One Moment, Two Meanings, Many Consequences

Ever watch a stranger for five seconds and decide you know the whole story? We dig into that impulse with raw, relatable moments that reveal how assumptions take root—and how a small shift in perspective can change your day, your relationships, and your peace of mind.

We start with a dashboard view gone wrong: a blissed-out, air-drumming commute mistaken for a rage-fueled phone call. From there, we pull apart the mental shortcuts that label a bulk buyer as selfish, a creator as money-obsessed, or a loud marketer as arrogant. We weigh kinder explanations—donations, loneliness, real belief in a solution—against the reflex to judge, and we talk about the cost of reading malice into neutral moments like getting cut off in traffic. You’ll hear why safety and scarcity shape the stories we tell, and how to hold two possible narratives without losing your grip on reality.

We also share a vulnerable high school story where a simple lunch choice sparked years of food shame, showing how spoken perspectives imprint and redirect someone’s path. That leads to a practical rule that has changed our relationships: choose adult communication, assume things are fine unless told otherwise, and stop filling silence with self-blame. Along the way, we challenge the halo we place on volunteering and visible success, and we name the silent suffering that often hides behind health and wealth. The throughline is simple: you only hold one percent of the story—handle it with care.

If you’re ready to trade snap judgments for mindful attribution and kinder hypotheses, press play, take the pause with us, and try the experiment this week. If this conversation helped, follow the show, share it with a friend who overthinks texts, and leave a review to tell us the story you’re choosing next.

