Speaker 1: Just a little bit of refinement in my thinking or
Speaker 1: the way I look at things could be all that.
Speaker 1: It matters, right, So it's just sometimes you're you're off
Speaker 1: course just two degrees and somebody runs into you and
Speaker 1: you just recorrect one degree and you're like, you know what,
Speaker 1: I can be a little bit more grateful in my
Speaker 1: life because that person is just overflowing with joy. Welcome
Speaker 1: to the one you feed Throughout time, great thinkers have
Speaker 1: recognized the importance of the thoughts we have. Quotes like
Speaker 1: garbage in, garbage out, or you are what you think
Speaker 1: ring true, and yet for many of us, our thoughts
Speaker 1: don't strengthen or empower us. We tend toward negativity, self pity, jealousy,
Speaker 1: or fear. We see what we don't have instead of
Speaker 1: what we do. We think things that hold us back
Speaker 1: and dampen our spirit. But it's not just about thinking.
Speaker 1: Our actions matter. It takes just consistent and creative effort
Speaker 1: to make a life worth living. This podcast is about
Speaker 1: how other people keep themselves moving in the right direction,
Speaker 1: how they feed their good wolf. Thanks for joining us.
Speaker 1: Our guest on this episode is Skip Pritchard. Skip is
Speaker 1: the fifth president of O C l C, a global
Speaker 1: library cooperative that supports thousands of libraries and making information
Speaker 1: more accessible and more useful to people around the world.
Speaker 1: Among skips many passions is his Leadership Insides blog, where
Speaker 1: he interviews authors and thought leaders and shares his views
Speaker 1: on a number of topics. His new book is The
Speaker 1: Book of Mistakes, Nine Secrets to Creating a Successful Future.
Speaker 1: High Skip, Welcome to the show. Thank you, glad to
Speaker 1: be here. It's a pleasure to have you on. We
Speaker 1: are sitting in the company that you are, the CEO
Speaker 1: of o c LC. You've got a little studio here,
Speaker 1: and so we're getting to record here, which is really great.
Speaker 1: And it's interesting because my mom worked here years ago,
Speaker 1: so kind of a fun place for me to be
Speaker 1: right now, full circle, How long ago was that? That
Speaker 1: would have been in the eighties. I was probably like twelve.
Speaker 1: Well it's changed quite a bit since then, but our
Speaker 1: mission remains the same of supporting libraries around the world.
Speaker 1: And as listeners of the show, no, there's nothing I
Speaker 1: love more than a library, So good to hear that. Yes,
Speaker 1: my favorite places in the world. All right, well, let's
Speaker 1: start like we always do with the parable. There's a
Speaker 1: grandfather who's talking with his grandson, and he says, in life,
Speaker 1: there are two wolves inside of us that are always
Speaker 1: at battle. What is a good wolf which represents things
Speaker 1: like kindness and bravery and love, and the other is
Speaker 1: a bad wolf, which represents things like greed and hatred
Speaker 1: and fear. And the grandson stops and thinks about it
Speaker 1: for a second, except as grandfather. He says, well, grandfather,
Speaker 1: which one wins? And the grandfather says, the one you feed.
Speaker 1: So I'd like to start off by asking you what
Speaker 1: that paarable means to you in your life and in
Speaker 1: the work that you do. Well. To me, I think
Speaker 1: it is such a powerful reminder that what we put
Speaker 1: into our mind and what we put into our spirit
Speaker 1: is manifested in our life throughout all the input is
Speaker 1: what it's going to come out and output. And I
Speaker 1: think that we need to feed ourselves the best, feed
Speaker 1: ourselves the positive and uh, you see it over and over.
Speaker 1: I mean I've just witnessed it in my entire life,
Speaker 1: my life story, the people I interview, the people who
Speaker 1: are consistently feeding that positive wolf, it's going to be
Speaker 1: a completely different outcome than those who don't. Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: such a important thing. And I was originally drawn to
Speaker 1: the parable heard about it when I was early in recovery,
Speaker 1: and it just it struck me as such a powerful thing.
Speaker 1: And it remains so today, this idea of you know,
Speaker 1: what you focus on is what what grows? You know.
Speaker 1: I've been I've been reading the Dalai Lama has a
Speaker 1: multi part series on you introduction to Buddhism, and you
Speaker 1: know that was the Buddhist thing, right, it was the
Speaker 1: inclination of your mind. It is, It's certainly there, and
Speaker 1: you see it in most of the major religions and thoughts.
Speaker 1: Christianity will say as a man thinketh so he is, etcetera.
Speaker 1: And you'll see it in in writings throughout the world,
Speaker 1: ancient world and modern world, because our thoughts translate into
Speaker 1: actions and behaviors, and and it just flows into our
Speaker 1: life no matter where we are, if we change what
Speaker 1: goes into our mind, it will change where we go.
Speaker 1: I remember zig Ziggler, I interviewed his son yesterday talking
Speaker 1: and he used to say that you can change where
Speaker 1: you are and what you are by changing what goes
Speaker 1: into your mind. And it's that same idea, and so
Speaker 1: what do you want to put into your mind? And
Speaker 1: why we allow these things to come into our mind
Speaker 1: without being deliberate and mindful about what they are. We
Speaker 1: shouldn't just let someone just take over and just dump
Speaker 1: into our minds without being very cognizant of what is this?
