.880 about the town that we're flying out of. And it was a town, not a city. And the woman was saying she

00:21:11.680 had lived there for 25 years and it was the worst place in the world to live. And she talked about the

00:21:20.160 corrupt government, the inadequate policing, the crime, the pollution. Now, mind you, she had just

00:21:27.540 said she'd lived there for 25 years, right? So why would she go into why her hometown sucks? 0.99

00:21:35.460 It's because we can inspire envy by having it the best or the worst. And people complain,

00:21:45.160 it's still bragging. It's two sides of the same coin. We're going to take a quick break for your

00:21:50.500 words from our sponsors. And now back to the show. So what do you do when you see someone

00:21:58.820 complaining to inspire envy? They're doing the humble brag type thing. 0.97

00:22:03.300 Yeah. What you want to do is you want to compliment the opposite, I call it. So in other words, if

00:22:10.520 someone at work, you're getting ready to have a meeting and everybody's there except one person

00:22:18.740 who's may or may not be chronically late. And somebody says, let's say his name is Tom. He says,

00:22:26.860 you know, we could start this meeting, but Julie's late as usual. And everybody laughs, you know,

00:22:33.160 but the point I always make is that Tom is not telling you Julie is late. Tom is telling you he's

00:22:41.560 on time. So people complain about the way other people drive. They complain about anything and

00:22:49.600 everything is a way of trying to make themselves look better. So you want to compliment the opposite

00:22:55.140 by saying, you know what I love about you, Tom? You're always on time. If someone complains about

00:23:01.680 the way someone dresses, you know, what I love about you or like about you is you always dress

00:23:07.440 so stylishly complaining about another driver. It's great that you are a safe and courteous driver.

00:23:14.280 And if you do that, the person no longer feels the need to use that particular complaint to

00:23:20.660 inspire envy or brag, humble brag. Yeah. Another reason people complain is power. How can complaints

00:23:27.880 give us power? This is probably the most diverse reason that people complain. And I loved the stuff

00:23:35.800 that Robin wrote about this. Most of her stuff is available on Google Scholar. Anyway, people complain

00:23:42.020 for power because it's the animal mind, the reptilian brain that we have, which I believe we have a divine

00:23:51.960 brain and we have a reptilian brain. We have a divine nature and an ego, however you want to put it.

00:23:57.420 The fearful side of us knows that the more people we get on our side in any given circumstances,

00:24:07.340 the more power we have because people represent power. So all social media is based on complaining

00:24:17.420 for power. Politics is, of course, based on complaining for power. If you don't have a complaint,

00:24:26.280 you don't have a campaign. In my speeches, I always do this little shtick where I go,

00:24:33.000 all right, imagine I'm running for Senate here in Florida and this is my commercial.

00:24:38.840 Hi, I'm Will Bowen and I'm running for Senate in the great state of Florida. And I want you to know

00:24:44.900 that I think everybody in Washington is doing a great job. And I want you to elect me and send me

00:24:52.600 there so we can keep everything exactly the way it is. Vote will for status quo.

00:24:59.940 And then, of course, I say, do you think I'm getting elected? And everybody says, no, of course not.

00:25:05.620 You've got to enrage to engage. And the worst thing in a political thing is having people who are not

00:25:11.520 engaged. And so lastly, that plays into the media. All moves is based on what is wrong and what is

00:25:20.320 missing. So people complain for power. They complain to get other people on their side because most

00:25:26.600 people are neutral about most issues. And so people will come up to you to complain to get you on their

00:25:34.920 side. And the way this often happens, and I see this here where I live, I live in a complex in Key

00:25:45.160 Largo, Florida. One of my neighbors will come up and complain to me about one of the other neighbors.

00:25:50.620 Why? They're trying to build a base of power. They get me on their side.

00:25:55.100 What should you do in that kind of situation?

00:25:57.600 Here's what you want to say. If you've got two people complaining to try and get you on their side

00:26:01.360 to purchase your alliance, your power for the price of a complaint, you say, it sounds like the two

00:26:09.660 of you have a lot to talk about, which is a way of saying you have a lot to talk about, not me.

00:26:16.700 And you just keep saying that. It sounds like the two of you have a lot to talk about.

