#445 - When You’re Maxed Out

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Hey there, you're listening to the Lazy Genius Podcast. I'm Kendra Adachi. This show is not about hacking your schedule to find more time or hacking your energy to get more done. hustling to be the best or to make the most out of every opportunity. It is exhausting and unsustainable. So here we do things differently. On this podcast, we value contentment, compassion, and living in our season.

We favor small steps over big systems. Here we are lazy geniuses, being a genius about the things that matter and lazy about the things that don't. And I'm so glad you're here. Today is episode 445, When You're Maxed Out. We might even call this when you're already maxed out and it's not even Thanksgiving yet. So we are in a season of experiencing that old saying, when it rains, it pours. Now, most of the rain is quite lovely, but this season...

At our house, at least, sometimes feels like it is so much. And I know it's not just us. I know it's not the Adachi family only. Almost every real life friend that I have talked to. over the last couple of weeks is already approaching max capacity. We're all like a little wide-eyed, like a bunch of deer in headlights. And that feeling, it is exhausting. I have not been this close.

to full on maxed out in a really long time. And I am feeling it. So today I want to share a simple, lazy genius path when you're feeling maxed out. Because we want to be where we are. We want to enjoy the season. We are reasonable people who know that there are a lot of extra things that have to get done. But we still hit our limits. You know, we get overstimulated and distracted and forget things. And when we remember them, we're like, oh no, one more thing. Like literally just now.

As I'm working on this episode about being maxed out, I remembered that amidst all the preparation that I did last weekend to get on top of everything that I have to do, I forgot to include Christmas presents for people. My kids are not getting presents this year because of these two huge trips that we're taking in the next few weeks. But it's like my brain forgot that we know other people. And those people are not currently on my list to get gifts for. Like, I just remembered that.

And I love giving gifts to people. So I know it's going to be fun, but it's like another fun thing on top of 100 other fun things. And when you're in that kind of season, you run out of gas fast. It is so easy to hit capacity and stall out and be like, no, we're... We're done. We're done here now. And yet this is a season where maxing out. It's the last thing we want. We don't want that. We want to be here.

We want to experience this time and practice managing a crazy to-do list with kindness and start small where we are. And see the good that is here now and have fun playing and celebrating the season. So this episode, it is your path and mine to naming what's maxing you out and tending to it well so that you can enjoy this season.

After we talk about all that, we'll have a little extra something where I'm going to talk about granola. Yes, granola. So granola feels very fallish to me. And I want to make sure you know about the most magical granola ever. As always, we'll share the lazy genius of the week. with the loveliest tip for working out with not a hint of diet culture, mind you. And then we will finish with a mini pep talk for when people just don't get it.

You know that feeling when you're overwhelmed or frustrated and you share something with somebody and their response has you feeling like they just don't get it? Today's pep talk is for you. Now, before we get into all that, I have absolutely loved seeing you guys get your playbooks and the extras and feeling encouraged and empowered to plan your lives.

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All right, before we get into the episode, thanks to our sponsors for making the show free for everyone to listen to. And I'm going to go ahead and say that this might be an episode where you want to take a couple of notes. If that is not possible for you today. because you're like out for a walk or you're grocery shopping or you're driving to work or whatever. Don't forget about Latest Lazy Listens. That is our podcast recap email that goes out every other week. We take notes for you.

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All right, let's talk about what to do when you're maxed out. I have a little five-step path that you can walk, but it's not completely like linear. Plus, if you're maxed out, you might be like, Kendra, my brain cannot hold five steps, ma'am, which I absolutely get. These are just some thoughts.

that happen to follow a loose order. But one thing that I say in step four might be just the thing that you need to hear today and you don't care about the other steps. That's great. So here's what you can do when you're feeling maxed out. First. Name the noise. We reach the point of being maxed out because of all the things coming our way at once. There's a slew of stuff, just like a pylon of stimulation.