Speaker 1: And do I really want this in my mind because
Speaker 1: it's going to show up and make a difference in
Speaker 1: my life at some point. Yeah, And you know, listeners
Speaker 1: of the show know that I am not an unqualified
Speaker 1: proponent of positive thinking, right I'm I'm more a proponent
Speaker 1: of realistic thinking. But what I find so interesting is
Speaker 1: that almost all the time, there are multiple interpretations to
Speaker 1: any situation. And I try to remind myself if I
Speaker 1: am making an interpretation up, which is what we're doing
Speaker 1: most of the time anyway, why not choose one that
Speaker 1: brings me closer to the person I want to be
Speaker 1: in the qualities I want to embody. Well, it's true.
Speaker 1: I think part of the journey of life is to
Speaker 1: realize that the lens is that you look at the
Speaker 1: world through is unique to you, and everyone's not looking
Speaker 1: at that same lens. And so if I look at
Speaker 1: it and say, instead of me imposing my lens on you.
Speaker 1: I want to understand your lens a little bit more,
Speaker 1: and yet I want to feed the good side. I
Speaker 1: want to feed the positive and kind of make the
Speaker 1: turn that way. I want to look at you with
Speaker 1: positive intent I want to look at you with positive intentions.
Speaker 1: So I'm not going to immediately assume the negative and
Speaker 1: immediately assume you know this is the way it is,
Speaker 1: because oftentimes if I ask some questions, I realized, oh,
Speaker 1: Eric's looking at it through this lens, and that can
Speaker 1: actually help me. And so I'm going to learn to
Speaker 1: change my lens, maybe broaden my lens, and look at
Speaker 1: the world in a completely different way. Yeah. One of
Speaker 1: the things that you mentioned in your book, and we're
Speaker 1: going to talk more about the book in a minute,
Speaker 1: but very early on you talked about one of the
Speaker 1: things that you learned early on was to look at
Speaker 1: everybody as a teacher. Everybody as a teacher. It doesn't
Speaker 1: matter where you go, what status in life they are,
Speaker 1: whether they are homeless, where they are mega successful, whether
Speaker 1: the server in your restaurant, the flight attendant. They have
Speaker 1: something they can teach you, and I'm always interested in
Speaker 1: knowing what is that and how can I get that
Speaker 1: quickly because, um, just a little bit of refinement in
Speaker 1: my thinking or the way I look at things could
Speaker 1: be all that it matters. Right. So it's just sometimes
Speaker 1: you're you're off course just two degrees and somebody runs
Speaker 1: into you and you just recorrect one degree and you're like,
Speaker 1: you know what, I can be a little bit more
Speaker 1: grateful in my life because that person is just overflowing
Speaker 1: with joy and I'm gonna try to emulate that person
Speaker 1: smile because I'm not smiling enough and or wow, you
Speaker 1: know that that person really is making a connection with me.
Speaker 1: How do I how do I emulate that? And it
Speaker 1: just changes your thinking just one degree and that's all
Speaker 1: you need. So the book is called The Book of Mistakes,
Speaker 1: Nine Secrets to Creating a Successful Future. And I have
Speaker 1: to tell you I started reading the book. Um My
Speaker 1: mom l a couple of weeks ago and broke her
Speaker 1: shoulder and was in the hospital and I was taking
Speaker 1: an emergency flight back from Atlanta. I've had a ton
Speaker 1: of interviews. I was really tired, and I was like,
Speaker 1: I got a grind a book out on the flight,
Speaker 1: and I was so relieved that it was like a
Speaker 1: story I have to say like I just because what
Speaker 1: I was craving at that moment was I would just
Speaker 1: love to read something like fiction, because I mean, I
Speaker 1: read nonfiction stuff at a frantic clip for this job,
Speaker 1: and I'm not complaining. And so when I picked it
Speaker 1: up and I read was like, oh this is a story,
Speaker 1: I was so happy. So I'm glad to hear thank you. Well,
Speaker 1: you know, I I read like you do a lot
Speaker 1: for work, a lot to interview people, a lot to
Speaker 1: take in the information. But I was thinking about it
Speaker 1: and trying to write something that my daughter, who's twenty one,
Speaker 1: would want to read. She does not want to read
Speaker 1: these nonfiction heavy psychology business books. She wants to just
Speaker 1: be entertained, and so I thought, how do we entertain you?
Speaker 1: I was thinking about Jerry Seinfeld's why she has these
Speaker 1: cook books that sneak in vegetables. Have you seen this
Speaker 1: for kids? So it's like zucchini and the chocolate chip
Speaker 1: cookies like genus, right, And that's kind of what I
Speaker 1: was trying to do, like sneak in the principles into
Speaker 1: a story where you're getting these healthy things, but you
Speaker 1: almost don't realize that as you go. Yep, yep. So
Speaker 1: we're not going to get through all nine mistakes, but
Speaker 1: we're going to get through some of them. But I
Speaker 1: wanted to start first because very early you talk about
Speaker 1: a riddle that has perplexed you in your life and
Speaker 1: that you've always been trying to answer, And I think
Speaker 1: it is one of my fundament I think there's a
Speaker 1: few fundamental questions that orient my life and and this
Speaker 1: one is one of them, which is why the two
Speaker 1: people seem to have very different responses to the same circumstances.
