The Question That Changes Everything
Dave Rodriguez was lying on a gurney in the ER, two pulmonary embolisms confirmed, when a second question hit him that had nothing to do with survival.
The first question was predictable: am I going to die?
The second one surprised him. In the middle of monitors beeping and doctors measuring their words, another question surfaced quietly and clearly: who do I tell?
Not about finances. Not about legacy. Just: who are my people?
Dave ran through his list. His parents. His sister. His wife, Penny, was already there. The kids. After that, the list got very short, very fast. And in that moment, he realized something that the data has been trying to tell us for decades.
Nothing matters quite like relationships. And most of us are not building them.
We Are Living Through a Friendship Recession
The research is not subtle about this.
The Harvard Study on Adult Development, the longest longitudinal study on happiness and well-being ever conducted, tracked 724 people over 85 years beginning in 1938. Their conclusion was unambiguous: the biggest predictor of happiness is the quantity and quality of your relationships. Not wealth. Not career achievement. Not even physical health. Relationships.
And yet, we are living through what researchers are calling a friendship recession. Decades ago, the average American reported having three close friends. Today, the most common answer to the question “how many close friends do you have?” is none. More Americans report having zero close friends than any other response. At the same time, three out of four adults say they feel moderate to high levels of loneliness every day.
This is not a peripheral problem. This is a vitality crisis.
Why We Are So Disconnected
Understanding the friendship recession requires understanding how we got here. Dave and Dimitri Snowden traced several converging forces:
Identity-based relationships. We are not forming relationships with people. We are forming relationships with identities. Curated digital personas. Roles and titles. And as Dimitri observed, when the identity shifts, the relationship evaporates. “People had a relationship with the identity of you,” Dave said, “a proxy of you, but not you.” When the role ends, so does the connection.
The curated digital self. The more time we invest in building the highlight-reel version of ourselves on social media, the less time and emotional energy we have for the real relationships that require risk, reciprocity, and presence.
COVID cocooning. Something shifted during the pandemic that many of us have not recovered from. We were forced to retreat, and we began to prefer the retreat. Cocooning became a default. Showing up started to feel optional.
The collapse of the third space. Work. Home. And then the third space, where community actually forms: churches, clubs, leagues, civic groups. Those spaces are emptying out. People are bowling alone now in ways that Robert Putnam could not have fully anticipated.
Hyper-individualism. America was founded on an individualistic ethos, and we carry it deep. We value personal productivity over presence. We are more protective of our time than our money, and real relationships cost both. As Dimitri noted from his time living in Singapore, other cultures are literally structured to keep family and community close. Ours is often structured to keep everyone separate.
The monetization of loneliness. This one is perhaps the most uncomfortable: entire industries are built to profit from keeping us isolated and entertained. The economy, in subtle and not-so-subtle ways, rewards separation.
Deal Relationships vs. Real Relationships
Arthur Brooks, a professor at Harvard, draws a distinction that cuts right to the heart of this conversation: deal relationships versus real relationships.
Deal relationships are transactional. They are built around a shared role, activity, or season. Soccer moms who stop texting when the season ends. Colleagues who disappear after the job changes. Co-workers who were deeply missional together, but six years later have not exchanged a word.
Deal relationships are not bad. They serve a real purpose. But if deal relationships are all you have, you are standing on a very shallow foundation. Because when something goes wrong, and you reach for your list, you will find that the list is shorter than you thought.
Real relationships survive role changes because they are built on the person, not the position.
Ask yourself the ER question: if something happened to you right now, who would you tell? Who would be hurt if they did not know? That answer tells you exactly how many real relationships you actually have.
The Illuminator vs. The Diminisher
David Brooks, in his book How to Really Know a Person, offers one of the most practical frameworks for building real relationships: the distinction between diminishers and illuminators.
Diminishers are socially ignorant. They are oblivious to the presence of others. They make people feel small and unseen. They render others unimportant. They top every story, turn every conversation back to themselves, and see people as a problem to solve rather than a person to know. And according to Brooks, the root of diminishing behavior is almost never narcissism. It is almost always fear.
