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Live from the Civic Media World Headquarters in Madison, Wisconsin, it's the Todd Alba Show.
Pursuing truth wherever it may lead.
Here's your host, Todd Alba.
Across Wisconsin on the Civic Media Radio Network and streaming worldwide on the Civic Media app.
Good afternoon, everybody.
I'm Todd Alba, along with our producer and engineer, the fantastic Mr. Aaron Zommers on the board.
It is six past the hour of two o'clock.
Welcome into the Civic Media World headquarters in downtown Madison on State Street.
It is Tuesday, May 13th, 2025.
It is a great day to be Wisconsinite.
Overcast skies here in the capital city, but pretty warm temperatures.
Forecasters saying that rain will move through parts of Wisconsin, kind of on and off today, maybe more...
heavier rains in the evening, kind of depends on where you're at.
A little bit more rain tomorrow and cooling off a bit for the weekend, but that's okay, Zombers, we could use a little rain in Wisconsin right now.
Tuck, tuck, it looks like rain.
Yes, yes, it's a matter of fact.
Great show today, cannot wait to get into it.
Our friend and ongoing contributor, it's been a while since she's been here.
way too long, as a matter of fact, in my opinion.
It'll be great to have her back.
She is a positive psychology coach.
Ms.
Kira Saban is going to be here and looking forward to talking with her.
It's gonna be a start of a three-part series today, next Tuesday, and the following Tuesday.
And of course, this is Mental Health Awareness Month.
And one of the things that, you know, I kind of set up an informal editorial agenda for this show,
for the year, one of the things I wanna spend more time on is mental health and mental health awareness.
And I think oftentimes you hear that phrase or people hear that phrase and immediately they think of an ultimate crisis.
Oh my gosh, someone's thinking about harming themselves or the worst possible case scenario.
And while that is certainly a part of it, mental health could just be really being.
depressed or down or lonely to the point where it brings us down or performance down all around.
It's not necessarily quite a crisis, but it can lead to that.
And so we're going to talk to Kira over the next three weeks about what we can do.
I think if you're like me, folks, you're looking at the news and you're being like, what can I actually do to make a difference?
And for three days this month, today, next Tuesday and the following Tuesday, we're going to focus on community.
And we're going to say, what can we do in our communities to help ourselves and to help one another?
And Kira Saban is going to be here to walk us through that.
So it's always great to have her along.
That's coming up here at 20 minutes past the hour, this hour.
Then at hour number two, talk a little about what's worse.
And I did not set this up this way, but today's what's worse, guilt or shame.
Yeah, it fits perfectly.
It does.
It does fit perfectly.
Later on this afternoon at 435, Brewer is trying to get a win lost yesterday against the Cleveland Guardians.
The Brewer is taking on Cleveland again.
435, the first pitch.
You can hear it over the air in Richland Center, Oshkosh, Racine, Kenosha, Park Falls and now in Hayward as well on all of our Brewer affiliates.
Remember, you cannot listen to the game via the Civic Media App Stream.
That is that majorly baseball.
But you can hear our show over over the street if you want to on those same channels.
Download the Civic Media app at your favorite Android or Apple store because coming up on Friday, another free ticket Friday, give away four more tickets on this show on Friday, and you have to use the app to text in for that.
So be aware of that.
And that's coming up on on on Friday.
So that's and then all kinds of other just.
I don't know.
So we were talking before the show.
I said, I said, part of the theme of today's show should be what's wrong with people.
Yeah,
there's just what's wrong with people.
I mean, we every other week, we have Peter Ray behind managing editor of ebombs world to talk about crazy people things or crazy things that people do that are funny.
Right.
But before the show, we got repeated news alerts of crazy things people did that were
not
funny.
One of the things we'll be talking about our two Wisconsin schools, Warren parents.
about viral TikTok challenges involving setting their Chromebooks on fire.
Again, I asked the question, what's wrong with people?
This is the Todd Potts all over again.
I mean, yeah, exactly.
Only instead of little kids, it's like high schoolers, for good of sake.
And David Hogg, remember him?
I got myself some hot water over David Hogg.
