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Source: youtube/20230408-w_mPrS11HP4-The Fix 02 - How Do You Think About Trauma？.webm
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00:00:01.980 Speaker 1 I can't take another blow.
00:00:06.120 Speaker 1 I'm not strong enough.
00:00:09.500 Speaker 1 Well, you're wrong,
00:00:13.540 Speaker 1 and I'm going to tell you why. This is The Fix.
00:00:18.640 Speaker 1 [claps]
00:00:24.760 Speaker 1 Today's topic is how to handle trauma,
00:00:31.120 Speaker 1 specifically trauma that just keeps coming. It's
00:00:36.820 Speaker 1 how to withstand and grow stronger
00:00:42.460 Speaker 1 from the hits that just keep coming in your life.
00:00:48.440 Speaker 1 When you feel like you can't take anymore, when you feel like one more thing cannot
00:00:54.060 Speaker 1 go wrong because I have nothing left, I'm tapped out.
00:01:00.220 Speaker 1 I have no idea how you expect me to continue to improve and to work on my life
00:01:05.740 Speaker 1 problems when crap just keeps going wrong, and I don't... I can't even get up
00:01:11.440 Speaker 1 anymore. I don't know how to handle this. That is today's topic. But
00:01:17.480 Speaker 1 before we dive into today's topic, The Fixes
00:01:23.500 Speaker 1 stack. So we're going to review. So last time we talked about...
00:01:29.580 Speaker 1 Yeah, here, let's just make this a quiz. That's way more fun. Do we make excuses?
00:01:35.900 Speaker 1 Do you blame other people?
00:01:39.580 Speaker 1 Do you deflect from uncomfortable truths?
00:01:44.780 Speaker 1 No. Why? Why? Why don't we make excuses? Why don't we
00:01:50.800 Speaker 1 blame other people? Why don't we deflect uncomfortable truths? Who is it for?
00:01:57.460 Speaker 1 Is it for them?
00:02:00.600 Speaker 1 Nope. It's for you. That's why. You give away your power, you give away your
00:02:06.380 Speaker 1 control when you do that. All right? Remember, that's an internal locus of control.
00:02:12.140 Speaker 1 Next, remember to have a growth mindset. What is a growth mindset?
00:02:16.100 Speaker 1 [humming] It's just the
00:02:22.600 Speaker 1 belief that you and other people can change. You can improve,
00:02:28.500 Speaker 1 okay? It's just that belief. Hold that belief in your head. And then two more
00:02:32.640 Speaker 1 concepts to review. Take less information in. Our last episode was about how to get
00:02:38.120 Speaker 1 control in your life. Are you taking in less information? Are you
00:02:43.840 Speaker 1 making quiet time? Here's something I do to get quiet time. I call
00:02:49.820 Speaker 1 it thinking time. When I have a specific problem I want to work on, I will pull up
00:02:55.200 Speaker 1 some journaling software, I'll close everything, and I will put on some
00:02:59.660 Speaker 1 non-vocal music, and I will journal on a specific question as
00:03:05.700 Speaker 1 the prompt. Sometimes this will take the form of a question-answer back and forth,
00:03:10.960 Speaker 1 like a conversation with myself. I will literally type out exactly what I'm
00:03:14.380 Speaker 1 thinking. "How am I going to be able to build this prototype?"
00:03:20.520 Speaker 1 Answer: "Well, you don't have any of the skills, so you're probably gonna have to
00:03:24.580 Speaker 1 find somebody to help you with this part." Question: "Where will I find them? I
00:03:29.740 Speaker 1 don't know anybody who can do that." Answer: "No, but you know where you could
00:03:35.360 Speaker 1 potentially find them. They might be over here, and you know how to meet people, so
00:03:40.600 Speaker 1 go just make a forum post or something." Question: "Okay, but what
00:03:46.440 Speaker 1 forums would I ask, and how could I incentivize these people to help me?" Answer...
00:03:50.200 Speaker 1 You get the point. It's a back and forth. I have lots of different kinds of thinking
00:03:54.080 Speaker 1 time, but that one is one of the easiest. Okay. But most importantly, you need
00:03:59.960 Speaker 1 dead air. You need time where you're not doing anything with
00:04:05.880 Speaker 1 your brain. It's just quiet. Doesn't have to actually be quiet, but no
00:04:11.740 Speaker 1 information should be coming in. Default mode network. Let your mind wander because
00:04:16.640 Speaker 1 that's when you start sorting through all the clutter in your head. It's a
00:04:20.260 Speaker 1 decluttering. And finally, close the door behind you. This is the last important
00:04:25.960 Speaker 1 concept. When you engage in a dopamine-seeking activity, instead of
00:04:31.420 Speaker 1 fighting with willpower to stop doing it before you do it, that's called impulse
00:04:36.240 Speaker 1 control, just do it. As long as it's not like dis... super destructive or,
00:04:40.840 Speaker 1 [chuckles] you know, unethical, like, fine, scroll through social media. Fine, check
00:04:46.300 Speaker 1 your email. Fine, eat this candy bar. But make sure you create a
00:04:52.360 Speaker 1 wager with yourself. "I will eat this candy bar, but I am going to do struc-
00:04:57.480 Speaker 1 something structurally different in my life." Be specific. It has to be specific,
00:05:01.440 Speaker 1 not, "I'll do better." That doesn't work. You have to say something like,
00:05:05.840 Speaker 1 "After I eat this candy bar, I promise to call two friends or send a
00:05:11.860 Speaker 1 text message saying, 'I am not going to eat another one of these candy bars ever,
00:05:17.100 Speaker 1 and if I do, I will give you $500.'" Right? Maybe that's a little extreme, but you
00:05:22.760 Speaker 1 get the concept, right? Figure out whatever it means for you. Find a way to close
00:05:27.620 Speaker 1 the door behind you on habits and dopamine-seeking activities you don't want
00:05:32.560 Speaker 1 anymore. Now, you choose what you want to stop doing, okay? It has to come from you.
00:05:39.460 Speaker 1 All right. So that was last episode. Now let's get to the topic at hand.
00:05:46.060 Speaker 1 You're reeling. You've taken so many hits you can't take anymore. It's
00:05:51.560 Speaker 1 unbelievable the crap that life has served you up. How could you possibly
00:05:58.020 Speaker 1 keep going when you're not even sure how to take another step? Okay.
00:06:05.564 Speaker 1 I will give you the punchline now, and then we're gonna dive into, you know, the
00:06:11.564 Speaker 1 individual tactics for how I have figured out how to deal with trauma
00:06:18.024 Speaker 1 that just keeps coming. Without going into the details,
00:06:24.524 Speaker 1 it's not hard to imagine that every single human being alive has suffered
00:06:28.224 Speaker 1 profoundly. Even the rich and powerful cannot avoid death, sickness, and dismay.
00:06:33.784 Speaker 1 It's not possible. When you look at another person, just remember they have suffered
00:06:39.204 Speaker 1 something in their life almost unspeakable, okay? You are not alone in this pain.
00:06:46.124 Speaker 1 And here's the punchline, you have everything you need already
00:06:52.624 Speaker 1 to not only bear it but grow stronger from it. That may not feel true,
00:06:59.024 Speaker 1 but if you just have the strength to keep listening, the fixes are here if you're
00:07:04.924 Speaker 1 willing to apply them. Are you ready to feel?
00:07:10.824 Speaker 1 Remember the first lie of the podcast. There's nothing to fix. You have it all
00:07:15.224 Speaker 1 already. All right? So you should have known that would be the punchline in the
00:07:18.524 Speaker 1 first place.
00:07:20.964 Speaker 1 I'm going to show you what worked for me, but you have to apply it.
00:07:27.544 Speaker 1 I cannot do it for you.
00:07:31.104 Speaker 1 You can listen, and that is enough for now.
00:07:36.104 Speaker 1 Are you tired of not only living in pain but living underneath it like
00:07:42.084 Speaker 1 a mountain to the point where you have no idea how to
00:07:48.044 Speaker 1 continue living, much less how to solve your problems because the burden of
00:07:54.044 Speaker 1 what has happened to you and keeps happening to you is just
00:08:00.224 Speaker 1 far, far too great to bear.
00:08:04.624 Speaker 1 I can give you the fixes for how to get out from under all that pain and,
00:08:10.604 Speaker 1 if you can believe it, be stronger than you've ever been, maybe stronger
00:08:16.824 Speaker 1 than you ever thought you could be. All of that is possible for you
00:08:22.724 Speaker 1 if you choose to take action on all the fixes we
00:08:28.704 Speaker 1 have to talk about today.
00:08:31.484 Speaker 1 But before we get into the tactics and the strategy stuff, I wanted to give you
00:08:36.944 Speaker 1 maybe something a little out of left field, the kind of advice you're not used to
00:08:40.004 Speaker 1 hearing when you feel like trash, um,
00:08:45.524 Speaker 1 and you feel almost numb at this point.
00:08:51.264 Speaker 1 Let's give you a little Darwinian confidence.
00:08:56.404 Speaker 1 Maybe you've lost a loved one. Maybe you've been betrayed by a loved one.
00:09:02.564 Speaker 1 Maybe your professional sports team's airplane has crashed somewhere in the Arctic,
00:09:08.664 Speaker 1 and you have to start eating your friends to survive. That's a fun story that
00:09:12.864 Speaker 1 happened. Maybe your super genius military contractor
00:09:18.524 Speaker 1 ex-husband has gone crazy and is using the invisibility suit he invented to
00:09:23.384 Speaker 1 terrorize you and eventually kill you after faking his own death, and nobody
00:09:27.864 Speaker 1 believes you. That's Hollow Man. That didn't happen, but that story is awesome. The
00:09:33.384 Speaker 1 new movie's great. You should go watch it. Whatever your deal is,
00:09:40.384 Speaker 1 I know you have the strength to tap for it, and here's how I
00:09:46.104 Speaker 1 know.
00:09:49.024 Speaker 1 Did you know that there have been multiple times in human, early human history where
00:09:54.224 Speaker 1 our species was almost entirely wiped out? Like we almost went extinct multiple
00:10:00.204 Speaker 1 times. There was one time where our population may have... We can look at this
00:10:05.024 Speaker 1 through, um, genetic bottlenecking, um, basically what genes we all share. You can
00:10:10.544 Speaker 1 work backwards and figure out that there may have been a time in human history where
00:10:14.564 Speaker 1 there were as few as tens of thousands of humans left on the entire planet.
00:10:20.904 Speaker 1 If I recall correctly, there was a super volcano explosion that put an enormous
00:10:25.603 Speaker 1 amount of ash in the atmosphere and sort of created, you know, something like a
00:10:29.904 Speaker 1 nuclear winter, right? It's just, it's cloudy all the time to the point where
00:10:33.264 Speaker 1 nothing can grow. There's no food. You're frigid or it's hot. The climate is
00:10:38.264 Speaker 1 completely unstable. Um, imagine how that must have felt as an early human.
00:10:44.764 Speaker 1 They got down to tens of thousands of people left. That's insane. That
00:10:50.684 Speaker 1 would be like your little tribe, and you're not even aware that there's another
00:10:55.824 Speaker 1 tribe left anywhere on the planet. How must they have felt?