“A diminisher makes people feel small and unseen. They render other people as unimportant.” — Dave Rodriguez
Illuminators do the opposite. They are deeply curious. They ask follow-up questions. They give people respect and dignity. They accept people as they are. They see themselves in a humble, supportive, and accompanist role to the people in their lives. They offer what Brooks calls a gaze that radiates respect, a posture that says: I want to know you, and I want to be known by you.
The good news is that becoming an illuminator is a learnable skill.
How to Start Building Real Relationships
- Evaluate your relational health honestly. On a scale of 1 to 10, how would you rate it? If your answer is below a 7, that is important information. It is the beginning of change.
- Ask yourself the ER question. Who would you tell? Who would be hurt if they did not know? The answer gives you a clear picture of your relational foundation.
- Practice the follow-up question. The next time you are in a conversation, do not move on to yourself after someone answers. Ask one follow-up question. Then ask another. Two follow-up questions, and as Dave says, you are cooking with fire.
- Love accurately. Discover the five love languages, and learn how the people closest to you actually feel loved. Then love them that way, even when it is outside your comfort zone. As Dimitri put it: “Loving accurately means learning how that person wants to be loved.”
- Choose presence over cocooning. The next time you are invited into a real connection and the couch feels easier, show up anyway. Real relationships require risk. Showing up is the first risk worth taking.
You Cannot Receive What You Will Not Give
This is the thread that runs through the entire conversation. If you want illuminators in your corner, you have to become one. If you want real relationships, you have to offer real relationships. You get what you give. And you have to give it first.
The Harvard study does not leave much room for debate. Your relationships are the single biggest predictor of your happiness and well-being. That means this is worth taking seriously, not after a health scare, not when the list runs out, but right now.
Ask yourself the hard questions. Find your four. Become an illuminator.
Watch the full episode of The Vitality Journey Podcast and start building the relational health that sustains everything else.
And if you are ready to take a deeper look at all six dimensions of your vitality, explore The Calling Quilt™ coaching at destiny-works.com/the-calling-quilt.
Full Transcript
Dave: There is one choice, one single decision that will almost ensure your own health and happiness. Science and research tell us that one choice should be to cultivate warm, loving relationships. So on this episode, we are going to explore relational health and maybe along the way, try to figure out who our people are. Welcome back to the Vitality Journey.
Dave: So laying on the gurney in the ER, just been told that I have got two pulmonary embolisms and a blood clot in my leg. My first question is, am I going to die? How much time do I have? Am I going to survive? The doctors were very serious about it, trying not to get me too freaked out, but that was it. It really was probably the most sick I had ever been. It was the most dangerous circumstance. Anyway, we have talked about that, and I am almost getting tired of talking about that situation. But there was a second question that hit me that surprised me. As I am sitting there waiting for the next move, I was going to be admitted. Here is a question that crossed my mind: who do I tell?
Dimitri: Who do you tell? Like, who?
Dave: Who do I text? Who do I call? In days past, I would call my mom and dad.
Dimitri: Sure, right.
Dave: We have a very small family. So the only other than my immediate family, only other person to tell was my sister. And of course, Penny was there, and I knew I had to tell the kids. But after that, who are my people? Who do I want to know what is going on with me, and who do I think should know what is going on with me? Because it is fascinating to me that nothing else mattered other than two things: my next breath and my relationships.
Dimitri: Have you ever been in a situation like that where you have been wondering, who are my people?
Dave: Yeah, I have. To your point, it is who do I tell, and there is the aftermath. Because after you tell them, there is something they are going to do back. There is a behavior, a value that they can contribute or add to that particular scenario. Do I have the bandwidth for that? Is this the right person to tell? Do I tell them a little later when the problem is more resolved? All of that. And it is like, it is your most vulnerable position. You are at your weakest point where you might not be here. And so the next person you tell almost becomes like your gatekeeper, your taskmaster thereafter. Are they going to be able to continue some part of this journey or close out a few of these loops for me?
Dave: And I am wondering, who do I know will pray for me? Who do I know will show up? Who will help Penny through this time because she is going to need some support? Who are my people? It was sobering. It really was sobering.
Dave: In a minute I will talk about the research on relationships and how crucial relationships are. But I was sitting there going, this is important to me. Relationships are important. Now, interesting, the stats are a little alarming. Have you heard this? Some people are saying that we are in right now a friendship recession.
