Latest / Walk the Pod: 10 minute walking / S65E7 Confidence is limited

Transcript

S65E7 Confidence is limited · Walk the Pod: 10 minute walking

• 0:10
  Speaker 1: Hello and welcome to Walk the Pod, your daily walking
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: show where I take my podcast for a walk because
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: I don't have a dog.
• 0:18
  Speaker 2: You're very welcome along.
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: This is episode 7, series 65 of the Daily Walking
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: podcast that tempts you away from your desk at lunchtime,
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: out and into nature for just 10 minutes. It's Tuesday,
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: and on Tuesday we celebrate Gratitude Day, which is a
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: gratitude practice based on the idea that if we record
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: things we're grateful for noticing the things that we're grateful
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: for during the week and that will mean that we're
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: more aware of how lucky we are.
• 0:55
  Speaker 2: What things we do have where the sort of.
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: Main way of being alive is to kind of worry
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: about things that we don't have which is entirely sensible
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: way for our brains to operate but if we can
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: program our brains to at least have an awareness of
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: what we're grateful for. It may be helpful, that's the theory.
• 1:24
  Speaker 1: We're talking about confidence this series, and I'm really enjoying
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: the topic. It's coming up a lot, actually, I'm reading
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: all kinds of things, and confidence keeps coming up in
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: a lot of the things that I'm reading. And I
• 1:37
  Speaker 1: keep thinking, right, I've got to bring that and that
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: and that. Today, I would like to talk about confidence
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: being limited. and bring you John Steinbeck's thoughts from his
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: cabin in the woods where he wrote The Grapes of Wrath,
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: and also the, in my humble opinion, better journal of writing.
• 1:57
  Speaker 2: The Grapes of Wrath.
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: I certainly enjoyed reading the journal about him writing The
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: Grapes of Wrath better than I enjoyed trying to read
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: the first chapter of The Grapes of Wrath, which left
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: me pounding my desk in despair. Welcome to Walk the Pod.
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: So confidence is limited. What on earth do I mean
• 2:32
  Speaker 1: by that? Well, if we think about confidence as being
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: quiet and self-assured, as the antidote to arrogance, which has
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: to talk about how great it is all the time,
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: then we should also consider that when we feel quietly
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: confident about our abilities, one of the reasons why we
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: can be quiet and content about it is because we
• 2:57
  Speaker 1: also understand the limits of our abilities that's actually very
• 3:04
  Speaker 1: important because overconfidence can be as unhelpful as a lack
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: of confidence if you imagine what we've been talking about
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: in the series so far we must first convince ourselves
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: we must then convince others to do things and if
• 3:21
  Speaker 1: we're going to do anything we need a certain amount
• 3:23
  Speaker 1: of confidence in that vision because otherwise nobody is going
• 3:28
  Speaker 1: to help us And unless we have unlimited resources, we're
• 3:33
  Speaker 1: going to need people to help us for most things.
• 3:37
  Speaker 1: So underconfidence, not good. Overconfidence means that we are perhaps
• 3:46
  Speaker 1: straying into an area which could be called arrogance. We
• 3:48
  Speaker 1: are too convinced of everything that we come up with.
• 3:53
  Speaker 1: And that starts to erode the trust that we've built
• 3:57
  Speaker 1: with the people who are helping us to do the
• 3:58
  Speaker 1: things we want to do. John Steinbeck noticed that having
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: been able to get nothing published at all before he
• 4:09
  Speaker 1: became successful, once he was successful, his publishers, and indeed everybody,
• 4:15
  Speaker 1: wanted to publish everything that he ever wrote. And in
• 4:19
  Speaker 1: that way, he lost sight of what was objectively quality
• 4:24
  Speaker 1: or not so high quality in his work as a result.
• 4:30
  Speaker 1: And he wrote in his journal, Working Days, the diary
• 4:34
  Speaker 1: of writing The Grapes of Wrath, that that's why he
• 4:37
  Speaker 1: likes writing in his cabin in the woods, because he
• 4:40
  Speaker 1: knew he couldn't fill the trees.
