 Good day everyone! Let's do an SE breakdown. This video we're going to go over is one that I had in Lexington with my name Melia. I'm not really good at English, I'm just practicing, so... Que lingüe... Oh, I shouldn't have said Spanish. You speak Spanish? I speak a little bit of Spanish, so if you want to... Oh, let's talk about this real quick. We're going to do some breakdowns on SE. We're going to learn about some of the things that we could do better. And basically just review a video I haven't seen since around April, maybe last year. This book that I have in the frame is The Day I Ate Whatever I Wanted by Elizabeth Bird. It's a collection of short stories that helps you connect with your feminine side. Very, very good book. It's such a nice book. It's just a really good book. It's rare to see stories written well that have good female characters that aren't written by dudes. I'm probably getting into a tangent here. But anyway, I recommend the book. The Day I Ate Whatever I Wanted by Elizabeth Bird. Real stuff. Don't read her novels. Short stories are where it's at. That's totally cool with me, too. I can't speak it back as well, but I can interpret it pretty good on my end. Whatever you want, I'm here to practice. So she actually meant that. So I was setting up at the Arboretum, which is near Kentucky's University, or Lexington University, the University of Kentucky, in Lexington. It's nearby the university in a place called the Arboretum. And this is like the first year of, or the first week of school for the college there. So we had a lot of freshmen walking by trying to explore the place. And Maria came by and she's just like, hey, I want to practice my English. I saw you had a sign says, let's chat about whatever you want. Let's do it. And I thought that was a really cool opportunity. So there will be a moment where we try to figure out what to talk about and then see how, if possible, we can explore that belief. Or motivation, whatever. When I ask you, I want to practice my Spanish. Is that how you would say it? I want to practice my Spanish. I want to practice my Spanish. But now, more or less. I know we can do it if you want. So yeah, like I said, I got a hobby where I talk to people for five minutes, five minute timer about maybe something that they motivates them, something that they think is true, something that really they're certain about. Is there anything like that for you? Yeah, well, I'm 17. You're 17? Yeah. So at this point, I'm like, okay. So normally, normally when we get a conversation starter, it's really good if it's on a claim that is, you know, I would say like worth exploring in this kind of format. If someone says they're 17, I believe they're 17 too. There's not much that I can do about that. And it's a pretty mundane claim to explore and immediately prove that's the case. You can look at her and she sees like she's a young kid. So what I'm going to try to do from here is pivot really early on in the conversation and try to find something more meaningful to talk about. And that might take a while, but that's the goal here. And I typically only pivot at the very start of a conversation and not when we've already began delving into like an established belief claim and trying to find out, oh, what's really here. And then if I find something more interesting, even if I'm like, you know, a third or two thirds of a way into a talk, I'll stay on that topic. But if we're at the very beginning, I'll pivot to something more interesting and that way we can both get something a bit more out of it. But yeah, I believe she's 17, obviously. Let's see if there's something more interesting below that surface. Is there anything more important to you than the age? Or at 17, like what's really important to you? Right now, I think it's finding what I want to do, what I want to do the rest of my life, finding what makes me happy. And that's important to you? Yeah. You want to talk about that maybe for five minutes? Yeah, sure. Okay, starting the timer. I'm Thai, by the way. That's not a bad thing. I'm Maria. Maria? Yeah, Maria. Maria. Everyone says Maria, but Maria, yeah. Maria, I like that. Okay, so Maria, you want to talk about, I guess, basically trying to find something that's important for you in the future? Yeah. What if you have in mind? Well, I think that maybe what would make... So at this point, I am keeping track of what she's saying on the notepad. But no, I'm not really taking aggressive amount of notes. What I'm writing down is just to signify that I care about what's being said to me. And what I'm really trying to do is just make sure that I'm showing positive body language that, like, hey, I care about what you're saying. I'm writing it down. Also, trying to get an assessment of where we're at the beginning of the conversation. Is her body language kind of closed up? It's a little bit closed up. Is she being thoughtful? Is there some guarded... Does she not think that I am genuinely interested about the things that she's saying? Or is there, you know, some key words that she's trying to stay away from or leaning on a great deal? And can I pay attention to that