Okay, alright. So the first thing now, I'm aware that in this group there are people who are well across what vocabularies are and also formal vocabularies and technical vocabularies, and then there are people who use some of that. So I'm going to start right at the beginning, and it's only 10 minutes, so if you know all about it, you can dual task or something, multitask. So people can do something else if they know the material, but it's only 10 minutes. Okay, Kim, can you still hear me? There was some issue there. Yes, I can hear you. Right, okay, alright. So the first thing I'm going to do is just to describe in a few minutes the different terms that we come across that describe vocabularies themselves because there's a lot of confusion about vocabularies and ontologies and so on, usually. So I'll just go through a couple of little definitions here. So I think everyone on this call would know what a dictionary is, and we're talking about an opposite in the dictionary start thing. They've been in use for a couple of centuries. They let you come up with definitions for words, find definitions and so on at terms. And in addition to that definitional role, they also usually, well, they are a controlled list. What is in the dictionary is in the dictionary, and you could say something like in a game of scrabble, you can only use words from a certain dictionary. So that becomes a controlled list. That dictionary is now the only place from which you can get words. And of course, the authority is to how you spell something, synonyms and so on. It may have the Sorus element in there as well. So I think you know what dictionaries are, and the definition of a dictionary is still applicable to everything you do in the digital and IDF and other ontology spaces. So now a vocabulary. I think a vocabulary, it doesn't have to have all the features of a dictionary. It could just be a list of terms that are used in a certain scenario. So you could say the vocabulary of all the words that someone can use is, you know, this enormous list, which doesn't have any definition associated with it. So, I mean, we see this in computer land where we type in a work document and it comes up with a spell check. Now that's being informed by a list of words. It doesn't necessarily have the definitions of the words, but whether the word exists or not, how you spell it in that list. Now controlled lists. Controlled lists, I mean, I said in the note there, they're explained by the words. It's the list that's controlled. And where this gets a little bit interesting for us in this vocabulary land is that usually we have some interesting arrangement as to how a list is controlled. So we may say something like, there is a consortium of parties in some research field that wants to control a particular list. And so the easiest thing you could do, of course, would be to put a list online and have some governance mechanism that allows people to update that list. So some good examples of that for this community and for live scientific communities are things like the climate and forecast conventions for net CDF and for atmospheric data. There's a body, the CF administration group, and they maintain and control this. And they do and they can maintain it just as a text file on the way. You know, here are all the terms in our recognized term list and it's controlled. So I think that's fairly straightforward. But of course, yes, you can control this either by one person or an organization or a consortia. Okay, so a slightly more interesting vocab and a various guide to consider is a phoconomy. So I define phoconomies and there are some works that have defined phoconomies including and I haven't got the reference here. The first time the word was coin was a guy on a blog post, a technical blog, and he's defined it in this way and that definition still stands. I'm going to approximate that definition now. It's really an accretive tag list. So it's a list of tags that you can apply to digital objects or I guess if you want to write them down, non-digital objects. It's accretive, so it's additive. What we're talking about here is something that was born out of a Web 2.0 scenario where people wanted to be able to have multiple users contributing knowledge to an environment. You know, maybe a collection of blog posts or items or something. And so you start off with no tags or maybe an administrator would create 10 tags or something to segment the data. And then people can go and either reuse those tags or create their own tags. And so the folk element of it is that you've got a very democratic and hippie-free, loving community of people who can go and tag content. And the first kinds of phoconomies that were around were for social media sites of various sorts. Now, they can be controlled or semi-controlled. You could, for instance, have a phoconomy which is restricted to loading users. That would be one way to control who can tag content. Or it can be open tagged. Or it can be only certain users can tag things in a certain way. So there's always difference of variations there. If you were to just Google phoconomy and definition, you would be able to find out most of that information, I think. Now, the thing that makes phoconomies really interesting, it's the element that they're using this technology, the internet, to allow people to connect and to tag things. And that they facilitate other tools. So one thing that a phoconomy would facilitate is a faceted search. If you've tagged a whole bunch of content with however you've generated those tags, whether they're good tags or bad tags, you can actually use them in a faceted search mode. So that's one thing they do. And then, of course, there's all kinds of fun widgets where you can do things like do tag cloud visualisation. So I'll just see if I can open another tag, another browser tab. And I'm hoping that I can get to it because the zoom meeting seems to have hidden some of my browser tabs. I'll try and get there. Let's see. The people who haven't seen this sort of thing, probably most of you have, this is a visualisation of the popularity of tags in a particular environment. And so the word people is very big because the tag people has been used lots of times. So the word you can see inside the p of people or inside the o of people, the word path has been used fewer times. So it's smaller. Now, these don't necessarily, these terms don't have to have come from a phoxonomy, but this is a typical application of a phoxonomy. You've got a website there, people are tagging content, and then for fun you can see what's the most popular tag, and you can do it in a way that I've done here, or something's done here, which is to visualise it with the size proportional to the use. Okay. So we often, or I've often, deals with questions about the relation between phoxonomies and vocabularies and so on. And it's really mostly around that notion of what level of control you have, and whether the list is an open list or a closed list. You could have, for instance, a controlled vocabulary that is open, and that you can add new terms to it, but the mechanism to which you add those terms is quite restricted or controlled or organised in some way. Now I'll put tag lists down there because the word tag lists I've used 10 times myself, it comes up, essentially seen about, seen the phoxonomy definitions. Okay. Now, before I get onto ontologies, I'm just going to show a couple of tabs again if I can physically get to it in my browser, but it's showing some instances of what I've just talked about. Okay. So here's the Wikipedia definition of phoxonomy. I don't expect you to read it now, but if you Wikipedia it's a good definition that explains what's going on there, and it's got all the bits that I've mentioned, social tagging, collaborative, etc. Now, some examples of phoxonomies in use are things like these, well, social bookmarking sites, delicious flicker, all of those kinds of websites that want to aggregate a whole bunch of content and then make that content available through tags so that people can find all the photos about koalas or something like that. Now, let's see. Now, I just wanted to show, in addition to those sort of vanilla phoxonomies, there are content management systems out there, and the one I personally use is Drupal, but there's lots of them, that allow tagging, and depending on how you set them up, they can allow phoxonomy-style tagging or more controlled vocabulary-style tagging. So Drupal has a concept of a thing called a taxonomy, and you can set the taxonomy up to allow any users to add terms to it or only to allow administrators to add terms to it, and that gives you then the option of essentially implementing a phoxonomy or some kind of more controlled list. Now, you could, for instance, call that list of vocabulary. It could be a controlled vocabulary whereby only a few designated people can go and implement that thing. So you could, for instance, sorry, add terms to that thing. You could, for instance, implement the climate and forecast conventions as tags within Drupal and have the climate and forecast consortia administer that. That would be a technical implementation then of that controlled list. So that's common practice for content management systems. Okay, now, again, sorry about the stiddling, but I'm really struggling to see my browser tags. Just move this down a little bit. Okay. All right, so I'm going to go into the difference between vocabularies and ontologies, and then from there, I will mention this stuff that Simon was going to mention, at least for a minute or two. I've probably learned out my time all close to it. Kim, how am I going for time? Am I way over? Sorry, I just had to unmute. No, you're not way over, and because we're missing Simon's, it doesn't matter. So that's fine. Okay, all right. Well, I'll finish as I intended, and then I think we'll be okay. All right. So one source of confusion, when people hear about vocabularies and then they hear about these semantic web style vocabularies and so on, they then enter the encounter ontologies. And so then some discussion about what's a vocabularies and what's an ontology is needed. Now, I've got a kind of set piece definition of an ontology there. So ontologies are really conceptual models of information or knowledge of a domain. So you would say this ontology represents the real world concept linking to do with fish species or to do with the history of data manipulation or any domain. The ontology is to set the classes and the relations of the things in that space. Now, ontologies, I've underlined the word working there because ontologies in the semantic web land can be used to validate instances of information. So you could say, does this RDF data set that I've made, is it conformed with some particular ontology in some particular domain? So that we can do that. Now, ontologies don't have to or don't have control lists in them. So you may say something like, in my ontology, this ontology