Transcript

The Headbanging Car Story

Assumptions Fill Our Gaps

Judging Strangers At The Store

Online Personas And Misreads

Positive Versus Negative Attribution

The Volunteer Halo Questioned

Wealth, Health, And Silent Suffering

SPEAKER_00 1:12

Let's talk about how people can have different perspectives and associations on life. Now, first and foremost, perspectives. Oh my goodness. How two people can see the exact same thing and have a completely different understanding or meaning made of what's happening there. Right. So for example, um, I had this really funny thing. Well, funny from my perspective. I'm driving somewhere and I had a girlfriend who is following me. And we're so we're driving on our way. And once we get there, she looked at me and she's like, Oh my God, are you okay? I was like, why? What happened? And she's like, Well, it looked like you were on the phone and yelling the whole drive here. I can't imagine what was happening. And like, you must be so angry about something. I'm like, Well, yelling? What do you mean yelling? She goes, Well, your head was just banging all over. I'm like, giggling inside because I was like, oh no, honey, I was dancing, like full out air drums, banging my head, dancing in pure bliss and joy on the entire drive here. So her perspective, seeing me through her dash and through the rear of my car, just seeing my little head bang around, she thought I was angry. Her perspective on my reality was that I was having a terrible drive. Meanwhile, I'm having a fantastic drive, as I always do. Just playing music, losing myself to it, headbanging away. And I never really realized that, yeah, from a car behind me, it might look like I'm a super aggressive and angry driver. It might look like maybe I'm flipping people off every now and again because I'm like swinging my arms around. I never thought about the way that I could be perceived from outside the vehicle, even though if you were in the vehicle with me, man, you'd be dancing and breaking it down with me. But that's life, that's perspectives. You can see the same experience, but completely experience it in a whole different way just because the meaning you made. Because we apply meaning to things, right? We don't have all of the details of that situation, and so we fill in the gaps, we make assumptions, and those assumptions can cause issues. Um, because that a person can now say she told herself a story that, well, Jaina's an angry driver. Maybe Jaina has road rage. Maybe that's what she would tell herself. And she'd think, well, I'm never gonna ride with her, I'll just always drive by myself. So these are the stories we can make up about ourselves and others if we're not careful, if we're not meaningful and intentional with how we with our assumptions, right? They're, you know, imagine if you were in a grocery store, right? And you say you're seeing someone pulling cans off the shelf of this couple items, right? And you're just seeing them pull can after can after can, almost buying in bulk, like so many cans and boxes. And you just look at their cart and it's full to the brim of repeats of so many different items, and you're thinking, what a selfish person. This must be one of those couponers, one of those people who just rigs the system to get all these things for free. How selfish of them. Meanwhile, they load up their car and they drive downtown and they open their doors and they start donating it to the homeless. So here we labeled them as a selfish person because we made an assumption and filled in the gaps. Well, the truth is the opposite. This is an extremely selfless person. And yet we didn't have all the details. So we made an assumption. It's almost like seeing a friend or even just someone on the internet that you watch and you're like, oh my gosh, they are so obsessed with business. They just do nothing but talk about their products and their services and their business. Wow. They must just love money or the popularity and the fame just going viral. They're so obsessed with their things, their cars and their homes. Like all they ever do is show all the things that they have. Like, of course, they're just obsessed. Meanwhile, the truth on the other side is that maybe this person is in a highly scarcity-driven mindset. Maybe they're worried that they're gonna lose all of these things. Maybe they're always online because they're lonely and they're just looking to connect with people. And it's easier to do it online sometimes than it is to get up, get dressed, and walk out that door. So to sit here and assume that someone is talking, is we'll just use this language because this is the language people use, is selling so much, always selling. You can assume it's because they love money, or they're, I don't know, driven by the need for money. Or it could just be that they're absolutely so passionate about what they do and they know that it can help people, that they're in fact just sharing all the time, sharing solutions for people's problems. That assumption that we make, that gap that we fill, it's only harmful to people around us when that assumption is a negative assumption. What if we were to shift that? Because the truth is, there's so many ways that this shows up for us. Maybe you see someone online who is uh speaking with their ego up front, right? Maybe they come off as this um bro marketer, inflated promises, promising the world and speaking in this almost car salesman type of way. But we don't realize is that it's not coming from this place of security. It's coming from a place of insecurity. Or maybe they're desperate. Maybe they don't feel enough. And that's why they have to oversell themselves. But all of these things are assumptions. Maybe that same person isn't, in fact, insecure. Maybe they inflate the promise because they truly believe that that's the result that can be achieved if someone goes all in 100% on their product or service. We don't know. And yeah, it can be harmful to just assume that everybody has positive intentions. But it also can be just as harmful to assume that everyone has negative intentions. Not everyone is malicious, not everyone is out here to get you. And I think that the truth is that if we can just notice the assumptions, notice the gaps we're filling, that's just going to give us an indication of where we are. Because if we are living in a world of fear and scarcity, we're going to fill those gaps in a negative way. But if we're in a realm of safety and security, we're more likely to be kind with our assumptions. What about that person that you see who's always volunteering and giving their time and working with these charities, and you just think, gosh, they're so kind. They're doing that out of the kindness of their heart. Oh, I just bless that person. Maybe that's not the truth. Maybe the truth is that they just, they're under the pressure of expectations. Maybe they volunteered once or twice and now they have been thrust into a role of managing others. Maybe they're just in this role because it's become familiar to them. But it's no longer out of the kindness of their heart. It's just something that's become routine. Who knows? But to us, to actually sit and to project is exactly what we're doing. Because again, the assumptions that fill in the gaps come from us. They filter through us. And so you can have two different people see the same thing and make two totally different stories, right? The assumptions are our problems, not theirs. And assumptions are something we all do naturally, right? One of the assumptions a lot of people make is that they look at someone who's healthy and wealthy, and they think, oh my God, their life must be perfect. Everything is there, they don't have to lift a finger. They've got a house cleaner and they've got a car chauffeur, and they've got, you know, they're going to all these parties, and people are PR gifting them all these things, and their life must be so perfect. And while for some of them, maybe it is their dream life, maybe it is something they love doing and they really get a lot out of it. But for many, that very assumption is what drives a silent suffering behind the scenes. Because you look at that person and you think their life must be so perfect. But in it, in that life, it feels like everyone else's life. It feels normal. In fact, it can be even more unrelatable, which makes it harder to make friends, harder to find people you can actually have