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How to Find Yourself Again – Rediscover Your Purpose and Realign Your Life · Motivational Podcast

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Write down what bothers you. You know, there's going to
• 0:04
  Speaker 1: be things about life, about the current political situation, about
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: the details of your personal life, your relationships with other
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: people that bother you. Now a million things could bother you,
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: and some things do. Those are your problems, and your
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: destiny is in your problems. And then I would also say, well,
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: watch yourself for a couple of weeks and see what
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: you're doing when what you're doing appears meaningful, right when
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: your interest is gripped and your compelled. Because when you're
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: in the place where you are, when your interest is compelled,
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: then you're gripped. You're where you should be. And one
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: of the things you want to learn is how to
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: be there more. You have to kind of treat yourself
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: like a stranger to figure that out, because well, as
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: you said, you know you haven't been able to find
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: your path precisely. Well, that means you don't know who
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: the hell you are. Well, that's what it means.
• 1:01
  Speaker 2: Fundamentally.
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: You know, you may know some things about yourself, but
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: you don't know yourself as deeply as you might. You
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: have to understand that there's a certain degree of arbitrary
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: strangeness about you and about the things that will compel
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: you and rip you, and you need to discover what
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: those are, and paying attention can help. It's like where
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: am I when I think I'm where I should be
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: and what am I doing? And you can you can
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: ask yourself out over a two week period or a
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: one month period, like you're asking someone you don't know.
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: Imagine five years from me, and I literally mean imagine this. Okay,
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: imagine five years now. Now here's the deal. You can
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: have what you want and you need, and you can
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: be who you want to be, but you have to
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: figure out what that is. That's the price you have
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: to pay. So now you have to fantasize. It's like, Okay,
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: if I was who I would want to be, and
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: if I had what I needed then I wanted, what
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: would that look like? Write it down for fifteen minutes.
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: You're not going to get it right. Just sketch it
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: out and then you can do the opposite, which is
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: all right. Now, if I let my bad habits and
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: inadequacies have op brand and order me in, what sort
• 2:11
  Speaker 1: of hell.
• 2:12
  Speaker 2: Could I occupy in five years?
• 2:15
  Speaker 1: That's useful to me? Will do because that's a good
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: way of specifying where you don't want to go. The
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: first part of the exercise helps you specify where you
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: do want to go. The second how art helps you
• 2:27
  Speaker 1: specify where you don't want to go. Then you have
• 2:29
  Speaker 1: something to run away from and something to run toward,
• 2:32
  Speaker 1: and that's good for maximizing motivation. And then the rest
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: of the exercise helps people strategize. And so you might say, well,
• 2:39
  Speaker 1: I don't exactly know who I want to be or
• 2:42
  Speaker 1: where I want to be or what I want. And
• 2:45
  Speaker 1: I would say, well, here's some hints. If your intimate
• 2:49
  Speaker 1: relationship with what you wanted. What would it look like
• 2:52
  Speaker 1: if your friendships were constructed the way you wanted them
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: to be. These are questions you have to ask yourself.
• 2:58
  Speaker 1: What would that look like? If you were educated to
• 3:01
  Speaker 1: the limits of your intelligence. What educational strategy would you
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: have to pursue? What job or career would you want
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: or need if you could have what you wanted or needed?
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: How should you use your time outside of work? How
• 3:16
  Speaker 1: would you take care of yourself mentally and physically? What
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: services might you render to your family and your community
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: if you could do it in the matter you want it?
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: And it's seven different questions you know, to sort of
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: differentiate your life. Man, it's worth spending a few days
• 3:33
  Speaker 1: figuring that out. We did that with university students before
• 3:38
  Speaker 1: they went to university, and it dropped their dropout rate
• 3:40
  Speaker 1: fifty percent. Ninety minutes of writing drop their drop out
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: rate fifty percent, and raised their grade point average thirty
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: five percent. So you need a vision, man, You need
• 3:50
  Speaker 1: a vision, and you can. You can develop a vision
• 3:54
  Speaker 1: by pursuing what's interesting to you. You can develop a
• 3:56
  Speaker 1: vision by taking the problems that beset you seriously. And
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: you can develop a vision by working with yourself to
• 4:04
  Speaker 1: develop a vision. You know. Let's say you love someone
• 4:07
  Speaker 1: you know, maybe you have a friend, and maybe it's
• 4:10
  Speaker 1: your wife, maybe a child, and you really love this person,
• 4:14
  Speaker 1: and you say to them, I really like to know
• 4:17
  Speaker 1: what you want, you know, and knowing that maybe I
• 4:20
  Speaker 1: could figure out how to help you if you would
• 4:22
  Speaker 1: let me know. You can ask yourself the same damn question,
• 4:27
  Speaker 1: you know. Imagine that you dared to assume that you
• 4:30
  Speaker 1: were worth attending to and that it would be okay
• 4:35
  Speaker 1: if things worked out optimally for you in the best
• 4:39
  Speaker 1: possible way. Just imagine for a moment that that was okay. Well,
• 4:42
  Speaker 1: then you could ask yourself, well, right, what would that
• 4:44
  Speaker 1: look like? That's an unbelievably useful extra So that's a prayer. Man,
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  Speaker 1: that's a prayer fundamentally, and a prayer that's a prayer
• 4:52
  Speaker 1: devoted towards the seeking of a revelation.
