Speaker 1: Doctor Chadai Zarai, Welcome to straight Talk.
Speaker 2: Thank you for having me.
Speaker 1: You or I were doing something for Amazon this week,
Speaker 1: and you're a communication expert.
Speaker 2: Yes, And actually what I was speaking about is what
Speaker 2: happens before we communicate, which is whether we trust ourselves
Speaker 2: to communicate or not. So it's really around attention and
Speaker 2: self doubt and self trust, which are the precursors to
Speaker 2: whether we use our voice and how we use our voice.
Speaker 2: And that's my whole area of expertise. And I find
Speaker 2: it fascinating.
Speaker 1: What do you mean if we use our voice and
Speaker 1: how we use our voice? Do you mean are you
Speaker 1: talking about tom tone, language, speed, etc. Or just speaking
Speaker 1: as opposed to not speaking. In other words, I decide
Speaker 1: not to speak, I sit back in the room. We
Speaker 1: need all of it.
Speaker 2: Because how we view our voice, whether we feel like
Speaker 2: our voice has value, whether we feel like we have value,
Speaker 2: whether we feel like we belong in the room, deserve
Speaker 2: to be there. That firstly shapes whether we speak or
Speaker 2: whether we hold back and tell ourselves our idea is
Speaker 2: dumb and we have nothing valuable to say. But it
Speaker 2: also shapes if we do choose to speak. It shapes
Speaker 2: how we speak the words that we choose, the tone
Speaker 2: that we have, the way that we are conveying the message,
Speaker 2: and then that influences how people perceive us. And that's
Speaker 2: why when you strip it all back, you can learn
Speaker 2: the tools and the techniques, But if you don't fundamentally
Speaker 2: believe in yourself and trust that you deserve to be there,
Speaker 2: in your values or your message has value, you're not
Speaker 2: going to be able to convey it. And that's why
Speaker 2: when we talk about communication, Yes, there is the part
Speaker 2: people see, but then there's everything that's going on inside,
Speaker 2: and we have to get these two right otherwise nothing works.
Speaker 1: Can we fake it? I mean, let's say we don't
Speaker 1: feel like we deserve to be there, or we lack
Speaker 1: a bit of confidence, but we we've performed so often
Speaker 1: so for so long that we can fake our way
Speaker 1: through it.
Speaker 2: If you trust yourself, okay, to be out of it,
Speaker 2: to be able to fake it, okay. So let me
Speaker 2: ask you this, Mike, what would you say is the opposite.
Speaker 1: Of self doubt self confidence? Confidence?
Speaker 2: This is what we find when we ask people on
Speaker 2: the street, when we run our workshops or audiences. Ninety
Speaker 2: five percent of them will say confidence, and they are
Speaker 2: confident in that response when we look at the data,
Speaker 2: when we really interrogate what this feeling of confidence is,
Speaker 2: it's a feeling of readiness and certainty. So people think
Speaker 2: then that they must feel ready and certain before they
Speaker 2: do something, because that's what it means to be confident,
Speaker 2: and I have to be confident first. But when we
Speaker 2: strip it away, that feeling of readiness and real confidence
Speaker 2: comes after you've done the thing, not before it. It's
Speaker 2: called self efficacy. When you do the thing, your brain
Speaker 2: gets evidence that I can do this thing, affirmation, affirmation,
Speaker 2: and then you have the proof and that builds your
Speaker 2: self efficacy, which makes you more likely to want to
Speaker 2: do it again. That's how you build true, lasting confidence.
Speaker 2: But if confidence comes after, something else needs to come first,
Speaker 2: and it's actually self trust. It's trusting that you have
Speaker 2: the worthiness, the capability, you can handle what comes your way,
Speaker 2: you can manage the emotions that are going to come
Speaker 2: with it. And it's also acknowledging that there's a lot
Speaker 2: of uncertainty. We don't know how things will go, we
Speaker 2: don't know how we'll be perceived or how the message
Speaker 2: will land. But if you trust yourself first, you will
Speaker 2: do the thing. You will speak up, you will fake
Speaker 2: your way into it, which then gives you the proof point,
Speaker 2: Hey I.
Speaker 1: Did it, so it's insertain you. So the proof point
Speaker 1: is happening as you're speaking.
Speaker 2: Exactly exactly, So as you're speaking, that's your proof point.
Speaker 2: That's your brain's evidence of, hey, I felt uncertain, I
Speaker 2: did it. Anyway, I can do it again. And then
Speaker 2: that becomes this self perpetuating repeating cycle.
Speaker 1: What about feedback loops in terms of people's responses. So
Speaker 1: let's say I'm in a room with ten of you,
Speaker 1: and if and I'm feeling like a little a little
Speaker 1: behind the april, I'm not sure if I'm equivalent to you,
Speaker 1: all of you, and then something comes up and is
Speaker 1: my time to respond or interact and do am? I sure?
Speaker 1: I'd be looking around the room, seeing what people are
Speaker 1: thinking about what I'm saying, or should not give a
Speaker 1: stuff about it, and maybe look past them.
Speaker 2: It depends where you are on your self trust journey.
Speaker 2: If you're struggling with self trust, it means that you're
Speaker 2: going to be outsourcing your worth, so how people respond
Speaker 2: to you. If you struggle with self trust, you outsource
Speaker 2: your worth, So your value is determined by how people respond,
Speaker 2: which also makes you a people pleaser. It makes you
Speaker 2: more likely to say yes when you really want to
Speaker 2: say no. And so what you'll be doing is gauging
Speaker 2: how you're going based on whether other people are responding well.
Speaker 2: And then if someone looks at their phone or someone
Speaker 2: looks like they're not interested, you will internalize that. Take
Speaker 2: that personally, and it'll throw you off your game. So,
Speaker 2: if you know that you're struggling with self trust, look
Speaker 2: past the people, look at their eyebrows, look somewhere else.
Speaker 2: That at least gives you the proof point of hey,
Speaker 2: I can this. I'm getting the evidence. I'm building my
Speaker 2: self efficacy, I'm building the confidence as you go on
Speaker 2: that journey and you become more confident. Then the highest
Speaker 2: performing communicators, those with the greatest skill, they're constantly reading
Speaker 2: their audience. They know that if they go in there
Speaker 2: and they're trying a message and they see, you know what,
Speaker 2: this is not landing. They pivot there and then they
Speaker 2: ask a question, they take a break, they tell someone,
Speaker 2: they make a joke that you know, when we look
Speaker 2: at communicators on stages, keynote speakers, the most charismatic people
Speaker 2: they're in conversation with their audience, even if they're the
Speaker 2: only one speaking, and it's because they have built so
Speaker 2: much self trust, which has earned confidence as well, because
Speaker 2: they've done it so many times where they can have
Speaker 2: that back and forth.
Speaker 1: Is there an arrogance in self trust?
Speaker 2: There is a risk arrogance, There is a risk. So, okay,
Speaker 2: can we let's deep dive into self trust because this
Speaker 2: is the essence of my work, my research. Have just
Speaker 2: finished a pH d in this area. Self trust sounds
Speaker 2: very fluffy. We know it's the opposite of self doubt.
Speaker 2: But when we drill down, there are four drivers of
Speaker 2: self trust, which means there are four drivers that give
Speaker 2: you a kind of protection against self doubt. The first
Speaker 2: one is self acceptance. Do you fundamentally accept yourself? If
Speaker 2: you do, then you feel like you're enough?
Speaker 1: Do I say, am I being truthful? Am I being honest?
Speaker 1: To have I done the work in relation to the
Speaker 1: subject matter topic? But what are the variables?
Speaker 2: The specifics here? There are four weight well, so let's
Speaker 2: look at how it shows up when you don't have it,
Speaker 2: because that'll help us understand what it really means. The
Speaker 2: first one is the pressure to prove. You don't feel
Speaker 2: like you're enough, so you feel like you have to
Speaker 2: prove yourself through achievement, through setting a goal and reaching
Speaker 2: the goal, and through being better than everyone else, and
Speaker 2: you get there. A lot of people do get there,
Speaker 2: but then they don't feel the satisfaction that's supposed to
Speaker 2: come with it, so then they set the next goal
Speaker 2: and the next goal. A lot of highly driven entrepreneurs
Speaker 2: find themselves in this space.
Speaker 1: They from imposter syndrome completely completely.
Speaker 2: So that's our first pillar there. The second way this
Speaker 2: shows up is the likability trap because you don't likability trap, yes,
Speaker 2: the likability trap, because you don't feel like you're enough.
Speaker 2: You want other people to like you because if they
Speaker 2: like you, then you can like yourself. So this is
Speaker 2: that people please be territory. You're going above and beyond
Speaker 2: for everybody because then again, if they validate you, you
Speaker 2: feel a little better about yourself. But you end up
Speaker 2: sacrificing what you want to need. You end up exhausted
Speaker 2: and you're not really addressing the real root of that.
Speaker 1: You're un efficient too, yes, completely.
Speaker 2: Third is the shrinking syndrome. Shrinking syndrome, So this is
Speaker 2: where you have someone who struggles with the self acceptance
Speaker 2: piece to such an extent that if an amazing opportunity
Speaker 2: comes their way, they make an excuse, I'm not ready,
Speaker 2: it's not the right time, because they're worried that if
Speaker 2: they say yes and it doesn't work out or they fail,
Speaker 2: then they will take that personally and they'll see it
Speaker 2: as evidence that I am a failure. It will confirm
Speaker 2: the deep belief that I already have that I'm not enough,
Speaker 2: So they make excuses. And then the fourth one is
Speaker 2: really interesting. It's called the Chaudon Floyda cycle. It's a
Speaker 2: German term, and this is where you find pleasure in
Speaker 2: other people's failures. So you enjoy hearing stories of how
Speaker 2: other people have messed up because it makes you feel
Speaker 2: a little bit better about yourself. Because if you don't
Speaker 2: accept yourself, you want to see others fail too. So
Speaker 2: this is what drives a lot of bullying behavior. It's
Speaker 2: what drives a lot of click baity headlines. A lot
Speaker 2: of people who consume clickbaity headlines struggle with self acceptance.
