Episode 20: Conversation Transcript
Dydine 0:00
Hello Baserange Community. This is the Dydine. We are here to wish you happy holidays. I hope you all are doing well all over the world.
Alex 1:00
I'm Alex I'm I'm one half of the of the hosts of the community conversations with Alex and Happy Holidays everybody.
Dydine 1:16
It's a little different today, we'll see. I'm in the backyard. And he's in the house.
Alex 1:24
Different locations. But yeah, we just wanted to hop on and wish happy holidays. Good Energy to everybody around the world. All of everybody in the community. And just have a conversation between between cohorts. Yes. And for those of you who aren't aware, we do still host the community conversation podcasts on YouTube, and various podcast hosting sites, Spotify, Apple podcasts, and so we still host those community conversations there. So if you want to go check out those conversations and you're wondering why we're not on Instagram Live as often. That is particularly why but we're going to be here we're going to be popping in here and there on Instagram Live. Just to touch base just to have those conversations with us and yeah, you know, just just say hi just hanging out.
Alex 2:37
So we were going to talk about six books that we have next to us that we wanted to recommend that we've read, that we want to share with you all if you have never read them that we think could be beneficial in reading in the year 2024. As we look ahead for what's to come
Dydine 3:14
How was everyone? How is everyone doing? I see a lot of people that I know I think from a mutual love. I see. We say hi to all of you. We hope you guys are doing you're doing well. We know the you know the world is not at its best right now is a lot of wars. going on all around the world. And so 2023 I feel like it's been I mean since 2020. The world has been on almost like a roller coaster and of events. And so we come here, like Alex that you just mentioned to share with you guys are one of our favorite books. One of our favorite books, is that one six of our favorite books, so that you can when you're in 2024 for the books that you can read and a lot of these books are books for me that changed my life or my perspective on life. And so we can't wait to share them with you. Agreed. You look nice by somebody who here knows that. The wife,
Alex 4:56
Okay, so should we should we get into these these books here? Yes. So six books here too.
Dydine 5:03
You start first
Alex 5:07
Okay. This is in no particular order, but books that like you said were meaningful and I think were quite helpful for me in my own evolution, whatever that may mean. So the first book I wanted to share is called (1) Your Inner Will. Finding personal strength and critical times. It's by the author, Pierro Ferruci.
Alex 5:45
So I read this book. It came out in 2014. I read this book around 2015 Because I heard that he had written another book, which at the time, kind of spoke more to what I was going through what I wanted to really digest. And this the first book was called the Power of Kindness, which I think is timeless as well. We’ll probably talk about that at some point. But this book, your finding your inner will, really broke down. Sort of finding your strength finding these tools within you to get through challenging moments in your life. We all have challenging moments, we will never not have challenging moments.
But in this book, he provides almost like a step by step process or breakdown of how to of how he gets through these challenging moments. So he'll kind of break it down in sort of like an academic way. I don't remember the author's background, but it was very helpful. I think I was in college at the time and there's a lot of uncertainty that you know, I was experiencing and I needed to find this inner will to, to move forward in my adulthood, kind of transitioning out of childhood, embracing the unknown of what college can bring and just develop my skill sets in dealing with adversity and dealing with the unknown.
Yeah, so I just I found it incredibly helpful. So again, this book came out in 2014. I'm not sure if he has any more books that he's written since in this series. But I found it incredibly, incredibly helpful. So Your Inner Will, I think, can help anybody who's curious about bettering themselves in the year of 2024.
Dydine 7:41
Well, absolutely, absolutely. Thank you so much for sharing that. That's you know, finding your inner will and having that power, you know, like, there are things that we can control and also our inner self, we can control that. And knowing that I think it's powerful, so check that book with us.
Alex 8:07
I've shared it I'm sure at this point.
Alex 8:14
That's because in this book is really good as a reference, I like to go back and sort of like flip through the chapters. So what did he say here? I feel like we have we have the internet for that a lot. You know, nowadays I find a lot of value in going back to books and rereading how an author sort of their words or certain concepts. Yeah, it's yeah, it it helps the lesson stick I feel like a lot of us do that through social media. Like we'll just be scrolling through Twitter, and find some piece of wisdom. Craziness. Yes. So yeah. So it's nice to go back to physical books to find those lessons.
