Latest / The You Project / #2108 Can We Change the Way we Think? - Harps
Transcript
- 0:01Speaker 1: You know gag. I hope you're bloody amazing. It's jumbo,
- 0:04Speaker 1: it's you project, it's I think I'm going to make
- 0:08Speaker 1: this the last one in this little installment of coaching session.
- 0:14Speaker 1: I hope you've enjoyed them, got something out of them,
- 0:16Speaker 1: something useful, and maybe even more importantly, I hope you've
- 0:21Speaker 1: done something with the thing that you found useful. So
- 0:27Speaker 1: we spoke a lot over the last couple of days,
- 0:31Speaker 1: or the last couple of sessions, I should say, about
- 0:34Speaker 1: trying to understand, you know, the feedback that life is
- 0:38Speaker 1: giving us. What we what's my life telling me? What
- 0:40Speaker 1: are we going to do with that? Starts with awareness,
- 0:43Speaker 1: the acknowledgment, then a decision, and then some action and
- 0:46Speaker 1: some on which I think that's a good kind of
- 0:48Speaker 1: door to open for us. Then we spoke about the
- 0:51Speaker 1: idea of the quality of our questions relating or correlating
- 0:55Speaker 1: to the quality of our life, with thinking being that
- 0:59Speaker 1: when I ask myself for better question, I'm more likely
- 1:02Speaker 1: to gain a level of awareness that I didn't have
- 1:06Speaker 1: or couldn't have achieved without the question, because I start
- 1:09Speaker 1: to think about all the underlying stuff rather than just
- 1:13Speaker 1: looking at the outcomes. In isolation. So we absolutely know
- 1:18Speaker 1: that there is a relationship between the quality of the
- 1:21Speaker 1: questions that I ask and the outcomes that I produce
- 1:24Speaker 1: due to all those middle bits. You know. So I
- 1:26Speaker 1: ask a good question, then I'm more resourceful, more creative,
- 1:29Speaker 1: more solution focused. I tend to make better decisions. I
- 1:33Speaker 1: tend to do better things because I ask better questions.
- 1:35Speaker 1: I've got some clarity perspective, and so that is a
- 1:38Speaker 1: really good way to create shift. That is a really
- 1:41Speaker 1: good way to increase one's self awareness and also to
- 1:46Speaker 1: get a level of I guess, understanding and insight about us.
- 1:51Speaker 1: Why do I do these things? What is like? What
- 1:54Speaker 1: do I eat this way? What do I socialize this way?
- 1:57Speaker 1: Why do I respond or react that way? What is
- 2:00Speaker 1: what is the reason behind all of that? Not so
- 2:02Speaker 1: that we can self loathe or criticize, but so that
- 2:06Speaker 1: we can understand us more with the the premise of
- 2:09Speaker 1: much of what I teach and coach is about, well,
- 2:12Speaker 1: if I understand me better and secondly others better. But
- 2:17Speaker 1: if I start with me and I understand me better,
- 2:20Speaker 1: then I can self manage and self regulate and improve
- 2:24Speaker 1: my self awareness so that I don't stay what's the
- 2:28Speaker 1: word I'm going to say, stuck in that behavioral groove
- 2:31Speaker 1: or that ritual or that that habit that isn't particularly
- 2:38Speaker 1: helpful or healthy. We spoke a lot about how we
- 2:43Speaker 1: think and why we think the way that we do,
- 2:47Speaker 1: and our drivers, our motivators, our underlying reasons, which we
- 2:51Speaker 1: put that all into the category of what's my why,
- 2:54Speaker 1: What is the underlying thing that's driving me worseeeing me,
- 3:01Speaker 1: prompting me, forcing me, even though it's me to do
- 3:05Speaker 1: the stuff that I do, the good stuff and the
- 3:07Speaker 1: bad again, all about understanding. We spoke about understanding on
- 3:13Speaker 1: a metacognitive level, exactly why I do Oh because Mum,
- 3:18Speaker 1: because Dad, or this environment or school, or the media
- 3:21Speaker 1: and social media that I'm exposed to, the ideas and
- 3:24Speaker 1: philosophies and theology, and all of the things that I
- 3:28Speaker 1: have been exposed to and you have been exposed to
- 3:31Speaker 1: up until right now listening to this, all of those
- 3:34Speaker 1: things have contributed to your version of reality, your cognitive landscape,
- 3:41Speaker 1: your emotional landscape, your beliefs, your ideas, your ideologies, your philosophies,
- 3:47Speaker 1: your fears, your phobias, your values, everything that makes up
- 3:51Speaker 1: that internal cognitive and psychological, so brain stuff and then
- 3:56Speaker 1: the psychological stuff which is intertwined, and then stuff, and
- 4:01Speaker 1: under that would be the fear stuff and the overthinking
- 4:03Speaker 1: stuff and the self doubt stuff, all of those myriad
- 4:06Speaker 1: of factors internal we'll just call them the internal stuff
- 4:11Speaker 1: that influences, if not controls, how you see life, how
- 4:17Speaker 1: you respond to life, how you either become a passenger
- 4:21Speaker 1: in your own life. So you're not running the show.