Speaker 2: It's a way of distracting themselves from what's going on
Speaker 2: for them. So you can see how if you have
Speaker 2: any of these things. If you don't feel like you're enough,
Speaker 2: you're going to doubt whether your voice is worth listening to,
Speaker 2: whether you have anything valuable to share. It's even going
Speaker 2: to affect how you share what you want to share.
Speaker 2: You might hesitate, you might use a lot of softeners,
Speaker 2: like this might be a dumb idea. I heard them,
Speaker 2: I haven't really thought this through. You're discounting yourself before
Speaker 2: you've said anything.
Speaker 1: Weople say that, and I've heard people say.
Speaker 2: And a lot of the time when it's repeated and chronic,
Speaker 2: it's because of a lack of self acceptance. We hear
Speaker 2: a lot of just oh, I just want to check in,
Speaker 2: just asking, just want to see not helpful at all.
Speaker 2: So we see a lot of these common patterns when
Speaker 2: it comes to a lack of acceptance. That's the first
Speaker 2: driver of self doubt, a lack of acceptance. The second
Speaker 2: one is what we call agency, which is really simple.
Speaker 2: It's just can I do this thing? Do I believe
Speaker 2: that I have the skills, the resources, the talent to learn.
Speaker 2: Can I do it? So the psychology term is self efficacy,
Speaker 2: that internal belief that yes, I've got this or I'll
Speaker 2: figure it out, even if I don't have the skills, now,
Speaker 2: I'll figure it out. That's our second one. This is
Speaker 2: where imposter syndrome comes in, feeling like you're not deserving
Speaker 2: to be where you are. So you've achieved some things
Speaker 2: in the past, and yet you feel like you really
Speaker 2: don't deserve the success you've had, and you're worried that
Speaker 2: at any point someone will discover that you don't belong
Speaker 2: there and you'll be found out as the fraud that
Speaker 2: you are. So you either overcompensate and do everything for
Speaker 2: everybody and take on more and feel like you must
Speaker 2: keep pushing, or you just don't even try, because if
Speaker 2: you don't try, you can't fail. People can't discover that
Speaker 2: you don't deserve to be there. We also see a
Speaker 2: lot of comparison, constantly comparing yourself to everyone who's ahead
Speaker 2: of you, and then again finding excuses as to why
Speaker 2: you'll never be as good as them, you'll never be
Speaker 2: as successful as them. Everyone is further ahead. I can't
Speaker 2: do it. And there's another one here. It's the I'm
Speaker 2: going to wait until I'm ready, excuse I'm already yet,
Speaker 2: I'm not ready yet. Oh it's the worst, and it
Speaker 2: destroys people's chances of success and their chances of getting
Speaker 2: better because you're making up an excuse of oh no,
Speaker 2: I will know when I feel ready. And so you
Speaker 2: keep doing the research and the preparation and you keep
Speaker 2: talking to people and you never jump. And I love, actually, Mark,
Speaker 2: I love the way that you talk about a lot
Speaker 2: of the areas of self doubt and self trust because
Speaker 2: it's so pragmatic. It's so pragmatic, and you've very much
Speaker 2: lived your life believing that Okay, yeah, you might have
Speaker 2: self doubt, but just do the thing anyway, validate yourself,
Speaker 2: don't wait for other people, just try because that is
Speaker 2: how you learn. And you will never succeed unless you try.
Speaker 2: And so this is much, very much part of your message,
Speaker 2: which is brilliant because it aligns so beautifully with what
Speaker 2: the research is telling us. So they're our first two
Speaker 2: drivers of self doubt, right, lack of acceptance lack of agency.
Speaker 2: The third one is really interesting.
Speaker 1: So Mark, and anyone, of course, the agency, do you
Speaker 1: have to purposely give yourself the agency. You have to
Speaker 1: say I'm going to give myself the agency on this
Speaker 1: and just on lack of acceptance self acceptance, do you
Speaker 1: have to. I mean, these are issues, problems, but I
Speaker 1: presume the solutions are Mark except who you are, maybe
Speaker 1: even write it out, except who you are says self acceptances.
Speaker 1: That's the deal, and Mark You've got to take agency.
Speaker 1: You've got to control it yourself. Is that what you
Speaker 1: would say to those first two?
Speaker 2: Yes?
Speaker 1: Is that the way around it? Yeah?
Speaker 2: I mean at a high level, absolutely, you know, like
Speaker 2: except who you are, give yourself the agency. But then
Speaker 2: the question is what does that even mean? What does
Speaker 2: that mean? Like that, it's complicated, it's complicated, and of
Speaker 2: course that's why we wrote the book to go into
Speaker 2: much more detail with all of the different tools.
Speaker 1: That's a big trust, big trust.
Speaker 2: So it's the ultimate state of self trust. You don't
Speaker 2: need to eliminate the doubt, you don't need to feel ready.
Speaker 2: You just build big trust with these four attributes and
Speaker 2: it allows you to move forward.
Speaker 1: So let's get what's a third one?
Speaker 2: Well, let me give you something. We're doing it all right.
Speaker 2: So if you've noticed that you do struggle with self acceptance,
Speaker 2: which is very common with anyone starting anything new, very common. Okay,
Speaker 2: so this one shows up a lot with people who
Speaker 2: are succeeding, because what happens is every time you succeed,
Speaker 2: your circle changes. And what I mean by that is.
Speaker 1: Of people of people.
Speaker 2: Your circle of people and the people you associate with changes.
Speaker 2: So you've achieved an amazing business success, suddenly you're now
Speaker 2: rubbing shoulders with other people at that level. You are
Speaker 2: now the least experienced person in that room. It's very
Speaker 2: easy to start to think, I don't deserve to be here.
Speaker 2: I don't know as much of these people, and you
Speaker 2: feel uncomfortable. And then again the next success comes and
Speaker 2: it just keeps coming and coming, and so we find
Speaker 2: this doesn't really ever go away. You just have to
Speaker 2: learn to get better at dealing with the feelings.
Speaker 1: So when you say feelings, how important is measurement in
Speaker 1: that category? So you know, because I've heard people say
Speaker 1: this who run startups suit and they do well here
Speaker 1: and strain they go to San Francisco and they say,
Speaker 1: oh my god, I just don't feel like I've done
Speaker 1: anything compared to the people I'm sitting here, because you know,
Speaker 1: I made ten million in Australia, but they made one
Speaker 1: hundred million Australian, they're only twenty five whatever. That type
Speaker 1: of stuff is measurement? Is it dangerous? Measurement?
Speaker 2: Measurement is helpful objectively from a business perspective, completely unhelpful
Speaker 2: from an individual perspective. How you feel about yourself right,
Speaker 2: Because if your sense of value as a person is
Speaker 2: entirely dependent on measurement, it means that the moment you
Speaker 2: keep finding someone doing better than which it's inevitable, you're
Speaker 2: going to keep feeling worse about yourself. So you need
Speaker 2: to find a way to anchor your self acceptance to
Speaker 2: something unrelated to your business success and unrelated to measurement,
Speaker 2: unrelated to measurement. Measurement is needed for business growth, not
Speaker 2: for our own worth.
Speaker 1: A lot of those people I know, they talk about
Speaker 1: how much is he worth? Oh yeah, yeah yeah. And
Speaker 1: media does that too. I mean, the media has that
Speaker 1: stuff all the time because the media is in in
Speaker 1: numbers and sort of yeah, numbers, that's sort of contrue.
Speaker 1: I think they can contribute to people's sense of self
Speaker 1: worth completely.
Speaker 2: I think we need to print on mugs and t
Speaker 2: shirts that your self worth is not your net worth,
Speaker 2: and your net worth is not your self worth.
Speaker 1: That's a good point. That's a very good point. I
Speaker 1: wish people would put that t shirts.
Speaker 2: I completely agree. He changed, you know, screen phone.
Speaker 1: On your mirror when you get up them.
Speaker 2: Yeah, everywhere. It's okay to have net worth as something
Speaker 2: that you're aspiring towards, something you're building towards. It should
Speaker 2: not have a bearing on how you feel about yourself.
Speaker 2: That doesn't mean you lose your drive and your passion
Speaker 2: to excel and be the best at what you want
Speaker 2: to do, but it just doesn't have a bearing on
Speaker 2: you as a human as so.
Speaker 1: But if so, if I'm trying to work out my
Speaker 1: self worth, and if I immediately discount net worth, which is fine.
Speaker 2: What's left?
Speaker 1: What am I looking at? Things that are that I'm
Speaker 1: doing or thinking about that are worthy of humankind? I mean,
Speaker 1: is that what I'm thinking of? Is it? Like? Is
Speaker 1: my do I am I thinking about my social enterprise
Speaker 1: relative to say, my business? If I'm out there pitching
Speaker 1: my business to people, or if I'm sitting in a boardroom,
Speaker 1: or if I'm sitting in a management meeting, or I'm
Speaker 1: sitting with my one staff member or whoever it is.
Speaker 1: If I don't want to think that way, what do
Speaker 1: I think about to sort of help me with my self?
Speaker 1: Worth calculation.
Speaker 2: One way to think about it when we look at
Speaker 2: the literature is the impact in the various areas of
Speaker 2: your life. Which could be being the best father you
Speaker 2: can be. It could be being the best friend you
Speaker 2: can be, the best neighbor you can be. It could
Speaker 2: be being the best parent or sorry, best you know
Speaker 2: son or daughter for your parents. It's going to look
Speaker 2: different for everybody. It might be having an impact in
Speaker 2: the environment. There's something called self forgetting in the literature.