But it's not all the same noise for each person. I think it's helpful to name the noise so that you have a better understanding of what's really sapping your energy. Fun fact, when I wrote down the general categories of what this might be, they spelled slew, like for real, S-L-E-U. A slew is an uncontrollable sliding movement.

And if that does not describe how life feels around this time of year, I do not know what does. So a slew, literally, a slew of stimulation probably includes things in the following categories. That also is an acronym for SLU. Schedules, living, just regular life, expectations, and the world. SLU. Okay. Now you might be, let's start with schedules. You might be...

drowning in scheduling details. You're dealing with the logistics of getting people to their places, going to games and concerts and parties, you're running errands, you're going to work. All the things that take up space in your schedule, in your actual calendar, right? My Google calendar in December, it looks like modern art.

It's like different colored blocks or they're everywhere because our actual schedule is more full than usual. So that's the S in SLU, your schedule. Okay, the L is living. Right? It's just like regular life. It keeps going, you guys. Now, maybe you are realizing you have fewer routines than you thought to kind of maintain that regular living. And you're a little overwhelmed by the regular stuff.

We're going to talk about that next week, actually. So the extra busyness of your schedule, it is displacing the ordinary daily tasks that tend to keep life afloat. Things like laundry and food and tending to your home. Ordinary life does not stop just because it's December. You still have to pay bills and water the plants and wash your underwear. December does not care that you do not have time to wash your underwear.

Okay, E is expectations. Now this is a season that is full of them. Maybe that is what is leading the charge of your slew. You feel like the pressure. Maybe it's from within yourself or from someone else to do things a certain way, to be available a certain amount of time, to create holiday activities that are a certain level of memorable. You also might have the expectation that you're supposed to manage all the regular stuff and the extra stuff without feeling...

Busy or stressed or that you're supposed to like naturally know how to manage all of this without any help. Like those expectations, they all carry weight. And then finally, the W, the world. I know that. All that's happening in the U.S. and in the world, I know it's not like the worst that it's ever been in the history of the world. Like humanity has gone through many a cycle where it feels like everything is just awful.

But for me, it does feel a little like this is one of those times, at least in my own life. And maybe you feel that too. And maybe the slew of overwhelm also includes what is happening in the news and in the world. There are wars and famine and injustice and water crises and natural disasters and oppression and all of these things that impact your heart. You want to give your attention to what you can, but it's also...

Too much. And you can't. You can't give your attention to everything that you want to give your attention to. And again, that's just part of the slew of the noise. So if you combine all of that, busier schedules, regular life. weighty expectations and all that's happening in the world, that is quite a slew. It's most definitely an uncontrollable sliding movement, kind of like a mudslide about to take you out. All of those inputs together create the bigger problem of overstimulation and overload.

You are receiving just too many inputs at once. Everything from phone pings and schedule alerts to a kid yelling across the house asking where his band shirt is. All of those inputs, all of that overstimulation, it causes overload. It causes your brain to short circuit a little. You just cannot possibly add one more thing. And you can't. You actually can't. The brain isn't designed to withstand constant input. It needs to rest.

But the point here with this first step of naming the noise is to ask yourself, what does my brain need to rust from? Rusting from what? What noise? What in the slew is loudest for you or the heaviest? Or the thing that if you had like a little bit more management of it, it would make the rest of the slew easier to navigate, right? So that is your first step. I want you to name the noise, whatever that is for you.

All right, the second thing that you can do is name the problem. I want you to get specific about what is causing you to feel maxed out. And we're going to do a little activity that sort of combines step one and step two if you're like, I don't know. What's stressing me out? I don't know what's maxing me out. Now, you might already immediately know. You heard the four slew categories and you're like, yeah, I know what mine is. It's expectations or whatever.

You might even know already what the specific problem is within that category. You don't really need to name the noise or name the problem within it. You've already decided. But if you are like me. When you're maxed out, your brain does not function the way that it normally does. And like trying to solve the brain teaser of what is breaking your brain is just not going to, it's not going to work.

