Latest / Motivation Mindset Podcast / The Greatest Speech EVER: Jonathan Bricker on Self-Belief & Overcoming Suffering

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The Greatest Speech EVER: Jonathan Bricker on Self-Belief & Overcoming Suffering · Motivation Mindset Podcast

• 0:01
  Speaker 1: Deep down.
• 0:04
  Speaker 2: When you look in the mirror, what do you really
• 0:08
  Speaker 2: really really care about? How do you want to be
• 0:15
  Speaker 2: remembered when you leave this earth? How do you want
• 0:22
  Speaker 2: people to speak of you? What do you want people
• 0:25
  Speaker 2: to remember about you when you are done with your
• 0:30
  Speaker 2: working life, when you retired? What do you want the
• 0:34
  Speaker 2: people that you worked with most closely to say about you,
• 0:38
  Speaker 2: about the qualities that you have, about the things that
• 0:41
  Speaker 2: you cared about. If you are a parent, what would
• 0:48
  Speaker 2: you want your kids to say about what kind of
• 0:51
  Speaker 2: dad you were or what kind of mom you were
• 0:54
  Speaker 2: when they grow up. That's the kind of questions we
• 1:00
  Speaker 2: have to be asking ourselves to figure out what do
• 1:05
  Speaker 2: I stand for? What's my mission statement? What is it
• 1:13
  Speaker 2: that makes me want to keep going? What is it
• 1:18
  Speaker 2: that I how is it I want to contribute to life,
• 1:21
  Speaker 2: to other people, to society?
• 1:24
  Speaker 1: What kind of impact do what I want to make?
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: At the end of the day, what we value is
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: not going to change.
• 1:36
  Speaker 2: The things that you deeply care about in your heart
• 1:39
  Speaker 2: of hearts, The things that are you're truly passionate about
• 1:43
  Speaker 2: the kind of impact you want to make on others
• 1:46
  Speaker 2: on life, They're going to be the same today as
• 1:51
  Speaker 2: they are in five years. If everyone could accept you
• 1:58
  Speaker 2: for whatever choice you make, what choice would you make?
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: What are you about?
• 2:04
  Speaker 2: What do you really care about? I.
• 2:14
  Speaker 3: At a very early age learned about the power of
• 2:20
  Speaker 3: helping others and the power of suffering.
• 2:27
  Speaker 1: Growing up.
• 2:28
  Speaker 2: I have a brother who, at the time when I
• 2:32
  Speaker 2: was growing up, was experiencing a very severe mental illness,
• 2:37
  Speaker 2: and that created great suffering for me and for my family,
• 2:42
  Speaker 2: and I found deep within that, and of course didn't
• 2:45
  Speaker 2: have the words at the time. I was a young
• 2:47
  Speaker 2: kid deep within that how much suffering could transform into
• 2:53
  Speaker 2: being helpful, into being helpful to my family members, and
• 2:58
  Speaker 2: into having compassion for the suffering that he was experiencing.
• 3:07
  Speaker 2: I could have grown up a very angry young man
• 3:11
  Speaker 2: having to go through what I did as an adolescent
• 3:15
  Speaker 2: as a teenager. And so I think it really comes
• 3:18
  Speaker 2: down to that, are you willing to answer the call
• 3:22
  Speaker 2: and move toward what's inside that's painful, because in that
• 3:29
  Speaker 2: there is something bitter sweet, and that bitter sweet is
• 3:33
  Speaker 2: you find what is your calling, what has meaning in
• 3:38
  Speaker 2: your life.
• 3:39
  Speaker 1: What is it that's going to move you forward.
• 3:45
  Speaker 2: Well, the truth is, as long as we have the
• 3:50
  Speaker 2: capacity for language, as long as we have that ability
• 3:55
  Speaker 2: to speak, to think, to feel, to have physical pain
• 4:01
  Speaker 2: in our bodies, we're going to have demons. All of
• 4:05
  Speaker 2: us are going to have demons. So when I talk
• 4:07
  Speaker 2: about internal demons, I'm talking about negative thoughts, things, negative
• 4:12
  Speaker 2: things we might tell ourselves, how we might be critical
• 4:15
  Speaker 2: of ourselves or of others, or I'm talking about ways
• 4:20
  Speaker 2: in which we have thoughts that are depressive thoughts or
• 4:24
  Speaker 2: anxious thoughts or fearful thoughts. I'm also talking about physical pain.