Speaker 2: What happens when we have a lot of self doubt
Speaker 2: is that we've become very internal looking.
Speaker 1: Okay.
Speaker 2: Think about the brain as being like a giant flashlight okay,
Speaker 2: or a torch. Let's keep it simple. It's a torch,
Speaker 2: and attention is where that torch is pointing. When you
Speaker 2: struggle with self doubt, that torch is pointing inwards. I'm
Speaker 2: not enough, I can't do this. They're ahead of me.
Speaker 2: I don't belong. When attention is pointing inwards, we are
Speaker 2: less able to actually focus on the world around us,
Speaker 2: the people around us.
Speaker 1: Perspective is gone.
Speaker 2: Perspective is gone. We have the choice to shift that
Speaker 2: flashlight outwards, that torch outwards onto the people around us,
Speaker 2: the environment, the community. And when we do that consciously
Speaker 2: shifting our attention. So instead of how am I coming across,
Speaker 2: it's how can I add value to this person? How
Speaker 2: can I make this barista smile? How can I do something.
Speaker 1: That's barista.
Speaker 2: Bistersta, not that one, make the b guy making my coffee.
Speaker 2: Little things that we can do. It just gets you
Speaker 2: out of your own head. And what's beautiful is when
Speaker 2: we look at a lot of the research, it has
Speaker 2: this shrinking effect on our ego. It has this shrinking
Speaker 2: effect where we start thinking less about us and more
Speaker 2: about other people. One really valuable tool that you can
Speaker 2: use is role identification. What does that mean when you
Speaker 2: struggle with acceptance and have a lot of self doubt.
Speaker 2: You identify with your job, that is what you do.
Speaker 2: You identify with your business, with your net worth.
Speaker 1: For example, I'm the mortgage guy. Yeah if I say that.
Speaker 1: If I say that, or I'm worth layah. You know, like,
Speaker 1: which is the danger of all these you know, these
Speaker 1: publications that publish you know, the riches people, top ten,
Speaker 1: top fivepop whatever, I mean, I just think they're just
Speaker 1: such a nonsense. Yeah. So, by the way, so do
Speaker 1: most of the people in there. How do we sort
Speaker 1: of turn that volume up? And when that volume goes up,
Speaker 1: what goes down in our own head? How do we
Speaker 1: manage that process in terms of the self worth bit
Speaker 1: and best is actually best or the best I can be? Yeah,
Speaker 1: nicely said?
Speaker 2: Okay, two elements I want to share here. The first
Speaker 2: one is something that I've seen shared and circulated around
Speaker 2: a lot, and I love it. It said, you know,
Speaker 2: if there's one day and you only had forty percent
Speaker 2: to give, and you gave forty percent, then that was
Speaker 2: your one hundred percent that day, that's it, and I
Speaker 2: love it. We only have you know, we are a
Speaker 2: finite capacity. We cannot push all the time. Our brain
Speaker 2: has a finite capacity, our body has a finite capacity.
Speaker 2: You give what you can. The second piece, though, is
Speaker 2: also to ask yourself at the end of every day, Okay,
Speaker 2: what worked? What was good? What am I happy with?
Speaker 2: And what am I going to try and do better tomorrow?
Speaker 1: I mean, like bank the winds, Bank.
Speaker 2: The winds, from a personal perspective, what worked? And even
Speaker 2: if you have no wins, that's okay? Okay, Well, how
Speaker 2: am I going to be better tomorrow?
Speaker 1: I don't believe it's always a win. Some response.
Speaker 2: I agree. I completely agree. I woke up this morning. Yeah,
Speaker 2: I'm not dead, I'm healthy, my family's healthy. It's always
Speaker 2: a win. And that trains again this idea of the
Speaker 2: flashlight that trains attention towards gratitude, right, because I think
Speaker 2: people have gratitude wrong. I mean, it's it's this beautiful,
Speaker 2: intangible thing, but really it's also attention training. There's this
Speaker 2: other beautiful quote that said, the number of beautiful things
Speaker 2: in your life entirely depends on your capacity to see them.
Speaker 2: So if you if you are training yourself to notice
Speaker 2: beautiful things in your life, you will notice so many
Speaker 2: beautiful things in your life. If you're not able to
Speaker 2: notice them, you will have none.
Speaker 1: That's an important point. Training yourself though completely, you've got
Speaker 1: to to Somebody said sometimes we've got to rewire as well.
Speaker 1: But you've got to keep training. We're trying to go
Speaker 1: go to the gym and training. We're very careful about
Speaker 1: what we eat. We've got to train ourselves to think
Speaker 1: the right way.
Speaker 2: Yes, And that's why I love a lot of the
Speaker 2: research that's gone into this book. A lot of my
Speaker 2: work is recognizing that beliefs are developed through repeated exposure.
Speaker 2: They can be changed through training. Attention can be trained,
Speaker 2: self doubt can be trained out of us, and big
Speaker 2: trust can be something we train. Now, I want to
Speaker 2: quickly share two other hips.
Speaker 1: I want to know what big trust is.
Speaker 2: We'll get there. I want to just quickly share two
Speaker 2: other tips in this space before we move to.
Speaker 1: So we've hit we've gone to two specces.
Speaker 2: We've done to four. There's four before we get to
Speaker 2: the final two. Two other very quick tools for if
Speaker 2: you struggle with either of the acceptance or the agency
Speaker 2: for acceptance. Get a hobby. Get a hobby. Exactly what
Speaker 2: does that mean anything? So studies have been done and
Speaker 2: they found that people that have hobbies have higher self
Speaker 2: acceptance and people with higher self acceptance. No, it's causative.
Speaker 2: So they've done longitudinal studies. And the reason why this
Speaker 2: is is because when you identify yourself as your job,
Speaker 2: as your business, as your net worth, you don't really
Speaker 2: make time for anything else. And it's called cognitive fusion.
Speaker 2: Your identity becomes what you do. And that's so dangerous
Speaker 2: because the track and I think anyone who has done
Speaker 2: anything in the realm of business has experienced that, and
Speaker 2: it can be damaging because it leads you to sacrifice
Speaker 2: pieces of yourself, sacrifice things that are important to you
Speaker 2: because that is your identity. What the research has also
Speaker 2: shown is as a study with Nobel Prize winning scientists
Speaker 2: and they found that those who win the prize are
Speaker 2: three times more likely than other scientists to have a
Speaker 2: hobby and twenty two times more likely to have a
Speaker 2: creative hobby something fun, artistic, creative, that doesn't have measurement.
Speaker 2: It's just something that they do as an outlet. Because
Speaker 2: when we look at what it does to the brain,
Speaker 2: hobbies also allow us to make different connections and to
Speaker 2: use different prizes neural connections, and then when you're not
Speaker 2: actively thinking about your business or the problems that need
Speaker 2: to be solved, it activates what's called the default network
Speaker 2: in the brain. And when you're doing something else that
Speaker 2: is a creative hobby, I mean it could even be
Speaker 2: a golf something active your brain, then default network is
Speaker 2: plugging away at these problems. And that's often why some
Speaker 2: of your greatest ideas come when you're emptying the dishwasher,
Speaker 2: in the shower, on a walk. It's because you're not
Speaker 2: actively focusing on it. So these Nobel Prize winning scientists
Speaker 2: recognized that when they're doing something unrelated to their scientific endeavors,
Speaker 2: it helps them with those scientific endeavors. Also, if they
Speaker 2: have a bad day in their research lab, they get
Speaker 2: to go and do something fun and remind themselves that
Speaker 2: their entire identity is not just the output of their
Speaker 2: statistical analysis.
Speaker 1: A daily practice, it can be anything.
Speaker 2: We encourage people to do what's called the daily dabble
Speaker 2: ten minutes a day of something low, especially if you
Speaker 2: know the idea of a hobby is a bit much
Speaker 2: for you. Just ten minutes a day doing something fun
Speaker 2: for you, doodling in a book, baking something I don't know,
Speaker 2: picking up a guitar. Just ten minutes a day to
Speaker 2: start to train the habit of hey, I can do this,
Speaker 2: I can do something.
Speaker 1: Are you justing a creative hobby?
Speaker 2: Ideally yes, but it can be anything to start to train,
Speaker 2: because there's going to be a part of you that
Speaker 2: thinks I'm wasting time. It can be learned a language.
Speaker 2: In fact, that's great for your brain, and it also
Speaker 2: means you can go to the country and use the language.
Speaker 1: Learn language, learn an instrument, yeah, maybe play golf whatever.
Speaker 1: It is a quick think. You don't think worse. But
Speaker 1: do you, as you say, Bak, just do something outside
Speaker 1: of your normal realm? Yes, and I think podcasts will
Speaker 1: because would podcasts listening to podcasts form part of maybe
Speaker 1: having a hobby, like I mean, or listening to things
Speaker 1: where there's learning involved or education involved.
Speaker 2: I would say, so long as you're actually doing something
Speaker 2: with the learning, because what we find is a lot
Speaker 2: of people will listen to podcasts because they get a
Speaker 2: kick out of feeling like they're learning and developing themselves.
Speaker 2: But it becomes a bit of an addiction and dopamine hit. Okay,
Speaker 2: once done, what's next. They don't actually take the time
Speaker 2: to implement what they're learning, which then just becomes a
Speaker 2: giant waste of time. It's called a productivity orientation where
Speaker 2: you feel like you need to be optimizing every single
Speaker 2: minute of every day, so you have an hour spare.
Speaker 2: Oh no, I'm not going to go pick up the guitar.
Speaker 2: I'm going to go listen to a podcast while I'm
Speaker 2: on the treadmill.
