Latest / Harder Than Life / Inner Propaganda, Identity & the Stories We Tell Ourselves w/ Owen Fitzpatrick

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Inner Propaganda, Identity & the Stories We Tell Ourselves w/ Owen Fitzpatrick · Harder Than Life

0:00
The belief you're most glad you let go of.
0:02
That I needed to die.
0:04
I don't think that suicide is a failure to love.
0:06
I think often we can absolutely love people and still end our life.
0:11
The problem is when you are struggling with depression, sometimes it can hide the love.
0:16
that you experience.
0:17
When you have the darkness, it doesn't matter how great everything is, you don't feel that way about your life.
0:24
But if the inner dictator has their grips on you, then it will occupy your mind like a propaganda campaign that convinces you this is reality and there is no escape.
0:34
Once you understand the tricks of the inner dictator, you can do something about it.
0:39
And that's the biggest challenge of all is that our feelings determine our beliefs.
0:44
This is the reality and this is the story because all it is is a story.
0:48
It doesn't matter if it's wrong or right.
0:51
It matters as if it's useful.
0:53
Is this belief helping you or hurting you?
0:57
Every hero starts as a victim.
0:59
The greater the villain, the greater the hero.
1:01
The stronger the villain we face, the stronger we must become.
1:05
If someone's listening right now and they're losing the war in their own mind, what's the first thing they should do?
1:11
The first thing is to recognize that your brain is not always on your side.
1:15
It sells you stories about who you are, about what you can handle, about what is possible for you.
1:22
And because those stories feel true, you never think to question them.
1:26
My guest learned that the hard way.
1:28
He's a social psychologist who has studied propaganda firsthand in North Korea, Rwanda and Afghanistan.
1:37
His TEDx talk has been viewed more than 1.4 million times.
1:42
Today we are talking about the spy inside your head.
1:45
His new book is inner propaganda.
1:48
Owen Fitzpatrick.
1:49
Welcome to the heart of life podcast.
1:53
Thanks so much, Kelly.
1:54
Lovely to be here.
1:55
And just so we're clear, the whole book is inner propaganda leading hearts and minds through turbulent times.
2:02
And I say this every single time.
2:05
My producer scheduled these guests and it's almost perfect timing for what's going on with me.
2:12
The stuff that's going on in my head right now, when I started reading your book,
2:16
is gonna hit hard.
2:19
I just worked through IFS where I felt unworthy, unlovable, and just flat out like a piece of shit.
2:28
And when I read the first paragraph, I'm like, oh my God, how close were you to actually taking your own life
2:37
And it was such, and I'm not trying to steal too much of the book, but it was such a, your dedication to your parents.
2:43
And then I see this, how to write a suicide letter.
2:47
I'm like, oh, I'm so confused.
2:49
But it was a great start.
2:50
So how close were you actually in doing this?
2:54
Tell us the story.
2:55
I had the instruments at my disposal.
2:58
So when I was 14 years old, I'd struggle with my mental health for probably a year, a year and a half.
3:03
I'd always been a very sensitive kid.
3:05
So I was always very sort of hurt very easily.
3:09
I'd overthink things a lot.
3:11
I'd be very overly empathetic.
3:14
I'd feel sad about stuff in a really extreme way.
3:17
And I didn't really I was awkward and clumsy and not very good socially.
3:21
So I didn't really have that many close friends.
3:24
And even the close friends I did have, they would would not always want to hang out with me.
3:28
I was not very popular in school.
3:31
And so all of that comes together with the teenage hormones.
3:33
And I really did struggle with depression at that stage.
3:37
And I was 14.
3:39
I'd been having a terrible time.
3:41
I used to keep a diary and I had like letters I would put at the bottom of each entry and the letter would be G, which would be good VG, which would be very good B, which would be bad and BB, which would be very bad.
3:55
And almost exclusively, it was like B or VB.
3:59
And I'd been going through like a really awful few weeks where most were VBs.
4:05
Most were just awful times where I was getting bullied or I'd be let down or this or that.
4:10
The other happened.
4:11
And I think the straw that broke the camel's back was...
4:15
I was very, I was, I had a crush at the time, a girl that I sort of fancied.
4:22
And I was like a very sort of romantic kid.
4:24
So I was like imagining, you know, what it would be like.
4:27
And then I got a Valentine's card.
4:30
And it felt like I felt like, oh, we have a connection there.
4:34
Maybe it's from her.
4:35
And then I just allow myself to get caught up with it.
4:38
And I was sort of excited that I was actually, you know, having a good day the day I got it.
4:43
And then someone in my class turned around and said, oh, do you get any Valentine's cards?
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And I was like, instantly in that moment, I was like, it was a prank, because I could see everyone else in the class sort of laugh.
4:56
And that devastated me.
4:57
At the time, it was the most important thing in the world, and it was on top of everything else.
5:01
And later that morning,
5:05
I think it was a geography teacher said, you know, clean your life up Fitzpatrick.
5:08
He didn't say, you know, this work is pretty bad.
5:11
He said, clean your life up.
5:12
And it was probably just him exaggerating.
5:14
But for me, it took on so much more meaning at the time when he threw the homework at me.
5:20
And on the way back home for lunch that day, I was walking home across this big highway as well, this big road.
5:27
and there was this truck coming along, and I actually stopped in the middle of the road.
5:31
I'm like, all I have to do is stay here.
5:33
And at the last second, I got myself out of there.
5:36
But the truck driver had to stick his foot on the brakes and skidded to a stop and then was cursing me, and I just ran from the scene.
5:46
But once again, I was trying to will what I thought was the confidence or the power to be able to make the decision to end my life.
5:53
And then that night...
5:56
I sat down with a compass and a number of other things ready to finish it off.
6:02
And I got out my journal.
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I took out a page and I started to write a note because I'm very close to my parents, always have been.
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And they're amazing parents.
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And I just wrote it, dear mom and dad, I'm so sorry that I have to do this.
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I love you so, so much.
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And I went through a number of things.
6:20
And I said, you've no idea how much I love you.
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I love you so, so much.
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And then right in the middle of it, I found myself writing a sentence.
6:28
And I don't know where that sentence came from.
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But the sentence I wrote was, is this how much you love them?
6:35
And that stopped me in my tracks because it didn't feel – I didn't intend to write it.
6:38
It was almost like I found myself writing it.
6:41
And then I went back and forth between almost like what I was planning to write and this sort of voice, right?
6:47
What are you going to do to them?
6:48
Really, this is what you're willing to do?
6:51
And that became this battle, a story war inside my head.
6:55
And within a few minutes, that voice kept coming back, that same sentence, is this how much you love them?
7:00
And from that moment, I just, I knew I couldn't do it.
7:03
I would imagine my father and my mother standing over my coffin.
7:08
And that became my last suicide note.
7:09
But for years, I used to think the reason was, was because of love, love saved it all.
7:13
I don't think that anymore.
7:14
I don't think, I don't think that suicide is a failure to love.
7:17
I think often we can absolutely love people and still end our life.
7:21
We can be loved by people and know we're loved by people and end our life.
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But
7:25
The problem is when you are struggling with depression, sometimes it can hide the love that you experience.
7:31
So people can love you very much.
7:33
They can be the greatest parents to you, the greatest partner to you, the greatest kids to you, the greatest friends to you.
7:38
But still, the darkness, what I call the inner dictator, can hide that.
7:43
and can convince you that it doesn't exist, even when at some level you know it does.
7:49
And that's why when I look around and see someone like Robin Williams ending their life, a lot of people are shocked.
7:55
I'm not that shocked, because I understand when you have the darkness, it doesn't matter how great everything is, you don't feel that way about your life.
8:05
It doesn't matter what you have.
8:08
If the inner world, if the inner dictator has their grips on you, then it will...
8:13
occupy your mind like a propaganda campaign that convinces you this is reality and there is no escape and to me that's the most important driver behind why i wrote the book and why i wanted to share this is because once you know it's propaganda once you understand the tricks of the inner dictator you can do something about it so first of all let me just say i'm very grateful that you're hero and it's this i need to hear this story as well as all my listeners and
8:40
I grew up quite the opposite of you.
8:41
My parents were terrible.
8:43
They did not love me.
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They didn't even love themselves.