at the beginning of the conversation? Basically, I'm just trying to get some sort of anchor to understand where we're at, how comfortable the interview partner is, and where could we actually take this conversation in the future? But I think what's really important is that the marker board, as I'm taking notes, you'll see that I'll stop as needed to turn my focus back on my interview partner, but really that marker board is just to show, hey, I care about what you're saying. I'll write down a couple of key words, but I'm really here focused on you. Hopefully I keep that. I say that now, but I don't know what I did back a year ago. So still, I would say this marker board is just to show, hey, I care about what you're saying. And if I find that, you know, there's something that I'd like to talk about, you know, or go back to, I at least wrote down my keyword, but I'm mostly just focusing on you, and I'm keeping track of your body language and making sure you're comfortable, and we can have like a good solid chat. All right, let's go. Me happy is helping people, finding like the way to be better that I am right now. You want to do self-improvement so that you can ultimately help people in the future? Yeah, I'm actually working in that right now. Body language is opening up a little bit right here. Really, what are you doing? Well, I came here to learn English, to practice English from Columbia. Okay, okay. So I think that's an improvement and it has helped me so far a lot. Okay, are you here with school or is it just? No, I just graduated from high school. Okay. So I came here like to take a gap and practice my English and then I would go back to Columbia. Okay, what kind of professions are available for you to help people in Columbia? Well, maybe be a doctor. Okay. So like see how our language, like look, she was a little bit open as she was talking about, you know, her home country and like taking a gap, which is like when you take a year off and just have fun after high school. When we go back to the career option and she throws out doctor, body language closes back up again. And that's something I'm noting here. I probably don't even realize it, but I'm mimicking the BL without even realizing it. But you have a lot of different kinds of body language, positive, negative. That's the easiest way to interpret it. Negative. And I'm not, or you can say open, closed. Open. I would say like a guy punching you is negative body language. But like I would say this is closed up in the sense of like she doesn't, she's saying doctor, but she doesn't really me. She doesn't seem to be as inspired when she says that she's more of like, Hey man, I'm having fun. So what do you want to be when you go? I don't know a doctor was like, do you really want to be a doctor? Maybe that's something worth digging into. And that's probably where I'll take the conversation. I'm thinking of, I'm thinking of studying architecture. Architecture. Yeah, and that's a challenge because I'm trying to find a way to help people through that. Okay. I'm not sure how yet. Okay. I guess like not just designing a building, but like also knowing how to make it safe. And like the electrical means of like getting everything wired right. And then like following the laws. Yeah. There's a lot of complex architecture. And maybe making it more environmental friendly. Okay. Okay. Environmental. Cool. So is it important to make something environmental? We're finding something really cool. As far as architecture is concerned. If you got a big pile of money, just make it anything that you can. Don't worry about it. Yeah. No. Environmental. Why is that important to you? Because I'm 17 and I'm really concerned about the nature and how we are changing the planet. And it has been a lot of changes in the last I think 1000 years. You can see it's a lot more open the body language here. And I'm not really taking as many notes because I am just really focusing on what she's saying. It's it's cool how we went from it. So just to recap, she's like, I would need to figure out what I want to do for us in my life. I want to help people. And she throw that doctor. But then she throws out architecture and there's a lot more into it. And so I throw in, well, you know, there's a lot of things to architecture rather than just like drawing. Like you got to know specs, regulations, maybe the current laws, electrical work. If you can do some engineering, that'd be great. Loading strength, materials. There's a lot of stuff that goes into architecture. Like what about it like draws you in? Is it like the nitty-gritty stuff? And she's like, oh, I'm all about that nitty-gritty stuff. I'm all about it. In fact, I'm into some weird, you know, environmental compliance things. I was like, oh, whoa, let's go into that. I like people who know like the minutiae of their passions. And now we're beginning to fall into it. But not only just like the obscure details of a particular, you know, hobby that she has or like a future career, but also why she's motivated to have these details in her head with relating to the thing that she loves so much. Now I think we're going to go on