Latest / Motivation study / 280 Years of Wisdom Summed up in 16 Minutes

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280 Years of Wisdom Summed up in 16 Minutes · Motivation study

• 0:01
  Speaker 1: You mentioned earlier that sometimes what gets in the way
• 0:04
  Speaker 1: for people is we're scared and also we don't understand
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: our own power. I heard that at one point in
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: your life growing up that you were called the class dummy. Now,
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: obviously that's not true, but it sounded like it had
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: a significant impact on you. What was happening for you
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: at that time and what did that help you learn?
• 0:25
  Speaker 2: Well, when I was actually before I started school, I
• 0:30
  Speaker 2: thought life was perfect because I was just running around
• 0:35
  Speaker 2: with my parents helping what they were doing and so
• 0:39
  Speaker 2: on and so forth.
• 0:40
  Speaker 3: But when I started.
• 0:41
  Speaker 2: School, I couldn't read. I couldn't, the figures, nothing stayed
• 0:50
  Speaker 2: still on a page. And so, well, we didn't know
• 0:55
  Speaker 2: about dyslexia. That was not a term that was.
• 1:00
  Speaker 2: Identified who people like me were but so I was
• 1:05
  Speaker 2: the class dummy I flunked first grade and I had
• 1:07
  Speaker 2: to repeat first grade and the teacher called me the
• 1:11
  Speaker 2: dummy you know it was I had this deep soul
• 1:17
  Speaker 2: wounding when I was in starting school at school it
• 1:23
  Speaker 2: was I just hated it I just I was so
• 1:28
  Speaker 2: afraid I was so broken, I was so everything until
• 1:33
  Speaker 2: I started third grade. But my third grade teacher saw
• 1:37
  Speaker 2: something in me that the other had not. And she
• 1:41
  Speaker 2: appointed me class governor. And so I got to do
• 1:46
  Speaker 2: things like take what we had done in our class
• 1:49
  Speaker 2: and take.
• 1:50
  Speaker 3: It to the whole student body.
• 1:52
  Speaker 2: I mean, I could talk and I could tell stories.
• 1:55
  Speaker 2: And I could do a lot of things like that,
• 1:57
  Speaker 2: but I couldn't read, I couldn't write, I couldn't add,
• 2:01
  Speaker 2: I couldn't subtract. I couldn't do school stuff.
• 2:05
  Speaker 3: So, you know, I.
• 2:07
  Speaker 2: Didn't really find my voice so that I could depend
• 2:11
  Speaker 2: on it until I was 93. But that was in
• 2:14
  Speaker 2: a dream that I found that out. I was constantly
• 2:18
  Speaker 2: rechecking what I had written or what I had said,
• 2:22
  Speaker 2: having somebody check and say, You know, is that okay?
• 2:26
  Speaker 2: You know, I was that damaged. But when I was 93,
• 2:31
  Speaker 2: I had a dream that helped that.
• 2:34
  Speaker 1: And how do you stay motivated, Mike?
• 2:37
  Speaker 3: The motivation is to be able. The greatest excitement, the
• 2:42
  Speaker 3: greatest thrills in life, in my opinion, are being able
• 2:47
  Speaker 3: to help other people do what they need to do.
• 2:54
  Speaker 3: the contribution that you can make is extremely rewarding to
• 2:59
  Speaker 3: the giver. And I tried to do that with the
• 3:06
  Speaker 3: organizations that I've founded, that I've helped found, which are
• 3:14
  Speaker 3: half a dozen or so. And I feel that I'm
• 3:19
  Speaker 3: contributing to the welfare of these individuals or to this country,
• 3:25
  Speaker 3: whatever you want to call it, but that I resolve
• 3:29
  Speaker 3: the questions that people have. What am I doing with
• 3:32
  Speaker 3: my life? This is something I can do. I'm doing
• 3:37
  Speaker 3: it right here. Why am I seeing you guys? Because
• 3:42
  Speaker 3: you'll help publish the thoughts that I'm expressing. Because they work.
• 3:53
  Speaker 3: You're watching it. But to be able to help other
• 3:56
  Speaker 3: people is the greatest possible gift to any person, no
• 4:01
  Speaker 3: matter how miserable or old or whatever they are. To
• 4:07
  Speaker 3: be able to help someone, that's a huge benefit. Huge.
• 4:15
  Speaker 3: It's better than all kinds of money.