Because you're already a little done. So if you are like me and you are too maxed out to even know what's maxing you out, you don't even know what problem you're trying to solve here because it's just all too much at once. Here's a little activity that I want you to do. I want you to get... four pieces of scratch paper. They don't have to be big. They can be Post-its even. And then write those four slew words, one on each piece of paper. So schedule, living, expectations, and the world.

Okay, now if you also know that there are specific elements within one or more of those categories that's like really eating or lunch, you can write those specific things underneath the word. So for example...

If you write the word schedule on your piece of paper, but you also know that part of the craziness of your schedule right now... is because you are going to a lot of unexpected doctor's appointments because you like discovered a chronic issue or you hurt your back or your dad broke his leg and you're driving him to all of his appointments and also everywhere else because he can't drive right now. That is an unusual set of scheduling circumstances that is probably causing you to max out.

So if you know any of those specifics within any of the four categories, you could maybe write those down to your piece of paper too. It's not required, but it can help you kind of get a head start on naming the problem within the noise. Okay, so you're going to take those four pieces of paper.

And what I want you to do is move them around in order from most overwhelming to least overwhelming. The analog movement, it helps you make the decision more easily. Now you might be like, why do I have to rank them? so that you can actually solve a small enough problem to make a difference in your life. Like if you resist me and you're like, well, everything is maxing me out all the time, all the same.

You're actually not going to make any progress towards feeling better. You're just going to stay overwhelmed and overstimulated and overloaded because you cannot solve the problem of everything. You can't solve the problem of everything. So even if the differences between all four of those slew categories are like minuscule, it doesn't matter. Rank them. Which category is the most overwhelming right now?

which is contributing the most to your feeling maxed out. Move the pieces of paper around until you have an order that feels more or less accurate. Now, here's my example for me. My order right now from highest to lowest, highest stress to lowest stress is schedule the world living. And then expectations. Expectations, that's the lowest one. It's not a super stressful thing for me. I have learned over time to lower my own, to release others of me. It's usually not a huge thing. I mean, it's...

Sometimes it is, you know. But even if it is a thing, it's fairly small and easy to manage by just telling myself the truth. Okay. The next easiest thing on my personal list is living. Mostly because we just have so many routines already in place. those regular parts of life, meals, chores, laundry, logistics, all of that, those are in a manageable rhythm. And that rhythm is actually a massive part of what counteracts.

My maxing out. There's still a lot to do to keep my family fed and clothed and sheltered and to the places they need to be. But I'm not emotionally overwhelmed by it. It has a place because we have routines. Now the other two. They carry a lot more weight. The world gets me for sure. The world, the country, my city, my neighbors. The reason I talk so much about solving small problems is because my default is to try and solve all the big ones.

Like I'm wired to see the big problems and then swoop in with my big machine that will absolutely fail, but I'm still going to try. So the news is tough for me because all I see are big problems and I want to fix them. But what has made that particular category easier for me, where it doesn't contribute as much to my feeling of being maxed out as the schedule part, is that I have limits on my news intake.

I schedule rest. I have shared this several places over the last few months, but the most recent scheduling that I've done, I did that on What's Saving My Life. So you just heard this if you heard that episode a couple of weeks ago, but I'm on Instagram. And I'm more connected with the news Monday through Wednesday. But on Wednesday night, I delete Instagram from my phone and I essentialize my news through just one podcast. That rhythm.

has kept me from feeling maxed out by the world as the thing in the slew that's the heaviest. I more or less have already started to solve that small problem with that schedule that I've developed. Now, the category... The super dupe Max and me out. It is the schedule. Holy moly. There is just so much to do. All the kids have different schedules and things to end the year.

Both my boys, Sam and Ben, they both made all county band. Both of them are first chair, actually, which is like a huge deal. Oh, my goodness. But that means like two days of weird carpooling because they have to go off site. And yet another set of band concerts on top of the ones we already have. It's so many band concerts. The traveling we're doing this season, it has displaced my work a good bit because...

I have to get like super far ahead on podcast episodes and all the things. We have Christmas parties and rehearsals for concerts and then actual concerts and family birthdays. So many, so many birthdays. And it's just a pile on of good things.

