Speaker 1: If you want to learn how to extract the most
Speaker 1: from a situation that you interpret a struggling you have
Speaker 1: to be in this situation. Welcome to the one you
Speaker 1: feed Throughout time, great thinkers have recognized the importance of
Speaker 1: the thoughts we have. Quotes like garbage in, garbage out,
Speaker 1: or you are what you think ring true, and yet
Speaker 1: for many of us, our thoughts don't strengthen or empower us.
Speaker 1: We tend toward negativity, self pity, jealousy, or fear. We
Speaker 1: see what we don't have instead of what we do.
Speaker 1: We think things that hold us back and dampen our spirit.
Speaker 1: But it's not just about thinking. Our actions matter. It
Speaker 1: takes conscious, consistent, and creative effort to make a life
Speaker 1: worth living. This podcast is about how other people keep
Speaker 1: themselves moving in the right direction, how they feed their
Speaker 1: good wolf. Thanks for joining us. Our guest on this
Speaker 1: episode is Thomas M. Sterner, Founder and CEO of the
Speaker 1: Practicing Mind Institute. Thomas is considering an expert in present
Speaker 1: moment functioning. He's a popular in demand speaker who works
Speaker 1: with high performance individuals, including athletes, industry groups, and individuals,
Speaker 1: helping them to operate effectively within the high stress situations
Speaker 1: so that they can break through to new levels of mastery.
Speaker 1: He has been featured in top media outlets such as NPR,
Speaker 1: Fox News, and he is the author of the best
Speaker 1: seller The Practicing Mind. His latest book is called Fully
Speaker 1: Engaged Using the Practicing Mind in Daily Life. If you
Speaker 1: value the content we put out each week, then we
Speaker 1: need your help. As the show has grown, so have
Speaker 1: our expenses. In time commitment, go to one you feed
Speaker 1: dot net slash support and make a monthly donation. Our
Speaker 1: goal is to get to five percent of our listeners
Speaker 1: supporting the show. Please be part of the five percent
Speaker 1: that make a contribution and allow us to keep putting
Speaker 1: out these interviews and ideas. We really need your help
Speaker 1: to make the show sustainable and long lasting. Again, that's
Speaker 1: one you Feed dot net slash Support. Thank you in
Speaker 1: advance for your help. And here's the interview with Thomas M. Sterner. Hi, Tom,
Speaker 1: Welcome to the show. Thank you, it's great to be here.
Speaker 1: I'm excited to have you on. Your latest book is
Speaker 1: called Fully Engaged, Using the Practicing Mind in Daily Life,
Speaker 1: and there are several things in it that are very
Speaker 1: much right at the heart of things that we talk
Speaker 1: about on this show over and over, so I'm really
Speaker 1: looking forward to getting into those. But before we do,
Speaker 1: let's start, like we always do, with the parable. There's
Speaker 1: a grandfather who's talking with his grandson. He says, in life,
Speaker 1: there are two wolves inside of us that are always
Speaker 1: at battle. One 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 he thinks about
Speaker 1: it for a second, and he looks up at his
Speaker 1: grandfather and he says, well, 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. I think that what talks to me the
Speaker 1: most about that is the need for awareness. What I
Speaker 1: mean by awareness is because this goes into everything in life,
Speaker 1: everything that we're going to talk about today. You can't
Speaker 1: change anything that you're not aware of. So if we
Speaker 1: look at this parable and we say, okay, it's the
Speaker 1: one that you feed, well, you can't feed the one
Speaker 1: that you want to feed if you're not aware of
Speaker 1: the one you don't want to feed. And I think
Speaker 1: that that's a really important point to make. Most of
Speaker 1: us spend our day, um, what all hall in our
Speaker 1: thoughts instead of from the perspective of someone having a thought.
Speaker 1: And people ask me sometimes we know, how do I
Speaker 1: become more patient? And my responses while you have to
Speaker 1: know when you're being impatient And that sounds like a
Speaker 1: silly response, but in reality, most of the time when
Speaker 1: people are impatient, they're just feeling impatient. They're not aware
Speaker 1: that they're having an impatient thought. And they're very different
Speaker 1: places to come from. The one offers the opportunity to
Speaker 1: make a conscious choice to go in a different direction.
Speaker 1: The other is more of a reaction to a situation
Speaker 1: and also being a puppet to the emotional content of
Speaker 1: the situation. So looking at this parable, I would say
Speaker 1: that we we first need to be we recognize this
Speaker 1: as the truth. So we now need to know, um,
Speaker 1: we need to be aware of when we're feeding whichever wolf,
Speaker 1: and then what are the mechanics of changing how we
Speaker 1: react to that situation? How do we become more aware?
