Speaker 1: Hi, friends, two thousand and nineteen is right around the corner.
Speaker 1: And if there's a change you'd like to make in
Speaker 1: your life and you're thinking two thousand nineteen would be
Speaker 1: a great time to make that change, then I encourage
Speaker 1: you to check out the One you Feed Personal Transformation Program.
Speaker 1: In the program, I will work with you one on
Speaker 1: one to help you make the changes in your life
Speaker 1: that you want to make. Go to One you Feed
Speaker 1: dot net slash two thousand and nineteen to learn more.
Speaker 1: Culture really encourages the behaviors at the bout wolf this
Speaker 1: off and leads to anxiety, a sense of entitlements and
Speaker 1: beneath for approval and control. Welcome to the one you Feed.
Speaker 1: Throughout time, great thinkers have recognized the importance of the
Speaker 1: thoughts we have, quotes like garbage in, garbage out, or
Speaker 1: you are what you think ring true. And yet for
Speaker 1: many of us, our thoughts don't strengthen or empower. For 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 Paul Hennum, a British author and entrepreneur who started,
Speaker 1: owned and managed a number of successful businesses. He taught
Speaker 1: business and environmental management at Oxford University. His new book
Speaker 1: is the Wisdom of Groundhog Day, How to Improve Your
Speaker 1: Life One Day at a Time. Hi, Paul, welcome to
Speaker 1: the show. Well, thank you, Eric, it's pleasure to be here.
Speaker 1: Your book is called The Wisdom of Groundhog Day, How
Speaker 1: to Improve your Life One Day at a Time. And
Speaker 1: we will get into the book in a second, but
Speaker 1: let's start, like we always do, with a parable. There's
Speaker 1: a grandfather who's talking with his granddaughter and he says,
Speaker 1: in life, there are two wolves inside of us that
Speaker 1: are always at battle. One is a good wolf, which
Speaker 1: represents things like kindness and bravery and love, and the
Speaker 1: other is a bad wolf, which represents things like greed
Speaker 1: and hatred and fear. And the granddaughter stops for a second,
Speaker 1: looks up at her grandfather. She says, well, grandfather, which
Speaker 1: one wins? And the grandfather says the one you feed.
Speaker 1: So I'd like to start off by asking you what
Speaker 1: that parable means to you in your life and in
Speaker 1: the work that you do well. This is one of
Speaker 1: my favorite parables and it has many meanings for me.
Speaker 1: First of all, it reminds me but I always have
Speaker 1: a choice, which really is my my greatest gift. In
Speaker 1: every moment, I have a choice to feed the bad
Speaker 1: wolf and act out of fear or self interest, where
Speaker 1: I have the choice to feed the good wolf and
Speaker 1: act out of love, peace of mind, or compassion. And
Speaker 1: I think we live in a world but is always
Speaker 1: providing a lot of food for the bad wolf through advertising, marketing, TV,
Speaker 1: and social media. And our culture really encourages the behaviors
Speaker 1: of the bad wolf, and this often leads to anxiety,
Speaker 1: a sense of entitlement, and beneed for approval and control.
Speaker 1: And I think we make ourselves miserable by always wanting
Speaker 1: more as we try in vain to feed the insatiable
Speaker 1: appetite of a bad wolf. So I really ensure that
Speaker 1: I counteract these forces by taking responsibility for feeding my
Speaker 1: good wolf, what I call my authentic self in the book,
Speaker 1: with practices like self awareness, gratitude, mindfulness, and service to
Speaker 1: a cause grade for myself. My good wolf knows that
Speaker 1: I have everything I need to be happy now, and
Speaker 1: I really try to appreciate this as much as possible.
Speaker 1: But there's more to it than thiss Eric, because I
Speaker 1: really think that Groundhog Day is perhaps the best example
Speaker 1: of the two wolves parable In the film, you can
Speaker 1: really see what it's like to spend a day and
Speaker 1: in fact a lifetime, feeding the bad wolf, and compare
Speaker 1: it with watching Phil Connors, the main star of the film,
Speaker 1: um spend each day feeding the good Wolf. The movie
Speaker 1: is really the story of someone who starts out living
Speaker 1: the way of the bad wolf, driven by ambition, competition, cynicism,
Speaker 1: and greed, and then shifts to living the way of
Speaker 1: the good Wolf. He experiments with every possible strategy in between,
Speaker 1: but eventually he finds, as I think we all would
Speaker 1: if we were trapped in time forever, but the only
Speaker 1: way to live is to feed the good wolf. Yeah,
Speaker 1: as I mentioned you before the show, I had not
Speaker 1: seen that movie and Forever and went back and watched
Speaker 1: it and really enjoyed it, and I agree, I do
Speaker 1: think it is a great story for teaching. Um. I
Speaker 1: had not seen it in a long time. Your book
Speaker 1: prompted me to watch it, and I really enjoyed it.