• 4:43
  Speaker 2: And so we must be very, very wary of.
• 4:50
  Speaker 1: Other people's confidence in us, maybe exceeding our actual abilities.
• 4:56
  Speaker 1: And so part of confidence, therefore, is having a good
• 4:59
  Speaker 1: understanding of our strengths and weaknesses.
• 5:16
  Speaker 2: What can I see directly in front of me?
• 5:17
  Speaker 1: Well, I'm in the woods again, which is lovely and
• 5:21
  Speaker 1: immediately fills me with a sense of happiness and also calm.
• 5:28
  Speaker 1: because in the woods, walking along at a steady pace
• 5:35
  Speaker 1: and listening to the birds and gazing adoringly at other
• 5:39
  Speaker 1: people's dogs, most of the things that were concerning me
• 5:45
  Speaker 1: when I was at home before this sort of just,
• 5:49
  Speaker 1: they just fall down the sofa cushions of the mind.
• 5:52
  Speaker 1: It's not that they've gone away, I'm just not very
• 5:55
  Speaker 1: conscious of them right now. What I am conscious of
• 5:58
  Speaker 1: is a squirrel that is frisking around on the leaves
• 6:02
  Speaker 1: over there. I'm aware that the sky is unexpectedly blue
• 6:07
  Speaker 1: because we've had some fairly terrible weather over the last
• 6:11
  Speaker 1: few days, but it is a beautiful day again.
• 6:14
  Speaker 2: How has this happened?
• 6:15
  Speaker 1: It's been grey all morning, but no, it's a beautiful
• 6:18
  Speaker 1: day all of a sudden, which is wonderful. And of course,
• 6:24
  Speaker 1: as well as being able to see little squirrels frolicking, I.
• 6:29
  Speaker 2: Can also, I was.
• 6:32
  Speaker 1: Going to talk about how the woods kind of have
• 6:35
  Speaker 1: this lovely, it's not really a smell as such, it's
• 6:40
  Speaker 1: kind of just a kind of nice feeling. It's an aroma,
• 6:45
  Speaker 1: a sort of sort of coziness. But then I was
• 6:49
  Speaker 1: distracted by a woodpecker, which I can't see, but I
• 6:53
  Speaker 1: can hear. It is in this tree just next to me.
• 7:05
  Speaker 2: And I'm just trying to work out where it is,
• 7:08
  Speaker 2: because there's not so many leaves on these trees.
• 7:12
  Speaker 1: I should be able to see it. I'm afraid I
• 7:15
  Speaker 1: can't see it, though, Polly's. It's not making any noise
• 7:18
  Speaker 1: anymore either. It's probably paused as well.
• 7:26
  Speaker 2: Okay, I can actually... can hear it. Can you hear it?
• 7:35
  Speaker 1: It's like a very tiny wooden machine gun going off.
• 7:46
  Speaker 2: I mean.
• 7:47
  Speaker 1: It's also possible that it isn't a woodpecker, it's actually
• 7:50
  Speaker 1: the tree branches creaking, but no, I don't think so.
• 7:54
  Speaker 1: I think it's a live woodpecker on walk the pod.
• 7:58
  Speaker 1: That there is a very noisy, not to say arrogant,
• 8:05
  Speaker 1: loud ring-necked parakeet live on the pod, which is less
• 8:09
  Speaker 1: to write home about, frankly. They never shut up, bloody parrots.
• 8:17
  Speaker 1: What else can I see directly in front of me?
• 8:19
  Speaker 1: A bench currently. It's a lovely bench here that I
• 8:23
  Speaker 1: could sit down and rest on where I'm more weary
• 8:27
  Speaker 1: than I am. And I've got the paddocks over to
• 8:31
  Speaker 1: my right-hand side. The paddocks are the local allotments, 160
• 8:34
  Speaker 1: allotments in the middle of the woods. One tiny little
• 8:38
  Speaker 1: allotment in the middle, rather in need of a bit
• 8:43
  Speaker 1: more attention than I'm giving it, is.