- 4:24Speaker 1: You're like a character in a story, the you story
- 4:27Speaker 1: that you're not actually writing. So how do we become
- 4:31Speaker 1: the creator of our own journey, the creator of our
- 4:35Speaker 1: own destiny, the writer of our own story? All of
- 4:39Speaker 1: that stuff and more so, now that we cover the
- 4:43Speaker 1: kind of why do I think the way that I do?
- 4:46Speaker 1: Where did my reality come from? Where did my subjective
- 4:49Speaker 1: version of the world come from? I think the next
- 4:54Speaker 1: thing to think about is does it work? Does the
- 4:59Speaker 1: way that I we're talking broadly speaking, does my attitude
- 5:04Speaker 1: broadly speaking in relation to life and work and other
- 5:06Speaker 1: people and health and wellness? And does my outlook work?
- 5:09Speaker 1: Does my attitude work? Do my beliefs kind of support
- 5:13Speaker 1: me or sabotage me? Do they propel me up? Or
- 5:17Speaker 1: do they drag me down. So it's thinking about that,
- 5:21Speaker 1: and then what I want to talk about. First question
- 5:25Speaker 1: tonight I want to address is not why do I
- 5:28Speaker 1: think the way that we do, because we've done that,
- 5:33Speaker 1: but rather how can I change the way I think?
- 5:36Speaker 1: So I've prepared nothing other than the question, big surprise.
- 5:41Speaker 1: So if i'm meander, if I stop and start a little,
- 5:44Speaker 1: forgive me, because this is organic, real time coaching, without notes,
- 5:49Speaker 1: This is me thinking as I go. So if I
- 5:53Speaker 1: start with me as an example, there were a lot
- 5:56Speaker 1: of things that I used to think and believe and
- 6:01Speaker 1: accept as absolute truth that turned out not to be
- 6:07Speaker 1: absolute truth, that turned out not to be real, that
- 6:10Speaker 1: turned out not to be the best way to think,
- 6:12Speaker 1: not the best ideas for me, not the best plans
- 6:15Speaker 1: for me, and many of those I didn't really choose,
- 6:20Speaker 1: perhaps none of them, I guess generally, as I've said before,
- 6:25Speaker 1: these things kind of happen. The way that we think
- 6:27Speaker 1: is just a byproduct of stuff. It's a by product
- 6:30Speaker 1: of where we've been and what we've seen, and who's
- 6:32Speaker 1: been around us, and who we listen to, who we respect,
- 6:35Speaker 1: who we like, who we pay attention to. And this
- 6:38Speaker 1: could be real people in real time in the three
- 6:40Speaker 1: D dimension that is life, where you're bumping into them,
- 6:43Speaker 1: working with them, going to school with them, living with them,
- 6:46Speaker 1: hanging out with them, socializing with them. So there's that.
- 6:50Speaker 1: But then I think the better question, or the bigger
- 6:52Speaker 1: question that comes from that, is how can I change
- 6:56Speaker 1: the way I think? Because you can't just think think
- 7:00Speaker 1: yourself into different thinking. Right, So what I have done,
- 7:05Speaker 1: and what I've supported many other people in doing, is
- 7:08Speaker 1: a few things. And one is not because necessarily you
- 7:14Speaker 1: want to latch onto some new theory or idea or
- 7:18Speaker 1: operating system, but rather because you want to become more informed.
- 7:24Speaker 1: You want to understand a world bigger than your mind.
