PNTV: Conscious Living by Gay Hendricks (#33)

Hi, this is Brian. Welcome to Philosopher's Notes tv. Today we've got another great book, Conscious Living by Gay Hendrix. As always, great book, six page PDF, my gray jacket. I'm kind of pulling a Mr. Rogers here. I realize I kind of go into my closet, pull out the gray jacket, put it on. It's become kind of a joke around here, so we're going to run with that. But anyway, today we're doing a great book, Conscious Living by Gay Hendricks. Gay lives about a mile away from me up the street. And when I moved back from Bali, I actually we decided to come to Ojai in large part to be near Gay and Katie Hendricks, two extraordinary people who have become really close friends and great mentors. And Gay is actually a business partner with Philosopher's Notes as well. Incredible guy. We already did a PNTV episode on him, his book the Big Leap. And we focus on three of his books in the hundred. The Big Leap, Conscious Living, and then another note on Gay and Katie Hendrix and their relationship stuff. Just amazing. So, so many big ideas in the book and so many great big ideas in the note. I'm going to pull out a few of my favorites now. Where do we want to begin? So we'll begin here. Gay says that conscious living is the art of expressing ourselves fully, essentially as an act of gratitude for even having the opportunity to be alive. Really, really cool idea. And the book is all about how we do that. He's all about making our lives a journey and a quest to see just how much we can learn, just how much we can live, just how much we can grow, just how much we can love and give to the world. Really cool stuff. And one of my. I'm actually going to jump to the last big idea in the note, then come back. He has a great idea. He says 100% committed versus no commitment. And he says that we're either 100% committed or we're not committed at all. And he discovered in his life that so many times for so many years, he kind of sort of showed up, but didn't show up all the way, didn't fully commit in whatever he was doing, relationships or projects or whatever, or even to his own growth and conscious living. And he said that it was kind of his way to never really fully show up and to never fully take the risk of potentially failing. But when we don't do that, we miss life. What does he say? He says something great here. He says soulless play, soulless play is worse than no play at all. To not Play full out with our entire soul is, is worse than no play at all. Really cool idea. And that leads to the next big idea. In the note, which is actually the second one in the note he talks about this idea of unexpected forms of magic, that when we actually commit and we do the 100% commitment, right, that unbelievable things come to fruition that we never could have imagined before. I'm going to get into that in a second, but I actually want to backtrack for one minute on the 100% commitment. Another one of my favorite big ideas on this. Jack Canfield says something very similar. He says that 100% commitment is a breeze and 99% is a bitch. He actually says 99% is a bitch. 100% is a breeze. When we 100% commit to something, whether it's creating a new habit like meditation or exercise, or no longer criticizing or complaining, when we make 100% commitment, it's way easier than a 99% commitment. Because if we make a 99% commitment, there's always that little voice that has room to roam in our heads that's kind of saying, oh, today's the day. You should take a day off and not do what you said you would do or whatever it is. But when we make 100% commitment, that voice is really just kind of excused. And there's something really powerful about carefully selecting what things are incredibly important to us. And I like to say, what one thing, what's the most important thing that you can create an amazing habit around and commit to that 100%? For me, it's meditation. That's my number one 100% commitment. Haven't missed a day and I don't know, like 550 days now I'm a different human being. It's extraordinary. And I find that when I look to create new habits that aren't 100% absolute, non negotiable commitments, then they don't stick. Because the moment you have a kind of off day or you just don't feel like it, then you don't do it. We've got to get to that 100% commitment. Michael Beckwith in Spiritual Liberation says, what does not feeling like it have to do with it? Get clear on who you are, what you stand for and do it. It's really, really straightforward. So There we go, 100% commitment. Now, when we make that commitment to something in our lives and to our life in general, which is what this book is all about, making the commitment to consciously living, to making our life a work of art and seeing just how much we can grow and give. When we make that commitment, unbelievable things happen that we never could have predicted. He calls it unexpected forms of magic. Really cool stuff. I have a couple of awesome quotes here. Joseph Campbell talks about the same thing. We have three notes on Campbell. I mentioned this in a couple of them, but in his interview series, the Power of Myth, he talks about the fact that when we commit to our hero's journey, when we take that step into the forest of the unknown, and we really go for it and follow our bliss 100%. When we do that, he says, invisible hands come to our aid and things open up and people come into our lives. We never could have anticipated would have come to our benefit. It's extraordinary. And then I also quote W.H. murray, the mountaineer, who's got the amazing thought on, until one is committed, there's hesitancy and he goes off. It's an amazing thought. You can check it out in the note. And then also Tal Ben Shahar. Tal Ben Shahar. I think it's from his great book, yeah. Happier Tall Ben Shahar rocks. Check out Happier and the Pursuit of Perfect Positive Psychologist scientists talking about the science of happiness. He says we've got to commit. And he describes it as throwing the knapsack over a brick wall. And he tells awesome stories about how Thomas Edison committed to having a light bulb work by the end of the year, when all of his experiments had failed at that point, yet by the end of the year, flipped it on, we had light. Amazing. He threw his knapsack over the brick wall and made it happen. He talks about NASA when NASA declared. When John F. Kennedy in 1962 declared that we were going to put a man on the moon. At the time, there were metals that were required to get us there that had yet to be even discovered and manipulated. Figured out how to make work in this context, yet he said, we're going to do it. He threw his knapsack over the wall. When we do that, it elicits, it creates this vibrancy, this energy and this magic that resonates with the world, with the universe, and with people we interact with. And all of a sudden, doors open. So really cool. So question for you is, what in your world are you kind of wavering on? You're kind of sort of almost really committed, but not really. And again, remember, 100% commitment or no commitment, what is it in your life that you've been wavering on that you can make 100% commitment on? Big Idea, A Couple other things for conscious living. We got to let go of the past. We talk about this a lot. Why would you ever replay a terrible memory again and again and again? That's just like going to a terrible movie and watching it again and again and again. You just wouldn't do that. We've got to learn to focus on our future and what dreams are inspiring us now. Learning let go of the past. Gay has a great idea here called being one selved organisms. Not one cell, but one selved organisms. Really cool idea. And the idea is we want to be integrated. We want every aspect of ourselves to be embraced and to be loved and to be cherished. We don't want the shadows that are kind of being projected. Because we can't deal with that part of ourselves that we don't like. We've got to be one Selved organisms, embrace our entire beingness. All the stuff we don't like and all the stuff we love in its full brightness. Because sometimes we can not integrate our greatest light, right? Or we can kind of deny our fear or greed or insecurity or whatever. We want to embrace all of that and become one selved organisms. Isn't that cool? Check out the note for the quote on that. Gay goes off on Stoics. He loves Epictetus. That's his favorite Stoic philosopher. I'm a huge fan of Stoicism. We do notes on Epictetus, Marcus Aurelius and Seneca. And in the note, I talk about them some more, but they rock. So that's a quick look at some big ideas. I've got about 30 seconds more. I'm going to hit one more. He says, should I choose goals or should I go with the flow? And his answer is both choose goals and go with the flow. Too often when we're figuring out how we're going to live our ideal lives, we've been burned by setting too big of goals and being attached. We just want to be in the moment. We don't want to think about goals anymore because those scare us. We get attached and we become mean and angry and just depressed and all that stuff. But we want to have both. We want to have beautiful goals that inspire us, and we want to love this moment. We talk about that more in the other show, so I'm going to let it go at that. We'll come back to that a lot more, though, because I think this is one of the biggest themes that we need to understand. But for now, that's a quick look. Conscious living Gay Hendrix. He rocks. Check out the book and hope you dug it. See you.