• 4:29
  Speaker 2: You know, people have injuries. It could be sports injuries,
• 4:33
  Speaker 2: it could be injuries from accidents or chronic injuries that
• 4:39
  Speaker 2: they've been living with for many, many years.
• 4:41
  Speaker 1: So it's the physical part.
• 4:43
  Speaker 2: And it's also just what we would call emotions, you know, sadness, anxiety,
• 4:50
  Speaker 2: and so forth. And so though there will I want
• 4:54
  Speaker 2: to add to that memories, So we may have painful memories,
• 4:58
  Speaker 2: you know, the losses you've experienced in your life.
• 5:02
  Speaker 1: And so when you take.
• 5:03
  Speaker 2: Memories and thoughts and emotions and physical sensations, they can
• 5:11
  Speaker 2: all be the demons that we carry around with us.
• 5:15
  Speaker 2: And some of us have been carrying them around with
• 5:18
  Speaker 2: us for years. And it's a question of what are
• 5:24
  Speaker 2: you going to do with that. Are you going to
• 5:28
  Speaker 2: try to push them away or are you going to
• 5:32
  Speaker 2: try to let them be there inside you? And that's
• 5:36
  Speaker 2: really the choice that I'm talking about.
• 5:39
  Speaker 1: It's a fundamental.
• 5:40
  Speaker 2: Choice that underlies the secret to self control, because what
• 5:45
  Speaker 2: happens is when we try to push away avoid.
• 5:51
  Speaker 1: Control the internal demons. Do you know what happens?
• 5:58
  Speaker 2: They get bigger, They get bigger. And there's some powerful
• 6:04
  Speaker 2: science behind this that when you try not to have something.
• 6:08
  Speaker 1: You have more of it.
• 6:10
  Speaker 2: The more you don't want the demons.
• 6:12
  Speaker 1: The more that you have them.
• 6:15
  Speaker 2: And I've talked about this in different ways. One of
• 6:19
  Speaker 2: the ways is this idea of a tug of war.
• 6:21
  Speaker 2: It's like you're in a tug of war with these demons,
• 6:24
  Speaker 2: and the more you pull, the more the demons pull back,
• 6:29
  Speaker 2: and you go on and on and on.
• 6:31
  Speaker 1: And.
• 6:33
  Speaker 2: Eventually you don't win this battle. You might temporarily get
• 6:37
  Speaker 2: a little rescuer. You know, you have a drink, or
• 6:41
  Speaker 2: you use some drugs, or you get into something really
• 6:47
  Speaker 2: really intense. Maybe you work out really really really hard
• 6:52
  Speaker 2: so you don't have to face this internal experience. But
• 6:56
  Speaker 2: what happens is you can get injured, you can get hungover,
• 7:01
  Speaker 2: you can have an accident, you can hurt your marriage,
• 7:05
  Speaker 2: you can hurt your relationships. And what happens is the
• 7:09
  Speaker 2: demons eventually will come back to you and then what
• 7:14
  Speaker 2: are you going to do? And so there is an
• 7:22
  Speaker 2: alternative to that, And that's really the hope. That's part
• 7:27
  Speaker 2: of the message I wanted to share today, because this
• 7:30
  Speaker 2: hope comes from a science of behavior change that's really
• 7:36
  Speaker 2: really exciting right now, that has a lot of promise
• 7:40
  Speaker 2: for helping people live more effective lives. So when you
• 7:45
  Speaker 2: try to suppress your internal demons, your thoughts, your emotions, sensations,
• 7:50
  Speaker 2: your memories. If we're talking let's if we're talking to
• 7:54
  Speaker 2: say about alcohol or drug use, you get addicted. You
• 8:00
  Speaker 2: you're spending a lot of your time getting a chance
• 8:04
  Speaker 2: to use the drug.
