442. What Are The Four Agreements?

Today, Ronni and Brittany discuss some good advice that can help people of all ages live a better life.

Here’s a transcript of our conversation:

Brittany: Hi, Ronni.

Ronni: Hey, Brittany.

Brittany: So, we like discussing books we love, or books we think it’s important for people to read, and that’s what I want to do today. I want to talk about a book called The Four Agreements and summarize. You probably want to wait until you’re a little older, just because I think it’s a little bit more advanced, but I think there’s some really good things to take out of it. So, for starters, one thing to let you know about me, I love books that are kind of motivational books. I like books where I read ’em and I’m just like, yeah, I want to be a better person. I want to do this. That’s one reason I love Jordan Peterson and the Tuttle Twins version of his 12 Rules for Life, the 12 Rules Bootcamp. So, I like books that challenge me to be a better person and that teach me things that can help me be a better person. So, Ronni, have you ever heard of this book before? Agreements?

Ronni: I have not. So, I am very interested in what you have to say about it right now.

Brittany: Yeah. Okay. And I’m going to be honest with you, I just told you this before we hit play, and I wasn’t going to admit this, but I have actually not read the book but hold on sitting On my bookshelf and somebody gave it to me years ago, but I’ve studied it. I’ve watched YouTube videos on it to take out what the four agreements are. So, I was like, I really want to talk about it, which is silly because you read a book.

Ronni: On the book is what you’re saying.

Brittany: I’ve read books on the books, and I’ve listened to podcasts on the books. So, this is me being quite silly, but I thought when I was listening to some of these four agreements, I was like, this is a really good topic, and I thought it would be fun to share with our listeners. And then maybe when I read it.

Ronni: I’ll have an update.

Brittany: So, there are just some standard rules or agreements, sorry. And by agreement, what is an agreement that’s a deal you make or an arrangement you come to. So, these are agreements you make with yourself to live the best possible life you can. And one thing I think I’ve said a million times is I wish I had this podcast when I was younger because some of these tips would’ve been so useful to me that I didn’t have. So, let’s jump into the first one, and that’s be impeccable with your word. So, what does that mean? That basically means mean what you say and say what you mean. What does that mean to you, Ronni? What did those people say before? What do you think that means?

Ronni: Well, I think it means that you, it’s basically just be honest, say things that you plan to do, and then hold yourself to them. So, if you say you’re going to do them, do them, and don’t say you’re going to do things that you’re not planning to do.

Brittany: I love that you said it that way. I didn’t think about that, but that’s something that I’ve tried to get a lot better at as I’ve gotten older, is I used to not say no to things I didn’t want to go to. And I would say yes to things that I 100% knew that I was not going to attend. It was almost like I felt bad saying no, or I just didn’t want to deal with it, I don’t know. I don’t know why I did that, but I would say yes to things knowing full well, like somebody, oh, come to my birthday party. I’m like, yeah, that sounds great. I’ll be there. I’m like, I know I’m not going to go to that. I dunno why I said yes. And then it made me seem like what they call a flaky person, someone who doesn’t follow through on what they say they’re going to do. And that was true. I was being a flaky person, and again, it would’ve been so easy for me to just say, no, I’m sorry, I don’t want to do that. I didn’t even have to give an excuse. I don’t have to say like, oh, I have this to do. I can just say, no, I’m sorry, I won’t be able to make it. That’s all it really takes. Right? But I didn’t say it. And even though that seems like a little thing that I think impacts your character, because over time if you don’t do what you say you’re going to do, people notice that and they start realizing that they can’t trust you to follow through with things. And I think that’s something that I had to come to terms with, oh, people probably don’t trust me to take on these tasks. I just don’t do them. Or even I would always start projects and be like, yeah, I’m going to finish this and not finish that. So, yeah, I think this is a really good rule because mean what you say and say what you mean, and this is one part I really like. And that is when in doubt say nothing at all. And that’s really hard. We did an episode and I can’t remember because I did two similar episodes. I did do this one with you or did this one with Connor? Actually, no, I think this one.