00:26:20.760 And you just refuse to engage. It's a way of letting people know, as my mother used to say,

00:26:27.260 and I told the story in the book, you know, I would go to my mother trying to get her on my side

00:26:32.100 against one of my two or both of my two brothers. Then she would say, sweetie, I'm Switzerland.

00:26:37.180 You know, I'm neutral. So this is a good way of letting people know you're neutral.

00:26:43.480 Okay. Another reason we complain is to excuse poor performance. What does that look like? And

00:26:47.700 what do you do when you encounter someone complaining to excuse poor performance?

00:26:53.320 The E in gripe, excuse poor performance, is the past tense of the R in gripe,

00:26:58.640 which is remove responsibility. In remove responsibility, I might say,

00:27:03.640 Hey, Brett, I'd like you to do something for me. Hey, Brett, we just met. Would you go pick

00:27:08.880 up my dry cleaning or whatever? Take, drive me to the airport. You would complain even before you've

00:27:15.480 given it a try. Here are the reasons why I can't do it. But you're complaining about the circumstances.

00:27:22.660 Remove responsibility is usually like, Hey, well, I would love to do that. But now excuse poor

00:27:30.000 performance is the past tense. You've tried something, you didn't do a good job, but you

00:27:35.380 don't want to look me in the eye and say, Hey, well, I kind of gave half, you know, gave this my

00:27:40.760 try. So I blame the circumstances. It's the traffic, it's the weather, it's the slow person here,

00:27:47.320 it's the toll booth, it's the whatever. And the challenge is, if let's say, I don't know,

00:27:54.380 I asked you to go do something and you came back and had done it wrong. And I ask you, you know,

00:28:00.180 why you did it wrong. What people do is they complain about the circumstances to be let off

00:28:06.560 the hook. And they don't want you to blame them. And if you blame them, they get defensive. So it's

00:28:14.160 a lose, lose situation. What you need to do is to release this time's performance and to begin to

00:28:21.880 ask them to think about the hypothetical. So here's your question. How do you plan to improve

00:28:28.140 next time? How do you plan to improve next time? Because no one is defensive about next time.

00:28:37.700 And so they will say things like, Oh, well, next time I'll allow an extra 10 minutes in case the

00:28:44.360 bridge is up when I'm traveling across in Miami, or I will plan for this circumstance, or I'll

00:28:51.860 address this beforehand. You're getting, you can't go back and change what they just did wrong.

00:28:59.500 And if you ask them about why did you do this? Why didn't you plan for this? Why didn't you think

00:29:03.940 about this? They'll just defend it and they won't improve next time. So you want to get them to think

00:29:10.020 possibility. So you say, how do you plan to improve next time? So something you talk about in the book

00:29:16.420 is that complaining can hurt our relationships. How does complaining negatively impact relationships?

00:29:24.100 The greatest gift you can give other people is the gift of your own happiness.

00:29:30.820 Most people come home and dump on their family every bad thing that happened during their day.

00:29:39.280 And when people bring home negative energy, we take it in. We're all energetic beings,

00:29:45.260 some people more than others. And so again, it is not complaining to say, I struggled with this today.

00:29:54.020 You can even talk about this person was rude to me, but if you are, how dare this happen to me,

00:30:01.040 then you are using your family members or your people in your lives. You're using their ears as

00:30:09.300 relationships. I've got a new version of my book that's coming out next year. It'll be the third

00:30:14.340 edition. And I just finished it. And a study that was not in, I don't think was in the version you read.

00:30:20.980 They studied a group of high school girls that got together every day for lunch to complain. 1.00

00:30:25.260 And the girls complained about everything, anything, everything, their friends, the homework,

00:30:33.080 the weather, their parents. And what they discovered was that on one day, the girl who was kind of the

00:30:40.220 ringleader of complaining, which there usually is, was absent. And so the girls still complained, 1.00

00:30:47.940 but they complained about her and how negative she was and how much she complained. So even complainers 0.99

00:30:53.840 don't like complaining. So complaining is destructive to our relationships in that it

00:30:59.580 causes us to diminish the positivity, the good feelings, the good vibes in the relationship,

00:31:06.980 but it also causes us to look for more to complain about. If I complain to one of my neighbors about one

00:31:14.480 of the other neighbors and we establish what I consider to be a good connection, we get attention from each

00:31:22.320 other. Then I'm going to be watching that third neighbor a whole lot more as a way of giving me fodder for

00:31:30.120 when I'm with the first neighbor to complain about. So it actually then lowers my experience and my

00:31:36.960 expectation from that, that other person. So complaining is, is bad for relationships in that it lowers the

00:31:43.560 energy in the relationship and it causes us to look for more to complain about.