00:11:01.184 Speaker 1 But they did survive. We as a species survived. So that makes
00:11:07.164 Speaker 1 you, not only that, but a million other challenges throughout human history.
00:11:15.604 Speaker 1 So that makes you the latest, greatest model in
00:11:21.504 Speaker 1 an unbroken chain competing over a
00:11:26.824 Speaker 1 billion years of the bloodiest, most competitive [chuckles]
00:11:32.784 Speaker 1 game in the universe, Darwinian evolution, survival by natural
00:11:38.424 Speaker 1 selection, okay? Survival of the fittest. You are the best
00:11:44.304 Speaker 1 creature nature has ever produced. You are the most capable. Not only are you the
00:11:49.324 Speaker 1 most capable, but you are the descendants of every single
00:11:55.164 Speaker 1 winner over a billion years back to a single cellular life form. Without even
00:11:59.904 Speaker 1 knowing who you are, I can tell you that because I know you're listening to this,
00:12:04.224 Speaker 1 which means you are standing atop a mile-high mountain of
00:12:10.224 Speaker 1 bodies of losers who could not handle Being alive
00:12:16.694 Speaker 1 in the same way your ancestors did. You are a champion of champions
00:12:22.434 Speaker 1 across a billion years. So yeah, I think you can handle
00:12:28.674 Speaker 1 whatever life has to throw at you. You can handle just about anything if you
00:12:34.294 Speaker 1 choose to find the answers, find the fixes, and use them. You
00:12:39.954 Speaker 1 have the power.
00:12:43.694 Speaker 1 And in fact, all inner strength comes from
00:12:49.874 Speaker 1 suffering overcome. That's it. That's where all inner strength in life
00:12:55.834 Speaker 1 comes from. Think about what gives you confidence and makes you feel powerful today.
00:13:01.354 Speaker 1 I guarantee you it is because you struggled to overcome something difficult
00:13:07.354 Speaker 1 and painful. All right? So that means,
00:13:13.994 Speaker 1 and this is going to be a running theme throughout the entire episode today, trauma
00:13:17.914 Speaker 1 is either tragedy that mortally wounds you and which you never recover from,
00:13:23.994 Speaker 1 or it is an opportunity to become stronger than you have ever been.
00:13:30.014 Speaker 1 And here's the beautiful part. You get to choose the outcome
00:13:36.334 Speaker 1 as long as you are alive. It works backwards in history too. Any trauma you have not
00:13:41.394 Speaker 1 yet recovered from can be a source of strength if you can reframe it
00:13:46.994 Speaker 1 properly. We'll get into that, but this part is a choice,
00:13:53.594 Speaker 1 okay? We've all known people who 20 years ago had something happen to them, and
00:13:58.274 Speaker 1 they've either never forgiven somebody, never forgiven themselves, never moved on,
00:14:02.714 Speaker 1 and it became the excuse that they hung their entire life on. And sometimes they die
00:14:08.154 Speaker 1 that way, and it is the saddest waste of a life possible.
00:14:13.694 Speaker 1 So here is the first important fix today. Trauma is either
00:14:19.454 Speaker 1 opportunity or tragedy, and you get to choose which it is.
00:14:25.713 Speaker 1 The worst thing that ever happened to you can be the best thing that ever happened
00:14:30.834 Speaker 1 to you because it makes you powerful.
00:14:36.894 Speaker 1 You cannot be hurt in the same way again. You cannot fall in the same way again
00:14:42.994 Speaker 1 because it made you stronger. This is a concept called anti-fragility.
00:14:49.254 Speaker 1 Okay.
00:14:51.214 Speaker 1 I'll give you a moment to speak, past Stephen.
00:14:57.374 Speaker 1 I have no idea how you expect me to turn
00:15:04.834 Speaker 1 anything bad that has happened to me
00:15:07.874 Speaker 1 into something good. Like, I get, like, what you're trying to say, but I feel like
00:15:12.734 Speaker 1 you're just trying to make y- me feel better. I can't... How am I, how am I
00:15:18.514 Speaker 1 supposed to get stronger when I'm continually going down? Like,
00:15:24.674 Speaker 1 I'm not sure how to keep going another week. Like, it takes all of my effort to keep
00:15:29.694 Speaker 1 going another day. How in the world do I get
00:15:35.214 Speaker 1 the will, the strength to, like, actually do any of this? Like, it just
00:15:41.154 Speaker 1 sounds like words. I have no idea.
00:15:46.874 Speaker 1 It seems kind of inconceivable, kind of unbelievable that it could make me stronger.
00:15:55.094 Speaker 1 But I'm listening.
00:15:57.854 Speaker 1 Okay, so we will get into trauma as opportunity or tragedy, but not yet.
00:16:04.074 Speaker 1 First, you're right. We gotta get you feeling better first. It's so hard
00:16:10.334 Speaker 1 to do anything when you just keep taking hits. So we're gonna get you back into a
00:16:14.234 Speaker 1 position where you can start taking some more hits, okay? And then you'll be in a
00:16:18.634 Speaker 1 place to start doing the sort of hard emotional self-reflection and introspection
00:16:24.714 Speaker 1 work that is necessary to actually grow stronger permanently, okay? So let's get you
00:16:30.534 Speaker 1 some quick fixes to start feeling better as fast as is reasonable. Okay,
00:16:37.154 Speaker 1 here's something that I've learned. Man, I don't know how to not go down, okay? If
00:16:42.714 Speaker 1 you're looking for answers on how to, like, make bad things stop happening to you,
00:16:48.214 Speaker 1 yo, I got nothing. I don't know how to do that. If you, somebody else knows how to
00:16:52.394 Speaker 1 do that, please tell me because you should go listen to their podcast instead. But
00:16:57.254 Speaker 1 short of that, it is my assumption that life is gonna continue serving u- serving
00:17:01.994 Speaker 1 you up an endless stream of problems non-stop. Doesn't care how strong you are, how
00:17:07.394 Speaker 1 weak you are. They're just gonna keep coming, and that is just a fundamental aspect
00:17:11.654 Speaker 1 of being alive, okay? So let's start from the premise of you can't stop big, bad
00:17:17.134 Speaker 1 problems from coming. You can't stop little problems from coming. You can foresee
00:17:21.034 Speaker 1 some of them. You can strategize around some of them. But really, even if you do
00:17:26.314 Speaker 1 everything right, you're still gonna get smacked across the face when you least
00:17:29.394 Speaker 1 expect it, pretty much on a regular basis.
00:17:34.014 Speaker 1 So what I've done, rather than optimize for the ability to just keep taking hits,
00:17:39.414 Speaker 1 "Come at me. I'm invincible. I can handle anything," a lot of people take that
00:17:44.214 Speaker 1 approach, and I think maybe that's the intuitive approach. I don't really focus on
00:17:48.414 Speaker 1 that. Yes, I have tools to be able to handle new problems coming in, and we'll talk
00:17:53.214 Speaker 1 about that in a second, but what I've chosen to optimize for instead is emotional
00:17:58.194 Speaker 1 recovery. Rather than getting good at not going down, I have
00:18:04.134 Speaker 1 gotten good at getting back up quickly.
00:18:09.314 Speaker 1 This has made me far more resilient, and it's more than just a perspective, okay? I
00:18:15.014 Speaker 1 have tools to do that, and we're gonna get into it. In just a second here. Um, but
00:18:19.958 Speaker 1 the gist is that's where I think it makes more sense to focus. Stop trying to be
00:18:25.218 Speaker 1 invincible. Stop trying to bear every burden. Stop trying to not have
00:18:30.898 Speaker 1 feelings and to be able to withstand any pain and bottle it all up, because
00:18:35.478 Speaker 1 eventually you're going to shatter. And when that happens, everyone sees it. It's a
00:18:40.898 Speaker 1 mental breakdown. It's a, I don't know, it's a divorce, and you, you've run away, or
00:18:46.918 Speaker 1 you, you cheat on a spouse. Like, it's basically you cave in 'cause you can take no
00:18:51.498 Speaker 1 more and you've just fallen apart. But if those people had instead...
00:18:57.658 Speaker 1 Instead of optimizing for taking every possible hit without going down,
00:19:04.078 Speaker 1 they optimized for getting back up quickly to normal and healthy,
00:19:10.838 Speaker 1 you can withstand anything. It makes you so resilient and flexible
00:19:16.958 Speaker 1 and is way, way less stressful because now I don't have to worry about the what if.
00:19:22.098 Speaker 1 You know? I'm a dad, I'm a husband, I'm a lot of things. I'm a coworker, I'm an
00:19:26.658 Speaker 1 employee, um,
00:19:30.238 Speaker 1 I'm a friend. I have so many different roles, and there's a lot of people who count
00:19:34.938 Speaker 1 on me, and if I use the strategy where I can't,
00:19:42.098 Speaker 1 I can't let them down. I guess it's the easiest way to say it. And there are people
00:19:45.558 Speaker 1 in your life who probably rely on you, and if there aren't, that's another episode
00:19:50.878 Speaker 1 that I have planned
00:19:53.338 Speaker 1 about how to bring people into the li-- into your life that you want in your life,
00:19:56.418 Speaker 1 but that's not today.
00:19:59.358 Speaker 1 You don't need anyone else. I don't optimize for not going down. I
00:20:04.998 Speaker 1 optimize for getting back up quickly, and I have mindset and emotional tools in
00:20:10.578 Speaker 1 order to do that. All right.
00:20:14.658 Speaker 1 So let's talk about how to do this.
00:20:17.978 Speaker 1 Let's just pretend something terrible has just happened to me, okay? And it's the
00:20:22.938 Speaker 1 fourth such major event in two years, okay? I got nothing left.
00:20:29.198 Speaker 1 Well, we'll use the you framing 'cause I'm talking to you, past me. You got nothing
00:20:34.558 Speaker 1 left. You're tapped out. What do you do to get back up again?
00:20:40.938 Speaker 1 Okay. Well, the first thing you do is you stop pride. Stop wrapping up
00:20:46.878 Speaker 1 your pride, your self-worth in not going down and not being able... It
00:20:52.798 Speaker 1 is not shameful to fall, to fail. It is shameful
00:20:59.118 Speaker 1 to stay down. Okay? That is the first thing you're going to begin repeating to
00:21:04.338 Speaker 1 yourself when you feel this way. "I can't take another blow. I'm not strong enough."
00:21:11.358 Speaker 1 No. Pattern interrupt. Now, if you recall the morning routine sheet that we talked
00:21:17.178 Speaker 1 about last time, this is a good one to add potentially.
00:21:22.918 Speaker 1 You say to yourself, "Pattern interrupt." Okay? You're going to say,
00:21:27.758 Speaker 1 "No, it's okay to go down. It's not
00:21:33.278 Speaker 1 okay to stay down. I don't give up. I
00:21:39.178 Speaker 1 don't quit. I have to get back up." This is a fundamental rule.
00:21:45.158 Speaker 1 There is no scenario in which you don't get back up. This is a new belief, and you
00:21:51.198 Speaker 1 must repeat it to yourself over and over and over again. It's okay to go
00:21:57.038 Speaker 1 down.