Ronni: It May be with Connor, maybe this one with Connor?

Brittany: Yeah, no, it was with Connor where I talked about the importance of saying, I don’t know. I think it’s important when you don’t have an answer or maybe, I don’t know if I can come to something, an event somebody asked me, just saying, I don’t know if that’s true if I dunno the time or realizing that I don’t have to have a set opinion or thought on every single thing if I don’t have the information to know that. Right? I think a lot of times we want to say things, we want to be a part of the conversation, and so we say things, but how can we really mean what we say or say what we mean if we’re not really fully educated on a topic? So, this goes in a lot of different directions. So that’s why I think this is a really good lesson of just keeping you not even just honest, but just making sure you are very intentional with everything you say. Intentional meaning it has everything you say has an intent, if that makes sense.

Ronni: Well, then can I just say that I am glad that you started off this episode, then admitting that you have not read the book because good point? That ties in very well here.

Brittany: You know what, I’m going to pat myself on the back for not lying or not, I shouldn’t say not lying for not telling the full story. So, thank you. I think that’s a really good point. That’s really good. So, yeah, the next one is don’t take anything personally. And I love this because I, up until probably last year, took everything personally, always. So, when somebody like the things other people say or do to us, that’s a reflection of what’s going on in their own lives and their own heads. Let’s say I was a theater kid in high school. Let’s say some kid thought theater was dumb and they made fun of me like, oh, losers are in theater only, blah, blah, blah. Well, that’s something that’s their issue. Maybe somebody made fun of them when they were younger. Maybe a parent was mean to them about them wanting to be in a play. I don’t know. I don’t know what they’re going through. I don’t know why they said that to me, but it has nothing to do with me. It has to do with them and the life they’re living. And so if you listen to every little thing or you’re worried constantly about what everybody thinks of you, you’re going to have a really unhappy life. You’re not going to do the things you like. So, don’t take things personally. And when you learn not to think things personally, people have less power over your mood because their words and actions, they don’t impact you as much because you realize like, oh, this person is dealing with their own stuff. This has nothing to do with me. So, that’s something, oh man, that is something I wish I would’ve learned. I think I would’ve had such a better time as a teenager and as a kid if I had just not taken every little thing personally.

Ronni: That’s a hard one, but that’s important. I need to do that too.

Brittany: It’s been easier, right? Yeah, it gets hard even as an adult. Guys, this next one, I think, oh, this is so important in all your relationships with every person, your siblings, your moms, your dads, your friends. And that’s make assumptions. So, when we make assumptions, what our brain is really doing is it’s pretending that we know the intent of others. So we know why someone did something. And when we think we know that we can cast blame. So, let’s say, and I think we’ve all been there before, you’re having kind of a bad day, and maybe your sibling comes in and tries to talk to you, and you’re a little bit dismissive, right? You’re like, oh, you’re just not paying attention, tired. Or you’re just having an off day and you’re doing your own thing. But then they think that you hate them for some reason, or they think that you’re mad at them. Have you ever had something like this happen to you, Ronni, where someone is just a little off and then you assume it’s because of you, and then maybe you get mad at them like, what did I do? Why do you mean you get kind of defensive? So, we suffer when we do that, but the thing is we don’t know, kind of like the first one. We don’t know what’s going on in someone’s head. We can never know what’s going on in someone’s head, so we shouldn’t assume to know. And that goes both ways. I shouldn’t assume, Ronni, that you know what I’m thinking. And I’ve done this a lot in friendships where I get my feelings hurt because I’m like, well, they should have known that that meant a lot to me, even though I’ve never told them that, right? And so that gets us into trouble because again, Ronni can’t know what’s going in my head on in my head right now, and I can’t know what’s going on hers, which is why it’s so important to communicate with each other and make sure we know this because when you don’t, someone’s feelings get hurt, and it’s usually your own fault if you were making those assumptions.

