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Inspirations for a Better Life, Season 1, Episode 1, a taste of things to come. · Inspirations for a Better Life

• 0:04
  SPEAKER_00: Have you ever looked at your life and thought, you know, there's got to be more than this?
• 0:10
  SPEAKER_00: I know I have.
• 0:11
  SPEAKER_00: More than once.
• 0:13
  SPEAKER_00: And the strange thing is, sometimes there's nothing obviously wrong.
• 0:18
  SPEAKER_00: You've got a job, you've got people around you, maybe you've got a home, a family, a career, and from the outside, everything looks fine.
• 0:29
  SPEAKER_00: But inside, something isn't sitting right.
• 0:33
  SPEAKER_00: You just know you're capable of more.
• 0:35
  SPEAKER_00: Or maybe life's kicked you around a bit.
• 0:38
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe something happened years ago that you thought you'd dealt with.
• 0:44
  SPEAKER_00: But if you're honest, you're still carrying it.
• 0:48
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe it's anxiety, maybe confidence, a relationship, something that happened in your childhood, a decision you made years ago.
• 0:58
  SPEAKER_00: Or maybe you've simply reached that point where you think, enough, enough.
• 1:04
  SPEAKER_00: Something has to change.
• 1:07
  SPEAKER_00: If any of that sounds familiar, then welcome.
• 1:11
  SPEAKER_00: Pull up a chair.
• 1:12
  SPEAKER_00: Let's chat.
• 1:24
  SPEAKER_00: So this is Inspirations for a Better Life, and I'm Phil Hanlon.
• 1:29
  SPEAKER_00: And I suppose that the first thing that I should tell you is I haven't got all the answers.
• 1:35
  SPEAKER_00: To be honest with you, I'm always slightly suspicious of people who tell me that they have.
• 1:41
  SPEAKER_00: What I do have though is nearly 30 years of fascination with people.
• 1:46
  SPEAKER_00: Why we do what we do, and more importantly, why we don't do what we're capable of.
• 1:52
  SPEAKER_00: Why two people can experience exactly the same thing and come away from it with completely different perspectives.
• 2:02
  SPEAKER_00: Why someone can consciously know what they want and then behave in a way that seems designed to stop them from getting it.
• 2:10
  SPEAKER_00: And that just fascinates me.
• 2:13
  SPEAKER_00: And that's really what this podcast is going to be all about.
• 2:17
  SPEAKER_00: People, life, change, success, failure, fear, relationships, mental well-being, business, performance, you know, all the messy stuff in between.
• 2:35
  SPEAKER_00: You know, my own journey into all of this really started around 1996.
• 2:40
  SPEAKER_00: I went on a Tony Robbins event in London and I came away just seeing things differently.
• 2:47
  SPEAKER_00: Not because somebody had suddenly given me the secret of life, I mean they hadn't.
• 2:51
  SPEAKER_00: But I started to understand something that stayed with me ever since.
• 2:56
  SPEAKER_00: Things happen to us.
• 2:58
  SPEAKER_00: We don't control everything.
• 3:00
  SPEAKER_00: People hurt us, relationships fail.
• 3:05
  SPEAKER_00: Businesses go wrong, we get rejected, we screw things up.
• 3:10
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, that's life.
• 3:12
  SPEAKER_00: But then something else happens.
• 3:15
  SPEAKER_00: We decide what those things mean, whether consciously or unconsciously.
• 3:20
  SPEAKER_00: And that's where it gets really interesting to me.
• 3:24
  SPEAKER_00: Because the event itself is one thing.
• 3:26
  SPEAKER_00: It's a moment in time.
• 3:29
  SPEAKER_00: The meaning we give to it, however, that can stay with us for years.
• 3:34
  SPEAKER_00: Someone gets betrayed and decides I can't trust people.
• 3:38
  SPEAKER_00: Someone fails at something and decides I'm not good enough.
• 3:43
  SPEAKER_00: Someone gets rejected and decides there must be something wrong with me.
• 3:49
  SPEAKER_00: And sometimes we make those decisions when we're really young.