Well, now, according to NBC, the Democratic National Committee panel recommends a redo.
vote that elevated David Hogg to Vice Chair after procedural concerns.
And yeah, you know who's leading that effort?
Who?
The person he beat.
Yeah, I know.
Well, we'll get into it in hour two.
There's a lot to unpack there.
I
love overturning
elections.
I'm just entertained by it all.
I'm just entertained by it.
It's ridiculous.
It really is.
First, I want to get to a bit of breaking news here for our listeners in Madison on WMDX.
This comes to us courtesy of Channel 3000, Channel 3, the CBS affiliate here in Madison.
Madison police are investigating today after a man was shot in the foot while making a delivery downtown.
Officers responded after the man arrived at a local hospital.
He reported that he and a woman were making a food delivery.
along the 200 block of South Park Street at around 340 a.m.
Let me say that again.
340 a.m.
When he heard a loud bang and felt pain in his leg, the man's injuries were not considered life threatening and no arrests have been made as of this afternoon.
So as if you have information regarding the shooting, you could call Madison Area Crime Stoppers at 608-266-6014, that's 608-266-6014.
I'm glad, you know, the guy's gonna be okay, but I didn't know you could order food at 340 in the morning somers to be honest.
Oh, you
can order food whenever you want from...
I mean, on campus they have those cute robots that travel around and deliver.
I didn't know you could just... Who's making food at 340 in the morning?
McDonald's probably.
You think depending on the location some of them I was I was surprised some of them around here and not 24 hours I thought they all had to be by law or something
see Matt listening on watch on Facebook has the same question Delivery from where what's open at that time?
It's probably just McDonald's maybe Taco Bell
or Chabita or Chaba.
What's it called?
Yeah, you know what good point.
It's probably Chiba.
Their whole thing is catering to high people
I shouldn't be laughing about this, but I find it kind of entertaining.
The guy is gonna be okay, so just relax.
It'll all be fine.
So that's the, we'll stay on top of this if we have, we'll find out where, wouldn't it be interesting to find out where the food is being ordered from?
That
would be interesting.
And by the way, what happened to the food that was being ordered?
Yeah, did it get
delivered?
Did it just drop it and run?
Was
this individual shot in the foot after delivering the food before?
I don't know.
The moral
of the story is just don't order food at 340 in the morning.
And practice gun safety.
Keep them locked up.
Yes, keep them locked up.
Um, all right.
So that's the, uh, that's the breaking news there.
Uh, other quick announcement before we bring the Kira Saban on, because we talked about this for a couple of days here before the show, we were looking forward and we still are, by the way, to having a former Wisconsin Badger star and star of the NFL, Monte Ball on the show.
And.
we were looking forward to it, as was he.
However, as it turns out, in these days of airline travel in the United States, unfortunately, his flights got canceled and kind of rebooked.
And so Montaigne's gonna get into town until later on after the show, and he's traveling, so it just, it worked.
Unfortunately, he's not gonna be on the show today.
But he was very apologetic.
I said, don't worry about it.
Take care of yourself first.
And he promised to rebook.
We'll have him on the show soon.
soon here on the show.
But one of the reasons, and again, this goes to our focus on mental health awareness, that one of those, Montee has a great story.
Obviously a very talented football player and a friend of our friend, our mutual friend, Brady Ewing, who played on the Wisconsin Badger team with him.
But Montee also went through a time of addiction.
And it was a pretty tough time for him.
He's been very public about it.
He has gone through recovery and now he is helping others.
And there is an event tonight and I understand there are still tickets available.
There is an event tonight in Madison.
Pardon you tomorrow tomorrow good good gosh Todd get it get the story straight tomorrow at Wednesday The event is tomorrow Wednesday May 14th It is called a fireside chat with Monte ball and our old friend Kristen Brie Who is a columnist for the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel and of course has her own brand of as goes Wisconsin on the socials and as they say is not another network But we love her she was she's a great friend.
She is going to be the moderator.
She has been doing a series of this
around the state through the journal Sentinel.
And so Monte Ball, Kristen Brie, tomorrow at the Cooper's Tavern here on the square, it begins at six o'clock and goes until 8.30.
