Speaker 1: Hey, everyone, I am doing something totally different here, and
Speaker 1: this is a mini episode that is focused on sort
Speaker 1: of a well, I wouldn't call it a rebuttal. I
Speaker 1: would call it further commentary on the author, Mark Manson's.
Speaker 1: He calls it his mother f and Monday newsletter, and
Speaker 1: he points out three different things that are interesting about
Speaker 1: the human mind. And I always find it useful, and
Speaker 1: this one sort of hit a couple of topics that
Speaker 1: are pretty close to what we do here, and so
Speaker 1: I wanted to talk a little bit about his newsletter
Speaker 1: and some ideas. So the first idea is your next
Speaker 1: big breakthrough is already here. And what he's basically talking
Speaker 1: about here is we tend to create narratives, and certainly
Speaker 1: Hollywood and fiction creates these narratives where all of a
Speaker 1: sudden something happens. Boom, we have this moment of transformation
Speaker 1: and everything is different. And Mark is saying, well, that's
Speaker 1: not really how it works. Sure, there are moments that
Speaker 1: appear to be big transformational moments, but there's hundreds, if
Speaker 1: not thousands, of little chain just that are leading up
Speaker 1: to that moment. And I would mostly agree with everything
Speaker 1: he's saying here. I think It's interesting when I look
Speaker 1: at my recovery, you could point at the day that
Speaker 1: I went into detox in December of n was when
Speaker 1: I got sober from heroin addiction, and you could say
Speaker 1: that was the turning point. And when I tell the story,
Speaker 1: I even talked about a turning point. They told me
Speaker 1: to go into thirty day treatment. I went back to
Speaker 1: my room. I had a moment of clarity where I thought,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna die if I go back out there, and
Speaker 1: so I went back to him, said I'll go into treatment.
Speaker 1: So very clear moment right before and after. However, of course,
Speaker 1: it's not that simple because there were so many things
Speaker 1: that led up to me being ready to make that change,
Speaker 1: both positive and negative things. Right I'd been to treatment before,
Speaker 1: I'd been to a bunch of meetings, I'd had a sponsor,
Speaker 1: I'd done a little of this, a little of that.
Speaker 1: I'd been arrested. I mean, so it's impossible to sort
Speaker 1: of say that moment, but it's it's a clear moment.
Speaker 1: And one of the things that Mark is warning against
Speaker 1: in this article is saying, hey, if you believe that
Speaker 1: transformation happens in one moment, then you're easily deceived by
Speaker 1: people who want to sell you transformation, and as somebody
Speaker 1: who sells something called the one you feed transformation program.
Speaker 1: This is an interesting thought. However, the one you feed
Speaker 1: transformation program is not a moment of transformation. It's six
Speaker 1: months of transformation. Right. We're working on our daily choices,
Speaker 1: day in and day out for a six month period
Speaker 1: and beyond right, that's how real change happens. So I
Speaker 1: agree with him, and there are powerful transformative moments. On
Speaker 1: a retreat with Audio Shanti a couple of years ago,
Speaker 1: I had what we would consider an awakening and enlightenment moments,
Speaker 1: and we'd call it satry or ken show that that
Speaker 1: was so overwhelming and so powerful, and it lasted for
Speaker 1: you know, maybe thirty six hours or so, and I
Speaker 1: emerged from that a different person. Now again, you could
Speaker 1: argue that everything that was happening up till then prepared
Speaker 1: me for that moment, all the meditation being on the retreat,
Speaker 1: all the interviews, all the podcasting, absolutely true. And that
Speaker 1: moment though, was really powerful, and I walked away a
Speaker 1: different person and parts of me have never gone back.
Speaker 1: So changes both very gradual and then sometimes very sudden.