is about the creation of data sets and every data set has to be created by a person. So that's what ontology tells you. And then a vocabulary will tell you something like, well, these are the data sets that have been created or these are the people that create data sets. So the ontology is telling you the relation between those things and their classes and then the vocabulary is giving you the individuals. Now, I'll mention the, so in RDF vocabulary land, a common crossover sort of between vocabulary and ontology or dual use of most two concepts is SCOS. So that's the Simple Knowledge Organization System. It itself is an ontology and what SCOS is telling you is the same. This is how you organize all the information to do with concept definitions and the things that you expect to see in a dictionary. So yeah, definitions, labels, et cetera, et cetera. So it's an ontology that's basically telling you how to make a dictionary. And then what you typically do is you go and make a dictionary of the terms that you want. So maybe you listed, you know, all of the concepts to do with phishing or something like that. So you've used the SCOS ontology to go and make a vocabulary for your particular purpose. Now SCOS has quite a lot of properties, some of which you don't see in traditional paper dictionaries. It has the preferred label of a concept. It will have alternate labels which could be acronyms for that concept or alternate spellings or whatever. It can have different language variants. And SCOS also has something which you don't see in dictionaries which is a hierarchy of terms. So you can say these terms are broader or narrower versions of other terms. And that's really what SCOS's big power is for. You can get definitions for terms and alternate labels and you can get the version of the words cat in English and in Polish or something like that. But you can also say, well, a cat is actually a type of feline and so is a lion, you know, that sort of thing. That's really what SCOS is about. Now, there is one final sort of layer to this. Oh, sorry. And I should mention that SCOS itself is a W3C standard and there's an awful lot of documentation about SCOS. And I'm sure that this would be happy to send out some links to some resources that we found useful. And obviously, Ann's are all about SCOS. Now, the only other extension to that that I'm going to mention is that you can actually use ontology other than SCOS to make vocabulary. So you could say something like, I would like to miss... make a vocabulary of people, of people that work at GSR Australia, say. And then what you could do is you could use an ontology that's about people to define what a person is and then your list of individual people would become your vocabulary. Now, that's not necessarily a SCOS vocabulary at all. In fact, it's not a SCOS vocabulary. It's using some other classification. SCOS is used for general purpose concepts and we typically then see it for definitions of words. But you can create vocabularies for anything you want or any kind of object. Now, I'll put a link in there, but again, I can send it out. I recently made a vocabulary that does two things. It defines a whole bunch of code lists that we need to use in a certain environment and it defines them as SCOS concepts. So there is a SCOS-based vocabulary there that says these things are, you know, lists of terms and this is what the definition is and this is their label, et cetera, et cetera. This is their hierarchy. And then in addition to that, there is a broader or a non-SCOS ontology which says, oh, by the way, that list of things are also types of rocks or they are types of methods or there's additional information there. So if people want to study the difference between a SCOS-based vocabulary and a more general or a non-SCOS-based vocabulary, they can look at that file there. Now, I appreciate that that's not very much fun for people looking at encoded files. So I'm going to come up with better images and documentation for that pretty soon. But I just wanted to highlight that that kind of thing does exist because we are mostly going to be dealing, I think, in the short term with SCOS-based vocabularies, but occasionally we'll come across in other vocabularies.


When I was around age 18, I bought a book titled An Enemy Called Average. This book was written by John L. Mason, and it's one of the simplest books I ever read. For me as at the time, reading was just the best thing in the world. I simply loved to read and learn, to improve my mind. But there's something unexpected waiting for me at the corner of this simple book, and that's happened to change my life forever, and I hope as I share this same secret with you in this video, it will change the way you see the world, and you'll never be the same again. If you're new here, consider subscribing so that you won't miss other interesting videos like this. The Chinese Bamboo Tree According to the legends, there's a bamboo tree in China. Like any plant, the Chinese bamboo tree is planted, and the growth of the Chinese bamboo tree requires nurturing water, fertile soil, and sunshine. But unlike any other plant, one year after planting the Chinese bamboo tree, we see no visible signs of activity. In the second year again, no growth above the soil. By the third and fourth year, still nothing much to appreciate compared to the caring, watering, and nurturing it has been given. And finally, in the fifth year, behold, a miracle. We experience growth. And what growth is it? The Chinese bamboo tree grows 80 feet in just six weeks. Yes, 80 feet in just six weeks. Hold your breath and think about this. Imagine you want to plant the Chinese bamboo tree. You'll spend the first year to care water and nurture, but nothing will happen. You'll spend the second year and yet no reward for your labor.  The fifth year comes and, boom, your tree grows 80 feet in less than two months. The story of the Chinese bamboo tree is the story I read in The Enemy Called Average, and that story changed my life. You see, the process of getting rid of successful is the same process of planting and nuttering the Chinese bamboo tree. When you first plant your vision to be rich, everyone will think you're crazy, and they're usually very correct because only crazy people can do what it takes to be successful. I'll explain that with a personal story. My personal story. You see, right from the very first day, when I announced to my family members that I wanted to be an entrepreneur, I've been told that I can't succeed, but they still had some level of doubt. Who knows, maybe he has some magic wand we don't know of. A year passed without any success for me, two years and three years passed, and by then, the doubting promises of my family had become the convinced Judas. By the third year in the business, those who think that I could not succeed now have certainty that I cannot succeed. If you've been in my shoes before, you know what it means to have almost no one in the world to call you friend. But that was just the middle of the road for me. I spent the fourth year and fifth year. Everywhere I went, I met people who thought I wasn't using my brain. They believed that if I was using my brain, I would go and get some job instead of trying to build a company. But the story of the Chinese bamboo tree and other inspirations kept me going. I kept on believing in myself and never stopped trying. One day, after about eight years of failing in the business world, I had my first breakthrough. A year after then, I had my second breakthrough and my third breakthrough followed. Then, just like the Chinese bamboo tree, I grew so fast that everyone started thinking that I am lucky. Listen, I do not make this video to teach you anything. If I want to achieve anything with this video, it will be to inspire you. When you wake up every morning, remember the story of the Chinese bamboo tree.   Don't expect these enemies to be from people who hate you.  This may be your parents, your good friends, or your spouse. Now, you can see that these people are not your enemies for sure. They are simply not getting it.   She loved me more than anything in this world. But when I failed in the business world for a few years, she started getting worried and advised me to get some job. Don't get me wrong, jobs are not bad things and getting a job isn't a crime.  Get a job, work your way to the top of the corporate ladder, and fight for a raise for 35 years, even if you hate every minute of it. You have to understand that your family members and friends love you and want you to be saved. That's where the problem lies. Forget safety. Now, listen to me. You don't need safety, you need success. Safety is nothing as you will eventually lose it in the face of death. If you've got a dream, then you have to be willing to fight for that dream. I've told you the first thing that will happen to you and that is, everyone will think that you're crazy. The next thing that will happen to you is that situations will prove that you are truly crazy. Let me tell you how it happens. When you set out to achieve a dream, you will be excited.   But because you're very excited, you won't listen to them. Then you'll set out to try and achieve your dream. And the next thing that will happen is, you get it. Failure. You'll fail and fail and fail again.  The next thing that will happen is that after so many failures, you will also start thinking that you're crazy. This is the time when the devil wins the battle over most people. By the time you start thinking that you're truly stupid, then you're likely to start considering the advice other people have given to you in the past. Unfortunately, everyone who has ever achieved any significant success gets to this point.  The secret of the winners. The best way I can teach you anything is to tell you my story. So pardon me as I tell you how I handle the toughest period of my entrepreneurial journey.  You can still go ahead after several failures, as long as you'll still have some faith in your journey. The toughest period, however, is at the time when you start losing faith in yourself. And what will happen to you?  So, what is the way out of this hellfire? What I did was to wake up every day to read. I read stories of people who have gone through the hell I was going through and the more I read those stories, the more I understood that what I was going through was just normal. So, I would stand up and fight again, just because I have gotten some inspiration to fuel my struggle. It's easier these days because you don't have to read. You can wake up every morning to inspirational audio or videos. And in fact, it's for this purpose we started a new channel. We call it Inspirational Tube, and it was designed to give you the daily inspiration that will keep you strong as you try to achieve your audacious goals. Don't forget the story of the Chinese bamboo tree. Look at the description box of this video and join Inspiration Tube. We love you.