Speaker 1: I'm with the gimhead, you know, which is okay?
Speaker 2: I mean, at least you're getting pysical activity. But think about, Okay,
Speaker 2: if I've just listened to a podcast, let me take
Speaker 2: five and it's at the end of it, what are
Speaker 2: three things that really stood out to me? And what
Speaker 2: is the one thing I'm going to implement to make
Speaker 2: it count so that it's not just endless consumption, because
Speaker 2: that endless consumption can also undermine your agency because you
Speaker 2: start to think, gosh, there's so much I don't know yet,
Speaker 2: I need to keep researching and learning. You know what's
Speaker 2: really interesting, Mark studies have been down that show that
Speaker 2: the less someone knows about something, the more confident they feel.
Speaker 2: The more confident they.
Speaker 1: Feel bullshit baffles Brian's.
Speaker 2: Totally and I'm sure we've met people like this little
Speaker 2: and they have so much conviction. People who genuinely understand
Speaker 2: an area realize how much more there is to exactly
Speaker 2: And what can happen is I can undermine your self
Speaker 2: trust because you think, gosh, there's so much more I
Speaker 2: have to learn. I'm not going to go yet, I'm
Speaker 2: not ready. I need to research more. And so what
Speaker 2: you need to think is embrace the arrogance that comes
Speaker 2: from not knowing much. And even if you realize there's
Speaker 2: so much more. How do you get a proof point early?
Speaker 2: How do you take the step, try the thing, say
Speaker 2: that whatever you want to say in the meeting, meet
Speaker 2: the person, schedule the pitch, just do the thing, low
Speaker 2: stakes to get that evidence poise of Hey, I can
Speaker 2: show up in uncertainty, and even if it doesn't work out,
Speaker 2: I'm going to focus on what I can learn from
Speaker 2: that and then apply it in future. So we had
Speaker 2: a student who once said that he was doing painting right.
Speaker 2: He'd return to painting as his hobby, and he used
Speaker 2: to do it with art art, Yes, and he used
Speaker 2: to do it when he was younger. But he said
Speaker 2: when he came back to do it, he was really
Speaker 2: high achieving in the corporate world. He said, when he
Speaker 2: came back to paint, he was putting so much pressure
Speaker 2: on himself to paint something beautiful that he wasn't enjoying it.
Speaker 2: And I said, you need a different hobby. The moment
Speaker 2: the hobby starts becoming pressure, do something else. It's not
Speaker 2: working for you right now, So you might have to
Speaker 2: cycle through a few different things. What's really valuable to
Speaker 2: do as well is assess how you feel before you
Speaker 2: do the thing. Assess how you feel during it. Just
Speaker 2: ask yourself how energized do I feel? Outified?
Speaker 1: When you say feel, you mean, what's my nagery level.
Speaker 2: Energy level exactly, And then assess yourself after you do
Speaker 2: the thing, because sometimes we well not sometimes we're terrible
Speaker 2: at really assessing what's going on inside of us. Because
Speaker 2: high performing people are very good at pushing it away
Speaker 2: and just getting the job done. There's so much value
Speaker 2: in slowing down a little and asking what is really
Speaker 2: going on internally? Be scary, it's scary, it's vulnerable, it's
Speaker 2: a bit fluffy for many people. But studies show in neuroscience,
Speaker 2: in behavioral science, in cognitive science, that the better you
Speaker 2: get at tuning into what you feel, the better able
Speaker 2: you are to manage the challenging emotions.
Speaker 1: Then on that point, can I then go and talk
Speaker 1: about you would mind talking about when you say, stopping
Speaker 1: for the moment and feeling a certain way? What about meditations?
Speaker 1: Where does that fit into all this?
Speaker 2: Meditation and mindfulness are phenomenal tools which essentially, if you
Speaker 2: think about it this way, self doubt is the result
Speaker 2: of thoughts that we have that are reflecting beliefs that
Speaker 2: we have. Meditation and mindfulness create a barrier between the
Speaker 2: thought and ourselves, and so it creates separation between whatever
Speaker 2: is going on up here. You're not good enough, you
Speaker 2: haven't done enough. Everyone is ahead of you, you're a pathetic.
Speaker 2: It just creates this boundary. And what it allows you
Speaker 2: to do more so is recognize that these thoughts are
Speaker 2: like clouds in a sky. They're going to come, they're
Speaker 2: going to go, but beyond them is always the sky.
Speaker 2: That's who I am. I need to learn to acknowledge
Speaker 2: that that is who I am. Again, the clouds are
Speaker 2: not me. They're transient. They come, they go. Depend Yes,
Speaker 2: that doesn't mean that we can't do anything about them.
Speaker 2: We can harness them, which actually gets into pillar number four,
Speaker 2: the fourth attribute. So why don't we jump into the
Speaker 2: third attribute? Oh well, I wanted to share one super
Speaker 2: quick tool for anyone struggling with I gave one which
Speaker 2: was hobbies. I'll share this one quickly. I get so excited.
Speaker 2: There's so much to share. Okay, if you find yourself
Speaker 2: comparing to others, comparing itself is not a negative thing,
Speaker 2: but when it makes you feel inadequate, that's when it
Speaker 2: becomes a negative thing. So how do we make sure
Speaker 2: that it stays positive. Instead of comparison, shift to emulation.
Speaker 2: What does that mean? Wow, look at how far ahead
Speaker 2: that person is. How can I learn from their journey?
Speaker 2: What can I learn from what they've done to implement
Speaker 2: into how I do things into my business in my
Speaker 2: marketing strategy. That way, you're using it as a fuel
Speaker 2: to move forward and not something that keeps you stuck.
Speaker 1: What can I take from them? Exactly, it's not nearly.
Speaker 1: I put them in the position of and being the
Speaker 1: host of which I'm going to take something from them.
Speaker 2: That's that sounds a little dark, like a parasite.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well there's nothing wrong with But there's nothing wrong
Speaker 1: with a parasite, and a parasite just lives like everybody
Speaker 1: else has worked out a way surviving.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it can be symbiotic you can think of.
Speaker 1: But you're not going to give them any You're giving
Speaker 1: them a moment of appreciation. Yeah, appreciation here I looked
Speaker 1: at you, or you might give my like Kendrid you.
Speaker 1: But but you know, online is like if you're if
Speaker 1: you're a person who does this comparison things special on
Speaker 1: social media and or wherever, it might not even it
Speaker 1: just might be in a group and you're just thinkingness
Speaker 1: of bloody hell, they do so much better than me. Yes,
Speaker 1: I think of them as a host. Well, what can
Speaker 1: I get out of that? I don't mean this in
Speaker 1: a horrible way, but what can I get from Chade
Speaker 1: that she just told me that. I could either take
Speaker 1: it as a less she's so much better than me,
Speaker 1: or I can say I'll borrow that. Okay, we're not
Speaker 1: going to take it. We're going to borrow it.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Nice. I like that we're going to borrow it from her.
Speaker 1: I can see how it fits into my regime. I
Speaker 1: quite like that one. That one was a good one.
Speaker 2: I like it's simple, it's tangible. It means you don't
Speaker 2: have to stop the natural habit of our brain, which
Speaker 2: is comparing. You just channel it. Yeah, okay, let's move
Speaker 2: into the third and fourth attributes. Now, So we've had acceptance,
Speaker 2: which is when you feel like you're enough. We've have agency,
Speaker 2: when you believe that you can do the thing or
Speaker 2: you'll figure it out. The third one is really interesting.
Speaker 2: So Mark and anyone listening, have you ever come across
Speaker 2: someone who just constantly complains about everything. They are resentful,
Speaker 2: they're very frustrated. They tell you the same story of
Speaker 2: how they've been hurt in the past, how the business failed,
Speaker 2: how they were double crossed. And the first two or
Speaker 2: three times they tell you have genuine empathy for them.
Speaker 2: The twentieth or thirtieth time, maybe the first time, but
Speaker 2: the thirtieth time they're telling you you realize, Okay, you're
Speaker 2: keeping yourself.
Speaker 1: Stuck, and I have resentment for him. I said, don't
Speaker 1: talk to me.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you're sucking me into your negativity. They stay, right, Well,
Speaker 2: negativity is contagious. Complaining is contagious. The thing about complaining
Speaker 2: that we don't realize is that it keeps you reliving
Speaker 2: the same negative experience over and over in your brain
Speaker 2: in vivid detail, which then deepens the neural pathways, which
Speaker 2: makes future complaining more likely. And you become a negativity
Speaker 2: magnet for yourself or for yourself and for other people.
Speaker 1: So if someone says I want to find someone who's
Speaker 1: always constantly negative because they've got something negative, say, I'm
Speaker 1: going to go and talk to that person.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And they feed each other because when someone is
Speaker 2: sharing something negative or complaining and they get that, oh
Speaker 2: that's terrible, that's a social reward. Yeah, and it feels
Speaker 2: great because of what's happening in the brain, but it's
Speaker 2: not helpful because it keeps you stuck. Now, when we
Speaker 2: look at why people complain, it's generally because they feel
Speaker 2: powerless in a situation. There's nothing they could do. There's nothing. Well,
Speaker 2: they believe there's nothing they can do, because the brain
Speaker 2: likes the ability to predict things. It likes certainty, and
Speaker 2: it will simulate that by getting you to complain, to
Speaker 2: reinforce that there's nothing you can do, because that gives
Speaker 2: you a sense of certainty. But an actual fact, it
Speaker 2: blinds you from all the things that you could do. Yes, objectively,
Speaker 2: something terrible may have happened, but that doesn't mean that
Speaker 2: you become a prisoner to it. You know, there's this
Speaker 2: beautiful quote from Eckhart Toll is it Tolly or tat tat,
Speaker 2: and it says he says something like, when you're complaining,
Speaker 2: you literally only have three options, right. You can accept
Speaker 2: the situation, change the situation, or leave the situation. Anything
Speaker 2: else is total madness. And I love that because if
Speaker 2: you either accept it, you change it, or you leave it,
Speaker 2: Complaining doesn't help anybody. It doesn't help anybody you. So
Speaker 2: this is what we see in the third pillar, which
Speaker 2: is autonomy. When you don't feel like you have choices
Speaker 2: you can make, when you feel like you have no power,
Speaker 2: it's undermining your self trust and fueling yourself doubt because
Speaker 2: you feel like, as an individual, you are powerless to
Speaker 2: change your circumstances, and then you get stuck in these
Speaker 2: habits that keep you stuck. So that's autonomy. So really, simply,
Speaker 2: if someone is struggling here, which can happen if you
Speaker 2: face a number of challenging situations repeatedly, if your business
Speaker 2: is just not getting anywhere, rather than complaining, rather than oh,
Speaker 2: we see a lot of blame. It's your fault that
Speaker 2: this didn't happen. It's because of him, It's that I
Speaker 2: took your advice in it. It's terrible. You're outsourcing responsibility.
