PNTV: Everything Is Figureoutable by Marie Forleo (#414)

Hi, this is Brian. Welcome back to Philosopher's Notes tv. Today we've got another great book, Everything is Figureoutable by Marie Forleo. I wish I had a copy of this book in my hand. We're still putting our library back together. We've got dozens of boxes of books, but Marie just looks like Marie on the COVID A combination of Nike dancer and valedictorian from Seton Hall. Brilliant, playful, practical, wise. And this book is amazing. So I knew Marie was cool. In fact, I knew she was more than cool. I'd interviewed her before. Alexandra's a huge fan, but I don't really watch videos at all or listen to podcasts or anything, so I hadn't really been exposed to her wisdom much because I'm a hermit who reads books. So when this book came out, Alexandra got it, and when she got it, I immediately took it, read it, loved it, and I knew Marie was cool. I did not know that she was this cool. Again, former Nike dancer coach, created the B school, which you might have heard of. And she's incredibly smart, the valedictorian from Seton hall. And as a nerd, I like those intellectual chops. And she brings that brilliance intellectually with a pushing the edge, playfulness and humor with a practical. Let's go, let's do this. Energy that made this one of the best books I read. When I read it last year, I think it was. And in general, this is awesome. If you're a fan of Marie, get it. If you don't know who Marie Forloo is yet, I think you'll love the book as well. As always, we've got a philosopher's note. Six page PDF, 20 minute MP3. Check out 600 plus of them at Optimize Me, along with a bunch of other stuff. And we've got five ideas here. The first one is thanks, Mom. Marie kicks the story off with a story of her awesome mom who basically could get anything done. One day she came into the kitchen, her mom was fixing something or other, right? It was something funny. I can't remember what it was, but she was fixing it. And Marie's, you know, sitting there and she looks at her and says, mom, like, how do you do all this stuff? Like, how do you know how to fix all these things? You've never studied it? No one's ever told you? And her mom looks at her and says, marie, life's not that complicated. If you roll up your sleeves, you can figure it out. Everything is figureoutable. And the young Marie, just like lightning bolts, choir of angels sang. And she said to herself, everything is is figureoutable. Everything is figureoutable. Everything is figureoutable. And that became her dominant belief system throughout her life and what this book is all about. So, next idea, she talks about the magic of belief and just how important it is to take an inventory of our beliefs and to start with the meta belief, the number one kind of keystone belief that will open all of the doors, which is, of course, everything is figureoutable. What if you had that as your belief? Everything is figureoutable. Doesn't matter what's going on in your life, from the mundane to the super challenging. Everything is figureoutable. She says it's super important that we start with that belief and then know that beliefs shape more than we may be aware of. And she references some studies that we've talked about in different notes, including one that's just crazy. You can bring people into a surgical lab and these people believe they need knee surgery, right? They've got knee issues, et cetera. But they come into the study, half of them get a surgery. The other half don't get surgery, but get what's called a sham surgery. And then what happens? The ones who think they got a surgery report benefits commensurate with those who actually got the surgery. How could that possibly be? Because beliefs matter. What we believe tends to come true in our life. And again, it's not as simple as that. You need to put in hard work, et cetera, in general. But there are some crazy studies like that. And then another one where people who are certain believe that they're allergic to poison oak, for example, you can blindfold them and tell them, okay, now I'm brushing you with a feather, and you brush them with poison oak, and nothing happens. Then you brush them with a feather and you tell them, I'm now brushing you with poison oak. And then they have this huge reaction to it, allergic reaction, although they were not touched by the thing that they believe they were allergic to. And again, we talk about this in another book called the Relaxation Revolution by Herbert Benson, a Harvard MD who wrote the Relaxation Response. And it was the first guy to study meditation in depth. And he's all about belief and the power of our belief. So the magic of belief, it's big. As Marie quotes Henry Ford. Whether you think you can or you think you can't, you're right. Whether you think you can or you think you can't, you're right. Seneca said it 2,000 years ago. He said, it is not because things are difficult that we do not dare, right? It is because we do not dare.