It might look like shop class, but University of Vermont sophomores Nick Horstmeier and Nico Centifanti are learning more than how to work with wood and operate power tools. They're studying ancient history in an honors college class called Ancient Inventions. The class is taught by Domenico Grasso, vice president for research and dean of the Graduate College at the University of Vermont and an engineer by training. My goals were varied for the course. I wanted to introduce students to technology in general and how technology and culture intersected and that this is not something new but it extends all the way back to ancient times and that there was a lot of creativity, innovation and brilliance hundreds, thousands of years ago. To deliver these lessons, Grasso gave lectures every week and brought in guest speakers but at the heart of the course was a book of illustrations. So I asked them to look at the book that was part of the course and look at the illustrations, find one that excited them, they worked in teams and they built it and there were no instructions in the book and they had to figure everything out themselves. For a group of mostly liberal arts students, that was no small challenge. History major Jonathan D'Angeles decided to build a crossbow with his partner, anthropology major Devin Halligan. When we started to design it and I was just sitting there with a blank piece of graph paper and I was like, I have no idea what I'm doing. D'Angeles and Halligan got over the hump by downloading plans from the internet and studying a real crossbow on display at the Fleming Museum. Then there was the small matter of how they and the other students in the class would actually build the devices. So I knew they couldn't do it the same way that the ancients did it. I thought I'd give them a leg up, allow them to use IMF where they had high tech equipment and some expert guidance. That's UVM's instrumentation and model facility on East Avenue which builds custom devices faculty use in their research. Students had access both to the IMF's tools and machinery and to skilled technicians like Doug Gomez. We want them to deal with the problem first and try to come up with a solution if they can't, you know, we're there to help them. The students chose a variety of odd and exotic inventions from an ancient Roman viaduct to a Baghdad battery to a ship shaker or Archimedes claw. Horst Meyer and Sente Fonte settled on a complicated contraption used by the Greeks and Romans in battle called the Belista. Half crossbow and half catapult, perhaps the most complicated machine in the book. Horst Meyer worked on the base of the structure and on the ramp their un-ancient projectile, a golf ball, would run along as it is being fired. Right now we're building this part right here. In our version it's the part that the arrow sits in and this little dip here is going to act like something that holds the claw. Sente Fonte concentrated on the firing mechanism. This caged section right here is actually this over here and these ropes right here, when they're twisted, they work like springs and these pull the bow arms back which is what fires the projectile. The day before the final in-class presentation, the moment of truth neared. Yeah, I mean, I really do think it's going to work. It's just a question of how well, you know, is it going to fly 10 feet? Can it fly 100 feet? No idea. The next day the students give their Belista a test run. I want to count it down there. Three, two, one. In earlier tests the ball went further but the pressure of the rope of the firing mechanism is put under each test. The ancients used cowhide, frayed and weakened it, but it was an unanticipated problem. In Grasso's mind, optimum performance wasn't the point anyway. The process was clearly as important as the found product. I would say it was more important than the final product. And the larger lessons he was after hit home squarely. When we started, we didn't have plans. It was hard to find some and we were trying to figure it out, looking at pictures and stuff and we couldn't think of it. The fact that back then they couldn't do research, it was kind of just from like a hands-on basis and they kind of, they must have learned it all themselves and trial and error and just the fact that they made these to such a massive scale, it's kind of, it's amazing. It's hard to believe. What does it tell you? I think they were more intelligent than we were. But according to Grasso, just arriving at the end of the semester was perhaps triumph enough. The concept that they were able to take something that they had never done before and that they thought was totally far afield from what their expertise was. And they were able to do it. And they were able to do it because they were bright kids and they were dedicated and they were hard working. They had the right work ethic and they were willing to ask questions and do it. And that was exciting to see. Yeah, I'm going to go get this cycling jacket. You need the arm in that on point, right? Yeah, but you can attach it first. You get the arm in. So you're going to attach it and then I'm going to put this together.


Frontier Town, the saga of the Roaring West. Frontier Town, El Paso, Cheyenne, Calgary, Tombstone. Frontier Town, here is the adventurous story of the early west, the tamed and the untamed, from the Pekos to Powder River, Dodge City to Poker Flat. These are the towns they fought to live in and lived to fight for, teaming crucibles of pioneer freedom. Frontier Town. Today I'm Chad Remington and in Dose Reyes, the Frontier Town I live in, I'm known as a cow town lawyer. But frankly, even with the People's Court and the Miners' Court, there really isn't enough law business to dignify me with the title of attorney. And some folks say I'm more of a troubleshooter. I guess probably they're right at that. It was only a short time ago that I thought I'd get away from Dose Reyes, my office, the little ranch my dad left me, and trouble. So, gathering up Cherokee O'Bannon, who used to peddle patent medicine but now rents livery horses in Dose Reyes, we set out for Spread Eagle Lake, a deep, cold, blue lake in the distant mountains, where I had heard the green hunchback the steelhead in the rainbow ran up to ten pounds. To get to Spread Eagle, we cut through the Rockies and came down on a pass through which the railroad was building. Counselor, you sure you want to go through with this fishing trip? You bet I'm sure, Cherokee. Why? Well, I was just thinking, fish live in water. If there's one thing I abominate, it's that aqueous fluid chemically known as H2O. Unless it's been frozen to ice and put into a drink. Well, Mr. O'Bannon, then maybe this little fishing expedition will change your mode of living. Well, that's what I was afraid of. Not meaning to change the subject, but have you heard anything about the railroad building here through the gorge? I think I heard some talk about it. It's going to be a great thing for the West, this network of rails. It would probably mean the eventual end of the frontier. Say look, Chad, isn't that a work train stop down there with all the track layers working around it? It sure is. What's more, just approaching the work train down beyond that bend is an engine with one flat car and it's going like 60.  Oh, God, what's the matter with the man in the locomotive cab? Why doesn't he slow down? Doesn't he see the work train with all the workmen around it? That engineer must be blind. Look, he's just starting to slow down now. And now I'm afraid it's about one minute too late. That fool, he's driving right into a smash up. Believe I ever felt so helpless before. There was nothing Cherokee or I could do to stop the engine. And when it plowed into the back end of the work train, it scattered men on a circle 200 yards wide. Cherokee and I lost no time getting down there. When we did, we found the division boss who'd been riding the flat car surrounded by about 50 the angriest men we'd ever seen. You fools! You think we deliberately pulled that engine into the work train? It don't make no difference just why you did a Clooney. You killed two men in one with my brother.   