• 4:55
  Speaker 3: Perhaps you should also be positioning yourself for a lateral
• 4:58
  Speaker 3: move into another job, for example, noting as you may,
• 5:03
  Speaker 3: this occupation is deadening my soul and that is truly
• 5:07
  Speaker 3: not for me. It is time to take the painstaking
• 5:11
  Speaker 3: steps necessary to organize my CV and to engage in
• 5:15
  Speaker 3: the difficult, demanding, and often unrewarding search for a new job.
• 5:21
  Speaker 3: But you have to be successful only once. Maybe you
• 5:25
  Speaker 3: can find something that pays better and is more interesting,
• 5:29
  Speaker 3: and where you are working with people who not only
• 5:32
  Speaker 3: fail to kill your spirit but positively rejuvenate it. Maybe
• 5:37
  Speaker 3: following the dictates of conscience is in fact the best
• 5:40
  Speaker 3: possible plan that you have at minimum. Otherwise you have
• 5:44
  Speaker 3: to live with your sense of self betrayal and the
• 5:47
  Speaker 3: knowledge that you put up with what you truly could
• 5:50
  Speaker 3: not tolerate.
• 5:51
  Speaker 2: Nothing about that is good. I might get fired.
• 5:55
  Speaker 3: Well, prepare now to seek out and ready yourself for
• 5:59
  Speaker 3: another job, job hopefully better. Or prepare yourself to go
• 6:03
  Speaker 3: over your manager's head with a well prepared and articulate argument,
• 6:07
  Speaker 3: and do not begin by presuming that leaving your job,
• 6:11
  Speaker 3: even involuntarily, is necessarily.
• 6:14
  Speaker 2: For the worst.
• 6:15
  Speaker 3: I am afraid to move, well, of course, you are,
• 6:18
  Speaker 3: but afraid compared to what afraid in comparison to continuing
• 6:23
  Speaker 3: in a job where the center of your being is
• 6:25
  Speaker 3: at stake, where you become weaker, more contemptible, more bitter,
• 6:29
  Speaker 3: and more prone to pressure and tyranny over the years.
• 6:33
  Speaker 2: There are few choices in life.
• 6:35
  Speaker 3: Where there is no risk on either side, and it
• 6:38
  Speaker 3: is often necessary to contemplate the risks of staying as
• 6:41
  Speaker 3: thoroughly as the risks of moving. I have seen many
• 6:45
  Speaker 3: people move, sometimes after several years of strategizing, and end
• 6:49
  Speaker 3: up in better shape, psychologically and pragmatically after their time
• 6:54
  Speaker 3: in the desert. Perhaps no one else would want me well.
• 6:58
  Speaker 3: The rejection rate for new job applications is extraordinarily high.
• 7:03
  Speaker 3: I tell my clients to assume fifty point one, so
• 7:06
  Speaker 3: their expectations are set properly. You are going to be
• 7:10
  Speaker 3: passed over in many cases for many positions.
• 7:13
  Speaker 2: For which you are qualified but that is rarely personal.
• 7:18
  Speaker 3: It is instead a condition of existence, an inevitable consequence
• 7:23
  Speaker 3: of somewhat arbitrary subjection to the ambivalent conditions of.
• 7:27
  Speaker 2: Worth characterizing society.
• 7:31
  Speaker 3: It is the consequence of the fact that cvs are
• 7:34
  Speaker 3: easy to disseminate and difficult to process, that many jobs
• 7:38
  Speaker 3: have unannounced internal candidates and so are just going through
• 7:42
  Speaker 3: the motions, and that some companies keep a rolling stock
• 7:47
  Speaker 3: of applicants in case they need to hire quickly. That
• 7:51
  Speaker 3: is an actuarial problem, a statistical problem, a baseline problem,
• 7:55
  Speaker 3: and not necessarily an indication that there is something specifically.
• 8:00
  Speaker 2: Flawed about you.
• 8:02
  Speaker 3: You must incorporate all that sustainingly pessimistic realism into your
• 8:07
  Speaker 3: expectations so that you do not become unreasonably downhearted. One
• 8:12
  Speaker 3: hundred and fifty applications carefully chosen, three to five interviews
• 8:17
  Speaker 3: thereby acquired. That could be a mission of a year
• 8:20
  Speaker 3: or more. That is much less than a lifetime of
• 8:23
  Speaker 3: misery and downward trajectory. But it is not nothing. You
• 8:27
  Speaker 3: need to fortify yourself for it, plan and garner support
• 8:31
  Speaker 3: from people who understand what you are up to and
• 8:34
  Speaker 3: are realistically appraised of the difficulty.
