An Angry Therapist’s Guide to a Meaningful Life

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Parenting with a Story Podcast

Paul Smith

10 episodes

3 months ago

Tell a young person what to do - play fair, be yourself, stick to the task at hand - and most will tune you out. But show them how choices and consequences play out in the real world, with real people, and the impact will be far more effective and long-lasting. Based on interviews with over 100 people from around the world and from all walks of life as they reflect on their most profound and unexpected moments of clarity about who they are and how they should treat others. The lessons help teach 23 powerful character traits that will help your child grow into the adult you'll be proud to call your own.
Character Traits from Parenting with a Story: ambition, open-mindedness, creativity, curiosity & learning, courage, integrity, self-reliance, grit, hard work, self-confidence, money & delayed gratification, health, positive mental attitude, dealing with loss, kindness, patience, fairness & justice, humility, respect for others, friendship, social intelligence, forgiveness & gratitude, appreciation of beauty.

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An Angry Therapist’s Guide to a Meaningful Life

Parenting with a Story Podcast

19 minutes 49 seconds

6 years ago

An Angry Therapist’s Guide to a Meaningful Life

My guest this week is John Kim. He’s a licensed marriage and family therapist and one of the the pioneers of the online life coaching movement.
Interestingly, he calls himself the “Angry Therapist.” It’s essentially an admission that, while he was a licensed therapist and life coach, he was no better off than the people he was helping — and admission that probably made him a more empathetic therapist.
More to the point of our conversation, John is the author of a new book called, I USED TO BE A MISERABLE F*CK: An Everyman’s Guide to a Meaningful Life which we dug right into.
John lays out 66 Dos and Don’ts in the book, some of which are listed below. The ones in bold we actually had time to talk about, and you can see exactly where in the conversation those came up.
John was a lot of fun to talk to. So, please click play above and give enjoy the dialogue. But, be warned, I will fully pronounce the title of his book several times. 🙂
John’s 66 Do’s and Don’t include:

Do be vulnerable
Don’t be a douche, don’t be a bully, and don’t whine
Don’t choose passion over purpose (6:00)
Do participate in self-care
Don’t get trapped in your bubble, don’t stay in your comfort zone, and don’t take yourself too seriously
Do go on man dates, and also do some things on your own
Do admit when you were wrong or when you don’t know the answer to something.
Don’t pee in the shower (10:22)
Don’t stop courting your partner
Do create your own definition of success instead following the definitions of others.
Do separate who you are from what you do
Do make your bed
Don’t be afraid to fail
Do try to understand before being understood (11:55)

We also talked about:

* How to respond and not react (13:05)
* Going from Misery to Meaning (15:10), including how he got the name, the “Angry Therapist”.

You can find John at theangrytherapist.com.
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Paul Smith is one of the world’s leading experts on business storytelling. He’s a keynote speaker, storytelling coach, and bestselling author.
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