Speaker 1: I was constantly predicting negative things that never happened, So
Speaker 1: I said, what if instead I just went ahead and
Speaker 1: predicted positive ones, like I get a choice. And again
Speaker 1: it was that idea of my brain going, this is
Speaker 1: going to be a disaster. That's a disaster, and then
Speaker 1: I would do the thing and it wasn't a disaster.
Speaker 1: Welcome to the one you feed Throughout time, great thinkers
Speaker 1: have recognized the importance of the thoughts we have. Quotes
Speaker 1: like 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 conscious, 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 John Aikoff, a New
Speaker 1: York Times best selling author of seven books. He's also
Speaker 1: an I N c magazine Top one hundred Leadership Speaker
Speaker 1: and has spoken to hundreds of thousands of people at
Speaker 1: conferences and companies around the world, including FedEx, Nissan, Microsoft, Lockheed, Martin,
Speaker 1: and many others. Today, John and Eric discuss his new book, Soundtracks,
Speaker 1: The Surprising Solution to Overthinking. Hi, John, welcome to the show.
Speaker 1: Thanks for having today. I'm looking forward to it. Eric.
Speaker 1: We're gonna talk about your new book, which I really enjoyed,
Speaker 1: called Soundtracks The Surprising Solution to Overthinking. But before we
Speaker 1: do that, we'll start like we always do, with the parable.
Speaker 1: There is a grandfather who's talking to his granddaughter and
Speaker 1: he says, in life, there are two wolves inside of
Speaker 1: us that are always at battle. One is a good wolf,
Speaker 1: which represents things like kindness and bravery and love, and
Speaker 1: the other is a bad wolf, which represents things like
Speaker 1: greed and hatred and fear. And the granddaughter stops. She
Speaker 1: thinks about it for a second. She looks up at
Speaker 1: her grandfather and she said, grandfather, which one wins? And
Speaker 1: the grandfather says, the one you feed. So I'd like
Speaker 1: to start off by asking you what that parable means
Speaker 1: to you in your life and in the work that
Speaker 1: you do well. I think for me, it means you
Speaker 1: don't become who you want to be accidentally. I always
Speaker 1: tell people, no one accidentally gets in shape. I've never
Speaker 1: met a single person that said, you know, it was
Speaker 1: just Bene watching Netflix and then I looked up and
Speaker 1: I was doing burpies like I don't even remember doing
Speaker 1: them like, or I was, you know, managing five fantasy
Speaker 1: football teams. I looked up and I had finally finished
Speaker 1: writing the book I've always wanted to write. So I
Speaker 1: think of that parable and go, Okay, the choices you
Speaker 1: make make you and so you've got a choice, and
Speaker 1: the more you make certain choices, the more you become
Speaker 1: the person you're trying to become. That's how I look
Speaker 1: at that parable, and that's how I think about even
Speaker 1: my book. I think part of the you know, the
Speaker 1: book is about mindset, ultimately, is that a lot of
Speaker 1: people don't understand they get to choose what they think,
Speaker 1: they get to choose their thoughts. And so this, this story,
Speaker 1: to me, this parable is ultimately about the power of
Speaker 1: choice and the permission to choose, and what happens when
Speaker 1: you choose consistently right and you actually allude to this
Speaker 1: distinction between action and thought a little bit later in
Speaker 1: the book, and you say, if action eliminates overthinking, then
Speaker 1: in action breeds it. And and your book is about overthinking,
Speaker 1: It's about the negative soundtracks we we have. But I
Speaker 1: love that line. If action eliminates overthinking, then in action
Speaker 1: breeds it. And boy does that feel true? Yeah? And
Speaker 1: I think we see that. I mean, especially in the
Speaker 1: last eighteen months. It's been interesting. A lot of people
Speaker 1: have asked me, did you write the book during the pandemic?
Speaker 1: And I always say no, like it was finished long before.
Speaker 1: It's just been accidentally well timed. I'm not smart enough
Speaker 1: to time something like that. But I think a lot
Speaker 1: of people in isolation, in an action, had so much
Speaker 1: more space to get stuck in overthinking. And I think,
Speaker 1: you know, sometimes even that's why the power of something
Speaker 1: simple like a walk around the neighborhood can clear your head.
Speaker 1: You go, there's nothing magical about that. You wouldn't say, Okay,
Speaker 1: it was the perfect walk, or I executed it just right.
Speaker 1: You'd say getting outside, vitamin D, a little bit of endorphins,
Speaker 1: those things that little bit of action can actually help
Speaker 1: you fix a problem has nothing to do with walking.
Speaker 1: I mean it can be in real a relational problem
Speaker 1: that you say, wow, I got this idea for this
Speaker 1: relationship I'm stuck in. And it happened because I was
Speaker 1: on a trail run. And it wasn't that the trail
Speaker 1: run had you know, books about being in relationships on it.
Speaker 1: It was that you gave yourself a little bit of
Speaker 1: action and in that moment we're able to go okay.
Speaker 1: I could see how it could get unstuck from this situation, right.
Speaker 1: I think the other thing is when we are not
Speaker 1: in action, oftentimes we don't feel good about that because
Speaker 1: we know we should be doing something, and so then
Speaker 1: of course the overthinking starts to sort of crank up.
Speaker 1: It's sort of an example would be like if I
Speaker 1: know I need to work out that day, but I
Speaker 1: haven't been specific about when I'm going to do it,
Speaker 1: and it's just floating out there. And the longer it
Speaker 1: goes on, the more overthinking starts, the more I'm thinking
Speaker 1: about where I don't know if I really want to
Speaker 1: just all that overthinking gets spun up because I don't
Speaker 1: have a clear plan or I just haven't done the
Speaker 1: thing that needs done for me. I love the idea
Speaker 1: of like decide as few times as possible, So if
Speaker 1: you you know, and so many smart people have written
Speaker 1: about that concept. It's by no means an original concept
Speaker 1: to me, but just the idea of if I have
Speaker 1: to decide every day to do the thing, I have
Speaker 1: now created five different moments, if it's or seven different
Speaker 1: moments a week to talk myself out of the thing.
Speaker 1: Every bad decision you've ever made, you talked yourself into.
Speaker 1: And if you say that somebody, why did you do that,
Speaker 1: they'll go I thought it would work out, Like very
Speaker 1: rarely do you hear somebody go, I wanted to ruin
Speaker 1: my marriage like I was just like I wanted to
Speaker 1: I want to have a terrible mayor edge. I wanted
Speaker 1: to get fired. I thought being homeless would feel good.
Speaker 1: Like you have these things that you talked yourself into,
Speaker 1: This will feel good, this will help. And so I
Speaker 1: think if you allow yourself lots of decision spaces, there's
Speaker 1: lots of room for overthinking to come in and go.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's really kind of cold outside. You really
Speaker 1: want to get out of bed. You don't even know
Speaker 1: where your shoes are, Like, you can run tomorrow run
Speaker 1: double tomorrow and like you have all this space versus
Speaker 1: going no remember on Sunday, I decided I'm gonna run
Speaker 1: three times this week, Monday, Wednesday, Friday. So the decisions
Speaker 1: already happened. Like, I'm sorry, overthinking, you missed the meeting.
Speaker 1: We decided, like the gavel has struck. Like you can
Speaker 1: complain during the run. That's fine, you might do that,
Speaker 1: but we've already made the decision. And so I think
Speaker 1: that's part of that, not allowing overthinking kind of the
Speaker 1: room to fester and grow. Yeah, I couldn't agree more
Speaker 1: that idea of sort of separating our decisions from our actions,
Speaker 1: you know, deciding ahead of time. So let's kind of
Speaker 1: circle back to the beginning of the book and you
Speaker 1: talk about overthinking being a problem in our lives. Let's
Speaker 1: talk a little bit about why is overthinking the problem.
Speaker 1: Although most everybody listening to the show is gonna be like, well,
Speaker 1: I know exactly why overthinking is a problem, because it hurts,
Speaker 1: it doesn't feel good. But say a little more, Well,
Speaker 1: what was interesting? Whenever I write a book, I look
Speaker 1: for three things, um, and I think this is true
Speaker 1: of anybody who's gonna launch a business to a podcast, UM,
Speaker 1: anything you create, I look for three things. I look
Speaker 1: for a need. The people really need it, and my
Speaker 1: our friends talking to me about it. Is my audience
Speaker 1: online talking about it? When I go to a speaking client,
Speaker 1: are they asking about it? The second thing I look
Speaker 1: for as a personal connection and I personally connected to it.