00:21:58.898 Speaker 1 I'm not less of a, I'm not less of a person for that. It's fine. Everyone goes
00:22:04.918 Speaker 1 down. I don't blame myself. I release myself of all guilt from going
00:22:10.878 Speaker 1 down in the first place, for not being the dad or the husband or the friend or the
00:22:16.118 Speaker 1 employee that I should have been, for falling this far.
00:22:21.418 Speaker 1 It's okay.
00:22:24.118 Speaker 1 No problem. But it's only okay because
00:22:29.998 Speaker 1 it's not okay to stay down. It's okay because I am getting back up.
00:22:35.878 Speaker 1 Guess what? You're gonna get knocked on your butt again. Maybe tomorrow, maybe in
00:22:39.098 Speaker 1 five minutes from now. After making your resolve, "All right, let's get back up and
00:22:44.098 Speaker 1 try again," you get a horrible phone call. You get an angry email because guess
00:22:49.658 Speaker 1 what? Problems compound. The more problems you have, the less you're able to deal
00:22:52.878 Speaker 1 with them, the more problems you get because you're not dealing with your problems.
00:22:55.498 Speaker 1 So understand there is way more pain coming your way, but you can handle it
00:23:01.198 Speaker 1 because
00:23:03.318 Speaker 1 is it okay to go down?
00:23:05.798 Speaker 1 Is it okay if you crash today? You feel terrible, you engage in horrible habits.
00:23:09.758 Speaker 1 Now, I'm not giving you license to do that, but I am saying, is it okay?
00:23:16.378 Speaker 1 Can you live with yourself? Can you still love yourself? Can you still be okay? Yes.
00:23:22.178 Speaker 1 Why?
00:23:24.418 Speaker 1 Because you don't stay down. That is intolerable.
00:23:30.478 Speaker 1 That is the one thing you will not accept of yourself any longer. Do you
00:23:36.518 Speaker 1 stay down?
00:23:39.638 Speaker 1 No, you don't.
00:23:42.518 Speaker 1 And that is now a fundamental rule that you will never break.
00:23:47.858 Speaker 1 And the beautiful part about this new rule is it doesn't matter how long you've been
00:23:52.178 Speaker 1 down. You've been down for twenty years. You can now
00:23:57.998 Speaker 1 live by this rule simply by getting up and trying again. Okay? That's the
00:24:04.038 Speaker 1 first rule. All right. Second of all, here's something I use to help me prevent
00:24:09.858 Speaker 1 spiraling in the first place, but it also helps me get out of rock bottom, okay?
00:24:15.378 Speaker 1 When you bounce off rock bottom, it happens because you cannot take any more, and
00:24:20.678 Speaker 1 you are given the motivation and the will to change something. All right? It is a
00:24:26.558 Speaker 1 gift.
00:24:28.428 Speaker 1 Here's how you make sure you actually get back up, right? It's an actual or
00:24:32.528 Speaker 1 emotional recovery. You can start feeling better by doing a pattern interrupt
00:24:38.528 Speaker 1 on your negative thought loops. Okay? This is on my sheet, and you might
00:24:44.468 Speaker 1 consider adding it to yours, but use your own words in a way that feels right. When
00:24:49.488 Speaker 1 I hit a negative feedback loop,
00:24:53.968 Speaker 1 I stop and think the positive inverse. Okay? This is a fancy way of
00:24:59.268 Speaker 1 codifying optimism, okay? Everyone will tell you to be optimistic. This is how I've
00:25:04.208 Speaker 1 turned optimism into something actionable and useful instead of a constant delusion.
00:25:09.628 Speaker 1 Okay? Optimism is a very powerful force, but you gotta apply it in a way that
00:25:13.248 Speaker 1 doesn't make you feel cynical and becomes delusional.
00:25:17.808 Speaker 1 Problems suck, and sometimes trying to reframe them as something incredible is just,
00:25:23.888 Speaker 1 it's a delusion too far. But you can apply it in this one small way, okay? When you
00:25:29.868 Speaker 1 feel bad, you are repeating negative thoughts in your head. It's
00:25:36.248 Speaker 1 a phenomenon called rumination. Okay? It's a little echo chamber in there, and as
00:25:41.468 Speaker 1 the thoughts bounce around, they amplify, getting louder and louder and louder. Your
00:25:46.228 Speaker 1 anxiety gets crazier. Your depression gets worse. It seems like
00:25:52.588 Speaker 1 that everything is terrible. The world is ending. Your life is ending. It's all
00:25:56.408 Speaker 1 over. How could I possibly take another blow? I'm not strong enough. Okay? You need
00:26:02.108 Speaker 1 a release valve. Pssh. Let those thoughts out. Okay? You're
00:26:08.028 Speaker 1 gonna do that in two ways. One is this pattern interrupt. You need to repeat to
00:26:12.088 Speaker 1 yourself over and over and over again. Catch yourself the moment you start thinking
00:26:17.928 Speaker 1 a negative thought pattern. "I'm gonna get fired. I don't deserve this job. I
00:26:23.068 Speaker 1 haven't done crap in two weeks. They should fire me. Honestly, I don't know how I'm
00:26:28.168 Speaker 1 gonna get another job anyway. I don't know why they would hire me. What am I even
00:26:31.928 Speaker 1 good at?" That,
00:26:35.228 Speaker 1 you stop when you experience that. It will take practice. By the way, I've done it
00:26:39.848 Speaker 1 so often it's reflexive, but it will take conscious practice, which is why you
00:26:43.828 Speaker 1 remind yourself of it every morning so that you can continually bake it into your
00:26:47.108 Speaker 1 subconscious until... Oh, we'll get to this in a second. Then you think the positive
00:26:52.528 Speaker 1 inverse. "No,
00:26:55.568 Speaker 1 I can do good work. I have done good work in the past. Yeah, I kinda sucked lately,
00:27:00.188 Speaker 1 but I've been in a lot of pain. I can do better, and I will try again. And
00:27:06.188 Speaker 1 honestly, I probably should have taken some time off. Like, I can do better. I am a
00:27:12.128 Speaker 1 good employee. I have helped people in the past, and I can do it again somehow. I'm
00:27:17.788 Speaker 1 not as good as I used to be, but,
00:27:20.528 Speaker 1 you know, I can do better." That is a positive thought. Muster the most positive
00:27:25.468 Speaker 1 thought you can. Specifically, it must be the positive reflection, the inverse of
00:27:31.408 Speaker 1 your negative thought. Okay? So when you start to ruminate, s- thought spiral,
00:27:36.388 Speaker 1 negative, negative, negative, getting worse, spiraling down, spiraling down. Stop.
00:27:42.768 Speaker 1 Stop spiraling down. Switch it and think the exact positive inverse, even if it
00:27:48.108 Speaker 1 feels fake. Even if it feels kinda forced, do it anyway. The human
00:27:53.788 Speaker 1 brain bakes into its head whatever it is you do repeatedly. If you are feeling
00:27:59.528 Speaker 1 terrible, chances are you have a habit of negative rumination, especially after this
00:28:04.988 Speaker 1 much trauma. Okay? You're going to break that habit. It is just a habit of thought.
00:28:10.908 Speaker 1 That is most of the reason you feel like trash. Yes, there are real-life problems,
00:28:15.608 Speaker 1 but your inability to deal with those real-life problems is the real problem. Okay?
00:28:22.288 Speaker 1 You can solve nothing, and you can never truly feel better as long as you are
00:28:26.548 Speaker 1 basically in a nosedive of negative thought spirals. Start building the habit of
00:28:32.288 Speaker 1 noticing first, this is the first skill, noticing the negative thought pattern. "I
00:28:37.228 Speaker 1 don't spiral. No. I don't do this." Interrupt is the second part.
00:28:44.028 Speaker 1 Positive inverse. "I can, I will, I am capable of..." Find
00:28:49.908 Speaker 1 whatever feels true, the most true you can manage. If you can find nothing that
00:28:54.108 Speaker 1 feels true in a positive inverse, just make it up. I'm telling you, even if it
00:29:00.008 Speaker 1 feels fake, you will begin to build a habit so strong it's reflexive. I have had
00:29:05.868 Speaker 1 moments where I'm in a negative thought pattern, way in it, like consciously in it,
00:29:10.188 Speaker 1 not even like thinking about, "I should be thinking positive. I know this will make
00:29:15.068 Speaker 1 me feel bad."
00:29:17.328 Speaker 1 And it's like a voice. [chuckles] It's, it's crazy. It's almost like somebody called
00:29:22.068 Speaker 1 me on the phone, but it's in my own head and said, "Stop. If you act like that,
00:29:27.068 Speaker 1 you're gonna feel like trash." And that is exactly how it works. Your mood
00:29:32.508 Speaker 1 follows your thoughts. Your thoughts create your mood. This is the fundamental
00:29:37.648 Speaker 1 premise of cognitive behavioral therapy, which we'll go into a little bit more when
00:29:41.708 Speaker 1 we talk about anxiety and depression specifically in another episode. But this is
00:29:46.248 Speaker 1 the basic premise. Your thoughts create your mood. If you have a
00:29:51.668 Speaker 1 habitual negative thought pattern, you are going to habitually, constantly
00:29:57.708 Speaker 1 feel like trash. This will make you feel better, guaranteed. Guaranteed.
00:30:04.588 Speaker 1 There has been no nosedive I've ever been able to not pull out of because of this.
00:30:09.548 Speaker 1 But it's going to take practice, and you need to be reminded to do this somehow. Put
00:30:14.048 Speaker 1 sticky notes everywhere. When I hit a negative feedback loop, I stop and think
00:30:20.048 Speaker 1 the positive inverse. Okay.
00:30:24.208 Speaker 1 That will make you start feeling better. The other thing you can do, and this is
00:30:27.088 Speaker 1 gonna sound dumb Go to all the people you're failing because you're down and you
00:30:31.528 Speaker 1 can't take any more hits, whoever it is. And if you're not really failing anybody,
00:30:36.008 Speaker 1 and this is a personal struggle, you need to find somebody to talk to. Tell them
00:30:41.968 Speaker 1 straight up everything that is wrong and everything that you feel. Open up to
00:30:47.268 Speaker 1 another human being. This is the best way to release pressure, because what it
00:30:52.928 Speaker 1 does is it takes you out of your echo chamber. I have this theory that humans need
00:30:57.688 Speaker 1 to ground themself in what is sane or insane, and I have no problem using the word
00:31:02.648 Speaker 1 insane. I, I don't know why this got a stigma. Insane is literally...
00:31:08.868 Speaker 1 It's just the inability for you to act the way you want to act. It is
00:31:14.308 Speaker 1 unhelpful thoughts and behavior that is, quite frankly, crazy. I have no problem
00:31:19.608 Speaker 1 using the word crazy either. Uh, I mean, I don't use it as an insult, but when
00:31:24.168 Speaker 1 applied to oneself, there are times we feel crazy. And the way you
00:31:30.188 Speaker 1 have to get better is you have to calibrate against other humans. If you stay in
00:31:36.108 Speaker 1 your own head with your big problems, you will go crazy, okay?
