The Richly or Poorly Show
Show Transcript
shdawson-20260728.mp3
Episode 07/28/2026
07/28/2026

Hello! Welcome to The Richly or Poorly Show!

My name is Dr. Stephen Dawson, and I am your show host.

Thank you for joining me.

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The show's motto is unmistakable: RICHLY IS GOODLY!

Please consider how you define the term good as we journey through life together in your pursuit of defining the term richly in your life.

The plan for my presentations to you was to first establish a foundation of shared understanding between you, the listener, and me. Then, proceed to build on that foundation with subsequent episodes. I recommend that you review the nine episodes between December 2nd, 2025, through January 27th, 2026, as you see fit to help you remember the foundation of our shared understanding as we proceed through each episode you hear in the coming weeks, months, and years.

Last week, I presented on the topic of relationships. I presented the first step in establishing a relationship, Determine Value. It will take several episodes to present relationships to you in preparation for presenting The Five Academic Skills Necessary for Success to you.

Today, I will continue to present on the topic of relationships. I will present the second step in establishing a relationship.

The basis for a relationship is a longer duration than that of a team in a project. All team members have the relationship attribute. However, the starting point of formation for any relationship is different from that of forming a team. A team has a purpose to accomplish. A relationship has no purpose other than to relate as the events unfold through a set of individualized guided preferences. I invite you to review the Teaming series episodes of April 7th, 2026, through May 19th, 2026, as you see fit to better understand the episode I present to you today.

The second step in establishing a relationship is Determine Type.

Examples of the types of relationships include personal versus professional, employer versus employee, parent versus child, and on and on to endless comparisons and contrasts. A relationship that starts in one form could change to another form. A relationship that starts well could end poorly. Arguably, a relationship that has ended is still a relationship in the form of a memory.

I think of relationships based on the aspect of trust. We covered Determine Trust in the April 14th, 2026, episode during the Teaming series. The boundary of the type of any relationship, from my worldview, is the amount of trust I have with the person, object, process, or natural force that I desire to form a relationship. We covered these four aspects in last week's episode.

I think often by using numbers. Mathematics is a strong form of logic. There is no subjectivity in a number as there is in a word. I hold the belief that a relationship will never be perfect, as no person is perfect. Perfect in the form of a relationship is calculated by the equation of 100% success of every imaginable aspect of the relationship. I define the perfection of a relationship by the percent of satisfying every imaginable aspect of the relationship. I define relationship success as less than 100% and greater than 0%. If the calculation ever equals 0%, then there is no relationship.

Now, you may be asking yourself an obvious question. How does one know when they are in a relationship? The answer is simple. If you have a pulse, then you are in many forms of many relationships at all times. What is difficult to accomplish is to agree with a person, object, process, or natural force that I desire to form a relationship. Only a person can experience feelings. An object is inanimate as it is not alive. A process is inanimate as it is not alive. A natural force such as either light, gravity, or water has life at the atomic level, but they have no life that we can relate to through an exchange of messaging. So, the impact of a relationship is on each of us as the recipient of the powers held by the person, object, process, or natural force that we each desire to form a relationship.

Please stop and consider the sentence I just stated. Impact of a relation EQUALS the reality of a relationship. This understanding of reality is an example of the Truth.

Personally, I feel powerless in almost every relationship I have experienced, experiencing now, and will ever experience. I cannot control any person, most objects, most processes, and all natural forces. I could force someone as a child to do what I demand of them, but my force does not necessarily gain either their agreement to do the process willfully or their desire to do the process. I could change an object for it to be what I want. The same is true for a process. Food is an example of changing an object. We either cut or prepare food before we eat it. We eat it to be perhaps healthy, happy, or both.

The type of relationship determination occurs every second the relationship exists. The trust aspect I spoke of earlier in this episode is an example of relationship change. I am not going to share information with an employee until I hold enough trust in the relationship I have with the employee as their employer. The same is true for a person I trust who violates the trust. It may be difficult to tell our physician all about our health, as in how we follow their instructions to receive their treatment when we do not like the medication they prescribe to us, do not like a lifestyle change they assign to us, or even when we do not want to undergo a medical procedure they have recommended to treat us to improve our health.

The parent-child relationship also has the aspect of friendship. Fulfillment of the parenting authority happens in balance with kindness, which is realized as friendship. The friendship grows as the child becomes an adult, where friendship is the dominant part of the parent once the authority of the parent is no more.

I have listened to economists over the years try to explain what is happening with the flow of money in a country. I hear them state what needs to change for more people in a country to be prosperous. It is my experience that economists do not understand either people, sociology, or anthropology. So, I take what an economist says as an input to a larger plan and not the construct of an absolute plan. I have a relationship with all economists in an advisory capacity but not in a leader-follower capacity.

