Episode Transcript
[00:00:01] Speaker A: It's a feeling many of us know all too well. Glancing over at the neighbor's new car, scrolling through Instagram, seeing that picture perfect couple on a lavish vacation, or hearing about the latest gadget your kid's friend's parents just bought them, and then suddenly it feels like we're in a race we never even signed up for. Today, we're diving into the world of keeping up with the Joneses. Join us as we take a look into the dangers of trying to keep up and see how couple can navigate these external pressures without losing sight of what truly matters.
[00:00:32] Speaker B: Hey, we're Kim and Roger, and we're here to show couples how to get the best out of their relationship so they can start living their dream life together.
[00:00:39] Speaker A: We're a West Aussie couple who are living the life of our dreams. We don't entertain the word should. We think about the future as a field of possibilities, and we let joy be our compass.
[00:00:47] Speaker B: We've taken the simple idea of working as a team and applied it to our marriage, and it's been a game changer, allowing us to work out what truly lights us up in life and to go after it together.
[00:00:56] Speaker A: From living in snowy Japan to starting our own house ripping business, we've achieved some big dreams. And most importantly, we feel fulfilled and are having the most fun we've ever had.
[00:01:04] Speaker B: Hear conversations from inspiring couples, thoughts from relationship experts, and tales from our own lives as we help you to gain the wisdom and skills you'll need to turn your relationship into a real team.
[00:01:14] Speaker A: These are relationship conversations for real people, by real people. So sit back, get comfortable, whatever tickles you pickle, and enjoy living the team life.
Today, we're talking about the topic or the subject of keeping up with the Joneses. I think everyone's heard this saying, are you trying to keep up with the Joneses or we're always trying to keep up with the Joneses. Really, it's about looking over your neighbor's fence or looking at someone close by and always wishing in terms of status or possessions that maybe you had, that maybe you could have their lives. And the funny thing is, the origin of this dates back over 100 years ago to 1913 in a New York newspaper, and there was a comic strip, and it was actually titled Keeping Up with the Joneses. And it depicted the social struggles of the McGinnis family, as they were always trying to keep up with their neighbors, who were called the Joneses. Now, the funny thing is, the Joneses were never actually shown at all in the comic as people, but they were always referenced by the family, the McGinnis's, as who they were always trying to be and emulate.
[00:02:30] Speaker B: I think that's really interesting what you say, that the Joneses were never actually shown in the comic because the whole concept of keeping up with the Joneses is really about an idea you have in your mind, right, of how something should be. It's a should in life. I should have that. I should have achieved that. That's what success should look like. And now that I'm thinking about it, I'd be curious to know whether way back in 1913, those creators were quite deliberate in the fact that it's a fantasy, it's not real. The Joneses aren't even real. It's kind of fascinating to ponder that now.
That aside, the concept that the comic created is certainly still relevant today. And we've seen it progress through history back from 1913 in the comic, as you sort of outlined there, Roger, through to the 50s when we saw it really ramp up, that post War era when we had a lot of innovation and a lot of wealth in the as a result, people bought new cars and new toys and new electrical equipment, new TVs, things like that that they hadn't previously seen. And so people would literally look over their fence at Bob and Betty Jones and say, well, I want one of those. I want that car. I want that new promotion. I want what Bob's got, or what Betty's got. And that was really a product of wanting what your physical neighbor had. How that's evolved now in more recent times with the Internet is obviously significantly different because instead of just trying to keep up with the people in our physical neighborhood, we're now exposed to people all over the world. We are hyper, hyper connected, and we're exposed to people with vastly different resources to us. We think back to people in our own neighborhood. They may have been more similar in some ways in terms of their lives and their upbringings, but we're now exposed to influencers billionaires people well outside of our day to day realm. And these people can choose what they say. We're not just hyperconnected, we're also hyper curated now. So the Joneses can actually be very particular about what they show on the Internet. And another way this has sort of evolved is the comparison has not just stayed with the physical material things we have. We've now evolved into keeping up with the Joneses in terms of experiences, what holidays we go on, what crazy activities we undertake, and lifestyle, what does our lifestyle look like, what are our relationships like? All these sorts of things. What are our daily schedules like we compete or compare on all of these things. And that's sort of how Keeping Up With the Joneses has evolved into what it is today.
