Rediscovering the Value of Show and Tell in Daily Interactions
In this episode of BL NK Pages, a podcast where we dive into the power of fresh starts and explore the courage, curiosity, and creativity that come with embracing the blank pages of life. Today's episode is a special one where I take a moment to reflect on some fascinating conversations and the simple yet profound truths they've brought to light. These insights are not just intriguing; they are actionable, deeply meaningful, and have the potential to significantly enrich our lives.
First off, thank you for tuning in and supporting the show. If you haven't subscribed yet, you can find us on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music, and other platforms. For more resources and all episodes, follow me on Instagram @TimPecoraro and check out the link in my bio. Also, don’t forget to sign up for our newsletter to receive recaps and updates on new content.
In today's discussion, I delve into the concept of "show and tell," a familiar childhood activity that, surprisingly, holds immense value in our adult lives. Here’s what we covered:
1. The Essence of Show and Tell:
- Show and tell isn't just about sharing physical items; it's about expressing what's important to us. It's a choice about what we bring into the spotlight and how we share our stories.
2. Life as an Ongoing Show and Tell:
- Every day, we curate aspects of our lives that we choose to show the world, from our appearance to our actions. This daily presentation is our continuous engagement with the world, shaping how others perceive us and how we influence our surroundings.
3. The Importance of Authenticity:
- The challenge and beauty of show and tell lie in being genuine about what we choose to share. It’s about being vulnerable, taking risks, and being true to ourselves in what we show and tell others.
4. Responding to Show and Tell:
- Just as we present our stories, we must also learn to be receptive and appreciative of what others share, recognizing the value in their experiences, regardless of how simple or elaborate they are.
5. Encouragement for More Meaningful Interactions:
- I encourage everyone to embrace show and tell as a tool for better interaction and understanding in our daily lives. Consider organizing a show and tell session with friends or colleagues—it can be a powerful way to connect and share meaningful aspects of our lives.
6. Closing Thoughts:
As we continue to navigate our lives, let’s strive to be excellent show-ers and tellers and equally good at responding when others do the same.
Thank you once again for listening. I hope this episode inspires you to think about your own show-and-tell moments and how they shape your interactions and personal growth. Until next time, keep turning those blank pages into endless possibilities.
Transcript
Well, hello and welcome to Blank Pages, the podcast. A podcast for people who appreciate the new beginnings of a clean slate. But they strive for the courage, willingness, curiosity, and creativity available only on the blank pages of possibilities. It's the potential to move beyond, move forward, where people are willing to make new decisions from fresh perspectives and are ready to write in a much better way. The world is waiting, and nothing listens better than a blank piece of paper. So welcome to this is episode, I believe, 20. I'm getting these numbers all jacked up. So it's 19.
Tim Pecoraro [:Listen, it's gonna be. It's 1920 or 21, right? So it's. I believe it's 20. So it'll be correct in the. Obviously, in its placement and in the show notes. Anyways, I've been having some really cool conversations, and my mind is like, like all over with some really cool, small, but yet important, just pieces of information that I think are so useful for our lives. So that's what I want to do. I want to.
Tim Pecoraro [:I want to take some, some weeks and just kind of just take some very simple, but yet fascinating and very, I think, robust and profound and deeply meaningful, meaningful truths that we could put to work and help ourselves. So first, before we go, I just want to say thank you, before I go any further, thank you for listening and subscribing to the show. If you haven't done so already, please do so. Where you listen to your favorite podcast, Spotify. It could be Apple Podcasts, Amazon music, any of those. And let me think. I think it's on. I don't know.
Tim Pecoraro [:There's a whole list of them. I will. I need to put those in the show notes. I got to remind myself to do that. But you can just click there, subscribe to the show. And if you would also like to go to Instagram, Pecoraro, when you're in Instagram, go to my bio link, click there. You can find all the shows there. That's the quickest way to get there.
Tim Pecoraro [:And all the links to it, but also resources. And I love giving things away, and I've got a whole bunch that I'm working on, more free stuff. So if you're interested in learning how to put some, some tools and things together in your life, like having some ways to do new things better and, you know, blah, blah, blah, stuff like that, I might have some things for you. So click on there. You can join a newsletter as well. And in that newsletter, I will send you recaps of what I'm covering in the podcast. Just overview things like that and also anything that's new and forthcoming. Also, don't forget that if you have not gotten a copy of flit learns to fly, you can get a copy of that as well.