00:31:42.268 Speaker 1 Thought pattern interrupting will pull you out of these nosedives and start making
00:31:46.068 Speaker 1 you feel better. But you need to still calibrate against other people, because
00:31:52.128 Speaker 1 you will begin to form, especially if you've gone through a lot of trauma and you
00:31:55.688 Speaker 1 have not recovered for a long time, you have distorted beliefs in your head.
00:32:01.848 Speaker 1 You can think of this just like m- terrible wiring in a machine. The wires are all
00:32:06.548 Speaker 1 tangled, and they're all connected to the wrong places, and there's sparks shooting
00:32:10.408 Speaker 1 out. You need to rewire everything back to a, a ri- [chuckles] like a healthy
00:32:16.148 Speaker 1 way by calibrating yourself against another person that you respect. Now, it's very
00:32:21.988 Speaker 1 important that you pick somebody who's a good listener. You tell them that primarily
00:32:26.608 Speaker 1 what you want is for them to listen and not to provide advice, okay?
00:32:32.968 Speaker 1 Especially if you're somebody who is feeling very vulnerable and insecure about your
00:32:36.308 Speaker 1 problems. I don't know what, it could be a drug addiction. Who knows, right? You
00:32:40.208 Speaker 1 could have any number of problems, right? And it's probably very hard for you to
00:32:44.028 Speaker 1 share this with another person, especially if you never have, or you rarely do, or
00:32:48.188 Speaker 1 you're ashamed of it. What you d... When you share, open up to another person that
00:32:53.228 Speaker 1 you respect, somebody you believe who won't retaliate, they won't start getting
00:32:57.748 Speaker 1 nosy. Specifically, they won't judge you. That will make everything worse. Find
00:33:02.588 Speaker 1 somebody you know who will listen, a good friend. And if you can't find somebody,
00:33:07.048 Speaker 1 da, da, da, da, da, da, this is what therapy is for. Go pay somebody who is pay,
00:33:11.868 Speaker 1 being paid to be a good listener, okay? You can do online therapy pretty cheaply.
00:33:18.048 Speaker 1 When you open up to another person, you are calibrating against them. You're
00:33:22.688 Speaker 1 basically asking, "Am I crazy?" So what they will reply with is probably...
00:33:28.728 Speaker 1 And then, uh, you know, when you're done basically monologuing, just get their take.
00:33:33.128 Speaker 1 Just say, "What do you think?" Okay? This is when you cede the floor to them, after
00:33:37.028 Speaker 1 you feel you've expressed everything you wanted to say. And it's very important that
00:33:41.228 Speaker 1 you say everything you want to say. You're not forced to open up. Don't share
00:33:46.608 Speaker 1 anything that feels like you're being forced to share it. Share... It should feel
00:33:51.908 Speaker 1 cathartic. As, uh, well, it feels terrible at first, but as you open up, as you
00:33:56.908 Speaker 1 express yourself, you'll begin to feel a great relief flood through you. That's a
00:34:02.768 Speaker 1 good sign. Keep going. When you're done with that, get their take, okay? "What do
00:34:07.148 Speaker 1 you think? Am I crazy?" Tell them your worst fears. Tell them everything you're
00:34:12.708 Speaker 1 terrified of.
00:34:15.568 Speaker 1 They will almost certainly reply, at least in my experience, in every single one of
00:34:19.148 Speaker 1 these conversations, whether receiving or sending this,
00:34:23.428 Speaker 1 they will say, "Basically, 10% of your problems are real problems. The other
00:34:29.528 Speaker 1 90% is just stuff you made up." And while you may have known this in your head,
00:34:35.868 Speaker 1 the human brain mostly discounts its own advice like this. 'Cause remember, you've
00:34:40.368 Speaker 1 been ruminating in an echo chamber in your head. These thoughts have been bouncing
00:34:43.428 Speaker 1 around so long that it's not enough just to release the negative thoughts and start
00:34:47.647 Speaker 1 turning them positive and create a new habit there. You also have to start rewiring
00:34:52.728 Speaker 1 all those terrible beliefs that you've started to believe. You might actually
00:34:57.368 Speaker 1 believe that you're not worthy of a good spouse. You're not worthy to
00:35:03.388 Speaker 1 keep working at your job. You really do suck, right? You will begin to believe these
00:35:08.748 Speaker 1 things, and when you open up to another person, they will calibrate for you
00:35:14.628 Speaker 1 which of your problems are real problems and which are not. Something along the
00:35:18.168 Speaker 1 lines of, "Well, I mean, it sounds like you used to be pretty good at your job, or
00:35:22.808 Speaker 1 you used to enjoy it. And, you know, there's probably some simple things you could
00:35:26.688 Speaker 1 do to get better, and I don't know, you've gone through a lot. Kind of makes sense.
00:35:30.988 Speaker 1 And I don't think that they would fire you. Why don't you just go talk to them and
00:35:34.448 Speaker 1 tell them you go, you're going through a hard time?" Uh, they will basically
00:35:38.008 Speaker 1 calibrate for you. Most decent human beings, I'm sorry if you, if you happen to run
00:35:43.668 Speaker 1 across a, a sociopath who is unwilling to help you. [chuckles] They happen. Um, but
00:35:48.968 Speaker 1 for the most part, everyone is understanding, and they know something is wrong with
00:35:53.668 Speaker 1 you. We always know when somebody else is in deep pain,
00:35:59.368 Speaker 1 and they'll probably just be relieved that you finally opened up to them about it
00:36:04.308 Speaker 1 because now they feel like they can help, all right? And they feel like you're on
00:36:09.148 Speaker 1 the same team again, and you will feel great realizing that 90% of the things that
00:36:13.388 Speaker 1 you imagined, "Everyone hates me. I suck," they will be like, "What? No way.
00:36:19.528 Speaker 1 I mean, I haven't even noticed that you haven't been doing a good job at work," or,
00:36:24.188 Speaker 1 "Wow, this is a shock to me," or, "No," like, "We really appreciate you." Um, or
00:36:29.828 Speaker 1 even if some of it is true, you'll find out what's true and what isn't, and that's
00:36:34.068 Speaker 1 why this is a very useful exercise. So there's your tool tool, your two tools for
00:36:38.348 Speaker 1 emotional recovery. One,
00:36:42.608 Speaker 1 you don't spiral into negative thought patterns because you stop, you do that
00:36:47.188 Speaker 1 interrupt, and you think the positive inverse. Make it habitual. Remind yourself to
00:36:51.968 Speaker 1 keep doing it. It will take practice. Then eventually, you will have a habit of
00:36:56.548 Speaker 1 thinking positive thoughts, and you'll have the habit of interrupting the negative
00:37:00.068 Speaker 1 thoughts so you don't go down nearly as often, and you can start recovering. You
00:37:05.388 Speaker 1 have to undo basically false beliefs, incorrect views of
00:37:10.828 Speaker 1 reality by speaking with another person who is a good listener, who can help you
00:37:16.828 Speaker 1 calibrate and become less crazy. You can ditch all the beliefs that you've started
00:37:23.448 Speaker 1 miswiring because you've been stuck in your own head for too long, and you can
00:37:27.628 Speaker 1 figure out which of your problems are real and which ones are fake. And the most
00:37:31.508 Speaker 1 beautiful part about that is about 80 to 90% of your problems will evaporate because
00:37:36.768 Speaker 1 you begin to realize they weren't real. I just made them up because I was going
00:37:41.728 Speaker 1 insane in my own head. Okay, so that's how you do that. Now,
00:37:48.508 Speaker 1 we are going to move on to the last three concepts here.
00:37:54.168 Speaker 1 All right. Remember when we talked about trauma being an opportunity or a tragedy?
00:38:00.468 Speaker 1 It's a tragedy, and this, this and another concept comes from, uh, Benjamin Hardy,
00:38:06.288 Speaker 1 um, and his books Personality Isn't Permanent and Gap and Gain. So here's
00:38:12.308 Speaker 1 how it works. He's a psychologist.
00:38:17.428 Speaker 1 When you... something horrible happens to you, let's say,
00:38:23.348 Speaker 1 um,
00:38:25.348 Speaker 1 here, we'll just say something like when you were a kid, and let's make it something
00:38:29.588 Speaker 1 old rather than something new, okay? Because I think that's a more challenging
00:38:32.988 Speaker 1 problem. But it'll, it's even easier for things that are fresh. Let's go with an old
00:38:37.128 Speaker 1 trauma. When you were a kid, you were playing with your sister, and you pushed her
00:38:42.888 Speaker 1 down and, I don't know, she cut her face, and now she has a scar on her face,
00:38:49.368 Speaker 1 and that shaped who you were in a negative way.
00:38:55.328 Speaker 1 You believe you are now a violent person. You believe yourself to be essentially
00:39:01.288 Speaker 1 untrustworthy. You believe that you are dangerous when you're angry, and now you
00:39:05.968 Speaker 1 need to be basically afraid to be w- close to people because you're worried you'll
00:39:11.628 Speaker 1 hurt them. And every time you see the scar on your sister's face, you feel
00:39:19.248 Speaker 1 like a monster. Okay? I'm just imagining what that scenario would make somebody feel
00:39:22.948 Speaker 1 like 20 years later. Okay, you with me?
00:39:26.408 Speaker 1 Let's take that as our trauma.
00:39:29.348 Speaker 1 You've never recovered from it. In fact, it shaped you in a profoundly negative way,
00:39:35.068 Speaker 1 in a way you've never recovered from. Okay. That's our starting point.
00:39:41.128 Speaker 1 That is a tragedy. And just like choosing to get back up, you can fix
00:39:47.108 Speaker 1 this at any time if you know what to do.
00:39:51.508 Speaker 1 All right. Here's the gist of how it works,
00:39:55.868 Speaker 1 and we're gonna use a little bit of, um, neuroscience.
00:40:01.188 Speaker 1 Consider that your brain is an organ like any of the others. Liver, stomach, it's
00:40:06.368 Speaker 1 just living tissue. Mm, okay? It's not magic. There's nothing special going on
00:40:10.328 Speaker 1 there. It's just, it's just an organ with living cells. Every single one of your
00:40:16.068 Speaker 1 memories and beliefs and ideas, dreams, and greatest fears and
00:40:21.888 Speaker 1 worst belie-- you know, worst self-perceptions are
00:40:27.568 Speaker 1 stored in living tissue. Okay? That means the past isn't
00:40:34.088 Speaker 1 real. It's fictional. It's gone. There is no past. There is no future. There is
00:40:39.908 Speaker 1 only r- literally what exists right now. It's the only thing that's real. Anything
00:40:44.748 Speaker 1 that has happened in the past is not real. The only place it exists is
00:40:50.127 Speaker 1 inside the living cells in the organ inside of your skull,
00:40:56.848 Speaker 1 and,
00:40:59.108 Speaker 1 well, therefore, it can be changed. Your memories are literally
00:41:05.648 Speaker 1 just little, tiny physical pieces inside of an organ inside of your head.
00:41:11.728 Speaker 1 And if you could go in there with a microscopic scalpel and edit them, you could
00:41:16.828 Speaker 1 become a totally different person who remembers something totally different. Okay?
00:41:20.988 Speaker 1 You could change anything about the past. Well, your perception of the past anyway,
00:41:25.368 Speaker 1 right?