Speaker 2: So ask yourself in that moment. Actually, let me go back.
Speaker 2: What we hear a lot mark here is should I
Speaker 2: should have done that? I shouldn't have listened to that person. Now,
Speaker 2: if I were to say to you, Mark, you should
Speaker 2: say a little bit further back. When you hear the
Speaker 2: words should, does your body have an instant reaction what
Speaker 2: is that instant reaction?
Speaker 1: I am melily think, who are you to tell me?
Speaker 1: I'm merely think of what you're talking about? What am
Speaker 1: I doing wrong? Yeah, as you start, you actually can
Speaker 1: correct yourself because I do know that I do slump too.
Speaker 2: Oh it was that was just a little example. So
Speaker 2: but the idea with should is just we don't really
Speaker 2: like being told what we should do, and we resist it.
Speaker 2: Don't tell me what to do. I mean, in your case,
Speaker 2: you were so sweet, You're like, yeah, maybe I.
Speaker 1: Could say my posture is really important in this game.
Speaker 2: So yeah, we'll talk about posture in sec because it's
Speaker 2: such a good one. But when we use the language
Speaker 2: of should on ourselves, it's disempowering. Yeah I should have
Speaker 2: done that, I shouldn't have done that. It makes you
Speaker 2: feel like you made the wrong choice and you get
Speaker 2: full of regret. So what we from research there is
Speaker 2: one simple switch move from should to could. Okay, well
Speaker 2: I could do this, I could do this, I could
Speaker 2: do this, I could do this. We call it the
Speaker 2: I could list. When you feel like you have no power,
Speaker 2: it's because you're focusing on everything outside of your control,
Speaker 2: and that's going to make you feel powerless because you
Speaker 2: are powerless in that situation. Grab a piece of paper
Speaker 2: on the left side, so divide it into on the
Speaker 2: left side, in the left column, write down everything you
Speaker 2: could do in the moment. This forces you to focus
Speaker 2: on what is possible. You're taking your flashlight and focusing
Speaker 2: on options and potential solutions. You're not committing to anything,
Speaker 2: which is great because the brain might resist if you
Speaker 2: try and commit. You just write it down. This in
Speaker 2: itself reactivates your prefrontal cortex. You're shining the spotlight on solutions.
Speaker 2: Makes you feel empowered. Your next step is your I
Speaker 2: will list. Okay, so from everything you wrote down, what's
Speaker 2: one or two things that you're actually going to do.
Speaker 2: Just circle them from your list. And then the third
Speaker 2: step is instead of you know, okay, well I will
Speaker 2: call the inva and I will do this, you shift
Speaker 2: into what's called empowered language. Language has an incredible ability
Speaker 2: to change how we feel. So what does that mean?
Speaker 2: Instead of I will you say, I choose to I
Speaker 2: choose to call the investor at five pm today to
Speaker 2: give them the bad news. I choose to go to
Speaker 2: the gym at five am because of whatever. That in
Speaker 2: itself just shifting to choose or empowered language has been
Speaker 2: shown to increase self control, increase will power, and reduce
Speaker 2: temptation from distracting you just from our language choices. Wow,
Speaker 2: it's phenomenal.
Speaker 1: It's phenomenal. So I like to sort of using the
Speaker 1: word choose, that's.
Speaker 2: Choose, because it reminds you, no matter what is happening,
Speaker 2: you're choosing.
Speaker 1: Okay.
Speaker 2: So I once gave a keynote presentation. We work with
Speaker 2: companies around the world, Microsoft, Deloitte, Google, and I was
Speaker 2: speaking to Microsoft in India, actually their India campus in Hyderbad,
Speaker 2: and I was sharing this with the audience, the idea
Speaker 2: of choose, and someone raised their hands and said, yeah,
Speaker 2: but I don't choose to go to work every day.
Speaker 2: I have to go to work. And I said, how
Speaker 2: do you feel when you say I have to? And
Speaker 2: he said, well, it makes me feel really deflated. And
Speaker 2: he said, okay, So what would happen if you didn't
Speaker 2: come to work tomorrow? And he said, I'll probably get
Speaker 2: an email from my manager ask him where I am.
Speaker 2: And he said, what happens if you didn't go to
Speaker 2: work for the next week? He said, well, probably lose
Speaker 2: my job and he said, what would happen? Then he goes, well,
Speaker 2: and I wouldn't be able to pay my mortgage. I
Speaker 2: would this, that would happen, That would happen. I said, Okay,
Speaker 2: so you're actually choosing to go to work because of
Speaker 2: everything that it gives you. You are making that choice
Speaker 2: because you could choose not to come, but there are consequences.
Speaker 2: And in that moment, that moment of recognition for him
Speaker 2: was really powerful because he realized that he may feel
Speaker 2: like he has to go to work, but if you
Speaker 2: can frame it as no, I'm choosing to go to
Speaker 2: work because it allows me to provide for my family,
Speaker 2: to create the life that I want for myself, because
Speaker 2: the alternative is choosing not to go, and that's not
Speaker 2: a future that I want. And that in itself, just
Speaker 2: moving to empowered language of I'm choosing this changes so
Speaker 2: many things.
Speaker 1: It's so simple. I don't have to I choose to.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I choose to be here, I choose to have
Speaker 2: this conversation. I choose to spend time with my family.
Speaker 2: It just it really changes.
Speaker 1: To resent.
Speaker 2: Oh, it's the way like I have to call my mother, No,
Speaker 2: I choose to call my mother.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you know it's a pretty simple switcher.
Speaker 2: So simple. That's why I love looking at evidence based practices.
Speaker 2: What is working, and then we look at the simplest
Speaker 2: things to implement, because if we can start with the simple,
Speaker 2: then we can develop the habits and develop the attentional
Speaker 2: focus and then everything gets easier from there.
Speaker 1: And what's number four?
Speaker 2: Number four? So three was automy.
Speaker 1: By the way, these in any order, well.
Speaker 2: A lot of people ask that they're not necessarily in
Speaker 2: any order, but we do find that this process helps
Speaker 2: people develop what they need in order to move to
Speaker 2: the next stage. Because if let's say, if you don't
Speaker 2: fundamentally accept yourself, developing any of the other attributes is
Speaker 2: not going to help. So you need all you need all, okay,
Speaker 2: So when we get into the let me share the
Speaker 2: fourth and then i'll share how they work together. The
Speaker 2: fourth one is called adaptability, but it specifically relates to
Speaker 2: your ability to adapt to your emotional state. So it's
Speaker 2: how you handle stress, anxiety, overwhelm everything going on inside.
Speaker 2: And I mean, I probably don't need to go into
Speaker 2: a huge amount of detail here because it's very obvious
Speaker 2: for people. One of the greatest factors that undermines high
Speaker 2: performance and success is emotions, specifically stress, chronic stress, the
Speaker 2: physical damage that that does to you, the psychological damage
Speaker 2: that that does to you. And so we know that
Speaker 2: if you can get better at navigating that, everything else
Speaker 2: gets easier. So two simple tools here, one of them.
Speaker 2: A lot of people personalize a lot. We take on
Speaker 2: a lot. Someone says something and we have a very
Speaker 2: strong emotional reaction. Something happens and we have a very
Speaker 2: strong emotional reaction. I would like everyone to write this
Speaker 2: down or keep this front of mind. You say to
Speaker 2: yourself in the moment of the big emotional reaction, I
Speaker 2: don't have to make this mean so much. I don't
Speaker 2: have to make this mean so much. It is so simple.
Speaker 1: So I know it was a reject. Someone rejects a
Speaker 1: meeting with.
Speaker 2: You, Yeah, because what happens in that moment, I mean,
Speaker 2: what goes through your head mark If someone rejects a
Speaker 2: meeting with you and you struggle with.
Speaker 1: Self doubt, what happens People say, well, it wasn't good
Speaker 1: enough for the meeting completely. Yeah, that's reject They actually
Speaker 1: say that. Then then they affirm in their own mind
Speaker 1: that they're not good enough.
Speaker 2: Yeah, which reinforces a belief because that's where their flashlight
Speaker 2: is pointing the attention.
Speaker 1: And I often say yeah, you say, well, they're probably busy.
Speaker 1: They've got other stuff going on exactly.
Speaker 2: So when you say I don't have to make this
Speaker 2: mean so much, the next step is the word maybe,
Speaker 2: what does that look like? Okay? So maybe is that
Speaker 2: thought process of okay, let's come up with all the
Speaker 2: other reasons that this thing could have happened. Maybe they're busy,
Speaker 2: Maybe it wasn't a good time, Maybe my email wasn't
Speaker 2: written in a compelling way. And that separates yourself from
Speaker 2: the situation, and.