And it's an opportunity to socialize, but to hear Monte's story, to perhaps ask some questions.
And I think that we're all gonna be, I'm gonna be there.
I'm bringing a friend.
And again, I talked about this yesterday.
Speaking of the Ewing's,
Brady's dad, I was a Michelin Center last week in the past weekend and he and I had this great conversation and it makes us feel better when we're around other humans.
And I also think that we look at guys like Monte Ball, phenomenally popular and talented.
And as a fan, we look at a person like that and think, well, they got everything worked out.
I mean, they're living the dream.
And it's a great reminder as much as I wish that Monte hadn't had to go through his journey that he's gone through.
But it's a great reminder, especially when somebody like Monte Ball is so public about it and then uses that to do good and encourage and help others.
It's a great reminder that nobody hasn't figured out.
We all have a journey and we're all going through something.
And when you can hear it from somebody like Monte Ball,
personally, I think it's just gonna be a very encouraging evening.
It's gonna be, and also you got Kristen Brie there, so you know there's gonna be some laughs and just some lightness to it as well.
So if you put on by Journey Mental Health Center, so you could go to Journey Mental Health Center, was it dot org, I believe?
You're gonna look it up.
I
believe it was journeymhc.org, but I will tell you about
that.
That's right, no, you're 100% here, I got it.
Cosomers is still good.
He gave it to me and then I didn't write it down.
So
journeymhc.org and then you'll want to go to the Join Us tab.
All right.
And Mental Health Awareness Month.
Very good.
And I think Kristen probably has it on her socials as well as does Monte.
But by a ticket, the proceeds go to Monte's Foundation and also Journey Mental Health to help others who are going through addiction and that sort of thing.
So it should be just a great, great evening tomorrow night from six until eight thirty at Cooper's Tavern.
Get your tickets, support a great cause, come out, have a great evening and sit there and enjoy the evening with me.
So anyway, that's that's the plug for that great event.
And again, Monte will be on this show.
soon.
He was very apologetic.
I said,
hey,
family comes first.
Gotta take care of those things.
And as we all know, air travel is a touch of go right now.
So anyway, we're going to come back and reset a little bit here.
Talk to Kira Saban, a positive psychology coach.
And during the break, maybe it's kind of a good prep time for all of us to be thinking about what can we control
and what can't be controlled during these times.
We can't take it all on at once.
That's just not mentally healthy, it's mentally good, right?
It's just too much for any one person.
It is too much.
So we'll be talking about things what we can control, what we can't control, and next week we'll be talking about healthy ways to cope the second in our three-part series.
But we're gonna start it with things we can control, things we can't control, and personal needs conversation.
How about that?
It could get very personal.
I'm sure it tends to.
Can we bring Kira on so that Todd has a therapy session on the air, basically?
And we hope it does some good for other people as well.
No, no, no.
It's going to be fantastic.
Stay tuned.
A conversation with Kira Saban, a positive psychology coach on the other side.
You're listening to a Tuesday edition on the Todd All Ball Show.
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Welcome back to the tolerable show of the Civic Media Radio Network 23 now.
Past the hour of two o'clock on Tuesday, May 13th.
Glad to have you along here.
Mental health awareness month.
She was just a small town girl living a few blocks from me in the same small town.
She took the midnight train out.
Now look at her.
Now look at her.
She is a
positive.
Come midnight train.
Yeah.
What midnight train at Richland Center.
Okay.
They took the drain tracks out when I was in high school, I think.
Positive psychology coach, Ms.
Kira Saban, you could find her at Thrive with Kira, and make sure you spell the without, W-I-T-H, Thrive with Kira, that's K-I-R-A dot com.
Kira Saban, it is great to have you back.
I am so excited to be here as always Todd.
I chose that music because you you pointed me one of your Insta posts recently about the 80s in which we both grew up and I'm a little older than you but it was a great post all those 80s memories.
I've been finding that
uh nostalgia really hits me lately and so i i started posting things that made me really happy and then it's crazy because other people they made them really happy too so i weekly do a manic monday where i post videos and commercials and tv shows last night i did post the uh
Circus of the Stars, if you remember that
from the
80s.