My calendar is like your Uncle Joe after Thanksgiving dinner who like needs to loosen his belt. Like he's happy, but oh my goodness, his pants are way too tight. I have gone through days upon days recently where there is just like... so little room for me to catch my breath and I value margin so much if you've been around here a while you know that I love margin I crave it I require it in many ways and I haven't had a lot

lately the schedule is getting to me man there's just so much going on and it's causing more effort on my part to preserve the restful time that I personally and us as a family do have, that I'm the logistics manager of the family too. So all of that falls on me. Now, I can certainly give things to cause, and I do. I do when it makes sense. But like I'm still mentally and logistically holding it all. So if I were to list those four slew categories out just randomly.

It would be easy to think like, oh man, all this is so hard. And it is. But by writing the four words and maybe some detail underneath them, and then moving those pieces of paper around to really find, to do the work of finding the order. that resonates with how I'm maxed out, with how you are maxed out, you're going to be able to see your problem so much more clearly. You can see a problem that you can actually solve when you take the time.

to name what is causing the problem. So name the noise and then name the problem inside it. Figure out that category, that slew category that's causing you the most stress. And then look at specifically within it, what... is the problem here for me my specific problem is that I don't have as much margin as I usually do so I don't have as much time to recover

In order to tackle the next equally busy day. So it's just like a, like a pylon. I'm just like slowly accumulating like this massive debt of. a lack of margin, and I feel it a little bit more every single day. That's my problem, okay? All right, so name the problem. The smaller you can make the problem, or at least the more specific you can make the problem, the easier it will be for you to solve. Okay, number three.

Name what matters. Name what matters. You have your smallest problem or your simplified problem, or you've at least sifted through the slew of stuff to find something that's a bit more specific than like, everything's terrible. Okay. Now, name what matters. about that thing. So again, if my thing is limited margin, guess what matters? The margin that I do have. I am protecting my margins so hard. I am not skipping lunch.

I am not skipping movement. I'm not staying up super late because I'm just too numb to move, you know? Sometimes we do that. We stay up late because we're so tired that we can't even move, but we're not sleeping. We're not resting, actually. We're just sitting there. So I'm protecting that. Even if I'm too numb to move, I'm still moving and going to bed.

Speaking of going to bed, I'm washing my face early in the evening so that I can go to bed when I feel ready to go to bed without feeling like taking care of my face is a chore I have to do beforehand. I am listening to music as often as possible. I'm taking walks around the block even though my list is still... super long what matters is that I refill where I can everywhere I can and I don't let the margin that I do have slip away because it's easy to think

that my list matters more than my margin does. And that will never be true. That will never be true. Remember, we learned this in the plan. Staying grounded is more important than staying on task. Now, I get a lot of pushback about that. I did recently on Instagram when someone basically misplaced their frustration about their busy life onto me, which I get, saying that my advice was too simplistic and that I just didn't understand how busy they were.

And I get that. I do. I feel that pushback within myself too. But imagine trying to do your list when you're mad and tired versus doing your list after pausing a bit. To ground yourself in goodness and kindness again. Those are two very different experiences. I'm telling you with my whole heart. There is no task on your list more important.

than your own humanity or the humanity of others. Never. That was like a little bunny trail about me protecting my own margin. But that is what matters most to me about my problems. I protect it. Now, obviously, that's not necessarily what's going to matter most to you. Maybe you feel disconnected from your people. So what matters is that everyone gets in the same room for at least like five minutes a day just to check in or do like a group hug or something.

Recently, it took our family of five, two or three days to record a birthday video for an out-of-town family member because we were not all awake and at home at the same time for several days. It was crazy. So that might be the source of your feeling maxed out is you're disconnected. So what matters right now in this busy season is some form of connection.

Okay, so those are just some examples. So we've named the noise, we've named the problem within that noise, we've named what matters about the problem within that noise. Now, step four, pick your principle. The 13 original Lazy Genius Principles are a lifeline during seasons like this. So you can grab your copy of The Lazy Genius Way.