• 4:17
  Speaker 4: Before trying to save the world, You must first liberate yourself.
• 4:22
  Speaker 4: To try to save the world without first liberating yourself
• 4:27
  Speaker 4: is like carpeting the earth rather than wearing sandals.
• 4:31
  Speaker 1: And I've heard you touch a little bit on the
• 4:34
  Speaker 1: importance of knowing the difference between what we want and
• 4:39
  Speaker 1: what we're given. Why do you think that those two
• 4:42
  Speaker 1: concepts are so important to understand?
• 4:45
  Speaker 4: I think that what we want and what we're given
• 4:48
  Speaker 4: often serve two different gods. And again, in our modern age,
• 4:56
  Speaker 4: which suffers from this modern psychological disease we call narcissism,
• 5:02
  Speaker 4: you know, we tend to think that, I think it's
• 5:07
  Speaker 4: a distortion of our inalienable rights. We think we're entitled
• 5:13
  Speaker 4: to happiness. We're entitled to get what we want And
• 5:19
  Speaker 4: there's nothing wrong with working for what we want. But
• 5:23
  Speaker 4: I've discovered in my life, at least, and let me
• 5:26
  Speaker 4: just say, there are things we want that aren't frivolous,
• 5:31
  Speaker 4: like I don't want my wife to die. But that
• 5:34
  Speaker 4: I want a new car, well, that's not quite the
• 5:39
  Speaker 4: same category. So I think that one of the things
• 5:43
  Speaker 4: I've found in my life that working for what I
• 5:47
  Speaker 4: want has often turned out to be an apprenticeship for
• 5:52
  Speaker 4: working with what I'm given, which is where my true
• 5:56
  Speaker 4: gifts have always shown up. So again, not to say
• 6:00
  Speaker 4: we shouldn't work for what we want. And there are
• 6:04
  Speaker 4: some stories that speak to this. One, let me share
• 6:10
  Speaker 4: one brief story, and this is about a professional cyclist,
• 6:15
  Speaker 4: like a Tour de France cyclist, and he is... preparing
• 6:18
  Speaker 4: for a race he's really he's got the state-of-the-art equipment
• 6:22
  Speaker 4: he's shaved all the hair off his body so there's
• 6:24
  Speaker 4: no resistance and he's working his tail off and the
• 6:27
  Speaker 4: day the first stage of the race comes and they're
• 6:30
  Speaker 4: off and after about a mile or two it's out
• 6:33
  Speaker 4: in the country he is so far ahead in the
• 6:37
  Speaker 4: beginning of all the other racers that as he crests
• 6:39
  Speaker 4: over a hill you briefly you can't even see the
• 6:43
  Speaker 4: other racers and as he's coasting speedily down this hill
• 6:47
  Speaker 4: As he reaches the bottom, out of nowhere, a great
• 6:50
  Speaker 4: blue heron with its wings spread swoops over his handlebars. Well,
• 6:56
  Speaker 4: it stuns him because the heron has opened something he's
• 7:01
  Speaker 4: been chasing. So he stops. He's actually in the middle
• 7:05
  Speaker 4: of the race. He straddles his bike. The other racers
• 7:07
  Speaker 4: are catching up. Now we cut ahead, years ahead. And
• 7:13
  Speaker 4: if you catch him behind his home staring into the woods,
• 7:17
  Speaker 4: And you ask him, what cost.
• 7:19
  Speaker 3: You the race?
• 7:21
  Speaker 4: Once in a while, he'll say to you, I didn't
• 7:23
  Speaker 4: lose the race. I left it. Now, someone can hear
• 7:28
  Speaker 4: that story and say, oh, that's all very poetic. He
• 7:30
  Speaker 4: actually lost. He didn't come in first. But I hold
• 7:33
  Speaker 4: it differently. You know, I think he trained to meet
• 7:40
  Speaker 4: the heron, which changed his life. But if you told
• 7:43
  Speaker 4: him he was training to meet a heron, he wouldn't
• 7:45
  Speaker 4: have trained. So we often work toward what we can
• 7:50
  Speaker 4: see and what's in view, often preparing for something we
• 7:54
  Speaker 4: have no idea is waiting us, is ahead of us.
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: I've heard that you have a mantra, and I'm curious
• 8:03
  Speaker 1: about this, that never give up. How have you used
• 8:07
  Speaker 1: that mantra in your life?