Yeah,
as
well as I think last night was also Battle of the Network stars.
Like, I'm so amazed by what they got TV stars to do in the 80s that would never exist today.
That's amazing.
And it's so cool that you brought up this nostalgia because, and Kira knows my mom, I went flower shopping for Mother's Day.
And I usually get the flowers from the front pots.
And I've gotten different.
Well, I go to, by the way, Copkey's greenhouse that the town had done outside of Oregon, one of our sponsors here at civic media, a great place to go get your plans.
And I was thinking, you know what?
I try to get something kind of unique, but I was looking at the geraniums, Kira.
the red and white geraniums.
I'm like, that just made, I just remember like growing up and it made me feel nostalgic and it made me feel good.
But I thought that was too on point.
And so I got her kind of purple and white geraniums.
Well, Linda, you'll have to tell us how you feel about that now that you know, right?
But the nostalgia, we need comfort in these times.
We really do.
We really do.
I also do Fluffy Friday, where I just put up happy animal videos.
Oh, OK.
OK.
Yeah.
Not furry Friday, Fluffy Friday.
So
very different things.
Very different things.
More like kittens and pandas.
I
love it.
So that.
OK.
Our mutual friend, ongoing contributor, Jeff Perry on Facebook says, Kira, last night we watched the very first episode of Threes Company.
How about that?
Oh my
gosh.
Another morning stature.
I
love.
Yeah, there is no more like and then you have to watch Alice after it though.
I know
right
all right We could do we can sit here and I have old home week all week But I think these are this is a good table setter You've been so kind as to agree to do a three-part series today next Tuesday and the following Tuesday for mental health awareness month And I love the fact that you're willing to do this because you've come on the show before
There's crazy times right now politically and for me at least and I'm just gonna put this out there on the air I don't care because I'm always interested in curious opinion I've been struggling recently with this show because I hear from people from their 20s through their 70s Todd we just can't we turn you off sometimes because we get overwhelmed We just
don't
want to hear the news.
We know it's important
I just don't think, Kira, that I could come on this show every day and say the world's on fire.
It's a crisis every day.
You've talked to how humans are wired before.
Let's start there, that human beings are just literally not wired to be in crisis mode every day, right?
At all.
I mean, I love to think about, you know, being from Wisconsin, like our grandparents and great grandparents, they were mostly farmers, you know, they barely had any...
emergency situations and we now turn on our phones and there's like trigger emergency every second and our brains are not meant for that right our brains are not able to really take that in and so it can overwhelm us it shuts us down and then we can't.
exist and then we can't be human and I think that that's happening everywhere because one of the things that Todd and I talked about recently we were just talking about this is just I don't think people in our country are happy right now whoever you are well whoever you voted for we are struggling as a nation and we are seeing the results of that and so even though you look at things politically I look at things through psychology and humanity and humanity wise we are we are struggling but I also know
that the world has always been struggling.
since the day we are born and probably the day we will die.
Whether we see it in our neighborhoods or our backyards or in our communities, you know, that's true.
But we get to choose what we think about.
We get to choose where we put our money and our power and our time and our energy.
And that's what I want to talk about today, taking back our control, like looking and putting our time where it makes sense.
Because otherwise, we get so overwhelmed, we become paralyzed and we do nothing but worry.
And I think this is great.
We have about a minute or so before the break here.
So let's set the table and then we'll come back and get right into it.
Things we can control and we can't control because if we look, I mean, I think it's great to go out and join a protest, a peaceful one, obviously.
I think that's great.
But I think oftentimes we tell people, hey, go do this because it's going to make it better.
And then they go do it.
and things are the same or worse and they feel completely over-wet and hopeless.
And these are things what you're gonna give us after this break are things we can do for ourselves and our friends and neighbors that we can actually make differences with.
Yes, absolutely because I think that...
community is where it starts.
I think humanity is where it starts.
And that's how we get back to each other and get back to some sanity.
And it fits well so well with one of the main ethos, the through lines of civic media, our CEO and owner.
Sage Weil, when he started this, he wanted to be about community, a focus on that it started.