00:31:47.840 Maybe that's another reason people complain is for camaraderie. I mean, you can build a relationship

00:31:52.460 just around complaining. I'm thinking, you know, maybe guys in the military and more complaining

00:31:57.120 about the food and being in the trench and sort of like, oh, we're going to complain about this thing

00:32:01.900 that we're sharing together. But you say, well, even though you might have a sense of camaraderie,

00:32:06.560 there's still downsides to that.

00:32:08.960 You know what, man, you just put that brilliantly. You really synopsized it really well.

00:32:13.420 As you were saying that, I even thought, no, not some relationships. I would say most relationships

00:32:19.540 begin in complaining and stay that way. That's why, to me, I've always found it fascinating

00:32:27.340 that someone will look for a job, find a job, dress up for a job, interview for a job,

00:32:36.100 tell their people they're so excited they got the job, and then spend the rest of their tenure

00:32:41.100 bitching about the job. And it's done for those reasons. Get attention, remove responsibility, 1.00

00:32:48.080 brag. If I was the boss, everything would be good. But it also builds that connection at work.

00:32:55.120 There's a famous Friends episode about that, is that, you know, once Chandler moved into management,

00:33:00.900 he was no longer invited to lunch because everybody got together at lunch and complained about the boss.

00:33:06.260 I feel like, you know, complaining can build camaraderie, but it's not the strongest source

00:33:11.940 of it because it carries so many downsides. Like, everything starts to take a negative tent,

00:33:17.040 which can hurt the group's morale. And then it just can keep people from actually being proactive

00:33:21.780 and fixing problems because they just get so much pleasure from grousing about something,

00:33:27.040 but they never do anything about it. And there's also, you know, besides being, you know,

00:33:31.640 complaining having downsides for a group, it has downsides for individuals too. You start,

00:33:36.700 you start seeing everything with a negative bent, it hurts your health, it hurts your mood,

00:33:41.620 it hurts your relationships. So let's say someone wants to make a change, right? Maybe they think

00:33:46.820 they complain too much and they want to, they want to see how life would be different if they

00:33:51.320 stop complaining so often. So what can they do to break the complaining habit? The best way to do

00:33:57.560 this is to take the complaint-free challenge. Put a bracelet on your wrist. Every time you catch

00:34:01.980 yourself complaining, move it to the other wrist. I'm not getting rich on this, but it's a way of

00:34:07.980 having a little bit of skin in the game. Because the thing is, the average person complains 15 to 30

00:34:13.420 times every day. They have no awareness they're doing it. My little joke is that complaining is like

00:34:19.080 bad breath. You notice it when it comes out of somebody else's mouth, but not when it comes out of

00:34:24.120 your own. You've got to first become aware of it. And this being a mindfulness tool, it has, I would,

00:34:32.640 I will put it out there that no one has a greater success with helping people eliminate complaining

00:34:38.940 than this 21-day challenge. And I know that from the thousands of emails I've gotten from all over

00:34:46.680 the world. So a lot of people might discover once they stop complaining, they might not have much to

00:34:51.160 talk about. Most of what they talk about is complaining. I mean, the number of times when I

00:34:54.780 get together with friends, usually the conversation talks about, well, here's this crummy thing that

00:34:58.940 happened. So what do you talk about instead when you're not complaining?

00:35:02.760 Well, and that's the thing. You just nailed something really important. Not only will you

00:35:07.780 get with your friends and someone will throw out a complaint, complaining always goes in degrees of

00:35:13.780 higher severity. Therefore, to keep the conversation up, it is incumbent on someone to out-complain

00:35:20.260 the first person. So it just gets worse and worse and worse and worse. So what you do is you have

00:35:28.260 things that you want to talk about that are good when you get with people. So for example, if I was to

00:35:38.500 meet up with somebody in Miami today, I would say, did you see that beautiful rainbow? Wasn't it great

00:35:48.140 that the heat crushed it on Tuesday night, which I didn't follow the game, but think in advance what

