- Meet Ben. Ben had very abusive
parents who would often neglect him and sometimes
they would even beat him. So at the young age of nine he was placed into a foster home and the only thing that Ben truly wanted in his life was to get taken in by
a real loving family. In his mind this was the
only way for him to be happy. And if he couldn't do this
he was destined to live a life of unhappiness and depression. Ben's foster home was in pretty bad shape and he had to fight for
his most basic needs like having enough food
to eat every single day or having a nice bed to sleep in. Even wearing nice comfortable clothes. And this environment led
Ben to become very emotional and from a very early
age Ben would experience the full spectrum of emotions. There would be moments when he would be filled with rage when
another kid was bullying him and moments of pure joy and hope when he thought a family would adopt him. Followed by moments of deep sadness when the adoption parents
would chose somebody else. His life was like a rollercoaster, consisting of times a great
highs and very low lows. And this caused Ben to become
very emotionally unstable. There were some families
who were interested in adopting Ben, but
the moment that he saw one thing that he liked about a family he would envision this
amazing future with them and he would get lost
in this magical fantasy of how happy he would be and how amazing his life would turn out. And the moment when he saw something that he didn't like about a family he would get lost in a fantasy of how much he would hate them and how he would be depressed and
sad for his whole life. He was not able to think
logically or rationally about the actual consequences
of making a choice. And of course, these extreme emotions would put a lot of families
off when they met him and they wouldn't want to bring such an emotional person
into their family. So little Ben went many
years with no family and he would watch all of his friends get adopted, one by one,
leaving him all alone. After a few years Ben started to act out and he started to get into fights with the other foster kids or arguing with the foster parents. But it wasn't until one
day when he got in trouble with a police officer, Ben was simply crossing the road when he shouldn't have and the police officer
came up to him and said, "Hey, you know jaywalking
is illegal, right?" And instead of just
apologizing to the officer Ben started to argue with him saying how he was being overly sensitive. Saying how he wasn't even jaywalking and how stupid the cop was being. And within minutes the situation was completely blown out of proportion and Ben was verbally
assaulting the officer and the officer was about to arrest Ben until he found out that
he lived in a foster home. Fortunately the officer had
a soft spot for foster kids. So he walked him back to his home and told the foster parents, "This young man is out of control. "He broke the law, then
proceeded to verbally "assault me, please deal with him." The foster parents sat Ben down and said, "Listen Ben, you need
to start acting right. "No family wants to take in a child "who is emotionally
unstable and out of control. "Do you understand?" Ben said, "Yes" and then they left. Ben's anger quickly turned into sadness. To solve this the foster parents just gave Ben some boxing gloves and they told him to hit the punching bag until he was tired and
that's exactly what he did. So one night Ben was
hitting the boxing bags and an older man who was a
boxing trainer noticed him. He was impressed by his
passion and he saw potential. So the trainer went up to Ben and asked, "You're punching pretty hard kid, "have you ever properly boxed before?" "Nope, I just hit the bags
until I'm tired," Ben replied. "You want to try boxing someone "for real," the trainer asked? "Sure, whatever" Ben said defensively. "Put on this headgear and hop in the ring. "I'll grab my friend to come and box you." And within minutes Ben was
boxing a real life person and when he was in the ring he was completely consumed by his emotions. He felt anger, fear, ego all rising up and boiling inside of him. And then all of a sudden, he found himself running towards his opponent and he tried punching him with all of his strength, but his opponent dodged it and then Ben was hit with a quick jab to his jaw which knocked him clean on his
feet and the fight was over. The trainer came over
and asked if he was okay. "Yeah, I'm fine," Ben said defensively. The trainer told him that
it's good to have heart but you can't just run at
your opponent like that you have to be calm and calculated
in order to win a fight. With tears and anger on
his face Ben just ignored the trainer and he packed
up is bags to go and leave. As Ben was leaving the trainer said, "Few fighters have passion like yours, "but that temper is going
to get you into trouble. "If you want to learn how
to master your emotions "and fight properly, let me know." Ben stormed off and went
home and when he got home he saw a kid that had
bullied him in the past named Lucas and he was eating the dinner that was supposed to be saved for him. Ben said, "Why are you eating my dinner?" "You were gone." "So what, it was fridge I
obviously was going to eat it." "Shouldn't you be hitting some boxing bag "or something or getting arrested? "It seems like that's all
you're good at these days." Ben became enraged by this comment so he hit the food off the table, pushed the kid off the chair. And before Ben could do anything else a foster parent quickly grabbed him and took him to his room