Speaker 1: How do we get ourselves to a place where we
Speaker 1: enjoy the process of becoming more centered towards the wolf
Speaker 1: that is the good wolf. Yeah, I agree completely. I
Speaker 1: think awareness is such a critical baseline for everything that
Speaker 1: we have to do. And I know that I can
Speaker 1: be aware that I am being impatient or that I'm irritable,
Speaker 1: and I can't always change it sometimes, but at least
Speaker 1: if I am conscious of like I am in this place,
Speaker 1: and I can observe it and learn more about it
Speaker 1: versus like you said, I used the term autopilot all
Speaker 1: the time on the show, like I'm just kind of
Speaker 1: going on autopilot, and and that awareness is such a
Speaker 1: key piece of that. So what are things that people
Speaker 1: can do to build awareness? Well, the only way that
Speaker 1: I have found, and it seems to be backed up
Speaker 1: by empirical research, is with some form of meditation, thought
Speaker 1: awareness training. Because what happens to us is that, particularly
Speaker 1: in this culture that we live in today, you know,
Speaker 1: they're finding that our attention span, uh is. I read
Speaker 1: one study where it's less than that of a goldfish
Speaker 1: for most people, uh, which is I don't know how
Speaker 1: they know that, but I don't either, And of course
Speaker 1: they don't mention that all of the goldfish and the
Speaker 1: study had PhDs. But but the point is, I think
Speaker 1: that what we do know is that we are constantly
Speaker 1: connected to digital devices. Our faces are always in them,
Speaker 1: so we're being overstimulated all the time. Our brains are
Speaker 1: being overstimulated, and our brains are being asked to think
Speaker 1: at a higher rate of speed, and in order to
Speaker 1: answer this, the brain is evolving to do that. That's
Speaker 1: not necessarily a bad thing, but by the same token,
Speaker 1: we're losing The part of our brain that works to
Speaker 1: focus on something for any length of time is atrophying,
Speaker 1: and that's why you see people are having more and
Speaker 1: more trouble paying attention for any length of time. And
Speaker 1: you know, it's in all different ages. It's a real
Speaker 1: problem with the young people because they're growing up in
Speaker 1: this error where you know, very young kids. My older
Speaker 1: daughter is a kindergarten teacher, and she said, you know,
Speaker 1: the attention span of these kids is just not existent,
Speaker 1: and it's a real issue, and they're trying to do
Speaker 1: all these things to change that. But I think that
Speaker 1: we need to realize that this is the side effect of,
Speaker 1: you know, the culture that we live in and what
Speaker 1: is happening all around us. So we have to do
Speaker 1: something that is counter to that. And the one thing
Speaker 1: that all the studies show is to learn to sit
Speaker 1: quietly for a few minutes, which is very difficult to
Speaker 1: do because we feel like if we're not doing anything,
Speaker 1: we're not doing anything, which really isn't true. You know,
Speaker 1: when we're doing nothing, we're actually doing something. And you
Speaker 1: know by sitting quietly for even if it's just ten
Speaker 1: minutes a day and observing your body breathe are saying
Speaker 1: hearing a short phrase in your mind. What happens is
Speaker 1: that you begin to separate yourself from your thoughts, and
Speaker 1: this awareness that I am not my thoughts, I'm the
Speaker 1: one that has thoughts starts to grow. And when you
Speaker 1: do that, that's when this awareness starts to happen. And
Speaker 1: the other thing that happens is that you begin to
Speaker 1: develop a stamina and a strength in pulling your mind
Speaker 1: back to task. Because anybody that has ever tried any
Speaker 1: sort of thought awareness white called thought awareness training is
Speaker 1: just a label or meditation, knows that it only takes
Speaker 1: a matter of ten fifteen seconds into it when your
Speaker 1: mind takes off. It just doesn't like being still. It's
Speaker 1: a problem solving machine. It wants to find a problem,
Speaker 1: and if you don't give it one, it will go
Speaker 1: into search mood. So it takes off, and because you
Speaker 1: have always followed it in your life, you go with
Speaker 1: it and you're not even aware that you've done that.
Speaker 1: And then there's a brief moment where you wake up
Speaker 1: and you realize that you know you're thinking about something
Speaker 1: else other than following your breath or saying a short
Speaker 1: phrase in your mind. And when you do that, that's
Speaker 1: when everything happens. In that microsecond. Number one, you've become
Speaker 1: aware of what your mind is doing without your permission,
Speaker 1: and then by pulling it back, your ability to do
Speaker 1: that on demand becomes stronger. So those two things are
Speaker 1: really everything. As you said earlier, you know, we can
Speaker 1: be aware that you're being impatient. That doesn't mean it's
Speaker 1: going to be easy to pull your mind back. But
Speaker 1: the more you do it, the more repetitions you go
Speaker 1: through in a meditative state, the stronger you get and
Speaker 1: the better you become of that, and then you begin
Speaker 1: to become more observer oriented and less of a reacting
Speaker 1: entity in the situation, and that's where all the strength comes.
Speaker 1: So really, i'd like to answer your question directly you
Speaker 1: have to practice something like that, and the benefits besides
Speaker 1: the fact that you know all the lower and blood
Speaker 1: pressure and equalizing blood pressure and all these sort of
Speaker 1: things that it does. That's probably one of the most
Speaker 1: significant things that it does. And I just really haven't
Speaker 1: seen anything else that accomplishes that. You've got a line
Speaker 1: in the book where you're talking about meditation. It was
Speaker 1: in my notes here that I wanted to talk about,
Speaker 1: and since you just brought it up, I thought i'd
Speaker 1: hit it. I'll just go ahead and read what you said.
Speaker 1: You say. I am always amused when people interp at
Speaker 1: the fact that they are chasing their mind all the
Speaker 1: time as an indicator that they are not good at meditation.
Speaker 1: What they are missing, and this is very significant, is
Speaker 1: they wouldn't be chasing their mind and bringing it back
Speaker 1: to task if they weren't noticing that their mind was
Speaker 1: running off. I've commented many times that what many people
Speaker 1: interpret is a bad meditation is really a good one.
Speaker 1: That's right. I think it's amusing, you know when when
Speaker 1: people say that they talk to me and they say,
Speaker 1: I try meditation, I'm not very good at it. And
Speaker 1: when I say, why do you say that. I said,
Speaker 1: there is no thing is not being good at meditation,
Speaker 1: And they say, well, because I I All I do
Speaker 1: is chase my mind. And I said, well, that means
Speaker 1: that you're you're noticing what your mind is doing. And
Speaker 1: also in many ways that could be interpreted as a
Speaker 1: very good meditation, because it would be similar to saying,
Speaker 1: you know, when I go to the gym, I'm not
Speaker 1: very good because all I do is a bunch of repetitions. Now,
Speaker 1: I mean, every time you you repeat that pulling noticing
Speaker 1: the mind and pulling it back, you're getting stronger and
Speaker 1: your awareness is growing, which is what you're after. I
Speaker 1: think everybody, even the you know, the monks and Saffron
Speaker 1: robes that meditate all day, will tell you that. You know,
Speaker 1: some days your mind is extremely active and you're going
Speaker 1: to be in chase mode the whole time you're in
Speaker 1: this meditative state. Other days you're going to just be,
Speaker 1: for whatever reason, more relaxed, laid back, and your thoughts
Speaker 1: are gonna be thin. You're gonna have so much thinking
Speaker 1: going on in your mind and it won't be as
Speaker 1: arduous of a tack. They're both normal, they're both a
Speaker 1: part of it. And they're both good, right, And I
Speaker 1: think some people settle into a quiet state easier than others.
