Listen To This And Change Your Future | Les Brown | Jordan Peterson | Motivational Compilation

birds of a feather flock together you run around with losers you will end up a loser unconsciously unconsciously you will pick up their ways you'll pick up their habits you'll pick up most importantly their attitude about life if you're around cynical negative people all the time you will become cynical and negative so you got to watch yourself many of us are living out the lives of other people living out their conclusions living out of their consciousness the other thing is that you begin to look at looking at your life and looking at what it is that you want to achieve another crucial thing that you must do is align yourself with powerful people align yourself with people that can encourage you people that can empower you people that you can learn from people that you can grow from that's very important so if you have people around you that can contribute to your growth when i want to become a speaker i join the national speakers association i wanted to be around the doctor norman vincent peales the zig ziglars the dwayne dyers i want to be around people that were doing what i wanted to do i want to learn from them and you want to do that too you want to align yourself with people who think like you people who dream like you people who want more out of life people that are stretching and searching and seeking some higher ground in life as opposed to the majority of people somebody said always strive to get on top in life because it's the bottom that's overcrowded and see you don't want to be on the bottom see it's easy to be on the bottom it doesn't take any effort to be a loser doesn't take any motivation any drive in order to stay down there on a low level but it calls on everything in you ladies and gentlemen you have to harness your will to say i'm going to challenge myself sometimes i have to pull myself out of bed so come on les things i know i should do i don't do things i shouldn't do i do i found that the biggest enemy you have to deal with is yourself there's an old african proverb that says if there's no enemy within the enemy outside can do us no harm you begin to look toward making this your decade is you begin to look toward making your life different as you begin to look at yourself you got to redefine yourself who are you right now and who must you become in order to create what you want what has to change about you what is it that you're doing right now that would be a liability for you as you begin to look toward the future and take inventory of yourself what is it about you right now that you've got to leave this behind because this no longer fits looking at where you want to go and the kind of person that you must become the kind of standards that you have for you what is it that you must do differently it makes sense unless you change your pattern unless you change the way you're thinking unless you change your behavior you're going to continue to produce the results in your life see all of us are winners but some of us are producing results that we don't want and so all you have to look at your game plan look at your strategy how is it that you have been being what is it that you've been doing to produce this so you're the director you're the producer you're writing the script you're the star of your life and as you begin to look at your life you can decide whether or not it's a smash or whether or not it's a flop that's in your hands look at your life look at where you want to go don't worry about your circumstances don't worry about your age have a friend who's up in age over 70 and she wanted to build a multi-million dollar complex the name is dr johnny coleman lenders and bankers say you can't do that you're too old she ignored them that building now stands ladies and gentlemen a multi-million dollar structure but there are a lot of people who would have listened to that that a lot of people that would not have even gotten to that point they would have talked themselves out of even going down to the bank to ask for it because they've already said no to themselves see it's time now if you want to make this your decade you've got to start saying yes to your life you've got to start saying yes to your dreams yes to your unfolding future yes to your potential as opposed to saying no see 87 percent of our self-talk is negative so you've got to make a conscious deliberate determined effort to say yes to your dreams why not why not me don't spend time like most people going through life complaining you got to learn to let the past go so you can grow many people never act on their dreams because they allow their past experiences to determine what their possibilities are whatever you've done in the past that's not a reflection of your possibilities that's just a reflection of your consciousness that's just a reflection of your development and your growth the future is unfolding for you right now the future is unlimited for you right now no one knows where you can go no one knows what you're what you're capable of what's possible for you you don't even know that i i had no idea ladies and gentlemen no one could have convinced me that i was able to do this i never forget i was speaking in detroit and a high school friend of mine saw me afterwards that he was backstage he said i can't believe it's the same person and i thought for a moment and i said it's not the person you know he go we have the power to change our personal history changing the direction of our lives changing our thoughts changing where we want to go exploring new horizons so you begin to look at this decade and affirming that this is your decade as you set goals that will make you stretch that will bring out the best in you as you begin to remove the negative toxic people from your life as you decide to take some chances in life and that's one of the things that's very important this god said if you're not willing to risk you cannot grow and if you cannot grow you cannot become your best and if you cannot become your best you cannot be happy and if you can't be happy then what else is there most people never achieve their goals because most people suffer from possibility blindness they look about they look around trying to think about the things that they don't have robert roots young man who wrote a book about success principles of the three little pigs he said is not what you don't have is what you think you need that keeps you from being successful or happy in life it's not what you don't have see i was focused on what i didn't have don't have a college degree don't have any credentials never worked for a major corporation i was focused on the negative things i said negative things are the things that you see when you're not focused on your goal what do you come with what is it a friend of mine dexter yeager said when the dream is big enough the odds don't matter i'm reminded of a great man when i was reading time magazine talking about some of the great minds of the last century they didn't mention his name dr howard thurman one of the mentors of dr martin luther king jr and also an advisor to mahatma gandhi and albert schweitzer and he said the ideal situation for man or woman to die is have family members standing around their bed praying with them as they cross over but imagine if you will being on your deathbed and standing around your bed the dreams given to you by life the ideas that you never acted on the talents the gifts the abilities that you never used and there they are standing around your bed looking at you with large angry eyes saying we came to you and only you could have given us life and now we must die with you forever and the question is if you died this very moment what will die with you what dreams what ideas what talent what leadership potential what greatness that you showed up to bring that you allowed fear or procrastination to hold you back perhaps that's why henry david thoreau wrote the words oh god to reach the point of death only to realize that you've never lived only to realize that you've never scraped the surface of your potential when you don't have a true appreciation and acceptance for who you are and you allow yourself to be immobilized by fear what happens in the process is that you begin to abuse yourself you begin to sabotage your life you begin to sabotage your dreams you begin to unconsciously work against yourself you become your own worst enemy so what do you do about that well you you begin to realize that your dream and your gifts have so much meaning and so much value for you tell your hunger for them will begin to push you past the fear your hunger to have them will give you a special drive as you work on yourself as you begin to acknowledge your true identity the true power that you have the true capacity you have to bring about change the miracle working power that you have within yourself to do the things that you want to do when you take them on i'm reminded of a man who this gentleman was doing a special study of a special tribe in africa headhunters and he had difficulty in developing a relationship with these tribesmen because of the fact that he had fear he had fear they would take his head so he worked there for a long time with no effort no progress in developing relationship and rapport and being able to achieve a level of trust so finally one night while he was in bed he was thinking about i said what what is it that you came here to do what does your life work as a missionary he said i wanted to study these tribesmen i said what's the worst thing that they can do to you kill you and he just decided hey this is what i came here to do i know that there's some risk involved and i'm going to do it come what may he said i'm not going to be afraid anymore he went back the next day and he started doing the work and trying to talk to and interview many of the members of this tribe and they began to respond to him they threw out the welcome that to him and years later when people came to see what his progress was they asked him how were you able to do this how did you convert the relationship from being hostile to that of being positive and he said something i think has value for all of us he said when life can no longer threaten you with death he said what else is there and the majority of the fears that we have are not life or death fears and not those kind of fears but through our imagination we blow them out of proportion and we give them more power than they actually have or deserve and we permit them to govern our lives we permit them to determine how far we can stretch out on our dreams and discovering our stuff and as we begin to look at ourselves and begin to wait a minute just getting to the point as you assess yourself and and begin to prove yourself and just say wait hold a minute hold a minute i've been sweating this out what can what's the worst thing that can happen to me on this will it kill me will i die why am i going through all of these changes over this how much power does this really have and am i the one that's feeding the power into it see a lot of times we we allow ourselves to be fed and to be programmed into to being a freedom you watch the news and read the newspaper you'll be scared to come out the house am i right you'll be afraid so what kinds of things what kinds of thoughts are you feeding your consciousness what kind of things are you putting in your mind that will enable you to either move forward or to justify