to the path towards figuring out not just what she knows, but why she knows it or like how she got to this passionate belief. Like how, what's the mechanism that led her to being so compelled to follow the path of becoming an architect? Sure. And for example, right now in my country, it happened a really big disaster. And a big, pretty lake just got ruined. Really? Yeah. So I think we should be, we should think more about our planet because it's where we live and we want to live more time that we are supposed to. Why did the lake change colors in your country? I'm not sure how to say it in English, but this big petroleum. In the industry? Yeah, industry. It's a big industry in the street that controls, I don't know, the worst petroleum. Yeah. So all of the petroleum, God, I'm thinking of the word in English. Dumped? Yeah, in a lake. Okay. But it was an accident. Oh, okay, okay. But still there's nothing they can do and the government is not really doing anything to, yeah, like to punish them for that mistake they made. Sure, sure, sure. So that's a really, I mean, maybe you haven't been in Colombia, but it's a really pretty country and it's sad that we are losing that thing. I see, I see. How will architecture or your future in architecture help to alleviate something like that from happening again? And I'm going to think about this for a bit, but sometimes you get the, so like if this was like a religious conversation and essays typically done on religious topics that so much that it gives the impression that it can only be done in religious topics, but that's not the case. It's really just trying to figure out, okay, so what's something that you strongly believe? How did you come to that conclusion? Like, and is that conclusion reliable? I've come to the idea that she doesn't like, she doesn't like companies that inadvertently damage the environment and she wants to learn architecture, but I'm asking her, how are you connecting these two? And how does one affect the other? And how does learning about architecture or starting a career in architecture lead to this ultimate gain of improving the environment? And I think it's cool just to fact check or, you know, like in the same capacity of SC is like, okay, so, you know, you believe in a God because people are kind to each other. How does this God belief lead to people being kind to each other? Or you can't drive your car, you're going to put gas in your car. How does putting gas in your car let you drive your car? Do you just walk me through that? In the same aspect, I'm doing the same thing here. And if there's a reliable path between her being an architect and her improving the environment, then I want to know about it because I want to know about true things. And all I'm doing here is helping her figure out if that relationship is reliable or not by asking her these questions. That's the framework of SC, so I'm not even like, I'm not challenge or I'm not attacking her idea of being an architect. And I'm not doubting the concept that, you know, industries can pollute the environment. What I'm focusing on is how her motivations can lead to the conclusion that she's aiming for and seeing if that pathway actually connects the two together. And if they do, great, I learned something new and maybe we helped her realize something a little bit more nuanced about the belief that she had. And if not, that's also a good thing too, because then she might realize a better way to help the environment. And that's where SC is really good at. It's just a way to help people think about the things that they really care about. And it's so cool that you can do this on more things than just, you know, religion or, you know, political beliefs or whatever. But you can do it on, you can do it on those things, but you could also do it on mundane things too. Hey, what's your favorite movie? Let's see, what is my favorite movie? I don't know, I got a lot of favorite movies, Grand Pudapest Hotel, right? It's like, why is it your favorite movie? Because I really like scenes with meticulous action going on behind the scenes or in the background. And then we can like figure out, okay, so if there was other movies that had meticulous, you know, actions in the background, would you like that too? And I was like, maybe I would because that's my criteria that I'm basing it off of. So I can have like passions that are like very mundane that we can look at through an SE lens and see if I came to them through a reliable way or not. Or a reasonable way or a consistent way or a way that's convincing to other people. It's just a really versatile approach to talk about people's really hardcore beliefs, motivations, hobbies, et cetera. And that's what I really like about it. So now we're getting into the meat of it, which is how will your future in architecture help to alleviate these environmental disasters from happening again? How are these two things connected? Can you help me out with that? I don't know. I'm trying to think about it and to find a way, maybe to relate those things. But I don't think it's just what I studied, what is going to make that change. I think that I