Latest / HEY, AMBITIOUS / 37. Stop Testing Yourself. Start Creating Your Life.

Transcript

37. Stop Testing Yourself. Start Creating Your Life. · HEY, AMBITIOUS

• 0:01
  SPEAKER_00: Hey ambitious, welcome.
• 0:04
  SPEAKER_00: How are you today?
• 0:06
  SPEAKER_00: Do you feel more possibilities than pressure?
• 0:10
  SPEAKER_00: Then I'm smiling with you.
• 0:12
  SPEAKER_00: It really feels good when you expand from inside out and see possibilities.
• 0:21
  SPEAKER_00: In the last episode, I introduce you to a few characters.
• 0:25
  SPEAKER_00: Your brain predicts, your mind interprets, your identity makes it personal.
• 0:33
  SPEAKER_00: And then possibility walks into the room and asks, but what else could be true?
• 0:40
  SPEAKER_00: Today I want to continue that conversation because there is another piece of this that I teach inside expanded, my eight-week residency.
• 0:50
  SPEAKER_00: And by the way, have you signed up yet?
• 0:52
  SPEAKER_00: We're actually gonna start next week.
• 0:55
  SPEAKER_00: So I would love for you to join us.
• 1:00
  SPEAKER_00: So these are two of my favorite characters of all the tester and the creator.
• 1:08
  SPEAKER_00: And we're introducing them in the expanded.
• 1:12
  SPEAKER_00: Because once you understand what we talked about in the last episode, and I'll put a link in the show notes, I think you'll understand exactly how the tester was created.
• 1:23
  SPEAKER_00: And more importantly, how we begin practicing to be creators.
• 1:30
  SPEAKER_00: So let's meet the tester.
• 1:33
  SPEAKER_00: The tester isn't bad, she's actually incredibly intelligent.
• 1:39
  SPEAKER_00: She's learned how to navigate life by constantly asking, am I doing this right?
• 1:46
  SPEAKER_00: Is this going to work?
• 1:48
  SPEAKER_00: Am I successful yet?
• 1:50
  SPEAKER_00: Did I make the right decision?
• 1:53
  SPEAKER_00: What if I make a mistake?
• 1:55
  SPEAKER_00: What will people think?
• 1:57
  SPEAKER_00: Am I behind?
• 1:59
  SPEAKER_00: Have I done enough?
• 2:02
  SPEAKER_00: Do you recognize her?
• 2:05
  SPEAKER_00: I certainly do.
• 2:06
  SPEAKER_00: The tester likes answers.
• 2:09
  SPEAKER_00: She likes certainty.
• 2:10
  SPEAKER_00: She likes evidence before she moves forward.
• 2:14
  SPEAKER_00: And she especially likes the world to be divided into nice, clean categories.
• 2:22
  SPEAKER_00: Right or wrong, success or failure, ahead or behind, productive or lazy, good decision or bad decision.
• 2:31
  SPEAKER_00: Enough or not enough.
• 2:34
  SPEAKER_00: And now connect this to what we talked about in the last episode.
• 2:40
  SPEAKER_00: Your brain learns from experience.
• 2:42
  SPEAKER_00: It uses previous experiences to help anticipate what might happen next.
• 2:48
  SPEAKER_00: So if you've spent years succeeding through working harder, controlling outcomes, getting things right, preparing more, proving yourselves, being responsible, of course those pathways become familiar.
• 3:04
  SPEAKER_00: Pressure worked.
• 3:06
  SPEAKER_00: Pressure got us here.
• 3:09
  SPEAKER_00: Or at least sometimes it got us somewhere.
• 3:13
  SPEAKER_00: You got the degree, built the company, raised the family, got the promotion, made things happen, and your brain collected evidence.
• 3:23
  SPEAKER_00: Uh-huh.
• 3:24
  SPEAKER_00: This is how we succeed.
• 3:26
  SPEAKER_00: Work harder, prepare more, don't screw it up.
• 3:31
  SPEAKER_00: Stay in control.
• 3:32
  SPEAKER_00: And eventually, those aren't simply behaviors.
• 3:37
  SPEAKER_00: The mind gives them meaning.
• 3:40
  SPEAKER_00: An identity enters the conversation.