That things are difficult.

If we had the belief that everything is figureoutable, what could we do in our lives? We're going to talk about that a little bit more in our four letter word conversation. But first, Marie talks about the fact that simply writing down what you want so you believe everything is figureoutable. I'll pause now. If you believed everything was figureoutable in your life, what would you do? Would you do anything a little differently today? What would your life look like in 2, 3, 4, 5 years if you in fact approached your life as if everything is figureoutable again? She goes through all kinds of exercises and reflections, et cetera. But think about that for a moment. Check out the note, get the book, etc. What would your life look like? Well, think about this while you do that. Marie tells us that simply writing down your goals increases the likelihood of you achieving those goals by 42%. 42%? That's crazy. She said, if I was told that I would win a Bet, I'd have 42% greater likelihood of winning a bet. If I wrote it down, I'd write it down. It'd be crazy not to write it down. So what do you want in your life? Are you writing it down consistently? As it turns out, I interviewed Marie Forleo and Ryan Holiday, like, if not in the same day, back to back. And I interviewed Ryan about stillness is the key and stillness is the key. As we discussed in that pntv, he talks about what Julia Cameron calls spiritual windshield wipers, where you journal every day for 2 minutes, 5 minutes, 10 minutes, whatever. But it gives you a bit of clarity on what's important in your life. And I said, as I said in this note, if your ultimate goal in life, again, you're going to increase your odds of success by 42%.

So what do you want in your life?

What's your ultimate goal? And what are your little goals? If your ultimate goal, as we encourage you to consider Aristotle's Summum Bonum, to be the best version of yourself, to actualize in service to the world, well, then, guess what? You should write that down on a daily basis. Ah, my ultimate goal is to be the best version of me. This is what I journal every single day. So we've got our big three, right? We've got energy, we've got work, and then we've got love. So what I want to do is I want to show up as my best version of myself in that. So I start by reflecting on, well, what's my identity? Who am I at my best, energy wise? Who are you at your best energy wise? For me, it's athlete. I'll write it in. It'll be a little bit small, but I'm an athlete and I write that like that. The classic Greek sense, which means to.

Struggle to compete for a prize.

My identity in work as a philosopher. I aspire to be a world class philosopher and teacher. I'm a lover of wisdom. I'm passionate, professional optimizer. I capture it with that symbol phi. And in love. My identity is a soulmate. I want to show up as well as I can for my wife, my kids, for you, for our team, etc. Daimon. To Daimon. The ultimate game is to express the best version of myself. You, Daimon. I want to help you do that. That's an act of love for me, my work and my love. There's really no dichotomy. Then that's my identity. I write that down every day. I write this down. It takes me literally 1, 2, 3 minutes to repeat this on a daily basis. Once you get the hang of it and we have our optimized coaches do this every day, it's a requirement to graduate our program. You got to do this 42% boost.

Boom.

Are we serious or not? Then we say, okay, what does the best version of me do? Virtues wise, when I'm at my best, Right? So athlete, I'm disciplined. This is literally my journaling from this morning, by the way. And then philosopher. I'm prolific. That's the virtue I want to embody today. And then love. I'm connected. Guess what? My odds of achieving this go up by at least 42% when I take the minute, 2, 3 to write it down. And then we say, okay, that's not enough. What behaviors are you going to engage in to drive that identity, through those virtues into what you do today? And I've got my series of things I do. Da, da da. Movement wise, energy, eating wise, sleep wise, etc. And then I've got my deep work goals. I'm filming this on a weekend. I'm going to put in a few hours of work, I'm going to film this and a couple other ones.

Boom.

That's what I'm going to do today. Love wise. I've got some goals, a.m. and p.m. to spend time with my kids. Boom. That literally takes me less than three minutes to do. My odds of succeeding and what I've said is most important to me goes up radically. What do you want in your life? Are you writing it down consistently?