have to do other things that maybe will help me. What else? I'm so bad at Spanish. What else? How do you say other things? What? What other things? I don't want to say other Spanish. Que otras cosas? Que otras cosas, see. Okay, okay. Yeah, okay. Maybe I could. I think it, I think it. So for architecture, would you like... So here's a good point. I love I Don't Know is an answer. I Don't Know is a completely justified answer for when you don't know something. But SE is not about, how do I put it, catching people in the I Don't Know statement? It's really a helpful way for two people to learn something. Or even if you're doing SE on yourself to help you learn more about something as well. But the way I see an I Don't Know, it's not a destination. It's the start of a journey towards learning about the thing that you could learn more about. And that can be done with help. And it can be done with someone who's also interested who doesn't know either way. I think the I Don't Know is the perfect place to start learning from. In fact, it's the number one best place to learn from. Because you come at the approach with as little bias as possible. And I don't know either how architecture can lead towards this stopping of Columbian pollution. So we're working on this together now. And we will fact check our reasoning as we go. So now it went from like a, even though the conversation went from a one way with me asking questions to Maria, to now we're now going to start throwing ideas back and forth against each other. This is entirely what SE is. Like it's not one way SE and then two way SE. It's like, no, this is just what SE is. It's people trying to figure out or the attempt to figure out why we care about the things we care about. Why, how we know the things that we know. Why do we love the things that we love? Like all these things fall into SE. I just think it's really cool. Consider developing a physical platform to maybe make it easier for industry to throw away potentially dangerous things so that they don't get into like water streams that other people use. Yeah, that's a good idea. Go ahead and take that. That's actually a pretty interesting field and a lot of people can benefit from that. That's definitely something that you can positively use. I think. What if it was, what if it was better for you financially? Not to do this. Not to take that route. What if you got rich? Not doing that at all. I wouldn't. I wouldn't. I wouldn't. Would there be any other motivating, not to say you're trying to destroy the planet. I'm not saying that. But I'm like, is there any other reason why you want to go into architecture rather than helping people and helping the environment? Is there any other aspect behind it that you think- Yeah, so that's the idea. Typically when people say, and I'm framing this on a God belief again, but if someone says, hey, I believe in God because personal experiences. You get that a lot. Personal experiences. And my faith. Now you have two different I would say levels or options to go in a conversation. It's just like, should I talk about these personal experiences this guy had? Or should I talk about the faith thing this guy's talking about? Only talk about the one that's the most important to the person. Because if it turns out that personal experiences isn't really what's supporting the belief, you should have been talking about the thing that is supporting the belief because that's the more meaningful conversation to be had. And what I'm doing in this conversation right now with Maria is using that exact same framework and now saying like, okay, so you believe that learning architecture can help to reduce pollution. But what if it was much more lucrative for you to take a different option? And she says, well, I don't care about the money. So like, all right, money's not a concern. But is there anything else that's also a motivating factor for you to maintain this course on learning and architect? And if so, and we can figure that out, maybe we can see which one of the two are more important. And then maybe we would have a better idea of what actually is this motivation that's leading you down this path. If any at all. It's like interesting for you to like what's the foundation like to get that? Yeah, well, I think that would make me happy. Boom, there we go. That's not bad. I really like to draw a lot. And I also like math. But it's kind of hard to find a career that lets me do both. Okay. So I got into architecture and I thought maybe that's what I have to do. Okay, I see. Do you ever worry that, I know almost out of time, do you ever worry that doing something that you love as a means, as a way to keep you, you know, fed and have a roof over your head? Yeah. Would you ever get tired of it and then you have other things that you love that you can do on the side? Like if you turn your hobby into a profession, maybe it doesn't feel like a hobby to you anymore. Yeah, well, I think that it's important for me to do something that I love. Because I'm not thinking that it's what I'm going to do the rest of my life, but most part of it. So I'm really concerned about doing something