Speaker 1: This podcast wouldn't be as successful if you weren't personally
Speaker 1: connected to the parable You've talked about it for years
Speaker 1: and it still rings true and fresh and authentic because
Speaker 1: you're personally connected to it. The third thing I look
Speaker 1: for is okay, is there a spot for me in
Speaker 1: the marketplace or is the marketplace already overcrowded. So we
Speaker 1: really jumped on need first, and this PhD Mike Peasley
Speaker 1: UM who does research with me. We asked ten thousand
Speaker 1: people if they struggle with overthinking, and nine five percent
Speaker 1: of people said yes. So it's this massive need and
Speaker 1: I think a real problem with it kind of lies
Speaker 1: in how I define it. I define it as when
Speaker 1: what you think gets in the way of what you want.
Speaker 1: So you have something you want, you have a desire,
Speaker 1: you have a hope, you have you know, a plan,
Speaker 1: a goal, whatever, and that all this extra thinking gets
Speaker 1: in the way. You know. For instance, according to the
Speaker 1: New York Times, eighty one percent of Americans want to
Speaker 1: write a book. It's one of our most popular goals
Speaker 1: in our nation. And every year less than one percent
Speaker 1: to one percent, So eighty one percent say they want
Speaker 1: to do it, less than one percent to so there's
Speaker 1: a huge gap. And I think the real problem when
Speaker 1: you overthink and you don't end up pursuing the desire
Speaker 1: using the talent you've been given, is that it doesn't
Speaker 1: go away. It turns the bitterness. The way I say
Speaker 1: it is, the goals you don't finish don't disappear. They
Speaker 1: become these ghosts that haunts you. Scientists call it the
Speaker 1: z effect. You remember incomplete goals more than you're completed.
Speaker 1: Ones you're incomplete actions have a heavier weight, a heavier
Speaker 1: residue than the ones you completed. So I think that's
Speaker 1: the real cost of overthinking. I say it steals time, creativity,
Speaker 1: um and productivity because it's it's this really sneaky, greedy
Speaker 1: form of fear. And I'll give you one specific example.
Speaker 1: Every listener that's listening has done this thing where before
Speaker 1: you even write down an idea, you judge it as dumb.
Speaker 1: You go, okay, somebody's already done that. That's silly. People
Speaker 1: won't like that before it's even made it from your
Speaker 1: head to a piece of paper you've self edited. I
Speaker 1: just think, imagine the works of art, the curious for diseases,
Speaker 1: the businesses, the relationships we've lost because somebody overthought something
Speaker 1: and didn't even pursue it to the next step of
Speaker 1: just writing it down. So that, to me is just
Speaker 1: kind of an example of the cost of overthinking. And
Speaker 1: you refer to our thoughts as basically a personal soundtrack
Speaker 1: to our lives. Why did you land on that metaphor?
Speaker 1: Happens to be one I love, but curious what it
Speaker 1: was that brought you to that? Oh, thank you. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So there's been so many smart people who have written
Speaker 1: about mindset and thinking. I mean, I saw you had
Speaker 1: Carol Dwack on the podcast, I mean talk about a
Speaker 1: mindset genius. So I certainly wasn't the first person to
Speaker 1: explore the concept. But I've heard people say a thought
Speaker 1: is like a leaf on a river, it's like a
Speaker 1: cloud the sky, it's like a car on a highway.
Speaker 1: But for me, it's a soundtrack, because a soundtrack has
Speaker 1: the power to change an entire moment, and often we
Speaker 1: don't even notice its impact. So, for instance, you see
Speaker 1: a movie and there's a you know, a little house
Speaker 1: with a white picket fence and some kids frolicking, and
Speaker 1: then all of a sudden, if they play an ominous soundtrack,
Speaker 1: it changes your whole view of that scene. You go
Speaker 1: from what a quiet street to be careful, it's quiet,
Speaker 1: it's too quiet. And so that's what a soundtrack does.
Speaker 1: And every repetitive thought, the thoughts that you repeat again
Speaker 1: and again, the ones you listen to, become your personal playlist.
Speaker 1: So you have a soundtrack for a relationship, every city
Speaker 1: you've lived in, every boss, every dream, every hope. And
Speaker 1: so I really wanted to give people an easy handle
Speaker 1: for them to go, oh, that's right, I do have
Speaker 1: a soundtrack. I'll give you an example. Everyone listening has
Speaker 1: a friend or an acquaintance or a coworker that when
Speaker 1: they see their text message, they don't even have to
Speaker 1: read it, just the notification fires off broken soundtracks where
Speaker 1: they go, oh, this person, they're reaching out again. And
Speaker 1: you've built up a soundtrack that played immediately you haven't
Speaker 1: even read the text, but you've got all these repetitive
Speaker 1: flaughts that are triggered the second you see that person's name,
Speaker 1: and it plays this automatic soundtrack. And so that's why
Speaker 1: I picked that particular metaphor because it really, for me
Speaker 1: captures the power and the potential of a soundtrack. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I love it because I've often talked to people about
Speaker 1: the thought patterns in their lives that are really prominent,
Speaker 1: and I refer to them a sort of like your
Speaker 1: greatest hits, you know, but they're like a song in
Speaker 1: in the way that, like a song, just keeps playing
Speaker 1: and it stays with you, and it keeps going. The
Speaker 1: more you listen to it, the easier it is for
Speaker 1: it to get triggered the next time. So the reason
Speaker 1: you can be three minutes late to the car rider
Speaker 1: pickup line as a mom and feel like I'm the
Speaker 1: worst mom is because you've played that a thousand times
Speaker 1: and it's so powerful and it's so fast, and it
Speaker 1: immediately erases all the good stuff you did that day.
Speaker 1: You got your kids out the door, you worked a
Speaker 1: full time job, you did soccer pickup, you did everything,
Speaker 1: and then one three minute late ride to the pickup
Speaker 1: line and you go, I'm the worst mom ember. It's
Speaker 1: because that soundtrack has been playing a thousand times, and
Speaker 1: so that's to me why they're powerful. I want to
Speaker 1: explore some of the things in the book, specifically some
Speaker 1: of the techniques, but before we do that, I want
Speaker 1: to bring up a thing that is sat in some
Speaker 1: ways at the heart of this podcast kind of all
Speaker 1: along in some ways, and it's really this distinction between
Speaker 1: we hear different messages in the personal development, self help
Speaker 1: psychology space. Right. One message is very much on point
Speaker 1: with your book, which is, Hey, the thoughts that you
Speaker 1: are thinking are really really important, and you've got to
Speaker 1: get them right. The negative thoughts are going to be problematic,
Speaker 1: you've gotta you've gotta work with those, right. The other
Speaker 1: school of thought is a little bit more about you
Speaker 1: need to feel the feelings that you're having. You're having emotions,
Speaker 1: and just trying to shove them down or get rid
Speaker 1: of them doesn't really work. We have to allow them
Speaker 1: space and we have to feel them, or we have
Speaker 1: to not resist them. And so I'm just kind of
Speaker 1: curious how you think about that piece of it. So
Speaker 1: my example of that would be one of the ideas
Speaker 1: in the book is about pulling the thread that you
Speaker 1: should ask the thought behind the thought behind the thought,
Speaker 1: there's always a threat. So my version of that, when
Speaker 1: you feel the feelings, process of feelings is think about
Speaker 1: that thought behind the soundtrack. So, for instance, if you
Speaker 1: said to me, John, I've got this really difficult person
Speaker 1: I have to deal with, and I'd say, well, let's
Speaker 1: talk about that. And if you said, oh, Mike is
Speaker 1: the worst. Mike is the worst. There's not much we
Speaker 1: can do with that. Mike is the worst. But what's
Speaker 1: behind that, I'd say, why do you feel that way?
Speaker 1: And and now we'll start to process kind of the
Speaker 1: thoughts the feelings, and you might say, you know, he
Speaker 1: only bothers me when he wants something. He only bothers
Speaker 1: me when he wants something, and that's a soundtrack. We
Speaker 1: can start to kind of pull the thread on and
Speaker 1: it might be what's really going on if you process
Speaker 1: that feeling is you don't feel like you get to
Speaker 1: say no to people you know, and you feel like
Speaker 1: when that person asks you for stuff, you feel powerless,
Speaker 1: and that doesn't feel good. Maybe the family of origin
Speaker 1: you grew up and said, always serve people, always put
Speaker 1: people first always put in that became mutated into I
Speaker 1: don't get to have boundaries, so we might say, wow,
Speaker 1: that's what's really going on. We can't change Mike. You're
Speaker 1: a hundred percent of the people you have a hundred
Speaker 1: percent control over. But what you can do is write
Speaker 1: yourself a new soundtrack that says, I get to have boundaries,
Speaker 1: I get to tell people like Mike no, I get
Speaker 1: to do self care. And so that to me is
Speaker 1: my version of Okay, let's feel the feelings. Let's see
Speaker 1: what's really going on, versus going like just do it.