00:41:27.488 Speaker 1 So first, know that it is possible to change anything about yourself. Now, that
00:41:32.168 Speaker 1 doesn't mean you know how. That doesn't mean that, you know, it's physically
00:41:35.508 Speaker 1 something you could do. All right? But just remember that that fundamentally means
00:41:40.708 Speaker 1 that you can change, you can rewrite anything about the past and specifically any
00:41:45.808 Speaker 1 belief or personality trait you have developed because of the past at
00:41:51.688 Speaker 1 any time, right? There's no physical law that prevents this. All right? So you can
00:41:56.128 Speaker 1 literally get better, all right?
00:41:59.628 Speaker 1 But the trick is how. Well, dun, dun-dun-dun, dun, dun. Turns out it's not that
00:42:05.548 Speaker 1 hard. I don't mean to make you feel bad or belittle your 20-year-old, uh, trauma
00:42:11.528 Speaker 1 from injuring your sister and thinking you're a violent monster. Sorry, I'm not
00:42:15.928 Speaker 1 belittling your, your suffering. That is a tragedy. But I am telling you it can end
00:42:22.228 Speaker 1 the moment you decide that it's time for it to end, and it's no longer serving you,
00:42:25.648 Speaker 1 okay? You would be surprised. There are people who hold onto their past traumas,
00:42:29.828 Speaker 1 their tragedies Because it gives them an excuse to not have to do the work to
00:42:35.764 Speaker 1 get better, to become a better person, to admit their faults, to move on, right?
00:42:41.024 Speaker 1 It's an alluring thing to hold onto because they don't want to get better, because
00:42:46.504 Speaker 1 they don't want to face the consequences of who they've become.
00:42:51.944 Speaker 1 But do we make excuses? Do we blame other people?
00:42:58.304 Speaker 1 Do we deflect from uncomfortable truths? Do we have a growth mindset that says we
00:43:03.484 Speaker 1 believe we can change? Now you see why these things stack and why it's
00:43:09.164 Speaker 1 important to work on all of them and why I started where I started. Those things are
00:43:14.404 Speaker 1 fundamental, okay? We're gonna revisit that trauma, and if you have like
00:43:20.164 Speaker 1 PTSD or something that like revisiting traumas is not like a safe thing for you to
00:43:25.304 Speaker 1 do alone, like by all means, like trust yourself, right? This is, again, this is not
00:43:30.284 Speaker 1 any kind of medical or, you know, legal a- financial advice. Like, I'm not giving
00:43:35.343 Speaker 1 that kind of advice. I'm talking to my past self, okay?
00:43:40.324 Speaker 1 Go get real help, all right? And certainly don't blame me for anything. Like, this
00:43:43.784 Speaker 1 is not advice for you, listener. This is advice for past Steven.
00:43:48.844 Speaker 1 Okay.
00:43:50.744 Speaker 1 You need to reframe it, okay? This is a lot like the
00:43:56.584 Speaker 1 interrupting negative thought spirals and thinking the positive inverse. You need to
00:44:02.384 Speaker 1 rewrite the story. Every time something traumatic
00:44:08.264 Speaker 1 happens, we have the opportunity to write the story. Sadly,
00:44:14.484 Speaker 1 most of us write the story
00:44:17.824 Speaker 1 subconsciously. We just, however it plays out is how it plays out. And often,
00:44:22.944 Speaker 1 because we feel bad, we write a very negative story. You pushed your sister down 20
00:44:28.924 Speaker 1 years ago when you were playing. You were angry.
00:44:33.124 Speaker 1 She fell and cut her face, and she has a scar now, okay? That is what actually
00:44:38.684 Speaker 1 happened. All of those things are true. Every single one of those things actually
00:44:43.324 Speaker 1 happened. Remove all of the fiction, all of your beliefs about what happened, all of
00:44:48.944 Speaker 1 your ideas, all of the personality changes that's happened since then. All of those
00:44:53.804 Speaker 1 things are a fabrication. The only thing that actually happened is you pushed her
00:44:58.624 Speaker 1 down, you were angry, she cut her face. That is the truth. Everything else is a
00:45:04.544 Speaker 1 story that you wrote about those events.
00:45:09.804 Speaker 1 Now, the beautiful part about the human brain is that we can rewrite these stories.
00:45:15.624 Speaker 1 That story is stored in your head, in the little cells inside of your brain. Because
00:45:21.304 Speaker 1 of the way memories work, every time you access them,
00:45:27.644 Speaker 1 think of them like putting them off a shelf, taking them off a shelf. You rewrite
00:45:32.744 Speaker 1 them when you put them back, essentially. You know, neuroscientists forgive me, the
00:45:37.304 Speaker 1 inaccuracies, but this is a useful metaphor, and it amounts to the same outcome.
00:45:42.924 Speaker 1 Every time you take it off the shelf to recall what happened, you put it back a
00:45:47.304 Speaker 1 little bit different. The way you feel when you access these
00:45:52.744 Speaker 1 memories and the story you write about these memories when you are reliving them
00:45:59.344 Speaker 1 becomes baked into the long-term memory itself. Think about that.
00:46:06.064 Speaker 1 It's like a word processor, not written in stone. You are opening an old Word
00:46:11.604 Speaker 1 document, and you have the ability to go in and make some edits, and when you save
00:46:16.004 Speaker 1 it, it goes back
00:46:19.124 Speaker 1 different than it way, was before, okay? That means you can deliberately,
00:46:23.884 Speaker 1 selectively edit your memories to tell a new story. Okay, now this is the hard
00:46:29.944 Speaker 1 part. All of this is painful, by the way, especially it was doing with an old one.
00:46:34.784 Speaker 1 Um, but the next time you experience a fresh trauma, remember, the most important
00:46:39.424 Speaker 1 thing you can do when something traumatic happens to you is cho- choose what it
00:46:44.544 Speaker 1 means. And please write a positive story because if you write a positive, empowering
00:46:50.244 Speaker 1 story, this w- terrible thing becomes a wonderful thing in time. Now,
00:46:56.344 Speaker 1 the event itself was terrible. At no point in time am I saying that getting angry
00:47:02.144 Speaker 1 and pushing somebody and having them become injured and physically scarred is a good
00:47:08.044 Speaker 1 thing. It's not a good thing. Of course it's not. I'm not trying to make you delude
00:47:12.644 Speaker 1 yourself into thinking it's not a big deal or write it off. But what I am saying is
00:47:17.484 Speaker 1 that write a story that empowers you. Here's a couple ways that I have done this,
00:47:23.584 Speaker 1 okay? But let's continue with this example. Here are some things you might say,
00:47:28.564 Speaker 1 okay? And these stories are also true. So this is the trick. You're going to recall
00:47:34.424 Speaker 1 the memory, you're going to live through it again,
00:47:39.584 Speaker 1 but this time when you put it back, you are going to write it with a new story.
00:47:45.584 Speaker 1 Before, the story was, "When I am violent, I'm angry. I
00:47:51.644 Speaker 1 am a monster. I can't be close to people because I can't be trusted. I'm a terrible
00:47:56.624 Speaker 1 person." Okay? That was the story you wrote. Not a good one. [chuckles]
00:48:02.664 Speaker 1 Let's write a different one, okay? Now, it's important that this story feels true
00:48:07.904 Speaker 1 because if it feels fake, it's going to be less effective. If you can't find a true
00:48:12.664 Speaker 1 story, just like if you couldn't find a positive inverse for a thought, make it up.
00:48:18.704 Speaker 1 It's better than your current one, okay? Even if it feels fake, just keep making it
00:48:23.344 Speaker 1 up until it starts to feel true. I'm not gonna get into the process, but basically
00:48:27.244 Speaker 1 the human brain repeat, believes absolutely anything it repeats to itself over and
00:48:30.944 Speaker 1 over again, or that you hear over and over again. It's quite the phenomenon. It's
00:48:34.684 Speaker 1 kind of how propaganda works. Uh, you can't stop it. The more and more you hear
00:48:38.104 Speaker 1 something, the more true it feels. Uh, and that works inside your own head too. So
00:48:41.844 Speaker 1 make it up if you can't find a good one. So here are some stories you might choose
00:48:44.684 Speaker 1 to tell yourself instead when you put this memory back after reliving it.
00:48:50.772 Speaker 1 The fact that I am afraid of hurting people when I get angry
00:48:56.812 Speaker 1 means that I genuinely love people, and I fear for them,
00:49:02.812 Speaker 1 and that I know that when I'm angry, I can hurt them. This is what
00:49:08.592 Speaker 1 taught me that controlling my anger is important, and it allowed
00:49:14.432 Speaker 1 me to see
00:49:18.052 Speaker 1 that the consequences of my actions can have permanent long-term results. It... This
00:49:23.792 Speaker 1 is the moment in my life when I learned
00:49:28.392 Speaker 1 that if I'm not careful, I could cause real harm to others, and that what seems
00:49:34.352 Speaker 1 like a small thing in the moment could be a life-changing event. And this is when I
00:49:39.872 Speaker 1 learned to be careful about what I do. This is when I learned that my
00:49:45.672 Speaker 1 actions have serious consequences, uh, in the world and on the people I love, and
00:49:50.992 Speaker 1 that if I am lackadaisical
00:49:55.492 Speaker 1 about the weight of what I do, I could make a terrible choice and harm
00:50:01.292 Speaker 1 somebody in a very serious way. This is when I learned to be a
00:50:07.292 Speaker 1 considerate person. It was a horrible thing that happened, but every time I see the
00:50:13.092 Speaker 1 scar on my sister's face, I am reminded that that is the last scar I'll ever put on
00:50:18.552 Speaker 1 another person because I finally learned the lesson
00:50:24.992 Speaker 1 that my actions can harm others, and I must be careful
00:50:31.212 Speaker 1 and considerate so that it doesn't happen anymore. That's a great thought. It's a
00:50:36.352 Speaker 1 great story. Super empowering. Now, when you think back on this moment, you're
00:50:39.952 Speaker 1 thinking, "I grew from this." And I think that's usually the easiest way to reframe,
00:50:45.752 Speaker 1 reframe your trauma. Instead of being a tragedy, it became the thing that made you
00:50:51.472 Speaker 1 strong, okay? I like that framing the best because it gives you some very
00:50:57.572 Speaker 1 serious inner strength. But find whatever feels right to you, okay? Tell whatever
00:51:02.992 Speaker 1 story it is you can that's positive, and do it over and over and over again. It's
00:51:06.412 Speaker 1 gonna take a lot of repetition, and it's quite painful, so make sure you're in a
00:51:10.392 Speaker 1 good place, like you're safe and healthy, and you feel like, "Let's do this." This
00:51:16.352 Speaker 1 was the point of trying to get you to feel a little bit better with the other two
00:51:19.152 Speaker 1 strategies, uh, opening up to another person about your, you know, fears and
00:51:23.992 Speaker 1 anxieties and all that, and all your problems. And the first one, the pattern
00:51:27.892 Speaker 1 interrupt. That will start to get you feeling a little better, but they're not
00:51:31.352 Speaker 1 permanent fixes. They're temporary fixes that get you back on your feet. But the way
00:51:37.312 Speaker 1 you get stronger,
00:51:40.892 Speaker 1 permanently stronger, is by revisiting these traumas and telling a
00:51:46.932 Speaker 1 better story over and over and over again. Okay?
