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Your Worst Enemy Is Yourself – Master Your Mind, Overcome Your Inner Doubts · Motivational Podcast

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: One of the things that psychologists discovered, although not nearly
• 0:04
  Speaker 1: enough has been made of this is so imagine we've
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: discovered the basic dimensions of human temperament extraversion, positive emotion, neuroticism,
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: negative emotion, agreeableness. So that's like say, aggression versus cooperation
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: something like that, with the attendant problems on both ends. Conscientiousness, dutifulness, orderliness, industriousness,
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: and creativity. Those are the five, all right, So let's
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: look at neuroticism, proclivity to feel, negative emotion. All the
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: negative emotions clump together so they have a common core.
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  Speaker 1: It's probably something like stop and leave something like that, right,
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  Speaker 1: because if you're threatened, you should freeze or get the
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  Speaker 1: hell out of there. So that's the core reaction around
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  Speaker 1: which all the negative emotions are built and they all associate. Okay,
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  Speaker 1: we've been able to do analysis of traits and attitudes
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  Speaker 1: that are tightly associated with negative emotion. Self consciousness is
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  Speaker 1: indistinguishable from negative emotion, which means like it's indistinguishable in
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  Speaker 1: fact in one of the major personality trait measures called
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  Speaker 1: the neopir one of the early Big five personality dimensions,
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  Speaker 1: self consciousness is a facet of negative emotion.
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  Speaker 2: That's how tight it is. It's the same thing.
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  Speaker 1: So what it means is this is very German to
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  Speaker 1: your point. If you're thinking about yourself, you're miserable. Those
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  Speaker 1: are the same thing. And so then you might say, well,
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  Speaker 1: how do you get out of that? And you can't
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  Speaker 1: get out of that by not thinking about yourself.
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  Speaker 2: That's just in a backfire, right.
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  Speaker 1: So if you're anxious and you go to a party
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  Speaker 1: and you think, I'm not going to think about myself,
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  Speaker 1: and that's all you're thinking about, like you're dad. I
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  Speaker 1: used to treat my socially anxious clients say, go to
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  Speaker 1: a party and do everything you can to make other
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  Speaker 1: people feel comfortable. So I would explain into what I
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: just explained to you, But I would say, that doesn't
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  Speaker 1: mean you can stop thinking about yourself. It means you
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  Speaker 1: can start only thinking about what you can provide to
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  Speaker 1: other people. And that was invariably an improvement on the
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  Speaker 1: strategy that they had been using. But this is so
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  Speaker 1: crucially important, you know, because we are so reciprocal as
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  Speaker 1: human beings that you are lost if you only serve
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  Speaker 1: your own whims. It doesn't work in the long run.
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  Speaker 1: It alienates people, It produces a life that's devoid of meaning.
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  Speaker 1: It makes you anxious and isolated, and it makes you
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  Speaker 1: self conscious and miserable. And so it is the case,
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  Speaker 1: as we alluded to earlier, that perversely enough, the best
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  Speaker 1: possible thing that you can do for yourself, all things considered,
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  Speaker 1: over the longest possible run, is to work as hard
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  Speaker 1: as you can on behalf of what's best in other people.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, and you and I talked about this the last time.
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  Speaker 3: I'd forget what it was a couple of years ago,
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  Speaker 3: I think, but I was talking or you asked me
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  Speaker 3: what makes a good seal? Like what makes a good seal?
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  Speaker 3: And I said, well, it's doesn't matter.
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  Speaker 2: Look, you got to.
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  Speaker 3: Be a good shot. Of course, you've got to be
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  Speaker 3: in good physical All those things are important. You gotta be,
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  Speaker 3: you gotta be. You got to have the skill set.
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  Speaker 3: But far and away, what makes a good seal is
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  Speaker 3: someone that puts the team before themselves.
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  Speaker 1: That's it.
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  Speaker 3: That's the thing. And if you're the if, Jordan, if
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  Speaker 3: you're the best shot, you're the fastest or the strongest,
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  Speaker 3: but you have yourself above the team. I don't want
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  Speaker 3: you in my platoon And no one wants you. That's
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  Speaker 3: the way it works. So it's interesting that psychologically, if
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  Speaker 3: you're focused on yourself, it's going to cause problems, either
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  Speaker 3: the problem of egocentric arrogance or the problem of like
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  Speaker 3: paranoia or would you just use to describe it. I
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  Speaker 3: mean when someone's just focused on consciousness. Self consciousness, that's
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  Speaker 3: the thing that I when I see people that are
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  Speaker 3: self conscious enough, I was like, hey, you know who
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  Speaker 3: notices that you have a ZiT on your cheek right now?
