#9 The Courage to Have Honest Conversations

#9 The courage to have honest conversations
Welcome to episode nine of Different Points and I'm joined with my beautiful co-host Catherine. So conversations is the one that we're going to do today, the courage to have honest conversations and what conversations are you avoiding and that's a nice one. So I'm going to pass the stage over to Catherine.

I'll bet you are, thank you Roy. Give me time to think. I'm actually going share something very personal that happened for me recently.

There was a very quite important relationship I had years ago. It lasted for quite a few years and it came to an end and I never fully understood what had happened back then. I was a lot younger and recently I contacted this person and said, do you think we can have a conversation about this because I feel like maybe sort of with a bit of distance, maybe there are some things that maybe weren't said or that we could understand better.

And it took an awful lot of courage for me to do this because I knew that either they would say no to the conversation altogether, which would hurt, or that they would tell me the truth, why they didn't want to be with me anymore and that would hurt. But we actually had to take lots of breaks in the conversation because it was actually really intense for both of us, but we carried on all the way through and it released both of us significantly, made such a difference just telling the truth more fully about what you were experiencing back then and also realising we're completely different people now. So we could let go of all we screwed up back then and be who we are now and just renew our friendship in a much stronger way.

But it took an awful lot of courage to do that and I do think it's worth taking the courage. The thing is, you never know what's going to happen, so you've got to be ready for it to be an absolute disaster. But in that case, I'm so grateful that I actually did that and that the other person responded.

So there's my first off response. No, I love it. And the thing is like when you're moving on to the next relationship, both of you, you've learned so much from that, that you're bringing stuff to the table.

And I think sometimes people have honest conversations of saying what you want. For example, you know, like if people are in their 30s, 20s, whatever, and they want to have kids and the other doesn't, sometimes they wait till they're four years into the relationship or two years. I think you can have the honest conversation of kind of what are you looking to get out of a relationship? And it's not kind of like I trying to put a ring on your finger until you're done.

It's just seeing are we on the same path? Because you might want 10 kids and I might want any. And it's like, do you really want to build something with somebody and you're trying to make them change their mind? So that's just kind of on top of what you said. And when you're saying honest conversations, the one that I had is, I mentioned in the previous episode about kind of going through, you know, what being wiped out.

And I had a commercial property and there was security guards there. There was lots of different things. So I got emptied.

I couldn't pay their salaries. And then I said, sorry again. So I owed them a month salary, maybe two months salary and the thing I says, I get it to you.

And I always stayed in contact with them and with any business or anything, if there was any financial thing, I wasn't afraid to pick up the phone. And even 10 years later, one of the people, the cleaner, she'd ring me and wish me happy Easter and Merry Christmas. Or if I bump into them, it's not like I'm a bad person.

They know exactly what happened, but I always had the honest conversations. It wasn't avoiding. Or if I was doing any business and there was financial situations, I say, look, this is the situation I'm expecting this, this, this.

Whereas most people, they don't answer or they avoid you or you're sending an email. And I think it's okay to be in a certain situation, but be honest about it. And having an honest conversation, the person knows, and they're not going to hassle you.

Cause if someone's ringing you every day, that's putting you in a bad frequency and a bad mood. Whereas if you're honest and say, look, for sure, not for the next month, but I'm expecting X, Y, and Z to come in. And you're the first on the list to get paid.

Then they'll wait a month to give you a call. And not every day when you're avoiding them, because if they're ringing you, it's you don't look at the phone and go, Oh, look, that's the person I owe money to and feel good about it. So that would be my take on honest conversations.

Amazing. Wow. Wow.

Well, I'll do one more final one. My car disappeared. I'd sent it off.

I had an Aston Martin, beautiful car. I sent it back to the dealer to be sold. And then he stopped calling me back.

Long story short, it turned out he'd gone bust and it had been seized as if it was his property. He didn't tell me. He ended up having to go on the run to the Isle of Wight.

His ex wouldn't let him see his child for three years. He ended up with the police after him. To be fair, I did set the police on him, but he ended up having a nightmare for several years and ending up in jail.

If he'd called me immediately and said, Catherine, I'm such an idiot. I've gone bust. Someone seized your car.

Here's their phone number. Call them. I could have got that car back in 24 hours and the whole drama would not have needed to happen.

Yeah. Brilliant. I love that.

Yeah. Excellent. Another different points.

Great takes. So until tomorrow, take care.