Dimitri: I have heard that.
Dave: They say it comes from the decline of trust, the waning of social capital. People are just more lonely. Research from several decades ago showed that if you asked an American how many close friends they had, the average number was three. Three close friends. But listen to this: today, the most common answer to the question, how many close friends do you have, is none.
Dimitri: That is insane.
Dave: That is the most common answer. I do not have any friends. More Americans will say they have no close friends than any other option.
Dimitri: That is absolutely insane. Question for you, just real quick. Going back to who you tell first, you are a man who has led tens of thousands of people. You have interacted with tens of thousands of people and still you had to go through this list of who and what and when.
Dave: Yeah. File this away, because we are going to come back to this. Arthur Brooks is a professor at Harvard and he talks about happiness and societal health. He raised a question I was sitting with while listening to a podcast: how many deal relationships do you have versus real relationships? We will come back to that in a minute. I was in an organization with thousands of people around me, but most of them were deal relationships. Highly transactional. And honestly, when I retired from that, that was one of the hardest things for me. Looking around, who are my people? Who are the real relationships in my life? It all came right to that moment, sitting in the ER.
Dave: A study in the United States, conducted several years ago, suggested that three out of four adults feel moderate to high levels of loneliness every day. Three out of four adults. So you have people saying the most common answer is no close friends, and everyone is saying they are lonely.
Dave: So I want to ask the question, why is that happening? But here is the contrast. In my opening statement, I said that science and research indicate that the most important decision you can make is to cultivate warm relationships. This is based on a Harvard University study starting in 1938. This is the longest longitudinal study on happiness and well-being ever done. They have studied 724 people over 85 years, and they discovered that the biggest predictor of happiness is the quantity and quality of our relationships.
Dimitri: Fascinating. I mean, we call this the Vitality Journey, and Destiny Works exists to help people figure out vitality. We could end this thing right now and just say there is one thing you need to do.
Dave: Right. Forget physical health, forget emotional health, just have a friend. Now I am overstating it. But why, in your opinion, is friendship so crucial and yet so missing? What has happened?
Dimitri: I think what is happening is people are creating and forming relationships with identities, not people. We see this with fallen celebrities, with anyone whose public role shifts. When I was going through a hard season, I was a father and a husband, and when we had a break in our marriage, I did not know what to do with myself. And when you retired from being a pastor, the role was gone.
Dave: You are right. Identity is shifting. People had a relationship with the identity of you, a proxy of you, but not you. That is why when your status changed, they were not available to you. So I think a lot of that is happening, because the way we self-identify is from this very external position, based on roles or skills or position. So let me ask you this. From 2007 to 2016, a fundamental shift came in the way people saw themselves. In 2007, the iPhone came into existence. And by 2016, 80 percent of people in the United States had smartphones.
Dimitri: It is not just the smartphone. It is the instant access to everything. And I would still stand on the identity point. In that context, there is a digital version of you that the iPhone, the algorithms, and all that stuff is interacting with. There is a digital profile of you. All the ads you see, all the content, is based on that digital presentation of you, not the real you. So as your identity changes, as your role changes, those things wane. The connection between identity and relationships is this: if I am cultivating identity, I have to curate my relationships.
Dave: And there is a version of you in real life that cannot translate into the digital world. Back in the 1930s, there was no proxy. It was just you. You saw me, we are talking, you are looking at me. Now we can curate this version of ourselves that we want to exist. When you go through someone’s Instagram, it is the highlight reel.
Dimitri: You can curate. You can pick and choose and post and edit and add sound to create how you want people to feel when they interact with you. It does not necessarily reflect who you actually are. So in some way, because you are investing so much time in developing the curated vision of you, you do not have time to develop the real relationships.
Dave: That is right. And this culture has commoditized relationships into swipe theory. We are so deal-based, so transactional. What can I get out of it? And once that is gone, you just keep pushing.
Dimitri: I think we like to cocoon. Something happened during COVID that I am not sure psychologically we have emerged from, where we were forced to cocoon and something happened inside where now we prefer to cocoon. I think a lot of people do that. How many times has someone said, hey, do you want to go do this? And you say, nah. It has been a long day. I have been involved in a lot of things. And so we sacrifice, we set aside relationships for whatever this feeling is that we have to protect ourselves.