Speaker 1: Like just do it isn't a complete solution, you know,
Speaker 1: if you don't really spend the time going okay, well,
Speaker 1: let me talk about what's behind the thing, behind the thing,
Speaker 1: you keep repeating the things over and over again. My
Speaker 1: favorite book about kind of exploring your feelings, Chip Dodd
Speaker 1: wrote a book called The Voice of the Heart, and
Speaker 1: it really talks about how anger, you know, is really
Speaker 1: about passion, and how loneliness is really about community. And
Speaker 1: so it's funny. It's a list of eight emotions and
Speaker 1: seven of them, on the face, you'd go seven of
Speaker 1: them are negative. There's only one that's positive, and you
Speaker 1: say no, no no, no, no no. Like anger, when it's
Speaker 1: appropriately expressed, is an active passion? Is you fighting for
Speaker 1: somebody or four cars? Like we've over labeled that negative,
Speaker 1: and we over label emotions negative. But if you'll sit
Speaker 1: with them and process them, they'll really teach you. Even
Speaker 1: fear like I would say that. Like I don't like
Speaker 1: when motivational people say be fearless, be fearless, be fearless,
Speaker 1: because one, I think it's impossible too. I don't think
Speaker 1: it's true. When I spoke for the first time to
Speaker 1: tend people, I've never been a public speaker, I had
Speaker 1: ten person sized fear, but I worked on it, I
Speaker 1: processed it, I got over it. And then when I
Speaker 1: spoke to a hundred people, I had a hundred person
Speaker 1: sized fear. At each new level of each new thing,
Speaker 1: I found fear waiting for me. And so I never
Speaker 1: would tell somebody you have to be fearless, because I
Speaker 1: think that means you're stuck. I mean, yesterday I spoke
Speaker 1: to eight thousand people. That was a different fear than
Speaker 1: a hundred people. But I worked on that, I got
Speaker 1: over that. And so what I like to say is
Speaker 1: fear gets a voice, not a vote. I'm gonna hear it,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna listen to it. I'm gonna learn from it.
Speaker 1: Fears trying to teach me a lesson about myself. You
Speaker 1: don't get self awareness if you say to yourself, I
Speaker 1: have to stop all fear. And so fear gets a voice,
Speaker 1: but it doesn't get a vote, and that it doesn't
Speaker 1: get to tell me what to do or what not
Speaker 1: to do, because it's overcautious. And I've learned that over
Speaker 1: the years that if it's at the head of the table,
Speaker 1: I'll never write a book, I'll never go on a
Speaker 1: podcast because what if I say the wrong thing? What
Speaker 1: do I look dumb? To Eric? All these things that
Speaker 1: fear is worried about. So that's kind of how I
Speaker 1: look at processing your feelings. Yeah, that idea of underlying
Speaker 1: the emotion. There's a phrase from acceptance commitment therapy where
Speaker 1: they say your vulnerabilities and your values kind of aren't
Speaker 1: poured from the same vessel. I love the alliteration of it,
Speaker 1: but it's the idea that my vulnerabilities or my emotions,
Speaker 1: the things that I'm feeling tell me something very important
Speaker 1: about what I care about. Yeah, they're educating you, I
Speaker 1: you know. One of the activities I given the book
Speaker 1: is this idea of how do you identify a broken soundtrack?
Speaker 1: The soundtrack? That's not helpful. And so the thirty second
Speaker 1: activity is write down a dream, write down a goal,
Speaker 1: right down a wish. So if you say I want
Speaker 1: to write a book, I want to start a podcast,
Speaker 1: I want to get married, I want to ask that
Speaker 1: person out, I want to move to Columbus, Ohio, whatever,
Speaker 1: write down a wish and then listen to your first thoughts.
Speaker 1: After listen to your first feelings, after listen to your reaction,
Speaker 1: because every reaction is an education. And so if your
Speaker 1: reaction is smarter, people have already done that. Nobody wants
Speaker 1: to hear from you. Who are you it's too late,
Speaker 1: it's it's too late, or you're you're too young, you
Speaker 1: don't enough experience. Listen to that, and you might need
Speaker 1: to sit with that as a broken soundtrack, because if
Speaker 1: your first response isn't let's do it, I bet we
Speaker 1: can learn that. I could try that. People do podcasts
Speaker 1: all the time. I could figure that out. If you're
Speaker 1: not getting pushed forward by your thoughts, you're getting held
Speaker 1: back by them, and we can figure those out. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you say, when you're looking at a broken soundtrack, you
Speaker 1: can ask it three questions. Yeah. So the three questions.
Speaker 1: I like to think of these as Trojan horse questions
Speaker 1: because on the face of them, they're very simple. There's
Speaker 1: not a single listener today. I'll be like, I've never
Speaker 1: heard those words, like John found a word in the
Speaker 1: English language. It's so unique. Um. But if you'll sit
Speaker 1: with them for a minute, there's deep truth hidden in them.
Speaker 1: So the first question is is it true this thing
Speaker 1: I'm telling myself about myself, or about the situation, or
Speaker 1: about this conversation? Is it true? One of the greatest
Speaker 1: mistakes you can make is assuming all your thoughts are true,
Speaker 1: that just because you thought it, it must be true,
Speaker 1: despite the countless times you're overthinking has lied to you.
Speaker 1: Everyone's thoughts at some level, at some point have told him, Oh,
Speaker 1: this is going to be a gigantic disaster, and you
Speaker 1: know what, it wasn't Your thought got that percent wrong.
Speaker 1: The second question you ask is is it helpful? Is
Speaker 1: it helpful when I listened to this over and over
Speaker 1: and over again? Does it push me forward or pull
Speaker 1: me back? And the reason you ask more than one
Speaker 1: question is that sometimes there are things that are true,
Speaker 1: but they're not helpful. So my favorite example, I interviewed
Speaker 1: a manager who said, John, I got fired twelve years
Speaker 1: ago from my job, and in that moment I started
Speaker 1: to overthink this idea that if I wasn't included in
Speaker 1: a meeting, maybe they were about to fire me again.
Speaker 1: So I got another job, and every time I see
Speaker 1: a door closed at a meeting, I think, oh, and
Speaker 1: I spend five ten minutes. You know who's in that meeting?
Speaker 1: Should I be in that meeting? Was I not invited
Speaker 1: that meeting? That I missed that meeting? So let's say
Speaker 1: only does it you know, one time a day, five
Speaker 1: days a week. That's fifty minutes a week, which doesn't
Speaker 1: feel like a lot, But then you go over twelve
Speaker 1: year period, that's sixty two eight hour work days. Like
Speaker 1: we try to save time with like apps. But imagine
Speaker 1: the time he's donated to that. Now that again, is
Speaker 1: it true he could be fired, We could all be
Speaker 1: fired at any point. That is true, But is it
Speaker 1: helpful for him to donate that creativity, that time, that
Speaker 1: effort to the thought, of course not. The third question
Speaker 1: to ask is is it kind if I said this
Speaker 1: to a friend, would they still want to be my friend?
Speaker 1: That's what's been fun about doing these podcast interviews about
Speaker 1: the book is that it often turns into a heart conversation.
Speaker 1: I had a podcast host get quiet during this question.
Speaker 1: I said what, and he said, well, I've been the
Speaker 1: number one podcast in my category for nine months and
Speaker 1: the soundtrack I've been listening to is You're just lucky.
Speaker 1: You're just lucky. You're just lucky. He said. If a
Speaker 1: friend of mine came over and they had worked really
Speaker 1: hard for nine months on something, I'd never tell them
Speaker 1: you're just lucky. You're just lucky. So if I wouldn't
Speaker 1: say it to them, why did I saying it to me?
Speaker 1: And if you can't answer yes to those week questions,
Speaker 1: it's true, it's helpful, it's kind. You then have to say, well,
Speaker 1: why am I accepting that I'm listening to this? Why
Speaker 1: am I letting this be my soundtrack? And if I
Speaker 1: don't want it to be, what can I do about it? Yeah?