[00:05:25] Speaker A: Yeah. And where we are today is we're at 95 million photos and videos being uploaded and shared on Instagram every single day.
That's right. I googled it.
We're spoiled for choice. We are constantly bombarded with these new ideas that are telling us how they're going to make our lives. You know, when Kim and I were growing, just you just watch TV and the ads would tell you, this is what you need. This is what you do. You might see it in a Cleo magazine or whatever, maximum magazine I was reading back in the day and stuff like that. But today it's in podcasts, today it's on YouTube, it's on Instagram. So we've got all these choices, all this information coming at it and it's telling us, hey, if you do A, your life is going to be better. And they really start to get into your, what is it? Your lizard brain, your reptilian brain, the primal brain where science tells us that's, where we make a lot of our purchasing decisions. We bypass the rational part of our brain. Especially marketing companies really know how to do this and they go straight for the, I guess, emotional and dopamine hits in the brain. I think the fact is today that society is still so driven by status and a lot of it is you talked about lifestyle and material things and holidays, but also business as well. It's not enough to have a nine to five job. You got to have side hustles. There's so many people even on the internet telling you that, hey, you can earn six figure eight figure, nine figure salaries or you can have these businesses and there's even people saying like, I just went and had a 15 minutes poo and made 20 grand.
Most of my best ideas happen on the toilet, but I'm not making 20 grand right now.
[00:07:24] Speaker B: We wish we would be gazillionaires.
No, absolutely.
It's a lot of information out there from that telling us about what else is out there, what else is possible, right? And that's really how that Joneses idea has expanded. The Joneses are now everything and everybody.
We are not just trying to keep up with the people immediately around us, we are trying to keep up with everyone all around the world. So let's unpack why we're talking about that today and what some of the dangers we see are in trying to keep up with the Joneses. And the first thing we just wanted to talk about was you never know what's really happening in someone's life behind closed doors. Behind closed doors.
What we see on the outside is just such a tiny part of their life and if we really think about it in terms of what we see online so social media wise, what people show us on social media, especially high profile people, is not who they are. They're not trying to represent who they really are as a human. They're trying to create a brand. They have a very specific agenda and that agenda is to get you to ultimately purchase something from them and they curate everything they put out to create this idea that you will hopefully connect with that marketers have told them is the right way to connect with people. It's not at all who they are. So thinking if I do A, I'm going to become like this person, it's just not reality. That person isn't the brand that they have very carefully curated.
[00:09:13] Speaker A: Yeah, I think we do this on an individual level as well. Just like the invisible neighbors in the Keeping Up with the Joneses comic strip we talked about off the top of the show. We often don't see our friends, neighbors, the parents at the school group as who they are, but we see what car they drive, where they live, what holiday they're going on and often we go oh, that's what we want to be, but perhaps not exactly who they know. I think Kim and I are very open about many aspects of our relationship. Obviously we have a relationship podcast and so we are vulnerable and we're very accessible. We also open up and talk about our daughter's disability. She's autistic and non speaking. But what we are finding is a lot of people don't do that. They don't talk about, I guess, the nuts and bolts or the nitty gritty in their life. They've got this brand that Kim was talking about and as we're getting older we're finding that beneath that brand, when you pull back the curtain, that life isn't actually so perfect. And there's a lot of stuff going on in the background marriage troubles, health issues, financial struggles, mental health issues and I think especially if we're just looking at the outside and we're not really totally immersing in their lives, we can totally be misguided about what's really happening for them.
[00:10:37] Speaker B: Yes, absolutely.
And a second point we have that we think is one of the dangers of trying to Keep Up with the Joneses is, and really goes to that first point, is a focus on extrinsic so that's outside of yourself rather than intrinsic, which is what within you. And some of the pitfalls of focusing extrinsically are research tells us that when we focus, for example, on social media and we get that feeling of FOMO, that fear of missing out. Research has made a very clear link between that and increased anxiety in people.