• 8:37
  Speaker 2: And the options now.
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  Speaker 3: It may also be that you are lagging in the
• 8:42
  Speaker 3: development of your skills and could improve your performance at
• 8:46
  Speaker 3: work so that your chances of being hired elsewhere are heightened.
• 8:51
  Speaker 3: But there is no loss in that you cannot effectively
• 8:55
  Speaker 3: pronounce no in the presence of corrupt power when your
• 8:59
  Speaker 3: option to move are non existent. In consequence, you have
• 9:04
  Speaker 3: a moral obligation to place yourself in a position of
• 9:07
  Speaker 3: comparative strength and to do then what is necessary.
• 9:10
  Speaker 2: To capitalize on that strength.
• 9:13
  Speaker 3: You may also have to think through worst case situations
• 9:16
  Speaker 3: and to discuss.
• 9:17
  Speaker 2: Them with those who will be affected by your decisions.
• 9:20
  Speaker 3: But it is once again worth realizing that staying where
• 9:23
  Speaker 3: you should not be may be the true worst case situation,
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  Speaker 3: one that drags you out and kills you slowly over decades.
• 9:31
  Speaker 3: That is not a good death, even though it is slow,
• 9:35
  Speaker 3: and there is very little in it that does not
• 9:37
  Speaker 3: speak of the hopelessness that makes people age quickly and
• 9:41
  Speaker 3: long for the cessation of career and worse life.
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  Speaker 2: That is no improvement.
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  Speaker 3: As the old and cruel cliche goes, if you must
• 9:51
  Speaker 3: cut off a cat's tail, do not do it half
• 9:53
  Speaker 3: an inch at a time. You may well be in
• 9:56
  Speaker 3: for a few painful years of belated recognition of insufficiency
• 10:00
  Speaker 3: and required to send out four or five or ten
• 10:02
  Speaker 3: job applications a week, knowing full well that the majority
• 10:06
  Speaker 3: will be rejected with less than a second look. But
• 10:10
  Speaker 3: you need to win the lottery only once, and a
• 10:13
  Speaker 3: few years of difficulty with hope beat an entire dejected
• 10:16
  Speaker 3: lifetime of a degenerating and oppressed career. And let us
• 10:20
  Speaker 3: be clear, it is not a simple matter of hating
• 10:23
  Speaker 3: your job because it requires you to wake up too
• 10:26
  Speaker 3: early in the morning, or to drag yourself to work
• 10:29
  Speaker 3: when it is too hot or cold or windy or dry,
• 10:32
  Speaker 3: or when you are feeling low and want to curl
• 10:34
  Speaker 3: up in bed. It is not a matter of frustration
• 10:37
  Speaker 3: generated when you are called on to do things that
• 10:40
  Speaker 3: are menial or necessary, such as emptying garbage cans, sweeping floors,
• 10:45
  Speaker 3: cleaning bathrooms, or in any other manner, taking your lowly
• 10:49
  Speaker 3: but well deserved place at the bottom of the hierarchy
• 10:52
  Speaker 3: of competence, even of seniority. Resentment generated by such necessary
• 10:58
  Speaker 3: work is most often mere ingratitude inability to accept a
• 11:03
  Speaker 3: lowly place at the beginning unwillingness to adopt the position
• 11:07
  Speaker 3: of the fool, or arrogance and lack of discipline. Refusal
• 11:11
  Speaker 3: of the call of conscience is by no means the
• 11:13
  Speaker 3: same thing as irritation about undesirably low status. That rejection,
• 11:19
  Speaker 3: that betrayal of the soul, is truly the requirement to
• 11:22
  Speaker 3: perform demonstrably counterproductive, absurd or pointless work, to treat others
• 11:27
  Speaker 3: unjustly and to lie about it, to engage in deceit,
• 11:31
  Speaker 3: to betray your future self, to put up with unnecessary
• 11:34
  Speaker 3: torture and abuse, and to silently watch others suffer the
• 11:38
  Speaker 3: same treatment. That rejection is the turning of a blind
• 11:43
  Speaker 3: eye and the agreement to say and do things that
• 11:46
  Speaker 3: betray your deepest values and make you a cheat at
• 11:49
  Speaker 3: your own gain.
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  Speaker 2: And there is no doubt that the.
• 11:52
  Speaker 3: Road to hell personally and socially is paved not so
• 11:56
  Speaker 3: much with good intentions as with the adoption of attitude
• 12:00
  Speaker 3: and undertaking of actions that inescapably disturb your conscience. Do
• 12:04
  Speaker 3: not do what you hate