00:35:54.600 is going to elicit positive responses from the particular group you're going to be with and

00:36:02.520 assume the role of throwing out those positive things and know that there's going to be people

00:36:10.120 who will then complain about it and who will default. You know, if you throw it out, didn't

00:36:17.120 the heat do great? And somebody would say, yeah, but whatever player couldn't seem to get the lid off

00:36:23.820 the bucket. And then you turn around and say, yeah, but he had seven assists or 19 assists or whatever

00:36:30.360 it was. Make it your job to play verbal jujitsu in the conversation. Don't tell people to stop

00:36:38.120 complaining. Don't really engage the whole thing. Just see what you can. I used to, when I lived in

00:36:44.640 Seattle, there was a woman and her friend and the three of us will go out to lunch. These were the most

00:36:49.640 positive people I ever met. And I find it interesting, successful. And I think there's a correlation there.

00:36:56.660 But one time we had a, just a crappy waiter at a restaurant, nice, nice place, expensive.

00:37:03.860 And they said, let's see how long it takes us to get the server in a good mood. And they took it as

00:37:11.420 their job to ask questions and compliment the person. So it can be done. We don't do it. It's not our

00:37:19.360 default setting. We're afraid of coming off silly, stupid, and Pollyannish. That's why like in an 1.00

00:37:26.120 elevator, you can say, isn't it a beautiful morning, but somebody might complain, but you can

00:37:33.160 compliment somebody on an accessory. Those are nice shoes. Where'd you get those cool headphones?

00:37:38.880 You just want to be responsible for putting out the good stuff and usually follow it with a question

00:37:44.780 to elicit a positive response. I'm curious, do you have any exceptions to this no complaining ethos? So

00:37:50.880 we define a complaint as expressing discontent with something, right? So there's a negative

00:37:56.200 emotional charge to it. Are there times when that's okay?

00:38:00.340 Yes, of course. I mean, Miami traffic will cause you to say, son of a, or whatever,

00:38:08.680 because people will just about clip your bumpers, slam their brakes. You got people in

00:38:13.460 Lamborghinis doing 125 miles an hour, pretending it's grand theft auto. Now is my turning to my

00:38:21.900 girlfriend and saying, that guy's an idiot. Can you believe that? Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. 1.00

00:38:26.780 It's not going to improve the driving and it's also over. However, I see it's an occasional

00:38:36.580 expletive. And in the new version of my book, I write a lot about cursing because I find it

00:38:41.880 fascinating. If I stomp you on the foot, you're going to curse. If you bump your head, you're

00:38:48.080 going to curse. I see that kind of complaining as more of an expletive. However, if you're doing it

00:38:54.960 to get your social needs met, no, it's bad itself. It's destructive. And it is ultimately something

00:39:01.680 you can weed from your life so long as you're not mentally lazy.

00:39:08.320 Well, this has been a great conversation. Where can people go to learn more about the book in

00:39:11.780 your work? Go to acomplaintfreeworld.org. That'll take you to a landing page where you can get a

00:39:17.880 bracelet, or I think we have an option for 20 bracelets. If you want more, you can go to

00:39:23.600 willbowenvideo.com. And so you can, again, get a lot of the information you drew out of me today,

00:39:30.300 but in a speech format that's easy to watch and follow. And of course, as a speaker, my website is

00:39:37.280 willbowen.com. So start at acomplaintfreeworld.org. And be sure and put the A in there,

00:39:44.580 acomplaintfreeworld.org. Or if you want to find more about me, willbowen.com.

00:39:51.060 Fantastic. Well, Will Bowen, thanks for your time. It's been a pleasure.

00:39:53.560 My honor, Brett. Thank you for having me.

00:39:56.540 My guest today was Will Bowen. He's the author of the book, A Complaint-Free World. It's available on

00:40:00.540 amazon.com and bookstores everywhere. You can find more information about his work at his website,

00:40:04.340 willbowen.com. Also check out our show notes at aom.is slash stop complaining,

00:40:09.280 where you can find links to resources when we delve deeper into this topic.

00:40:19.240 Well, that wraps up another edition of the AOM podcast. Make sure to check out our website at

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00:41:00.120 this is Brett McKay. Remind you to not listen to the AOM podcast, but put what you've heard into action.

The Art of Manliness - June 26, 2023

Stop Being a Complainer

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