Speaker 1: You know, as a recovering addict, I've asked this question
Speaker 1: hundreds of times as I've gone Why did I get
Speaker 1: sober and people that I loved and cared about died?
Speaker 1: You know, they seem to be they seem to be
Speaker 1: trying to do what I was doing. They seem to
Speaker 1: be and so it's a it's a riddle that that
Speaker 1: I am always intrigued by, and I don't think there's
Speaker 1: easy answers. But but when you said that, I was
Speaker 1: immediately that's a kindred spirit because that's the question I'm
Speaker 1: looking for. And I often ask guests that question really directly,
Speaker 1: Like you know, we have guests come on talk about
Speaker 1: post traumatic growth? All right, what's the difference between somebody
Speaker 1: has post traumatic growth and somebody has post traumatic stress disorder?
Speaker 1: What's the difference between people who are yuh, come out
Speaker 1: of difficult events stronger, better, more compassionate people versus people
Speaker 1: who become embittered and stay that way. So no easy answer,
Speaker 1: but what what do you think? It's the study of
Speaker 1: my life. I said in that introduction. Our family took
Speaker 1: people in. They were abandoned, addicted, and abused, and they
Speaker 1: all had problems, that was the common theme. And as
Speaker 1: they had these struggles, as they had these challenges, you'd
Speaker 1: see somebody who would get off drugs, would get a job,
Speaker 1: would go to school and be successful. Because some of
Speaker 1: them lived with us for years. It wasn't like a night.
Speaker 1: And then others would get back in that cycle of
Speaker 1: addiction or go back to an abusive situation in some cases,
Speaker 1: and you think, what in the world are you doing?
Speaker 1: And so that became a fascinating studies for me, and
Speaker 1: through the success literature, through psychology, through business, what is
Speaker 1: this right? It's the same with companies, some kind of
Speaker 1: cycle through these bad things. Others can move on, and um,
Speaker 1: I think there's a range of things. I've interviewed over
Speaker 1: a thousand people, and I thought I had interviewed a
Speaker 1: lot of people. It's it's it's a constant thing and
Speaker 1: a whole range of backgrounds and lifestyles. And I really
Speaker 1: came up with these nine themes of things that people
Speaker 1: would kind of fall into, these traps, and if they
Speaker 1: mastered these nine themes, they tended to be more successful
Speaker 1: than not. So the answer to that riddle for me
Speaker 1: is the Book of Mistakes and these nine secrets that
Speaker 1: can create a successful future. Excellent. So let's jump into
Speaker 1: Actually not yet, We're not going into the mistakes yet,
Speaker 1: because there was another line that you had that totally
Speaker 1: floored me. And so and it's the it's the second
Speaker 1: one of the second fundamental questions that I always ask.
Speaker 1: And you have a line that says, success is when
Speaker 1: you're filled with ambition and peace in equal measure at
Speaker 1: the same time. Because I'm always asking the question, how
Speaker 1: do you balance these things right? Because on one hand,
Speaker 1: I'm so influenced by Buddhist thought, and you know, Buddhist
Speaker 1: thoughts sort of says and this is a vast oversimplification
Speaker 1: and reduction, but to some extent, the fact that you
Speaker 1: crave all this stuff out there is why you suffer.
Speaker 1: If you didn't, it wouldn't suffer as much, which seems
Speaker 1: to me absolutely true. And yet it seems there's this innate,
Speaker 1: built in thing to all of nature for more, more, grow, grow,
Speaker 1: grows what the universe seems to do. So I've always
Speaker 1: felt these balancing you know, this question of how do
Speaker 1: I want to become a better person and be completely
Speaker 1: content with the way things are at this moment? And
Speaker 1: so I loved that phrase successes when you're filled with
Speaker 1: ambition and peace in equal measure at the same time.
Speaker 1: So how do you strike that balance? Yeah, I look
Speaker 1: at it as that Buddhist piece, as the goal for
Speaker 1: many people and the Protestant work ethic that kind of
Speaker 1: formed the country of the United States and large parts
Speaker 1: of the Western world, and putting both of the good
Speaker 1: parts of those things together, because you want to have
Speaker 1: this growth, right, All all of nature is growth, All
Speaker 1: of this striving is to grow. I asked people, you know,
Speaker 1: if you go to um I was at Redwood, uh force,
Speaker 1: if you're in mere woods. And it reminds me of
Speaker 1: this line from Jim Rown, how high does the tree
Speaker 1: grow answer as tall as it can And that's what
Speaker 1: nature does. And so success to me is that perfect
Speaker 1: harmony between this drive and peace. And if you you'll
Speaker 1: know if you're off measure with that, You'll know, like,
Speaker 1: I have this drive, I have this innate push, and
Speaker 1: it's it's agitating me. I'm not in the right place.
Speaker 1: I don't feel peaceful. You'll also know if you go
Speaker 1: over too far and you're at quote perfect peace and
Speaker 1: so relaxed, not the perfect piece that you're really seeking,
Speaker 1: because you'll realize your equilibriums off and you're not growing,
Speaker 1: and then sooner or later that peace won't last long
Speaker 1: because you'll feel like, wait a minute, I'm atrophying. I'm
Speaker 1: not I'm not to where I need to be. And
Speaker 1: so getting that just right and keeping that going between
Speaker 1: those two things, to me is what success is all about.