There's a lucky thing the word Mormon killed. Speed, speed.  Well, we got some speed for you, Clooney. The stadious trip you ever made to a graveyard. All right, go on. Gun me down. Find chance I'd stand against 50 of you. I don't need no gun for a snake election, you Clooney! All right, now hold it, you two. Cut it out! Let me go! Let me go! Now that's enough. All right, now cut it out. Yes. Thanks. Thanks, mister. I didn't stand much of a chance with a mob on my neck. Who's he coming in here? All right, there's a lot of you. I don't know who's right in this argument, but I'm not going to stand by and see 50 men go after one.  Now, if there are any of the rest of you who are interested in target practice, I'm right here to oblige. Well, mister, you're sure a handyman to have around. Just handy enough so that I think this railroad I work for might have an awful good job for a gent like you. Thanks, but we're sort of on a vacation. Heading up towards Spread Eagle Lake. I'm bound up that way myself, so if you'd like to put your horse on that flat car, I'd be glad to give you a lift. On the way, maybe we could do a little talking. Now, mind you, I'm not taking sides in this issue. From what we saw, the men were right. This engine was going much too fast. Sure, sure, sure, but is it the railroad's fault if the engineer was daydreaming? Besides, if you saw it and figured there'd be a crash, that track lane crew saw it too and should have gotten out of the way. Well, you may be right about that, Clooney, but those men would never agree with you. Wouldn't surprise me a bit if, in the mood therein, they don't try to get even with a railroad. Huh, they do. There'll be a lot more killed, but legally, we still got a few laws around here and they won't do those mobs any good, and that's where I figured maybe you could help. Wicked how? How? After all, you're both natives out here. Shouldn't be any trouble at all for you to win their confidence and try to talk them out of destroying any railroad property. After the row I had with that Pat McCarthy today, he could have taken us apart right along with your road bed the way he feels.  That's the junction. Now, once we get there, you come in and talk to our general manager, Mr. Sherwood, before you make up your mind one way or the other. Don't you see, Sherwood, if O'Bannon and Remington would take the jobs and could worm their way in with the work crew, that'd be just like having a spy in their camp. We'd know everything that was going on. Well, I'm not sure about that, Clooney, but okay, have them come in. Right. Come on in, fellas. Mr. Sherwood will see you now. Come on in, boys, and let's talk about this job. Believe me, Mr. Sherwood, Dr. McCarthy and I aren't looking for jobs. Yeah, but this is different. It's not a permanent job, and what's more, by helping the railroad complete its work, you'll be helping everyone around here. What we want is to stop the wanton waste of material in lives. In other words, you want a trouble shooter, so you won't have any shooting trouble. Remington, you hit the nail right on the head. Well, all I can say is I hope we don't end up hitting it right on the thumb. I wish you'd stop looking so glum, Cherokee. We can make enough in a few weeks on this job to pay for two months' vacation. Then you can hunt and fish to your heart's content. As far as I'm concerned, working for the railroad, we're hunting and fishing right now. Fishing for information and hunting for trouble. Well, you may be right at that. And if the first piece of information we got is right, that hard-headed Irishman, Pat McCarthy, lives just across this next hill in one of those little shacks. In some sense, in a hymn, since it was his brother who was killed in that crack-up, half the battle should be won. I'm not calling you an optimist, but if you think that Irishman is going to forgive and forget so soon, you simply don't understand. Now, what the dickens? Hold it, gentlemen. By the eyes of March, Chad, it's a red-headed girl. I bet your lives are so much. But if you set any value on them, then get out of here before I... Just a minute, young lady. I came up here to see a man the only business he'd have with you two is to punch holes through you where I leave off. Who in blazes you think you are? The name's McCarthy, too. Sharon McCarthy. It was my father who was killed by the railroad. Well, Miss McCarthy, I don't know if your uncle Pat's at home or not, but I'm waiting here until I see him. If you take just one step... I don't know if you're bluffing or not, but there's only one way I can find out. That's it, Chad. Russell, let go of me from here. I ever get this barrel to your... Parading peak elephants. That 30-30 slug went right through the brim of my stetson. Here, Cherokee, just for that, you can hold a rifle. Why don't you leave us alone? You just had a pretty good illustration of why I don't. Now, if everybody who's been working for the railroad has your kind of temper, the road wouldn't have enough flat cars to hold all the coffins to get them out of here. She's as much of a cantakarous catamount as her uncle. All right, Sharon. I'll take care of these two spalfins myself. Howdy, McCarthy.  I got my own idea of a man who'd do what you did to a girl, and I got a good notion to give you what I should have given you to smile at. Well, since you seem bound and determined to get it out of your system, why don't you try it? And don't think I won't try it! Take it! Take it! Yes, sir! All right, now take it easy, McCarthy. I'll urge you to play you... Very blue blazes, Chad. The old tad knocked you down. Well, it looks like we're both down. Eh, young fellow. Whenever did you get a wallet like that? I got his gun, Uncle Pat. I'll cover him. Here, Sharon. For shame. Put that gun down. Now, we don't shoot anybody around here. Let's just stand on their own two feet. Well, that sounds fair enough. So how about us both getting up? My jaw hasn't been hit that hard since the day I left Dublin. Well, I don't know how long that's been, McCarthy.  Of course, if you aren't a mule or a stubborn, I've still got a few things I'd like to talk over with you. Well, I don't promise to do any more than this.  No, eh, come on. We'll return to the second act of Trouble Rides the Rails, our exciting Frontier Town adventure. In just a few moments. Frontier Town. I don't know if you've ever tried to convince a hard-headed Irishman of anything, but maybe having an old man and with me helped. Because even though it was against his better judgment than that of his niece's Sharon, Pat McCarthy finally agreed to convince his fellow workers not to tear the new railroad apart. I can't say that I blame Sharon particularly, because her father had been killed. But before Cherokee and I could really blame anybody, a wave of criminal attacks and depredations broke out that just about blasted the railroad out of the Rockies.  And I'm telling you both the truth. This railroad is paying you to stop Trouble. And almost from the day you started, trains have been held up, express and mail ship and stolen... If you'd only get me a chance, Mr. Sherwood, then listen and... Chance my eye. I recommended you to Mr. Sherwood and put you on the payroll. Now things are worse than they were before. If your only interest is in the payroll, you can forget about it. Oh, so that's the kind of men you are.  If you were about 20 years younger, Sherwood, I'd knock those words back down your throat right along with your teeth. But I'm keeping this job as long as you'll let me. And I don't want to be paid for it, either. Your hinky-dink little railroad probably needs the money worse now than we do. Well, cotton found it. We're not getting any place losing our temper. No, we're certainly not. Not only have you lost your temper, but apparently you've lost your judgment. You mean judgment? Cherokee and I have been with McCarthy and the rest of that track-laying crew ever since you turned the job over to us. And I'd take my solemn oath that none of them had anything to do with looting or damaging your trains. Well, solemn oath or not, Clooney identified several of them. Saw them with his own eyes. I certainly did. Oh, you did, eh? Maybe you've got a reason of your own for saying that you identified them. Oh, yeah. Well, I've got a good reason right now to make mincemeat out of you, Remington. Oh, so? Why? Guilty conscience? Well, guilty conscience, you... You need no gunplay? Remington! That's the fastest draw I've ever seen. How did you do it?  