What cards were you actually dealt? I never finished school, I was kicked out of sixth form, and I have never passed an exam beyond GCSEs. You play the hand.

You cannot change the cards, only how you play them. The powerful hold hard power, military or influence, and it looks unbeatable from underneath. The good hands are the ones you work for, with time and courage and honesty and self awareness in them. Those are not handed out. Run through the soft skills and count how many you are already holding.

One thing to try: List your soft skills honestly. That is the hand, and it is usually better than you think.

In this episode

• (0:02) We cannot change the cards, only how we play them
• (2:58) Who holds what kind of power, and which kind
• (4:48) Never finished school, kicked out of sixth form
• (7:05) The second state visit, and why it is a clever move
• (9:40) The good cards are the ones you work for
• (14:05) Running through the soft skills. How many have you got?
• (16:42) One grows up a doctor, one a plumber. You need both

Support the podcast and join the Weekly Calm: stevenwebb.uk

Thank you for listening.

Steven

Links to Steven Webb's podcast and how you can support his work.

• Donate paypal.me/stevenwebb or Coffee stevenwebb.uk
• Steven's courses, podcasts and links: stevenwebb.uk

We cannot change the cards we are dealt. Just how we play the hand. Brandy Pausch.

I love that. And that's what I'm going to talk about on today's podcast. But not in the way you

think I'm going to talk about it.

So just before we start, welcome to Stillness in the Storms. The podcast that helps you through difficult times and

brings you some peace in other times.

I'm working on it. What, 180 episodes in or something? I'm still working on my intro. Hey,

that's life in it Aren't we always working on our life a little bit? First of all, this podcast is

totally free. No advert so we can get right on with it. But I've just got to thank the people

that bought me a coffee this week that helps keep the podcast free it's Vic from New Zealand that taught

me a new word this week

I think that's how you pronounce it. It's a new word on me. I read your Prime Minister's book, but

I never knew New Zealand was called that as his native Maori name.

Learn something new every day. Rowan, Cp gossier and Leo. Leo, my biggest fan. You're awesome.

Amy, Mary channy Sarah Laura, A and K. You are all awesome. Thank you very much.

And let's not forget the monthly subscribers. You all make a difference. You all keep this podcast free. Right? Let's

get on with today's podcast. And don't forget, you can go over to StevenWebb.uk and sign up to my weekly

Calm newsletter, which is mostly about every fortnight or maybe monthly by the time I get around to it. At

least I don't overrun your inbox. That's a nice thing that I'm one to say, or my life is a

good example of you cannot change the hard you have dealt when I broke my neck, or what happened to

my granddad when I was 12, or becoming homeless with my sister and my mom, when we were young and

things like that. I couldn't do anything about those things. Yeah, I could have made different choices. I could have

not dived into the swimming pool and all that, but I did and it happened. You can't change the cards

you're dealt So I was given the idea for this week's podcast by the guy that wrote Sapiens

yuvel Noah Harari. I think that's how you pronounce his name.

He was saying about the the game in the world has changed.

Democracy used to be the big player in the world, but now it's more about the cards that you hold.

In Russia, he holds the power of the military and dictatorship in America, he

holds the power of ignorance, I guess, but he holds the power of the influence of the richest man in

the world. He still got there as someone influencing and. And the cards they have on the Republican Party is

anti-immigration and sticking up for people that feel forgotten and things like that. And that's the cards they're

playing. And the same as in the uk, Nigel Farage and people like that are playing those

cards. So politicians and people of influence are learning to play the cards that they've got.

Instead of going out and trying to get other cards not they're learning to play the cards they got. So

maybe think about us and our lives and you and and playing these different cards,

and it made me think about our soft skills and what have we got and what cards do we actually

have? And I think in the world that is so upside down at the moment,

we might think we have no cards, but we absolutely do. And the cards we have are these soft skills.

And I don't even like the name soft skills because it's. It almost suggests that these skills are not that

important. And they're a bit woolly and they're a bit there They're skills that we need more than ever. And

when I go into council meetings, when you've got a chamber full of like 80 plus qualified people that own

businesses and you've got lawyers in there and you've got doctors in there and you've got all kinds of people

that are highly qualified with letters after their names. And I sit there and think, what have I got? I

never finished school. I was kicked out of sixth form. I've never passed an exam in my life beyond my

GCSEs at school. Yeah, I read a few books, but I'm terrible at that. I barely finish a book beyond

30 percent um I'm reading a Richard Green book at the moment. I'm on 52 percent I noticed this morning.