00:51:52.832 Speaker 1 Now, for fresh traumas, this is a lot easier. So the next time something terrible
00:51:55.792 Speaker 1 happens to you,
00:51:58.052 Speaker 1 remind yourself, maybe write this one in your morn- little morning routine if it's a
00:52:02.432 Speaker 1 useful reminder, "This is my opportunity. If I write a bad
00:52:08.312 Speaker 1 story here, if I write a disempowering, terrifying story, I will believe it, and it
00:52:14.232 Speaker 1 will shape who I am in a very negative, toxic way." Okay? Trauma
00:52:20.252 Speaker 1 can either make you weaker permanently or stronger permanently. All right?
00:52:26.312 Speaker 1 And the nice part is you can always go back and rewrite the story. Now, it's harder
00:52:30.412 Speaker 1 the older it is 'cause it gets really baked into everything about you, but it can be
00:52:34.432 Speaker 1 rewritten. It's a simple process. Relive, tell a new story,
00:52:40.172 Speaker 1 ideally it feels as true as possible, and keep doing that over and over again. And
00:52:45.932 Speaker 1 eventually, it will be the worst thing that ever happened to you and the best thing
00:52:51.472 Speaker 1 that ever happened to you. You will know that you are recovered
00:52:58.072 Speaker 1 when you are grateful for this trauma, when you would not
00:53:04.052 Speaker 1 undo it,
00:53:06.472 Speaker 1 because to undo it would be to make you a weaker, less capable, less resilient
00:53:12.212 Speaker 1 person. Why would you undo that? Sure, you might undo some of the damage if you
00:53:17.372 Speaker 1 could. You would love to take the scar off your sister's face. You wish you hadn't
00:53:21.452 Speaker 1 hurt her. Of course, that's normal. But you wouldn't change the consequences of that
00:53:27.072 Speaker 1 event because it made you better, and you're grateful for it. Truly
00:53:32.852 Speaker 1 grateful. It's not forced. You really mean it when you say you're grateful. That's
00:53:37.732 Speaker 1 when you know you finally made it, and it has finally become an opportunity, and you
00:53:42.412 Speaker 1 are stronger. All right, let's move on.
00:53:46.052 Speaker 1 Here's another tool that will help you if you're struggling with the will to face
00:53:51.992 Speaker 1 these problems, maybe to relive your memories, to do anything. Here's a trick I like
00:53:57.492 Speaker 1 to use. Well, technically, I have three more tricks. I can't believe how long this
00:54:01.452 Speaker 1 episode is, man.
00:54:04.172 Speaker 1 Are we pushing an hour? I don't care. I'm gonna do it. We're gonna power through. I,
00:54:08.532 Speaker 1 l- I am excited to power through. Bring it on. Because the next topic
00:54:13.452 Speaker 1 [chuckles] is challenge versus threat framing. If
00:54:19.412 Speaker 1 you feel
00:54:22.412 Speaker 1 like you can't handle this, like you can't take another hit, you have to run away
00:54:25.832 Speaker 1 and hide somewhere, that's because you're using threat framing. The problems that
00:54:31.572 Speaker 1 are being afflict- inflicted upon you are terrifying. They're a huge
00:54:37.372 Speaker 1 burden. They're inescapable.
00:54:41.912 Speaker 1 And this is because of the part of the brain that you're using. You're in fight or
00:54:45.252 Speaker 1 flight mode, okay? Well, you're mostly in flight mode. [chuckles] But yeah. Or
00:54:50.672 Speaker 1 freeze, I guess is technically the other one. But basically, I think that your
00:54:54.272 Speaker 1 amygdala is receiving more blood flow and the pre or, yeah, prefrontal cortex,
00:55:00.792 Speaker 1 I don't know, the, the smart higher mind, the long-term decision maker, the rational
00:55:05.512 Speaker 1 thought part of your brain is literally having blood drained out of it. Like, it's
00:55:08.912 Speaker 1 literally
00:55:10.902 Speaker 1 You know, it's like operating at lower RPMs. Like, it's not working very much, and
00:55:15.942 Speaker 1 the lizard brain, the sort of scared, terrified, uh, here and
00:55:21.922 Speaker 1 now fight or flight mode part of your brain, which is very short-sighted, um, is,
00:55:28.042 Speaker 1 has most of the power, okay? Threat framing makes you weaker. Now, it's very useful.
00:55:33.742 Speaker 1 Remember, our brains are sort of set up for, like, immediate physical threats
00:55:38.022 Speaker 1 because those are the... Or immediate social threats, 'cause those are the only
00:55:41.522 Speaker 1 kinds of threats that we, you know, evolved to deal with. We n- never really evolved
00:55:46.722 Speaker 1 to deal with being able to hear about mass shootings on a global scale on a daily
00:55:52.722 Speaker 1 basis. We never, we weren't evolved to hear about problems 2,000 miles
00:55:58.742 Speaker 1 away, most of which don't affect us, and our brain treats all of those problems as
00:56:03.802 Speaker 1 if they were right in front of us, okay? So we're in threat frame mode a lot.
00:56:09.722 Speaker 1 But here is the one cool trick you can do to immediately feel
00:56:15.801 Speaker 1 powerful, okay? If you are leaning away from pain, here's the paradox.
00:56:22.202 Speaker 1 Lean in instead. "Oh, crap, I have to work overtime tonight 'cause I, there's
00:56:28.182 Speaker 1 $40,000 worth of consumer debt to pay off or my girlfriend will leave me. I don't
00:56:32.302 Speaker 1 know, whatever, right? I can't take it. Uh, I don't wanna go. I should call out."
00:56:37.782 Speaker 1 No. That's threat framing. Reframe as challenge framing.
00:56:44.582 Speaker 1 It is, in the words of Tom Bilyeu, "Stop thinking in terms of how little can
00:56:50.622 Speaker 1 I do and start thinking in terms in, of how much can I
00:56:56.182 Speaker 1 take?" Okay? This will immediately change which parts of your brain you're using
00:57:02.302 Speaker 1 because instead of pain avoidance, you are now in sort of problem resolution, like
00:57:07.862 Speaker 1 ambition, long-term planning mode. And most importantly, it makes
00:57:13.642 Speaker 1 you... It gives you energy. It gives you the will to tackle a problem. You're not
00:57:19.121 Speaker 1 just trying to survive and hide. You are trying to conquer and control. All right?
00:57:25.762 Speaker 1 A lot of this is just about telling better stories. That's it. You're not broken.
00:57:31.342 Speaker 1 You're just telling yourselves very unhelpful thories, stories yourself, very
00:57:36.962 Speaker 1 unhelpful stories, very unhelpful thoughts. And when you begin to rewrite them,
00:57:43.342 Speaker 1 they become habitually positive, habitually empowering, and you are a strong person
00:57:47.802 Speaker 1 now who can recover from anything and can take of a heck of a lot of hits too before
00:57:52.302 Speaker 1 you go down. But when you do inevitably go down, you have the ability to get back up
00:57:56.662 Speaker 1 again really quickly. So you become a very reliable, powerful person. Just use ch-
00:58:02.862 Speaker 1 challenge framing. So challenge framing of the same thing is, "No,
00:58:08.502 Speaker 1 I can do overtime. I can do more than overtime," okay? Bring it on.
00:58:14.922 Speaker 1 I am not only, not only gonna pay this debt off in a year and a half, I'm gonna pay
00:58:19.422 Speaker 1 this debt off in a year. I'm gonna call my boss and I'm gonna say, "Can I have
00:58:24.322 Speaker 1 overtime tomorrow too?" Bring it on. I can take it. I can take
00:58:30.462 Speaker 1 this and more. Same set of circumstances, different perspective.
00:58:36.762 Speaker 1 One is, "Oh, please don't hurt me anymore. I can't take it." The other is, "I can
00:58:42.302 Speaker 1 take anything.
00:58:44.582 Speaker 1 Bring it on." When you think of your problems as not something to be
00:58:50.262 Speaker 1 avoided and run from and merely tolerated to the extent that you have to
00:58:55.942 Speaker 1 tolerate them, but think about, "How can I absolutely destroy this? How can I go on
00:59:01.902 Speaker 1 the offense instead of the defense?" And because one gives you a sense of control
00:59:07.602 Speaker 1 and power, and it literally allows you to endure more pain. When you lean into
00:59:13.582 Speaker 1 the pain, um, you actually feel less pain. It's a paradox. I think there is a study
00:59:19.602 Speaker 1 that showed when people are put in an ice bath, which as you can probably imagine,
00:59:24.682 Speaker 1 it's just, um, water with a bunch of ice cubes in it. It's quite painful. Uh, the
00:59:29.321 Speaker 1 people who are allowed to scream and basically act aggressively, hit their chest,
00:59:34.222 Speaker 1 like, uh, grit their teeth and like sort of, you know, do m- they are
00:59:40.002 Speaker 1 actually able to withstand more pain, significantly more pain than the people who
00:59:45.702 Speaker 1 were not allowed to do any of that, who basically had to sit there and take it. So
00:59:49.782 Speaker 1 you literally will feel less pain and have more control when you reframe your
00:59:53.742 Speaker 1 problems as challenges, something that you are eager to bear,
01:00:00.062 Speaker 1 something you are going to conquer, something that is not going to come anywhere
01:00:04.602 Speaker 1 close to beating you. In fact, you're thinking about piling on more.
01:00:10.582 Speaker 1 Then you can handle anything. It's the same problem. If you're going to have to
01:00:14.882 Speaker 1 solve it either way, you may as well use challenge framing because that one makes
01:00:19.022 Speaker 1 you feel strong. And threat framing, leaning away from the pain, will actually
01:00:23.382 Speaker 1 increase the pain. It actually makes it hurt more. Um, this is, you know, if you...
01:00:29.202 Speaker 1 Just in a microcosm, when you rip a Band-Aid off, if you give somebody, you tell
01:00:33.982 Speaker 1 them, "Hey, this is gonna hurt. You ready?" And you have a moment to brace, it
01:00:39.702 Speaker 1 actually hurts less. If it is just ripped off of you, the pain is worse
01:00:46.182 Speaker 1 and it feels worse. This is exactly the same concept, okay? So lean
01:00:52.122 Speaker 1 in. Use challenge framing, not threat framing. All right, two more concepts. This
01:00:57.902 Speaker 1 one's also from Benjamin Hardy. It's called The Gap and The Gain. You got a lot to
01:01:01.022 Speaker 1 write down. Whatever. [chuckles] You're gonna feel better by the end of this
01:01:05.362 Speaker 1 episode. You got all my tools. This is everything I've learned, um, that you haven't
01:01:09.562 Speaker 1 learned yet, uh, past Steven. All right, next is the gap in the game.
