[MUSIC PLAYING] BARRY MICHELS: So I'm going
to start with a story. This couple walks
into my office. Marty. Susan. They seem like a nice couple. They're seeking
psychotherapy because they're having trouble with their
teenage daughter, Ashley, who is spending too
much money on clothes. I'm thinking this is going
to be a pretty easy case. I'll just teach them
how to set some limits. They'll probably blow it
the first couple of times, but then they'll come back in. We'll work with them,
and we'll be done. Maybe a month. Maybe a month and a half. So Susan starts the action off. She turns to Marty
and she says, I promised Ashley I wouldn't
tell you what she did. Marty says, see, Doc. This is the problem. I want to solve the problems. She just wants to
hide the problems. Solve problems? You are the problem. Your temper is the
reason I had to promise Ashley I wouldn't tell you
she stole money from my purse. Our daughter is
turning into a criminal and you keep it
a secret from me? This is why a whole
house is out of control. He says he doesn't
want any secrets. But every night, he goes
out to the card clubs and gambles away
our life savings. And what are you doing at night? Dragging a tub of ice
cream out of the freezer. I only started
gambling, so I wouldn't have to watch you
stuff your fat face. So this was going to be a
tad more difficult than I had initially anticipated. Everybody in the family had
a problem with self-control. Marty had a temper, gambler. Susan had an eating problem,
couldn't stop herself from confiding in her daughter. And their daughter,
Ashley, was really falling through the cracks. I mean, she was
spending too much money. She was also lying and stealing. So things were
beginning to fall apart. So why am I telling you all
of this besides the fact that I need practice
on my accents? I'm telling you this
because everybody in this room, everybody
in the entire world, has a problem
experiencing impulses that they can't control. Yours might be updating
your Facebook page, or mine is checking political
news every five minutes. It might be buying stuff
that you don't need. Or your impulses might come
in the form of reactivity, like flipping people
off in traffic or overreacting when
somebody disses you. Now, what I'm going to
do today is teach you a tool that will
enable you to restrain, to control your impulses,
whenever they come up. An in order to learn the
tool what I want you to do is pick an impulse
that you generally have a hard time with. So just close your
eyes for a moment and pick an impulse that
you typically give in to. It's hard for you to resist. It might be eating sweets,
texting while you're driving, calling an ex-lover
when you're lonely. Whatever it is, just
pick one for right now. And recreate the
impulse right now as if it's happening in real time. And feel the impelling
quality of it. And you can open your
eyes when you're ready. So I'd just like you
to share with me, what impulse did you choose? Yeah. AUDIENCE: When I come home into
the garage, my son's there. And there's this ash
tray full of cigarettes. And he's telling
me about his day, how great he's doing in school. And instead of acknowledging
it, the first thing I can think of that ash
tray is driving me crazy. Can he just throw that away? And then I realize, I should
have listened to him more, acknowledge what he
has to say to me. And this [INAUDIBLE] minor
thing, smoking cigarettes. BARRY MICHELS:
And how about you? Is there an impulse
that you actually experience where you have a
hard time controlling yourself? AUDIENCE: That was it. BARRY MICHELS: Oh, these
were your cigarettes? AUDIENCE: No, his cigarettes. And that I'm reacting
to him impulsively. BARRY MICHELS: Oh. It's really hard for you
to restrain your reaction? Got it. OK, thank you for clarifying. And what is the price
that you pay when you give in to that impulse? Does it create an
argument between the two? AUDIENCE: No, never
create an argument. It just shuts him down. Like, I want to talk to my dad
about how great school is going and he's talking
about cigarettes. BARRY MICHELS: Got it. So you're kind of hitting
him with something negative when he's trying to-- that's great. That's a great example. And it's also a
really good example of how despite the price-- and you kind of know because
it's happened before, we still give in
to these impulses. AUDIENCE: My daughter has severe
ADHD and emotional issues. So we've done lots of
training and therapy. But still, it's pretty hard
with some of her behavior, like when she starts
yelling at her brother. Or sometimes, we're
out at a restaurant and she can't sit
still to the point where drinks get spilled
and things like that. It's really hard for me not
to impulsively race my voice, or impose consequences,
or something like that as [INAUDIBLE]. BARRY MICHELS:
Doing the program? Right. Should I repeat that? OK. So his daughter has ADHD. Sounds like it's
difficult. She's impulsive. She gives into her
impulses easily. And he has a problem
containing his own impulse to get down on her and to punish
her or impose consequences when he should be following
the program that the therapy is recommending. And what is the
price that you pay for giving into that impulse? AUDIENCE: So one
price is it's not productive in terms
of helping her. But another is that, of
course, a little bit later I realize that I'm doing it and