Speaker 1: That I'm growing and I'm peaceful in perfect now perfect
Speaker 1: measure at the same time. And you know what you
Speaker 1: know when you're there and you know people that are
Speaker 1: there because you can sense it, You're like, you're you're
Speaker 1: in your zone, You're you're just where you need to be.
Speaker 1: Why is that you start asking them and it changes
Speaker 1: for them. It may change in day to day, month
Speaker 1: to month. But you know when people are there and
Speaker 1: you sense a calmness, you sense a confidence in those
Speaker 1: people because they have those two things in balance. Let's
Speaker 1: start with some of the mistakes, and the one I
Speaker 1: want to start with this mistake number three, which is
Speaker 1: accepting excuses. I find accepting excuses to be one of
Speaker 1: the most dangerous impediments to you being successful and fulfilled.
Speaker 1: And I remember one of the times it really became
Speaker 1: evident to me. Rich Gaspari was here in Columbus. He
Speaker 1: was a former Mr Universe. He was competing at the
Speaker 1: Arnold and I was down there to interview him. He
Speaker 1: was actually coming out with a book called No Excuses,
Speaker 1: and he was determined to be on the cover of
Speaker 1: the bodybuilding magazines again decades after appearing on them before.
Speaker 1: And of course now he was the CEO of Gaspari Nutrition,
Speaker 1: which is in all of the nutritional stores, and he
Speaker 1: was a corporate executive and had a successful entrepreneurial business.
Speaker 1: And I thought, how is that possible, you know, decades later,
Speaker 1: because most of us would say, we have excuses, you know,
Speaker 1: little arthritis, a little tired I got, you know, the kids.
Speaker 1: Whatever of that excuses it's kind of built in, and
Speaker 1: we tend to have people around us who justified those excuses,
Speaker 1: who say, oh, yeah, you know you're this or that,
Speaker 1: and he was just no, I would accept absolutely no excuses.
Speaker 1: And it really struck me. And if you if you
Speaker 1: look at the theme, if you research people who have
Speaker 1: had success, they just don't accept excuses. Right, take your
Speaker 1: story of overcoming you know you can get off of drugs.
Speaker 1: You I'd watch these people that were through our house, Um,
Speaker 1: get off of drugs. There are addictions. The ones who
Speaker 1: didn't would often have a built in excuse of why
Speaker 1: they would come back to it. The successful people, whether
Speaker 1: it's in business, whether it's in bodybuilding, running sports, whatever
Speaker 1: it is, they don't accept excuses. They had this built
Speaker 1: in personal accountability. They say it's up to me and
Speaker 1: that is extraordinary and they use all these things as
Speaker 1: a way to propel their goals. Um. I think of
Speaker 1: Christy Wellington, she's the greatest female endurance athlete of our day,
Speaker 1: she has won so many triathletes. Well, she gets hit
Speaker 1: by a car when she was competing to run, and
Speaker 1: that would be an excuse, right, for any of us
Speaker 1: would say, well, you know, hit by a car, what
Speaker 1: am I supposed to do? You know what she did?
Speaker 1: She says, Oh, this is a perfect time for me
Speaker 1: to take up swimming. Well, that was actually the impetus
Speaker 1: for her to become the greatest triathlete. She hadn't even
Speaker 1: done triathlons. That mentality of I'm not accepting an excuse.
Speaker 1: This was put into my life as a as a
Speaker 1: barrier for me to learn something, for me to grow,
Speaker 1: for me to respond to, for me not to just
Speaker 1: let it kind of kill my route, but for allowing
Speaker 1: me to just kind of grow a different direction. That
Speaker 1: mentality is extremely powerful and we can cultivate it, right,
Speaker 1: So feeding that side, we can cultivate either one of
Speaker 1: those And that's what you see, you know, your whole podcast.
Speaker 1: You can either feed the excuse or feed the personal accountability.
Speaker 1: Your choice. Yep. And I think this is an interesting
Speaker 1: and because I am a big believer in personal responsibility.
Speaker 1: But people hear that, and what they hear is blame.
Speaker 1: There's a lot of listeners of this show, and you
Speaker 1: experience this with your family and child. There's a lot
Speaker 1: of people listen to this show. If they told us
Speaker 1: their story right now, it would make my skin crawl,
Speaker 1: right I the heartbreak of the people who listen, right,
Speaker 1: I know it's out there, and so people like that
Speaker 1: will often you know, and we've all got our hardship.
Speaker 1: And so when I when I say a responsibility, people
Speaker 1: often think, but I'm not responsible for what happened to me.
Speaker 1: I'm not responsible for the damage. And it's absolutely true.