01:01:15.378 Speaker 1 Okay, if you find yourself feeling bad, chances are, or you start feeling
01:01:23.958 Speaker 1 incapable and weak,
01:01:26.958 Speaker 1 depressed, basically everything negative and hopeless and helpless,
01:01:33.538 Speaker 1 chances are you are in gap thinking, okay, rather than gain thinking. And this is a
01:01:39.298 Speaker 1 very simple concept. The concept is you feel bad when you are
01:01:45.258 Speaker 1 focused on things you can't have, don't have, will never have, are in the distant
01:01:50.618 Speaker 1 future or feel unattainable or in the distant past that you can't fix. Basically, if
01:01:55.758 Speaker 1 something is out of reach and you are focused on the fact that it is out of reach,
01:02:02.098 Speaker 1 you are disempowered, meaning you feel helpless, and you will feel
01:02:07.858 Speaker 1 depressed, anxious, sad, every negative emotion, right? Spiteful, whatever it is,
01:02:13.738 Speaker 1 right? If you focus on the things you can't have, don't have, are in the far future,
01:02:19.178 Speaker 1 distant past, if it feels unattainable and that's what you're staring at, you know,
01:02:23.438 Speaker 1 mentally speaking, you're gonna feel bad every single time. This is how
01:02:29.278 Speaker 1 billionaires are able to be upset. You know, like this is how they're able to
01:02:35.198 Speaker 1 feel like they don't have enough. Even though logically they know they do, this is
01:02:40.398 Speaker 1 how they, rich people or people who have it all or people who have succeeded in
01:02:44.338 Speaker 1 anything or you have succeeded in anything you've succeeded, this is how you devalue
01:02:50.078 Speaker 1 everything good you've ever done and it can still feel like trash compared to what
01:02:55.358 Speaker 1 you actually want now, okay? This is where this phenomenon comes from. This is being
01:03:00.918 Speaker 1 in the gap, so, uh, Dr. Benjamin Hardy says. But gain thinking is the opposite.
01:03:07.798 Speaker 1 Gain thinking is choosing to focus on what you do have. This is why gratitude works,
01:03:13.638 Speaker 1 by the way. Everyone always says like, "Be grateful. Do a gratitude journal." Not
01:03:16.738 Speaker 1 that those are bad practices. That's a good idea. But gratitude is actually just a
01:03:20.518 Speaker 1 narrow... It's a single tool in this broader tool set, which is gain thinking. Be
01:03:26.458 Speaker 1 appreciative of what you do have, but don't just be appreciative. That's like
01:03:29.978 Speaker 1 saying, "Feel happy. Why don't, just feel happy. Why are you feeling sad? You should
01:03:34.098 Speaker 1 feel happy." You can't, you can't start at the outcome. We talked about this last
01:03:38.558 Speaker 1 time. You have to do the things that get you the outcome. I'm going to tell you what
01:03:42.538 Speaker 1 to do to get the outcome that makes you feel happy and gra- g- you know, have
01:03:47.178 Speaker 1 gratitude. Yes, you have to go find things you're grateful for, but here's how you
01:03:51.918 Speaker 1 feel grateful. Here's how you feel good.
01:03:55.858 Speaker 1 Stop focusing on the things you don't have, can't have, that feel unattainable or in
01:03:59.618 Speaker 1 the distant future. Stop focusing on the gap between, this is where the word comes,
01:04:04.398 Speaker 1 the term comes from. Stop focusing on the gap between where you are and where you
01:04:08.538 Speaker 1 want to be, okay? That makes you feel like trash every single time. If you feel
01:04:14.578 Speaker 1 like trash, that's almost certainly why, right? It is a kind of negative thinking,
01:04:18.578 Speaker 1 I'm sure. It makes you feel bad. It makes you feel
01:04:23.658 Speaker 1 like, get, puts you in a scarcity mindset. It makes you feel like you don't have
01:04:27.818 Speaker 1 enough, will never have enough, are not enough. Instead, focus on the gain. All
01:04:33.638 Speaker 1 right, so he has a concept called always measure backwards, meaning stop measuring
01:04:37.738 Speaker 1 success, yes, by looking at other people, which by the way is a kind of gap
01:04:41.998 Speaker 1 thinking. "Oh, these people have what I want." Gap thinking. You're looking at the
01:04:45.718 Speaker 1 difference between you and them. You're looking at the gap between you and them.
01:04:50.178 Speaker 1 You're gonna feel like trash every single time. It's a very simple equation. Gap
01:04:53.418 Speaker 1 thinking equals feeling like trash, okay? Gain thinking equals feeling great,
01:04:58.178 Speaker 1 feeling whole, feeling happy, feeling satisfied, feeling great, uh, grateful, you
01:05:04.178 Speaker 1 know? Feeling like you're enough. Do you wanna feel like that again? All you have to
01:05:08.578 Speaker 1 do is think about the things you do have. Think about the things you have
01:05:12.958 Speaker 1 accomplished. Think about the thi- the problems that you used to have that you
01:05:18.278 Speaker 1 wished you had solved and wanted so badly to solve, and now they are solved, and you
01:05:23.958 Speaker 1 have those things. Think about the traumas you have recovered from and now are
01:05:27.818 Speaker 1 stronger. That's a kind of gain thinking. You're focused most of the time on
01:05:33.818 Speaker 1 the things that have gone right, the things that you do have, the things you are
01:05:39.118 Speaker 1 proud of, okay? The things that are beautiful about you and your life.
01:05:45.438 Speaker 1 You can do this at any time. You can do this and if you're in the middle of a
01:05:49.118 Speaker 1 war-torn country, okay? If you want to feel good, do
01:05:54.518 Speaker 1 mostly gain thinking. Fi- When people say, "Find the silver lining," a lot of people
01:05:59.638 Speaker 1 roll their eyes like, "Yeah, yeah, this is like toxic positivity," like blah, blah,
01:06:03.358 Speaker 1 blah. This is why it works, okay? If you find something true to be
01:06:09.258 Speaker 1 grateful for, to be appreciative, to be proud of, you're gonna always find
01:06:13.718 Speaker 1 something.
01:06:15.758 Speaker 1 You'll feel good again. It's like flipping a switch. It's the craziest thing in the
01:06:19.058 Speaker 1 world. Go practice it right now. Well, I guess after this last concept, go practice
01:06:22.718 Speaker 1 it.
01:06:24.518 Speaker 1 So if you find yourself in the gap foc- focusing on the difference between you and
01:06:30.178 Speaker 1 where you want to be, between you and another person, that's, you're in the gap, and
01:06:36.198 Speaker 1 it will make you feel bad. I mean, it's that simple. You need to think to yourself,
01:06:40.458 Speaker 1 "Ah, I'm in the gap. If I keep thinking like this, I'm gonna feel bad. Do I want to
01:06:46.418 Speaker 1 feel bad?" I literally talk to my kids about this. "Hey, man, seems like you're in
01:06:51.198 Speaker 1 the gap. Like, you're thinking about things you can't have or that aren't going
01:06:54.698 Speaker 1 right. And I'm not going to tell you to stop. You can do that if you want to. But
01:07:01.098 Speaker 1 remember, it makes you feel bad, like really bad. Do you wanna feel bad today? Is
01:07:06.918 Speaker 1 that what you want? Do you wanna feel bad right now? If you want to feel bad right
01:07:10.558 Speaker 1 now, like go, go ahead. By all means, you can keep measuring yourself against this
01:07:15.898 Speaker 1 ideal. Keep measuring yourself against that other person." Go ahead if you want to
01:07:20.166 Speaker 1 feel bad, but just checking, do you want to feel bad right now? The answer is almost
01:07:25.266 Speaker 1 always, "No, I don't want to feel bad." But what about, "Hey, no
01:07:31.086 Speaker 1 excuses, no blame, no deflection." Simple question: Do you want to
01:07:37.046 Speaker 1 feel bad? Do you want to feel good? "I wanna feel good." Okay.
01:07:43.046 Speaker 1 In that case, start thinking about when you were bad at this, but now you're much
01:07:49.026 Speaker 1 better, okay? Stop thinking about you wish you could be world-class. Well, that's
01:07:54.266 Speaker 1 great. Think about how you're actually quite good compared to everybody else. That's
01:08:00.306 Speaker 1 still gain thinking, okay? Think about anything that makes
01:08:06.286 Speaker 1 you feel like what you've already accomplished, what you have already attained, what
01:08:10.306 Speaker 1 is close, okay?
01:08:14.226 Speaker 1 We'll talk about that in a goal-setting episode at some point, but typically you
01:08:17.926 Speaker 1 want your goals to feel attainable. Um, and the moment they stop feeling attainable,
01:08:22.126 Speaker 1 if you've ever noticed that a goal starts to make you feel like trash, um, it's
01:08:26.246 Speaker 1 because it is now gap thinking. You had the motivation because you thought you could
01:08:30.726 Speaker 1 do something and, you know, something has changed or you're not doing what you
01:08:34.646 Speaker 1 thought you would be able to do repeatedly to get those results, and now it feels
01:08:39.406 Speaker 1 unattainable, so every time you think about it, you're in the gap. And what once was
01:08:43.266 Speaker 1 beautiful and you were excited about, now you feel bad about because potentially it
01:08:48.806 Speaker 1 feels unattainable, which means you're in the gap. So the trick is to make it
01:08:53.906 Speaker 1 something that feels attainable. If you do need to think about something that is in
01:08:57.926 Speaker 1 the future or that you don't have, make it fee... reconceptualize or
01:09:03.546 Speaker 1 restructure the goal or what it is you're thinking about to think about something at
01:09:07.626 Speaker 1 hand. So in this case, if you want to be better at knitting, [chuckles] I'm making
01:09:12.166 Speaker 1 knitting as an example, and you're so upset that you don't know how to knit a
01:09:17.246 Speaker 1 sweater, okay, 'cause it's too hard. All right? That was your goal. Well, every time
01:09:22.126 Speaker 1 you think about how the fact you, you can't knit a sweater is gonna make you feel
01:09:24.726 Speaker 1 bad. So instead, change the goal, change the framing. Think about how much better
01:09:30.766 Speaker 1 at knitting you are now. Oh, wow, you can do socks. You can do hats. You know, two
01:09:35.826 Speaker 1 weeks ago, you couldn't even get the stitches to stay together at all, or the, you
01:09:40.506 Speaker 1 know, the knitting. But, and if you need to think about a new goal, think about a
01:09:45.866 Speaker 1 goal that feels attainable. "Okay, I can't do a sweater, but maybe... I bet I could
01:09:51.406 Speaker 1 do a sleeve. That would be cool." And if it feels attainable, you will start to feel
01:09:57.426 Speaker 1 better again, okay? Gap in the gain. Write that one down, too. And now for the last
01:10:01.706 Speaker 1 topic, which I think will probably get a little less airtime than probably deserves,
01:10:07.006 Speaker 1 stoicism.
01:10:09.666 Speaker 1 And these are all interrelated.