Dave: And we are in a constant state of high output. So that moment of not wanting to deal with anyone, it is not personal. You just need a second to disconnect. COVID showed us and allowed us to not have to be such high-output individuals. And Hollywood gets a hold of this. They move away from the theater. Now you are just binge watching. You can sit on your couch and take in your whole evening and escape.
Dave: Here is another thought. What if we consider that money is actually secondary to time as a personal resource? In other words, people are more protective of their time than they are of their money. So to have a relationship, it costs you time.
Dimitri: A real-life relationship also requires risk, the same risk that does not exist in a curated digital proxy. The transactional framework of a relationship has no risk required, because once my need is satisfied or not, we just keep it moving. There is high risk in real relationship. That is risky, to be seen in that way.
Dave: And if you can just hide behind the idea of time and money, you do not have to risk. Here is another one: the demise of the third space. Church, clubs. Back in the day, the book Bowling Alone made the case that people were no longer bowling in leagues but bowling alone. The premise was that in the late 1900s and early 2000s, people were starting to move away from socialized activity to privatized activity. Just doing their own thing on their own. And it has played out. I saw it in the church world. Except for maybe mega churches, the church in general is hemorrhaging people. So people are moving to a more individual approach to life. There is work, home, and then the third space. And people are just not showing up to the third space anymore.
Dimitri: The idea of being in a large crowd, because we are identity-centric, means that you cannot see or hear me. If I make a smaller group, now I can be seen and heard. And that is all we want. Do you feel like the creation of micro communities and micro groups could be a good thing or a bad thing?
Dave: It could be both. The bad thing is if we are using it to say who is in and who is out. Right now that is happening all over the place, the hatred, the discord, people finding the groups with whom they feel safest. So there is no honest conversation with people who differ from us or look different from us. That is not good for relationships in general. On the other hand, here is where it could be a good thing.
Dave: I did the Vitality Journey Workshop for those listening. We offer coaching on the Vitality Journey. We cover these subjects, whether it is emotional health, relational health, physical health. We also offer it in a workshop form for groups, and individually as well. I did this workshop for my son, who is the pastor of our church. I walked them through all six health factors of their life. He and I were on vacation together recently, and he told me, “Dad, the one thing that hit me was that on the vitality scale, I rated myself a three out of 10 on relational health. And that is not good.” So here is what he did. He formed a Dungeons and Dragons group of four or five guys. And when he talked about it, he talked about it with an energy I have not heard from him in a long time. He is establishing relationships in this very niche context, and it has been important to him. He addressed it because he realized his relational health was not good.
Dave: So the niche could be a bad thing if we are isolating ourselves. It also could be a good thing if we are finding our people.
Dimitri: When it does not work, it is like, well, I cannot find anyone to agree with me, so I will find a group of two or three people who do. And we just purport that we are right. It is this association with low risk, the identity I am associated with, where I do not have to deal with too many people in real life.
Dave: I am going to throw out two more reasons, somewhat philosophical, and then we will move into the positive. Why I think relationships are at a low point in America. Number one, by the very nature of America, we are a hyper-individualistic lot. We value personal productivity over presence. Getting our stuff done, doing what we need to do to be successful, regardless of the relationships around us. And that is almost inherently American.
Dimitri: It is. And I lived in Singapore for a bit. In Singapore, there is something called a parent credit. The government gives you a tax credit to take your parents into your home rather than sending them to alternative care. Up to 14,000 for parents, up to 3,000 per grandparent, per year. To your point, the Western system is literally designed to separate the family. We keep your kids over here, you go over there, mom over there, dad over there. Everything is so individualistic. You look at Southeast Asia, African countries, the family unit does not push a child away because they turned 18. You stay home until you are married and someone else takes your hand.
Dave: I think it comes from our founding ethos. We were founded with this individualistic ethos, which is quite contrary to many other social structures. And I have one more. This is even more philosophical. We are building a case here. If the Harvard study says the number one thing you can do to guarantee your happiness is to cultivate warm relationships, and the average American says they have nobody, there is a problem. And the bottom line is, clearly people are delaying adulthood. They are delaying the kinds of relationships, marriage and children, that would have been the norm 20, 30, or 50 years ago.