Speaker 1: One of the things that you mentioned in the book
Speaker 1: is that it's a very repetitive nature of Phil's day,
Speaker 1: the fact that he gets to keep doing the same
Speaker 1: day over and over and over and he can really
Speaker 1: see how what he does makes a difference. It's a
Speaker 1: very controlled experiment, they would say, in a scientific sense,
Speaker 1: our lives are a little bit different. But you do
Speaker 1: mention that you think that experimentation is a really important
Speaker 1: way for us to work on finding a better life. Absolutely,
Speaker 1: for me, experimentation is one of the most important life
Speaker 1: skills that we can learn. In my work as an academic,
Speaker 1: a coach, an entrepreneur, I've always tried to experiment with
Speaker 1: different ways of living. I mean, we have to experiment
Speaker 1: and in order to learn how to drive a car,
Speaker 1: we have to practice to do most of the things
Speaker 1: in life. But how many of us really practice or
Speaker 1: experiment with the art of living happy life? And for me,
Speaker 1: Grand hug Day really reveals how by trying one thing
Speaker 1: and observing what happens and then getting feedback and trying
Speaker 1: something else I've been moving forward or trying something else,
Speaker 1: we can really make huge progress. The tragedy is for
Speaker 1: me that most people are stuck, get stuck in routines,
Speaker 1: in ways of doing things, and repetitive patterns, and they
Speaker 1: lose sight of the fact that they do have a choice.
Speaker 1: So experimentation is at one level, is a mindset, but
Speaker 1: also it's a skill because if we keep a journal
Speaker 1: and if we really spend the time to investigate our behavior,
Speaker 1: notice how other people are reacting to us, like filled
Speaker 1: us in the movie, we can gain tremendous insight. But
Speaker 1: it's being allowing ourselves to be vulnerable, to be truly
Speaker 1: self aware, to be honest with ourselves. That's often the
Speaker 1: hardest barrier to overcome. But when we do that, we
Speaker 1: can make enormous strides. Or we can be like Einstein said,
Speaker 1: you know, insane and just keep on repeating the same
Speaker 1: mistakes and expecting different results. Yeah. I do find that
Speaker 1: the variables in life for me make it challenging. Is
Speaker 1: like I try and figure out like Okay, I'm in
Speaker 1: a I'm in a certain mood or I feel a
Speaker 1: certain way, Like what is it that's causing that because
Speaker 1: there are so many variables. How did I sleep, how
Speaker 1: did I eat? Did I exercise? Was the sun out? Well?
Speaker 1: I mean it just the list goes on and on
Speaker 1: and on, and so I do think experimentation is is
Speaker 1: really useful. The other thing that I have found to
Speaker 1: be really interesting is that sometimes what works for me
Speaker 1: one day or one week or one month all of
Speaker 1: a sudden stops working as well, and I need to
Speaker 1: adjust that. So what do you do to kind of
Speaker 1: help control the variables in your own life? Well, I think,
Speaker 1: like a good scientist, you have to work on one
Speaker 1: element at a time, on changing one variable at the time.
Speaker 1: I think one of the problems where businesses and I
Speaker 1: think I have a change programs get wrong is they
Speaker 1: try and change too much too quickly, whereas we need
Speaker 1: to make small incremental changes and give them a period
Speaker 1: of time for you to really adjust and identify the
Speaker 1: change that's happening. So it's doing it in a far
Speaker 1: more controlled and a far more detached an objective way
Speaker 1: where possible, which all sounds a bit dry, but if
Speaker 1: you you know, we're held back in our life by
Speaker 1: a series of beliefs or feelings or behaviors that prevent
Speaker 1: us and being truly happy and fulfilled. So it's really
Speaker 1: worth taking the time to do this, and it's I think,
Speaker 1: keeping a detailed journal of trying something. So you if
Speaker 1: you have a boss you don't get on with, and
Speaker 1: day after day you're banging your head against the brick
Speaker 1: wall trying to improve him, just try something completely different.
Speaker 1: Go in and pretend that he is the best person
Speaker 1: or she's the best person you've ever met in your life,
Speaker 1: and treat them the way you would act on a
Speaker 1: first date with absolute love. Listen to everything they say,
Speaker 1: be at your absolute best. But it might sound crazy,
Speaker 1: but often but the film is about somebody who lives
Speaker 1: in this crazy existence, but by completely reframing and trans
Speaker 1: forming what's supposedly normal, he's able to discover the real
Speaker 1: key to a happy life. And sometimes we need to
Speaker 1: get out and look at things almost from a level
Speaker 1: of metal awareness, to be aware of what's happening in
Speaker 1: front of us, rather than keep on associating ourselves of
Speaker 1: his behaviors and just jumping into it hoping it will
Speaker 1: get better. Yeah. One of the things I started doing
Speaker 1: recently is using a mood tracker I've been in the
Speaker 1: process over the last six, maybe no more like eight
Speaker 1: months of transitioning off antidepressants. I've been on them for
Speaker 1: a long time and they were hugely beneficial to me.
