Summary
Joe tells the story of being kicked out of his home as a teenager and arriving at boarding school with a compulsive lying habit born from wanting to be seen and impress people. A boy named Alex Bell sat him down near the end of the year and said, with an open and loving heart, “We would all probably like you if you didn’t lie so much.” Joe stopped lying on the spot.
The story illustrates that true compassion is not the same as being nice. Compassion sometimes means speaking a difficult truth with an open heart, giving someone the chance to see a reality they couldn’t see on their own.
Key Concepts
Key Quotes
“He said this incredibly difficult thing to me and he did it with such an open loving heart that it was undeniable.”
“Often times what we think of as compassion is being nice. What we think of as being loving is being nice.”
“Being compassionate is when we are openhearted and speaking our truth.”
Transcript
when I was just getting into high school there was a tremendous amount of turmoil in my family and so my parents basically kicked me out of the house and like the cops got involved all this stuff happened and I ended up at a boarding school and by that time in my life I I so badly wanted to impress people I wanted to be seen I wanted attention that I was just compulsively lying so I would just lie about all these things I’ve been to this show I’ve been I’d done this kind of skateboarding trick all this stuff and uh this went on for pretty much the whole year probably got worse and worse as the Year got on and um and near the end of the year there was this kid Alex Bell and I remember his name and I I can tell you I don’t remember anybody else’s name from that school right and he said to me like near the end he said Hey Joe like we would all probably like you if you didn’t lie so much it was just this thing like he he sat me down to talk to me about it he took this risk right I could have denied that I was lying I could have gotten angry at him I there’s so many things that could have happened and he said this incredibly difficult thing to me and he did it with such an open loving heart that just it was undeniable and literally at that moment I just stopped lying I I like I saw the truth in what he had said and I was young enough it hadn’t like gotten entrenched in my nervous system so much that I was doing this thing over and over again it it was just this thing where I I just heard him and it just stopped and it was the most compassionate act that anybody had ever done for me up until that time in my life and the reason I’m telling you the story is because often times what we think of compassion is like being nice what we think of being loving is being nice when I’m hanging out say like on Twitter or if I’m interacting with people coaching often times people confuse this idea of oh I don’t want to say anything that upsets them with that’s being nice that’s being loving that’s being compassionate and the truth is that being compassionate is when we are openhearted and speaking our truth because then people can see a reality that they might not be able to see and sometimes that’s very supportive and sometimes that’s telling somebody that they’re a liar