I don't feel very good about-- BARRY MICHELS: You feel bad. AUDIENCE: --my parenting. BARRY MICHELS: Right. OK. So the price is he's
not getting the results that he wants because it's
not effective with an ADHD kid to come down on them that hard. And then, he also
feels bad about himself for giving in to the impulse. Those are great examples. And most of us all
are aware of the price that we pay for impulses. If you overeat, you
endanger your health. If you party too much, you
wake up exhausted the next day and you can't get much done. And almost all impulses
carry with them the price that you
pointed out, which is when we give in
to them, very soon afterwards we feel
terrible about ourselves. Because it's kind of like, why? Why couldn't I control myself? I know that's the
wrong thing to do. I don't know if any
of you have ever had the experience of
getting drunk at night, and then the next
morning it's like, oh, I hate myself kind of thing. It's very classic. So what I want to point
out is that there's also a more subtle price that we
pay for giving in to impulses. See? In the case of a donut,
or a cookie, or whatever, we typically think,
what's the harm? I mean, one extra slice of
cake isn't going to kill me. And there's truth to that. Obviously, one extra slice of
cake is not going to kill you. However, the pattern of
giving into one harmless urge after another has a
serious effect on your life. What it really does is it
diminishes your future. Now, that might seem
like an exaggeration, but think about it. Everybody in this
room has things that they want to
accomplish in the future. They have dreams
and aspirations. Anything that you want to
accomplish in the future requires you to delay
gratification in the present. So I treat a lot of
Hollywood screenwriters. If you want to
write a screenplay, you have to not switch
over to the internet and look at cute cat videos. If you want an
intimate relationship, and build a relationship
that's really honest and open, you have to not secretly
whack off to pornography. If you are in a race
to create a startup and you're getting
drunk every night and the other guy isn't,
he's going to win the race. All right. So to put the whole
thing another way, the pattern of
giving in to impulses is dangerous because no
one impulse looks like it's going to destroy your future. But what you're really
doing is making your life about self-gratification rather
than about self-actualization. Actually bringing your
ambitions to fruition. If you want to say
it another way, self-indulgence is kind of an
invisible acid that eats away against your aspirations. So given the price that
we pay, why do we give in? And this is a question
that's always interested me. I'm a smart person. I know that sugar cookies
are not good for me. They don't do
anything good for me. And yet, when I want one, I
take one despite that knowledge. You want an even better example? Anthony Weiner, a guy with
140 or 150 IQ, who despite-- he must have known that
he was going to destroy his political future. And yet, he gives in and
texts pictures of himself to a young woman. It's kind of crazy that
impulses have the power to override our rational mind. So what is it that gives
impulses so much power? Well, the answer is going
to sound a little strange, but just keep an open mind. Every human being has an
emptiness inside of them. I'm not talking about
a physical emptiness, but I'm talking about
a psychic emptiness, like a psychological emptiness. A feeling of incompleteness. Some of you may have
been aware of it, at least in adolescence or
young adulthood, where you just felt like you weren't enough and
you needed validation, friends, hits on your social media
page, money, whatever it was, to fill you up inside and
make you whole and complete. Does that make sense to you? So either way, whether you're
aware of this inner emptiness or not, it's this
inner emptiness that makes us give in to impulses. What we're really trying
to do is fill ourselves up in the outside world to fill up
this hole that's inside of us. If you don't-- and by
the way, think about it. If there weren't
this inner emptiness that I'm talking about, we
wouldn't feel impelled-- note the same route as impulse. We wouldn't feel impelled
to get what we want. It would just be a choice
rather than an impulse. It would be like, I can
take it or leave it. Now, if you don't believe
me, watch a little kid who's been told he can't
have something that he wants. Whether it's a sugary drink, or
a toy that he wants, or another ride on your back. When a little kid gets "no"
for an answer, he falls apart. The angst, and the
grief, and the sadness, and the panic, and the anger,
and the frustration, that's his way of saying, I
need this to fill me up. I must have it. I'm not going to
live without it. Now obviously and
fortunately, adults have learned to
repress that reaction. It would be unfortunate
if we didn't. But it's still down there. And if you don't believe me,
try some time to stop yourself from getting something
you really want and not letting
yourself have it. And just use it as a
self-exploration exercise. You'll see those
little kid feelings of frustration come up. And that's evidence of
that inner emptiness. So the takeaway
from all of this is we are impelled to get or to
do things in the outside world. Again, impelled to do