why you're staying where you are i remember when i ran for state representative in columbus ohio and i had a lot of people telling me and you got to watch not only the conversation within but the conversation without telling me unless you can't possibly win you can't do that and i went down to the legislature and i saw myself i knew what i wanted i saw myself in the chair i pointed out the chair that i wanted i used to go and sit up in the galleries and watch the legislative process i used to go to the committee meetings and listen to legislation being introduced i learned how to write legislation how to amend legislation i start thinking like a legislator got up every day dressing thinking like that selling myself on it seeing myself in the legislature mr speaker i'm the gentleman from the 29th house district i'd like to introduce a bill i went in the legislature walk around i had the experience of it and when i ran and won against overwhelming odds they were shocked i won the election even before it was hell because i was living it in my mind you want to see yourself beyond your circumstances you got a challenge see yourself beyond your challenge see yourself with the challenge already resolved and knowing that all is well seeing yourself in control and in charge of your destiny being healthy and happy the next thing is it is important in the area of motivating yourself it's important to know why you're doing it because that mind will say why bother why go through all this this is too hard no throw in the towel it's not worth it has it ever said that to you before here's how you can handle that here's how you override that write down five reasons why you deserve it why do you deserve what you want why you why do you deserve it what meaning and value will it bring to your life what's so different about you that you deserve your goal or this goal and when you write down those five reasons when you have some down moments and you're going to have them when that conversation start talking to you and it's going to talk to you what you will do is you can pull that out and read it and it will build you up it will be your rod and your staff to comfort you through some challenging moments because you're going to have some life will knock you between the eyes it will catch you on the blind side come out of nowhere stuff you can't anticipate that will knock the wind out of you you want to give up that's why it's important for you to work on yourself listening to tapes building yourself up talking to yourself with power feeling and conviction building yourself up day in and day out because it's coming i guarantee you life is just waiting oh he's doing good now huh very good i remember i had an experience i was pursuing my dream and that's why you have to work on yourself you don't know what's going to happen and i was telling people i had this big rally i had to do was 5 000 people there and i said you must work on yourself if you want a larger vision you've got to empower yourself continuously because life will catch you on the blind side what are some of the self-defeating behaviors that we become involved in that prevent most people from enjoying themselves some people develop the what's the use attitude why bother some people have the i really don't care and they convince themselves that they don't care and they don't feel anything and after a while they really don't feel anything their lives are empty some people say well it's really not worth the hassle just too hard it doesn't bother me anymore the fact that i'm not living out my dream the fact that i'm capable of doing more and i'm not doing it the fact that i'm content but i'm not fulfilled the fact that i'm not living my dream tom ruskin randy reed in a book called i want to change but i don't know how said people go through life many times playing it safe he says that's the secret hope that they say to themselves if i never let myself feel too good maybe i'll never get hurt too badly a lot of people don't ever do the things they're capable of doing because they allow themselves to go along with the crowd following the crowd many people have things they want to do and and they find themselves in relationships with people who are addicted to mediocrity and they allow their behavior to influence their behavior following the crowd many people don't do it because of the fact that they allow their lack of self confidence to immobilize them i remember when i wanted to go into business for years i was an agonizing thought in my mind i wouldn't try because i didn't believe that i could make it of the five things that you would like to do if you have the courage to do i want you to pick one thing pick one and here's how to set it up for yourself that will help free you and get you unstuck what is the worst thing that can happen if you do it what's the worst thing that can happen let's say going into business for yourself or changing careers or getting a divorce taking some kind of chance of something that you've always thought about doing but you just haven't done it for whatever reason what's the worst thing that can happen do the worst case scenario now when you do the worst case scenario you write those things down the worst things that you fear would happen when you name your fears that puts you in control what are you afraid of name it write it out so you can look at it confront that fear what is it i'm afraid that things might work out what else last i well i've never been in business okay what else last um well i don't have all the help i need okay good what else les well i don't have enough money all right good what else last what i don't have a college degree uh-huh what else i'm not as good as those other guys that i've seen up there speaking okay what else well that's all i can think of right now okay good now that takes you to the next step what are the benefits one of the benefits of your acting courageously taking life on well part of what happened was that i felt better within myself and i had a strong sense of self-respect going into business for myself i made a lot of mistakes sometimes i was down on myself i felt stupid i felt dumb because people who were in business say why would you do something like that well i didn't know boy boy were you really dumb but the other thing is i had to say to myself but i did it i did even if i made a flop of it i did it i took the chance i took the leap what are the benefits of your acting courageously whatever it is that you've identified write the benefits down and then focus on them focus on the benefits not on the liabilities not on your fears focus on the benefits that which you hold in consciousness tends to manifest itself think about how good you feel think about the level increase self-respect the sense of self-worth that you'll feel how good you feel getting up in the morning looking yourself in the mirror because you're taking life on the other thing is acknowledge your fears and then go into action this book is called feel the fear and do it anyway that's it see i believe anybody who's ever done anything who's ever taken a chance doesn't mean that they are not afraid courageous does not mean being the absence of fear i think that being courageous is willing to do it because that's what you feel and you're going to do it anyhow regardless you're not going to be immobilized by your fears or your doubts you admit okay i'm scared to death now okay what is it that i must choose to do go ahead and experience that fear but don't let that fear immobilize you in what you've done with your life thus far is it giving you what you want is it giving you what you want when you look toward the future when you look at all this going on out here is there someplace within yourself you say hey i know i need to be out there in that arena i know i can do more than what i've been doing i know there's some great music that i have within me that i haven't brought out here is that something that you begin to look at within yourself see i say if you look at your life and if you're not getting what you want you owe it to yourself to do something differently you are if you're on a job 85 they say of americans go to jobs that they're unhappy if you're doing something eight hours a day that you don't like it's not giving you what you want it's not giving you a strong feeling of satisfaction and fulfillment you're miserable you hate to go there you're depressed just thinking about it you're saying that thank god it's friday song every week it's giving you headaches just thinking about it on sunday afternoon after the football game goes off if that's what it is you owe it to yourself to start strategically working to change directions see but you know what most people will do most people will resist change most people will fight change as if change would be worse than what they're experiencing when you're working on a dream at some point in time a transition takes place and the transition is is what you're becoming in pursuit of the dream [Music] because even if you don't get the dream you become such a strong and powerful person it will so change your life you can look at something else and say well i think i'll go do this then because you've now developed yourself in such confidence and such competence and how to deal in the arena of life that you can move into another area and not miss a b once you begin to discover who you are then you really realize how you have been given authority and dominion over everything on the face of the earth including all the dimensions of your life but you can only do that through the struggle of life and most people avoid the struggle most people go through life avoiding pain and when you go through life like that something in you dies something in you that you never activate is lying dormant in there that you never get a chance to call on because you have not challenged yourself somebody said the land of familiarity belongs to the dead that most people like to feel like they're king in the area of their comfort zone they only want to do those things that they know how to do well osborne said unless you attempt to do something beyond that which you've already mastered you will never grow so if you want to begin to grow you've got to put something out here that you can't reach easily that has got to make you stretch got to make you jump for it got to make you get back a little bit and dig in so that you can take a leap for it and maybe you jump up there and you miss it and you skin your knees and you come back again and you bust your lip next time but you keep on and through that process you learn how to leap higher you start challenging yourself to dig deeper and then you discover some things about you that you don't know right now some talents that you have in you that you didn't know that you can do i started out just talking to kids and now i'm speaking at corporations now i'm traveling i didn't know i can do this but had i not given myself a chance and i'm saying to you give yourself a chance here's something else if you want to begin to make your stuff happen for you i think that it's very important that you start trusting yourself listen to yourself listen to that still small voice within you don't try and make everything logical some things about life that defies logic that you just can't explain how the outcome is going to be that once you begin to trust yourself and your ideas and your instincts life takes on a whole new meaning because now i want you to do that feeling