• 3:43
  SPEAKER_00: This is who I am.
• 3:45
  SPEAKER_00: I am the responsible one.
• 3:48
  SPEAKER_00: I am the high achiever.
• 3:49
  SPEAKER_00: I am the one who figures it out.
• 3:52
  SPEAKER_00: I don't quit.
• 3:53
  SPEAKER_00: I make things happen.
• 3:56
  SPEAKER_00: That's a tester.
• 3:58
  SPEAKER_00: And here's where it gets interesting.
• 4:00
  SPEAKER_00: The tester might have helped you create an incredibly successful life.
• 4:06
  SPEAKER_00: We're not firing her.
• 4:08
  SPEAKER_00: We're expanding beyond her.
• 4:11
  SPEAKER_00: Because eventually the very operating system that got you here can start limiting where you can go next.
• 4:22
  SPEAKER_00: The tester wants to know the outcome before she begins.
• 4:26
  SPEAKER_00: But creation does not work that way.
• 4:30
  SPEAKER_00: You cannot create something genuinely new while requiring evidence from the past that it's going to work.
• 4:40
  SPEAKER_00: Think about that.
• 4:42
  SPEAKER_00: If I only choose what previous evidence tells me will succeed, I'm not really creating.
• 4:50
  SPEAKER_00: I'm repeating.
• 4:52
  SPEAKER_00: Creation requires some relationship with uncertainty.
• 4:56
  SPEAKER_00: And that's where we meet our second identity, the creator.
• 5:01
  SPEAKER_00: The creator does not ask, will this work?
• 5:05
  SPEAKER_00: She asks, what happens if I try this?
• 5:10
  SPEAKER_00: The tester asks, what's the right decision?
• 5:13
  SPEAKER_00: The creator asks, what would I like to explore?
• 5:18
  SPEAKER_00: The tester asks, what if I fail?
• 5:22
  SPEAKER_00: The creator asks, what might I discover?
• 5:26
  SPEAKER_00: The tester says, I need evidence before I move.
• 5:31
  SPEAKER_00: The creator says, movement creates evidence.
• 5:37
  SPEAKER_00: And that one is important.
• 5:39
  SPEAKER_00: Movement creates evidence.
• 5:42
  SPEAKER_00: Because remember what we're trying to do?
• 5:45
  SPEAKER_00: We're giving the brain something new to work with.
• 5:49
  SPEAKER_00: And that's exactly why inside expanded we don't just sit around talking about possibility.
• 5:55
  SPEAKER_00: We practice it.
• 5:57
  SPEAKER_00: We have what I call possibility experiences, little experiments.
• 6:02
  SPEAKER_00: Because I don't want you simply saying, I'm adaptable, I trust myself, I'm capable, I can handle uncertainty, I don't need to control everything.
• 6:13
  SPEAKER_00: Lovely.
• 6:15
  SPEAKER_00: But what happens Tuesday afternoon when the plan changes?
• 6:19
  SPEAKER_00: When the client says no, when you look at your account and it's not where it's supposed to be or would like it to be, that's where we practice.
• 6:29
  SPEAKER_00: This is one of my favorite ways of thinking about this experiment.
• 6:34
  SPEAKER_00: We introduce a new variable.
• 6:38
  SPEAKER_00: Every week over eight weeks, we introduce a new variable.
• 6:43
  SPEAKER_00: Imagine an ambitious woman who always researches everything before making a decision.
• 6:50
  SPEAKER_00: Do you know one of those?
• 6:52
  SPEAKER_00: She's researching a restaurant, 27 reviews, vacation trip advisor knows her personally, business idea, free spreadsheets, four podcasts, two books, and 17 tabs.
• 7:03
  SPEAKER_00: Because her family, familiar equation says more information equals better decisions, which feels safe.
• 7:15
  SPEAKER_00: So what if we introduce one tiny variable?
• 7:19
  SPEAKER_00: Make one low stakes choice without researching it.
• 7:24
  SPEAKER_00: Not sell your house and move to Portugal tomorrow.
• 7:27
  SPEAKER_00: No, no, no.
• 7:28
  SPEAKER_00: We're not going completely insane here.
• 7:32
  SPEAKER_00: Pick the restaurant without reading reviews.
