People Don't Know Your Pain

Hello and welcome to the Soul of Innovation podcast. I am the host Thomas Anglero, and my mission for this podcast is to share with you those private thoughts and reflections that I have being one of the top keynote speakers around the world on technology, motivation, and innovation. I hope you truly enjoy all the lessons I share, all the dots I connect that sometimes are just really difficult to get out but it's all for you. I truly hope you enjoy this episode.

Welcome to the Soul of Innovation podcast. I am Thomas Anglero, and I'm a little bit somber today because I had a very powerful reflection. Do you know how difficult it is to know what's happening in someone else's life? Do you know how impossible it is for you to even guess what somebody's going through?

Think about it.

How often when you talk to people do you really, really know what they're going through? Or flip it around. Whenever, whenever, 100% of the time, when people talk to you When people talk to you, to the people that talk to you at work, do they know what you're going through? Do they know about your troubles? Do they know how much pain you're in? Do you know how sad you are about certain things? How embarrassed you are if anybody was to find out? Does anybody know that about you? How would you feel if people knew that about you when they talk to you? I'm not trying to scare you. It's just that feeling you have now about all your insecurities, about all those things that are not going right in your life that you don't want anybody to know, that— those things Not those specific things, but that feeling you have that at any cost no one should know what you're going through? That is what everyone you talk to is feeling too. You know, in the last few months, literally the last 4 months, I've been contacted by old friends, and out of nowhere they informed me that, uh, after many years of marriage, that they're splitting up. No signs of anything going bad, no stories, no nothing. And then from my perspective, all of a sudden. But from theirs, they said, it has been declining for years and years and years. In other situations, it just happened fast. But no one can tell. Do you know how difficult it is for you to guess what other people are going through? With all the stuff happening in your life, when you meet somebody and you pass judgment on someone for the things that they're thinking. Why? Why are you passing judgment on someone who's just as complicated as you, going just— going through just as many problems as you have, having just as many anxieties, nervousness, sorrow, sadness, and also probably a lot of happiness too, we hope. You know, they have a full life of all these emotions, of all these things. Understand, every time you meet somebody, you don't know what they're going through. I remember when I was a kid, just some, some man told me, he said, Thomas, you don't know what happens inside of people's houses, what happens behind that closed door, behind that closed curtain. And then we were looked up at some curtain of some house, and I realized, no, I have no idea. And then he said, 'Every house has a different story.' And I looked around the street and there were houses everywhere. And it means that every single house has a secret story of what's really going on with that family, what's really going on with their mother, their father, the sons, the daughter, the dynamics between everybody. The dynamics between all of them and the rest of the world. Let me share you a story I think is really powerful, but I think is appropriate. Maybe all you— it's a gift to all of you. Carla Fiori, she was a CEO of Hewlett-Packard back in the day, before the dot-com days. And as a CEO, she merged Hewlett-Packard, I believe, with, uh, Compaq. She bought Compaq. HP bought Compaq, and Compaq Computers was big back then. Irregardless, it doesn't matter. This was before the dot-com days, so such a merger of two gigantic companies was unheard of. And her being a woman CEO, no one believed her, no one trusted her. But every day she went to work and she fought. She fought everyone, everyone who doubted her. The board of directors hated her, and she would fight them all day long. And in the evening, she would come home exhausted, mentally destroyed after being attacked. Not for 8 hours— when you're CEO of HP, Hewlett-Packard, you don't have an 8-hour day, you have an 18-hour day. And those 18 hours, people are attacking you because you spent billions of dollars acquiring another company and no one else had the vision that she had. Do you know what that is to be attacked for 18 hours in a day and also accusing you of being an idiot because you're a woman? That just all this crap happens to you. She would come home and she said she would literally walk towards her door. And as she walked towards her door, her husband would open the door and catch her. She would fall into the doorway. Crying every single day because of what she'd been through. And she would cry all night long. He would lift her up at the door, take her in, tuck her in, and she would cry in his arms all night. Next morning, she'd get up at 6 AM get dressed, and do it all over again. Carla Fiori told this story 10 years later, 10 years after the merger, 10 years after she was— she proved that it was the best thing HP could have ever done was to buy Compaq. But no one knew her story. No one knew that this powerful woman who actually ran to be president of the United States a few years ago. The cost, her, of what she was going through, her secret of her pain and her anxiety. What secrets do you have? What pain do you have? Look at the person next to you. Think of the person you have a meeting with tomorrow. They have the same thing. It's not on the same issue, but they're in just as much pain. We all have secrets. We all have stories, and they all come with pain. You don't know other people's stories. You don't know their pain. Be very considerate the next time you talk to someone. Which probably means in the next few minutes from right now. Be considerate of their feelings. You don't know what they're going through. You don't know what phone call they just had, what conversation just had, what incident they just had, what they were driving, somebody gave them the finger or something, something, something. We don't know. But if you were in their situation or you're already in your own situation, what do you need to make you feel better? Someone to listen to you, someone to understand you, maybe a smile of a stranger— very powerful. Someone to hug you— the ultimate solution for everyone. You know, I remember back when I was in college, it was on my last days of university. This guy had a huge sign on his chest saying free hugs. I thought he was a nut, and he was going to people, I'll give you a free hug, I give you a free hug. And I was trying to walk by him, and he gave me this huge smile. He says, you want a free hug? That man gave awesome hugs. When's the last time you gave somebody a free hug? Costs nothing, worth everything. Think about the people you talk to, the people you interact with. What are they going through? What's their story? Think about your story. Not the details, the heaviness, the wait. And then be a little bit patient for the person in front of you or the person on the other end of the phone. They're going through a lot too. To all you out there who are going through a lot, I have a big sign on my chest right now and it says Free Hugs. To all of you, I give you a huge hug. You're not alone. And I hope my words make you reflect and change what you say, what you feel from now on when you talk to someone. You're not alone. The person you're talking to is not alone. You can't guess what they're going through, but they're going through a lot. Go forth. Spread beauty and light. And be compassionate. Have empathy. For those people you talk to, for those people that see you, for those people who go through so much pain. I wanna end this with one last story. I was on the bus the other day and there was a girl in front of me sitting down facing me And I was standing there, and I could see in her face that she was dealing with something. She wasn't crying, but she was trying to hold it together. She was about 16, 16, 17. And her mobile phone rang as she sat on the bus, and she jumped. And my eyes opened up because that's not a normal reaction. It wasn't a reaction like the phone scared her. It was a reaction of hell just broke loose. She put the phone to her head, her lips started to quiver, and she said, "Hello?" And the other person on the phone just started talking. 2, 3 seconds later, she yelled out, "Nai!" "No!" And her forehead then leaned against the glass that separated between me and her. And she had the pho— kept the phone there and kept on listening, and a few seconds later she lifted her head back and tears had filled her entire face. I was frozen. There were older ladies sitting next to her, to her right. And she turned her head, and the person on the phone was still talking, and she just said to them, Papa, my Papa. And I just started squeezing her, and she said something on the phone and hung up as she absolutely broke down shaking. To her core. She had gotten horrible news about her father, her Papa. 16-year-old girl was broken. She had nothing left. She got on that bus barely holding on, and that one phone call with all that horrible news— she's nothing. You don't know what other people are going through who are sitting on a bus or in front of you. Be patient with people. Everybody's going through something. I love you. Until the next time.

Thank you for listening to that episode. If you want to contact me, you can contact me on my website at anglero.com, and you can also subscribe to the newsletter, or you can find me anywhere on social media with Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, and Twitter. Thank you so much, and I hope to hear from you very soon.