them, because we're trying to fill something up inside. And by the way, with all due
respect for Nancy Reagan, who I'm sure was a
really nice person, that's why just saying no is the
stupidest public public policy prescription I ever heard of. Just say no? Are you kidding? If just say no were
enough, we wouldn't have a weight loss industry
that's worth over $175 billion. We'd all just start saying
no and put it out of business right away. Impulses have a
tremendous power that completely overrides
that rational "just say no" attitude. OK. Any questions so
far, by the way? Please feel free
to interrupt me. Yeah. AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE]. Also, this idea of
living in the moment, of adding up those moments of
pleasure to have [INAUDIBLE].. If you always have
a long-term goal to which you're
delaying gratification, do you ever live in the moment? BARRY MICHELS: My
answer to that-- and I'm going to get into this
much more deeply later on. There is living in the present
and living in the present. In other words,
living in the present doesn't have to mean that
you give in to every impulse you get in the present. Part of your responsibility,
living in the present, is choosing which impulse
or instinct you're going to follow in the present. Some of those impulses you just
know are really bad for you. Others may be creative
ideas or instincts that will create something
in the future, but that give you pleasure
doing it in the present. I mean, I love public speaking. I would never indulge
my impulses right now, but I love what I'm doing
because I'm sort of fulfilling my life's purpose. And I'm totally in the present. I'm not even thinking about the
future, even though doing this may build my prospects in
the future in some way. Does that make sense to you? You can live in the
present without giving in to your impulses
in the present. If you want to put
it another way, part of your responsibility
living in the present is to work on yourself and to
be aware of what you're doing and whether it works
in your interests or not in your interests. Any other questions? Yeah. AUDIENCE: The emptiness
that you're referring to, is it correlate with the
person's frequency of engaging in whatever impulse is? BARRY MICHELS:
Everyone has some sort of emptiness inside of them. I've never met anyone who
doesn't in some sense. Obviously, we do a really
good job of covering it over, all of us. Even from ourselves. But I do believe-- because I have treated
hard hardcore addicts who have spent their entire
lives filling that emptiness, that they have a bigger hole
because they've been trying to fill it in the wrong place. The more you try to fill
it in the outside world, the deeper and the more
empty you feel inside. And if you've ever met a
really hardcore addict, it's so sad because what
initially they thought was going to give them
so much pleasure-- and did for maybe the first
time or the first five times, or whatever-- has
now just become-- it's just enslaved them. They have nothing inside. Given that impulses are
fueled by this compulsion to fill ourselves up inside,
how the hell do we control them? I mean, they have this
tremendous power behind them. Well, let's just talk
about what doesn't work, which is the way we normally
try to control our impulses. We get into a power struggle,
essentially with ourselves. I want it. I can't have it. I want it. I can't have it. I want it. I'm not going to
let myself have it. OK. Notice that that approach
keeps us focused on the thing that I want. Let's say a sugar cookie. And I either succeed in
controlling myself or I fail. But even if I succeed and I
don't have the sugar cookie, I haven't dealt with
the hole inside of me. So very likely, if
you're me, the fact that I've succeeded this time
means the next sugar cookie I'm going to say,
now I get a reward because I was so good last time. OK. So long term, this
does not work as a way of controlling yourself. Sheer willpower-- I have
nothing against willpower, but it doesn't work
as a program for truly controlling your impulses. So what would happen if instead
of struggling over the sugar cookie, I said, I give it up? It's never going to
fill me up inside. After all, it never has. If I have one on
Tuesday, I still want one on Wednesday,
and Thursday, and Friday. So what if I just gave up on
the outside world, anything in the outside world,
ever filling me up inside? And instead, what if I shifted
my focus inside and just stared into the emptiness? I know that sounds very weird. And probably, a little
scary or depressing. But that's where
the magic starts. Because it turns out, if you
stare into the inner emptiness long enough, it's not empty. There's stuff in there. In fact, there's
so much in there that you can start getting
filled up from the inside. Now, I know this makes no
logical sense whatsoever. So what I'd like to do
is have you actually try to experience
it, because that's the best way to start to
actually believe these things. So try this. Close your eyes. And just like in
the last exercise, pick an impulse that you
feel really intensely. And imagine feeling
it right now. One that's hard to resist. Again, sweets,
checking your email, running a red light
when you're in a hurry. Now, imagine that you
are absolutely prohibited from getting what you want. You just simply can't have it. And make the feelings of
deprivation as intense as you can, just like