Speaker 1: But I don't think that that really has much to
Speaker 1: do with whether meditation is providing the benefit that we
Speaker 1: wanted to provide. I'm one of those people. My brain
Speaker 1: is not very prone to being quiet. And you know,
Speaker 1: I've meditated it for for a long time and I
Speaker 1: still find like that for me, that is a that
Speaker 1: is a consistent challenge. But I still feel like I
Speaker 1: really get the benefits of it because I'm just doing
Speaker 1: it and I am, like you said, I'm just recognizing
Speaker 1: there goes my brain. I bring it back, no judgment,
Speaker 1: and and You're right, it strengthens that muscle over and
Speaker 1: over it does. And I think people enter this thinking
Speaker 1: when I achieve a quiet mind, that's why I've succeeded
Speaker 1: at this, and that really the quiet mind is just
Speaker 1: a target, you know, you have to have, you know,
Speaker 1: an archery, you need a target to aim at. What
Speaker 1: are you doing? You need something to aim your energy at, so, uh,
Speaker 1: something to execute towards. And so the reason we say
Speaker 1: a quiet mind is it's it's totally opposite of what
Speaker 1: our mind normally is. So when we say the target
Speaker 1: is a quiet mind, that's to give you something to
Speaker 1: aim at, and choosing a breath based meditation or a
Speaker 1: phrase meditation, all you're really doing there is giving your
Speaker 1: mind a single task so that you can really measure
Speaker 1: whether it's doing that. If you said to your mind, well,
Speaker 1: I'm going to sit here quietly and just let my
Speaker 1: mind do whatever it wants, well, then you would have
Speaker 1: no idea whether you're wouldn't be controlling anything, you wouldn't
Speaker 1: be going through repetitions. But when you give your mind
Speaker 1: a single simple task, and that's why if you choose
Speaker 1: a phrase, it needs to be two or three words.
Speaker 1: You don't want to like a long, long sentence that
Speaker 1: you have to repeat over and over again. You want
Speaker 1: something that's very simple. It just gives you a baseline.
Speaker 1: You're telling your mind, this is all I want you
Speaker 1: to do right now. I don't want you to be
Speaker 1: working on the report for later on I think of
Speaker 1: what I needed the grocery store, or when I'm going
Speaker 1: to pick the kids over. You don't want any of that.
Speaker 1: You just want a very simple task. And that's so
Speaker 1: contrary to everything else that we do during the day,
Speaker 1: where we're over taxed and trying to do so many things.
Speaker 1: I also think that one of the things that people
Speaker 1: struggle with with the concept of meditation is that it's
Speaker 1: never done. And what I mean by that is we're
Speaker 1: not comfortable with open ended tasks. You know, we have
Speaker 1: so many things, too many things on our plate. So
Speaker 1: we want this feeling of closure, you know, we want
Speaker 1: the report them, we want the kids picked up, we
Speaker 1: want the house claim. We want we want to be
Speaker 1: able to say this is done and now I can
Speaker 1: take it off my plate. We're not real comfortable with
Speaker 1: things where you say you're gonna do this every day
Speaker 1: for the rest of your life, or least you're gonna
Speaker 1: try to. That seems, you know, overwhelming when you approach
Speaker 1: it like that, And I think that's one of the
Speaker 1: reasons why people feel frustrated and overwhelmed when they start
Speaker 1: a meditation practice, and it's because they feel like I
Speaker 1: never get to someplace where I can say I'm done
Speaker 1: with this. And I tell people you need to look
Speaker 1: at it like exercise. I mean, there really is no
Speaker 1: point in physical exercising that you get to where you
Speaker 1: can say I've done exercising. I've mastered it. I don't
Speaker 1: need exercise for the rest of my life. I mean
Speaker 1: it's a part of maintaining healthy body, and meditation is
Speaker 1: a part of maintaining self power and increasing self power
Speaker 1: and the ability to be the conscious choicemaker. Hey, everybody,
Speaker 1: before we get back to the interview, we just want
Speaker 1: to ask you to go to when You Feed Slash
Speaker 1: Support and make a monthly donation so we can keep
Speaker 1: this great thing going. It does require an enormous amount
Speaker 1: of time and effort to deliver the content and quality
Speaker 1: of the One You Feed podcast on the level we do,
Speaker 1: especially when releasing episodes on a weekly basis. So given
Speaker 1: the subject matter of the One You Feed and the
Speaker 1: fact that our end goal is of course just to
Speaker 1: help people improve the quality of their lives, we're shooting
Speaker 1: for what we think is a fair and realistic target
Speaker 1: of just five of our listeners supporting the show. And
Speaker 1: we want to thank you all for listening, and we
Speaker 1: appreciate you tuning in every week and spending your time
Speaker 1: with us. We're just so happy that you are all here.
Speaker 1: So go to when You Feed Slash Support and make
Speaker 1: a monthly donation if you can, and if you cannot.