That's a record breaker for me in the past six 12 months So I sit there thinking what why am

I here? What skills have I got? What cards am I playing and how am I playing them? I got

to be doing something. Okay but About 1500 people download the Stillness in the Storms. Every um episode

I think, which is not bad, but my guided meditations do a lot better. So we need to share this

podcast a bit more. The Stillness in the Storms. We need to get that one up there a little bit

more

and Maybe that's your task. Leave a review this week. That'd be awesome if you could leave a review. But

going off on tangents, as I normally do, my whole thing thinking is, what cards do you have? What soft

skills do you have? And When I talk

about soft skills, what am I talking about? Empathy, patience, kindness, and

courage. Don't we want more of those things? Now? When you look at protests or when we're angry about certain

things, isn't an incredible skill to be angry, but not to lash out. To be angry and still be

kind, to

be angry and not call people names and come out in a. In a way that's threatening and

violent. Isn't that an incredible skill the world needs? You

see these world leaders at the moment and some people that own, like, the biggest companies.

I'm not talking about social media companies so much, but there's a couple of companies that seem to be really

brushing up with Donald Trump. And I was thinking about Keir Starmer. Our Prime Minister and our king at the

moment uh I've got Donald Trump over here for a second state visit. No one's ever been given a second

state visit. Why is that? It seems, on the face of it, ridiculous. But I think it's a brilliant move

because the

only tools you have with Trump is flattery shouldn't be like that it should You should be able to have

a president that's mature enough that you can speak frankly to him and you can tell him how things are,

and he would still be mature enough with the soft skills to be able to go you know what? You're

right. I won't put tariffs on your country because they're already fair. I

don't think he understands tariffs, but that's a different story. I don't want to get too political, but it's one

of these things that well why is Keir Starmer and the king brushing up to someone like President Trump? That

does lie. One of his skills are lying. He can lie bare faced right at you, and

it seems to be okay with large numbers of people.

That's a card that he's good at playing and he keeps playing it and it's winning. So what card is

Keir Starmer playing? Well, his card is patience and courage in the face of

working with him. We don't want large tariffs dumped on our country at the moment.

So the

answer to that is bring

them in. Don't alienate them. Don't call them names. It's flatter them. Our economy would not cope with tariffs

right now. It would put thousands and thousands of people on the dole It would put them out of work.

So our king and our prime minister is playing the cards they've got. Then the card

right now is Donald Trump. Loves the Royal Family, always has done.

So this

podcast, I'm just saying to you, what cards do you have and are you playing them or are you sitting

back and wait until someone hands you a better set or more qualified cards? Because if you're doing that,

the cards that are going to be handed to you, let's face it, if somebody, if you get handed a

card a day, the chances are most of those cards are going to be shit shows Most of the cards

you end up with, and especially if they're given to you, they're going to be crap. The only ones that

are really good the ones we work for, the ones we put time in and courage and love and honesty

and self-awareness They're all things that doesn't come naturally. You've got to fight your

inner, like, demons and your shadows to go, no, I'm gonna be honest. I'm not gonna fight back. I'm not

gonna call them names. I'm not gonna take an angry action that is gonna hurt people.

Because we all feel like it that be honest You

know when people say, oh Steven you're really kind of I'm like, I'm really not. I say this a lot,

but, you know, deep inside, I'm really not that kind. I'm selfish. I'm. I think of myself a lot. I

think. I think I'm some kind of hero because I'm doing all right in life. And, you know, when I'm

playing the victim, I'm like, not really playing the victim. I'm playing the hero. Look at me, I'm a victim.

I'm paralysed on this really. I'm just deep down trying to go, yeah, I may be the victim, but I'm

a hero, really. And

I think if we're just honest with ourselves, with that self-awareness isn't that the reality? When I do something really

nice for someone, yes, I'm doing it for them. And yes, I want to be nice to them. And yes,

but it's because I feel good.

If I'm. If I call someone a name if I'm I feel bad. So therefore, am I doing it for

them or am I doing it for me? I'm doing it primarily so I don't feel bad. If I donate

or I give something, I do it because it makes me feel good. And in the long run, it helps

them. I can always remember I was doing Penny for the Guy. I must have been about. I

must have been about 12, and we'd put together this crappy guy. Then in the Uk we

have Guy fox night was november the 5th is where guy fox tried to blow up Parliament.