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  Speaker 2: You?
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  Speaker 3: No one else cares, No one else cares, no one's
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  Speaker 3: It's a doesn't matter. When you walk into a room
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  Speaker 3: and you feel like you don't have the experience of
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  Speaker 3: being in a leadership position. The person that's thinking that
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  Speaker 3: as you. It doesn't really matter.
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  Speaker 4: Now if you go in and try and over compensate
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  Speaker 4: for that by saying, listen, I just graduated from college
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  Speaker 4: and I really know how to execute this stuff, you're
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  Speaker 4: gonna get crushed, yep, because you're trying to make up
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  Speaker 4: for the fact that you actually don't know what you're
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  Speaker 4: doing and no one everyone knows you don't. You just
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  Speaker 4: got here, so we know you don't know what you're doing,
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  Speaker 4: but we don't really care about it, so we don't
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  Speaker 4: see this.
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  Speaker 2: No, we just care.
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  Speaker 1: If you think you know what you're doing more than
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  Speaker 1: you actually know.
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  Speaker 2: Then it's a problem. Yeah, then that's definitely a problem.
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  Speaker 5: You have your reasons for being resentful, deceitful, and arrogant.
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  Speaker 5: You face or will face terrible chaotic forces, and you
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  Speaker 5: will sometimes be outmatched. Anxiety, doubt, shame, pain and illness,
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  Speaker 5: the agony of conscience, the soul shattering pit of grief,
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  Speaker 5: dash dreams and disappointment, the reality of betrayal, subjection, to
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  Speaker 5: the tyranny of social being, and the ignominy of aging
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  Speaker 5: unto death. How could you not degenerate and rage and
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  Speaker 5: sin and come to hate even hope itself. I want
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  Speaker 5: you to know how you might resist that decline, that
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  Speaker 5: degeneration into evil. To do so, to understand your own
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  Speaker 5: personality and its temptation by darkness. You need to know
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  Speaker 5: what you are up against. You need to understand your
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  Speaker 5: motivations for evil, and the triad of resentment, deceit, and arrogance.
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  Speaker 5: Is as good a decomposition of what constitutes evil as
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  Speaker 5: I have been able to formulate. Is it possible to
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  Speaker 5: understand the world in a manner that provides protection against
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  Speaker 5: the temptation to traverse that lowest of rhodes. It is
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  Speaker 5: an axiom of human wisdom that clearer formulation and deeper
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  Speaker 5: comprehension of a problem is salutary. We will begin just
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  Speaker 5: that attempt with a conceptual shift, one that is difficult
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  Speaker 5: and perplexing for the committed materialists. We moderns are first
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  Speaker 5: a question what is the world made of? To answer this,
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  Speaker 5: we will need to consider reality, the world as it
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  Speaker 5: is fully experienced by someone alive and awake, with all
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  Speaker 5: the richness of subjective being left intact, dreams, sensory experiences, feelings, drives,
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  Speaker 5: and fantasies. This is the world that manifests itself to
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  Speaker 5: or better, that you meet head on with your unique
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  Speaker 5: individual consciousness. Consider the act of awakening in the morning.
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  Speaker 5: If you were asked what you perceive at that moment,
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  Speaker 5: you might well mention the same concrete objects that anyone
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  Speaker 5: else might see if they woke up in bed beside you.
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  Speaker 5: You might describe all that you have gathered around you
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  Speaker 5: in your bedroom, the desk, the chairs, the clothes, messy
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  Speaker 5: or neatly arrayed, depending on your temperament and preference and
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  Speaker 5: perhaps your condition last night. You are likely to answer
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  Speaker 5: in this very objective, realistic manner, claiming essentially to see
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  Speaker 5: the furniture of the stage. There is of course some
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  Speaker 5: truth to your answer, although you may pay less attention
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  Speaker 5: to the familiar things.
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  Speaker 2: Around you than you think.
