Summary: In This Episode: A ‘secret’ to Uncommon Sense used to be passed down from generation to generation… but has started to die out, which explains a lot. Learn it to reduce stress and fear, and increase satisfaction and happiness.<br> <br> <a class="twitter-share-button" href="https://twitter.com/share?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">Tweet</a><br> <a href="#transcript">Jump to Transcript</a><br> <a href="https://thisistrue.com/category/podcasts/">How to Subscribe and List of All Episodes</a><br> Show Notes<br> <br> * No links or references this week: this was all dictated out of my own head. Vladimir had dropped me off at my lodgings, and I went right in and wrote down what happened since I knew this was a story I wanted to tell here.<br> <br> <a name="transcript"></a><br> Transcript<br> There’s a phrase your grandmother used that is an underlying building block of Uncommon Sense. It has been passed down through generations, but it seems like that passing along of wisdom died out in recent decades. In that phrase, that underpinning of Uncommon Sense, is a primary secret to reducing stress in your life, reducing fear, and increasing satisfaction and happiness. And I’m going to tell you what it is: you can put it to use immediately.<br> Welcome to Uncommon Sense. I’m Randy Cassingham.<br> “They” say that common sense is not only uncommon, it’s less and less common over time. Of course, if that’s true, Uncommon Sense has to be less common these days too.<br> And if it’s true, it’s at least in part because something that used to be passed down from generation to generation has been fading out. If your mother didn’t say it — and it does seem to be passed down more through mothers than fathers, but certainly some fathers gave this advice too — then your grandmother probably did, and your great-grandmother and previous generations almost certainly did.<br> I was in Las Vegas last week for meetings, and while driving in, I noticed my car had developed an issue, so I made an appointment with the local dealer for service the next morning. Nothing huge, but then I was stuck without a car, so to get where I was going I checked my Lyft app, and sure enough, there was something like 8 cars available within a few blocks, so I summoned one, and it pulled up within a minute.<br> “Randy?” the driver asked — he had my name on his screen. I knew his name already too: “Vladimir?” He nodded and I got in next to him. “How are you?” he asked. When I replied “I’m great!” — he almost looked surprised. I wondered about that, but didn’t say anything …yet.<br> As he drove, we chatted. I was trying to figure out where he was from: his accent wasn’t obvious, but he volunteered that he’s multilingual: he speaks Spanish, Russian, Italian, French, and I think a couple more. And, he said, he’s working on English. I asked him if he minded my asking where he was from. Cuba, he said.<br> His turn: he asked me what I do for a living. I told him I’m a writer. “Sorry,” he said, “my English isn’t that good yet. I don’t know that word.” so I used the Spanish word, escritor, which of course gave him instant recognition! “Do you know Spanish?” he asked. “Muy poquito!” I admitted — very little — so he very wisely stuck to English. He wanted to know what I write about. “I write about how it is very important to think,” I told him, “because I believe a lot of the problems in the world are because people react to things, rather than think about them.”<br> He pondered that for a moment, and then said, “May I ask you a question?” Clearly,
