Episode Transcript
[00:00:03] So what if the difference between joy and misery in life wasn't luck, wasn't money, wasn't even personality, but was simply an echo?
[00:00:19] Think about it. We all know those people who walk into a room and suddenly it's lighter. People laugh, opportunities appear.
[00:00:29] Kindness follows them around like a puppy.
[00:00:34] And then we know the others, the ones who drag clouds into every room. They enter, they repel joy, they repel opportunity.
[00:00:45] So what's the difference?
[00:00:46] What's their secret?
[00:00:49] I'll tell you this much. It's not lucky, it's not fate, and it's not magic.
[00:00:55] The answer, at least for me, came written on a napkin.
[00:01:02] I'm Bradley Charbonneau, and this is Thursday Thunder. This is part of a new series called Daringly Fred X.
[00:01:10] He's the second cousin twice removed on my mother's side from Ted.
[00:01:17] So I was in Almeria, in southern Spain. I was at a long table with four German attorneys. And then there's me, the California boy who lives in the Netherlands now, you might assume, like I'm the lively one at this table. But no. These Germans, they're hilarious. I'm often the quietest one.
[00:01:41] It's a glorious February afternoon. The white wine is flowing. The fresh fish is arriving faster than we can eat it.
[00:01:49] And the laughter. It's the kind of laughter where you slap your knees and practically choke on your tapas.
[00:01:57] One of these attorneys was even my college roommate in Montpellier in France.
[00:02:03] He and his friends have this quirky habit of writing little philosophies on napkins that somehow stick with me for years.
[00:02:12] So I noticed something at this lunch. Our waitress with us, she's radiant. She's joking, teasing, alive.
[00:02:22] But another table.
[00:02:24] She's calm, polite, almost ordinary.
[00:02:27] So I turn to my friend, the German attorney, who's married to a Spanish woman, and I ask, why is she so different with us?
[00:02:37] Why is she alive here and muted over there?
[00:02:42] He smiles.
[00:02:44] And my other friend, the German philosopher, grabs a napkin, takes a pen and writes this down.
[00:02:53] It says, wie du Indwald hin einhufst, so schalt is hin aus.
[00:03:07] I have the. I don't have the napkin with me. I will put it up on the screen here when I get it.
[00:03:13] Okay? You ready for a little German lesson? I'll explain. I'll translate it in a minute. But I'd like you to hear the German again, and I'd like you to practice it. You ready?
[00:03:22] So wie du in den Walt hin ein roofs so schalt es hin aus Got it. One more time. One more time. I know. This is brutal. It's like he's really giving us German lessons. I am.
[00:03:43] We do. In den valt hein ein roost.
[00:03:48] So schult es hin aus.
[00:03:54] Ready for the translation? I know people like, I've had enough of the German. Bradley, give me the translation. Here we go.
[00:04:00] As you call into the forest, or as you cry into the forest, or as you shout into the forest so it echoes back.
[00:04:16] Ready? One more time. One more time. I probably repeated, like, another 17 times. That's. By the end, I either want you to hate it or love it, but I want you to recognize it. Widuinden walt hin. Ein rooster.
[00:04:30] As you call into the forest so it echoes back.
[00:04:36] Germans don't mess around, right? They don't say karma. They don't say, you reap what you sow. They give you a picture, a forest, your voice, your echo.
[00:04:49] And suddenly I understood.
[00:04:52] The waitress wasn't just being nice, she was echoing us.
[00:04:58] We gave joy, she gave joy back.
[00:05:03] We played, she played back.
[00:05:06] The other table. Silence in, silence out.
[00:05:11] And isn't this true in our own lives, at home, at work, with friends, with strangers, if we call out anger, we get anger echoed back.
[00:05:22] If we call out laughter, we get laughter. If we call out nothing, the world often gives us nothing.
[00:05:30] We stand in our own forest every day, and the echo is always listening.
[00:05:40] Families echo each other, kids echo parents, teams echo leaders.
[00:05:44] You know those companies where everyone's tense and no one smiles. It's not an accident, it's an echo.
[00:05:51] Communities do it too. Neighborhoods, entire cultures. We echo what's called out.
[00:05:57] And on the biggest stage, politics, war, social media. Not even to go there. Let's get back to Spain. Let's get back to a table of friends, white wine and fish. And echoing out into the forest.
[00:06:09] What we want to deliver to the world and what may come back.
[00:06:16] The forest is neutral. It doesn't choose does it want good or bad. It echoes.
[00:06:22] So here is the simple, powerful truth.
[00:06:25] If you don't like the echo you're hearing, change your call.
[00:06:32] Some say smile first, say, say thank you, offer kindness before you expect it back.
[00:06:40] Test it on your barista, your colleagues, your kids.
[00:06:44] You can't always change the forest, but you can always change your call.
[00:06:51] And when you do, the forest can't help but echo back.
[00:06:57] So maybe these people who seem to live in sunshine and laughter aren't lucky. They're not charmed, they just call out differently. They call joy into the forest and the forest echoes Joy back.
[00:07:15] The question is, what will you call into the forest?
[00:07:22] I know you want to hear it one more time. I know you're trying to repeat it. You're trying to get the German. It's going to happen, I swear. Here we go. Ready? One last time.
[00:07:32] We do.
[00:07:34] Inden walt hen ein roost.
[00:07:40] So schalt es hin aus.
[00:07:46] I'm bringing it today. I can feel it. I know you can feel it. I'm Bradley Schraviner, this is Thursday Thunder. And this possibly is Fred X, second cousin twice removed on my mother's side. It I'm here every single week and every single day, I'm doing my absolute best to call into that forest in a way that I want it to be echoed back.