Research is also showing that constant comparison with others online can contribute to lower self esteem.
It's really as a collective saying that comparing yourself, looking outside to see your sense of worth or to create your sense of worth in yourself is negatively impacting your mental health. It creates this gap mentality I'm not good enough, I'm missing out on something.
I don't have what they have, what's wrong with me?
The counter to this, the alternative to this is actually that research shows that when we focus intrinsically on your own values, your own interests, what your goals are, that's actually very clearly linked to an increased well being in individuals and an increased life satisfaction. Now, what are we after? Are we after a moment of feeling like we have the same shoes or the same way of wearing athletic wear as one of the girls online and we look cool for 5 seconds in our minds. I mean, even the word cool is uncool. That shows how much Roger and I don't really buy into this stuff.
Or are we after greater life satisfaction and higher well being?
It's so clear when you think about it like that. But because our worlds are so connected to social media, a lot of us are focusing more on the extrinsic than the intrinsic. And another thing I just want to say on that is that research has also shown that activities so the activities we choose to engage in that are driven from intrinsic motivation, so from the things we value and ourselves and who we are from within actually create higher levels of happiness and vitality in people. So that's all the good stuff. So when we go intrinsic more mentally well, higher levels of quality of life, when we go extrinsically focused, lower levels of mental health, increased anxiety and lower levels of contentment and happiness.
[00:13:34] Speaker A: Those studies ring so true and make so much sense. And for me, it's just amazing how much time people and us as well spend worrying about what other people think about them when the truth is, and I'm sorry to say, most people don't think about you that much at all. And if they do, it's fleeting. It's a hard hitting truth, but it is the truth. I mean, think about how much time you spend judging others. It probably isn't hopefully it isn't that much. But then think about how much time you worry about other people judging you. And it's a nil sum game because in the end, that new Volvo in two years is going to be not so new Volvo that holiday away, which you had to put fully on the credit card. Yeah, there were some great memories, but that credit card is going to start gaining interest over time. So these new novelties, they do become not so new after a while and we start chasing our tail. And there is, I guess, always an other side and an other effect to them if we're doing it just for no other reason than for the extrinsic reward or extrinsic feedback as opposed to the intrinsic reward or the intrinsic feedback.
So the third point we'd like to make about what are some of the dangers of always trying to keep up with the Joneses is that it's a pretty big risk to assume that someone else's version, happiness is also going to be your version of happiness. The divorce rate in Australia is about 40%. Stress and mental health issues are at an all time high. And I think in general, a lot of people are feeling under the pump. And from a point of logic, doing what everyone else doing right now I don't think is the best path towards success. Doing what everyone else is doing to go after success might give you a start in life because you are following the herd. But if you blindly do that and don't actually take stock of where you are, I think you'll likely find you spend a lot of your time chasing your tail and maybe even a lot of time and effort doing the things which you thought lit you up because you saw the Joneses doing it or your friends doing it, but don't actually bring you that reward or bring you that happiness. You need to take agency and stock of the things in your life that make you happy, and by making just those assumptions that what everyone else is doing is going to give you that feedback. When we know for a fact that a lot of people aren't that happy, you just might not find what you're looking for.
[00:16:00] Speaker B: Yeah, it's a dangerous thing, isn't it? To assume that your values line up with others. We are such complex creatures as humans, and we draw from all of our individual experiences through childhood, through young adulthood, through adulthood, and that all impacts what makes us who we are at our core and what really gives us joy in life. And we have to go about exploring that. To think that someone else's version of happiness will also be your own version of happiness, it just can't be right. There's too many factors in what make us who we are for us to be exactly the same as someone else. And it's a joyful thing to explore who you are, to find out what really makes you tick, what really brings you happiness in life, contentment in life. I look back and I think to my 20s, my early 20s especially. And I was really struggling in this space because the environment I was raised in and the career I started out in was not really aligned with my core being now. It made a lot of sense to me because it's all I had known. And so I started down a path and I used to say to you, roger, I don't feel connected with myself. I feel like I'm a split person sometimes. I have this job and this life that reflects one version of me, but it doesn't feel like who I really am. And what I was trying to express is the person I had grown up as didn't fit my soul. It wasn't intrinsically who I was. I had been so influenced by the outside in a certain direction, and so I spent the rest of my 20s unpacking what really made me up, what really gave me joy in life. And I will be on that journey, I have no doubt, for the rest of my life. But what a difference it's made, because I have made decisions since then and chosen paths based on knowing myself and who I am, based on what I value. What is important to me in life and the joy in my life is they're not even comparable. The life I was living before. Confused, chaotic, very confused, very unsure of why and what things were happening compared to now where I feel aligned in myself.