Ronni: I would say too that other than just don’t make assumptions, if you’re going to assume something, always assume the best until different. That’s a perspective that I’ve always tried to take on. Well, I try to. I’m not always the best at it either, but I find that for me, it’s a little bit more helpful instead of saying they don’t make any assumptions because I know my mind’s going to go to something. So, it’s easier for me to say assume the best until otherwise. So, if someone does something to you or says something mean to you, assume they didn’t mean to say it that way. Assume they were responding because they’re frustrated about something else, assume the best.

Brittany: I like that. No, I think that’s really good because yeah, I mean, I think we always go to worst-case scenarios. At least I overthink everything. I think you’ve said that you’ll overthink things too. Yes, I do. And so I think that’s something that is hard for us overthinkers to do because I can’t just look at somebody’s actions and be like, oh, they did this. I’m like, why did they do that? Let me think of 50 million reasons why they could have done that. And all of them are bad. So, that’s a really good point. So, the last one is always do your best. And this actually reminded me, well, I’ll get to that in a minute. So, if you’re just doing things to do them, you’re not going to want to do them well. And I know that sounds like weird, but if you’re just doing things because it’s there first, or sorry, if you’re doing things because you want to do them and you want to try your best, you’re going to enjoy doing them much more. You’re going to be challenging yourself. When I go running, if I’m going running and I don’t want to, and I have a bad attitude about it, I don’t push myself as much, but when I am running and I set a goal, I want to run this fast today. I’m enjoying it, I’m reaching my goal and I want to do my best. And then I think it also helps you because you’ll stop judging and talking badly to yourself if something goes wrong, you’ll know you try your best. If I don’t hit my running goal, but I tried my best. I’m not going to be mad at myself after I’m going to say, you know what? I need to work a little bit harder, but good for me trying my best. That’s something that makes you feel better and feel more accomplished. And I think that’s a really good thing. And when you want to try your best or basically do something that’s going to make you want to try your best. And I bring this up because I think in school a lot, especially public school when you’re forced to do subjects you really don’t want to do. Ronni loves science. I didn’t like science. I would’ve loved to focus on my writing all day instead of having to.

Ronni: I didn’t actually like science very much. I was more of a math person. And actually, I didn’t even like math when I was in school. It wasn’t until I was an adult that I liked math.

Brittany: But what’s funny about this, so it wasn’t until you could choose to do math that you liked math. And that’s kind of the part of this, right? When you’re forced to do something you don’t want to do, you’re less likely to try your best just doing it. You have to. So actually, Ronni, that plays perfectly to the point where when you wanted to do it, it got better. You wanted to do it. You started finding interest in it. And I actually took a math class for fun as an adult on YouTube, congrats. There was a college student, congrats, yeah, it was years ago. But there was a college teacher who recorded all his lessons on YouTube, and I ended up learning so much about math that it became, I started loving, I started doing matrices for fun. Now, this didn’t last very long.

Ronni: Oh, I was going to say, you always say you don’t like math, but well, I’m glad to know that there was at least one time you were getting excited.

Brittany: That’s the thing, when I have good teachers that make me excited about it, I love math. It was just like college professors bad high school teachers and bad elementary school teachers. That ruined it for me. So, yeah, I actually really like math when it’s in an environment where I feel like I understand it. So, yeah, so that’s fun. Facts about me. I don’t always hate math. Yay. Well, this is a thesis. These are the rules from the four agreement books. Again, I’m going to have to read the actual book, but there are some great videos about it, and I just really liked these four agreements. I don’t think that you can go wrong if you make these promises to yourself. So, yeah, that’s it for today. Don’t forget to like and subscribe to the podcast. Until next time, we’ll talk to you soon.

Ronni: All right, talk to you later.

Children's Books Complete Series: Limited-Time Sale 35% OFF