- 7:29Speaker 1: You want to understand a reality, or at least have
- 7:33Speaker 1: a peek into a reality that isn't yours. I wrote
- 7:38Speaker 1: something earlier about hang on, let me just turn around
- 7:40Speaker 1: some my whiteboard. No it's not, I wiped it off anyway,
- 7:47Speaker 1: I think I wrote. Yeah. The question that we should
- 7:50Speaker 1: all ask ourselves at something like this is could I
- 7:53Speaker 1: be wrong? Could I be wrong? Think about that? How
- 7:57Speaker 1: many of us go through life certain values and certain beliefs,
- 8:01Speaker 1: and certain ideas and ideals and things that we cognitively, psychologically, sociologically,
- 8:10Speaker 1: emotionally hold on to and we believe. I'm not saying
- 8:15Speaker 1: we shouldn't have belief, but do we ever think, oh,
- 8:18Speaker 1: could I be wrong? Or even in the middle of
- 8:20Speaker 1: an argument, when we're going at it with someone and
- 8:23Speaker 1: we know we're right, We know we're right, that's why
- 8:25Speaker 1: we're arguing because they're wrong. Of course they're wrong. Of
- 8:27Speaker 1: course we're right. How many times in the middle of
- 8:29Speaker 1: that do we truly and I mean there's no bullshit,
- 8:32Speaker 1: no bullshitting yourself, do we honestly think I wonder if
- 8:37Speaker 1: she's right and I'm wrong, like humbly, authentically consider the
- 8:41Speaker 1: real possibility that what's coming out of my mouth might
- 8:46Speaker 1: be flawed. It might be a bit wrong, it might
- 8:48Speaker 1: be totally wrong, it might be a complete untruth. I
- 8:54Speaker 1: think about how many times I've gotten things wrong, how
- 8:58Speaker 1: many mistakes I've made, how many beliefs I have that
- 9:00Speaker 1: turned out to be flawed beliefs, how many truths I
- 9:03Speaker 1: held onto that weren't truths, they were just my version
- 9:06Speaker 1: of the truth. This is one of the challenges with
- 9:09Speaker 1: being human is that we can simultaneously build and inhabit
- 9:15Speaker 1: a personal reality all the while thinking this is not
- 9:19Speaker 1: a personal reality. This is Capital thhe v universal reality.
- 9:26Speaker 1: So this is not Craig real, This is just real.
- 9:32Speaker 1: And so one of the ways that we begin to
- 9:34Speaker 1: change the way that we think is to begin to
- 9:36Speaker 1: consider the fact that, oh, there things that I think
- 9:40Speaker 1: might be wrong. Well, no, shit, Sherlock, of course they
- 9:44Speaker 1: fucking can do. You know why? Because you get things
- 9:48Speaker 1: wrong probably every day, you probably have for years and years,
- 9:52Speaker 1: not because you're bad or flawed or broken, because you're normal,
- 9:55Speaker 1: because you're a human and humans get shit wrong. I mean,
- 9:59Speaker 1: stud and learning and researching my ass off forever, I
- 10:04Speaker 1: still think I probably get just as many things wrong
- 10:07Speaker 1: as before I started the journey. Doesn't mean I don't
- 10:10Speaker 1: have more knowledge, doesn't mean I am not a bit
- 10:14Speaker 1: more educated, of course I am. But I'm still flawed,
- 10:18Speaker 1: I still have ego. I still want to be right sometimes,
- 10:21Speaker 1: although I'm aware of that wanting to be right, and
- 10:24Speaker 1: I try to mitigate that in real time. And so
- 10:28Speaker 1: being able to change the way that we think needs
- 10:31Speaker 1: to at some stage come with a recognition of the
- 10:34Speaker 1: way that I think might be flawed, or it might
- 10:38Speaker 1: be problematic, or my thoughts lead to paranoia, or my
- 10:44Speaker 1: thoughts lead to obsession or are overthinking, or a myriad
- 10:53Speaker 1: of other states that we don't want to be in.
- 10:57Speaker 1: Do they serve me my thoughts or do they sabotage me?
- 11:00Speaker 1: Do they get out of my way? Do they help
- 11:02Speaker 1: me get out of my own way? Or do they
- 11:04Speaker 1: get in my way? And so when we talk to
- 11:07Speaker 1: other people, we have conversations, and we don't have conversations
- 11:10Speaker 1: coming from the perspective of I want to tell them
- 11:13Speaker 1: what's right. I want to talk at them, not with them.
- 11:16Speaker 1: I want to talk with them. I actually want to
- 11:19Speaker 1: say less and listen more. Now that doesn't mean when
- 11:22Speaker 1: I open myself up to other concepts or ideas or
- 11:25Speaker 1: philosophies that I need to adhere to them or embrace
- 11:30Speaker 1: them or even like them. I can still consider someone
- 11:33Speaker 1: else's perspective and think that's dog shit. I can, and
- 11:40Speaker 1: I do sometimes. But sometimes I think A and someone
- 11:44Speaker 1: else thinks B, and I pull my ego in, and
- 11:46Speaker 1: I pull my head in, and I pull my shitty
- 11:48Speaker 1: self esteem in and I just go hmm, I wonder
- 11:52Speaker 1: if that's true, or I wonder if part of that's true.