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They didn't know how to love it.
8:46
So there were times when I was a child that I thought that maybe the world would be better off without me.
8:52
But there was a voice in my head that said, you're destined for greatness.
8:56
And I'm becoming more and more spiritual and understanding I'm here for a reason.
8:59
Have you ever read the book, Conversations with God?
9:05
Yeah, Neil Donald Walsh, yeah.
9:06
Yeah, it sounds like God took over your hand and wrote that down because that's not what you wrote.
9:14
And it's just, it's just, wow, there's a reason we're all here.
9:18
30 years later, have you ever had, and I don't want it to be too much about suicide, but I want people to understand there are options.
9:26
And...
9:27
If you just take a pause, break out that journal, you can work through some things.
9:32
I love that idea that you just said VB, or VB, very bad, bad, very good, and good.
9:39
All I do is star my journal on the good days, but I need to notice the bad days too.
9:45
So that voice in my head, voice in your head probably was the same, stayed with me till very recently.
9:53
And I always say thoughts are magical lies.
9:56
Was there any other point in your adulthood where you thought, where you were that low and that depression appeared again and you thought about taking your life again?
10:04
I've never considered taking my life again, but I have been close enough to the level of low on different occasions, I think.
10:15
It's not always when something happens.
10:17
So I struggle every now and then with depression.
10:20
I think when you say, you know, the voice is which you up just recently, for me, it's more a case of it's intermittent.
10:25
It comes in and out.
10:26
And so every now and then I feel like, you know, metaphor I sometimes use is the darkness.
10:32
And when it's there,
10:34
it will dominate the airwaves or the brainwaves.
10:36
It will focus my attention on everything that is wrong in life, everything that I don't have to look forward to, every awful thing that has happened before.
10:45
But in my adult life, I suppose the one distinguishing difference is, back in the day, I would hate myself as part of that.
10:52
So I would be convinced that I was the problem.
10:55
I've definitely worked enough of myself to the point that even in my darkest days now,
11:00
I kind of have a good relationship with myself.
11:02
And the second thing is with regards to the dark episodes, when they happen, I'm better equipped to deal with them.
11:12
Not that I say something to myself and I change it.
11:14
Sometimes I just have to go through it for a few days or whatnot that I'm in this place.
11:19
Yeah.
11:19
But I know how to communicate with the inner, I call it the inner dictator because it feels so true.
11:24
It feels so real.
11:26
And I like that term a lot better than the inner critic or negative self-talk.
11:30
I think the inner dictator describes perfectly how certain the voice is that is telling me about how awful everything is.
11:38
So I've never been suicidal since that moment.
11:41
But I certainly have been very, very dark where I feel like the world is closing in and feeling a need to escape.
11:48
And when that's happened, I feel I'm in a much better place to cope with it because I understand the way the game is played, if that makes sense.
11:56
Yeah, it does.
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The mind is, it's crazy.
11:59
I woke up this morning so happy and then just, you know, just for no reason start feeling like odd.
12:05
So this is life.
12:07
And the people that really excel in life understand that it's not always going to be rainbows and unicorns.
12:13
And most of the time it won't be.
12:14
You say in your book, the brain is a double agent and...
12:17
Mine is not only a double agent, but it's mean.
12:20
Before I ask the question, I do wanna say one thing.
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I recommend talking to yourself, not listening to yourself.
12:28
Because if you listen, that inner, what'd you call them?
12:32
Not inner critic, inner- The inner dictator.
12:34
Yeah, that inner dictator, such a good word.
12:36
That dictator will sound like a dick.
12:39
Yeah.
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It will tell you dickish things.
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So talk back and say, that's not true.
12:46
It is not.
12:47
Thoughts are magical lies.
12:49
You say the brain is a double agent.
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Mine is absolutely insane.
12:52
So whose side is my brain actually on?
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It's on both our sides.
12:58
So by that, I mean, your brain is trying to do what it's trying to do.
13:02
So your brain is not optimized for happiness or success.
13:05
your brain is optimized for two things, survival and stability.
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So survival means it needs to keep you safe.
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So the way in which the brain works is it's what we know as a negativity bias.
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So it will orient your brain to focus on all the things that might threaten you.
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And it needs to keep you safe.
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So it keeps you vigilant.
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But that invariably means that you're going to be more likely to pay more attention to what goes wrong and all the things that are wrong with you than other things as well.
13:29
The second thing is that your brain is optimized for stability, which means it's more likely to want to conserve as much energy as possible and keep things coherent.
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So therefore, it comes up with simple stories.
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So it never looks at things with nuance.
13:42
It goes, things are awful or things are okay.
13:45
It never goes...
13:47
Well, in some ways, this and other ways that it always exaggerates.
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So if you take those two in combination, the negativity bias, as well as the desire to make everything simple and black or white.
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Now, all of a sudden, it can go full on dark and it rarely actually looks at the world in an accurate way.
14:04
It determines how your life is based on how you feel.
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And that's the biggest challenge of all is that our feelings determine our beliefs.
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And that's what most people don't understand.
14:16
Most of us think, well, we logically evaluate things.
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So the reason that you have the conclusions you do is life is impossible because of this, this.
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Let me give you all the evidence that tells you why life is impossible.
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We'll actually know when you're in that negative place.
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all you can see is the evidence for why it's awful.
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But if you're in a different mental state, you see different pieces of evidence.
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And that's the real trick, is it starts with the feeling.
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The feeling determines how we use logic.
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And that's, I think, what most of us get wrong.
14:46
But the logic is so illogical and I don't understand, like, why can't the brain just zone out for a second?
14:53
Is that why we use so many drugs and drinking?
14:56
Because, you know, honestly, I found that it's not the unfamiliar and it's not.
15:03
The uncomfortable for me, it's the unknown that drives me insane.
15:08
So whenever I sit in the unknown, my mind starts making up doomsday scenarios.
15:13
Yeah.
15:14
And I just, I do what I just said.
15:16
I stop it and go, that's not true.
15:18
How do I, what's the evidence of that?
15:19
And I talk back to it and I say, stop.
15:22
What did that night teach you about the voice in your head that you still use today?
15:27
Because you've had to leverage that.
15:29
Sure.
15:30
What I've learned most about the way in which at least what works for me is that before that, I would often try to be positive.
15:37
So I would have read some positive thinking books, even at 14 years old, you know, Power of Positive Thinking by Norman Vincent Peale or Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon, some of the classics.
15:48
And I would try to apply them.
15:50
So I go, things are good.
15:51
Everything's okay.
15:52
You are worthwhile.
15:53
You are loved.
15:53
All this stuff.
15:54
It didn't work for me.
15:55
When I look back at the sentence that did, is this how much you love them?
15:59
It's kind of like a sarcastic, like almost like cynical type of approach that push back against me.
16:07
And whenever I, I kind of did therapy for a few years with different clients, helping them, uh, in my twenties and crazy.
16:13
What I noticed that one of the techniques that worked really well for me was when I would use humor or I would have a little bit more edginess in the way I would communicate with them.
16:22
So they would talk to me about what their thinking was and they would say, I'm the worst person in the world.
16:27
And I'm say, you I'd say, yeah, you're right.
16:30
You Jeffrey Dahmer, Adolf Hitler, you know, all of you are like awful.
16:34
And they go, well, hold on a second.
16:35
I'm not that bad.
16:36
And they would start to find the humor in me exaggerating at that moment.
16:40
So I suppose the big lesson is that we don't always have to just be positive or motivating or even strong armed in the way we push back.
16:48
Sometimes we could take the piss of it.
16:49
I use the same term that you did, which is, you know, I call him an inner dick.
16:54
So whenever my inner dictator starts, I'm like,
16:57
all right, Dick, go on.
16:58
What were you going to say?
16:59
And then Dick's like, you'll never be successful in this or you lost this.
17:03
What if nothing goes right?
17:04
I'm like, okay, Dick, hang on a second.
17:06
What are you trying to tell me, Dick?
17:08
Oh, okay, so you're trying to scare me now.
17:10
No, that makes sense.
17:10
Yeah, keep scaring me.
17:12
And by having this kind of relationship
17:15
it changes the way in which I perceive it.
17:17
It's a little bit like comedy is one of the best tools against dictators in the real world, right?