Speaker 1: Just please keep listening. And here's the rest of the
Speaker 1: interview with Thomas S. Turner. One of the other major
Speaker 1: themes from the book that I want to bring up,
Speaker 1: and it's one that I have wrestled with my whole life,
Speaker 1: and and listeners of the show will know about it
Speaker 1: because I bring it up often because it's been such
Speaker 1: a challenge for me. And that is this sense that
Speaker 1: I'll be happy when, um, I'm going to read something
Speaker 1: again that you wrote, because I think you say it
Speaker 1: very eloquently. In the old paradigm, happiness, a sense of
Speaker 1: real contentment is always outside us, a place we have
Speaker 1: to get to before we can experience it. Whenever we
Speaker 1: are in this moment, we are incomplete, and the nectar
Speaker 1: that will quench our thirst lies outside ourselves. And in
Speaker 1: some time frame other than the present moment, this feeling
Speaker 1: can burn within us our whole life, pushing us on
Speaker 1: in a state of exhaustion, like some poor soul stumbling
Speaker 1: through the desert trying to get to the water, which
Speaker 1: turns out to be maurage. We have an innate sense
Speaker 1: in us that is misinterpreted. And I will say that
Speaker 1: the marketing media nurtures this sense as a feeling of
Speaker 1: being incomplete. And if you look at marketing, which is
Speaker 1: all the marketing people the media have a connection to
Speaker 1: us twenty four hours a day, seven days a week
Speaker 1: because of all these digital devices. Uh, you know, no
Speaker 1: matter where you are, you've got a screen in your
Speaker 1: face that we're one that's very accessible and that's why
Speaker 1: you see this disease that is overtaking us where people,
Speaker 1: you know, they're walking down the street, they're always always
Speaker 1: have their their face and the phone. There's advertisements on
Speaker 1: there or there's whether they're audio or video. So this
Speaker 1: feeling of being incomplete is marketed in a way that
Speaker 1: your life is passing you by. You can't be happy
Speaker 1: with where you're at. You have to have this that, this,
Speaker 1: you have to achieve this, you have to get to
Speaker 1: this state. All these things are outside of where you
Speaker 1: are right now. And personally, I think that that feeling
Speaker 1: is something that we're supposed to have because it's what
Speaker 1: drives us to expand uh spiritually as human beings. It's
Speaker 1: the reason that we have the Sistine Chapel, it's the
Speaker 1: reason that we have the classical composers. You know that
Speaker 1: all these accomplishments that we have come from this feeling
Speaker 1: of there's more, I can do, more, I can be more.
Speaker 1: That's what makes people push the envelope and whatever they're
Speaker 1: trying to do, whether it's some small thing that means
Speaker 1: only something to them personally, or whether it's on a
Speaker 1: global scale, it's that feeling is there to drive us
Speaker 1: to work at executing that into manifesting it. What happens
Speaker 1: is is it gets misused and misinterpreted, and so something
Speaker 1: that there's really this tremendous blessing turns into this uncomfortable
Speaker 1: feeling which makes us feel incomplete and makes us run
Speaker 1: on this treadmill constantly trying to get someplace other than
Speaker 1: where we are right now. And even though we repeat
Speaker 1: that cycle over and over again in our life, we
Speaker 1: can all look back to the time we were kids
Speaker 1: and there was this particular toy we wanted. There was
Speaker 1: this bike, and then there was the prom dress, and
Speaker 1: then the first car, and it just goes on and on,
Speaker 1: and we get all those things, you know, through our lives,
Speaker 1: and as soon as we get them, we immediately it
Speaker 1: might last a day or so, and then we replace
Speaker 1: it with the next thing that we need to feel
Speaker 1: happy because we're always trying to quench that thirst inside
Speaker 1: which is not meant to be quenched. It's there for
Speaker 1: a reason other than making us feel incomplete. That's one
Speaker 1: of the fundamental questions I think that I have tried
Speaker 1: to put right at the heart of this show because
Speaker 1: it's right at the heart of my own journey. I
Speaker 1: guess you would say, is that idea of you know,
Speaker 1: what's the right balance between the striving in the ambition
Speaker 1: that you talk about. You say that we have it
Speaker 1: build into our d NA, the desire to expand, And
Speaker 1: I believe that totally. And then so I believe that
Speaker 1: to be completely true. And then I also believe to
Speaker 1: be very true that the spiritual ideas that say it's
Speaker 1: this constant craving for things that is the source of
Speaker 1: a lot of suffering. And how you reconcile those two
Speaker 1: opposing desires and truths is a very big part of
Speaker 1: what I'm looking for and what I strive to try
Speaker 1: and do in my life. Well, and I'll go back
Speaker 1: to what we spoke about earlier. You can't do that
Speaker 1: if you're not aware of what you're doing. You know,
Speaker 1: when you can notice this feeling of incompleteness, and you
Speaker 1: notice that you're interpreting it in a way of feeling
Speaker 1: like I'm not happy here, I have to get someplace else.
Speaker 1: Then you can have the opportunity to analyze that and
Speaker 1: to come up with the strategy you know that some
Speaker 1: sort of a procedure or trigger all these sort of
Speaker 1: things that you know I've talked about in the book
Speaker 1: that then you have the opportunity to say, you know what,
Speaker 1: this is not serving my happiness. The way I'm feeling
Speaker 1: right now is an interpretation that I know is not
Speaker 1: going to serve me, and I can interpret it in
Speaker 1: a different way and I can shift over into that interpretation.
Speaker 1: So this stuff is always it's all woven in everything
Speaker 1: just you know, weaves itself in between and through each other.
Speaker 1: So you know, you need this awareness so that you
Speaker 1: can be aware of when you're interpreting things incorrectly, and
Speaker 1: then you give yourself the opportunity once again, that doesn't
Speaker 1: mean that it's going to be effortless to do that,
Speaker 1: but there are things that we can come up with
Speaker 1: to make that not only effortless but more more joyful.