- 11:55Speaker 1: And also having the awareness to realize that my my world,
- 12:00Speaker 1: the Craig world. Nobody lives in that. Nobody lives in
- 12:04Speaker 1: the Craig world. Nobody lives in the Craig mind. Thank God,
- 12:07Speaker 1: they all say, rejoicing. Nobody lives in my mind. Nobody
- 12:10Speaker 1: lives in my beliefs or values. We might overlap and
- 12:14Speaker 1: intersect a little bit, but nobody on the planet thinks
- 12:17Speaker 1: the way that I do consistently every day, just like
- 12:21Speaker 1: nobody does you. And so our challenges not to be right,
- 12:28Speaker 1: but I guess in a cheesy way righteous where we're like, oh,
- 12:32Speaker 1: I'm okay with being wrong. I'm okay with being flawed.
- 12:38Speaker 1: And if I'm not okay, then I'm trapped in ego
- 12:41Speaker 1: because I am wrong, i am flawed. I'm also right
- 12:45Speaker 1: at times. I'm also perfect or close too at times.
- 12:49Speaker 1: I'm also brilliant at times. I'm also funny and creative
- 12:52Speaker 1: and lovable and likable and generous and empathetic. I'm all
- 12:56Speaker 1: of those things, and sometimes I'm a fuck with This
- 13:00Speaker 1: is the human experience where we try not to win
- 13:05Speaker 1: an argument and the moment that we are concrete or
- 13:09Speaker 1: fixed in our thinking. Okay, this is how the world works.
- 13:14Speaker 1: According to me, and everyone who doesn't align with how
- 13:18Speaker 1: I think the world works, they're wrong. And so what
- 13:20Speaker 1: do I do? I only pay attention to people who
- 13:24Speaker 1: resonate with my thinking, to people who resonate with my
- 13:27Speaker 1: beliefs and ideals. In other words, I only resonate with
- 13:31Speaker 1: people who are essentially a version of me. Wow, fuck,
- 13:34Speaker 1: be drunk. That's a massive exercise in ego. Sorry about
- 13:38Speaker 1: that little swear bit there, everybody. That was a bit
- 13:40Speaker 1: too craigish, wasn't. It's how I talk, It's that's an
- 13:44Speaker 1: exercise in ego and insecurity. Ah, I need people to
- 13:48Speaker 1: think like me, because if I'm wrong. See, here's the thing.
- 13:52Speaker 1: When we find out maybe you've been believing or thinking
- 13:54Speaker 1: something for twenty years, so your sense of self and
- 13:59Speaker 1: your self esteem and your self worth, and your certainty
- 14:02Speaker 1: and your comfort and your predictability is all tied in
- 14:07Speaker 1: to that thing being right. Now, if all of a sudden,
- 14:10Speaker 1: that thing you believe for twenty five years, or thought
- 14:12Speaker 1: for twenty five years, or five years, for that matter
- 14:14Speaker 1: of fact, if all of a sudden you somehow discover, hey,
- 14:17Speaker 1: that's actually not true. Not only is it kind of
- 14:20Speaker 1: not true, it's completely fucking untrue. For many of us.
- 14:23Speaker 1: That is a huge source of stress and distress. So
- 14:30Speaker 1: let's maybe fall in love with learning. Let's maybe fall
- 14:32Speaker 1: in love with being less attached to our stuff. Let's
- 14:39Speaker 1: not look for our identity in our thoughts or in
- 14:43Speaker 1: our certainty about the way things are. And of course
- 14:47Speaker 1: we're still going to have guiding principles I do and values, sure,
- 14:50Speaker 1: and I have certain ideas and beliefs, and some of
- 14:53Speaker 1: those beliefs are pretty strong. But I know there's nothing
- 15:00Speaker 1: that I can as I'm talking to you right now
- 15:02Speaker 1: at nine nineteen on Monday, the sixteenth of sixteenth of
- 15:09Speaker 1: the second February, definitely not November. There's nothing that I
- 15:12Speaker 1: can think of right now just in terms of general
- 15:15Speaker 1: beliefs and ideas and that I'm positive I'm right about positive.