that you are led just feel i am led i remember the worst speech i had ever given in my life i let someone exploit a fear that i had for years i had a tremendous inferiority complex because i'm not college educated and this person knew this and she said let me write this speech for you you're going to speak at ohio state university those people are very educated there and they're going to know when you make grammatical areas and they're going to know because of the substance of your speech that you are not literate i i care about you i want you to embarrass yourself so this person proceeded to write a speech for me i had a speech in my mind but this person was stronger than i was negatively than i was positive about my own thoughts and i gave my power away with my permission i allowed this person to guide me to do something that i really didn't want to do but i didn't feel enough inner strength and conviction about my skills as a speaker and the message that i had to bring to stick by my guns and i got up there at the ohio union and i read this straight speech and did not move and did not take my eyes off the page because i'm not accustomed to reading and after i finished some people gave me a standing ovation because i read it extremely well and i was very tense and i was very nervous ladies and gentlemen don't give your power away you don't need anybody to approve your dream it was given to you if they can't see it it's because it wasn't given to them it was given to you hold it nourish it it work on it it's yours it's your baby work corner until it comes into fruition i gave way my power and i said i'm not going to do that no more here's something else for those who make it today do what you know is right treat people like you want to be treated don't try and take any shortcuts don't try and cheat pay your dues up front i believe ladies and gentlemen what goes around comes around you can pay now or you will pay double later so do the right thing there might be a tendency sometimes because of the negative part of our consciousness and our own programming for us to want to say well i just do it this time it won't matter won't nobody know ladies and gentlemen everything matters and you know you're somebody you know i rather lose out on my dream doing the right thing than the cheat trying to make a shortcut to get to my goal i want to be able to look myself in the mirror and that's what you want to do there's no saying judge a man not by what he does but by that that he doesn't have to do and the judge the true quality of a man is what do you do when nobody's looking see there's some good out there for you in the universe that has your name on it and nobody can get your good it has your name on it they can't take your stuff it's your stuff so when you know that when you know that whatever you're seeking it's also seeking you you don't worry you don't run scared you don't think somebody's gonna take it from you you listen to your inner voice and you always take the high road there will be the tendency the natural inclination to take the low road you must resist that here's something else i encourage you to do if you want to make it today keep your agreements keep your agreements that you make and establish a network of people who will also do that establish a network of people in your life that you can count on that will be there for you when you need them and you'll be there for them here's the other thing is working on your dream a lot of people have been calling me saying hey man i read about you in ebony boy you're lucky ladies and gentlemen let me tell you something here's something else three p's to have in your life and working on your dream and doing your life work you must be patient persistent and positive no matter what i called john h johnson for two and a half years to get in that magazine the first time i called him he wouldn't talk to me then i was persistent trying to find out who knew him that could invite me there to meet him or the opportunity to speak so that he could hear me and i met a guy who worked for him and i said hey i'd like to speak for you guys free i just want to know will he be in the audience they said yes good i spoke and i tried to tear the microphone up and he said after i finished hey young man you're quite impressive i'm gonna have my staff do an article on you i said thank you mr johnson and i sent him information on me federal express and it didn't happen waited for a month and it didn't happen waited for two months it didn't happen i start calling every month hello how are you man speak to mr johnson i'm sorry he's not available tell him les brown calling i just want to say thank you very much for the article when he puts it in i kept on doing it kept on calling kept on calling sending new articles sending new information on me kept on upgrading the information on me sending him thank you letters thank you mr johnson i was always positive i could have gotten negative saying where did you lie to me why you don't tell me you're gonna put me in the magazine and you didn't do it i could have got an attitude be positive no matter what because when you are negative ladies and gentlemen you're sending out negative energy and you're blocking your good so don't send out any negative energy don't take it personal i didn't care what he thought of me all the staff that i was a nuisance to them they get paid to deal with people like me see a lot of people have an idea or dream and they give up on it no no don't do that work your dream until it get hot see most things don't happen as soon as we think they should happen the messenger of misery might drop in on you and say hello murphy's law might come by and thump you on the head any number of things can happen to interrupt your flow it's okay don't take it personal just acknowledge what's going on it's called life and keep on working on your dream continue to keep on knocking keep on knocking because this is your life this is what you love this is your passion step back don't judge it if you judge it just not yet unless you be judged why because when you judge it you invest emotion in it and that emotion could be anger and guess what that hurts you that doesn't hurt anybody else one doctor said the man who angers me killeth me and then he allowed someone to egg him into an argument on the floor of the national medical convention and suffered a massive heart attack when you're in a state of anger you have so much acid in your blood if they withdrew some blood from you and inserted into a pig it would die from the acid so what do you want to take yourself out early for by internalizing things shakespeare said nothing is neither good nor bad but thinking makes it so so judge not according to appearances but write judgment and feel that everything is going to work out for you because you're patient you're persistent and you're going to be positive no matter what don't allow other things or people or circumstances to determine what your reaction is going to be i was out to dinner with some people and we had a waitress that was quite discourteous and rude and the people around me took a an attitude about it i learned how to observe life i think that in order to overcome life you've got to learn how to observe it just stand back and watch what's going on and choose not to buy into it i said excuse me ma'am i said do you know what tip stands for she said no i said tip stands for to ensure promptness we've been sitting here a long time i want to give you five dollars up front to ensure a prompt meal would you assist me she gave me the biggest smile and said of course i will and i said by the way i'm not with these people i'm going to be sitting at another table please put my mule over there serve them by themselves see i don't want to make anybody angry who goes behind closed doors to prepare my food oh no [Applause] so don't allow people to determine how you are going to respond to them or circumstances learn to look at it a friend of mine tom perkins handsome articulate man in his mid-fifties he had a tremendous business and at the height of his success someone was killed in his business he was sued and lost seven hundred and fifty thousand dollars lost his business lost his family lost his home everything he was devastated ladies and gentlemen he started living in his car he would wash up in a mcdonald's across from howard university on georgia avenue in washington dc he said les i was so depressed he said i had everything and then one day i lost it all he said i didn't want to live anymore he got some sleeping pills and he took over 35 sleeping pills and he laid down pulled his hands across his chest and he said he went to sleep to die two days later much to his amazement he woke up he couldn't even get that right i said what happened then tom he said an incredible thing happened he said he was laying there for a moment he said in a voice said to him inside his mind it wasn't your life to take that was one thing he said since that day when i get any major challenges i don't take it on myself personally i feel that i've got somebody with me he said i'll never leave you nor forsake you he said hey i said god you got to handle this for me this is too much for me he said i don't sweat the challenges of life repeat out to me please don't sweat the small stuff because it's all small stuff see whatever you worried about if someone called call you right now and say listen you got two days to live i'm telling you you won't be worried about your bills ladies and gentlemen you won't be worried about whether or not somebody loves you or cheating on you because you're about to check out okay so put things in perspective here's something else tommy said that i think is important he said that the voice also said to him if you change your ways i'll give you far more than you ever lost look at your life right now if you want to keep on getting what you're getting keep on doing what you're doing you've got to be willing to change your ways your life is working if you don't like what you have produced you're a director you are the star you wrote this script you produce this whatever it is if it's a hit you produced it if it's a flop you produced it take ownership of it and decide to go back to the drawing board and rewrite the script that you are the star of you have the power to do that on this day you can declare that i'm going to change as you look back on your life you can decide that i don't like what i produced here and i want higher ground i want to begin to experience more love i want to have more adventure in my life i want something that gives my life a sense of meaning ladies and gentlemen i've been selected to head up a program called project life in chicago training thousands of kids and i had the experience this we had our second session this past monday and to see these young people when they came in and to see the young people and the parents and the community volunteers when they went out one young man from the cabrini green housing projects who didn't want to be there who came up and said i want you to know i'm so glad to be here and he said i'll never be the same again he said thank you mr brown he said i just got to go now but thank you sir i'll never be the same again to see a letter i got from a young man who was in the cook county jail where i work on monday morning and this young man will not be out of jail for at least 50 years at least 50 years they gave him a hundred years this guy has shot at least 60 