PNTV: Self-Help by Samuel Smiles (#112)

Hey guys, what's up? This is Brian with another Philosopher's Notes TV episode. Today we're going to look at a book called Self Help by Samuel Smiles. Now this is Old School 1859. Good stuff. I was turned on to this book by a guy named Talban Shahar, one of my favorite teachers. He was asked what classic books does he recommend? He's not a fan of a lot of the modern day self help because a lot of it's quick fix. And he was talking about the importance of character. And when asked what books he would recommend, he said Self help. He also mentioned seven Habits of Highly Effective People and Learned optimism. Check out the notes and TV episodes on those. But Self Help, I had never heard of it before. Never heard of Samuel Smiles before. Immediately went out, got the book, read it, loved it. It's packed with illustrations of character and conduct. As the subtitle says, a lot of great stories on old school inventors and entrepreneurs and world leaders. And the big difference here is between again the quick fix and the character movements. 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. Author Stephen Covey tells us there's a big difference between the new stuff. The last hundred years is mostly focused on the personality ethic, how you can come across as a better person and win friends and influence people. Whereas the old school stuff was all about character ethic. How can you be a person of virtue and really cultivate your character? And this book is all about that. So some of the big ideas that we cover in the note that we will talk about briefly in this episode include diligent and patient. Industry. That is where it's at. Indefatigable industry. That's also where it's at. One of my favorite phrases, indefatigable industry. We'll talk about that a little bit more in a second. Comfort and happiness. The true necessities of happiness are work, not leisure. Very interesting. We all need rest, but we need to work hard, be in flow, et cetera. Time well spent. Use it or lose it. Talk about the importance of valuing our time, moving ourselves and being the change we want to see. Sedulous. Never heard of this word but Smiles before I read this book, but Smiles uses it all the time. Awesome. We'll look at the meaning of that and why it's key to developing and cultivating our greatness. Where's your will? Your willpower is the source of your mojo. As we talk about again and again and the happiness habit, practice and make it so. Now, the ultimate idea here is obviously self help. We Are our own best helpers. We're influenced by a lot of things in our lives, but ultimately we are our own best helpers. Are we helping ourselves or hurting ourselves becomes the important question now again, patient Industry is the essence of greatness. It's the essence of character. The queen of all virtues is willpower. The modern day scientists tell us, do you have the self control to put your attention where you want, when you want, and to get yourself to do what you need to do when you need to do it? That is the hallmark of character and it's also the greatest predictor of all the things we want to experience in our lives. I mentioned this in another note, but willpower out predicts IQ by a factor of two when predicting academic performance. Know someone's iq, know their willpower. Willpower will predict it two times better than iq. That's an amazing fact. So cultivate your willpower day in and day out. Become a better human being and demonstrate. Indefatigable industry isn't a great phrase. Indefatigable industry. In short, work hard, put in the effort indefatigably over time and you will succeed. Don't do that and well, you won't. The 10,000 hour rule, the 10 hour principle we go off on in this note and in many others. But the basic idea here is all the research done on extraordinary performers. In any domain, whether it's chess or science or swimming or musical composition or math or tennis or literature, no one, not even the most talented performers, became great without least 10 years of very hard preparation. It's a pretty powerful thing to remember. We talk about it in mindset as well. The fixed mindset versus the growth mindset. Our culture is obsessed with the idea that you're born great or not. But the research shows that's not how it is. We grow into greatness. And you do that only through indefatigable industry deliberate practice. We'll talk about that a lot more in these episodes in volume two. So moving on, we will look at the fact that work and occupation are necessary for our comfort and happiness. A lot of times people think that they're going to, you know, work hard, then retire and be exonerated from ever having to do any work again in their lives. And guess what? That's a recipe for depression. There's a paradox of work. Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi talks about it in his great book Flow we have, he says, this paradoxical situation on the job. People feel skilled and challenged and therefore feel more happy Strong, creative and satisfied in their free time. People feel that there is generally not much to do and their skills are not being used. And therefore they tend to feel more sad, weak, dull and dissatisfied. Yet they they would like to work less and spend more time in leisure. The paradox of work. We feel best when we are working, not when we're mindlessly zoning out in front of a television or computer screen. Amazing stuff, yet we want the leisure. Very, very bizarre human behavior. Work, of course you need to rest, but know that you need to be in flow. If you want to feel great, be in flow more and more consistently. So time well spent is a great idea. With perseverance, the very odds and ends of time may be worked up into results of the greatest value. An hour in every day withdrawn from frivolous pursuits would, if profitably employed, enable a person of ordinary capacity to go far towards mastering a science. It would make an ignorant man a well informed one. Well informed one in less than 10 years. Or woman. Of course, time should not be allowed to pass without yielding fruits in the form of something worthy of being known, continuing some principle cultivated or some good habits strengthened. Now Aristotle tells us so basically the idea there is don't waste your time, right? Lost wealth may be replaced by industry, lost knowledge by study, lost health by temperance or medicine, but lost time is gone forever. So if you took an hour a day that you might be wasting in front of a TV set or doing something else, that just doesn't merit your energy investment, that's 365 hours a year, that's 3650 hours over 10 years. It's a lot of time could be reinvested very, very, very profitably. So let's take a quick look and then note we go into detail here, but where do you waste 60 minutes a day? Think about that. Maybe press pause and think about it. Where do you waste 60 minutes a day? You waste at least 15 or 30 minutes a day, no question about that. So how can you take that time back and commit to using it more wisely? By engaging in insert activities do that day in and day out. Let's not waste our lives in frivolous activity. Powerful stuff. Moving on to moving ourselves. Smiles quotes Socrates who said let him that would move the world move first himself. Gandhi said we need to be the change we want to see. Too often we want to fix other people. It's all about, oh, you know, if everyone else in the world would be great, then I'd be doing well. Well, guess what? We need to be the Change we want to see. In the note, I go off on Anthony DeMello, who tells a funny story about someone going, the doctor, they're sick. They go to the doctor. The doctor says, oh, man. Yep, I figured it out. I'm going to get you some medicine. What I want you to do is I want you to give this medicine to your neighbor. Then you'll feel better. Now, that's insane. If we're sick, we need to heal ourselves. And if anyone is bothering us in our lives, it's not them, it's us. We need to fix our own perception or fix our own way that we're showing up in the world and perhaps move into a different relationship with them or out of the relationship. But it's usually who needs to be fixed, not them. Move ourselves. We want to move the world. Powerful idea. Sedulous. I mentioned in the little overview such a great word. It means dedication and diligence and comes from the word zealous. All great people are sedulous. They show up diligently, patiently and persistently. So let's get our sedulity. Sedulity. There you go. Let's get our sedulity on. Let's be sedulous, zealous, dedicated, diligent, awesome. That's tied to our will, which we already talked about. But he says, where there's a will, there's a way. It's an old and true saying. But he who resolves upon doing a thing by that very resolution often scales the barriers to it and secures its achievement. To think we are able is almost to be so. To determine upon attainment is frequently attainment itself. Thus, earnest resolution has often seemed to have about it almost a savor of omnipotence. You want omnipotence, Earnest resolution? Be committed. Know you can do it. Go out and get your sedulousness on. There you go. I can go off on that some more, but we're going to wrap this one up self help with illustrations of character and conduct. Remember, let's move from the quick fix to the character fix. Less personality ethic, more character ethic. Get our diligent, patient industry on. Indefatigable industry. Know that our comfort and happiness comes from working. Let's spend our time wisely, move ourselves, be the change if we want to make a difference in the world. Sedulous. Be diligent, industrious and zealous. Know your will creates your destiny. And let's make happiness a habit. All right. Hope you enjoyed more soon. Have another awesome day. See ya.