They're apples and oranges.
[00:18:24] Speaker A: You can see why people might hit burnout and they're sitting there going or they're unfulfilled in their lives and they're at a loss because they're like, I'm doing everything right, aren't I? I've got the white picket fence. I've got foofy the puppy dog. I've got 2.4 kids. I've got a beautiful husband or wife. I work in a high paying job. We have a Volvo, we have a Mazda.
We go on holidays to Rot Rest and to Italy. We go skiing and I work my ring off and the kids go to the right school and it's like, why aren't I happy? Why aren't I fulfilled? And it's like, we're not saying that you can't have those things, you can't want those things, but don't make the assumption that they're going to make you happy. Take control.
[00:19:14] Speaker B: I love that. And I think part of this that maybe doesn't get discussed very much is sometimes it's hard to work out that just because you're good at something doesn't mean it's what you want to do. And I think that's something that our listeners will identify with because of the type of listener we have. Who we know are interested in growing themselves, who we know are interested in personal development, those sorts of people are often quite good at what they're doing because they apply themselves wherever they go, which can really muddy the waters when you're trying to work out if that's something that actually brings you joy. And it takes a lot of extra unpacking when you say, but I'm good at it, it's not lighting me up. I'm not sure though, because I am so good at it, I'm progressing with it. Isn't that what I should be doing? And that is a tricky part. So just being aware of that just because you're good at it doesn't mean it's making you happy or it fits with your values or it's what's best for you to live a most aligned life. Okay, so we've talked about some of the dangers why Keeping up with the Joneses can negatively impact your life.
Now we want to run through how you can fight the gremlin. People call it FOMO, but it's a little bit different to that with Keeping Up with the Joneses it's fighting that idea of comparison, extrinsically. That's what we really want to talk about today and really bring some awareness to.
Step one, start paying attention to when you are having the thoughts. So bringing awareness to what's happening in your mind is a really powerful tool. If we don't bring awareness, our thoughts can really quickly evolve into feelings and those feelings can impact our choices and behaviors. So we need to pay attention to what's actually happening in our mind. Starting to notice when thoughts are in there that might not actually be serving us really well. I know this concept can feel a bit foreign for people. So just break it down a little bit. A great metaphor is thinking about your thoughts like you're watching a movie. When we watch a movie, good things happen, bad things happen, scary things happen, but we don't stay in the state that we were in when we watched the movie. We don't stay terrified. We don't stay super sad about the very sad ending to the movie. We just watch it. We let it come and we let it go. So thinking about our thoughts like they're a movie just playing out in our mind, they come, they may impact us briefly, and we just let them go. Letting them pass on by not attaching ourselves and getting really connected to those thoughts. And one of the things that's really important when you start to pay attention to the thoughts that might be coming up, like, why don't I have that? Or I need this to feel satisfied. I need know Kate got this new thing. I should be getting a new thing too. I should have the latest whatever new joggers, whatever it is, be curious about what's happening when that thought shows up and try not to judge yourself.
It's not about saying, I shouldn't be having those thoughts. It's about learning to have the thought and not attach yourself to it, not attach your feelings and behaviors to it. Just learning to watch the thought and let it float on by.