people that we know of and killed 10 at least and this letter he wrote he said since listening to your tapes he said i have not changed but i feel a different person in me over 70 percent of these young men are in there for murder we wanted to have a two-prone attack where we would train people on the outside and train those that are in the jails because i believe if you cage them like animals and treat them like animals and they're out on the streets every 22 months they're going to get out and act like animals and go back in like animals so we said let's take an approach this gives me my life this now this might be insane but i felt so good i believe ladies and gentlemen if we can accept the possibility of that this is the decade of consciousness that's what i believe that this is the decade of consciousness if you please a time where we can begin to create in folks minds the idea the possibility that we can create a more humane society the possibility that we can create more love communication and understanding in relationships the possibility that we can create the kind of respect for diversity and difference in our multicultural society the possibility that we can begin to develop the mindset to bring out the best in people to encourage them to achieve their greatness and support them in their dreams that if we can in this decade of consciousness to begin to see and envision that happening and that we all can play a role that we were born for such a time as this that we showed up for this that we survived one out of nine million sperms that we have been chosen for this great work here's something else to recognize wherever you are on the ladder of life and i was reading in dr norman vincent peale's latest book called the power of positive living which i think is his greatest work and he has something in there a section called comeback power wherever you are in life ladies and gentlemen you've got comeback power i don't care how long you are i don't care what you have done i don't care what you have experienced i don't care how devastated your life might appear to be the shambles it might be in there's a power in you that can enable you to be stronger and better than anything that's out here one man who came to the training he was not a kid and i knew he had a drinking problem and he was looking at me and i can smell alcohol on him i said excuse me come here come here come here he said what is it i said let me tell you something i want you to know you've got something in you that's stronger than that poison you're putting in your body do you understand me and he was looking he's backing up he said he said no i don't know he said i i don't know man i said it is i said that's why you're here something drew you here and that which caused you to come you said you want some help and you need to be around some people that can help you get in touch with your power because you know that your life deserves this see i think that the reason that we abuse ourselves with drugs and alcohol is that we're trying to numb something in us that's that's aching us that's that's urging us that's nagging us to do something bigger and better it can't be because it tastes so good that when we are deluding ourselves or polluting our minds it numbs us where we don't have to face reality because we don't know what we've got going for us see once you discover who you are the truth of knowing who you are will set you free from ever wanting alcohol from ever wanting any kind of drug that's going to destroy who you are once you begin to know who you are it will set you free from believing i can't see myself doing any better once you discover this power this the perfect essence of who you are that's in all of us that's permeating our being that enable us to be the directors of our lives a friend of mine did some work for me it was below par to say the least i knew that this guy was capable of doing better work i knew that he also had a fragile ego so i was trying to think of what is the most sensitive way in which i can share this information with him because i wanted him to do my work over i was going to pay him for what he did but i needed my work done right but i was afraid that i would hurt his feelings i was very very meticulous and i approached him and i said let me share this with you you know i care about you and that you are very talented and gifted person and you and i both know that what you have given me is not a true reflection of your talents and abilities and i'm saying let's go back in the studio and do this again and he said to me i'm going to forget you ever said that i was wiped out he never spoke to me again now when you decide to act you're going to have some people like that we're no longer friends i lost sleep over that ladies and gentlemen i said i can't believe that i remember setting up one night looking at the phone i said i gotta call him said no then i said don't forget that i caught man looking we've been knowing each other too long to allow this to come between us he said don't call me anymore hung up and then i i wanted to think about how what can i do to make it up to him and then something came to me less what do you have to prove see many things we don't do is because the fact we want people to like us there's some necessary losses in life when you decide acting in your best interest you're going to lose some friends everybody's not going to approve of you there are some people that won't like you who do you think you are you're arrogant what do you think you can do you think you get away with that you're selfish thanks i got that it's my life and so what i'm saying to you is that as you begin to look out on your life this is challenging this is not easy acting so what are the things that we can begin to do to harness our will number one you've got to bring it out and look at it you got to take the power out of it you've got to expose it to the truth and the truth is that it has no power over you so write down something you want to act on but for some reason that you've been holding back and look at it the next thing is ask yourself the question is it helping you to continue to put it off if it's an asset for you to continue to procrastinate then continue to do that but if it's a liability for you if it's causing you some mental and some emotional challenges or perhaps a financial problem look at that examine that for what it is next step ask yourself what's blocking you what's preventing you from acting why don't you have the courage to handle that why won't you face that what are you running away from what kind of avoidance behavior are you engaged in so what is the worst thing that can happen i want you to visualize that experience that feel the nervousness and the discomfort and the more you run it in your mind the less power that it will have when we look out on our lives you ask the question what are you going to do look at as you think about this that you know you need to handle what are you going to do and then write down three strong reasons on why you know you must take action and be explicit and descriptive in your reasons because your reasons have power your reasons will drive you when you have doubt when your faith becomes weak your reasons will fortify your faith when you have an inner conversation say no don't do that your reasons will become your rod and your staff to comfort you to take you through those challenging moments so write down your reasons and what you will find that when you decide to act when you decide to take life on and let me warn you it can be painful it will be uncomfortable and that's where the growth is when you're uncomfortable when you're stretching out when you're taking life by the collar you're going to get thrown to the ground again and again and again but when you have determination and you know that what you're doing is right it gives you your life it gives a special meaning and power to you you have some power from on heart you will discover some things about yourself that will begin to electrify your personality you begin to discover some things about you that you don't know you've got some people wish they could do better but some people expect to do better where are you on that let's look at what are the things we can do to increase our self approval our self appreciation our self acceptance here's number one love yourself make caring for you the highest priority in your life take care of you look out for what truly satisfies you we're not taught to love ourselves we're not taught to look out for ourselves we're not taught to take care of ourselves to become sensitive to our wants to our needs our desires so make a conscious effort make you number one priority your peace of mind your health is more important than your family and any and everybody because if you don't have peace of mind if you don't have your health you can't serve anybody don't neglect yourself a lot of us in particularly ladies have been groomed to be sacrificial lambs putting their dreams on the back burner in deference to their children's dreams or their husbands dreams or their families dreams and forget about themselves then become resentful and angry and bitter so start taking care of yourself looking out for you develop a health plan your health is all you got so start taking care of you eating nutritious meals willing to exercise your body taking care of this body loving yourself so do some good stuff for yourself on purpose take some time out for you i have some good things i do for me one of the things i enjoy that i do i take spiritual baths my assistant introduced me to someone called sister sarah who gave me my first spiritual bath never heard of this before she told me about it and i said come on come on regina spiritual bath and um sue my secretary's husband named larry he said a spiritual bath for fifty dollars i'll give you a spiritual shower but i play soft music i tape some of my favorite music i play i burn a candle and i have different oils that i put in the tub of hot water and i have flowers that i picked and i put i like you know i saw coming to america you know eddie murphy you know they were sprinkling little flowers on the ground so it gives me a feeling of royalty so i sprinkle these flowers in the water and i soak i like doing that and i soak and sometimes i read or just relax and enjoy the music and just cool out that's my time for me put the answering service on i just block out some time for me i'm into meditation i've been working and exercising now just doing some things for me taking care of myself mentally emotionally and spiritually and physically you can't develop and manifest your greatness you can't be a high achiever if you don't feel good you don't take care of yourself so i'm taking care of me and you know what it takes to edge off your life it helps you to manage things rather than allowing them to manage you gives you more personal power to deal with stuff take care of you now here's something else i suggest for you become aware of what your needs are and develop compassion towards yourself despite your human defects develop compassion for yourself despite your human defects you will never be perfect hello you will never be perfect you're human you've made a lot of mistakes you've done a lot of dumb stupid things guess what you're not through yet you're going to do some more hurry up and get it over with it's all right got to learn to be gentle with yourself make it all right what you don't know mistakes that you make