Dydine 8:56
Absolutely. It's the best feeling to hold a book in your hands. Like before you go to bed or whenever you like to read and and just have it have, you know, touch the page, the pages. I don't know it feels it feels good. It also feels this is it feels mature. It’s sort of like you're becoming more smart or something, but learning with like holding whatever the piece of material that you have in your hands. I don't know this like because for me, I think I'm a very visual person. I think you are the same or the same, the same as well. I agree. I can remember like how I felt holding that book. I think sometimes the words kind of connects with how I felt when I was doing in the moment things like that. Yeah, so I always love love. I love books.
Dydine 10:32
The second book is titled (2) Many Lives Many Masters. This book really changed my life, all my perspective on life. And I feel like it's one of my favorite books of all time. I was introduced to it in 2016. And since then, I feel like I haven't really found another book that I feel like I can read 100 times and still find something new and it's Yeah, so it's, it's my favorite book. Many Lives, Many Masters and it's about a therapist, a psychologist. I think they went to Yale and started his practice. He had done this practice for over many, many years. Yeah, the story behind this book. I can't read it for you. I can't tell you guys what's in it because it's a it's based on one of his patients. And I think he named her Catherine (in the book). And it's confidence story and her life on her healing journey and what what he experienced with Catherine. So without spoiling everything, it's a it's a great read. Like we did I feel like you just watched the movie.
Alex 12:33
You definitely definitely have to agree with that. Yeah,
Dydine 12:37
Every time you go through every chapter, you learn something, I feel like there's one of the things for me, it helped me. HI would say this book was he helped me get rid of my fears. There are things that that there are things we're scared of that unavoidable. Like for example in here one of the main things about death, and we how we get so scared of death that we go through the whole lives scared of it when it's not escapable that that's a home for everyone. And so, just knowing it's part of life, like if you're born that if you have life, that time is gonna come and just embrace it. So I think he put me on it put me in this way good, peaceful place of embracing life as it is the challenges and also like seeking help seeking. Yeah, yes. Knowing that everything you're going through someone somewhere has went through it. And if you seek help, you're definitely going to get it. And so this was best book.
Alex 14:03
So you introduced it to me? Probably in 2019. And it took me some time to read it to get to get around reading it, but once I did. It was August of 2020. Yeah, and you know, 2020, like you said, was a crazy time. It's been crazy since then. But I really felt it's a book about spirituality. Essentially. It offers a really interesting perspective on sort of the juxtaposition of spirituality versus sort of like, practical, hard evidence. Information, I think, and it analyzes that in such a way that it just, if anything, it just allows you to be very curious about life. And how we operate as people how we relate to one another. And how we work through certain traumas and certain issues in our life. That we find sometimes to be unexplainable. You know, there's certain things that we know about ourselves that are just like, I don't understand why I am this way. And this book, turns in ways. Very traditional, I think in a lot of in a lot of ways. It doesn't mean you have to believe everything, but at the very least it allows you to be curious and it allows you to branch out your traditional way of thinking and that is a gift in and of itself. Yes. So yeah, it was a transformative book for me as well. I think I agree in that it it helped eliminate certain fears. Yeah, it helps eliminate certain uncertainties that we deal with this. And yeah, so it's a really good book, and I recommend that. Top marks that book.
Dydine 16:03
I've gifted it to so many people. Whenever I'm talking to someone and we're just, you know, talking about our issues, whatever we're going through, in my mind, I'm like, oh my god, I benefit from this book. And and the wisdom, the wisdom, the wisdom of this book. You can’t really explain it to someone unless they have read it themselves.
Alex 16:51
Yeah, it's like, it's one of those books that makes you like, shut it. And then pause for a minute. Just process everything that you're just just read, and then maybe recontextualizing if you allow it to, yes, the information that you're reading this but really allow me to recontextualize certain things that you've thought about yourself, like certain like long standing beliefs about yourself and how you know certain things that may have happened. And then that's that's the transformative power. Is the RE contextualization of certain concepts, certain themes in life. So yeah, it's a it's a page turner, and your brain will be pulling like back out the whole time.