• 3:54
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, then 20, 30, 40 years later, we're still living according to them.
• 3:59
  SPEAKER_00: We can allow decisions made in our childhood to run our lives as adults without even realizing it.
• 4:06
  SPEAKER_00: And that's something I see all the time in my work.
• 4:10
  SPEAKER_00: One of the things I often say to clients is this the presenting problem is rarely the problem.
• 4:17
  SPEAKER_00: Somebody might come to me and say, Well, I've got anxiety, I've got no confidence, I keep sabotaging relationships, I can't speak in public.
• 4:26
  SPEAKER_00: Now that's a popular one.
• 4:28
  SPEAKER_00: I procrastinate.
• 4:29
  SPEAKER_00: Well, how many times have I heard that?
• 4:32
  SPEAKER_00: Fine.
• 4:33
  SPEAKER_00: That's what you're experiencing.
• 4:36
  SPEAKER_00: But my question's always this what's really going on underneath that?
• 4:42
  SPEAKER_00: Because behavior doesn't just appear from nowhere.
• 4:45
  SPEAKER_00: Your unconscious mind isn't sitting there thinking, do you know what?
• 4:49
  SPEAKER_00: You know what would be fun today?
• 4:50
  SPEAKER_00: Let's just ruin Phil's life.
• 4:53
  SPEAKER_00: There's usually a reason.
• 4:55
  SPEAKER_00: And strangely enough, there's usually some form of positive intent involved.
• 5:00
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, protection, safety, avoiding rejection, avoiding failure, trying not to feel something again.
• 5:08
  SPEAKER_00: And once you start looking underneath that behavior, rather than simply fighting with it, things get really interesting.
• 5:18
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, a big part of my work is helping people leave the past where it belongs, in the past.
• 5:26
  SPEAKER_00: And I want to be clear about something, how I mean about that.
• 5:30
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not talking about pretending something didn't happen.
• 5:33
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not talking about forgiving people who don't deserve forgiveness.
• 5:36
  SPEAKER_00: I am certainly not talking about some ridiculous idea that you should just think positively.
• 5:43
  SPEAKER_00: I'm talking about being able to look back at something that happened without having to keep living it.
• 5:49
  SPEAKER_00: Because there's a huge difference between having a memory and having a memory that still has you.
• 5:56
  SPEAKER_00: I've had things happen in my own life that I wouldn't choose.
• 5:59
  SPEAKER_00: I've made decisions I know I wouldn't make now.
• 6:02
  SPEAKER_00: I've been hurt and I've hurt other people.
• 6:06
  SPEAKER_00: I've got things wrong.
• 6:08
  SPEAKER_00: And here's the thing, all of those experiences became part of who I am.
• 6:13
  SPEAKER_00: They helped form the man that I am today, and because of that, they enabled me to do the work that I'm proud to do.
• 6:20
  SPEAKER_00: So the question isn't whether I can go back and change them.
• 6:24
  SPEAKER_00: I can't.
• 6:25
  SPEAKER_00: The question is, what do I decide they mean now?
• 6:30
  SPEAKER_00: That's where the real power is.
• 6:32
  SPEAKER_00: But personal development can't just be about digging around in the past forever.
• 6:37
  SPEAKER_00: At some point we've got to turn around and ask, where are we going?
• 6:42
  SPEAKER_00: What do we actually want?
• 6:44
  SPEAKER_00: And that's a much harder question than people think because most of us are very good at telling you what we don't want.
• 6:52
  SPEAKER_00: I don't want anxiety, I don't want this job, I don't want to feel like this, I don't want this relationship anymore.
• 7:00
  SPEAKER_00: Well, fine.
• 7:01
  SPEAKER_00: But what is it that you actually do want?
• 7:04
  SPEAKER_00: Where are you going?
• 7:06
  SPEAKER_00: What would a compelling future actually look like?
• 7:10
  SPEAKER_00: Because if all you're doing is running away from something, well, you eventually need somewhere to run towards.
