PNTV: An Iron Will by Orison Swett Marden (#140)

Hi, this is Brian. Welcome back to Philosopher's Notes tv. Today we've got another great one. An Iron Will by Orison Sweat Martin. Orson Swett Martin. Heard of this book from Ryan Holiday. The Obstacle is the Way, which we did yesterday. Awesome book. Orson Sweat Martin was the creator of Success magazine, old school 1908 or something like that. This book was written and it is awesome. So it kind of reminds me of a mixture of Self Help by Samuel Smiles, which most people haven't heard of. Great book. We have a note and a TV episode on that. And As a Man Thinketh, which a lot of people have heard of James Allen's As a Man Thinketh. This book could be called As a Man Willeth. There's Thinketh, then there's Willeth. He's all about adding iron to our backbone. Unbelievably cool if you're into this kind of thing, which I am. So we will start with the definition of will, and then we'll look at a handful of my favorite big ideas from this philosopher's Note. A definition of will, Willpower, as he states it. Scientists would agree. The ability to get yourself to do what you need to do when you need to do it, whether you feel like doing it or not. That's will. Can you get yourself to do what you need to do when you need to do it, whether you feel like it or not? It's a powerful thing to have. David Reynolds talks about it in Constructive Living. We talked about this with improv wisdom, right? Where that's the mark of a mature human being. You do what needs to get done. He says, now what needs to be done? So you could be feeling great, you could be feeling not so great. The. The question is, now what needs to be done? Now what needs to be done? It's worth writing down now what needs to be done. End of the day, that's the question we want to focus on. That's the essence of will. Now, again, our willpower is finite, right? It's kind of like a muscle. You can only use it so much in any given period of time. So we want to use our willpower wisely as we discuss all the time to build habits that then run on autopilot. You use your willpower, which is finite, to create habits which go on autopilot. We're going to talk about this a ton more, but there's a basic definition of willpower. Now, these are some ways we can cultivate it and why we want to cultivate it. The first one is we want to do less. Forget who it was, maybe Henry Ward Beecher that he quotes in the book. And they were asking him, how do you get so much done? It's amazing that you get so much done. He says, look, I do things once, everybody else does them three times. They worry about it before, then they do it, and then they think about it afterwards. So am I going to be able to do this? I'm not sure. I mean, I hope I can. Let me plan a little bit more. Da, da, da. Then they do it, then they think back on it. Did I do that? Okay? I mean, did I? Did I? I mean, what do they think of me? One, two, three. They do it three times. And he says, look, I accomplished so much because I do it once. I just do it. I don't sit here and get all anxious about it and then worry about whether I did it right afterwards. I just do it. Then I do the next thing. Then I do the next thing. It's a very embodied sense of the power of now we want to cultivate that. And I think, and I talk about this in the note, that I think that another distinction is what do you need to stop doing? If you want to do more, you need to do less. You will get more done by doing less. But less of what? Less of the stuff that isn't important. So now as I'm turning pro and going all in 2015 with this whole teaching thing and embodying and seeing, studying and sharing this wisdom, there are things that I don't do. I do less of certain things that I used to do a lot of things like email, being on my phone and text and social media and just being online in general, I do less of that, which allows me to do more of this. So what do you need to do less of in your life so you can do more of the stuff that matters? That takes an iron will, clarity, and then an iron will to get clear on that. Do things once, not three times, and do the things that matter. That's our second big idea. Third big idea. Thimbles. Thimbles. This is really cool. So he talks about the fact that you can have a talented individual who has will, who has direction, who has purpose, intentionality. And that person is worth 10 people who don't same talent, but they don't have the will. They don't have the same drive and focus and clarity and intentionality, etc. And he says it's kind of like a thimbleful. A thimbleful of gunpowder put into a rifle will be More will execute more than a carload of gunpowder just burning randomly. When you can direct it in a very, very precise manner and you can put all of your energy into your one thing, into what's most important for you, you will create way more power than if you just