It didn't start in Washington, DC.
It starts in our local neighborhoods with local news, local sports and local neighborhoods.
And we're going to talk about community with Kira Saban.
When we come back, positive psychology coach, don't stop believing there is hope on the other side.
New sports and weather is next.
It's the all ball show on the Civic Media Ready Network.
from the Kira Saban Spotify playlist, 35 minutes now, past the hour of two o'clock.
Glad to have you along in the all ball show and civic media.
Talking with Kira Saban, positive psychology coach for Mental Health Awareness Month.
Janet Jackson, Kira, is now being honored with an ICON award at the American Music Festival.
How about that?
I think that's fantastic.
Well overdue, I would
say.
Agree.
Agree.
Uh, Kirib, before we... This is one of these things that's funny, but it's not, I guess.
This is... I just saw this during the break.
According to the European Space Agency, and Dutch scientists, you guys trust the Dutch, headline, the universe is poised to die much faster.
than previously thought according to new research by Dutch scientists.
Charlie Sykes, a long time conservative talk host, now turned kind of an independent, like me says, why does this feel like good news?
I don't
know if it feels really like good news, Todd, but maybe that's just where you're
at right now.
But against the point we're talking about before the break, and we're going to get into it right now, is that
With all the news that's piling on regardless of who people voted for that it just seems like the world out of control You don't know what's gonna happen next and we get you've talked about this before we are lonely people not just females But actually probably more so males are their own little worlds and silos of information silos and this is not good for mental health So we're gonna talk about things that we could control
and can't control.
This is the first in a three-part series with Cura.
So Cura, let's start things that we cannot control, but we sure try to.
We sure try to.
I mean, the thing is, is that every day we are walking through our days and we're trying to control our environments, right?
And we may not think that we're trying to, but we are.
And a lot of the times the energy that we spend trying to control our environments
is wasted because we're trying to control things we can't.
So first thing we can't control, guess what?
Other people.
We cannot control no matter if there are kids, our parents, our partners, our friends, we can't control how they act, how they react.
You might give them great news and they may be stunned or not happy for you.
We can't control the way other people react to us.
And trying to just
drives us crazy or leads to some level of people pleasing and manipulation, which we're not trying to do on a daily basis.
We also can't control timelines.
We can't control how fast things happen.
I know that when we are sometimes grieving, we want to get over it right away.
We want to like push through it and just put our heads down.
But if you've ever grieved or tried to heal from something extreme, it takes its own timeline.
We can't control it, and all we can do is maybe try to numb it, but that doesn't, once again, isn't very helpful.
We also, oh, go ahead.
No, no, that's fine, that's
good.
We also can't control, this is gonna be newsflash, everybody, the state of the world right now, right?
We cannot, unfortunately, control everything that's happening in our country, whether it's on tariffs, whether it's on anything for that matter.
We have some control, but a lot of it.
We don't.
And I don't know about you, Todd, but I grew up being called a worry wart, which I've now learned is anxiety.
Funny
how that's happening that my dad's like, oh, you're just a worry wart.
Oh, or.
I am having anxiety, but really if we spend the amount of time that it's kind of being shoved in our faces, the news, the media, the constant like what bad is going to happen now, which we have to remember sells newspaper, sells ads, sells all of the different things, you know, then we would never want to get out of bed.
I have, you know, I'm gonna talk about what we can control, but I have to really be focused on where I put my time and energy, or I don't wanna get out of bed in the morning.
Right.
And I think this is, again, it goes back to, and I'm not, look, I'm not, me personally, I'm not discouraging people from participating in democracy.
Certainly go out, peaceful protest, all that.
We have ballot boxes, although it's gonna be a while before an election, but to Kira's point, to your point, Kira, I think that too often, there's too much emphasis by those of us in the media on what you just said,
and then we feel overwhelmed.
And I think it's healthier.
Mental health is better for our mental health if we put more focus on what things we can control.
But before we get to that, tell us the psychology behind, why do we want to control things that we can't?
Why do we have this thing that our brain makes us want to control things we just have no power over?
So first of all, we can't, we're not going to go into PTSD and trauma right now, but I'm like, but.