Dimitri: And I think there is an economy there. We capitalize on loneliness. There is money to be made by keeping people separate. We monetize loneliness. And we purport that there is value in it. Stay alone, do you, and you are going to be okay. And you wind up either in a broken family or in your mid-30s, mid-40s, unable to find your person or build a family. These subtle messages being reinforced through social, economic, and corporate contexts, to understand that and identify it is going to be key for us to say, okay, now how do we undo this? What is the antidote?
Dave: We are going to have to get to the point where my son did, where he evaluated his relational health. I hope anyone who is listening to this podcast is evaluating their relational health. You will not make any moves until you are sick of how you are. I do not want to be this way anymore. And I will tell you, if I had not cultivated at least some good, deep relationships, when I was in the ER and I did not know who my people were, I would have been in despair.
Dimitri: If I can share one thing. Before I met you and we came into each other’s lives, I was the lone wolf. Left the house at 14, straight pure unadulterated survival mode. There is no space for people. It is a vulnerability I cannot afford. And then I am lonely. No one will help me. I am all alone. But I built this wall. And then meeting you, and now cultivating other relationships, I am like, oh, this is what it looks like to have a nurturing, reciprocal, loving relationship. You have to give what you want. And the quality of my life, though my economy may still have been subpar, right, and everything else may have been on fire, I now have a good friend. The quality of my life inherently went up just because I now have a good friend. One that is not based on my identity, because my identity is going to change and evolve. And I do not even know what I am at some points. And so to know that you are here for me as Dimitri, the person, regardless of what title or name, that means everything.
Dave: Relational health is undervalued. Almost invisible to itself. You were in survival mode by accident, and you are accountable for who and what is in your world. And now you have contrast. You know what a quality relationship looks like.
Dimitri: And I just want to say thank you for being that friend.
Dave: Well, thank you, because when I was laying in the ER, you were one of the people I told first. Because I needed you to know. I guess that is it. If a person is wondering, do I have that kind of relationship in my life, here is a question for whoever is listening right now: if something went down with you, who would you want to know? In your heart you would say, I really want them to know where I am. That will tell you what kind of relationships you have. Who would be upset if they did not know? There is something soulful going on there.
Dave: So I guess we are defining real relationships now versus deal relationships. Because we have lots of deal relationships: ones related to title or position or work, an exchange of some kind. Deal relationships are not necessarily bad. The relationships I had with the people I worked with, we laughed, we had fun, we were very missional together, rolling up our sleeves and getting to work on something spiritual together. But when that relationship was over and I no longer had that title, some of those people I have not heard from in six years. It is because it was a deal relationship.
Dimitri: Like the soccer mom example. We are friends because all our kids play soccer. After that, once the kids are out of soccer, I will never call that person again. Not personal, but it is a very temporal, identity-centric micro community that only exists for that season. And I want to be honest: there have been times when a relationship has ended and I have had to acknowledge that I no longer needed them. And that is harsh. But it is also okay, because it is symbiotic. Both people can gain from it for the span of what they are trying to accomplish. But the key is having the balance of real relationships. If you just have a bunch of transactional or deal-centric relationships, you have a very shallow, superficial kind of well-being.
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Dave: One story stands out, and I know it is one of your favorite stories too. We have talked about this story from the Bible: the man who was paralyzed.
Dimitri: Tell the story. I love how you tell it.
Dave: In the city of Capernaum, there was a man who was paralyzed. Everyone knew that Jesus was coming and was going to be there, and that if you could just get to him, you could be healed. Well, these four friends had a fifth friend who was paraplegic. He could not move. And they committed to taking their friend to Jesus no matter what. They had to push through the heat and through crowds of people. They had to carry their friend on an apparatus. And when they got there, they could not get through the door. There were too many people crammed in. And these friends said, I do not care about any of that. They went to the roof. They carried this man up to the roof, without dropping him, without making his condition worse. And then they had to break through the roof carefully enough that everyone did not fall through. And then the last task was to lower this man down to Jesus. What stands out to me most is that these friends stayed on the roof while they lowered their friend down. They did not get to Jesus. Their mission was to get their friend to Jesus. My friend needs help, and we stop here. We cannot go past this point. It is not for us. This is for my friend.