Go on, Sherwood. Why don't you give him a medal? Well, I got a couple of other decorations to hang on him. Working for the same company, Clooney, I hate to do this. But if you've got something on your conscience, maybe this will shake it up. I'm sure sorry about breaking up your office, Mr. Sherwood. And I guess this is the end of the line for us. No, no, not at all. Now I'm doubly convinced you're the kind of men I want working for me. But I do think you're wasting your time when you suspect Clooney of having any ulterior motives. Well, it wouldn't be the first time I've been wrong. But I certainly don't understand how he was able to make such positive identification of those men. Well, then, Remington, in that case, maybe you'd better find out. And if you do find out, you may have found the men who've been trying to put this railroad out of business. There was only one thing of which I was certain. There was someone out to wreck the railroad.  But to be completely sure, Cherokee and I hightailed it back to McCarthy Shack, where we found no one home but Sharon. Miss Sharon, I don't like calling a pretty girl an Irish lass at that, a pre-vericator. But I have a feeling that you know where your Uncle Pat went. Well, I guess there's no use trying to protect him. Uncle Pat went into town. Into town? You mean into that cafe, don't you? Chad, don't let Uncle Pat get into trouble. He really means so well. I'm sure he means well, Sharon. But at the rate he's going, he'll have a lot of company. Or even the streets are paved with good intentions. All right, come on, Cherokee. There should be one trip you'll enjoy. We're going back to town and into that saloon. Glass up again, pass? Fill it up, eh? You know something, Pharaoh? This reminds me of the night that I was in Dublin. It reminds me of the way I left Dublin. Why? You see, I was a hard carrier over there late. Well, I had a lot of trouble there. I lost all my money and I came into a bar. You did? Yes, and the boss of the bar assisted me. He said, I'll have a drink. I said, all right, I will. We'll have a drink. So I decided I'd have a drink and I couldn't pay for it. So now I don't want you to get me wrong. And then I joined the sales embassy and then I come to this country and work for the railroad. Well, we'll have that drink. Thank you, Pharaoh, but I've got to tell you the truth. I haven't got the word without the paper. Well, don't let that worry your past. You and the rest of the boys who worked for that devil deal in railroad, you're good with me until you get your next job. Really? That's fine. I don't know when the next job is going to be, but if you don't mind, give me that drink. That's fine, Pharaoh, fine, fine, fine. Hey, Nibs. Yeah, yeah, boys. Now, you give McCarthy anything he wants. Hey, hey, hey, Pharaoh. Here comes that lawyer who's been gum-shoeing for the railroad. Oh, McCarthy, a drink, oh. And a least, oh, okay. Howdy, Remington. Buy you a drink, too? Well, I don't mind a drink, though. Oh, thanks, Pharaoh. What are you doing here, Pat? Oh, me. See, I came in here because I had some errands to do. Come on, Pat. You're going home. Just a minute. Nobody's coming into my place in order to get the customers out. Come on, Pat. Now, maybe if I had just one drink with Pat, then maybe he'd feel better about coming, Chad. And McCarthy's staying here just as long as he wants to. Fair enough. You ready to leave now, Pat? Well, I, uh... Oh, okay, Chad. Now, you see, Pharaoh, he's ready to leave right now. All right, Pat, let's go. Ah, what a waste of time. Be in a place like this, then leave him behind. Whiskey, whiskey all around, and not a drop to drink. Well, Pharaoh, now that Remington's dragged McCarthy out of here, how are you going to get the information on what express shipments the railroad has got coming through and when? Suppose you leave the worrying domain. Yeah, yeah. If Remington and that rumhound keeps sniffing around, they're going to find out for sure. You can't keep the railroad from believing it's the workmen, and the workmen believing it's the railroad forever? We don't have to. Forever. With what we got off the express cars the last two trips, plus we're going to get the next time. We can retire forever and live like kings. Well, all I can say is I hope you're right, boss, because I got a feeling in my bones it spells trouble. Spells trouble with a capital T. Uncle Pat, you've got to answer Chad's questions. He told you that Clooney claims to have identified us, and that last railroad wreck can hold up? Sharon, you know we had nothing to do with it. Maybe you didn't. Maybe it was Clooney, I don't know. But we've got to find out before the only station the railroad has left is Mark Boothill. Come on, Pat. Is one Irishman to another? Tell me. You've been hanging out at that saloon of Pharaohs a lot, haven't you? He certainly has. And where he got the money for it, I don't know. Pharaoh told me the day I didn't have to pay him. You didn't have to pay him in cash. Now, tell the truth, Pat, hasn't Pharaoh been pumping a lot asking you questions about the railroad? Well, uh... Well, sure, Chad, we talked about the railroad, not really. Uh-huh. And when you were just there, you told him what I told you this morning about that gold shipment that's coming through on the late afternoon Fast Express. All I said was I didn't see how people with any sense could trust a broken-down railroad like that with $80,000 worth of gold. Pat, without meaning to, you've done us all a favor. And I think before that express shipment reaches the junction, the railroad trouble in this part of the country is going to be cleaned up. Cleaned up for good. Pat, hey.  Here comes the train. Chad, look! There's a big bunch of men on the other side of the gourd. All dressed up like railroad workmen. Well, I'll be hamstrung. Looks like Plunie knew what he was talking about.  No wonder the railroad company thought it was awesome. All right, get your guns off, man. As soon as they make for a break for it, we're ending this once and for all. Okay, boys, now ride. And be careful with your shots. We want to take as many as we can alive.  Why the... Who knows horses, boys? Let's get out of here! Here comes Remington and his crowd. It'll take care of you, Mr. Plunie. Now cover the rest of them while I get Ferro. You better use it before I connect with this. Then, Plunie, a hand. Because the reward money that railroad's going to pay you will more than make up for everything you've lost. Remington, I'll forgive you all you did to me the way you rounded up those crooks for us. Hey, Mr. Sherwood? We certainly will, Plunie. And speaking on behalf of the railroad, we certainly made a good deal when we hired Remington and O'Bannon. That reminds me, where is Cherokee? Well, after all he did and the thirst he developed, I gave him the money to go down and buy a bottle of whiskey. Oh, well now, Mr. Sherwood. Oh, that was mighty nice of him. Except that Cherokee got so excited he dropped the bottle and it spilled all over the wooden floor. Oh, that poor man.  Well, he has gone to the doctors. But he'll be all right as soon as the doctors gotten all the splinters out of his tongue. Oh! Frontier Town starring Reid Hadley and featuring Wade Crosby is a Brucell's production. Story in Direction by Paul Franklin. Music written and played by Ivan Dithmarz. Be sure to be with us again same time next week for another fine action adventure story with your favorite young western star, Reid Hadley. And now this is Bill Foreman telling you that Frontier Town comes to you from Hollywood. Hollywood.


