Latest / Pathological Positivity / Learn It, Live It – Turn Breakthrough Into Transformation – Episode #697
Transcript
- This is Live On Purpose Radio, episode 697. Learn it, live it, turn breakthrough into transformation. Now is the only time to create and live the life you love. I'm doctor Paul Jenkins, the positivity psychologist. My job is to connect you to powerful positive psychology principles that immediately upgrade your relationships, business, and mental health. Are you ready? Let's jump in. Hello and welcome to Live On Purpose Radio. I am your host, Doctor. Paul, the shrink who expands your life. And I'm coming to you today with a little bit of buzz after last week's experience with the emotional freedom challenge. If you didn't have a chance to join us, watch for the next one because this was powerful. It was five days of challenge tasks that help us to move into a more purposeful experience, especially as it relates to our emotional freedom. And you've probably noticed that sometimes you get hijacked by emotion and, and you end up doing things that you might regret later or that don't truly support your key relationships and the roles that you're in. So we had a powerful experience five days in a row, and it occurred to me that there are two kinds of learning. Have you ever had that moment? Something really clicked, but then nothing actually happened after that. I remember a time when Zig Ziglar, one of the founders of motivational speaking, was approached after one of his inspiring presentations by a member of the audience who said, you know, mister Ziegler, I get so inspired. I get so fired up every time I hear you speak, but it never lasts. And Zig responded, Yeah, neither do showers. That's why we recommend them regularly. And that gives me a little chuckle, but it is so true. There are two kinds of learning. There's breakthrough learning. And that's the moment when the lights go on, when you have the moment, when the insight lands, it's sticking and clicking inside of you somewhere. And then there's transformational learning. And this kind of learning happens over time. But it's not just time. It also requires usually instruction, coaching and a lot of repeated effort that we call practice. So today we're going to explore how to turn what you know into how you live. Are you ready? Let's jump in. Breakthrough learning feels powerful, but it's only the beginning. So you've been there, right, when you're in the seminar or you're listening to the podcast or you're reading the book or you hear the speaker on the stage and something hits, it just resonates very deeply with you. These moments are really exciting. I love breakthrough learning, and I provide breakthrough learning experiences for my audiences, but it's usually temporary. Many people are consumers of insight or principles that improve their lives. So think of all the times when you're listening to a podcast like this one or reading a book. Maybe it's one that, one of your coaches recommended or a family member or someone you trust or you take a course. Insight alone does not change behavior. Breakthrough creates awareness. It's not the awareness that creates your results. I think awareness simply puts us in a position of choice. In fact, I... You'll hear me say this repeatedly. Awareness precedes choice. Until we're aware of it, we don't have a choice. Let's look at what transformation is all about. This happens through repeated practice, not insight. Transformational learning demands repetition. And the reason for this is our brain has to be efficient. You think about it, your brain is in charge of everything. How you feel, what you think, what you do, all controlled by your brain. But there's also a plethora of other tasks that your brain has like breathing and heart rate and blood pressure and your digestive system. All of this is being controlled through the main control center that we call your brain. And to do that, your brain has to find ways to put a lot of things on autopilot. Now in psychology, we call these neural pathways and it literally is the way that your brain creates a shortcut, cruise control, autopilot, so that it doesn't have to think about all of those dozens of things that it's taking care of for you on a daily basis, and you don't even have to pay any attention to it. Cruise control, autopilot. It does this with things that you never have to think about in terms of your bodily functions. But think anything that's repeated, it will put into one of those neural pathways. So let's look at two really compelling examples here. Learning a language. Now for just over a year, actually, I'm up to about a year and a quarter now, almost a year and a half of learning Spanish. Brand new language for me. I've been exposed to Spanish my whole life. There's a lot of Spanish speakers in my community, but I have never intentionally tried to learn the language. Now I've had the idea many times, you know, the inspiration hits me. Oh, I should learn Spanish. That would be really good. And obviously, the insight, the inspiration is not sufficient. And it wasn't until 01/01/2025 that I started a daily practice using, an app called Duolingo. Some of you are familiar with that to practice Spanish on a daily basis. And my proficiency scores up to like 43 now. I'm not even sure exactly what that means, but I can understand a lot of Spanish now and I can speak quite a bit of Spanish now. I had this, experience earlier in my life too when I learned to speak Finnish and I continue to practice that language. And I read daily in Finnish and listen to the spoken Finnish language. So this language learning is a really good example. Whatever you're already programmed with is what's going to come naturally to you. And honestly, English is still the easiest language that I speak. I don't even have to think about it. I'm adding skill sets, but as you can see, it requires repeated repetition, some coaching and instruction application over time. Playing an instrument is another good example. I remember I was in the lobby at one of the big conferences where I was speaking and there was a grand piano and a friend of mine who is also a very accomplished speaker was out there playing this piano. And I stopped and a lot of people were stopping by to listen and I heard some people say, I wish I could play like that. And he very diplomatically but very clearly turned to them and said, it's not a wish kind of a thing. Listen to what he's saying. Does he play the piano because he wished he could play? No. He maybe was inspired like this person apparently was, but then he made an intentional choice. And I made a similar choice when I was