• 7:35
  SPEAKER_00: Choose the class because it sounds interesting.
• 7:39
  SPEAKER_00: Walk into the bookstore and buy the book that catches your attention.
• 7:45
  SPEAKER_00: Now something very important happens.
• 7:48
  SPEAKER_00: She has an experience.
• 7:51
  SPEAKER_00: She makes an unresearched choice and survives.
• 7:58
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe she even enjoys it.
• 8:00
  SPEAKER_00: Now her brain has information it did not have before.
• 8:07
  SPEAKER_00: We can make a choice without knowing everything.
• 8:12
  SPEAKER_00: And perhaps she does it again and again.
• 8:15
  SPEAKER_00: We are creating new evidence, not imaginary evidence, lived evidence.
• 8:22
  SPEAKER_00: This is why I don't think possibility is simply a mindset.
• 8:26
  SPEAKER_00: Possibility is something we practice.
• 8:28
  SPEAKER_00: If your prediction says, if I slow down, I'll fall behind.
• 8:34
  SPEAKER_00: I can tell you a hundred times that rest is productive.
• 8:38
  SPEAKER_00: You can put it on a beautiful Instagram graphic.
• 8:41
  SPEAKER_00: You can write it on in your journal.
• 8:44
  SPEAKER_00: But your nervous system may still say, absolutely not.
• 8:49
  SPEAKER_00: So instead we create an experiment.
• 8:52
  SPEAKER_00: What happens if I stop working 30 minutes earlier today?
• 8:56
  SPEAKER_00: If 30 minutes feel too much, do 15 minutes, 10 minutes.
• 9:02
  SPEAKER_00: So here we go.
• 9:03
  SPEAKER_00: We have a new variable.
• 9:06
  SPEAKER_00: And we observe.
• 9:08
  SPEAKER_00: Did the company collapse when I stopped earlier?
• 9:12
  SPEAKER_00: Did everyone leave?
• 9:14
  SPEAKER_00: Did your ambition disappear?
• 9:17
  SPEAKER_00: Or maybe you slept better, had an idea in the shower, were more present at dinner, solved tomorrow's problem faster because your brain was not exhausted.
• 9:29
  SPEAKER_00: Now we have new data.
• 9:31
  SPEAKER_00: Your prediction was if I pull back, I lose momentum.
• 9:36
  SPEAKER_00: Your experiences?
• 9:38
  SPEAKER_00: Interesting.
• 9:39
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes pulling back actually changes the quality of my momentum.
• 9:44
  SPEAKER_00: That's possibility becoming evidence.
• 9:48
  SPEAKER_00: The creator does not need certainty.
• 9:51
  SPEAKER_00: And this might be the biggest difference between the tester and creator.
• 9:55
  SPEAKER_00: The tester wants certainty.
• 9:58
  SPEAKER_00: The creator develops capacity for uncertainty.
• 10:01
  SPEAKER_00: She does not need to know this will work.
• 10:05
  SPEAKER_00: She becomes more comfortable saying, I don't know what will happen.
• 10:09
  SPEAKER_00: Let's find out.
• 10:11
  SPEAKER_00: That's a completely different relationship with ambition, because suddenly your life is not a giant exam you're trying to pass.
• 10:20
  SPEAKER_00: It's a studio.
• 10:21
  SPEAKER_00: It's an expansion studio.
• 10:24
  SPEAKER_00: You're creating, experimenting, adjusting, learning.
• 10:28
  SPEAKER_00: Some things work, some don't.
• 10:30
  SPEAKER_00: Some surprise you, some lead somewhere you never expected.
• 10:33
  SPEAKER_00: And none of them have to become evidence that something is wrong with you.
• 10:39
  SPEAKER_00: That's freedom.
• 10:42
  SPEAKER_00: And maybe this is what we are really doing inside expanded.
• 10:46
  SPEAKER_00: We're not trying to eliminate the tester.
• 10:49
  SPEAKER_00: She helped us get here.
• 10:51
  SPEAKER_00: We are showing her there are other ways to move through the world.
• 10:57
  SPEAKER_00: Instead of predicting, controlling, proving, performing, evaluating, and then moving forward.