- 15:24Speaker 1: I mean, I'm pretty sure. But I've been pretty sure
- 15:26Speaker 1: about a lot of things. So I don't think we
- 15:29Speaker 1: should be riddled with doubt. I think we should be
- 15:33Speaker 1: riddled with awareness and humility, and to try to recognize
- 15:39Speaker 1: the thought patterns or the ideas, or the standards that
- 15:43Speaker 1: we put in place, or the rules that we create,
- 15:47Speaker 1: or the psychological emotional behavior rituals that we create, identify them,
- 15:53Speaker 1: write them down, and say this is me getting in
- 15:58Speaker 1: my own way, and then consciously, creatively and intentionally think
- 16:04Speaker 1: about Okay, so instead of this thought or this idea
- 16:09Speaker 1: or this principle or this behavior, what's an option? What's
- 16:14Speaker 1: an option? And I've used this too many times, but
- 16:17Speaker 1: I'll just use it because it's clear and it's relatable.
- 16:22Speaker 1: So I grew up, as you know, in a religious
- 16:24Speaker 1: house and continued on a religious journey for quite a while,
- 16:30Speaker 1: jumping in and out of different things and reading lots
- 16:33Speaker 1: and sitting in front of lots of in inverted commas teachers,
- 16:36Speaker 1: some of them good, some of them shit. I got
- 16:38Speaker 1: taught good things, I got taught bad things. I got programmed,
- 16:43Speaker 1: as does everybody who belongs to a group. We're all
- 16:46Speaker 1: getting programmed. Don't think it's just religious people. And like
- 16:52Speaker 1: many people, I wanted to believe because I wanted to belong.
- 16:56Speaker 1: I wanted to believe because I wanted to be part
- 16:59Speaker 1: of something bigger than me. But the truth is the
- 17:03Speaker 1: objective truth, not the Craig subjective truth is. The objective
- 17:07Speaker 1: truth is that some of the people that I trusted
- 17:09Speaker 1: weren't trustworthy. Some of the things I were taught were
- 17:14Speaker 1: untrue or misleading. So when I expose myself now to
- 17:20Speaker 1: new ideas and new thinking and new people and new conversations,
- 17:26Speaker 1: then I'm opening a new cognitive, psychological, and emotional door.
- 17:31Speaker 1: And when I hear about somebody coming up with, let's say,
- 17:34Speaker 1: and eating and eating philosophy or ideology that is not mine.
- 17:40Speaker 1: And of course initially I'm resistant because I've been talking
- 17:43Speaker 1: about food my whole life, thinking about food my whole life,
- 17:47Speaker 1: teaching others, writing programs and not diets, but writing overall
- 17:52Speaker 1: programs for people where we talk about diet and all
- 17:54Speaker 1: of these things. And guess what, I know everything. I
- 17:57Speaker 1: know everything because I've been doing this since I was haden,
- 17:59Speaker 1: which was four four years ago. So I fucking know.
- 18:01Speaker 1: Guess what, Champ, Guess what, Jumbo, Guess what? Fatty Harps.
- 18:05Speaker 1: You don't fucking know. You just think you know. There
- 18:08Speaker 1: are some things that he writes on. There are some
- 18:10Speaker 1: things you're kind of right but not quite, and some
- 18:13Speaker 1: things you're totally incorrect about, and that is okay. I
- 18:18Speaker 1: think it's our okayness with being wrong that is the
- 18:24Speaker 1: real breakthrough. Sometimes the challenge is not to learn. Sometimes
- 18:32Speaker 1: the challenge is to unlearn. Because you have learned and
- 18:36Speaker 1: I have learned, and I put that word in inverted
- 18:39Speaker 1: commas with an asterisk. You and I have learned things
- 18:44Speaker 1: that are actually the problem because the things that we
- 18:46Speaker 1: learned were flawed, the things that we believed were not
- 18:50Speaker 1: wholly correct, the things that we believed right were problematic.
- 18:55Speaker 1: And then when we believe something emphatically, then we rap emotion.
- 19:01Speaker 1: That's a dangerous thing, it's a human thing, but we
- 19:03Speaker 1: wrap emotion around that belief, and then down the track
- 19:07Speaker 1: that emotion grows, that belief in that idea grows, that
- 19:11Speaker 1: devotion to that thing grows, and now there is no
- 19:15Speaker 1: difference between who we are and the things that we
- 19:17Speaker 1: think we are, the things that we think our beliefs
- 19:22Speaker 1: tell you who we are. Oh, tell me about you.