• 8:05
  Speaker 4: Or the alcohol.
• 8:06
  Speaker 2: You can end up having a car accident, you can
• 8:10
  Speaker 2: you end up blacking out, you can end up destroying
• 8:13
  Speaker 2: your marriage, you can end up losing your job, you
• 8:19
  Speaker 2: can end up physically injuring yourself. For people who get depressed,
• 8:24
  Speaker 2: who don't want to think about how bad their lives
• 8:28
  Speaker 2: are or how unhappy they are with their lives, they
• 8:32
  Speaker 2: spent spend they can spend their time in bed.
• 8:35
  Speaker 1: They can spend waste a lot of.
• 8:37
  Speaker 2: Time going online, h reading things, looking at things, getting
• 8:43
  Speaker 2: on social media. They can get involved in watching a
• 8:47
  Speaker 2: lot of pornography and not engaged in life. Their lives
• 8:52
  Speaker 2: get really small, and that the consequences are vast. The
• 8:58
  Speaker 2: consequences are almost imaginable in so many different ways. And
• 9:04
  Speaker 2: the ultimately what we're talking about is that your life
• 9:09
  Speaker 2: isn't moving forward, You're stagnating, or it's moving backwards.
• 9:13
  Speaker 1: All the things that matter to your.
• 9:15
  Speaker 2: Family, friends, your work, your body, your spirituality, they get
• 9:21
  Speaker 2: locked off, they get sealed off, and your life gets very,
• 9:26
  Speaker 2: very small. And so the consequences of avoidance are gigantic.
• 9:32
  Speaker 1: They're huge.
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  Speaker 2: For some it even means suicide because they just can't
• 9:38
  Speaker 2: bear the pain of the demons.
• 9:48
  Speaker 1: It's being willing to remember. It's being willing to remember
• 9:53
  Speaker 1: and be aware of. What is that memory that I've
• 9:55
  Speaker 1: been not wanting to have And it could be so.
• 10:00
  Speaker 2: It depends on where what is that thing you don't
• 10:04
  Speaker 2: want to have to notice? So that's a awareness is
• 10:07
  Speaker 2: number one. Now someone might say I don't want to
• 10:11
  Speaker 2: be aware of that. I don't want to be aware
• 10:13
  Speaker 2: of that that's painful. Well, then there's some earlier work
• 10:17
  Speaker 2: you want to do on understanding the consequences because that
• 10:21
  Speaker 2: question you asked me earlier.
• 10:22
  Speaker 1: You know what happens when people avoid, Well, you you got.
• 10:25
  Speaker 2: To get in touch with those consequences. You've got to
• 10:27
  Speaker 2: take stock. You've got to take inventory. Just like if
• 10:30
  Speaker 2: you're running a company and you've got inventory in your warehouse,
• 10:35
  Speaker 2: you've got to take stock of what's the cost of
• 10:38
  Speaker 2: you avoiding? What's the cost in terms of those areas
• 10:42
  Speaker 2: of your life that matter. We live inside our heads,
• 10:49
  Speaker 2: so we're always thinking and we cause this.
• 10:51
  Speaker 1: But the point is to see if you.
• 10:53
  Speaker 2: See outside your head and all of the events that
• 10:57
  Speaker 2: have happened in your life, you will and you will
• 11:00
  Speaker 2: understand that kindness is warranted.
• 11:04
  Speaker 1: There's a place for kindness.
• 11:07
  Speaker 2: The final thing I want to say about kindness is
• 11:10
  Speaker 2: if you can develop gratitude, it's very good way to
• 11:16
  Speaker 2: you to develop kindness to yourself and to others. When
• 11:20
  Speaker 2: you wake up in the morning and when you go
• 11:23
  Speaker 2: to bed at night, can you think of one thing
• 11:25
  Speaker 2: you're grateful for? Certainly you're alive, and what else?
• 11:31
  Speaker 1: What is it that? What are the.
