PNTV: The Other 90% by Robert K. Cooper (#82)

Hi, this is Brian. Welcome to Philosopher's Notes TV. Today we've got the other 90% by Robert Cooper. Awesome book, good guy. He's written a couple of awesome books. This one and get out of your own way. The basic idea here is simple. We're only using 10% of our potential. In other words, we're wasting the other 90%. So this book is all about some really cool ideas on how we can tap into that other 90%. It's packed with big ideas, of course. We've got the six page PDF Philosopher's Note, one of a hundred and let's go ahead and jump in. I've got about a dozen of them in the note. We'll probably get through half a dozen right now. The first big idea is really simple. Tapping into the other 90% is not going to be found competing with other people. It's not about comparing ourselves and competing with anyone else. It's about excelling. It's about having our current version of ourselves be greater than our former version of ourselves and striving to essentially be our best selves. Pretty straightforward stuff, but just an important thing to remember. It's not about competing or showing off or comparing in any way. It's about excelling. Living with excellence. Living with arete, the Greek virtue we talk about here often, which literally means excellence or virtue, but has a deeper meaning, like striving to be your best moment to moment to moment. When you live with Arete, you live with this radiant enthusiasm, this love of life and the accompanying happiness, joy, bliss, appreciation, all that good stuff. So excel, don't compete. Big idea. He talks about the idea of syntropy, which is the opposite of entropy. Entropy is the theory that things tend to break down. Partial truth. There he talks about the fact that things also have an innate drive to perfect themselves. A Nobel Prize winning guy put out this theory that within nature there's this innate drive for things to want to perfect themselves. And that's within us. So we have this drive to syntropy. Really cool idea. So get out of kind of that exclusive cynical entropy idea that everything falls apart and think about it as everything is trying to perfect itself. How can we. He says in any given moment we're either growing or dying. Which is very similar to an idea we talk about in the Abraham Maslow note, the great psychologist who said in any given moment we're either stepping forward into growth or back into safety. I love to map that out on a horizon where you've got a zero point minus one plus one minus Two plus two, out into infinity, into infinity. And then in any given moment, we're either stepping forward into growth or back into safety. Plus 1 or minus 1. Plus 1 or minus 1.plus 1 or minus 1. And to the extent that we're consistently stepping forward, back into safety rather than growth and stepping forward, and we're kind of dying a little bit, there's this huge gap between what we're capable of doing syntropy and what we're doing kind of the opposite. Right. What we want to do is consciously step forward more consistently. Really powerful stuff. And if you wind up at plus 10,000, stepping forward, forward, forward, forward, moment to moment, to moment, honoring your commitments to yourself throughout the day. How do you think you're going to feel versus if when the alarm goes off, you decide not to get up, sleep in for another 10, 15, 20 minutes. Ah, you don't feel like working out today. You're too tired. Step back, back, back, back, back, back, back. Negative 10,000. What's the difference between this person versus this person? And this person comes home and gives their kids a big hug and their spouse a big hug and they feel in love with life. This person can't wait to get home, is yelling on the way home, if not before traffic is just a pain in the butt. They can't wait to get home and crack open a beer or five. And same with the wine bottle, if that's their thing, the Internet, tv, whatever they can do to check out and numb themselves from the disparity between what their potential is and what they're actually doing. In short, step forward in the growth, consistently feel that bliss. He's got another really cool story. It's called the Big Idea. I call it tonight, God is in the House. So I'd never heard this story before. It's quite amazing. Art Tatum, apparently amazing pianist. Gotta be careful when I say that word. Piano player, not pianist, comes out a little funny sometimes, but Art Tatum, he was born in Ohio in 1909, and he was born partially blind. Then he became completely blind when he was beaten as an adolescent. But Art loved playing the piano. And he didn't have a piano at home, so he needed to go to the local saloon. Whenever he wasn't in school or working, he would go to the saloon. He's blind. Art is blind. He'd go to the saloon and he would follow the keys. And he taught himself how to play the piano by following the keys. And they were going super fast, but he would follow them for hours on end. Now what Art didn't know was that in the late 1800s and the early 1900s, the player piano manufacturers used two piano players to create the sheet music that was then the paper rolls that played the music. So essentially, Art taught himself. He was the first person in history to play four handed piano. I can't quite do that, but four handed piano, amazing stuff. And apparently one time he was in a concert or in performance with Fats Waller who said, I'm just a piano player, but tonight God is in the house. Absolutely cool. So the idea here is Art did something that was impossible because he didn't know it was impossible. He just showed up, put in his time, and soon enough he was doing something that everyone else had, he asked for, would have told him was impossible. Really cool stuff. So in the book, Robert Cooper is constantly challenging us to dream and to think, well, what do you think is impossible? What have you told yourself and convinced yourself isn't plausible or possible? Challenge that idea. What would you do if you weren't afraid? What would you do if you were absolutely guaranteed to succeed? Play in that vision, play in that energy and do the seemingly impossible. Really cool stuff. Next big idea. He talks about lighthouses versus weather vanes. So a weather vane spins around depending on the wind patterns, right? A lighthouse is absolutely stable. And he says, we were born to be lighthouses, not weather vanes. We shouldn't spin around depending on the economy or depending on whatever is going on outside of ourselves. We're either up or down or north or west or south or east to depending on what's going on outside ourselves. He says, no, no, no, no. Be a lighthouse. Get clear on your ultimate values, what you absolutely stand for, what defines your character, and live those values when no one's looking, when you're in the face of challenges, live those values. In the note, I ask you, what are the five things that you stand for? What are your top five values? That's what we can use as our lighthouse, as our compass when we go through challenging times. So instead of spinning around like a weather vane, we have ourselves firmly grounded, firmly rooted in our values. And then of course, we can live them moment to moment to moment. He has a great idea on making adversity our ally, using it to strengthen us. And he has a really cool question. He says, whenever you're stressed out, you're feeling out of control. Ask yourself, what can I do, however small, to gain some level of control over this situation? You feel out of control. Ask yourself the question, what can I do, however small, to gain some level of control over the situation. Really cool question to ask and answer and do. The whole idea here is we want to move from disempowerment to empowerment, from victim to creator. A theme we talk about all the time. And this is a really cool question. What can I do, however small, to gain control over the situation? Love it. He talks about the fact that life is change and that the word change actually comes from the Old English cambium, which means to become. Life is a process of change and a process of becoming. What are you choosing to become? He asks us. Everything is changing constantly. Are you stepping forward into growth or back into safety? Are you growing or dying? It's a choice. And he says all Are you closer right now to where you want to be than where you were 30 minutes ago? Are you closer right now to where you want to be than you were 30 minutes ago? Hopefully we're nine minutes into this and hopefully you're getting something out of it that's moving you in the right direction. But ask yourself that question often. The final Big idea I want to read a quote here. Let's see what we can do, he says. William James, a pioneer in philosophy and psychology, said, all of life is but a mass of small choices. Practical, emotional and intellectual, systematically organized for our greatness or grief. When asked if these choices could be altered, he replied, yes, one at a time. But we must never forget that it's not only our big dreams that shape reality. The small choices bear us irresistibly towards our destiny. The small choices bear us irresistibly toward our destiny. What small choices are you making today? I hope you're making great ones. I trust you are. Hope you enjoyed this and look forward to sharing more with you soon. Here's to tapping into the other 90%. Have an awesome day. As always. Look forward to sharing more with you soon. See you.