Speaker 1: It's just interested in the matter. There are many other
Speaker 1: things are doing.
Speaker 2: And you can do this all the time, like oh,
Speaker 2: I'm on the road and some idiot you know, cuts
Speaker 2: me off on the road instead of that full road
Speaker 2: rage about to take on. I don't have to make
Speaker 2: this mean so much. Maybe they're in a rush because
Speaker 2: they're busting to use the toilet. We've all been there.
Speaker 2: Maybe they're in a rush because they've just got a
Speaker 2: phone call from the hospital and their kids fallen out
Speaker 2: of a tree and broken their leg. Maybe their mum
Speaker 2: has had a fall. It just allows you perspective and
Speaker 2: instantly reminds you you're not the center of the universe,
Speaker 2: which is a really powerful reframe in the moment. Again,
Speaker 2: if you think about attention, you've gone attention on me.
Speaker 2: This all means something about me to know, actually there's
Speaker 2: other things going on here.
Speaker 1: Well, they're the one that did the event, so the
Speaker 1: chance you should be on them. So it is. But
Speaker 1: what you mean by adaptability, that's that the ability to
Speaker 1: be able to adapt to the situation, your feelings, the words.
Speaker 1: It wasn't about me, it's about that particular individual. But
Speaker 1: potentially it doesn't really it doesn't really mean what. It
Speaker 1: doesn't matter what the reason it.
Speaker 2: Doesn't know, It really doesn't just so long as you
Speaker 2: don't internalize it. Yeah, unless you know for a fact,
Speaker 2: unless they tell you, yeah, then in that case, okay,
Speaker 2: learn from that.
Speaker 1: Yeah. And if they tell you, look like just not
Speaker 1: interested because I just think you know, it's not up
Speaker 1: to my speed, not to my not available enough. Okay,
Speaker 1: Well I've done something wrong here, could do something better.
Speaker 1: Those four things that you cover those four things by
Speaker 1: chapters or something, yeah, parts by parts, and in terms
Speaker 1: of in terms of covering the issues off do you
Speaker 1: also give the tips and tricks.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so there's over thirty tips and tricks in here,
Speaker 2: science backed, research based tools.
Speaker 1: So I'm going to say they're all research based, your
Speaker 1: research and literature based. So you've done literature reviews on
Speaker 1: all this stuff. Is it party PhD?
Speaker 2: Yeah? It was.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so part of your sort of PhDs sort of
Speaker 1: been sort of novelized, so to speak. Put it into
Speaker 1: a book. That's what you've done. That's very clever. And
Speaker 1: can I just start a couple of couple of questions
Speaker 1: about because as you're speaking on thinking about things, yeah,
Speaker 1: people often ring me up and they say, you people
Speaker 1: I know because you know, I've been around a long time.
Speaker 1: And people think, oh, well, maybe the last mark something
Speaker 1: and they say to me, blah blah blah, what if
Speaker 1: this happens and that happens? And always my answer is anyway,
Speaker 1: And I don't know if it's right or wrong, but
Speaker 1: I take the view only play what's in front of you.
Speaker 1: Like I can't fight fifty fights at once, and particularly
Speaker 1: in the future, but I'll just fight what's in front
Speaker 1: of me if I've got to. If I don't mean physical,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean, Like, just deal with what's
Speaker 1: in front of me. How important is it for people
Speaker 1: just to learn how to deal what's just in front
Speaker 1: of them, as opposed to thinking about consequence after consequences
Speaker 1: of consequence. Because there's so many possibilities in the universe,
Speaker 1: it's infinite. Should you not worry about that sort of
Speaker 1: stuff and just play what's in front of you?
Speaker 2: I like that you've asked this question because there's two
Speaker 2: responses here. On the one hand, again going back to
Speaker 2: the analogy of attention and the brain being like a flashlight,
Speaker 2: if you take that flashlight from what's in front of
Speaker 2: you to everything else, you can create a lot of anxiety,
Speaker 2: unnecessary anxiety. So if you shift it to just the
Speaker 2: next step, it reduces the load in our brain, makes
Speaker 2: it much easier. That said, I want to share with
Speaker 2: you this really great story about Michael Phelps. So, Michael Phelps,
Speaker 2: the swimmer, one of the greatest. You're really good at
Speaker 2: doing that, like filling in little bees is very skilled.
Speaker 2: I noticed, so the swimmer, Michael Phelps, he's in the
Speaker 2: two thousand and eight Olympics for the finals of the butterfly.
Speaker 2: I have never been able to do the butterfly, so
Speaker 2: I have so much respect for anyone who can so
Speaker 2: as in the Olympics. Now, his coach used to say
Speaker 2: that Michael Phelps had this remarkable skill or talent of visualizing.
Speaker 2: He would visualize everything, but not visualizing success. I mean
Speaker 2: he'd do that too, but he really focused on visualizing
Speaker 2: everything that could go wrong. He would visualize his goggles snapping,
Speaker 2: slipping on the starting block, losing his rhythm mid race.
Speaker 2: He'd visualize all of these things and then visualize what
Speaker 2: he would do if they happened, so that he could
Speaker 2: ingrain it in his nervous system. Because his view was,
Speaker 2: if I can do that, then if it happens, I
Speaker 2: know exactly how to respond. I have my coping plan
Speaker 2: and I don't have to think about it improvement. I'm prepped.
Speaker 2: And that was a remarkably powerful tool in the two
Speaker 2: thousand and eight Olympics because what happened was he dove
Speaker 2: into the pool. Within about twenty five meters, his goggles
Speaker 2: filled up with water. He was swimming and he couldn't
Speaker 2: see a thing. But he didn't stress, he didn't get overwhelmed,
Speaker 2: he didn't start focusing on what the other competitors are doing.
Speaker 2: He just defaulted to his mental training because he'd already
Speaker 2: been there before in his mind. He ends up winning
Speaker 2: gold and breaking a world record. He swam blind for
Speaker 2: one hundred and seventy five meters out of a two
Speaker 2: hundred fly. He wins gold and breaks a world record
Speaker 2: purely been there before. Now, what is the insight we
Speaker 2: can take from this? It's called an implementation intension in
Speaker 2: the literature when we look at goal setting research. The
Speaker 2: idea is that if you can come up with an
Speaker 2: implementation plan, so if this happens, then I will for
Speaker 2: everything that could go wrong, I know what I'll do.
Speaker 2: And I always say that when it comes to high stakes.
Speaker 1: Moments, you write this stuff down.
Speaker 2: Totally. I am a big proponent of everything being written
Speaker 2: handwritten because we also know, again lots of research has
Speaker 2: been done. When you've got a physical pen, I mean
Speaker 2: it doesn't have to be physical pen. I think you
Speaker 2: can use like the style of the whatever, the movement
Speaker 2: of the hand because it activates different parts as opposed
Speaker 2: to typing or tapping on your phone. It activates different
Speaker 2: parts of your brain, helps you with emotional processing and
Speaker 2: helps with learning and retention. So I'm a big proponent
Speaker 2: of that. Go back to physically writing it down. So
Speaker 2: when it comes to a high stakes moment, like let's
Speaker 2: say someone's pitching for funding for their business. That's a
Speaker 2: high stakes moment. And if you only focus on what's
Speaker 2: ahead of you, which is I'm going to show up
Speaker 2: to the pitch and pitch, you might get stuck when
Speaker 2: your microphone stops working, or there's an issue with your slides,
Speaker 2: or you forget what you're about to say mid sentence.
Speaker 2: So if you can map out everything that could happen
Speaker 2: in that high stakes moment and what you will do. Okay,
Speaker 2: if my microphone stops working, I'm going to make a
Speaker 2: joke to the audience and then just take two minutes
Speaker 2: and go off and swap it. If I forget what
Speaker 2: I'm saying mid sentence, I have a question, I'll ask
Speaker 2: the audience so that I can go off and look
Speaker 2: at my notes. It just allows you to know what
Speaker 2: to do in those moments so that if they happen,
Speaker 2: you've been there before, You're not going to stress out.
Speaker 2: You can respond appropriately. Not only that, it boosts your agency.
Speaker 2: This is the second pillar, which is the I can
Speaker 2: do this.
Speaker 1: Because it's like experience. Having experienced every one of those
Speaker 1: things without having the experience exactly. So it's like you're
Speaker 1: prepared for the each other exactly.
Speaker 2: And from a brain perspective, you're desensitizing yourself to that
Speaker 2: experience because you've lived it before. You've got the evidence of, hey,
Speaker 2: I was able to survive this, even if it's only
Speaker 2: in your brain from visualization, because visualizing activates the same
Speaker 2: or similar part to the brain to actually physically doing
Speaker 2: the thing. So you are giving yourself mental reps, even
Speaker 2: if it's just in your head. So going back to
Speaker 2: your question, is it better to just focus on what's
Speaker 2: in front of you or think about everything that could
Speaker 2: go wrong? It depends on the situation. If it's a
Speaker 2: high stake situation, go through that process. I once shared
Speaker 2: this with a student of one of our programs and
Speaker 2: he said it gave me so much anxiety because I
Speaker 2: mapped out everything that could go wrong and suddenly I
Speaker 2: realized I'm not going to be able to do this.
Speaker 2: And I said, Okay, that's great, that's step one. But
Speaker 2: did you do step two?
Speaker 1: Yes?
Speaker 2: Would you write down the solutions? He goes, oh, whoops,
Speaker 2: completely forgot to do this.
Speaker 1: Say that's sort of more what I meant by it.
Speaker 1: You know, it's a funny story. I have a funny story.
