Speaker 1: Hey everybody, it's Eric from the One You Feed with
Speaker 1: this week's mini episode. But before we jump into that,
Speaker 1: I'm going to make a small announcement. Although that sounds
Speaker 1: awfully formal for what this is, but I basically wanted
Speaker 1: to say that several of you have been asking over
Speaker 1: a course of months whether I work with anybody individually
Speaker 1: on helping them to feed their good wolf, for make
Speaker 1: behavior change patterns, or get ideas for for how to
Speaker 1: move their life forward and up. Till now, I've been
Speaker 1: declining those requests. However, I'm going to start considering some
Speaker 1: of those on sort of a limited basis. So if
Speaker 1: that's something that sounds like it might be interesting to you,
Speaker 1: drop me an email at Eric at one you Feed
Speaker 1: dot net and I can talk you through the details
Speaker 1: of what that looks like. With that, let's go into
Speaker 1: the mini episode. So the topic this week came from
Speaker 1: a listener on Twitter, and I had tweeted out a
Speaker 1: quote from Oliver Berkman. He was our second guest Great Interview.
Speaker 1: If you haven't listened to it, I'd go all the
Speaker 1: way back and get that one. I love that one.
Speaker 1: But the tweets said, your beliefs about the world or
Speaker 1: what cause you distress, not the events themselves. And this
Speaker 1: person wrote me back and said, I would like to
Speaker 1: believe this, but recent events in the Middle East are
Speaker 1: distressing too many help question mark. And I found that
Speaker 1: to be a really great question or really profound statement,
Speaker 1: because it gets to the heart of how far do
Speaker 1: you take this idea that our beliefs about the world
Speaker 1: or what cause our distress. We've talked on the show
Speaker 1: an awful lot um and I've done a mini episode,
Speaker 1: I think, on the idea of the second arrow. So
Speaker 1: there is one type of place where it's clear that
Speaker 1: our beliefs about the world or what causing our distress.
Speaker 1: So for example, if UM, I break my arm, I've
Speaker 1: got the pain of my arm, and then if I
Speaker 1: go on and think about how stupid I am and
Speaker 1: all the things I'm not going to be able to do,
Speaker 1: that is a Those are stories I'm projecting onto that.
Speaker 1: That's the second arrow that I'm adding to that. So
Speaker 1: I think that's pretty straightforward, and it's something that I
Speaker 1: think it's important to watch out for and can be
Speaker 1: really helpful when we catch those and stop those. But
Speaker 1: this is a very different kind of question. There are
Speaker 1: genuinely horrible things that happened in the world to people
Speaker 1: all the time. And the question is are those only
Speaker 1: horrible because of our beliefs? And I think the answer
Speaker 1: to that is probably no. But this is not a
Speaker 1: deep philosophy podcast, so I'm going to stay away from that,
Speaker 1: and I think I'm gonna talk more practically about what
Speaker 1: do we do with those kind of things, because it
Speaker 1: is um those things are distressing, and so I think
Speaker 1: the first thing is to think about what distress means
Speaker 1: to us and what are our reactions to that. In
Speaker 1: the beginning of the course I did on the Seven
Speaker 1: Habits of Highly Effective People, we talk about a concept.
Speaker 1: It's Stephen Covey's i'll call it his circle of concern
Speaker 1: and circle of influence concept. And the way to think
Speaker 1: of this is if you've got a really big circle
Speaker 1: that's and within that circle are all the things that
Speaker 1: you're concerned about, and then there's a much smaller circle
Speaker 1: that's your circle of influence, and the things that are
Speaker 1: inside that circle are the things that we can actually
Speaker 1: do something about or have some sort of impact on.
Speaker 1: So you can imagine that that you've got the big
Speaker 1: circle with everything in it that you are concerned about
Speaker 1: and and events in the world that are horrible, whatever
Speaker 1: they might be, would fall into that category. And then
Speaker 1: the much smaller circle is your circle of influence, of
Speaker 1: of where you can actually apply some effort. And so
Speaker 1: one of the ways that I like to think about
Speaker 1: this is and what what Covey says is that if
Speaker 1: you spend time in your circle of concern but not
Speaker 1: in your circle of influence, your circle of influence actually
Speaker 1: gets smaller. And that is because we wear ourselves out
Speaker 1: fretting about and thinking about and worrying about things that
Speaker 1: we have no ability to do anything about. Whereas when
Speaker 1: we spend more time in our circle of influence, then
Speaker 1: that circle of influence tends to grow. And one of
Speaker 1: the things that's right in the heart of the circle
Speaker 1: influence is our thoughts about the world and how we
Speaker 1: see the world. One of the things that is probably
Speaker 1: not in our circle of influence, at least initially, is
Speaker 1: some of the events that are happening around the world
Speaker 1: in distant places that we find to be horrible. So
Speaker 1: what do we do with this? It's something that that
Speaker 1: is painful to watch often to hear about. If we're
Speaker 1: compassionate people are our hearts go out, and yet we've
Speaker 1: got this, there's there's very little ability to do anything
Speaker 1: about it. So the first thing that I would say is,
Speaker 1: if it's something that matters a lot to you, that
Speaker 1: you deeply care about, and you can find something to
Speaker 1: do about it that you think is helpful, then by
Speaker 1: all means, I would recommend that you do that. The challenge,
Speaker 1: of course, is that the number of things in the
Speaker 1: world that are really difficult to stomach are far more
Speaker 1: than any of us could take on as one person.