• 8:46
  Speaker 1: My and Sam's allotment number 14B and still thinking about
• 8:55
  Speaker 1: the fruit tree pruning talk that I attended at the
• 8:58
  Speaker 1: weekend which was great fun and underfoot lots of dry
• 9:08
  Speaker 1: green and yellow leaves bare tree trunks with not a
• 9:19
  Speaker 1: lot of bark on them. Quite a lot of spiky
• 9:23
  Speaker 1: looking brambles and ivy. And the remains, the sort of
• 9:31
  Speaker 1: crispy dried.
• 9:32
  Speaker 2: Remains of some blackberries.
• 9:36
  Speaker 1: This is classic October walking weather and I've just been
• 9:40
  Speaker 1: reading The fascinating book of the professor I'm going to
• 9:44
  Speaker 1: be talking to on Thursday night at the Robots Panel
• 9:49
  Speaker 1: at Imperial College London. And very, very interesting stuff in
• 9:54
  Speaker 1: the book about Wu Wei. which is a Tao for
• 10:04
  Speaker 1: essentially not being overconfident. It is a Tao idea, meaning
• 10:10
  Speaker 1: just enough effort. Obviously too little effort is too passive.
• 10:15
  Speaker 1: Nothing happens. Too much effort though. and we can do damage. Now,
• 10:22
  Speaker 1: you can apply that to your own life in any
• 10:24
  Speaker 1: way that you want to, but I think it's rather
• 10:28
  Speaker 1: relevant to our discussion this fortnight. So if you want
• 10:33
  Speaker 1: to have a look at how intelligence is not just
• 10:39
  Speaker 1: in the mind, but is actually in the body and
• 10:41
  Speaker 1: the environment as well, I highly recommend Ghost Circuits to you.
• 10:45
  Speaker 1: I think it's self-published, it's not got a sort of publisher,
• 10:50
  Speaker 1: And it does seem to have a sort of self-published
• 10:52
  Speaker 1: sort of vibe about it. Nevertheless, it is available everywhere
• 10:59
  Speaker 1: you'd expect and I highly recommend that to you. Very,
• 11:05
  Speaker 1: very interesting stuff about how fish kind of use the
• 11:10
  Speaker 1: energy of the river to swim upstream. About how you
• 11:15
  Speaker 1: can make colonoscopy equipment out of origami. All kinds of things.
• 11:24
  Speaker 1: And a lot on karate, which is very interesting. And
• 11:27
  Speaker 1: Bruce Lee's encouragement to martial artists to be like water.
• 11:34
  Speaker 2: Easier said than done. Thank you for walking with me,
• 11:38
  Speaker 2: dear friends.
• 11:38
  Speaker 1: It's been an absolute delight to stretch my legs with
• 11:40
  Speaker 1: you this lunchtime on our daily 10-minute walk.
• 11:44
  Speaker 2: I hope you're enjoying your walks. And if you are
• 11:45
  Speaker 2: enjoying your walks, good news.
• 11:50
  Speaker 1: There are hundreds more episodes of Walk the Pod in
• 11:53
  Speaker 1: the archive, so have a dig through those. And there are,
• 11:57
  Speaker 1: of course, three more episodes in this series. Will we
• 12:01
  Speaker 1: have another series this year?
• 12:02
  Speaker 2: I don't know.
• 12:03
  Speaker 1: I said I'd do six, and this is the sixth one. So, yeah,
• 12:06
  Speaker 1: I don't know. TBC, Potties.
• 12:11
  Speaker 2: TBC.
• 12:12
  Speaker 1: I sort of feel like there could be one or
• 12:14
  Speaker 1: two Christmas Lights episodes, or maybe.
• 12:16
  Speaker 2: A Halloween episode. something, but those could be videos, you know.
• 12:21
  Speaker 1: The actual proper podcast series for the year may be
• 12:26
  Speaker 1: drawing to a conclusion, but there will be more next year,
• 12:29
  Speaker 1: so don't worry. Take care of your beautiful mind, yourselves
• 12:35
  Speaker 1: and each other, and I'll be back with episode eight tomorrow.