Speaker 1: So many many years ago, a long time ago'd be
Speaker 1: twenty five years ago, Anthony Robbins asked me to do
Speaker 1: a speech at one of his functions in Sydney. I
Speaker 1: had never done a speech and there was like a
Speaker 1: thousand people there and was at the Casino in Sydney.
Speaker 1: And so what I did is I prepare the speech
Speaker 1: on a little Thursday's little palm card card. See you know,
Speaker 1: like I might have had twenty just so that like
Speaker 1: had a four or five bill of points on each
Speaker 1: page and they could hit him that palm my hand.
Speaker 1: And someone told me to do that. So I did that,
Speaker 1: and when I went out there on the stage. Before
Speaker 1: before I went out the stage, someone said to me.
Speaker 1: One of the stage manager goes, look all the people
Speaker 1: are pre sending up on the chairs because Tonly just
Speaker 1: walked off. We're all standing up in the chairs, are
Speaker 1: all chanting, and like it was like they were in
Speaker 1: some sort of hypnotic state. You know, they're doing something.
Speaker 1: He said, they won't stop unless when you get up there,
Speaker 1: you're going to go, WHOA. You got to do this
Speaker 1: with your arms and bring them down, and he said
Speaker 1: they'll all sit down. And that's like some hypnotic stept
Speaker 1: that he creates for because he hadn't there from six
Speaker 1: in the morning to eleven and night. Anyway, I'd never
Speaker 1: done any of those for I was quite young. I
Speaker 1: was like fortyth on me and I walked up with
Speaker 1: these things and I did that and all my cards
Speaker 1: went all over the stage, And that would have been
Speaker 1: a good opportunity. That's a Michaelhilps moment. That's when your
Speaker 1: goggles come off and you've got to still got one
Speaker 1: hundred and fifty meters to go, and maybe what you
Speaker 1: could what I could have done, is make a joke
Speaker 1: about it, you know, like, oh, there you go my
Speaker 1: notes and tend to walk off of something. You know
Speaker 1: what I'm saying that that would be and then then
Speaker 1: that would have sort of put me in a more
Speaker 1: relate say, yeah, I would have cool, especially if I'm
Speaker 1: gonna laugh from them, that would have been pretty fine. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's that's brilliant. So it's your book. So so I
Speaker 1: mean it's a tobey what do we get from anywhere?
Speaker 2: The books are sold?
Speaker 1: So it's called big trust. So You've got your four aspects,
Speaker 1: so that lands it's big trust that lands it trusting
Speaker 1: your trusting what.
Speaker 2: Trusting yourself yourself specifically your worthiness, your capability yep, your control,
Speaker 2: your ability to influence what you can control, and your
Speaker 2: ability to manage the emotions that you feel. Lining up
Speaker 2: with each of these four attributes. Now, what's really cool, Mark,
Speaker 2: is that this is not just like my ideas. These
Speaker 2: four the psychological drivers behind these four have been shown
Speaker 2: in decades worth of research. When they come together, I
Speaker 2: always see it like power rangers. When they come together,
Speaker 2: they predict your job performance, your career success, your satisfaction
Speaker 2: in your career, even how much money you make. And
Speaker 2: it's even been trying to influence your relationships. So if
Speaker 2: you have greater self trust, it impacts every single area
Speaker 2: of your life. And you can see why you're not
Speaker 2: stuck in your head so much. You're not stuck in
Speaker 2: the overthinking, you're actually living in your life rather than
Speaker 2: living in your head.
Speaker 1: It's interesting you use the word trust because it's sort
Speaker 1: of a bit of an elusive word as to what
Speaker 1: it means. We use it all the time, and one
Speaker 1: of the ways I sort of try to reconcile the
Speaker 1: word relative to for example, brands, building a brand, everyone
Speaker 1: goes I want to have a brand that's trusted, And
Speaker 1: I often say, for me, trust is about familiarity. So
Speaker 1: I trust what I'm most familiar with. So I trust
Speaker 1: my family because I raise them, I've been with them,
Speaker 1: I've seen how they're act on a certain circumstances ago.
Speaker 1: Four sons are all different, they'll react differently, but I
Speaker 1: know so I know what I'm going to get, So
Speaker 1: I'm familiar with the situation. Therefore I trust them. Where
Speaker 1: in terms of familiarity, where would that sit in your
Speaker 1: trust faces? So is it about being familiar with your responses?
Speaker 2: Is that what it is?
Speaker 1: Like I know what's potentially I know what's going to happen.
Speaker 2: It absolutely does. So what we mapped these four elements,
Speaker 2: they shape someone's doubt profile, which is almost like their
Speaker 2: psychological fingerprint for how dalt shows up. And once you
Speaker 2: understand your baseline and where you are, that gives you
Speaker 2: that level of familiarity because you know that in this
Speaker 2: particular situation, when I'm being asked a question on the
Speaker 2: spot and I'm in the middle of a meeting, a
Speaker 2: high stakes meeting. My acceptance is going to be speaking
Speaker 2: to me because it's low. It's going to say you
Speaker 2: don't even deserve to be here. My agency is going
Speaker 2: to be questioning you don't even have the skills to
Speaker 2: articulate what you want to order. So I know that
Speaker 2: that's my default response, which then means I know what
Speaker 2: I need to focus on as a solution. It's not
Speaker 2: just one big blob of solution. It's well, I need
Speaker 2: to develop my acceptance in that step space and strengthen
Speaker 2: my agency, so that idea of familiarity comes from self awareness.
Speaker 2: The problem with self doubt, which is why it's such
Speaker 2: a big problem today, is there are so many distractions
Speaker 2: that we have lost touch with ourselves because so many
Speaker 2: people are so stuck in the doing, even if the
Speaker 2: doing is spending an hour scrolling on social media, consuminguman consuming,
Speaker 2: not allowing ourselves to be with ourselves.
Speaker 1: Have a moment bored for change.
Speaker 2: Oh my goodness, it's amazing how we've lost.
Speaker 1: The ability to be bored and feel comfortable.
Speaker 2: And feel comfortable with being bored. So we actually have
Speaker 2: an online tool. So the idea of big trust, it's
Speaker 2: a form of self leadership, self leadership. The definition of
Speaker 2: self leadership is leading your thoughts and your behaviors to
Speaker 2: get the outcomes that you want. You know, we understand
Speaker 2: leadership in terms of other people. We rarely talk about
Speaker 2: it from ourselves. It's an incredible skill and in fact,
Speaker 2: I do believe that over the next few years, especially
Speaker 2: as AI is taking off, especially as the world is
Speaker 2: changing so rapidly, self leadership is going to be the
Speaker 2: ultimate headitive advantage.
Speaker 1: Because we're giving agency to everything else at the monment.
Speaker 2: Exactly, it's not about how many skills you have or
Speaker 2: how talented you are. It's whether you take action based
Speaker 2: on what you know, and that comes down to big
Speaker 2: trust and that self leadership. So if anyone listening wants
Speaker 2: to figure out what their DEALT profile is, we've got
Speaker 2: an online assessment. I mean, yeah, get the book. Where
Speaker 2: is it? It's called Self Leadership Test dot Com.
Speaker 1: Self Leadership Test dot Com. Yeah one, and do you
Speaker 1: discuss that in here?
Speaker 2: Yes? And it goes through and there's actually a twelve
Speaker 2: question quiz at the beginning, which is based on a
Speaker 2: research backed tool, and it breaks it down so you
Speaker 2: find out your score across the four dimensions.
Speaker 1: Self Assessment yeah, the self doubt profile exactly. Just finally,
Speaker 1: if you don't mind, should I just one thing? Finally,
Speaker 1: let's say, and this happens all the time the small
Speaker 1: business community, particularly particularly those who are in technology or
Speaker 1: that a lot of Australians are in America and what
Speaker 1: have you. And they have this view that they've got
Speaker 1: a network and they've got to turn up to FUNK
Speaker 1: and they've got to meet because they might there might
Speaker 1: be investors there, or there might be other technologists there,
Speaker 1: or they might be other successful people there can give
Speaker 1: them tips as to how they should run their business.
Speaker 1: And someone there might be there that could potentially as
Speaker 1: to become an advisor on the advisory board. Yet you
Speaker 1: know you're and let's say you're a female in it's
Speaker 1: hard to when you're female because like most of these
Speaker 1: things are dominated by guys, the seft doubt creeps in
Speaker 1: very quickly. It's probably critical because I go to these
Speaker 1: things sometimes I see them. I can tell and they're
Speaker 1: dying to come and talk to me or going to
Speaker 1: talk to someone else, but they don't. But they're there
Speaker 1: for that purpose. That's the reason they're there. But they
Speaker 1: don't end up because they're probably being rejected or maybe
Speaker 1: someone's when they did talk to somebody, someone didn't show
Speaker 1: any interest in them, and they mentiately take that as
Speaker 1: I'm not very interesting. Therefore, next time I go, I'm
Speaker 1: going to be careful as opposed to saying, well, that
Speaker 1: guy might have been a bad day or potentially he
Speaker 1: just lost an invest.
Speaker 2: May the maybe's you know, maybe that.
Speaker 1: What would you say to these people who because because
Speaker 1: you know, you have to be known in the various communities,
Speaker 1: because that's unless people know, they're not going to lend
Speaker 1: to you or invest in you, whatever the case would be,
Speaker 1: what do you say to those people about in terms
Speaker 1: of the four things you just talked about, I'm going
Speaker 1: to give a takeaways. Quack your duck, Quack you're duck.
Speaker 2: Okay. There's a story that goes with it. It's a
Speaker 2: short one. When I started my career, so I started
Speaker 2: working in the law. I'm a lawyer by background, and
Speaker 2: I moved into banking. When I first moved into banking,
Speaker 2: I was so full of self doubt and I started
Speaker 2: in a call center and I was, I mean, who
Speaker 2: calls a bank unhappy customers? So this call center was
Speaker 2: getting hammered by extremely extremely irate customers, to the point
Speaker 2: that people on the floor would regularly have to go
Speaker 2: outside to cry to like expel the emotion. So what
Speaker 2: management did is a genius, genius strategy. They gave everyone
Speaker 2: a quack duck.