that makes me happy. Sure. But also that lets me help other people. Okay. And I know that at a certain time, I will get tired of it. I mean, I'm going to do it almost all day. Sure, yeah. So I'm going to be stressed and when I get to work, it's going to be a lot of things that I have to think and that I will have to do. Yeah. And yeah, maybe I will end up thinking that's not what I like, but I know that deep inside it is. Okay. So I have a lot of other things that I like to do and maybe I'll get some time to practice that or to do that things. Okay. That also makes me happy. Okay. Yeah. Ultimately keeps you happy. Would you mind if I just summarize real quick? Yeah. Cool. I think this is good talk. So, Maria, I can't do it in Spanish. Yeah, don't worry. Do it anyway. So in the future you want to have a job of architecture. For women. Oh, yeah. And... I'm going to try to translate my terrible Spanish. How about that? Sorry about that. in Spanish. Yeah, don't worry. Okay, let's do it. Bad translation. Let's go. So in the future, you want the job of an architect? Architect. Architect. For women, so how do you say you want to help all the people in here? No, you want to help all the people in the world, right? Yes. And you want a profession? A job, a profession? That will make you feel happy, I guess. That will make you feel happy. Make me happy. That will make you feel happy. It's the same in English. It's the same in English. Yeah. Thank you so much for the talk. Nice to meet you. Have a good day. So that was a fun chat. So let's just do a quick little review of everything that happened. So we started off with a conversation being like, hey, I'm 17. You want to talk about that? And I'm like, dude, I don't think we can talk about that because I think it's so obvious that it would be a really short chat. So let's pivot and talk about like maybe what you want to be when you grow up or like what's the motivation that you have. And so we talked about our motivations. She said originally that she wanted to be a doctor. Remember that? Remember that at the start of the talk? She was all like, I want to be a doctor. And I was like, really? She's like, no, I want to be an architect. So architect. And then we decided to talk about why she wanted to be an architect. So now we started digging here. So digging to what's really motivating you to be an architect? What's motivating? Motivating? And she said, because of the environment, and I'm like, yeah, but how do those two things connect with each other? Like how does being an architect tie to the environment? And she actually needed some help. She was like, I don't know. I'm trying to figure it out. Like I know there's bad things happening. But I hope somehow my architecture can lead to improving the environment. We threw out some ideas and found out like maybe she could help to develop like some, you know, better mitigation platforms for reclamation or for pollution treatment, bioremediation, whatever. There's a lot of platforms that are currently being studied and developed right now that could use an architect to improve whatever engineering capacity they have to resolve those kinds of environmental issues. And what I'm thinking is, that's all nice and well, but what's really motivating this? What's really motivating this? I said, okay, so that's fine. Well, but what if you could do that for money? What if you can get way more money by doing something else? And she's like, nah, it's not. What about money? And she's like, no, it's not for money. So what really is it then? And she says it will make her personally happy. So like personal happiness, in my opinion, is worth way more than money, dude. Being happy and like proud of what you're accomplishing and loving what you're doing is literally worth more than money. It is all about, you know, your well-being. And I find like that personal happiness is a is probably the true foundation of the work that she's doing. Because I asked her at the end, it's like, hey, what if you what if you're doing this and, you know, you're realizing, hey, you may not like this because you're you're now forced to do it as like as your livelihood. And she's like, even if that's true, I would rather be doing something that I know I love. Because even when I think to myself, I hate this job, I know in my heart, no, I don't. I still love doing this. And I'm like, that's cool. So we went, we dug down pretty deep. Like we dug down from the, hey, do you want to be a doctor? Nah, I don't want to be a doctor. Okay, so what can we do deeper than this? And we dug down to like, hey, I'm motivated to pursue this career because I know make me happy. There are a lot of other good things that'll come off of it. Like maybe I'll be able to help the environment. I'll be able to fund myself and and improve my standard of living. But ultimately, it makes me happy. And I think that is a fantastic way to conclude a talk like that. Essie, like I said, just a really cool way to learn more, learn more about what you love. And I learned so much in this talk, including Spanish. So hey, that's the end of the chat. I'll see you guys next time. Bye guys.