Our brains love consistency, right?
As humans, our brains crave predictability and when our brains interpret, they interpret that as safety, right?
So whether it is or not, they like to think that they know what's coming up to feel safe and to feel calm.
But it's an illusion because we really know there's so many things that you know that we can't control We could get in a car accident on the way home.
There's there's so many things that are out of our control But our brains feel safe when we think that we can but what ultimately we want to do as humans is learn what we can control and then have the skills and mindsets to be able to calm ourselves and cope
when things don't feel good, instead of trying to constantly control our environment, the people around us, our relationships, our friendships, so that we feel safe.
And that's kind of what we're going to talk about next week, is how do we actually cope in a healthy way?
Because it can't be just beer and cheese.
Just
throwing that out
there.
Not to ruin anybody's day.
Maybe occasionally, for some of us, occasionally.
It just
can't be the only way.
Not always, certainly.
So I think that's interesting, talking to Kieris Taben, by the way.
who is a positive psychology coach and you can find all of her work and get in touch with her at thrivewithkira.com and she's somebody who certainly helped me in my life and I know helped a lot of other people as well.
Kira, this idea that there's a psychology behind this that we always wanted to control things, but is it too simplistic to say we need to just learn to let go of some things and I don't want to say not care?
But how do you get to that point where you're able to break that psychology of wanting to control things all the time?
First of all, understanding what actually makes sense for us to control.
And I don't think that on a daily basis, we think about that or talk about it, right?
We're just trying to think about things so much, right?
We think that if we worry and if we think about all of the worst case scenarios that somehow we're protecting ourselves, but they've actually proven that that's not true either.
All you're doing is putting time and energy and brain power towards things that may never happen and usually negativity.
Right, so whether we want to believe in whatever the science proves that where we put our time and our energy and our focus is Creates results and that can be negative results or that can be positive results
I'm just I'm chuckling because you know I'm pretty open to these segments and there have been times in my life where there's a bill I had to pay or is behind and I just like I don't want to call that person I'm putting it off because it's gonna be terrible and there's gonna be bad and then you finally do it and it's like oh that was all it was
And in the meantime, I've created days of not weeks of anxiety over basically nothing.
Right.
And if we do that all the time and then are also trying to control things like the government or our country or our, or our, you know, our family members or our coworkers, man, that's exhausting.
And we weren't, we're tired.
Right.
We're just really, really tired
and agree or disagree.
I don't think either one of us, you can speak for yourself, but I'm not saying that.
There aren't things that aren't important to pay attention to.
It could have consequences.
But to take that on every day and somehow think that we individually going to change that, our bodies just, they're not wired for that.
They are not wired for that.
And I mean, they're still coming out with the.
the data on, you know, how technology affects our brains, how like social media and the now the comparison, you know, and just, I mean, you and I've talked about this a thousand times, but I think everybody out there needs a hug more than anything else, right?
We're so isolated and what do you do when you're isolated?
You go online and you find people who believe the same things that you believe or can tell you how to make sense with your loneliness and your sadness.
And a lot of those people,
are not good people and are taking advantage of people.
I couldn't agree more.
We talked about this yesterday.
I don't want to belabor it, but just to follow up on that, and Zomers is so good he made a promo about this yesterday, or something I said yesterday, was at home, was at mom's house, saw David Union as well, Brady and Brandon's dad, and we just started talking unexpectedly, and he tells me this beautiful story of how he and his wife Andrea met in high school and how they're still in love, and just, it was so uplifting, but the point was,
I would have never gotten that just chilling out, looking, scrolling, doom scrolling.
I was outside doing something and had a real conversation with another human.
We all need to do that more, Kira, don't we?
100% because the thing is, is that when we don't see other people struggling, we think it's only us.
And then that's where the isolation comes.
That's where we stop talking to people.
You know, I love the idea of self-help, but there's also something called community help.
Right?
And so many times it's not just us needing to read another book or listen to another podcast, even though I have a podcast and
you have a radio show.
It's also just remembering.
talking to people because we have become so divided.
We've forgotten that our neighbor is really nice and has it makes great cookies, right?