Speaker 1: I just don't know if they still are right. So
Speaker 1: I thought, you know what, I'm going to give a
Speaker 1: shot at transitioning off these and I've been doing it
Speaker 1: very slow over a long period of time. But one
Speaker 1: of the things I realized I wanted to do is
Speaker 1: start to track my mood because a little bit of
Speaker 1: a bad mood, this little part of my brain jumps
Speaker 1: up and go, see see you know you need the medicine,
Speaker 1: and which is not true. And so I've been tracking
Speaker 1: in it to really get a sense of what's the
Speaker 1: reality of how am I feeling multiple times a day,
Speaker 1: day after day, instead of my most recent recollection, because
Speaker 1: that's one of the things about bad moods or depression
Speaker 1: for me, one of their salient characteristics is their sense
Speaker 1: that comes along with them like it's always this way
Speaker 1: and it will always be that way. That's a great question. Well,
Speaker 1: as somebody who suffered through most of my life from
Speaker 1: anxiety and also mild depression, I identify that question very much.
Speaker 1: And one of the reasons I wrote the book and
Speaker 1: do my work in this field is to really understand
Speaker 1: the role of moods in my own life and how
Speaker 1: I can overcome what can be very, very challenging moods.
Speaker 1: And I think you're right. I think the challenge for
Speaker 1: most of us is when we feel bad, we tend
Speaker 1: to want to change something outside of ourselves. It might
Speaker 1: be rich for a drink, we watch TV, or we think, oh,
Speaker 1: if only I had a new job, if only I
Speaker 1: had a new partner, then we'd be happy. Then everything
Speaker 1: will be better. But what I found in my work,
Speaker 1: and again the film really validates, is it's only by
Speaker 1: going within and really looking at how you change your mood.
Speaker 1: How do you what is your role in creating that mood. Now,
Speaker 1: of course bad things happen to us, to happen to everybody,
Speaker 1: but we all respond in very different ways. So what
Speaker 1: is the mechanism and what level of influence do we
Speaker 1: have over those mechanisms for being more resilient, for being
Speaker 1: more elegant in our response to what can be bad moods?
Speaker 1: And I think tracking is incredibly important because it also
Speaker 1: overcomes a lot of biases such as the one you mentioned,
Speaker 1: such as the recency bias, the fact that we tend
Speaker 1: to remember what's most recently happened to us, or we
Speaker 1: tend to negatively filter, or we look for confirmation of
Speaker 1: what we believe as our personality. So we take on
Speaker 1: the persona of being an anxious person or a depressed person,
Speaker 1: and it makes it very difficult to change if that
Speaker 1: becomes your identity. Whereas if you have a level of
Speaker 1: distance and again coming back to experimentation and that awareness
Speaker 1: and actually writing down what's happening during the day, tracking
Speaker 1: your moods, it gives you a little bit more control,
Speaker 1: but it gives you more understanding and appreciation of what's
Speaker 1: really happening, and once you've done back, you can start
Speaker 1: to bring about some of the incremental changes. Because the
Speaker 1: essence of ground Hug Day, in the essence of the
Speaker 1: work I do in in consulting coaching such is making
Speaker 1: change one day at a time. AA is absolutely right
Speaker 1: about this. One day at a time is the absolute key,
Speaker 1: and the metaphor of the movie beautifully illustrates that. But
Speaker 1: tracking your moods one minute at a time, one hour
Speaker 1: at a time, one day at a time, is a
Speaker 1: great way to start that process. Yeah, I definitely agree
Speaker 1: with that, and that idea of making small changes are making,
Speaker 1: you know, one change at a time. You know, there
Speaker 1: are certainly cases where an entire overhaul of your entire
Speaker 1: life can be a wonderful thing, but those usually are
Speaker 1: the result of having, you know, at least a my case,
Speaker 1: pretty much ruined my entire life and having a chance
Speaker 1: to hit the reset button. For most of us, that's
Speaker 1: not an option. And since that's not an option, you know,
Speaker 1: almost the opposite, that slow incremental approach works so much
Speaker 1: better because we're actually able to do it, see what
Speaker 1: works and what doesn't work, and then stick with it
Speaker 1: very much so. And also it's more within our control,
Speaker 1: whereas a lot of the change we have is reactive.
Speaker 1: We're reacting to life events like failures in relationships, at work,
Speaker 1: in health. Yeah, when you proactively determine, decide to change,
Speaker 1: then you can almost take more control of the process.