17:23
We become effective at challenging the leaders of a country or a nation by subversive comedy.
17:29
And I think we can use something similar to that ourselves because it helps us to realize just because they say it doesn't make it so.
17:37
And when we can joke about it or push back a little or be a little bit edgy with it,
17:42
I certainly learned that helps me.
17:44
And that's one of the ways that I learned to be able to talk different to myself.
17:48
So I'm going to back into this.
17:50
I haven't told this story in a long time.
17:52
It's been probably 100 episodes.
17:56
So my still people who indulge in alcohol, the HDL Nation who still have a drink here and there.
18:01
I know there's not many of you, but there are some of you.
18:04
The inner critic or inner dick would say something.
18:09
And before I could even process it, this is before I started doing all the work.
18:12
This is way before Harder Than Life started.
18:15
Before I could even notice anything, I would pour a drink and I started drinking.
18:19
It was just absolutely on autopilot.
18:22
So if you're still having drinks, Heart and Life Nation, just pause because there's probably something that happened or something that was said, even if it's in your inner dialogue.
18:36
And then subconsciously, that was when I was just grabbing a drink.
18:41
I didn't even know this was happening.
18:43
But since I'm so many years past this and all the work, I just want to point that out.
18:48
And some of you, it could be Netflix.
18:51
It could be Xanax.
18:54
It could be phoning a friend.
18:55
It could be social media.
18:57
Just watch when you do a habitual thing.
19:02
If you can pause that sacred pause and then use your journal to write down what's happening, you'll stop that habit, guys.
19:09
You'll stop it.
19:10
I'm just giving you back story to that.
19:12
Can you break that down intelligently for me?
19:15
Because I know you're 100 times smarter than you've studied this.
19:20
What was really going on?
19:21
What I think is really going on is we have the way in which we understand the beliefs that we build is the opposite of the way it works.
19:31
So we think that we logically come to conclusions and that's how we evaluate beliefs.
19:35
But actually, in order for a belief to change or happen or operate or be believed in, it has to feel right.
19:42
It has to fit in with who we are and then it has to make sense.
19:44
So if you take the example you gave there.
19:46
That works at a level of emotion.
19:48
So I would say it's not even what you say to yourself, but the reason you reach for a drink is because of the way in which you feel.
19:53
So at a very simple level, you feel stressed or worried or anxious or depressed or down or frustrated or annoyed.
20:01
And that feeling drives you to want to solve that.
20:04
So how do you solve that?
20:06
You solve that with,
20:07
alcohol, you solve that with drugs, you solve that with gambling, you solve that with buying, you solve that with porn, you solve that with whatever it is that solves it.
20:14
And some of the things that you solve it with are healthy.
20:16
You solve that with going for a run, you solve that with going to the gym, you solve that with...
20:20
So you find a solution to that that changes the feeling in that moment.
20:25
And some of those patterns or behaviors or habits are useful and some aren't.
20:29
And to your point, the pause that you're talking about, I think it was Viktor Frankl, but he might've been paraphrased incorrectly, but it was like, there's a gap between stimulus and response.
20:38
And in that gap lies the power that you have to make a different decision.
20:42
So inside of that, you have the ability to be able to go, okay, hold on a second.
20:47
What is it that I actually want to do?
20:48
But a different example I like as well is if you go shopping,
20:53
And let's say, for example, you don't bring a shopping list.
20:56
So you think, oh, figure out what I need.
20:58
But you're hungry, right?
21:00
You have a feeling.
21:01
When you go there, you're going to buy a bunch of shit that you don't want.
21:04
You're going to find yourself going through the aisles and go, you know what?
21:06
I'll just take this.
21:08
You'll impulse buy.
21:09
because you might be feeling hungry.
21:11
The feeling determines what you do.
21:13
Whereas if you go in there, and even if you're still hungry, but if you go in there, but you have a shopping list and you know exactly what you want and what your goal is, you're significantly less likely to impulse buy because you're giving yourself a direction.
21:27
And the problem is most of us don't choose the direction that we want to go in in order to be able to solve that particular negative emotion.
21:36
So what we do is we take the negative emotion
21:38
And we jump to whatever we're used to giving us a quick escape for it.
21:42
Some of it's healthy, some of it's not.
21:44
But if you stop and think to yourself, what is it I really want?
21:48
What is the emotion I really want?
21:49
And what is it that I could do that would let me feel this feeling so that when I start to feel the negative, then I can do the positive that changes the game.
21:58
Okay, I want Therapy 101 to explain there.
22:01
That was good.
22:01
I'm actually going to read because this struck me immediately when I read this.
22:06
And I want to read word for word out of your book how you explained it because it's tremendous.
22:10
Guys, you ready for this?
22:12
A belief must feel right because we feel our way into beliefs before we think our way into them.
22:21
It must fit in because anything that contradicts our identity or our tribe gets rejected no matter how logical it is.
22:31
I'll come back to that in a second.
22:33
And it makes sense because once a belief feels right and fits in, the rational mind builds the case to defend it.
22:40
Does the second part of it, anything that contradicts our identity,
22:46
or our tribe gets rejected no matter how logical it is.
22:49
Is that why it is so impossible to change people's minds?
22:54
It's one of the main reasons, yes, because to a great extent, the membership fee we pay to become part of a tribe is believing whatever they believe.
23:04
And the worst thing in the world for hunter-gatherer days when we were evolving, the worst thing in the world is to be kicked out of your tribe.
23:10
Because if you're kicked out of your tribe, number one, the lions are going to get you or number two, if the lions don't, then another tribe will.
23:16
So we want to stay part of a tribe and we will do whatever it takes to do that.
23:20
If everyone that you're in the tribe with says this is a is true.
23:24
Well, you're going to be like, okay, cool.
23:26
A is true because you want to believe it.
23:28
And the problem is once more, we don't always say, oh, well, I just believe this because everyone I agree with believes or everyone in my group believes it.
23:36
We say it because of the evidence we've inverted commas collected.
23:40
Well, you know, the reason this is true is because I've done my research.
23:43
I've done my own research, and A is true, and B is true, and C is true.
23:47
But that's simply usually the talking health points that we have from our group.
23:52
We haven't actually done any research whatsoever.
23:55
We probably don't even know how to do research.
23:57
But we don't change our mind because there's a concept in psychology called identity protective cognition, which means that we will reject anything that threatens our identity because we want to hold on a consistent way of thinking about ourselves at all costs.
24:15
And if it challenges our group or challenges who we think we are.
24:18
We don't want to know anything about it.
24:20
And our brains are good enough at using logic to be able to challenge anything, to find poke holes in it.
24:27
You know, the whole thing of I'm just asking questions.
24:29
You can make people doubt anything if you've got the right rhetorical skills.
24:32
And that's what we do to ourselves often so that we don't have to believe something that makes us look bad.
24:38
So you just made the mind, the brain is built for stability.
24:43
It wants to keep you the same way.
24:45
That's why change is so hard.
24:47
You just made the point so elegantly.
24:50
And it's why we're so stubborn.
24:51
And literally, the reason why I started the Heart of Life Nation, Heart of Life Movement, was because I would go through the same analysis.
25:02
I learned to drink from my family.
25:04
I learned that's what you did.
25:06
but it didn't feel right.
25:08
It never felt right, Owen.
25:11
And that's why I was able to go.
25:14
So I challenge all of you guys.
25:17
If you're doing something and it doesn't feel right, it's not for you.
25:21
So take that sacred pause.
25:24
And I'm going to tell you right now, it's not easy.
25:27
I am literally, I've killed off the old identity.
25:30
And I am in between.
25:31
I haven't formed my new identity.
25:33
And I'm lost.
25:34
I don't know what to do with myself right now.
25:36
But I just keep showing up and showing out, guys.
25:39
Well, I would actually argue with that.
25:42
Because I think that you have, Kelly, in terms of what you've overcome.
25:46
So if we take it, you're right in the sense that it feels wrong.
25:51
Or it feels wrong to be drinking.
25:52
But at the same time, at the time, it also felt right.
25:55
Not because you knew it was, but because...
25:58
It was what everyone around you was doing.
26:00
Yep.
26:00
So it felt like it was the right thing.
26:02
And second of all, your identity was cut open that.
26:04
And this is what we do.
26:05
We drink.