Welcome to Happiness Isn't Brain Surgery with Doc Snipes. This podcast was created to provide you the information and tools Doc Snipes gives her clients so that you too can start living happier. Our website, docsknipes.com, has even more resources, videos, and handouts, and even interactive sessions with Doc Snipes to help you apply what you learn. Go to docsknipes.com to learn more. Welcome back everybody to part two of Happiness Isn't Brain Surgery with Doc Snipes, practical tools to improve your mood and quality of life. We're going to continue in this section talking about cognitive distortions and how to understand what they are, where they come from for you, and how to address them. So let's continue talking a little bit about thinking errors and interventions. We talked about emotional reasoning in part one. The important thing to remember with emotional reasoning is feelings are not facts. You can feel like something's a certain way when it may not be. I'll give you a general example. I'm terrified of needles. I expect it to hurt when I get a shot. When my last doctor in Florida, the nurse that gave the shots that you'd have to get periodically, your tetanus shot and that kind of stuff was amazing.  And before I knew it, it was done. I felt her putting on the alcohol and I really didn't feel the shot itself. So I had gotten myself all worked up and all stressed out about this appointment to get my tetanus shot when there was no factual basis with it. Because my prior experiences hadn't been so good. But I was expecting the same thing to happen with this particular doctor and nurse and that wasn't how it was. So feelings are not facts. We want to learn to effectively identify feelings and separate the facts. So if you're scared about something, ask yourself, what am I scared about? Getting ready for that appointment. I felt pretty anxious and I had to think to myself, what am I all stressed out about?  Just the evidence that that's going to happen in this particular situation. Now if I had stopped and thought about it, I would have said, you know, I don't have any evidence that says for sure that this nurse is going to be as aggressive, we'll use that word, as others that I've had in my past. But I didn't. I continued to be upset and stressed out about it. In what ways is this similar to other situations? So again, I can say, well, I've gotten shots before and in the past when I've gotten shots, it's hurt like heck. And that was really unpleasant. So understanding that I do have a basis for why I feel a little bit anxious. But expecting that this situation is going to be exactly like those others created anxiety when none needed to exist because this was a new nurse. Perhaps it's going to be different this time. It's hard one to wrap your head around when you've had multiple prior bad experiences, but, you know, try to talk yourself into the fact that I actually don't know how this one's going to turn out in other situations that you've experienced that may have been unpleasant. How did you deal with those situations? Yes, you're anxious right now.  So how are you going to deal with that? Because it's something that you've got to face and you've clearly gotten through those other things. So remember that you've got strengths. You've got the ability to get through unpleasantness, even if it does exist. But you've also got to take the current situation and look at it as is and not project a bunch of stuff from the past and create expectations. Because I had worked myself up, so I was all tense and ready for it to hurt, which, you know, is the first step into making sure that it actually does hurt. So it's really important to recognize the reality of the present situation versus prior experiences. Develop distress tolerance skills. And this is another one. If it's something you've had prior negative experiences with, how are you going to tolerate the distress so it doesn't make you freak the freak out? Maybe you have to go to court and, you know, that's two weeks from now. Well, if you're going to stay stressed out about your court appointment for two weeks, that's going to have a pretty significant impact on your energy level, your stress, your relationships, everything else. So how can you tolerate that distress, that not knowing what's going to happen and that fear of what could happen? And there are a lot of distress tolerance skills we talk about improving the moment and accepting reality, improve and accept our mnemonic devices or basically shortcuts to remember things you can do. And if you look at, you can Google them, their dialectical behavior therapy skills, we'll talk about them in a little while. But basically you want to figure out how can you push that thought away for a little while if there's nothing you can do about it. You can't show up at the courthouse and go, you know what, I can't take the waiting. So I need to have my hearing now. That ain't going to work.  So what can you do to push that thought out of your mind because you can't control it right now? You just have to accept that that's coming up. What can you do?  Talk to yourself, you know, maybe not out loud in public, but you can verbally, you know, in your own head go, I'm not going to think about that right now and actively choose to think about something else. It's hard at first. Also recognize that urges, you know, your urge to drink, your urge to run away, your urge to put your fist through a wall, whatever your urge is, generally comes and goes in about 30 minutes. So if you're having this overwhelming anxiety feeling, it's going to come and it's going to go unless you keep feeding it. If you keep focusing on all the negative stuff, you're going to stay anxious. If you choose to focus on what you do have control of in the present moment, so, you know, if you're waiting for that court hearing, look around your house, go, what can I do right now that is beneficial for me? Because I can't do anything to affect that. That will help you get through that and that feeling, that anxiety feeling, if you quit thinking anxiety-laden thoughts will dissipate over about 20 minutes. Emotions will go away if we don't feed them. If we continue to feed them, then they are going to stay and continue to increase. So you need to figure out a way that works for you to change the course of your thoughts. For me, another thing that I will do, I'll go out and I'll do yard work. You know, the bigger the power tool, the more fulfilling it seems to be. Or I'll put on music that helps me get into a different mind space. I'm sort of music oriented, so that works for me. What works for you to help kind of jar you into a different mind space where you're not thinking about something, maybe where you can clear your mind. When I listen to music, I focus on the words of the songs, so I don't have time to think about whatever else is out there. That's the time when I'm just focusing on the here and now. There's a lot of mindfulness stuff you can do with the stress tolerance as well. And again, we'll get into that a little bit later. And emotion regulation skills. So when you're feeling upset and you can't do anything about whatever it is that's triggering that upsetness, you can practice some emotional regulation skills, which means take out any stressors that don't have to be there. Be kind to yourself. Make sure you're eating healthfully. Make sure you're trying to get regular sleep. Don't stay in bed all day long because that messes up your circadian rhythms. Get up, get some sunshine. Go to bed about the same time each night so you can try to get some reasonable sleep. And address anything else that tends to make you feel down, energy-less, unhappy, depressed, fatigued, foggy-headed, any of those things. And a lot of them are physical. Some people, exercise helps. For some people, that's just exhausting. So you need to figure out what your vulnerabilities are and how to address them. Cognitive bias, negativity, or mental filter means that you focus on the negatives and you worry about the future. So, and I know a lot of people are like that. They don't like just focusing on the here and now. They have to know what's coming up. They have to be working towards something. And there's a difference between having goals or good orderly direction, you know, and knowing that six months from now I want to be here and looking at everything you do each day and going, is this getting me closer to my goal versus looking at that goal and just striving for that and ignoring what you're doing right now? Because if you ignore this, then a lot of stuff can get out of control and you may end up going backwards when you don't realize it. So things you can do to address negativity. Ask yourself, what is the benefit to focusing on the negative in this situation? You know, back to the rain shower. Wake up in the morning. It's a gross day outside. It's supposed to be gross all day long. What's the benefit to focusing on the negative of that? Absolutely none. And I've realized over, you know, almost 50 years that I can't control the weather. Surprise. I cannot will it to be sunny outside. So the benefit to focusing on the negative is none. All I can do is focus on the positive. You know, what is it that I can do to kind of make lemonade out of lemons, if you will? Find the positives of the situation back to walking that middle path and finding optimistic things about it. For example, you know, moving away from the weather, you lose your job.  That's a pretty negative, you know, kick in the gut there and it can suck. What are the positives?  So you can get unemployment. You can find a job that's a better fit for you. You know, try to look for maybe the positive reasons that it happened and maybe the reasons that you're glad you're not there anymore. What are all the facts, you know, going back to that separating feelings from facts? Is this situation the end of the world? Some people, when something happens and, again, losing your job is pretty catastrophic. But expecting that I lost my job so I'm going to be homeless and living in my car is probably a big leap for most people. You know, you need to figure, think about, you know, yes, that could happen if you stay unemployed for a long time. But in the here and now, what can you do to change the situation? Go to the unemployment office, start looking for a job, be willing to accept jobs that you don't necessarily want to make your career, but they're going to put food on the table. You know, you may not want to work in fast food for the rest of your life. But if that's a job that you can get right now that will put gas in your car and food in your belly, then it might be a good stop gap until you can find a job that you want to stay at. So look at the facts and be realistic about how dire is this situation and what's my plan? We can always make a plan. Another thing you can do when you're feeling negative and if you happen to be a person who's just a negative Nelly, you'll look at the negative and everything you want to complain about everything. You turn on the TV, you watch the news and you find the negative and everything. The news tends to be pretty negative. Don't get me wrong. Cointoss activity. You wake up in the morning, you toss a coin.  And if you try to act that way, you're probably going to get somewhere closer to normal because you're probably not going to actually make it all the way to that obnoxiously positive scenario. But try and see how your day goes. See what you notice differently. If it lands on tails, be your normal self. Keep a little journal of your energy levels and how people interact with you and how the days seem to go for that entire week. And see if there's a difference on the days when you try to be positive. Now, I'm asking you to go from one extreme to the other. And there's going to be middle ground.  