Speaker 1: And you have a practice in the book for working
Speaker 1: with this that I think is really wonderful, and I've
Speaker 1: kind of stumbled into something similar, but I think you
Speaker 1: say it so well, and you basically say, when you
Speaker 1: notice that you're not enjoying this moment because you are
Speaker 1: craving the moment when you reach your goal, ask yourself
Speaker 1: and then what I mean. It's something that I learned
Speaker 1: myself where I would notice I was having that feeling
Speaker 1: and then I would stop. That feeling would be the
Speaker 1: trigger when I had that feeling I noticed, you know,
Speaker 1: I would say, I would that would trigger me to
Speaker 1: say and them what and I would review when I
Speaker 1: would say, Okay, let's put myself in the future, so
Speaker 1: now I own that car, or now I'm making another
Speaker 1: ten thousand dollars or whatever it is that I seem
Speaker 1: to be so attached to in that moment. Am I
Speaker 1: going to feel fully realized for the rest of my
Speaker 1: life after that? You know? How am I going to
Speaker 1: feel two days after that? A week after that? Am
Speaker 1: I going to feel satisfied for the rest of my life?
Speaker 1: Or am I just going to start another cycle? And
Speaker 1: then I try to remember, how how many times have
Speaker 1: I done this before? What are some of the other
Speaker 1: situations where I've done this same type of thought process,
Speaker 1: the same cycle life, repeated it in the past. I
Speaker 1: know where this leads. I know it's not the answer.
Speaker 1: I know that this is it helps me to change
Speaker 1: my perspective and look at what it is that I'm
Speaker 1: feeling so attached to, and to use it more as
Speaker 1: um target, a rudder to steer my efforts, and not
Speaker 1: something that is there to remind me of what I
Speaker 1: have yet to do. I mean, that's really where you
Speaker 1: know I talk about in the practicing mind. I mean,
Speaker 1: what we do is we misuse our goals. We set
Speaker 1: these goals and then we feel like, you know, when
Speaker 1: I have this goal, that I'm going to be happy,
Speaker 1: and then we become so attached to the goal. The
Speaker 1: minute we do that, we put ourselves at war with
Speaker 1: this moment. Be in this moment, we don't have the goal,
Speaker 1: and we've already decided that we can't be happy until
Speaker 1: we do have the goal. So now the whole process
Speaker 1: of achieving the goal becomes something that we have to
Speaker 1: endure rather than something that we can enjoy. You use
Speaker 1: these words, and multiple guests we've had on the show
Speaker 1: of you similar words, which is moving away from the
Speaker 1: result and focusing on the process, the processes where all
Speaker 1: of the joy exists. I mean, when you run a race,
Speaker 1: it only takes a second across the finish line. Why
Speaker 1: does it feel so good. It feels so good because
Speaker 1: of every the process of running the race, all of
Speaker 1: the you know, all the preparation work that went in,
Speaker 1: the mental stamina of the discipline. The reason it feels
Speaker 1: like such an accomplishment is because of the process that
Speaker 1: it took to go through to step over the finish line.
Speaker 1: If we're standing on a sender's track and I draw
Speaker 1: I take a stick and draw a line and say
Speaker 1: there's the finish line, got and step over it, it
Speaker 1: means nothing. And that's one of the things I think
Speaker 1: that we really miss is that everything that we have
Speaker 1: is effortless, doesn't mean anything to us. Or the things
Speaker 1: that mean the most to us are the things that
Speaker 1: we had to put our our our energy, and our
Speaker 1: focused into and our discipline, and that's why they feel
Speaker 1: so good. You can look at this in a very
Speaker 1: simple way. If I put somebody on the stage and
Speaker 1: I hand them a tennis ball and I say throw
Speaker 1: it out there in the audience and they go where
Speaker 1: just throw it out there? And well, that means nothing.
Speaker 1: But if I take a small like an eighteen inch
Speaker 1: diameter trash can and put it out in the floor
Speaker 1: in the middle, and I said, I give you a
Speaker 1: hundred bucks if you put the ball in that trash can,
Speaker 1: all of a sudden everything changes because now it's a challenge.
Speaker 1: We like a challenge, We need a challenge. I've lectured
Speaker 1: to kids and I asked him what do you do
Speaker 1: with a video game that you've mastered? They say, I
Speaker 1: get rid of it? And I said, that's right, you do.
Speaker 1: Why do you do that? Why don't you go back
Speaker 1: and play one it's easier, I said, you always want
Speaker 1: something that is beyond your threshold. And this is across
Speaker 1: the board with arts. You know, as a musician, when
Speaker 1: you work on a very difficult piece and master the piece,
Speaker 1: you don't go back and play the first piece you
Speaker 1: ever learned. You go to a more difficult piece. Why
Speaker 1: is that we're driven to do that? Because that's part
Speaker 1: of this drive to make us expand so I think
Speaker 1: that when we learn that, that's it's an infinite process
Speaker 1: that you know, we're always looking for this perfect state.
Speaker 1: And I have said that, you know, perfection it's not
Speaker 1: a number, it's not a place that you get to,
Speaker 1: because all of those things have a limit to them.
Speaker 1: When you know, when you say, uh, you know, when
Speaker 1: I can do this this good, I'm going to be
Speaker 1: perfect at it now, that doesn't exist. Real perfection is
Speaker 1: the ability to expand infinitely. So when we accept that
Speaker 1: and we really grasp that, we realize that the process
Speaker 1: is where we live our life. If we're not experiencing
Speaker 1: this moment and the process of achieving our goals, we're
Speaker 1: losing all the joy that makes the whole effort worthwhile.
Speaker 1: And that is one of those things that is fairly
Speaker 1: easy to intellectually understand and very difficult, sometimes too emotionally implement.