those little kid feelings we talked about before. Now, let go of the
thing that you want. Forget about it completely. It's as if it does not exist. And as you do, imagine that
the entire outside world disappears. It's never going to gratify you. And instead, shift your focus
inside and just visualize a vast, empty space. Stay calm. Remember to breathe. Resist the temptation to look
back into the outside world. And if anything, just be
curious about what's down there. And you can open your
eyes when you're ready. Most people,
interestingly enough, actually start to sense
some movement down there. Now, even if you didn't,
don't worry about it. If you do this a number
of times, you'll see. You'll actually start to
feel like, how strange? There's something down there. Frederick Nietzsche said,
if you stare into the abyss long enough, it will
stare back into you. It's like, there's
something down there. Which raises the question,
how can nothingness turn into somethingness? Yes. AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE]. BARRY MICHELS: Yes. Yeah. I mean, I didn't
get it from that, but it is consistent with
the notion that there-- let me explain it
my way, and then I think you'll see the
connection to Buddhism, which is-- because a more
Western way to explain it is it's consistent with
our notion of the unconscious. Think of the unconscious as a
realm that has things in it, but you're not aware of it. When we think of our
unconscious, we can't see it. We can't taste it, smell it. We don't know what's down there. And yet, we know
that it's down there because when we go to sleep
at night, it produces dreams. When we're creatively
frustrated and we try to work at something,
work at something, work at something,
suddenly something appears. It comes from the unconscious. So this idea of something
coming out of the nothingness is completely
consistent with the idea that there are parts of
ourselves that we don't know, but that can actually feed us
and fill us up with things. Now, that's really
important because if you can tap into this
unconscious resource that you have inside of
you, then you're free. Then, you don't have to just
deprive yourself of the things that you want. You won't really
need them that much. You'll feel whole and
filled up from inside. Go ahead. AUDIENCE: I'm just
curious, how good is human nature in terms of
meditating into the inner self conditionally? Because certain
things, for example, like [INAUDIBLE] for a
dessert or maybe anger issues, things like that, which you
need to stop all-- meditate, like the suggestion
that you gave. And you assume that [INAUDIBLE]. But then, for example, a student
who is not getting good score-- BARRY MICHELS: A student? AUDIENCE: Who is not
getting good score, or say somebody who's
not happy [INAUDIBLE],, they just pause and
say, OK, maybe I don't want to constantly
think about it and just be happy in
what I do or what I have, then there is really no growth
as a person [INAUDIBLE].. BARRY MICHELS: Got it. Let me make sure I'm
understanding your question, because the question seems to
have to do with motivation. If you're always satisfied
with what you have right now, I think what you're
asking is, will that remove my motivation
to create anything in the future for myself, or
to fulfill any ambitions that I have for myself? AUDIENCE: Yeah. There are certain cases
where this has to be applied and there are certain
cases where this should not be applied, right? So I'm just curious,
in general-- BARRY MICHELS: Yes. AUDIENCE: --are
people good at really do it on a conditional
case-by-case basis? BARRY MICHELS: In my experience,
people are not only good at it. They know it instantly. They know pretty much instantly
that having a donut every day is not going to help them
fulfill their ambitions. Or smoking, or
texting constantly when they should
be buckling down and concentrating on something,
or distracting themselves, or overreacting to
somebody, because they're aware that they're paying a
price for those things that actually thwarts their
long-term ambitions. You're right that
to some degree, we use impulse power
to fuel our motivation. And I think you're
right about that. But in my experience-- and I've
been doing this for 35 years-- when I teach someone to control
their worst impulses, what really happens is
they get in touch with some part of themselves
that wants to achieve. It doesn't necessarily
feel compelled to achieve, but it just wants to. It wants to create
something new in the world or fulfill itself in some way
through art, or whatever it is. It's not that we are devoid of
motivation without impulses. It's that we're devoid of that
must-have quality that really-- in a way, it kind
of defies reality. I mean, you can
say "I must have," but you can't always
get kind of thing. Or the getting can really
be destructive for you. Does that answer the-- AUDIENCE: Yeah. BARRY MICHELS: OK, great. So let me say it again,
this is really important. If there's a way of converting
the emptiness into something that can fill you up inside,
then you're really free. Again, it transforms an
impulse into a choice. It's like, I'm not
compelled to get the cookie. I can take it or leave it, which
is a much nicer way to live. All right. Did you have a question? AUDIENCE: Yeah. I was wondering, so when you
do this exercise and everything that you want sort of disappears