26:06
This is how we deal.
26:07
Well, I, I grow, I grew up in Ireland, right?
26:10
Culturally, there is almost an expectation that everyone is going to drink.
26:13
That's how we deal with it.
26:14
Uh, when something's good, we celebrate with alcohol.
26:17
When something's bad, we celebrate with our, we commiserate with alcohol, funerals, alcohol, weddings, alcohol.
26:23
So what?
26:24
it's very easy for us to be able to see that as this is just part of who I am.
26:29
And by the way, I'm not, you know, if people enjoy alcohol and a healthy response, I'm talking about me, but exactly, exactly.
26:36
Why I'm challenging it is you have built this community.
26:40
And therefore, even if you might not feel 100% like you figured out your identity, I don't think we ever do.
26:46
I think it's constantly readjusting our narrative about who we think we are because your identity is basically a bet you make, a guess you make as to who you think you are as opposed to who you actually are.
26:56
And I think your identity...
26:58
is part of this nation that you've established, surrounded by these people.
27:02
You are building this nation and building this community and building this tribe and building this group.
27:07
So that is your new identity.
27:08
And that's, I think, what's allowed you to be so impactful is because you've been creating this identity for yourself
27:15
as opposed to being, like you said, it might feel sometimes like you don't know where you belong, but maybe that's just because the actual place you belong is the place you've been building, and it just feels so much like home that you don't even realize that you're not as lost as you would have taught.
27:31
You just diagnosed the thoughts in my head that that magical lies that that dictator in my head saying you're lost.
27:37
No, not.
27:38
You're right.
27:38
I'm found.
27:40
And I had to go through all that so I can explain to people what the other side looked like.
27:44
So you beautifully explain that.
27:46
Remember, guys, we're talking about alcohol and that's just mine.
27:50
It could be, you know, a multitude of things.
27:52
But if you're not where you want to be.
27:55
look in the mirror because honestly in the mirror is where I knew this wasn't right.
28:00
My face is all blotchy.
28:02
I didn't like how I looked.
28:03
Now I look in the mirror and I'm like, ah, I love me.
28:09
Let's dig deeper into this process because there are so many smart, successful people who are holding on to beliefs that keep them stuck.
28:20
Let's dig deeper.
28:21
What does somebody listen to?
28:23
I heard all that, but I still don't get it.
28:25
Go a layer deeper for me, Owen.
28:27
Sure.
28:28
If you are, let's say you're particularly smart and you've got a really dumb view, right?
28:33
A really dumb limiting belief, or maybe it's even just a dumb take on something, right?
28:37
You've ever seen someone that you're like, oh my goodness, they're so smart.
28:40
And yet how can someone so smart be so dumb in this one area of their life?
28:45
Swatch my life.
28:45
We've all been there.
28:46
So when you see that, one of the main reasons why a lot of times really smart people can have really dumb takes is because they're so smart, often they're really good at making arguments.
28:57
So they're very good at convincing people.
28:59
They're very good at using reason, very good at using rationalization, very good at being able to make arguments.
29:04
So therefore, they can make a dumb perspective sound legitimate, and they can sometimes even out-argue someone who isn't as smart or isn't as good.
29:14
even if they're on the wrong side of an issue.
29:17
And this includes the issues about yourself.
29:19
So I think that our ability to be smart doesn't necessarily mean we always make smart choices.
29:25
It often means that we have a phenomenal ability to use logic and reason very effectively to make anything true.
29:32
And therefore, let's take a mental health example
29:35
If you're miserably depressed, a lot of times very smart people tend to be quite depressed.
29:40
And if you're a very smart person that's depressed, often it's because you have a phenomenal ability to be able to logically explain why life is pointless or why you're useless.
29:51
You can find the evidence.
29:52
You can make a really strong conclusion.
29:55
You can lean into the negativity bias of the people you're trying to convince, which oftentimes will be you.
30:00
And so your inner dictator, if you're smart, can be very sophisticated as an argumentation device.
30:07
And therefore, we can be really intelligent and yet we can be really miserable.
30:12
And sometimes if you're not that intelligent, that lack of certainty, that lack of conviction can actually be a helpful thing because it means you're less likely to be so convinced of your own uselessness.
30:25
ignorance is bliss sometimes i said that the other day i was like oh my god i wish yeah when i was less self-aware i think i was a more i was more happy now i can't unsee some of the stupid things people do yeah is that why we reject a belief that makes perfect sense if it does not fit who we think we are i keep thinking in my head when you just said that analogy it's
30:50
It's like who we think we are versus who we want to be.
30:53
That space is that depression.
30:55
It's also regret.
30:57
But there's a belief that makes perfect sense, but it doesn't fit who we are.
31:01
So why do we reject it?
31:03
Well, we reject it because the most important thing is stability.
31:07
I want to believe I'm this type of person or I believe I'm this type of person.
31:10
So I believe I'm this type of person is more like who we perceive we are, right?
31:14
This is who I think I am.
31:15
Who I want to be is my more desired identity.
31:18
This is who I want to be.
31:20
And if the belief that's being put out there, if someone is communicating something to you, but it doesn't fit who you think you are or who you want to be, well, you're going to reject it.
31:29
Because again, it threatens the stability of your identity.
31:32
And so even if I'm giving you a useful idea, you will hold on to the identity and you will reject it.
31:40
Anything that might threaten that, because the one thing you can't give up is the stability of who you are.
31:45
And therefore, it won't matter what books you read or what conversations you have, if you have the identity that I'm just a drinker.
31:52
I'll give you a real quick example, Kelly, and I mentioned this briefly in the book.
31:56
I work with a coach a few years ago.
31:58
She was at a seminar I was teaching, and I was talking about habit change.
32:02
And this coach, she knew all the tools that you needed to change habits.
32:07
And she came up to that.
32:08
I said, anyone want to do a demonstration with me so I can demonstrate?
32:11
So she said, sure.
32:12
She came up on stage, and the first thing she said is, look, just to let you know, I know all the tricks.
32:17
I know all the techniques, but I know I will never stop smoking.
32:20
And I said, how do you know that?
32:21
And she said, because I'm just a smoker.
32:24
And I said, do me a favor.
32:26
Tell me how many cigarettes do you smoke per day?
32:28
She said, I don't know, about 20.
32:30
I said, how long more or less does it take to smoke a cigarette?
32:33
She said, three or four minutes.
32:35
I said, let's take it four minutes.
32:36
So what does that mean?
32:37
You spend how many minutes a day smoking?
32:40
She goes, 80 minutes a day.
32:42
I said, cool.
32:43
So what that means is that if you spend 80 minutes a day, how much time do you spend not smoking?
32:48
She said, 22 hours and 40 minutes.
32:50
I said, so let me ask you, let's imagine you have two jobs.
32:53
Let's say you don't sleep and you got two jobs.
32:54
One job you do for 22 hours and 40 minutes.
32:57
The other job you do for 80 minutes a day.
32:58
Which one would you describe yourself as?
33:01
And she said, well, whatever job I do for 22 hours and 40 minutes.
33:04
So I said, so here's the thing.
33:06
You're a non-smoker who smokes for 80 minutes a day.
33:10
And in that moment, she sat back and she said, I never thought about it like that before.
33:17
I saw her a few years later.
33:20
She hadn't touched a cigarette since that day.
33:22
Now, that wasn't because of me, because she had all the tools.
33:25
She knew how to deal with the cravings.
33:27
She knew how to set herself up.
33:28
She knew what to do.
33:29
But what was stopping her was she wasn't giving herself permission because being a non-smoker was not something that she thought she was.
33:36
As soon as we were able to get her to see, well, actually, this is an identity that fits perfectly.
33:42
It could feel right with you.
33:44
It could fit in with who you are.
33:45
All of a sudden, it made sense.
33:47
And then the rest of it fell into place.
33:51
NLP in its finest, Owen.
33:53
That's good stuff.
33:54
If any of you listeners say, that's just the way I am,
33:59
Look right into that because that's not who you are.
34:02
You are holding on to a belief that has been either given to you in childhood or you acquired in childhood as survival.
34:12
I am bad.
34:13
I am bad.