Speaker 1: I love those Those questions show up in a lot
Speaker 1: of different areas, but I love the package of the
Speaker 1: three of those togethers is really true, you know. And
Speaker 1: I love the is it helpful? Because sometimes thoughts that
Speaker 1: we have that are just use the word negative because
Speaker 1: it comes to mind that's not really what they are.
Speaker 1: But they're not positive. Sometimes they actually are helpful. I'm
Speaker 1: solving a problem, I'm thinking through a difficult situation, I'm
Speaker 1: processing something in a way that actually is helpful. But
Speaker 1: then there's very often for most of us will recognize
Speaker 1: we sort of cross a point where it no longer
Speaker 1: is helpful. So, for example, if I just got in
Speaker 1: a fight with my partner, there's a period of time
Speaker 1: that I'm going to be thinking about that that I
Speaker 1: actually think it's helpful because I'm learning what what did
Speaker 1: I do? What could I say? What could I do?
Speaker 1: And then there's a certain point that it cross is
Speaker 1: over that I just circle the same ground over and
Speaker 1: over and over and over and over again, it's no
Speaker 1: longer helpful. Well, and the other thing is you're right
Speaker 1: because it might also not be completely true. Eventually your
Speaker 1: brain distorts reality. So what happens let's go right to
Speaker 1: this specific example. You have an argument with a partner
Speaker 1: you're working on that is it helpful for you to
Speaker 1: think that own the things you need to own? Of course,
Speaker 1: like you know, figure out your words, what was my tone,
Speaker 1: what was my meaning? But then on some level, because
Speaker 1: of how your brain works, it tends to distort and
Speaker 1: add things the situations that weren't really there, and so
Speaker 1: then you've moved into the territory if it's no longer true.
Speaker 1: I mean, one of my favorite people in the planet
Speaker 1: is this guy named Al Andrews, and he and his
Speaker 1: wife had an argument in the morning, and he thought
Speaker 1: about it all day, thought about all the day, and
Speaker 1: then when he came home that night, he said, I
Speaker 1: need to apologize because I've been lying for you all day.
Speaker 1: I was telling myself things you didn't say and didn't do.
Speaker 1: I was adding words, adding and that's what we do
Speaker 1: in arguments, and so we had tone and all this.
Speaker 1: And so is it helpful? Yes, there's a point where
Speaker 1: it is Is it true? There's a point where it's
Speaker 1: no longer true. But then you go, is it kind?
Speaker 1: It's probably not kind to you or your partner. So
Speaker 1: that's that's why there's more than one question, and that's
Speaker 1: why they work together to kind of give you a
Speaker 1: leg to stand on um so that when it's true,
Speaker 1: you know, okay, is it helpful? And vice versa. You
Speaker 1: boil the whole thing down into three actions with alliteration, you, you,
Speaker 1: and I like alliteration we do, we do, retire, replaced, repeat, Yes,
Speaker 1: very nice. We just talked a little bit about retiring, so,
Speaker 1: you know, retiring your broken soundtracks. But what else do
Speaker 1: we need to talk about with retiring or broken soundtracks
Speaker 1: beyond the recognition of them, which we just sort of
Speaker 1: talked through. One way to recognize them is to ask
Speaker 1: these three questions. Is there anything more you'd want to say?
Speaker 1: On retire? I think it's always good to do it
Speaker 1: in community too. I think I think a self awareness
Speaker 1: is a myth. Yes, I think we stand so close
Speaker 1: to our own paintings sometimes we can't really see what
Speaker 1: it is um And sometimes that's in the context we
Speaker 1: mentioned relationships. You're in a relationship, a dating relationship, and
Speaker 1: you're so close to what you can't really see what
Speaker 1: it is, and you break up and then three months
Speaker 1: later you go, wow, I've got some distance that wasn't healthy.
Speaker 1: Why was I okay that they talked to me that way?
Speaker 1: Why I was okay? And you'll say to your friends, hey,
Speaker 1: why didn't you tell me? And often if they're good
Speaker 1: friends to go we tried, we did because they had
Speaker 1: the distance. And so sometimes, you know, when you think
Speaker 1: about broken soundtracks, having a friend you trust to go, hey,
Speaker 1: do you ever see me hold myself back from opportunity?
Speaker 1: And a friend who knows you, who actually you have
Speaker 1: a relationship with, might be able to say, yeah, you know.
Speaker 1: I noticed that when you get certain types of opportunities,
Speaker 1: you say no before you've even tried. And I think
Speaker 1: that people see something in you you don't see in yourself.
Speaker 1: And I think that might be a broken soundtrack. And
Speaker 1: it might be that you know, in college or maybe
Speaker 1: even high school, yet a teacher or professor or parents
Speaker 1: say you're not a great leader. You're not a great
Speaker 1: natural leader. And so now you're getting all these leadership
Speaker 1: opportunities at your job, and as soon as you get
Speaker 1: to a certain level, you jump to another job because
Speaker 1: you don't you know, I'm not a leader, and a
Speaker 1: friend might go. The last three jobs you've had, you
Speaker 1: all jumped right at the time where they said, okay,
Speaker 1: we want you to manage people because we see something.
Speaker 1: I wonder if there's a soundtrack there. So sometimes a
Speaker 1: great way to work on the retire process is to
Speaker 1: have somebody who can reflect back to you what's going on. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I couldn't agree more. Discernment is a word that's used
Speaker 1: a lot in spiritual communities, and but I think discernment
Speaker 1: half the battle is having people to help you discern.
Speaker 1: You know, we're not supposed to do it alone, whether
Speaker 1: it's recovery, whether it's your faith, anything like, we're not
Speaker 1: supposed to carry it alone. Yeah. I was just reflecting
Speaker 1: on something. You may have heard of this before, called
Speaker 1: Solomon's paradox. Solomon's paradox is named after King Solomon, who
Speaker 1: you know, wise King Solomon. We all know how wise
Speaker 1: he was, well, apparently not in his own life, so
Speaker 1: people would travel from around the world to see him
Speaker 1: to get his wisdom, but for himself couldn't do it.
Speaker 1: And that's that's known as Solomon's paradox. We don't see ourselves. Ye. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's so true. I mean he he had some very
Speaker 1: clear tenants and broke just about every one of them,
Speaker 1: right right, Yeah, So okay, so three actions to change
Speaker 1: your thoughts. Retire our broken soundtrack. The next is to
Speaker 1: replace them with new ones. So let's talk about this process. Yeah,
Speaker 1: So this one really came from. There's a lot of
Speaker 1: kind of mindset approach or overthinking approaches says stop it,
Speaker 1: stop it, stop overthinking, stop thinking, and one, I think
Speaker 1: that's impossible. We're amazing thinking machines, and too, why would
Speaker 1: I ever turn off this amazing the machine? What would
Speaker 1: happen if I just fed it with good thoughts? And
Speaker 1: so I really believe that if you can worry, you
Speaker 1: can wonder. Um, if you can doubt, you can dominate,
Speaker 1: If you can spin, you can soar. It's kind of
Speaker 1: the you know, a plane can drop um food or
Speaker 1: a bomb. And so really where the book came from
Speaker 1: was going, what if I could take all this thinking
Speaker 1: and actually figure out a way for it to work
Speaker 1: for me, not against me. And that's where replace comes in.
Speaker 1: So it's not just stop it, stop it, stop it,
Speaker 1: like why do you keep overthinking? It's okay? What do
Speaker 1: you want to overthink? That's in a good way? Like
Speaker 1: for me. That's really where my career changed dramatically. As
Speaker 1: in two thousand and eight, I had a blog that
Speaker 1: started to get some readership and I started to grow things.
Speaker 1: An event planner out of nowhere said hey, would you
Speaker 1: come speak at our conference, and I've never done that.
Speaker 1: I had no real evidence I could do that. All
Speaker 1: I had was one thought. I think I could be
Speaker 1: a public speaker. I think I could be an author.
Speaker 1: Now I turned that into a thousand different actions, a
Speaker 1: thousand different results over the years. But it started with
Speaker 1: a thought, and it started with repeating positive thought. So
Speaker 1: that's what this part of the idea is. Okay, we
Speaker 1: retire some of these, but you're going to think. You're
Speaker 1: going to keep thinking, and in a vacuum, good thoughts
Speaker 1: don't show up on their own. The phrase I used
Speaker 1: sometimes is fear comes free, hope takes work. You don't
Speaker 1: have to go look for negativity. Negativity will find you
Speaker 1: in the grocery store and remind you of a stupid
Speaker 1: thing you said three years ago, or a mistake you made.