and you have this emptiness, do you encounter situations
where individuals, something negative appears? It gets filled with
something negative? BARRY MICHELS: That's
a great question. Does it ever happen when
you stare into the emptiness that something negative comes up
instead of something positive? Sometimes, what comes up is
just feelings of insecurity, of incompleteness, of emptiness. What I'm going to
do is teach you a tool that has a specific
procedure that essentially negates that. It prevents that from
happening, in essence. But what you're asking
has larger connotations, which is, when you work
on curbing or controlling your impulses, a lot
of times what comes up are just real childlike
feelings of like, wanting and not being able to
have things, that we haven't really been aware of,
either because we've given in to the impulses
or because we've repressed those feelings. And those feelings, you
have to own those and not act on them, essentially. Or explore them if they
have other implications in your life. OK. Does that make sense? OK, good. So in order to construct
a tool that would actually help people control
their impulses, what my co-author and I
had to do was come up with a symbol for
this fullness that comes up from the
emptiness inside of you. And the symbol that we chose
was a symbol of a black sun. It's just the sun at the moment
of a total solar eclipse, where the moon has passed in front of
the sun, so the disk is dark, but you can see the corona. You can see the sun shining
from the corners of the disk. And I'll explain after I teach
you the tool why we chose that as a symbol. It's probably obvious, but
I'll explain that more. But just so you know, that's
what the tool is about. So close your eyes, and I will
walk you through this tool. This is a tool that you're
going to use whenever you feel impelled to act on an urge. So start with the little
kid feelings of deprivation. You want something really badly
and you simply can't have it. You're going to
deprive yourself. And feel those
feelings of deprivation as intensely as you can. Then, let go of the
thing that you want. And with it, let the entire
outside world disappear. It's just no longer
available to you as a source. And turn your attention
inside yourself. Now there's no deprivation. There's just this
inner emptiness. Just like we did
before, stay calm. And just stare into the void. Now from the deepest
part of the void, imagine that a black sun begins
to ascend, expanding slowly. It begins to fill you up with
warm and limitless energy. Let it keep coming up until
you become one with it, and then turn your attention
back to the outside world. And as you do, imagine that
the black sun energy overflows and bursts out, shining
on everyone and everything around you. Just spend a little bit
of time in this state where the black sun energy
is coming up inside of you and just pouring out of
you, out into the world, it's almost, in a sense,
like you have become the sun. And you can open your
eyes when you're ready. Any questions or
comments on that? Could you feel it? Anybody skeptical? Feel free, because
I was completely skeptical of this stuff
when I learned it, like 30, 35 years ago. I thought it was
a crock of shit. Yeah. AUDIENCE: I have a question
of how you came up with it. The story behind this imagery. BARRY MICHELS: Yeah. So let me talk about that next. Let me go through the
tool, in fact, step by step and explain each step,
just to reinforce your understanding of it. When I get to the
black sun, I'll explain why we came up with
that particular imagery. Because that's unusual. It's like, I wouldn't have
expected that if I were you. So the first step of the tool
is always to deprive yourself. Always to say no to the thing
that you feel impelled to get. If you're unwilling
to deprive yourself, what you're really saying
is, I can't live without it. It's the only thing that's
going to fill me up inside. If you want to say
it another way, you're kind of
refusing to grow up. You're giving in to those little
kid feelings of deprivation. So the first step
is always to say no. The second step
is to turn inward, is essentially to give up on the
outside world ever filling you up. And instead, have the courage
to face the emptiness that exists in every human being. Now, if you're patient
and you can just stay calm, what starts to
happen is this black sun begins to ascend
from the depths. Now, why the sun? And why is it black? We chose the sun as
a symbol because it's a symbol of infinite
energy, light, and life. If you were the sun, essentially
what you'd be aware of is, I'm just giving energy out and
I don't expect anything back. I'm only getting back
my own reflected light. So it has this quality
of infinite potential, infinite energy. Something that can fill
you up from the inside. We decided to make it
black to remind you that you have essentially
eclipsed this sun for most of your life because you've
constantly looked for what you need from the outside world. Essentially, you've
allowed the outside world to eclipse this sun. It's not to make
you feel guilty. It's just to remind
you, oh, yeah. This is a resource that I
constantly forget about. I've plunged it
into the darkness. And as the black sun rises,
it suffuses you with warmth. Warmth is actually a very
significant and underused symbol in modern life. Coldness means you're alone. Alone in a completely