it's okay handle it learn from the experience decide that you are going to whatever you become involved in to be up front to be true to yourself are you getting what you need out of it and be upfront with people and tell them what you need from them don't assume that they know don't say i thought you knew no tell people up front here's what i need from this in order for this to work for me be upfront with your stuff tell them up front so they're not surprised later on so your feelings aren't hurt later on see if they tell you up front they can't do it now you know you can keep on stepping but tell people up front here's what i want in order for me to play this game with you if we're going to dance this is what i got to get out of it see if you don't take care of your needs guess what you will always have that nagging song in the back of your mind say well when do i get mine [Music] you know if you take people and i've told you this and you expose them voluntarily to things that they are avoiding and are afraid of you take young people say they're 16 to 22 and they're not really feeling that good about who they are because their life is chaotic and in disorder and they don't know where they're going and [Music] you know if you take people and i've told you this and you expose them voluntarily to things that they are avoiding and are afraid of you know that they know they need to overcome in order to meet their goals their self-defined goals if you can teach people to stand up in the face of the things they're afraid of they get stronger and you don't know what the upper limits to that are because you might ask yourself like if for 10 years if you didn't avoid doing what you knew you needed to do by the deaf by your own definitions right within the value structure that you've created to the degree that you've done that what would you be like well you know there are remarkable people who come into the world from time to time and there are people who do find out over long periods what they could be like if they were who they were if they said if they spoke their being forward and they get stronger and stronger and stronger and we don't know the limits to that we do not know the limits to that and so you could say well in part perhaps the reason that you're suffering unbearably can be left at your feet because you're not everything you could be and you know it and of course that's a terrible thing to admit and it's a terrible thing to consider but there's real promise in it right because it means that perhaps there's another way that you could look at the world and the number another way that you could act in the world so what it would reflect back to you would be much better than what it reflects back to you now i often ask undergraduates how many hours a day you waste or how many hours a week you waste and the classic answer is something like four to six hours a day you know inefficient studying uh watching things on youtube that not only do you not want to watch that you don't even care about that make you feel horrible about watching after you're done that's probably four hours right there you know you think well that's 20 25 hours a week it's 100 hours a month that's two and a half full work weeks it's half a year of work weeks per year and if your time is worth 20 an hour which is a radical underestimate it's probably more like 50 if you think about it in terms of deferred wages if you're wasting 20 hours a week you're wasting 50 000 a year and you are doing that right now and it's because you're young wasting 50 000 a year is a way bigger catastrophe than it would be for me to waste it because i'm not going to last nearly as long and so if your life isn't everything it could be you could ask yourself well what would happen if you just stopped wasting the opportunities that are in front of you you'd be who knows how much more efficient 10 times more efficient 20 times more efficient that's the pareto distribution you have no idea how efficient efficient people get it's completely it's off the charts well and if we all got our act together collectively and stop making things worse because that's another thing people do all the time not only do they not do what they should to make things better they actively attempt to make things worse because they're spiteful or resentful or arrogant or deceitful or or homicidal or genocidal or all of those things all bundled together in an absolutely pathological package if people stopped really really trying just to make things worse we have no idea how much better they would get just because of that one of the things psychologists have done for the last 20 years especially the social psychologists has pushed this idea of self-esteem you should feel good about yourself and i think why would you tell someone 20 that it's like you should feel good about who you are it's like no you shouldn't why should you feel good about who you are it's like you should feel good about who you could be i'm not saying that people shouldn't have confidence but like often you take young people say they're 16 to 22 and they're not really feeling that good about who they are because their life is chaotic and in disorder and they don't know where they're going and they don't know which way is up but the thing is it has to be stated with precision it's like you should treat yourself as if you're valuable especially in potential but you should concentrate on who you should become especially if you're young and so let's say you're miserable and nihilistic and chaotic and depressed and all of that now and you have your reasons you know terrible parenting abuse all of those things it's like well you should feel good about yourself it's like no no it's not it's not the right message is that it's more like you should understand how much potential there is within you to set that straight and then you should do everything you can to manifest that in the world and it will set it straight and that's better than self-esteem it's like you're you're in a crooked horrible position okay fine there's a lot of suffering and pain associated with that yeah you can't just feel good about that because it's not good but you can do something about it you can genuinely do something about it and i think all the evidence suggests that that's the case so i'm telling telling young people look there's no matter how bad your situation is i'm not gonna pretend it's okay it's not okay it's tragic tainted with malevolence and some people really get hurt by malevolent people like you know terribly hurt sometimes they never recover it's really awful but there's more to you than you think and if you stand up and face it with with a positive with a with a noble vision with discipline and intent you can go far farther to overcoming it than you can imagine and that's the principle upon which you should predict your behavior and i think that one of the things that's really nice about being a clinical psychologist is that this isn't just guesswork like one of the things we know two things in clinical psychology one is truthful conversations redeem people because if you come to a clinical psychologist whose worth is solved you have a truthful conversation the conversation is well here's what's wrong with my life and here's what caused it you know maybe it takes a year to have that conversation and both of the participants are doing everything they can to lay it out properly here's how it might be fixed here's what a beneficial future might look like and so it's a completely honest conversation if it's working well and all that's happening in the conversation is that the two people involved are trying to make things better that's the goal let's see if we can have a conversation that will make things better okay so we know that works it does make things better and then another thing we know is that well let's say there's a bunch of things that you're afraid of that are in your way so you have some vision about who you want to be maybe you have to you know you want to be successful in your career so you have to learn to talk in front of a group it's like okay well you're afraid of that it's like no wonder you don't want to be humiliated so okay so what do we do about that well maybe we first get you to speak in front of one person and then three people you know for five minutes and then for 10 minutes like graduated exposure to what you're afraid of voluntary graduated exposure to what you're afraid of is curative and that's true it works the documentation is it it's how people learn so so to to to tell people that if you confront the world forthrightly if you speak the truth and you expose yourself courageously to those things that you're afraid of that your life will improve and so will the life of people around you like as far as i'm concerned that's as close to undeniable fact as we as we've got and it also dovetails nicely with the underlying archetypal stories the heroic stories it's like go out there find the dragon confront it it's a dragon it might eat you it's dangerous but it's worse to cower at home and wait for it to come and devour you go out there confront it get the gold share it with the community it's like yeah it's the oldest story of mankind what could you do to improve yourself well let's step one step backwards the first question might be why should you even bother improving yourself and i think the answer to that is something like so you don't suffer any more stupidly than you have to and maybe so others don't have to either it's something like that you know like there's a real injunction at the bottom of it it's not some casual self-help doctrine it's that if you don't organize yourself properly you'll pay for it and in a big way and so will the people around you now and you could say well i don't care about that but that's actually not true you actually do care about that because if you're in pain you will care about it and so you do care about it even if it's just that negative way you know it's very rare that you can find someone who's in excruciating pain who would ever say well it would be no better if i was out of this sort of pain is one of those things that brings the idea that it would be better if it didn't exist along with it it's incontrovertible so you get your act together so that there isn't any more stupid pain around you than necessary well so then the question might be well how would you go about getting your act together and the answer to that and this is a phenomenological idea too it's something like look around for something that bothers you and see if you can fix it so now you think well let's say they're let's say you go into uh you can do this in a room it's quite fun to do it just when you're sitting in a room like a room maybe your bedroom you can sit there and just sort of meditate on and think okay if i wanted to spend 10 minutes making this room better what would i have to do and you have to ask yourself that right it's not a command it's like a genuine question and things will pop out in the room that you know you like there's a stack of papers over there that's kind of bugging you and you know that maybe a little order there would be a good thing and you know you haven't there's some rubbish behind your computer monitor that you haven't attended to for like six months and the room would be slightly better if it was a little less dusty and the cables weren't all tangled up the same way and like if you if you allow yourself just to consider the expanse in which you