Speaker 1: And we're not really taught this. This is something we
Speaker 1: learned at some or some of us learn at some
Speaker 1: stage in life, but I think it's something that everybody
Speaker 1: ought to be taught. Hi, friends, the New Year is
Speaker 1: right around the corner. Is there a change you'd like
Speaker 1: to make in your life and you're thinking two thousand
Speaker 1: nineteen would be a great time to make that change.
Speaker 1: Maybe it's a new habit like exercise, meditation, or healthier
Speaker 1: eating habits. Maybe it's a job change or prepping for
Speaker 1: a certification exam that will take your career to the
Speaker 1: next level. Whatever it is, do you think you'd benefit
Speaker 1: from some help in making that change so that it's
Speaker 1: a successful one that lasts rather than just another failed attempt.
Speaker 1: If so, I invite you to check out the one
Speaker 1: you Feed Personal transfer ormation program. In it, I work
Speaker 1: one on one with people to help them make the
Speaker 1: changes in their lives they want to make. I've coached
Speaker 1: hundreds of people from around the world, and I can
Speaker 1: tell you having support, guidance, accountability, and encouragement is the
Speaker 1: difference between making lasting, successful change and just another short lived,
Speaker 1: valiant effort that never panned out. Let's put the principles
Speaker 1: and skills we discuss on the One you Feed to
Speaker 1: work in your life in two thousand and nineteen. Go
Speaker 1: to one you Feed dot net slash two thousand and
Speaker 1: nineteen to learn more about the program. You'll also learn
Speaker 1: the number one skill I teach my coaching clients that
Speaker 1: enables them to make lasting changes in their lives. Again,
Speaker 1: that's one you feed dot net Slash two thousand and nineteen.
Speaker 1: I really look forward to working with you. So you
Speaker 1: describe the groundhog day condition? Can you explain a little
Speaker 1: bit more what it is? We sort of alluded to them.
Speaker 1: It was a metaphor I developed to really explain my
Speaker 1: experience of working over many years now with thousands of people,
Speaker 1: and also understanding my own life. People I know have
Speaker 1: struggled at different levels. And what the groundhog day condition
Speaker 1: is is the sense that you are stuck in a rut.
Speaker 1: It's a sense that you're living on automatic pilot, but
Speaker 1: you you can't change that. You're almost a helpless victim
Speaker 1: of forces beyond your control. It's the sense that every
Speaker 1: day is very similar or the same, and you just
Speaker 1: have to go on a train or watch people commuting
Speaker 1: to work to see it in process, the way everybody
Speaker 1: seems to have the same look. They're almost moving like
Speaker 1: automatons to work, and this is a very visible sign
Speaker 1: of groundhog day. But when I've talked to clients, I
Speaker 1: find that even they might be in London today, Los
Speaker 1: Angeles tomorrow, Sydney the next day, but in their inner
Speaker 1: life they're going through the same repetitive patterns. And for me,
Speaker 1: the inner life is where all the action is in
Speaker 1: our life, where all the important work is done. We
Speaker 1: know this from the great spiritual writers, from the great psychologists,
Speaker 1: from US science now that the key to living a
Speaker 1: happy life is to have a happy inner life. So
Speaker 1: I use the groundhog day metaphor to say that not
Speaker 1: only can we get stuck in repeating our outer life,
Speaker 1: you know, going to the same job every day, and
Speaker 1: the same conversations every day, etcetera, the same problems, but
Speaker 1: more important, in our inner life, we're living habitually stuck
Speaker 1: in a routine which gives us some level of comfort,
Speaker 1: maybe in some distraction, but prevents us from really experiencing
Speaker 1: the full spectrum of what life can offer because we
Speaker 1: narrow it. What Kurt Lewin the psychologist, used to say,
Speaker 1: we freeze it. We we become frozen in a set
Speaker 1: of beliefs and a set of structures and routines that
Speaker 1: give us a full sense of happiness, a pseudo happiness,
Speaker 1: but doesn't deliver the true, authentic fulfillment, but we're looking
Speaker 1: for and so what what are some of the things
Speaker 1: that you recommend to do to try and break up that.
Speaker 1: I'll just call it inner monotony, right, because as you
Speaker 1: said that the outer world is not really necessarily to think.
Speaker 1: There are plenty of people who live in a very
Speaker 1: small outer world circle. You know, they do very few
Speaker 1: different things, are very similar, and they love their life.