Speaker 1: Right the day that I stopped using heroin the next
Speaker 1: day was radically different, right, and every day after there
Speaker 1: was a big transformative moment. But it's the little choice
Speaker 1: points in and out, day in and day out that
Speaker 1: we can work with and and then we would say,
Speaker 1: or in awakening circles in general, what is often said
Speaker 1: is you can do all the preparation, you can do
Speaker 1: the meditation, you can do the reading, you can do
Speaker 1: the self inquiry, and then that moment, that final moment
Speaker 1: of its sort of happening is a gift or it's
Speaker 1: grace or its luck, or think of it the way
Speaker 1: you want, so again, gradual and sudden. So I think
Speaker 1: Mark's point is really good, and I think that it's
Speaker 1: worth focusing on because that's all we can do. We
Speaker 1: can only make the small, incremental daily changes, make the
Speaker 1: right decision, make the right choices, do the right choice points,
Speaker 1: and then the bigger moments of transformation are kind of
Speaker 1: out of our hands. So that was the first part
Speaker 1: of his article that I thought was really interesting. The
Speaker 1: part that made me want to really discuss it though,
Speaker 1: is number two, which is is the growth mindset just
Speaker 1: another fad? And he talks about Carol Dweck who we
Speaker 1: had on the show, who talks about the fixed and
Speaker 1: growth mindset. Basically, if you believe you can change, you
Speaker 1: can change, and if you don't believe you can change,
Speaker 1: you don't change. And so having a growth mindset allows
Speaker 1: you to do things that you wouldn't do if you
Speaker 1: have a fixed mindset. And hugely successful book, Ted Talk,
Speaker 1: She's been all around the world, really influential idea. And
Speaker 1: now it appears there's a meta analysis out there that
Speaker 1: analyzing the results of fourner a thousand high school students
Speaker 1: and it says that, hey, it doesn't appear that all
Speaker 1: this investment in the growth mindset has done anything that
Speaker 1: we can tell in the data. So what does this
Speaker 1: tell us? Well, the first thing it tells us, as
Speaker 1: Mark says, is psychology is hard, right. We are very
Speaker 1: difficult to figure out, it's difficult to run experiments psychological experiments.
Speaker 1: There are is a huge reproducibility crisis, etcetera. So what
Speaker 1: do we do with all of this information? And the
Speaker 1: where I land with this stuff is to kind of
Speaker 1: go back to one of the Buddha's original teachings, which
Speaker 1: is try these things for yourself and see what happens. Right,
Speaker 1: that's the ultimate test of anything. Whether I say it
Speaker 1: on the podcast or it's in somebody's newsletter, or Eckart
Speaker 1: totally comes out and says it, right, We've got to
Speaker 1: try things in our lives and see if they work. However,
Speaker 1: this can be tricky because a lot of things that
Speaker 1: are really effective in life, if you try them once,
Speaker 1: they don't do anything. One time of sitting down to
Speaker 1: meditation doesn't really change your life. So what do you
Speaker 1: do when do you know whether to go on faith
Speaker 1: or to go on question? And I'm I'm referencing Zen
Speaker 1: a lot. There's a phrase and zen great faith, great determination,
Speaker 1: great doubt. Right, So all these things are in there.
Speaker 1: We have faith, but yet we keep kind of grinding
Speaker 1: a way with a determination. Then there's a doubt, there's
Speaker 1: a questioning is this real? Is this right? Another idea
Speaker 1: that comes to mind I've been talking about a lot
Speaker 1: lately is if we look at the work of Steven C.
Speaker 1: Hayes Acceptance of Commitment Therapy. We just released another interview
Speaker 1: with him. He talks about an idea that I love.
Speaker 1: He says, you should judge a thought by whether it's
Speaker 1: useful or not. And I love that idea and so
Speaker 1: less is this thought true or not true? Again, there
Speaker 1: are things that are factual, but most of what's happening
Speaker 1: with us this perception and story, and it's made up
Speaker 1: to some degree. Right, So not is it true or
Speaker 1: not true? But is it useful or not useful? Is
Speaker 1: it leading me in the direction I want to go?
Speaker 1: And so I think if we look at Carol Dweck's
Speaker 1: work through this lens, we can see where it can
Speaker 1: be helpful and not helpful. Right, It's not enough to
Speaker 1: just say, all right, I have a growth mindset and
Speaker 1: now everything happens right, and oh I just you know,
Speaker 1: I have a growth mindset about playing guitar, so I'm
Speaker 1: a better guitar player. It doesn't work that way. What
Speaker 1: I have seen, though, is the opposite of a growth mindset,
Speaker 1: over and over and over, and that's the fixed mindset.