• 8:08
  Speaker 2: Well, it started with my dad. And I remember being
• 8:15
  Speaker 2: probably nine years old, and I was doing something, and
• 8:19
  Speaker 2: I said, oh, I give up. And he looks at me,
• 8:22
  Speaker 2: and he says.
• 8:23
  Speaker 3: Are you a quitter?
• 8:26
  Speaker 2: And I thought, oh, man, that's like being a liar. No, no,
• 8:31
  Speaker 2: I'm not a quitter. And it's so important for us
• 8:36
  Speaker 2: to understand what we teach our children. And these are
• 8:40
  Speaker 2: things that were really brought to me so that I
• 8:46
  Speaker 2: could understand the kind of life that I was going to.
• 8:51
  Speaker 3: Actually live.
• 8:53
  Speaker 2: And so, yeah, I had the make-do. I had to
• 8:58
  Speaker 2: let go. My mother taught me how to not take
• 9:03
  Speaker 2: things in and say that was horrible, I hurt my feelings.
• 9:08
  Speaker 2: And I could just let it go and say, it
• 9:11
  Speaker 2: doesn't matter.
• 9:13
  Speaker 4: One of the things I've learned is that, you know,
• 9:15
  Speaker 4: of course, no one wants to fall down. But like gravity,
• 9:19
  Speaker 4: we can't avoid it. And what I've discovered in my
• 9:24
  Speaker 4: life is that if we back up enough, actually falling
• 9:27
  Speaker 4: down and getting up is a rhythm. And actually over
• 9:31
  Speaker 4: a lifetime, it's actually a dance. So as much as
• 9:35
  Speaker 4: we don't like to fall down, what is the art
• 9:38
  Speaker 4: of that dance? What are the skills? How do we
• 9:41
  Speaker 4: How do we help each other? You know, in medieval times,
• 9:45
  Speaker 4: medieval monks, when asked how they practiced their faith, said
• 9:49
  Speaker 4: by falling down and getting up. And I learned that
• 9:53
  Speaker 4: in other traditions, they're similar. You know, in Japan, there's
• 9:56
  Speaker 4: a proverb that says, fall down seven, get up eight.
• 10:01
  Speaker 4: And it made me think quickly of, you know, I'm 72,
• 10:04
  Speaker 4: but in my 30s, I almost died from a rare
• 10:07
  Speaker 4: form of lymphoma. And one part of that journey, I
• 10:11
  Speaker 4: had a rib removed from my back, and I woke
• 10:13
  Speaker 4: up afterwards and quite dislocated. and this kind but gruff
• 10:21
  Speaker 4: nurse was right there in my face saying, okay, get up,
• 10:25
  Speaker 4: we're going to walk. I thought, who's going to walk?
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  Speaker 4: And then she leaned closer and whispered softly, two steps forward,
• 10:36
  Speaker 4: one step back. Falling down, getting up. And as I
• 10:41
  Speaker 4: researched the book, I ran across in the Hindu Upanishads,
• 10:45
  Speaker 4: which are the anonymous books, sacred texts in the hindu
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  Speaker 4: tradition and they're just filled with amazing metaphors and one
• 10:53
  Speaker 4: of them i discovered is that of a caterpillar and
• 10:57
  Speaker 4: they say you know how a caterpillar will bunch up
• 11:00
  Speaker 4: and then move forward and bunch up at two steps
• 11:04
  Speaker 4: forward one step back and they use that image in
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  Speaker 4: the upanishads to say this is the pace of spiritual
• 11:12
  Speaker 4: growth it's not a straight.
• 11:14
  Speaker 1: Line And Mike, what's the hardest thing you've ever gone
• 11:19
  Speaker 1: through in life?
• 11:20
  Speaker 3: Well, I was, when my wife died, my first wife,
• 11:26
  Speaker 3: my mother, my three children, that was very difficult for me.
• 11:32
  Speaker 3: Because I had a new business that I had founded
• 11:37
  Speaker 3: and worked on. And three little kids died. to worry about.
• 11:46
  Speaker 3: It was a difficult time. Probably the worst time of
• 11:52
  Speaker 3: my life. I think it's normal. And that helped, actually
• 12:01
  Speaker 3: helped me move into something active as a partial remedy
• 12:10
  Speaker 3: of the stress that I was under. You can imagine
• 12:13
  Speaker 3: what it is. You got all these things hanging on there.