Speaker 1: But the thing I always come back to is there's
Speaker 1: nobody except you that can work on the healing. Nobody
Speaker 1: else will do that. And so again it's not a
Speaker 1: responsible it's not a blame, but you're the only one
Speaker 1: that can do it. You're the only one that can
Speaker 1: that can decide. I want to overcome, as hard as
Speaker 1: it is, I want to overcome Eric. I. I feel
Speaker 1: that because we would see horrific stories and things that
Speaker 1: people should never have to go through. And so in
Speaker 1: putting that, in saying you know, let's let's have personal responsibility, accountability,
Speaker 1: it doesn't make light of it. It doesn't mean you
Speaker 1: don't need therapy before. It doesn't mean that you need
Speaker 1: to to kind of wrestle with some very difficult dark
Speaker 1: times that were put on you. But that happened. Now,
Speaker 1: what are you going to do about it? And whether
Speaker 1: it's personal things that happened, or even in the corporate world,
Speaker 1: the most powerful thing to do is take charge of
Speaker 1: it move forward. I'll give you an example in a
Speaker 1: company I was running, I won't name which one, but
Speaker 1: somebody walked into the business meeting that we had lost
Speaker 1: a major client in. Came an email to me and
Speaker 1: it said, as the leader of the organization, it said,
Speaker 1: this person is to blame. This person was horrible, you know,
Speaker 1: just on and on and on. That person had them
Speaker 1: to be coming in to present to us that Monday,
Speaker 1: not a very good timing. And instead of blaming, he
Speaker 1: walked in and said, I take full accountability for this.
Speaker 1: I did this, this, and this wrong. I'm learning from
Speaker 1: this on my own dime. I've purchased a plane ticket.
Speaker 1: I'm going to fly out to that client and I
Speaker 1: am going to apologize. I know that I can't win
Speaker 1: them back right now, but I'm going to win back
Speaker 1: that business this year. I'm going to sign up and
Speaker 1: have a coach and use this as a way to
Speaker 1: get better. On and on and on. I mean, we
Speaker 1: were floored. You know what happened people walked into that
Speaker 1: meeting thinking this is somebody who's really, you know, a terrible,
Speaker 1: horrible person, And instead that person got a round of
Speaker 1: applause because it was so unbelievable that he took accountability
Speaker 1: for the issue and was going to do something about it. So,
Speaker 1: whether it's personal or companies or whatever, it's that ability
Speaker 1: to say what's past is past, it's it's happened, But
Speaker 1: how can I take that, use it, make it better
Speaker 1: and and help grow both me and the people around me.
Speaker 1: It becomes an extraordinary thing. And it's easy to get
Speaker 1: stuck in the past and what happened, and in many cases,
Speaker 1: in many cases moving on, it's not And so we
Speaker 1: want to surround and say, wow, if I was in
Speaker 1: your situation, there's no way that I could do this
Speaker 1: and the other I would melt, I would roll up
Speaker 1: into a ball, et cetera. I get that, and and
Speaker 1: there's a time to help people kind of cope through that.
Speaker 1: But then we also need to help people. Okay, now
Speaker 1: it's time to get up. Now we're gonna have to
Speaker 1: start walking again, and let me help you through that process. Yep, yep, yeah.
Speaker 1: And it's it's not fair and it's not a level
Speaker 1: playing field. But again, at the end of the day,
Speaker 1: there's just a point where if not you, then who right?
Speaker 1: And the answer really is, unfortunately usually no one right.
Speaker 1: You have to take those first steps. There's something else
Speaker 1: that you talk about during that UM chapter. I'm just
Speaker 1: gonna read it. UM. You say, each of us has
Speaker 1: a microphone inside our head. It's the most important microphone
Speaker 1: in the world. But we leave it unguarded. We let
Speaker 1: anyone step up and just blast us with negativity. The
Speaker 1: most successful people the ones who don't accept excuses. They
Speaker 1: guard that microphone like their security at a bank vault.
Speaker 1: The microphone in our mind is so very important to everything.
Speaker 1: It's the key into our subconscious mind. And we have
Speaker 1: a voice inside and it's our own voice at that microphone.
Speaker 1: And then we let other people step up and take
Speaker 1: charge of that microphone. So so I may think the
Speaker 1: microphone in front of me in your podcast interview right
Speaker 1: now is the most important. In fact, this microphone in
Speaker 1: my mind is so important. I need to protect it.
Speaker 1: I need to guard it. I need to think about
Speaker 1: what is it saying? And am I going to allow
Speaker 1: this track? What we we let the track play? So
Speaker 1: What happens is we have these um loops that come on, right,
Speaker 1: and these loops just kind of come back to us
Speaker 1: and come back to us. Now, wouldn't it be awesome
Speaker 1: if the loop said, Eric, you are so awesome today, nothing,
Speaker 1: nothing is going to stop you. Right? But how often
Speaker 1: does that loop come on? Probably not very often. The
Speaker 1: ones that tend to hook us, at least for me,
Speaker 1: are the negative ones of doubt, of concerns, somebody saying
Speaker 1: something negative, something somebody said once that is sticking there
Speaker 1: and you go to you go to give a talk,
Speaker 1: and somebody in your head is saying, you know, you're
Speaker 1: not very good at openings or whatever. Right, this negative stuff,
Speaker 1: So we need to guard it, and we need to
Speaker 1: be conscious of it, and we need to be deliberate
Speaker 1: of it, and we need to control it. Right, So
Speaker 1: I learned you can actually hear that loop. And I
Speaker 1: will sometimes visualize an old set recording. I'll go over
Speaker 1: and change the tone of it, warp it out, and
Speaker 1: then I'll go and hit pause on that hit stop.