- 19:25Speaker 1: I am a Buddhist. Tell me about you. I'm a Christian,
- 19:28Speaker 1: I'm a vegetarian, I'm a this. We don't talk about ourselves.
- 19:33Speaker 1: We talk about the things that we do. Oh well,
- 19:36Speaker 1: you eat vegetables. Oh well, you go to church. Oh
- 19:39Speaker 1: you build houses. But that's not who at your core
- 19:46Speaker 1: you are. That's your job, that's your interest. That's what
- 19:50Speaker 1: you think about, that's where you go. They're the people
- 19:52Speaker 1: you hang out with. So this is where we kind
- 19:55Speaker 1: of and if I'm rambling there turn off. But anyway,
- 19:58Speaker 1: I love this shit. Then we start to get to
- 20:01Speaker 1: the well, who am I beyond the things I'm not?
- 20:05Speaker 1: Because I'm not a job, I'm not a body even
- 20:09Speaker 1: I'm not a weight. I'm not a size, I'm not
- 20:11Speaker 1: a number. I'm not an outfit. I'm not a face.
- 20:14Speaker 1: I'm not a pair of biceps. I'm not a bank balance.
- 20:17Speaker 1: I'm not a review on Google. I'm not someone's opinion.
- 20:24Speaker 1: And when we start to discount the things that we're not,
- 20:28Speaker 1: but the places we ironically look to see who we are.
- 20:32Speaker 1: I want people to respect me as a whatever, as
- 20:35Speaker 1: a builder, as a master builder, as a very fucking
- 20:38Speaker 1: good podcast, as an academic. Because I'm smart. I want this.
- 20:42Speaker 1: I want that. It's all insecure bullshit, because I am
- 20:45Speaker 1: what I am. I am who I am, and what
- 20:48Speaker 1: people think of me doesn't change who I am. This
- 20:54Speaker 1: is very easily said Craig Harper. I understand, do I
- 20:58Speaker 1: ever worry about what people think think of me? Truthfully,
- 21:02Speaker 1: not often, but ever, of course I do did, I
- 21:06Speaker 1: used to oh all the fucking time. I was so
- 21:09Speaker 1: obsessed and so insecure about what people thought of me.
- 21:13Speaker 1: I was constantly looking for approval from people who not
- 21:17Speaker 1: only don't they love me, they fucking want me to fail.
- 21:21Speaker 1: They take joy in my mishaps and yours. And that's
- 21:26Speaker 1: not nice. It's not nice, but it's real. There's lots
- 21:30Speaker 1: of things that are real in life, lots of situations
- 21:32Speaker 1: and lots of parts of the human condition which are
- 21:35Speaker 1: kind of fucking ugly, but it doesn't mean we shouldn't
- 21:37Speaker 1: talk about it. Some people want you to win no
- 21:40Speaker 1: matter what. Some people are all team you, no matter what,
- 21:44Speaker 1: and that's lovely and that's beautiful. Guess what, it's not
- 21:47Speaker 1: very common. What's far more common is people who kind
- 21:51Speaker 1: of resent you when you do well. And so it's
- 21:54Speaker 1: in our interest to understand all of this without feeling
- 21:58Speaker 1: happy or sad about it. Hard, I know, but to
- 22:02Speaker 1: understand all this is how the world works, not every person,
- 22:05Speaker 1: not every time. And so when I start to intersect
- 22:09Speaker 1: with new people, open myself to new ideas, new cultures,
- 22:14Speaker 1: new thinking, new information. When I start to look at
- 22:17Speaker 1: research that doesn't support what I already believe and think, oh,
- 22:22Speaker 1: that can't be the best way to train, because I've
- 22:24Speaker 1: been training for nearly fifty years and I know, so
- 22:26Speaker 1: don't fucking come with me. You're twenty two year old
- 22:29Speaker 1: with your bit of science. Fuck you and fuck your science. Right,
- 22:32Speaker 1: that's bullshit. That's me. I'm the problem. I'm not saying
- 22:35Speaker 1: I need to believe them or believe their science, but
- 22:38Speaker 1: maybe it's worth considering them, listening to them, reading the research,
- 22:43Speaker 1: seeing how it's done, seeing what the outcome was, because
- 22:46Speaker 1: maybe I'm going to unlearn and relearn because maybe I
- 22:50Speaker 1: got it wrong. Can we get something wrong fifty years course?