34:15
tough life is supposed to be hard these are things that i say to myself and it's it's simply not true simply not true having said that what's the most dangerous story a high achiever tells himself i think it's that if i don't do this um if i'm not perfect then there's something wrong so the obsession or need for perfection
34:37
is the flip side of the coin of never feeling good enough, right?
34:41
But both of them can be quite toxic for that.
34:44
So if you have a constant desire, a constant need for perfection, the problem isn't just I need to be perfect.
34:51
The problem is the belief might be if I'm not perfect, then I'm not good enough.
34:55
Hmm.
34:55
And the irony is that can sometimes drive you to be a high performer.
35:00
But the flip side of it is it can also mean that it crushes you with constant feelings of worklessness and constant feelings of self-doubt and just not being sufficient and not being enough.
35:12
So to me, what I'm always trying to do is...
35:16
When we look at those beliefs, we start with the feeling, right?
35:19
It's the way we feel.
35:21
We ensure that people know this isn't a fact.
35:23
If you say, I'm not good enough, I'm like, so you don't feel good enough.
35:28
Now, all of a sudden, we've transformed it from a fact to a feeling.
35:33
And now we start to go, so when we talk about feeling good enough, what is the difference between when you do feel good enough versus when you don't?
35:41
And sometimes we'll feel good enough.
35:42
But I'm trying to paint the picture that right now when you don't feel good enough, that's the inner dictator and that's inner propaganda happening right there and then.
35:50
And all you need to start is the awareness, right?
35:54
The reason I'm in this place, the reason I feel it is because this is a feeling.
35:57
Because we want to identify the difference between this is the reality and this is the story.
36:02
Because all it is is a story.
36:04
I'm not good enough is a story.
36:06
If I don't succeed, if I'm not perfect, there's something wrong with me is a story.
36:10
It's not necessarily wrong.
36:11
Right.
36:12
but it's not necessarily right.
36:14
And my whole premise is that it doesn't matter if it's wrong or right.
36:20
It matters as if it's useful.
36:22
Is this belief helping you or hurting you?
36:26
Does it help you improve?
36:27
Does it not?
36:28
If I believe I'm not good enough, and that helps me to learn the gap between being good enough and not being good enough so that I can take the actions I need to, then me believing I'm not good enough is a useful belief.
36:41
But most of the time we don't do that.
36:43
Most of the time we go, I'm not good enough.
36:44
So therefore I'm useless.
36:46
So therefore nobody would miss me.
36:48
So therefore my life is pointless.
36:50
And it's not the belief I'm not good enough.
36:52
It's the story you sell to yourself about what that means.
36:55
That's the real issue.
36:57
And that's why I'm talking about the difference between is it true versus is it useful?
37:01
This is so good, guys.
37:02
Please share this show.
37:03
It's so good.
37:04
I'm going to give you a couple of little seagullisms.
37:07
He gave it to you, but I'm going to reiterate what he said.
37:10
Add in the word feel.
37:13
I am bad.
37:15
I am feeling bad.
37:17
I am a...
37:19
piece of shit.
37:20
I am feeling like a piece of shit.
37:22
It separates you from it.
37:24
It doesn't give you the identity.
37:25
Second thing, second seagullism that I do is I do chase perfection.
37:30
I do.
37:31
But I am, because I'm aiming further than my goal.
37:34
My real goal is excellence.
37:36
So if I'm chasing perfection, it's like the horizon and tomorrow, I'm never going to achieve it, but I'm going to chase it
37:42
And I'm going to be very comfortable landing on excellence.
37:45
Now, my excellence is all of my standards that are non-negotiable.
37:51
And I crush those.
37:53
But I'm still going to go past that because I'm never status quo just good enough.
37:58
I want to keep going.
38:00
You have anything you want to add to those?
38:01
And then we're going to jump into some real stories from the book.
38:05
I love those two.
38:05
I think they're great.
38:06
One of the other things I like to use is this concept.
38:10
It comes from a form of language invented in, I think, the 1950s or so called English without the verb to be.
38:17
It's called E prime.
38:18
But basically what it means is that every time you make a statement, you have to say, seems to me.
38:23
So instead of me saying life is shit, you have to say life seems shit to me.
38:28
And to make it even better, you say life seems shit to me right now.
38:31
So you have to index everything in time.
38:33
I like that right now.
38:34
When you say, you know, this will never work out.
38:37
This seems like it will never work out right now.
38:40
Like when you start to add little words like that to it, it takes all these limiting beliefs and it starts to make them very difficult to take you seriously.
38:48
It's really hard to feel terrible about something with all these conditioners around it.
38:53
And the notion of changing this is terrible to this seems terrible transforms the way in which we think about the idea of it being terrible.
39:03
You see me over here wiggling.
39:05
It's because I've done so much work, and I'm going to tell you guys, the people that watch the show and listen to the show, the loyal listeners, the negative talk just makes me uncomfortable, which I used to be a negative Nelly.
39:17
It just doesn't even fit with my identity anymore.
39:20
If I hear too much negative, I stop.
39:23
All right, we got to turn this thing positive.
39:25
Even seeing the nice dressed up version of that, I was wiggling it.
39:30
I'm like, ooh.
39:31
Oh, my wife is not shit even now.
39:33
No, I'm alive.
39:35
You know, we're not here forever.
39:38
We're living a day die compartment, man.
39:41
That's what makes life so cool.
39:43
You don't like something.
39:44
Wait a minute.
39:44
It'll change.
39:45
It's going to throw you another curveball.
39:47
And it's supposed to be challenging.
39:50
If you got everything you want.
39:52
The world will be boring.
39:53
Every one of the highlights that you write in your book, man, I love because they're very fitting.
39:58
You talked about Ford losing billions.
40:01
We talked about a pilot that lost both engines, the hotel housekeepers.
40:06
I've heard all these, but I want to run through them pretty quickly because they're so good.
40:09
Some of the audience may not have.
40:11
I read like crazy.
40:12
So Ford was losing billions.
40:14
Every slide in the room was green.
40:17
Why do teams hide red from their leader?
40:20
They're worried about what the leader is going to say.
40:22
So nobody likes bad news.
40:24
That's the kind of belief we have.
40:25
And therefore, if Kelly's my manager and he asked me how things going, well, I got to protect my job.
40:32
Survival is everything.
40:33
So Kelly, everything's great.
40:35
Everything's great.
40:36
And in the Ford example, the leader was like, Alan Mulally was like, guys, we're losing.
40:41
We're hemorrhaging so much money.
40:43
And every time I come to one of these meetings, all I see is everything's green.
40:47
Everything's good.
40:49
Everything's not good.
40:50
It couldn't be good because we're losing money.
40:52
And finally, Mark Fields turns around and for the first time has some red, because they were color coding it, red on his slide.
41:01
And so what Mulally does in response to that is instead of turning around and going, oh, my goodness, I can't believe something's gone wrong.
41:08
He applauds and he's like, thank you.
41:10
Finally.
41:11
Now, how can we help?
41:12
And that was reinforcing this.
41:15
Listen, we need to be honest about this stuff.
41:16
And then all of a sudden, a lot of the others in the room started to bring in, OK, there's more red sides.
41:22
In other words, he changed the culture so that people were more open and aware that it's OK for things not to be perfect.
41:29
I want to remind people why that's so important because Alan Mulally and Mark Field were the people that brought Ford out of bankruptcy and without any government money, by the way.
41:41
They were the only ones that didn't take government funds.
41:44
So these guys, this stuff works.
41:48
Get Owen's book, read it.
41:50
You were talking about, and I'm paraphrasing, a pilot lost both engines over the Atlantic and he stayed calm.
41:56
What separates people who hold it together under pressure?
42:00
This was a guy called Robert Pichet.
42:01
He's a Canadian pilot.
42:03
And what's fascinating about Pichet, so he's in a situation where he's flying this huge airliner across the Atlantic.
42:13
And while he was going across, lost the engines, all the different engines went.
42:16
And now all of a sudden he was gliding.
42:18
And the closest, I think, runway where he had to land was in the Azores.
42:25
But he's in a really bad way.
42:26
And he has his, him and his first officer that was there as well.
42:30
Now, in the book, I contrast it with another very experienced pilot called Van Slatan.
42:36
And this was one of the biggest, this is back in 1977, Van Slatan, and one of the biggest crashes killed so many people.