young. Actually, my mom helped to make it for me that I would take piano lessons and it wasn't fun. And and I had to practice every morning. And now I am so grateful to mom. Thank you, mom. If you're listening that she helped me get a transformational experience to where now I am free to play the piano whenever I want. And I do. I have fun with that. And it's a useful skill when, piano playing is needed. So what about positivity? Transformation is where the positivity model that you've heard about here on the show is not just understood. It's lived. It takes effort. It takes structure. It takes reprogramming of the brain. Transformation is not some moment of insight. It's a process. It's a journey. It's not an event. From being a consumer of information to becoming a practitioner of principles. Now, if you joined us for the emotional freedom challenge last week, you noticed that I gave five challenges. And I'm just going to recap those for you here because if you want to try this, challenge number one is the gratitude power up, where for five days, you make a list of 25 things that you're sincerely grateful for. And at least half of your list every day has to be about the hard things. I'm not going to get, get into a full conversation today about what all that's about, but just so that you have the tasks, the next challenge task on day two was better by eight. And this is where you you just consider 08:00. What can I do between now and 08:00 to make a little upgrade somewhere in my life to make my life better by eight? Challenge task number three is what I call the upside down disruption. The upside down disruption is where you take something that you have done habitually and you change it up. So if you're wearing your watch on your left arm, put it on your right arm. It's not going to feel right. That's called turning it upside down. You're doing an upside down disruption. You can totally wear it on either arm. One of our participants in the challenge last week chose to do everything with their non dominant hand for twenty four hours. Find something that you can change up. Challenge task number four is what I called free three, which means that you're going to create some emotional freedom for three people. Make a meaningful difference in the lives of three people. Somebody you know well, somebody you don't know well, is somebody in your community. Pick three in different levels of your key relationships. And then challenge number five is to do the next right thing, whatever that is for you. And at this point, I think I want to make a distinction between interest and commitment. When we experience breakthrough learning, it peaks our interest. We feel a little surge of energy and inspiration and insight. It peaks our interest. We are not yet committed. Commitment is measured by two documents, your calendar and your bank account. Because if you're committed, you will spend your time, your money, your precious life energy toward doing a thing that you were inspired to do. You don't need more insight. I mean, it's awesome, and hopefully, you get it on a regular basis. What we need is our next right step and to commit to that. Those who who participated in our emotional freedom challenge last week experienced both breakthrough and the beginning of transformation. And it was just five days. But you know what? At the end of those five days, people were noticing tangible shifts in their life, in their relationships, creating peace in their mind and heart, confidence in their roles and relationships and hope for better things to come. Continue this journey. Whatever your heart and mind are telling you is the direction that you get to go. And this is where deeper work happens. This is where identity shifts. In my own practice, in my services, and I get asked this all the time, are you still taking clients? Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. More than ever. Now am I working privately with people? Not as much. Okay. That's high touch, high ticket. Yes. That's available. When you think about it in terms of different levels of engagement, at a very basic level, you're listening to this podcast today. You've got me in your ear. That's awesome. And I hope that I'm providing for you some breakthrough learning experiences. I hope the lights are going on. I hope you are feeling inspired and informed and that you are consuming this positivity. Now, you want to take it up a level from there? We go from from consuming to practicing. Think of it as a step up. Think of it as the next level. And at a practitioner level, you are not just consuming positivity, you are practicing it. This is where we add the instruction and the coaching and the repeated daily practice and the community of support that our positivity practitioners experience. This is a place to practice, not just to learn. And if you're a coach or a teacher or a parent or a leader, How important is it for you to practice and share these principles with your people? What happens when everyone in our organization, our family, our community feels more peace, more confidence, and more hope. That's what it means to be a positivity practitioner. If you're ready to live what you've learned, it's time to step into practice. Now I would invite you to reflect. Where in your life and experience have you already had the breakthrough but haven't yet created the transformation? Come with me to take one intentional step forward, and this is not for everyone, but if it's for you, jump on it. Go to liveonpurpose,radio.com. That's the name of the podcast. Liveonpurpose,radio.com and then do a little forward slash practitioner. And I will put a link in the show notes too, because if you're ready to go to that practitioner level, it's higher touch. It's a little higher ticket. It's not as high ticket as someone holding your hand and getting private coaching. But this group of practitioners is leaning in on purpose. And I'm not sure when you're listening to this episode, but just as a heads up, we do quarterly breakthrough events. And that's part of your membership as a practitioner. The next one will be April mid April, twenty twenty six. So if you're listening to this in time, it's a perfect time to jump into this community. I invite you to take whatever courageous step is next for you. Do the next right thing, And let's take this from consuming to practicing. Are you with me? We've heard it. It's time to go do it. Let's go live on purpose. Did you get what you came for? Give yourself the gift of taking real action on what you realized today. Please share this episode with someone you know would value it, and leave us a rating too. It's time now to live on purpose.