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  Speaker 5: Why waste time and energy perceiving what you can simply remember? However,
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  Speaker 5: the furniture and other contents of your bedroom are not
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  Speaker 5: truly what you perceive when you first wake up. You
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  Speaker 5: are already familiar with the place where you sleep and
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  Speaker 5: what it contains. There is no reason to continue to
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  Speaker 5: effortfully and consciously apprehend what you already understand. Instead, you
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  Speaker 5: are liable to perceive your surroundings Psychologically, you begin to
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  Speaker 5: consider how you are going to conduct yourself on the
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  Speaker 5: stage you will inevitably occupy, and what is going to
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  Speaker 5: happen in consequence. What you see upon waking is an
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  Speaker 5: array of post possibilities, many of them concerning the day
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  Speaker 5: at hand, and others associated with the weeks, months, and
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  Speaker 5: years to come. What you are truly concerned with upon
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  Speaker 5: waking is the answer to a question, what shall I
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  Speaker 5: make of the possibilities that I see in play? In
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  Speaker 5: front of me, complex, worrisome, exciting, dull, restricted, unlimited, fortunate
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  Speaker 5: or catastrophic, as they may be out there, and the
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  Speaker 5: potential is everything you could have. It is the realm
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  Speaker 5: of unrealized possibility, and no one knows its full extent.
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  Speaker 5: There appears to be no limit in principle to what
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  Speaker 5: can be made from what has not yet manifested itself.
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  Speaker 5: Everything that might yet be makes its home there. You
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  Speaker 5: could well consider what remains to be encountered as an
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  Speaker 5: eternal treasure house a horn of plenty, which are in
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  Speaker 5: fact two of its representations.
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  Speaker 2: But that is only half the story. And there is
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  Speaker 2: the rub.
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  Speaker 5: If the potential you confront manifests improperly because of a
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  Speaker 5: mistake on your part, because of the sheer arbitrariness of
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  Speaker 5: the world, then you can find yourself in terrible trouble
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  Speaker 5: out there in the unknown, in the future, which is
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  Speaker 5: what you truly contend with when your consciousness reawakens, awaits
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  Speaker 5: everything good, but also everything terrible, painful, hellish, and deadly.
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  Speaker 5: Whatever potential might be. Therefore, it does not follow the
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  Speaker 5: simple rules of material logic. Objects that play by the
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  Speaker 5: rules of the game we consider real when we assume
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  Speaker 5: that what is real is also logical, can only be
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  Speaker 5: one thing at a time, and certainly not themselves and
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  Speaker 5: their opposite simultaneously. Potential, however, is not like that. It
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  Speaker 5: is not categorizable in that manner. It is tragedy, comedy,
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  Speaker 5: good and evil, and everything in between. At the same time,
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  Speaker 5: it is also not tangible in the sense that the
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  Speaker 5: things we consider must be tangible.
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  Speaker 2: It does not even.
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  Speaker 5: Exist, except as what could be exists. Perhaps it is
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  Speaker 5: best considered as the structure of reality before reality manifests
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  Speaker 5: itself concretely in the present, where reality appears to most
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  Speaker 5: self evidently exist, but creatures such as us do not
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  Speaker 5: contend with the present. It may therefore be that it
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  Speaker 5: is not the present that is most real, at least
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  Speaker 5: as far as our consciousness is concerned. We have to
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  Speaker 5: fight to be here Now, the advice of the sages.
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  Speaker 5: Left to our own devices, we turn our minds instead
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  Speaker 5: to investigating the future. What could be attempting to answer
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  Speaker 5: that question?
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  Speaker 2: That is life?
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  Speaker 5: That is the true encounter with reality? What is that
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  Speaker 5: is the dead past already accomplished? What could be that
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  Speaker 5: is the emergence of new being, new adventure brought about
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  Speaker 5: by the conjunction of living consciousness with the great expanse
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  Speaker 5: of paradoxical possibility. And if it is possibility that is
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  Speaker 5: most real rather than actuality, as evidenced by the fact
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  Speaker 5: that it is possibility we are destined to contend with,
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  Speaker 5: then it is the investigation into possibility that is the
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  Speaker 5: most important of all investigations. But how do we investigate
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  Speaker 5: something that is not here or there or anywhere? How
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  Speaker 5: do we examine what has not yet manifested itself?
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  Speaker 2: Explore what only.
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  Speaker 5: Could be but is not yet? And how can we
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  Speaker 5: possibly communicate with each other intelligibly about that attempt trade
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  Speaker 5: information about the most effective conceptualizations, approaches, and strategies. The
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  Speaker 5: answer to that, as far as I can tell, is
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  Speaker 5: by communityating through stories about what is and equally what
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  Speaker 5: could be. And what that implies is that if possibility
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  Speaker 5: is the ultimate element of reality with which we contend,
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  Speaker 5: then it is stories that hold the wisdom that we
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  Speaker 5: most need to know. We naturally think of our lives
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  Speaker 5: as stories and communicate about our experience in that same manner.