Dydine 17:35
That way, I think that way we can I think this is this makes sense. This, you know, this is the book many lives, many masters. You can find it anywhere on Amazon. It's an old book, this book came out in the 80s By the way, a lot of y'all weren’t born.
Alex 18:15
So one book that I had come across also throughout the pandemic, I think probably 2021. This book is called (3) Factfulness. And it's by this written by the statistician named Hans Rosling. I think he has since passed away since writing this book, but I think Bill Gates had probably recommended his book where I found it. And it's called the sub stacks. There are 10 reasons we're wrong about the world and why things are better than you think. So in the enlightened society when where we kind of do scroll, and we have all these negative thoughts about how awful the world is and how things are just getting worse and worse and worse. There are certain things that the longer they go on, the more dire effect it has on us as a society. There are many things that and that's completely truthful, of course, but this man gives statistics about how certain things have actually gotten better over the course of the last several decades, the last couple of centuries. And I think a couple of examples he uses homelessness and world violence, like the violence throughout the world. He finds all the stats and stuff to support that it's trending upwards in that it's not as violent. There's more food to go around in the world. More people are getting fed. There's more connection, there's less disease, less, less children dying. So just tons of different stats statistics.
So it really kind of calms the mind. Once you read it. And this is more of a tangible thing. Where you have sort of a peace of mind be like okay, maybe the world isn't as bad as I'm here hearing from the news, the press news, news cycle or Twitter or whatever news outlets. So I recommend this book to anybody who wants to have more of a peace of mind and have some factual, tangible evidence that the world is not as bad as it as it may seem, again, that doesn't mean that there's not evil in this world. It doesn't, but it's always to be able to recognize both sides of the fence.
Dydine 20:45
You know how I mean, as you're mentioning it, I'm thinking because I mean a century ago, I left Spain of any most countries was 47. A lot of people didn't leave past 50. And now we have young people who are 50 Young supporters 60 to 70 year old now, and you'll learn that at a time when you're in your 30s you will be looking different. You will look much older than now 30s was
Alex 21:23
Yeah. You may have been in reaching the end of your life in your in your mid 30s. You're like alright, fine.
Dydine 21:33
Yeah, but for most people now around the world, the 30s You just started just turning your mind. You're just sort of leaving. Yeah. And so there is there is you know, of course, there's there's, you know, there's the I'm forgetting what the right word is? The the climate change. There's a lot of things to know to work on to maintain, and take care of mother earth and things like that. But also recognizing how far humankind has, you know, far we've gone have, how far we've come? Yeah, so yeah, guys find tactfulness and read it. Yes, it always helps to not always feel negative inside because when you consume information that makes you feel horrible about everything. Your spirit is going to feel horrible all the time. And so you also want that positivity in your life. And, in fact, instincts that have facts, you know, to how do you accomplish the things you can actually
Alex 22:44
and it makes a difference for a lot of people you know, for a lot of people seeing you're believing it gives you know, we hear people say that, Oh the world is net bet. But it's hard to believe that when all you see is the opposite. Right? All you're getting from the news stations is the opposite. And we're just people and so it's nice to have tangible evidence to accompany like you said,
Dydine 23:08
Yeah, I mean, like you when you just mentioned about, you know, what the things we find in news. I feel like the things that make the news or like the worst events that are happening around the world, or like for example, like coming from Africa that's a whole different thing coming to the US. And people looking at you like you just you know, came out of bushes or a forest like you've never seen, I don't know like a car electricity like I remember somebody asking me Okay, so do you guys. Do you guys have cars in Africa? Do you guys have swimming pools? And I was just at that time I was I feel like I came I became petty because I was like, I don't like how do you?