42:43
And this was, you know, taking off when he was confused about whether or not he got permission to take off.
42:49
And it was a big disaster.
42:50
Yeah.
42:50
But the reason for the contrast was the difference between believing that I need to get going because there was a sense of urgency there or the confidence and overconfidence versus when you look at Pichet.
43:03
And this was in 2001 or so, 2000 or 2001, where the thing that kept him surviving was the belief in what he needed to do at this moment.
43:13
So one was belief was the fuel.
43:16
And the other one belief was actually what directed them to cause the disaster in the first place.
43:21
Now, what's really interesting about Pichet, and this is where the lesson comes from, is a few years earlier, Pichet was actually arrested for trafficking drugs into the United States.
43:33
And he was sentenced for five years.
43:35
He only spent about 18 months in prison.
43:37
But he found himself in prison.
43:39
many years earlier, where he was in environments where his life was threatened.
43:44
So he was in a situation multiple times where he was in a place where the adrenaline was off the hook because he was getting threatened by these people that were intimidating and bigger than him.
43:57
So he learned in prison how to deal with the adrenaline that was pumping through his system.
44:03
He learned how to
44:07
Think effectively when the stakes were high.
44:09
And then many years later, when he found himself in charge of that plane with hundreds of people on it, he actually in interviews after that, he managed to land it safely.
44:19
And one of the most incredible things, like at one point, he actually navigated it to burn off the fuel before landing in a perfect sort of S shape.
44:28
It's been studied.
44:29
I chatted with someone in flight school who studied this as a case study in the flight school they attended in Europe, of all places.
44:36
But what Pichet explains is one of the main reasons he was able to do it was he said, I learned in prison how to recognize the feelings I was feeling and to use those feelings as fuel to make the better decisions, as opposed to using the feelings to, again, like we said, direct them to make decisions.
44:57
felt the feeling, recognized it, and then focused on what he needed to do, just like he'd learned in prison.
45:03
So it's weird.
45:04
If he never went to prison, if he never learned that, then maybe he wouldn't have made those decisions.
45:09
Now, that doesn't mean that we all need to go to prison in order for us to, you know, because that wouldn't be great.
45:14
But it means recognizing your emotions, understanding when you're feeling them, and not allowing them to dictate what you do, but getting them to help you to know that,
45:26
where you need to put your focus.
45:28
That's the core lesson that we get from Pichet.
45:31
You also explain why life needs to be hard because you don't have to be in prison, but you got to be in tough situations.
45:38
You have to, that's how you build the resiliency to be able to weaponize things
45:44
I want to say fear, but weaponize the feelings of let's go.
45:50
I say faith over fear, faith.
45:53
They both rely on something in the future.
45:55
One's positive, one's negative.
45:56
Why not freaking feed the positive one?
45:59
So, but yeah, we definitely have to face resistance in life.
46:04
So welcome it.
46:05
If you're facing resistance, you're doing something good in life.
46:09
Let's keep going because we talk so much.
46:12
I didn't get into this book, and it's tremendous.
46:16
You called something Hollywooding.
46:18
How do we know when we turned a bad day into a disaster movie?
46:23
Whenever people complain about things, they don't just complain.
46:26
They don't say, look, I had a particularly difficult day.
46:29
Things weren't always easy.
46:31
Usually, we over-exaggerate everything.
46:33
We dramatize everything.
46:34
Yep.
46:34
And that's something we've learned from even being around.
46:37
If you want people to pay attention to you, you learn to use hyperbole exaggeration.
46:42
Even if you take politics right now, we live in an absurd world where politicians will, regardless of what side, everything is over the top.
46:50
Don't go there.
46:51
extreme, but it's, it's, it's intense on both sides.
46:54
It's like nothing is ever tempered.
46:56
Nothing is ever nuanced.
46:57
Nothing is ever complex.
46:59
Nothing is ever, it's not that simple.
47:00
It's always one extreme to the other.
47:03
And so when you have that, when you have this extreme way of using language, we use the same thing to reflect how we are internally as well.
47:11
So someone asks us, how was that flight?
47:14
And we don't just go, well, it was frustrating because we didn't take off when we were supposed to.
47:20
We waited an extra half an hour on the runway, which was annoying.
47:24
And then when the flight attendant came along, they were a little bit cold.
47:28
No.
47:30
We say, it was a disaster.
47:32
It ruined my weekend.
47:34
They were so impossible.
47:35
They were so rude.
47:36
They were so mean.
47:37
You know, you've no idea how bad it was.
47:40
Because first of all, when we say that to someone else, we get more attention.
47:44
That's why a lot of the loudest people on the internet are also some of the most negative.
47:48
It's because the extreme nature...
47:51
is what gets clicks, even if it is exaggeration, hyperbole.
47:55
But again, it also gets our own attention.
47:58
So our brains naturally will start to use over-the-top exaggeration when we describe it.
48:04
I call that Hollywood again.
48:06
And when I would work with clients or help them, sometimes even when I coach CEOs today, when they're describing something with that kind of sense of exaggeration,
48:16
I let them be aware of the term Hollywooding it because once they know this is what I'm doing, it makes them less likely to do it.
48:24
And I'm like, give me the facts of what actually happened.
48:27
And when you actually break down, well, this is actually what happened versus how they're describing it, they realize there's a lot of emotionality in the way in which we describe things.
48:36
And the emotionality dictates how...
48:39
how we perceive that.
48:41
And when you separate what actually happened versus the story you tell about it, all of a sudden you realize, you know what?
48:48
Wasn't nearly as big a deal as I made it out to be.
48:51
Because you made it out to be.
48:53
That's the most honest sentence in the whole thing.
48:56
Change the story you tell yourself, and your story will change.
49:00
The things around you will change.
49:02
It's just, it's the minus.
49:05
What we've gotten to,
49:07
50 minutes into this is the mind is tremendously powerful.
49:11
Let's feed it positivity.
49:13
And just to hammer that point, I wanna talk about the hotel housekeeper, because I've heard this story so many times, it's wild.
49:21
They saw real changes in their body just by changing what they believed about their work.
49:28
How is this possible and what's the backstory?
49:32
So the backstory is Professor Aliyah Crum and Ellen Langer, who are two researchers in 2007, did a study whereby they wanted to see the impact of mindset, the impact of when people know certain things about what they're already doing, how much impact it actually has.
49:49
So what they did was they collected some housekeepers or hotel maids and they put them into two different groups.
49:56
And they looked at for one group, what is it that they wanted to know, what is it that, what kind of exercise did they actually get?
50:05
So they asked all of the different cleaners, what is it that you do during a day?
50:10
And they would say, well, we clean this amount of rooms and then we do this and then we do that.
50:13
So they got them to describe that.
50:15
And what the researchers did was they calculated all the calories.
50:18
And for half the group or so, they said, look, we want to let you know.
50:22
They brought them into a room and they said, look, just to let you know, the amount of exercise you're already getting is actually what the general surgeon suggests is the recommended daily amount of exercise.
50:32
So in other words, all they did was educate the hotel cleaners on the fact that they were already getting the exercise, the amount of exercise that they needed to get from a health perspective.
50:43
So these are cleaners that are already doing it, but now they're aware that it's actually counting as exercise.
50:50
And they measure the biomarkers of everyone.
50:52
And when they brought them in a few months later, they found that the group that they educated about the fact that they were getting a lot of exercise –
51:01
their biomarkers significantly improved.
51:04
So they didn't do any extra exercise, but the fact that they started to categorize it as exercise and realize it was exercise actually had a real impact on the biomarkers that were measured.
51:16
Just recognizing that.
51:18
There was another fascinating study on the concept of ghrelin.
51:20
So ghrelin is a hunger hormone.
51:23
And what they did was, again, same researcher, Leah Crum, who specializes in this.
51:27
She basically gave a group a milkshake.
51:30
And she measured a chemical inside, which is called ghrelin.
51:34
And ghrelin is basically your hunger hormone.
51:36
So whenever you are hungry, it is quite high.
51:39
And whenever you feel satiated or no longer hungry, it drops low.
51:43
And so what she did was she gave people a milkshake and she said, look, this is a slim fast milkshake.
51:48
It's 180 calories or so.
51:49
I don't know the exact number.
51:51
So we want to test you before and after.