diffuse your energy across a ton of things. Really cool idea. Thimble full of gunpowder will execute more than a carload just burning randomly. I like that. Alright. Fourth big idea is an important one. Do you believe? If you want to have an iron will, reading another one of his books right now called he can, who thinks he can. So the question is, do you believe in yourself? Do you believe in yourself? Scientists call this self efficacy. You can call it confidence, you can call it whatever you want. Do you believe in yourself? Sel self efficacy. Are you clear on what you want? Do you have a sense of what you're going to do to get there? And do you believe that you can get there? At the end of the day, if we don't believe in ourselves, we're not going to achieve whatever we want to achieve. We have to believe that we can achieve something to even go for it. So this idea of whether or not we believe we can, you know Henry Ford, the classic, whether you think you can or you think you can't, you're right. So what about you? Do you think you can? We want to cultivate this belief in ourselves that's a hallmark of having an iron will. We have this shaky self concept and insecurity and fear and doubt. We have a tough time rocking it. He says we need to take, we need to look at all negative thoughts as traitors in our mind and get them out. Don't allow negative thought to sit there and permeate your mind. Have the discipline, the iron will to notice it and to get them out. And then again, use your iron will to cultivate your meditation practice to notice when you're getting off throughout the day and to bring yourself back quickly. Marcus Aurelius had what he called what I call the equanimity game. He says, whenever life gets you off center, see how fast you can get back on center. You get knocked down fine. We get knocked down all the time, in little ways and big ways. His game with himself was how fast can I return to the mean? How fast can I return to my optimal state? And when you practice that, he says, your recurrence to that optimal state becomes easier. We want to group new patterns. Do you believe? Remove all the negative thoughts, get back to a balance point, etc. Etc. Etc. Challenges are good. They're very good. We've been talking about this a lot. Obstacle Is the Way and a bunch of other notes. Again, as Nassim Taleb tells us, antifragile, you can be fragile and when something challenging happens, you break. Or you can be robust, something challenging happens and you're able to withstand it for a while. Or you can be antifragile, something challenging happens and you actually get stronger. Not only do you not break and not only can you sustain it for a while, you actually get stronger anti fragile. He says the wind extinguishes a candle, but fuels a fire. That's a cool concept. Wind extinguishes a candle but fuels a fire. Challenges are good. We need to look at them as opportunities for us to step into our power rather than crawl into bed and pull the covers over our head. Challenges are good. Quality, cultivate an iron will. Where the obstacle, as Ryan Holiday says, is the way, it's what catalyzes our growth. We can turn poison into medicine, to use a ton of metaphors, right? Think about it. Challenges are good. What challenges do you have in your life right now that you could afford to reinterpret as awesome? How can you find the most empowering way to approach the situation? Yes, you don't like this, this and this and this and this about it, but what is it forcing you to do that's good, that's making you stronger? Focus on that rather than all the things you don't like and then go. Take your iron will and go crush it. Do what needs to get done when it needs to get done, whether you feel like it or not. Do less to do more. Stop doing things that you know just aren't helpful for you. And don't do things three times. Worrying about them, doing them and then thinking about them after the fact. Do them once. Be here now. Thimbles. Gunpowder in a rifle. Clear directionality, Way more powerful than its dispersed equivalent. And then carload. I should say a thimbleful. Vis a vis a carload. The thimbleful is more powerful when it's directed. Do you believe in yourself that you can create the life that you want to create? That's our starting point here. We've got to get our minds right. We've got to believe in ourselves. We've got to have a really strong sense of self efficacy. We can do it. We have the power, the ability to get better, to get stronger and to optimize our lives, actualize our potential. Challenges are good, period. We want to see them that way and cultivate our iron will. Thank you Orison. Hope you enjoyed as always. What was your favorite big idea and how can you make that a practical reality in your life? More today. Hope you enjoyed. I look forward to sharing more with you soon. Have another awesome day. See you.