Speaker 1: Then I'll flip over that cassette in my mind and
Speaker 1: I'll put on the positive one to say, well, you
Speaker 1: heard that skip and that's just not the way it is.
Speaker 1: Because I'm going to tell you the way it really
Speaker 1: is now. I'll do that deliberately. Some people think that's ridiculous.
Speaker 1: It's actually very very important because you control that microphone
Speaker 1: and you can allow yourself these excuses. But part of
Speaker 1: it is you're letting that tape play. And the people
Speaker 1: who have caused you pain, why are you going to
Speaker 1: allow them to cause you pain today by allowing those
Speaker 1: negative loops play? Stop it, flip the cassette tape over.
Speaker 1: For those not knowing what cassette tapes are, what's a
Speaker 1: modern analogy? Here, hit hit the hit the shuffle button
Speaker 1: on your iPhone. I don't know, all right, change the channel,
Speaker 1: put something else on, put up, put on some great
Speaker 1: music that's gonna just rock your world, that gives you energy.
Speaker 1: Anything like that to to change and guard that microphone
Speaker 1: in your mind, because it it's too important. We just
Speaker 1: leave it on guarded and we don't think about it.
Speaker 1: We think, oh, that's fine, and and we just it
Speaker 1: plays over and over thousands of times. Yeah, I think that,
Speaker 1: you know, anybody who spends much time in meditation will
Speaker 1: quickly realize that we are receiving most of our experience,
Speaker 1: we are not creating. It is showing up. You know,
Speaker 1: you can't control what shows up. But but then we
Speaker 1: can take control from that point of do I want
Speaker 1: to allow it to happen? Do I want to do?
Speaker 1: I want to let that tape play? And I love
Speaker 1: the analogy of thinking of as a cassette tape you
Speaker 1: change or um. The guys who pioneered acceptance and commitment therapy,
Speaker 1: they'll talk about like giving it a name, like you
Speaker 1: know that there's you know, there's there's Bob talking again,
Speaker 1: you know, and you imagine you know job, or you
Speaker 1: turn that voice into a ridiculous voice, or it's always
Speaker 1: of getting it's all. There are always of sort of
Speaker 1: stepping back and realizing that that voice is not you.
Speaker 1: It is just a habitual thinking loop that happens. That happens,
Speaker 1: that happens. And the more ways that we can and
Speaker 1: you have to experiment with him, which one's helped me
Speaker 1: to disconnect, which one's you know, the tape analogy is
Speaker 1: a great one. Or assuming it's like the bad news announcer,
Speaker 1: right and giving him a voice. Whatever we can do.
Speaker 1: But and it can be frustrating because at least in
Speaker 1: my experience, and and it's it's better now, But there
Speaker 1: were periods of my life where it was like, all right,
Speaker 1: I changed the tape and here thirty seconds later, here
Speaker 1: it is like, oh for crying out loud all day long.
Speaker 1: But that's the way the brain works and changing. Like
Speaker 1: we have the soundboard in front of us. If you
Speaker 1: could just turn one of them up, I would turn
Speaker 1: them up to like Alvin and the Chipmunks level if
Speaker 1: it was this deep voice, and I would turn it
Speaker 1: way up. And there's whatever technique works. But I'm with
Speaker 1: you on that. But it it makes a measurable difference.
Speaker 1: But you have to be conscious of it. And you
Speaker 1: can't just accept it. You have to um let it
Speaker 1: play and then let it stop and change it and
Speaker 1: change change that recording, change that loop. You don't want
Speaker 1: to leave it on one that's negative, that is feeding
Speaker 1: the wrong side for sure. Yep. I gave a talk
Speaker 1: last night about my entrepreneurial journey at a at a
Speaker 1: university here in Ohio, and um there's a I titled
Speaker 1: the talk Start where you are use what you have,
Speaker 1: do what you can. It's an Arthur ash quote and
Speaker 1: I think it applies to this, no excuses. Right start
Speaker 1: where you are, use what you have, do what you
Speaker 1: can like from wherever we're starting. Whatever the the issue is,
Speaker 1: or whatever the baggage or the challenge or the thing
Speaker 1: that we want to accomplish, there's a way to start
Speaker 1: right where we are. There's a way to use exactly
Speaker 1: what we are. You know, who we are, all our circumstances, everything,
Speaker 1: they're all part of the path. Well, I think that's
Speaker 1: part of what makes it so interesting. If you look
Speaker 1: at everyone's a teacher because everyone's been through this experience.
Speaker 1: And if if you're going through your day and saying,
Speaker 1: everyone's a teacher, everyone's here to add something to my thinking,
Speaker 1: to the way I'm approaching things, then you are starting
Speaker 1: where you are and you're adding those little micro adjustments
Speaker 1: that changes your day. Yep. Absolutely, all right, let's move
Speaker 1: on to another mistake, and I'm going to jump to
Speaker 1: mistake number six, which is allowing temporary setbacks to become
Speaker 1: permanent failures. Well, I wasn't that a big one? Uh,
Speaker 1: temporary setbacks becoming permanent failures. There are some people, entrepreneurs especially,
Speaker 1: who often don't fall into this. They see everything as
Speaker 1: just this is a temporary setback, no big deal. Some
Speaker 1: people have this resilience mindset. Um grit we can read
Speaker 1: about in the literature is the key to this one.