Speaker 1: Any of those problems consumes an entire lifetime. But I
Speaker 1: do think it's important to say, all right, is there
Speaker 1: something I can do about it? Is there some action
Speaker 1: I can take, send money to a charity. Is there
Speaker 1: something I can do that's gonna that's gonna allow me
Speaker 1: to do something about this. If the answer that is no,
Speaker 1: that there's nothing I'm going to do about it, then
Speaker 1: I think we get into a slippery slope. I don't
Speaker 1: want to be a calloused person who doesn't care about
Speaker 1: those things, and yet a lot of times, spending a
Speaker 1: lot of time caring about those things makes it much
Speaker 1: harder for me to care about the things in my
Speaker 1: life that are right around me that I can do
Speaker 1: something about and have some sort of impact on. So
Speaker 1: it becomes a question of being very realistic about the
Speaker 1: way the world is and realistic about what our own
Speaker 1: abilities and capabilities are. The French philosopher Voltaire in his
Speaker 1: famous book Candid as a quote where he says that
Speaker 1: we must take care of our own garden. And I
Speaker 1: think the idea is that what he's saying is that
Speaker 1: we have a space, we have our own garden, however
Speaker 1: big that might be. You can call it your circle
Speaker 1: of influence, that we are able to work within, and
Speaker 1: that if we work within that we are very effective
Speaker 1: in the world, and we're able to do a lot
Speaker 1: of things that matter both for ourselves, for the people
Speaker 1: around us, and the broader world. But if we let
Speaker 1: the world set our agenda and the things that are
Speaker 1: happening in the world set our point of view, our mindset,
Speaker 1: and where our energy goes, we have very little that
Speaker 1: we can do, and we're buffeted about by the storms
Speaker 1: of life all of the time. So I think that
Speaker 1: circling all the way back around to the quote, your
Speaker 1: beliefs about the world or what caused your distress, not
Speaker 1: the events themselves. I don't know how you know. I don't.
Speaker 1: I think there's a fundamental truth in there. I also
Speaker 1: think that any statement you can take way too far
Speaker 1: into too much of an extreme. But I do think
Speaker 1: there's a practical lesson in there, which is what do
Speaker 1: I do with these things that are in the world?
Speaker 1: And um So, for one, I've mostly stopped really paying
Speaker 1: a lot of tension to the news. And I know
Speaker 1: a lot of people think that that is sticking your
Speaker 1: head in the sand and hiding, and I've thought that often,
Speaker 1: and I sometimes still do think that, actually, But what
Speaker 1: I think is important to think about there is how
Speaker 1: little I do anything with those things. So I can
Speaker 1: listen to NPR all the way to work and I
Speaker 1: know what's going on. But by and large, um I
Speaker 1: may be more educated or informed, but I doubt that
Speaker 1: I'm any more effective at work. I doubt that I'm
Speaker 1: any kinder to the people around me. I doubt that
Speaker 1: I'm better at caring for my family. I actually think
Speaker 1: I'm probably less able to do some of those things,
Speaker 1: at least it seems to me as I've observed myself.
Speaker 1: When I am doing that and when I'm not doing that,
Speaker 1: what what my reactions like are in the world. And
Speaker 1: so although it maybe you know, I choose to not
Speaker 1: think of it as sticking my head in the sand.
Speaker 1: I choose to think of it as as as Voltaire said,
Speaker 1: tending my own garden, taking care of that circle of
Speaker 1: influence in which I can work, and by doing that,
Speaker 1: increasing the size of that circle of influence. An example, uh,
Speaker 1: in my own life would be this show, right, So
Speaker 1: I'm not going to be as bold to to suggest
Speaker 1: that this is some huge circle of influence, but I'm
Speaker 1: certainly um reaching more people than I ever have before,
Speaker 1: and that is a direct result of really choosing to
Speaker 1: tend my own garden pretty diligently. That allowed me to
Speaker 1: get to a place that something like this was possible.
Speaker 1: And so I have some personal experience in the fact
Speaker 1: that this concept is a very useful one. So I
Speaker 1: don't think, as I said, we're not a deep philosophy podcast.
Speaker 1: I don't have the answer to why is there suffering
Speaker 1: in the world and what should we do about all
Speaker 1: of it? But I do think I have some thoughts
Speaker 1: on how can we be live more effectively, live better,
Speaker 1: live a more powerful life within those things that are
Speaker 1: happening in the world, so hopefully you find some of
Speaker 1: that helpful again. If you are interested in working with
Speaker 1: me individually, let me know. Send me a note at
Speaker 1: eric at one you feed dot net and we can
Speaker 1: talk through it. Another episode out on Tuesday. Has always
Speaker 1: hope you have a good week. We'll talk again soon.
Speaker 1: Bite