Speaker 1: How do you get there? Because I can imagine a
Speaker 1: bunch of people thinking that sounds exhausting. Well, it's interesting,
Speaker 1: you know, you use the word difficult because's difficult where
Speaker 1: it's like difficult and struggle. There are labels that we
Speaker 1: apply to a feeling inside. So I always feel like
Speaker 1: what we're really describing is the process of learning. I mean,
Speaker 1: when I say to someone you know, would you uh,
Speaker 1: they say, well, there's this I've got to go through
Speaker 1: this interview, and I hate interviews. I don't do well
Speaker 1: and I dread them. And I said, well, if you
Speaker 1: could be anything you wanted to be, how would that
Speaker 1: be in terms of interviews? They say, Oh, I would
Speaker 1: like it to be effortless. I'd like to enjoy it.
Speaker 1: I'd say, okay, well how do you think you get there?
Speaker 1: And well, I don't know. I said, what you have
Speaker 1: to do interviews, don't you. I mean you have to.
Speaker 1: You want to sing in front of people and be comfortable,
Speaker 1: you gotta get out and sing in front of people. Now,
Speaker 1: the feelings that you experience when you do that are
Speaker 1: normal in the process of learning to do interviews. It's
Speaker 1: normal when you're in a state of gathering information and
Speaker 1: gathering and experience to feel off your game because you
Speaker 1: have these uncertainties. And I think where the problem comes
Speaker 1: in with what you're describing there is it goes right
Speaker 1: back to that feeling of I, you know what, am
Speaker 1: I going to be good at this? You know this
Speaker 1: is not fun? You know what? Am I going to
Speaker 1: be good? Those are interpretations of the moment of the
Speaker 1: actual experience, But the experience is just the experience. We
Speaker 1: attach all of these interpretations to it that make us
Speaker 1: experience that moment in a certain way. So, for example,
Speaker 1: the living room needs painting, one person says, I absolutely
Speaker 1: hate painting the living I hate everything about it. I
Speaker 1: don't want to do it. The next person says, I
Speaker 1: love it. I can't wait till the weekend when I
Speaker 1: get to paint the living room. Painting the living room
Speaker 1: is just painting the living room. It's neither of those
Speaker 1: two things. It's the interpretation of the experience that makes
Speaker 1: it feel the way it does. So I find that
Speaker 1: in terms of getting better at this, there's a couple
Speaker 1: of things that you need to do. Number one, you
Speaker 1: need the awareness that you're interpreting it that way that
Speaker 1: gives you the opportunity to interpret it a different way.
Speaker 1: And then you need, you know, some procedures. You need
Speaker 1: some um some things that you can fall back on
Speaker 1: that you so you're not making decisions about difficult moments. So,
Speaker 1: in other words, when you feel because you said it
Speaker 1: sounds easy to do this but it sounds exhausting, well
Speaker 1: that's a feeling and that's an interpretation of it. So
Speaker 1: when you get in that situation where you say, okay,
Speaker 1: I'm going to work at being more present moment or whatever.
Speaker 1: The next day, there's gonna be a moment in that
Speaker 1: day that you're going to feel like not doing that,
Speaker 1: and you need if you come up with a decision
Speaker 1: as to how you're going to handle that before that feeling,
Speaker 1: before you get into it, when you're out in this
Speaker 1: space here, this safe space where you've decided this is
Speaker 1: the direction I want to go in. But I know
Speaker 1: when I go in this direction, I'm going to come
Speaker 1: up against this roadblock. Will make your decision as to
Speaker 1: how you're going to deal with that roadblock before and
Speaker 1: then the roadblock becomes a trigger and you just fall
Speaker 1: back into this procedure. It's you know, this is what
Speaker 1: they teach like E. M T. S. You know, like
Speaker 1: so that when they come up on a dangerous situation
Speaker 1: or a situation that's that's very upsetting, they have something
Speaker 1: to drop back into. And I can tell you as
Speaker 1: a pilot, this stuff is drilled into your head over
Speaker 1: and over again. It's procedures. You have a procedure for everything,
Speaker 1: so that whatever, hopefully whatever happens in the air is
Speaker 1: something that you have anticipated at some point and you've
Speaker 1: made a decision as to how you're going to react
Speaker 1: in that situation, and then it just becomes this routine
Speaker 1: that you drop back into to help you move through that.
Speaker 1: And it really is that simple. Uh. The emotional part
Speaker 1: is all an interpretation, and you have a choice, if
Speaker 1: you're aware, you have a choice as to how you
Speaker 1: interpret it. Now, some people would say, yeah, but it's
Speaker 1: a moment. I was taught you know your emotions, you can't.
Speaker 1: You can't control your emotions. When I was growing up,
Speaker 1: that was what I was always taught. But that's not
Speaker 1: true at all. I have found in situations that at
Speaker 1: one point in my life I would have reacted way
Speaker 1: over this way, getting very upset and full of anxiety
Speaker 1: and may be angry, and I don't react that way
Speaker 1: anymore because I've learned that I can control my emotion.
Speaker 1: It is a choice that I have. I'm aware of it.
Speaker 1: It's just a thought. It's a thought or a situation,
Speaker 1: and I'm interpreting it in a certain way that's making
Speaker 1: me have a pull towards a certain reaction, and I
Speaker 1: can change what my habitual response is two different circumstances
Speaker 1: by being more conscious, more of an observer of how
Speaker 1: I want to be and how I am currently acting
Speaker 1: in that particular situation. That's a long answer. I hope
Speaker 1: it makes sense. It does, and you know, I mostly
Speaker 1: agree with that. You know, are you in control of
Speaker 1: your emotions? Because I think, you know, there are things
Speaker 1: people suffer from mental illnesses of different types of What
Speaker 1: I do believe is it's very difficult sometimes in a
Speaker 1: moment to control my emotion. But over a period of
Speaker 1: time of systematically trying to reinterpret things and look at
Speaker 1: things a different way and take different perspectives, I agree
Speaker 1: with you you can make huge changes in the way
Speaker 1: we react to certain situations. Well, I think what you know,
Speaker 1: what you just said, it's difficult in the moment to
Speaker 1: control your emotions. But again, that's a skill. You know.