[00:22:36] Speaker A: Yeah, that's letting the rational part of your brain take over, slowing down to let it take over so the marketing doesn't sort of bombard you and put you off kilter or looking over your fence and seeing that the new toy in the front yard of your neighbors doesn't, again, sort of get you on the path of that gremlin. Because we're not saying here that you need to stop seeing your successful friends and stop hanging out with them. We're not saying you got to stop going to your kids friends birthday parties or remove yourself from social media completely. Take stock and take note of the thoughts and your feelings you have. That's what's more feasible. Slow down a bit. I know what works for me is an example, is Kim and I live we live in a nice suburb. We live near the beach on a big block surrounded by trees. But we do live in an old house. I think our house was built around the same time as the comic strip was created.
And even though we've partly renovated it, it is hard sometimes when we see on Instagram those beautiful farmhouses or we see our friends renovating or buying a new pool, we can feel that Joneses gremlin creeping in. But what I do and what we do is we remember that one of the reasons that we didn't fully renovate our house is because we wanted to save money to start our own flipping business and our own podcast. We had a plan. We wanted to start a business in the future. We want to buy a hobby farm. So that's why we've decided not to build a new house or to renovate again. We want to go up to this farm on the weekend and we know it's going to take us a few years to get there, but we're saving up and we're focused on getting there. So when we do see our friends in the new Volvo, when we do see the pictures of their new walk in walkout wardrobe, or when we do see them going on the ski trip in Zumat, we sit there and go, wait, we've got a plan, we're on the right track. And yes, it would be great to have those things now, but we are going to have them in the future and we're going to do it our way.
[00:24:38] Speaker B: That's a really nice segue into the next step because what we're talking about is figuring out before you get to the plan, actually what matters to you. And I think figuring out what you value is critical to aligning with who you are in yourself.
[00:24:56] Speaker A: Yeah, this is a win win for you and your partner because not only do you get aligned, but you actually bond. You bond when you're doing the work together. And of course then once you set a plan together and you talk about this, you actually feel like, hey, we're on the same page, we're on the same team and we can tackle the world together. And so it's a lot easier to think more rationally and not let that sort of irrational part of you get consumed by the outside world when you know you've got someone by your side, when they've got your back and they're holding strong for you and they're also a sounding board. So when you do get those feelings like Kim talked, know when you do actually feel the FOMO gremlin or the Joneses gremlin coming in, you can actually talk to your partner about and going, hey, I'm feeling this at the moment. We don't want that, do we? That's not us. That doesn't align with who we are. And the partner go, no, remember, we've got our plan, we know where we're going and yeah, it's hard now. I wish we had A, B and C now, but we're going to get there, babe, and we're going to do it our way.
[00:25:55] Speaker B: Yeah. And as I say, I think the plan is critical, but having the values underpinning that is what really keeps you connected. You need to know what matters to you to be able to stay truly connected in those harder moments of challenge when you say, but I want that, but I want this, is that really what's going to light me up? Is that really what's going to give me joy in life? And this is a great opportunity to talk to your partner about just what matters to you two as a couple. What is it in life that you guys value and you can have such an easy conversation around this? Have a cup of tea out the back, under the pergola.
If you've never talked values before, print a cheat sheet with some ideas on areas of life. So the parts of life that you might have strong values in, so it might look like family, travel, career, health, those sorts of things, just look up values and areas of life online and print a cheat sheet on some of those areas of life and then work through them and say, well, do you value this? How highly do you value this? And that's it. That's the start of the conversation. You're starting to talk about what you guys value and how you want to set your values as a couple.
[00:27:12] Speaker A: Yeah, I absolutely love that. I think finding out what's really important to both of you again is an awesome way to also connect and bond to yes.
[00:27:22] Speaker B: So true, Roger. All of this work, it's like a double benefit, isn't it? Not only do you figure those things out which drive your decisions in the future to be more aligned, it's actually bonding you in that moment. So you're actually growing your relationship right there and then as you do the work.
All right, number three, step three. If we're trying to combat the gremlin, the keeping up with the Joneses gremlin, step three would be compare your progress against your own performance, not others. Progress is only relative to the person progressing. And I just unpack progress a little bit. Progress is a subjective idea. It's impacted by all the different parts of who you are. So if you're looking outside and comparing your progress to someone else, you're not taking into consideration all of your history, your current circumstances, what life's allotted you, all of those things. We all come at life from a different point in life, and it is really quite unfair to yourself to compare yourself to someone else who has different circumstances to you. For example, I have two chronic illnesses.