deep conversation with who get it. There's so much silent suffering behind health and wealth that people don't get. One of the blessings I had with my cleaning business was being able to clean in both tiny little homes with people who are so filled with love. And they were organized and clean, but just tiny versus these massive mansions. And many times they would have some of them would be just as clean and tidy and nice and happy family, but just as many small homes with hate and struggle, there were just as many big ones. The problems across the board are problems that every human deals with. Money cannot solve all problems. Because oftentimes money does not improve a marriage, it can cause issues in a marriage. Oftentimes having fame doesn't make relationships easier, it makes them more difficult because now they're on a public platform. There are so many things that we have to be mindful of. For our assumptions, because our assumptions are going to be there regardless. We're always going to fill in the gaps. It is your job simply to be aware of the assumptions you're making. That person cut you off? Is it because you're assuming that they have an injured child in the car and they're trying to get to the nearest hospital as fast as possible? Or is it because you're assuming they're just an a-hole and they just thought that you were the perfect person to cut off? Who knows, right? But it's going to keep me in a much more peaceful state, thinking that I'm helping someone get their hurting child to a hospital than it is to think that someone else is an a-hole, right? So life gives us a lot of opportunity to be aware of ourselves if we take some time to reflect. And one of the biggest shifts that I that pertains to the perspectives of life, right, that I made over the last few years was that I now say to myself this. I used to think when someone would ghost me or not answer an email or a text message or whatever the case may be, someone was acting in a slightly different way than normal, I would be attached to that. And I would assume it was because they were mad at me, because I did something wrong, because I said something wrong, because I didn't show up or did show up, or I talked too much or didn't talk enough, or whatever it was, I assumed I was the problem. And time and time again, I'd come to find out, oh no, I just had this tough day at work. Oh no, I just got broken up with, oh no, it had nothing to do with you. I just had this thing happen. So I started to tell myself this. I surround myself with adults. And adults know how to communicate when they're upset. So I am going to assume that everyone around me is completely fine and happy with me, unless they tell me otherwise. And that has changed my world. Because instead of me assuming I am the problem or I had something to do with it, I just wait until someone tells me, hey, I didn't really like how you said that thing. Hey, I wish you would have. Hey, this really hurt my feelings. Like adults communicate. And I understand that's a stretch. I understand there are lots of adults out there who still have not mastered communication. But my belief system is that I choose to surround myself with adults, and adults communicate when they're upset. Which means the opposite of that is that I don't surround myself with people who are children. People who assume that I know what I did and bottle it up and only ever tell other people what the problem is. Those are children. I don't surround myself with children. Now, sometimes children come in my world and eventually they find their way back out of my world. Because I surround myself with adults and adults who have respect for both me and themselves, who know how to communicate. And that's that. That has helped me so much. Because that shifts everything in life. Because perspective is just one aspect of it. When we have a perspective, that's one aspect. When we share our perspective, that opens a whole nother can of worms. Because what happens when you verbalize and share your perspective is that you potentially imprint on people around you, which means now you shift their perspective. And that's not always a great thing. Sometimes it can be. That's called a reframe. Sometimes we need to reframe a friend, a family member, coworker, give them a new perspective. It's a little bit more positive. That's great. But sometimes we can do damage. For example, when I was in high school, I think it was sophomore year, I was a very overweight child. Carried a lot of it in my belly. I was a big round bowling ball. And I was also on the dance team. And dance, I was never the right size. And so I was trying to do myself a favor by beginning to eat salads because that's what I was told will make me skinny is salads and that I needed to be eating more of them. So I did. The first day I ever ate a salad, I put, I think it was either iceberg or romaine lettuce into a container and put some ranch on it and took that to school for lunch. I giggle now because I know that that is not a salad. That is how I started, though. And everybody has to start somewhere else. And I was so excited to be on this journey. I didn't know anything about nutrition or fitness or any of it, but I was so excited to finally take my life back. And I'm sitting there in the dance room and I'm eating my lunch, eating my salad out of this container, only to have three of the popular girls walk in the door and look over at me and recognize that the container that I was eating this salad out of was the biggest Tupperware container I could find in my house that morning because I wanted a big salad, nice and healthy. It was also a recycled butter container. It was a country croc butter container, the big dark brown. We've all seen them. You know what I'm talking about. And those girls continued to point and laugh and point and laugh about how could you be eating butter for lunch. And I couldn't, I couldn't get the words out of my mouth. No, it's a salad. Only for them to say, Oh, a salad? Let me see. Come over and look at it and see just romaine lettuce and ranch. And then laugh even harder in my face. That's not a salad. That's so unhealthy for you. Ugh, that's not gonna help. And in that moment, I developed massive embarrassment and shame around eating salads because I clearly didn't know what I was doing. And here I thought I was helping myself, and all it did was push my healing journey with food another 10 or 15 years away. That perspective they had of me eating butter out of a container, really, salad out of container, the fact that their perspective of that salad was unhealthy was projected onto me. And I didn't know any better. They were the small, skinny fit girls that I thought they would know. And so what they did was they projected embarrassment and shame on me. And I accepted it because they didn't know any better. So our perspectives are not just hurtful when people hear them about themselves. They're they're hurtful because those assumptions, those feelings, those emotions get projected on and ingrained in someone. And that can then impact and change their behavior and their viewpoint of something for decades to come. The power is not just in ourselves. It's not just in controlling our assumptions for our own mind, it's to help better the world so that we don't just go spewing our projections on everyone around us. Because just because you're in a bad mood doesn't mean you should be spreading your assumptions all over people and ruining the rest of their day, too. So listen. Now you're not going to verbalize these things typically, sometimes we do, but listen in your brain. The assumptions that you make about other people around you, because you only have one percent of the story. And you know full well that if you were the one in the story and someone was making an assumption about you, you would make a point to tell them also that they only know one percent of the story. They don't know the why, the what, or the how. They just know the small sliver of what they saw from the perspective that they saw was filtered through their past experiences. There's no right or wrong, but there is mindfulness. So be mindful of your assumptions. And if they're coming out heavily negative, maybe there's some inner work to do there. And if they're coming out generally positive, give yourself a pat on the back. Because you've probably worked pretty darn hard to get there. And I'm proud of you for that.