Speaker 1: I mean, my brain the other day was like, hey,
Speaker 1: remember that surprise party you ruined? And I was like,
Speaker 1: oh yeah. And this woman that I worked with, she
Speaker 1: sent an email, and in my defense, she buried the lead.
Speaker 1: You gotta say in the subject line surprise party, don't
Speaker 1: tell my husband. But I skimmed the email. I told
Speaker 1: her husband I ruined his thirtieth birthday party. When we
Speaker 1: went to the party that night, my wife and I
Speaker 1: walked in and I swear to you, she stopped the
Speaker 1: music and said, this is John Acoff, the guy who
Speaker 1: ruined the party. And I was like, hey, everybody, and
Speaker 1: that happened nineteen years ago. And the other day my
Speaker 1: brain was like, hey, you wanna Are you feeling too
Speaker 1: good right now? What if we thought about a party
Speaker 1: you ruined nineteen years ago? How is that helpful? So
Speaker 1: the part about repeat is Okay, now that we know
Speaker 1: we have the power and permission to change our thoughts,
Speaker 1: what are we gonna put there in place of the
Speaker 1: broken ones? And I would say people don't understand they
Speaker 1: get to choose their thoughts. Most people think they just
Speaker 1: show up on their own. Um, even my most type
Speaker 1: A friends who lay out their clothes the night before
Speaker 1: they go to the gym. Very rarely do I meet
Speaker 1: people that say, got a big negotiation coming up on Thursday,
Speaker 1: and the last one, like a month ago with a
Speaker 1: different client went kind of south. And I know I'm
Speaker 1: going to go in with clenched hands if I'm not careful.
Speaker 1: So I'm gonna have the soundtracks playing so that I
Speaker 1: have the right attitude and the right approach in this meeting.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna choose what I'll be thinking in this moment
Speaker 1: versus just hoping that it's okay. That phrase choose your
Speaker 1: thoughts is an interesting one, right, because on one level,
Speaker 1: we don't choose what shows up. If you sit down
Speaker 1: to try and meditate for ten minutes, you see this
Speaker 1: right away. You're like in the grocery, it's like boom,
Speaker 1: there it is. So they just appear. So in that sense,
Speaker 1: we don't choose them, but we do have the ability
Speaker 1: to then say what do we want to respond? We
Speaker 1: also have the ability to say do I want to insert?
Speaker 1: And then that retiring and replacing processing that you're describing
Speaker 1: actually causes us to be, in a way choosing our
Speaker 1: future thoughts because what we're doing is we're rewiring those
Speaker 1: automatic thought patterns. We've got. Automatic thought patterns are soundtracks
Speaker 1: are greatest hits that keep showing up, and we're like,
Speaker 1: what I didn't I didn't choose it. There it is.
Speaker 1: And so you can't choose what shows up. But by
Speaker 1: choosing what you focus on in the moment and working
Speaker 1: with them, you're actually working on sort of making it
Speaker 1: more likely you're going to choose your thoughts in the
Speaker 1: future by what you choose. Now that's a that's a
Speaker 1: great point, um, and which is why retires the first step,
Speaker 1: because you know, I think you might not be able
Speaker 1: to choose what shows up. But you choose what you entertain,
Speaker 1: you choose what you dance with, you choose what you
Speaker 1: give the rest of the day too, So you're right.
Speaker 1: You know, I might be walking down the street and
Speaker 1: all of a sudden, I remember something terrible I did,
Speaker 1: or something that, you know, some negative thought. I don't
Speaker 1: in that moment beat my self up, going I can't
Speaker 1: believe I'm still thinking about that. Instead, I go, oh,
Speaker 1: I see it. Um, oh, that's you know. Or let's
Speaker 1: say let's say I'm online and I see another author,
Speaker 1: another speaker, whatever, and they're really successful, and I feel
Speaker 1: this groundswell of jealousy. Now I can choose to entertain
Speaker 1: that and they go, oh, they're so lucky, they have
Speaker 1: better opportunities, like they live in the right city, like whatever.
Speaker 1: I can spend a lot of thought time around that,
Speaker 1: or I can go, wait a second, I think that's jealousy.
Speaker 1: And I know that when I'm jealous of somebody I
Speaker 1: no longer get to learn from them, and I really
Speaker 1: like learning. So I'm gonna I'm gonna say instead of going,
Speaker 1: I hate that person, I'm jealous of that person. I'm
Speaker 1: a failure because I don't have what that person has.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna deliberately work on and it's work like, it's
Speaker 1: not automatic. I'm gonna work on, going, what can I
Speaker 1: learn from that person? Or maybe even like, how can
Speaker 1: I celebrate them? Maybe celebrating them is my shortcut to
Speaker 1: cut the jealousy off, or maybe even it's an invitation
Speaker 1: to gratitude. And now I've got three other options versus
Speaker 1: going people suck, like I'm so mad at everybody. Like
Speaker 1: that's a really hard way to go through life. And
Speaker 1: it happens to me. Of course, every every industry has
Speaker 1: some degree of competition or it's hard to see, you know.
Speaker 1: And so I had a counselor say to me, Um,
Speaker 1: one of the true marks of friendship is when you
Speaker 1: can celebrate somebody getting something you didn't get. And that's
Speaker 1: the kind of friend I want to be. And so,
Speaker 1: but it's a process and it's not you know, it's
Speaker 1: not always easy, but it's always worth it. Because I
Speaker 1: get to walk around celebrating people grateful for what I
Speaker 1: have um and learning, or I get to walk around
Speaker 1: bitter and jealous and upset. There's a Buddhist concept called moodita.
Speaker 1: It means sympathetic joy, and it is something to be cultivated,
Speaker 1: but it means I take joy in the joy of others.
Speaker 1: And the Dollar Lama said something along the lines of like, well,
Speaker 1: you know, if you do it the normal way, which
Speaker 1: is you to get to celebrate your joy, you've got
Speaker 1: one chance at joy, one of seven billion odds. That's right,
Speaker 1: if you can do it for other people all of
Speaker 1: a sudden, right, all of a sudden, And so yeah,
Speaker 1: I agree. I think that's a beautiful way to think
Speaker 1: about it. And I also very much agree with what
Speaker 1: you're saying about replacing right. I know this from you know,
Speaker 1: addiction recovery stuff. You get rid of something, you've got
Speaker 1: to put something in its place. Yeah, because something positive
Speaker 1: won't show up on its own like something negative. Like
Speaker 1: when you work on the one negative thing, like seven
Speaker 1: other are waiting in the wings and they're like, let's go, dude,
Speaker 1: let's say and if you don't have something in that spot.
Speaker 1: Sometimes they're stronger than the first one, and so you
Speaker 1: have to go like no, no, no, no, no, Like
Speaker 1: there's a void, and I know in the void, good
Speaker 1: things don't show up, So let me deliberately put something
Speaker 1: good in the void. I think that other point you
Speaker 1: make about like it's not like we're going to stop thinking.
Speaker 1: It's not like the brain is going to turn off.
Speaker 1: I mean, it just doesn't know. And and it's and
Speaker 1: it's a beautiful thing. You know. The joke I do
Speaker 1: in the book is that like the two things that
Speaker 1: separate us from the animals are overthinking of Netflix, Like
Speaker 1: why would I you know, like it's a very human thing,
Speaker 1: like we're good at it. And so I just thought, okay,
Speaker 1: what if I could learn how to be good at
Speaker 1: it and where it actually helps me versus hurts me.
Speaker 1: And there's a lot of freedom in that when you go, okay,
Speaker 1: I'm not a failure for overthinking. I actually have a
Speaker 1: tool I can use for my good versus going I
Speaker 1: must be the warrant one person who can't turn all
Speaker 1: my thoughts off, and everyone else has it all together
Speaker 1: except me. I mean, there's a lot of joy just
Speaker 1: in admitting that that Okay, I overthink. One of the
Speaker 1: ideas in the book you talk about with our thinking
Speaker 1: is that it's a dial say a little bit more
Speaker 1: about that. Yeah. So I was having a conversation with
Speaker 1: a guy named David Thomas who runs a counseling center
Speaker 1: here in Nashville called day Star for Children, which is
Speaker 1: absolutely amazing. It's it's so fun to see this generation
Speaker 1: of kids get tools that will help them in adulthood
Speaker 1: because I think my generation, very few people knew about counseling.