- 22:56Speaker 1: Of course? So how do we change the way we think? Well, firstly,
- 23:01Speaker 1: we don't assume we're right. We assume we could be right,
- 23:05Speaker 1: and we don't confuse my opinion for my facts. A
- 23:11Speaker 1: lot of the things that we call truth or fact
- 23:14Speaker 1: or absolute, they're not. They're your version of facts, they're
- 23:21Speaker 1: my version of the truth. And so when we stop
- 23:26Speaker 1: believing that what we think and our worldview is the worldview,
- 23:32Speaker 1: our belief is the truth, it is the one path.
- 23:38Speaker 1: And I don't want to bang on, but again, just
- 23:40Speaker 1: to convenient example, when we think about all of the
- 23:43Speaker 1: different religions in the world, big and small, there's over
- 23:48Speaker 1: four thousand. There's probably a lot more, but that we
- 23:51Speaker 1: kind of know of. There's about four thousand. And essentially, essentially,
- 23:56Speaker 1: every religion thinks they're the right religion. Everythink's every religion
- 24:00Speaker 1: thinks the other religions are wrong. Ergo they exist, We exist.
- 24:06Speaker 1: We believe that this group got it wrong for these reasons,
- 24:09Speaker 1: and that group got it wrong for that reason. And
- 24:11Speaker 1: by the way, we have a hot line to God. No,
- 24:17Speaker 1: they think they have a hot line to God. Maybe
- 24:20Speaker 1: they do. I don't know, but is there any evidence.
- 24:24Speaker 1: Now I know that belief is about faith. I get that.
- 24:27Speaker 1: But faith, as we've discussed on this show before, faith
- 24:30Speaker 1: is believing in something you can't prove, which is why
- 24:33Speaker 1: it's not called knowledge. It's called belief, which is why
- 24:37Speaker 1: it's not called knowledge. It's called faith. I can have faith.
- 24:41Speaker 1: I can believe there's a God. I can believe that
- 24:43Speaker 1: the Bible's true or partly true. I can believe that
- 24:46Speaker 1: God heals. I can believe all these things. But also,
- 24:49Speaker 1: and this is where people recoil. Believers recoil because they
- 24:54Speaker 1: don't want to think that possibly it's not true, or
- 24:56Speaker 1: some of it's not true, because who they are is
- 24:59Speaker 1: so into twined with being right about that book or
- 25:03Speaker 1: that theology or this book or that sacred text or whatever,
- 25:08Speaker 1: that they have lost the ability to think anything else
- 25:13Speaker 1: or to be open to anything else, which is the
- 25:15Speaker 1: opposite of what we claim to be. What do we
- 25:18Speaker 1: claim to be? Most people open minded? Put up your hand.
- 25:22Speaker 1: If you think your open mind that I ask a
- 25:24Speaker 1: room of one hundred people, one hundred hands go up.
- 25:27Speaker 1: Put up your hand. If you think you're for the
- 25:29Speaker 1: most part objective, one hundred hands go up. Right. Because
- 25:34Speaker 1: we like to see ourselves not as closed minded, but
- 25:38Speaker 1: we are closed minded as fuck about many things. Because
- 25:44Speaker 1: if I am wrong, then I am uncertain. Now. I
- 25:47Speaker 1: hate uncertainty. It scares me. I like certainty, So this
- 25:51Speaker 1: is certain I like predictability. And guess what, as soon
- 25:56Speaker 1: as we open that door, if I could be wrong while
- 25:58Speaker 1: there's of predictability, we like comfort, Well, that makes me uncomfortable.
- 26:03Speaker 1: Fuck that idea. I'm right. Oh yeah, I'm right. We're right.
- 26:06Speaker 1: Our groups right, our church, out theology, our doctrine, our
- 26:10Speaker 1: whatever is right. Now. I'm not challenging any particular group,
- 26:14Speaker 1: I'm talking about how the fuck we think This is
- 26:20Speaker 1: a matter of thinking, Yes, you can have faith and belief,
- 26:24Speaker 1: and yes, you know. Will I get things wrong in
- 26:28Speaker 1: this podcast? Even as I'm talking, I recognize that I'm
- 26:32Speaker 1: probably not doing the best job of what I'm trying
- 26:34Speaker 1: to share. I recognize that I recognize every day that
- 26:38Speaker 1: I'm not the best podcast on the planet or in
- 26:40Speaker 1: the top one hundred. Probably. I realize that I'm flawed.
- 26:44Speaker 1: I realize that, you know, I do so many things wrong.
- 26:46Speaker 1: Guess what, That's okay, because that's not going to stop.