exist at that moment there'll be all sorts of things that'll pop out in it that you could just fix and you know i might say well if you were coming to see me for psychotherapy the small easiest thing for us to do first would just be to get you to organize your room you think well is that psychotherapy and the answer is well it depends on how you conceive the limits of your being and i would say start where you can start you know if if something announces itself to you which is a strange way of thinking about it as in need of repair that you could repair then hey fix it you fix a hundred things like that your life will be a lot different now i often tell people to fix the things you repeat every day because people tend to think of those as trivial right you get up you brush your teeth you you have your breakfast you know you have your routines that you go through every day well those probably constitute 50 percent of your life and people think well they're mundane i don't need to pay attention to them it's like no no that's exactly wrong the things you do every day those are the most important things you do hands down all you have to do is do the arithmetic you figure it out right away so 100 adjustments to your broader domain of being and there's a lot less rubbish and there's a lot less rubbish around it a lot fewer traps for you to step into and so that's in keeping with jung's idea about erasing this once you've got your mind and your emotions together and once you're acting that out then you can extend what you're willing to consider yourself and start fixing up the things that are part of your broader extent now sometimes you don't know how to do that so you might say imagine you're walking down bloor street and there's this guy who's like alcoholic and schizophrenic and has been on the streets for 10 years he sort of stumbled towards you and you know incoherently mutters something that's a problem and it would be good if you could fix it but you haven't got a clue about how to fix that you just walk around that and go find something that you could fix because if you muck about in that not only is it unlikely that you'll help that person it's very likely that you'll get hurt yourself so you know just because while you're experiencing things announce themselves as in need of repair doesn't mean that it's you right then and there that should repair them you have to have some humility you know you don't walk up to a helicopter that isn't working and just start tinkering away with it you have to stay within your domain of competence but most of the time if people look at their lives you know it's very interesting thing to do i like that i like the idea of the room because you can do that at the drop of a hat you know you go back to where you live and sit down and think okay i'm going to make this place better for half an hour what should i do you have to ask and things will just pop up like mad and it's partly because your mind is a very strange thing as soon as you give it a name a genuine name it'll reconfigure the world in keeping with that aim that that's actually how you see to begin with and so if you set it a task especially you have to be genuine about it which is why you have to bring your thoughts and emotions together and then you have to get them in your body so you're acting consistently you have to be genuine about the aim but once you aim the world will reconfigure itself around that aim which is very strange and and it's it's it's technically true you know the best example of that you have all seen this video where you watch the basketballs being tossed back and forth between members of the white team versus the black team and while you're doing that a gorilla walks up into the middle of the video and you don't see it it's like you know if you thought about that experiment for about five years that would be about the right amount of time to spend thinking about it because what it shows you is that you see what you aim at and that man if you can get one thing through your head and as a consequence of even being in university that would be a good one you see what you aim at and so because one inference you might draw from that is be careful what you aim at right it what you aim at determines the way the world manifests itself to you and so if the world is manifesting itself in a very negative way one thing to ask is are you aiming at the right thing i read the story it was not a biography if i remember correctly of the of the captain i might be wrong about that but i've got the basic story right well they had a shipwreck in the antarctica and then they were there for a whole year in the antarctica you know and none of them died not one he didn't lose a single man not one he kept the morale high and then they took this boat that was on the ship and they crossed like 400 miles of the roughest ocean the roughest frigid ocean in the world right you don't go in that ocean and then they went to an island and they walked across the island across these mountains that no one else has ever climbed since and they went to the city on the other side of the island they got a boat and they went and rescued their compatriots and everyone survived it's like endurance is the name of the book you read that book man you think wow people are really tough you know and if it and it's ridiculous so who knows how tough you are and maybe you find out by going out to find out how tough you are right so you take on a challenge one that you think you can master just that's just a bit beyond your grasp and you master it and then you're a little tougher and you think hey that worked out pretty well and so then you're more of a monster and then you go out and you find another challenge that's even bigger and you think well maybe i can do that too and all of a sudden you can and you get a little bit bigger and god only knows what the limit is of you and you find out by pushing yourself against the world well let's talk about friendships for a minute here's how you know if someone's your friend a you can tell them bad news and they'll listen they won't tell you why you know you're stupid and why that bad thing happened to you and how something worse happened to them once and you know derailed the whole conversation you can actually tell them bad news and they'll listen so that's a good thing and then this is a weirder thing you can tell them good news and they'll help you celebrate and that's a really good way of deciding who you should have around you because if you have someone around you you know something good happens to you you're kind of afraid to even admit it because you know god something good happened to you it's like you let that be known it'll certainly be taken away so you know you you come out and you sort of tell someone half-heartedly that something good happened to you they give you a whack and then talk about you know the great thing that happened to them three years ago or worse the great thing that happened to someone that they knew three years ago you know it's like go away from that person they're not helpful to you and they're not helpful to themselves either and so you want to surround yours you got to think about this you got to surround yourself with people who want the best for the best part of you you can hang around with weasels and losers that are trying to pull you down to justify the fact that they're spiraling downhill as well and you know the upside of that is you don't have to have any responsibility and you can all whine about how wretched life is you know so that's pretty attractive but i would say it's also a bad medium to long-term plan and so it's it's acceptable and desirable to try to surround yourself with people who are facilitating your development you know and you might say well i've got people around i know them well you know they're they're they're not doing that well and and they're and they don't fit into that category it's like what's your point what are you gonna do with them exactly if they'll if they'll listen and cooperate with you and move towards a better future great if they don't pay any attention and they keep doing the same damn things over and over and they're not going anywhere and it's painful then maybe the proper thing to do is say you just have your misery i'll go off and have my life and maybe you'll wake up at some point in the future and think that's a better way of being because just putting up with it is all well they call that enabling right you put up with that sort of behavior you're providing tacit consent for it and even tacit approval it's like it's bad idea you have i would say both the right and the responsibility to surround yourself with people who are good for the best part of you when i talk to people about doing the future authoring program they often put it off and it's not surprising because it's hard and and but it's more than that they think well i don't know how to write i'm going to do a bad job i don't really like assignments i'm going to have to do it perfectly i need to wait till i have enough time and like one of those is enough to stop you cold and all five of them you're just done and so i tell people do it haphazardly a tiny bit at a time and badly because you can do that i tell my students when they're doing their thesis masters thesis write a really bad first draft and then we have a little conversation about that because they don't think i mean that because it sounds like a cliche in some sense it's not a cliche it's not a cliche at all it means you're a terrible writer but but if someone put a gun to your head and said you have to have your 100 page thesis done by next monday or i'll shoot you but i don't care how terrible it is you would sit down and write it and the thing is then you have it right then then you have something and then you can fix it you can iterate and fix it that bad first draft that's the most valuable thing and so that's what you need you need a bad first draft of yourself and there's there's an idea that jung developed about the trickster and the jester the comedian right that the trickster is the precursor to the savior that's one of the things i learned from jung that was just it's so unlikely you'd never think that it's so amazing that that might be the case but the the the the the satirical and the ironic and the and the troublemaker the comedian the fool the fool is the precursor to the savior why because you're a fool when you start something new and so if you're not willing to be a fool then you'll never start anything new and if you never start anything new then you won't develop and so the willingness to be a fool is the precursor to transformation and that's the same as humility and so if you're going to write your destiny you can do a bad first job you're going to get smarter as you move forward that's the thing is that so something beckons to you that's what happens here maybe the star that geppetto wished on was the wrong damn star but at least it was a star right at least it was in the sky at least it moved him forward and so you say in your life well something grips you and and and fills you with interest and you think well should i do that and the answer is if not that then something what if it's a mistake it's a mistake rest assured what do you know you're going to stumble around right and what's going to happen is this you're going to move to you're going to not stay in stasis you're not going to wander around in circles and i see people like that they said well