PNTV: Awaken Your Strongest Self by Neil Fiore (#214)

Hi, this is Brian. Welcome back to Philosopher's Notes tv. Today, another great book, awaken your strongest self by Neil Fiore. Read it on a Kindle. We got a philosopher's note with a bunch of my favorite big ideas and five of them that we're going to cover now. Neil Fiore, great teacher, he wrote a book that we profiled. I'll link to below called the now Habit dealing with procrastination. And this book is about awakening your strongest self. So what is the intelligence within you that's beating your heart right now that takes care of you while you're sleeping and digesting all your food and all that stuff? There's something bigger, more intelligent than us at work, and we have access to that through our prefrontal cortex to the extent we can quiet down all the other impulsive background stuff that's getting in our way and awaken to this strongest version of ourselves. That's what the book is all about. We've got five big ideas and we'll start with a few things that get in the way. Then we'll talk about a couple ideas on how we can awaken the best within. The first big idea here is 20 year old fires. So when I'm reading a book, I love to find visual representations of big ideas. What I'm trying to do in this, our work together, is to give you all these different ideas. Not thinking you're going to implement every single one every single time, but to plant a bunch of seeds with great images and ideas that you can take into your life at different times. This is one of my favorites, just a good idea. Think about your regret and anxiety about things that you did in the past as similar to calling the fire department and pulling a fire alarm for fires that happened 20 years ago. Imagine that. Imagine if you had a fire 20 years ago is a bummer, right? Burned down a house or whatever. Not a pleasant experience. We don't need to pretend that it was a pleasant experience. But it happened 20 years ago. You decide that you want to pull a fire alarm for that event that happened 20 years ago, you're going to call the fire department, have them come over and put out a fire that happened 20 years ago. It doesn't make any sense. It's a waste of energy and a waste of time. And that's what we do all the time. Whatever happened in the past and whatever we're afraid might happen in the future, we can't use that energy in any other time than right now. So we want to learn to focus that energy and use it. If we have regret or shame or disappointment or whatever about something that happened in the past, Shame is never going to help us. Whole nother conversation. But how do you take those lessons learned and apply it now? That's what we want to do. That's a key practice to awakening our strongest selves. So think about that. Think about whether you're pulling fire alarms for a fire that occurred 20 years ago, and if you might want to choose a new response to that. Second big idea. Genius syndrome is what Neil describes. The idea that if you do something and it's hard, it's challenging for you, you may not even do it very well. Your first attempt. A lot of times when we're in a fixed mindset, we talk about all the time, we think something's wrong with us. Neil calls that the genius syndrome. You either need to be a genius to do something, and if you can't do it, then you're not a genius. The reality is, that's just not how it works. Even the geniuses we admire have put in a ton of effort. So we don't want to fall victim to the genius syndrome. That because something is challenging for us in the beginning, something is wrong with us. Wrong. We can improve. We may or may not choose to do so, which we will talk about here, but it is a choice. And we can remove ourselves from the genius syndrome and its pernicious hold on us. That brings us down and choose to awaken to our strongest self, which embraces challenges and embraces the fact that you're going to make mistakes. You're not going to do things perfectly. No one ever has, and you won't be the first. Third big idea here is a simple one, but behavioral impediments. Behavioral impediments. The idea here is you want to make good habits easy, and you want to make bad habits as difficult as possible. Put impediments in your way. They don't need to be big things, but things. Like he shares an example of if you eat more sweets than you'd like, he says, make a little behavioral impediment. Maybe put it in an extra bag and tie that bag. So if you're going to go eat sweets, you need to open that bag and then open the sweet. A little tiny impediment that will slow down your tendency to do things you've decided you don't want to do more of. I'd take that a step further and say, quit buying it. Don't buy that item that you don't want to consume so much the bag of Cheetos or the candy bar, or even the dark chocolate. If you're eating too much of it, just don't buy it. That's a behavioral impediment. Right? This is what the willpower experts talk about. Force yourself to go to the store. Doesn't mean you never indulge, but put a couple steps in the way so you don't do it more than you'd like. Internet. What I do is I unplug my Internet