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