mechanistic universe. Warmth means there's
something inside of you that has life in it. There's something inside of
you that can actually help you. You are not alone trying
to control your impulses. So the warmth just gives you
that feeling of, oh, there's help, essentially. The overall arc of the tool
is very, very important. Because think about it. Think about how the tool
starts, and then how it ends. What it does is it reverses
the flow of your energy. You start the tool by
wanting to take something in. You end the tool by
putting energy out. This is really
important because it reveals a secret of
human nature, which is that the solution to our
endless quest to get more is actually to give more. To give more of ourselves. In 12-step groups,
which are really the most successful groups
in curbing addiction, they codify this principle
in the idea of service. They ask their members to
be of service to one another and to the larger community. Because what they
have discovered is the more I give to
others, the less I need. The more I'm filled up
from within essentially. So that's another very
important principle in the tool is we're shifting
from an incorporative, materialistic mode
of I'm incomplete and I need more,
more, more, more, to I actually don't need more. To the extent that I
get more, it's great. I'm not going to be
unhappy about it, but I don't need
it kind of thing. And that's the key to taking
the sting out of impulses. Now, I have a couple of tips
for just getting the most that you can out of the tool. First, obviously, you have
to kind of memorize it before you try to use it,
or else you'll forget. Especially in the
face of an impulse. So it doesn't take long. You can buy the
book "Coming Alive." Or if you email us, we can
send you a handout to it. But it's easy to learn. You practice it a bunch of
times, and then you can use it. And you want to use
it as soon as you're subject to an impulse. So I want the sugar cookie. I want to overreact, whatever it
is, that's when I use the tool. Now, start with
small temptations. If you're an over-eater, you
don't want to use the tool for the first time in front
of an all-you-can-eat buffet because you're just setting
yourself up for failure. Start with little things. I started with just
imaginary temptations. Things that I imagined I
would be subject to or would want an hour from now,
or tomorrow, or whatever, just to build up my
facility with the tool. Another tip. Tools don't always
work the first time. There are some
impulses that are so powerful that I have to use
the tool five times in a row to stop myself. And there's nothing
wrong with that. That's not a failure. If you use it 10 times in
a row and stop yourself to giving in to an
impulse, that's a victory. And finally, even
then, even if you become an expert practitioner
of the black sun tool, it won't work 100% of the time. There is nothing that works
100% of the time with impulses. But if you can even
use the black sun tool over the next month
and give in 50% less than you do now, you'll see
huge changes in your life. And what I'd like to do
is spend the next bit of time just talking about
the benefits of self-control. So what can you
expect to get if you learn this level
of self-restraint that I'm talking about? Let's just remind ourselves
that we don't usually think of self-control as rewarding. We think of it as
the best I can hope for is I feel really
frustrated that I didn't get what I wanted kind of thing. We end up feeling deprived. The black sun tool teaches
us something different. It's saying that there is
so much potential energy, lightness inside of us,
that we won't actually end up feeling deprived. We'll actually end
up with benefits. We end up feeling
more fulfilled. And I want to talk about
three specific benefits. The first is a sense of freedom. The second is a
sense of confidence. And the third is
leadership, which I'm simply going to define as the ability
to have a positive impact on the people around you. So let's talk about
freedom first. Self-restraint sets you free. Now, I know that sounds like
a zen koan, or some neologism from Orwell's "1984." You know war, is peace. Ignorance is strength. But it's true. Self-restraint sets you free. Now, why does it
sound so strange? Because we think of freedom as
we get to do whatever we want, whenever we want to. Essentially, we think
of freedom as freedom from outer rules
and restrictions. Anyone who's ever gone 90 miles
an hour on the way to Vegas knows this feeling. It's I'm free. I mean, it's fabulous. OK. The problem is you
might get killed. You could get incarcerated. But even worse, next time
90 ain't going to do it. You've got to go 95. And the time after that,
you got to go to 100. This is the strange,
demonic paradox of that type of freedom,
which is it doesn't end up creating a sense of freedom. It actually ends
up enslaving you. Think of a drug addict. It starts off like, I
can do anything I want. Ends up, I just need
it every fucking day. So this is the strange paradox
of the way we think of freedom, because we've misdefined it. Real freedom is not freedom from
outer rules and restrictions. Inner freedom is inner. It's the freedom from impulses. Think about what an impulse is. It is a compelling force that
tells you you must do something or must have something. Well, if you must,