Speaker 1: So it's not about you know, whether I'm going to
Speaker 1: fifty different cities or I'm staying in my my one
Speaker 1: little area that I love. It's it's the inner monotony
Speaker 1: that you're talking about. So so what are some things
Speaker 1: people can do to break that up? Well, what we're
Speaker 1: learning at the moment, and there was a very influential
Speaker 1: paper a few years ago called, I think it was
Speaker 1: A Wandering Mind is an Unhappy Mind that published at
Speaker 1: at Harvard, but really showed that if you were in
Speaker 1: the present moment, even if you're doing a relatively dull work,
Speaker 1: you will be happier than if you're doing a more
Speaker 1: interesting job. But your mind is wandering to what you
Speaker 1: should be doing, what you want to be doing, where
Speaker 1: you want to be at a weekend. So the first
Speaker 1: and for me, most important skill is to be in
Speaker 1: the present moment. And if you like, groundhog Day is
Speaker 1: about a man who rushed into town and wanted to
Speaker 1: rush out living in the future. He was focused on
Speaker 1: his career, getting this promotion to Pittsburgh. He just wanted
Speaker 1: to go out about town, but he was forced to
Speaker 1: stay down. He gradually slowed right down, And groundhog Day
Speaker 1: is almost a permanent present moment. It's for power of
Speaker 1: now in practice, and by slowing right down, you're able
Speaker 1: to really savor what you already have in life and
Speaker 1: realize that you actually have everything you need to be
Speaker 1: happy now. And groundhog Day is not about getting more.
Speaker 1: It's a story of somebody who removes all the superficial
Speaker 1: aspects of his life to discover the essence of who
Speaker 1: he is and what really leads to happiness, which are
Speaker 1: the same things we've always known, good relationships, meaning fulfillment,
Speaker 1: helping others, being creative, all these things which have always
Speaker 1: been available to him, but he's been looking in the
Speaker 1: wrong place. So the first essence of really breaking out
Speaker 1: of groundhog Day is to slow down. Mindfulness is for
Speaker 1: me the ultimate practice. I practice mindful walking. When I
Speaker 1: walk around my environments, even if I'm walking the same
Speaker 1: walk every day, it really grounds me in the present moments.
Speaker 1: You know, I'm not there staring at my phone or
Speaker 1: thinking about what I want to be doing next. I'm
Speaker 1: I'm listening to the birds song, I'm feeling the wind
Speaker 1: on my face. I'm being human again. I'm trying to
Speaker 1: break free of what I call my condition self, which
Speaker 1: is all about what other people think of me, getting approval,
Speaker 1: achieving status, what I've you know, what my qualifications are
Speaker 1: that got me so far in life, But I reached
Speaker 1: a complete plateau. I had to go through my own
Speaker 1: crisis in my own life, a bit like not not
Speaker 1: being trapped in time. But so a series of pretty
Speaker 1: bad events happened but forced me really to go within
Speaker 1: and discover. But I didn't need any of that stuff
Speaker 1: to be truly happy. And so my life journey now
Speaker 1: is all about being in the present moment and appreciating
Speaker 1: what I have. There were the things I've been doing
Speaker 1: a lot, and I think I've mentioned it on recent shows,
Speaker 1: but it's hard for me to remember what I've said
Speaker 1: when and haven't. But is that idea of being in
Speaker 1: the present moment is one of those things that it's
Speaker 1: at the point of becoming cliched wisdom at this point, right,
Speaker 1: it's it's what everybody says. And the challenge that I
Speaker 1: face is and I think a lot of people face
Speaker 1: as I go, Okay, I should be in the present moment.
Speaker 1: So I come to the present moment for about a
Speaker 1: quarter of a second, and then I'm off again in
Speaker 1: whatever's happening, because the habitual thought patterns are so strong,
Speaker 1: and so there's a few different tricks that I use.
Speaker 1: One that I've been doing a lot lately is I
Speaker 1: think I think the term for it is grounding yourself
Speaker 1: in your senses. But I I just wherever I'm at
Speaker 1: or whatever I'm doing, I try and pay attention to
Speaker 1: five things that I can see, five things that I
Speaker 1: can hear, and then five things that I can feel
Speaker 1: sensation wise. And that is really useful for me because
Speaker 1: it's it gives my brain something to do to keep
Speaker 1: me in the present moment a little bit more, and
Speaker 1: I more and more keep trying to do that to
Speaker 1: try and move out of the conversation that's always going
Speaker 1: on in my head, which sometimes the conversation in my
Speaker 1: head is a lovely place to be, but a lot
Speaker 1: of times it's not. And so to your point, I
Speaker 1: think for me to break up that inner monotony is
Speaker 1: too is to be present. It's just one of those
Speaker 1: things that is easier to say than do do you
Speaker 1: have any sort of little things that you do to
Speaker 1: help yourself to be more present, because like I said,
Speaker 1: it's one of those things that we do for a
Speaker 1: little bit, but then we are right back off in thought. Again,
Speaker 1: that's an extent question, and you're right. Suddenly mindfulness has
Speaker 1: become the you know, it's in every magazine and it's
Speaker 1: being um, you know, turned into a consumer good in
Speaker 1: some way and going away from its very essence. But
Speaker 1: for me, reconnecting with nature is by far the most
Speaker 1: powerful way I'm as an environmentalist, that's my great passion.