- 26:49Speaker 1: Will I get things wrong in the future, Yes, will
- 26:51Speaker 1: you get things wrong in the future. Yes. If I
- 26:55Speaker 1: wait till I have no flaws, no faults, and I
- 26:57Speaker 1: know everything and I'm certain and I'm right about everything, well,
- 27:01Speaker 1: I will never fucking start doing anything. I will never
- 27:03Speaker 1: help anyone, coach anyone. I will never think out loud,
- 27:07Speaker 1: because that is an impossibility, that perfection is an impossibility,
- 27:11Speaker 1: that knowing all is an impossibility. Having an absolute revelation
- 27:17Speaker 1: to yourself that nobody has like only you know this,
- 27:21Speaker 1: everyone else who doesn't agree with you, or maybe other
- 27:24Speaker 1: people agree with you, so we listen to them again.
- 27:27Speaker 1: Confirmation bias. But if they don't align with us, they're
- 27:31Speaker 1: the enemy. So we change the way that we think
- 27:37Speaker 1: when it needs to be changed. Maybe we don't need
- 27:39Speaker 1: to change the way we think about many things. Probably not.
- 27:43Speaker 1: But there might be a couple of beliefs or ideas
- 27:46Speaker 1: or programmed kind of operating systems that you didn't choose
- 27:53Speaker 1: that are a byproduct of where you've been and who
- 27:55Speaker 1: you've been with, and what you've heard and what you've
- 27:57Speaker 1: read and what you've been exposed to, and now they
- 28:00Speaker 1: form unconsciously part of how you do and how you are,
- 28:04Speaker 1: and how you think and how you operate in the world.
- 28:06Speaker 1: And you have limiting beliefs that you never chose, You
- 28:10Speaker 1: have limiting ideas that you never chose. They just arose
- 28:14Speaker 1: in you over time as a byproduct of what I
- 28:18Speaker 1: call social osmosis, where you just get that from other
- 28:22Speaker 1: people and are really easy to understand. Example is how
- 28:26Speaker 1: many kids that barrack for Collingwood or Carlton or Richmond
- 28:29Speaker 1: or whoever these are teams in the AFL Australian Football League.
- 28:32Speaker 1: For my overseas listeners, they believe for a certain team
- 28:36Speaker 1: because mum did or Dad did or both. And so
- 28:39Speaker 1: in our family, we know Collingwood's the best team and
- 28:42Speaker 1: Carlton a shit. And if you think I'm joking about that,
- 28:48Speaker 1: they absolutely believe that to the point where they hate
- 28:52Speaker 1: other teams. I'm not talking pretend to hate, No, they
- 28:55Speaker 1: fucking hate them right now. I understand the emotion of
- 28:59Speaker 1: being a supporter and a fan and involved in I
- 29:01Speaker 1: get all of that, But we can extrapolate that kind
- 29:05Speaker 1: of religious fervor and that kind of over the top
- 29:10Speaker 1: absoluteness of thinking to a lot of things beyond religion
- 29:14Speaker 1: and beyond sport. So how do I finish this? I
- 29:23Speaker 1: feel like a good place to start is just to
- 29:27Speaker 1: go gently, don't beat yourself up, but just quietly and
- 29:32Speaker 1: courageously think about some of the things that you're scared
- 29:39Speaker 1: to even question that belief. Because if you're right, you'll
- 29:46Speaker 1: come back to the same place and you might discover
- 29:50Speaker 1: you're exactly right, You've been right all along, and that's well,
- 29:53Speaker 1: that's a great outcome. But what if you are holding
- 29:57Speaker 1: onto something that isn't the truth. What if you're holding
- 30:01Speaker 1: on to the story that you're not good enough, smart enough,
- 30:04Speaker 1: talented enough, something enough to do something that you actually
- 30:09Speaker 1: can do like you have the potential to do it.
- 30:14Speaker 1: But your story is your belief is your thinking is ah,
- 30:18Speaker 1: I could never do that. We actually could, but it
- 30:21Speaker 1: just scares the shit out of you. But if your
- 30:24Speaker 1: story is, well, I just don't have that talent or
- 30:27Speaker 1: that potential, then it makes a lot of sense that
- 30:30Speaker 1: you don't try because you don't have that ability. What
- 30:34Speaker 1: if you're not trying has got nothing to do with
- 30:37Speaker 1: your ability or potential or capacity, and everything to do
- 30:41Speaker 1: with fear, everything to do with your self limiting thinking.
- 30:48Speaker 1: All right, team, food for thought, See you next time.