Tim Pecoraro [:It's on that link in my instagram bio. I'm loving it. I got some people reading it and posting some things and it's pretty cool and it's fun. And I also have had some parents who have read the book and it's pretty cool what they're saying about it for themselves and what they're having to remind themselves of. And anyways, anything that you can do to encourage a young person, I think it's great. So if it's writing a book like I did, do it. If it's helping with a sport or an activity, do that. If it's just to be a friend or a neighbor or a helper to a family that shows just care towards children, hey, do it.
Tim Pecoraro [:Get involved. So moving forward for today, I'm, like I said, I've been having these great and fascinating conversations with folks. And in the conversations I love when there's something that is said, some sort of truth or piece of information that they drop in the conversation that just opens up into a whole world of discovery. I mean, I'm not saying you leave the conversation by chasing whatever thing that was said. It's just the thing that was said and how it opens up that conversation. And so I've been discovering a lot of these little things, things that are said and it opens up the conversations and they're, they're phrases or, or just very simple statements that are having tremendous and profound impact for finding direction, problem solving, improving things, you name it. I mean, it's some, there's some pretty cool stuff. But so literally, as of even not shortly or prior to me hitting record today, I had a whole nother thing I wanted to talk about.
Tim Pecoraro [:But I was like, I'm going to do this because it's one of those things that popped up and it's around this idea of show and tell. And that's what this is about. Just show and tell and just thinking about being a kid and show and tell. And I remember so being born doing show and tell, that would have been in the seventies for me. So you think about mid seventies, early seventies show and tell, you know, and we didn't have a lot of things. We didn't have a lot of, a lot of stuff. But we learned show and tell was it's not just possessions only, it's other things you could, it could be a picture. It could be so many different things.
Tim Pecoraro [:What is show and tell? And so show and tell was something that you get to choose, right? You choose what you're going to bring in and show and then tell about. You have to know what it is that you are going to show. You have to. You're going to find something and then you're going to say, okay, and then I'm going to tell about it. So you want to just, you know what is important to me? What do I want to show? Like, and what kids will do is they'll choose things that mean something to them. To show and tell. I mean, and that's what they want. And all kids there, there's something that they have that's important.
Tim Pecoraro [:Little kids hold on to stuff. I mean, little kids hold on to t shirts and they hold on to teddy bears and they hold on to. I mean, they could be a coin, it could be a shell. It could be. I mean, who knows what it is that they're holding on to and what it means to them. And there's something that if they were to bring it in, if it was show and tell, they'd bring it in and say, here's what it is. This is what it is. And then we tell you about it and then it's left in the rooms.
Tim Pecoraro [:Going to respond. There are three things. There's the. The show and tell. There's three things that I want you. That I want to kind of put out. There is. There's a thing that you choose that it's your opportunity to show and tell.
Tim Pecoraro [:And then there will be, once again, at the end of that, some sort of response. And I think about the thing that you would pick to show and tell about. And so I started thinking if we could get better at show and tell, like with kids. Because we make a lot of decisions based on show and tell. And it's not an organized thing in class. It's not just the kindergarten setting where they go, okay, class, tomorrow or next week, we're doing show and tell on Wednesday. Take this piece of paper home and share that with your parents so that you bring in your favorite whatever. It's not just that life is show and tell.
Tim Pecoraro [:When you walk into a room like you have curated a whole bunch of stuff that you're taking from your house and you're stepping out into the world with. You're about to go into the world to show. So every day we're curating stuff and we're picking things up that we're going to take out into the world to show however you dress. It's however, I mean, all those things. So you have to determine what matters to you, what's important to you, because you have to understand that every day is showing show and tell, and we need to get better at doing that. We need to get better at showing and telling. And not so much in just hiding and avoiding, but just show and tell. Now, I'm not talking about showing other people stuff and telling about other people's stuff.
Tim Pecoraro [:That's not what I'm talking about. I mean, the world is really good at that. I'm talking about what we're going to bring into the picture. What are you bringing into the space? What are you bringing into the conversation? What are you bringing into the room? What are you bringing in? That's going to be something that even, I don't know, it makes you vulnerable, puts you at risk a little bit. So when it comes to picking a thing, so remember I said there's three things about the show and tell that I want to cover. Number one is, you know, what you choose. You choose to show. So even if you're trying to hide stuff, you're choosing to show something, because whatever is not coming out, you're still showing up with something.