Speaker 1: And but environmentalism doesn't just mean for me, you know,
Speaker 1: fighting climate change. It means it loving and appreciating nature
Speaker 1: and being out as much as possible. I live in
Speaker 1: a beautiful part of England in the South Bounds, which
Speaker 1: is a National park, and but you don't have to
Speaker 1: be in the national park. You can be in any park.
Speaker 1: But it's getting out. It's all about getting out of
Speaker 1: your head. In the book, I say it's moving from
Speaker 1: thinking mode to being mode. And some people yoga or swimming.
Speaker 1: For me, it's walking. But anything that gets you in
Speaker 1: touch with your body and with your as you said,
Speaker 1: your feelings. I think on one of your shows a
Speaker 1: few months ago, you had a guest and I think
Speaker 1: you mentioned about looking for things that are read. You know,
Speaker 1: you're driving along and look, and I thought, that's a
Speaker 1: great technique. Anything like that that takes you away from
Speaker 1: your normal routine thinking what I call the groundhog day
Speaker 1: condition and sort of shakes it around. But the best
Speaker 1: way for me is body scan, meditation and or deep
Speaker 1: breathing or but above all being out of nature is
Speaker 1: the actual act of walking is very meditative in itself,
Speaker 1: and also walking in cities. You know, the French used
Speaker 1: to have a word for this leaflan. These are people
Speaker 1: who in the eighteenth and nineteenth century used to walk
Speaker 1: around cities, sit down and write down inspiring quotes and
Speaker 1: then go and walk around and just experience the beat
Speaker 1: of the city. So it doesn't have to be in
Speaker 1: the National park. But it's doing something different, coming back
Speaker 1: to the concept of experimentation, trying something new until you
Speaker 1: find something that works. Yep, I agree. So let's talk
Speaker 1: about the conditioned self a little bit. It's something that
Speaker 1: you reference often in the book, and it's certainly a
Speaker 1: topic that's been on a lot of the shows over
Speaker 1: the last really probably close to a year. Is this
Speaker 1: idea of, you know, really what is ourself? And you
Speaker 1: make a distinction between the conditioned self and an authentic self.
Speaker 1: Let's start with the condition self. Sure well, I use
Speaker 1: it as a as a simplification really of quite like
Speaker 1: the two Wolves, parable of you know, quite a complex world,
Speaker 1: m but we live in. I don't necessarily believe there
Speaker 1: is a pure self that we're trying to find. What
Speaker 1: I do believe, though, is that the real culprit in
Speaker 1: our life is the condition self. This is the self
Speaker 1: that is raised to seek approval, to be in control,
Speaker 1: but once ego gratification, but always once more. And this
Speaker 1: is a like I said at the beginning about the
Speaker 1: bad Wolf, it's fueled by our society. The whole of
Speaker 1: our society. You know, modern Western society and capitalism is
Speaker 1: based on having insatiable desires. Because as soon as we
Speaker 1: stop desiring things, we stop buying things. And that's bad
Speaker 1: news in a way for the capitalist society, and the
Speaker 1: problem is it's destroying our planet and we have to
Speaker 1: find a more elegant way of living. So the condition
Speaker 1: self is all about living somebody else's life, is being
Speaker 1: on a trajectory maybe from us school, from our parents,
Speaker 1: from our culture, and it's it's not being really understanding
Speaker 1: what we really want. Whereas the authentic self is if
Speaker 1: we can identify our discern it is who we are
Speaker 1: beyond our roles, Our responsibilities are achievements, are labels, you know,
Speaker 1: as a as a father, as a as a husband,
Speaker 1: as a CEO, whatever it might be. And the only
Speaker 1: way to get there, coming back to our previous discussion
Speaker 1: is to go into our bodies is be present and
Speaker 1: just be quiet and notice when everything shuts down, who
Speaker 1: are you? And a lot of work is done by
Speaker 1: people like you know, Daniel Goldman and mis concept of
Speaker 1: um and Richard Davidson, a meta awareness, the ability to
Speaker 1: rise above and see these different thoughts, these different voices
Speaker 1: that we mistake for who we are. So for me,
Speaker 1: the authentic self is who we are when we let
Speaker 1: go of all of that stuff, and I think we
Speaker 1: then have a more natural inclination towards being more loving,
Speaker 1: more calm, or fulfilled. I don't say all of us.
Speaker 1: I mean, there are psychopathic psychopaths out there, but are
Speaker 1: people with serious issues. But there are you know, people
Speaker 1: who are born bad than people who are born good.