then you're not free. So as strange as it sounds, the
more self-control you exercise, the freer you actually feel. If any of you are interested
in philosophy like I am, there's philosophical
precedent for this in Frederick Nietzsche's,
the German philosophers, concept of the ubermensch,
which was horribly mistranslated into
the "superman" and made for some bad
times in Nazi Germany when it was misappropriated
and exploited terribly. But if you read Nietzsche in
the original, what he really meant by the
ubermensch was someone who could master the
lowest parts of himself. Someone who could overcome
the worst aspects of himself. And in the freedom that he
gained from his own lower parts, he could become the
person he was meant to be. It was inner freedom,
inner mastery. Now, closely related
to the idea of freedom is the idea of confidence. Let me demonstrate
that this way. It's almost the
first of January. January first, New Year's. We all make resolutions
on January first. Let's say my New
Year's resolution is I'm really going to cut down
on sugars and carbs this year. This year, this is the year. I'm going to lose weight. I'm really going to
watch what I eat, OK? And let's say on January
fourth, I have a donut. And on January fifth,
I have five donuts. And by January seventh, I've
forgotten the whole resolution, which is usually what happens. How confident can I be? Think about it. A big part of confidence
is self-credibility. Do I believe the commitments
I make to myself? If the answer is yes,
if I make a commitment, I am going to carry it through. I will be confident. But most people,
sadly can't say that. If they're honest with
themselves, they'll admit, I make a commitment to myself. I'm good for a day,
maybe two days. By day three, I'm
already cheating. And by day five, I've forgotten
I even made the commitment. It is mathematically impossible
to have confidence in yourself if you can't even carry
out the commitments you make to yourself. And it's impulses that
erode your ability to carry out those commitments
because they stop you. I have a couple
of quotes on this that I think are
particularly pithy about it. Leonardo da Vinci
said, "You will never have a greater or
lesser dominion than that over yourself. The height of a person's success
is gauged by his self-mastery. The depth of his failure
by his self-abandonment." So it's mastery over self,
mastery over impulses. Lao Tzu, the founder of Taoism,
said it even more succinctly. "He who conquers
others is strong, but he who conquers
himself is mighty." That's the true strength. And finally, leadership. Again, I'm going to define
leadership as just the ability to have a positive impact
on those around you. Whether it's your family, your
coworkers, or the community at large. And I'm going to give
you a micro-example and a macro-example. The micro-example brings
us back to Susan and Marty, the crazy couple that
I introduced you to at the beginning. These were parents who were
trying to get their daughter to control her
impulses when every day she saw them giving
in to their impulses. So obviously, they could
not be good leaders. So as a therapist, I said, we're
not working on your daughter. I'm sorry, but we're
working on you. You have to use the
black sun tool, Marty, to control your
temper and to control your gambling You, Susan,
have to use the black sun tool to control your
eating and your confiding in your daughter. And fortunately, with their
daughter's life at stake, they worked really
hard on themselves. So pretty quickly, they
actually gained some control over themselves. That also enabled them
to talk to one another without constantly
getting into an argument. And then, they could
agree on limits they could set with their daughter. And their daughter could
feel that they were actually credibly setting those
limits because they weren't reactive or impulsive. They were simply, look. This is the rule. If you steal money, you
spend too much money, your allowance disappears. You know, or whatever
the limits were. So they became leaders
within their family. And you don't have
to have a family to witness this happening. I recommend that you
use the black sun tool every single time
you have an impulse and watch the people around
you over the next two weeks or four weeks. You will see them paying
more respect to you. And you'll even see
them emulating you, even if they have no idea
that you're using this tool. They'll just get the vibe of a
person who has more authority. I've seen it over
and over again. Now, let me give
you a macro-example. This is an example of a
movement that because it had an extraordinary
degree of self-restraint was actually able to
have a tremendous impact on the whole society. I'm talking about the
early civil rights movement of the late
'50s and early '60s. I've studied this
because I've met with one of the leaders of
that movement, Reverend James Lawson, who brought Gandhi
and nonviolent techniques to the civil rights movement. He basically taught
those techniques to Martin Luther
King and John Lewis. And what's amazing
about that movement is that its success was because
it was incredibly disciplined. There were absolutely no
spontaneous demonstrations. Every single demonstration
was meticulously planned. Participants were vetted. And sometimes, rejected or
moved to other positions if they couldn't
control themselves. The goals of the movement