So don't expect that, well, I tried to be positive and bad stuff still happened. You know, what bad stuff is going to happen? That's just life.  But you can focus on the sucky part or you can focus on, well, at least this didn't happen. So remember when you're doing this activity that, you know, everything is not going to come up roses. But how you interpret it and how you let it impact you can be radically different if you exercise an attitude of gratitude versus being a negative Nelly. Another error we often make is disqualifying or minimizing the positive. How many times have you gotten a promotion or gotten a job or done something? And somebody said, wow, that's awesome.  You know, anybody could have done it. I used to say that about one of the programs I went through in school. I was like, you know what, a trained monkey could have passed that, which is not true. You know, in reality, it was a pretty selective program. There were only eight of us in the cohort and, you know, I graduated from it. Not everybody goes on to graduate school. So accepting the fact that that actually was a pretty big deal. So ask yourself, when you start minimizing the good things that you do, would you minimize this if it was your best friend's experience? What's scary about accepting the positive? If you said, you know what, yeah, I did that. What's the downside to that? And some people have a hard time differentiating between being arrogant versus having a strong self-esteem and being proud of your accomplishments. So you may need to examine that for yourself. And look, I always say, get outside yourself.  Do you want your children to minimize every accomplishment that they have? Or do you want them to take their accomplishments and be able to say, I did that. You know, good for me. I worked hard and I accomplished it. So what is it that you want to see in other people? And how can you reflect that in yourself? So think long and hard about what's scary about accepting the positive. Another reason people don't like to accept the positive, they may not feel like they deserve it. Or they may be afraid that, you know, if I admit that I did this, now I've raised the bar and it's going to be even easier to disappoint people because they're going to expect more out of me. So think about the reasons that it might be hard to accept the positive. Sometimes we disqualify the positive because it fails to meet someone else's standards. So ask yourself, might that be true here? You know, the example I give people is when I graduated from graduate school. You know, I got my PhD. I got my doctorate. I should have been like, I did that. Instead, what I heard from my family was, well, you're not a medical doctor, but. So that's what I responded with. I always responded with, yeah. I'm not a real doctor, but you know, I went to school for a while. So I minimized my own accomplishments because that's what I had heard from my family. Looking at facts, how many people in the U.S. actually get a doctoral degree? You know, and you want to look kind of broadly because if you're living in a college town, you know, there's probably going to be a lot of people with doctorates because they all have to staff the university. But if you look at the entire state or even the entire county, you'll probably find that, you know, in that particular example, there are a lot fewer people. So it is something to be proud of. When you disqualify the positive, think to yourself, am I saying this, or is this something somebody else from my past is telling me? Because maybe you grew up in a situation where your family of origin, people in that family of origin minimized everything you did or wanted you to do something else and didn't accept if you dissented and chose to go a different direction.  Are you happy with yourself? How do you want your kids to view or your significant other or your best friend? You know, again, if they accomplished that, what would you say to them? Availability heuristic. Talked about that a little bit with the airplane. We remember what's most prominent in our minds. So ask yourself, what are the actual facts? If you're afraid of flying, what are the actual facts? How often do planes actually crash?  Because commercial jetliner pilots have a lot more experience and there's a lot more safety things in commercial liners. Spiders, people have dreadful fears of spiders. Every time they see a spider, they like freak the freak out. Now, there are about five, I think, poisonous spiders. All the rest of them are relatively harmless. So if you know what those five spiders look like, you can look at a spider and go, yeah, that's one I should be concerned about or no, not a big deal.  I happen to love spiders. So, you know, I have the facts of the situation. That way, I don't have to be afraid and I can appreciate little creatures that God gave me to keep all the mosquitoes and gnats away. So ask yourself, what are the facts? Should I be scared in this situation? If you go hiking, you may have the same experience with spiders or snakes. So know what poisonous snakes are in your area. Most areas don't have a whole lot. So if you know what the poisonous ones look like, then if you come across a harmless one that's sunning itself in the middle of a hiking path while you're out camping or hiking, you can look at it and go, you know, not my favorite thing in the world, but not anything to freak out about. Ego-centrism is another thinking error. My perspective is the only perspective. If I say it's right, it's right. If I say it's scary, it's scary. Well, let's look at some alternate perspectives.  Try to be a scientist and argue the opposite. Play devil's advocate. If you think it's scary, argue all the reasons it shouldn't be scary. If you think it is overwhelming, argue all the reasons that you can handle it. It's not going to be overwhelming. Ego-centrism also comes into play when we're interpreting events. I told you about in the first half about the family I came from. We are tend to be kind of loud and demonstrative, you know, Italian American background. So we're like, you know, all over the place. That's just the way I am. It's no aggression meant by it. It's just kind of the way I am. But if someone else came from a different background where when some when people were being demonstrative and loud, it meant that they were arguing and it was a dangerous situation, then they will perceive anytime somebody gets loud as a threatening situation. So stepping back and going, OK, my perspective is that when this happens, it's very bad mojo. In this particular situation, are there other potential interpretations of what's going on? Personalizing and mind reading. Again, what are some alternate explanations for an event that didn't involve you? If your best friend doesn't call when they say they're going to call. Are they sliding you? Are they mad at you? Oh my gosh, did they get into a car wreck? What are some alternate, you know, more benign explanations? Maybe they got held up at work or their phone died and they got stuck in a traffic jam.  You know, there are potential alternate explanations. If you take everything personally as a personal affront or that somebody's going to abandon you or they hate you, if it's all about you, you know, if you can put that you in the explanation, you want to step back and go, what are some reasons this might happen that's not about me?  But cashiers have to deal with hundreds of people every day plus their managers and everything else. So it's possible that they had had a bunch of cantankerous people ahead of you and they were in a bad mood or maybe their dog died before they came to work or something else happened that had nothing to do with you and they're just in a bad space. So, you know, taking something personally, especially when somebody else does it, maybe you consider it a little arrogant. So look at all the other reasons what might, what else might have affected them. And as you do this, as you go through this experience and start paying more attention, pay attention to how many times it's actually really about you. Most of the time you'll probably find it's not. And if it is, then you can look at what you might need to change about yourself. Magnification, are you confusing high and low probability outcomes? Sometimes we expect something to be the worst thing ever. And, you know, like the example I gave of somebody losing their job and expecting that they're going to be homeless and living out of their car. It's possible, you know, that is definitely a possibility of an outcome. How probable is it? How likely is it that next week you're going to be living out of your car? So look at the probability of things happening. You know, if you are living in Florida, it's a place where they have hurricanes, high and low probability outcomes. You know, you look at the weather and you know that the probability of having a hurricane in, you know, early December, next to none. So don't be stressed about it then. You know, there's hurricane season when there's a high probability that you could have a hurricane. But even then, it's usually only one or two mild hurricanes. Every once in a while you've got a bad year. But when you look over 20, 30 years, the chances of that happening are really still statistically pretty low. What can you do to prepare yourself ahead of time for something, even if it's a low probability outcome?   Bad stuff. How much will this matter six months from now? Well, you can focus on all the negatives and, you know, well, if I don't get another job and if this doesn't happen, if this doesn't happen, it'll be a big deal. Well, yeah, it will.  High probability or low probability? Only you can answer that. You know, you may have been living paycheck to paycheck and be behind on your rent six months already. I don't know. But most times, or a lot of times, that's not the case. And we are looking at the absolute worst case scenario when there's a lot of intervening time and opportunity. What have you done in the past to tolerate events like these? Again, reminding yourself that you've been through struggles before and you've made it. So build on your strengths and your skills. How have you made it through sucky periods before? Another thinking error, all or nothing thinking. Love versus hate.  They may love you and hate a particular behavior. Now, that's not all or nothing. That's kind of middle of the road. Think about your kids. I love my kids to death. They are my world. However, there are some things that they do that I greatly dislike.  