Alex 24:07
Yeah,
Dydine 24:09
like Yeah, so that's the thing that the perspective the person given perspectives really helps in changing people's minds, helping people understand that. Just what you see is always not what it is. And be curious and curious. It's finding more finding more finding out more Yes. Yeah. Anyway, so fourth book. Next book. Next book is a fourth one yeah. Wow, okay. So this is one of the best books out there in the world. Okay, anyway, jokes aside, when, where, how I was introduced to the book we introduced earlier many lives, many masters I was doing my internship and on my work, someone found out about my book, (4) Embracing Survival. This one says my book was published in 2016. It was probably the best work I've ever done. Not just writing by spiritually like, he was the most therapeutic thing that I've ever done, and I didn't even know that I needed. And so it was a great point. It was a tedious process, but I'm very, very proud of that came out and loved and receiving, you know, great feedback, like the feedback you've just give to fact fulness the person who wrote it, it's like putting that work. You never know how it's going to be perceived. Do you just want to share your knowledge, your heart, your spirit to the world and in the hopes that it's going to impact people? So that was my goal. And I remember I had worked with this woman. Now she's a wonderful friend of ours. She found out I had I wrote a book, she buys it. She reads it in two days. She comes back with Many Lives, Many Masters. Because she had asked, I think one of my bosses for my number, my phone number so she can, you know has made me yes, you know who that was.
Alex 26:46
You knew person beforehand?
Dydine 26:48
No, I hadn't. No. And then we're friends with my boss, my boss and she comes back to take me to lunch, and then gives me Many Lives Many Masters
Alex 27:00
Wow, that's amazing. I didn't know that story.
Dydine 27:03
Yeah and one of the things she mentioned, she was a patient of the doctor that wrote this book. She was also around the same time that this doctor was seeing Katherine, the woman in this book. Most patients are one just in time in the 80s. Right? But I remember like if I never wrote I guess if I ever wrote my book, I may have not never would have had the opportunity to learn about Many lives, Many masters. But anyway so that's another book I will recommend is Embracing Survival. Yeah. My life story, very interesting life story and the history of my country. I'm from Rwanda, and where the my country had been have gone through my friends and families and it's a it's a good read.
Alex 27:53
Yeah, it is a good read, particularly if I might say,
Dydine 27:57
Oh, yeah, you can you can talk more about it. Well, yeah, we're talking about my own work.
Alex 28:04
No, it's okay. I'll do a little bit more for you. In April, it will be the 30th commemoration of the genocide. Right. And I think that not only is it a timely reminder of humanity, but it's it's a timely reminder, not that we necessarily need it all the time, but of the evil in the world. of potential evil in the world, and how, what can potentially happen if we're not careful with one another and our own emotions, and if we're not careful with how we govern, and so on and so forth. So it is it's incredibly it's incredibly powerful. reading your story, your own testimony of your experiences. Not only do we get to learn about you as a person, but we get to see and now I'm trying not to flatter you too much, but we get to see the strength. That goes to this book, we get to understand exactly like what the inner will is capable of what that means and calling upon certain certain strengths of ours and to overcome an incredibly challenging, horrifying event for 100 days. So everybody get her book. If you haven't already read it. You will become a better person I think you'll have far more empathy than you might have your I understand the world I think a little bit better from reading that book. So that's also a (great) book. I don't want to spoil it.
Dydine 29:52
Yeah, you're making me blush already. So let's go to the next book.
Alex 30:03
Okay, book number five is a book called (5) Permission to Feel Oh, yes. So this one is by Mark Brackett. This book is all about emotional intelligence. And she she,
Dydine 30:20
Every young man out there I remember needs to read.