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  Speaker 5: We tell people automatically where we are to set the
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  Speaker 5: stage and where we are going, so that we can
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  Speaker 5: create the present out of the possibility that springs forth
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  Speaker 5: as we journey toward our destination.
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  Speaker 2: No one finds such an account out of the ordinary.
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  Speaker 5: But we are doing more than portraying our lives and
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  Speaker 5: those of others as a sequence of events. It is
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  Speaker 5: something deeper than that. When you depict a person's actions
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  Speaker 5: in the world, you describe how they perceive, evaluate, think,
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  Speaker 5: and act, and when you do so, a story unfolds.
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  Speaker 5: And the better you are at such discrets, the more
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  Speaker 5: story like your accounts are. Furthermore, we experience, the world
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  Speaker 5: is populated by figures that represent exactly what we must
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  Speaker 5: contend with, the unknown, unexpected, and novel. The world of
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  Speaker 5: possibility is represented in dramatic form, as is the world
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  Speaker 5: that we expect and strive to bring into being, and
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  Speaker 5: ourselves as actors faced with the unknown and the predictable alike,
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  Speaker 5: we use the story to represent all of this.
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  Speaker 2: Could it be that we communicate in.
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  Speaker 5: Stories and everyone else understands them because what everyone is
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  Speaker 5: doing in the world is fundamentally a story. Could that
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  Speaker 5: mean that the world of experience is, in truth indistinguishable
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  Speaker 5: from a story, that it cannot be represented in a
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  Speaker 5: manner more accurate than that of the story, we are,
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  Speaker 5: in principle adapted to the world, adapted to its realities.
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  Speaker 2: Thus, if we naturally.
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  Speaker 5: Construe the world as a story, then perhaps the world
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  Speaker 5: is most accurately, or at least most practically construed as
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  Speaker 5: a story. And accurate and practical are not so easy
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  Speaker 5: to distinguish. You might argue contrarily that the scientific view
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  Speaker 5: of the world is more accurate in some sense, and
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  Speaker 5: that the scientific view is not fundamentally a story. But
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  Speaker 5: as far as I can tell, it is still nested
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  Speaker 5: inside a story. One that goes something like careful and
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  Speaker 5: unbiased pursuit of the truth will make the world a
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  Speaker 5: better place for all people, reducing suffering, extending life, and
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  Speaker 5: producing wealth.
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  Speaker 2: Why practice science?
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  Speaker 5: Otherwise, why would anyone take on the difficulties and rigors
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  Speaker 5: of scientific training without that motivation?
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  Speaker 2: There are more effective ways.
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  Speaker 5: Of making money, for example, if you have the intelligence
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  Speaker 5: and discipline to become a genuine researcher. And in terms
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  Speaker 5: of intrinsic motivation, the love of science is not precisely
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  Speaker 5: disinterested learning. The great experimenters and scientific writers I have
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  Speaker 5: known are passionate about their pursuit. Something emotional drives them
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  Speaker 5: they hope that they're learning disinterested, though it may be
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  Speaker 5: as at present it has no specific aim except that
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  Speaker 5: of learning will have some genuinely positive outcome, making the
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  Speaker 5: world a better place. That provides the entire pursuit with
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  Speaker 5: a narrative element, the motive that accompanies any good plot,
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  Speaker 5: and the transformation of character that makes up the best
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  Speaker 5: of stories. We conceptualize what we experience as a story.
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  Speaker 5: That story is, roughly speaking, the description of the place
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  Speaker 5: we are at right now, as well as the place
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  Speaker 5: that we are going to, the strategies and adventures that
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  Speaker 5: we implement and experience along the way, and our downfalls
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  Speaker 5: and reconstitutions during that journey. You perceive and act inside
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  Speaker 5: a structure like that all the time, because you are
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  Speaker 5: always somewhere going somewhere else, and you are always evaluating
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  Speaker 5: where you are and what is going on in relation
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  Speaker 5: to your goal. Part of this thinking in stories is
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  Speaker 5: our tendency to see the world as a selection of
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  Speaker 5: personalities rather than as objects, situations, or events. We think
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  Speaker 5: about the landscape and the objects in it as furniture,
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  Speaker 5: but we think about the actors in our lives as personalities,
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  Speaker 5: and we think about ourselves in that manner too. What
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  Speaker 5: does that imply about how we should act and what
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  Speaker 5: we should believe FA