• 7:19
  SPEAKER_00: And then there's another part of change that fascinates me: the threshold.
• 7:24
  SPEAKER_00: That point where somebody finally says, enough.
• 7:28
  SPEAKER_00: I've seen it so many times.
• 7:30
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, a person can spend years thinking about change, talking about change, planning to change, trying to change.
• 7:38
  SPEAKER_00: And then one day something shifts, and they decide, not I'd quite like to, not maybe they decide I'm not doing this anymore.
• 7:51
  SPEAKER_00: And the moment that decision becomes real, the conversation changes.
• 7:57
  SPEAKER_00: It stops being about can I change?
• 8:00
  SPEAKER_00: and becomes right.
• 8:02
  SPEAKER_00: How do I do it?
• 8:05
  SPEAKER_00: I love that moment because that's where things start moving.
• 8:10
  SPEAKER_00: So over the years, I've trained in NLP, hypnotherapy, timeline therapy, coaching, haven'ten, and lots of other approaches, to be honest with you.
• 8:20
  SPEAKER_00: And I've trained in the UK and abroad across the world, searching out the best in their fields to learn from.
• 8:26
  SPEAKER_00: And eventually I realize something.
• 8:29
  SPEAKER_00: The utilization of a specific technique isn't the point.
• 8:33
  SPEAKER_00: The person is.
• 8:35
  SPEAKER_00: That's become a big part of what I've developed through the Hanlem method.
• 8:39
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not interested in forcing somebody through one process because that's the tool I happen to have in my hand, or it's the only thing in my armory.
• 8:48
  SPEAKER_00: I want to understand what's really happening, what's driving it, what meaning's been attached to something?
• 8:56
  SPEAKER_00: What's the unconscious mind trying to achieve?
• 9:00
  SPEAKER_00: What's got to change?
• 9:01
  SPEAKER_00: And where does that person actually want to go?
• 9:05
  SPEAKER_00: That's the work.
• 9:08
  SPEAKER_00: But this podcast isn't going to be me just sitting here every week lecturing you about personal development.
• 9:17
  SPEAKER_00: God help us from that.
• 9:19
  SPEAKER_00: I want conversations.
• 9:21
  SPEAKER_00: I love people.
• 9:23
  SPEAKER_00: I love sitting opposite somebody and finding out what made them who they are.
• 9:28
  SPEAKER_00: I want to talk to people who succeeded.
• 9:30
  SPEAKER_00: I want to talk to people who failed.
• 9:33
  SPEAKER_00: People who've had everything fall apart and they've rebuilt from scratch.
• 9:40
  SPEAKER_00: Business people, sports people, therapists, coaches, entertainers, leaders.
• 9:47
  SPEAKER_00: And sometimes just ordinary people who've lived extraordinary parts of their life.
• 9:54
  SPEAKER_00: I don't particularly want the polished version.
• 9:56
  SPEAKER_00: We've all heard those interviews.
• 9:59
  SPEAKER_00: Tell me how successful you are.
• 10:02
  SPEAKER_00: No.
• 10:03
  SPEAKER_00: I want to know what scared people.
• 10:06
  SPEAKER_00: What nearly stopped them?
• 10:08
  SPEAKER_00: What did they got wrong?
• 10:10
  SPEAKER_00: What failure taught them?
• 10:12
  SPEAKER_00: What did they doubt about themselves?
• 10:14
  SPEAKER_00: Who helped them?
• 10:15
  SPEAKER_00: Was there a moment where everything changed?
• 10:18
  SPEAKER_00: What do they know now that they wish they'd known twenty years ago?
• 10:22
  SPEAKER_00: And that's the conversation that I want.
• 10:25
  SPEAKER_00: Because somewhere inside somebody else's story, there might be something you need to hear.
• 10:33
  SPEAKER_00: Not instructions, inspirations.
• 10:38
  SPEAKER_00: You decide what fits.
• 10:40
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I sincerely hope that you subscribe to this podcast and keep coming back to it again and again for those inspirations.
• 10:47
  SPEAKER_00: Because who knows?