And, you know, and probably has the same concerns on a daily basis that you do.
And that's the hardest thing is like, I think that we think things have changed.
And I think we're just have stopped talking to each other.
That is so good.
That is so good.
And it's so true.
About four or five minutes, not quite that.
Well, three minutes left.
Thank you, Zomers.
Let's get into a little bit of these personal needs convo, Kara, for the next three minutes before the break.
I love to share with people that there are four personal needs that only we can take care of ourselves, right?
And we try to pass them off a lot of times, or people try to pass them off on us.
Number one, our physical well-being and health.
That is completely up to us.
We can make green smoothie for our spouses.
We can suggest a doctor.
We can walk besides them, but we cannot make people change their life.
They have to do it.
Their emotional well-being and happiness.
And that's right.
It is nobody else's job to make you happy.
If you're not happy, you have to figure out what that is to make you happier.
I think we turn to our partners and our family or even our jobs to make us happy and they can't do it.
It's completely up to us.
and happiness is a skill and it's something you can learn and grow, like that's what positive psychology is.
We also can't control anybody else's passion or purpose.
We can cheerlead them, we can send them job links, we can remind them how talented they are, but we can't let that fire for them, we can't make someone want a bigger life.
Right?
That's up to them.
And then the final one, which is hard to hear because we are all given a worth or worth away on a daily basis is our self worth and how we feel about ourselves.
That's a hundred percent on us.
We can tell somebody else are amazing.
We can see their potential.
We can love the crap out of them, but we can't force somebody to believe it.
And these are things.
This is why we heal.
This is why we have therapy.
This is how we have coaches or whatever it is.
to be able to take care of those things ourselves so we can show up as whole people in our friendships, our relationships, and that is how we've changed the world.
Think about that list, Kira.
How people are physically, how well they are emotionally.
their passion and purpose and their self worth.
How much time do we spend trying to change or help quote unquote other people on those four things?
Well, I just feel like if I if I did this or said this, you know, maybe maybe they'll just light a fire.
I mean, I've been unemployed.
I've been looking for a job and people are I know they're trying to be helpful.
But sometimes I just put you in a more depressed state.
And a lot of times because we secretly know inside that this is our own work, people get resentful.
Yes.
Right?
So if you try to do it for them, they get resentful and then push you away.
So it's not working either way.
A, you can't do it for them.
And then B, if you try, that's us trying to fix them.
And usually that's a self worth thing.
Wow, really good stuff.
Physical, emotional, well-being, passion, purpose, self-worth.
These are things we all have to work on for ourselves.
We can't rely on others to do it for us.
We'll come back and talk about things we can control with Kira Saban.
She's a positive psychology coach.
You're listening to the All Balls show on Civic Media.
You're listening to Civic Media.
Find the latest news, information, and archives of all your favorite shows on the Civic Media website, civicmedia.us.
Along with Kira Saban, I'm Ted Albal.
Kira is a positive psychology coach.
You can find all of her work at thrivewithkira.com.
We're always still thankful and happy to have her here.
Today is the first of a three-part series.
Join us each Tuesday for the following two weeks as Carol will be back during this Mental Health Awareness Month.
That's off your Spotify playlist, right, Kira?
I'm sure it is.
I mean, my Spotify playlist is like 2,000 songs
long.
Holy cow.
Spotify and I spend, I'm actually the top 1% of Spotify listeners.
Really?
I love it.
I love it.
Talking about things we could control and can't control in this crazy, crazy world when sometimes the news of the day, we feel overwhelmed.
We've talked about things we can't control, the psychology behind it.
I love these personal needs, convos.
And maybe we could kind of go through this again in a future episode, just to refresh in case you weren't with us before the break.
Kira said a person's physical well-being, their emotional well-being, their passion and purpose and also
their self-worth.
Those are things that no matter how much we love or care about someone, we cannot change that for them.
It's up to each of us individually to work on those things for ourselves, right Kira?
Absolutely and we will just go like nutso in the but so try it.
This is one of my favorite scenes because it's also our own self-work.
Right.
Exactly.
That's what we're doing.