Kind of went off there, didn't we?

Highly Recommend you do? 42% boost. That's crazy. Four letter words. Marie's funny. Very, very, very, very funny. And again, this a very interesting connection of brilliant funny, pushing the edge funny, and super wise and practical, which is one of the reasons. And she integrates so many of the ideas we talk about in our 600 notes that we have at this stage, et cetera. So four letter words, can you guess what they are? They're not what you think. She says, look, too many of us use this four letter word. I can't, I can't. Fill in the blank. What are all the things you're telling yourself you can't do? Seriously, if you feel so inspired, press pause right now. And again, Marie has some great exercises. What do you say you can't do? What is it? I can't do this because I'm too old, or I can't do this because I'm da, da, da, da, Whatever it is for you. She says, look, that's a four letter word. Stop using can't. Right? Be honest with yourself. The real issue is not I can't, but I won't. And you want to make that clear not because you're lazy, not because something's wrong with you, but because that's the honest response. The reality is for most things, 99%, she says of the times you say I can't, it's really, I won't. I'm not willing to pay the price to go do this. But let's be clear. I can't do this every morning. I don't have a minute or two or three. No, you can choose not to and say I won't, but I can't is disingenuous. You can, but you're choosing not to. And it's really important that we get clarity on that because you're giving away your agency, your sense of self, efficacy and power. You don't want to do that. Be powerful. Say, I choose not to do that. I choose to live a mediocre life. I could stop watching TV and start investing my time in my kids or my family or exercise or my creative endeavors, but I choose not to do that. That's a much more honest response. But then when we're honest with ourselves, we realize, you know what? I actually can do a lot more of those things, especially when I engage in the number one belief that the key that unlocks all the others, which is everything, is Figureoutable. Who do I really want to be? Energy, work and love wise. Because you can do those things if you choose to pay the price again within the constraints of your reality. But that leads us to the final idea. Actually, I'll go back to one more four letter word. But that leads us to the idea that your potential is unknowable. Marie says, quote unquote, and we say this all the time. It is literally infinite, your potential. And it's unknowable. You just don't know. Right? But first we'll go back to one more four letter word which is fun. She says fail. Fail is actually. What is it?

Oh yeah.

Faithful attempt in learning. Fail. It was just a faithful attempt in learning. When you failed, we don't just shame ourselves, win or learn. Faithful attempt in learning. Now what? But that requires a growth mindset, which requires you play in your growth zone. Running out of room here. I'm getting fired up with the chalkboard usage patterns. So here's a little thing I like to draw often.

His circle became part of his face.

There's you. There's your comfort zone. Here is your infinite potential. It exists, as you might notice, on the other side of your comfort zone. Now, how does it feel to be outside your comfort zone? By definition, uncomfortable. Marie tells us unequivocally, echoing all the great teachers, your infinite potential exists on the other side of your comfort zone. You need to get comfortable feeling uncomfortable. And when you do, then you can spiral up and realize, oh yeah, win or learn, there's no such thing as failure. These are faithful attempts in learning. Boom. Let me make my mistakes. Let me get a little better. Growth mindset. Carol Dweck 101 style. Spiral up with that Ray Dalio mistake.

Learners high.

And I know I'm dropping a lot of references. If you're following along, you know what I'm talking about. But there we go. Growth zone. You can play here with confidence, calmness, knowing everything's not going to go perfectly, but ultimately everything is figureoutable if we pay attention to Marie's mom, roll up our sleeves, get our beliefs right. Starting with that one. Whether we think we can or we think we can't, we're right. 42% increase in our goal achievement. I'd suggest you focus on the most important goals and go out and give us all you got today. Marie, thanks for the awesome book.

Appreciate you.

High fives and high fives to you. What did you get out of this? What's the number one thing that just jumped out and Landed that most resonated that you think could have the most positive impact in your life. How can we move from theory to practice to mastery today? Get on that. Look forward to seeing you tomorrow. Make today an awesome day. See you.

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