and the foster parent said, "If you ever assault
another kid like that again "I will turn you over
to the police myself. "Do you understand?" Ben said, "Yes." "If you can't learn
how to control yourself "I'm going to kick you out of this house. "Do you understand?" Ben said, "Yes." And the foster parent
stormed out of the room. Ben laid in his room that night and he wasn't sure what
to do, what to feel and he felt completely alone. Ben had no idea how to
control his emotions and then he thought of the boxing trainer who was the only person
who had actually expressed interest in helping him. "I guess I have nothing to lose "to see what he has to say,"
Ben thought to himself. So the next day he went
back to the gym and saw him. Ben went up to the coach and said, " Hey, I'm sorry for
storming off like that. "Do you still want to
teach me how to fight?" The coach smiled and
said, "Well, that depends "will you follow everything
I say without question?" "I guess." "Great, the first and most important thing "that I want you to do is to read a book "called, The Laws of Human Nature "and once you are done reading that "I want you to tell me if you think "you are more of a rider or a horse." "A rider or a horse, what
are you talking about, "I thought you were gonna
teach me how to fight?" "And that's exactly what I'm going to do, "but first you have to understand "how to master your emotions. "And don't bother coming back to me "until you are ready to talk
about what's in that book "because it'll be really hard for you." Ben rolled his eyes and said, "Okay fine," and then he went home. And over the next few days
he started to read the book and then he finally got
to the chapter called, The Rider and The Horse. As Ben was reading the chapter
he started to feel weird and that weird feeling
quickly turned into anger the more he read. Ben thought to himself, "This stupid book "is trying to tell me who I am. "Telling me that I have all these flaws. "It doesn't know what I've
been through or who I am." And he threw the book away
and he went downstairs to get some food and then he saw Lucas, the boy who had bullied
him many times in the past. The boy who he had almost
fought a couple of days ago. And he saw him saying
goodbye to the foster parents because a family had decided to adopt him. In this moment Ben was filled with envy, jealousy and anger because Lucas was getting the thing that
he wanted most in his life. In this moment Ben realized that if he wanted to have a real loving family he would have to change something. He had to do something,
but he didn't really know how to do this and there
was only one person who actually wanted to help. So, he decided to trust the boxing coach and he read the book. So the next day he went back
to the gym to see the coach. "So, did you finish the
book," the coach said? "Yes," Ben said. "Great, so are you more
of a horse or a rider?" And Ben took a deep breath
and said, "A horse." "Very good, do you want me to teach "you how to be more of a rider?" "Yes," Ben said. And it was in this moment when
Ben started on the journey to master his emotions, he learned what his emotions meant,
where they came from and why he was feeling them. And through the boxing coaches teachings he learned how to control his rage, his sadness, his passion through learning about the mental side of boxing. And in the next year Ben
had actually achieved what he wanted most in his life which was to get taken
in by a real family. It turned out that the boxing coach and his wife were talking about adopting a kid for the past few years. And the new and improved Ben
seemed like an appropriate fit. So, you were probably wondering what the book said about
the horse and the rider and I'm going to explain
it to you right now. The ancient Greeks had a
really profound metaphor for how emotions work within all humans and it is known as The
Horse and The Rider. The rider is our thinking self. It's the part of us that
plans and problem solves. It will tell you, "Hey,
I want to go that way." But, it's the horse that represents our emotional self and it provides the power for our journey. It's a wild animal that
compels us to take action. Without a rider it will move
impulsively without thinking and oftentimes it will
get us into trouble. Without the rider there is no
directed movement or purpose but, without the horse there
is now energy or power. The one without the other is useless. In most people the horse
dominates and the rider is weak. And Ben was an extreme example of that. But in some people the rider is too strong and it holds the reins too tightly and is afraid to let the
animal go into a gallop. The horse and the rider must work together and this means that we
consider our actions beforehand and we bring as much thinking as possible to a situation before we make a decision. But once we decide on something we loosen the reins and we enter action with boldness and a spirit
of adventure and power. And it's often hard for us to admit that we are the horse because, in order to master our emotions we need to understand why
we feel the way we feel which can often bring up
incredibly painful things from our past that we have buried deep inside our subconscious and most people go their whole lives
without facing these demons. So, my question for you is, do you think you're more of a rider or a horse? Check out my last video
about the simple trick that will motivate you for
life and I'll see you there.