I dislike the behavior. So encouraging yourself to look at that middle of the road. Perfection versus failure. Do we ever do anything that's 100% perfect? You know, I don't think that's, I think perfection is something we strive for. But most of the time, somebody else, even if it's like an essay exam, somebody else could look at the exam and go, you know what? You might have added this here or changed this. Nothing has ever or very few things are ever 100% perfect. But very few things are ever 100% failure. You can look at failure as a devastation, or you can look at failure as an opportunity to adapt and grow and become more perfect. You know, whatever it is, if you try to start a business and you fail, a lot of people do. You know, they start a business, doesn't work out, business closes, they start another business and it goes on. But with each failure, they learn something. So they are stepping closer and closer to being able to actually own and operate a successful business. Failure is a learning opportunity and a stepping stone to perfection versus the opposite of perfection. Looking at something or someone is having all good intentions or all bad intentions. Most of the time, you know, there's a little bit in there of everything. You know, even when we do something nice for other people, a lot of times, you know, 90% of it may be because we really want to do something nice for them. But the other 10% is because we're doing it to help ourselves feel good about ourselves. You know, looking at it in terms of not all or nothing, but reality, what's the middle of the road? Belief in a just world or the fallacy of fairness. Well, life isn't fair. You know, if nobody broke it to you before now, I'm gonna break it to you now. Life ain't fair. Identify four good people in your life who've had bad things happen. I know a lot of really good people who've had really bad things happen. And it's unfortunate, but they've made it through and they've used it as a growth opportunity for the most part in order to become the person that they are now. Another thinking error would be what we call attribution errors, labeling yourself instead of the behavior. If you have, you see somebody walking and I actually saw this the other day and I thought of this example or I thought of this presentation. This woman was walking along and she tripped and stumbled. Now I could have thought, well, wow, isn't she the most clumsy person in the whole world? Or I could have looked and gone, hmm, I wonder what was what she tripped over. There must have been a crack in the sidewalk or something. And there was, I mean, it was where a carpet and a hard surface meant and there was a little transition piece and she tripped over the transition piece. Had nothing to do with her, it was the external environment.  Well, that's disempowering. Now, am I useless at certain things? Oh yeah, when it comes to fixing a car, I stand there with my hands in my pockets. I am completely useless when it comes to that. But that's a particular skill or thing. Now, can I change it? Possibly, if I was motivated to do so. But it has nothing to do with me as a person being useless. It's just in terms of that particular activity, it's not my strength. Stable, can it be changed? Am I always gonna be useless when it comes to fixing cars? Well, if I was so motivated to learn how to fix cars, I could, but that's not something I'm real motivated to change right now. But stable means always and forever. Internal, it's about me as a person versus it's about a skill, a skill deficit or something in the environment. Like that person who tripped. Was she a klutzy person? Or was there something in the environment that was a trip and fall hazard? So look at things and try to not be global about negative stuff. Be global about positive. If you think you're all that in a bag of chips, we'll score. But for the negative stuff, look for specifics. We all have strengths and weaknesses. So focus on the fact that it's a behavior or a strength or a characteristic that is not a strength of yours. Not as you as an individual. So some questions and you're not gonna go through all these every time you start having a unhelpful thought. You're gonna pick two or three that seem to resonate for you. But let's go through them. What are the facts for and against my belief? And you need to look at facts, hard concrete facts. Is the belief based on facts or feelings? So if you're having a belief based on facts, then you need to look at the totality of the situation. The example with me getting a shot. The facts were prior times I'd gotten shots it hadn't been an unpleasant experience. And I had just had my hepatitis series and those hurt like a bugger. So I had some facts there. My feeling, I was expecting this to be a bad situation based on prior experiences, but I had no facts to support that this nurse and this experience were going to be negative. So what are the facts about this situation right now? Does the belief focus on one aspect or the whole situation? But the shot example, I was focusing on one aspect, the shot. Not looking at the whole situation that different nurses have different techniques and different shots hurt more than others. Does this belief seem to use any thinking errors? And we went through all of those. What are alternate explanations? Does this have to be a miserable experience? Does this have to be a scary experience? Does this have to be the end of the world? What are some other explanations? Can you turn this lemon into lemonade? What would you tell your child or best friend if they had this belief or they were going through this experience? Generally we're great cheerleaders for other people, but not ourselves. Once you figure that out, ask yourself, well, what would you want somebody to tell you about this belief? And most of the time, it should be the same thing you would tell other people. Finally, how is this belief or feeling you're having, moving you toward what is and who is important to you? Or away from what is who, what and who was important to you? If you hold on to negativity and failure and fear and anger, is that moving you toward your goal of being happy and having fulfilling relationships? Probably not. So you need to choose whether you're motivated to look for ways to deal with that. There are a variety of thinking errors we make each day which adds stress to our lives. When you start to get upset, evaluate your thoughts that are supporting those thinking errors and practice refuting those thinking errors. If it's all or nothing, look for exceptions. If it's personal, if you're taking it as a personal attack or a front, look for reasons that may not have anything to do with you. Find ways to refute your common ways of unhelpful thinking. If you like this podcast, you can subscribe on any podcast app, join our Facebook group at docsnipes.com slash Facebook or join our community and access additional resources at docsnipes.com. Welcome to this week's book review. Each week I review a book I believe would be helpful to the general public and our clinicians. I'm never paid to do the reviews. However, in some instances, I may receive a small commission if you purchase the item, which helps to fray the cost of our podcast and providing the free educational videos. The cost to you, however, remains the same. This week we're gonna talk about the Dialectical Behavior Therapy Skills Workbook. And this one was written by Matthew McKay. He is one of my favorite writers, so you're probably gonna see a lot of books by him. This is an excellent tool to use in conjunction with DBT Made Simple by Sherry Van Dyke. This is more the client workbook. It provides practical tools and is much lighter on theory in terms of what DBT is, et cetera. But it does provide a lot of activities to help people build skills in the areas of distress tolerance, mindfulness, emotion regulation, and interpersonal effectiveness. So the book really progresses in four segments. It starts out with helping people develop distress tolerance. If you've got emotional dysregulation, you feel overwhelmed by your emotions a lot of the time. This is probably where you wanna start anyway, so great. He presents activities to help you learn techniques such as radical acceptance, distraction, self soothing, how to create a relaxation plan, exploring values and committing to behaviors that help you get closer to what is important to you and forgo behaviors which move you away from your goals. So all of those things can help you use your energy in a positive way and learn how to tolerate or get through emotional turmoil. The next part moves on to mindfulness and he presents activities such as the single object focus to help you start learning how to become more mindful. Now mindfulness does not have to be meditation, which is what he teaches you in this book. There are ways to be mindful, to be present, to be aware without actually engaging in meditation. So if that makes you uncomfortable to do meditation, well, he's got a lot of suggestions for you. He moves on to thought diffusing and unhooking so you can step back from your emotions and instead of being consumed by them, you can see them as something that is there and will eventually go away. Then he talks about focus shifting to help you learn how to train your mind to focus on what you want it to instead of being all over the place, which is what sometimes we call monkey mind. He talks about beginner's mind, which is basically the principle that no matter what's going on right now, every moment is a new opportunity, every moment is a new beginning. So you don't have to wait till tomorrow or next week to try to make things better. You can start right now in the next moment. He talks about negative judgments and mindfulness and gives you activities for daily mindfulness practice. So you start becoming more aware of what's going on with you and what your needs are so you can prevent distress as often as possible. So now that you have some tolerance skills and you're becoming more aware of what you need, he introduces concepts of emotion regulation and helps you recognize and explore the rewards and costs of self-destructive behaviors. Helps you look at ways to reduce physical and cognitive vulnerabilities such as cognitive distortions, not getting enough sleep, poor nutrition, et cetera. And talks about things such as using opposite actions and problem solving in order to help you regulate your emotions and not feel like they're overwhelming you. The last section he focuses on interpersonal effectiveness because no matter where you are, you're going to interact with other people. And part of being effective and getting your needs met is first knowing what you need and want, then assertively asking for it in a win-win sort of way and learning how to set and maintain boundaries, say yes when you want to, say no and be okay with that when you need to. And finally, he ends with coping with resistance and conflict because some people are not going to take kindly to it right away if you start setting boundaries and you haven't had boundaries before and he talks about why it's important to maintain your boundaries and how to deal with conflict when it happens. My favorite parts are that it's a workbook. So the activities for the individual or group are already created. They're in the book, the workbook is fillable. So you don't have to have extra pieces of paper or notebooks or anything like that. It's an awesome self-help guide for clients. So if you're not interested in going to therapy or you're not in therapy right now, it's a great place to start.  If you're a therapist, you may wanna also look at DBT Made Simple by Sherry Van Dyke, which is a book I have all my supervisees get. So they understand the concepts of emotional dysregulation and some of the tools of distress tolerance and the mind, body connection and vulnerabilities. Both of these books provide excellent tools for coping with life in general. You don't have to be running a DBT program. As a matter of fact, like I said, neither of these books will make you a DBT practitioner. They will introduce you to the skills and tools and help you develop skills and tools that are helpful in feeling happier and living a healthier life.