PNTV: What to Say When You Talk to Yourself by Shad Helmstetter, Ph.D. (#231)

hi this is Brian welcome back to philosophers notes TV today another great book what to say when we talk to ourselves what to say when you talk to yourself shad Helmstetter PhD this book was recommended by Lani Basham who wrote with winning in mind Lanny's a gold medal winning Olympian and he's all about self-image and a big part of self images the dialogue you're having with yourself and the imprints you're making on your subconscious mind so we recommend this book picked it up I'm glad I did it's awesome philosophers note bunch of big ideas five of them here let's jump straight in first big idea is the fact that the quality of our lives is going to be determined by the quality of our programming so how we talk to ourselves is largely determined by the underlying programming we have most of us are unconscious we're running old bad programs right and shad talks about the fact this is 1982 he says think of the computer computers are very cool and new in 1982 he says you have a monitor which is kind of how you show up in the life you have your keyboard which is kind of how you control the inputs right the behaviors etc and then you have a floppy disk a floppy disk for those of you who recall floppy disks hi-5 is where the program is where the software is right so you need to use the keyboard your thoughts behaviors to program your software properly because if you've got bad programming it's going to go through everything and your life or the computer in this metaphor your life is not going to be what you want it to be so to upgrade that metaphor our operating system imagine that you're trying to run your life on an operating system that was designed in 1982 you're going to have a tough time doing a whole heck of a lot with a modern computer on software an operating system that was created 30 years ago right but most of us live our lives that way we have hand-me-down program and we've been conditioned from a very young age to relate to world in certain ways and we need to go in and replace that operating system that program we need to upgrade it he says the programming drives your beliefs which drives your attitudes which drives your emotions which drives your behaviors so if you want to change all about you get to start with your programming and the best way to do that is via your self-talk self-talk capital S capital T self-talk it's basically what the book is all about he says there are five levels of self talk roughly the first level of self talk is negative it's things like god I'm an idiot where I'm so tired or I just can't do that alright I used to be able to do that I can't now negative he says unfortunately most people operate predominantly at a level one of self talk negative not good your life is going to be suboptimal if that's the programming those are the thoughts and that's a program that's running the show he says you need to identify that then move up the second level is a little bit better but it's still negative which is I should not do that I shouldn't smoke okay well that's better than I'm an idiot I'm a smoker you're at least making a little bit of progress there right but you identified the problem but you didn't identify a solution the third level is a little better than the second which is I'm never going to smoke again right I'm not going to procrastinate anymore okay well you're making a declaration in a more positive direction than thinking you're just a procrastinator and totally negative we're seeing that you should do something you've made a declaration going to do it that's the third level the fourth level is a positive declaration of who you aspire to be I am the type of person who does what I say I'm going to do that's like me to get things done you can imagine your litany of things right I'm a healthy energized vital person and I'm excited about life that's ass that's a level four level of self-talk now level 5 is more mystical and spiritual and you're connected to the university cetera Schad says focus on level 4 let level 5 be a byproduct because if you don't have a good relationship with yourself you don't have to be SiC fundamentals down you kind of go in a little ahead of the game to try to connect to the ultimate source the way to do that is to get healthy on the most basic mundane level which is what he says in which I agree with that's self talk and one of the things he does from a practical perspective is to identify the top 10 things you say to yourself that are most negative so for 48 hours listen to what you say to yourself when you are talking to yourself what do you say he says look if you can't come up with 10 things you're not trying hard enough all of us have issues make an inventory and then get to work and basically he goes through it in the book and I talk about it a little bit in the notes but identify your negative self-talk and then replace it with positive affirmative present tense self-talk not just one phrase but a bunch of phrases if you feel afraid and worried etc write down a ton of positive affirmations about who you aspire to be read that three times a day that's the basic idea of self-talk now the next big idea is the to use why should you even care about this stuff whether it's self-talk or all the other optimal living ideas we talked about well he says imagine two versions of you one version runs on the old programming you just keep on doing what you've been doing imagine that version of you fast forward into the future then imagine the version of you that's dialed in the self-talk that's dialed in all the other habits that we talked about even a fraction of the ones we talked about now fast forward that version of you these a V this version of you who do you want to bet on which one do you think is going to create more happiness meaning and mojo and purpose and all that good stuff in their lives of course the one that's learned to talk to yourself as powerfully as you can so get a deep sense of the why and realize there's so much opportunity to grow if we're willing to make the courageous decision and do the work to change our lives that's the third big idea fourth big idea shower talk this is pretty funny so self-talk is basically these affirmative statements from the fourth level of self-talk right I am this type of person that we read or we can listen to our recording of ourselves or someone else reading these things right that's self-talk and the things we repeatedly say to ourselves many says there's self conversation of which shower talk is one example self conversation where you actually