We're healing and we're making ourselves better.
So let's empower people a little bit here because there are some things that we actually can control.
Of course.
And Dave in New Berlin actually said, texted it on the Civic Media Text app and said, I'm perfectly content with the idea that I can't control what others do.
Here's what I can control.
And it's really powerful.
I get to control how I respond to others.
Kira Saban?
Exactly.
It's the first thing right here.
I told Dave, like, go to the head of the class.
100 points.
Ding, ding, ding, ding.
Not how not only how we react, but how we respond to people, right?
And I will tell you a lot of times we think that our emotions are uncontrollable That is not true at all emotions actually last 90 seconds and any emotions Yep, it lasts longer than that is actually either secondary emotions kind of the feelings we have about those emotions and we start to ruminate so I tend to I know
Is it that
fascinating?
That kind of blows my mind, but go ahead.
Yeah, so when we realize that our emotions are actually just signals to our body or our brain to say, hey, there's something going on, right?
Like there's something that's either not okay or is or really happy.
once we realize that we can step back and we can respond to people and responding means we don't lose it, we're not mad, we're not sarcastic, we're not just in passing, we're actually responding in a way that we can be heard because what's the point of talking if we can't be heard?
100% agree.
So by not reacting, by not
You know, nobody wants to talk to somebody who then shares 17 things wrong about you, right?
By just being able to respond and say, you know, can I be heard?
Um, this is important to me.
That's how we change and better our relations.
Let's get to the next one till we don't run out of time.
You got it.
Uh, where we put our time, energy and money
where we put our time, energy and money.
Yes.
Where we shop, where we donate our time, organizations that we volunteer for, whatever we are doing, you want to do what you want to see move forward.
And what happens is we sit home a lot and worry.
that is helping no one.
You thinking about the world not going well, isn't bettering it in any way.
Take that frustration and use it as fuel.
And you've talked about this before, but I'm just not going to do it right now.
But who we spend our time with and what those people have in effect, that's a huge one that I've tried to listen to you more on.
And somebody told me years ago, I'm sure you guys have heard it, that look at the five people that you spend the most time with, they represent you.
And when I heard that at the time, I was like, oh no, that's not
good.
That's
not good at
all because
they're
tended to be negative people, always brought me down, constantly complaining.
And I would just get the same way.
Yeah.
Next one, how we give back to what we believe in.
That's right.
Like I know so many of us are concerned about our LGBTQ communities.
We're concerned about just a lot of people possibly not getting the funding or the support that they used to have.
But guess what?
We're the support.
We can be the support.
If you don't have the time or the energy, there are organizations that always need money.
There's organizations that need help.
Don't worry about like...
I mean, I want to see people give back to their communities and their time in that way.
That's how we make sure that they can't take that away from us.
What we consume on a daily basis, content, social media news.
Absolutely.
I hate to tell you this, Todd, but people who watch the daily news are 20% less happy.
So that's that's actually scientific.
Very unhappy.
Isn't that a lie for the producers?
you know, but really be aware of what you're consuming and how it makes you feel.
There are ways that we can take in.
Here's what happened today without us completely taking us over for the day or for a half an hour or an hour, right?
There are ways for us to get the information and be thoughtful to it because I can tell you this, you know, we used to get newspapers and then that's all we would that's all we would know for the day or the week or whatever.
Now we are inundated every second of every day.
And let's be honest, there is not 24 hours of
every single day, so they're finding news.
And that news is mostly stuff that's not happy.
So really be thoughtful to where you give your time.
I obviously love Todd Allball's show for my news and information.
And
I like ThriveWithCura.com for some of my information as well.
Thank you.
But if you find yourself just doom scrolling through all of these videos, it's not helpful.
And all it does is really take you down.
in a way that it's hard to bring you back up.
And the final one we touched on, who we surround ourselves with, we have control over that.
I always enjoy being surrounded by more Kira Saban.
We'll see you next week, Kira.
Really, really appreciate you.
You can find her and all our info at thrivewithkira.com.
Thanks, Kira.
Have a wonderful day.
Yay!
Thank you, Todd.
You're amazing.
All right.
Stay tuned.
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