were kept very limited. Of course, they wanted to
desegregate the entire South, the schools, the neighborhoods,
the government, everything. Instead, they picked
one lunch counter in one department
store in one town and decided to have
a sit-in there. And they picked the department
store based on the fact that a lot of blacks shopped
at that department store, because they knew
they were going to end up having to boycott
that department store. So very limited, targeted
goals that then they were able to expand to other goals. And the most dramatic
example of self-restraint was that they trained
themselves to not respond to physical
and verbal assaults. Not only from white bystanders,
but from the police. They remained polite and
soft spoken at all times. You want an even more
dramatic example? Gandhi's movement in India,
an entire national movement of millions. Most of whom had
never met Gandhi remained, for the most part,
peaceful and nonviolent. And they brought down
the British empire. The bottom line
here is if you want to have an enduring impact
on the people around you your family, your coworkers,
or the society at large, you must practice
self-restraint. You must learn to
control your impulses. And when you do, you not
only improve your own life. You actually send out a rippling
wave of self-contained energy to those around you who
want to emulate that. Now, I want to
spend a little bit of time just about our
society and where we're at. Because let's be honest, impulse
control is at an all-time low. I shouldn't laugh, but
it is kind of ridiculous. I mean, in preparation
for this workshop, I tried to think of one
single major cultural or governmental
institution that hasn't been infected with the
disease of self-indulgence. And I couldn't think
of a single one. Organized religion. You've got Catholic
pedophilia scandals. Sports. You've got doping,
Penn State pedophilia, violence against women. Banking. I remember when I was growing
up in the '50s, bankers were like-- I thought they were the
most conservative people in the world. I mean, if I'm going
to start a rock band, I'm calling it Wells Fargo
and the wolves of Wall Street. It's crazy. Government. It's just a cesspool. It's a cesspool. And whatever you think of Trump,
he cannot restrain himself from these early morning tweets, even
when they defeat his own cause. That's lack of impulse control. I'm not sure why anyone ever
looked up to the entertainment industry, but the entertainment
industry is, again, a kind of a cesspool. The press. There been sexual harassment
scandals at Fox, NBC, NPR. I didn't even know they had
sex at NPR, which is like, who would think of it? My point is that
every institution that we might want to
look up to as role models is already infected
with the disease. It looks like we're going to
have to be the antibodies. Clearly, the change isn't
going to come from top down. In a sense, the change
has to come from us or as Gandhi said it,
we must be the change we wish to see in the world. Now, the good news is,
if you believe Carl Jung, we are all connected
to one another. This is inherent in his notion
of a collective unconscious. That there's a realm
in which all of us sort of share the same
mythologies, the same imagery, the same sense that
we're all connected, which means that if we can
work really hard on ourselves, we may actually affect
the rest of the society. What Margaret Mead said about
this, by the way, is that-- never doubt that a small
group of committed citizens can change an entire society. And she added, it's the
only thing that ever has. So just as an end
exercise here, I want to give you a taste
for what we, as a group, could create in terms of the
spirit of self-restraint. So close your
eyes, and I'm going to run you through the black
sun tool one last time. And then, I'm going to
add some stuff at the end. So once again, start with
the feeling of deprivation. Those little kid feelings of
not getting what you want. And feel them as
intensely as you can. Now, let go of the
thing that you want. And with it, let the entire
outside world disappear. And redirect your
attention inside yourself. Face the void. Be calm. Just be curious about it. And imagine the black sun begins
to ascend from the deepest part of the void. Expanding slowly, it fills you
with it's warm and limitless energy. Now, redirect your attention
back to the outside world. And let the black sun
energy surge out of you in a flow of infinite giving
to everyone around you. Now I'd like you to imagine
that everyone around you is also using the tool. So they're generating
light, encouraging you to shine brighter. And your light is encouraging
them to shine brighter. And what I'd like
you to imagine next is that the light coalesces. And essentially,
forms a sun rising above the center of the room
more powerful than anything that we could create,
each of us, on our own. And imagine that that sun
can reach beyond this room and shine on the entire society. In a few minutes, we'll disperse
and go our own separate ways. But imagine that the
power of this sun remains available
to all of us as we battle our own individual
impulses on our own. In a way, it reaffirms
an enduring truth, which is we are never
completely on our own. And when you're ready,
you can open your eyes. Thank you so much for coming. I really appreciate it. Thank you. [APPLAUSE]