And I don't know how long ago, but he he had a plot and he put all the gunpowder in

there and he didn't quite manage it, but he got caught. So every November the 5th we kind of. I

don't know if we celebrate the fact it was going to blow up Parliament we celebrate the fact that we

caught him. Well, I don't know what we do, but every single November the 5th we light bonfires and we

normally have fireworks. And all that night we put on. We make up some kind of human effigy, I think

it is, and we we get some, I don't know tracksuit or something, we fill it with straw and different

things and we make up the guy and we go around, I don't know as kids, I don't know if

they still do it now, but we used to go, penny for the guy. And we used to collect some

money to buy some fireworks, to set some fireworks off. And I can remember walking to the rugby club to

put our guy onto the fire. And I stopped the lady, I said I'll penny for the guy. And she

put down all her bags and bear in mind I was like, I was 10 or 12 or something, and

she put down our bags and I said, no, no, don't worry about it, don't worry about it. Because I

was starting to feel bad because she was. I just realised that she must have been homeless

or certainly was sleeping rough at the time. And I'm guessing she was 50, 60 years old. And she got

out her little tin and she opened up her tin I said, no, no, honestly, don't worry about it. It's

absolutely fine. I was feeling bad. But she opened up a tin and they had not much and she got

out a little bit of money and she gave it and I can't remember it's 10p or something. And I

said, honestly, no, please, because I was feeling really bad by this time. And she honestly, no, take it, take

it. I think as I was my friend, my friend was feeling the same as me and she wouldn't let

me not take it. So I took it and I went on. And I've never forgot that feeling of she

felt really good in giving it to us. A

person that had nothing felt

really good at giving it to us. And I felt really bad at Taking it, but she wouldn't have it

any other way. That was like. And that's really. Yeah. Never forget that. So back to the cards

you've got. If I read out some soft skills or some cards, how many of these do you think you

have? Patience, kindness, courage. Are you a good listener? Do you have self-awareness do you have

Are you honest? Do

you have a good presence? Are you emotionally resilient? The ability to hold space for others,

staying grounded under pressure? Can

you speak your truth, but can you do it with care? All

of those things I wrote down, and I'm probably reflecting a bit because a lot of those things I'm trying

to try I'm trying to be a better listener. I'm trying to have more self-awareness you know, I'm trying to

speak my truth, but with care. And I. I'm getting there. I'm doing okay, I think. But there's always room

for improvement and. But those are skills we need right now.

So if we look at everything you're dealt, you can't do anything about the ones you're holding.

You can try to push them away, you can try to put them to the bottom of the deck and

things like that, but the reality is you have them all. You can choose the ones you play, but you

cannot throw them away. You cannot get rid of them. And you're going to be handed more and you're going

to be sitting on more duff cards than you are like great cards. That's the

reality. It's probably a ratio of. I don't know, there's probably some ratio out there of like the two buckets

I mentioned in my last podcast. There's more bad buckets than there is good buckets. There's more tough times than

there is good times. And I'm glad it's that way because we wouldn't enjoy the good times so much if

we didn't have more bad times than good times. You imagine going for your own life and you're having a

good time. You imagine um having a wonderful childhood, having everything you possibly wanted, and you get to

the age of 18 and you meet your perfect partner. You get married at the age of 23, and you

move into a lovely house with a picket fence and you get your first car and you both have a

wonderful career and you have two children, one girl, one boy, and one grows up to be a doctor, and

one grows up to be, I don't know, a plumber. So you've got you've got someone to help you out

whenever you're pouring you got someone to fix your plumbing, maybe you need four. You need a builder and an

electrician, and you need all those other things. And you end up in a perfect, lovely home. And then you

end up with a wonderful pension.

You wouldn't know what good is. You

wouldn't know what a wonderful experience is, because that's all you would know.

You wouldn't enjoy what you're eating if every meal was wonderful, you

know, how do you know to sit down and go that was really nice? It's because you've been dished up

crap before.

And I know this is so dead simple, but we need to be reminded of this. We

need to be reminded. So

from a paralysed perspective and a life of a lot of pain today, I've got next to no spasms.

My hands are. If you're watching this on Youtube, my hands are quite loose today. And it's um It's so

nice to be able to move around without the body shaking and hurting and it's so nice, you

know, it's not too cold. I'm in here and, you know, But I wouldn't know what a nice day without

spasms are if I didn't have bad days where my spasms are just intolerable

it's a reality of life. That's what it means. That's why the Buddha said, to be alive is to suffer,

just to be here and existing. You will suffer. You

will get those bad cards. Okay,

I've labored the issue way too long now. Can I go the rest of the podcast without mentioning cards? Thank

you to you guys. I really appreciate the support Appreciate you hanging in there. Head over to

StevenWebb.uk there's a link in the show notes. And don't forget, there's links on there to the Inner

Peace Meditations. There's links to my weekly calm. There's my blog. I'm trying to do a bit more political

blogs and all that and political writing and all that and things like that. So, yeah, I'm just. I'm

in a good place at the moment, so I'm doing a few more podcasts and things like that. So if

you've got any ideas for podcast subjects, please

let me know. And if you're a donator, message me and I'll give you the link to the Whatsapp group

that I've got to catch up on. The Whatsapp group, actually, I noticed they've been in there talking and all

that, so I've got to catch up with it. Just thinking out aloud. Right, look, guys, I'm gonna say thank

you. Thank you for sharing. Thank you for hanging in there. Thank you for the coffees. And yeah,

I love you