Speaker 1: But for most of us, when we let the noise
Speaker 1: die down, and when we transcend these shackles of our conditioning,
Speaker 1: I feel that we can identify and find somebody who's
Speaker 1: more real and more authentic. We all have those moments again,
Speaker 1: it could be on holiday, it could be of a
Speaker 1: love when, it could be a sunset when we feel
Speaker 1: this feels real, this feels authentic. And the more work
Speaker 1: we can do to find that, the better. And I
Speaker 1: think the less time we spent thinking about what we
Speaker 1: want and more about what other people want, the less
Speaker 1: time on trying to control things, and more time and
Speaker 1: accepting things. But we can start to move towards this,
Speaker 1: this position of of what I call the authentic self.
Speaker 1: But the real issue is transcending, a breaking through the
Speaker 1: condition self and being and being aware of who we are,
Speaker 1: how our personality has been constructed. And this goes back
Speaker 1: to my work at my master's level in social psychology
Speaker 1: and more than five years ago, how we are constructed
Speaker 1: by our society. Yet most of you know, most of
Speaker 1: us don't realize this. How subtle these influences are. Yeah,
Speaker 1: the condition self. You mentioned three main things that create
Speaker 1: that condition self. One is our conditioning, second is our circumstances.
Speaker 1: The third is our mind. Can you break those three
Speaker 1: down real quick? Sure? Well? Our conditioning is what I've
Speaker 1: really just explained. Our education, our parents, peer pressure of
Speaker 1: a society we live in. Our circumstances are our immediate circumstances,
Speaker 1: um in terms of, you know, our work, the quality
Speaker 1: or of our relationships at only one time, how we're feeling.
Speaker 1: When we're feeling tired, when we're feeling unhealthy, when our
Speaker 1: mood is low, we tend to be, you know, more
Speaker 1: negative in many ways, and we can sink back and
Speaker 1: we tend to look outside and say, oh, this is wrong.
Speaker 1: They're wrong. They don't treat me right. But the one
Speaker 1: that I think is the biggest challenge is our mind.
Speaker 1: And in many ways, our brain is constructed to prevent change,
Speaker 1: and our brain does not like change. You know, there's
Speaker 1: a system called cognitive security and cognitive consistency that means
Speaker 1: our brain tends to do everything it can to stay
Speaker 1: the same, to to reinforce our beliefs. This is how
Speaker 1: confirmation bias works. So we're always looking to reinforce our beliefs.
Speaker 1: We find it very difficult to challenge our beliefs. So
Speaker 1: if our belief is that I should always be promoted
Speaker 1: every year, or I should be a billionaire, or everybody
Speaker 1: should love me, or everybody should do what I say,
Speaker 1: we're looking. You know, we're reinforcing us, and it's it's
Speaker 1: one way ticket to disaster. But our brain tends to reinforces.
Speaker 1: I used to call us the snowball effect. Is like
Speaker 1: having a snowball and they're rolling it down the hill.
Speaker 1: It gathers more and more evidence and becomes a bigger
Speaker 1: and bigger snowball. And this is the story of our lives.
Speaker 1: That we keep on reinforcing these beliefs, and but our
Speaker 1: brain is designed to maintain that consistency because too much dissonance,
Speaker 1: too much change, it finds very difficult to cope with.
Speaker 1: So the more we can understand these processes and rise
Speaker 1: above them, and the more we can meditate and be
Speaker 1: mindful and see what's going on the freer we are
Speaker 1: to make the changes that we want. You mentioned that
Speaker 1: there are five common characteristics to the condition self, and
Speaker 1: we're not going to have time to go through all
Speaker 1: of them. I'm going to read with the five R
Speaker 1: and then I'll let you pick the one that you
Speaker 1: want to elaborate on. So these are the five common
Speaker 1: characteristics of our conditioned self, and you see entitlement, approval, insecurity, dependency,
Speaker 1: and control. So I'll leave it to you to pick
Speaker 1: your your current favorite to elaborate upon. Well, I'll pick
Speaker 1: approval because it's always been my challenge. So um, you know,
Speaker 1: I felt as a child I didn't get the approval
Speaker 1: I expected or wanted, and probably, like you know millions
Speaker 1: of others, I had a desperate need to be like,
Speaker 1: to be recognized, to be approved of, and I realized
Speaker 1: that I was doing things wrong reasons. I think some
Speaker 1: of your guests have talked about this, and this is
Speaker 1: a well known um system again in psychology of a
Speaker 1: difference between intrinsic and extrinsic motivation. When we seek approval,
Speaker 1: we do things for extrinsic reasons. We do it to
Speaker 1: win awards, to get more money, to be liked, to
Speaker 1: get qualifications, and of course we do need those to
Speaker 1: an extent that we can get on this hamps too,
Speaker 1: where where we never get off. We're always looking for
Speaker 1: the next thing, the next achievement. And it's because not
Speaker 1: necessarily because we want those things, but we want people
Speaker 1: to like us and we want people to think we're great.