Dimitri: That is relational health. That is real relationship. That themes our work. That is love. That is friendship. Who are your four? They are going to carry you.
Dave: Let me talk about another vital sign of relational health. I got this from David Brooks, who wrote a book, How to Really Know a Person. And it is this: if you want to develop relationships, illuminate, do not diminish. He said the real act of building a friendship involves performing a series of small, concrete social actions well. Disagreeing without poisoning a relationship. Revealing vulnerability at the appropriate pace. Being a good listener. Knowing how to sit with someone who is suffering. These are what he calls concrete social actions, and he calls that illumination. If we illuminate people with these series of small concrete social actions, we will have real relationships.
Dave: So it is that difference between diminishing and illuminating. Right around the time I was reading Brooks’ book, I had coffee with somebody I was trying to get to know. So we sit down and I say, hey, tell me about yourself. He talks about himself, where he is from, his family, what he does. He stops. And I sat there. Nothing. So I ask him another question: what are your hobbies, what do you like to do? He told me, in detail. And I am starting to see how the dynamic is taking shape. I ask him another question. He goes on and on. We stop. And you know what I am looking for.
Dimitri: Tell me about you. Reciprocity.
Dave: Nothing. But here is my favorite part of that moment, with air quotes around favorite. We finish. He has not asked me one question about me. He gets up to leave, walks over to the door, turns around, and says, let us do this again sometime. How about no? How about hard no?
Dimitri: How draining was that for you?
Dave: Oh, it was very draining. That was an hour, an hour and a half of time, and you drive home feeling like, what just happened?
Dave: So that is what Brooks would call a real illustration of a diminisher. Here is what he says. Diminishers are socially ignorant, meaning they are oblivious to the presence of others. Think about that: oblivious to the person sitting across the table from you. A diminisher makes people feel small and unseen. They render other people as unimportant. A diminisher is a topper. They dominate conversations and turn everything back to themselves. You tell them something about yourself and their reaction is something about them, at a higher level. Diminishers are socially naive. They think the way they view the world is the objective view. They are conceited. They believe they are more interesting and important than other people. They are prejudiced, always generalizing and stereotyping. And this one hit me: the diminisher is always afraid. They are worried about what people think of them.
Dimitri: Confession. As you were going through that list, I was thinking about my survivor mentality. When you are in survival mode, you do not have the emotional bandwidth to care, to see. I am wondering, how many times, by accident and not by conscious choice, have I presented to people in this way? Because I am just trying to survive. I am just trying to get to the next step. I am just trying to live. The people around me may not know that, but it makes them feel some kind of way. My problem right now is the biggest thing I have to solve at this moment.
Dave: I do not think people become diminishers because they are just narcissistic. I think the average person is a diminisher because they are afraid.
Dimitri: I would even add it is often a trauma response. The trauma of being on my own since 14. And I still have to take responsibility for how I am treating others and myself. But yes, it is a trauma response.
Dave: Let us get to the positive, because Brooks describes the illuminator. If you want real relationships, the kind the Harvard study says are the source of your happiness, you have to be an illuminator. Starting with this: you have to always be curious about others. And I think being curious about others means being skilled in asking follow-up questions. You ask a person a question, and I have a friend who taught me this, Jim Henderson. He says one of the key practices is showing a level of curiosity that is over and above. He taught me a key phrase: I would be curious to know. So you ask a question, they give you an answer. If you are an illuminator, you do not move on to yourself. You ask a follow-up question. The average person is not skilled in follow-up questions. Ask two follow-up questions and you are cooking with fire. I guarantee you, you will have a friend for life.
Dimitri: There is actually something floating around on social media called the Bird Test. You will be with someone and say, hey, I saw a bird today. And the person’s response tells you a great deal. A diminisher says, oh, I saw a bird too. An illuminator says, you saw a bird? What color was it? What were you doing? How did it make you feel? What kind of bird was it? And the study is that their response actually tells you about the quality of the relationship.