Speaker 1: What we're talking about here is a skill. It is
Speaker 1: a skill. Some people are better at handling their emotions
Speaker 1: than other, So for me, it is a skill. Now
Speaker 1: I'm talking about I'm not talking about someone who has
Speaker 1: a clinical situation which could be impeding that, but I'm
Speaker 1: talking about you know, the average person. It is a skill. Uh, difficult,
Speaker 1: It's difficult to do. That is to me that that's
Speaker 1: an interpretation of the feeling that happens when you do
Speaker 1: that when you don't know you're not good at it.
Speaker 1: You know what, you're determined, I'm not good at this.
Speaker 1: This is difficult. That's your interpretation of the feeling that
Speaker 1: you're having. And when you begin to recognize that as
Speaker 1: a feeling and not the truth, something that you do
Speaker 1: have control over. Where we get bogged down is when
Speaker 1: we start to set these standards. Not one of the
Speaker 1: chapters and fully engage is set your goals with accurate data. Well,
Speaker 1: what happens is, Okay, we sit back and we say, well,
Speaker 1: you know, I'm not very good at handling this situation.
Speaker 1: I want to change the way I handle it. Well,
Speaker 1: the problem that we come into is we almost immediately
Speaker 1: say I want to take about a week, you know,
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, we we we set these goals
Speaker 1: without any information and then we begin judging our progress
Speaker 1: based on this timeline that we've set up. But if
Speaker 1: I said, you, look, do you want to be better
Speaker 1: at handling interviews? Yeah, well that should take you about
Speaker 1: two years. Well, if I tell you that, and I
Speaker 1: tell you that in two years you're doing this, you're
Speaker 1: gonna be really good at Well, if you don't do
Speaker 1: well in an interview two weeks later or two months later,
Speaker 1: you're not going to feel bad because you're gonna feel
Speaker 1: your interpretation is going to be different than it is
Speaker 1: if you think it's only going to take you three weeks.
Speaker 1: You know. So I think that these are these are all.
Speaker 1: There are some mechanical issues here that we can look
Speaker 1: at that change our interpretation of that moment that you're describing. Yep,
Speaker 1: I agree. I mean I think that's such a big
Speaker 1: piece is that understanding how long something should take, and
Speaker 1: everything takes far longer then we think it should. I
Speaker 1: mean that has been proven to me over and over
Speaker 1: and over again that we almost consistently are almost constantly
Speaker 1: underestimate the amount of time things will take. Whether it's
Speaker 1: a software project, or learning to play an instrument, or
Speaker 1: a learning to you know, handle our anger better. It's
Speaker 1: it's almost always longer than we think it would be
Speaker 1: in certainly longer than we would like it to be.
Speaker 1: That's right. And the example that I use because it's
Speaker 1: absurd and everybody can relate to it. As someone says,
Speaker 1: I want to lose thirty pounds that should take ten days, Well,
Speaker 1: we can all sit now that's that's never gonna happen.
Speaker 1: But if that's what we do with these other things,
Speaker 1: and what happens to that person that says I want
Speaker 1: to learn lose thirty pounds in ten days, well, five
Speaker 1: days into their diet and exercise program, they could be
Speaker 1: doing extremely well, working at an accelerated pace, but they
Speaker 1: step on the scale and they've lost seven pounds and
Speaker 1: they what's their interpretation of that? Their interpretation is, I'm
Speaker 1: not very good at this. Their confidence goes down, they
Speaker 1: feel miserable, when in reality they're doing really well. But
Speaker 1: because they have said they've chosen this timeframe that's completely
Speaker 1: unrealistic and inaccurate, they're judging their their progress in relationship
Speaker 1: to that, and it sets up all these feelings and
Speaker 1: experiences that happen from that that are completely false. Well
Speaker 1: that they're not false, but they're based on false information. Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1: And those things are all variable. So it's hard to
Speaker 1: know whether you know how long something should take for
Speaker 1: you versus different people, and it's uh. I agree, having
Speaker 1: having accurate data about how long something's going to take
Speaker 1: can be very very helpful. Um, we're near the end
Speaker 1: of time here, but I want to hit one last
Speaker 1: phrase that you use that I'd like to talk about
Speaker 1: briefly before we wrap up, and you say, there's a
Speaker 1: paradox here. Difficult changes require inner strength, but at the
Speaker 1: same time they create inner strength as we experience them.
Speaker 1: There's a story in the book about a young girl
Speaker 1: golfer that I work with, because I've worked with golfers,
Speaker 1: young athletes and and older athletes and um. When she
Speaker 1: came to me, she said, what I want to work
Speaker 1: on is the way that I handle difficult situations and tournaments.
Speaker 1: She said, If I'm playing well, and she was very
Speaker 1: very highly regarded as a physically as a golfer, she said,
Speaker 1: when I'm playing well, she said, I do very well.
Speaker 1: She said, But if I start to play poorly, she said,
Speaker 1: I really begin to struggle, and then my game starts
Speaker 1: to implode. So it came to the biggest tournament of
Speaker 1: the year that she had, she asked me if I
Speaker 1: would carry the bag for which wasn't normally allowed, but
Speaker 1: it wasn't this particular situation, and I could see she
Speaker 1: was when I pulled up to the course that she was.
Speaker 1: She was on the range and I could see from
Speaker 1: a distance that she was so attached to winning this
Speaker 1: tournament and doing good. She had been planning for a
Speaker 1: year and actually all the work she had done with
Speaker 1: me was for this event so that she could move
Speaker 1: on to a higher qualifying round. And I knew it
Speaker 1: was going to be a problem, but I didn't want
Speaker 1: to say anything to her because I didn't want to
Speaker 1: start this internal dialogue and put doubt in her mind.
Speaker 1: So I thought, let's just see how this unfolds. Well,
Speaker 1: it was a disaster. She went way right off the tea.