Speaker 1: They didn't they didn't know how to interact with kids.
Speaker 1: And so David Thomas and I were talking about this
Speaker 1: and I was telling him the concept of the book
Speaker 1: and soundtracks and negative thinking. He said, well, the challenges.
Speaker 1: Most people want there to be a switch. They want
Speaker 1: to find one switch that forever turns off all stress,
Speaker 1: all negativity, all anxiety, all concerned whatever. He said. So
Speaker 1: they go and they look for a switch and it
Speaker 1: works for a week. Maybe they get into yoga and
Speaker 1: they're like, yoga is my new thing. I'll never feel
Speaker 1: bad again. And yoga works for a week, maybe even
Speaker 1: a month, But then life gets stressful again, because that's
Speaker 1: what life does. And he said, so It's not a switch,
Speaker 1: he said, It's a dial. And when you think about
Speaker 1: life like a dial, you recognize, wow, I'm at a
Speaker 1: leven today. What are some things I could do to
Speaker 1: turn that dial down? Versus going I blew it. I
Speaker 1: found the wrong switch again. I better go look for
Speaker 1: another switch, which becomes this act of perfectionism, of constantly
Speaker 1: being on. You know, this will be the book, this
Speaker 1: will be the guru, this will be the exercise, this
Speaker 1: will beet up, and you put a ton of pressure
Speaker 1: out on things. One of the jokes I sometimes talk about.
Speaker 1: We studied um how much fun impacts performance. So we
Speaker 1: did this big research study about this fun matter to performance,
Speaker 1: and we looked at two factors, satisfaction and what you
Speaker 1: actually accomplished. And when you're deliberate about adding fun to
Speaker 1: things that are challenging, your satisfaction goes up by thirty one.
Speaker 1: Your perform goes up by But what I often saying
Speaker 1: it is that you have to raise both factors, because
Speaker 1: if say I only raise your satisfaction but your performance fails,
Speaker 1: you're smiling all the way to last place. That's not helpful.
Speaker 1: But if I raise your performance but not your satisfaction,
Speaker 1: you become every rich, miserable person you've ever met. And
Speaker 1: I'll ask the audience, have you never met somebody who's
Speaker 1: really successful and really unhappy? And you think those two
Speaker 1: things shouldn't go together, but they do because they only
Speaker 1: cared about their performance. And their plan was, I'm gonna
Speaker 1: be miserable for sixty two years, but then I'm gonna
Speaker 1: retire and move to Florida and get a golf cart.
Speaker 1: And I would say, you're putting an awful lot of
Speaker 1: pressure on a golf cart. Like Florida is amazing, don't
Speaker 1: get me wrong, but like, that's an awful lot of
Speaker 1: pressure on Florida. It's saying, you know. And so I
Speaker 1: think anytime we have a switch mentality, we put this
Speaker 1: amazing pressure on a book, on a thing versus going
Speaker 1: while I'm at a eleven. And that's not that's not
Speaker 1: because I'm a failure. That's because life sometimes raises. Everybody
Speaker 1: turn eleven. So what do I do to turn it down?
Speaker 1: And what am I what I'd call turn down techniques
Speaker 1: to go Okay, let me get the dial down to
Speaker 1: four and it's gonna raise again. I have my oldest
Speaker 1: daughters in high school she's a senior, she's going to
Speaker 1: college next year. I know there's gonna be stressful moments
Speaker 1: like if I have a switch mentality and go, no, Eric,
Speaker 1: I've already figured out negative thinking. I no longer have it.
Speaker 1: Guess what happens when she does or doesn't get into
Speaker 1: the sorority she wants to get into, and I feel
Speaker 1: this stress and my dad goes to a leven. I'll
Speaker 1: know to go, Okay, what are those things I used
Speaker 1: to turn it down? Yeah, let me make sure I
Speaker 1: do a bunch of those right now because it feels stressful.
Speaker 1: That's a completely different way to live life. I love
Speaker 1: that concept of moving it a few degrees. I often
Speaker 1: talk about this formula I love, which is that suffering
Speaker 1: equals pain times resistance. You know, and I talked about like,
Speaker 1: we're not gonna turn off resistance. You're not gonna get
Speaker 1: rid of the things that you resist. But can you
Speaker 1: go from like a five do a two? If you do,
Speaker 1: cause it a huge change, that's right, because yeah and
Speaker 1: so so, Yeah, I love the dial idea. So you
Speaker 1: list some of your favorite things for turning down the dial?
Speaker 1: You want to share a couple of those, Yeah, So
Speaker 1: I mean I love. I love to run. I love
Speaker 1: to get out. You know, this morning I ran three
Speaker 1: point one miles. Um got some great endorphins, felt like
Speaker 1: I had finished something. I could check something off a
Speaker 1: box that felt great. Um, I love being outside. Another
Speaker 1: one of mine that's kind of some people would say
Speaker 1: on the dork her side of thing is I love
Speaker 1: putting together big Lego sets. You know, a lot of
Speaker 1: my life because I'm an author and a speaker and
Speaker 1: a consultant and you know, I'm online, doesn't have clear
Speaker 1: steps like the I like the idea, like being a podcaster,
Speaker 1: like I have a podcast called All it Takes is
Speaker 1: a Goal, And so like being a podcaster, there's not
Speaker 1: a hundred exact steps to do. There's so many options.
Speaker 1: So doing a Lego set for me, like a big
Speaker 1: four thousand piece Porsche, I have this instruction manual and
Speaker 1: I get to follow it step by step and see
Speaker 1: this thing get built. And that's very meditative to me.
Speaker 1: Like some people it's knitting. They go, You know, when
Speaker 1: I knit, I can turn my brain off and I
Speaker 1: can I can think. You know, some people say I
Speaker 1: don't like to run, but I like to walk. If
Speaker 1: I can go walk in the woods without headphones, without distraction.
Speaker 1: That's relaxing. Fiction is that way for me if I
Speaker 1: can kind of crawl inside a good book. And you know,
Speaker 1: I always tell people the reason you have your best
Speaker 1: ideas in the shower, it's the only time you've allowed
Speaker 1: yourself to still be bored. And so sometimes like allowing
Speaker 1: myself to be bored on a neighborhood walk or and
Speaker 1: it can be something like as simple as clearing the
Speaker 1: top of my desk, that can be a turn down
Speaker 1: technique for me, where I go, wow, it feels out
Speaker 1: of control. I'm gonna just clear that. I'm not gonna
Speaker 1: organize the whole office because that gets into overwhelming. I'm
Speaker 1: going to clear the top of my desk, like that's
Speaker 1: what it is. Or we got a bird feeder on
Speaker 1: the outside of our house, like attaches to a window,
Speaker 1: and that was a COVID lifesaver Like that became bird
Speaker 1: TV for me, where I was like, how's the woodpicker
Speaker 1: gonna get in there? And he had to like hey
Speaker 1: because he's so mass and was like, oh man, that
Speaker 1: finch is being a huge jerk to that other finch.
Speaker 1: So little things like that, I always tell people. It
Speaker 1: has to be related to you, not to me. So
Speaker 1: if you heard those and we're like, man, none like
Speaker 1: legos are for children, You're weird. That's cool, get that.
Speaker 1: But as long as you have some of your own
Speaker 1: life that you're cultivating, I think you're in a really
Speaker 1: good spot. Well, it's funny that a we got a
Speaker 1: bird feed her. I don't know, it's probably been a
Speaker 1: year ago, and the same thing. I love it. I
Speaker 1: just can't can't get enough of it. You know, the
Speaker 1: same thing watching them now we now we have a
Speaker 1: cardinal who shows up at the same time every night.
Speaker 1: It's just like right on time. I hear it. I
Speaker 1: can recognize the call. Now I'm like, actually, my partner
Speaker 1: is better at it than I am. She's like cardinals
Speaker 1: out there and sure enough, you know, shows up every night. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Well I heard somebody once say, um, if you want
Speaker 1: to be connected to the idea that there's a bigger
Speaker 1: world than you, get a bird feeder because it connects
Speaker 1: you to migratory patterns of thousands of miles and so
Speaker 1: that idea that Wow, they're like, I'm now connected to that,
Speaker 1: and like they go somewhere at night they have a
Speaker 1: plan and like, it's amazing. I often have thought about
Speaker 1: where are they during the evening, and then that led
Speaker 1: me to find out this incredible fact. And then we're
Speaker 1: gonna move on from birds. But some birds are capable
Speaker 1: talking about like turning off the brain. How we as
Speaker 1: humans can't do it. Some birds can. They literally shut
Speaker 1: down half their brain and half of their senses, and
Speaker 1: they that part rests and sleeps. The other part is
Speaker 1: perfectly awake and alert. And then they I'm like, that
Speaker 1: is incredible. That's how they can fly across the Atlantic.