Alex 30:26
Yes, I was also going to say I was going to highlight men read this book. I feel currently we're watching we're watching some Netflix shows over the holidays. You know, kind of back a little bit, catch a bunch of TV. But for me, I'm seeing a lot of reality television, you get to see people sort of in heightened situations, how they react when they're in sort of critical moments, moments of high tension. And particularly men, how they how a lot of times we're not very well equipped to handle very high emotional high stress situations without devolving into either this like super masculine bravado where it's hurtful for not only other people, but yourselves as well. Yes. But it's just like it can be very damaging sometimes. It's not just for men and women and everybody else. But I want to I can speak to men because I have been, and I'm on my own journey, of course, in strengthening my emotional intelligence.lLearning not only what to say, it carries with it how you care how you say things you cadence, and how you connect, can you listen to people and suppressing the sort of animalistic sort of feral desire and impulse to just snap back. Yeah, and, you know, say whatever comes off, you know, it's off the top of your head, because it can be it can be potentially damaging. And so in this book, we'll talk about the 10 steps to just like to process what is being said information that you're receiving, and communicating what you need what you would like to say in the most productive and helpful way that's conducive to a healthy relationship with whoever, whomever you're speaking with. Of course, I don't claim to be a professional. But I do take great pride in being able to communicate effectively. Yeah, actually and emotionally because that's what life is all about communicating how you communicate is is kind of dictates your relationship.s
Dydine 32:36
Yeah, absolutely.
Alex 32:39
And so it includes especially when enter community or interpersonal communication, whether it's between husband and wife, friends, family, coworkers, whatever. Children, especially children. It's important how you communicate your feelings and your ideas with people and so it is an incredible book to read permission to feel okay, so permission to feel is also I didn't even get to the title. It's Permission to Feel how you're feeling. It's okay to feel how you're feeling. Yes. Don't bury that. Don't bury that deep deep down inside. So it comes back in and like I said, it can come off off the top of your head just reactive. Yeah. Feel your feelings understand how you feel. Yeah. And and learn certain tools and techniques to be able to, to articulate that in a manner that is helpful for everybody. yourself. Included. So men, again, going into 2024 Yeah, this can be another year of there will there will be surprises this year, things that have happened, that will happen globally that nobody will expect that nobody will know how to deal with because things like that happen all the time. And I think in order to deal with those things, seen and unforeseen, we need to make sure that our emotional intelligence is in uncheck. We have a lot of IQ, you know, our intellectual intelligence. Yeah, but the EQ emotional intelligence need to and someone correct me if I don't know what IQ stands for intellectual intelligence. It is okay. But yes, the emotional
Dydine 34:27
brain and then the hearts so it connects with hearts.
Alex 34:32
I would argue I would argue that I think there's an argument to be made that emotional intelligence is more important than intellectual intelligence. But I think if your emotional intelligence is right here, and your tools right here, that's okay. You want yeah, I'm saying is that it's incredibly important to develop. And that's why I feel like this book is very important for everybody, especially men, particularly if you have children.
Dydine 35:03
If they have teenagers and please, please give them that book. It can sometimes even with the kids, your own kids, there are some information you can really give them and they will take it because they have you know, there's a history whatever. But in a book sometimes they have no connection with that person, they have no in history with the writer and so they take him more often take that information in than if you, the parent were just talking to them. So please, if you have young men young please recommend this book.
Alex 35:43
To tell them to spend their Christmas money on it They've just got on on their book, they can go buy all the shoes or whatever they want, but also make sure they get that book too.
Dydine 35:50
Yes, actually, give them books, give them things that are going to change their lives in the future. All right the last book, it's more of like everything we just shared. This is a very small book. Very small book. It's called (6) Nonflict. Like the opposite of conflict. It's a nonprofit called A Million Peacemakers and the founder of this nonprofit had this revelation that if you can teach about peace, and bring awareness about peace, then you can change the world. Why not take the time to actually then teach about peace, teach about oneness, teach about unity, teach about things that are going to bring humanity together? Because in my country in Rwanda, back in the 90s over a million people were killed in only 100 days. How can that happen? But it's still the power of humans have. We are more powerful that we think. So you can then teach about peace, to a million people, those people are going to be able to spread that message to billions of people. So you can really reach souls of different peoples around the world. Yeah, it's just how we’re supposed to use our time and the resources and everything. And so this book, it talks about how peace begins within because if you're not a peaceful person inside, you're not going to be able to give peace to the people around you. And this is a lesson I learned. From my wonderful friend Glenn, I was like, 20 something years old, I've been appointed to be a ambassador for genocide prevention nonprofits. And I was still young, going through my own conflict within my environment! I wanted to be able to talk about peace and and, experience peace, but understanding that I also have to be able to have conflict resolution tools within myself to be able to bring about peace, to have just peace within and around me. And he said Dydine if you can achieve peace inside your heart, then you have done the work. Because automatically everyone around you, you're going to bring peace to them.