51:53
And she tested their ghrelin before and after.
51:56
And so when they had this low fat milkshake, their ghrelin dipped down initially, but went straight back up within a few minutes.
52:05
She then a week later tested them and said, this time we have an extra calorie shake, 600 or so calories in this shake, so it's quite heavy.
52:14
They then took the milkshake, their ghrelin was measured before and after, and this time their ghrelin stayed down for a long time afterwards.
52:23
The catch was in both cases, the milkshake was the exact same.
52:28
It was about 300 or so calories.
52:30
So there was a difference in terms of the biochemistry in that particular case, in terms of the hunger hormone ghrelin, when they believe something was lighter or heavier.
52:42
And this just tells us that our brains and our mindset does influence.
52:49
what's going on inside of our body.
52:50
And that also makes sense for you as well in terms of if you believe that your limit, like if you believe your limit in terms of how much you can lift is a certain amount, it doesn't mean that you're going to always be able to break records, but your belief that you can do something makes it significantly more likely that you can, not just because it's like positive mindset, but because it actually will help you activate your body
53:15
in a more impactful way.
53:17
We underestimate just how powerful our minds can actually be.
53:22
Let's take that a step further.
53:24
When somebody feels like they have no control, what questions do you ask them to bring it back to them?
53:31
Well, my first question is, what can you control?
53:33
Or what do you have control over?
53:35
If you turn around to me and say I have no control, my first question is, well, what do you mean by no control?
53:40
And then they'll say, well, I've got like, it's totally out of my hands.
53:44
What's totally out of your hands?
53:46
Well, you know, my job was taken away from me.
53:49
Right.
53:50
That's out of your hands what people do.
53:52
What's in your hands?
53:53
Like what is something that you can fully control?
53:57
And then what's something you could influence but not fully control?
54:00
And I like to break everything down in those three buckets.
54:02
Not just what can you control and what can't you, but what can you fully control, which is your mindset, your preparation, the energy you put in, where you allocate your time, where you allocate your attention, what you decide to do.
54:13
What can you influence?
54:14
Which is you can't guarantee someone will say yes, but you can increase the likelihood.
54:18
You can take the right steps to try to make it more likely that you get the results that you want.
54:23
And then there's the stuff you just got to accept, right?
54:25
This is my height.
54:27
I'm not going to be, I'm never going to be six foot seven.
54:30
It is what it is.
54:31
It's going to rain.
54:32
The government's going to make some dumb decisions, right?
54:35
These are all things we have to accept.
54:37
So recognizing that some things we have control over, some things we've influenced over, and some things are outside of our control, to me, that's one of the most important mindsets we need to get people to believe in.
54:47
And I often describe that whenever I was a therapist, and even now, you know, when I deliver keynotes and whatnot, I feel that people are generally struggling with two stories.
54:58
One is what I call the victim story.
55:00
And the victim story is, if you turn around and you go, the reason for my problems is my partner, my parents, my friends, my past, alcohol, this, this, this.
55:09
That's the reason for my problems.
55:11
Then the flip side, you got the villains.
55:13
The reason for my problem is it's me.
55:16
I destroy everything.
55:17
I'm broken.
55:18
I'm not good enough.
55:19
I sabotage my own success.
55:21
I'm useless.
55:22
I'm the villain of my own life.
55:23
Yeah.
55:24
And the key with both of them is as a therapist or as a speaker, my goal is to get you to move from either a victim or a villain to a hero.
55:34
Now, what's the difference between a hero and a victim or a villain?
55:37
There's two things.
55:38
One is choices.
55:40
So the difference between a villain and a hero is the choices that they make.
55:44
But the second thing that makes the difference is control because every hero starts as a victim.
55:49
Whenever you're a hero, you become a hero because of what you've overcome.
55:53
You're not a hero automatically.
55:55
You can't be a hero unless you've overcome trauma, adversity, challenge, change, problem.
55:59
And so in order for you to notice the difference, the only difference is choice and control.
56:04
And when you focus on what you can control and what you can influence –
56:08
By the very nature of doing that, you become the hero.
56:11
Because, again, people have this notion that heroes don't have issues.
56:15
Of course they do.
56:16
Every story, like Superman has kryptonite, right?
56:20
Batman has the Joker.
56:21
Like every single time we have to look at ourselves, we have these struggles.
56:26
You said it earlier, Kelly.
56:27
Kelly.
56:28
Resistance is the struggle that we find ourselves facing.
56:32
And whenever this happens, focusing on what we can do about it is what makes us heroes.
56:38
Not having a perfect life, not having everything go the way we want it to, but it's the greater the villain, the greater the hero.
56:46
That's why Dark Knight was the greatest or one of the greatest superhero movies ever made because the Joker was so good or so bad in the case.
56:54
They were so evil and so powerful.
56:57
So Batman had to become stronger in order to be able to overcome it.
57:01
And in life, that's the same.
57:03
The stronger the villain we face, the stronger we must become.
57:07
Well, I'm headed for greatness then because I've had the do's day.
57:11
Where does surrender come into there?
57:14
Because –
57:15
I think I kept thinking about what you were saying, the victim and the villain.
57:18
And I'm thinking part of it is surrendering and realizing we really don't have as control.
57:25
You said about four things that we have control over.
57:27
We think we have so much more control over life and we don't.
57:31
And once you admit that, things get a little simpler and a lot easier.
57:37
How do you make that sound smarter in my barbarian brain?
57:41
Well, I think ultimately the most important thing we can control is focusing our mindset on what we can control and influence, right?
57:50
That's the first step is that there's one thing I can control and that is focusing my attention on what I can do and what I can't do.
57:58
And I think when we talk about surrender, I'm not a huge fan of the word surrender, but I understand when people use it, sometimes I've heard it used in really wonderful ways and I get what it means.
58:09
To me, whether you use the word surrender, whether you use the word accept, whether you use the word let it be, or even if you take Mel Robbins and the book Let Them, all of those are variations, I think, of the same kind of concept, which is allowing the world to be it is, learning to accept what is.
58:27
And I think at some level, that's what we're all trying to do.
58:31
But for me, I want to be able to go, okay, I need to accept what is.
58:36
And I use the phrase, it is what it is, which is a nothing phrase or a nonsense phrase.
58:40
At the same time,
58:42
It's a way for me to be able to go, okay, that's cornered off.
58:46
That's in the acceptance phase.
58:47
It is what it is.
58:49
Nothing I can do about it.
58:50
I'm going to accept it.
58:51
But my brain is going to, okay, but let's focus on the controllable piece.
58:54
Let's focus on the stuff that I can actually influence.
58:58
And that's what keeps me sane.
59:00
Not that I don't have the, let's say, surrendering part, but I'm not going to obsess about what I have to surrender for or accept.
59:07
That's almost like, okay, this is what I have to accept.
59:10
It is what it is.
59:11
Now next.
59:12
Because I know me, sometimes when I think surrender, it's like this big process where I have to come to terms with the fact that life is not fair or this is not fair or this is a big disappointment.
59:23
It is what it is, right?
59:24
I wanted this.
59:25
It didn't happen.
59:27
It sucks.
59:28
Shit happens.
59:29
Okay, what can I actually do now moving forward?
59:32
And training myself to think like that has really been...
59:36
very helpful for me and i'll just give you one counter example to that one situation where i think oh please do i suppose the closest one and that is when my partner i wrote this about it in the book as well when my partner um out of the blue was diagnosed with a mass in her right lung when she was in greece visiting family i i flew back over there and she had to get lung surgery major lung surgery and all the way leading up to the lung surgery
1:00:01
I was pretty good.
1:00:03
I'm pretty good in a crisis generally.
1:00:04
I was focused on what we control.
1:00:06
I was helping her stay in the right mindset.
1:00:08
As she was wheeled in to the operating theater, I was like, thumbs up.
1:00:13
She was like, everything's going to be okay.
1:00:14
I said, of course it is.
1:00:15
Everything's going to be great.
1:00:16
She was wheeled in.
1:00:17
And for the next four or five hours,
1:00:19
I was an absolute mess.
1:00:21
I was sitting there in the waiting room, petrified.
1:00:24
Now, I've been in situations where I've been held at gunpoint in Costa Rica.
1:00:28
I've been chased down the street in the middle of Tehran, Iran.