Speaker 1: She just compounded one air after another, and by the
Speaker 1: time we were on I don't know the fifth or
Speaker 1: sixth hole, she had shot herself completely out of the tournament.
Speaker 1: There was absolutely no chance she was going to even
Speaker 1: place in the tournament, and I had at that point.
Speaker 1: She was so dejected and heartbroken, and I thought, well,
Speaker 1: I have to say something here because that's what she's
Speaker 1: paying me for. So and I wasn't really sure how
Speaker 1: do I approach it, So I just asked her, I said,
Speaker 1: you know, why did you ask me to work with you?
Speaker 1: And she said I wanted to learn how to deal
Speaker 1: with this situation better. And I said, well, I said, so,
Speaker 1: how do you think you do that now And she said,
Speaker 1: I honestly don't know. I've tried everything I know and
Speaker 1: nothing is working. And I said, well, I think the
Speaker 1: thing that you're missing is you have to be in
Speaker 1: this situation. She said, what do you mean. I said, well,
Speaker 1: if you want to learn how to play in the rain,
Speaker 1: and it has to be raining, If you want to
Speaker 1: learn how to play in the wind, it has to
Speaker 1: be when when. If you want to learn how to
Speaker 1: extract the most from a situation that you interpret a struggling,
Speaker 1: you have to be in this situation in order to
Speaker 1: execute everything that you have practiced for that situation. And
Speaker 1: I said, you're here, this is where you wanted to be.
Speaker 1: I said, so forget about the tournament. Just see what
Speaker 1: you can do with everything that you've worked on and
Speaker 1: see if you can turn it around. If you can
Speaker 1: turn it around and start playing your game, then you've won,
Speaker 1: which what she did. So my point is is that
Speaker 1: we have to go through struggle in order to learn
Speaker 1: to deal with struggle. And that's that that is the paradox.
Speaker 1: You know, we can't sit in a comfortable situation all
Speaker 1: the time and learn how to deal with struggling. I
Speaker 1: that's one of the reasons why, you know, I think
Speaker 1: where what we're taught and what's on television and everything is,
Speaker 1: you know, if you're not happy all the time, you
Speaker 1: need this drug. You know, it's like we're supposed to
Speaker 1: be happy all the time. And and I don't believe that.
Speaker 1: I said to a bunch of golfers one time, what
Speaker 1: makes a good shot feel so good? And they gave
Speaker 1: me all these ridiculous answers. I said, no, it's because
Speaker 1: you've hit so many bad ones. It's a real simple question, um.
Speaker 1: And I think that one of the things that we
Speaker 1: gain from in reinterpreting, being able to change our interpretation
Speaker 1: and struggle is the feeling of accomplishment and control, you know,
Speaker 1: a self power. So but in order to get there,
Speaker 1: you have to be in it. So when you are
Speaker 1: in it, if you have this awareness again, it gives
Speaker 1: you this opportunity to go, hey, this is I'm feeling
Speaker 1: this feeling that I usually call struggling. That means I'm
Speaker 1: in the process of learning how to do this better,
Speaker 1: because that's the only way I can do it is
Speaker 1: if I'm in it. The stuff that I'm good at,
Speaker 1: I never think about because it's it's easy for me.
Speaker 1: This is my opportunity here. It's not a bad thing.
Speaker 1: It's an opportunity for me to expand myself. And the
Speaker 1: people that want to grow personally are always going to
Speaker 1: be up against that threshold because as soon as they
Speaker 1: master something, they move on. So it's very important to
Speaker 1: learn to interpret that feeling. What it feels like to
Speaker 1: be up against your threshold is not a bad thing.
Speaker 1: It's you're there because you're you're growing. And I think that, um,
Speaker 1: it's a very important point to make because your interpretation
Speaker 1: of it determines how you experience it. And you can't
Speaker 1: experience that as um as an opportunity and a chance
Speaker 1: to grow, and then your performance goes up because you're
Speaker 1: not looking at it as just a horrible experience. That's
Speaker 1: a sure way to get slugged, though, is if you
Speaker 1: tell somebody who's in a great deal of pain that
Speaker 1: this is a wonderful learning opportunity. Yeah, you have to
Speaker 1: do it, but no, I agree with I agree with
Speaker 1: what you're saying. I mean it's like I will think that,
Speaker 1: like I figured out like how to behave in relationships,
Speaker 1: well until I get into one, right when I'm outside
Speaker 1: of one. I got it all figured out, you know,
Speaker 1: I know exactly what to do, and then you put
Speaker 1: you in it. It reminds me of that old ram
Speaker 1: Das saying, right, if you think you're enlightened, go visit
Speaker 1: your parents. Well, you make a really good point. I
Speaker 1: think it's important, you know, with this girl here, that
Speaker 1: was the reason why I didn't start the tournament out
Speaker 1: that way. She had to have exhausted everything and realized
Speaker 1: that what she was doing wasn't working. And I think
Speaker 1: you have to be in that state of mind. You know,
Speaker 1: when you get into the state of mind, um, then
Speaker 1: you become it's like the zen thing. You know, then
Speaker 1: your cup is empty and you're you're open to receive information.
Speaker 1: If I had talked to her about that before, I
Speaker 1: don't know that she would have had that reaction. But
Speaker 1: when I said that to her during the tournament, she
Speaker 1: was very receptive to the idea. Yep, exactly. Well, Tom,
Speaker 1: thanks so much. I really enjoyed the book and I've
Speaker 1: really enjoyed this conversation. I think there's been lots of
Speaker 1: really useful practical things in it, and I love episodes
Speaker 1: that are like that, So thank you. So thank you.
Speaker 1: It was a pleasure being here. It was a pleasure
Speaker 1: meeting you. I really appreciate the opportunity. All right, take care, okay. Bye.
Speaker 1: If what you just heard was helpful to you, please
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