Speaker 1: What are they like, the.
Speaker 2: Squeaky Dutch they make a little squad kids players exactly.
Speaker 2: They gave everyone on the floor one of these, and
Speaker 2: they created a tally board. So they said, every time
Speaker 2: you get an unhappy customer, quack your duck so the
Speaker 2: rest of the people can hear it, walk yourself over
Speaker 2: to the tally board and calculate your unhappy customer tally.
Speaker 2: And remarkably, within a couple of days, people weren't going
Speaker 2: outside to cry. They were quacking their duck, getting some
Speaker 2: giggles from the people around them, and tallying it up.
Speaker 2: They had turned something really negative and highly emotionally charged
Speaker 2: into something fun. They gamified it, and they made it
Speaker 2: less about the negative customer and more about the Hey,
Speaker 2: I did the thing again. I showed up again, giving
Speaker 2: your brain proof points of I can be yelled at
Speaker 2: and swore at and be okay. And so this is
Speaker 2: the idea of just showing up anyway, and counting the
Speaker 2: times you showed up, not the times that it was successful,
Speaker 2: not the times that you had someone respond with a
Speaker 2: positive enthusiasm. So, if you're going to any of these events,
Speaker 2: if you're doing anything and you're doubting yourself, and maybe
Speaker 2: you've been rejected or you've had people say no to you,
Speaker 2: give yourself a tick tally that up. You showed up,
Speaker 2: You went and asked, get yourself a duck if it
Speaker 2: if it helps you, remember we.
Speaker 1: Just have some fun thing at home.
Speaker 2: Anything, It can be anything. The idea is it's just
Speaker 2: a pattern interrupt, you know, like a recorder or a
Speaker 2: bell or something. Again, you get home from that event,
Speaker 2: you're like, you know what, no one talked to me.
Speaker 2: I'm ringing my bell.
Speaker 1: I showed up.
Speaker 2: I'm gonna do it again the next time to have
Speaker 2: a laugh. And you can say, you know what, this year,
Speaker 2: I went to three hundred events and I didn't get
Speaker 2: a single callback. That's a record.
Speaker 1: Cool.
Speaker 2: How many can I do? Okay, Look, if you get
Speaker 2: to three hundred and no one, there's an issue.
Speaker 1: So then but then you go to work. What can
Speaker 1: I learn from that?
Speaker 2: Exactly? What can I learn from this? Maybe I need
Speaker 2: to get better at how I'm presenting myself. Maybe I'm
Speaker 2: going to the wrong kinds of events. Maybe I need
Speaker 2: another avenue. Bring it back to what can I do,
Speaker 2: which is your autonomy. Remind yourself it's not a reflection
Speaker 2: of your value. That goes back to acceptance. Focus on
Speaker 2: how you can get better with the skill of meeting
Speaker 2: people and interacting and networking. That's agency, and then learn
Speaker 2: to navigate the emotions that come with it. With the
Speaker 2: quacking of the duck, So that's my guidance, don't allow
Speaker 2: it to stop, you learn from it, keep going, keep
Speaker 2: showing up, because unless you show up, you will never
Speaker 2: get to where you want to go to.
Speaker 1: You've got to show up. And it's interesting that I
Speaker 1: was just thinking that the cracking of the duck. Whether
Speaker 1: people do that literally or not, but that's an example
Speaker 1: of you already know that you're going to do that.
Speaker 1: If it doesn't work out, it's a bit like you
Speaker 1: gog gog wills coming off. That's like an adaptability. You're
Speaker 1: making yourself much more adaptable. Yes to shitty situations like
Speaker 1: something to work out the way I want to do it,
Speaker 1: and I might just ask you just quickly if you
Speaker 1: don't mind. At the end, should we put too much
Speaker 1: importance on that event? So there's a networking event on Monday,
Speaker 1: and you know you want to go because there's how
Speaker 1: do we do it? Take the importance away though, but
Speaker 1: at the same time make sure that we're ready, we're on,
Speaker 1: you know, like, because if you go off it's not important.
Speaker 1: Well you turn up and act like it's not important.
Speaker 1: How do you sort of get that balance right?
Speaker 2: Two things? The first one is I don't have to
Speaker 2: make this means so much. Remember we talked about that
Speaker 2: as an adaptability tool. I don't have to make this
Speaker 2: mean so much. But also, instead of what if what
Speaker 2: if no one talks to me? What if it goes badly?
Speaker 2: Shift into I wonder whether I wonder whether I'll meet
Speaker 2: someone who's interested in my business tonight. I wonder who
Speaker 2: I'll meet? I want shifting from what so what ifs
Speaker 2: is that idea of the flashlight we're shining it on
Speaker 2: thread all the things that could go wrong? I wonder
Speaker 2: whether shifts it into possibility? And again you could go
Speaker 2: through the Phelps scenario or just stick with something as
Speaker 2: simple as I wonder whether it changes your state It
Speaker 2: changes your state, which then shapes how you're showing up,
Speaker 2: which shapes how you're responding to people and how they
Speaker 2: respond to you, which then changes outcomes. One final tip
Speaker 2: here as well. It's something called embodied cognition. So think
Speaker 2: about the person you want to be, Think about the
Speaker 2: person that they're going to be interested in, think about
Speaker 2: the person that they're going to invest in. How does
Speaker 2: that person show up in rooms? How do they speak,
Speaker 2: how do they dress, how do they walk into that event?
Speaker 2: And then be that before it's come to you perform, perform,
Speaker 2: but authentically you're trying to become someone else. You're just
Speaker 2: exactly you're just step into that next version of you. Fascinatingly,
Speaker 2: studies have shown in neuroscience and cognitive behavior, when you
Speaker 2: do this, when you show up as that person, Remember,
Speaker 2: the brain responds to proof and evidence. So if you're
Speaker 2: showing up as the person you want to be, your
Speaker 2: brain is getting evidence and proof points of the person
Speaker 2: that you want to be, which then makes you start
Speaker 2: to feel that you are already that, which then changes
Speaker 2: how you're going to have the conversation, how you're going
Speaker 2: to speak with the.
Speaker 1: Persons, how you're going to exactly, brain.
Speaker 2: Plas completely and again it all comes down to training
Speaker 2: and this idea of attention, and that's another example of
Speaker 2: big trust. You trust that you have what it takes
Speaker 2: and if they recognize it, great, If they don't, you
Speaker 2: will still come to the next.
Speaker 1: One, or to some sense say bad luck.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, that's a beautiful way to look at it.
Speaker 2: It's not rejection. It's readirectly.
Speaker 1: They don't really understand this stuff. That's you know, maybe
Speaker 1: I'll talk to them again. If I get a chance,
Speaker 1: I'll get I'll get through to mo. Otherwise, maybe I'll
Speaker 1: come be bothered. I'll just go to the next station tory.
Speaker 1: It's amazing how we can actually pipulate around brain.
Speaker 2: It's phenomenal. It's phenomenal. It also makes us realize how
Speaker 2: fallible we are.
Speaker 1: But tell me, so, if that's the case, if I'm
Speaker 1: manipulating my own neurons, what am I using to manipulate
Speaker 1: my own neurons? I mean, what neurons are you using
Speaker 1: to change my own neurons?
Speaker 2: Okay, so this is a good question. It all comes
Speaker 2: down to the conscious mind versus the subconscious or unconscious mind.
Speaker 2: So a lot of our you know, when we're not
Speaker 2: consciously using our mind, which means you're just thinking about
Speaker 2: the day and the beliefs are popping up and you're
Speaker 2: not good enough. That is the unconscious, subconscious realm driven
Speaker 2: by beliefs. So how we change our neurons is by
Speaker 2: using the conscious mind, which in my view is like
Speaker 2: you're taking consciously taking your flashlight and pointing at somewhere else.
Speaker 2: And when you use your conscious mind to change your thoughts,
Speaker 2: and you do that enough times over time, that is
Speaker 2: how you create a new neural pathway, a new set
Speaker 2: of beliefs, a new set of beliefs. Now, it takes
Speaker 2: time because these beliefs have been developed very early on
Speaker 2: in life. But like anything, practice, practice, practice, repetition, build.
Speaker 2: Oh one other thing we didn't get to touch on
Speaker 2: practice what we call conscious affiliation, which means be aware
Speaker 2: of who you spend time with because they have such
Speaker 2: a huge influence on who you are, how you feel,
Speaker 2: how you show up, your beliefs, your perspectives. It's called
Speaker 2: the social spillover effect. In fact, one study was done
Speaker 2: at a tech firm and they found if you sit
Speaker 2: within twenty five feet of a high performer, your own
Speaker 2: productivity goes up on average about fifteen percent, so it
Speaker 2: has productivity benefits, but also this idea of emotional contagion.
Speaker 2: We catch the emotions of the people around us, but
Speaker 2: we also catch their beliefs. If they believe in us
Speaker 2: and believe that we are capable, we are more likely
Speaker 2: to believe that we are capable and more likely to
Speaker 2: actually succeed. If they do not believe in us, we
Speaker 2: are less likely to believe in ourselves and more likely
Speaker 2: to live down to their expectations. So the people around
Speaker 2: you cap your potential. So choose your circle wisely.
Speaker 1: Pick someone way above you. Yeah, but aspire to bee emulate,
Speaker 1: not compare a spot or be better.
Speaker 2: It will be better or even better.
Speaker 1: Really nicely, that was fantastic.
Speaker 2: This is great. Thank you so much.
Speaker 1: Thank you