I have considered the term role model over the years. A role model is a person whose behavior, example, or success either is or can be emulated by others, especially by younger people. A role model can be viewed as either a hero or a heroine. The type of relationship with a role model is that of leader-follower, where the role model is the leader. There is no leader-follower relationship formation between the role model and the person who emulates the behavior of their role model. So, the Truth is there is no leader-follower relationship. The role model instance is a conflicted view of reality, as people are trying to follow a process espoused by a person who is viewed as a role model. There is no process put forth by a role model. Hence, the resulting conflicts are based on confusion, assumptions, and ultimately disappointments in the role model, who never had a chance of succeeding as a role model, as they never formed a relationship with anyone who holds them in their view as a role model.

I think of presidents and prime ministers. Their work is so personalized in the minds of those who are their citizens. It is easy to blame the person filling the role of either president or prime minister for doing their job. There must be crushing pressure placed on the person filling the role of either president or prime minister for doing their job. Add in any part of any role model occurrence in motion from the citizen of the country who approves of their president or prime minister. The relationship clearly has much weight placed on it to exist, operate, and ever realize any form of success in the mind of the citizen.

The parent-child relationship also has the aspect of role model. The authority and friendship combination is presented to the child, where the child has both the dad and mom representing the best of both parts of humanity to the child in an effort to form the worldview, ethics, and morality of the child. The proof of this effort is seen in the choices the child selects over their life.

Neuralink is a company owned by Elon Musk. The purpose of this company is to develop implantable brain-computer interfaces. The electronics are implanted into a human brain by a surgical procedure. The electronics communicate to a computer, smartphone, or tablet by wireless messaging. This technology intends to advance the human user interface beyond what is occurring now with computers, smartphones, and smart speakers.

Meta and Ray-Ban formed a partnership to develop smart glasses. The glasses display images inside the lenses for the wearer to see. The glasses also have two cameras outside the frame. The electronics communicate to a computer, smartphone, or tablet by wireless messaging. This technology intends to advance the human user interface beyond what is occurring now with computers, smartphones, and smart speakers.

It seems simple enough to develop these technologies and, in the process, control a person. If not control a person, then impact their behavior in a preferred manner. If people cannot be set to perform in a particular manner, then replace the people with artificial intelligence to operate electronics in the form of a robot, computer, smartphone, or tablet. The result is more productivity by machines, where the costs to run the business are less than the cost of running the business with people. The connectors of this concept are the objects and processes formed to work with the natural forces that impact the machines running the artificial intelligence. I addressed artificial intelligence in the January 6th, 2026, June 16th, 2026, and June 23rd, 2026, episodes. I invite you to review these episodes as you see fit to better understand the episode I present to you today.

Clearly, the ethical and moral impact of these technologies is staggering to consider. There are use case scenarios that view their development as helpful to humanity, and use case scenarios that view their development as harmful to humanity. What seems unlikely is that the development of these technologies will slow in the foreseeable future.

My intent with bringing these examples to your attention is to illustrate Determine Type is not simple, it is never finished, and it is always crucial to understand its definition for the moment. A relationship that has more than a single type at once is quite complex and, as a result, difficult to juggle. It is impossible to replace all aspects of a relationship when things get difficult, but it is the tendency of humanity to try and eliminate unpreferred behavior from others.

This unpreferred behavior is the final point I bring to your attention. The world of today has technology almost everywhere. It seems simple to want to replace, reset, or alter a technology to have it perform as preferred. Perhaps the most important point I hope you understand from what I present today is that people are not technology.

Please remember that we are moving toward presenting The Five Academic Skills Necessary for Success to you. These five skills are based on, literally, everything I have presented to you since the beginning of The Richly or Poorly Show last December. It is crucial for your success in living your life more richly to have a good grasp of what I am presenting in each episode for you to benefit from The Five Academic Skills Necessary for Success.

Well, that's it for today.

RICHLY IS GOODLY!

Remember, the show episode transcripts await you on the podcast web page.

Remember, the show episode map web page awaits you so you can both find and enjoy a group of show episodes with ease.

Please visit shdawson DOT COM SLASH podcast and click the LINK offer. I invite you to then click the LINK Sponsors to learn about the four types of sponsors so you can help sponsor a part of The Richly or Poorly Show! I thank you for your help in funding the show's cost to assist both you and the other listeners in living life more richly!

Thank you for joining me for this episode of The Richly or Poorly Show!

I have enjoyed presenting to you today.

Until the next episode, I hope you will be safe and join me next week.

Until then.

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