PNTV: How to Stop Worrying and Start Living by Dale Carnegie (#15)

Hi, this is Brian. Welcome to Philosopher's Notes tv. Today we're going to do a fun episode on a great book, how to Stop Worrying and Start Living by Dale Carnegie. As always, we've got a great book. We've got The Philosopher's Notes 6 page PDF with about 10 of my favorite big ideas. We will explore some of my favorite ones in this quick 10 minute episode and I hope you enjoy so context. Dale Carnegie is the same guy who wrote how to Win Friends and Influence People. He's an old School, early 1900s author who writes in that style. I find him pretty funny down to earth. And this book is packed with big ideas. I am a professional worrier, or I have been in the past. And so this has been an awesome book for me to really kind of tame those worry and anxiety and stress gremlins with practices and big ideas that he suggests. So if you have worried in the past or maybe have some worries presently, I hope you'll find some big ideas inspiring and empowering in this quick show. First, we need to understand what worry does for us, as Dale Carnegie says. He says 70% of all patients who come to physicians could cure themselves if they got rid of their fears and worries. So as we now know, our minds and our bodies are very closely tied together. In fact, they're not separate at all. And if we're stressed and anxious and all this, we're literally poisoning our bodies and that's going to show up in sickness and disease and all these other things. We want to start by purifying our minds. And again, as he says, 70% of all patients could cure themselves if they just were able to handle the fears and worries. So here are some ideas on how we can do that. The first one is this idea of living in daytight compartments. So imagine a ship. He tells the story that these big ships have compartments such that if water gets into one compartment, an iron door comes down, a steel door comes down and separates that compartment from all the other ones, right? So it's locked airtight so the water can't get into the rest of the boat and sink it. And he says we need to do the same thing with our lives. So we've got to be able to separate our lives into daytight compartments, right? So we put an iron door down from yesterday, had a bad day, the steel door comes down. We don't stress about that, stress about the future. Door comes down, we don't stress about that. We live in airtight day compartments, right? And we just do what needs to be Done today. It's a really big idea. And that leads to the second big idea here, which is being willing. Be willing to have it. So I'm willing to have it. So right now with that. So be willing to have it. So this is a William James idea. William James was a, I think early or late 1800s philosopher psychologist, kind of the grandfather of the psychology movement. Awesome guy. He used to teach his students, be willing to have it. So be willing to have it. So too often we're resisting what is right. We're not accepting whatever is in our lives and that creates a huge amount of anxiety and worry and stress. So if we want to stop worrying and start living, we've got to accept whatever's in our life right now. We can still want to change it in the future, but right now we've got to accept it fully. And we'll find that as we do that our future unfolds more and more effortlessly when we don't resist what the current reality is. So Byron, Katie. In the note I talk about a few other people who mention this Byron, Katie, loving what is is all about this. Eckhart Tolle's power of now. That's the heart of his message is loving the now, loving this moment. Byron Katie is really funny about it. She says, I realized that it's insane to oppose it. When I argue with reality, I lose, but only 100% of the time. How awesome is that? When I argue with reality, I lose, but only 100% of the time. The fact is, whatever is happening is happening. To argue with it is insane. You've got a line at the grocery store. Well, it is what it is. We can choose to do something creative about it, but it is what it is. Arguing with that doesn't make any sense. Traffic on the way to work. It is what it is. Lost your job. It is what it is. Relationship is in trouble. It is what it is. We've got to accept that first and then move to consciously create our ideal. But be willing to have it so is just so big. I talk about some other teachers on that theme here as well. Here's a great quote by Elbert Hubbard in the note. He says every man is a damned fool for at least five minutes every day. Wisdom consists in not exceeding that limit. So let's cut ourselves some slack. We're allowed to be a total fool for five minutes a day, but let's see if we can keep it within that realm. We'd be pretty successful. So the next big idea here is to make a decision and then to rock it, he says that when he's stressed, he finds that when he makes a decision, he gets clear on all the different options that are available to him. What's going on, what's stressing himself out, and then he makes a decision. Just making a clear decision relieves about 50% of the anxiety and tension and worry. And then when, when he starts taking action to deal with whatever it is he's decided to do, another 40% of the stress goes away. He's dealt with 90% of his stress just by making a clear decision and taking action to deal with it. Really big idea. So in the note I talk about that, I say, okay, what's stressing you out right now? Identify one thing that's stressing you out, and then what can you do? Note a few different things you could do about it, and then what will you do? Step three, what will you do? So step number one is, what's stressing you out? Step number two is, what can you do about it? What are all the things you could do about it? Step number three is what will you do about it? Right, make the decision to do something about it. Then step four is do it. Try it out and see if you don't reduce 90% of your stress just by getting clear on what you can do, making a decision and then taking action. Really big idea on how to stop worrying and start living. He talks, too, about not crying over spilt milk. And he talks about the fact that that might be a hackneyed phrase, but it's true. And if you look at all the aphorisms that are out there, they're just the distilled wisdom of thousands of years of human thought. And if we simply lived those truths, what else does he say? Don't cry over spilled milk, he says. What is the one about the bridge? Don't cross your bridges until you come to them. Right? If we simply lived these little words of wisdom, we'd come pretty close to living a perfect life. But we don't. We want to get all fancy pants about it. We've got to focus on the simple stuff. And in this case, don't cry over spilt milk, which is very similar to the idea of loving what is and being willing to have it. So you can't do anything about it. If you've spilled milk, you've spilt milk. There's nothing you're going to do to change the fact that you've spilt it. In my own life, I've found that it's like I'm developing a filter, and the things that I just don't have any control over no longer trigger me quite as much. It's an awesome thing to see. I still get triggered, of course, but it's awesome to see. Wow. I can't do anything about that. It makes no sense for me to get all pissy about it. It's really empowering. If you can't do something about it, like spilt milk, don't worry about it. Accept it, then take action. I'm repeating myself deliberately here. The next big idea is to rest before you get tired. So if we want to stop worrying and start living, we've got to rest before we get tired. He says that rest and fatigue, rather, is highly correlated. I don't know if you could hear the my lunch is ready for me sound just went off. We need to rest before we get tired because fatigue is highly correlated to worry. When we're tired, we're stressed, so we want to rest before we get tired. That deals with a lot of stress. Really powerful, big idea. He talks about the US army in that they rest their troops when they're marching before they get tired. Makes them a heck of a lot more efficient. The human heart. Did you know this? If you measure the human heart, it's working, right? It beats and then it rests. It pumps and then it rests. It's working only nine hours out of 24. It's resting for 15 hours a day. Isn't that amazing? Is that right? That is right. 15 hours a day, your heart is resting. So what can you do to rest more in your life? Take breaks. I love to take what I call napitations. I'll spend 20 minutes listening to an audio program. And I often take a quick little nap for five or ten minutes. I'll go out and it's huge. A lot of the great thinkers did that. Thomas Edison slept whenever he want. Rockefeller lived till 96. He took a nap every day. So rest before you get tired. And if you're super tired, you've got to find ways to clear up your schedule and create more opportunities for recovery. Otherwise, you're going to continue being stressed. So there you go. There are a few of my favorite big ideas on how to stop worrying and start living. Hope you enjoyed them and look forward to sharing more with you soon. Time for me to eat lunch. Have an awesome day. See you.