Speaker 1: So birds that can fly across the Atlantic are doing that.
Speaker 1: They're turning off one part of their brain so that
Speaker 1: they can still fly and still wake up rested on
Speaker 1: the other side of the It's crazy, it's incredible. It
Speaker 1: sounds like it would be a great feature to have
Speaker 1: built in, but we don't have it. Okay, as we're
Speaker 1: talking about this replacing new ones, there's another one that
Speaker 1: you have called flip a coin. Yeah. So it was
Speaker 1: interesting when I would tell people, hey, do you ever overthink?
Speaker 1: Everybody go yes, I overthink. It was a very easy
Speaker 1: question answer. But then and I go, hey, what would
Speaker 1: you like to think instead? Blank stairs? It felt intimidating
Speaker 1: to go because we've never thought that. So the idea
Speaker 1: of like, what are good thoughts you'd like to have
Speaker 1: in place that feels intimidating. So I realized I need
Speaker 1: a really easy way to give somebody an ability to
Speaker 1: think of a good thought they want to have. I
Speaker 1: tell people flip a bad one. So the example I
Speaker 1: use in the book is I realized one day that
Speaker 1: I was the worst boss i'd ever had. I would
Speaker 1: make myself work, you know, weekends, I would work through
Speaker 1: the night, like I was doing all these terrible things.
Speaker 1: And I had just come home from a trip where
Speaker 1: I had spoken and it was a really stressful day,
Speaker 1: and a car on the way to the airport broke down.
Speaker 1: It's just as crazy day as four pm on a Friday,
Speaker 1: And I thought I should go back in the office
Speaker 1: for a few more hours. And I thought, if I
Speaker 1: had a boss that did that to me, I would
Speaker 1: hate that boss. And I realized, wait, I'm my boss.
Speaker 1: So instead of going on this long vision quest to
Speaker 1: figure something out, I said, if I'm the worst boss
Speaker 1: right now, what would the best boss do? Like, what
Speaker 1: would the best boss do? And I just flipped the
Speaker 1: coin in my mind. And I've had good bosses like
Speaker 1: I you know, I'm already five. I've had bosses that
Speaker 1: I go, wow, she was inspiring or wow he was encouraging.
Speaker 1: So I made a list of the things the best
Speaker 1: boss would do. And so then the next time I
Speaker 1: was attempted to go back into worst boss mode, I
Speaker 1: was like, wait, does that get no? No, no, my
Speaker 1: boss like we celebrate victories by taking the next day off.
Speaker 1: That's amazing, Like that would be an amazing boss. Like great,
Speaker 1: And so that's what I meant for people, is that, Okay,
Speaker 1: if you say yourself, okay, I'm the worst mom, what
Speaker 1: the best mom do? And chances are you've bumped into
Speaker 1: some other moms that you'd go, wow, they're so encouraging
Speaker 1: to their kids, and you go, okay, the best mom
Speaker 1: would be encouraging to her kids and herself, or like wow,
Speaker 1: that mom takes time for self care. She doesn't believe
Speaker 1: self care is selfish. That's a broken soundtrack. I'm gonna
Speaker 1: allow myself to to have some me time, or I'm
Speaker 1: gonna allow myself to do an orange theory class or whatever.
Speaker 1: So that was what the exercise was, is taking these
Speaker 1: broken ones flipping them upside down and going what would
Speaker 1: the reverse of that look like? As an easy way
Speaker 1: to enter in to the idea of coming up with
Speaker 1: new soundtracks, Yeah, there was one you had in there
Speaker 1: that I immediately plucked out, and I thought, I'm gonna
Speaker 1: take that one, which is my predictions are positive. Yeah. Well,
Speaker 1: I just realized that I was constantly predicting negative things
Speaker 1: that never happened, So I said, what if instead I
Speaker 1: just went ahead and predicted positive ones, like I get
Speaker 1: a choice. And again it was that idea of my
Speaker 1: brain going, this is going to be a disaster. That's
Speaker 1: a disaster, and then I would do the thing and
Speaker 1: it wasn't a disaster. And I finally looted back around.
Speaker 1: It's like, whoa brain. All your predictions are negative and
Speaker 1: they're never true. So I'm just gonna choose positive ones
Speaker 1: ahead of time and lean into those. And I think
Speaker 1: that one comes from a really common broken soundtrack people
Speaker 1: struggle with is prepare for the worst and be pleasantly
Speaker 1: surprised when it doesn't happen. Now, I think you should
Speaker 1: prepare for situations, you should have contingency plans all that,
Speaker 1: but where it gets dangerous is where all you're enjoying
Speaker 1: is the tiny bit of surprise when this terrible thing
Speaker 1: didn't happen. Um And I think it was Michael J.
Speaker 1: Fox that said, when you live that way, you experience
Speaker 1: it's the bad thing twice. You experience it, how you
Speaker 1: think about it, and then you experience it when it
Speaker 1: does really have You've doubled your sorrows. And I'm not
Speaker 1: a fake positive person, like I love the reality of
Speaker 1: dealing with hard stuff. It's not that it's just of
Speaker 1: the two I'd rather choose to be positive. I agree.
Speaker 1: I think that's one for me. I'm generally pretty positive,
Speaker 1: but when it comes to things about like this business
Speaker 1: and growing it and all that, like you know, we're
Speaker 1: making plans, we're setting goals, and my brain is always like,
Speaker 1: that's not gonna work. And I'm sort of like you,
Speaker 1: I've really had to work on, like, okay, positive prediction
Speaker 1: because most of the time, yeah, it does work. There's
Speaker 1: a time for, as you said, sitting down and thinking about,
Speaker 1: well why might this not work? Okay, well, what's our
Speaker 1: what's But beyond that, it's all the other minutes that
Speaker 1: I'm not actively really improving anything. I'm just worrying. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you're just you're just kind of ruminating on it, chewing
Speaker 1: on it. Um. Yeah. And for me, I just I
Speaker 1: would say I'm not naturally a positive person like I
Speaker 1: were like, I'm I'm naturally a fairly melancholy person. Like example,
Speaker 1: as we went and saw the Counting Crows in concert
Speaker 1: the other night, and I loved it, and my wife
Speaker 1: was like, oh, they's so MOPy. I loved it. I
Speaker 1: was like, yeah, it makes me want to write poetry.
Speaker 1: And my mom's minivan. I'm in high school and around here,
Speaker 1: and so I'm naturally pretty negative. But I just see
Speaker 1: the benefit both to my heart and the people I'm
Speaker 1: around and the results I get of positivity. So I
Speaker 1: work at positivity and I enjoy getting to do that.
Speaker 1: So let's talk about the last step, which is repeat
Speaker 1: him until it is automatic as the old ones. It
Speaker 1: was interesting when the book came out. About forty eight
Speaker 1: hours after it came out, people would come up to
Speaker 1: me and go hey, or they'd email me or d
Speaker 1: m me and they'd say, John, Um, my new one
Speaker 1: hasn't worked yet, like the old ones. Still showing up
Speaker 1: and I would go, well, it's only been out forty
Speaker 1: eight hours, so I know you haven't had a ton
Speaker 1: of time. And so you often see this happen in
Speaker 1: any type of goal. People say this exercise doesn't work,
Speaker 1: and I'll say, well, how long have you tried it?
Speaker 1: I'll say ten days. I'll say how long did it
Speaker 1: take you to gain the weight? I'll say ten years.
Speaker 1: So you gave the problem ten years to develop in
Speaker 1: the solution ten days. That's so unkind to you and
Speaker 1: the solution. And so that's what the process of repeat
Speaker 1: is about, is that. Okay, I truly believe there are
Speaker 1: times when learning something new can change your whole perspective.