i never knew what to do and now i'm 40. it's like that's not so good that's not so good and you might say well and there is a literature too that suggests that people are a lot more unhappy when they look back in their lives about the things they didn't do than they are about the mistakes they made while they were doing things and so that's really worth thinking about too because there's redemptive mistakes and a redemptive mistake would be a mistake that you make when you go out and try to do something you know you actually you think okay i'm going to try to do this and you're not good at it you make a bunch of mistakes it's like what what's the consequence if you pay attention is you're not quite so stupid anymore that's the thing is you've been informed by your by the results of your errors and so what happens is you you you follow the beacon you follow the light and and you're blind so you don't know where the light is it's it's dimly apprehended only and you're afraid to follow it but you decide to take some stumbling steps towards it and as you take stumbling steps towards it you become illuminated and enlightened and informed because of the nature of your experience because you're pushing yourself beyond where you are and you're going into the country that you have not yet been in and you learn something and so what happens then is the star moves you move 10 feet towards it you think no that's not right i didn't get it right it isn't there it's actually there and so then you you see it somewhere else and you shift yourself slightly and you move forward and that's what happens is that you continue as you change the thing that guides you forward moves right it's like god in the in the in the desert in egypt the pillar of light that you're following it's moving it's not a permanent thing you move towards it it moves away it guides you forward and so you say well is what i'm aiming at paradise itself and the answer to that is no because what do you know you you couldn't see paradise if it was right in front of you but you might get a glimmer of it and so you move towards it and you grow and then the next time you open your eyes you see a little bit more clearly and that's what happens is that just happens over and over right it keeps moving and so you move like this but the thing that's so cool is that all those zigs and zags you say and each of those zags and zigs there's a catastrophe i hit a wall my god and then i had to die a little bit and i barely got back up it's a phoenix transformation at each at each turn and it's painful but the thing is is that even though you've you've traveled 20 miles let's say on that road and you've only moved three miles forward you've moved three miles forward instead of falling backwards because that's the thing too is that if you stand still you fall backwards you cannot stand still because the world moves away from you if you stand still and there's no stasis there's only backwards and so if you're not moving fast back forwards then you're moving backwards and that's more more of the underlying truth of the matthew principle to those who have everything more will be given from those who have nothing everything will be taken it's a warning do not stay in one place well as you zig and tag maybe then maybe the cataclysm of each transformation starts to lessen there's not so much of you that has to die with every mistake and maybe you end up oriented at least reasonably properly and if you were sensible that would have been your trip but it wasn't right it's that and perhaps it's a lot worse than that perhaps there's no shortage of backtracking but it doesn't matter because as you stumble forward you you illuminate and inform yourself and perhaps that's partly because the world is made of information and if you encounter it and tangle with it then it informs you and then you become informed and then you're in formation and then you're ready well you should be afraid of taking risks and pursuing something meaningful but you should be more afraid of staying where you are if it's making you miserable it's like the first thing you want to do is dispense with the idea that you get to have any any permanent security outside of your ability to contend and adapt it's the same issue with children it's like you're paying a price by sitting there being miserable you might say well the devil i know is better than the one i don't it's like don't be so sure of that the clock is ticking and if you're miserable in your job now and you change nothing in five years you'll be much more miserable and you'll be a lot older now i'm not talking about what makes you happy it's a luxury to pursue what makes you happy it's a moral obligation to pursue what you find meaningful and that doesn't mean it's easy it might require sacrifice if you need to change your job too let's say you have uh family and and and children and a mortgage you have responsibilities you've already picked up those responsibilities you don't just get to walk away scot-free say well i don't like my job i quit that's no strategy but what you might have to do is you think well this job is killing my soul all right so what do i have to do about that well i have to look for another job well no one wants to hire me it's like okay maybe you need to educate yourself more maybe you need to update your your curriculum vita your resume maybe you need to overcome your fear of being interviewed maybe you need to sharpen your social skills like you you have to think about these things strategically if you're going to switch careers you have to do it like an intelligent responsible person that might take you a couple of years of of effort to do properly i i think it's more important to to have a an ethos an ethic so i have a program for example called the future authoring program which is a writing program that enables people to develop a vision for their life and then to develop a strategy and so it's based on the idea imagine that and it's an extension of the ideas in the book or at least something along the same lines the first thing that you want to do is figure out imagine you were taking care of yourself like you were someone you cared for which is rule number two by the way essentially then you should figure out well if you could have what you needed and wanted what would it be what sort of friends would you have what would your family relationships look like how would you conduct yourself with your children how would you educate yourself you need to think through how it is that your life could be properly arranged if you had that ability and then you can aim at that and the funny thing is is that if you do posit a goal of that sort and work towards it you will move towards it the goal will change because you'll learn things along the way but i mean i've i've dealt with hundreds of people in my clinical and consulting practice and we set a goal we develop a vision and work towards it and it things inevitably get better for people so it's not a luxury it's it's difficult it's a moral responsibility and it isn't happiness it's it's not the pursuit isn't for happiness i've dealt with lots of people who have anxiety disorders you know and one thing about people who have anxiety disorders is they are not mysterious to me i understand it's no problem for me to understand why people have anxiety disorders or why they're depressed or why they have substance use problems the mystery to me is always why people don't have all of those things at once because everybody has a reason to be anxious in fact we have the ultimate reason to be anxious because we know that we're vulnerable and we know that we're going to die and how you cannot be anxious under those circumstances is a great mystery it's a massive mystery and the same thing applies with regards to depression and then the same thing applies to some degree with regards to drug and alcohol abuse as i said last week there's plenty of reasons to drown your consciousness in alcohol that's for sure we could refer to the aforementioned anxiety and depression not least and so and the and the sorts of drugs that people are prone to take are chemicals that take the affective edge off the tragedy of life back to back to the issue of of fear abraham is self-conscious that's what this commentary says but the thing is is he moves forward despite that he's self-conscious and he knows the danger but he moves forward despite that and that's actually the appropriate response in the face of actual non-naive understanding of what constitutes life like if you're naive and you move forward it's like well what the hell do you know you know there's no courage in naivety because you don't know what there is to stop you you don't know what dangers you might apprehend but to be aware of what it is that your problem is so to be alert existentially let's say or to be fully self-conscious means that you're perfectly aware of your limitations and how you might be hurt and then to make the decision to move forward into the unknown and the land of the stranger anyways that's the i would say that's one of the secrets to a good life the clinical literature on this is very very very clear what you do with people who are afraid and and to some degree depressed but certainly anxious is you lay out what what they're anxious about first of all in detail what is it that you're afraid of what might happen and then you decompose it into small problems hypothetically manageable problems and then you have the person expose themselves to the thing that they're afraid of and what happens isn't that they get less afraid that isn't what the clinical literature indicates exactly what happens instead is they get braver and that's not the same thing right because if you get less afraid it's like well the world isn't as dangerous as i thought it was you know silly me if you get braver that's not what happens what happens is yeah the damn world's just as dangerous as i thought or maybe it's even more dangerous than i thought but it turns out that there's something in me that responds to taking that on as a voluntary challenge and grows and thrives as a consequence and there's no doubt about this even the psychophysiological findings are quite clear if you if you can if you impose a stressor on two groups of people and on one group the stressor is imposed involuntarily and on the other group the stressor is picked up voluntarily the people who pick up the stressor voluntary voluntarily use a whole different psychophysiological system to deal with it they use the system that's associated with approach and challenge and not the system that's associated with defensive aggression and withdrawal and the system that is associated with challenges much more associated with positive emotion and much less associated with negative emotion it's also much less hard on you because the the defensive posturing system the prey animal system man when that thing kicks in it's all systems are go for you you know your the gas is pushed down to the or the pedals push down to the metal and the brakes are on you're using future resources that you could be storing for future time right now in the present to ready yourself for emergency so there's there's there's nothing simple or tricky at all about the idea of being called to move forthrightly forward into the strange and the unknown and there's a real adventure that's associated with that right so that's an exciting thing which is part of the reason why people travel and then also to see