And refresh yourself on the principles. You can just pick whichever one seems like it's going to support what matters to you and your specific problem right now. You might feel overwhelmed by your schedule. So you're gonna put everything in its place. That's your principle, put everything in its place. Maybe you don't usually use a planner or calendar, but these next few weeks you do because you need a place for everything, right?

That's your principle. Maybe you're going to embrace the principle of decide once. If you're overwhelmed by the expectation, in the slew, of gifts, that's your specific area. Don't feel the pressure to decide for every single person, but you could decide once. That everyone is getting something related to books or is getting something related to food or you can just release the pressure of the expectations and the decisions altogether. That you can decide once. That's your principle to help you.

with that problem within that noise. Maybe you're overwhelmed by the world and you need to start small. That's a lazy genius principle in how you help. Maybe you need to schedule rest or let people in or ask the magic question or batch it. No matter your problem, there is a principle that's going to rise to the occasion to help you solve it. But until you know the problem, you got nothing to solve.

Because remember, you can't solve everything. Even the lazy genius principles can't do that. And then the fifth step on this path when you're maxed out is to plan like a lazy genius. Now, if you're new here. or you have not read my third book called The Plan, you might not know about my favorite acronym ever, even more than SLU, PLAN. PLAN stands for Prepare, Live, Adjust, and Notice.

And those four words exist in a pyramid. So let me explain to the newbies really quick. And it's a refresher for the OGs about the planned pyramid. Okay, the plan pyramid begins. We're going to throw a triangle on the floor. That's our foundation of our pyramid. Okay, so you've got a triangle on the floor. And that triangle is what matters during this season right now. Now, what's great is you've already named that.

What matters to me personally is preserving the little margin that I have. Okay, cool. Next, we're going to build the sides of the pyramid. Those sides, those three sides, are the letters P, A, and N from the word plan. P stands for prepare. A stands for adjust, and N stands for notice, okay? Those three words, prepare, adjust, and notice, they represent the three sides of the pyramid, and they all hold equal weight.

If one is inflated over the others, the pyramid will fall. It won't even be a pyramid anymore. So to plan like a lazy genius, you must recognize that preparation The details and the organization and really what we think of when we hear the word plan, that's only part of it. In fact, if you only prepare without adjusting.

based on what's happening, or without noticing the good that is around you, the moods that need to be adjusted around, or without noticing that maybe you're getting a stress headache and you need to slow down before you burn out. Maybe you need to go eat a ham sandwich. your preparations are not going to work. All three of those things, they need to work together equally in order for you to live, which is the L of our plan acronym.

And the point, both metaphorically and quite literally, of our pyramid. When you prepare, adjust, and notice in equal measure, it lets you live. And all of that is resting on what matters to you in this season. So this is what this looks like for me in my own personal life. This is how I apply the plan pyramid right now. So what matters for me right now, my foundation is preserving my margin, right? Cool.

So when I prepare, I also am going to schedule rest, right? I'm going to hold fast to my margin. And then if I get into a busy schedule for the day and I notice... that I'm way hungrier than I expected to be, like earlier than usual. I need to make an adjustment. Like maybe it's hormones. Maybe it's that my breakfast didn't land the same and I just need to eat lunch earlier. It doesn't matter. But let's say I had plans to record a podcast episode before lunch.

My whole schedule was like prepared meticulously already. But planning like a lazy genius, it means having prepared to record the episode, noticing that my body is not matching up to what I prepared for. And then pinging my producer to see if I can adjust the timing of when I deliver that episode to her.

If she says yes, that it can wait until the afternoon, I'm going to adjust my tasks to fit in an earlier lunch break that I desperately need rather than just pushing through and being hungry and then getting cranky and then probably getting that stress headache because that happens. happens when I don't eat. And then the whole day is kind of a mess.