Speaker 1: But you know an example that would be I had
Speaker 1: this guy I worked with that was really difficult. He
Speaker 1: was belligerent and angry and always late, and I learned
Speaker 1: that his wife had staged four cancer, and that changed
Speaker 1: everything that I knew about him instantly. Right, there's times
Speaker 1: that happen. But there's other times where you've been carrying
Speaker 1: around some broken soundtrack for years that's gonna take some
Speaker 1: time to replace. And that's where repeat comes in, is
Speaker 1: that you're giving the new one a shot. You're giving
Speaker 1: the new one a chance to survive, to get stronger
Speaker 1: to believe it again, to repeat it again. And so
Speaker 1: that's why it's not just about retiring or not just
Speaker 1: about replacing. The repeat matters makes me think of like
Speaker 1: getting sober, and yeah, there's moments in there, a moment
Speaker 1: of clarity, say, for example, like if we're gonna make
Speaker 1: a movie of it, I could give you a couple
Speaker 1: of moments that would be like the movie moments, right,
Speaker 1: But there was still the countless thousands and thousands and
Speaker 1: thousands of times of taking the thought about using and
Speaker 1: reframing it, or reaching out to a sponsor or going Okay, hey,
Speaker 1: here's this all the daily stuff exactly. Yea. So there
Speaker 1: are big insights, and every once in a while, like
Speaker 1: you're right, they change everything. But most of the time
Speaker 1: the insight, I would say, it's sort of that you recognize,
Speaker 1: oh boy, I've been thinking this negative thought all this time.
Speaker 1: My goodness, What else could I say? Okay? Great, now
Speaker 1: comes the work of installing it. So let's talk about
Speaker 1: how people can do that, because one of the biggest
Speaker 1: challenges I see in personal development, work, spirituality, any of that,
Speaker 1: is we know a lot of things, but our day starts.
Speaker 1: Maybe we have a morning reflection where we reflect for
Speaker 1: a few minutes in the morning, we get things off
Speaker 1: to a good start. Maybe we meditate in the morning,
Speaker 1: and then the day starts going at a hundred miles
Speaker 1: an hour. And the next time I think about any
Speaker 1: of those ideas, those concepts, these new soundtracks, is ten
Speaker 1: pm that night. So I'm very interested in how do
Speaker 1: we get these ideas into the flow of daily life more.
Speaker 1: You're right, it's a great challenge. I try to get
Speaker 1: them into the flow of my daily life and as
Speaker 1: many ways as possible. Um, I like to do what
Speaker 1: I call stack the odds. Like I'm trying to be
Speaker 1: the house at the casino. I'm stacking the odds in
Speaker 1: my favor. So if I have something I'm really working on,
Speaker 1: I'll just I'll grab a note off my wall. So
Speaker 1: this note says, ask for more. I wrote it on
Speaker 1: August two thousand twenty, so over a year, and I
Speaker 1: will not pay you for this podcast, John, do not
Speaker 1: ask well exactly. But what I wrote it for was
Speaker 1: I found myself undervaluing my work and negotiations. So I'd
Speaker 1: be in these business meetings I would underprice, under charge, undervalue.
Speaker 1: So I knew I needed a reminder of that. And again,
Speaker 1: this is a soundtrack for me, and it's not sexy,
Speaker 1: it's not hooky, like sometimes when I talk to people
Speaker 1: about soundtracks too well, I'm not a writer, I'm not creative.
Speaker 1: You don't have to be asked for more. Those are
Speaker 1: three very dull words. But I needed a reminder to go, Okay,
Speaker 1: that's helpful for me to see that, to remember that.
Speaker 1: So I try to get people to come up with
Speaker 1: as many creative ways as I can to say no.
Speaker 1: I want to remind myself of this truth. I've got
Speaker 1: a new thing that I'm trying to put in place,
Speaker 1: and some of it might feel cheesy. I mean, I
Speaker 1: you know, we studied affirmations for the book, and I
Speaker 1: didn't want to, Like I was really hoping I didn't
Speaker 1: have to, because I grew up with Seinfeld, like you know,
Speaker 1: Sertiny Now and Senay Live. I'm good enough. I'm smart
Speaker 1: enough to'g gone to people like me. But so many
Speaker 1: people that had successful lives, and I mean across all
Speaker 1: the channels of their life, not just really successful business,
Speaker 1: but they had seven wives or you know, something crazy,
Speaker 1: but had really full lives. I'd go, hey, what do
Speaker 1: you think about like affirmations or mantras or and they go, well,
Speaker 1: I give myself a pep talk every every afternoon because
Speaker 1: I kind of I waned a little better. I've got
Speaker 1: some words I repeat to myself. Bro I got and
Speaker 1: so I realized, wow, there's value there, and we and
Speaker 1: we tested it and it was really fun to see
Speaker 1: the results. But yeah, so I think you do as
Speaker 1: many things as you can. And and maybe you know
Speaker 1: one of your questions was going to be about, well,
Speaker 1: let's talk symbols, because there's a whole chapter in there
Speaker 1: about the power of symbols. And I think that's another
Speaker 1: way to repeat it is to tie your new true
Speaker 1: thought to a symbol that's easy for you. And the
Speaker 1: way you do that is there's three different ways. You
Speaker 1: make it personal. It's something you care about. You make
Speaker 1: it visible, it's easy to see, and you make it simple.
Speaker 1: It's simple to interact with. And my favorite example of
Speaker 1: this and the history of mankind is the Lance Armstrong
Speaker 1: Nike Livestrong bracelets. They were personal, you never met somebody said,
Speaker 1: I wear this bracelet because I hate diseases. I have
Speaker 1: a you know, an egg of a necklace. I just
Speaker 1: wear jewelry about diseases. It was always my mom had cancer,
Speaker 1: my partner cancer, or my sister. The second thing, it
Speaker 1: was visible. It was bright yellow Nike, you could have
Speaker 1: made a beige. They could have made it like gray.
Speaker 1: They made a bright yellow. Third, it was simple. Everyone
Speaker 1: knows how to use a bracelet. No one was like,
Speaker 1: how do I put this on? The arm park goes
Speaker 1: in the whole part. So I think to like having
Speaker 1: and again like I'm just grabbing stuff off my desk
Speaker 1: because this is how I really lived. There's a pine cone.
Speaker 1: So I got this pine cone in Jackson, Hawaioming and
Speaker 1: I picked it up the street because three weeks before
Speaker 1: I was about to release a book and I was
Speaker 1: going to Jackson Hole, and I knew I'd be physically
Speaker 1: present and mentally absent. I'd missed the entire trip if
Speaker 1: I wasn't careful under the pressure of the book. And
Speaker 1: so I wrote a new sound track that said, don't
Speaker 1: miss it, don't miss it, don't miss it. So now
Speaker 1: I have a soundtrack and it's in place, but it's
Speaker 1: not strong. And so I'm there and I'm saying it
Speaker 1: and I'm thinking it, and I was so present. I
Speaker 1: was able to notice, Wow, these pine cones on the
Speaker 1: street are different than the pine cones we have in Nashville.
Speaker 1: That's really interesting. So I picked it up. I took
Speaker 1: it home with me so that now the next time
Speaker 1: I'm tempted to miss something, I've got a symbol on
Speaker 1: my desk that I can remember. And so I try
Speaker 1: to make it as easy as possible. I think a
Speaker 1: lot of people make the mistake of holding their breath
Speaker 1: and trying to change their life and recover. You'd call
Speaker 1: it white knuckling, And so I want stuff around me
Speaker 1: that makes it easy for me to remember this new
Speaker 1: truth that I'm trying to make automatic. I love that
Speaker 1: idea of stacking the odds, right, you know. I I
Speaker 1: talked about my depression at points, and I'm like, I
Speaker 1: throw the kitchen sink at it, like literally, and why
Speaker 1: would possible like all of it, just stack it all up,
Speaker 1: you know, Like I want you like the matrix. Like
Speaker 1: when Neo is getting the weapons, like he wasn't like,
Speaker 1: you know what, one gun will be enough? He was like,
Speaker 1: give it to me off. Yeah, We're on the same
Speaker 1: page totally. Well, John, thank you so much. This has
Speaker 1: been really fun. I feel like I could do this
Speaker 1: for like two or three more hours, but totally alas
Speaker 1: we are at the end of time. But the book
Speaker 1: is wonderful. We'll have links in the show notes to
Speaker 1: where people can find you find the book. It's called
Speaker 1: Soundtracks The Surprising Solution to Overthinking. Thank you so much,
Speaker 1: thanks for having me Eric. If what you just heard
Speaker 1: was helpful to you, please consider making a monthly donation
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