1:00:31
I've been in lots of situations where...
1:00:34
My life has been in danger and I've never been as scared as I was when I was sitting in there because I had zero control.
1:00:41
And for me, that's the one time of surrender.
1:00:44
I'm like, there's zero I can do about this.
1:00:46
And that's in a way what I realized was sometimes we have to learn to trust others.
1:00:53
And so I was trusting these incredible doctors and nurses.
1:00:56
these incredible healthcare professionals that do amazing things, I think are underappreciated.
1:01:02
And in many ways, that's the situation I found myself in.
1:01:05
And that's the one time someone who's always about focus on what you control, focus on what you can influence, focus on this, focus on that.
1:01:11
At that stage, I'm like, okay, all my cards are taken away.
1:01:15
Now I just got to cross my fingers, pray, and really appreciate and surrender to these incredible human beings.
1:01:23
And I think that's
1:01:26
When you see the beauty of so many people in the world, often our brains are oriented towards all the bad people in the world because that's what gets clicks.
1:01:37
But I love when I'm on social media, my favorite thing in the world is like the feel good stories.
1:01:43
And, you know, Mr. Motivator is going around giving people money with the music in the background.
1:01:48
Oh, I love that stuff.
1:01:50
And I know it's sort of like cringy and it's all so obvious.
1:01:52
Oh, give me that every day because it reminds me just how beautiful people can be.
1:01:57
And when I'm in that situation and I'm surrendering, the key is to know these amazing people are doing all they can to make sure that my life is not going to, you know, be destroyed.
1:02:09
And, um, yeah, I'm, I think that's the one area that the cold control piece, you just got to go.
1:02:15
Okay.
1:02:15
Okay.
1:02:16
Cross your fingers, say your prayers and believe in people and surrender to it.
1:02:21
What I like about you, a lot of things, but what I especially like about you is that you look at both sides before you even speak or think.
1:02:31
it's it's let me see both sides of the coin and i love that um i do the same thing it's kind of a curse but i i feel like it allows me to answer from an objective standpoint and you know i i'd also tell you that there's there's a higher power something looking out for you because you keep being given lessons
1:02:49
And everything works out.
1:02:51
And that's life.
1:02:52
Life's been good to you.
1:02:54
I hope you realize that.
1:02:55
So final question, then we got to get in our rapid fire.
1:02:57
We're going over, and I apologize.
1:03:00
If someone's listening right now and they're losing the war in their own mind, what's the first thing they should do tomorrow morning after listening to the podcast?
1:03:08
The first thing is to recognize that, and this is, I'll give you a recognition that an actual action.
1:03:14
So the first thing is to recognize how the war is being played, right?
1:03:17
It's a story war.
1:03:19
And there's an inner dictator in your mind trying to convince you that everything is screwed up, that all hope is lost and all that.
1:03:26
And so recognizing that is the first step.
1:03:28
We need to know this is a propaganda war.
1:03:30
Your brain is convincing you this.
1:03:32
It doesn't matter why.
1:03:32
It doesn't matter.
1:03:33
What matters is this is what's happening.
1:03:35
So what you feel is not necessarily false.
1:03:38
but it's definitely not necessarily true.
1:03:40
And give yourself that little bit of freedom.
1:03:42
The second thing is to start writing it down and start writing down exactly what you're thinking and explore it all.
1:03:50
And what I would do as well is I'd start to look at it and start to analyze.
1:03:54
Again, if you go through it,
1:03:56
Which parts of it can you actually, like, when you look at that, instead of, sometimes people will try to write positive immediately after.
1:04:03
I don't do that.
1:04:04
I'd be like, as you read through your negative, like, description, what your inner dictator's telling you, look through the facts and start to evaluate and go, okay, how much of this is actually, like, I'm not saying none of it.
1:04:16
It could all be true.
1:04:18
But just to do this exercise, what do you know for sure?
1:04:22
What's 100%?
1:04:23
What's a fact?
1:04:24
What's verifiable?
1:04:25
What could you observe?
1:04:27
And when you go through it like that, invariably you realize very little.
1:04:31
Most of it's conjecture.
1:04:32
Most of it's opinion.
1:04:33
Most of it's like a negative point of view, a negative interpretation.
1:04:37
So what's a fact and what's the story you're telling yourself about the fact?
1:04:40
Yeah.
1:04:40
And that's one of the most useful exercises to do because it helps you realize that it is always a story.
1:04:49
And when you know it's a story, that helps you to go, well, maybe it doesn't have to be that story.
1:04:55
Maybe there's another way.
1:04:56
And, of course, the other thing I'd say just to think, reach out to people, talk, find someone who will listen.
1:05:03
There's professionals that are expert at listening.
1:05:05
being there for you.
1:05:06
So if you are really struggling with your mental health, reach out.
1:05:09
There's people that care, people that are really good.
1:05:13
Talk to somebody.
1:05:14
Tell yourself a better story.
1:05:16
And I answered it in my head before you did.
1:05:19
And I landed on the same thing.
1:05:21
Guys, go back to what he opened the podcast with was get on Amazon, go to target, go to Walmart, wherever, go buy a bunch of notebooks, college notebooks.
1:05:30
There's your journal and go journal.
1:05:33
And just remember,
1:05:36
whatever is on your mind, just write it out.
1:05:40
Just the act of doing that gets it out of your head and it will not go on repeat.
1:05:45
And I love what he did.
1:05:47
All I did was star the good days, but do his little color code where it's very bad, bad, very good, or good.
1:05:56
And then go look at the patterns.
1:05:59
Guys, this stuff works.
1:06:01
I do it every day.
1:06:02
And he just told you to.
1:06:03
So, all right, we're done with the interview part.
1:06:06
I got to run through rapid fire.
1:06:08
One word to one sentence, and then we'll get you out of here.
1:06:11
This has been amazing.
1:06:12
Guys, please share this.
1:06:15
Follow Owen.
1:06:16
He's, this has been a great conversation.
1:06:18
I got a new best friend.
1:06:21
The belief you're most glad you let go of.
1:06:24
That I needed to die.
1:06:29
One book besides your own every leader should read.
1:06:32
Either Think Again by Adam Grant or Influenced by Robert Cialdini.
1:06:36
The belief I'm grateful, and I want to share this because I want to be vulnerable, is that I'm unlovable.
1:06:42
And I want you all to know that every single one of you matter and you are lovable.
1:06:46
I don't know why I felt compelled.
1:06:47
I don't ever break into these rapid fires, but you matter.
1:06:51
You're here for a reason.
1:06:52
Sorry.
1:06:54
That just rattled me when you said that.
1:06:56
The strangest place you've ever seen propaganda.
1:07:00
North Korea.
1:07:03
We got to have a separate conversation about that.
1:07:05
Best lesson a mentor ever gave you in one sentence.
1:07:09
Do as many different things in as many different places with as many different people as you can.
1:07:13
And that was Dr. Richard Bandley.
1:07:15
So good.
1:07:16
That's so good.
1:07:18
Favorite comeback story ever put on film?
1:07:21
It has to be Rocky.
1:07:23
I knew you were going to say it.
1:07:24
Has to be.
1:07:25
Has to be.
1:07:26
Has to be.
1:07:26
Has to be.
1:07:27
Finish this sentence.
1:07:28
I could be wrong about.
1:07:30
Everything.
1:07:33
And it feels good.
1:07:35
One word for going the distance.
1:07:37
Relentless.
1:07:39
Relentless.
1:07:40
That's one of my favorite words.
1:07:41
Guys, get out and read his book, Inner Propaganda, Leading Hearts and Minds Through Turbulent Times.
1:07:49
And boy, are we in turbulent times and they're about to get crazier with the midterm elections coming out.
1:07:57
Don't get caught up into it.
1:07:58
Tell yourself a good story.
1:08:00
And until next week, be harder than life.
1:08:03
Please rate and share this podcast.
1:08:05
I'm active on all social platforms and love to hear from my Segal supporters.
1:08:09
Each and every episode is sponsored by my company, National Technology Management, the easiest and best IT company to do business with, delivering peace of mind with technology every day, even simplifying cybersecurity.
1:08:20
Visit TrustNTM.com for more info.
1:08:23
Until next week, be harder than life.