Speaker 1: I see it in coaching clients all of the time,
Speaker 1: which is we believe we are a certain way, and
Speaker 1: we usually believe negative things about ourselves. One of the
Speaker 1: biggest ones from people is I can't stick with what
Speaker 1: I start, I can't finish anything, I don't have discipline,
Speaker 1: I'm lazy, etcetera. Etcetera. And that belief gets in the
Speaker 1: way because what happens often is people start off they're
Speaker 1: doing good, but the whole time they're doing good, there's
Speaker 1: a little part of the back of their brain going, well,
Speaker 1: I don't really believe you could keep doing this, right,
Speaker 1: And then inevitably, with life, something comes up. Life gets
Speaker 1: in the way, and the next thing, you know, we
Speaker 1: fall off of our change for a short bit, and
Speaker 1: that's when that brain goes, see, I told you couldn't
Speaker 1: do it. I knew you couldn't do it. That's the
Speaker 1: fixed mindset, and the fixed mindset in that case is
Speaker 1: a problem, right. And so what we're really talking about
Speaker 1: with mindset is we're talking about identity. James Clear talks
Speaker 1: about identity. He says, it's a lot more powerful to
Speaker 1: say I don't smoke than to be saying I'm trying
Speaker 1: not to smoke right now, right if you have your identity,
Speaker 1: and identity is one of those things that I think
Speaker 1: applying the useful context too is really good. Identity is
Speaker 1: all a creation of some degree, and the deeper spiritual
Speaker 1: truths you get into, the more you realize this is true.
Speaker 1: At deeper and deeper levels, but at any level, and
Speaker 1: identity is something we are more or less choosing to
Speaker 1: identify with, or we may not be consciously choosing, but
Speaker 1: on some level it is a identification that isn't real,
Speaker 1: And so it's very useful to look at identity and
Speaker 1: go is that identity helping me? If I have an
Speaker 1: identity as somebody who runs five days a week, I'm
Speaker 1: a runner. That's a good identity. That's pretty helpful. On
Speaker 1: the other hand, if I have an identity as somebody
Speaker 1: who isn't good at math, or I have an identity
Speaker 1: as somebody who can't stick with things that they start,
Speaker 1: that's an identity that's holding me back. And I think
Speaker 1: that's what this fixed or growth mindset is really talking about.
Speaker 1: I think that's the usefulness of the fixed or growth mindset.
Speaker 1: The way I'm viewing myself in my life in relation
Speaker 1: to different things. Is it limiting me or not? Just
Speaker 1: because I take off the fixed mindset, doesn't that everything
Speaker 1: gets better. There's lots that still has to happen. But
Speaker 1: you can think of the fixed mindset is acting as
Speaker 1: a break. It can stop us when otherwise things are
Speaker 1: going well. So again, I think it's a good point
Speaker 1: that Mark makes. Let's not take everything that comes out
Speaker 1: in a psychological study as gospel truth. We have to
Speaker 1: try these things on for ourselves. We have to ask
Speaker 1: ourselves are these things useful or not? So? Just more
Speaker 1: thinking there. But I do think that the fixed or
Speaker 1: growth mindset is an idea that can be useful in
Speaker 1: the right context. And then the last part of his
Speaker 1: newsletter is breakthroughs Rarely Feel Good, and he quotes one
Speaker 1: of his favorite philosophers, Arthur Schopenhauer and says he was cranky,
Speaker 1: grouchy old man, which sometimes is what Mark seems like
Speaker 1: through his writing Just kid and Mark love you, while
Speaker 1: not kidding you kind of do seem that way, but
Speaker 1: I do think you're brilliant. But he talks about how
Speaker 1: change is inherently painful, and this is true, right, Real change,
Speaker 1: real dramatic transformation, is difficult. There are times that we
Speaker 1: are decidedly uncomfortable, We are uncertain of where we're going.
Speaker 1: Oftentimes a change, like quitting drugs or alcohol or other
Speaker 1: coping habits, makes us feel worse before we feel better.
Speaker 1: Meditation and emotional work can often turn up things that
Speaker 1: we'd rather not look at. So change is difficult, and
Speaker 1: so it's really helpful when we're going through change to
Speaker 1: have people around us, ideally some people who might be
Speaker 1: a little further down the path often who can say, oh, yeah,
Speaker 1: that's all normal, keep coming, keep coming this way. Right
Speaker 1: when I started getting sober, at first, it was a
Speaker 1: lot worse. But what was so important was I could
Speaker 1: see people who were kind of across the river and
Speaker 1: they just kept saying, Hey, keep coming this direction. Believe me,
Speaker 1: it gets better over here, it gets better over here,
Speaker 1: and I believe them, and that helped me to keep walking.
Speaker 1: And so change is difficult, and it's important to have
Speaker 1: help as we make real change, because that help can
Speaker 1: often not make us feel better, but help us to
Speaker 1: at least know that we're on the right path and
Speaker 1: put everything we're going through in context. So there you
Speaker 1: have it. There's a little mini episode. Mark thanks for
Speaker 1: a newsletter that as always gets me thinking, and we'll
Speaker 1: be back with an episode coming up soon. Take care
Speaker 1: of everyone. Bye,