• 12:18
  Speaker 3: And I just decided to, because of the stress of
• 12:24
  Speaker 3: raising a family, running a business, and without a wife,
• 12:31
  Speaker 3: mother to my children. So I took up running over
• 12:37
  Speaker 3: the dam at the lake with maybe one little kid
• 12:42
  Speaker 3: holding on to her little finger of mine. We would
• 12:46
  Speaker 3: do that together. And I decided I liked running and
• 12:50
  Speaker 3: began to get in an occasional race. And being small
• 12:54
  Speaker 3: and lightweight was no problem. So I took it up,
• 13:03
  Speaker 3: but nothing formal.
• 13:08
  Speaker 1: And did running help With your grief?
• 13:12
  Speaker 3: Oh, yeah. Yeah.
• 13:15
  Speaker 4: Yeah, absolutely. And so we also have a misunderstanding about
• 13:18
  Speaker 4: questions in our culture. And so in the outer world
• 13:23
  Speaker 4: of circumstance, questions have an answer. What do we have
• 13:26
  Speaker 4: to do to turn on this technology? You go down
• 13:30
  Speaker 4: the grocery aisle, which items are cleaning items that you
• 13:33
  Speaker 4: don't want to eat and which are food? So there
• 13:36
  Speaker 4: are answers. But in the inner world, And in the
• 13:39
  Speaker 4: world of relationship, questions don't have answers. So, yes, I
• 13:44
  Speaker 4: think we have to ask questions. And one question that
• 13:49
  Speaker 4: I often ask myself over the years in personal inquiry
• 13:56
  Speaker 4: and relational and, you know, in working is because often
• 14:01
  Speaker 4: things seem complicated. Well, I try to always ask this
• 14:03
  Speaker 4: question is what's before me heartening and life giving? or
• 14:09
  Speaker 4: disheartening and life-draining. Even if it's difficult, if it's life-giving
• 14:17
  Speaker 4: and heartening, then I'm in. But if what I'm looking
• 14:21
  Speaker 4: at is disheartening and life-draining, what am I doing there?
• 14:27
  Speaker 4: And that kind of barometer, emotional barometer, has always helped me,
• 14:31
  Speaker 4: especially when things seem complicated. That kind of brings it
• 14:35
  Speaker 4: back to very simple. Is this life-giving or life-draining? training.
• 14:42
  Speaker 1: If I kind of think about some of the audience
• 14:44
  Speaker 1: that watches our videos, 20 year olds that would be
• 14:49
  Speaker 1: feeling a lot of the emotions that you've described, you know,
• 14:51
  Speaker 1: they're excited about a life that's ahead of them, but
• 14:53
  Speaker 1: they're scared. They may be holding onto scars that have
• 14:56
  Speaker 1: come from some, some part of their upbringing. What advice
• 14:59
  Speaker 1: do you have for people who are about 20 years
• 15:02
  Speaker 1: old right now?
• 15:03
  Speaker 2: Try to try to find joy and happiness. Find something
• 15:10
  Speaker 2: that makes you laugh, really laugh, not something mean, but
• 15:19
  Speaker 2: something that really makes you feel like, oh, that's really,
• 15:24
  Speaker 2: really funny. And look for that kind of reality in
• 15:32
  Speaker 2: your lives. And then spend time looking for what I
• 15:37
  Speaker 2: call the light, you know, I kind of see myself
• 15:40
  Speaker 2: walking along with a flashlight in the dark on my path,
• 15:44
  Speaker 2: and it's dark, and I can just go as far
• 15:47
  Speaker 2: as my flashlight takes me. But as I'm walking along,
• 15:51
  Speaker 2: sometimes on the side of the path, there's a light
• 15:57
  Speaker 2: that is not very bright. It's just kind of shimmering.
• 16:02
  Speaker 2: If I shine my light over there, all of a
• 16:05
  Speaker 2: sudden that light becomes great In other words, as we
• 16:12
  Speaker 2: reach out for each other, as we're walking along and
• 16:18
  Speaker 2: we see someone else who's struggling, and we reach over
• 16:23
  Speaker 2: just with whatever we have, you know, my mother's make-do,
• 16:27
  Speaker 2: whatever is there, whatever the opportunity is, and you use it,
• 16:35
  Speaker 2: and you work forward with it, you're You're helping people
• 16:40
  Speaker 2: in ways that you know not.