• 11:04
  SPEAKER_00: We begin practicing possibility, experimenting with possibility, experiencing, creating evidence and expanding with this new variable.
• 11:17
  SPEAKER_00: Possibility introduces the new variable.
• 11:20
  SPEAKER_00: The experiment gives you the experience.
• 11:23
  SPEAKER_00: The experience creates new evidence.
• 11:26
  SPEAKER_00: And that evidence gives your brain and mind more information to work with.
• 11:36
  SPEAKER_00: And over time, perhaps the identity begins changing too.
• 11:40
  SPEAKER_00: Not because you forced yourself to believe something, but because you've started experiencing yourself differently.
• 11:48
  SPEAKER_00: I thought I couldn't handle uncertainty.
• 11:51
  SPEAKER_00: Apparently I can.
• 11:52
  SPEAKER_00: I thought I had to control everything.
• 11:55
  SPEAKER_00: Apparently I don't.
• 11:57
  SPEAKER_00: I thought rest meant losing momentum.
• 12:01
  SPEAKER_00: Apparently, it doesn't always.
• 12:04
  SPEAKER_00: I thought I needed confidence before I started.
• 12:08
  SPEAKER_00: Apparently, starting is helping create the confidence.
• 12:12
  SPEAKER_00: I thought I had to know how.
• 12:15
  SPEAKER_00: Apparently, I can I can discover how.
• 12:20
  SPEAKER_00: Now that woman has more range, more choices, more access to herself and more possibilities available to her.
• 12:28
  SPEAKER_00: So here's what I want you to notice.
• 12:30
  SPEAKER_00: Where is your tester showing up?
• 12:33
  SPEAKER_00: Listen for her questions.
• 12:35
  SPEAKER_00: Am I doing enough?
• 12:36
  SPEAKER_00: Is this right?
• 12:37
  SPEAKER_00: Is this working?
• 12:38
  SPEAKER_00: What if I get it wrong?
• 12:39
  SPEAKER_00: Shouldn't I be further along?
• 12:42
  SPEAKER_00: Instead of arguing with her, say, thank you.
• 12:46
  SPEAKER_00: I see what you're trying to do.
• 12:48
  SPEAKER_00: And then invite your creator into the conversation.
• 12:52
  SPEAKER_00: Ask, what's one small variable I could change here?
• 12:57
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe you rest before everything is finished.
• 13:00
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe you publish before it feels perfect.
• 13:02
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe you make one decision without asking five people.
• 13:06
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe you leave one hour completely unplanned.
• 13:10
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe you walk into the room without trying to impress anyone.
• 13:14
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe you try something simply because it sounds fun.
• 13:19
  SPEAKER_00: And then don't immediately judge the outcome.
• 13:22
  SPEAKER_00: Observe.
• 13:23
  SPEAKER_00: What happened?
• 13:25
  SPEAKER_00: What surprised you?
• 13:26
  SPEAKER_00: What did you learn about yourself?
• 13:28
  SPEAKER_00: What new evidence did you collect?
• 13:31
  SPEAKER_00: Because your life does not have to be another test you're trying to pass.
• 13:36
  SPEAKER_00: It just can become your expansion studio.
• 13:39
  SPEAKER_00: And you get to become the creator inside it.
• 13:44
  SPEAKER_00: You are the one who expands.
• 13:46
  SPEAKER_00: That's exactly what we are practicing inside expanded.
• 13:49
  SPEAKER_00: Not becoming less ambitious, not shrinking the vision.
• 13:53
  SPEAKER_00: We're changing what fuels the ambition.
• 13:56
  SPEAKER_00: From pressure to possibility, from proving to experimenting, from predicting your future based on what you've known to participating and creating what comes next.
• 14:09
  SPEAKER_00: Your brain predicts from the evidence it has.
• 14:12
  SPEAKER_00: So perhaps the question is not how do I force myself to believe something different?
• 14:18
  SPEAKER_00: Perhaps the question is, what new experience can I give myself today?
• 14:23
  SPEAKER_00: Because that experience might become new evidence.
• 14:27
  SPEAKER_00: And new evidence might open a new possibility.
• 14:30
  SPEAKER_00: And enough new possibilities they can change the life you believe you're capable of creating.
• 14:38
  SPEAKER_00: I'll see you next time.