engage in a dialogue with yourself and the reality is you already have all the wisdom you need I'm passionate about studying and learning because I see different nuances that basically affirms or unpacks things I already know but if you and I never read another book or thread it watch another video or did whatever we pretty much already have the wisdom in us to live an extraordinary life the question is are we tapping into that as frequently as we can and one way to do that is via self conversation I'll talk about that more in a moment but for now let's imagine this little experiment tal ben-shahar in his great book happier says imagine that you jump into a time machine this is today and this version of you can go hang out with the hundred and ten year-old version of you right today hop in a time machine you travel forward and you get to hang out with a hundred and ten year old version of you for 15 minutes what would that version of you say - this version of you it's a powerful conversation they want to actually do that spend 15 minutes with your journal or with whatever thinking about what that version of you what wisdom would they impart to you and tall ben-shahar point is that a lot of people who get a life-threatening diagnosis suddenly change their lives it's not because they consumed more information it's because they finally tapped into the wisdom that was already there and they decided to live it to move from theory to practice with that catalyzing event so a little micro way we can do that day in and day out is to have a conversation with yourself you're having a challenging time literally say hey Brian yes Brian go back and forth I'm having a challenging day today other Brian oh man I'm sorry to hear that what can you do right now that would help you have a better day you got it you just need to change your focus a little bit maybe you need to change the behavior what is it what's the one thing you could do right now that make you feel great and then this Brian would say Oh a great question huh you know what I need to do I need to stand up I need to stretch I need to take a deep breath I'm going to go for a hike I'm gonna hang out my family where I'm going to do that thing I said I was going together I've been putting off that's been draining me whatever it is that opportunity to have a conversation with yourself self conversation is a really cool way to tap in your wisdom and then he's got a super funny way shower talk when you actually get into the shower and you just kind of have this awesome conversation with yourself hey he says hey shad how you doing I'm doing great I feel terrific better than ever he goes back and forth a bit uh awesomely wacky yet he says that's an amazing way to start your day versus the normal dialog you have of a man I feel so tired I got to do all this stuff what we say to ourselves matters choose wisely in these two years that's the fourth thing I did the fifth one is shad tells us the greatest challenge we're ever going to have in our lives is to dial in our minds it's driving the whole show as we discussed via the programming that's the greatest challenge you have is to master your mind and it's also the greatest gift you can ever give yourself give anyone is the gift of mastering your own mind greatest gift you're going to give the greatest gift you're going to receive so imagine these two versions of you and have compassion have love for the future version of you in enough of it to discipline yourself now to create a life that the future you is going to look back and go thank you wow you made my life awesome when you decided to change and you recommit and recommitted and recommended and I wouldn't be here today without you making those decisions then so this is your biggest challenge get your mind right this is why this is principle number one in optimal living 101 optimism mental strength we've got to discipline ourselves and do the work to get control of that little monkey swinging in your mind so self conversations shower talks for one way to do it the two years self-talk different levels right we want to be affirmative I am this type of person repeat that to yourself throughout the day change your programming upgrade from those floppy disks and tap into the wisdom of the hunt ten-year-old version of you hope you enjoyed I look forward to sharing with you soon see you hi this is Brian I hope you enjoyed that pee and TV episode a lot of people don't know all the stuff I do be on these free videos I share on YouTube so I thought I'd do a quick video to give you an overview of our membership program you can get access to and get a ton of other stuff so here's the quick look 10 bucks a month join the optimal living membership program you get instant access to 250 philosophers notes on some of the best optimal living books out there old-school classics positive psychology modern stuff mindfulness peak performance purpose neuroscience wealth etc in what you may not know is that in addition to the p-n TV episodes I create PDFs on all these great books so 6 page PDFs let's take a look at one of them Joseph Campbell you want to figure out how to live your hero's journey well this is a great place to start I basically pull out my favorite Big Ideas riff on them connect them to other books and other ideas and help you apply this wisdom to your life today that's what the PDF looks like again we have 250 of these on all these different grade books and then I record those PDFs as an mp3 so you can listen to that mp3 while you're on a walk or work it out or doing these commands or whatever that is philosophers notes a lot going on there and then in addition to philosophers notes you get access to optimal living classes off to women 101 idea here is that all those great teachers come back to the same big ideas again and again and again I distill those ideas into classes super practical fun inspiring classes ranging from habits 101 confidence 101 getting stuff done 101 meditation 101 instant access to all those classes and then future classes include relationships 101 energy 101 purpose 101 business goals etc those are full length classes and then I create micro classes two to three to five-minute little bursts of wisdom on my favorite great ideas from these great books across the domain is that you want to optimize in your life so we have 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Channel: Brian Johnson

Views: 149,256

Keywords: What to Say When You Talk to Yourself, Shad Helmstetter, Brian Johnson, PhilosophersNotes

Id: zCxtPcMCXAo

Length: 14min 1sec (841 seconds)

Published: Tue Jul 07 2015