Dave: Ask follow-up questions. Here is another thing Brooks says: you will have good relationships if you learn how to pay attention to others with a posture of respect and dignity. Give people respect and dignity. He said you will be an illuminator if you stop seeing people as a problem to solve. Stop seeing people as a problem to solve. Illuminators are open-hearted, kind, genuine, warm, and tender. And they are accompanists. They see themselves in a humble, supportive role to others in their life. Coming alongside somebody. And illuminators know how to use the phrase, I see in you. Can I tell you what I see in you? Even something small: I love it when you do this. I so appreciate when you do that. That is the beauty of an illuminator.
Dimitri: That starts with parents and children. If you are a diminishing parent and you speak to your child that way, the type of adult you will raise will reflect that. There have been times when I have been quite the diminisher with my child. Just reading and hearing that list, it is like, here is how I can be better. Because I want to be a light. There is this altruistic part of us that wants to love other people and care for people. And if we can learn to illuminate and not diminish, that is how our culture is going to change.
Dave: And if you want real relationships with people who illuminate you, you have to illuminate. You get what you give. And you have to give it first. Brooks says when you are practicing illumination, you are offering a gaze that says, I want to get to know you and be known by you. And he said it is a gaze that radiates respect. When is the last time you sat across from somebody and offered a gaze that said, I want to know you and I want to be known by you? That is a real relationship. It goes back to what you said. We just want to be seen.
Dimitri: We are all eight-year-old children stuck in adult bodies. We just want to play and be seen and be loved and be special. How far off track have we gotten?
Dave: So how do we become illuminators? What questions can we ask ourselves? What postures can we take? One thing somebody told me years ago: if we are going to learn to love people and illuminate them, we have to love them accurately. Not everyone feels loved in the same way. There are the five love languages. Some people feel loved when they are touched. Some when you offer words of encouragement. Some when you serve them. Some when you give them your time. And then there are people who respond to gifts. The only way to love somebody accurately is to know how they receive love. If I know Dimitri feels loved when you speak words of affirmation to him, then I should not be wasting my time bringing him gifts. I should be finding ways to build him up with what I say.
Dimitri: And to the audience, there has been a lot of confusion about the love languages. People read that book thinking it is about knowing your own love language. It is for you to know how to love the other person in their love language. That is the footnote. And that can be uncomfortable. An illuminator says, I know you want to be touched, and that is not my natural way, but I will go out of my way to do that for you. Loving accurately means learning how that person wants to be loved.
Dave: If you want to get more sophisticated, look at the Enneagram. One of the things that transformed my wife and me: early in our relationship, we thought we were just alike. Then we went to a workshop, and we looked at each other after and said, who are you? We realized we were completely different. And so I know she is going to want to be loved in a way that may not be the way I want to be loved. The idea is: if I want real relationships, I have to give real relationships. If I want real love, I have to give real love. If I want friends, I have to be a friend. If I want somebody to be there when I am hurting, I have to be there when they are hurting.
Dimitri: Something you touched on: Brooks said, give critique, but not all at once. Do not give me a list of all the ways I am falling short right now all at once. Spread it out. One item at a time. And again, that is loving accurately. Even just that subtlety makes a difference. If you cannot figure out the perfect gift, you cannot stop everything for that, but you can just not critique all at once. Soften that critique. That is beautiful.
Dave: So I hope anyone watching or listening realizes: I have got some work to do. I have to become an illuminator. As a recap, the questions to ask yourself are: am I a diminisher or an illuminator? And inside of identifying that, what can I do to present the antidote? If I am a diminisher, how do I undo some of that? An Enneagram test or a personality test is a great start. The five love languages is a great place to begin. And with what Brooks says, just be patient, be kind, and show up.
Dimitri: As always, we encourage you to like and subscribe. We would love to have more subscribers. Share with others The Vitality Journey Podcast. Hope this has been enlightening when it comes to relationships.
Dave: And I will wrap it up with a blessing. May the spirit of love move through your relationships. May your words carry truth and your listening carry grace. May hearts remain soft even when conversations are hard, and humility open doors where pride once stood. May you see the sacred in each other, honoring both difference and dignity. May forgiveness come before resentment, and peace grow deeper than conflict. And may every bond you hold be a healing place for all who enter it. See you next time on The Vitality Journey.