Now that's a simple example, but that's what you do. As a lazy genius, you make those adjustments based on what you notice, pivoting whatever you prepared just a bit so that you can live your life. in a way that is whole and grounded and prioritizes your humanity. So let's recap. You're maxed out. You feel like you barely have enough to start a day, let alone finish it. Let's tend to that feeling.

and make it a little easier and more manageable. So first, name the noise. You have a slew of stuff, quite literally. So name which part of that slew is the noisiest. Is it the schedule? Living? expectations, or the world. Chances are whatever is bogging you down is within one of those categories. Second, name the problem.

If you define which category is the strongest for you, chances are you're going to have an easier time naming the problem within it. What about your schedule or your living or your expectations or the world is causing you to feel more maxed out than if it wasn't there? What holds the biggest piece of that maxed out pie? So name the problem. Third, name what matters. You identify that problem and now you counteract it with a priority that you want to uphold to keep that.

Problem at bay. Fourth, pick your principle. Which of the 13 lazy genius principles would be a good fit for your problem, even just for today? Remember, you don't have to solve everything at once. Start small. That's a great principle to choose no matter the problem. And then fifth, plan like a lazy genius. Build everything on what matters most in the season and then prepare, adjust, and notice in equal measure so that you can live in your season instead of just surviving.

the noise. And that's what to do when you're maxed out. 250 years ago, the United States Postal Service made a promise to bind the nation, connecting families, friends, and businesses near and far. And during the holidays, that promise is more important than ever. Because it's about more than just gifts and cards, it's the peace of mind knowing your love will arrive reliably and affordably. That's why they're building a better network to meet your needs this season.

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All right, for today's a little extra something, I want us to talk about granola. Granola is one of life's simplest pleasures, and I have thoughts about it. So first... Make granola because it tastes delicious. Second, make granola because it makes your house smell delicious. Third, make granola because you can eat it so many ways and it lasts forever.

Fourth, make granola because your kids can help make it or just make it themselves. Fifth, make granola because it is enormously cheaper than buying it. Sixth, make granola because if you haven't before, you might enjoy a little boost of kitchen confidence because of how easy it is and how delightful the results are. So I have a granola recipe that I confidently labeled the best granola ever and I stand by it.

Plus I'm not the only one who says that. Many of you make this granola weekly. Some of you give it away as gifts. One friend has it on rotation in the soup kitchen that she works at. It is so easy. Amazingly delicious and versatile if you need to adjust based on what ingredients you have. We'll link to the recipe in the show notes, but you can also just Google Lazy Genius Granola. But here's the deal.

And I want to say this with my out loud voice, even though you can also read the recipe. I want you to get comfortable eyeballing ingredients so that you can use fewer dishes. Nobody needs extra dishes to wash. And in the recipe, I tell you to use the fewest dishes as possible because this is how cooking should be. If you are making granola or a marinade or anything that doesn't need the most precise measurements,

Just eyeball it within one size measuring cup. For example, the granola calls for something like three or three and a half cups of oats, three quarters of a cup of coconut, a half a cup of sugar, etc., etc. Just use a one cup measure for all of it. Don't like get out multiple sizes when you could just use the one size, you know, for the coconut, for the three quarters cup of coconut, just don't fill the cup.

all the way to the top. Fill the brown sugar just halfway. Like it's okay if things are a little bit off. Cooking is supposed to be lighthearted and full of love. And when you stress out about exact measurements, And then you also have dirty dishes, extra ones, on top of it. Like the heart is no longer light. And love is not the prevailing emotion. I don't look at a stack of dirty dishes and get excited. Good cook's eyeball.

Now, good baker's measure, but good cook's eyeball. And granola is not baking. Granola is way closer to imprecise cooking than it is to baking. So just have fun and stay loose is what I'm saying. Okay, now if your task, if you choose to accept it,

is to make granola this week. I want you to make it. Your house is going to smell amazing. You're going to eat it with yogurt and fruit or with milk in a bowl like it's cereal. You're going to put it over ice cream. You're just going to get handfuls of it. It's just delightful.