yourself as the sort of creature that can do that is willing to do that on a habitual basis is also the right kind of tonic for i hate this word for your self-esteem you know because the self-esteem has nothing to do with feeling good about yourself as i already mentioned there isn't necessarily a reason why a priori you should just feel good about yourself but if you can view yourself acting in a courageous and forthright manner and encountering the world and trying to improve your lot and and and taking risks you know in a non-naive way well then you have something that you can comfort yourself with at night when you're wondering what the whole damn point of is of your futile and miserable life and so and that's necessary because it's often the case that you wake up at four in the morning or at least sometimes the case that you wake up at four in the morning when things haven't been going that well and wonder just what the hell the point is of your futile and miserable life you have to have something real to set against that it can't be just rationalizations about how you know you're a valuable person among others even though that's true that's not good enough you need something that's more realistic to set against that and observing courage in yourself is definitely one of the things that that that can help you sleep soundly at night when when things are destabilized a little bit around you do you have problems in your life that you're not addressing that you could solve and answer is yes and it's an easy thing to figure out you sit on your bed one morning and say okay there's some things that need to be done that i don't want to do that i could do that would make things better by the end of the day what are they right there there are things that are within your graph that you could fix fix them and you'll learn you'll learn because it's harder than it looks fix them and you'll learn how to fix things and then something else will beckon as another problem that you could fix you know you all have your problems what does that mean like there's an infinite number of problems in the world some of them happen to be yours why is that i don't know exactly but you have your problems great solve them you know one other thing i learned as a therapist every therapist has to learn this is because one of the things you wonder when you're first starting to be a clinician is how do you not take the catastrophes of your clients home with you and the answer to that is because it's immoral to they're not your problems they're their problems like their their their life you know your problems are your life you don't want to solve someone else's problems for them because you take away the the deep meaning that's to be found in having them work through the problems on their own and then you steal the credit well i can help you with that it's like well yeah maybe but i don't help you with the next problem then so in any case you sort sort out the problems that are right in front of you and you will it will make you grow very very rapidly and then you'll be able to sort out more complex problems without making them worse let's say that you go to a party and you're trying to impress the people that are there and you're trying to get them to like you and so you maybe get jabbed out a little bit and you laugh and you know you're you go along with everyone so that they like you and then you go home and you're bitterly resentful about the way that you were put down at this party and that's gonna make all sorts of aggressive i wish i could have said it's gonna make all sorts of aggressive and venge vengeful thoughts sort of flash through your imagination well the first part of the problem is that you were too much persona right you sacrificed yourself in some sense at the party so that people would like you and in the second part you're refusing to admit to the existence of those elements of you that would have actually protected you from doing that so let's say you go home and you're all bitter and resentful and you have fantasies of revenge i mean that reveals to you the shadow part of you that's aggressive and the thing is you actually need that because if you would have integrated that more successfully into your personality when you went to the party you wouldn't have had let you wouldn't have had to let people put you down to get them to like you you know instead of having a face like this which says i'll take anything that's coming my way you know you have a face and a stance that's more determined and assertive and if you manifest that properly people aren't going to mess with you to begin with but you know you may have already adopted a morality that says well i have to be likable and i shouldn't do anything that causes any conflict and i shouldn't ever you know hurt anybody's feelings and so you just present yourself as a punching bag and you think that that makes you a good person but it doesn't and there's no integration of the shadow in that situation we're having a conversation i'm deciding i'm going to listen to you right that's different than people how people generally communicate because usually when they communicate they're doing something like okay we're gonna have a conversation and i'm gonna tell you why i'm right and all win if you agree or maybe you're having a conversation where i don't know what you're trying to do maybe you're trying to impress the person you're talking to so you're not listening to them at all you're just thinking about what you're going to say next okay so that's not this this is you might have something to tell me and so i'm going to listen on the off chance that you'll tell me something that would really be useful for me to know and so you could think about it as an as an extension of the piagetian you know piaget talked about the fundamental the fundamentally important element of knowledge being to describe how knowledge is sought the process by which knowledge is generated well if you agree with me and i find that out i know nothing more than i knew before i just know what i knew before and maybe i'm happy about that because you know it didn't get challenged but i'm no smarter than i was before but maybe you're different than me and so while i'm listening to you you'll tell me something i wouldn't i don't like maybe it's something i find contemptible or difficult whatever maybe you'll find you'll tell me something i don't know and then i won't be quite as stupid and then maybe i won't run painfully into quite as many things and that's a really useful thing to know especially if you live with someone and you're trying to make long-term peace with them is they're not the same as you and their way they look at the world and the facts that they pull out of the world aren't the same as your facts and even though you're going to be overwhelmed with the proclivity to demonstrate that you're right it is the case that two brains are better than one and so maybe nine of the ten things they tell you are dispensable or maybe even 49 out of 50 but one thing all you need to get out of the damn conversation is one thing you don't know and one of the things that's very cool about a good psychotherapeutic session is that the whole conversation is like that all you're doing is trying to express the truth of the situation as clearly as possible that's it and so now roger's proposition and i'll tell you why he derived it was that if you have a conversation like that with someone it will make both of you better it'll make both of you psychologically healthier so there's an implicit presupposition that the exchange of truth is curative well that's a very cool idea i mean it's a very deep idea i think it's the most profound idea it's the it's the idea upon western civil upon which western civilization although not only western civilization is actually predicated the idea that truth produces health but for rogers that was the entire purpose of the psychotherapeutic alliance you come to see me because you want to be better you don't even know what that means necessarily neither do i we're going to figure that out together but you come and you say look things are not acceptable to me and maybe there's something i could do about that so that's the minimal precondition to engage in therapy something's wrong you're willing to talk about it truthfully and you want it to be better without that the therapeutic relationship does not get off the ground and so then you might ask well what relationships are therapeutic and the answer to that would be if you have a real relationship it's therapeutic if it isn't what you have is not a relationship god only knows what you have you're a slave they're a tyrant you know you're both butting heads with one another it's a primate dominance hierarchy dispute oh i don't know you're like two cats in a barrel or two people with their hands around each other's throats but what you have is not a relationship so all right we may say that the greater the communicated congruence of experience awareness and behavior on the part of one individual that's that's a reference to the same idea that i was describing with regards to jung so let's say you come and talk to me and you want things to go well well i'm gonna have to more or less be one thing because if i'm all over the place you can't trust any continuity in what i say there's no and you there's no reason for you to believe that i'm capable of actually telling you i'm capable of expressing anything that's true so the truth is something that emerges as a consequence of getting yourself lined up and beating all the all the impurities out of your out of your out of your soul for lack of a better word you have to be integrated for that to happen and you do that at least in part by wanting to tell the truth the more the ensuing relationship will involve a tendency towards reciprocal communication with the same qualities so one of the things that i've been quite influenced by rogers one of the things i try to do in my therapeutic sessions is first of all to listen to really listen and then well while i listen i watch and while i'm listening things will happen in my head you know maybe i'll get a little image of something or i'll get a thought or a question will emerge and then i'll just tell the person what that is but it's sort of directionless you know it's not like i have a goal except that we're trying to make things better i'm on the side of the person i'm on the side of the part of the person that wants things to be better not worse and so then we those parts of us have a dialogue and the consequence of that dialogue is that certain things take place and then i'll just tell the person what happened and it isn't that i'm right that's not the point the point is is that they get to have an hour where someone actually tells them what they think here's the impact you're having on me you know this is making me angry this is making me happy this is really interesting this reminds me of something that you said an hour ago that i don't quite understand and the whole the whole point is not for either person to make the proposition or convince the other that their position is correct but merely to have an exchange of experience about how things are set up and it's extraordinarily useful for people because it's often difficult for anyone to find anyone to talk to that will actually listen you

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Id: fbkIdgU33_0

Length: 96min 34sec (5794 seconds)

Published: Tue May 25 2021