• 10:49
  SPEAKER_00: It might just change your life.
• 10:52
  SPEAKER_00: But before we finish this first episode, I want you to do something very simple.
• 10:59
  SPEAKER_00: I want you to close your eyes for a moment.
• 11:02
  SPEAKER_00: Unless of course you're driving, that might not be the best idea.
• 11:07
  SPEAKER_00: But I want you to think of three things that you're genuinely grateful for.
• 11:14
  SPEAKER_00: Not things you think you should be grateful for, real things.
• 11:18
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, a person, a moment, a place.
• 11:23
  SPEAKER_00: Your children.
• 11:25
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe your grandchildren if you've got some stupid conversation that still makes you laugh whenever you think about it.
• 11:32
  SPEAKER_00: Whatever comes up.
• 11:34
  SPEAKER_00: Just pick one.
• 11:36
  SPEAKER_00: And for a moment, go back there.
• 11:42
  SPEAKER_00: See what you saw.
• 11:44
  SPEAKER_00: Hear what you heard.
• 11:47
  SPEAKER_00: Remember how it felt.
• 11:51
  SPEAKER_00: That's right.
• 11:53
  SPEAKER_00: Go right back into that memory and really experience that feeling of gratitude for what it means to you.
• 12:02
  SPEAKER_00: And when you've done that, pick another.
• 12:07
  SPEAKER_00: And another.
• 12:10
  SPEAKER_00: Because where we put our attention matters.
• 12:13
  SPEAKER_00: That doesn't mean ignoring the difficult stuff.
• 12:17
  SPEAKER_00: Life can be bloody hard sometimes, but the difficult stuff isn't all of life.
• 12:22
  SPEAKER_00: There's more.
• 12:24
  SPEAKER_00: There are people you haven't met yet.
• 12:26
  SPEAKER_00: There are places you haven't been.
• 12:29
  SPEAKER_00: There are conversations you haven't had yet.
• 12:32
  SPEAKER_00: Things you haven't learned.
• 12:35
  SPEAKER_00: Versions of yourself that you haven't met yet.
• 12:39
  SPEAKER_00: You know where you put your focus, that matters.
• 12:44
  SPEAKER_00: If you focus on the negatives, then you'll find them everywhere.
• 12:47
  SPEAKER_00: But if you focus on the positives, the gifts, the opportunity, the beauty, the excitement, the love, the fulfillment, then you start noticing it all around you.
• 13:02
  SPEAKER_00: You have to look at your day with better eyes.
• 13:06
  SPEAKER_00: Now this is part of my daily routine that I've done every single day since November 1996.
• 13:14
  SPEAKER_00: I'll expand on that in a coming episode.
• 13:19
  SPEAKER_00: So, if you found this podcast because somewhere inside of you there's a voice that's saying there has to be more than this, well, maybe there is.
• 13:29
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe you don't need to become somebody completely different.
• 13:33
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe you need to just let go of some things that have made you the person who you are right now.
• 13:40
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe there's a decision you need to make, a conversation you need to have, something you need to stop carrying.
• 13:49
  SPEAKER_00: Something that you finally need to start.
• 13:53
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know what it is for you, but that's your journey.
• 13:57
  SPEAKER_00: But I do know this.
• 13:59
  SPEAKER_00: Your past matters.
• 14:01
  SPEAKER_00: It's shaped you.
• 14:02
  SPEAKER_00: And we shouldn't shield ourselves from that fact.
• 14:05
  SPEAKER_00: But it doesn't get to dictate the rest of your life.
• 14:09
  SPEAKER_00: You still gotta say.
• 14:13
  SPEAKER_00: And wherever you are right now, you're not finished.
• 14:18
  SPEAKER_00: Neither am I.
• 14:20
  SPEAKER_00: And I think that's exactly why we're here.
• 14:24
  SPEAKER_00: I'm Phil Handlon.
• 14:26
  SPEAKER_00: This is Inspirations for a Better Life.
• 14:30
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you for spending some time with me, and I truly hope to see you in the next episode.