Let me say as one of them is pain related, it's rheumatoid arthritis. If you have pain every day and then you go a day being pain free, and you've been working towards that with your diet or your exercise or your well being activities, that's really massive progress. That one day pain free is massive progress because that's what you want. That's what matters to you. To someone else that doesn't have a chronic illness that causes pain daily, one day pain free is no progress. There's no progress in that because they're not trying to progress that they don't have any pain to start with. So I know that's a drastic example, but I think it's really important to understand our different circumstances mean that our progress is really individual. So don't compare your progress to others. Compare it to your own performance.
[00:29:29] Speaker A: Yeah, I think that's really. Important. For example, on my weight loss journey late last year, if I had looked at all the other people, all the other blokes on the Internet, with their six packs ABS and their huge guns and all that, well, it doesn't matter how much weight I really lost until I got anywhere near them, which might be almost impossible. I'd never feel fulfilled. I'd never feel like I'd made any progress. But if I looked at where I was last week, the week before, six months ago, that's where I actually got my motivation from. And I know it really helped me. And I think a big part of that is a lot of the time with these invisible Joneses peeking behind the curtain and not knowing what goes on behind closed doors. The point is, you don't actually have the full amount of information about those people. And just like in business, where to make a strategic and smart decision, you need as much information as possible to make the right decision. Well, the same goes with your life, and the same goes with making decisions about your life and then reflecting on your own progress. We don't have all the information from our friends and from the people on Instagram. We only have the full information on ourselves. And so the only true way to judge ourselves is based on the person who we were yesterday to the person we are today, and the same as the people we are, the couple we are. Who are we today versus who we were before.
[00:30:55] Speaker B: I love that. And as you're saying that, I'm kind of thinking about risk.
When we don't make a decision to do something, it's usually because we get scared on the risk reward ratio, right? If I try that, am I going to get there like you described? If I go after big guns and a six pack, the risk that you won't get there is pretty high. So why would you put yourself out there and try? Whereas if you go after I want to improve on last week, I want to see some progress myself, the risk is pretty low. So you're going to go after that, and that's what aligns to you anyway, because that's what you value. So I think there's another sort of mindset piece in there that's a mindset hack.
[00:31:35] Speaker A: I love that one.
[00:31:37] Speaker B: Yeah. All right, well, I think that sort of wraps us up for today. Roger, what was your gold nugget out of today's? Keeping up with the Joneses.
[00:31:47] Speaker A: I loved your one about that, the movie theater. So when you go to the movie and you have a chalkbomb and some popcorn and a drink, and you sit down in the comfy seats wait, what was it about?
No, I'm just being a jackass.
If you're feeling the FOMO gremlin or you're feeling the Joneses gremlin and you feel those thoughts come in because they will come in, don't feel shame about it, but just like you're watching a movie, the irrational brain is trying to find that movie and immerse itself. The rational brain slow down, is trying to watch the movie and let it go by.
[00:32:24] Speaker B: Yeah, it's a great one, isn't it? And I think for me today, I'm going to take a broader nugget out of this podcast. The actual title.
Keeping up. For me, I don't want to be keeping up with anyone else. I don't aspire to that. It's about going inward. Keeping up is somewhere you're never going to get to. I have such incredible intrinsic we have such incredible intrinsic values and goals. There's nothing in keeping up that aligns with who we are as people. So it's dropping the keeping up with someone else and focusing inward on living our best lives.
[00:33:10] Speaker A: You're amazing. You've just spent quality time on your relationship.
[00:33:14] Speaker B: Feel like you're on a roll. If you want more Living the Team Life relationship insights and conversations, head over to Kimandroj.com where you can find all the show notes as well as tons of other relationship goodies.
[00:33:24] Speaker A: And if you liked today's episode, please hit subscribe or let another couple know where they can find us. It'll make them happy and it'll make us really happy.
[00:33:32] Speaker B: Until next time, keep on living the team life.