And I know you're going to love it. I want you to make granola this week. And that is today's A Little Extra Something. All right, this week's Lazy Genius of the Week is Mary from Virginia. Mary writes, I work out in my PJs. I have a two-year-old and a three-month-old, so I really have to capitalize on whatever time I have to move my body intentionally. The three-month-old still sleeps in my room and she naps at 8 a.m., which tends to be the best time for me to work out.

I'm not put together enough to remember to take out my workout clothes before she goes down. And honestly, if I had that as a condition, I'd never work out. So instead, one day I just did my workout in my PJs and it changed my life. This is so fantastic. I've said it many times before, but I love ideas that subvert whatever the norm is to make something work for you. Like when you work out.

You think, like, I'm supposed to wear workout clothes, right? But no, not necessarily. Work out in your pajamas. Lift weights or jump around or do yoga or whatever in whatever you're wearing when you woke up. Because what matters is doing it, not what you're wearing while you're doing it.

So this is a great idea, Mary, and congratulations on being the lazy genius of the week. All right, now let's close with a mini pep talk for when people just don't understand. I briefly mentioned this earlier, but I recently had someone on social media get... a little upset with me because essentially I didn't understand, right? I didn't understand the pressures of her life. And she felt like my advice to be present and to start small and to slow down were tone deaf. And honestly,

I really do get that. Recently, I texted a friend to share how I was doing. Spoiler, the answer at the time was like not so good. And that friend did not respond the way that I expected them to. Instead, there was a joke and a quick like, you got this. And then we moved on. What I needed at the time was someone to understand me. And that person did not. And that's normal. And it's okay.

We all experience both sides of that coin, right? So because we all experience both sides, I just want to remind you that, yes, sometimes people don't understand. And sometimes you don't understand them. Experiences are so personal and specific and nuanced and we just can't assume we know what someone is going through. I think that helps us be more compassionate across the board.

When we can be more understanding of someone who might be like a little hurt by our apparent indifference to whatever it is they're going through, that fosters connection. Like, we can understand that. We can say, you know, you're right. I definitely didn't understand, and I'm so sorry. Or if someone doesn't understand us, we can extend the same sort of grace to them.

Because we know that not everyone is always going to understand us, just like we're not going to always understand them. The other reminder here for both sides is to remember that feeling misunderstood. especially if it's about something that's already hard or stressful, it makes that person going through the hard thing less likely to be gracious. Like stress fogs the mirror a little.

So if you're talking to someone who's like you don't understand and gets upset with you, remember that their ability to sift through what's really going on and be compassionate toward your lack of understanding, it's probably lower than usual. People aren't as patient when they're upset.

The same is true of you if you were the one feeling misunderstood. So if you find yourself being upset because someone doesn't understand you, just remember that your feelings are valid and that they are likely impacted. by the stress you're under, coupled with that misunderstanding itself. Basically, we all get our feelings hurt even more when we're tender. And being hurt makes us more tender.

So just be patient and compassionate with yourself and other people, knowing that rather than blaming someone for not understanding or for being too sensitive because you misunderstood, it's more helpful.

to seek or invite understanding and just be gracious humans together. And that's a mini pep talk for when people just don't understand. If this episode was helpful to you or if you've been looking for a way to support the show, it would mean so much if you would share the episode with a friend or you can leave a kind review on Apple Podcasts. Both of those things, they seem small in a lot of ways they are, but those...

Small things, they add up to make a big difference to get the show in front of people. And the world needs more lazy geniuses. So thank you so much for sharing. The podcast is part of the Odyssey family and the Office Ladies Network. This episode is hosted by me, Kendra Adachi, and executive produced by Kendra Adachi, Jenna Fisher, and Angela Kinsey.

Special thanks to Leah Jarvis for weekly production. Don't forget that if you want that podcast recap email, you can sign up at thelazygeniuscollective.com slash listens. Thanks y'all for listening. And until next time, be a genius about the things that matter and lazy about the things. I'm Kendra. I'll see you next week. This episode is sponsored by Primally Pure.

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