Speaker 1: And successful people have grit. They are not going to
Speaker 1: allow a temporary setback stop them. I think about Jennifer
Speaker 1: far Davis. I interviewed Jennifer far Davis. She won the
Speaker 1: record for traversing the Appalachian Trail two thousand plus miles.
Speaker 1: She was the fastest, and they said to her, a
Speaker 1: woman can't win. A hiker can't win. Someone going from
Speaker 1: north to south can't win. And she had all kinds
Speaker 1: of things. Her eyes were frozen shut, she was attacked
Speaker 1: by animals, snakes, insects, broke bones. It doesn't matter what happened,
Speaker 1: she said, where you could have flipped back and made
Speaker 1: him an excuse. These are temporary setbacks. They are not
Speaker 1: going to stop me. And she went right along to
Speaker 1: break the record, which she helped for many many years.
Speaker 1: I think it was just broken a year or two ago.
Speaker 1: This is a mindset of grit and determination that you
Speaker 1: want to develop inside yourself to say this is my goal.
Speaker 1: I am not going to let things stop me. I
Speaker 1: am going to be determined whether it's this business I'm arting,
Speaker 1: whether it is a relationship that I'm repairing, whether it
Speaker 1: is a personal goal of mine. I am going to
Speaker 1: develop a resilience that no matter what comes at me,
Speaker 1: I'm going to look at it as this is a
Speaker 1: temporary setback. I'm not going to let it define me
Speaker 1: as a failure, and I'm going to learn from it.
Speaker 1: I'm going to find another way. I'm going to do this.
Speaker 1: This is why many of the most successful entrepreneurs often
Speaker 1: have had two or three setbacks along the way, and
Speaker 1: then they hit it in the big in their big
Speaker 1: kind of way with the business that works for them
Speaker 1: or that's most natural. So, um, yeah, this is something
Speaker 1: I think it's very important to cultivate. This this grit
Speaker 1: like determination that says I'm not going to let this
Speaker 1: stop me along the way. Yeah. I was to reference
Speaker 1: my talk again last night. It's obviously fresh in my
Speaker 1: mind because I gave it. I was talking about how
Speaker 1: in entrepreneurial circles, everybody talks about failure now fail fail
Speaker 1: fail fail fast fail often that that, and it's true,
Speaker 1: what most of those things leave out is that how
Speaker 1: it really hurts, like and So this one is interesting
Speaker 1: because I think we think allow a temporary setback not
Speaker 1: to become a permanent failure means we just this stuff
Speaker 1: just rolls off our shoulders like it's nothing. It's not.
Speaker 1: That's not been my experience. Right when I have failed
Speaker 1: or things have not gone my way, it takes. It hurts,
Speaker 1: it doesn't feel good, it takes digging a little bit
Speaker 1: deeper and going, like you said, all right, I'm not
Speaker 1: gonna let this stop me. But but I think often
Speaker 1: in the success literature, we just make it sound like
Speaker 1: we should just roll through this stuff, you know, unphased.
Speaker 1: And that's not been my experience. And I think so
Speaker 1: when people get phased, they think, oh, I must not
Speaker 1: have it. And it's not that it's of course you hurt.
Speaker 1: Of course it discourages you. Of course all those things happen.
Speaker 1: But now what it'll be many years before AI takes
Speaker 1: the emotion away from this experience, and you do want
Speaker 1: to live through the emotion. You do want to feel it.
Speaker 1: In fact, it's the greatest teachers, So you don't want
Speaker 1: to speed through it. And yet having that grit mindset,
Speaker 1: having this way through is is such an important way
Speaker 1: because you're going to help others, You're going to grow yourself.
Speaker 1: And how fast can you bounce back from that? How
Speaker 1: fast can you keep going? And and or can you
Speaker 1: still experience some of that pain and yet still have
Speaker 1: forward momentums? Right? Right, So it doesn't mean I'm stopped.
Speaker 1: I'm now way laid for three years. I can't do
Speaker 1: anything right. That would be a failure. Whereas I'm gonna
Speaker 1: keep moving. You know what, I'm still in pain, I'm
Speaker 1: still not feeling right, this is still hurting, and and
Speaker 1: yet despite that foot forward, next step, next step, and um,
Speaker 1: and that's not easy, right, But how do you keep
Speaker 1: going through despair, through depression, through failure, whatever it is, personally,
Speaker 1: whatever it's, How do I keep going? That's not an
Speaker 1: easy thing. But having that resilience and that mindset of
Speaker 1: I'm gonna keep going through pain. I've seen it over
Speaker 1: and over and it's you know, you see it obviously
Speaker 1: with athletes who keep playing, but you see it with
Speaker 1: people who are masking emotional pain, whether they're Latin masking
Speaker 1: business pain, competitive whatever it is, and and they're still
Speaker 1: moving forward. And there's something that you have to admire
Speaker 1: from that. Of course, one of the greatest examples that
Speaker 1: we could possibly have comes this week because we've just
Speaker 1: witnessed this incredible comeback from Tiger Woods, who did not
Speaker 1: let temporary setbacks become a permanent failure. He was back again,
Speaker 1: back again, back again, and he was teeing off over
Speaker 1: and over until he came back. That is the definition
Speaker 1: of not letting a temporary setback become a permanent failure.