Speaker 1: But I spent the first forty to fifty years of
Speaker 1: my life as completely dominated. This was my default system
Speaker 1: for looking at everything. Do people like me? And if
Speaker 1: they don't like me, what can I do to make
Speaker 1: like and and mind me? And that guided everything, and
Speaker 1: that's an exhausting way to live. So each of these
Speaker 1: five characteristics, as you say, you know, whether it be control,
Speaker 1: whether it be a moroval, these are like your default
Speaker 1: dominant belief system that guides you both consciously more important
Speaker 1: unconsciously through your life. In the movie, Phil was dominated
Speaker 1: by a need for approval, to be like, but also
Speaker 1: a sense of entitlement. He wanted everything to go his
Speaker 1: own way in the town, to say, oh, you're amazing,
Speaker 1: and do what you know, stay at the best hotel, etcetera.
Speaker 1: He wanted to control people as well, and again in
Speaker 1: the movie he recognizes this and then starts to eliminate
Speaker 1: this and and not be dominated by this belief that
Speaker 1: every one of us has a core belief that can
Speaker 1: to some extent in powers, but more often hold us back.
Speaker 1: And the quicker we can figure out what it is
Speaker 1: and really try and overcome it and challenge ourselves are better.
Speaker 1: And it comes back to experimentation again and again. Try
Speaker 1: looking at things in a new way, try acting without
Speaker 1: the need for approval. The great thing is as you
Speaker 1: get older, it doesn't matter as much. You realize most
Speaker 1: people don't care anyway, and not in a negative way.
Speaker 1: But you know, we we spend so much of our
Speaker 1: time worried about what other people think, and it's it's
Speaker 1: complete waste of time most of the time. Yeah, I agree,
Speaker 1: I think that is approval is a big one. You know.
Speaker 1: I've been looking at control for myself lately, how much
Speaker 1: I think that I need to control things. And it's
Speaker 1: interesting because I'm not typically what you would think of
Speaker 1: as a controlling person in external way. I'm not usually
Speaker 1: like you need to be this way, or I don't
Speaker 1: try and ratchet everything down. But I think that my
Speaker 1: the level of control I've been exploring more is trying
Speaker 1: to control my internal state. And I've done that obviously
Speaker 1: over the years and lots of different ways. You know,
Speaker 1: I was I was a drug addict for a long time,
Speaker 1: so that's a pretty extreme and not really useful way
Speaker 1: to try and control. And then obviously the show and
Speaker 1: everything that I do with it and the learning all
Speaker 1: has this desire to control the inner state to a
Speaker 1: certain extent. And so what I've been working with, and
Speaker 1: I've said this on the show lately, is where are
Speaker 1: the limits of that? I do think that trying to
Speaker 1: improve my internal state, trying to improve our lives all
Speaker 1: that are really important and critical things, and like anything
Speaker 1: taken too far, it can become pathological. And so I've
Speaker 1: just been kind of looking at like, where are the
Speaker 1: limits to what to what control is? Where does it
Speaker 1: become too much? It's an interesting point. I think maybe
Speaker 1: part of it is letting go of outcomes. Um. I
Speaker 1: think often when you want to control things, you have
Speaker 1: a specific result. So for example, you might act in
Speaker 1: a certain way to somebody and if they don't respond
Speaker 1: in a way you expect, you know, the idea of
Speaker 1: give us and take us looks at this. You know,
Speaker 1: you give, give, give and you expect the person to reciprocate,
Speaker 1: but that doesn't always happen. But we're doing that all
Speaker 1: the time, setting up these expectations, and I think just
Speaker 1: letting go of that m is a great start and
Speaker 1: doing it for the intrinsic reasons, not the extrinsic which sounds,
Speaker 1: you know, a counterintuitive to controlling, but in a way,
Speaker 1: it's it's what is the state you want to be in?
Speaker 1: What will control give you? That's the deeper question for me,
Speaker 1: And is are a more direct and a more healthy
Speaker 1: way of reaching that states? Well, we are at the
Speaker 1: end of our time here, Paul, you and I are
Speaker 1: going to have a post show conversation where we're going
Speaker 1: to explore a concept in your book that I love,
Speaker 1: which is about how you compare one moment of your
Speaker 1: life to another moment of your life, and how the
Speaker 1: way that we normally do this sets us up to
Speaker 1: be perpetually unhappy. It's a really great idea. Will explore
Speaker 1: it in the post show conversation listeners. If you're interested
Speaker 1: in that, you can get access to this post show
Speaker 1: conversation and all of them at when you feed dot
Speaker 1: net slash support. You can become a contributor and you
Speaker 1: can listen to those and the many episodes that come
Speaker 1: along also right in your podcast player like everything else.
Speaker 1: So when you feed dot net Slash the or if
Speaker 1: you're interested, Paul, thank you so much for taking the
Speaker 1: time to come on and sharing your work with us. Well,
Speaker 1: thank you so much. It's an absolute pleasure. Okay, take care.
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