Tim Pecoraro [:So that is what you're choosing. So what's the story behind that? If somebody were to ask you, the way you show up every day and you walk into the room and they were to ask you, tell me about what you're showing me. And if you're not showing up as your complete and total self, how do you tell? What's the story behind? If that's not really you, what's the story behind it? What do you tell? What's the value? So that's what I'm saying. What are you showing every day? Is it worthwhile? Is it valuable? Is it inspirational? Does it edify? Does it educate? Does it motivate? I mean, you know what I mean? Does it support? Does it help to increase? Does it expand? Does it adapt? Like, these are, like, all the things that when I, when I think about show and tell, even from as a kid, and so what you go through as a child, you come in, you bring in your toy, you show your toy, and everybody's like, and here's the whole story behind it. And then people respond to it and see. And what we do is kind of like all the things that we, all the things in life that we experience at some time in our life, we have some sort of disappointment with, you know, so, you know, we all have some sort of show and tell that doesn't go well in our life. It always happens. You put something out there into the world.
Tim Pecoraro [:You tell the room this story, and it's met with maybe disapproval or people not. I mean, just whatever it is that can, can really be a hindrance or hurt us in the future with ever showing and telling again and how tragic that is. So we pick a thing. We wake up every day to show and tell. We pick a thing that we're going to show and tell, even if we're not describing it literally. But what we're doing is daily. That's what we're doing. There is a story being told with what you're showing.
Tim Pecoraro [:There's something that's being told as well. Even if it's left up to perception, there is a telling component to it. It's revealing something. It's, it's, it's. It's telling worth, it's telling value. It's telling whether it can build up, edify. It's saying whether or not it does educate or inspire. It's saying whether it will multiply for the better or not.
Tim Pecoraro [:Like, it's still saying. It's still. There's something with it. So whatever it is you bring in. And that's the thing. We judge other people's showing and that's this part of the response. So when I'm talking about you choose something and that's what you show. When you do show and tell, a kid wants to bring something into the room and show it and tell about it, and they're hoping everybody's going to be excited about that.
Tim Pecoraro [:But then you run into those times that you bring something in. It's important to you and it's worth something. There's a story behind it, and you tell the story behind it and why it's important to you. And people kind of don't understand it or they don't like it. That's where you've got to remember that no matter what, the world responds. Like, you still have to understand what it is that you chose to show and tell and what it means to you. Because not everyone is always going to embrace what it is that you're showing and what it is that you're telling. And then don't run and try to always show what it is you think everyone wants to see.
Tim Pecoraro [:Don't always have to show what you feel. Everyone else has had success with showing what it is that you have that's important. What is your story? What is the thing that means something to you and whatever that is, anything in proximity, what does it mean to you? Why do you have that thing? What does it mean to you? Learn to define that so that we can do show and tell a little better, because we don't, we don't need, we're beyond kindergarten, right. But life, every day is an opportunity for another introduction. It's another opportunity for another connection. It's another opportunity for us to, to get things realigned or to reshape things, to improve stuff, to build better. And there's a show and tell, like, what are you bringing out? What are you going to show me here? And what are you telling me? And then we want to, we want to get better also responding, knowing that just like in show and tell, a kid can come in with just a dirty coin that was given to them from someone in their family, and another kid can come in with, I don't know, a club that someone who won the Masters, a golf club won the masters with, you know, recently or something. And the kid tells a story and they were there and they witnessed that putt and say it was a great putt and this whole story.
Tim Pecoraro [:And so for some kids, that, that has more magic to it, that putter and that kid's holding it. It was with this club, and he did, and maybe the story was even better, but to that kid holding that dirty coin, that doesn't change its significance and value. So we've got to get better at also listening to that, to that as people knowing that if we want to do things better, if we want to be better at being human, then we're going to have to also be people who understand what it means to leave space and room for the dirty coin that's got the story that also becomes a part of everything else that's being shared in the room and into the world. So let's remember, show and tell is important, and everybody needs to be able to do that. Let's remember the motives and the motivation behind what it is that you're showing and telling. Why is it important? What, what do you want to, what do you want to do to use that to build people up, to edify, to help people maybe get, to improve their vision or to get things moving in a better direction. So each one of us can play a part in that. And, yeah, take some time to maybe ask someone if you could go and grab something and show me and tell me about it, what would that be? Hey, that's an idea.
Tim Pecoraro [:Get a friend group together and every, and do show. Show and tell. That'd be cool. Everybody bring something fun, something that means something. Whatever it is, show it and tell. Do it around a meal, have some fun with it, and maybe share your experience. So thank you so much for listening. I appreciate you and your time, and I hope that you can find more things to show and tell.
Tim Pecoraro [:And also be a person who responds in such a great way when others do the same. So until next time, we'll talk soon.