Alex 39:24
Peace is infectious. They can feel peace when they're in the presence of a peaceful person. When you meet somebody with a lot of conflict and there's a lot of pain and confusion, that can be infectious as well. Energy travels.
Dydine 39:42
Absolutely. Yes. So if you don't have peace within yourself, you find your relationships being broken. You're not going to having a good relationship with your children or your spouse, or at work. You find everything you're doing, feeling like you are at war, and you don't understand why. I don't know why this thing doesn't work for me or people don't like me or things like that, but it's that inner work, like the first book Alex you mentioned earlier, as all these books are connected. That's why we put them in one package. It's really about working on your spirit that going to change everything for you.
I'm going to read a little bit because we can close this with this book. One of the first introduction of the book, it says like a paragraph. “Are you stressed over a conflict in your life will point in conflict make make it go away? If you do try to avoid it? What if it gets worse? How do you get close? Closer to a spouse who is angry about something you don't understand? It can be the same story with your kids. There's even there's there there even maybe never ending conflict at work, making the job more stressful than ever. How do you confront conflict without causing pain for yourself, your workplace or people you care about?” So this book gives you it's the whole book is about that. How you’re able to work on your inner self and figure out tactics, figure out ways stretch strategies of not creating more conflict when you're trying to end the conflict. Because it's a skill. You may not want something but how you go about it. If it's what it's what it's more important that good things happen by how you respond to it. That's what's more important and to try to hear, like we just mentioned about the world’s conflicts. A lot of these conflicts that we don't like to hear about like war, genocide, all these big, big massive conflict that takes people's lives are happening, but what we don't realize is that there's a history of little mini things that happened in the past years that were never met with good conflict resolution and were ignored, that led to that thing building up and causing more pain.
And so that we found that we see conflict around the world, what can we do? Is it taking sides? Is it trying to just be on the side of humanity is the I don't know praying, some people praise their donations, is it? I don't know. There is a lot for us as individuals we can do. And I do hope that when you feel like the world is going down to not allow yourself to go down with it. Because then you won't be able to be help anyone. We’re keen to find your inner strength so that you can actually be that person for those that need you. They can lean on your shoulder because you can stand tall and them. And so a lot of these books are really just creating that inner strength, the ability to communicate you know, things that are needed, because sometimes, like you said, communication is the key. Because all this conflict is literally conversations that were never had, but it's just a conversation. That was what we’ve never had and people choose to fight. People choose to kill one another. But if they were calm, they were a conversation with a good skilled communication, that will really help.
Alex 44:04
Yeah, and I want to add to that as well. We have to realize the value of that conversation and what can actually come from that. Because a lot of a lot of times I feel, you know, that we feel that we feel collectively as people that conversation only gets you so far and of course we need to be taking positive action to follow up the conversation. But we have to understand the value of the of that communication. And yes, again, it's you know, people are complicated and like you said that the history is that many transgressions that build up into a massive conflict. Yes, multifaceted and and very old, a lot of that stuff but we have to remember the value of the peace, striving for peace.
Understand that our power to change things that we speak so often about lies within us. We all are capable of that. And we only need to turn on our lights instead of soaking in the darkness.
Dydine 45:50
Yes! So that was the that was six books that we were going to recommend.
Alex 46:51
I feel like we covered covered most of it. But I also I want to express thanks for everybody in the bay streams community that has embraced us over the last several years and been a part of the conversation. And I hope that you have learned something as we did even when you leave we have learned about ourselves and about life and about people and our many, many, many conversations that we've had with people. So I thank you all for for coming on this journey for listening to what we have to say, and for being a part of the conversation and educating us, particularly where we need to so we're not going anywhere. We're still here. We're still we're still on our journeys and learning and navigating through life. So thank you so much, everybody.
Dydine 47:43
Thank you and you can find us on all platforms. Podcast platforms are Apple, Spotify. I mean every podcast platform you can find cool new conversations.
Alex 48:16
Okay, all right. Happy holidays!