• 11:33
  Speaker 2: Things in your life that gifts in your life. It's
• 11:36
  Speaker 2: very hard for someone to state what they're grateful for
• 11:42
  Speaker 2: while also feeling self loathing, while also feeling angry at themselves.
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  Speaker 2: It's very, very difficult to have those two go together.
• 11:51
  Speaker 2: And so it really creates a space for you to
• 11:57
  Speaker 2: have kindness when you can express attitude for something in
• 12:02
  Speaker 2: your life, and it begins to just shift the direction.
• 12:07
  Speaker 2: Because you know, all change is incremental. Nothing happens immediately.
• 12:11
  Speaker 2: It begins to shift the direction of how you begin
• 12:14
  Speaker 2: to look at yourself, because how you look at yourself
• 12:18
  Speaker 2: it's very important for guiding what you end up doing
• 12:23
  Speaker 2: in your life each day. Let go of trying to
• 12:28
  Speaker 2: control the emotions, the thoughts, the sensations, and the memories
• 12:35
  Speaker 2: because they cannot be controlled. They run on their own schedule,
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  Speaker 2: they run their own way. The more you try to
• 12:43
  Speaker 2: compress them, the more you try to control them, the
• 12:46
  Speaker 2: worse it gets. It's like playing whack a mole at
• 12:49
  Speaker 2: the arcade. You know, you get a thought, you try
• 12:52
  Speaker 2: to tamp it down. You get a feeling, you try
• 12:53
  Speaker 2: to tamp it down. You get a pain in your knee,
• 12:55
  Speaker 2: you try to ignore it, and the like the game
• 12:59
  Speaker 2: whack a mole. Every time you whack one another one's
• 13:02
  Speaker 2: going to pop up. Because that's how language based minds work,
• 13:07
  Speaker 2: that's how us human beings work.
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  Speaker 1: And so you can't If you keep.
• 13:13
  Speaker 2: Trying to control these uncontrollable things, you are going to
• 13:18
  Speaker 2: continue suffering. You are going to be having a really,
• 13:22
  Speaker 2: really difficult time in your life. And so the secret
• 13:26
  Speaker 2: to self control is letting go of trying to control
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  Speaker 2: those things because eventually they will actually begin to fade.
• 13:36
  Speaker 2: They're not going to disappear, but they're going to fade
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  Speaker 2: to the background. You want to put the spotlight on
• 13:47
  Speaker 2: what matters in your life, the things you can control,
• 13:51
  Speaker 2: things that you use with your hands, in your feet,
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  Speaker 2: whether you go to the gym, whether you're running, whether
• 13:57
  Speaker 2: you are going to show up for the interview or
• 14:00
  Speaker 2: write the resume, or be.
• 14:02
  Speaker 4: Able to try to connect with someone that you're interested
• 14:06
  Speaker 4: in or repair the relationship. It's what you say, it's
• 14:10
  Speaker 4: what you do with your hands and your feet. Those
• 14:14
  Speaker 4: are the things you can control.
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  Speaker 2: And so the other side of the secret self control
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  Speaker 2: is focus on the things that you actually have control
• 14:23
  Speaker 2: over and letting go of those things that you do
• 14:26
  Speaker 2: not have control over, whether you're twenty.
• 14:31
  Speaker 1: Five years old or you're forty five years old.
• 14:35
  Speaker 2: It is never never too late to live your life.
• 14:41
  Speaker 2: It's never too late to do the things that really
• 14:44
  Speaker 2: really matter to you on a deep level. The truth
• 14:49
  Speaker 2: is we have much much more time than we ever imagine,
• 14:55
  Speaker 2: taking committed actions, doing actions that matter to you a
• 15:01
  Speaker 2: little bit each day. That's how you begin to smash
• 15:05
  Speaker 2: your view of yourself and begin to see that even
• 15:08
  Speaker 2: at twenty five, forty five, fifty five, you can shift
• 15:12
  Speaker 2: directions of your career and you can begin to do
• 15:15
  Speaker 2: the things that really really are fulfilling in your work life,