01:10:12.566 Speaker 1 Ah. Just go learn about stoicism. Stoicism is a lot like some Eastern philosophies
01:10:18.366 Speaker 1 like Buddhism. It is a philosophy about basically
01:10:24.306 Speaker 1 how to be happy and satisfied and live a meaningful life right now,
01:10:30.886 Speaker 1 no matter what is happening. Literally, no matter what is happening. You could be
01:10:34.146 Speaker 1 being tortured, and if you are an incredible stoic, you might be able to, like, at
01:10:38.566 Speaker 1 least, like, find some neutral. It's in... It's just an incredible set of tools,
01:10:44.106 Speaker 1 mindset and emotional tools, and they have come to my rescue so, so, so much. Uh,
01:10:49.746 Speaker 1 gap in the gain is a kind of stoic tool, okay? Challenge and threat framing were a
01:10:54.466 Speaker 1 kind of stoic tool. Reframing past traumas, anti-fragility, all sources
01:11:00.426 Speaker 1 of inner strength, all of these things are stoic tools. Um, so I won't spend an
01:11:06.366 Speaker 1 enormous amount of time on them, but here's the crux of the issue. Happiness is
01:11:10.206 Speaker 1 essentially a choice. It's a choice in the sense that there is a set of things that
01:11:14.306 Speaker 1 you can do that will make you feel better if you're feeling bad at any point in
01:11:19.446 Speaker 1 time. The choice is not whether to feel happy or not. Remember, you don't pick the
01:11:23.426 Speaker 1 outcome. That's dumb. "Why don't you just feel happy instead of feeling sad?" It's
01:11:27.666 Speaker 1 not how it works. The choice is, am I going to do the things that now
01:11:34.246 Speaker 1 I know make me feel good, or am I going to do the things that now I
01:11:39.926 Speaker 1 know are making me feel bad? That is the choice, okay? That's sort of the crux of
01:11:45.966 Speaker 1 stoicism. It is a decision to be happy by thinking and
01:11:51.766 Speaker 1 acting in a way that makes you feel good despite whatever else is
01:11:57.426 Speaker 1 happening to you. It is a willingness
01:12:01.366 Speaker 1 to be happy
01:12:04.706 Speaker 1 agnostic suffering. It doesn't matter what level of suffering you're experiencing.
01:12:09.606 Speaker 1 In fact, trying to avoid suffering entirely is not only pointless, uh, but a waste
01:12:14.526 Speaker 1 of a life and may actually hurt, hurt you more. Far better to be happy and
01:12:20.106 Speaker 1 okay no matter what problems are thrown at you than to try to prevent all problems
01:12:25.866 Speaker 1 from being thrown at you. All right? This is sort of where this entire approach
01:12:30.826 Speaker 1 comes from.
01:12:32.886 Speaker 1 It is a willingness
01:12:35.586 Speaker 1 to suffer well and meaningfully, to lean in to the
01:12:41.486 Speaker 1 pain where it's necessary,
01:12:46.526 Speaker 1 and to accept that pain is never going to stop coming, and to find a way to be happy
01:12:53.166 Speaker 1 anyway. More than happy, to be empowered, to be satisfied, to
01:12:59.106 Speaker 1 be exuberant. It is a way to enjoy everything that life has to
01:13:04.986 Speaker 1 offer
01:13:06.766 Speaker 1 and to be able to withstand all of the terrible things that it has to offer as well
01:13:12.006 Speaker 1 in a way that doesn't derail you from enjoying the beautiful things. That's what
01:13:17.126 Speaker 1 stoicism's all about. Uh, there's an enormous amount of things to learn about it.
01:13:23.262 Speaker 1 There are hundreds of, like, little tactics, kind of like what we've talked about
01:13:27.242 Speaker 1 today, that are all wrapped up in the philosophy that you can go learn about. I've
01:13:30.842 Speaker 1 given you some of my favorite today, and I'll leave you with just one more before I
01:13:34.862 Speaker 1 go.
01:13:37.182 Speaker 1 And this one comes from a modern philosopher. I can't remember his name, but the
01:13:42.822 Speaker 1 concept is creating fictional gods, okay? This is actually... I think this is part
01:13:48.902 Speaker 1 of the, um, Satanism religion, actually. It's the belief that, uh,
01:13:55.042 Speaker 1 the, the angel, like Satan in Christian mythology, was not evil so much as
01:14:01.162 Speaker 1 he serves a useful purpose of, you know, the tests or, like, the temptations that,
01:14:05.582 Speaker 1 uh, he tempts mortals with, like trying to get them to do bad things, is not
01:14:11.102 Speaker 1 actually evil. He's trying to tempt you and hurt you and tease you into doing
01:14:17.042 Speaker 1 bad things in the hopes that you will choose not to, and it will make you
01:14:22.602 Speaker 1 stronger, okay? I think that's the rough premise. Forgive me if I got it wrong or I
01:14:27.182 Speaker 1 offended you, but
01:14:29.482 Speaker 1 the gist is create a fictional deity which has way less baggage, uh, you know,
01:14:34.622 Speaker 1 especially if you're a religious person. Create your own fictional deity, okay? And
01:14:39.742 Speaker 1 this is a concept... Oh, was it William B something? I don't know. Create some stoic
01:14:45.822 Speaker 1 gods, okay? Every time something bad happens to you in your life,
01:14:52.122 Speaker 1 it wasn't just something that happened randomly. This is pretend. This is a
01:14:56.562 Speaker 1 deliberate fiction. Keep in mind it's a deliberate fiction.
01:15:02.162 Speaker 1 It was actually the stoic gods who did this. Every obstacle in your path, every
01:15:07.442 Speaker 1 injury you've ever faced, every indignity that has ever happened to you,
01:15:14.322 Speaker 1 every little bad, every bad thing from small to great in your life has been
01:15:19.842 Speaker 1 caused by the stoic gods. They have done it deliberately to you, okay? Just get in
01:15:25.842 Speaker 1 that mindset, all right? So the next time something bad happens to you, there is a
01:15:30.042 Speaker 1 set of stoic gods, like a pantheon, like the Greek gods, and they all are trying to
01:15:35.722 Speaker 1 mess you up. They're all trying to trip you up. They're all trying to knock you off
01:15:39.502 Speaker 1 your game. They're trying to knock you down. But not because they hate you, but
01:15:44.342 Speaker 1 because they love you. Because they know what you need most is to get stronger.
01:15:50.982 Speaker 1 So they will find the thing you cannot handle. They will hit you with another blow
01:15:56.602 Speaker 1 because you think you're not strong enough. They will pummel you ceaselessly in
01:16:01.862 Speaker 1 every unexpected, intolerable way you couldn't imagine.
01:16:06.702 Speaker 1 But they're doing it 'cause they love you, because they know that every time they
01:16:10.402 Speaker 1 hit you, if you are wise enough to choose a positive story, if you are wise
01:16:16.402 Speaker 1 enough to see these tests for what they are, you will come out the other side
01:16:20.922 Speaker 1 stronger than before. The stoic gods are trying to make you stronger,
01:16:27.282 Speaker 1 and they do that by causing ceaseless problems, by making your life
01:16:32.842 Speaker 1 harder to make you stronger, okay? So, and this is similar to challenge
01:16:38.882 Speaker 1 framing versus threat framing. Okay, so this is like challenge framing. The stoic
01:16:43.662 Speaker 1 gods are issuing a challenge. Every time something bad happens to you, they're
01:16:48.982 Speaker 1 waiting to see. It's a test. They want to see how you'll react.
01:16:55.522 Speaker 1 Are you going to react positively? Are you going to interrupt your negative thought
01:17:00.782 Speaker 1 patterns and make them positive? Are you going to optimize for recovery? Are you
01:17:05.462 Speaker 1 going to start using these emotional tools, mindset tools to start getting better?
01:17:10.622 Speaker 1 Are you going to be able to handle this? Can you reframe your
01:17:16.562 Speaker 1 trauma, or is this one going to take you down?
01:17:20.902 Speaker 1 And they hope that you will choose to get stronger. They hope you will choose
01:17:26.862 Speaker 1 to take this hit and get back up again because they know it will make
01:17:32.782 Speaker 1 you stronger.
01:17:35.182 Speaker 1 Every problem in your life is a test. Every problem in your life is an opportunity,
01:17:41.841 Speaker 1 a challenge for you to conquer and
01:17:47.162 Speaker 1 permanently grow stronger in a way that the same problem cannot hurt you in the same
01:17:52.782 Speaker 1 way again.
01:17:55.042 Speaker 1 You get stronger every single time you are hit with a problem
01:18:01.482 Speaker 1 if you make these choices to get stronger. Or
01:18:07.602 Speaker 1 every blow you take could make you weaker. It's your choice. Now you have the tools
01:18:14.702 Speaker 1 to do these things. Now you have the tools to make every problem in your life
01:18:21.022 Speaker 1 an opportunity, to make the worst things that have ever happened to you the best
01:18:26.242 Speaker 1 things that ever happened to you, to become somebody so capable, so powerful,
01:18:32.202 Speaker 1 so resilient and capable of getting back up again that nothing can take you down
01:18:37.282 Speaker 1 again. You can get there. I know it's possible. I feel
01:18:43.262 Speaker 1 like I'm getting there, but I'm never done. The stoic gods are not done testing me
01:18:47.942 Speaker 1 either. There's a fresh heaping plate of problems for me every day, and they don't
01:18:53.882 Speaker 1 stop coming.
01:18:56.062 Speaker 1 I'm gonna demolish them because I use challenge framing. When I feel like trash, I
01:19:01.902 Speaker 1 realize I'm probably in the gap and I'm comparing myself to some unrealistic ideal
01:19:06.682 Speaker 1 that feels unattainable, something I can't fix about the past, something I can't fix
01:19:10.882 Speaker 1 about the future,
01:19:13.862 Speaker 1 something that another person has that I don't. Ah, I'm in the gap. Whoops. Gotta
01:19:18.822 Speaker 1 get back in the game. Gotta switch. Actually, I am very capable, and just 'cause I
01:19:24.622 Speaker 1 couldn't change that doesn't mean I can't change something. Actually, in here is
01:19:27.502 Speaker 1 something I could change. Yeah, that person has something that I don't have, but
01:19:31.222 Speaker 1 that's okay because I have all of these incredible things, X, Y, and Z. And look how
01:19:37.042 Speaker 1 far I've come already. Dang, I'm pretty impressive. When I feel threatened, I
01:19:42.602 Speaker 1 switch. I frame it as a challenge. What is the least I can take? F that. What is the
01:19:48.562 Speaker 1 most I can take? This is, this is not the one that's gonna take me down, stoic gods.
01:19:55.162 Speaker 1 That's all you've got? The next time you get slapped across the face with a problem,
01:20:00.482 Speaker 1 just smile. That's all you've got? Are you serious? This is not even a problem.
01:20:07.402 Speaker 1 But when I do spiral, and I have these negative thought patterns, I know, whoop,
01:20:13.082 Speaker 1 gotta interrupt. Nope. Gotta think the positive inverse. Not only that, but
01:20:19.062 Speaker 1 I need to go talk to somebody. Am I going crazy? I feel like I've been
01:20:25.062 Speaker 1 in a funk for a long time. I need to just, like, get this off my chest with somebody
01:20:29.342 Speaker 1 who's a great listener because I know I'll be able to recalibrate and figure out
01:20:33.602 Speaker 1 which of my problems are real and which ones are kinda stuff I've made up in my
01:20:37.762 Speaker 1 head.
01:20:40.782 Speaker 1 That is how you can handle anything.
01:20:45.302 Speaker 1 Optimize for being able to get back up.
01:20:51.302 Speaker 1 It's okay to go down.
01:20:54.242 Speaker 1 It's not okay to stay down.
01:20:59.122 Speaker 1 This has been The Fix.