Speaker 1: It's really easy to to see a setback as this
Speaker 1: just isn't gonna work, right, Like I have to watch
Speaker 1: that mindset and myself with with business, which is like,
Speaker 1: all right, that didn't we we did that thing and
Speaker 1: and almost nobody signed up and almost nobody wanted it,
Speaker 1: which means nobody wants anything, which is of course not true.
Speaker 1: It's like, okay, what's you know? All right, let me
Speaker 1: adjust this, let me adjust that, right, And so often
Speaker 1: it's just that it didn't work this time, you know.
Speaker 1: And I think the Tiger Woods analogy is a good one, right,
Speaker 1: all right, I played in another tournament and you know,
Speaker 1: I didn't even make the cut. Laid in another tournament
Speaker 1: doesn't mean you'll never make the cut. It just means
Speaker 1: you didn't this time. And so what do you learn, etcetera.
Speaker 1: And what happened all the naysayers and critics on last Friday?
Speaker 1: And now they're all gone, and now every about a
Speaker 1: celebrating him. Right. It's so, you know, people are also
Speaker 1: quick to come alongside us and justify our excuses and
Speaker 1: say oh yeah, you know, and kind of wallow in
Speaker 1: that with you. Much better to find someone who's going
Speaker 1: to be with you and help you through some of
Speaker 1: that stuff, to say, let's try again, let's get to
Speaker 1: the next hill, let's let's keep your going forward. Ye.
Speaker 1: I've really been interested in this topic of emotional regulation
Speaker 1: lately and and it it seems to be a term
Speaker 1: for me that encapsulates so much of what we're talking about,
Speaker 1: because in my mind, emotional regulation is recognize what I'm feeling,
Speaker 1: allow it to be there, and then act according to
Speaker 1: my values. And and so for me, that is that
Speaker 1: is like this fundamental Whether it's you know, addiction, right,
Speaker 1: whether it's eating better, whether it's building a company, it's
Speaker 1: always the same. It's like, all right, here's the negative emotion.
Speaker 1: We had a guest on the thing that clicked in
Speaker 1: my mind. We had a guest who's a he's a
Speaker 1: professor and the thing he studies is procrastination, and he
Speaker 1: said that procrastination is largely a matter of not being
Speaker 1: able to regulate your emotions in the same way that
Speaker 1: addiction is. It's giving in to feel good. And the
Speaker 1: light kind of went off for me, and I was like,
Speaker 1: in't that kind of everything? It is kind of everything,
Speaker 1: And you know, it's fascinating you've been studying that recently
Speaker 1: because I have in a different way as well. I've
Speaker 1: been watching personality and reactions to things and even inside
Speaker 1: of myself to say, wait, I'm coming way out here
Speaker 1: and I'm trying to put a color on it, and
Speaker 1: I'm like, wow, I'm showing up, you know, maybe really hot,
Speaker 1: really red, really intense. I don't intend to do that.
Speaker 1: How do I change that? I want to show up
Speaker 1: more blue, more serene, more cool with this and take
Speaker 1: that level down. The key is whether it's color, whatever
Speaker 1: you're using volume is it. Are you showing up to
Speaker 1: the people in the room deliberately, intentionally and let them
Speaker 1: be tools in your belt of Oh no, I want
Speaker 1: to show up right on this one, or um, I'm
Speaker 1: gonna show up soft green. It just depends and and
Speaker 1: the ability to manage that and show up in the
Speaker 1: way that makes the most difference, because what are you
Speaker 1: really looking for. You're looking for influence, and how do
Speaker 1: your best influence. When you have the best self regulation
Speaker 1: first for yourself, you're gonna be able to influence others.
Speaker 1: If you're out of control, not regulating, you forget your influence.
Speaker 1: Everybody's looking at you as a mess, right yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: it is about that, and that's why I love that
Speaker 1: the two parts of it. One is recognize what you're
Speaker 1: feeling emotionally, allow it to be. It's this is not suppression,
Speaker 1: This is not like, oh I don't feel. But then
Speaker 1: decide who do I want to be? Act according to
Speaker 1: my values? Who do I want to be in this situation?
Speaker 1: And I just so, we are quickly running out of time,
Speaker 1: and I think that we are going to wrap up
Speaker 1: this conversation, but you and I are going to talk
Speaker 1: about some of the other mistakes in our post show conversation.
Speaker 1: I could talk to you Eric. I forgot that we
Speaker 1: were even doing a show. I know, I know, I
Speaker 1: feel like we should have like a four hour episode,
Speaker 1: but but my Chris, Chris will have a heart attack
Speaker 1: if I let it go a whole lot longer. So UM,
Speaker 1: thank you so much. We're gonna talk in the post
Speaker 1: show conversation about at least mistake five, which is staying
Speaker 1: in your comfort zone and listeners, if you want to
Speaker 1: hear the post show conversations, get a free UM mini
Speaker 1: episode every week where I talk about a teaching, a
Speaker 1: song and a poem that I am inspired by. You
Speaker 1: can go to one you Feed dot net slash support
Speaker 1: and become a member there. SKIP thanks so much, Thank
Speaker 1: you for having me. It's been a pleasure by If
Speaker 1: what you just heard was helpful to you, please consider
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