when I don't want to be online. And I know I'm focused on a creative project. I've created a time block that we talk about in our time management class, and I'm executing something that does not require me to be online. And if I go online, I'm only going to distract myself. So behavioral impediment. I literally turn off WI fi and I turn it off on my computer. So I rarely break that when I'm creative. Now, if there are other points in the day, I need to go through that extra process of plugging it in, turning back on my computer. I turn my computer off and put it into my office closet when I'm not using it. When I'm reading. I don't need my computer in front of me. Why do I need that? It can only distract me. So I turn it off. I put it in my office closet, and I turn off the WI fi. Don't need it when I'm reading now. Doesn't mean that I don't go and get my computer and turn on the Internet. Sometimes I'm human, you're human. We all do that. And sometimes I need to. But there's a more conscious process because I put a few of those behavioral impediments in. So think about that for you. What do you do that you'd like to do less of? And are there ways to create little impediments for yourself to kind of make it funny, more challenging for you to break that? That's a good way to awaken your strongest self by not constantly having your lower self up and running the show. That's our third big idea. The fourth one here is the third perspective. So we usually have two perspectives. I have to wah, wah, wah. I don't want to wah, wah, wah. Those are our first two. And then there's a third perspective, which is I choose to. I choose to. That's so much more powerful than I have to have to do this. You don't have to do anything. You can choose to do it or not, you don't have to do anything. Think about that. Literally, you don't. You can choose to ignore any responsibility. There are consequences to that that you may or may not like. But using the phrase I have to is not empowering. You're not going to access your strongest self when that's your constant dialogue. And then I don't want to. Okay, that's nice. But what do you choose to do? That's an extraordinarily powerful perspective that puts you in creator mode rather than victim mode, where you have to, I don't want to. And there's this ambivalence. If you want to awaken your strongest self, choose this third perspective constantly. Moment to moment to moment. All the great teachers say this. I think it was Seneca who says, the wise man or woman does nothing reluctantly. Choose to do it or don't. The Buddha says, but if you choose to do it, do it with all your heart, period. Don't drag your feet into it and complain through the process. Choose. You're a creator, a creative human being. You have a choice. Use it. Fifth big idea to awaken your strongest self is a great one. When can I start? So if you have a big goal that you're excited about, the other day we were talking about a rubber band with your ideal. Another way to look at it is, here's your ideal, right? We got a little target symbol. How do you walk up the stairs to that awesome goal? You got this little stair, right? One way to do it is to say, when can I start? And he says, when can I start today and where can I start? What can I start on? Just get started. Discipline yourself to take the next baby step. You don't need to get here in one leap, you need to get here. A tiny little baby step. And then you need to decide, when can I start? Don't even negotiate with that little part of you that says you're an idiot. You can't do it because of this and this and this. Neil tells us, literally, don't even negotiate with that. Just take your energy and ask yourself the question, when can I start today on this and go start and put in the 5, 10, 15, 30 minutes at the end of that, say, yes, that's like me to start and to finish a little part of something exciting. And then immediately ask yourself, when can I start next? When's the next time I can do this? It might be after a five minute break. You can start again. Or maybe it's in three hours later this afternoon. You'll create some time when can I start? Is a huge question. And don't make it next week or next month or next year. When can I start? Today on something that matters. That's a great way to awaken your strongest self. Remember you have the perspective choice to choose use that often. Put some behavioral impediments in the way of things that you don't want it you want to do less of. Let go of the genius syndrome. Fixed mindset isn't helpful. Just get a little bit better. Because you're having struggles does not mean you are incapable. It means you got some work to do. So get at it. 20 year old fires. Let's quit pulling those fire alarms and having the fire department rush out for things that have happened in the past or pulling them for 20 year from now fire alarms or two year from now or two months from now or even two minutes from now. Focus on what you can do right now with your energy. Get task oriented and take the next baby step. There you go. Hope you enjoyed and I look forward to sharing more with you soon. Have another awesome day. See you.